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WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
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Roughly 14 percent of households, including 9 percent of the elderly, were without reliable access to a sufficient and affordable food supply in 2014, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

For a second year in a row, The Sentinel is joining with Project SHARE and multiple businesses to help limit hunger in the Midstate.

On Saturday, The Sentinel employees will be at local grocery stores collecting food for those in need as part of a community-service project known as Groceries for Good.

Sentinel employees will be handing out from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. grocery bags and shopping lists of items needed by Project SHARE for their food distributions.

The stores participating in Saturdays event are Karns Quality Foods at 413 Forge Road, Boiling Springs, and 1706 Spring Road, Carlisle.

Shoppers can purchase the items on the list and leave the bags with the Sentinel employees for donation.

Gary Adkisson, The Sentinel publisher, said Groceries for Good is set up for a summertime collection to help fill the gap during a time when donations may not be at the forefront of many peoples minds.

Numerous programs exist to provide food for people around the holidays, Adkisson said. We specifically do this in the summer as it is a time when few people are thinking about this need, which is a real need year round.

Adkisson noted that summer can be a particularly difficult time for many families.

We also know that while children are out of school in the summer many families struggle to provide meals that are usually provided by the schools, he said.

Nearly 30 percent of all students in Cumberland County received free or reduced meals during the 2015-16 school year, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Shippensburg Area School District saw the highest enrollment at nearly 40 percent of its students, followed by Carlisle Area School District with more than 36 percent of students enrolled in the program.

More than $5,000 worth of groceries were collected last year and The Sentinel hopes to raise a comparable amount again this year.

Monetary donations will also be accepted during the event along with non-perishable food items.
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New challengers vied for the right to be named the best restaurant in Nottinghamshire - but at the end of a long judging process the top award went to a familiar name.

Hart's reclaimed the Nottinghamshire Restaurant of the Year title after landing the top accolade at the region's most prestigious food and drink showdown.

The up-market 80-seater restaurant on Standard Hill won the Fine Dining category at Wednesday night's Nottingham Post Food and Drink Awards  and was then picked out from all the category winners to receive the Best Overall award.

The result is a triumph for owner Tim Hart, general manager Adam Worthington and his staff, and the kitchen team led by head chef Dan Burridge.

"Against such strong competition we are thrilled to have been recognised as Nottingham's best fine dining restaurant," said Adam.

"This has been achieved through the tremendous hard work of the team who focus on the fundamentals of great food, drink and service. We look forward to continuing to support Nottingham's vibrant food and drink scene."

Hart's was winning back the top title it won in 2008 and 2009 after facing stiff competition in the Fine Dining category from previous award winners World Service in Castle Gate and La Rock in Sandiacre.

'These awards have real integrity'

Another restaurant to cover itself in glory at last night's black-tie awards dinner at East Midlands Conference Centre, hosted by Anglo-Italian kitchen maestro Aldo Zilli, was the Perkins family's city centre tapas destination Baresca. It won both the Best Newcomer and Best International categories.

Category winners from the 2015 Nottinghamshire Food and Drink Awards who returned to win again this year included Langar Hall, La Rock and MemSaab.

Nottingham Post editor Mike Sassi praised the high standard of food and service experienced this spring by the undercover teams of judges.

"These awards show that the food and drink offer in Nottinghamshire improves every year," he said. "We have had some terrific feedback from our judges who have talked not only about quality, but also the great value to be had at so many of our short-listed restaurants.

"The winners and runners-up know that these awards have real integrity because our judges are neutral and dine undercover. Furthermore, each restaurant is assessed not by one pair of judges, but by two pairs acting independently, who do compare their scores before the points are totted up."

The 2016 category winners and finalists were...

Best New Venue: Baresca, Byard Lane. Runners-up: Old Volunteer, Caythorpe; Veeno, Middle Pavement.

Best Asian: Zaap, Bromley Place. Runners-up:, Everest, Newark; Tarn Thai, George Street.

Best Cafe / Deli / Express: The Cheese Shop, Flying Horse Walk. Runners-up: 200 Degrees, The Poultry; Ugly Bread, Carlton Street; Nottingham Doughnut Company.

Best Indian: MemSaab, Maid Marian Way. Runners up: Anoki, Barker Gate; Calcutta Club, Maid Marian Way; Gurkha One, Rolleston.

Best Drinks Venue: Hockley Arts Club. Runners-up: Tilt, Pelham Street; Veeno, Middle Pavement.

Best Bar None (in association with Nottingham Business Improvement District): Overall winner, Volt Club, Broadway. Other category winners: Bistro Live, Barker Gate; Cape, Victoria Street; The Company Inn, Castle Wharf.

Best International: Baresca, Byard Lane. Runners-up, Le Bistrot Pierre, Milton Street; Iberico, High Pavement.

Best City Centre Experience: George's Great British Kitchen, Queen Street. Runners-up: Iberico, High Pavement; Zaap, Bromley Place.

Best Public House: Cross Keys, Epperstone. Runners-up: Larwood and Voce, West Bridgford; Victoria Hotel, Beeston.

Best Out-of-Town Venue: Langar Hall, Langar. Runners-up: La Rock, Sandiacre; Tom Browns, Gunthorpe.

Outstanding Service: La Rock, Sandiacre. Runners-up: Cross Keys, Epperstone; Perkins, Plumtree.

Best Young Chef: Nikita Vara, Copper. Runners-up: Keelan Burton, La Rock; George McMillan, The Vaults; Jack Pearce, World Service; Tom Smeeth, Larwood and Voce; Ashley Wilson, La Rock.
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Joyce Russell Porter County Reporter Joyce has been a reporter for nearly 40 years, including 23 years with The Times. She's a native of Merrillville, but has lived in Portage for 39 years. She covers municipal and school government in Porter County. Follow Joyce Russell Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

I had been debating for some time whether or not I wanted to have my DNA tested for any clues into my past.

I was curious to see if the testing would find anything exotic or interesting.

It would also help, I thought to answer a question about my heritage. Id remembered a story that I might have some Native American heritage on my dads side.

It made sense. I had traced some branches of my dads family back to eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in the early 1800s. I found that my third great grandfather, Andrew Carson Williams, was born in Cherokee County, North Carolina.

However, after checking online rolls of Native American families in the area, I could never find a link to Andrew or his wife, Susanna Duesse.

A few months ago, Ancestry put their DNA kit on sale and I convinced my cheap self to go for itit might be my only way to determine if I had any Native American blood running through my veins.

I ordered the kit and received it in a few days. I spit in the provided tube, sealed it and mailed it off.

Ancestry kept me updated on my kitit had arrived; it had been sent to the lab, etc.but estimated it would be six to eight weeks before I received any results.

I got the results about three weeks later. They came via email in a downloadable file.

I was so excited. I clicked and there it was. Imagine now a sad, frowny face. Not even a trace of Native American DNA. I was a bit disappointed, but it had answered my question and I could stop digging in that direction.

What I did find wasnt all that surprising. Im 100 percent European. Apparently my ancestors didnt wander too far on the other side of the pond.

Heres my breakdown:

- 87 percent Western Europe. No surprise here. The majority of my family on both my moms and dads sides come from Germany. Three of the four great grandparents on my moms side were born in Germany. I have traced several branches of my dads side to Germany, but back much further into the 1700s and 1600s.

- 5 percent Ireland. Heck yeah. Now I can legally celebrate St. Pattys day without being a poser.

- 2 percent Italy/Greece. This was a bit of a surprise as I havent found anyone in my tree so far from Italy or Greece, but it may explain my love of lasagna and gyros.

- 2 percent Great Britain. This was also a surprise. I thought I had more British, Scotch and Welsh blood running through me. That one great-grandparent on my moms side not from Germany was from Wales. Several others on my dads side came from England. But, you never know where their origins may lie because Great Britain was invaded by just about everyone else at one time or another.

- 2 percent Finland/Northwest Russia. Another surprise.

- Less than 1 percent each of Scandinavia and Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). OK, if the DNA says so.

So, no Native American, nothing exotic. Just a Heinz 57 variety.

There was much more to the report than this that I wont get into now such as links with other Ancestry members who could be my 8th cousin, 4 times removed. It also provided histories of the regions my DNA comes from and a little insight on each.

In all, the report is a nice thing to add to my mound of genealogical research.

Drop me a line at joyce.russell@nwi.com if youve had a DNA test and if youve received any revelations. Love to hear the stories.
MERRILLVILLE  NIPSCO Executive Vice President Violet Sistovaris told hiring managers and human resource professionals on Wednesday there is a strong business case to be made for inclusion and diversity and its significant impact on the workplace.

NIPSCO believes in customers and community, she told attendees at the 9th Annual Diversity Career Fair and Business Symposium at the Radisson Hotel. In order to relate to our customers and their special needs, we have to be able to relate to them. What better way than to have a team made up of employees who share their background?

The utility company she leads has a firm belief in serving customers and community, and that starts right in the workplace, she said.

Sistovaris said that the country has entered the age of ultra diversity.

Her enthusiastic talk was followed by a roundtable discussion of several questions supplied by the audience. Moderator Christopher Smith, NIPSCOs human resources vice president, led the panel through topics that included the social responsibility and the bottom line impact of inclusion and diversity in today's international business climate.

Panel member Beth Wrobel, CEO of HealthLinc, said for health providers there is a very diverse patient base in Northwest Indiana and in order to improve the overall health of the region inclusion and diversity is essential.

Maureen Zakutansky, human resources director at Restaurant Management Corporation, said businesses have both a moral and social responsibility to promote inclusion and diversity because its the right thing to do.

The symposium will continue today with a career fair from noon to 4 p.m. at the Radisson. Job seekers can meet with representatives of over twenty local companies. For additional details visit http://www.nwi.com/diversity.

Wednesday's symposium and today's job fair are hosted by IN Business magazine, Monster.com, and the Times Media Co. Major sponsors of the event include BP, NIPSCO, Work One, The Center of Workforce Innovations, HealthLinc, Tradewinds and NWI SHRM.

Sistovaris in her talk reminded listeners diversity in the workforce takes many forms.

We no longer define diversity by race, age, and gender, she said. Each of us has multiple pieces of diverse cultures that define us. Second-generation immigrants, women who have returned to the workforce after raising children, men setting out on a new career after downsizing."
For more than a half century, the Town Theatre in downtown Highland was the place to catch a movie with friends, buying snacks at the concession stand before settling in for a double feature. When suburban malls with their multi-cinema showings began decimating downtowns, the Town managed to hang on by showing independent films and offering beverages and pastries during intermission. Of course, the suit of armor poised near the screen only added to the eclectic appeal. But time finally ran out and in 2008, the Town finally closed, its old marquee still standing but with nothing to advertise.

Now, the community has banded together with the goal of reopening the theater and has recently completed the first phase of the design work, a step that the Highland Redevelopment Commission believes will also help bring more business to a part of the downtown thats currently underutilized.

The renovated theater is featured as a centerpiece in plans developed by the Redevelopment Commission to attract complementary private development to expand the downtown with an arts and cultural theme, says Highland redevelopment director Cecile LaCombe Petro, noting that the second phase is scheduled to be completed this summer.

The Town Theatre isnt the only business in Highland getting a new look.

I chose Highland because of its central location in a growing area, and there are numerous independently owned and operated businesses like mine, says Jennifer Fischer, owner of Pure Body Spa, which opened this spring. I found the Town of Highland to be very welcoming and easy to work with when starting my new business.

Fischer says she wanted to offer a unique experience from the moment her customers walked in the door. My vision was to create a modern, water-themed space that was both relaxing and invigorating, she says. I had some cosmetic changes made to the existing space, including fresh paint and floors, a new front desk and a water wall. These simple changes along with the interior decorating really transformed the space. Everyone who comes in really loves the feel.

Larry Kolodziej, owner of Cover-Rite Carpets, An Abbey Carpet & Floor Showroom, has been in business for 44 years.

The only way to stay in business that long is to change with the times, he says. You cant get stale or dated. People dont want to come in and look at old products or surroundings.

Kolodziej, who has been at his current location for 30 years (he also spent another seven years in a different spot in Highland prior to that), recently remodeled the interior of the building, adding a new showroom floor and all-new lighting. The building also got a new roof.

You have to take care of your customers, to show that your business and products are up-to-date and that you care about what youre selling and the surroundings where youre selling it, says Kolodziej, adding, with a laugh, I may do the same for me and my salespeoplewe can all get facelifts if we want.

Renovating Theos Steak and Seafood began in 2009 with the reconstruction of the exterior facade and addition of LED lighting and outdoor sconces, turning the look of the building from an unsightly barn to a premier restaurant, says owner Peter Klideris, who is thankful that the bank loaning them money during the financial crisis believed in them.

I feel if this remodeling wasnt done we wouldnt be able to attract our customers to come in and see how great of a restaurant Theos really is, Klideris says. They say dont judge a book by its cover, but when customers choose a place to eat, they judge what a restaurant looks like on the outside.

Klideris began remodeling the interior in 2013 with the goal of providing his clientele with the 5-star ambience theyd find in a big city steakhouse. The following year, even more major changes were madebathrooms were gutted and then upgraded with such distinctive touches as granite countertops, chandeliers (for women) and tiled floors and walls.

Installing stackable floor to ceiling sliding doors was their most major purchase, says Klideris; the parking lot and roof were also redone and all new air conditioning and heating units were installed as well.

Last year, World Gym, a Los Angeles-based chain with more than 200 locations worldwide, underwent a major expansion at their Highland facility, replacing the flooring throughout the facility, enlarging their Kiddie Corral, adding more workout machines for a total of approximately 200, and creating more space for classes and groups.

We moved the cardio room to the back and it now has an actual dance floor instead of foam, says manager Nicki Lear. We repainted the wallsit was a huge project. But we did it because business was good and we wanted the best for our clients. Its really spacious and beautiful.

Describing Highland as a town on the move, Petro says that the community believes in economic developmenttaking what exists, seeing how it is working, and what can be done to help it work better.

And theyre seeing results, Petro says. Our downtown, for example, is almost completely full.
Which Wich will open its first sandwich shop in Northwest Indiana later this year as it looks to grow in the Chicago area.

The Dallas-based chain, where you can customize your sandwich with an almost endless list of choices, aims to have five to seven locations in Northwest Indiana, Which Wich Director of Real Estate Dustin Griffiths said. Which Wich now has nearly 400 fast-casual restaurants nationwide, including a few in the Chicago and Indianapolis metros.

Were looking for a total of 35-plus stores in the (Chicago) market, he said. Its a great fit for us. It has mid- to upper-income families and white collar professionals, people who are trending to high-quality products.

What makes Which Wich unique is how customers can build sandwiches to their exact preferences such as with a choice of carmelized, red or crispy string onions, said Casey Erickson, whos opening a Which Wich at 1508 U.S. 41 in Schererville. Three kinds of mayo and four varieties of mustard are always on tap.

There are almost endless, different combinations, he said. Theres turkey, Italian, vegan, healthy, so many exciting options.

The Ericksons are in the middle of renovating a new store by Ciao Bella and Houlihans in Schererville, which is due to open in August.

About 20 to 25 people will work in the restaurant, which will seat about 50, including a few al fresco tables.

The sandwich market in Northwest Indiana has become increasingly competitive with newer chains like Potbellys, Jersey Mikes and Firehouse Subs competing with longtime stalwarts like Lincoln Os and Romanos.

The Which Wich customization process involves writing down what meats, condiments, veggies and bread one wants in red marker on a sandwich bag.

The ordering process sets us apart, Griffiths said. There was a lot of options in building that bag.

The chain also serves salads, wraps and skinny bread sandwiches where they scoop out some of the bread to cut down on carbohydrates and calories.

The Ericksons have agreed to open a second franchise, and have been scouting out other potential locations in Northwest Indiana, including in St. John, Merrillville and Highland.

We looked at a number of franchises and loved this one, said Erickson, whos a cop in Calumet City. You can never eat the same sandwich twice.

Which Wich in Schererville will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
United Steelworkers members have voted overwhelmingly to approve a new three-year deal with ArcelorMittal, one of Northwest Indiana's largest employers.

A total of 5,059 USW members, or 72.9 percent, voted for the contract, while 1,878 workers voted against it.

"I feel we got the best deal we could under the circumstances, each contract negotiation is a snapshot in time and we were bargaining in some real bad times for steel," USW Local 1010 President Tom Hargrove said. "We will be back at the table in two years. Hopefully conditions will be better."

The contract includes no raises but has bonuses if hot-rolled steel prices average over $600 a ton per quarter. The company will close several finishing lines at ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor in East Chicago but will invest $2.5 billion in its American operations. Health care costs will rise, including a 42 percent jump in premiums for retirees.

Negotiated for more than a year, the deal covers more than 14,000 hourly workers at ArcelorMittal's 15 U.S. plants, including in East Chicago, Gary, Burns Harbor and Riverdale.

We have settled our differences with management at the table, so together now we can focus on addressing the industrys real problems, such as global overcapacity and the unfair and often illegal foreign trade practices that depress prices, close plants and cost jobs, USW International President Leo W. Gerard said. The USW negotiating committee, activists and members at each of the facilities deserve our thanks and credit for staying united throughout the long, difficult process.

USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap was on the delegation that helped negotiate the deal in Pittsburgh.

For generations, our families have worked in these plants and established a way of life, Millsap said. We are confident that as long as we work together and fight for fair trade instead of free trade, the steel industry will continue to provide good jobs that support families and sustain communities with fair pay and benefits.

ArcelorMittal said it was pleased to have a new agreement after 10 months of negotiations.

"ArcelorMittal extends our appreciation to our employees, customers and community members for their patience and commitment during this process," spokeswoman Mary Beth Holdford said. "We are pleased that we were able to negotiate in good faith with the USW to achieve a mutually beneficial agreement while avoiding unnecessary impact on our employees and their families, our customers and our communities."

Holdford said the contract will make the company stronger.

"ArcelorMittal is committed to working with the USW to implement the agreements made in the new contract," she said. "Like any negotiation, the new contract represents compromise for both parties but serves as a platform for achieving a more sustainable and successful business here in the United States."
EAST CHICAGO  A woman could not chase down a man she suspected of stealing her purse from her vehicle while she was inside a business Tuesday, police said.

Police were dispatched about 6 a.m. to the 1900 block of East Columbus Drive for a purse theft, Lt. Marguerite Wilder said.

While officers were en route, dispatch said the woman was in pursuit of a possible suspect, police said. The woman lost sight of the man, and police were unable to find him.

The woman told police she left her purse in her vehicle with the windows down and walked inside the business. When she returned, she saw her purse was missing. She then began chasing a man in a white T-shirt and jeans who had been near her vehicle before the theft, police said.

Munster police last week released an image of a vehicle used by a man suspected of stealing items from unlocked vehicles parked at gas pumps in several communities along the Interstate 80/94 corridor.

East Chicago police advised residents to lock their doors and remove valuables from view when leaving their vehicles.

Anyone with information about Tuesday's purse theft is asked to call Detective Luis Semidei at (219) 391-8500. To remain anonymous, call (219) 391-8500.
HAMMOND  An East Chicago woman was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in prison for helping rob a liquor store of cash and cognac in 2015, U.S. District Court records show.

Monique Coles, 35, was given 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release. She also was ordered to pay $341.95 in restitution.

Coles and Stevie Green, 48, of Chicago, were charged in March 2015 under the Hobbs Act, which prohibits robberies that impede interstate commerce.

Green, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of entering Star Liquors at 1201 Chicago St. in Hammond on Feb. 20, 2015, and using a handgun to rob the business of $100 in cash, three bottles of Remy Martin VSOP cognac and one bottle of Hennessey cognac. A clerk also was robbed of $40, a complaint said.

Green unsuccessfully attempted to fire the gun before getting into a vehicle driven by Coles, according to court records.

Police found the vehicle and gave chase until it crashed. Coles ran from the vehicle and was found hiding in a dumpster in the 1300 block of Chicago Street, court records said.

Green was arrested as he got out of the vehicle, and police found a Hi Point 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the car, the complaint said.

In addition to the robbery count, Green is charged with carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He previously was convicted of armed robbery in Cook County, court records said. His trial is set to begin July 25.
GARY  A 42-year-old man was charged Wednesday with attempted burglary and theft stemming from allegations he stole mail packages from a home earlier this month in the city's Miller section.

Everett B. Palmer, of Gary, is accused of stealing packages and mail June 16 from a residence in the 6500 block of Birch Avenue. The incident resulted in charges of theft, Gary Police Lt. Dawn Westerfield said in a news release.

Palmer allegedly returned to the same address Monday, removed the glass from the security door and tried to force his way into the home, according to the release.

Gary police responded to the homeowner's call for a burglary. Police encountered Palmer near East 3rd Avenue and Grand Boulevard, where he was taken into custody after the homeowner positively identified him.

Palmer is charged with attempted burglary and attempted residential entry in Monday's incident.

Anyone with further information is encouraged to contact Detective Sgt. Mario Gonzalez at (219) 881-1209.
CROWN POINT  Scott R. Tess lost his phone while taking a walk with his girlfriend the evening of April 11, 2015.

Phillip Hibbard told Lake Criminal Judge Salvador Vasquez during a sentencing hearing Thursday that his brother-in-law later returned to the area near the intersection of West Chicago Avenue and Indianapolis to look for his cellphone. He said video showed Tess looked both ways before he crossed the street.

Donnell Lewis, 58, of Gary, admitted that he was driving while intoxicated when he hit Tess with his Nissan Altima, according to court records. Tess, 53, was found unresponsive at the crosswalk and later died at Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus in Gary.

Lewis pleaded guilty to causing death when operating a motor vehicle with an alcohol-level of 0.15 or more, a Level 4 felony. Vasquez sentenced Lewis Thursday to two years in prison followed by three years in community corrections. His driver's license will be suspended for four years.

Lewis admitted that after the crash he drove to the parking lot of a nearby restaurant where police found him with the help of bystanders. He told police he thought he had hit an animal.

There was a hole in the windshield of Lewis' Nissan Altima. According to court records, there appeared to be blood, hair and tissue on the windshield.

His blood-alcohol level after the crash was 0.19, according to court records. The legal limit in Indiana is 0.08.

Defense attorney William Brown said his client didn't have any previous convictions and had never been arrested before the crash. He said Lewis wasn't the type of person who typically appeared before Vasquez.

Lewis' wife, Eileen Lewis, said she has been married to Lewis for more than 30 years and they have three children together. She teared up as she asked Tess' family to forgive her husband.

Eileen Lewis said her husband was hardworking and provided for their family.

Wearing a navy suit, Donnell Lewis bowed his head as he apologized for the shame and embarrassment that he said he has brought to his family. He said he surrendered himself to police after the crash.

"I made a mistake, I understand that," he said. "I'm asking the court to understand that I'm truly sorry for it."

Since charges were filed, Donnell Lewis said he started a 12-step alcohol treatment program and regularly goes to counseling. He asked Tess' family for forgiveness.

Hibbard said though the family didn't believe Lewis intended to kill Tess, Lewis still made the decision to drive while drunk.

He described his brother-in-law as someone who enjoyed working on construction projects and often did odd jobs for neighbors. Tess also helped his parents, including his father, who is legally blind.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz said Lewis has lived a law-abiding life but a drunken driving charge can happen to anyone. She argued it wasn't an accident that he drove drunk and then didn't initially stop after hitting Tess.

Vasquez noted that there were a lot of mitigating factors in Lewis' favor. Still, he said there was a death in the case. He said the public needs to understand that cases such as Tess' death are preventable if people make the right decisions.

Lewis' family cried as they watched a bailiff handcuff and escort Lewis out of the courtroom.
HAMMOND  Two Gary woman were charged in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday with dealing Ecstasy and the prescription painkiller Vicodin, court records show.

Shanterra Jones, 22, and Consuela Jones, 41, are accused of distributing both types of drugs April 7 and selling Ecstasy again April 20.

Consuela Jones also was charged with dealing Ecstasy, or MDMA, on May 12.

The U.S. attorney's office wants to seize a black 2010 Infiniti QX5 registered to Consuela Jones if she is convicted, according to U.S. District Court records.

The indictment alleges the drug sales occurred in the Northern District of Indiana, but it does not include a specific location.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday does not appear to challenge the way drunken driving arrests are being carried out in Porter County and presumably elsewhere around the state, said Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel.

The justices ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before requiring drivers to take blood alcohol tests, but not breath tests, which the court considers less intrusive.

Drivers in all 50 states can have their licenses revoked for refusing drunken driving tests. The courts ruling affects laws in 11 states that impose additional criminal penalties for such refusals.

Gensel said Indiana is not among the states imposing additional penalties.

Police in Indiana are required to get a search warrant before pursuing a blood test from a driver unwilling to cooperate, he said. Exceptions are rare and involve cases where there is a pressing need, which has been defined in Indiana as accidents involving serious bodily injury or death, he said.

The Supreme Court ruling does not address this approach, Gensel said.

Police in Porter County generally only seek blood tests in cases of potential felony charges, such as a prior drunken driving conviction within five years, he said.

Drivers more often resist tests in these cases because of the potential for a felony. Breath tests are the more common approach for misdemeanor level offenses, Gensel said.

The Lake County prosecutors office did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

The Supreme Court ruling came in three cases in which drivers challenged so-called implied consent laws in Minnesota and North Dakota as violating the Constitutions ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

State supreme courts in each state had upheld the laws.
CROWN POINT  A Merrillville man was sentenced to a year in prison after he admitted to helping two others dispose of the body of a United Airlines flight attendant.

Nathaniel A. Porter, 19, pleaded guilty to assisting a criminal, a Level 5 felony. Lake Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez on Wednesday sentenced Porter to a year in prison.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, the most Porter could have faced was two years in prison.

Porter was initially charged in juvenile court before the case in November 2014 was moved to Lake Criminal Court.

He admitted to helping Alyssa Barrett and Damarius R. McGriggs remove the body of DeCarol Deloney-Cain from her Crown Point home. Porter later drove the group to the mall and to an ATM, according to court records. He admitted to receiving money in exchange for helping Barrett and McGriggs.

Deloney-Cains decomposing body was found inside her abandoned car July 7, 2014, in the area of 21st Avenue and Mississippi Street in Gary. An autopsy determined she was stabbed to death and died from blunt force trauma.

Barrett was sentenced earlier this year to 50 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to murder in her mothers homicide. McGriggs, who was dating Barrett, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder.

DeShawn D. Fuller is also accused of helping McGriggs and Barrett. He faces a charge of assisting a criminal in the case. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday.

Porter told Vasquez that he wasnt using his head when he helped Barrett and McGriggs. He apologized to Deloney-Cains family.

I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, he said.

Defense attorney Shane ODonnell said his client was only 17 years old at the time and freaked out when he learned about what happened. Though Barrett and McGriggs had talked about killing Deloney-Cain, ODonnell said Porter never thought they were serious.

He said Porter obtained his GED and has a steady full-time job.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Jatkiewicz said Porter has committed serious mistakes that demonstrate his true character. She pointed out that he could have walked away when he saw the body in the home instead of helping.

Jatkiewicz said Porter was not cooperating with the state and he had made statements that minimized Barretts role in the homicide.Vasquez questioned out loud who would help someone move a body, reasoning only a criminal would do that.

Who would ever think that what you did was proper? Vasquez asked.

No one.
Union Cabinet approves MoU between India and Germany

Published: June 22, 2016

The Union Cabinet has approved signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Steinbeis GmbH Co. KG, Germany for technology transfer and resourcing in manufacturing, including sub-sectors of Capital Goods.

The MoU between India Steinbeis GmbH was signed in April, 2016 during the Industrial Exhibition Hannover Messe 2016 in Hannover, Germany.

Steinbeis GmbH is leading German organization for applied industrial research in Europe. It will act as a Technology Resource Partner for implementing identified projects in manufacturing.

The MoU envisages following field of cooperation

Technology road mapping for specified Capital Goods sub-sectors.

Cooperation in events on technology.

Profiling of specific technologies.

Upgrading existing technology institutes and setting up Greenfield institutes in India.

Assessment of technology status of Capital Goods Cluster,

Other technology related co-operation and collaboration.

Comment

The MoU is a framework instrument that seeks to facilitate industrial technology projects by Indian Capital Goods Sector. It will provide a platform to various public sector undertakings (PSUs) and Capital Goods Sector units to have easy access to expertise and capabilities of Steinbeis GmbH for identifying and plugging technology gaps.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016

Topics: Cabinet Decisions  capital goods  India-Germany  National  technology transfer

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HAMMOND  The mother of a high-ranking Two Six street gang leader admitted in federal court Thursday to making multiple trips to pick up drugs and money under the direction of her son.

Ester Mama Darkside Carrera, 63, of Gary, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute marijuana, cocaine, heroin and MDMA. In her plea agreement with the government, Carrera accepted responsibility for at least 5 kilograms but less than 15 kilograms of cocaine.

Carrera was first charged in 2014 in a racketeering indictment targeting the Two Six street gang. Her son, Jesus Chu Chu Fuentes, was a reputed high-ranking member.

Last year, he admitted to being responsible for the murder of Miguel Fernandez in 1991, and he admitted to ordering the murders of Edwardo Miranda in 1997 and Albert Greeny Guzman in 1999. Additionally, he admitted to distributing 150 to 450 kilograms of cocaine and 3,000 to 10,000 kilograms of marijuana.

Fuentes is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 28.

Carrera told U.S. District Court Judge Philip Simon that she made at least three trips to pick up packages of drugs under the direction of her son. She said she didnt know how much or what type of drugs were in the packages, but she acknowledged that she knew it involved drugs.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nozick said Carrera made trips to Gary, East Chicago and Chicago. She was also involved in some drug dealing that took place in Mexico. Some incidents date back to 1991.

Sitting next to her attorney Paul Stracci, Carrera didnt explicitly say she was working with the Dark Side faction of the Two Six gang in East Chicago. Instead, she said she was working with her son at his recording studio and with her sons friends.

I knew it was drugs and money, she said.

When Simon asked if anyone forced her to enter the plea agreement, Carrera said, Im just leaving everything in Gods hands.

Simon then asked her if she was guilty.

Yes, sir, Carrera said.

Under the terms of the agreement, Carrera agreed to cooperate with the government. She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, but the government can petition the court for a lower sentence depending on her level of cooperation.

Simon will sentence Carrera at 10 a.m. Sept. 20.
MUNSTER  With the U.S. averaging 20 mass shootings a year in which at least four people are hit by gunfire, people need to have a plan for surviving such an event just as they would for a tornado or a fire.

That was the message of Monday's Active Shooter Awareness presentation by the Munster Police Department. The presentation was held at the Centennial Park clubhouse and attended by about 50 people, the same number of people who died so far in the latest attack at an Orlando, Florida, night club. Another 53 people were wounded, some seriously.

"The world is a very different place, and you have to be prepared," said Lori Postma, of Franciscan Hospitals and a member of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security District 1 Task Force Incident Management Team.

Gary McKay, a retired police officer, is in charge of emergency preparedness, safety and bioterrorism prevention for Community Hospital. He and Postma showed a series of graphic videos on how to survive an active-shooter situation.

McKay said people need to develop a plan that works for their particular circumstances.

"It could happen anywhere you are," he said.

Postma, a nurse, said her involvement with the awareness program was fueled by a personal experience. She was on duty the day a man shot a nurse five times after she refused to bring him a cup of coffee.

Most active-shooter incidents last less than 15 minutes. The shooter usually plans ahead of time, shoots people at random, expects to die and will keep shooting until stopped. People caught in such a situation need to accept what is happening, assess what to do next, act -- and alert police as soon as it is safe to do so.

Just as children are taught to stop, drop and roll in a fire, everyone needs to know flee, hide or fight. If possible, run from the scene to safety, and, if not, hide, especially in a locked room with the lights and cellphones off.

In the worst case scenario, in which you can't flee or hide, look for anything that could be used as a weapon to disrupt or disorient the shooter and fight rather than just be a victim.

"We are not trying to scare you," Postma said. "All you have to do is turn on the news, and that will scare you."

"Be aware of what is going on around you at all times," McKay said.

Carla Yerga, of Munster, said she came to the presentation because "the Orlando shooting makes you stop and think it could happen to any community. Those three things (run, hide, fight) are very easy to remember."

A man who identified himself only as John said, "With all that's going on, unless you are locked in your house, you are liable to be in a situation similar to what happened."
CALUMET TOWNSHIP  Two people were robbed of their wallets late Wednesday at a gas station, began to chase three suspects and escaped injury when one of the suspects shot at their vehicle, Lake County sheriff's police said.

Police were dispatched about 11:50 p.m. to the 4300 block of Cleveland Street and met with an 18-year-old Gary woman and 28-year-old Hobart man, sheriff's spokesman Mark Back said.

The pair told police they arrived at a gas station in the area and were approached by two men and a woman. One of the men asked them for a cigarette and then displayed a handgun and robbed them.

The three suspects got into a vehicle and left, and the two followed them south on Cleveland Street and east on 45th Avenue in an attempt to get their license plate number, Back said.

One of the suspects pointed a gun out a passenger window in the area of 45th Avenue and Lincoln Street and shot at the two who were robbed. The pair lost sight of the suspects' vehicle at that point, Back said.

One of the suspects was described as black with close-cut hair, no facial hair, a white T-shirt and an unknown color of jeans. The second man was black with ear-length dreadlocks, a black shirt and slim build. The third suspect was a white woman with bright red hair, black pants and shoes and a light pink shirt. They were driving a dark, possibly blue, SUV.

Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's hotline at (800) 750-2746. Callers will remain anonymous.
GARY  The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, primate and presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, visits St. Augustines Episcopal Church on Sunday to preach and celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

Its the culmination of the bishops historic three-day visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana, said the Rev. Michael W. Dwyer of the Calumet Episcopal Ministry Partnership. The diocese encompasses 36 parishes in the northern 31 counties of the state.

The Mass begins at 10 a.m. at the dioceses only historically African-American parish, 2425 W. 19th Ave.

Founded in 1927 by 30 African-Americans, St. Augustines congregation flourished during the 1950s, outgrowing the former Roman Catholic mission building in Midtown. The church, with its soaring curved roof, was designed by mid-century modernist architect Edward D. Dart, opening its doors in 1958. In 2013, St. Augustines was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Currys visit to the diocese begins Friday when he meets with all the diocesan clergy at the Cathedral of St. James in South Bend., Dwyer said. St. Augustines rector, the Rev. Canon David L. Hyndman, will attend.

On Saturday, Curry will ordain the new bishop of the Northern Diocese, the Right Rev. Dr. Douglas E. Sparks at Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne. Dwyer said the ordination of the eighth bishop of the diocese had to be moved to the Lutheran Church because St. Albans wasnt large enough.

Throughout his ministry, Curry has been active in issues of social justice, speaking out on immigration policy and marriage equality. Born in Chicago in 1953, he graduated with high honors from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, in 1975 and received a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from Yale University Divinity School. He was ordained to the diaconate in June 1978 and to the priesthood in December of that year.

Curry has a national preaching and teaching ministry, has been featured on

The Protestant Hour and is a frequent speaker at conferences around the country. His first book, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus, was published in August 2013. His most recent book, Songs My Grandma Sang, was published in June 2015.

He and his wife, Sharon, have two daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.
The Sand & Steel: Visions of Our Indiana Shore exhibit at the South Shore Arts gallery in Munster features artistic renderings of landscapes familiar to any Northwest Indiana resident: the Indiana Dunes and the steel mills that line much of the rest of the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The show at The Center for Visual & Performing Arts at 1040 Ridge Road in Munster has more than 60 pieces "inspired by the beauty of the Indiana Dunes beginning in the early 20th century, the industry that followed and the balance struck between the two." South Shore Arts arranged the exhibit in partnership with the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, where it will be displayed early next year.

Sand & Steel includes paintings from the Brauer Museum's permanent collection that aren't always on display and originals of the iconic "Just Around the Corner" South Shore posters. It was curated by Brauer Director Gregg Hertzlieb, and includes many pieces from famed dunes landscape painter Frank V. Dudley, John Rush's South Shore Line posters and a massive, attention-grabbing diptych of a steel mill by James Pringle Cook.

"It's a large, striking piece that catches the eye of a lot of the audience," Gallery Manager Bridget Earnshaw said.

South Shore Arts and the Brauer collaborated on the show to celebrate the Indiana Bicentennial, the National Park Service Centennial and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore's 50th anniversary.

"It incorporates the beauty of the dunes with the beauty of industry," Earnshaw said. "A lot of people don't think of the industry as beautiful, but it's incorporated into the culture and a lot of us might not be here today otherwise. Industry brought a lot of people here to go work."

The work on display ranges from around 1920 to about 2000, and much of it is oil paintings done by preservationists in the 1940s through the 1960s.

"Artists throughout the area came for the sweeping hills, the wildlife and Lake Michigan," she said. "It's almost oceanic compared to anywhere in the Midwest."

South Shore Arts executive director John Cain said they distinguished Sand & Steel from other shows featuring Northwest Indiana's scenic beaches by including heavy industry, such as a Soviet propaganda-looking South Shore Line poster that describes the Region as "America's workshop."

"There was a conflict in creating the Indiana Dunes park between industry and ecology," he said. "It was what man makes versus what was made by nature, which is one of the central themes of the new documentary 'Shifting Sands.'"

South Shore Arts has previously collaborated with Indiana University Northwest, the Chicago Cultural Center and the Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago, and wanted this exhibit to be shown in both Lake and Porter County so it could reach the largest audience possible.

"It has pieces from the Brauer that are not always on view but are of really high quality depicting our local scene, both the nature and industry side by side," he said. "It gives you a real sense of pride about our heritage and significance nationally."

Cain said people can see great Impressionist paintings, the original South Shore Line poster that features the iconic woman on the beach with an umbrella, and Cook's massive steel mill painting.

"It's the size of a billboard," Cain said. "It's an amalgamation of scenes the artists put together along the Indiana Toll Road, so it's not a specific place. It's snippets of industrial scenery you would see."

Cain joked people should come out to see the exhibit, which runs through Aug. 28 in Munster, "because it's free."

FYI: Sand and Steel: Visions of Our Indiana Shore runs through Aug. 28 at South Shore Arts, 1040 Ridge Road, Munster. The gallery is open from 10 a.m, to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, visit southshoreartsonline.org.
Active-shooter incidents happen anywhere at any time, so police in Northwest Indiana are doing all they can to prepare themselves and the public to deal with it if it happens here.

"I don't know of any police officer that doesn't come to work every day prepared for an active-shooter situation," said Bob Byrd, police chief of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's Transit Police and head of the Northwest Indiana Major Crimes Task Force.

"There are two components, international terrorists as well as domestic incidents. Everybody in law enforcement is working on it based on good intelligence information.

"Nobody knows when or where it's going to happen," Byrd said.

"It's happening in shopping centers, work places, schools, churches, theaters. How do we change that culture to do away with that?

"It comes down to the easy accessibility of guns."

Schools used to practice fire drills. Now they all do active-shooter drills. Byrd said NICTD conducts training twice a year for emergency responders to deal with an active shooter on a passenger train.

Fire departments and police learn how to open doors and rescue passengers while SWAT teams learn how to enter and take control of barricaded gunman or hostage situations.

"If there is a terrorism event, the FBI takes the lead because of their expertise and resources," Byrd said.

"In any situation we don't hesitate to call them immediately. If there is a major event like (Orlando) in Northwest Indiana, the major crimes task force will be there to assist."

One of the unknowns is the possible presence of secondary devices that could injure or kill first responders, such as explosive devices in backpacks. Byrd said residents need to educate themselves by going to the Department of Homeland Security website, which has a variety of videos to help different groups, from the public and law enforcement to churches and businesses, prepare.

Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds said the concentration for the past six months has been on making Porter County's schools safe. Assisting in that effort are two cellphone apps. One is HERO911, which is free to all law enforcement officers and notifies them whenever there is an active shooter situation anywhere in the area, especially at a location that has signed onto the GUARD911 app.

The GUARD911 app can be purchased by schools, churches, hospitals or other locations such as YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs or businesses. When activated, it speed-dials the area dispatch center, alerts all users in the building of the threat as well as notifying other GUARD911 users in the area, and sends an alert to the HERO911 network for any law enforcement officers in the area to respond.

"The one thing we've learned is we can't prevent a tragedy like this, but we can work on reducing the response time," Reynolds said.

"After we did the research and thought this is what we should do, we went to the school systems, and they all agreed to do it."

The GUARD911 has a $1,000 registration fee and an annual $100 fee. Reynolds said Valparaiso paid the signup fee for the 16 public and private schools in the city. Reynolds said, so far, more law enforcement officers have downloaded the HERO911 app than there are police officers in the county because of all the other agencies that have gotten involved.

All of Porter County's public schools are on the GUARD911 system, including an elementary school in The Pines that is part of the Michigan City school system. Reynolds said he still is reaching out to private schools to sign them up as well.

Reynolds said the schools' plans for dealing with emergency situations were reduced to one page and then a poster with instructions on what to do during lockdowns, weather alerts, evacuations, bomb scares, active shooter or other emergencies. He's now preparing to shoot a video demonstrating the poster's actions for active shooter and assailant incidents.

"We will shoot that in July in Portage, Valparaiso, Wheeler and Boone Grove schools," he said.

"Every high school in the area will be shown in the video as will all the law enforcement agencies. We got a price tag on it and asked the schools to offset some of the costs. We also asked the executive board of HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) to help."

He hopes to have the video completed by the end of August, and it will be used to train police, teachers, students and staff.

As Munster just did, Porter County will hold a workplace violence preparedness seminar July 29 at Portage High School auditorium. Registration is $10 and begins at 7:30 a.m., and the seminar goes until 3:30 p.m. with nationally recognized experts in the field workplace violence. The money will go toward the Porter County Safe School Commission.

"One thing that was so encouraging when we first sat down to discuss all this was the cooperation from the schools and police," Reynolds said. "We all knew where we wanted to end up, but we didn't know how to get there.

"Teachers need to know what the police are going to do, and police need to know what is going on in the schools. That's why we've accomplished so much so fast. They were all willing to work together to make sure everyone was safe."
LIBERTY TOWNSHIP  Steve Lunn, Porter Regional Hospital CEO, did not have to travel far to take part in Thursdays groundbreaking for a 14,000-square-foot commercial building along U.S. 6.

The new building is the first going in the Porter Business Park immediately west of the new hospital at the northwest corner of Ind. 49 and U.S. 6.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Lunn told the small group of developers and others gathered for the late morning celebration.

Its been a long time coming to see the next big development, he said.

Its been nine years since the new owners of the former county-owned hospital announced plans to relocate from downtown Valparaiso to the site of their new building today.

A poor economy has been blamed for the slower-than-expected growth at the park.

Lunn said he believes now that the first building is going in at the park, others will follow.

Patty Stovall, project coordinator with the business park, also voiced confidence that a corner has been turned in the parks future.

Its going to be full, full, she said. I have plans.

The new building, which will be south on the property near U.S. 6, will offer eight units and already reportedly has two tentative tenants  a sandwich shop and a health care lab-type business.The goal is to have four tenants by years end, Stovall said.

Another parcel further north at the business park was rezoned recently for a 93,000-square-foot assisted living and memory care facility, according to Bob Thompson, executive director of the Porter County Department of Development & Storm Water Management.

Lunn said the area needs a pharmacy to serve patients leaving the hospital.

He also sees a need for eateries, a dry cleaner and other service-oriented businesses to serve hospital employees and the other 5,000 or more people who visit the hospital each day.
A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for Northwest Indiana and parts of northern Illinois, according to the National Weather Service.

The Region also remains under a tornado watch until 1 a.m. Thursday. The severe thunderstorm warning is in effect until 9:45 p.m.

Lansing, Lynwood, Whiting and Burnham are expected to get hit by 9:20 p.m. East Chicago, Munster and Dyer will be hit by 9:25 p.m.

Severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near Meigs Field to Stickney to Willow Springs. The storms are moving east at 35 miles per hour, with the possibility for 60 mph wind gusts and quarter-size hail.

Hail and wind damage to vehicles is expected. Wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees is also possible.

In all, about 98 million people stretching from southern Minnesota to the East Coast could see stormy weather Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Travelers were impacted by early afternoon with cancelations and delays at both of Chicago's international airports. The Chicago Department of Aviation announced 100 canceled flights at O'Hare and 40 canceled flights at Midway, citing thunderstorms in the area.

Power companies also braced for severe weather.

NIPSCO said it had increased staffing at its customer call center and scheduled extra work crews. The company urged customers to report outages and to stay away from downed power lines, damaged poles and other hazardous situations.

A flash flood watch for Cook County in Illinois and Lake and Porter counties in Indiana began at 10 a.m. and will continue through late tonight.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security cautioned residents to not walk or drive through flooded areas and to take shelter in the event of severe weather.
Union Cabinet approves pact for avoidance of double taxation with Belgium

Published: June 23, 2016

The Union Cabinet has given its approval to the signing of a Protocol amending the Agreement between India and Belgium for avoidance of double taxation.

Decision in this regard was taken in the Union Cabinet meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Key Facts

The amendment in the Protocol will broaden the scope of the existing framework of exchange of tax related information between the two countries.

It also revises the scope of existing treaty provisions on mutual assistance in collection of taxes and further help to curb tax evasion and tax avoidance.

The Protocol will also revise the existing treaty provisions on mutual assistance in collection of taxes.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016

Topics: black money  Cabinet Decisions  Current Affairs 2016  Dtaa  India-Belgium  National  Taxation

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The domestic steel industry won a major victory Wednesday in Washington, D.C., when the federal government decide to hit Chinese steelmakers with tariffs of more than 500 percent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission found cold-rolled steel products from China and Japan, which the United States imported $431.6 million of last year, were unfairly subsidized and sold for less than fair value. As a result, the U.S. Department of Commerce will slap tariffs of as high as 522 percent on cold-rolled steel from China thats used to make cars and appliances.

Record volumes of cheap Chinese steel caused a global import crisis that the United Steelworkers union blames for more than 14,500 steelworker layoffs in the United States. The Asian nation exported an unprecedented 112 million tons of steel last year as demand there slowed, flooding world markets and driving down prices in an industry with high fixed costs.

All six ITC commissioners voted the cheap imports from China and Japan were hurting American steelmakers with mills in Northwest Indiana, Illinois and a dozen other states.

ArcelorMittal, U.S. Steel, Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics and other domestic steelmakers pressed the trade case last year. Theyre also seeking duties on cold-rolled steel from Brazil, India, Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom to protect the $19.9 billion U.S. market.

Imports captured a record 29 percent of the market share last year, leading to the temporary idling of East Chicago Tin and other mills across the country.
A month after the city passed a law decreasing penalties for some low-level crimes, a scathing report criticized police enforcement of those offenses over the years. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.



Police Commissioner William Bratton is a big advocate of cracking down on quality-of-life offenses like drinking and urinating in public. He believes this prevents serious crimes from happening. But in a new report, the Department of Investigation and the NYPD's inspector general say they've found no evidence that approach really works.

"What we can say is, there is not a link between the use of C Summonses and a reduction in felony crime," said Mark Peters, commissioner of the Department of Investigation. "It means we need to think very carefully about how we use this particular tactic."



The study looked at 2.5 million quality-of-life summonses and arrests for low-level offenses from 2010 to 2015. It found the number of summonses and arrests for those offenses decreased significantly, but felony crimes continued to drop as well.

"What we've done is add to the conversation in New York City about quality-of-life enforcement. And we are just asking the police department to study this data, look at our data that we had in our report, but also use this data, study this data going forward in deploying police forces," said NYPD Inspector General Philip Eure.

Bob Gangi of the Police Reform Organizing Project has argued for years that enforcement on low-level offenses doesn't work and strains community relations with police.

"90 to 100 percent of defendants being brought in by the police through the courts are African-American and Latino New Yorkers. These particles are blatantly racist and they are deeply immoral. And now we are being shown they are ineffective in stopping serious crime," Gangi said. "We should stop this practices."

However, the police department fired back at critics, saying they are out of touch. An NYPD statement said, "The Inspector General should have gone back to 1990 when there was a record number of murders, shootings and violent crimes and examined the years before the decline and to present."



"We need to know what works now, so we examined what's working now, not a quarter of a century ago," Peters said.



The NYPD says it will fully review the report and release a more detailed response in the coming months.


Mayor Bill de Blasio, city officials, and advocates spoke out Thursday afternoon following the U.S. Supreme Court vote that blocks President Barack Obama's immigration policies to protect millions of people from deportation.

The court's 4-4 tie ruling Thursday leaves in place a lower court ruling that effectively kills the White House's plans to grant undocumented adults and children permission to stay in the country.

Speaking at City Hall, Mayor de Blasio said the decision "feels like a step away from our values" and mirrored the president's calls to not be deterred in seeking reform.

"Almost a quarter million of our fellow New Yorkers are hurting right now, whose rights and opportunities were taken away by our Supreme Court," de Blasio added.

The mayor thrust himself into the national debate on immigration early on by setting up a municipal ID program that allows unauthorized immigrants to obtain official identification.

He praised Obama's efforts to bring immigration reform, and sharply criticized Republican lawmakers for failing to cooperate.

The mayor said the vote goes against American values.

"I share with them a sense of profound disappointment and in fact, anger, at the decision by the Supreme Court, because with the stroke of a pen, the hopes of millions have been dashed," de Blasio said. "And so many people were just trying to achieve what so many of us have come to expect, and have now seen that taken away from them."

The mayor reassured the immigrant community that it still has access to legal services from resources such as the Deferred Childhood for Action program.

Speaking from the White House, President Obama said while disappointing, the decision is also a consequence of the Senate's refusal to confirm his nominee, Merrick Garland.

"Today's decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system and to allow people to come out of the shadows and lift this perpetual cloud on them," Obama said.

A federal appeals court in Louisiana had previously said that the Obama Administration did not have the authority to carry out the plans.

One measure, known as DACA, would have protected children who entered the country illegally before they were 16 year sold from deportation.

The other, known as DAPA, would have protected adults who had children who are American citizens from being deported.

Both plans would have also granted work permits to those affected.

"We stand with heavy hearts of disappointment," City Councilor Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn said at City Hall.

"I had some calls this morning with people in Sunset Park  some parents that were waiting, who would be eligible for DAPA." Menchaca continued. "They're some of the 220,000 people in this city that could have overnight have been eligible to come out of the shadows and stand proudly as a New Yorker."

President Obama proposed the measures back in 2014.

The president says the Supreme Court's ruling does not affect the deferred-action policy put in place four years ago to help prevent deportations.



The mayor was introduced by Raul Contreras, a press aide who moved to the U.S. from Chile as an infant. He is not a legal resident, but an earlier immigration reform program enacted by President Obama now allows him to work legally.

"People who support a decision like this don't realize that individuals who are undocumented are talented," Contreras said. "Some of them know no other country than America, despite having come from another country. And if we don't allow talent to flourish in our own nation, we are not allowing our nation to flourish as well."

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court justices were able to reach a decision on affirmative action.

They voted in favor of the University of Texas admissions program 4-3.

The school uses race among many factors when considering the last quarter of incoming freshmen.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the plan complied with earlier court rulings allowing colleges to take account of race in pursuit of diversity on campus.

But Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the Constitution outlaws any use of race in higher education admissions.

Thursday's ruling was influenced by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who strongly opposed affirmative action.

The Supreme Court's ruling Thursday raised the stakes of the general election in November, an issue that several speakers mentioned.

Some speakers took aim directly at the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, saying he spews hate when he opens his mouth.

Other speakers encouraged people to come out to vote in the presidential election.



"This decision here today was a death blow against those individuals who are yearning to be free, coming to this country to enjoy the same prosperity that you and I," City Public Advocate Letitia James said.



"But the only way  what we have right now in the palm of our hands  is the power of the vote," James said. "And so I urge everyone to vote, vote, vote like never before."

De Blasio and many city councilors have endorsed Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, for president.
Cooled down and mellow, we moved on to the Tron roller coaster, a superfast ride unique to Shanghai Disney. But as it screeched past overhead inside its blue-and-silver carapace, our son, 13, decided against it  a bit too stomach-turning, he said. Plus, ever practical, the three-hour wait was too long.

So instead we lurched around in Hunny Pot Spin and on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, where the dwarfs heigh-hod in near-identical garb, their jewels glowing in the dark.

In the park, Anna and Elsa from Frozen sang in Chinese and troubadours plucked traditional Chinese instruments  both part of the sinicization asked for by the Shanghai Shendi Group, the state-run consortium that is the 57-percent shareholder in the resort (Robert A. Iger, Disneys chief, says the resort is both authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese).

And I played a game. I would do my own sinicization by matching the dwarfs to seven Chinese men who also dress near-identically, some of whom also are said to be wealthy: the members of the elite standing committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party. After all, Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, Its Off to Work We Go could be the anthem of post-Mao Zedong China, where hard work and ambition have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty.

Xi Jinping, Chinas authoritative president, had to be Doc. Li Keqiang would be Happy, his grinning premier. There was tough competition for Grumpy  Chinese politicians are not known for their approachability. Vice premier Zhang Gaoli, whose public demeanor is low-key, could be Dopey, while any of the others could perhaps be Bashful for the public self-deprecation that is an essential skill here. Sneezy  I gave up.

By this time evening was approaching, and a 6:30 p.m. showing of The Lion King. We retreated to a Starbucks next door in Disneytown for drinks, snacks and rest. The kids were approaching saturation point.
DETROIT  In an era of unprecedented scrutiny of automotive safety, Fiat Chrysler is learning that one celebritys death can turn a seemingly routine recall into a corporate crisis.

The death on Sunday of the actor Anton Yelchin, crushed when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward down his driveway, has lent a new sense of urgency to a recall announced in April. And it has prompted Fiat Chrysler to accelerate its plans to modify gearshifts in 1.1 million vehicles linked to hundreds of rollaway accidents and dozens of injuries.

On Wednesday, Fiat Chrysler said it would begin notifying vehicle owners later this week about scheduling software repairs aimed at preventing accidents caused by the misuse of a confusing gearshift mechanism.

By industry standards, the recall had already been proceeding at what might be considered a standard, if measured pace. But Chrysler, already operating under a federal consent decree for falling short in past recalls, could not risk another accident involving the gearshifts. That is especially so for its Grand Cherokee, the flagship of Fiat Chryslers American lineup.
LOS ANGELES  Hollywood product-placement deals are often wince-worthy. But the reason is usually not because of events beyond a studios control.

This week, 20th Century Fox has found itself in the awkward position of publicly linking arms with the Jeep Grand Cherokee, even as that sport utility vehicle brand received negative attention after the death of the actor Anton Yelchin. Fox and Jeep have an extensive marketing and product-placement deal for Independence Day: Resurgence, which arrives in theaters this week.

Early Sunday morning, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward down a steep driveway in Los Angeles and killed Mr. Yelchin, known for playing Chekov in Paramounts recent Star Trek movies. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but the model owned by Mr. Yelchin had been recalled by Fiat Chrysler for a gearshift issue that has sometimes resulted in dangerous rollaways.

On Monday night, Jeep sponsored a premiere of Independence Day: Resurgence at the TCL Chinese Theater here. A white Grand Cherokee, albeit a newer model than the one owned by Mr. Yelchin, was parked on the red carpet. Stars like Vivica A. Fox were asked to pose in front of it. This is a movie we knew we could have fun with, Scott Brown, a Fiat Chrysler spokesman, said in a promotional interview with USA Today from the event.
Robert Cox, a leading New York advertising executive who helped transform Just Say No into the slogan of Nancy Reagans crusade against illegal drugs, died on Saturday at his home in Sherman, Conn. He was 78.

The cause was complications of a heart attack, his son, Spencer, said.

Mr. Cox, who was an executive at several major ad agencies before starting his own firm, was with the New York office of Needham, Harper & Steers/USA in the early 1980s when it volunteered to collaborate with the industrys charitable Advertising Council to execute a radio, television and print campaign directed at children for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Mr. Cox was Needhams executive vice president and executive creative director.

While Mrs. Reagan had expressed the gist of the war on drugs battle cry before, the derivation of the specific three-word catchphrase is murky.

She often explained that her role in the campaign against drug abuse, particularly cocaine and marijuana, began in 1980, when she visited Daytop Village, a treatment program in New York. Later, she and President Ronald Reagan would repeatedly recall that in 1982, when asked by a student at an elementary school in Oakland, Calif., what to do if someone offered drugs, she replied, Just say no.
Paul Cox, a Dutch-born Australian director who was widely considered a father of Australian art cinema, died on Saturday in Heidelberg, in the Australian state of Victoria. He was 76.

The cause was cancer, his family said.

Mr. Cox, who settled in Australia as a young man in the 1960s, was known internationally for his ruminative, sympathetic, sometimes autobiographical explorations of the lives of marginalized people: the lonely, the aging, the dying.

In 2000, The Sydney Morning Herald called him our most enduring, individualistic, independent filmmaker, adding, He is often referred to as our only true auteur.

Among his best-known films  all three with screenplays written or co-written by Mr. Cox  are Lonely Hearts (1982), which chronicles the tentative romance of two shy people paired by a dating service; Man of Flowers (1983), about an art collectors obsession with a young model; and A Womans Tale (1991), the story of a woman dying of cancer. (Its lead actress, Sheila Florance, herself terminally ill with cancer when she made the film, died a week after winning the best actress award from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts for her performance.)
Just a half-hour before three people were stopped while trying to drive into New York City with what authorities said was a cache of weapons, one of them, an operator of a Pennsylvania gun range, appeared to sketch out his motivation for the trip.

That man, John Cramsey, 50, whose 20-year-old daughter died in February of a drug overdose, posted on Facebook that he was going to rescue a 16-year-old girl who was in trouble.

Im currently 11 miles outside of Brooklyn, New York, and going to a hotel to extract a 16-year-old girl who went up there to party with a few friends, he wrote on the wall of Enough Is Enough, a group he administers to speak out against heroin abuse.

But Mr. Cramsey and the two others, Dean Smith, 53, and Kimberly Arendt, 29, did not make it to Brooklyn. They were stopped by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey at 7:40 a.m. Tuesday. They had a cracked windshield, the police said, and were arrested after the authorities said they found illegal guns and ammunition in the car, as well as a small amount of marijuana.
In the fraught final hours of the legislative session on Friday, the Republicans in the State Senate agreed to give Mayor Bill de Blasio control of the New York City schools for one more year, but in return they demanded two provisions related to charter schools.

One made it easier for the schools to switch between charter-granting organizations. The second gave the charter schools committee of the State University of New Yorks board of trustees  one of the two entities that can currently grant charters  the power to promulgate regulations with respect to governance, structure and operations of the schools it oversees.

The broadness of the language at first left something of a mystery as to what the provision was intended to accomplish and who might have wanted it.

A few days later, the mystery cleared up a bit.

Families for Excellent Schools, a charter school advocacy group that is closely tied to Eva S. Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Academy charter school network, sent an email to the leaders of several charter networks on Tuesday calling the provisions a massive victory. In particular, it said in the email, the SUNY-related bit of legislation meant that SUNY would be able to waive current requirements that limit the number of uncertified teachers that charter schools can employ.
Union Cabinet approves special package for Textile and Apparel sector

Published: June 23, 2016

The Union Cabinet has given its approval for a special package for employment generation and promotion of exports in Textile and Apparel sector.

Decision in this regard was taken by the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

Key Facts

The package includes a slew of measures which are labour friendly and would promote economies of scale and boost exports and also employment generation.

It will lead to a cumulative increase of US 30 billion dollars in exports and investment of 74,000 crores Rupees over next 3 years.

The package will also play important role in generation of one crore jobs in the textile and apparel industry over next 3 years.

The majority of new jobs are likely to go to women since the garment industry employs nearly 70% women workforce.

Thus, this package will play an important role in the social transformation through women empowerment.

Salient features of the package

Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme Reforms: Union Government will bear entire 12% EPF Scheme contribution of the new employees for first 3 years. Provided they should earn less than 15,000 rupees per month.

Union Government will bear entire 12% EPF Scheme contribution of the new employees for first 3 years. Provided they should earn less than 15,000 rupees per month. In case employees earning less than Rs. 15,000 per month, EPF will be made optional.

Union Ministry of Textiles will provide additional 3.67% of the employers contribution to EPF that will amount to Rs. 1,170 crores over next 3 years.

Increasing overtime caps: In line with ILO (International Labour Organisation) norms, overtime hours for workers will not exceed 8 hours per week. It will increase earnings ofthe workers.

In line with ILO (International Labour Organisation) norms, overtime hours for workers will not exceed 8 hours per week. It will increase earnings ofthe workers. Introduction of fixed term employment: Fixed term employment will be introduced as the garment sector is seasonal in nature.

Fixed term employment will be introduced as the garment sector is seasonal in nature. A fixed term workman will be considered in par with permanent workman in terms of wages, working hours, allowanced and other statutory dues.

Additional incentives under ATUFS (Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS): It will increase subsidy under Amended-TUFS from 15% to 25% for the garment sector as a boost to employment generation. The subsidy will be disbursed only after the expected jobs are created.

It will increase subsidy under Amended-TUFS from 15% to 25% for the garment sector as a boost to employment generation. The subsidy will be disbursed only after the expected jobs are created. Enhanced duty drawback coverage: Under this scheme, refund of the state levies which were not refunded so far will be undertaken. This move will greatly help to boost the competitiveness of Indian exports in foreign markets.

refund of the state levies which were not refunded so far will be undertaken. This move will greatly help to boost the competitiveness of Indian exports in foreign markets. Enhancing scope of Section 80JJAA of Income Tax Act: The provision of 240 days under Section 80JJAA of IT Act would be relaxed to 150 days for garment industry owing the seasonal nature of industry.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016

Topics: Apparel sector  Business  Cabinet Decisions  Economyy  Government Schemes  National  Textile Sector

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In the debate over beards in business settings, the New York Police Department officially stands opposed, with limited exceptions for officers seeking a medical or religious accommodation.

The departments no-beard policy, as it is known, is at the center of a federal class-action lawsuit filed on Wednesday on behalf of a Muslim police officer who says he was suspended during the fasting month of Ramadan for refusing to shave his one-inch beard. The lawsuit, brought by Masood Syed, 32, aims to force the Police Department to change a policy that his lawyers say infringes on the rights of more than 100 officers seeking to exercise their religious freedoms without fear of discrimination or retaliation.

Officer Syed, a 10-year veteran assigned to the office that handles disciplinary proceedings against officers, was suspended without pay on Tuesday. At an emergency hearing on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered the department to continue paying Officer Syed until his next court date on July 8, when the court will decide whether he can return to work.

Its frustrating because its a city thats supposed to represent us, Luna Droubi, a lawyer for Officer Syed, said. This is New York City. Yet here they are telling people of different faiths that they cant protect and serve, that they cant be officers of the law because theyre different.
LIKE many Americans, I am still haunted by images from the last days of the United States withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. Newscasts showed South Vietnamese desperately trying to scale the walls of our embassy in Saigon to board the last helicopter flights out of the country. The fear in their eyes was chilling. Many of these Vietnamese had assisted the American mission. As the North Vietnamese advanced on the city, these people knew that they faced a harsh fate if they were left behind.

For the last three years, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and I have been trying to prevent history from repeating itself, this time in Afghanistan.

Since the American-led invasion in 2001, our service members and diplomats have relied on thousands of Afghans, particularly as interpreters. These are brave men and women who put themselves and their families at risk to help American officials and troops accomplish their missions and return home safely. Implicit in their willingness to help the United States is an agreement that theyll be protected.

The State Departments Special Immigrant Visa program allows these Afghans to seek refuge in the United States. These visas are reserved for men and women who undergo rigorous screening and can demonstrate at least two years of faithful and valuable service to the United States.
Croatias future was plunged into uncertainty on Monday when its Parliament overwhelmingly voted to dissolve itself, effectively ending a right-leaning coalition government that had been in power for barely six months. The vote followed Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovics failure last Thursday to survive a no-confidence vote. New parliamentary elections are scheduled for September.

Mr. Oreskovic, a Canadian Croatian businessman with no political experience, had been tapped by the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union (H.D.Z.) to lead the coalition government it formed with the populist party Most. Mr. Oreskovic promised to tackle corruption and push through economic reforms. But he clashed with Tomislav Karamarko, the deputy prime minister and leader of H.D.Z., over conflict-of-interest charges involving lobbying fees received by Mr. Karamarkos wife. That clash led to the no-confidence vote that took down the entire government.

Mr. Oreskovic has had other troubles. He stood by as Croatias minister of culture, Zlatko Hasanbegovic, an apologist for the Nazi-backed Ustashe regime that ruled Croatia during World War II, embarked on a campaign to purge Croatias media of journalists suspected of left-wing sympathies. Last month journalists and editors marched in protest to the Ministry of Culture in Zagreb.

Croatia can ill afford this political chaos. Its economy remains weak, unemployment is around 17 percent, and the countrys debt is equal to nearly 90 percent of its G.D.P. Croatia became a member of the European Union just three years ago, with high hopes membership would boost its economy and reduce unemployment. But those hopes havent been fulfilled. Croatias crisis further adds to the E.U.s stresses, which include dealing with defiant authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary.
I am so excited to tell you that were returning to the question of whether or not Hillary Clinton threw a vase at her husband in the White House.

Really, this one hasnt come up for about 20 years. But Gary Byrne says he saw the pieces! In a box! Byrne is a former Secret Service officer who has written a tell-all book, Crisis of Character, about the (horrible/embarrassing/appalling) things he purportedly witnessed during the Bill Clinton presidency.

Its coming out next week to whats supposed to be a big rollout in the conservative media. Donald Trump has been twittering about it, and he quoted from it in his speech on Wednesday. (That was the speech in which the new, measured Trump said Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency, whose decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.)

Byrne was a low-ranking officer who could never have gotten near enough to the Clintons to see all the things he says he knew firsthand. His juiciest anecdotes are just a rehash of old rumors. One must question the veracity and content of any book which implies that its author played such an integral part of so many (claimed) incidents, said the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service, which issued a denunciation.
Three years have passed since a Federal District Court ruled that New York Citys stop-and-frisk program violated constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure and discriminated against minority citizens, who were disproportionately and unjustifiably singled out for stops. A court-ordered reform process  overseen by an independent monitor  is off to a promising start. But some of the thorniest and most contentious issues lie ahead.

Under the Fourth Amendment, police officers can legally stop and detain people only when they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is committing, has committed or is about to commit a crime. In New York, however, it became common for police officers to stop mainly minority citizens, with no basis for suspicion, and then make up a reason.

In 2011, at the height of the program, the police stopped people on the streets an astonishing 685,000 times  up from just 97,000 a decade earlier. In practical terms, this meant that individuals in heavily policed neighborhoods could be stopped on the street without cause multiple times within a given year.

Plaintiffs in the case of Floyd v. City of New York, filed in 2008, alleged that the New York City police were stopping people on the basis of race, without justification. A statistical study of nearly 4.5 million stops produced at trial showed that only 6 percent of stops resulted in arrests and 6 percent resulted in summonses  which meant that 88 percent of the people stopped had been doing nothing wrong.
The essence of the diplomats case, made in an internal memo, is that no peace deal is possible if the Assad regime is not confronted with the threat of military force. They were careful to advocate only the use of weapons like cruise missiles that would keep Americans out of the range of Syrian retaliation. They also rejected the idea of a large-scale American invasion.

But what if the limited airstrikes did not work? And however calibrated the operation, would it not inevitably draw America into another Middle East morass and, quite possibly, a military confrontation with Russia? Moscow is playing a double game in Syria by giving lip service to diplomatic efforts while conducting airstrikes that have allowed Mr. Assad to regain the upper hand on the battlefield.

A no-fly zone that could offer a safe haven for civilians from Syrian and Russian air power could also be problematical. Research by Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations shows that airstrikes are responsible for only a portion of the deaths; most are caused by shootings, mortar, artillery and rocket attacks. A truly protective no-fly zone would have to be quite large and extend to areas where there would be considerable risk of confrontation between American planes and Russian and Syrian planes.

There is also the matter of the legal basis for an American intervention. Mr. Obama has no United Nations Security Council resolution or authorization from Congress to justify military action against the Assad government. Some lawyers, like Harold Koh of Yale University, a former State Department legal counsel, suggest there is a case to be made for humanitarian intervention, but administration officials say they dont see a basis for that in international law.

Russia remains of critical importance to any peace effort. Moscows support, as well as Irans, has allowed Mr. Assad to dig in his heels and resist compromise. Some administration officials still hope they can persuade President Vladimir Putin that he has much to lose by continuing to support Mr. Assad, not least by further alienating Sunni Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and forcing Moscow to commit more troops and weapons into defending Mr. Assad. A complete collapse of the cease-fire, followed by increased support by the Saudis and others for their proxies on the ground, would risk even greater bloodshed.
An obvious item on such a list is the effort to undercut the financial viability of public employee unions by conferring on anti-union employees a First Amendment right not to contribute to the expenses of collective bargaining. Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the case created and placed on a fast track to the Supreme Court to accomplish this result, was not quite fast enough. Following the Jan. 11 argument, the justices voted 5 to 4 on the side of the anti-union forces, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. assigned the majority opinion to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice Scalias death just over a month later left the case a 4-to-4 tie, automatically affirming the lower courts pro-union ruling without an opinion or precedential weight. It also left Justice Alito visibly bereft as the only living justice without an opinion from the courts January argument sitting.

Also on the list of projects that died with Justice Scalia, I predict, will be the majoritys ham-handed effort to slam President Obama with failing in his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. You may recall that this was the issue the court gratuitously added to United States v. Texas, the case on the validity of the administrations executive action deferring deportation of unauthorized immigrants who are parents of children who are United States citizens or legal residents. I have little doubt that Justice Scalia was behind the addition of the Take Care Clause question when the court granted the case on Jan. 19. By the time the case was argued in April, no member of the court evinced interest in pursuing the question.

Beginning well before Justice Scalias death, I have been following the emergence of another project from the courts right flank. Still largely under the radar, it figured in one of Mondays opinions. This is the effort to rein in the broad leeway that the court has given to executive branch agencies to interpret the statutes that define their authority. For a generation, the court has adhered to a doctrine known as Chevron deference, after a 1984 decision, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The Chevron doctrine has two parts. First, if the statute is clear, the agency has to follow it. But second, if the statute is ambiguous or leaves a regulatory gap  as most statutes do  courts are to defer to the agencys reasonable interpretation of its own authority. The Chevron decision is one of the most frequently cited Supreme Court cases of all time, a foundation of modern administrative law.

Justice Scalia, whose specialty was administrative law when he was a law professor, was for many years a leading cheerleader for Chevron deference. In recent years, he  along with other conservatives on and off the court  pulled back. I wouldnt be the only one to point out that judicial deference to the executive branch under the Reagan administration, when Chevron was decided in 1984, might have been somehow more appealing than deference to agencies headed by Obama administration appointees.

Consider the contrasting dynamic of the two eras. During the Reagan years, the executive branch was dedicated to limiting the reach of the expansive environmental, civil rights and labor laws that a Democratic Congress had enacted during the previous decade. These days, its a Democratic administration trying to free itself from Republican-imposed legislative gridlock. Without calling anyone a hypocrite, Ill just point out that the phrase administrative state has probably not been deployed so often as an epithet since the days of resistance to the New Deal.
MOST Westerners facing criminal charges in Cambodia would be thanking their lucky stars at finding themselves safe in another country. But Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who is half British and half Spanish, is pleading with the Phnom Penh government to allow him back to stand trial along with three Cambodian colleagues. Theyve been charged, essentially, with interfering with the harvesting of one of the 21st centurys most valuable resources: sand.

Believe it or not, we use more of this natural resource than any other except water and air. Sand is the thing modern cities are made of. Pretty much every apartment block, office tower and shopping mall from Beijing to Lagos, Nigeria, is made at least partly with concrete, which is basically just sand and gravel stuck together with cement. Every yard of asphalt road that connects all those buildings is also made with sand. So is every window in every one of those buildings.

Sand is the essential ingredient that makes modern life possible. And we are starting to run out.

Thats mainly because the number and size of cities is exploding, especially in the developing world. Every year there are more people on the planet, and every year more of them move to cities. Since 1950, the worlds urban population has ballooned to over 3.9 billion from 746 million.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, in 2012 alone the world used enough concrete to build a wall 89 feet high and 89 feet wide around the Equator. From 2011 to 2013, China used more cement than the United States used in the entire 20th century.
INTERNATIONAL

An article on May 24 about Asian nations skepticism about how much they can rely on Washingtons commitment and staying power in Asia, despite President Obamas pivot there, misspelled, in some editions, the name of the Vietnamese deepwater port that the United States hopes to gain access to. It is Cam Ranh Bay, not Cam Rahn or Camh Rahn.

BUSINESS DAY

An article on the DealBook page on June 1 about the growing phenomenon of virtual shareholders meetings erroneously attributed a distinction to Intel. While it was the first company to permit online voting at a shareholders meeting, in 2009, it was not the first to hold a virtual meeting.



An article on Wednesday about the abrupt departure of Nikesh Arora, who was in line to be chief executive of the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, referred incorrectly in some editions to the Chinese company Alibabas main line of business. It is e-commerce, not search.

OBITUARIES

An obituary on Friday about the former Federal Bureau of Investigation official Kenneth Walton referred incorrectly to his departure from the F.B.I. in 1989. He retired; he did not resign.
Beyond the quaint center of Lenox, Mass., past Gilded Age Berkshire cottages and down a winding, tree-lined path, a bright white stucco and glass building stands out against the pines: the Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio. Built 75 years ago, the Bauhaus structure was home to George L.K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen, an artist couple often referred to as Park Avenue Cubists. Morris and Frelinghuysen met in 1933 during intermission at the Metropolitan Opera, when Morris hummed arias and challenged Frelinghuysen  who would go on to join the New York City Opera as dramatic soprano in 1947  to name the tunes. (She guessed each correctly.) In 1935 they married, and in 1941 moved into their Modernist home on a 46-acre Lenox estate, filling each room with works by Picasso, Leger, Braque and Gris, and their own abstract frescoes and paintings.

Open to the public since 1998, the Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio is a window into the artists lives: their books, clothes, midcentury modern furniture and even their liquor bottles and Frelinghuysens hair dryer. A house tour takes guests through a living room with an Argentine leather-upholstered floor and a zebra-print sofa, and down hallways where paintings by Modernist masters hang as casually as if they were family photos. And this summer, visitors can view never-before-seen 16-mm color films taken by Morris and Frelinghuysen during their travels to Latin America and Switzerland between 1936 and 1938. Restored after the House & Studio received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, the films are the last of the couples archive to be digitized, and the first in color. (Past black-and-white films have shown Morriss travels with his brother to India, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Bali, Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines.)

In the Latin American films, viewers follow Morris as he turns his camera toward the Guna people on the San Blas Islands off Panama, the Teatro Nacional in Costa Rica, the towering San Christobal Cathedral in Havana  and on Frelinghuysen, sitting among palm trees dressed in a smart khaki skirt, blazer and bucket hat. In Switzerland, we watch as Frelinghuysen hops in a convertible with Morriss younger brother Steve and their friend Natalie Merrill, all wearing driving goggles and masks. The Russian avant-garde artist Esphyr Slobotkina joins them in one shot; and in another, they shimmy and laugh their way out of an ice tunnel.
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WASHINGTON  A day after he was convicted by a federal jury on bribery, money laundering, racketeering, fraud and other charges, Representative Chaka Fattah, Democrat of Pennsylvania, announced his resignation from Congress  but not until Oct. 3, just before his sentencing.

Mr. Fattah, who was found guilty of charges related to the misuse of campaign funds, faces a lengthy prison sentence, with some of the charges carrying potential sentences as high as to 20 years to life.

Mr. Fattahs intention to remain in office despite his convictions drew swift outrage from the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who called for Mr. Fattahs immediate departure.

Mr. Fattah has betrayed the trust of this institution and the people of Pennsylvania, and for that, he should resign immediately from the House of Representatives, Mr. Ryan said in a statement. We must hold members to the highest ethical standard, and I hope that Democratic leaders will join me in seeking his immediate resignation.
PHOENIX  Firefighters across Arizona and New Mexico battled 31 wildfires on Wednesday, their efforts complicated by a relentless heat wave and bone-dry conditions. And in the Angeles National Forest, on the northern edge of Los Angeles, two fires kept more than 300 families from their homes as the fires threatened to merge into one.

Other fires ignited in Colorado and Utah, threatening homes, closing roads and stoking the zero-sum competition for finite resources  firefighters and the airplanes and helicopters that dump chemicals and water.

Decisions about which areas will receive firefighting resources are revisited each morning, as team leaders assess how much ground the fires have gained, who or what is endangered, and how firefighters will transport tools, water and fuel for their chain saws.

It is like piecing together an ever-changing puzzle, deciding where resources go, stay and will move in the next few hours, said Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the mother ship of wildfire management in the country.
UNITED NATIONS  If youre the secretary general of the United Nations, you sometimes have awkward meetings.

The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had one of those sessions on Wednesday. Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia, came with an eight-member delegation to discuss, among other things, Mr. Bans decision to cite the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen for violating the rights of children during the conflict there.



Worse, the prince arrived 45 minutes late, delaying Mr. Bans schedule for the rest of the day.

Mr. Ban had initially included the coalition on an ignoble list of armies accused of killing and maiming children in 2015, only to take it off a few days later, saying bluntly that he had been threatened with the loss of funding to humanitarian programs.

The list was included in a report, Children and Armed Conflict. Whether the coalition, which has been repeatedly accused by human rights organizations of indiscriminately bombing nonmilitary targets in Yemen, might be restored to the list remains a matter of debate. The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah bin Yahya Almouallimi, insisted that the decision to remove it from the list was irreversible. On Wednesday, it was left to Mr. Ban to manage the ungainly diplomatic moment with an oblique statement that urged Saudi officials to improve the situation on the ground.
UNITED NATIONS  John W. Ashe, a former senior United Nations diplomat who was accused in a major corruption scheme last year, has died, his lawyer said Wednesday evening.

Mr. Ashe, 61, was a veteran diplomat from Antigua. He was elected president of the General Assembly and served from September 2013 until the next September. In that time, United States prosecutors said, he was part of a bribery scheme that involved more than $1 million in payments from sources in China for assistance in real estate deals and other business interests.

He died at home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., on Wednesday afternoon, according to his lawyer, Jeremy Schneider. United Nations officials said the cause of death was a heart attack.

Mr. Ashe was accused of accepting payments from a real estate developer from Macau, Ng Lap Seng, to splurge on luxuries: hand-tailored suits, Rolex watches and a $40,000 lease on a new BMW X5. In one instance, federal prosecutors said in their criminal complaint, $200,000 was wired to Mr. Ashes private account. In return, he took a trip in his official capacity to discuss a conference center that Mr. Ng wanted to develop. The charges remained pending.
African masks had an enormous influence on the development of Modern art, as luminaries like Picasso, Matisse and Giacometti appropriated and interpreted their startling forms and materials. But what about modern artists of African descent? Do they have a distinct relationship of their own to that history? Thats a question raised, if not definitively answered, by Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, an intermittently edifying and generally entertaining exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

The show features pieces by 25 African artists and artists of African descent, whose works all relate in some way to masks and masquerade while involving neon lights, video projections, found objects, photography or other typical devices of the global avant-garde. Distributed among these new works is a selection of traditional African masks drawn from the esteemed collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.
Racial stereotyping has, of course, a long history and artists have tried all kinds of ways to deal with it. A decade or so ago, the intriguing Chicago-based photographer and filmmaker Barbara DeGenevieve (1947-2014) hired five homeless men, all African-American, to pose nude for her in a hotel room. When she exhibited the results as The Panhandler Project, she took serious critical heat, with many viewers calling the work exploitive. Some will still find it so, though as the mechanics of American economic privilege grow starker, her attempt to confuse roles usually dictated by ethnicity, class and gender looks more and more useful.

Ms. Cotton includes only a single photograph from Ms. DeGenevieves project, and its hard to get much from that. But another meditation on race, and specifically on blackness, Martine Symss video installation Lessons I-LXVIII, is the shows most substantial piece in terms of length. Its composed in 10-minute units, each made up of randomly sorted 30-second clips related to African-American life, lifted from online videos and visual blogs, including home movies, video diaries, police webcams and advertisements. Many of the fragments are hard to grasp on their own, but together they turn the black presence, still marginalized in mainstream American art and culture, into something substantial, integral and self-sustaining, a whole and sufficient cloth.

Ms. Symss ambitious work, dated 2014-16, brings us again into the digital realm, which can be uneven ground to visit. A set of flat screens streaming real-time data from Twitter and other social media sources keeps the show in the 24/7 now, where it should be. And the information, organized by Mark Ghuneim, an internet entrepreneur, and students from the centers New Media Narratives program and sometimes presented in the form of online addresses, gives a good sense of the pervasive influence of digital technology on daily life, whether in police surveillance or assignment of pop star status. At the same time, the piece offers few visual rewards, and demands smartphone finger work to access its information.

And if Ms. Bookchins conglomerate snapshot of a video diary culture hints at a condition of passive narcissism as the dominant malady of life inside the digital bubble, Jon Rafmans short, composite 2014 video Mainsqueeze is infinitely more damning. Its seven-minute sequence of found Google Street View images drops you into a deep pit of physical and psychological cruelty, and cracks the door on a dark side of the social media age that this exhibition otherwise barely hints at. No wonder 21st-century karma is in such horrendous shape.

The visual content of this piece is a far cry from the museum quality images usually associated with the center as a collecting institution. And the exhibition itself, with its mirrored walls and jumble of unalike works, has a looseness that most museums, intent on writing clear narratives, would clean up. At this point, though, visual culture  digital production, including photography  is so abundant and changing so fast that no clear narrative is possible. Photography fans hoping that the return of the center will mean a return of its vintage collection may have to wait awhile. This institution, so often ahead of the curve, has other, challenging ideas on its mind, and the less it acts like a museum the better.
The Museum of the City of New York could not have predicted how timely it would be to mount an exhibition exploring how creativity became both an outlet and a refuge for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists in New York.

Now, after the shootings in Orlando, Fla., the show, Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York, which opens this fall, seems prescient in that it celebrates the creativity and the richness of the L.G.B.T. community, said Whitney W. Donhauser, the museums director.

The show looks at queer networks that grew in the city around 10 artistic figures: the composer Leonard Bernstein; the photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and George Platt Lynes; the visual artists Andy Warhol, Richard Bruce Nugent, Harmony Hammond and Greer Lankton; the playwright, poet and novelist Mercedes de Acosta; the impresario Lincoln Kirstein; and the dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones.

Marginalized people  in the 20s through the early 90s, especially  formed these communities of like-minded individuals that sustained their lives personally and advanced their careers professionally, said Donald Albrecht, the museums curator of architecture and design, who worked on the show. Out of that oppression and marginalization came a lot of creativity.
WEIL AM RHEIN, Germany  Thousands of objects in the collection of the Vitra Design Museum, including prototypes of 20th-century classics by Charles and Ray Eames and Alvar Aalto, have long been hidden from public view, sealed away in storage for most of the time. But that has changed with this months opening of the Schaudepot, a new archive and exhibition space designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

Herzog & de Meuron has buried the Schaudepots storage spaces underground. Perched on top is a 7,000-square-foot gallery with a conventional pitched roof. As visitors approach it, they can see the museum staff at work through the windows of the offices, library and conservation laboratory.

As well as opening up the collection to the public, we want to make design research visible by exposing the workings of the museum, said Mateo Kries, co-director of the Vitra Design Museum.

The Schaudepot is the latest addition to the industrial and cultural campus built by Vitra, the Swiss furniture company, in this German town just north of Basel, Switzerland.
Franco Pagetti is one of the most seasoned, accomplished war photographers of his generation, so he was a bit skeptical when Dolce & Gabbana, the Italian luxury fashion brand, asked him to shoot the companys fall advertising campaign on the streets of Naples. Why me? he asked. The brand wanted a gritty reportage, something that would evoke the neorealist cinematic legacy of Naples immortalized by directors like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio de Sica. And there seemed to be something in Mr. Pagettis direct, unsentimental images that fit the bill.

For Mr. Pagetti, 66, a member of the photo agency VII, the job was an unexpected return to form. Mr. Pagetti cut his teeth as a photographer shooting for Italian Vogue in the 1980s. He has always pursued softer themes in his spare time; he is now at work on a photo project retracing Goethes Italian Journey from the perspective of a native Italian  one, he says, who is not so smart.

But Mr. Pagetti has spent most of the past two decades darting from one bloody conflict to the next. He was imprisoned in Afghanistan and has been shot at routinely, particularly in Iraq, where he was based on and off for six years. In the following edited interview, Mr. Pagetti explains what photographing war and fashion have in common, and the aesthetic and ethical rules that guide him while taking pictures under fire.

Q. How did you first discover photography?

A. By chance. I was teaching chemistry in Milan, and one day I met a lady, Carla de Benedetti, who happened to be one of the best architectural photographers in the world. We met occasionally in a bookshop. She told me, I need an assistant. I said, Ive never taken a single picture in my life. She told me, Dont worry, I know how to take the pictures. You just have to be yourself  she saw that I always was very grumpy  and keep people out of the shot. Well, that I could do very well. So I spent two years with her and she taught me about light and how to use a camera. Then she kicked me out. What I have to teach you, she said, you already know. So I started working as an assistant on fashion shoots in Milan, in Paris, in New York. And then I began shooting fashion myself .
LONDON  In the summer of 1968, fresh from a year of touring and recording, Jimi Hendrix rented a small apartment in London with his British girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, and decorated it himself in a style that might be described today as hippie chic.

Hendrix pinned shawls to a wall, piled rugs on the floor and decked the mantel with ostrich feathers. The couple spent lazy afternoons in the apartment, at 23 Brook Street in Mayfair, playing board games, listening to records and watching episodes of the television saga Coronation Street.

The apartment was next door to the former home of a German-born composer as famous in his day as Hendrix was in the late 1960s: Georg Frideric Handel. Handel lived in the Georgian house at 25 Brook Street for 36 years, from 1723 until his death, and since 2001, it has operated as a museum. The trust behind the museum also holds the lease on the upper floors of No. 23, and in February, Hendrixs apartment, recreated with period artifacts and reproductions, opened to the public in an unlikely coupling of the Baroque and the psychedelic.

Ms. Etchingham, now 70, acted as a consultant on the project, which cost about 2.4 million pounds, or about $3.5 million. The museum  now called Handel & Hendrix in London  expects to welcome about 50,000 visitors in its first year, up from 20,000 annually when it was just Handels house.
Ranked among the best nationally, the State Technical College of Missouri serves a unique role as one of the leading two-year technical colleges in Missouri and the Midwest region. State Tech has built a reputation as a highly specialized, student friendly college with an exceptional reputation with business and industry. State Tech stands alone as Missouri's first and only public higher education institution with a statewide mission devoted solely to technical education at the Associate of Applied Science Degree level. Visit www.statetechmo.edu to learn more.
To help explain why the British voted to leave the European Union, look to Switzerland.

The famously neutral Swiss rejected membership in the European Economic Area, a potential steppingstone to the European Union, in a 1992 referendum, but Switzerland didnt formally withdraw its dormant application until last week, when the Swiss Parliament  caught up in a burst of nationalism fueled in part by Britains vote on Thursday on whether to leave the European Union  decided overwhelmingly to terminate it.

Only a few lunatics still want to join the European Union, said the Swiss lawmaker Thomas Minder, a staunch proponent of Swissism, after last weeks action.

That may be an overstatement, but its easy to see why the Swiss would feel vindicated. With a per capita gross domestic product of $80,675 in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund, Switzerland ranks second in the world (after Luxembourg), far ahead of Britain ($43,771) and the United States ($55,805.)

Switzerlands unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in May, lower than that of Britain or the United States, which have both been hovering around 5 percent this year.
MOSCOW  For sale in Russia this summer: one repossessed asset, well loved and maintained. Seller is motivated. Everything must go.

In this fire sale, the asset is Bashneft, the oil company once owned by Vladimir P. Yevtushenkov, who was prosecuted and put under house arrest. And the seller is the Russian state, in desperate need of cash.

At the right price, investors will bite. But the sale, and dozens of others taking place around the country, will reinforce Russias reputation in the global markets for uncertainty.

Early in his tenure, President Vladimir V. Putin pursued a policy of controlling the so-called commanding heights of the economy with a nationalization push that elbowed Russian and foreign owners out of strategic industries. Now, he is inviting investors back, as Russia faces the economic fallout from a second year of Western sanctions and low commodity prices.
The Securities and Exchange Commission will examine the brokerage industry for potential violations in the way companies handle customer cash after the regulator reached a $415 million settlement with Bank of America. The S.E.C. found the banks Merrill Lynch to have misused billions of dollars of client money to finance its own trades.

The settlement, announced on Thursday along with an unrelated $10 million disclosure violation, is the second-largest against a Wall Street company after Goldman Sachs paid $550 million in 2010 over the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the financial crisis. Unlike Goldman Sachs, however, Merrill Lynch admitted to the violations announced on Thursday.

The S.E.C. said Merrill Lynch misused as much as $5 billion in customer cash weekly from 2009 to 2012, making complex options trades that generated $50 million in profits for the company over that period. In the process, the bank failed to safeguard customer assets that could have been jeopardized in the event the company failed.

That is not a minor concern. The activity in question, which began before Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in January 2009, coincides with the height of the financial crisis. Merrill Lynchs merger with Bank of America came as the bank faced steep losses; Bank of America would eventually receive $45 billion in government bailout money.
Christian Dior has finally found its designer.

In a move that will break up one of the most feted design teams in fashion, Maria Grazia Chiuri of Valentino is expected to be named artistic director of Dior, becoming the first woman to lead the brand in its 70-year history.

The move, which is expected to be announced next month, has the potential to disrupt the luxury fashion landscape as Ms. Chiuri, now co-creative director at Valentino, parts ways with her longtime collaborator, Pierpaolo Piccioli.

The news, reported earlier by Reuters, broke just a day after the Valentino mens wear show in Paris and hours after Ms. Chiuri hosted a dinner in the city at Caviar Kaspia, on Place de la Madeleine, with Mr. Piccioli in celebration of the collection.

Both Dior and Valentino declined to comment, but a person briefed on the negotiations confirmed the appointment.
Imagine a world in which every home and building is a miniature power plant, with solar panels on the roofs and electric vehicles and stationary battery banks in the garages.

Meters and software would manage the flow of power, allowing homeowners and businesses to seamlessly buy and sell electricity at the best prices, simultaneously lowering their costs and raising the amount of green energy on the grid.

Thats the long-term vision behind the plan that Elon Musk described late Tuesday, explaining the rationale for Tesla to acquire SolarCity and create the worlds only vertically integrated energy company.And it may very well become reality, whether in years or decades, and whether Mr. Musks version of the vision is one that proves viable.

Still, if Mr. Musk and his cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, can trounce the competition and surmount their financial woes  and those are very big ifs  the integrated company they are trying to assemble could be in a position to dominate.
Macys longtime chief executive, Terry J. Lundgren, will step down next year, the company announced on Thursday, as the retailer grapples with sagging sales and broader changes in the ways people shop.

Jeff Gennette, 55, who is the companys president, will take the top spot, while Mr. Lundgren will stay as executive chairman.

I have been honored to lead this enterprise through a period of unprecedented reinvention, Mr. Lundgren said in a statement. While our company is larger, stronger and more resourceful than we were 13 years ago, now is the time to reset our business model to thrive in a future that is being driven by rapid evolution in consumer preferences and shopping habits.

The company said the leadership transition was part of its boards succession plan. But the moves come in the face of widespread turmoil at the nations department stores, including Macys, which have struggled to recover from the recession as quickly as the rest of the retail industry. Shoppers are spending more, but they are also hunting for bargains, online and at so-called off-price stores known foremost for their discounts.
PARIS  The rain began around 8 p.m., as crowds massed in a furious bottleneck at the entrance to the Palais Galliera for Haider Ackermanns show. The attendees were not pleased. The sky was a moody, Haider Ackermann gray, dense and melancholic, which might have suited Mr. Ackermann, the dense and melancholic Colombian-born designer, were it not the evening of his mens show, held in the courtyard of the Paris fashion museum.

Guests were beckoned inside in twos and threes, to huddle behind the balustrades of the covered arcade, sipping chilled white wine and looking doubtfully at their tarp-coveted seats in the open air. From the backstage entrance, Mr. Ackermann peered through his round glasses, no less perturbed.

By 20 minutes after the hour, the drizzle had tapered off and the show could begin. The models slouched their circular course in a parrot-feather palette of pink, purple, orange and green  some in low-slung, droopy trousers; some in higher, tighter pants, their blotchily patterned shirts and scarves hanging loosely about them. The few female models interspersed among them wore mostly black. For Mr. Ackermann, the male wears the radiant plumage.
PARIS  Words from a decades-old Motown antiwar song are not the most obvious reference for a show of mens wear from the couture house Valentino. But the lyrics of Edwin Starrs War, released in 1970 and considered one of the most popular protest songs ever recorded  its been covered by artists as disparate as Bruce Springsteen and Boys II Men  nagged one observer as models paraded through the gilded chambers of the Hotel Salomon de Rothschild on a stuffy Wednesday afternoon in Paris.

War, huh, yeah, what is it good for? ask the lyrics of the Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong song, which, sung by Mr. Starr as a form of grunting, wailing exhortation, went to the top of the Billboard charts. The answer follows: Absolutely nothing. Say it again!

Yet, as we all know, that is anything but the case. Plenty of people benefit from war except, inevitably, the cannon fodder. War has been exceptionally useful to fashion. Without it, we might never have seen a wool-cashmere Valentino field jacket in camo, a military concealment pattern that Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli have made a staple at the house. Here, the designers fused a familiar camouflage pattern with an altogether different motif: an embroidered silk panther couture dress designed by Valentino Garavani at the height of the Vietnam War, which, as a reference, is probably as obscure to most contemporary readers as Edwin Starr is.
Free State of Jones begins on the battlefield, with a flurry of the kind of immersive combat action that has long been a staple of American movies. The setting is familiar in other ways, too. As a line of Confederate troops marches across a field into Union rifle and artillery fire, a haze of myth starts to gather over the action, a mist of sentiment about the tragedy of the Civil War and the symmetrical valor of the soldiers on both sides of it. But this is a sly piece of misdirection: The rest of the movie will be devoted to blowing that fog away, using the tools of Hollywood spectacle to restore a measure of clarity to our understanding of the war and its aftermath.

Directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) with blunt authority and unusual respect for historical truth, Free State of Jones explores a neglected and fascinating chapter in American history. Mr. Ross consulted some of the leading experts in the era  including Eric Foner of Columbia University, whose Reconstruction is the definitive study, and Martha Hodes of New York University, author of a prizewinning study of interracial sexuality in the 19th-century South  and has done a good job of balancing the factual record with the demands of dramatic storytelling. The result is a riveting visual history lesson, whose occasional didacticism is integral to its power.
Sharon Shattucks gently winning documentary From This Day Forward, an account of having a transgender parent, is effective for what it is not: a flashy portrait or big-city story. Rather, it depicts the marriage of Ms. Shattucks mother, Marcia, and Michael, now Trisha, who raised Ms. Shattuck and her younger sister, Laura, largely in small-town Michigan. (Sharon Shattuck has contributed to The Timess Op-Docs forum.)

Marcia, a physician, was the primary breadwinner when Ms. Shattuck was young, and Michael was a stay-at-home father. On an early date, Michael told Marcia about his penchant for cross-dressing. Trisha explains how Marcia probably hoped the practice would stay in the bedroom. (They wed in 1981.) When Ms. Shattuck was around 8, she found a snapshot of her father in drag; explanations ensued. Michael eventually pursued a transition, with electrolysis, rhinoplasty and tracheal shave (reducing the Adams apple), and still takes hormones. At Marcias insistence, he stopped short of gender-reassignment surgery.

Today, Trisha alternates between mens and womens clothing. A soft-spoken landscape architect, she plays guitar and banjo and paints semiabstract canvases with titles like Split Personality and Joyous Woman Into Being. She and Marcia take walks and are physically intimate.

At home, Trisha is often the center of attention. A mealtime conversation about Ms. Shattucks wedding plans includes a discussion about what Trisha will wear, and her aversion to being a topic there.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople takes a troika of familiar story types  the plucky kid, the crusty geezer, the nurturing bosom  and strips them of cliche. Charming and funny, it is a drama masquerading as a comedy about an unloved boy whom nobody wants until someone says, Yes, Ill love him. Much of the humor comes from the child, whos at once a pip and a gloriously expressive ambassador for the director Taika Waititis cleareyed take on human nature and movies. Mr. Waititi knows that we love to cry at sad and bad times, but he also knows that people in pain need to get on with their lives.

The story centers on the soon-to-be 13-year-old Ricky (the irresistible Julian Dennison), a New Zealand foster child who, as the movie opens, is being placed with an older couple who live in a pastoral clearing at the edge of the bush. Ricky rapidly bonds with the woman, who goes by Aunty Bella (Rima Te Wiata as the nurturer), but hes kept at arms length by her gruff, taciturn husband, Uncle Hec (Sam Neill, perfect as the house geezer). Like hippies time forgot, Bella and Hec live off the land and its bounty, including boar and the possums that she skins one handful of fur at a time.

Mr. Waititi works fast, setting a bright, light comic mood that owes something to Wes Anderson but is organically his own. Mr. Waititi started out in comedy, shifting to movie directing more than a decade ago with little evident strain. His first features (Boy, Eagle vs. Shark) are imperfect, but also unmistakably of an auteurist piece with strongly defined characters, a deep sense of place and a humorously deadpan view of lifes absurdities. Theyre also very sweet. More recently, he and his longtime friend, the comic Jemaine Clement, another New Zealander, directed What We Do in the Shadows, a cheerfully silly mockumentary about vampires living as roommates.
A story is a series of choices, which in retrospect take on an aura of inevitability. With a handful of notable exceptions, most movies take narrative linearity for granted, proceeding from one thing to the next in what seems to be an almost mathematically necessary sequence. The exceptions  Rashomon, say, or Pulp Fiction  tend to make a big deal of defying the rules of chronological order and cause-and-effect logic.

The prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo practices a quieter, more radical mischief. His films are closely observed studies in eating, drinking, and the awkward social and sexual interactions of modern men and women. He operates his camera as an emotional spectrograph, tracking minute gradations of mood as his characters try and generally fail to connect with one another. But he is equally interested in the operations of cinema itself as a means of ordering, capturing and constructing experience. Some of his characters  generally the least heroic  are themselves filmmakers, grappling for control of their own stories.

In Right Now, Wrong Then, one such fellow, Ham Chun-su (Jung Jae-young), a middle-aged director successful enough to be the subject of a retrospective in a provincial Korean city, finds himself with time to kill. He visits a local tourist attraction, where he strikes up a conversation with a young woman, a painter named Yoon Hee-jung (Kim Min-hee), who is aware of his reputation though not terribly familiar with his work. They spend the afternoon and the evening together, more or less enjoying themselves and encountering a few other people along the way. The next day, Ham screens one of his films.

And then it happens again, but differently. Halfway through its running time, Right Now, Wrong Then starts over, reversing its title and reintroducing its central pair. They do some of the same things, but the tenor and texture of their time together is altered in ways both subtle and glaring. There is more drunkenness, more hostility, a sense that what should have been  what was in essence a sweet, platonic encounter  has become sour, sad and predatory.
If the script of Septembers of Shiraz looked anything like the film sounds, each sentence would be printed in bold, increased to an extra-large font and thrice underlined. At least thats how most scenes play out in this well-meaning yet nuance-free film.

The story, adapted by Hanna Weg from a novel by Dalia Sofer, centers on Isaac (Adrien Brody), an Iranian Jew, and his wife, Farnaz (Salma Hayek-Pinault). Its 1979 in Iran, and this prosperous and friendly couple are targeted for harassment as the revolution arrives. Isaac is later arrested and tortured while Farnaz struggles to hold the family together. Before long, they plan an escape from the country.

Both of the lead actors, and Shohreh Aghdashloo, as Habibeh, a housekeeper, try to offer up some subtlety; the unsteady bond between Farnaz and Habibeh even introduces an idea or two about the difficulties of employer-employee friendships and the gulf separating the rich and the poor.

But those scenes aside, the script almost always inserts a speech where a shrug or a smile would do better, and thats before the intrusive and persistent score telegraphs every emotion it thinks you should be feeling. Theyre coming after us! Farnaz declares at one point, as we watch the bad guys do just that. Cue the pursuit music.
Weird and wonderful, disgusting and demented, Swiss Army Man is about how one mans dead body nudges another man back to life. Impossible to categorize, this stunningly original mix of the macabre and the magical combines comedy, tragedy, fantasy and love story into an utterly singular package thats beholden to no rules but its own.

As such, it demands complete surrender to a vision that veers from bewitching to irritating, sometimes within the same scene. Pay no attention to the frayed and porous plot; pull on a loose thread, and the spell will unravel. And we need that sorcery if were to inhabit the fractured mind of Hank (Paul Dano), a seemingly longtime castaway whos about to end his misery when a business-suited body washes up on the beach in front of him.

Gassy, soggy and glassy-eyed, the corpse (played by Daniel Radcliffe in what has to be the most uncomfortable role of his career) delights Hank, who names him Manny and resolves to care for him. What follows is a bizarre buddy movie as Hank hauls his flatulent friend across beach and through forest, and when Manny begins to talk, his innocently absurd questions about the workings of his body become a way for Hank to escape the pain in his head.

On paper, this can all sound unbearably precious. What makes it work, however, is a synchronicity of acting and music, photography and special effects, from which the directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known as Daniels), whip up an atmosphere of effluvial enchantment. Some of their sequences sigh with romance, like Hanks woodland re-creation of a city bus ride, using stray branches and random trash. Still others, as when Hank flies across the waves perched on Mannys exuberantly farting torso, buzz with bonkers energy.
The film western has survived numerous world-historical milestones, including the putative closing of the American frontier, the death of John Wayne and genre hijacking by the likes of Kathryn Bigelow (in the vampire western Near Dark) and George Miller (the Mad Max series). Few westerns set in the American Old West, though, make it to the big screen anymore, and those that do  The Lone Ranger, The Hateful Eight  tend to be under-loved, under-seen or both. And so critics keep churning out obituaries for a genre that refuses to die, even while they also hope for the best. We cant quit it.

Thats the case, even if westerns like The Duel, which primarily unfolds in Texas after the Civil War, continue to snuff out hope that this genre can ever catch fire again or find a new point and purpose. A tonal and narrative muddle, it stars a solid Liam Hemsworth as a Texas Ranger called David, who is sent undercover to investigate the death and disappearance of a number of Mexican men and women. This leads David to his Goliath, a charismatic preacher, Abraham (Woody Harrelson), who has a son named Isaac (Emory Cohen), a flock of true believers and an assortment of badly shaved henchman.
Within hours of the escape of two murderers from a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border last year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said at a news conference that he would be shocked if any corrections officers had been involved in the breakout.

But an exhaustive report released this month by the state inspector generals office singled out 20 uniformed and civilian employees whose laziness, incompetence and dereliction of duty enabled the killers, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat, to escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., last June.

While two of the employees  Gene Palmer, a guard, and Joyce E. Mitchell, a civilian supervisor  were imprisoned after pleading guilty last year to aiding the inmates, there have been few, if any, serious consequences for the 18 others, according to an examination of state payroll records by The New York Times. None has been fired, and, according to the Clinton County district attorney, none will be criminally prosecuted.

They included, as detailed in the report, a captain, two lieutenants and five guards who admitted to falsifying documents to make it look as if they had conducted nightly rounds; an officer who missed a foot-and-a-half-wide hole cut in the back wall of a cell during an inspection; and a guard who spent his time reading at his desk in the prison tailor shop, while Ms. Mitchell spent hours each day with one of the inmates plotting the escape.
To the Editor:

Re Bedlam Erupts in House Sit-In by Democrats (front page, June 23):

This is what weve come to: grown men and women  Democratic representatives  openly protesting and chanting in the House chamber because Republicans refuse to listen to reason.

Speaker Paul Ryan is a coward. So is every single representative and senator continuing to stall on gun control. They fear that the National Rifle Association will destroy their political careers, and these careers are apparently more important than the will of the majority of the people, as well as the safety of the people.

Selfish cowards, all of them.

JONATHAN CAREY

San Jose, Calif.

To the Editor:

Grown-ups wearing suits and neckties and a few in high heels, sitting on the floor shouting and raising their fists. This is exactly the behavior we teach our children to avoid if they want to be taken seriously. No, kiddies: Those grown-ups are our elected lawmakers, and that carpet belongs to the House chamber in Washington.

Yes, kiddies: This in your government in action. Close your eyes.

ANTONIA TAMPLIN

Bronx

To the Editor:

Speaker Paul Ryans description of the sit-in by House Democrats seeking a vote on gun control legislation as a publicity stunt is unconscionable. If the publicity generated by these Democrats leads to action to address gun violence in America, Representative John Lewis and his fellow protesters will have upheld American ideals  as he and thousands of others did in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery more than half a century ago, when Mr. Lewis played a historic role in the civil rights movement.
WASHINGTON  On June 8, a special U.N. commission released a report accusing the leadership of Eritrea of crimes against humanity. It cites cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, rape and extrajudicial killing. It claims that up to 400,000 Eritreans have been enslaved in a vast conscription program, forced to work in the army or the bureaucracy for next to nothing, often for a decade or more.

Isaias Afwerki, a former rebel hero, has ruled Eritrea since its independence in 1993. A constitution drafted in 1997 has yet to be implemented. National elections have never been held. Opposition political parties are illegal. Many dissidents have been arrested and have not been heard from since. There are few civil society organizations and no independent media. It is tortuously difficult for Eritreans to obtain formal authorization to leave the country.

The Eritrean government deserves to be called out for these practices. But the criticism, to be credible and effective, must be scrupulously fair, and the commissions report is not. It extrapolates from anecdotal examples  like instances of rape by military forces  to allege systemic abuses and blame them on state policy.

The commission recommends that its findings be referred to the International Criminal Court. This is ill-advised, and would backfire. Initiating a formal criminal investigation would give the Isaias government more reason to retrench into its righteous isolation  a primary cause of poor governance and economic atrophy in Eritrea, which engender abuses in the first place.
NOW that the Supreme Court has upheld affirmative action in its second Fisher v. University of Texas decision, the debate over the mismatch theory  the idea that affirmative action harms minorities by admitting students to challenging schools where they cannot succeed  should also be put to rest.

The overwhelming volume of scientific evidence shows no link between affirmative action and failure to graduate. And several studies actually show that similarly qualified minorities do better in more selective schools.

Despite its fragile empirical foundation, the idea has received outsize attention. Consider the hubbub after the late Justice Antonin Scalia said during oral arguments in December that black students might do better at a slower-track school where classes were not too fast for them. The appeal of mismatch is rooted in racist stereotypes about black students and fed by flawed social science. A careful review of the data shows that affirmative action benefits minority students. It does not mismatch them.

The best studies have looked at large numbers of undergraduates who attend schools of varying selectivity. William G. Bowen and Derek Bok did the same in their seminal book The Shape of the River. They found that minorities did better at more selective schools.
The Brexit ballot puts one of democracys riskiest tools, the referendum, to the test.

The British people are voting on whether to leave the European Union. The betting markets and the financial markets are both signaling that the country will vote to stay. But even if Britain rejects Brexit, as leaving the European Union is known, the very act of holding a referendum will come in for criticism.

In a single-issue vote, a small number of people can change the course of an entire country for generations. All it would take is a simple majority of Britons to throw Europe into turmoil with a vote to leave. This problem is made much worse if turnout is low.

Referendums can also distill complex issues into a simplistic choice, stoking a harsh type of populism. Critics of Californias habit of holding single-issue ballots point to votes that limited increases in property taxes and introduced the three-strikes minimum sentencing law. And a leader may hold a referendum for expedient political reasons  an accusation made against David Cameron, Britains prime minister  rather than for the good of the country.

Then theres the democratic argument against referendums: The electorate already gets a chance to vote on big issues in a general election. In recent years, neither of Britains two main political parties has run on a platform that includes leaving the European Union, and voters have repeatedly backed them to form governments. Also, a large proportion of current members of the British Parliament want Britain to remain in the union. This could cause a mess if Britain votes to leave. In such an outcome, politicians who favor Brexit are expected to take power. But the mostly pro-Europe Parliament might not support those leaders, leading to a period of turmoil and paralysis.
The Iron Mountain Lake Board of Alderpersons discussed several topics and heard reports during their May monthly meeting, including budget adjustments and bids.

The board agreed to take bids to have asphalt laid on Parkway and they also approved Ordinance 97, which will assign C.I.T.Y. as manager of the new pavilion in the park.

The board opened the one bid they received from Kindlesparger Construction for the erection and construction of the new city hall. The bid was taken under advisement.

The board discussed and voted to amend the budget to include the purchase of an electric utility pole for the east side of the lake. They made a motion and approved up to $300 for the purchase of the pole. They also approved a $400 adjustment to the budget for the purchase of an entry sign for Parkway.

They also heard reports from Shaun Kunz on sewer and road and bridge. Kunz reported that the sewer is running good and there is duckweed present at the lagoon. He told the board he would look into treatments to detour that.

Kunz also reported the roads are in desperate need of grating and one inch minus. He recommended the board consider obtaining bids per mile for having the roads properly and professionally grated. He also informed the board he should be getting the forks for the backhoe soon.

Police Chief Jeffery Wohaska reported the police department will need to purchase patches soon and he said the police department is discussing fundraisers for the near future.

Corporal Austin Turner informed the board that their new radios came in, but he is having difficulty getting anyone to give him proper frequencies needed for them to work efficiently. Turner reported he spoke with the St. Francois County Joint Communications Center 911 Director Allen Wells and he assured Turner that he would obtain those frequencies for him.

It was announced Iron Mountain Lake Sewer Superintendent Kunz recently received "The Kramer Award" at the Missouri Water and Wastewater Conference.

City of Cape Girardeau Wastewater Plant Manager Todd Fulton, speaking on behalf of the Missouri Water and Wastewater organization, said the person who nominated Kunz wrote a submission letter to MWWC.

The letter said Shaun (Kunz) is the certified operator for Iron Mountain Lake, said Fulton. Iron Mountain Lake has a rather complicated vacuum sewage collection system with treatment at an aerated lagoon. The collection system began giving IML problems within approximately four years of the installation.

Fulton said the letter stated at the time it was an innovative alternative technology that was installed to solve problems associated with installing traditional sewage collection systems. Kunz was not the original operator. As the lake development changed mayors, the operators changed as well.

Needless to say, the collection system fell into disrepair and multiple complaints stemming from IML residents to the Department of Natural Resources, said Fulton. When Shaun came as the operator he was not certified. He devoted himself to studying to become certified and to learning how to work with this collection system.

The letter also said after a study by an engineering firm and three visits by the equipment manufacturer it was discovered that the system did have some vacuum leaks and multiple failing vacuum valves.

One line was rebuilt, added Fulton. Shaun worked with the factory representatives learning how the system worked and how to rebuild the vacuum switches on each pod. As a result of his dedicated work, MDNR complaints at IML have diminished to only one or two a year.

IML City Treasurer Lanette Kunz said Shauns approach has been to go to the source (the manufacturer, the Department of Natural Resources) for education so that the system will operate correctly and not just have a band aid repair job.

Shaun approached the mayor and board of aldermen in 2013 and asked for the manufacturer of the vacuum sewer system (AirVac in Rochester, Indiana) to be paid to come to Iron Mountain Lake to give a hands-on instruction on the proper way to repair and install this system, said Lanette. The system is the only remaining one of its kind in the state of Missouri.

Lanette added AirVac sent a technician/educator to Iron Mountain Lake for a week of instruction and he soon realized that this was going to take a lot more work. An emergency grant was applied for through the state's Community Development Block Grant program.

The board and Shaun began working with Tim Robbs of Taylor Engineering to develop a plan of action, said Lanette. AirVac was approached again and asked if they could return for a longer period of time and this time at no cost to the city due to the urgency of the problem and the cost of repairs.

The grant allowed for purchase of new sewer plant motors, new valves, new sewer pit components, more hands on training and the UV Collection Station. They are in the last phase of completion of all of the grant repairs.

The Kramer Award is given to one worthy recipient per district based on their desire for education and improving their city through learning and hard work. Shaun was chosen out of the 22 counties which comprise this district for this award.

The Kramer Award was established in 1970 in memory of Dr. Warren A. Kramer as an educational opportunity for deserving water or wastewater operators. The first Kramer Awards were presented at the 1972 Annual meeting.
Toni No. What is he saying?

Nate Hes giving his speech on the Clintons, which hes been promising for some time. Its a bit over the top at times, but its a lot better than much of what hes been saying. And its a powerful reminder of how vulnerable Hillary Clinton would be to a version of Trump who wouldnt defeat himself.

Toni Instead of focusing on Clinton, he has been continuing to squabble with Republicans.

What is the biggest mistake hes making? What is the one thing he should prioritize in terms of organization and strategy? He has very little money. Hes not advertising. He has a very small staff. Hes not campaigning in swing states. And the list goes on.

Nate Well, a lot of that requires money. He doesnt have it, and he needs to fix it. Traveling to swing states is the one thing that doesnt require much money, so thats inexcusable. He can get on a bus from New York and get to Levittown, Pa., in 90 minutes, Allentown in less than two hours. Scranton in 2.5 hours.

Toni Comedy interlude: Some Saturday Night Live fans may remember a segment in which Jason Sudeikis, impersonating Joe Biden in a vice-presidential debate, says, If you went to the lowest circle of hell, youd still be 45 minutes outside of Scranton.

Nate Haha, all jokes aside, Scranton is exactly the sort of place Trump needs to win this election.

Obama won Scrantons Lackawanna County by a 63-36 margin in 2012  the best showing by a Democrat since 1964. Its 90 percent white. Its working class. Its traditionally Democratic.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Courts immigration ruling is a defeat for President Obama but could help Hillary Clinton and the fortunes of Democratic candidates across the country.

The court on Thursday blocked Mr. Obama from moving ahead with his sweeping assertion of executive authority and will force him to leave office next year without the major progress he promised to millions of Latino immigrants living under the threat of deportation.

But even as Republicans hailed what they called a major victory, Democrats said they believed the ruling would energize a nationwide voter registration drive intended to benefit Mrs. Clinton in her presidential campaign against Donald J. Trump. Within moments of the courts nine-word order, Democratic activists vowed to mobilize, and a president whose face was etched with disappointment acknowledged the issue now rested with voters.

Weve got a choice about who were going to be as a country, what we want to teach our kids, and how we want to be represented in Congress, and in the White House, Mr. Obama told reporters on Thursday morning. Americans are going to have to make a decision about what we care about and who we are.
The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with a Mississippi county that, for the first time, requires a local government to provide an array of options intended to reduce mass incarceration. It includes programs offering alternatives to jail, re-entry services for inmates leaving incarceration and the prohibition of some jail sentences for failure to pay court-ordered fines and fees.

The settlement agreement with Hinds County, home to Jackson, Mississippis largest city and the state capital, comes after the Justice Department issued a letter of findings last year, having concluded that the countys jails regularly violated the constitutional rights of inmates by keeping prisoners past their release dates, and that it failed to protect prisoners from violence inflicted by guards and other inmates.

Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general and chief of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, said the agreement incorporated measures, discussed by the Obama administration and by police and prison officials in the past three years, seeking to moderate the growth of a criminal justice system in which 2.2 million people are in prisons and jails, and 4.7 million are on probation or parole.

The measures include a shift away from the use of solitary confinement, strategies seeking to reduce recidivism, and an effort to keep juveniles and the mentally ill out of jail through the use of early intervention programs.
Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he would convert $50 million that he had lent to his presidential campaign into a contribution, fulfilling a pledge he made in mid-May.

The decision appears intended to halt speculation that Mr. Trump might seek to recoup his substantial out-of-pocket costs with donations from supporters, clearing the way for him to adopt a more conventional fund-raising approach for the general election. In partnership with the Republican National Committee, Mr. Trump has been seeking to tap into traditional sources of money, including large and small donors, to bolster his own contributions to his campaign.

The decision was announced by Mr. Trumps finance chairman, Steven Mnuchin, in an interview with Reuters.

The campaign said in a statement: After self-funding his primary election, Mr. Trump and the campaign have assembled an exceptional fund-raising operation, which in recent days has been overwhelmed with contributions for the Republican Party.
WASHINGTON  The continuing breakdown in Washingtons ability to govern seemed to spread like a contagion Thursday through all three branches of government.

The dysfunction somehow managed to reach new levels. The Supreme Court, left short-handed by a Republican refusal to act on President Obamas nominee in the final year of his presidency, deadlocked on a major immigration case. The inaction validated a lower court finding against the administrations attempt to allow millions of unauthorized immigrants to live legally in the United States.

Mr. Obama, who sought to address the nations immigration crisis through his executive powers because of a persistent impasse on Capitol Hill, was unable to achieve one of his major goals  which pleased Republicans but left the president angry and disappointed.

Democrats ended a raucous 25-hour protest on the House floor, failing to gain a vote on gun safety issues but exulting in the attention they received via a breakout social media campaign that threw the House rule book out the Capitols neoclassical windows. Republican leaders accused Democrats of trying to capitalize on the Orlando, Fla., shooting while destroying the decorum of the House.
WASHINGTON  An internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

The inquiry found that a private first class, Harold Schultz, was one of the six men in the photograph, which received a Pulitzer Prize. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, whose son wrote a best-selling book about his fathers role in the flag-raising that was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, was not in the image.

Mr. Schultz, a mail sorter who died in 1995 at age 70, never publicly acknowledged that he was in the photograph. According to his stepdaughter, he discussed it only once with his family, mentioning it briefly one night during dinner in the early 1990s as they talked about the Iwo Jima battle.

My mom was distracted and not listening and Harold said, I was one of the flag raisers,  his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
President Obama heads to the West Coast on Thursday for the seventh-annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit meeting to discuss ways of linking businesses around the world in new ways, just days after announcing a new $70 million manufacturing grant to a group in Los Angeles.

He may grab more headlines with his Friday conversation with the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg when the two have a chance to discuss the latest social media apps and other hot topics. Mr. Obamas administration has embraced Facebook and Twitter as new ways of communicating in a modern democracy.

Some contentious issues could also come up. The president and his administration have riled some in Silicon Valley by pressing for access to devices like the iPhone during criminal and terrorism investigations. A back-and-forth between Mr. Obama and Mr. Zuckerberg on privacy and encryption would be interesting.

After the summit meeting, Mr. Obama will head to Seattle, where he will help raise money for Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He is scheduled to return to Washington on Saturday.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas at Austin, handing supporters of affirmative action a major victory.

The decision, Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 14-981, concerned an unusual program and contained a warning to other universities that not all affirmative action programs will pass constitutional muster. But the rulings basic message was that admissions officials may continue to consider race as one factor among many in ensuring a diverse student body.

The decision, by a 4-to-3 vote, was unexpected. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the author of the majority opinion, has long been skeptical of race-sensitive programs and had never before voted to uphold an affirmative action plan. He dissented in the last major affirmative action case.

Supporters of affirmative action hailed the decision as a landmark.

No decision since Brown v. Board of Education has been as important as Fisher will prove to be in the long history of racial inclusion and educational diversity, said Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, referring to the Supreme Courts 1954 decision striking down segregated public schools.
WASHINGTON  The police must obtain warrants to test the blood of motorists arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, but no warrants are needed to conduct a breath test.

The case, Birchfield v. North Dakota, No. 14-1468, consolidated with two others, arose from laws that made it a crime for motorists suspected of drunken driving to refuse breath or blood tests.

The courts split decision considered three cases: one from Minnesota and two from North Dakota.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in a part of the decision determined by a 7-to-1 vote, said laws effectively requiring blood tests violated the Fourth Amendments ban on unreasonable searches. In a part decided by a 6-to-2 vote, Justice Alito wrote that laws requiring breath tests are permissible.

Blood tests are significantly more intrusive, and their reasonableness must be judged in light of the availability of the less invasive alternative of a breath test, he wrote.
College admissions experts breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a University of Texas admissions plan that allows race and ethnicity to be considered as one of many factors in admission.

I think there are going to be some parties tonight in high school counseling offices and in college admissions offices, said Phil Trout, the president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and a college counselor at Minnetonka High School outside Minneapolis. Sigh of relief is not strong enough.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court noted that the Texas plan  which automatically grants admission to roughly the top 10 percent of students across the state, then uses race as one of many factors in considering the rest  was unique and very much a product of Texas politics, law and demographics.

But what was encouraging about the court decision, experts said, was that in affirming the value of diversity, including race and ethnicity, in higher education, the court recognized that there was not one, immutable way of defining and achieving it.
Baltimore - 23 June 2016 1. Various of protestors chanting UPSOUND (English): All six. Murderer. ++VIDEO AS INCOMING++ 2. SOUNDBITE (English): Towanda Jones, Brother Tyrone West Died in Police Custody: Im outraged now. Its disgusting and then there are going to be many more Freddie Grays, many more Tyrone Wests, many more Anthony Andersons. Fight through this bull crap judicial system. It sucks. 3. SOUNDBITE (English): Unidentified Protestor: Listen to this verdict. Not guilty on all charges. Freddie Gray is dead. What are they telling you? That the police are not to protect and serve the people. Look at Tyrone West. Look at Anthony Anderson. They dont even charge the cops who killed, murdered them. They are saying. 4. SOUNDBITE (English): Towanda Jones, Brother Tyrone West Died in Police Custody (continued from previous shot): Legalized genocide. Legalized genocide. Thats it. 5. SOUNDBITE (English): Unidentified Protestor: Maybe no one intended to do anything criminal, but not for anyone to be charged and something happening, justify the death of Freddie Gray. Thats what the problem is. Things happen and theyre saying it wasnt criminal. But its rules that were wrong. The rules. The use of force. The use of the seatbelt. Maybe it wasnt intended, but someone is dead. Someones son is dead. Someones brother is dead and we do not want it to happen to anyone elses family. The rules and the process has to change. 6. SOUNDBITE (English): Towanda Jones, Brother Tyrone West Died in Police Custody: I feel heartbroken for the simple fact that all I have left is just hope. And its not in our judicial system because at the end of the day it fails us over and over, but Im hoping that change comes somewhere in our community that we establish something to basically kind of dismantle this corrupt system and have laws in place so that civilians can be safe. 7. Officer using bullhorn 8. SOUNDBITE (English): Towanda Jones, Brother Tyrone West Died in Police Custody: I have no faith in it. Cause every time I try to have a tad bit of faith it gets snatched away in instances like this. And its horrible 9. Protestors chanting UPSOUND (English): This is illegitimate. This one more reason why now is the time to get organized for an actual revolution. STORYLINE: A judge has found a Baltimore Police van driver not guilty of all charges in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, whose broken neck in police custody set off Baltimores worst riots in decades. The verdict sparked protests and condemnations outside the courthouse. Six officers were charged in Grays death, but only Officer Caesar Goodson was accused of murder. Gray was fatally injured after officers bound his hands and feet and Goodson left him unprotected by a seat belt that prosecutors say would have kept him from slamming into the vans metal walls. Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams delivered his verdict Thursday after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial. He found Goodson not guilty of depraved-heart murder, manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. Protests and rioting after Grays death on April 19, 2015 set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard. The unrest forced the citys mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued rulings in two high-profile cases on immigration and affirmative action. Heres a brief rundown of what the court decided and what it means:

On Affirmative Action

What was the case?

Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 14-981 was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who claimed that she had been denied admission to the University of Texas, Austin, because of her race.

Under a provision known as the Top 10 Percent program (the actual percentage can vary in practice), high school students from Texas who finish near the top of their class are guaranteed admission to the states public universities. The universities evaluate the remaining students using a number of criteria, including race and ethnicity. This practice is similar to processes at colleges and universities throughout the country.

What did the court rule?

The court rejected the challenge, 4-3, handing a major victory to supporters of affirmative action. In a lengthy dissent from the bench, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. criticized his colleagues and defined the universitys practices as affirmative action gone berserk.

Justice Elena Kagan did not vote in the case after recusing herself because of her previous work on the case.
GENEVA  Nearly 200 people who fled Boko Haram attacks have died of malnutrition and sickness in a single camp in northeastern Nigeria in the past month, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday, describing a catastrophic humanitarian emergency.

In the camp, which sits on the outskirts of the largely ruined Nigerian city of Bama, the charity said that the local authorities reported five to six people dying every day.

We have been told that people, including children there, have starved to death, Ghada Hatim, the groups head of mission in Nigeria, said in a statement.

Years of devastating attacks by Boko Haram have displaced more than two million people in Nigeria and surrounding countries. The Nigerian city of Maiduguri has more than doubled in size as people flee villages for the town, which is now swarming with soldiers and local vigilantes bent on keeping out Boko Haram.
When Nelson Mandela died in late 2013, many asked whether the era he had nurtured of reconciliation, tolerance and hope had died with him.

To a visitor to South Africa these days, or anyone who follows news reports, the answer might seem unequivocal.

Just this week in Pretoria, the capital, buses were set on fire in political feuding that offered grim, pyrotechnic omens for critical local elections on Aug. 3.

President Jacob G. Zuma has been resisting opposition calls for his ouster after the countrys highest court found that he had violated the Constitution.
A plane carrying two sick workers rescued from a remote South Pole research station landed in Chile late on Wednesday after a daring effort that involved battling temperatures lower than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit and round-the-clock darkness, the National Science Foundation said.

The plane, a Twin Otter aircraft, left the foundations Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station early on Wednesday morning and arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile, at 9:41 p.m., the foundation said on its Facebook page.

The two patients will be taken for medical care that was not available at Amundsen-Scott, the foundation said. It would not reveal details of their conditions. Both patients are seasonal employees of Lockheed Martin Antarctic Support Contract, which offers operations and research support for the United States Antarctic Program, the foundation said.
Hong Kong is a semiautonomous Chinese territory with its own legislature, the Legislative Council. Elections for the next legislative session will be held in September, and the arrest comes about a month before the start of nominations.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a news release that it arrested Mr. Leung and charged him with misconduct in public office. The agency said Mr. Leung had failed to declare his acceptance of the donation, which was received via Mr. Lais associate Mark Simon. The agency added that the case had arisen from a corruption complaint and that the inquiries that followed revealed Mr. Leungs suspected offense. The commission declined to comment further on Thursday.

Mr. Leung, 60, said in a post on Facebook that commission officials came to his home about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday. He was released on bail and is scheduled to appear in district court on Friday for a procedural hearing.

Regarding the money, Mr. Leung said by telephone on Thursday afternoon, I gave to the party, to a publishing house, I cant recollect the memory, but I need to talk to a lawyer and defend myself now. He said he could not discuss the matter further because he had not yet talked to his lawyer.

He pointed out that the charges came just ahead of nominations for election to the Legislative Council. Its almost like a smear, you know, he said.
FRANKFURT  A masked assailant apparently armed with a rifle attacked a multiplex movie theater in the German city of Viernheim on Thursday and took hostages before he was killed by elite police units that stormed the building, officials and the news media reported.

There was no indication the attack was linked to a terrorist plot, officials said, despite initial fears that the gunman may have been tied to Islamist extremists who have carried out other assaults that have traumatized Europe.

Officials also disputed early reports that up to 25 people had been hurt in the multiplex mayhem. Peter Beuth, the interior minister for the state of Hesse, said he had no information that anyone had been harmed.

Some German news organizations reported that people had been injured by police tear-gas and that the assailant had carried a weapon loaded with blank cartridges. Mr. Beuth said the assailant had been armed with a long-barreled weapon, but it was not clear whether it was capable of firing live ammunition.
BARCELONA, Spain  Old political orders do not die easily. That may be as good an explanation as any for why Spain has been paralyzed since its last national elections in December yielded no clear winner. To many Spaniards, Election Day on Sunday feels a lot more like the movie Groundhog Day.

But if Spains politicians cannot seem to find common ground at the national level, there is one glimmer of hope: That has not been the case at the regional and municipal levels.

For instance, while the leaders of the Socialists and Podemos, now bitter rivals for dominance of the left, have traded jabs in Parliament for the last six months, they have collaborated over the past year in Spains three largest cities.

In Barcelona and Valencia, lawmakers from both parties now sit side by side in City Hall administrations, while in Madrid, Spains capital, the Socialists cleared the way for a former Communist and retired judge, Manuela Carmena, to become mayor a year ago.
For restless young men, little can deter their dreams of flight. Ehab Nasser, 21, said he hated his job as a fisherman. Life at sea was cruel and lonely, he said  long trips into the dangerous waters of war-torn Libya in search of fish, often for as little as $100 a month. Two years ago he smuggled himself into Greece, after pawning his mothers wedding dowry, at a price of 2,500 euros (about $2,800).

That trip ended in a Greek detention center, and with eventual deportation back to Egypt. But he will try again soon. His eyes lit up as he showed a picture on Facebook of his neighbor Ismail, now in London. In the picture, a young man fanned a wad of British pounds, his thumb raised, while casually dragging on a cigarette.

Thats what I want, Mr. Nasser said.

But every success story is countered by a tear-stained episode. At a farmhouse surrounding by towering date palms, Mohamed El Ghatani, a farmer, told of how he learned that his 16-year-old nephew, Amir, drowned on his way to Europe last month.

Only two years earlier, Mr. Ghatani said, his own son died in the same manner. Its terrible, he said, his eyes reddening at the memory. They think theyll get to Europe and find an amazing life. Thats not true, of course, but they dont know that.

More than 7,000 unaccompanied minors from different countries arrived in Italy in the first five months of this year, twice as many as last year, according to the United Nations Childrens Fund.

The main problem, said Naela Gabr, a senior diplomat who heads Egypts official efforts to stem illegal migration, is Italian law, which forbids the involuntary deportation of unaccompanied minors.
JERUSALEM  Critics of Israels chief rabbinate have long complained that scores of American converts to Judaism have trouble getting approval to marry in Israel. Now, one such case with a celebrity connection could break open the rabbinates longstanding secrecy over which foreign rabbis are approved to conduct conversions.

The case involves an American who, shortly after her Orthodox conversion in New York, became engaged to an Israeli, only to have the local rabbinical court in his hometown reject her status as a Jew when they tried to register for marriage.

As it turns out, the rabbi who signed the woman's conversion certificate also converted Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka, and officiated at Ms. Trumps 2009 wedding to Jared Kushner, the newspaper publisher now planning the presumptive Republican nominees potential transition to the White House.

The rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, is one of the most respected Orthodox rabbis in New York, where he has led Manhattans Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun for decades, after taking over the pulpit from his father. He recently received an honorary doctorate from Israels Bar-Ilan University in recognition for what it called the influential role he has played in deepening Jewish values and heritage among American Jewry.
In the three years she lived in Philadelphia, Jessica Poole occupied four apartments.

Possibly, she said, her discontent with her apartments reflected her feelings about Philadelphia. The Center City area seemed small to her, without much to do or see.

She was eager to return to New York, where she had lived and worked before she got a job in Philadelphia. I like change, Ms. Poole said. In New York, you never have to do the same thing twice if you dont want to.

Ms. Poole, 32, grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., and graduated in 2005 from Boston University. Last winter, she landed a new job in Midtown, which took her back to New York. As the senior allocator for a fashion retailer, she is in charge of inventory management.
5 of 9

What was the net annual migration of citizens from other European Union nations to Britain in 2015?
Requests for medication abortions have risen significantly in nine Latin American countries since the Pan American Health Organization issued an epidemiologic warning about Zika virus in November 2015.

All of the countries have legal restrictions that make abortions impossible or very difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, women are seeking them in increasing numbers using Women on Web, a nonprofit, international group that supplies information on abortions and facilitates contact with physicians who provide abortifacient medications.

Dr. Abigail Aiken of the University of Texas, Austin, and her colleagues reported the findings June 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine (2016 Jun. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc1605389).

Most of the increased requests occurred in countries that issued a national advisory to pregnant women, the researchers noted. But increases also occurred in two countries with local Zika transmission but no national advisory.

We cannot definitively attribute the rapid acceleration in requests  to concern about Zika virus exposure, the researchers wrote in a letter to the editor. However, In Latin American countries that issued warnings to pregnant women about complications associated with Zika virus infection, requests for abortion through [Women on Web] increased significantly. Our approach may underestimate the effect of the advisories on demand for abortion, since many women may have used an unsafe method, accessed misoprostol from local pharmacies or the black market, or visited local underground providers.

The authors worked with Women on Web to assess requests for medical abortion consultations from women in 19 Latin American countries between Jan. 1, 2010, and March 2, 2016. They compared these numbers before and after the November 2015 Zika announcement from the Pan American Health Organization.

They divided the data into three groups: countries with local Zika transmission, legally restricted abortion, and a national advisory to pregnant women; countries with no Zika transmission and legally restricted abortion; and countries with local Zika transmission, legally restricted abortion, and no national advisory to pregnant women. The study also included three control countries with no Zika transmission anticipated (Chile, Poland, and Uruguay).

All of the eight countries with local Zika transmission, legally restricted abortion, and a national advisory to pregnant women showed significant increases in Women on Web requests, except Jamaica. The increases were highest in Brazil and Ecuador (108%) and lowest in El Salvador and Costa Rica (36%). The increases reported reflect the relative change between actual and expected requests for abortion medications.

Two of the four countries with no Zika transmission and legally restricted abortion also showed increases: Peru (20.5%) and Argentina (21.8%).

There were no significant increases in requests in any of the seven countries with local Zika transmission, legally restricted abortion, and no national advisory to pregnant women.

The findings suggest a difficult future for many women who desire pregnancy or who conceive in areas of Zika activity, the researchers wrote. Models that were developed by the World Health Organization predict that 3 million to 4 million persons across the Americas will contract Zika virus infection through 2017, and the virus will inevitably spread to other countries where access to safe abortion is restricted. Official information and advice about potential exposure to the Zika virus should be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all reproductive choices are safe, legal, and accessible.

Dr. Thomas Gellhaus, president of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), said the study presents alarming insight on how the Zika virus is affecting the lives of pregnant women.

ACOG has long recognized that access to reproductive services, including abortion care, is essential for all women, he said. All women, must have the legal right to abortion, unconstrained by harassment, unavailability of care, procedure bans, or other legislative or regulatory barriers. The Zika crisis makes it impossible to ignore that women around the world do not have access to this basic health care need.

ACOG updated its Zika clinical guidelines on June 13.

Two of the researchers are affiliated with Women on Web.

msullivan@frontlinemedcom.com
A Laguna Beach psychiatrist and six other Orange County residents have been charged with participating in Southern California health fraud schemes that bilked government insurance programs of more than $125 million, prosecutors said Wednesday.

In all, 22 defendants face federal charges in Santa Ana and Los Angeles as part of a nationwide sweep involving 301 people accused of falsely billing $900 million, the U.S. attorneys office said. Authorities described the takedown as the largest in U.S. history, both in the number of those arrested and the financial scope of the fraud.

The Orange County defendants were accused of crimes that involved billing Medicare for occupational therapy that was never provided, submitting false patient reports for state workers compensation and paying kickbacks for expensive prescriptions that were billed to TRICARE, the militarys insurance plan.

Those who commit fraud targeting health care funding get rich on the backs of American taxpayers who watch their premiums go up, Deirdre Fike, assistant director in charge of the FBIs Los Angeles field office, said in a statement.

Most of the Southern California cases stemmed from a compounding pharmacy scheme targeting TRICARE. Compounding pharmacies formulate personalized medicines, but prosecutors said those involved prepared formulas aimed at the highest possible profit, not maximum effectiveness.

Doctors allegedly were paid kickbacks for prescribing medications with reimbursements of up to $15,000. Patients often didnt want the medicine or never had met the prescribing doctor. In other cases, marketers provided pharmacies with illegally obtained information on beneficiaries and then prescriptions were mailed to them each month.

TRICARE paid hundreds of millions of dollars for creams for minor pain, scars, erectile dysfunction or general wellness, prosecutors said.

Those from Orange County charged and arrested Tuesday in the pharmacy cases are:

 John Garbino, 46, of Dana Point, charged with receiving illegal kickbacks after his marketing business referred prescriptions to compounding pharmacies who then paid him as much as 65 percent of the reimbursement. He will be arraigned July 18.

 Randy Jett, 70, of Lake Forest, charged with offering to pay a doctor for writing prescriptions.

 John Kosolcharoen, 44, of Santa Ana, charged with paying $100,000 in kickbacks for his work with Irvine Wellness Pharmacy, which received more than $11 million in 2015 from TRICARE. His arraignment was set for July 18.

Other cases involved:

 Dr. Samuel Albert, 81, of Laguna Beach, a psychiatrist who operated an office in Fountain Valley, charged on Tuesday with conspiring to commit health care fraud. He has signed a plea agreement stemming from allegations that he billed workers comp for $4.2 million between 2008 and 2014 from fraudulent patient reports based on templates with copied and pasted information.

According to state medical board records, Albert has been disciplined twice, most recently in 2005 for gross negligence after charging a workers comp patient for services already covered by her insurer.

 Simon Hong, 54, of Brea and his wife, Grace Hong, 50, who were arrested Monday and pleaded not guilty after being charged with billing Medicare for occupational therapy that was never provided at a facility they owned, JH Physical Therapy in Walnut. Instead, patients received massage and acupuncture, which are not covered by Medicare. Medicare paid the clinic more than $3.7 million.

 Mark Holzer, 49, of Huntington Beach, charged earlier this month with making a fraudulent claim that he was disabled and unable to perform his job at the U.S. Postal Service. He has signed a plea agreement and is awaiting a hearing.

Contact the writer: cperkes@ocregister.com 714-796-3686
IRVINE  The College Republicans at UCI was banned from meeting on much of the campus  hours after university administrators learned that the Republican youth plan to bring back a controversial speaker to campus before the November election.

College Republicans, along with some Orange County GOP leaders, said on Wednesday that the administration is punishing students and violating their free speech rights over what they said is a technicality. Many have already began ringing the university with their concerns.

We hope that the university will change course and serve as a beacon for the free exchange of ideas, said Julian Babbitt, executive director of the Orange County Republican Party.

While the university does not call it a suspension, the sanction has that same impact and renders the club inactive, said the students and their supporters.

The university should be a place for free expression and free assembly, said Robert Petrosyan, UCI College Republicans chairman emeritus. This kind of decision sets a horrible precedent, not just for our club, but for student organizations all over the country that are being threatened by draconian administrative policies that restrict our First Amendment rights.

UC Irvine officials say the club violated university policy because it did not provide proof of insurance for private security guards hired by members of the Lincoln Club for a June 2 talk featuring conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.

In an e-mail to Petrosyan late Monday afternoon, an official with the Student Center & Event Services wrote that failure to comply results in immediate suspension of the group, which would then not be able to book meetings or events with the center until next spring.

Most campus spots must be booked through the Student Center.

Its a suspension by another name, Petrosyan said.

UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said the club is not suspended and the email to Petrosyan was poorly worded. The student club could still book some spaces on campus but not through the student center, she said. The university unequivocally is not attempting to ban the Republican group from hosting a speaker, Lawhon said.

We are a place for free expression and free assembly. But you also have to be adult enough to read contracts and follow the rules, she said.

Ariana Rowlands, the clubs president, noted that the email arrived four hours after she met with two UCI administrators who asked for a debriefing on the Yiannopoulos event. During the Monday meeting, Rowlands told them she planned to bring back the provocative Yiannopoulos, a gay man who spices his conservative points with un-PC talk and humor.

The timing between Rowlands meeting with university administrators and the letter detailing the sanction was a coincidence, Lawhon said.

Rowlands and Petrosyan saw the university email while attending an Orange County Republican Central Committee meeting Monday. When they reported to the group, the countys GOP brass was not pleased.

There was complete shock and disgust in the room, said Seth Morrison, managing director of Orange Countys conservative Lincoln Club. The bigger issue is the ability for conservative students to have the same access to student facilities and institutional support that other groups get.

Yiannopoulos arrival earlier this month was controversial from the get-go. One administrator urged safe-zone training and two groups organized a counter-event to Yiannopoulos Social Justice is Cancer talk.

While some 200 students heard Yiannopoulos, the tech editor for the conservative-leaning Breitbart.com, another 300 who couldnt get in faced off against some 50 to 60 protesters. UCIs Republican Club passed out pacifiers. About 80 officers were on hand from five different law enforcement agencies; police reported no incidents.

In the 24 hours since news of the sanction hit social media, UCIs College Republicans have garnered support from their state and national counterparts, with one group in New York quickly gathering more than 1,000 signatures on a petition asking UCI to reinstate the college club.

The UCI Anteaters for Bernie Sanders also posted their support on Facebook: While we disagree with the College Republicans on a range of issues, (we) hereby firmly stand against this decision, and are vehemently against the administration for their over-reaching bureaucracy.

Assemblyman Matthew Harper, R-Huntington Beach, also has reached out to UCI administrators and plans to meet with the students. He noted one of the clubs primary roles is to support Republican candidates and help register voters.

This sanction, Harper said, effectively destroys the point of the organization.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7829 or rkopetman@ocregister.com
Orange County finally has an ethics commission after more than a decade of advocacy for one, but now the difficult work begins: providing it the people, budget and tools to make it work as intended.

Theres still some disagreement over how to achieve that.

Supervisors began the process at a budget hearing last week when they gave nonbinding approval to allocate $549,000 to the new commission, which is charged with overseeing and enforcing the countys campaign fundraising rules, gift ban, lobbyist registration and other government ethics codes.

But at that same meeting, the board backed off a county CEO recommendation to hire two full-time employees to perform all investigations for the new office. Instead, supervisors removed the positions from the budget to buy time while they make up their minds about whether part-time workers will suffice  a decision Supervisor Todd Spitzer said could be perceived as a slap in the face to the voters who overwhelmingly approved the commissions creation.

Sixty-nine percent of Orange County voters approved a ballot measure on June 7 to create the ethics commission. While that initiative spelled out much of the framework and responsibilities of the five-member, supervisor-appointed commission and its supporting office, it also left some specifics for the board to decide.

Questions that remain include: How big of a supporting staff will the office have to conduct investigations? How often will those staff members work? Will the staff be county employees or contract workers? Will the office have a hotline to receive reported violations? And what happens if an ethical violation is reported that is outside the offices directed purview?

The debate over those issues centers on the fact that supervisors dont know how much work the new office will need to perform. If staffed too high, workers could be left without much to do. If staffed too low, violations could go uninvestigated or undiscovered.

Supervisor Shawn Nelson advocated for a part-time staff that works more during election cycles, calling the proposal for full-time personnel bureaucracy gone haywire. Nelson was instrumental in helping Orange County campaign finance watchdog Shirley Grindle get the ethics commission initiative before the board and on the ballot after her decade-plus advocacy for one.

Board Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett agreed that it would be irresponsible to automatically assign full-time staff to the office, saying, We have to figure out the full scope of work for the commission, and then we can figure out how to properly staff the office.

She said the county should have a better sense of the commissions scope and needs within the next month.

But UC Irvine political scientist Mark Petracca said he worries that an understaffed office could doom itself to irrelevance if it doesnt start on the right note.

The original group of people on this commission are going to create the parameters for ethics enforcement in this county, Petracca said. I would hate to see the ethics commission being overwhelmed by the minutia of ordinary governmental behavior.

They should be going after the big stuff, the interaction that occurs in this county between corporate interests and county decision-makers, Petracca said.

However, Grindle and most supervisors agree that the commission office is much more likely to handle what Spitzer called a day-to-day mundane bureaucratic review of peoples filings.

The supervisors and Grindle also agree that the office should work to correct violations rather than punish offenders and that the commission should convene for punitive action only if the offender refuses to fix the problem.

And if something more flagrant is reported?

The executive director would have an obligation, if they believe something is criminal, to turn it over to the district attorney, Spitzer said. This ordinance does not in any way usurp or diminish the existing power of the D.A. What this commission does now is it has local teeth for TINCUP (the countys campaign finance law), which I think will motivate compliance and cause people to be a lot more careful.

Contact the writer: jgraham@ocregister.com or 714-796-7960
A team of four eighth-graders from Serrano Intermediate School in Lake Forest are enjoying their time in Washington, D.C. in preparation for the 14th Annual eCYBERMISSION Competitions National Judging and Educational Event.

On Thursday theyll present their project  a wearable wristband that measures blood sugar through sweat in hopes of creating an alternative to invasive blood-sugar testing for those with diabetes  to a panel of judges.

Team GotScience??  comprised of Jolie Fitch, Kiera Fulton, Aingela Kattapuram and Sabrina LaPree-Chavez  reached the national competition after taking first place over 60 other teams at a regional competition in May. Serrano teacher Andi Suter has had teams compete for the past five years.

Team GotScience?? is one of 20 teams featuring students from sixth to ninth grade at the national showcase.

Since September, the four girls have researched methods for their blood sugar-measuring wristband. The idea stemmed from personal ties  three of the girls have one family member who has or had diabetes.

We felt we wanted to do something to help them, LaPree-Chavez said. Many diabetics dont check as much as possible because its painful, so we wanted to create a bracelet that uses sweat so they can check their blood sugar more often.

While the bracelet has not yet been created, the girls have experimented, using a sweat solution and adding different amounts of salt and sugar to see how they effect the conductivity of the sweat solution. And they have documented their findings along the way.

In November, Team GotScience?? presented its progress at Serrano Intermediates science fair and in February, they turned in their work for consideration in the eCYBERMISSION competition.

Since then, the girls have continued to research, presenting updated findings for the regional competition through the FaceTime function, said Fitch.

Now at the national stage, the girls expressed excitement, with some nerves mixed in.

Not only are the judges going to be seeing us, but friends and family can do a live stream of it, including families of other teams, Fulton said.

Regardless of the result, Team GotScience?? members find satisfaction knowing their idea could make a difference.

It makes us feel really good, Kattapuram said, adding that their teacher, Andi Suter, has a family member who wears an insulin pump on her arm. It works, but it causes pain.

Presentations for the national competition begin at 10:30 a.m. PST Thursday and run through 5 p.m. Team GotScience?? earned $4,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds after the regional competition. Another $5,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds is awarded to the winner of the national competition.

In addition, the competition has a Peoples Choice award, in which those watching online can vote for their favorite projects. Each member of the team that wins the Peoples Choice award gets an iPad Mini.

To view the competition online and vote, visit ecybermission.com.

Contact the writer: npercy@ocregister.com
Environmental policy has not been a key issue in the 2016 election season, but state Attorney General Kamala Harris and candidate for the U.S. Senate, may have signaled that a change is coming. We have to support the Endangered Species Act, Harris recently told the Editorial Board of the Sacramento Bee. Theres just no question about that.

Harris commented after being asked about California governor Jerry Browns plan to dig two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at a cost of at least $15 billion. Concern over the California water supply and drought have emerged as important issues in the electoral contest to fill Senator Barbara Boxers senate seat in November. Despite widespread agreement on the need to address water-supply issues, this and other plans to reform the water-supply system have prompted calls to protect the tiny Delta smelt which may face increased extinction pressures.

In her comments, Harris signals her vehement support for a well-intentioned but problematic and largely unsuccessful regulatory attempt to protect every species that may face extinction pressures.

Political concern for the Delta smelt is only the most recent example of the ESAs use to delay or defeat, in this case public works, projects. But these conflicts started the same year as the ESAs creation in 1973, when the hitherto unknown snail darter, a small, snail-eating, bottom-dwelling fish, was discovered in the Tellico Dam Project area, part of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Groups who wanted to prevent the dam pushed the Department of the Interior to list the snail darter as endangered as one of their tactics to delay construction.

The ESA has empowered environmental groups to fight any project that might negatively impact species listed under the act. Everything from utility-scale solar and wind farms, oil and gas development, off-road vehicle use, mining, timber harvesting, grazing and hunting have been challenged under the auspices of the act.

The ESA bans the taking of listed species and take means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. This ban on taking, the fundamental source of ESA authority, applies not just to public lands, but also to species found on private land, and has been used successfully to prevent private uses on private property that might impact listed species.

All of these actions come at a significant cost. Research my colleagues and I conducted found more than $17 billion in state and federal spending from 1996 to 2013. Seventeen years and 1$7 billion later only just over 1 percent of listed species have been delisted due to recovery, meaning they are no longer under the protection of the ESA.

With due respect to Attorney General Harris, there are many reasons to reform the ESA. In fact, even her democratic opponent Loretta Sanchez agrees that some reform may be needed. When asked about the ESA and the need for improved water systems, Sanchez replied, Everything needs to be on the table when we go in to find a solution.

Ryan M. Yonk is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Assistant Research Professor at Utah State University. He is the co-author of the new book Nature Unbound: Bureaucracy vs. the Environment, with Randy Simmons and Kenneth Sim.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  A congressional candidates contest to give away a semi-automatic rifle is still on despite the original post being taken down by Facebook.

Greg Evers, whos running in the Republican primary for the open seat in Floridas 1st District, announced Monday hes giving away a Homeland Defender AR-15 rifle on July 4. But on Monday night, Facebook pulled a post about the contest showing the rifle after receiving numerous complaints for promoting graphic violence and describing the purchase or sales of drugs, guns or regulated progress.

A post showing the rules for entering the giveaway has also been taken down after getting flagged for the same reasons.

Last January, Facebook imposed a policy barring private individuals from advertising or selling firearms on the worlds largest social network. Facebook did not immediately respond to a message about the gun giveaway Wednesday.

The Evers campaign says someone in California reported the post. Campaign spokesman Brian Burgess said they had anticipated someone would object but that likes and shares are still being tracked. The original post had received more than 1,100 likes and nearly 900 shares

Evers took to his Facebook page on Wednesday telling supporters that he has become a target for gun control advocates.

Instead of taking on Radical Islam, they would rather take our 2nd Amendment rights away leaving us defenseless to further acts of terror like the one we just saw in Orlando, Evers posted. The truth is it was President (Barack) Obamas reaction to this terrorist attack that drove my campaign to staunchly defend our 2nd Amendment rights.

The custom-built rifle will be given away to one randomly chosen person who has liked and shared Evers page or signed up on his campaign website. It is open only to adults in the district who must pass all required background and security checks.

As of Wednesday, Evers page had received over 4,800 likes and nearly 2,100 shares.

This is not the only contest involving an AR-15 in a congressional race. Tennessee state representative Andy Holt is giving away two rifles during an event Saturday with candidates for that states 8th Congressional District.

In 2014, AR-15 rifles were part of giveaways in at least three U.S. House or Senate races.

Evers is one of five candidates running in the Aug. 30 Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jeff Miller. Evers has served in the Florida Legislature since 2001, including the Senate the past six years. The National Rifle Association has given him an A-plus grade for the past 15 years.
JERUSALEM  An Israeli military court on Wednesday handed life sentences to four Palestinians who gunned down an Israeli couple in front of their children in the West Bank last year.

The military said four members of the Islamic militant group Hamas shot dead Eitam and Naama Henkin as they drove through the West Bank last October. Their four children, including a four-month-old infant, were in the car but were physically unharmed. Eitam was an American citizen.

Over the past nine months, Palestinians have carried out dozens of attacks, including stabbings, shootings and car ramming assaults, killing 32 Israelis and two visiting Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed during that time. Israel has identified most of them as attackers while the rest died in clashes with Israeli troops.

The violence has led to calls for the revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which last broke down in 2014.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome next week, Netanyahus office said, without providing further details. Israeli media have reported that the two will discuss efforts to restart peace talks.

France has proposed an international peace conference, an initiative rejected by Netanyahu, who says a deal can only be reached by direct negotiations between the two sides. The Palestinians have welcomed the French initiative.

The Quartet of Mideast mediators  the U.N., U.S., EU and Russia  are finalizing a report on the conflict expected to be critical of Israel.
Matthew McConaughey  lean, dark, with hollowed, darting eyes  portrays the real-life Civil War rebel Newton Knight in Free State of Jones, written and directed by Gary Ross, with a story by Leonard Hartman. Its a film that grapples with the reverberations of this period throughout our collective American conscience, and proves to be a richly rendered history lesson. Its undeniably politically charged and deeply complex, especially through the lens of 2016. Period pieces cant just be interpreted for the era in which they take place, but also the era in which they are made, and this one doesnt offer easy answers.

Knight was a farmer, Confederate deserter and eventual guerrilla rebel, fighting for racial and economic equality. His legacy extends to the 1948 miscegenation trial of his great-grandson, Davis Knight (Brian Lee Franklin), descended from Knights union with former slave Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). These time lines intersect in the film, demonstrating Knights personal legacy in the journey toward equality, but the main plot is the tale of Knights rebellion in Jones County, Mississippi, and subsequent struggles during Reconstruction.

McConaughey pitches his performance right into that sweet spot of feral nobility that marks his best work, and its effortless  McConaughey just exists as Knight on screen. Ross approaches the intense material with a sense of thoughtful contemplation and an even, languid pacing. The photography of French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme underlines this approach, everything framed just so: the emerald chamber of the swamp where the rebels hide out; a soldiers head caved in by a bullet. The camera quietly observes all.

Its clear that Ross bit off more than he can chew in Free State of Jones. The story lolls and wallows in wartime violence and the rebellion, then rushes through the horrors and trauma of Reconstruction, relying on text titles to speed through the historical context. Paired with archival photos, these sections offer authenticity but feel more like a PBS documentary.

Knight astutely calls out the Civil War for what it was: an economic dispute driven by profit margins and craven capitalism, wherein rich slave owners exploited poor white folks and African-American slaves alike. But this is a false equivalency, and Knight eventually has to figure that out the hard way. Its nearly impossible to reconcile so many difficult sociopolitical issues in the life story of one man, but Knights ideals were radically modern and he lived them fully.

Any American anti-government, libertarian tale goes hand in hand with firepower, and Free State of Jones does offer up a strong argument for the Second Amendment, a battle that rages on today. Guns are the supporting characters in the film  always close at hand, used to throw off tyranny, and symbolic as gifts, currency, even books. Guns are protectors of the vulnerable. Knight places shotguns in the hands of tiny girls and tells them to aim for the Rebs whove come to collect supplies. Gun dont care whos pulling the trigger, he drawls. Unfortunately, theres a devastating, ironic truth to that line that enacts itself everyday in America.

While the dream of the egalitarian, libertarian utopia of Jones proves elusive, Free State of Jones susses out and manifests what has become the real American dream: prosperity. Its a dream planted here with gunpowder and watered with blood. You do indeed reap what you sow, for better or for worse.
A stretch of 7.2 miles of coastline has the only no fishing beaches in Orange County and is among a handful statewide that are part of the nations marine network.

The beaches were declared a Marine Protected Area in 2012, the result of efforts of a coalition of local organizations and individuals  known as Laguna Bluebelt Coalition  that wanted to restore Lagunas marine life and habitat. Lagunas coastline  once known for an abundance of abalone and with coves like Totuava Cove at Thousand Steps, named after a 600-pound fish that was found there  had been depleted for decades by fishing.

Now, four years later, local surfers, stand-up paddle boarders and divers report a variety of fish, tide pool creatures and kelp along the protected coastline. In the last two years, gray, blue and humpback whales are no longer a rarity in the picturesque coves. The rich nutriments that are part of the marine ecosystem provide a host of habitats and opportunity for sea life.

Recently, Laguna Bluebelt held its fifth annual photo contest to celebrate the success of the Marine Protected Area. Professional and amateur photographers entered their examples of the improving habitat. There were 85 entries from across Orange County. Judges this year included Mark Chamberlain from BC Space Gallery, freelance photographer Mitch Ridder and underwater photographer Beverly Factor. The contest was organized by Jinger Wallace and Charlotte Masarik.

Professional photographer Hugh Foster of Irvine won first place for his photo, Passing Time, and Dale Kobetich of Santa Ana took second place for his photo, Last Splash of the Day.

In the amateur category: Rich German of Laguna Beach won first place for Sunrise From the Bottom of the Sea, where he captured iconic California gray whales migrating through Laguna Beach during their annual journey from Alaska to birthing sanctuaries in Baja California. German, an avid stand-up paddleboarder, said he often encounters whales and dolphins on his trips along Lagunas coastline.

Second place went to Tim Williams of Laguna Beach for his photo, Curious Male Sheephead.

In 2007, Wallace, Michael Beanan, Judy York, Greg OLoughlin and Ray Heimstra organized Laguna Bluebelt, holding monthly meetings in Laguna Beach and traveling along the coast to create awareness for the marine protected designation.

The Laguna groups gained attention and drew conservationists, fishermen, divers, spear fishermen, owners of commercial fishing vessels and elected officials. They focused on habitat restoration, water-quality education, protection and networking.

The citys collaboration with groups, individuals and local and state agencies is a model for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to implement more of these networks across the state, said Calla Allison of the MPA Collaborative Implementation Program.

In an interview with the Register, Wallace, a Bluebelt co-founder, talks about the success of the Marine Protective Area and why a healthy ocean is important for everyone.

Q. What about the photos reflects the mission of Laguna Bluebelt?

A. Our mission includes educating the public about our Marine Protected Areas and blending individual efforts together into a communitywide effort to protect and restore our ocean. The photo contest focuses the larger community of residents, tourists, ocean advocates and photographers on our Marine Protected Areas. Through the contest, we seek to celebrate a healthy ocean environment by promoting awareness and respect for our Bluebelt.

Q. How have coast and ocean life improved since the area became MPA protected?

A. We have heard from many local residents, dive boat operators as well as weekend scuba divers and snorkelers that the fish are bigger and more diverse.

It can take many years to evaluate the improvements to the ocean due to our MPAs, but state Fish and Wildlife, in partnership with the Ocean Protection Council, are in the process of doing just that.

Lagunas MPAs are relatively new, and the baseline study for our South Coast region was only completed this year. We see encouraging results from the monitoring of the North Central Coast region. These studies have shown as much as a 446 percent average growth in fish biomass and 166 percent in density. Were working with other nonprofit organizations to gain public cooperation in support of our MPA and to improve water quality.

Q. What can the public do to participate in ways to promote greater ocean awareness?

A. They can look for ways to restore our wetlands by joining with others in their community to plant trees and clean up water courses. Its important to be aware that everything flows to the sea  we need to stand up and speak up for clean creeks, lakes and streams. Advocating for recycled water to reduce sewage discharge to the ocean is an important public action. When visiting the beach and tide pools, be mindful and sensitive to the marine life dependent on it. Its been said before, but good to remember, Take only memories and pictures home, leaving behind a clean beach and healthy ocean.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@ocregister.com or on Twitter@lagunaini
Theres nothing like a good scare to make the state Legislature get religion. Open government is the religion we mean here. And the scare comes from the California Legislature Transparency Act, an initiative that appears to be headed for the November ballot.

Republican activist Charles T. Munger Jr. and Sam Blakeslee, a former state senator, are the primary sponsors of the California Legislature Transparency Act, which would change the state constitution to require that all bills be available for public and legislative review at least 72 hours before theyre voted on; that all open proceedings of the Legislature must be recorded by the Legislature and those recordings be made available to the public, and that members of the public be allowed to record and broadcast or post on the internet recordings of any open Legislative proceeding.

It would squeeze much of the secrecy out of the Legislature, especially those bills that have their contents replaced wholesale by something unrelated to the original subject  an insidious process known as gut-and-amend  and then get voted on before the public, or even legislators, can react.

The idea that bills should be available for study for three days before theyre put to a vote in either house is one this Editorial Board has long advocated. State Sen. Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, and Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, among others, for years have been putting forward bills to require such 72-hour publication, but their efforts have died at the hands of majority Democrats.

But now that the CLTA will be put to voters rather than to self-interested legislators, Democrats are ramming through Senate Constitutional Amendment 14, by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Vacaville, which passed the Senate last week, the Assembly Rules Committee Tuesday and Assembly Appropriations Wednesday. SCA 14 has provisions that parallel those in the CLTA, but are weaker, with more escape clauses.

Why? Cynics might say its an attempt to keep the CLTA from becoming constitutional law, either by drawing more votes than that initiative in November or by confusing enough voters that both measures get rejected. Put us down as cynics.

By way of comparison, the CLTA requires the Legislature to publish a bill online and to distribute a printed copy to members of the house in question 72 hours before a vote; SCA 14 requires only the online publication, which means, as Mr. Munger and Mr. Blakeslee pointed out in a letter to Sen. Wolk, legislation might be posted at 1 a.m., starting the clock when no one is looking. How many bills might be posted late on a Friday night, seeking the cover of a weekend?

There are other important differences. The CLTA requires the Legislatures audiovisual recordings of its proceedings to be accessible on the internet and downloadable for 20 years; SCA 14 requires only that they be reasonably accessible, whatever that might mean. The CLTA grants a right to individuals to record legislative proceedings (except legitimately closed sessions) and to transmit them; SCA 14 grants only an authorization to make recordings, subject to reasonable restrictions, with no right to challenge those restrictions.

Legislators should either drop their weaker, decoy initiative or write the stronger provisions of the CLTA into it  for true legislative transparency.
A recent Supreme Court case illuminates a serious problem in criminal trials for which there is no easy solution: race discrimination in jury selection. Thirty years ago, the court ruled that it violates the Constitution to exclude prospective jurors by race. But it happens all the time, and it is rarely stopped  except in the unusual case where there is overwhelming proof of bias.

In every trial, prospective jurors can be excused for cause, such as if they have personal knowledge of the facts, or know the defendant, or are unable to be impartial. Additionally, the law gives each side the ability to excuse a certain number of prospective jurors without needing to give a reason. These are termed peremptory challenges.

For example, in California, in a criminal case where the offense is punishable by death or life imprisonment, each side is given 20 peremptory challenges. In most other criminal cases, each side is limited to 10. In civil cases, each side is given six peremptory challenges.

Although the Constitution forbids the use of peremptory challenges based on race, it happens all the time. The difficulty of stopping it is illustrated by the Supreme Courts decision on May 23 in Foster v. Chatman. Timothy Foster was prosecuted for murder in Georgia. There were four prospective African American jurors, and the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to exclude each of them. Fosters lawyer objected, but the trial judge found that the prosecutor had offered sufficient explanations apart from race and overruled the objection. Foster was convicted and sentenced to death.

Many years later, Fosters lawyer filed a request under the Georgia Open Records Act, seeking access to the states file from his 1987 trial. The file contained stunning evidence of race discrimination in the exercise of peremptory challenges.

One document was a list of prospective jurors, and the names of the black prospective jurors were highlighted in bright green. A legend in the upper right corner of the document indicated that the green highlighting represents Blacks. The letter B also appeared next to each black prospective jurors name. They were ranked, B#1, B#2 and B#3, respectively, indicating the prosecutors preferences among them. Another document in the file was handwritten and titled, definite NOs; it listed six names and included all of the prospective African American jurors.

Even with this evidence, the Georgia courts found no constitutional violation. But the Supreme Court in a 7-1 decision reversed the ruling. The court concluded that Fosters constitutional rights were violated because the prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race when they struck prospective jurors.

But rarely will there be such clear evidence of race discrimination in jury selection. It is easy for the parties to offer some race-neutral reason for excluding prospective jurors.

Race discrimination by prosecutors in exercising peremptory challenges means that defendants are denied a fair trial. Also, as the Supreme Court has noted, prospective jurors have a right to be free from discrimination. Moreover, all-white juries risk undermining the perception of justice in minority communities, even if a mixed-race jury would have reached the same result.

What is the solution? One possibility would be to completely eliminate peremptory challenges. Justice Thurgood Marshall argued for this in 1986 declaring, The decision today will not end the racial discrimination that peremptories inject into the jury-selection process. That goal can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely. Another possibility would be to significantly limit the number of peremptory challenges available to each side, which would reduce the opportunities for race discrimination. At the very least, trial courts and appellate courts need to look much more closely at the reasons given by lawyers for excluding minority jurors and to stop this when it is apparent that the goal is race discrimination.

Every day in criminal cases across the country, race discrimination is occurring in jury selection. Confront this and finding meaningful solutions is long overdue.

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of Law.
SACRAMENTO  California is regaining responsibility for providing medical care at two state prisons at opposite ends of the state after a decade of reforms.

A federal court-appointed receiver on Wednesday gave the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation control of inmate health care at Centinela and Pelican Bay state prisons.

Centinela has nearly 3,600 inmates in Imperial, about 120 miles east of San Diego near the Mexican border.

Pelican Bay houses about 2,200 inmates in Crescent City, 355 miles north of San Francisco near the Oregon border. It is known for segregating the states most serious criminals in its Security Housing Unit.

The receiver has now given up controlling operations at six of the states 34 prisons since last year. The others are in Blythe, Folsom, Soledad and Tehachapi.
Donald Trump delivered a blistering attack on Wednesday against Hillary Clinton, calling her unreliable and more concerned with herself than with the American people as he sought to regain his footing after a tumultuous month that imperiled his candidacy.

In a 41-minute speech seeking to build his case against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee by labeling her a world-class liar, Trump moved to soothe concerns among Republicans alarmed by gaping self-inflected wounds after his racial attacks on a federal judge and his self-congratulatory boast after the terrorist shooting in Orlando, Fla.

He said Clinton would not create jobs, portraying her as a scandal-tarnished former secretary of state who may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.

The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering our last scrap of independence to their total and complete control, Trump said.

The professionalized presentation, with two teleprompters flanking the lectern in a third-floor ballroom of the Trump SoHo hotel in Manhattan, represented a stark contrast to how Trump has handled the last month of his campaign.

Since securing the Republican nomination, Trump has allowed himself to be pummeled by Democrats, doing little to fashion an overarching message or even to frame his view of the race. But on Wednesday, he moved to regain the offensive, making a forceful case that he chose to enter public service because of his concerns for the country, a contrast he tried to draw with Clinton.

She believes she is entitled to the office, Trump said. Her campaign slogan is Im with her. You know what my response to that is? Im with you, the American people. She thinks its all about her. I know its all about you.

The Manhattan address highlighted an intensifying level of combat between Trump and Clinton, who in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday shot back at the Manhattan businessman for questioning her commitment to her faith just a day before.

As we Methodists like to say, she told hundreds of supporters, pausing for effect and knowing applause, do all the good you can for all the people you can in all the ways you can.

Later, she suggested that Trumps speech on Wednesday was part of an effort to distract voters from his lack of substance or policy depth.

Thats even why hes attacking my faith, she said.
Roughly 50,000 Southern California grocery workers have authorized a strike if negotiations over wage and health care benefits fail with Ralphs, Albertsons and Safeway-owned Vons and Vons Pavilions.

The final vote was tallied Wednesday by seven Southern California supermarket unions, including Local 324 in Buena Park. It impacts roughly 10,000 grocery workers in Orange County, union officials said.

The supermarkets are offering union workers a 10-cent per hour wage increase through 2018 and bonuses of 10 cents an hour and 15 cents an hour during that time. The stores will not fund health care beyond current levels, meaning that employees will have to contribute more or sacrifice coverage. The supermarkets also are not funding pensions at levels the unions are seeking and want to change the retirement age to 65 from 60.

Greg Conger, president of Local 324, said the supermarkets want to gut pensions, gut our health and welfare plans.

The 10-cent wage increase over three years is an insult to all of our employees, Conger said.

Negotiations with the three major chains have been ongoing since the union contract expired March 6. The sides have not come to any agreement, leading to this weeks strike authorization vote.

Chris Tilly, head of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, said the union may wait until a shopping peak in the fall, a time where a strike will be more disruptive. Or, he said, the unions could strike earlier since theyve been without a contract for three months.

Union workers took a hit during the Great Recession and are now trying to regain lost ground, Tilly said.

There are two main forces that have destabilized the balance between labor and management in the grocery industry, Tilly said. One is the spread of discounters, and in particular Wal-Mart. The second is the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

What you saw over the last 10 or 15 years was that grocers adopted a negotiating stance toward the union which was, We have to be competitive with Wal-Mart and there have to be major concessions.

Wal-Mart has since raised its wages, which Tilly said makes this argument harder.

Representatives for the supermarkets said the companies were focused on resolving the dispute.

A strike authorization vote is premature and only serves to cause concern for associates and customers, Kendra Doyel, a spokeswoman for Ralphs, said in a statement.

We encourage union leadership to return to the table on our agreed-upon upcoming dates and work out an agreement that is good for our associates and allows us to remain competitive in the market.

Of the 200 stores Ralphs operates in Southern California, 39 are in Orange County. The chain also operates five Food 4 Less stores in the county, but that discount brand is not negotiating a contract now, Doyel said.

We remain committed to negotiating a contract that is fair to all parties, including our employees, and will continue to work to achieve that, said Carlos Illingworth, spokesman for Albertsons and Safeway-owned stores, said in a statement.

A 2003-04 grocery strike and lockout altered the regions supermarket climate. The strike lasted four months and cost the grocers an estimated $1.5 billion.

Both parties were losers. The union ended up accepting a contract with many concessions, Tilly said. The grocers were losers because they lost market shares during the time and were barely functioning.

The strike opened the doors for dozens of rivals and new concepts to attract bargain-hunting grocery shoppers. In 2011, roughly 550 new grocery options dotted the region.
LAGUNA BEACH  A civil rights lawsuit filed last month by seven Muslim women claiming they were targeted and humiliated when forced to leave Urth Caffe by management is fraudulent, the owner of the Laguna Beach restaurant said in a counter-suit filed Wednesday.

It is nothing short of an abuse of process to extort public apologies and other accommodations from my client, Urth Caffe, said David Yerushalmi, co-founder and senior counsel for American Freedom Law Center, a national public interest law firm.

The cross-complaint filed in Orange County Superior Court alleges the lawsuit by the women is an abuse of process. The counter-suit accuses the women of trespassing at the cafe after being asked to leave.

Yerushalmi said in the suit that the restaurant staff was enforcing a policy that guests cannot exceed 45 minutes at a table without ordering when the cafe is busy. The women, who had pulled together three tables at the front patio, refused requests by cafe managers to share one table, or to move to the side of the patio or inside the restaurant, the lawsuit said.

The women became argumentative and insisted they would not leave the cafe even though they had not been asked to leave, the suit claims. They were eventually escorted out of the restaurant by Laguna Beach police.

The women, represented by three attorneys, said at a press conference in April that they were singled out and told to leave Urth Caffe on April 22 because they appeared to be Muslim. Six wore hijabs  a traditional headscarf in the Middle East.

One of their attorneys, Mohammad Tajsar, said at the time that Urth Caffe staff targeted these women as a way of cleansing their location of women that appeared to be Muslim to appease the Islamaphobia in a predominantly white Laguna Beach community.

Tajsar said Wednesday that he has started to review the cross-complaint that alleges trespass on the part of the women.

We vigorously deny they broke the trespass law because they followed the orders of the police, he said. We view their cross-complaint as a mechanism to question the motivation of the women who came to Urth Caffe to have a good time and a further attempt to scare them not to pursue their lawsuit.

Shallom Berkman, who is Jewish and co-owns Urth Caffe, disputed those claims. He said his wife, Jilla Berkman, who is Muslim, was the one who advised management to call police after the women became rude toward restaurant staff.

Shallom and Jilla are defending the character of this really neat cafe and its employees, Yerushalmi said. Theyre incensed their employees were called bigots.

The lawsuit said a security guard was sent to talk to the women after they continued to act disruptively and publicly refused to abide by the policy. The women refused to move from their tables and began to videotape the cafe and its clientele without permission, the lawsuit said.

Laguna Beach police were called in to assist and usher the women out of the cafe.

Yerushalmi said Urth Caffe is popular and successful due in large measure to its young Muslim clientele.

The claim that these women were asked to leave the cafe because they were wearing hijabs is laughable, he said. That night, as every Friday night, a large number of young people, including a majority of whom are Muslim and of Arab descent, make up the base of Urth Caffes customers. Not surprisingly, many of these customers are women wearing hijabs. None of these other Muslim women was asked to leave.
We take our seats in the mint green chairs in the circular hall of the United Nations with the massive emblem, two olive branches extending around a map of the world that looms above us.

Around us hundreds of students try to find places to sit. There is the usual loud chatter that fills these places before any event. Everyone is taking pictures. This is the General Assembly Hall, the place where diplomats from the 193 member states to the United Nations meet to discuss major issues affecting the world.

This is the place in New York City where major figures such as Fidel Castro spoke in 1960, and our own President Barack Obama gave a speech at the opening of the 70th General Assembly meeting in September. And here we are, a bunch of 20-year-olds dressed up in our business attire, sitting in this place where the most powerful people on the planet have come, ready to close out the National Model United Nations competition we have participated in for the past five days of our spring break.

We are thrilled to be here, exhausted by our hard work, but feeling accomplished. Students from around the world have been coming here for years to meet to address global issues and hone their skills in negotiating and public speaking, but for most of us from Cal State Fullerton, it was our first visit to this site of historic importance.

Our CSUF group of 20 was split into various committees addressing issues as diverse as the environment to education to economics, performing so well our delegation won an Outstanding Delegation Award, the highest recognition.

A regular day in the conference is spent walking into this huge room with close to 200 students from all over the world all dressed in business suits, looking like real-world ambassadors. We introduce ourselves, and get to the business of persuasion and negotiation.

Our delegation represented the Togolese Republic of West Africa, also known as Togo. The topic assigned to our committee was peacekeeping, and we wanted to address how the mandate  the missions purpose  is set. Delegates representing lots of other countries wanted to focus on the issues of human rights violations by peacekeepers since that has been a major topic. However, my partner and I felt that by addressing the mandate, the design and limits of the mission, we could then branch out to include these other components.

We walked up to people and asked them what they thought about the issue or what they were focusing on, and then either agreed to work with them or diplomatically excused ourselves and moved on.

During the conference, I found delegates from several countries who all wanted to focus on the mandate, so we agreed to work together. Next, we sat together with laptops and began writing our working paper, which is a draft of the resolution. This is where everyones ideas come out, and sometimes disputes break out.

In our committee, I proposed breaking up into smaller groups that focused on the various facets of our working paper. This way, instead of everyone trying to speak over each other, the work would be more efficient, and we could make progress on a working paper easier to edit, as opposed to getting into deliberations over every detail in the larger group while were writing.

Eventually, all those smaller pieces came together, and we submitted our draft to the dais, the people who oversee the committees. They review the document and make suggestions. While all of this was happening, we also heard the delegates give speeches about the topic during the formal session. The informal sessions are where everyone is writing and discussing the issue and trying to get their ideas into the working paper.

This went on until the working paper became a draft resolution, then we voted on all the draft resolutions the last day of committee when they became resolutions and were passed by the body.

In our committee, everyones resolutions passed because of how much cooperation and interaction there was among so many different groups. And at the end of this process, we attended the closing ceremony in the UNs General Assembly Hall, which is an experience that after all that hard work is breathtaking.

After participating in Model UN, it has only reaffirmed my interest and desire to pursue a career in international relations. The experience of negotiating and working on world issues validated my drive and passion to work for a better world, and it reaffirmed my commitment to the importance of the United Nations.

Andy Marin, an English major also pursuing a minor in international relations at Cal State Fullerton, recently returned from the United Nations Association (UNA-USA) 2016 Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. On campus, he is the digital media coordinator for Generation United Nations.
As the nuclear age comes to an unexpectedly sudden close in California, the fate of the deadly waste it has produced will be debated, again, in San Juan Capistrano on Wednesday night.

John F. Kotek, the U.S. Department of Energys acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy, will detail a new federal push to place interim storage sites for nuclear waste in places allegedly eager for the business, such as Texas and New Mexico.

Kotek will speak with the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the San Juan Capistrano Community Center. The action will be streamed live online.

The idea is to move spent nuclear fuel from the past half century off about 75 sites  including the beaches of San Onofre and, now, Diablo Canyon in central California  while the feds try to figure out where to put it permanently.

After battling for years for a license renewal for Diablo Canyon, Californias last operating commercial nuclear power plant, operator Pacific Gas and Electric announced Tuesday that Diablo will be shuttered in 2025 and replaced with renewable energy.

Newly discovered faults near Diablo made it a menace, critics have been arguing, and the fight to keep Diablo operating became expensive for PG&E, both in dollars and public relations.

The closing of San Onofre in 2013, after unexpected tube wear was discovered in its brand-new steam generators, can be chalked up to much the same thing.

This is not just the end of the nuclear era in California, its the end of the nuclear era in America, said Mark Cooper, senior research fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School, who testified against Diablos license renewal.

You just dont need nuclear to keep the lights on or the computers running. The simple fact is that wind and solar and a variety of good management techniques can deliver lower-cost, low-carbon, equally reliable electricity.

Central Californians may learn what Southern Californians learned after San Onofre shut down: The fate of the highly radioactive waste that has piled up for decades moves passionately to center stage.

WHAT NOW?

Technically, nuclear waste is the federal governments problem. To encourage the industrys growth, the feds promised to accept and permanently dispose of spent fuel from commercial reactors by 1998. In return, utilities operating those reactors made payments into a Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for disposal.

That fund collected about $750 million a year  for a total of about $40 billion  but the Department of Energy has been unable to find a permanent repository, so it hasnt accepted any waste. In the interim, it has piled up at sites such as San Onofre nationwide.

Utilities sued the federal government for breach of contract and won: The DOE has had to pay more than $3.7 billion for this failure, and taxpayers could fork over an additional $21 billion before the problem is solved, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

As a result of that paralysis, San Onofres operator, Southern California Edison, contracted with Holtec International to build a robust underground system to hold San Onofres waste for decades while the federal government tries to figure it out.

Holtecs underground system features corrosion-resistant, stainless steel fuel canisters encased in a concrete monolith topped with a 24,000-pound steel and concrete lid.

San Onofres decommissioning plan sets aside $1.27 billion for management of future spent fuel.

All waste now cooling in San Onofres spent fuel pools is slated to move to dry storage in Holtecs system by 2019. Critics fear that the canisters are dangerously close to shore, and that our region has been saddled with a beachfront nuclear waste dump.

CONSENT-BASED

The new federal push, to be discussed tonight, could move that waste out earlier than planned.

Several consent-based sites could be up and running even as the question of locating a permanent repository is hashed out.

That could mean moving the fuel from San Onofre by 2039, a decade earlier than currently envisioned, and perhaps sooner, David Victor has said. He chairs the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel, a volunteer group that advises Edison on San Onofres decommissioning.

While Victor was cautiously optimistic about the new federal push, others remain skeptical. The question has lingered for 50 years, and critics dont expect a solid answer now.

A commission appointed by President Barack Obama recommended that the task be taken away from the DOE.

That move, said Rochelle Becker, executive director of Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, a nonprofit citizens group, would go a long way toward restoring trust.

But Becker and other activists worry about logistics. Even if the feds manage to get interim waste sites up and running, will the radioactive material be stable enough to move? And if so, how will it be transported?

Others, however, savored Diablo Canyons coming demise.

This is a historic agreement, said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. It lays out an effective road map for a nuclear phase-out in the worlds sixth-largest economy, while assuring a green energy replacement plan to make California a global leader in fighting climate change.

Nuclear power once provided about 20 percent of Californias electricity. In less than 10 years, it will provide zero.

The news that nuclear power will be replaced by renewables is heartening, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, said.

Cooper, the analyst at the Vermont Law School, predicted the wave of nuclear plant closures years ago.

Cheap oil and natural gas have been nuclears death knell, he has said, along with a growing consensus that renewable energy is the path to the future.

Contact the writer: tsforza@ocregister.com
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.

Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.

Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
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Omahas restaurant tax is constitutional, doesnt favor food trucks as a special class, and a lawsuit objecting to it by an opponent of food trucks should be thrown out.

Thats the message from the citys Legal Department. Omaha lawyers responded with court papers Monday to a food truck/restaurant tax lawsuit that was filed against the city last month by Michael Henery, owner of Michaels Cantina at the Market Mexican restaurant.

Henerys lawsuit in Douglas County District Court said it isnt fair that food trucks dont pay the 2.5 percent municipal restaurant tax and that parking regulations arent enforced against them.

The lawsuit seeks a refund of about $100,000 from the tax that Henery says is unconstitutional because it creates a special exemption by not requiring food trucks to collect it, while levying it on brick-and-mortar restaurants.

City of Omaha lawyers disagreed on all counts and asked the judge to dismiss the case, citing the following:

 In 2012, the Nebraska Supreme Court found the tax to be constitutional after legal challenges were filed by two Omaha restaurants, La Casa Pizzaria and Anthonys Steakhouse.

 When the tax was authorized in 2010, food trucks had not yet been established as a substantial presence in the city ... therefore, it could not have been the intent of the City Council to create a special privilege or immunity.

 Even if the carve-out for food trucks were to be found improper, it would not invalidate the bulk of the tax ordinance, as the various elements of the law are severable, meaning parts can be lopped off without affecting the rest.

Brandon Henery, general manager at Michaels Cantina and son Michael Henery, said the filing by the city changes nothing and his side will continue trying to get the lawsuit moving forward. This is not going to stop us, Brandon Henery said. It is too unconstitutional. They are in dreamland.

As for the citys contention that food trucks were not well-established when the restaurant tax ordinance was passed, Henery said: OK. Great. So are they going to extend it to food trucks now that they are? They are just pulling every lawyer trick they know.

Omaha Food Truck Association President Kelly Keegan, owner of Chicago Dawg House and two food trucks, said members of his group will gladly pay the restaurant tax if so required.

He also said progress is being made in drafting a city ordinance to deal with objections to food trucks, such as parking-meter usage and selling in proximity to brick-and-mortar restaurants. Keegan said meetings are occurring with all concerned, including the Police and Fire Departments, and restaurant owners.

We want to take the City Council a solution, not a problem, Keegan said.

Under the preliminary draft of the ordinance, food trucks would be required to register with the city and pay an as-yet-to-be determined fee. They would not be subject to the restaurant tax.

Contact the writer: 402-444-3197, russell.hubbard@owh.com
Markets in London are bracing for what could be a wild ride in everything from foreign-exchange to stock trading as the United Kingdom votes today on European Union membership.

Voting booths will close at 10 p.m. (4 p.m. CDT) today, and Londons traders could experience anything from a market maelstrom to a whimper as results trickle in.

Bank of America Corp. expects a 10 percent downward jolt in equities if the country votes to leave the EU. Billionaire investor George Soros warned that the pound, the bellwether trade for Brexit watchers, could plunge more than 20 percent should voters back leaving.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen warned this week that the vote could have significant economic repercussions.

The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said the consequences of a vote to leave would be difficult to assess.

This lack of precision from two of the most eminent central bankers in the world with respect to the global consequences of a vote to exit was a refreshing outbreak of honesty in contrast to the very precise warnings that the U.K. public has been bombarded with, said Michael Hewson, the chief market analyst of CMC markets, citing warnings from the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of England and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, all of which signaled dire consequences if the country were to exit the EU.

Lots of preparations have been laid for the day.

ICAP Plc operates vital Treasury- and currency-trading venues and will have extra staff on hand. Bats Global Markets Inc., which runs the biggest pan-European stock market, has tested its systems to withstand volumes that are multiples beyond what it has experienced. Euronext NV and Tradeweb Markets LLC also are taking extra measures. Banks have warned clients that some services may be limited.

Everyone is certainly beefing up their staffing around the time of the results, said Michael OBrien, director of global trading at Boston-based mutual-fund company Eaton Vance Corp., who plans to stay on his companys trading floor until the results are known.

Recent market gains signal that a Leave vote would be a surprise result for traders, even though polls suggest the outcome is too close to call.

With the undecided vote still at a significant level, the swing factor to either side continues to remain a real possibility, said Nicholas Teo, trading strategist at KGI Fraser Securities. With the outcome still too close to call, traders have taken big bets off the table, riding only on small positions leftover.

A Leave vote could test the regions systems for buying and selling financial assets.

Retail currency broker FXCM Inc. lost more than $200 million after the Swiss central bank let the franc trade freely against the euro in January 2015, triggering one of the biggest market upheavals in recent history. Some Wall Street banks sought to renege on trades with clients after that event.

This week, FXCM said in a notice to its customers that its raising margin requirements on some currencies, including the pound and the euro.

Electronic-trading platform ParFX says the currency venue will have extra trading and IT staff available. It said it has been in regular contact with customers in the run-up to the vote.

Lessons have been learned since last years Swiss franc shock, according to ParFX Chief Executive Officer Dan Marcus.

Market participants are now better prepared for an explosion of volatility and are likely to err on the side of caution in the face of significantly higher trading activity following the EU referendum vote, he said.

Londons stock markets are designed to automatically pause after excessive price swings.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.
CENTRAL CITY, Neb.  History placed Nebraskans Earl Brandes, Ed Guthrie and Lawrence Osterbuhr in Honolulu on that infamous date in 1941 when Japanese planes laid waste to the Navys battleship row at Pearl Harbor.

Nearly 75 years later, history reunited the three men Wednesday back in their home state: Brandes, 95, of Central City; Guthrie, 97, of Omaha; and Osterbuhr, 96, of Hildreth.

They were longtime members of the Nebraska Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. As many as 50 Nebraskans used to attend the chapters meetings. Now the three are believed to be the last Pearl Harbor survivors living in the state.

Were really comrades, Brandes said. Theres not too many people left our age.

The national survivors group disbanded on Dec. 31, 2011, because too few members of the organization were still around to keep it going. The Nebraska chapter followed suit.

But the Sons & Daughters Pearl Harbor Survivors has stepped forward to carry on the memory of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, which killed 2,408 U.S. service members and 68 civilians. About 80,000 uniformed personnel survived.

The Sons & Daughters wanted to make sure nobody forgot about Pearl Harbor, said Peg Murphy, Guthries daughter and the leader of the Nebraska chapter.

She organized Wednesdays lunch reunion in Central City, at the retirement home where Brandes lives.

First, though, the men gathered at the towns Heartland Veterans Memorial for a short ceremony. Gary Berry, the Merrick County veterans service officer, presented all three with commemorative medallions marking the coming 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

It brought back a lot of memories, Guthrie said.

The ceremony took place at the new $200,000 veterans memorial, built over the last three years through the efforts of a group of local veterans including Brandes and Berry.

The three Pearl Harbor survivors sat next to a wall that described the history of World War II, in front of a crowd of about 60 family members and well-wishers.

Its great, Brandes said. Its been about four years since we got together.

On that Sunday morning in 1941, Guthrie was a Navy electricians mate aboard a destroyer tender, the USS Whitney, anchored between two destroyers. He was relaxing on deck, reading a comic book, when the first bombs fell on nearby Ford Island, just before 8 a.m. Two minutes later, the first Japanese plane flew overhead.

They were flying so low you could see the smiles on faces and their scarves, Guthrie said of the Japanese pilots.

Within 10 minutes, a well-placed bomb had struck the forward magazine of the battleship USS Arizona. The powerful blast killed 1,177 of 1,512 sailors aboard.

You could feel the explosion from the Arizona all over the harbor, Guthrie said. It was something you couldnt believe. The water was black with diesel fuel. People came out of the water like they were coated in tar.

He remembers the chaos after the attack, and spending several days retrieving survivors and bodies from the oily harbor.

Later, Guthrie was assigned to the USS Banner transport ship and witnessed the Pacific nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, less than a year after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 129,000 people and led to Japans surrender.

Going through that, I felt sorry for the Japanese people, Guthrie said.

After the war, he returned home and worked for Omaha Public Power District until retiring in 1981.

Osterbuhr in 1941 was serving in the Coast Guard aboard the CGC Kukui, a 190-foot buoy tender anchored in Honolulu Harbor.

In an account written down years later by his daughter, Osterbuhr said he was sunning himself on deck when he saw the smoke from Pearl Harbor, about 6 miles away, and heard the air raid sirens. The crew began loading ammunition for their .30-caliber machine guns.

High-level Japanese planes flew over, and the nearest bomb fell across the street, he said. We could hear the whistling sound of the bomb dropping before it hit.

Before noon, the Kukui left the harbor, working all night to put out buoy lights around Maui and Molokai because of the wartime blackout.

Osterbuhr spent two more years in Hawaii, then was transferred to St. Louis for duty on the Mississippi River. There he met his wife, Connie. They married in April 1945 and later returned to his home in Hildreth to farm after he finished his Coast Guard service in the Philippines. They were married more than 70 years, until she died a few months ago.

Brandes in 1941 was a Marine who had arrived in Hawaii about a month before the attack. His engineering unit had been building a camp near Honolulu. On the fateful morning, he was reading a newspaper in his tent across the channel from Battleship Row when the attack began.

Hearing explosions, he hurried outside and saw thick smoke hanging over the harbor. He saw a plane flying low, a red circle on it. Between the first and second wave of attacks, he was able to get his rifle, but it was of little use against the Japanese air assault.

When the smoke cleared, Brandes couldnt believe the destruction.

After Pearl Harbor, Brandes returned to the continental United States for training. He later was sent back to the South Pacific and spent time in Guadalcanal, Guam and Iwo Jima.

After the war, he returned to Nebraska, married wife Alice and farmed near Central City for decades. She died last year.

The three men never met until years after the war that shaped their lives. They say they dont talk much about World War II or Pearl Harbor. They dont need to.

They have a special bond, said Sandi Einspahr, Osterbuhrs daughter.

The extended families of all three Nebraska survivors plan to travel to Hawaii for Pearl Harbor 75th-anniversary ceremonies in December. Brandes and Guthrie plan to go, health permitting. Osterbuhr, who said he has been to 18 such ceremonies over the years, isnt sure he wants to make the long trip this time. But his family said theyll try to talk him into attending what could be the last major commemoration at which survivors will be present.

Thats the purpose  to keep it alive, Murphy said. Its such a special thing that they went through.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1186, steve.liewer@owh.com
Solar eclipse to be sighted in Bengaluru for 45 minutes: Report

Bengaluru: NCB arrests 2014 Miss Queen Karnataka in drug racket case

Bengaluru

oi-Preeti Panwar

Bengaluru, June 23: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday, June 21, arrested Darshitmita Gowda, a top model on charges of drug trafficking, from Bengaluru.

According to media reports, 26-year-old Darshitmita was booked under sections of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Besides her, four more people were arrested in connection with the case.

NCB officers said that Darshitmita was part of a gang that used to supply drugs to college students and youngsters in Bengaluru, Mangaluru and in Goa.

Darshitmita came under NCB scanner when the posh apartment in RT Nagar was raided in Nov 2015, where she was living with her boyfriend Nishant. NCB officials had reportedly recovered 110 grams of cocaine, 19 grams of hashish, 1.2 grams of MDMA and one LSD blot from her apartment.

Her alleged boyfriend was arrested on Nov 30, 2015, who later on named Darshitmita and four others as his aides.

On Tuesday, she was summoned by the NCB, after which she appeared before a court and was then sent to judicial custody, TOI reported.

Darshitmita, a native of Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka, had won Miss Queen Karnataka contest in 2014 and was a regular face at major fashion events in the city.

OneIndia News
Ramya's inclusion into Karnataka ministry will worsen crisis: Congress sources

Bengaluru

oi-Vicky

Bengaluru, June 23: There appears to be no respite for Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah following the reshuffle of his cabinet. He had dropped 14 and inducted 13 into his ministry.

With the rebellion increasing on one hand, Siddaramaiah has his task cut out. However the other big question is will he fill up the one vacant ministry and if he does who would it be.

There has been a lot of talk in the media that the 14th post may go to film actor and former MP, Ramya.

[Ramya likely to be inducted to Karnataka cabinet after Rahul Gandhi's direction]

However, top Congress sources tell OneIndia that these are just rumours and the focus now is on defusing the crisis. The 14th ministry is likely to be kept vacant and may just be used to re-induct one of the dropped leaders in case the crisis refuses to die down.

Ramya vs Ambareesh:

Some had decided to make it a Ramya vs Ambareesh battle. Both hail from the Vokkaliga community but many in the Congress say it is foolish to compare the support base both have.

Ambareesh is a very popular personality in the Mandya belt of Karnataka and one must not forget that Ramya had lost the last election from the Mandya constituency by 5,518 votes.

Her loss was in fact blamed on Ambareesh by those loyal to S M Krishna, the former Chief Minister of Karnataka. There was a feud between the two factions in Mandya and the loss was blamed on this.

Even if the Congress wants to induct Ramya into the ministry then they would have to ensure that gets elected in the council and at the moment that appears to be difficult.

While there are many who feel that Ramya should be pitched against Ambareesh, a majority however term this move as a foolish one. Ambareesh after being dropped from the ministry has been rebelling and the Congress is finding it hard to contain him.

Already other parties are on the wait list to grab him in a bid to pocket the Vokkaliga votes. In such a scenario if the vacant ministry is given to Ramya then the rebellion will spin out of control.

Congress sources say that inducting Ramya is not the choice of the party immediately. There are various factors that will have to be taken into consideration.

Complaints about her being inaccessible still continue to flow in and this has not gone down well with many. Further the feud between the Ramya and Ambareesh factions is well known.

Who will get the vacant ministry?

At the moment the Congress is in no hurry to fill the vacant slot. The entire machinery is focused on defusing the crisis. When the reshuffle was done, the Congress had decided that it would fill this slot at a later date.

However today the party has kept its options open. It may be filled up in a last ditch attempt to defuse the crisis. Currently the Congress is more worried about Ambareesh.

He continues to be an asset for the party and many feel that he was not handled right. He himself has said that he ought to have been informed instead of being thrown away like a slipper.

Sources say that no promise has been made as yet. However if there is no sign of the rebellion coming down, then the last option would be to give slot 14 back to Ambareesh. It is not final, but it is an option the source also informed.

OneIndia News
@shammiwitness: Google yet to respond, Bengaluru cops to make second bid

Bengaluru

oi-Vicky

Bengaluru, June 23: After filing a 37,000 page chargesheet, the case pertaining to Mehdi Masroor Biswas is stuck in a loop.

Biswas who was arrested by the Bengaluru police for posting pro ISIS content online is facing a host of charges under the Indian Penal Code and also the Unlawful Activities (Prevention). He used to tweet in the name of @shammiwitness.

The police have approached the court seeking permission to send a letter rogatory to the United States in a bid to seek assistance from Google and Facebook. The police feel that more information needs to be accessed and these companies can help.

No response from Google since 2015

It may be recalled that the police had written to Google in January 2015 seeking details of his accounts and also passwords. There had been no response which led to the delay in filing the chargesheet. The police have decided that they need to make one more attempt to access information.

Investigators feel that if this information is made available to them it would help strengthen the case. Mehdi has been arguing that he was merely re-tweeting material and this does not constitute an offence.

However the police say that there was one particular tweet in which he gives out information about an opening to reach Syria. This was intended at helping an operative reach the ISIS den and hence this constitutes an offence the police also say.

The police have with them his tweets. However, these tweets tell one part of the story and investigators believe that his email accounts could contain more information. However Biswas has been extremely fussy and non-cooperative with the investigators. When asked repeatedly for the account details he refused to part with information.

The police say that there are at least 15 email accounts that he had. With him refusing to share any information, we had requested Google in the month of January 2015 itself to share information with us.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 16:26 [IST]
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From Battle of Plassey to Brexit: June 23 is a memorable date in history of Britain

Feature

oi-Shubham Ghosh

June 23 seems to have a special place in the history of the British people. While the date in 2016 is significant for the people of the country will determine in a referendum on this day whether to remain a part of the European Union (EU) or leave it, it was exactly on this day 259 years ago that the Britishers had tamed the Nawab of Bengal and his allies in the Battle of Plassey to lay down the foundation of the future British empire in India that ruled for almost 200 years. [What is Brexit and why is it important?]

259 years ago, the British East India company had defeated the Nawab of Bengal to lay foundation of British rule

Though the Battle of Plassey was more of a skirmish than a battle, the Britishers' victory under Robert Clive was a significant in the history of India. The young Nawab, Siraj-ud-daulah had taken over Calcutta (now Kolkata) from the British East India with a huge army in June 1756. [Will UK leave EU today?]

The news had reached the Company officials in Madras (now Chennai) in August and in October, Clive left for Calcutta with a force of some 2,500 men comprising Europeans and Indians. Siraj's army was driven out in January 1757 and Clive decided to secure the Company's interests in Bengal by replacing Siraj with a more friendly face in Mir Jafar, a disgruntled elderly general. Jafar signed a secret agreement with the British following promises of enormous bribes to all concerned quarters and Siraj came to know about it. He, thereafter, moved south to Plassey in today's Nadia district. [Will Brexit see a Domino effect in Europe?]

On June 13, 1757, Clive mobilised forces and artillery to the north and despite falling short of confidence, he came from an hour-long meditation and ordered his army to move to Plassey.

The encounter took place on a cloudy morning near the Bhagirathi-Hooghli River. The British army had 2,000 Indian sepoys and 600 British infantry of the Thirty-Ninth of Foot besides 200 artillerymen with 10 field pieces and two small howitzer and was divided in three divisions. Siraj's army, on the other hand, had 40,000 men besides war elephants and around 50 cannon. [Will Brexit make UK's security vulnerable?]

The British won the battle decisively and made advancements in India

The skies opened up around noon and although the British armymen covered their cannon and ammunition from the rain, Siraj's men failed to do so. But they assumed that the British artillerymen also faced a similar experience and progressed only to face a storm of fire. Siraj lost his nerve and fled in a camel when Clive's army advanced and it left his army a demoralised lot. Siraj was later caught and killed. The administration of Bengal fell into the hands of the British and Mir Jafar was made the Nawab.

On June 23, 2016, the British are thinking of retreating from the EU

Fast forward by 259 years and we have another June 23. And this time, it is the Britishers' turn to retreat---although in an age of democracy. The people of Britain will decide in a referendum whether to stay in the EU, the union which had evolved in the post-Second World War period to help the devastated Europe stand on its feet again.

The UK, being a major member of the 28-member EU, is now divided over continuing in the union over questions like immigration, security, currency and sovereignty. Though opinions are polarised on the possible consequences of what is being termed as 'Brexit' (Britain's exit from the EU) but there is no denying the fact that the voice over a UK able to decide on its own future has gained strength over the years.

Only time will tell whether the pro-exit or anti-exit camp wins in the voting, but June 23 remains a crucial date in the history of Britain, even after centuries.
Know Constituencies of UP Assembly polls 2017: GHATAMPUR (SC)

Feature

oi-Pallavi Sengupta

Uttar Pradesh will go to Assembly elections early in 2017. The state has an Assembly comprising 403 seats and a party/alliance has to win 202 seats to form the government.

In 2012, when the last state election was held in UP, the Samajwadi Party had won 224 seats to get a decisive majority.

Oneindia will take one Assembly constituency a day and have a look at electoral information related to it:

Constituency Name: GHATAMPUR (SC)

[KCs 1-Rewna, 2-Patara, 3-Ghatampur, 5-Baripal & Ghatampur Municipal Corporation of 3-Ghatampur Tehsil. ]

Constituency Number: 218

Winner: Indrajeet Kori

Winning Party: SP

Runner Up: Saroj Kureel

Runner Up Party: BSP

Runner Up Votes: 49969

Margin: 700

Electors: 304897

Total Valid Votes:177538

%Votes polled: 58.24

Voters: 177558

District: KANPUR NAGAR

Actual Population: 4,581,268

Male: 2,459,806

Female: 2,121,462

Area per square kilometer: 3,155

About KANPUR NAGAR

Nestled on the banks of the eternal Ganga, Kanpur stands as one of North India's major industrial centers with its own historical, religious and commercial importance.

Believed to be founded by king Hindu Singh of the erstwhile state of Sachendi, Kanpur was originally known as Kanhpur'. Historically, Jajmau on the eastern outskirts of present day Kanpur is regarded as one of the most archaic townships of Kanpur district.

The biggest city of Uttar Pradesh and eighth biggest in India. Kanpur is the most important metropolis of the state. Kanpur has benefited from its fertile agricultural hinterland of the Upper Ganga Valley and Bundelkhand plateau, the available developed links of transportation and the stimulant of World War-2 with its industrial demand.

In this city, in spite of a low percentage of irrigated area, the density is high and that is obviously due to great industrial Concentration. The city which once was termed as Manchester of India for its matured cotton industry.

The city which hosts the world famous 'Lal Imli' woolen factory, industries such as LML, Pan Parag, ICI Limited (now known as Duncuns Fertilisers), one of the largest leather industries in the world and myriad cotton mills. The city which boosts one of the largest number of defense establishments; To name a few Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL), DMSRDE, Small Arms Factory(SAF), Field Gun Factory and Parachute factory.
UK votes to leave EU; India works on entering NSG: Who is more realistic?

Feature

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Has India surpassed its former colonial masters in the realm of diplomacy? Has it skilled the art of realism, something many had accused New Delhi of lacking in its way of handling the foreign affairs all these years, better than the North-Atlantic countries that were known to be the masters of this particular politico-diplomatic ideology?

The United Kingdom (UK), on the other hand, is believed to be putting its own position in a spot by calling a referendum on staying back in the European Union---one of the big success stories of regional integration in the post-World War II period. [What is Brexit and why is it important?]

The alacrity with which India has displayed its diplomatic skills at not one but two places simultaneously to back its ambition to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has proved to the world that it has come a long way since the Nehruvian days of blinking eyes first.

India's determined NSG bid: Jaishankar in Seoul, Modi in Tashkent

While Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar went to Seoul in South Korea to attend the NSG's plenary meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to make one final effort to change Beijing's mind on opposing India's entry into the NSG. [Will the Modi-Jinping meet ensure India's entry into the NSG?]

China has objected to India's entry into the NSG, the members of which can trade in nuclear technology after a number of western countries, including the US, has backed it. However, of late, the growing support for India's entry into the elite club saw China focusing more on Pakistan's entry into the NSG to balance India's presence.

Even as US argue with China and Pak, India hasn't sit back and waited

But the arguments and counter-arguments between the US on the one hand and China and Pakistan on the other have not eclipsed India's own efforts in getting the permit to enter the NSG. It might still be unsuccessful in its ambition but there is no denying the fact that its diplomatic initiatives have really come of age and that is more satisfying.

While UK is eyeing isolation, India is seeking integration

Just like when the Leave campaign in the UK is planning to reverse the flow of globalisation by seeking an isolation for the country, the Indian diplomats are showing a lot of grit in scaling the heights of power politics to serve the country's interests. And this is where PM Modi has brought in a positive change.

Here lies PM Modi's credit

He has shaken up the stagnant-looking bureaucracy, so much so, that South Block is now having the confidence to see eye to eye with the opponents, especially the Chinese, who they used to deal with a lot of apprehension earlier. The political leadership under Modi has brought in a new way of looking at things and it has effected a paradigm shift in the country's foreign policy and it is here to stay.

Unlike earlier, India has not blinked first when dealing with China

Whether China succeeds in stopping India from entering the NSG or not, the diplomatic victory will be India's. Given the conservative nature of South Block's doing things, the end result of the NSG bid will be a huge boost. If India gets an entry, it will elevate the stature of Modi's team in the international arena and if it doesn't, yet the message that China is creating an obstacle on the former's way of growth will earn it more friends.

Is India more realistic in diplomacy today than its former colonia masters?

The drama which is folding in case of India's NSG bid is no less significant than the UK's plan to exit the EU in the other part of the planet. But there is a clear difference in the vision for the two countries. For a difference, it is India which is scoring more on the realist front than its European counterpart this time.
This UP village lights up on Diwali, for the first time ever!

UP hospital which administered mosambi juice to patient faces bulldozer heat

Know constituencies of UP Assembly polls 2017: NAWABGANJ

Feature

oi-Preeti Panwar

Uttar Pradesh will go to Assembly elections early in 2017. The state has an Assembly comprising 403 seats and a party/alliance has to win 202 seats to form the government.

In 2012, when the last state election was held in UP, the Samajwadi Party had won 224 seats to get a decisive majority. [Know constituencies of UP Assembly polls]

OneIndia will take one Assembly constituency a day and have a look at electoral information related to it:

Constituency Name: Nawabganj

Constituency No. 121

District: Bareilly

District Area: 4,120 sq km

District population: 4,448,359

District literacy: 60.52%

2012 Assembly election result in Nawabganj

Winner: Bhagwat Saran Gangwar (SP)

Votes received: 67,022

Vote percentage: 35.58

Nearest rival: Usha Gangwar (BSP)

Votes: 49,303

Percentage: 26.17

Difference: 17,719

Margin: 9.41%

Total voters: 257,842

Turnout: 188,370 (73.06%)

First election in Nawabganj assembly constituency was held in 1952 after the delimitation order was passed in 1951.

Extant of Nawabganj Assembly constituency is Nawabganj Tehsil.

2014 Lok Sabha result in Bareilly

Santosh Kumar Gangwar (BJP) defeated Ayesha Islam (SP) by 240,685 votes and by a margin of 23.8%.

Bareilly Lok Sabha constituency comprises of 5 legislative assembly segments-- Bareilly, Bareilly Cantt, Bhojipura, Meerganj and Nawabganj.
Why is NSG membership important for India?

Feature

oi-Pallavi Sengupta

A debate on India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) Council is much-deserved, especially when it involves coountries like China (which is sympathetic to Pakistan) and India, USA (which are anti-Pakistan). The situation here is complex. The council comprises of members who have different goals and agendas and varied inclinations, but the agenda is not lost. The rat race of being branded a Super Power cannot be missed and NSG is just a step ahead toward that.

True, India has to cover several such steps to the top, buth a membership with the community, nevertheless, would be a big leap. Here's analysing why NSG membership is important for India.

Expansion of Nuclear power generation

India is keen to become a member of the NSG, apart from being stakeholders in the Wassenaar Agreement and Australia Group, to expand its nuclear power generation. India also wishes to enter the export market in the coming years. Certainly, India does enjoy significant possibilities after the 2008 NSG waiver, which enable it to engage in civilian nuclear trade with other countries. It has also been a matter of great pride for the country to have entered into such agreements with countries like Russia, France, UK, USA, Kazakhstan, Australia, and others.

[Read: India's NSG bid: Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar leaves for Seoul ]

In fact, membership with the NSG will provide greater certainly and a legal grounding for India's nuclear regime, evoking greater confidence of countries that invest billions of dollars to set up ambitious nuclear power projects in India. Once that is achieved, India can see itself getting promoted to a batch of law-making nations rather than a much more subdued law-adhering nation.

Overcoming hurdles

India, ideally, should not have a problem in attaining the NSG membership, given its record of adherence to all the commitments over the last 8 years. However, there are hurdles that need to be overcome and hence the last minute plans of PM Modi to visit Switzerland and Mexico. The decision on the 23-24 June in Seoul will be taken basing on political and economical considerations rather than on merit.

[Read: Will India make it to the NSG by end of 2016?]

In such cases, China has always played a part from outside, encouraging smaller countries to go against the move. But in India's case, apart from smaller countries, China has been very outspoken about its opinion of India joining the NSG. As per rule, any country, big or small can raise objections and the panel has to adhere to that. Hence to win the veto, Modi launched a hectic diplomatic itinerary to overcome the opposition of the countries that may still have concerns.

India interested for clean and green program

In an open conversation with China, India has tried to convince it that the urgency for membership is not guided by by any political or strategic considerations but only to facilitate the expansion of its clean and green nuclear energy programme.

And in order to do that, it dispatched its foreign secretary to Beijing on 16-17 June. If the reason is accepted, the PM will take up the issue with President Xi Jinping in Tashkent whereboth leaders are likely to be present for the SCO Summit on 23-24 Summit.

India, a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)

India being a member of the MTCR holds merit for the NSG membership since all the 34 nations in this community are members of the NSG too. China, however, is not a member here but has already applied for one. The primary reason why China has not been accepted as a member till date is because of its dubious history of according missile technology to countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.

[Read:Cornered by pro-India voice, China now backs Pak's entry in NSG ]

While this holds everthing against China, there are other factors too that nullifies its validation of not including India in the NSG. For instance, being a member of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not a mandate to be a member of the NSG. China's argument of Pakistan's potential as an NSG member does not hold good too as its credentials are flawed and inadequate. It has, in fact, supplied nuclear technology and materials to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Unlike Pakistan, India has kept its commitment of separating the reactors which are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards with those which are not.

India argues that its consideration as an NSG member should be based on its performance and not its credentials.

India became a Member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) on 7 June 2016. All 34 members of MTCR are members of the NSG. India is hence assured of support of these 34 members in its quest for NSG membership. It may be noted that China is not a member of MTCR, although it put in its application in 2004, because several members have concerns about China's dubious proliferation record in supplying missile technology to countries like Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

Most questions raised by China against India's membership have little validity. For instance, membership of NPT is not a condition for becoming a member of NSG.

It is only a guiding principle to which consideration needs to be given. Pakistan's credentials for NSG membership are highly flawed and inadequate. Over the last eight years India, as per its commitment, has separated its reactors which are under IAEA safeguards and those which are not.

Pakistan has a blemished and flawed proliferation record as it has engaged in illicit supply of nuclear technology and materials to Iran, Libya and North Korea. No comparison between the track records of the two countries is hence justified. India maintains that rather than evolving criteria, its performance should be the basis on which the decision on its application should be taken.

A chance for China to bridge the gap

While Russia has assured India that it would shield it against China's decision, the latter is still hopeful that China will see reason in its arguments and agree to its membership whole-heartedly.

In fact, China would see the oppostunity of bridging gaps rather than expanding the differences the two countries have. This is probably the last chance to mend relations and relate to the broader picture of the ties emerging out of it.
Why is Pakistan thanking the Chinese for supporting its NSG bid?

Feature

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A statement by Pakistan President, Mamnoon Hussain thanking China support for Islamabad's bid to enter the NSG is quite surprising.

Hussain who met with Chinese president, Xi Jinping at Tashkent on the sidelines of the SCO summit later thanked the Chinese for its support.

In an interview to a Pakistan television channel, Hussain said that only granting membership to India would create an imbalance. Hussain told Geo TV that only granting India the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will shift the balance of power.

He also said on the occasion that Pakistan and China's friendship had remained firm despite difficulties and trials. One may recall that the Chinese government run Global Times had reported recently that China opposes both India's and Pakistan's entry into the NSG.

In this context it does come as a surprise when Hussain thanked the Chinese. China has been maintaining that non NPT members cannot be allowed into the NSG and even stated that it was the US which had come up with the rule.

Meanwhile in Seoul:

Indian diplomats in Seoul are working on last minute details ahead of the discussions tonight by the NSG group. The issue was raised at the plenary in Seoul where the NSG meet is on.

The meeting will reconvene later tonight and India expects the issue would come up for discussion.

A lot would depend on the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinpeng to be held in Tashkent at the SCO summit.

The exact mood of the Chinese would be known following that meet. India's foreign secretary S Jaishankar who is at Seoul is leaving no stone unturned.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 15:29 [IST]
Will the Modi, Jinping meet ensure India's entry into the NSG?

Feature

oi-Vicky

All eyes will be on the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President XI Jinping when they meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Tashkent. The meeting assumed importance as India makes a push to be part of the NSG.

The meeting is of extreme importance as China has been opposing India's entry into the NSG stating that is a non NPT member. Indian officials had said that yesterday that they are hopeful of a fruitful outcome, but were also assessing the situation realistically. The big question is will China have a change of heart so late into the day.

The last resort:

India would want the NSG bid through before Barack Obama steps down as President of the United States of America. Obama has been pushing for India's entry into the NSG. India is not certain of what stands Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would take on this issue.

Yesterday in a bid to make a last pitch ahead of the Nuclear Suppliers Group meet foreign secretary S Jaishankar left for Seoul yesterday to make a last minute push at Seoul for India' entry into the NSG.

India is making every effort to be part of the NSG. Assessments are being made and the idea is to be realistic and understand every hurdle that may come India's way, an official in New Delhi informed OneIndia. The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 23 however is considered to be most crucial one.

It can go down to the wire too and we are making all efforts, officials working on the issue point out Apart from China, there are chances of opposition from countries such as Ireland, New Zealand and Austria. These nations have always expressed reservations of countries which are non-NPT members being part of the NSG.

On Monday the US called on the NSG members to back India. However China said that discussions should also focus on whether the rules can be changed. The Chinese also said that it was the US which came up with rule in the first place which states that non-NPT countries cannot be part of the NSG.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 9:17 [IST]
BSF, Pak Rangers vow to maintain peace at border

India

oi-PTI

Chamliyal Border (J&K), Jun 23: Border guarding forces of India and Pakistan today vowed to maintain peace and tranquility at the Indo-Pak border in a meeting held here.

The decision was taken at the meeting held between Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers at the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district.

"On this auspicious occasion of Chamliyal Mela, a Sector Commander-level meeting was organised between both border guarding Forces at zero line today," DIG (G) BSF of Jammu Frontier Dharmendra Pareek said. "During the meeting both sides assured each other to maintain peace and tranquility in the border area.

The meeting was concluded in a very cordial atmosphere", he said. Pakistan Rangers visited the Indian side today for the annual fair of saint Dilip Singh Manhas popularly known as Baba Chamliyal. The fair was celebrated with fervor and joviality at BOP Chamliyal in Ramgarh Sector of Samba.

The Pakistan delegation, consisting of 8 officers of Pak Rangers and 7 officials of civil administration led by sector commander Brigadier Wasim Jaffar Bhatti, participated in the meeting, Pareek said. The DIG said that the Indian delegation consisted of 8 BSF officers and 8 civil administration officials with eminent citizens of area.

It was led by B S Kasana, DIG BSF SHQ Jammu, IAS officer Sheetal Nanda, Samba District Magistrate and Ashkur Ahmed Wani, IPS DIG Jammu Kathua Range. The Pakistan delegation was received at Zero line by BSF Commandant in force tradition and the sector commander was presented a guard of honour.

During the meeting, pleasantries and greetings were exchanged by both side's delegates and thereafter mementos were presented to all members of delegation to each other from both sides, he said.

The sector commander of Pakistan Rangers handed over a 'Chaddar' to B S Kasana as a customary gesture and in return BSF officials along with other officers handed over 'shakkar and sharbat' to the rangers. The fair was well attended by BSF, civil and police officials and thousands of devotees paid obeisance.

Large number of people of Pakistan have shown their enthusiastic presence across the zero line to have a glimpse of the 'Baba'. As intimated by Pakistan Rangers, equal number of devotees are also present and eagerly waiting in their side of village to celebrate on reaching of 'Prasad' (shakkar and sharbat).

PTI
PM Modi likely to visit Arunachal on Oct 30 to inaugurate greenfield airport

Cabinet reshuffle on the cards? PM asks Ministers to present 'self appraisal' report

India

oi-Mukul Kumar Mishra

New Delhi, June 23: Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly has asked ministers to present their appraisal report in a meeting, scheduled at the end of this month.

The development has come to fore at a time when speculation is rife that Modi government will do cabinet reshuffle before the onset of Monsoon Session of the Parliament.

It is being believed that Government will do cabinet reshuffling keeeping in mind the next year Punjab and Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

As per media reports, a meeting has been called on June 30 where NDA minister will give presentation of their 'self appraisal report' to PM.

Presentation will showcase their work report since the BJP government presented its second budget. Reports say that Government will take final decision of the Cabinet rejig after examining the self appraisal report of ministers.

A TOI report quoting a source said, "There was talk that the June 30 meeting may be an appraisal exercise that can lead to a cabinet reshuffle".

Prime Minister has been reviewing work report of his ministers periodically to cross check whether things have improved or what more needs to be done on the front.

PM always highlight the fact that elected representatives are answerable to people and ministers should toil hard to meet to people's expectations.

OneIndia News
Housed terrorists in Odisha: Suspected AQIS operative tells police

India

oi-Vicky

Bhubaneswar,June 23: The Odisha crime branch which has been questioning Abdur Rehman claims to have unearthed a lot of details regarding the operation of the al- Qaeda in the Sub Continent. Rehman had been arrested for his alleged links to the AQIS and police officials from both Delhi and Odisha claim that he is an important operative.

He was brought down to Odisha three days back for questioning on a transit remand from Delhi. During his questioning he is said to have confessed to sheltering some terrorists in Odisha where he ran a Madrasa which is now closed.

While one must wait for the complete investigation details, it now appears that the Odisha police are gradually waking up to the threat of terror. The state has been used as a transit point or hiding place by many alleged terror operatives.

Is Odisha up to the threat?

Odisha has always had a problem with naxals. The police in the state were engaged in curbing naxal activities, but in the bargain ignored another threat.

Terrorist groups plotted to make this state a hiding joint at first. Later on investigations revealed that gradually the shift was made from hiding joint to launch pad. [Al-Qaeda admits link with Kandahar plane hijack terrorists]

Over the past year there has been a surge in activity in the state. Spies, absconding terrorists and radical preachers have all visited Odisha knowing fully well that the radar would not be on them.

When Chandra Behera was arrested for allegedly taking pictures of a test range in Chandipur, the signs were on the wall. He was alleged to be shooting pictures of sensitive locations at the behest of the ISI. The Intelligence Bureau had then warned that although there are no real instances of Islamic terrorism in the state of Odisha, it still had key targets that militants would like to attack.

The arrest of Rehman has given the state a completely different dimension. It is no longer immune to the threat of Islamic terror. Odisha had become a perfect recruiting as well hiding ground. IB officials say that Odisha could have been used both as a launch pad as well as a hiding ground by Islamic terrorists.

The investigations being conducted will throw more light on what plans the al-Qaeda had for Odisha. It has been found so far that Rehman known for his communally charged speeches had planned on sprucing up recruitments in various other states as well.

He had been running a school without a licence for sometime and had around 85 students under him. He had been detained in Ranchi a few months back for making a communally charged speech.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 15:02 [IST]
ISIS prepares kill list of 285 Indian civilians

India

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, June 23: 'O individual wolves out there in the world kill the cross where ever you find it and Kill them strongly, kill them hardly'. This was a chilling message on the private Telegram channel of the ISIS United Cyber Caliphate.

The message is followed by a kill list which comprises 4,681 civilians across the world. In the list one would find 285 Indian names.

None of the names which are part of the kill list are known. They are all civilian names picked up randomly and posted online. At first it is difficult to understand the logic of the ISIS and why it has posted civilian names. However an officer with the Intelligence Bureau explained that this is a tactic to create fear and also a possible way of making a lone wolf attack easy.

Why are civilians on the kill list of the ISIS?

The message by the ISIS is clear. It is making a call for lone wolf attack as their bases in Iraq and Syria are crumbling. Yesterday OneIndia had reported that a fall of the ISIS in Syria will witness a surge in lone wolf attacks (Fall of ISIS in Syria will see increase in lone wolf attacks across the world).

A Flashpoint analysis states that it is unlikely that the ISIS hacked into a data base or handpicked accounts. It appears that the ISIS has just randomly picked names and told its supporters to make them into potential targets.

Officers in India while analysing this new kill list say that it is just a ploy to create fear. Anyone would be scared to find their names on the list. They just want to target civilians and create a sense of panic.

The ISIS also wants to give a call to its lone wolves and is providing a list with easy targets.

One would need to be careful as such material does capture the imagination of many. If these lone wolves target one civilian and owe allegiance to the ISIS, then it is a madness that could spread like wild fire officials also added.

OneIndia news
Gopuja at all Karnataka Temples today: Govt explains how it should be done

Karnataka: Man beaten, stabbed, assaulted again; onlookers film attack, no one helps

India

oi-Reetu

New Delhi, June 23: In a shocking and surprising incident, a young man was beaten up, stabbed and then assaulted again at a bus stand in Karnataka allegedly for staring at a woman.

Nobody tried to help him while the onlookers filmed the entire attack on their mobiles.

According to a NDTV report, "At 4.30 pm yesterday, a man identified as Dhanush by the local police in Hassan, 185 kms from Bengaluru, was allegedly staring at a young woman at a bus stop when two men took offense and got into a verbal quarrel with him.

Then, Dhanush's brother, Sudeep, was stabbed. On camera, he can be seen bleeding profusely. At the bus stop nearby, people stand and watch."

Two people who were stabbed have been admitted, and a case has been registered against five accused.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 18:07 [IST]
Malegaon blasts- Maharashtra government challenges discharge of 8

News

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Maharashtra government has filed an appeal in the Bombay high court challenging the decision to discharge 8 persons in the Malegaon blasts case of 2006.

The National Investigation Agency had submitted that it found no evidence against the 8 persons following the Mumbai court dropped charges.

The case was initially handled by the Maharashtra ATS and later probed by the CBI. The case was then handed over to the NIA which found no evidence against these persons. Six of those discharged are from Malegaon. On September 8 2006, a blast in Malegaon killed 31 persons and injured several others.

These men who were arrested had alleged that they were tortured into making confessional statements by the police.

While the ATS had alleged that it was the SIMI which carried out the blast, the findings were confirmed by the CBI as well. However the NIA while probing the case stated that these blasts were carried out by the Abhinav Bharat.
Chhath Puja fasting rules: What one must keep in mind during the 4-day festival

Right is wrong: Man gets operated on the wrong foot in a private hospital

India

oi-Pallavi Sengupta

New Delhi, June 23: A renowned private hospital has hit the headline for the wrong reasons. In a shocker, a man was operated on the wrong foot after he was recommended a surgery when he met with an accident.

24-year old Ravi Rai's left leg was operated instead of his injured right leg.

The accident happened on Tuesday after Ravi fell down from the stairs and fractured his right leg. He was rushed to the private hospital where doctors suggested a number of tests, including a CT-scan and an X-Ray. Following the test results, the doctors suggested an immediate surgery. The family members relented.

Ramkaran Rai, Ravi's father said,"Doctors told us that there was a fracture in the ankle of his right leg, and that they need to do a surgery to insert pins for support. Trusting them we agreed to the surgery. But later, when our son gained consciousness, we realised that instead of the right leg, his left leg was operated upon."

Meanwhile, the hospital authorities have issued a statement saying,"Following yesterday's incident, we immediately set up an Expert Committee. Their preliminary view suggests that in the rarest of aberrations, the operating team may have disregarded and sidestepped due processes. We take our obligation to patients very seriously. As this is a zero tolerance area for us, the services of erring doctors and 'or' personnel (five) have been dispensed forthwith. Action against some others is also being contemplated, pending enquiry."

The statement further added, "We regret the incident. We would like to re-assure all our patients that we are deeply committed to the purpose of providing sound medical care and to serving them with empathy and warmth."

The Delhi Medical Council has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and has launched an inquiry.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 23, 2016, 10:36 [IST]
Modi govt approves establishment of "Fund of Funds for Startups" to generate 18 lakh jobs

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, June 23: The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, June 22, approved the establishment of "Fund of Funds for Startups" (FFS) at Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIF), registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which would extend funding support to Startups. This is in line with the Start up India Action Plan unveiled by Government in January 2016.

The corpus of FFS is Rs 10,000 crore which shall be built up over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles subject to progress of the scheme and availability of funds. An amount of Rs 500 crore has already been provided to the corpus of FFS in 2015-16 and Rs 600 crore earmarked in the 2016-17. The Fund is expected to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment.

Further provisions will be made as grant assistance through Gross Budgetary Support by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) which will monitor and review performance in line with the Start up India Action Plan.

The FFS emanates from the Start up India Action Plan, an initiative of DIPP. The expertise of SIDBI would be utilized to manage the day to day operations of the FFS. The monitoring and review of performance would be linked to the implementation of the Start Up Action Plan to enable execution as per timelines and milestones.

A corpus of Rs 10,000 crore could potentially be the nucleus for catalysing Rs 60,000 crore of equity investment and twice as much debt investment. This would provide a stable and predictable source of funding for Start up enterprises and thereby facilitate large scale job creation.

OneIndia News
11.30 pm: Delhi-Howrah rail rout hit after a crane fell on railway tracks in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.

11.00 pm: Germany shooting: Attacker was wearing suicide belt.

10.30 pm: Delhi water minister Kapil Mishr summoned in connection with water tanker scam.

9.45 pm: Brexit: Voting underway

9.15 pm: Two suspected Bodo militants arrested from Kollam in Kerala.

8.58 pm: German cinema shooting: No hostages hurt.

8.45 pm: A total of six militants killed in two encounters in Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir today.

8.38 pm: Meeting of Heads of delegations of NSG in Seoul, to continue tomorrow. Delegates refuse to answer on India's induction.

8.30 pm: Special NSG meet ends.

8.15 pm: Germany shooting: At least 25 injured as gunman opens fire at a cinema complex

8.03 pm: Any exception given for NSG membership could disturb strategic stability in South Asia: Pak media to Chinese media

7.58 pm: Mexico backed India's induction into NSG.

7.45 pm: No discussion took place in Seoul on induction of Pakistan in NSG.

7.35 pm: Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey opposed India's induction into NSG citing being a non NPT state.

7:25 pm: No consensus emerged about India's induction in NSG.

We will miss him, but very happy as Indian team cant find such a loyal coach: Chethana Ramatheertha (Kumble's wife) pic.twitter.com/fz2X4G4LaJ  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

6.50 pm: It's a huge responsibility, ready to take this role. Coaches come later, it's always players first. Strategy will be to win, says Anil Kumble.

It's a great honour to be back in Indian dressing room in a different role: Anil Kumble, India coach pic.twitter.com/69796Fg9zg  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

6.30 pm: Encounter breaks out in Waterkhani forests (J&K) between militants & security forces. Cordon-and-search operation going on.

Wonderful meeting Pres. Karimov once again; had talks on deepening India-Uzbekistan ties: PM (pic: PM's Twitter) pic.twitter.com/Koi3dzlcpK  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

After discussions we have taken a final call that for one year Anil Kumble will be the head coach: Anurag Thakur pic.twitter.com/z4lIienZ97  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

6.15 pm: One suspicious person caught moving around the premises of & taking pictures of Fort William (Kolkata). Handed over to police.

6.10 pm: Anil Kumble to be the next head coach of Team India.

6.00 pm: PM Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on merit: MEA.

PM Modi said that China should contribute to emerging consensus in Seoul: MEA #NSG pic.twitter.com/TddMAwGbgg  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

5.45 pm: J&K: Terrorists hurl grenade on a police party in Sopore.

5.35 pm: Manoj Kumar enters semi-final of AIBA Boxing qualifiers in 64 Kg weight category and books Rio 2016 berth.

5.30 pm: Earthquake of magnitude 5.4 hits Hindu Kush Region of Afghanistan.

5.15 pm: Kurdish-Arab forces enter ISIS Syria bastion of Manbij.

Tashkent: PM Narendra Modi meets Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov #ModiInUzbekistan pic.twitter.com/5ci6apzyLu  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

5.05 pm: Decision was taken in a meet of Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) consisting of representatives of GoI, Assam Govt and NDFB(P), held in Delhi.

5.00 pm: Kurdish-Arab forces enter ISIS Syria bastion of Manbij, says AFP.

4.45 pm: Meeting between PM Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping in Tashkent ends.

4.35 pm: BJP President Amit Shah addressing a public meeting in Thiruvananthapuram.

4.34 pm: Hearing on accused Sameer Gaikwad's bail plea in Bombay HC, adjourned till July 11 in Govind Pansare murder case.

4.15 pm: PM Narendra Modi meets China's President Xi Jinping in Tashkent.

4.00 pm: 3 terrorists killed in gunfight with security forces, encounter underway in Kupwara encounter.

3.45 pm: The meeting between India and China crucial.The decision will be taken here(Tashkent) and the team in Seoul will be informed, says Sources on NSG.

3.35 pm: Examined all letters in connection with MM Khan murder case,no link found as of now, says MS Randhawa,Delhi Police.

3.13 pm: IPL Governing Committee meeting underway in Dharamsala.

2.45 pm: Modi Govt is working for welfare of the youth, gradually we will see the difference, says Alok Sanjar,BJP in MP.

2.35 pm: Uzbekistan PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomes PM Modion his arrival

Tashkent: Uzbekistan PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomed PM Modi (source:PMO) pic.twitter.com/44bgd9Gxjc  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

2.18 pm: I am confident, that my talks at the SCO Summit will strengthen our bilateral ties with the SCO nations: PM Modi.



2.09 pm: Police sources say that acting on a tip off about the presence of some militants, the army's 18 RR and SOG cordoned area & began encounter.

2.08 pm: Gunfight begins between militants and security forces in Lolab forests, North Kashmir's Kupwara district.

2.07 pm: Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain calls on Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent on the sidelines of SCO.

1.52 pm: PM Narendra Modi reaches Tashken.

1.51 pm: Solar Commission has issued non-bailable arrest warrant against Saritha Nair for not attending the trial. The Commission will send the order to the state police chief to produce her on 27th this month in Solar scam case.

1.28 pm: Pak Pres. said to China Pres. that Pakistan and India should be included in NSG at the same time, similar to their inclusion in SCO.

1.27 pm: Pak President Mamnoon Hussain and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a delegation-level meeting in Tashkent on the sidelines of SCO summit & said China's stance was based on policy of non-discrimination.

1.26 pm: NHRM employees protest against the J&K Government demanding regularization of their jobs in Srinagar.

1.17 pm: Congress to not organise Iftaar parties this year, will distribute ration to the poor instead.

1.00 pm: On ex-DSP Anupama Shenoy's complaint, the SP has been summoned on June 30: Karnataka State Women Commission.

12.58 pm: Meeting with Party President Sonia Gandhi helped me to make up my mind that Congress is the best platform to serve the people: Gurudas Kamat

12.45 pm: I am writing to the Police Commissioner to investigate the case and call CM Kejriwal for questioning, says Maheish Girri,BJP MP.

12.30 pm: Document they are showing has year 2017 mentioned. So it automatically becomes a fake document, says Maheish Girri,BJP MP.

12.28 pm: Australian PM says there will be a big impact on global economy if Britain votes to leave the EU.

12.13 pm: Mumbai: Triple murder in Malwani Colony of Malad last night, police investigating the matter.

11.40 am: Voting starts in Britain's EU membership referendum, reports AFP.

11.25 am: No plans to grant citizenship to West Pakistani refugees: Mehbooba Mufti in J&K Assembly.

11.07 am: PM Narendra Modi leaves for Tashkent (Uzbekistan) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) Summit.

PM Narendra Modi emplanes for Tashkent (Uzbekistan) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) Summit pic.twitter.com/AUu6XSWwwa  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

10.55 am: Maharashtra: FTII Chairman Gajendra Chauhan reaches RSS Headquarters in Nagpur to meet Mohan Bhagwat.

10:43 am: INC India to announce Punjab Congress in-charge today.

10:41 am: India attaches great importance to ties with CentralAsia: Modi

10:31 am: Will travel to Uzbekistan for brief visit to attend SCO Summit, interact with leaders of SCO nations: PM Modi

10:20 am: PM Narendra Modi to leave for Tashkent, Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit & interact with leaders of SCO nations.

10:05 am: Case registered with Kerala Police against two senior students who ragged a Karnataka nursing student, forced her drink toilet cleaner.

9:56 am: Announcement on Indian cricket team's head coach will be made by this evening: BCCI President Anurag Thakur.

9:40 am: CBI registers graft cases against 9 IT officials, chartered accountants.

9:30 am: Nursing student's ragging: 2 seniors who allegedly forced girl to drink phenyl charged with attempted murder by Kerala Police.

9:10 am: Woman files complaint against AAP MLA Dinesh Mohaniya for misbehaviour: Report

8:48 am: Nepal: Mortal remains of 12 Nepali nationals, killed in Kabul explosion, have been brought to Kathmandu.

Nepal: Mortal remains of 12 Nepali nationals, killed in Kabul explosion, have been brought to Kathmandu. pic.twitter.com/jR8Tn4K173  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

8:47 am: MP Govt will soon impose six per cent tax on online shopping: State finance minister Jayant Malaiya.

8:33 am: MaryKom denied wild card entry into Rio Olympics by International Olympic Committee: Chairman of AIBA ad-hoc committee Kishan Narsi.

8:30 am: Mumbai Police arrests one person in Delhi in connection with "Udta Punjab" online leak case.

8:20 am: Sincerely hoping that we will become a full member of NSG, we deserve it: Former foreign minister Salman Khurshid

Hotel rooms made out of discarded containers, entire hotel is portable: Tanmay Bathwal (MD of 'Hirise Hospitality') pic.twitter.com/L8nelfcvAn  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

Ahmedabad firm launches 'portable hotel' with rooms made out of discarded containers. pic.twitter.com/tnvgTTz6O1  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

8:15 am: Ahmedabad firm launches 'portable hotel' with rooms made out of discarded containers.

8:00 am: Rains disrupt Char Dham Yatra, president fails to reach Kedarnath.

OneIndia News
German cinema complex shooting: Is Europe still in a pre-9/11 mode?

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Berlin, June 23: Twenty-five people were injured after a masked armed man opened fire in a crowded cinema complex in Viernheim in western Germany. Though the motive of the firing was still not known, but the repetition of these incidents across Europe has raised a serious question: Is the continent really prepared to take on terrorism?

According to experts, Europe is still with a "pre-9/11" type mindset and unlike the US which raised its anti-terror mechanism by quite a few notches, it is still plagued by political hestitation and legal protection and hasn't initiated major anti-terror measures.

Paris saw two major terror attacks last year with the one in November seeing the death of 130 people. In March this year, a series of terror attacks at the city airport and a metro railway station in Brussels in Belgium killed over 30 people.

Experts added that the proximity to Syria in Asia which is witnessing a bloody war and the massive influx of refugees have posed major threats to Europe and the integrated structure of the continent gives the disruptive elements the scope to move freely within it and attack soft targets.

Oneindia News
If Brexit happens, will Europe see resumption of clash of nationalisms?

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

London, June 23: The possible exit of the UK from the EU has raised questions over the country's security, particularly against terror threats. But apart from that, Brexit could also pose another challenging question: Will clashes between nationalisms in Europe resume once the idea of regional integration take a beating with the UK's exit? [What is Brexit and why is it important?]

Well, David Cameron, the prime minister of the country has raised the question in the run-up to the June 23 referendum. According to him, Britain could pay a high price if it leaves the EU. [Will India gain or lose from Brexit?]

Sir Winston Churchill had backed a United States of Europe

Late British premier Sir Winston Churchill, who had energised his country's morale during the Nazi attack in the early 1940s, was in favour of a United States of Europe for the sake of peace, safety and freedom. But if his own country now decides to reverse the trend and walk out of the EU, then all of those three crucial aims of the British State could be in jeopardy. [Will UK leave EU today?]

Britain has played role of a balancer in international relations

Great Britain has traditionally played the role of a balancer in international relations. Right from the days of the world wars to neutralising aggressive nationalist drives from the French or the Germans, the British had stood strong---aided by strong leaderships. There was always an urgency on its part to take the lead and not remain neutral at times of crisis. [June 23: A memorable date in Britain's history]

It was hence not without a reason that the former colonial masters who had ruled the entire world were badly affected by the Second Great War and lost its prominence as a worldwide power. The Americans and the former Soviets emerged as the new superpowers after the Second World War while the British were relegated to a secondary position.

What if Europe sees more battles like those in Trafalgar, Blenheim or Waterloo?

But that hasn't reduced its importance in international affairs, particularly in Europe. Though geographically isolated from mainland Europe, the Great Britain's strategic, economic and political importance never allowed it to detach itself from the European affairs. The two always had an influence on each other and that has left those the anti-Brexit camp worried.

What if the challenges that have evolved at Europe's borders like the war in Syria, the chaos in Libya and Russia's expansionist programmes make serious impact on European stability?

Irony of the security issue

The threats that have been posed by the refugee influx and terrorist activities have given birth to a demand for greater security and hence the call for going back to an isolated existence fearing the prospects of the EU leadership losing control of the situation. But there lies the irony. What if the UK now fails to defend its border and economy? What if other countries, too, begin to plan exits resulting in a weak EU? Does strength lies in unity or seclusion?

Had rethinking the EU's future not been a better option than a Brexit? Just like the post-Second World War era when an expansionist Soviet Union and other post-war ills had left Europe worried and hence the call for a united Europe had come up, this era also presents a similar situation featuring an ambitious Vladimir Putin, a destructive Islamic State and the unstable West Asia. Can the UK handle everything alone now?

Oneindia News
PM Modi likely to visit Arunachal on Oct 30 to inaugurate greenfield airport

Narendra Modi meets China's Xi Jinping in Tashkent

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Tashkent, June 23: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping here, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

Modi's meeting with Xi was his first engagement after landing at the airport, where he was received by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

India expects fruitful outcome during SCO meet: Modi

The Modi-Xi meeting is scheduled to see both sides discuss India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, among other bilateral and regional issues.

India is keen to become member of the 48-member elite NSG, that regulates global nuclear trade. Beijing, an important member of the grouping, has been holding out on New Delhi's induction into the grouping.

IANS
Ramadan 2021: When does it begin? Know Shehri and iftar timings, check moon sighting in India

Ramadan 2022: Start and End Date in India, Fasting Rules - All You Need To Know

Pakistan clerics issue decree to ban Ramadan programmes

International

oi-PTI

Lahore, June 23: About 100 clerics in Pakistan have issued a decree seeking a government ban on Ramadan programmes of various TV channels, terming them against Shariah.

Signed by clerics from Barelvi school of thought and Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, the decree says as most part of the Ramazan transmission is against Shariah (Islamic law), therefore watching the programmes is haram (illegitimate).

"Inviting unauthentic people and non-scholars to speak on religious and Islamic jurisprudence issues is haram, while hosting of the programmes by semi-nude actresses is also haram," the decree said.

The decree demands the government directs the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to stop the Ramadan transmission.

The decree has also urged clerics to refrain from attending such programmes, saying Shariah requirements are ignored in their proceedings.

Criticising the mixed gatherings in these programmes, the decree said that comparing such congregations to Hajj and Tawaf of the Kaaba was like desecrating Islamic symbols and sacrilegious. It also argues that participants of Sehri transmissions usually missed their early morning prayers or at least failed to offer it in congregation.

PTI
Fact Check: Video of waves pounding Gateway of India is old

Torrential rains, flooding in London

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

London, June 23: Torrential rains and flooding swamped parts of London and Britain's southeast on Thursday, with the fire brigade inundated with more than 300 emergency calls.

Flood warnings were issued for parts of London and Essex as parts of the capital were expected to see a month's rainfall in a matter of hours on the same day of the historic referendum on whether the country wants to stay or exit from the European Union (EU), the Guardian reported.

London Fire Brigade (LFB) said it received a day's worth of calls in just an hour and a half on weather-related incidents including lightning striking property, flooded homes and businesses and rising waters trapping vehicles.

"Crews are being mobilised to incidents as quickly as possible but the brigade is appealing to people to only call 999 in an emergency - where there is a risk to life or property," an LFB official said.

There were reports of flooded streets as storms swept through, threatening disruption as voters headed to polling stations.

The storm caused major disruption to the capital's travel network, causing problems for thousands of commuters during the morning rush hour.

The Environment Agency has issued four flood warnings covering rivers in Bromley, Sidcup and Basildon and 22 flood alerts across of the country's southeast.

The Met Office issued warning of rain for parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

Conditions are expected to improve for most on Friday although showers will develop across western parts later on.

IANS


Man booked for tweets against Maha CM; has a history of such posts against leaders

Actor "now in news" peed in front of woman scribe who criticised him, reveals journalist

Mumbai

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Mumbai, June 23: Sachin Kalbag, the resident editor of the Hindu in Mumbai, on Wednesday (June 22) took on an Indian actor over an act of low taste which the latter had committed a decade ago.

In a series of tweets, Kalbag said a decade ago, an independent, national award-winning woman critic had gone to interview the actor who is currently in news. Since the critic had strongly criticised some films in which the actor had played the lead role, the latter had a grudge and might have thought that his time had come in that interview.

(Addendum) The said film reporter and critic, rightly, walked off. Her editor supported her decision.  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(6/6) That was the actor's "revenge" on a female film critic and reporter who had the "audacity" to not like his movies.  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(5/n) Finally, he emerged. He told her, "Wait, I have to pee." He then went to a tree 5 ft away, unzipped his and peed in front of her...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(4/n) So first he made her wait for several hours in the hot sun and then asked her to sit on a set prop (a 'khatiya'). She sat. Waited...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(3/n) But since a new movie was releasing, he had to give interviews. Unfortunately, it was with this critic. He had to avenge, though...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(2/n) The film critic had panned a few films in which the said actor had a lead role or was one of the male leads. He held a grudge...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(1/n) More than a decade ago, an independent, national award-winning film critic had gone to interview a famous actor now in the news...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

The actor, as Kalbag said, made the journalist stand in the sun for several hours and then sit in a 'khatiya'. And it didn't end there. The actor finally emerged and told her that he needed to respond to the nature's call and relieved himself just a few feet away from the journalist.

The latter walked off and her editor had supported her decision, said Kalbag.

Was that actor Salman Khan, the actor who finds his name mired in constroversy more often than not? Recently, Khan invited wrath, even from his colleagues, for comparing his physically exhausted body in the wake of gruelling shooting for a film related to wrestling, with that of a raped woman who "couldn't walk straight". [A gangrape survivor's open letter to Salman Khan over his remark]

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A referendum is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a new policy or specific law, or the referendum may be only advisory. In some countries, it is synonymous with or commonly known by other names including plebiscite, votation, popular consultation, ballot question, ballot measure, or proposition.
June 23, 2016  APC by Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, has announced the Remington Group as a new distributor in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The partnership agreement allows the Remington Group to distribute the full range of APC by Schneider Electric hardware and software products, including UPS products for retail, commercial, industrial and mining customers.



With multiple outlets across Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the Remington Group is well placed to support APC by Schneider Electrics distribution within these countries, Joe Craparotta, Vice President, IT Business, Schneider Electric, Pacific said. We are expecting to see significant growth in the PNG mining sector over the next 18 months, and with access into the remote regions of PNG, we are confident that our partnership with the Remington Group will place us in a solid position to service this demand.



The Remington Group is extremely committed to the APC by Schneider Electric portfolio. They are able to support, enable and service our partners and their customers with a team of highly skilled and qualified resources. These resources will be on-the-ground and have access to significant local inventory across multiple hubs within the region. This new distribution agreement with the Remington Group is reflective of the growing opportunity in the PNG market, and the addition of the Remington Group complements our existing IT distributor network.



Scott Horniblow, Chief Information Officer at the Remington Group added; Given our size and geographical coverage within PNG and Honiara, we can aid Schneider Electrics customers with easy access to a wide range of products which we will have in stock, in country. This removes complexities associated with shipping and transit times and allows customers to purchase products using the local currency, he said.



We are looking forward to developing closer working relationships with Schneider Electrics valued, established resellers in PNG, and we aim to work very closely with the banking institutions and ISP markets to facilitate data centre expansion and maintenance.



For further information, please contact Schneider Electric on 1800 652 725 or visit www.apc.com/au



About Schneider Electric

As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in Utilities & Infrastructure, Industries & Machines Manufacturers, Non-residential Building, Data Centres & Networks and in Residential. Focused on making energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green, the Group's 140,000 plus employees achieved sales of 24 billion euros in 2012, through an active commitment to help individuals and organisations make the most of their energy.

www.schneider-electric.com

About the Remington Group

The Remington Group is PNGs best known technology and service led organisation. Servicing PNG since 1948, the group services the whole country, providing solutions to PNG businesses, governments and AID organisations. Our diversity across industries provides our clients with unparalleled business solutions and flexibility. The Remington Group represents some of the largest global names like Konica Minolta, Fuji Xerox and Brother, in addition to many others.

http://remington.com.pg
Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

Joint operatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service raided the office of hedge fund firm Platinum Partners on Wednesday amidst dual investigations, Reuters reported.

Details of the raid in Platinums New York headquarters were unclear although the report cited an unnamed source confirming that the head of the hedge fund firm, Mark Nordlicht, has received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. It was also not stated if the legal action against Platinum on Wednesday was related to the subpoena.

FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser has confirmed that a "law enforcement action" was conducted at Platinums Manhattan office. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service was also mum about the raid, the report added.

Platinum said in a statement, "We are in receipt of a search warrant from law enforcement and are fully cooperating. We look forward to resolving this on a timely basis."

Platinum to shut down main fund after Murray Huberfelds arrest

Last week, Platinum Partners said it would shut down its main fund, Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage, after the arrest of portfolio manager Murray Huberfeld.

Pl......................

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MICHELE FLOURNOY, the former Defense Department official whom Defense Onecalls "the woman expected to run the Pentagon under Hillary Clinton," this week advocated for "sending more American troops into combat against ISIS and the Assad regime than the Obama administration has been willing to commit." In an interview with that outlet , Flournoy "said she would direct U.S. troops to push President Bashar al-Assad's forces out of southern Syria and would send more American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region." She had previously "condemned the Obama administration's ISIS policy as ineffectual," denouncing it as "under-resourced."

This week, Flournoy specifically advocated what she called "limited military coercion" to oust Assad. In August 2014, Obama announced what he called "limited airstrikes in Iraq" -- and they're still continuing almost two years later. Also note the clinical euphemism Flournoy created -- "military coercion" -- for creating a "no-bomb zone" that would entail "a declaratory policy backed up by the threat of force. 'If you bomb the folks we support, we will retaliate using standoff means to destroy [Russian] proxy forces, or, in this case, Syrian assets,'" she said. Despite D.C. conventional wisdom that Obama is guilty of "inaction" in Syria, he has sent substantial aid, weapons, and training to Syrian rebels while repeatedly bombing ISIS targets in Syria.

Even U.S. military officials have said that these sorts of no-fly or no-bomb guarantees Flournoy is promising -- which Hillary Clinton herself has previously advocated -- would risk a military confrontation with Russia. Obama's defense secretary, Ash Carter, told a Senate hearing last December that the policy Clinton advocates "would require 'substantial' ground forces and would put the U.S. military at risk of a direct confrontation with the Syrian regime and Russian forces." Nonetheless, the Pentagon official highly likely to be Clinton's defense secretary is clearly signaling their intention to proceed with escalated military action. The carnage in Syria is horrifying, but no rational person should think that U.S. military action will be designed to "help Syrians."

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Reprinted from Reader Supported News

CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling has completed his first year in prison. Sterling was convicted in 2015 of multiple counts of espionage for, the government says, telling New York Times reporter James Risen about a botched CIA plan to provide Iran with flawed plans for its nuclear program through a Russian scientist whom the CIA claimed to have "turned." Even though there was no evidence whatsoever -- no emails, no phone recordings, no wiretaps, no nothing -- that Sterling had given Risen anything of the sort, he was convicted and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.

But the truth is far more complicated.

Sterling is African-American. That means a lot in the CIA, an organization that, historically, has trampled the rights of women and minority employees. Indeed, in 1995, the Agency was forced to settle a class action suit brought by 25 women, who said they had been systematically discriminated against simply because of their gender. The judge in the case expressed his personal consternation when he said that in all his years on the bench he had never seen a defendant so fully document the case against itself as the CIA had done.

The situation there is the same for African-Americans. With very few exceptions, they just can't get ahead. That's exactly what Jeffrey Sterling found. An expert on Iran, and fluent in Farsi, Sterling, a former operations officer, was set to transfer to Europe when a supervisor told him that the move would be rescinded. "We think you'll stand out as a big black guy speaking Farsi," the supervisor said. "When did you realize I was black?" Sterling retorted.

Without an operational tour, Sterling wouldn't have been eligible for promotion. He filed a civil rights complaint, which turned out to be one of the triggers that unleashed the CIA against him. In the meantime, Sterling was aware of the botched operation with the Russian and the Iranian nuclear program. He thought it was evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality, and he did what every CIA officer is taught to do -- he reported it up his chain of command. And like most whistleblowers, he was ignored.

He then reported his concerns to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the CIA's oversight committee. He was again ignored. But the CIA's leadership was angry that Sterling would air its dirty laundry on Capitol Hill. And they were angry about his civil rights complaint.

In the meantime, Risen published a book that included information about the botched operation. Risen has since said that he had dozens of sources for the book. While he and Sterling had spoken on the phone, Sterling has steadfastly maintained that the conversations were about the civil suit. But the CIA was looking for a scapegoat, and they were looking to punish the whistleblower.

CIA leaders asked the Justice Department to charge Sterling with multiple counts of espionage.

The trial dragged on for years. And through all those years, Sterling refused to accept a plea deal. Why? Because he was innocent. He certainly could have taken a plea to a reduced charge. He would have been out of prison years ago if he had. But he was determined to fight an injustice.

There were several things Sterling didn't know, however. One was that his former attorney apparently testified against him before a grand jury, offering speculation on a "motive." Another was that the Justice Department engages in a practice called "charge stacking," where they will charge a defendant with myriad felonies, including such "throwaway charges" as obstruction of justice, conspiracy, or making a false statement, and then later offer to drop all of the charges but one in exchange for a guilty plea. That's why, according to ProPublica, the Justice Department wins 98.2 percent of its cases. They're almost all the result of plea bargains. After all, why would anybody want to risk dying in prison when they can take a plea and be out in a few years?

The third was that the Justice Department engages in something called "venue shopping." That's where they seek to charge a defendant in the federal district that is most likely to find that defendant guilty and to give him the toughest sentence. In Sterling's case, as in the cases of all national security defendants, that would be the Eastern District of Virginia, where no national security defendant has ever won a case.

Sterling was living in St. Louis, Missouri, when he allegedly passed information to Risen. That's the Eastern District of Missouri. He was working for a company in New York, which is in the Southern District of New York. Risen lives in Bethesda, Maryland, which is the federal District of Maryland. And he works for the New York Times bureau in Washington, DC, which is in the Federal District of the District of Columbia. But Sterling was charged in the Eastern District of Virginia. He didn't have a chance. No national security defendant would have a chance there when his jury would include people working at (or with relatives working at) the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, or at any number of intelligence community contractors. But that was exactly the point.

Justice Department prosecutors asked Sterling's judge to pass a sentence of 19-24 years. The length of that sentence would have placed him in a maximum-security penitentiary. Serendipitously, Sterling's sentencing hearing came only days after former CIA Director David Petraeus's sweetheart deal, where he got two years probation and a fine for leaking classified information to his girlfriend. The judge in the Sterling case said that she could not, in good conscience, give Sterling more than three-and-a-half years.

Sterling has appealed his conviction to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, an action that likely will take years. He has two-and-a-half years to go on his sentence, and with good behavior and halfway house, he'll likely be released by December 2017, well before the Circuit Court issues a ruling.

In the meantime, Sterling passes his days with murderers, child molesters, and drug kingpins in a prison more than 1,000 miles from home. There's no "justice" in that.
Reprinted from Sputnik

Russian President Vladimir Putin's comparison of increasing US-led NATO aggression towards Russia to the attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union is advisedly apt.





Putin was addressing the Russian State Duma this week on the occasion 75 years ago when the Nazi Third Reich launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.

Nazi Germany's aggression, which led to the Great Patriotic War in which up to 30 million Soviet citizens lost their lives in order to gain victory against that fascist power, was at bottom an attack by Western imperialism. As Putin reminded, this fundamental fact is often omitted in Western commentary.

In that way, the significance of NATO's current military buildup -- what else is that but aggression? -- on Russian territory is all too often absent in Western media. And, by extension, Western public appreciation is lacking on how sinister the unfolding situation is.

Russia's history over centuries is replete with examples of where Western imperialist powers have tried -- and failed -- to subjugate Russia with military attack from its Western flank.

It is consistent with historical precedent that Putin should describe "increasing aggression" by the American-led NATO military alliance in the same context as the repugnant Nazi assault on Russia.



The burgeoning US-led aggression towards Russia -- in the form of provocative political campaigns to demonize and vilify with false accusations, economic sanctions and the spurning of diplomacy and dialogue, as well as the expansion of military forces, including the deployment of missile systems -- is in a long, reprehensible tradition of Western belligerence towards Russia, going back to, among others, French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.

This congenital aggression towards Russia stems from the dynamic of the Western economic system of capitalism, which in turns begets imperialism as its necessary tool for expropriating natural resources and subjugating foreign nations.



Russia is not the only target of Western aggression, of course. But the largest nation by land mass on Earth is and always has been a prime target.

The little-known historical record -- at least in Western media -- is that Nazi Germany was fomented by American and British capitalism as a proxy with which to vanquish the Soviet Union. The subsequent Western alliance with Soviet Russia to defeat Nazi Germany was merely a cynical damage-control move by the Western powers who were witnessing their Nazi attack dog being muzzled and liquidated.

How could anyone who has a sound understanding of history -- as opposed to the anesthetizing non-history common in the West -- be not perplexed by the current US-led military menace on Russia's Western flank?

It should be a matter of deep concern that even Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week denounced the largest-ever NATO war exercises being conducted in Poland as "warmongering."

What underscores the alarm is that Washington and certain NATO allies are pushing this confrontational agenda without the slightest discussion in Western media or among the Western public. As President Putin pointed out, people in the West are oblivious to the dangers of potential global war because the Western media is committing a huge disservice by not informing accurately on developments.



There are any number of flash-points where NATO's military could combust into all-out war with Russia. The Baltic region, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, the Southern Caucus region, or the Black Sea where US warships continue to penetrate in violation of international treaties. Certainly, historical precedent strongly suggests this geographical swathe.

As the US presidential election swings towards Democrat contender Hillary Clinton, that portends ominously for relations with Russia. It was Clinton who as Secretary of State in the first Obama administration in 2009-2013 plunged bilateral relations into the freezer and who set the course for the present geopolitical tensions.



Of further concern is Clinton's likely selection to head the Pentagon . It is hotly tipped that Clinton will appoint Michele Flournoy as the first female Secretary of Defense. Flournoy (56) is a prominent Pentagon insider, with close links to the military and CIA. We can be sure that this duo will keenly push a bellicose agenda towards Russia.

Only last week, Flournoy made strident calls for increased US military intervention in Syria. She wants to deploy large numbers of American troops and openly use military force to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.



Under Obama, regime change has been a covert enterprise through proxies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and a menagerie of terrorist militia. Under Clinton, the signs are that regime change in Syria will be made an overt military objective.

Flournoy is calling for the use of cruise missiles to hit Assad targets, including those of allied Russian forces in Syria.
Reprinted from Reader Supported News

There was one question I kept hearing from the corporate media at the People's Summit. All they wanted to hear from the People's Summit organizers was how they would get the Bernie Sanders supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton. For them, the election is a horse race that ends with a fight between the two candidates who survive the flawed nominating process. What they fail to understand is that Bernie Sanders has always believed that building a long-term movement to transform our country is more important than one election.

This past weekend in Chicago, National Nurses United convened a summit of many sectors of the movement that rallied behind Bernie. They understand that Bernie didn't create the progressive movement, he exposed it. He united groups that have been organizing for decades. Bernie's campaign also attracted young people and breathed new life into what is now a political revolution.

It was a great networking experience for all involved. I attended with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI). I plan to get further involved in their work as one way that I will continue to support the Political Revolution.

The combination of younger and older activists at this conference was inspiring. The enthusiastic energy of the youth combined with the wisdom of long-time activists created a powerful dynamic.

Day 1

The summit began with a panel called "Visions of Justice." The segment was moderated by Democracy Now! host Juan Gonzalez. Gonzalez opened with a story from 1968, in Chicago. Juan was a member of SDS at Columbia and came to Chicago to protest the DNC. He talked about how they had unseated the sitting president and how Eugene McCarthy was their candidate. We all know what happened. There was violence in the streets, and the DNC establishment nominated Hubert Humphrey even though he didn't compete in a single primary. Juan explained that they were in the streets fighting for a better world. The problem was that the rest of America saw the protests and clashes with the police in a negative light. The movement then decided to vote in the streets, and not for Humphrey or Nixon. Gonzalez said it was the right slogan -- "vote with your feet" -- but the wrong tactic. We got Nixon.

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This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

One of the strangest news developments of our time is the way the media now focus for days, if not weeks, 24/7, on a single event and its ramifications. Omar Mateen's slaughter of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando is only the latest example of this. If no other calamitous or eye-catching event comes along ("'Unimaginable': Toddler's body recovered by divers after alligator attack at Disney resort"), it could, like the San Bernardino shootings, top the news, in all its micro-ramifications and repetitions, for three or four weeks.

Such stories -- especially mass killings, especially those with an aura of terrorism about them -- are particularly easy for strapped, often downsizing news outfits to cover. They are, in a sense, pre-packaged. A template for them is already in place: starting with the breaking news of some horror and soon after a tagline like "America in shock, [grief,] [mourning,] wondering what comes next." Then follow the inevitable grainy smartphone videos of some aspect of the horror as reporters fan out to capture the weeping faces; the brave or tearful accounts of wounded survivors; the backstory on the killer or killers and his or their tangled motivations; commentary from the usual terror (or mass shooting) experts; the latest on the FBI's follow-up investigations; the funerals for the victims, including the comments of grief counselors meant to help a nation "in mourning"; and finally, of course, the issue of "closure" and "healing," all topped -- if "terrorism" is part of the package -- by an endless frisson of horror and fascination when it comes to the influence of ISIS (or allegiance pledged to the same), lone wolves, the role of social media, and so on. In this strange election season, there is, of course, the added thrill of watching Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama in mortal battle. Who could ask for more? Not the TV news outfits that now mobilize for these events the way the military might mobilize for war. So, as the New York Times put it recently, "the news industry descended on Florida" last week, and so they did.

Such events overwhelm us, as they are meant to. They glue eyeballs, as they are also meant to, and the reporting of all of this is now so enmeshed in the events themselves that it is essentially indistinguishable from them. Undoubtedly -- given the allure of such intense, over-the-top media attention -- it actually works to encourage future acts that will rivet similar attention on the next lone wolf or group.

There is, however, one small problem worth mentioning. For days or weeks on end, a single place -- call it Newtown, San Bernardino, or Orlando (one school, one gathering of government workers, one club) -- is the center of our universe. The rest of the world? Not so much. However significant the 24/7 event may be, it blots out just about everything else and so plays havoc with our sense of what's important and what isn't. It also ensures that, at least in the mainstream, ever fewer reporters cover ever fewer non-24/7 stories.

For so much that's basic to our world and will matter far more in the long run than local slaughters, no matter how horrific, there are few or no reporters and next to no coverage. This means, for instance, that in the distant reaches of the imperium, much of the time the U.S. military can operate remarkably freely, without fear of significant scrutiny. Which is why, on the subject of the U.S. military's "pivot" to Africa, it's lucky that Nick Turse has been on the beat (almost alone) for TomDispatch. Otherwise in our new media universe, what we don't know could, in the end, hurt us. Tom

The Numbers Racket

AFRICOM Clams Up After Commander Peddles Contradictory Statements to Congress

By Nick Turse General David Rodriguez might be a modern military celebrity -- if he hadn't spent his career ducking the spotlight. After graduating from West Point in 1976, he began his long march up the chain of command, serving in Operation Just Cause (the U.S. invasion of Panama) and Operation Desert Storm (Iraq War 1.0) before becoming deputy commander of United States Forces, Afghanistan, and commander of the International Security Assistance Force-Joint Command in 2009. In 2011, the 6'5" former paratrooper received his fourth star and two years later the coveted helm of one of the Defense Department's six geographic combatant commands, becoming the third chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Rodriguez has held that post ever since, overseeing a colossal American military expansion on that continent. During his tenure, AFRICOM has grown in every conceivable way, from outposts to manpower. In the process, Africa has become a key hub for shadowy U.S. missions against terror groups from Yemen, Iraq, and Syria to Somalia and Libya. But even as he now prepares to turn over his post to Marine Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser, Rodriguez continues to downplay the scope of U.S. operations on the continent, insisting that his has been a kinder, gentler combatant command. As he prepares to retire, Rodriguez has an additional reason for avoiding attention. His tenure has not only also been marked by an increasing number of terror attacks from Mali and Burkina Faso to, most recently, Cote d'Ivoire, but questions have arisen about his recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Did the outgoing AFRICOM chief lie to the senators about the number of missions being carried out on the continent? Is AFRICOM maintaining two sets of books in an effort to obscure the size and scope of its expanding operations? Is the command relying on a redefinition of terms and massaging its numbers to buck potential oversight? If Rodriguez knowingly deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee in an effort to downplay the size and scope of his command's operations, that act would be criminal and punishable by law, experts say. That's a big "if." But U.S. Africa Command's response hardly inspires confidence. AFRICOM has refused to comment on the subject, stonewalling TomDispatch on questions about why Rodriguez has been peddling contradictory figures about his command's activities to Congress. And this rejection of transparency and accountability is only the latest incident in a long history of AFRICOM personnel ducking questions, rebuffing press inquiries, and preventing Americans from understanding what's being done in their name and with their tax dollars in Africa. Numbers Game In March 2015, General David Rodriguez appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to report on the previous year's military missions in Africa. "In Fiscal Year 2014, we conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and 595 security cooperation activities," he told the senators. The U.S. had, in other words, carried out a total of 674 military missions across Africa, nearly two per day, up from 546 the year before. Those 674 missions amounted to an almost 300% jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military trainings since U.S. Africa Command was established in 2008. These missions form the backbone of U.S. military engagement on the continent. "The command's operations, exercises, and security cooperation assistance programs support U.S. Government foreign policy and do so primarily through military-to-military activities and assistance programs," according to AFRICOM. "These activities build strong, enduring partnerships with African nations, regional and international organizations, and other states that are committed to improving security in Africa." Very little is known about most of these missions due to AFRICOM's secretive nature. Only a small fraction of them are reported in the command's press releases with little of substance chronicled. An even tinier number are covered by independent journalists. "Congress and the public need to know about U.S. military operations overseas, regardless of what euphemism is used to describe them," says William Hartung, a senior adviser to the Security Assistance Monitor which tracks American military aid around the globe. "Calling something a 'security cooperation activity' doesn't change the fact that U.S. troops are working directly with foreign military forces." This spring, at his annual appearance before the SASC, Rodriguez provided the senators with an update on these programs. "In fiscal year 2015," he announced, "we conducted 75 joint operations, 12 major joint exercises, and 400 security cooperation activities." For the first time ever, it seemed that AFRICOM had carried out fewer missions than the year before -- just 487. This 28% drop was noteworthy, if little noticed.

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Global Drug Device Combination Products Market to Surge at 7.9% CAGR 2013-2019 as Hospitals Adopt Minimally Invasive Surgeries

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=1534

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/drug-device-combination.html

According to the research report, the global drug device combination products market was valued at US$66 bn in 2012 and is expected to be worth US$115 bn by 2019. Between 2013 and 2019, the market is expected to expand at a 7.9% CAGR.Complete Brochure for this Research is available for Download:Drug device combination products are a combination of medical devices and active pharmaceutical ingredients that are chemically or physically mixed to achieve one solution. This combination is then surface coated and injected to regularly administer drugs to the patient. The advancements seen in the drug device combination products market have made a remarkable contribution to the field of medical sector and are hence expected to have a huge impact on the overall healthcare sector in the coming years.The positive trend in the global drug device combination products market is likely to be driven by the growing adoption of minimally invasive surgeries, a growing number of interventional cardiologists, and supportive government and NGO initiatives encouraging drug delivery implants. The only restraint in the global market is the chance of product recalls due the negative effects of certain devices on patients. However, the introduction of technologies that reduce the morbidity rate, offer pain relief solutions, and improve healing time are expected to offer greater growth opportunities to this market in the near future.The global drug device combination products market is segmented on the basis of the type of products and geography. The types of products in this market are drug eluting stents, photosensitizers, infusion pumps, orthopedic combination products, inhalers, wound care combination products, transdermal patches, and other drug device combination products. Geographically, this market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World.Geographically, North America held a significant share in the global drug device combination products market in 2013. Analysts predict that Asia Pacific will surpass this share in the forecast period due to growing cases of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.The top players operating in the global drug device combination products market are W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Stryker Corporation, Terumo Corporation, Mylan, Inc., Medtronic, Inc., Pinnacle Biologics, Inc., Ethicon, Inc., Medline Industries, Inc., C.R. Bard, Inc., CareFusion Corporation, and Covidien PLC. The research report has profiled these players and provided a complete analysis of the competitive landscape of the global drug device combination products market. Furthermore, the document also points out the research and development strategies, financial overview, investment outlook, business and marketing strategies, and feasibility reports of new projects proposed by these companies for the near future.Read Full Report@About Us:-Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact Us:Mr.Sudip.STransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Hamburg Airport Has Entrusted arvato Systems with Operating and Supporting Its Centralized IT landscape

new outsourcing partners: Hamburg Airport, Airsys and arvato Systems at the signing ceremony

www.airsys.aero

www.hamburg-airport.de

www.it.arvato.com

Company Turns to IT Outsourcing for the First Time arvato Systems will take over data center operations, including comprehensive system and application support, for the next eight years arvato Systems won the deal with Hamburg Airport following an E.U.-wide negotiation process(arvato Systems) Gutersloh, Germany -- arvato Systems won the contract to take over Hamburg Airports centralized IT landscape starting on 1 June 2016. AIRSYS, Hamburg Airports IT service company, had invited companies to bid for control of the airports data center operations as well as a large portion of its system and application support for the first time, opening up an E.U.-wide negotiation process.The IT specialists from the Bertelsmann Group stood out from the competition and won the bid for comprehensive 1st-generation IT outsourcing. The outsourcing contract was signed at the end of May and applies for the next eight years. The goal of the outsourcing project is to optimize the quality and security of the IT operations using more modern processes and standards, and to continue to develop in a forward-thinking manner.Airport Hamburg is looking forward to this new strategic cooperation, and anticipates a successful outcome: Since we are pursuing IT outsourcing for the first time, we wanted to work with a highly reliable IT service provider who would understand our business requirements and be able to keep our business-critical systems running smoothly, explains Dr. Hannes Pfister, CIO of Hamburg Airport. Pfister is pleased to work with arvato Systems: arvato Systems impressed us during the bidding process with their excellent proposal, extremely high level of expertise, the flexibility of their employees, and their deep understanding of and experience with topics related to our project objective.The fact that we were able to win Hamburg Airport, one of the largest airports in Germany, as a customer serves to confirm the success of our strategic orientation, says Matthias Moeller, CEO of the arvato Systems Group, with enthusiasm. He is certain that the outsourcing project will be a success: Our IT outsourcing expertise and our experiences working on similar projects for companies with critical infrastructures and processes and equally stringent security requirements helped us convince AIRSYS and Hamburg Airport of our capabilities, leading them to embark on a long-term partnership with arvato Systems. The high degree of trust that our customer has placed in us motivates us to work together with them to update their IT and further digitalize the airport.About AIRSYSAirport Business Information Systems GmbH (AIRSYS) is Hamburg Airports IT service company and operates a large portion of the airports IT landscape. This entails classic office communication as well as many operational systems and specialist applications, such as flight plan adjustment, display systems, and a range of communication systems.About Hamburg AirportHamburg Airport greets over 15.6 million travelers each year, making it Germanys fifth-largest airport. Travelers pass through the airport along a broad range of routes, to 120 domestic and international destinations offered by 60 different airlines. These airlines benefit from Hamburg Airports large catchment area: the German regions of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein as well as parts of Lower Saxony, MecklenburgWest Pomerania, and Denmark, home to a large number of potential travelers. Hamburg Airport is equipping itself for all of the potential challenges posed by future air travel, with a modern infrastructure that can be used by all airlines in the same way and a flexible price structure that allows for differentiation. Around 15,000 employees currently work for the nearly 250 companies represented at the airport facilities  1,864 of these employees work inside the actual airport. The airport is partially privatized: The City of Hamburg holds a share of 51 percent and AviAlliance GmbH holds a share of 49 percent.About arvato SystemsAs global next generation IT systems integrator arvato Systems focuses on "Digital Transformation Solutions". We use the technology talent and expertise of over 3,000 people at more than 25 sites throughout the world. Being a part of the arvato network and belonging to Bertelsmann, we have the unique capability to create entire value chains. Our team creates integrated, future-proof business infrastructures that help make our customers more agile and competitive, and enable them to deliver new standards of service to their customers. We create streamlined digital processes that support innovative business models. Moreover we provide operation and support services.arvato Systems offers an exceptional combination of international IT engineering excellence, the open mindset of a global player, and the dedication of employees. We also ensure that all our customer relationships are as personally rewarding and long-lasting as they are successful.arvato Systems GmbHAn der Autobahn 200D-33333 GuterslohMarcus MetznerChief Marketing OfficerPhone: +49 5241 80-88242Fax: +49 5241 80-9568E-Mail:press@arvato-systems.deWeb:
AxisPointe Launches Custom Builder and Trade Partner QA Program

June 22, 2016AxisPointe has developed the industrys first insurance-approved QA/QC and safety program for custom home builders and specialty contractors, announced today at the 2016 PCBC Builders Conference in San Francisco. Tennant Special Risk will include the $400 per-home software and related services to its clients free of charge. The program will be rolled out to TSRs more than 2,500 home builders and artisan trade contractors across the USA.AxisPointes HomeProfile(TM) enterprise software is cloud-based and integrates with their InSite Mobile(R) smart phone app, which won the PCBC Innovation Award for 2015. According to AxisPointes CEO Stan Luhr, builders can be enrolled and start using these tools to reduce defects in as little as five minutes, saving builders and their insurers from costly defects and litigation risks.By using our free tools and software, builders will have the same risk management and documentation tools that were once only available to the largest home builders, Luhr said.Brad Tennant, President of Tennant Special Risk, saw the value of bundling AxisPointes software for his custom builders, particularly since in the past the cost of providing QA and loss control support to this diverse group was a challenge. When I first saw what AxisPointe is providing to builders on their mega projects, I knew we could find a way to leverage this technology to benefit my insureds. I am excited about our involvement with AxisPointe.The new Practice Policy Program (PPP) offered by AxisPointe and Tennant Special Risk includes digital homeowner maintenance guides offered online for every new homebuyer, unlimited mobile app usage to manage jobsite quality and safety risks, document sharing and archiving, post-construction warranty service and work order tracking, and access to AxisPointes team of forensic experts for guidance. Builders can tag certain photos and documents for immediate sharing to an AxisPointe professional and get support within minutes. Another unique feature of InSite Mobile allows anxious home buyers to watch their home being built as workers answer important tasks and take photos of the work in progress.As a strategic partner, Tennant Special Risk receives valuable loss control data for each account, including an AxisPointe Builder Riskscore(TM), which is akin to a credit score that Luhr developed and patented in 2005. Insurance underwriters can use the risk score to evaluate the sophistication of a builders quality assurance processes and set premium discounts or other incentives for those exceptional builders.Luhr says that the new program will change the way smaller home builders and artisan trade contractors are insured, much like how the industry changed after the construction defect era of the 1990s. Building on his forensic experience of investigating thousands of defect claims, Luhr created the industrys first QA and risk programs, which were eventually adopted by nearly all insurers by 2003. Since 1994 Luhrs QA programs have been deployed on over 500,000 new homes resulting in risk savings to the industry of over $9 billion.We are excited to be teaming up with AxisPointe to provide our clients with these great tools, said Tennant. He added, Our feedback from builders so far has been very promising since they look to us to provide value above and beyond the competition.About AxisPointeSince 2002 AxisPointe has provided home builders and contractors with technology solutions to eliminate construction risk and improve efficiency. AxisPointesHomeProfile(R) document management solution has been employed on thousands of homes by leading builders. Contractor and Builder support services include risk management services, quality assurance and job schedule management, project quality assurance and control systems, project document storage and archiving, customer service management, work order ticket assignment, insurance certificate management, and post-warranty claims support. AxisPointes InSite Mobile(R) iPhone app empowers builders to eliminate defects and document the construction quality to avoid claims. AxisPointe SRS services are completely hosted, eliminating storage and backup overhead for builders of all sizes.About Tennant Special RiskBrad Tennant and his team of underwriters have been providing builders the innovative risk solutions to help them succeed for over 15 years. Tennant Special Risk provides the building and construction community a wide array of risk solutions and assists builders from small custom builders and specialty trades to production developers. TSR has over 220 years of combined underwriting expertise to develop cost-effective risk solutions for the industry.Aleck Roberts, VP Of Business DevelopmentAxisPointe2030 Gillespie Way, Suite 107El Cajon CA 92020
Vibration Monitoring Equipment Market Driven by Rising Need to Reduce Plant Operating Cost Across Various Industrial Domains

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Vibration monitoring systems are used to decrease the operating cost of a plant by reducing its maintenance cost and the instances of unplanned outages. These systems are also utilized for the optimization of various maintenance activities during planned shutdowns. The usage of vibration monitoring equipment is growing exponentially in various applications and industrial segments owing to its capability of detecting the possible failure of machinery in advance. The equipment can further detect various machine deterioration and faults before the introduction of any symptoms in the system such as heat, sound, lubricant impurities and higher electrical consumption. Currently, vibration monitoring is considered to be most preferred condition monitoring tool and hence a crucial part of condition monitoring program.Free PDF Sample For More Ingists can be Downloaded @The rising need to reduce plant operating cost across various industrial domains is one of the major factors driving the global vibration monitoring equipment market. With rising competition, plant maintenance expenditures and increasing energy costs, the demand for vibration monitoring equipment is increasing in order to optimize the maintenance budgets and reduce the pressure on operating expenses. Furthermore, the growing capital investments in different industries such as petrochemicals, metals, chemicals, heavy equipment manufacturing, and pulp & paper, among others is contributing to the overall growth of the market. In addition, the rising focus on asset productivity and utilization is driving the market growth worldwide. Moreover, the need for eliminating unnecessary maintenance costs and catastrophic breakdowns in different production processes is expected to drive the demand the global adoption of vibration equipment market during the forecast period. Furthermore, the rising importance of predictive maintenance programs against the backdrop of tight liquidity is creating added pressure on fixed and variable expenses and cost efficiency, thereby encouraging the demand of vibration equipment market. The introduction of advanced low-cost vibration monitoring equipment which are integrated with direct communication procedures, fast processing functions and the availability of automation software foresee tremendous growth for the market in future.Browse Full Market Report With Complete TOC @The global vibration monitoring equipment market is segmented on the basis of product types, component types, application types and by geographical region. On the basis of product types, the market is segmented into portable and non-portable equipment. By component, the market is segmented into proximity probe, and accelerometer among others. The vibration monitoring equipment are utilized in a wide range of applications such as automotive, metal & mining, aerospace & defense, and metal & mining, among others. Geographically, U.S. is expected to lead the market during the forecast period followed by Europe and Asia Pacific owing to the introduction of vast range of automotive products and development of fast-paced technologies. Asia Pacific is expected to grab a major chunk of the market owing to continuous business expansion and infrastructure development, especially in emerging nations such as China and India.Some of the key players in the Vibration Monitoring Equipment market include Azima DLI Corporation, Analog Devices, Inc., Emerson Electric Co., Bruel & Kjaer Sound & Vibration Measurement A/S, General Electric Company, Meggitt PLC, Honeywell International, Inc., National Instruments Corporation, SPM Instrument, Rockwell Automation, Inc., PCB Piezotronics Inc., Scientific Monitoring Inc., Data Physics Corporation, and SKF Condition Monitoring Inc., among others.Geographies analyzed under this research report includeNorth AmericaAsia PacificEuropeRest of the WorldThis report provides comprehensive analysis ofMarket growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for upcoming yearsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze informationMr. Sudip. S90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Oracle ERP Cloud now meets the requirements of the tax authorities in Germany

PRIMUS DELPHI GROUP offers Oracle ERP Cloud users two new add-ons to cover German Tax authorities requirements: the Standard Audit File  Tax (SAF-T) and periodic VAT returns.Oracle Platinum Partner PDG is already well known for their European localization expertise covering Oracle E-Business Suite. Now they have launched two innovative add-ons for the Oracle ERP Cloud. The "GOBD/ GDPdU Add-On," also known as the German Standard Audit File  Tax (SAF-T) and the "UstVA/ ELSTER Add-On," for VAT returns, both help Oracle Cloud users meet important legal requirements.The PDG GDPdU solution guarantees that tax auditors have digital access to required data, thereby ensuring smooth tax audits. This solution is already being successfully used by more than 90 companies using Oracle E-Business Suite. Now also Oracle ERP Cloud users can use this proven tool for electronic auditing.What is completely new, on the other hand, is the PDG UstVA/ ELSTER Add-On for the electronic submission of VAT returns. It starts with the selection of data that was previously entered in the Oracle ERP Cloud for VAT reporting. The data can then be processed with the click of a button, authenticated using the ELSTER interface, and reported to the local tax authority. Both add-ons are completely integrated into the Oracle ERP Cloud.With over 80 qualified consultants, PDG is a leader in the German-speaking regions for providing Oracle ERP Cloud Services and as an Oracle E-Business Suite Platinum Partner.The company has already successfully implemented several ERP Cloud solutions and also supports Oracle E-Business Suite customers transition to the Oracle ERP Cloud.PDG offers preconfigured and proven implementation packages for Oracle Financials Cloud Services. These are also available on the "Oracle Cloud Marketplace."PRIMUS DELPHI GROUP GmbHBirkerfeld 15D-83627 WarngauBirgit Hannoverb.hannover@primus-delphi-group.comph: +49(0) 8024 90269-0
Research report explores the global Smart Railways Market size, share, growth, trends, demand and forecast 2021

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http://www.marketintelreports.com/report/rn0008/global-smartrailways-market-outlook-2021

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With growing technological advancement and digitalization all over the world, the existing traditional rail network is also believed to see massive transformations over next 7-10 years. The transformation of existing rail network would support manufacturing of smart devices and solutions such as advanced security systems, networking and connecting systems, rail operating and management systems, etc.Regionally, Western Europe dominates the global smart railways market followed by North America. The U.K. and Hungary are two smart railway markets in Western Europe that are anticipated to witness the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.0% over the forecast period i.e. 2015-2021.Avail a Sample Market Brochure @The global smart railways market is envisioned to bolster to reach new heights. The main reason behind this massive growth in the market can be attributed to increasing population, growth in urbanization, increasing safety and security concerns among passengers, providing fast, efficient & hassle-free services, formulation of mandatory government regulations for implementation of smart features in railway sector and innovation in rail technology all over the world.However, high security and maintenance cost requirement in smart railways coupled with security threats related to smart rail devices is expected to dampen the growth of global smart rail market in future.The global smart railways market is primarily segmented on the basis of offerings into devices, services and solutions. At present, smart railways solutions market accounts for the largest market share and is anticipated to continue its dominance over the forecast period i.e. 2015-2021.Browse Table of contents & key insights of report @Global smart railways devices market is further segmented into rail sensors, video surveillance camera, smart cards, networking and connecting devices and others. Among these, smart cards and video surveillance camera market are anticipated to behold the highest CAGR growth rate over next 5-6 years.Further, smart railways service segment is divided into integrated, cloud and professional services. Latter is envisioned to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period.Based on the solutions, the global smart railways market is segmented into passenger information system (PIS), rail traffic management system (RTMS), advanced security management system (ASMS), smart ticketing, rail operations and management systems, rail communication and networking systems and others. Out of all the solutions provided, the passenger information system or the PIS market is anticipated to witness the highest CAGR growth rate during the period of 2015-2021.Increasing developments of smart and mega cities in some of the major regions of the world including Middle East and Asia-Pacific, is believed to be a major growth opportunity for smart railways market over next 4-5 years.About us:MarketIntelReports (MIR) aim to empower our clients to successfully manage and outperform in their business decisions, we do this by providing Premium Market Intelligence, Strategic Insights and Databases from a range of Global Publishers.A group of industry veterans who are well experienced in reputed international consulting firms after identifying the sourcing needs of MNCs for market intelligence, have together started this business savior MarketIntelReports.Contact us:Sales ManagerMayur Ssales@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-684-6088
MR Solutions offers choice of two preclinical cryogen-free MRI scanner ranges

MR Solutions, which introduced cryogen-free MRI scanners in 2012, is now offering a choice of two cryogen-free preclinical scanner ranges  the Flexiscan and Powerscan. The Flexiscan range is available with multi-modality accessories which can be mixed and matched according to research requirements. It is a flexible MRI system as it can incorporate integrated multi-modality options such as PET or SPECT. The Flexiscan system requires no specialist knowledge and can be operated simply by running pre-defined settings. There is no need to materially alter the parameters of the machine.The Powerscan range is available with adjustable magnetic field strengths ranging from 0.1T to 9.4T. The system allows physicists to alter the hardware, software, pulse sequences and algorithms to customise the capabilities of their preclinical imaging research.MR Solutions Chief Executive, Dr David Taylor, said: Our preclinical MRI product ranges now cover the best of both worlds; the Flexiscan, a simple to operate system which is ideally suited to most research laboratories, and a second product family, the Powerscan, for scientists who would like the ability to customise their systems configuration.Both the Flexiscan and Powerscan ranges share the many advantages of being cryogen-free. Not the least of which is the lower price, as being cryogen-free eliminates the need for the large and cumbersome helium cooling system, the emergency venting system to cope with the helium turning to gas, or the expensive building alterations needed to accommodate it.Another key advantage is that with a stray field of a few centimetres, the scanner can be placed near other scanners and sensitive equipment and does not require its own room. This speeds up transfer times between different scanning technologies.Both systems can incorporate integrated PET and SPECT imaging solutions, allowing researchers to carry out independent imaging using the PET or SPECT modules, or sequential and simultaneous imaging. Software allows the co-registration of images to maximise the acquisition and quality of imaging data.In 2012, MR Solutions developed the worlds first commercially available high-performance 3T preclinical MRI bench-top scanner using superconducting magnets, which eliminates the need for liquid helium cooling. MR Solutions further enhanced this development with the release of innovative, high-resolution PET and SPECT modules which can be added to create integrated multi-modality systems. A more powerful 7T range followed in 2014 and the company has already announced a 9.4T MRI scanner for delivery at the end of the year.MR Solutions, a winner of the prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise 2016 for innovation in the UK, has over 30 years experience and in excess of 1000 installations across the world. This includes sales of their MRI spectrometers. Its scanners are renowned for their excellence in terms of superior soft tissue contrast and molecular imaging ability.MR Solutions has its global headquarters at Ashbourne House, The Guildway, Old Portsmouth Road, Guildford, Surrey GU3 1LR; tel: +44 1483 532146;Vane Percy and RobertsRobert Denholm HouseBletchingleySurreyLeonie Onslowleonie@vanepercy.com
ZEON Presents New High-Performance HNBR - Zetpol

Dr. Kai Kremer is Commercial Manager of the HNBR division at ZEON Europe

www.zeon.eu

Improvements in Compression Set, Long-term Aging, and Processability Enhance Sealing ApplicationsZEON  a leading and globally operating producer of specialty polymers  introduces with the new High-Performance HNBR (Zetpol) compounding technology a hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber with outstanding next-generation properties. ZEON's newly designed HNBR compounds offer new opportunities for sealing applications by providing improvements in compression set, long-term aging, and processability. "Our new High-Performance Zetpol contains unique polymer architecture and a specific cure site monomer in the polymer chain," explained Dr. Kai Kremer, recently assigned Commercial Manager of the HNBR division at ZEON Europe. "This gives greatly improved compression set resistance compared to conventional peroxide-cured HNBR." The improvement in compression set resistance is magnified over longer aging times and especially in thin cross-sectioned articles such as O-rings, seals and gaskets.About ZEON Europe GmbHZEON Europe GmbH is the European subsidiary of ZEON Corporation, located in Duesseldorf, Germany. The leading and globally-operating specialty polymer company currently has more than 3,100 employees at 44 locations worldwide.ZEONs elastomer product portfolio covers a broad range, from elastomers for tire applications up to heat and oil resistant specialty elastomers for technical rubber articles.ZEON is focusing on the research and development of sustainable polymer products for the future. As a recognized material development partner, ZEON is constantly working on specific solutions for their customers. The typical applications of ZEONs elastomer materials can be found in versatile industry branches such as automotive/mobility, aerospace, building and construction, machinery, printing and paper as well as oil and gas. More information is available on the website atMedia ContactMandy Ahlendorfahlendorf communicationE-Mail: ma@ahlendorf-communication.comPhone: +49 8151 9739098Svea MeuserZeon Europe GmbHE-Mail: svea.meuser@zeon.euPhone: +49 211 5267 123Hansaallee 249DE-40549 Dusseldorf
Rising Unfavorable Geopolitical Disputes Rises Demand for Variety of Weapons and Ammunitions

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Currently, arms and ammunition form a large part of major nations annual expenditures. This is because nations around the world are grappling with terrorist threats that have necessitated overhauling their defense capabilities. In this regard, organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are working towards counteracting terrorism by improving awareness of the threat, enhancing capabilities to prepare and respond, and intensifying engagement with partner nations and other international entities. Consequently, procuring and developing state-of-the-art weaponry and ammunition has become a high priority for nations worldwide.Ammunition Market Worldwide Analysis - http://tinyurl.com/jms5euvIn the light of political developments and incorporation of hi-tech weaponry to combat terrorism, the global ammunition market will rise at a CAGR of 3.7% from 2015 to 2021, says Transparency Market Research.Q. What are the core factors driving the global ammunition market?A. Nations around the world are striving to safeguard national security, thereby spending heavily on modern weaponry and ammunition. These measures are closely related to securing the countrys economy and the lives of its citizens. The rising concerns due to geopolitical disputes and changing military and law enforcement mandates as preparatory measures to respond to contingency are boosting the growth of the ammunition market across the world. Continual research and development for technologically advanced weaponry is also improving the demand for ammunition globally. With the rising popularity of shooting-related sports, the ammunition market is receiving a further boost.Q. How lucrative are Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa regions for the global ammunition market?A. Enormously. The increasing arms race in these regions due to some of the most brutal terrorist attacks in nations here in the past are the reason for this. Nations in these countries are striving to gear their armed forces to combat terrorist activities and be prepared in the instance of an eventuality.For instance, following the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai in India, several security measures were implemented. The entire west coast is now under continuous surveillance by aircraft and ships of the Navy and Coast Guard. The country is also making massive investments in ammunition in view of its conflicts with China and Pakistan.Q. Where does Europe stand in the ammunition market globally?A. The region is positioned as a clear leader in the global ammunition market. In 2014, the region contributed a revenue of 35% to the global market. Meticulous efforts carried out for the modernization of the armed forces and the increasing adoption of technologically developed ammunition are the reasons for the same. European countries such as France and Belgium, where recent terrorist attacks have left hundreds dead, are being compelled to strengthen their capacity to counter insurgents.Analysis for the Professional Aspects of Ammunitions -Q. Is demilitarization in Europe negatively impacting the ammunition market?A. Yes. With the beginning of demilitarization in Europe in the 1970s that solidified in the 1990s and finally aggravated with the financial crisis of 2008, the demilitarization in Europe is undeniable. The reasons for this are the shrinking budgets leading to smaller armed troops, deployment of equipment in small quantities, and inadequate military capacity. Resultantly, demilitarization is resulting in shaky demand for ammunition in the region.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Mr.Sudip S90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Tampa attorney Medisa Memic joins the law firm of McIntyre Thanasides

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASETAMPA-FL (June 16, 2016)  Ms. Medisa Memic is the newest attorney at the law offices of McIntyre Thanasides Bringgold Elliott Grimaldi & Guito, P.A., who will be bringing her expertise in the fields of personal injury to the firm.Ms. Memic first joined the Sarasota office of McIntyre Thanasides as a law clerk in 2014 while she attended the Stetson University College of Law. In 2015, she received her juris doctor in 2015 and graduated with honors.Since that time, she has now become the newest attorney located at the Tampa office, located downtown at 500 E Kennedy Boulevard.In addition to her honors distinction, Ms. Memic is a recipient of the Sarasota County Bar Association Richard Garland Diversity Scholarship. She is fluent in both German and Bosnian, and works to represent families and individuals in personal injury cases, dealings between landlords and tenants, and all aspects of family law.###About McIntyre Thanasides Bringgold Elliott Grimaldi & Guito, P.A.Established in 2006, McIntyre Thanasides is one of Tampas top 25 largest law firms, representing a wide spectrum of legal issues from criminal defense, complex business litigation, bankruptcy, personal injury and more.Because our firm handles a wide variety of legal issues, for individuals and businesses alike, were the attorneys with whom you can have an enduring relationship, your lawyers for life. We can help you with your legal issues at work  a breach of contract case or asset acquisition  and we can help you with personal matters  your cousins DUI or brothers personal injury case. We can also be an asset to your business  a commercial real estate transaction or a contract negotiation.McIntyre Thanasides has offices in Tampa, Clearwater and Sarasota.500 East Kennedy Blvd Suite 200Tampa, Florida, 33602
DDB Completes Philadelphia Hotel Renovation

www.ddbcontracting.com

DDB Contracting, of Newton NJ, completed the renovation for the Embassy Suites Hotel located in Philadelphia, PA and serviced through the Remington Property Management Corporation. The property is owned by Remington Hotels, a nationally recognized hospitality service company with 40 years of experience and nearly 300 hotels within their operation. The first phase of the project included removing 1,000 square foot water feature in order to create more floor space. DDB then completed a renovation with modernization to the existing hotel lobby, pool facilities, meeting rooms, ballroom, restrooms, and pre- function area. DDB also worked in creating a newly running business center for the hotel. The project was completed late last week.Ed Albanese, owner of DDB, spoke of the project stating, " In accordance to Remington protocol we instituted an extensive stealth program to insure there was minimal disruption to hotel guests."DDB Contracting is a nationally recognized general contractor for over 30 years. The company specializes in construction for the hospitality, commercial interior, and medical industries.You can find out more about DDB Contracting from their website atDDB Contracting is a self- performing general contractor servicing the commercial, hospitality, and industrial industries for the past 30 years.Deserae AlbaneseDDB Contracting163 Spring StreetNewton, NJ 07860
Future Market Trends of EU5 HIV/AIDS Diagnostic Testing Market 2016  2020

EU5 HIVAIDS Diagnostic Testing

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Summary of the report:This 5-country report presents detailed analyses of the AIDS diagnostics market in Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK). For each country, the report provides test volume and sales forecasts for HIV/HIV-1/2/Combo, HIVAg/HIV NAT, Western Blot, HTLV-I/II and other confirmatory tests performed in the following market segments: Hospitals Commercial/Private Laboratories Blood Banks Public Health LaboratoriesFor each country, in addition to test volume and sales projections, the report presents sales and market share estimates for major suppliers of AIDS tests.Check complete report @ marketintelreports.com/report/vpid16229/20162020-emerging-opportunities-in-the-eu5-hivaids-diagnostic-testing-marketHighlights Provides scientific views on the definition, epidemiology and etiology of AIDS and other retroviruses. Examines market applications of Molecular Diagnostics, Immunodiagnostics, IT and other emerging technologies. Reviews infectious disease testing analyzers marketed by Abbott, Beckman Coulter/Danaher, BioMerieux, Ortho- Clinical Diagnostics/J&J, Roche, Siemens, Tosoh and other suppliers. Profiles leading manufacturers and potential market entrants developing innovative technologies and products. Analyzes alternative market penetration strategies for suppliers.Avail more information from Sample Brochure of report @MethodologyThe report is based on a combination of primary and secondary information sources, including our proprietary database developed during the course of over 100 syndicated studies and numerous proprietary single-client assignments. The database contains information on companies, technologies, products and executives worldwide. Moreover, a comprehensive review of the product and financial literature, business and technical periodicals, and pertinent industry analyst reports was conducted.Get 20% discount on 2016-2020 EU5 HIV/AIDS Diagnostic Testing Market with ordering now, Offer Valid Till June 30th, 2016 @About us:MarketIntelReports (MIR) aim to empower our clients to successfully manage and outperform in their business decisions, we do this by providing Premium Market Intelligence, Strategic Insights and Databases from a range of Global Publishers.A group of industry veterans who are well experienced in reputed international consulting firms after identifying the sourcing needs of MNCs for market intelligence, have together started this business savior MarketIntelReports.MIR intends to be a one-stop shop with an intuitive design, exhaustive database, expert assistance, secure cart checkout and data privacy integrated. It curates the list of reports, publishers and studies to ensure that the database is constantly updated to dynamically meet the targeted, specific needs of our clients.MarketIntelReports currently has more than 10,000 plus titles and 35+ publishers on our platform and growing consistently to fill the Global Intelligence Demand  Supply Gap. We cover more than 15 industry verticals being: Automotive, Electronics, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Chemicals, Building & Construction, Agriculture, Food & Beverages, Banking & Finance, Media and Government, Public Sector Studies.Contact us:Sales ManagerMayur S.2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400,Wilmington,Delaware,19808United Statessales@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-684-6088
Global Software Defined Radios Market 2016 to grow at a CAGR of 11.82% by 2020

Software Defined Radios

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Global Software Defined Radios Market 2016-2020About the Software-Defined Radios (SDR) MarketSDR are partially or wholly software-configured radios that use a common platform across various applications (defense, homeland security, and commercial). They provide a universal full-duplex radio module that can be used across all the platforms and can be configured in the real-time field to offer flexibility, versatility, efficiency, and longer service life from a single set of batteries, all while providing significant size, weight, and power (SWAP) advantages.These radios have evolved as an efficient solution for secure and effective communication in the military, commercial, and homeland security sectors.Global SDR market to grow at a CAGR of 11.82% during the period 2016-2020.Governments have initiated many projects for the development of SDR such as the US Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, ESSOR program, and SpeakEasy radio program. A major successful SDR venture is the JTRS that enables the armed forces to exchange data using a wide variety of new and existing communications systems.Request For Report Sample Here:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global SDR market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated in the overall market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEADo Inquiry About This Report Here:Global (SDR) Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors BAE Systems L3 Communications Corp. Northrop Grumman Rockwell Collins Thales GroupOther prominent vendors Harris Corporation Raytheon Data Link Solutions ViaSat Rohde & SchwarzVisit Complete Report with TOC Here:Market driver Growing demand for effective communication systems For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge Spectrum-management issues For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Next-generation reconfigurable radio equipment For a full, detailed list, view our reportAbout Market Research StoreMarket Research Store, we have market research reports from competent publishers. Our Research Specialists have thorough knowledge about offerings from different publishers and different reports on respective industries. They will help you refine search parameters and get desired results at your doorstep. Here you can review the complete range of available reports, review the scope of study and methodology of reports.Contact us:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, USAUSA Tel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@marketresearchstore.com
Global Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector 2016 to grow at a CAGR of 7.46% by 2020

Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector

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Global Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector 2016-2020About the Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services SectorOutsourcing refers to the transfer of business functions or services to a third-party service provider on a contractual basis. Companies primarily outsource to reduce costs and reap potential benefits such as gaining access to skilled expertise, flexible staffing, reduce turnaround time, improve efficiency, and generate more profits.Global Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector to grow at a CAGR of 7.46% during the period 2016-2020.Outsourcing is often divided into two broad categories, back office outsourcing, and front office outsourcing. Front office outsourcing often deals with customer-related services such as marketing. Back office functions comprise those tasks that help in keeping a business running smoothly and efficiently. They, however, do not make up the core of the company business.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the Global Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector for 2016-2020.Request For Report Sample Here:The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEAGlobal Back Office Outsourcing Market in the Financial Services Sector 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Do Inquiry About This Report Here:Key vendors Accenture IBM Infosys TCSOther prominent vendors Aegis Attra Infotech Birlasoft Capgemini CGI Cognizant CSC Dell eClerx Endava EPAM EXL HCL Hexaware HP iGate Infosys ITC Infotech L&T Infotech Luxoft MindtreeVisit Complete Report with TOC Here: Mphasis NIIT Technologies Polaris Consulting and Services Serco Global Services Softtek Sutherland Global Services Syntel Tech Mahindra Unisys Virtusa Viteos Fund Services Wipro WNS Xchanging Xerox ZensarMarket driver Greater efficiency and productivity For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge High level of attrition and employee turnover For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Increased adoption of digital and mobile solutions For a full, detailed list, view our reportAbout Market Research StoreMarket Research Store, we have market research reports from competent publishers. Our Research Specialists have thorough knowledge about offerings from different publishers and different reports on respective industries. They will help you refine search parameters and get desired results at your doorstep. Here you can review the complete range of available reports, review the scope of study and methodology of reports.Contact us:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, USAUSA Tel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@marketresearchstore.com
Global Camera Drones Market 2016 Industry Share, Analysis, Research, Demand

Camera Drones

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A market study based on the " Camera Drones market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of QY Market research, is titled Global Camera Drones Market 2016. The research report analyzes the historical as well as present performance of the global Camera Drones Market , and makes predictions on the future status of Camera Drones market on the basis of this analysis.The report studies the market for Camera Drones across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Camera Drones market & dynamics of demand and supply of Camera Drones into consideration.Get Free Sample Of Report :The ' Camera Drones 'research study covers each and every aspect of the Camera Drones market globally, which starts from the definition of the Camera Drones market and develops towards Camera Drones market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Camera Drones market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Camera Drones market. The geographical segmentation of the Camera Drones market has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Camera Drones is determined by evaluating the various market participants, production capacity, Camera Drones market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Camera Drones market worldwide.The global Camera Drones market 2016 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Camera Drones production volume, data regarding demand and Camera Drones supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the market for Camera Drones across the globe.QY Market Research is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
Leak Detection Dyes Market with Worldwide Industry Analysis to 2026

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Leak detection dyes are the fluids used to detect leaks in the refrigerant system, transmission, fuel and coolant circulation lines of vehicles. The leak detection dyes are capable of detecting minute, elusive leaks in these lines, which is otherwise difficult to trace, by the conventional methods for leak detection. The most commonly used dyes for detecting these leaks are UV dyes, the dye is injected to the lines to checked and circulated the UV dyes accumulates in each minute leaks and is then detected using a UV light. As per the EU regulations each HVAC systems needs to be checked for leaks in order to avoid the release of refrigerants containing greenhouse gases causing potential threat to the environment. Leak detection using dye injection being easy and effective method for leak detections in automotive and HVAC lines, it is widely adopted in these applications. Globally, the market for leak detection dyes market will register a considerable CAGR by the end of forecast period.The global leak detection dyes market is primarily driven by the demand for efficient leak detecting techniques in HVAC industries and automotive services, as it can be used for detecting very minute leaks, which is otherwise hard to detect, by naked eyes or other conventional methods like nitrogen purging, soap bubble tests among others. This in turn saves the time and labor for rework, which in turn saves the operation costs. Other than the aforementioned advantages, it also complies with the SAE standards for leak detections and fulfills the EU regulations for the yearly leak detection checks to be done in the HVAC systems. However, there are some drawbacks for using the leak detection; for instance, the detection of leaks using the dyes does not give instant result the process is time consuming as it takes time for the dyes to accumulate in the leaks among others. These might pose as a restraint to the global leak detection dyes market.Request Free Report Sample@The global leak detection dyes market is segmented based on types, applications and region. Based on the types of leak detection dyes, the leak detection dyes market is segmented into oil soluble leak detection dyes and water-soluble leak detection dyes. Based on the applications the leak detection dyes market is segmented into automotive, HVAC and other industrial applications.Based on the geographic regions, global leak detection dyes market is segmented into seven key market segments namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Among the aforementioned regions, the adoption of leak detection dyes in the Western European market is more due to the strict EU regulations in the region for which mandates compulsory leak detection in HVAC systems once in a year, this makes the preference for leak detection dyes in the region among the HVAC service companies. North American market for the leak detection dyes is followed by the Western Europe market. Growth in automotive industries and construction activities in the Asia-Pacific, MEA regions will also foster growth for global leak detection dyes market by the end of forecast period.Request For TOC@Some of the major players identified in the global leak detection dyes market includes, W.W. Grainger, Inc., Chromatech Incorporated, Highside Chemicals, Inc., Tracer Products, Abbey Color, Spectroline and Anderson Manufacturing Co., Inc among others.Browse Full Report@Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Endoscopic Vessel Harvesting System Market Trends and Competitive Landscape Outlook to 2026

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With the increasing rate of cardiovascular disease constant innovation and advancement in technology has become paramount. In the field of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) introduction of endoscopic vessel harvesting system market has open up newer opportunities for companies. Coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) is a procedure for restoring the blood supply to the heart muscle due to blockage or narrowing of one or more coronary arteries. Traditionally, the technique involved in harvesting procedure was open vein harvesting (OVH) which involved a single continuous skin incision. With the recent advancement in technology, the process is less invasive by endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) this technique reduces leg wound morbidity because of small incisions compared to open vein harvesting. Endoscope is a medical instrument used for capturing a picture inside a hollow area, which is connected to a video camera and inserted through a small incision that is made in the leg. The saphenous vein inside the leg is viewed by the endoscope and helps the surgeon in identifying and to remove the vein with minimal pain to the leg.According to Center of Disease Control and Prevention, around 3,95,000 CABG surgeries were performed in the United States in 2013. The endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is mainly driven by the incidence and prevalence rate of coronary diseases. Moreover due to benefits such as less invasive modality, including a lower infection rate, fewer wound complications, improved cosmesis, and greater patient satisfaction physicians and patients are opting for this treatment. High pool of geriatric population and awareness programs among surgeons will drive the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market. However, endoscopic vessel harvesting system market has some restraints, lack of skilled professionals in the developing countries and unstable reimbursement regulations are hampering the growth of endoscopic vessel harvesting system in developing countries. Apart from this the presence of alternative therapies may hinder the growth of the endoscopic vessel harvesting systems market.Request Free Report Sample@The Global endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is segmented on the basis of product type and regional presence:Segmentation based on product typeDisposableReusableGeographically the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and MEA region.Request For TOC@CABG is most common type of heart surgery performed in North America region as per University of Michigan. North America followed by Europe are currently leading in the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market as high incidence of coronary disease due to sedentary lifestyle pattern adopted in these region and availability of all the types of minimally invasive CABG surgeries. The endoscopic vessel harvesting system market in Asia Pacific is expected to deliver tremendous growth due to the growth in per capita income in Asian countries and increase in medical tourism industry. With the growing access of public with healthcare professional and expanding economy china is expected to be the fastest growing market for endoscopic vessel harvesting system.Some major companies in the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market are Maquet Holding B.V. & Co. KG., OLYMPUS CORPORATION, Terumo Cardiovascular Systems Corporation., Med Europe S.r.l. (Elite Life Care), Sorin Group Inc., Saphena Medical, Inc and Terumo Cardiovascular Systems Corporation.Browse Full Report@Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
FMI: Stent Graft Balloon Catheter Market Segments and Forecast By End-use Industry 2016-2026

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Stent graft balloon catheter, is a soft catheter with an inflatable "balloon" used during a catheterization procedure to enlarge a narrow opening in the coronary artery. These catheters are generally used for expanding vascular prosthesis or during temporary occlusion of large vessels thus used in many endovascular treatment of abdominal and thoracic aortic diseases. Generally the balloon stents are used in bypass graft surgery and balloon angioplasty. These stents prevent the risk of abrupt artery closure and re-narrowing that occurred in many patients operated for angioplasty.The stent graft balloon catheter market has evolved gradually from simple stents to modified balloon stent catheters. This market comprises of balloon catheters used for stent grafting during angioplasty.Stent Graft Balloon Catheter Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe primary factor for the growth of global stent graft balloon catheter market is the increasing number of hospital admissions attributed to rising incidence of atherosclerosis patients, and rising prevalence of CAD (Coronary Artery Disease) worldwide. Secondly growing healthcare expenditure levels and the introduction of advanced technologiesin balloon catheter drives the market growth for stent graft balloon catheter over the forecast period. However high cost of angioplasty procedures are the factors restraining the market growth of stent graft balloon catheter market over the forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@Stent Graft Balloon Catheter Market: SegmentationThis market is segmented on the basis of product type and end userSegmentation based by product typeNon Complaint Balloon Stents CatheterComplaint Balloon Stents CatheterSegmentation based by end userHospitalsCardiac CentersASCsStent Graft Balloon Catheter market is mainly dominated by trends such as introduction of drug eluting balloons. Also increasing inclination to opt for balloons with drug delivery, which can deliver the medication at the local site, are effective alternatives for administering the drug intravenously. However there are several types of balloon catheters available in the market, which helps in curing coronary artery diseases and many such trends expected to dominate the market over the forecast period.Request For TOC@Stent Graft Balloon Catheter Market: OverviewDepending on geographic region, the stent graft balloon catheter market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa.Globally, stent graft balloon catheter market is expected to witness healthy growth in the near future due to increasing prevalence of coronary artery disease and the rise in per capita expenditure on healthcare in the developing nations. Stent graft balloon catheter market is anticipated to show highest share is of North America followed by Europe owing to technological advancement, sophisticated healthcare infrastructure and increasing awareness regarding angioplasty procedures available in the market. Also it has been analyzed that balloon catheter stenting for coronary applications has been widely adopted in clinical practice and is associated with improved health outcomes in Europe. Asia-Pacific market is expected to register fastest growth owing to the rise in geriatric population and increasing obesity, which ultimately gives rise to the number of patients suffering for coronary artery diseases over the forecast period.Browse Full Report@Stent Graft Balloon Catheter Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in stent graft balloon catheter market includes Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories, Cordis, Atrium Medical, W. L. Gore & Associates Inc., JOTEC GmbH, QXMedical, LLC etc. these players are entering into mergers & acquisitions, strategic collaborations, and product portfolio expansions, distribution agreements which are their key sustainability strategies. Secondly many local players have started entering in this lucrative market.Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
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Optical Express via AP

CUMBERNAULD, Scotland (AP)  A survey from a Scottish eye care company could be sparking a controversy similar to last year's debate over the color of a dress.

Optical Express said on its website that it conducted a survey in the United Kingdom asking whether a swatch of a teal-type color was blue or green.
In quiet concentration, 20 middle school students focused on syncing the tablets in their hands to the sleek black plastic drones sitting in neat rows around the gym.

It wasnt long before they had the drones buzzing around Finch Fieldhouse, expertly lifting them into the air and landing them like professional pilots.

The sixth- seventh- and eighth-graders were on Central Michigan Universitys campus this week for drone camp. The unique experience was all about practical uses for drones, learning to fly drones and building their own micro-drones.

We hope this opportunity gives these kids another tool to add to their toolbox, said Dru Wilson, associate professor of engineering and technology. Many of them are  for the first time  getting to see the process of building a drone as well as learning how and why drones are used.

In addition to flying drones indoors and outdoors, the children are building their own small drones over the course of the camp.

Working from kits, they learned about soldering circuit boards and wiring communications between the drone and the remote.

The camp  the only one of its kind in the mid-Michigan area  was organized by CMUs Center for Excellence in STEM Education. Julie Cunningham, director of the center, partnered with Wilson and CMU education students from the STEM Education Scholar program.

It was just as exciting for me to see their faces light up when they had an opportunity to fly these drones as it was to fly them myself, said Josh Belcher, a secondary education junior minoring in math and history at CMU.

The Traverse City native said he gained vital experience helping at the camp. Though drones are becoming more mainstream, Belcher and many of the children at the camp had never had the opportunity to fly them.

Its great to see kids excited about it, Wilson said. We hope they leave here with that kind of excitement for other topics they come across in science, engineering and technology.

The camp will wrap up Friday with a visit to the Mount Pleasant airport for a demonstration with larger drones.

To see the drones in action, visit https://youtu.be/S9E1tk5YiRI.
Midland County was facing a cash shortfall for the months of July and August.

So County Treasurer Cathy Lunsford requested $2.2 million be borrowed internally to provide funds for the general fund for the summer months. The Midland County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the following amounts to be borrowed: $1.5 million from the Health Insurance Fund; $500,000 from the Probate Court Child Care Fund; and up to $500,000 from Liability Insurance Deductible.

All of those monies are general fund dollars that have been moved into the (three) funds to help support those programs. They are dollars that are not being utilized at this moment, said County Administrator/Controller Bridgette Gransden. The advance funds would be paid back by the general fund by Oct. 17, 2016, after receipt of 2016 summer tax collections.

Should the amount needed be greater than the amount authorized, the board authorized external borrowing from Chemical Bank.

The board also unanimously declined the option to purchase any 2016 property tax foreclosed parcels for unpaid property taxes. This year, there are 16 parcels. Each year, the state of Michigan is first offered the opportunity to purchase foreclosed properties at market value or minimum bid, whichever is higher. Next, the township or city in which the parcel is located has second right of refusal for the minimum bid amount. Then, the county is offered the properties for the minimum bid before the public is offered the properties.

Sale of delinquent properties from 2014 will net the county $145,100. Those funds will be transferred into the general fund. Last year, the county netted $155,187.10 from the 2013 sale of delinquent properties.

Starting in 2008, the Midland County treasurer has been required to submit a report to the board of commissioners identifying any remaining balance of net proceeds from the sale of tax delinquent properties. The report is required to be filed to the board of commissioners by June 30 and covers the sale of delinquent properties from two years earlier.

Also, the board approved a request from Lunsford to reduce the budgeted Deputy Treasurer-Property Tax Division Accounting Specialist, Grade I, position from the current 0.9 full time equivalent (FTE) to a 0.8 FTE, a part-time position at 64 hours per pay period.

The position was vacated. While the position has been vacant, it has been reviewed by the treasurers office about the amount of time needed in the position right now, Gransden said. Only the number of hours is being changed, not the responsibility or grade of the position.

Commissioner Rich Keenan, R-4th District, inquired if the position would still include benefits at the lower FTE.

Yes, it has to be below 0.75, Gransden said.
Northtown Collision has awarded a high school student concert tickets as part of a contest to encourage teens to not drink and drive.

The contest, hosted at DriveSafeHaveFun.com, required teens to watch a video against drinking and driving to be entered into a contest to win two tickets to a Twenty One Pilots concert.

The idea for a collision shop to help teens decide not to drink and drive came as owner Charlie Owens collaborated with fellow members of The Hometown Body Shops to find a way to help the teens in his community beat the odds of being in a car accident.

Owens worked with Midland-area high schools, providing them with free posters and postcards telling students they could enter a drawing to win two tickets to a Twenty One Pilots concert by watching the video One Decision.

The One Decision video was made by a group of high school students from Lisbon, Maine, to raise awareness about drinking and driving. It can be seen at www.drivesafehavefun.com.

During May, thousands of postcards were passed out to area teens and on May 30, a winner was drawn  Bannon Davidson, a student at Standish-Sterling High School.

Davidson was glad more is being done to help teens not to drink and drive.

Every day, innocent people have their lives destroyed by people who decided they were OK to drive when in fact they were not, Davidson said. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to get behind the wheel.

Northtown Collision wants to continue to work with area schools and teens to eliminate drinking and driving. If your school or business would like to participate, Owens can be contacted at (989) 835-5668, or use the contact form at: www.northtown-collision.com.
To the editor:

In the Senates reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), they included terms requiring our daughters to enlist in selective service. Eventually, women would be forced into combat roles.

The House rightfully stripped this provision out of its version. Its imperative that members of both Houses insist that leadership not include this language in the conference report.

This would-be step in social engineering taken by the Senate is both dangerous to our military and against common sense. Secretary Ashton B. Carter ignored the military advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when opening the military to all. Physiologically, women have at least 30 percent less upper body strength. Although some women can acquire this strength, it is the exception, not the rule. Military studies suggest a 70 percent less efficient response from mixed gender units as opposed to total male units. Women are much more inclined to serious injury as a result of combat. We sacrifice military readiness.

The military should continue its acceptance of women on a volunteer basis. Women have contributed with heroism and skill in past battles but now instead of seeking ways where women could continue to contribute, President Obama wants to make his legacy and openly compel women to all roles. This is shamefully wrong.

MARY LAFORET

Midland
The Air National Guard is frequently called upon when U.S. Pacific Command needs additional assets to deliver rapid air capabilities in the Pacific region, and Airmen from the 148th Fighter Wing out of Duluth, Minnesota, are currently stepping up to that call.

The Airmen arrived at Osan in April to fulfill a Theater Security Package requested by U.S. PACOM and Pacific Air Forces.

Were here to back up active-duty forces and help deter regional threats, said Lt. Col. Curt Grayson, 179th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron and 148th Aircraft Maintenance Unit commander.

6,000 Miles From Home

Moving the personnel and equipment needed to run the 148ths aviation package wasnt as simple as rolling out of Minnesota and flying 6,000 miles straight to the Republic of Korea; months of careful planning went on to ensure the guardsmen had all of the gear they needed, were properly trained and accomplished the tasks necessary to ensure the successful operation of an expeditionary fighter squadron.

The seeds of the operation were planted during a Red Flag exercise in Alaska in 2015, where 179th FS personnel worked alongside the 51st Fighter Wings 25th and 36th Fighter Squadrons.

The relationships born of that exercise set the guardsmen on a steady path, letting them quickly utilize the contacts they had made and not waste any time preparing to deploy, said Grayson.

For our unit, it helped us figure out what we needed to do to fit into the Osan Fight Tonight mentality, he said.

Guard vs. Active Duty

One of the primary goals of the 148th FW personnel is to work side-by-side the active duty personnel around base, including full integration of 148th AMU backshops with their 51st FW counterparts.

We all have different levels of experience, said Maj. Mike Ketola, 148th Operations Support Squadron senior intelligence officer. People get [to Osan] and just when theyre getting comfortable after a year, they have to leave. We dont really see that [in the 148th FW], we really get to practice and hone in on our experience, but we also get to make that experience available to other people and give opportunities to learn.

An example of the experience from the 148th FW is a machinist with over 20 years of experience, which is virtually unheard of on the active duty side. Coupled with the standard one-year turn around rate at Osan, those 20-plus years of experience could be invaluable to the 51st FWs machinist shop.

The Best of Both Worlds

A unique aspect of a traditional guardsman is that he or she lives and works full time as a civilian outside of their required duty time, which requires them to step away from their normal lives during deployments like this.

Ketola works fulltime as a middle school history and geography teacher. He said he sees his time in Korea as an opportunity to learn valuable lessons to bring back to his students.

He said, You learn something every day, and to be here practicing what were doing, it gives you  experience and ideas that you can bring back home.

I can bring some of these things back to my civilian world and give a real world example: I witnessed this, Ive been there, this is what Ive seen and thats how I can apply it now. I like doing this because I can come back and share this knowledge not just with the military section, but on the civilian side with my kiddos.

Mission Accomplished

Once the Minnesota guardsmen return home, the Bulldogs will be replaced by another ANG unit here. So far during the deployment, the Airmen of the 148th EFS and AMU accomplished dozens of training sorties, participated in a major exercise alongside the 51st FW and integrated into the active-duty inspection system.

Its been a success so far; the pilots are getting the training they need, the maintenance is providing them good aircraft, and we were able to participate in [Exercise Beverly Herd 16-01], said Capt. William Carr, 148th AMU officer in charge. Weve also learned quite a bit from the active duty Airmen, since their pace is quite a bit higher than ours.

The constant exchange of information and experience between the guard and active duty Airmen fostered trust and understanding. It ensured American air power here on the Korean Peninsula is always ready to Fight Tonight.
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- With engines screaming and timelines crunching, U.S. Marines prepare F/A-18C Hornet fighter jets for their missions.

Part of preparing the aircraft is loading them with ordnance for the mission. A team of six U.S. Marines physically carry missiles and bombs from the loading cart and secure them to the jet.

Supervising the team at Exercise Red Flag-Alaska 16-2 at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, is Sgt. Malcolm Cappelle, a quality assurance safety observer with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, and forward deployed to Marine Coprs Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, as part of the unit deployment program.

While supervising the Marines, the Green Bay, Wisconsin, native watches as the team lead calls out movement commands to the other team members while carrying and securing the ordnance.

Our shop prides ourselves on carrying things around, said Cappelle. Well pick up the bombs and carry them to jets.

Cappelle also said after ensuring ordnance is moved to the aircraft safely, he jumps in and helps his team inspect everything to make sure its installed correctly and secured. After his team finishes, the aircraft is ready for pre-flight inspections and take-off.

Staff Sgt. Albert Trevino, an aviation ordnance technician, line chief for VMFA-314 and Cappelles supervisor, said knowing both the job and the aircraft is vital to being a good quality assurance Safety observer, something that Cappelle knows inside and out.

Hes definitely taught me different things about the jet that I didnt know, said Trevino. So I definitely appreciate him in that aspect.

Cpl. Aaron Harsh, also a quality assurance safety observer with VMFA-314, has been working under Cappelles supervision for three years and said he looks up to Cappelle as a supervisor.

He is trustworthy, knows what hes doing, and I can go to him for managing the whole day, said Harsh. And its been like that since I was a lance corporal.

Sgt. Morel Victor, an aviation ordnance technician and one of Cappelles peers, said even though Cappelle knows a lot about the job and the aircraft, he is still humble about it.

Lots of times with leadership, theyre not as approachable, but Sgt. Cappelle doesnt have that problem, said Victor. You can always go to him, and hell give you the straight-forward answer for what youre looking for and not belittle you or the knowledge you already had prior to talking with him.

Cappelle said after the jets come back from their mission, he and his team go back out to the flight line, prepare the aircraft for after-flight checks, unload and move ordnance to its safe storage location or onto other jets. After that they start all over again and prepare for the next mission.

He also said his job is labor intensive, but worth it in the end.

I couldnt have asked for anything different, said Cappelle. I work with my hands. Im a mechanic, and I actually work with explosives and put bombs on jets.
KAMPOT, Cambodia (AFNS) -- Medical professionals from several nations and agencies recently came together in Pacific Angel 16-2 to promote interoperability with partner nations while delivering humanitarian aid to Cambodians in the Kampot province.

The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces worked alongside U.S., Thai, Vietnamese and Australian counterparts to give care during the humanitarian assistance/civil-military operation mission that also involved nongovernmental organizations.

The majority of the medical supplies were purchased in Thailand and Vietnam, flown in to Cambodia, and then bussed to a local school ground where Pacific Angel medical teams set up centers for pediatrics, physical therapy, pharmacy, optometry, dentistry and general/preventative health. Each center was manned with medics and doctors, working with each other and their translators.

Obviously the language barrier is difficult to overcome at times, especially when youre working in a professional setting prescribing treatment, said U.S. Navy Lt. Matthew Kanter, a dentist deployed from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California. Everyone has been patient. The people are very warm and welcoming here in Cambodia.

Kanter said working alongside the dentists from the Royal Cambodian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force has opened his eyes to different ways to treat his patients, making the partnership exchange mutually beneficial.

Even though we are in one specified field, its amazing how other people will approach things both differently and similarly, he said.

Cambodian Brig. Gen. Candara Vuth, the deputy director of the Ministry of National Defenses health department, said, We are happy to work together with the U.S. and the other nations to bring aid to the people of Cambodia.

According to Vuth, some of the people who live in rural areas are very poor and cant travel to the hospital in the province. Instead, they rely on natural remedies, like some of the trees that grow around the country.

Being out in the field, you miss some of things you use when you are practicing medicine at home, said RAAF Flight Lt. Rowan McCarthy, a Pacific Angel 16-2 general health medical officer. We cant order a blood test or conduct X-rays. We dont know much about the back history of these patients.

According to McCarthy, its normal to see a 60- to 70-year-old patient back home with a medical history.

Here they may have never seen a doctor before, he continued. So going without that makes it more of a challenge but interesting as well.

With that knowledge in mind, care providers like McCarthy overcome these challenges by focusing on the quality of care and attention to detail they gave to each patient.

Its always good to find out how similar some people are, McCarthy said. Even though there are different languages and training backgrounds, everyone is pretty similar in our working toward a common goal.

Most patients had major concerns addressed and were impressed with the level of care provided by the medical providers.

Sok Moeun, a dental patient, said that she was very happy with the care given to her because she was able obtain the service at no cost and check on her dental health at the same time.

I am thankful for the multinational team that was able to bring healthcare to my village, she said.

Through Pacific Angel 16-2, medical providers from both Cambodia and other nations benefit by training and forging bonds and partnerships with each other.

This humanitarian mission will help prepare us in the future for relief operations here, or anywhere in the region, Kanter said. It helps to know the type of people youre working with, who youre going to be operating with. If you know what to expect going into a situation, it can help you prepare.

Pacific Angel 16-2 allowed multiple nations to work together so that in the event there was a natural disaster in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, the regions militaries will be prepared to work together to address humanitarian crises.
SATTAHIP, Thailand -- 22nd annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the Royal Thai Armed Forces concluded today with closing ceremonies held at the Royal Thai Navy Base in Sattahip.

CARAT Thailand 2016 consisted of eight days of shore-based and at-sea training events in multiple warfare areas. The exercise is focused on addressing shared maritime security concerns, building relationships and enhancing interoperability among participating forces.

"Our armed forces have been working together during CARAT for 22 years, and I think this speaks to the importance and value that both our nations place on operating together." said Capt. H.B. Le, commodore, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 7. "We live and work in a diverse maritime environment and working together during exercises like CARAT prepares our armed forces to work jointly during real-world operations."

At sea, multiple warfare areas were addressed when the two navies conducted an air defense exercise, gunnery exercise, cross-deck helicopter operations, anti-submarine warfare training, and complex surface warfare maneuvering tactics. The successful execution of such a diverse and complex exercise was made possible by the relationships and familiarity the two navies have forged through 22 consecutive years of operating together during CARAT.

U.S. Marines from Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines moved ashore via amphibious assault vehicles launched from the well deck of USS Ashland (LSD 48) during an amphibious landing with their Royal Thai Marine counterparts. The two forces moved together across the beach and conducted building searches and security sweeps while securing the beachhead. Following the assault Marines from both nations worked side-by-side in jungle warfare training and a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO).

During the harbor phase Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 4 and the Royal Thai Navy Construction and Development Regiment started construction on a library at the Khao Chi Chan School near Sattahip. Construction on the library used new building techniques that had not been previously used in a CARAT exercise.

Its been a great opportunity for the Seabees to learn an innovative building technique with our partners here in Thailand, said Ens. Michelle Fitzgerald, officer-in-charge, NMCB 4. Not only are we able to teach and learn through varying construction methods, we are able to build something alongside our counterparts that can be used by the Khao Chi Chan School for years to come.

Also participating in the harbor phase were sailors from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 1. Together with their Royal Thai Navy counterparts they completed four days of dive training followed by a diving exercise while onboard the Safeguard-class salvage ship USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52). The training included a variety of topics including medical, equipment checks and communication methods.

I was very excited to work with our Royal Thai Navy counterparts this year and they were very eager to learn from our team, said Lt. Mark Snyder, officer in charge, MDSU 1. The Royal Thai Navy divers showed great energy throughout the exercise and we were able to tailor our training to the areas in which they were most eager to learn.

Community service events and performances by the U.S. 7th Fleet rock band "Orient Express were held throughout the exercise and enabled sailors and Marines to give back to the community.

After more than two decades of annual CARAT training engagements between U.S. and Thai Armed Forces, the exercise remains a model for cooperation that has evolved in complexity and enables both nations to refine maritime operations and tactics.

CARAT is a series of bilateral naval exercises between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the armed forces of Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Timor-Leste. CARAT 2016 is the most complex series to date. Its continuing relevance for more than two decades speaks to the high quality of exercise events and the enduring value of regional cooperation among allies and partners in South and Southeast Asia.

Additional U.S. assets that participated in CARAT Thailand 2016 include the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63), Safeguard-class salvage ship USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52), USNS Montford Point (T-ESD 1), a P-3C Orion, staff from CTF 73 and CDS 7, Coastal Riverine Group (CRG) 1, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 5, Naval Beach Unit (NBU) 7 and the 7th Fleet rock band "Orient Express."

Commander, Task Force 73 and Destroyer Squadron 7 staff conduct advanced planning, organize resources and directly support the execution of maritime exercises such as the bilateral CARAT series, the Naval Engagement Activity (NEA) with Vietnam, and the multilateral Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Ive been spending a lot of time listening to The Uncle Meat Variations by Frank Zappa. Its excellent atmosphere music, not to mention a rich and complicated composition that involves harpsichord, trumpet, flute and guitar, as well as people chanting something about fuzzy dice.

Listening to Frank Zappa is a little like hanging out with an irritating twelve-year-old; its fun and goofy, but quickly wears thin. But if there is any relation between Zappa and the actual world, it is that wars and religious fanaticism quickly wear thin as well, but there is nothing fun or goofy about them.

On the other hand, to spend a little time really digging into war and religion is to discover contradiction and destructive folly. But if we do the same with Zappa, well find a little more insight than we expected. Zappa is absurd, and its easy to dismiss him as just that. But his music and lyrics amplify the absurdity of the things we hold dear. Take for example these lyrics from the song dumb all over."

You cant run a country by a book of religion. Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon of foolish rules of ancient date designed to make you all feel great while you fold, spindle and mutilate those unbelievers from a neighboring state.

Indeed. Dumb all over. This little war we find ourselves in is a religious war, on both sides. There is no attempt from either end to understand the other. One side goes straight for the kill the infidels angle, while the other takes a more subtle approach, touting democracy, when in reality there is a prevailing Christian element behind the rifles.

Whoever we are, wherever were from, we shoulda noticed by now our behavior is dumb. And if our chances expect to improve, its gonna take a lot more than tryin to remove the other race or the other whatever from the face of the planet altogether.

Frank Zappa is funny, and the real value of comedy is that it cannot exist without tragedy. Comedy gives us perspective. Tragedy, on the other hand, leaves no room for humor, and does not need it. So, when leaders continue to take their cues from old and altered dogmatic notions of reality, nothing but pain can result. But if we can laugh at them, then we still have a grip on the issue, and will eventually be able to change as a civilization.

If not, then we have no hope.

Politicians of a specific brand make a habit of declaring that god wants them to run, which is interesting because those same people tend to not win. And Pat Robertson said in 2006 that stroke-stricken Israeli president Ariel Sharon was being punished by God for dividing the holy land.

Thats depending on which book youre using at the time," said Zappa in his song. "Cant use theirs, it dont work, its all lies, gotta use mine, aint that right? Thats what they say, every night, every day, hey, we cant really be dumb if were just following gods ordersGod knows what hes doin, he wrote this book here, an the book says He made us all to be just like him. So...If were dumb...Then God is dumb. And maybe even a little ugly on the side.
BLOOMINGTON  A cloud is forming over the use of electronic cigarettes and "vaping" in U.S. Cellular Coliseum and other city-owned facilities in Bloomington.

Ward 8 Alderman Diana Hauman has proposed banning electronic cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems from places where smoking already is banned by the Smoke Free Illinois Act.

She wondered about the health risk from a "vapor cloud" she found herself sitting in during the Rod Stewart concert last summer at the Coliseum.

"There were four people in front of me ... smoking these e-cigarettes through the whole concert," she said. "Whether it's healthy or not, it just takes away from the experience because you're looking through this cloud."

A majority of aldermen said during this week's City Council committee-of-the-whole meeting that they'd rather have city staff draft a policy limiting the ban of e-cigarettes to just city facilities. The council will consider acting on the measure at a future meeting.

The majority of the council agreed with Ward 2 Aldermen David Sage, who said the private sector should decide their own policies on e-cigarettes.

"But not everybody has that free market choice," said Mayor Tari Renner. "If you are someone who is working washing dishes and being a server, you may need that job and you might have to expose yourself to an addictive poison. And the rest of us ... have to pay health care costs and other problems associated with this."

At least 15 municipalities, including Chicago and metro areas, have used their home-rule powers to ban e-cigarettes in public places, said city attorney Jeff Jurgens in a memo he prepared for the council.

"It hasn't been raised as an issue here, and we are not at this point investigating an ordinance," said Normal City Manager Mark Peterson. "Maybe it is something we should look into."

E-cigarettes use batteries and coils to heat up a liquid solution containing nicotine with flavorings and other chemicals to produce a water vapor instead of smoke.

The devices are not directly covered by the state's smoke-free act, but legislation is being introduced to restrict their use, especially by young people.

The pending bills propose increasing the age requirement to purchase cigarettes, including e-cigarettes, from 18 to 21; and prohibiting use of the devices on school and college campuses, said Walt Howe, director of the McLean County Health Department.

"We certainly would support the measures because we have health concerns about electronic cigarettes as we do with regular cigarettes," said Howe.

"We know they contain nicotine in addition to other (unknown) chemicals in the e-cigarette container," he added. "And then the fact that they are marketing to children with bubble gum and sweet flavors. They're creating a whole new appreciation by younger people of nicotine and smoking. So that's a big concern of public health."

New federal Food and Drug Administration regulations are attempting to determine what ingredients are in liquid vaping products, said Sarah Philos, a health promotion specialist at the health department.

The requirements include: registering manufacturing establishments and providing product listings to the FDA; reporting ingredients, including those that are harmful and potentially harmful; requiring marketing authorization from the FDA for any product that was introduced after Feb. 15, 2007; placing health warnings on product packages and advertisements; and not selling modified-risk tobacco products, including those described as "light," "low," or "mild," unless authorized by the FDA.

"That's what we're looking for: Is the product safe and effective?" said Howe. "Right now, we don't have scientific proof of what actually is in electronic cigarettes and what is actually being consumed by the individual smoking that product."

Jerry Jonen, owner of Smoker's Choice at 1212 Towanda Ave., and his assistant manager, Zach Magon, say they use e-cigarettes because they regard them as less of a health risk than regular cigarettes.

Jonen said e-cigarettes and related vaping supplies that include 150 flavors, account for 40 percent of the total sales at his tobacco products business.

They said they are OK with a ban of e-cigarettes limited to city-owned facilities, but they are worried about the impact of FDA regulations on the e-cigarette industry.
BLOOMINGTON  After decades of smoking, 62-year-old Jerry Jonen gave up cigarettes about a 1 years ago and now uses an electronic cigarette.

"And here I own a tobacco store, and prior to that I worked for Philip Morris (Tobacco Company) for 15 years," he said.

Now, two years after he added The Choice Vape Shop to his tobacco products store, e-cigarettes and "vaping" products make up 40 percent of his total sales.

"I just decided for health purposes that vaping was not as detrimental to my potential long-term health," said Jonen, owner of Smoker's Choice at 1212 Towanda Ave. "I'm not saying smoking e-cigarettes is 100 percent risk free, but I firmly do believe it's not as detrimental as the tar and other stuff you're getting from tobacco smoke."

Jonen admits that because the use of liquid vaping products is fairly new, there is no track record that any regulatory agency can use to determine what the risks are.

Jonen agreed with a proposed ban of the devices at city-owned facilities.

"If it's limited to those kinds of places, it would have a minimal effect on our sales," he said, but if the devices are prohibited at all public and private places, "obviously it lowers consumption and ultimately lowers sales."

Jonen already witnessed that scenario when the state enacted in 2008 the Smoke Free Illinois Act.

"Vaping is not meant to be done when there is a mass group of people who have no desire for that to go on," said Jonen. "That's no different than smoking was in that sense."

The devices can produce varied amounts of vapor so "it's not a one-size-fits-all product," he said.

"There are hundreds of flavors of liquids and various nicotine levels  anywhere from zero on up to whatever. We as a store do not carry the real high nicotine levels."

The vapor products are cheaper because they aren't taxed like regular cigarettes, Jonen noted.

Jonen pointed to a carton of cigarettes costing $53. "$30 of that is taxes. There's a $10 federal tax and a $20 state tax," he said.

A 10-milliliter bottle of e-juice is equivalent to about five packs of cigarettes "and it usually lasts a week for $7, compared to the $50 to $80 for a carton of cigarettes," added Zach Magon, Jonen's assistant manager.

Magon also uses vaping products.
PEORIA  The vintage helmet and boots may be the most low-tech components of a decidedly high-tech affair. But Keith Feinstein wouldn't part with them for all the stars in the galaxy.

The Feinstein-designed "Be the Astronaut" is the new traveling interactive exhibit launched last weekend as the summer blockbuster attraction at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

In a pioneering interface of advanced video game technology and NASA-sanctioned professional simulators, the exhibit recruits visitors to take control of an interstellar mission to one of four destinations: the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and/or, for the really adventurous, an asteroid belt encounter with dwarf planet Ceres.

Along for the ride: a virtual crew (scientist, doctor, navigator, engineer) to provide able guidance and assistance should things go awry.

Which, rest assured, they can, and do.

It's no coincidence that the exhibit premiered last fall at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where NASA went gaga, as did the public.

Several days before the Peoria opening, a visitor passes a cart that, at first glance, looks slightly out of place amid the banks of video monitors and, over along one wall, a working robot named A-Eye No. 9, who looks like the love child of Robby the Robot and the "bubble-headed booby" from "Lost in Space" ... and who seems to be eyeing the laden cart with his two camera-sensor orbs.

On that cart are are the prized possessions of Feinstein's youth, to be displayed on the sidelines: a well-loved collection of vintage space-themed toys and games, from a Marx-made Johnny Apollo action figure astronaut to a sleek metal rocket ship from some Cold War-era Soviet toy shelf.

But the ones that really sent Feinstein into orbit as a child of the '70s, he says, are the Ideal-branded S.T.A.R. (Space Travel and Reconnaissance) Team items.

"They were begun in the 1960s, so I probably got them as hand-me-downs at a garage sale. But even in the 1970s, they were very cool ... the helmet, the remote gripper, the moon shoes."

Not much there to impress a child of the pre- or post-millennium, perhaps, but for Feinstein, these items were among the triggers of his passion for all things space-related ... a love consummated by "Be the Astronaut," and the high praise bestowed upon it by NASA folk last fall.

"I remember I'd put the boots on and that golden dome helmet on over my head and stand there, feeling like I was walking around the slopes of the Moon, or imagining I was on another world," says Feinstein, who is partnered with operations director and CEO Mark Kirby in the New Jersey-based Eureka Exhibits.

Fuse that pre-virtual reality escape from Earth's gravity with a mind-blowing encounter, circa 1974, with Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and the mold was cast for "Be the Astronaut."

"I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8, but, you know, I think I got it, basically," he says of the infamously elliptical narrative line that has confounded many a moviegoer, then and now.

There's more: "My folks recently moved out of the family home, and my mom told me she found a story I'd written in kindergarten about how me and my friend Timmy went to the moon ... so that proved there was such a connection to space travel that early on."

"Be the Astronaut" is actually the second interactive exhibit creation by Feinstein and Kirby, who cut their teeth with "Be the Dinosaur," which played Peoria to huge crowds at the former Lakeview Museum, where it was the last exhibit there, notes the museum's Ann Schmitt, vice president of programs.

Kirby says the dinosaur exhibit was tackled first, to work out the interactive technology that has allowed the leap, a la Kubrick's famous "2001" jump-cut, from prehistory to an epic space journey (one that, not by chance, involves "2001's" touchstone Moon and Jupiter locations).

"We got into the business to pioneer the video game approach to museum exhibitions and bring them into the 21st century as a non-passive experience," adds Feinstein.

In addition to the banks of simulators that will allow visitors to pilot their own space missions, each patron will receive a magnetic swipe ID card that tracks their progress through the exhibition's array missions and other variables.

The card will be usable over multiple visits, so that visitors can continue their missions where they may have previously left off, notes Cathie Neumiller, the museum's vice president of marketing and communications.

Throw in Feinstein's vintage space toy collection, a display of authentic space suits and other artifacts, and, of course, the robotic assistance of A-Eye 9 and his partner A-Eye 3, and you have something more than just out of this world.

Knowing how "2001: A Space Odyssey," S.T.A.R. Team toys and other close encounters as a child impacted the direction his life took, Feinstein said he'd love to be partly responsible for planting a similar seed in some young person's fertile mind.

"Every adult working in the space program was once an inspired child," he says. "It's those earliest dreams some people never give up on."
Coming soon

Scheduled to open in area theaters next weekend (July 1) are:

The BFG: Steven Spielberg, in his first-ever Disney gig, takes on Roald Dahl's classic tale of a precocious 10-year-old young girl named Sophie and the Big Friendly Giant who introduces her to the wonders and perils of Giant Country and neighboring Dream Country. Complete with a trip to London to see Queen Victoria. The adaptation is by Spielberg's "E.T." scenarist Melissa Mathison, who died last November. The cast is headed by Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall and Bill Hader.

Legend of Tarzan: A long-in-coming sequel, of sorts, to 1984's "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes," which continues the saga of John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke (Alexander Skarsgaard), who long ago left the jungles of Africa behind for the gentrified life of an English country gent alongside wife Jane (Margot Robbie). Now, he's invited back to the Congo to serve as a trade emissary of Parliament, unaware he's just a pawn in a deadly convergence in a deadly game masterminded by one Captain Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz). Samuel L. Jackson and Djimoun Hounsou co-star.

The Purge: Election Year: No. 3 in the futuristic series about the annual government-sanctioned 12-hour period, Purge Night, when all crime's legal and the unlawful becomes lawful. This time around, series regular Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) is serving as head of security for a presidential candidate who, oops, ends up on the streets of Washington, D.C., circa Purge Night, prey to anyone wanting to legally eliminate her.

Film clips

Grand-blu, USA: Pontiac, circa 1983, likely will never look better than it does when, at long last, the movie filmed in its entirety there, Grandview, USA, makes the leap to the Blu-ray format. The 1984 release, shot in the fall of 1983, took forever getting to the DVD format, introduced in 1997, with "Grandview" not issued until 14 years later, in 2011. Now, nine years into the Blu-ray format, the Jamie Lee Curtis-Patrick Swayze-starring film makes the leap to high-def via the Kino Lorber Studio Classics label on Sept. 6 ... 33 years to the very week that the Threshermen's Reunion Parade was filmed as the backdrop for the film's climax.

Three-ring noir: The McLean County Museum of History in downtown Bloomington is premiering Movies Under the Dome, a new series of films with a McLean County link at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Governor Fifer Courtroom. Featured will be the 1954 John Wayne(!)-produced thriller, Ring of Fear, a murder mystery with a circus backdrop starring famed animal trainer Clyde Beatty and crime novelist Mickey Spillane, both playing themselves. The film also features Bloomington native Richard Shipley, a long-time circus elephant trainer and member of Beatty's circus. The showing is free, with drinks and popcorn available for purchase.

Dress for success: Good grief! Prepare to come dressed like the characters in the animated hit, The Peanuts Movie, the June edition of Dress-Up Movies at the Connie Link Amphitheater in Normal. The free showing is at 8 p.m. Friday.
Linn County Sheriffs Office deputies evacuated nine homes and closed off a portion of Riverside Drive and Orleans Road on Thursday after receiving a report Thursday morning that someone had found numerous dynamite blasting caps.

According to a news release, a male in the 34000 block of Riverside Drive contacted the Linn County Sheriff's Office 911 dispatch center shortly after 11 a.m. The caller told dispatchers he was cleaning out a house at the location and found a plastic tote filled with what appeared to be blasting caps. Deputies responded and secured a safe perimeter around the property.

The homeowner told deputies he had just purchased the residence, which was a prior rental property. Deputies learned the homeowner is remodeling the residence and plans to move in. It is unknown at this time who owns the explosive material.

Oregon State Police Bomb Squad responded and confirmed the items found were military-grade explosive material. Air National Guard 142nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit personnel were requested to respond.

The Albany Fire Department was placed on standby until the explosives were rendered safe. The roadway was closed and nearby homes were evacuated for approximately five hours. Oregon State Police Bomb Squad and the Air National Guard rendered the explosives safe and removed them from the scene. Deputies then notified the evacuated homeowners, advising they could return to their residences.

Linn County deputies were assisted by the Oregon State Police, Air National Guard 142nd Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit, Linn County Road Department and the Albany Fire Department.
Detectives from the Albany Police Department Street Crimes Unit, with assistance from the Linn County Regional SWAT Team, Lebanon Police Department, Corvallis Police Department and Benton County Sheriffs Office, served a narcotics search warrant in the 400 block of Southeast 27th Avenue in Albany at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.

The action was the result of a two-month investigation stemming from neighborhood complaints about a potential drug house. Officers seized methamphetamine, scales, packaging material, and oxycodone.

Joshua Simmons, 27, of Albany, was arrested on two counts of unlawful delivery of a schedule II narcotic, and unlawful possession of methamphetamine. Timothy William Bauer, 38, of Albany, was arrested for unlawful possession of methamphetamine and frequenting a drug house. Patricia Anne Eilers-Hanson, 26, of Albany, was arrested for frequenting a drug house.

All three were booked at the Linn County Jail.
Donald Trump's firing of his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, sounds like a big deal, until you realize how little of a Trump campaign there is to manage.

Late Monday, hours after presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump let his campaign manager go, new campaign filings revealed that Trump ended May with less than $1.3 million in the bank.

That might sound like a nice piece of change until you learn that Hillary Clinton, his presumptive Democratic opponent, raised more than $28 million in May and started June with $42 million in cash.

Even Trump's fellow Republican Ben Carson reported $1.8 million  $500,000 more than Trump  in his campaign fund in May, even though he stopped campaigning in March.

Overall, Team Trump  his presidential campaign, the Republican National Committee and Trump's allied super PAC, Great America PAC  went into June with $21.7 million in cash. That compares to $103.4 million in cash on hand held by Team Clinton, which includes her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Priorities USA super PAC.

With that, the Clinton campaign spent $1.6 million in ad production and airtime, pummeling Trump with attack ads in battleground states. That compares to only $150,000 spent by Trump's campaign on ads in May. He has preferred to attack "Crooked Hillary" in speeches, on Twitter and through other free-media-generating stunts.

Personnel? At last count, the Trump campaign had about 30 staffers nationwide, according to Associated Press, while Clinton's team has more than 700 nationwide, including 50 people in the critical swing state of Ohio alone.

You could tell that Trump was in trouble when he stopped bragging about his polls, which have generated a drumbeat of bad news for his campaign since Clinton clinched enough delegates in early June to win her party's nomination. On the morning after Lewandowski's firing, Real Clear Politics' daily average of major polls showed Clinton ahead of Trump by 45 percent to 39.2 percent.

That's a big slide for Trump since mid-May, when polls showed the two in more of a dead heat and, in some cases, the New York developer slightly ahead.

But the polls give Hillary little reason to rest comfortably. She and Trump have the highest disapproval ratings  more than 50 percent for both  of any two presumptive major party nominees in the history of polling.

Indeed, the great irony of this campaign is the apparent anti-Clinton derangement syndrome that has driven Republicans to nominate Trump. Now the volatile, pouty-mouthed industrialist with insult-comic style and very little knowledge of government seems increasingly poised to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Yet Trump seems to be having too much of a good time in the spotlight to see the sinking of his own campaign ship. Buoyed up by billions of dollars in free media coverage generated by his hyperactive Twitter fingers, he seems to have overlooked the traditional pivot from campaigning to the Grand Old Party's conservative base to appeal to moderate swing voters who will decide the November election.

Lewandowski recently defended his candidate's no-frills approach. "We are leaner, meaner, more efficient, more effective. Get bigger crowds. Get better coverage," Lewandowski said. "If this was the business world, people would be commending Mr. Trump for the way he's run this campaign."

Hah! Now Lewandowski is out and, if this were the business world, the Trump campaign would be teetering on bankruptcy.

Maybe Trump thinks he can rewrite the book on presidential campaigning by turning his celebrity into a campaign of stunts and free media.

Or maybe, as some suspect, he never intended to get this far with what started out as a brand-building stunt and happened to strike a long-neglected core of frustrated, displaced middle-class Americans.

Either way, he's stuck with running now and appears to be headed either to a long-shot victory or a crushing defeat.

RNC leaders are divided between those debating how much they should help Trump and those who feel the party should dump him at next month's national convention in Cleveland. That's unlikely to happen. The party with the most disunity tends to lose.

Like it or not, loyal Republicans have little choice left but to support Trump's campaign  if they can find it.
With the nation's worst mass shooting behind us and a summer of Chicago gun violence ahead of us, federal and state lawmakers need to give serious consideration to changes in gun laws that would make it more difficult for buyers to gain access to the most dangerous weapons.

Gun violence is worsening in big cities and small because our gun laws need revisions that politicians are afraid to make and our police need more financial and moral support than taxpayers are willing to give.

The Second Amendment ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed") would be enhanced, rather than restricted, by revisions primarily needed because of the mechanical advancements to weaponry since the 1700s.

The amendment does not lay out a need for a firearm owner's identification card, yet we have them. It does not lay out a need for a background check, yet we have them. It does not lay out a need for a waiting period, yet many states have them.

As such, gun rights supporters and lawmakers much reach a compromise on access to high-velocity firearms with large magazines.The weapons should remain available, but their buyers should be subject to higher scrutiny before a sale is approved or the firearm is transferred.

According to the Law Center for Prevent Gun Violence, federal law says a dealer can deliver a gun to a buyer as soon as a background check is completed or after three business days even if the check is incomplete.

The center (an attorney-founded nonprofit that promotes gun violence prevention and 'smart' gun laws) says that more than 3,000 ineligible buyers receive their guns before the check is completed.

The National Rifle Association's legal division, addressing a 2015 Wisconsin repeal of waiting periods, said such restrictions are unnecessary because of "instant checks" available since 1998 through the FBI's national instant criminal background check system.

Yes, the adage "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," holds true  but people can kill a lot more people more quickly with a high-velocity weapon with a large magazine than one person who has a six-shot revolver.

Aficionados should have the right to buy the type of gun and magazine they want; revisions would not stop that. But police and the FBI need the time to provide a more thorough check of people who want those weapons as a way to prevent the guns from getting into the wrong hands.

Shooters in some of the more recent national cases  including Orlando  purchased their guns legally, but not all gun users have the legal right to the guns they carry and use.

In-depth checks may not prevent more mass shootings, but they may make it harder for them to be carried out.
Director John Sams recommends people coming to see Sunday's performances of "Tuesdays with Morrie" bring a friend or someone they can have an intimate discussion with afterward.

That's because Sams said the topics covered on stage will spark conversations off of it.

"I heard a very smart person once say that good literature in any form will make you stop and think, will make you discuss, will cause you to modify your worldview and how you feel about things," Sams said.

The play, written by Mitch Albom and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, is based on a best-selling memoir of the same name by Albom. It is the next production by the Majestic Reader's Theatre.

"Tuesdays with Morrie" centers on Albom, at the time a sportswriter, who had lost track of his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz. The two had been close during Albom's undergraduate days at Brandeis University, Sams said.

After a 16-year hiatus, Albom, played by Gary Prince, sees Schwartz (Richard Weinman) appear on a nationally syndicated talk show. On the show, Schwartz reveals that he is dying of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

One visit from his student turns into more, as Albom and Schwartz continued to meet on Tuesday afternoons in Massachusetts. To explain what happens, the director read a portion of Albom's monologue:

"The subject of the class was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. There was no required reading, but many topics were covered: love, work, aging, family, community, forgiveness and death. The class met on Tuesdays and had only one student. I was that student."

Sams says Prince and Weinman have great timing and rapport between them, which has made his job as director easier.

"My great charge I've found with directing this play was to stay out of the way and not interject myself enough to diminish what was already there between these two actors," Sams said.

Sams hopes audience members leave the theater after the performance ready to talk about the big topics dealt with in the play.

"We're going to, in 90 minutes, cover all of them quite extensively," he said.
As the popularity of Elsa and Anna from "Frozen" will attest, kids are always fascinated by Disney princesses. Animations with a Disney princess as the main character are usually seen as feel-good, family-friendly positive films.

However, a new study suggests that this might be hurting a preschooler's development as a Disney theme centering on the princess culture promotes certain stereotypes. In the long run, what do kids actually get from their Disney princess role models?

Disney Princesses' Influence In Girls Different Than In Boys

The study, "Pretty as a Princess: Longitudinal Effects of Engagement With Disney Princesses on Gender Stereotypes, Body Esteem, and Prosocial Behavior in Children," published in the journal Child Development, cites that female gender stereotypes in Disney princesses heavily influence a young girl's belief that life opportunities are different for women. From Disney princesses, little girls think that they can't possibly be expected to do certain things because of their gender, such as love math or tinker like engineers.

The study also cites how Disney princesses affects body image and perceptions because the animated characters are usually slim. These images are compounded in children early on, at ages 3 or 4. However, the influence of Disney media is different in young boys because the princess culture shows male characters as helpful to others.

Disney princesses: Good for boys, bad for girls: https://t.co/DIeEjmsAcN pic.twitter.com/1JoXUcBDrn  New York Magazine (@NYMag) June 21, 2016

Disney Princesses Heavily Favored By Girls Than Boys

Science Daily reports that 198 preschoolers were assessed in the study. They were given various Disney toys and were also asked to watch different Disney movies. They were asked to rank these according to preference.

Among the girls, 96 percent chose Disney princesses as their top picks, with 67 percent playing with the princess toys regularly. Among the boys, 87 percent only chose Disney princess movies and only 4 percent chose to play with the toys.

Too Much Of Disney Princesses Not Safe For Kids

Lead researcher Sarah M. Coyne believes that parents generally assume Disney princesses are safe for kids. But she cautions the adults to "consider the long-term impact of the princess culture," per Phys.Org. Coyne also recommends moderation in letting kids digest the Disney princess culture. "Have your kids involved in all sorts of activities, and just have princesses be one of many, many things that they like to do and engage with," she said.

Coyne is not the first to study the effects of Disney princesses in kids. Experts from Rutgers University also did a research on this subject, which was published in the Rutgers' journal. It also came to the same conclusions as Coyne regarding stereotypes.
The U.S. Department of Education is now making some moves to give women equal rights to have opportunities in Career and Technical Education (CTE). The agency has even made some new guidelines on June 16 referring to these changes that they want to implement in order to support gender equality in CTE.

In an article published by Argus Leader, this move done by the Department of Education is for the purpose of women to also gain benefits from programs involving Career and Technical Education. Most of the time, it is only men who get to have access to these kinds of programs when women should also be a part of it.

It is very seldom that we get to see women in the field of chemistry and other technical subjects because it is an area dominated by the male population. This is something that the U.S. Department of Education wants to change and a lot of people think it is revolutionary. It is about time to implement something like this in the changing society.

A photo posted by Olesya (@blessthefall666.olesya) on Jun 22, 2016 at 3:58pm PDT

In an event back on June 17, the Department of Education gave out some guidelines to teachers in order to make sure that students, no matter what their gender is, they would be able to have an access to CTE programs. U.S. secretary of Education, John B. King Jr. made a personal statement regarding this subject saying he wants to see his two daughters have an access to these programs as well. In a way, he understands parents who have kids who would like to pursue their dreams in the technical field. He wants to make sure that all students are given the proper tools while attending any of the CTE programs.

Are you digging this decision that the Department of Education is implementing? Tell us your opinion using the comments section below.
For most women, there is no equal amount of joy with the birth of a child. However, some women may not feel the same way, and would end choosing the other option: abortion.

In that sense, would it still be a deciding factor for the abortionist to offer lifesaving medical care to the mother for its baby? Or when abortion consent has been given by the mother, is there still a way around it when the baby turned out to be alive instead?

So far, there has been no concrete federal law that would ensure aborted babies (when witnessed alive at the time of abortion) be given the appropriate lifesaving medical care, according to a Life News post. When former President George W. Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act(H.R.2175) into law in 2002, abortionists still don't see these babies born alive post-abortion as living beings.

These premature babies born alive spontaneously end up not getting enough lifesaving medical care, in contrast to what H.R.3504 (or Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act) now advocates for these babies. The H.R.3504 bill, which has yet to become a law, was passed without amendment as of September 8 last year.

The new bill specifically defined a fetus as being "born alive" who breathes or show signs of life (such as a beating heart) after complete expulsion or extraction from the mother, regardless its development stage or if the umbilical cord was cut. The bill also allows the abortive woman or one who undergoes the procedure to file suit for the person (abortionist or abortion facility worker) who violates the act.

Pro-life leader Jill Stanek and Senator Ben Sasse revived public attention towards the Act when they shared a piece called "Abortion Survivors Deserve Our Care", which was one of the major trending topics on Facebook recently, according to Live Action News. The article described and offered insight into the grim realities that convicted Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who had aborted 3 babies even as late as gestation and ended out as born alive (without any thought to giving lifesaving medical care) before he killed them.

Sasse and Stanek also cited in their article of a number of 911 recordings which revealed an abortion worker calling for medical help for a premature baby born alive post-abortion. Since the abortion center wasn't able to provide lifesaving medical care for the baby, he/she wasn't able to make it after being rushed to the nearest hospital. The pro-life leaders are calling for action with which they hoped better protection could be offered as "No child should end her life cold and alone, struggling for her last breath inside an abortion clinic".
A woman who recently travelled to Dominican Republic has contracted the Zika virus making it the first confirmed case in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed the first case noting that Dominican Republic is an area where the Aedes mosquitos are present. These mosquitos carry the Zika virus.

Philadelphia Magazine also reported that the woman is not pregnant and was not hospitalized when she had the virus. She has, however, recovered. The identity of the woman has not been released by health officials.

The Chester County Health Department then released a statement regarding the matter. They notified the residents about the case. An alert was issued to all county health care providers reminding them of the importance of following the testing and risk reduction guidance issued in the past.

The Chester County Health Department also urged pregnant women to not visit Zika-affected countries and areas. Residents should also use insect repellant, have window screens installed, and remove standing water from both inside and outside of homes.

Chester County Health Department Director Jeanne Casner also reminded the citizens about the chances of contracting Zika virus in Chester County is minimal. The virus is transmitted via the bit of an infected Aedes mosquito. These mosquitos are found in areas with warmer climates and it poses a larger risk to women who are pregnant as it could result in Zika-linked microcephaly and other complications related to birth defects.

As of current, 23 cases of travel-related Zika virus cases have been recorded in Pennsylvania. The Health Department in the state assured that there have been no confirmed cases of locally-acquired Zika virus. Also, no cases have been contracted in the state itself.

Zika virus could also be transmitted through the transfer of bodily fluids and through sexual intercourse but the most common transmission is still through the bite of an infected mosquito.
A new report released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on Tuesday, June 21, has identified the best and worst states when it comes to upholding the well-being of children. Gathering data from 50 states around America, the study was conducted using specific methodology under the KIDS COUNT Data Book.

It cites Minnesota as the number one American state for child care and well-being. The state also topped the ranks in last year's report. So, how did other states fare and which ones were in the bottom of the ranking?

The report, which can be downloaded in full at the foundation's website, considered factors like economic well-being, education, health and quality of family and communities in its rankings. Per CNN, states in the Northeast region filled up the top posts most, while many southern states lagged behind.

However, the study also saw marked improvements for states located in the Midwest and predicted that these states could become higher in the rankings in the coming years. Below are the top and bottom five states as cited in the child well-being rankings:

Top Five -

1. Minnesota

2. Massachusetts

3. Iowa

4. New Hampshire

5. Connecticut

Bottom Five -

46. Alabama

47. Nevada

48. Louisiana

49. New Mexico

50. Mississippi

We can do better. Learn about smart solutions for kids. #KIDSCOUNT: https://t.co/Kjx9xMQrRf pic.twitter.com/gTFxH2SLV6  Annie E. Casey Fdn (@AECFNews) June 22, 2016

While pleased that it has retained the top spot, Minnesota locals believe that the state could still improve services that promote child well-being. Stephanie Hogenson, who is aligned with the Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota, said that the state must specifically work on creating programs that will uplift the conditions of "children of color and American Indian children," per MPR News.

Meanwhile, CD Dispatch reports that Mississippi should focus on education the most to improve its rank from the last spot. There are various new programs with funding for each state, but it seems these are quickly abandoned in Mississippi. The CD Dispatch notes that, unfortunately, this has been an ongoing cycle in the state.

How did your state rank? Do you agree with the positions? Let us know in the comments!
Sarah Jessica Parker has unveiled the first teaser trailer for her upcoming HBO comedy series "Divorce." The 30-minute comedy will serve as the actress' first leading role in a show since "Sex and the City," also in HBO, wrapped up in 2004.

In the video posted on Parker's Instagram page, her character Frances, a woman going through a mid-life crisis, shocks her husband Robert (Thomas Haden Church) by asking for a divorce. The distressed couple ends up in a counseling session where Frances accuses Robert of having an "emotional affair." Robert, meanwhile, contradicts Frances by saying, "It was never an affair because it was never physical."

The teaser also showed sneak peeks on supporting characters played by "Saturday Night Live" alumna Molly Shannon and "Mad Men" actress Talia Balsam, wrapping up to Robert asking Frances where they marriage started to go downhill. Watch the sneak peek below.

Sarah Jessica Parker Talks 'Divorce'

"Divorce" was created by Sharon Horgan, who is also the lead star and co-creator of the U.K. series "Catastrophe" alongside comedian Rob Delaney, Rolling Stone reported. Parker serves as an executive producer of "Divorce" along with Horgan, Paul Simms, Alison Benson and Aaron Kaplan, Variety listed.

In an interview with ET in April, Parker said "Divorce" is "an area of particular interest" for her not because she also has an unhappy marriage like Frances, but because she is happily married with "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" actor Matthew Broderick, her husband since 1997. Parker and Broderick have three children.

New Series Is A 'Portrait Of Divorce'

The 51-year-old actress thinks that marriage is "wonderfully complicated and wonderfully interesting" and works differently in every couple. Parker said she wants to construct "a portrait of divorce" at a time when so many people have already experienced it, some are considering going for it and others are grateful that their marriage remains in harmony.

After starring in HBO's "Sex and the City," Parker went on to do the show's two film adaptations which were released in 2008 and 2010. She also starred in movies like 2015's "All Roads Lead to Rome," 2011's "I Don't Know How She Does It" and 2009's "Did You Hear About the Morgans?"

The 10-episode "Divorce," which also stars Tracy Letts, Sterling Jerins and Charlie Kilgore, premieres on HBO this fall. For more info about the upcoming series, head to HBO.
Parents are getting caught up in the 2016 United States presidential elections at it has been recently reported that babies are being named after the family members of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

In a report by Huffington Post, the presidential hopefuls have influenced the baby department as they are providing inspirations for the baby names. An analysis from BabyCenter showed that out of 115,000 names registered on their site, there was a 142 percent increase in popularity since last year at the same period of time. The names of her family members, Bill, Chelsea, and Charlotte have also increased to 113 percent, 18 percent, and 17 percent respectively.

The press release from BabyCenter also showed that Trump's family members' names have increased in popularity amongst parents. However, the name Donald only increased by eight percent but Melania increased to 36 percent. Ivanka increased by four percent.

Linda Murray, the Global Editor in Chief of BabyCenter, said in the press release, "A presidential election is a big deal, and new parents who choose names like Hillary and Donald are placing a bet that their new baby will share the name of the next American president." If it is to be based on percentage and popularity of the names between Clinton and Trump, it is seen that the former Secretary of State is more favored than the real estate mogul.

Murray added that the results could mean an early indicator that Clinton will be elected as the next president of the U.S. The growing popularity of Clinton's name makes her on the same page as Franklin Roosevelt during the 1932 election. Roosevelt's popularity was so popular that it rose to 151 percent.

Bernie Sanders is not seeing the same success with that of Trump and Clinton as the name Bernard fell 50 percent this year.

Another potential influence that parents are naming their babies after is the Broadway musical called "Hamilton." The name has increased to 60 percent in popularity.
That seemingly harmless habit of yours of using your smartphone before bedtime can give you vision problems. Doctors have warned that two women in the United Kingdom experienced temporary blindness after looking at a bright smartphone screen in a dark room.

The two women experienced short-term vision problems that occur late at night or early in the morning, Live Science reported. In the first case, a 22-year-old woman said she had difficulties seeing out of her right eye at night and only outlines of objects are visible to her. Her troubles happened several times a week for a year.

The other case involved a 40-year-old woman who couldn't see out of one eye in the early morning before sunrise. The problem persisted for around 15 minutes and occurred intermittently for six months. According to doctors, both of the women's vision problems happened after they stared at their smartphones' screens for several minutes while lying in bed on their sides.

Root Of The Problem

The doctors believe that the women's temporary blindness stemmed from looking at their smartphones with just one eye without realizing it. When a person is lying on his/her side, the other eye gets blocked by the pillow and adapts to the dark, while the other eye looking at the smartphone gets accustomed to the light. After the smartphone goes off, the light-adapted eye becomes "blind" and takes several minutes to recover from its "blindness."

Dr. Rahul Khurana, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, said the recent findings are interesting but noted that two cases weren't enough to prove the dangers of one-eyed smartphone use. Also, he doesn't think that plenty of smartphone users would experience the same temporary blindness.

Using Smartphones Before Bedtime Disrupts Sleep

Using smartphones before bedtime doesn't just affect a person's vision; it can also damage sleep by disrupting the body's natural circadian rhythms. According to Tech Times, smartphones and other electronic gadgets emit blue light that interrupts melatonin, the body's natural sleep hormone.

Electronic gadgets emit blue light during the day so the screen remains viewable throughout the sunshine. At nighttime, the brain gets tricked into believing that the blue light is the Sun and reduces its melatonin production.

Disrupted circadian rhythms can lead to serious health problems, warns Anne-Marie Chang, a neuroscientist and sleep expert at Pennsylvania State University, Live Science reported. This includes cardiovascular illnesses, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

People who look at their smartphones for more than four hours each day are 49 percent more likely to have troubles sleeping at night. Experts suggested abstaining from gadget use one hour before bedtime to avoid sleep issues, The Independent reported.
Whenever Kerry Turner thinks of a snazzy potential title for his latest music composition, he whips out his cellphone and makes a note of it.

The current list includes titles such as "The Coyote of Central Park," "Rainbow on the Mesa," "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Last Call of Phineas Beard." (Beard was the bugler for Admiral Nelson's British fleet back in the day.)

These day, Turner said in an interview this week with The E, the title often comes first  and then, the music follows.

So in some ways, this is the story of how "The Coyote of Central Park" did not become the commissioned work that the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival will premiere at a Friday night concert in Corvallis.

Turner (he's married to Albany native Kristina Mascher-Turner) struck the deal with Chintimini music director Erik Peterson years ago to create a brand-new work for this year's festival: It's part of a festival tradition to commission a new chamber music work each year.

The plan then was that the piece that would be performed at Chintimini would be "The Coyote of Central Park." (In fact, that title showed up months ago on the Chintimini website.)

Turner headed to Barcelona in Spain to work on the piece.

And then Barcelona intruded.

As he explored the city, Turner said, he found himself humming a tune inspired by his surroundings. "I literally wrote the song walking along the streets of Barcelona," he said.

The eventual result: "Catalonian Serenade," with three movements, each inspired by a different time and place in the city. The piece is written for two horns and a string quintet; Turner and his wife, both accomplished horn players, will perform the horn parts.

The first movement of the 15-minute work was inspired by sunrise in Barcelona and is, Turner said, "very atmospheric." The second movement, inspired by the city's old Gothic Quarter at midnight, is "creepy and fun." In fact, he said, the Gothic Quarter was one of the first areas that got him thinking along the lines of creating music inspired by the city.

The final movement is inspired in part by the rhythms of the city at sunset, when the streets fill with Spanish guitarists and dancers.

The last time the Turners were in the mid-valley was last year, when their American Horn Quartet played a concert in Corvallis as part of the ensemble's farewell tour. Since the quartet disbanded, Kerry Turner has been able to concentrate more on his composing work.

In some ways, he said, it's harder than it used to be back when composing was "something I did on the side." In part, that's because he's set the bar higher.

"I've been haunted a little bit by the grand masters of the past," he said, and worries sometimes about trying to sound like Bach or some other famed composer. "I've had trouble getting past that."

And he's become a little more fastidious at trying to precisely note on the pages of each score exactly what he has in mind. "I write every single detail," he said. "It should all materialize just like it sounded in my head"  and when it doesn't, he said, it's because he failed to make his instructions clear to the musicians playing the work.

Obviously, Turner is familiar with how the horn should sound, so he has little trouble writing for that instrument. But he's still working at increasing his understanding of other instruments.

The harp, for example: "As I turns out, I don't really know how those pedals on the harp work," he said. And he still doesn't think he writes well for percussion.

But even the masters sometimes made mistakes in their writing: Turner recalled working on an orchestral piece in which he wrote too low for the violins. But the person who pointed out the mistake to Turner went on to note: "That's OK. Richard Strauss did that all the time."

It's all part of the process of learning the craft.

And it helps, of course, to have nifty titles as points of inspiration. That "Coyote of Central Park," for example, is waiting in the wings.
"Suits" season 6 is almost within reach and recent teasers have shown the whims of Harvey to prove his worth to the team. Harvey is expected to make a move to get his buddy out of prison and resolve the mess that he has made.

TV Guide reports that Harvey played by Gabriel Macht would implement a plan to get things up and running again for the legal team when "Suits" season 6 returns. However, despite his aims, challenges could arise since Harvey is one of the reasons that everything tuned into a mess.

To prove the latter, "We all know I got us into this mess," Harvey says. "It's time I got us out of it." Even though Harvey wants to make things right for "Suits" season 6, many are seeing that the tide may go against his direction. For one, his former moves led Mike (Patrick J. Adams) in prison and overturned the grand image of the firm into a worst one.

As "Suits" season 6 returns, Mike is behind prison bars and Pearson Specter Litt has become a dead end for those who want to attain their dreams. As Mike deals with prison life, Harvey is rumored to bring his magic back with his charms, wits, and skills to bring the team together again and get Mike on his feet with his freedom in tow.

Freedom is not the only thing that Mike has to worry about and even Harvey for that matter. For one, a former post from Parent Herald revealed that in "Suits" season 6, love is rumored to be a fake between Mike and Rachel.

cant wait for mike ! i mean rex tyler.. !! hahaha. but before that, suits season 6 ! mike ross ! pic.twitter.com/c3T2Fjjnqc  Ahmad Hafiz Azizi (@apeh26) June 20, 2016

The same report also referenced that love might not prevail for Mike and Rachel as the prison bars would impede their relationship to go even further. Hints of Rachel finding another man are also escalating, but remains unconfirmed on whether it would come to pass when "Suits" season 6 returns on the small screen.

For fans and followers, "Suits" season 6 is slated to return on Wednesday, July 13 at 9/8c on USA.
Graduation season is a time parents both look forward to and fear. Every year, during graduation season, communities and local law enforcement agencies are on the look-out against an increase number of cases of underage drinking

As new high school and university graduates celebrate their success, many hold or attend parties where inevitably there is alcohol involved. The new high school graduates often ask their parents to allow them to party unchaperoned, and when parents become indulgent and agree, the risks of something going wrong increases. Even when the partying teenagers do not drive themselves home afterwards, the effects of too much drinking during graduation parties can still have serious consequences.

Among these consequences are drunken teenagers become reckless. Under the influence of alcohol, some begin to think they are invincible and pull stunts like jumping into swimming pools or taking a leap from the roof. Many end up breaking a leg or with more serious injuries, or worse, drowning or dying because of injuries.

In 2014, a national US survey was released wherein it was stated that 1,032 youth aged 13 to 20 had consumed at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2014 also released a report regarding underage drinking in New York City and high school students. It was found that among high school students, 26.5 percent of females and 22.7 percent of males drink alcohol; 10.4 percent of males and 11 percent of females report drinking five or more bottles or cocktails in a row; and 1.1 percent of females and 2.1 percent of males report taking 10 or more drinks one after the other. These statistics were taken during regular, non-holiday periods. These statistics are always feared to spike during graduation season.

For this reason, schools, police departments and organizations run by parent associations conduct annual campaigns close to graduation season informing both students and their parents against the consequences of drinking too much alcohol. One of the main messages? Alcohol and teenagers make a bad combination.

Police authorities also make it a point to make more rounds in residential communities and areas to check impromptu parties hosted by teenagers. There have been many cases of teenagers taking advantage of the fact that their parents are out of town and hold parties on their own - opening the liquor cabinet and drinking everything alcoholic in sight. These are the parties that have the tendency to get out of hand.


Microsoft made a remarkable announcement as they have found a way to extend your laptop's battery life. It was recently revealed that techies should avoid using Google Chrome as it easily drains the battery life of your laptop.

In a demonstration done by Microsoft, it was revealed that a laptop running on Google Chrome easily drains compared to laptops that are using other browsers. In a lab controlled environment, Microsoft conducted their test using four browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Microsoft Edge.

According to Ars Technica, laptops that run on Google Chrome only lasted for 4 hours and 19 minutes, while the ones running on Firefox lasted for 5 hours and 9 minutes. As for the laptop running on Opera's battery saving feature on the other hand, the battery life was able to last for 6 hours and 18 minutes. The browser which lasted the longest is said to be the Microsoft Edge as it was able to run for 7 hours and 22 minutes.

The data that was collected revealed that there's a 70 percent battery life extension if the user would run the laptop through Microsoft Edge instead of Google Chrome.

"[W]e measure aggregated telemetry from millions of Windows 10 devices around the world," Microsoft noted as per the Social Barrel. "The billions of data points from these devices are consistent with the lab results, demonstrating that Microsoft Edge is more efficient in real-world, day-to-day use than the competition."

Aside from the browsers, Microsoft also made sure that everything is the same for all laptops being used. They checked the device's power consumption, Wi-Fi, CPU, and GPU. Microsoft also made sure that all four laptops would go through the same websites such as Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Youtube and Wikipedia. Microsoft Edge is said to be ideal for mobile devices as it can potentially extend the battery life.
A six month old baby from Texas died from heatstroke after her father left her inside the car for hours. According to statistics, the infant is the 16th child to die after being left inside the car for 2016 alone.

A 33 year old father, Michael Thedford dropped his older children in the daycare with their youngest sibling, a six month old baby girl. Upon arriving at home, Thedford parked the car, forgetting to take the baby with him. According to New York Daily News, the baby was left inside the car under the Texas heat where it was 96 degrees.

Around 1:30 in the afternoon, the police were called to go to Thedford's home as they have found the baby unconscious. It was noted that the baby was still inside the car when the deputies arrived in the Thedford's residence.

One of their neighbors, Fabiola Contreras was surprised as to how someone could possibly leave an infant inside the car with the extreme heat. She told the reporters he disbelief as to how could he leave the baby in the car.

"Forgetting a child? His child?" Contreras said. "It's hard to believe because how can you forget a child in your own car? It's your child. It's really hot especially if you're in a car, its way hotter."

Contreras also told the reporter that Michael Thedford wrote a children's book weeks before his daughter's death. He is also a substitute teacher with close family ties. It was then noted that the family lovingly celebrated father's day just a week before. The neighborhood was caught in disbelief as Michael is now behind bars for man slaughter.

Dad, Michael Thedford, arrested for baby dying in hot car recently wrote a children's book. More on @FOX4 at 9. pic.twitter.com/GokaWBzcYy  Allison Harris (@allisonfox4news) June 22, 2016

In a data released by the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science, it was revealed that 16 children have already died of heatstroke as of June 2016. As for 2015 on the other hand, 2015 a total of 24 children have died.
Heinz is facing a legal battle regarding its Little Kids Shredz food products which they have marketed as healthy food for toddlers. However, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that the product contains a lot of sugar.

"Heinz is marketing these products as healthy options for young children when they are not," ACCC chairman Rod Sims said, as per ABC.net. The packaging for Little Kids Shredz food products for toddlers is said to have pictures of fruit and vegetables. The packaging is also printed with a statement claiming that the product is made up of 99 percent fruit and vegetables.

Heinz' Little Shredz Sugary

"These products contain over 60% sugar, which is significantly higher than that of natural fruit and vegetables - for example, an apple contains approximately 10% sugar," said Sims, as quoted by The Guardian. The ACCC also reportedly said that the Heinz toddler food can possibly impair the development of children's taste for natural fruit and vegetables.

"Heinz takes labelling of products very seriously and complies with all Australian labelling and food laws," Heinz was quoted as saying. The Little Kids Shredz toddler food has three varieties. There are peach, apple and vegetables, berries, apples and vegetables and strawberry and apple with chia seeds. It is reportedly off the market.

ACCC Took Action After Complaint

NDTV reported that ACCC took Heinz to court after the Obesity Policy Coalition filed a complaint regarding certain food products for toddlers. These are the food products for toddlers that are supposedly made up of fruits and vegetables but are actually mostly made from fruit juice concentrate and pastes.

According to the report, the World Health Organization has recommended that eating food containing fruit juice concentrate should be limited in order to decrease risk for obesity and tooth decay. The ACCC is said to be seeking injunctions, pecuniary penalties, corrective notices and costs.

In what ways can governments protect consumers from false claims by food manufacturers? Write your comments below.
Faith-based colleges in California are protesting a pro-LGBTQ bill that allows lawsuits from gay and transgender students who suffer discrimination because of their sexual orientation. The colleges argued that allowing the pro-LGBTQ legislation will impinge on their religious freedom.

Private Universities Have 'License' To Discriminate

Sen. Ricardo Lara said the California Senate Bill 1146, or SB 1146, is for private universities that are "licensed" to discriminate against gays and transgenders. Public colleges are already subjected to anti-discrimination laws, Los Angeles Times reported.

Religious freedom laws allow businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples if they think it violates their religious beliefs. It also prohibits transgender people from using bathrooms, locker rooms and student housing that don't match their gender at birth.

Around 32 private universities are expected to be affected with SB 1146. The bill has been approved by the state Senate in May and is now pending for a final approval in the Assembly.

Lara, who is openly gay, said LGBTQ students have "absolutely no recourse" against discrimination in colleges, the news outlet added. Assemblyman Evan Low said some schools don't allow same-sex relationships, cross-dressing and cohabitation with a same-sex partner.

Universities Hoping For A Compromise

Kristen F. Soares, president of the Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities, said her office is negotiating with Lara to achieve some sort of compromise. Soares said the bill doesn't just affect the issues of sexual orientation; it could also result in lawsuits alleging discrimination on religious grounds.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Gregory Baylor argued that lawsuits can be filed against religious practices in universities like required prayer and required attendance at chapel every week. The bill can also affect required classes that tackle theological matters from the school's viewpoint, WND reported.

Baylor called SB 1146 as "a solution in search of a problem," and legislators are using the bill to punish faith-based universities for practicing "the wrong views," WND added. He said faith-based universities only want to uphold and preserve their religious beliefs in an equally religious environment.

In an op-ed for Christian Post, Dr. John Jackson, president of William Jessup University, said SB 1146 violates the First Amendment and freedom of religion. He added that the bill impinges universities' desire to integrate higher education with spirituality.

Lara, for his part, said SB 1146 doesn't intend to disrupt religious lessons in classrooms and requirements like attending chapel twice a week, Los Angeles Times further reported. He said he is open to applying some changes in the bill to address some of the concerns of the universities.
LEBANON  The Lebanon Hospital Foundation, Girod Scholarship Committee, Easton Scholarship Committee and Dinges Scholarship Committee have announced eight winners of their respective scholarships for the 2016-17 academic year.

The Girod Committee gave six scholarships for a total of $12,000.

Recipients are: Amanda Emmert, COMP-Northwest; Jonathan Shader, COMP-Northwest; Laurene Reed, COMP-Northwest; Michael Barish, Oregon Health & Science University; Erika Snow, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; and Tysen Weber, Texas Tech Health Sciences Center.

The late Frank Girod, MD, was one of the founding members of Lebanon Community Hospital. His family awards a scholarship every year in Girods honor to students from east Linn County who are pursuing careers in medicine.

This brings the total dollar amount of Girod Medical Scholarships awarded to $216,500 since 1998.

The family of the late Rachel Easton, a longtime nurse at Samaritans Park Street Clinic, awards the Rachel Easton, RN Scholarship each year in her honor to an east Linn County area student enrolled in a nursing program. This years scholarship went to Tiffanie Cuilla of Lebanon, a nursing student at Linn-Benton Community College.

John and Carol Dinges of Lebanon award the Dinges Medical Scholarship every year to a graduate of a high school in east Linn County who is currently enrolled into an entry-level health career program at LBCC. This year, the award went to Caleigh Vaughn of Lebanon, who will enter the phlebotomy program this fall at LBCC.

For more information about any of these scholarships, visit samhealth.org/Scholarships.
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Coming over from Holy Island, Lindisfarne, to Cumbria yesterday, we chose a slower road in order to visit Hadrians Wall  another area of Britain that Ive long wanted to see but that, in more trips to the United Kingdom than I can count, extending over the better part of five decades, I never have.

The Roman emperor Hadrian, who also left his indelible mark on Jerusalem (which he severely damaged during the Second Jewish Revolt, barring Jews from entering it and renaming it Aelia Capitolina) and in his famous villa outside of Rome, did a cost-benefit analysis and concluded that the price of conquering the entire island, including the potential expense of continued war, couldnt be justified by the relatively low income to be derived from its poor, cold, savage, and underdeveloped northern parts. So he built a wall  across what one might term a narrow neck of land  in order to protect Roman Britain from the militant barbarians above it. (The presence of Roman civilization in what is now England is, of course, one of the principal reasons that England is distinct from Scotland to the north and from Wales  and Ireland  to the west. The pre-Roman Celts were pushed into those areas, remaining undomesticated and relatively un-Romanized.) Hadrians Wall marked the northern border of the Roman Empire.

The wall was originally something like fifteen feet high and several feet wide  most of it has long since been exploited over nearly two millennia to build roads and homes and churches and to enclose sheep pastures with solid stone fences  and it was studded with sizable forts and small garrisons at regular intervals.

We also dropped in to see the archaeological area at Vindolanda, but unfortunately didnt have time to go in, and, before that, to visit the remains of the Mithraic temple at Carrawburgh (ancient Brocolitia). Mithraism, a faith that derived from Iran and that was especially popular among Roman soldiers, is a fascinating topic in and of itself.

Heres some material from a classic old book by Franz Cumont called The Mysteries of Mithra:

The heavens were divided into seven spheres, each of which was conjoined with a planet. A sort of ladder, composed of eight superimposed gates, the first seven of which were constructed of different metals, was the symbolic suggestion in the temples, of the road to be followed to reach the supreme region of the fixed stars. To pass from one story to the next, each time the wayfarer had to enter a gate guarded by an angel of Ormazd [or Ahura Mazda]. The initiates alone, to whom the appropriate formulas had been taught, knew how to appease these inexorable guardians.

In other words, there were certain things that had to be done and said when one reached these barriers, in order to enter into the presence of the god, or to mark off each heaven from the one before it:

As the soul traversed these different zones, it rid itself, as one would of garments, of the passions and faculties that it had received in its descent to the earth. [There is an idea of preexistence here, of course; the soul is just going back to where it came from.] It abandoned to the Moon its vital and nutritive energy, to Mercury its desires, to Venus its wicked appetites, to the Sun its intellectual capacities, to Mars its love of war, to Jupiter its ambitious dreams, to Saturn its inclinations. It was naked, stripped of every vice and every sensibility, when it penetrated the eighth heaven to enjoy there, as an essence supreme, and in the eternal light that bathed the gods, beatitude without end.

It was Mithra, the protector of truth, that presided over the judgment of the soul after its decease. It was he, the mediator, that served as a guide to his faithful ones in their courageous ascent to the empyrean; he was the celestial father that received them in his resplendent mansion, like children who had returned from a distant voyage.

So it was fun to walk across a sheep paddock and into the remnants of an ancient Mithraeum, built by and for ancient Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrians Wall.

The central myth of Mithraism involves the god Mithras victory over a bull, which symbolizes the triumph of the Sun and of life and light. A local man with whom we spoke says that this lingers on the names of taverns, inns, and public houses in the vicinity of Hadrians Wall. We didnt get a chance to do a survey, of course, but he says that a disproportionate share of them are named with some variant of The Bull or The Sun.

Posted from Brockwood Hall, Cumbria, England
Patna: Former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Wednesday asked his predecessor and successor Nitish Kumar to resign from his post after the Patna High Court rebuked him for spending Rs. 580 crore on a 'world-class museum' that neither Patna nor Bihar needed.

"I have been saying it from the beginning that this museum was the biggest waste of public money when this money could be spent elsewhere on social schemes. With the High Court censuring Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on this issue, I stand vindicated and demand from him to resign from his post on moral grounds," Manjhi, who was made the Chief Minister of Bihar by none other than Kumar himself in the wake of Janata Dal  U's poor show in the last Lok Sabha election, said.

The former Chief Minister said that initially Kumar told everyone that the museum would be built at the cost of Rs. 215 crore. "Later, the construction cost went up by Rs. 365 crore to Rs. 580 crore. Moreover, it is being built on prime land of 17.5 acres between the High Court and Patna Secretariat that could have been used for other purposes. It is also a well-known fact that the way contractors were chosen for the construction of the museum was far from being transparent," he said.

Manjhi, who went on to form his own political party Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) following his ouster from the JD-U, also took Kumar to task on arbitrarily reducing the Value Added Tax (VAT) on stone chips without first seeking approval from the Cabinet.

"This was done in utter disregard of the government process that resulted in the loss of over Rs. 100 crore annually for a total of Rs. 700 crore till now," he said adding the High Court observations were on his side and if Nitish Kumar had even slight shame or morality, he would step down from his post on moral grounds.
Momentum Builds for Iranian American Candidates

06/23/16

Source: Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), Washington D.C.

With the New York and Washington primary elections fast approaching, Iranian American candidates Anna Kaplan and Cyrus Habib are poised to have strong showings and advancing towards their respective general elections. If successful, they will become the first Iranian Americans to be elected to the U.S. Congress and to state office.



Anna Kaplan



Kaplan is running for New Yorks 3rd Congressional District seat, currently held by Representative Steve Israel, who recently announced that he will not be seeking re-election. She faces a competitive primary election on June 28, 2016 with the winner set to face the Republican nominee in the November general election. Kaplan is considered one of the Democratic front-runners in the primary, and has raised over $445,160 for her campaign. She recently released a video advertisement for her campaign, highlighting her experience as a child refugee and denouncing Donald Trumps hateful rhetoric towards immigrants.

Kaplans campaign was recently endorsed by EMILYs List, a powerful fundraising Political Action Committee for Democratic women candidates. Anna Kaplan is committed to protecting New Yorks women and families, explained Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILYs List. Anna is a dedicated public servant focused on expanding economic opportunities for women and families and protecting womens access to health care. The EMILYs List community of more than three million members is proud to endorse Anna in her historic bid to be the first Iranian American in Congress in this important swing district.

Running for Lieutenant Governor for the state of Washington, State Senator Cyrus Habib is also confidently moving towards his August 2, 2016 primary. Washington utilizes a top-two primary system - all candidates may run and all voters may vote for any candidate. The two candidates receiving the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election. If elected to lieutenant governor, Habib said he will try to nudge along frequently deadlocked negotiations on many issues, but will not insert his will into talks between the two parties. The goal is to be productive, not to railroad negotiations, he said. Thus far, he has raised more funds than all his opponents and received the most endorsements from public officials.



Cyrus Habib



Among his long list of endorsements from unions and state and local politicians, is Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Cyrus is a trusted partner in efforts to improve transparency and openness in state government. Weve worked together on important consumer protection and ethical reform legislation and Ive admired Cyruss efforts to expand voting rights and adopt technology that would allow people in all parts of Washington to participate in policy deliberations. Hes the kind of leader we need to change Olympia, said Ferguson. Habibs list of endorsements also includes former Congressman Norm Dicks, President of Washington Conservation Voters, Shannon Murphy, and State Senators David Frockt, Bob Hasegawam and Pramila Jayapal.
Imprisoned Iranian Journalist Who Sent Letter to Supreme Leader Saying He Was Tortured is Hospitalized

06/23/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Ehsan Mazandarani, who went on hunger strike on May 17, is in intensive care following a heart attack

A little over a month after he sent a letter to Irans supreme leader stating that he had been tortured, imprisoned reformist newspaper editor Ehsan Mazandarani was rushed from Evin Prison to a hospital in Tehran after suffering a heart attack following his hunger strike.

Ehsan has been tortured and put under a lot of pressure during interrogations, Mazandaranis brother-in-law Sam Hosseini told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. We want the interrogators to face the law and be investigated for their illegal actions.

Ehsan has written to the supreme leader and explained what happened to him during his interrogations and requested that [the supreme leader] conduct an investigation, added Hosseini. On May 17, three days after Ehsan sent the letter, he was taken from Ward 8 to Ward 2-A [controlled by] the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and was pressured to deny what he had written in his letter. Ehsan refused to do so and said he had written nothing but the truth.

We want Members of Parliament to set up a fact-finding commission to see the video recordings of the interrogations, which are certainly in existence, and look into this matter so it doesnt happen to other prisoners, he said.

Obtaining forced confessions in politically motivated cases, often extracted under the threat of or actual torture, is a common practice in Iran.

Hosseini said he could not provide details about the type of torture his brother-in-law had experienced.

Ehsan had a heart attack on Monday morning [June 20, 2016] in Evin Prisons Ward 8 and was taken to Sina Hospital, said Hosseini. They first took him to the [prison] infirmary but it lacked the necessary equipment, so they transferred him to the hospital and now hes in the intensive care unit. Fortunately, the [greatest] danger has passed and hes under medical supervision.

Political and Personal Retaliation

Hosseini told the Campaign he is baffled by the authorities continued refusal to look into Mazandaranis demands.

His case goes back to [former President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejads era, when he was arrested along with 20 other journalists in 2012, he said. They were released after 18 days and the Intelligence Ministry requested the cessation of their prosecution and the cases were dropped against all of them.

Now, during [the government of President Hassan] Rouhani, the IRGC has reopened the case and punished Ehsan, added Hosseini. This is questionable behavior... We think its political and personal retaliation.

In another letter written by Mazandarani on June 18, 2016, a copy of which was obtained by the Campaign, the reformist journalist said his health had seriously declined since his imprisonment.

I can barely hear my breathing these days. When I want to get out of bed, my cellmates have to rush to help me. Im experiencing serious difficulties with my speech and hearing, wrote Mazandarani, adding that he has been suffering excruciating pain from infections in his digestive tract.

Mazandarani was also hospitalized last month, on May 31, 2016, due to complications resulting from the hunger strike that he had started on May 17 to protest prison conditions and the authorities refusal to free him on bail until the Appeals Court meets to rule on his seven-year prison sentence.

In his June 18 letter, Mazandarani said his case was originally based on the charge of propaganda against the state, but that another charge, assembly and collusion against national security, was added on illegally and he was unjustly sentenced to seven years in prison.

Mazandarani also said he believes he is being punished in part for sharing a video in 2015 that showed former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani saying goodbye to his son Mehdi Hashemi before his son began his prison sentence on corruption charges.

Rafsanjani, one of the founding members of the Islamic Republic, began to fall out of favor with Irans ruling clerics and the IRGC after the countrys widely disputed 2009 elections, when he publicly objected to the brutal crackdown and imprisonment of protesters. The imprisonment of his son was viewed as retaliation by hardliners for Rafsanjanis alleged taking of sides against the supreme leader and the military apparatus during the widespread protests.

While the Judiciary and intelligence organizations worked together to prosecute Mehdi Hashemi and sentence him to 10 years in prison-with conservative media cheering on the process-the image of a farewell moment between a father and his son angered those who had been engaged in a non-stop media campaign against Mehdi Hashemi.

Mazandarani was arrested on November 2, 2015 by IRGC agents, along with two other journalists during an escalating crackdown by the Revolutionary Guards.
Oct. 3, 1965  June 16, 2016

Our family lost an enormous part of our lives this last week. Robert Big Bob Johnson passed on into paradise on June 16, 2016. Words cannot describe who he was. Nearly everybody he came into contact with called him their best friend. He was the most caring, loving, gentle, thoughtful individual God ever made. He would drop everything he was doing if you needed help. He always tried to be a listening ear. He loved Christ with his entire heart and tried his best to love others the same.

Robert was born in Berkeley California, on Oct. 3, 1965, but resided in Sweet Home most of his life. Robert's family moved to the ranch in 1971. He grew up exploring the 500 acres of forest land on the ranch. He started helping with livestock from a very young age. His favorite childhood activity was excavating the hillside with his Tonka truck. He quit kindergarten at 5 because there was too much work to do on the ranch. Roberts famous childhood words to his mother were I'm not Bobbert, I'm Big Bob and he was known as Big Bob ever since. He was 8 when he learned to run the John Deere tractor. He was 13 when he first started building roads with his dad and they built their first subdivision. Bob's first vehicle was an old Mack dump truck and he's loved Mack trucks ever since. He knew anything and everything there ever was to know about Mack dump trucks. Since his senior year in high school, Bob was a businessman and he loved building logging roads. He spent many years in the woods with his crew working night and day to continue building roads.

In 2011 Bob started his advocacy work for small businesses. He wanted his voice heard. He became a member of the National Small Business Association. He made his way twice to Washington, D.C., to speak with senators, representatives and the USDA Forest Service to change the Prompt Payment Act and insure it included a provision to allow small businesses to get paid within 14 days. He also donated his time and effort to charities and organizations such as the 4-H club, The Boys and Girls Club, numerous local churches, The Oregon Jamboree and The Banaba House Ministries. During the final years of his life he was finally able to enjoy things other than work. He spent time doing activities such exploring new places, beach combing for agates, and hot springing. He dedicated his life to serving others and it was his joy and honor to do so.

His father Raymond Fredrick Johnson preceded him in death. He left his remaining family far too soon including his mother, Norma Lilian Johnson; best friend Angel Sanchez and her children, Danacia Price, Kashanti Price and Cash Price; siblings Patricia and Lamar Savage, and David and Debbie Johnson; and nieces and nephews Lacey Johnson, Ashley Garret and William Johnson.

We find great comfort that Big Bob was called to heaven because God needed the best to finalize the streets being paved with gold. We know Maggie, his beloved dog, was first to meet him at the gates. We all have been so blessed to have him as part of our family, but it will take forever to heal from losing this gentle giant. We just can't wait to see him again.

Our family would like you to join us in remembering his life. We will have his memorial service at 2 p.m. Monday, June 27, at The River of Life Fellowship in Sweet Home.

If you would like to make a donation in his honor, please give to The Banaba House Ministries in care of River of Life Fellowship.

The righteous man perishes [at the hand of evil], and no one takes it to heart;

Faithful and devout men are taken away, while no one understands

That the righteous person is taken away [to be spared] from disaster and evil.

He enters into peace [through death]; He find rest in his bed (graves),

Each one who walked uprightly [following Gods will, living with integrity]. Isaiah 57:1-2
Protecting the World's Shia: Where's the International Community?

06/23/16

By Shireen T. Hunter (source: LobeLog)



file photo: Bahraini protesters in 2011.



Only a few short months ago, Saudi Arabia executed the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr, and the Nigerian military killed hundreds of the country's Shia and severely wounded their leader Sheikh Ibrahim Yaqoub Zakzaki. Now, Bahraini authorities have stripped one of the principal leaders of the Bahraini Shia, Sheikh Isa Qasim, of his citizenship. The reasons cited for this action have been the usual ones, namely charges of trying to undermine the government, sow sedition and discord in the country, and of course serve as an agent of Iran.

However, some Shia sources in Iraq have speculated that the real reason behind this latest action against Shia clerics has been Saudi Arabia's anger at the success, albeit as of yet incomplete, of Iraqi forces pushing Islamic State forces out of Fallujah. According to these sources, Bahrain does very little without Saudi instruction.

If these speculations are correct, then Bahrain's action could also be read as another Saudi effort to provoke Iran into taking some immoderate action, or at least to make statements that would not sit well with Western capitals and could be used to undermine the trend towards Iran-Western reconciliation. If this were their purpose, the Bahrainis and their Saudi patrons succeeded.

The famed commander of Iran's equally famous Quds Brigade, Sardar Qasem Soleimani, in an intemperate tone warned Bahrain's leaders of the consequences of their hostile actions towards the country's Shia population. Other Shia clerics both in Iran and Iraq, as well as in Lebanon, also condemned the actions of the Bahraini authorities. Muqtada Sadr, who in his heart sees himself as the rightful leader of the world's Shia and considers Najaf as the proper seat of Shiism, called for mass demonstrations to protest the withdrawal of Sheikh Qasim's citizenship.

In reality, however, statements of both Iranian personalities and religious leaders of Iraq are more signs of weakness than strength. As demonstrated during Bahrain's uprising, which led to military intervention by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the island nation in March 2011, neither Iranian nor Iraqi Shia could do much to help their co-religionists. If Iran were to help Bahrain in any meaningful way, it would have faced the political and military ire of not only the Persian Gulf Arabs, but also that of America and, at least, Great Britain. It could have risked a full scale attack on its territory. The continued risk of an attack on Iran may indeed be why the Saudis and their Bahraini clients keep trying to provoke Iran into taking actions or making self-damaging statements. Failing that, the Saudis and their allies would like to demonstrate to everyone in the region that Iran is all talk and no action and that they should follow Saudi Arabia's lead in dealing with Iran.

But the question of the plight of the Shias worldwide goes deeper than the issue of Iran and Saudi Arabia and their rivalry in the Persian Gulf and beyond. At the heart of the Shia's problems is the fact that the international community has closed its eyes to the massive and systematic violation of their most basic rights by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and by Sunni extremist groups. For example in 1988, no international outcry accompanied the Taliban's massacre of 8,000 Hazara Shias in Afghanistan. For the past two decades, the Shia have been killed regularly in Pakistan. The government has done nothing to prosecute their killers-who are nearly all Sunni extremists-because it uses them as instruments of its foreign policy. Thus far, the Pakistani government has not paid any price for this systematic disregard of the rights of its Shia citizens.

The international community has neglected Shia rights in part because of their image as blind instruments of Iran and its regional policies. And because Iran's relations with important members of the international community and, most important, the United States have been tense, the Shia have suffered from this image and their Iran connection. The Shia have also suffered from the fallout from events in Lebanon and the Hezbollah factor. Another reason, has been the spread of Wahhabism with its viscerally anti-Shia tendencies. Before the Soviet-Afghan wars opened the road to Saudi Arabia's widespread influence and activities in Pakistan, there were no killings of the Shias. The same was true of Afghanistan.

More importantly perhaps, key international actors have overlooked these transgressions in the name of containing Iran. Yet the idea that Iran is the puppeteer and the Shia are mere puppets, in addition to being insulting to the latter, is incorrect. If the Shia feel a certain attachment to Iran, which existed even during the monarchy, it's because of their religious faith and their treatment as less-than-full citizens by their own governments.

For example, Saudi and Bahraini Shias do not need Iran to point out to them their inferior status in their respective countries and the contempt that their leaders have for them. Nor do they need Iran's encouragement to fight for their rights. Therefore, If the Saudis, Bahrainis and others are concerned about their Shia populations' attraction to Iran and want to reduce Iran's influence among them, they should try to treat them as full citizens and thus give them a stake in their respective countries' well-being and stability. Executing clerics or stripping them of their citizenship is not the answer.

The international community, too, should protect the Shias' rights both to prevent their potential radicalization and also to keep its moral standing on matters of human rights. This protection should go beyond mere expressions of concern and regret. In short, the Shias should not pay the price of either Arab-Iranian competition or Western-Iran differences and animosities.





About the Author:

Shireen T. Hunter is a Research Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Her latest book is Iran Divided: Historic Roots of Iranian Debates on Identity, Culture, and Governance in the 21st Century (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).




Iran's Zarif meets French President in Paris

06/23/16

Source: Press TV

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has met with French President Francois Hollande at the lysee Palace in Paris. Boosting bilateral ties following Iran's historic nuclear deal, economic and business affairs, and the Middle East security issues, especially the conflict in Syria, were discussed during the Wednesday meeting, Zarif said.





French President Francois Hollande (L) shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the stairs of the lysee presidential palace in Paris on June 22, 2016.

French President Francois Hollande (L) shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the stairs of the lysee presidential palace in Paris on June 22, 2016.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia - plus Germany signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on July 14, 2015, following two and a half years of intensive talks. The two sides started implementing the JCPOA on January 16.

Under the JCPOA, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

Zarif arrived in Paris on Tuesday at the head of a high-ranking delegation on the first leg of his two-nation European tour which will also take him to the Netherlands.

Earlier on Wednesday, Zarif took part in a meeting with members of the committees of foreign affairs, national defense and armed forces of the French parliament.

Iran-Airbus deal

During the meeting, Zarif noted that the recent deal with US aviation company Boeing would pave the way for further contracts with their European rival Airbus.

"We thought to speed up our ties with Airbus, we should make a deal with Boeing first. Now we feel the situation is ripe for both," he said.

On Tuesday, Boeing confirmed a major plane purchase order placed by Iran's flag-carrier airline Iran Air.

The aviation giant announced in a statement that it had signed a deal with Iran Air "under authorizations from the US government following a determination that Iran had met its obligations under the nuclear accord reached last summer."

Iran Air said this week it wants to buy new generations of the Boeing 737, as well as the 300ER and 900 versions of the Boeing 777.
Iran needs 551 airplanes by next 9 years: Transport Minister

06/23/16

Source: Tehran Times

TEHRAN- Iran's air fleet needs 551 new airplanes by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025- March 2026), Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi announced on Wednesday.



Lineup of aircraft at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. From front to back: Iran Air A300, Zagros Airlines MD-83, Iran Airtour Tu-154, Iran Air A300, Taban Air Tu-154, Mahan Air A300-600 and Iran Airtour Tu-154.

Date September 2009 (photo by

Lineup of aircraft at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. From front to back: Iran Air A300, Zagros Airlines MD-83, Iran Airtour Tu-154, Iran Air A300, Taban Air Tu-154, Mahan Air A300-600 and Iran Airtour Tu-154.Date September 2009 (photo by Shahram Sharifi

The Iranian air fleet includes 266 airplanes, 100 of which are grounded due to their old age, Akhoundi told IRNA.

"The average age of in-service airplanes in Iran is around 23 years and they should go out of service within a year according to international standards," he added.

Following Iran's nuclear deal with the world's major powers and lifting of sanctions against the country, the Islamic Republic made renovation of its ageing air fleet one of its top priorities.

The first deal after the nuclear accord was signed in January with Airbus. The Iranian flag carrier, Iran Air, agreed to buy 118 jets worth $27 billion from Airbus.

Akhoundi announced on Tuesday that the agreement on purchasing Airbus planes will be concluded within the next three or four weeks.

Also, Boeing Co. said Tuesday it signed an agreement with Iran Air "expressing the airline's intent" to buy its aircraft, marking the first major deal with an American company in the Islamic Republic following its landmark nuclear deal.

The Chicago-based manufacturer issued a statement to The Associated Press saying that it signed the agreement "under authorizations from the U.S. government following a determination that Iran had met its obligations under the nuclear accord reached last summer."
UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY

In July of 1942, a cargo ship named the Robert E. Lee was attacked and sunk in the Gulf by a U-boat torpedo. The ships naval escort,

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PC-566, launched a counter attack. The commanding officer, after observing an oil slick on the waters surface, claimed to have successfully sunk the U-boat. However, instead of being commended, Captain Herbert Claudius was believed to have botched the attack and removed from command. Credit for sinking U-boat 166 was instead given to a Coast Guard patrol plane in an attack two days later and 140 miles to the west. Yet no U-boat was ever found after the Coast Guard attack

In the summer of 2001, two marine archeologists with C&C TechnologiesDan Warren and Rob Churchwere conducting a pipeline survey in the Gulf Coast of Mexico. They had expected they might come across the wreckage of a cargo freighter, the Alcoa Puritan, but instead found the remains of lost German U-boat 166, unraveling a nearly 60-year-old maritime mystery and vindicating Captain Herbert Claudius.

Dan Warren: It wasnt a planned mission to go out and search for a U-boat. There was no set scientific expedition in 2001. We were doing a survey that was part of our normal job, a pipeline survey. And it just so happens, Rob had an interest in the U-166 since he came on at C&C, and we always kind of looked at data just in case.

"Thats when it started to click thatwhats going on here?"

And when we started looking through the data, we were expecting to see the remains of a 6,000-ton tanker [the Alcoa Puritan], and what we actually saw was a much smaller target that did not match what I was expecting to see. Thats when it started to click thatwhats going on here? I started thinking about what Rob had told me. Its [U-166] going to be somewhat of a cigar-shaped target, and thats when I wrote and I copied the photo, the sonar record, and put it on the desk because I knew this was something. Now, whether it would turn out to be the U-166, I didnt know at that time.

Rob Church: At that point, I took the schematic of a type IX U-boat and made an overlay of it and printed it out on transparency at the same scale as the sonar image that we had. When I slid the two together, the details matched up perfectly. So, at that point we knew it was a 90% deal that we had the U-166.

Basically for nearly 60 years, recorded history indicated that the U-boat was sunk 140 miles to the west up on the shelf. Now were looking at it in deep waterthen we had to try to explain why its there.

Marine archeologists Dan Warren and Rob Church with C&C Technologies  WGBH Educational Foundation

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

In an effort to uncover what had actually taken place almost 60 years earlier, Rob Church then pored over German U-boat logs from the war. He found a log from the Captain of U-171, which was eventually sunk off France after leaving the Gulf of Mexico. The Captain said that on or about August 1, they had been bombed by a flying boatan apt description of the Coast Guard aircraft that had been credited for sinking U-166. Rob Church and Dan Warren realized they had the missing piece of the puzzle, and that two different U-boats had been involved in the attacks in the Gulf.

Church: People had been looking for this boat for years. For almost 60 years this U-boat had been missing somewhere out in the Gulf of Mexico. So when we looked at this and [it] really started to sink in that we may have found it, that was a little overwhelming really, and it was exciting.

Discovery is not an event, its a process.

Warren: It was kind of unbelievablewe didnt believe we could get this lucky. To not only come across the U-boat on the sea floor, but be able to come up and find the supporting documentation in the historical record and really have a rare moment that very few archaeologists or historians have of changing what is written in the history books.

Church: As is most often the case, and it was the case with U-166, discovery is not an event, its a process, and this was definitely a process, and it involved not just two young archaeologists that got lucky, but it was a team of folks the people that went out and collected the data, the surveyors, the technicians, the engineers, the managers that planned those surveys.

Editor's Notes As a result of Warren and Churchs discovery and further research conducted by explorer Bob Ballard, Commander Claudius was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S. Navy. For the full story on the sinking of U-boat 166, watch  As a result of Warren and Churchs discovery and further research conducted by explorer Bob Ballard, Commander Claudius was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S. Navy. For the full story on the sinking of, watch  Nazi Attack on America .
The best 2-in-1 laptop 2022: our picks of the best convertible laptops

These are the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy right now
These days, all roads lead to storing your files in the cloud. Your Mac eases the path to iCloud storage. Microsoft Office programs offer OneDrive as the default for storage. You can get at your cloud-stored files from wherever you may be, which is quite convenient. But if you don't protect those files with powerful encryption, you could have big trouble. If those unprotected files are business-related, not personal, the consequences could be catastrophic. CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box stores your data in the cloud, but it's totally focused on securing that data, whether its your personal files, business records, or enterprise-level trade secrets. It's a top pick for secure cloud storage and syncing, as well as for encryption apps.

You can take the service for a spin with a 30-day free trial that includes 5GB of storage with no credit card required. If you decide it's worth it, you can continue for $12 per user per month. That gets you 100GB of shared encrypted online storage per user, and the ability to share data with as many as 100 guests. For a big, business-level installation, you'll want to ask for a custom quote. On the business level, there's even an API that lets in-house coders incorporate CertainSafe's technology directly into their proprietary apps.

Fireproof Vault vs. Storage Shed

Other file sharing services offer way more storage per dollar spent. Dropbox gives you a terabyte of storage for $99 per year, for example. IDrive charges just $69.50 per year for twice that amount of storage. And if you spend $6.99 per month for a terabyte of storage with Microsoft OneDrive, you get Microsoft Office 365 Home as a bonus.

While these services do aim to protect your data, security isn't their primary offering. Yes, it's been a few years since the big Dropbox breach, but it did happen, and it was big. Celebrities who stored their nude photos on iCloud got a rude awakening when hackers stole those photos (and other data). With CertainSafe, security is priority number one.

The company's literature explains the difference. It likens the typical online storage service to the self-storage businesses you find along the freeway. You can dump all your stuff in there, and it will probably be safe. CertainSafe, by contrast, is like a fireproof vault hidden behind a painting. When you put your most important data (or your company's) in the vault, it's safe, period. CertainSafe backs up that promise with a growing list of government and third-party certifications for secure data storage in the financial, healthcare, legal, and government arenas, among others.

Some competing services do have security strong enough to let them promise compliance with HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act) and other government standards. Dropbox's business edition supports HIPAA, FERPA, and COPPA, though its standards page notes that it's "not meant to process or store credit card transactions." All editions of Box (Personal) are HIPAA / HITECH compliant. OneDrive for Business promises compliance with HIPAA, FERPA, and several other standards (though the consumer edition does not).

There's always the option to encrypt your files without putting them in the cloud. Folder Lock, InterCrypto CryptoExpert 8, and Cypherix Cryptainer PE, among others, create virtual disk drives that look and act like any other drive when unlocked. Once you lock the drive, its contents become completely inaccessible. It's not cloud storage, thoughyou can only access those files from the computer where the virtual disk resides.

How CertainSafe Works

The essential aim of CertainSafe is to make a generalized data breach impossible. Files are encrypted using a two-part key, one part that's based on your password and one part held on the CertainSafe side, with a different key for every file. It's what they call a zero-knowledge system, meaning that nobody at CertainSafe can decrypt your data without having your password. This also means that if you forget your password, they can't help you recover the encrypted data, so don't lose that password.

But that's just the start. The eye-popping feature is what they call MicroEncryption. After encrypting your data with the US Government standard AES algorithm, CertainSafe splits the encrypted data into chunks that are stored on different servers. Even without MicroEncryption, a hacker who simply breaks into the encrypted data on a server has a tough time getting that data decoded. A hacker who weaseled into one of CertainSafe's servers wouldn't have a chance of decrypting data, since each server only contains bits and pieces, not whole encrypted files.

This emphasis on security shows up again in service's login process. With most secure sites, you simply enter your username and password for full access. Of course, if the site you logged into was a phishing scam, you've just given away your credentials. CertainSafe's login process authenticates you to the site, and authenticates the site to you.

To start the login process, you enter your email address. Once the service validates that address as an existing account, the site displays an image that you selected during registration, along with an identifying phrase that you supplied. A fraudulent site won't know what image or phrase to display. Assuming the image and phrase are the ones you expected, you enter your password, which you must do within 60 seconds. On the next screen, you have 60 seconds to answer one of your three security questions. This multistep handshake is decidedly more secure than just relying on username and password.

Getting Started

After you sign up for an account, you log in to complete your registration. CertainSafe doesn't install anything. There's no app and no local agent, so you can use it on any platform that includes a full-scale browser.

Once the site has validated the email address you entered, you have some first-time chores to do. You pick an image from a predefined collection, and enter a recognition phrase to further foil fraudsters. This phrase can be anything at all; I used a Firesign Theater quote. As noted, CertainSafe displays the image and phrase you chose at login, to prove it's not a fraud. Enter your password and click Continue to lock in those choices.

After that, you create three security questions and answers. I was pleased to see that CertainSafe doesn't offer the absurd default choices that many sites do, like your mother's maiden name, or the city where you were born. Any security question whose answer can be found online is a bad question. Take a moment to think up three questions that only you could answer, and make sure that there's no doubt in your mind as to how you'd answer them. Remember, you'll need to answer one of these at every login. With that, you're ready to start using CertainSafe.

CertainSafe's simple main page has a menu across the top with four items that select important program areas: File Manager, Contacts, Manage Users, and Account Settings. Icons show you how many notifications and chat messages you have pending. If you squeeze the browser window down small, the menu items and icons retreat into a popup menu, making room to display the selected program area.

File Manager

The central function of CertainSafe is secure storage for your most important files, so naturally File Manager is the default menu choice. Initially, the left panel just shows All Files and Personal Files. To start using Personal Files, you must create at least one folder. You can go on to create a folder structure any way you like, with top-level folders and nested folders, if you find it useful for organization. It's important to understand that if you choose to securely share any of your sensitive data, you do so at the folder level, not file-by-file.

Now select a cloud folder and click the Upload button to add files. CertainSafe displays a handy area for you to drag and drop your selections. When you're ready, one click sends the files securely to CertainSafe.

You can now access your files securely from any browser and view most common file types in CertainSafe's built-in viewer. You can move or rename files, add comments, or download a local copy. Selecting Audit shows you all activity for the file, from its initial upload to the very latest viewing. And if you have uploaded multiple versions of a file, choosing Version History from the menu lets you view or revert to an earlier version.

I did run into a strange bug with the versioning system. Right-clicking a file and choosing Version History lists versions of that file, but right-clicking one of the versions effectively wrecks your CertainSafe session. The browser window shows nothing, and recovery requires restarting the browser. I verified this in Chrome and Firefox, on Windows 8 and Windows 10. The correct way to view or download from the version list is to select a version and click one of the icons that appears above it.

I reported this problem to CertainSafe. They duplicated the problem and fixed it overnight. With no local agent to worry about, implementing that fix was a simple matter of tweaking the code at the site itself.

You can also move or rename any folder, or move it to the trash. More importantly, you can share the folder with any of your contacts or view and manage existing shares for that folder.

Shared With Me

Once another user has shared data with you, you'll see a Shared With Me folder below Personal Files. You can also choose All Files to see everything at once. You don't have as many options with shared files as you do with those you uploaded yourself; you can view the file, download a local copy, or add comments.

Depending on your permissions, you may also be able to upload files, including modified copies of files that you downloaded. If you do choose to download, modify, and re-upload a file, you should use a secure deletion utility to wipe out the unsecured local copy. Note that Folder Lock, AxCrypt, and several other standalone encryption products have secure deletion built right in.

The fact that previous versions remain available means that in theory you could use CertainSafe as a kind of slow-motion file collaboration tool, but it's nothing like the real-time interaction offered by collaboration-specific services. Security is the emphasis here, not easy, breezy collaboration.

Sharing a Folder

Right click any folder to bring up a menu of folder actions, including sharing. These actions also appear as icons across the top of the display. You can either share a single folder, or click the New Share icon to select multiple folders. Note that subfolders aren't included unless you actively add them.

Next, you choose the contacts with whom you want to share the folder. You can choose from existing contacts or invite new guest-access contacts. By default, your recipients can access that shared folder for just one day. That's awfully short; in most cases you'll want to offer a longer expiry time. You can choose from preset intervals up to a year or set the specific beginning and ending date/time for the share.

Finally, you define permissions for the share. By default, recipients can only view shared files using the built-in viewer, but you expand that by giving them permission to download or upload files. Once you click Share, the recipients get a notification, and the folder shows up in their Shared With Me folder.

Right-click a folder and choose Manage Shares to view all outstanding shares. The list shows share details like the start and end times, and contacts you've shared with. You can dig in to adjust each contact's permissions or the share duration, or simply revoke the share. Simple!

For an individual consumer, the Manage Users page isn't very interesting. You have just one user accountyour own. End of story. In a business setting, you can use this page to add users, starting with the full name, email address, time zone, and an initial password.

The final step is to determine the roles this user can take. If you enable the OrgOwner role, the user gets full control of the account, just as you have yourself. Those with just Admin access can manage other users, but not the account itself. The User role allows the individual to create and share files and folders, and to receive shares. If you turn all three roles off, the individual can only work with files shared by others. I'm not sure why you would do that, though.

After three failed attempts to log in, CertainSafe locks the account. In a multi-user setting, an administrator can unlock the account. If it's just you, you have two choices: log in using your password and all three security answers, or work with customer service to verify your identity and get the account unlocked. An administrator can also reversibly disable access for any user.

If you just want to share files with someone, without adding them to your account, invite that person as a guest user. Click Contacts, click Invite New Contact, and enter the first name, last name, and email address of the person.

CertainSafe sends an email with a link for the recipient to create a free guest account. Your recipient goes through the same process of setting up an antiphishing image and phrase, entering the password, and creating three security questions. Now your guest can access any files you choose to share and can also engage in secure chat.

There's one more possible relationship; you can invite a contact who already has a paid CertainSafe account. This lets the two of you share files with each other, have secure chats, comment on each other's files, and so on.

Secure Chat

Every time you comment on a file, the file's owner gets a notification. You could almost carry on an online conversation using comments, but Secure Chat is easier. Just right-click a contact and choose Send Message. You can now start chatting, in posts up to 150 characters. Your chat history with each contact remains for reference, and you get a notification when there's a new response.

What's secure about Secure Chat? Steven Russo, Executive VP of CertainSafe, explained that secure chat messages are MicroEncrypted, just as your files are, and each post is secured independently. "This is absolutely fantastic for organizations that need to share [sensitive] information all day long while collaborating," said Russo. "Our chat is hosted in a PCI DSS Level 1 Environment, and it's HIPAA compliant and instant."

Office Integration on Hiatus

When I last reviewed CertainSafe, I reported on its integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word. The Outlook add-on allowed sharing of encrypted attachments with other CertainSafe users, and the Word add-on allowed opening encrypted documents directly from CertainSafe, and saving your changes back to the cloud.

CertainSafe has had a makeover since that last review, and the update hasn't yet reached the Office add-ons. However, getting them back up and running is on the roadmap.

Local-only encryption packages InterCrypto Advanced Encryption Package and Ranquel Technologies CryptoForge offer a their own very different ways to communicate securely. The former encrypts and decrypts text from the clipboard, making it easy to secure all or part of an email message or IM chat. The latter can encrypt anything into a block of encrypted text, so you can securely send files even when attachments aren't supported.

In a similar fashion, you could use AxCrypt Premium($45/Per Year at AxCrypt)(Opens in a new window), Cypherix SecureIT, or another local-only encryption tool to manually encrypt files before storing them in the cloud. But none of these local or cloud-based solutions approach CertainSafe's combination of extreme security and ease of use (though AxCrypt comes close, at least for local encryption).

A Powerful, Flexible Solution

Not every budget can cover $12 per month to store files securely in CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box, for sure. However, for those who need to protect truly sensitive personal or business data, CertainSafe is an excellent choice. You can get at your files from any browser, on any platform. The multistep handshake ensures that only you can access them, unless you choose to share data securely. And MicroEncryption technology means that even if a gang of thieves liberated a whole a server, they'd only get bits and pieces, not whole files.

Other cloud storages services emphasize different needs. If collaborating on files is your main need, Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive are good choices. Box shines at compatibility with other services, while IDrive focuses on the central task of backup. These apps remain our top picks for cloud storage and file syncing.

When your aim is just to protect your sensitive files by encrypting them locally, not in the cloud, AxCrypt Premium offers a modern, easy-to-use interface with some surprisingly advanced features. Folder Lock combines a wide range of encryption features with a bright, easy-to-use interface. In the encryption realm, these two share top honors with CertainSafe.

CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box 4.5 Editors' Choice (Opens in a new window) See It Free Trial at CertainSafe (Opens in a new window) MSRP $12.00 Pros Renders bulk data breach of cloud-stored files impossible.

Authenticates user to server and vice versa.

Secure file sharing.

Retains past file versions.

Secure chat. View More Cons Relatively expensive.

If you forget password or security answers, you lose all access.

Office integration currently unavailable. The Bottom Line When storing your sensitive files in the cloud, CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box makes security its top priority, without sacrificing ease of use.
Google Fiber is acquiring Internet service provider Webpass to be able to increase its urban coverage quickly and offer customers a combination of fiber and wireless delivery of high-speed Internet.

For Google Fiber, which has typically worked with cities in planning and building a fiber network from scratch, the acquisition will give the Alphabet business a headstart in many markets, particularly in dense urban areas.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Google did not immediately comment on the acquisition.

Webpass in San Francisco owns and operates its ethernet network, thus removing its dependence on phone and cable companies. It has operations in San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago and Boston. The company offers business connections from 10 to 1,000 Mbps and to residential customers service from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps.

Google is already working in San Francisco, where Webpass also operates, and is negotiating with property owners and managers in buildings near existing fiber infrastructure to explore connecting their residents to gigabit Internet.

Google Fiber has earlier indicated that it would like to use wireless besides fiber for the delivery of Internet services to customers. In April it obtained approval to test Internet delivery on 3.5GHz spectrum in parts of Kansas City that could result in fast, short-range wireless connections to serve areas not reached by Google Fiber.

Webpass will help to further expand that coverage as it will remain focused on the rapid deployment of high-speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, mainly using point-to-point wireless, Webpass President Charles Barr said in a blog post Wednesday that announced the proposed acquisition.

Google Fibers resources will enable Webpass to grow faster and reach many more customers than we could as a standalone company, Barr wrote.

Great news! We look forward to welcoming @Webpass to the Google Fiber team once the deal has closed, Google Fiber wrote in a tweet.

The companies expect the deal to close this summer, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
Borrowing ideas from social media, Circle wants to make moving bitcoins and other types of money across borders a simple affair in more countries.

The company is expanding its social payment service across Europe and preparing to bring it to China. Its already available in the U.S. and the U.K., and the expansion will make is easy to send money between more countries.

Circle is like Paypal, but with social media elements like messaging. You can send money to someone using just their mobile phone number or e-mail address.

In many cases, wiring money or a payment for services across borders is free, or else carries a minimal charge. Some payments use the bitcoin blockchain. You can add a smiley face to payment requests to make the whole experience a bit more fun.

Circle charges no fees when customers use the app to send dollars or pounds sterling. And for those currency pairs, the conversion never touches the blockchain or bitcoin, a Circle spokesperson said.

Users can convert and hold their balances in bitcoins, and can instantly send U.S. dollars, British pounds or euros to any bitcoin address.

The customer never needs to hold, buy or know anything about bitcoin, said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle.

Right now, users can send dollars and pounds via bank accounts and debit cards. Users can also attach a credit card to their Circle account, but third-party fees may apply. The service doesnt support some types of prepaid, credit and payment cards.

Circle service is available via a browser or mobile apps for iOS and Android. Its regulated like a financial institution according to U.S., U.K. and E.U. regulations.

Circle has started a new company called Circle China, with the goal of starting its service in that country as soon as it can.

To offer the Circle service with native support for renminbi in China will similarly require government approval, Allaire said.

Social payments have been a hit in China through services like Alipay and WeChat Pay. Once Circles starts there, it may have an edge from being able to easily convert local payments to international currencies.

In Europe, the company is expanding first to Spain and then other countries over a period of months. Competitors include Venmo, which is primarily a U.S.-based digital wallet.

Circle was founded in 2013 by Allaire, who previously founded the Brightcove video hosting service.

The company also announced that it received $60 million in funding from companies including Breyer Capital and IDG Capital Partners (an affiliate of IDG News Services parent company). Sam Palmisano, the former Chairman and CEO of IBM, was also part of this round of funding.

There have been questions lately about the stability of electronic ledgers, but Allaire said the bitcoin blockchain is the largest, most scaled and secure, and most liquid public blockchain, with hundreds of companies and banking systems connecting to it, enabling frictionless global value exchange by using open protocols and open networks.

Circle operates its own treasury and trading operations in all of the currencies it serves. The company is constantly trading in these currencies to ensure that customers have instant convertibility.

Breaking into new countries is a big deal for Circle, which wants to make it easy to make money exchanges borderless.

Over time, we do not believe that there will be a business model to charge fees for converting currencies, and most certainly for payments themselves, both of which are becoming free utilities on the Internet, Allaire said.

Traditional banks usually charge a 3 to 4 percent fee for money transfers, while digital-money transfer companies such as TransferWise and Xoom charge closer to 1 percent.

So how will Circle make money? Over time, the plan is to introduce other consumer products that generate revenue, Allaire said. For now, hes staying mum on what those might be.
Proving who pulled off a cyber attack is never easy and sometimes impossible. Thats the reality investigators face as they try to figure out who breached the network of the Democratic National Committee, which revealed last week that hackers had made off with confidential documents including research on Republican presidential opponent Donald Trump.

Russia was fingered as the likely suspect, until a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 stepped up and claimed that he acted alone. But despite what appear to be DNC documents posted by Guccifer online, some security experts remain convinced that a group of skilled Russian hackers was behind the attack  likely acting on behalf of the Russian government. Heres why they think that:

The malware

The breach began as far back as last summer and involved malware previously used by two hacking groups known as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.

Both are thought to be based in Russia and considered among the best hacking teams in the world, said Michael Buratowski, a senior vice president with Fidelis Cybersecurity, which was called in to examine the malware in the DNC attack.

Not just anyone could have pulled off the attack, he said. For instance, the malware used to breach the DNC networks is relatively rare and highly developed.

A hacker would need significant expertise to properly customize and deploy the code, something no amateur script kiddie would possess, he said.

A growing pattern

Another big reason for suspecting Russian hackers is the target itself and what was stolen  the attackers wanted information related to political campaigns and foreign policy plans. Cybercriminals are typically more interested in financial data such as credit card numbers, noted Ben Johnson, chief security strategist for Carbon Black.

This fits with the pattern of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, whose past victims include the White House and the U.S. State Department, in addition to businesses in defense, energy and aerospace. Email systems of top U.S. officials have also been among their targets.

It seems like the attackers knew what they were after, Johnson said. They also didnt kick up a lot of dust.

Although the initial breach began last summer, the DNC became aware of it only in late April. This suggests the hackers were probably experts and had done that type of hack before.

Attribution is incredibly difficult, Johnson said. But from what weve seen, its most likely that a sophisticated group is responsible.

Russia

Its difficult to definitively link a hacker group to a government, but security firms have made a connection to Russia by examining attack patterns over a long period of time, said Mark Arena, CEO of security firm Intel 471.

For example, past attacks by Fancy Bear show consistent use of the Russian language in developing its malware. Their targets have included NATO and Eastern European governments, with a focus on stealing political and military data, as opposed to intellectual property  more typically a target of Chinese hackers.

Targeting the DNC could obviously align with Russias goals, as one of the U.S.s biggest geopolitical opponents.

Russian officials have flatly denied any involvement, but that doesnt tell us much one way or the other.

The timing

A lone hacker, Guccifer 2.0, has sought to take credit for the DNC hack, claiming it was easy, very easy, and leaking several documents to back up his claim. Some media reports say the hacker is Romanian and dislikes Russians.

Not everyone believes the claims. On Tuesday, the DNC itself said the leaked files may be part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians.

In Guccifer 2.0s first post, the hacker mocked CrowdStrike, the security firm that claimed Russians were behind the breach, and denounced unspecified illuminati and their conspiracies.

Together well be able to throw off the political elite, the rich clans that exploit the world! the hacker wrote in another posting.

Johnson sees the timing of Guccifers appearance as too convenient.

Its a very timely cover-up, he said. It seems a little too staged.

Buratowski agreed. He noted that Guccifer 2.0 could be one person or multiple people belonging to a larger group. Metadata found within the leaked DNC documents included snippets of Russian.

Theres always the possibility that [Guccifer 2.0] is just a smokescreen to divert attention from the real actors,Buratowski said.
Marijuana in Oregon is back in the news  actually, come to think of it, marijuana in Oregon hasnt been out of the news much over the last couple of years, but a recent development is worth noting.

Two members of the Legislatures wonderfully named Joint Committee on Marijuana Legislation have written a letter to legislative leaders, urging that the committee get the green light to continue meeting. Rep. Andy Olson, a Republican from Albany, serves on that committee, and is one of the authors of the letter (the other is Rep. Carl Wilson, a Republican from Grants Pass).

The letter makes a number of good points, but its key arguments boil down to these: First, the joint committee has done good work thus far in taking the raw material of the ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana and building a safe and relatively sane regulatory framework. Thats true.

The letters second point, that the committees work is not yet done, also is true. (Olson says that there's some talk of disbanding the committee, mainly because of the false sense that most of the work on legalizing pot is done.)

We beg to differ.

We do think that the Legislature, led by this committee, has done a remarkable job of working through numerous issues surrounding the legalization of recreational marijuana and also has helped to tackle some of the sticky lingering issues regarding medical marijuana in Oregon.

It's been especially heartening is that this committee, working in the midst of two sessions riven by partisan squabbling, drew good work from Republicans and Democrats alike. The letter itself puts it well: Republicans and Democrats invested hours listening to public testimony, listening from experts and forging policy compromises with the best interests of Oregonians at heart. Together, we successfully built a foundation for a new sector of our economy and developed an in-depth understanding of one of the most unique industries in our state. (The online version of this editorial includes a copy of the letter Olson and Wilson sent to legislative leaders.)

But Olson and Wilson are absolutely right that the work on recreational marijuana is far from finished. In fact, the landscape for pot in Oregon could change dramatically this November as voters in cities and counties decide whether to ban recreational sales in their communities.

Other policy questions remain, of course, and it will require experienced eyes to monitor changes, expected or not, in Oregons marijuana market, especially as the Oregon Liquor Control Commission steps in to regulate recreational pot. And well want to keep a close eye on regulation of marijuana edibles.

The members of the committee already are well-versed in the topic. It would be silly for legislative leaders not to take advantage of this offer.

And we have to confess that we are somewhat surprised that members of the panel would agree on their own to endure at least a few more years of good-natured ribbing over that joint committee label.
IBM has many goals with its upcoming Power9 chip, and one is to challenge the dominance of Intels x86 chips in the data center.

The company wants chips based on Power architecture to take a double-digit server chip market share by 2020, Doug Balog, general manager for Power Systems at IBM, said in an interview.

Itll be a three-way battle between x86, Power, and ARM, which has a similar goal of a double-digit market share in the next four years. IBMs Power is off to a better start in terms of socket share, Balog said. IBM already is being used in servers, while ARM server processors are largely still being tested.

Intel dominates the data center server chip market with a 90-plus percent market share. But IDC has predicted that Intels share will shrink as ARM-based chips and AMDs x86-based Zen take away some of that lead.

Power chips are already used in mainframes and high-end servers, and they are starting to show up in low-end and mid-range servers. In the second half of next year, IBM will start shipping servers based on Power9 architecture, which boasts significant upgrades from the current Power8.

Its been a smooth start for Power9, which already has some significant server wins.

Google and Rackspace are making a Power9 server called Zaius, which will ultimately be submitted to the Open Compute open hardware design project. The Google endorsement of Power may lead companies to seriously consider the architecture.

A 200-petaflop supercomputer called Summit with Power9 chips will be deployed in early 2018 by the U.S. Department of Energy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. When deployed, Summit could be one of the worlds fastest computers.

Until a few years ago, IBM was the only company selling Power servers, but today other server makers like Tyan and Supermicro are offering systems with the chips. IBM opened up the Power architecture three years ago through the OpenPower Foundation, which boasts members like Google, Samsung, and Nvidia.

IBM is heavily focused on the fast-growing China market, where Intel is trying to retain its lead. China is turning into a battleground for chip architecture supremacy, with AMD, ARM server chipmaker Qualcomm, and others vendors establishing partnerships with Chinese companies.

IBM is focused on selling Power servers costing more than US$6,000. Chinese vendors could sell Power servers at cheaper prices, but that doesnt bother Balog as long as Power architecture is proliferating.

They can compete with [IBM], I hope they do. That will be success in my view, Balog said.

Hyperscale servers are a big target market for Power9 chips, which will deliver faster and more power-efficient computing at the rack level than Power8, Balog said.

Server requirements have changed in recent years with more focus on accelerated computing than on building technology around a chip, Balog said.

IBM has doubled the number of Power9 CPU cores to 24, but Balog said co-processors like FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) and GPUs are playing a bigger role in server computation. Power9 will support a new interconnect called NVLink so CPUs can communicate with components significantly faster than existing PCI-Express 3.0.

An interface called CAPI, linking FPGAs and new memory types to Power9 chips, will also be faster.

As part of OpenPower Foundation, IBM also licenses its architecture so chip makers can design Power derivatives. Its not yet clear if companies outside IBM will design Power9-based chips.

The company is always looking for licensing partners for the Power architecture, but progress has been slow. For now, Chinese company Suzhou PowerCore Technology is designing Power8 variants for the Chinese market.

The number of vendors who have the skills to be able to take a sophisticated processor and do derivatives of it for the server market is actually perhaps a smaller universe than we thought, Balog said.

IBM will work with OpenPower Foundation partners to launch Power9, Balog said.
Though deciding between the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4 was an agonizing choice for PCWorld editors, customers apparently know what they want: The Surface Pro 3yes, the older one.

AdDuplex, a Windows-specific ad network which compiles data on Windows machines, estimates that an even third of all Surface users are using a Surface Pro 3, a convertible tablet Microsoft phased out when its successor, the Surface Pro 4, began shipping in late 2015. SP4 sales are closing fast, though: AdDuplex said theyre about 30.9 percent of all Surface tablets that it detected.

The real mystery, though, is why Surface Book sales have been so slow: in fact, the firm puts its market share at just 3.6 percent of all Surface products. Not only are the SP3 and SP4 outselling the Book by roughly a 10:1 ratio, but the original Surface Pro (6.9 percent) still has almost twice the user base of the Book.

AdDuplex This certainly looks like confirmation that well see a Surface Pro 5, eventually.

(We asked AdDuplex for the actual numbers they had for the different Surface models, but the company declined. Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

What this means: Lacking more specific numbers, its unclear whether the Surface Book is unpopular or simply niche. We dont know how many Surface Books were produced compared to how many Surface Pros. AdDuplex noted that the Surface Book remains in limited distribution: In addition to the United States, its available in Austria, Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the the United Kingdom. Wed expect price matters, toothe Book ranges from $1,499 to $3,199, while the Surface Pro 4 begins at $849. (Microsoft is even selling the $599 Surface Pro 3 online again.) The Surface Book has also had a history of hardware glitches. A February update solved its hotbox problems, but its June 20 firmware update only promised to reduce the number of unexpected shutdowns while in a sleep state.

AdDuplex: HP is Windows 10s champion

AdDuplex also provided a snapshot of which manufacturers have sold the most Windows 10 PCsnot Windows PCs, but Windows 10 PCsto date. Of the installed base of Windows 10 PCs, AdDuplex found that HP had manufactured the most, which nearly twice as many as Dell.

AdDuplex No real surprises hereHP, Dell, and Lenovo have been among the top PC vendors for years.

These numbers are less suprising, if only because the rankings of top PC vendors change on a quarter-by-quarter basis, though familiar names clog the upper ranks. (During the first quarter of 2016, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Asus shipped the most PCs worldwide.) If AdDuplexs numbers are accurate, that means that HP would be Microsofts key partner in terms of pushing Windows 10, followed by Dell and Lenovo.

Microsofts own significance as a hardware maker pales by comparison, as the firm is only seventh among its hardware partners. But Microsoft has said time and again that it strives to create new categories of hardware for its partners to own. Given the rather sizeable number of Surface-like convertible tablets weve seen from Microsofts partners, its clearly achieved this with the Surface line of tablets. As for the Book? It appears the jury is still out.

The unanswered question this report raises is whether Microsoft will build a Surface Book 2. It seems unlikely that Microsoft would abandon the Book, given the massive amount of press coverage the original Book generated. If Microsoft always intended the Book to be a halo product rather than a mass-market success, thats one thing. But if sales are less than hoped-for, Microsoft might reconsider.
L.A./Ontario International Airport took another big step toward local control Tuesday.

The U.S. House passed by voice vote a bill by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, authorizing the use of passenger facility fees at ONT to help pay off the cost of the airports two terminals  a condition of the agreement under which Los Angeles World Airports and the city of Los Angeles will turn over control of the facility to the Ontario International Airport Authority.

The agreement calls for OIAA to pay LAWA $50 million from passenger fees in the first five years and another $70 million from the fees in the final five years, to reimburse LAWA, a department of L.A. city government, for investments it made at ONT.

Since it is not possible under existing law, today we are fixing this glitch, Rep. Calvert said.

There was no controversy in passing the bill, which is co-sponsored by area Democrats Norma Torres, Grace Napolitano, Raul Ruiz, Pete Aguilar and Mark Takano, as well as Republicans Paul Cook and Ed Royce. Still, getting legislation through the House is never a sure thing.

And this little matter nearly got caught up in something much bigger. It was part of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, which includes a much-contested effort to privatize air traffic control. So Rep. Calvert wisely requested that his H.R. 4369 be considered separately from the FAA reauthorization, which he noted has already been extended three times.

Once this issue is resolved by passage in the U.S. Senate, the airport transfer agreement will go back to LAWAs commissioners to ratify the funding plan. The transfer of the airport is expected to take place by October.

The Inland Empire has [been] and continues to be one of the fastest growing regions in California and the nation, and it is far past time that we control our aviation future, Rep. Calvert said on the House floor Tuesday.

Indeed.
Jack Browns support of Cal State San Bernardino is nothing new. The executive chairman of Stater Bros. has a long-running relationship with the campus, even though he was never a student there; he went to San Jose State.

In 1993, Brown contributed $1 million to the construction of Cal State San Bernardinos $24 million business school. That building bears his name: Jack Brown Hall.

On Wednesday, Brown blew the doors off his previous giving, providing the campus with its biggest single philanthropic contribution in its 50-year history. The amount of Browns gift has not been disclosed, but campus spokesman Joe Gutierrez said the schools largest gifts to date were two $5 million donations, one each from the cities of Palm Desert and Indian Wells, to support the schools desert satellite campus.

Campus officials declined to provide information on how much Brown had contributed over the years.

Larry Rose is dean of business and public administration for the university. He said Browns gift was not a complete surprise.

Jack has had a really long relationship with us, said Rose, who has been at the campus since 2011. Over the years weve had lots of interactions with Jack. Our Spirit of the Entrepreneur honored him one year. He has an honorary Ph.D.

Brown has also participated in scholarship programs, Rose said.

He said Browns gift will be used as an endowment and will fund academic enrichment and student scholarship. The money  which he said probably wont be tapped for a year or two  will be spent on attracting and retaining faculty, funding new programming and research, and on scholarships.

I really think its a recognition of what the college has meant to the community, that he would be proud to have his name associated with us, Rose said. Its a validation of all the effort weve put in over the years.

Gutierrez said the amount of Browns gift would be announced when the California State University Board of Trustees meets in Long Beach on July 19.

Contact the writer: mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9595
The fax message sent to a Los Angeles bank demanding more than $135,000 from Beaumont city bond funds had a sense of urgency.

It came from Urban Logic Consultants, a private company under contract with the small Riverside County town that provided administrators for city engineering, planning and econonic development services.

It demanded that the bank expedite the processing and deliver the check to Mr. Alan Kapanicas, the city manager.

And the money was to pay property tax bills for the Heartland partnership, a Seattle-based landowner that was planning to build 1,224 homes on 420 acres at the west end of town  just days before the developer faced late fees.

Some 16 years later, the housing project still hasnt been built.

The vast construction site just north of Highway 60 appears to have been graded long ago. But nature is taking it back, with shrubs and flowering annuals now rooted along deep ruts carved into the beige-colored earth by years of erosion.

The property tax expense illustrates what some citizens and city officials see as questionable uses of bond funds that occurred during the roughly two decades of Beaumont city administration under Kapanicas and the Urban Logic owners, Ernest Egger, David Dillon, and Deepak Moorjani, who served, respectively, as the citys planning, economic development and public works directors.

Bond funds are supposed to go for public works projects. But in Beaumont they appeared to have been tapped repeatedly for operational or non-capital expenses, city records show.

Kapanicas, Egger, Dillon, and Moorjani are now awaiting trial on multiple felony corruption charges that include embezzling bond funds by approving payments to their own companies.

A recent city-commissioned report found that since 1994 Urban Logic received at least $47 million in bond funds  for what their invoices described as engineering and project management services.

Meanwhile, between 1995 and 2011, General Government Management Services, a company created by Kapanicas and his wife, Diana, received $1.2 million, mostly for financial services related to preparing bonds to go to market and for managing the funds.

Attorneys for Dillon and Moorjani say all payments to Urban Logic were lawful and done with approvals from the City Council and other officials.

But other bond expenses are raising more questions as thousands of Beaumont residents remain on the hook for more than $200 million in bond debts they are paying off through special taxes known as Mello-Roos assessments.

Federal rules generally require that municipal bond funds be used for public works projects, such as streets, sewers, water works, parks and sidewalks, said Rick Teichert, a former treasurer for Moreno Valley, who also served as the top finance officer for the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Sacramento Public Library Authority.

Yet city records show that bond funds were used for what appear to be more general uses.

Such funds were used, for example, to buy laptop computers, including a $3,387 Dell Inspiron model that Dillon ordered from the manufacturer in Texas and had shipped to his office in Temecula, the records show.

The other bond expenditures included $66,863 for what city documents describe as a lawn mower and trailer.

And there was a $3,625 bill from a Capistrano Beach economics firm for preparing a PowerPoint representation used in 2008 by then-Mayor Brian DeForge for the state of the city address.

The presentation trumpeted the citys successes, such as attracting big box retailers, like Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond. One slide bragged of the city operating with fiscal discipline.

But getting complete accounting of how city bonds were spent remains elusive.

A city-commissioned report by the Orange-based Urban Futures consulting firm on bond spending made public this month found that $53.1 million in bond funds were transferred to other city accounts.

While city construction projects were paid for with this money, it remains unclear clear how much of it was used for public works, said Michael Busch, CEO of Urban Futures, in a June 7 presentation to City Council.

Many of the citys requests for bond funds have vague descriptions of why the money is needed. Many city invoices for bond funds are simply for administrative services. And city and state audits show capital funds were repeatedly borrowed to cover city operational fund deficits.

Whats more clear is that bond funds were often used to cover expenses that developers normally pay for, according to the records.

These included the Seattle development firms property taxes, the costs of city building fees, and regional fees for transportation projects and habitat conservation. At least two bond withdrawals were to cover developer attorney bills  one for $35,000 and another for $67,345  that had been initially sent to home builders.

Using bond funds to pay for regional transportation fees alone saved developers nearly $9,000 per house, making Beaumont a cheaper place to build. And developers made Beaumont the choice for thousands of new tract homes. Since the early 1990s, the towns population nearly quadrupled to more than 40,000.

The issue of how bond money was spent is important because the interest on municipal bonds paid to investors is tax-exempt, allowing cities to pay lower interest rates. These lower financing costs give local government entities a break when building public facilities.

Beaumonts bond spending is now under scrutiny.

City officials have disclosed that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency that enforces laws governing the nations stock and bond markets, subpoenaed city records in April and initiated a formal investigation.

Beaumont City Councilman Lloyd White said he was not surprised that bond funds were spent on laptops, PowerPoints and property taxes.

Youre finding the same kind of things we are finding in our own investigations, and we are trying to be transparent, White said.

My reaction is just more frustration, added Beaumont Mayor Mike Lara. It is just a lack of control. We dont have a clear picture what went on. But we have a lot of questions.

Moorjani had signed the approval for bond withdrawals to pay for developer property taxes and attorney fees, as well as a laptop computer sent to the Urban Logic offices, city records show.

He could not be reached directly, but his Los Angeles-based attorney, Mark Werksman, declined to address questions about why Moorjani signed the bond spending requisitions, saying questions would arise again in court.

But Werksman said in an email that Moorjani has done nothing wrong.

All his work was done openly and for the benefit of the City or in fulfillment of the Citys contractual obligations, and was approved by the City Council and other responsible City officials. His actions were lawful and appropriate, and he vigorously denies any wrongdoing.

But using bond funds to pay a developers property taxes showed a public-financing program that has gone astray.

The development site, called the Heartland, is in a larger Community Facilities District the city created in 1993 to issue bonds to pay for streets, sidewalks, sewers and other public projects. And property owners agreed to make debt payments through special taxes until houses were built and sold.

But in 1999, bond funds were used to pay the special taxes needed to cover payments due on the very same bonds.

The housing development, first approved in 1994, has languished. The partnership managed by the Seattle-based Heartland Group sold the land in 2002 to Pacific Century Homes amid hopes it would finally get off the ground. But that company filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

The land is now owned by a partnership managed by Lehman Brothers Holdings in New York City.

Both the Riverside County District Attorney and the California state controller have criticized how the bond funds were handled. Bond funds were held in a bank account in Los Angeles and could be withdrawn under the approvals of Kapanicas and the Urban Logic officials, bypassing city coffers.

This meant the thousands of bond expenditures lacked scrutiny from the City Council and the public, prosecutors alleged in court papers. Dillons attorney, Paul Grech, counters that the City Council was in the loop.

Beaumont resident and city watchdog Judy Bingham said property tax payments and many other bond expenses needed daylight.

They had such control over everything in this town, and they were free to do what they pleased,  Bingham said. And they never brought anything like this to the City Council.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9471 or ddanelski@pressenterprise.com
A Barstow man was linked to at least two rapes in the county after he met the women using a dating app, San Bernardino County Sheriffs officials said.

The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office filed charges of forcible rape against Dionza Antwoine Bradford, 24, Tuesday, court records show. An arraignment date has not been scheduled.

Bradford was arrested June 16 at his Barstow home after an intensive investigation by detectives from the Victorville and Twin Peaks stations.

On June 8, a woman called the Twin Peaks station to report she was raped in the Running Springs area, according to a sheriffs station.

The woman said she met a man, later identified as Bradford, on dating website Plenty of Fish and exchanged phone numbers.

After some texting, authorities say Bradford told the woman he was going to be in her area and wanted to know if she wanted to get together and she agreed.

The two met on June 7, and agreed to drive to Bradfords home, sheriffs officials said. On their way, investigators allege Bradford detoured and took the woman to a secluded turn out in the Running Springs area and raped her.

Instead of taking the woman home, authorities say he left her at a gas station near Highway 330 in Highland.

The victim contacted law enforcement to report the assault.

After investigators identified Bradford, they learned he was a suspect in a rape case from the Victorville area from October 2015. In the Victorville case, Bradford and that woman also met through Plenty of Fish. Bradford allegedly picked up the woman after some texting and took her to a motel where he reportedly raped the victim.

Bradford is currently being held at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga in lieu of $750,000 bail.

Detectives believe Bradford may have additional victims. Anyone with information on these cases or who feel they may be a victim, can call their local law enforcement agency or the Twin Peaks station at 909-336-0600.
Hundreds of thousands of people living illegally in Southern California were facing a sobering new reality Thursday: the U.S. Supreme Court isnt coming to their rescue and their fate may be tied more precariously than ever to the outcome of this years presidential election.

News that the high court deadlocked, blocking President Obamas immigration plan from moving forward, quickly spread anxiety across a region with one of the nations largest concentrations of unauthorized immigrants.

Inland immigrant advocates expressed disappointment about the Supreme Courts tie vote to block the plan that sought to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Its just devastating to millions of families who are left in immigration limbo, said Luz Gallegos, community programs director at the TODEC Legal Center, a Perris-based immigrant assistance group. We feel what our families feel when they are being separated and are coming and calling and asking for help. It just breaks our heart.

NATION: Supreme Court places new limits on drunken driving test laws

Her group will continue helping immigrants to become citizens and register to vote.

It gives us more strength to keep fighting, Gallegos said.

California Gov. Jerry Brown said the court stalemate leaves millions of families in America facing a troubled and uncertain future.

Meanwhile, those calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration hailed the 4-4 vote.

This is a good day for America because executive overreach was reined in by this decision, said Robin Hvidston, executive director of Claremont-based We The People Rising, which opposes illegal immigration. This is a good day for the Constitution. Immigration laws are supposed to go through Congress and be signed by the President.

Hvidston said Obama had the chance to enact immigration reform in his first term when both houses of Congress had a Democratic majority.

Her group rallied outside Rancho Cucamonga City Hall Thursday to voice support for the decision while opposing a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

The courts ruling leaves in place a Texas federal judges order that halted Obamas plan to offer deportation relief and work permits to more than 4 million immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or legal residents. The vote also blocks the presidents plan to expand a program he created in 2012 that offers deportation relief and work permits to younger immigrants brought to the country as children.

Texas, joined by 25 other states, sued the administration, arguing among other things that the president went beyond his executive authority. The case divided the nation and now returns to U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who issued a 2015 injunction that prompted the Supreme Court decision. Eventually, the case could return to the Supreme Court. By then, the next president is likely to have named a successor for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year, leaving the court ideologically split.

In the backdrop of Thursdays announcement, is a presidential campaign where the Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, has focused intensely on illegal immigration and calls to build a wall along the Mexican border.

Nearly half of the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States could have benefited from Obamas plans.

California has the largest number of unauthorized immigrants who could have been eligible for new temporary legal residency and work permits  an estimated 1.5 million statewide.

The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday reiterated that its priority remains deporting convicted criminals. But that has provided little relief to those counting on a different outcome in the Supreme Court.

Lack of legal standing also stirs frustration  and fear  among immigrants such as Perris residents Ana and Jaime Flores, who have lived in the U.S. for 30 years and have two children born here.

If they apply to become legal residents, they will be sent back to Mexico and have to wait 10 years before being allowed to return to the United States, Jaime Flores said in Spanish.

We work hard and pay our taxes, Ana Flores, 44, said in Spanish. We want the opportunity to come out of the shadows, not just us, but millions of others who are in the same situation. We want them to do whats right and give us whats fair.

Advocates said they are determined to move ahead with more naturalization and voter registration drives, improved assistance to immigrants and intensified efforts to reduce deportations.

We will be turning our anger and disappointment into mobilizing millions of voters to remind Congress and anti-immigrants in November that we will not let them get away with hijacking our rights and trying to separate our families, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

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A heat-stricken hiker was rescued in the mountains overlooking the Corona-area community of Temescal Valley by firefighters and a helicopter crew, say Riverside County Fire Department officials.

The patient was hoisted aboard Cal Fire helicopter 305 about 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 22, near Bedford Motor Way and Forest Road 4S03 in the Cleveland National Forest.

Firefighters got the call at 1:52 p.m. and hiked about 2,000 feet down the mountainside from the nearest road to reach the patient who was unable to walk out of the area, fire department spokeswoman April Newman said in a written statement.
Caltrans equipment operator Don Causey took a welcome break as a crew replaced a chain-link fence along I-15 in Eastvale to talk about  what else?  the heat.

Its kind of rough, Causey, 61, said Tuesday.

His green, long-sleeved shirt was soaked with sweat. As Causey spoke, he spat shells from sunflower seeds, which he eats for their salt to prevent cramps. He brings extra bottles of water to work when its hot and counts his co-workers for his safety.

Sometimes you get so into working that you dont see yourself slowing down. We try to look out for each other, Causey said. We all want to go home at the end of the day.

At construction sites around the Inland Empire this week, workers and their supervisors pushed forward, mindful of the risks brought on by dehydration such as heat stroke, heat exhaustion and cramps. A yellow jug of water was never far away. Workers carried spray bottles and wet rags and took frequent breaks.

Mondays record-setting temperatures, including 114 degrees in Riverside, have given way to cooler weather, relatively speaking: At the I-15 repair operation, it was 109 Monday, lead worker Mike Sanders said, but that area reached only 93 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The measure of relief could be short-lived: The National Weather Service forecasts temperatures back over 100 degrees for the weekend and into next week.

Construction supervisors say there is no balance between meeting work deadlines and staying safe in such heat. The scales always tilt toward safety.

Its on me, said Sanders, 64, a veteran of 18 years with Caltrans. Thats my job, to keep an eye on them. If I see someone getting a little woozy, Ill sit him down.

Farther south on Tuesday, Todd Phillips, a foreman for Atkinson Walsh, was supervising a crew working on the Main Street off-ramp from the eastbound 91 in Corona. He had ordered the crew members off the road an hour early Monday for lighter duty, cleaning and organizing the yard.

The temperature had reached 114 degrees at the job site Monday.

It doesnt do any good to kill these guys, said Phillips, 51. And they were in good shape today.

Nearby, at Corona Metro, an apartment/retail complex under construction on Main Street near the train station, project coordinator Marlene Garibay said Mondays safety meeting focused on the heat. Any worker feeling ill could come in to the air-conditioned office to rest or go home without fear of reprisal, she said.

Many of the safety measures are required by law. For instance, Phillips said, workers must take a 10-minute break the moment the temperature reaches 100 degrees.

Cal/OSHA, which enforces worker safety and health standards, issued an extreme heat advisory Friday in which it reminded employers of their responsibilities:

 Train employees and supervisors about heat illness prevention.

 Provide enough fresh water so that each employee can drink at least 1 quart per hour and  in italics added by Cal/OSHA  encourage them to do so.

 Provide access to shade and encourage employees to take a cool-down rest in the shade for at least five minutes. Employees should do this before falling ill, Cal/OSHA said.

 Develop and implement written procedures for complying with Cal/OSHAs heat illness prevention rules.

Cal/OSHA lists many other rules, in English and in Spanish, on its website.

WORK PACE SLOWS

Phillips said everyone slows down during such intense heat, and he expects a loss of productivity.

Hes aware of the public criticism of the 91 project that has narrowed lanes, shuttered ramps and snarled traffic on city streets, but Phillips said he doesnt feel any pressure to overwork his crews in the heat.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission delivered a bit of good news on the project Wednesday: The on-ramp from Main Street to the eastbound 91 was expected to open by 5:30 a.m. Thursday.

On Tuesday, a crew placed finishing touches on that ramp. Men wearing hard hats, gloves, long-sleeved shirts, boots, sunglasses and neck shades bent and stooped as they pulled 10-pound, peach-colored decorative rocks from a skiploader and handed them off to one another before laying the rocks in place.

Two buckets filled with ice and cans of Dr Pepper, brought in by the rock supplier, sat nearby, untouched.

For Raul Garcia, 22, a laborer at Corona Metro, its somewhat a case of mind over matter.

I try my best not to think about the heat because if I do, it will make it worse for me, he said.

But he acknowledged he paces himself.

If I go all out, I wont be able to last all day, he said.

Echoed Causey, the Caltrans worker: We try to work at a pace thats not overwhelming.

The heat doesnt bother some construction employees.

Caltrans equipment operator Jose Campana, 35, has driven trucks for years, loading and unloading cargo, so hes used to working hard when its hot. He said he feels like he can take an unscheduled break without upsetting the boss. Campana carries a spray bottle and a wears a wet rag inside his helmet.

Fernando Hernandez, 35, a plumber on the Corona Metro job, wonders what all the fuss is about.

He lives in Palm Springs, where it was 122 degrees Monday. He has worked in such weather.

You cant hardly breathe, Hernandez said.

Contact the writer: brokos@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9569
Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, will be part of a delegation of California lawmakers going to Panama next week for a ceremony marking the opening of the newly widened Panama Canal, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Medina will join Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, Speaker Emeritus Toni Atkins and Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, according to the Bee.

A multi-billion dollar project to expand the historic trade route is intended to ease congestion and allow larger ships to pass through. Major changes to maritime shipping are of particular interest to California given the states large network of ports.

The trip will be paid for with campaign funds, the Bee reported.

Medina represents Californias 61st Assembly District, which includes Riverside and Moreno Valley, both areas with warehouses that process goods shipped from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Travel is nothing new to Medina, who is up for re-election in November. He was part of a delegation that traveled to Cuba last year and in November 2014, he went to Hawaii to participate in a conference sponsored by businesses and other groups with interests in Sacramento.
Re: Concealing terrorism [Opinion, June 22]: Our U.S. Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, the chief law enforcement officer in the country, has just stated that to combat terrorism we need compassion and love. Obviously she has no idea that a terrorist would just love to kill her. Will the news media confront the president or Hillary Clinton with these statements? Or perhaps a better question is: When will the media actually do their jobs and simply report on this insanity?

Mike Talarico

Riverside

  

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced that the decision to redact the Orlando 911 tapes was Attorney General Loretta Lynchs, and it was her decision and hers alone, without any input from the White House. Really? What a load of garbage. Earnest threw Lynch under the bus.

Hopefully, the White House has learned a lesson from this fiasco, and when the decision is made whether to indict Hillary, they will leave politics out of the decision.

David Baker

Riverside

Killers find ways to kill

I am not in favor of gun control laws and false senses of security. Laws do not control guns. At best, they control law-abiding people, and law-abiding people are not the problem.

Laws cant stop angry, crazy people from being angry and crazy. Crazy, angry people can commit mass killings with bombs, arson, flying planes into buildings, driving cars into crowds, sabotaging buses, poison, bacteria and more.

Letitia Pepper

Riverside

Sinners and saints

Re: Clinton is no saint [Letters, June 22]: Mr. Healeys letter is really stretching it a lot. According to him, Clinton is a liar, Trump is a saint and Obama, who was elected twice, does not love this country. Does Mr. Healey, and others, really believe this? Or are they just angry that a lot of the current politicians they elected are less than effective?

John W. Hartung

Menifee
A woman who police believe used stolen credit card information to make a purchase of over $800 at a Target store in Corona last month was caught on surveillance video leaving the store.

Police hope the public can be of help in identifying her, Corona police said in a Facebook post.

The woman entered the Target just before 9 p.m. May 11, police say.

Anyone who can help identify her from the image provided is asked to email Officer George Edwards at George.Edwards@DiscoverCorona.com, citing case number 16-6471.
The British are voting today on whether to leave the European Union. Americans should follow the British in reconsidering the wisdom of living under a centralized Leviathan in a distant capital  that is, Washington.

The vote on Brexit looks to be close. The two sides disagree vehemently over the economic impact of leaving.

Theres also a lively debate over the effect of EU membership on social policy. Some folks  generally more leftish in orientation  like being able to appeal to Europe to override the stodgy British parliament at home. But the majority of Britons are not so happy.

After all, that sacrifices sovereignty. It doesnt matter who people are. Almost everyone prefers to control their own lives. Yet the British government figures about half of economically significant laws originate in EU legislation.

Thats a major transfer of authority to a body which that from a democratic deficit. The EU has a top-heavy but fragmented  and unelected  executive. The European Parliament is elected, but only rarely do voters choose representatives based on European issues. So its not surprising that many Britons, as well as citizens of most other European countries, feel alienated from Brussels.

The issue shouldnt matter much to America. But Americans should ponder the principles at stake. Washington operates much the same as Brussels, as an overbearing Leviathan more interested in regulating and dictating than in liberating and empowering. If the U.K. would do better outside the European Union, might not individual and groups of states do better outside the American union?

On a wide range of issues, theres no reason to impose a national standard. The denizens of Washington, D.C., seem almost uniquely unqualified to decide how people across the nation should live.

Yet over the last century, in particular, power and authority have inexorably flowed into Washington. As a result, peoples liberties and states responsibilities have shrunk dramatically.

At the same time, a small bipartisan ruling party has protected its own, profiting mightily irrespective of who formally governs.

But Washington is more like ancient Rome than Brussels in one important way. Today, Americas capital acts like the old imperial city. The national government maintains hundreds of foreign bases, deploys hundreds of thousands of troops overseas and fights endless wars to impose its authority on distant lands. There is no sense of limits, no hint of humility, no belief in restraint.

At the same time, Washington has developed its own democratic deficit. The president is elected but most chief executives are re-elected almost irrespective of performance, and claim extraordinary authority in between electoral contests.

Congress also is elected, but most House members have guaranteed themselves near-certain re-election by manipulating the reapportionment process. The Senate re-election rate is only slightly lower. There is only a veneer of democratic accountability.

Indeed, the ability of the bipartisan ruling class to insulate itself from popular sentiment has led to the rise of sometimes ugly populism in both Europe and America. When the mainstream parties refuse to consider public concerns, voters turn to alternative voices.

In the U.S., there are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. In Europe, right- and left-wing parties campaign against immigration, liberalism, globalization, centralization, capitalism and more.

Americans should learn from the British. If the U.K. can break free from continental rule, then U.S. states can do likewise. Americans would be better off if they slew their Leviathan and started over. Its time for a vote on Amexit.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) has discounted media reports that the authority has receive clearance from the state towards the establishment of a Bank to boost the SADA zone.



The authority said although it has plans to roll out a financial scheme issue medium- and long-term loans to farmers, as well as small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in the three regions up-north, the move has not matured yet.



A statement signed Wednesday June 22 by Mr Paul Twum Barimah, Coordinator, Development Communications at the authority said:The request that SADA made to government, and received, was NOT clearance to establish a bank but a no objection to field a prefeasibility study. The idea has, therefore, not progressed to a status of clearance to establish a bank. SADA has, therefore, made no application to any institution to finance a bank.





Below is the statement:



Re: SADA TO ESTABLISH A BANK



The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) has noted recent media reports attributed to the CEO of SADA to the effect that SADA has received clearance from government to establish a bank.



For the avoidance of doubt, SADA has been scoping the possibility of a financing vehicle, which we propose as a Savannah Investment and Development Bank to support medium-long term financing in order to unlock the development potentials of the Savannah zone. We held a workshop on 4th October 2015 at Alisa Hotel in Accra with industry players to bounce this idea, which was warmly received.



The request that SADA made to government, and received, was NOT clearance to establish a bank but a no objection to field a prefeasibility study. The idea has, therefore, not progressed to a status of clearance to establish a bank. SADA has therefore made no application to any institution to finance a bank.



Signed

Paul Twum Barimah

Coordinator, Development Communications,

SADA

Source: kasapafmonline









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Brand icons of Glo Mobile Ghana will, for seven days, attend to customers in selected Gloworld shops in Accra, according to a release issued by the companys Marketing Department, Thursday.



Glo brand ambassadors Van Vicker, Yvonne Nelson, Nadia Buari and Jackie Appiah will join Glo staff in the companys customer retail shops, Gloworld at Osu, Ring Road and Accra Central to attend to all customers and fans visiting these shops from Monday June 27 till Thursday June 30.



The celebrities will also assist subscribers who need to update their SIM registration records to do so without stress, the release stated.



The release said the companys rationale for getting its ambassadors to interact with customers on the shop floor is to create an avenue for the Glo networks most cherished stakeholders to directly experience the excitement which the celebrated ambassadors bring to the brand.



On Monday, June 27th, Yvonne Nelson will be on duty at the Osu Gloworld shop on Oxford Street. On Tuesday, 28th, Van Vicker will attend to customers and friends at Ringroad Gloworld shop. It will be the turn of Jackie Appiah on Wednesday, 29th at Ringroad while Nadia Buari will have a field day with customers at the Accra Central Gloworld shop on Thursday, June 30.



Van Vicker said of the arrangement: It is going to be splendid! It is a fantastic experience to connect with fans and friends on the Glo network and this is one of those times that fans are able to meet us in a stress free environment, get served, talk to us, ask questions and even take selfies.



Yvonne Nelson described the plan as a good one to enable Glo subscribers get the kingly treatment that they always deserve. For me, it is going to be an awesome experience talking to customers and working for them, even if it is going to be for a limited period. I look forward to attending to them along with other staff of the company.



It is not just going to be about work alone as the ambassadors are also primed to create time for all and sundry on those dates at the selected shops.



They promised to make the experience worth the while for fans, friends and customers who walk into the shops on the designated dates as there will be loads of fun, chitchats, selfies etc. There are goodies for scores of the early birds, that is those who get to the designated shops on time on the chosen dates.



The statement said the company is designing more innovative ways of connecting with its subscribers and prospects through highly informal avenues.









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The Supreme Court has ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to submit the names of all those who registered with National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card to it.



The apex court has also ordered the EC to submit in writing how it is going to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards, minors and deceased on the voters register.



The EC is supposed to carry out the order by 29 June 2016.



An angry Georgina Wood, chairing a panel of five Supreme Court Judges, flared up at the response from the EC, then slammed the desk and in a stern voice, warned the Commission they will not sit and watch it distabilise the country, with the rest of judges nodding in agreement.



The EC had indicated that it was using its procedures to clean the electoral roll, but this did not include steps to remove names of people who registered with NHIS cards.



The court criticised the EC for failing to reveal its roadmap in implementing its earlier order on May 5 for the commission to take steps to clean the register.



"Let it be known that when we make a pronouncement and it is not complied with and the country gets into crisis then you blame judges. We will not allow that to happen," Justice Sulley Gbadegbe is said to have made this comment.



This latest order comes on the back of a recent application by former youth organiser of the Peoples National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan and one Evans Nimako, for clarifications from the court on its earlier ruling ordering the EC to expunge the voters register of names which were registered with the NHIS cards.



The Court has set July 5, 2016 to determine the credibility of the voters register.



Background



The apex court on May 5, asked the Electoral Commission to expunge from the current voters register the names of all persons who registered and voted in the 2012 elections, with the NHIS card as a proof of identity.



The ruling followed a suit filed by Abu Ramadan, and one, Evans Nimako, who in 2014 won a lawsuit that barred the use of NHIS cards for registration.



The two, among other reliefs, wanted the current register declared inappropriate for the November polls. But the EC after studying the ruling said its understanding does not suggest the use of any new process to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards, since there are already laid down procedures for expunging ineligible names.



The ECs explanation however angered Mr. Ramadan who felt the Commission was disrespecting the explicit orders of the court. His position was further strengthened when one of the judges who gave the May 5 ruling, stated categorically that the ruling was clear and unambiguous and that the EC must remove the names of persons who registered with the NHIS card.



We wont stop suing EC



Abu Ramadan who argued that he and his colleague; Evans Nimako are not harassing the EC with their suits said they will only halt such actions when they [EC] decide that they are going to give the Ghanaian people a credible register, credible voting process and a more credible and satisfying electoral process.

Source: Graphic.com.gh









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Currently in NSW and Queensland, abortion is a crime for both the woman and the doctor.

NSW Greens MP Dr Mehreen Faruqi has today presented an abortion reform bill to Parliament, and is rallying her colleagues to support the full decriminalisation of the practice, so it can be struck from the NSW Crimes Act.

Dr Faruqi says that its an issue that NSW government has been avoiding for 100 years. The NSW Crimes Act 1900 still states (but includes the 1971 loophole that this is void if a doctor says the birth will damage the womans physical/mental health):

Whosoever, being a woman with child, unlawfully administers to herself any drug or noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means, with intent in any such case to procure her miscarriage, shall be liable to imprisonment for ten years.

IT IS 2016. TWO THOUSAND AND SIXTEEN. AND STILL WITH THIS CRAP.

Faruqi said this about her bill:

This bill would make it clear that women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Decriminalising abortion is essential. Women and all people choosing to have an abortion as well as their doctors are not criminals and we need to remove the stigma and shame associated with it.

The bill also requests to install the same 150m buffer zones that Victoria recently established, which stop religious groups who frequently stand outside pregnancy clinics from abusing the women who enter them.

Currently, this is what Australia looks like in regards to legal abortions:

QUEENSLAND & NEW SOUTH WALES Its only legal if a doctor believes the womans physical and/or mental health is in serious danger. Due to an amendment in NSW in 1995, mental health now includes social and economic factors.

AUSTRALIAN CAPTIAL TERRITORY It has to be provided by a medical doctor. NORTHERN TERRITORY Its legal for women who are less than 14 weeks along. Plus, two doctors have to agree that the womans physical and/or mental health is endangered, or that the child will suffer severe foetal abnormalities. VICTORIA Its legal for women who are less than and including 24 weeks along. Past that, two doctors have to approve the surgery. SOUTH AUSTRALIAN Its legal, but two doctors have to agree that the womans physical and/or mental health is endangered, or that the child will suffer severe foetal abnormalities.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA Its legal for women who are less than and including 20 weeks along. Its really restricted after that.

TASMANIA Its legal for women who are less than and including 16 weeks. If the woman is more than 16 weeks, she must get approval from two doctors.

Dr Mehreen Faruqi presented the bill this morning. We will update this story as more information arises.

Source: SMH.

Photo: Greens.
A farmer took his horse for a casual canter across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this morning, to protest the New South Wales Governments proposed vegetation clearing legislation.

Lovely day for it. The farmer, Glenn Morris, rode down lane 8 of the bridge at around 10am t raise awareness of the legislation, which would allow farmers to clear native vegetation. Morris believes this will damage healthy soils and rivers.

We need vegetation on farms to protect healthy soils and rivers, and yet the State Government plans to allow important native vegetation to be cleared more easily, Mr Morris said in a statement.

Look, I feel like there is exactly one person whose awareness has been keenly raised as a result of this protest. Whoever is in that white hatchback directly behind Morris probably has a very keen sense of what is going on here.

Source: ABC News.

Photo: YouTube.
South Australia is having a rough go of it.

At a time when regional centres like Whyalla are facing the loss of their primary industries, Adelaides northern suburbs are preparing for the same fate. The looming closure of the Holden plant will have an economic impact that the city hasnt faced in well, ever, really. And, as it stands, the state already has the worst unemployment rates in the nation.

Still, like any Australian capital city, the economic and societal realities of the City of Churches are felt more profoundly by those experiencing homelessness. The Hutt Street Centre, of of ADLs largest charities focussing on the issue, say there are nearly 6,000 people in the state experiencing homelessness in some capacity.

That means when the Bureau of Meteorology issue a severe weather warning for Adelaide, including reference to damaging winds and intense rainfall, far too many South Australians have to face the elements.

But, if the Citys latest initiative has its intended affect, that number may be lower than usual tonight.

In a Facebook post thats since gone absolutely viral, it was announced the centrally-located Franklin St bus station would remain open to all-comers throughout the night, in an effort to keep people safe, dry and warm.

Responses to the decision have been overwhelmingly positive  as youd expect any common-sense demonstration of kindness to be, but its still bloody heartening to see.

Its not the first time the building has been opened during extreme weather, either. Late last year, as the mercury bust upwards of 40 degrees, the station was opened 24/7 so anyone around could take advantage of the A/C.

While the clouds loom large over the city, its worth realising this isnt the solution to an utterly systemic issue. It is nice to recognise the empathetic actions of a city looking after its own, though.

Source: City of Adelaide / Facebook.

Photo: @janel_leeeee / Instagram / City of Adelaide / Facebook.
Gawker today reports on a completely bizarre exchange between a judge and an accused murderer in a Georgia court last week, in which things degenerated into absurdity pretty quickly. Im not sure if theres any other way to describe this.

Basically, Judge Bryant Durham got into a verbal biff with Denver Allen, who is accused of committing a murder in prison last year. Allen was representing himself, and he got into a completely bizarre, violence and often virulently homophobic exchange with the judge. Inexplicably, Durham kinda played along.

Its a fairly interesting window into what happens when legal discourse kinda falls to pieces:

The judge  who, might I add, held the vast portion of the power in this exchange  proceeded to call Allen a queer and, uh, demand that he jack off in front of the court? Im just not sure this is regular procedure or should be encouraged in a court of law.

Allen is now facing charges of contempt of court for his obstinance and terroristic threats  not just for the completely off-the-wall exchange above, but because he threatened to kill the judges family. Which Durham apparently does not have.

If for some reason you are compelled to read this entire exchange, someone has uploaded it to Imgur. There you go, kids.

Source: Gawker.
Most of us hoping to reach a gender-equal, comfortable environment in the AFL have been pretty disappointed by the fact that no consequences have been given and no lessons have been learned by Eddie McGuires absolutely fucking foul drowning comments to sport writer Caroline Wilson.

There was a little bit of hope for the former when Richmond announced they were boycotting Triple M in an act of defiance against the AFLs apathy towards their own homegrown sexism, but it was short-lived.

Last night on The Footy Show, Sam Newman delivered a commentary that made the country groan so loud we basically made a baritone chorus that could be heard the world over.

He told AFL writer Caroline Wilson she was an embarrassment and that her jig was up. He also said this:

Now, you can understand if youre going to want to be equal and treated equally the point is dont complain when its too equal. The jigs up Caro, honestly and truly. You are becoming an embarrassment. Even if you were under water youd still be talking.

AFL commentator Sam Newman has weighed in on the recent Eddie McGuire scandal. Thoughts? #9Today https://t.co/6SCcBagYGi  The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) June 22, 2016

Jeeeeeez. Responses were mainly under the umbrella of furious:

Sam Newmans vitriol & the lynch mob in the the Footy Show crowd are the reason #EddieMcGuires comments need to be treated seriously.  Gemma Cafarella (@gemmacaf) June 22, 2016

Sam Newman you are an embarrassment, and shame on you channel 9 for allowing this clown on our televisions #9AFLFootyShow  Matt (@mattcheno) June 22, 2016

And I turn off the Footy Show for the last time I dont know whats worse Sam Newman or the brain dead inbred audience who applaud him.  Shane Mattox (@oxyriffs) June 22, 2016

I feel Sam Newman has genuine hatred for Caroline Wilson,; including in 1999 which I witnessed first hand. He must stop his vitriol.  Rhett Bartlett (@rhettrospective) June 22, 2016

If you disagree with Sam Newman on issues around societal manners, you can generally feel justified that youre a decent human being.  Paul Nolan (@pwnolan) June 22, 2016

Apparently Sam Newman called me a piece of shit on the Footy Show tonight. Nice to see lessons being learned in footy.  Erin Riley (@erinrileyau) June 22, 2016

Sam Newman should be sacked from everywhere. Appalling behaviour https://t.co/69fcjmKZFi  Asher Wolf (@Asher_Wolf) June 22, 2016

@AFLFootyShow @Channel9 @RebeccaMaddern9 sack Sam Newman now. What a disgrace. How can you give this man a platform?  Nicolle (@nicmumteach) June 22, 2016

Lets all say this together, shall we? Women being the butt of jokes about violence, intimidation or aggression, is not equality. It never will be. But it sure as hell isnt in our modern society, when 79 women died last year in domestically violent situations, or when current stats of sexual assault are floating around the mark of every 1 in 4 women.

If someones idea of equality is being able to make violent jokes  often the same people who think equality is about being able to punch a girl back  then them, their violent attitude, and the culture they perpetuate is the problem.

P.S. Did you know that Newman might be running for Lord Mayor of Melbourne? Yes! This man, who just told a woman on national television that she still wouldnt shut up if she was being forcibly held underwater, is thinking about trying for the position of Melbs Lord Mayor. Oh, and hes a strong Donald Trump supporter, too. Sorry for ruining your morning.

Source: Today Show.
The Chasers Election Desk has been good fun this election cycle, but they outdid themselves with a stunt on the show last night.

They approached election candidates with a small girl bearing everyones favourite Year 3 instrument, the recorder, and proceeded to play an atonal bit on non-music for as long as the candidate could bear it. Who would be the most patient candidate?

Well, turns out it was Labor candidate for Bennelong Lyndal Howison, who managed to tune in for a whopping four-and-half-minutes, proving that she is either massively patient with her constituents or plainly insane.

Bill Shorten, Richard Di Natale and Tony Abbott all met the same fate. Special shout out goes to Abbott, who tolerated precisely two seconds of recorder playing before looking for a means to terminate the encounter. Onya Tony.

Source: The Chaser.
Ok. Everythings ok. Try to keep calm. Breathe. Just breathe. This is  at best  unsubstantiated.

But holy shit did Michelle Obama reveal shes doing a Gilmore Girls cameo????

FLOTUS is celebrating the last few days of Barack Obamas Presidency by getting fully on board with Snapchat (her handle is michelleobama, get on it) and her first few days on the platform have been wild as hell.

Along with the revelation that Obama filmed a Carpool Karaoke segment with James Corden, Michelle today revealed that she had a very special guest in the White House, Alexis Bledel.

Bledel, still in the middle of filming the Gilmore Girls revival series A Year in the Life for Netflix, showed up on Obamas newly minted Snapchat feed in a series of posts, including one that HELLO MIGHT HAVE CASUALLY INDICATED THAT MICHELLE FREAKING OBAMA IS GONNA BE IN THE NEW SERIES.

EXCUSE ME IS MICHELLE OBAMA GOING TO BE ON GILMORE GIRLS pic.twitter.com/zsFfwJRErx  Marc Snetiker (@MarcSnetiker) June 22, 2016

Now, officially Bledel was in the White House to help Obama launch her Let Girls Learn initiative.

But, given that *SPOILER HORN* the OG series ended with Rory Gilmore going off to help then-Senator Barack Obama on his first presidential campaign, AND given that that definitely appears to be a script in Bledels hand, a cameo from the First Lady would seemingly make all the sense in the world.

Now as for what Obama is doing with a box of Pop Tarts, thats an entirely new mystery unto itself.

Still no time line for the release of the series, but each day that passes is a day closer to a Stars Hollow return.

GET KEEN.

Source: AV Club.

Photo: Michelle Obama/Snapchat.
Looks like Channing Tatum is taking his behind-the-scenes production talent to the small screen. His company Free Association is getting behind a buddy cop action-comedy named Iron Fisting.

Supposedly it takes the form of a fake Miami VIce-style Romanian cop show about two detectives trying to defend Nicolae Ceaucescus socialist government from the evils of capitalism. Sounds like a barrel of laughs.

The folks behind the creative side of this endeavour are Animal Practices Brian Gatewood and Alex Tanaka. Documentary Now! co-creator Rhys Thomas is attached to direct. Heres the poster for these bloody shenanigans:

There ya go. Keep an eye out for this one.

Source: Entertainment Weekly.

Photo: Getty Images.
The U.S. government should ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement and reach a trade deal with the European Union to address existing economic challenges, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report on Wednesday.

"The IMFs staff recommends the following policy actions ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership, conclude a trade and investment treaty with Europe, and resist all forms of protectionism," the report stated.

In October, 12 countries of the Pacific Rim region, including the United States and Canada, reached an agreement on the TPP trade deal, intended to deregulate trade among the signatories, which together make up some 40 percent of the world economy. The deal has yet to be ratified by the signatory countries.

Since 2013, the United States has also been negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal with the European Union, which involves the creation of a free trade zone. Such countries as Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland will also participate in the TTIP.

Related news:

> Vietnam to ratify TPP trade deal by August 9

> TPP could be rejected due to environmental concerns

> U.S. offers $30 million to help Vietnam implement TPP
Lou Barletta.jpg

Rep. Lou Barletta, R.-Pa., tweeted that Democratic ire should be aimed at the White House.

(Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com, file)

As chaos grew in the U.S. House on Wednesday, members of Pennsylvania's delegation to Congress took to Twitter to air their views on gun control and their thoughts on the sit-in.

Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican who represents the 11th District that includes parts of Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties, tweeted that protests should be aimed with the White House. Barletta added that Islamic terror was the real culprit.

If House Dems want to protest, they should picket White House for failure to take Islamic terror seriously. ISIS-pledged shooter in Orlando.  Lou Barletta (@RepLouBarletta) June 23, 2016

Administration so desperate to change subject from terror failures, even censored 911 transcripts from Orlando shooter to hide ISIS pledge.  Lou Barletta (@RepLouBarletta) June 23, 2016

House Dems' solution to Orlando terror attack is to suspend Americans' 5th Amendment protections to restrict 2nd Amendment rights.  Lou Barletta (@RepLouBarletta) June 23, 2016

Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican who represents parts of Cumberland County, all of York and Adams counties, as well as the city of Harrisburg, had not voiced any opinion on social media as of 11 p.m. Neither had Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who holds one of the state's Senate seats.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., was among those who joined the sit-in and publicly championed for it.

On my way to the House Chamber to support my @HouseDemocrats colleagues. It's time for action on gun violence. #NoMoreSilence.  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) June 22, 2016

Some believe theres nothing our nation, the most powerful in the world, can do to confront gun violence. I refuse to accept that.  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) June 22, 2016

Were a nation of people who have always sought solutions to difficult challenges; the scourge of gun violence should be no different.  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) June 22, 2016
Iwo Jima Photo Identi_PICK.jpg

In this Feb 23, 1945 file photo, U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan. The Marines Corps announced Thursday, June 23, 2016, that one of the six men long identified in the iconic World War II photograph was actually not in the image.

(AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal, File)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- One of the six men long identified in an iconic World War II photograph showing the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima was actually not in the image, the Marine Corps announced Thursday after conducting an investigation prompted by the claims of two amateur historians.

The Marines formed a review panel earlier this year after the two history buffs studied a number of photos shot during two flag-raisings atop Mount Suribachi during an intense battle between American and Japanese forces in 1945. They claimed the identifications made by the Marines of the six men in the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal included mistakes, and after the review, the Marines Corps agreed.

"Our history is important to us, and we have a responsibility to ensure it's right," Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement.

A panel found that Private First Class Harold Schultz, of Detroit, was in the photo and that Navy Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John Bradley wasn't.

Bradley had participated in an earlier flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, and his role took on a central role after his son, James Bradley, wrote a best-selling book about the flag raisers, "Flags of Our Fathers," which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

The Marines began a review after being contacted by researchers working on a Smithsonian Channel documentary spurred by amateur historians Eric Krelle, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Stephen Foley, of Wexford, Ireland, whose questions about the photo were first reported by the Omaha World-Herald in 2014.

More than 6,500 U.S. servicemen died in the battle at Iwo Jima, a tiny island 660 miles south of Tokyo that began Feb. 19, 1945. About 70,000 Marines and 18,000 Japanese soldier fought for 36 days before the Americans completely controlled Iwo Jima, which was deemed essential to the U.S. war effort because Japanese fighter planes were taking off from the island and intercepting American bomber planes.

Krelle and Foley compared a number of images shot of an earlier flag-raising and the raising of a second, larger flag captured by Rosenthal. They found discrepancies between what the men were wearing, their weapons and equipment they had, prompting Krelle and Foley to argue that some of the Marines had been misidentified and that Bradley participated in the first flag-raising but not the second effort that made for the famous image.

The Marines now agree that Schultz, who died in 1995 at age 70, helped raise the flag, along with Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley and Michael Strank.

Block, Sousley and Strank died at Iwo Jima before the photo was distributed in the U.S.

Neller said it's important to set the record straight but that the photo was never about the individuals shown in the image.

"Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps -- what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesn't change," Neller said.
A Lancaster County man is asking for forgiveness after admitting he lied about being a holocaust survivor and having escaped from Auschwitz.

Joseph Hirt, 91, of Adamstown, wrote a letter to LancasterOnline in which he says he lied in a misguided attempt to bring attention to the plight of holocaust survivors.

Joseph Hirt was born in Poland and has long claimed he was taken prisoner by the Nazis in 1941 in Belgrade. Now, a historian and members of Hirt's own family are calling his account a lie. (Terry Hartzell)

"I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz. I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally involved," Hirt wrote in the letter.

"It wasn't about me. I was wrong in using an untruth (my presence) in an attempt to enhance the important truth of the suffering and death of so many - not only Jewish people, but also others held in disdain by the Nazi movement."

Hirt has claimed for years that he was an Auschwitz survivor in numerous public appearances, speaking engagements and newspaper articles.

His claims were first questioned earlier this month by a New York State history teacher who became suspicious after watching Hirt speak in April.

The teacher, Andrew Reid, set about fact checking Hirt's claims that he was kidnapped by the Nazis and imprisoned at Auschwitz before eventually escaping as a wildly emaciated "60-pound skeleton with skin."

Reid said the timelines of Hirt's claims did not add up and that a prisoner number tattooed on his left forearm also belonged to another person, according to officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Hirt's own nephew confirmed that his uncle had made the story up, and that while there were distant family members imprisoned and killed in Nazi-run camps, Hirt and his immediate family members had instead fled Poland before the Germans invaded and were later rescued by the allies in Italy before being granted asylum in the US.

Hirt initially stood by his claims and argued against detractors like Reid and his own nephew. But the letter, delivered to LancasterOnline's offices on Wednesday, represents a shocking reversal and admission, one many didn't see coming.

"I was wrong," Hirt writes. "I ask forgiveness."

Hirt's nephew, Michael, was the only family member to publicly refute and condemn his uncle's claims when confronted with Reid's evidence earlier this month.

On Thursday, Michael said he was relieved that his uncle had "finally come clean," calling his years-long deception "a continuing source of embarrassment and shame for me."

Andrew Reid, the New York State teacher whose suspicions and research ultimately led to Joseph Hirt's outing and confession, issued the following response to his admission this week:

"I was very happy to read Mr. Hirt's confession of wrongdoing and public apology. I believe there is truth, that truth is not relative, and that the truth is the most liberating force in life. Also, as a Christian, I believe repentance, redemption, and reconciliation are more important than revenge and retribution. Therefore, while it is not ultimately my call to make, I would not support and would in fact discourage any legal action against Mr. Hirt. I wish him well. He has asked to meet with me and when time allows for a visit back to Lancaster, I hope to do so."

UPDATE: This article has been updated with reaction from Hirt's nephew and Andrew Reid.
William Simon Sullivan Jr.jpg

William Simon Sullivan Jr.

(submitted)

A Susquehanna Township man accused of stealing more than $5.7 million from clients in a pyramid-like scheme at his Net Pay Solutions payroll tax company is heading to Dauphin County court.

William Simon Sullivan Jr., 43, co-owner of Net Pay Solutions Inc., was bound over for court Thursday by Judge James Lenker after a preliminary hearing on charges including access device fraud and three count of theft.

Sullivan, formerly of the 900 block of South Progress Avenue, Susquehanna Township, is accused of using clients' payroll tax payments for his own use, paying for vehicles, vacations to Puerto Rico, his home and home renovations, according to Kristin Mertz, investigator in the attorney general's bureau of criminal investigations.

Mertz said Sullivan is accused of using new clients' funds to help cover previous payroll taxes, comingled clients' funds that were supposed to pay federal, state and local payroll taxes with his own funds.

"So it was like a pyramid scheme," said George Zaiser, senior deputy attorney general. "Yes," Mertz replied.

Net Pay, on Walnut Street in Susquehanna Twp., filed for bankruptcy relief in 2011. There was about $5.3 million in unpaid payroll taxes for 266 clients, and assets of $127,000, court records state. Net Pay closed in May 2011, but Sullivan was still using money left in the accounts through summer of that year, Mertz said.

Mertz said Net Pay had clients in 49 states, but the investigation is focusing on clients in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts and Maine.

They interviewed former employees and clients, and obtained bank and financial records, and Hollywood Casino regarding gambling, Mertz said.

Clients, which included nonprofit organizations, small businesses and corporations, had to pay their unpaid payroll taxes again, along with penalties and interest, Mertz said.

Sullivan's attorney, public defender John Arose, said his client disputes the charges, but had no further statement.

He asked Judge Lenker to reduce the $150,000 bail, since Sullivan is under supervision of federal agents and free on $25,000 bail on unrelated federal fraud charges in Pittsburgh.

Zaiser objected, saying Sullivan is charged with defrauding clients of "a huge amount of money."

Lenker kept bail at $150,000, which Sullivan has not been able to post, and he remains in Dauphin County prison.

A former employee, who worked at Net Pay in 2009-10, said Sullivan encouraged her to bring on as many new accounts as she could, and that she signed 131 new clients, court records state.

Mertz testified that the attorney general's office received the referral for the case in April 2013 from the Pa. Department of Revenue's bureau of tax criminal investigation. The revenue department had case for two years, and once it realized it was not a tax case, but a theft, they referred it to the attorney general for prosecution.

When the attorney general's investigation began in 2013 there were 249 clients, she said.

Between 2006-11, more than $616 million in client funds were deposited into Net Pay's general operating account, which was used to fund business operations, purchase personal assets and to transfer $16 million into a payroll account, said court records. By August 2011, the balance was zero, said Stephanie Zajda, state Department of Revenue investigator.

Sullivan told investigators he began experiencing financial trouble in 2005, and that the company was always behind in payments through 2011, court records state. In 2006, the company had zero net equity, and that payments from new clients were used to pay existing clients' unpaid tax liabilities, records state.

After 2006, Sullivan said he did not inform new clients that Net Pay was operating at a loss, records state, and blamed the financial problems on the IRS holding $750,000 of the tax funds. He admitted new clients' funds were used to pay other clients' obligations, and that he comingled Net Pay funds with his own personal accounts, records state.

Mertz said no charges were filed against co-owner Debbie Hanks because Sullivan handled payments from the Net Pay accounts.

Last October, Sullivan was charged with wire fraud by the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, accused of defrauding a payroll company where he worked in 2013-14.

Sullivan was indicted on 13 counts on charges he altered a payroll company's computer files to transfer more than $350,000 to his personal bank accounts. He is also accused of withdrawing $21,616 to buy a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

He was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, five counts of damaging a computer and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction, and faces a maximum sentence of up to 10-20 years and $250,000 fine on each of the charges.
ClintonTrump

Donald Trump has a lot of work to do if he wants to paint Pennsylvania red for the first time since the state sent George H.W. Bush to the White House.

Democrat Hillary Clinton is outraising him here by 3,353 percent, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Through the end of May, Clinton raised $4.8 million from Pennsylvania donors, while Trump raised $139,000.

A similar fundraising pattern was observed in other swing states, Florida and Ohio, and throughout the country.

In Florida, Clinton raised nearly $11 million, while Trump raised nearly $452,000.

In Ohio, Clinton raised $2.4 million, as Trump raised less than $100,000.

Overall, Trump ended last month with $1.2 million in cash on hand, while Clinton had $42 million.

"It's a problem nationally and in Pennsylvania, and he needs to address it and address it quickly," said Republican strategist Charlie Gerow.

Trump especially needs money and a ground game in Pennsylvania, where numerous polls have him and Clinton in a dead heat.

His campaign finance report contains mostly small donations from attorneys and blue-collar workers. Missing are the last names of some of the biggest Republican donors: Asher, Sasso, Templeton, Wagner, Simms and more.

"Trump has placed no emphasis on raising money. The sense is that has to change because what made him win the primary won't work in the general," said Terry Madonna, veteran political analyst and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College.

Pennsylvania is positioned to play a pivotal role in this year's presidential election.

Philadelphia will host the Democratic National Convention next month, and many political analysts say Pennsylvania is a battleground state - even though it has voted blue in every presidential election since 1992.

Trump will have to work hard to win Pennsylvania in the general election, analysts said, despite easily winning every county in the state during the primary.

He hadn't raised much money ahead of the April primary, so is there really any correlation between money raised and votes tallied?

Madonna said it depends on the state.

For example, a Republican presidential candidate could spend millions in California or New York, and it wouldn't be enough to get those states to send a conservative to the White House. The same dynamic would apply to a Democrat spending millions in Texas and the state not turning blue.

The money probably wouldn't matter in about 40 states, "but it matters here," Madonna said.

"He's going to have to raise money here and spend money here. This is a TV state," Madonna said, referring to the numerous campaign ads that air in Pennsylvania during an election season.

Then again, that thinking is all based on what has mattered in past elections.

"But this year," Madonna said with a laugh, "is so unconventional a year that we are all completely out of it."
A 17-year-old Sinking Spring girl and a 48-year-old man were killed as a result of a crash around 12:45 p.m. on State Route 322 in Lebanon County.

Danielle N. Beard was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash on Route 322 about three-quarters of a mile east of State Route 72. The other driver, Bryan L. Eberly, died of his injuries this evening, Cornwall police said.

Cornwall Police described the incident as a "violent head-on crash" in a news release. Beard was traveling west on Route 322 when she crossed completely into the eastbound lane and collided with a pickup truck towing a utility trailer, witnesses told police. Eberly, 48, of Ephrata, had to be extricated from his pickup truck and was flown to Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries hours later.

Beard's Pontiac Grand Prix sedan, Eberly's Chevrolet Silverado truck, and the utility trailer were extensively damaged, police said. The Lebanon County Accident Reconstruction Team is assisting in the investigation.

This post was updated to reflect that Eberly died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash and to correct a grammatical error.
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Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse addressed the city's recent homicide during a news conference Monday about Fourth of July festivities.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse plans to participate in a midtown neighborhood meeting next week_ one of two neighborhood meetings he plans to attend, according to his spokeswoman.

Joyce Davis sent a message over Twitter Wednesday announcing his participation in a "Quality of Life" meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday June 28 at the Second City Church, 251 Verbeke Street. The church is just down the street from the site where a man was fatally clubbed in a robbery while walking home from his brother's wedding celebration. The killer remains on the loose.

After the homicide in the 1200 block of Green Street, police told reporters they had noticed an uptick in recent midtown muggings, which further alarmed residents. Police had not previously publicly disclosed any robbery trends in midtown.

According to information released Tuesday, Police logged 10 muggings in midtown so far this year, but they declined to say whether they thought any were connected to each other of the early Sunday killing of Steve Esworthy.

Papenfuse also expects to attend a neighborhood meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 27, at the synagogue Chisuk Emuna, at 3219 Green St. That meeting had been planned weeks ago as part of a series of neighborhood meetings to allow the mayor to meet directly with residents.

The first of the mayor's neighborhood meetings was held at the Derry Street United Methodist Church last month. Additional meetings would be planned, according to a news release from Davis.

Midtown residents have been rattled by the tragic death of Esworthy, who was ambushed from behind. Residents said they planned to double-down on their efforts to keep their neighborhood safe. They already conduct weekly foot patrols, with one planned for 7:30 p.m. tonight, June 22.

At a news conference Monday about the city's Fourth of July activities, reporters asked whether visitors for Independence Day would feel safe. Papenfuse pointed out that the killing occurred at 1:30 a.m., "not a time that families or others would be coming into the city for the Fourth of July."

The mayor promised heavy police presence for the holiday and saturation patrols in midtown, following the killing.

"It's a serious event," he said of the killing at Monday's news conference. "It's a very disturbing and frustrating event for all of us here at the city of Harrisburg. Our heart goes out to the family. I understand why residents would be concerned and afraid."

But the mayor described the homicide as a "specific act of violence.

"It's not one that should give widerspread concern to the populace that there's something going on," he said. "This is a crime of opportunity and its very unfortunate that it happened."

The mayor said he was confident police would solve the case.

"The police presence will be strong and we will catch whoever did this," he said.
Chief Carter adresses Kipona unrest

Harrisburg Police Chief Thomas Carter says schoolchildren want to see police officers in schools. Parents aren't so sure.

(Daniel Zampogna, PennLive/2015)

HARRISBURG -- School board and community members are still apprehensive about the city police department's recent proposal to reestablish a program that would place police officers back in city schools.

Following a presentation by Harrisburg police Captain Gabe Olivera on the goals and benefits of the School Resource Officers (SROs) program to the school board's Community Relations Committee on Wednesday night, the majority of residents who chose to comment said they didn't believe it would help the already-strained relationship between the youth and police officers in the city.

"Without that bridge being crossed first, I think it would create more tension," said Kevin Dolphin, of Breaking the Chainz Inc.-- a community outreach nonprofit organization that works with at-risk youth and ex-felons. "The youth already have a resentment for authority figures."

Police Chief Thomas Carter, however, disagreed. "Most of the youth in this city, they want us back," he said. "They don't have a problem with the police. They want the violence to stop."

Dolphin said he disagreed with that, and said his nonprofit program is better suited to meet the needs of the students, since he works with them seven days a week in their communities and has earned trust and built relationships.

But it's not about competition, Mayor Eric Papenfuse said: "This proposal is not meant to compete with what you're doing. This is meant to work with you, to help reach as many youths as possible. We need as many mentors as we can get."

While school board member Matthew Krupp said he believed the program could be a "great opportunity to collaborate with the city," there are some challenges.

"For some in the community, including myself, not all interactions with law enforcement has been 100 percent positive," he said.

"This program scares me," another man said, using the term "school to prison pipeline" to describe what he viewed as its function.

Former school board member Jennifer Smallwood said she too feels there is a gap that needs to be bridged, and encouraged the current board to keep all options on the table, including previous discussions about having a district police force.

Olivera reminded the crowd that "We're not reinventing the wheel here." The district instituted an SRO program in 2000, which was disbanded in 2009 due to budget constraints.

He added that when the SROs first arrived in the schools in 2000, they were derogatively called "jack-booted thugs," but in 2009, students and parents were begging for the program not to be cut.

One woman on Wednesday night said if her son had had an SRO officer, she believes he could have reached out and gotten help, and perhaps have stayed out of jail.

"I think the gap will be bridged a lot," she said, "just knowing the SRO is there."

Another woman said her daughter was recently attacked on her way home from school, and said school officials did nothing when she tried to make them aware of the bullying problem.

"An SRO would have taken action to make sure your daughter wouldn't have gotten jumped," Carter responded. "We can do things faculty can't do."

City council member and Harrisburg schools graduate Cornelius Johnson said in the urban community, "A lot of times our first interaction with police officers is negative."

But, he believes the SRO program can help to change that.

"It helps to actually humanize officers," he said, then added, "In order for the SRO program to work, it has to be a partnership, catering strictly to our students in the Harrisburg district, and whatever is important to our district."

But a partnership between the city and the school district has its own gap to bridge.

School Board president Danielle Robinson called the SRO program "a bandaid and a diversion," and said she was disturbed that this wasn't something that the school board asked for.

"It was brought to us," she said.

Papenfuse has proposed that the pilot program be funded through federal Community Development Block Grant funds, and said the city council will be voting on that proposal within the next few weeks.

The following year, they would be looking for a financial partnership with the district to fund the program, if the consensus is that the program was successful.

"It's no longer us versus them," said committee chair Ellis Roy at the end of the meeting. "The operative word is 'Harrisburg'. And that's what we want to see advance. We're going to accomplish that because our community is crying for it."

Papenfuse reassured that the two officers being proposed for a "pilot program" next school year would be handpicked by Olivera and Carter, and that they would be seasoned officers with the right attitude and skills sets, and would receive specialized SRO training.

The SRO program is overseen by the National Association of School Resource Officers.
Vietnamese retailers have suggested lawmakers install non-tariff safeguards to protect local firms against the anticipated threat from foreign rivals as Vietnam rapidly opens its market.

Local retailers, including Nguyen Thanh Nhan, chief executive of popular supermarket chain Saigon Co.op, view the trend of foreign retail giants breaking into the Vietnamese market as a real threat to local retail companies.

Foreign retailers like Japans Aeon, South Koreas Lotte and Thailands Central Group have competitive advantages over local companies in terms of financial strength, hands-on experience and extensive supply chains, Nhan told the Vietnam News Agency.

He suggested the government use technical safeguards to protect the domestic retail industry as fewer barriers to entry will result in fierce competition between local and foreign retailers.

The government is not standing on the sidelines watching the domestic retail industry be taken over by foreign investors. Photo by VGP

Foreign investors are aiming to gain a firm foothold in Vietnam by setting up extensive retail networks in a short period of time, so they are either acquiring or forming partnerships with local businesses.

Many industry experts say that Vietnam's retail market will soon be flooded with foreign brand names such as Thailands Central Group, which has announced it will change the name of the recently acquired Big C Vietnam next year.

Central is in the process of changing the name of Big C discount stores in Vietnam by next year, even though it has the right to carry the Big C name for another decade, said Centrals CEO Tos Chirathivat in an interview with the Bangkok Post last week.

The Vietnamese government, however, has adopted a consistent viewpoint that the process of global integration has become an irreversible trend.

Mergers and acquisitions reflect a common trend in global integration, said Vo Van Quyen, head of the Domestic Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Vietnam has opened up its market to integrate further into the global economy, Quyen added.

He also pointed out that recent mergers and acquisitions have not involved local retailers, citing the recent $700 million purchase of German retailer Metro's Vietnamese arm by a major shareholder in Thailands consumer product group Berli Jucker as an example.

And the government is not standing on the sidelines watching the domestic retail industry be taken over by foreign investors.

For instance, Japanese retailer Aeon has shown an interest in forming partnerships with local firms like Fivimart and Citimart, but its ownership of these companies is capped at 50 percent.

Vietnams retail market is growing rapidly and full of potential. Official figures show that retail chains meet only 25 percent of the countrys demand, while the remaining 75 percent is catered for by traditional markets.

There are currently 8,660 outdoor markets, 800 supermarkets, 168 shopping malls and more than one million small family shops nationwide. It is estimated that the current figures will jump by 45 percent in the next four years, meeting only 40 percent of the demand.

Foreign-invested companies have accounted for 75 percent of retail revenue in Vietnam over the past 10 years, official figures show.

Related News:

> Flood of foreign retailers forces Vietnam to take action

> Vietnamese retail giant joins forces with local firms to compete with foreign rivals

> Foreign invasion threatens domestic retail market share

> M&As in Vietnam's retail market: Thai corporations the dominant players
Last July, after commuting the prison sentences of 46 non-violent federal drug offenders, President Barack Obama turned his sights to the local level.

In a speech to a Philadelphia gathering days after the "ground-breaking" commutations, Obama called for greater investment in prison diversion programs, like drug courts, which operate locally to get smaller-scale drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons. Obama said the courts "ultimately can save taxpayers thousands of dollars [per defendant] each year."

It is an approach that has become increasingly popular with law enforcement officials and politicians looking for new strategies in the 40-year-old and "floundering" War on Drugs.

One of those place is in rural Potter County, a situation covered in this story. But do they really work and are promises of taxpayer savings to be believed?

The following is a look at the growth of U.S. drug courts over the last 3 decades, their impact, realized benefits and where critics say they fail to go far enough.

* How many drug courts are there?

In 2015, there were nearly 3,000 drug courts in the U.S. according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP).

That number has grown from 1,000 in 2002, 665 in 2000 and 5 in 1991, according to the National Drug Court Institute, a branch of NADCP.

In 1989, officials in Miami-Dade County, Fla., established the nation's first drug court in response to prison overcrowding.

* Where are drug courts located today?

Drug courts are now in every U.S. state and territory, NADCP reports.

Last week, New Hampshire, a state particularly devastated by the ongoing heroin epidemic, expanded its drug court system to include one in each of its 10 counties.

In Pennsylvania, there were drug courts in 35 of the state's 67 counties as of October 2015. Potter County represents the only eighth class Pennsylvania county, those with less than 20,000 people, to have created its own drug court. Two other eighth class counties, Sullivan and Montour, share drug courts and judicial districts with neighboring municipalities.

* How are drug court participants selected?

In Potter County, for example, district attorney Andy Watson said each possible entrant is discussed amongst local judges and law enforcement before a vote is taken on whether to admit them.

"For the most part we agree," Watson said.

But Watson said others fall through the cracks, with state funding for the drug court only covering certain types of offenses. For example, Watson said, he can admit a first time heroin offender into the program, but not one for cocaine, pot or pills because those are only "level 2 offenses."

"We need more funding to get them into the program before they start using or abusing drugs," he added.

Article continues below video.

* How effective have drug courts been?

A study funded by the Department of Justice examined re-arrest rates for drug court graduates and found that nationally, 84 percent of drug court graduates have not been re-arrested and charged with a serious crime in the first year after

graduation, and 72.5 percent have no arrests at the two-year mark.

Between its inception in May of 2015 and March of this year, Potter County's drug court has resulted in 1,018 "sobriety days" for the participants. It has saved 2,162 jail days, seen 337.5 hours or $2,700 worth of community service performed and 5,279 drug and alcohol tests given. Of those tests, 5,268 were negative and 11 positive.

In March of this year, the court had 11 active participants -- the average age being 26 -- while two others were previously dismissed from the program.

"We incarcerate when we feel it's necessary to save someone's life," probation officer Derick Morey said.

* How many people are in drug courts nationwide?

Around 150,000 according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

* What is required of them?

In Potter County, for example, drug court defendants must attend regular Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings. They must also hold down jobs or perform community service, attend twice to thrice weekly meetings with a probation officer and twice monthly meetings with a judge, and must submit to regular drug tests and wear drug sensing patches.

* How cost effective are drug courts?

This is still up for debate. But the National Association of Drug Court Professionals says cost savings due to drug courts range from $4,000 to more than $12,000 per client. Nationwide, for every dollar invested in drug courts, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs alone, the Association says.

The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, meanwhile, claimed in 2011 that "Every $1 spent on drug courts yields more than $2 in savings in the criminal justice system."

A 1997 national survey of court administrators in 97 drug courts reported savings of as much as $400,000 per year accumulated from the reduction in pre-trial stays and jail beds alone.

* Are there criticisms of drug courts?

Yes. Critics, including the Drug Policy Alliance group, argue drug courts are not usually effective in addressing addiction or preventing long prison sentences because they "often 'cherry pick' people expected to do well," and "Many people end up in a drug court because of a petty drug law violation, including marijuana. As a result, drug courts do not typically divert people from lengthy prison terms."

Others say drug courts fail to fully adopt a public health approach to drug use and instead continue the criminal justice approach that demands punishment for infractions like a relapse. Requirements that participants attend Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings have also been called a violation of First Amendment rights because of the programs' emphasis on a higher power and the acknowledgement of a "supreme being."

"Citing the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, courts have consistently held that requiring an individual to participate in an A.A. or N.A. program is unconstitutional," says research by a senior fellow at the National Drug Court Institute.

* Are there other kinds of specialty courts?

The specialty court model is catching on elsewhere, and includes veterans' treatment courts, DUI courts, drug courts, mental health courts and homeless courts. All represent a shift away from the traditional one-size-fits-all judicial approach.
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Steelton Police Chief Anthony Minium

(Submitted)

Detective Anthony Minium was sworn in as Steelton Police Chief on Wednesday, June 22, by unanimous vote from the Steelton Borough Council.

Minium is a 13-year veteran of the Steelton Police Department and has served as Acting Police Chief since September 2015. Before joining the Steelton Police Department, he served as a Sergeant in the United States Army Military Police Corps and as a Sergeant with the Department of Defense Police.

According to Doug Brown, Steelton Borough Manager, Minium practices a community policing approach that involves partnership with residents, local business and organizations to build a stronger and safer community.

Since Minium became Acting Police Chief in September 2015, the Steelton Police Department has implemented community policing initiatives focused on building a rapport with the Steelton community, Brown said.
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Lower Windsor Township police say Alyssa Heltzel, 17, ran away from home earlier this month. She was recently spotted at a Walmart in Maryland.

(National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.)

A 17-year-old York County girl ran away from home, and police are seeking the public's help in finding her.

Alyssa Heltzel ran away from her Lower Windsor Township home on June 12, Lower Windsor Township Police said Tuesday.

She was staying in Ocean City, Maryland, and two days ago, was spotted at a Walmart in Elkton, Maryland, according to police.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children describes her as being 5-foot, 5-inches tall and 130 pounds. She has multiple ear piercings and tattoos on her left forearm and the right side of her torso.

Her hair was last seen dyed red.

Anyone with information should call the police, 717-244-8055.
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Thousands of people will descend on Philadelphia next month for the Democratic National Convention.

Local businesses are expected to benefit from that foot traffic and the convention's estimated $300 million economic impact, as Hillary Clinton is crowned the party's presidential nominee.

The Democratic National Committee has already awarded contracts for merchandising, construction, transportation and event production for the four-day event on July 25-28.

Of the $150 million already spent by the committee, most of the money has gone to local businesses owned by women and minorities.

For example, an African-American-owned transportation company will provide buses and shuttles during the convention, according to The Atlantic.

Another African-American-owned business was hired to print business cards for the event, the magazine reported.

Leap Starr, owned by Liz Jenkins Santana, won the contract to plan PoliticalFest.

Jenkins Santana, who identifies as Native-American, African-American and Caucasian, said the contract is a big win for a small business and the largest Leap Starr has received for a one-time event, The Atlantic reported.

According to The Atlantic, one of the biggest contracts went to Impact Dimensions, a Philadelphia company owned by Puerto Rican entrepreneur Luis Liceaga. The company and its subcontractors will make hats, shirts, lanyards and other products bearing the convention logo.

Liceaga, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, told the magazine that similar work for the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philly helped grow his business during the last decade.

"If it weren't for these conventions, my business wouldn't be what it is today," he told The Atlantic.

Census data shows nearly half - 47 percent - of Philadelphia businesses are owned by ethnic minorities, and it's important the 50,000 DNC visitors see that reflected at the convention, according to Tiffany Newmuis, director of diversity and community engagement for the Philadelphia DNC 2016 Host Committee.

"We want people to leave here having seen what Philadelphia is really like," she told The Atlantic.

She was hired specifically for diversity outreach and to make sure local businesses knew how to cash in on the convention, the magazine reported.

The Democratic committee pledged to give at least 35 percent of its contracts to ethnic minorities, women and LGBT-owned businesses, convention committee CEO Leah Daughtry told The Atlantic.

"When we talk about diversity and inclusion, it's not just about voting, but about where we spend our dollars," she told the magazine.

The DNC is also using unionized labor to build its stages and convention infrastructure.

How much money the convention will generate in increased foot traffic is unclear. The city estimates an additional 50,000 visitors, but the crowd for the pope's visit last year was far less than projected.

Philadelphia seems to have learned its lesson from that, according to reports.

After the pope's visit cost taxpayers $8 million, city council signed a contract with the Justice Department to be reimbursed for any security expenses that exceed its $43 million allowance, according to CBS Philly.

Some $27 million of that money has already been spent, with part of it going to an armored vehicle, the station reported.
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The armed trio from the Lehigh Valley arrested for driving with a large cache of firearms at the Holland Tunnel Tuesday have claimed they were on their way to New York to rescue a 16-year-old Wilkes-Barre girl, now identified as Jenea Patterson.

(screen shot)

The armed trio from the Lehigh Valley arrested for driving with a large cache of firearms at the Holland Tunnel Tuesday have claimed they were on their way to New York to rescue a 16-year-old Wilkes-Barre girl, now identified as Jenea Patterson.

One of the three arrested, Josh Cramsey, 50, posted to Facebook shortly before his arrest saying the group was headed to Brooklyn to "extract a 16 year old girl who went up there to Party with a few friends."

The Times Leader added that the post went on to say the teen was from Wilkes-Barre and "is scared and wants to come home. Last night she woke to find her friend's body next to her in the same bed were her friend died of another heroin overdose."

The Morning Call of Allentown identified the girl as Jenea Patterson, who was previously the subject of a statewide Amber Alert due to a July 2015 abduction by Walter McKinley Lewis, the Times Leader reports, adding:

A friend of the group arrested at the tunnel told the AP that one of them had received a call from Patterson Monday asking for help.

The AP reported that New York police had located Patterson as of Wednesday and that she wasn't in any danger.

However, a non-suspicious drug overdose death in the city matches the claim Cramsey made on Facebook.

Cramsey, whose daughter died of a heroin overdose, along with Dean Smith, 53, and Kimberly Arendt, 29, who was Patterson's former counselor, pleaded not guilty to weapons and drug charges Wednesday in an appearance at the Hudson County Courthouse.

Their bail was set at $75,000 each.
UPDATE:

A serious accident has closed route 322 from Route 72 to Boyd Street, Cornwall police say.

The accident happened around 12:45 p.m. on Quentin Road (Route 72) at Route 322. Drivers are asked to use alternative routes and watch for traffic control personnel.

For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.

Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.

Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
rozzi greenleaf

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (right) on Wednesday said negotiations continue on provisions of the child sex crime reform bill, House Bill 1947. Rep. Mark Rozzi (left) has been a vocal proponent of the bill. This file photo was taken at the conclusion of last week's hearing on the constitutionality of the bill.

(Ivey DeJesus/PennLive)

The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who last week stacked a hearing in favor of opponents seeking to defeat a proposed child sex crime reform bill, on Wednesday evening struck a more sensitive tone to victims of child sex abuse when asked why the panel had not taken action on the bill.

Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery County, said House Bill 1947 had not been taken up during a breakout meeting of the session on Wednesday because of ongoing negotiations to the bill.

Greenleaf, chairman of the committee, said members of his committee were still considering negotiations with "regards to the legislation that give victims the ability to sue such as fraudulent concealment."

As of midday Wednesday, it had not been confirmed whether the judiciary committee would take up the bill, amid negotiations to amendments. The panel met after a recess but did not take up the bill.

Greenleaf added that there were "other things that could be done too..such as a witness fund."

House Bill 1947 is at the center of a mounting call from victims of child sex abuse and their advocates. The bill would amend the state's child sex crime laws - the statute of limitations - eliminating all criminal time restraints to such crimes and amending its time provisions. The bill would extend the time frame victims could seek legal recourse against predators from age 30 to 50 - that same provision would apply retroactively to statutes that have expired. If passed, the bill would give scores of victims of child sex abuse - including those abused by priests - an opportunity to seek justice.

During last week's hearing, the judiciary committee listened to five expert witnesses testify on the constitutionality of the bill - all but one said the bill would violate state constitution.

Lawmakers have been under pressure from both sides of the issue - victims and their advocates on one side calling for reform, and powerful opponents of reform on the other side. The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and business industry lobby groups, most notably, have argued that the retroactive measure would be detrimental to their interests.

Victims and their advocates have been keeping close tabs on the bill since it moved to the chamber from the House in April. They widely claimed that Greenleaf has the ear of the Catholic Church and other powerful detractors of the bill. The bill passed in the House by a 180-15 vote.

Preparing to return to the Senate session from the breakout meeting of his committee, Greenleaf said the Senate leadership were handling the negotiations - not he.

Asked to comment on the validity of reports that the committee fully intends to strip out the retroactive language of the bill, Greenleaf said the committee "will decided that" and that the question should be put to "each member" of the committee.

"We will make that decision when it happens," Greenleaf said.

On Tuesday, an Altoona-based lawyer who has handled scores of cases involving victims of child sexual abuse, announced the lawsuits by two Blair County women who claim they were sexually abused as children by a priest of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. Richard Serbin is representing the women in civil action alleging fraud and concealment by the priest as well as church officials.

A grand jury investigation concluded in March found that the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese had for decades known and concealed the systemic abuse of children by more than 50 priest. The priest named in the lawsuits from the women being represented by Serbin was named a serial predator in that investigation report.

Greenleaf said that while victims already had legal recourse under "fraudulent concealment" claims, "there can be changes that make it easier to use."

Asked if his committee was dodging making public announcements about its meetings on the bill because of reports that victims intend to flood the hearings, Greenleaf said, "No, that's ridiculous."

Earlier on Wednesday, the office of Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, who helped steer the statute of limitations reform effort in the House, hand-delivered to Greenleaf and his committee members a letter urging them to move the bill to the Senate floor for a vote.

Rozzi, a survivor of clergy sex abuse, criticized the committee for its lack of transparency in handling the bill. Rozzi chided the committee for what he said had been a lackadaisical handling of a hearing on the bill last week.

"I understand that most people cannot really wrap their minds around the issue of child sex abuse, until they have personally met with victims, or read their stories or in the worse case, have suffered the same fate," Rozzi wrote. "Only then can one come to the clear understanding that statute of limitations laws are arbitrary and inherently unfair as they apply to child sex abuse."

Rozzi cited his own abuse at the hands of his priest to make the case that expired civil statutes could be legally revived.

"At the end of the day, what is clear to any right-minded person is that this committee should err on the side of victims," Rozzi wrote. "For once, vote House Bill 1947 as is without amendments and get this bill to the floor for a Senate vote."
COUDERSPORT -- Mayor Shane Nickerson glanced around the courtroom, with its sea of aging, wooden pews, and began:

"My name is Shane and I'm an addict and alcoholic. I've been sober for 25 years."

"Hi, Shane," the roomful of drug court defendants and law enforcement officials called back.

For the next 30 minutes, all listened as Nickerson recounted his journey from teenage addict to mayor in charge of the same police force that once hassled him as a youth with a penchant for death metal, delinquency and drugs.

He was compelling and candid, a gifted public speaker who often appears destined for higher office.

Mayor Shane Nickerson. Photo by Colin Deppen.

For now, he is the mayor of Blossburg, a tiny town roughly an hour east of here on Route 6, a two-lane asphalt ribbon lined on either side by seasonal motels, one-horse towns and Marcellus Shale wellsites.

His drug history is common knowledge locally, and the townsfolk there speak glowingly of their mayor, a rare Democrat in a conservative stronghold. Many see him as an unconventional asset in the fight against a growing local drug problem.

That Blossburg is fighting this problem shows how much this national epidemic has spread, from urban areas and upper-middle-class suburbs, to rural areas far from any city.

But Blossburg straddles a new American fault line, too.

This as a nationwide opiate epidemic has divided public opinion on how to best deal with the users fueling it: Many who sell drugs like heroin to support their habits and who blur the lines between respective ends in a supply chain.

Drug courts or prison diversion programs like this one in Potter County have emerged in response to, or alongside, that debate. They offer convicts treatment instead of jail time, and embody the growing belief that drugs are a public health problem and should be treated as such.

In doing so, he has emerged as an unofficial bridge between the local police department and an underworld they have historically sought to control but failed to fully understand.

"I said to one guy, 'We have three years to file these charges.' I said, 'You can either take the charges and let the court system do what they will. ... Or you can go to treatment and if you stay clean you'll never see these charges.'"

The arrangement had the blessing of a local judge and police, Nickerson said, and the man ultimately chose treatment.

He is currently clean and sober with a job.

"He might not make it, but we planted the seed," Nickerson added.

"He knows there's a safe place to go. He knows that there's a place to connect to."

'The beginning of something really big'

As Nickerson sat in Potter County's drug court on that recent Tuesday morning, waiting for his turn to speak, he reflected on the changes taking place both inside of the courtroom and out.

He's pushing for a similar drug court in his home county of Tioga and thinks the timing could be right given the changing political and public discussion about addiction and the ongoing erosion of stigmas.

He said people and politicians are both now acknowledging that "[Addiction] is a disease and we've got to do something different. This isn't working."

"That could have happened 10 years ago," he added, "but nobody had the nerve to do it. It should have happened 10 years ago. They're saying things I've been saying [and other people] have been saying for decades."

He continued, "But I'm encouraged, man, I think we're at the beginning of something really big. ... I know people who were locked up for forever because of this thing."

He was interrupted mid-thought by judge Leete calling him to the front of the room.

Leete introduced Nickerson and turned the floor over to him.

People filtered in from outside and others quickly found their seats.

The room eventually fell silent and after a brief pause, Nickerson began:

"My name is Shane," he said aloud. "And I'm an addict and alcoholic. I've been sober for 25 years."
Members of the Pennsylvania democratic delegation had near-perfect attendance at the sit-in on the floor of the House Representatives on Wednesday, where Democratic lawmakers demanded a vote on new gun control proposals.

The only Pennsylvania representative absent was Chaka Fattah, who offered on Wednesday to resign his seat following his conviction on racketeering charges.

U.S. Rep Michael Doyle, of Pittsburgh, was one of the house members involved in planning the demonstration, said his communications director Matt Dinkle. Doyle participated in the sit-in from its inception at about 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 22 and held the floor until 3:30 a.m. on Thursday morning.

U.S. Rep Brendan Boyle, of Philadelphia, delivered remarks from the House floor at 11 p.m. on Wednesday evening.

"I can't believe that we have to resort to this," Boyle said. House Republicans cut camera access to the floor when the sit-in began, and Boyle's speech was live streamed on C-Span via Twitter's Periscope app. "I can't believe that in a place that I was raised to think was the greatest country on earth, we are the country that by far leads the world in gun violence."

Boyle noted that mass shootings have increased in his lifetime, citing a statistic that "24 of the 25 highest casualty killings mass shootings have happened in the last 30 years." He also criticized lawmakers for holding "moments of silence but no moments of action" after mass shootings.

"There is a stain on the soul of America and we must heal it," Boyle said. "It begins tonight."

Watch Boyle's speech below:
pensions shutterstock art

(Shutterstock)

By Oren Spiegler

In 2001, a bipartisan band of greedy members of the General Assembly, with a wink from their accomplice, fake conservative Gov. Tom Ridge, set in motion the state employee pension fund calamity in which we find ourselves today.

And that's a burgeoning deficit estimated to be as much as a staggering $65 billion or almost twice the amount of the entire state budget.

Pension funds which were in surplus at the time burned a hole in the pockets of our "leaders", further demonstration of the mantra, "If you give them the money, they will spend it."

At the time, the vote for enhanced retroactive pensions was a whopping 176-23 in the House, 41-8 in the Senate.

How long will it be before a debt-wracked state like Pennsylvania or Illinois seeks and finds a way to slide out of its legal obligations to its pensioners on the basis that it cannot afford to pay?

How do we get out of the mess that members of the General Assembly, many of whom remain in office today, inflicted on us?

I have not the slightest idea, but I did not create the crisis nor did I call for a boost in already-superlative pensions.

We must entrust our "leaders" with the matter.

Action that has been taken to reduce costs by $5 billion over 32 years will not put a dent in the hole that has been created.

Oren Spiegler, an occasional PennLive Opinion contributor, writes from Upper St. Clair Twp., Allegheny County.
Vietnams Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and U.S. Embassy in Hanoi have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation in mitigating emerging diseases.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat and U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius signed the deal in Hanoi on June 22, a Vietnamese government statement showed Wednesday.

The MoU, which is aimed at creating a long-term framework for bilateral cooperation in fighting diseases, will enable the U.S. to help Vietnam train health professionals and develop basic infrastructure. They will also cooperate to identify and prevent potential emerging diseases not only in Vietnam but also in the world.

The signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding on June 22. Photo by VGP/Do Huong

Osius said Vietnam has worked as a front-runner in the region in the Global Health Security Agenda, and has played a leading role in the action program on animal-to-human infectious diseases.

The Global Health Security Agenda was launched in February 2014 to advance a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats, to bring together nations from all over the world to make new, concrete commitments, and to elevate global health security as a national leaders-level priority.

Over the past decade, the U.S. has assisted Vietnam in several projects involving the management and prevention of epidemics and emerging infectious diseases via the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Minister Phat said.

The U.S. Defense Departments program on biological threat reduction has also partnered with Vietnams Department of Animal Health and the National Centre for Veterinary Diagnosis to improve the capacity of laboratories and professional staff in the country since 2014, according to Phat.

Related news:

> South Korean woman contracts Zika on Vietnam visit

> First death of Zika patient

> Bacteria released in Vietnam blocks mosquitoes from transmitting Zika -Brazilian study
Hillary Clinton June 7

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets supporters as she arrives to speak during a presidential primary election night rally, Tuesday, June 7, 2016, in New York.

(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

With a key swing state in the balance, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has weighed in a controversial abortion-ban bill approved by the Pennsylvania House on Tuesday.

In a statement released Wednesday evening, the former Secretary of State noted that "in just the first three months of 2016, states across the country introduced more than 400 restrictions on abortion."

She continued:

"Now, Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are continuing the trend.

"I strongly oppose this bill. It interferes with women's constitutional right to safe and legal abortion, while doing nothing to advance women's health. It's also a reminder of just how much is at stake in this election.

"At a time when women's health and rights are hanging in the balance, Donald Trump has said women should be punished for having abortions, and wants to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade altogether."

Joined by many Democrats, the majority-GOP House voted 132-65 (with many Democrats joining to throw women under the bus) to adopt a measure sponsored by Rep. Kathy Rapp, a northwestern Pennsylvania Republican that does two things:

First, the bill would limit medically necessary abortions to 20 weeks, down from the current 24-week ceiling.

It would also sharply curtail the use of a common, second-trimester procedure known as dilation and evacuation, in which a fetus is extracted from the uterus with tools. The fetus is often torn apart in the process. Rapp's bill renames the procedure "dismemberment abortion."

If enacted, Pennsylvania would have one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

But the odds of that happening are long: Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has said he'll veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

A similar bill is before the Republican-controlled state Senate, but it is unlikely to come to a vote before the summer recess.

Clinton was locked in a statistical dead heat with Trump in a new Quinnipiac University poll of key swing states. She was effectively tied with the Manhattan real estate mogul, 42-41 percent.

The statement on the Pennsylvania bill could be a play for women voters, who overwhelmingly dislike Trump in most polls.

Second, it would also sharply curtail the use of a common, second-trimester procedure known as dilation and evacuation, in which a fetus is extracted from the uterus with tools. The fetus is often torn apart in the process.
THE DIALOGUE ART.jpg

PennLive's Opinion Page recruited a panel of experts to discuss what's happened to our political dialogue and what, if anything, can be done to fix it.

Meet the panel: (From left, above): Muhlenberg College political science professor Christopher Borick; David Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Philadelphia Daily News political columnist John Baer Franklin & Marshall College political analyst Terry Madonna and Philadelphia public relations executive Larry Ceisler.

The discussion, the first in a periodic series by PennLive's Opinion Page, was moderated by Opinion Editor John L. Micek.

Here's part three of our conversation:

MICEK: So let's explore that - what responsibility does media and government have to elevate the conversation?

MADONNA: It's hard to imagine a fix in the short run. The great hope is with the new largest age cohort, almost 70 million of them, the millennials. They are not as partisan, and for the most part not invested in politics. They do believe in community service and civic engagement. In time they will make up the largest pool of elected officials and influentials.

CEISLER: I don't know if they can fix it....all these people are copy cats and long to be on MSNBC and Fox. I think the Governor [Gov. Tom Wolf] has actually tried to make it more about public policy and less about personalities. But it is a tough go.

What is it Shakespeare said? "First, let's kill all the lawyers?" Maybe we need to silence the consultants.

TAYLOR: Did anybody tell [Wolf administration spokesman Jeffrey] Sheridan? He's the single most caustic spokesman in Harrisburg, always attacking leaders personally and questioning their motives.

BORICK: Perhaps the best hope for a less polarized and more civil political discourse will come in the form of fatigue with the contemporary state of affairs. There is clearly a weariness with the current condition and a desire for something different. In some ways that has helped fuel the rise of Trump who's communication style which is clearly different but has only made political dialogue more coarse.

In the end this hyper-bitter rhetoric may be a bridge too far and lead to public preferences for a a more reasonable approach to the way we communicate. I also agree with Terry's prognosis that generational shifts may ultimately drive a change to a different style of politics that is less ideological and partisan.

TAYLOR: Civic literacy must be a renewed priority for our schools. Every citizen needs to know the basics of U.S. history, American government, and the pivotal debates that have occurred over two-and-a-quarter centuries.

In 2000, Al Gore could plausibly claim that the Electoral College was a scam created by George W. Bush to steal the election, just because so many people were and are ignorant of how our system works.

And the worst bias in the media is the presumption that somehow the world started this morning. Context, precedent, and details on the conflicting goals and philosophies of the various interests must be imbedded in the coverage, otherwise it's all just noise.

BAER: My fondest, perhaps only, hope is people will tire of vitriol, having angry-talked themselves to a point of breathlessness, and then at last get hit with a slap of reality, see that they still don't have what they want, politically or policy-wise, and leave the field.

Or, better, or start a new and different game to make politics a place in the middle rather than the sole property of the fringes.

It might not be good for journalism but it'd sure be good for democracy.

MICEK: Thanks, everyone. We'll see you back here next time.
For 11 years, Sen. Pat Browne has been fighting to get a Senate committee to consider legislation that would extend anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community.

The Lehigh County Republican could never find a committee chairman willing to have a vote on his bill to move it to the full Senate floor for a potential vote - until Wednesday.

The Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee, chaired by Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York County, voted 7-4 to approve Senate Bill 1307 that would amend the state's Human Relations Act to include sexual orientation, gender identity/expression to the list of prohibited forms of discrimination in terms of housing and employment .

Browne called the committee's passage a major step toward guaranteeing equal opportunities for employment and housing for individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

"I applaud Senator Wagner for his leadership and support in ushering this legislation forward," Browne said in a statement.
Gov. Tom Wolf signed new regulations into law for one half of Pennsylvania's oil and gas industry on Thursday as part of a compromise with Legislative Republicans.

By signing Senate Bill 279, Wolf allowed new "Chapter 78" rules for unconventional drillers, who use a horizontal leg to reach fuel buried deep underground, to progress toward implementation.

Rules for conventional drillers, who reach fuel through more traditional vertical wells, will go back to the drafting table. Opponents of the Department of Environmental Protection's rules said the agency didn't do enough to differentiate between the two industries.

"As part of the compromise I reached with the legislature, my administration will get to work immediately to redraft conventional regulations, and I have directed the Department of Environmental Protection to begin the process," Wolf said, in a written statement Thursday.

The signing drew the support of Senate Republicans.

"I appreciate the efforts that made this new law a reality and thereby offer a much brighter future for the conventional oil and gas industry and the thousands of Pennsylvanians whose jobs and livelihoods are dependent on those operations," said Sen. Scott E. Hutchinson, R-Venango County.

Wolf also signed SB 1195, legislation that would allow the state to delay implementation of the federal Clean Power Plan, into law at the same time.

Environmental advocates said Wolf's support of the two measures marks a troubling change of heart following the departure of his administration's strongest voices on environmental issues: chief of staff Katie McGinty, policy secretary John Hanger and, most recently, environmental secretary John Quigley.

Since Quigley's resignation over an expletive-laced email he wrote in defense of the new oil and gas regulations, the DEP has rolled back a record $8.9 million fine against Range Resources.

"The governor's sending a signal that may be emboldening the forces of the fossil fuel industry in Pennsylvania," Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware County, said after hearing that SB279 and SB1195 had been signed into law.

Vitali, minority chair of the House's environmental committee, said he believes the Wolf administration didn't try hard enough to whip votes in opposition of the measure to roll back the conventional drilling regulations.

That will leave it in a weaker position when it comes to new challenges to the state residents' constitutional rights to clean air and water, he said.

Wolf, however, faced a difficult situation.

If he chose to veto SB 279, those familiar with the compromise said it was possible that opponents would have been able to mount the two-thirds majority required to override the veto. That, in turn, could have soured budget negotiations and led to another protracted impasse. Meanwhile, the conventional rules were also subject to a court challenge.

"For me, I have one issue to care about and I can't compromise on it," Vitali said. "But (the governor) has many issues. In this competing world, it seems he's just trading on this issue.

Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook.
With an average of seven people who died every day from an opioid overdose in 2014 and even a higher number in 2015, House Republicans and Democrats, along with Gov. Tom Wolf, stand together in saying it's time to put a laser-like focus on addressing this high-profile problem affecting thousands of Pennsylvanians.

In a rare bi-partisan gathering of House members in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, the lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf announced that a special session will be called to address the heroin and opioid crisis. It would be the 35th one called in state history.

"We have a Pennsylvania problem here we've got to address," Wolf said. "Pennsylvania is in crisis. Our fellow citizens are looking to us for action. This is a problem that we're all going to solve together."

The last time a special session was called was in 2009-10 and focused on transportation issues. Special sessions, which are authorized by the state constitution, are intended to allow lawmakers to focus on a single issue. They are usually more symbolic than productive but highlight interest in tackling an issue of importance to the commonwealth.

The lawmakers also announced that bi-partisan policy committee hearings will be held throughout the summer to help prepare bills to be ready to be voted in the fall session that work toward eradicating the crisis.

A number of initiatives have already been launched by the Wolf Administration as well as proposed in legislation to address this problem that has gripped not only the commonwealth but the nation as a whole.

"But by no means do we believe the idea box is closed so hopefully the special session really draws more attention to hopefully bring out new ideas," said House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana County. "I think that's our goal is to bring more folks to the table."

Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children's Justice, hopes to have a seat at that table to renew children advocates' call for forming a task force focused on the impact of this epidemic on children. Specifically, the advocates want to see more efforts made to prevent substance-exposed infants, improve outcomes for pregnant women and mothers struggling with addiction recovery; and improve the welfare of substance-exposed infants and young children at risk of abuse and neglect due to drug-using parents.

The Pennsylvania Medical Society also is supportive of the special session and looks forward to playing a role in shaping the policies that may emerge, said spokesman Chuck Moran.

The idea of calling a special session to place heightened attention on the issue was suggested by Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny County, who saw it as a way to focus attention on ways to combat this problem.

He said the special session will "allow us to better understand the legislation and remedy before us. It'll allow us elected officials both in the Senate and the House to dedicate ourselves to the cause and get results, not rhetoric. This is about saving lives and let's get to it."

Among the many efforts that have begun already to combat this problem are:

A law was enacted to provide for emergency service agencies to obtain naloxone, a drug overdose medication.

Physician General

The administration also made the overdose antidote available in every public high school.

The creation of a

The PA Drug Take-Back Program was expanded to increase the number of secure medicine return boxes to safely dispose of unused or expired medication, along with several other initiatives.

A pilot program launched within the state Department of Corrections to help inmates avoid relapses when they are released.

On Thursday, the House passed and sent to the Senate three more bills that take aim at the problem. Those bills would require insurance plans to cover abuse-deterrent opioid drugs; bar emergency providers from prescribing long-acting opioid painkillers in emergency room and place a limit on discharge of prescriptions; and require doctors and pharmacists to receive opioid and addiction-related training.

As part of his 2016-17 state budget demands, Wolf is asking for $34 million, that when combined with $18 million in matching federal funds, would be used to implement centers of excellence to expand access to treatment for 11,000 people. House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, said that proposal is under serious consideration in the ongoing budget negotiations.
Jellystone Park campground resort in Mill Run, in southwestern Pennsylvania, is the latest Pennsylvania campground to offer camping in the treetops with a new treehouse cabin.

The park, owned and operated by Randall Work and family, has installed a fully furnished, two-story treehouse that was first available for rent over Memorial Day weekend.

The treehouse is not exactly built on tree trunks, but designers Cavco Industries in Arizona and Daniels Wood Land in California gave the first floor of the cabin the look of a giant tree trunk.

Tracy Czambel, park operations manager, described it as "a unique, fun-looking cabin to stay in."

To enhance the feeling of elevation, the park installed the treehouse on a high point in the park, overlooking a section of the existing campground.

In addition to the tree-shaped based, the treehouse features log cabin style siding, a stone fireplace, an outside deck with barbecue grill. It currently sleeps four, but the park plans to add additional beds to accommodate larger families.

The treehouse joins 48 existing cabins at Jellystone Park in Mill Run, as well as a park model RV and 250 campsites. Learn more at the Jellystone Mill Run website.

Launched in 1969, the Jellystone Park system is the second largest chain of campgrounds in the United States, with 82 campgrounds in the system.

Lake in Wood Camping Resort near Narvon in Lancaster County is the other campground in Pennsylvania offering a treehouse camping experience.

The treehouse there is a cabin mounted atop four hefty tree trunks, with exterior stairway access, all nestled into a wooded site.

It features plenty of beds for the whole family, including bunk beds, as well as amenities like an indoor toilet and sink; microwave, dorm refrigerator, coffee maker and toaster, although all serious cooking must be done outside the cabin, which includes a gas grill for that purpose; television; picnic table and fire ring.

Lake in Wood also features 420 camping sites and about 30 other unique cabins, ranging from a train caboose to a covered wagon to a tipi.
Buses carrying hundreds of migrant workers to a factory on Wednesday were stopped by angry out-of-pocket locals demanding the employees take up lodgings with them.

Dozens of buses carrying workers to an electronic appliance factory in the central province of Nghe An had to stop several hundred meters short of the site forcing hundreds of workers to walk the final stretch to the industrial park.

Female worker Dong, who was on one of the buses, said she had been working at the industrial park for nearly a year with a meager monthly income of VND3 million ($130).

She cannot afford to rent a house or a room near the park, so to save money, she and her workmates chipped in to hire buses to get to work.

Over the last two days, local people have blockaded the road, forcing us to either change buses or walk a long distance to the factory. They even threatened people who asked for a lift on a motorbike, said Dong.

Some local people in Nghi Xa Commune, Nghi Loc District earlier this month sent a request to bus drivers asking them to stop transporting workers to the industrial park.

They explained that they had put up their houses as collateral for bank loans to build rooms for rent.

However, with more and more workers taking buses from home to the park, these rooms have been left vacant.

Bus operators must stop picking up workers [in the industrial park]. In seven days [after our notification], we will send people to block the road and take more serious measures. If it comes to that, we will not be responsible for what might happen, said the statement.

Hundreds of migrant workers went to work on Wednesday by bus as usual only to find the road to their workplace had been blocked by local people living nearby. Photo by VnExpress/H.B.

The road blockade has created public disorder and traffic congestion.

The incident started on Monday when some enraged locals incited the crowd to come out and prevent buses from entering Nam Cam Industrial Oark, said Colonel Nguyen Trong Tue, chief of police in Nghi Loc District.

Police have arrested four people for creating public disorder.

Local authorities have tried to talk to the locals and explain why blocking the road is wrong, said Hoang Duy Duong, chief of police in Nghi Xa Commune.

He added that local people have built more than 1,000 rooms for rent.

Nam Cam Industrial Park, located next to National Highway 1A 18 kilometers north of Vinh City, is home to many factories involved in automobile assembly, steel manufacturing and food processing.
The Petersburg Borough Assembly continued to hear public opinion on amendments to the Smoke Free Air Act ordinance at its meeting Monday. The discussion was the second reading and ended with the assembly removing any wording that would have permitted licensed marijuana retail stores to allow on-site marijuana smoking.

It sounds like the town has spoken, that they would prefer not to have smoking in a retail establishment and I feel that sounds like a solid plan, said assembly member Eric Castro.

Castro said he wanted to separate the commercial sale of marijuana from on-site consumption, and the removal of any opportunity for a retail facility was a good first step. The majority of the assembly agreed with Castro and multiple residents that spoke out against allowing on-site consumption, and the motion passed 5-1.

Susan Burrell attended the meeting and clarified her future plans for a retail facility, making sure to clear up any gossip going around. Although she was in favor of allowing smoking marijuana in a retail facility, she has no plans of applying for the necessary license.

I want to stress now that I have not in any way shape or form applied for a permit to smoke in my facility, if I ever get one, she said.

Petersburg resident Barbara Fish said she was completely against allowing smoking of any kind in a public place or retail facility, whether its marijuana or tobacco. Fish referenced current the ad campaign by the Alaska Tobacco Quit Line, and the positive work the organization has done to help many Alaskans stop smoking tobacco.

My feeling is that if you allow smoking of marijuana in a public place then, I dont want to use the word slippery slope, but like youre condoning smoking, she said. I think its a complete double standard to allow marijuana smoking and not allowing any other kind of smoking,

Katie Yeckley, Petersburg Indian Associations tobacco prevention and control director, requested terminology be added to the ordinance, and did not want on-site marijuana consumption.

Smoking is smoking, Yeckley said. It doesnt matter if its cigarette smoke or marijuana smoke, and it should not be allowed in any enclosed public places, including a marijuana retail facility.

Yeckley recommended the assembly remove the section of the ordinance permitting businesses to have a designated smoking room, even if they were compliant with regulations. She also desired an increase of the minimum distance for smoking cigarettes from local businesses from five feet to 10-25 feet. However, the majority of the assembly disagreed with those requests, and the wording of the ordinance remained.

Unless we absolutely prohibit smoking publicly downtown we cant solve some of those problems, in my opinion, said assembly member Bob Lynn. I get to thinking about those that are smokers, I am not, but is it right to chase them totally away or take all what they consider their rights away?

The third reading of the Smoke Free Air Act amendments will take place at the assemblys next meeting, along with the third reading of the marijuana ordinance. The next assembly meeting will have to wait until July 18, because the assembly will not have a quorum for its July 5 meeting, according to borough clerk Debra Thompson. The assembly must have four members physically in attendance, so the decision on the two matters will resume Monday, July 18.
Search and rescue teams looking for the missing sea patrol plane CASA 212 have found a second body belonging to a crew member at the aircrafts suspected crash site near Hai Phong this afternoon.

A source told VnExpress the second body is Major Nguyen Van Chinh, one of the nine crew members on board the crashed CASA 212. He was discovered by a fishing boat in the search area.

Earlier this morning, the MoD reported that they had found the first body, whose identity remains unknown, at around 10:00 a.m. near the site of an engine suspected to be a part of the CASA 212 plane. It was reported to be lying at a depth of 60 meters below sea level, 15 nautical miles to the south south-east of Bach Long Vy.

Around 6:30 p.m. local time, the Ministry of Defense issued a confirmation message that the search teams have been able to pinpoint the exact location of CASA 212. The message said the search teams have discovered an aircrafts engine, a number of bodies of crew members and the aircrafts debris which reads 8983 - CASA 212s registration number.

There are nearly 40 ships from the Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force Division and fisheries units currently searching for the crew and the black box from CASA, according to Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh, deputy chief of staff of the Vietnam People's Army.

Airbus, the maker of the sea patrol plane, is currently cooperating with Vietnam to identify the reasons behind the incident. On June 21, the company asked for data from the black box and CASAs cockpit recordings to be transferred to Airbuss office in Madrid (Spain) so they can reconstruct the accident for investigation.

Sea patrol plane CASA C-212 Aviocar 400, operated by the Vietnam Coast Guard, was reported missing on June 16 during a search mission for the Su-30MK2 Vietnamese fighter jet that crashed offshore the central province of Nghe An. The jet had two pilots on board, one of whom, Major Nguyen Huu Cuong, was rescued, but the other, Lieutenant Colonel Tran Quang Khai, 43, was found dead at sea.

Related news:

> Vietnamese search team finds body at CASA 212 plane crash site

> Vietnam Coast Guard homes in on black box of missing CASA plane

> Su-30 fighter and CASA-212 rescuer: the tragedy explained
Emmet County plans road work, new signs with ARPA funding

Bids will be going out this winter for a Camp Petosega Road project and new road signs throughout the county.
Oil producers output freeze talks on standby



Oil producers keep output freeze revival on standby if prices weaken

LONDON/DUBAI

Petroleumworld.com 06 23 2016

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has a contrarian message for those who question the wisdom of freezing global levels of oil output.

Despite the collapse of talks on restraining production among OPEC and non-OPEC members earlier this year, he thinks the discussions were a success that might soon be repeated.

"It (the build-up to the meeting) paved the way for a reversal of negative trends in the oil markets," Novak told reporters last week after meeting OPEC member Venezuela's oil minister Eulogio del Pino.

"We have seen a large amount of short positions being closed while long positions have been opened," Novak said in reference to speculative bets - shorts - in the market that prices will fall, and the opposite - longs - that they will rise.

The statement is important as oil ministers often talk about oil supply, demand and balance but rarely touch on how market speculators - dominated by hedge funds - build their positions.

Oil has risen to $50 a barrel, up 85 percent from a 12-year low reached in January as supply outages in Nigeria and Canada reduced the need to prop up prices. At its most recent meeting, in June, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries made no change to its pump-at-will output policy.

As del Pino begins another campaign to freeze global output later this year, watching price levels and the market mood will be key to gauging when top producers might step up cooperation - even if only verbally - despite mutual distrust.

So far, OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia has signaled it wants to avoid another drop in oil prices. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih has said the kingdom will prevent shocks by adding extra barrels to an already oversupplied market.

The rationale behind the move is simple.

Sources familiar with the matter say Riyadh does not want prices to fall again because of fiscal pressures at home and as it fears that a drop in oil investment around the world could lead to acute shortages and price spikes.

The world's top oil exporter is likely to keep its output relatively stable in coming months in what one source called "a confidence-building exercise" with Iran and non-OPEC producers - in case a joint deal is needed.

Saudi Arabia kept its crude production steady in May, while supply figures were higher as it pulled out more barrels from storage to meet seasonal domestic demand.

"WINTER RISKS"

OPEC member Iran has been the main stumbling block for a freeze as it insists it will be ready for joint action only once it regains output levels seen before the imposition of now-ended Western sanctions.

Del Pino told Reuters last week that Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh had told him Iran should reach desired output levels of 3.8-4.0 million barrels per day by September, making a deal on production restraint more likely.

The International Energy Forum, which groups producers and consumers, meets on Sept. 26-28 in Algiers. Qatar said OPEC members had agreed to hold talks on the sidelines.

Iranian sources say cooperation is possible but depends on where the market stands in September when OPEC and non-OPEC producers meet in Algeria, two months before OPEC's next formal discussions in Vienna on Nov. 30.

"We should look at the magnitude of the surplus in the market. At the moment, it is ambiguous because of the production disruptions in various countries. Maybe in a couple of months it will be more clear, said a source familiar with Iranian thinking.

A senior OPEC delegate said: Gulf countries will support any cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC."

"(But) it's too early to say now whether anything will happen in Algeria.

A number of OPEC delegates are concerned prices could weaken during the rest of the year as some of these barrels return. This came a step closer on Tuesday as Nigerian officials said militants and the government had agreed a ceasefire.

"The problem is with the supply side - it will depend on Iranian production, U.S. shale, Libya and Nigeria," said another delegate. "If the production of all these four goes up, then the second half will be a lower-price session."

Russia's Novak, whose country is not in OPEC, also said he feared price weakness this winter.

"Demand growth is falling and some volumes could return to the market after outages ... If prices begin to fall steeply again, then we will be able to and should continue consultations," Novak said.

Most observers believe though that even if agreed, any deal to freeze output would be a weak agreement compared to previous attempts by OPEC to cut output.

For veteran OPEC watcher Jamie Webster, the group would need more incentives than just a low oil price in order to reduce production.

The period of strong output growth among OPEC countries must be complete and the U.S. shale sector has to show it is inadequate at raising or lowering supply in accordance with short-term market needs, Webster said.






PEMEX ready to make a $500 million sale and leaseback agreement deal with First Reserve

Pemex said to have finalized similar deal with KKR last week

NEW YORK/MEXICO CITY

Petroleumworld.com 06 23 2016

U.S. private equity firm First Reserve and Mexico's Pemex are nearing a sale and leaseback agreement worth at least $500 million, sources familiar with the operation said on Wednesday, as state-owned Pemex rushes to get extra cash.

One source said the deal was worth $500 million, while a second source said it was worth close to $600 million, adding that the deal would be signed early next week.

Pemex and First Reserve both declined to comment.

Bloomberg first reported the deal earlier on Wednesday.

Pemex, which has suffered from a prolonged oil rout, will sell some of its infrastructure assets to First Reserve, but will continue to use them and pay rent.

The sale and leaseback deal is the second that Pemex has negotiated in recent weeks as it scrambles to raise funds to invest and pay down debt. The company also planned to sell some of its infrastructure assets to private equity fund KKR for $1.2 billion, Reuters reported last week.

Another source confirmed that the Pemex deal with KKR closed on Friday. KKR declined to comment.

Pemex, which has been weighed down by huge losses from crude prices, is seeking quick ways to get cash and pare its bulging debt.

Both sale and leaseback deals were arranged during the leadership of former Chief Executive Emilio Lozoya, a source said. Lozoya was replaced as chief executive in February by Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, who has launched deep cuts in Pemex's budget and projects, eating into the company's oil output.

First Reserve previously expressed interest in Mexico's oil sector, earlier this year taking a $900 million joint stake with asset manager BlackRock Inc in the second phase of a Mexico pipeline project.






Three thieves used pepper spray to knock out a Vietnamese citizen living in residential compound known as Sen Village in Ukraine yesterday before taking his money and fleeing the scene, local newspaper nguoivietukraina reported.

The robbery happened at around noon local time at a Vietnamese apartment in the southern city of Odessa. The robbers, disguised as businessmen, convinced a woman named Thao to guide them to the home of a Vietnamese man named Trung. When they arrived, the robbers immediately used pepper spray to incapacitate Trung before beating him and stealing his cash.

After hearing the commotion, other Vietnamese living in the compound rushed to the scene and chased after the criminals.

Fortunately, local police were pursuing a Chinese person for a traffic offense at the time of the incident close to the compound, and quickly captured the robbers.

One of the three robbers who was captured by Ukrainian police. Photo by nguoivietukraina

Sen Village is a residential area with about 300 apartments, most of which are owned by Vietnamese people living in Odessa. Life in the area is considered quite turbulent while security is relatively loose. There are no security checks for visiting guests and most of the guards are old.

Robberies are common in Sen Village, and thieves have been known to break down apartment doors in broad daylight. The current security situation is a major concern for the Vietnamese community living there.

In April, a robber broke into the home of a Vietnamese family and brutally beat a married couple before being subdued by their neighbors.

Ukranian police also conducted several raids on dozens of apartments in Sen Village as part of an investigation into illegal immigration in January and May.

> Vietnamese community raided in Ukraine on suspicion of criminal gang ties

> Fire engulfs Vietnamese market in Laos causing $8 mln in damage

> 20 runaway Vietnamese wives missing in Malaysia
Search teams of the crashed fighter jet Su-30MK2 have found some debris and have been able to pinpoint the exact location of the aircrafts crash site after 10 days since it went missing near Vietnam central coast.

Minister of Defense Ngo Xuan Lich has urged related agencies to accelerate the search operations for remaining crew members of CASA 212 - the sea patrol plane which also crashed on June 16 during a search mission for the Su-30MK2.

A debris of fighter jet Su-30 found at the scene. Photo by Vietnam Ministry of National Defense.

Lich requested all units to hasten the search for the two aircraft black boxes as well as the salvage of their wreckages. The defense minister also asked for the absolute safety of the search teams, especially during adverse weather conditions.

Major Nguyen Huu Cuong aboard the Russian-made fighter jet was rescued but the other pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Tran Quang Khai, 43, was found dead at sea.

For CASA 212, its exact location has been pinpointed by the search teams on Thursday, where they have found two dead bodies so far. One has been confirmed to be crew member of the sea patrol plane by a source of VnExpress. The identity of the other remains unclear.

Related news:

> Vietnam Coast Guard homes in on black box of missing CASA plane

> Airbus to help investigate crash of missing Vietnamese CASA plane

> Su-30 fighter and CASA-212 rescuer: the tragedy explained

> Debris from missing CASA search plane recovered
Search and rescue teams looking for the missing sea patrol plane CASA 212 found an unidentified body at the aircrafts suspected crash site near Hai Phong this morning, according to Vietnams Ministry of Defense (MoD).

Rescue workers have handed over the unidentified corpse to the MODs Forensic Department to determine whether it was one of the nine crew members on board the missing plane.

One of the engines of the CASA 212 is reported to be lying at a depth of 60 meters below sea level, 15 nautical miles to the south south-east of Bach Long Vy Island in Hai Phong Province, as the search operation for the planes black box enters its second day.

Yesterday, the MoD said it had detected fragments of the plane and located the crash site. Special forces from Vietnams Navy have been conducting salvage operations since then.

Minister of Defense Ngo Xuan Lich has ordered for the search to be accelerated while Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung asked rescuers to prioritize the search for missing crew members, salvaging the aircrafts engines and other fragments of the CASA 212.

According to Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Nhat, Airbus - the maker of the sea patrol plane - is cooperating with Vietnam to identify the reasons behind the incident. On June 21, The company asked for data from the black box and CASAs cockpit recordings to be transferred to Airbuss office in Madrid (Spain) so they can reconstruct the accident for investigation.

Sea patrol plane CASA C-212 Aviocar 400, operated by the Vietnam Coast Guard, was reported missing on June 16 during a search mission for the Su-30MK2 Vietnamese fighter jet that crashed offshore the central province of Nghe An. The jet had two pilots on board, one of whom, Major Nguyen Huu Cuong, was rescued, but the other, Lieutenant Colonel Tran Quang Khai, 43, was found dead at sea.

Related news:

> Vietnam Coast Guard homes in on black box of missing CASA plane

> Airbus to help investigate crash of missing Vietnamese CASA plane

> Su-30 fighter and CASA-212 rescuer: the tragedy explained

> Debris from missing CASA search plane recovered
Bangkok Airways will be touching down on Vietnam's sun-kissed island of Phu Quoc with the launch of a new direct route.

Bangkok Airways has just announced its plan to launch a new regular route from Thailands capital to Phu Quoc Island on an ATR-72 turboprop aircraft, according to the Bangkok Post. It will be the second direct route the airline operates to Vietnam along with the central city of Da Nang.

The Bangkok-based airline is also looking at opening flights to two cities in Myanmar as part of its strategic regional expansion in China, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Thailand's Bangkok Airways plans to expand in Vietnam by launching a direct route to Phu Quoc Island. Photo from BangkokAir.com

Bangkok Airways has been negotiating with other airlines for a code-sharing deal so it can launch regular flights to Phu Quoc, which is a popular destination for a beach escape among Western expats and sun-seeking tourists.

President of Bangkok Airways Cat Puttingpong said that with 10 flights a day from Hanoi to Phu Quoc, it was clear how attractive the island is to holiday-makers. The new route is expected to promote tourism and economic ties between Thailand and Vietnam.

Phu Quoc has been chosen as the next Vietnamese destination by Bangkok Airways after it started regular flights from Bangkok to Da Nang on May 25. The previous route the airline used to operate from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City was closed.

Related news:

> Air New Zealand touches down in Vietnam with new direct flight

> New Phu Quoc resort claims international award

> Something "fishy" on Phu Quoc: Five villages worth casting an eye on
Emphasizing high expectations, persistence, patience, resiliency, and an eye to the future, Walt Lovell brought the Elko High School Band of Indians to national attention while winning multiple awards and honors and teaching his students to strive for success in their future endeavors.

Walter Lovell was born in Cottonwood, Arizona and attended Northern Arizona University for his bachelors and masters degrees. After teaching for 10 years, Lovell and his family moved to Elko in 1978, starting his 36-year career as Elko High Schools band director.

Lovell quickly went to work, preparing the band for larger venues, especially out of state. In 1979, EHS was invited to perform in Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. Two years later, the band marched in Ronald Reagans Inaugural parade. Both appearances were viewed by a national television audience.

Over the years, the marching band was invited to various high-profile parades including Pasadenas Tournament of Roses, the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Holiday Bowl. They made another appearance at the Macys parade in 2000 and performed in Washington, D.C., in 2009.

The band was awarded 12 Nevada Governors Cup awards and was proclaimed The Pride of Nevada by five governors. The wind ensemble, concert band, and jazz band earned superior ratings in performance under Lovells guidance. In addition to directing the Band of Indians, he directed the sixth grade and middle school band.

Jazz Fest started in 1992 when Lovell brought professional jazz musicians to Elko, who mentored and then performed with students. The event included EHS alumni and local performers including Gene Russell and Emil Matys.

In addition to directing the band, Lovell and his wife, Karen, raised their family, Katherine, Ken, Karen, Kristen, Katie and Stacy. He was a part-time DJ for KELK radio and took part in fundraising, notably in 1990 to raise money for the Freedom Bowl trip when he was buried alive for 36 hours. Serving as a telethon, the event was broadcast over the radio and raised $7,000.

Lovell earned many honors and recognitions throughout his career including being named a Notable Music Educator, one of 50 Directors Who Make a Difference and being inducted into the John Phillip Sousa Foundations Legion of Honor.
ELKO  After five workshops throughout the state, the Nevada Cattlemens Association has an optimistic outlook for how federal agencies will handle grazing around the greater sage grouse.

Cattlemen President David Stix Jr. said the communication between ranchers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service has never been better. He said the intention of the workshops was to show the BLM putting its hand out to ranchers and building trust.

A key point the BLM is emphasizing is well managed livestock grazing is compatible with (sage grouse) conservation, Stix states in the associations Sage Signals.

In an interview with the Free Press, he said removing the cattle from the land is never going to be a first option with the BLM or the Forest Service.

Stix said other factors, such as drought, have forced some ranchers to move cattle, but that is common sense for the health of the plants on the range.

When the Greater Sage-Grouse Land Use Plan Amendment and implementation of Table 2-2 first came out, Stix said people thought it was a one size fits all plan. However, after attending the workshops he said that is not how the BLM is interpreting the plan.

With that said with how well the communication is with the state office, our biggest concern now is the BLMs communication with other federal agencies, he said.

During one of the workshops the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service disagreed with the BLMs methodology, Stix said. The BLM, Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife came up with the plan, but the BLM and Forest Service have final say over the habitat and the regulation of the habitat, Stix said.

Ted Cook (Nevada state supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) said as much in a meeting in front of about 20 witnesses, Stix said. He said that theyve already had their crack at that through the plan developed by the agencies. They cant come back and say thats not what we meant. So the Fish and Wildlife Service already had a bite at that apple.

Stix said the workshops helped overall, and left ranchers more optimistic.

The input weve gotten back from the industry has been very positive from those who attended the meetings, he said. I made a point of going to the meeting in Battle Mountain because the ranchers there (concerning the Argenta allotment) felt we werent speaking with a loud enough voice.

After the Battle Mountain workshop with the agencies the ranchers were happy the NCA had attended, Stix said.

The next set of workshops will be in December or January. Stix said there are still areas where studies have not been done to determine the site descriptions.

The BLM made it very clear that they are in it for the long haul. This will be a long process. It wont be done overnight, he said.

The plans do not close greater sage-grouse habitat to livestock grazing, nor do they require a one-size-fits-all approach to grazing allotments.  Nevada Cattlemens Association
For opponents of refugee resettlement, it had all the perfect themes. A rape committed by knife-wielding refugees. And not just any refugees  they were Syrians. The victim was a child. And not just any child  she was white and mentally disabled. The Muslim parents of the rapists condoned the attack  even high-fiving their boys and congratulating them afterward for humiliating the girl.

And worse, our local police werent doing anything about this heinous sex assault, prosecutors were covering it up, and local media were playing along in a vast conspiracy to protect the local refugee community.

If there was ever a story to prove a political point about the dangers of refugee resettlement  to scare people, to smear refugees and Muslims, to cast doubt on the government and journalists  this was it.

But as the community learned Monday, the entire story was false. There was no forcible rape. There was no knife. There were no Syrians. And the parents didnt celebrate.

What did happen, in fact, was some inappropriate touching in an apartment buildings laundry room, egged on and videotaped by two older boys. The youngest boy, only 7, likely didnt even understand what was happening.

Still, make no mistake: This girl was victimized, first by the boys and next by opportunistic racists.

Local opponents to refugee resettlement reached a new and almost unimaginably deplorable low when they took what happened to the poor girl and began to spin a web of lies around the incident to fit their agenda.

In just a few days, stories about Syrians gang-raping a child at knife-point were being reported as fact on refugee conspiracy websites and anti-Muslim blogs as proof that Syrian refugees are violent and dangerous and Islam is an oppressive religion of hate. Other, more credible outlets republished the stories without bothering to check their legitimacy.

By Monday, police, prosecutors  even this newspaper  were being inundated by calls from around the country from furious people who had no clue they had been duped.

Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs took the highly unusual step of speaking publicly about the case, which has been sealed because all involved were children. The attempts to exploit the girls experience by somehow linking it to refugee resettlement was so obnoxious, Loebs felt compelled to release a basic account of what really happened to dispel the lies being spread.

Not all opponents to refugee resettlement are racists, bigots and liars. But as this incident has proved, some clearly are.

There is a small group of people in Twin Falls County whose life goal is to eliminate refugees, and thus far they have not been constrained by the truth, said the prosecutor. They have not been constrained by the truth in the past, and I dont expect them to be constrained by the truth in the future.

Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury briefed the City Council about the situation on Monday night, also hoping to dispel the lies. Two of the three boys have been arrested and are being held in a juvenile detention facility. Officers and paramedics responded quickly when parents called police. Theres no evidence that the parents of the boys congratulated their sons.

Similar incidents  where children commit sex acts against each other  happen several times a year in Twin Falls County. Never in those cases do we hear demands for justice like we did in this case. Never do police face such public criticism.

So whats different this time?

Ruthless refugee opponents exploited the girl and sought to bring out not the better angels of our nature but the worst. Thousands of people shared the contrived story about Syrian rapists on their social media accounts, stoking renewed calls for an end to refugee resettlement and a fresh round of anti-Muslim maligning.

And the liars almost got away with it.

Both Loebs and Kingsbury deserve congratulations for taking a stand for the truth. They didnt have to speak out about this case, but both understood that doing so had to be done for the sake of our community.

As for the refugee opponents who concocted the despicable lie, there simply arent words to describe the shame and contempt you deserve.
I am so stoked to bring back the Swatch Bangers Tour for season 2 - for the first episode we left the bus behind and switched out the jump bikes for trail bikes - it was an insane trip with a dream crew...next stop on the trip is Swatch-Prime Line for another amazing adventure. - Sam Pilgrim

Sam Pilgrim returns with season 2 of the Swatch Bangers Tour as he brings together a crew of his closest friends and some of the best freeriders in the world and together they go in search of unique riding and the best adventures possible.In episode 1 Sam is joined by Matt Jones, Yanick Granieri and Blake Samson as they travel to Gran Canaria in an all out attack on the island. Expect the usual behind the scenes chaos coupled with awesome riding in this unique location.Gran Canaria set the scene for episode 1.Yanick switches out his dirt jump bike for his trail bike.Matt Jones takes one for the team.Blake Sampson getting all the angles.Go-Kart racing has become a Bangers Tour tradition.New Bangers Bus?Stay tuned for episode 2 of the Swatch Bangers Tour as Sam heads to Swatch Prime Line in Munich for the next stop of the FMB World Tour. Thanks to Swatch, Monster Energy, GoPro and Continental. @sampilgrim / @blakes19
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement after the Supreme Court of the United States failed to reach a majority decision on the case United States v. Texas. President Obamas Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) will remained blocked.

I am extremely disappointed that the Supreme Court failed to reach a majority decision, resulting on a 4-4 tie. Todays split decision did not rule this program unconstitutional. It highlighted how a hobbled Supreme Court is unable to provide justice to the American people. It showcased the need for a fully functioning Supreme Court and for Republicans to move without delay on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. Until that happens, this commonsense program will remain blocked and millions of families will continue to live in constant fear of losing a loved one to deportation. I call on the Department of Justice to explore all possible legal options, and I strongly support the call for a re-hearing when there is a full court.

Not satisfied with gridlock in the Senate, Republicans are bringing gridlock to the judicial branch. In recent weeks the Supreme Court has deadlocked on many important cases and questions before it. Because of Republicans' unprecedented obstruction and failure to do their constitutional duty, millions of American families are not getting the justice they deserve.

This politically motivated lawsuit brought forth by Republicans does nothing to address our broken immigration system and only serves to sow fear and uncertainty in homes across the country. It also attacks American families: the vast majority of families who would have qualified for DAPA and DACA include American citizens that have been part of our communities for decades. This case is a direct Republican attack on Latino families.

Republicans had countless opportunities to vote on the immigration reform bill passed by the Senate in 2013. Instead, they chose to waste time and taxpayer money trying to defund the immigration actions, end birthright citizenship and deport DREAMers. Republicans say they want a legislative solution to our immigration problem, however, these actions reveal their true intentions. I urge my Republican colleagues in Congress to work with Democrats to find a common sense solution to our countrys immigration problems.
Sometime between Saturday and Wednesday, China plans to launch a brand new rocket from a brand new launch site, and conduct a small-scale test of its next-generation crew capsule.

An actual launch target has not been confirmed, but online sources indicate the first attempt will be made Saturday, June 25, possibly around 11:30 or 12:00 UTC (6:30 or 7:00 a.m. EDT).

The rocket is the Long March 7, a medium-lift launcher expected to become the new workhorse of China's space fleet. Among other things, it will be capable of blasting cargo freighters to the country's Tiangong 2 space station, which should launch later this year.

The test flight will also christen China's new spaceport, located on an island in the South China Sea.

It's a big milestone for the country's space program, which has human spaceflight plans that include a three-module space station (launching after Tiangong 2) that is expected to be completed around 2022.
The Rumble in the Rubies has sputtered to a stall. After a 16-year run of the Elko Motorcycle Jamboree, the downtown corridor will be quiet next June.

We think organizers handled the event well and we understand the decision to kill the event must have been a tough one. It was a controversial affair from the beginning, but declining participation was cited as the reason for its demise.

One underrated challenge for the Jamboree has been the weather. Although last weekend was perfect for such an outdoor gathering, many previous jamborees have faced cool or rainy conditions that bikers found uncomfortable. Elkos weather is very iffy prior to the summer solstice, and we cant help but wonder if the event would have lasted longer if it was held at the end of June when the chances of warm, dry weather are much greater.

The first Jamboree in 2001 prompted an influx of law enforcement prepared to keep the peace. The biggest enforcement problem over the years, however, was not mayhem caused by rowdy out-of-town biker gangs, but overcrowding of the jail with local residents whose celebrations got a little out of hand.

A core of downtown business owners also objected to the venue from the start, requesting the city move it to a more suitable location. It remained where it started, in the downtown corridor, where former Stockmens owners Jack and Marcy Simon had arranged it to help, not harm, local businesses during the kickoff to the summer season.

In those early days the event brought thousands of bikers to town. Big-name musical acts such as the Beach Boys, Joan Jett and Nazareth were a big draw and both local residents and visitors flocked to the corridor for the free concerts. But the weather could be so fickle that the bike-wash babes didnt know whether to bring their bikinis or fur coats.

With no plans for a 2017 Jamboree, we wonder what type of event might take its place. Northwestern Nevada has its Burning Man, but what kind of outdoor attraction could Elko offer to mark the beginning of summer? Its an important time to celebrate because as soon as it finally starts warming up in Elko the days start getting shorter.

Hopefully the downtown business owners can come up with something original to draw the size of crowds that the Jamboree once did. If anyone has suggestions please send us an email at editor@elkodaily.com and we will help get the word out.

In the meantime, locals can enjoy the long-running Lamoille Country Fair this weekend and the National Basque Festival, which always falls around Independence Day and its outstanding fireworks displays.

The following weekend bring the Silver State Stampede and Elkos Art in the Park.

Everyone should get out and enjoy their favorite summer event. You never know when it might be your last chance.
Mike Comisso Analyzes His Queen-High Hero Call at PNIA Golden Nugget

June 23, 2016 Mo Nuwwarah Editor

A couple of weeks ago, I covered the $1,675 buy-in Poker Night in America at Golden Nugget event, which came down to a heads-up battle between Mike Comisso and Vinicius Lima. It was a back-and-forth affair, and ultimately Lima prevailed.

One of the hands that stuck out from that tournament was what looked like a pretty wild call from Comisso, one in which he picked off a huge bluff by Lima holding just queen-high.

I caught up with Comisso at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino, where he was putting in a session grinding single-table satellites on a day off from World Series of Poker bracelet events. He agreed to walk me through his thought process on the hand, which arose late in their battle at a point when the players were close to even with about 2 million chips each.

PokerNews: It's heads up and he completes from the small blind at 25,000/50,000/5,000. The flop comes . You end up leading out 75,000 with . What was the reasoning behind that?

Mike Comisso: In retrospect, I don't even like my lead. At the time I was thinking that he had been limping a lot and he hadn't seen me lead yet. So part of me was like, let's just switch it up and see how he reacts to it. In retrospect, I don't even like that play necessarily.

He just completed preflop, and you guys were generally playing pretty aggressively. What was your sense of what kind of range he was limping the button with?

That was a big part of the reason I ended up calling [later in the hand]. He had shown down a few hands he had limped, and it had always been small connectors and gappers, five-four type of hands. He actually hit that board pretty hard, that's one of the reasons I probably shouldn't have led it.

The turn comes the . You check-called 140,000. It's a pretty big bet, what's your thinking there?

His sizing is what really kind of made me suspicious. He bet really big. I remember thinking, well he doesn't have that many kings in his range. If he had bet smaller I might have just folded right there, because he could rep or .

He bet so big which polarized him, meaning he had either a really good hand or a really bad hand. What hands does he have? He doesn't have , he would have raised that preflop. Even would have been a raise or . Why is that turn so exciting for him that he's betting so big? Queen-high might still be ahead here, so I went ahead and made the call.

On the river, it's the . Two flush draws miss and a lot of straight draws miss. He fires huge, 475,000 into 540,000. That sent you into the tank. That's a big bet  was that what you were thinking about?

Yeah, same thought process as on the turn. I don't think he really has these big value hands he's trying to rep. He would have raised high cards preflop, unless he was trapping. If he's trapping, I'm just beat. Small chance he has a lower two pair like . Basically it comes down to either he missed a straight draw or some kind of flush draw and doesn't have a pair  because he would want to check back a lot of stuff that has me beat  or he has a big trap or two pair. When you run the math, there's a lot more combos of missed draws.

To be honest, I kind of wanted to call quickly. I remember thinking, this is going to be on TV. If I make this call and I'm wrong, I'm gonna look like the biggest idiot on the planet.

That was my next question  how does being on TV change things?

It really does. That's the reason it took me so long. After 30 seconds if you watch it on TV, you can kind of see me twitching because I wanted to just flick the call in. But I was like, oh my God if you're wrong, Phil Hellmuth's gonna say you blew up.

Was there a timing aspect to the read? He fired in there pretty quickly.

Yep, along with the big sizing, I felt like he was just over-repping and I feel like he just missed a straight draw.

Where does that rank among the most memorable hands you've played?

Number one by far. I've never made a call that sick. It's tough to call with queen-high.

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Two Ouachita Parish, LA, deputies were shot early Thursday morning while attempting to serve a felony warrant with U.S. Marshals.

Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell told the News Star the suspect, Rickie Lavelle Wade Jr., 26, of Monroe, was taken into custody at approximately 8:40 a.m., after leading law enforcement agencies on a manhunt in a southern Ouachita Parish neighborhood.

The two deputies were reportedly shot with a .45 caliber handgun, one in the leg and the other in the jaw. They were taken to area hospitals for treatment of their injuries. Russell said one deputy was transported to LSU-Shreveport for further examination. Both were listed in stable condition.
The Baltimore Police officer who drove the van in the Freddie Gray case was found not guilty on all charges this morning in a bench trial presided over by Judge Barry Williams.

Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, had faced the most serious charges of any of the six officers indicted in Grays death last April, including a second degree depraved heart murder charge. In addition to the murder charge, Goodson was also charged with three counts of manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Some protesters have gathered outside the courthouse. The Baltimore Police are on alert and the governor of Maryland says the National Guard is available.
Before a former school officer in Georgia allegedly left a police dog in a hot patrol car this month resulting in the animals death, he may have shot and killed another police dog in 2012, the Cherokee County Marshals Office said Wednesday.

Daniel Peabody, 50, who was arrested this week in connection with both deaths, resigned last week from his position as a lieutenant with the Cherokee schools police.

The resignation came just days after a dog named Inca died from heat stroke on June 10. Peabody said he forgot about Inca, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois, when he went into his house about 4:15 p.m., Cherokee Chief Marshal Ron Hunton said.

It was the investigation into Incas death that produced evidence suggesting Peabody shot and killed the other dog, Cherokee marshals officials said Wednesday.

That dog, a yellow Lab named Dale, was assigned to Peabody from 2007 to 2012 when he lived in Paulding County, WSOC TV reports.

Investigators and forensic veterinarians are trying to determine exactly what happened to Dale, including exhuming the dog from his burial site at Peabodys former home.
Former Brown County, WI, DARE officer Kevin Vanden Heuvel grew so accustomed to the money he was stealing from the program that he volunteered to keep working for the program after his retirement.

Sheriff John Gossage made that claim Friday at Vanden Heuvels sentencing hearing before Brown County Circuit Judge Kendall Kelley.

Kelley ordered that Vanden Heuvel will spend two years in prison and seven on extended supervision for stealing at least $46,222 from the countys anti-drug program. Vanden Heuvel must also make restitution for the money he stole as director of the DARE program and perform 500 hours of community service.

Gossage, saying he and other officers felt betrayal, anger, and victimization, asked Kelley to impose the maximum penalty of 6.5 years in prison, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports.
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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) went on CNN and helped the Democratic protest get stronger with a disastrous interview that dismissed the American peoples concerns about gun violence with NRA talking points.

Video of Ryan on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer:

Speaker Paul Ryan to @wolfblitzer: House sit-in on guns is a "publicity stunt" https://t.co/44kEXII1KZ https://t.co/fJHSNpBcG2  The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) June 22, 2016

During an interview on CNN, Speaker Ryan said, First of all they know that we will not bring a bill that takes away a persons constitutionally guaranteed rights without their due process. We dont agree with that and the Senate already doesnt agree with that. I think the point here, Wolf, is that this is a publicity stunt. Theyre trying to get you to ask me those questions for publicitys sake. This isnt trying to come up with a solution to a problem. This is trying to get attention.

Ryan denied that the NRA had anything to do with nothing happening on gun control, and said that the Constitution is the reason why Republicans are blocking all gun control bills.

It is interesting that Republicans never cared about the due process violations of the no-fly list and terror watch list until it involved the ability of domestic terrorists to buy guns. Ryan also claimed no responsibility for turning off the C-SPAN cameras.

Speaker Ryan spent the rest of the interview trying to dodge questions about Donald Trump.

By criticizing Democrats for trying to bring attention to the gun violence issue and get action, Paul Ryan made things worse. Ryan never struck a tone of compromise or willingness to work with the Democrats on a solution. Instead, Speaker Ryan continued to use the NRAs talking points about due process while denying votes on legislation that would make it more difficult for terrorists to buy deadly weapons.

Republicans are losing this fight in the court of public opinion, and Speaker Ryans smug dismissal of the gun violence problem just made things a whole lot worse for the Republican Party. Republicans continue to side with terrorists and the industry that makes money off the fear that created by each mass shooting.

Paul Ryans CNN interview is proof of why the bloodshed will go unchecked until Republicans lose their majorities in the House and Senate.
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Hillary Clinton hammered Donald Trump and highlighted his bigoted immigration policies after the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on President Obamas immigration executive actions.

After the Supreme Court deadlocked at 4-4 on a case brought by the state of Texas related to President Obamas immigration executive orders, Hillary Clinton said:

Todays deadlocked decision from the Supreme Court is unacceptable, and show us all just how high the stakes are in this election. As I have consistently said, I believe that President Obama acted well within his constitutional and legal authority in issuing the DAPA and DACA executive actions. These are our friends and family members; neighbors and classmates; DREAMers and parents of Americans and lawful permanent residents. They enrich our communities and contribute to our economy every day. We should be doing everything possible under the law to provide them relief from the specter of deportation.

Todays decision by the Supreme Court is purely procedural and casts no doubt on the fact that DAPA and DACA are entirely within the Presidents legal authority. But in addition to throwing millions of families across our country into a state of uncertainty, this decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obamas nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Our families and our country need and deserve a full bench, and Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote.

This decision is also a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country. Trump has pledged to repeal President Obamas executive actions on his first day in office. He has called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes.

I believe we are stronger together. When we embrace immigrants, not denigrate them. When we build bridges, not walls. That is why, as president, I will continue to defend DAPA and DACA, and do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families. It is also why I will introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship within my first 100 days. Because when families are strongAmerica is strong.

The Supreme Courts non-decision puts the focus squarely back on Trumps bigoted immigration rhetoric. Every four years both parties say that the stakes have never been higher than they are now, but in the case of 2016, it is true.

Clintons promise to introduce comprehensive immigration reform in her first 100 days in office was huge. While Trump wants to build a wall, Hillary Clinton wants to build a legal path to citizenship. Thanks to Mitch McConnells obstruction of President Obamas Supreme Court nominee, the American people are being given an eyeful of the difference between Clinton and Trump, and what they see is a clear choice for between a public servant with a plan and D-list celebrity who doesnt have a clue.
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Adolf Hitler wrote, and Donald Trump seems to have taken to heart, that, The psyche of the great masses is not receptive to anything that is half-hearted and weakThe masses love a commander more than a petitioner. That is Donald Trump to a tee. Clearly, he has imbibed more than Hitlers speeches.

If the masses are receptive, those who ought to condemn Trumps message of hate all too often remain silent instead, or even offer tacit support. Religious leaders remain silent or cheer lead Trump on, and the mainstream media asks him softball questions and fails to challenge his obvious lies. And his associations with hate group leaders who advocate violence against gays, Muslims, and others.

The other day, Trump met with Operation Rescues Troy Newman. Newman previously supported Cruz as a co-chair of Pro-Lifers for Cruz, and now he has thrown his support behind Trump. Newman says the federal government has a responsibility to execute abortion providers.

You will look in vain for mainstream media coverage of this meeting, let alone its denunciation, though Dana Milbank did pen an op-ed for The Washington Post last year and detailed the often-violent imagery used by conservative leaders on abortion is unwittingly giving the unhinged some perverse sense of justification to contemplate the unspeakable, and named Newman among the unhinged.

We need more of this. Not less.

Back when Newman was with Cruz, NARAL, PFAW and Planned Parenthood sent an open letter to the Cruz campaign, demanding Cruz fire Newman:

Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, has written that the U.S. government has a responsibility to execute abortion providers. He has said that a woman who has sought an abortion should be considered a murderer and a contract killer. Newman has claimed that a man who killed an abortion provider should have been allowed to argue that the killing was justifiable defensive action. Newman and his staff have harassed individual womens clinic workers at their homes, at restaurants and coffee shops, and throughout their communities in an attempt to make them quit their jobs. Newmans closest associate at Operation Rescue, Cheryl Sullenger, has spent time in federal prison for conspiracy to bomb an abortion clinic.

Newmans harassment of abortion providers got him deported from Australia. Here in the U.S., as MMFA pointed out, in May of this year, PBS invited Newman to appear in a post-screening discussion of an anti-gun-violence documentary, all without revealing his long history of harassment.

This is all the more shocking when you consider Newmans complete unreliability as a source of information. MMFA reminds us:

Newman previously served as a board member for the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), the organization responsible for propagating a smear campaign against Planned Parenthood so fraudulent that CMP earned the title of Media Matters 2015 Misinformer of the Year. CMPs deceptively edited videos purporting to show the illegal sale of fetal tissue have been repeatedly discredited, while numerous state investigations have cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing.

A violent liar. Like Michele Bachmann, Newman is almost tailor made to fit Trumps campaign.

As PFAW Executive Vice President Marge Baker said in a statement:

Even for someone as extreme and dangerous as Donald Trump, meeting with someone with Troy Newmans record is shocking. Just as Donald Trump has called for women to face punishment if they have an abortion, Newman has called women who have an abortion contract killers and murderers. And his record doesnt stop there: Newman has actively called for government to execute abortion providers. That kind of rhetoric, even in this heated political environment, should be completely unacceptable.



No one who aspires to the White House should go anywhere near someone like Troy Newman. Trumps utter disrespect for women and disregard for their rights should deeply concern us all.

As Faithful Americas Executive Director, Michael Sherrard, said yesterday in a statement, hundreds of right-wing evangelical leaders took part in a Donald Trump campaign rally organized by Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson. Church leaders should be taking on Trump  not cheering him on.

Nor, as he pointed out, were they alone:

Just last week, both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention gathered for their annual meetings. Both groups continued their bogus campaigns against the Obama administration, but neither took any action to condemn Trumps racist rhetoric and proposals.

This silence is particularly disgusting when it comes to Trumps embrace of Troy Newman, who says the government has a duty to execute abortion providers. A presumptive nominee for president should not be meeting with proponents who advocate what is nothing more than judicial murder. That is another area in which Donald Trump stands all too close to Adolf Hitler.

Photo: Operation Rescue
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When Donald Trump was pressed for evidence to back up his claim that foreign governments hacked Hillary Clintons email server, Trump fell apart and offered nothing but vague promises.

Video of Trump on The NBC Nightly News:

Donald Trump: "I think I read that and I heard it"@LesterHoltNBC: "Where?" Trump: "I will report back to you" https://t.co/eAHkzFPEra  NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) June 23, 2016

Transcript:

Lester Holt: You also made the claim that her email, personal email server had been hacked by foreign governments.

Donald Trump: But you dont know that it hasnt been.

Holt: Suggesting that she would be compromised as president. What evidence do you have that?

Trump: Well, first of all, she shouldnt have had a personal server. She shouldnt have had it. What she did was illegal. Its illegal. Now, she might not be judged that way because you know we have a rigged system. But what she did was illegal. She shouldnt have had a personal server.

Holt: But is there any evidence that she was hacked other than routine phishing attempts?

Trump: I think I read that, and I heard that, and somebody also gave..

Holt: Where?

Trump: also gave me that information. I will report back to you. Ill give it to you.

It turns out that Donald Trump isnt such a tough nut to crack after all. Trump cant handle follow-up questions, and any interviewer who wants to cut through his babble just needs to not the presumptive Republican nominee off of the hook. Trump has no evidence that Clintons server was hacked by foreign governments. He is making stuff up off of the top of his head and hoping that it sticks.

No one gave Trump that information because the hack never happened. Trump thinks that he can lie and bluff his way to the White House, but as journalists are pressing him more, it is becoming obvious that he is a one-trick pony. Donald Trump cant handle the heat, and when he was asked for evidence to back up his claims, he fell apart.
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Cassie Peterson, from Clear Lake, Iowa, has been putting the Midwest touch on dishes in this season's " MasterChef " competition on Fox.

Last week, though, turned out to be Peterson's final episode. Though she didn't make it as far as she would have liked, she said on her Facebook page that "20th place out of 30 some thousand ain't bad," which sounds like a great outlook to have with her experience.

"I was born in Mason City, and lived in Clear Lake for a while and moved around and lived all over, spent a majority of my childhood in the tiny Amish town of Kalona," Peterson said. "I went back to Clear Lake when I was in middle school and that's where I graduated high school.

"I've always really enjoyed cooking," she said. "I was always moving all over the place, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom and she cooked a ton, so that was all I did. I didn't have too many friends, just because we never stayed anywhere long enough.

"In Kalona, I remember how the whole town always smelled like bread baking, and even as a child I noticed that the town centered around food, hard work, and simplicity," Peterson said. "So I learned a lot about cooking when I was really young, and I really enjoyed it. But I didn't think that I would be able to make it in a career that way, so I went to school to be a police officer."

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Something's cooking

In school, though, Peterson took a job in the central kitchen, where she worked as a dishwasher at first. "It was horrible, but I just really wanted to learn what it takes to be a chef."

When Peterson suffered a broken back in a car accident, she couldn't go on with her police studies. She thought, "I've always had something to do with food, I'm just going to do it, life is way too short to not do what you love." She opened her own bakery in Mason City, Iowa, called the Cupcake Store.

"MasterChef" features home cooks, people who might have had a background making food professionally, but who are not professionally trained in any way. Some of the contestants have catering businesses they run from their homes, or have worked in restaurants, but they have never gone to culinary school.

Peterson, in fact, was out of the restaurant business when the opportunity arose to join the show in its seventh season.

"I took a break from baking to kind of switch gears before this happened anyway," she said. Peterson attended an open tryout in Minneapolis, where she took a dish she had prepared ahead of time. She found herself one of a couple thousand other aspirants.

Passionate about food

"I was one of the first ones to try out for the day," she said. "A bunch of you go into a room and these food critics and judges walk around and try your dish  and give you feedback and pick your brain a little bit and feel you out. After that, I got to meet the executive producer of the show and went home and made an audition video and sent that in. A few months later, I heard back from them and found out I was selected to go to L.A.

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"I got to L.A. and there were a bunch of other people there and we all just cooked our butts off to try to prove ourselves," Peterson said. "It was awesome. There's never been a contestant on the show from Iowa before, and I felt they were really missing a whole world of food, a whole cuisine. I decided to go on the show and show the world how awesome the food is here and how passionate people in the Midwest are about their food.

"I think they were kind of blown away at one point when we were just kind of messing around in the kitchen and the producers walked over to me going, 'Cassie, WHAT are you doing?' I was like, 'OK, here is a burger, everyone can make a burger, but THIS burger has molten beer cheese all over it and it's got potato chips ground up into the patty...'

"They said, 'So, you have potato chips in your burger and you are smothering it with cheese infused with beer?' And I just replied, 'Absolutely. It's not good for you even a little bit, but it's delicious.' The producer grabbed the pan, tried a little bit, didn't give me any feedback, she just grabbed the pan and the spoon and was walking around eating beer cheese out of the pan."

As for her finish, Peterson said, "I was worried that people would be so disappointed in me. I had so many people cheering me on. So many people have been so supportive. Now that it's over and my final episode aired, I can just sit back and really enjoy this whole experience.

"I know I didn't make it as far as I hoped I would, but in the scheme of things, I made it farther than I ever dreamed and won more than I could ever wish for," she said.

Pageant winner

Big congratulations to Madeline Van Ert, of Rochester. She is our new Miss Minnesota for 2016.

I first featured Madeline last year when she won the Miss Rochester 2015 crown and went on to the Miss Minnesota pageant.

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We'll touch base with Madeline again in the fall when she heads off to the Miss America Pageant.
If you love kitchen collectibles like I do, one hot collectible now is the kitchen scale.

In my recent travels I have noticed antique, vintage and retro scales at flea markets and antique malls. I have also noticed many shop owners and farmers market vendors using scales.

History

Scales were made to weigh everything from coins to food products, babies and more. The first were balance scales, followed by spring scales, then electronic scales in the 1940s. Today you can find scales made from brass, cast-iron and plastic.

Fancy postal scales in decorative wood, silver, marble, bronze and mosaic are even found, and collectors have found them all. The most popular scales are the small gold dust scales and special farmers market/grocery scales.

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I love the Dayton candy style scale and the Molen produce scale, a fun, industrial type to hang in a kitchen to hold produce. And of course my favorite  you can find it in many decorator magazines  is the 1940 American Family scale that comes in colors from cream yellow to red and more. They were made in the U.S. and are valued at $95 or more in good working condition. The 1940 Montgomery Ward family scale in black to green is also a nice find.

Kitchen scales lately have gathered a real dedicated group of collectors, but what is really a nice find is a Jaybee wicker baby scale that can be found in blue, white and pink, around $100 in great condition.

Seeking more information? I recommend the book "Scales: A Collector's Guide," by Bill and Jan Berning.

Where to find

Many older homes, you'll find, have lost their charm in the kitchen. Details are lost when modernizing, so more folks are heading to antique shops, flea markets, thrift shops, country auctions, online auctions and any online selling sites in search of a vintage anything that can bring back the charm to the home. They are also choosing things like enamel kitchenware and vintage kitchen scales to bring back that vintage charm.

Recently, I spoke with shop owners to discover this year's biggest trends, among which is the kitchen scale. Sarah Kieffer, owner, Sarah's Uniques and Jim's "Man"tiques Antique Mall, St. Charles, told me, "I have several scales right now. I have small- and medium-size scales that all work. They are great looking on an old cupboard and most definitely can be used as well. I also have a large platform scale that would weigh grain, corn and more that is (in the) $100 range and the others are from $30 and up."

Chris Rand Kujath, owner of Old River Valley Antique Mall, Stewartville, said, "Scales have been very popular and a great seller. Most people think of kitchen scales, but so many different types and styles of scales can be found. We usually carry fishing, feed, grain and butter scales. I love the brass scales, and we currently have an antique Winchester-Howe brass grain scale with bucket. Prices vary depending on the material they are made of, if it has advertising on (it), and the condition."

Angie Pehler, owner of Angie's Vintage Rust at Treasures Under Sugar Loaf, Winona, said, "Collectors of old nostalgic kitchen items are buying for use and displays in their kitchens since they find those Pinterest ideas using scales and other unique antique and vintage items. I can't keep scales long in my booth, and my last scale sold for $22."

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Weighing in

Merchant General Store in Black River Falls, Wis., is a place where you can sit down and have an old-fashioned soda pop or ice cream. But it wouldn't be the same without a few scales on display and for use.

Store owner Darren Durman has a few lined up on his back counter. They're great for weighing old-time classic candy.

Durman tells me where he has found his scales and a price range that he stays within. "I pick them up in several different places from flea market, garage sales and some private individuals that have come into the store. My price range $10 to $50."

One thing that I have found and love the most about vintage finds from the 1940s to even the '70s (which is my growing-up time period) is not just the nostalgia value but that they are durable and have stood the test of time. These items were built to last, and you can still find good quality scales and other items for a fraction of the cost of new items.
Starting Saturday, for the 28th year, the Friendship Wagon Train will ride a slow path through southeastern Minnesota, raising money for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

The train, comprised of 18 wagons and 20 riders, will assemble at Whalen's Cove in Minnesota City on Friday and set off the next day for a week-long, 110-mile trip across the region. It will end a week later, on July 2 at Camp Winnebago outside Caledonia, where all the donations gathered at communities along the route will be presented to the camp director.

Monica Davis, assistant to the wagon train master, estimated that the wagon train has raised $800,000 for Camp Winnebago over its 28-year existence. Camp Winnebago runs week-long summer camps for people with disabilities, offering outdoors opportunities that most people take for granted.

A a caravan of wagons is a transfixing, head-scratching sight, making it all the easier for wagon riders to spread their message.

"When we started 28 years ago, there were people in Caledonia that didn't know that Camp Winnebago existed," said Davis, adding that 100 percent of proceeds goes to fund camperships for people with disabilities.

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The train will plod along at a slow pace, chewing up between 14 and 25 miles a day. Any more than that is "just cruel on yourself," Davis said. Meals will be prepared and served by organizations along the route, in towns the train passes through. The friendship train hopes to raise $30,000.

"You know, a wagon train is a sight when you see it coming down the road," Davis said. "So people are naturally going to say, 'what the heck are you doing? Or, what is this all about?' And then you just go on to tell them."

See the wagon

After starting its journey at Minnesota City on Friday, the caravan will make overnight camp at these locations during the trip:

 Saturday, Lewiston

 Sunday, Rushford

 Monday, Houston

 Tuesday, Caledonia

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 Wednesday, Spring Grove

 Thursday, Camp Winnebago

On Friday, the riders will travel from Camp Winnebago to Eitzen for lunch and then circle back to the camp. On Saturday, a final ceremony will be conducted where all the donations will be presented.
"This is strange. We're not used to this. Why can we only park here for 30 minutes?" The man and woman were squinting into the sun as they gazed at the downtown parking meter.

It was one of those situations where the people were sort of talking to the air and sort of talking to anyone within earshot. I could've easily walked by without acknowledging the pair. I was tempted to avoid eye contact because it was my lunch break, and as per usual, I was trying to cram three hours of activities into a one-hour block of time.

"I'm sure they'll figure it out," I told myself.

But then my conscience started screaming  reminding me of my own hospital experiences in this town. First with my grandma in 2002, then alongside many parishioners of the congregation I served and then my own ongoing platelet adventures.

"Emily, don't you remember how confusing and tiring it is to be stuck in a bubble of medical world? Just slow the heck down and help these people."

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Helping hand

So my heart tugged, and I listened. I paused and joined them in staring at the parking meter. "Yeah, these are 30-minute spots. There's a ramp up the street where you can park for the day."

"We're from South Dakota. We can park for free anywhere we go back home. We were just trying to find some kind of outdoor concert that we heard about. Do you know where it is?"

We exchanged handshakes, first names and brief biographies. Mona and Ron. They were visiting for a week for a liver transplant consultation for Ron. They'd have tests all week long and were looking for things to do in between medical appointments.

They had the appearance of two individuals facing the challenge of a lifetime. Uprooted for a week from family and friends. It was only the beginning of their Mayo journey  one that would include return visits and last many months. They were a little bit lost and highly exhausted. It was as if the same tornado that started the development of our city in 1883 now had dropped them back in the center of it all.

Rochester is a town that we as locals know and love. We find it charming and welcoming. We forget that it's also daunting. We forget that no matter how wonderful, it's also a place where really sick people come in search of healing. For someone new to the area, it's a town of tall buildings, strange parking meters and a busy downtown blur of suits and ties and Mayo badges.

During the past three years, my feelings about Destination Medical Center have ranged from intrigued to confused to excited. I regularly explore the DMC website, dmc.mn , and newspaper articles to stay connected to pertinent happenings, but I don't always understand. I find myself thinking often of Will and Charlie Mayo and the Sisters of Saint Francis. I ponder how DMC will be a reflection of their legacy.

Big picture, small pieces

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Meeting Mona and Ron reminded me why DMC is important. From what I can gather, at its core, DMC is rooted in developing a strategic plan, creating jobs, generating revenue and becoming a destination for health and wellness. Underneath all those great aspirations are people such as Ron and Mona  people preparing to climb a formidable hill while pushing a great big boulder. As a community, we provide the backdrop for that climb.

A vibrant community with a financially sustainable future can improve patient experiences and outcomes. That's key for me. That's why it all matters. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the patients at the center of this medical economy.

Long-term plans are amazing and important. We need future-seekers who lean way forward, well-past what most of us can imagine. They are leaders who can dream dreams and hire consultants to map out the way. So whether it's the 2-million-square-foot Discovery Center or 40,000 potential new jobs or a gorgeously remodeled Civic Center, I am grateful for people who guide us into the future with creativity and compassion. These all are planks on the bridge getting us to where we want to be.

That being said, my priority always will be that DMC is rooted in a commitment to our collective responsibility to be a WCEPE (Welcoming Community for the Emotionally and Physically Exhausted).

When it comes to supporting the health of our community, everyone is invited. You don't have to be on the DMC board to participate. You don't need to go to tech meet-ups or happy hours at hipster breweries. You don't need to own a bio business firm or have $10 million to invest. You don't need a medical degree. You don't need a fancy title or a suit. You don't need to be a millennial. Those aren't the ingredients that matter most in this recipe.

What matters most is staying rooted in the commitments that built this region in the first place: hospitality, healing and mutual respect. So slow down and be a helper. Have real conversations with real people. Put down your phone. Stop scheduling so many meetings. Listen. Invite the voices at the margins of this town into the conversation. Value the past while building the future. Follow the Spirit's nudges. And please remember this: Our individual daily interactions matter just as much as any futuristic big city dream boards'. Always.
The Olmsted County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help in finding two men who ware wanted on felony warrants for drug crimes.

Jacob Reid Bothun, 24, was charged May 27 with gross misdemeanor check forgery, prompting a warrant for his arrest. A felony warrant for failure to appear was issued June 6 in relation to a court appearance for narcotics-related crimes involving the possession of methamphetamine, court documents show.

He's described as 6 feet 3, about 170 pounds, with green eyes and brown hair. He's believed to still be in southeast Minnesota.

Authorities are also seeking Bradley Arnold Quimby, 47. On April 15, he was charged with a misdemeanor non-support violation; a warrant for his arrest was issued. Less than a week later, two more warrants were issued for his arrest, stemming from an alleged incident involving the possession and sale of meth, a news release says.

Quimby is described as 5 feet 8, about 170 pounds, with brown eyes and blond hair. He, too, is believed to be in southeast Minnesota.

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Anyone with information about Bothun or Quimby is asked to contact law enforcement or the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office by calling 328-6774, 328-6800 or by visiting the anonymous tip line at www.rochesterolmstedcrimestoppers.org

U.S. Bail and Fugitive Enforcement is assisting Olmsted County in locating Quimby; it's offering up to $1,000 for direct information that leads to the arrest of Quimby. That agency can be contacted 24 hours a day at 612-567-3390.
WINONA  The second of two men accused of threatening a college student with a meat saw inside a warehouse has been sentenced in the case.

John Arnold Demaske, 46, was sentenced to five years probation and 360 hours of community work service for his conviction on one count of gross misdemeanor stalking. The sentence will run concurrently with a sentence of 80 hours of community work service for his conviction in an August drug incident.

Demaske received a stay of adjudication in the stalking case; he pleaded guilty, but the court doesn't "accept" the plea. When probation and its conditions are successfully completed, the charges are dismissed, and the defendant's criminal record doesn't reflect a conviction. The arrest record remains.

In exchange for his guilty pleas, one count each of false imprisonment, second-degree assault and terroristic threats, all felonies, were dismissed.

His co-defendant, Abdirhahman Hassan Samatar, 35, was sentenced in April to 45 days in jail, with credit for 45 days served, and placed on probation for two years.

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He, too, received a stay of adjudication on one count of terroristic threats, a felony. Samatar pleaded guilty to the charge in March; in exchange, one felony count each of false imprisonment and second-degree assault were dismissed.

The investigation began about 2:30 a.m. Sept. 13, when Winona police were sent downtown for a report of an assault. They found a man standing on a corner, naked and crying hysterically, the complaint says.

He told officers he had been on his way back to his dorm room earlier and became lost, then was approached by two men  later identified as Samatar and Demaske  who began to yell at him. The men got on either side of him, took him by the shoulders and led him to a warehouse on Laird Street.

The victim said he felt like he had to cooperate with them and that "he was going to die in there," court documents say. Once inside the building, Samatar slapped him, then the two made him stand on a chair and remove all of his clothing.

According to the reports, the men began to ask the victim about some things they thought he had stolen from them, then told the victim "you don't know the things we're going to do to you" and also spoke about sexually assaulting him.

After about 30 minutes, the victim was able to get away, then ran into the street, yelling for help. A search of the warehouse turned up the man's clothing and belongings; also in the shop were a meat slicer, chest freezers, knives, blood-stained white aprons, "hardcore pornography" and machetes, the complaint says.

Demaske told police he had found the college student inside the locked shop, and he and Samatar "wanted to scare him." Two days earlier, the report says, a bank bag containing $400 cash was allegedly stolen from the shop, and though Demaske suspected Samatar of stealing it, he hadn't reported it to police.

Samatar told authorities Demaske was angry when he found the victim inside the shop, had turned on the meat saw and told the victim he was going to be "cut."

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The student wasn't injured.
A Rochester woman faces criminal charges, accused of making a child sleep in a closet and striking him with a leather belt.

Le'Sha Patrice Boyd, 29, was charged Monday by summons with one count each of gross misdemeanor malicious punishment of a child and misdemeanor domestic assault. Her first court appearance is set for Aug. 8 in Olmsted County District Court.

The investigation began May 20, when Rochester police received a report of possible child abuse. The report alleged Boyd struck a boy with a belt, leaving a mark; the child stayed home from school as a result. The reports also claim the boy was forced to sleep in a closet, allowed out only to eat and use the bathroom.

When authorities visited Boyd's home, she initially claimed the child was in the Twin Cities with his father. She denied using a belt on the boy and allowed an investigator inside to look for him.

As the officer searched for the child, someone reported to Olmsted County Social Services that Boyd was "hiding" him in the house. When confronted, she allegedly admitted to lying about his whereabouts; the boy was retrieved from a closet in an upstairs bedroom, court documents say.

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He had a bruise on his forehead, which Boyd said happened when he ran head-first into a gate after a confrontation between the two. The child was taken to a local hospital for evaluation; while there, he reportedly told the investigator Boyd had "whooped" him with a belt the day before because he was eating graham crackers in the closet where he sleeps.

The boy said the belt hit his knee, hand and lower back. When he tried to run away, Boyd grabbed his legs, causing him to fall down the steps, the complaint says. He ran outside and into the gate; Boyd picked him up and carried him back inside to the closet.

The child overslept the next morning, missing the school bus. According to court documents, Boyd came into the closet and "smacked" him in the face; he stayed in the closet all day, missing school for two days because of the marks from the belt.

Officers saw parallel, linear injuries on the boy's back and thigh; one of the injuries broke the skin.

The closet is described in the reports as a walk-in closet containing several totes and other items. A black leather belt, folded into fourths, was on a shelf in the closet.
A Rochester woman faces multiple felonies after authorities say she spent more than $4,000 from a Boy Scout Troop.

Melissa Lynn Neumann, 40, was charged by summons Monday with three counts of felony financial transaction card fraud, two counts of felony theft and one count of gross misdemeanor theft. Her first appearance in Olmsted County District Court is set for Aug. 8.

The investigation began last Aug. 8, when three adults affiliated with the troop went to police. They said an accountant had reviewed the troop's account to help determine legitimate charges, leading them to believe Neumann made 36 unauthorized charges from April 2013 until March 2015, the complaint says.

Neumann allegedly made the purchases at Rochester businesses while giving positive account reports at meetings. The reports were not reflective of the actual amount in the account, court documents say; the statements were mailed directly to Neumann's home.

She told investigators she began to use the troop debit card to purchase groceries for her family when her husband lost his job, the complaint says, then used it "numerous times over the next two years for personal use."

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Neumann reportedly failed to deposit about $200 in cash in 2014, money from the troop selling wreaths and honey.

The total loss is $4,025.04.
The Mayo Clinic Children's Center has again been ranked as one of the top facilities in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

The Rochester-based facility was one of three Minnesota centers recognized in the 2016-17 ranking of Best Children's Hospitals . The other two were the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital and the Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, which are both located in Minneapolis.

U.S. News & World Report named Boston Children's Hospital as the best children's hospital in the nation, thanks largely to being ranked in the top 5 percent in all 10 specialties. The list was compiled after examining 178 campuses around the country.

The 10th year of ranking children's hospitals is generally regarded as a precursor to the more widely recognized list of best hospitals, which is typically announced in late July or early August. Mayo Clinic was the top-rated hospital in 2014, but dropped to No. 2 last year.

The Mayo Clinic Children's Center was recognized as one of the top facilities in the Midwest thanks to its high performance in numerous specialties, where it finished among the top 50 in eight of the 10 specialties. However, it was not included in U.S. News & World Report's top 10 list of children's hospitals.

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"We are honored to be recognized for the quality care provided to the children and families at the Children's Center," says Dr. Randall Flick, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Children's Center. "This success is a reflection of our staff members, who strive to put the needs of the patients first every day, as well as the application of cutting-edge interventions, such as the use of proton beam therapy for childhood cancer and stem cell treatment for children with heart disease."

It finished No. 18 in diabetes and endocrinology, No. 27 in cardiology and heart surgery and No. 31 in cancer, while also being ranked among the top 50 in orthopedics, pulmonology, urology, and gastroenterology and G.I. surgery.

According to Dr. Flick, the U.S. News & World Report's Best Children's Hospital ranking is an important measure, but not the only measure of Mayo Clinic's performance.

"Ranking in the U.S. News & World Report's survey demonstrates the broad-based excellence and the effectiveness of the team-based approach that is the hallmark of Mayo Clinic care."
A storm full of wind and rain took aim at Rochester Wednesday night, dropping heavy rains and generating rotating clouds in Dodge County, according to a report from the Rochester Emergency Management Director Ken Jones.

The storm's center, which had been plotted earlier in the evening to head north of Rochester, turned as the night wore on, and the center passed to the south of the city, according to the National Weather Service in La Crosse.

"At 8 o'clock everything was shifting, it was heading right for us," Jones said.

Storm spotters were called in Dodge County, and rotating clouds were observed, Jones said, however no tornadoes were formed or touched down. The NWS noted that a rotating wall of clouds had been spotted east of West Concord.

"There was a tornado warning issued in Dodge County," Jones said, adding that Olmsted County seemed to miss that. "No, it never crossed the county line."

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At 8:10 p.m., a 60-minute voice-activated warning was sent to all Rochester city parks and Olmsted County parks, and the Rochester Police Department sent officers to alert people at RochesterFest and get them to safety. With the help of Rochester Fire Department, Soldiers Field was cleared before the storm hit, Jones said.

Lightning and rain were the main features of the storm, with 0.84 inches falling at Rochester International Airport, most of it falling during the 9 p.m. hour before the storm moved on, the NWS reported. Only 0.10 inches was recorded at the Mayo Clinic Hospital-Saint Marys Campus heliport Wednesday night.

"It was a fast-moving storm," Jones said. "What really helped is it veered west of Olmsted County."

Today should see a high temperature of 73, with the skies moving from mostly cloudy to partly cloudy in the evening. Friday should be sunny during the day with a high of 83, then storms move back into the area starting Friday night with a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms growing to a 70 percent chance on Saturday night, according to the NWS.
HARMONY  A church that has been bringing a community together since 1870 will soon close its doors because of declining membership and funds.

St. Paul Lutheran Church  Big Springs was started in 1870 by German immigrants who initially worshipped in their native language. The building was constructed in 1891.

A lot has changed since then, but the church just west of Harmony is still a place that brings people together. Some families have attended for many generations, tracing back to the church's founding.

"When my kids were little they played underneath the quilt frames," said Jeanette Serfling, a 43-year member who also served as church council president. "You got to visit with each other about how your families were doing. It was just good fellowship. Everything we did was good fellowship."

Many members have a long history with the church. Betty Kiehne has been a member for 42 years. Carol Lange has been part of the church for 57 years, and her three children were baptized there.

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Now the beloved and historic church will be closing its doors after its final service on Sunday.

Membership has been dropping slowly, with only about six to 12 members attending services on Sunday. That has left the church in financial trouble.

"We started to see things not improving as far as the financial side or membership," said Serfling. "When you have seven or eight people in the church, offerings don't add up very quickly."

The church dropped its full-time pastor in 2010, and then parted with its part-time pastor this February. Since then, mainly interns have been covering the once-a-month services.

What has kept the church's head above water financially since 2012 has been annuities left by deceased members. These funds have been used to cover the majority of the church's operational expenses.

"If it weren't for annuities left to the church by members that have passed, we would have closed quite some time ago," said Serfling.

Unfortunately, all but one of the annuities have run out, with the last one to be ending by April 2017. With this realization, the church council had no choice but to close the church.

"It's going to be hard," said Serfling. "We're a family."

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On the last Sunday the members of the congregation will spend together, there will be a reception in the basement with food and beverages before and after the service for people to sit and reminisce about the good times that they had together.

Serfling said that she is expecting about 100 people to be in attendance, mainly relatives and those who have left the congregation, including about six former pastors and interns.

"We're going to have a packed house, I think," said Lange.

One thing that those in attendance are sure to reminisce about is cooking fried chicken for members of the community, which they did every year until about 2008. At it's highest point, more than 400 people would be in attendance, with people traveling from other towns to eat and visit.

"We used to come about four o'clock in the morning and start frying chicken," said Lange. "That really brought everyone together."

Members also gathered for salad luncheons, ice cream socials, and quilting days where church members would all get together to make quilts to send overseas.

It's uncertain what will happen to the building. The church council had hoped to sell the building and land as a residence or business, but Fillmore County's strict zoning laws restrict both of these options.

As of now, Serfling said, the church council is looking to hold an auction sale to sell off the building and the land.

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"They've been telling us we can either use it for a storage building or keep it as a church," said Serfling. "So it really narrows down what we can do with it."

Although they are worried about what will become of the historic building that has housed so many memories, the three women are mainly worried about no longer seeing each other once the last service ends.

"We're like a big family here, and it feels like a loss," said Lange.
Canos de Meca, Cadiz, attracts many nudists. Julian Rojas

Cortadura beach in Cadiz is known as meerkat beach due to the number of peeping toms who bob up and down from behind the dunes to catch a glimpse of the action below.

It is the only beach in the city of Cadiz where nudism is tolerated and although most people wear swimsuits or bikinis, there is every chance the peeping toms will be rewarded with the sight of a bare bottom.

The Supreme Court considers local authorities have the right to regulate against nudism since public scandal offenses are no longer a part of the penal code

It is always the same two or three voyeurs. We recognize the way they pop up from behind the dunes and we have our eye on them, says Jose Manuel, 51, a confirmed nudist who took years persuading his partner Isabel to go topless.

Jose Manuel likes to go nude because he feels more comfortable that way. I cant stand wearing swimwear, he says while his partner is the opposite. I wouldnt be comfortable wearing nothing, she admits.

Although Cortadura is not an official nudist beach, there is a certain tradition and the police turn a blind eye, whereas on the other beaches in the city you could be fined up to 750 for stripping off and breaking the anti-nudity law passed in 2009 by the then-PP city council. This law has since been backed by the Supreme Court, which considers local authorities have the right to regulate against nudism since public scandal offenses are no longer a part of the penal code.

Cadiz is the fourth instance of a high court endorsing a law against nudism. Last year the same thing happened in Barcelona and the town of Castell-Platja sAro, Girona, while just a month ago in Valladolid, nudism or swimwear in public places was outlawed.

A young woman topless on Victoria beach, Cadiz. Julian Rojas

Curiously, nudism is only illegal on specific beaches in Cadiz, Barcelona and Castell- Platja sAro, which in practice means that someone could legally emerge naked from their home until reaching the beach where they would have to get dressed, as Ismael Rodrigo, president of the Naturist Spain Federation (FEN), points out.

With a membership of around 3,000, FEN is taking the right to be nude to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 2014 that nudism was protected by article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The most famous nudity case that has recently come before the European Court of Human Rights was, of course, that of Stephen Gough, the naked rambler, who was jailed repeatedly for breach of the peace in the UK. He did not, however, win his case against the United Kingdom since his persistent nudity was considered against the standards of accepted public behavior in any modern democratic society. In other words, Goughs conduct was not beach-bound and, in fact, he even refused to dress for court.

Were not talking going nude along the street, says Ismael Rodrigo, who is concerned that the Supreme Courts endorsement of the anti-nudist laws will lead to more councils imposing similar rulings. Our fight is for situations where clothes are unnecessary.

Just three fines

However, the only time anyone in Cadiz has been fined for going nude is when Javier Garcia swam in 2010 with two friends at Victoria beach, in the south of Cadiz. We were protesting against the anti-nudism laws, says Garcia. We called the press and went for a swim in the nude.

Garcia and his friends had hardly got past their knees when the local police turned up and fined them 600 each. But Garcia took the matter to court and won his case as the judge concluded they were exercising their right to freedom of expression.

Since then, neither the subsequent PP authorities nor the current Cadiz branch of Podemos have bothered to fine anyone else.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2014 that nudism was protected by article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights

The main reason for this is, of course, that nudists dont bother going to the urban beaches but prefer to relax at Canos de Meca (Barbate), Bolonia (Tarifa), El Palmar, (Vejer) or simply stick to the Cortadura beach in the capital.

I would never normally go nude at the Victoria beach, says Garcia. The city beaches are very crowded family beaches. What Im looking for is a bit of peace and no one staring. Nudists regulate themselves. Theres no need to pass a law against us.

But the president of Fen is not happy with specific beaches being defined as nudist. They shouldnt be labeled like that., he says. There are beaches that are traditionally nudist but if you put up signs saying Nudist Beach, it implies that nudity is prohibited elsewhere.

Segimon Rovira, president of the Catalonian Naturists Club, disagrees. He would like to see nudist beaches signposted as such so that non-nudists respect them for what they are. Sometimes they fill up with people in their swimwear and theres no room for us, he says.

English version by Heather Galloway.
These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

British voters head to the polls today to decide whether to leave or remain in the European Union, a decision that will affect everybody else in Europe, and in particular those of us, like most Spaniards, who believe that sticking together is the best option for all. Unity is surely the only choice: the alternative would provoke tensions within the different regions and countries of the United Kingdom, possibly bringing about its disintegration; at the same time, Brexit would hit the EU hard, again possibly sparking a decline.

But the real reason British voters should vote remain is not because of fear of what might happen if they leave, but because of what a continued UK presence in Europe has meant and will continue to mean: balance and the avoidance of any single nation establishing its hegemony over the continent.

Europe represents globalization with rules, a productive economy and social and territorial cohesion

The EU is not unproblematic, it has its limits and its fault, but it is one of the most important success stories in recent history, as President Obama pointed out in Hannover. In which case, why pull out, why damage it?

In an age of global disorder, a time of worsening inequality and exclusion, Europe represents globalization with rules, a productive economy and social and territorial cohesion. Are there any better goals or any better way to achieve them, albeit in stages, than by working together rather than by breaking up?

Referendums, while a legitimate recourse, are not always the best way to address complex issues. Britains parliamentary system has shown that representative democracy has been able to reverse its decisions, something that is not so easy with plebiscites, which tend to inflame passions and lead to simplistic, populist arguments.

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There will be plenty of Europeans on this side of the English Channel today who would like to vote and send out a message of appreciation for British democracy, to warn of the dangers of an isolated United Kingdom subject to xenophobia and authoritarianism, and to strengthen, rather than weaken, our ties. We ask the British to vote in our name. Please.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Fernandez Diaz attends a PP meeting on Wednesday. Alejandro Garcia (EFE)

Spains acting interior minister, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, says he has no intention of resigning over a leaked telephone conversation with the head of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia (OAC), in which both men discuss the possibility of targeting Catalan pro-independence politicians or their close relatives through corruption probes and then leaking the investigations to the media.

Asked by EL PAIS late on Wednesday afternoon if he would heed calls from the opposition, Catalan regional parties and labor unions for him to stand down over the conversations, which took place two years ago, Fernandez Diaz replied: I wouldnt give supporters of independence the pleasure.

This is a broad conspiracy, which has chosen the right moment and is clearly aimed at damaging me and the Popular Party Jorge Fernandez Diaz

Instead, the senior Popular Party official insists the leaks are part of a conspiracy designed to harm the PP in the run up to Sundays general election, which the PP is expected to narrowly win. This is a broad conspiracy, which has chosen the right moment and is clearly aimed at damaging me and the Popular Party.

The recordings date from October 2 and 16, 2014, according to the left-leaning online newspaper Publico. Catalonia held a non-binding referendum on independence on November 9, 2014, a vote that the PP government at the time fiercely opposed.

The cases discussed in the recorded talks involve Roger Junqueras, brother of left-wing, pro-independence ERC leader Oriol Junqueras, who is also the deputy premier of the regional government of Catalonia. Roger worked at the Cespa energy company when it won a contract from the Catalan government. Another name mentioned in the conversations was Felip Puig, a senior official at the conservative Convergencia party and who has held a number of positions in different Catalan regional administrations.

Fernandez Diaz admits that the conversations took place, but says that references to leaking any investigations to the media so as to force a judicial investigation have been taken out of context.

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When asked to confirm that he told De Alfonso that acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy knew about the plans, Fernandez Diaz said that he was not referring to a supposed plot to expose Catalan politicians, but to another matter, although he refused to say what it was. Good God, how would I tell the prime minister all the details of investigations underway? What sense would it make for me to keep him abreast of all those details? he said.

Fernandez Diaz, who has been interior minister since 2012, denies rumors over the existence of an ad hoc unit of police officers under his command tasked with concocting false reports into opposition politicians that could be used to launch judicial investigations.

English version by Nick Lyne.
A pregnant woman in Recife, Brazil. Reuters

More information La alerta por el zika dispara las solicitudes de aborto en Sudamerica

South American countries affected by the Zika virus are experiencing an unprecedented rise in requests for abortions, a study published on Wednesday revealed. The virus only causes mild symptoms in most cases but it can lead to severe birth defects. Since abortion is illegal in many of the countries affected, some pregnant women may have to bear children against their will. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries with Zika outbreaks to allow women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

There is a correlation between Zika alerts and a sharp increase in abortion requests, researchers said in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The authors examined the number of requests sent to a Dutch non-profit organization, Women on the Web, that provides abortion pills to women who do not have access to medical interventions. Researchers looked at the trend in demand between January 2010 and March 2016 in 19 Latin American countries that issued an alert saying the Zika virus may cause birth defects.

It is not enough for governments to warn women of the risks associated with Zika, they should also make an effort to make sure women have enough safe, legal and accessible reproductive options

The study says orders for the pills increased dramatically in countries that issued such warnings, including recommendations that women delay pregnancies, and where abortion is illegal. Demand for abortions has doubled in Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil, the Latin American nation most severely affected. The number of requests increased by at least one-third in most of the other countries that the study examined. Researchers say there was no upward trend in countries that did not issue health warnings.

It is difficult to get reliable data on the reproductive choices of women in Latin America, says Abigail Aiken, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who co-authored the study. It is to be expected that our method is underestimating the impact health warnings have had on abortion requests, given that many women have used very unsafe methods to abort or resorted to clandestine methods, she adds.

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In Brazil, Zika concerns have revived the debate on the countrys abortion laws, which have not changed much since the 1940s. News reports say some Brazilian women resort to secret abortion clinics even before they are diagnosed with the virus.

It is not enough for governments to warn women of the risks associated with Zika, they should also make an effort to make sure women have enough safe, legal and accessible reproductive options, says Catherine Aiken, a researcher at the University of Cambridge and co-author of the study.

Researchers from Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh also contributed to the report.

English version by Dyane Jean Francois.
Have we been here before? I know  it feels as if the internet, virtual reality, Donald Trump, Facebook, sequencing of the human genome and machines that can reason better than people constitute a change in the pace of change without precedent. But we've actually been through an extraordinarily rapid transition like this before in history  a transition we can learn a lot from.

Ian Goldin, director of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University, and Chris Kutarna, also of Oxford Martin, have just published a book  "Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance"  about lessons we can draw from the period 1450 to 1550, known as the Age of Discovery. It was when the world made a series of great leaps forward, propelled by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Copernicus and Columbus, that produced the Renaissance and reshaped science, education, manufacturing, communications, politics and geopolitics.

"Gutenberg's printing press provided the trigger," Goldin told me by email, "by flipping knowledge production and exchange from tight scarcity to radical abundance. Before that, the Catholic churches monopolized knowledge, with their handwritten Latin manuscripts locked up in monasteries. The Gutenberg press democratized information, and provided the incentive to be literate. Within 50 years, not only had scribes lost their jobs, but the Catholic Church's millennia-old monopoly of power had been torn apart as the printing of Martin Luther's sermons ignited a century of religious wars."

Meanwhile, Goldin added, Copernicus upended the prevailing God-given notions of heaven and earth "by finding that far from the sun revolving around the Earth, the Earth rotated around the sun," and "voyages of discovery by Columbus, da Gama and Magellan tore up millennia-old maps of the 'known' world."

Those were the mother of all disruptions and led to the parallels with today.

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"Now, like then, new media have democratized information exchange, amplifying the voices of those who feel they have been injured in the upheaval," Goldin said. "Now, like then, public leaders and public institutions have failed to keep up with rapid change, and popular trust has been deeply eroded." Now, like then, "this is the best moment in history to be alive"  human health, literacy, aggregate wealth and education are flourishing  and "there are more scientists alive today than in all previous generations."

And, yet many people feel worse off.

Because, as in the Renaissance, key anchors in people's lives  like the workplace and community  are being fundamentally dislocated. The pace of technological change is outstripping the average person's ability to adapt. Now, like then, Goldin said, "sizable parts of the population found their skills were no longer needed, or they lived in places left behind, so inequality grew." At the same time, "new planetary scale systems of commerce and information exchange led to immense improvements in choices and accelerating innovations which made some people fabulously rich."

Was there a Donald Trump back then?

"Michelangelo and Machiavelli's Florence suffered a shocking popular power-taking when Girolamo Savonarola, a midlevel friar from Ferrara, who lived from 1452 to 1498, exploded from obscurity in the 1490s to enthrall Florentines, who felt left behind economically or culturally, with sermons that laid blame upon the misguided policies and moral corruption of their leaders," Goldin said. "He and his zealous supporters, though a small minority, swept away the Medici establishment and seized control of the city's councils.

"From there, Savonarola launched an ugly campaign of public purification, introducing radical laws including against homosexuality, and attacked public intellectuals in an act of intimidation that history still remembers as the Bonfire of the Vanities. Savonarola was amongst the first to tap into the information revolution of the time, and while others produced long sermons and treatises, Savonarola disseminated short pamphlets, in what may be thought of as the equivalent of political tweets."

The establishment politicians of the day "underestimated the power of that new information revolution to move beyond scientific and cultural ideas" to amplify populist voices.

Yikes! How do we blunt that?

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"More risk-taking is required when things change more rapidly, both for workers who have to change jobs and for businesses who have to constantly innovate to stay ahead," Goldin argued. Government's job is to strengthen the safety nets and infrastructure so individuals and companies can be as daring  in terms of learning, adapting and investing in themselves  as they need to be. At the same time, when the world gets this tightly woven, America "needs to be more, not less, engaged, with the rest of the world," because "the threats posed by climate change, pandemics, cyberattacks or terror will not be reduced by America withdrawing."

Then, as now, walls stopped working. "Cannons and gunpowder came to Europe that could penetrate or go over walls and books could bring ideas around them," he said. Then, like now, walls only made you poorer, dumber and more insecure.

Thomas Friedman, a Minnesota native, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times.
In an opinion issued this morning, Justice Kennedy joined the Supreme Courts four liberals to uphold the University of Texass affirmative action program in the Fisher case. This is the cases second trip to the Court. It wont be coming back. The Courts opinion today is posted here. The Courts 2013 opinion in Fisher I (as the Court refers to it) is posted here. I think todays result is disappointing, if not farcical, but unsurprising. Im taking the liberty of reiterating my own observations on the subject below.

The principle of equal treatment without regard to race is one that is close to my heart. Accordingly, one of my favorite books on a legal subject is Andrew Kulls The Color-Blind Constitution. (I learned of the book at the time of its publication through Judge Alex Kosinskis 1993 New Republic review/essay.) It is a book that is by turns inspiring and maddening. I recommend it without reservation to readers interested in the subject.

The book is full of surprises. For example, Kull devotes two chapters to the separate but equal doctrine approved by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson. The case represents the bygone era of Jim Crow, yet at the outset of his discussion of the case Professor Kull makes this astounding observation: The majority opinion in Plessy makes a comfortable target, and it is routinely vilified. But in its broad holding, as opposed to its particular application, Plessy has never been overruled, even by implication. On the contrary, it announced what has remained ever since the stated view of a majority of the Supreme Court as to the constitutionality of laws that classify by race.

The principle of equal treatment was adopted as the law of the land in the great civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, or so we foolishly thought at the time. It may even have been the law for a minute or two. Then the federal government began building the whole edifice of affirmative action and racial preferences that we live with today and that has been addressed by the Supreme Court in a number of important cases. Certainly insofar as higher education is concerned, the affirmative action regime and the treatment of students based on the color of their skin are entrenched more deeply than ever under the shibboleth of diversity.

One of the lessons of Kulls great book is that the Court wants to retain for the judiciary the discretion and authority to approve varieties of racial discrimination. The ideal of the color-blind Constitution remains permanently on the horizon. To paraphrase George Wallace, affirmative action today, affirmative action tomorrow, affirmative action forever.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

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Despite recent spate of attacks on oil production facilities in the Niger Delta region, which resulted in the disruption in crude oil exports, the federal and the 36 states governments, along with the 774 local government counterparts, shared increased allocations from the Federation Account for May 2016.

At the end of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting on Wednesday, the three tiers of government distributed a total of N305.128 billion as net allocation for the month.

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said at the end of the meeting that the allocation was higher by N23.63 billion than about N281.5 billion shared by the three tiers of government for the month of April.

Mrs. Adeosun said distributable statutory revenue, consisting oil mineral, taxes, customs and excise revenues for the month of about N237.47 billion was higher than about N213.82 billion earned in April.

Crude oil production and exports dropped by about 2.3 million barrels in February, 2016 due to the Force Majeure declared by the multi-national oil companies at Forcados crude exporting terminal, shut-ins and shut-down of pipelines at other terminal for repairs and maintenance, the minister said.

Force Majeure is a notice by a party in a contract that dues to unforeseen circumstances or developments it may not be able to meet scheduled obligations to his customers.

The minister explained that as a result of the disruption, the federation export revenue declined by about $57.88 million (about N11.52 billion), although average crude oil price increased from $29.02 per barrel in January to $32.26 in February.

She said companies income tax recorded a marginal increase, even as the time for companies to file their annual returns was yet to fall due.

Besides, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation refunded N6.33 billion to the FAAC, as another tranche of the N450 billion debt to the three tiers of government as unremitted revenues.

There was an exchange gain of about N2.55 billion proposed for distribution, while value added tax generated during the month totaled N65.12 billion.

Federal Inland Revenue Service received N2.98 billion, being four per cent cost of collection, while Nigerian Customs Service got N2.35 billion, being 7 per cent cost of collection, and Department of Petroleum Resources went home with N1.22 billion, representing 4 per cent cost of collection.

Details of the allocations showed that the federal government took a share of N122.83 billion, while states got N57.23 billion and local governments collected N44.12 billion. About N16.74 billion was distributed among oil producing states as 13 per cent derivation from oil and gas.

The balance in the excess crude oil revenue account remained at $2.261 billion with no additional fund deposited and nothing withdrawn.
With the new flexible foreign exchange policy barely a week old, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved 16 commercial banks to participate in the market as primary dealers.

The number of dealers is six more than the initial 10 the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said would be appointed to play in the new market which took off on Monday.

Authoritative sources close to the bank told PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday in Abuja that at least 16 of countrys top banks met the criteria for selection as primary dealers in the market.

At the unveiling of the new FX policy last week, Mr. Emefiele had said that only 10 banks with financial capacity to handle a minimum volume of $10 million deal, would be appointed to work with the CBN as primary dealers when the market formally opens.

The primary dealers, the CBN governor explained, would operate with other dealers in the Inter-bank market in line with stipulated foreign exchange primary dealers (FXPD) guidelines, while CBNs participation would be limited to periodic interventions to either buy or sell FX as the need arises.

But, the source at the CBN, who asked that his name should not be mentioned, as he was not authorised to speak on the issue, told PREMIUM TIMES that prior to the formal opening of the new FX market on Monday, all banks were given the opportunity to show capacity to participate in the market.

According to the source, apart from three merchant banks that were unable to respond, all interested banks submitted applications after reviewing the stipulated guidelines for prospective dealers, at the end of which 16 of them were considered qualified as primary dealers.

He however refused to name the 16 selected banks, saying in view of the CBNs determination not to be seen as influencing the independence of the market, it was advisable that only the affected banks would be allowed to make such disclosures.

At the opening of the market on Monday, the CBN had injected $4 billion to clear the back-log of FX demand by customers at the inter-bank market, a development the Special Adviser to the CBN governor on Financial Markets, Emmanuel Ukeje, expressed confidence was gong according to plan.

As at today, all back-log of foreign exchange demand by customers at the inter-bank market has been cleared by the CBN, Mr. Ukeje said. Trading has been going on, although not as much as it should be, because everybody is cautiously watching the direction things are going.

But, the CBN is confident everything is going according to plan. CBN will continue to intervene regularly as the need arises. FX market is not static. There are continuous movements, as investors come into the market.
On Monday, while reacting to the freezing of his Zenith Bank account by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, accused Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, of being indicted in the infamous Halliburton Scandal.

The EFCC had blocked Mr. Fayoses accounts after it claimed it traced to the account N1.3 billion from the office of the national security adviser (NSA) under ex-President Goodluck Jonathan via Sylvan Mcnamara Limited, a company linked to the sons of ex-minister of state for defence, Musiliu Obanikoro.

The EFCC is investigating the alleged siphoning of at least $2.1 billion earmarked for the procurement of arms for the Nigerian military to fight Boko Haram insurgents in the countrys north east.

Even the president cannot claim to be an angel. The estate he built in Abuja is known to us, Mr Fayose told journalists in Ado-Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State.

His wife was indicted over the Halliburton Scandal. When that American, Jefferson, was being sentenced, the Presidents wife was mentioned as having wired $170,000 to Jefferson. Her name was on page 25 of the sentencing of Jefferson. We can serialize the judgment for people to see and read, he added.

Mr. Fayose repeated the claim in a statement he released on Wednesday by his chief press secretary, Idowu Adelusi. He said Mrs. Buhari refused to travel with the president to the United States because of her involvement in the scandal.

It is on record that the President has visited USA three times and his wife did not travel with him. Equally, she ought to have visited the USA last year September to chair a United Nation programme but she sent wife of the Senate president, Mrs Toyin Saraki to represent her.

While two former heads of the EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde and Nuhu Ribadu told PREMIUM TIMES that the Aisha Buhari named in the Jefferson bribery is an impostor versed in peddling the Buhari name for influence, Mr. Fayose was clearly confusing the Halliburton scandal with Jefferson corruption case.

The William Jefferson case

First, the Hallibuton bribery scandal and the Jefferson bribery cases happened at least 11 years apart.

Investigations into the Jefferson bribery started in 2005 after an investor alleged he paid $400,000 in bribe through Mr. Jefferson, for the former lawmaker to help persuade top government officials in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon approve the use of a Kentucky-based technology company, iGates two-way broadband technology.

On 30 July, 2005, FBI agents videotaped Mr. Jefferson receiving $100,000 in $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Virginia.

He was also recorded telling an investor Lori Mody, who was acting undercover for the FBI that he needed to bribe former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with $500,000, which he described as a motivating factor to secure the broadband contract for iGate in Nigeria.

Unknown to Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Mody was wearing a wire.

In August 2005, FBI agents raided Mr. Jeffersons home and congressional office and part of the documents found mentioned that an Aisha Buhari transferred $170,000 to him through a proxy firm.

Government Exhibits 36-87 (6/26/02 $170,000 wire transfer from account in Nigeria in the name of Aisha Buhari to an account in the name of The ANJ Group, LLC, identifying William Jefferson as Beneficiary), the U.S. Government Sentencing Memorandum said on page 22.

Mr. Jefferson was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison for the bribery on November 13, 2009. He appealed the conviction but on 26 March 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the conviction on 10 of the 11 charges.

Mr. Jefferson will be released from prison in 2023.

The Halliburton Scandal

The Halliburton bribery scandal dates back to 1994. It concerned the payment of over $182 million to senior Nigerian officials, including, allegedly, past heads of states, by officials of an American firm, Halliburton, to secure a construction contract for a liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny Island in the Niger Delta.

In 2010 the Nigerian government filed charges against Halliburton and its ex-CEO and former US Vice-President, Dick Cheney. Mr Cheney was the chairman and chief executive of Halliburton between 1995 and 2000.

The charges were later withdrawn after an out of court deal worth $250 million. In comparison, the companies involved in the scam paid a total of $1.5 billion fine to the U.S. government.

Several foreigners involved in the matter have been prosecuted and some jailed in their home countries, but Nigerian authorities have failed to prosecute the countrys citizens involved in the matter.

In June 2015, soon after he was sworn-in, President Buhari promised to reopen investigation into the scandal.
Except there is a last-minutes change in plans, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) will on Thursday morning take over the assets of three companies belonging to politician Ben Murray-Bruce and his brothers.

The assets are being seized following the failure of Senator Murray-Bruce and his brothers to settle an N11 billion loan owed Union Bank and acquired by AMCON.

AMCON was established on July 9, 2010, as a key stabilizing and re-vitalizing tool for stabilising the nations financial system.

Its enabling law empowers it to acquire non-performing loan assets of Nigerian banks at fair values and then put them to economic use in a profitable manner.

Mr. Murray Bruce and his brothers, using their companies, had between 2005 and 2007 borrowed various sums of money from Union Bank.

After they repeatedly defaulted in paying back, AMCON purchased the loan in 2011 to save the bank from collapsing.

AMCON is now seizing the assets belonging to the three companies used in securing the loan  Silverbird Productions Limited, Silverbird Showtime Limited and Silverbird Galleria Limited.

The properties include those at 133, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos, Plot No 1161 (Silverbird Galleria), the plaza at Central Area Cadastral Zone AOO, Abuja, and the magnificent structure located at Abonnema Wharf Road and Abali Park in Port Harcourt City of Rivers State.

The planned takeover followed the June 17 interim orders granted by Justice Cecilia Olatoregun-Ishola of the Federal High Court, Lagos, in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/790/16  Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria & 3 Ors. v. Ben Murray Bruce & 4 Ors.

The order allows the Receiver/Manager to take possession of the said properties.

AMCON had on April 18 appointed a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Muiz Banire, the receiver/manager over the sprawling properties.

Named as defendants in the suits are Senator Murray-Bruce, Guy Murray-Bruce, Michael Murray-Bruce, Guy Murray-Bruce and Jonathan Murray-Bruce, who is the senators first son.

An AMCON insider said Mr. Banire had concluded arrangements to take over the assets on Thursday morning (today).

Senator Murray-Bruce could not be reached, Thursday morning, to comment for this story. His known telephone line failed to connect. He is also yet to reply a text message sent to him.

DOWNLOAD COURT ORDER CLEARING AMCON TO TAKE OVER SENATOR MURRAY-BRUCES ASSETS


The Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari on Wednesday demanded a full retraction of a widely-circulated material distributed by Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, in which he claimed to have uncovered how Mrs. Buhari was allegedly mentioned as having transferred funds to a convicted former U.S. lawmaker, Williams Jefferson.

In a warning letter dispatched through her legal representatives, Mrs. Buhari said Mr. Fayoses action was directly responsible for the publication of the very wild and unfounded allegations in the media.

A copy of the letter, sent to Mr. Fayose via courier on Wednesday, was exclusively made available to PREMIUM TIMES.

Through the letter, titled: Demand for unqualified retraction of the false statement published by you in various media on the 20th of June, 2016, and subsequent dates regarding our client, Her Excellency, Mrs. Aisha Buhari the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, the presidents wife gave Mr. Fayose five working days to retract the statement or face legal action.

Our client has referred to us statement made by you and published on the 20th of June, 2016 (and other subsequent days) concerning and pertaining to her person for necessary action.

The said statement which was caused by you and your agents to be widely circulated and published in various media platforms: print, electronic and online such as PREMIUM TIMES www.premiumtimesng.com on 20th of June, 2016, contains very wild, unfounded and false allegations and imputations against the person of our client.

Specifically, in the said statement credited to you and signed by your Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, you, inter alia, false stated as follows:

Even the president cannot claim to be an angel. The estate he built in Abuja is known to us. His wife was indicted over the Halliburton Scandal (sic). When that American, Jeferson, was being sentenced, the Presidents wife was mentioned as having wired $170,000 to Jefferson. Her name was on page 25 of the sentencing of Jefferson. We can serialise the judgement for people to see and read, Ismaila Alasa and Mary Ekpene, who signed the letter on behalf of the law firm, said.

Take notice that unless you and your agents meet our humble demands within 5 (five) working days of the receipt of this letter, we shall take all necessary steps within the contemplation of the law to seek redress for our client.

Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, could not immediately confirm or deny if Mary Ekpere & Co. is indeed the solicitors to Mr. Buhari.

Mr. Fayose had on Monday evening distributed a statement which contained excerpts of court documents sourced from the United States Department of Justice Website.

In the statement, Mr. Fayose said Mrs. Buhari was an accomplice in the bribery scandal that landed Mr. Jefferson in jail, saying he added the link as a proof.

Although an Aisha Buhari was mentioned in the case files, those who investigated the matter have, however, said that Aisha Buhari is an impostor and not the wife of Mr. Buhari.

Two former chairman of Nigerias anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, have come out within the past two days say Mrs. Buhari had no connection with the Jefferson bribery scandal.

In separate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, Ibrahim Lamorde, the immediate past chairman of the EFCC, and Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer head of the agency, said they carried out extensive investigation into the case during their respective tenures and established that the woman named in the scandal was an impostor of the presidents wife.

Mr. Buhari himself had in the past stated, categorically, that he had no connection with the Aisha Buhari in the Jefferson scandal, who is also said to be based in the United States.
The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on Thursday morning took over the assets of three companies belonging to Senator Ben Murray Bruce.

The companies affected by the takeover are Silverbird Galleria Limited, Silverbird Promotions Limited, and Silverbird Showtime Limited.

AMCON had, by notice of appointment dated April 18 appointed Muiz Banire as Receiver/Manager over the sprawling assets of the three companies located at 133 Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos, Plot No 1161 (Silverbird Galleria); Central Area Cadastral Zone AOO, Abuja; and Abonnema Wharf Road and Abali Park in Port Harcourt City of Rivers State.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported, early Thursday, about the intention of AMCON to seize the properties, barring any last-minute change of plans.

The takeover followed the interim orders granted by Justice Cecilia Olatoregun-Ishola of the Federal High Court, Lagos, on June 17 which allowed the Receiver/Manager to take possession of the said properties.

The properties were seen locked up by the agents of the Receiver/Manager in an exercise carried out under the supervision of men of the Nigerian police as directed by the Court order, a copy of which was made available to PREMIUM TIMES.

In the said order, Ben Murray Bruces companies are owing AMCON the sum of N11 billion which the companies have defaulted in paying up.

Kunle Adegoke, counsel to the Receiver/Manager, told PREMIUM TIMES that the sealing up of Mr. Bruces properties on Thursday had all the paraphernalia of legality.

Aside from the fact that the receivership was done pursuant to deeds of legal mortgages duly executed by the three companies and guaranteed by Ben Murray Bruce and four of his brothers, there is a court order backing same up, Mr. Adegoke said.

It must be borne in mind that innocent depositors money is what the Commonsense propagator and his brothers have been living large and feeding fat upon without recourse to the interest of the real labourers who own the money.

Mr. Murray Bruce, using his companies sometimes in 2005 and 2007, borrowed various sums of money from the Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and defaulted in his obligations to pay back, according to AMCON.

The said loan was purchased by AMCON in 2011 after the capital base of Union Bank was terribly shaky, Mr. Adegoke continued.

And the Commonsense senator has persistently failed to pay the loans and yet has been pretending to be concerned with the welfare of Nigerians whom he has been skinning alive in order to remain relevant and live like a king.

Realizing that Mr. Bruce was not ready to pay back the money, AMCON appointed the Receiver/Manager to recover the loan.

Agents of the Receiver, officials of AMCON, and large contingents of armed policemen were seen, Thursday, sealing up the premises of Silverbird Group of Companies in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Efforts to reach Mr. Bruce on phone were unsuccessful as calls to his mobile phones were being forwarded to another number.
The House of Representatives says it will convene a public hearing as part of its investigations into an alleged sex scandal involving three of its members.

The hearing will allow Nigerians weigh in on the matter and be transparently engaged in the investigations as promised by the House leadership, Nicholas Ossai, the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, said.

The scandal allegedly occurred in the U.S. state of Ohio early June.

The allegations were contained in a petition forwarded to Speaker Yakubu Dogara by U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, on June 9.

In the correspondence, Mr. Entwistle said three Nigerian lawmakers, Mohammed Gololo (APC, Bauchi), Mark Gbillah (APC-Benue) and Samuel Ikon (PDP-Akwa Ibom), solicited sex from a hotel attendant and tried to engage the services of prostitutes while attending a leadership training program in that country.

The three lawmakers deny the allegations.

The speaker, Mr. Dogara, has also asked the United States government to prove its claim.

Mr. Ossai told PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday that his committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee had been mandated to investigate the case under a transparent atmosphere.

It was clearly stated when the committee was set up that we should make it transparent public hearing and the three lawmakers agreed, Mr. Ossai said. Were going to do it openly so that everybody would see what were doing.

Mr. Ossai, however, said he wont be able to give a specific date of when the hearing would begin, adding that the committee was still working out the modalities on how the general public would be engaged.
At least one person was injured Thursday at the Borno State government house when soldiers and police exchanged fire as they fought over food items distributed by the government to mark the Ramadan fast.

The government has since Monday distributed large amounts of rice and Semovita to poor residents.

On Thursday, thousands of people converged at the entrance of the government building in Maiduguri, forming a lengthy queue of men, women and the aged who hoped for either a 25kg bag of rice or Semovita, or both.

As the distribution started, police barred vehicles from accessing the venue, except those on special permission.

At about 11am, a Nigerian Army truck showed up, insisting on gaining access to the venue where rice and Semovita were being shared.

Suspecting that the soldiers were trying to help themselves to the handouts, police officers demanded they turn back immediately.

This led to an argument and an angry soldier allegedly opened fire, injuring a policeman in the leg, witnesses said.

The police responded and gunshots rent the air as thousands gathered scampered for safety.

It took the intervention of other senior security officers to prevent the situation from degenerating.

One of the army officers drafted to help control the crowd, identified only as Idris, a lieutenant, did not go free, as angry policemen who accused him of instigating the crisis, beat him up.

The commander of the operation Lafiya Dole, Lucky Irabor, a Major General, was called in by the Borno State Attorney General, Kaka Shehu Lawan, to restore order.

Calm returned after Mr. Irabor arrived alongside the state police commissioner and the director of State Security Service.

Addressing the parties in conflict, Mr. Irabor described the situation as shameful and highly unbecoming of uniformed officers.

What is a bag of rice that will give you the cause to be angry? Bag of rice? It is shameful. If the world hears that it is because of bag of that made police and soldiers to be fighting, is it not shameful? Let us not behave like children: all of us have children at home. Soldiers and policemen should be seen to be matured in their dispositions at all times.

He urged the conflicting parties to calm down.

While everyone is clapping for good that we have been doing, let us not also do things that will make them to begin to stone us. I want you to calm your nerves, because in a family you are likely to find incidents of misunderstanding.

As a result of the incident, the government suspended the distribution of the freebies, leaving expectant beneficiaries disappointed and frustrated.

The Borno state government is expected to issue a statement later on whether the exercise will continue.

The army also said it will be addressing a press conference to further state its position on the incident.
The Nigerian government has insisted that witnesses billed to testify against former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, must be protected and not made to testify openly in court.

Mr. Dasuki is facing trial for alleged unlawful possession of fire arms.

A prosecution lawyer, Dipo Okpeseyi, told the judge, Ademola Adeniyi, on Thursday that the witnesses may be in risk of danger from Mr. Dasukis loyalists, currently serving in the military.

Mr. Okpeseyi argued that the defendant was a well-known man in all spheres of Nigerias military and that allowing the witnesses to testify in open court could result in grave danger to them.

He alleged that sophisticated firearms were discovered from the defendant, saying the weapons prove that Mr. Dasuki was constituting a threat to national security.

Reacting to the argument by Mr. Okpeseyi, Mr. Dasukis lawyer, Joseph Daudu, prayed the court to dismiss the application, as there was no basis for the allegations.

The case was adjourned to September 13 to 15 for ruling.

The prosecution has since the beginning of Mr. Dasukis trial presented three applications before the same court, demanding the protection of its witnesses.

All have been rejected by the court.
Founder and co-owner of Silverbird Group, Ben Murray-Bruce, has expressed his resolve to remain composed in the wake of a nationwide shutdown of his business interests by Nigerian authorities on Thursday.

Mr. Murray-Bruce said todays development was not necessarily unusual for a company that had been in existence for over three decades.

In 36 years, Silverbird has grown and like anybody, it will face challenges. Tough times dont last. But we, as tough people, outlast them, Mr. Murray-Bruce said in a reaction posted on his Twitter handle Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Murray-Bruce, whos also a senator representing Bayelsa East Senatorial District, said he was in transit on an international flight when officials of Nigerias assets management authorities took possession of Silver Groups properties in Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt in the early hours, adding that his businesses would soon be back in operation.

I have been on an international flight and have only just landed, Mr. Murray-Bruce said. The situation is being resolved and things will be back to normal.

The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) had earlier today announced a takeover of three of Mr. Murray-Bruces businesses  Silverbird Galleria Limited, Silverbird Promotions Limited, and Silverbird Showtime Limited.

All the companies are co-owned by Mr. Murray-Bruce and his brothers, Guy Murray-Bruce, Michael Murray-Bruce, Guy Murray-Bruce as well as his son, Jonathan Murray-Bruce.

The takeover came two months after AMCON, which was established in 2010 to manage delinquent loans of big firms and individuals, appointed Muiz Banire as the Receiver/Manager of the companies, following an alleged failure to meet up loan obligations with Union Bank of Nigeria.

On social media, supporters of Messrs Murray-Bruce claimed the businesses were shut because of his political affiliation.

Mr. Murray-Bruce, a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, had said in a tweet he posted Thursday morning that President Muhammadu Buhari should consider dealing with anti-corruption measures and economic exigencies simultaneously.

It is actually possible to fight corruption and grow the economy at the same time. One does not have to happen at the expense of the other, Mr. Bruce said. It is, however, unclear if the tweet was informed by his businesses run in with the authorities.
US Ambassador: World can learn lessons from Armenia (video)

Today a unique exhibition has been opened at the office of the Armenian representation of the AGBU. At the initiative of Save the Children organization dedicated to the World Refugee Day, photos of Armenians emigrated from Syria, Iraq and Ukraine are presented at the exhibition. The exhibition aims at once again drawing the attention of the society to the issues of the refugees. The core of the exhibition is the photos of the refugees, who emigrated from Syria to Armenia during the civil war. Arsen Stepanyan, Director of the Armenian office of Save the Children organization, noted, At present its important to have sustainable policy, which is hospitable towards refugees, migrants and stateless persons. Today we are hosting the fourth generation of Armenians, who were expelled from the Ottoman Empire. In Yerevan we cooperate with Yerevan Municipality for the work of schools. There are about 1500 children registered in our base. This year 30 families have been provided a grant in order to start up a small business. President Obama himself has brought forward issues to review the system and support the refugees. This year in September assembly will be held in New York over the issues of refugees, said the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills. While touching upon the transportation of Syrian Armenians into the homeland, he highlighted, The world can learn lessons from Armenia in terms of support, aid and reception of Syrian Armenian refugees. The Embassy of the United States is happy to join the support provided by the RA Government and the people to Syrian refugees.
The All Progressives Congress caucus in the Senate on Thursday defended the Buhari governments corruption effort, and justified why it targets members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, more.

The senate PDP caucus had on Wednesday announced the withdrawal of its members support for the government, citing the administrations belligerent attitude.

But APC Senators, at a media briefing Thursday, defended Mr. Buhari, saying those that benefited from illicit funds in the last administration have to face the consequences.

We are shocked at the totally partisan reaction of our colleagues from the minority party, PDP, to the on-going investigations and recovery of public funds meant for the prosecution of the war against insurgency, said the APC Senators in their communique signed by the Senate Whip, Olusola Adeyeye (Osun State).

Contrary to the assertion of our PDP colleagues, the investigation is not a partisan war against a particular political party. It is no longer a news item that there was a wanton diversion of public funds meant for fighting insurgency to fund campaigns of PDP. Members of the PDP were the sole and iniquitous beneficiaries of this diversion.

Seeking to recover diverted public funds is neither dictatorial nor against the rule of law. In all the actions, programmes and policies of the PMB-led APC Federal Government, no PDP member has been unjustly arrested or imprisoned on mere allegations.

On the contrary, we are daily regaled with news of millions and billions of naira of public funds traced to accounts of individuals some of whom have accepted to return such diverted public funds, he said.

The caucus passed vote of confidence on Mr. Buhari and expressed support for his policies and programmes.

The members of the Joint Caucus of The All Progressive Congress (APC) and Labour Party Senators in the Senate are stoutly behind the policies and programmes of the President Muhammadu Buharis administration, they said. Our support is aimed at actualizing the promised desired change that Nigerians voted for last year.

Ovie Omo-Agege, a labour party senator from Delta State, aligned with the APC.

The lawmakers emphasized the need for respect for principle of separation of powers among the three arms of government, and warned against interference.
The Nigeria Army has said it will investigate and track down those behind the recent speculation that some of its officers had approached the Niger Delta militants for support to carry out a coup against the government.

Denying that it is plotting to topple the democratic government, the army said it will leave no stone unturned until persons linked to such dangerous speculation are fished out and brought to book.

The spokesman for the army, Sani Usman, said in a statement on Thursday that the Nigerian Army as a product of democracy would never contemplate such anti-democratic misadventure.

He said under the command of the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai,, the army would rather remain focused as a professional institution that would have nothing to do with such abomination and heinous crime.

He said the army would always remain loyal to the office of the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, while defending the constitution and territorial integrity of the country.

He said the coup speculation was a calculated attempt to distract the army from its ongoing war against terror in the country.

The Armys statement reads in full:

The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to another campaign of calumny and distraction by faceless criminal gang of economic saboteurs that hide under the aegis of Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF) alleging that some officers of the Nigerian Army approached them for support to overthrow our duly elected present democratic government.

This is baseless and most unfortunate allegation that existed in the warped minds of the originators of such weighty allegation. The Nigerian Army wish to state that this is not true and hereby distanced itself from this weighty allegation.

We also see this speculation as a dangerous distraction to our effort in fighting insurgency and other criminal elements in the country.

The Nigerian Army would like to send a strong and an unequivocal warning to those speculating a coup by the Nigerian Army (NA) against the Government to desist forthwith. We would like state in clear terms that we are a product of democracy and a focused professional institution and would have nothing to do with such abomination and heinous crime.

We wish to state further that the NA is the greatest beneficiary of democracy and therefore cannot ever contemplate any anti-democratic misadventure, certainly not under the command of the present Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai. Rather, we see this type of dangerous speculation as a declaration of war to destabilise the present government by these unscrupulous elements.

The Nigerian Army is investigating those behind the dangerous insinuation in order to unravel the real motive behind it.

We would like to reiterate our unalloyed loyalty to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and defence of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We would also like to reaffirm our unconditional support and obedience to civil authority.

We wish to further assure Nigerians and indeed all peace loving people that the Nigerian Army and indeed its personnel will never be involved in such terrible misadventure.

We wish to further add that no matter how long it takes, we would track and find out those behind these insinuations and bring them to justice.

Since it became politically independent some 56 years ago, Nigeria has witnessed nine different coups and attempted coups.

The last coup occurred in November 1993 when the late military dictator, Sani Abacha, toppled the transitional government of Earnest Shonekan in a bloodless takeover, three months after the then military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, (who also came to power through a palace coup) handed over to him after annulling the June 12 election.

President Muhammadu Buhari, then a military ruler, was toppled on December 31 1985 by Mr. Babangida, a general and chief of army staff at the time.

Mr. Buharis regime also came through coup in 1983.
Governor Ayodele Fayoses special assistant on public communications and new media, Lere Olayinka, has described Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria, as a mischievous lawyer, who is always out to defend any position that satisfies his selfish desire.

Falana is only deceiving the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Governor Ayodele Fayoses matter because of his ambition to contest the Ekiti State Governorship election in 2018, thinking that he can achieve what he used the EFCC to achieve against Governor Fayose in 2006 ten years after, Mr. Olayinka said.

Mr. Olayinka, who reacted to Gov. Falanas position supporting the EFCCs freezing of Mr. Fayoses bank account, said it was shameful that a lawyer of Mr. Falanas standing could say that the commission acted lawfully.

Even though this comment coming from Femi Falana ought to have been ignored like we have always done because his hypocrisy has become so legendary that he should no longer be taken seriously by sane minds, it was shameful that Falana, a Senior Associate Nigeria (SAN) could say that EFCC can freeze Nigerians bank accounts and obtain a court order later even when Section 34 of the EFCC Act provided that a court order must be obtained (ex-parte) and made available to the bank manager before a bank account can be frozen.

The governors spokesperson said further; Court Order is a condition precedent before a bank account can be frozen and Section 34 of the EFCC Act is very clear on this. It is unambiguous. It presupposes that EFCC cannot freeze the bank account of any Nigerian, no matter the status without first obtaining a court order and making same available to the bank manager.

This position was also expressed by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, yesterday when he ordered the EFCC to pay N12.5 million damages to the son of former Governor Murtala Nyako, Senator Abdulaziz Nyako for unlawful freezing of his account and illegal detention.

It is therefore strange that a SAN could tell Nigerians that EFCC can carry out an action first and obtain court order to justify the action later.

If I may ask, was Falana called to the Bar before he attended Law School and passed his Call-To-Bar Exams? Was Falanas LLB Certificate given to him before he got admission to the University? Was Falanas BL Certificate issued to him before he attended the Law School? Was Falanas Birth Certificate issued before he was born? Was Falanas Marriage Certificate issued before he got married? Has Falana ever travelled to UK or USA and obtained Visa later? Can I, Lere Olayinka,

because I can now quote some laws begin to practice as a lawyer and go to University to study law later?

Obviously, opinions of lawyers like Femi Falana are better left in the trash cans and Nigerians should begin to thank God that he was not made Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

It is also important to tell Falana to seek the face of the Lord for forgiveness of his sins against Ekiti and Governor Fayose in particular, because it appears God deliberately frustrated his bid to

be appointed Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice because of what he would have used the position for.

For instance, over ten Ekiti indigenes were murdered during the APC government of Dr Kayode Fayemi, Falana kept silent. He also kept silent when the future of Ekiti State was being mortgaged to frivolous loans and deductions from workers salary were not being remitted. It also made no meaning to Falana that democratically elected local government chairmen and councillors were sacked and council election was not conducted throughout the four years of APC government in Ekiti

State.

Instead of hiding under human rights activism to perpetrate evil against Ekiti and its people as he has always done, Falana should be bold enough to declare his governorship ambition, which is not hidden and lets see how far he can go this time around.

Like we have maintained, this is 2016 and 2006 that Falana and his criminal collaborators used EFCC to remove governors, Governor Fayose whose impeachment was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday in Abuja charged public officers entrusted with certain responsibilities to live up to their duties and justify the confidence reposed in them as this was the only way Nigeria can get out of the current hardships facing the nation.

President Buhari said this while decorating two of the newly promoted officers of the Nigerian Police Force deployed to his office with their new ranks.

Abdulkarim Dauda and Kayode Sikiru Akande, both promoted from the position of Assistant Commissioner of Police to Deputy Commissioner of Police, serve as the Chief Personal Security Officer to the President and the Officer in Charge of Presidential Movement respectively.

President Buhari congratulated the officers and urged them to justify their new ranks by increasing their commitment to the service of the nation.

He also commended them for their hard work and achievements which brought about their promotion.

He said Nigeria needed their dedication and unwavering commitment for it to achieve greatness and assume its rightful position, cautioning them not to abuse their positions.
The Senate, on Thursday, summoned the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, over the reduction of the fine imposed on telecommunications company, MTN.

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, had slammed a $5.2 billion (1.04 trillion) fine on MTN for failing to disconnect unregistered phone lines.

The government later reduced the fine to N330 billion.

At the Senate session on Thursday, Gilbert Nnaji (PDP-Enugu East), brought the matter up through a motion.

The Senate resolved to summon the communications minister, Mr. Shittu, the attorney general, Mr. Malami, and the CBN governor, Mr. Emefiele, to brief them on why the reduction was made.

It is the second time Mr. Malami would receive the Senate summons this week.

He had been summoned on Tuesday to explain why forgery charges were pressed against the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, and deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.

The Senate directed its committees on communications and justice to submit their report in two weeks.

Mr. Shittu, speaking in Ibadan recently, had said the Federal Government reduced the fine to encourage investors, after realising the negative impact the fine could have on the nation, its people and the economy.
The Nigerian Army and the Police have in a joint statement condemned the shooting by their personnel at the Borno government house on Thursday, during a feud over food items handed out by the government to residents.

The army and the police said the incident was condemnable even as they vowed to investigate what went wrong and punish those found wanting.

The statement which was jointly signed by Col. S.B Kumapaiye, Commander, 7. Division Garrison, Operation Lafiya Dole and Aminchi Samaila Baraya, Commissioner of Police, Borno State Command.

Full statement:

In the morning hours of today, Thursday, June 23, 2016, there was an unfortunate fracas between a soldier and a policeman around the office of the Deputy Governor over a disagreement which led to the unfortunate shooting of a policeman on his foot.

The policeman is responding to treatment and has been visited by the theatre commander, operation Lafiya Dole, Major General LEO Irabor and the Commissioner of Police, Borno State Command, Aminchi Baraya, both of whom went together to sympathize with the policeman.

By way of background from the Permanent Secretary, Government House and Security, Mr Ahmed Sanda, the Borno State Government had on Sunday, June 19, 2019 began the distribution of rice to internally displaced persons living in the host communities of Maiduguri and Jere metropolis. The distribution was meant to take place at 28 wards of the two local government areas unfortunately, when the exercise was launched in old Maiduguri ward for Jere local government area and at Shehuri north ward for Maiduguri on Sunday, hoodlums overpowered the committee in both instances and made away with many bags of the rice meant for the displaced persons.

As a result, officials tasked with the distribution shifted the exercise to two premises around the office of the Deputy Governor outside the Government House in order to ensure security of the food items while beneficiaries were identified and issued with allocation notes to give them access to the distribution centers. The exercise had gone smoothly since Sunday with some wards covered, until the unfortunate development today, Thursday.

The Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force in Maiduguri jointly condemn this unfortunate incident which was quickly brought under full control within minutes.

The Army and the Police are jointly investigating the cause of the fracas with a view to ensuring that anyone found culpable amongst the security men are made to face disciplinary measures in line with laid down rules of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Findings and measures taken will be brought to public knowledge as soon as possible.

The Army and the police operating in Borno assure the general public that they will continue to collaborate and work together towards their ongoing counter insurgency and civil security efforts that have led to the emerging peace in Borno State.

The Army and the Police commands in Borno State call on all personnel to exercise restraint in the cause of their duties and should strive to respect one another and work together to secure innocent citizens and maintain peace.
Kunle Adegoke, an attorney working with Muiz Banire (SAN), the debt recovery manager appointed by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria to help recover loans from the Silverbird Group, on Thursday lampooned Ben Murray-Bruce after the politicians businesses failed to settle about N11 billion credit they obtained from Union Bank.

Silverbird Groups outlets across the country were sealed on Thursday morning after AMCON secured a takeover authorisation from a Nigerian court.

Mr. Adegoke said the development had betrayed the tenets of common sense, a major rallying cry of Mr. Murray-Bruce in recent months, adding that the media mogul had been using his businesses to exploit unsuspecting Nigerians.

It must be borne in mind that innocent depositors money is what the Commonsense propagator and his brothers have been living large and feeding fat upon without recourse to the interest of the real labourers who own the money, he said.

The said loan was purchased by AMCON in 2011 after the capital base of Union Bank was terribly shaky, Mr. Adegoke continued.

And the Commonsense senator has persistently failed to pay the loans and yet has been pretending to be concerned with the welfare of Nigerians whom he has been skinning alive in order to remain relevant and live like a king.

Mr. Murray-Bruce, whos also a senator from Bayelsa State, has courted public attention lately with his distribution of video clips in which he could be seen proffering solutions to what he believed were the nations most critical challenges.

The populism messages, which he usually disseminates through his various media channels, have earned him both praises and derision from Nigerians home and away.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, faction led by Ahmed Makarfi has said it has uncovered plans by the ousted Chairman, Ali Sheriff, and associates to deceive unsuspecting members of the party, security agencies and the general public to support his ambition to remain chairman of the party by claiming he has a Court Order.

The party, in a statement by Dayo Adeyeye, its spokesperson, on Thursday, said Mr. Sheriff has connived with some former and serving governors of the All Progressive Congress, APC, to completely cripple the PDP to serve the interest of the ruling party.

It is now very clear that Senator Ali Modu Sheriff is working very hard for the enemies of our great Party. First, the Edo Primary Election and all the processes leading to it thereof were properly conducted, monitored and observed by INEC.

Edo PDP Chairman has warned Sheriff to stay clear of their affairs as the Party in the state is resolutely united behind Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the Candidate of the PDP, Mr. Adeyeye said.

Mr. Sheriff had earlier on Thursday inaugurated three different committees to conduct fresh primary in Edo State.

The statement by the Makarfi faction however warned that any member of the party serving in any committee set up by Senator Sheriff will be engaging in anti-party activities and will face disciplinary action.

We have concluded our investigations and discovered that there is no trace of any court order obtained by Senator Sheriff or any of his cohorts either at FCT high court or the Federal high court in Abuja or any court in Nigeria, he said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned a permanent secretary in Adamawa State, Mamman Malgwi, before a high court judge on a nine-count charge bordering on diversion of  funds meant for a road project.

The permanent secretary was arraigned alongside some deputy permanent secretaries, James Zarma, Suleiman Mohammed; director of Rural Access Mobility Project/World bank, Vwapamkai Bafyau; director, civil works, Farouk Abdullahi Tarja; and personal assistant to former governor Murtala Nyako, Jaafaru Maliki.

The EFCC accuses them of diverting N208 million meant for a road project.

Their arraignment before Justice Balkisu Aliyu of the Federal High Court Yola followed a petition by a group called Adamawa Awareness for Change, which mostly civil servants as members.

The N208 million was meant for the Yola bypass.

The total contract sum is N427 million. The contract was awarded to Nasser & Associate Global International Limited.



The accused allegedly forged documents of engineering drawing of phase 1 of the Yola to Numa road project and used the bill of quantity to withdraw over N65 million from state account.

The suspects pleaded not guilty to the nine-count charge leveled them.

The case was adjourned to 26, 27 and 28 of October.
At present there are no finances for implementation of changes in the EC

Changes will be made in the Electoral Code, if the international structures finance the process until September 1. Deputy Minister-Chief of the Government Staff Arthur Sargsyan declared today at the Government session. Though, Prime Minister expressed concern in this regard, It isnt sensible until September1, as everybody is on holiday. Head of the Presidents Staff Vigen Sargsyan intervened in the discussion of the issue, Changes are the result of an exceptional agreement, and the state, bearing huge responsibility, must be able to resolve the issue. The implementation demands serious financing package besides the goodwill and big effort. The whole financing is USD 16 million, and only in case of its existence the project can be implemented. It is really huge burden for the state. Hovik Abrahamyan noted that they should wait for the return of the Minister of Justice and Minister-Chief of the Government Staff, who had left for the discussions, after which that issue will be clarified. By the way, to remind, members of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) have expressed concern for many times that the state cannot find that amount of money.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

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Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building

OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh

USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens

ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression
Results of summit held in St. Petersburg presented in Berlin

OSCE Chairperson-in Office and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Igor Popov (Russian Federation) and Pierre Andrieu (France), and with Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference in Berlin today. The Co-Chairs informed the Chairperson-in-Office about the results of the summit of the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation held in St. Petersburg on 20 June 2016 and the agreement reached there about increasing the number of staff of the Office of the Personal Representative in order to bring additional international observers into the conflict zone. The aim of the agreed increase is to stabilize the situation in the conflict zone and to create an atmosphere conducive to fostering the peace process. Steinmeier welcomed the recent improvements in the upholding of the ceasefire. There was agreement among the participants of the Berlin meeting that a sustainable ceasefire and a return to political negotiations remain indispensable. Todays talks also served the goal of co-ordinating possible further steps towards achieving a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also with a view to Steinmeiers upcoming visit to the region. In the framework of the German OSCE Chairmanship Germany is supporting the negotiation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs and will continue to work actively towards a settlement of the conflict.
NUREMBERG, Germany, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Internationally, 42 percent of the online connected population agree firmly[1] with the statement "To me, it is important to always be reachable wherever I am" - and only 11 percent firmly disagree[1]. However, four countries - Germany, Sweden, Canada and Netherlands - run counter to this trend, with more of their connected consumers firmly disagreeing than agreeing.

According to a GfK survey of 22 countries, Russia and China have the highest levels of people online who agree strongly that it is important to them to be always reachable, wherever they are, standing at 56 percent each. They are followed by Turkey at 53 percent. These are the only countries surveyed where over half of their connected consumers agree strongly with that concept. Mexico comes close, with 50 percent, but there is then a drop to the next closest country: Poland at 41 percent.

Running against that international trend are Germany, Sweden, Canada and Netherlands. These countries are the only ones in the survey where greater numbers firmly disagree than agree with the idea that it is important to be always reachable.

In Germany, just over a third (34 percent) disagrees strongly with that idea compared to 16 percent who firmly agree. They are followed by Sweden at 28 percent versus 22 percent, Canada at 24 percent versus 23 percent, and the Netherlands at 23 percent versus 22 percent.

Nearly half of 30-39 year olds say "always reachable" is important

Amongst the different age groups, people in their thirties show most leaning towards wanting to be always reachable - standing at nearly half (47 percent) firmly agreeing that it is important. Next come those in their twenties, at 45 percent, followed by teenagers (15-19 years old) at 43 percent. Those in their forties run a very close fourth at 42 percent. However, for people aged 50 and over, the perceived need to be always reachable drops off significantly - standing at a third (33 percent) of those in their fifties and just 29 percent of people aged 60 and over.

"Always reachable" demand is only slightly higher among women

Looking at the difference between genders, women are slightly more likely than men to see being always reachable wherever they are as being important (43 percent women versus 40 percent men). When it comes to those who firmly disagree with it being important, the difference is even narrower, standing at 10 percent of women and 11 percent of men.

To download the complete findings for each of the 22 countries, please visit http://www.gfk.com/global-studies/global-study-overview/

Footnotes

[1] bottom two boxes and top two boxes from a seven point scale, where "1" means "do not agree at all", and "7" means "agree completely".

SOURCE GfK
APAC market leader Penta Security Systems Inc. awarded by Frost & Sullivan

SEOUL, South Korea, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 15, Penta Security Systems Inc. was awarded the honor of Frost & Sullivan Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year. The award was given at this year's 13th annual Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381646

Penta Security CEO, Seokwoo Lee, with Frost & Sullivan Senior Vice President, Andrew Milroy

Frost & Sullivan selected Penta Security Systems after concluding evaluations with a team of 30 analysts and consultants based in the Asian-Pacific region. Analysts examined a variety of indicators including revenue growth, market share, leadership in product innovation, major customer acquisitions, and business and market strategy. Specifically, Frost & Sullivan noted that Penta Security continues to make headway into new industries with its smart car security solution - AutoCrypt. AutoCrypt detects vehicular attacks from external systems utilizing its Application Layer Firewall, and has garnered significant attention with the increase in the news of vulnerabilities in smart cars.

CEO and Founder Seokwoo Lee attended the annual ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore in order to receive the award. Regarding reception of the award, he stated, "We are honored to receive the Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year award. It affirms the 19 years of hard work we have put into the development of information security." He added, "We will continue to pursue excellence and growth in web and data security - not only in APAC, but worldwide."

Having built relationships globally among enterprises and institutions, Penta Security Systems has grown rapidly along with the rise in demand for web and data security products. In 2015, its web application firewall (WAF), WAPPLES, was acknowledged by Frost & Sullivan as the leading WAF in the APAC region in terms of market share. The top WAF in Korea for three consecutive years, WAPPLES boasts a COCEP (Contents Classification and Evaluation Processing) engine, rather than traditional pattern-matching methods utilized by other cyber security vendors.

About Penta Security

Penta Security Systems Inc. was founded in 1997 by CEO Seokwoo Lee, and the company is a market-leading provider of web and data security products, solutions, and services in the APAC region. Penta Security protects more than 117,000 websites and blocks more than 108,000,000 web attacks per month. Recognized by Frost & Sullivan, Penta Security Systems is the top Web Application Firewall vendor in the APAC Region based on market share.

For more information on Penta Security, please visit www.pentasecurity.com/en. For potential partnership inquiries, please send an email to info@pentasecurity.com. For more details on the Asia Pacific ICT Awards, please visit http://www.ict-awards.com/.

Contact:

Esther Jeohn

Penta Security Systems Inc.

+82-2-2125-6676

estherjeohn@pentasecurity.com

Related Links

http://www.pentasecurity.com/en



SOURCE Penta Security Systems Inc.
BASSANO DEL GRAPPA, Italy, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Climaveneta Units to Combine Comfort and Sustainability in 'one of the Places in the World to go'

The new Bodega Garzon winery opened a couple of months ago, located three kilometers from Pueblo Garzon, Maldonado, Uruguay. With an investment of 85 million US dollars, the project includes a sustainable winery spanning 19,050 square meters housing the production of fine wines, a restaurant, a luxury hotel and an exclusive wine club.

The winery is located on an area of 2,000 hectares, where olive oil is already produced, also called "little Tuscany". So it is not by chance if La Bodega Garzon is listed as #21 among the 52 places in the world to go in 2016, according to the New York Times.

The project is interesting also from an energetic point of view as it is undergoing the LEED certification, achieving energy savings of about 40%, compared to other similar facilities, and producing 40% of its energy needs through mills and photovoltaic panels. Furthermore the 2014/2015 grape collection allowed Bodega Garzon to become the first sustainable winery built outside the United States, following the requirements of the Green Building Council (USGBC). The goals of this certification program are to enhance transparency and advance the wine industry towards becoming among the best practices in environmental stewardship, conservation of natural resources and socially equitable business practices.

The engineer Gabriel Garcia, in charge of the hvac executive project says "It has been a real pleasure to see this dream come true and to help in the development of such a sustainable project. It is not easy to follow the LEED requirements but in the end I must admit that by doing it you are sure to create something really green and sustainable, able to produce renewable energy instead of wasting fossil fuels and emitting CO2".

Focus on HVAC

In wineries stable humidity and temperature levels together with clean air quality are directly connected to the quality of the wine in every step of the production from grape harvesting to ageing and from fermentation to testing.

Stable temperature is essential in order to keep the natural features of wine such as taste and aroma, while a proper humidity level is fundamental in avoiding any mould or extreme oxygenation. Finally clear air quality helps to always keep cork and labels in the best condition.

At Bodega Garzon the HVAC system is thus based on high efficiency Climaveneta units: 6 WIZARD air handling units working together with 2 ERACS2-Q smart heat pumps for the production of hot and cold water. WIZARD is the ultimate solution in air handling technology. It is a single and compact unit responding to the different requirements. High quality is built into every component, ensuring not only energy efficiency but also exceptional versatility and reliability. This contributes to extending the life cycle of the unit whilst reducing the maintenance costs. ERACS2-Q is an INTEGRA multi-purpose heat pump for the simultaneous production of chilled and hot water by means of two independent hydronic circuits.

Climaveneta's solution is thus able to provide clean air quality, the best climate conditions and sanitary hot water, all year round combining high efficiency and low running costs in the winery, hotel, restaurant and all the other locations. The choice of producing sanitary hot water through heat pumps lets the system be fully integrated with renewable sources, such us mills and photovoltaic panels.

The engineer Mario Zito, Director at MED, Climaveneta distributor in Uruguay says: "It has been a pleasure for us to take part in such a challenging project, almost unmatched in our Country. Everybody is fully satisfied with the final results both in terms of humidity and temperature control for the wine production and in terms of sustainability and efficiency for the whole development energy performance."

Media Relations:

Sara Di Clemente

sara.diclemente@climaveneta.com



SOURCE Climaveneta
ALMELO, the Netherlands, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

For the first time the Dutch-German engineering company opens its know-how in heat treatment and brazing to the aerospace industry

EMS has extended its service range to the aerospace industry. The Dutch-German engineering company has entered the market as a qualified supplier for advanced heat treatment and brazing, now offering their services to customers throughout the international aerospace industry.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381999 )



Heat treatment and brazing

"We believe that customers in the aerospace industry will strongly benefit from the decades of experience we have had," explains EMS Managing Director Pieter Folkers. "Looking at the knowledge we have gained during many years of hard work in the highly regulated nuclear industry, we are now ready to open our expertise also to the aerospace market. We offer advanced heat treatment and brazing services for almost any metallic part you can imagine."

EN9100 certificate in place

As a qualified supplier EMS provides engineering and design capacities, helping customers meet their requirements with regard to schedule and quality. EMS' step into the aerospace industry has been enabled by its parental company ETC recently receiving the certificate "EN 9100" for "Brazing and Heat Treatment of Aircraft parts" at its Dutch site ETC Nederland. Only companies that obtain this qualification are allowed to work as a supplier for the aerospace industry.

EMS is a Dutch-German engineering company based at Almelo (The Netherlands) and Julich (Germany). We are a leading manufacturer of advanced high-quality CFRP products and specialised in Electron Beam Welding, precision tubes and heat-treatment services.

Contact:

Lianke Gerdzen, Communication Officer

+31-546-54-5562 / contact@ems-evolves.com

Twitter: @EMS_evolves

http://www.ems-evolves.com



SOURCE EMS
AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Largest law firm in Kansas signs multi-year subscription for Electronic Discovery Managed Services

International eDiscovery services provider Advanced Discovery announced today that Foulston Siefkin LLP, the largest law firm in Kansas, has selected it for the provision of managed eDiscovery services. For a fixed, monthly fee, Advanced Discovery will provide Foulston and its clients with a Relativity environment, user licenses, and project management support, as well as preferred pricing for all other services.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/356399LOGO )



"Foulston is a diverse and rapidly growing firm that it's our privilege to support," says Todd Deaton, Vice President of Business Development for Advanced Discovery. "We are excited to be partnering with them now to ensure they and their clients will receive quality services at competitive prices ."

Michael J. Norton, Commercial Litigation Practice Group Leader, had this to say:

The legal market is shifting, and regional firms like ours are rapidly becoming the preferred solution for companies facing growing legal challenges and shrinking legal budgets. Partnering with Advanced Discovery for eDiscovery supports our goal of delivering world-class services to our clients at predictable, competitive prices.

Rick Hutchinson, Chief Operating Officer for Advanced Discovery, had this to say:

Foulston has long been focused on delivering maximum value to their clients and leveraging technology, where possible, to do so. Advanced Discovery is honored to be selected as their partner in this continuing mission. Our managed services solution, powered by our tools and processes, will save Foulston and its clients time and money.

For more information about Foulston Siefkin LLP, please contact Matt Knoblauch, Chief Marketing Officer, at +1-316-291-9789 or mknoblauch@foulston.com . For more information about Advanced Discovery's managed services solutions, please contact Andreas Mueller, Vice President of Forensic Services, at +1-617-895-6615 or andreas.mueller@advanceddiscovery.com .

About Foulston Siefkin LLP

Foulston Siefkin traces its origins from 1919, when founders Robert C. Foulston and George L. Siefkin began their law practice in Wichita. Now with more than 90 attorneys in three Kansas offices, Foulston Siefkin is honored to represent a diverse client base ranging from individuals and emerging businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Our representative clients mirror the Kansas economy in the aerospace, agribusiness, construction, energy, education, financial, health care, manufacturing, retail, real estate, and technology sectors. Since our firm is based in Kansas, our clients benefit from a lower cost basis that can lead to a more personal, cost-effective, efficient, higher-value delivery of legal services. We're proud to have our roots and our future in Kansas.

About Advanced Discovery

Advanced Discovery is an award-winning, end-to-end eDiscovery services and software provider, supporting law firms and corporations since 2002. Advanced Discovery offers project planning and budgeting, data preservation and forensic collection, early case assessment, hosted review, managed document review, and more from its numerous state-of-the-art facilities across the country. The company employs leading professionals in the industry, applies defensible workflows, and provides industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery lifecycle. This devotion to excellence has earned Advanced Discovery inclusion on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the US four consecutive years and recognition as a top provider by Legal Times, Texas' Best and other publications. More information is available at http://www.advanceddiscovery.com.

SOURCE Advanced Discovery
Carano's novel technology offers customers flexibility in the choice of the service architecture

LONDON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the vehicle fleet leasing and management industry, Frost & Sullivan recognises Carano Software Solutions with the 2016 European Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Leadership. Leveraging sustained innovation and a strong customer focus, Carano Software Solutions has resolved the main challenges in platform migration in the fleet management industry.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381902

Carano Software Solutions Receives 2016 European Vehicle Fleet Leasing and Management Technology Leadership Award

Carano was one of the early developers of software-as-as-solution (SaaS) fleet management services in the integrated business process sector. Although its current service portfolio is based on a monolithic service architecture, it is gradually migrating towards microservices architecture. The former is a centralised and functionally single architecture with interwoven processes, while the latter is a decentralised network comprising small, independent processes communicating with each other. The microservices architecture presents numerous options for users during platform selection and sets the stage for a more robust, integrated service architecture.

The microservices architecture makes it easier to initiate, implement, and change parts of the whole service suite. It further facilitates customisation with the addition of new features and updates as and when they are needed. The brick-based architecture also aids with the easy identification of errors and their rectification or replacement. The modules based on the microservices architecture give users access to information on the cloud, multifunctional interface capabilities, and customisations.

"Carano seeks to leverage upcoming technologies in connected fleets, car sharing, and remote diagnostics to attain its goal of developing a Mobility Orchestration Platform (MOOP), a comprehensive platform that meets all business mobility requirements," said Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Abishek Narayanan. "This involves structuring huge volumes of fleet vehicle data on fleet movement, allocation, utilization, fuel efficiency, maintenance, location, and so on to derive trends that enable companies to pre-empt possible eventualities and price services based on usage. Overall, it improves the remote management of fleets that have limited resources."

Carano's strategic vision in technology upgradation and application saves time, effort, and labour, thereby reducing overall costs. For instance, a scenario-based analysis has shown that the company's Easy+ module, which aids with the sales and procurement of the fleet management business, can save 65 percent of the total time required. The MOOP underscores the company's strategic vision of providing value to customers by integrating travel management and fleet service solutions. This tool is expected to be in place in the next three to four years.

Furthermore, in keeping with the latest trends in 'Green fleets', Carano leads the federal eMobility program, called 'Shared E-Fleet', which focuses on the development of an electronic car sharing solution, including field testing. In addition, Carano heads a consortium of eight companies and is working on creating a complete platform to manage complex eFleets.

As one of the early developers of fleet management solutions in the cloud, the company focuses on integrating eVehicles in company fleets, as exemplified by the Shared E-Fleet Project. The company's other focus areas include the integration of mobile solutions, such as Easy+ mainly for drivers where once can conveniently configure and connect their fleets mainly for drivers, or providing alternate mobility options such as train rides in order to reduce mileage and leasing fees.

"Carano's fleet management solution ecosystem interconnects the various parts of the process end-to-end, as well as the stakeholders involved, in order to simplify data capturing from a wide range of touch points," noted Narayanan. "The information acquired can be used to project fleet metric dashboards dynamically and eventually be a source of credible data for analytics."

For offering a thorough suite of solutions for the entire lifecycle of fleets and services across the value chain, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present Carano Software Solutions with the 2016 European Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Leadership.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan bestows this award upon the company that has demonstrated uniqueness in developing and leveraging new technologies, which significantly impacts both the functionality and the customer value of the new products and applications. The award lauds the large R&D spend towards innovation, its relevance to the industry, and the positive impact on brand perception.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Carano Software Solutions

Carano Software Solutions GmbH, located in Berlin-Germany, is an experienced vehicle fleet expert with almost 25 years of success in implementing projects with national and international customers in all industries. We develop top-level IT solutions for e-procurement, fleet management, vehicle leasing and financing as well as for car trade, which optimize and digitalize all processes throughout the whole vehicle life cycle. Our future focus is to extend our product range with sustainable mobility approaches, such as our platform for the integration of electro vehicles.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants.

Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure.

The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation.

provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices.

For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organisation prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?

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Contact:

Chiara Carella

P: +44 (0) 207.343.8314

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E: chiara.carella@frost.com

Related Links

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
DUBLIN, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "General Purpose Electronic Test and Measurement Instruments - Global Strategic Business Report" report to their offering.

The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Rest of World. Annual estimates and forecasts are provided for the period 2015 through 2022. Also, a six-year historic analysis is provided for these markets. Market data and analytics are derived from primary and secondary research.



This report analyzes the worldwide markets for General Purpose Electronic Test and Measurement Instruments in US$ Thousand and Units by the following Product Segments:

Multimeters, Logic Analyzers

Signal Generators (Radio Frequency Signal Generators, Microwave Signal Generators, & Arbitrary Waveform Generators)

Oscilloscopes (Digital Oscilloscopes, Analog Oscilloscopes, & PC-Based Oscilloscopes)

Spectrum Analyzers

Network Analyzers

Extension-Based

The report further analyzes by the following End-Use Industries:



Communications

Aerospace & Military/Defense

Electronics Manufacturing

Industrial Electronics



Automotive

Others

The report profiles 180 companies including many key and niche players such as



Advantest Corporation ( Japan )

) Anritsu Corporation ( Japan )

) Astro-Med, Inc. (US)

B&K Precision Corp. (US)

Cobham Wireless (UK)

Danaher Corporation (US)

Fluke Corporation (US)

Tektronix, Inc. (US)

GaGe Applied Technologies, Inc. (US)

Giga-tronics, Inc. (US)

GW Instek Co Ltd. ( Taiwan )

) Hioki E. E. Corporation ( Japan )

) Ideal Industries, Inc. (US)

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (US)

National Instruments Corporation (US)

Pico Technology (UK)

Rohde & Schwarz (Germany)

HAMEG Instruments GmbH (Germany)

Spanawave Corporation (US)

Stanford Research Systems, Inc. (US)

Teledyne LeCroy, Inc. (US)

Thurlby Thandar Instruments Limited (UK)

Viavi Solutions Inc. (US)

Wireless Telecom Group, Inc. (US)

Boonton Electronics Corp. (US)

Yokogawa Electric Corp. ( Japan )

Key Topics Covered:



1. Industry Overview



2. Review Of Key Product Verticals & Noteworthy Product/Technology Trends



3. Key Product/Technology Trends And Innovations



4. Review Of Opportunities In Key End-Use Markets



5. Competition & Challenges



6. Product Overview



7. Overview Of End-Use Markets



8. Product Launches/Innovations



9. Recent Industry Activity



10. Focus On Select Players



11. Global Market Perspective



Total Companies Profiled: 180 (including Divisions/Subsidiaries 191)



The United States (68)

(68) Canada (4)

(4) Japan (23)

(23) Europe (39)

(39) - France (3)

(3) - Germany (9)

- The United Kingdom (10)

(10) - Italy (3)

(3) - Spain (3)

(3) - Rest of Europe (11)

(11) Asia-Pacific (Excluding Japan) (55)

(Excluding Japan) (55) Middle East (2)

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/n8xpxp/general_purpose

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com



SOURCE Research and Markets
One of the largest economies in Latin America keeps growth momentum going by joining the United Nations' Better Than Cash Alliance to foster a financially inclusive economy

MEXICO CITY and NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mexican Government is building on its successful economic growth and new financial inclusion policy by pledging to increase the ability of citizens, businesses and the government to make and receive digital payments. By joining the United Nations-based Better Than Cash Alliance, Mexico will propel inclusive growth, empower women and grow the country's GDP.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120919/CG77018LOGO

The announcement comes shortly after Mexico's Government unveiled its National Policy on Financial Inclusion that included a call for the country to use technological innovation for financial inclusion and reduce the use of cash.

The existing use of digital payments already brought around $8 billion boost to Mexico's GDP between 2011 and 2015, according to a recent Moody's Analytics report. This indicates there is big potential for greater growth. Research conducted by The Better Than Cash Alliance also found that by digitizing its own payments from cash, the Mexican Government saves an estimated US$1.3 billion per year.

Mexico's announcement to step up efforts to move away from cash comes during a period of slower growth in the Latin America region overall. While Mexico's economy is an exception and continues to grow, only 44 percent of adults over the age of 18 have a bank account in Mexico, according to the Government's recent survey on financial inclusion (ENIF, 2015). However, there are 120 million people in the country, and more than 107 million people have a mobile phone, making mobile digital payments a potentially important tool in increasing financial inclusion.

"There is a tremendous opportunity for financial inclusion in front of us that we must seize to build on the momentum of the new National Policy on Financial Inclusion," said Luis Videgaray Caso, Mexico's Minister of Finance and Public Credit. "Integrating digital payment technology across all agencies of Government is key to this, and the other benefits of efficiency and cost savings, are too valuable to ignore. This new commitment to The Better Than Cash Alliance, which helps implement both our National Policy on Financial Inclusion and our National Digital Strategy, will improve lives for all of our people and contribute to inclusive economic growth."

In 2013, the Mexican Government launched the National Digital Strategy "Mexico Digital," which included the goal of creating a digital economy. Since then, measures taken by the Government to shift away from cash provide a strong foundation from which to expand. The number of digital payment transactions through the Government's Treasury Single Account increased from 69 million in 2013 to 116 million in 2015. Today's membership announcement is a strong step in continuing to build a robust digital economy where everybody can easily make and receive electronic payments.

"When Mexico held the G20 Presidency in 2012, the Government put the issue of financial inclusion at the heart of the global agenda" said Dr. Ruth Goodwin-Groen, Managing Director of The Better Than Cash Alliance. "The country has long been recognized for its innovation in driving financial inclusion. Now, Mexico has made another bold move in implementing the new Financial Inclusion Policy to transform how people make payments, empowering millions of its people to participate in a digitally financially inclusive economy and creating many other benefits for the country."

About Better Than Cash Alliance

The Better Than Cash Alliance is a partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerate the transition from cash to digital payments in order to reduce poverty and drive inclusive growth. The United Nations Capital Development Fund serves as the secretariat. To learn more, visit www.betterthancash.org, follow @BetterThan_Cash and subscribe for news.

Related Links

http://www.betterthancash.org



SOURCE Better Than Cash Alliance
Bloomberg Professional service subscribers can utilize the BLACK APP from S3 Partners to identify crowded trades

NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- S3 Partners today launched its BLACKLIGHT APPs Crowding Kit (the "BLACK APP") on the Bloomberg APP Portal at {APPS BLACK }. The BLACK APP uses S3 BLACKLIGHT financing rate data, which is already available on the Bloomberg Professional service {SI } and {EMSX } pages, to deliver real-time analytics on crowded trades.

By connecting trading and financing market activities, the BLACK APP provides Bloomberg Professional service subscribers with the ability to accurately identify short-selling events and a security's borrow velocity relative to market float, real-time short interest, financing cost and supply capacity. The BLACK APP also automates a traditionally labor-intensive process, streamlining the financing workflow of those borrowing or lending a stock, ETF or an index.

"THE BLACK APP is a slick analytics tool to see how real-time short-selling activity impacts portfolios. It is a must have for all trading professionals," said Dave "Tiger" Williams, Managing Partner of Williams Trading.

The BLACK APP delivers powerful, real-time analytics that enable market professionals to:

See how short selling, short covering, long selling and short squeezes are affecting their portfolios;

See real-time intelligence on short interest reporting that challenges biased market indicators;

See and track crowded longs and shorts for specific corporate names, ETFs, sectors and indices;

See how borrowing and lending activity can affect market price action and financing rate movements; and

See utilization, borrow velocity, and financing cost analytics.

The BLACK APP is supported by a robust pipeline of S3 Partners' proprietary, independent and timely data for over 15,000 securities, sourced each day from trillions of dollars of asset inventory. The BLACKLIGHT APP draws on this unique source of data to generate analytics that complement the Bloomberg user's workflow. In addition, portfolios can be integrated and effortlessly uploaded to the BLACK APP from multiple formats.

"We value the opportunity to work with Bloomberg to deliver unique data and analytics that market participants can use to inform and support a wide-range of investment strategies and requirements," said S3 Partners Founder Bob Sloan. 'BLACK APPS' market-leading analytics can help Bloomberg subscribers solve financing workflow issues, as well as analyze crowding activity in real-timean essential factor for making both trade and investment decisions in today's fast-moving market."

"S3 Partners saw the opportunity to offer more value to Bloomberg Professional subscribers by introducing analytics that complement its unique data set," said Tony McManus, Global Head of Real-Time Content & Technology for Bloomberg Enterprise Solutions. "This is a prime example of the opportunity that exists for software and data providers that work with us to develop apps for the App Portal."

The Bloomberg App Portal gives Bloomberg Professional service subscribers access to a diverse library of financial tools, provided by Bloomberg and software developers from around the world. Applications are reviewed and selected for the Bloomberg App Portal based on a variety of parameters, chief among them the ability for the application to add value to Bloomberg's existing feature set and information resources.

For more information about S3's BLACK APP on the Bloomberg App Portal, please visit {APPS BLACK } on the Bloomberg Professional service.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength  delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately  is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to approximately 325,000 subscribers globally. For more information, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/company/ or request a demo.

BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL and BLOOMBERG APP PORTAL are trademarks and service marks of Bloomberg Finance L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

About S3 Partners

S3 Partners is an independent financial data, analytics and services firm. BLACKLIGHT is an analytics and technology platform that consolidates all financing and capital markets data for every market, product, function and counterparty.

To learn more about S3, please visit www.s3partners.net and be sure to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: @S3Partners

LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/1QwFhuz

Media Contacts:

Vera Newhouse Bloomberg +1 212-617-6420 vnewhouse@bloomberg.net

Michael Herley S3 Partners/Kekst +1 212-521-4897 michael.herley@kekst.com

Related Links

http://www.s3partners.net



SOURCE S3 Partners
SHENZHEN, China, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The China-Europe Block Train laden with cargo that had departed from Chengdu in the western part of China arrived in Warsaw, its final destination, on June 20th after a 13-day journey. The train, which had followed the route of the ancient Silk Road, witnessed a beautiful natural landscape as well as economic and trade development along the route during the trip.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/382704

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/382703

TCL Chariman Li talks with Chinese President Xi on site The arrival of the train

Leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was in the middle of a state visit to Poland, together with corporate representatives from both countries, including Tomson Li Dongsheng, chairman and CEO of TCL Corporation, greeted the arrival of the train in a grand ceremony held at Warsaw Central Railway Station. President Xi also expressed his blessings and vision for the China-Europe Block Train and the continuing economic development between the two countries.

Original electronic products from TCL's Chengdu factory took up 30 of the train's 41 new container cars, roughly 80 per cent of total cargo. All the electronic goods on the train will be sold across Europe after assembly at TCL's factory in Poland. The factory is China's largest manufacturing facility in Poland. During the past three months, TCL delivered more than 400 containers of electronic products to Poland over the China-Europe Block Train route. In March 2016, the load on the first block train to leave Chengdu consisted solely of components for TCL's flat screen TVs.

TCL's 105,000 square-meter factory in Zyrardow, Poland is the largest manufacturing facility in that city and China's largest manufacturing facility in the country. TCL has five production lines at its Polish factory, each capable of assembling 4.5 million TVs annually. Most of the factory's 284 employees are natives of Zyrardow with some employees having worked there for 13 years. In terms of delivery of the final products, Poland, an important transport hub in Europe, is one day away from Frankfurt and Paris and three days away from more peripheral markets such as Lisbon and Madrid. Up to 90 per cent of the components produced at the factory are delivered via rail.

TCL chairman and CEO Li said during an interview that, thanks to the increasingly strong industrial competences of Chinese companies and the improved infrastructure between the two countries, more Chinese companies can be expected to establish a presence in Poland and even to go as far as setting up Chinese industrial parks with the support of the two governments, as part of efforts to help Poland meet its industrial recovery goal in tandem with China's strong skills and experience in manufacturing.

For more information contact:

Marta Chen

chenxuejun@tcl.com

+86-0755-33313868

SOURCE TCL Corporation
MISGAV, Israel, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The Trendlines Group Ltd. (SGX:42T, OTC: TRNLY), a leading Israeli company focused on innovation commercialization, announced today that its 26.5%-owned associated company, E.T.View Medical Ltd. (TASE: ETVW), has signed a definitive agreement for its sale to Ambu A/S (CPH: AMBU-B), a Danish medical device company. E.T.View Medical Ltd. ("E.T.View") develops and manufactures a portfolio of products that provide continuous visualization and ventilation of the airway during thoracic surgical procedures.



(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151125/290970LOGO )



According to the agreement, Ambu A/S ("Ambu") will acquire E.T.View in a "reverse triangular merger" valued at US$16 million, less about US$3.4 million in transaction costs, employee bonuses, and the assumption of certain debts, liabilities and expenses. Following the sale, E.T.View will be delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ambu. The Board of Directors of E.T.View unamiously approved the agreement on 21 June 2016.

The fair value of The Trendlines Group's holdings in E.T.View was approximately US$1.3 million as at 31 March 2016. Trendlines estimates that it will receive net proceeds of approximately US$3.3 million resulting in a pre-tax gain from the sale of approximately US$2.0 million.

Commenting on the sale, Trendlines Chairman and CEO Todd Dollinger, who also serves as Chairman of E.T.View, said, "Through the intensive work of E.T.View's staff, with the support of the Trendlines team, E.T.View has become a global leader in lung isolation airway management with sales in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Ambu's proposed acquisition of E.T.View recognizes the importance of E.T.View's innovative technology for thoracic surgeons and anesthesiologists. We are very pleased to to place E.T.View in Ambu's hands and expect tremendous growth under Ambu to the benefit of patients and the medical community."

Commenting on the significance of the transaction to The Trendlines Group, Mr. Dollinger added, "The sale of E.T.View marks the first exit that Trendlines has completed since listing on Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) on 26 November 2015. Trendlines is committed to supporting the growth of its portfolio companies and realizing the value of its portfolio companies at appropriate times."

The Trendlines Group, listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX:42T) and with an ADR program in the U.S. (OTC:TRNLY), is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development through business building.

Forward-looking statements

This press release may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include descriptions regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company or its officers with respect to the results of business operations and financial condition, industry, environment and future events and plans of the Company. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results, performance or achievements. Actual results, performance or achievements of the Company may differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and assumptions, such as known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including those risk factors discussed in our Offer Document dated 16 November 2015 and in our other filings with the SGXNET. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. In light of these risks and uncertainties, actual events, results and developments could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which reflect the view of the Company or its officers as of the date of this presentation only. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For more investor information, contact: Judith Kleinman, Director Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, judith@trendlines.com

SOURCE The Trendlines Group Ltd.
SAN ANTONIO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) today was joined by representatives from key veteran groups in calling for swift adoption of a recent proposal by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to streamline access to health care for veterans. Nearly 5,000 nurse practitioners are gathered in San Antonio, Texas for AANP's 2016 National Conference, which will address a variety of important issues, including a plan to increase veterans' access to care. The VA's proposed rule would grant veterans direct access to the high-quality care provided by advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), including the 4,800 nurse practitioners (NPs) working for the VA, and reduce wait times.

"Veterans support the VA's efforts to provide our nation's heroes with direct access to high-quality nurse practitioner care in the VA system," said Dr. Cindy Cooke, DNP, FNP-C, FAANP, AANP president. "Today, veterans needlessly wait far too long to receive the health care they need and deserve."

On May 25, the VA opened the 60-day public comment period on a proposed regulation that would give veterans direct access to high quality primary care delivered by NPs at VA facilities. NPs are already authorized to work at this level in 21 states and the District of Columbia, with outcomes equivalent to or better than those of their physician counterparts.

"The VA has put forward a solid plan to modernize the VA system and adopt a 21st century approach to health care delivery," added Cooke.

The 4,800 NPs at VA facilities already care for veterans by providing clinical assessments, ordering and interpreting diagnostic tests, making diagnoses, and initiate and manage treatment plans including prescribing medications.

"It's time to make this care directly and more readily accessible to our nation's veterans by opening access to NPs in our veterans' health system," said Cooke. "We need to support our heroes by supporting enactment of this step forward by the VA."

In addition to Dr. Cooke, the following veterans spoke at today's press conference.

Lt. Colonel Alicia Rossiter, U.S. Air Force (retired), DNP, PCPNP-BC, FNP, FAANP

Major General Jimmie O. Keenan, U.S. Army (retired), MSN, RN, FACHE, FAAN

Captain Elizabeth Barker, U.S. Navy (retired), PhD, CNP, FAANP, FACHE, FNAP, FAAN

San Antonio American Legion Leaders:

Lloyd Buckmaster, American Legion 20th District Commander, San Antonio

Roberto E. 'Eddie' De La Garza

Enrique Martin, U.S. Air Force Desert Storm Veteran

The VA is receiving comments on the proposed regulation through July 25.

About American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP)

(AANP) is the largest professional membership organization for nurse practitioners (NPs) of all specialties. It represents the interests of more than 222,000 NPs, including more than 68,000 individual members and 200 organizations, providing a unified networking platform and advocating for their role as providers of high-quality, cost-effective, comprehensive, patient-centered and personalized healthcare. The organization provides legislative leadership at the local, state and national levels, advancing health policy; promoting excellence in practice, education and research; and establishing standards that best serve NP patients and other health care consumers. Visit www.aanp.org to learn more.

CONTACT: Will Rijksen 202-715-3922  [email protected]

SOURCE American Association of Nurse Practitioners

Related Links

http://www.aanp.org


FAIRFAX, Va., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council, ACT-IAC, the premier public-private partnership dedicated to improving government through the application of information technology, announced today the release of Phase III, Measures of Impact, of the ACT-IAC Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Implementation Project. The entire IT Management Maturity Model, Proven Practices to support FITARA Implementation, and Measures of Impact can be downloaded at: https://actiac.org/groups/project-fitara.

At the request of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the ACT-IAC FITARA project team developed the 'Measures of Impact' as a means to assess the impact of FITARA over time.

Phase III provides federal agencies with metrics to better gauge their agency's IT management practices for a successful, comprehensive model of IT maturity that goes beyond FITARA requirements. This broader IT management maturity is intended to supplement guidance from OMB.

The 'Measures of Impact' are structured into three categories, Measures of IT management maturity, Measures of IT service delivery and Measures of improving agency effectiveness and efficiency. There are fourteen (14) measures in these three categories that are scored from Level 0 (ad hoc governance structure), Level 1 (basic maturity), Level 2 (evolving maturity) and Level 3 (demonstrated maturity).

ACT-IAC originally developed the FITARA IT Maturity Model in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget that tracked directly with the common baseline established in OMB's guidance. The project was completed by a dedicated, working group of more than 50 people from various backgrounds, including the public and private sector.

While the primary audiences for this document are OMB and the 24 agencies that share responsibility to implement FITARA, ACT-IAC believes there a number of other key stakeholders who will be interested in this work. In particular, oversight organizations like Congress and the Government Accountability Office are key players ensuring the effective implementation of the Act. Likewise, there are a number of government-wide domain forums like the management councils for CIOs, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Acquisition Officers (CAOs) that will be helping their respective communities of practice to develop and share best practices and lessons learned supporting implementation of FITARA.

Learn more about our organization and how to become a member at http://www.actiac.org or call (703) 208-4800. Connect with ACT-IAC on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160120/324086LOGO

SOURCE American Council for Technology

Related Links

http://www.actgov.org


BREA, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ADATA Technology is announcing the release of four new accessories for today's digital lifestyle. The new products include a 3-way lightning card reader for iOS, Android and Windows; waterproof external SSD; MFi certified lightning flash drive and an ultra-small Type-C flash drive.

ADATA's new accessories are developed for today's digital world, providing users with better ways to store and share the digital content they create

"We developed these new accessories for today's digital world," stated Robert Chen, managing director of North America at ADATA. "Users are creating more and more content and looking for better ways to store and share it. We believe the quality and versatility of these devices will propel them to become a staple anywhere mobile storage is needed and/or collaboration between devices is necessary, may that be the classroom, workplace, home or creative space."

New products from ADATA that will increase your ability to store and share content across multiple devices include:

Lightning Card Reader Plus for iOS, Android and Windows

The MFi certified AI910 is the only device in its category that allows 3-way share and back up across iOS, Android, and Windows devices, bridging the gap between different platforms. Equipped with SD and microSD card slots for read and write transfer and up to 256GB of extra storage, this versatile device is the ideal card reader for the collaborating student or the professional on the go. It supports over 4GB file data transfer, multiple file formats, and 4K video playback.

Ultra-Small Type-C Flash Drive

The ultra-small UC360 features a USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface and a Type-C reversible connector for easy plug-in. Its high speed read and write capabilities allow for quick file transfers between iOS, Android, OS X, and Windows devices.

Waterproof External SSD

The SE730 is the world's fastest and smallest USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C external SSD. Along with being compact and portable, it meets the IPX8 standard for waterproof, IP6X standard for dustproof and Military Standard for shockproof. It's built with highly reliable MLC NAND flash, making it the most secure SSD for your most important files.

Ultra Slim, Compact MFi Certified Lightning Flash Drive

With the Apple MFi certified AI920, you won't worry about running out of storage on your iPhone. AI920 features a USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface and supports video recording directly to the drive. Its ultra-light and compact design nicely fits to iPhones' slim design and makes storage expansion on the iPhone and iPad easy. The device supports nearly 40 file formats, 4K video playback, over 4GB of file data transfer and subtitle play, and one-touch back up. The capacity of the AI920 ranges from 32GB to 128GB.

These new accessories will be available in Q3 2016. Additional information about ADATA's Apple accessories products is available at www.adata.com.

About ADATA Technology

ADATA offers complete memory solutions, including DRAM modules, USB flash drives, memory cards, solid state drives, and portable hard drives as well as advanced LED lighting. The company's emphasis on quality requires it to perform at the highest standards related to ID design, purchasing and supply-chain management (raw materials), manufacturing processes, quality control, and testing. Through constant innovation and product development, it has won many prestigious international awards, such as the National Gold Award of Excellence in Taiwan, Japan's G-MARK (Good Design Award), CES Innovations award, the iF Design and Red Dot Design awards in Germany.

For more information, visit www.adata.com.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/383022

SOURCE ADATA Technology

Related Links

http://www.adata.com


TORONTO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) (TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle" or the "Company") today announced that it will release its second quarter 2016 results on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, after normal trading hours.

Second Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call and Webcast

Agnico Eagle's senior management will host a conference call on Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:00 AM (E.D.T.) to discuss the Company's financial and operating results.

Via Webcast:

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on the Company's website at www.agnicoeagle.com.

Via Telephone:

For those preferring to listen by telephone, please dial 1-647-427-7450 or toll-free

1-888-231-8191. To ensure your participation, please call approximately ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call.

Replay archive:

Please dial 1-416-849-0833 or toll-free 1-855-859-2056, access code 38813014. The conference call replay will expire on August 25, 2016.

The webcast, along with presentation slides will be archived for 180 days on the Company's website.

Investor Relations

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited

145 King Street East, Suite 400

Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2Y7

Telephone: 416-947-1212

Fax: 416-367-4681

About Agnico Eagle

Agnico Eagle is a senior Canadian gold mining company that has produced precious metals since 1957. Its eight mines are located in Canada, Finland and Mexico, with exploration and development activities in each of these countries as well as in the United States and Sweden. Agnico Eagle and its shareholders have full exposure to gold prices due to its long-standing policy of no forward gold sales. Agnico Eagle has declared a cash dividend every year since 1983.

SOURCE Agnico Eagle Mines Limited

Related Links

http://www.agnico-eagle.com


NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC, an organization that has spent decades seeking to advance Arab-Israeli peace, decried Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's incendiary address against Israel before the European Parliament, as well as his refusal to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Brussels.

"Once again, President Abbas is the great disappointer," said AJC CEO David Harris. "Instead of returning to direct peace talks with Israel, Abbas abused an international platform to deliver yet another tirade full of invectives and falsehoods against Israel."

"Abbas's malicious attack contradicts any attempt he made to verbally offer a hand for peace," Harris said. "Indeed, Abbas demonstrably held back his hand both by his remarks, and by rejecting an EU request that he meet with President Rivlin."

Both Abbas and Rivlin were invited to address the Parliament, as the EU seeks a higher profile in efforts to move the stalled peace process.

In his address, Abbas made the patently absurd declaration that "the occupation" is the source of global terror. "Once the occupation ends, terrorism will disappear, there will be no more terrorism in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world," he said.

"Remarkably, European legislators held up Abbas as an opponent of terrorism, even as he and his government regularly lionize Palestinian terrorists," said Harris.

Abbas also accused Israel of "turning our country into an open-air prison," and repeated an age-old and deadly anti-Semitic canard that rabbis in Israel wish to poison Palestinian water.

Harris concluded: "In sum, Israelis, and Palestinians who truly seek a negotiated comprehensive peace accord based on a two-state agreement, continue to await the day when Abbas becomes a leader committed to advancing the peace process, and not continually undermining it, or else gives way to other Palestinians ready for an enduring agreement with Israel."

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ankura Consulting Group (Ankura), a business advisory and expert services firm, announced today the appointment of Michael Baumkirchner and Dennis Barrett to its Turnaround & Restructuring practice, and Jaime Minihane to the firm's Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical practice.

Ankura appoints Michael Baumkirchner and Dennis Barrett to its Turnaround & Restructuring practice, and Jaime Minihane to the firm's Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical practice.

Mr. Michael Baumkirchner joins Ankura as Managing Director in the Turnaround & Restructuring practice with more than 15 years of experience in restructuring, corporate finance, commercial lending and investment banking. He has spent the last seven years providing advisory services to various constituencies in both in-court and out-of-court restructurings across a wide range of industries including energy, financial services, telecom, healthcare, technology and manufacturing. Mr. Baumkirchner is experienced in originating and structuring secured credit backed by aviation assets, marine cargo containers, intellectual property, power plants and telecommunication infrastructure. Previously, he focused on structuring and distributing debt in the project finance, real estate, and leverage finance markets. Mr. Baumkirchner was most recently at FTI Consulting. He will be based in New York.

Mr. Dennis Barrett joins Ankura as Managing Director in the Turnaround & Restructuring practice. He is an experienced professional, having served clients in a variety of industries including air cargo, restaurant, specialty chemical, telecommunications, consumer products and retail. Mr. Barrett has provided advisory services to debtors and creditors in both formal Chapter 11 proceedings and out-of-court workout situations, including assisting clients with financial restructurings, debt for equity swaps, 363 asset sales, strategic planning and business valuation. Mr. Barrett was most recently at FTI Consulting. He will be based in New York.

Ms. Jaime Minihane joins Ankura as Managing Director in the Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical practice. She has more than 15 years of experience in national security, threat assessment and analysis, and federal investigations for the Department of Defense. She has extensive experience in conducting complex criminal investigations and counterintelligence operations worldwide in support of various public sector initiatives. Prior to joining Ankura, Ms. Minihane served as a Special Agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) where she provided subject matter expertise to multiple AFOSI Detachments worldwide, ensuring the critical infrastructure, missions, and internal processes of each Air Force base in her portfolio were protected from external and internal hazards. She assisted in the identification of potential vulnerabilities at each location, and subsequently identified best practices to mitigate prospective risks. She will be based in Washington, DC and Charlottesville, VA.

"It's exciting to welcome another group of highly regarded professionals who believe in our collaborative, team-oriented culture," said Kevin Lavin, Co-President of Ankura. "Dennis and Michael's vast industry experience and technical skill will be an asset to clients of the Turnaround & Restructuring practice, while Jaime's highly specialized knowledge will add even more capabilities to our comprehensive Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical practice."

About Ankura Consulting Group

Ankura Consulting Group is a business advisory and expert services firm. Its deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges clients face enables its team to provide impactful, senior-level counsel. As an independent firm built on five key principles  Integrity, Quality, Diversity, Collaboration and Longevity  Ankura's relationships extend beyond one engagement or issue. The firm empowers its industry experts to provide a high-touch, unique approach for its clients in critical times. Ankura's offering includes a wide range of compliance, corporate investigation, data analytics, disputes/litigation support, expert witness, economic and financial analysis, forensic accounting, geopolitical advisory, mass dispute resolution, risk advisory and management, transaction advisory, trust services, turnaround and restructuring, valuation, visual communications and business advisory services. For more information: www.ankuraconsultinggroup.com.

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NORTHBROOK, Ill. and BOGOTA, Colombia, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Astellas today announced the establishment of Astellas Farma Colombia (AFC), a new affiliate with operations headquartered in Bogota. Colombia joins Astellas Farma Brasil as the company's second affiliate in Latin America.

Sandra Cifuentes appointed General Manager of Astellas Farma Colombia Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world.

Sandra Cifuentes has been appointed to general manager, AFC. She will be based in Bogota and report to Percival Barretto-Ko, senior vice president, International Operations. Cifuentes will have responsibility for managing and growing Astellas' operations in the third largest country in Latin America and fourth largest pharmaceutical market in the region.

"Today marks an important milestone for Astellas' continued growth in the Americas and we look forward to working with stakeholders across Colombia to serve the unmet needs of patients," said Barretto-Ko. "I'm confident that with Sandra's deep knowledge of Colombia, extensive leadership experience and notable commercial and market access achievements, Astellas will continue making a difference in the lives of patients."

Cifuentes brings more than 20 years of pharmaceutical experience in Latin America to Astellas. Most recently, she led Baxalta's (now Shire) business in Colombia, where she was responsible for driving strategy for the company's local affiliate following its spin-off from Baxter International. Prior to Baxalta, she served as general manager for Shire's Colombia and Andean region business, where she helped establish the company's Colombia affiliate. Since 2005, Cifuentes has also held numerous regional commercial roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis and Merck KGA in oncology, transplant, immunology, CNS and cardiovascular businesses.

Cifuentes holds degrees in nutrition and marketing from the Universidad Javeriana and Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, along with various executive certifications from the United States and Switzerland.

About Astellas

Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceutical products. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.us. You can also follow us on Twitter at @AstellasUS, Facebook at www.facebook.com/AstellasUS or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/astellas-pharma.

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SOURCE Astellas

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SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Edmunds.com, the leading car information and shopping network, forecasts that 1,528,812 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in June for an estimated Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 16.9 million. This reflects a 0.2 percent decrease from May 2016, but a 3.8 percent increase from June 2015. The forecast anticipates that it will be the best for the month of June since 1.67 million sales were registered in June 2005.

Edmunds.com projects that 8,656,267 new cars and trucks will be sold this year in the U.S. through the end of June, up 1.6 percent from the 8,518,550 sales recorded through the first six months of 2015's record-breaking year.

"The industry may not be growing as fast as in recent years but, at the halfway point of 2016, it's still on pace to set another annual sales record," says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. "As long as economic conditions -- like low unemployment and easy access to credit -- continue, the industry will be in a strong position through the busy summer sales months."

SALES VOLUME FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Sales Volume June 2016 Forecast June 2015 May 2016 Change from June 2015 Change from May 2016 GM 256,017 259,353 240,450 -1.3% 6.5% Ford 238,516 224,681 234,748 6.2% 1.6% Toyota 207,644 209,912 219,339 -1.1% -5.3% Fiat Chrysler 197,447 185,035 204,452 6.7% -3.4% Honda 144,017 134,397 147,108 7.2% -2.1% Nissan 132,677 124,228 133,496 6.8% -0.6% Hyundai/Kia 131,571 121,639 133,932 8.2% -1.8% VW/Audi 47,676 48,698 47,507 -2.1% 0.4% Industry 1,528,812 1,473,162 1,531,885 3.8% -0.2%



*NOTE: June 2016 had 26 selling days, June 2015 had 25 and May 2016 had 24.



Edmunds.com estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 13.6 million vehicles in June 2016, with fleet transactions accounting for 20.1 percent of total sales. An estimated 3.1 million used cars will be sold in June 2016, for a SAAR of 38.0 million (compared to 3.2 million  or a SAAR of 38.0 million  used car sales in May 2016).

MARKET SHARE FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Market Share June 2016 Forecast June 2015 May 2016 Change from June 2015 Change from May 2016 GM 16.7% 17.6% 15.7% -0.9% 1.0% Ford 15.6% 15.3% 15.3% 0.3% 0.3% Toyota 13.6% 14.2% 14.3% -0.7% -0.7% Fiat Chrysler 12.9% 12.6% 13.3% 0.4% -0.4% Honda 9.4% 9.1% 9.6% 0.3% -0.2% Nissan 8.7% 8.4% 8.7% 0.2% 0.0% Hyundai/Kia 8.6% 8.3% 8.7% 0.3% -0.1% VW/Audi 3.1% 3.3% 3.1% -0.2% 0.0%

More insight into recent auto industry trends can be found in Edmunds.com's Industry Center at http://www.edmunds.com/industry-center/.

About Edmunds.com, Inc.

Car shopping destination Edmunds.com serves nearly 20 million visitors each month. With Edmunds.com Price Promise, shoppers can buy smarter with instant, upfront prices for cars and trucks currently for sale at 10,000 dealer franchises across the U.S. Shoppers can browse not only dealer inventory, but also vehicle reviews, shopping tips, photos, videos and feature stories on both Edmunds' wired site and on its acclaimed mobile apps. Regarded as one of the best places to work in Southern California, Edmunds.com was also named one of "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Automotive" by Fast Company. Edmunds welcomes all car-shopping questions on its free Live Help Line at 1-855-782-4711 and [email protected], via text at ED411 and on Twitter and Facebook. The company is based in Santa Monica, Calif. and has a satellite office in downtown Detroit, Mich., but you can find Edmunds from anywhere on YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Flipboard.

Contact:

Aaron Lewis Edmunds.com Corporate Communications

www.Edmunds.com

Media Hotline: 310-309-4900

[email protected]

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SOURCE Edmunds.com

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LA PALMA, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Bibigo, the leading maker of Korean pantry staples, will be showcasing new Beef and Chicken Rice Bowls, Meat Entrees, and additions to its expanding lineup of Gochujang-based sauces at Summer Fancy Food Show (booth #236, Level 3, Main Hall) in New York, June 26-28. Modern interpretations of authentic Korean cuisine, the new innovations allow foodies and at-home cooks an opportunity to enjoy the distinct, culinary flavors of Korea in the comfort of their own kitchens.

"With consumers gravitating more and more towards Asian tastes and Korean cuisine, we have expanded our product line to align with growing demands," said Nayoung Shin, head of marketing at CJ Foods. "With the development of our rice bowls, meat entrees and new sauces based on the signature Gochujang flavor, we've given consumers even more delicious and authentic options to experience the Korean flavor profiles they crave."

Bibigo will showcase the following new products at Summer Fancy Food Show:

Rice Bowls Based on Korean-style Bibimbap, new Bibigo Rice Bowls are loaded with a variety of vegetables and tossed in flavor-forward sauces, and will be available in the following varieties: Korean Style Bibimbap ChickenA red quinoa and rice blend topped with nutrient-dense kale, zucchini, and fire-grilled chicken drizzled with a red chili and sesame Gochujang sauce Korean Style Fire Grilled BeefBright red bell peppers, onions, and zucchini add even more flavor to Bibigo's fire-grilled beef and rice dish Korean Style Fire Grilled ChickenHearty fire-grilled chicken sits on top of a bed of rice tossed with steamed broccoli, carrots, and onions

Based on Korean-style Bibimbap, new Bibigo Rice Bowls are loaded with a variety of vegetables and tossed in flavor-forward sauces, and will be available in the following varieties: Fire-Grilled Meat Entrees Convenient and delicious, Bibigo's newest offering allows meat lovers to experience the authentic taste of family-style Korean barbecue in the comfort and convenience of their own home. Ready in just 5-7 minutes, new Bibigo meat entrees are marinated in authentic Korean sauces and fire-grilled to perfection. The entrees will be available in the following varieties: Korean Style Fire-Grilled BeefJuicy beef marinated in a sweet soy garlic sauce pairs well with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, onions and scallions Korean Style Fire-Grilled ChickenTender chicken legs are served with crispy vegetables in a sweet soy garlic sauce

Convenient and delicious, Bibigo's newest offering allows meat lovers to experience the authentic taste of family-style Korean barbecue in the comfort and convenience of their own home. Ready in just 5-7 minutes, new Bibigo meat entrees are marinated in authentic Korean sauces and fire-grilled to perfection. The entrees will be available in the following varieties: Gochujang Mayo Sauce (SRP: $5.50 /9.3 oz.)Perfect on everything from tacos to tater tots to sandwiches, this rich and creamy sauce brings a new twist to mayonnaise and adds some extra heat for your dipping pleasure!

(SRP: /9.3 oz.)Perfect on everything from tacos to tater tots to sandwiches, this rich and creamy sauce brings a new twist to mayonnaise and adds some extra heat for your dipping pleasure! Gochujang Barbecue Sauce (SRP: $5.50 /11.5 oz.)This bold, smoky and spicy sauce will help you to step up your grilling game and will be the secret ingredient that has your guests coming back for seconds. Perfect as a marinade for short ribs or steak kebabs, Gochujang Barbecue Sauce is a great way to turn up the heat at your next cookout.

(SRP: /11.5 oz.)This bold, smoky and spicy sauce will help you to step up your grilling game and will be the secret ingredient that has your guests coming back for seconds. Perfect as a marinade for short ribs or steak kebabs, Gochujang Barbecue Sauce is a great way to turn up the heat at your next cookout. Gochujang Hot & Sweet Sauce (SRP: $5.50 /11.5 oz.)Initially launched last year, this original sweet & spicy sauce makes a comeback in a new squeezable bottle and delivers the same dynamic flavors, whether on chicken wings, kimchi fried rice or mac and cheese.

For more information, visit the Bibigo booth #236 (Level 3, Main Hall) at Summer Fancy Food Show and www.us.bibigo.com.

About Bibigo

In 2011, Bibigo was launched by CJ, Korea's number one food company and leading producer of authentic Asian foods. With a full line of signature Korean grocery staples, Bibigo's mission is to introduce the delicious and nutritious Korean food culture to the rest of the world. Bibigo gets its name from a mash-up of Korean bi-bi-da ("to mix") and English "to-go," reflecting both its food and social characteristics, and seeks to play a leading role in demystifying the unique characteristics of Korean culinary culture, while introducing a variety of new, distinct flavors to the American palate. Bibigo currently operates three locations in Greater Los Angeles, including Westfield Century City Mall, Westwood Village, and Glendale Galleria. Bibigo's Korean grocery staples include a variety of steamed dumplings, mini wontons, Korean BBQ sauces, and more, and are available nationwide in gourmet, natural and mass- market grocers. Visit www.us.bibigo.com for more information.

www.Facebook.com/bibigoUSA

www.twitter.com/bibigoUSA

www.Instagram.com/bibigoUSA

www.pinterest.com/bibigousa/

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SOURCE Bibigo

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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Blueprint Bio, a company dedicated to identifying, protecting and offering new biological discoveries to the medical community, has closed its Series A funding round, according to CEO and co-founder Matthew Nunez.

"We have received a commitment from Forentis Fund that will provide us with the capital we need to meet our current goals," stated Matthew Nunez. "This funding will essentially provide us the runway to complete validation on the current projects in our pipeline, develop new projects, and protect the new discoveries we have recently made."

Blueprint is dedicated to furthering the advances of personalized medicine through the discovery, identification, validation, protection and marketing of novel biomarkers. Unlike many companies, Blueprint does not confine its investigations into any one pathway or disease. Instead, it collaborates with leading discovery and analytic platforms to find the "why" behind diseases, conditions and cures.

"We are taking a unique approach using the most sophisticated technologies in bio-fluid assay analysis to bioinformatics currently available," continued Nunez. "While we value the financial support from Forentis, I personally place a high value on the relationships they have already brought to the table and the teamwork we have experienced working with them. We were looking for more than just a financial partner."

About Blueprint Bio

Blueprint was founded to generate and transform intellectual property into commercial and social value, fulfilling the personalized medicine model. By identifying, protecting and offering new biological discoveries to existing clinical, pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, Blueprint Bio is creating a validated marketplace for biomarkers signatures in personalized medicine. In order to de-risk and accelerate biomarker discovery, Blueprint is an active collaborator with the researchers and companies who are generating biologic patient data from 'omics devices such as mass spectrometers and sequencing machines, among other assay methods, at an unprecedented rate. Blueprint is based in California, with additional offices and lab at the University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic.

SOURCE Blueprint Bio, Inc.
CAMARILLO, CA, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - BNK Petroleum Inc. (the "Company" or "BNK") (TSX: BKX) announces that the seven director nominees listed in the Company's management information circular dated May 16, 2016 were re-elected at the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Company held earlier today. Detailed results are set out below:

Director Nominee Votes For % For Votes Withheld %Withheld Ford Nicholson 65,606,505 99.82% 115,276 0.18% Victor Redekop 65,645,480 99.88% 76,301 0.12% Eric Brown 65,634,780 99.87% 87,001 0.13% General Wesley Clark (retired) 65,620,771 99.85% 101,010 0.15% Wolf Regener 65,645,700 99.88% 76,081 0.12% Leslie O'Connor 65,693,905 99.96% 27,876 0.04% Gregory M. Cameron 65,644,345 99.88% 77,436 0.12%

The Company is pleased to welcome Mr. Gregory Cameron as a director of the Company. Mr. Cameron has worked in the finance industry for more than 19 years, focusing on small and mid capitalization companies in North America and abroad. Mr. Cameron has held senior positions in investment banking at Canaccord Capital (SVP Investment Banking), MGI Securities (Founder) and Macquarie Capital Markets Canada, formerly Orion Securities (SVP Investment Banking). Over a successful 16 year career in banking, Mr. Cameron has worked on numerous equity, debt, merger and acquisitions and restructurings. Mr. Cameron is a graduate of Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Accounting and holds numerous financial industry designations.

The Company would also like to take this opportunity to thank Robert Cross, who elected not to stand for re-election, for his time and significant efforts on behalf of the Company since its inception.

Shareholders also re-appointed KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants as the auditor of the Company and approved the renewal of unallocated entitlements under the Company's Restricted Share Unit Plan.

Additional details will be provided in a Report of Voting Results to be filed on SEDAR.

About BNK Petroleum Inc.

BNK Petroleum Inc. is an international oil and gas exploration and production company focused on finding and exploiting large, predominately unconventional oil and gas resource plays. Through various affiliates and subsidiaries, the Company owns and operates shale oil and gas properties and concessions in the United States and Spain. Additionally the Company is utilizing its technical and operational expertise to identify and acquire additional unconventional projects. The Company's shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the stock symbol BKX.

SOURCE BNK Petroleum Inc.
DENVER, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What would happen if the United States focused on a "New Grand Strategy" that made sustainability the nation's new strategic imperative? Could a new national framework tap into a trillion-dollar market demand for walkable communities, regenerative agriculture, and resource productivity? What would that mean for financial professionals and investors who want to be a part of the process?

Those are some of the important questions that will be tackled when participants at the 27th Annual SRI Conference hear from a panel consisting of the authors of newly published book "The New Grand Strategy: Restoring America's Prosperity, Security and Sustainability in the 21st Century." The authors/panelists will outline their vision of a clear, pragmatic plan that can unite Americans and launch a new era of prosperity and security.

The SRI Conference panel will consist of co-authors retired Marine Colonel Mark "Puck" Mykleby, Joel Makower, and Patrick Doherty. Their In for the Long Haul: Investment for a New Strategic Era panel, will be presented at The 27th Annual SRI Conference on November 10, 2016 in Denver. For more information about The SRI Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing, go to http://www.SRIconference.com.

Joel Makower said: "The New Grand Strategy plan combines the best of the left and the right  a progressive economic agenda that aligns prosperity, security, and sustainability, but with a conservative approach, led by business, for profit, with or without Washington's help (or money). Our presentation is timely, considering that it will take place shortly after the Presidential Election on Tuesday, November 8th. So, we will encourage the responsible investment community to lead the way in helping to embrace and foster this new strategy."

Steve Schueth, president, First Affirmative Financial Network and producer of The SRI Conference, said: "With politicians and Wall Street struggling to see over the horizon, the impetus for sustainable economic growth must come from those of us who are committed to making it happen. At The SRI Conference this fall, we look forward to welcoming Joel and Puck and Patrick and to learn more about how impact investors can play a vital role in their New Grand Strategy. This is going to be an exciting and informative session that brings together those with the vision and those with the financial tools to help make it happen."

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Mark "Puck" Mykleby is a founder and co-director of the Strategic Innovation Lab at Case Western Reserve University. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps following his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987. Designated as a qualified F/A-18 pilot in December 1990, he served in five fleet fighter squadrons from 1991 to 2006, in support of Operations Provide Promise, Deny Flight, Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. In 2007, Mykleby was assigned to the U.S. Special Operations Command, where he developed strategy for the Special Operations Forces. From 2009 until 2011, he served as a special strategic assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that capacity, he coauthored with Navy Captain Wayne Porter A National Strategic Narrative, a concept and vision for a twenty-first-century grand strategy for the nation. Mykleby retired from the Marine Corps in 2011.

Patrick Doherty is a founder and co-director of the Strategic Innovation Lab at Case Western Reserve University. He is a strategist focused on the intersection of macroeconomics, sustainability, and national security. Previously, Doherty was deputy director of the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he worked with Puck Mykleby to develop a coherent approach to grand strategy in the twenty-first century. Before joining New America, Doherty was director of communications at the Center for National Policy, a senior editor at TomPaine.com, and spent more than ten years in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, working at the intersection of conflict and development. He was a research associate at the Harvard Negotiation Project and holds a master's degree in security studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor's degree from the School of International Service at American University.

Joel Makower is chairman and executive editor of GreenBiz Group, Inc., a media and events company focusing on sustainable business and clean technology. Makower hosts the annual GreenBiz forums as well as the VERGE conferences produced around the world by his company, and he is principal author of GreenBiz's annual "State of Green Business" report. A former nationally syndicated columnist, Makower is author of more than a dozen other books, including Strategies for the Green Economy (2008), The E-Factor (1993), and Beyond the Bottom Line (1994), the latter of which is among the earliest books on corporate environmental responsibility and corporate social responsibility. The Associated Press has called him "the guru of green business practices."

To learn more about The New Grand Strategy book (St. Martin's Press, 2016) go to https://www.amazon.com/New-Grand-Strategy-Prosperity-Sustainability-ebook/dp/B0191KMH96.

ABOUT THE SRI CONFERENCE

The 27th annual SRI Conference will be held November 911, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Downtown Denver, Colorado. The SRI Conference (http://www.SRIconference.com) is the premier annual forum for investors and investment professionals engaged in sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investing. Conference participation includes investment professionals, institutional investors, and related organizations. The SRI Conference features educational sessions and focused opportunities to network with hundreds of like-minded individuals, organizations, and leaders in the field of Sustainable, Responsible, Impact investing.

The SRI Conference is produced by First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC ( http://www.firstaffirmative.com ), a Registered Investment Advisor offering investment consulting and asset management services through a nationwide network of investment professionals who specialize in serving socially conscious, impact-oriented investors (SEC File #801-56587).

EDITOR'S NOTE

For assistance with The SRI Conference registration and sponsorships, please contact Krystala Kalil, Conference Coordinator at 888-774-2663 or [email protected]Iconference.com.

SOURCE The SRI Conference, Denver, Colorado

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MONTREAL, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Boralex Inc. ("Boralex" or the "Corporation") (TSX: BLX) announced the closing of financing for the Plateau de Savernat and Avignonet II wind farms for a total amount of 20.4 million (C$29.7 million) in France. The amount is financed by Credit Industriel et commercial ("Groupe Credit Mutuel").

Plateau de Savernat

Long-term financing for the Plateau de Savernat wind farm (revised to 16 MW) amounts to nearly 17.6 million (C$25.6 million), or 80% of the total investment. Drawdown on the facility is subject to certain customary conditions which are expected to be lifted shortly.

Amortized over a 15-year period, the loan will bear interest at a rate of approximately 2.30% for the full term of the loan, 90% of which will be covered by a forward rate agreement.

Construction on the Plateau de Savernat wind farm has begun and commissioning is slated for the end of 2016.

Avignonet II

Long-term financing for the Avignonet II wind farm (4.6 MW) amounts to nearly 2.8 million (C$4.1 million). The Avignonet II wind farm was commissioned in 2008 and had not been financed to date. The proceeds will be used to invest in its projects under development and support its growth initiatives.

The loan is amortized over a 9.5-year period, or the remaining term of the power purchase agreements in effect for the Avignonet II facility plus an additional period of two years, and will bear interest at a rate of approximately 1.72% for the full term of the loan, 90% of which will be covered by a forward rate agreement.

About Boralex

Boralex develops, builds and operates renewable energy power facilities in Canada, France and the United States. A leader in the Canadian market and France's largest independent producer of onshore wind power, the Corporation is recognized for its solid experience in optimizing its asset base in four power generation types  wind, hydroelectric, thermal and solar. Boralex ensures sustained growth by leveraging the expertise and diversification developed over the past 25 years. Boralex's shares and convertible debentures are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols BLX and BLX.DB.A, respectively. More information is available at www.boralex.com or www.sedar.com.

Caution regarding forward-looking statements

Some of the statements contained in this press release, including those regarding future results and performance and use of proceeds of the Offering, are forward-looking statements based on current expectations, within the meaning of securities legislation. Boralex would like to point out that, by their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties such that its results or the measures it adopts could differ materially from those indicated by or underlying these statements, or could have an impact on the degree of realization of a particular projection. Boralex considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they were prepared, but cautions that these assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of the Corporation, may ultimately prove to be incorrect. The main factors that could lead to a material difference between the Corporation's actual results and the projections or expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the general impact of economic conditions, raw material price increases and availability, currency fluctuations, volatility in the selling price of energy, the Corporation's financing capacity, negative changes in general market conditions and regulations affecting the industry, as well as other factors discussed in the Corporation's filings with the various securities commissions.

Unless otherwise specified by the Corporation, the forward-looking statements do not take into account the possible impact on its activities, transactions, non-recurring items or other exceptional items announced or occurring after the statements are made.

There can be no assurance as to the materialization of the results, performance or achievements as expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Unless required to do so under applicable securities legislation, Boralex management does not assume any obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or other changes.

SOURCE Boralex Inc.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Biomedical, an industry leader in the development of novel compounds designed to target cancer stemness pathways, announced that its lead investigational compound, napabucasin, has been granted Orphan Drug Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the treatment of gastric cancer, including gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer. Napabucasin is an orally administered cancer stemness inhibitor designed to inhibit cancer stemness pathways by targeting STAT3, and is currently being investigated in a global Phase III clinical trial in combination with paclitaxel in patients with advanced gastric and GEJ cancer (the BRIGHTER study).

"This first Orphan Drug Designation for napabucasin is an important milestone for Boston Biomedical, as well as for patients with advanced gastric/GEJ cancer," said Chiang J. Li, M.D. FACP, President, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Boston Biomedical, and the Head of Global Oncology for Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Group. "In the U.S., only about 1 in 3 patients with gastric cancer survive five years after diagnosis, so there remains a significant need for innovation in this tumor type. We hope that napabucasin, with a first-in-class mechanism of action, will help address this significant unmet medical need."

The FDA's Orphan Drug Designation program provides special status and development incentives for drugs and biologics that are intended for the safe and effective treatment, diagnosis or prevention of rare diseases/disorders that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.i Each year, about 26,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with gastric cancer.ii

Phase Ib/II data for napabucasin in gastric/GEJ cancer were previously presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2015 annual meeting; these data found that napabucasin and weekly paclitaxel can be combined in patients with advanced pre-treated gastric/GEJ cancer. Lesion regression, objective responses and prolonged stable disease were observed in heavily pre-treated patients. Common adverse events identified through this clinical trial included grade 1 or 2 diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting and anorexia.iii

About Cancer Stem Cells

Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) exhibit stemness  the ability to self-renew and differentiate into heterogeneous cancer cells. This allows the CSCs to act like seeds, causing a patient's cancer to relapse or spread within the body.iv,v Evidence suggests that these cells possess resistance to conventional chemotherapy and radiation, so while such treatments can successfully shrink tumors, a population of CSCs may still survive.v,vi

Boston Biomedical is leading the biopharmaceutical industry in the development of novel compounds designed to target CSC pathways, with the goal of addressing stemness, an ongoing challenge in cancer treatment.

About Boston Biomedical

Boston Biomedical, Inc. (Founder, President, CEO and CMO: Chiang J. Li, M.D. FACP) was founded in November 2006 and is wholly owned by Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. Boston Biomedical's mission is to develop the next generation of cancer therapeutics by creating drugs designed to target cancer stem cell pathways. Boston Biomedical's innovation in drug discovery has received a number of recognitions and awards in the United States, including the Frost & Sullivan 2010 North American Drug Discovery Technology Innovation of the Year Award, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer stem cell initiative grant award in 2010, and the 2011 Biotech Pioneer Award at the Alexandria Oncology Summit. The company also received the "Company To Watch" award in the 10th Annual Team Massachusetts Economic Impact Awards in 2013. Boston Biomedical is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Additional information about the company and its product pipeline can be found at www.bostonbiomedical.com.

Disclaimer Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The forward-looking statements in this document are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of information presently available, and involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Information concerning pharmaceuticals (including compounds under development) contained within this material is not intended as advertising or medical advice.

For general inquiries:

Boston Biomedical

617-674-6800

For media inquiries:

Alicia Suter

CHAMBERLAIN PR

212-849-9448

[email protected]

i FDA. "Developing Products for Rare Diseases & Conditions". Accessed on June 22, 2016. Available at: http://www.fda.gov/forindustry/developingproductsforrarediseasesconditions/ucm2005525.htm

ii SEER. "SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Stomach Cancer". Accessed on June 22, 2016. Available at: http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/stomach.html.

iii Boston Biomedical. "BBI608-201: Phase 1b/2 study of cancer stemness inhibitor BBI608 combined with paclitaxel in advanced gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma." Accessed on June 22, 2016. Available at: http://www.bostonbiomedical.com/wp-content/uploads/poster_BBI608-201.pdf

iv Gupta PB, Chaffer CL, Weinberg RA. Cancer stem cells: mirage or reality? Nat Med.

2009;15(9):1010-1012.

v Ajani JA, Song S, Hochster HS, Steinberg IB. Cancer stem cells: the promise and the potential. Semin Oncol.

2015;42(suppl 1):S3-S17.

vi Jordan CT, Guzman ML, Noble M. Cancer stem cells. N Engl J Med.

2006;355(12):1253-1261.

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SOURCE Boston Biomedical Pharma, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bostonbiomedical.com


DENVER, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BridgeHealth, the leader in planned surgery cost containment strategies for self-insured plan sponsors, is pleased to announce our newest partner, Stemilt Growers, LLC.

Through its relationship with BridgeHealth, Stemilt provides its plan members with quality outcomes, decrease out-of-pocket surgery expenses, while reducing the company's total surgical spend. The BridgeHealth program will officially launch July 1, 2017. BridgeHealth will launch the program with a customized engagement campaign in both Spanish and English.

"We're very excited to be working with the team at Stemilt. They are widely recognized as a leader in the agricultural industry and committed to protecting their most valuable asset, their employees," says Jesse Gomez, EVP Sales and Marketing  Interim at BridgeHealth. "We are looking forward to providing the employees of Stemilt with the top-quality care they need, when they need it, and without the financial anxiety and burden typically associated with a major planned surgery."

The BridgeHealth solution is built on connecting health plan members with top quality surgical care with the added benefit of discounted, pre-negotiated bundled case rate pricing. By steering members to the nationwide network of quality providers, BridgeHealth delivers the ideal combination of a high quality concierge type patient experience, favorable outcomes, and cost savings for the health plan and its members, with the added benefit of fewer complications, readmissions and infections. The BridgeHealth program succeeds in providing our self-insured client partners with an innovative service that bolsters their health benefit offering, while reducing their surgical spend.

About Stemilt

Based in Wenatchee, WA and family owned with over 2,000 employees, Stemilt is a leading tree fruit company that grows, packs, ships, and markets fresh apples, pears, cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots to stores worldwide. Stemilt is a leader in the organic fruit supplier marketplace and the largest sweet cherry shipper in the nation.

http://www.stemilt.com

About BridgeHealth

Founded in 2007, with offices in Denver, CO and Chicago, IL, BridgeHealth provides an innovative cost containment solution for self-insured Plan Sponsors that addresses the wide variation in both cost and quality related to planned surgeries. Plan Sponsors realize significant savings, increased productivity, decreased absenteeism, along with recruiting and retention advantages. Plan members are free from the financial worries typically associated with planned surgeries and traditional complicated billing procedures.

In 2015, BridgeHealth earned a coveted spot on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in America. Ranking at #812 demonstrates the success of BridgeHealth's business model, which powered its way onto the list with three-year sales growth of 546% on total revenues of $7.2 million.

For more information visit bridgehealth.com .

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SOURCE BridgeHealth

Related Links

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A broad coalition of prominent Puerto Rican civil society leaders and organizations, representing all sides of the ideological and political spectrum, today issued an open letter to U.S. Senators calling on them to oppose the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (the so-called PROMESA bill, HR 5278), which passed the House of Representatives several weeks ago.



The coalition denounced PROMESA saying "it revokes the Puerto Rican people's basic, fundamental right to democratic self-governance, by imposing a federally-appointed "oversight board" composed of unelected Washington bureaucrats to govern the island without any accountability nor the consent of the governed."



The coalition criticized efforts by Senate leadership to pass the bill on a cloture vote without properly having a thorough debate and the possibility to introduce amendments.



The coalition includes important national organizations and leaders such as the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, the National Puerto Rican Coalition (NPRC), the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators and Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award winner Willie Colon.

Text of the letter below:

Open letter from Broad Coalition of Puerto Rican Leaders to the United States Senate

Dear Senators,

We, the undersigned Puerto Rican leaders urge you to oppose cloture on the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (the so-called PROMESA bill, HR 5278), and to oppose it outright if the bill is not amended in a manner that respects the rights of the 3.5 million American citizens living in Puerto Rico and up to 8 million US citizens of Puerto Rican heritage living in the mainland United States.

The PROMESA bill revokes the Puerto Rican people's basic, fundamental right to democratic self-governance, by imposing a federally-appointed "oversight board" composed of unelected Washington bureaucrats to govern the island without any accountability nor the consent of the governed.

As reflected by several polls, the majority of Puerto Ricans oppose PROMESA. In fact, for most PROMESA represents a setback to the island's democratic developments. Unfortunately the White House and Congressional leaders are not in tune with the political reality of the island.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle claim that this bill will simply impose an "oversight board" but the details of the bill show that this Board would control nearly every aspect of the local government and will not promote nor incentivize any kind of economic development in the island. Also, politicians have said many times that if this bill does not pass the way it is written, "a humanitarian crisis will ensue in the island". We, as leaders of the community, who have many of our loved ones in the island, can attest that this is misleading and that is only being used maliciously to force senators to support this bill without proper debate. Truth is, this bill does not tackle properly the fiscal crisis the island is going through and it could make matters worse.

It is bad enough that Congress would trample on the basic rights of its people. That Congress would circumvent the democratic process and to do so at the behest of the White House and Congressional leaders  thus depriving lawmakers of the chance to amend the bill in any way that might improve it - is profoundly un-American. Any bill, and especially one with such consequential, long-term implications for tens of millions of American citizens, must be subjected to the full legislative process.

Puerto Ricans want a move towards full self-government not a limitation of democracy. They want to see an end to the colonial rule, not its perpetuation. We urge you to support regular order by opposing cloture for this bill, and to take a stand for the rule of law by voting "no" if it is not sufficiently amended.

Thank you for your time and consideration, we look forward to being a resource to you as you consider this issue further.

Sincerely,

Alfonso Aguilar Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles Rafael Fantauzzi National Puerto Rican Coalition



Willie Colon International Musician and multi-Grammy winner Fernando Negron 1030 La Grande Radio Host



Alejandro Manzanares StandUp for Puerto Rico Carlos Guzman Puerto Rican Leadership Council



Rev. Carlos Perez-Toro Catholic Priest Lydia Valencia Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey



Luis Figueroa Boricua Ahora Es, FL Juan Arturo Morales Epiko Magazine



Betsy Franceschini Ex-PRFAA Director, FL Dr. Keren Riquelme Una Sola Voz National Coalition



Carlos R. Mercader Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles Peter Vivaldi Florida Community Leader



William J. Diaz National Association of Hispanic Journalists Alejandro Negron Media personality



Ronald Blackburn-Moreno National ASPIRA, Inc. Victor Pineda Puerto Rican Entrepreneur, Florida



National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators Puerto Rican Action Initiative









The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles works to engage the Latino community on conservative causes and garner greater Latino support for our issues and conservative candidates. We encourage the conservative movement to support Latino conservative groups, leaders, candidates, and policies that are welcoming of Latino immigrants.

SOURCE Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles
ATLANTA, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Employers report a lack of skilled talent as one of the biggest threats to meeting business objectives in 2016. Job seekers who take note of what skills and characteristics companies are seeking could have a competitive advantage. In fact, the 2016 Workplace Trends Guide by Randstad US, one of the largest HR services and staffing companies in the U.S., reveals five ways employees can better position themselves for success during their job search. The study also finds that candidates who partner with a staffing agency may have a leg up, as 51 percent of companies surveyed say it is the most effective source to recruit both part-time and full-time employees.

Five ways employees can better position themselves for success during their job search

"With companies reporting job vacancies threatening productivity levels, candidates have a tremendous opportunity to better market themselves with respect to the desired skills organizations need," said Jim Link, CHRO, Randstad North America. "Furthermore, it is important to take advantage of the many vehicles available to identify potential opportunities, including social channels and staffing agencies. These avenues are available at no cost to the candidate, but can significantly expand their network and visibility into open job positions."

Whether you are an active or passive job seeker today, here are five considerations for a more successful job search:

#1: Use staffing/recruiting firms to maximize your chance of landing a new job. As the most effective method to recruit full-time and contract workers, job seekers have an opportunity to use staffing firms, at no cost to them, to secure access to a wide range of opportunities. The reality is working through a staffing or recruitment firm is oftentimes the only entry point for some of the country's most desirable employers.

#2: Market your skill sets based on desired assets because companies need you. As companies move beyond recession recovery to growth mode, their ability to find and hire great talent is arguably the most important driver for success and profitability. Do the necessary research to understand the skills and expertise companies in your industry are looking for and take every step to effectively market yourself with those desired job requirements in mind.

#3: Use multiple sources to find available positions. U.S. companies are hiring! On average, the companies surveyed report they are currently understaffed by 10 percent with an average of 137 open jobs. Hiring decision-makers report using a wider range of recruitment methods which include social media, digital networking, as well as working with local universities/colleges.

#4: While your past experience is essential, don't rule out the importance of work ethic and soft skills. Decision-makers cite work ethic (36 percent) and soft skills (33 percent) as two of the top areas candidates are lacking. Don't leave any question in the hiring manager's mind about your willingness to work hard for the organization. During the interview process, make eye contact, communicate effectively and demonstrate your ability to adapt and be open-minded work well in any environment.

#5 Don't rule out contract work. On-demand talent is needed. More workers are choosing contingent or temporary work as the economy embraces an "on-demand" workforce. In fact, it is estimated that more than 40 percent of the U.S. workforce will be contingent by the year 2020. Sixty-eight percent of companies surveyed believe a variable workforce model with a mix of temporary and permanent employees allow for more agility to meet fluctuating customer demands. Adapting to a contingent workforce can mean increased benefits for job-seekers, including more opportunities from a wide range of companies and industries, flexible work schedule, as well as income potential.

The Randstad 2016 Workplace Trends survey gives job seekers an inside perspective of companies' need for talent, how they find potential workers and what hiring decision-makers believe some candidates are failing to impress. To access the report, download the 2016 Workplace Trends Guide.

About Randstad

Randstad US is a wholly owned subsidiary of Randstad Holding nv, a $24.5 billion global provider of HR services. As one of the largest staffing organizations in the United States, Randstad provides temporary, temporary-to-hire and permanent placement services each week to over 100,000 people through its network of more than 900 branches and client-dedicated locations.

Employing 5,300 recruiting experts, the company is a top provider of outsourcing, staffing, consulting and workforce solutions within the areas of engineering, finance and accounting, healthcare, human resources, IT, legal, life sciences, manufacturing and logistics, office and administration and sales and marketing. Learn more at www.randstadusa.com and access Randstad's panoramic U.S. thought leadership knowledge center through its Workforce360 site that offers valuable insight into the latest economic indicators and HR trends shaping the world of work.

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SOURCE Randstad US

Related Links

http://www.randstadusa.com


MADISON, N.J., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Century 21 Real Estate LLC, franchisor of the iconic CENTURY 21 brand, announced today that Marty Rodriguez of the Marty Rodriguez Team of CENTURY 21 Marty Rodriguez in Glendora, California, is No. 1 and Dania Perry of CENTURY 21 Jim White & Associates in Treasure Island, Florida, is the No. 2 sales volume producer in the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals' (NAHREP) Top 250 Latino Real Estate Agents report with more than $174 million, respectively, in 2015. Ricardo Acevedo of Acevedo Team of CENTURY 21 King in Rancho Cucamonga, California, was ranked No. 13 in overall sales volume by a Latino sales associate.

Among Latino sales associates ranked by total number of transactions, the CENTURY 21 brand had 38 of the Top 250 nationwide, including three individuals ranked among the Top 21. In addition to the Rodriguez Team (No. 6 by transactions) and Acevedo (No. 15), Alicia Trevino (No. 21) of CENTURY 21 Alicia Trevino, REALTORS in Mesquite, Texas, was ranked among the top 21 Latino residential real estate sales associates in the United States. Other notable CENTURY 21 affiliated professionals were ranked among the Top 50 by transactions, or the top 20%: Roberto Castillo of CENTURY 21 World Connection in Miami, Florida (#30), Michelle Fermin of CENTURY 21 North Shore in Reading, Massachusetts (#32), Martha Corral of CENTURY 21 Affiliated, in Aurora, Illinois (#39), and Jesse Pastrana of CENTURY 21 Pastrana, in Edina, Minnesota (#44).

"Quite simply, multiculturalism is America, and the CENTURY 21 brand is multiculturalism," said Rick Davidson, president and chief executive officer, Century 21 Real Estate LLC. "I couldn't be more proud of Marty, Dania, Ricardo, and Alicia, and all of our affiliated sales associates who made the list. They know, and we know, that empowering CENTURY 21 System members to serve multicultural home buyers and sellers is no longer a niche. Serving diverse markets is good business, and another sign that our iconic brand is committed to reflecting all of the faces of the consumers it serves in local markets across the globe."

The news comes on the heels that in the last year alone the CENTURY 21 System has bolstered its focus to deliver products and services to the Hispanic community. They include:

A partnership with a full-service Hispanic and digital agency, Polvora Advertising, to further concentrate on meeting the unique needs of the diverse Latino communities in an honest and authentic manner. The exclusive real estate brand sponsor of the NAHREP "53 Million & One Nuevo Latino Tour." A revamped Spanish-language website  century21espanol.com  to include features like a "search by schools" function and interactive mapping, all designed to make it easier for Spanish-speaking consumers to engage with CENTURY 21 sales professionals. Agent-centric advertising placed on the 2015 Latin Grammy awards this past November.

"This work bolsters the company's long-standing tradition to champion multiculturalism within the real estate industry and the core belief that Latino culture and homeownership are inseparable," added Davidson. "The programs and sponsorships allow us to better align our mission and goals with sustainable home ownership in the Hispanic community and to bring Latino entrepreneurs into the business of real estate."

Century 21 Real Estate LLC first revolutionized real estate with the introduction to the industry of the franchisor/franchisee model by real estate brokers Art Bartlett and Marsh Fisher on July 28, 1971. Today, Century 21 Real Estate LLC, the most recognized name in real estate* and the brand that was selected as the leader in brand awareness in 2015 for the 17th year in a row* among consumers presented with a list of real estate agencies, is committed to making a difference in people's lives by delivering to market innovative tools and technologies, marketing support and the use of its iconic brand marks that help its independent brokers and affiliated sales associates provide a seamless experience to real estate consumers around the world.

Connect with Century 21 Real Estate

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Google+

LinkedIn

Blog

Download the Century 21 Real Estate mobile app

About Century 21 Real Estate LLC

Century 21 Real Estate LLC is comprised of approximately 6,900 independently owned and operated franchised broker offices in 78 countries and territories worldwide with more than 101,000 independent sales professionals. Century 21 Real Estate has numerous websites to help answer specific consumer needs. They are century21.com, century21Global.com, commercial.century21.com, century21.com/finehomes, and century21espanol.com.

Century 21 Real Estate LLC is a subsidiary of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global leader in real estate franchising and provider of real estate brokerage, relocation and settlement services.  2016 Century 21 Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. CENTURY 21, the CENTURY 21 Logo are registered service marks owned by Century 21 Real Estate LLC. Century 21 Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office is independently owned and operated.

* 2015 Ad Tracking Study: The survey results are based on 1,200 online interviews with a national random sample of adults (ages 18+) who are equal decision makers in real estate transactions and active in the real estate market (bought or sold a home within the past two years or, plan to purchase or sell a home within the next two years). Brand awareness question based on a sample of 1,200 respondents. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of +/-2.4%. Recognition question based on those aware of brand. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4%. The study was conducted by Millward Brown, a leading global market research organization,

from April 24- May 8, 2015.

Contact:

Peter Mosca

Century 21 Real Estate LLC

Phone: 973.407.5180

Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE Century 21 Real Estate LLC

Related Links

http://www.century21.com


HOUSTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Twenty Houston-area students are one step closer to a college education thanks to financial aid provided by CITGO Petroleum Corporation through the new CITGO STEM Scholarship. In keeping with a long-term commitment from CITGO to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, the scholarship supports higher education opportunities for students pursuing degrees in these fields.

Scholarships will be awarded to Houston Independent School District (ISD) seniors on target to graduate in May 2016 who are either enrolled or plan to enroll in a STEM program at a four-year accredited university. "College courses provide the essential education and hands-on experience our students need in order to obtain positions in highly sought-after STEM fields," said Trina Harmon-Wright, college success manager with Houston ISD College Readiness. "The CITGO STEM Scholarship brings students one step closer to preparing for their future and achieving their career goals."

In addition to the CITGO STEM Scholarship, CITGO offers numerous other educational opportunities to assist students and educators interested in math and the sciences. Last year, CITGO brought more than 60 students and teachers from Texas, Illinois and Louisiana aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus with the Ocean Exploration Trust, sharing first-hand deep-sea exploration research and education for them to take back to their classrooms. Additionally, CITGO employees at its three refineries across the country are actively involved in local schools, enhancing students' STEM education through assistance with hands-on experiences including robotics competitions, technology fairs, presentations and career days.

"CITGO strives to promote and foster a strong foundation for students seeking careers in science, technology, engineering and math," CITGO President and CEO Nelson Martinez said. "Through initiatives like the launch of the CITGO STEM Scholarship, we are working to ensure students in Houston and across the country have the resources they need to be successful in their academic and professional endeavors in the sciences."

As part of its strong commitment to the Houston community, CITGO is involved in a wide range of efforts to strengthen education throughout the area. In addition to its support of the CITGO STEM Scholarship, CITGO partners with the Harris County Sheriff's Department to promote attendance in the county's schools through the Kindling Young Minds Program. Every year, CITGO employees participate on back-to-school supply drives helping nearly 200 students in these school districts start the school year with the tools they need to be prepared to learn. In 2015, the company's employee volunteer group, TeamCITGO, dedicated more than 1,600 volunteer hours in the Houston area to support social investment and education programs.

About CITGO

CITGO, based in Houston, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. The company is owned by CITGO Holding, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. For more information, visit www.CITGO.com.

SOURCE CITGO Petroleum Corporation

Related Links

http://www.CITGO.com


TORONTO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global economic consulting firm The Brattle Group announced today that commercial litigation and intellectual property expert Andy Harington has joined the firm's Toronto, Ontario office as a principal.

Mr. Harington has nearly 25 years of diverse experience in business consulting, M&A transaction advisory, and general financial consulting. For the past 16 years, his practice has focused on the quantification of loss and accounting of profits in intellectual property and commercial litigation disputes, the valuation of intellectual property and commercial businesses, financial aspects of Canadian competition law, and financial advisory services.

He has been qualified as an expert in the valuation of intellectual property and commercial businesses in both the Federal Court of Canada and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and as an expert in the quantification of efficiencies by the Competition Tribunal of Canada. Mr. Harington has provided expert witness testimony in arbitrations, mediations, and tribunal hearings.

"We are pleased to welcome Andy to Brattle's Toronto office," commented Brattle President Alexis Maniatis. "His background complements and expands our capabilities in Canada and the United States. Clients will find great value in Andy's diverse skill set and established presence as a testifying expert."

Mr. Harington is qualified as a Chartered Professional Accountant in Canada, CFA charterholder, and Charted Business Valuator. Prior to joining The Brattle Group, Mr. Harington was a managing director in the Toronto office of Duff & Phelps and a partner at Cole & Partners.

The Brattle Group analyzes complex economic, finance, and regulatory questions for corporations, law firms, and governments around the world. We are distinguished by the clarity of our insights and the credibility of our experts, which include leading international academics and industry specialists. For more information, please visit www.brattle.com.

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SOURCE The Brattle Group

Related Links

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KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Commercial vehicles weighing more than five tons will be prohibited from traveling on Interstate 95 between Exit 13 (Interstate 76 West/Route 291/Valley Forge) and Exit 22 (Interstate 676) in Philadelphia from Saturday, July 23 at 12:00 PM, until midday Friday, July 29, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said today.

"The rerouting of commercial vehicles off I-95 is associated with the security for the Democratic National Convention," said PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards. "PennDOT and regional transportation partners will utilize a combination of electronic message boards and stationary signs to guide commercial truck drivers along alternate routes during this temporary restriction.

"We urge commercial drivers, if possible, to travel on interstate highways outside the Philadelphia region during the week of the convention to avoid being diverted off I-95," Richards added.

Among the types of commercial vehicles to be restricted from traveling on this part of I-95 during the convention are delivery trucks, utility vehicles, parcel trucks, small dump trucks, buses, flatbed and stake trucks, refrigerated and box trucks, large delivery trucks, refuse trucks, cement mixers, buses, and all tractor trailer combinations including double trailers.

In addition, motor homes and recreational trailers operated for personal use and weighing more than five tons will also be restricted from traveling on this section of I-95.

The following are the posted detours that drivers of vehicles over five tons will be directed to follow to return to I-95 once they exit the interstate:

From I-95 north: Route 291 (Penrose Avenue) east, to 26 th Street, to Interstate 76 west, to Interstate 676 east; and

Street, to Interstate 76 west, to Interstate 676 east; and From I-95 south: I-676 west, to I-76 east, to 26th Street, to Route 291 (Penrose Avenue) west.

In addition, the northbound and southbound entrance ramps to I-95 between Exit 13 and Exit 22 in Philadelphia will be closed to commercial vehicles over five tons. Commercial vehicles will be directed to use arterial roads to reach either I-95 north or south beyond Exit 13 or Exit 22.

Richards said all interstate highways and expressways in the Philadelphia region will remain open to passenger vehicles throughout the convention. She advised commuters to allow additional time for travel on I-76, I-676 and Route 291 during this time because these highways will experience heavier traffic volumes due to commercial vehicles being diverted off I-95. Citizens should consider using public transportation for travel into and out of Center City.

The I-95 exit ramps at Broad Street (Route 611/Exit 17) in south Philadelphia also will be closed during convention week.

The I-95 north exit ramp at Broad Street (Route 611/Exit 17) will be closed from Friday, July 22 at 10:00 PM until midday Friday, July 29.

The southbound I-95 exit ramp at Broad Street (Route 611/Exit 17) will be open intermittently during convention week, but only for access to the Navy Yard. The southbound exit-ramp will be closed:

Friday, July 22 , at 10:00 PM to Saturday, July 23 , at 6:00 AM ;

, at to , at ; Monday, July 25 , at 2:00 PM to Tuesday, July 26 , at 2:00 AM ;

, at to , at ; Tuesday, July 26 , at 2:00 PM to Wednesday, July 27 , at 2:00 AM ;

, at to , at ; Wednesday, July 27 , at 2:00 PM to Thursday, July 28 , at 2:00 AM ; and

, at to , at ; and Thursday, July 28 , at 2:00 PM to midday Friday, July 29 .

The southbound I-95 off-ramp will be open to the Navy Yard only at all other times during convention week.

The posted detours for motorists to follow during the closure of the I-95 exit ramps at Broad Street (Route 611/Exit 17) are:

From I-95 North: Route 291 (Penrose Avenue) east, to Moyamensing Avenue, to Oregon Avenue to Broad Street (Route 611); and

From I-95 South: Enterprise Avenue, to Island Avenue, to Route 291 (Penrose Avenue) east, to Moyamensing Avenue, to Oregon Avenue to Broad Street (Route 611).

PennDOT is working closely with regional transportation partners to coordinate travel-related messaging and the use of electronic message signs to inform commercial drivers and travelers of I-95 travel restrictions in Philadelphia during this special event. Messages will be posted on 109 permanent and portable electronic message signs beginning Saturday, July 16, and continuing throughout the week of the convention.

PennDOT will not close travel lanes on the following interstate highways and expressways for construction and maintenance activities from Sunday night, July 24, to Friday morning, July 29: I-76; I-95 between I-676 and I-476: I-676; U.S. 202 between Route 29 and I-76; and U.S. 422 between U.S. 202 and Route 23.

Oversized loads also will be prohibited from traveling in the Philadelphia region from Saturday, July 23, at 12:00 PM through midday Friday, July 29.

To assist those traveling to Philadelphia for the convention, PennDOT will launch a travelers' website in July  www.511PA.com/DNC. The website will be a useful tool that provides real-time traffic information; color-coded maps showing how traffic is flowing; and other valuable information. The site will be accessible from both desktop and mobile interfaces.

To further help motorists and expedite the reopening of travel lanes resulting from breakdowns or incidents during the convention, PennDOT will operate its State Farm Safety Patrol tow truck service around-the-clock from Saturday, July 23, to Friday, July 29, on I-76; I-95 between Route 63 and the Delaware state line; I-476; I-676; U.S. 202 between Boot Road and I-76; and U.S. 422 between U.S. 202 and Route 29.

Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 770 traffic cameras.

For more PennDOT information, visit www.penndot.gov. Follow Local PennDOT Information on Twitter at www.twitter.com/511PAPhilly, and follow the department on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pennsylvaniadepartmentoftransportation and Instagram at www.instagram.com/pennsylvaniadot.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gene Blaum, 610-205-6800

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

Related Links

http://www.penndot.gov


AMSTERDAM, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Constellium N.V. (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) is proud to announce its new sustainability targets for 2020 as the company takes a next step towards unlocking the full value of conducting responsible business. In its Business and Sustainability Performance Report 2015, Constellium evaluates its performance against the original 2012-2015 targets and announces new goals for 2020.

Constellium first established its strategic direction for sustainability in 2012 across four key priority areas: people, products, operations and responsible business. Today, the company reports progress on its performance and outlines concrete objectives raising industry standards even higher for the years to come. Constellium's sustainability agenda for 2020 is the product of a year-long materiality assessment, led by the company's Sustainability Council. This work allowed Constellium to evaluate alignment between the expectations of its external stakeholders and the company's own sustainability policy.

"In the past years we have defined our sustainability vision, paving the way for our company to do business more responsibly," said Ingrid Joerg, Chairperson of Constellium's Sustainability Council. "Building on our successful three-year sustainability program ending in 2015, we have now set new targets for 2020. We are excited to deploy our sustainability actions jointly with our customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders in an effort to strengthen the aluminium value chain now and in the future."

Constellium's 2020 expected sustainability targets include:

Reducing landfilled production waste by 10%;

Further improving energy efficiency by 10%;

Increasing safety at work and stay in the first industry quartile in safety results;

Increasing employee satisfaction and strengthen communities in which Constellium operates;

Fully rolling out our sustainable procurement policy.

Some of our significant sustainability advancements consist of the following:

Fostered responsible use of resources with 9% increase in energy efficiency throughout our operations;

Enhanced engagement with an average of one suggestion per employee at each site being implemented every month;

Renewed commitment to sustainable Research &Technology;

Defined and implemented first phase of the company's sustainable procurement policy, including achieving the Gold level recognition by EcoVadis;

Led industry efforts with the creation and ramp up of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative and sponsoring of key initiatives to increase recycling rate of beverage cans.

To learn more about our sustainability achievements, please read our report that is accessible online.

About Constellium

Constellium (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) is a global sector leader that develops innovative, value added aluminium products for a broad scope of markets and applications, including aerospace, automotive and packaging. Constellium generated 5.2 billion of revenue in 2015.

www.constellium.com

Forward Looking Statement

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This press release may contain "forward looking statements" with respect to our business, results of operations and financial condition, and our expectations or beliefs concerning future events and conditions. You can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as, but not limited to, "believes," "expects," "may," "should," "approximately," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "targets," likely," "will," "would," "could" and similar expressions (or the negative of these terminologies or expressions). All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Many risks and uncertainties are inherent in our industry and markets. Others are more specific to our business and operations. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the ability of Constellium and Wise to achieve expected synergies and the timing thereof; the risk that the businesses will not be integrated successfully or such integration may be more difficult, time-consuming or costly than expected; Constellium's increased levels of indebtedness as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals, which could limit Constellium's operating flexibility and opportunities; the potential failure to retain key employees as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals or during the integration of the business, the loss of customers, suppliers and other business relationships as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals; disruptions to business operations resulting from the acquisition of Wise Metals; slower or lower than expected growth in the North American market for Body-in-White aluminium rolled products and other risk factors set forth under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F, and as described from time to time in subsequent reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The occurrence of the events described and the achievement of the expected results depend on many events, some or all of which are not predictable or within our control. Consequently, actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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SOURCE Constellium

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters who work at Costco in New York, New Jersey and Maryland have overwhelmingly ratified an agreement under which they will be covered by the Western Conference of Teamsters pension plan for the first time in the history of their membership. The Western Conference is the largest Taft-Hartley defined-benefit pension plan in the nation.

The 4,000 Costco Teamsters in the East now join the 12,000 Costco Teamsters in California as members of this defined-benefit plan.

"This is a significant benefit to be gained by our Costco members in the East, who can now join their fellow Costco members in California under the protection of a financially solid defined- benefit plan," said Rome Aloise, International Vice President and Costco negotiations chairman. "This has been a subject of bargaining for at least three contracts, and to Costco's credit, they heard their employees loud and clear and decided to allow them the choice between their current plan and the pension plan. Now the East Coast members will have the best of both worlds."

"After many years of working on this, we are happy that the members in the East, including Local 210 members, were able to voice their opinions in a secret ballot vote, and we are proud that we were able to accomplish this for them," said George Miranda, International Vice President and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 210 in New York.

The Costco Teamsters in the East and West will continue to participate in the company 401(k) plan, in addition to the Western Conference defined-benefit plan.

After the members rejected a previous company offer in March, Costco and the Teamsters met to correct the areas that caused the rejectionthe attainment of the pension plan in the East being the major area of concern. Costco agreed to allow the members in the East to decide by a separate vote as to whether they wanted to enter the pension plan. Based largely on this change, the California agreement was ratified overwhelmingly in May. The East Coast Teamsters ratified their contract in a vote count conducted yesterday.

"In many ways this is a significant victory for the cause to maintain defined-benefit pension plans. Workers realize the benefit of having a guaranteed monthly benefit when they retire, and these Costco members spoke loud and clear about how they wanted to invest in their future retirement," Aloise said.

The parties will meet soon to work out the logistics of putting the pension plan into effect and working out the last issues for the new three-year agreement.

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Rome Aloise, (510) 915-6430

[email protected]

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SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

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KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CSL Behring announced today at the Peripheral Nerve Society's Inflammatory Neuropathy Consortium (INC) meeting at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, the winners of its annual Interlaken Leadership Awards. There are two 2016 recipients of this annual global awards program which provides monetary grants and/or product supply for investigational use to support research focusing on the potential role of immunoglobulin (Ig) therapy in the treatment of neurological/neuromuscular disorders.

Dr. Anneke van der Kooi, a neuromyologist at the University of Amsterdam, will examine early intravenous Ig treatment in newly diagnosed idiopathic inflammatory myopathies [myositis]. Dr. Lisa Christopher-Stine, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University, will study low dose intravenous and subcutaneous Ig as a maintenance treatment of statin-induced anti-HMGCR-associated myopathy.

"Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs), or myositis, are associated with a high disease burden for patients. With this study, we hope to show that IVIg is a good candidate for induction treatment in IIMs to realize fast improvement and avoid muscle damage and even permanent disability," says Dr. van der Kooi.

Dr. Christopher-Stine adds, "While no clinical trials have been performed to establish the efficacy of immunosuppressive medications for statin-induced anti-HMGCR-associated myopathy, retrospective studies show the promise of IVIg. The results from this study will aim to contribute to the design of future trials that will further define the role of Ig in the treatment of patients with statin-associated immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy."

"It is well known that those affected by neurological and neuromuscular conditions typically carry a high disease burden. The Interlaken Leadership Awards were established to help unlock the promise of Ig treatment for these conditions and improve the quality of life for these patients," comments Karen MacPhail, Senior Director, Immunology, CSL Behring. She adds, "At CSL Behring, we are committed to supporting focused, innovative research like Dr. van der Kooi's and Dr. Christopher-Stine's."

This program has awarded over $5 million in grants and study drug over the past 6 years for researching Ig therapy in a variety of neurological/neuromuscular disorders including neuromyelitis optica (NMO), Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), paraneoplastic syndromes, autoimmune peripheral neuropathies, Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) and neuromuscular junction (NMJ) disorders such as myasthenia gravis and Lambert Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome.

The global review committee seeks proposals likely to advance innovative medical research and knowledge about the potential role of Ig therapy to improve the lives of patients who have disabling neurological/neuromuscular conditions. All proposals received for the Interlaken Leadership Awards program are evaluated based on scientific merit, strength of hypothesis, relevance to neuroimmunology and feasibility.

About CSL Behring

CSL Behring is a global biotherapeutics leader which is driven by its promise to save lives. Focused on serving patients' needs by using the latest technologies, we develop and deliver innovative therapies that are used to treat coagulation disorders, primary immune deficiencies, hereditary angioedema, inherited respiratory disease, and neurological disorders. The company's products are also used in cardiac surgery, organ transplantation, burn treatment and to prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn.

CSL Behring operates one of the world's largest plasma collection networks, CSL Plasma. The parent company, CSL Limited (ASX:CSL), headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, employs more than 16,000 people with operations in more than 30 countries. For more information visit www.cslbehring.com and follow us on www.Twitter.com/CSLBehring.

SOURCE CSL Behring
CHONGQING, China, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo New Energy" or the "Company"), a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry, today announced that it has received approval from Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank for an RMB500 million credit line of a seven-year project finance loan. The Company intends to use the proceeds of the loan for general corporate purposes, including the capital expenditures related to its Phase 3A expansion project, which is expected to increase the Company's polysilicon manufacturing capacity from the current level of 12,150 MT to 18,000 MT by the end of the second quarter of 2017.

"As a tier-one Chinese polysilicon manufacturer, our globally leading cost structure and promising profitability has served as the corner stone for our continued cooperation with Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank," commented Dr. Gongda Yao, CEO of Daqo New Energy."The loan will provide strong capital support for our Phase 3A expansion project and afford us more flexibility in pursuing our future growth."

About Daqo New Energy Corp.

Founded in 2008, Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) is a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry. As one of the world's lowest cost producers of high-purity polysilicon and solar wafers, the Company primarily sells its products to solar cell and solar module manufacturers. The Company has built a manufacturing facility that is technically advanced and highly efficient with a nameplate capacity of 12,150 metric tons in Xinjiang, China. The Company also operates a solar wafer manufacturing facility in Chongqing, China.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, the quotations from management in this announcement, as well as Daqo New Energy's strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: the demand for photovoltaic products and the development of photovoltaic technologies; global supply and demand for polysilicon; alternative technologies in cell manufacturing; the Company's ability to significantly expand its polysilicon production capacity and output; the reduction in or elimination of government subsidies and economic incentives for solar energy applications; and the Company's ability to lower its production costs. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the reports or documents we have filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Daqo New Energy does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Daqo New Energy undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

For further information, please contact:

Daqo New Energy Corp.

Kevin He, Investor Relations

Phone: +86-187 1658 5553

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Daqo New Energy Corp.
PARK RIDGE, Ill. and INDIANAPOLIS, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- If the caliber of students receiving a Lilly Diabetes Tomorrow's Leaders Scholarship is any indication, the future is in good hands. The 2016 scholarship winners, announced today online at www.diabetesscholars.org by the Diabetes Scholars Foundation (Foundation), refused to let type 1 diabetes stand in the way of academic and community service excellence.

Lilly Diabetes has supported the Foundation's scholarship program since 2012, and continues to advocate for people with diabetes. In the last five years, 84 students with type 1 diabetes have been awarded a Lilly Diabetes Tomorrow's Leaders Scholarship. This year, the company contributed $100,000 to the Foundation to help another 21 deserving students pursue their goals as they enter adulthood.

"We are honored to partner with Lilly Diabetes. This is a wonderful opportunity for these exceptional students," said Mary Podjasek, president of the Diabetes Scholars Foundation. "These students are our future. We are delighted to be a part of making their dreams come true."

Recipients such as Hailey, who will pursue a degree in economics and math and statistics at the University of Southern California, stand out for academic excellence. Another talented graduate, Saloni, who will be majoring in pre-med at Augusta University Medical College of Georgia, is just one example of the remarkable young people awarded today.

"It's remarkable to see what our scholarship winners have achieved at such a young age. Each one has ambition, drive and maturity well beyond their years," said Jacqueline Giovanoni, global director of advocacy and professional relations, Lilly Diabetes. "These students are living proof of what can be accomplished with hard work and dedication, not only to their schools and communities, but also to their health, as they manage their diabetes. We are honored to support this part of their journey."

Lilly Diabetes also funds a Foundation program that grants conference scholarships to families to attend the Children with Diabetes Friends for Life conference, an annual gathering of clinicians, researchers, physicians and families with diabetes held in Orlando, Fla. This year, Lilly Diabetes will give eight families the opportunity to learn about diabetes from world-leading experts and share their experiences with other families of children with type 1 diabetes.

To learn more about the Diabetes Scholars Foundation, visit www.diabetesscholars.org. For more on how Lilly Diabetes supports families and students with diabetes, visit www.lillydiabetes.com.

About the Diabetes Scholars Foundation

In 2004, a group of parents who have children with type 1 diabetes created the Diabetes Scholars Foundation. Their goal was to empower people living with type 1 diabetes through education. Headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Ill., it is the only foundation that funds college scholarships open to all students in the United States with type 1 diabetes. In the past seven years, the Foundation has awarded over $1.25 million in college scholarships and helped over 3,000 people attend the annual Children with Diabetes Friends for Life conference in Orlando, Fla. In 2016, the Foundation received over 2,700 college scholarship applications from 50 states. Information about the Foundation is available at www.diabetesscholars.org.

About Lilly Diabetes

Lilly has been a global leader in diabetes care since 1923, when we introduced the world's first commercial insulin. Today we are building upon this heritage by working to meet the diverse needs of people with diabetes and those who care for them. Through research and collaboration, a broad and growing product portfolio and a continued determination to provide real solutionsfrom medicines to support programs and morewe strive to make life better for all those affected by diabetes around the world. For more information, visit www.lillydiabetes.com or follow us on Twitter: @LillyDiabetes.

About Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY)

Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com and http://newsroom.lilly.com/social-channels.

P-LLY

PP-LD-US-0911 06/2016 Lilly USA, LLC 2016. All rights reserved.

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SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company

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AURORA, Colo., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The current academic environment has expanded the role of nurse educators to go beyond curricula development. Nurse educators now design new education delivery models and map program objectives to outcomes all while navigating new laws, regulations, and industry trends. Advanced education in leadership can provide the tools needed to navigate this challenging landscape.

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American Sentinel University's online DNP program with a specialization in educational leadership prepares master's educated nurses for leadership roles in nursing education programs. DNP prepares nursing program director Lacey Bass for college's national accreditation process.

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So when Texas native Lacey Bass landed a position teaching the RN program at Galen College of Nursing in San Antonio, she knew she needed more than her MSN degree and that more education was in her future. "Education has always been a place where I feel I can shine. It made sense to move in this career direction," she says.

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Educational Leadership Specialization

Bass sought a doctorate program that was both practice-focused, and nursing education-focused.



"The DNP Educational Leadership specialization at American Sentinel was clearly the program for me. It's focused on how to be a better educator and how to lead future educators to be the best they can be," says Bass.



The fact that the DNP's curriculum focuses on topics such as accreditation and curriculum development was a highlight for Bass. The technology used for the DNP program delivery reminded her of Galen College of Nursing's commitment to technology. "That's a parallel I see between Galen and American Sentinel: the dedication to innovative methods of online instruction," she says.



Other colleagues from Galen College have followed in Bass' footsteps. The organization established an educational partnership with American Sentinel and currently has several other faculty members enrolled in the DNP program Educational Leadership specialization.



"Our ACEN-accredited DNP program with a specialization in educational leadership is a practice-based, leadership-focused program that prepares program directors, like Lacey Bass, to lead nursing education programs," says Judy Burckhardt, Ph.D., MAEd, MSN, RN, Dean, and Professor of Nursing and Healthcare Management programs at American Sentinel University.

"Our online DNP nursing program is one of a very few ACEN-accredited programs that offer a DNP degree with an educational leadership specialization. Our students are taught by some of the top nurse educators in the nation and surrounded by colleagues who share an education-focused goal."



A Big Promotion

In 2014, Bass became the nursing associate program director at Galen College, a role she felt confident accepting because of her American Sentinel education.



"My doctoral education has prepared me to lead our faculty and prepare Galen for our national accreditation process," Bass says. "Choosing American Sentinel's DNP program is the best thing I ever did."



In her role today, Bass manages all online nursing courses in the Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) bridge program and facilitates training of online faculty.

Opportunities Made Possible

Bass will graduate with the DNP degree with Educational Leadership specialization in June 2016. As a graduate of two online programs and an online educator, 21st-century learning is close to her heart.



"Technology is the great equalizer for me and has made certain things possible that wouldn't be otherwise," she says. "I love teaching and public speaking, but I would struggle in a classroom to hear students when they spoke to me in a ground-based classroom because of a hearing deficit. That is no longer a challenge. Also, I teach students who are no longer limited by geography."



Bass says that online learning adds richness to the student experience, and that's something she knows about firsthand.



"My DNP cohort brought together nurse educators from all across the country," she says. "We shared many of the same experiences and several different ones, and each brought their valuable perspectives. This program changed me as a nurse, educator, leader, and person. I'm very thankful."



A DNP degree with a specialization in educational leadership prepares master's educated nurses for leadership roles in nursing education programs. When new knowledge is acquired, it can be applied to nursing practice in ways that enhance patient care and improve outcomes.



Learn more about American Sentinel University's online DNP program with a specialization in educational leadership at http://www.americansentinel.edu/nursing/dnp-educational-leadership or call 866.922.5690.



About American Sentinel University

American Sentinel University delivers accredited online degree programs in nursing (RN to BSN, RN to BSN/MSN, MSN, and DNP) and healthcare management (MBA Healthcare, M.S. Information Systems Management, and M.S. Business Intelligence and Analytics). Its affordable, flexible bachelor's and master's nursing degree programs are accredited by the Commission for the Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), of One Dupont Circle, NW Suite 530, Washington, D.C., 20036. The DNP program is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) of 3343 Peachtree Road NE, Suite 850, Atlanta, Ga., 30326. The University is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, DEAC, 1101 17th Street NW, Suite 808, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 234-5100, www.deac.org



For required student consumer information, please visit: www.americansentinel.edu/doe

Contact:

Renee Hewitt

Hewitt PR for American Sentinel University

845.382.9152

Email

SOURCE American Sentinel University

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EDISON, N.J., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Roseland Residential Trust, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI), yesterday held a groundbreaking ceremony with public officials for 145 Front Street at City Square in Worcester, Massachusetts. This project is the first of two phases, when complete it will be comprised of 365 apartment homes, phase one includes 237-apartment homes. It is a key component of the master-planned, mixed-use development that is revitalizing the city's downtown. Roseland anticipates a third quarter 2017 completion of this community.

The luxury residential community will be a draw for the many young professionals flocking to the revitalized Worcester, New England's second largest city. The property will feature studio, one-, and two-bedroom units, with a wide range of state-of-the-art amenities, including a stunning outdoor swimming pool with a sundeck, a courtyard with fire pit, barbecue grills, a dog run, and more. The building will also have a full-time concierge, a fitness center with on-demand yoga and spinning services, and a clubroom with billiards, computers, a lounge area, and a game room. Additionally, there will be 10,000 square feet of retail space at 145 Front Street.

The full mixed-use project includes a new hotel, public parking garage, and significant additional retail space. Downtown Worcester is ideally located steps from the Worcester Common and the new transportation hub at Worcester's Union Station offering multiple transport options, including Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) trains, Amtrak, and bus service. The MBTA offers service to Boston's South Station in approximately 90 minutes.

"Creating a vibrant downtown residential community gives our growing workforce the high-quality homes they need, and today marks a major milestone in Worcester's continuing renaissance," said Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty. "Downtown's transformation is made possible by partners like Roseland who are committed to making projects like this one a reality, and we look forward to continuing to work together for years to come."

"This development brings a new dimension in luxury living to the rapidly growing downtown Worcester area  an unrivaled set of amenities, convenience, and a high-end lifestyle," said Andrew Marshall, president and chief operating officer of Roseland Residential Trust. "This property and the entire development will make Worcester the quintessential urban live-work-play environment, and we are thrilled to be a part of it."

This property is expected to be especially attractive to Worcester's growing workforce in advanced manufacturing, information technology, biotechnology, and healthcare. There are a number of significant private and public sector employers in Worcester, including St. Vincent Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The area is home to 12 colleges and universities with more than 35,000 students.

"The momentum of Downtown Worcester is plain to see, and the addition of Roseland's high-quality, market rate housing will only build on that energy," said City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr. "This is a great example of smart growth, bringing hundreds of people downtown to live near our intermodal transit hub, where they can take a bus across the city or an express train into Boston. As we continue to build density and downtown increasingly becomes a genuine neighborhood, I see even more great things on the horizon."

Roseland's focus on developing in downtown areas is readily apparent elsewhere in Massachusetts as well. The company is building Portside at East Pier in East Boston where it is redeveloping a stretch of waterfront property on Boston Harbor. Portside at East Pier is comprised of 181 apartment homes that are fully occupied, 296 that are currently under construction, and an additional future phase which will likely include a mix of apartment homes, condos, a hotel, and multiple public amenities. Roseland is also constructing The Chase II at Overlook Ridge five miles north of Boston. Chase II is a 292-apartment home community and part of a master-planned community, currently comprised of 1,400 apartment homes, and approved for a total of approximately 2,800 apartment homes.

About Roseland Residential Trust

Roseland Residential Trust (Roseland), a subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI) was recently formed to own, manage, and develop Mack-Cali's luxury multi-family residential portfolio. Roseland is a premier, full-service residential and mixed-use owner and developer in the Northeast with an industry-leading reputation for successful completion, execution, and management of class A residential developments. Roseland's scalable and integrated business platform oversees the Company's operating and in-construction assets, geographically desirable land portfolio, sourcing of new development and acquisition opportunities, and repurposing activities on Mack-Cali's office holdings.

The Company is a recognized leader in multi-family innovation, carefully integrating each development with its surrounding cultural context to enhance the beauty, economic vitality, and energy of its environment. From thoughtfully designed residences to distinctive amenity offerings, Roseland has earned a reputation for providing residents with the most visionary communities that empower them to re-imagine the way they live.

The Company is the master developer for several nationally recognized mixed-use destinations, including Port Imperial, a $3 billion, 200-acre, mixed-use community on the Hudson River Waterfront facing Midtown Manhattan; The Highlands at Morristown Station, NJ TRANSIT's first Transit Village project which, along with Roseland's 40 Park/Epstein's redevelopment, have spearheaded the revitalization of downtown Morristown; and Portside at East Pier in East Boston, where Roseland is redeveloping one-half mile of Boston Harbor into a premier luxury mixed-use community.

Additional information on Roseland is available on the Company's website at www.roselandres.com.

Statements made in this press release may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "plan," "potential," "projected," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "target," "continue," or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate, and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading "Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, which are incorporated herein by reference. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.

Contacts: Ilene Jablonski John Gallagher

Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Mercury Public Affairs

Vice President of Marketing (212) 681-1380

(732) 590-1528 [email protected]

[email protected]









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SOURCE Mack-Cali Realty Corporation

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MARIETTA, Ga., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DVIGear, a leading manufacturer of digital connectivity products, has announced that its DisplayNet AV-over-10GbE product family was recognized with awards from two leading industry publications at InfoComm 2016. The innovative uncompressed AV-over-10GbE signal distribution platform has garnered seven (7) total awards from various industry publications.

DisplayNet  Zero Compromise, Infinite Possibilities

DisplayNet is an award-winning new concept for AV distribution that leverages proven 10GbE Ethernet technology to switch, extend and distribute uncompressed AV signals in real time with resolutions up to 4K (UHD). DisplayNet delivers unprecedented levels of scalability, versatility and reliability with zero frame latency, zero compression and zero artifacts. DisplayNet supports a wide array of applications including Point-to-Point Extension, limitless Matrix Switching, as well as Video Wall and MultiViewer* displays. DisplayNet is not just new technology; it is a new paradigm for AV system integration.

DisplayNet Recognized by Leading Industry Publications

At InfoComm 2016, DisplayNet was recognized with awards from two leading industry publications, Commercial Integrator Magazine (CI) and Sound & Video Contractor Magazine (S&VC). The DisplayNet DN-100 Series won the CI BEST Product of 2016 Award in the IP Enabling Devices category. Tom LeBlanc, editor-in-chief of CI stated, "The CI BEST Awards have become one of the most coveted awards in the industry because the entries are judged independently on their merits by a team of top integrators, as well as the Commercial Integrator editorial team, from around the U.S. Products are rated by their innovation, benefits to the end user and benefits to the integrator. Congratulations to DVIGear for winning in the category of IP Enabling Devices." One of the CI BEST Award judges remarked, "By leveraging DisplayNet to distribute AV using 10GbE Ethernet technology, DVIGear is providing integrators with high-performance solutions for their customers' increasing and varying content distribution needs."

NewBay Media's S&VC magazine recognized the product family with their Best of Show Award at InfoComm16 for DVIGear's DisplayNet DN-110 and DN-120 Series transmitters and receivers. The award honors outstanding new products exhibited at the InfoComm16 show. Judges, represented by a selected panel of industry experts, AV designers, integrators, and end users, awarded points based on a series of criteria including: innovation; performance against category standard; richness/relevance of feature set; ease of installation/maintenance; and value/ROI. Their assessment was, "this is a comprehensive re-imagining of AV distribution that anticipates the continued rise of 10GbE and the fall of hard-iron matrix switches."

Steven Barlow, President of DVIGear said, "We are pleased that the DisplayNet has been receiving industry-wide recognition." He continued, "We truly feel that this groundbreaking technology will enable highly efficient and cost-effective system design for our customers by leveraging the power of AV-over-10GbE technology."

DisplayNet  An Expanding AV Signal Distribution Platform

The DN-100 Series is the first of an expanding line of DisplayNet AV-over-10GbE products. The DN-100TX transmitter unit accepts multiple source signals including HDMI (with embedded audio and HDCP), analog stereo audio, bidirectional IR, RS232, and 1GbE Ethernet. These input signals are packetized into a single 10GbE link, without the use of CODECs, and are distributed to destinations via an off-the-shelf 10GbE network switch using a single CAT6a or CAT7 cable up to 328 ft. (100 meters). The 10GbE switch provides a highly efficient and reliable means of distributing AV signals from many sources to an array of DN-100RX receiver units, which convert the packetized 10GbE data to AV output signals at the destinations in real time without frame latency or any loss of image quality.

The DN-100 Series distributes uncompressed video with resolutions up to 4K /30p (4:4:4) and 4K /60p (4:2:0) without image artifacts and without frame latency. Video signals may be routed in Point-to-Point, Matrix Switching and Video Wall modes all in the same system. For optimum flexibility, each signal plane (Video, Audio, IR, RS-232, etc.) can be routed completely independently from one another. Advanced audio features are supported, including: networked audio, audio embedding, de-embedding and down-mixing. DN-100 Series transmitter and receiver units are controlled by a DisplayNet Server, which includes powerful DisplayNet Manager software that enables the system to be managed using any third party controller with simple Telnet commands. The DisplayNet DN-100 Series transmitters and receivers are available now for immediate delivery starting at $995 (USD) MSRP per end point.

The DN-110 Series provides all the features of the DN-100 Series plus support for Full-Speed USB 2.0 (480 Mbps.). The DN-120 Series offers the same capabilities, while providing signal distribution over fiber optic media using industry standard SFP+ optical modules. These next generation products begin shipping in September 2016.

Future DisplayNet technology will include support for HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2, DisplayPort 1.2 and internal scaling. Scaling in the transmitter units will enable MultiViewer* applications, and scaling in future receiver units will enable more robust Video Wall capabilities as well as full seamless switching regardless of input resolution.

About DVIGear

Founded in 1999, DVIGear (www.dvigear.com) is a leading supplier of Digital Connectivity Solutions for a wide range of professional display applications. Located in Marietta, Georgia, DVIGear offers an extensive portfolio of high performance digital video distribution products including: Scalable AV-over-10GbE Systems, Switchers, Splitters, Extenders, Converters, Scalers, as well as long-length copper and optical cables.

*MultiViewer capability coming Q4.2016.

DVIGear and DVIGear & Design are trademarks of DVIGear, Inc. and may not be used without the prior written permission of DVIGear, Inc.

High Resolution Product Photo: DN-100 Series

High Resolution Logo Image: DisplayNet

Award Logos: 7 Best of Show Awards

Contact: Joseph Barbier / +1.770.421.6699 / [email protected]

SOURCE DVIGear

Related Links

http://www.dvigear.com


SAN FRANCISCO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- EpiBiome, a precision microbiome engineering company, today announced it has secured $1 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The financing will allow EpiBiome to ramp up automation and to advance its drug development efforts, as well as purchase additional lab equipment for its new facility.

"SVB has been an incredible strategic partner to us  one that goes beyond the services a traditional bank would provide," said Dr. Aeron Tynes Hammack, EpiBiome's co-founder and chief operating officer. "They've helped connect us with corporate partners and investors while also producing life sciences reports that perfectly analyze our target markets. These insights and connections have played a significant role in our success."

This financing announcement follows the January close of EpiBiome's $6 million Series A funding round. Leading next-generation sequencing investors from the round included Viking Global Investors via Illumina Accelerator Boost Capital, Matrix Capital Management, Alexandria Venture Investments, SV Tech Ventures, China Rock Capital Management and China Ding Cheng Holding Group.

Adding to its accolades and accomplishments, EpiBiome was a graduate from the inaugural class of Illumina Accelerator, the world's first business accelerator that focuses on helping genomic companies launch.

"We've been working with EpiBiome for nearly two years, and it's our pleasure to continue the partnership," said Jennifer Friel Goldstein, managing director at Silicon Valley Bank. "Through Illumina Accelerator, we really saw EpiBiome's potential to dramatically reduce the threat of antibiotic resistance in agriculture. We're excited to support their continued advancements in tackling infectious diseases through microbiome engineering  which shows beneficial promise to both the agricultural space and human health."

EpiBiome's mission is to develop effective, sustainable FDA-approved therapies to combat infectious disease in humans and agriculture without the use of antibiotics. For more information on the microbiome engineering company, visit http://www.epibiome.com.

About EpiBiome

EpiBiome is a venture-backed precision microbiome engineering company working to curb the growing threat of multi-drug-resistant superbugs by eliminating the use of shared-class antibiotics, those shared between humans and animals, from agriculture.

The company's management team consists of Nick Conley, PhD (Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder), Aeron Tynes Hammack, PhD (Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder), Christina Tsai, PhD (Chief Science Officer & Co-Founder), Lucia Mokres, DVM (Chief Medical Officer), and Bruno Marchon, PhD (Chief Technical Officer). EpiBiome is located at 201 Gateway Blvd., South San Francisco, California 94080. For more information, visit http://www.epibiome.com.

About Silicon Valley Bank

For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. With commercial, international and private banking services, SVB helps address the unique needs of innovators. Learn more at svb.com.

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SOURCE EpiBiome

Related Links

http://epibiome.com


LONG BEACH, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Epson America, Inc. announced today that Network Products Guide, the industry's leading technology research and advisory guide, has named the WorkForce Pro WF-R8590 A3 network multifunction color printer a Gold winner in the 11th Annual 2016 IT World Awards in the Best Products and Services: Accessories category. These industry and peer recognitions from Network Products Guide are the world's premier information technology awards honoring achievements and recognitions in every facet of the IT industry. Winners from all over the world will be honored on Monday, June 27 during the 2016 SVUS Red Carpet Awards Ceremony Dinner in San Francisco.

"It's an honor to be named a winner by IT World Awards for this esteemed industry and peer recognition," said Larry Trevarthen, director, Business Imaging, Epson America, Inc. "This award underscores our commitment to deliver innovative business solutions, such as the WorkForce Pro WF-R8590 with Replaceable Ink Pack System, allowing businesses to bring affordable color printing to remote offices and workgroups while reducing the hassles normally associated with printer management."

Epson designed the WorkForce Pro WF-R8590 with Replaceable Ink Pack System to satisfy the performance demands of decentralized workgroups, specifically addressing the need for convenient color printing with low intervention and significantly lower printing cost than similar lasers. Small workgroups and remote offices that need high-quality, affordable, easy-to-manage printing on a network save on operating costs and minimize printer management as a result of the high-yield ink packs.

WorkForce Pro WF-R8590 Features Include:

Powered by PrecisionCore   the next generation of inkjet printing technology

 the next generation of inkjet printing technology Low intervention  Replaceable Ink Pack System lets you print up to 75,000 ISO pages without changing the ink packs 1

 Replaceable Ink Pack System lets you print up to 75,000 ISO pages without changing the ink packs Fast output  prints at speeds of 24 ISO ppm (black) and 24 ISO ppm (color) 

 prints at speeds of 24 ISO ppm (black) and 24 ISO ppm (color) Versatile media handling  prints up to 13" x 19"; up to 1830-sheet total paper capacity 2 ; features auto duplexing (print, copy, scan, fax) and auto media size detection

 prints up to 13" x 19"; up to 1830-sheet total paper capacity ; features auto duplexing (print, copy, scan, fax) and auto media size detection Professional-quality results  laser-sharp text and brilliant colors on a wide variety of media

 laser-sharp text and brilliant colors on a wide variety of media Duty cycle  up to 75,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle 3

 up to 75,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle Drivers and utilities  Universal printer driver; PCL 4 and genuine Adobe  PostScript  3 support

 Universal printer driver; PCL and genuine Adobe PostScript 3 support Security features  PIN number certification for job release; user control access; printer and network settings via Web Config with printer's IP address; SSL/TLS security; IPsec

 PIN number certification for job release; user control access; printer and network settings via Web Config with printer's IP address; SSL/TLS security; IPsec Built-in connectivity  includes Ethernet, USB, wireless b/g/n 5 and Wi-Fi Direct 5 ; easily print from tablets and smartphones 6 , including remote printing and access to Cloud

 includes Ethernet, USB, wireless b/g/n and Wi-Fi Direct ; easily print from tablets and smartphones , including remote printing and access to Cloud Enabled for remote printer data collection  compatible with MPS software solutions from PrintFleet, ECi (FMAudit), Print Audit and others

An annual achievements and recognition awards program with active participation from a broad spectrum of industry voices, the coveted annual IT World Awards recognition program encompasses the world's best in organizational performance, products and services, hot technologies, executives and management teams, successful deployments, product management and engineering, customer satisfaction, and public relations in every area of information technology.

About NPG's IT World Awards

As industry's leading technology research and advisory publication, Network Products Guide plays a vital role in keeping decision makers and end-users informed of the choices they can make in all areas of information technology. The Annual IT World Awards is part of the SVUS Awards recognition program from Silicon Valley in the United States of America which also includes other programs such as CEO World Awards, Consumer World Awards, Customer Sales and Service World Awards, Golden Bridge Awards, Globee Fastest Growing Private Companies Awards, Info Security PG's Global Excellence Awards, Pillar World Awards, PR World Awards, and Women World Awards. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com

About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to connecting people, things and information with its original efficient, compact and precision technologies. With a lineup that ranges from inkjet printers and digital printing systems to 3LCD projectors, smart glasses, sensing systems and industrial robots, the company is focused on driving innovations and exceeding customer expectations in inkjet, visual communications, wearables and robotics.

Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 67,000 employees in 90 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts.

Epson America, Inc., based in Long Beach, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/EpsonAmerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica).

Specifications are subject to change without notice. EPSON, PrecisionCore and WorkForce are registered trademarks and EPSON Exceed Your Vision is a registered logomark of Seiko Epson Corporation. Wi-Fi Direct is a registered trademarks and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED is a trademark of Wi-Fi Alliance. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. Copyright 2016 Epson America, Inc.

 Black and color print speeds are measured in accordance with ISO/IEC 24734. Actual print times will vary based on system configuration, software, and page complexity. For more information, visit www.epson.com/printspeed.

1 Replacement ink pack yields are based on testing with ISO/IEC 24712 patterns with Epson's methodology in Default Mode, printing continuously. Yields may vary considerably for reasons that include images printed, print settings, temperature and humidity. Yields may be lower when printing infrequently or predominantly with one ink color. All ink colors are used for printing and printer maintenance. For print quality, part of the ink from the included cartridges or ink packs is used for printer startup and a variable amount of ink remains in the ink pack after the "replace ink pack" signal.

2 With optional paper trays.

3 Monthly duty cycle up to 75,000 is the highest duty a user could expect in a month, based on near-constant operation of a device of this kind. It is not recommended that the device be run at this duty. For best device performance, run the device at the recommended duty of 5000 pages per month.

4 Not all media types are supported for PCL printing.

5 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED; level of performance subject to the range of the router being used. Wi-Fi Direct may require printer software.

6 Most features require an Internet connection to the printer, as well as an Internet- and/or email-enabled device. For a list of Epson Connect enabled printers and compatible devices and apps, visit www.epson.com/connect

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SOURCE Epson America, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.epson.com


BELLEVUE, Wash., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Expedia.com revealed five of the top July 4 package destinations where travelers can save hundreds of dollars booking their flight and hotel together. The simple process of booking a combination of a flight, hotel and/or a car together is the easiest way for a traveler to save sizable sums of money. Yet many travelers still book their flight, hotel and car independently, leaving that money on the table.

Expedia's top summer travel advice is to capture that money. When planning travel, test the savings made possible via booking a hotel and a flight simultaneously.

Expedia.com's analytics team scoured the U.S. market looking for top package destinations. July 4 weekend in particular finds exceptional package-driven savings in Palm Springs, California, among several other popular destinations. In particular, Expedia's analysis shows that savings on travel to Palm Springs are averaging nearly 25%, equating to nearly $500 saved per package booking.

Five of the top package destinations for July 4 weekend can be found in California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Florida. In particular:

Palm Springs, California Nearly 25% average savings per package, or roughly $500

Lihue, Hawaii 20% average savings per package, or +/- $350

Maui, Hawaii Nearly 15% average savings per package, or +/- $300

Wilmington, North Carolina Nearly 15% average savings per package, or +/- $250

Fort Myers, Florida Over 10% average savings per package, or about $200



International destinations showing particularly strong package savings possibilities include Hong Kong, Cancun, San Jose del Cabo and Nassau, Bahamas. Within Europe, analysts found solid package savings in Paris, London, Edinburgh, Rome and Milan.

"The equation is simple. If you book a flight, hotel and car simultaneously, you're likely to save money versus booking them independently. And you don't need to book all three at once, any pairing fits," said John Morrey, vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. "We cannot emphasize this enough. You might save $50. You might save $500. But whatever you would save will disappear if you don't take this step. Package bookings are both the easiest and most consistent way to make budget-conscious travel choices."

20th Anniversary Savings

2016 is Expedia's 20th anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, Expedia is offering exclusive deals, promotions and package savings of nearly 20% every day throughout the entire promotion, which runs through August 2, 2016.

Summer Travel Tips

In addition to package bookings, the following tips should help make the summer travel experience smoother and simpler for consumers.

Speed through security . Signing up for TSA PreCheck and Global Entry can often allow you to shorten time spent in line by providing expedited clearance through security when arriving for your flight, as well as bypassing customs lines upon arrival in the United States .

. Signing up for TSA PreCheck and Global Entry can often allow you to shorten time spent in line by providing expedited clearance through security when arriving for your flight, as well as bypassing customs lines upon arrival in . Pack light . Where possible, carry on your baggage to avoid potentially long lines at check in. Also be sure to avoid items that may result in getting your bag checked at security, including oversized liquids or cork screws.

. Where possible, carry on your baggage to avoid potentially long lines at check in. Also be sure to avoid items that may result in getting your bag checked at security, including oversized liquids or cork screws. Abide by the 3-1-1 rule . The TSA allows for a 1 quart-sized bag of liquids per person. Each liquid container cannot exceed 3.4 oz. Exceed them and you'll be stopped.

. The TSA allows for a 1 quart-sized bag of liquids per person. Each liquid container cannot exceed 3.4 oz. Exceed them and you'll be stopped. Don't be afraid to ask . When you reach the airport, ask a TSA agent where to find the fastest line. Agents are in regular touch with one another and can offer relevant advice.

. When you reach the airport, ask a TSA agent where to find the fastest line. Agents are in regular touch with one another and can offer relevant advice. Keep your mobile apps close. Keep your phone handy throughout your trip for quick access to important notifications such as flight delays and gate changes. The Expedia app will send real-time notifications and alerts about any flight status changes or gate changes to your phone, so you can stay up-to-date.

About Expedia.com

Expedia.com is one of the world's largest full service travel sites, helping millions of travelers per month easily plan and book travel. Expedia.com (https://www.expedia.com/, 1-800-EXPEDIA) aims to provide the latest technology and the widest selection of top vacation destinations, cheap tickets, hotel deals, car rentals, destination weddings, cruise deals and in-destination activities, attractions, services and travel apps. With the Expedia Best Price Guarantee, Expedia.com customers can get the best rates available online for all types of travel.

Expedia, Expedia.com, Expedia Rewards, Find Yours, Vacation Deprivation and the Airplane logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners  2016 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST # 2029030-50.

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SOURCE Expedia.com

Related Links

http://www.expedia.com


SAN DIEGO and LITTLE ROCK, Ark., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) and First Orion today announced users of the PrivacyStar app and applications powered by the PrivacyStar service will have immediate and direct access to free victim assistance should a fraud or identity theft attempt occur.

PrivacyStar is the only service to include ScamBlock, real-time caller ID and call blocking as well as the ability to report abusive calls directly to federal agencies. By partnering with the ITRC, app users now have a second line of defense against fraud attempts.

"PrivacyStar will automatically block all known scammers and identify suspicious callers, but consumers also need a trusted resource to help ensure that they are able to protect their identity and personal information should they provide personal information to an unknown caller," said Jonathan Sasse, CMO of First Orion. "PrivacyStar is the first and only service to directly connect users with a fraud expert who can offer free advice for protecting oneself, a step-by-step plan and the necessary documents and letters needed to report and resolve an identity theft case."

The ITRCa nonprofit that supports victims of identity theft in resolving their cases and broadens public awareness of scams, fraud and privacy issueswill be standing by to assist PrivacyStar users who may have inadvertently provided their personal information due to a fraud attempt by scam caller.

"Consumers who have just been scammed may be at an increased risk of identity theft," said Eva Velasquez, President and CEO of ITRC. "They are often confused, scared and don't know who to trust. This partnership will allow the ITRC to be a trusted resource to PrivacyStar's most vulnerable customers when they need help the most."

About the Identity Theft Resource Center

Founded in 1999, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) is a nationally recognized non-profit organization established to support victims of identity theft in resolving their cases, and to broaden public education and awareness in the understanding of identity theft, data breaches, cybersecurity, scams/fraud and privacy issues. The ITRC provides victim assistance and consumer education through its toll-free call center, website and social media, as well as through the new ID Theft Help Mobile App.

About PrivacyStar

The PrivacyStar app is the only service to include ScamBlock, real-time caller ID and call blocking as well the ability to report abusive calls and texts directly to federal agencies. PrivacyStar is available as a free download for Android smartphones and powers call management solutions for many leading mobile carriers. Each month, PrivacyStar blocks millions of calls and files hundreds of thousands of call complaints on behalf of customers directly with the Federal Trade Commission for Do Not Call and Fair Debt Collections Practices Act violations. PrivacyStar is a First Orion company.

About First Orion

First Orion is dedicated to providing phone call transparency by empowering both consumers and businesses with world-class data. It protects consumers from unwanted phone calls and unknown callers, along with fraud and scam protection, with call management software on industry leading mobile applications and network based solutions. The company helps businesses utilize authoritative data to ensure that they are properly contacting the right customers or validating their customer data with accurate information. First Orion is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas with offices in Dallas, Seattle and London.

For regular updates, please visit www.FirstOrion.com.

PrivacyStar and First Orion are registered trademarks of First Orion Corp. All registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Catherine Barkley

FortyThree, Inc.

831.401.3175

[email protected]

Nikki Fiorentino

Identity Theft Resource Center

858.500.2068

[email protected]

SOURCE First Orion

Related Links

http://www.firstorion.com


EVERETT, Wash., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fortive Corporation ("Fortive") (NYSE: FTV.WI) announced today that it will webcast its earnings conference call for the second quarter 2016 on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET and lasting approximately 1 hour.

The call and an accompanying slide presentation will be webcast on the "Investors" section of Fortive's website, www.fortive.com, under "Events & Presentations." A replay of the webcast will be available at the same location shortly after the conclusion of the presentation and will remain available until the next quarterly earnings call.

You can access the conference call by dialing 877-879-6207 within the U.S. or 719-325-4817 outside the U.S. a few minutes before 5:30 p.m. ET and notifying the operator that you are dialing in for Fortive's earnings conference call (access code 4987529). A replay of the conference call will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call until Tuesday, August 9, 2016. Once available, click here to access the conference call replay or visit the "Investors" section of Fortive's website under "Events & Presentations."

Fortive's earnings press release, the webcast slides and other related presentation materials will be posted to the "Investors" section of Fortive's website under "Financial Information."

ABOUT FORTIVE

Fortive will be a diversified industrial growth company comprised of Professional Instrumentation and Industrial Technologies businesses that are recognized leaders in attractive markets. With 2015 revenues of $6.2 billion, Fortive's well-known brands hold leading positions in field instrumentation, transportation, sensing, product realization, automation and specialty, and franchise distribution. Fortive will be headquartered in Everett, Washington and employ a team of more than 24,000 research and development, manufacturing, sales, distribution, service and administrative employees in more than 40 countries around the world. With a culture rooted in continuous improvement, the core of our company's operating model will be the Fortive Business System. For more information please visit: www.fortive.com.

SOURCE Fortive Corporation

Related Links

http://www.fortive.com


ATHENS, Greece, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese truck and utility vehicle manufacturer Beijing Foton held the inaugural ceremony of the China Internet Super Truck Global Innovation Alliance and launched the debut of the Auman EST (Energy Super Truck) in Athens, Greece, on the morning of June 22, local time. Foton especially chose Athens for the launch as it is the birthplace of European civilization and serves as an expression of the truck maker's dedication to the mission of accelerating the implementation of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, the plan put forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping to build connectivity and cooperation among the countries between China and the rest of Eurasia that lie along the ancient Silk Road trading routes. The alliance and the roll out of the new truck are part and parcel of that mission. For Foton Motor, the world's largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, the ceremony marked a significant milestone on the mission roadmap that calls for the firm to be a driving force in bringing together and creating the best configuration of the world's innovation resources, exploring the world's open and shared innovation models, and taking the first big step in firmly adhering to an innovation-driven development strategy. With Europe and the whole world aggressively seeking to implement intelligent transportation systems, Foton Motor is determined to provide intelligent products and intelligent transportation system solutions to Europe and the world.

Foton Motor Joins Forces with Global Tech Giants in Europe to Build China Internet Super Truck Global Innovation Alliance

Forming an Alliance Focused on Innovation To Build the China Internet Super Truck Gathers Together Technology and Innovative Resources From Around The World

The Internet super truck project is a collaboration that brings together Foton Motor Group, US-based manufacturer Cummins, and German carmaker Daimler AG and aims at building Internet-driven super trucks that are green, efficient, safe, and intelligent through the integration of global resources, the effective use of new energies, the establishment of vehicle networks, and the implementation of intelligent truck-loading technology. The goals call for a 30% reduction in vehicle fuel consumption (or, to take it a step further, go for a 100% by adopting a fully electric model), a 30% reduction in carbon emissions (or, if the electric route is chosen, thorough elimination), and to increase freight efficiency by 70%. Foton Motor not only put forth the idea of an Internet super truck during the European trip, but also formed an Internet super truck team that consists of Foton Motor, ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Cummins, COSCO Logistics, CEVA Logistics, Faurecia, WABCO, Continental AG, TUV Rheinland, and Baidu, among other globally renowned companies who are experts in the fields of automobile manufacturing, power systems, transportation, electronics, intelligent logistics and internet technology. The alliance has attracted more companies in the field of internet technology and intelligent logistics, in order to emphasize the super truck's internet-driven and cross-industry features. The vehicle can then truly be called the embodiment of a whole new industry defined by an "Internet super vehicle". A senior manager at Foton Motors said that the China Internet Super Truck Global Innovation Alliance endeavors to construct a global industry ecosystem of Internet intelligent vehicles and contribute to building the world's intelligent transportation networks and intelligent cities. In the history of the making and growth of the world's automotive industry, the founding of the alliance stands out as one of the breakthroughs and developments within the industry that China can rightfully take credit for.

Recasting What It Means for Something To Be "Made In China", Foton Internet Super Truck Helps to Drive The "One Belt, One Road" Initiative

Beyond the significance of the breakthrough and the innovation within the automotive sector, Foton Motor's trip to Europe is also a proactive response to the "One Belt, One Road" development initiative. As is known to many, the developed economies of Europe have strict requirements when it comes to vehicle technology, impact on the environment, emissions, and performance efficiency among other aspects. The biggest advantage that the China Internet Super Truck has is its high efficiency, one of Foton Motor's key goals in terms of the design of the truck. Foton Motor, in its role as a leading company in China's commercial vehicle manufacturing space, has not only made available an excellent logistics vehicle to the countries targeted by the "One Belt, One Road" initiative with the Internet super truck, but also introduced high-tech and high-value products that are proud to bear the "Made in China" label, promoting the new meaning of "Made in China" in the global market.

Foton Motor Group marketing and brand director Li Jian said, "Since we brought together the world's leading technological resources to launch the first Internet super truck, Foton is focused not just on the demands of its home market in China, but has placed the Internet super truck into its global strategy planning as well. According to Foton Motor's 2020 Plan, Foton's entire line of Internet super trucks is expected to gradually penetrate not only China's transportation markets but markets around the world as well."

Meeting the Global Demand for Intelligent Transportation, Foton Internet Super Truck Offers "Made In China" Solutions

The Internet super truck is not just a new truck, but a transportation system for the future. Its goal is to build a self-driving vehicle, tremendously increasing logistics efficiency and transportation safety, and to further reduce CO 2 emissions. Foton Motor has creatively redefined the truck and built a future-oriented intelligent logistics ecosystem with three core technologies that efficiently makes use of new energies, the construction of vehicle networks, and intelligent truck loading. At present, the products included in Foton's Internet super truck project encompass Foton's Auman, Aumark and Ollin product lines. The debut of the Beijing Foton Auman Energy Super Truck in Europe no doubt serves as a generous endorsement of Foton's Internet super trucks. We believe that the Internet Super Truck built with technological innovations will offer a strong push to Europe's and the world's economy.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/382696

SOURCE Foton Motor Co., Ltd.
WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Historic Vehicle Association (HVA) announced today that the 1907 Thomas Flyer joins other automotive icons on the National Historic Vehicle Register. The car, winner of the 1908 New York to Paris Automobile Race, will be exhaustively measured and documented by the HVA using the guidelines set by the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Heritage Documentation and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). Once complete, the material will permanently reside in the Library of Congress, joining such legendary cars as the Shelby Cobra Daytona prototype, the first Meyers Manx dune buggy, one of the last surviving Futurliners and the Marmon Wasp - winner of the very first Indianapolis 500. This is being done to preserve an important chapter in America's automotive heritage.

1907 Thomas Flyer Hagerty Logo Shell Logo

"The 1908 New York to Paris race was a daunting challenge given the lack of road infrastructure and state of automobile technology of the period," said Mark Gessler, President of the Historic Vehicle Association. "Only three of the six competitors completed the course, traveling more than 22,000 miles over 169 days and encountering extremely difficult conditions. The 1907 Thomas Flyer beat the nearest rival by 26 days. Its victory made a profound impact on the fledgling American automobile industry and brought world-recognition to our country."

The Thomas Flyer is owned by the National Automobile Museum (The Harrah Collection) in Reno, Nevada.

The car was in very poor condition, from years of neglect, when it was purchased by Bill Harrah, founder of Harrah's Automobile Collection and Harrah's Hotels & Casinos, in 1964 from Henry Austin Clark, Jr., of Long Island, New York. To authenticate the car, Harrah contacted 91-year-old George Schuster, who had driven the Flyer to victory, and invited him to Reno. During the dismantling of the Flyer, Schuster witnessed cracks in the frame and repairs he had made during the race, proving its authenticity.

The Thomas Flyer was restored to the condition in which it appeared upon finishing the race. This was one of the most enthusiastic and enterprising projects attempted by Harrah's world-renowned restoration shops, involving the skills of more than 40 craftsmen and restoration experts. After completion, in a record six weeks, it was approved for a "Gold Star," the highest restoration designation given by Harrah's Automobile Collection for quality and authenticity. The car was subsequently "aged" to give it the patina expected of a car that had driven around the world. Harrah's team worked with Disney and other experts to ensure the seats, the paint, and all of the finishes had just the right look. Today the car remains in this condition, even adorned with mud on the wheels and tires for added effect.

"The 1907 Thomas Flyer was certainly a road-worthy warrior. Just three days before the 1908 New York to Paris Race, it was pulled off the floor of the E.R. Thomas Company's showroom," said Jackie Frady, president and executive director of the National Automobile Museum (The Harrah Collection). "After 169 days of fierce competition the Thomas Flyer claimed victory and earned its place in history. It dramatically increased the prestige of American-made automobiles and proved that automobiles could be a year-round mode of transportation and a means of long-distance travel."

About the Thomas Flyer:

1907 Thomas Flyer Model 35

Built by E.R. Thomas Motor Company, Buffalo, New York

Engine: 4 Cylinders, 60 H.P.

Displacement: 571.3 cubic inches

Wheelbase: 118 inches

Weight: 3,200 lbs (est.)

Price: $4.500

Organization and Funding:

The documentation of the Thomas Flyer (No. 12) on the National Historic Vehicle Register is being organized by the Historic Vehicle Association and underwritten by Hagerty, Shell (including their Pennzoil and Quaker State brands).

Click here for Thomas Flyer video

Click here for Thomas Flyer photos

About the Historic Vehicle Association

The HVA is dedicated to preserving and sharing America's automotive heritage. In 2014, the HVA established the National Historic Vehicle Register. Working with the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Heritage Documentation Programs and Library of Congress, their aim is to document historically significant automobiles in America's past. The HVA is supported by over 400,000 individual historic vehicle owners, key stakeholders and corporations such as Shell (including their Pennzoil and Quaker State brands), Hagerty, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, as well as individual benefactors. Please visit: historicvehicle.org

About Shell Lubricants

The term 'Shell Lubricants' collectively refers to the companies of Royal Dutch Shell plc that are engaged in the lubricants business. Shell Lubricants companies lead the lubricants industry, supplying more than 12 percent of global lubricants volume. * The companies manufacture and blend products for use in consumer, heavy industrial and commercial transport applications. The Shell Lubricants portfolio of top-quality brands includes Pennzoil, Quaker State, FormulaShell, Shell TELLUS, Shell RIMULA, Shell ROTELLA T, Shell SPIRAX and Jiffy Lube.

*Kline & Company, "Global Lubricants Industry July 2015: Market Analysis and Assessment.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382486

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160518/369280LOGO

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SOURCE National Historic Vehicle Register

Related Links

https://www.historicvehicle.org


TSX: GPR

NYSE MKT: GPL

VANCOUVER, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - GREAT PANTHER SILVER LIMITED (TSX: GPR; NYSE MKT: GPL; "Great Panther") regrets to report the fatality of a contract miner that occurred on Wednesday, June 22 due to an isolated rock fall at the Guanajuatito Mine, part of the Guanajuato Mine Complex ("GMC") in Mexico.

"We feel great sadness over the loss of one of our colleagues, and we offer our sincere condolences to his family and friends," stated Robert Archer, President and CEO. "The safety of employees and contractors remains the top priority for the Company and we are continuing with a complete safety review across all of our operations that began earlier in the year."

The Company is assessing the cause of the incident and has reported it to the relevant authorities. Any necessary steps to prevent the recurrence of such accidents will be taken immediately. Great Panther is fully committed to providing a safe working environment by striving to eliminate safety and health hazards to the fullest extent possible. While the area where the accident occurred has been closed for investigation, the rest of the GMC operations are unaffected.

ABOUT GREAT PANTHER

Great Panther Silver Limited is a primary silver mining and exploration company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading under the symbol GPR, and on the NYSE MKT trading under the symbol GPL. Great Panther's current activities are focused on the mining of precious metals from its two wholly-owned mining operations in Mexico: the Guanajuato Mine Complex, which includes the San Ignacio Mine, and the Topia Mine in Durango.

Robert Archer

President & CEO

SOURCE Great Panther Silver Limited

Related Links

http://www.greatpanther.com


NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In a ceremony today at its corporate headquarters, HarperCollins Christian Publishing (HCCP) was presented with the Better Business Bureau's (BBB) 2016 Torch Award for Middle Tennessee. This annual award is given by the BBB in honor of businesses operating within the chapter's region that display the highest of ethical commerce.

Kathleen Calligan, CEO of BBB Middle Tennessee, Inc. presented the award to HCCP's president and CEO, Mark Schoenwald. The Nashville-based corporate office was invited to attend the award presentation where both Calligan and Schoenwald spoke on the honor.

Calligan said, "The Torch Award for Ethical Commerce is BBB's highest recognition given annually to businesses in Middle Tennessee. The Torch Award is not only a symbol of the importance of ethical business practices, it also shines a brighter spotlight on businesses that intentionally pursue the highest standards of integrity with employees and customers that builds trust in the marketplace."

"On behalf of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, I want to say what an honor it is to be recognized by the Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee," commented Schoenwald. "We have a dedicated group of nearly 500 professionals, spread across five office locations in three countries, all committed to a single mission. We inspire the world by meeting the needs of people with content that promotes biblical principles and honors Jesus Christ. I am thankful to the BBB for presenting us with this award and to the selection committee for seeing our work as exemplary."

In the press release issued by the BBB of Middle Tennessee on May 12, chair of the Torch Award Committee, Mike Sanders said, "The BBB Torch Award program is a rigorous entry for any business participating in the nominations process. This is not a popularity contest. Each nominee is reviewed by a panel of independent judges who evaluate the company's demonstrated commitment to business practices that build trust with employees, customers, and vendors in the marketplace."

About HarperCollins Christian Publishing: The world's leading Christian publisher, HarperCollins Christian Publishing Inc., comprises both Thomas Nelson and Zondervan publishing groups in addition to Olive Tree Bible Software. The Company produces bestselling Bibles, inspirational books, academic resources, curriculum, audio and digital content for the Christian market space. Also home to BibleGateway.com, the world's largest Christian website, and FaithGateway.com, an online community dedicated to helping people grow in their faith. HarperCollins Christian Publishing is headquartered in Nashville, TN with additional offices in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil. For more information visit www.HarperCollinsChristian.com.

SOURCE HarperCollins Christian Publishing

Related Links

http://www.HarperCollinsChristian.com


SANDS POINT, N.Y., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In 1984, President Reagan issued a proclamation designating the last week of June as "Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week." In 2016, this special week is celebrated from June 26th to July 2nd.

"Every year since President Reagan's proclamation, the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths & Adults (HKNC) has commemorated the week with a national advocacy campaign in recognition of the achievements and capabilities of people who are deaf-blind," explains Helen Keller Services President & CEO Joseph F. Bruno. "This year the focus is on employment. We are celebrating businesses that have hired deaf-blind individuals and educating others on the benefits of hiring from this very talented community."

While research shows that a workplace inclusive of people with disabilities is good for business, HKNC Executive Director Sue Ruzenski believes more needs to be done to reach employers on how to effectively recruit, retain and advance deaf-blind individuals. "The first step is to make businesses aware of others who have successfully hired deaf-blind workers and how it has turned out to be a great business decision for everyone involved," she observes. "That's what this year's campaign is all about."

Grey Healthcare Group, New York City has generously created  pro bono  Deaf- Blind Awareness Week posters for more than 20 years. This year's theme reinforces HKNC's campaign to target businesses across the United States with a simple yet powerful message: People who are deaf-blind have marketable skills and strategies to compete and succeed in the workplace.

"At HKNC," notes Ruzenski, "we provide employment training experiences to deaf-blind individuals and work closely with employers, providing education and ongoing support to ensure a successful outcome. Time and again business owners recognize the value of bringing onboard a qualified deaf-blind employee who is a great addition to their workforce."

Thanks to HKNC and its nearly 50-year history of advocating for deaf-blind individuals, Bruno believes people with a combined loss of vision and hearing are maximizing their opportunities for a productive life in the community of their choice. He concludes, "This year's Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week reminds us that a productive life often includes a right many take for granted  the opportunity for gainful employment."

For more information on Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week, including an educational tool kit featuring downloadable versions of this year's posters, please visit www.helenkeller.org/hknc/dbaw.

Headquartered in Sands Point, New York, HKNC provides comprehensive vocational and independent living training to youths and adults who are deaf-blind. It offers support and learning opportunities to professionals and family members, and maintains a National Registry of Persons who are Deaf-Blind. The Center partners with other agencies across the United States to build their capacity to work with individuals who are deaf-blind.

HKNC is a division of Helen Keller Services. For more information, go to www.helenkeller.org/hknc.

SOURCE Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths & Adults (HKNC)

Related Links

http://www.helenkeller.org/hknc


LITTLE ROCK, Ark., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Millennials are driving the greatest change the food industry has seen in 70 years, demanding fresher ingredients, greater sustainability, farm-to-market accountability and more. Chief among the demands is for vegetarian-fed meats, chicken in particular. With poultry producers left to find solutions immediately, the introduction of the world's first pure vegan protein supplement for poultry, Vegain, looks to change the way both broilers and layers are fed forever.

Research Proven, Antibiotic Free, All-Vegetable Protein

"Vegain is a game changer," said Dr. Clark Springfield, General Manager, H.J. Baker Animal Health & Nutrition. "The moment we realized the need for a vegetarian-fed chicken was becoming mainstream rather than a niche market, we knew the poultry industry would need to respond. We developed Vegain and got it into testing quickly. The results exceeded even our expectations. Now producers can have a pure vegetable protein that out-produced traditional animal protein in head-to-head university trials."

The Demand For "Clean Food"

After decades of foods filled with artificial ingredients, by-products, chemicals and what many now call "food-like products," consumers are demanding more natural foods free of "toxins and "things we wouldn't eat if given a choice." Supplements such as Vegain now give food producers the tools to meet market demands without sacrificing performance. "Clean foods are here to stay," added Springfield. "If suppliers and producers don't adapt, we won't be long for this world  it's really that simple."

To learn more about Vegain, the poultry industry's only vegan protein source, contact H.J. Baker at (501) 664-4870, or visit hjbaker.com.

H.J. Baker is committed to adding value to the products and services it provides as a global manufacturer and supplier in the animal health and nutrition, crop performance and sulphur industries. Family owned since 1865, H.J. Baker builds trusting relationships that last decades. We invest in ongoing research, product innovation and manufacturing excellence so that our customers have the best opportunity to succeed. H.J. Baker supports environmentally sustainable practices and our dedicated employees are active in the communities where they live and work. H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc., is headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut.

SOURCE H.J. Baker Animal Health & Nutrition

Related Links

http://www.hjbaker.com.


HAMDEN, Conn., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Care & Hospice Association of New Jersey has honored Robert J. Simione, Managing Principal, Simione Healthcare Consultants, with the 2016 Martha Esposito Award for outstanding achievement and dedication to the industry. The award was presented at the Association's annual conference held June 15-17 at the Tropicana Casino & Resort, Atlantic City. A celebrated national expert in post-acute care, Bob has been a highly engaged in home care and hospice advocacy for more than 40 years, serving as former advisory board chairman of the Home Health and Hospice Financial Managers Association, and as a board member for the National Association for Home Care and Hospice. A graduate of Villanova University, he is a frequent national keynote speaker and workshop presenter.

Robert J. Simione, Managing Principal, Simione Healthcare Consultants is the 2016 recipient of Martha Esposito Award for distinguished service from the Home Care & Hospice Association of New Jersey.

Simione Healthcare Consultants has also welcomed two new team members  Jeffrey Holm and Melynda Lee  as Senior Managers in sales, marketing and referral management.

With 18 years of experience in hospice and leadership roles since 2004, Holm has extensive experience in multi-state/site management, operations and staff development with several hospice and community health providers. He earned a bachelor's degree and gerontology certificate from the University of Colorado. He resides in Michigan.

Lee has extensive experience in sales, marketing, communications, administration and strategic planning, having served as a home health and hospice leader in Florida and Georgia since 2008. She was a board and education committee member with the Georgia Hospice and Palliative Organization, and founder/co-chairperson of the Greater Atlanta Hospice-Veteran Partnership. She also served for 10 years as a sales and marketing leader with a regional media group at the New York Times. Lee earned a BFA in advertising design from University of North Florida, and an MBA from Webster University.

About Simione Healthcare Consultants

Founded in 1966, Simione Healthcare Consultants provides comprehensive business solutions for home health and hospice in the areas of operations, compliance and risk, finance, sales and marketing, cost reporting, information technology, and mergers and acquisitions. Simione's experts and tools support performance improvement across the healthcare continuum, engaging agencies, hospitals and health networks to improve quality, reduce costs, and minimize risk for more effective delivery of patient care. Call 844.215.8825 or visit Simione.com for more information.

Contact: Linda Wiseman

[email protected]

800-949-0388

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SOURCE Simione Healthcare Consultants

Related Links

http://www.simione.com


PUNE, India, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

RnRMarketResearch.com adds "Impetigo - Pipeline Review, H1 2016" market research report complete with comparative analysis at various stages, therapeutics assessment by drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type, along with latest updates, and featured news and press releases. It also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Impetigo and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects.

Complete report on H1 2016 pipeline review of Impetigo with 21 market data tables and 12 figures, spread across 46 pages is available at http://www.rnrmarketresearch.com/impetigo-pipeline-review-h1-2016-market-report.html

The report also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Impetigo and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects. The report enhances decision making capabilities and help to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. It strengthens R&D pipelines by identifying new targets and MOAs to produce first-in-class and best-in-class products.

Companies discussed in this Impetigo Pipeline Review, H1 2016 report include Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Laboratories Ojer Pharma S.L., Lytix Biopharma AS and Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd. Drug profiles discussed in this research report are FMX-102, LTX-109, mupirocin, ozenoxacin and Synthetic Peptides for Infectious Disease.

Scope of this report: The report provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Impetigo and reviews pipeline therapeutics for Impetigo by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources and key players involved Impetigo therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects. The research covers pipeline products based on various stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages. The report features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which includes, product description, descriptive MoA, R&D brief, licensing and collaboration details & other developmental activities and assesses Impetigo therapeutics based on drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The report summarizes all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects with latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Impetigo.

Order a copy of this report @ http://www.rnrmarketresearch.com/contacts/purchase?rname=617355

Reasons to buy: Gain strategically significant competitor information, analysis, and insights to formulate effective R&D strategies; Identify emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage ; Identify and understand important and diverse types of therapeutics under development for Impetigo; Identify potential new clients or partners in the target demographic; Develop strategic initiatives by understanding the focus areas of leading companies ; Plan mergers and acquisitions effectively by identifying key players and it's most promising pipeline therapeutics; Devise corrective measures for pipeline projects by understanding Impetigo pipeline depth and focus of Indication therapeutics; Develop and design in-licensing and out-licensing strategies by identifying prospective partners with the most attractive projects to enhance and expand business potential and scope; Modify the therapeutic portfolio by identifying discontinued projects and understanding the factors that drove them from pipeline.

Another newly published market research report titled on Migraine - Pipeline Review, H1 2016 provides comprehensive information on the therapeutic development for Migraine, complete with comparative analysis at various stages, therapeutics assessment by drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type, along with latest updates, and featured news and press releases. It also reviews key players involved in the therapeutic development for Migraine and special features on late-stage and discontinued projects. Companies discussed in this research are Achelios Therapeutics, Inc., Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., Afferent Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc., Allergan Plc, Amgen Inc., Aralez Pharmaceuticals Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc., Biofrontera AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Charleston Laboratories, Inc., CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Corium International, Inc., D-Pharm Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, iCeutica, Inc., Impel NeuroPharma, Inc., Klaria Pharma Holding AB, Mallinckrodt Plc, Medestea Research & Production S.p.A., Merck & Co., Inc., Mithra Pharmaceuticals S.A., Monosol Rx, LLC, NAL Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Noxxon Pharma AG, Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd., Pivot Pharmaceuticals Inc, Promius Pharma, LLC, RedHill Biopharma Ltd., Revance Therapeutics, Inc., Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Ltd., Suda Ltd, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., TheraJect, Inc., Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp., Trevena, Inc., Trigemina, Inc., Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated and Zosano Pharma Corporation. Migraine Pipeline market research report of 219 pages is available at http://www.rnrmarketresearch.com/migraine-pipeline-review-h1-2016-market-report.html

Explore more reports on Dermatology therapeutics

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SOURCE RnR Market Research
NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

New Age TechSci Research Logo (PRNewsFoto/New Age TechSci Research)

Consumer marketing channels involves various levels between manufacturers and end customers and can be broadly classified into multi-channel marketing, wherein, sales involve multiple channels, such as wholesalers/distributors and retailers, between manufacturer and end customers, and direct marketing where marketers directly interact with the customer. Teleshopping, which is also known as Direct Response Television shopping, is a direct marketing technique which was originated in the US in 1980s. In this type of marketing technique product information is communicated to the potential customer through electronic medium such as infomercials which are scheduled and aired between TV programs. Contact details are, usually, communicated at the end of infomercial for the customer to call for further queries or to place the orders. These infomercials include detailed product information, in-depth product demonstration, product details & price and benefits of buying and using the product.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 )



Convenient shopping platform, high disposable income, rise in consumerism, with option to order a product from a channel's website as well and low priced products, are few of the major growth drivers of the Teleshopping market in India.

Teleshopping Market: Drivers and Restraints

India teleshopping market is growing at a significantly high rate and stood around USD700-750 million in 2015. Television has the ability to demonstrate the product which would enable this sales channel in selling various innovative products further, educating the customer about the brand. Major companies' strategies, such as setting up call centres in multiple cities, providing region wise toll free telephone numbers, etc. is expected to boost the growth of teleshopping market in India and helped the companies to increase their penetration in the market, as well. Increasing literacy rate, improved standard of living, growing disposable income, increasing women employment, etc. are few of the factors fuelling the growth of teleshopping market in the country.

Rising e-commerce market coupled with increasing internet penetration in the country and importance of feel and touch factor for buying the products are few of the reasons which pose a challenge to India teleshopping market.

Teleshopping Market: Segmentation

The India Teleshopping Market is classified on the basis of operations type (dedicated channel vs infomercials), product category (personal care, healthcare, consumer electronics, apparels and accessories, hardware, home furnishings and others), region and company.

India Teleshopping Market, by Operations Type

Dedicated Channel

Infomercials

India Teleshopping Market: By Region

North and West regions of the country accounted for a major share in the country on account of high rate of urbanization, rising women employment rate, etc. Tier II & III cities, where internet and smart phone penetration is relatively low as compared to metros, are expected to generate a large chunk of orders through teleshopping.

India Teleshopping Market: Key Players

Network18 (Homeshop18), Shop CJ, Naaptol, Zee Media Corporation Ltd., Telebrands Corp., are some of the major players operating in teleshopping market in India.

The report covers exhaustive analysis on:

Market Size, Market Share & Forecast

Segmental Analysis - By Operations Type, By Product Categories, By Region & By Company

Regional Analysis for the following regions:

North Region

South Region

West Region

East Region

Market Dynamics (Market Drivers, Challenges & their Impact Analysis)

Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities

Competitive Landscape

Strategic Recommendations

Regional analysis includes

North Region ( Delhi , Chandigarh, Lucknow)

, Chandigarh, Lucknow) South Region ( Bangalore , Chennai , Hyderabad )

, , ) West Region ( Mumbai , Pune , Ahmedabad)

, , Ahmedabad) East Region ( Kolkata , Guwahati, Patna)

Why You Should Buy This Report?

To gain an in-depth understanding of teleshopping market

To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years

To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players

To avail 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs.

Key Questions This Study Will Answer

How do growth rates in the market vary by segment, sub-segments and region?

What are the most important growth drivers and opportunities in the market?

What strategies should market competitors employ to gain share in mature segments of the market?

What are the competitor profiles in this market and how do they compete for market share?

About TechSci Research

TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends.

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SOURCE TechSci Research
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- iZotope, Inc., makers of award-winning tools for audio production, today announced $7.5 million in new financing comprised of equity and debt. The $2.5 million Series B round was led by existing investor ABS Capital Partners, a leading investor in later-stage growth companies, with participation from individual investors. The new investment also includes a $5 million debt facility from Comerica Bank.

The funds will be used to support the company's continued growth and to accelerate the launch of a groundbreaking new offering. The new product line taps into the potential of modern technologies to enhance the creative experience, providing musicians with unique hardware, mobile and cloud-enabled features not currently available in the market. Building on iZotope's tradition of industry leadership, the new line will change the way musicians create, record and collaborate on their music.

"At iZotope, we're committed to expanding the possibilities of audio technology," comments Mark Ethier, CEO and co-founder of iZotope. "We value ABS Capital's continued confidence in our ambitious product plans, and we can't wait to show the world what's next."

"iZotope has proven its value to the market with its longstanding history of re-imagining traditional studio tools," said Laura Witt, general partner, ABS Capital Partners. "We are pleased to continue to support the company's strong growth and look forward to seeing both existing and new customers embrace iZotope's innovative product offerings."

Founded in 2001, iZotope secured its first $12 million round of funding from ABS Capital in 2013, marking the beginning of the company's accelerated growth initiatives. This brings the total amount of venture funding to $14.5 million, and total capital of $19.5 million with the debt facility included.

iZotope's current product portfolio is composed of industry-leading solutions for audio creation, repair, mixing and mastering. It recently launched VocalSynth, the first ever plug-in to bring together four advanced vocal engines  Vocoder, Polyvoice, Compuvox, and Talkbox  alongside specialized vocal effects and pitch correction. To learn more about this and other product innovations, including iZotope's Emmy Award-winning RX solution, visit: https://www.izotope.com/en/products.html.

ABOUT iZOTOPE

Driven by a passion for audio, iZotope develops innovative products that inspire and enable people to be creative. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the iZotope team has spent over 15 years developing award-winning audio production tools found in professional facilities and home studios alike. The iZotope product line focuses on Music Production, with solutions for mixing, mastering, and creative effects, and Audio Post Production, with tools that enhance audio for film, broadcast, video, and new media. Alongside the development of studio software, iZotope incubates bleeding-edge audio technology for future release and develops rich audio education to help enthusiasts and professionals alike improve their craft. www.izotope.com

ABOUT ABS CAPITAL

For over 25 years, ABS Capital has been investing in later-stage growth companies, helping CEOs capitalize on new opportunities and navigate unforeseen obstacles  while never losing sight of the ultimate goal of achieving lasting excellence. Our partners have decades of experience as C-level executives, investment bankers and investors in the industries we invest in: business and education services, information and communications technology, and health care. This combination of experience and expertise means we have a laser-focus on the specific needs growth companies face as they look to get to the next level. By helping to transform over 115 companies through their most important stage of development, ABS continues to help unleash the potential for lasting growth. ABS Capital Partners. Here, we grow.

For more information, visit www.abscapital.com.

ABOUT COMERICA BANK'S TECHNOLOGY AND LIFE SCIENCES DIVISION

Comerica Bank's Technology and Life Sciences Division is one of the nation's leading technology banking practices, offering a wide range of financial services tailored to corporate customers, entrepreneurs and professionals. Veteran bankers provide credit and financial services and products to young, growing, venture backed technology and life sciences companies, as well as their more mature counterparts. The Technology and Life Sciences Division serves all major U.S. technology centers from offices coast-to-coast and its headquarters in Palo Alto, California as well as an office in Toronto, Canada. Comerica Bank is a subsidiary of Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA), a financial services company that is among the 25 largest U.S. banking companies. For more information, visit www.comerica.com.



Media Contact: Laura Paine: InkHouse for iZotope: (781) 966-4124 [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382649LOGO

SOURCE iZotope, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.izotope.com


CHICAGO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Susan G. Komen Chicago is proud to announce the newest member of its Board of Directors, Dennis L. Citrin, MB, PhD, medical oncologist at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Midwestern Regional Medical Center (Midwestern). He is also Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Rosalind Franklin University School of Medicine, and author of "Knowledge is Power: What Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer."

"We are excited to bring Dr. Citrin's passion and medical knowledge to our Board," said Sean Tenner, Board of Directors President, Susan G. Komen Chicago. "He has a long history of serving with Komen Chicago including a member of the Mission and Advocacy Committee (MAC), key informant for the 2015 Komen Chicago Community Profile and keynote speaker for our early detection education project."

Dr. Citrin will lead Komen Chicago's Medical Advisory Committee to guide the Board of Directors and Staff to maximize its grant-making efforts in Chicagoland to stress the importance of early detection, address cultural and educational barriers and provide quality care for all.

"Each week, nearly 5,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer. I am honored to be on the Board of Directors for Komen Chicago and help further impact this population positively," said Citrin. "The missions at CTCA and Komen Chicago mirror one another, rallying around and supporting those diagnosed with cancer."

About Susan G. Komen Chicago

Susan G. Komen Chicago's mission is to end breast cancer by empowering people, energizing scientists to find cures and ensuring quality care of all Chicagoland. Since 1997, Komen Chicago has awarded over $16 million to fund community programs. Seventy-five percent of the net proceeds raised by Komen Chicago are dedicated to fighting breast cancer locally. The remaining 25% support global research, including 12 research grants in Chicago. More information: www.komenchicago.org.

About Cancer Treatment Centers of America

Cancer Treatment Centers of America Global, Inc. (CTCA) is a national network of five hospitals in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tulsa that serves adult patients fighting cancer. CTCA offers an integrative approach to care that combines advanced treatment options with evidence-based supportive therapies designed to help patients physically and emotionally by enhancing their quality of life while managing side effects. More information: cancercenter.com.

Contact: Bonnie Gordon

Komen Chicago

(773)444-0061

SOURCE Susan G. Komen - Chicago

Related Links

http://www.komenchicago.org


CHICAGO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Legal & General Investment Management America, Inc. ("LGIMA"), a registered investment advisor with over $120 billion in assets under management, has announced that it will join with Her Majesty's Consul General in Chicago, Stephen Bridges LVO, to host an executive luncheon in honor of The Rt Hon Lord Mayor of the City of London, The Lord Mountevans, at LGIMA's headquarters in the downtown Chicago on July 1.

The Lord Mayor is a dedicated ambassador for, and the primary representative of, the UK financial services industry. His visit highlights the deepening ties between Chicago's and London's financial services communities, as well as Chicago's continuing importance as global financial center. The Lord Mayor will also offer his views on the post-EU referendum landscape, the current status of financial regulatory reform, and opportunities and challenges for asset managers conducting business in London, as well as the broader United Kingdom.

"Financial services is the lifeblood of so many of the world's most vibrant economies," said the Lord Mayor. "It is wonderful to see just how far Chicago has come as a financial centre on the global stage. I am delighted to visit Chicago and proud to point to LGIMA as a shining beacon of this city's growth and success."

"We are honored to welcome the Lord Mayor to the great city of Chicago and LGIMA's headquarters," said Moore. "The timing of his visit is particularly relevant and poignant, given that LGIMA is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year. Over the past decade, LGIMA has experienced significant growth and strategic expansion due, in large part, to our ability to leverage the strength, size, and reputation of our UK parent, Legal & General Investment Management. We are undoubtedly a stronger company thanks to our deep London roots."

Beyond reviewing why Legal & General, a FTSE 100 firm and a global leader in insurance, pensions and investments, chose Chicago as the US headquarters of its investment management arm, Moore will discuss LGIMA's leading position in fixed income, liability driven investment (LDI), and index strategies for the US market.

For more information, please visit http://www.lgima.com/.

Media Contact:

Name: Jacquelyn Wilder

Company: RF Binder

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 212 994 7543

ABOUT LGIMA: Legal & General Investment Management America, Inc. (LGIMA) is a Chicago-based registered investment advisor specializing in active fixed income, liability driven investment (LDI) and index strategies for the US institutional market. LGIMA was founded in 2006 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Legal & General Investment Management (Holdings) Ltd. (LGIM(H)), which also owns its affiliates Legal & General Investment Management Ltd. and LGIM International Ltd. Legal & General's worldwide assets under management are approximately $765 billion. In May 2014, LGIMA became a wholly owned subsidiary of Legal & General Investment Management US (Holdings), Inc. (LGIMUS(H)) which is wholly owned by LGIM(H).

SOURCE Legal & General Investment Management America, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.lgima.com


POST FALLS, Idaho, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Summit Cancer Center  Post Falls announces Dr. David Bartels, a local Cancer Specialist, will be joining Summit Cancer Center  Post Falls effective August 1, 2016, leaving his current position as a medical oncologist with Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene, ID. He is now available for new patients as of August 1 and will accept all patients and medical insurances.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382452

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Dr. David Bartels

When asked about the opportunity to serve cancer patients at Summit Cancer Centers, Dr. Bartels states that it was an easy decision. "I appreciate the focus and like-mindedness of my physician colleagues at Summit Cancer Center - Post Falls. All are dedicated to providing the highest level of cancer care  combining advanced technology and innovation with passion and empathy. I also like that Summit provides a comprehensive approach, from diagnostic imaging to chemotherapy and advanced clinical trials, as well as the latest in radiation therapy." Dr. Bartels is joining Summit Cancer Centers' experienced team of North Idaho cancer specialists, including Dr. Brian Samuels, Dr. Naseer Ahmad, and Dr. Frank Lamm. In association with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, North Idaho patients will now have improved access to advanced treatments by participating in clinical trials of new medications and therapies.

About Dr. David Bartels:

Dr. David C. Bartels is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. He has more than eight years of diverse clinical training, with a focus in Hematology/Oncology. Dr. Bartels completed his Medical Oncology fellowship at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and interned at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. He completed his residency at the University of Iowa College of Medicine and graduated with honors from Des Moines University medical school in 2008.

Dr. Bartels moved to Coeur d'Alene in 2014 and fell in love with North Idaho. He and his wife, Krista, enjoy many wonderful outdoor activities the area has to offer.

About Summit Cancer Center  Post Falls:

Summit Cancer Center - Post Falls, which opened earlier this year, offers the most advanced cancer diagnostic and treatment services available. These include comprehensive cancer physician consultations, on-site chemotherapy, radiation therapy using the advanced Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator, as well as diagnostic testing and complete lab services. Advanced imaging modalities, a mobile PET/CT, adjunctive therapies and support services complement Summit Cancer Centers' comprehensive patient care.

About Summit Cancer Centers: Summit Cancer Centers is a growing independent cancer care organization, offering medical and radiation oncology, advanced medical imaging, chemotherapy infusion services and the only CyberKnife in the Inland Northwest. It currently operates three comprehensive Cancer Centers in Spokane and Spokane Valley, Washington and in Post Falls, Idaho. As a member of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Summit Cancer Centers is expanding regional oncology services, and bringing their world-renowned cancer care expertise to the Inland Northwest area.

For more information about Summit Cancer Centers, visit http://www.summitcancercenters.com/

Media Inquiries/Contact:

John Driscoll

Summit Cancer Centers

855-786-6482

Email

Cancer Center Contact:

Dr. Arvind Chaudhry

Summit Cancer Centers

855-786-6482

Email

SOURCE Summit Cancer Centers

Related Links

http://www.summitcancercenters.com/


BETHESDA, Md., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) announced today that its board of directors has elected Ilene Gordon to the board effective immediately.

Gordon, 62, is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE: INGR), a Fortune 500 global ingredients company. She joined Ingredion in 2009 from Rio Tinto Alcan where she was CEO of Alcan Packaging, a global business based in Paris, France. She spent ten years in various leadership positions with Alcan and Pechiney, a company Alcan acquired in 2003.

Previously, Gordon spent 17 years in executive roles of increasing responsibility at the Packaging Corporation of America, a division of Tenneco Inc. Before joining Tenneco Inc., she spent two years at Signode, a global packaging company specialized in materials handling. From 1976-1980, she worked at the Boston Consulting Group, an international management consulting firm, as a strategy consultant, based in the Boston, London and Chicago offices.

In addition to serving as chairman of Ingredion's board, Gordon is on the board of directors of International Paper Company. She is a vice chair of The Conference Board and a member of the MIT Corporation, the Institute's board of trustees. She also is the chairman of the Economic Club of Chicago, a member of the board of The Executives' Club of Chicago and a director of World Business Chicago.

Gordon holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass. and a master's degree in management from MIT's Sloan School of Management.

For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/board/.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 125,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

For additional information, visit our website:

www.lockheedmartin.com

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SOURCE Lockheed Martin

Related Links

http://www.lockheedmartin.com


NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- After nearly 60 years in Midtown Manhattan, L'Oreal USA announced today that its first employees have officially moved into the company's new U.S. headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards. Over the next few months, 1,300 L'Oreal USA employees will occupy 10 floors of the building, spanning more than 400,000 square feet of the 1.8 million-square foot Platinum LEED designed Tower on Manhattan's West Side. L'Oreal's pioneering role as Hudson Yards' second tenant signals the neighborhood's evolution into a dynamic new urban center that is set to become a cultural hub for New York City.

Courtesy of L'Oreal USA

The majority of L'Oreal USA's corporate functions and brand teams including Essie, Garnier, Lancome, La Roche-Posay, L'Oreal Paris, Matrix, Maybelline, Redken and SkinCeuticals will be housed at the 10 Hudson Yards building, a modern glass office tower nestled alongside the iconic High Line. Approximately 150 employees, including creative teams from across L'Oreal USA's brand portfolio and The Body Shop, recently relocated to the nearby Terminal Stores building, a revitalized West Chelsea warehouse complex that used to be home to a transfer station for the New York Central Railroad.

"Hudson Yards and Terminal Stores have a dynamic and creative energy that aligns with the culture we are building at L'Oreal USA," said Frederic Roze, President and CEO of L'Oreal USA. "L'Oreal is a 107-year-old company with the heart of a startup. These two locations represent the new entrepreneurial spirit of Manhattan, and the spaces we've created are a modern new home for L'Oreal USA that will inspire the future of our company."

Working with Gensler, the leading global design firm, L'Oreal USA custom-designed the Hudson Yards office space with collaboration in mind. The layout features an open floor plan with floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the office with natural light and a cutting-edge lighting and solar shade system that adjusts to occupancy and the amount of outdoor light. Energy-efficient appliances, a vacuum waste collection system and a bio-digester in the cafeteria for food waste align with the company's Sharing Beauty With All sustainability commitments.

The state-of-the-art office features an array of bespoke areas designed to fuel L'Oreal's innovation engine, including an interactive virtual retail room for advanced retail planning, a technical salon and treatment room for product evaluation, and a learning center for employee trainings. An employee cafe and 4,000 square foot terrace features indoor and outdoor seating areas with striking views of the Hudson River and downtown skyline, and includes a juice and coffee bar and a daily menu of healthy food options. Other employee amenities include a flagship company store, an employee nail salon, an on-site employee concierge, and a wellness suite with four mother's rooms and two meditation rooms to support healthy minds and bodies.

"L'Oreal USA has been a fixture in New York City for more than half a century and is one of the most innovative global consumer brands, using science and technology to redefine beauty. This culture of creativity and forward-thinking will thrive in the iconic 10 Hudson Yards tower, and we are thrilled to have them as one of our inaugural tenants," said Stephen M. Ross, chairman and founder of Related Companies. "Today is another milestone resulting from years of work and preparation for the development team, and we couldn't be more excited for the L'Oreal USA team to enjoy this amazing space at Hudson Yards."

About L'Oreal USA

L'Oreal USA is the largest subsidiary of the L'Oreal Group, the world's leading beauty company. L'Oreal USA manages a portfolio of more than 30 iconic beauty brands, including Garnier, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Kerastase, Lancome, La Roche-Posay, L'Oreal Paris and Yves Saint Laurent Beaute. L'Oreal USA also serves as the international hub for the product development and marketing strategy for L'Oreal's 15 American brands: Baxter of California, Carol's Daughter, Clarisonic, Dermablend, Essie, Kiehl's, Matrix, Maybelline New York, Mizani, NYX, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Redken, Softsheen-Carson, SkinCeuticals and Urban Decay. Generating more than $6 billion in sales annually, L'Oreal USA is committed to growth through sustainable innovation, driven by the company's Sharing Beauty With All ambition for sustainable development across the Group's value chain. The company is headquartered in New York City, employs more than 10,000 people, and operates administrative, research, manufacturing and distribution facilities across 13 states, including Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Washington. For more information, visit www.lorealusa.com or follow on Twitter @LOrealUSA.

About Hudson Yards

Hudson Yards, developed by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, is the largest private real estate development in the nation's history and when complete in 2025, more than 125,000 people a day will either work in, visit or call Hudson Yards their home. The development will include 17 million square feet of commercial and residential space; more than 100 shops and restaurants, including New York City's first Neiman Marcus and signature restaurants by Chefs Thomas Keller, Jose Andres and Costas Spiliadis; approximately 4,000 residences; 14-acres of public open space; a new 750-seat public school and a 200-room Equinox  branded luxury hotel  all offering unparalleled amenities for residents, employees and guests. When complete, Hudson Yards will generate nearly $500 million annually in New York City taxes and bring more than 55,000 jobs to the new neighborhood. For more information on Hudson Yards, please visit HudsonYardsNewYork.com.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382586

SOURCE L'Oreal USA

Related Links

http://www.lorealusa.com


Company Increases Production Capacity to Meet Growing Demand for Aluminum Wheels

NOVI, Mich., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Maxion Wheels, a division of Iochpe Maxion S. A., marked the opening of a new light vehicle aluminum wheel plant in Limeira, Sao Paulo, Brazil, this week with an inauguration celebration. The new plant, adjacent to the company's existing steel wheel plant, will add two million aluminum wheels per year in capacity and create an additional 500 new jobs by 2020.

According to Marcos Oliveira, Iochpe-Maxion's Chief Executive Officer, the new factory will meet the domestic Brazilian market's increasing demand for cars with aluminum wheels. "Brazilian consumers are following the global trend for more sophisticated and stylish vehicles, which includes a growing demand for aluminum wheels on most new car models," Oliveira said. "Besides this investment in Limeira, Maxion Wheels recently expanded the production capacity of its aluminum wheel plant located in Santo Andre, Sao Paulo, by 50 percent, also in response to the market's growing demand."

Don Polk, president of Maxion Wheels for the Americas, added that the company's ability to successfully launch the new plant is in large part due to the employees' dedicated performance. "Even in this moment of Brazil's severe economic crisis, Maxion Wheels continues to lead the wheel industry due to the commitment and effort put forth by our employees. We can always count on our people to deliver only the highest level of excellence in our products and services."

The new Maxion Wheels Limeira aluminum plant will open in two phases. In the first phase, production will reach 800,000 wheels per year. Phase two will complete the project, bringing production to two million wheels per year by 2020.

About Maxion Wheels

Maxion Wheels is the leading wheel manufacturer for passenger cars, light trucks, commercial trucks and trailers. The company also produces steel wheels for agriculture and military vehicles as well as other off-road applications. With more than 100 years of experience in wheel production, Maxion Wheels is the biggest wheel manufacturer in the world, producing around 60 million wheels per year. The Company serves global car manufacturers with operations in 12 countries on 5 continents, and it has centers of advanced technology in the Americas (Limeira), Europe and Asia.

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SOURCE Maxion Wheels
NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mayor Bill de Blasio and Zocdoc today announced a new partnership as part of WorkWell NYC, the City's new comprehensive initiative aimed at helping its approximately 1.2 million employees, retirees and their dependents get healthy and stay healthy. This partnership will leverage Zocdoc's digital health platform to empower individuals on the City's healthcare plan to quickly and seamlessly access in-network primary and preventive care providers across all five boroughs. As part of this same initiative, starting July 1 2016, all EmblemHealth preventive care visits and procedures will be reduced to a $0 copay.

"WorkWell NYC aims to bring our healthcare plans into the 21st century - and this partnership helps us do just that. By working together with Zocdoc, we are ensuring easier and faster access to healthcare through a modern service for finding in-network doctors, while also allowing us to better understand healthcare utilization and access. This sort of public-private partnership is a win-win, providing our employees with a simple and seamless healthcare experience, while furthering WorkWell NYC's goal of better use of healthcare to ensure healthier employees and taxpayer savings," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"We are proud to partner with Mayor de Blasio and WorkWell NYC to empower past and present City employees and their families to get the care they need and deserve," said Zocdoc Founder and CEO Oliver Kharraz, M.D. "Far too often, antiquated systems get in the way of good care, and we applaud the City for embracing innovative solutions that modernize the healthcare experience."

WorkWell NYC stems from the City's health savings agreement with the Municipal Labor Committee and includes the first significant structural changes to the City's health plans in decades. This program focuses on utilizing data to incentivize primary care and expand access to preventative care  good for employees' health as well as City taxpayers. To help achieve the goals of this program, the City looked in its own backyard for innovative solutions that will empower this community to take care of their health and partnered with NYC tech leader Zocdoc, the country's leading digital health marketplace.

In partnership with EmblemHealth and the City, Zocdoc's free service will power seamless, simple access to healthcare for City workers, retirees and dependents. This digital experience helps them find nearby, in-network healthcare providers (including doctors that have $0 copays under changes to the plan that go into effect July 1), read reviews from other patients, see these doctors' real-time availability, instantly book appointments online (24/7, even when the office is closed), and more. City workers, retirees and dependents can access this service via Zocdoc.com/NYC.

The City's EmblemHealth plan will also include medical and mental health screenings, and $0 copays for preventive services like well-woman exams, contraceptives, breastfeeding supplies, mammograms, colonoscopies, and more. Primary care and mental health copays will remain flat while some copays will increase to disincentivize the use of costly, over-utilized services, such as emergency room visits (in cases when a patient is not admitted to the hospital) and high-cost radiology.

"Emblem's partnership with the City of New York highlights the City's innovative leadership that embraces value-based strategies to deliver best-in-class care, and recognizes the importance of providing employees and their families with access to high-quality care at the right time and place," said EmblemHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Karen Ignagni. "The City's partnership with Zocdoc provides patients another strong option to increase accessibility to care."

With more than 50 different specialties available, Zocdoc is a simple, one-stop shop for patients on City-offered health plans seeking care. Not only does this service remove the friction from the traditional healthcare experience, it also facilitates faster access to care. The average wait time to see a doctor in NYC is 16.8 days; the typical Zocdoc appointment takes place within 24 hours. This accelerated near-term access will help busy workers better find the time they need to dedicate to their health. City employees are already taking advantage of this partnership. Since this service soft-launched to City workers, there have already been thousands of in-network appointments facilitated via Zocdoc - a strong early indicator.

"Today's announcement is one of a number of wellness programs that labor and management have created together. Through our partnership with the Municipal Labor Committee, we are able to secure unprecedented improvements to our healthcare system that will help ensure healthier employees while saving taxpayers' dollars. As we continue to introduce initiatives, we look forward to additional savings," said Labor Relations Commissioner Bob Linn.

"Good healthcare options are just a click or a swipe away for City employees, thanks to this new partnership with Zocdoc. We're thrilled to unlock the civic potential of a Made In NY tech company and put access to care at the fingertips of millions of New Yorkers," said NYC Chief Digital Officer Jessica Singleton.

This announcement marks the next in a suite of initiatives the City has launched as part of WorkWell NYC. Most recently, the Administration launched a partnership with Weight Watchers, which is providing employees access to the program at a discounted rate. The City has also created a cross-agency team focused on promoting a healthier workforce and developing a "Culture of Health," with a number of programs in place and much more to come, focused on fitness, nutrition and obesity, smoking cessation, and stress reduction. These programs are not only the right thing to do for City employees  they also can result in long-term cost savings, as many employees work for the City for years and continue their coverage as retirees.

In February, Mayor de Blasio announced a new, unprecedented agreement with the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) that resulted in the first significant changes to the City's employee health plans in over 30 years, marking major progress toward the City and MLC's commitment to $3.4 billion in guaranteed health care savings through FY2018 and $1.3 billion recurring every year after. Working collaboratively with the City's workforce, the administration undertook a data-driven approach to understanding and improving the employee health care system  resulting in significant, long sought-after changes that will benefit employee health and taxpayers alike.

About WorkWell NYC

WorkWell NYC is a comprehensive initiative aimed at helping New York City employees, retirees and their dependents get healthy and stay healthy. WorkWell NYC includes the first significant structural changes to the City's health plans in decades, with a focus on utilizing data to incentivize primary care and expand access to preventative care  good for both employees' health and City taxpayers.

About Zocdoc

Zocdoc is the tech company at the beginning of a better healthcare experience. Each month, millions of patients use Zocdoc to find in-network neighborhood doctors, instantly book appointments online, see what other real patients have to say, get reminders for upcoming appointments and preventive check-ups, fill out their paperwork online, and more. With a mission to give power to the patient, Zocdoc's online marketplace delivers the accessible, seamless, and simple experience patients expect and deserve. Zocdoc is free for patients and available across the United States via Zocdoc.com or the Zocdoc app for iPhone and Android.

Media Contact:

Jessica Aptman / [email protected] / 212.715.8647

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SOURCE Zocdoc
WESTON, Mass., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW), a global leader in connecting jobs and people, today announced the availability of a new and expanded set of employer brand and transparency capabilities, in conjunction with the U.S. launch of kununu, the leading platform for employer reviews in Europe. Monster and kununu announced the joint venture in February to bring much-needed greater employer transparency to the U.S. market.

"Brand perception means everything to candidates in today's increasingly competitive recruitment market," said Mark Stoever, President and Chief Operating Officer, Monster. "Monster's new brand and transparency capabilities enable companies to better take charge of their reputation as an employer  and consumers to be better informed. The best new employee arrives fully aware of what it's like to work at that company, and the employers that enable this are best positioned for success."

Because branding is a critical driver for recruiting, the new solutions comprise integrated capabilities both on the Monster platform and the newly launched kununu reviews and ratings site, including:

kununu Employer Branding Profiles  As a transparency hub, the kununu website features profiles allowing employers to share and communicate company culture, mission and environment, and to respond to employee and candidate reviews and questions. The profiles also feature integrated Monster job ads.

 As a transparency hub, the kununu website features profiles allowing employers to share and communicate company culture, mission and environment, and to respond to employee and candidate reviews and questions. The profiles also feature integrated Monster job ads. Company Profiles on Monster  A visually engaging, mobile-friendly company homepage on Monster that includes integrated kununu company ratings and reviews.

Employers can additionally amplify the effectiveness of their Monster presence and enhance candidate experience intelligence gathering with:

Branded Job Templates on Monster  Brand consistent, visually engaging and mobile-friendly job templates that ensure job seekers have a strong brand experience from the get-go, also including integrated kununu company ratings.

 Brand consistent, visually engaging and mobile-friendly job templates that ensure job seekers have a strong brand experience from the get-go, also including integrated kununu company ratings. Post-Apply Candidate Survey on Monster  Candid insights from job seekers who have applied to jobs and have shared frank details about their experience and impressions.

Together, the complete set of Monster and kununu solutions provide employers with significant benefits in boosting their brand and transparency, and in maximizing the effectiveness of their efforts on the Monster platform while also harnessing the power of kununu's platform.

Kununu Profiles, Ratings and Reviews

kununu, which has already seen rapid U.S. growth in its beta period, serves as the centerpiece of the new employer offering. Thanks to the partnership with Monster, kununu launched on June 16, 2016 featuring reviews from nearly 200,000 U.S. users, offering prospective employees an inside look at companies, from company culture, career development trajectories, work-life balance, office snacks and beyond with no required registration  a first in the U.S.

Employers can engage with candid employee reviewers, giving a company 48 hours advanced notice before a review is posted to their page, allowing the company to compose a thoughtful response before followers hear about it.

"We believe that transparency of company culture, growth potential, responsibilities and co-workers are just as important to attracting new employees as is compensation," said Moritz Kothe, CEO, kununu. "We've designed kununu to be incredibly easy to use, removing barriers and focusing on a level of transparency that isn't found in the marketplace today. Equally as important is the work we've done to seamlessly integrate kununu into the candidate experience on Monster, and the same with Monster jobs on kununu."

All of the new employer branding and transparency solutions, including the new kununu profiles, are commercially available today.

About kununu

kununu is the original employer review and ratings platform committed to generating transparency in the workplace. Targeting those who are taking an active role in their career and those interested in finding out what companies are really like, kununu encourages people to leave honest reviews of their employers. kununu gives a free, inside look at what it's like to work at potential employers in the U.S., arming them with insights on company culture, salaries, career development trajectories, workplace perks, reviews and much more. With insights collected through its employer review platform and careers community, kununu goes to great lengths to ensure job seekers have a clear, authentic understanding of potential employers and fosters an open conversation among job seekers and employers through its reviews. For employers, kununu offers services to help attract qualified candidates and showcase their company within its authentic, trusted platform. Headquartered in Boston, MA and Vienna, Austria, kununu is the leading employer review platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Kununu launched in the U.S. in 2016 in joint venture with Monster Worldwide, Inc. The company was founded by brothers Martin and Mark Poreda in 2007 and acquired by XING AG in 2013. To learn more, please visit www.kununu.com.

About Monster Worldwide

Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) is a global leader in connecting people to jobs, wherever they are. For more than 20 years, Monster has helped people improve their lives with better jobs, and employers find the best talent. Today, the company offers services in more than 40 countries, providing some of the broadest, most sophisticated job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management capabilities. Monster continues its pioneering work of transforming the recruiting industry with advanced technology using intelligent digital, social and mobile solutions, including our flagship website monster.com and a vast array of products and services. For more information visit monster.com/about.

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SOURCE Monster Worldwide, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.monster.com


PEARLAND, Texas, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- To commemorate its Grand Opening, the Neighbors Emergency Center Wichita Falls, TX location is inviting the community to a free outdoor public celebration this Saturday, June 25 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The center is located at 3939 Kell Blvd., Wichita Falls, TX 76308.

The family friendly event will feature a variety of giveaways and activities for everyone to enjoy. Complimentary food and refreshments will be served.

The Wichita Falls emergency center is the first Neighbors Emergency Center in the Panhandle/Plains area region and represents one of many new locations to open this year in Texas.

Neighbors Health System, the parent company of Neighbors Emergency Center, was named the 4th fastest growing company in 2015 by the Houston Business Journal's Fast 100 companies, along with being named the HBJ's #3 Best Place to Work for 2015. Neighbors Emergency Center freestanding emergency rooms have also been awarded "The Best ER" in Baytown, TX and Pearland, TX along with the Houston Chronicle's Top Workplaces #1 midsize company for 2015.

About Neighbors Emergency Center:

Neighbors Health System operates Neighbors Emergency Center, a series of 24-hour freestanding emergency centers that have seen exponential growth in Texas since 2009. Neighbors Emergency Center believes in providing extraordinary care that is dedicated to making lives better every day, with an unfaltering vision to be The Best Neighbors Ever. This means providing unparalleled medical care driven by compassion, respect, and dedication and a focus on our patients, our culture, and the community.



Neighbors' 20+ locations service many communities, including Houston, Austin, El Paso, Beaumont, and the Permian Basin, with plans for centers in areas that include Texarkana and Colorado in 2016.



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SOURCE Neighbors Emergency Center
NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 7th, Ralph Lauren announced it would close 50 stores and lay off 1,000 employees as part of a dramatic restructuring in response to lower sales. Interestingly, the announcement didn't reveal much about how the company plans to correct its course but industry insiders speculate that Larsson's history at discount retailers Old Navy and H&M hold the answer.

To fill in the blanks, MediaRadar analyzed Ralph Lauren's advertising before and after Larsson's start. The data shows two key course changes that shed some light on their new strategic direction:

A move away from luxury. While total marketing investment level didn't materially shift year-over-year, there has been a decided move away from supporting their luxury lines. In the first five months of 2015, fully 55% of marketing was for Purple Label and Ralph Lauren Collection  their most expensive, most luxurious lines. Just one year later however, that allocation has been slashed to 26%. Instead, the lower-priced Polo and eponymous Ralph Lauren lines are the focus. Together they now represent 64% of all ads. A narrowing product focus. In the five months from January to May, 2015, Ralph Lauren marketed 29 specific product lines. One year later this list was culled to just 14. The brands continuing with the most emphasis are Ralph Lauren , Polo, Lauren, and Denim & Supply. Smaller lines like Chaps and RLX didn't get marketing support at all.

"By analyzing their marketing spend carefully, we can see where Ralph Lauren strategy may be heading," says Todd Krizelman, CEO of MediaRadar.

This data shows a key pivot from the company as the epitome of luxury designer wear to a focus on affordable fashion. For Larsson, this is a turnkey positioning solution, since he helped revitalize H&M and Old Navy to the powerhouse brands they are today.

MediaRadar is a multimedia sales intelligence tools that tracks and provides insight into how advertiser dollars are spent across print, digital, mobile and TV. This company has 1,400 clients including WhoWhatWear, WWD, Elle, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg. MediaRadar is a forward-thinking, innovative company that identifies key advertiser trends across industries.

Media Contact:

Jacqueline Hoffmann

Director of Marketing & Public Relations

Twitter @MediaRadar

(646) 652-7000 x714

[email protected]

SOURCE MediaRadar

Related Links

http://www.mediaradar.com


SAN BRUNO, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Narvar, the premium post-purchase experience platform, today announced a $22 million Series B financing round led by Battery Ventures and threefold customer growth with new customers including Neiman Marcus, Bass Pro Shops and NET-A-PORTER. Fung Capital and existing investors Accel and Freestyle Capital also participated in the round. In conjunction with the financing, Roger Lee, general partner of Battery Ventures, will join Narvar's board.

"At Narvar we are on a mission to equip retailers with the tools they need to provide exceptional customer experiences," said Amit Sharma, founder and CEO of Narvar. "Recognizing that post-purchase  including functions like tracking, shipping, delivery and returns  is the new competitive battleground for commerce, more than 300 of the most admired retail brands have turned to us since we launched just two years ago to engage their customers beyond the moment they buy. This new investment will allow us to double down on sales and marketing, accelerate new product development and solidify customer success efforts as we work to be the industry standard for leading retail brands."

Consumers spent more than $1.6 trillion online in 2015, and analysts expect this sum will eclipse $3.5 trillion by 2020. Delivering a premium post-purchase experience has become a new strategic imperative for retailers looking to capture their share of this massive market. Today, when a customer makes a purchase online or on their phone, there's an "experience gap" from the time they check out to when the product arrives. This is the new moment of truth for online shoppers.

"While most e-commerce companies have focused on enhancing the 'front-end" customer experienceimproving the way they interact with a website while shoppingmany don't have the technology or insights to continue impressing customers after they've actually bought something," said Roger Lee, a general partner at Battery Ventures. "Narvar's team has figured this out, and has already built an impressive customer roster. We are excited to partner with them."

Created by industry experts from Apple, eBay, Target and Walmart, Narvar has experienced unprecedented growth over the past year. The company expanded its customer base threefold, growing monthly recurring revenues by 4X. Narvar's customers now rank among the most innovative and admired retail brands in the world. These include 77 of the Internet Retailer 300 like Home Depot, Nordstrom and Sephora, as well as fast growth retail brands such as Bonobos and Warby Parker.

Through powerful delivery tracking analytics, SMS shipping alerts, returns management, seamless feedback collection and timely communications, Narvar allows retailers to create a post-purchase experience that improves Net Promoter Scores by up to four points and lowers shipping-related call volume by as much as 30 percent within days. Consumers interacting with brands powered by Narvar that select to rate their experience report they are highly satisfied, and 80 percent tap into mobile capabilities for the convenience and ability to personalize their delivery experience.

How Retailers Are Using Narvar

The Limited solidifies brand impression: "At The Limited, we strive to provide our customers a seamless experience" said Jason Acevedo , AVP of e-commerce and logistics operations at The Limited. "With Narvar, our customers can track their packages through a beautifully-designed portal while receiving useful content like social content for styling inspiration. Using Narvar's tracking solution solidifies our brand impression and nurtures repeat customers, while creating a new sales channel and reductions in call volume."

"At The Limited, we strive to provide our customers a seamless experience" said , AVP of e-commerce and logistics operations at The Limited. "With Narvar, our customers can track their packages through a beautifully-designed portal while receiving useful content like social content for styling inspiration. Using Narvar's tracking solution solidifies our brand impression and nurtures repeat customers, while creating a new sales channel and reductions in call volume." GameStop improves customer experience: "We love that Narvar's product allows us to connect with our customers at a crucial time in the shopping journey" says Bill Graham , Director Multichannel at GameStop. "With Narvar, our loyal customers can continue to engage with GameStop through branded SMS, personalized merchandising and marketing content. We are very happy with the customer experience improvements Narvar's solution has helped us provide."

About Narvar

Narvar is the premium post-purchase experience platform used by the world's most admired retailers to deliver exceptional service vital to their growth and innovation. Created by experts from Apple, eBay, Target and Walmart, Narvar is trusted by more than 300 major retailers worldwide, including Anthropologie, Bonobos, Nordstrom and Sephora. For more information, visit www.narvar.com.

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SOURCE Narvar

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http://www.narvar.com


CINCINNATI, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsy's daily news reporting is now available through TuneIn, the world's largest audio network with over 60 million monthly active users.

Newsy is a key content provider in TuneIn's news offering, with a station covering the day's top stories available to all users. In addition, TuneIn Premium subscribers can access exclusive, ad-free content from the Newsy team including:

Two weekly podcasts focused on politics ("Newsy Politics") and culture ("Givin' Takes")

Three daily podcasts focused on U.S. and world news; tech, science and health; and current events

Newsy is among the first news outlets  and the first news organization focused on millennials  to join the TuneIn Premium lineup.

"Launching Newsy on TuneIn is a natural extension of our mission to provide news for the next generation  anytime and anywhere," said Blake Sabatinelli, general manager of Newsy. "Now, tens of millions of people can listen to Newsy when they're not in front of a screen."

Newsy is the over-the-top news network known for its analysis and perspective on the day's top stories, spanning world and national news, policy, culture, science and technology. Newsy is a wholly owned subsidiary of The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP).

"Newsy joins an elite roster of the world's most innovative content creators on TuneIn, creating audio for a mobile audience," said Kevin Straley, TuneIn chief content officer. "We're excited to add Newsy to our premium offering of news properties. Their unique ability to deliver news in a way that resonates with a younger audience is a perfect fit for our diverse news platform we're establishing to cover the topics we're all talking about, from the 2016 presidential election to social inequality."

Newsy entered the audio space in 2015 with the release of its free Newsy Radio app for iOS. Newsy also continues to expand its distribution across the leading OTT services, including Sling TV, Roku, Watchable from Comcast and Apple TV, which named it a Best New App of 2015.

TuneIn's free and premium services are available at TuneIn.com and mobile apps for iOS and Android as well as Amazon Echo and a number of connected car platforms. Listeners can subscribe to TuneIn Premium or sign up for a free trial via TuneIn.com, iOS and Android apps.

About Newsy

Newsy is an over-the-top news network that provides "news with the why," built to inform and engage by delivering today's top stories across platforms. Its content is available in on-demand and linear formats on overthetop (OTT) services including Apple TV, Sling TV, Watchable from Comcast, Channel Master, Pluto TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast; connected television including Xumo; on mobile for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire; and at newsy.com.

About TuneIn

TuneIn is the most popular way to listen to streaming audio from around the world. With more than 60 million monthly active users, TuneIn lets people listen to the world's sports, news, talk, and music from wherever they are. TuneIn has over 100,000 radio stations and more than 5.7 million on-demand programs stemming from every continent, and is available for free across many connected devices. TuneIn Premium lets subscribers listen to the NFL, MLB, NBA, over 60k audiobooks, and commercial-free music stations. TuneIn has venture funding from Comcast Ventures, IVP, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Icon Ventures, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

SOURCE Newsy

Related Links

http://www.newsy.com


ARMONK, N.Y. and DELTA, Ohio, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- North Star BlueScope Steel, a steel producer for global building and construction industries, today announced that it is applying IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technology and wearable devices to pioneer novel approaches to help protect workers in extreme environments. The IBM Employee Wellness and Safety Solution, a research project that analyzes data collected from sensors in workers' wearables, provides data to North Star management in real time when the technology senses potentially problematic conditions.

North Star BlueScope Steel is applying IBM Watson Internet of Things technology and wearable devices to pioneer novel approaches to help protect workers in extreme environments. North Star is piloting the IBM Employee Wellness and Safety Solution to identify potentially problematic conditions by collecting data from various sensors that continuously monitor the worker's skin body temperature and other data. The solution then alerts North Star management so they can provide personalized safety guidelines to each individual employee. (Photo credit: North Star BlueScope Steel)

Employees working in extreme environments face a daily risk from conditions that include everything from high heat and toxic gas to open flames and heavy-machinery accidents. Overexertion and falls account for more than $25 billion in U.S. workers' compensation costs a year, according to the Liberty Mutual Research Institute 2014 Workplace Safety Index1, yet there is currently no practical way to verify that mandatory safety controls and personal protective equipment are being used in hazardous environments. In fact, nearly 3 million nonfatal occupational injuries were recorded in 20142.

"Our global economy relies on hundreds of millions of workers who do their jobs under extreme environmental conditions, and now we are exploring ways to apply the Internet of Things and cognitive computing to help organizations prevent accidents and to keep their employees safer," said Harriet Green, general manager, IBM Watson IoT, Commerce and Education. "We use the IoT to gather, integrate and analyze sensor data from wearable devices. When coupled together with innovative cognitive capabilities and data from important external sources such as the environment and weather, it creates enormous potential for better managing health, wellness and safety to truly help transform the way these vital workers perform their jobs."

Wearable sensors such as fitness bracelets are already available, but the cognitive solution conceived by IBM researchers in Haifa, Israel, offers a platform that is customizable and extends the power of cognitive computing to a group of many sensors, not just one. The ability to integrate data from multiple sensors means that the solution can do much more sophisticated analyses to help organizations identify problematic situations. For example, an organization could receive data on a combination of skin temperature, raised heart rate, and no movement for several minutes, which could indicate potentially fatal heat stress, while any of these signals on its own might not seem serious.

"Many of these injuries can be prevented, whether by ensuring that protective equipment is used correctly, or that time or location limitations for hazardous situations are monitored," explained Gabi Zodik, director, IoT and Mobile Platforms, IBM Research. "Our vision for smart worker safety involves integrating and presenting contextual information to management from a wide variety of sensors. It's a method that is non-intrusive, is hands-free, always-on, environment-aware, and offers the direct delivery of critical information to those who need it, when they need it."

Under this research project, North Star is piloting the IBM Employee Wellness and Safety Solution to identify potentially problematic conditions by collecting data from various sensors that continuously monitor the worker's skin body temperature, heart rate, galvanic skin response and level of activity, correlated with sensor data for ambient temperature and humidity. The solution then alerts North Star management so they can provide personalized safety guidelines to each individual employee. The same technology can be used to collect data on excessive exposure to different temperatures, radiation levels, noise or toxic gases, using sensor tags for temperature, humidity, noise, or light measurements. Gases can be detected using personal sensors enabled via WiFi or Bluetooth low energy sensors.

"Through the testing of the IBM Employee Wellness and Safety Solution, we have observed an increased awareness of heat stress and exertion in our trial users," said Malcolm Edge, I.T. director, North Star BlueScope Steel. "The solution has provided a proof of concept showcasing how data can flow from the user to the IBM Watson IoT Platform and back to a supervisor for intervention. This solution, once fully developed, will provide a solid foundation for increasing worker safety by providing real-time monitoring of the environment around the worker."

For more information about North Star BlueScope Steel, please visit http://www.northstarbluescope.com/

For more information about IBM Watson IoT, please visit www.ibm.com/iot or follow @IBMIoT on Twitter.

For more information about IBM Research, visit www.ibm.com/research or follow @IBMResearch on Twitter.

Sources:

Liberty Mutual Research Institute. "Workplace Safety Index." January 14 , 2015. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150114005546/en/Liberty-Mutual-Research-Institute-Safety-Releases-2014 United States Department of Labor. "Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses 2014." October 29 , 2015. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/osh.nr0.htm

Media Contact:

Hanna Smigala

IBM Media Relations

1-203-512-5498

[email protected]

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SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://www.ibm.com


SAN DIEGO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- San Diego area students who earned their high school diplomas through the full-time, online charter school California Virtual Academy (CAVA) @ San Diego, will gather in-person to celebrate their academic achievement.

Many of the students have made friendships online through their classroom and the graduation ceremony, in addition to recognizing their achievement, provides the students with an opportunity to meet and connect in person. The graduation ceremony will be held at the Ray and Joan Kroc Center in San Diego on Monday, June 27 at 11 a.m.

"Graduation is my favorite time of year," said Katrina Abston, Senior Head of Schools for California Virtual Academies, the network of 11 different charter schools. "The ceremonies celebrate our students' amazing achievements and connections they have made. These students are proof that education is not a one-size-fits-all approach  the students have made the most of the online education model and individualized curriculum."

Addressing the graduates will be CAVA @ San Diego valedictorian, Kaitlyn Young. Kaitlyn has maximized the flexible school environment at CAVA @ San Diego to enroll in several Honors and AP classes. After graduation she plans to pursue a career as a field ecologist so she can have a positive impact on the environment.

Graduating students worked toward graduation through an award-winning curriculum that includes an innovative digital learning platform, interactive online science labs, extensive. AP and honors courses, and live sessions in online classrooms. California-credentialed teachers work with each student to create an individualized learning plan that focuses on his or her unique learning needs, goals, and interests.

Media is invited to attend the celebration and event details are provided below.

California Virtual Academy @ San Diego Graduation Ceremony

Ray and Joan Kroc Center

6605 University Ave, Building B San Diego, CA 92115

June 23, 11:00 A.M.

About California Virtual Academy @ San Diego

California Virtual Academy @ San Diego is a tuition-free, online public school serving students in kindergarten through 12th grade who are residents of Imperial, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. Authorized by the Spencer Valley School District and governed by an independent non-profit charter school board, CAVA @ San Diego provides opportunities for advanced learners, and prepares students to be college and career ready at graduation. Learn more at http://cava.k12.com.

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SOURCE California Virtual Academy @ San Diego

Related Links

http://cava.k12.com


FINLAND, Minn., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today issued this statement concerning an agreement reached by U.S. Senate leaders on a bill to preempt Vermont's GMO labeling bill.

"Today, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) reached a deal that tramples on the rights of consumers, and the rights of states like Vermont to protect their own citizens. Instead, the Senate appears poised to pass a bill clearly intended to serve the interests of Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association," said Ronnie Cummins, international director of OCA.

"The anti-consumer bill unveiled by Stabenow and Roberts, bought and paid for by Big Food corporations, nullifies Vermont's mandatory GMO labeling law, and replaces it with a law that replaces the requirement for clear, on package labels, with a convoluted, inconvenient and discriminatory scheme involving barcodes and 1-800 numbers.

"The proposed bill also gives food corporations another two years before they are even required to pretend to provide consumers with any information at all about the GMO ingredients in their products. Stabenow and Roberts are determined to preempt Vermont's law, even though major food corporations such as General Mills, Campbell's, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kellogg's, ConAgra are already labeling, to comply with Vermont's July 1 deadline for labeling.

"This pandering to industry is inexcusable, especially when consumers in 64 other countries have the right to know whether or not their food contains GMOs. We will enlist our more than two million supporters to help us keep this bill from getting the required 60 votes in the Senate, and if we have to, we will take this battle all the way to the oval office, and if necessary, launch a national boycott of all foods that are not organic, grass-fed or labeled non-GMO."

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization advocating on behalf of more than one million consumers for health, justice, and sustainability. The Organic Consumers Fund is a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic Consumers Association, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action.

SOURCE Organic Consumers Association

Related Links

http://www.organicconsumers.org


DALLAS, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently Ryan Conklin, friend of Biblezon CEO and Founder Mosongo Osong made a pilgrimage to Rome. He and his new bride were headed to the Vatican for a Papal Wedding Blessing. Not only did they take along the customary wedding dress and suit but they had a very special package with them as well and the hope that they could make delivery of it to Pope Francis.

A Special Biblezon Catholic Tablet made for Pope Francis.

Upon hearing of this opportunity Mosongo began work on a very special and unique Biblezon Catholic Tablet. This one-of-a-kind tablet was destined for a very special user and had to reflect the significance of this moment. This tablet was for the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope himself.

The design of this Biblezon began with a white tablet. Designers added a photo of Pope Francis to the back and to the case as well. The operating system and available apps are the same as those all current end users of the Biblezon Catholic Tablet have access to. Ryan took the special edition tablet in the hopes of making delivery to Pope Francis.

That moment did indeed arrive the day of the wedding blessing. While standing in a receiving line, Ryan handed Pope Francis the tablet.

Once unpacked he began showing Pope Francis the functionality of the Biblezon. It was helpful that Ryan had spent 7 years in Rome as a seminarian and speaks Spanish, the Pope's native language. "Your Spanish is very good," Pope Francis told him. The Pope was very impressed and excited by what he saw in the Biblezon tablet.

Also included in the box was a message from Biblezon Founder Mosongo Osong. In the letter he thanked Pope Francis for what he was doing for the Church and the world, in particular his message of love and mercy. He explained the mission of Biblezon to create products that will inspire, educate and evangelize the Catholic faith in a revolutionary way. Lastly he humbly asked for the Pope's blessings.

All team members here at Biblezon are thrilled that Pope Francis received the tablet which such enthusiasm. As we continue to add functionality and value to the product it humbles us to know that the Pope may be turning his Biblezon Catholic Tablet on to see what we have been working on. We hope that all end users of the tablet share in our excitement.

Recently we at Biblezon received a letter from the Vatican acknowledging the presentation of the tablet to Pope Francis.

Related Files

Letter from Vatican.pdf

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SOURCE Biblezon Corporation
FACIT forms biotechnology company for OICR-discovered first-in-class epigenetic modifiers

TORONTO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - FACIT has announced the creation of a new Ontario biotechnology company, Propellon Therapeutics Inc. ("Propellon" or "the Company"), to manage the development and commercialization of a portfolio of first-in-class WDR5 inhibitors for the treatment of various cancers. Epigenetic targets such as WDR5 represent an exciting class of therapies, possessing the potential to contribute significantly in precision medicine for cancer patients. Substantial advances have been achieved with the series of proprietary small molecule WDR5 inhibitors discovered and developed by the Drug Discovery team at Ontario Institute for Cancer Research ("OICR"). The formation of Propellon reflects a natural translation of early-stage breakthrough cancer innovations, and enables important development activities including attracting private sector investment and industry partnerships.

The WDR5 protein is critical for the formation and epigenetic activities of MLL1-associated methylation complexes. Deregulation of the MLL1 complexes has been implicated in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Propellon's series of novel WDR5 epigenetic modifiers target protein-protein interactions within the WDR5/MLL1 complex and thereby disrupt pro-cancer methylation activities. This unique approach may also improve clinical outcomes in patients with solid tumours and is currently under investigation by the Company and its partners.

Propellon will continue to collaborate with the OICR Drug Discovery team and build upon their significant progress in preclinical development. During an initial transitional period, FACIT will provide interim corporate management. Should candidate drugs achieve the milestone of testing in human patients, Propellon has the potential to access the robust infrastructure for high content clinical trials in Ontario.

"OICR and FACIT share a mission to translate advancements in cancer care for the benefit of both patients and the Ontario economy," said Jeff Courtney, Chief Commercial Officer of FACIT. "With a focus on accelerating the development of these promising WDR5 inhibitor therapies, Propellon is well-positioned to attract investment and global pharma partners to Ontario, and increase the likelihood of successful translation and improved patient care."

About FACIT

FACIT is an independent business trust established by OICR to accelerate breakthrough cancer innovations into viable opportunities that benefit patients, researchers, investors and Ontario's economy. For more information, please visit facit.ca or email [email protected].

About OICR

OICR is an innovative cancer research and development institute dedicated to prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The Institute is an independent, not-for-profit corporation, supported by the Government of Ontario. OICR and its funding partners support research programs that involve more than 1,700 investigators, clinician scientists, research staff and trainees in research institutes and in universities across the Province of Ontario as well as at its headquarters. OICR has key research program efforts underway in small molecules, biologics, stem cells, imaging, genomics, informatics and bio-computing. For more information, please visit www.oicr.on.ca.

About Propellon Therapeutics

Propellon Therapeutics is developing and commercializing novel cancer therapies targeting the WDR5 protein, essential for assembly of methyltransferase complexes and proper histone modification. The overexpression of WDR5 and resulting deregulation of epigenetic mechanisms are implicated in various cancers and correlated with poor patient survival. Established by FACIT, Propellon's WDR5 inhibitor platform arises from discoveries, research and innovations originating from OICR. For more information, please email [email protected].

SOURCE Fight Against Cancer Innovation Trust

Related Links

www.facit.ca


PUNE, India, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Protective Fabrics Market by Raw Material (Aramid, PBI, Polyester, Cotton fiber, Polyolefin, Polyamide, and Others), by Type ( Fire & Heat-resistant fabric, Chemical resistant fabric, UV resistant fabric, and others), by End-use Industry (Building & Construction, Oil & Gas, Firefighting, Healthcare, Law enforcement & military, and Others) - Global Trends & Forecast to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, The market size is projected to reach USD 4.0 Billion by 2021, registering a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period.

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Browse 80 market data Tables with 43 Figures spread through 152 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Protective Fabrics Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/protective-fabrics-market-140716346.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The increased concern for the safety of defense personnel and industrial workers is driving the protective fabrics market. Additionally, the increased demand for medical clothing is also propelling the demand for protective fabrics.

Building & construction is the largest end-use industry of protective fabrics

The building & construction segment accounts for the largest share of the protective fabrics market. They are used in the construction industry because of their favorable properties such as high strength, durability, resistance to abrasion, resistance to organic solvents, and fabric integrity at elevated temperatures. The market in this end-use industry is largely driven by the imposition of stringent regulations in Europe and North America regarding employee health & safety.

Fire & heat-resistant fabrics expected to witness highest growth

The fire & heat-resistant fabrics segment is expected to witness the fastest-growth in the protective fabrics market during the forecast period. This is because of its properties that make it suitable for use in firefighting and law enforcement & military applications. Fire & heat-resistant fabrics offer higher thermal and flame resistance, which make them a popular choice as a material for fire-resistant clothing as well as thermal insulation.

Make an Inquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=140716346

North America is the biggest market for protective fabrics

North America dominated the global Protective Fabrics Market in 2015. The demand for protective fabrics in the North American region is mainly driven by the U.S. Stringent safety regulations within various industries such as oil & gas, construction, firefighting, healthcare, and many other are fueling the demand for protective clothing, which in turn, is driving the demand for protective fabrics in the region. The rising concern for the safety of the workers is propelling the demand for protective clothing, which in turn, drives the protective fabrics market. Asia-Pacific is estimated to be the fastest-growing market for protective fabrics, in terms of value. This high growth is because of the increased demand from the building & construction segment in the region. Moreover, the growing healthcare industry is increasing the demand for protective fabrics in the region.

E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co. (U.S.), Teijin Limited (Japan), and Koninklijke Ten Cate NV (Netherlands) are some of the major players in the global protective fabrics market profiled in this report.

Browse Related Reports:

Protective Clothing Market by Type (Aramid & Blends, Polyolefin & Blends, Polyamide, and PBI), by Application (Thermal, Chemical, and Visibility), and by End Use Industries (Construction & Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, and Mining) - Global Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/protective-clothing-market-1278.html

Personal Protective Equipment Market by Type (Hand & arm protection, Protective Clothing, Foot & leg protection, Eye & face protection, Head protection, and Others) by Application (Construction & Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Firefighting, Mining, Food Industry, and Others) - Global Forecasts to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/personal-protective-equipment-market-132681971.html

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors.

M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.

We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository.

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Markets and Markets

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Email: [email protected]



Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/chemical

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
ALAMEDA, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- 40 years ago, a husband and wife team had a dream to create the perfect cookie, one that delighted the senses while satisfying every palate. While the recipe for the original Madeleine has remained a secret, Donsuemor's love of the perfect cookie has not. Four decades later, the company has continued to grow and expand in both industry expertise and product innovation.

As part of its 40th birthday celebration, Donsuemor is proud to announce the release of a new seasonal product to the company's line of European specialty baked goods: Pumpkin Spice Madeleines. These tempting treats will debut at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York beginning June 26.

With the release of the Pumpkin Spice Madeleines, Donsuemor is paying homage to its European heritage and every autumn spice lover. Donsuemor madeleines are elegant little French cakes with distinctive shell shapes, made with the finest quality, these treats are rich and buttery that offer a unique flavor and texture. The Pumpkin Spice Madeleines join the family of Traditional, Dipped and Lemon Zest Madeleines for the fall season.

"We are thrilled to add another classic treat to the Donsuemor family of products as a kick-off to the fall season and to continue the 40th anniversary celebrations," said Laure Chatard, director of sales at Donsuemor. "We have had an amazing 40 years, and this seasonal twist on a cookie shows that we can strongly craft new products as the company moves forward into the next 40."

Stop by our booth (#4453) at Summer Fancy Food Show June 26-28 to try our new Pumpkin Spice Madeleines or learn more about our line products.

Pumpkin Spice Madeleines are slated to hit stores this Fall. For more information on the Pumpkin Spice Madeleines, visit the website, www.Donsuemor.com.

About Donsuemor

Available nationwide in stores such as Peet's Coffee, Costco, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Whole Foods, the Donsuemor brand of madeleines has drawn rave reviews from The New York Times and Fine Cooking. Based in Alameda, Calif. and founded by husband and wife team Don and Susie Morris, Donsuemor's line of European specialty baked goods are an ideal treat for discriminating consumers.

SOURCE Donsuemor

Related Links

http://www.Donsuemor.com


WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, Oceana announced that Asha de Vos, a pioneering Sri Lankan marine biologist, has joined the organization as a senior advisor.

de Vos is the first and only Sri Lankan to earn a Ph.D. in marine-mammal-related research and has dedicated her studies to the Northern Indian Ocean blue whales found off the coast of Sri Lanka. As a senior advisor, de Vos will lend her background studying blue whales, marine expertise and research experience to help guide Oceana's global campaigns to protect and restore the oceans.

"I have long admired Oceana's ability to win policy victories for the oceans," said de Vos. "I'm thrilled to join this organization, which has the proven experience and ability to help protect marine wildlife, including the blue whales I have studied for so long."

de Vos identified that the blue whales found off the Sri Lankan coast  dubbed the "unorthodox whales"  are non-migratory after witnessing them feeding in the country's warm tropical waters. Blue whales typically migrate to cold water feeding areas from the warm water regions they use for breeding and calving. The Northern Indian Ocean blue whales remain year-round in Sri Lankan waters, primarily in a region that overlaps the country's shipping lane  one of the busiest marine shipping routes in the world. After her discovery, de Vos dedicated her post-doctoral research at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory to finding science-based solutions for mitigating ship-strike which she is now using to formulate the policy recommendations necessary to protect the unorthodox whales from the threats they face.

"Oceana campaigns for concrete policies that will protect oceans and help restore abundance to the seas. Since 2001, this model has led to more than 100 policy victories and protection for more than a million square miles of ocean," Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless said. "Oceana's campaigns are driven by science, and we rely on brilliant marine scientists like Asha de Vos to inform our advocacy. Asha's commitment to the protection of oceans and marine life is evident from her groundbreaking research and her push for policy change in Sri Lanka, and we are incredibly fortunate to have her on our team."

de Vos is a global voice for marine conservation and was recently named a 2016 National Geographic Emerging Explorer. She is also a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Duke University Global Fellow in Marine Conservation, a TED Senior Fellow and a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation. As the leading expert on the Northern Indian Ocean blue whale, de Vos' research on the whales and the threats they face has been featured internationally by BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and CNN.

Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. Oceana is rebuilding abundant and biodiverse oceans by winning science-based policies in countries that control one third of the world's wild fish catch. With over 100 victories that stop overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and killing of threatened species like turtles and sharks, Oceana's campaigns are delivering results. A restored ocean means that one billion people can enjoy a healthy seafood meal, every day, forever. Together, we can save the oceans and help feed the world. Visit www.oceana.org to learn more.

CONTACT: Alex Armstrong, 202-467-1957, [email protected]

SOURCE Oceana

Related Links

http://www.oceana.org/


EDISON, N.J., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Roseland Residential Trust, a subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI), today marked the grand opening for M2 at Marbella, the newest luxury residential building located in downtown Jersey City. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop joined municipal and company officials to celebrate Roseland's newest addition to the Jersey City market.

The 39-story luxury residential community, located at 401 Washington Boulevard, features 311 studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment homes, and joins Roseland's existing Marbella community where residents will benefit from shared amenities, including a shared parking garage.

Fulop said the newest apartment community to open is yet another example of Jersey City's emergence as a city where professionals come to enjoy a true live-work-play environment.

"Mack-Cali and its Roseland subsidiary have invested tremendous resources in both commercial and residential properties throughout Jersey City, including Mack-Cali's own corporate headquarters, and we are grateful for that," said Mayor Steven M. Fulop. "But more importantly, their investment in our neighborhoods and our communities speaks volumes about Mack-Cali's faith that Jersey City can look forward to continued prosperity, continued development, and continued growth."

As the newest addition to the Jersey City skyline, M2 at Marbella will provide residents with remarkable views of New York City and the Hudson Waterfront from the individual apartment homes as well as from the 800-square-foot rooftop terrace. The building features a wide variety of state-of-the-art amenities, including a 1,200-square-foot event room, as well as a sky lounge on the top floor of the building, a 1,700-square-foot club room with a lounge and billiard table, a conference room, two fitness centers with a yoga studio, a children's playroom, an on-site concierge, an on-site dog run, and bike storage.

Andrew Marshall, president and chief operating officer of Roseland Residential Trust, shared his excitement for the addition of M2 to the luxury multi-family rental market in Jersey City.

"We are thrilled to have M2 at Marbella open its doors and add to Jersey City's flourishing community," said Marshall. "The community offers residents unrivaled views of New York City's iconic skyline as well as proximity to numerous transit options. The host of amenities offered will provide enjoyment for every resident throughout the year."

M2 is connected to Roseland's existing residential community, Marbella, by a 16,000-square-foot landscaped roof deck with a pool, which will be accessible to residents of both luxury residential communities. In addition to the pool, the deck will provide residents with a variety of outdoor amenities to enjoy throughout the year, including a fireplace, fire pit, and outdoor grilling stations.

M2 is ideal for commuters due to its close proximity to various mass transportation services. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is located on-site and provides commuters with access to Hoboken and Bayonne. Additionally, a NJ TRANSIT bus stop is directly across the street from the new residential community and the Newport PATH station, which provides commuters with train service to Manhattan and is less than  mile north of the property. Convenient highway access from M2 is available to residents, and Newark Liberty International Airport is located approximately 10 miles away. Additionally, a wide variety of recreational activities, dining options, and shops, including the Newport Centre Mall, are all located within walking distance of M2, making this one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Jersey City.

About Roseland Residential Trust

Roseland Residential Trust (Roseland), a subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI) was recently formed to own, manage, and develop Mack-Cali's luxury multi-family residential portfolio. Roseland is a premier, full-service residential and mixed-use owner and developer in the Northeast with an industry leading reputation for successful completion, execution, and management of class A residential developments. Roseland's scalable and integrated business platform oversees the Company's operating and in-construction assets, geographically desirable land portfolio, sourcing of new development and acquisition opportunities, and repurposing activities on Mack-Cali's office holdings.

The Company is a recognized leader in multi-family innovation, carefully integrating each development with its surrounding cultural context to enhance the beauty, economic vitality, and energy of its environment. From thoughtfully designed residences to distinctive amenity offerings, Roseland has earned a reputation for providing residents with the most visionary communities that empower them to re-imagine the way they live.

The Company is the master developer for several nationally recognized mixed-use destinations, including Port Imperial, a $3 billion, 200-acre, mixed-use community on the Hudson River Waterfront facing Midtown Manhattan; The Highlands at Morristown Station, NJ TRANSIT's first Transit Village project which, along with Roseland's 40 Park/Epstein's redevelopment, have spearheaded the revitalization of downtown Morristown; and Portside at East Pier in East Boston, where Roseland is redeveloping one-half mile of Boston Harbor into a premier luxury mixed-use community.

Additional information on Roseland is available on the Company's website at www.roselandres.com.

Statements made in this press release may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "plan," "potential," "projected," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "target," "continue," or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate, and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading "Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, which are incorporated herein by reference. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.

Contacts: Ilene Jablonski Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Vice President of Marketing (732) 590-1528 [email protected] Darryl Isherwood Mercury Public Affairs (908) 789-1380 [email protected]

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SOURCE Mack-Cali Realty Corporation

Related Links

http://www.mack-cali.com


SAO PAULO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SafetyPay - www.safetypay.com  a global solution for real-time payment, has been growing on the strength of its offering cash payments for online purchases, with the aim of serving a large portion of the population. Last year, cash transactions via convenience stores and banking intermediaries accounted for 45% of all company transactions. Furthermore, in the first quarter of 2016, growth came to 86% of the year before.

The process is simple. Consumers who decide to use this new method of payment pay in cash through bank intermediary or convenience store using a reference number issued via e-commerce channels by SafetyPay at the time of purchase. According to data of the Brazilian Federation of Banks, 40% of the country's economically active population does not have a bank account. According to the World Bank, the same percentage of people without banking services is observed in the rest of Latin America (information from 2014). At the global level, the World Bank estimate is that 200 million people do not use formal financial services.

As a cutting edge company combining finance and technology (FinTech), SafetyPay is using its experience and knowledge in the area to conduct online and cash financial operations in 19 countries around the world. Recently the company launched new functionalities for already existing products and incorporated these solutions into its service portfolio. In addition, it signed new agreements throughout the region, for example, with Peruvian, Decolar, eDestinos and Azul Linhas Aereas, among other companies.

"We believe that solutions developed by companies like SafetyPay combining finance and technology are the fastest route to financial inclusion for the population that does not have access to traditional banking services. By investing in an alternative that makes it possible to purchase online, confirming payments in real time at convenience stores / banking intermediaries authorized in Brazil, without the need for a bank card or credit card, we have broken down barriers for anyone who wanted to buy but did not up until that moment have a safe and reliable way to make payment," concluded Luiz Antonio Sacco, SafetyPay's Chief Executive for Latin America.

The results have already begun to become apparent. In 2015, the company registered global expansion of 80.4%, and in Brazil, its growth was nothing less than 500%, driven by contracts signed with big companies, showing the enormous potential of the market that is being exploited.

About SafetyPay:

SafetyPay is a global payment solution in real time, with more than 100 authorized banks worldwide. Launched in 2007, it is available in Latin America, the United States, Europe and Canada. It is a safe online payment method that allows for cash sales through multiple service channels such as e-commerce or via call center for customers who wish to pay using the internet banking service of their respective banks, and also for people with no bank account.

http://www.safetypay.com

https://twitter.com/SafetyPay

Contact:

[email protected]

Juliana Oliveira

(+55 11) 98398-5307

SOURCE SafetyPay

Related Links

http://www.safetypay.com


SAN FRANCISCO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- To shed light on the growing homelessness crisis in San Francisco, The San Francisco Chronicle will participate with more than 70 Bay Area news media organizations to provide a comprehensive look at homelessness in San Francisco. This unprecedented collaboration of news media organizations is part of The Chronicle's landmark event, the SF Homeless Project.

The goal of the SF Homeless Project includes spurring San Francisco government, business and civic leaders to take action to end homelessness. The Project will take a hard look at homelessness in San Francisco, including examining the history, how the system has failed, what the problem looks like, and public misconceptions as well as solutions.

Chronicle coverage will commence on Sunday, June 26, building daily online momentum toward an unprecedented day of blanket coverage by Bay Area media organizations spanning radio, print, online and television news on Wednesday, June 29, and continuing its coverage through Sunday, July 3.

The participating media organizations include the following, listed alphabetically:

48 Hills

AJ+

AlterNet.org

Bay Area Reporter

Business Insider

BuzzFeed News

CALmatters

Castro Valley Matters

Central City Extra

CityLab

Commonwealth Club

Cor Media

East Bay Times

El Tecolote

Fortune

Fusion

Golden Gate Xpress

Google News Lab

HATCH Beat

Hoodline

Inc.

Ingleside-Excelsior Light

ITVS/OVEE

KALW

KGO 810

KGO-TV/ABC7

KKSF Talk 910

KNTV

KPIX-TV

KQED

KRON4-TV

KTVU-TV

Laney Tower

Marina Times

Mashable

Medium

Micro-documentaries

Mid-Market News

Mission Local

Mother Jones

New America Media

Pop-Up Magazine

Renaissance Journalism

Richmond Review

Ripple News

San Francisco Business Times

San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco magazine

magazine San Francisco Neighborhood Newspaper Association

Neighborhood Newspaper Association San Francisco Public Press

SF Weekly

SFGATE

SFist

Sing Tao Daily

Stories Behind the Fog

Sunset Beacon

TechCrunch

Telemundo 48 KSTS

The California Sunday Magazine

The Castro Courier

The Mercury News

The Potrero View

Timeline

Univision 14 KDTV

Wear Your Voice

West Portal Monthly

World Journal

Youth Radio

"This is among the most significant media collaborations ever undertaken, and its cause is noble: to find solutions to the human catastrophe we see on our streets," said Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Audrey Cooper. "Alone, we can make a difference, but together this region's media can inspire a revolution that will cause political, business and civic leaders to take more effective actions to aid the most helpless among us."

Cooper continued, "The Chronicle has thoughtfully covered this protracted crisis for decades. A decade ago we had journalists who slept on the streets as a major reporting project. Later, we investigated the myriad of programs and efforts undertaken by city leaders. This month we start a new front on this ongoing coverage effort  one that takes a serious look at what has worked elsewhere, what we could try here and what the consequences might be. Our goal is nothing less than complete civic engagement and understanding of the multiple causes and solutions to homelessness."

Throughout the week, SFChronicle.com/Homeless will publish interactive features and provide coverage across social media platforms. In addition, every story produced by every news outlet will be aggregated on SFGATE.com/Homeless. This will serve as an encyclopedic resource for everyone to easily access and read.

Follow the SF Homeless Project on social media via #sfhomelessproject.

About The San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfchronicle.com) is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst Corporation in 2000, The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. With name brand voices and a keen editorial eye, the Chronicle is an authority that still surprises. Follow us on Twitter @SFChronicle.

About Hearst Newspapers

Hearst Newspapers is the operating group responsible for Hearst Corporation's newspapers, local digital marketing services businesses and directories. With more than 4,700 employees across the nation, Hearst Newspapers publishes 15 dailies and 36 weeklies, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union. It also operates digital marketing services and directories businesses under the LocalEdge brand.

About Hearst Corporation

Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) is one of the nation's largest diversified media and information companies. Its major interests include ownership of 15 daily and 36 weekly newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union; hundreds of magazines around the world, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, ELLE and O, The Oprah Magazine; 29 television stations, which reach a combined 18 percent of U.S. viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime, A&E, HISTORY and ESPN; significant holdings in automotive, electronic and medical/pharmaceutical business information companies; a 50 percent stake in global ratings agency Fitch Group; Internet and marketing services businesses; television production; newspaper features distribution; and real estate. Follow us on Twitter @HearstCorp.

SOURCE The San Francisco Chronicle

Related Links

http://www.sfchronicle.com


ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SiGNa Chemistry announced today the opening of a new manufacturing plant and a technical research center to support the company's efforts to develop environmentally-friendly products that are based on a stabilized alkali metal platform. The materials produced at this facility are used for a number of enhanced oil recovery applications throughout North America. The fast-growing start-up is already nearing plant capacity and is in the process of planning for its second manufacturing facility.

SiGNa is a specialty chemical manufacturer that produces a portfolio of stabilized alkali metal products. The company focuses on developing clean, high-performance chemical technologies that benefit a variety of industries, including industrial chemical processing, pharmaceutical manufacturing and oil and gas recovery. SiGNa, which was founded in 2007, expects that the 25,000 square foot facility in Rochester will create 37 permanent jobs and 75 ancillary jobs over a three-year period.

There are many important new industrial applications for SiGNa's products, which are often cleaner and more environmentally friendly than the legacy chemicals used today. Research that is completed at the new Rochester Technology Center will lead to new products that minimize the environmental impact in a number of industries including enhanced oil recovery, petrochemical refining, wellbore and pipeline cleanout, and paper and rubber manufacturing.

"This continued expansion of our manufacturing capacity will allow us to meet the demands of our customers throughout the global heavy oil industry; customers that are looking for more effective and greener solutions," said SiGNa President & CEO, Michael Lefenfeld. "Our new facilities will also support new research and lead to the commercialization of new chemical products that ultimately leave a smaller global footprint."

SiGNa plans to further expand its manufacturing capacity to meet the oil and gas industries' growing demand for greener and more efficient chemicals. The company has a proprietary process to transform pure alkali metals into safe, easy-to-use materials that deliver significant improvements in yield, throughput, and cost. Its chemicals produce only benign by-products and cause less impact on the environment.

About SiGNa Chemistry

Founded in 2007, New York City-based SiGNa Chemistry is a premier specialty chemical manufacturer and oil production company. SiGNa develops and manufactures chemical products based on its proprietary stabilized alkali metal platform. The company's mission is to develop cost-effective, innovative new chemical products that are also environmentally safe and deliver better performance than legacy chemicals. SiGNa serves customers in 50 countries, and its products are used in a wide range of applications, including oil and gas recovery, plastics, papers, petrochemical refining, pharmaceuticals and construction rubbers. More information about SiGNa and stabilized alkali metals can be found at www.signachem.com.

Media Contact

Ashley Angello, Tipping Point Communications

1+ 585-694-5931 or [email protected]

SOURCE SiGNa

Related Links

http://www.signachem.com


MIELEC, Poland, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Just two weeks after the Turkish Government announced the start of the Turkish Utility Helicopter Program (TUHP) to build a fleet of multi-role T70 utility helicopters based on the S-70i BLACK HAWK aircraft, Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, has accepted the program's prototype aircraft produced by its Polish subsidiary PZL Mielec.

Just two weeks after the Turkish Government announced the start of the Turkish Utility Helicopter Program to build a fleet of multi-role T70 utility helicopters based on the S-70i(TM) BLACK HAWK aircraft, Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, has accepted the program's prototype aircraft produced by its Polish subsidiary PZL Mielec. Among the modifications that PZL Mielec added to the aircraft were a rescue hoist, internal auxiliary fuel tank, cargo hook, Integrated Vehicle Health Management System, a blade de-icing system, and a rotor brake. Sikorsky and Aselsan will use the aircraft as the test platform to integrate a new digital cockpit.

"On-time delivery and the exceptional quality of this S-70i helicopter is a great start to the Turkish Utility Helicopter Program," said Jason Lambert, Sikorsky TUHP Program Director. "The success of this important milestone was achieved through the dedication of the PZL Mielec workforce and Sikorsky engineering team, which also incorporated BLACK HAWK mission equipment options into the prototype helicopter for international delivery from Poland."

Sikorsky accepted the TUHP prototype aircraft from PZL Mielec during a June 22 ceremony attended by senior leaders from the Turkish Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM), Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), Aselsan and Alp Aviation.

The TUHP prototype is the 37th S-70i BLACK HAWK helicopter built in Poland. Among the modifications that PZL Mielec added to the aircraft were a rescue hoist, internal auxiliary fuel tank, cargo hook, Integrated Vehicle Health Management System, a blade de-icing system, and a rotor brake.

In early 2017, Sikorsky will fly the prototype aircraft to Ankara where it will become the engineering development test bed for a new avionics suite being co-developed by Sikorsky and Turkish defense electronics company Aselsan. The two companies will use the aircraft to integrate, flight test and qualify the avionics suite, which is designed to the preferences of the T70 user community.

Contractual agreements approved by the U.S. and Turkish governments license TAI to build and deliver a total of 300 T70 helicopters (109 baseline + 191 options) to six Turkish agencies: the Land Forces, Air Force, Gendarme, Special Forces, National Police, and the Directorate General of Forestry. The first Turkish-built T70 aircraft will be certified and qualified for delivery to the Turkish Government in 2021.

Over the next two years, PZL will manufacture the first five cabin structures that TAI will assemble onto the first five T70 aircraft. PZL personnel also will provide technical and manufacturing assistance and training to TAI both in Turkey and Poland.

The PZL facility is the largest manufacturing facility outside the United States owned by Lockheed Martin, and is a strategic asset in support of Lockheed Martin's international growth objectives.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 125,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

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SOURCE Lockheed Martin
LOMBARD, Ill., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Independence Day is taking on extra meaning this year at The RoomPlace. Today, the 104-year-old Lombard-based company announced that it will donate a portion of proceeds from its annual July Fourth Storewide Sale to the Illinois Firefighters Association Foundation (IFA) and Supporting Heroes, Inc. to honor the service of first responders in Illinois and Indiana.

The announcement comes after The RoomPlace lost its 320,000 square-foot main warehouse in Woodridge, Ill. on April 21 to an extra-alarm fire. While the warehouse itself was declared a total loss, all 50 employees working in the building at the time were uninjured thanks to the service of the local fire departments, and The RoomPlace was able to quickly restore service to all customers.

"The RoomPlace recently experienced firsthand how important first responders are in saving lives and protecting property, and we are so grateful  especially to the firefighters from the 35 fire departments that were dispatched to our warehouse," said Paul Adams, Chief Executive Officer of The RoomPlace. "Donating a portion of the proceeds from our annual July Fourth sale to these two organizations is just one way of saying 'thank you' to these everyday heroes."

The donation kicks off a tour through Illinois and Indiana to honor and celebrate first responders. Throughout the summer, The RoomPlace will be donating new and needed furniture and mattresses to firehouses in Indiana and Illinois, starting in Woodridge, Ill.

Starting June 21 through July 11, a portion of all purchases are going towards a good cause. The annual July Fourth Storewide Sale includes a limited time only offer of 25 percent off of an entire purchase, plus a choice of free financing (if paid within two years) or zero down (take up to five years to pay).

The RoomPlace has been proudly serving the Chicagoland and greater Indianapolis area since 1912 with stores that are committed to creating a shopping experience unlike any other, all while offering excellent service, a great selection of quality furniture, name brand mattresses and financing offers that really allows customers to "Get It All." The RoomPlace also supports a mission to bring awareness and support to the local communities where it operates and to foster relationships with community organizations where they operate.

For more information about The RoomPlace, visit TheRoomPlace.com. Join other RoomPlace fans on Twitter @TheRoomPlace, Instagram and Facebook.

About The RoomPlace

The RoomPlace is headquartered in Lombard, Illinois and has served Chicago and greater Indianapolis since 1912. With 23 stores across Chicago and Indianapolis, The RoomPlace allows customers to experience a total-room concept when furniture shopping.

Sam Berman founded Harlem Furniture by first selling furniture door-to-door. He then opened and ran a single Harlem Furniture store until 1985, when Harlem Furniture began its expansion. Harlem was changed to "The RoomPlace" to reflect the company's strength in room packaging. Since that time The RoomPlace has continued to open new stores throughout Chicagoland and Indiana. The RoomPlace continues to succeed in Chicago's highly competitive furniture market by offering the value-conscious consumer excellent service and selection at affordable prices.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Kasey Salt Cara Wallace Zeno Group for The RoomPlace VP of Marketing, The RoomPlace 312-755-5462 630-261-2313 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE The RoomPlace

Related Links

http://www.theroomplace.com


SAN JOSE, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Stephenz Group (TSG), one of Silicon Valley's largest independent branding, marketing and digital agencies, announced the launch of a new division: MyStudio[Pros]. MyStudio[Pros] is the only on-demand marketing services firm in the US which is 100% dedicated to serving the marketing needs of independent home security dealers. While working with technology companies targeting home security, TSG discovered the large underserved market of independent home security dealers. This new division will serve the over 15,000 dealers nationwide who need affordable, high quality, professional marketing services. With the home automation market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26.3% it is projected to be worth more than $21 billion in 2020 (Transparency Market Research) and dealers need these marketing resources to be competitive and grow their business.

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The new "on-demand agency" offers personalized services with Account Reps assigned to specific dealers, as well as easy-to-order items on its website www.mystudiopros.com. "We are transforming how independent security dealers market their home security services to the consumer," said Barbara Zenz, The Stephenz Group President and CEO.

"As the consumer embraces smart home automation, home security dealers must compete with large cable companies, while marketing and branding their own business, retaining their customers, and selling new services. MyStudio[Pros] is the partner that will help them compete by bringing world-class marketing services to their fingertips." Zenz further stated.

How it works.

The agency launched the division with an innovative business model based on a monthly VIP membership fee of only $50 per month. This provides dealers with discounts on services and access to affordable resources such as strategic planning and top quality creative resources, including: website design, SEO and complete lead generation programs. This model allows MyStudio[Pros] to give its dealers "big ideas for small prices".

Dealers have options. They can connect with MyStudio[Pros] through their central monitoring service provider or they can sign up directly. MyStudio[Pros] has strategic relationships with leading central monitoring companies, including UCC in San Antonio, Texas. "MyStudio[Pros] offers our dealers access to resources normally not available to them. Now they have their own marketing department." Teresa Gonzalez, President, UCC, San Antonio, Texas.

The Stephenz Group brings a unique perspective to the home security sector, based on years of experience with home security services as well as extensive channel marketing experience with major technology brands. "We saw a need in the market," commented Barbara Zenz. "There haven't been many options for independent dealers to partner with marketing services agencies, so by combining our innovative service approach with a breadth of creative options, dealers can work with marketing experts to help them build their brand with customized marketing tools."

"Independent dealers have never had it tougher. With the growth in home security and home automation, UCC dealers need additional services to help them grow their business. MyStudio[Pros] is an example of UCC's goal to provide our dealers with the tools they need. Our dealers and their success is what matters to us," added Ron Bowden, Director of Dealer Services, UCC.

About The Stephenz Group and MyStudio[Pros]

The Stephenz Group is one of the largest independently owned B2B branding and digital advertising agencies in Silicon Valley. The Stephenz Group has experience building brands for clients such as Enlighted, Epson, HP, Icontrol, Infoblox, Qualcomm, and Samsung. In addition to MyStudio[Pros], the company also has a division called STUDIO that helps clients of all sizes to optimize their communications with high-quality, fast, and scalable web services, presentation design & events. The Stephenz Group has received hundreds of national, regional, and local creative awards, and is ranked among the Top 100 B2B agencies in the United States by B2B Marketing Magazine, Top 25 High-Tech Agencies in the United States by AdWeek, and Top 200 Agencies in the United States by Ad Age. For more information, please visit stephenz.com or mystudiopros.com.

PR CONTACT:

Judith Rosgen

The Stephenz Group

408-938-5432

jrosgen@stephenz.com

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE The Stephenz Group

Related Links

http://www.stephenz.com


WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- If you're an American living abroad or a member of a military family and duty calls you out of the country this November, it doesn't mean you have to put your vote on hold; it just means that your voting process will be a little different.

USAGov is committed to informing and making sure members of the military, their families, and other Americans outside the U.S. don't miss the chance to vote in 2016. Follow this Voting Guide for Military Members and Americans Abroad:

Step 1: Register

No matter which state you're from or where you'll be voting, you must register by your state's deadline. Complete the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). This will allow you to cast your vote from outside the U.S. Remember, your family can also participate. If a military spouse or eligible family member lives outside the legal voting jurisdiction, they can vote absentee in all federal elections.

Step 2: Receive your ballot and send your vote home

Make sure your vote counts. Once your ballot arrives and you vote, mail it back on time and to the right address. Each state has its own way of doing things. Some have deadlines for receiving the ballot and others set a deadline for when it should be mailed.

If you requested an absentee ballot and haven't received it at least 30 days before the election, you can vote using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB). You can fill in and print out the PDF version or use the online assistant. The FWAB serves as a write-in backup ballot that can be used for the election.

Step 3: Make sure the ballot arrives

Contact your state to make sure they received your ballot and it's counted on Election Day. The process is similar to a voter in the mainland who casts an absentee or provisional ballot.

Step 4: Sit back and watch democracy at work

Once you've gone through the whole process, you can follow the results on Election Day and witness American democracy at work.

If you run into a problem at any point in the registration and absentee voting process, you can contact the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) hotline toll-free: 1-800-438-VOTE (8683), DSN: 425-1584; call one of their offices around the world; or get in touch by postal or e-mail with any issues. If you're a military member, you can also contact the Service Voting Action Officer that corresponds to your branch.

Stay up-to-date with VoteUSA, USAGov's yearlong effort to help Americans become more informed about the 2016 election. Join the conversation using #VoteUSA or by following USAGov on Facebook and Twitter.

USAGov is a federal program that guides you to tips and tools in English and in Spanish from hundreds of government agencies, departments, and programs. We make it easier for you to find answers you can trust about government information and services--online, by phone, e-mail or chat, and in print.

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SOURCE USAGov

Related Links

https://www.usa.gov


WALNUT CREEK, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Valent U.S.A. Corporation announced today the appointment of David Nothmann as vice president of marketing. Nothmann will be responsible for leading the marketing organization and directing the strategic planning process for Valent products and services in North America.

His specific duties include overseeing all traditional and biorational marketing teams in crop and non-crop markets in the United States. He will also have responsibility for Valent Canada and will sit on the advisory team for Valent de Mexico.

Valent U.S.A. Corporation announced the appointment of David Nothmann as vice president of marketing. Nothmann will be responsible for leading the marketing organization and directing the strategic planning process for Valent products and services in North America.

"David brings extensive marketing and executive leadership experience that will help Valent drive our growth objectives," said Matt Plitt, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Valent. "David's passion for agriculture, coupled with his broad domestic and global experience across the value chain, will be incredible assets for the business and our commercial team. I look forward to working with David to build a strong bridge to the future of Valent and our parent company, Sumitomo Chemical, in North America."

With nearly 20 years in the agribusiness industry, Nothmann has demonstrated successes in strategy, sales growth and portfolio management. In his 13 years at the Monsanto Company, Nothmann held various leadership positions in marketing, business development and business strategy roles, with responsibilities for trait introductions, trait licensing, vegetable seeds, mergers and acquisitions, and value chain management. In 2009, Nothmann received the Monsanto Product Stewardship Award of Excellence.

Previously, Nothmann was vice president of agribusiness and alternative energy at Battelle, and served on the executive leadership team at ArborGen, Inc.

"I'm looking forward to the opportunity to join a world-class organization that focuses on collaboration and partnerships to drive the business," Nothmann said. "It's an exciting time to lead the Valent marketing team as we connect with our customers and stakeholders to deliver integrated solutions to their specific agronomic challenges."

Nothmann serves on the United States Department of Agriculture/Department of Energy's Biomass Research & Development Technical Advisory Committee. He received his Masters of Business Administration and European Management certificate from New York University, and holds a bachelor's degree from Tufts University.

About Valent U.S.A. Corporation

Valent U.S.A. Corporation, headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., develops and markets products in the United States and Canada that protect agricultural crops, enhance crop yields, improve food quality, beautify the environment and safeguard public health. Valent products include a well-known line of quality herbicide, insecticide, fungicide and plant growth regulator products for agricultural, seed protection and professional use. Valent is a leader in marketing and sales of both traditional chemical products and also biorational products developed by its affiliate, Valent BioSciences Corporation.

For more information about Valent or our full product line, please call 800-6-VALENT (682-5368) or visit Valent.com.

About Sumitomo Chemical Company, Limited

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sumitomo Chemical is one of Japan's leading chemical companies, offering a diverse range of products globally in the fields of petrochemicals, energy and functional materials, IT-related chemicals and materials, health and crop science products, and pharmaceuticals. The company's consolidated net sales for fiscal year 2015 were JPY 2.1 trillion. For additional information, visit the company's website at www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp/english/.

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SOURCE Valent U.S.A. Corporation

Related Links

http://Valent.com


NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Growing Health Concerns Among Consumers Coupled With Rising Discretionary Spending to Steer Growth in Global Residential Water Purifiers Market

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According to TechSci Research report, "Global Residential Water Purifiers Market By Technology, By Sales Channel, By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021", the global market for residential water purifiers is forecast to grow at a CAGR over 15% during 2016-2021, on account of deteriorating water quality and increasing awareness regarding health risks posed by presence of dissolved solids in drinking water. Growing urban population coupled with rising purchasing power of consumers across the globe is expected to augment demand for water purifiers from the residential sector through 2021. Additionally, increasing penetration of water purifiers in the emerging economies in Asia-Pacific over the next five years is also expected to be a major contributor to the robust growth in demand for residential water purifiers in the coming years. Furthermore, continuing increase in adoption of advanced purification technologies is forecast to steer growth in the global residential water purifiers market through 2021.

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Browse 49 market data Tables and 189 Figures spread through 300 Pages and an in-depth TOC on

"Global Residential Water Purifiers Market"

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In 2015, membrane based residential water purifiers garnered the largest share in global water residential purifiers market due to the ability of these purification systems to lower the amount of total dissolved solids in drinking water. Increasing consumer adoption due to high product efficiency, integration of advanced technologies and comparatively higher per unit prices results in higher revenue generation from this product segment. Over the last five years, sales of combination systems that utilize more than one purification technology, has exhibited strong growth across the globe. Global residential water purifiers market is highly fragmented and few of the major players operating in the market include Midea Water Appliances, Coway, HUL, Eureka Forbes and Kent RO Systems.

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"Globally, around 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and about 2 million deaths per year are caused due to consumption of contaminated water. Hence, increasing awareness regarding waterborne diseases and associated heath issues among consumers is expected to increase sales of residential water purifiers during the forecast period. Residents are educated about harmful effects of polluted water bodies, from where water is supplied to households by municipalities. Rising internet penetration and increasing disposable income levels has not only increased awareness about the benefits of these water purification systems, but is also driving adoption of these water purification technologies over the course of next five years.", said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.

"Global Residential Water Purifiers Market By Technology, By Sales Channel, By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of global water purifiers market and provides statistics and information on market structure, consumer behaviour and trends. The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities in the global residential water purifiers market.

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FARMINGTON, Conn., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Recruiter.com, an online global recruiting and career service, today welcomes Wayne Cooper to its board of advisors.

Miles Jennings, CEO of Recruiter.com, said "Wayne Cooper is an exceptionally talented business person that we are proud to add to our advisory board. He not only has decades of operational and financial experience, but specific work in the recruitment sector. Wayne built up Kennedy Information into a very strong business and its "Red Book" of recruiters into the largest directory of its kind in the world before eventually selling the business to BNA. His experience, network, and advice will be invaluable to our company as we expand."

About Recruiter.com, Wayne Cooper said, "I'm excited to help Recruiter take a leadership role in the employment ecosystem and build strategic value for the business. With an incredible network, wealth of career and recruiting content, and cutting edge technology platform, Recruiter is uniquely positioned in the marketplace. Recruiter's Job Market platform makes sourcing candidates from thousands of recruiters friction-less."

Wayne is currently Chairman of Chief Executive Group, which publishes Chief Executive magazine and operates the Chief Executive Network and Senior Executive Network, as well as the Chairman of Bongarde Media. He was also the Chairman of Pyramid Research, a company Greenhaven acquired from the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2001, turned around and sold to United Business Media in September 2008 for a 10x increase in equity value.

He served as CEO of Kennedy Information, which offered the Red Book of recruiters, from 1996 through 2003; as CEO, he grew the company by over 650% during his tenure and orchestrated the sale of the company to The Bureau of National Affairs for a 30x increase in shareholder value.

He was also the Chairman and CEO of Vizium, a marketing services company founded by Greenhaven Partners and sold to Carat Worldwide. Prior to Greenhaven, Wayne was a consultant with Bain & Company and Monitor Company in Boston, London, Milan and California (working with leading corporations to improve their strategies and business performance) and managed Monitor's L.A. office and expansion to Korea. Before that he worked at Goldman Sachs and The World Bank.

He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Stanford University. Wayne is the past Chairman and President of the Specialty Information Publishers Association (SIPA). He also serves on the boards of several civic non-profit organizations, and is an active member of Young President's Organization, AIPAC and various organizations that promote tolerance education throughout the world.

About Recruiter.com

Recruiter.com, Inc., is an online global recruiting service that offers an industry-leading job market technology platform. With a highly engaged membership base, Recruiter.com works with hundreds of clients and employers and manages a social media following of more than 2.8 million people. Recruiter.com was voted Top Tech Company to Watch in 2014 by the Connecticut Technology Council, cited as one of the Top 35 Most Influential Career Sites in 2014 by Forbes and listed by Inc. as one of the 9 Best Websites for Finding Top Talent. The career, HR, and recruiting experts of Recruiter.com have been cited and featured in hundreds of sites and publications, including: Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Mashable, Business Insider, Inc., Fox Small Business, Time, The Next Web, Yahoo Small Business, US News, Business2Community, Bloomberg and SmartBrief. Visit https://www.recruiter.com or follow Recruiter on Twitter @RecruiterDotCom.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Recruiter.com, Inc.

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ATLANTA and TAMPA, Fla., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WellCare of Georgia, a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG), enhanced its Medicaid benefits by adding new incentives to its healthy rewards program and increasing its over-the-counter (OTC) and vision program benefits. These enhanced benefits are now available to qualifying members.

The healthy rewards program is available to all WellCare of Georgia Medicaid members. It incentivizes members to complete specific preventive health, wellness and engagement milestones. The achievement of a healthy behavior earns the member a debit card with an amount up to $50, depending upon the type of healthy behavior completed. New to the program this year, members who meet their prescribed prenatal and postpartum visits will receive a $50 debit card plus their choice of a stroller, portable playpen or six packs of diapers.

"Preventive care is crucial to achieving and maintaining health," said Dr. John Alexander Johnson, senior medical director for WellCare of Georgia. "We are committed to continually improving the care and services we provide to our members to help them stay healthy. The earlier we seek preventive care the better, which is why we work very hard to ensure expectant mothers get the care they need for their babies. Babies born to mothers who lack prenatal care have three times the chance of being born with low-birth weight. Our goal is for mothers to have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies."

WellCare of Georgia Medicaid members will also receive a 20 percent increase in their credit toward OTC supplies. Each Medicaid member will receive a $12 monthly allowance to help purchase over 200 items, such as vitamins, toothbrushes and cold remedies.

The increased vision benefit includes a $50 credit towards eyeglasses, with additional frame options beyond what is covered by traditional Medicaid. Members age 21 and over will also have the option to receive an upgrade on their eyeglasses to include an anti-reflective coating, polycarbonate lenses and tint or scratch-resistant coating. An annual eye exam and eye care supplies, including OTC reading glasses, eyewashes and eye drops are also available at no cost to these members.

"Our enhanced benefits are designed to positively impact the health of our Georgia Medicaid members and ultimately can help to reduce the long-term costs of health care," said Roman Kulich, WellCare's region president, Georgia and South Carolina.

WellCare of Georgia Medicaid members will continue to have access to its other value-added benefits including a free cell phone for qualified high-risk pregnancy members, free General Educational Development (GED) testing for eligible members, free MyWellCare App for smartphones to keep track of members' health benefits and dental benefits including oral exams and teeth cleanings every six months.

For more information about the healthy rewards program, OTC and vision benefits, and other WellCare Medicaid benefits in Georgia, please visit www.wellcare.com/Georgia or call 1-866-231-1821 (TTY 1-877-247-6272) Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET.

As of March 31, 2016, WellCare serves approximately 583,000 Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids plan members, 37,000 Medicare Advantage plan members and 24,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members in Georgia. To learn more about how we care for Georgians watch Gloria's story at http://youtu.be/qyn-nywze04.

About WellCare Health Plans, Inc.

Headquartered in Tampa, Fla., WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) focuses exclusively on providing government-sponsored managed care services, primarily through Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, to families, children, seniors and individuals with complex medical needs. WellCare serves approximately 3.7 million members nationwide as of March 31, 2016. For more information about WellCare, please visit the company's website at www.wellcare.com or view the company's videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/WellCareHealthPlan.

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SOURCE WellCare Health Plans, Inc.

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GROVE CITY, Pa., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Wendell August, premium giftware and collectible ornament manufacturer will release their 2016 holiday collection with a Christmas in July event, July 16-31, 2016. All new products will be available in stores and online beginning July 16, along with limited-time savings on a selection of Wendell August Christmas favorites.

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The holiday collection features 2016 dated products including the popular annual Christmas ornament, a serialized Christmas plate, and a limited edition Centennial Star adorned with Swarovski Crystals (fourth in a ten year series). Also launching is 'The Magic Christmas Village' collection of intricately detailed standing metal village figures designed by master artisan and designer, Emily Hendrie, and several new hand-hammered and pewter Christmas ornaments. They will also be featuring a new line of holiday Pittsburgh-themed gifts, including Pittsburgh bicentennial collectibles and a new City of Bridges collection showcasing the imagery of Pittsburgh photographer, JP Diroll. Prices range from $12-$150 and each product is handcrafted in their Pennsylvania workshop.

In-store events at the Grove City flagship location will include a toy drive in partnership with the Bair Foundation. Customers who bring in a new, unwrapped toy throughout the event will receive a free Christmas ornament. All toys will be donated through the Bair Foundation to local foster and adoption children. Other events will include artist signings by Linda Barnicott, Pittsburgh Painter of Memories, and Leann Smith, author of the popular children's book, The Magic Key, along with a Centennial Star reveal and signing event with Master Engraver, Len Youngo. Throughout the two week event, a limited collection of exclusive signed products will be available in stores and online. For a complete list of event dates and times, visit wendellaugust.com/flagship.

"We are excited to bring customers together in stores and online to kick off the holiday shopping season and launch our 2016 Christmas collection," states Christian Werner, Wendell August President. "Our team has passionately worked to create an assortment of gifts our customers will adore giving to their friends and family this year, and we are ecstatic to share them with the public."

About Wendell August Forge

A time-honored tradition of hand-crafted elegance for 93 years, Wendell August makes heirloom-quality personalized metal giftware and jewelry to celebrate life's special moments. Our American-made high-quality, functional gifts fit within any budget and can be found at store locations, www.wendellaugust.com and gift shops nationwide.

Contact:

Erin Lewis

724-748-9519

SOURCE Wendell August

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HOUSTON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Willbros Group, Inc. (NYSE: WG) announced today that Chief Accounting Officer, Geoffrey C. Stanford, has tendered his resignation effective July 8, 2016. Stanford, who has served as Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer since joining Willbros in 2013, has accepted other employment to return to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Van Welch said the company wishes Mr. Stanford well in his new job and expressed appreciation for his work with Willbros, "While we regret Geoff has elected to move back to Baton Rouge, we were very pleased with his service to the company. Geoff has played a significant role in leading and managing the company's financial reporting and accounting functions. We appreciate his contributions and extend to him our best wishes for his continued success."

Mr. Welch will assume the role of Chief Accounting Officer.

Willbros is a specialty energy infrastructure contractor serving the oil and gas and power industries with offerings that primarily include construction, maintenance and facilities development services. For more information on Willbros, please visit our web site at www.willbros.com.

CONTACT:

Stephen W. Breitigam

VP Investor Relations

Willbros

713-403-8172

SOURCE Willbros Group, Inc.

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NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Silverstein Properties Chairman Larry A. Silverstein was joined by approximately 1,000 union construction workers and leading New York government, civic and business officials at a topping out ceremony marking the completion of concrete construction for the new 3 World Trade Center.

Silverstein Properties Chairman Larry A. Silverstein (right) and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Executive Director Pat Foye at topping out ceremony for 3 World Trade Center

The final concrete bucket, which was adorned with the same American flag that was used at the topping out of 7 and 4 WTC, was signed by Mr. Silverstein, construction workers and the assembled dignitaries. It was then raised 1,079 feet in the air and placed at the top of the 80-story tower.

Larry Silverstein said, "Today we celebrate New York's construction workers whose dedication and determination have helped us reach this great milestone. It also reminds us of how far we have come: 3 WTC will be the newest addition to a neighborhood that has been amazingly transformed and revitalized over the past 15 years. With two spectacular new train stations, hundreds of new shops and restaurants, parks and tens of thousands of new residents, Downtown has clearly become New York's most exciting live-work community."

Janno Lieber, President of World Trade Center Properties, an affiliate of Silverstein Properties said, "Like 4 and 7 World Trade Center before it, 3 WTC is attracting some of the City's most creative and innovative businesses. When the building opens in 2018, GroupM will join Conde Nast, MediaMath, IEX and other leaders in the worlds of media, technology and creative services that are making the new World Trade Center the best place to work in New York."

Transparent and sustainable design

Designed by award winning British architects, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 3 World Trade Center is located at 175 Greenwich Street and bounded by Cortlandt Way, Greenwich, Church and Dey Streets.

At 1,079 feet and 80 floors, the 2.5 million square foot tower is envisioned to be the third tallest skyscraper on the World Trade Center site  and will be the fifth tallest in New York City upon completion in 2018.

A model of transparency and sustainability, the building will feature floor to ceiling glass, and all eight corners on each floor will be column-free, creating an open and highly-collaborative workspace environment, which is key for cutting-edge companies in brainpower driven businesses like technology, advertising and branding, as well as law and financial service firms. Approximately 700,000 square feet of the building will be occupied by GroupM, the world's leading media investment management group.

The tower consists of a reinforced concrete core with steel structure outside the core, and is clad in an external structural steel frame. A defining feature of the building is its load-sharing system of K-shaped bracing, which helps articulate the building's east-west configuration.

3 WTC has been designed to a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold level of sustainability  like 4 and 7 World Trade Center, which was the first LEED-certified office building in the City when it opened in 2006.

3 WTC architect Richard Rogers said, "Larry Silverstein has been a powerful and visionary client determined to bring back both commerce and vitality to this key neighborhood. 3 World Trade Center stands next to the new train station making commuting easier and more environmentally sustainable. The tower stretches up to the sky. Its form celebrates and expresses the language of construction and technology which gives it scale, light, shadow and verticality."

Ivan Harbour, Senior Partner, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners said, "It has been a huge privilege to have had the opportunity to build tall in the world's most iconic modern city. Our responsibility to Manhattan and the new World Trade Center is, we hope, reflected in the optimism of 3 World Trade Center. This is a skyscraper that celebrates holistic design and construction in its scale and grain whilst engaging with the public realm around it in a positive and uplifting way."

Public retail and transportation

3 WTC was designed to enliven and seamlessly integrate into Downtown's streetscape thanks to a major concentration of retail on five floors above, below and at street level. The tower will also connect to underground pedestrian concourses that lead directly to 11 subway lines and the PATH trains.

Retailers and restaurants at 3 WTC include Tiffany's on the ground and second floor, British steakhouse Hawksmoor on the third floor and Parisian bakery Laduree on the ground floor. Below grade retailers include Turnbull & Asser, Bose, Tissot, Montblanc and many others.

The conceptual design for 3 World Trade Center was unveiled by Silverstein Properties in September 2006. In July 2010, foundation work began, and in March 2012 the ground floor slab was completed. Steel erection began in June 2012 and will conclude this fall. Glass curtain wall installation began in May 2013 and the building will be fully enclosed in October 2017. 3 World Trade Center is scheduled to open in 2018.

Unprecedented MWBE participation

Silverstein Properties' current MWBE commitment for 3 WTC is $402 million, which represents 40% of all contracts awarded. Minority and female workers make up 36% of the skilled labor at 3 WTC. These numbers are unprecedented for a project of this size, and far exceed the voluntary 15% goal set forth in Silverstein's agreements with the public sector.

"I couldn't be more proud of the 2,300 union construction workers who have already put in over 5 million hours to build this tower from bedrock to 1,079 feet," said Gary LaBarbera President, Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. "It now stands as part of the skyline of New York as a testament to New York's resolve to never give up, always move forward, and build New York bigger, better and stronger."

About Silverstein Properties

Silverstein Properties, Inc. (SPI) is a privately held, full-service real estate development, investment and management firm based in New York. Founded in 1957 by Chairman Larry Silverstein, the company develops and acquires office, residential, hotel and retail properties. SPI has developed, owned and managed more than 40 million square feet (3.25 million square meters) of commercial, residential and retail space, including 7 World Trade Center, the first LEED-certified office tower in New York City, which opened in 2006 and 4 World Trade Center which opened in November 2013.

Currently, the firm has $10 billion of development underway including Four Seasons Downtown New York Hotel and Private Luxury Residences, One West End and 2 and 3 World Trade Center. In addition, SPI is focused on joint ventures for development and acquisitions in Europe, Asia and Israel. The company has been recognized as one of the "Best Places to Work in New York City" by Crain's New York Business for the past eight years.

For further information on Silverstein Properties, visit www.silversteinproperties.com or www.wtc.com.

About Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is an international architectural practice based in London. Over nearly four decades, RSHP has attracted critical acclaim and awards with built projects across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia.

The practice is experienced in designing a wide range of building types including: office, residential, transport, education, culture, leisure, retail, civic and healthcare. The quality of its designs has been recognised with some of architecture's highest awards, including two RIBA Stirling Prizes, one in 2006 for Terminal 4, Madrid Barajas Airport and the other in 2009 for Maggie's West London Centre.

RSHP employs around 200 people, including 13 partners, 13 associate partners and 54 associates, in offices across the world  London, Sydney and Shanghai. The practice has recently relocated its studio to The Leadenhall Building, a 54-storey tower in the City of London which was designed by RSHP. A 'Think Tank' philosophy is employed at every level, to enable design and management leaders to collaborate and contribute their individual expertise. Weekly meetings - open to all employees - provide a vital forum for discussion of current competitions and on-going projects, as well as a platform for creativity and new solutions appropriate to each design.

Richard Rogers Partnership became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007 to reflect the growing importance of two of the younger partners, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour, and their role alongside Richard Rogers in the practice's future. Together with other long-standing partners, Stirk and Harbour represent the inherent continuity and consistency of the philosophy which the practice applies to all its work. The name change also demonstrates the practice's confidence in its ability to continue to meet those challenges still to come.

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SOURCE Silverstein Properties

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New Delhi, June 18 : Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday sought greater market access for Indian information technology (IT), agriculture and healthcare industries in Korea on Saturday.

"Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman impressed upon the Korean side for greater market access in agriculture, marine, healthcare, IT and other services in Korea. The minister said that the widening trade deficit was a matter of concern for India," a statement from the commerce and industry ministry said.

Sitharaman and her Korean counterpart Joo Hyunghwan reviewed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) at the joint committee ministerial-level meeting of the two countries held here on Saturday, with a view to achieve qualitative and quantitative increase in trade.

Korea said it is open to increasing trade with India and allowing Indian exporters greater market access on a reciprocal basis, the statement said.

"Both the ministers agreed that the utilization rate of the bilateral concessions given under CEPA need to be improved. The ministers agreed that Korean companies could invest in food processing of agricultural and marine products so that these value added products could be exported to the east Asian markets," the statement said.

The need to encourage further participation of Korean companies in India's key initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Smart City projects, etc. was stressed upon, it said.

Korea also agreed to assess the visa requirements to enable Indian teachers to teach in Korea under the English Program in Korea (EPIK), the statement said.

The 'Korea-India Infra and Industry Forum 2016' was held on the sidelines of the ministerial joint committee meeting, and business-to-business MoUs (memorandum of understandings) were signed in the auto parts and waste-to-energy sectors, etc it said.
Patna, June 18 : Adopting a tough posture, a Bihar minister on Saturday said the state government will ban a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) meeting in Patna on June 22, if required, to maintain law and order.

The VHP and its leader Pravin Togadia have a single point agenda of creating social division and hatred, Minister for Minorities Welfare and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Abdul Ghafoor said.

"The VHP is closely associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too is a product of the VHP," he claimed.

RJD's ally Janata Dal-United leader Shayam Razak said the VHP and Togadia will not succeed in pursuing their agenda in Bihar despite full support from the BJP.

On the other hand, BJP MLA Nitin Navin dared the Bihar government to ban the VHP's proposed meeting.

Navin said no one could prevent the VHP from holding the meeting here.

In the early 2000s, when Lalu Prasad's RJD was in power in Bihar, he did not allow Togadia to enter the state.
Kolkata, June 18 : Notwithstanding the opposition lashing out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for ordering a "farcical" probe into the Narada sting controversy, several Trinamool Congress leaders caught in the alleged bribery scandal, on Saturday backed the the move, saying it will unravel the truth.

Carried out by a portal - Narada News - the sting caught on camera over a dozen Trinamool leaders including former union ministers, state cabinet heavyweights and MPs accepting money as "bribes" in return for allegedly doling out favours to a fictitious company.

Made public on March 14, barely weeks ahead of the start of the assembly polls, the sting became a major election issue for the opposition.

Terming the sting as "a provocation and conspiracy to create a hostile public reaction", Banerjee on Friday ordered the probe to be conducted by city Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar. The opposition, however, was quick to dismiss the move as "farcical" and "aimed at shielding" her partymen.

But for Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and party MP Sultan Ahmed - two of those featuring in the sting - the probe is the only way to unravel the conspiracy.

"This (probe) is the right step, it was essential. In the probe we will put forth our side of the story. How the conspiracy was hatched, everything will become clear," said Ahmed who was alleged in the sting to have taken Rs 5 lakh.

Speaking in the same vein, Mukherjee said: "This is good, except this (probe), there was no other way to unravel the truth."

Trinamool vice president Mukul Roy, who too was caught in the scandal, pointed to the party's massive mandate in the assembly polls as a indicator of people not accepting the sting.

Disregarding of the opposition's continuous attack on the issue, Banerjee on the day virtually backed her party colleagues caught in the scandal and described such "exposes" as "politics of blackmail".
Chicago, June 19 : A ride-share ordinance passed at the Chicago City Council meeting will increase regulations for Uber and Lyft drivers in Chicago.

The ordinance, promoted by the taxicab industry, has subjected Uber and Lyft drivers to some of the same regulations for cab drivers, including fingerprinting, drug tests and city debt checks, Xinhua news agency quoted Chicago Tribune as saying on Saturday.

The Rideshare Reform ordinance also requires drivers to obtain restricted public chauffeur licenses and mandates that five percent of ride-sharing fleets be wheelchair-accessible.

The ordinance won applause as well as opposition.

Alderman Anthony Beale, who vigorously sponsored the ordinance, told Chicago Tribune that the ordinance was to protect consumers. "This was about consumer protection, as well as making sure Uber and Lyft provide transportation to the disabled community," he said.

Mara Georges of the Illinois Transportation Trade Association, which represents cab medallion owners and operators, said the current situation was killing the cab industry.

The opposition is also strong.

Uber and Lyft officials have threatened to pull out of Chicago or alter the services they offer here greatly. Uber said the ordinance would make it nearly twice as expensive to get a ride.

There are roughly 90,000 registered Uber and Lyft drivers in Chicago.
Mumbai, June 19 : On Father's Day on Sunday, actor Irrfan Khan took his son Ayaan to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to pay an ode to Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.

Irrfan, awaiting release of "Madaari", also narrated to his son the motivational story of Gandhi's principles and how he played a prominent role in the fight for freedom.

The father-son duo even tried their hands at the charkha, a spinning wheel, at the Sabarmati Ashram. The authorities even handed over a rule book of the ashram to Ayaan, which has in it the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

Joyous with his father's idea of taking him to the ashram, Ayaan said: "I want to know more about Gandhiji. It feels great that I have come here with my father, at the place of 'Father of the Nation' on Father's Day."

Irrfan, who is married to screen writer Sutapa Sikdar, has two sons -- Ayaan and Babil.

The "Maqbool" star, who gained global recognition with performances in films like "Slumdog Millionaire", "Life of Pi" and "Jurassic World", will also soon be seen in the film "Inferno" alongside Hollywood star Tom Hanks.

-*-What makes Purab Kohli shiver?

Actor Purab Kohli, who will be soon seen in the 'desi' version of "Prisoners of War" (POW), says just the thought of all the "harsh experiences" that he will portray in the series sends a shiver down his spine.

The show, an official adaptation of Israeli series "Hatufim", will be directed by filmmaker Nikkhil Advani.

The original series, set in 2008, revolves around the life of three Israeli soldiers who were captured 17 years ago while on a secret mission with their unit in Lebanon.

Purab is spending a lot of time looking for ways to understand the mindset of the character. He went to the Sikh Regiment to meet soldiers for his role prep recently, and is also back referencing to a time when he spent ten days shooting for a project at Nasihk Jail.

"I've not met any real prisoners of war up till now so one can only imagine and try and portray a character who has had such a harsh experience. I've met some prisoners at Nashik Jail in the past but that's a whole different scenario," Purab said in a statement.

"I'm trying to figure out what I would turn out like if I were to have actually had these experiences. The thought of it often makes me shiver," added the actor.

The Indian adaptation of the show will also star Amrita Puri, Sandhya Mirdul and Satyadeep Mishra in pivotal roles.

-*-Priyanka Chopra happy to find 'mini' self Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra says she always wanted a 'mini' version of herself, and is elated that her wish has turned into a reality.

She was stumped when she came across a tweet by a social media user with an image of a young girl dressed as the actress.

The post read: "Priyanka Chopra Eros Now Love you PC...Prisha..dress to express competition...please reply."

To this, Priyanka responded: "I've always wanted a mini me. Thank you. @Vandy2381 much love to your beautiful daughter."
Kolkata, June 19 : A case has been initiated under several offences including defamation against Narada News CEO Mathew Samuel following a complaint by Kolkata Mayor and West Bengal minister Sovan Chatterjee's wife Ratna, police said on Sunday.

The move comes after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday directed a probe into Narada sting operation which purportedly showed a host of high profile Trinamool Congress leaders including Chatterjee accepting wads of currency notes as "bribes" in return for allegedly doling out favours to a fictitious company.

"On the basis of Ratna Chatterjee's complaint, a case has initiated for several offences including forgery, defamation and criminal conspiracy," said a police officer.

The police complaint was filed by Ratna on Saturday.

"Baseless allegations have been made by the portal with the aim of bringing disrepute to my family and defame us. This has caused a lot of agony to us, so I filed the complaint seeking action against those responsible for it," Ratna told IANS.

The city police have constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the sting which the chief minister described as "a provocation and conspiracy to create a hostile public reaction".

Reacting to the development, Samuel alleged it was a conspiracy to jail him.

"It's a conspiracy, it is a plan to put me in jail. I am discussing with my lawyers and also waiting for the decision by the Calcutta High Court," said Samuel.

Hearing multiple public interest litigations seeking a probe into the sting operation, the Calcutta High Court on April 29 had directed forensic examination of the tapes and the equipments used to carry out the sting. The reports of the examinations are awaited.
Damascus, June 20 : At least 23 Islamic State militants were killed in an attack by Turkish artillery and US-led international coalition in Syria, the media reported on Monday.

The attack took place on Sunday, after Turkish surveillance systems detected that IS was preparing to launch mortars into Turkish territory from northwestern Syria.

The joint attack also destroyed 33 IS positions.

Last week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday very similar attacks took place and left 28 IS militants dead, according to military sources.
New Delhi, June 20 : Apple Inc that has its own stores across the globe may also get to set up its own outlets in India, rather than sell through other chains, with the government easing the sourcing norms for foreign players in single-brand retailing.

In a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the local sourcing norms of 30 percent on single brands in general were relaxed for up to three years and for those with "state-of-the-art" and "cutting-edge" technologies for five years.

This, analysts believe, will particularly favour Apple Inc.

"Of course, the move is going to help Apple," said Vishal Tripathi, Research Director at global market consultancy firm Gartner. The Cupertino-based tech giant has been pushing for such a move which also had the strong backing of the commerce ministry.

"This will sure lead the tech giant to open its signature iWorld stores in India soon. The move, however, may affect its current partners' business in India once Apple decides to go alone," Tripathi told IANS.

An e-mail query to Apple India evoked no response till the release of this article.

With the bureaucracy in India catching on to loosely-worded phrases while giving their approvals to projects, some analysts felt some terms needed to be elaborated further. But the overall response was this will be done in a more detailed manner.

"The catch here remains what is the definition of the 'cutting-edge' technology or how the government will define what is 'state-of-the-art' technology," said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst with CyberMedia Research (CMR), a market research firm.

"Then in a similar manner, how will Apple prove that it has got the right features for availing the benefits? The norms have been carved out in such a way now that Apple needs to prove that the company deserves it," Kawoosa said.

The Confederation of Indian Industry did not name Apple specifically in its reaction.

"Relaxation of local sourcing norms under single brand retail trading for advanced technology products would encourage global brands to build up their participation in the country," the chamber said.

Last month, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she was pursuing Apple Inc's case with the Prime Minister's Office regarding the norm of 30 percent compulsory local sourcing for single brand foreign retail entities.

India does not take up the cases of foreign multi-brand retailers.

"We took a line that we wouldn't mind waiving off the local sourcing norm for Apple's high-end products," she had told reporters. Soon after, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also relented and said he was all for scrapping the norm.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook is also reported to have made this pitch when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here in May.

Now that the path appears to have been cleared, there are some more loose ends to be tied up, analysts said.

"I don't see people queuing up at Apple signature stores in India as they do worldwide," Tripathi said. "It will benefit to buy from an Apple store if the cost and alternative buying options like EMI are the same as compared to partner stores."
New Delhi, June 20 : The CPI-M on Monday denounced the 100 per cent FDI in defence, aviation and pharmaceutical industries, saying this was not in India's interests.

Referring to the growing strategic ties between the US and India, the Communist Party of India-Marxist said the FDI decision was "a consequence of these defence agreements".

"This (FDI decision) is not in the interests of India and raise serious questions concerning both our internal security and our sovereignty," the CPI-M said in a statement.

"As a consequence of the Indo-US strategic partnership, the Modi government has now announced across the board greater access to FDI.

"India is permitting foreign capital to reap super profits and seek to emerge out of their global economic crisis at the expense of our domestic economy."

The CPI-M also said that India had "now become party to naval exercises with the US and Japan in South China seas.

"These exercises, code-named 'Malabar Naval Exercises', were earlier held off Indian coast in the Arabian Sea. Moving into the waters of South China seas has many serious implications for our independent foreign policy and

security concerns."

The CPI-M reiterated its demand that the disputes in the South China Sea

must be settled in accordance with international law and established

international procedures.

"The Indian government must adhere to this time tested policy position that India has always maintained."
Geneva, June 20 : Solar Impulse II, a plane exclusively powered by solar energy, began the trans-Atlantic stage of its planned world tour on Monday, taking off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for Seville in Spain.

The plane, which is attempting to become the first aircraft of its kind to circumnavigate the world, took off at 06.60 GMT and is expected to land about 90 hours later, with arrival scheduled for Thursday, Efe reported.

During this stage, one of the most difficult because it will last four days and four nights, Solar Impulse II is being flown by one of its inventors, Bertrand Piccard.

The plane will fly non-stop if the weather allows it.

Last year, the other engineer involved in the project, Andre Borschberg, flew five days and nights across the Pacific Ocean, breaking a record and demonstrating that the airplane is able to fly non-stop.

This year, with a round-the-world flight on an aircraft powered only by solar energy, the developers hope to raise awareness among governments and persuade them to support technology solutions to protect the environment.

So far, Piccard and Borschberg, taking turns as pilots, have completed 80 per cent of their circumnavigation quest.

In the previous stage, Borschberg flew 129 km (80.1 miles) from the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania to New York.

After landing in Europe, Solar Impulse II will be ready for the flight to Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, where the journey began in March 2015.
New Delhi, June 20 : Experts on Monday called as a welcome move the union government announcement of 100 per cent FDI (foreign direct investment) in defence, but felt more needs to be done to bring foreign investment in India.

The liberalised FDI regime announced on Monday permits up to 100 per cent foreign equity in defence sector as India looks ahead to increasing indigenous manufacturing in defence under 'Make in India' programme.

So far 49 per cent FDI was permitted in the equity of a company under automatic route, while FDI above 49 per cent was permitted through government approval on case-to-case basis, wherever it was likely to result in access to modern and "state-of-the-art" technology in the country.

However, under the new rules, foreign investment beyond 49 per cent will be permitted through government approval route in cases resulting in access to modern technology in the country or for other reasons to be recorded, while the condition of access to 'state-of-the-art' technology has been done away with. FDI limit for defence sector has also been made applicable to manufacturing of small arms and ammunitions.

Society for Policy Studie Director C. Uday Bhaskar said while the move should be welcomed, it is not a new policy.

"Hundred per cent FDI in defence is to be welcomed, but this is not such a new policy. There was a similar provision announced by the UPA government of 100 per cent FDI in defence for critical technology," Bhaskar told IANS.

"However, it did not lead to any major FDI inflow into India, and one must ask why. The reason, to my mind, has to do with the nature of the Indian eco-system for FDI across the board," he said.

"The astute foreign entity who plans to invest in India for the long term is seeking a viable and reliable return on investment. So the whole package has to be conducive from taxation laws to labour laws, ease of land acquisition, availability of basic infrastructure like water, power, roads and the like," he said.

"Regrettably, the reason why India is not able to attract any serious FDI is that the Indian system is not conducive for long-term returns. How to make the transition from red tape to red carpet is a challenge for Prime Minister Modi," he said.

Defence expert and member of Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Laxman Behera said that there is an improvement on the previous policy, but expressed doubt if it will make a big difference.

"The FDIs still have to be approved by the government and on case-to-case basis. This is an improvement on previous policy, but I have doubt whether it will help. No one will come and set up a plant unless there is a guarantee that government will buy their product," he said, adding that the new policy is still a big improvement from the previous ones.

Behera also said that the term 'state-of-the-art' technology, which has been done away with, was not clearly defined nor is there a clear distinction between 'state-of-the-art' and 'modern' technology.

"It is not game changing... state-of-the-art or modern technology, these are all semantics. But government will take a view on that, and from India's point of view, anything superior from what we have today is 'modern technology'," he said.

Behera added: "It's an open-ended policy which is bit simpler than previous policies".

Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston
New Delhi, June 20 : The stand-off between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and opposition BJP over the murder of an NDMC officer intensified on Monday with the Chief Minister reiterating his demand for the arrest of BJP MP Maheish Girri while the BJP demanded that Kejriwal either prove his charges or apologize.

Kejriwal also urged Delhi Police, which does not report to him, to probe the relationship between Girri and hotelier Ramesh Kakkar, the main accused in the murder of NDMC's legal adviser M.M. Khan in mid May.

"Girri forwarded a letter written by Kakkar to the Lt. Governor asking for the removal of Khan. The LG forwarded the letter to the NDMC chairman on Girri's reference," Kejriwal told reporters here.

"Murder cases are not solved in an open debate. The police should arrest him (Girri) first and interrogate him about his relationship with Kakkar. Why did he write a letter to LG on Kakkar's behalf?"

He added: "Is this how criminal justice system works in the Modi government that whoever is accused of murder will sit on dharna outside my home?"

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader has accused the central government of shielding Girri. "He should be arrested and interrogated in the Khan murder case. Modi police shielding him," Kejriwal tweeted earlier, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose government controls Delhi Police.

Girri again denied the charges and accused Kejriwal of running a malicious campaign.

"I challenge Kejriwal and his gang of thugs to present before media and public any letter written by me to any authority on the NDMC Hotel matter or else the Chief Minister should resign," Girri told reporters.

"Kejriwal should know that I will not tolerate any nefarious attack on my image. I am a spiritual person for whom image is more important than power," he added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party also denied Kejriwal's allegations.

"We stand by our MP Maheish Girri who has never written any letter to the Lt. Governor in the context of M.M. Khan or the NDMC hotel case in question," the BJP's Delhi unit said in a statement. "All that AAP and the Chief Minister have said is a fresh bunch of lies."

Girri has been on hunger strike outside Kejriwal's residence from Sunday after the latter declined to appear for an open debate with him at the Constitution Club here.

The BJP also solidly backed Girri. Party General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party's Rajya Sabha members Subramanian Swamy and Vijay Goel, Lok Sabha Member Manoj Tiwary and several other leaders including BJP veteran Vijay Kumar Malhotra and national vice-president Shyam Jaju joined the hunger strike led by Girri.

"I have a long spiritual bonding with Girri and I wish to tell the Delhi Chief Minister that he has rung a wrong bell and he will have to pay a heavy price for this dirty politics," Vijayvargiya said.

He also appealed to Girri to continue with the protest but reconsider his decision on hunger strike.

Swamy demanded Kejriwal's apology and also slammed Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung, saying he must be dismissed.

"There is no surprise in the way Kejriwal is acting. He is a Naxalite by nature. All allegations levelled against Girri by him are completely wrong," Swamy told party workers here.

Girri on Monday also wrote to the Delhi Police chief, asking that his role should be impartially probed.

"Probe the matter impartially and fearlessly. If you feel, please question me and if needed please arrest me," Girri said.

Khan, an estate officer with NDMC, was shot dead in Jamia Nagar here on May 16 - a day before he was expected to pass an order on the terms of the lease of The Connaught, a four-star hotel.

The hotel's owner, Ramesh Kakkar, was arrested along with six others for Khan's murder.

Both Girri and Karan Singh Tanwar, another BJP leader, have denied they are linked to Khan's murder.

Delhi Police has reportedly said they have not come across any evidence against Girri and Kanwar in the murder probe.

Girri, who represents East Delhi in the Lok Sabha, has dared Kejriwal to a public debate over the allegations and asked him to produce evidence to back the charges.
New Delhi, June 21 : A 45-year-old man was killed and his teenaged son injured on Tuesday morning when they were fired upon by unidentified persons in a Swift car in east Delhi. Three passersby were also injured in the incident, police said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajit Kumar told IANS: "Kailash Gupta was shot dead by a few unidentified men in Bhajanpura area."

The incident occurred at around 8.15 a.m. near a 'mazaar' in east Delhi's Bhajanpura area.

Kailash, a resident of Harsh Vihar, was on a motor cycle with his son Rajan, 16, when the incident occurred, police said.

"His son received bullet injuries in the firing," the DCP said, adding: "Two other passersby were injured in the firing incident, while another person was hit by the assailants' car."

All the injured were taken to hospital. They have been identified as Banwari Lal, Ram Lakhan and Javed, police said.

"A case of murder has been registered. We are probing the matter from all angles," the DCP said.

The police is also looking at CCTV footage of the area to identify the assailants' car.

A senior police officer, requesting anonymity, told IANS: "Prima facie, it seems to be a case of personal enmity."
Beijing, June 21 : China is no barrier to India's NSG membership, says a leading state-run Chinese daily even as it clubbed India and Pakistan together in their quest for membership to the elite nuclear club, saying just allowing New Delhi entry would create "another bigger problem".

In an op-ed in the Global Times, Long Xingchun, research fellow at the Charhar Institute and director of the Center for Indian Studies at China West Normal University, also takes a very kind view of Pakistan's nuclear proliferation record, blaming it only on nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Long also slams the US for "casting its eyes on India's nuclear market" as the reason for its backing New Delhi's candidature.

In comments that come just ahead of the plenary at Seoul of the 48-member nuclear grouping, the writer says: "India joining NSG does not harm China's own interests. India advocates nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and commits itself to no-first-use of nuclear weapons as China does. It could also help enhance bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear energies. Measures that can boost mutual trust could be established among China, India and Pakistan, the three nuclear powers in Asia."

It pits both India and Pakistan together in their pursuit for NSG membership, saying both countries have not inked the Non Proliferation Treaty.

"The US even signed with India a Civil Nuclear Agreement and backs India's bid to join NSG. But the issue of the legitimacy of India's "nuclear status" has not been solved.

"If India and Pakistan are allowed to join the NPT and adopt the CTBT, it will tarnish the authority of both. How can nuclear weapon development in other countries such as North Korea, Iran and Israel be dealt with?

"If the US is sincere in supporting India's NSG membership, it should not just cast its eyes on India's nuclear market. It should solve India's "nuclear status" first so as to eradicate the contradictions between India and the existing international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism.

"While India strives for NSG inclusion, it prevents Pakistan from joining by insisting on the latter's bad record of nuclear proliferation.

"Actually, the proliferation carried out by Pakistan was done by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist, and was not an official policy of the Pakistani government. Khan was punished by the government afterward with several years of house arrest. If the NPT and the NSG can give India an exemption, it should apply to Pakistan as well.

"China and other countries oppose to NSG including India while excluding Pakistan, because it means solving India's problem but creating another bigger problem. If India joins hands with Pakistan to seek NSG membership, it seems more pragmatic than joining alone," he suggests.

Long's piece voices China's official view of backing Pakistan, its all-weather friend, for NSG membership.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting this week, when the NSG issue is expected to be taken up.
London, June 22 : Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi made an emotional appeal to the British people not to make "the wrong choice" in the EU referendum, saying a decision to leave would exchange "autonomy for isolation, pride for weakness and identity for self-harm".

As campaigning enters the final stretch, many European Union (EU) leaders are refraining from pleading publicly with Britain to vote to stay, fearful of making a counter-productive intervention in a bitterly fought contest that looks likely to go down to the wire.

In a piece to the Guardian published on Wednesday, Renzi urged Britain to be true to its character and reject an isolationism that could see the country become a "Britain less great".

Britain, he said, is not a country that walks alone.

"(It) would not be a disaster, a tragedy or the end of the world for you if the UK chose to leave the EU. It would be worse, because it would be the wrong choice," Renzi wrote, adding that to leave would not be in keeping with Britain's tradition of refusing to shirk a challenge.

The centre-left coalition Italian prime minister invited Britain to use the strength of a mandate provided by a "remain" vote to demand a more effective EU, "one that works better, and better recognises the individual character of the markets of its constituent countries".

He insisted that "the union is a tool -- one that can be improved upon -- to turn our individual weaknesses into a common strength."

The British people will not be persuaded to make the choice to remain in the EU by curses, threats or hatred, Renzi said. Instead, he appealed to the British willingness to confront difficulties.

"If there's one thing the British have never done when faced with a challenge that concerns their future, their very identity, it is to make the wrong choice," he said.

A "less great Britain" would be the opposite of what those that want an EU exit desire, he suggested. Although Renzi has previously said there will be no chance of an EU return if Britain votes to leave, he stressed that the former must adapt and learn the lessons of the referendum.

Britons on Thursday will go to polls to vote in a second referendum since 1975 on whether Britain should remain or leave the EU.
New Delhi, June 22 : The government has full confidence in its Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramaninan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley declared on Wednesday.

"The government has full confidence in Arvind Subramanian," Jaitley told the media, hours after BJP MP Subramanian Swamy asked the government to sack Arvind Subramanian.

In a series of tweets, Swamy wrote: "Who said to US Cong on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US pharmaceutical interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF (Ministry of Finance)!! Sack him!"
Kabul, June 22 : At least 28 bus passengers abducted by Taliban militants were freed in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan, police said on Wednesday.

"Following efforts by security forces and elders to secure the safe release of the abductees, a total of 23 kidnapped passengers were freed late on Tuesday and five were released earlier on Wednesday," Xinhua news agency quoted the police as saying.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Taliban militants intercepted three vehicles in Gereshk district of Helmand and detained the travellers.

Helmand, notorious for poppy growing, is also a Taliban stronghold.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since early April when the militant group launched its annual rebel offensive in different areas of the country.

The Taliban urged civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centres regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people not to support the government.

The militants launched several kidnapping attacks recently to snatch off-duty security forces or government workers.

About 17 people were killed in a similar attack in northern Kunduz province late last month.
Shimla, June 22 : To strengthen water supply and sewage disposal and to prevent recurrence of water-borne diseases in Shimla town, the Himachal Pradesh government on Wednesday decided to create a water supply and sewerage circle, an official said.

The state cabinet, presided over by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, at its meeting here decided to create Greater Shimla Water Supply and Sewerage Circle under the Shimla Municipal Corporation for supply of water and sewerage disposal.

A technical group, headed by the Chief Secretary, would monitor the scheme, the official said.

The circle will be an amalgamation of the existing structure available with the municipal corporation and the irrigation and public health department.

It will have two divisions -- water production and sewerage treatment, and water distribution and sewerage network.

The health officer of the corporation would be in charge of the water quality monitoring and surveillance. The water testing labs would be transferred to the corporation from the government.

A memorandum of understanding would be signed between the state government and the corporation in this regard.

Official sources told IANS that more than 1,500 cases of jaundice, including among senior government officials, were reported in Shimla this year and 11 people died due to the disease.

Most of the jaundice cases have been reported from Chhota Shimla, Panthaghati, Vikas Nagar, New Shimla and Kasumpti, a health officer said.

In 2007, 2010 and 2013, a large number people in the city tested positive for Hepatitis E, a liver problem caused by consumption of water contaminated by sewage.

The cabinet also approved to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for implementation of Smart City Mission in Dharamsala.

The SPV would ensure operational independence and autonomy in decision making and mission implementation, said the official.
New Delhi, June 22 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave on Thursday on a five-day official visit to China to attend the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) meeting and seek investment into India, the government announced on Wednesday.

The finance ministry said in a statement that Jaitley would participate in the first annual meeting of the board of governors of AIIB on June 25-26.

The AIIB meeting includes sessions on infrastructure and global economic growth and financing green infrastructure among others.

Jaitley will also hold talks with Chinese investors and bankers to seek investment in infrastructure and other sectors in India, the ministry added.

Jaitley will also meet his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27. Later, he will participate in the 8th India-China financial dialogue, the statement said.
Pyongyang, June 23 : North Korea on Thursday announced the launch of medium-range missiles on Wednesday was a success and it considered this a necessary weapon to increase the country's capacity when carrying out a "pre-emptive nuclear attack".

Pyongyang launched two missiles from its eastern coast into the sea on Wednesday, the second of them appeared to function with relative success, EFE news reported.

"The test-firing was successfully conducted without having any slightest effect to the security of surrounding countries," North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA said in a statement.

The statement confirmed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was present for the test-fire of the medium long-range strategic ballistic missile named Hwasong-10.

According to KCNA, Kim considered that the missile is "needed to increase in a sustained way our preemptive nuclear attack capability and continue the study and development of diverse strategic attack weapons."

"The current test-fire marked an important occasion in further strengthening the nuclear attack capacity of our state," the statement quoted the leader as saying.

Wednesday's tests were the fifth and sixth time that North Korea test-fired Musudan missiles since April.

The first missile launched is believed to have malfunctioned, like the previous four failed attempts.

However, according to the South Korean government, the second missile covered a range of 400 km and soared to an altitude of 1,000 km. At present, experts consider the launch a relative success.

The Musudan missile poses a new threat to the region as it is the first North Korean medium-range missile which can be fired from a mobile launcher, making it more difficult to detect.

With its potential 4,000 km range, the missile could reach US military bases in Okinawa, Japan or Guam.

US, South Korea and Japan have condemned these latest launches, while China has urged the parties for dialogue.
New Delhi : Title: Dangle; Author: Sutapa Basu; Publisher: Readomania; Pages: 252; Price: Rs 250 Can life be ever defined in a definite manner? The book at hand tries to emphasize that life is a "dangle".

What then would be this dangle? The "peripheral outcomes blinded by the obvious violence", writes debutant author Sutapa Basu. Then, serenity can be a treacherous dangle.

The synonyms for dangle are many: a few of them befitting the plot would be "hang down", "trail" or "brandish". It all depends on how one reads through the book.

The story of the chief protagonist, Ipsita Sen, is a love story spun around a travelogue. It's a deeply penetrating tale of a globe trotter and, importantly, also about her chaotic internal journey as the story travels from Chicago to Delhi to Manipur and even beyond.

The book can be easily analysed as yet another story of a girl who wants to be different at times, especially when it comes to her attempt to "rationalize with the agony that had tormented her ever since she could remember".

This extract from page 121 is a penetrating one: "What happened, happened long ago...Why do you need to live on the edge of a cliff even today?......and what had really happened? A little girl was molested.....NOT raped. Baba had saved me!".

Basu has definitely left a mark with her work and certainly it is not without good reason that noted writer Amish Tripathi says the story actually "brought tears" to his eyes.

The best of love stories do make readers cry. But this book is also more than a love story. It is more about realism called life as Ipsita's life actually dangles between good and bad memories.

Most descriptions in the novel are so real - like holidays in Puri.

The author tries a unique but unconventional narration style even as it remains without doubt that as a woman herself, Basu discovers the body and soul of her character very well. The three characters - Amar, Akash and Steve - Ipsita meets at different locations actually help her unfold one facet of life after another.

From a reviewer's point of view, the writer does well to focus around picturesque Manipur and the inherent conflicts of an insurgency-hit state.

These portions form strong points of the book.

Having spent a considerable time of childhood and life in northeastern India, the reviewer cannot agree more and salutes the manner in which Basu has tried to portray the contemporary reality in Manipur about killings and betrayals.

And the portrayal of gun-wielding insurgents and the beautiful Loktak lake make for a unique synthesis -- again, a "dangle".

Some of us who lived in the northeast know that in states like Manipur, the blood and tears have not stopped flowing. Basu, with her mesmerizing lines, pays tribute to those common people who "are stitching together the torn edges of their lives" after ignoring the "shadow of the gun".

Such prose certainly takes the author above an average writer and makes the book a good page turner.

But, in the ultimate, what needs to be stressed is that as a woman herself, Basu has kept the book and the plots therein strictly in command of the protagonist -- notwithstanding that at times she finds friends like Adi who maintain her sanity and the right "balance".

Time always passes -- that is the balm for all pain, Ipsita well realizes.

But to many, the book might challenge their views about a woman and how she ought to fight the demons and chaos inside.

As for male chauvinists, "Dangle" will definitely transform how one looks at a woman and her existence as an individual.

Reading a good story too is a balm; it makes one realize the power of melancholy and its absence.

(Nirendra Dev can be contacted at nirendra.n@ians.in )
Washington, June 23 : Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders admitted that he will not be Democratic candidate for the White House as he indirectly recognised Hillary Clinton's victory in the race for the party's presidential nomination for the first time in public.

"It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee, so I'm not going to determine the scope of the convention in July in which the party nominee will be officially named," Sanders said on Wednesday during an interview with C-SPAN TV channel.

The Vermont senator, 74, advises Clinton to choose "the most progressive candidate that she can find" for vice president, while several media published a short list of candidates for the position which excluded Sanders, EFE news reported.

"It would be a terrible mistake for her to go to a candidate who has roots from Wall Street or has been backed by Wall Street," underlined Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, who campaigns against the excesses of large corporations.

On June 14, the Democratic presidential hopeful met with Clinton at a hotel in Washington near the White House, but he still has not announced his endorsement of the former US Secretary of State.

The Senator has not explicitly suspended his campaign, arguing that he wishes to continue until the party's convention in Philadelphia slated for July 2 to voice his political agenda.

Sanders has also offered to help defeat the unofficial Republican nominee, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, in the November elections.

Democratic leaders such as US president Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have officially endorsed Clinton as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the White House following her victory in the California and New Jersey primaries on June 7.

Sanders praised the intelligence of the former First Lady but stressed that "there are areas where we have strong disagreements".
New Delhi : I stay in rural Maharashtra. We have reached a stage in life where we hardly shop but sometimes need specialty items like books, computer peripherals, herbal teas and the like. These items are not available in our rural town of Phaltan where we live and so we do online shopping. In the last year or so we have discovered the power of such shopping.

In the recent past, we would go once a month to Pune (110 km away) to buy a few things. Now because of online shopping, such trips have drastically reduced - and for good reason. It takes about three hours to reach Pune, driving over pot-holed roads, which produces back pain. Besides, the traffic jams and pollution in or near Pune add to the discomfort. Also going to Pune for a few items was quite a chore and waste of energy and time. Now online shopping allows us the luxury of getting all sorts of items at home.

Such online shopping is being discovered in all rural towns and areas around the country. However, for such e-commerce to take place, it is necessary to have a good internet connection, ability to sift through the various items offered and zeroing on selection of quality material. All this is possible by googling the items and comparing their prices and specifications.

I find that the rural population is learning this search-and-pick at amazing speed - which is reflected in the increase of sales in rural areas via online shopping. They also order items seen on TV ads and those passed by word of mouth. With mobile penetration in rural India, this shopping is also facilitated by various smartphone apps so that desktop PCs are not required.

Nevertheless, this online shopping is fuelling consumerism in rural areas and is the engine which is helping it to urbanize. It is happening because it produces a win-win situation. For example, one can get quality goods at substantial savings as they are usually much cheaper than what one would pay in a shop in Pune or other big cities. Besides, most of the time the goods are shipped free and cash-on-delivery basis. Also, the time and energy used in actual shopping and going to the big city are saved.

This is the reason why e-commerce has spread so rapidly all over the world and rural India is only now getting the benefits of this revolution.

The foray of the online companies in rural India is also fuelling the job market - it is providing employment to a large number of rural youth as delivery boys. Besides, it has given a shot in the arm to loss-making India Post since their large network of postmen is being used by e-commerce companies to penetrate rural areas.

However, such shipments are energy intensive. For a small item the packing is almost three-to-four times its size. This is waste of material, and adds to the weight of shipment and to the transport energy cost.

Secondly, quite a number of times, the item which is manufactured locally is shipped to big cities and then again to the final destination. For example, we ordered a packet of mango pickle (of a brand that is not available in Phaltan) which is manufactured about 45 km from our rural town. This packet was shipped to Bangalore from where it came to us. This is a real wastage of energy in transport but the shipping company may be finding it cheaper to do so for whatever reasons. Yet with all this travelling around we got this packet at nearly half the price of what we would have paid in a Pune shop.

So, how do companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and others who have big online presence in India still make money on such transactions? Data from their financials reveals that presently all of them are losing money - primarily because it is the start of e-commerce boom in India.

However, they feel that there is a great future in online shopping and with time, their profits will increase. Thus only those companies with deep pockets will survive since they alone have the staying power to penetrate the rural markets.

(Anil K. Rajvanshi is the Director of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) at Phaltan in Maharashtra. He can be reached at anilrajvanshi@gmail.com)
Bangkok, June 23 : A planned visit by Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi to a Myanmar refugee camp in western Thailand, earlier scheduled for Saturday, has been cancelled, said a Thai government official on Thursday.

Suu Kyi, who is also the country's foreign minister, currently visiting Thailand, has been informed of the Thai government's decision to call off her planned trip to Tham Hin refugee camp, which has provided "temporary" shelter for more than 6,000 Myanmar refugees since the past few decades, according to the government official.

The cancellation of the planned trip to Tham Hin refugee camp for Suu Kyi, was notified to her staff on Wednesday, said the official attached to the provincial administration which looks after the refugee camp in cooperation with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Xinhua news agency reported.

No reason for the abrupt cancellation of Suu Kyi's planned visit to the refugee camp was cited.

Besides a meeting with Thai Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha, Suu Kyi earlier planned to visit a Myanmar community in Samut Sakorn province, about 30 km southwest of Bangkok, and Tham Hin refugee camp in Ratchaburi province.

More than 105,000 Myanmar nationals have taken "temporary" refuge provided in several western and northwestern provinces along the Thai-Myanmar border.
Wellington, June 23 : New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Thursday ruled out paying a ransom for a New Zealander who was abducted in southern Nigeria.

Key told a press conference that there was no chance of the government paying a ransom for the New Zealander's release, saying the compromise would only put a bounty on the head of any of the country's citizen working in a volatile region and make the situation worse, Xinhua news agency reported.

On Wednesday, armed assailants abducted three foreign contractors, including the New Zealander and two Australians and killed their driver on the outskirts of Calabar.

They worked for an Australian mining company.

Key said it was likely the kidnapping was random motivated rather than an terror act. The kidnappers are yet make a ransom demand.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Australian High Commissioner in Nigeria is at the scene while New Zealand has no diplomatic mission in the country limiting its capacity to coordinate the rescue.

New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made Nigeria an extreme risk rating because of the threat from terrorism, kidnapping and violent crime, advising its citizens against all travel in the north and against all tourist and other non-essential travel throughout the rest of the country.

Expatriate workers at oil and gas facilities were often targeted by militant groups in the northern regions of Nigeria where most of the recent kidnappings occurred.
Kabul, June 23 : Seven Taliban militants, among them a group commander, were killed as their explosive device detonated prematurely in Afghanistan's Logar province on Thursday, an official said.

"Seven Taliban militants including their commander Abdul Rauf were planting a mine on a road outside Pul-e-Alam city to target security personnel but the device exploded prematurely, killing all on the spot," Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying.

The commander and his team had an active role in organising attacks on security forces and planting roadside bombs in Logar province and adjoining areas, the official added.
Mumbai, June 23 : New York-based Indian actor Ankur Bhatia, who played Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's husband in "Sarbjit", has now been signed to play Shraddha Kapoor's husband in Apoorva Lakhia's "Hasina".

Interestingly, both the films are real life stories. While "Sarbjit" was the story of Dalbir Kaur, the elder sister of Sarabjit Singh who fought a long legal battle for the release of her brother from a Pakistani jail, "Hasina" is the story of Hasina Parkar, sister of Dawood Ibrahim.

Talking about his role, Ankur said: "I am super-excited to work with Shraddha as I think she's an immensely talented actress. I've been longing to work with Apoorva Lakhia and I'm so glad he gave me the opportunity."

"I play a tall Pathan character who is filled with joie de vivre. I am really excited to play this part," added Ankur.
London, June 23 : Despite torrential rains in London and south east England, voters headed to polls on Thursday to cast their ballots in a historic referendum on whether Britain should remain in or exit from the European Union (EU).

Torrential rains swamped the British capital as polling stations opened at 7 a.m., BBC reported. Flood warnings were issued for parts of London and Essex as parts of the capital were expected to see a month's rainfall in a matter of hours -- voting in the referendum will continue till 10 p.m.

An estimated 46,499,537 people -- a record number for a British poll -- are entitled to take part in the vote.

The registered voters include Britons from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar -- a British territory off the southern coast of Spain. These represent all 380 local government area in England, Scotland and Wales, plus one each for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

British citizens living abroad have already cast their vote by mail.

After voting in the referendum closes, sealed ballot boxes will be collected and transported to the count venues for each of the 382 local counting areas. The counting will then begin.

For the count, Britain has been divided into 382 counting areas which will first verify each ballot, allowing each area to announce the turn-out, The Telegraph said in a report.

The results will then be collated and fed by local counting officers to regional counting officers in 12 electoral regions, who will only announce their results when all the areas have concluded their counts.

Unlike at a general election, when MPs only need to win a majority in their constituency to win the seat, every vote counts in this referendum.

The result will be declared by Jenny Watson, chairman of the Electoral Commission and the referendum's chief counting officer, at Manchester Town Hall, although no physical counting of ballot papers is taking place there.

According to the Electoral Commission, the results will come in during a frantic three-hour period on Friday, between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m.

The Electoral Commission is forecasting that turnout could be as high as 80 per cent (significantly more than the 66 per cent who voted in last year's General Election).

Meanwhile, police said they were not expecting trouble as tens of millions of Britons are expected to vote.

Despite a bitter and heated campaign, police said they expected a peaceful day. Police commanders have been issued with extensive guidance on how to minimise the chances of electoral fraud with police chiefs keen to avoid getting caught up in the rancour surrounding Brexit.

A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs' Council said: "While there is currently no intelligence to suggest issues will arise around Thursday's poll, police forces are monitoring the situation locally and putting appropriate plans in place to ensure a fair and peaceful electoral process."
Beijing/New Delhi, June 23 : Even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a five-day official visit, an important financial dialogue between India and China was pushed back to July, as interlocutors were busy monitoring the referendum developments in Britain, officials said.

According to Finance Ministry officials in New Delhi, the 8th India-China Financial Dialogue was to be held in Beijing on June 27. But a week ago, the two sides decided to defer it by a month in the wake of the referendum in Britain to stay or pull out of the European Union.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das was to represent India in the bilateral dialogue.

"If Brexit happens, India is ready," Das had tweeted earlier on Thursday. "Brexit vote today. We are closely tracking developments in UK. India well prepared," he added, referring to the crucial vote, the results of which are expected on Friday.

Senior officials in the Finance Ministry in New Delhi and at the Indian mission in Beijing said the dialogue, in any case, is at the level of secretaries, and not ministers.

They added that all the other meetings of Jaitley while in Beijing -- including an engagement with his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27 and interactions with investors and bankers -- were on schedule.

The Finance Minister will also represent India at the first meeting of the board of governors of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on June 25-26.

The India-China Financial Dialogue was established during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005. Thus far, seven rounds have been held -- the last one in December 2014 in New Delhi.

Discussions are generally held in areas such as challenges facing the global economy, the macro-economic situation and policies in the two countries, progress on structural reforms, and the status of bilateral multilateral frameworks.

In the last round, India was represented by Dinesh Sharma, Additional Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, during which it was agreed that Chinese long-term investments in the Indian infrastructure sector will be encouraged, among other matters.
New Delhi, June 23 : The government's latest package of incentives for the textiles industry will give an "extra push" to the sector, help create more jobs and boost exports, union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

"It (textiles) is a sector where India has gained a lot of advantage. It has a great potential for job creation," Sitharaman told reporters here on the sidelines of an event on national standards.

The union cabinet on Wednesday approved a special package for the textile sector which aims at a three-year target of creating 10 million more jobs, $30 billion additional exports and $11 billion fresh investment in the sector.

This "extra push" was required to be given to the sector due to various global developments, Sitharaman added.

Asked about the impact on India of Britain's possible exit from European Union through the "Brexit" referendum being held on Thursday, Sitharaman said that the government is "watching the situation".

"We will be observing the developments. It is too early for me to comment," she said.

In this connection, the minister said the dates for resuming talks on the stalled India-EU free trade agreement had possibly got linked to the Brexit issue.

"We are waiting for the dates. It is my doubt that because they are waiting for the outcome of Brexit, they have not yet given the dates as yet. The moment they give the dates, we will be keenly wanting to continue the talks to reach the conclusion at the earliest," she said.
Ottawa, June 23 : Canada spends over $312 million annually on drugs prescribed to seniors even though the medicine should be avoided for older patients, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia.

The study's authors conclude that the full cost to Canada's health-care system is closer to $1.56 billion when hospital visits and other repercussions of inappropriate prescriptions are factored in, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We are wasting vast sums of money on drugs that we know pose more risks than benefits for patients over 65 years of age," said Steve Morgan, a professor from the university's school of population and public health.

"Canada urgently needs a national strategy to ensure that older patients receive only those medications that are appropriate for their health and for their age," he added.

The researchers found that 37 per cent of older Canadians filled one or more prescriptions on the list in 2013. Women were more likely than men to fill such prescriptions.

Sedatives were the leading contributors to both the frequency and cost of potentially inappropriate prescriptions among older Canadians.

Researchers advise that patients, families and health-care providers have more conversations about what sorts of medications an individual is taking and whether those medications are appropriate.

The researchers call for the creation of a national strategy on the appropriate use of medicines.

Other countries, such as Australia, have done so and found that investing in better prescribing behaviour and medication use improves patient health while significantly reducing prescription drug costs and costs elsewhere in the health-care system.

The study was published on Wednesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
New Delhi, June 23 : Bowing to persuasion from the party high command, former union minister and five-time Lok Sabha member from Mumbai Gurudas Kamat on Thursday said he is withdrawing his resignation from the Congress party.

In a statement, Kamat said he would "continue to serve under the leadership of honourable Congress President Sonia Gandhi and honourable Vice President Rahul Gandhi".

Kamat resigned on June 6, but the party high command did not accept his resignation and senior party leaders tried to persuade him to withdraw the resignation and continue to work in the party.

"I had about two weeks ago sent my resignation as general secretary of All India Congress Committee and from the Congress party purely for personal reasons, to concentrate on social service minus any party tag," Kamat said in a statement on Thursday.

"However, during the last fortnight a large number of senior party leaders tried to convince me to rethink on the decision. My meeting with my party president, Sonia Gandhi, helped me to make up my mind that the Congress party is the best platform to serve the people of this country," he added.

A senior party leader, who spoke to IANS on condition of anonymity, had said that Kamat was unhappy over the way some issues had been handled by Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam and party general secretary Mohan Prakash, who is in charge of the Congress affairs in Maharashtra.

A former Mumbai Congress president for two terms, Kamat, 61, has deep knowledge of the city politics and his absence could have proved detrimental for the party which is hoping to capture the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in next year's critical elections.

"I will continue to serve under the leadership of honourbale Congress President Sonia Gandhi and honourbale Vice President Rahul Gandhi with the same charge of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu as informed to me late last night," Kamat said.

The Congress has seen some of its senior leaders quitting the party over the past year, following a series of electoral setbacks the party suffered after its debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Senior Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi quit the pasty and on announced that he was forming his own party in the state.

Former Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who left the Congress, was seen to be instrumental in the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive victory in the Assam assembly polls.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, who was involved in a revolt against his successor Harish Rawat, also left the Congress to join the BJP.
Damascus, June 23 : At least eight Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in Syria by Turkish artillery fire and US-led coalition airstrikes, an official said on Thursday.

Some IS weapons systems, including mortar positions, were also destroyed in the operation, Xinhua news agency reported.

Turkey is set to deploy new air defence systems in its southeastern province of Kilis, as rocket attacks from IS held regions across the border in northern Syria have killed over 21 people in the province this year.
New Delhi, June 23 : India on Thursday strongly denied allegations in the media that a research centre in Dehradun may have violated UN sanctions by training North Korean experts who went on to occupy important positions in secretive military programmes of the reclusive communist nation.

The allegations came up in an Al Jazeera article, citing a UN Security Council report, that the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) has trained at least 30 North Koreans in the last nearly 20 years of its existence.

The trained North Koreans included "Paek Chang-Ho, who was designated for his role in the launch of the Unha-3 rocket" on December 12, 2012, according to the UN Security Council report of February-March 2016. Paek is reported to be the vice director of Scientific Research and Development Department of North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration.

Currently, the centre has two students from that country studying there, the UN report said. One of them is affiliated with North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration, which plays a key role in the country's nuclear development programme.

But India denied that the institute conducted courses that could help North Koreans in training or transferring nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes as alleged in the Al Jazeera article.

"We have come across the article. The insinuation in the article regarding India's assistance to North Korea's UN proscribed activities is baseless and without any merit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a statement.

The UN report said one of the courses offered instructions that "could be directly relevant" to "designing and testing a launch vehicle using ballistic missile technology, such as those on launch vehicles, attitude control, and telemetry, tracking, command and data-handling systems".

Swarup said the UN report was the result of "subjective" and "limited understanding" of the experts "who have authored it".

"India has made its position clear in this regard to the UN Security Council. The topics covered in the courses offered by CSSTEAP are very general and cover basic principles in the respective areas," the spokesperson said.

The UN-sponsored centre was established in 1995 to ensure that "no country in the region will have to look abroad for expertise in space science and technology application".

The UN report said the courses offered by the centre were not deliberately designed to assist ballistic missile development but the expert panel's assessment "is that certain modules or sub-modules constitute specialised training that could be used by (North) Korea in its prohibited activities.

"Participation in the space and atmospheric science and global navigation satellite systems courses is a ballistic missile-related activity prohibited" under UN resolutions to impose sanctions against North Korea.

Refuting the contention in the UN report, Swarup said: "We believe that these courses are unlikely to contribute in any way to a violation of the various UN sanctions" against North Korea.

He said a representative of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UN-OOSA) is a permanent observer on the governing board of the institute and its advisory committee, which evaluates and reviews the course curriculum and criterion for the selection of candidates, is also chaired by the director of UN-OOSA.
Tashkent, June 23 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Uzbekistan capital on Thursday to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, that will kick off the process for India's absorption as a member of the grouping.

Modi is also to hold on the sidelines during the day a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that will see both sides discussing India's membership with the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Beijing has stalled India's membership of the NSG on the question of New Delhi not being signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement.

"Arrived in Uzbekistan, I am glad to visit this friendly country once again. I am looking forward to meet with leaders at the SCO Summit," the Prime Minister tweeted.

He posted that Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev was present at the airport to welcome him.

"I am confident that my talks at the SCO Summit will strengthen our bilateral ties with the SCO nations," Modi tweeted on arrival.
Bangkok, June 23 : The Coalition for the Rights of Refugees and Stateless Persons (CRSP) on Thursday urged Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who is on an official visit to Thailand, to recognise the Muslim minority Rohingyas as Myanmarese nationals.

CRSP members read out a statement addressed to Suu Kyi at the Thai Foreign Correspondents Club in Bangkok under police vigilance as journalists were prevented from posing questions.

"I was about to cancel my appearance here. Lots of obstacles were put up, but finally we could hold the conference, even though reporters were not allowed to ask questions," Puttanee Kangkun, the spokesperson for the non-profit Fortify Rights, who attended the event, told EFE news.

The statement also called upon Suu Kyi, who formally occupies the post of foreign minister and state adviser, to revoke the 1982 citizenship law, which struck off Muslim minority group Rohingyas from the list of ethnic minorities.

Suu Kyi arrived in Thailand on Thursday on a three-day visit, during which she will address the issue of immigrants and refugees from her country.

On Friday, Suu Kyi will meet with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, a former military officer who grabbed power in a 2014 coup.

However, the condition of the Rohingyas refugees in Thailand is not expected to feature in the discussions.

To escape discrimination and in search of better opportunities, many Rohingyas undertake dangerous sea voyages, aided by human traffickers, towards Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Berlin, June 23 : Kashmir issue is the major cause of tension between India and Pakistan, the Pakistan Army's media wing chief has said.

Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations Lt.Gen. Asim Bajwa in an interview with Deutsche Welle Urdu on Wednesday said the major cause of tension between India and Pakistan is the long-standing issue of Kashmir and that "India poses a threat to Pakistan".

The Lt. General said that the developments were being made on diplomatic and political forums to engage India.

"But as a military spokesperson, I would like to say that India poses a threat to Pakistan and so our entire defence mechanism in India-specific," Bajwa said.

The army's spokesperson said if only India is inducted in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it will be a cause of "disturbance of the strategic stability in the region, besides being a step towards discrimination."

Pakistan has steadfastly opposed India's membership of the NSG, and has sought to become a member itself.

In a rare interview, Bajwa added, "The world had abandoned Pakistan to handle and face the terrorists in the region alone, and Pakistan has completed the task."
London, June 23 : Britons braved pouring rain and waded through deep water to reach polling stations to vote on whether UK should remain in the European Union. Twitter was flooded with comments on the Remain or Leave vote that is being watched with bated breath the world over.

British Scholar @britishscholar tweeted, reflecting on the gloomy weather and the crucial vote. "Brooding skies over @KingsCollegeLon on a critical day in British and world history. #Brexit"

@baldeguy56 tweeted in favour of an exit vote: "I don't ask much from my followers, but as Patriots that are lovers of freedom & liberty, please pray for the Freedom of Britain today."

Zoomin Moomin, tweeted in favour of Remain in a rhyming vote: "Today's the day Great Britain/ To go a vote IN in this election/ To show that #Brexit bus/ We'll not let them FEXIT UP for all of us! #Remain"

Chilled Bunny, in a philosophical note, posted: "#Brexit - how many people voting today have a clue as to any issues never mind the overall picture of the State in a Union? Democracy eh?"

Nico Yearwood @neeksman, in a similar vein, tweeted: "99% of the people don't know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to this referendum. #Brexit"

"Nigel Mitchell tweeted: "We all know #Brexit is possibly good for the UK and indubitably bad for the world. Wondering what we will wake up to .."

Tonusree Basu, a 31-year old Indian public policy professional living in London, was among those who braved the heavy rain to vote. According to Basu, there was a good turnout at her polling station as it opened at 7 a.m., despite the heavy rain.

She described some of conversations she had with passersby, when campaigning for the Remain in the run up to the voting.

"The mood on the street is rather mixed - it could go either way. It surprised me to see how many people were keenly reading the leaflet and clearly wanted more information to make an informed choice. People from all walks of life - race, gender, age, and professional background - enthusiastically came up to me for "I'm In" stickers.

"But then there were others - a young man who crumpled the leaflet and threw it at me, yet another who expressed disdain at me for being an Indian who supported Remain, rather than leave so we could "throw out the 'bad immigrants'" who take away our jobs. The latter gentleman didn't quite have an answer when I suggested that the jobs might go out the door with the EU, if UK chose to leave," Basu told IANS.

"Vote to remain people of Britain, you can still queue in the EU, don't get left out in the rain #Brexit," John Fagan tweeted.

Gautam Dey, a research scientist at the University College London, another Indian voter, described the mood among scientists in the UK: "The debate has been acrimonious and loud and angry, and the UK is clearly divided and conflicted.

"For scientists thinking about the future of UK science, though, there is no debate. The UK captures a disproportionately large share of EU science funding, far outweighing what it pays into the pot, and UK universities and research centres benefit hugely from the influx of skilled European scientists that live here, work here and contribute to the UK's knowledge economy and its position at the forefront of global scientific research. Ask any scientist in the UK, and the chances are (more than 80 percent, to be precise) that they will unequivocally say, "I'm in"."

"Shall we stay or shall we go?" - Gavin Barker, MP for Truro and Falmouth Constituency, in a blog wrote: "Someone asked me which way I was voting and why. Here is what I wrote:

Hello _______

I am a reluctant Remain voter with my doubts based largely on the points that you make in your email.

In the end I still believe in the spirit and ideal that embodies EU membership - a family of nations born out of the devastation of the second world war whose economic union sought to make war an impossibility, something unthinkable because close economic interdependence in a free trade zone meant everyone had too much to lose. From that emerged a closer social union, a fraternisation and closer understanding and appreciation of the different cultures, nations and peoples that made up the EU.

"...I believe in democracy and much of the Brexit campaign stressing democracy and sovereignty resonates with me - but I do not trust the people leading this campaign and the poison that has infected this campaign makes me shudder.

"In the end I believe the only way forward is to democratise the EU and take out the technocrats. Make the EU parliament much more powerful and embed the principle of subsidiarity that the EU embraces, so that places like Cornwall become autonomous regions in charge of their own transport, energy and healthcare. It can be done but it needs initial investment from the EU itself. Such are my thoughts."
Tashkent, June 23 : After his about an hour-long meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov here on Thursday.

"The next bilateral meeting with President Karimov of Uzbekistan to discuss deeper bilateral cooperation," Modi tweeted with pictures of the ongoing meet.

This is their second bilateral meeting since Modi went to Uzbekistan in July last year during his visit to the five Central Asian countries.

Modi's meeting with Xi was his first engagement after landing at the airport, where he was received by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Modi is here for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. India has an observer status at the grouping.
The first-ever images of the world's cheapest smartphone "Freedom 251." The dual-SIM, 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory ... Image Source: IANS News

The first-ever images of the world's cheapest smartphone "Freedom 251." The dual-SIM, 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory ... Image Source: IANS News

Noida, June 23 : The world's cheapest smartphone at Rs 251 (less than $4) is here, finally. Its makers, the Noida-based startup Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, say they have made it possible despite allegations from various quarters that such a phone would not see the light of the day. Even an FIR was lodged against the company.

According to Ringing Bells' Founder and CEO Mohit Goel -- sitting comfortably in his Sector 62 office here, the company has been able to keep its promise to consumers.

"We are ready with nearly two lakh 'Freedom 251' handsets. We will start delivery from June 30," Goel told IANS, adding that once he is done with this first phase of delivery (of two lakh phones), he will open registration again for those who wish to buy the handset.

The company had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh handsets before June 30. However, it received over seven crore registrations before its payment gateway crashed within three days.

"We learned from our mistakes and decided to go silent till we come out with the product. Now we have a 4-inch, dual-SIM phone ready for delivery. I feel vindicated," he said in one breath.

According to Goel, he is facing a loss of Rs 140-Rs 150 per unit, but hopes to make profit on volumes. "We will have a loss, but I am happy that the dream of connecting rural and poor Indians as part of the 'Digital India' and 'Make in India' initiatives has been fulfilled with 'Freedom 251'," Goel said.

The 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory cards of up to 32GB. No device was, however, given to IANS. Only a photograph was allowed to be taken.

The company has offered an 8MP primary camera with flash, a 3.2MP front camera for selfie and a 1,800 mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop).

The phone is available in two colours -- black and white -- with centrally aligned rear camera and branding on the back panel. It has a speaker just alongside the branding.

The device displays the Indian Tricolour when you switch it on. The company has incorporated all the basic Google apps in the handset.

"Our devices are completely 'Make in India' and were manufactured at our Haridwar-based manufacturing unit. We plan to sell two lakh devices every month," he said.

The company is also planning to launch a 32-inch high-definition LED television -- also called "Freedom" -- in the first week of July.

"These will be the cheapest television sets in India and will be available for less than Rs 10,000. Within two days, the delivery would be made and we will sell them online," Goel said, adding that the company currently has one lakh such pieces in stock.

In comparison, the cost of 32-inch HD LED TV sets normally begins from Rs 13,000.

Ringing Bells launched "Freedom 251" in February in the presence of veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.

It distributed some "prototypes" of the product to the media which turned out to be handsets from another domestic handset maker Adcom.

However, the company maintained that the device had been developed "with immense support" from the government.

"Our humble beginning to provide a high-tech gadget that will benefit all in the hinterland and bridge the huge gap that clearly exists between the metros and semi-urban/rural areas is in keeping with the government's initiatives," Ringing Bells President Ashok Chadha had earlier told IANS.

Doubts were raised over Ringing Bells' handset after some experts said no phone could be manufactured for less than Rs 2,000.

(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
Beijing, June 23 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley interacted with Chinese wealth funds and banks here on Thursday, asking them to consider investing in India, especially in the infrastructure space.

The minister, who is on a five-day visit to China to participate in the first meeting of the board of governors of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on June 25-26, also met Bank of China Chairman Tian Guoli.

His other engagements include during the five day visit include talks with his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27.
Shimla, June 23 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday greeted Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on his 83rd birthday.

"Birthday wishes to Himachal Pradesh CM @virbhadrasingh ji. Praying for his good health and long life," Modi, who is curently in Tashkent for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meet, said in a tweet.

The senior Congress leader celebrated his birthday with special prayers, dancing and the distribution of sweets.

Since early morning, a large number of party activists and well-wishers started pouring into his private residence, Holly Lodge, located in Jakhu hills here.

"I thank you all for the love bestowed by you all. If the people of the state desired, I will love to become the chief minister for the seventh time too," Virbhadra Singh said in his address on the occasion.

Accusing the central BJP government of carrying out political vendetta against him, Virbhadra Singh, who started his political career by entering the Lok Sabha in 1962, said he was not afraid of any inquiry or investigations as the truth would certainly prevail.

He said the ongoing inquiries by the central investigating agencies were being done willingly to malign his image.

The Chief Minister said there might be ideological difference with his political opponents but he didn't have personal difference and animosity with anyone.

A case was registered on September 23 last year by the CBI under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and others after a preliminary inquiry allegedly found that Virbhadra Singh accumulated assets worth Rs 6.03 crore, in his and his family members' names, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Virbhadra was recently questioned by CBI twice in connection with the case.
New Delhi, June 23 : Maldives opposition leader Ahmed Naseem on Thursday sought India's active role in "bringing back the democracy" of his Indian Ocean country "on track".

Naseem, former Foreign Minister in Mohamed Nasheed's government and the United Opposition's leader, sought "more active Indian role in bringing back Maldives' democracy on track" and said that "India can play much bigger role in Maldives."

"It (India) should not allow fatigue to set in," Naseem said here in an interaction at the Observer Research Foundation.

Naseem also accused Maldvies President Abdulla Yameen of "intending to make the Maldives an authoritarian state".

"The only way for the Maldives to return to constitutional government, for freedom to be respected and democracy to be upheld, is through the removal of President Yameen from office", according to an ORF statement.

Naseem said at a time when the Indian Ocean is rapidly emerging as a key focus of international politics and trade, "it is highly deplorable that the Maldives has become dangerous, untrustworthy and a failing state in the midst of it".

He also criticised Yameen's "haphazard" policy of attempting to balance priorities between India and China, saying it is "undesirable, untenable and unwarranted".

Other opposition leaders, including former Minister of Defence and National Security Abdullah Ameen said, "For the safety and security of the region, we look for the support of India to rectify the course of Maldives".

The delegates urged India to support the "hard work of the Maldivians to bring back democracy to the Maldives".
New Delhi, June 23 : Decline in arrival of wheat has also resulted in shortfall in its procurement this season by the official agency Food Corporation of India (FCI), Food ministry sources said here on Thursday even as the government maintains that there "will not be any shortage" of the commodity.

"Last year's procurement of wheat was at about 31 million tonnes, this year there is a marginal decline to 25.6 million tonnes due to low arrival," a ministry source said here, adding bulk procurement is completed generally between April and June.

The domestic production has suffered this year due to drought and long dry spell in several parts of the country.

"However, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) having adequate stock there should not be any shortage," a senior Food Ministry official told IANS.

The government's confidence about no shortage comes from the fact that initially the government had proposed a buffer stock of only 27.7 million tonnes as on July 2016.

In view of the lower procurement, the government has reduced the quantity of wheat to be sold under Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) in 2016-17, the source said.

The government has also meanwhile decided to further extend 25 per cent import duty on wheat to curb inward shipments.

Government sources said private traders have so far imported 5 lakh tonnes of wheat. Australia and France are two principal providers of imported wheat to India this year.

Market estimates say the millers have bought a total 350,000 tonnes of Australian wheat and the remaining 150,000 tonnes came from France.

The central government had first imposed a 10 per cent duty in August 2015 and then increased it to 25 per cent in October last year on the pretext of decline in global prices and adverse impact on domestic growers.

India is otherwise world's second-biggest producer of wheat.
Tashkent, June 23 : Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain on Thursday thanked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for China's support to Pakistan's bid to join the Nuclear Supplier's Group, even as New Delhi urged Beijing to judge its NSG bid on "merit".

Thanking all-weather friend China, Hussain told Xi that "Only granting India the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will shift the balance of power" in the region.

The Hussain-Xi successful meet came prior to that between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit here.

The Indian External Affairs Ministry said that Modi had urged China to "make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit".

China has been stalling India's NSG bid on the grounds that New Delhi was not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But China has been actively lobbying for Pakistan to join the 48-nation NSG -- which regulates global nuclear trade and technology.

During his talks with Xi, Hussain also said that Pakistan and China's friendship had remained firm despite difficulties and trials.

"There exists a strategic partnership between China and Pakistan," he said.

Hussain said that there was no place in Pakistan for the "enemies of China". He also spoke about the $47 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and said that his country was determined to complete the project by its due date.

The meeting in Tashkent comes as the NSG is holding a plenary in Seoul where it is expected to take up India's membership application.
Lucknow, June 23 : A committee of five seers on Thursday submitted to Uttar Pradesh PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav its findings on whether there has been a "Hindu exodus" from Kairana in Shamli district.

The committee, which included the president of the Bharatiya Sant Samiti, Pramod Krishnan and Hindu Mahasabha president, Chakrapani, said it interacted with all sections of society and inferred that a dangerous plot was being hatched to destroy communal harmony in western Uttar Pradesh.

Refusing to elaborate further, the seers said the report was confidential and hoped that the state government would act on it and bring the troublemakers to book.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which alleged that Hindu families were being harassed into leaving their homes in Kairana, said the chief minister should pay heed to the report as it had also inferred that there was large scale migration.

State BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that once the report is with the government, his party expected judicious action on it by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
New Delhi, June 23 : Depressed over the death of their parents a few years ago, two sisters in their 20s committed suicide here, police said on Thursday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Vikramjit Singh told IANS, "We received a call on Wednesday afternoon about the incident. Two sisters committed suicide by hanging themselves from the ceiling fan after locking themselves in a room."

"Both of them might be depressed due to the death of their parents three to four years ago, and it might be one of the reasons for the extreme step," the DCP said.

The deceased have been identified as Seema, 26, and Parul, 20, both residents of Rohini in west Delhi.

Both the women were staying with their elder brother and sister-in-law here.

"Seema used to work as a teacher in a nearby school while Parul was pursuing her studies," the DCP said.

No suicide note has been recovered from the spot, a senior police officer said, adding, "We don't feel any foul play in the incident."

The bodies have been sent for autopsy.
New Delhi/Bhopal, June 23 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a fresh supplementary chargesheet against two accused in Bhopal in connection with a case related to Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, officials said on Thursday.

Two persons - Sanjay Yadav and Sanjeet Yadav - have been named in the chargesheet filed on Wednesday in a Vyapam case relating to cheating by impersonation in Police Constable Recruitment Test 2013 (Second).

The examinations were conducted by Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam) or the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB).

The accused persons were booked on charges of impersonation, cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Madhya Pradesh Recognized Examinations Act 1937.

"The findings are based on the investigation done by the CBI on the basis of evidence," a CBI official said.

The Supreme Court on July 9, 2015, handed over the Vyapam cases to the central agency. At least 48 people linked to the Vyapam scam have died, some mysteriously.

The CBI has till now registered 155 FIRs and seven chargesheets in the Vyapam scam.

The agency registered its first Vyapam case on July 16, 2015.
Kolkata, June 23 : Observing that it was time for the Muslims to move over from their religion-based identity, journalist-turned-author Asim Pada Chakrabarti on Thursday suggested the community actively participate in politics for changing its "pitiable condition".

At the launch of his book "Muslim Quest for Separate Identity: As Reflected Through Bengal Legislature" here, Chakrabarti blamed the political classes' continued bid to treat Muslims as a vote bank for the community's continued status as "back benchers".

"Besides the exploitation by political classes, their decision to not accept English or modern education rendered them to the back benches.

"The continued deprivation and inferiority complex led to a quest for a separate identity for themselves which they eventually found in religion, something which they continue to hold on," he said.

"It is because of this, that despite efforts by governments both at the central and state levels, their condition has continued to be pitiable," he added.

"It's high time the community gets over its religious identity and instead of looking towards government aids, reservation or the likes should actively pursue their welfare. This can be done through active participation in politics, embracing modem education and reforms," said Chakrabarti.

Unveiling the book, West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi too called for the community's welfare.
Samba (Jammu And Kashmir), June 23 : Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday urged India and Pakistan to revive their peace process for the sake of peace in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader made the appeal after joining thousands at the annual Urs at the shrine of revered Sufi saint Baba Chamliyal in Ramgarh sector near the Pakistan border.

Resuming the stalled India-Pakistan reconciliation was imperative to bring about peace in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond, she said.

The Chief Minister also pitched for opening new cross-border meeting points to expand people-to-people contacts between the divided Jammu and Kashmir.

"We are working with the government of India for opening the Suchetgarh-Sialkot, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur and some other roads to expand people-to-people contacts."

She added: "Suchetgarh has the potential of becoming Jammu and Kashmir's Wagah, as was envisioned by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed," her father and predecessor who died in January.

Mehbooba Mufti said in the long run Suchetgarh could become another trading point with Pakistan like Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh.

She said Suchetgarh had been taken up for development as a border tourism destination.

This would involve restoring the old Octroi Post, constructing a multi-purpose hall, developing a water body and landscaping the lawns to enhance the ambience of the place.

Every year devotees from India and Pakistan converge at the border near the sanctum sanctorum to pay their obeisance to Baba Chamliyal, revered by people in both countries.

While Pakistan Rangers offered 'Chaddar' for the shrine, the civil administration of Samba and the Border Security Force handed over 'Shakkar and Sharbat' (holy soil and water) to the Rangers.

Felicitating people on both sides of the border for exhibiting affectionate cultural bonding, the Chief Minister said Chamliyal village would be developed to promote border tourism.

Interacting with the media, she called for highlighting the cultural camaraderie between the people of India and Pakistan.

"If hostilities can become news, why can't such cultural bonhomie?" she asked, adding Chamliyal village could become a hub for India-Pakistan reconciliation.

"I hope our good intentions are reciprocated by our neighbour," she said, adding that people-to-people contacts must be encouraged to end mistrust and create a congenial atmosphere for dialogue.

The Chief Minister said that like siblings locked in endless rivalry, India and Pakistan had bickered for well over six decades.

"Transforming that rivalry into a mature, productive relationship will be difficult but the consequences of continued animosity will be much worse," she said.

And normalising relations would be a boon for business in both countries, she added.

"It may sound simplistic, but building relationships is the key to peace and economic prosperity in the subcontinent."

The Chief Minister offered Chaddar at the shrine of Baba Chamliyal.

Baba Chamliyal, after whom the village is named, lived about 320 years ago. Until 1971, Pakistanis were allowed to come to visit the shrine. That stopped after the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

Since then only a delegation of Pakistan Rangers come and offer a 'Chaddar' and carry back 'Shakkar and Sharbat' from the shrine to devotees in Pakistan.

The festival is also celebrated by devotees for three days at Saidanwali village on the Pakistani side of the zero line.
New Delhi, June 23 : The Central government has identified 10 iconic places for observing international standards of cleanliness under the Prime Minister's flagship 'Swachh Bharat Mission' with the help of the World Bank, officials said here on Thursday.

The government said it is also in the process of drafting standard operating procedures (SOP) to ensure cleanliness and waste management at 10 national parks and tiger reserves.

The 'iconic' places identified are Vaishno Devi (Jammu and Kashmir), Taj Mahal, Agra, Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Kamakhya Temple (Assam), Jagannath Puri(Odisha), Ajmer Sharif Dargah (Rajasthan), Meenakshi Amman Temple (Tamil Nadu), Balaji temple Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Golden Temple, Amritsar (Punjab) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai, (Maharashtra).

"We have selected 10 iconic places where with the technical assistance of the World Bank, we will uphold international standards for cleanliness," Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation, said here.

He said the government had also sought help from international experts and a team of the World Bank officials would visit these places and hold a meeting in the first week of July.

Adding that the state governments are already working towards this, Iyer along with Ajay Narayan Jha, Secretary, Environment and Forest Ministry, told reporters that the initiative will require participation of corporate houses, both private and public, and people.

The officials said the 'Swachh Bharat Mission', the flagship programme of Prime Ministers Narendra Modi, has made "remarkable progress" in the past 18 months and is "very much on track".

The 10 protected areas taken up for special cleanliness drive are Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary (Andhra Pradesh), Gir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park (Gujarat), Kanha Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh), Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve and Flamingo Sanctuary (Maharashtra), Nagarhole Tiger Reserve (Karnataka), Periyar Tiger Reserve (Kerala), Sariska Tiger Reserve (Rajasthan), Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (Tamil Nadu) and Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve (Uttarakhand).

Jha said the locations were decided on the basis of higher annual footfall.
Jerusalem, June 24 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for refusing to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Brussels on Thursday.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) had shown his true face in Brussels," a statement sent from the prime minister's office read on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

"Those who refuse to meet the president and the prime minister for direct negotiations, and those who spread blood libel in the European parliament, are lying when they say their hands are outstretched for peace," the statement read.

Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned down an invitation to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, as the two are currently in Brussels.

The offer was delivered to Abbas by the European Parliament President Martin Schultz, who urged Rivlin several weeks ago to meet with Abbas.

A senior Israeli official told the Ha'aretz daily that Schultz announced Abbas' decline to Rivlin on Thursday, on the last day of latter's visit to the Belgian capital.

The Israeli president spoke in front of the European Parliament on Wednesday. In his speech, he accused the Palestinian Authority of its ineffectiveness to rule the Palestinians and blamed the failure of the peace talks on them.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ended abruptly without results in April 2014, with both sides blaming each other for the talks' failure.

There is growing international pressure to restart the peace process, after nine months of ongoing violence which claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians.

One of the initiatives currently discussed is the French peace initiative, which seeks to hold an international peace conference later this year that aims to resume negotiations between Israeli and the Palestinians.

While the Palestinians support the bid, Israel rejects it, saying the international forum is not the way to reach peace but rather direct negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had stated the forum would allow Palestinians to "avoid" direct talks and set preconditions for negotiations.

Instead, Israeli officials made statements recently alluding to a possible process to be set in motion by regional Arab states, led by Egypt, in accordance with the 2002 Saudi peace initiative.

The 2002 initiative offers full normalization of ties between Israel and Arab states in the region in exchange for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

With that, an upcoming report by the Middle East Quartet (a forum including the US, EU, United Nations and Russia), set to be released soon, is expected to draw harsh criticism on Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, and its Jewish settlements.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip territories, home to more than five million Palestinians, during the 1967 Mideast War. The international community views the Jewish settlements in these lands as illegal.

Israeli leaders charge the ongoing wave of violence is the result of the Palestinian Authority's incitement to violence, whereas the Palestinians charge it is the result of the 49 years of Israeli occupation on lands on which they wish to establish a Palestinian state.
Berlin, June 24 : German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her hope for Britain to remain a part of the EU, hours before the outcome of Britain's European Union(EU) membership referendum.

Europe should discuss the result "together and in calm," said Merkel after meeting with her Austrian counterpart Christian Kern on Thursday in Berlin, Xinhua reported.

Merkel also cautioned against hectic reactions to Britain's EU referendum.

She said the result of Britain's EU referendum would be tabled during the EU summit in Brussels next week.
The Hull area has been named as the top seaside postal area for landlords in England and Wales in terms of offering the best average rental yields.

Research shows that property investors who buy within the Hull postcode area can realise rental yields of up to 10.7% in seaside resorts like Withernsea.

According to the data from online property investment firm LendInvest the next best postal area for landlords is Blackpool. Landlords who invest in property in the town itself can achieve rental yields of 8.2%.

Colwyn Bay North Wales is third with buyers seeing rental yields of 6.1%, followed by Barry in Cardiff at 6%, Caister on Sea near Norwich as 5.7% and then Egremont in Cumbria also at 5.7%.

Next comes Morecambe in Lancashire and Scarborough in Yorkshire, both with average yields of 5.5%, followed by Ramsgate in Kent and Portslade in Brighton both at 5.2%. Then comes Ryde on the Isle of Wight at 5.1%, Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, Bournemouth and Chapel St Leonards all at 5%, and finally Plymouth at 4.9%.

When you think about investing in property in a seaside town, many will immediately think of places like Brighton and Eastbourne. But as our research makes clear, investing in the right Northern seaside towns, for example, could prove a lot more lucrative, said Christian Faes, chief executive officer of LendInvest.

He pointed out that seaside towns often enjoy strong demand from renters, whether thats for yearlong tenancies or for a couple of weeks over the holiday months.

However, its crucial that would-be property investors do their research on the area to gauge just how much demand there is, and what sort of competition they face. Its not enough to rely on the allure of ice cream and sea air, he added.
INFINITY - Beinnale 2016

Biennale - Venice Italy

May 28th thru November 27th 2016

The 15th International Architecture Exhibition

Lorin Industries, Inc. of Muskegon, Michigan is proud to sponsor INFINITY designed by Jennifer Marmon, principal of Platform for Architecture and Research (PAR), with engineering support by ARUP.

INFINITY will be part of TIME SPACE EXISTENCE, an exhibition organized by Global Art Affairs Foundation (GAAF) as part of the 15th Annual Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy to be displayed at Palazzo Mora.

The Exhibit

The TIME SPACE EXISTENCE special exhibition utilizes .080" gauge ClearMatt anodized aluminum provided by Lorin Industries, Inc. The display is comprised of various sized floating discs suspended by a series of steel cables. PAR's goal: "Provide an atmosphere that can be experienced and used in many ways. The extraordinary light structure will reveal a subtle play of light and perception, its reflective forms changing according to the light, water and sky, creating a contemplative environment for visitors to experience. The floating anodized aluminum elements will provide an undulating field for activity where people can come together during celebrations and events at Palazzo Mora."

About Lorin Industries, Inc.

For over 60 years, Lorin Industries has been providing coil-anodized aluminum to markets worldwide. Our global leadership in anodized aluminum finishing within the architectural market continues today through innovation and creativity. Lorin has worked with some of the world's leading architects, designers, and fabricators, creating new and exciting building designs. Whether it is for exterior wall cladding systems, roofing systems, sunscreens, interior panels, or decorative interior applications, the possibilities are infinite. The natural beauty of Lorin's anodized aluminum finishes brings newly constructed and renovated buildings to life, while providing a strong durable surface that will never chip, flake, or peel. So if you are looking for new ideas and designs in metal architecture, come talk to Lorin. At Lorin, we offer infinite possibilities in aluminum finishing solutions.

Visit http://www.lorin.com or call (800) 654-1159 to learn more about Lorin's products and the Biennale 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, Italy.

WESTMET INTERNATIONAL, of Glendora, CA assisted in providing deburring services and contractor support.

ClearMatt is a registered trademark of Lorin Industries, Inc.

Press Contacts:

Steven Soderberg,

Corporate Marketing Manager

Lorin Industries, Inc.

1.231.722.1631 stevensoderberg(at)lorin(dot)com
We cant imagine being better positioned for the future, and the decision to scale our business in Indianapolis is a huge part of our competitive advantage.

Sigstr, an email signature marketing platform, announced today its aggressive growth plans and $1M in EDGE tax credits from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC). Sigstr, which grew from 1 to 20 employees in the last 12 months, plans to hire over 100 knowledge workers over the next five years. The company plans on aggressively expanding operations to support the growing team and market opportunity. Sigstr, launched out of Indianapolis-based venture studio High Alpha, is located on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis.

The Sigstr team is incredibly grateful to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) for supporting our growth in such a significant way, said Dan Hanrahan, Founder and CEO of Sigstr. Employee email represents a tremendous, and largely untapped, opportunity for marketers, and we are just getting started unlocking that potential. We cant imagine being better positioned for the future, and the decision to scale our business in Indianapolis is a huge part of our competitive advantage.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered Sigstr up to $1M in conditional tax credits based on the company's job creation plans. These incentives are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives.

Sigstr has continued to experience tremendous growth over the past year. The company now serves over 175 customers and has built a team of 20+ professionals, dedicated to helping marketers leverage the power of employee email. In accordance with its projected growth, Sigstr is continuing to aggressively hire top-level talent to support all functions of the business. For more information on open positions, visit: http://www.sigstr.com/company.

About Sigstr:

Sigstr powers smart marketing through email signatures. Its SaaS product drives brand compliance and unlocks the marketing potential of employee email signatures. Sigstr customers include: Return Path, Teradata, Angies List, and Delta Faucet. With Sigstr, every employee email includes a consistently branded email signature, and marketers can easily update signature campaigns to drive awareness and engagement for key events, case studies, product updates, news, and job opportunities. Sigstr is a High Alpha portfolio company. For more information: http://www.sigstr.com.
Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites Denver Downtown

Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton and Homewood Suites Denver Downtown Convention Center welcomes fans of Sting & Peter Gabriel to their concert at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday, July 12th, 2016. Sting & Peter Gabriel announced their joint Rock Paper Scissors Tour this year with several stops around the U.S., including a stop in Denver this July. Fans of the duo should consider staying the night in downtown Denver after the concert this July at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton and Homewood Suites Denver Downtown Convention Center, located just eight minutes from the Pepsi Center.

For more information, please visit http://www.altitudetickets.com/event/sting-and-peter-gabriel-4786/.

At Hampton Inn & Suites, each guest room welcomes travelers with great amenities including free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel, complimentary daily breakfast buffet, 24-hour fitness center and business center, premium in-room movie channels and much more. The hotel offers guests a choice between king and queen rooms as well as accessible rooms, based upon availability.

For more information or to make reservations for the Hampton Inn & Suites Denver Downtown Convention Center, guests may call (303) 534-7800 or visit http://www.hamptoninndenver.com.

At Homewood Suites, all guests check in to comfortable suites with plenty of room. Each suite includes a kitchenette, complete with a full-size refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, stove and utensils. Suites also feature a welcoming dining area, inviting king-size bed and much more. High-speed Wi-Fi and breakfast are complimentary. Mountain View and accessible rooms are available upon request, based on availability. This hotel offers a Welcome Home reception, Monday through Thursday nights, with complimentary small plates and alcohol; guests must be of legal drinking age. For more information or to make reservations for the Homewood Suites Denver Downtown Convention Center, guests may call (303) 534-7800 or visit http://www.thedenverhomewood.com.

Both the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Denver Downtown Convention Center and the Homewood Suites Denver Downtown Convention Center are proudly managed by Stonebridge Companies in Denver, Colo.

Founded in 1991 by Navin C. Dimond, Stonebridge Companies is a privately owned, innovative hotel owner, operator and developer headquartered near Denver. This diverse listing of properties includes select-service, extended-stay, mid-scale and full-service hotels in markets throughout the U.S. For detailed information, visit the website at http://www.sbcos.com.
Two of the leading plastic surgeons in Washington, D.C., Dr. Paul G. Ruff IV and Dr. Michael T. Somenek, welcome a new physician to West End Plastic Surgery.

West End Plastic Surgery (http://www.westendplasticsurgery.com), formerly called Ruff Plastic Surgery, recently welcomed anti-aging specialist Dr. Eva Pickler to the practice that includes Dr. Paul G. Ruff IV and Dr. Michael T. Somenek, 2 of the leading plastic surgeons in Washington, D.C.

"The addition of Dr. Pickler reflects our commitment to offering progressive medical care through a holistic approach," Dr. Ruff says. "Her focus on advanced anti-aging treatments for both women and men is an ideal fit with the philosophy of improving the quality of our patients' lives."

Dr. Pickler brings years of experience as a healthcare and hormone replacement therapy specialist, and she is certified in anti-aging and regenerative medicine by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Additionally, she is currently working to obtain her advanced endocrinology certification through the academy and the University of South Florida.

"I am so happy to have the opportunity to join the type of practice Dr. Ruff and Dr. Somenek have created," Dr. Pickler says. "I believe my knowledge of anti-aging medicine really fits in with the practice's philosophy of helping women and men live healthier, happier lives."

Dr. Pickler's arrival is one of the reasons Dr. Ruff decided to change the name of the practice. Dr. Ruff, who is one of the leading body contouring and breast augmentation surgeons on the East Coast, returned home to Washington, D.C. in 2001 to establish a solo plastic surgery practice. In 2014, he brought on Dr. Somenek as a specialist in facial plastic surgery.

Now, with the addition of Dr. Pickler, the team has created the comprehensive approach to patient care he envisioned, Dr. Ruff says, which is better reflected in the name West End Plastic Surgery.

"We are truly a team," he says, "rather than individual specialists who happen to practice in the same office. We share similar values and an approach to medicine that emphasizes compassion and the belief that we can help enhance our patients' lives."

Dr. Somenek is a facial plastic surgeon certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology. He completed fellowship training in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery under 2 world-renowned surgeons. His expertise in revision rhinoplasty attracts patients to the Washington, D.C. practice because it requires technical skills that many facial plastic surgeons don't possess.

Dr. Pickler specializes in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as well as other treatments designed to optimize a person's health, such as nutritional adjustments, lifestyle changes, and disease prevention habits.

"Our team, including the physicians and medical and office staff, share a vision of patient-focused care and giving back to the community," Dr. Ruff says. "That's very important to us."

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Washington, D.C.'s West End Plastic Surgery (http://www.westendplasticsurgery.com) (formerly Ruff Plastic Surgery) was established in 2001 by board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Paul G. Ruff IV. Dr. Ruff received his undergraduate degree at Georgetown University and medical degree at Eastern Virginia Medical school. He then pursued postgraduate training in general surgery and critical care at Washington Hospital Center and plastic surgery at the University of California, San Diego. In 2014, Dr. Ruff was joined in practice by facial plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Somenek, who performs specialized reconstructive and cosmetic procedures of the face. Dr. Eva Pickler, who specializes in anti-aging medicine and hormone replacement, joined the practice in 2016. West End Plastic Surgery offers a wide range of cosmetic procedures for the face, breasts, and body, as well as numerous nonsurgical treatments including BOTOX Cosmetic and filler injections, laser and energy treatments, and skincare services.
Brazil and Latin America are growing investment targets for many of our clients who have been frustrated by a dearth of available information on the property markets there

Real Capital Analytics (RCA), the leading global provider of capital markets data for commercial real estate, announces that it has made a minority investment in SiiLA  a recently launched information platform for the commercial real estate industry in Brazil with plans for further expansion throughout Latin America. In conjunction, RCA has also entered into a long-term license agreement with SiiLA to provide its clients with significantly enhanced transactional data for Brazil.

Brazil and Latin America are growing investment targets for many of our clients who have been frustrated by a dearth of available information on the property markets there, said Robert White, Jr., founder and president of RCA. SiiLA is a first class platform, which combined with a strong local research team, is facilitating a new level of transparency for these markets and we are very pleased to be a part of that.

In Brazil, SiiLA already has tremendous traction with many of the largest international players in commercial real estate and we expect this to continue as the platform expands throughout Latin America, said Giancarlo Nicastro, CEO of SiiLA Brasil. This deal is a significant milestone for SiiLA. We are thrilled to be joining forces with RCA, the undisputed leader in independent global capital markets research for the commercial real estate industry.

About Real Capital Analytics, Inc.

Real Capital Analytics, Inc. (RCA) is the authority on the deals, the players and the trends that drive the commercial real estate investment markets. Covering all markets globally, RCA delivers timely and reliable data with unique insight into market participants, pricing and capital flows. The most active investors, lenders and advisors depend on RCAs market intelligence to formulate strategy and to source, underwrite and execute deals. An industry pioneer since 2000, RCA has offices in New York, San Jose, London and Singapore. For more information, visit: http://www.rcanalytics.com

About SiiLA

SiiLA Investors, LLC (dba SiiLA) is a research and analytics firm based in Dallas, Texas that operates a data platform for the commercial real estate industry in Latin America. SiiLA subscribers have access to property listings, real estate news, building records, lease and sale transaction data, capital markets information, market statistics, interactive maps, fund data, and a network of real estate professionals. SiiLA launched its first product offering in Brazil (SiiLA Brasil) in October 2015 and will launch in other major countries of Latin America in 2017. For more information, visit: http://www.siila.com


As part of our ongoing commitment to our clients and our community, we continue to search out and attract top tier talent with experience in the financial services marketplace.

Atlas Private Wealth Management (Atlas), a registered investment advisory firm headquartered in North Adams, Massachusetts, announced today that it has hired three new financial services industry veterans across its offices in Vermont, New York and Massachusetts. The recent additions to the advisory team deepen Atlas bench strength in investment management and tax and retirement planning, further solidifying the firms position in the greater New York and New England regions. With a combination of nearly 40 years of experience, the trio will help the firm deliver on its commitment to bring Wall Street experience to Main Street by providing access to sound financial advice to individuals, families, businesses and nonprofit organizations.

As part of our ongoing commitment to our clients and our community, we continue to search out and attract top tier talent with experience in the financial services marketplace. The three newest additions to the Atlas team help us to expand our suite of wealth management services and to increase our capacity to provide community-based financial education throughout our region and across the country, said Gregory Britton, President and CEO of Atlas Private Wealth Management.

Christopher J. Aiello, JD, CTFA has joined Atlas as a Vice President and Wealth Management Advisor in the Manchester Center, Vermont office. Prior to this position, Mr. Aiello held positions at several other financial services institutions, including TD Bank, Wells Fargo Private Bank, Ayco Company, L.P., a Goldman Sachs Company and Price Waterhouse Coopers, a multinational professional services network. With over twenty years serving clients in the areas of investment management, tax, trust, estate and retirement planning, I am committed to helping people pursue their financial goals, said Mr. Aiello.

Brendan Walsh is a Senior Tax and Financial Planning Advisor in the Albany, New York office. Mr. Walsh has over 16 years of experience working with clients in the areas of tax compliance and financial planning. Brendan received his MBA from the University of Albany and is an IRS Enrolled Agent. As an active member of my community, I look forward to being part of the Atlas mission to help individuals and families build a better future for themselves and their loved ones, said Mr. Walsh.

Joseph Kroboth is an Associate Advisor in the North Adams, Massachusetts office. Mr. Kroboth started his career in the financial services industry over twenty years ago working with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, First Albany Corporation and First Union Securities. Prior to joining Atlas Private Wealth Management, Mr. Kroboth spent over a decade helping to manage County Concrete Corp, a family-owned business, through a buyout of a major competitor. In addition to helping coordinate the buyout, Mr. Kroboth also helped to integrate the ready-mix assets that were sold to the Old Castle family of companies. I am excited to combine my unique experience of running a successful family-owned business with the Atlas Wealth Management Platform, which is designed to help address specific financial planning and investment issues facing individuals, families and small business owners who lack the time to manage the financial aspects of their business and personal lives, said Mr. Kroboth.

From more information, please contact Natalie Wheeler by phone at (800) 432-7447 or via email at nwheeler@atlaspwm.com.

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About Atlas Private Wealth Management

Atlas Private Wealth Management is a fee-based investment advisory firm that provides services for individuals, families, businesses and nonprofit organizations. Atlas is a SEC registered investment advisor. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of Atlas by the SEC nor does it indicate that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Atlas manages nearly $1 billion of assets for over 1700 clients throughout the United States.
PMO Advisory Logo Todays projects are increasingly more complex and fluid... Scrum and other agile methods enable organizations to tackle these environmental challenges, deliver superior solutions and provide business value quicker.

Ninety-four percent of all organizations practice some form of Agile, and Scrum is one of the most popular method of Agile because 86.9% of Agile Scrum users observe increased profits. The focus of Scrum is on value-driven delivery helps Scrum teams deliver results as early in the project as possible. Moreover, managing changes is easier through the use of short, iterative product development cycles and frequent interaction between customers and Scrum teams. These benefits have fueled Scrums rapid growth. From an individual perspective, Agile Scrum project managers earn 23% higher compensation according to Indeeds salary data.

PMO Advisory is a leader in project management consulting and training, and it is launching a series of Scrum training courses and workshops in partnership with SCRUMstudy. These courses are designed for professionals wishing to improve their project performance and to achieve Scrum Master Certified (SMC) certification. Specifically, PMO Advisory will introduce two courses in the Summer 2016:

1) Scrum Essential  a half day virtual course that provides an overview of Scrum framework and tools, and

2) Scrum Master Certified (SMC)  a 2-day in person bootcamp in New York City or Northern New Jersey.

Furthermore, PMO Advisory is offering a complimentary webinar titled Unravelling the Secrets of Scrum in 30 Minutes; on Friday, June 24th, sign-up at our website: http://www.pmoadvisory.com/Scrum.

Todays projects are increasingly more complex and fluid, states Prof. Te Wu, CEO of PMO Advisory. Scrum and other agile methods enable organizations to tackle these environmental challenges, deliver superior solutions and provide business value quicker. Scrum certifications can be invaluable for project professionals as a vast majority of projects today adopt some forms or characteristics of Scrum.

About SCRUMStudy

SCRUMStudy is a leader in Scrum training and certification and has enabled more than 325,000 professionals in delivering successful Agile projects. Its certifications are globally recognized and hugely popular. With more than 5,000 students certified as Scrum Masters each month, PMO Advisory is proud to partner with SCRUMStudy to provide the right training courses and tools to ensure you achieve your professional goals.

About PMO Advisory LLC

PMO Advisory is a socially minded management advisory and training firm with expertise in business and IT execution, serving as a resource to help enable ideas for organizations. PMO Advisory helps transform business ideas, plans, objectives and vision into reality using a proven, customizable consulting approach. The firms advisory team is expert in portfolio, program and project leadership, process improvement, and business transformation. As a training company, the firm is striving to be the most comprehensive project management training firm in the world offering certification training in Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP, CAPM, PRINCE2, and MSP), Risk (PMI-RMP), Agile (PMI-ACP, SMC, SPOC, SAMC), Service Management (ITIL Series), and Project Management Office (PMO) training. For more information, visit PMO Advisory on the web at http://www.pmoadvisory.com.
Mint Design encompasses the intersection of all three to ensure that each project truly catapults our clients to a new level of success on their branding and marketing journeys

Clients in Raleigh can now access web design services from the powerhouse boutique development and branding agency that has served Asheville and beyond since 2012. No other agency offers this innovative mix of artistic talent and technological expertise. Working with both local and national brands, Mint Design Companys team of engineers, artists, and strategists offer creative and effective customized web design to the Raleigh area.

We know that effective web design is about more than just aesthetics, more than just functional code, and more than just strategic branding: Mint Design encompasses the intersection of all three to ensure that each project truly catapults our clients to a new level of success on their branding and marketing journeys, states Brendan Martin, Partner and Strategist.

Demand for the teams creativity, strategic know-how, and technical skills has continued to thrive, prompting the companys constant growth and recent expansion to Raleigh. Mint Design Company offers creative web design, tailored to each clients specific branding goals. The team crafts websites that work across all devices, implementing highly engaging interactivity, animation and custom per-project functionality, while bringing a handcrafted, beautiful aesthetic and a streamlined user experience to all work.

According to Founding Partner Japhia Olson, I truly love crafting beautiful brand experiences that engage users, make a real difference and add art and beauty to the digital world. As a designer and developer with a lifetime involved in the arts and over 15 years programming I strive to create a company that adds value and brings joy to my clients and their clientele and am thrilled that our company can now offer this to the Raleigh area.

Partners Olson, Martin and the team and have worked with satisfied clients including: Sprint, Walmart, Whirlpool, Hilton Hotels, New York's Back to Nature, FleaHex and more.

About Mint Design Company:

Mint Design Company is a boutique development and branding shop powered by a passionate team of agile engineers, artists and strategists. Located in Asheville, Mint Design has brought its unique aesthetic, UX strategy, and technological expertise to serve local and national clients. By successfully melding art and technology, partners Japhia Olson and Brendan Martin create unforgettable digital experiences with specialties in marketing, design, responsive web development, UX strategy, branding, package design, HTML5 game development, and advertising. Visit http://mintdesigncompany.com/raleigh-web-design for more information,
Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) has just been approved as the exclusive University System of Georgia (USG) school to offer a Bachelor of Business Administration through the eMajor program beginning Spring 2017.

A partnership with USG public institutions, eMajor provides quality, affordable, high-demand post-secondary degrees and credentials that address the workplace needs of Georgia and beyond. The eMajor program is supported by the USGs eCampus service unit, which also supports the states eCore program. Most eMajor degrees are offered in collaboration between multiple USG institutions. The BBA eMajor at Georgia Southwestern, however, is one of only two programs to be offered exclusively from one school.

We are pleased and excited to have been selected as the USG institution to provide the eMajor for the Bachelor of Business Administration, said Liz Wilson, Ph.D., School of Business Administration dean. GSW is uniquely placed to offer the accounting, human resource management, management and marketing degrees as we have been offering online business degrees for longer than most schools in the USG and are AACSB accredited.

The BBA degree program is ideal for students who wish to take advantage of online courses and for working professionals, military members, transfer students and returning students seeking alternative routes to degree completion. Additionally, through GSWs Prior Learning Assessment program, students are able to earn credits for prior learning and reduce the time it takes them to graduate. Ultimately, students can earn the same degree in management, marketing, accounting or human resource management as traditional, on-campus students

Being the designated provider of the BBA degree through the eCampus initiative speaks to Georgia Southwestern State Universitys longstanding commitment to providing flexibility, affordability and quality, which have all been longstanding hallmarks of our business degree programs, said Charles Patterson, Ph.D., GSW Interim President.

"eCampus is very fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with GSW and the School of Business Administration said Jason Huett, Ph.D., associate dean of USG eCampus. This partnership will expand the reach of their AACSB accredited business programs to many more learners in Georgia and beyond. Working with the GSW faculty, staff, and leadership, it was obvious that they are student-focused, have high-quality BBA programs, and possess a keen understanding of traditional and nontraditional student audiences. Combine that with their years of experience designing, developing, and teaching these programs online, and you have enormous potential to meet students where they are and to help advance a broad range of career goals.

As a leader in distance learning instruction, all GSW School of Business faculty have experience teaching online classes. Moreover, nearly all GSW online courses are taught by permanent faculty.

Our students will find a price point for the degree that is amazingly attractive for an AACSB accredited program and will be excited to have professors who are part of the GSW faculty family teaching them, said Wilson. Over 90% of our online courses are taught by full-time GSW faculty.

This is GSWs second eMajor. Through a collaboration with Dalton State College in 2015, GSW also offers a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice. The USG eMajor initiative launched in Fall 2012. eMajor programs exist to provide high quality online undergraduate degrees to Georgia learners.

The new BBA through eMajor is set to launch at GSW in the Spring of 2017. Additional information regarding the University System of Georgias eMajor program can be found at emajor.usg.edu. For information regarding online offerings in the School of Business at GSW, please visit https://gsw.edu/SOBA/ExternalPrograms, or contact Shannon Perry at Shannon.perry(at)gsw(dot)edu or 478-304-1491. For additional information about eMajor, visit https://emajor.usg.edu.

-GSW-

Georgia Southwestern State University, located in Americus, GA, is a public, four-year University of the University System of Georgia with nearly 3,000 students. Georgia Southwestern offers professional programs of study and degrees in the arts, education, humanities, nursing, sciences, and graduate programs in business, computer science, education, English, and nursing. Founded in 1906, Georgia Southwestern is recognized as one of the best value small colleges in the nation. Visit http://www.gsw.edu for more information.
A collection of precious jade jewelry and ceremonial items in hues as varied as the colors of a spring forest lead Gianguan Auctions June 25th sale. The color story extends throughout an exceptional collection of Chinese ceramics with glazes of Famille-rose, copper-red, cobalt and celadon. Classic scroll paintings, both muted and bold, by ancient and modern market leaders wrap up the annual summer auction.

Certificates of Gem Identification authenticate the natural color of many of the jade items. Among these is a peapod pendant adorned with a praying mantis to symbolize hard work and good luck. It is Lot 64, valued at $1,500-$2,000. Also independently vetted is the apple-green jadeite pendant depicting an elder scholar under pine tree with fowl. Both are symbols of long life and prosperity. It is Lot 37, valued at $6,000-$15,000. The GIA has authenticated the natural, uncarved jade boulder at Lot 193. Two inches tall and weighing 278 grams, it is set to go off at $1,000-$2,000.

The days marquee item is a pair of white jade quail boxes just two inches tall and of the Qing Dynasty. Symbols of harmony and peace, the figures display distinctive beaks, highly articulated wings and webbed feet. The box cover is formed of the upper part of the birds; the bottom by their lower bodies. The pair is Lot 122 and has a pre-sale estimate of $40,000-$60,000.

Also Qing is a rare pair of celadon green jade Mughal style vases with covers. The tall baluster form vessels with ruyi handles are carved in low relief with dragon and phoenix amid scroll sprays. The pair is Lot 109 and will command as much as $30,000. Meanwhile, Lot 90, a greenish-white jade vase with cover, also Mughal style, but hexagonal in form with scrolling handles, takes the podium at Lot 90. The pair is valued at $6,000-$8,000.

An extensive collection of jade jewelry - bracelets, necklaces, pendants and earrings - opens the sale. Highlights include Lot 1, a shell shaped pendant of icy white estimated at $600-$800. Lot 20 is a 17th century rope-twist bangle of hetian white jade valued at $1,500-$2,000. Lot 26 is a jadeite band with a saddle top of vivid emerald green color and high translucency. It is $800-$1,500.

Several items couple jadeite with precious stones and metals. Jadeite earrings in the shape of leaves with rose-cut diamonds mounted in 14 carat gold, positioned at Lot 29, is an exceptional buy at about $3,000.

Meanwhile, the shades of jade stone add drama to several important dragon seals. Black jade is used for a Ming seal surmounted by crouching dragons. The surface of its square base is inscribed Longqin Huangdi Zhibao. It is Lot 191, weighing five pounds and valued at upwards of $20,000. Spinach green jade enlivens an Imperial seal with recumbent coiled dragons. Its base is carved with the Xiaozhuan and Manchu script, and four Zhuawen characters: Wei Yao Ze Zhi. This is Lot 210, expected to make $30,000. Also, an archaistic seal of celadon jade with brown inclusions is topped by a single coiled dragon. Weighing two-and-half pounds, it is Lot 172, valued at $6,000-$10,000.

Mindful of Chinas long pre-occupation with jade, two archaistic properties need mentioning. The first is a Western Zhou dragon carrying a mythical beast as a libation zun. Of mottled yellowish and brown jade, it is Lot 123, valued at $6,000-$8,000. A Large neolithic ceremonial jade blade with green jade punctuated by black areas presents a stirring image. It is Lot 254, $5,000 or more.

Chinese artisans, ever aware of the inherent forms within raw materials, have been able to bring forth wondrous carvings such as Lot 137, a pair of wood carved dragons on cresting waves upholding an imperial seal. The Ming forms, 22 3/4 inches in length, are expected to fetch as much as $5,000.

Porcelains come to the podium in many forms and glazes, many of them rare and important. The catalog cover, for instance, features an 18th century Qing masterwork of form and color unlike any that has come to the podium in recent times. Experts at China Institute in New York have stated that porcelains of the period are notable for the perfection of their bodies and the opaque overglaze enamels that embellished them. Lot 190 is a prime example. The graceful globular form with slender neck is glazed in a vibrant yellow that is consistent and even overall. Were that not sufficient, it is further decorated with carvings of two dragons contesting a pearl among ruyi clouds and flames. A key fret band encircles the mouth and a turbulent wave encircles the foot. Of the Imperial kiln, it is of period and bears the Qianlong four character relief mark. Standing 13-inch tall, the vase is conservatively valued at $300,000-$500,000.

Subtle and stunning, Lot 194 is a numbered Junyao rose-red basin with boss reliefs made exclusively for use of the Southern Song Royal court and similar to one collected by the Shanghai Museum. The inner surface is of signature sky blue with earth worm motifs running freely. The brown glazed bottom has the Chinese numeral Wu (five).The basin is expected to hit $200,000.

Lot 174, also of the Southern Song, is a rare Guanyao bottle vase with a crackle glaze of golden beige in a web of translucent threads below the surface. Its opening bid is $150,000. At a more modest level is Lot 231, a blue and white ewer painted with phoenix and topped with lid in the shape of phoenix head. It will reach $30,000 or more.

Lot 203, a reverse painted, copper-red brush washer with ten lobes outlined in white. The white five-clawed dragon at the washers center chases flaming pearl amidst clouds. Of the Ming Dynasty, it has the Xuande six-character, double circles mark. Of the period it will go for between $80,000 and $150,000.

Featured among the famille-rose items is Lot 136, a Qing Dynasty 9-peach vase. Its globular body is decorated with peaches on leafy gnarled branches, all on a white ground. Of the period and bearing the Qianlong Six Character mark, its hammer price will exceed $30,000. An excellent entry level famille-rose set is Lot 107, a a pair of Qing bowls painted with birds among flowering branches. Of the period and bearing the Yongzheng Six-Character mark, the pair will go off at $3,000 or more.

The collection of Chinese paintings include abstracts, landscapes and portraits by market favorites. In Lot 77, for instance, Herd in the Wind Reed, estimated at $60,000-$80,000, Wu Guanzhong interprets wildly rushing wind through bold splashes of color that nearly obliterate the migrating animals represented by curved splashes of black.

In contrast, Qi Gong gives collectors Lotus in Summer, is a dynamically balanced painting the focuses the viewers eye on a dark floral base before drawing it upward to a red bud that is but a tease before the pay-off of fully blossomed lotus of deepest hue. Dated 1992, the work is inscribed and signed Qi Gong and bears two artist seals. It is Lot 25, $10,000-$20,000.

Lot 104, Solitary Trail, an allegory for the human journey is a powerful image delivered in delicate brush strokes. A rangy tree, tall and with slender limbs unadorned by leaves, is set off from a forest of similar trees. Their is merely the hint of a mountain in the background, created by a sparseness of strokes that leave much to the imagination. By the Ming Dynasty painter Shen Zhou, the ink-on-paper is inscribed and signed. It has two artist seals, nine collectors seals, a frontispiece by Tang Yefin, and colophon by Yao Yuanzhi. Its estimate, $100,000-$150,000.

Li Keran, who often approaches his subjects with whimsy, provides a well rendered classic landscape for a simple water buffalo herder to contemplate in Admiring Mountain View, Lot 48, dated 1984. Bidding on the signed ink-and-color on paper with one artist seal begins at $120,000. In a remarkable display of technique and perspective Springtime in the South evokes the wonder of sailing vessels by a seaside town caught the wind shadow of a majestic mountain. The catalog estimate is $30,000-$50,000.

From the hand of Zhang Daqian, the prolific twentieth century master, comes Lot 147 Maiden, a full length portrait in blue, white and red. Bidding begins at $40,000. Lot 256, a 1953 abstraction in tones of orange and green entitled Golden Landscape, makes the masters work accessible at $6,000-$8,000.

In the eye of Qi Baishi, less is more as evidenced by Lot 76 Playful Fish, a clever study in movement, aptly catalogued at $10,000-$20,000. Meanwhile, Lin Fengmans Birds and Flowers, Lot 81, depicting two mynah amidst branches and bright green leaves is a delight. Signed with one artist seal is $15,000-$20,000.

For a comprehensive look at all the items in Gianguan Auctions June 25th sale, please visit http://www.gianguanauctions.com and download the catalog.

Previews begin on Friday, June 17 and extend through Friday, June 24. The auction on Saturday, June 25 begins at 10:00 a.m. It will be conducted live at Gianguan Auctions, 39 W. 56th Street, NYC and on the internet. For condition reports, please contact the Gallery Director at 212-867-7288 or email info(at)gianguanauctions(dot)com.
"I am proud to be associated with this group of extraordinarily talented women who are true leaders in our industry," --Linda C. Mack

Linda C. Mack, Founder and President of Mack International, LLC, has been named one of the 50 most influential women in private wealth by Private Asset Management Magazine (PAM).

For the second year, PAM--a highly respected publication in the wealth management industry, has compiled peer nominations and the views of an editorial panel to collate the top 50 most influential women. This year a record number of nominations were made. Decisions were predicated upon the individuals level of responsibility at her firm, her impact in the private wealth arena, and contributions made through publishing, speaking and mentoring. A frequent guest speaker at family office and wealth management conferences, Linda Mack is considered a thought leader in the industry. She is quoted in numerous publications and co-authored a white paper on The Missing Link. Women aspiring to join the wealth management industry describe Linda as genuinely helpful and inspiring. According to Linda, the privilege of mentoring others is, one of the most satisfying aspects of my role as a successful entrepreneur.

PAMs announcement read, Mack is undoubtedly considered a leader in the industry; she is a frequent speaker at family office and wealth management conferences and leads closed door family sessions on a broad range of strategic topics. Over the past 14 years, she has built Mack International into one of the most specialized boutique executive search and strategic human capital consulting firms in the U.S.

I am proud to be associated with this group of extraordinarily talented women who are true leaders in our industry, said Linda.

Linda Mack credits her affiliation as a top influential woman to her relentless dedications to serving her clients: This past year we have been taking on unique assignments such as six-plus generation families and their inherent complexity, along with cutting edge leadership assignments.

This year PAM emphasized socially responsible investing, digital advice and philanthropy: We are crossing into new territory with the topic of social impact where investments are made with the intention of generating social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.

In fact, Linda was invited to be a member of an advisory group at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge last year for the Impact Investing Strategy for the Next Generation program.

We try to stay at the forefront of what is happening in the industry, says Linda. The more we immerse ourselves in the hot topics, trends and transitions being faced by family offices, the more effectively we can provide the highest level of excellence to our clients.

About Mack International

Mack International is the premier, boutique retained executive search and strategic management/human capital consulting firm serving national and international clients in the family office, family business enterprise and the wealth management industries on national and international basis. Founded in 2002, the firm has achieved an exceptional track record of success as evidenced by its unmatched industry expertise, in-depth market knowledge and unparalleled track record of success. Founder and President, Linda C. Mack has established proprietary methodologies such as the Mack 360 and is credited for having coined the term expert generalist in the industry.
VChain Solutions, Inc., an Austin-based educational firm will debut their new disruptive technology named ProActive at the SCtechshow in Chicago July 19 through 22nd. ProActive is a Global Simulation Learning platform that enables users to experience day-to-day operations in a company as a planner, buyer, or inventory control analyst. The technology is a first of its kind platform that enables schools or companies to simulate a realistic business operation that includes supply chain disruptions.

The technology has been piloted by schools such as University of Texas at Austin, Hutson-Tillotson University, Palo Alto College, Austin Independent School District and many more. According to Sandler Research, VChain Solutions has joined the ranks of 13 other companies in the world with the capability of global simulation learning. This is the first time this technology has become available to supply chain organizations and schools. The International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA) teamed up with VChain Solutions to bring this new technology to the SCTechShow.

Simulation learning enables users to learn faster and retain more information than traditional training. ProActive made history seven months ago when it hosted the first simulation connecting China, Malaysia, Pakistan, and United States together in a global simulation learning experience. The technology platform is so robust that it can simulate any type of business operation. A grocery store supply chain will be the theme at the SCTechShow. Students will learn team building skills, negotiations skills, and decision-making skills.

Global Simulation Learning is new and exciting for students and professionals. Spectators at the Austin Business Simulation Expo were on the edge of their seats watching the live competition. It will be exciting to see the competition energy of a global audience at the SCTechShow, stated the President of VChain Solutions, James P. Vinson

The SCTechShow will be held in downtown Chicago at Navy Pier July 19-22nd. Companies registering for the event may elect to send attendees to the event or select our remote participation option. Registration is free of students and educators. Signup at the link below:

Register for Simulation

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-iscea-supply-chain-technology-sctech-conference-expo-tickets-15702646037

ABOUT US

VChain Solutions is an Austin-Based Educational firm with disruptive vision of making driving the supply chain as easy as driving a car. The company was founded in 2005 in San Francisco by president, James Vinson. The company eventually moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas where co-founder Bar Bruhis joined the operation. The firms philosophy is to train users to detect and solve problems before they become business disruptions. Thats the ProActive way. VChain Solutions is an equal opportunity employer that is driven by vision, diversity, honesty, and loyalty.

About the 2016 SCTECH

The 2016 SCTECH is an annual gathering of supply chain, operations, engineering, and financial professionals coming together to share cutting edge technologies and best practices focusing on efficiency and profitability. For more information, visit the 2016 SCTECH website at http://www.SCTechShow.com.

Contact:

James Vinson, James(at)vchainsolutions(dot)com, 512-822-6793
It is remarkable to take a step back and see the measurable impact our members make in our community in one year.

The Junior League of Boston, an all-women, volunteer-led organization serving greater Boston, will award the 2016 Community Assistance Grants at their Annual Meeting on June 16th. Recipients include the Food Project and Girls Leap, both second-year grant recipients, with the roster of new recipients including the Center for Young Womens Health at Childrens Hospital, Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, Rosies Place and Womens Lunch Place.

The Junior League of Boston focuses our community impact on the wellness of girls. Each grant recipient has made a crucial contribution to advancing and empowering girls and young women in greater Boston over the past year, said Valerie Pontiff, President of the Junior League of Boston. We are proud to be able to provide financial support to enable these wonderful organizations to further the cause we all hold dear - empowering the girls and women who will be the leaders of tomorrow.

The Junior League of Boston also announced the completion of the largest in-kind donation the organization has made in many years. Through the 45th Anniversary Decorators Show House, the Junior League and its 25 designer partners contributed more than $300,000 in in-kind and direct financial support toward the renovation of the Nathaniel Allen House in West Newton. This National Historic Register property was a stop on the Underground Railroad and the first co-educational school in the United States. The property had fallen into disrepair, and through the work of Show House, received a new kitchen and a complete interior restoration of the first and second floors of the main house. The property will enter fall of 2016 as arts and culture space for adults and children in greater Boston.

The Junior League has transformed an important historic property and brought it back to life, said Setti Warren, Mayor of the City of Newton. The professionalism and depth of talent the Junior League brought to this regional gem is unparalleled and deeply appreciated.

Junior League of Boston builds the skills and confidence of girls through member developed curricula, which include leadership training, arts, physical activity and healthy eating. Thousands of hours of volunteer time and a substantial financial commitment toward the programs positively impact the lives of girls in the greater Boston community. Schools and partners who help the Junior League of Boston reach the girls include: Boston Renaissance Charter School for both the JL Boston Arts and Kids in the Kitchen programs, Blue Hill Boys and Girls Club for the Leader Within program, Youth Villages Germaine Lawrence campus for both the Amigas and Run Club programs, West End House Boys and Girls Club and Boys and Girls Club of Charlestown for the Learning Circles program, Salesian Boys and Girls Club for the Kids in the Kitchen and Leader Within programs, Excel Academy for JL Boston Arts at Junior League of Boston Headquarters program. Dress for Success and Strong Women Strong Girls are two additional strategic partners.

It is remarkable to take a step back and see the measurable impact our members make in our community in one year, said Molly Fazio, Director of Community Service. We are grateful for the opportunity and look forward to continue the expansion of our community outreach.

Community Service programming was expanded in 2016 thanks to the Trip Advisor Foundation which provided a $24,700 grant that enabled the expansion of both Leader Within and JL Boston Arts programs.

Junior League members bring so much talent, compassion and authenticity to their support of the non-profit landscape in greater Boston, says Patricia A. Parcellin, CEO of Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts and the keynote speaker at the Junior Leagues 2016 Annual Meeting. Our shared commitment to helping girls and women reach their full potential is a strong foundation for our wonderful partnership and will make a real difference in the lives of the girls we serve.

The 1,000 members of the Junior League provide exceptional direct service to the girls of greater Boston through their 19 community service programs, and elevate regional non-profits through the leadership of established Junior League members. As the Junior League prepares for the 2016-2017 year, the organization anticipates additional growth in membership community service programming. The Junior League is an unparalleled platform for innovative community solutions. Together we are catalysts for lasting community change and through strategic partnerships we continue to positively impact the greater Boston community, says Pamela Lynch, who will serve as President of the Junior League of Boston beginning July 1, 2016.
The Advocate of Affordable College Blog At the Advocate, we'll publish articles from experts, advocates, and educators on important community college issues such as: funding, marketing, readiness, enrollment, retention, and transfer.

The Affordable College Public Benefit Corporation today announced the launch of a new blog. The editorial mission of The Advocate of Affordable College blog is to find new ways to help even more community college students afford and attain a bachelor's degree.

Sean O'Brien, Founder at Affordable College, said, Were a public benefit corporation with a mission to help more community college students afford and attain a bachelors degree. Were educators and entrepreneurs dedicated to assuring affordable paths to success for low-income learners  many of whom are increasingly choosing not to enroll in college. Weve launched The Advocate of Affordable College blog to be a trusted source of information  helping potential students discover the most affordable path toward their goal of a bachelors degree, and connecting Community Colleges and Universities in mutually beneficial partnerships via our Transfer Student Marketplace.

Greg Jarboe, the editor of The Advocate of Affordable College blog, said, Launching a blog is easy enough. But launching a high-quality blog that is trusted, provides substantial value, and is recognized as an authoritative source when mentioned by name requires great content and great commitment from everyone involved. We want to create the latter.

Jarboe added, To reach this goal, we will publish articles that are written by experts, advocates, educators, and students who know the topic well; cover the topics driven by the genuine interests of readers of this site; provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis; describe both sides of a story; are edited well; provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic; and contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious.

For example, some of the initial posts on The Advocate of Affordable College blog are entitled, Community College Revenue Sources Are Shifting as Pew Charts Show, Community College Funding Sources: State Cuts Impact Affordability, Community College Enrollment Statistics are Grim and Grimmer, and Americas Best Community Colleges to be Identified Again in August.

About The Affordable College Public Benefit Corporation

The Affordable College Public Benefit Corporation is a B Corp founded to help more community college students afford and attain a bachelors degree by bringing together community colleges and universities in a Transfer Student Marketplace. Affordable Colleges platform provides community colleges with a no cost solution that increases readiness, enrollment, retention, and transfer while also generating a new, self-sustaining funding stream. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/24mFafp

For more information, contact:

Sean OBrien

Affordable College

sean(at)affordablecollege(dot)org

954-661-5353
A powerful partnership. Ive seen first hand how the CVO process can double a business almost over night

We chose to partner with Digital Marketer because their digital marketing systems have doubled the size of our business. We hope to carry on their mission and pay it forward, said Mark Marcellett, CEO of 7 Figure Automation.

We are delighted to have 7 Figure Automation as a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, said Ryan Deiss, CEO of Digital Marketer. With skilled and dedicated partners like 7 Figure Automation, we are confident that well achieve our goal of doubling the size of 10,000 businesses ahead of schedule.

As a Digital Marketer Certified Partner 7 Figure Automation has been trained, tested and certified on Digital Marketers globally praised Customer Value Optimization (CVO) process. This coupled with the businesss already impressive list of specialties enables 7 Figure Automation to lower customer acquisition costs while increasing immediate customer value for their clients.

Ive seen first hand how the CVO process can double a business almost over night and were excited have 9 members of the 7 Figure Automation team trained and certified to deliver this amazing process to new and existing clients, said Mark Marcelletti.

For more on 7 Figure Automation or to find out if they can help your business grow using the Customer Value Optimization process, visit: http://7figureautomation.com/

About 7 Figure Automation:

7 Figure Automation is an Infusionsoft marketing agency based in Los Angeles, CA. They use search engines, display ads, social media and email marketing to help small businesses create unstoppable growth for small businesses in North America.

About Digital Marketer:

Digital Marketer is a marketing research and training company based in Austin, TX with a mission of doubling the size of 10,000 small businesses in 5 years or less. With over 400,000 subscribers from across the globe, brands and businesses, both large and small, rely on Digital Marketer to stay on the leading edge of whats actually working in modern marketing and business growth.
Our partnership with InDemand will continue to ensure that all of our members have access to primary health care, regardless of culture or primary language, or insurance status.

InDemand Interpreting, a language services improvement company and video remote interpreting (VRI) provider within Healthcare, is pleased to announce a partnership with the Washington Association of Community & Migrant Health Centers (WACMHC), a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of the low-income, uninsured and underserved populations of Washington State served by community health centers.

WACMHC represents more than 26 Community Health Centers that provide comprehensive services including medical, dental, behavioral health care, nutrition, social services, counseling, health education, WIC, Maternity Support Services, transportation assistance and other essential services to patients in rural and urban areas throughout Washington. WACMHC provides its members with cost effective access to quality products that support the mission of Americas Health Centers and works to leverage their collective buying power for better pricing.

Through its partnership with InDemand, the organization will now be able to offer video remote interpreting (VRI) to its members, providing immediate access to interpreters 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in more than 200 spoken languages in addition to American Sign Language (ASL). The innovative technology enables clinicians and staff to use interpreters via a live, high definition web-based video conference that supports language access across the entire care continuum.

We are committed to providing our members with access to quality products and services at preferential prices, said WACMHC Director of Operations and Special Projects Abigail Blue. Our partnership with InDemand will continue to ensure that all of our members have access to primary health care, regardless of culture or primary language, or insurance status.

InDemand is honored to partner with the Washington Association of Community and Migrant Health Centers so that every individual throughout Washington State has access to the highest quality health care available, said InDemand Interpreting Chairman and CEO Cecil Kost.

About InDemand Interpreting

InDemand Interpreting was founded in 2007 with the vision of ensuring that every patient receives the highest quality healthcare, regardless of language, cultural background or disability. By delivering the most experienced medical interpreters and highest quality video technology InDemand Interpreting provides doctors, nurses and clinicians the language access they need to provide the best possible care. Visit InDemand at http://www.indemandinterpreting.com

About the Washington Association of Community & Migrant Health Centers (WACMHC)

The Washington Association of Community & Migrant Health Centers (WACMHC) is a non-profit organization, formed in 1985, to advocate on behalf of the low-income, uninsured, and underserved populations of Washington State served by community health centers. These health centers serve low income and other persons with limited access to health care. For more information, contact 360.786.9722 or visit http://www.wacmhc.org/.
Yolanda Hermosillo Fagen

Sterling Administration is proud to announce that Yolanda Hermosillo Fagen has joined the team as Director of Sales, serving Spanish-speaking employer groups nationwide.

Yolanda has over 20 years of experience in service-based businesses including human resources, insurance, higher education and financial software. A leader in the professional community, she is a board member and membership chair of the Northern California Human Resources Association, as well as co-founder and board member of the Bay Area Cooperate Education Alliance. Yolanda is also a member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Cora Tellez, Sterling President and CEO, says, I am very pleased to welcome Yolanda to the Sterling family. With Yolandas leadership, we believe Sterling will be better able to respond in an effective way to the needs of our clients who may prefer to communicate in Spanish regarding our products and services.

About Sterling Administration

Sterling Administration is an independent administrator for HSAs, HRAs, FSAs, POPs and COBRA. Additionally, Sterling offers expert compliance services for ERISA Wrap, Form 5500 Filing, non-discrimination testing, and requirements under the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA); it also offers an online benefits enrollment platform in English and Spanish.

Sterling was named a national Best Place to Work by Business Insurance Magazine in 2014. Sterlings office culture promotes health and wellness, reinforced by daily walks and stretching, led by CEO Cora Tellez. Sterling is based in Oakland, California with remote staff nationwide. Visit Sterling online at http://www.sterlingadministration.com.
"Mike is a unique talent in electronic discovery, said Talin Andonians, Discovia's COO.

Discovia, a leading global provider of eDiscovery services to corporations, law firms and government entities, today announced that Mike Schubert, a 14-year veteran of the eDiscovery services industry, has joined the companys senior leadership team as Vice President of Client Solutions, based in Phoenix, AZ.

I am very excited to join Discovia during this period of rapid growth, said Schubert. Our ability to maximize automation of our delivery system and support our staff and clients with productivity-based technology and information systems will be key to our continued success.

Schubert is an expert in electronic discovery operations, technology, workflow design, and software development. In his new role, he will work closely with Discovias Chief Operating Officer, Talin Andonians, and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Bruce Hartley, to optimize the companys scale and productivity as it continues record revenue growth for the third consecutive year.

Mike is a unique talent in electronic discovery, said Andonians. He has a track record of success in both the services and application development segments of our industry. We are counting on him to help us take our operations and technology platforms to an even higher level of performance.

Prior to joining Discovia, Schubert held senior operations, client services, and technology development positions with Bowne Business Solutions, Encore Discovery Solutions, Epiq Systems, and IPRO Tech. He holds an undergraduate degree in information technology and business from Marquette University.

About Discovia

Discovia provides electronic discovery services to corporations and law firms engaged in litigation, ITC investigations, and internal and regulatory investigations, including HSR Second Requests. Services include onsite and remote data collections, data minimization, data processing and hosting, expert application of leading technology-assisted review tools, document review management, and document productions. Discovia is one of the only eDiscovery services providers to achieve ISO 27001 certification and HIPAA/HITECH compliance for data security according to third-party auditors. Discovia is the first to publish its accuracy rate  99.7 percent, and typically achieves data culling rates of 95 percent for repeat clients. Discovia is the first eDiscovery services firm to deliver a fixed-price managed services solution, enabling corporate legal departments and law firms to gain a world-class eDiscovery function with complete cost predictability. More information is available at (415) 392-2900 or http://www.discovia.com.
The OpRisk Awards recognizes excellence in operational risk management in the financial sector and rewards exceptional companies that have demonstrated innovative thinking and have provided solutions to effectively address operational risk management challenges faced by the global financial industry.

Operational Risk is considered the leading journal for operational risk professionals in financial services institutions worldwide. In print for over a decade, the magazine equips heads of operational risk and operational risk managers with information about cutting edge approaches to modeling, mitigating and managing risks. Operational Risk is part of the Risk.net family of magazines, digital information services, events and training.

Mark Pengelly, Risk Management Editor of Risk.net, said: Patterns of fraud are often hidden under a deluge of seemingly innocent transactions or interaction data. This year, our judges chose to honor Customer XPs' Clari5 for its role in addressing this issue by interpreting patterns and links in disparate data sets to identify activities ranging from banking enterprise fraud to anti-money laundering.

Rivi Varghese, Founder & CEO, CustomerXPs added, In todays world of financial crime, finding the smoking gun is not enough; industry and regulators now require that we either catch the blazing gun or disable it before the deed. This is what Clari5 does as an extreme real-time cross channel, cross pollinated enterprise fraud management product. CustomerXPs receiving the OpRisk Best Fraud Detection Product award is a strong industry validation that advanced anti-fraud detection and prevention technologies such as Clari5 help global financial institutions stay future-proofed.

CustomerXPs' Clari5 Enterprise Financial Crime Management (EFCM) solution combats sophisticated fraud and money laundering with real-time, actionable insights. It monitors suspicious activities in real-time, and takes the right decision at the right time as opposed to end-of-day reporting and analysis. Clari5 EFCM is designed to meet the fraud detection, investigation, prevention, monitoring compliance and audit needs of banks.

Clari5 is a highly-scalable enterprise fraud and compliance solution with a capability suited to enterprise-wide deployment for global financial institutions. It uses advanced statistical and analytical techniques to identify patterns of unusual and suspicious behaviours hidden deep within a banks data. The product provides a single view of customers and their known associates across an organizations entire portfolio of products and brands. Clari5's differentiated approach deploys a 'central nervous system' in banks with the ability to stop fraudulent transactions with real-time, actionable insights.

About CustomerXPs

CustomerXPs is an enterprise software product company offering Enterprise Financial Crime Management, Anti-money Laundering and Customer Experience Management products for Tier-1 global banks. CustomerXPs flagship anti-fraud product Clari5 is revolutionizing Fraud Management and Customer Experience Management in Fortune 500 banks by harnessing the power of extreme real-time intelligence. http://www.customerxps.com
Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA), the world's leading legal search firm, today announced the purchase of all rights to three analytical reports: the Law Department Cost Benchmarking Reports, the Law Department Compensation Reports, and the Talent Benchmarking Custom Reports from General Counsel Metrics LLC. General Counsel Metrics has conducted these industry-leading compensation and benchmarking surveys since 2010.

Since 2014, Major, Lindsey & Africa has collaborated with General Counsel Metrics to conduct what has become the largest law department benchmarking survey in the world, collecting spending, staffing and compensation data from more than 5,000 law departments. Supplementing the compensation information is salary data gathered from Major, Lindsey & Africas nearly 300 in-house placements made every year. With more than 30 years of experience recruiting in the legal market, Major, Lindsey & Africa is uniquely positioned to analyze and present these metrics in a meaningful way to its clients.

With this purchase, Major, Lindsey & Africa becomes the owner of the largest database of law department metrics currently compiled, said Simon Robinson, president of Major, Lindsey & Africa. We will use this data to provide our clients with insightful and actionable information to better manage their law departments and demonstrate value to their organizations.

Having the ability to benchmark ones law department in critical staffing and spending areas and to identify trends over a period of several years are huge benefits to companies seeking to innovate, lead and improve, said Miriam Frank, vice president and global head of client services for Major, Lindsey & Africa.

As a worldwide organization providing search and consultative services to law departments of all sizes, Major, Lindsey & Africa is committed to helping its clients achieve maximum efficiency within their legal functions. This purchase significantly expands the firms capabilities. Major, Lindsey & Africa will continue to produce yearly benchmarking reports and the biennial compensation report.

About Major, Lindsey & Africa

Founded in 1982, Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA) is the world's largest and most experienced legal search firm. Combining local market knowledge and a global recruiting network, MLA has earned recognition for its track record of successful General Counsel, Corporate Counsel, Partner, Associate and Law Firm Management placements. MLA also provides law firms and companies with highly specialized legal professionals on project, interim and temporary-to-permanent hire basis. With offices worldwide, MLA recruiters are dedicated to understanding and meeting client and candidate needs while maintaining the highest degree of professionalism and confidentiality. MLA considers every search a diversity search and has been committed to diversity in the law since its inception. To learn more about MLA, visit mlaglobal.com.
Thermablok Aerogel Strips are easy to apply We hope now architects, contractors and other building industry professionals will learn more about Thermablok aerogel technology and its benefits over standard fiberglass insulation, said Lahnie Johnson, president and founder.

Thermablok Inc., a NASA Spinoff listed company, is a winner in the 2016 Money-Saving Product competition sponsored by Buildings Media. Thermablok is featured in the 2016 Money-Saving Product-Envelope Enhancements section of the publication. Finalists were evaluated by the BUILDINGS editorial staff for the money-saving qualities they offer to building owners and facility managers in areas such as energy efficiency, water savings, and maintenance.

BUILDINGS Media serves more than 74,000 commercial building owners and facility managers in North America. Its magazine, newsletters and website provide information that helps subscribers and users make smarter decisions about managing, operating and renovating their facilities.

It is estimated that as much as 50% of the energy we consume in the U.S. is used to control the temperature in buildings. Of that, the major percentage escapes through walls and windows in a process termed THERMAL BRIDGING. This has always been a significant known problem. Until the introduction of NASA technology AEROGEL, there has never been any insulation that could go between a metal stud and the drywall or outside sheeting that would not compress during installation, thus losing its insulation properties.

NASA technology AEROGEL is not only the highest insulating material known, but also has the least amount of compressibility of any known insulation. It is used in the most extreme thermal environments, space suits, the Mars missions, space shuttles, the Star Catcher mission, and clothing now used on Mount Everest expeditions.

Adding just one THERMABLOK AEROGEL STRIP approx. 0.25" x 1.5", to only one side of each stud can increase the R value of a wall (regardless of insulation in the cavity) by an amazing 30 to 40% (DOE Oak Ridge laboratory test).

Used by the military, NASA, Apple, Google, Stantec, Siemens, Kiewit, Turner, Clark to name a few; this is without question THE ultimate breakthrough in insulation technology. Considered revolutionary, Thermablok Aerogel Strips are featured in NASA Space Shuttle Enterprise Exhibit at the popular Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.

Were proud to have Thermablok Aerogel Strips chosen as a winner in the 2016 Money-Saving Product competition sponsored by Buildings Media. Its great for people to see how entrepreneurs can take a technology and innovate it into something that can help people have a better quality of life and save them money, Lahnie Johnson, president and founder said.

We hope now architects, contractors and other building industry professionals will learn more about aerogel technology and its benefits over standard fiberglass insulation, and that Thermablok will become a new standard in green design and construction for preventing energy from leaking out of the building envelope," Johnson concluded.

Even in small home applications research indicates that using Thermablok Aerogel Strips can provide energy savings of up to approx. $746 per yr. (in an average home of 2400 ft. and a reduction of 3.9 tons of CO2 emissions). Relative to tax incentives/energy costs one could recover the entire cost in two to three years.

The aerogel insulation in Thermablok is extremely different in that:



It is the least compressible insulation known

It is the lowest thermal conductivity known at 015W/m-K (R-value 10.3 per inch)

As much as 98% is air

Class A Fire Rated. Extreme temperature capable

Naturally hydrophobic, air flow breathable

Non-mold

No physical changes with age

Ultra light weight = low shipping

100% recyclable

Easy install

Environmentally safe (unlike other insulations)

Made and patented in USA

Leed credits

Leed Silver C2C rated

0 ozone depleting potential

Fully compliant with RoHS & REACH

Also available in blanket form

It may also be used in many other applications including radiant flooring, concrete slab separation, underground concrete and water pipe insulation and literally hundreds of other applications as the material is hydrophobic.

Metal buildings can have a significant energy efficiency increase with Thermablok Aerogel Strips in the wall and the metal roofing. Using Acoustiblok sound insulation with Thermablok resolves many high temperature noise problems ie; exhaust systems, hot pipe noise, and industrial noise.

About Thermablok "Aerogel Energy Conservation":

Thermablok Inc. is owned by Tampa entrepreneur Lahnie Johnson, who is also the president and founder of Acoustiblok Inc., a leading soundproofing manufacturer and seller. After extensive research and testing, Johnson, a veteran of the aerospace industry himself, developed Thermablok Aerogel Strips to combat the significant problem known as thermal bridging.

Made in the USA, aerogel-based Thermablok is 100 percent recyclable, impervious to moisture and mold, and unaffected by age. Green, energy-conscious architects and builders are currently incorporating this new NASA aerogel technology into energy conservation and CO2 emissions reduction.

NASA named Thermablok aerogel insulating material to its prestigious "Spinoff" list of companies that have successfully adapted NASA technology to everyday products and made them available to consumers.

Just one, 1/4-inch x 1-inch (10mm x 38mm) strip of Thermablok Aerogel insulation applied to the edge of each stud before hanging drywall breaks the conductive "thermal bridging" and can increase the overall wall R-factor by more than 30 to 40 percent (US Department of Energy/JM Laboratories). Thermablok is most often used in construction as a preventative measure against thermal bridging. For more information: http://www.thermablok.com.
The partnership between Biggs and I began in the spirit of independence 20 years ago and nothing has changed.

June 25th marks the 20th year anniversary of Jay Z's critically acclaimed debut album, "Reasonable Doubt". To commemorate, Roc-A Fella Records co-founder Kareem Biggs Burke launches his new clothing line, Fourth of November and the "Reasonable Doubt" collection, a collaboration with Jay Z. Both will be unveiled on June 24th, at the concept shop APT. 4B.

For the 20th Year Anniversary, I told Jay I wanted to do something special that would capture the enthusiasm of our fans. Our collaborative effort is a play on the NEW classic that pays tribute not only to our 20 years in music, but the platform we built together. It was important to create a consumer experience that introduces the "Reasonable Doubt" collection to a newer audience, says Biggs.

After spending years behind the scenes building Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear, I'm ready to open a new chapter in my career, through my new clothing line Fourth of November. I want to celebrate coming back into music and fashion, while showing the impact "Reasonable Doubt" still has on the world today.

Jay Z states, The partnership between Biggs and I began in the spirit of independence 20 years ago and nothing has changed. For the pop up shop series, we're working directly with store owners, supporting entrepreneurship in our communities. The shops bring to life the inspiration behind "Reasonable Doubt"; the fan and respecting the culture.

Produced by Anel Pla, the "Reasonable Doubt" pop up shop will be redesigned to give consumers a reminiscent feel and insider look of Jay-Z's old apartment, which was also Apt. 4B, outside of Marcy Projects. It will be styled in 90s decor displaying rare Reasonable Doubt photography by Jonathan Mannion with a store front window installation of an old vintage record shop.

Pieces to debut from the "Reasonable Doubt" collaboration include an array of t-shirts, hats, Reasonable Doubt cassettes, posters and more. Exclusive denim items from Fourth of Novembers SS16 and Pre-Fall16 lines will also be available for purchase.

The invitation-only preview party on June 24th, will kick off the celebration. Guests will be greeted by the sounds of DJ Frazen while being served curated cocktails by D'USSE. A lucky few will get their hands on the limited edition New Era x Fourth of November x Reasonable Doubt 20th Year Anniversary denim caps and more. On June 25th, the public will enjoy the official opening with a unique Sip and Shop experience provided by Just Water. Best of all, shoppers will enjoy a special DJ line up spinning "Reasonable Doubt and other Roc-A-Fella tribute sets, while capturing all the fun with Metroclick's customized interactive photo booth.

Located at 517 North Fairfax Ave., the month long "Reasonable Doubt" Pop-Up will be open Mon-Sat.from 11am-7pm and Sun. 12pm-6pm. This is the first of several highly anticipated nation-wide celebrations to roll out through the year. It is not to be missed!

About Reasonable Doubt Album:

Reasonable Doubt is the debut album by American rapper Jay-Z. It was released on June 25, 2016, 1996, by Roc-A-Fella Records and Priority Records. The album features production provided by DJ Premier, Ski, Knobody, and Clark Kent, as well as includes guest appearances from Memphis Bleek, Mary J. Blige and The Notorious B.I.G. Reasonable Doubt was certified platinum. It has been ranked on several publications' lists of the greatest rap albums ever. For more information please visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/reasonable-doubt/id268633751

About Fourth of November:

Fourth of November is the marriage of art, love and design established in Brooklyn, NY. The brand strives to produce garments that embody the love for jean-making as well as traditional American fashion. Each and every Fourth of November denim jean is first hand washed then sent for duplication. Fourth of November uses original Italian indigo dyed yarns to create cloth, Japanese hand washes, and American workman's heritage. By combining it all together it produces one blue jean with the synergy of all the original cultures.

For more information please visit http://fourthofnovember.com

About Apartment 4B:

APT 4B is the brainchild of creative partners Moonshine and Monique Carmen. The APT.4B Concept Shop was created to illustrate APT.4B's brand vision and message. It was rooms and scenes like the APT.4B window installation that gave birth to street art, hip-hop, and street fashion. Proof that out of these negative environments came positive and timeless ideas. APT 4B Brand is aimed at paying homage to era that spoke to us, the 90's.For more information please visit http://apt4b.us

About D'USSE Cognac:

D'USSE [dew-say] is a bold new expression of Cognac that dares the palate like never before. Born from the prestigious Chateau de Cognac, France, D'USSE blends over 200 years of tradition with the inspiration of a passionate Cellar Master who set out to create his own legacy. The D'USSE Cognac range consists of VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale) and XO (Extra Old) qualities. For more information please visit http://www.DUSSE.com ENJOY RESPONSIBLY.

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Whether literature surveillance, compliance or signal detection and management, our platform of eHealth and Safety & Regulatory Solutions is helping to evolve the industry by leveraging technology for enhanced quality and safety.

Bioclinica, a specialty clinical trials technology and services provider, today announced the expansion of its extensive Safety & Regulatory Solutions portfolio by introducing three new software products to manage every stage in the pharmacovigilance process. The solutions make it possible for pharma and biotech companies to see both the big picture and the details to satisfy safety and regulatory requirements. The new applications include:



LitTrace: A singular application that brings visibility to the literature surveillance and monitoring continuum;

PVTrace: A quality, productivity and compliance tracking product that brings transparency to the entire pharmacovigilance process; and

SigTrace: A one-source solution to complex signaling, including signal management and archiving.

Each product is a one-source application that contributes to a fully integrated solution where an organization can turn for information to manage all key aspects of the pharmacovigilance process, said Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the eHealth - Safety & Regulatory Solutions division, Sankesh Abbhi.

The first of the applications, LitTrace, combines all literature surveillance activities into one validated application for quick and easy access to consolidated safety related literature within a central repository. The solution has the capability to generate E2B XML files of the case/literature hit, which can be uploaded to the safety database. Reports on identified issues and compliance can be generated for any time period, helping teams keep apprised of ICSRs and aggregate reporting hits. Vice president of Global Client Relations, Ramprasad Govindarajan, MD, who led the team in creation of the application, explained, Most in the industry must rely on various databases and tools to monitor and share information. As an alternative, we created a one-of-a-kind technology-enabled solution for an easier and more efficient way to stay on top of compliance without fear of missing relevant articles. LitTrace is adaptable to any literature search engine, including Embase, MEDLINE and PubMed, and allows customized report generation to suit MAH requirements.

The second application, PVTrace, shares the same core functionality as the system Bioclinica uses on pharmacovigilance projects conducted for its own clients. Day-to-day activities of PV and tracking can be especially challenging. PVTrace is a simple and smart solution, making everything from graphs and other outputs far easier than manual methods, Dr. Govindarajan remarked. Among the key features found in PVTrace are team-wide tracking of outputs, performance per day, and priority listing. No other application combines the ability to track quality and reporting timelines in a single solution. Whether an organization handles pharmacovigilance internally or externally, it provides insight as to how resources are performing across the entire process. This automatic feedback loop facilitates continuous improvement and aids in identifying areas of targeted retraining.

The third new application, SigTrace, is focused on signal management processes and procedures. Signal detection requires high-end monitoring, Dr. Govindarajan explained. Be it quantitative or qualitative, SigTrace, shifts the focus to medical analysis where there is tremendous value. The application is pre-coded to detect the frequency of new signals at fixed intervals. SigTrace supports complete signal management with in-application gathering, identification, analysis and management of these signals. All signal related documents, validated information from the safety database, and decision trees used in report generation are captured in a unified database.

These three new applications, together with Bioclinicas industry-leading Safety & Regulatory Solutions offerings, form a complete enterprise safety and regulatory information platform with global consulting services available from Bioclinicas eHealth Solutions team. With these new products, pharmacovigilance information is reliable and always accessible, Abbhi said. Whether literature surveillance, compliance or signal detection and management, our platform of eHealth and Safety & Regulatory Solutions is helping to evolve the industry by leveraging technology for enhanced quality and safety. To kick-off the trio of new products Bioclinica will be conducting demonstrations in its exhibit at the DIA Annual Meeting on June 26-30. Visit the event webpage at http://www.Bioclinica.com/DIA to learn more.

About Bioclinica

Bioclinica is a specialty services provider that utilizes expertise and technology to create clarity in the clinical trial process. Bioclinica is organized by three business segments to deliver focused service supporting multifaceted technologies. The Medical Imaging and Biomarkers segment provides medical imaging and cardiac safety services and includes a molecular marker laboratory. The eHealth Solutions segment comprises the eClinical Solutions platform; Clinverse Financial Lifecycle Solutions; Safety and Regulatory Solutions; Strategic Consulting Services; App xChange Alliances; and eHealth Cloud Services. Under the Global Clinical Research segment, Bioclinica offers a network of research sites, patient recruitment-retention services, and a post-approval research division. The Company serves more than 400 pharmaceutical, biotechnology and device organizations  including all of the top 20  through a network of offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Learn more at http://www.bioclinica.com.

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We are thrilled to partner with the most trusted name in mobility to sell and service this outstanding product line.

BraunAbility, the leading global manufacturer of wheelchair accessible vehicles and wheelchair lifts, is expanding its presence in Canada through a partnership with The Humberview Group, one of the largest automotive retail networks in Ontario. BraunAbility will become the 18th brand represented by Humberview across 28 dealerships in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Ontario.

We are very excited to welcome the people of Humberview to the BraunAbility family, said Robert Desmarais, BraunAbility Vice President of Dealer Development and Demand Analytics. Together, we will assure that wheelchair users in GTA enjoy the extraordinary vehicle ownership experience that has been a cornerstone for both Humberview and BraunAbility over the last 50 years.

The new Humberview Mobility store at 1900 Victoria Park Avenue in Toronto will showcase BraunAbilitys industry-leading lineup of wheelchair accessible vehicles, inclusive of Chrysler, Toyota and Honda minivans as well as the Ford Explorer MXV, the first-ever SUV made accessible to wheelchair users.

We are thrilled to partner with the most trusted name in mobility to sell and service this outstanding product line," said Brian Bone, CFO/COO of Humberview Group, adding that additional locations across greater Toronto will be established at a later date. We are fully staffed with trained mobility specialists and certified BraunAbility service technicians to guarantee a personalized, professional customer experience."

Conveniently located near the Highway 401 and Don Valley Parkway interchange, Humberview Mobility customers will experience market-leading vehicle choice backed by skilled, BraunAbility-certified sales and service professionals.

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About BraunAbility

BraunAbility is the worlds leading manufacturer of wheelchair accessible vehicles and wheelchair lifts in the mobility industry. Founded nearly 50 years ago by Ralph Braun, the corporation was built on the age-old adage Necessity is the mother of invention. Ralph Braun was a young man who used a wheelchair and who had no reliable transportation to and from his workplace. He built his first wheelchair accessible vehicle in 1972, and since then, the company has grown into the most trusted and experienced name in the mobility industry, bringing independence to hundreds of thousands of individuals across the world. To learn more, visit http://www.braunability.com.

About Humberview

The Humberveiw Group is one of the largest automotive retail networks in Ontario with 28 franchised dealerships in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond, representing 17 of the global auto industrys premier brands. Founded in 1971 by Stewart Esplen as a single dealership, Humberview grew steadily over the last 45 years, building to a network of locations that together offer unparalleled vehicle selection and customer service across the seventh largest metro area in North America. Humberview is a committed supporter of numerable GTA organizations and charities and was honored in 2015 as the Dealership Employer of Choice by Canadian AutoWorld magazine. To learn more, visit http://www.humberviewgroup.com/
Will a 30 percent discount encourage low-income families to buy and eat more fruits and vegetables? A new article from Abt Associates published in the latest online edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows it will.

Abt researchers Lauren Olsho, Jacob Klerman and Susan Bartlett, along with co-author Parke Wilde of Tufts University, describe their findings in Financial incentives increase fruit and vegetable intake among SNAP participants: a randomized controlled trial of the USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot.

Researchers have long argued that price is a barrier to fruit and vegetable intake.

The Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) was the largest and most rigorous test of the impact of reducing the price barrier, said lead author Lauren Olsho, Ph.D.

Over 14 months, the team assessed a financial incentive offered through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Hampden County, Mass. SNAP is the nations largest source of nutrition assistance for vulnerable children and families. Through a randomized controlled trial, considered to be the gold standard in scientific research, SNAP participants in 7,500 households could buy fruits and vegetables at participating retailers and receive a 30 percent rebate via their SNAP electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card. Participants could choose their fruits and vegetables, whether canned, fresh, frozen or dried, and could also choose to purchase them at any participating retailer, from a local corner store to a farmers market to a large grocery chain.

Among the studys key findings are:



The incentive significantly increased fruit and vegetable intake among SNAP participants by a quarter cup per day (about half a serving);

The incentive closed about 20 percent of the gap in recommended daily fruit and vegetable intake;

The incentive was associated with a decrease in consumption of refined grains; and

The incentive improved participants overall dietary quality.

When it comes to nutrition, small changes really do matter, especially for vulnerable populations, said Olsho. A half a serving might not sound like much, but every day these incremental changes add up, and you see a greater impact on health.

The study confirmed that when given a financial incentive, and the liberty to choose where and how to spend their benefits, low-income Americans will buy and eat fruits and vegetables.

The HIP study was authorized by Congress through the 2008 Farm Bill and Abt led the work on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS).

Read more at: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/06/22/ajcn.115.129320.abstract.

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About Abt Associates

Abt Associates is a mission-driven, global leader in research, evaluation and program implementation in the fields of health, social and environmental policy, and international development. Known for its rigorous approach to solving complex challenges, Abt Associates is regularly ranked as one of the top 20 global research firms and one of the top 40 international development innovators. The company has multiple offices in the U.S. and program offices in more than 40 countries. http://www.abtassociates.com
North American Title Insurance Company As attorneys, our commitment to continuing education must be the highest priority, and enrollment in this program will enhance our agents professional skills and their ability to take their agency and legal practice to the next level.

North American Title Insurance Co. (NATIC) has announced a new collaboration with the University of Miami School of Law that will provide a unique educational benefit to its lawyer agents and approved attorneys through the schools Robert Traurig-Greenberg Traurig Real Property Development LL.M.

As attorneys, our commitment to continuing education must be the highest priority, and enrollment in this program will enhance our agents professional skills and their ability to take their agency and legal practice to the next level, said Emilio Fernandez, president of NATIC. We are pleased to partner with such a reputable university in bringing a program of this stature to our agents.

Designed both for recent law graduates and lawyers who are seeking to deepen their understanding and mastery of real estate law, the program offers a wide range of courses taught by a faculty of practitioners from around the country who are experts in their fields.

As part of the collaboration, the University of Miami is offering NATICs qualified agents and approved attorneys, for a limited time only, a discount of 25 percent of the per-credit tuition costs. To qualify, NATIC qualified agents and approved attorneys must meet the programs admission requirements and enroll for the fall 2016 semester, scheduled to start Aug. 11. (With permission from the programs director, enrollment may be delayed to spring 2017).

The program is the leading educational offering in the country for lawyers working in the real estate field and includes such benefits as:



Offered in an online format as well as on campus

Structured with enormous flexibility to accommodate the demands of working attorneys

Includes site visits to significant development projects under construction or recently completed, coupled with informative meetings with the development team

Offers opportunity for interdisciplinary work at the Universitys Schools of Business and Architecture

For questions about the program or if you would like to speak with someone more specifically about application requirements, please email rpdinfo(at)law.miami(dot)edu and you will be contacted by the appropriate program professional. More information on the LL.M. program may also be found at http://www.law.miami.edu/academics/llm/admissions-real-property-development.

About North American Title Insurance Co. (NATIC)

North American Title Insurance Co. (NATIC) is a seasoned title insurance underwriter, helping title agents to achieve the goal of true business success for over 50 years. NATIC conducts real estate settlement services in 39 states and the District of Columbia. NATIC earned the reputation as the underwriter next door, because their decision makers and associates are easy to reach and their processes are quick and straight forward. The NATIC agency application process is fast and transparent for qualified agents. NATIC has a one-hour underwriting response guarantee that is unparalleled in the industry.

NATIC is the largest capitalized company in Peer Group 1, which groups companies with total assets of greater than $100 million as determined by Kroll Bond Rating Agency, Inc. NATIC is ranked 6th by The Performance of the Title Insurance Underwriters in terms of cash or cash equivalents. NATIC maintains over $95 million* in cash and invested assets. This represents over 93 percent of the companys assets and is characteristic of the most important attribute to title protection, namely, financial responsibility. *As of 12/31/2015.

Demotech, Inc. awarded NATIC a rating of: A' (A Prime) Unsurpassed. A.M Best rated B++ (Good). NATIC is headquartered in Miami, Florida. To learn more, visit http://www.natic.com.

For more information contact: Kelly McCarel, c: 440.590.6504; e: kmccarel(at)natic(dot)com
Plumbline Consultings depth and breadth of project expertise has allowed us to expand our growing base of solutions to project-based companies. The Progressus Software solution will provide valuable tools to project managers and employees worldwide.

Plumbline Consulting, LLC announced today the launch of the Progressus Partner Program for their business management solution, Progressus Software. Based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Progressus is next-generation Professional Services Automation and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that is mobile-enabled and architected for the intelligent cloud.

Progressus Partners are able to offer Progressus Software to both current customers as well as potential new customers. The Progressus Partner Program offers consistent revenue opportunities for current Microsoft Dynamics partners. Program training for partners includes two days of Progressus training, a week-long Progressus and Dynamics NAV boot camp, and ongoing training for partner personnel.

Added incentives are available to those Partners who make early commitments and join the Early Adopter program. Members of the Early Adopter program will receive additional assistance with their training programs and gain increased exposure in the Dynamics community. Furthermore, early adopters will receive reduced rate offerings for the Progressus Partner Program and access to Progressus specific tracks at the NAV Directions event in San Diego in September.

The Progressus Partner Program is currently accepting applications. To submit a request, please email Progressus Software at Sales@ProgressusSoftware.com or fill out the form at http://www.progressussoftware.com/partners/.

Plumbline Consulting has valuable experience creating solutions for project-based and professional services organizations. We are excited to have their expertise in this new offering built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, said Paul White, General Manager of Microsoft Dynamics. We are also very pleased to announce that Progressus will be available in the cloud on Microsoft Azure through the Microsoft Dynamics NAV managed service for partners.

Plumbline Consultings depth and breadth of project expertise has allowed us to expand our growing base of solutions to project-based companies. The Progressus Software solution will provide valuable tools to project managers and employees worldwide, said Joseph Longo, President of Plumbline Consulting.

About Plumbline Consulting

The Plumbline Consulting team has over 30 years history in implementing project-based ERP solutions. Plumbline provides software engineering and consulting services for Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics Channel Partners and Microsoft Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Plumbline offers software development, application support, technology and business process consulting, with a focus on delivering excellence and building lasting relationships. Plumbline also provides Dynamics SL (formerly known as Solomon Software) Product Management, Development and Support services for Microsoft Corporation. The company is headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. More information about Plumbline Consulting can be found at http://www.plumblineconsulting.com.
Ron Riggs, 25 Year Bill Howe Plumber in San Diego We celebrate every anniversary, from one year to 35, but Rons was extra special.

Bill Howe Plumbing has been a household name in San Diego since its inception in 1980. For the first decade, it was just Bill Howe and his father, Bill Howe Sr. In 35 years, they have grown to over 150 employees across three divisions and become the trusted name for a San Diego plumber, HVAC specialist and restoration technicians. Operating from the mission they established in 1980, they have truly become a company of success stories.

Ron Riggs is one such story. He began with Bill Howe Plumbing since the first location at 974 Thomas St. in Pacific Beach. He was hired as one of the original technicians at the San Diego plumbing company as a teenager fresh from Ohio with little experience. I came to California after high school, without family or a job, and the Howes took me in, said Ron. I am successful today, married with a house of my own and a great career because of Bill Howe Plumbing. Ron has remained a full time employee with the company since joining in 1991 and has grown his skill set form minor drain snaking to full plumbing applications, water heaters, high end fixtures, and is one of the most loved by customers.

We celebrate every anniversary, from one year to 35, but Rons was extra special. He is such an asset to our company and part of the Bill Howe story, and integral to our success, said Tina Howe, Vice President of Bill Howe Plumbing, Inc. We are proud of being family owned and operated because it means our family is 150 strong and growing. And, knowing that the employees who have been with us for so many years are still growing and succeeding with us means we must be doing something right.

Ongoing success and employee loyalty stems from their dedication to their mission of creating healthy and happy employees, taking care of customers like family through professional and expert services, and giving back to their community by volunteering time and resources.

Of the original handful of employees that started at 974 Thomas St. in Pacific Beach, California, Bill Howe still employs three of them. Between them, they have over 82 years of experience in San Diego.

Ron was celebrated at the June company meeting on June 15 with his wife Andrea in attendance. Bill Howe presented him with a bonus check and luxury watch.

For more information about the Bill Howe Family of Companies, visit http://www.billhowe.com, or to speak with Bill or Tina Howe regarding this announcement, contact Bill Howe Marketing Director, Julie Riddle at Julie(at)billhowe(dot)com.

About Bill Howe Family of Companies

Bill Howe Family of Companies is comprised of Bill Howe Plumbing, Inc.; Bill Howe Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.; Bill Howe Restoration & Flood Services, Inc. The family-owned and operated company began in 1980 with the plumbing division and has grown into San Diego Countys largest low-cost one-stop-shop for service, repairs and installation, offering both residential and commercial services. 9085 Aero Drive, Suite B, San Diego CA 92123. Call 1-800-BILL-HOWE because We Know Howe!

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The National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), an international honor society dedicated to highlighting the accomplishments of students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership, scholarship and community commitment, announces today the recipients of the 2016 Claes Nobel Women of Tomorrow Leadership Awards. This scholarship was established to encourage and empower young women to assume future leadership roles in their colleges and universities, their careers and communities and to become mentors for the young women following in their footsteps. Five $1,000 scholarships are awarded to outstanding NSHSS female high school seniors with a 3.5 minimum GPA who have demonstrated outstanding leadership skills in their schools and communities.

The winners of the 2016 NSHSS Claes Nobel Women of Tomorrow Leadership Awards are:

Mackenzie Berry

Dupont Manual High School, Louisville, Kentucky

Berry is the founder and director of a nonprofit organization, Young Poets of Louisville, which aims to provide a safe space for young people ages 13 to19 years to develop themselves through the written and spoken expression of poetry. She is a blogger and member of the Louisville Youth Philanthropy Council, a member of the National Spanish Honor Society, and Beta Club. She also placed 2nd in the poetry category of the 2015 NSHSS Literary Competition.

Elizabeth Harvey

The Westminster Schools, Atlanta, Georgia

A student leader, Harvey believes in advocating for the voiceless. She has implemented two educational programs for the Mary Hall Freedom House daycare center. Harvey is a board member of Active Minds, and she has worked to increase mental health awareness in her school and community. Harvey is also the creator of the Power of the Pencil Project (POPP), an organization established to enhance the education of at-risk children.

Stephanie Luna-Lopez

Atwater High School, Atwater, California

While attending the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Youth Leadership Institute and the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project, Luna-Lopez met the founder and chief executive officer of the Ivy League Project. Excited to share her newfound knowledge of the college admissions process, Luna-Lopez created the Visionary Leadership Conference. Students attending Luna-Lopezs first annual conference heard from university alumni, scholarship recipients, and university representatives.

Meilani Meleisea

San Diego High School of International Studies, San Diego, California

As a freshman, Meleisea worked tirelessly to bring back the school choir, Re[choir]ed, at San Diego High School. More than 60 students attended auditions, but participation soon dwindled to as low as seven members. Undeterred, Meleisea continued to persevere and Re[choir]ed flourished once again, eventually becoming known as the best in San Diego. Re[choir]ed will soon become an IB Choral Music course, and through her dedication and determined leadership, the choir is a resounding success.

Nicole Shah

Greenwood Laboratory School, Springfield, Missouri

As a 9th grader, Shah recognized the need for an organization that encourages teen volunteerism and philanthropy. She became the president and cofounder of ETHIC (Every Teen Helps Inspire Change). In four years, ETHIC has raised more $100,000 for countless organizationsboth domestic and international. Shah has learned to work with donors, sponsors and event staff to ensure the success of her fundraising events. Shah is also a Coca-Cola Scholar.

We are proud to present the Claes Nobel Women of Tomorrow Leadership Award to these outstanding young women who have displayed remarkable leadership skills, stated Claes Nobel, co-founder of NSHSS and senior member of the family that established the Nobel Prizes. These young women represent the future leaders of the world, leading the charge for world betterment. I am continuously inspired by the unquenchable spirit of youth.

About the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS):

Formed in 2002 by James W. Lewis and Claes Nobel, senior member of the family that established the Nobel Prizes, The National Society of High School Scholars recognizes academic excellence at the high school level and helps to advance the goals and aspirations of high-achieving millennials through unique learning experiences, scholarships, internships, international study and peer networks. NSHSS members become lifetime members. At each step along the way  from high school to college to career  NSHSS connects outstanding young scholars with the resources they need to develop their strengths and pursue their passions. Currently, there are more than 1,000,000 Society members in 160 countries. To help us further efforts that provide students with continued opportunity, please acknowledge NSHSS in any press release mentions by providing a resource link to http://www.nshss.org. For more information about NSHSS visit http://www.nshss.org.
Seafood Expo Asia will return to Hong Kong ...providing buyers from major supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, airlines, wholesale and foodservice sectors with an opportunity to source the worlds finest seafood products and learn about the top trends"

Seafood Expo Asia will return to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the 6-8 September 2016, providing buyers from major supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, airlines, wholesale and foodservice sectors with an opportunity to source the worlds finest seafood products and learn about the top trends set to impact the regions fish and shellfish market in the future.

The outlook for Asias seafood industry will be a central theme at this years event which runs alongside the fine dining and beverage exhibition, Restaurant & Bar Hong Kong. With the regions palate for premium seafood evolving, Asia is expected to dominate global aquaculture trade and import growth with the World Bank predicting that by 2030 Asian countries will account for around 70% of global fish consumption.

A 2014 Global Industry Analysts report suggests that in terms of demand, the Asia Pacific is not only the largest and fastest growing market in the world, but is projected to increase at an average compound growth rate of 5% between now and 2020. Growth is being driven by a rising middle class population that according to 2013 data from Ernst & Young and SKOLKOVO stands at around 525 million people but which over the next 20 years could potentially expand to more than 3 billion.

Asia has become increasingly important to the global seafood market as with the growth of the regions middle class population, consumers in this income bracket are able to afford higher value goods and products, one of them being premium fish and shellfish, says Ms. Liz Plizga, Seafood Group Vice President of Diversified Communications, organizers of Seafood Expo Asia.

Improving living standards and rising incomes, coupled with an already well established dining out culture, are driving market expansion as individuals become more conscious of taste and quality particularly in China and South East Asia, where economic growth is positively impacting seafood imports making these countries especially attractive to producers and exporters of premium produce.

At Seafood Expo Asia, industry buyers will be able to meet with over 240 suppliers of fish and shellfish from over 30 countries, and find the products they are looking for to satisfy their customers growing appetite, including abalone, clams, bass, crab, shrimp, salmon, prawns, scallops, lobster, cod, and oysters among many other species.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to hear from seafood experts who will offer business advice, support and insight during the three-day event. The presentation theatre will stage culinary demonstrations, master classes, networking events and educational seminars covering a broad range of issues and trends affecting the industry that are designed to equip delegates with new ideas to grow their businesses.

Through Seafood Expo Asias Key Buyer Program, high volume trade customers will also be able to enjoy special privileges that range from access to an exclusive lounge for meetings and networking opportunities, to participation in the expositions Business Matchmaking Program. Another popular destination is the events New Product Showcase which over the last three years has introduced more than 220 new packaged seafood products, condiments and culinary dishes to the Asia market.

With lifestyles becoming busier, Asian consumers are turning to ready meal solutions that are quick and easier to prepare, says Ms. Plizga, while noting that this trend along with rising demand for higher value seafood is creating unique opportunities for food manufacturers to create new culinary combinations from fish and seafood being paired with more decadent sauces, to dine-at-home options inspired by local flavors.

To learn more about opportunities in the Asian market, interested parties are invited to visit http://www.seafoodexpo.com/asia/free-webinar-on-asia-seafood/ to sign up for a free webinar hosted by Seafood Expo Asias official media partner SeafoodSource.com, which will take place on the 23 June 2016 at 9.00am US Eastern time. The webinar will analyze latest trends and offer predictions for the future of the regions seafood industry. Visit this website for more information, to view a video of 2015 highlights, or to register for a free trade pass to the 2016 event.

__________________________________________

About Seafood Expo Asia

Seafood Expo Asia is a trade event where buyers and suppliers of seafood from around the world come together to network and conduct business in the lucrative Hong Kong and Asia Pacific markets. The events seventh edition takes place from the 6-8 September 2016 at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre in Wanchai, Hong Kong. SeafoodSource.com is the expositions official media covering industry news year-round. The exposition is produced by Diversified Communications and is co-located with Restaurant & Bar Hong Kong. http://www.seafoodexpo.com/asia.

About Diversified Communications

Diversified Communications is a leading international media company providing market access, education and information through global, national and regional face-to-face events, digital products, publications and television stations. Diversified serves a number of industries including: seafood, food service, natural and organic, healthcare, commercial marine and business management. The company's global seafood portfolio of expositions and media includes Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global, Seafood Expo Asia and SeafoodSource.com. Diversified Communications, in partnership with SeaWeb, also produces SeaWeb Seafood Summit, the worlds premier seafood conference on sustainability. Based in Portland, Maine, USA, Diversified has divisions in the Eastern United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Thailand and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit: http://www.divcom.com.

# # #

Editors Notes

For media interviews or to request a copy of the photographs that accompany this announcement, please contact Janet Middlemiss on (852) 9195 7829 or at janet(at)jemworldwide(dot)com.

Media Contacts

For further information on Seafood Expo Asia, please contact:

USA

Jonathan Bass

Diversified Communications

Tel: +1 207 842 5563

Email: jbass(at)divcom(dot)com

Hong Kong

Janet Middlemiss

JEM Worldwide Limited

Tel: +852 2857 3832

Mobile: +852 9195 7829

Email: janet(at)jemworldwide(dot)com
CrownPeak, the leader in Digital Experience and Digital Quality Management, today unveiled a product enhancement for Search G2, its enterprise-grade indexing and query platform, called 'Realtime Indexing.' The company also named Dave Gully as COO and Javier Muniz as EVP of Engineering.

The news coincides with an internal report noting that the CrownPeak customer base continues to strengthen and the company has seen net retention exceed 100% while experiencing 42% of bookings generated from existing customers. Additionally, CrownPeak has secured multiple new accounts in each of its target markets, including one the worlds largest multinational financial services organizations. The footprint expansion is indicative of the product developments and full integration of the ActiveStandards suite.

The positive growth, both internal and external, strongly prepares CrownPeak for their upcoming re-launch and market expansion following their merger with ActiveStandards announced earlier this year.

To push CrownPeak into the next phase the executive team has expanded to include Dave Gully as COO and Javier Muniz as EVP of Engineering. Gully provides extensive digital agency experience and was a previous partner and consultant with Deloitte and IBM, respectively. Javier Muniz joins from Granicus, Inc. where he served as co-founder and CTO of the leading government cloud computing provider. Gully and Muniz will work alongside Jim Yares, CEO, Adrian Newby, CTO, Tom Golden, VP - International Sales and Erin Brodie, VP - Demand Generation, who together have laid the foundation and powerfully propelled the company to increase their industry footprint later this summer.

Strong leadership, commitment to customers and collaboration are defining characteristics of the entire CrownPeak team, said Yares. The addition of Dave and Javier, such forward thinking and respected talent, better position CrownPeak to continue to challenge traditional practices within the marketing tech industry.

Further expansion and development of the CrownPeak brand includes product enhancements to CrownPeaks Search G2. The Search G2 platform, released last year, is a highly-scalable, high-performance, enterprise-grade indexing and query platform, that enables rapid searching, sorting & filtering of data across all customer touch-points. Realtime Indexing enables content managed within the CrownPeak CMS to be delivered immediately to the search platform, upon publication. Further, Realtime Indexing allows time-critical publication of content, easy use of geospatial searching capabilities, as well as searching across protected content that, for security purposes, cannot be deployed to live website.

Lightmaker, a key CrownPeak partner and leading global digital agency, was a beta participate of the new feature. Together, CrownPeak and Lightmaker worked with one of the worlds largest investment management firms as well as one of the most prominent energy companies to expedite the publication of content from the cloud-first and purpose built CMS for multi-purpose deployment - a process that is nearly impossible when relying on search crawling to index content.

In the clients respective industry, the Realtime Indexing enhancement makes time-sensitive information such as press releases, share prices and critical public service announcements like the location of distribution centers and secured areas in the event of natural disasters to be disseminated quickly and accurately to customers. Further, through use of the only cloud-first DXM platform that features built-in DQM, CrownPeak creates super-fast, multi-site, enterprise deployments that create exceptional, high-quality customer experience moments, across all digital touchpoints.

With CrownPeaks Realtime Indexing, we are able to adapt to our customer's demanding and critically time-sensitive content publication needs, said Ben Philyaw, Chief Client Officer of Lightmaker. The Realtime Indexing enhancement, coupled with CrownPeak's easy-to-use CMS platform, provides a seamless content creation, approval and publication process for our customers. This is a unique industry development and we look forward to continuing to partner with CrownPeak to provide our clients with quality and reliable results.

About CrownPeak

CrownPeak is the proven cloud-first, cloud-only Digital Experience Management platform thats designed to help global companies successfully manage their hundreds of digital experiences across multiple touchpoints. Since 2001, CrownPeak has given digital teams the agility they need to create unified, modernized digital customer experiences  even across legacy applications, and has freed technologists from making rip-and-replace technology decisions. The CrownPeak cloud platform plays nice with other platforms, deploys into heterogeneous environments and scales elastically in the face of high-growth demands.

For more information, please visit: http://www.crownpeak.com.
We are gratified to be able to offer certain of the patients in our mild to moderate Alzheimers disease clinical trial the opportunity to continue on the T3D-959 study medication in this 26-week, open-label extension study.

T3D Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage drug development company targeting Alzheimers disease, is announcing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted approval for a 26-week, open-label extension to its 2-week Phase 2a clinical trial of T3D-959 in a limited number of subjects who completed the main Phase 2a study for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimers disease. FDA approval occurred when the 2-week Phase 2a trial was 50% enrolled.

All patients in the extension study have initiated dosing, being orally administered a 15 mg dose of T3D-959 once daily for 26 weeks. This extension study is limited to patients who have completed the main Phase 2a study protocol, and for whom their caregivers requested, and their physician agreed, that their continued treatment would be a beneficial decision.

The patients enrolled in the main study, and their caregivers, were not offered this extension study as an opportunity; rather, the caregivers directly requested that their family members be afforded the chance to continue on the medication, based on the response they saw to the medication, remarked Santosh Gopalakrishnan, MD, a principal investigator in the trial at New Hope Clinical Research in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In the extension study, patients will be regularly assessed for safety and tolerability to T3D-959, and evaluated for changes in cognitive function using two neuro-cognitive scales.

For the neuro-cognitive scales, the first is the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale - Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-cog11), which evaluates memory, attention, reasoning, language and orientation. The second test, the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), evaluates attention, speed in completing tasks, visual tracking, decision making and transformation of information stored in active memory.

Patients are also being evaluated for changes in clinical global function using the Clinicians Interview-Based Impression of Change with caregiver input (CIBIC+). The Company anticipates reporting initial top-line results from this extension study in the first quarter of 2017.

John Didsbury, CEO of T3D Therapeutics, stated, Mid-way through the main Phase 2a study, T3D Therapeutics received FDA approval to reinitiate dosing to a limited number of patients who had completed the two weeks of dosing in the Phase 2a main study. We are pleased that the FDA was able to rapidly review and approve our request within 48 hours. The caregivers who requested this extension study have expressed their gratitude regarding the opportunity to continue this medication.

The extension study was not part of the original protocol in the two-week Phase 2a trial of T3D-959. This extension has been patient-driven, i.e., the caregivers requested that the patients be allowed to continue receiving T3D-959.

We are gratified to be able to offer certain of the patients in our mild to moderate Alzheimers disease clinical trial the opportunity to continue on the T3D-959 study medication in this 26-week, open-label extension study, stated T3D Therapeutics Advisory Board member Dr. Warren Strittmatter. The additional 6 months of safety and efficacy data will be valuable to the clinical advancement of this promising drug for Alzheimers patients.

T3D Therapeutics is also pleased to acknowledge that this Extension Study is being supported in part by an Administrative Supplement from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44AG049510. For more information on the Phase 2a Feasibility Study of T3D-959 in Subjects with Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease clinical trial, please visit ClinicalTrials.gov and reference Identifier NCT02560753.

About Alzheimers Disease

Alzheimers disease is the most common form of dementia and the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimers disease today, and that number is projected to be 16 million by 2050. The number of people around the world with Alzheimers is expected to quadruple in the next 35 years.

Alzheimers disease is devastating for the patient and their caregivers as it represents a slow, progressive decrease over time in both memory and other intellectual abilities (i.e., cognitive decline). Because it directly affects the brains capacity to function, late-stage symptoms include behavior and mood changes, severe memory loss, and eventually difficulty swallowing, speaking, and walking.

The Alzheimers disease market is currently dominated by symptomatic therapies that address only one facet of Alzheimers disease. These agents generally have modest, but temporary effects on cognitive and functional decline and do not affect the underlying course of the disease.

About T3D-959

T3D-959 is a small molecule, orally-delivered, brain-penetrating PPAR delta/gamma dual nuclear receptor agonist. T3D-959 is designed to act to improve neuro-metabolic dysfunction (the brains inability to efficiently create and utilize energy) in Alzheimers disease. This aspect of Alzheimers disease is now recognized as a potential first step in the disease process that then drives the later pathological changes seen in Alzheimers disease patients, e.g., amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Based on the animal studies completed to date, T3D-959 appears to treat both the starvation of the brain (insufficient energy) and the multiple after-effects of this first insult, which then causes a strangulation of the brain (via amyloid plaques, tau tangles and inflammation).

T3D-959s profile in pre-clinical studies indicates it regulates a myriad of the genes involved in Alzheimers disease and thus could offer a greater potential to slow, stop or reverse disease progression. T3D-959 has successfully completed Phase 1 human clinical trials and has demonstrated compelling and unique pre-clinical efficacy in an Alzheimers animal model. The drug is now in the process of completing a Phase 2a feasibility study of mild to moderate Alzheimers disease patients.

About T3D Therapeutics, Inc.

T3D Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately-held, Research Triangle Park, NC-based company incorporated in 2013. T3D Therapeutics mission is to develop and commercialize its lead drug product candidate, T3D-959, for the treatment of Alzheimers disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment. The Company also has a platform of structurally-related molecules that can be targeted to other neurodegenerative diseases.

For more information, please visit http://www.t3dtherapeutics.com/.

Research reported in this release was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44AG049510. The content of this release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements contained in this release that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including those statements relating to the Company's expectations regarding clinical studies and developments, and the future potential of its product candidates, including T3D-959, and other statements that are predictive in nature or that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as may, will, expect, believe, anticipate, intend, could, estimate or continue are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that certain important risks and uncertainties, and assumptions, which if they do not materialize or prove incorrect, may affect the Companys actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements which may be made in this release or which are otherwise made by or on behalf of the Company. Factors which may affect the Companys results include, but are not limited to, uncertainties and/or unexpected results related to research and development and clinical testing, the timing, costs and uncertainty of obtaining any required regulatory approvals, changes in the regulatory landscape, uncertainties related to obtaining additional capital as needed to meet the Companys needs on acceptable terms, or at all, the absence of any guarantee of product demand, market acceptance or competitive advantage for any of the Companys product candidates, if approved, and certain trade, legal, social and economic risks. Any forward-looking statement in this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statement.

Investor Contact

John Didsbury, Ph.D., CEO

T3D Therapeutics, Inc.

1-919-237-4897

Email: info(at)t3dtherapeutics(dot)com

Media Contact

Dawn Van Dam, President

Health Connexions, Inc.

1-416-402-8274

Email: dawn(at)healthconnexions(dot)com
Our objective is to provide autism-related information and resources for parents, family members, educators, professionals, or anyone interested in learning more about autism.

Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) today announced a series of parent training workshops in the city of Fort Worth. Hosted at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History Research and Learning Center (RLC), the three-month workshop series will provide parents with an overview of autism and applied behavior analysis (ABA), the only scientifically validated treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has graciously given CARD a platform to educate and empower individuals who are interested in learning more about ASD, said Kaleigh Cantwell, M.S., clinical supervisor. Our objective is to provide autism-related information and resources for parents, family members, educators, professionals, or anyone interested in learning more about autism. This is an opportunity to ask questions, gain information, and understand the services and supports that are available to families in Fort Worth.

The first workshops will address What is Autism/ABA? on Saturday, June 25 from 3-4pm. Workshops will occur every fourth Saturday thereafter (dates subject to change) at the RLC, located at 1600 Gendy St., Fort Worth, TX 76107. In addition to an introduction to ABA, other topics scheduled for discussion include managing your child's behavior, school readiness skills, and understanding the resources available to families.

The RLC is delighted to host special summer training sessions for parents of children on the autism spectrum and individuals who are interested in learning more about autism spectrum disorder (ASD), said RLC Managing Director Debbie Cockerham. These events will provide resources, education, and support while allowing parents to connect with and encourage each other. We look forward to working with the autism community.

CARD operates 70 centers nationwide that provide services based on the CARD Model developed Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D, founder and executive director of CARD. Dr. Granpeesheh has dedicated over 30 years to helping individuals with autism fulfill their potential and lead healthy, productive lives. Since its founding in 1990, CARD has helped thousands of individuals affected by autism and their families access the services and supports they need to fulfill their potential.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one in every 68 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with ASD, with one in 42 boys and one in 189 girls diagnosed. These 2014 figures represent a 30 percent increase since 2008, when the previous report was released. As the prevalence of ASD has increased, services for individuals with ASD have not always kept pace with demand. As a result, families affected by ASD may encounter challenges when trying to access quality treatment. The increase in autism diagnoses and the lack of resources available to families in many communities leave parents struggling to access the services that are crucial to their childs development. CARD strives to meet that need by continuously opening new offices throughout the country to provide top-quality ABA therapy across all populations.

About Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD)

CARD treats individuals of all ages who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at treatment centers around the globe. CARD was founded in 1990 by leading autism expert and clinical psychologist Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D. CARD treats individuals with ASD using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is empirically proven to be the most effective method for treating individuals with ASD and recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Surgeon General. CARD employs a dedicated team of nearly 2,000 individuals across the nation and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.centerforautism.com.

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Its exciting to see our teams hard work pay off with feedback directly from our customers through a respected and coveted benchmark such as the Net Promoter Score.

Crawford Technologies announced today that its new Net Promoter Score (NPS) reached an all-time high of +63. CrawfordTechs NPS survey, completed June 8, 2016, shows a higher grade than the industry average for technology companies, according to NPSBenchmarks.com.

The Net Promoter Score is the most widely-adopted measure of customer loyalty in the world. Co-created by Satmetrix and Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company, NPS has become the standard measure of customer experience performance among Fortune 500 companies due to its long-term proven linkage to financial performance.

The Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer's overall satisfaction with a company's product or service and the customer's loyalty to the brand.

Our score is particularly noteworthy because NPS scores above 60 are rare and this demonstrates the high levels of trust that our customers, many of them Fortune 500 companies, place in us, said Ernie Crawford, CEO of Crawford Technologies. Its exciting to see our team's hard work pay off with feedback directly from our customers through a respected and coveted benchmark such as the Net Promoter Score.

In addition, Robert Robichaud, Quality Assurance Manager at Crawford Technologies has been designated a Net Promoter Certified Associate and joins an elite group of experienced professionals holding this credential worldwide.

Net Promoter Certified Associates help their organizations improve in the areas of innovation and differentiation. This certification provides the skills and knowledge for establishing an entire customer experience program which continuously collects, analyzes, and acts on customer feedback each time a customer interacts with Crawford Technologies.

"My team works tirelessly to ensure we thoroughly test our products before they are delivered to our customers," said Robert Robichaud, Quality Assurance Manager at Crawford Technologies.

"This NPS score confirms that we deliver on our promise of providing quality products, services and support. We get enormous satisfaction knowing our customers appreciate our efforts and they would recommend our products and services to their friends and colleagues.

For more information about Satmetrix Net Promotor Score, please go to http://www.satmetrix.com.

NPS and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.

About Crawford Technologies

Crawford Technologies is an award-winning, worldwide leader in print-stream conversions, document re-engineering, high-volume document workflow, document accessibility and archiving software solutions. For 20 years, Crawford Technologies has expanded its solution offerings in Customer Communications Management (CCM), Enterprise Output Management (EOM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Document Accessibility markets. CrawfordTech is dedicated to helping organizations improve their customer communications delivery systems so people can receive their documents in their format and channel of preference.

For media and other inquiries, please contact the CrawfordTech Press Office:

North America Tel: +1-416-923-0080

UK Tel: +44 (0)20 3289 4724

media(at)crawfordtech(dot)com

http://www.crawfordtech.com
BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy (BioPlus), one of the nations leading innovative specialty pharmacies, will have a presence at the 2016 Pharmacy Channel Strategies for Specialty Products conference hosted by CBI. The conference will be held June 23-24, 2016 at the Doubletree by Hilton in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This conference provides an opportunity for key specialty pharmacy stakeholders to collaborate about effective pharmacy models to better impact payer and patient access and adherence.

Luis Torres, Vice President of Managed Care at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy, will be speaking on the topic of Strategies for Improving Pharmacy Access to Payer Plans during the conference, discussing the role of speed in specialty pharmacy, the importance of an appeals team, the value of interventions from Doctors of Pharmacy, and how technology can be leveraged for both improved outcomes and value.

There are unique intricacies when working with health plans and PBMs, as well as risks associated with the quality of care and efforts to reduce patient cost. My presentation will address how the application of clinical programs, outstanding services, interventional savings, and real time reporting capabilities serve as an extension of care for our clients and patients, shares Torres.

About BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy

BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy is the first specialty pharmacy to introduce a two-hour turnaround from referral to patient acceptance. BioPlus... Where healing begins in 2 hours. Our company celebrates 27 years of innovative excellence in specialty pharmacy, working closely with payers and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as with prescribers to get prompt treatment for patients, and directly supporting our patients nationwide to achieve optimal health outcomes. Our proprietary web tool Tap App connects prescribers to the pharmacy by bringing the pharmacy chart into the doctors office with real-time specialty pharmacy information and treatment monitoring.

BioPlus provides a complete range of specialty services, including for hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, cancer, bleeding disorders, and other complex, chronic conditions. BioPlus, a privately-held, pharmacist-owned company based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, is accredited by URAC, VIPPS, and the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC).

For information: http://www.bioplusrx.com or

Contact: info(at)bioplusrx(dot)com

Phone: 1-888-292-0744
Frost & Sullivan recognizes One Network with Product Leadership Award What sets One Network apart from conventional solutions is its multi-party community with a single version of the truth network optimization, integrated planning and execution, and real-time end-to-end visibility and collaboration.

One Network Enterprises (ONE) http://www.onenetwork.com, the global provider of a secure, multi-party, PaaS network in the cloud, has been named the winner of the 2016 Frost & Sullivan Product Leadership Award for North American Supply Chain Management (SCM) For Public Sector and Defense. According to a 10-point scale, One Network rated a score of 9.5, with the nearest competitors at 8.0 and 7.5 respectively. The complete and complimentary report can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/28KXMwQ.

To determine winners, Frost & Sullivan evaluates organizations for Product and Business Impact. According to the report, customers who use One Networks Real Time Value Network can raise service levels, increase working capital, improve cash flow, and optimize operational efficiency  all while reducing IT costs, lowering inventory levels and minimizing impact from supply chain disruptions.

What sets One Network apart from conventional solutions is its multi-party community with a single version of the truth network optimization, integrated planning and execution, and real-time end-to-end visibility and collaboration, said Sankara Narayanan, Senior Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. The Network is not only a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) application but also a fit-to-purpose COTS for military organizations worldwide. This enables customers to adopt One Networks solution and then extend, modify, and adapt the solution as fit-to-purpose to match the required business processes and workflows while retaining full vendor support. This is strikingly different from One Networks competitors offerings, and we applaud them for both their technology prowess and the significant ROI they deliver to its members.

ONE is bringing The Network to government and military organizations in the U.S. and abroad to deliver cloud-based solutions via the PaaS model that have helped solve a wide variety of multi-party problems. As one example, cited by the report, ONE is managing $8B in inventory for the U.S. Marine Corps to ensure operational readiness while meeting the stringent budget requirements. In addition, this implementation was awarded the Department of Navy IT/IM Excellence award.

According to Mr. Narayanan, Frost & Sullivan determined that One Networks many-to-many, multi-hub, multi-party network is responsive, eliminates system lead time, minimizes physical lead time, and ensures optimization, planning, coordination, connectivity, and scalability. One Networks patented peer-to-peer technology creates a cloud-based federated network that synchronizes data across its multiple datacenters around the globe including those located behind the governments firewalls.

Security and scalability in a multi-party, multi-tier environment is mission critical for our Public Sector and Defense partners. Earning the Department of Defenses business is a validation of our technology and architecture, said Greg Brady, Founder and CEO of One Network. One Network is dedicated to advancing the power of the network and we are honored that Frost & Sullivan recognized our unique solutions.

Tweet this: News @onenetwork recognized by @Frost_Sullivan for its innovative multi-party cloud platform #PaaS #supplychain #defensetech #cloudcomputing

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages almost 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

About One Network Enterprises

One Network is bringing The Network to connect companies and their entire ecosystem to serve the customer. Founded in 2002, One Network offers patented solutions to multi-party business, including supply chain management. One Networks cloud platform, the Real Time Value Network , eliminates the traditional divide between planning and execution, provides visibility, and enables data to flow across the entire value chain of business partners  in real time. Additionally, One Network offers PaaS solutions and developers tools that enable organizations to design, build and run multi-party applications. Leading organizations from around the world, from nearly every industry have joined One Network, helping to transform industries from CPG, Healthcare, Automotive, Retail, Logistics, Public Sector, Aerospace and Defense. Headquartered in Dallas, One Network also has offices in China, Europe, and India. For more information, please visit http://www.onenetwork.com.
Adventure travel has become more extreme.

Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel security risk company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians, and Travelex Insurance Services, the 3rd largest retail travel insurance distributor in the U.S., have entered into a strategic partnership to provide Travelexs adventure travelers Redpoints industry-leading Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance. Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance is the premier insurance program that combines elite evacuation and rescue services with travel insurance for adventurers.

With more than 55 years of experience in the travel industry, Travelex Insurance Services offers a complete portfolio of travel protection plans for the leisure and specialty travel markets covering basic trips to high-end luxury vacations. Recognizing that adventure travelers are engaging in more daring and thrill-seeking activities, Travelex turned to the unique comprehensive Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance program to meet the specific needs of this market segment.

Adventure travel has become more extreme, and those customers are testing their limits to such a degree that it only makes sense for an insurance provider with Redpoints level of rescue capability to cover their activities, said Shannon Lofdahl, Senior Vice President of Travelex Insurance Services.

We are excited about our new partnership with Travelex and look forward combining our resources to offer adventurers the best travel insurance program in the market, said Redpoint Vice President Tom Bochnowski.

Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance combines the best evacuation and rescue services with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Ripcord is powered by Redpoint Resolutions.

In business for a half-decade, Redpoint covers over 9 million people worldwide

About Travelex Insurance Services:

Travelex Insurance Services, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is a leading travel insurance provider in the United States. The company was founded in 1996 when the Travelex Group purchased the travel insurance distribution services of the Mutual of Omaha Companies. Travelex delivers a wide range of travel protection plans through travel agencies and tour operators, in major airports and online at http://www.travelexinsurance.com.

About the Travelex Group:

Travelex is the world's largest foreign exchange and business payments specialist. The group is also one of the leading global providers of outsourced travel money to banks, travel agencies and other financial institutions. The group serves businesses and individual travelers through nearly 700 banks, stores, malls and airports in four regions: the Americas; United Kingdom; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit http://www.travelex.com.

For more information about Redpoint Resolutions or Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance, please visit http://www.ripcordrescuetravelinsurance.com.

Media inquiries, please contact John Moretti at (415) 481-0835 or at press(at)redpointresolutions(dot)com
The FAA has issued final rules on drone use for commercial purposes.

Commercial drone operators are one step closer to package deliveries, flights to inspect utility and transportation infrastructure, and numerous other applications following release of final rules under Part 107 governing the Operation and Certification of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) for commercial purposes.

The final rules will largely replace the cumbersome Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Section 333 Exemption and Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) processes, according to Tom Dougherty, leader of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Industry Team at Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP. The new rules are expected to take effect in late August.

Section 333 previously provided the primary means for obtaining approval for commercial sUAS operations, although previously granted Exemptions will remain valid until they expire, he said.

Many aspects of the final rules are very similar to the draft rules and operational limitations contained in approved Section 333 Exemptions, said Dougherty. There are, however, some noteworthy differences that should make it easier for commercial drone operators in a wide variety of businesses to more rapidly deploy and take advantage of this technology.

What didnt change?

Under Part 107, commercial sUAS must still: remain clear of other aircraft and not be operated in a careless or reckless manner; weigh less than 55 lbs. (including attached systems and payload); remain at or below 400 feet above ground level (AGL); fly no faster than 100 mph; operate within certain visibility and cloud clearance requirements; and be subjected to a preflight safety check by the operator. These requirements are substantially the same as what was permitted under Section 333 Exemptions and related COAs, said Dougherty.

Contrary to many of the comments submitted in connection with the draft rules, Part 107 did not change the requirement that the sUAS be flown within the visual line of sight (VLOS) of the operator. Operations beyond VLOS  a capability integral to a number of commercial sUAS applications such as infrastructure inspection and package deliveries  will have to wait for further technological developments and a future rulemaking, added Dougherty.

Part 107 also prohibits sUAS operations over persons not directly participating in the sUAS operation, not under a covered structure, or not inside a covered stationary vehicle. This aspect of the rule is similar to the draft rules and the Section 333 operational limitations, and will continue to be an impediment to commercial sUAS operations in populated areas, he noted.

What did change?

The final rules do include a number of changes and new provisions that will make commercial sUAS operations easier to conduct, said Dougherty.

Chief among the changes is elimination of the requirement that the sUAS operator have an FAA airmans certificate (pilots license). Given the time and expense associated with obtaining a pilots license, this requirement was a barrier to entry for many commercial operators, he explained.

Under Part 107, the sUAS operator must hold a Remote Pilot Airman Certificate with a sUAS rating which can be obtained by passing an FAA-approved initial aeronautical knowledge test, or by holding a current pilot certificate and completing an FAA-approved sUAS online training course.

The initial aeronautical knowledge test will be available through FAA-approved knowledge test centers around the country on the effective date of the final rules, and the online training for current pilots will be available at faasafety.gov.

Other aspects of the final rules that may support expanded commercial sUAS operations include:



Use of a visual observer is no longer required, but is still advised;

sUAS operations from a moving vehicle are permitted in sparsely populated areas;

sUAS operations above 400 feet AGL are permitted if the sUAS remains within a 400 foot radius of a structure and no higher than 400 feet above the structure;

External load operations are allowed if the load being carried is securely attached and does not adversely affect the flight performance of the sUAS; and

Intrastate transportation of property for compensation is allowed as long as the sUAS operation otherwise complies with Part 107, but may not be conducted from a moving vehicle.

The final rules also provide for waivers of many, but not all, operational restrictions if it can be shown that the proposed sUAS operation can be conducted safely, said Dougherty.

Waivable restrictions include operations from a moving vehicle or aircraft, prohibition on night-time operations, VLOS-only operations, operation of multiple sUAS, flights over persons not participating in the sUAS operation, certain airspace restrictions, and sUAS operating limitations, he said.

Operational restrictions that cannot be waived when transporting property for compensation include the VLOS requirement and the prohibition on operating from a moving vehicle. The FAA announced plans to make available in the coming months an online portal to streamline waiver applications.

While the final rules do not permit routine beyond VLOS flights and continue to include some restrictions that may affect certain commercial sUAS operations, Part 107 nevertheless represents a substantial improvement over the regulatory burdens and operational restrictions associated with Section 333 Exemptions, said Dougherty.

Part 107 brings commercial sUAS operations one step closer to realizing the vision of package deliveries, long-distance flights to inspect utility and transportation infrastructure, and numerous other beneficial applications.

As FAA Administrator Michael Huerta explained, this is just a first step. Regulators are already working on additional rules that will expand the range of operations.

About Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP

Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP is an Am Law 200 commercial law firm for handling complex matters in litigation, intellectual property, business transactions, gaming, government relations and other practice areas. Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie offices are located in Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orange County, Phoenix, Reno, Silicon Valley and Tucson.
Negar Sharifi and Phil Masi Together they insured $5B of total property value in the Florida area; we know they will have continued success at this magnitude here at AssuredPartners. said Tom Riley, President and COO at AssuredPartners.

LAssuredPartners, Inc. is proud to announce the recent hires of Phil Masi, CIRMS and Negar Sharifi in the Lake Mary, Florida office. Phil and Negar will bring a new focus to the commercial property and retail sector of AssuredPartners operations.

Phil Masi will assume the role of Senior Vice President for AssuredPartners with a focus on new commercial property and casualty clients. Phil has an extensive background in the property insurance space at his previous employer where he was a commercial lines agent for 11 years insuring personally over $4 Billion in commercial property values comprising of community associations, lessors risks, hotels & apartments. His annual book revenue was $2.25M. Phil was also the youngest recipient of the Lifetime Top Producer award for being a top net new producer for 10 straight years which only a handful of agents have ever been awarded. Phil is a graduate of the University of Central Florida with a focus in Accounting.

Negar Sharifi, Vice President at AssuredPartners, will team up with Phil as they focus on new commercial property and retail clients. Negar comes to AssuredPartners with 8 years of production experience in this space. Seven of those eight years she won the Top Producer award at her former employer as she held a $1.1M block of clients. Negar is a graduate of The University of Florida with a focus in Accounting.

The move to AssuredPartners was simple, this will allow Negar and I to continue to work in the commercial property & casualty sector but we will now have the autonomy to customize our service team and work flows to take our client services to the next level. AssuredPartners is also building a new state of the art space for our team which will allow us the much needed room to expand our continuing education offering for our property managers. said Phil Masi, SVP at AssuredPartners.

The accounting background that Phil and I both have has become one of the most valuable assets to our client base. Our audit experience at one the largest accounting firms taught us the value of dissecting policies and finding gaps in coverage. This skill translates to a direct impact on our clients in the event of a loss and allows us to leverage the absolute best coverages available in the marketplace. said Negar Sharifi, VP at AssuredPartners.

Together Phil and Negar have accomplished a lot in their careers and with the youth and experience this team has to offer, they will provide us a great new approach. said Tom Riley, President and COO at AssuredPartners. Together they insured $5B of total property value in the Florida area; we know they will have continued success at this magnitude here at AssuredPartners.

ABOUT ASSUREDPARTNERS, INC

Headquartered in Lake Mary, Florida and led by Jim Henderson and Tom Riley, AssuredPartners, Inc. acquires and invests in insurance brokerage businesses (property and casualty, employee benefits, surety and MGUs) across the United States and in London. From its founding in March of 2011, AssuredPartners has grown to over $600 million in annualized revenue and continues to be one of the fastest growing insurance brokerage firms in the United States* with over 125 offices in 30 states and a London office. Since 2011, AssuredPartners has acquired more than 150 insurance agencies. For more information, please contact Dean Curtis, CFO, at 407.708.0031 or dcurtis@assuredptr.com, or visit http://www.assuredptr.com.

*As ranked by Business Insurance in the July 20, 2015 edition, featuring the 100 largest brokers of U.S. business.

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Ball Janik LLP has been recognized as an industry leader in Oregon by Chambers USA 2016. London-based Chambers & Partners, publisher of Chambers USA 2016, is a directory of select U.S. lawyers and law firms. Ball Janik LLP and two Ball Janik partners were recognized in Oregon in the areas of Real Estate; Real Estate: Land Use/Zoning; and Litigation: General Commercial.

Stephen Janik

Star Individual in Oregon, Real Estate; Band 1 in Oregon, Real Estate: Zoning/Land Use. Ball Janik is pleased to highlight that for the 9th consecutive year, Chambers USA has recognized our co-founder, Stephen Janik, as an Oregon Real Estate Star Individual. This honor is designated for lawyers with exceptional recommendations in their field. According to Chambers, Janik is highly recommended as a premier lawyer and superstar. His extensive real estate practice includes advising on financing and land use issues related to big-ticket residential and commercial developments.

James McDermott

Oregon, Litigation: General Commercial, Band 2. James McDermott has a good combination of book smarts and practical judgment, say sources who praise his abilities in commercial litigation matters. His clients say, He is very intelligent, practical and knows how to resolve cases for his clients. McDermotts areas of litigation expertise include construction, securities and insurance liability.

About Chambers USA

The Chambers Guides have been ranking law firms and lawyers since 1990, and now cover 185 jurisdictions throughout the world. Chambers USA 2016s selection process consists of exhaustive interviews with clients, in-house law departments, and attorneys in private practice to receive feedback on firms and their individual attorneys. Lawyers are ranked according to their technical ability, professional conduct, client service, commercial astuteness, and diligence. For more information, visit http://www.chambersandpartners.com.

About Ball Janik LLP

Ball Janik LLP is a Pacific Northwest law firm headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with offices in Orlando, Florida and Salt Lake City, Utah. For over thirty years, Ball Janik LLP has been providing outstanding legal services in the areas of bankruptcy and creditor rights, commercial litigation, construction and design, construction litigation, employment, real estate and land use, insurance recovery for policyholders, and securities litigation.

Ball Janik LLP represents large and small businesses; state, municipal and local governments; associations; schools and universities; and individuals. Ball Janik LLP provides clients an aggressive, skilled, team approach to solve problems and achieve results. Ball Janik LLP has been recognized by Chambers USA, U.S. News  Best Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and Corporate International. Ball Janik LLPs success and integrity have repeatedly made it one of Oregons Most Admired Professional Firms, according to the Portland Business Journals survey results of CEOs throughout the region.
The LULAC National Convention will be held July 12-16 in Washington, D.C. As one of the countrys most influential leaders, LULAC is eager to hear Secretary Clinton's vision and her plans to address the issues of importance to the Latino community.

The Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, will address the members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) at its 87th national convention in Washington, D.C. The LULAC convention packs more energy and draws more people than any other event in the Latino community.

LULAC is honored to have the first woman to lead a major party ticket address our national convention in July, said LULAC National President Roger C. Rocha, Jr. As one of the countrys most influential leaders, LULAC is eager to hear Secretary Clinton's vision and her plans to address the issues of importance to the Latino community.

Guided by the theme, Latinos at the Seat of Power, the 87th Annual LULAC National Convention and Exposition will address the most pressing issues for the Latino community. Noteworthy events include policy workshops, a job fair, and the federal training institute. Additionally, separate tracks for the youth will provide the Latino community's emerging leaders with the opportunity to learn about the issues that impact our community.

For more information regarding the LULAC Convention and Exposition, please visit lulac.org/convention.

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The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nations largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULACs programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit http://www.LULAC.org.
Matt Farrell, Urban Real Estate The REALTOR community in Chicago and across the state, has been a remarkable source for our development and growth as professionals.

Chicago-based Urban Real Estate managing partner Matt Farrell was recognized Tuesday evening by the Illinois Association of REALTORS (IAR) for being named the Chicago REALTOR of the Year (ROTY). The dinner, held at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, in Springfield, Illinois, honored those recognized by their local REALTOR associations from across the state.

According to IARs Web site, the ROTY is Presented to an individual whose dedication to excellence has most profoundly enhanced the professional image of REALTORS in the State of Illinois. The award recognizes the REALTOR of the Years personal leadership and service qualities, applied not only to the real estate industry, but also to the promotion of civic, community and charitable causes.

The REALTOR community in Chicago and across the state, has been a remarkable source for our development and growth as professionals, says Farrell. The contributions I have made with our Urban Real Estate team, have created solid industry relationships, helped us lead on legislative and taxation issues at the local, state and national levels; and fostered conversations about the obstacles which exist in our own backyard. It is truly an honor to be recognized with my esteemed peers from across Illinois.

Farrell joined the ranks of the REALTOR association leadership when he joined the Chicago Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) board of directors in 2009. In his first year, he helped spearhead the associations young professional network, creating a community for new and forward-thinking brokers and agents to connect over technology, best practices, and legislative actions. The effort was later recognized with a national award. In 2013, Farrell became president of C.A.R., and has been a relied upon voice on all things Chicago real estate for local and national reporters, alike.

In addition to his industry work, Farrell and Urban Real Estate also contribute to other organizations including the Union League Boys & Girls Clubs which serves almost 13,000 of Chicagos youths across 9 different facilities, as well as All Chicago, uniting our community and providing resources to ensure and sustain the stability of home.

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Task Force Dagger Foundation

Virginia Beach resident Sean Kelly suffered from depression after a long military career in the special operations community. He turned towards the water to find peace and set out to accomplish a personal mission: a solo 50-mile paddle. Kelly decided to raise funds for a veterans charity and turned to the internet. He came across the story of another special operations veteran, Josh Collins, whom Kelly had served with previously. Collins was in the middle of a 3500-mile paddleboard journey named "Operation Phoenix", fundraising for Task Force Dagger Foundation, which had helped him and his family during his recovery post-career. After reaching out to Collins, Kelly decided to fundraise for the organization as well and the idea to host a rally in Virginia Beach on the day Collins would be paddling through was born.

The event featured a silent auction, raffle, a live auction and performances by Chase Payne, Veda St, and Buckshot. Collins spoke to the crowd about his journey and announced the retirement of his first paddleboard with battle scars from over 2300 miles at sea. CP Shucker's bid on and won the board during the live auction and will be displaying this piece of history, signed by Collins, at the restaurant on 2407 Pacific Ave, Virginia Beach.

Geoff Dardia, Founder and Director of the SOF Health Initiatives Program spoke candidly to the crowd about the misdiagnosed health issues special operations personnel experience throughout the course of their careers, and the treatments and solutions Task Force Dagger Foundation provides. "Proof is in the patient, and in the efficacy of our program," said Dardia. Magda R. Khalifa, Advisory Board member added, "The Virginia Beach event was significant because it introduced the SOF Health Initiatives Program to the sizable special operations community in the Hampton Roads area, and let veterans know there are private treatment options that work that do not involve medications."

Donations for Sean Kelly's endeavor can be contributed via: https://www.crowdrise.com/paddle-to-survive-depression. All proceeds go to Task Force Dagger Foundation's SOF Health Initiatives Program. Follow on Facebook: From Battle to Paddle.

Josh Collins will arrive in Washington D.C. on June 25 at Columbia Island Marina around 11am. His world record standup paddle board route will culminate on the morning of July 23rd in New York City at the Statue of Liberty in the Hudson Bay. There will be a rally for Josh at Pier A Harbor House at 12pm. The event will be open to the public and is expected to draw a large crowd. For more information, visit veteranvoyage360.com.
Nashville has become the it city and some neighborhoods have developed a reputation for being particularly cool. In the eyes of many, East Nashville is one of those undeniably cool areas. Once a less desirable part of town, it is now bustling with coffee shops, trendy restaurants, and hipsters living in newly renovated, million dollar homes. However, as one East Nashville resident recently found out, a great neighborhood does not eliminate the risk of crime and home invasions. On Saturday, June 11th, just past 10PM, a resident in East Nashville was shot in his bed while he was sleeping. According to Nashville News Channel 2, the shooter allegedly broke into the house by kicking in a locked back door and then fired upon the sleeping homeowner. It is reported that the victim was rushed to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and that police do not have any information on the suspect.

Many people think that living in a nice neighborhood means that they dont need to protect themselves, said security consultant Alan Young. Todays trendy neighborhoods were yesterday's bad neighborhoods and crime has really increased everywhere.

So does this mean that Nashvilles current and future residents should be concerned about the safety of this rapidly growing city? According to The Tennessean, approximately 85 people move into the Nashville area every day. Will incidents like this deter new residents from moving into areas like East Nashville when moving into town?

This isnt an issue with East Nashville being dangerous. Said Young, in the past several years there have been home invasions in suburban areas such as Brentwood and Belle Meade. This also isnt about Nashville being a dangerous city. Nashville is a very safe city, relative to other cities its size. This is about residents needing to understand the importance of securing their homes and protecting their families, regardless of where they live.

Mr. Young recommends that homeowners take a few simple steps to secure their homes. First, make sure that windows and doors are visible to neighbors and are not covered by large shrubs or trees. An increased cover gives thieves more time to work. Second, make sure that the perimeter of your home is well lit. Thieves are less likely to attack a well-lit home. Next, Place an alarm sign in your yard, whether you own an alarm or not. Studies have shown that thieves are less likely to break into homes with alarms. Finally, while the steps above may help deter a thief, Mr. Young recommends that all homeowners install grade 1 deadbolts on their doors and reinforce their doors with a product like Door Armor, a do-it-yourself product that is guaranteed to stop kick-ins and costs about $70.00. Door Armor can be purchased at most Lowes stores or online at armorconcepts.com.

Mr. Young concluded, Living in a great area means that you have something worth taking. It also means that you have something worth protecting. It takes about 10 seconds for an intruder to kick in a door and be inside of your home. Contrary to what people think, security does not need to cost a lot. With some common sense and a few economical steps, many home invasions can be prevented."

Alan Young is CEO of Armor Concepts LLC, a Nashville based company that specializes in the development and implementation of physical security solutions. Since 2004 Armor Concepts has secured more than 225,000 doors with its proprietary Door Armor, FIX-A-JAMB and Armor Latch products and has been featured on The CBS Early Show, Fox News, Bloomberg and the TODAY show among others. For more information on Armor Concepts, visit armorconcepts.com.
MARS DRINKS FLAVIA Barista is more than just a coffee maker; its like a personal coffee shop expert. Enjoy perfect coffees, teas, lattes, cappuccinos, and authentic espressos, all at the press of We are very excited to bring our partnership with Compass Marketing to life said Keith Reynolds, Vice President of Sales at MARS DRINKS North America.

Compass Marketing Inc., relied upon by top brands to guide sales and marketing activities, announces a new collaboration with MARS DRINKS, a leading brand in workplace drinks solutions. Compass will support MARS DRINKS as they expand into the online, office and foodservice channels.

MARS DRINKSa 100 percent workplace-dedicated segment of Mars, Incorporatedis inspiring people to rethink what work and the work day can be. Their hot beverage solutions support businesses that want to provide great working environments for their people. MARS DRINKS single-serve brewers fit seamlessly into office spaces small and large and offer a variety of cafe-style drinks including coffees, teas, hot chocolate, mochas, lattes, cappuccinos and authentic espresso to satisfy the wide range of taste preferences.

A commitment to sustainability is central to the MARS DRINKS offering, innovating solutions that help businesses to meet their own sustainability goals. Their aim is to offer the most sustainable workplace drinks solution. MARS DRINKS Freshpacks are recyclable using the Recycle Your Freshpacks program in the United States and Canada.

We are very excited to bring our partnership with Compass Marketing to life said Keith Reynolds, Vice President of Sales at MARS DRINKS North America. Through these new channels, Online, Office and Foodservice, we will bring more people together at work to connect, collaborate and get things done.

Leading brands rely on the dedicated and experienced teams at Compass Marketing, Inc. to support and grow their businesses. Compass Marketing, Inc. offers a range of servicesincluding consulting, marketing, sales and e-commerce, as well as digital technology solutionsthat help brands stand out and succeed in an increasingly competitive market.

We are excited to support MARS DRINKS, part of the family-owned Mars, Incorporated, as they bring their workplace designed technologies to more offices across North America, said John White, CEO of Compass Marketing.

About Mars Drinks

MARS DRINKS creates great tasting moments at work by being at the center of workplace engagement, collaboration, productivity and well-being. Throughout North America, Europe and Asia, MARS DRINKS supports businesses who want to provide great working environments for their people. Part of Mars, Incorporated MARS DRINKS focuses its energy and resources on the workplace, with the belief that people are the most important asset to any business. In 1973 MARS DRINKS introduced KLIX the first-ever fully automatic in-cup drinks vending machine that serves large manufacturing channels across Europe. In 1984 MARS DRINKS pioneered the single serve hot drinks category, introducing FLAVIA, the first system for making hot drinks using fresh ground coffee and leaf teas sealed in individual servings. Through its ALTERRA Coffee Roasters coffees, THE BRIGHT TEA CO.  teas, and DOVE Hot Chocolate, MARS DRINKS creates more than 1 billion great tasting moments at work! Find MARS DRINKS online at http://www.marsdrinks.com.

About Compass Marketing Inc.

Compass Marketing Inc. is headquartered in Annapolis, MD and is a leading marketing agency for consumer products in the US. Compass Marketing proudly represents a powerful portfolio of Fortune 100 clients, who collectively have over $400 billion in annual sales. For more information visit http://www.compassmarketinginc.com.

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The global education symposium was a way for highly talented educators from across the country to collaborate and share ideas to better themselves and their curriculum." -MHS President Pete Gurt 85.

On June 21-23, Milton Hershey School hosted a Global Education Symposium in partnership with Education First and the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools. The symposium featured nationally-renowned thought leaders, Milton Hershey School staff and other educational scholars who shared innovative approaches to 21st century learners.

The global education symposium was a way for highly talented educators from across the country to collaborate and share ideas to better themselves and their curriculum, said MHS President Pete Gurt 85. Im personally proud of the Milton Hershey School staff participating and sharing the success of our School programs that help students reach their full potential.

Leading industry experts including President and Co-Founder of EdLeader21 Valerie Greenhill, writer and educational consultant Suzie Boss, and author and professor Dr. Joseph Levine, shared their knowledge as well as explored new strategies to empower students to thrive in an increasingly connected global world.

Greenhill challenged educators to ensure the global education improvements they would like to make to their programs are truly aligned with their vision so that all children have an opportunity to succeed in the modern world.

MHS educators shared their expertise on topics like Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Math education (STEAM), social and emotional learning (SEL), technology, global education, project-based learning, and student and parent engagement. The Schools curriculum emphasizes multicultural and global experience to elevate students understanding of how to be successful in todays world.

The goal of the symposium was for educators to learn about new approaches to integrate into their curriculum that promote design thinking, educational technology, and 21st century success.

Learn more about Milton Hershey School and watch a live stream of part of the symposium at mhskids.org.

ABOUT MILTON HERSHEY SCHOOL

Milton Hershey School is one of the worlds best private schools, offering a top-notch education and positive home life to children in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade from families of lower income at no charge.
The computers will make success at school much easier for these students  and hopefully gives them a chance to get a better job, or to go to college after they graduate. - Byron Moreland, Greenwood Independent School District, Texas

Every Student Needs To Be Comfortable With Computers

Full participation in work, school, home, and community requires access to technology. For students, access to a computer is especially crucial to their social and educational development.

Shape The Future is an innovative program that brings computers to USA students who need them most. Providing computers to students, free of charge, boosts their chances of success in life. And, in turn, helps shape a brighter future.

Through this unique program, students in need are provided with their own computers - not loaners or rentals  and thus, given the necessary tools to continue their academic development, without barriers.

Great technology in the schools only goes so far. If students dont have computers at home, they may have more trouble becoming technologically literate. It affects their ability to complete homework, communicate with teachers and other students, and become prepared for life after graduation. -Steve Glover, CEO of Compugen Education

Closing the Digital Divide

Technology continues to become more and more essential to learning, employment, and our daily lives. However, many lower income and minority groups still do not have the level of access they need. This is the digital divide.

Without proper access, large portions of our society could be left behind. It is Shape the Futures mission to bridge that gap and ensure up-to-date technology for students, regardless of socio-economic standings.

By working towards this technology parity, Shape the Future seeks to shorten the technology gap and improve computer literacy among those in our society who need it most.

How Its Done

Through Compugen Educations Green4Good program, Compugen Education receives and refurbishes corporate off lease computers to be near-new and ready to serve students.

Working with partnered school districts, Compugen Education identifies families in need. Then, these families are provided a high-quality PC, loaded with Microsofts with Windows 10, Windows Office, and the powerful LearningSuite software, free of charge.

As assistant superintendent of schools in the Greenwood Independent School District, a beneficiary of Shape the Future, outside of Midland, Texas, Byron Moreland knows first-hand the kind of impact this program can have: The computers will make success at school much easier for these students  and hopefully gives them a chance to get a better job, or to go to college after they graduate.

Lets Shape the Future Together

It takes committed teamwork on the part of many people and organizations to make real change happen. Team up with Shape the Future to ensure all students, regardless of income, have the tools for success in their hands.

To benefit from Shape the Future, schools must meet the following qualifications:

-Low-income families are to be pre-approved by the school/district

-All computers awarded are to be shipped and distributed by the school/district itself

-Participating schools/districts must provide an opportunity for Compugen Education to bid on the supply of refurbished technology to that school/district

Compugen Education, in partnership with Microsoft, is proud to offer the Shape the Future program. To learn more about this exciting program visit: http://compugeneducation.com/shape-the-future/

About Compugen Inc and Compugen Education

Canadas top IT solutions and services provider, Compugen Inc. works with mid- to large-sized Canadian organizations to help them maximize the business value of their investment in information technology.

Compugen Education is a division of Compugen Inc, selling high-performance, refurbished computers to K-12 Schools in the USA.
Hold Brothers - Success is how fast you get there The Trading Show offers a unique opportunity to interact with the best and brightest in the trading industry, and we were happy to have representation in Chicago. We look forward to seeing everyone again in New York this fall.

The Hold Brothers team attended The Trading Show Chicago on May 18-19 at the Navy Pier in Chicago. The conference focused on the latest innovations in quant, big data, HPC, and electronic trading.

Hold Brothers* attended the 2-day event to engage in conversations about the technological advances in software development, algorithmic trading technologies, and big data. The event, which also provided in-depth educational classes and interaction with successful professional trading companies, was a huge success.

Hold Brothers was present to showcase the companys capabilities in software development, market access, self-clearing, compliance, and international outsourcing operations. Gregory Hold, CEO, said, The Trading Show offers a unique opportunity to interact with the best and brightest in the trading industry, and we were happy to have representation in Chicago. We look forward to seeing everyone again in New York this fall.

About Hold Brothers

Hold Brothers is a leader in providing equities traders with the tools and information they need to execute trades quickly, effectively and efficiently, in any market environment. Since 1994, Hold Brothers has been committed to developing flexible and cutting-edge technology designed to meet the changing demands of the global trading industry. For more information, please visit: http://www.hold.com.

*Hold Brothers is the marketing name for Hold Brothers Capital, LLC, (a registered broker-dealer and a CBOE member) and its affiliates. All securities activities and transactions are handled through Hold Brothers Capital LLC.
WSO2 delivers the only fully integrated open source enterprise middleware platform to support todays enterprise environmentsinternally and across the cloud, mobile devices, and Internet of Things.

Organizations worldwide need to engage with customers across their channels of choice, which has evolved from phone and the web to chat, Twitter, email, and even wearables. No company understands that better than WEST Interactive. The company has built a cloud-based platform, based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and WSO2 enterprise middleware, which enables WEST to rapidly adapt its communications solutions to enterprise customers changing demands. WSO2 will host a case study webinar on the development and DevOps best practices employed by WEST to ensure agility, as well as cost-effective scalability and high availability.

The webinar, WSO2 Customer Webinar: WEST Interactives Deployment Approach and DevOps Practices, will be presented jointly by WSO2 and WEST Interactive. The session will be held Thursday, June 30, 2016, from 10 a.m.  11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

To register, visit http://wso2.com/library/webinars/2016/06/west-interactives-deployment-approach-and-devops-practices. Following the session, the webinar recording will be available via the same web link.

A Communication Platform Powered by Open Source Middleware

Leading the webinar will be Chathura Kulasinghe, a senior solutions engineer on the WSO2 solutions architecture team, and guest presenter Preston Gross-Rhode, a systems engineer for WEST Corporations platform engineering group. They will begin with an overview of WEST Interactives most recent cloud-based deployment with WSO2, which allows the company to expose client connections, data sources and application logic through a common protocol and messaging architecture. Included will be a review of the products used to build the solution, including WSO2 API Manager, WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus, WSO2 Data Services Server, WSO2 Application Server, and WSO2 Message Broker.

Next, Preston and Chathura will examine the DevOps-related theories and practices that West applied in designing, building and maintaining the solution. Among the aspects they will discuss are:



The design process behind the solution

Hardening practices applied to the solutions deployment and production

Lifecycle management of runtime artifacts

DevOps practices around virtualization and automation

Troubleshooting and debugging practices

Webinar Presenters

Guest presenter Preston Gross-Rhode is a systems engineer for WEST Corporations platform engineering group. He has spent 11 years at WEST developing solutions for enterprise clients as well as designing and maintaining the service-oriented architectural framework within the WEST environment, including multiple WSO2 products. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Nebraska, Omaha. in big data, data mining and software development applied to the biomedical domain.

WSO2 presenter Chathura Kulasinghe is a senior solutions engineer in the solutions architecture team at WSO2. During the course of his career at WSO2, he has also been involved in the research and development of WSO2 App Factory. Prior to joining WSO2, Chathura worked on designing and implementing enterprise solutions related to the banking industry, obtaining experience on working with different technologies such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft middleware and near-field-communication (Sony Felica based) platforms.

About WEST Interactive

WEST Interactive Services is dedicated to delivering and improving upon new channels, new capabilities and new choices for how businesses and consumers collaborate, connect and transact. They operate at the scale and speed necessary to capitalize on the promise of emerging technologies and the advantages they will provide. It is their business to deliver reliable, scalable, productive communications and build smarter, more meaningful connections. WEST is the backbone of a communications platform that is connecting the world.

About WSO2

WSO2 empowers enterprises to build connected businesses and accelerate their pace of innovation with the industrys only lean, fully integrated, and 100% open source enterprise middleware platform. Using WSO2s platform, enterprises have all the functionality to build, integrate, manage, secure and analyze their APIs, applications, Web services, and microserviceson-premises, in the cloud, on mobile devices, and across the Internet of Things. Leading enterprise customers worldwide rely on WSO2s platform and its robust performance and governance for their mission-critical applications. Today, these businesses represent nearly every sector: health, financial, retail, logistics, manufacturing, travel, technology, telecom and more. Visit http://wso2.com to learn more, or check out the WSO2 community on the WSO2 Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
Chicago Personal Injury Attorney Daniel M. Kotin "For me, serving as president of the Chicago Bar Association is one of the greatest opportunities that I can imagine receiving as a practicing lawyer here in Chicago," says Kotin.

The law firm of Tomasik Kotin Kasserman, LLC is proud to announce that Partner Daniel M. Kotin was installed as president of the Chicago Bar Association (CBA). At the 143rd Annual Meeting of the CBA, held on June 23, 2016, the gavel was passed from outgoing President Patricia Brown Holmes to Kotin.

The CBA, established in 1874, is one of the oldest and most active bar associations in the country. The CBA consists of over 22,000 attorneys, judges, and legal professionals from the Chicago area and throughout the State of Illinois. The main objective of the CBA is to maintain the honor and dignity of the legal profession, while promoting the administration of justice to the public.

Kotin has a long-standing history of service and leadership within the CBA. His active leadership has included several committee chair positions including serving on the Association's Finance Committee, and as a director of the Young Lawyers Section. In 2009, he was elected to the Associations Board of Managers for a two-year term, and has also served as treasurer. In 2015, Kotin was elected as second vice president, the role that elevated him to president.

"For me, serving as president of the Chicago Bar Association is one of the greatest opportunities that I can imagine receiving as a practicing lawyer here in Chicago," says Kotin.

Chicago personal injury attorney Daniel M. Kotin is a founding partner of Tomasik Kotin Kasserman, LLC. He graduated with a B.A. from Boston College, and went on to obtain his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He concentrates his legal practice in personal injury, wrongful death, and medical malpractice.

He has obtained numerous record setting muti-million dollar verdicts on behalf of personal injury victims and their families. His successful courtroom legacy has earned him top leadership roles on several mass tort litigation steering committees and he has been elected to many prominent positions within well-established legal organizations.

Kotin recently served as president of The Society of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only organization comprised of elite trial lawyers in Chicago. He is also a member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, where he serves on the Board of Managers.

Most recently, Kotin was admitted to the American Board of Trial Advocates, another invitation-only national association of trial lawyers with extensive trial experience, extraordinary character, and high ethical standards. He has been rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest attainable rating an attorney can achieve. Additionally, Kotin has been recognized as an Illinois Super Lawyer, an accolade only received by the top five percent of attorneys in the state, for 12 straight years.

About Tomasik Kotin Kasserman, LLC:

The premier law firm of Tomasik Kotin Kasserman, LLC (TKK) is located in Chicago, Illinois. The veteran trial attorneys at TKK are dedicated to obtaining justice for personal injury victims and their families.

The firm effectively and compassionately handles cases pertaining to personal injury and wrongful death, car accidents, medical negligence, product liability, mass transit litigation, aviation litigation, and construction negligence. As personal injury advocates, the experienced attorneys at TKK have secured numerous record setting muti-million dollar settlements on behalf of seriously injured individuals.

Contact TKK today to speak with a highly qualified member of our legal team to discuss your potential case. Call 312-605-8800 or visit http://www.tkklawfirm.com to schedule a free case consultation.
The race is one of many opportunities our company takes to foster employee involvement in the community. We have a great group of people always ready to take part in activities outside of the workplace and participate in a little friendly competition.

Counsel Financial, the nations largest commercial lender exclusively to the plaintiffs bar, is set to participate in the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge in Buffalo, New York on June 23, 2016. This year marks the 40th consecutive year of the running event hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which is held annually to promote corporate teamwork, camaraderie and local business communities. The 3.5-mile race will draw over 10,000 participants from close to 400 companies in the Western New York region to Delaware Park and is one of 13 in the banks running series that spans seven countries and five continents.

Counsel Financial has gathered a team of runners, along with numerous colleagues and family members as spectators, to not only foster teamwork and fitness within the company, but also to demonstrate its commitment to promoting growth and development in Upstate New York. The company took particular interest in this years event after J.P. Morgan announced it would donate a portion of the race proceeds to the Say Yes Buffalo partnership. Counsel Financial firmly believes in Say Yes Buffalos mission, which is to strengthen the Western New York economy by investing in the education of the regions future workforce. The primary goals of the partnership are to convene the school district, parents, teachers, administrators, state, city and county governments, higher education, community based organizations, businesses and foundations to increase high school and postsecondary completion rates.

Kim Gomlak, Counsel Financials team captain, stated, The race is just one of many opportunities our company takes to foster employee involvement in the community. We have a great group of people always ready to take part in activities outside of the workplace and participate in a little friendly competition.

About Counsel Financial

Counsel Financial is the largest provider of working capital lines of credit to plaintiffs attorneys in the industry, having loaned over $1.5 billion exclusively to plaintiffs attorneys in its 15-year history. Counsel Financial sets the standard for innovation and flexibility in its loan offerings, structuring terms that are conducive to the unique demands of contingency-fee practices. Leveraging 200+ years of internal legal experience, Counsel Financial has financed the growth of firms in every area of plaintiffs litigation, including personal injury, mass torts, class action and labor and employment. The company is exclusively endorsed by six national and state trial organizations, including the American Association for Justice and The National Trial Lawyers.
Acceptance Photo - Global Relay President & General Counsel, Shannon Rogers (middle) and CEO & Founder, Warren Roy (left) Its an incredible recognition of Global Relays world-class technology solutions  and the endlessly inquisitive and creative minds that worked hard to conceive, create, and market them."

Global Relay recently took home top honours by receiving the 2016 Company of the Year award from the BC Tech Association (formerly, the BCTIA). The award was presented at a sold-out gala event held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Now in its 23rd year, the Technology Impact Awards is the longest-running and largest technology award program in British Columbia. Winners in its ten categories epitomize financial, strategic, and product excellence, and represent the vast potential of BC companies to be among the leading tech ecosystems on a global scale.

Global Relay is the quintessential BC Tech success story, demonstrating the zeal and tenacity that it takes to build a truly global company in Vancouver, noted Bill Tam, BC Tech Association President and CEO. The Company of the Year award celebrates their exemplary achievements and their unwavering commitment to strengthening our community.

Global Relay was founded in 1999 as a three-person tech start-up  without help from venture capital or any external funding. Today, it has almost 400 employees in seven offices, and is an established leader in enterprise information archiving, eDiscovery, and compliance messaging. As a privately-owned and employee-controlled company, it successfully competes on the world stage with multi-billion tech giants like Google, Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Veritas.

Global Relays innovative cloud-based solutions enable financial organizations all over the world to efficiently capture, archive, search, and analyze their business data  making it easy for employees to find the information they need, when they need it.

Being named Company of the Year truly is a defining moment for us  theres no greater honour, said Warren Roy, CEO & Founder of Global Relay. Its an incredible recognition of Global Relays world-class technology solutions  and the endlessly inquisitive and creative minds that worked hard to conceive, create, and market them. We are grateful to Bill Tam and all our friends at BCTA.

For Shannon Rogers, President & General Counsel of Global Relay, winning the award reinforces the pivotal role that women play in technology and leadership positions today. Global Relay has made a concerted effort to hire more women and put them in senior management roles, and its paying off in so many ways, said Rogers, named one of Canadas top female entrepreneurs. As more and more talented and business savvy women enter the tech industry, I have just three words for companies who want to succeed: Hire more women!

Global Relay was selected by a jury of eight notable business professionals from across Canada. The finalists and winner of the Company of the Year award were evaluated based on four equally weighted criteria:



Financial Performance

Strategy

Market Position

Technical and Product Excellence

About Global Relay

Global Relay is the leading provider of cloud-based electronic message archiving, supervision, and eDiscovery solutions for the global financial sector and other highly regulated industries. Global Relay delivers services to over 20,000 customers in 90 countries, including 22 of the top 25 banks. Global Relay Archive supports email, IM, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, social media, mobile messaging, and more - with mobile, Outlook, and web access.

For more information:

Bryce Sack

bryce.sack(at)globalrelay(dot)net

604.484.6630

http://www.globalrelay.com
Fisher Investments is pleased to announce it was named one of InvestmentNews Top 10 US Registered Investment Advisers by total assets under management.

Ranked #2 on the InvestmentNews RIA list, the firm and its affiliates manage over $65 billion in assetsover $33 billion for North American private investors, over $28 billion for institutional investors and over $3 billion for European private investors (as of the 6/6/16 publication date). Fisher Investments and its affiliates have operations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, Japan, Australia and the Dubai International Financial Centrewith further global expansion expected.

Damian Ornani, President of Client Acquisition and Service at Fisher Investments, commented, We are honored to be recognized by InvestmentNews. Our top priority is helping clients meet their investment goals by providing them with unparalleled service and continuous education. We look forward to helping many more clients accomplish their investment goals and objectives in the future. Fisher Investments and its affiliates have over 33,000 private clients and 150 institutional clients globally.

InvestmentNews qualified over 1,700 firms based in the United States using data reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. To qualify, advisers must be fee-only, based in the United States, independent from any broker/dealer, and meet other criteria.

To access the full list and criteria for consideration, please visit the following link: http://data.investmentnews.com/ria/

About InvestmentNews

InvestmentNews is a weekly publication providing news, data, research and events for financial advisers on investing strategy, practice management and retirement planning. For more information, please visit http://www.investmentnews.com

About Fisher Investments

Fisher Investments is an independent, fee-only investment adviser founded in 1979. Fisher Investments maintains four principal business units: Fisher Investments Institutional Group, Fisher Investments Private Client Group, Fisher Investments 401(k) Solutions Group and Fisher Investments International Group, which serve a global client base of diverse investors. Founder and CEO Ken Fisher has written the Forbes Portfolio Strategy column for over 30 years, and has authored several New York Times bestselling books on finance and investing. For more information, please visit http://www.fisherinvestments.com.
The Supplyframe Design Lab's rapid prototyping room is equipped with a CNC mill and large scale router cutter. It's a place designed for radical innovation. Past News Releases RSS

Supplyframe, the Industry Network for electronics hardware design and manufacturing, today announced the launch of the Supplyframe Design Lab. Located in Pasadena, Calif., the Design Labs mission is to bring together inventors and entrepreneurs to explore the future of how hardware projects are designed, built and brought to market.

The Design Lab is Supplyframes physical representation of one of the worlds largest online engineering communities, with more than 6 million people using the companys electronic component discovery, supply chain management and project collaboration platforms.

With a 4,900-square-foot research and development studio packed with professional-grade tools to facilitate collaboration in product design, manufacturing, art and technology, the Supplyframe Design Lab represents a perfect location for hardware innovation, entrepreneurial thinking, tinkering, education and thought leadership.

While current trends in creative workplace design focus on spaces that are light, airy and warm, the Design Lab is stark, industrial and elegant to encourage the raw energy and passion needed to create something new. Cory Grosser says, The lab is not a warm-loft concept, but a design inspired by caffeine fueled all-nighters, late night coding sessions and underground skunkworks. Its a place designed for radical innovation.

An open house launch party takes place today (June 23) at the Supplyframe Design Lab, 30 East Del Mar Blvd. in Pasadena.

Over the next ten years, some of the most exciting developments in technology will be about connecting the digital to the physical in new and creative ways says Steve Flagg, CEO and Founder of Supplyframe. We built the Design Lab to explore that rapidly evolving intersection and to inspire inventors and entrepreneurs to bring truly innovative hardware to market.

Supplyframe Design Lab's Resident Engineer Dan Hienzsch will welcome residents for 3-month-long funded residencies. The Design Lab seeks product design or prototype project proposals from the worldwide community of engineers, hardware startups, designers and builders for its first round of residencies, which begin July 1, 2016.

Residencies fall into one of two tracks. Designers in the product track will be supported in mentorship and sponsorship to build physical products in VR, assistive technology, wearable computing, home automation, artificial intelligence, medical devices etc. Artists in the art-tech track will receive mentorship and funding to build ambitious projects, electronic objects and interfaces, holography and interactive installations.

Hienzsch and other mentors, including Hackaday's Sophi Kravitz, will advise Design Lab residents as they work toward making their proposals a reality. Brainstorming and collaboration among residents is encouraged. Design residents and members of the local design/tech community will also have opportunities to meet and share ideas with remarkable designers and engineers during workshops, meetups and tech talks.

About Supplyframe: Supplyframe is the Industry Network for electronics design and manufacturing. We provide open and connected access to the worlds largest collection of vertical search engines, supply chain tools and online communities. At the foundation is a powerful dataset that allows us to draw critical insights to optimize the Supplyframe experience. The result? Networked innovation with unmatched speed and efficiency that is powering the creation of the next big thing.

Our industry leading brands include: Parts.io, Findchips, OEMsTrade, Hackaday.com, Tindie, Hackaday.io, EEFocus, QuoteFX, Polydyne, SupplyFX.

Cory Grosser + Associates is a globally successful, boutique design studio based in Pasadena California. Led by American designer Cory Grosser, the studio specializes in leveraging beautiful design to create emotional connections between clients and their customers. This approach is called Creative Intelligence whereby design is the force behind creative strategies for business and engaging narratives for people. The studio's work lies at the intersection of commerce and culture and includes; architectural design, furniture design, brand strategy, and creative direction. Although small and highly focused, the studio has helped some of the worlds largest and most prestigious brands use design to succeed in the modern global marketplace. Selected clients include: Bentley, Bernhardt Design, Disney, Ford, Hyundai, Samsonite, Steelcase, Supplyframe and Universal Studios.
An African-American bookstore returns in California; a North Carolina bookstore adds a B&B; a bookstore searches for space in Queens; and more.

Carols Books in Sacramento Reopening: Five years after flooding caused by a broken water main forced the African-American bookstore to close, owner Sharon Wright is readying the space to reopen. Its been freshly painted and new shelves, a new counter, and books are being put in place. No date has been set yet for the reopening.

Unlimited Books for Kids Opening in Franklin, N.C.: Suzanne Harouff is planning a July 1 opening for a 300 sq. ft. childrens store next door to her general new and used bookstore, Books Unlimited. The new space will have enough room for story time and other childrens activities. The current childrens section will become a bargain room. Harouff is also looking at moving other sections.

Queens Bookstore Initiative Reaches Kickstarter Goal: When Vina Castillo, Natalie Noboa, and Holly Nikodem worked at Barnes & Noble, they joked about opening a bookstore their own. As a result of raising over $72,000, theyre significantly closer to fulfilling their dream to have a general bookstore in the New York City borough.

GoFundMe Campaign Launched for Destroyed Ohio Bookstore: After a tragic fire earlier this week that destroyed the historic building that housed Browse Awhile Bookstore in downtown Tipp City, a fundraiser has been set up to raise money for expenses not covered by insurance.

Keeping Baldface Books in Dover, N.H.: The 25-year-old bookstores Indiegogo campaign, which ended earlier this month, raised a little less than half of the $9,500 it needs to renovate the store. A group of poets, authors, artists, and musicians are planning a June 30 benefit to be held at the bookstore to help it stem the loss in foot traffic since its move four years ago.

Old Books on Front Street Adds Literary B&B: This fall the Wilmington, N.C., bookstore is opening a book-themed bed-and-breakfast, which is tentatively called The Top Shelf, above the bookstore. Managing partner Gwenyfar Rohler got the idea from the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a literary bed-and-breakfast in Newport, Ore.

Edward McKay Closing in Fayetteville: The owners are closing the 42-year-old used bookstore and putting the property up for sale. No date has been set yet, but store hours will be scaled back after July 1. The other McKay stores in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem will remain open.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A team of graduate students from Purdue University's agronomy and botany departments is partnering with DuPont Pioneer to host the first Purdue Plant Science Symposium.

The program is part of the DuPont Plant Science Symposia series, which is co-sponsored by DuPont and host universities around the world. The goal of the series is to improve collaboration and problem solving among universities, government organizations and the agricultural industry. Purdue's symposium will be 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Aug. 4 at the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, 610 Purdue Mall, West Lafayette. The theme is "An Interdisciplinary Approach to Abiotic Stress."

"The main goal of the symposium is to build interdisciplinary partnerships within the plant sciences," said Heather Pasley, a doctorate student in agronomy. "We hope to inspire the research that will improve abiotic stress tolerance in plants and close the global yield gap."

The global yield gap is a gauge of how well global food production is keeping up with demand. It is measured by a number of factors such as abiotic stress, which is stress inflicted on living organisms by nonliving substances or forces. Abiotic stress can be caused by wind, heat or cold, or natural disasters.

Speakers at the symposium will include researchers from Purdue, the universities of Missouri and Nebraska, DuPont Pioneer and the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo, or International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Events will include roundtable discussions, networking opportunities, a tour of Purdue's new phenotyping facility and a graduate student poster session.

Registration is free and open to the public but especially encouraged for graduate students, Pasley said. Organizers hope to include participants from all subdivisions of agriculture, including physiology, soil science, plant genetics and breeding, molecular genetics, agricultural and biological engineering, weed science, entomology, horticulture, agricultural economics, forestry and food science, as well as agronomy and botany.

"We are hoping these symposia are one way to work together to address complex issues like food security and abiotic stress," Pasley said. "We want to create networks among graduate schools and dialogue between public and private sectors."

The poster competition is open to graduate and postdoctoral students from any agricultural discipline at any university. Posters will be judged on clarity, succinctness, verbal and visual layout and the content of the research. The top three students will receive cash prizes of $300, $200 and $100 respectively. Additionally, several $300 travel grants are available. The application for the travel grant is available at http://bit.ly/28IWPHI and will be accepted until July 15.

Registration for the symposium and poster competition are available at http://bit.ly/28J3XVv and will be open until July 15.

For more information, contact Pasley, hpasley@purdue.edu, or visit the symposium Facebook page at http://bit.ly/28Pa5wv.

Writer: Jessica Merzdorf, 765-494-7719, jmerzdor@purdue.edu

Source: Heather Pasley, hpasley@purdue.edu

Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-2722;

Keith Robinson, robins89@purdue.edu

Agriculture News Page
Press release submitted by Rock Island County Farm Bureau

Dan Basse, President of AgResource Company, will be the featured speaker at the Farm Bureaus Market Outlook Series on Wednesday, July 13 at Lavender Crest Winery, 5401 US Highway 6, Colona. The evening will begin with a buffet dinner at 6:15 p.m., followed by an update from Gold Star FS Grain Merchandiser, Mike Schaver.

Dan Basse is President of AgResource Company. AgResource Co. is a domestic and international agricultural research firm located in Chicago. AgResource forecasts domestic and world agricultural price trends and provides information/research to; farmers, elevators, soy and corn processors, wheat millers, food companies, trading companies, importers, exporters and meat packers. AgResource's research is sold around the globe.

Basse is an economist that has been in the commodity business since 1979. Raised on a dairy/grain farm in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Mr. Basse has a keen sense of production agriculture. Mr. Basse graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1979. He has worked with Professional Farmers of America, Brock Associates and the Ag research division of GNP Commodities in Chicago.

In 1988, Mr. Basse founded AgResource Company to serve the needs of the US and world agricultural community. Mr. Basse sits as a member of the US Farm Foundation helping to direct ag policy and holds 3 global conferences on agriculture in Canada, Switzerland and Brazil.

Cost for a single session is $25.00 (if not pre-registered cost will be $30.00). Reservations must made by July 6 to guarantee a meal. To make reservations, please call the Henry County Farm Bureau (309) 937-2411 or the Rock Island County Farm Bureau (309) 736-7432.

The Market Outlook Series is sponsored by the Henry and Rock Island County Farm Bureaus, Gold Star FS, BankOrion, 1st Farm Credit Services, CHS Annawan, Steve Sim  Country Financial and Big River Resources.
Men at the East Moline Correctional Center have the opportunity to gain communication and leadership skills with the Toastmasters Club Hilltop Toasters #7889.

The men have really taken over the leadership of the club, said Gil Norris, of Rock Island, IL, who recently earned the highest award given out to Toastmasters in District 19. District 19 covers the state of Iowa and parts of Illinois and Nebraska.

The Cap Sias Award is to acknowledge and honor an exemplary member of Toastmasters who displays commitment, dedication and effort for the Toastmasters program and fellow members, and who has made significant contributions toward achieving the goals and mission of the club and District. Norris will receive special recognition of this award on June 27 at the East Moline Correctional Center.

Norris has been volunteering with the Hilltop Toasters for the past 16 years.

Its the only organization in the prison where they have any say, said Norris. They run the meetings, do the scheduling, recruit the members. Its also a safe place where they can make mistakes and get better.

Norris favorite part is seeing the men develop. One past member, Hector Crespo, Jr., said, While at East Moline Correctional Center and being a member of Hilltop Toasters, I witnessed Mr. Gil Norris influencing the lives of many of the men who were involved in Toastmasters. Personally, he mentored me by guiding me in reaching my goals to achieve the Triple Crown Award.

The Triple Crown Award is earned by completing three educational awards in one Toastmasters year. Mr. Norris demonstrated unselfish, heart-warming dedication to the men at Hilltop Toastmasters, continued Crespo. He gave recognition where it was due, and evaluated with sincerity. He is an example of an outstanding Toastmaster, and a model citizen.

Crespo credits the work of Norris and others at Hilltop Toasters with his recent election as president of his new club and Area Director, a district leadership role. Crespo was awarded Toastmaster of the year, and is in the process of forming a new club for returning citizens called CONVICTions in District 30, serving the Chicago-area.

The leadership of the club is a team effort. Aside from Norris and the members of the club, there are several others who contribute to the success, including Don Wadleigh, the District Prison Chair.

We really try to build them up, Norris said about the participants in the club. We call everyone Mister. I deliberately stay in the background, and they lead.

The Toastmasters meetings help the men gain skills that will help them after they leave prison. A portion of the meeting is devoted to impromptu speaking, which helps build interview skills. Some of the men are interested in being counselors, so communication skills are key.

Its not all business, though. If were not having fun, were not doing it right, said Norris, who said there is laughter at every meeting.

# # #

To interview Norris, learn more about the award or Toastmasters club membership, contact Amanda Martin, District 19 Public Relations Manager, at mandajmartin@gmail.com or 563-451-2770.

About District 19

District 19 is one of 98 districts, which comprises more than 89 corporate and community clubs in Iowa and part of Nebraska and Illinois. To learn more about District 19, please visit: www.district19.me.
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Clearly we aren't doing something right, do we just need more education or is it something much more?

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Every time the Marine Corps sent me back to Operation Iraqi Freedom, new and better equipment awaited: radios, armored vehicles, electronic jammers to foil roadside bombs. It was clear that the rapid acquisition policies created or updated for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were sending high-performing, technical systems to the battlefield much faster than conventional acquisition could. They helped me do my infantrymans job better, and helped our force adapt to evolving threats in months rather than years or decades.

Sensibly, policymakers are trying to figure out how rapid acquisition ideas could help the conventional acquisition system perform better. Early this year, the Pentagon enshrined rapid acquisition by including a dedicated section on it in the latest regulations governing acquisition. The Air Force recently announced that it is procuring its new B-21 bomber through its rapid capabilities office, and the Navy is setting up a similar office to speed up acquisitions.

Yet rapid acquisition practices that worked during recent wars may not easily translate to peacetime endeavors. Our enthusiasm must be tempered by an understanding of the circumstances that made it work and the downsides that were accepted in wartime....

The remainder of this commentary is available on defenseone.com.

Jonathan Wong is an assistant policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a recent graduate of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where his dissertation examined rapid acquisition policies. He served as a Marine Corps infantryman from 2001 to 2011.

This commentary originally appeared on Defense One on June 23, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Argentina and Chile have set their sights on a stronger collaboration in telecoms, with ARSAT playing a decisive role.





Among other projects, ARSAT is looking at partnering with Chiles national TV system, TVN, to provide technical support to develop the DTT network so it can provide HDTV across the country.In a round of meetings held this week, Rodrigo de Loredo, ARSATs president, built up a bilateral cooperation plan focused on telecoms. In addition to the DTT project, De Loredo and Andres Gomez and Pedro Huichalaf, Chiles Minister and Deputy Minister of Telecoms, discussed how to connect both countries through their own growing fibre networks.This project would enable Chile to have an Internet-network back-up in case of natural disasters, especially frequent earthquakes, said De Loredo.As the Argentinean public company covers fibre, DTT and satellite businesses, the possibility was discussed to provide connectivity through satellite for nearly 1,000 rural schools which cant access cable networks.De Loredo also met with private operators in order to close commercial agreements for ARSAT-2s satellite capacity, but no deal has been revealed so far.
Mobile TV platform SIMU.tv is to add eight channels from SPI Internationals FilmBox portfolio to subscribers in Tanzania.





Push Mobile Media Company-owned SIMU.tv provides both live channels and video-on-demand (VOD) , with a potential reach of 12 million viewers.The deal with SPI International will see the platform offer FilmBox Africa, FilmBox Art House, Fast & Funbox, FashionBox, Docubox and Madscreen Box. Among the content offered on the channels are popular BBC dramas Doctor Who and The Musketeers, and classic films from Kurosawa, Fellini and Hitchcock.The signing of this partnership has come at the right time, as it emphasises our commitment in introducing new amplifying content experience to our esteemed subscribers, said Freddie Manento, managing director, Push Mobile Media Company Ltd.SPIs head of sales in Africa Amit Karni, added:  SPI International has been committed to expanding its distribution footprint throughout Africa. The agreement we signed with Push Mobile Media Ltd follows a number of other deals we recently closed with partners in Mali, Nigeria and the Seychelles.
FremantleMedia North America (FMNA) is expanding the Baywatch brand, based on the hit television series.





Among the new partners that have come on board to create programmes surrounding the Baywatch brand is IGT is launching a Baywatch 3D video slot machine that transports players to some of the most iconic Baywatch beach scenes in a glasses-free 3D gaming environment.Few brands have stood the test of time like Baywatch, said Andrea Brent, SVP, licensing & franchise management, FMNA . The epic storyline set on the beaches of Malibu provides the perfect backdrop for a host of licensed products.Baywatch has been a global television cult classic since it premiered in 1989 and still remains to be a current, relevant, and iconic piece of American pop culture. At its peak, the show had a staggering one billion views and holds a Guinness World Records title for the largest TV audience in the world for a series. Baywatch has been a global success that has aired in more than 148 countries worldwide.
Russian banks $30 mln claim against ex-tycoon dismissed by US court  report

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI)  A court in California, U.S., has dismissed a motion lodged by Alfa-Bank, one of the largest Russias banks, seeking enforcement of a $30 million ruling against Oleg Yakovlev, the former co-owner of a chain of stores selling toys and children's clothing, Daily Report reported.

As it is mentioned, Yakovlev, once co-owner of a chain of Banana-Mama children's stores in Russia, has signed a surety contract for tens of millions of dollars and rubles for Trial Trading House Company where he reportedly was a shareholder. In 2008, the company defaulted.

In 2009, Alfa-Bank turned to Moscows Meshchansky District Court seeking repayment of the debt from Yakovlev, who had fled the country and requested political asylum in the United States by that time.

In September 2009, the Moscow court ordered the businessman in his absence to pay the bank $30,530,136.

In 2011, Trial Trading was declared bankrupt and liquidated, Alfa-Bank's suit said.

In 2014, the bank applied to the San Diego County Superior Court asking it to enforce the Moscow courts ruling.

During the June hearing Yakovlev argued that he knew nothing about the Russian trial and courts decision. The plaintiff in turn insisted that Yakovlev had been properly informed of the suit under Russian law and said that Alfa-Bank sent notifications about its claim to the defendants former home and office, the agency reported.

The San Diego County Superior Court held that the bank had not properly informed Yakovlev that he was the subject of a Russian lawsuit and default judgment stemming from a guaranty he signed two years before he left Russia, according to Daily Report.
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NEW PREORDERS

NEW ARRIVALS

Eighteen new items are up for pre-order. Diamond Select waves 2 and 3 of The Muppets include Animal, Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Miss Piggy, and many more of your favorite beloved characters! Dr. Strange also makes an appearance as a Marvel Gallery Statue just as Harley Quinn joins DC's Batman The Animated Series Gallery Statue line. New Marvel and Muppets Minimates are also available! Don't miss out on these Diamond brand items!Square Enix Products presents three new Marvel Play Arts Kai figures: limited edition colored Iron Man, Venom, and Spider-man! Iron Man has several special effect pieces included, such as repulsor rays from his palms and jet emissions on his feet. Molded structures on Venom are used to add gruesome effects to this symbiotic alien parasite. Spider-Man's joints were designed with one of the widest ranges of motion of any Play Arts Kai figure to date, so he can do whatever a spider can! Each figure comes with accessories and display stands. Add these to your Play Arts Kai collection today!This Unicron features a chest that opens to reveal a super cannon with blasting missile, and can trap Mini-con figures inside his leg (sold separately). Unicron also transforms into planet mode. $169.99The first upcoming figure from the Street Fighter V series is Ryu! Storm Collectibles is bringing their 1/6 scale quality into the 1/12 by recreating Ryu from game to real life, with his signature white karate gi with torn sleeves, medium length hair, long red headband, red gloves, black martial arts belt, and bare feet. The figure is approximately 7" tall with over 30 points of articulation that give Ryu the ability to pose for his special moves: Hadoken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki Senpukyaku! $54.99The legendary trainer from the very first Pokemon games joins Kotobukiya's ArtFX-J lineup! Red and his Pikachu prepare for their next big battle, with Pikachu charging up his electric shock, waiting for the command to attack! Red stands at 7.25" while Pikachu is 2.75" tall. $119.99These exclusive 2-packs feature Negan with Lucille, Glenn with an axe, and an exclusive smashed Glenn head, straight out of The Walking Dead's issue 100. One pack is colored in black and white and the other displays Glenn and Negan in full color all bloodied up. $59.99 EachCelebrate 40 years of the phenomenally successful Rocky saga as well as the recent Creed movie with NECA! These 7" tall figures include Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, and Dolph Lundgren from the Rocky series, and all come with two different head sculpts. Special window box packaging both celebrates the 40th Anniversary and preserves the value of the original releases for collectors.Ultimate Ash features all new fully articulated legs and tons of accessories, including 2 interchangeable heads (regular and possessed sculpts), interchangeable right forearms, severed possessed hand, Sheila head, Necronomicon, tape recording machine, shotgun and axe accessories. $24.99This incredible action figure stands over 22" tall, and has a hinged jaw that opens, revealing an inner mouth that extends for realistic movie action. It has 25 points of articulation, including double knee joints and a bendable tail, and extra attention has been paid to all the eerie details that made Giger's designs for Alien so mesmerizing. $104.99Star Ace presents this 1/6 scale figure of Viktor from Underworld: Evolution. This figure is about 12" tall with over 30 points of articulation, accurate and highly detailed facial expression, and detailed skin texture. It also comes with a variety of hands, weapons, and realistic clothing. Add this authentic figure of the Vampire Elder to your Underworld collection today. $219.99From the popular movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes a Nendoroid of Superman! This Nendoroid is a part of the fully articulated edition series that allows for all sorts of action poses from the movie. Superman also includes special parts to display him in flying poses! The full articulation has been further improved by matching the hip articulation to the design so that his body's shape is preserved even when the hips are twisted! $45.99From Iron Studios comes their Captain America: Civil War 1/10 Scale Art Statues of Falcon, Vision, Ant-Man, and Black Panther. Each polystone statue is heavily detailed and comes with their own stands. Falcon stands at 12.5" tall, Vision is 8" tall, Ant-Man is 6.75" tall, and Black Panther comes in at 7" tall.From Iron Studios comes their Star Wars 1/10 Scale Art Statues of Han Solo's Stormtrooper disguise, Kylo Ren, Rey, Qui-Gin Jinn, and Luke Skywalker as an X-Wing pilot. Each polystone statue is heavily detailed and comes with their own stands. Han Solo stands at 8" tall, Kylo Ren is 10.25" tall, Rey stands at 9.50" tall, Qui-Gin Jinn stands at 10.25" tall, and Luke Skywalker is 7.5" tall.Superstar artist Francis Manapul helped launch The Flash into an amazing run in the New 52-and now, Manapul's vision of the Scarlet Speedster is captured in this new DC Designer Series 1/6 scale statue! Order yours before they're out of sight! $104.99Eaglemoss has just released new Marvel Fact Files and Chess Collections, DC Superhero Best Of Figure Collections, The Walking Dead Magazine figures, and Star Trek items! Just some of these include a plinth base to place your Marvel Knights and Cosmic Special figurines, The Walking Dead's Rick Grimes figure and magazine, and all new Star Trek spacecraft magazines! Add the latest Eaglemoss items to your collection today!Hot on the heels of the previous two D.D. Panoramation figures comes Leo Aiolia, expanding your display possibilities all the more! This new series of 3.9-inch mini-figures and custom backdrops is like art in the palm of your hand. Set includes Leo Aiolia, two exchangeable expressions, bangs for when not wearing a mask, swappable left and right hands, lightning plasma effects, stands, two broken pillars, and stairs. $62.99Celebrate more than 25 years of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with this retro clothed action figure from the hilarious holiday classic movie! Santa Clark stands 8" tall and is dressed in intricately tailored fabric clothing similar to the iconic toy lines of the 1970s. The figure features the authorized likeness of Chevy Chase and includes plenty of accessories for complete holiday cheer: Marty Moose mug, removable Santa hat and replica model pool. This figure comes in collector-friendly window box packaging. $27.99In these sets of 4 come DC Comics' beloved superheroes and villains alike! Each 8-inch plastic figure wears an authentic cloth outfit and shares a retro vibe. Shazam and his crew, Shazam Jr., Mary Marvel, and Dr. Silvana join the series along with the New Teen Titans: Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven. These collectible figures come in sealable plastic clamshell packaging that can be opened and closed without damaging anything. $107.99 EachBased on the classic TV series, both of these retro 8" Batman and Robin figures come with an abundance of accessories that will help them fight off their foes in the city of Gotham! Both figures from Figure Toy Company have the "Bat Breather" head sculpts, and are clad in their classic, standard attire depicting them as they were portrayed by Adam West and Burt Ward! $99.99Batman and Joker join Superman and Wonder Woman on your table to season your food as salt and pepper shakers from Funko's Pop! Home line! These cute shakers are shaped just like the Pop! vinyl figures. $14.99 EachFunko's Pop! Home line comes out with acrylic cups and water bottles featuring DC Comic's Batman and Robin and Harley Quinn! Each item portrays their Pop! vinyl simple looks and can be enjoyed on-the-go or in your home.Your favorite Peanuts characters are now available in mug form! Funko brings you their stylized 12 oz. mugs depicting Charlie Brown and Snoopy for their Pop! Home line. $9.99 EachThese kits create 14-inch models of the characters from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice! They are based on digital effect files from the movie, made of precision-tooled resin and polyurethane castings, and include detailed battle scene bases. The model kits feature a simple assembly process and paint and glue is required (paint & glue sold separately).Tonner Doll brings these DC characters to life with their gorgeous sculpts of Catwoman and Harley Quinn. These beautiful 16-inch limited edition dolls come fully dressed with meticulously and high quality hand-painted details. Each posable doll is part of a collection of 300. $189.99 EachWith a crack of thunder and a booming voice, behold Zeus: the Father of the Gods! This detailed statue stands at 1/6 scale, depicting Zeus striding forward on his podium, lightning in hand. Designed and crafted by the talented Wei Ho, let this 14-inch statue of Zeus take center place and rule proudly over your Greek Myth collection as the `King of Gods' should! $209.99From the Holiday Collection by Bleacher Creatures come these Marvel 10" plush figures; they're great for display, taking selfies with, cuddling, or play. Get Deadpool dressed in chef garb, a business suit, Santa Claus, or get a cute Gwenpool plush! $19.99 EachThe officially licensed Space Invaders backpack will take you back to that space arcade aesthetic thanks to The Coop! This backpack is spacious; it has a padded laptop sleeve that fits most 17" laptops, a coin slot feature with interior access to its coin pocket, and is water resistant. Pre-order this cool retro backpack today! $59.99The Coop brings you officially license Star Trek: The Original Series 50th Anniversary travel gear! This includes a spacious durable duffle bag, a backpack with a 17" laptop sleeve and multiple pockets for storage, and a messenger bag that can hold a 14" laptop! All are decorated with Starfleet patches, official 50th Anniversary Delta trim hardware, and custom Star Trek lining: all to fit your Trekkie style.First 4 Figures is proud to present Artorias the Abysswalker, a warrior with an unbendable will of steel from FromSoftware's stunning action role-playing game Dark Souls. This Artorias statue stands at 21 inches tall from the top of his hair to the base, making for a simply stunning display centerpiece for any Dark Souls fan. Artorias comes in deluxe full-color packaging, hand numbered base, and an authenticity card. $518.99This Phat Company Idolm@ster figure features both of the mischievous twins - Ami Futami and Mami Futami! The pose is based on the illustration by director Atsushi Nishigori seen on the 4th volume of the Blu-ray & DVD jacket for the anime series, and is the first in series to feature two characters as a single figure! $199.99These adorably super-deformed figures of Leo Aiolia, Sagittarius, and Virgo Shaka from Saint Seiya launch Bandai's new Daizenshuu lineup! They're about 3.35" tall, and come with interchangeable parts to display them in different poses. $32.99 EachBioworld Merchandising brings two new laptop backpacks from Star Wars: Boba Fett and a Rebel Squadron Pilot-themed. These stylish backpacks measure approximately 13" wide x 19" tall x 8" deep and have multiple storage spaces, including padded laptop compartments. $64.99 EachSteve Reeves's iconic portrayal of Hercules set the standard for this heroic character, launching a genre of "sword & sandals" films, and defined the modern day action star. This 1/6 scale figure comes with a cloth material tunic, armor, sandals, a cape, and many more accessories to pose and display him. $179.99As seen in the final scene in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, here's Nia Teppelin in her beautiful wedding gown, in softest pink with a sheer white fabric veil! This 1/8 scale Milestone figure is about 10.25" tall and comes with a base. Make room in your collection for her today! $164.99"Why so serious?" Sideshow and Prime 1 Studio are proud to present The Joker from The Dark Knight. This Joker polystone statue is crafted in 1/2 scale, with great attention to detail and likeness of the actor. Standing around 38 inches tall, he is the ultimate Joker piece for fans. $1,999.99These intricate 1/6 scale figures from COO Models are sculpted to appear from medieval times and come with many accessories. The 12 Paladins of Charlemagne comes with a helmet, real cloth and leather fabric clothes and metal armor, a variety of hands, and multiple weapons like a sword, daggers, and a warhammer. The Richard of Lionheart figure has a head sculpt of Richard I of England, real cloth and leather fabric clothes, and multiple hands to hold the various weapons he comes with, such as a sword, daggers, and a shield. Each of these highly posable and detailed figures make perfect additions to any medieval figure collection.Funko Pop! Buttons bring you all of your favorite Marvel, DC Comics, Five Nights at Freddy's, and Star Wars characters in their new collection! Each box contains 34 buttons from your favorite fandoms. Get collecting today! $39.99 EachFrom the anime series Please Tell Me! Galko-chan comes a 1/6th scale figure of the main character, Galko! She has been sculpted wearing an early summer school uniform and comes with glasses, a school bag, and a set of stairs as a stand. This Galko figure stands at 11" tall. $160.99This redeco and retool of the previously released Masterpiece Tracks features a head sculpt that is reminiscent of the original G1 toy and transforms into a Chevy Corvette. MP-25L LoudPedal comes with a gun for robot mode, a grill-mounted gun in car mode, a Raoul minifigure and a boombox-both featuring new color schemes, rear-view mirrors for car mode, and a sticker sheet. $89.99The 7" Ultimate Tech Noir T-800 and T-1000 figures, Christian Bale as 1/4 scale Batman from Batman Beyond figure, Aliens' Xenomorph 1/4 scale figure, Aliens and Predators 7" figure sets, and the Rocky 40th Anniversary action figure series are just some of NECA's newest releases we have available! These and more are part of the many new items to get your hands on!To commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Beast Wars, Takara released these Transformers Legends versions of Rattrap, Rhinox, and Waspinator as Transformers Fest 2016 exclusives. The body color and other paint applications are more true to the Beast Wars cartoon coloration and each come with a weapon accessories and manuals.New from Funko, this Pop! Inside Out's Anger vinyl figure is sure to stir up some emotions, especially with its special new crystal design. This figure will brighten up your Funko Pop! collection. $13.99These custom pieces may not be affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, but they are intended to further enhance the enjoyment of your existing Transformer collection. These upgrade kits include PC-01, PC-02, and PC-05 Upgrade Sets, and are designed to go with the Generations Combiner Wars Series 01. $32.99 EachEco-terrorism never looked this alluring! The once radical botanical biochemist Pamela Isley is now the the entrancing Poison Ivy. This charming chibi-style light-up Q-Fig FX figure designed by Mohammad "Hawk" Haque includes a whiteboard speech bubble and marker for writing your own phrases or sound effects.The graceful and powerful Black Panther lurks in the shadows, ready to fight to protect his kingdom of Wakanda. This figure is part of the second wave series of Hasbro's Captain America: Civil War Marvel Legends line. He comes with Giant Man's left leg; collect all the second wave figures to make Giant Man! $20.99Spider-Man, Armored Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Black Panther all come together as Hasbro's Marvel Legends 3.75" figures. Kids can position these Marvel heroes in their Super Hero and Super Villain figure collection to imagine a Super Battle for the ages! These figures feature classic designs and styling, so heroes-in-training can imagine scenes from the Marvel Universe happening right before their eyes!Join the battle with Bandai Japan's release of a Scout Trooper on a speeder bike from their S.H. Figuarts Star Wars line! This set includes the Scout Trooper, speeder bike, three replacement wrists for each hand, a blaster, and a stand. This figure is about 6" tall and the bike is about 10.8 inches long. $199.99
With the magazines you see above I could hold my neighborhood in an iron fist.

Well, that's what I heard anyway.

About a week ago the website Thought Catalog ran an article by a purported AR15 owner entitled (creatively enough) I Am An AR-15 Owner and I've Had Enough. It was different enough from the bulk of TC's indulgent woe-is-me relationship articles that it would have attracted attention anyway; that it was on the topic of gun violence and Orlando guaranteed it. The premise  that restricting rifle magazines to 10 rounds nationally would solve the problem of mass shooting.

The author, Daniel Hayes, starts out well enough, making what come across as pro-gun statements.Theres an argument that goes on continually between gun control advocates and people who believe there should be very little or no gun control. That argument is that the bulk of gun murders are committed with illegal weapons and that the people using them never submit themselves for a background check. The argument is that no gun laws would prevent the vast majority of murders committed among criminals in the commission of crimes. Most of the guns used to take lives in places like Chicago and Seattle are obtained illegally, either stolen or purchased from what are known as straw purchasers'. This is fact.

A little later he continues,

There are people who believe in confiscation. There are people who believe in making gun owners pay for insurance for firearms. There are people who believe in required psych evaluations prior to purchasing a firearm. These ideas are bad and they are unworkable. They will not happen. They are also all illegal under the U.S. Constitution and changing the Second Amendment would be so divisive that to even try and implement any of them could cause bloodshed.

He goes quickly off the reservation, however, in a way that belies any claim that he's familiar with long guns (or in touch with reality for that matter).

Orlando is different. Shootings at schools are different. These events are acts of execution, not battles. They are no different from the guillotine, one lined up after another and sent to the next world. And they are that way for one reason. Capacity. I can go out right now and buy a 100 round magazine for my AR-15. It costs only $119. I could buy two. For barely over $300 I could buy three and carry 300 rounds on me attached to a tactical vest. I would barely ever have to reload. I could hold off police. I could shoot anyone who charged me and tried to stop me. There would be no respite and break where I would have to take a few seconds to stop and change magazines. If they were close enough together then I could kill hundreds in minutes.

His solution is to limit rifle magazines to 10 rounds. That would put a dent in the casualties. He guarantees it.

For those who havent fired an AR-15, you cant underestimate the importance of this. Extended magazines are the reason the San Bernardino killers were so brash and confident in the attack they carried out. They knew that no one could get near them, that there would barely be a moment when they would be vulnerable to an unarmed person grabbing them and stopping them. Give me three 100 round drum magazines and I could hold my whole block hostage for a day. Give me thirty 10 round magazines and someone will be able to stop me.

Astonishing.

Remember, for any gun control measure to work it must be practical, pragmatic and constitutional (more to that point here). That's an inconvenient fact many in favor of gun control can't seem to grasp. It's easier to vilify gun owners and go for the feel-good solution.

Here's the problem  this is the sort of tripe people want to hear, and it comes under the guise of compromise. Keep your guns  they are your right under the Second Amendment. We're just saying you can't have high capacity' magazines.

Limited magazine capacity, says Mr. Hayes, will deter murders from attempting mass shootings. Such a change would, he avows, deter the insane or fanatical.

Deter.

Well meaning, reasonable people see an argument like this from someone who is (he says) pro-gun, and jump on it like a duck on a junebug. Thought Catalog isn't exactly a shining example of quality writing and journalism (as best I can tell they will publish damn near anything), but they do have a large number of readers  as in, hundreds of thousands of readers, mostly Millenials. They naturally latch onto this confessional as a possible solution to gun violence, and the rest of us are left trying to explain why their seemingly simple solution won't work.

And yet, the Orlando gunman fired over 200 rounds at Pulse and over four dozen mothers lost their sons and daughters. Four dozen, in one day, in only a few hours.

Yes Mr. Hayes, we know. You said so at least three times. If you're serious about this, put your time, energy and reach into something more constructive than platitudes and ineffectual measures. Give us a solution that is practical, pragmatic and constitutional.

Forewarned is forearmed. Be prepared to explain  in civil discourse  why this proposed solution is a callow and ineffective one. You can read the article in its entirety here.

Edit: The reaction to this article was predictably a strong one. Most everyone from the RECOIL audience (predictably) agreed with me. The article was lacking, however, and one of our readers called me on it

Much as I hate to admit it (because boy, do I like to be right, Mr. Boyle is correct. It's actually even worse than how he describes it. This wasn't just any article  it was one where I was taking someone to task, on a matter that always generates a visceral response. While my intention was to show that his solution was anything but, that it did not meet the test of practical, pragmatic and constitutional, I failed miserably to demonstrate how.

Figurative raspberries and jerkoff motions are cathartic (I'll admit, I enjoyed writing this piece) but they don't do anything to solve problems. So, I was going to add in a couple sentences to clarify and atonebut it sorta took off on me. This isn't me temporizing  that article will run in a complete piece as soon as I am finished.

In the meantime, I'll say this: a magazine restriction would not, could not possibly prevent a mass casualty event. Set aside the speed of reload argument. While correct, it just makes you sound pedantic and desperate, same as quibbling over the distinction between a Sig MCX and an AR-15. We've already seen terrorist attacks and mass shootings in places where such restrictions already exist (San Bernardino is the obvious example of this). Millions of standard capacity magazines are in circulation, and even if they weren't, damn near anything can be obtained with the will to do it. Consider the weapons used in the Paris attacks; Paris, the capital of France, which is a country with far more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Weapons and materials will always be obtained by the people who want them.

What happened in Orlando was a well planned, professional attack, conducted by someone who was prepared, committed and clearly knew what buttons to push to direct law enforcement response. He put significant effort into the attack, expertly developed the situation within and was likely in communication with one or more others assisting him from outside the club.

But set all that aside there's another point almost no one is talking about. Hayes' entire argument (that lower capacity magazines would deter attackers because their victims would have a better chance of fighting back) presupposes a willingness on the part of victims to fight. Think about this for a minute: a single man with a rifle held 300 some odd people hostage while he worked his way through the building killing them. Three hundred people. At no point he turned his back? His weapon never malfunctioned? He was never distracted by his conversations with crisis negotiators or whomever else he was talking to? There was nothing to throw at his head? No liquor bottles or chairs or barstools? Nobody had a belt buckle big enough to beat this asshole to death with, or a boot with heels heavy enough to crush his skull?

Nobody was at least willing to try?

Only a fraction of the population has it in them to fight, in no small part because as a society we've raised a generation of victims (and we're well into raising the second). Passing a law to limit magazine capacity isn't going to change that, any more than it would keep high capacity magazines out of the hands of criminals or terrorists.

This brings me full circle. Show me a practical, pragmatic, constitutional way of stopping these attacks with a new gun control law and I'll support it. That's not melodrama or sensationalism, I mean it. Otherwise, quit distracting people from the truth. Quit trying to disarm them. We're at war folks. Evil people exist. Some of them are sociopaths. Some are religious zealots. Many are probably both. All the feel-good measures, misdirection, violence-isn't-the-answer public school policies, sit-down protests on the floor of Congress and redaction of 911 transcripts in the world won't change that.

More soon. Mr. Boyle I hope I have in some small part redeemed myself, even if you disagree with me.
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By Adam Mankoski

Sacramento artist Richard Koski has been passionate about art for as long as he can remember. His formal art training includes a B.A. and M.A. in art with a secondary teaching credential from CSU, Sacramento. His work is exhibited this summer in the latest group show at the O Street Gallery.

Tell us about your work.

My work has evolved from large abstract canvases to a combination of abstracts and more representational pieces with a focus on florals and landscapes. I like to experiment with different motifs and go where the spirit moves me.

What inspires your work?

I have been inspired by numerous artists, such as my former CSU, Sacramento mentor, Joseph Rafael and Kandinsky from art history. They have had great influence on my work.

How did you get involved with the O Street Gallery in Redding?

I am a native Californian and have lived in the Placerville and Sacramento areas all my life. I learned about the O Street Gallery from a dear friend who attended high school and college with me.

Tell us about your pieces at O Street.

The pieces that I am exhibiting are a representation of the works that I have done over the past 12 years.

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on a large, 6 x 8 oil painting.

go now  See Richard Koskis work through Sept. 19 at the O Street Gallery, upstairs at Oregon Street Antiques, 1261 Oregon St., Redding. Meet Koski at a reception for the artists 6 to 8 p.m. Friday. For more information, visit O Street Gallery on Facebook.
Miles, Kathy and Samantha Tralle at newly reopened La Grange Cafe in Weaverville

SHARE Spicy Jambalaya Half roasted free-range chicken

By Marc Beauchamp

Good news  Weavervilles La Grange Cafe has reopened.

Miles and Kathy Tralle are the new owners. They aim to maintain the standards of Sharron and Duane Heryford, who opened the restaurant in 1990. Sharon Heryford, a talented and creative chef, died unexpectedly in October 2014.

The Tralles, who have a combined 40 years of restaurant experience in Eureka, San Francisco, Napa and Trinity County, aim to hold true to the high class legacy of the La Grange Cafe while putting their own Italian and continental spin on the menu  like Kathy Tralles favorite, the chicken penne pasta, a special toasted ravioli or the polenta tower with roasted vegetables.

Theyve kept Sharron Heryfords popular buffalo burger.

Late one afternoon last week, my daughter, her friend and I stopped in and enjoyed the stuffed mushrooms, a Caesar salad, the spicy Jambalaya and a roasted organic chicken.

The Tralles two kids  Spencer, 13, and Samantha, 11  help out around the restaurant. I really like to taste everything and to help in the front, Samantha told me. Its really fun.

The wine list includes selections from Alpen Cellars of Trinity Center, One Maple of Lewiston and Sumner Vineyards of Hayfork.

The place practically oozes history. In 1999 the Heryfords moved the La Grange into two adjoining 1854 brick buildings in Weavervilles historic center. One was a bank for many years (the restaurants wine cellar is in the old vault), the other a drug store, a newspaper and a western wear shop.

After dessert  a deliciously decadent chocolate torte and an order of tiramisu (Miles Tralle also makes daily sorbets)  we strolled around the four-block historic district, snapping pictures of the Joss House and the 1860s-vintage spiral staircases on Main Street and shopped for gifts in the Weaverville Hotel Emporium and the delightful antique store behind the band stand across from the 1857 courthouse (where the wife and I got married).

The new La Grange Cafe and the considerable charms of Weaverville are worth a day trip, even if you have to brave the road construction on Buckhorn Summit.

go now 

La Grange Cafe

Address: 520 Main St., Weaverville

Phone: 395-2532

Hours: Tuesday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Social media: Facebook

Owners: Miles and Kathy Tralle

Established: 1990 (reopened April 2016)

Sample menu items:

Stuffed mushrooms $8

Coconut prawns $12

Buffalo burger $14

Jambalaya $15

Pork chop $20

Chicken penne pasta $14

Angus sirloin $25
Ananta Fiddle Hooper

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By Tim Holt

Without a lot of prompting, you can get Jim Gordon, now 82 and living in McCloud, to tell you about the time he sang with Louis Armstrong and Patti Page on a recording of Long Gone for Columbia Records. That was in 1954 in Chicago.

Gordon was playing bass with a Chicago jazz band around that time. He'll draw on his experiences in the jazz world to give a short talk on the origins of jazz in this country and its influence on music around the world. His talk will be Wednesday, as part of Dunsmuirs 10-day Jazz in the Canyon festival.

Suzanne Scull, one of the events organizers, calls it a town-wide jazz explosion." Thats not all hype: The jazz event, now in its fifth year, has added more venues, more artists and a greater range of musical genres, from bebop to gypsy jazz, funk, blues and swing.

Ananta Fiddle-Hooper, billing herself as A. Fiddle-Hooper, is a Mount Shasta-based, trained classical violinist whos performed in 22 countries, circled the globe four times and will make her debut in Dunsmuir on July 2 at the POPS Performing Arts & Cultural Center. She calls her brand of jazz jazz fusion, a blend of East Indian, classical, Japanese and Eastern European influences.

The duo Sonido Alegre, Charles Guy on guitar and Linda Powers on gypsy violin, will be playing Guys Latin-infused compositions, flavored with a touch of flamenco. The duo is based in Ashland and do a lot of their performing on the winery circuit around Ashland, according to Powers.

Were happy to have them back, says Ernie Wasson, who runs the Siskiyou Arts Museum where Sonido Alegre will be playing Saturday. After their appearance here last year, theyve definitely got a fan base.

Some of the groups wholl be performing have been with the event since the beginning: Local jazz duo Allison Scull and Victor Martin, who are also organizers of the event, and the Dunsmuir-based group Roma.

We play a blend of European jazz and American swing, says Romas Paul Blackwell. The group is all-acoustic. Blackwell himself plays something called the mandola, which he describes as a cross between the mandolin and the viola.

Organizer and performer Allison Scull calls the 10-day festival a great opportunity to celebrate one of Americans own original art forms and spotlight some of the musical artists in our area.

go now 

What: Jazz In The Canyon

When: Opens Friday through July 4

Where: At 16 venues in Dunsmuir

Tickets: Prices at each venue vary. Check out the website for venue locations and check with each venue. Performance schedules are also on the website at jazzinthecanyon.com.
5 luxurious homes for sale in far Northern California

The North State is home to some opulent real estate. Here are photo galleries of five properties for sale, each with their own creative flair.
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight

Allison Bamford stands next to her son, Cory Bamford, who is wearing a sash and eagle feather she placed on him during his graduaiton from Anderson High School to celebrate his American Indian heritage. The school is withholding his diploma until he finishes 20 hours of community service. Bamford said she knew she was breaking the graduation rules with her actions.

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By Alayna Shulman of the Redding Record Searchlight

Update, 2:25 p.m.

The parents of two Anderson Union High School 2016 graduates whose diplomas were withheld until they completed community service because of their family members' actions at graduation say they've been notified that their children will receive their diplomas after all.

Fataali Leota-Misa, of Anderson, said school employees have told her they would put the diploma of her son, Joe, in the mail after initially requiring he complete 20 hours of community service because his sister placed a lei around his neck during the ceremony.

"I said, 'I would very much appreciate it,'" Leota-Misa said.

Meanwhile, Allison Bamford, of Anderson, wrote on Facebook today that she got a similar message from the school about her son, Cory, whose diploma was also being held over graduation violations. Bamford put a Native American sash and feather on her son during the ceremony, which the high school district's superintendent said was disruptive.

In both cases, the parents complained that their children were being punished for a family member's actions, and that they weren't allowed to wear accessories honoring their culture in the ceremony.

But Leota-Misa, who is from Samoa, said she's still considering circulating a petition demanding the high school be more inclusive when it comes to minorities who want to honor their culture at graduation.

She said she's appreciative the diploma will be returned, but still frustrated at what the family had to go through in the first place.

"I'm getting the diploma, and that's fine, I"m grateful. But still, to go through the hassle..." Leota-Misa said.

Original story:

Anderson Union High School is withholding two 2016 graduates' diplomas until they complete 20 hours of community service because their families walked onto the field to give them accessories significant to their cultures during the ceremony.

Im proud of my son; now hes being punished for something I did, said Allison Bamford, of Anderson.

Bamford said she also believes her son, Cory, 17, would have been penalized for wearing the feather and sash to honor his culture alone, because the principal told her the main problem was her action, but the garments also were part of the equation. The school should amend its no adornment policy for ceremonies to honor graduates from cultures that dont historically have high rates of graduation, Bamford said  just like students with high grade-point averages get to wear special items.

My son, being Native American, he should have been able to wear his sash and his feather  thats his sign of his accomplishment, she said.

A White House report from December 2014 said 67 percent of Native American students graduate high school  the lowest rate for any ethnic or racial group in the country.

Meanwhile, Faatali Leota-Misa, who is from Samoa, said her daughter walked onto the field after her son, Joe, received his diploma to give him a lei made of money, which is a tradition in her native country.

Now, Joe Leota, 18, is also faced with 20 hours of community service, Leota-Misa said.

"Regardless of what we had done, you don't need to take it out on these kids and what they have achieved," she said. "I can understand where you're coming from, disruption. ... but my daughter just creeped on in there when the line was going down. He was already out of the podium."

Principal Brian Parker was out of town and unavailable for comment, but Anderson Union High School District Superintendent Tim Azevedo confirmed that the school essentially makes examples of graduates over their parents misbehavior to deter similar incidents.

In some fashion, we have to be able to control and enforce some level of decorum, Azevedo said, noting that community service was pursued for Cory Bamford because there were no criminal charges that could be brought against his mother. There has to be some consequence for it and stuff, and I would say the reality that the student didnt know anything about it is probably pretty slim.

Bamford, however, maintained that her son was not in on the plan. She said she wanted him to wear the garments not only to honor his culture and achievement, but so that they would be included in the professional photographs taken after graduating June 2.

In Leota's case, his mother said he worked very hard to be able to graduate after coming up short 32 credits only weeks before the ceremony. Putting a damper on such hard work because of a family member's actions is just wrong and may be a form of discrimination, she said.

"Nobody thought that he was going to graduate," Leota-Misa said. "His sister put a gift that represents his culture around him -- now we've got to fight to get it back?"

But Azevedo said the incident has nothing to do with ethnic discrimination and is about fairness to all students, noting that Allison Bamfords appearance on the field made a big scene that stole attention from the students who were being honored.

They were totally ignored by the whole crowd because everybody shifted their attention to this lady, he said. We want it to be a ceremony of dignity and recognition of all the kids. For that short amount of time, that was taken away from the kids that were going across the stage.

Bamford said that her appearance was subtle and happened between names being called, though she acknowledged that she probably shouldn't have done it in the first place.

She's gotten plenty of criticism alleging she encourages her kids to be disobedient, but Bamford said its really not as simple as that.

Ive got backlash saying Im teaching my kids to break the rules, saying I should have just followed the rules and, you know, its not about that. I teach my kids to stand up for what is right. I dont tell them, Oh, break the rules, she said. I tell them there is going to be injustices, and you have to use your discretion on whats right and wrong.

She also said Parker initially told her Cory Bamford could wear a feather that went with his sash, but the principal then expressed frustration when it was actually visible, which was a confusing message.

Leota-Masi said she's considering circulating a petition demanding Cory Bamford and her son get their diplomas without community service.

"Both kids earned that," she said. "If this kid made it in life, he fought for it and we come in and do something stupid, that means you're going to take it all away because of my stupidity? I don't think that's fair. ... When you're 18 and trying to start out fresh with a new life, you don't want anything hanging over your head like that."

Anderson isnt the only school that withholds diplomas over certain actions. A Cincinnati high school made national news in 2012 when it punished graduates for a similar incident  their familys raucous cheering. Other reports detail parents even getting arrested over excitement that was too disruptive.

Closer to home, a Sacramento teen made national news when his high school escorted him from graduation because he was wearing an African cloth that violated that school's policy similar to Anderson's.

In California, its legal to withhold diplomas over lost or damaged school property, but the education code doesnt appear to specify a protocol for violations of graduation rules, essentially leaving it up to individual districts.

The graduation requirements list posted on Anderson High's website is from 2006 and says that all deserving students can pick up their diplomas in the counseling office the week after graduation, but a student who displayed inappropriate behavior and/or was a disruptive influence during the graduation ceremony will have his/her diploma withdrawn and it will be issued at a later date. It doesnt mention anything about parent misconduct, though.

In terms of punishment, the document says the child and parent should have a conference with a site administrator, and inappropriate behavior during the graduation ceremony may result in additional seat/work time on the high school campus before the student receives his/her diploma." But it does not list community service as a mandate for disruptions.

Azevedo mentioned documents students received about graduation rules, but the Record Searchlight could not immediately obtain copies of those for review. He said Wednesday that he did not have a copy of them himself.

Azevedo was out of the office Thursday and therefore could not immediately be reached for clarification on the schools policy.
SHARE Isaac Lowe

By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight

Redding will have a new way of remembering civil rights leader Isaac Lowe.

City officials plan to name the library at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Community Center after Lowe. It's only the second time the city names a public facility after a community leader.

"She was beloved as the matriarch in the neighborhood center," Kim Niemer, community services director, said in making the announcement Tuesday night to the City Council.

Niemer said the place was fitting to honor her legacy as an advocate of literacy and education and the driving force to start the center.

The new sign will be installed during a ceremony at 6 p.m. Friday at the center, 1815 Sheridan St.

Lowe died last December at 94. Her life spanned nearly a century of change in race relations in America.

She experienced segregation and, despite having college degrees, when she moved to Redding in 1950 she struggled to find work because of her race.

Locally, she became involved in the civil rights movement and saw to it that Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the first federal holiday honoring an African-American, was recognized by the city of Redding.

Vice Mayor Brent Weaver on Tuesday, who pointed out this is only the second time the city has named a facility after a local leader, endorsed the idea calling it a "very worthy naming."

"The Lowe family is really a pillar in our community," he said.

Last year, the new police facility at the Civic Center was named after former Police Chief Bob Blankenship.

Seated in the audience on Tuesday were her son, Robert Lowe, and Eddie McAllister, a community organizer.

The naming falls alongside a new action plan for the center. In response to surveys, more programming is being introduced for parents to participate in their children's activities.

Also, the council authorized entering into a $130,000 agreement through 2017 with Shasta County for crime prevention programs.
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By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight

Shasta County Supervisors Leonard Moty and Les Baugh exchanged heated words at the regular board meeting on Tuesday, the latest in a string of conflicts between the two.

The argument stemmed from Baugh going to County Counsel Rubin Cruse and asking if Moty was harassing elected officials when he asked them to give money back to the county that they had received as longevity stipends.

The Shasta County Grand Jury report found giving these officials the pay was an error and the board voted to stop doing so in the future. But those officials will not stop receiving that pay until January 2019.

Those affected are Sheriff Tom Bosenko, Treasurer Lori Scott and Assessor Leslie Morgan.

From his conversation with Baugh, Cruse wrote a legal opinion, which Moty said was in his favor. The opinion was sent to Baugh and the rest of the board. Moty only found out about Baugh's concern when reading Cruse's memo, he said.

The legal opinion was not immediately made available to the Record Searchlight at press time.

During his supervisor's report, Moty directly addressed Baugh.

"If you would have approached me personally and suggested these concerns, I think I might have accepted that. But you didn't. You went straight to county counsel and you asked these questions," he said.

Moty said Baugh was trying to silence his criticism of the elected officials.

After the meeting, Baugh said Moty was using a bullying tactic when he asked the officials to give back their pay to the county.

"I asked Mr. Cruse if this were a liability and if this puts us all in an exposed position. The county counsel did not have an answer for me on the bullying tactics," Baugh said.

Bosenko said the board has voted on the topic three times  twice in favor of elected officials receiving the pay and once more to remove them.

"I consider this matter as resolved," Bosenko said.

Last year, the board honored the agreement and gave Bosenko and Scott bonuses, $40,000 and $31,649, respectively. In December, Morgan began receiving the stipend.

Also, Moty brought up that some people have raised questions about his retirement pay because in 2009 he served dual roles as the interim assistant city manager and acting Redding police chief. He saw a pay increase from his increased duties, but said this did not impact his retirement pay.

Moty did not name who raised these questions, but called it an intimidation tactic to get him to stop voicing his opinion at board meetings.

Baugh said the conversation he had with Cruse prompted the opinion given to the board, but did not follow his exact line of questioning.

"Those were the questions as formulated by our county counsel to clearly define the conversation we had. My questions were much different," Baugh said.

This is not the first time the two supervisors have clashed.

Their divisions go back at least as far as Moty opposing a request to increase space in the proposed Adult Rehabilitation Center, which Bosenko said could use more beds. At the time, Baugh agreed with Bosenko. But Moty said the money was not available.

Moty reminded Baugh on Tuesday that in March he advocated for Costco to relocate in the city of Anderson, Baugh's supervisor district and where his wife, Susie Baugh, is mayor. Baugh made his comments during a public meeting, saying supervisors can speak freely because they serve the people of the county.

"In fact, you used that very same analogy when you, several months ago, advocated for Costco going to Anderson. And you told us very clearly on this board that you have the right to speak, which no one disagreed with," Moty said.

Moty said the issue of longevity pay will not go away and he asked why Bosenko or any of the elected officials need to be protected from a supervisor's comments.

"If they want, they can come before the board and express their own opinions. There's an open invitation there," Moty said.

The elected officials will continue to receive their bonuses until January 2019.

At the same meeting, the board unanimously approved a salary hike for department heads and other county managers. The action from the board will set in motion three salary increases over the next two years, which is budgeted as $700,000 for the department heads and $200,000 for a second category of employees.

The first 3 percent increase goes into effect Sunday.

The salary hike affects 62 employees in the appointed and assistant department head category. Another 44 employees, non-managers, are the second category group. The positions include all appointed department heads, including the assistant public defender, chief deputy auditor, chief deputy district attorney, county executive officer, county counsel and the forensic pathologist.

The board approved a similar resolution in April that gave a 3 percent pay increase to 138 county employee positions, with a cost of $865,000 in additional salary.
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There are some endless arguments in Congress that at least make sense. Gun control, health care, regulation.

But the failure to act on a logical change to the way the Forest Service is funded  without even a credible argument posed against the change  is baffling and inexcusable. As fires burn our forests every single year, and as the load of dead vegetation builds up on millions of acres, we again find the agency's chief begging for movement.

The problem that needs to be fixed is straightforward. Unlike other types of natural disaster response, forest fire suppression on federal land is treated as simply part of the Forest Service's operating budget. So, predictably, it consumes huge parts of that budget every year  and as the fires worsen in intensity the efforts at preventing them become increasingly impoverished.

In an interview with Bartholomew Sullivan for the Record Searchlight and USA TODAY NETWORK, forest chief Thomas L. Tidwell said fire program expenses that took up 16 percent of his agency's budget in 1998 are on track to swell to 67 percent by 2025. Already, the figure is 56 percent.

What else does the Forest Service do? Well, as residents of the North State well know, it's supposed to be managing our nation's forests. Not just desperately digging in as fire approaches the homes and businesses that coexist with the forest, but working to clear out the undergrowth and promote healthier ecosystems that are less susceptible to fire in the first place.

That isn't happening, at least not to anywhere near the extent needed.

This same argument has been made for several years now, and it's only become stronger with each passing season, each failure to fix the problem.

When major fires break out, the money to fight them should come from disaster funds, just like it does for hurricanes and tornadoes. It shouldn't deplete the Forest Service budget for all of its planned activities that year.

We aren't even talking about the majority of fires, which the Forest Service proposes to continue overseeing out of its regular budget. Tidwell told Sullivan the agency will be happy to work with Congress to set clear definitions for what qualifies  and expects that to be 1 or 2 percent of all fires.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents our district in Congress, has pledged support for a fix. He's behind a bipartisan bill introduced by Idaho Republican Mike Simpson and Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader. So, too, are 146 other co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.

It's time to put this one to rest. Our Congress is infamous for inaction, but this should not be impossible even for such a deeply divided group. And we hope that if it can pass in the House and Senate, President Obama would take his own forest chief's advice and sign it into law.

It's too late for this fire season, but not for all the others to come.
Several businesses in Chicago are beefing up security as the city's Pride Parade steps off this weekend. (Nam Y. Huh / AP)

In the wake of the Orlando mass shooting, Chicago is sparing no precaution.

With the city's Pride Parade this weekend, safety is a top priority. The city's LGBTQ bars and clubs are taking measures to ensure the well-being of all who choose to drink and dance the night away in those establishments. Above and beyond their safety practices already in place, that is.

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Mark Nott, general manager of Scarlet in Lakeview, is turning what used to serve only as "busy weekend" security measures, such as bag checks and bouncers, into everyday implementations. He even recently purchased metal detector wands to be used in extreme cases.

"I can't take any chances," he said. "I want to have as many resources as I can. Whether or not I use them, I still want to have them just in case we need them."

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Nott also removed a stage located near one of the bar's exits.

"We made the decision right after Orlando to take the stage out because with the stage there and then the sound door in place, it was a tight space to try and get through," he said. "God forbid anything were to ever happen in here, we need people to be able to get out quickly."

Scarlet isn't the only business tightening security.

"We take the safety of both patrons and staff very seriouslyin fact, the threat of violent acts from outside factions has long been a consideration," Jo Webster, co-owner of Berlin nightclub in Lakeview, wrote in an email. "Consequently, we work very closely in partnership with the Chicago Police Force along with neighborhood watch groups, fellow LGBTQ business owners and other clubs in our immediate neighborhood, all of which enhances our own security practices."

Mark Liberson is the president of LKH Management, which operates popular Lakeview clubs Hydrate, Elixir, Lark, Replay and Seven. He said that the businesses have exercised more caution recently but that policies haven't changed dramatically.

"People are coming out and celebrating, and they will not let fear win and ruin their quality of life," he said. "You have to keep going forward."

The Chicago Police Department said it met earlier this month with business owners in its 19th District, which includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park and Uptown, as it does every year to discuss preparations for the Pride Parade and will step up police presence at events across Chicago.

Nott said fewer people than normal came out to celebrate last weekend's Pride Fest.

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"I think I can say without a doubt that this year's Pride Fest was definitely affected by [the Orlando shooting]," he said. "It was much slower than last year, and towards the later parts of the night, the street cleared out pretty quickly."

Still, some will not let fear of violence affect their decision to celebrate this weekendor ever, for that matter.

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"The celebration of Pride is a celebration of hard-fought-for rights and freedoms, a remembrance of those who have came and passed before us, and a recognition of the brave LGBTQ souls who stared violence in the face and confronted it all those years ago at the Stonewall Inn," said Todd Koenig, a 31-year-old Andersonville resident. He was referring to a New York bar that in 1969 served as a flashpoint for the gay rights movement in the U.S.

"So while the concern of danger may be more palpable with the Orlando shooting so fresh in people's minds, I refuse to let any real or imagined fears affect my decision to participate in 'radical' acts like the Pride Parade."

Others say a heightened police presence could make undocumented LGBTQ people and trans people of color uncomfortable in a space where they're meant to feel safe.

"Events like Pride are supposed to be sanctuaries for queer people to hang out with queer people," said Jes Scheinpflug, a 28-year-old Lincoln Square resident. "I'm not attending this year not because I feel I'm in danger, but because instead it's become more of a big party for people to get wasted."

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Though it's fair to say everyone should remain aware of their surroundings.

"There's nothing wrong ... about trusting your gut; [there is] no shame in pointing out someone suspicious to an officer or club bouncer," said Jodi Erpelding, a 57-year-old Rogers Park resident. "It's more than see it, say it; sometimes it's just a visceral response to someone or a situation which people act upon, and it can be a lifesaver."

@RianneCoale | rcoale@redeyechicago.com
Color Chicago proud this weekend as Pride Month comes to an end with the Pride Parade in Lakeview on Sunday and three-day Back Lot Bash music fest in Andersonville. But the celebration isn't limited to Boys- and Girlstown, so get down with these parties and events, from a mass marriage at Navy Pier and three Neverland dance parties to rainbow-frosted doughnuts at Firecakes Donuts and a fundraiser for Pulse nightclub victims at Links Taproom. Get the deets below, and click here for more on the parade and Back Lot Bash.

PRIDE PARTIES



Neverland Pride

This trio of dance parties returns for a fourth year with events at Metro, The Mid and Charlies. Buy tickets to individual events (info below), or get a weekend pass to all three for $95. Tickets are available at Egoist Underwear (3526 N. Halsted St.) or online at neverlandchicago.com.

GayGlow

When: 11 p.m.4 a.m. Friday

Where: Charlie's Chicago (3726 N. Broadway 773-871-8887)

How much: $10

Kick off the weekend at the Boystown bar with this black light party where DJ Nando spins the beats.

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The Lost Boys

When: 11 p.m.5 a.m. Saturday

Where: Metro (3730 N. Clark St. 773-549-4140)

How much: $51 in advance, $60 at the door. Tickets: metrochicago.com

Don't grow up, it's a trap. Peter Pans, Tinker Bells and Captain Hooks are invited to the main weekend bash with, for the first time, a true Neverland theme. Along with dancers and performers dressed as "Peter Pan" characters on a custom-built steel set reminiscent of a pirate ship, Barcelona DJ Ivan Gomez and local Alexis-R spin for the night, and drag queen The Vixen performs. Costumes encouraged but not required.

Pride Closing Party

When: 11 p.m.4 a.m. Sunday

Where: The Mid (306 N. Halsted St. 312-265-3990)

How much: $40 in advance, $50 at the door. Tickets: themidchicago.com

Wrap up the weekend with visceral tribal beats by L.A.-based DJ Paulo and London-born DJ Sean O'Hara.

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Neverland.

Pulse Nightclub Fundraiser

When: 11:30 a.m.2 a.m. Sunday

Where: Links Taproom (1559 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-360-7692)

How much: No cover

To honor victims of the Orlando shooting, the Wicker Park craft beer bar donates 100 percent of food and drink sales to Chicago House and Social Service Agency and GLBT Community Center of Central Florida and hosts a raffle and silent auction of rare beer memorabilia in partnership with Revolution Brewing, Goose Island Brewery and others for the same charities. Owner Mike Quinlan will also personally match the total raised for the day.

Star Whores: The Pride Awakens at The Playground Theater.

'Star Whores: The Pride Awakens'

When: 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: The Playground Theater (3209 N. Halsted St. 773-871-3793)

How much: $15. Tickets: starwhorespride.eventbrite.com

Presented by LGBT sketch comedy group GayCo Productions, special guest storytellers tell tales of being sex workers, and improv artists perform inspired by the stories. Advanced ticketing is recommended.

Chicago Dyke March

When: 2 p.m. gather, 2:30 p.m. march. Saturday.

Where: Starting at Western Avenue and Division Street, ending in Humboldt Park at California Avenue and Division Street

How much: Free

The LGBT Chicago Dyke March Collective celebrates the annual march, ending with a rally in Humboldt Park. Head to the after-party at Humblebar & Lounge (3018 W. North Ave.) for salsa, merengue and reggaeton tunes. 7 p.m. $3 suggested donation.

Navy Pier.

Navy Pier Pride

When: Noon10:30 p.m. Saturday (pier open until midnight)

Where: Navy Pier (600 E. Grand Ave. 800-595-7437)

How much: Free

Celebrate Pride on the lake at this first-time event with music and performances throughout the pier, including a parade led by the Lakeside Pride Music Ensemble marching band (1 p.m.), a mass wedding ceremony (5 p.m.) and a Pride-themed fireworks show (10:15 p.m.). Along with a dance session with house DJ Ralphi Rosario (7 p.m.), catch performances from About Face Theatre with "It's for Real," a series of stories about race, sexuality, gender and other issues based on true experiences (noon), and Milly's Orchid Show featuring Brigid Murphy (1:30 p.m.).

#Basic

When: 11:30 p.m.4 a.m. Friday, 11:30 p.m.5 a.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.2 a.m. Sunday

Where: Hydrate (3458 N. Halsted St. 773-975-9244)

How much: $10 after 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; no cover Sunday

This three-day dance party features DJ Dan DeLeon on Friday and DJ Chris Cox and a performance from Mimi Marks on Saturday. On Sunday, the Boystown club opens early for 17 hours of moving and shaking with go-go dancers before and after the parade.

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PRIDE SPECIALS

Kit Kat Lounge & Supper Club (3700 N. Halsted St. 773-525-1111) offers a special Pride menu on parade day featuring items such as ravioli ($14) and a Korean barbecue fried chicken sandwich ($15), Britney Spears- and Madonna-inspired cocktails ($7) and a We are Orlando key lime martini with vodka, orange liqueur, cream and lime juice with a graham cracker crumb rim and lime wheel garnish ($7). 11 a.m.2 a.m. Sunday. Food is available until midnight.

Firecakes' Pride doughnut.

Through Sunday, grab a rainbow-decorated Tahitian vanilla bean doughnut ($2.89) from Firecakes Donuts, which donates $1 to the Center on Halsted. Locations: Lincoln Park: 2453 N. Clark St. 773-666-5277. 7 a.m.11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 a.m.10 p.m. Sunday. River North: 68 W. Hubbard St. 312-329-6500. 7 a.m.midnight Friday and Saturday, 7 a.m.10 p.m. Sunday.

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Q-Tine (2339 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-227-5100) offers rainbow poutine with sweet, purple and Yukon potatoes sprinkled with sweet peas, red onions, tomato, red pepper and zucchini topped with cheese curds and gravy for $11, with $2 going to the Center on Halsted through Sunday. 11:30 a.m.4 a.m. Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m.midnight Sunday.

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This is a significant moment in the Narendra Modi government's drive to reform the economy and it should use this opportunity to strive towards ushering in a robust GST regime.

In what seems to be a significant political breakthrough, the Union government has made headway in its negotiations with states in rolling out the goods and services tax from April next year.

At its meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday, the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers on GST narrowed down the political differences on the key provisions of the new tax regime that after implementation should help India become a unified market without the barriers of different state taxes and entry restrictions, improve the ease of doing business, reduce transaction costs and introduce efficiencies resulting in gains for the countrys gross domestic product.

Almost all states, except perhaps Tamil Nadu, have endorsed the idea of the new tax regime.

The opposition from the Congress is no longer a potent threat for the proposed launch of GST, as the Bharatiya Janata Party has improved its strength in the Rajya Sabha after the recently held elections and the government has received support for the new tax regime from regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Trinamool Congress.

The Constitution Amendment Bill, already cleared by the Lok Sabha, may now get passed by the Rajya Sabha in the forthcoming monsoon session.

Anticipating this, the finance ministry has released a draft law for implementing GST at the central and state levels, which too will have to be passed by state Assemblies and Parliament.

This is a significant moment in the Narendra Modi government's drive to reform the economy and it should use this opportunity to strive towards ushering in a robust GST regime.

It has already made the right moves in some areas.

In a bid to widen the tax base, it has proposed to lower the threshold for the new tax at Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) annual turnover for all entities, down from the earlier level of Rs 1.5 crore (Rs 15 million).

There are already murmurs of protest over the expanded coverage of GST and it would make sense for the government to stick to the indicated threshold.

A lower threshold will also help the government to achieve another equally important goal of the GST: reduce the basic or the revenue neutral rate to as low a level as possible.

Wider the coverage, the greater are the chances of the basic GST rate declining to the more acceptable level of 15 per cent, as recommended by a finance ministry committee.

The proposed rate of 18 per cent should be reviewed and a lower rate will be feasible if the coverage is wider with a lower threshold of Rs 10 lakh annual turnover for entities and fewer exempted goods.

Demands for excluding goods from the purview of GST should be discouraged and rejected as far as possible.

Equally important will be to reject all demands for the levy of one per cent tax on inter-state transactions of goods and services.

Just as the Congress demand of keeping a cap of an 18 per cent tax rate in the Constitution Amendment law is unreasonable, the plea of some manufacturing states that they should be permitted to levy an additional one per cent tax on goods and services is completely unreasonable.

The additional levy will kill the basic spirit of GST and even make imports in many cases cheaper, undermining Mr Modis favourite Make In India programme.

On the question of the GST dispute resolution council, the finance ministry must recognise the legitimate concerns of the states and consider giving them adequate voting strength and representation on this forum.

Fiscal federalism should not be sacrificed at the altar of GST.

All in all, it would be important for the government to make sure that the country gets a good GST law that is as flawless as possible.

The image is used for representational purpose only. Photograph: Reuters
The homegrown brand expands its presence in the mithai market, hopes to cash in on changing customer preferences

The halwai across the road might be in for some competition as organised players claim that there is a clear shift in consumer preference from loose mithai

to branded, packaged sweets. In fact step into any of the major airports in the country and it is impossible to miss the rush at stores for branded mithais by homegrown regional brands.

Now, with the countrys largest dairy cooperative Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation all set to launch packaged rasgullas and rasmalais, the market is set to get a further boost.

R S Sodhi, managing director of GCMMF which owns brand Amul, says, We realised that the demand for quality Indian desserts is high, there is demand for hygienically prepared standardised sweets.

Amul already has Indian sweets like shrikhand and basundi in its portfolio, but the Indian sweets segment contributes a meagre sum of Rs 1,500 crore- (Rs 15-billion) odd to its Rs 23,000-crore (Rs 230-billion) turnover.

However, the company is keen to grow the numbers here and says that the segment is clocking a steady 15-20 per cent compounded average growth rate.

With the new products, Amul expects to match that.

The traditional Indian desserts market is around Rs 40,000-45,000 crore (Rs 400-450 billion), informs Angshuman Bhattacharya, managing director with Alvarez & Marsal, a global professional services firm that offers business advisory services.

But packaged sweets account for a small percentage of this market.

The packaged market size is around Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion).

"While a definite shift from unorganised to organised is being witnessed, not all products have high shelf life or can be industrially produced and hence, scaling up could be difficult.

"However, the potential is huge, and in the long run conversion towards organised players is imminent, says Bhattacharya.

One of the leading players in the segment, Bikanervala agrees that the branded segment is growing at a fast pace, not necessarily because the market is firing up, but because there is a steady conversion among consumers from unorganised to organised segments.

Amuls entry has cheered up players like Bikanervala who feel that the entry of a large player would expand the market.

Deepta Gupta, corporate executive vice president of Bikanervala Foods, which owns the Bikano brand says, No major Indian sweets player can afford to spend big on advertising.

"However, as players like Amul enter and advertise Indian sweets, it is the segment that would ultimately benefit.

Bikanervala, has not spent heavily on branding and advertising or for that matter run a campaign on the healthier aspects of traditional sweets, Gupta informs.

The Indian sweets segment, however, faces tough competition from chocolates and confectioneries which is estimated to be a market worth around Rs 11,000-12,000 crore (110-120 billion).

Gupta says that with Mondelez India actively advertising during festivals, chocolates have emerged as a serious competitor for festival gifting.

Gifting is a key driver for demand for the branded Indian sweets industry.

Almost 50 per cent of Bikanervalas sales are during festivals.

Moreover, it is also a question of availability.

"Chocolates are available at the corner store, but for sweets one has to visit a sweet shop.

"We are thus trying to increase our distribution reach, and have plans to tie up with modern trade for this, he added.

The traditional sweets player is trying to up its game by going in for trendy packaging solutions and adding innovative options in its product portfolio.

Another player that has invested heavily in the segment is Haldirams, its stores at the airports are doing brisk business.

Many retail chains in metros have also increased their shelf space for homegrown mithai brands.

Bikanervala has 60 stores in India and abroad.

It plans to double the number of overseas stores over a short period of time, and enter new territories (Southern states) in India, a sign perhaps of the growing demand from customers in these regions.

We are planning to start a factory in one of the Southern states soon. We are already running at 100 per cent capacity at our Haryana plant, because our exports demand is steadily rising, Gupta says.

While Gupta and Sodhi both feel that the demand for hygienic, packaged sweets is on the rise, Bhattacharya felt otherwise.

Hygiene is not necessarily the most important factor driving the consumption shift from unorganised to organised. Consumers prefer packaged sweets for gifting on festivals and other occasions.

"In fact, almost, 50-70 per cent of sales of packaged sweets happen during festive season, he says, adding that it is not that the segment is clocking month-on-month growth as such.

If Amul is to get to its target, it will have to change that.
There is a case for analysing the fiscal deficit, separately for expenditure and investment, says A V Rajwade.

Earlier this week, the Reserve Bank of India came out with yet another mechanism to help Sustainable Restructuring of Stressed Assets: this is in addition to several earlier initiatives like 5:25 Flexible Restructuring, Strategic Debt Restructuring and the Joint Lenders Forum. The Corporate Debt Restructuring Scheme goes back 15 years.



While all these may help mitigate the problem of non-performing assets (NPA), are the roots in recent macroeconomic policies?

In an earlier column (The Budget: A few question marks, March 3), I had argued that two contributory macroeconomic factors to the sharp increase in the banking systems NPAs are monetary:

The extremely high, double-digit, real interest rates measured in terms of the Wholesale Price Index, currently paid by most business borrowers. No wonder, the interest cover ratio of the top 10 business houses has dropped from 10.4 in 2007-08 to 3.7 in 2015-16 according to a report in Business Standard on June 13;

The overvalued rupee, which makes it difficult for businesses in the tradables sector to compete with imports  or in third markets.

Is the holy cow of rigid limits on the fiscal deficit another contributory factor?



In the last few decades, fiscal austerity and strict limits on deficits have led to a number of important sectors of the economy, which earlier used to be financed through Budgets - power generation, road construction, ports, etc - being transferred to the private sector and bank financing.



These capital-intensive projects have long gestation and payback periods, and often face regulatory, land or environmental hurdles.



These are the sectors to which public sector banks are more exposed and form a sizeable proportion of their NPAs. Arguably, many such infrastructural projects are not fair banking risks.

As for the mechanisms, a cautionary tale from Italy, which also has a huge problem of bad debts, is worth narrating. (Incidentally, most banks there are not government-owned, nor were those which created the global financial crisis of 2008: clearly privatisation of public sector banks, which some advocate, is not a panacea.)



As part of the euro zone, Italy has to observe strict limits on its fiscal deficits. It has around 200 billion of bad debts, of which 85 billion are still to be provided in the accounts (Financial Times, April 21).



A measure of NPAs estimates the total at 360 billion. Italy, therefore, created a 5-billion capitalised fund, Atlas, with some equity from the government, but mostly from banks and other investors to help resolve the problem - an exact parallel to what we are trying to do with two new agencies: one to contribute equity to sick companies (Stressed Asset Equity Fund), the other to provide soft loans.



Atlas ran out of money within months of its creation, helping mitigate only a small part of the problem. Will our funds fare any better? As it is, public sector banks face a huge shortfall in capital to meet the Basel III standard in the next three years. How much can they contribute to such funds?

One administrative initiative that looks promising is the effort to reduce the undue influence of the vigilance system on resolution of the problem.

This certainly is one area where public sector banks are worse placed than their private sector counterparts, which have only internal and external audits.

NPAs require prompt decisions, both preventive and curative.

The vigilance culture focuses on procedural rather than substantive issues, tempting executives to avoid taking decisions and passing the buck to the next level - this surely is not helpful in resolving the problem.

Coming back to fiscal austerity, another corollary is that public sector undertakings are being forced to declare higher dividends, than they otherwise would have, to reduce the deficit.

This obviously affects their investment resources. LIC has become an investor/lender of last resort to entities - from the National Infrastructure and Investment Fund to the Indian Railways and bonds and equity of public sector banks.

But for the pressure from the owner, would LIC have made these investments? In short, adherence to fiscal deficit is increasingly coming at the cost of future investments in the real economy - and increasing NPAs in the financial economy. This surely will affect future growth.

Is there a case for looking at the fiscal deficit, separately for expenditure and investment, the latter being treated differently from the former?

The N K Singh Committee needs to examine this issue pragmatically and without assuming that all fiscal deficits are evil.

The author is chairman, A V Rajwade & Co Pvt Ltd.
A 2008-style bank run seems unlikely, but if it did happen, the sector is much better prepared, says George Hay.

IMAGE: People hold signs in Trafalgar Square during a 'Yes to Europe' rally for young people in central London. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

If the UK votes to leave the European Union, its banks should weather the storm.



The Bank of England (BoE) has been in close contact with financial institutions to ensure they have enough cash to deal with mass withdrawals, The Financial Times reported on June 22.



A 2008-style bank run seems unlikely, but if it did happen, the sector is much better prepared.

A big reason why Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland , and the lender now known as Lloyds Banking Group capsised in 2008 was rickety funding structures that depended on rolling over short-term liquidity in the money markets.



RBS and Lloyds now have high so-called liquidity coverage ratios, meaning that they have enough liquid resources to withstand a 30-day market freeze.

The BoE is also better primed. Lenders that get into difficulties can tap the revamped Discount Window Facility, a bank-specific backstop that allows them to preposition eligible collateral at the BoE and swap it in return for liquid gilts for a fee - as well as not disclose they did so for more than a year.



A newer alternative is the Contingent Term Repo Facility, which allows the BoE extensive leeway on collateral, pricing and how long to lend for.



Swap lines between the BoE, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank mean banks should be able to secure any foreign currencies they need.

The last line of defence is so-called Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA), advanced by the BoE to banks that run out of eligible collateral.



RBS and HBOS's ELA support peaked on an intraday basis at 61.5 billion pounds in October 2008.



The need for the UK Treasury to indemnify the BoE means this is only a last resort, but the precedent is there.

None of these support operations would prevent British banks being severely hit by any post-Brexit economic slowdown.



Rising unemployment or falling house prices would hurt RBS and Lloyds, which are respectively 70 percent and 95 percent exposed to the UK.

But now that banks have higher levels of loss-absorbing capital, the real impact of a vote to leave would most likely be a further delay to their hopes of ever making decent returns - rather than a 2008-style implosion.

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
After witnessing lacklustre trades in the past two sessions, markets shot up in todays trade after Britons commenced voting on a referendum on whether Britain should remain a part of the 28-nation European Union.

Meanwhile, strength in the European cues and gain in the Indian rupee aided the rally.

Participants will watch out for the Brexit poll outcome in the early morning trades tomorrow.

The S&P BSE Sensex gained 237 points to close at 27,002 and the Nifty50 surged 67 points to finish at 8,270.

Markets witnessed rangebound trades in the past two days, however it shot up in the late trades today on the back of decrease in the selling pressure amid uncertainty regarding the mega Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, lower volumes are exchanged across the exchanges.

If Britain decides to stay in the EU then Nifty can see 8,250 levels otherwise it may drop up to 7,700 levels.

Post the event, markets will keenly wait for the announcement of the beginning of the Monsoon session of Parliament as passage of the crucial GST bill remains pending, says A K Prabhakar, head of research, IDBI Capital.

European shares soared on as firmer copper prices boosted mining stocks, while hopes among investors that Britain would vote to stay in the European Union also supported markets.

FTSE 100, DAX and CAC 40 gained between 1.5%-2% each.

Asian equities closed mixed as investors remain edgy ahead of the UK vote outcome on whether to leave the European Union (EU). Japans Nikkei ended up 1%, Chinas Shanghai Composite closed 0.5% lower while Straits Times and Hang Seng gained 0.3% each.

Among some of the notable gainers are Tata Motors, SBI, ITC, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank gaining between 1.5%-3.5%.

Lupin surged 1.7% after it received final approval from the USFDA for Amabelz tablets (Estradiol and Norethindrone Acetate Tablets USP, 0.5mg/0.1mg and 1mg/0.5mg) to market a generic version of Amneal Pharmaceuticals' Activella tablets.

Sun Pharma gained 2% after the company said its board will hold a meeting on later today for evaluating a proposal of Buy Back of Equity Shares of the Company. Among others, Dr Reddy's Labs was up 1.5%.

GAIL India ended with marginal gains after it was awarded Rs 550 crore worth of contracts for laying part of 'Urga Ganga' gas pipeline from Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Haldia in West Bengal (WB).

Metal companies like Tata Steel and Hindalco, auto majors such as Tata Motors, Motherson Sumi, IT companies like TCS, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech and Pharma companies like Lupin, Dr Reddys Laboratories are likely to get impacted in case Britain decides to leave European Union (EU).

Tata Motors was up 3.5%, Tata Steel was up nearly 1%, Hindalco gained 1.5%, Motherson Sumi lost 0.7%, Lupin and Dr Reddys Lab gained 1.7% and 2% respectively.

The government will sell 2.06 crore shares in NTPC to eligible employees at a price of Rs 115.90, a 5% discount to the price of Rs 122 at which the government sold 5 per cent stake in the power generator in February.

The stock lost over 2%.

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has given nod to Biocon and its partner Quark Pharmaceuticals to proceed with clinical trials on human subjects for a new drug candidate, QPI-1007 aimed for ocular neuroprotection.

Biocon jumped 0.4%.

MTNL surged 5% after the state-run telecom firm said it will submit its revival plan to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) by August this year which aims to bring the loss making public sector undertaking (PSU) out of the red.

Reliance Power received a show-cause notice from Union ministry of coal (MoC) for the delay in developing coal blocks associated with its 4,000-Mw Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) at Tilaiya in Jharkhand. Reliance Power lost 0.4%.

Auto stocks continue the run-up on the back of progress in monsoon rains. Hero Motocorp, Bajaj Auto and Maruti Suzuki gained between 0.3%-1.5%.

Image: The Bombay Stock Exchange. Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com
SoftBank has been a key investor, with $210 million in Ola, along with existing shareholders, $627 million in Snapdeal, $90 million in Housing.com and $100 million in Oyo Rooms. And, $120 million in Grofers.

It might take a little more convincing by the start-up entities in this country where investments were initiated by Nikesh Arora, ex-president and operations head of SoftBank Group, to get more funding, say experts.

Analysts have also indicated that investments by the Japanese multinational into Indian companies might slow down for a while.

Start-up bosses such as Snapdeals Kunal Bahl and Olas Bhavish Aggarwal had said soon after news of Aroras exit that nothing would change between SoftBank and their companies.

However, experts believe more efforts would be needed in future funding rounds once SoftBank gets someone in Aroras place.

At present, it is believed, there might not be any revisiting of the companies SBG had invested in India.

However, if these companies want to get follow-on investments, it might depend on who is taking the call, as it is possible they might not be that bullish about it, said Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder, Indian Angel Network and of the IAN Incubator.

SoftBank has been a key investor, with $210 million in Ola, along with existing shareholders, $627 million in Snapdeal, $90 million in Housing.com and $100 million in Oyo Rooms. And, $120 million in Grofers.

Arora, the man behind these big-bang investments, recently faced investor ire for allegedly making a series of questionable transactions and having a poor record on the investments made.

There were also allegations of conflict of interest.

While experts laud Aroras forward attitude towards the investments he made, they believe the going would be tough for some of the investee companies.

While most investment companies have a four to six-year view of the market, Arora and Masayoshi Son have a 20-year view.

"Sadly, some of the investments are now becoming a major headache for SBG, said a senior executive of a major financial firm which also has stake in one the companies SoftBank is invested in.

Housing.com and Oyo Rooms are still trying to find a firm footing. Our sense is that these would be the two companies that would have to shape up if they want further funding rounds, another investor said.

However, a source close to Housing.com said SoftBank had full confidence in the company.

They are a fantastic investor and stuck through Housing during its worst phase.

Now that the company is turning around, I do not think the relationship would change, he said. Oyo did not respond to a Business Standard query.

Image: Nikesh Arora. Photograph: Reuters
Kwid has been a phenomenal success for Renault and brought over 125,000 bookings since its launch in September last year and enjoys a waiting period of two to three months.

Image: Almost half of Kwids buyers are two-wheeler owners. This also indicates the entry segment car market is expanding -- reinforced by the fact that Kwids volume is much more than the decline in Alto numbers.

The nine-month-old Kwid is giving Maruti Suzuki Alto, for years an undisputed leader in the entry-car segment, a run for its money.

Data show Alto sales have not grown for six of the seven months since October last year.

The Kwid was launched in the last week of September.

Alto brought in a fifth of Marutis domestic annual sales of 1.3 million vehicles last year. In each of the first five months of 2017, Alto's sales have dipped compared to last year.

And it was not small either.

Barring January 2016, when the decline was in a single digit (six per cent), all other months have seen a double-digit drop.

Maruti said a facelift was being launched in May.

Maruti Suzuki also claims there is no dent in the sales.

The concern here is that of overall capacity. We are running to absolutely full capacity.

"We have to do some internal adjustments to meet the demand for models across the portfolio.

"Thats an interesting challenge to handle.

Our production teams are finding ways of balancing all the segments within the overall available capacity, said a company spokesperson.

The Alto remains the largest-selling vehicle for Maruti, which commands a 48 per cent share in the domestic passenger vehicle market.

But it is facing an attack from two recent entrants: Renault Kwid and its alliance partner Nissans redi-Go, that was launched early this month under Datsun brand.

Both the vehicles were aggressively priced on the back of a 98 per cent localisation.

Kwid, known for its SUV styled exterior, is priced at Rs 262,000 (ex-showroom, Delhi), while redi-GO was launched at Rs 239,000.

Marutis Alto 800 is priced at Rs 249,000.

Kwid has been a phenomenal success for Renault and brought over 125,000 bookings since its launch in September last year and enjoys a waiting period of two to three months.

Almost half of Kwids buyers, the company said, were two-wheeler owners.

This also indicates the entry segment car market is expanding -- reinforced by the fact that Kwids volume is much more than the decline in Alto numbers.

The entry segment has been nearly flat in last three to four years.

"New models have brought some momentum and vibrancy to the segment.

"The segment will expand and Maruti Suzuki with its reach stands to benefit from the sentiment, the Maruti spokesperson said.

Renault Indias Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Sumit Sawhney said in Kwid the customers have got a car with a good price, mileage and maintenance cost.

This is a price-competitive segment.

"We would not have been successful without this level of localisation. We need to make sure that the growth is sustained, he said.

Renault has introduced a third shift at its plant in Chennai early this year and will be looking to produce 10,000 Kwids a month from July. Kwid has changed the fortunes of Renault in the fast-growing Indian passenger vehicle market.

Its market share improved from 1.66 per cent in FY15 to 2.57 per cent in FY16. In April-May period, its share stood at 4.4 per cent.

Maruti is a little worried. The company said as a brand Alto has retained its position for 16 years in spite of offerings by several competitors to challenge the brand.

It said the company has been upgrading the brand from time to time to be relevant.

The company also claimed that it due to its vast network and presence it offers an unmatched post sales service care, availability of affordable spare parts and its models also enjoy a higher residual value.

For any model, all these become clear only after a cycle of one to two years is completed, the spokesperson said.

Photographs by Rajesh Karkera/rediff.com
Bankers fear that a 'Leave' vote could lead to the most volatile markets in decades

The financial markets in the UK are bracing for a feared 'freeze' in the event of 'Brexit' or Britain's exit from the 28-nation European Union in Thursday's historic referendum.

Bankers fear that a 'Leave' vote could lead to the most volatile markets in decades, especially in currency markets but also in bonds, derivatives and equities.

Senior executive at all major banks, including Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are expected to be on an overnight vigil in their London offices to monitor the developments.

A vote in favour of the UK withdrawing from the 28-nation economic bloc could mean that the pound sterling's exchange rate would fall "perhaps sharply", the Bank of England's monetary policy committee recently said.

The bank remains on high alert to intervene if markets freeze, according to The Times.

Banks based in the City of London, the financial hub of the British capital, including UBS, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, have written to clients telling them to prepare for disruption tomorrow once the EU referendum result is declared.

UBS analysts warned that 350 billion pounds could be wiped off the value of leading companies as the FTSE 100 goes into free fall.

HSBC told clients, "This is an important event which will most likely impact financial markets through increased price volatility or lower market liquidity.

"Given our previous experience of events with significant market impact, we are writing to our clients to alert you to the risk of disruption to services as a consequence".

The banks are believed to have issued the client notes because they fear a re-run of the panic in January, 2015, when the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly abandoned its currency peg with the Euro.

In only 20 minutes, the Swiss franc appreciated by 28 per cent and banks found themselves unable to cope.

The financial world has been in favour of a "Remain" vote to ensure the UK retains as much of its access to the single market as possible.

Meanwhile, the pound rose on polling day itself though trading remained weak. European stock markets were also mostly higher today morning, although there were no big moves.

Investors and traders are expecting moves in currency markets after 10 pm when polls close and some privately commissioned exit polls by hedge funds start pouring in.

The Bank of England has emphasised that it is ready to ensure markets function after a Brexit vote.

IMAGE: Two activists with the EU flag and Union Jack painted on their faces kiss each other in front of Brandenburg Gate to protest against the British exit from the European Union. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters
As the Opposition leader in the state assembly, M K Stalin has to fend off the ruling AIADMK on the one hand and prevent the re-emergence of a non-Dravidian Opposition on the other -- but his immediate challenge comes from within, in the form of his wheelchair-bound octogenarian party leader and father M Karunanidhi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Image: DMK treasurer M K Stalin doing yoga on International Yoga Day 2016. Photograph: Courtesy, M K Stalin's Facebook page.

Despite managing the partys historic yet losing assembly poll campaign effectively and efficiently over the past year and more, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam treasurer M K Stalin is stuck. He needs to continue firing on all fronts and from all guns without any let-up, to keep the DMK relevant in state politics and himself relevant in DMK politics. Just now, he is doing precisely that -- but how far he can hold on remains to be seen.

Stalin has the best example in such a fight-back inside the DMKs first family. Party president and Stalins father, M Karunanidhi, is among the nations greatest fight-back veterans in politics and elections.

The DMK and Karunanidhi had to sit through 10 year-long vanvas when the late M G Ramachandran or MGR was ruling the roost, from 1977 till his death in 1987.

Add to that the two innings of Presidents rule in the state, before and after MGRs time as chief minister, and the figure adds up to the period that the Pandavas in the Mahabharat had spent away in the forests and later living incognito for a year.

It was a Hindu mythological story, Karunanidhi used to never tire of repeating at the time -- mythology that the rationalist (atheist) pan-Tamil, Dravidian icon has mastered as any strong believer and votary of religion and its scriptures, but for the exactly opposite reasons.

Then, as now, the credit for keeping the DMK flag flying through that period should go to Stalin -- even as Karunanidhi continued to be the all-time favourite target of socio-political critics on issues such as corruption and good governance, as also alleged lawlessness with him as chief minister.

The criticism of family rule too had begun then itself, over 40 years ago, and Stalin, and his late cousin Murasoli Maran were at the receiving-end. But for most parts, by maintaining a relative low profile, both had drawn no personal attention of any kind towards them.

In the absence of social media of the present-day kind, motivated rumour-mongering too died its natural death. Its not the case today when it comes to Stalins siblings, older brother Mu Ka Azhagiri and half-sister Kanimozhi.

Nor is it so when it comes to his nephews in the Marans Jr, who own a large media conglomerate -- and manage to be making news, too, often for the wrong reasons.

The latest to join the list is Stalins immediate family, including wife Durga and son-in-law Sabareesan, who is known to have headed the personalised DMK campaign and poll-management team for Stalin this time round.

That the unconventional campaign, using non-traditional means of communication for a propaganda-driven party from a hoary past, the team had done well ever since conceptualising the Namakku Naamaey (We, for ourselves, meaning the voter and the cadre, as distinct from the government and the ruling AIADMK of the time) walkathon for Stalin to live down the partys past image.

It is this approach that seemed to have paid electoral dividends. Under Stalin, the DMK has emerged as the strongest Opposition ever in the state assembly.

It is a feat that even Karunanidhi could not master against the AIADMK, either under MGR or successor, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Yet, Team Sabareesan could well be called for questioning inside party circles and fora, for whatever is seen as having gone wrong with the DMKs candidate selection, campaign style and what not.

When, where and how it begins -- and how Stalin handles it will remain to be seen.

For now, however, Stalin is caught in a personal political miasma, not of his making or that of the voter. Octogenarian Karunanidhi does not seem to be in a mood to direct the party focus away from self and on to Stalin, whom he himself had indicated as heir-apparent -- but remains just as much.

The fact remains that the new generation TN voter is looking for change, both in ideological terms and in terms of a proactive political and physical approach. Across the board, Stalin alone had sort of fitted the bill.

First, by not declaring Stalin as CM candidate, and later asserting that he alone would be the chief minister if the DMK combine won -- that too just a couple of days before the May 16 polling -- Karunanidhi might have lost the decisive section of undecided / non-party voters away from the party, or possibly even the polling centres.

Karunanidhi also added to party woes by having former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran by his side on almost all campaign platforms, when he had come to be identified with the pending 2G and Aircel-Maxis cases.

Kanimozhi -- who had spent time in Delhis Tihar jail before being enlarged on bail -- was another of the 2G accused facing a court verdict, who was seen campaigning vigorously for the party.

Some party candidates were seen as her nominees -- and thus carried the 2G tag to the voter-level, at least in those select constituencies.

Post-poll, reading the mood of the present-day voter generation, Stalin sounds matured and conciliatory for an Opposition politician. He gracefully accepted the final tally, and said so even in the inaugural session of the 15th assembly.

With 98 MLAs in the DMK-Congress coalition in a house of 234, Stalin, in his early reaction, said, Its neither a re-energising victory for the AIADMK, nor is it a humiliating defeat for the DMK. He continues to maintain the stride and approach to politics, both within and outside the assembly.

However, despite the promise to the contrary by Jayalalithaa on the floor of the House, the AIADMK legislators, ministers and leadership too have to acknowledge the changed scenario inside the house -- where there are is no third player, either to draw support from, or deflect attention from (the DMK rival in this case).

From outside the assembly, Karunanidhi continues to fire one salvo after another against Jayalalithaa and the state government, as if to draw back the Opposition-centric part of the media focus to the self -- and self alone.

Not a day has passed since Jayas return to power that Karunanidhi has not taunted her with one statement after another, the contents drawing from his prodigious memory for facts, figures and sequences.

Not to be taken off-guard, the ruling party, personally led by the CM on most occasions, has turned the tables on the DMK and its leader.

With numbers adding up more for the ruling party and re-elected assembly speaker Dhanapal too using his powers and discretion, the DMK ends up being seen at the receiving end of an unhealthy argument, which is triggered (from) outside and which the new generation voter is tired of.

The recent debates over the Sri Lankan fishermens row and the even more controversial Katchchativu, both based in the past, are only examples.

The past days of assembly discussions have not focussed much on contemporary issues of personal concern to individual voters  be it price rise, job-creation or tariff for public utilities, and the like.

As the Opposition, the DMK cannot be expected to hail Jayalalithaa for seeking to fulfil her pre-poll promises of prohibition-in-phases, by shutting down 500 liquor shops to begin with.

Be it inside or outside the house, constructive criticism of whatever kind to the implementation of the prohibition policy continues to come from the so-called pulp media, and not the DMK, the rightful Opposition.

Instead, the party is caught up with a non-existent row over wheelchair bound Karunanidhi, who throughout the past had mostly stayed away from the house whenever the DMK had been in the Opposition.

In the post-Rajiv Gandhi assassination polls of 1991, Karunanidhi was only one of the two DMK winners -- Stalin too had lost -- but resigned his seat promptly, without attending the assembly even once, and letting the other to fight a lone battle.

Karunanidhis presence, however drowned in the combined voices of the ruling AIADMK and its Congress electoral ally, would have made a difference to the discourse then, but he seemed to have chickened out, against the numbers.

Today, Karunanidhi seems wanting to spend more time in the assembly, and also wants special arrangements made for his wheelchair to be parked in position.

Whatever the protocol and procedure in the matter, Speaker Dhanapal may not have added to the glory of the house by allotting a second-row seat to the five-term former chief minister.

Its another matter that as leader of the opposition, Stalin would be seated in the front row.

The message thus is that Karunanidhi was as much peeved at not being allotted a front row seat, as his having to sit a row behind son Stalin.

In all this, the only solace that Stalin has just now is this. No one, inside the party or outside, is talking about Azhagiri, one-time southern trouble-shooter for the party and eternal trouble-maker, as far as the Stalin camp is concerned.

But it cannot be said of the non-Dravidian Opposition, which is down and out post-poll. Its the electoral space that the DMK under Stalin subsumed this time, but has to be kept that way, if the party had to take a fresh shot at power five years hence.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is director, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
The success of the PSLV-C34 mission is a result of ISRO's professionalism and the hard work put in by their scientists over the last many decades, says Ajay Lele.

IMAGE: ISRO's PSLV-C34 lifts off successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI Photo.

On Wednesday, the Indian Space Research Organisations most reliable workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, successfully launched Indias Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 19 other co-passengers into the desired orbit.

For PSLV, this was the 35th consecutive such mission. Over the years, the PSLV has assisted ISRO in fulfilling their various objectives by launching remote sensing satellites to lunar and Martian missions. Now, the PSLV has assisted ISRO in putting up 20 satellites in space.

The latest mission, PSLV-C34, had four important elements which need some elaboration.

First, for any rocket launcher to put so many satellites accurately in their desired orbits is a challenging task. The injection of so many satellites into the same orbit increases the complexity of such missions manifold. Some of these satellites were launched with a time gap of just a few seconds (even milliseconds) and with such proximity, there is always the possibility of a collision.

This mission had two phases: one operational and the other experimental. After the launch of all 20 satellites into the designated orbit, the experimental phase began. In this phase, the fourth stage (a rocket has four phases and when it reaches the fourth phase the satellites are released into the designated orbit) was switched off and switched on twice at different altitudes.

This was essentially done to check the feasibility of placing the satellites in multiple orbits during a single launch. ISRO has declared that this experiment has been successful. This indicates that in future, ISRO could undertake launching of satellites in different orbits in the same mission.

Another important aspect of this mission was its commercial face. Before this launch ISRO had launched 57 satellites for different countries in the world.

With this launch, the figure has reached 74. For all these years ISROs clientele has been foreign nations. But with this launch, the base expanded to include private commercial concerns based in the United States, including Google subsidiary Terra Bella.

This indicates that ISRO is providing reliable and cost-effective options for satellite launches, which is testified by clients from the United States are opting for ISRO. However, India has to make much progress if it has to attract more customers in the future.

According to current estimates, India boasts of only about 4 per cent of the total share in the global satellite launch market. The basic limitation which India faces in this area is the non-availability of a rocket for launching heavy satellites.

At present, India can launch only small and medium satellites (say, which can carry a payload of less than two tonnes) into a low earth orbit.

India needs to quickly operationalise its GeoSynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle programme which can carry four to six tonnes category of satellites into geostationary orbits.

This is because most of the communication and meteorological satellites belong in this category and India is, as yet, unable to make inroads into this market owing to non-availability of the launch vehicle.

Another interesting aspect of the latest mission is the launch of two nano satellites (Sathyabamasat and Swayam) for university/academic institutes. This is not the first time that ISRO has carried a payload for students who are keen to put satellites developed by them into space. In the past also ISRO has launched satellites like the Anna University satellite, StudSat-1 and Jugnu.

This essentially indicates that there is a significant amount of interest in the student community in India in the field of space science and space technologies and ISRO should be credited for encouraging the student community.

ISRO is also supporting a group of Indian space enthusiasts called Team Indus, the only Indian team in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, which is building a privately funded spacecraft capable of soft landing on the Moon by 2017.

ISRO is expected to provide launch facilities and other required ground infrastructure for this first privately funded space exploration mission ever.

All this essentially indicates that ISRO has a vision for encouraging students/professionals who have interest in space, and some of them could probably be Indias future space leaders.

An important feature of the latest mission is the launch of a satellite called Cartosat-2C. ISRO has been launching Cartosat satellites since 2005. To date four satellites in this series have been launched.

According to ISRO, the images sent by these satellites are useful in various cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and man-made features and various other land information system and geographical information system applications.

It is also important to note that these satellites are dual-purpose satellites and have significant strategic utility. The first satellite in this series was launched during 2005 with a resolution of around 2.5 metres. During the last decade, ISRO scientists have made significant technological progress and the Cartosat-2C is expected to have resolution of few centimetres.

An important feature of Cartosat-2C is the use of adaptive optics and acousto optical devices. This satellite has micro electro-mechanical systems and adoptive optics that offer a better visibility of objects on the ground.

Here, this optical system adopts to compensate for optical effects introduced by the medium between object and its image while acousto optical devices cater for the interaction between sound waves and light waves.

The success of the PSLV-C34 mission is a result of ISRO's professionalism and the hard work put in by their scientists over the last many decades.

This mission also indicates the expanse of Indias space programme, one that caters to both civilian and strategic requirements. It is also a programme that has increasing commercial viability and encourages the younger generation by allowing them to make their dreams into reality.

Ajey Lele is a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal.
'I am not saying the situation is either good or conducive'

'What I am trying to do is to place all the facts before the refugees and just nudge them to take a call'

Image: A file photograph of Tamil civilians at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/Reuters/Pool.

A 28-minute documentary, No Longer A Refugee, tells the story of Sri Lanka Tamils who have returned home after spending many years as refugees in Tamil Nadu. According to one estimate, there are over 65,000 65,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees still living in nearly 110 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu.

The documentary was produced by Ashok Gladston Xavier, a Chennai-based academic, on behalf of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation or OfERR, a self-help group run by refugees since 1983 and which has offices in Chennai and Colombo. The documentary will be shown in all refugee camps in Tamil Nadu, and where not possible CDs will be supplied to refugee camps for exhibition.

After the documentary was screened in Chennai recently, S C Chandrahasan, founder of OfERR, said out of the 65,000 refugees still in India, some 1,700 of them want to go back to Sri Lanka immediately and that he is in touch with Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to arrange for their return.

We had asked Swaraj to arrange for ships to send back these refugees and the minister had promised to look into it. We had also asked the minister to re-start the ferry services between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka to facilitate their return. Since these are all poor refugees, the government has to ensure their return by arranging for their travel free of cost, Chandrahasan said. "The situation is fast improving in Sri Lanka, and this documentary is a soothsayers message to the refugees who are living in India."

In a conversation with R Ramasubramanian, Xavier said, "My documentary attempts to find answers to those frequently asked questions from Tamil refugees who are still in India."

What made you produce this documentary?

I wanted to find out the challenges faced by those refugees who had returned to their motherland, and to find answers for refugees who are still living in camps in Tamil Nadu.

When and where did you shoot the documentary?

I visited Sri Lanka in April-May 2015 and in April 2016. I had gone to at least seven places including Colombo, Vavuniya, Killinochi, Jaffna, Mannar, Mullaitivu and spoke to those refugees who had come back from India.

How many of them have returned and where are they living now?

All of those who have returned are living in their respective homes. Over 8,000 refugees had returned to their places after the end of the war in 2009. I had met over 200 of them and had a detailed discussion with at least 85 from among them. This includes 60 women.

Why did you name your documentary No longer a refugee?

(I named the film No longer a refugee) Because those who have returned started feeling that they are not refugees any more. They are coming out of that tag or taboo, whatever you may call it.

One of them interviewed in the documentary is a youth named Mayuran. He is from Mullaitivu. He came out of his house when he was just 4-years-old and landed in India. Today, he has MA and MPhil degrees and when he reached his home (in Sri Lanka) after 26 years, he was thrilled and said "I am no longer a refugee."

What are the FAQs from the refugees still living in Tamil Nadu?

They have several questions and the major ones are about their livelihood, the armys presence, return of land taken over by the army, human security, education, etc.

What answers did you find in Sri Lanka?

The main problem for those who returned to their homeland is documentation. To avail all services like medical, education, etc, you need a national ID card first. For getting a national ID card several other documents are needed. This includes birth certificate and if the person does not have a birth certificate then his parents marriage certificate and their birth certificates are must.

The problem arises when the marriages are not registered and the children are born in refugee camps. These children have to get their birth certificates from the Sri Lankan deputy high commission in Chennai and if they do not register, then they will be deemed to be stateless.

What are the other problems likely to be faced by the refugees once they return to their motherland?

Education is one area. Since the education systems are quite different, they need to obtain what is known as an equivalent certificate from the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka. This has to be further certified by other local and district level administrations. This is a must for getting a job.

Livelihood is another issue. In India, the refugees were able to do every possible job. They were divided into two categories -- skilled and unskilled.

Health is not a problem. Primary and secondary level health treatments are provided by the government free of cost and quality treatment is available for all. Moreover, the clean environment is an added advantage because the lack of pollution ensures the health of the refugees who return home.

IMAGE: Mayuran came to India as a refugee when he was just 4-years-old. After 26 years, he returned to his home in Sri Lanka's Mullaitivu district, armed with MA and MPhil degrees.

What about the return of lands taken over by the army and the armys presence in civilian areas?

In April 2015, the (Sri Lankan) army had returned 600 acres of land in Jaffna to nearly 500 original owners and a steering committee was set up to look in to this issue. This is an ongoing process.

As far as the armys presence is concerned, yes, the army columns are there. But the army is not interfering in civil issues. There is no frisking of individuals and checking of any area is generally a one-time affair. So these are some of the major issues. We try to understand them and facilitate answers for the same.

Can you say that the situation is not alarming anymore?

The situation is surely not alarming in Sri Lanka.

Is the situation good or conducive for the refugees to return?

(With a little pause) I am not saying the situation is either good or conducive. I am only asking the refugees to ascertain the situation with available reports, apply their mind independently and take a call. But I do believe that returning to their homeland is one of the durable solutions for refugees.

IMAGE: Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who have returned home fishing off the Mannar coast.

So in a way with this documentary you are encouraging the refugees to go back to their homeland?

No, I am not using the word encouraging...

Why are you shying away from using the word?

No, that's not the issue. What I am trying to do is to place all the facts before the refugees and just nudge them to take a call. Thats all.

IMAGE: Refugees who have returned to Sri Lanka congregate at the church in Mannar.

Have you spoken to all those concerned in Sri Lanka? Were there any impediments from the authorities concerned?

I have spoken to all the stakeholders. I have spoken to the chief minister of Jaffna, various Tamil people, Sri Lankan government officials and, of course, with the army top brass in the Tamil areas. There were no impediments or troubles from any side and I had a wide range of talks, discussions and consultations with all those concerned in this issue.

What are your next step vis-a-vis your film?

This is my seventh documentary on the refugees issue. I will try to screen the documentary in the refugee camps here in Tamil Nadu and try to supply the CDs to those concerned.
A masked and armed man barricaded himself in a German multiplex cinema with dozens of people inside Thursday before being killed by police, officials said.

According to local media reports at least 25 to 50 people were injured, possibly by tear gas in a police operation, at the cinema in the western town of Viernheim, 75 kilometres south of Frankfurt.

No hostages were injured in the complex.

A police spokeswoman in the nearby city of Darmstadt confirmed that all the hostages were unhurt and led out of the building.

Initial reports had referred to dozens of wounded people and several shots fired, and police dispatched heavily armed special units to the site.

Later accounts said that several people had been hurt by tear gas during the police raid but this was also denied.

Authorities said they had no information on the mans identity or motive.

Although it was reported that the incident had no link to terrorism, police has repeatedly warned that the country could be a target by the Islamic State terror group.

Germany absorbed more than 1 million refugees last year, and there have been concerns about the possibility of IS cells in the country.

IMAGE: German police walks past a cinema complex after a masked man with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in the small western town of Viernheim, near Frankfurt, Germany on Thursday. Photograph: Ralph Orlowski/Reuters
Three Bihar ministers have threatened to take action if VHP leader Pravin Togadia delivers a hate speech in Patna.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Bihar have challenged the state government to ban the ongoing meeting of Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Patna if it has guts.

After three Bihar ministers threatened to take action against VHP leader Pravin Togadia if he spreads communal hatred with his speeches during the ongoing meeting, the BJP has challenged the state government to ban it.

The BJP challenges the state government to ban the VHP meeting, former deputy chief minister of state Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters.

Modi said the ministers of Bihar have nothing to say on anything else and theyre targeting the VHP meeting only for publicity.

Earlier, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav had said that the state police will take action if Togadia delivers a hate speech or does anything that harms communal harmony.

Tejashwi is the younger son of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.

Bihar Education Minister Ashok Choudhary also said that the government will strictly deal with Togadia and the VHP if they attempt to spread hatred and try to create communal tension.

Going a step further, Bihar Minority Welfare Minister Abdul Ghafoor said that the government will ban the VHP meeting, if required, in view of likely communal trouble.

Gafoor, who is an RJD leader, said that the VHP and its leader Togadia have a single point agenda to create social division and hatred.

The VHP is closely associated with the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also a product of the VHP, he said.

In early 2000s, when Lalu was in power, he did not allow Togadia to step a foot in Bihar.

Image used for representational purposes only.
Former Union minister Gurudas Kamat, who recently announced his decision to quit politics, on Thursday said he has had a rethink and will continue to serve Congress.

I had about two weeks ago sent my resignation as general secretary, All India Congress Committee and from the Congress party purely for personal reasons, to concentrate on social service minus any party tag, he said.

However, during the last fortnight a large number of senior party leaders tried to convince me to rethink on the decision. My meeting with my party president Sonia Gandhi helped me to make up my mind that the Congress party is the best platform to serve the people of this country, the 61-year-old said in a statement.

Kamat said he will be soon meeting the people of his in-charge states.

I will continue to serve under the leadership of Honble Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Honble Vice President Rahul Gandhi with the same charge of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu as informed to me late last night. I will be meeting the people of my in-charge states starting tomorrow, Kamat said.
The External Affairs Ministry on Thursday discarded the article titled 'India's embarrassing North Korean connection' by Nilanjana Bhowmick in Al Jazeera, a Doha-based broadcaster, saying the insinuation regarding New Delhi's assistance to North Korea in United Nations proscribed activities is 'baseless and without any merit.'

MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the UN Panel of Experts that deals with the UN sanctions on Democratic People's Republic of Korea has made references in its report to DPRK's participation in courses in the Dehradun-based Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific which 'could' have implications for its proscribed activities.

"The report is subjective and based on the limited understanding of the expert(s) who have authored it. India has made its position clear in this regard to the UN Security Council. The topics covered in the courses offered by CSSTEAP are very general and cover basic principles in the respective areas," he said.

"The course material offered to the participants is available in open-source. We believe that these courses are unlikely to contribute in any way to a violation of the various UN sanctions pertaining to DPRK. Further, a representative of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs is a Permanent Observer in the Governing Board of the Centre. The Advisory Committee of the Centre, which evaluates and reviews the course curriculum and criterion for the selection of candidates, is chaired by the Director of UN-OOSA," he added.

Swarup further said India is fully aware of its obligations under the UN Charter and has been exemplary in its implementation of UN sanctions including those related to DPRK.

"As a country that has been a victim of proliferation in its extended neighbourhood, it is ridiculous to suggest that India has in any way aided the violation of UN sanctions on DPRK," he said.

The report claimed that Hong Yong-il, the North Korean embassys new first secretary to India, stayed in the country for nine months In 1996, studying a course in remote sensing technology at the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP).

"Dehradun is a very quiet town," Al Jazeera quoted Hong as saying in an interview. He reportedly said: "The course was very informative, the teachers were very good."

The report said that Hong was one of the first students North Korea had sent to train at the centre, set up by the United Nations in 1995, to impart expertise in space science & technology application.

It claimed that North Korea had sent at least 30 students to train at the institute. Two of its students are still currently studying there and one of whom is affiliated with the National Aerospace Development Administration, which, the report said, plays a key role in the country's nuclear development programme.

It (North Korea) kept sending scientists and space employees, even after the UN issued the first set of nuclear sanctions in 2006, prohibiting member countries from providing technical training to North Korea, the report claimed.

India is reportedly due to present a detailed report to an UN advisory committee on the issue.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise how extraordinarily unwise, and indeed irresponsible, it is nowadays to train North Korean operatives in technologies that can be used to improve and perfect their ballistic missile programme," Aljazeera quoted Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, as saying.

"The government of India needs to acknowledge the seriousness of this error, take accountability for it, and publicly commit that it will not be an enabler of North Korean WMD programmes thenceforth," he added.
A 12-year-old girl is in critical condition after being gang-raped allegedly by two persons in Bedivan Madhuvan village in Motihari district of Bihar, an incident which triggered protest by locals who today blocked National Highway 28 demanding speedy trial, police said.

On June 15, the girl had gone to collect mangoes in an orchard where the two accused gang-raped her, they said quoting the complaint lodged by her family.

Meanwhile, the victims father said he was being coerced by two of the villagers to withdraw the case and being threatened his son would be kidnapped otherwise.

Locals on Thursday blocked Motihari-Muzaffarpur National Highway 28 near Pipra in East Champaran district demanding speedy trial of the two arrested in connection with the gang rape of the girl.

The demonstrators blocked the NH 28 and burnt tyres demanding the alleged attackers be given exemplary punishment and the trial be facilitated, a police officer said.

The victim was now being treated in Patna Medical College and Hospital and her condition was critical as she received serious internal injuries, her family said on Thursday.

Victims father said his daughter was operated upon in PMCH on Wednesday evening but she has not gained consciousness yet.

Chakia Deputy Superintendent of Police Mundrika Prasad said two persons  Pramod Sahni and Kamlesh Sahni -- were arrested the same day and sent to jail on the basis of a first information report lodged by the victims father.

Commenting on the demand by locals, he said speedy trial will be conducted in the case.

Chakia Sub-Divisional Officer Chitragupta said district administration will look after the treatment of the girl.

She was initially admitted to Motihari Sadar Hospital in a critical condition but later referred to PMCH, Patna.

Her father claimed his daughters treatment is being carried out with the help of contributions collected from the people of his village.
The arrival of Monsoon may have spread cheer across the country, but parts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand and Madhya Pradesh have descended into gloom after lightning strikes reportedly claimed nearly 100 lives.

According to media reports, 56 people -- mostly farm labourers working in the fields -- died in Bihar while 44 people were killed across Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand and Madhya Pradesh.

"Many of the victims are children and women," Anirudh Kumar, a senior official at Bihar's disaster management agency, told Agence France Press.

"As many as 56 persons were killed and eight injured in the lightning strikes across the state. Two persons have been critically injured following the lightning strikes," said Principal Secretary of Disaster management Vyas Ji.

Lal Babu Usvaha, a farmer from the village of Kanti Butiya in Bihar, told The Guardian: "Work is work. We can't stop because of the weather. We have to keep working in the fields. But we feel scared when we see so many clouds, so much electricity in the sky."

Saffan Kumar, another farmer, told The Guardian: "We can't stay at home and we can't go out. We are stuck. We are willing to do anything, if the government can help us. Were prepared to do what they say."

Meteorological Department has issued an alert in Supaul, Araria, Kishanganj, Saharsa, Madhepura, Siwan, Saran, Gopal ganj districts in North Bihar. West and east parts of Champaran have been alerted about the impending rains.

The state government has also alerted the disaster management department and various districts authorities across the state. The government has also announced Rs 4 lakh compensation to the kin of the deceased. "The death toll is expected to rise," said Disaster management minister Chandrashekhar.

Lightning strikes are common during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to October, but it is highly unusual for scores of people to be fatally struck in such a short period. Farmworkers and farm animals are often hit.

The National Crime Records Bureau, which classifies lightning strikes as a cause of accidental death, claims at least 2,000 deaths were associated with lightning every year since 2005.

It was only in 2015 that the Centre allowed it to be declared as a state-specific disaster, making affected people or their families eligible for compensation.

"Lightning kills on an average 250 people every year in the state, but under-reporting is common to avoid compensation," Nitish Priyadarshi, an environmentalist in Jharkhand, told The Hindustan Times.

Image: A view of cracks in a field where lightning struck during Monsoon rains in Naubatpur in Patna on Tuesday. Photograph: PTI Photo
China belligerently led opposition to Indias membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group at a three-hour post-dinner meeting of the NSG in Seoul on Thursday which ended in a deadlock.

Preceding the two-day plenary of the 48-member NSG, which began on Thursday, China had repeatedly said that Indias membership was not on the agenda and is said to have made every effort to prevent any discussion on India's bid.

However, Japan is believed to have raised Indias case in the morning session after which it was agreed that the matter would be taken up at the special post-dinner meeting.

Indian official sources said that China was joined by Austria, Ireland and Brazil among other countries which questioned as to how a country like India which had not signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty can be admitted to the grouping. Essentially their opposition was couched in principles and processes.

Brazils objections are said to have surprised the Indian diplomats who pointed out that it is a member of the 5-nation BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) grouping.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, who is camping here, had earlier met the Brazilian delegation.

Officials said that discussions were inconclusive and that it would only be clear before the end of the plenary on Friday.
China on Thursday sought to de-link its opposition to Indias membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group from Sino-Indian ties, saying it does not concern the bilateral relationship.

China-India bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum and the issue of Indias admission into the NSG does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tashkent.

President Xi is going to meet Prime Minister Modi in Tashkent. We believe that series of exchanges of visits will deepen our strategic consensus, strategic mutual trust and future development of bilateral relationship, Hua told media briefing in Beijing.

On the state of bilateral ties, she said, We have repeatedly made positive comments on development ties between India and China. Both are emerging markets that are acquiring more and more significant role in the international affairs, she said.

The bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum of growth, thanks to the mutual visits of the leaders by the two countries, she said.

We have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship. Recently, President of India Pranab Mukherjee also paid a successful visit to China, she said.

On whether India, China differences over Indias admission into the NSG would effect relations, Hua said, On the NSG issue, we have been expounding on our position on this issue. We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group.

We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India, she said.

Xi and Modi are due to meet on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Tashkent on Thursday, where he was expected to seek Chinas support for Indias membership in the NSG.

China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Both India and Pakistan, which have applied for NSG membership, have not signed the NPT. While Indias case is pushed by the United States, China is backing Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as the NSG kicked off key meeting in Seoul on Thursday, Chinas official media continued its tirade against India's bid for membership in the grouping with an article defending Chinas opposition and attempting to equate Indian and Pakistan nuclear programmes.

The article written by a senior fellow and director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at Centre for Strategic & International Studies published in state run Global Times says Indias bid to enter NSG is aimed at legitimising its nuclear weapons status.

The costs and benefits of Pakistani membership are similar to those of Indias, except that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan tarnished Pakistans record considerably when he sold centrifuge technology to Iraq, Iran and Libya, the article by Sharon Squassoni says.

It was the fourth article in the last one week carried by the daily to oppose Indias admission into the NSG. The previous three articles were written by Chinese state run think tanks.
The monsoon session of Parliament is likely to begin in the third week of July and end by mid August, with the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs set to meet on June 29 to decide on the schedule.

Sources say that the session is expected to start from July 18 and continue till August 13. The CCPA headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh will, however, take the final call at its meeting on June 29.

With increased strength and support from some opposition parties in Rajya Sabha, the government is keen to get the good and service tax bill, which has been pending for a long time now, passed in this session in the Upper House.

The government has already missed the target of implementing the GST regime from April 1, this year in the wake of stiff opposition to the tax reform measure by the Congress and some other parties.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has recently claimed that almost all the states have agreed to support GST. After a meeting of state finance ministers in Kolkata recently, Jaitley had said that except Tamil Nadu, which has some reservations, all other states favour the proposed legislation.

The GST is being touted as a key tax reform measure by the Modi government which will help give a fillip of 1 to 2 per cent to the country's GDP.

The Bill has already been passed by Lok Sabha.
IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent on Thursday. Photograph: @MEAIndia/Flickr

Seeking Chinas support for Indias Nuclear Suppliers Group membership, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application which is before the plenary of the 48-nation grouping that is currently meeting in Seoul.

Meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit, Modi said Indias case should be judged on its own merits and China should contribute to an emerging consensus in the Seoul meeting, according to External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

The meeting, which lasted for nearly 50-minutes, comes in the backdrop of stiff Chinese opposition to Indias entry into the NSG, which looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector, including trade and export of nuclear technology.

However, when asked about Chinas response, Swarup refused to comment, saying, You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this.

Swarup also stated that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.

Asked if India talked about the need to de-link India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, ...You have heard what the prime minister told Xi Jingping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul.

While making some right noises of playing constructive role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criterion for countries like India whove not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and clubbing Indias case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistans case for the NSG membership.

Hussain told Xi that any exception in granting membership to the NSG will disturb strategic stability in South Asia.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi being received by Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev on his arrival in Tashkent. Photograph: MEAIndia/Flickr



President Xi welcomed India's accession to the SCO and said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for Chinas support to Indias membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Swarup said.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

Indias entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in July last year when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India, Pakistan and Iran.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Tashkent where he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit and meet some world leaders like the Chinese President with whom the NSG issue will figure prominently in the talks.

IMAGE: IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi departing for Uzbekistan to attend the SCO summit from New Delhi. Photograph: PIB Photos

In the two-day summit, the SCO will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

Prior to his departure, the prime minister said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he had said.

A short visit to the heart of Asia. PM @narendramodi departs for Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit, tweeted external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Modi had said that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

The prime minister will also have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday on the sidelines of the summit during which he is expected to seek China's support for India's bid for NSG membership, which Beijing is opposed to.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had on Wednesday said, The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the memorandum of obligations.

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign more than 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
The party members staged a sit-in on the floor of the lower house of the US Congress to demand tighter gun controls after the shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida.

Seeking a vote on strict gun control laws in the wake of Americas deadliest mass shooting last week that killed 49 people in Orlando, Democratic Congressmen resorted to an unprecedented sit-in inside the well of the US House of Representatives.

The leadership of the Republican party, which holds a majority in the House, refused to budge and instead shut off the television cameras used for live coverage.

The Democratic Congressmen used their own smartphones to live telecast -- through Facebook and other social media sites -- the proceedings inside the House along with their sit-in demonstrations in the House well.

Images from inside the well of the House reflected a chaotic situation rarely seen.

One television commentator described this like an anarchy and lawlessness as the rare sit-in inside the House crossed midnight even after the lights were switched off.

Enough is enough, said Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera, as he joined his fellow Democratic lawmakers in the protest, which was led by legendary Congressman John Lewis known for his civil disobedience movement.

Republicans denied us a vote, we sat on the floor. We sat on the floor, with John Larson presiding. When they turned off the House cameras, we livestreamed from our phones, said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in her remarks on the House floor late Wednesday night.

Because of you, they cannot -- they can try to shut down the floor, but because of you, they cannot shut out the voices of the victims and the will of the American people. And now, as you hold up the names of people who have been victims of violence, she said.

Democratic lawmakers were demanding that Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives bring up a vote on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation before the House recesses.

Refusing to budge under pressure, Ryan described this as a publicity stunt by Democrats.

This is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Thats point number one. Point number two is this bill was already defeated in the United States Senate. Number three, were not going to take away a citizens due process rights, Ryan said.

Were not going to take away a citizens constitutional rights without due process. That was already defeated in the Senate. And this is not the way to try and bring up legislation, he told CNN in an interview.

Ryan defended his decision to shut off the cameras and lights arguing that these are as per the House rules.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer demanded that Republicans hold a vote on legislation on gun violence.

After the unspeakable slaughter of 49 innocent people in Orlando earlier this month, it is unconscionable that House Republicans would continue to block a vote even on commonsense safeguards, including expanding background checks and preventing dangerous firearms from being sold to terror suspects, Hoyer said.

This is an issue that ought to transcend party -- its about saving lives and keeping our communities safe, he said.

Photographs Courtesy: @HouseDemocrats, @RepEsty/Twitter
IMAGE: Novelist Shobhaa De, Vikas Swarup, novelist, diplomat and the ministry of external affairs spokesperson, director Kabir Khan and Saffron Art CEO Hugo Weihe at the event. Photograph: Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com

'Today if you look at the way India is growing many people are saying the sleeping elephant has finally woken up, is dancing!'

'I have travelled extensively, in about 60 countries. In all these the moment you say India, the first thing they mention is either an actors name. Or they start humming a song.'

'I wanted to be in Bollywood. It is the most powerful medium we have in this country. That's soft power.'

Listening in on Shobhaa De, Kabir Khan, Vikas Swarup and Saffron Art CEO Hugo Weihe discuss India's Soft Power, Hard Influence.

At a high-adrenaline Mumbai conference, that focused on the Indian intersections between geopolitics and business last week, a number of masala topics came sauntering in the doors of the Taj Land's End hotel, uninvited.

In attendance were chief guests, who ranged from ministers, government officials, intellectuals, university professors, India's foreign secretary to ambassadors and global businessmen, living between multiples time zones.

These were unexpected topics, that pushily hopped onto the agenda. Like Shri 420. The beef ban. The majestic Hindu Kush mountains. Ajanta and Ellora. Syria. Cairo. Bored US immigration inspectors. Love jihadis. Pahlaj Nihlani. Head transplants. Topics that added plenty of exuberance to an otherwise prim summit.

This happened at the peppy session, titled Soft Power, Hard Influence, where moderator Shobhaa De asked a number of ticklish questions of her panel that consisted of Vikas Swarup, the ministry of external affairs spokesperson and author of Q&A (adapted into Slumdog Millionaire), Kabir Khan, filmmaker (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Kabul Express, New York) and Hugo Weihe, CEO of the art auction house Saffron Art.

The discussion was part of the wide-ranging, impressive Gateway Dialogue, hosted, as a first, by the think tank Gateway House and the ministry of external affairs.

Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel listened in on the discussion between De, Swarup, Khan and Weihe, as the conversation often easily and interestingly coasted away from global power to politics, movies and drama.

The choicest slices of the dialogue: First of a three-part series.

Shobhaa De: I am sure a lot of us will agree that Indians are skillful negotiators. We negotiate crossroads particularly well. This afternoon we are going to be dealing with many such challenges...

I was reading something that (social activist and sometime politician) Jaya Jaitly said recently. She's been a great ambassador of the crafts and skills of India over the last few decades. What she said in many ways encapsulates what soft power means.

Jaitly (behind craft organisations Dastkari Haat Samiti and Dilli Haat) talked about creating craft bazaars across the world and a culture of craft bazaars to help different countries and different skill sets meet in a more meaningful way.

I thought how wonderful if we could also have a culture of ideas. And (also) bazaars where we could share our ideas on equal platforms. I think that is happening. Narendra Modi also recently talked about diplomacy and sagacity, which I thought was a fabulous combination of words -- emotive as well as profound.

The Economist has done a piece where they talked about once diffident India is beginning to join the dance. We can look at it either as being something slightly patronising which (it might be). On the other hand, maybe it is time we looked at ourselves differently and make sure the world looks at us differently as well.

I am going to start with (a question to) Vikas. It is going to be a free flowing conversation/discussion and I would request my panellists to interrupt if they need to, contribute if they want to and generally keep everybody awake on a very humid and hot afternoon in Mumbai.

So Vikas when you wrote Q & A and a movie was made of that book, there was talk of how India -- especially cinema in India -- has specialised (for a long time) in exporting poverty. The comment was, of course, made starting with Satyajit Ray and Pather Panchali. How did you feel about the varied responses to your book initially?

You launched it across the world. You had conversations about the book and the movie across the world. You have been on various red carpets. What was that whole experience like? Did you feel defensive in some way? Were we exoticising poverty?

Vikas Swarup: Since we are talking about soft power, I must say that Slumdog Millionaire has in a sense contributed to the (evolution) of India's soft power.

I will give you a small example: I was posted in South Africa at that time. I was invited to come for the Academy Awards. So I took a flight that went from Johannesburg to Atlanta, which was the hub of United Airlines. From there to Los Angeles.

I am sorry (Swarup corrects himself), this was not for the Oscars, but the USIBC (US-India Business Council). They were giving me an award for Cultural Ties That Bind. And I was going to Washington DC.

When I arrived in Atlanta, it was 5.30 in the morning. A very jaded looking immigration officer at the counter asked me: 'So what brings you to the United States, sir? (he mimics an American accent perfectly)'

I said: 'I have come to receive an award.'

'And what award would that be, sir?'

'For writing a book.'

'And what book would that be, sir?'

'Slumdog Millionaire.'

'Oh really, can I hug you?!'

That was quite incredible. When I reached Washington the next day we had a meeting with Hillary Clinton (then US secretary of state in the first Obama administration). She also had engaged with the film (made) from the book. I gave her a copy and we (talked about it).

I thought this was an amazing coincidence that a film has appealed not just to the classes, but the masses -- from an immigration clerk to a secretary of state of the United States of America. Both related to this film.

Yes, there has been a lot of controversy, because of the title I suppose. In Madras (Chennai) they filed a case against the producers saying by naming your film Slumdog Millionaire you have called all of us living in the slums as dogs. This was a case filed by the Slumdwellers Association of India and they even filed a case against me.

I had to point out: 'Excuse me, but my book was called Q & A and not Slumdog Millionaire.' Then I was sort of taken off the respondents' list.

But they did file a case. It was thrown out by the high court, of course, (because by using the title slumdog) it does not mean anyone is a dog. When they lost the case they went out and bought two dogs and they named one dog Simon (after screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy) and the other dog Danny (after director-producer Danny Boyle). This tells you that this film did impact people in multiple ways.

I always say: Why do you look only at the slumdog part? Why not at the millionaire part? What is eventually the subtext of that film. That a slumdog can become a millionaire. That somebody who has been given no chance in life can overcome the odds and (emerge) a millionaire.

I think that's the leitmotif of India. Today if you look at the way India is growing -- at what 7.9 per cent, which was our growth in the last quarter -- many people are saying the sleeping elephant has finally woken up and...

Shobhaa De: Is dancing!

Vikas Swarup: Now dancing, as per The Economist.

Shobhaa De: You are now are playing the part of spokesperson for the external affairs ministry. It must be very hard to (handle) the creative balancing act as a person who indulges in fiction and then has sometimes a difficult job juggling certain viewpoints?

Vikas Swarup: I have given up my schizophrenic existence. I am now only the official spokesperson and not the writer.

Shobhaa De: No more books? So today you are here as a writer/official spokesperson...

Vikas Swarup: No more books. I don't know. You have to ask Gateway House that in which capacity they invited me?!

(Laughter in the room.)

IMAGE: A scene from Kabir Khan's blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

Shobhaa De: Kabir, I wanted to ask: You have made a stream of very, very successful films, which have bridged commerce as well as a strong message that you wanted to convey. Do you think cinema itself, movies can be agents of change? Can you actually export a cultural thought?

Kabir Khan: I personally believe that Bollywood definitely is one of the strongest elements that India has in a soft power. In all my travels as a film maker... I have travelled extensively, with journalist Saeed Naqvi, (focussing on) about 60 countries. In all these countries the moment you say India, the first thing they mention is either an actor's name. Or they start humming a song.

I would like to relate a little story about how India's soft power, specifically a Bollywood actor specifically saved my life. That's the day I realised how powerful Bollywood really is.

This was 2001, the Americans had started bombing the Taliban regime and I was going into Afghanistan to make a documentary. We were Indian passport holders so we could not go through the usual Peshawar route, that most of the other journalists were taking (into Afghanistan). So we had to fly over Pakistan to Uzbekistan and drive to Tajikistan and from Dushanbe (capital and largest city of Tajikistan) we were trying to enter Afghanistan.

Everything we tried wouldn't work. We tried to drive from Dushanbe over the mountains. There were landslides and avalanches and we had to go back. The rivers were in spate so we couldn't take a boat across the river (Panj that runs along the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan). There was a chopper we were supposed to hire. That crashed the day before we were to take it.

It was a dead end. We were there (in Dushanbe) for 14 days and just not able to enter Afghanistan. While we were there Naqvi came and I said: Welcome to the dead end. He spoke to the (Indian) ambassador there. He tried to get to them (Afghani authorities) through the MEA. Nothing was working. Finally on the 14th day -- when we had more or less given up and I had said: 'Come, let's go back to Delhi, because there is no way we are going to Afghanistan' -- I made one last attempt.

Me and my friend Atul Kapoor went to the (Dushanbe) airbase and saw this Russian military copter (parked being loaded) with medicines for Kabul. We decided since nothing else is working, let's do it the Indian way...

We took the Russian helicopter pilot aside and offered him some money... We gave him $2,000. He hid us in the cargo of medical supplies and the chopper took off. It was just 40 minutes, through the Hindu Kush mountains. When we were somewhere outside Kabul, this big Russian chopper comes down somewhere surrounded by mountains. (The pilot) said: 'Now jump! Jump.'

'What do you mean jump? We gave you $2,000. The least you can do is put us down.'

He said: 'No, no, there is some technical jargon about it. If the chopper goes down, it needs some minimum amount of time to start again.'

He said (again): 'Jump! So we jumped, from 30 feet up in the air and the chopper takes off and me and Atul are left in the middle of nowhere. All you could see was snow-clad mountains. We don't know where Kabul was.

Then we see this lone figure marching towards us. As he came closer we realise he is six feet four inches and maybe four feet wide. He looked angry. He just saw this chopper come down and two guys jump off and it takes off (again). He was shouting something very angrily. And you know he was waving this Kalashnikov in his hand.

I really thought this was it. This is where my story is going to end. I was getting all kinds of morbid thoughts about what happens to a body if you die in the mountains near Kabul. How will people know! All this was happening (in my head).

As he came closer, saying something in Dari (a variety of the Persian spoken in Afghanistan), all we kept saying was: 'Hindustan. Hindustan!'

Suddenly this man stops. Gives a smile. And starts singing: Mere sapno ki rani kab aayegi tu. That's when I realised: I want to be in Bollywood! It is the most powerful medium we have in this country. That's the soft power of Bollywood.

Shobhaa De: It's a fantastic story. What was your experience with Bajrangi Bhaijaan? That did run into some controversy. And right now we are dealing with a controversy of a different sort (Udta Punjab). But it is about the same issues of censorship and freedom of expression and how far can you go.

What was the controversy that you actually faced? What was the reaction from Pakistan with that movie? It is a very emotional movie about a little girl for those of you who haven't seen it.

Kabir Khan: The controversy unfortunately about Bajrangi Bhaijaan was all overblown. Nothing really happened across the border.

To give you the backdrop, before this I had already come on this famous/infamous list of love jihadis, because I am married to (television host, actress) Mini Mathur, who is a Hindu. I had been put on this very illustrious list with (actors) Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan -- Muslims who had married Hindus...

When I announced Bajrangi Bhaijaan somehow people thought it was a story of a Muslim and a Pandit girl. I started getting hate mail. Why am I making a film on love jihad? Am I being funded by the Arabs -- wish I had, never got a penny from them. Lots of cases had been filed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. My mother was accosted outside my house... you know: Drama.

We finally released the trailer of Bajrangi Bhaijaan. For those of you who have seen the film, it is obviously not about love jihad. It's about this devout Hanuman devotee. When they saw the trailer they (must have said to themselves) said: 'No, no this can't be about love jihad. This guy is a Bajrangi. So now what do we focus on?'

Then I get a PIL (public interest litigation) launched in the Allahabad high court by the VHP saying that Bajrangi Bhaijaan is blasphemous. You can't put Bajrangi and bhaijaan together. Then that tamasha started.

What was strange, which actually reflects in a way what happened with Udta Punjab... (While) I can understand the VHP getting perturbed. I can understand them getting upset about Bajrangi Bhaijaan from their point of view. They think it is blasphemous. I think it is the greatness of India that allows us to put these two things together.

So the censor board actually started getting affected by this. When I went to (the censor) who actually thought this was a very contentious film and we should just not see it... We ostriches should dig a hole and put our head in it and (pretend a controversial film) is just not there... They pushed my censor screening to a week before its release, which is really the eleventh hour because we need to get our prints out.

They said that we feel that Bajrangi Bhaijaan is not appropriate and can create a problem in this country. They thought they were being very magnanimous and they said: 'Sir you can take your pick. Take either Bajrangi or bhaijaan.'

So I said: 'I don't think I am going to take my pick. I am going to take both together.'

Fortunately I think they realised it is not a battle worth fighting and we got away with it. We didn't have to go to the high court.
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Title Commission Recommendation of 15.6.2016 addressed to the Hellenic Republic on the specific urgent measures to be taken by Greece in view of the resumption of transfers under Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013

Publication Date 15 June 2016

Country Greece

Citation / Document Symbol C(2016) 3805 final

Cite as European Union: European Commission, Commission Recommendation of 15.6.2016 addressed to the Hellenic Republic on the specific urgent measures to be taken by Greece in view of the resumption of transfers under Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013, 15 June 2016, C(2016) 3805 final, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576a990d4.html [accessed 26 October 2022]
UNHCR condemns attack on Jordanian border guards, sends condolences

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR condemns attack on Jordanian border guards, sends condolences, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b80234.html [accessed 26 October 2022]

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi sends his deepest condolences to Jordan and the families of soldiers killed and injured during an attack yesterday on a border guard post in north-east Jordan.

Condemning the attack, Grandi said: "UNHCR mourns the loss of life from this outrage". The attack took place close to a waiting area for Syrians hoping to gain entry into Jordan. At least six Jordanian soldiers were killed in the attack in the remote region.

High Commissioner Grandi praises the professionalism and dedication of Jordanian security officials along the border in managing the inflow of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees since 2011.

The High Commissioner reiterates the heavy responsibility that Jordan is bearing and again urges the international community to support the government and host communities across Jordan.
Azerbaijan: One more sentenced prisoner of conscience

Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as Forum 18, Azerbaijan: One more sentenced prisoner of conscience, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b80a24.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Shia Muslim imam and prisoner of conscience Nuhbala Rahimov has been given an 18-month sentence and his mosque taken over, and Taleh Bagirov faces more criminal charges. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Committee Against Torture have condemned the government's record.
South Sudan: UN peacekeeping chief says action will be taken on probe into Malakal violence

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, South Sudan: UN peacekeeping chief says action will be taken on probe into Malakal violence, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b98ff40d.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - The United Nations takes very seriously the findings of an investigation that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement hampered some peacekeepers' response to a deadly incident at a UN compound in South Sudan, the Organization's top peacekeeping official said today, pledging to follow up on the probe's recommendations.

We take it very seriously the fact that the Board of Inquiry points to an inadequate response by some of our people on the ground [in Malakal]; there was a lack of responsiveness from some and lack of understanding about the rules of engagement, Herve Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told reporters after what he described as very extensive closed-door consultations with the UN Security Council.

Mr. Ladsous along with Atul Khare, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, and Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed the 15-member Council on that state of what are now known as 'Protection of Civilian' (PoC) sites that have been up and running in for the past two years in South Sudan.

The UN peacekeeping chief stated that there was no question that at the time, we made the right decision to take in these people  many of them would be dead now if we had not done that. But then, no one expected the crisis [in South Sudan] to continue for such a long time and that we would still have these huge numbers in our protection sites.

The briefing came after the release yesterday of a note to correspondents, in which the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that a special investigation and a UN Headquarters board of inquiry were convened to review the circumstances of the violence that erupted in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) PoC site in Malakal from 17 to 18 February, in which at least 30 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were killed, 123 others were wounded, and a significant portion of the camp was destroyed.

According to the note, the preliminary report of the board mentions, among others, that a number of issues contributed to the incident. On the UNMISS response, there was confusion with respect to command and control and rules of engagement, and a lack of coordination among the various civilian and uniformed peacekeepers in Malakal at the time of the crisis, the note said.

Further to the note, the board also mentioned that there were unrealistic expectations as to the level of protection that UNMISS could feasibly provide to the 48,000 internally displaced persons in Malakal at the time of the incident.

Mr. Ladosus told reporters this evening that even though the two reports on the very very grave incident at Malakal are not quite complete and are now being reviewed by legal experts, the officials took it very seriously that the documents found that while some of our people on the ground responded very well, some did not. So we are following up on this.

Asked what kinds of actions the UN would take in the wake of the probe's finding, Mr. Ladsous said: Well there is much to do. Clearly we still have to do a better job in training [] and it's a process. People we trained last year have since rotated [out of the Mission] so we have to make sure new incoming people get training as soon as they arrive in mission.

It's also about explaining in depth and making sure that everyone, from the top to the bottom, has a thorough understanding of the rules of engagement and what they should do [] this sort of training has to be undertaken on a very regular basis so that nobody slips through [] the net, he said.

Asked if he was going to take action on the recommendations form the probe and if it is now time to 'name and shame' the troops involved, Mr. Ladsous said that indeed action would be taken, but the time to call names has not come.

Stating that he has already spoken with the Permanent Representatives to the UN of the countries concerned, he said there will be follow-up as there has been in other theatres of our operations [] certainly there will be repatriation, and in some cases of a unit and in other cases of individual officers.

[In its latest update, UNMISS estimates the number of civilians seeking safety in six PoC sites located on its bases is 158,727, including 95,126 in Bentiu, 32,719 in Malakal, 27,959 in Juba UN House, 2,004 in Bor, 700 in Melut and 219 in Wau.]
Welcoming Sudan's cessation of hostilities, Ban urges 'final peace' through national dialogue

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Welcoming Sudan's cessation of hostilities, Ban urges 'final peace' through national dialogue, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b994240b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the announcement by the Sudanese Government of a four-month unilateral cessation of hostilities, beginning on 18 June 2016, in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

In a statement issued this afternoon by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban also welcomed the six-month unilateral cessation of hostilities declared by the Sudan Revolutionary Forces in the Two Areas and Darfur on 28 April 2016.

"These commitments should ease the suffering of the people living in the affected areas," said the statement, through which the UN chief also urged the parties to allow and facilitate urgently needed humanitarian access to these areas.

Further to the statement, the Secretary General reiterated his call for the parties which have not signed the Road-map proposed by the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) to do so, and to continue talks with the Sudanese Government and other parties engaged in dialogue inside Sudan to reach agreement on a process for final peace through inclusive national dialogue.
Lebanon: UN envoy calls for collective support from global community for country at risk of 'imploding'

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Lebanon: UN envoy calls for collective support from global community for country at risk of 'imploding', 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b99ff40b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - The United Nations head of humanitarian operations for Lebanon today urged the international community to develop a comprehensive approach of support, or risk the implosion of a country that is vital to the regional dynamics.

At a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York this afternoon, Philippe Lazzarini, Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon, highlighted that when we first began his new post, Lebanon was described to him as a resilient country known for managing crisis on the edge.

"It is in the interest of no one to try to find out how far resilience can go, because, like any resilience, it erodes, and I think it is in none of our interests to find out where the tipping point of this resilience would be," he emphasized.

Noting that no country would be able to cope with all of the challenges Lebanon is currently facing at the same time, Mr. Lazzarini said that among the country's challenges are: extremely high national debt; a failing economy; the exodus of young graduates; skyrocketing unemployment; and dealing with more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

"Despite all the efforts of the international community, the vulnerability of the people is declining year after year," he said.

"Clearly, there is no country in the world which alone can cope with so many challenges at the same time, and this is also one of the reasons why the anxiety about the future of the country is very high, also within the population," he added.

Mr. Lazzarini, who is also the UN Development Programme Resident Representative in Lebanon, also stressed that filling the presidential void in the country is a priority, as other institutions are severely affected by the vacuum.

"The country is without a president for more than two years now. No one would have expected that it would be so long and there is absolutely no doubt that the resolution of this presidential vacuum is a priority because the absence of a president is impacting the smooth running of the institutions," he said.

"And I would not use the word 'smooth' today because with the absence of a president, the institutions are even more weakened," he added.

The Deputy Special Coordinator said that the international community must look outside the traditional means of relief and development to help Lebanon. This includes continuing pre-existing programmes while helping the country face the impact of its crises.

"Lebanon is a country that is extraordinary important to regional dynamics - to the Syrian conflict, and to regional tension - and it pays a very high price both politically, economically, but also in terms of security and demography," Mr. Lazzarini explained.

"We need to have comprehensive and multi-faceted economic approach in the country. We as members of the international community certainly have to show more risk-sharing with the country because if we do not do this, we take the risk of a country on the edge of imploding," he concluded.
Security Council hears calls for improved coordination, regional partnerships in UN peacebuilding efforts

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Security Council hears calls for improved coordination, regional partnerships in UN peacebuilding efforts, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9a3140d.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - Sustaining peace requires more coherence and coordination among the United Nations system, the head of the intergovernmental advisory body that supports peace efforts in countries emerging from conflict told the Security Council today.

"We have a unique opportunity to move forward the peacebuilding agenda," said Macharia Kamau, chair of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, at an open debate in the Security Council this morning, during which the Commission's report on its ninth session was presented.

Noting the reaffirmed support for the Peacebuilding Commission by the Council and the General Assembly, Mr. Kamau outlined the Commission's key initiatives that the Commission has undertaken and its plans for the remainder of the current session.

In that regard, he said the Commission had convened two important meetings, in January and April, to discuss trends and challenges to peacebuilding at the regional and sub-regional level.

He said he intends to expand that approach to other regions, starting with Central Africa and East Africa in the second half of the year. As such, he had informal conversations with members of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, and had agreed that deeper conversations should be pursued regarding a possible visit to Addis Ababa and a retreat.

Role of peacebuilding in post-Ebola recovery

Turning to the role of peacebuilding in post-Ebola recovery, Mr. Kamau said that humanitarian crises around the world had shown themselves to be great disruptors of peace and security.

"They disrupt and destroy communities, sometimes causing great loss of life and at other times uprooting entire communities resulting in displacement of people with the consequence of triggering migration and refugees outflows," he said.

As a follow-up to the important work done by the Commission during the Ebola crisis, he said he had just returned from a visit to West Africa, where he witnessed first-hand the road to recovery from the Ebola emergency in the three most affected countries.

Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN and Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission, briefs the Security Council. UN Photo/Manuel Elias

"Besides the tragic loss of life of thousands of people and the horrible suffering of many more, what Ebola has done is that it has exposed the fragility of the affected countries and compounded and setback what were already difficulty economic and peacebuilding challenges," Mr. Kamau stressed.

Importance of partnerships

Underscoring the importance of partnerships, the chair highlighted that a key value of the Commission rests in its ability to engage not only with such key partners as regional and sub-regional organizations, but also with international financial institutions and civil society organizations.

"We have witnessed the important value to transitions that partnerships can give to all our peacebuilding efforts," he said, adding that he intends to further strengthen relations between the Commission and the AU, including by visiting their headquarters during the second part of the year.

Annual report of the Peacebuilding Commission

Presenting the Peacebuilding Commission's annual report, Olof Skoog, former Chair of the body, said that over the past year, important steps had been taken to improve the efficiency and flexibility of the Commission, thereby striving to further enhance the relevance of its work, broaden the scope and reach of its efforts, and improve its accountability.

"This includes adopting more transparent and strategic working methods, a more flexible agenda and increasing inclusivity; improving partnerships with regional and sub-regional organizations; and highlighting peacebuilding needs in the Ebola recovery," he said.

Specifically, Mr. Skoog highlighted that during its ninth session, the Commission had convened regional and country-specific discussions concerning situations beyond its established agenda. The Organizational Committee had opportunities to discuss peacebuilding needs and lessons learned in several contexts, such as the peace process in Papua New Guinea, elections in Burkina Faso, and financing for peacebuilding in Somalia.

"Going forward, this work can, and should be, further expanded. In my view, there is great scope for the commission to keep evolving in this regard," he said, adding that the resolutions adopted in April give the Commission a "clear mandate" to continue diversifying its working methods in support of sustaining peace.

Mr. Skoog also noted that the Commission had, over the past year, moved to highlight thematic and regional issues of relevance to its work. For example, to draw attention to the peacebuilding needs within the Ebola recovery, both the previous and current Commission chairs had travelled to West Africa.

In that regard, he stressed that the Commission should further use such momentum to deepen and institutionalize cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations, both in the Commission as a whole and in country-specific work.

During its ninth session, the Commission also worked to advance interaction with a more diverse group of actors, Mr. Skoog said.

The drafting of a gender strategy for the Commission was initiated, and a special session was organized to discuss how to advance the youth, peace and security agenda and champion youth participation for sustainable peace.

"The convening role of the PBC should be utilized even further, as it is one of the most important tools we have to foster greater coherence in international action, and to help break some of the silos and address fragmentation," Mr. Skoog said.

"This, in turn, is a prerequisite for our ability to support genuine national leadership and ownership in peacebuilding processes," he added.
Bahrain: UN special adviser stresses urgency of de-escalating tensions sparked by protests

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Bahrain: UN special adviser stresses urgency of de-escalating tensions sparked by protests, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9c5240d.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - Noting the new protests and increased tensions in Bahrain triggered by the revocation of the citizenship of a prominent Shia religious leader, a senior United Nations human rights advisor called on the Government to ensure that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly is fully respected and that any response to the protests is in accordance with the country's obligations under international human rights law.

Adama Dieng, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide also called on the protestors to exercise their rights peacefully and to avoid any act of violence, as well as on all decision-makers, in the country and at the regional level, political parties and groups, military, religious, tribal and community leaders to exercise restraint and to take all possible measures to prevent the further increase of tensions.

According to a statement by his office today, the Special Adviser noted that the 20 June action by the Interior Ministry of Bahrain to revoke the citizenship of Sheikh Issa Qassem, a Shia religious leader, is the latest in a series of actions by the authorities in recent weeks that have further restricted space for public participation and the enjoyment of human rights in the country.

Yesterday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) expressed concerns at crackdown on human rights and political opposition groups including the action against the Shia religious leader, the re-arrest of Nabil Rajab, a prominent human rights defender, the dissolution of Al Wefaq, Bahrain's largest opposition political grouping, the interrogation of five Shia clerics, and the travel bans on a number of human rights defenders.

Moreover, on 16 June, in a statement issued by his spokesperson, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern at the situation in the country and noted that such actions by the State authorities could potentially damage the human rights situation in the country as well as undermine the reforms undertaken by King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa.

In his view, Mr. Dieng said, "the country and the region are facing a critical moment. It is now even more crucial for the authorities and for all relevant parties to recommit to an inclusive national dialogue in the interest of all people of Bahrain."
Disarming armed groups, civilian protection crucial for Central African Republic  UN expert

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Disarming armed groups, civilian protection crucial for Central African Republic  UN expert, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9c8040b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

22 June 2016 - Concluding her seventh visit in the country, Marie-Therese Keita Bocoum, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic (CAR), expressed concern about the threats from armed groups and large-scale banditry to the protection of civilians, natural resources and to the crisis recovery process.

In a press release issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) yesterday, Ms. Keita Bocoum urged the Government, in coordination with international forces, to implement robust measures to stop the fighting, ensure the protection civilians and humanitarian actors, and to assist victims and displaced people.

Ms. Keita Bocoum also invited the authorities to validate the roadmap on the justice reform and to implement the first emergency actions, including holding the second session of the Criminal Court, and stressed the need for non-judicial mechanisms to seek truth and reparation measures in order to shed light on the past, move away from the legacy of violence and ensure the guarantee of non-repetition.

The expert welcomed recent progress towards the establishment of the Special Criminal Court mandated to investigate crimes committed since 2003 and encouraged the authorities to speed up the recruitment process, initiate investigations quickly and establish a protection program for victims and witnesses who will participate in court proceedings.

She also welcomed the authorities' decision to implement the measures of the Republican Pact adopted at the Bangui Forum last May, including on the fight against impunity, and on the inclusion of individuals and groups who feel marginalized.

The release also noted that during her visit, the Independent Expert met with representatives of the new Government, including the Prime Minister, ministers of justice, interior, public security and the administration of the territory, social affairs and reconciliation, and environment. She also held discussions with the President of the National Assembly and his executive office, international partners, representatives of civil society and religious authorities.

Recalling her meeting with civil society representatives, the expert said they expressed expectation on the new government to implement key measures, in an inclusive and strategic manner, particularly in the areas of security and justice. She added that she also noted a frustration and a feeling of exclusion among the youth, women and religious communities in Bangui and within the country.

Ms. Keita Bocoum also inquired into the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against the international forces. She noted the efforts carried out to investigate the allegations, protect the victims and witnesses and prevent from this scourge.

On 28 June at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Keita Bocoum will discuss the issue of transitional justice with representatives of the Central African authorities, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA>) and civil society organizations. The Independent Expert will submit her final report to the Council in September 2016.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Jordan: Response to border bombing must not include push-back of refugees

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Jordan: Response to border bombing must not include push-back of refugees, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9ce34.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The "iron fist" security response pledged by Jordanian authorities in the wake of Tuesday's car bombing of a military outpost along the border with Syria must not descend into closing the border and denying humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing armed conflict, Amnesty International said today.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the apparently well-coordinated attack, which killed six army border guards and injured several others.

More than 70,000 people are stranded in the desert area known as "the berm", which is a raised barrier of sand marking the Jordanian limit of the Jordan-Syria border near Rukban and Hadalat crossings. A total closure of the border and denial of humanitarian aid to the area would inevitably lead to extreme hardship among those unable to find refuge and put their lives at risk.

"Tens of thousands of refugees are trapped near where this attack took place. Many have fled some of the worst-affected areas of Syria including Aleppo, Deyr al-Zur, Homs, Hama and al-Raqqa. Their very lives continue to hang in the balance at the border," said Sherif Elsayed-Ali Head of Refugee and Migrants' Rights at Amnesty International.

"Jordan has a duty to protect civilians from armed attacks - but its security measures must not violate its international legal obligations to provide protection and assistance to refugees who are desperately fleeing the very same type of violence. Denying them entry into Jordan amounts to a violation of international law."

The attack on Tuesday targeted the Rukban crossing in a remote desert area near where the borders of Jordan, Syria and Iraq meet. In mid-2014 Jordan effectively closed its eastern borders to Syrians fleeing the conflict which has led to a gradual build-up of people at its Rukban and Hadalat border crossings.

In November 2015 there were around 9,000 Syrians stranded with the numbers gradually increasing. Currently more than 60,000 people are staying in dire conditions near Rukban border crossing and more than 10,000 near Hadalat border crossing, hoping for permission to seek safety in Jordan.

In March 2016 Jordan reportedly agreed to admit up to 20,000 refugees stranded at the border crossings to Azraq refugee camp. However those admitted have been kept in a fenced area within the camp, known as 'Village 5'. Humanitarian workers estimate that if the situation continues, there will be 100,000 Syrians stranded at the berm by the end of the year.

'Iron fist' response

The Jordanian authorities reacted swiftly to Tuesday's attack - King Abdullah II said his government would respond with "an iron fist" and the border crossings were sealed.

"We are taking specific immediate steps. The first one is to close that  [border] crossing  and consider this area a closed military zone. We are also not building nor expanding any existing refugee camps," Jordan's Information Minister, Mohammed Momani said in a statement to the media.

Jordan currently hosts more than 650,000 Syrian refugees registered by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the international community to increase support to Jordan as a main refugee hosting country including through fully funding the 2016 Jordan Response Plan and increasing the number of resettlement places offered. As of 12 June 2016, the Jordan Response Plan was 6.2% funded.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Zambia: Closure of independent newspaper a ploy to crackdown on freedom of the press

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Zambia: Closure of independent newspaper a ploy to crackdown on freedom of the press, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9d544.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The decision to shut down the independent newspaper, The Post, is a deliberate ploy to silence the media ahead of the election, said Amnesty International today.

Zambian authorities ordered the closure of the publishing company, Post Newspapers Limited, on 21 June 2016, demanding US$6.1 Million tax in arrears. However, the newspaperis alleging selective application of the law by authorities to target the critical news organization.

"The closure of The Post newspaper is a disturbing development clearly designed to silence critical media voices. The shutting down of one of Zambia's main independent newspapers in the run up to an election is an affront to media freedom and the authorities should immediately reverse their decision," said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's Director for Southern Africa.

"If the newspaper owes taxes, necessary arrangements should be made to settle the dispute. Shutting down the newspaper threatens the right to freedom of expression."

The closure of the newspaper comes as Zambia is scheduled to hold its general election on 11 August and election campaigning is gaining momentum. The Post is one of Zambia's few politically outspoken and critically independent newspapers.

"The media should not be targeted. Instead they should be encouraged, supported and strengthened to ensure accountability, checks and balances, particularly during this election period," said Deprose Muchena.

"Rather than interfering with freedom of the press, the government should encourage an independent and diverse media."

Background

On 15 July 2015, police arrested Fred M'membe, owner of The Post newspaper, and journalist Mukosha Funga for an article they published in March. The article discussed the investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of a presidential aide soliciting a bribe from a Chinese businessman to arrange an appointment with the President.

The Post had published a letter from the ACC to the President notifying the President about its investigation. In May, the presidential aide reported the leak to the police, who questioned the journalists before releasing them.

However, on 15 July they were arrested and spent a night in custody before appearing in court, charged with publishing classified information. The journalists were released on bail, which was set at over US$3,000 each.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Venezuela in intensive care

Publisher Amnesty International Author Erika Guevara-Rosas Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Venezuela in intensive care, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9dbe4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The JM de los Rios hospital in downtown Caracas, once a proud model for pediatric care in Venezuela, is today a tragic symbol of the crisis ravaging the South American country.

Half the giant building is falling apart, its walls crumbling, its floors flooded and its rooms dilapidated beyond use.

In the half that is still functional, hundreds of children are receiving treatment. But medicines and basic medical supplies are scarce, and the children's mothers have given up asking for them.

Instead, they go from pharmacy to pharmacy in search of diapers and vital drugs, supplies of which are tightly rationed by the authorities.

"We'll share them," says Aynelis, as she holds a small bottle of the medicine that prevents her daughter, Arianyenis, from suffering devastating seizures. The box of ten small bottles, brought in by a volunteer, is not enough to cover the needs of the four children that share this tiny room in the hospital.

Arianyenis, who looks a lot younger than her four years of age, sleeps in a bed in the corner. Her mother had to bring everything - from sheets to diapers and toilet paper - as the hospital can only provide doctors, nothing else. The room is cramped and lacks air conditioning, but an array of teddy bears distracts the young girl from the heat and humidity of Caracas.

Aynelis is used to finding her way around problems. The bottle of medicine she has received will solve one problem. The next challenge is to get hold of tizanidine, a drug that helps mitigate the stiffness in her child's legs.

The medicine shortages are one aspect of the deep humanitarian crisis that has been engulfing Venezuela for the past three years.

The tragedy could have been avoided. For years, the South American country enjoyed the prosperity that came with one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

But the sudden collapse in the price of oil exposed a shocking reality: the Venezuelan government had forgotten to invest in infrastructure. A country that had imported everything from food to medicines could no longer afford to buy antibiotics.

The consequences have been catastrophic. According to Datanalisis, a Venezuelan polling firm, the country lacks 80% of the food and medicines that it needs.

In Caracas' main pediatric hospital, as in other general hospitals across the country, basic items such as antibiotics, catheters and serums are extremely hard to find. The operating rooms and intensive care areas lack air conditioning, exposing patients to a heightened risk of infection.

The hospital's only X-ray machine works intermittently but cannot print scans. Instead, doctors make their diagnoses based on foggy images of the scans, photographed by patients on their mobile phones.

The hospital does have incredibly professional staff who are often asked to perform miracles in the hardest circumstances. But even this resource is running low. Many doctors are leaving the profession altogether, because of stress or because their salaries are not enough to feed their families. Most earn an average monthly wage of 30 USD.

Routine visits to hospital - for people with HIV, perhaps, or other conditions - have become a terrifying prospect, thanks to the shortage of medical workers and supplies.

Venezuela also has one of the highest homicide rates on the planet. Doctors grappling with the shortages end up improvising to save lives, as if working in a war zone. Private hospitals are also struggling to find essential medicines and supplies.

Directors from the Maternal Hospital Concepcion Palacios, the largest in Venezuela, told us that in the first three months of 2016, 101 newborn babies died, double the number for the same period in 2015. In the same hospital, around 100 mothers have died so far in 2016.

The lack of official statistics for deaths in hospitals shows that the government of President Nicolas Maduro is refusing international help while blaming the horrific reality at home on his enemies.

There is only one clear solution to this crisis. The government must abandon its stubbornness and ask the world for help.

President Maduro, the opposition, business owners, unions and professional associations and the international community must urgently engage in a meaningful dialogue. They must identify and implement innovative, efficient and non-discriminatory mechanisms to bring life-saving aid for the millions whose lives depend on it. All political actors must leave their individual interests at the door and think of the people they are meant to be serving.

Anything less will condemn millions to a slow and painful end. The time for petty politics is over.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
UN: Act on South Sudan Investigations

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 22 June 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, UN: Act on South Sudan Investigations, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9f784.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The United Nations should make public the findings of two UN investigations into the February 2016 attack on civilians in a UN camp in South Sudan and act on their recommendations.

The brutal attack on the Malakal camp for civilians displaced from conflict in South Sudan killed at least 30 camp residents and injured 123. The UN established a special investigation to examine the causes of violence, as well as an internal board of inquiry to review peacekeepers' responses to the incident. The Security Council will be briefed on both reports and their recommendations on June 22, in a closed-door session.

"The UN did the right thing by investigating both those responsible for carrying out this horrific attack and the lackluster peacekeeper response, but a behind-the-scenes inquiry is not enough," said Akshaya Kumar, deputy UN director at Human Rights Watch. "A camp that should have been a sanctuary came under fire, and no one has been held accountable."

On February 16 and 17, fighting between youth inside the camp escalated along ethnic lines. In the early hours of February 18, armed Dinka men, including soldiers from the government Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), forced their way into the camp, shot civilians, and systematically burned homes of Nuer and Shilluk civilians as UN peacekeepers stood by. The UN Security Council condemned the attacks against civilians and the UN compound as possible war crimes.

A summary of the reports obtained by Human Rights Watch says that the special investigation found that, "it is difficult to exonerate the local SPLA commanders and government allied militias from involvement in the incident." The investigation also found that the "Eastern Nile political leadership [] pursued a vigorous policy aimed at ensuring that the state would be exclusively for the Dinka ethnic group."

The summary also states that South Sudanese soldiers in pick-up trucks assisted Dinka and Darfuri civilians as they left the camp in an orderly fashion before violence broke out.

The response by peacekeepers  composed of Ethiopian, Rwandan, and Indian contingents  was woefully inadequate. Independent researchers found that some forces waited for written authorization before using force, while others appeared to have abandoned their posts along the fence where the attackers entered. A report on the UN response by the medical group Doctors Without Borders says the peacekeepers actively blocked displaced people in the camp from reaching safety during a large part of the emergency.

The UN board of inquiry report also recommends an investigation of each case of "underperformance of troops and police" and decisive action to "hold the troop contributing countries accountable, ultimately repatriating commanders and/or units."

The UN peacekeepers in South Sudan are mandated by the UN Security Council to use force when needed to protect civilians from imminent harm. The UN mission hosts nearly 200,000 displaced people on several of its bases. However, it has repeatedly failed to effectively protect civilians from armed attacks in or near its bases, underscoring wider problems in its effectiveness.

In April 2014, armed Dinka youths in Bor, supported by the local authorities, opened fire on the UN camp there, killing more than 50 civilians and injuring dozens. The South Sudanese government did not hold anyone to account for the killings, and a UN board of inquiry investigation into the UN response to that attack was never made public. The mission did not release its own findings on the attack until January 2015. Human Rights Watch is unaware of any steps by the UN following the Bor incident to avoid a similar attack in the future.

The precedent set in Bor created a permissive atmosphere of impunity and underlines the importance of public reporting and UN follow-up, Human Rights Watch said. On June 13, the head of UN peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, told media that the two Malakal investigation reports would soon be released. But the UN has issued only a brief note to correspondents about the reports, with limited details.

The special investigation report recommends that South Sudan's Transitional Government of National Unity "hold accountable the individuals identified" as responsible for the violence, including "the political and military leadership in Eastern Nile state." It also recommends that President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar make a public televised statement condemning any form of attack "against civilians anywhere, particularly those who have sought protection in UN sites."

The South Sudanese government has not held anyone responsible for the attack at Malakal or other serious crimes against civilians during the country's recent conflict. In March 2016, a government investigation into the Malakal incident concluded that the violence was "instigated by political interests and the failure" of the UN peacekeepers "to arrest the situation as required by their mandate to protect civilians," but did not investigate any local political or military authorities for their role in the violence.

Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly urged the African Union to begin work to establish an African-South Sudanese court, envisioned in the country's August 2015 peace agreement, to try the most serious crimes committed during the conflict.

"Holding those responsible for the Malakal attack accountable is only half the battle," Kumar said. "The UN Security Council also should stand behind its mission in South Sudan, even when that means confronting troop-contributing countries whose soldiers aren't delivering on their commitments."



Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Egypt: Free Satirical YouTube Group

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 23 June 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Egypt: Free Satirical YouTube Group, 23 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576b9fdb4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Egyptian authorities should drop their investigation into six young men who posted satirical videos commenting on Egypt's politics on YouTube and release four of them, who have been detained since May 10, 2016. The investigation appears to be based purely on their satirical videos and violates the right to free speech.

Prosecutors are investigating the men, of a group called Street Children, after the Interior Ministry's National Security Agency alleged that they are "instigators against the ruling regime" who plotted to use "the internet, social media sites and YouTube" to spread video clips that would undermine the country's stability by inciting citizens to protest. Prosecutors also investigated the four men in custody about terrorism-related accusations. On June 20, the East Cairo Public Prosecution Office sent the case to the Supreme State Security Prosecution, saying it was out of its jurisdiction.

"Egypt under Sisi is losing its legendary sense of humor when it locks up young men for making satirical videos," said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. "This kind of blanket repression leaves young people with few outlets to express themselves or joke about their daily hardships."

Security forces arrested Ezz al-Din Khaled, 19, the group's youngest member, on May 8. A judge released him on bail of 10,000 L.E (US$1,125) on May 10, after prosecutors charged him with inciting protests and using online platforms to insult state institutions. Security forces arrested Mohamed Dessouky, Mohamed Adel, Mohamed Gabr, and Mohamed Yehia on May 10 and are holding them in Cairo's Heliopolis Police Station on suspicion of the same charges. Prosecutors most recently renewed their 15-day detention order pending investigations on June 18.

Under international law, a judge, not a prosecutor, should promptly review any arrest. However, Egyptian law allows extended periods of pretrial detention without judges' orders. The sixth member of the group, Mostafa Zein, is under investigation but has not been arrested.

The week before the arrests, Street Children released a satirical music video in which they mocked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and called on him to leave office.

Their lawyer, Mahmoud Othman, of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an Egyptian human rights group, told Human Rights Watch that East Cairo district prosecutors have interrogated the four detained men about additional accusations. They include establishing a group that calls for resisting the authorities, disseminating false news to undermine public order, and inciting to overthrow the "ruling regime."

These accusations, under penal code articles 171 and 174, carry possible 5-year prison sentences. The lawyer said that prosecutors also threatened to use terrorism charges, including articles 86 and 86 bis, which might lead to much longer sentences.

Prosecution reports reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed that prosecutors are relying heavily on a two-page National Security Agency report on Street Children, written by Major Ahmed Abd al-Rahman on May 6. The report, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, cites "trusted confidential sources" who identified the group as "instigators" who "distort the words of some national songs and replace them with verbal abuse against the state."

As is often the case in National Security reports, Major Abd al-Rahman did not describe the sources, and prosecutors have not questioned the officer further, said Othman, the lawyer. Based on the memo, the Supreme State Security Prosecution granted National Security officers a warrant to raid and inspect the men's houses and arrest them.

The prosecution reports also showed that prosecutors questioned the four men about "indirectly" inciting "terrorist crimes" and indirectly disseminating terrorist thoughts by participating in videos that contained terrorist ideas.

The six members of the group, most in their 20s, met at a theater workshop and decided to move their performances to the street to make them more accessible to people who cannot afford the theater, one of their project coordinators told Human Rights Watch. In January, they began posting their selfie-style videos, in which they sing about topics including the Muslim Brotherhood, religious preachers, the value of the Egyptian pound and the decision to cede two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, and have attracted more than 1.1 million views on their YouTube Channel.

The group is also facing possible accusations of contempt of religion, which prosecutors have used more often in recent months and which led to 5-year prison sentences in absentia for four children in February because of their involvement in a short YouTube video mocking the extremist group Islamic State. Reports in local newspapers stated that the Alexandria Minor Offenses Prosecution began separate investigations of Street Children based on a report, filed by lawyer Tarek Mahmoud, that accused the group of insulting Islam in their videos. Othman, the group's lawyer, said that no one has been interrogated on this accusation yet.

Following the arrest of the four group members, journalists, professors, and other public figures began an online petition calling for the four men's unconditional release and "free rein to freedom of opinion, imagination, and satire."

Al-Sisi's government severely restricts expression. Authorities have arrested and prosecuted dozens of journalists and confiscated journalistic material, according to a 2015 report by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression. In late January, security officials briefly arrested a cartoonist, Islam Gawish, for his satirical comics that criticized the presidency and government policies.

Asked about the government's troubled relationship with youth activists, al-Sisi admitted during a televised interview on June 3 that state institutions, including the presidency, had failed to create mechanisms to effectively communicate with youth.

The investigations against the Street Children violate international human rights laws. The resolution on the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in 2002 prohibits arbitrary interference by governments in freedom of expression.

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party, guarantees freedom of expression and opinion. Limitations are permissible only when they are stated clearly by law and are necessary to protect the rights or reputation of others or national security, public order, public health, or morals.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the covenant, stressed that "the mere fact that forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify the imposition of penalties" and that "all public figures, including those exercising the highest political authority such as heads of state and government, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition."

"Egypt's youth have been a driving force for change since the 2011 uprising," Houry said. "Upholding human rights and free speech is the best way for al-Sisi to begin to repair the government's relationship with them."

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Freedom in the World 2016 - United Kingdom

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - United Kingdom, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00324.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 95

Freedom Rating: 1.0

Political Rights: 1

Civil Liberties: 1

Quick Facts

Population: 65,092,000

Capital: London

GDP/Capita: $45,603.30

Press Freedom Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party won general elections held in May 2015, enabling it to govern without its former coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats. Euroskeptic groups, including some within the ruling party, continued to criticize Britain's membership in the European Union (EU), and Cameron pledged to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the country should leave the bloc.

Mass surveillance by the security services, including Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), remained a concern in 2015. In July, a government-commissioned report on the issue called for greater judicial oversight and consideration for privacy rights. Also that month, the High Court found a mass surveillance measure passed in 2014, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), to be unlawful.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 40 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 12 / 12

Each of the members of the House of Commons, the dominant, lower chamber of the bicameral Parliament, is elected in a single-member district. Executive power rests with the prime minister and cabinet, who must have the support of the Commons. The House of Lords, Parliament's upper chamber, can delay legislation initiated in the Commons. The Commons must reconsider any measure defeated by the Lords, but it can ultimately overrule the upper chamber. The Lords' approximately 800 members consist mostly of "life peers" nominated by successive governments. There are also 89 hereditary peers (nobles) and 26 bishops and archbishops of the Church of England. The monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, plays a largely ceremonial role as head of state. Elections in Britain are consistently free and fair.

The Conservative Party, which had been ruling in coalition with a smaller party, the Liberal Democrats, won an unexpected victory in the May 2015 general elections, taking 36.9 percent of the popular vote and increasing its share of Commons seats by 24 for a total of 330, an outright majority. The second-ranked Labour Party took 30.4 percent of the vote and 232 seats, a loss of 26. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won 4.7 percent of the vote and 56 seats, an increase of 50. The Liberal Democrats won 7.9 percent of the vote and lost 49 seats, leaving them with just 8. The Euroskeptic, populist United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), campaigning on an anti-immigration platform, secured only one seat, despite having won the country's 2014 European Parliament elections and taken two Commons seats in 2014 by-elections. Turnout for the 2015 voting was 66.1 percent. Local elections in England took place on the same day, with the Conservatives winning control of 163 of 279 councils; Labour placed second with control of 74 councils.

Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) consolidated their control over the Northern Ireland Assembly in its most recent elections in 2011. The SNP, which rules in Scotland, made major gains in the Scottish Parliament elections that year, and Labour led the Welsh Assembly voting. The next legislative elections for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were scheduled for May 2016. The success of the SNP in the 2015 general elections fueled speculation that the party may push for another referendum on Scottish independence, particularly if Britain voted to leave the EU in the referendum promised by Cameron.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 16 / 16

The Conservative Party and Labour Party have dominated British politics for decades, though several other parties regularly win seats in Parliament. After its loss in the May 2015 elections, Labour replaced its leader, Ed Miliband, with Jeremy Corbyn. The SNP, led by Nicola Sturgeon, supplanted the Liberal Democrats as the third-largest party. Smaller parties, such as UKIP and the Greens, fare better in races for the European Parliament, which feature proportional-representation voting.

Under Britain's system of "devolution," Parliament has granted certain powers to subnational legislatures, augmenting the political representation of regional populations as well as parties like the SNP. In Wales, Plaid Cymru champions Welsh nationalism. A 2011 referendum increased the Welsh Assembly's autonomy, giving it authority to make laws in 20 subject areas without consulting Parliament.

In Northern Ireland, the main Catholic and republican parties are Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, while the leading Protestant and unionist parties are the Ulster Unionist Party and the DUP. The armed struggle between unionists and Irish nationalists over governance in Northern Ireland largely ended with a 1998 peace agreement, which established the Northern Ireland Assembly. The August 2015 shooting death of a former operative of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)  an outlawed Irish nationalist militant group that had formally disarmed  led to a political crisis amid speculation that the group was still active. The DUP temporarily blocked the functioning of the power-sharing executive it leads with Sinn Fein, but the party's ministers resumed their duties in October.

A bill introduced in May 2015 proposed greater power and autonomy for the Scottish Parliament, in keeping with a pledge by the main British parties ahead of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, which was narrowly defeated. The legislation passed the Commons and was awaiting review by the Lords at year's end.

C. Functioning of Government: 12 / 12

Britain's freely elected officials make and implement national policy, and corruption is not pervasive, though high-profile scandals have damaged political reputations under both Labour and Conservative governments. The Bribery Act, which is considered one of the most sweeping pieces of antibribery legislation in the world, came into force in 2011. In July 2015, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly accused First Minister Peter Robinson of accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks to sell assets managed by the Republic of Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to the U.S. investment firm Cerberus. An investigation of the sale was ongoing at year's end.

Parties in the United Kingdom are financed through membership fees, donations, and state funding (if they are in opposition), and there have been scandals over donations to political parties. Prime Minister Cameron has pledged to enact new rules requiring greater transparency for lobbying in Britain, though a new lobbying register established in March 2015 was criticized for its narrow scope and lack of enforcement mechanisms.

A 2013 World Bank study concluded that Britain's freedom of information laws are "reasonably successful." Civil liberties groups and the press have criticized government-proposed reforms to limit freedom of information requests.

Civil Liberties: 55 / 60 (-2)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 13 / 16 (-2)

Press freedom is legally protected, and the media are lively and competitive. Daily newspapers span the political spectrum, though economic pressures and rising internet use have driven some smaller papers out of business. On rare occasions, the courts have imposed so-called superinjunctions that forbid the media from reporting on certain information or even the existence of the injunction itself.

The state-owned British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is editorially independent and competitive with its counterparts in the commercial market. A series of scandals have plagued the broadcaster in recent years, including the convictions of several current and former employees for sexual and verbal abuse in 2013, and a controversy involving senior managers who were given inordinately high severance payouts and executive pay.

In the wake of a 2011 scandal in which reporters at the News of the World were accused of hacking the voicemails of hundreds of public figures and crime victims, a 2013 royal charter created a special panel that would certify an independent regulatory body for the press. However, most of the newspaper industry opted to create a self-regulatory body, the Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO), that would not seek recognition under the charter. The chairman of the House of Lords Communications Committee criticized the situation in 2015, saying IPSO had not demonstrated independence from the industry. A possible second regulator, Impress, was reportedly planning to apply for recognition under the royal charter.

The 2013 Defamation Act overhauled the country's plaintiff-friendly libel laws, introducing a "public interest" defense, setting more stringent requirements for claimants, and making it more difficult for foreigners to file complaints in cases with little connection to Britain. Nevertheless, the number of libel cases has increased, in particular those involving online statements.

The government does not restrict internet access. New online criminal offenses were introduced in April 2015 under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act, including the dissemination of images of a naked person without the subject's consent, also known as "revenge porn."

Although the Church of England and the Church of Scotland have official status, freedom of religion is protected in law and practice. A 2006 law bans incitement to religious hatred, with a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Nevertheless, minority groups, particularly Muslims, report discrimination, harassment, and occasional assaults. The Muslim community has come under threat and occasional violence from far-right groups like the English Defence League. The Metropolitan Police recorded a 70 percent increase in Islamophobic hate crimes in London in the 12 months preceding July 2015. In the weeks following November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the Metropolitan Police reported that Islamophobic hate crimes in London tripled.

Academic freedom is generally respected. However, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act of 2015, adopted in February, requires schools and universities to prevent students from being drawn into terrorism and to vet the remarks of visiting speakers as part of that effort. The new legal obligation raised concerns that open debate and academic inquiry could be stifled, adding to a reported trend in which many universities have sought to suppress racist and other potentially offensive speech on campus.

The effects of mass surveillance on free and open private discussion are also a growing concern. In July 2015, a government-commissioned report on surveillance by British security agencies held that although the power to collect bulk communications data on British citizens may be justified, privacy concerns must be considered early in the collection process. It also stated that judges, rather than ministers, should authorize warrants for the collection of data related to criminal matters, and that there should be judicial review of warrants related to national security that are authorized by ministers.

Separately in July, the High Court ruled that DRIPA, the 2014 law governing intelligence agencies' authority to monitor communications data, was unlawful because it allowed the agencies to conduct surveillance without judicial oversight. The court also found that the law was too vague about which kinds of allegations justified surveillance, and gave the government until March 2016 to adopt new legislation that would address these problems.

In November 2015, Home Secretary Theresa May released a new draft Investigatory Powers Bill that would require communications companies to store metadata on customers' activity for 12 months and allow this information to be accessed by police and other security services without a warrant. Among other provisions, however, the bill called for judicial commissioners to review ministerial authorization of warrants for the actual interception of communications, including their content.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 12 / 12

Freedoms of assembly and association are respected, though police have been criticized for certain crowd-control tactics in recent years. A number of demonstrations and assemblies were organized during 2015, including rallies across the country in June to protest government austerity measures.

Civic and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate freely. Groups identified as terrorist organizations can be banned, and there are concerns that the legal definition is broad enough that it could be interpreted to encompass legitimate associations and activism. Surveillance of NGOs has also drawn criticism. In July 2015, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal disclosed that Amnesty International was among the groups whose data GCHQ had accessed and illegally retained. In September, Human Rights Watch filed a complaint with the tribunal alleging that its communications had also been the target of such surveillance, which entailed cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency.

A lobbying law adopted in 2014 was heavily criticized for limiting the amount of money organizations can spend during election years; opponents assert that the law's ambiguous language could lead to self-censorship and hinder the work of smaller groups.

Workers have the right to organize trade unions, which have traditionally played a central role in the Labour Party in particular. The rights to bargain collectively and strike are also respected.

F. Rule of Law: 15 / 16

A new Supreme Court began functioning in 2009, transferring final judicial authority from the House of Lords. In April 2015, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act, a sweeping legal reform law, came into effect. Among other things, it increased maximum prison sentences for terrorists and pedophiles, made certain kinds of extreme pornography illegal, and introduced measures to reduce recidivism.

The police maintain high professional standards, and prisons generally adhere to international guidelines. Inmates are banned from voting. Although the European Court of Human Rights has ruled on several occasions that this is a violation of prisoners' rights, an EU court ruled in October 2015 that voting bans can be legal for prisoners convicted of serious crimes. The decision could lead prisoners convicted of lesser crimes to challenge the voting ban.

Britain's strict antiterrorism laws allow authorities to control the movement of terrorism suspects when the evidence against them is insufficient for prosecution or deportation. The 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act has been criticized for giving excessive powers to police, including the authority to seize travel documents of individuals attempting to leave the country if they are suspected of planning to engage in terrorist-related activities abroad, and to forcibly relocate terrorism suspects within the country, up to 200 miles away from their homes.

Immigrants and their descendants receive equal treatment under the law, but generally face living standards below the national average. There have also been reports of unwarranted suspicion and rising anti-immigrant sentiment amid recent terrorist attacks and plots.

A new immigration bill proposed in 2015 would require landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants, oblige banks to perform background checks before opening an account, and make it a criminal offense for migrants to obtain jobs without appropriate paperwork. It would also allow police to seize vehicles belonging to illegal migrants and allow authorities to electronically track those released on bail while awaiting deportation. At year's end the bill had passed the Commons and was under review by the Lords. Plans by Cameron to curb social benefits for EU migrants, which would require the amendment of EU rules on freedom of movement within the bloc, met with resistance from other EU leaders during 2015.

In June 2015, the High Court found that the government's fast-track procedure for asylum seekers  under which failed applicants were detained while their appeals were processed in an expedited manner  unlawfully prioritized speed over fairness. The Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling in July.

The authorities actively enforce a 2010 law barring discrimination on the basis of factors including sexual orientation and gender reassignment.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 15 / 16

Citizens generally enjoy freedom of travel and choice of residence, employment, and institution of higher education. Economic activity is not excessively influenced by the government.

While women receive equal treatment under the law, they remain underrepresented in top positions in politics and business. The number of women in the House of Commons rose to 191, or 29 percent, as a result of the 2015 elections, from about 23 percent before the elections. Gender discrimination persists in the workplace in practice. Abortion is legal in Great Britain, though heavily restricted in Northern Ireland, where it is allowed only to protect the life or the long-term health of the mother.

Same-sex marriage became legal in July 2013. Religious organizations are permitted to refuse to conduct same-sex marriages.

The Modern Slavery Act, which increases punishments for human traffickers and offers greater protections for victims, became law in March 2015. Children and migrant workers are among those most vulnerable to forced labor and sex trafficking.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - United Arab Emirates

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - United Arab Emirates, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00511.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 20

Freedom Rating: 6.0

Political Rights: 6

Civil Liberties: 6

Quick Facts

Population: 9,577,000

Capital: Abu Dhabi

GDP/Capita: $44,204.30

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) continued to suppress dissent in 2015, restricting the use of social media and utilizing an expansive antiterrorism law that criminalizes criticism of the regime. Amid security concerns exacerbated by the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, the UAE also retained a role in helping challenge the regional spread of Islamist militancy, providing support for the Egyptian government and participating in a Saudi Arabia-led coalition against antigovernment forces in Yemen.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 7 / 40 (-1)

A. Electoral Process: 1 / 12

All decisions about political leadership rest with the dynastic rulers of the seven emirates, who form the Federal Supreme Council, the highest executive and legislative body in the country. These leaders select a president and vice president, and the president appoints a prime minister and cabinet. The emirate of Abu Dhabi, the major oil producer in the UAE, has controlled the federation's presidency since its inception in 1971.

In 2006, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum succeeded his late brother as ruler of the emirate of Dubai and prime minister of the UAE. The 40-seat Federal National Council (FNC) serves as an advisory body, reviewing proposed laws and questioning federal government ministers. Half of its members are elected by an electoral college chosen by the seven rulers, while the government directly appoints the other 20 for two-year terms. The first elections to the FNC took place in 2006 with a 6,689-member electoral college. In the 2011 elections, only about 36,000 voters participated despite the expansion of the electoral college to more than 129,000 members. The third elections to the FNC took place in October 2015, and while the size of the new electoral college stood at more than 224,000 members  some thirty-four times higher than in 2006  voter turnout remained low, at 35 percent. Overseas voting was permitted for the first time.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 2 / 16

Political parties are banned in the UAE. The allocation of positions in the government is determined largely by tribal loyalties and economic power. Since 2011, the UAE has aggressively cracked down on suspected members of the Association for Reform and Guidance, or Al-Islah  a group formed in 1974 to peacefully advocate for democratic reform  accusing them of being foreign agents of the Muslim Brotherhood intent on overthrowing the government. The government officially declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2014. Dozens of activists, civil society leaders, academics, and students remained behind bars in 2015, facing or having been indicted on the charge of attempting to overthrow the government. Those defendants who were convicted in the so-called UAE 94 mass trial in 2013 remained in prison in 2015. In December, one of the defendants who had been convicted in absentia was forcibly returned from Indonesia to the UAE. Separately, six Libyan nationals who had been detained for alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood in 2014 remained in prison without charge or access to legal counsel; others who had been temporarily detained with them have made allegations of torture in custody.

Citizens are believed to constitute less than 15 percent of the population. Noncitizens  including many expatriate minority groups  have limited opportunities for participation and representation in politics.

C. Functioning of Government: 2 / 12

The UAE is considered one of the least corrupt countries in the Middle East, and the government has taken steps in recent years to increase efficiency and streamline bureaucracy. Officials declared 2015 the "Year of Innovation," an initiative that included calls for reforming public services in addition to advancing the country's commercial interests. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, who holds the posts of vice president and prime minister of the UAE in addition to ruling Dubai, launched a 2 billion dirham ($550 million) innovation fund in November to support new programs in both the public and private sectors; the fund will be managed by the Ministry of Finance. These and other initiatives are part of the government's broader "UAE Vision 2021" plan, aimed at improving key governmental, social, economic, and technological areas. The UAE was ranked 23 out of 168 countries and territories surveyed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Transparency in government is generally low, and despite legal provisions, accessing public information remains difficult. Public officials are not required to disclose information about their income or assets.

Discretionary Political Rights Question A: 2 / 0 (-1)

Citizens have some limited opportunities to express their interests through traditional consultative sessions, including during an open majlis, or council. The participation of women in consultative processes is limited, and the severe difficulty of acquiring citizenship leaves the noncitizen majority without meaningful prospects for political participation.

Civil Liberties: 13 / 60

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 4 / 16

Although the UAE's constitution provides for some freedom of expression, the government restricts this right in practice. The 1980 Publications and Publishing Law, considered one of the most restrictive press laws in the Arab world, regulates all aspects of the media. It prohibits criticism of the government, its allies, and religion and also bans pornography. Journalists commonly practice self-censorship, and outlets frequently publish government statements without criticism or comment. Media operate with relatively more freedom in the free media zones of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ras al-Khaimah  areas in which foreign outlets produce material for foreign audiences  but the zones remain subject to UAE media laws and have additional regulatory codes and authorities. Critics have voiced concerns that the broad language of a 2014 counterterrorism law can be used to restrict the exercise of free expression, among other things. The legislation provides the death penalty for offences including "undermining national security" and possession of material that opposes or denigrates Islam. A new law against hate speech and discrimination, containing broad definitions and criminalizing a wide range of free speech activities, was enacted in July 2015.

Online news portals, blogs, and social media platforms are an increasingly common source of news and information. A 2012 cyber law allows for the imprisonment of anyone who publishes online content that insults the state, organizes antigovernment protests, or is deemed a threat to national security. Offenders can also be fined up to $272,000. Among several cases during the year, in August 2015, human rights activist and academic Nasser bin Ghaith was arrested days after using social media to criticize the Egyptian security forces' treatment of protesters in 2013; the grounds for his arrest were unclear and his whereabouts remained unknown at year's end. Bin Ghaith had previously been arrested in 2011 as part of the so-called UAE 5, a group of activists who were indicted in 2011 for "publicly insulting" high-ranking officials but subsequently pardoned.

The constitution provides for freedom of religion. Islam is the official religion, and the majority of citizens are Sunni Muslims. The minority Shiite Muslim sect and non-Muslims are free to worship without interference. The government controls content in nearly all Sunni mosques.

The Ministry of Education censors textbooks and curriculums in both public and private schools. Several Western universities have opened satellite campuses in the UAE, although faculties are cautious to not criticize the government out of fear of losing funding. In March 2015, a professor from New York University (NYU) was barred from boarding a flight from New York to Abu Dhabi at the request of UAE officials, who cited unspecified security concerns. The academic was an outspoken critic of the country's treatment of migrant workers, and had planned to travel to Abu Dhabi  where NYU maintains a campus  for research into the topic.

Social media platforms have become a popular means of communication but are heavily monitored by the government. The openness of private discussion is limited by sensitivities surrounding a range of topics, including government policy and officials, the ruling family, and Islam.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 2 / 12

The government places restrictions on freedoms of assembly and association. Public meetings require government permits. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) must register with the Ministry of Social Affairs and can receive subsidies from the government, though they are subject to many burdensome restrictions. In May 2015, airport officials in Dubai denied entry to a representative of Amnesty International who had been invited to speak about the rights of migrant workers at a conference.

Workers  most of whom are foreign  do not have the right to organize, bargain collectively, or strike. Expatriate workers can be banned from working in the UAE if they try to leave their employer before at least two years of service. Workers occasionally protest against unpaid wages and poor working and living conditions, but such demonstrations are frequently dispersed.

F. Rule of Law: 3 / 16

The judiciary is not independent, with court rulings subject to review by the political leadership. The legal system is divided into Sharia (Islamic law) courts, which address family and criminal matters, and secular courts, which cover civil law. Sharia courts sometimes impose flogging sentences for drug use, prostitution, and adultery.

While the federal Interior Ministry oversees police forces, each emirate's force enjoys considerable autonomy. Arbitrary arrests and detention have been reported, particularly of foreign residents. Detainees are often denied adequate access to legal counsel during interrogations, and lengthy detention without charge is not uncommon. Authorities have been criticized by international human rights organizations for failure to investigate allegations of torture and mistreatment in custody. Prisons in the larger emirates are overcrowded. The 2014 antiterrorism law allows the cabinet to determine whether groups are terrorist organizations and introduces fines of up to $27 million, imprisonment of up to life, and death sentences for terrorist offences. The law is broad and ambiguous, defining a terrorist offence as any action or inaction carried out for a "terrorist result," which includes "opposing the country, or influencing the public authorities of the country or another country or international organization while discharging its duties, or receiving a privilege from the country or another country or an international organization."

Discrimination against noncitizens and foreign workers, who comprise more than 80 percent of the UAE's population, is common. While the Interior Ministry has established methods for stateless persons, known as bidoon, to apply for citizenship, the government uses unclear criteria in approving or rejecting such requests. Same-sex relations are illegal, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people are subject to widespread social stigma and discrimination.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 4 / 16

Emiratis face no apparent restrictions on freedom of movement within the UAE or on their type or place of employment, although under UAE's kafala system, a migrant worker's legal status is tied to an employer's sponsorship. Foreign workers are often exploited and subjected to harsh working conditions, physical abuse, and withholding of passports with little to no access to legal recourse. A series of ministerial decrees issued in September 2015 aim to improve conditions for migrant workers. Among other things, the decrees give workers more flexibility to terminate employment under certain conditions, including through indemnification or in the case of extended nonpayment of wages, and aim to combat abusive practices like contract substitution, in which a worker is recruited with one contract abroad but forced to sign a less favorable agreement upon arrival in the UAE.

The UAE has made reforms in recent years to ease procedures for establishing and operating businesses. However, the government exercises considerable influence over the economy and is involved in many of the country's major economic and commercial initiatives.

The constitution does not address gender equality. Muslim women are forbidden to marry non-Muslims and receive smaller inheritances than men. No laws protect against marital rape, and men are permitted to physically discipline their wives. Women are politically underrepresented, though they have in recent years received appointments to various levels of government, including the cabinet. Although only one woman was elected to the FNC in 2015, she was appointed to the role of speaker and president, marking the first time that the position has been held by a woman. The government appointed an additional eight women to the FNC.

Despite a 2006 antitrafficking law and the opening of new shelters for female victims, the government has failed to adequately address human trafficking. Migrants in particular are at high risk of being trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Sri Lanka

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Sri Lanka, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be007e.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 55

Freedom Rating: 4.0

Political Rights: 4

Civil Liberties: 4

Trend Arrow: 

Ratings Change, Trend Arrow: 

Sri Lanka's political rights and civil liberties ratings each improved from 5 to 4, and it received an upward trend arrow, due to generally free and fair elections for president in January and parliament in August, and improved conditions for freedom of expression, religious freedom, civil society, and judicial independence under the new administration.

Quick Facts

Population: 20,868,800

Capital: Colombo

GDP/Capita: $3,631

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: N/A

OVERVIEW

Following a series of high-level defections from President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the government suffered a defeat to a newly unified opposition alliance in presidential elections held early in January 2015. Maithripala Sirisena of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), who was sworn in as president that month, ushered in a broad reversal of the country's authoritarian drift under Rajapaksa. Sirisena's 2015 reforms included the curtailing of executive power, the reestablishment of independent commissions, and the introduction of freedom of information legislation.

Though Rajapaksa was able to win a seat in parliamentary elections held in August, the opposition United National Party (UNP) captured the most seats and formed a government with the backing of smaller parties on a platform of undertaking a wide range of electoral and governance-related reforms. Ranil Wickremesinghe, long-time leader of the UNP, again became prime minister, and a new cabinet was drawn from a range of coalition partners, including the SLFP, one of the parties that comprised the UPFA. The pace of reforms promised by Sirisena, although initially slow due to divisions within the ruling coalition, improved in late spring, and accelerated even further after the parliamentary elections.

The new government also signaled a willingness to investigate the issue of alleged war crimes committed in 2009 during the final phase of the military's campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) rebel group. In September 2015, the foreign minister promised at a UN Human Rights Council hearing to set up a truth, justice, and reconciliation commission to investigate atrocities. The pledge was made at the same session at which the council released a damning report containing details of abuses committed by both sides.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 23 / 40 (+7)

A. Electoral Process: 8 / 12 (+2)

The 1978 constitution vested strong executive powers in the president, but the approval in April 2015 of the 19th Amendment curtailed the power of the executive office somewhat by reintroducing term limits  limiting the president to two five-year terms  and requiring the president to consult the prime minister regarding ministerial appointments. The prime minister heads the leading party in Parliament, but has limited authority. The 225-member unicameral Parliament is elected for six-year terms through a mixed proportional representation system.

In the January 2015 presidential election, Rajapaksa suffered a surprise defeat, with his opponent, Sirisena, winning 51 percent of the vote; turnout was a record 82 percent. In the August 2015 parliamentary elections, the UNP led a coalition, the National Front for Good Governance, to a modest victory, winning 106 seats, a 46-seat increase from the 2010 polls. The UPFA took 95 seats, a decline of 49, while the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the largest party representing the ethnic minority, won 16 seats, an increase of 2. In August, the UNP and the SLFP agreed to form a coalition government.

In the run-up to the presidential election, groups such as the Center for Monitoring Election Violence accused the government of acts of violence and of inappropriate use of state resources  particularly transportation, infrastructure, police services, and the media. While dozens of violent incidents were reported prior to the parliamentary elections, including several murders, the polling itself was relatively fair.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 10 / 16 (+3)

A range of political parties, some of which explicitly represent the interests of ethnic and religious minority groups, are able to operate freely and contest elections. In addition to the UNP and UPFA, the main parties include the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP); the TNA and several smaller Tamil parties; the Buddhist nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU); and the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress, the country's largest Muslim party.

The longtime ruling-coalition practice of coopting opposition members of parliament and abusing state resources during election periods was challenged in late 2014, when a number of parties and prominent politicians defected from the UPFA ahead of the 2015 presidential election. In late 2014, disparate opposition groups  including the UNP, JVP, JHU and the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress  formed an alliance and selected a "common opposition candidate," Sirisena, a cabinet minister and former member of Rajapaksa's party. The JHU and the Muslim Congress had previously been members of Rajapaksa's ruling alliance.

Despite harassment of opposition politicians in the lead-up to the January 2015 election, the opposition candidate managed to triumph. Harassment of the opposition declined markedly for the August parliamentary polls. In the north and east, members of various Tamil political parties, who have faced frequent threats in the past, also faced less intimidation in 2015. In addition, Tamil civilians faced fewer hindrances in voting during both polls, in contrast to the 2010 elections. In what was described as an amicable gesture to the Tamil community by Sirisena, in early 2015 the newly elected president appointed a civilian governor in Northern Province, where Tamils comprise a majority; the new governor replaced a retired army commander.

C. Functioning of Government: 6 / 12 (+2)

Government accountability and inclusivity improved in 2015 under Sirisena, as the Rajapaksa family's power over various ministries waned and Parliament resumed a greater role in setting policy. The passage of the 19th Amendment in April and the appointment of independent commissions in the fall, including the National Human Rights Commission, represented important steps toward improving accountability mechanisms and reversing Rajapaksa's consolidation of executive power. However, some critics alleged that the amendment process was opaque and that its restrictions on executive power did not go far enough.

Corruption remains a concern, though steps were taken in 2015 to strengthen enforcement of existing safeguards and uphold the current legal and administrative framework. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption was given additional powers of investigation and prosecution under the 19th Amendment; a new commissioner was appointed in October 2015, and a number of cases were initiated by year's end, although the commission's speed in dealing with a backlog of cases remains hampered by a lack of staff. Nevertheless, the commission opened investigations into a number of high-ranking politicians and officials from the previous government, including members of the Rajapaksa family. The cabinet approved a Right to Information bill in December 2015, marking an additional improvement in transparency. Sri Lanka was ranked 83 out of 168 countries and territories surveyed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Discretionary Political Rights Question B: -1 / 0

Following the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, the traditionally Tamil areas of the north and east have seen a heightened military presence. The Rajapaksa government encouraged settlement by ethnic Sinhalese civilians by providing land certificates, housing, and other infrastructure with the aim of diluting Tamil dominance in these areas. While such policies have ended under the new government, and some land has been released, displacement of Tamil civilians remains a concern, and a significant amount of land  44,000 acres  is still under military control.

Civil Liberties: 32 / 60 (+7)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 9 / 16 (+3)

Freedom of expression is guaranteed in the constitution, and respect for this right dramatically improved in 2015 under the new administration. A number of laws and regulations that can restrict this right  including the Official Secrets Act, antiterrorism regulations, and laws on defamation and contempt of court  were used less frequently to punish critical journalists. The level of verbal and physical attacks on journalists also dramatically lessened during the year, although isolated incidents were reported by local monitoring groups. However, Tamil-language outlets such as the Uthayan newspaper faced greater constraints; in April, a freelancer for the daily was arrested for writing a story critical of local police. Investigations into past attacks on journalists and media outlets, such as the high-profile murder of Lasantha Wickremetunge in 2009, were initiated in early 2015. In August, four Sri Lankan army officers were arrested and accused of involvement in the January 2010 disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, a political cartoonist and columnist. In addition, a number of exiled journalists were able to return to the country. The blocking of online media, particularly Tamil-language news sites and other independent outlets, such as the investigative news website Colombo Telegraph, lessened in 2015.

The constitution gives special status to Buddhism, and religious minorities face discrimination and occasional violence. Tensions between the Buddhist majority and the Christian and Muslim minorities  particularly evangelical Christian groups, which are accused of forced conversions  sporadically flare into attacks by Buddhist extremists. However, harassment and attacks instigated by the militant Bodu Bala Sena (BBS, or Buddhist Power Force) eased in 2015. In recent years, the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect has faced increased threats and attacks from Sunni Muslims, who accuse Ahmadis of apostasy.

Academic freedom is generally respected, but there are occasional reports of politicization in universities and a lack of tolerance for dissenting views by both professors and students, particularly for academics who study Tamil issues, according to the Federation of University Teachers' Associations. Harassment of student leaders and activists continues to be a concern. In October 2015, several peaceful student protests were violently dispersed by police.

Although the Rajapaska government had stepped up levels of online surveillance, and some additional monitoring of the Tamil minority continued, the climate of fear eased under the new administration, including in the north and east. As a result, individuals were more willing to express dissent on politics and other sensitive matters. Levels of internet censorship were also reduced, allowing greater access to viewpoints and more open private discussion.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 8 / 12 (+2)

Although demonstrations occur regularly, authorities sometimes restrict freedom of assembly. Police occasionally use excessive force to disperse protesters. The army has imposed some restrictions on assembly in the north and east, particularly for planned memorial events concerning the end of the war.

Conditions for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) improved dramatically under the new government in 2015, with a lessening of official harassment and interference. Human rights and peace-seeking groups were able to operate much more freely, as state-sponsored surveillance, smear campaigns, death threats, disruption of activities, and criminal investigations into their funding and activities mostly ended and such groups were regularly consulted on policy formulation and able to speak freely at international fora. In recent years, some NGOs have faced difficulty operating in the northern and eastern areas of the country, although the United Nations and humanitarian organizations are generally given adequate access to former conflict zones.

Most of Sri Lanka's trade unions are independent and legally allowed to engage in collective bargaining, but this right is poorly respected. Except for civil servants, most workers can hold strikes, though the 1989 Essential Services Act allows the president to declare any strike illegal. While more than 70 percent of the mainly Tamil workers on tea plantations are unionized, employers routinely violate their rights. Harassment of labor activists and official intolerance of union activities, particularly in export processing zones, are regularly reported.

F. Rule of Law: 7 / 16 (+2)

Although the judiciary had become less independent and more politicized under Rajapaksa, the appointment of a new, Tamil chief justice in January 2015 was a positive step taken by the new administration, as was the re-formation of an independent commission to oversee judicial appointments. Corruption remains common in the lower courts, but the levels of threats and political interference that occurred under Rajapaksa abated under the new government.

Police and security forces occasionally engage in abusive practices, including arbitrary arrest, extrajudicial execution, forced disappearance, custodial rape, torture, and prolonged detention without trial, all of which disproportionately affect Tamils, as described in an October 2015 Human Rights Watch report. The London-based NGO Freedom from Torture noted several dozen cases during 2015 in which Tamils were tortured by security forces on suspicion of involvement with the LTTE.

Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), suspects can be detained for up to 18 months without trial; this, along with 2006 antiterrorism regulations, has been used to detain perceived enemies of the government. The new government promised to undertake a review of those detained under PTA regulations, as well as to consider repealing the law, but several hundred people remain in detention without charge, according to human rights watchdogs, with several dozen more detained under the PTA in 2015. The National Human Rights Commission  which is rebuilding capacity after being weakened by Rajapaksa  is empowered to investigate abuses but is characterized by insufficient authority and resources.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center estimated that around 73,700 internally displaced persons remained in Sri Lanka as of July 2015. The status of hundreds of Tamils who disappeared during the war's closing offensives remains unclear. A November 2015 visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearance urged the government to hasten its review of more than 23,000 unsolved disappearances.

Tamils report systematic discrimination in areas including government employment, university education, and access to justice. The status of Sinhala as the official language puts Tamils and other non-Sinhala speakers at a disadvantage. Ethnic tensions occasionally lead to violence.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people face societal discrimination, occasional instances of violence, and some official harassment, though government officials have stated that LGBT people are constitutionally protected from discrimination. Sex "against the order of nature" is a criminal offense, but cases are rarely prosecuted.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 8 / 16

Freedom of movement is restricted by security checkpoints, particularly in the north. Government appropriation of land in the north and east as part of economic development projects or "high security zones" following the end of the civil war had prevented local people from returning to their property. The Sirisena administration, however, has released some military-held land for resettlement by displaced civilians. There have been few official attempts to help Muslims forcibly ejected from the north by the LTTE in the early 1990s to return to their homes.

Access to education is affected by corruption from the primary through the tertiary levels, and observers have noted education as one of the most corrupt sectors in Sri Lanka. However, with a revitalized anticorruption commission, investigations into cases of bribery for admission into schools made greater headway in 2015.

Women are underrepresented in politics and the civil service. Female employees in the private sector face sexual harassment as well as discrimination in salary and promotion opportunities. Rape of women and children and domestic violence remain serious problems, with hundreds of complaints reported annually; existing laws are weakly enforced. The presence of the army in the north and east has increased the risk of harassment and sexual abuse for female civilians in those areas. Although women have equal rights under civil and criminal law, matters related to the family  including marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance  are adjudicated under the customary law of each ethnic or religious group, and the application of these laws sometimes results in discrimination against women.

Although the government has increased penalties for employing minors, thousands of children continue to work as household servants, and many face abuse. Throughout the country, the military's role and expanded size under former president Rajapaksa and its presence in a variety of economic sectors  including tourism and infrastructure projects  remain causes for concern.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Singapore

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Singapore, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00811.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 51

Freedom Rating: 4.0

Political Rights: 4

Civil Liberties: 4

Quick Facts

Population: 5,541,121

Capital: Singapore

GDP/Capita: $56,286.60

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

General elections held in September 2015 were fully contested, with opposition parties putting forward candidates for all available parliamentary seats for the first time since Singapore's independence. Social media were an important part of the campaign, but television and other traditional media, which are mostly aligned with the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), remained more important in shaping voters' views. Aided by this and other advantages, the PAP won a significant victory, capturing 93 percent of the seats and 70 percent of the popular vote.

Also during the year, the authorities stepped up efforts to suppress critical voices online. Bloggers and website editors faced charges including sedition, defamation, and "wounding religious feelings."

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 19 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 4 / 12

The president, whose role is largely ceremonial, is elected by popular vote for six-year terms, and a special committee is empowered to vet candidates. The prime minister and cabinet are appointed by the president. The first contested presidential election since 1993 was held in 2011, with all candidates running as independents, in accordance with the constitution. Former deputy prime minister Tony Tan, the PAP-backed candidate, won the race with 35.2 percent of the vote, narrowly defeating three opponents.

The unicameral Parliament elected in 2015 includes 13 members from single-member constituencies and 76 members from Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), a mechanism intended to foster ethnic minority representation. The top-polling party in each GRC wins all of its three to six seats, which has historically bolstered the majority of the dominant PAP. In recent years, critics  including civil society organizations  have questioned whether the GRC system is really achieving its ostensible aim of ensuring representation for minorities. As many as 9 additional, nonpartisan members can be appointed to Parliament by the president, and another 9 can come from a national compensatory list meant to ensure a minimum of opposition representation. Members serve five-year terms, with the exception of appointed members, who serve for two and a half years.

Elections are free from irregularities and vote rigging, but the country lacks an independent election authority, and the PAP dominates the political process in practice. It uses legal harassment to deter opposition leaders from seeking office, as well as the redrawing of district boundaries to minimize support for the opposition; the new electoral districts for 2015 were announced just seven weeks before the elections.

As with the most recent elections in 2011, the 2015 campaign featured vigorous, coordinated efforts by opposition parties. In this case, the opposition put forward candidates for all 89 directly elected seats, a first since independence. The largest opposition group, the Workers' Party (WP), ultimately retained the six directly elected seats it had won in 2011, but lost a seat it won in a 2013 by-election. Three compensatory seats were awarded to the opposition to achieve the minimum of nine. The PAP, whose candidates vastly outspent their rivals, took the remaining 83 elected seats, managing to win a higher percentage of the popular vote than in 2011.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 8 / 16

Although opposition parties had been gaining ground until the 2015 elections, their campaigns and activities are constrained by a ban on political films and television programs, the threat of defamation suits, strict regulations on political associations, and the PAP's influence on the media and the courts. In 2015, the registration of a new party  the People's Power Party  was accepted by the authorities. In addition to the WP, other officially recognized parties include the Singapore People's Party (SPP), the Singaporeans First, the Singapore Democratic Party, the National Solidarity Party, the Reform Party, and the Singapore Democratic Alliance.

The PAP has governed without interruption since the British colony of Singapore obtained home rule in 1959, entered the Malaysian Federation in 1963, and gained full independence in 1965. Moreover, the country has had only three prime ministers: Lee Kuan Yew from 1959 to 1990, Goh Chok Tong from 1990 to 2004, and Lee's son Lee Hsien Loong from 2004 to the present. The elder Lee remained influential as "senior minister" during Goh's rule and as "minister mentor" from 2004 to 2011; he was also active as a parliamentarian in 2014 before his death in 2015.

Electoral rules, as well as regulations aimed at preventing ethnic or religious conflict, make it difficult for parties based on ethnic or religious interests to garner support.

C. Functioning of Government: 7 / 12

Elected officials determine the policies of the government, but the PAP's political and institutional dominance ensures its victory at the polls, and the party leadership maintains discipline among its members. The constitution stipulates that lawmakers lose their seats if they resign or are expelled from the party for which they stood in elections.

Singapore has been lauded for its lack of corruption. The country was ranked 8 out of 168 countries and territories assessed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index. However, transparency and accountability remain concerns. Ministers in the government can serve in several capacities simultaneously. Legislators are allowed to and often do serve on the boards of private companies, including as chairpersons, which creates conflicts of interest. Singapore was the fifth-worst-ranked country in the Economist's 2014 "crony-capitalism index," which aims to measure the degree to which accumulation of private wealth depends on political connections.

Civil Liberties: 32 / 60

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 9 / 16

The government maintains that racial sensitivities and the threat of terrorism justify draconian restrictions on freedoms of speech, but such rules have been used to silence criticism of the authorities. All domestic newspapers, radio stations, and television channels are owned by companies linked to the government. Editorials and news coverage generally support state policies, and self-censorship is common, though newspapers occasionally publish critical content. The Sedition Act, in effect since the colonial period, outlaws seditious speech, the distribution of seditious materials, and acts with "seditious tendency." Popular videos, music, and books that reference sex, violence, or drugs are also subject to censorship. Foreign broadcasters and periodicals can be restricted for engaging in domestic politics, and all foreign publications must appoint legal representatives and provide significant financial deposits.

The internet is widely accessible, but authorities monitor online material and block some content through directives to licensed service providers. Singaporeans' increasing use of social media has sparked interest in social activism and opposition parties, contributing to opposition electoral gains. The Media Development Authority requires news websites to apply for individual licenses that are subject to annual renewal, post a financial bond with the regulator, and respond to removal orders within 24 hours. Major websites are prohibited from "advocating homosexuality or lesbianism."

Bloggers increasingly risk civil suits or criminal charges in connection with their work. Among other cases during 2015, prominent blogger Roy Ngerng Yi Ling was ordered to pay S$150,000 (US$111,000) in defamation damages to Prime Minister Lee, as well as at least S$29,000 in legal fees, after alleging corruption in the management of Singapore's retirement savings plan in 2014. Another well-known blogger, Alex Au, was fined S$8,000 (US$5,800) for contempt of court in connection with 2013 posts that questioned the judiciary's handling of cases challenging Singapore's law against sex between men. Blogger Amos Yee, 16, was sentenced in July to four weeks in jail for uploading an allegedly obscene image and making remarks deemed insulting to religion in a video he posted. He was released, having spent more than 50 days in jail before sentencing, but was then ordered to undergo weeks of mental health testing. Two editors of the website The Real Singapore (TRS) were charged with sedition in April over articles that allegedly promoted interethnic hostility; the website was shut down, and the two defendants, Australian national Ai Takagi and her Singaporean husband, Yang Kaiheng, were awaiting trial at year's end.

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion as long as its practice does not violate any other regulations, and most groups worship freely. However, religious actions perceived as threats to racial or religious harmony are not tolerated, and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unification Church are banned. Religious groups are required to register with the government under the 1966 Societies Act. The government forbids the wearing of headscarves (tudong in Malay) by women who hold public-sector jobs that require a uniform, though the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves in the workplace more broadly remained a subject of public debate in 2015.

All public universities and political research institutions have direct government links that enable at least some political influence. Academics engage in political debate, but their publications rarely deviate from the government line on matters related to Singapore.

Although private discussion is generally open and free, residents' speech is sometimes impeded  including online  due to the legal restrictions on topics such as race and religion.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 4 / 12

Public assemblies, including events involving just one person, must be approved by police. Permits are not needed for indoor gatherings as long as topics of discussion do not relate to race or religion or involve a foreign speaker.

The Societies Act restricts freedom of association by requiring most organizations of more than 10 people to register with the government, and the government enjoys full discretion to register or dissolve such groups. Only registered parties and associations may engage in organized political activity, and political speeches are tightly regulated.

Unions are granted broad rights under the Trade Unions Act, though restrictions include a ban on government employees joining unions. Union members are prohibited from voting on collective agreements negotiated by union representatives and employers. Strikes must be approved by a majority of members, as opposed to the internationally accepted standard of at least 50 percent of the members who vote. In practice, many restrictions are not applied. Nearly all unions are affiliated with the National Trade Union Congress, which is openly allied with the PAP. Workers in essential services are required to give 14 days' notice to an employer before striking.

F. Rule of Law: 7 / 16

The government's overwhelming success in court cases raises questions about judicial independence, particularly because lawsuits against government opponents often drive them into bankruptcy. Defendants in criminal cases enjoy most due process rights. Prisons generally meet international standards.

The Internal Security Act (ISA) and Criminal Law Act (CLA) allow warrantless searches and arrests to preserve national security, order, and the public interest. The ISA, previously aimed at communist threats, is now used against suspected Islamist terrorists. Suspects can be detained without charge or trial for an unlimited number of two-year periods. Over the past two years, Singapore has actively detained individuals accused of planning to travel abroad to join the Islamic State (IS) militant group. A 1989 constitutional amendment prohibits judicial review of the substantive grounds for detention under the ISA and of the constitutionality of the law itself. The CLA is mainly used to detain organized crime suspects; it allows preventive detention for an extendable one-year period.

The Misuse of Drugs Act empowers authorities to commit suspected drug users, without trial, to rehabilitation centers for up to three years. The death penalty applies to drug trafficking as well as murder, although judges may use discretion to impose lighter sentences under some circumstances. The penal code mandates caning, in addition to imprisonment, for about 30 offenses, but the punishment is applied inconsistently. Singapore's highest court, the Court of Appeal, upheld the constitutionality of caning in a March 2015 ruling.

There is no racial discrimination under the law, although ethnic Malays reportedly face de facto discrimination in both private- and public-sector employment. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community in Singapore faces significant legal obstacles. Section 377A of the penal code criminalizes consensual sex between adult men, setting a penalty of up to two years in prison. The law is not actively enforced, but the Court of Appeal upheld its constitutionality in 2014. The Pink Dot parade, held annually in support of equal rights for LGBT people since 2009, reportedly drew a record-high attendance of some 28,000 in 2015.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 12 / 16

Citizens enjoy freedom of movement, though opposition politicians have been denied the right to travel in the past. The government occasionally enforces its policy of ethnic balance in public housing, in which most Singaporeans live.

Women enjoy the same legal rights as men on most issues, and many are well-educated professionals. There are no explicit constitutional guarantees of equal rights for women. Women do not have legal protections against spousal rape except under special circumstances. No laws protect against discrimination on the basis of gender in employment, and few women hold top positions in government or the private sector. A total of 21 women won directly elected seats in the 2015 parliamentary elections.

Singapore's more than 200,000 household workers are excluded from the Employment Act and are regularly exploited. Several high-profile trials of employers in recent years have drawn public attention to the physical abuse of such workers. A 2006 standard contract for foreign household workers addresses the problem of food deprivation and entitles replaced workers to seek other employment in Singapore, but it fails to provide other basic protections and benefits, such as vacation days. A 2013 law requires that new contracts grant household workers one day off per week but allows employers to offer compensation in place of the day off if the worker agrees.

Foreign workers are also vulnerable to exploitation and debt bondage in the sex trade or industries including construction and manufacturing. Withholding of pay and passport confiscation are common methods of coercion. A new law that took effect in March 2015 bans all forms of human trafficking, but the authorities had yet to establish a record of convictions during the year.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Mali

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Mali, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be009c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 45

Freedom Rating: 4.5

Political Rights: 5

Civil Liberties: 4

Quick Facts

Population: 16,749,000

Capital: Bamako

GDP/Capita: $706.70

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: N/A

OVERVIEW

In January 2015, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita named Modibo Keita as the country's new prime minister to replace Moussa Mara, who resigned along with his cabinet. The change was attributed to the apparent unwillingness and inability of the Mara government to combat corruption, and to the slow progress of peace talks to end the Tuareg-led rebellion in the north. The appointment of a new cabinet held the promise of resolving the conflict, as the new prime minister had been a top government negotiator in the peace talks during 2014.

Rebel groups signed a final peace agreement with the government in June. The deal, negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations and Algeria, called for the creation of regional elected bodies but stopped short of establishing federalism for northern Mali, which was the main demand of the rebels. Although the agreement was an important step, there was little progress during the year on the disarmament of the various groups operating in the region, including multiple Islamist militant factions that were not involved in the peace process. Insecurity and limited access continued to hinder efforts to provide basic services and ensure respect for the rule of law in northern Mali.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 17 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 6 / 12

According to the constitution, the president, who appoints the prime minister, is elected by popular vote and can serve up to two five-year terms. Members of the 160-seat unicameral National Assembly serve five-year terms, with 13 seats reserved to represent Malians living abroad.

The constitution was suspended after a 2012 military coup, but it was eventually restored, leading to elections in 2013. In a two-round presidential election in July and August, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister known by his initials, IBK, defeated Soumaila Cisse, a former finance minister, garnering 40 percent of the vote in the first round and nearly 78 percent in the runoff. IBK's Rally for Mali (RPM) party won 66 seats in legislative elections held in November and December 2013, and its allies took an additional 49 seats. Cisse's Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD) won 17 seats, and the third-largest party, the Alliance for Democracy (ADEMA), won 16. Sixteen smaller parties and four independents took the remainder.

International observers found that both elections were relatively well conducted in light of the fragile security situation, which led to very low turnout in parts of the north. They determined that the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which supervises the election process and ensures compliance with the law, and the Constitutional Court, which must certify all results before they become official, had each properly discharged its duties. A new electoral framework, which had been prepared for elections that were canceled due to the 2012 coup, as well as new biometric voter lists streamlined the process. However, hundreds of thousands of potential voters were likely unable to participate due to factors including conflict-related displacement, delays in the distribution of electoral identity cards, and a voter registry that was based on a 2009 census and had not been updated to include citizens who subsequently turned 18.

In September 2015, the government announced that regional and municipal elections originally scheduled for October would be postponed, without specifying a new date. The elections had already been pushed back twice since March 2014. Opposition parties supported the delay, however, citing insecurity, a lack of administrative staff in the north that has held up the revision of voter lists, and the piecemeal return of refugees, most of whom were still living in neighboring countries.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 7 / 16

The creation and the functioning of political parties are determined by a legal framework known as the Political Parties Charter, which is generally considered fair. There are more than 100 registered political parties in Mali, though only about 20 are active.

Electoral competition is open to opposition forces. The 2013 defeat of an Islamist insurgency in the north and the removal of the military junta in the south led to circumstances in which political pluralism could return and parties could campaign for that year's elections on a fairly equal footing. A 2014 law institutionalized specific privileges for opposition parties in the parliament, such as the ability to choose an official leader of the opposition who must be informed and consulted by the president and prime minister on matters of national import.

No single ethnic group dominates the government or security forces. However, long-standing tensions between the more populous nonpastoralist ethnic groups and the Moor and Tuareg pastoralist groups in the north have fueled instability over the decades, with the northerners often occupying a marginal position in national political life and expressing frustration with government neglect or domination. The 2012 northern rebellion was complicated by the involvement of Islamist militants, who were eventually driven out of population centers with international assistance; the Tuareg separatist component of the insurgency later entered peace talks with the government. Precarious security conditions continue to limit political activity and participation in parts of the north.

C. Functioning of Government: 4 / 12

The restoration of civilian rule with an electoral mandate in 2013 has improved the governance situation somewhat. However, state authority in parts of the north is still tenuous, and corruption remains a problem in government, public procurement, and both public and private contracting.

An influx of foreign assistance since 2013 may be crucial for economic development and stability, but it could have a corrosive effect on transparency. Despite public pronouncements that he intends to fight corruption, IBK has been accused of indulging in lavish and unnecessary expenses during his tenure as prime minister from 1994 to 2000. More recently, IBK has been criticized for appointing family members to key posts. His son, Karim Keita, is a parliamentary deputy and president of the parliamentary defense committee. Karim's father-in-law, Issiaka Sidibe, is president of the National Assembly. Both men were accused in the Malian press of inexperience and incompetence during 2015.

Mali was ranked 95 out of 168 countries and territories assessed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Civil Liberties: 28 / 60 (+1)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 12 / 16 (+1)

Mali's media were considered among the freest in Africa before the 2012 rebellion and coup. An unprecedented number of journalists were illegally detained and tortured by the military and Islamist militants during 2012, and two French journalists were abducted and killed in the northern town of Kidal in 2013. Reporting on the situation in the north remains dangerous; in August 2015, an Islamist militant group issued a series of threats to foreign journalists working in the region. However, overall conditions for the media have improved over the past two years.

The capital and the rest of the south are once again a relatively open media environment, with sporadic reports of censorship and self-censorship. In March 2015, the authorities blocked an issue of the newsmagazine Le Reporter from being printed after its staff refused a government request to remove two articles that were critical of a cabinet minister and Karim Keita. Internet penetration, though growing, remains low at 7 percent; news websites are popular with the educated elite.

Mali's population is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and Sufism plays a role in the beliefs of most residents. Although the state is secular and religious minorities are protected by law, the High Islamic Council has a significant influence over politics, especially through support for political candidates and parties. In the wake of a November 2015 terrorist attack on a Bamako hotel, Prosecutor General Daniel Tessougue accused the head of the High Islamic Council, Mahmoud Dicko, of condoning terrorism during a media interview. Tessougue also called for a crackdown on religious extremism in Mali, in part through greater scrutiny of mosques' financing. After a public outcry, the prosecutor general was removed from office in late December.

Academic freedom has partly recovered since 2012, when it was harshly suppressed in areas held by Islamist militants and other armed groups. Private discussion has similarly grown more open and free as violence and political instability have ebbed.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 6 / 12

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly. While conditions have improved in practice since 2013, the risk of violence during public gatherings persists. In January 2015, protests erupted against the presence of UN peacekeepers in the northern city of Gao. The demonstration turned violent, and UN troops fired on protesters, killing three and injuring four others. A UN inquiry found in April that the troops had "used unauthorized and excessive force." Following the November terrorist attack in Bamako, the government declared a state of emergency, which allows it to ban public gatherings. The measure was extended twice and remained in force at the end of the year, though there were no reports that it was used to block protests.

Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate in Mali without state interference. However, observers have noted the prominent role of large, established NGOs with ties to the political elite, which can overshadow smaller and more innovative groups, particularly in the competition for funding. Ongoing lack of security in some parts of the country also limits NGO activity.

The constitution guarantees workers the right to form unions and to strike, with some limitations regarding essential services and compulsory arbitration. The government has broad discretionary power over the registration of unions and their recognition for sectoral collective bargaining, and the authorities do not effectively enforce laws against antiunion discrimination.

F. Rule of Law: 6 / 16

The judiciary is beholden to the executive, despite the fact that the constitution guarantees judicial independence. Judges are appointed by the president, while the minister of justice supervises both law enforcement and judicial functions. The president, as head of the High Judicial Council, replaced Prosecutor General Tessougue after his public clash with the head of the High Islamic Council in December 2015. Tessougue had also been known for his aggressive pursuit of cases related to corruption and the former military junta.

The overall efficiency of the judicial system remains low. Traditional authorities settle the majority of disputes in rural areas. Detainees are not always charged within the 48-hour period set by law, and police brutality has been reported.

In a sign of relative judicial independence from military control, the 2012 coup leader, Amadou Sanogo, was arrested in November 2013. Sanogo was initially charged only with kidnapping, but the charge was changed to conspiracy to murder following the discovery of approximately 21 bodies in mass graves; the dead were believed to be mutinous soldiers who had opposed Sanogo and were summarily executed in 2012. As of December 2015, Sanogo remained in detention pending trial.

However, the justice system  which was already out of reach to many ordinary Malians  has largely failed to address grave crimes committed during the political unrest and conflict of 2012-13, and the United Nations and other groups have continued to report human rights abuses by security forces and militants in the north, where sporadic violence persisted even after the June 2015 peace agreement. The year's most dramatic attack occurred in the south in November, when Islamist militants stormed a luxury hotel in Bamako, took scores of hostages, and killed some 20 people  most of them foreigners  before dying as government forces recaptured the building.

Members of a northern caste known as black Tamasheqs face societal discrimination, including slavery-like treatment and hereditary servitude. Authorities sometimes deny them official documents or discriminate against them in housing, schooling, and police protection.

Same-sex sexual acts are legal, but LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people face discrimination, including cases of violence with the aim of changing their sexual orientation or gender identity.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 4 / 16

Freedom of movement and choice of residence remain affected by insecurity. During the intense fighting of 2012 and 2013, there was a significant increase in Malian refugees fleeing into neighboring countries. Despite a somewhat improved security situation in 2015, conditions in northern Mali left many refugees unable or unwilling to return. According to the United Nations, there were more than 130,000 Malian refugees outside the country and 60,000 people displaced inside the country as of December 2015.

Mali's economy has a large informal sector. Citizens have the right to own property and conduct business activity. Nonetheless, the economy remained weak in 2015.

Women are underrepresented in senior positions in business and politics, with just 13 seats in the National Assembly. A woman served as prime minister for the first time in 2011-12. In November 2015, the National Assembly passed a bill mandating that the number of executive appointments to government positions for either gender must not be less than 30 percent, and that the representation of either gender must not exceed 70 percent on party lists for legislative elections.

The law discriminates against women in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Rape and domestic violence against women are widespread, and most such crimes go unreported due to societal pressure. Female genital mutilation or cutting is legal and commonly practiced in the country.

Although trafficking in persons is a criminal offense, prosecutions are infrequent. Mali remains a source, destination, and transit country for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Traditional forms of slavery and debt bondage persist, particularly in the north, with thousands of people estimated to be living in such conditions.

Child labor is a significant concern, especially in the artisanal gold-mining sector. Regulation is challenging because of the decentralized nature of the mining.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Iraq

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Iraq, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00ac.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 27

Freedom Rating: 5.5

Political Rights: 5

Civil Liberties: 6

Ratings Change:

Iraq's political rights rating improved from 6 to 5 due to a parliamentary vote that withdrew the prime minister's mandate to enact unilateral reforms, reasserting the parliament's constitutional powers and rebalancing a political system that had been skewed toward the executive under the previous government.

Quick Facts

Population: 37,056,000

Capital: Baghdad

GDP/Capita: $6,334.10

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: N/A

OVERVIEW

The Iraqi security forces and their allies in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) militant group made hard-won progress in 2015. IS lost control of significant towns and cities such as Tikrit, Sinjar, and Ramadi, the last of which had fallen to the militants in May but was mostly retaken by late December. However, IS retained control of important areas, including Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and stepped up terrorist attacks in the capital and other government-held population centers. Civilians bore the brunt of the violence, targeted by both IS and some progovernment forces, including Shiite militias.

The election of Haidar al-Abadi as prime minister in 2014 seemed to offer Iraq an opportunity to heal sectarian divisions that were exacerbated by his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki. Yet in 2015, Iraq appeared to inch closer to dissolution along ethno-sectarian lines. The autonomous Kurdish region in the north continued to lobby the international community to accept the idea of formal independence. The Shiite majority in the south openly discussed secession, a previously taboo topic. And while Sunni leaders pressed for fair inclusion or Sunni regional autonomy within a united Iraq, the pattern of IS occupation raised the possibility of an independent Sunni Arab state in parts of Iraq and Syria. These pressures increased the urgency of restoring government control over Iraqi territory without further alienating the Sunni population.

Emboldened by a protest movement that began in July, al-Abadi initiated reforms designed to overhaul Iraq's faltering public utilities and streamline a political system that was seen as bloated with sectarian patronage and corruption. However, the proposed reforms were neither transformational nor, in some cases, legal. By the end of the year the reform movement had largely collapsed as a result of declining political support and the parliament's assertion of its constitutional right to limit the power of the executive, which al-Abadi had improperly expanded.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 12 / 40 (+1)

A. Electoral Process: 8 / 12

Under the constitution, parliamentary elections should be held at least every four years. Members of the 328-seat parliament, the Council of Representatives, are elected through multimember open lists for each province. Once seated after elections, the parliament elects a president, who then appoints the member nominated by the largest parliamentary bloc as prime minister. The prime minister forms a government with parliamentary support and assumes most executive power. Iraqi governments have thus far been coalitions resulting from lengthy, contentious negotiations that uphold unwritten power-sharing agreements apportioning the top political positions among the country's religious and ethnic communities. The constitution envisions a Federal Council, an upper house designed to represent provincial interests, but it has never been formed. Iraq's 18 provinces also have governing councils elected every four years.

While parliamentary seats are allocated by province based on population, the estimates in use are disputed, as Iraq has not held a successful census covering the entire country since 1987. However, the borders of Iraq's provinces are generally agreed upon.

In the 2014 parliamentary elections, al-Maliki's Shiite-led State of Law coalition won 95 seats, making it the largest grouping. A Shiite bloc associated with populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr placed second with 34 seats, followed by a third Shiite coalition, Al-Muwatin, with 31 seats. A Sunni-led bloc, Muttahidoon, took 28 seats; a secular nationalist coalition led by Ayad Allawi, Al-Wataniya, received 21; and the two leading Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), took 25 and 21 seats, respectively. The remainder was divided among several smaller parties.

The elections were considered successful given the challenge of political violence in the country, and the Independent High Electoral Commission responded aggressively to fraud after investigating complaints. The balloting was also monitored by political parties, foreign and domestic media outlets, Iraqi nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international observers.

After tense and protracted negotiations, the new parliament eventually approved a government headed by al-Abadi. Al-Maliki's support within his own coalition had crumbled, as many domestic and international critics blamed his divisive rule for the rapid territorial gains of IS, and the U.S. government indicated that greater military assistance was effectively contingent on al-Maliki stepping down.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), comprising the three northern provinces of Erbil, Dohuk, and Suleymaniyah, has its own flag, military, official language, and other institutions. The KRG's 111-seat parliament, the Kurdish National Assembly, is elected through closed party-list proportional representation in which the three provinces form one district. Kurdish voters also participate in national parliamentary elections and elect members of their own provincial councils. In the 2013 assembly elections, the KDP led with 38 seats, the Gorran (Change) Movement placed second with 24, and the PUK was third with 18. Smaller factions and minority representatives made up the remainder.

The KRG also elects its own president, typically every four years. The powerful Kurdish president controls several key institutions without parliamentary oversight. In June 2013, after serving eight years in the presidency, Masoud Barzani and his party, the KDP, made an agreement with the rival PUK to extend his term for two years. This extension expired in August 2015, but with no successor in place due to delays in election preparations, the main Kurdish parties were unable to agree on how or whether to remove Barzani from office. By October, the standoff had contributed to violent protests that resulted in at least five deaths. Barzani and the KDP were governing without support from Gorran and the PUK at year's end, and the parliament was effectively suspended, with its speaker, a Gorran member, barred from entering Erbil.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 5 / 16

The constitution guarantees the freedom to form and join political parties, apart from the Baath Party. Iraqis' freedom to run for office is limited by the operation of a de-Baathification commission and by a vague "good conduct" requirement in Iraqi electoral law. However, all recent Iraqi elections have been characterized by vigorous campaigning among large numbers of parties and candidates.

In August 2015, the parliament passed a comprehensive law regulating the activities of political parties in Iraq. Among other provisions, the law lays out requirements for establishing a new party, revamps official registration procedures, and regulates party funding, including through a ban on foreign financing and donations from state-funded enterprises. The law also prohibits parties from engaging in military action, though many consider this provision impossible to enforce, given the proliferation of party-affiliated militias in the country.

Citizens' free political choices have been impaired by violence and intimidation from a variety of state and nonstate actors, interference by foreign powers, sharp ethnic and sectarian divisions, de facto ethnic and sectarian apportionment of key offices, and corruption, among other factors.

Most of Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities are represented in the parliament through a system of reserved seats  five for Christians and one each for Yazidis, Sabean Mandaeans, and Shabaks. The Kurdish legislature reserves five seats for Turkomans, five for Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, and one for Armenians. As Iraq's largest minority, many Sunni Arabs feel that Shiite dominance of the political system since 2003 has kept them out of positions of influence in government. Moreover, power-sharing arrangements among Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis serve to reinforce the political salience of ethnic identities and inhibit the formation of political movements based on other issues or priorities.

C. Functioning of Government: 2 / 12 (+1)

Governance in Iraq is hampered by ongoing security crises, corruption, ethno-sectarian power sharing, and the state's limited administrative capacity. These factors render policymaking and implementation expensive, slow, and sometimes impossible. Nevertheless, in 2015 the parliament passed several significant pieces of legislation, including a budget for the current fiscal year, which it had not done in 2014.

Responding to a massive anticorruption protest movement that swept the country in July 2015, al-Abadi introduced a reform package in August that would significantly restructure Iraq's political and administrative apparatus. The reforms abolished the positions of the country's three vice presidents and three deputy prime ministers; reduced politicians' private security details, releasing some 20,000 men to join the fight against IS; and restructured and merged several ministries, eliminating a number of cabinet positions. The changes also established an anticorruption council, reopened some languishing corruption cases, and tasked a team of judges with investigating ongoing corruption allegations. Although initially popular, the reform package was later critiqued for not being comprehensive enough. In addition, while some measures were approved by the parliament, others, including a merger of ministries, came in the form of executive decrees that apparently exceeded the prime minister's legal powers. The elimination of vice presidential posts was challenged as unconstitutional, since the constitution called for at least one vice president. In November, the parliament voted to bar al-Abadi from adopting reforms without its approval, reasserting the legislature's constitutional powers and counteracting a pattern of executive dominance and unilateralism that had developed under al-Maliki.

Iraq was ranked 161 out of 168 countries and territories assessed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Discretionary Political Rights Question B: -3 / 0

In 2015 IS continued its efforts to deliberately change Iraq's religious demography. Shiites, Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, Sabeans, and Kaka'i fled IS-controlled areas in the face of mass killings, discriminatory "taxation," forced conversions, and the enslavement of women and girls. The property of displaced groups was destroyed or confiscated, as were their mosques, shrines, and churches. Meanwhile, government units, Kurdish forces, and Shiite militias allegedly attacked and displaced Sunni Arab civilians in some areas in retaliation for perceived support for IS.

Civil Liberties: 15 / 60 (+2)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 5 / 16

Freedoms of expression and the media are guaranteed in Iraq's constitution, so long as they do not violate public order or morality. There are, however, few truly independent media outlets in Iraq, with most controlled by political parties or the state. In 2015, the official media's positive portrayal of the military campaign against IS clashed with the limited progress it actually made. Media freedom in Iraq generally, but especially in the KRG, also suffers from the threat of lawsuits or retaliation by powerful individuals. In February, a journalist in the KRG was arrested and charged under an antiterrorism law for suggesting that a Kurdish military commander should be removed from duty. He was later released, and the case was dropped. In August the KDP's intelligence organization detained a man for posting pictures online that were supportive of Barzani's political rivals.

The Committee to Protect Journalists found that at least five journalists were killed during 2015 in connection with their work, and many others received threats. Bloggers and others who disseminate information online are also at risk. Journalists in IS-held territory are regularly kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and forced to work in the group's media operations. IS has also occupied media buildings, sold or confiscated equipment, and established so-called "media points" throughout its territory where individuals may view and download IS propaganda.

Iraq's constitution guarantees freedom of belief. However, both within and outside IS-held areas, Iraqis are targeted for their religious identity. During 2015 IS killed large numbers of Shiites, whom it considers to be apostates, either in terrorist bombings or after capture. IS also continued its efforts to dominate Iraqi Christians and eradicate the country's Yazidi population. These minorities were subject to forced conversion, beheading, crucifixion, enslavement, massive theft of property, and rape throughout the year. Sunnis who resisted the group's interpretation of Islamic law were also executed. IS has similarly attempted to wipe out the practice of Sufism, killing Sufis and destroying shrines. Religious and cultural heritage sites of all kinds were vulnerable to destruction and looting in IS territory.

Shiite militias often took indiscriminate revenge for IS actions on Sunni civilians, destroying their mosques, killing their religious leaders, taking their property, and even massacring them, as when progovernment militias recaptured Tikrit in early 2015. In Sinjar, a Yazidi militia massacred 21 Sunni Arab villagers in January.

Some 160,000 Iraqi students' university educations had been halted and eight universities closed due to the IS occupation as of 2015. In areas under IS control, academics are tortured or killed for refusing to obey the group. As the militants do not permit the teaching of music, history, literature, or art, only the faculties of engineering, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and education remained open at the University of Mosul. In Anbar Province, IS burned papers, books, laboratories, and academics' houses. University buildings in IS areas have been taken over for use as courts, prisons, or housing for fighters.

IS maintains a large network of civilian informants and a sophisticated intelligence apparatus that it uses to identify and punish dissent in areas it controls. As a result, free and open discussion is heavily circumscribed, especially in public spaces, such as markets and cafes. Speech in other parts of Iraq is more open, though the threat of political or sectarian violence remains a deterrent.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 6 / 12 (+2)

Iraqis have a constitutional right to freedom of assembly, but this right is frequently restricted in practice. In July 2015, protests erupted in southern Iraq in response to power outages and the mismanagement of public utilities. In Basra, police killed one man and injured four others during clashes with demonstrators. The protests spread to the capital weeks later, evolving into a broader campaign for reform of the political system. Thousands demonstrated in Baghdad, and security forces were ordered not to intervene. Although citizens were generally given space to continue assembling in the subsequent months, isolated clashes with police were reported.

NGOs enjoy a supportive legal environment  apart from a requirement to register with the government  and widespread acceptance within Iraqi society. However, in 2015 the government began requiring new NGOs to obtain approval from the de-Baathification commission in order to officially register, and the KRG began to require them to renew their registration annually. Although nearly 2,600 NGOs were registered in the country by the end of 2015, the poor security situation limits their ability to operate.

After a decade of lobbying by Iraqi workers, in August 2015 the parliament passed a new labor law that generally meets international standards. The law allows collective bargaining even by workers without a union, prohibits child labor, protects against discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, improves maternity and pregnancy leave and the rights of subcontractors and migrant workers, and allows workers to strike. However, the law does not apply to civil servants or security forces, and it remained to be seen how the new rules would be implemented after taking effect in early 2016. Some state officials and private employers reportedly discouraged union activity with threats, dismissals, and other deterrents during 2015.

F. Rule of Law: 0 / 16

The judiciary in Iraq is heavily influenced by political, tribal and religious forces, as well as by bribery. Judicial reform quickly became one of the principal demands of the 2015 protest movement. However, the Abadi government lacked political and legal authority to overhaul the judicial branch. Al-Abadi's anticorruption package mostly relied on promises that the judiciary would supervise its own reform, and observers expressed doubt that this would be effective.

Large numbers of detainees are held in government prisons without charge or in pretrial detention, with many arrested under the vaguely worded 2005 antiterrorism law. Iraqis in state detention face torture, forced confessions, overcrowding, the extensive use of solitary confinement, and long waits before trial. Families must pay bribes to see detainees and often struggle to determine where they are being held.

By the end of 2014 there were some 1,700 detainees on death row in Iraq, and lack of due process remains a concern. The July 2015 trial of 28 men for the 2014 massacre of Shiite cadets at Camp Speicher was only two hours long; the defense was not allowed to present witnesses or evidence. Although four defendants were acquitted, 24 were sentenced to death. The Iraqi president must ratify death sentences, and President Fouad Massoum has a large backlog. There were approximately 82 people on death row in the KRG as of April 2014. In August 2015, the KRG carried out three executions, its first since a moratorium began in 2008.

Security in cities under central government control deteriorated during 2015. Waves of terrorist bombings targeting Shiite civilians and Iraqi security forces swept through Baghdad and other towns, causing hundreds of casualties. In areas under IS control, almost any act of real or perceived resistance can result in execution, with hundreds of killings reported in places like Ramadi and Nineveh Province in 2015.

Despite the government's efforts to bring them under control, many of the approximately 60,000 members of various Shiite militias, collectively known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), committed crimes with impunity. These included mass kidnapping, extortion, murder, destruction of property, and theft. For example, in January 2015, PMF fighters working with government forces massacred at least 56 Sunni men in Diyala Province. And after IS was routed from Tikrit in March, PMF forces kidnapped at least 200 Sunnis, including children, from a village south of the city. Most remained missing late in the year. Many militias receive training, financial support, and direction from Iran.

The combination of military conflict and general lawlessness kills thousands of civilians in Iraq each year. Monitors estimated that anywhere from 7,000 to 16,000 people were killed due to violence in 2015, with thousands more injured. These figures were somewhat lower than in 2014, but still far higher than in previous years.

Same-sex sexual relations are not illegal in Iraq, but LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people risk violence and ostracism if they organize or are open about their identity. In IS-controlled areas, those accused of being gay were reportedly executed during 2015.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 4 / 16

Freedom of movement, choice of residence, and property rights all suffered from the conflict with IS in 2015. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the number of displaced Iraqis reached 4 million in mid-June, up from 3.5 million in December 2014. Many Iraqis were displaced for a second or even a third time as fighting moved across the country. The state adopted a policy requiring Sunni internally displaced persons (IDPs) to have a sponsor to enter Baghdad, which left many stranded. IDPs who returned to liberated areas sometimes found their homes destroyed. Iraqis were also among the flood of refugees arriving in Europe during 2015, making up about 10 percent of those who applied for asylum in European Union countries that year.

Iraqi women face problems including early marriage, domestic violence, and discrimination in matters of family law. In the south there has been a reported resurgence of forced marriages to settle tribal disputes. Prostitution and the trafficking of women as sex workers is also increasing, with government officials failing to assist victims and sometimes even playing an active role in the trade. IDPs are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Women were, however, involved in the 2015 protest movement, and in February the prime minister appointed Zekra Alwach as Baghdad's first female mayor. At least one-fourth of the seats in the Iraqi parliament and 30 percent of the seats in the Kurdish parliament must go to women.

Women living under IS rule are subject to corporal punishment and execution if they violate severe restrictions on their movement, dress, and behavior. Women and girls are raped, enslaved, and forced into marriage by IS fighters.

In addition to those subjected to sexual exploitation, victims of human trafficking in Iraq include children engaged in forced begging and child soldiers recruited primarily by IS, though there were also some reports of children joining the PMF.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Greece

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Greece, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00b6.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 83

Freedom Rating: 2.0

Political Rights: 2

Civil Liberties: 2

Quick Facts

Population: 11,520,785

Capital: Athens

GDP/Capita: $21,682.60

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: N/A

OVERVIEW

With Greek voters exhausted by austerity measures required by international in exchange for debt relief, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) won snap elections held in January 2015, ousting the previous governing coalition of the center-right New Democracy (ND) and the center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). With support from its smaller coalition partner, the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL), SYRIZA then sought to renegotiate the onerous terms of bailout loans the country had agreed to in 2010 and 2012, but faced resistance. In June 2015, hoping to use public opposition as a bargaining chip in the negotiations, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for a referendum on the most recent proposal Greece had received from its lenders.

Over 61 percent of voters rejected the deal in the plebiscite held in July, but Greece's creditors still refused to make major concessions. With the country on the brink of financial collapse, the Tsipras government accepted creditors' tough terms for a $96 billion debt relief package in August, rather than risk being forced out of the eurozone. Some 40 hardline anti-austerity politicians from SYRIZA rejected the deal or abstained from voting on the decision, though support from other parties assured its approval.

Facing a split within SYRIZA, Tsipras called snap elections, which took place in September. SYRIZA once again won the vote and formed a coalition with ANEL, and Tsipras returned as prime minister. By year's end, a measure of stability has returned to Greece. However, the government still faced the challenges of meeting the bailout deal's difficult conditions and engaging in further negotiations with creditors.

Separately, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing war and political instability in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere strained the Greek state's ability to accommodate such a large population, leading to a human rights crisis. Since the construction of a fence along a key section of the Evros River, Greece's natural border with Turkey, in 2012, most refugees have entered Greece by boat from Turkey to nearby Greek islands: Lesvos, Chios, Kos, and Samos. In 2015 alone, more than 850,000 migrants made the perilous crossing to Greece, most of them attempting to make their way to other EU countries.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 35 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 12 / 12

The 300 members of Greece's legislature, the unicameral Hellenic Parliament, serve four-year terms. Of them, 288 are elected by proportional representation, and 12 are elected from national party lists. The largely ceremonial president is elected by a parliamentary supermajority for a five-year term. The prime minister is chosen by the president and is usually the leader of the largest party in the parliament. Recent elections in Greece were regarded as free and fair.

By creating an impasse in December 2014 over the election of a successor to retiring president Karolos Papoulias, SYRIZA effectively forced the governing coalition, led by the center-right ND, to call snap parliamentary elections, which were set for January 2015. Campaigning on promises to ease austerity measures and to renegotiate agreements with Greece's troika of creditors  the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)  SYRIZA scored a resounding victory, winning 149 seats compared to ND's 76. The right-wing extremist party Golden Dawn and the new center-left To Potami (the River) party each won 17 seats. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) took 15 seats and the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) took 13, as did PASOK. Turnout was about 64 percent. Lacking an outright majority, SYRIZA formed a coalition government with ANEL, which had also run on an anti-austerity platform, and Tsipras became prime minister.

Amid difficult negotiations with international creditors, in June 2015 Tsipras called a referendum on the latest debt deal that creditors had extended. Over 61 percent of voters rejected the deal's terms in a July plebiscite that saw roughly 63 percent turnout. Tsipras accepted the deal despite the result, seeking to prevent Greece's exit from the eurozone, and called early elections after a splinter faction of SYRIZA defected over the move.

SYRIZA won reelection in a snap vote in September, taking 145 seats in the parliament, and once again formed a coalition with ANEL, which won 10; Tsipras stayed on as prime minister. ND took 75 seats; Golden Dawn won 18; the Democratic Coalition, composed of PASOK and the center-left party Democratic Left (DIMAR), took 17; KKE, 15; To Potami, 11; and the Union of Centrists (EK), 9. The splinter faction that left SYRIZA over the debt deal, Popular Unity, failed to win enough support to qualify for parliamentary seats. Voter turnout stood at 57 percent, lower than in previous elections.

The country has generally fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, and a system of compulsory voting that is weakly enforced. Since 2010, documented immigrants are allowed to vote in municipal elections.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 15 / 16

Greece's multiparty system features vigorous competition between rival parties. Until recently, the post-1980 political landscape had been dominated by PASOK and ND. PASOK has rapidly lost ground in elections since the sovereign debt crisis emerged in late 2009. It finished last among the parties that received representation in the January 2015 elections, but later joined DIMAR in a coalition that placed fourth in the September elections. SYRIZA remained popular in 2015 despite economic turmoil, and was the leading party in both of the year's elections. SYRIZA's coalition partner, ANEL, was founded in 2012 by disillusioned members of ND. The party has vehemently opposed austerity programs linked to the bailout deals, characterizing them in its founding document as "national humiliation and violent economic attack."

Golden Dawn is Greece's third-largest party, and has retained support despite a government crackdown that began after a party supporter murdered antifascist rap artist Pavlos Fyssas in 2013. Golden Dawn president Nikolaos Michaloliakos and 68 other party members face charges of belonging to or founding a criminal organization; their trial began in April 2015 but has been characterized by bureaucratic delays, and remained open at the year's end. Mihaloliakos and another senior party member were released from pretrial detention in March 2015 after serving 18 months, the maximum time authorities may detain someone ahead of their trial.

Greece's largest minority population, the Muslim community in the province of Thrace, is allowed full political rights and has four representatives in parliament after the latest election.

C. Functioning of Government: 8 / 12

Corruption remains a problem in Greece, with tax evasion representing a serious challenge for the government. While tax enforcement efforts have become more robust in recent years, authorities have largely failed to prosecute tax evasion by economic elites. It is estimated that Greece's undeclared economic activity is 6 percent higher than the European average; tax evasion is enabled in part by a high rate of self-employed workers who encounter little oversight. Separately, in an encouraging sign, the parliament voted in August 2015 to lift immunity for ND deputy Vasilis Giogiakas so that he may face charges stemming from past actions taken as the governor of the Thesprotia region.

Greece was ranked 58 out of 168 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Civil Liberties: 48 / 60

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 14 / 16

The constitution includes provisions for freedoms of speech and the press, and these freedoms are generally protected. The public broadcaster, Hellenic Radio Television (ERT), closed in 2013, diminishing the diversity of opinions in the mass media. In 2014, the smaller New Hellenic Radio, Internet, and Television (NERIT) succeeded ERT as the nation's public broadcaster. ERT returned to the air in June 2015, and its operations were merged with NERIT's. More than 2,600 former ERT employees received reemployment offers at the broadcaster.

Citizens generally enjoy access to a broad array of privately owned print and broadcast outlets, and internet access is unrestricted. There are some limits on speech that incites fear, violence, and public disharmony, as well as on publications that offend religious beliefs, are obscene, or advocate the violent overthrow of the political system. Antidiscrimination legislation passed in 2014 criminalized denial of the Holocaust and other genocides, including the World War I-era mass killing of Armenians in Turkey. Some journalists have been physically assaulted by police while covering anti-austerity protests over the past three years.

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion, though the Greek Orthodox Church receives government subsidies and is considered the "prevailing" faith of the country. Members of some minority religions face discrimination and legal barriers, such as permit requirements to open houses of worship and restrictions on inheriting property. The constitution prohibits proselytizing, but this restriction is rarely enforced. Opposition to the construction of an official mosque in Athens remains substantial; Muslim inhabitants are forced to worship in improvised mosques.

Academic freedom is respected in Greece, and the educational system is free of political indoctrination. Private discussion is open and free.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 11 / 12

Freedoms of assembly and association are guaranteed by the constitution and the government generally protects these rights in practice, though there are some limits on groups representing ethnic minorities. Golden Dawn has attempted to intimidate assemblies of immigrants and immigrant advocacy groups. However, such instances have become somewhat less frequent since the crackdown on Golden Dawn's leadership. In some cases, police have not adequately defended the rights of immigrants to assemble.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) generally operate without interference from the authorities, and workers have the right to form and join unions. Major anti-austerity protests and strikes have occurred frequently in recent years. The vast majority of participants have been peaceful, but several protests have turned violent due to confrontations between anarchist elements and the police.

F. Rule of Law: 10 / 16

The judiciary is independent, and the constitution provides for public trials. Prisons suffer from overcrowding, as do immigrant detention centers, particularly those on the Greek islands dealing with the recent surge of migrants and refugees. Immigrants are disproportionately affected by institutional problems in the judicial system.

Acts of racist violence are an ongoing problem, though observers have noted a slight decline since the crackdown on Golden Dawn. In a May 2015 report, the Racist Violence Recording Network stated that 81 acts of racially motivated violence had taken place in Greece in 2014, affecting at least 100 victims. Anti-Semitic attitudes are widespread. A 2013-14 survey by the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League found that 69 percent of respondents from Greece held anti-Semitic views. While such attitudes do not often translate into violence against people, the Racist Violence Recording Network has reported desecrations of Jewish buildings and monuments. In 2014, the government approved legislation that increased penalties for attacks motivated by ethnicity or sexual orientation, but the law has been criticized for failing to protect victims of hate crimes from deportation proceedings.

An influx of refugees and migrants into Greece created a human rights crisis in 2015, and the resources of the Greek state remain insufficient for accommodating such a large population. Authorities have been unable to implement an adequate system for processing asylum applications. Many refugees are housed in overcrowded, poorly equipped, and unsanitary welcome centers, or have resorted to sleeping in public parks and squares. Authorities have forcibly moved migrants and refugees living in outdoor encampments to separate sites. In December, more than 1,000 people camped in the village of Idomeni, on the border with Macedonia, were relocated to an overcrowded stadium outside Athens after Macedonia increased border controls, granting entry only to refugees with proof of origin from Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. In September, the European Union (EU) agreed to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy, which had also seen a surge in migration, to other countries in the bloc. By mid-November, only 1,418 spots had been made available, and just 147 relocations had occurred. In December, the EC pledged 80 million ($87 million) to help Greece with temporary housing for asylum-seekers.

The country's Romany community continues to face considerable governmental and societal discrimination. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) individuals encounter some discrimination and occasional violent attacks.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 13 / 16

Freedom of movement is generally unrestricted. Government bureaucracy exerts influence over the ability to start and operate businesses, and political parties have been involved in smoothing the process for their supporters. As a result, the field for business activity is not level for all participants.

Women continue to face discrimination in the workplace and held only 20 percent of the seats in parliament at the end of 2015, a decline of 3 percent from the representation gained in the January elections. Zoe Konstantopoulou of SYRIZA was elected parliamentary speaker following the January elections, but was replaced by a man after the September polls. Domestic violence remains a problem.

Greece serves as a transit and destination country for the trafficking of men, women, and children for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. The U.S. State Department's 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report noted a decline in the enforcement of Greek antitrafficking laws.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Belgium

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Belgium, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00de.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 96

Freedom Rating: 1.0

Political Rights: 1

Civil Liberties: 1

Quick Facts

Population: 11,211,064

Capital: Brussels

GDP/Capita: $47,516.50

Press Freedom Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: N/A

OVERVIEW

The political environment in 2015 was dominated by concerns about terrorist activity in Belgium. Officials estimated that close to 500 individuals had traveled from Belgium to join extremist groups in Syria  the highest per capita rate in the European Union (EU). In January, days after terrorists attacked the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, Belgian security forces carried out nationwide raids against suspected Islamist militants. In November, after coordinated shooting sprees and suicide bombings in Paris killed 130 people, strong suspicions emerged that the attackers  several of whom were identified as Belgian nationals  had largely organized their operations in Brussels. Belgian officials took a number of emergency measures, including a high-security lockdown of the capital, numerous raids and arrests, and proposals for broader government authority in investigating and prosecuting terrorism suspects.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 40 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 12 / 12

The Belgian monarchy is largely ceremonial, although the king retains constitutional authority to mediate during the process of government formation. Belgium's Federal Parliament consists of two houses: the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. The 150 members of the Chamber are elected directly by proportional representation. The Senate is comprised of 50 members selected by community and regional parliaments, and an additional 10 members chosen by the first 50 based on the results of the Chamber of Representatives elections. Members serve five-year terms in both houses. The prime minister, who is the leader of the majority party or coalition, is appointed by the monarch and approved by the legislature.

The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) won 33 seats in the Chamber of Representatives in 2014, while outgoing prime minister Elio Di Rupo's Francophone Socialist Party (PS) won 23 seats. The Francophone Movement for Reform (MR) captured 20 seats, the center-right Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V) party took 18, and the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD) won 14. The N-VA, the CD&V, the MR, and the VLD reached an agreement to form a center-right coalition government. The N-VA was included in the government for the first time, while the PS was excluded for the first time in more than two decades. Charles Michel of the MR became prime minister.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 16 / 16

The party system is robust but highly fragmented, with separate Flemish and Walloon parties representing all traditional parties of the left and right.

After the far-right, separatist Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc) party was banned in 2004 for violating the country's antiracism laws, it changed its name to Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and removed some of the more overtly xenophobic elements from its platform. However, the party maintains an anti-immigration stance and a commitment to an independent Flanders. It captured only three seats in the Chamber of Representatives in the 2014 elections, down from 12 in 2010.

Ethnic and linguistic conflicts have prompted a series of constitutional amendments since 1970 devolving considerable power from the central government to the three regions in the Belgian federation: French-speaking Wallonia in the south; Flemish-speaking Flanders in the north; and Brussels, the capital, where French and Flemish share the same official status. The wealthier Flemish north has sought increased self-rule and reduced taxpayer support for the less prosperous Wallonia. Voting takes place along strict linguistic lines; with the exception of the bilingual district encompassing Brussels, parties are only permitted to run in their respective linguistic regions.

There are no restrictions on the ability of minority groups to participate in national or subnational politics. In the 2014 elections, 11 candidates of Turkish and Moroccan origin were elected to the Chamber of Representatives.

C. Functioning of Government: 12 / 12

Corruption is relatively rare in Belgium, which was ranked 15 out of 168 countries and territories surveyed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index. Public officials can face heavy fines and up to ten years' imprisonment for corruption-related offenses, and enforcement of anticorruption legislation is generally adequate. In February 2015, the European Commission launched an investigation into whether favorable tax treatment given by Belgium to multinational corporations violated EU competition rules. The effort formed part of a wider inquiry into several member states' corporate tax agreements.

Legislators and other high-ranking elected officials are required by law to regularly disclose their assets as well as paid or unpaid mandates, executive functions, and occupations to the Court of Audit. Information about asset declarations is not publicly accessible, but declarations of interests are published in the official government gazette.

Civil Liberties: 56 / 60 (-1)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 15 / 16

Freedoms of speech and the press are guaranteed by the constitution and generally respected by the government. Belgians have access to numerous private media outlets. However, concentration of print media ownership has increased in recent decades. Internet access is unrestricted.

More than half of the country's population identifies as Roman Catholic. Freedom of religion is protected, but members of minority religious groups have complained of discrimination by the government as well as in housing and employment. A ban on the partial or total covering of the face in public locations has been in effect since 2011. Offenders can face a fine or up to a week in jail. In October 2015, a Brussels court began hearing a case against 11 members of the Church of Scientology's Belgian branch, who along with two affiliated groups were charged with offenses including fraud, extortion, and running a criminal organization. A conviction could lead to a ban on the organization in Belgium.

The government does not restrict academic freedom, and private discussion is open and vibrant. In June, the Belgian Privacy Commission filed a claim against Facebook, claiming that the company's tracking of the personal data of nonmembers  who, unlike members, have not agreed to the platform's terms of service  is unlawful due to the absence of explicit consent. In November, a Brussels court ordered Facebook to stop the practice within Belgium.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 12 / 12

Freedom of assembly is generally respected. In October, Belgium's three main trade unions facilitated mass demonstrations in Brussels against the government's austerity policies. After some protesters attacked police officers and vehicles, security forces responded with tear gas and water cannons. Dozens were detained in the clashes.

Freedom of association is guaranteed by the Constitution, but antidiscrimination legislation penalizes membership in or cooperation with a group that "overtly and repeatedly practices or teaches discrimination" based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

Workers at companies that employ more than 50 people have the right to organize and join unions and to bargain collectively. Employers found guilty of firing workers because of union activities are required to reinstate the workers or pay an indemnity. In 2015, unions continued to organize opposition to austerity measures, which they saw as favoring big corporations at the expense of workers' rights.

F. Rule of Law: 14 / 16 (-1)

The judiciary is independent, and the rule of law generally prevails in civil and criminal matters. Police and armed forces are under civilian control, and the constitution protects the right to a free trial. Although conditions in prisons and detention centers meet most international standards, many facilities continue to suffer from overcrowding. Torture is illegal.

Concerns about potential terrorist attacks  particularly by affiliates of the Islamic State (IS) militant group  drove government priorities and discussions in the areas of security and rule of law in 2015. In January, Belgian security forces carried out a series of raids against a suspected Islamist militant cell. Several individuals were detained, and in Verviers, two suspects were fatally shot by police. In February, a court in Antwerp ruled that the group Shariah4Belgium was a terrorist organization that recruited fighters for extremist groups in Syria, and sentenced its leader to 12 years in prison. Seven members received prison sentences ranging from three to five years. Thirty-seven other defendants were convicted in absentia; although many were believed to have died in Syria, the court warned that militants often fabricate death records in order to avoid prosecution.

In November, days after coordinated attacks in Paris left 130 people dead, Belgian officials raised the threat assessment for Brussels to the highest level, imposing a complete lockdown from as police searched for a suspect believed to have returned to the capital. The lockdown lasted from November 21 through November 25, but police raids and heightened security continued through the end of the year. Although most individuals detained in the raids were released without charge, several suspects connected to the violence in Paris or other terrorist activity remained in custody at year's end. The judiciary granted extended detentions in a number of cases.

After evidence emerged suggesting that the November attacks had been planned in Belgium, some critics argued that the country's governance system was hampering coordination among security agencies and hindering efforts to combat extremism and arms trafficking. Prime Minister Michel called on legislators to pass a set of antiterrorism measures, including significant increases to the domestic security budget; an extension of the maximum period of detention without charge from 24 hours to 72 hours; the imprisonment upon return of Belgian citizens who fought with extremist groups abroad; a requirement that terrorism suspects wear electronic tags; the closure of houses of worship that propagate hate speech; and the lifting of a ban on nighttime police raids. Lawmakers were still debating the proposals, some of which require constitutional amendments, at year's end.

An influx of asylum seekers in 2015 strained government resources, and authorities struggled to provide adequate accommodations and to process applications in a timely manner. Belgium received approximately 39,000 first-time asylum applications in 2015  more than twice the amount received in 2014. The majority of applicants were Syrian, Iraqi, or Afghan nationals.

Antiracism and antidiscrimination legislation penalizes the incitement of discrimination, acts of hatred, and violence based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation. The human rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people are protected by strong legislation and supported by a vibrant community of civil society groups.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 15 / 16

The law provides for freedom of domestic movement and foreign travel, and the government upholds these rights in practice. Freedom of movement was restricted in Brussels during heightened alert levels in November 2015. There are no restrictions on the right to choose one's place of residence or employment, but Roma have faced expulsions and forced evictions. Commercial activity is regulated without arbitrary interference.

The government actively promotes equality for women. The state Institute for the Equality of Men and Women is empowered to initiate sex-discrimination lawsuits. In the 2014 elections, women won approximately 39 percent of seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 50 percent of seats in the Senate. Belgium legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, and in 2006, same-sex couples gained the right to adopt children.

In 2014, the Chamber of Representatives approved a bill making Belgium the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia for terminally ill children. Belgium had legalized euthanasia for terminally ill adults in 2002.

While the country has seen increased immigration in recent years, labor market integration of non-EU immigrants and their native-born children is low. Belgium remains a destination country for human trafficking, particularly for sexual exploitation and domestic labor; victims generally originate from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2016 - Angola

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 20 June 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016 - Angola, 20 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/576be00f9.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 24

Freedom Rating: 6.0

Political Rights: 6

Civil Liberties: 6

Trend Arrow: 

Ratings Change, Trend Arrow: 

Angola's civil liberties rating declined from 5 to 6, and it received a downward trend arrow, because as the economy deteriorated, the government increased its repressive measures, including the persecution of journalists, young political activists, and certain religious groups.

Quick Facts

Population: 25,000,000

Capital: Luanda

GDP/Capita: $5,423.60

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), retained tight control over the political system and significantly restricted civil liberties during 2015.

The drop in global oil prices damaged Angola's economy and state budget, which are heavily dependent on oil exports. The government was forced to adopt unpopular measures such as eliminating fuel subsidies and restricting the use of credit cards, stoking social unrest. In this context, the authorities worked to suppress dissent, violently dispersing a number of protests and detaining a group of young political activists on charges of plotting a rebellion.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 10 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 3 / 12

The 2010 constitution abolished direct presidential elections, stipulating instead that the leader of the largest party in the parliament would become president. The 220-seat unicameral National Assembly, whose members serve five-year terms, has little power, and 90 percent of legislation originates in the executive branch. The constitution permits the president to serve a maximum of two five-year terms, and to directly appoint the vice president, cabinet, and provincial governors. President dos Santos has been in power for 36 years, making him one of the longest-serving heads of state in Africa, but his first full term under the current constitution began in 2012, meaning he could legally serve until 2022.

The parliamentary elections held in 2012 were deeply flawed and followed a number of delays. The MPLA captured 72 percent of the vote, a notable decline from its 82 percent showing in 2008. Still, the party maintained its overwhelming dominance in the National Assembly, garnering 175 of 220 seats. The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) is the largest opposition party, holding 32 seats; the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola-Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) holds 8 seats, the Social Renewal Party (PRS) holds 3, and the National Front for Angolan Liberation (FNLA) holds 2.

In October 2014, dos Santos confirmed that already-delayed municipal elections, called for in the constitution, would again be postponed until after the 2017 general elections. The president justified this unilateral decision by citing the difficulties experienced in organizing the 2012 elections and those anticipated in replacing existing local government institutions with new municipal governments. The opposition vehemently protested the decision.

In November 2015 dos Santos confirmed that the next general elections would be held in August 2017.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 6 / 16

Although five political parties are represented in the National Assembly, the ruling MPLA dominates Angola's party system. Mutual mistrust, the inability to agree on common strategy, and enticements from the more powerful and better-funded MPLA prevent opposition parties from coordinating their efforts. Nevertheless, in September 2015 the four opposition parties represented in the National Assembly held their first joint parliamentary meetings to promote dialogue and discuss the state of the country with civil society leaders.

Throughout 2014, opposition members had criticized the government's delay in establishing the Council of the Republic, a presidential advisory body that is constitutionally required to include members of the opposition. President dos Santos finally swore council members into office in February 2015; they had been appointed in January 2013.

Political activism in the exclave of Cabinda, home to a long-standing movement for independence or autonomy, is regarded with suspicion by the government and can draw criminal charges.

C. Functioning of Government: 1 / 12

Corruption and patronage are endemic in Angola's entrenched political elite, which is largely unaccountable to the public. Allegations of corruption proliferated during 2015, including reports that the large Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, which was already engulfed in a major corruption scandal in Brazil, had offered bribes to influential Angolans in order to secure local contracts. Reports of corruption involving a Portuguese conglomerate with suspected links to Portugal's former prime minister also surfaced, implicating an Angolan businessman who had helped the company secure construction contracts for public-works projects in Angola.

Angola was ranked 163 out of 168 countries and territories assessed in Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Civil Liberties: 14 / 60 (-4)

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 5 / 16 (-2)

Despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, the state owns Angola's only daily newspaper, all national radio stations, and all but one national television station. These outlets, along with private media owned by senior officials and members of the dos Santos family, act as mouthpieces for the MPLA. Censorship and self-censorship are common.

Angolan authorities have consistently prevented independent journalists from reporting the news, denying them access to official information and events, preventing them from broadcasting, and threatening them with detention and prosecution. In May 2015, journalist Valentino Mateus was detained when he requested an interview with a police commander in Huila. Also that month, journalist Rafael Marques de Morais received a suspended six-month sentence in a defamation case stemming from his reporting on human rights abuses in the diamond-mining industry. In October, the state attorney interviewed the director and several employees of O Crime after the newspaper reported the suspected involvement of members of the police and military in drug trafficking.

The constitution guarantees religious freedom, but the government requires religious groups to meet rigorous criteria in order to receive legal recognition. In December 2015, the government proposed legislation that would reduce the membership threshold for legalization from 100,000 to 60,000. Legal approval was last granted to a new religious group in 2004. Roughly 1,200 religious groups operate illegally in Angola. All of those that have been officially recognized are Christian, despite the presence of tens of thousands of Muslims in the country. The government maintains that it has no bias against the practice of Islam. Although 15 percent of Angolans are evangelical Christians, the Universal Church is the only evangelical church recognized by the state.

In April 2015, the government reported that 13 civilians and 9 policemen were killed in a confrontation in Huambo Province between the authorities and members of the Light of the World Church, a breakaway sect led by a former Seventh-Day Adventist. Nonstate sources reported a much higher death toll, accusing the government of a massacre. Despite repeated requests from local and international human rights organizations, the government refused to allow an independent investigation of the incident. Shortly after the violence, President dos Santos declared the Light of the World Church to be a threat to peace and national unity.

There are no formal restrictions on academic freedom, though professors avoid politically sensitive topics for fear of repercussions.

While internet access is increasing in Angola, the government actively monitors internet activity and, in some instances, uses the data collected to crack down on dissidents. Offline communication is also subject to monitoring and punishment. In June 2015, police in Luanda arrested 15 young activists who had organized a book-club discussion about nonviolent resistance to authoritarian rule. They and two other suspects were charged in September with plotting a rebellion, and a trial was under way at year's end.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 3 / 12 (-1)

The constitution guarantees limited freedoms of assembly and association. In recent years, police and security forces have prohibited demonstrations, violently dispersed peaceful political gatherings, and intimidated and arrested protesters in provinces including Luanda, Malanje, and Benguela. In August 2015, government forces violently suppressed a peaceful demonstration in support of the 15 activists detained in June.

Several hundred nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate in Angola, and many advocate for transparency, human rights protections, and political reform. Organizations that are critical of the government have frequently faced state interference and been threatened with closure. In March 2015, dos Santos issued a decree that requires NGOs to register with the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to operate; NGOs must obtain further authorizations to receive donations. Once registered, NGOs are required to submit to government supervision and audits.

The constitution includes the right to strike and to form unions, but the MPLA dominates the labor movement, and only a few weak independent unions exist. Still, strikes do occur: In October, cab drivers went on strike in Luanda to denounce corruption and the dearth of designated stops for loading and unloading passengers. Several taxis were vandalized and many drivers arrested during the strike.

F. Rule of Law: 3 / 16 (-1)

In general, the courts are hampered by a lack of trained legal professionals, as well as insufficient infrastructure, a large backlog of cases, corruption, and extensive political influence, particularly from the executive. Municipal courts function in 22 of 163 municipalities. Elsewhere, crimes and conflicts are frequently adjudicated by informal tribunals, or by local police.

The president appoints Supreme Court judges to life terms without legislative input. Several examples of judicial abuse and lack of due process arose in 2015, including the arbitrary arrest and irregular legal proceedings involving the 15 young political activists accused of plotting rebellion, Marques's flawed defamation case, and a separate rebellion case against Cabindan human rights activist Jose Marcos Mavungo, who was arrested in March and sentenced to six years in prison in September. International human rights organizations denounced Mavungo's conviction, noting the lack of evidence against him.

There is no effective protection against unjustified imprisonment, lengthy pretrial detention, extortion, or torture. In August 2015, the parliament approved a controversial new law that gave authorities greater discretion to extend pretrial detention.

Angolan jails are reported to be overcrowded, unhygienic, and plagued by sexual abuse. They also contain a number of political prisoners, advocates of the Cabindan autonomy movement, and members of peaceful activist groups.

Tensions in Cabinda remain high. The secessionist Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) and its supporters  many of whom live in exile  continue to call for talks on independence. Activists have alleged that Cabinda residents are not permitted to voice their opinions and are under constant risk of persecution and discrimination, as shown by the Mavungo case.

According to the head of police, there were more than 500,000 illegal immigrants living in Angola as of January 2015. West African immigrants complain of police harassment. Nevertheless, immigration from countries including Brazil, China, and Portugal remains high, and migrants from neighboring countries also continue to enter Angola in large numbers.

National law criminalizes "acts against nature," though there have been no recent cases of this provision being applied to same-sex sexual activity. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people sometimes suffer harassment, and few formal LGBT organizations exist. The first same-sex kiss between men to appear on national television was broadcast on a soap opera in January 2015. After many viewers complained, the show was suspended by the state broadcaster.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 3 / 16

Several organizations have been working to remove landmines that were placed during Angola's decades-long civil war. A significant drop in international funding in 2015 led to reduced demining. Landmines inhibit agriculture, construction, and freedom of movement, particularly in rural areas.

The process for securing entry and exit visas remains difficult and mired in corruption. Individuals who are critical of the government have faced problems when attempting to leave or enter the country. In November 2015, authorities prevented the well-known rapper and civic activist MCK from traveling to Brazil, where he was scheduled to give a concert. He had called for the release of the 15 people arrested in June for allegedly plotting rebellion.

Access to quality education is limited to Angola's elite and the expatriate community. Literacy rates remain low, due to the shortage of qualified teachers and the lack of school facilities, especially in rural districts. Corruption and absenteeism among some teachers continues to be a problem.

In 2015, the government continued a campaign of forced evictions in Luanda and other cities. In Viana, for example, dozens of families were evicted with no prior notice from officials.

Bribery often underpins business activity, and high-level corruption ensures that wealth and economic influence remain concentrated among those with political connections. Despite years of abundant oil revenues, Angola has one of the lowest life-expectancy rates in the world at 52 years, and a large share of the population still lives below the international poverty line.

Women enjoy legal protections and occupy cabinet positions and multiple seats in the National Assembly. However, de facto discrimination and violence against women continues, despite a 2011 law against domestic violence. Child labor is a major problem, and foreign workers are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor in the construction and mining industries. The authorities have failed to effectively investigate human trafficking or prosecute offenders.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
President Tran Dai Quang and Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Prak Sokhonn (Source: VNA)



At the meeting, the State leader highlighted Cambodias security and political stability, high economic growth rate, improved living standards and elevated position in region and the world under the reign of King Norodom Sihamoni and the leadership of the Senate, the National Assembly and the Government.

The neighbourly friendship, solidarity and multi-faceted cooperation between Cambodia and Vietnam have also been consolidated and strengthened, bringing pragmatic interests to their people, he said.

The President urged the two countries foreign ministries to join hands with each other in organising practical activities marking the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties (June 24th, 1967) to educate younger generations about the relationship.

Applauding outcomes of the talks between the foreign ministers of Vietnam and Cambodia, the host expressed his belief that cooperation orientations charted during the meeting will help bolster the two ministries partnership as well as the bilateral ties between the two countries.

President Tran Dai Quang asked the minister to convey his invitations to King Norodom Sihamoni and leaders of the Cambodian Senate, National Assembly and Government to visit Vietnam.

Prak Sokhonn said President Tran Dai Quangs recent State visit to Cambodia has contributed to consolidating the bilateral relations in a more sustainable fashion.

The minister said his Vietnam visit aims to demonstrate the Cambodian Governments resolve to step up the friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.

He told his host that he and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh had reached consensus on a number of practical measures to enhance economic and trade links and cross-border cooperation, as well as to increase mutual trust. They also compared notes on the exchange of high-level visits by the two countries leaders./.
Community leaders discuss future of mental health services in Morgan County

A large crowd gathered at First Christian Church to learn about local efforts that are underway to manage growing mental health pressures facing the city and all of Morgan County.
The age-old problem of a shortage of farm labor  now held up by visa backlogs  is fast approaching crisis proportions again, all but guaranteeing that crops will rot in the field on many farms this year, said Vincent 'Zippy' Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

'Many farmer members have called us and state farm bureaus asking for help,' Duvall said. 'They face serious hurdles in getting visas for workers in time to tend and harvest this year's crops. Paperwork delays have created a backlog of 30 days or more in processing H-2A applications at both the Department of Labor and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.'

Duvall said the Labor Department too often fails to comply with rules that require it to respond to farmers' requests before crews are needed.

'Crops can't wait on paperwork,' he said. 'DOL is routinely failing to approve applications 30 days prior to the day farmers need workers. That delay, coupled with delays occurring at USCIS, places farmers in an impossible situation.'

An estimated 583,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators on the nation's farms and ranches during the week of Jan. 10-16, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. For the week of April 10-16, 703,000 workers were hired.

Wage rates for hired workers in the Southern Plains averaged $11.83 per hour; nationally, the average wage was $12.83 per hour.

Seasonal farm labor is a necessity, from the truck farms of South Texas to the big farms of California.

Back in 1977, the Standard-Times assigned me to Presidio in Far West Texas to investigate complaints from some 45 to 50 local farmers as they were in the midst of harvesting onions, chili peppers and cantaloupes with no laborers.

As soon as illegal Mexican workers were in the fields, the United States Border Patrol descended and transported them back across the Rio Grande.

As a result, some $15,000 worth of peppers was scratched on the production calendar as lost in one field alone. Weeds were growing two-feet high in the crops.

Workers would cultivate the crops by hand. They pulled the weeds by hand or used a small knifelike tool to cut the weeds out when pulling them would destroy the fruit plant. In the case of cantaloupes, the vines required turning periodically and removal from irrigation ditches so the developing melons would not be in a pool of water and the bottoms rot.

The story was told in Washington by West Texas representatives and finally at the White House. Jimmy Carter snapped the bureaucratic red tape and on the heels of a presidential decision, Mexican farm workers came back across the Rio Grande in time to save the cantaloupes that year.

Fast forward to this spring when Duvall repeated American Farm Bureau's call for Congress to pass responsible immigration reform that provides farmers' access to a legal and stable workforce. He also outlined possible solutions to the challenge, including modernizing agency H-2A approval procedures. He said DOL and USCIS both rely on sending documents to farmers by regular mail, which he called 'unacceptable in 2016.'

Processing and procedural delays, such as the government's use of U.S. mail instead of electronic communications, are leading to losses from unharvested crops, Duvall said.

Farmers and ranchers receive only 16 cents out of every dollar spent on food at home and away from home. The rest goes for costs beyond the farm gate: wages and materials for production, processing, marketing, transportation and distribution. Compare that to 1980 when farmers received 31 cents out of every dollar.

Jerry Lackey is the agriculture editor emeritus of the San Angelo Standard-Times. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net.
It would take something major to miss high school graduation and something major was happening in the life of Corbin Cabrera the day his Cooper High School classmates walked the stage.

Instead of hearing his name called May 28 at the Taylor County Coliseum, Corbin was in Washington, D.C., participating in a program for people who lost a loved one in battle.

Lt. Col. David Cabrera, Corbin's father, was killed in a suicide bombing incident in Afghanistan Oct. 29, 2011, just a month after arriving with his Army unit.

Corbin knew for a long time that his high school graduation would fall on the same weekend as the annual meeting of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), which was founded in 1994 to offer support to people who lost a loved one in military service.

He also knew for a long time that he would choose the TAPS meeting, his third consecutive time to attend and his last as the one on the receiving end. Beginning next year, Corbin will serve as a mentor at the camp, which is held Memorial Day weekend every year. He didn't even have to give his decision much thought.

'I was going to miss graduation for TAPS no matter what,' he said.

As it turned out, Corbin and two other graduating seniors at the TAPS camp didn't miss out entirely. Thanks to Corbin's mentor, a man he admires and wants to model his service after, something special happened at the three-day camp.

Daniel Davenport, a 31-year-old staff sergeant in the Army, was paired with Corbin two years ago, Corbin's first year to attend the camp. Davenport, who is assigned to the White House Communications Agency, knew Corbin would be graduating this year  he just didn't realize it was the same weekend as the TAPS camp.

He called Corbin in Abilene, wanting to know when the graduation would be so that he could attend. He couldn't believe what he heard.

'It was surprising,' Davenport said of the coinciding dates.

Davenport started checking with other mentors and found out that three of the 18 seniors at the camp would be missing graduation. He got on the phone with TAPS officials and told them they had to do something extra for those campers.

'That's like a pillar in everyone's life,' Davenport said of high school graduation.

So, when the graduating seniors arrived for camp, they learned that each of the three days would feature something special just for them. They had a luau party, they got special T-shirts and caps and gowns.

'We had a walking-across-the stage ceremony,' Davenport said.

Once Corbin returned home to Abilene, he got his Cooper High School diploma in the mail. He also 'graduated' out of the TAPS program. In the future, he will be a mentor like Davenport. And, he has the full backing of Davenport, someone he plans to stay in touch with the rest of his life.

'I think he's going to do great,' Davenport said.

Also attending the TAPS camp were Corbin's mother, Angela Cabrera, and his sister, Gillian Cabrera, who will be a senior at Cooper in the fall. This was the first year for them to attend and they were impressed with what they saw.

'It's nice being around people who have gone through the same thing we have,' Gillian said.

Corbin and Gillian were students at Madison Middle School in 2011, the year their father was killed. Their parents had divorced in 2000 and it was their father's wife who called and left a message for Angela to get in touch.

'I could tell by her voice that something was wrong,' Angela recalled. 'I don't know if she had to say the words.'

Corbin and Gillian, 13 and 12 at the time, also knew something was wrong when their mother returned the call, even though she did so in the privacy of her bedroom.

'We kind of knew what had happened,' Corbin said, but they thought one of their grandparents had died, not their father.

A casualty officer and a chaplain from the Army soon arrived at their doorstep to begin the grief process and to assist as they could. The family chose Arlington National Cemetery for the burial, although that wouldn't take place until June 2012, following several memorial services in various places.

David Cabrera was a 1992 graduate of Texas A&M University, with a degree in psychology. He later earned a degree in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington and found a job in Florida. That was followed by joining the Army in 1996, serving as a psychologist.

After basic training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Cabrera was assigned to a stint in Germany. Corbin was born there in 1998 and Gillian in 1999. The year Gillian was born, they were transferred to Fort Lewis in Washington state. Following the divorce in 2000, Angela and the two children returned to Abilene, home of Angela's parents, Jim and Mary Pizzorno.

Two years ago, the family learned about TAPS and Corbin agreed to attend the camp. He wasn't enthusiastic about it to begin with, thinking it would be 'stupid,' but that changed quickly.

'I went,' he said, 'and I loved it.'

The three-day 'Good Grief' camp mixes fun outings with group sessions where the youngsters learn how to cope with the loss of a parent. Nothing is held back. The youngsters are encouraged to talk about their experience, helping themselves and one another.

'It just gets everything out there,' Corbin said.

Another benefit Corbin learned about through TAPS is a scholarship available to all children of someone killed in action. The scholarship, named for Marine Gunnery Sgt. John D. Fry, covers up to $17,500 in state tuition, an allowance of up to $1,000 a year for books, a stipend, and 36 months of benefits.

Corbin will use his scholarship at Texas A&M, following in his dad's footsteps. He plans to major in business and minor in psychology, eventually earning a doctorate in psychology. Because of his own experience, he plans to work with children who have lost a parent in the military.

He will get some experience mentoring those children beginning next Memorial Day weekend, when he will return to Washington, D.C., as a mentor with TAPS. He wants to connect with a child and continue that connection for a lifetime, like the one he has with his mentor.

'The connection is really the best thing,' he said of his TAPS experience.

Gillian Cabrera understands that sentiment and already sees herself following in her brother's footsteps. Cooper High School graduation is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, May 27, 2017, the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend.

Like her brother, Gillian will just have to get her high school diploma in the mail.

'I'm going to TAPS,' she said.
DEAR ABBY: I have fought obesity all of my adult life, and my weight has yo-yoed over the years. My problem is, when I go to the doctor's office and I am taken to the exam area, the scale is right out in the open where other patients come and go as well as all the office personnel.

Mind you, I don't care if I am weighed in the presence of people walking around  if they don't peek. However, when the medical assistant is done weighing me, she reads the scale out loud. I have felt humiliated when other patients are walking past. I have put up with this for years.

Recently, this medical assistant weighed me and I just knew she was going to "announce" my weight. This time there was a man I could tell was a patient, standing nearby at the reception window staring intently at me getting weighed. Because I was sure the M.A. was going to say it out loud, I started to cough to try to muffle the sound of her voice. It worked, but then she acted irritated because of my coughing, so she repeated it loudly. I was very embarrassed, to say the least. When the doctor saw me, I was afraid to say anything as I didn't want to get anybody in trouble.

I graduated from a medical assistant school many years ago and I remember the registered nurse who was our instructor taught us to never say out loud somebody's weight when you weigh him or her. It only makes common sense. I no longer want to go back to that doctor's office.

Do you have any advice for me when this happens again? I say again because it happens at other doctor's offices I visit as well. I am at a loss here. I would appreciate your input.

 Still Stinging In Nevada

DEAR STILL STINGING: The first time it happened, you should have quietly mentioned to the medical assistant that she embarrassed you, and asked her please not to do it again. When it happened a second time, you should have spoken to the doctor about it. You are far from the only person who is sensitive about weight. If I were that physician, I'd certainly want to know why patients were disappearing from my practice. Wouldn't you?

DEAR ABBY: I do a lot of home canning, and last year our farm was very profitable. I canned more than 300 jars of jellies, juices, apple sauce and soups. I gave many of these away as gifts.

My dilemma is, most of the time no one gives me the jars back. Canning jars are the most expensive part of canning. Would you please help me get the word out to return the jars when they are empty?

 Debbie In Derby, N.Y.

DEAR DEBBIE: I'm glad to put out the word. But don't you think it would be more effective if you simply asked that the jars be returned if the recipients want to continue receiving these generous gifts from you? Attaching a "Please return to (blank)" label might help.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign

Affairs and International Cooperation Prak Sokhon (Source: VNA)



He made the statement during his talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi on June 22nd.

The talks were part of the official visit of the Cambodian minister to Vietnam from June 21st-23rd at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

The two foreign ministers shared the view that the recent State to Cambodia by President Tran Dai Quang has contributed to strengthening and lifting the bilateral relationship to a new height.

They agreed to coordinate closely to make thorough preparations for visits by the two countries leaders and continued exchange of visits in the foreseeable future.

As 2017 marks the 50th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties, both sides vowed to work closely with ministries, agencies and localities to hold celebrations.

Host and guest expressed their delight at the rapid and effective development of bilateral links across the fields from politics-diplomacy and national defence-security to economy, trade and investment, as well as the effective operation of cooperation mechanisms, including the 14th meeting of the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Committee on Economic, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Cooperation.

They hailed the two countries agencies for overcoming difficulties to accelerate the progress of planting border markers, adding that the work should be completed as soon as possible to build a borderline of peace, friendship, sustainable cooperation and development.

Deputy PM Minh asked Cambodia to provide all possible support for Vietnamese nationals living in the country, contributing to reinforcing the traditional neighbourly friendship between the two countries.

He also suggested the Cambodian Foreign Ministry offer more favorable policies to Vietnamese investors in Cambodia, including granting certificates of land use and concluding negotiations on the double taxation avoidance agreement, toward lifting two-way trade to USD5 billion.

The two sides agreed to maintain close cooperation and coordination of viewpoints at regional and global forums, while increasing collaboration with other ASEAN member states to consolidate ASEANs solidarity, unity and central role, for the sake of peace, security, stability and cooperation in the region and the world.

On the East Sea issue, the two sides shared the view that disputes should be solved by peaceful means without using or threatening to use force in line with widely-accepted principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), while abiding to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and working towards the early formulation of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Both sides also committed to continue working closely together and with other members of the International Mekong River Commission to ensure the sustainable management and use of Mekong River water resources and promote Mekong  Lancang cooperation./.
In Cisco, you can have your pie and eat it, too. Or three. Or more ...

Greg Jaklewicz
SAN ANGELO  Police are searching for the person or people responsible for destroying San Angelo's Sept. 11, 2001 monument and stealing a piece of steel on the memorial that came from the World Trade Center.

The monument, near Celebration Bridge on the Concho River, is unusual because it is one of the few in Texas that had a piece of steel from ground zero in New York City, according to a San Angelo Police Department news release.

The monument was dedicated Sept. 8, 2003, in memory of those who died.

Several community events occurred near the monument over the weekend, and police believe that someone in attendance may have witnessed the incident, the release stated.
Word from the recent Texas Democratic convention in San Antonio is that Donald Trump is doing something far better than Hillary Clinton: uniting the often fractious Texas Democrats.

Trump, the New York real estate mogul, star of reality TV, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has infuriated Hispanics, Muslims, and a considerable number of Republicans as well.

On Friday, June 17, while the Democratic convention was underway, Trump included San Antonio as part of a Texas fundraising swing, sandwiched between fundraisers and hastily called rallies in Dallas and Houston.

His appearance in the heavily Hispanic city, a few miles from where the Democratic meeting in the Alamodome, drew about 500 mostly peaceful anti-Trump protesters outside his rally.

Trump has repeatedly charged that undocumented immigrants coming across the southern border of the United States include murderers and rapists. He has repeatedly called for deporting some 11 million undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America.

In addition, Trump charged that a federal district judge in California, Gonzalo Curiel, in whose court Trump and Trump University are on trial for bilking students, is biased against him because the judge's parents came from Mexico, and Trump wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Judge Curiel was born in Indiana.

Trump also drew fire in the wake of the mass murder in Orlando, Florida, at a gay night club, in the early morning of June 12. The shooter was Omar Mateen, 29, who was raised by emigrants to the U.S. from Afghanistan.

Trump's first statement on Twitter hours after the shooting boasted of his prediction about more violent attacks by Muslims.

'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!'

That drew immediate condemnation by many critics, including the Clinton campaign and several Republicans, who said it showed how Trump would react in a crisis situation.

The critics also pointed out that while Mateen was raised by immigrants to the United States from Afghanistan, he was a U.S. citizen, born in Queens, New York  Trump's birthplace.

According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, Trump has an impressive 70 percent negative rating among voters, said to be an record for a major-party presidential nominee in American politics.

It is also a condition that helps lessen the impact for Democrats of Clinton's negative rating being almost as high, at 55 percent.

After Texas Democrats have suffered a drought of more than two decades without winning statewide offices, they're more than ready to see Texas turn back into a blue state.

Garry Mauro was among the last Democrats to hold statewide office  land commissioner for 16 years  but lost badly to then-Gov. George W. Bush for governor in 1998.

Mauro, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton since they oversaw Texas for the Democratic presidential ticket of George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in 1972, is heading up her campaign in Texas.

He warned fellow Democrats just before the state convention to be realistic about their wish that Texas could go for the Democrats this year.

Texas hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential race since Jimmy Carter's race in 1976, and despite Clinton's expressed hope recently that she might carry the state this year, that's highly unlikely, Mauro said.

'We're not a battleground state,' Mauro emphasized. 'You're not going to see the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton spending $100 million in Texas to make us a battleground state.'

The high negatives of the two major-party candidates are helping fuel something of a boomlet for a third party that should be on ballots in every state  the socially liberal and fiscally conservative Libertarian Party.

Its presidential nominee is Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico (1995-2003).

Johnson, also the party's standard-bearer in 2012, got 0.99 percent of the vote nationally, and 1.11 percent in Texas.

This time around, he had asked the Libertarians to nominate as his running mate another former Republican governor: William Weld of Massachusetts (1991-1997). The convention delegates narrowly granted his request.

Johnson has lobbied polling operations to include him in their polls  part of an effort to achieve the 15 percent polling support needed to participate in televised presidential debates before the Nov. 8 general election.

Recent polls show Clinton anywhere from 5 to 12 percentage points ahead of Trump. A Bloomberg poll on June 14 that included Libertarian Johnson showed Clinton with 49 percent, Trump with 37, and Johnson with 9.

We'll find out if Clinton can sustain her edge, Trump can find some general election footing, and whether the Libertarian hopefuls' status as the none-of-the-above alternative to the major-party candidates help them do significantly better than in the past.

Email Dave McNeely at davemcneely111@gmail.com.
Last year's deal to lift economic sanctions against Iran, in return for a lengthy suspension of the Iranian nuclear program, had many pros and cons.

But in at least one respect  trade  the deal only has an upside. Iran has a huge, pent-up demand for manufactured goods, consumer staples and oil field services as the result of sanctions and decades of isolation from the West. It also has oil, lots of it.

Iran provides a vast export market for everything from machine parts to smartphones. Its oil reserves, estimated at 157 million barrels, will help hold down gasoline prices at the pump for American consumers.

A lot, apparently, at least to a group of Republican lawmakers. They've set out to scuttle a plan, announced Tuesday by Boeing, to sell 100 jetliners to Iran for the tidy sum of $25 billion. They've sent a letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg imploring him to walk away from the deal. They're also hoping that the Treasury Department will nix the transaction.

This is the ultimate counterproductive behavior. Whatever one might think of the Iran nuclear deal, it won't be reversed by attacking one of its undeniable benefits.

Airbus, Boeing's European competitor, Airbus, already has reached an even bigger deal with Iran than Boeing has. And, with minimal opposition to the nuclear deal in Europe, other companies there are racing ahead to be among the first in the door to the Iranian market.

If Boeing were to be denied, Iran would simply buy more planes from Airbus. And if General Electric, said to be in talks to sell oil field equipment, were to be told it couldn't go forward, Iran would simply turn to European or Asian competitors.

It is not clear how the West should engage Iran, even after the conclusion of the nuclear deal. While the Islamist nation has shut down its enrichment program and met its obligations under the nuclear accord, it has pressed forward with a worrisome ballistic missile program. It also has a long history of supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups.

That said, trying to keep Tehran in a state of economic isolation hardly seems the best solution. In fact, intertwining Iran's economy with the economies of Europe and America might be one of the best approaches for attempting to coax it out of its belligerent ways.

Those opposing Boeing's sale argue against any deal they say would subsidize a terrorism-supporting regime. They also point out that Iran's national carrier, Iran Air, is largely owned by the government and has been used to transport arms.

This view is shortsighted. Iran does not need expensive, fuel-efficient, state-of-the art civilian aircraft to ferry arms. It has a fleet of planes it could use to those ends. And it could always acquire others.

Boeing should be allowed to go forward, for the sake of engaging Iran and for the sake of creating jobs in America.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff.
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Aung San Suu Kyi met with a few hundred migrant workers from Myanmar during a visit to Thailand on Thursday, while thousands of others waited in the rain outside the factory where she spoke hoping she would address the crowd.

Myanmars de facto national leader, who also holds the positions of state counselor, foreign minister, and minister of the Presidents Office, met for about 45 minutes with migrant laborers in the Mahachai district of central Thailands Samut Sakhon province outside Bangkok.

She is visiting Thailand in her capacities as foreign minister and state counselor.

Aung San Suu Kyi made the stop in Mahachai as part of an official three-day visit to the neighboring country, where she will meet with Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha on Friday and sign an agreement that will make it easier for Myanmar migrants to work legally in Thailand.

Burmese people have to live in Thailand as guests, and as such, the hosts will respect the guests, she told the fewer than 500 migrant workers inside the building. The Myanmar embassy must help Burmese workers in Thailand.

Aung San Suu Kyi also told the migrant laborers that she was trying to secure proper identification documents for them to work legally in Thailand.

We are trying to make sure our citizens obtain their fundamental rights granted by the laws of this country, she said.

The chosen few

Thirteen Thailand-based activist groups for workers arranged for roughly 500 migrant workers to attend a question-and-answer session with Aung San Suu Kyi inside the factory.

But those who attended were chosen by their Thai bosses, said Htoo Chit, executive director of the Thailand-based migrant rights group Foundation for Education and Development.

We thought one or two representatives from the 13 Thailand-based activist groups for workers that arranged for the migrant laborers to see Aung San Suu Kyi would have a chance to attend the meeting, he said. But it seems only the workers who were chosen by Thai bosses attended.

The workers who are really suffering couldnt see Aung San Suu Kyi, he said. Thats why a lot of workers are in front of the hall and are showing their dissatisfaction.

The discussion was limited partly because those allowed to attend the meeting earn the official minimum wage and have acceptable work conditions, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Authorities in Thailand, which has fallen under military dictatorship during the same period that Myanmar has emerged from army rule, prevented labor rights groups from submitting documents to Aung San Suu Kyi about labor rights violations experienced by migrant workers from Myanmar, the report said.

Keep them in line

Meanwhile, hundreds of Thai security personnel were stationed to keep in line thousands of others who waited in the pouring rain for a glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi, as they chanted her name, waved Myanmar flags, and sang the countrys national anthem.

Aung San Suu Kyis office released a statement saying that the state counselor knows very well about the problems that Myanmar migrant workers face in Thailand, and that she was disappointed she could not greet all those who waited for her in heavy rain.

Many migrant workers in Thailandespecially those in the country illegallyare at risk of being trafficked as sex workers or for slave-like labor on fishing boats.

Granting the largely undocumented Myanmar workforce in Thailand permanent status has been the subject of negotiations between the two countries.

But the memorandum of understanding that Aung San Suu Kyi will sign with Prayuth includes provisions to provide proper identity documents for migrant workers and assurances they will be protected from any labor abuses.

Myanmar puts the number of migrant workers living in Thailand at 4 million, with only half legally registered to work there, while Thailands Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare puts the number at more than 1.4 million.

Also on Thursday, Thai authorities abruptly prevented human rights groups from holding a news conference in the Thai capital Bangkok on the plight of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims, saying that the groups could violate the law by causing unrest, international newswire services reported.

Rights groups have criticized Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) government for not doing enough to help the stateless and persecuted Rohingya in western Myanmars Rakhine state, whom the Buddhist majority considers illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Rohingya Muslim men and boys arrive for Friday prayers at a camp in Sittwe, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, June 10, 2016. AFP Plight of the Rohingya

Aung San Suu Kyis visit to Thailand coincides with a 12-day mission by Yanghee Lee, the United Nations envoy for human rights in Myanmar, who visited Rohingya living in refugee camps in Rakhines Sittwe township.

Lee is on her fourth trip to Myanmar to observe the countrys human rights situation especially that of the minority Rohingya Muslims, and to collect information for a report she will submit to the U.N. in September.

About 120,000 Rohingya live in the camps, forced there following communal violence with Rakhine Buddhists four years ago that left more than 200 dead and tens of thousands homeless.

When Lee met with Rohingya in the camps, they told her about the plight of refugees in Rakhine and the impoverished states need for development.

Muslim leaders asked her to help remedy the denial of their rights to social services and education, freedom of movement, and business operations.

Lee also met with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists who voiced concerns over her visit, saying that she favors the Rohingya.

We asked her to submit a fair report with opinions from both sides, said Kaung San Shee, a Rakhine community leader in Sittwe. We also asked her to understand the feelings of local Rakhine ethnics.

I think it was beneficial to meet with her because we could explain the situation in the state, he said.

Since Lees last trip to Myanmar in August 2015, the NLD government, which came to power in April, has created a committee to work on peace and development in Rakhine.

It also plans to spend more than 70 billion kyats (U.S. $5.9 million) to finance goods and services that promote human resources there.

USDP weighs in

Nevertheless, the government has stirred up controversy by ordering state media not to use the divisive term Rohingya during Lees visit, and to use the phrase Muslim community in Rakhine instead.

On Thursday, the former ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) weighed in on the matter, issuing a statement pointing out that it had clearly objected to the use of the term Rohingya, and saying that the current administration should have obtained consent from the ethnic Rakhine people before mandating the use of Muslim community in Rakhine.

The statement also urged the NLD government to resolve the problem by using a phrase that is in accordance with Article 364 of the 2008 constitution, which forbids the abuse of religion for political purposes and places restrictions on political activities and ethnic groups that have an impact on freedom of religion.

When the USDP ruled Myanmar from 2011 to the end of last March, it did not include the Rohingya on the countrys official list of ethnic groups and refused to accept the term because the majority Buddhists in Rakhine rejected it, the statement said.

Attempts by RFAs Myanmar Service to contact members of the USDPs media office for comment were unsuccessful.

Reported by Min Thein Aung and Wai Mar Tun RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Russia continues to strike targets across Ukraine, causing damage and killing civilians, as its forces are preparing for battle in the strategic southern region of Kherson, Ukrainian officials and the military said.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Ukraine on October 26 reiterated its call for the development of an air-defense system to repel the Russian missile and drone attacks.

The immediate delivery of a sufficient number of air-defense systems is urgently needed to repel "Russian missile terror," the head of the president's office, Andriy Yermak, said after talks with the national-security advisers of the United States, Britain, and France in Kyiv on October 26.

On October 25, the head of U.S. aerospace and defense corporation Raytheon Technologies told CNBC television that Washington has already delivered to Ukraine the first two NASAMS medium-range antiaircraft missile systems.

We delivered two systems to the U.S. government a few weeks ago. They are currently being deployed in Ukraine," Greg Geis said.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said early on October 26 that more than 40 settlements were hit by Russian strikes during the previous day.



Russia used a combination of air strikes, rockets, and missiles to hit Ukrainian targets, the General Staff said in its morning report.



In the central city of Dnipro, at least two people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in the Russian bombardment, regional Governor Valentyn Reznichenlo said.

In the southern city of Kherson, Russian forces are digging in for the "heaviest of battles," said Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive has driven Russian forces back in the region, where the provincial capital of Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the invasion eight months ago.

"With Kherson, everything is clear. The Russians are replenishing, strengthening their grouping there," Arestovych said in an online video late on October 25.

Russia-installed authorities are evacuating residents to the east bank of the Dnieper River as Russian forces prepare to defend the city, he said.

"It means that nobody is preparing to withdraw. On the contrary, the heaviest of battles is going to take place for Kherson," he said.

Zelenskiy on October 25 reiterated a pledge to retake the city of Kherson, the loss of which would be a big setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Of the four Ukrainian provinces partially occupied by Russia that Putin proclaimed to have seized last month, Kherson is arguably the most strategically important.

It controls the only land route to the Crimea region that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnieper River that that bisects Ukraine.



Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Russia on October 25 that the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine would be an "incredibly serious mistake."

Moscow over the weekend claimed Ukraine is preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory, drawing immediate dismissal from the United States and other countries that have backed Ukraine.

Kyiv and its allies suspect Russia might have made the claim to set up a "false flag" attack in which it would use a dirty bomb itself but would blame the attack on Ukraine and use it to justify the use of conventional nuclear weapons by Moscow.



"Let me just say Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake were it to use a tactical nuclear weapon." Biden told reporters. "I cannot guarantee you that it is a false flag operation yet. We dont know. But it would be a serious mistake."

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented no evidence for the claim when he spoke on October 23 with his counterparts from several NATO countries, including Britain, France, and the United States, who dismissed the claim after the series of calls.

WATCH: Speaking to Current Time in Riga on October 22, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot change the course of war in Ukraine by dropping nuclear bombs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 26 that Russia would "vigorously" continue to make the case to the international community that it believed Ukraine intended to detonate a dirty bomb with radioactive contaminants.

Peskov told reporters Moscow wanted to prompt an active response from the international community.

A dirty bomb would use a conventional warhead to create an explosion that would spread radioactive, biological, or chemical materials over an area.

Moscow took its accusations against Ukraine to the UN Security Council on October 25, and the country's UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said afterward that Russia was "satisfied because we raised the awareness."

Speaking to reporters, he added: "I don't mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn't happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth."



The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said earlier on October 25 that it is preparing to send inspectors to two Ukrainian sites in the coming days in reaction to Ukraine's request for an inspection following Russia's claims.



Enerhoatom, Ukraines nuclear energy operator, issued a statement on October 24 voicing its concern that Russias statements may indicate that Russia is preparing an act of nuclear terrorism.

Russian troops have occupied Ukraines Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, since March. It is still run by Ukrainian engineers though Russia claimed after its illegal annexation of the Zaporizhzhya region that it is on Russian territory.

Enerhoatom said that Russian forces have carried out unauthorized, secret construction work over the last week at the plant in the area of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility.

Russian officers controlling the area wont give access to Ukrainian staff or monitors from the IAEA that would allow them to see what they are doing, the operator said.

Enerhoatom added that it assumes the Russians are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at the plant.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, BBC, and Reuters
MINSK -- A civil rights activist in Belarus, Tamara Syarhey, says she was forcibly taken to a police station on June 23 without being charged in order to prevent her from attending a protest rally in Minsk.

Syarhey told RFE/RL by telephone while in police custody on June 23 that several plainclothes police detained her in the morning near her home as she tried to travel to a pensioners' rally against "lawlessness in Belarus courts."

Syarhey said the men forced her into a police car and brought her to a police station.

She said they explained that she was detained as a result of a lawsuit she filed in May against the chief of the Minsk City Police, Alyaksandr Barsukou.

Syarhey was still being held by police hours after being detained.

She said her detention was illegal because it violated her right to free movement.
The chairman of Belarus's KGB says investigations have been launched into the activities of 138 Belarusian citizens who are thought to have been combatants in Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

KGB chief Valeriy Vakulchik said on June 23 that the suspects are thought to have fought alongside Ukrainian government forces as well as on the side of Russia-backed separatists.

Vakulchik said all 138 suspects will be charged with fighting in a foreign country as a hired mercenary.

In April, Belarus adopted a law that made it illegal for Belarusians to fight as mercenaries in foreign military conflicts.

Dozens of Belarusian citizens, along with hundreds of citizens from other former Soviet republics, have joined Russia-backed separatists or Ukrainian government forces as mercenary fighters in eastern Ukraine since Moscow's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014.

More than 9,300 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
Ukrainians have increasingly woken up to the sound of suicide drones as Russia turns to Iranian-made imports to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Now they may have another deadly Iranian weapon to worry about -- ballistic missiles.

Cheap but effective, Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 "kamikaze" drones have already made a deadly impact in Ukraine.



If U.S. intelligence assessments pan out, Russia will soon be able to supplement its use of Iranian suicide drones and its own cruise and ballistic missiles with powerful short-range Iranian Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missiles.



Coming as the Kremlin is reportedly struggling to maintain its depleted stockpile of aerial weapons as it ramps up strikes, the missiles would potentially boost Russia's ability to continue its costly air campaign.



Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East defense specialist at the global intelligence company Janes, said having more missiles gives Russia the ability to sustain the bombardment against Ukraine."



Going Ballistic



The Fateh-110, which was unveiled in 2001 and has a stated range of 300 to 500 kilometers, was developed from a heavy artillery rocket dating from the 1980s. To increase the weapon's accuracy, the Fateh-110 was given a guidance system and movable fins that allow it to be steered as it approaches its target.



The Zolfaghar, which debuted in 2016 and also has guidance capabilities, comes from the same family as the Fateh-110 but boasts a much longer range due to its use of a lighter carbon-fiber airframe and a smaller warhead.



Binnie said the Zolfaghar's use against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in eastern Syria confirmed that the missile was capable of reaching at least 650 kilometers, which he said is "a statement of how much the Iranian tactical missile program has really advanced over the years."



Iran's claim that the Zolfaghar can travel even farther -- up to 700 kilometers -- would put the western Ukrainian city of Lviv within range of strikes launched from Russian territory, while the more powerful Fateh-110 could potentially hit the city from Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for Russian attacks.



While there has been no indication that Russia plans to purchase launching systems from Iran, Binnie suggests that the Russian military could pair the missiles with existing equipment because the Iranian launchers were adapted from a Soviet-era system.



"It might be possible for the Russians to quickly adapt some old equipment they have lying around into launch systems," Binnie said.



The Iranian military, he added, fitted the Soviet system to trucks, allowing for mobility and concealment.



"Those civilian trucks can be covered over to make it hard to spot that they're actually missile launchers," Binnie said.



'Lawnmowers' And 'Mopeds'



Iranian military drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been homing in on targets across Ukraine since late August, according to the United States.



The buzzing sound of the Iranian Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones, built with off-the-shelf components, have earned them derisive monikers such as "lawnmowers" and "mopeds." But the slow-moving, low-flying drones, which are maneuvered to crash into their target, have proven themselves capable of hitting their mark both in terms of military effectiveness and cost.

It is capable of extracting or delivering attrition and damage when launched, but it costs little compared to other UAVs that Russia has in its own arsenal," said Samuel Bendett of the Virginia-based Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).

Ukraine alleges Russia has ordered 2,400 of the Iranian suicide drones, and its military has claimed to have shot them down in great numbers, often using conventional anti-aircraft guns or even small-arms fire. But their ability to be launched in bunches of five -- often from the cover of civilian trucks -- improves their chances of reaching their target.



"The Ukrainians are stopping most of these, but the whole point of these drones is that they fly in a large mass," Bendett said. "The air defense does not always catch all of them. All it takes is for several or even one to make it through."

The estimated range of the Shahed-136 varies, but Iran says it is capable of traveling 2,500 kilometers. The slightly smaller and older Shahed-131, which has been used by Huthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi targets in the Arabian Peninsula, has been estimated to have a range of 900 kilometers, according to tests conducted by the Ukrainian military.



Ukraine's Defense Ministry has published multiple images of downed Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks, and the Ukrainian National Guard on October 19 claimed to have shot down a Shahed-131.



Ukraine has also claimed to have shot down a more advanced Iranian combat UAV, the Mojer-6 drone capable of carrying out both reconnaissance missions and aerial strikes within a range of 200 kilometers. There have also been reports of Russian interest in obtaining Irans Shahed-129 and Shahed-191 combat drones.



"When launched from any territory that Russia controls or is allied with -- anywhere from the south, from the Donbas, from Belarus -- they're able to strike a lot of Ukrainian targets," Bendett said.

In addition to the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia will soon boost its arsenal with Iranian ballistic missiles, as first reported by The Washington Post on October 16, the White House on October 20 said that Iranians are now "directly engaged on the ground" in Moscows war against Ukraine after sending "a relatively small number" of personnel from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to assist Russian forces in using the Iranian drones.

Iran has denied sending combat drones to Russia, and Moscow has rejected claims that it is using Iranian UAVs.

Images of downed Iranian drones appear to show that they have been rebranded to look Russian-made, experts say, with the markings in Cyrillic naming them as the Geran-1 (the Shahed-131) and Geran-2 (the Shahed-136).

Observers are widely skeptical of Russia's denials, noting that the drones are essentially identical right down to the font of the serial numbers. Even Russian Defense Ministry experts have unwittingly admitted that the suicide drones are Iranian.



But the rebranding of the drones to make them appear to be Russian has opened the possibility that Moscow could, if it is not already doing so, seek to manufacture or assemble the Iranian drones on its own territory.



Sustaining A Campaign



The new aerial weaponry fits well with the Russian military's renewed focus on striking military and civilian targets far from the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine. The air assault has ratcheted up following the October 8 appointment of Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, a former Aerospace Forces commander, to lead the Russian war effort.



Just days after Surovikin's appointment, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in February. Moscow said the drone and missile strikes, which targeted civilian areas and infrastructure in cities throughout Ukraine, were in response to a bomb blast that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

While the Kremlin has accused Ukraine's intelligence services of carrying out the "terrorist" attack on the Crimea Bridge, Ukraine has denied responsibility.



Since the initial air assault in response to the bridge blast, Russia has continued to pound Ukrainian infrastructure, often targeting power plants in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said is a deliberate effort to wear down the Ukrainian people by denying them heat and electricity as winter approaches.



"Civilian infrastructure is obviously the new layer in this war. The Ukrainian economy is now the target, the Ukrainian population is now the target," Bendett said.



Hard To Stop



The hypersonic speed and high trajectory of Iran's Fateh-110s and Zolfaghars, should they arrive, would be extremely difficult for Kyiv to counter without a network of high-tech and costly antimissile batteries it currently does not possess.



Ukraine has repeatedly requested more advanced missile-defense systems from the West, and in the face of the threat of the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles reportedly sent an official request to Israel this week for components of its "Iron Dome" system.



While the United States has said that it is seeking to expedite the process of sending two U.S. air defense systems known as NASAMS, Washington has appeared reluctant to provide more advanced Patriot missile systems.



Janes' defense expert Binnie is skeptical that the delivery of the Patriot system, which has proven to be successful in shooting down ballistic missiles, is realistic for Ukraine.

"It's eye wateringly expensive and it's probably not really practical because each [missile] battery only covers one city," he said. "You would never get enough batteries to get the coverage you would want. You just wouldn't be able to find them, produce them, and train enough Ukrainians."
BRUSSELS -- Italy has once again delayed an attempt to extend the European Union's economic sanctions against Russia, despite an accord reached by EU diplomats earlier in the week for sanctions to be prolonged by another six months.

EU sources tell RFE/RL that Rome wants language included in the conclusions of the EUs June 28-29 summit before it signs off on the deal to extend the sanctions.

Italy wants the summit conclusions to acknowledge a commitment for Brussels to review Russian policy later in 2016.

On June 21, ambassadors from all 28 EU countries agreed to extend the sanctions, which were imposed over Russias occupation and illegal annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and Moscows support for pro-Russia separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Both the United Kingdom and France agreed to the extension, but only with a so-called parliamentary reserve. That means the ambassadors must first consult their national parliaments on the issue before signing off on the extension of sanctions.

Italy did not indicate any conditions during the June 21 meeting of EU ambassadors.

But Italy is now insisting on the inclusion of special language in the text of the EU summit conclusions.

That move is similar to what happened in December 2015 when Rome agreed to extend the current sanctions through the end of July.

EU diplomats told RFE/RL they have no doubt about the eventual extension of the sanctions, which target Russias banking and energy sectors as well as individuals in Russia.

But Italys latest demand means a final decision on extending the sanctions against Russia is likely to be postponed until after the gathering of EU leaders in late June.

The review of the EU's Russia policy is likely to be held in the autumn anyway, so it is a bit strange that they want this in writing, one EU source told RFE/RL.
The Pentagon announced it has sent a Yemeni prisoner from Guantanamo Bay to Montenegro in the first of a new round of releases from the U.S. base in Cuba.

U.S. officials cleared Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi for release in March 2014, but the Obama administration does not send Guantanamo prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war there. It took two years to find another government which would take in the former Al-Qaeda bodyguard.

Lee Wolosky, a special envoy at the U.S. State Department, said on June 22 that the United States is grateful Montenegro was willing to take in a second prisoner this year.

"Montenegro now joins other U.S. friends and allies in Europe in accepting multiple detainees for resettlement, bringing us closer to our shared goal of closing the facility," he told AP.

There are now 79 prisoners at Guantanamo, including 29 who have been cleared to be sent home or to other countries for resettlement.

Officials expect to release most of those cleared in the coming weeks, leaving mostly men who have been charged or convicted of war crimes or who authorities believe are too dangerous to release.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters


The times, they seem to be a-changin'

The vibe at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum was distinctively different this year, with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy making high-profile appearances.

The noises coming out of European capitals are also taking on a different tone, with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier calling for a phasing out of sanctions and decrying what he called NATO "warmongering"; Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz suggesting a rapprochement with Moscow; and Italy insisting on a formal review of the European Union's policy toward Russia before agreeing to extend sanctions.

Additionally, on the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, more than 100 German intellectuals penned an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling on her to "learn the lesson from this most terrible war" and "pursue a policy of mutual understanding with Russia."

And a recent poll by the Pew Research Center showed that a plurality of 48 percent of Europeans believe "having a strong economic relationship with Russia" is more important that "being tough" with Moscow in foreign-policy disputes.

Spooked by Brexit and the migrant crisis, many European politicians are increasingly concluding that a conflict on their eastern flank is the last thing they need. And lured by Kremlin cash, entrepreneurs and industrialists are chomping at the bit to get back to business as usual with Russia.

But here's the thing. Seeking to undermine European unity is business as usual for the Kremlin. It predated the Ukraine crisis and Moscow's current standoff with the West -- and it is not going to stop no matter what Brussels does now.

"The struggle against the European Union cannot end," Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, author of the books Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler And Stalin and Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning, said in a recent talk.

"If sanctions are ended tomorrow," Snyder added, Russia will not stop supporting and encouraging far-right leaders like France's Marine Le Pen and Britain's Nigel Farage.

"They won't stop inviting the Nazis of Europe to St. Petersburg for annual conferences. If sanctions stop tomorrow, all that stuff continues because the problem with Europe is fundamentally a domestic problem for Russia. The existence of Europe is a domestic problem for Russia."

Put another way, Vladimir Putin regime's problem isn't with what Europe is doing -- but with what Europe is.

Europe presents a transparent and democratic model of governance close to Russia's borders that directly challenges the authoritarian kleptocracy in the Kremlin.

The European Union provides a model of integration based on consensus that is far more appealing than Moscow's, which is based on coercion.

And the EU has a magnetic pull on Russia's neighbors, undermining Putin's dream of a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space.

And as long as that remains the case, as long as Europe remains Europe, Putin's war on Europe will continue.

Indeed, in a recent column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Breshidsky noted that despite Putin's efforts to charm the Europeans at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, "the Russian regime is not thawing, and there's no retreat from its geopolitical assertiveness or its dogged economic statism."

Nor is there any retreat from the active measures designed to sow division and discord in Europe.

These include efforts to manipulate the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom, providing covert -- and sometimes overt -- support to the far right and extreme left, and financing "alternative" online media outlets across the continent that aim to undermine faith in European institutions.

"As long as Putin is in power, they are not going to stop trying to undo the European Union," Snyder said.
MOSCOW -- Russian lawmakers, who are expected on June 24 to pass controversial antiterrorism legislation, have reportedly dropped the proposed bill's most contentious elements: a mechanism to strip certain Russians of their citizenship.

As it stands, however, the bill going before the State Duma still contains a raft of provisions that human rights watchdogs say are unconstitutional and land a major blow to privacy rights and freedom of conscience. If passed, they warn, it could still amount to the most egregious legislation passed by the outgoing legislature.

The legislation has been championed by United Russia lawmaker Irina Yarovaya and has won support from members of the ruling party. They argue that the measures are needed to combat the potent terrorism threat illustrated by the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in November by Islamic State militants.

The bill proposes beefing up punishments for extremism and terrorism, considerably ramps up state surveillance capabilities, criminalizes the act of not informing on other citizens with regard to certain crimes, restricts the activity of religious preachers, and increases the number of crimes 14-year-olds can be criminally prosecuted for.

Most controversially, the legislation had proposed stripping Russians holding dual citizenship of their Russian passports if they broke terrorism or extremism laws, or served in foreign armies, police forces, or even international organizations in which Russia is not represented.

This measure, however, was dropped on June 23, the day before the Duma was set to consider the legislation, according to TASS. The Russian news agency also reported that lawmakers removed a proposal that would have banned those condemned under terrorism or vaguely worded extremism legislation from leaving the country for a period of five years.

The State Duma was due to vote on the second and third readings of the bill on June 22, but those readings were delayed until June 24, the last day before the Duma's term ends ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

The legislation is somewhat of a swan song for this Duma, which was elected amid election-fraud allegations in December 2011 and whose activities have often been vilified by the liberal opposition.

"This is possibly, from a human rights viewpoint, the worst law passed by this chamber of the Russian parliament," said Tatyana Lokshina, the Russia program director for Human Rights Watch. "It is a final coup, in a sense."

"In the name of countering terrorism and extremism and of ensuring public safety, the law severely undermines the very fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression and freedom of conscience," she said. "It lacks the right to privacy. Even without the provision on removing citizenship, this is a disastrous law."

The legislation, if passed in its current form, would require telecoms operators to store all communications they handle -- including recordings of phone conversations and text messages -- for a period of six months and make them available to the authorities. All metadata must be stored for three years.

Encrypted messaging services such as Skype, Whatsapp, and Telegram would be required to turn over an encryption key to the authorities. Some Internet companies and unions, such as the 200-strong Association of Electronic Communications, have protested the sheer costs that such measures could entail, the lack of existing encryption keys in certain cases, and incursions on privacy.

The legislation also proposes to expand the number of crimes youths aged 14 or older can be criminally prosecuted for. These crimes range from international terrorism to participation in mass unrest, from hijacking a plane to receiving terrorist training.

Missionary activities -- such as preaching or circulating religious literature -- outside of registered prayer houses or places would be banned for those who represent churches and faiths not registered with the authorities.

The legislation would criminalize failing to inform the authorities about fellow citizens who have committed a crime or are planning a future crime if that crime is, for instance, international terrorism or armed rebellion. The stipulation is seen as a throwback to Soviet legislation, according to Lokshina, who said the measure would be highly problematic to implement, particularly in areas of the troubled North Caucasus.

The proposals have stirred passions among liberal opposition activists. On June 23, some Russian activists picketed the State Duma in protest against the bill with signs like: "Yarovaya and co., your laws contradict human rights and the main law of the country. Get your bills and backside out of my Duma."

Writing on Facebook, Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition lawmaker who has a reputation for publicly criticizing the Kremlin, said he would propose several amendments during readings of the antiterror legislation on June 24.

"This is the most important document that the State Duma has handled in recent months and even years," he wrote. "Of course, over this time there have many harmful, perhaps even criminal, legislative bills. But this one will become the cornerstone of parliament's work to destroy the country."
A Russian court has ordered that the chairman of the Quadra power company be held in custody for two months.

Moscow's Basmanny court issued the ruling on June 23, a day after Yevgeny Dod was detained on suspicion of awarding himself an excess bonus, worth 73 million rubles ($1.1 million) when he headed state power generator Rushydro.

A criminal case was also opened against Rushydro's chief accountant, Dmitry Finkel, who was also ordered to remain in custody until August 22.

Dod, a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin, was dismissed from his post at Rushydro in 2015 but was appointed as chairman of the Quadra power company in March.

Quadra is controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, whose businesses have come under intense official scrutiny in recent weeks.

Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS
A designer of Russia's new space center in the Far East has been convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on embezzlement charges.

A Moscow court's ruling against Sergei Ostrovsky, a senior engineer at the Russian Defense Ministry's Special Construction Directorate, was issued on June 22.

Ostrovsky pleaded not guilty and said he will appeal the verdict against him.

Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur region was built to reduce Moscow's reliance on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for launches of manned space flights.

But the project has been dogged by reports of corruption.

Several people involved in the planning and construction of the facility have been arrested on embezzlement and fraud charges in recent months.

The maiden launch at the Vostochny Cosmodrome was delayed by one day in April, leading to criticism by visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After that launch, one of the satellites sent into orbit by the rocket soon stopped functioning.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
Russia's troubled state development bank, Vnesheconombank (VEB), says it will restructure more than 200 billion rubles ($3.1 billion) in loans tied to the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

VEB CEO Sergei Gorkov said on June 23 that the bank will extend the maturity of the loans by 25 years to help borrowers meet repayments.

Gorkov also said the lender's board had approved the sale of VEB's 3.6 percent stake in gas giant Gazprom.

VEB has been crippled by a funding shortfall after it was hit with sanctions following Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

The bank is to receive 150 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) from the state budget in 2016 to repay foreign debts.

Economy Minister Aleksei Ulyukayev said on June 23 the bank may need 260 billion rubles ($4 billion) from the budget next year.

The cost of its bailout could reach 1.2 trillion rubles ($19 billion), according to government officials.

Based on reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Bloomberg
On the surface, change appears to be in the air.

The vibe at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum was distinctively different this year, with European President Jean-Claude Juncker, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in attendance.

The noises out of European capitals have also taken on a different tone, with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz calling for a rapprochement with Moscow.

With his economy reeling and his pivot to China flailing, Vladimir Putin is clearly seeking to court the Europeans.

And spooked by Brexit and the migrant crisis, Europeans are increasingly concluding that a conflict on their eastern flank is the last thing they need.

Many are chomping at the bit to get back to business as usual with Russia.

But here's the thing.

Even if Brussels ended sanctions and decided to make nice with Moscow tomorrow, the Putin regime would continue trying to undermine Europe.

For the Kremlin, that is business as usual.

Because the Putin regime's problem isn't with what Europe is doing -- but with what Europe is.

Europe presents a model of governance close to Russia's borders that directly challenges the authoritarian kleptocracy in the Kremlin.

The EU provides a model of integration based on consensus rather than coercion.

And the EU has a magnetic pull on Russia's neighbors, undermining Putin's dream of a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space.

And as long as that remains the case, as long as Europe remains Europe, Putin's war on Europe will continue.

Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.
ON MY MIND

Vladimir Putin this week set September 18 as the date for Russia's parliamentary elections and addressed the outgoing State Duma. And thus begins a new political season. The outcome of this autumn's vote is not in doubt. The Kremlin is pretty skilled at using administrative methods to get the result it wants. But that doesn't mean the election isn't important.

Even more so than presidential elections, State Duma elections have proven to be watershed moments in Vladimir Putin's Russia. The 1999 election marked the end of the Boris Yeltsin era and the true start of the Age of Putin. The 2003 elections marked the turn to a more tightly controlled system of "managed democracy." The 2007 elections were a transition to the brief era of the tandem. And the 2011 votes pointed to the breakdown of the old Putin system and led to the establishment of the current one.

If this pattern holds, this year's elections -- which are being played out amid a deep economic crisis and a costly conflict with the West -- should prove to be a watershed, as well.

I'll be discussing the upcoming political season and what it portends on this week's Power Vertical Podcast with guests Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies and Maxim Trudolyubov, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute. Be sure to tune in on June 24.

IN THE NEWS

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will lead the electoral list of the ruling United Russia party in elections to the State Duma in September.

The State Duma has removed provisions to strip the citizenship of Russians convicted of terrorism from a controversial antiterrorism bill.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is scheduled to meet senior Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov in Moscow today.

The International Weightlifting Federation said Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus face being banned from the Rio Olympics in August due to positive drug tests on samples from previous Olympics.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has come out against the International Olympic Committee's decision this week to allow Russian athletes who are drug-free to compete under their own flag in Rio.

The commander of the U.S. Army Europe says NATO would currently be unable to protect the Baltics against a Russian attack.

Russian authorities have detained Yevgeny Dod, the chairman of power company Quadra, and opened a criminal case against him.

WHAT I'M READING

The Ghosts Of 1996

Andrei Kolesnikov looks back at Russia's 1996 election and how it set the stage for Vladimir Putin's authoritarian regime.

"Those efforts to get Yeltsin elected look positively amateur compared to the electoral manipulations we see today. But we can see a direct line between the price paid back then for victory and subsequent developments. Modern Russias dishonest elections grew out of the experimentation of the 1990s," Kolesnikov writes.

"Another way in which Yeltsins victory of 1996 ultimately became a Pyrrhic one was that it legitimized the idea that there could be a controlled handover of power in Russia. This was later implemented when Yeltsin passed the 'scepter of the nation' to Putin. When you decide that its possible to control elections, then you can also impose a leader on the people. In this case, Vladimir Putin, the new young leader, was cynically constructed as the opposite image of his predecessor."

Requiem For Human Rights

Meduza has a nice rundown of what is in Russia's controversial "antiterrorism" bill that the State Duma is scheduled to vote on this week.

"The legislation would amend nearly a dozen different laws, broadly expanding the state's powers, tightening the controls placed on citizens and limiting the civil rights guaranteed by the Russian Constitution. If the legislation is approved (which is almost certain), Russia's authorities will gain the power to strip Russians of their citizenship, revoke the foreign travel rights of people convicted of reposting certain 'wrong' content online, and access every single telephone conversation and e-mail that crosses Russia's telecommunications lines."

The Kremlin's Taint

Political commentator Leonid Bershidsky has a strong and heartfelt column for Bloomberg on how the doping scandal and the Kremlin's general behavior is tainting all Russians.

"In a whole range of pursuits -- from business to culture -- Western partners want proof from Russians that they are not part of the Putin regime," Bershidsky writes.

"The IOC has formalized that feeling: Russians have been told to prove they're clean. It's assumed -- on the basis of plentiful data -- that the regime has corrupted those who live under it. As a Russian citizen, this stigma is hard for me to accept, but here are my choices: I can assume, as many Russians do, that the West hates my country and all its people, or I'm forced to prove that the Putin taint isn't on me. I understand why some see the latter option as humiliating, but I can't honestly support the former because I believe the regime to be rotten and worthy of condemnation. That doesn't mean the flag doesn't belong to me too."

Inconvenient Truths

Historian Nikitia Sokolov, executive director of the Yeltsin Foundation, has a piece in Intersection magazine (in Russian and English), about the "forgotten truths" about the start of World War II.

"Contemporary Russian officious propaganda has only slightly modified the Soviet stereotype taking into account its opportunistic needs. As a result, the traumatic experience of World War II in Russia as opposed to in Germany, for example, has not been lived through and reflected upon," Sokolov writes.

Kadyrov Country

In a piece in Yezhednevny Zhurnal, journalist and political commentator Igor Yakovenko writes that Russians are now living under the "yoke" of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Don't Forget Ukraine!

Melinda Haring, editor of the UkraineAlert at the Atlantic Council, has a piece on Europe's Short Memory And Ukraine's Long Crisis.

Fear And Terror

On the latest SRB Podcast, Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies explores the origins of Josef Stalin's Great Terror. Sean's guest is James Harris, a senior lecturer in modern European history at Leeds University and author of The Great Fear: Stalins Terror In The 1930s.
Turkmenistan's official policy of "positive neutrality" appears to have been slightly punctured, and the source of this perforation is Afghanistan.



RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, interviewed Allaberen Karyadar from the Fayzabad district of Afghanistan's Jowzjan Province. He had returned recently to Afghanistan from Turkmenistan. In fact, he came back earlier than planned "because the Taliban were attacking my village."



Karyadar added, "I came back and drove the Taliban out."



Driving the Taliban out is Karyadar's job. He is a commander of a local "Arbaky" force -- nominally, pro-government paramilitaries or local militias. There are mixed feelings about these groups inside Afghanistan.



So what was Arbaky commander Karyadar doing in Turkmenistan?



"I spent some days in the hospital, being treated by doctors," Karyadar said. He said he was not always at the hospital, though. He said he spent some time visiting "with friends" and, of course, there are some Afghan Turkmen now living in Turkmenistan.



Karyadar said he was in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, for "eye treatment." He was able to obtain a visa for the visit (and that is a very difficult feat, usually). The visa and the medical care were free.



And Karyadar was not the only person from Jowzjan who was in Turkmenistan. Karyadar said he "heard" the Qarqeen district police chief "Ayub" and another Arkbaky commander, Gurbandurdy, who we've met before in the Qishloq, were also in Turkmenistan. Also reportedly in Turkmenistan was another Arbaky commander from Jowzjan, Sapar Ra'is, and Rozi Bay, the police commander responsible for the highway that runs between Jowzjan and Faryab Province to the west.



Jowzjan borders Turkmenistan. The northern most part of the province actually protrudes into Turkmenistan and therefore is bounded by Turkmenistan on three sides.



Turkmenistan has so far attempted to avoid getting involved in Afghanistan's problems as much as possible. Turkmen officials have brought up the country's UN-recognized neutral status when speaking about the subject of Afghanistan. This shield of neutrality worked in the 1990s. It appears to have worked more recently, at least once, when some 70 to 80 armed Taliban met Turkmen border guards on an island in Amu-Darya in October 2015. On that occasion, the Turkmen border guards told the Taliban fighters they could come no further because Turkmenistan was a neutral country.



The Taliban respected the status that time. But in 2014, armed militants crossed the border into Turkmenistan and killed three border guards in February and three soldiers in May.



The Alternative Turkmenistan News website reported on June 8 that the bodies of 27 Turkmen border guards had been brought to the capitals of the Mary and Lebap provinces at the start of May for relatives to collect and bury. According to the report, which is not possible to confirm due to the opaque nature of the Turkmen government, the Defense Ministry told the parents of one of the soldiers that their son had committed suicide. The parents reportedly opened the coffin and found their son's body with 17 bullet wounds.



And Sergei Shoigu made the first visit ever to Turkmenistan by a Russian defense minister on June 8. Russian media reported that Turkmenistan agreed to accept Russian help with training and to purchase weapons from Russia. Turkmenistan had long held out against taking any Russian help and, in fact, Ashgabat continues to insist publicly that there is no problem along its frontier with Afghanistan.



Ashgabat has also never confirmed reports about a mass call-up of reserves or the deployment of some 70 percent of the country's troops and equipment to the Afghan border area.



Turkmen media did widely report on the unprecedented snap military exercises President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov ordered at the end of March. Those drills lasted well into April.



And that brings us back to Allaberen Karyadar and what he and other Arbaky commanders and Jowzjan police officials were doing in Turkmenistan recently.



If border security has so deteriorated that Turkmen troops are again being killed, it explains why the Afghan Turkmen from a district along Turkmenistan's border are "visiting" their northern neighbor. It also explains Shoigu's visit.



It seems Turkmenistan's hand is being forced here. And judging from the visit by Karyadar and the others, Ashgabat is finally taking a side in the conflict just over the border.



Turkmenistan's policy of neutrality might be one of the latest casualties of the Afghan conflict.

Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir contributed to this report


WASHINGTON -- A former top U.S. Defense Department official has warned that the buildup of NATO troops in Eastern Europe, and Russia's own troop movements along its western borders, are deepening the risk of an accidental outbreak of war.

The comments on June 23 by Ian Brzezinski, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO under former President George W. Bush, came as another former defense official, Derek Chollot, said Russia might feel compelled to ratchet up tensions further if NATO leaders at next month's Warsaw summit make a show of unity.

The two spoke at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that previewed some of what's at stake when leaders from the 28-nation alliance meet in the Polish capital on July 8-9.

At the summit, NATO officials are expected to endorse ongoing plans to deploy up to four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states. That coincides with U.S. plans announced earlier this year to begin rotating three armored brigades into Eastern Europe, along with stationing some heavy weaponry and other equipment there.

Those plans have been met with stern warnings from Russia, which has shifted several divisions toward its western border, and with more aggressive maneuvers by Russian fighter jets and bombers.

But the NATO movements have also been met with skepticism within the alliance, most notably in Germany, where the foreign minister said in an interview last week that NATO was engaging in "warmongering."

Chollot, who served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under President Barack Obama, said parliamentary elections scheduled for September in Russia were without a doubt influencing Kremlin policy toward the West.

"I'm worried, and it's not just the election. It's actually how Russia responds to the Warsaw summit. Because if we succeed in having the Warsaw summit be a show of unity, a demonstration that NATO has resolve, and augmentation of the deterrent, Putin may feel the need to respond in some way, to show that he's still willing to do what it takes," he said.

"It's already a pretty perilous period, but I think given the summit, given their election, given perhaps an EU that is mired in an existential crisis...I think it is an opportunity for Russia's adventurism to come back," he said.

NATO recently wrapped up its largest war games since the end of the Cold War, with more than 30,000 troops conducting exercises in parts of Eastern Europe. U.S. naval destroyers patrolling in the Baltic and Black seas, not far from Russia's maritime borders, have been buzzed by Russian jets and shadowed by Russian subs and surface ships.

Those moves, along with the increased presence of regular NATO forces in Eastern Europe and the growing frequency of large-scale snap exercises in Russia, raises the risk of one side misinterpreting the other's intentions, Brzezinski said.

"I'm not worried about intentional attack against NATO. I don't think that's in Putin's plans. But I am worried that his activities do raise, or increase the risk of inadvertent conflict, with all the escalatory dynamics that come with it," he said.

As much as anything, both Challot and Brzezinski said, what NATO lacks right now is a viable form of deterrence to persuade the Kremlin that a credible military response would occur if Russian forces were to stage some sort of intervention in the territory of an alliance member.

The Kremlin will be looking to undermine or discredit any NATO posturing at the Warsaw summit, Brzezinski said, and will be emboldened if there is the perception of a weakening of support for Ukraine.

He said he feared that Putin "will interpret a reinforcement of NATO's eastern frontier with no change in the NATO-Ukraine relationship as a green light to push further into Ukraine."

Challot said sending ground troops into Poland and the Baltic states was significant, but that the force they present needs to be credible to the Russians.

"It's very important that those forces are war-fighting forces, they are forces that can get into the fight in hours and days, not weeks," Challot said. "They are forces that have both the lethal capability, but also the ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance] and resupply, to be in that fight. They need air defense as well."

"Its not present now, and hopefully at Warsaw we will have good news," he added.
A NEW route is being considered which would take the proposed 5.6 billion Central Railway line and its freight trains away from the High Wycombe area.

Consultants have been commissioned by the South East England Development Agency (Seeda) to draw up an alternative line for the southern end of the north-south route. This would go east of London, not west. Its report should be ready in about three months.

The decision to reconsider the Central Railway route was taken after a meeting of county council leaders and officers at Gerrards Cross a few weeks ago.

It was hosted by David Shakespeare, leader of Buckinghamshire County Council and chairman of the South East Regional Assembly, and Seeda chairman Allan Willett.

They realised they must support the strategy of getting heavy freight traffic off roads and on to rail, but if they were not to have a route they didn't like they would have to come up with their own.

The current proposed route travels through the middle of Buckinghamshire and along the Chiltern Line through Haddenham, Princes Risborough and High Wycombe. The proposal created an outcry from people along this part of the line, who say they gain no immediate benefit, only noise.

After the Gerrards Cross meeting, Cllr Shakespeare told the Free Press the feedback he had from it was that the line went round the wrong side of London. It should go through Milton Keynes and via the area known as Thames Gateway a growth area.

Regional assembly leaders in the north of England are in favour of the Central Railway project with only the south-east region against it.

Central Railway wants the Government to introduce another bill in the Commons. People would give evidence at the committee stage and there would be no need for two or three years of planning inquiries.

Chris Williams, the council's chief officer, said there was lots of pressure for the scheme from northern regions. "They get lots of benefits from it, which is the opposite of the south, which gets disbenefits," he said.

County councillor David Rowlands, vice-chairman of a consortium of county councillors looking at public transport, said he had discussed the idea with members.

"I am pleased that Seeda has commissioned W S Atkins to review the route," he said. But he said leaders in the north wanted it to go west of London so that there would be good links to the M25 and the motorways to the west of the country.

A Central Railway spokesman said: "Central Railway has undertaken extensive engineering studies using international consultants, and the route to the west of London emerged as our preferred route."
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Dave Gerstenmaier and his wife, Meril, are back to owning their Richmond-based land planning and landscape architecture firm.

The Gerstenmaiers had merged their H&G Landscape Architects business that he helped found more than a decade ago with a Raleigh, N.C.-based engineering, design and planning firm in January 2015. The Stewart firm wanted to merge as a way for it to expand into Virginia.

But the merger didnt work, the Gerstenmaiers said. The breakup was effective June 1.

The Gerstenmaiers now are the sole owners of HG  the name of their new company. And that new firm has added civil engineering to its original land planning and landscape architecture services.

We are grateful to Stewart for the time we worked together, but HG learned from the experience that our clients prefer the unique and personalized culture of a smaller firm, said Dave Gerstenmaier, HGs president who had founded his former firm in 2000 as Higgins & Gerstenmaier (which later changed its name to H&G).

Meril Gerstenmaier, the firms managing partner, said there were challenges with the merger. We feel and our clients feel that we never really merged, she said. They feel like we will be more responsive to their needs by having the headquarters back here and be a smaller firm.

Terms of the breakup were not disclosed.

Willy Stewart, the founder, chairman and CEO of Stewart, could not be reached for comment.

HG will retain the clients, projects and employees that it had before and during the merger.

For instance, during the merger, the local office at 5701 Grove Ave. added civil engineering services and hired Charlene Harper, who has expertise in stormwater engineering. Harper remains with HG and now becomes an equity owner in the new firm.

Before the merger, H&G focused mostly on landscape architecture as one of the regions largest landscape architecture and land planning firms. The Stewart firm offered civil engineering services, landscape architecture, structural engineering and biotech services.

Being able to expand engineering services was one aspect the Gerstenmaiers liked about the merger because the older firm didnt have those services and often in the past had to work with a civil or structural engineers from another company.

Now engineering services is a growing part of the HG business.
Yesterday the story Richmond education official to step down reported troubling news. According to The Times-Dispatchs Louis Llovio, Richmond Public Schools director of exceptional education is resigning her position because of what she alleges is interference in her departments work by three School Board members.

Zenia Burnett did not name names but the news story identified the members as Mamie Taylor, Tichi Pinkney Eppes and Shonda Harris-Muhammed. Burnett detailed her grievances in a Monday memo.

The School Board needs to get to the bottom of this. School boards should set overall policy; their most important decision is the hiring of a superintendent. Members must not engage in micromanagement, however. Their activities should occur in public board meetings, not in the offices of individual schools.

If Burnetts allegations prove accurate, the board must discipline its own. If misunderstandings occurred, then it might need to clarify policy. If nothing untoward happened, then it should say so. Lets clear the air.
NP Logistic, part of Nova Poshta Group, providing warehousing and fulfillment services, seeks to double cargo handling in 2016, to over 2 million orders.

NP Logistic Director Oleksandr Lisovets told reporters that the company has two fulfillment centers with a gross area of 10,000 square meters. The company services more than 30 clients.

He said that the fulfillment service is targeted at online shops and other businesses. Among the company's clients are Allo, Rozetka, Garnamama, Philip Morris, Nestle, WOG and others.

Lisovets said that according to a study of the Ecommerce Europe association, in 2015 Ukraine became the most quickly growing market in Europe with 35% growth. He said that 95% of Ukrainian online shops carry out the whole complex of logistics operations themselves, which is ineffectively in most cases.

NP Logistic accepts goods, stores them, packages and delivers to end consumers. For clients of online shops that use fulfillment services this means an additional advantage. A client places the order on the website of the online shop in the evening, the shop quickly transfers the order for fulfillment to NP Logistic and the goods arrives to the client next day, he said.

Lisovets said that with transferring of own warehouse for outsourcing, the online shop can focus on sales and marketing.

NP Logistic can handle 10,000-15,000 orders a day. In 2015, the company handled 1.2 million orders and 650,000 in January-May 2016.

The company intends to develop logistics infrastructure in Kyiv region and the branch network in cities with over one million of population.
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lifecell covers 5.6% of Ukrainian territory with 3G network after one year after launch

The lifecell mobile communications operator during a year after the start of the introduction of 3G technology in May 2015 has covered 1,631 settlements in 18 regions. This allows providing 3G communications to 40% of population and covering 5.6% of the Ukrainian territory.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that lifecell CEO Burak Ersoy gave the information in Kyiv on Wednesday.

The lifecell operator is the only 3G communication provider in 274 settlements out of 1,631. This is 16.8% of the 3G network of the company.

Monthly3G data traffic in May 2016 was 3,226 terabytes.

Commercial director for consumer business Nelia Uss said that the number of 3G communications users of the entire subscribers' base reached 2.3 million users as of June 2016, and infiltration of smartphones to the company's network was 51%.

She said that subscribers who have access to 3G consumer twice more traffic than 2G subscribers. One 3G subscriber uses 1.128 gigabytes of traffic a month on average, while 2G subscriber  535 megabytes.

Director of lifecell mobile network Mahmut Sherif said that as of June 2016 the company has 3,600 base towers. Uss added that the company's share of the Ukrainian market in the number of subscribers is 16% and in some settlements of Odesa and Kyiv regions it reaches 35%.
PJSC State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine over the 11 months of the 2015/2016 marketing year (MY, July-June) exported more than 30,000 tonnes of flour, which is almost twice as much compared to the same period last season.

"According to experts, the corporation ranks second among exporters of wheat flour from Ukraine," the press service said citing director of the marketing and sales department Viacheslav Tsehelnyk.

According to him, the corporation plans in the 2016/2017 MY to ship about 55,000 tonnes of flour to foreign markets and intends to become a leader in exports of Ukrainian flour.

"We continue to expand the geography of supplies to the Middle East, the CIS and Asia. We should also mention the prospect of further work with the member states of the African continent," the expert said.

As reported, the corporation plans by 2019 to increase exports of flour by 9 times, to 280,000 tonnes, grains by 1.8 times, to 5.17 million tonnes. In 2015 the corporation exported 32,000 tonnes of flour, in 2016 plans to reach 60,000 tonnes.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has accepted for consideration the complaint of OJSC Feodosia Shipbuilding Company Morye on violation of rights of the company as a result of unlawful nationalization of its property in Crimea.

Ilyashev & Partners Law Firm that drafted the complaint said in a press release that the ECHR accepted it on May 27.

"The court will actually for the first time consider legitimacy of interference with the ownership right to the assets of Morye shipyard by self-proclaimed authorities in Crimea without compensation of their value, as well as violation of the companys right to a fair trial," the law firm said.

Senior Partner at Ilyashev & Partners Roman Marchenko, the asset manager of Morye shipyard, said that the shipyard the company made every effort to appeal against the decisions of the Crimean authorities in courts of the Russian Federation. However, the proceedings (quite predictably) had no effect, he said.

"In this situation the company had no choice, but to complain to the European Court of Justice, about violation of its right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention. At this stage, the 'field of battle' for the state property confiscated in Crimea moved to Strasbourg," the lawyer said.

Morye shipbuilding company was an internationally famous producer of high-speed ships and hydrofoils, pleasure yachts, and cutters. It was fully belonged to the state of Ukraine.

Under a decision of the Ukrainian government, in July 2012 a 100% stake in the shipyard was transferred to the management of state concern Ukroboronprom.
Militant forces have used artillery weapons banned by the Minsk agreements seven times in Donbas in the past 24 hours, the press center of Kyiv's army operation said on its Facebook account on Thursday.

Militant units have fired mortars on 30 occasions and 122mm and 152mm artillery weapons seven times in the past 24 hours, the press center said.

Positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have come under fire 46 times, including 22 times in Donetsk region, 16 near the city of Mariupol, and eight times in Luhansk region.

Mortars were used against Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoints in the vicinity of Pisky, Avdiyivka, Verkhniotoretske, Troitske and Zaitseve in Donetsk region, while Ukrainian fortifications near Nevelske, Kamianka, Novosilki 2 and Troitske came under artillery fire, the press center said. Militant forces also shelled the area near the villages of Talakivka, Taramchuk and Shyrokyne, located near the city of Mariupol, it said.

Ukrainian army checkpoints near Novozvanivka and Novooleksandrivka, Luhansk region, came under mortar fire as well, the press center said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland discussed in Kyiv on Wednesday, June 22 the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the Ukrainian president and U.S. President Barack Obama at the summit in Warsaw.

The conversation was not planned in advance, the Ukrainian presidential administration's press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday in reply to a question about the essence of the meeting.

"Poroshenko conducted the conversation with Nuland during her negotiations with Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration for Foreign Policy Kostiantyn Yeliseyev. This meeting was not pre-planned and was focused on agreeing the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the presidents of Ukraine and the U.S. and also on coordinating efforts in continuing the pressure on Russia for it to implement the Minsk agreements security requirements," the press service said.

Earlier the U.S. Embassy to Ukraine reported that Victoria Nuland and Senior Directors of Departments of the U.S. National Security Council Charles Kupchan and Celeste Wallander held meetings with top-ranking Ukrainian officials to discuss the reforms agenda and the Minsk agreements' implementation in support of the 'Normandy format' on June 22.
Petra Diamonds has recovered a 121.26 carat white diamond at its Cullinan mine in South Africa.It said in a statement emailed to Rough & Polished that the stone was a Type II diamond of exceptional colour and clarity.Petra also noted that the stone was an outstanding example of the large, high quality diamonds for which the mine was known.The diamond, it said, would be sold in the last tender of the companys 2016 financial year, which was currently underway in Johannesburg.This, along with a number of other high quality stones that will also be included in the tender, will deliver an improved product mix at the mine in the last quarter of financial year 2016, said Petra Diamonds.
Sergey Donskoy, Minister for Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation said that after amending the law to permit ancillary mining it would be possible, for example, for ALROSA to extract about 150 kg of gold and 35 kg of platinum annually in addition to diamond output.

The minister said that under the current licensing system subsoil users awarded combined licenses (for geological survey, exploration and mining) were allowed to extract only target minerals resulting in loss of associated components and breach of rational and complex use of mineral resources.

According to the minister, the practice of mining alluvial diamonds, which typically contain associated components such as placer gold and platinum, was revealing in this context. He said that currently, miners tested the technology allowing to extract ancillary gold and platinum from tailings of diamondiferous sands. Moreover, a variety of mineral fields have passed state expert assessment for ancillary gold and platinum and are recorded by the State Reserves Register. However, mining is not carried out there due to prohibition.

The action of the federal law is to be initially extended only to public companies. In the future, based on the analysis of law enforcement practice the authorities will consider to extend ancillary minerals mining to all subsoil users developing multi-mineral deposits.

The bill provides a pattern to involve ancillary solid minerals and accompanying useful mineral components into development by establishing the possibility of making appropriate changes to licenses.

Miners will be charged a one-time payment for including ancillary solid minerals and components in their licenses.

Theodor Lisovoy, Rough&Polished, Moscow




Union Pacific plans to invest $2.1 million in 2016 to improve its transportation infrastructure in Wisconsin, enhancing employee, community and customer safety and increasing rail operating efficiency.

UPs planned investment covers a range of initiatives including $600,000 to maintain railroad track and more than $1.4 million to maintain bridges in the state.

Key projects include a $340,000-investment between Wilson and Eau Claire to replace half a mile of rail and a $160,000-investment between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls to replace a quarter mile of rail.

This years planned $2.1 million capital expenditure in Wisconsin is part of an ongoing investment strategy. From 2011 to 2015, the railroad invested more than $46 million strengthening Wisconsins transportation infrastructure

The Class 1 plans to spend $3.75 billion across its network this year and has detailed state plans for Minnesota, Wyoming, Utah, Washington state, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, Iowa, Arizona, Missouri, Louisiana, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Arkansas, California and Texas.


The Canadian dollar advanced against its major rivals in European deals on Wednesday, as oil prices firmed, and data showed that the nation's retail sales grew more-than-expected in April.

Data from Statistics Canada showed that Canada's retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.9 percent to C$44.3 billion in April.

That beat forecasts for an increase of 0.8 percent, after a 1.0 percent drop in March.

Core retail sales, excluding motor vehicle and autos, climbed 1.3 percent on month, following a 0.3 percent decline a month earlier.

Economists were looking for a 0.6 percent rise.

The currency got further support from higher oil prices, which lifted up after an industry group, American Petroleum Institute, reported a 5.2 million barrel drawdown in crude oil inventories last week.

The Energy Information Administration will release official data at 10:30 am ET.

Investor sentiment improved ahead of tomorrow's Brexit referendum, as analysts predict that the UK voters will likely decide to stay with the EU, averting a potential market tantrum.

The currency was higher against most majors in Asian deals, amid rising risk appetite, as investors wait for Fed Chair Janet Yellen's second day of testimony on Capitol Hill today and Thursday's British Brexit vote on its membership in the European Union.

Extending early rally, the loonie firmed to 82.05 against the Japanese yen, following a decline to 81.47 at 8:15 pm ET. Continuation of the loonie's uptrend may see it finding resistance around the 84.00 region.

The loonie spiked up to near a 2-week high of 1.2743 versus the greenback and an 8-day high of 1.4380 against the euro, off its early lows of 1.2817 and 1.4432, respectively. The next possible resistance levels for the loonie are seen around 1.29 against the greenback and 1.46 against the euro.

On the flip side, the loonie fell to 0.9585 against the aussie at 8:25 am ET, from an early 4-day high of 0.9531. The loonie is seen finding support around the 0.97 mark.

Survey from Westpac Bank and the Melbourne Institute showed that the Australian is expected to stay on a narrowly positive path over the next six to nine months - rising 0.21 percent on month in May.

That's up from the downwardly revised 0.14 percent increase in April.

Looking ahead, Eurozone consumer confidence index for June, U.S. existing home sales data for May and U.S. crude oil inventories data are due shortly.

At 10:00 am ET, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will testify on the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report before the House Financial Services Committee, in Washington DC.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
UBS AG (UBS) has complied with an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) summons for bank records held in its Singapore office, the U.S. Justice Department said. Because UBS has now produced all Singapore-based records responsive to the request and the IRS determined that UBS complied with the summons, the Justice Department has voluntarily dismissed its summons enforcement action against the bank.

The IRS served an administrative summons on UBS for records pertaining to accounts held by Ching-Ye "Henry" Hsiaw. According to the petition, the IRS needed the records in order to determine Hsiaw's federal income tax liabilities for the years 2006 through 2011. Hsiaw transferred funds from a Switzerland-based account with UBS to the UBS Singapore branch in 2002, according to the declaration of a revenue agent filed at the same time as the petition. UBS refused to produce the records, and the United States filed its petition to enforce the summons.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
BGEO Group PLC (BGEO.L), formerly Bank of Georgia Holdings PLC, announced Wednesday the purchase of the remaining 75% stake in Georgian Global Utilities Ltd. Or GGU.

BGEO's unit JSC BGEO Investments has signed a Share Purchase Agreement to acquire a 75% equity stake in GGU for cash consideration of $70 million. The transaction values GGU's enterprise value at GEL 287.5 million.

The transaction is expected to be both earnings and book value accretive from day one.

GGU is a privately-owned company that supplies water and provides wastewater services to 1.4 million people in Tbilisi, Mtskheta and Rustavi.

In December 2014, BGEO acquired a 25% shareholding in GGU for $26.25 million. The acquisition was earnings as well as book value accretive in year one. In addition, BGEO had a call option to acquire an additional 24.9% shareholding within a 10-month period for a further $26 million.

Following the buy-out of the remaining 75% stake, the Group will consolidate GGU financials and will report GGU as a separate segment.

In addition, BGEO may, in the future, transfer its existing 25%-stake in GGU and consolidate ownership of the stake under JSC BGEO Investments, subject to certain regulatory and tax considerations.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
DS Smith PLC (SMDS.L) reported pretax profit of 201 million pounds for the 12 months to 30 April 2016 compared to 200 million pounds, previous year. Profit to owners of the parent increased year-over-year to 167 million pounds from 156 million pounds. Total earnings per share were 17.5 pence compared to 16.4 pence.

Adjusted operating profit rose by 13 percent on a reported basis to 379 million pounds from 335 million pounds, a year ago. Growth on a constant currency basis was, higher at 16 percent. Before exceptional item, pretax profit increased to 280 million pounds from 251 million pounds. Adjusted earnings per share increased to 27.0 pence from 24.3 pence.

For the full-year, Group revenue increased to 4.07 billion pounds compared to 3.82 billion pounds, a growth of 6 percent on a reported basis, before considering the adverse currency effects. On a constant currency basis, revenue increased by 9 percent. The Group said its revenues were principally driven by the contribution from acquired businesses, which contributed 8 percent growth on a constant currency basis. Organic growth contributed a further 1 percent.

For the year 2015/16, the Board of DS Smith recommended a final dividend of 8.8 pence, which together with the interim dividend of 4.0 pence gives a total dividend for the year of 12.8 pence per share. This represents an increase of 12 percent on the prior year.

Miles Roberts, Group Chief Executive, said: "We are delighted to report another year of strong growth underpinned by ten per cent organic growth in our adjusted operating profit supplemented by six per cent from acquisitions. Strong financial discipline allows us again to deliver on all our priorities."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Viacom Inc.'s (VIAB,VIA) controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone's mental competency needs to be determined before taking a decision on his plan to replace five directors at the media giant, a Delaware court said Wednesday.

During a hearing, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Andre Bouchard said that he won't fast track lawsuits filed by Redstone and Viacom directors over the removal of five board members last week.

The judge said he would wait until the result of another case in Massachusetts regarding 93-year-old Redstone's competency to make decisions, before deciding on the proposed board changes. The Massachusetts case is through its discovery process. Redstone's mental is being assessed in lawsuits in three states.

Last week, National Amusements Inc., Redstone's holding company to control Viacom, filed its lawsuit to affirm its board replacements. In response, Viacom's lead independent director Frederic Salerno filed a suit to invalidate the dismissals, which included himself and the company's chairman and chief executive Philippe Dauman.

In the Delaware dispute, both sides were asked to maintain the status quo during the legal process. The existing Viacom board would continue to manage the company day-to-day, but won't be able to take any actions outside of the ordinary course of .

The Massachusetts case is related to the removal of Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from a trust that will oversee Redstone's media empire, which also includes CBS corp. (CBS), after he dies or is determined to be incapacitated.

In the Massachusetts case, a hearing is scheduled for June 30.

Viacom's next board meeting is scheduled on August 3 in New York.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Solar Impulse 2 plane has landed in Seville, Spain, finishing its toughest and longest Atlantic leg on its attempt to fly around the globe purely on solar energy.

The single-seat fuel-free plane took off from New York early Monday with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit.

The Solar Impulse team was hoping to end the 15th stage of the journey in Paris, remembering the pioneering flight in 1927 of Charles Lindbergh, whose Spirit of St Louis aircraft was the first to make the solo crossing. However, due to storm forecast, Seville was chosen as the safest option.

The plane's mission managers will now decide on a route to Abu Dhabi where the venture began in March, 2015.

Piccard is taking turns piloting the plane in its round-the-world journey with Swiss entrepreneur Andre Borschberg, who will take charge for the next leg, across the Mediterranean.

The Impulse has more than 17,000 photovoltaic cells built into wings to capture the sun's rays. The propeller-driven plane has four solar-powered engines, together with four batteries to store surplus energy. It can climb up to 28,000 feet. Through the project, the team hopes to demonstrate the capabilities of solar power.

In 2015, the plane flew eight stages from Abu Dhabi to Kalaeloa, Hawaii, including a four-day, 21-hour leg over the western Pacific. The previous long stretch had caused the batteries to overheat, resulting in months' delay in its plans.

The plane's Swiss-led team says it has upgraded the batteries and added a cooling system to guard against a repeat.

Back in 2013, both Piccard and Borschberg had completed a multi-flight crossing of the United States with an earlier version of the plane.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Popular Front party leader and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk will travel to Washington on June 27-30, where he is scheduled to meet with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on June 28, Yatseniuk's press secretary Olha Lappo said.

Yatseniuk will travel to the U.S. at the White House's invitation, and his visit will deal with support for reforms in Ukraine, international security, and international consolidation against Russian aggression, Lappo said on Facebook on Thursday.

Yatseniuk should also meet with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew, Senators Richard Durbin, Robert Corker, and John McCain, other key members of the Democratic and Republican parties, and also International Monetary Fund (IMF) First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton, she said.

"While in Washington, the Popular Front leader plans to discuss the current results and future objectives of Ukrainian reforms with authoritative experts and specialists while speaking at the Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution," Lappo said.
Shares of Future Plc. (FUTR.L) gained around 11 percent in London trading after the media group and digital publisher said Thursday that it has agreed terms to acquire Miura (Holdings) Ltd, the parent company of Imagine Publishing Limited, for a total consideration of 179,567,841 new Future shares. The shares, at Future's closing share price on June 22, represents a consideration of 14.2 million pounds.

Future said the acquisition of Imagine is a further substantial step in its strategy of creating content that connects, increasing scale and improving operational efficiency.

Imagine's portfolio includes 19 periodical magazines and significant presence in bookazines as well as a growing complementary web presence. Imagine is expected to report revenue of 16.4 million pounds for year to March 31, 2016, with EBITA of 3.1 million pounds.

The acquisition is expected to be materially earnings enhancing and will generate significant cost synergies and increase the enlarged Group's profit margins.

Upon completion of the acquisition, the vendors of Imagine will own, in aggregate, about 32.8% of Future's enlarged issued share capital.

Zillah Byng-Thorne, Future plc Chief Executive said, "The acquisition will enable us to scale significantly our market position in bookazines and will see us enter the knowledge vertical, broadening our reach."

In London, Future shares were trading at 8.75 pence, up 10.76 percent.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Canadian stocks were set to to open higher amid optimism that the UK will elect to stay with the the European Union.

WTI crude oil was up 69 cents at $49.81 a barrel, giving the energy sector a nice boost,

BlackBerry Limited (BB.To) announced, for the full fiscal year, the company is on track to deliver 30 percent revenue growth in software and services.

Bombardier Inc. (BBD_B.TO, BBD_A.TO) announced Thursday the signing of a definitive agreement with the Government of Quebec for a $1 billion US investment in the C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership or CSALP.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
The Department of State has warned U.S. citizens against travel to Afghanistan because of continued instability and threats by terrorist organizations against U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Embassy's ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is severely limited, particularly outside of Kabul, the State Department said in a Travel Warning update Wednesday. It urged U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel within Afghanistan and noted that evacuation options from Afghanistan are extremely limited due to the lack of infrastructure, geographic constraints, and other security concerns.

Travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe due to the ongoing risk of kidnapping, hostage taking, military combat operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry between political and tribal groups, militant attacks, direct and indirect fire, suicide bombings, and insurgent attacks, including attacks using vehicle-borne or other improvised explosive devices (IED).

Attacks may also target official Afghan and U.S. government convoys and compounds, foreign embassies, military installations, commercial entities, restaurants, hotels, airports, and educational centers.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Costco Wholesale Corp.'s (COST) switch from American Express to Visa credit cards was expected to be smooth, but it appears to have got off to a rocky start and also proved to be painful to customers.

The Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citigroup Inc. (C) was rolled out this Monday after Costco ended its 16-year partnership with American Express Co. (AXP) last year.

Costco said that as of June 20, 2016, it has begun accepting all Visa credit cards both in the warehouse and at Costco gas stations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

However, angry customers flooded Costco's and Citigroup's social media sites with complaints about having trouble activating their new Costco credit cards and about not being able to pay existing balances that were transferred to the new cards. Some of them also complained that they have not got their new cards.

"Due to high levels of interest in the Costco Anywhere Card and high volumes of calls from cardholders, callers to Citi should expect longer than desired hold times. Citi is reviewing processes and pulling in additional resources to alleviate hold times," Costco said on its Facebook page.

A spokesperson for Citigroup apologized to customers who were inconvenienced and said the company had issued over 11 million cards to existing Costco members as well as received 1.5 million calls in the first two days alone.

"Due to the tremendous response, some customers experienced delays reaching customer service. However, call volumes are starting to return to normal," the Citigroup spokesperson said.

The new card is seen as offering improved rewards and benefits compared to the American Express Card. It also does not carry an annual fee.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe India-launch scheduled for March 3, 2020. The SUV-coupe will come in 300 petrol and 300d diesel 4MATIC formats.

Mercedes-Benz India plans to launch the facelifted coupe version of the GLC five-seater SUV on March 3, 2020. The new Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe made its global debut earlier in 2019 and will come to the Indian market in 300 petrol and 300d diesel 4MATIC formats. The facelifted GLC was launched towards the end of last year at a starting price of 52.75 lakh ex-showroom.

The facelifted GLC coupe models will feature all the new-age Mercedes features that are available in the regular SUV version. This includes full-LED headlamps and tail lamps, a 12.3-inch instrument cluster which is accompanied by a 10.25-inch touchscreen; plusher upholstery and more. One of the main highlights of modern-day Mercedes products is the MBUX (Mercedes Benz User eXperience) infotainment system which opens door to a whole range of functions by multiple methods of inputs: touchscreen on the dashboard, touchpad on the central console, steering-mounted controls and voice commands (which can be activated by saying, Hey Mercedes).

The Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe 300 is powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol motor which makes around 255bhp and 370Nm of torque. On the other hand, the GLC Coupe 300d (which would most likely be the better seller) employs a 2.0-litre i4 diesel mill, good for roughly 245bhp and 500Nm. Both BS6-compliant engines are coupled to a 9-speed 9G-TRONIC automatic transmission. All-wheel-drive will be standard as the 4MATIC moniker suggests.

At present, the GLC Coupe is available in the country only in the sporty AMG GLC 43 4MATIC avatar, which costs around Rs 75 lakh ex-showroom. Since its Indian launch back in July 2017, the GLC 43 has found a decent number of takers for a performance SUV coming at the price point.

The current Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 is powered by a 3.0-litre bi-turbo V6 petrol engine that churns out 362bhp and 520Nm of torque. The engine is mated to the familiar 9-speed 9G-TRONIC automatic transmission (tuned to handle the extra output) that sends power to all four wheels via the brands proven 4MATIC AWD system. The performance SUV-coupe has an electronically-limited top speed of 250km/h. It is expected to come in the refreshed 2020 avatar (which has already hit global markets) at a later stage.

Expected prices of the new Mercedes-Benz GLC coupe are in the range of Rs 60-65 lakh ex-showroom. Once launched, it will be a direct rival to the likes of the BMW X4 SUV-coupe.
Toyota India officially inaugurated their new engine manufacturing plant today in Bangalore. Spread over an area of 22 acres, at the Jigani Industrial Area, this new facility is called Toyota Industries Engine India Pvt. Ltd (TIEI).

TIEI is jointly owned by Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO) and Kirloskar Systems Ltd. (KSL). TICO owns 98.85% stake while KSL owns 1.15% stake.

Toyota India Engine Plant inauguration by State Government representatives and Toyota India officials.

The engines which will be produced at the new Toyota India plant will be the newly launched 1GD-FTV 2.8 litre & 2GD-FTV  2.4 litre four cylinder diesel engines which are now on offer with new Innova Crysta. Toyota states that these engines are Global Diesel (GD) Engines featuring Economy with Superior Thermal Efficiency Combustion (ESTEC) technology, which contributes to enhanced fuel efficiency.

Built at an investment of INR 1,100 crore, this new engine manufacturing unit of Toyota can manufacture 1.08 lakh units per year. As of now, the engines produced at BS 4 / Euro 4 compliant, but if need be, they can be upgraded to BS 5 and 6 / Euro 5 and 6 with minimum investment and lead time in the future.

Toyota India new engine

The 2.4 liter engine is rated at 148 bhp @ 3400 RPM and 343 Nm @ 1400 RPM. Mated to a five speed manual transmission, it claims to deliver 15.1 kmpl mileage. This engine is 47% more powerful & 13% more fuel efficient than the older 2KD engine of the same segment.

Also read  Toyota Innova Crysta Review

The more powerful 2.8 liter engine delivers 172 bhp @ 3400 RPM and 360 Nm @ 1200 RPM. It is mated to a six speed automatic gearbox and delivers claimed fuel economy of 14.29 kmpl. Toyota claims that this engine is 71% more powerful & 7% more fuel efficient than old engine.

Photos
There have been a lot of news articles and stories following the announcement that NEVS will use its own brand instead of Saab for their future electric cars (starting with NEVS 9-3 in 2017).

The motor journalist Jan-Erik Berggren, from Expressen (one of the two larger evening papers in Sweden), has an interesting theory on the future of the Saab brand. He actually claims that Saab and Volvo may become siblings.

The reason for this is that CEVT (China-Euro Vehicle Technology), a company owned by Geely and Volvo, are working on a new C-segment car platform that is supposed to launch with a new brand name. CEVT consists of more than 1 900 people, with locations in China, Gothenburg and Trollhattan.

The CEO of CEVT is Mats Fagerhag, former VP Product Development at Saab in Trollhattan (where he worked for 20 years). And remember, Geely were one of the companies bidding for Saab back in the GM days.

So the theory from Jan-Erik Berggren is that CEVT may reach an trademark agreement with Saab AB. This would mean that Saab is re-introduced as a new compact car, within the same family as Volvo.

Whats your thoughts on this? Would you rather buy a NEVS car from Stallbacka (the former Saab main plant in Trollhattan) or a Saab car from Torslanda (the Volvo main plant in Gothenburg)?
A videoconference of the Trilateral Contact Group for Donbas originally scheduled for Thursday has been postponed at Russia's request, Darka Olifer, the press secretary of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma representing Kyiv in the group, said on Facebook on Thursday.

"At the Russian side's request, the Trilateral Contact Group's videoconference has been postponed. The date is being agreed upon," Olifer said.

Olifer had said on Wednesday that the Trilateral Contact Group planned an extraordinary videoconference on June 23.

The videoconference was to deal with the deterioration of the security situation in Donbas, the release of hostages, and "other clauses of the Minsk Agreements," she said.

OSCE Special Envoy Martin Sajdik had told journalists following a Trilateral Contact Group meeting in Minsk on June 15 that the next meeting of the group was scheduled for June 29.
For and against Brexit arguments heard before Britain heads to the polls

British Prime Minister David Cameron and eurosceptic leader Nigel Farage have made a last ditch effort to impact on the referendum on Britain's EU membership.

Cameron, speaking the day before the vote on why Britain should remain in the EU, said on his Twitter account: "Vote 'stay,' so our children will have a brighter future."

Nigel Farage, a British politician and leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), in turn, called on his supporters to vote for Britain's exit from the EU [also known as Brexit]. "Let's bring our country back home," Farage wrote on his Twitter page, adding #IndependenceDay as a hashtag.

Polling booths throughout the United Kingdom were open for voting on the referendum to stay or leave the EU. Some 47 million people are eligible to vote.

The question on the referendum is worded as follows: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over 18 who are resident in the UK, along with UK nationals living abroad are eligible to vote on the question.

Voting closes at 22.00 (00.00 Kyiv time). There are no official exit polls scheduled.

Election officials are expected to publish the results of the vote before working day starts in the Manchester mayoral office.

Cameron announced his decision to hold the plebiscite in February following lengthy talks with EU leaders, during which he agreed on modified conditions for Britain to remain in the EU bloc.

In exchange for compromises from EU leaders, Cameron said he would ask his countrymen to cast votes in favor of remaining in the EU.
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
One Ukrainian serviceman has been killed and 11 have been injured in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in Donbas in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian presidential administration spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said.

"One Ukrainian serviceman has been killed, 11 have been injured in the past 24 hours. We suffered these permanent losses in enemy shelling in all sectors," Motuzianyk said at a briefing on Wednesday.

He said that tensions in Donbas have increased; a total of 300 mortars and 160 artillery shells have been fired on positions of Ukrainian troops. "One may already say for certain that currently the intensity of fire can be compared with the situation in August of 2015," he said.

Motuzianyk said that in the Luhansk sector shelling was reported in the Popasna district - a total of eight instances of shelling were recorded.

He said the situation remains most tense in the Donetsk sector, where the enemy opened fire on the territory from Zaitseve to Donetsk airport. The enemy used all types of weapons, except for multiple rocket launchers, against Ukrainian troops. Shelling has been conducted mostly at night using heavy armaments, he said.

The main spots of tensions were the outskirts of Horlivka, Avdiyivka and Pisky, he said. A total of 22 shelling incidents have been conducted in the Donetsk sector, he said.

In the Mariupol sector shelling has been conducted along the entire frontline; the enemy used mortars in Taramchuk, Talakivka and Shyrokyne, and a sniper also opened fire in Maryinka, he said.
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NATO's assistance to Ukraine is unrelated to the situation in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in the east of the country, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ihor Dolhov said.

"NATO is not a party to the political Minsk agreements. Today the alliance is a partner of Ukraine. What is more, we are a strategic, special partner of NATO. Hence, any assistance coming from the alliance is not directly related to the hostilities in eastern Ukraine. It does not have a direct influence on the situation in the ATO zone either," Dolhov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"The cessation of fire in eastern Ukraine and the political resolution of this situation are political matters addressed in the Normandy format," he said.

Interaction between Ukraine, NATO and its member states is currently limited to the sharing of experience and knowledge, material and other kinds of assistance, and training of Ukrainian units according to NATO standards, the deputy minister said.

"We will be fostering all that," Dolhov said.

He especially noted the alliance's assistance to Donbas demining operations.
Here's who is on the ballot in Saline County

Advance, in-office voting is underway in Saline County, as voters in the 2022 general election have several options on who and what to vote for.
DOBBS FERRY, N.Y. (AP)  Former U.N. General Assembly President John Ashe of the twin-island Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda died on Wednesday in the United States as he was facing criminal charges in a bribery case. He was 61.

Ashe died at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, according to Sgt. Vincent Ingani, of the Dobbs Ferry Police Department. He gave no other details.

His attorney in New York, Jeremy Schneider, and a younger brother in Antigua, Paul Ashe, confirmed his death without providing details about the cause.

"I do not know definitively what the cause of death was," Schneider said. "It's a tragic loss for his family and the community. He was preparing to fight his case at trial."

Ashe was a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served in the largely ceremonial post of president of the 193-nation assembly from September 2013 to September 2014.

Ashe was accused last year by U.S. federal authorities of turning the position into a "platform for profit" by accepting more than $1 million in bribes.

The alleged conspiracy involves six others including a billionaire Chinese real estate mogul, two diplomats and a humanitarian organization officer. It wasn't clear how Ashe's death would affect the bribery case.

Ashe held a doctorate in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the foreign service in 1989 and was awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his global diplomatic service, according to his United Nations biography.
Losivale and Leoo Atonio from Mutiatele Aleipata are grateful parents.

They have the Samoa Observers Save the Childs Fund and Good Samaritans from the community to thank for helping their son travel to New Zealand to receive medical treatment, which could possibly save his life.

Taulave Atonio has been bedridden for over a year because of a heart disease.

He had been admitted to the hospital for more than three times this year, Losivale told the Samoa Observer.

His doctor told us that the best thing for him is to take him to New Zealand for treatment. We were worried when we received the notice from the doctor because we knew it will cost a lot of money.

However, we were told that all we need to do is to look for money for airfares and visas.

Losivale said they approached Dr. Satupaitea Viali for help. He told them that he would try his best to find help. It wasnt until last Friday that they received a call from Dr. Viali saying that someone was willing to help them.

I thanked the Lord for answering our prayers, said Losivale, adding that the call gave them hope.

The Save the Childs Fund was started by the Samoa Observer with generous donations from members of the community to help needy families send their children overseas for medical treatment. Among the contributors to the Fund, which made Taulaves trip possible, are Aukuso and Margean Feesago, Nigel and Tilo Fepuleai.

Taulave left the country yesterday for New Zealand. He is accompanied by his older sister, Imeleta Tualima. He will be in New Zealand for three months.

Taulave stopped going to school in 2012 when he started to get ill. He wanted to become a carpenter but his dream was quashed when he became really sick and dropped out of school.

But he is still hoping to achieve his dream after his operation.

I still want to do things like the other children, said Taulave. Even though I stopped going to school, I never stopped going to church, Sunday school and playing with my friends.

And I am grateful to the Good Samaritan who offered to pay for my fare. I know its a lot of money and I cannot repay them back. But I want to say to them that I am happy and grateful for giving me hope.

Taulaves mother also wanted to extend her gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief of the Samoa Observer, Gatoaitele Savea Sano and Publisher, Muliagatele Jean Malifa for their generosity.

I know words are not enough to repay your generosity but only God can restore all that have been used to help those in need, she said. This means so much to me and my whole family. So thank you for giving us hope.

Taulave is the 11th child out of Losivale and Leoos 13 children. He is 21 years old and was attending Aleipata College.
Think a minuteHave you ever missed a bus or plane because you were just a little too late? Recently I had to catch a plane for a very important meeting, so I got to the airport early and waited for the announcement to board the plane.

The announcement never came. When I finally went to the gate, I was shocked to see it was closing and the airplane engines had started! I panicked and tried to get the airline worker to let me on.

I had nothing to lose and was desperate so I told her I wasnt asking for justice, I was begging for mercy. Well, she did not give it to me.

You know that terrible feeling when youve done something wrong and you know you deserve to suffer the consequences? Every religion, except Christianity, has certain rules or rituals and good deeds that people must do to try to earn their gods forgiveness for their wrongs.

Some religions even make people torture and punish themselves to pay the penalty for their own wrongs.

But Jesus Christ showed that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn or deserve Gods forgiveness for all the wrongs weve done. Not even our religious prayers, duties, and deeds come close to paying our debt to Him for all our sins.

We dont need justice, we need mercy! None of us can ever reach Gods standard of perfect goodness in everything we think, say, and do.

Thats why God the Son became a human being to do it for us. Jesus said that our only hope is His mercy, because He has already paid the penalty for all our sins by giving His own perfect life for us on the cross. We just have to ask and believe that He will give us His free gift of forgiveness and new, eternal life.

Then we can start life all over again, loving Him and living His right way that He plans for us to enjoy. So today, wont you ask Jesus for His free gift of forgiveness and new life? Then ask Him to start changing you so you can live His successful and satisfying way He created you for. Just Think a Minute...
The Ukrainian-American military exercises Rapid Trident 2016 will take place in the territory of the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy's International Peacekeeping and Security Center at the Yavoriv training range in the Lviv region from June 27 to July 8.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry press service said on Thursday that over 1,800 servicemen from 14 countries will participate in the exercises.

Earlier Ukrainian President Petro approved the Plan of conducting the multinational exercises with the participation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the territory of Ukraine and their participation in multinational exercises outside Ukraine in 2016, as well as the admission of armed forces of foreign states to the territory of the country in 2016 to participate in multinational exercises.

The document lists the participating foreign countries, timeframes and names of the exercises. In particular, the plan includes the participation of the United States Armed Forces and other NATO member states and participants of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program in the amount of up to 2,000 troops with armaments and military equipment and up to five aircraft and ten helicopters for a period of up to 25 days in June-November of 2016 as part of the Ukrainian-American exercises Rapid Trident 2016.
First Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Natalia Sevostyanova has said that Kyiv in autumn will send to the European Court of Human Rights the sixth lawsuit against Russia related to the events in Donbas in 2015-2016.

"Another one, the sixth lawsuit against Russia in connection with the events in Donbas... Now we are preparing a complaint, which will deal with late 2015-2016. Maybe we will lodge it in the fall," said Sevostyanova at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

She explained that the Justice Ministry divides the materials for the lawsuits into equal portions and distributes them equally throughout the year. "The European Court itself told us not to merge all the lawsuits into one, because then it will be very difficult to work with them," Sevostyanova said.

In late May, Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said that he does not rule out filing the next, the sixth, lawsuit against Russia, which will deal with the violations on the territory of Donbas, to the ECHR.
Ukraine to lodge lawsuit against Russia over Mejlis ban within two weeks

First Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Natalia Sevostyanova has said that they already prepared a lawsuit to the European Court of Human Rights against Russia over the ban of the Mejlis, the highest ruling body of the Crimean Tatar people, the lawsuit will be sent within the next two weeks.

"The lawsuit against the ban on the Mejlis has been prepared... We will send it in a week or two," she said answering a question of Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Thursday.

According to Sevostyanova, they are still gathering more evidence to support the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit is very specific. In fact, it is ready to be filed any day, but we are still waiting for some evidence to reinforce it," Sevostyanova said.

"So, we may need a week or two before sending it," she said.

As reported, the so-called Crimea's Supreme Court on April 26 designated the Crimean Tatar Mejlis as an extremist entity and banned its activity in Russia, ruling in favor of a lawsuit filed by de facto prosecutor of Crimea Natalia Poklonskaya.
Augusta, ME -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.



As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.



Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was to submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.



Augusta Maine G3-Development.co Online Media Expert Announces a Fresh Start with 10% off their Website Building for Local Google+ Followers



By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. In June 2007, The New York Times' Saul Hansell stated Google ranks sites using more than 200 different signals. The leading search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEO practitioners have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have shared their personal opinions. Patents related to search engines can provide information to better understand search engines.



In 2005, Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users. In 2008, Bruce Clay said that "ranking is dead" because of personalized search. He opined that it would become meaningless to discuss how a website ranked, because its rank would potentially be different for each user and each search.



In December 2009, Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results.



Google Instant, real-time-search, was introduced in late 2010 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.



In February 2011, Google announced the Panda update, which penalizes websites containing content duplicated from other websites and sources. Historically websites have copied content from one another and benefited in search engine rankings by engaging in this practice, however Google implemented a new system which punishes sites whose content is not unique. In April 2012, Google launched the Google Penguin update the goal of which was to penalize websites that used manipulative techniques to improve their rankings on the search engine.



About G3 Development

G3 Development is set out to proactively serve the business community by providing solutions in entrepreneurialism, business development, social media and venture capitalism.



To provide leadership in establishing strength with our client's international businesses, being built on a foundation of innovation, advocacy, technology and business integrity.



http://www.g3-development.co/

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Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- According to a new market research report "Deep Packet Inspection and Processing Market by Application (IDS and IPS, Network Performance Management, and Data Loss/Leak Prevention and Management), by Service, by Organization Size, by Vertical, by End User, & by Region - Global Forecast to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, the expected to grow from USD 7.01 Billion in 2016 to USD 18.60 Billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 21.6%. Continuous evolution of cyber-attacks and need for network performance management & optimization solutions to efficiently manage today's complex networking environments are some of the major driving factors for the deep packet inspection and processing market. Furthermore, the market is expected to be driven by opportunities, such as evolution of IoT and tremendous increase in network traffic in developing economies.



Browse 67 market data tables with 57 figures spread through 147 pages and in-depth TOC on "Deep Packet Inspection and Processing Market - Global Forecast to 2021"



http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/deep-packet-inspection-processing-market-252816977.html



Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.



Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is expected to be the largest contributor in the global deep packet inspection and processing market during the forecast period



In the deep packet inspection and processing market, due to rising demands for advanced cybersecurity solutions across all industry verticals the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) in the application's segment is expected to contribute the highest in the overall revenue generation during the forecast period.



The government and defense industry vertical is expected to show significant growth rate in terms of adoption of deep packet inspection based applications and services



Cyber security has become one of the most important aspects of the government sector. The concept of e-governance has led the government to focus more on cyber security threats. Moreover, government agencies are compelled to meet the regulatory compliance requirements. Cyber threats in the defense vertical are increasing at an alarming rate across the globe, which has necessitated the usage of robust and updated security solutions in all agencies of this industry.



Ask for Sample Pages @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsample.asp?id=252816977



With explosive growth in network traffic in the countries of APAC, the region is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period



Many countries in the regions of APAC are expected to show very high growth in the generation of network data during the forecast period. APAC is expected to be the highest network data generating region due to the increasing number of emerging industries and mobile device users.



Cisco (California, U.S.), Intel (California, U.S.), IBM (New York, U.S.), HPE (California, U.S.), Palo Alto Networks (California, U.S.), Check Point (California, U.S.), Blue Coat (California, U.S.), Extreme Networks (California, U.S.), NetScout (Massachusetts, U.S.), Symantec (California, U.S.), and Viavi (California, U.S.) are identified as leaders in the deep packet inspection and processing market, whereas Procera (California, U.S.) , Huawei (Guangdong, China), Sandvine (Ontario, Canada), Qosmos (Paris, France), LookingGlass (Maryland, U.S.), Bivio Networks (California, U.S.) , Allot (Hod-Hasharon, Israel), cPacket Networks (California, U.S.) , LogRhythm (Colorado, U.S.), and Ipoque (Rohde & Schwarz, Leipzig, Germany) are identified as key innovators in the market.



About MarketsandMarkets

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M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research, titled "Europe Market Study on Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems: Impelled By Increasing Number of On the Go Consumers, Coupled With Rapid Growth of the Quick Service Restaurants, Over the Forecast Period 2016 - 2022," the europe foodservice disposables distribution systems market is estimated to be valued at US$ 1,590.9 Mn by the end of 2015 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 4.9% over 2016 - 2022 in terms of value, to reach a market value of US$ 2,225.2 Mn by 2022.



The Europe (U.K. Spain, France & Switzerland) foodservice disposables distribution systems market is driven by increasing adoption of the on the go lifestyle and increasing initiatives taken by the various food disposables manufacturers to introduce food disposables with creative designs. Moreover, collaboration of various distributors with manufacturers that offer foodservice disposable products is another key factor expected to drive market growth of the food service disposables market in the region over the forecast period.



Request Sample of this Report: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10807



On the basis of type, the Europe foodservice disposables distribution market has been segmented into tableware disposables, finger food disposables, and durable plastic glasses. The tableware disposables segment dominated the market with a revenue share of 85.8% in 2015 and is projected to maintain its dominance through 2022. Increasing number of cafes and takeaway formats is supporting the segment growth in the foodservice disposable distribution system market. The tableware disposable segment is further sub-segmented into plates, bowls & tubs, cutlery, trays and containers, and cups and mugs. The plate segment accounted for the significant share in 2014 and is estimated to be valued at US$ 732.2 Mn by 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 5.5% over 2016 - 2022.



On the basis of end use, the market is segmented into hotel & other accommodation facilities, restaurants, cafe and bistros, bars & pubs, clubs, institutions, and foodservice providers/caterers. The restaurants segment is estimated to account for the highest value share by 2015 end and expected to remain the most dominant segment over the forecast period. The restaurants segment was valued at US$ 341.5 Mn in 2014 and is estimated to be valued at US$ 526.8 Mn by 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 5.6% over 2016 - 2022.



To View TOC: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/europe-foodservice-disposables-distribution-systems-market/toc



In terms of distribution channel, the market has been segmented into wholesalers, hypermarket/supermarkets, cash & carry, logistic providers, distributors, and online. The cash & carry segment is projected to exhibit the highest growth over 20162022. The cash & carry segment was valued at US$ 326.3 Mn in 2014 and is estimated to be valued at US$ 494.9 Mn by 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 5.3% over 20162022.



The report provides in-depth information about the various trends driving each segment and provides analysis and insights about the foodservice disposables distribution system market in specific countries.



To Buy Full Report: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/10807



The U.K. market accounted for the significant volume share of 42.6% of the Europe foodservice disposables market in 2014.



Key players in Europe foodservice disposables distribution system market that are covered in the report include Dispo International, EFG Foodservice, First Pack, Go-Pak Group, ITP Imports Ltd. (Discount Wholesale), Mashers, MBS Wholesale Ltd, Party & Paper Solutions Ltd., Pattersons UK, and Sustainable Disposables Trading BV (SD Trading).



PMR for Journalist: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/page/journalist-resources.asp



About Persistence Market Research

Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.



To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.
Sussex, UK -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- Spring Barn Farm Park, the Sussex based children's farm park attraction have announced several exciting summer events in addition to new facilities.



The farm, the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom, is situated ideally upon the foothills of the majestic South Downs National Park, and as such makes an ideal venue for campers. Visit our Spring Barn Farm website to learn more about Camping at South Downs National Park.



The venue is also a firm favourite with Children of all ages, and the farm makes for an ideal option for kids birthday parties thanks to the immense outdoor & indoor play area coupled with the fun children's farm park where little ones can literally meet the animals.



Fun Filled Activities & Events At Spring Barn Farm



In 2016, Spring Barn Farm has already hosted several sell out events including Pirate Week (over May Half Term), which featured several outrageously fun activities including the Bouncy Pirate Galleon, Walking The Plank, A Treasure Quest and the ever popular Water Wars. The Farm has also enjoyed special events including Mothers & Fathers day specials (including free admission for the moms and dads on their special day).



However, the best is yet to come in the second half of 2016. There are plenty of superb events planned for the second half of the year. These include the relaunch of the fun Maize Maize in mid July - this was one of the first attractions when Spring Barn Farm launched, and has remained one of the most sought after events ever since.



It does not end there, as Spring Barn Farm is set to become the best children's farm park in the UK with a host of new and exciting launches. These include the new, larger peddle go kart, a new sand & water play area for kids and the exciting launch of the farm Safari.



Get more information about all these events at the Spring Barn Farm website at www.springbarnfarm.com



About Spring Barn Farm Park

Spring Barn Farm Park is the premier Children's Farm Park in West Sussex. The farm has long been owned by the Carr family, and has been operating for many years. The farm offers many attractions and events including farm camping in South Downs and the best indoor play in Lewes.



Media Contact:

Tukshad Engineer

Phone: +44 01273 488 450

Email: info@springbarnfarm.com
Penndel, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- General Partition Company, Inc. is a company located in Croydon, PA that provides all types of chipboard and SBS partitions for all kinds of customers. They have been serving their clients in Bucks County, PA, and the surrounding areas, for the last 50 years. The staff at General Partition Company, Inc. cares about protecting their customers' products during shipping, which is why they provide some of highest-quality box dividers and box partitions in the area. They pride themselves on being premium manufacturers of box partitions by operating with maximum manufacturing flexibility and engineering new designs to fit future needs. One industry they particularly provide box partitions and other products for is the packaging distribution industry and their companies.



General Partition Company, Inc. has a ton of respect for the packaging distribution industry, not only because they are a part of it, but also because a significant portion of their customers are packaging distribution companies. They value packaging distributors because they are out in the world every day trying to provide the best packaging solutions for their clients. Many times the box partitions from General Partition Company, Inc. are that solution.



General Partition Company, Inc. respects and protects packaging distributors because they know how valuable it is to have those companies out there selling their box partitions. This company has been building strong and lasting relationships with these types of companies for the past 50 years, and they plan to continue to solidify those relationships as well as developing new partnerships.



To learn more about the products and services provided by General Partition Company, Inc., contact them at 1-888-501-4685.



About General Partition Company, Inc.

General Partition Company, Inc. is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania-based organization providing durable and versatile box partitions for a wide variety of implementations. They manufacture partitions comprised of chipboard, corrugated cardboard and Solid Bleach Sulfite (SBS).



General Partition Company, Inc. also has services to assist businesses plan and engineer intelligent shipping solutions using their box partitions. Their delivery services have a reputation for being fast and reliable. They also accommodate special orders like unique labeling. Reach General Partition Company, Inc. by phone nationwide at 888-501-4685.



For more information, please visit: http://www.generalpartition.com/.
Shenzhen, China -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/22/2016 -- HTL, a world top ten LED screen manufacturer, today announced that it reached a milestone of 1000 SQM F5 LED panels sold worldwide, less than eight months after its first release in the Prolight and Sound show.



F5 is a perfect combination of appearance and functionality,with high definition and flexible configurations.



"We are excited about the rapid global acceptance of the F5 by the rental staging industry," commented Bruce Zhang, The Marketing and Product Promotion Manager at HTL. "Despite a tough economic situation in China, sales of F5 further improved our performance this year, and the next six months look very sanguine."



USA and Europe were two major markets to adopt the cable-less 4K LED solution which is equally suitable for indoor and outdoor applications. While the biggest sale was made in USA with a staggering 400m2, the 5mm pixel pitch panel was welcomed to much acclaim in many European countries including Germany, France, Russia, Ireland and Luxembourg.



With 460 cabinets sold to date in the Netherlands market, John Smith has intimate knowledge of F5 LED video display. For John Smith, Sales Manager of the company in Netherland, its design has to be praised: "Our customers love the merits that the F5 is very simple to install and maintain. It has front and back access, a backup power supply and signal, magnetic front panels and the fact that the screens can be curved +/-10 makes it an ideal choice for rental stagers in Spain."



In France, the F5 and its modularity found home in the rental fleet of leading rental stagers. Amongst them are Steven who specializes in concerts and festivals, and Tamilier events, a French service provider in the corporate events sector. "With high profile corporate clients, we can't afford average quality or downtime, and the F5 quality and accessibility gives us peace of mind," commented Lorry Jocker, Tamilier Managing Director. "We were looking for a provider of high quality LED panels at the show and what we found is a LED screen manufacturer that is listening to our needs, available and efficient. The fact that HTL also has a market presence with European headquarters in Germany also helped a lot to make a decision."



About the F5 assets, Steven has a lot more to say: "When looking for the perfect LED display panel, there are three things you should be looking for: Pitch, weight and implementation. The F5 ticks all those boxes and more. It is a true outdoor product, with great brightness output performing flawlessly under direct sunlight. Despite a 5mm pitch, it is very light and whether you need a three or 25 metre wide screen, it's got great definition even from a short distance, making it a great asset for festivals. It is also mechanically very easy to handle: It took us only 45 minutes to build up a 35 sqm screen for our last event!"



The growing popularity of the F5 comes from its versatility and flexibility, making it suitable for many indoor and outdoor events show and management such as TV studios, concerts and live shows, conferences and exhibitions. F5 has built a strong reputation in a short period.



For more information, please visit: http://www.htldisplay.com



About HTL Display

HTL is a top LED display screen manufacturer since the establishment in 2006. HTL integrates R&D, production with sales and service of full color LED displays for indoor and outdoor events show and management.



Media Contact:

Company: HTL Display Co.,LTD

Contact Person: Bill Chan

Tel: +86-755-33123095

Fax: +86-755-33123095

Address: Building B, Tongfukang Industrial Zone, Shiyan Town, Shenzhen, China

Email: enquiry@htldisplay.com

Website: http://www.htldisplay.com
Philadelphia, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett, & Bendesky is one of the leading personal injury law firms in the nation. The attorneys from this law firm have reached some of the largest verdicts and settlements in New Jersey and Philadelphia, PA history. Those who have been injured and are seeking a quality personal injury attorney in South Jersey and other local areas should look no further than Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett, and Bendesky. Recently, this personal injury law firm has reached a record Philadelphia County settlement of $26.550 million in a case where a landscape service worker was severely injured in a 2011 truck rollover.



The $26.550 million is being provided to David Williams, a former landscape service worker, whose truck rolled over because those responsible for the maintaining the company truck allegedly wouldn't spend a few hundred dollars to replace the bald, dangerous tires. Mr. Williams suffered a fractured spinal cord during the accident, requiring several surgeries, and the accident rendered the father of three sons a quadriplegic. He now requires around-the-clock nursing supervision daily, which includes the need to be awakened and repositioned in bed several times throughout the night.



David Williams spent several months at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia after the accident. David Kwass, a member of the legal team at Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett, and Bendesky, says, "David was the picture of vitality and energy when his life was turned upside down in that totally preventable rollover." Mr. Williams hopes that this settlement will send a message to those who own, operate, and service fleet vehicles.



To learn more about settlements by personal injury lawyers in South Jersey and other local areas, contact Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky at 215-496-8282.



About Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky

Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky is a law firm that offers personal injury lawyers in New Jersey and Philadelphia. The attorneys at Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky have achieved some of the largest verdicts and settlements in the history of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They also represent construction workers who have been injured or killed.



For more information, please go to http://www.smbb.com/ or call 215-496-8282.
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/23/2016 -- Dairy are important food providing necessary nutrients for every human being. Dairy is a universal and livestock industry related production: Livestock and milk collection take place in almost every country across the world, and up to one million people participate in milk production. It is an important part of the global food system and it plays a key role in the sustainability of rural areas in particular. In fact, the dairy industry actively contributes to the economies of a number of communities, regions and countries. An increasing demand worldwide is noticeably emerging at the present, and the industry is globalizing, thus increasing the scope and intensity of the global dairy trade. However, the world's dairy industry is mainly produced in developed countries, such as America, New Zealand and is mostly exported to developing countries. In addition, the dairy industry is in shortage of supply. The motivation comes from China and Europe with annual input growth rates up to 20%.



Vietnam does not initially possess the cow raising tradition, this only emerged in Vietnam since the early of the 20th century. Up to 2015, Vietnam has more than 275 thousand units of cow and a total of 19 thousand producers. Cow raising requires capital and high technical skills, but in Vietnam, cows are mainly raised by small scale producers (less than 20 units/ producer) coupled with the lack of knowledge on raising and preventing cows from diseases, resulting in low productivity, high production cost, and unstable milk quality. According to Publisher, West Europe has production cost from 45-55 USD. While America has the production cost at about 35-60 USD, depending on each area development. Countries like Argentina have suitable weather and big farming land, helping reducing the average cost. Cost of production in Australasia is 36.6 USD, while it is 30 -35 USD in Australia and 41-42 USD in New Zealand.



The discrepancy comes from food price, land price and the revaluation of NZD recently. New Zealand used to have the most competitive price in around the year 2000 (12USD/ 100kg) but the revaluation of the currency and rising inputs price trebled the price. In general, the cost of production did not fluctuate strongly throughout the period. Vietnam has the average cost of production because diluted raising and scale, does not achieve the economics of scale, low productivity (12-15 liters/day) and high cost of cattle-feed and veterinary. This leads to the lack of milk as input materials for milk manufacturing industry for years hence has to rely on imports.



The in-depth research "Vietnam Dairy Industry" carried out by Publisher illustrates the overall scenario of the dairy industry in Vietnam in order to provide an insight for a better understanding regarding the market. The report details the economic situation in general and the industry in particular with updated date and statistic until 2016, the movement of the price as well as the forecast for the upcoming future, covering all domains, including liquid milk, powdered milk, condensed milk as well as yogurt, butter and cheese. Analysis of big players in the industry is also elaborated by providing detailed financial analysis, applied technology, market share, etc. herein to help companies position and define the competiveness in the market. For example, some typical producers are VinaMilk, TH True Milk, Nutrifood, Hanoi milk, IDP, 3A nutrition.



For more information Visit at: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/virac/vietnam-dairy-report-q22016



Find all Dairy Products Reports at: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/dairy-products



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On Wednesday, June 29, at 12.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference entitled "Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. The Day Before." The participants will include Director of the New Ukraine Institute for Strategic Studies Andriy Yermolayev, main advisor at the New Ukraine Institute for Strategic Studies Volodymyr Lupatsiy and expert at the New Ukraine Institute for Strategic Studies Sviatoslav Denysenko (8/5a Reitarska Street). The event is organized to present draft amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine elaborated by experts of the New Ukraine Institute for Strategic Studies. Registration requires press accreditation.
Global leaders from business, civil society and universities meet in New York, United States, today for the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit. They will debate what the organisers call the tremendous market opportunity for businesses  to invest, innovate and collaborate to create a more sustainable future for all.



I cant help balking at the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being pitched as a business opportunity. Free market policies and privatisation appear to have made the world less sustainable and more unequal over the past few decades. Look no further than the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, and consequent underinvestment in state services, for an example of this in developing countries.



These days, the role of business in achieving the SDGs is a hot topic. The phrase public-private partnership is now ubiquitous, while campaigners criticise moves by government agencies to tie aid to free market reforms. Whatever ones take, it is clear that all businesses must be encouraged to take social and environmental sustainability more seriously.



So I was interested to hear Mark Malloch Brown, chair of the new Business and Sustainable Development Commission, make the business case for the SDGs at a Danish conference earlier this month.



Malloch Brown himself is unequivocal. Companies that are on the front foot and understand their environment are going to be the future winners, he told a packed summit. The companies that crouch back  [will be] consigned for the corporate scrapheap.



He told me he believes three kinds of companies will thrive. One kind he calls disruptors: tech-based businesses that are completely changing sections of the global economy, cutting out old jobs, creating new jobs. Another is the radical incumbents: older, corporate statesmen of global business that are nonetheless innovating and forging new partnerships. And then there are the local insurgents: small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that quickly exploit opportunities opening up in supply chains and distribution networks.



Malloch Brown cites energy as an example of this last category. In countries where the national grid is no longer (or has never been) the main way of distributing power, SMEs are learning how to sell local, sustainable, off-grid energy.



But dont these smaller players also let governments off the hook over service provision, I ask him? Its a key issue, Malloch Brown says. And, in some ways, the role of the state will change. It will become more of a regulator and franchiser of some sets of [private sector] services than in the past.



The tax base of developing countries is too weak, he says. With health, for example, Malloch Brown envisages countries providing a basic primary health package for citizens, but as treatments go up the scale of cost and complexity, youre going to see the introduction of much more health insurance-type schemes.

If you are unable to listen to this audio, please update your browser or click here to download.

This seems an alarmingly stripped back model of state service provision. I ask if he thinks technology can help increase tax incomes in developing countries, given its now easier for watchdogs to monitor money flows, and harder for corrupt officials to move money out of countries.



Yes, I think it will, he says. I think were entering an era of much greater transparency. From the Volkswagen emissions dodging scandal to the Panama Papers leak, theres now a virtuous cycle where corporates are finding if they have bad secrets, its harder and harder to permanently hide them.



This has got to be a private sector which is long-term, patient, transparent, pays its taxes in the countries where it operates, [and] meets local labour rules, he adds.
[HARARE] A strategic plan has been created to address gaps in skills capacity required to help Africa implement the first ten years of Agenda 2063.



The plan was described in a new report titled Africas critical technical skills, a key capacity dimension needed for the first ten years implementation of agenda 2063 developed by the Zimbabwe-headquartered African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF).

Real African transformation will not happen unless countries give priority to STEM. Emmanuel Nnadozie, African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)

According to the report, Africa needs 1.6 million agricultural scientists and has a gap of 2.8 million water and sanitation engineers. It adds that the continent accounts for less than 1.5 per cent of international scientific journals publications and percentage has been declining steeply in recent decades.



The report was presented at the third Pan-African Capacity Development Forum in Harare last month (3-5 May), which was organised by ACBF to mark its 25th Anniversary since its establishment.



About 900 people from 40 African countries including Botswana, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya attended the forum.



Emmanuel Nnadozie, the executive secretary of the ACBF tells SciDev.Net that the ACBF report shows that more than 80 per cent of students are enrolling in social sciences and humanities with a smaller number taking science and technology courses, It calls for increased efforts to direct more students towards the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).



Real African transformation will not happen unless countries give priority to STEM, says Nnadozie. Emphasis of STEM could resolve unemployment issues in Africa.



The strategic plan focuses on building the critical skills, strengthening the learning institutions and building soft capacities in learning institutions.



This will be achieved through financing capacity development programmes, and connecting experiences and lessons on capacity development, the report adds.

Burton Mwamila, vice-chancellor of the Tanzania-based Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, says higher learning institutions in Africa should change their curriculums.



To build human capital in Africa, universities should harmonise their curriculums to model science and innovation, says Bernadin Senadza, a senior lecturer of economics at the University of Ghana.

Njeri Wamae chairperson of Kenyas National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation, says that platforms should be created for the youth to showcase their innovative skills and ensure that they are commercialised and used by the public.According to Nnadozie, the forums participants such as government officials and development partners pledged to collaborate and implement ACBFs strategic plan to help address the challenge of capacity and skill creation in Africa through investing in STEM and vocational skills.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.
Rumors about Microsoft's highly anticipated Surface Book 2 have been making rounds for quite some time now. New reports suggest the software giant will not release Surface Book 2 until 2017.

If reports are to be believed, the tech giant is waiting for the Redstone 2 update on the Windows 10 that is expected to get released sometime early next year. Also, Microsoft is reportedly keen in using Intel's next generation Kaby Lake processor in Surface Book 2. However, the Kaby Lake processor has not been released until now and is only expected to arrive sometime later this year around December.

While, wait for Microsoft Surface Book 2 is getting longer, it is expected that the delay could give more time to the software giant to bring the best specifications and features on the new laptop. The previous Surface Book model suffered from a number of issues such as Sleep Death issue, overheating and unplanned shutdowns, so, enthusiasts are expecting that the upcoming Surface Book 2 will turn out as a perfect 2-in1 PC free from all sort of issues.

There are even reports which claim that Microsoft has already begun preparing ground for release of the second generation Surface Book as it has started offering discounts on previous models. Discounts and offers on laptops and smartphones hints that a new version is ready to roll out.

It is rumored that the next generation Surface Book will come with improved specs and upgrades. The laptop is rumored to come equipped with up to 1TB internal storage, which is bigger compared to its predecessor's 512GB storage capacity. The device is likely to feature to a 13.5-inch screen display backed with a new touchscreen technology called Pixel Sense. In addition, the upcoming Microsoft Surface Book 2 is rumored to run on Core i7 and sport an improved Surface Pen.

As far as pricing of Microsoft Surface Book 2 is concerned, the upcoming laptop is expected to follow the same price range as its predecessor.

We would advise our readers to take the information with a big grain of salt as nothing yet has been officially announced by Microsoft.

Are you excited about Microsoft Surface Book 2 release? Let us know in comments below.
In a daring rescue on Wednesday, a small plane with two sick US workers found their way to Antarctica from a remote South Pole research station. The two workers were then flown to Chile, where they will be getting their medical care.

The rescue team that managed to save the pair flew in 3,000 miles round trip from the British Station Rothera to pick up workers at the US-Amundsen-Scott station. The flight was perilous, but necessary as the scientists were in desperate need of medical attention.

The evacuation flight made headlines due to the danger that they have to face as it is extremely cold in the South Pole at this time of year. According to CTV News, scientists pointed out that they've just gone in the coldest days at it was mid-winter.

Flying to the South Pole in the middle of winter is extremely rare as there is a lack of light, not to mention the extreme weather conditions that make flying risky. Peter West of the National Science Foundation shared, "This has never been attempted before at this time of year, this time of winter in Antarctica. It's been done slightly earlier in the winter, but not at this time of year."

The Washington Post noted that the National Science Foundation still hasn't identified the sick workers or their conditions, saying that it is a matter of medical privacy. However, they were both said to be working for Lockheed Martin.

There have only been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott Station since 1999, two of which had airplanes provided for by Kenn Boreck air - and supplied two of the planes for the mission this time around. Despite the treacherous journeys, researchers have been working at the station since the 1950s, and it is only one of three year-round NSF-led operations in Antarctica.
Alligators are normally seen in ponds and swamps but how often do you see one in a Texas beach? A 13-foor gator washed ashore in Galveston Beach over the weekend, and photos have gone viral. While a gator at a beach is unusual enough, this one appeared dead - and nobody knew exactly why.

In a report from Inquisitr, a family was celebrating Father's Day when they spotted a large crowd of people gathered around the huge animal. It was said to have measured 13 feet long, its presence shocking beachgoers. However, the massive animal was said to be dead.

Timeiki Hedspeth, who saw the alligator together with her family shared, "If that thing would have woke up, we was like, maybe he (was) playing 'possum?" She also said that this was extremely lucky, considering that there were a lot of people in the water that day.

Texas wildlife workers told KGNS TV that the gator, was likely displaced from the recent flooding in the area, and probably waded into the water to rinse himself. It is unclear how the animal died, but they usually live in fresh water like ponds, rivers, streams and swamps, so it is not common to see them near a salty sea. However, they can swim in saltwater if they need to get from one place to another.

Another gator was also spotted on a beach in Georgia last Friday afternoon, although it was slightly smaller at around 8- to 10-feet long. while this is also unusual, there are roughly around 200,000 alligators in Georgia, and these animals were usually seen south of the "fall line" which connects the cities of Columbus, Macon, and Augusta.

Alligators aren't usually seen in the news, but the gator attack at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida last week piqued more interests. Still, it has been unprecedented for a dead alligator to wash ashore on a beach like it did in Texas.
JOHNSONVILLE, S.C.  Mae Woodberry cannot see the changes that have been made to her Johnsonville home.

But she knows.

I cant see none of it, but I can feel it, she said. Woodberry, a 90-year-old Johnsonville native, is blind.

In October, her home was destroyed during historic flooding that hit parts of South Carolina.

Now, more than seven months after the flooding occurred, the home is refurbished. A celebration was held Wednesday afternoon to commemorate the first house to be seen to completion since the North Carolina Baptist disaster-relief team and the Florence long-term flood recovery group joined forces in early May.

Since Woodberry received no money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the approximately $11,000 in repairs were funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield, the American Red Cross and the Southern Baptist Convention. The North Carolina Baptist disaster-relief team provided the volunteer labor.

When Billy Layton, the on-site coordinator with the team, first heard about Woodberrys home, he knew there was mold.

But when the area was surveyed, it became apparent that the house would need much more work than the group originally thought.

It goes from a little bitty to problem to Pandoras box, Layton said. Thats what this was, a Pandoras box.

At its completion, Woodberrys home has new siding, a new roof, new floors and a newly constructed deck with a ramp.

For Woodberry, who was born and raised on the Johnsonville property where she lives, the renovations feel great.

She lived for decades in the house behind her current home and moved into the trailer with her daughter, Annette Shird, in the early 2000s.

Together, the pair weathered the October storms.

I was scared, and I was praying, Woodberry said, recalling the water that rose in the home.

Despite the destruction, Woodberry and Shird stayed in the home even as it was being repaired.

A smile covered Woodberrys face during Wednesdays homecoming celebration.

And to the workers who helped fix her house, Woodberry had nothing but praise.

"Mmm, mmm. Y'all so good to me," she said.
KYIV. June 23 (Interfax-Ukraine)  The number of people who are ready to reveal corruption facts is increasing, Transparency International (TI) organization has said.

"Before the beginning of our campaign in November 2014, only 13% of Ukrainians declared their willingness to expose and report on corruption facts to law enforcement bodies," senior analyst of Transparency International Ukraine Oleksandr Kalitenko said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Thursday.

According to him, the organization has held a campaign 'TheyWouldn'tKeepSilent", aimed at explaining the importance of the corruption exposure in the country. After this campaign, according to Kalitenko, 45% of Ukrainians declare their willingness to report on cases of corruption.

"In other words, we have an increase of 32%, but this is only the beginning. Despite the fact that the number of potential "whistleblowers" has doubled, only 2% actually report and not just declare their readiness to report," Kalitenko said.

At the same time, according to the Transparency International, there are some changes in attitude, but still it's necessary to explain the importance of exposing corruption to people.

Lawyer of the TI organization Dmytro Kuzin said that during the year more than 370 people appealed to the organization about the facts of corruption. "More than 370 people per year - it's a lot for an NGO, but still this happens not often enough," Kalitenko added noting that most of these posts refer to the corruption in education, law enforcement and judicial bodies, different state institutions, health care and other areas.

TI representatives noted that they participate in the development of the bill on "whistleblowers" of corruption aimed at their protection. "We suggest amending the Ukrainian legislation regarding physical protection of "whistleblowers": this is the creation of reliable channels of corruption reports," the lawyer said.

In addition, he said, the award for "whistleblowers" of corruption is necessary, if their actions have contributed to a return of the state budget funds. "We would like to reward whistleblowers in the amount of 10% for their report about corruption after the funds are returned to the state budget," Kalitenko said.
John Bethea wrote Government working against citizens, and in his letter published Sunday in the Morning News, he asked progressives a number of questions. As a progressive, here are some answers.

Bethea asked,Why are so many of the Democrats trying so hard to do away with our right to have and own firearms? As a group, we arent: many of us own guns and have a concealed carry permit, but the discussion is not whether we should keep military-style weapons away from civilians; we already do that. The discussion is over what belongs on the list with the M777 howitzer and MK47 grenade launcher.

Yes, guns do require a shooter to kill people, but remember why these shooters consistently choose AR-15s and AK-47s with high-capacity magazines. The systems were designed for military use, to create massive numbers of casualties with a rapid, accurate, high volume of fire, you know, like the M777 and MK47.

Why are the Democrats and others always trying to pass on the fantasy that Republicans and the independents are racists. No one is calling all independents and all Republicans racists, but Republican-led governments do keep passing laws that target minorities. For example, the voter ID law here in South Carolina was passed to end rampant voter fraud, except the lawmakers knew that voter fraud has affected zero elections, and when you look at the effect of the law, blacks were disenfranchised most of all. Coincidence? Of course not. Prejudice, racism, and bigotry? Yes.

Why do Democrats want the illegals and people from war-torn countries to be legal citizens of the U.S.? By illegals, I assume he includes undocumented Hispanics who now number about 12 million in the U.S., who are an integral part of our economy and are doing many of the jobs most U.S. citizens dont want, like harvesting our food. And why does it cost $680 (not including lawyer fees, court costs, etc) and take 25 years (according to Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin) to become a U.S. citizen? Because the system is understaffed to the point of paralysis. And what about the immigrants from war-torn countries? Unless your name is Running Bear, we descended from immigrants who were probably fleeing something lethal, like starvation, war or religious intolerance, like another John Bethea born in 1684, a Protestant who came to America to escape the guillotine in Louis XIVs Catholic France (betheafamily.org). Why must we close the door for current immigrants? If the objection stems from their religion, then isnt that the same prejudice and bigotry the other John Bethea came here to escape?

Why is the president letting known criminals out of jail with a presidential pardon? Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution says the president shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons. ... Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt pardoned 16, 119, 343, and 981 convicted criminals respectively based on reasons the president is not legally required to divulge. Its a safety valve for miscarriages of justice, and no, its not a perfect system.

And speaking of Obama, Bethea asked, Does he hate whites so much. ... Even if Obamas mother wasnt white, and Obama wasnt raised in white neighborhoods by his white grandparents and white extended family, can anyone see how such questions might sound racist?

CHARLES TRANT

Florence
LHASA, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Eight villagers were buried by landslides in China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday, local publicity department said Saturday night.

Nine villagers were taking shelter from the rain in a cave in Paldenze Village, Medog County in Nyingchi City when the landslides occured.

One villager was pulled out, severely injured, and sent to hospital.

The rescue operation continues.
Photo taken on April 5, 2016 shows the lighthouse on Zhubi Reef of Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, south China. (Xinhua file photo)

BEIJING, June 22 --The United States likes to think of itself as a force for peace, law and justice, and the deployment of two aircraft carriers on a "training mission" in East Asia obviously backs up that aspiration. Or does it?

The timing of the operation -- just ahead of a ruling on South China Sea disputes -- is surely a deliberated one. The United States has dressed up the illegal, unilateral arbitration instigated by the Philippines as a noble act of homage to international law, while China's complete ambivalence toward irrelevant proceedings in The Hague is painted as disrespectful and a violation of that same international law.

Why the big show of strength now?

After countless promises not to take sides in South China Sea disputes, the arrival of the warships is presumably just another aspect of the "peaceful resolution based on international law" which the Obama administration has so consistently advocated.

Since the Philippines took it upon itself to open the arbitration, China has been drawn as the neighborhood bully who wants to militarize the region, but facts speak louder than hollow words and now more than 60 countries openly support China's stance. Could that be what all these warships, fighter jets and troops are about?

To the United States, these moves might look like "peace, law and justice," but to everyone else they appear to be exactly what they are: militarization.

Even the Philippines smells a rat. On Tuesday, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines' president-elect, said that he had asked the U.S. ambassador whether Washington would support the Philippines in a confrontation with China.

"Are you with us or are you not with us?" asked Duterte.

"Only if you are attacked," the ambassador replied.

There's the rub. Is U.S. support for the arbitration really for the sake of the Philippines? Or is it all about China?

If there are any lessons to be learned from the past, the Philippines would know that bringing outsiders into any dispute invariably complicates matters, and never calms things down.

To paraphrase "Game of Thrones," the Philippines may well ask themselves whether it is worthy "to fight for the master who would never fight and die for you?"

As a new president preparing to assume office, Duterte would do well to give a thought to returning to the negotiating table. China will welcome him there.
WENCHANG, Hainan, June 22 -- China plans to launch its new generation Long March-7 carrier rocket between Saturday and Wednesday from a new launch ground in south China, according to the manned space engineering office on Wednesday.

The rocket was vertical when taken to the launch pad in journey that took three hours this morning.

The Long March-7 is a medium-sized rocket using liquid propellant that can carry up to 13.5 tonnes to low-Earth orbit. It will transport cargo for China's planned space station and is expected to become the main carrier for space launches.

The rocket arrived at Wenchang in south China's Hainan Province in May for final assembly and testing.

This will be the first launch from Wenchang, the fourth launch site in China. Its construction was completed in November 2014.

According to the local tourism department, all hotels are fully booked until Sunday. The city can only provide accommodation for 80,000 people and suggested tourists avoid the maiden launch, as there will be more in the future.
China has launched its first dark sky reserve in the Tibet autonomous region's Ngari Prefecture.

Ngari is among the best sites for astronomical observation on earth, due to its high altitude and large number of cloudless days throughout the year.[Photo by Wang Xiaohua/for chinadaily.com.cn]

The reserve covers an area of 2,500 square kilometers and aims to limit light pollution by stepping up protection of dark-sky resources for education and tourism development.

It was jointly launched by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation and the regional government of Tibet.

Wang Wenyong, head of the legal affairs department with the foundation, said in a news briefing on Tuesday that the launch of the preserve is only the first step in protecting the area from light pollution.

The reserve will also try to seek accreditation from the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit organization based in the United State that is devoted to preserving and protecting the night time environment and dark skies globally.

Wang Xiaohua, head of the Chinese branch of the International Dark-Sky Association and a leader of the Ngari reserve program, said such areas were important for promoting astronomy.

Ngari is among the best sites for astronomical observation on earth, due to its high altitude and large number of cloudless days throughout the year.

However, the recent inflow of people from other areas has given rise to increasing urbanization, and thus the associated risk of more light pollution.

"If we do not take action now to preserve the area, we risk losing one of the best astronomical sites on earth," said Wang at the news briefing.

The foundation has also signed an agreement with authorities in Tibet's Nagchu prefecture to establish a night sky park, which will feature limited lighting facilities and a special area for astronomical observation.
The final countdown! All to play for as 11% of voters say they have yet to decide which way they will vote in today's historic EU referendum

The battle for Britain's future was on a knife edge last night with the final EU referendum polls making the contest too close to call.

An exclusive survey for the Daily Mail and ITV News, gave the Remain camp a lead of six points, by 48 per cent to 42 per cent  but 11 per cent of electors said they were still undecided.

Crucially, the Leave campaign's key message that now is the time for Britain to 'take control' of its own destiny has had the biggest cut-through with voters.
As Britain takes to polls for Brexit, China is also closely watching and weighing the impact of the possible United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

The future of the relationship between the U.K. and the E.U. depends on the vote on Thursday. Recent opinion polls put the Leave and Remain campaigns neck-to-neck, but the betting markets suggest there is a 75 percent chance that Remain will win, the media reported.

The U.K. is only second to Germany when it comes to trade with China in the E.U. According to an analysis report from the Bank of China, China will lose an important power to push forward free trade between China and Europe and it will also add to more difficulties for future negotiations on free trade pacts, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

As one of the most important offshore market and trading hubs for the RMB, London is a key mainstay for RMB internationalization efforts. Since the Brexit may threaten Londons position as a leading world financial hub, it may also affect Chinas plans to go global, according to the Economic Daily.

The newspaper added that the worlds capital markets, including Chinas, will receive a negative impact from the Brexit.

On the other hand, exports to the U.K. account for some 3 percent of Chinas total exports, a figure not too big to indicate a huge blow, Beijing Morning Post noted, adding that the U.K. may also turn to seek more cooperation with countries like China, after Brexit impairs the countrys free trade with the E.U.

The Xinhua News Agency pointed out that the Brexit will also be followed by devaluation in the pound.

Several Chinese experts said the chance of the U.K. leaving the E.U. is relatively small. Professor Wang Yiwei with Renmin University of China said it is not very likely for the referendum to pass and for them to leave the E.U. and even if so, the E.U. may still hold emergency meetings in order to keep the U.K.

ARemain camp may attract the majority as keeping the E.U. membership is beneficial for the U.K. in the long run, according to Feng Zhongping, vice president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

In all, we will be still delighted to see a united E.U. for a Brexit will only jeopardize both the E.U. and the U.K. and weaken future global economic growth, which, obviously, will be bad for China, Peoples Daily commented.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 -- Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

Speaking of the current decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

The most important task in Russia-China trade now is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, noting that the two sides have taken concrete measures to improve their trade structure.

While citing fruitful bilateral cooperation in aerospace and nuclear power, he said the Russian side is also closely following the construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan.

The 770-km track, now under Russia-China joint construction, is designed for bullet trains capable of running at up to 400 km per hour, and expected to cut the travel time between Moscow and Kazan from the current 12 hours to three and a half hours.

The project "it may very well be only the beginning of our broad cooperation in infrastructure," said Putin.

"Our cooperation in culture is also of great value," he said, adding that such programs as the Year of China in Russia and the Year of Russia in China are undoubtedly helpful to cementing mutual trust between the two peoples.

Meanwhile, the two countries have also witnessed steady expansion in bilateral cooperation in such areas as foreign policy, armed forces and military technology, noted the Russian leader.

"We have maintained contact regularly, and carried out consultations on global and regional affairs," he said, pointing out that such cooperation "is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs."
A township government in northeastern Chinas Liaoning province has been blacklisted after the government failed to pay off 37 million yuan ($5.6 million) debt in 13 years.

The Changdian township government in Liaoning signed a contract with a local businessman Zhou Shengxi to allow Zhou to buy a government-owned factory in 1997.

According to Zhou, the contract said he should pay the township government 2.2 million yuan for the factory with 6 million yuan credit and 6 million yuan debt, but he later found that the debt owed to the factory has been paid off but the debt the factory owed to others remained, The Beijing News reported.

Zhou then began to sue the Changdian government in 2001. After several rounds of trials, the high court of Liaoning ruled in 2003 that the Changdian government should pay Zhou compensation of 2.47 million yuan along with related interests and overdue liabilities since 1997, the newspaper noted.

Based on the ruling in 2003, the total payment to Zhou has exceeded 37 million yuan as of May.

However, the payment has never been delivered since the judgment, as the Changdian government argued that it has no capabilities to pay for Zhou.

In June, the intermediate court of Dandong announced to blacklist the Changdian township government. According to Zhous lawyer, the Supreme Peoples Court has stipulated that blacklisted debtors should be restricted from traveling, accommodation and the purchase of automobiles, which the lawyer suggested to be imposed on the township government officials as well.
The agm saw two stalwarts of the SSA council standing down. SSA Council member and technical committee chairman Surendra Dutt of Anglo Eastern Shipmanagement has been posted to Hong Kong after 22 years in Singapore, and Steen Lund of DNV GL will be taking over the role chairing the technical committee.

Also, we are finally allowing our honorary member Ong Kok Wah to retire, after he has served 16 years on the Council and a further nine years as our Associations Trustee. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the gentlemen for their contributions to the SSA, association president Esben Poulsson said in his speech to the reception.

The evening also paid tribute to the 19 people who organised the [email protected] outreach event during in Singapore Maritime Week in April this year where the general public was able to tour two offshore vessels to get a greater understanding of the sector.

It was unchartered territory of SSA to organise such a large scaled public outreach event which attracted some 2,600 visitors  including Senior Minister of State Josephine Teo  over the three days. We had 81 people volunteering as ship ambassadors and over 20 companies who not only shared their expertise but waived off the charges incurred for using their ships, services and equipment, Poulsson said.
The surprise announcement was made on Thursday by the South Korean container line, which is implementing restructuring measures imposed by its creditors including that it join a global container shipping alliance.

We have been in talks with 2M and in negotiations, HMM said.

The South Korean line had been expected to join the currently six line grouping The Alliance which is due to start operations in April 2017.

The Alliance comprising - Hanjin Shipping, Hapag Lloyd, K Line, MOL, NYK and Yang Ming  was announced following the move to establish the Ocean Alliance by CMA CGM, Coscon, Evergreen and OOCL, effectively splitting the existing CYKHE and the G6 alliances.

HMM was initially left out in the cold, but said in mid-May it was certain to join The Alliance.
Shao Tong (Photo/Cztv.com)

Li Xiangnan (Photo/Cztv.com)

The former University of Iowa student who killed his girlfriend Shao Tong will spend the rest of his life in a Chinese prison.

Li Xiangnan was sentenced on June 22 by Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court to life in prison in the Chinese city of Wengzhou.

Li admitted to killing the 20-year-old Iowa State student Tong Shao in September 2014 before fleeing to China. Li turned himself over to Chinese authorities in May 2015 and was charged with Shao's murder in June.

Shao's body was found in the trunk of her car three weeks after her death. The car was parked outside of Li's apartment in Iowa City.

According to Li, after he found Shao was cheating on him, he and Shao had a fight. Shao proposed to be with the other man from Monday to Friday, and spend time with Li on weekends. Li got furious and swore at her. Shao used a pillow to shut him up and Li strangled her neck. After he cooled down, Shao was already dead.

Li first bought a suitcase and two dumbbells and later he put the body into the truck of his Camry and plan to drop the body into the river. Then he changed his plans by calling Shao's roommate, telling her that Shao would be away for a week to visit a friend in Minnesota. On Sept. 8, 2014, Li took a flight back to China.

"Li deliberately killed his girlfriend out of affective problems in the relationship. The facts were ascertained and evidence sufficient and the defendant shall be prosecuted for intentional homicide," the procuratorate said in a statement.

Li Xiangnan at court. (Photo/Cztv.com)
An increase in membership will boost the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), said an annual report published by leading Chinese think tanks on Eurasian studies on Tuesday as the SCO is expected to embrace new members during upcoming Tashkent summit.

Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit to Uzbekistan on Tuesday. During his stay in the Central Asian country, he and other heads from SCO countries are expected to take India and Pakistan to the next stage in a process of attaining full membership at the 16th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of SCO.

Hailing the coming decade as a key time for both global system and the SCOs development, the annual report on the organizations development said that the membership increase will lift the organization to a new stage.

But it also urged the organization to be prudent. The process should not pursue quick successes, but achieve its ultimate goal step by step by following strict procedures, the report stressed. According to the report, the downward pressure on the global economy is increasing, and trade negotiations among the WTO members are deadlocked. Therefore it is necessary and realistic for SCO members to intensify economic ties, beginning with the construction of a free trade zone.

It called on all SCO members to reinforce security cooperation and safeguard regional security and stability amid the new challenges and regional security threats.

As the international structure undergoes deep adjustments, turmoil emerges in some regions and global terrorism threats continue to rise, said the report.

China, as the second largest economy and largest exporter in the world, which is also the founder of SCO, should play a bigger role in the organization, the report said.

The SCO currently has six member states  China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with Belarus, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers, and Turkey, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal as dialogue partners.

The report was jointly contributed by Institute of Eastern European, Russian & Central Asian Studies and SCO Research Center affiliated to Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Development Research Center of the State Council, as well as the Social Sciences Academic Press.
If you've ever chomped down on a paczeka fried Polish treat that resembles a jelly donutto celebrate Paczki Day, you're probably well aware of the firm hold Polish cuisine has in southeast Michigan.

According to data from the

Perhaps the best way to get acquainted with Polish cuisine is to stroll through the aisles of one of the Polish markets spread across the region. We have plenty of them. Historically, they've been concentrated in Hamtramck and Detroit's Poletown neighborhood, where the Polish community got its first foothold in the region during a wave of immigration that started in the 1880s and stretched into the early 20th century.

Over the last few decades, however, the Polish population has waned in these areas as folks have migrated to Macomb, Oakland and other parts of Wayne County.

Where they have gone, Polish markets have followed.

To get a feel for the diversity of Polish grocery stores in the region,

Bozek's Market

Founded in the early nineties,

Edward Bozek, a native of Krakow Poland, established the market that bears his name in 1991, four years after he immigrated to the United States. According to his son Michael, who now manages the shops, hes been preparing meats his entire adult life.









After briefly living in Utah, Bozek found work at Sam's Market, another local grocery, before eventually opening his own small shop on Holbrook in Hamtramck. The family moved to its current location on Caniff in 1988 and expanded after a fire.



Bozeks cut the ribbon on their first Sterling Heights store in 2001, and relocated to a different spot in that city in 2007. European immigrants tend to move directly to Hamtramck when they first come to the region, according to Bozek, but many later move to the suburbs. So Bozeks followed their customers to their new homes.



While Bozek's clientele is primarily made up of European immigrants, the grocery makes an effort to appeal to neighborhood customers as well. Noting the of Polish Markets Hamtramck store, Michael Bozek thinks Bozeks has continued to thrive at their original location because theyve been able to reach out to a broad customer base.



"We diversified with times, he says. We advertise on TV and have two things on special. We go out to search for customers to get what they want, not just what we think they should have."









Srodeks Campau Quality Sausage Co.



Located on Joseph Campau Avenue, Campau Quality Sausage Co. is another family-owned operation based in Hamtramck. As the name suggests, it specializes in meat; hungry patrons can pick from nearly 40 different varieties of smoked meat made in the market's own smokehouses.



There's also a vast assortment of ethnic and domestic food to choose from: domestic and imported deli meats and cheeses; six varieties of sauerkraut; a large selection of pierogi (including non-traditional pizza and jalapeno popper options); soups; and Polish specialties like g Srodeks Campau Quality Sausage Co. is another family-owned operation based in Hamtramck. As the name suggests, it specializes in meat; hungry patrons can pick from nearly 40 different varieties of smoked meat made in the market's own smokehouses. "He's been a butcher and a sausage maker since he was age 14," says the younger Bozek. "He had a store even during communism in Poland to make kieska and head cheese and liver sausage. That's all they allowed him to make during communism." operations there in 2008 after a fire. recent closure of Polish Markets Hamtramck store, Michael Bozek thinks Bozeks has continued to thrive at their original location because theyve been able to reach out to a broad customer base.

olumpki (stuffed cabbage) and nalesniki (crepes).



Magdalena Srodek, the granddaughter of the shops founders, runs their Hamtramck store with her brother Rodney.



"When it comes to deli meats and things of that nature, we make everything in-house. So we stuff cabbages," she tells Metromode. "The greater majority of our lunch meats are made here. We go to the extent of barreling our own sauerkraut and even make our own homemade farmer's cheese that my mom curds."







Srodek's has been a staple of Polish life in Hamtramck since 1981, when Walter and Marianna Srodek opened their first delicatessen there. With the exception of Magdalena and her brother's children, the entire family comes from a small village in southeastern Poland. They left Poland to escape communist rule. Once here, they picked up again with their family business.



"My grandma used to run a general food store back in Poland," Magdalena Srodek says. "Regions tended to specialize in certain things, and our family specialized in agriculture and food-making."



Srodeks now supplies food to the greater bulk of Polish festivals in metro Detroit and is closely involved with local churches and community groups. Beyond that, it has a diverse clientele befitting of Hamtramck's multi-cultural reputation. They even get some tourists these days as a result of being featured on the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods for its Metromode. "The greater majority of our lunch meats are made here. We go to the extent of barreling our own sauerkraut and even make our own homemade farmer's cheese that my mom curds."Bizarre Foods for its



Srodek's plans to expand this fall by opening a second store in Sterling Heights, which will feature a restaurant, European-style bakery and in-house microbrewery. Asked why they've done so well, Magdalena Srodek says it's because Srodek's employees prepare food as if they're making it for themselves and treat their customers with respect.



"You can't forget that your customers are the most important people," she says. "They help you survive and also help you grow as a business."



Polanka Market



Nestled in a little storefront on Plymouth Road not far from Middlebelt, brings a taste of Poland to suburban Livonia. The small grocery is stocked with Polish lunch meats from Chicago, sausages, stuffed cabbage, in-house baked goods, imported food, pierogies and a smorgasbord of other Polish delights.



"We offer fresh sausage, which my brother makes and stuffed cabbage, and a lot of people like our City chicken," says proprietor Christine Lewandowski, who co-owns the market with her brother Lech Zochowski. "Everybody likes the little twists we bring to the products."



Other homemade products include pork chops, sauerkraut, meatballs, dill pickle and chicken dumpling soups, and Polish cheesecake made from farmer's cheese.







Lewandowski, a Polish immigrant, originally came to the United States on a trip to visit family in 1981 but ended up staying after she fell in love. She and her brother, who arrived about 15 years later, launched the grocery in 2006.



"We decided that we're going to open this small Polish grocery, because we couldn't find any good sausage around here," she tells Metromode with a laugh.



Although business was slow at first, it grew over time as the result of advertising in Polish newspapers and positive word of mouth. Increased traffic allowed Lewandowski to expand the deli counter, increase homemade options and offer catering.



The clientele now includes immigrants from Romania and Czechoslovakia, Americans of Polish birth, and a surprising amount of native-born Poles from Livonia and nearby communities like Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Canton and Novi.



"I was surprised that theres a lot of Polish people living around here," says Lewandowski. "I thought it was concentrated in Hamtramck and Sterling Heights. But, no, I guess they're all over!" he market now offers online shipping to reach out-of-state customers. Polanka Market brings a taste of Poland to suburban Livonia. The small grocery is stocked with Polish lunch meats from Chicago, sausages, stuffed cabbage, in-house baked goods, imported food, pierogies and a smorgasbord of other Polish delights.Metromode with a laugh. spicy headcheese and jellied pigs feet. T

Metromode visited three different markets, two with roots in Hamtramck and a third that sprouted in Livonia. Bozek's is a Polish specialty market with shops in Hamtramck and Sterling Heights thats known for its homemade kielbasa (Polish sausages) and pierogis (dumplings stuffed with fillings like potato, ground meat, or sauerkraut). It's also got a reputation for fresh meats, in-house soups, homemade baked goods and a wide selection of imported items from Europe. Customers can purchase hot ready-to-eat meals, party platters and variety bundles of different fresh meats.
Author William Rapai is a former newspaper reporter and amateur naturalist. His first book, on the efforts to save the Kirtland's Warbler from extinction, was named a 2013 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. He recently published his second, Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes, which looks at the ecological upheaval caused by non-native plants and animals in the Great Lakes and the political challenges in addressing those threats.

Metromode's Kirk Haverkamp recently sat down with Rapai to talk about it.

We began to see this change in the Great Lakes with things like the introduction of the quagga and zebra mussels. We began to see how diporeia, an important plankton, was beginning to be wiped out. Wherever those mussels went, diporeia was beginning to disappear. Diporeia is an important food source for young whitefish.

We've seen it in places like Hawaii, where native bird populations have been wiped out because of snakes, mongooses and non-native birds that have been introduced. Look at places like New Zealand where native bird populations and plants have been wiped out by introduced species. It took awhile for these things to build, but when they became apparent, it was an "Oh, my god!" kind of moment.

Humans have been moving species around the world for centuries. Think about how the dandelion came to North America. It came from Europe, probably with the pilgrims, as a food source. Only recently have we begun to see the impacts of those species moving around the world because they've kind of slapped us across the face.

Metromode: One of the surprising things you write about in this book is how the topic of invasive species is relatively new. You say that the term wasn't coined until 1990, though alewives and sea lamprey have been around for in the Great Lakes for years. Why is that?

So there are cascading effects. But it's just recently that we've begun to realize that these things coming in from around the world are having an incredible impact on our lakes.



You write that there's been a cumulative effect since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the late 1950s; that these exotic species have been coming in since then but have only gotten traction more recently. Tell us about that.



Prior to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, anything that made it into Lake Ontario could only make it in through the Welland Canal. That was a fairly narrow and difficult way to make your way from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.

Things really picked up once we started having massive ocean liners dumping ballast water

The Great Lakes have changed so much from their natural state already. They've lost so many of their original species and so many new ones have come in. So someone might wonder, what difference would a few new species make?



The problem is those species are artificially finding their way across biological barriers like the Atlantic Ocean. So we are introducing things that are not natural into the Great Lakes ecosystem, and these things are becoming superior predators and are changing the food web order of the Great Lakes.



It matters because we are losing much of the biodiversity of the Great Lakes. We've lost a subspecies of the walleye, the blue pike, in Lake Erie. We've lost a couple of sculpin species that were important food fish for top predators. And when you begin to lose that diversity, it means that the next time the lake is stressed by some new introduced species, that lake becomes less able to fight it off. So each time something new comes in, it has an even bigger impact.



One of the interesting things you touched on in the book is that despite all the damage, some of these invaders seem to be getting integrated into the system, and some are even having positive effects. For example, the round goby eats zebra and quagga mussels. With the spiny waterflea , there are some fish that are able to eat them and depend on them as a food source.



There are tradeoffs here. For example, the exotic round goby has become critical to the survival of the Lake Erie subspecies of the northern water snake, because it has wiped out virtually all the other prey species that the northern water snake used to eat. So now, it is now the northern water snake's number one prey item.



And so when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is writing a conservation plan for that northern water snake, it has to take into account the health of the population of exotic round goby.

Round goby is also the number one prey item for the top predator in Lake Michigan, the lake trout. Without the round goby, the lake trout would have very little to eat.



Alewives, which used to be a huge problem, are mostly gone?



Yes. One of the things I'm fond of talking about is the cascading effects these invasive species have had over the years. When the alewives first came in, their population in Lake Michigan alone was somewhere around a trillion fish at one time. That's a lot of fish.

So when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources decided to stock Lake Michigan with salmon, the salmon had a ready-made food source.

But now, because of the quagga and zebra mussels, the amount of plankton in the lakes has been significantly cut, so the alewife population (which feeds on plankton) is pretty much gone in Lake Huron, and it is falling very rapidly in Lake Michigan.



And because the alewife is gone is Lake Huron, the salmon population there has followed that decline. There's practically no salmon left in Lake Huron, and as the alewife population continues to decline in Lake Michigan, the salmon population is also going to continue to decline there as well.



And that's a big impact for the sport fishery?



Towns like Frankfurt and Muskegon and Ludington, where a lot of charter fishing is based, are really beginning to hurt a little bit because of the lack of people coming back from previous years. People are realizing that those fish that they used to catch, which were once so plentiful, are no longer there.



It seems that one of the big challenges is coordinating policy. I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that states have primary authority on invasive species management, rather than the federal government.



Because there's nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government shall have control over the Great Lakes, it becomes a matter of state control. Now, what happens when all the states surrounding the Great Lakes and the provinces of Canada have conflicting interests?



That's what we are seeing with Asian Carp in Chicago-area waterways. You've got Michigan saying "No, we don't want those carp here in our Great Lakes" and Illinois and Indiana saying "Yes, we don't want the carp here either, but we also want to keep this canal open, because it's a direct waterway to the Great Lakes."



That also relates to the problem of enforcement. You talk in your book about a ship emptying ballast water that may have organisms in it, but the state of Michigan can't hold the ship for testing.



Right. The State of Michigan has absolutely no authority to stop a ship because the federal government has authority in this matter, due to the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution.



And that means the State of Michigan and the State of Wisconsin cannot go on board a ship and seize it or stop it or tell it to stop dumping ballast water. And that limits what a state can do to protect its own water and its environment.



It often seems like there's an awful lot of hoops to go through before you can take action. For example, you have to be able to prove a species is a threat before you can ban it.



You're right. And because of the federal government's policy, the Lacey Act of 1900, we have largely been playing from behind. The Lacey Act says that harmful organisms can't be imported into the United States. But you can only know that it is harmful after it has been here and has become established, and you can show that it is injurious to plants or wildlife in the United States. In that way, it is innocent until proven guilty.

Well, we need to flip that on its head and say it's guilty until proven innocent.



What would you say is the biggest obstacle to taking action?



Number one, government moves slowly. It takes a long time for policy to be developed. We've created policymaking structures where we have to go out and talk to the public, and then we have to make revisions, and then we have to go out and talk to the public again and then we have to make revisions. The process, by its nature, moves slowly.



The other problem is getting the states and the provinces to all work together. Policy needs to be united across the Great Lakes basin. It's like a chain. And any one of those political entities that has the weakest policies is the weakest link.



You can read more about invasive species and the Great Lakes in by William Rapai.



This story is a part of a statewide Invasive Species Community Impact Series. Support for this series is provided by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes by William Rapai.This story is a part of a statewide Invasive Species Community Impact Series. Support for this series is provided by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

water that keeps the ship stable as it's coming across the ocean into the Great Lakes as they take on cargo. As the ships dump out all the water, all the little critters inside that water come out too.
Community Choice Credit Union is a financial institution on the rise, and it's plainly visibly from the new branches it's building.The Farmington Hills-based financial institution opened a new branch, which it calls a member center, in Northville earlier this spring. It's also in the process of building a new branch in Shelby Township that it expects to open in October. There are also plans to build another branch in Canton next year."We have to look at where our membership lives and works," says Alan Bergstrom, senior vice president of retail development & chief marketing officer for Community Choice Credit Union . "So we decide to add member centers to make our credit union more convenient and accessible for our members."Community Choice Credit Union got its start in 1935 and has grown steadily since then. Anyone who lives in Allegan, Genesee, Kent, Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Ottawa, St. Clair, Washtenaw, or Wayne counties can become a member. It currently has 75,000 members after adding 19,000 in the last year.Mergers have made that growth possible. Community Choice Credit Union merged with two smaller credit unions (Nupath and East Side Credit Union) last year, adding a handful of branches and more than 10,000 members. The larger credit union now has 16 branches and a staff of 240 people after adding 60 people last year.Community Choice Credit Union has also significantly grown its bottom line. It went from being a $570 million credit union last year to an $800 million credit union this year, and it's expecting similar growth this year."We have grown pretty rapidly," Bergstrom says.Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com
Four years turned out to be just the right baking time for Brazilian Oven LLC Launched in 2012 through the Can-Do Kitchen , the regions only maker of Brazilian cheese bread has graduated from the food-business incubator and now is rolling out its signature product in a larger facility at Bakewell in Portage.Brazilian Ovens founder, Silvana Quadros Russell, moved to the United States from Brazil in 1995. She missed Pao de queijo from back home and in 1999 started baking her own version of the naturally gluten-free cheese bread, made with tapioca flour and a blend of three types of cheeses. The chewy, cheesy rolls with a crisp crust were a hit at local social events.Realizing an American market was hungry for her unique product, Russell connected with Kalamazoos Can-Do Kitchen, a nonprofit that fosters food start-ups through education, access to commercial kitchen facilities, scholarships and other resources. Previous Can-Do Kitchen graduates include The Cheese Lady, Free Love Bakery, TCB Food Processing and Kaleamazoo Chips.Russell credits Can-Do Kitchen with allowing her to move forward as an entrepreneur without worrying about overhead costs. Although cheese bread rolls have been around in South America for over 200 years, its a new product here in the United States, she says. I needed to test the market and make sure this new product would be well accepted here before making any big commitment. Can-Do Kitchen played an important role in my decision to start this business. (Read more about Russell and the origins of Brazilian Oven in this 2014 article .)The new location at Bakewell offers Brazilian Oven more manufacturing capacity and storage space, enabling Russell to increase production. She says she hopes to double her sales compared to last year. Cheese bread lovers already can find the all-natural, quick-frozen rolls in more than 30 stores , including select Whole Foods locations in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Baked from frozen at 400 degrees, theyre ready to eat in 15-17 minutes.Growth is baked into Brazilian Ovens strategy. Since day one when I started this business I had one idea in mind: Go big or go home! Russell says. I knew in my heart that selling at the Farmers Market and some local events was only the beginning. Now that we have room to expand, we will look for distribution in order to have our products in different venues.Family is also a critical ingredient in this enterprise. Russell says the company has two part-time employees who help with manufacturing. But my husband, my daughter and my son are the ones I have counted on since the beginning. You know, not all that glitters is gold; we all have our idiosyncrasies. But theyve been there for me through thick and thin, and Im thankful for that.In fact, I tell them, A family that makes cheese bread together stays together.Writer: Cathie Schau, Southwest Michigan's Second WaveSource: Silvana Russell, Brazilian Oven LLC and Can-Do Kitchen
If you're looking for a new summer show to watch, why not make it one filmed and produced right here in the U.P.?

Northbound is an independent, post-apocalyptic sci-fi web series set in the Upper Peninsula that's recently finished up a 6-episode first season hosted on GeekNation.com --and the writers and producers are not only locals, they also are fully committed to keeping the show in the U.P.

Actors, crew, logistics, sets--it's all U.P., from location shoots at Sawyer in Marquette County to recruiting local talent and working with Iron Mountain companies during production, which takes place largely in the western U.P.

The series is part of a much bigger project: a full-length feature film called Northstar, to which Northbound is a lead-in story, and Northbound's second season are both in the works from media company Lullskull Ltd

Co-creators Seth and Nathan Anderson, brothers from Iron Mountain, are working with producer Jason Hagen to bring the U.P. community further into the fold this summer, starting with an open house in Kingsford this weekend.

"We're on the cusp of making season 2," says Seth Anderson. "We wanted to do an update on where the production is at in the Dickinson County area, and also have a chance to connect with more local talent for the next round of production."

To that end, he'll be presenting a trailer for season 2 at the open house, taking place from 1-4 p.m. on June 25 at the Hole In One , at 700 East Boulevard in Kingsford. Also planned for the all-ages event are fun photo shoots with props from the Northbound set, giveaways including original Northbound art by Nathan Anderson and of course, food and drink. It's also a good time to get involved if you're looking to audition, volunteer or just find out more about what's happening.

"Everyone is welcome to board this train," he says. "We're kind of just stopping it for a minute and letting everyone on who wants to be."

Anderson and Hagen have nothing but the highest praise and gratitude for how Northbound has been received by the Dickinson community. Local municipal cooperation, volunteers pitching in with everything from location to videography, and the general willingness of folks to help out where they can, all have made the production possible, Hagen says.

Iron Mountain logistics coordinator Fay Mannon-Rahoi handles a lot of the local details, like location scouting, arranging for shooting at various sites, and of course, all the paperwork that goes with it. But, she says the challenges are far outweighed by the U.P. spirit of getting things done.

"It's really amazing, the local community support," she says. "We go out to the community and say, 'This is what we're trying to do,' and people here just respond."

And if the weather isn't as cooperative, it still adds U.P. character to the filming--especially when it's taking place on a frozen lake during the year's worst cold snap, like it did on Lake Antoine last winter.

When Northstar and Northbound were first beginning, the filmmakers were attracted by the then-existing Michigan film incentives, and Anderson says it's true that it might be easier, in terms of cost and infrastructure, to film elsewhere. But, that's not going to happen.

"Our hearts are drawn to the U.P.," he says. "And we do feel it's a very undershot area. Now, with technology being a little cheaper, that does make it easier, too."

That includes, for instance, digital filming, and the ability to use drones for aerial shots in a way that wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago. Anderson adds talent in the area also has improved and adapted to filmmaking, something that also makes it easier to keep coming back. And, there's the fact that this is their home.

"It would be easier to get some equipment downstate, sure, but that's not where we're from," he says. "That is what's making us double down as far as the U.P. If we can continue to make films in the U.P. on a community basis, we can show that people can do this on a local level anywhere."

Hagen agrees that's the future of independent filmmaking.

"That will make more distinctive films overall, and we'll get to see, what does this look like when it's made by people who love it here," he says.

Of course, there's no kind of filmmaking that can be called cheap, and the Andersons and Hagen are looking at new ways to support the production, reach a wider audience and garner more support. One of those ways is through an upcoming Kickstarter campaign to help launch Season 2 this summer. With a tentative start date in early July, the crowdfunding campaign will cover the first three episodes of season 2, which Hagen says they chose because it's all one story arc.

"We've written a pretty strong three-episode opener to bring everybody back into the story," he says.

"Since 2016 began, we've been exploring options, and Kickstarter to us felt like the most transparent in the way it works," Anderson says. "You can pledge whatever amount you want, and we are able to say, this is what we need to continue growing the production. Plus, pledges are withdrawn after the goal is met, not before."

The remaining episodes to round out the 8-episode season might be funded through another Kickstarter if that's feasible, or through more traditional methods. For the creators, they look at the upcoming crowdfunding as essential on several fronts.

"The project is growing, coming out of season one," Anderson says. "We want to encourage more involvement in a few different ways; one is to open up more funding, but also to get more people involved in the project and owning part of it."

"We're inextricably linked to the U.P. and Michigan and that's so important to our creative success. Kickstarter allows us to open that up so others can take part," he says.

For season 2, they're looking forward to expanding the reach of Northbound, both online and in the U.P. Discussions are underway for various new locations in the Keweenaw and Marquette County, and Anderson says he harbors a desire to shoot on the shores of Lake Superior-- though exactly what, is yet to be determined. Shooting on Season 2 is slated for late August if all goes well.
When we mention sounds coming out of the Caribbean, you're probably thinking of reggae music.

But a new study by scientists at Britain's University of Liverpool reveals that the Caribbean Sea, a part of the Atlantic surrounded by South and Central America and the Caribbean islands, actually gives off a whistle-like noise that, while too low to be detected by the human ear, can be "heard" from space, in the form of oscillations in our planet's gravitational field.

RELATED: Caribbean Islands Headed for the Atlantic

The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, discovered that ocean current flowing through the Caribbean becomes unstable and causes the formation of something called a Rossby wave.

The Rossby wave propagates and combines with ocean bottom pressure to create the inaudible sound.

As Liverpool professor Chris Hughes, one of the study's authors, explained in a press release: "We can compare the ocean activity in the Caribbean Sea to that of a whistle. When you blow into a whistle, the jet of air becomes unstable and excites the resonant sound wave which fits into the whistle cavity. Because the whistle is open, the sound radiates out so you can hear it."

"Because the Caribbean Sea is partly open, this causes an exchange of water with the rest of the ocean which allows us to 'hear' the resonance using gravity measurements."

RELATED: Ocean Plastic Gets New Life as Sunglasses

The scientists believe that the whistle may be useful in predicting the likelihood of coastal flooding. The phenomenon also may have an effect across in the North Atlantic, because it regulates the flow of the Caribbean Current, a precursor to the Gulf Stream, which influences weather patterns.

To reach their findings, the scientists used pressure readings from the Caribbean, taken between 1958 and 2013, and combined them with tide gauge records and data from NASA's Grace satellite.

WATCH VIDEO: Where Did All Our Oceans Come From?
Star-Trek style teleportation is part of a deeply funded research and development plan announced Wednesday in Russia. According to the Telegraph, the Russian government, i.e. Vladimir Putin, wants to develop a technology roadmap for the next 20 years.

A part of the country's National Technology Initiative is a plan to advance quantum technologies light years ahead of where it is today. Harnessing quantum physics is essential to teleportation because it rules all matter on the atomic scale.

RELATED: Beam Me Up, Scotty? That Might Take Some Time

"It sounds fantastical today, but there have been successful experiments at Stanford at the molecular level," Alexander Galitsky, a prominent investor in the country's technology sector, told Russia's Kommersant. "Much of the tech we have today was drawn from science fiction films 20 years ago."

Yes it's true. Scientists have made significant leaps quantum physics.

Back in 2010, Chinese scientists reported that they were able to "teleport" information 9.9 miles. Then in 2014, another group of scientists were able to teleport the quantum state of a light particle 15.5 miles. A year later, Hiroki Takesue, a NIST guest researcher from NTT in Japan, and his team were able to transfer the quantum state from one photon to another over 60 miles.

RELATED: Star Trek Boldly Lead Us Into the Future

And thanks to Large Hadron Collider, we can expect to start seeing a "firehose" of quantum data.

But transporting an entire person from one point to another is an ultra complicated process. For starters, the very process of teleportation requires that the original object -- a person, for example -- be destroyed in order to read the "data" locked in the subatomic particles of an atom and then reconstructed.

Not only that, the amount of data inside a person's atoms is so huge that it would require an actual working quantum supercomputer, which doesn't exist.

The most likely thing we'll be able to do in 20 years is teleport data, which would make for incredibly fast computer networks. Hey, that's something.

WATCH VIDEO: Will Teleportation Ever Be Possible?
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 -- Russia and China are diversifying trade and exploring new areas for cooperation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

In an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao on June 17 in St. Petersburg, Putin spoke highly of bilateral interaction within broader frameworks, saying Moscow-Beijing cooperation is a world stabilizing factor.

UNPRECEDENTED MUTUAL TRUST

"We have maintained contact regularly, and carried out consultations on global and regional affairs. We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," Putin told Cai.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Speaking of the drop in the trade value between Russia and China, Putin said it is merely temporary.

The most important task in Russia-China trade is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, adding that the two sides have taken tangible actions to improve their trade structure.

Putin also noted that Russia and China have joined hands in such areas as space, aviation, ecology and nuclear energy.

Meanwhile, Russia is paying close attention to the construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan, the capital and largest city of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, Putin said.

Now under Russia-China joint construction, the 770-km track is designed for bullet trains capable of running at up to 400 km per hour. The trip from Moscow to Kazan currently takes 12 hours, but the time will be reduced to three hours and a half once the line is completed.

The project, Putin said, is probably just the beginning of massive cooperation between Russia and China in infrastructure construction.

GREAT POTENTIAL IN BELT AND ROAD

The Russian president also highlighted the alignment of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, a blueprint aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa.

He proposed that the EEU and China set up a free trade area in their first phase of cooperation under the initiative, so as to boost bilateral cooperation and world economic development at large.

The fundamental path for EEU-China cooperation and the global economic development is to gradually remove various barriers for an open and common cause, Putin said.

He also noted that all EEU members agree to beef up cooperation with China within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which also includes the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013.

"Xi's proposal is very well-timed and appealing, and the initiative holds great potential as it aims to expand China's cooperation with the world," Putin said.

Putin also pointed out that as more and more countries in the region show interest in cooperation between the EEU and China, the two sides should avoid setting up an exclusive trade bloc and help create conditions for broader Eurasian cooperation.

MECHANISM FOR DIVERSE COOPERATION

Speaking of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Putin said the organization has evolved into a platform for its members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas.

"The SCO has become a popular and attractive organization in the region. Many countries around the world have expressed willingness to join it," he said.

At the SCO summit in Tashkent on Thursday and Friday, the SCO will formally implement the decision made last year at Russia's Ufa summit to expand the membership to include India and Pakistan, and discuss the participation of other countries, according to the Russian president.

"The expansion of the SCO's functions and the increase in its member numbers, particularly the inclusion of those important countries mentioned above, have made it an authoritative and popular international organization in the region and the world at large," said Putin.

The international situation is complicated and countries hold different positions and views, but joining the SCO will create favorable conditions for seeking solutions, said Putin, adding that he has high hopes for this.

In addition, he suggested that SCO member states expand their cooperation in multiple areas and use the mechanism to address issues beyond border cooperation.

The SCO, which was originally set up to facilitate border cooperation, has expanded its reach to cover such issues as political cooperation as well as infrastructure construction, Putin said.

The organization has also begun to discuss security issues and actions against drug threats, he added.

Amid a sluggish global economic recovery, regional instability, rampant terrorist activities and environmental problems, Putin said, "coordination between Russia and China on the global stage is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs."
Known as "targeted SETI", the ATA has been used to "listen in" on star systems that NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and other exoplanet-hunting missions have confirmed the presence of exoplanets. Even better than that, as Kepler can identify the physical size and orbit of a given exoplanet, astronomers can deduce whether that planet is located in the star's "habitable zone." The habitable zone around any star is the distance at which a hypothetical rocky planet can orbit that is not too hot or too cold for liquid water to exist. As we know from life on our planet, where there's water, there's life; could intelligent alien life be living on one of these potentially habitable worlds?

Using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) located in California (pictured top), members of the SETI Institute chose Trappist 1 as they know the red dwarf-type star plays host to at least 3 exoplanets. Traditional SETI searches have looked to random stars in the sky in the hope of detecting an artificial radio signal using luck and some educated guesses. But now we know certain stars play host to exoplanets, alien hunters can be a little more discerning with the selection of stellar targets.

Astronomers seeking out extraterrestrial intelligence have used a powerful radio telescope to eavesdrop on a star system that is relatively close to Earth in the hope of hearing the faint radio whisper of an alien civilization.

If so, they might be transmitting radio waves. However, for us to stand a chance of detecting their signals, they either need to be deliberately blasting a radio beacon in our direction with the explicit purpose of communication or they need to live in a relatively nearby star system for us to detect their accidental leakage of radio waves into space.

Earth has been leaking a faint radio signals into space for over 100 years since the advent of commercial radio transmissions around the globe at the beginning of the 20th century. More recently, we've been pinging asteroids and the planets with powerful radar. And let's not forget the controvercial Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or METI, a practice that has unsettled some scientists. Therefore, in theory, any intelligent aliens living within 100 light-years of Earth -- assuming they possess sensitive enough radio receivers -- could be aware of our presence.

And this is what SETI is doing: listening out for alien transmissions that, so far, have proven inconclusive.

RELATED: Alien Megastructure? SETI Spies No Intelligent Signals

However, last year, Kepler discovered a bizarre transit signal from the star KIC 8462852, otherwise known as Tabby's Star. Kepler detects exoplanets by detecting their faint shadows cross the faces of their host stars. When Kepler detected Tabby's Star transit, it was like nothing it had ever recorded; the brightness dip dimmed around 20 percent. Though the generally-accepted hypothesis is that a swarm of comets may have caused this strange transit signal, there's another idea that it could be evidence of an advanced alien civilization building a "megastructure" around their star.

Tabby's Star quickly became a target for SETI, but no transmissions were detected by the ATA.

According to a SETI Institute news release on Wednesday, even if there were transmitting aliens at Tabby's Star, the fact it's nearly 1,500 light-years away would make the detection of alien radio signals extremely unlikely, unless said aliens were deliberately beaming extremely powerful radio waves right at us.

RELATED: The Hunt for Alien Intelligence is Going Infrared

This is why Trappist 1 was selected for a follow-up SETI investigation. Though there's no evidence of weird transit signals around this small star, it is an ancient compact planetary system that might, after some assumptions, be considered habitable. What's more, Trappist 1 is only 40 light-years away -- pretty much on our interstellar doorstep. Any signal transmitted from the Trappist 1 system would be a thousand times stronger than a signal of identical strength transmitted from Tabby's Star.

So, for 2 days in May, the ATA focused on Trappist 1, seeking out an artificial narrowband signal of around 1 Hz or less. As the headline of this article isn't "Aliens Found!" you can guess what the outcome was: no aliens were detected on this pass. But the ATA did put a valuable upper limit on the strength of a signal if there is a hypothetical alien civilization transmitting a signal at us.

RELATED: Galactic Ecosystem Survival: Keep Your Head Down

SETI researchers estimate that if aliens are transmitting from that star system, they'd have to build a 300 meter-wide radio antennae (the approximate size of the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico) with a transmitter power of 300 kilowatts. Interestingly, the most powerful radio transmitter on Earth operates at around 700 kilowatts, so building a transmitter for interstellar messaging purposes is well within the realms of technological possibility.

So this latest directed SETI campaign drew a blank, but it's helping us probe regions of the radio frequency spectrum and the expected power output from a hypothetical alien civilization -- valuable research if we are to detect and recognize a signal from extraterrestrials in the future.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying (Source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, June 23 -- China on Thursday applauded Russian officials' remarks on the South China Sea issue, calling it a just voice from the international community.

"Russia's position reflects the real situation in the South China Sea and the root of the issue. China appreciates that," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying at a daily press briefing.

Hua made the remarks following comments by Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov, who attributed the tense situation in the South China Sea region to the interference from outside countries.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also said at a press conference on June 10 that Russia believes intervention from an outside party will only make the already tense situation worse.

Saying some countries have intervened for their own interests, Hua said, their actions have provoked regional conflict and pushed the "militarization" of the South China Sea.

She urged relevant countries to respect efforts to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea, and play constructive roles to this end.
Press Release

June 21, 2016 Senate to pay tribute to former Senate President Ernesto Maceda The Senate will hold necrological services for former Senate President Ernesto Maceda on Thursday, June 23. Maceda, 81, passed away on Monday evening, June 20, due to multiple organ failure. The Senate has been flying its flag at half-mast since Maceda passed away as a symbol of mourning. Senate Secretary Oscar Yabes said Senate President Franklin Drilon, along with other senators, Senate officials and protocol officers, will await the arrival of Maceda's family and the casket bearing the remains of the former statesman at the entrance of the Senate building in Pasay City at 4 pm. Drilon and the other senators will escort Maceda's remains and his family to the Session Hall. Yabes said Drilon will deliver a eulogy, along with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Gregorio Honasan II. Also expected to attend are former Senators Rene Saguisag, Heherson Alvarez, Nikki Coseteng, Orlando Mercado, Joey Lina and Francisco Tatad. During his time in the Senate, Maceda received numerous awards from various news agencies and private organizations for his outstanding performance and has been constantly chosen No. 1 Senator by numerous publications, political analysts and Senate reporters. He was credited for having filed the most number of bills, having delivered the most number of privilege speeches, and for having a perfect attendance during the 1987 - 1992 term of the Senate. His stint in the Senate as Senate President from 1996 -1998 has been acknowledged for its outstanding quality. Often called as the most "hardworking member of the Senate," Maceda was also dubbed by the Philippine Free Press as "Mr. Expose," due to the many Senate probes where he exposed scams in government offices. He was also considered a staunch supporter of women's rights. A graduate of Ateneo de Manila University and Harvard University, Maceda began his career in politics as a city councilor of Manila in 1959. In 1966, at 29 years old, he was appointed by then President Ferdinand Marcos as the Secretary of Community Development and later in 1969 as Executive Secretary in concurrent capacity as Chairman of the Commission on Reorganization. In 1970, the Commerce and Industry portfolio was given to Maceda where he launched consumer protection programs and established trade relations with various Eastern European socialist countries. During the Aquino administration, Maceda served as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. He was later appointed by President Joseph Estrada as ambassador of the Philippines to the United States from 1999 to 2001. He first entered the Senate in 1971, and authored a bill granting protection to real estate buyers on installment basis. Know as the Maceda Law, it was the only bill signed into law before Martial Law was proclaimed in 1972. (Apple Buenaventura)
Press Release

June 23, 2016 Eulogy of Senate President Franklin M. Drilon

Necrological service for former Senate President Ernesto Maceda

June 23, 2016

Senate of the Philippines

FAREWELL MR. EXPOSE My esteemed colleagues, Mrs. Maceda, the children, grandchildren and other members of Senator Ernesto Maceda's family, friends, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. With profound sadness, today we remember the life and work of one of the widely respected names in Philippine politics, former Senate President Ernesto Madarang Maceda. I share the immense grief of his loved ones, friends, and the people whose lives he had touched in his lifetime. Indeed, our collective sorrow is beyond words. Manong Ernie blazed trails in the fields he pursued. He was an intellectual giant who carved his own remarkable niche in the world of politics, diplomacy and media. In his fifty years of dedicated public service, Manong Ernie took on different roles that showcased his brilliance, his professionalism, his work ethic, his organizational skills and political savvy. He was a highly-esteemed member of the post-EDSA Senate because of his thoroughness and resourcefulness in crafting laws. I remember I was then in the Cabinet when Manong Ernie was already a senior member of the Senate. The talk among the Cabinet members was, "Sino ang chairman mo?" when the budget hearings would come. The unwritten question was, "Si Senator Maceda ba ang chairman ng committee mo?" Why? Because Ernie was one of the most thorough and feared senators when it came to budget hearings. Maalala ko noon noong when I was a Labor Secretary of Labor, kung ang sinasabi ni Senator Greg, he would rather have a thousand root canals without anesthesia, I confirm that. Indeed you would rather have that, than face Ernie in budget hearings. I remember then, Manong Ernie- wala pa noong mga laptop eh - mayroon po siyang blue na record book wherein he would write all your answers to his questions, and make sure because in the following session he would look back to those answers that you gave in order to test whether or not you are saying the same thing. I hope that Jim Paul here kept all of those blue books that Ernie had during all those times. I remember the first time I stepped on the hallowed halls of the Senate, together with Greg here, as a freshly-minted Senator. Manong Ernie was already a legend who captured the nation with his political feats. I am proud and honored that once, in this august chamber, we have shared ideas and debated on the smoldering issues of the day. Yes, Kit Tatad mentioned that no Senate President could be installed without the knowledge and management of Ernie Maceda. Indeed, that is true, but when his time came to be Senate President, I tell you, he was not the fearless Mr. Expose that we knew him. I remember very well on October 10 of 1996, maybe Greg here signed that piece of paper in the toilet, but in the Senate that piece of paper is not enough. You must vote in open session according to what you signed. I remember that afternoon, Greg went somewhere, I do not know where - I think it was on a plane somewhere - and we were only 12, and for about an hour we were closeted in one room, namumutla si Manong Ernie, hindi niya malaman kung saan nagpunta si Greg Honasan, who was the 13th vote at that time. But Greg came, and affirmed his signature in that piece of paper he signed at the toilet at that time, and Ernie Maceda became our Senate President. In his lifetime, Manong Ernie had traversed different career paths and left an indelible mark. As a senator, he will be remembered for being one of the "Magnificent 12" -- the Senators who voted to reject the US Bases extension. His relentless pursuit of excellence and truth earned for him the nickname, "Mr. Expose." As Ambassador to the United States of America, he worked hard for the entry of the sweet Guimaras mangoes in the American market. And for that, the people of Western Visayas owe him one. Manong Ernie was the only Filipino who held five Cabinet positions. Much has been said about his sterling achievements. However, Manong Ernie's highly accomplished children who have all excelled in their chosen fields are his greatest treasures. Manny, Ernest, Erwin, Edmond and Edward, your Dad was a tough act to follow. But I am certain that he was mighty proud of the persons that you have all become. Manay Ichu, thank you for sharing Manong Ernie with all of us in the Senate. Today, we bid goodbye to a statesman and highly-esteemed colleague. But his life and work will always be remembered and enshrined in the political annals of our country. Paalam Manong Ernie at maraming salamat!
Press Release

June 23, 2016 Senate pays last respects to former Senator Ernesto Maceda Current and former senators today paid tribute to former Senate President Ernesto M. Maceda during his necrological services at the Senate, recalling his achievements as a statesman and public servant for more than five decades. Senate President Franklin M. Drilon presented Maceda's family with a Senate resolution expressing the profound sympathy and sincere condolence of the Senate on the death of the great statesman. The Senate Resolution stated that Maceda had distinguished himself as a tireless bureaucrat and principled lawmaker who placed the interest of the nation above all else. "His passing away is a great loss not only to his bereaved family but to the nation as well," the resolution said. Maceda, 81, passed away on Monday evening, June 20, due to multiple organ failure. The Senate has been flying its flag at half-mast since Maceda passed away as a symbol of mourning. Drilon commended Maceda as one of the most widely respected names in Philippine politics, saying that the late senator was an "intellectual giant who carved his own remarkable niche in the world of politics, diplomacy and media." "In his five decades of dedicated public service, Manong Ernie took on different roles that showcased his brilliance, professionalism, work ethic, organizational skills and political savvy," Drilon said. He recalled that when he joined the Senate as a freshly-minted Senator in 1995, "Manong Ernie was already a legend who captured the nation with his political feats." "He was a highly-esteemed member of the post-EDSA Senate because of his thoroughness and resourcefulness in crafting laws," he said. Drilon noted that as a senator, Maceda will be remembered for being one of the "Magnificent 12," the senators who voted to reject the US Bases extension in the Philippines. "His relentless pursuit of excellence and truth earned for him the nickname, "Mr. Expose," he added. For this part, former Senator Francisco Tatad said Maceda "gave himself totally to the nation" and tirelessly passed laws that benefitted the country. Maceda said Tatad had always been prepared to sacrifice his personal comfort for the good of the country. "He left a permanent mark in this institution. He was uncompromising and he was firm but never mean-spirited. He exposed many wrongs or wrong-doers to bring about changes but never used the exposes for his own personal use," Tatad said in his eulogy speech. Maceda, said former Senator Rene Saguisag, had one of the more electrifying influence in the Senate. He had the foresight to talk about "now simmering" tension in the Spartlys in 1991 and "was helpful me and to the other neophytes in helping us find the ropes in lawmaking. Saguisag said. Former Senator Orlando Mercardo described Maceda as diligent, industrious and workaholic. "He was never disagreeable and he enjoyed what he was doing," Mercado said. Senator Juan Ponce Enrile extolled Maceda for having been the "voice for the voiceless of the country." In the more than 43 years of public service, Enrile said, Maceda served with genuine patriotism and dedication to the Filipinos. "We remember Ernie for carrying the torch of truth and righteousness, for having been a constant reminder that patriotism should never be hallow, pretentious or self-serving. Today, we remember a true Filipino, full of brilliance, full of courage, full of candor," Enrile said. Other senators who attended the necrological services included Senators Gregorio Honasan, Nancy Binay and former Senators Loi Ejercito, Leticia Ramos-Shahani, Nikki Coseteng, Victor Ziga, Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr., Wigberto Tanada and Freddie Webb. Maceda served as senator from 1991to1972, 1987 to 1992 and 1992 to 1998. He was elected Senate President from 1996-1998, Senate President Pro Tempore from 1992-1993 and former Minority Leader in 1998. He also served as a cabinet member, a media commentator and as Ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2001. He was a highly educated person and the 1956 bar topnocher, having obtained his associate in arts, magna cum laude, and bachelor of laws, cum laude, at the Ateneo de Manila University; master of laws, with distinction, Harvard Law School; doctor of juridical science candidate, Harvard Law School; Harvard International Legal Studies Fellow and Basic Management program, Asian Institute of Management. He was popularly known as Mr. Expose and a fiscalizer in the Senate He was responsible for exposing and investigating numerous cases of anomalies and irregularities in government such as the "chop-chop" smuggling operation, the "octopus control of piers and ports, the Borloloy building issue and the PEA-Amari deal which resulted in an additional P35-billion for the government coffers, the prosecution of persons responsible for this anomalous deal and the institution of corrective measures that addressed the loophole of existing laws.
Press Release

June 23, 2016 Villar SIPAG holds beekeeping seminar Villar SIPAG (Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance) held a one-day basic seminar on bee keeping at Villar SIPAG Farm School located at the boundary of Las Pinas and Bacoor, Cavite. Sixty one participants from Las Pinas, Bacoor, Dasmarinas, Imus, Muntinlupa, and Taguig listened to lectures on the history of beekeeping; origin and distribution of honeybee species; bee furniture and equipment; starting your own bee colony. Aside from lectures, there were also hands-on activities and demonstration on proper handling of bees and honey harvesting. "Katulad ng lahat ng training programs at seminars dito sa ating farm school, our ultimate goal is to provide participants with a source of livelihood and income. With enough knowhow in beekeeping, you can start your own honeybee enterprise, even right from your own backyard," Sen. Cynthia Villar, Villar SIPAG director, told the participants. Villar SIPAG partnered with the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to give the introductory course on beekeeping which is usually given in three days. Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, cited the BAI for implementing a training program on basic beekeeping. This program is in line with Republic Act 10611 entitled "An Act to Strengthen the Food Safety Regulatory System in the Country to Protect Consumer Health and Facilitate Market Access of Local Foods and Food Products, and for Other Purposes." Under the law, BAI is mandated to perform food safety regulatory functions for food derived from animals including eggs and honey production. Administrative Order No. 14 of the Department of Agriculture also promotes the development of the honeybee industry. Honey is a known antioxidant and has anti-bacterial properties. It has lots of benefits, including prevention of cancer and heart disease, reduce ulcers, reduce cough and throat irritation. On top of its medicinal properties, honey bee is used in many other products, particularly cosmetics such as shampoo, skin care cream, soap and many more. It is also an ingredient of many food and beverages.
Britons are edging closer to voting in favor of remaining in the European Union in Thursday's referendum, a result that would please many of the UK's closest allies.

Britons are edging closer to voting in favor of remaining in the European Union in Thursday's referendum, a result that would please many of the UK's closest allies.

An opinion poll carried out before the referendum by The Daily Telegraph  a consistent supporter of leaving the EU  showed that of those who say they will definitely vote, the Remain campaign is leading with 53 percent, against 46 percent for the Leave campaign.

The Remain campaign is headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, while the Leave campaign is headed by former London mayor Boris Johnson and Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove.

Many other polls in recent days have shown the Remain camp easing ahead, although many commentators in Britain are saying the result is still too close to call.

UK betting company Ladbrokes said that based on the bets being placed, it is forecasting a 78 percent chance of remaining, with only a 22 percent chance of leaving.

Ladbrokes correctly forecast the result of last year's general election, which saw a surprise clear majority for Cameron's Conservative Party, despite opinion polls having predicted either a loss or a hung parliament, with no single party in power.

Much hangs on this vote. In China, Juwai.com, an international property portal, said a survey showed 51 percent of the 411 respondents said they had temporarily put on hold property transactions in the UK pending the outcome. Only 25 percent said they intended completing deals before the vote.

"The overall picture here is one of uncertainty," the site's UK head Bernie Morris said.

JLL, a global real estate services company, said its survey of 100 companies showed a similar trend, with 45 percent of investors questioned saying they would adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

Many of Britain's allies, including China, would be expected to welcome a decision to stay in the EU.

Chinese official pronouncements have been cautious. President Xi Jinping reportedly indicated to Cameron during a state visit to the UK in October that China would prefer Britain to remain in the EU. This was later backed up by a Foreign Ministry statement.

During Xi's visit, deals worth 40 billion pounds ($58.73 billion) were announced with Chinese companies.

US President Barack Obama says he would prefer the UK to remain in the EU, as would major European players such as France and Germany.

Li Ka-shing, one of the richest men in Asia, told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday he was urging Britons to vote to remain, because a decision to leave would cause "great damage to the country and the EU".

He said a vote to leave would not be the end of the world, but as a major investor in the UK, he would continue to maintain his business interests in the country, as well as Europe in general.

Bloomberg reported earlier remarks by Li, in which he said he did not believe Britain would vote to leave, but if it did, he would consider reducing his investment there.

Li has a fortune of $28.6 billion, according to both Forbes and the Bloomberg Billionaires List, making him the third-richest man in Asia.

Many Chinese companies operating in the UK see the country as a bridgehead into Europe, a function that would suffer in the event of a vote to leave the EU.

This view is supported by Yao Lin, deputy director of a research center supervised by China's Ministry of Commerce.

Yao warned in a paper that many Chinese companies investing in Britain as a way into the EU single market would see the "bridgehead curtailed'' in the event of a vote to leave.
President Obama will spend Thursday night at a South of Market hotel in San Francisco, prompting some road closures in the area, officials said.

Fifth Street will be closed to traffic from Mission to Folsom streets, and Howard Street will be closed from Fourth to Fifth streets, from late Thursday afternoon to mid-afternoon Friday.
San Francisco is going to court to force HomeAway to provide information on its hundreds of local short-term rentals. The goal is to ensure that landlords are ponying up the citys 14 percent hotel tax whenever they host paying visitors, and that they pay a business registration fee.

Our job is to enforce the citys tax laws, said San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros. Businesses in San Francisco cant ignore our laws. The transient occupancy tax is due whenever a visitor pays to stay in our city. We want everyone who hosts (visitors) to understand that the tax applies.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera petitioned San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday seeking to compel HomeAway to comply with a subpoena from Cisneros and the city tax collector, David Augustine. Issued in October and again in April, that subpoena demands that HomeAway identify its San Francisco hosts and their rental transactions. HomeAway has refused, saying that the city is overstepping its authority. The Austin, Texas, company declined to comment.

The tax collector is entitled to request records to make sure that everybody plays by the rules and that he has all the information he needs to collect the taxes owed to the city, Herrera said. Unfortunately (HomeAway) has taken a very obstinate view and said he doesnt have the power.

Travel giant Expedia purchased HomeAway in November for $3.9 billion, creating the worlds largest booking site with more than 1.5 million hotel room and vacation rentals. HomeAways main rival for the business of turning homes into hotels is San Franciscos Airbnb. Although its a newer company with roughly the same number of listings as HomeAway, Airbnbs rapid growth has pushed its valuation on the private market to $25.5 billion.

Airbnb, which handles all transactions between its hosts and guests, has collected hotel tax from its San Francisco guests since October 2014. It also paid an undisclosed amount of back taxes. It says its guests pay the city about $1 million a month. It now remits hotel taxes in 190 jurisdictions worldwide, and often points to this during its battles with regulators as an example of its efforts to be a good corporate citizen  although a tin-eared bus-stop ad campaign in October highlighting its San Francisco taxes backfired.

Last year, Cisneros office designated Airbnb a qualified website company, streamlining its hosts obligations because Airbnb provides detailed information on each hosts rental history along with the tax remittances. By law, the tax collector keeps that information confidential.

Besides the hotel tax, San Francisco imposes two other requirements on vacation-rental hosts, both of which are widely ignored. All hosts are supposed to apply for a business registration certification from the treasurer. They are also supposed to apply to the Office of Short-Term Rental Administration and Enforcement for a registration number. Out of many thousands of hosts, by March only about 1,500 hosts had the certificate, while only 1,647 had registered, the city said.

HomeAway and its VRBO subsidiary each have about 1,770 listings in San Francisco, according to a city report. The same listings appear on both sites. Airbnb says its has 9,448 listings from 7,046 hosts. FlipKey, which is owned by TripAdvisor, has 896 listings.

TripAdvisor said FlipKey meets San Franciscos tax requirements. From the date that the current San Francisco short-term rental regulations came into effect (Feb. 2015), we have collected and remitted taxes on behalf of San Francisco owners who advertise on our platform, said Laurel Greatrix, a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor, in an email. However, the treasurers office noted that only one company, Airbnb, has received the qualified website designation showing that it is in complete compliance.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

HomeAway has had a contentious relationship with San Francisco. It sued the city in 2014 over the short-term rental ordinance, saying the law was crafted to fit the way Airbnb did business and thus discriminated against HomeAway. The lawsuit challenged the hotel-tax collection requirement on the grounds that HomeAway was just a classified listing service, rather than a middleman like Airbnb, and didnt know how often properties were rented out. That case was dismissed on procedural grounds.

HomeAway has since shifted its business to assist its hosts with payment processing, so it does now have insight into rentals for more than half of its properties.

Carl Shepherd, co-founder and former chief development officer, who is no longer with HomeAway, told The Chronicle last year that the vast majority of HomeAways listings break San Francisco law because they are not residents primary homes, as mandated under the short-term rental ordinance. But that wasnt a problem, he said, because the law itself abets scofflaws.

The new law tells you exactly how to skirt it, he said. All you have to do is say you live there 270 days a year. You do have to lie and you do have to obfuscate. But the city is at a distinct disadvantage because they cant catch this.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
(Global Times) 10:13, June 23, 2016

The UK's referendum on whether to leave the EU takes place Thursday. Prime Minister David Cameron promised in 2013 to settle the "European question" forever with a referendum if he was re-elected. While Europe and the whole world closely watch which way the UK votes, it is Cameron and his political confidants that are concerned most about the UK splitting from the EU. If the vote comes down on the "Leave" side, Cameron and his Conservative Party have to undertake historical responsibilities.

Today's UK seems to have become the largest source of uncertainties in Europe. With the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and this year's European Union one, the UK looks like it has been led astray, and this concerns Europe and the world.

Mainstream analysis holds that UK people will more likely choose to stay in the EU, while uncertainties linger and will expand.

Staying in the EU has clear and critical interests for the UK, such as market guarantees and stable employment. Leaving will politically cost the UK chances to exert its influence.

Some say the UK will benefit from Brexitby getting rid of obligations as an EU member. The EU is no longer able to push the UK to join its Schengen accord, to adopt the euro or to receive refugees. Upon leaving the EU, the UK can save an annual payment of 8 billion pounds ($11.8 billion).

Nevertheless, if the UK votes to leave, it will become an Atlantic orphan and lose its special relationship with the EU. In this circumstance, its special relationship with the US will become more notable, but it may mean less to the US.

The UK will see its strategic initiative in dealing with the EU and US reduced. A Brexit, once considered by many as impossible, is now too close to call.

First of all, the UK and Europe have fallen into unprecedented confusion. British society is using this dramatic change to address the ills they perceive are facing their nation.

The somewhat strategically extreme plan of having a referendum was used as leverage in partisan politics, but now it seems possible that it will decide the future direction of the entire country.

The recent murder of pro-EU British MP Jo Cox led to a swing toward the pro-Remain camp. That such a major choice is so easily affected reveals a flaw in the system.

While the Scottish referendum and the ongoing EU poll have consumed much political and societal attention, the UK has largely maintained stability, which needs high social governance capabilities. While the UK is playing a risky game, it shouldn't be imitated.

If the UK votes to stay in the EU, the country will have just been through a political masquerade. If not, then the country will have acted like a show-off tightrope walker who unfortunately fell with no safety belt fastened.
Entering the Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC) boutiques, you step through the looking glass, go down the rabbit hole and resurface in San Franciscos fashion Wonderland. The merchandise is high-concept fantasy. Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dema, Sofie DHoore, Junya Watanabe and Comme des Garcons await, as do the collections of independent brands and local designers with out-of-the-ordinary visions. The walls feature work by both art world celebs and artists from Creative Growth and Creativity Explored, two Bay Area organizations that work with people with developmental differences. You might hear Sylvie the Airedale-retriever barking from the stockroom: Salespeople Anton, Armando, Christen, Helen and Scott greet you with a hello if youre a stranger, an embrace if you are a regular.

If the visitor is Alice, then the Mad Hatter and March Hare of the MAC tea party are Ben and Chris Ospital, the brother and sister who founded the boutique in 1980 with their mom, Jeri. Their boutiques, now located in Hayes Valley and Dogpatch, have survived economic booms and busts, changing retail trends, and made the move into ecommerce via British website Farfetch and become beloved not just in San Francisco, but worldwide.

The Ospitals love to introduce people to whats new and exciting: Chats start with fashion but quickly segue into whatever else is inspiring them that could expand your world. They finish each others sentences and once they know you, theyll finish yours. Entering the store, you enter the conversation. We bring you into the MAC fold with the Ospitals and those who know them.*

Ben and Chris were born to Jeri and Ben Ospital Sr. and raised in Stockton.

Jeri Ospital: We had a restaurant and bar and a small sheep ranch where we rescued chickens and animals. We used to come up to San Francisco almost every weekend.

Ben Ospital:We all had a radical streak. Mom and Dad supported Cesar Chavez, and at 12 I was making signs for United Farm Workers protests.

Chris Ospital: When we were little, we saw the joys of San Francisco through Mom, things like (department store) The City of Paris.

Jeri: City of Paris and I. Magnin were wonderful. If you went up on the designer floor, poodles would come to the elevator, and (Saks Fifth Avenue) had women dressed as geisha.

Ben: At the same time it was interesting to see how along with the growth of the hippie movement, and Carnaby Street, (the store) Joseph Magnin was more freewheeling, Mary Quant, pop graphics. In many ways it informed us of the kind of store we wanted to do.

Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

Chris: We were raised Catholic. I had boxed pleat skirts forever.

Ben: We had uniforms in school.

Jeri: Wasnt it your English teacher who sent you out of the class and said Ive had it?

Chris: I think a lot of people said that. As soon as I could save my babysitting money and get a pair of platform shoes at Bird of Paradise, that was it.

Ben: The rebellious nature came out in clothes. Chris and I had a small clothing line for two years that this shop called Miki bought when we were in high school.

Chris: It was called Fetish.

Ben: My first job at 18 was at Joseph Magnin. Chris went to S.F. State, I went to the Art Institute. When we graduated, we both ended up in New York.

In 1980, MAC was born in the Tenderloin, specializing in collections by new names and names still being discovered in America.

Ben: When our dad passed away, Mom joined us in New York. We were living downtown and we met people like Anna Sui, Marc Jacobs and Todd Oldham. All those people were starting out basically doing their own thing.

Ben Gabbe/Getty Images for Barneys New Yor

Chris: These were unique thinkers that were all out of the box.

Ben: So then we all came back and opened our own little shop that was about our friends. Mom and Chris found the space at 814 Post.

Chris: It was only 400 square feet. It had been a tailor shop.

Simon Doonan, author, Barneys New York creative ambassador at large: It reminded me of the boutiques on Kings Road in London in the 60s. Rents were cheap enough that if you had an idea you could open a store that was funky, interesting and owner-operated.

Chris: So many of the people we met when we first opened had just moved there like us.

Doonan: We were all obsessed with fashion and bonded. Theyve always been focused on stuff that was unconventional.

Ben and Chris: And Simon Doonan would come up from L.A. and do our windows!

Doonan: I remember us putzing around and trying to do something, make something out of nothing. Ben, Chris and Jeri were like the Gabor sisters. They could tell a story between the three of them.

Daniel Detorie, retail veteran, client: Post Street was so hip. They had pipes as clothing racks and this home division, too, that was so great.

Doonan: It was painted metallic gold, a brilliant gesture with a low price tag. It covered a multitude of sins and gave the place a unique identity and smell.

Chris Stewart/The Chronicle

Ben: We still say today what we said then: Dress one person well, theyll tell 20 people. Thats how things started.

Cintra Wilson, fashion journalist/author: I used to make pilgrimages to the store on Post as a teenager. Even when I had no money, Id go in there just to listen to what they knew. They have this status-free, age-free concept of fashion.

Jeri: Mr. John, the hatmaker who taught Halston, used to come in with (haute couture collector) Dodie Rosekrans. They were so much fun.

Chris: They loved the avant garde and the very best we had.

Ben: Then we had the defining moment: The Madonna visit. It was 1983, (during) the Like a Virgin tour. She bought a bunch of stuff, and it was in Herb Caens column. The power of Herb Caen  it put us on the map.

Jeri: Physicians wives would come in and ask, Is it true she was here?

Ben: She bought a bra out of patchwork fabric, some Bodymap pieces.

Chris: Jewelry by David Spada.

Jeri: She really was sweet as could be.

The Belgians and Japanese

Ben: Around 1989, we started buying Belgians. When youd go to Paris fashion week and say you saw a great Belgian show, it was like (now) saying you went to Sacramento fashion week. Six people made that industry. We had Dirk (Van Saene), Dries (Van Noten), Walter (Van Bierendonck) and Ann (Demeulemeester) early on.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

Chris: Of course, we also love carrying Comme (des Garcons) and the Japanese.

Dries Van Noten, designer: Ben, Chris and MAC represent and embody all that is passionate in fashion. Our industry has recently become even more industrial. Yet  change is afoot and the passionate are more appreciated than ever today.

Walter Van Bierendonck, designer: I met Ben and Chris the first time in my shop in Antwerp. Not long after they made an appointment in my showroom to buy my collection. From that moment we see each other every season. When I presented the WONDERBEAR collection in Berkeley, it felt like coming home. So many fans wearing my previous collections, all clients from Ben and Chris. Of course one of their famous clients, John Waters, is a huge fan, too!

John Waters, filmmaker: MAC is my favorite clothing store, even more than anywhere in New York. Its hard to find Walter even in New York. I wear a lot of their stuff on stage, stuff thats borderline lunatic, not stuff you just walk around in. My father used to say You bought that? They saw you coming! Well, they did see me coming! They call me and let me know when things they think I like come in.

Russell Yip/The Chronicle

Susan Etlinger, client: Im a huge fan of Sofie DHoore: I can wear her clothes for work and feel polished and professional but still fun and unique. I love Mina Perhonens fabrics. I deeply miss Miller et Bertaux, who retired this past year; I feel like their clothes are the closest Ive come to an ideal style for me. And of course Comme des Garcons: They can be eccentric and hilarious and still wearable, which I love.

Norah Stone, art collector and philanthropist, client: Ive been shopping with Ben and Chris probably 15 years. I buy Dries, Junya (Watanabe) and Noir, once and in a while Walter, and of course Comme! I especially like to explore the new Japanese designers they carry. They sometimes get special things in and they call me and tell me about them: I tell my staff thats an emergency call they must put through! MAC is one of the few stores that consistently carries adventurous clothing for those of us who collect art and like to be out of the mainstream.

Ricky Serbin, vintage clothes dealer, collector: Ben and Chris have introduced me to many of the designers I love. The Walter and Comme pieces I gave to LACMA (Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art) I purchased at MAC. I joked for a couple years I was their poster boy because I was in the Times in Bill Cunninghams pictures wearing Comme and Walter suits from them.

Norah Stone, art collector and philanthropist, client: MAC is one of the few stores that consistently carries adventurous clothing for those of us who collect art and like to be out of the mainstream. They sometimes get special things in and they call me and tell me about them: I tell my staff thats an emergency call they must put through! I buy Dries, Junya (Watanabe) and Noir, once in a while Walter, and of course Comme! I especially like to explore the new Japanese designers they carry.

In 1994, MAC split into two stores: mens at 5 Claude Lane, and womens at 1543 Grant Ave.

Chris: We moved out of Post in 1994.

Ben: It was an interesting moment. Brit wit was changing things and morphing and we needed to do a womens salon and mens salon.

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Scott Goble, MAC manager: I had been in the store at Claude Lane. What I loved about that store was the expressiveness of the clothes and the clear vision of wanting to give specifically men more options.

Ben: One of our goals next season is to mix the clothes up and not be gender-specific. For many years guys would come in and look at a Comme sweater and say Is this mens or womens? and wed say Flip it over and check its genitalia!

Jeri: People need to learn how to be free and not box themselves in.

In 2004, MAC reunited womens and mens clothing, and moved to its present location at 387 Grove St. The store in the Yellow House building in Dogpatch, at 1003 Minnesota St., opened in 2011.

Jeri: We were split 10 years before we decided to come back together at Grove.

Chris: People were shopping together again.

Ben: Thats when we started having artists draw on the shopping bags, people like Mica Sigourney who did naked people against icons of San Francisco for the first bags. Weve always said the mere fact that someone wants to buy clothes from us in a clothing-optional town is a thank you.

The Ospitals have long been active with the California College of the Arts fashion department, groups such as PAWS, Creative Growth, Creativity Explored, and Headlands Center for the Arts, and supportive of local art and emerging designers.

Ben: In 1992, we did this benefit that was on MTV called The Dog Show for PAWS, and it turned into this big thing at Bimbos. We had celebrities and their dogs. It was everyone from Susie Tompkins to Justin Vivian Bond.

Tom di Maria, director, Creative Growth: Ben and Chris saw and were leaders in having the work of artists with developmental disabilities be seen as important. (Featuring Creative Growths art) wasnt a cool, trendy thing at the time. They fell in love with our people and supporting artists with disabilities. When I took a leave of absence for a few months, Ben filled in for me as director.

Amy Williams, CCA fashion department chair: Ben and Chris were on our very first show jury in 2007. Last year I brought them into the program as a mentor team. They gave a lecture a couple years ago called Ugly makes pretty. It was an hour-and-a-half conversation rather than a lecture.

Rena Bransten, gallerist: When the gallery moved to the Dogpatch, they were among the first to visit us.

Bessma Khalaf, artist, Light Dark Studio: When they started talking about the art scene we knew so many of the same people.

Nick Karvounous, artist, Light Dark Studio: We showed them our first collection after we developed it for two years and they were the first to carry our pieces.

The spirit of the tribe and the essence of MAC

Chris: We very much talk to the tribe. What we try and do here in the store is talk to the community, talk to people that are our tribe.

Detorie: Were talking about a Basque family from Stockton thats done very well, and theyve done it by creating a community.

Doonan: I see MAC as one of the great San Francisco destinations. Among legendary stores theres Colette in Paris, Browns in London, Maxfields in L.A., and MAC in San Francisco.

Waters: It is like a great clubhouse when you shop there.

Wilson: Theyve achieved the perfect balance between art and commerce. Theyre the first family of San Francisco fashion.

Di Maria: People with real talent like they have are able to see the future, whether its with artists or designers.

Goble: One of the rules I learned early on about MAC is wed rather make a friend than a sale. I understand through Ben, Chris and Jeris guidance the importance of the karma of clothes.

Jeri: Tell the truth to a person. You give them three outfits and see what they like. If they go home and like the outfit, youve got a customer.

Ben: Were not fashion with a capital F. Our fashion is more Margaret Mead-like. What are the clothes I need for the tribe?

Chris: And where is the tribe going to eat afterwards? We always talk about that. The continuation of the conversation is We love what youre wearing, now what are you going to do?

*Interviews for this oral history were conducted in person, by phone and via e-mail. Responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com
Forty-five miles east of San Francisco, in the shadow of Mount Diablo, two bays removed from the tourist-tread valleys of Napa and Sonoma, sits Frank Evangelhos vineyard. Its a sandy beach of a vineyard, on East 18th Street in Antioch, just a few hundred yards from the intersection of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Its 130-year-old, head-trained grapevines might look like erratic coastal dune grass to the casual glance. PG&E owns the property. Transmission towers crown it, electrical lines canopy it, railroad tracks form its northern border. It faces a motel, across 18th Street, with rooms for rent by the hour.

The visual is incongruous, logic-defying.

Arent we in factory country, not wine country? Isnt Antioch too hot for grape growing? If Contra Costa County produced any good wine, wouldnt we have heard of it by now?

Yet the Evangelho Vineyard is one of Californias most precious viticultural treasures, both a preserved expression of this areas history and a source of some of the states most soulful, distinctive wines. And just as astounding as the fact that it produces wines of such excellence is that it still exists  after a century of near-constant threats by man and nature.

Ive got one of the last vineyards left in Antioch, says Frank Evangelho, its second-generation caretaker.

Evangelho grew up in these vines, and looks it: Like a pet owner who comes to resemble his dog, hes sturdy, unshowy and vaguely beachy, sporting Hawaiian shirts and a Guy Fieri-esque goatee. At 70, Evangelho doesnt have the energy he always did  a pacemaker, a defibrillator and some stents have kept him moving since a 1995 heart attack  but as he walks through his 36-acre vineyard, he interacts with his vines with a deep, if quiet, passion.

These vines are connected to me, he says.

The historic vineyards of Antioch and Oakley are an endangered species, and their most powerful conservationists are winemakers from Napa, Sonoma and elsewhere who buy their fruit. When the Portuguese came in the 1880s, they had to plant on the sand, explains Matt Cline, of Sonoma-based Three Wine Co., who makes more than 10 Contra Costa wines, including from Evangelho Vineyard. You cant grow too many leafy vegetables there, but its perfect for grapes. These vineyards are mixed black plantings: Zinfandel interspersed with Carignan, Mourvedre, Alicante Bouschet and white grapes like Muscat and Palomino. Though the area had a thriving wine industry before Prohibition, today no wineries exist here  and many of the vineyards have survived merely by historical accident.

Its the land that time forgot, says Nathan Kandler of Precedent Wine in San Mateo County, who makes Evangelho Zinfandel

Michael Short/Special To The Chronicle

The real key to why these vineyards still exist is the sand, says Randle Johnson, winemaker for Napas Hess Collection and Artezin and another of Evangelhos clients. Hes referring to phylloxera, the lethal grapevine louse that wiped out nearly all of Californias vineyards in the late 1800s and struck again in the 1980s. Phylloxera cant survive in sand.

Yet its unusual for grapevines to be planted in pure sand, largely because of the soils poor water-holding capacity. (The vast majority of Californias grapevines today are grafted onto phylloxera-resistant rootstock.) Whats incredible about Evangelho Vineyard, whose vines are on their own roots, is how much water it has. We dug a well in the middle of the vineyard, and we were still hitting roots in sand at 40 feet deep, Evangelho says. Whatever water source it has, its good water  not salty water from the rivers. One well, dug in the 1970s, could produce 500 gallons of water a minute, he claims. The vines have never been irrigated.

The site is deceptively perfect for viticulture. Its a warm climate that acts like a cool climate, says Cline. Just on the other side of Mount Diablo, Walnut Creek gets an average 25 inches of rain a year, but the weather stops at the mountain; Evangelho Vineyard got just 12 inches last year. The sand reflects heat, but the afternoon winds coming off the nearby rivers create a cooling effect. Fruit ripens early and retains beautiful acidity.

Michael Short/Special To The Chronicle

Im always surprised at how elegant the wines are, even sometimes at not necessarily low alcohols, Kandler says.

The Carignan from Evangelho is probably the best in the state, says Doug Timewell of Arroyo Grandes Toucan Wines. Its ultra-ripe but incredibly well balanced. Evangelho agrees that Carignan is his best output. (Its also his cheapest product, at around $1,700 a ton; his Zinfandel and Mourvedre cost around $2,500.)

Evangelhos father, Manuel, who came here from Portugals Azores Islands, began farming the vineyard in the 1930s. When its owners and original planters, the Viera family, sold the property to PG&E in 1952, Manuel eked out an agreement to purchase 11 acres and lease another 29. Frank took over the farming from his father in 1963. The business then was grape shipping  mostly to home winemakers in Canada.

Those were wild, lawless days. The Evangelhos shipping competition was the Italian mafia; Frank Evangelho says he was a murder target. (Did you get the flowers yet? read one auspicious note sent to him. Lucky for him, his Mafioso rival eventually went to prison for driving the getaway car for a murder in San Jose.)

Michael Short/Special To The Chronicle

Evangelhos shift from commodity farming to fine-wine viticulture began in 1972, when Brother Timothy of Napas pioneering Christian Brothers winery first bought grapes. Recognizing their quality, Timothy paid Napa prices  and in those days, we got a sugar bonus for riper grapes, Frank explains, bringing prices up to $450 a ton. Fred and Matt Cline  of the Jacuzzi clan, hot tub and wine moguls, now based in Sonoma but with considerable land holdings in Contra Costa  began buying fruit in the 1980s, first as brokers to other winemakers, then as winemakers themselves.

By the 1990s, the roster of California winemakers bottling Evangelho fruit was prestigious: Ridge, Jade Mountain, Chalone, Bonny Doon. But Antioch never got the Monte Bello treatment; it never became a name brand.

In 2006, claiming eminent domain, the city of Antioch tore out 4 acres of Evangelhos vines. They wanted to put a sewer pipe through. I broke down, says Frank. They had no idea what these vines mean. As compensation, they paid him $1.50 per vine.

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The destruction was in vain: The project was never even realized. The city didnt check before digging, and hadnt known that a PG&E pipeline stood in its path. Frank speaks about the removal with bitterness that still feels fresh. A few months ago, after he spoke at an Antioch Historical Society meeting, a local political candidate approached him and apologized on the citys behalf. I had no idea how historic your vineyard is, she told him.

Michael Short/Special To The Chronicle

And thats precisely the problem in Antioch and Oakley: Absent a local wine industry, these 19th century survivor vineyards are not understood as the treasures they are. Vandalism targets, the vineyards get dumped with discarded fridges, trash, used as racetracks for joy-riding teenagers. With BART extending here next year, the push for residential development is powerful. Sandy fields of head-trained Zinfandel, adjacent to strip malls and trailer parks, are getting commercially zoned, auctioned off to real estate developers at prices higher than any agricultural land could command.

Frank Evangelho is a religious man. Before his heart attack, he worked for a time as a marriage and family counselor at a nonprofit Christian counseling center. When he speaks about his vines, hes speaking from the perspective of a businessman  they are now his sole source of income  but also from an impulse that is obviously spiritual. We live by the season, and that is a value. Youre connected to nature. It gives you a different feel. If we lose our connection to the values, things go chaotic.

Talk about value: It may be those PG&E power lines that have kept Evangelhos property a vineyard. No chance of building condominiums under them. Its like postmodern preservation, laughs Morgan Twain-Peterson, owner of Bedrock Wine Co., who buys about one-third of the Evangelho fruit every year.

But the vines also owe their salvation to high-profile winemakers like Twain-Peterson, who are designating Evangelho Vineyard on their wine labels, promoting the idea of old vines to their customers and paying generous prices for the fruit. Along with stalwarts like Hess Johnson and Matt Cline, Evangelhos roster of clients includes boutique operations like Neyers, Turley, Dirty & Rowdy, T-Vine, Timewells Toucan and Kandlers Precedent. There is a waiting list for Franks fruit.

The market is finally recognizing the value of old vines, Evangelho says.

Hes being modest. Frank is smart. Hes done a great job of marketing his grapes, Cline says. Hes getting the grapes into new hands, which is bringing new life to the vineyard.

The vines have a nobleness, says Kandler, who is part of that new life. Its important to our history that they get recognition. Just from a historical standpoint, how unique they are  thats part of what makes California what it is.

And just as unique as any of the Carignan shrubs is Frank Evangelho himself: firmly anchored in the sandy soil, his roots deep, protecting his charges with the instincts of a parent. He shall not be moved.
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Two bicyclists killed in separate hit-and-run crashes in San Francisco within 2 hours of each other left Mayor Ed Lee outraged Thursday after he learned from police that both deaths were preventable.

Lee said the citys tireless work and the millions of dollars its spent to make streets safer was undermined by the incredibly irresponsible actions of the drivers involved in both incidents Wednesday.

We are simply outraged. These arent accidents. They are tragedies that can be prevented, the mayor said at a news conference. I say this with a lot of emotion because we have been trying very hard with all of our community groups to make our streets safer.

Heather Miller, 41, of San Francisco was killed after a man driving a stolen car sped into oncoming traffic and struck her as she rode her bicycle on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. In the second incident, the driver of a sport utility vehicle sped through a red light at a busy intersection in the citys South of Market neighborhood and struck and killed bicyclist Katherine Slattery, 26, also of San Francisco.

Ed Reiskin, director of the citys Municipal Transportation Agency, echoed Lees remarks. He said that about 30 people are killed on city streets each year in incidents such as the two Wednesday and that they are very much preventable.

We have more violence perpetrated by cars in this city than guns, Reiskin said. When we get behind the wheel, we have to understand the awesome responsibility we have to operate it safely.

Miller was killed around 6 p.m. Wednesday while bicycling east on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. Police said a man driving a stolen white Honda in the westbound direction hit her when he veered into the opposite lane while attempting to speed around slower cars.

The driver of the Honda fled the scene, officials said. The vehicle was later found abandoned at the Anglers Lodge in Golden Gate Park. Authorities said that the car had been reported stolen and that they are in communication with the registered owner. They were still searching for a suspect Thursday afternoon.

Just before 8:30 p.m., Slattery was killed when a man in a black BMW SUV headed west on Howard Street sped through a red light and struck her as she was pedaling north on Seventh Street, police said.

That driver continued on to a gas station at Ninth and Howard streets, where he stopped and got out of his car, which continued to roll into an unoccupied parked vehicle, officials said.

A citizen spotted the driver and made him stay at the scene until police arrived and took him into custody. Officials do not believe drugs or alcohol were involved. The driver, whom police identified as 32-year-old Farrukh Mushtaq of San Francisco, , was arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

Another traffic incident occurred on San Francisco streets Thursday morning. A Muni 30-Stockton bus struck a woman near Ninth and Market streets just after 8:30 a.m., said Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Municipal Transportation Agency. The woman, who was not identified, was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Traffic incidents regularly occur on city streets despite initiatives that have sprung up in recent years to make the streets safer, including San Franciscos Vision Zero plan, a broad effort to to cut traffic-related fatalities to zero in the city by 2024.

Reiskin said the recent incidents highlight the importance of everyone in the city working toward that effort.

This is everybodys responsibility, Reiskin said, calling the the deaths horrible and tragic reminders of all that needs to be done.

Kevin Schultz and Lizzie Johnson are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kschultz@sfchronicle.com, ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kevinedschultz, @LizzieJohnsonnn
This article originally appeared in AllBusiness.

Selling a company can often be difficult and time consuming. The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process requires careful planning, competent professionals to assist the target company, and an understanding of the deal dynamics involved in the negotiations. CEOs and companies that have not engaged in many M&A transactions frequently make mistakes that can result in a less favorable price or terms that would have otherwise been obtainable. Sometimes these errors can even kill the deal altogether.

The following is a list of common mistakes made by CEOs of private companies attempting to sell the company:

Mistake #1: Not being prepared for the extensive effort and time the deal will take.

Successful exits through M&A are not easy. They are time consuming, involve significant due diligence by the buyer, and require both a great deal of advance preparation as well as a substantial resource commitment by the seller. Acquisitions can often take six months or longer to complete.

Mistake #2: Failing to create a competitive sales process.The best deals for sellers usually occur when there are multiple potential bidders, and leverage of the competitive situation can be used to obtain a higher price, better deal terms, or both. Negotiating with only one bidder (particularly when the bidder knows its company is the only potential buyer) frequently puts the selling company at a significant disadvantage. Sellers must try to set up an auction or competitive bidding process to avoid being boxed in by a demand for exclusivity by a bidder. By having multiple bidders, the seller can play each bidding party against the other to arrive at a favorable deal. Even the perception that there are multiple interested parties can help in the negotiations.

Mistake #3: Not having a complete online data room.

An online data room contains all of the key information and documents that a bidder will want to review. This will include material contracts, patents, financial statements, employee information, and much more. An online data room is extremely time consuming to put together, but is essential to successful completion of a deal. A properly populated data room established early in the M&A process will not only allow buyers to complete their due diligence more quickly, but also will enable the seller and its advisors to expeditiously prepare the disclosure schedule, a critical document in the M&A process. But almost every CEO underestimates how critical this is, and how time consuming it is to get complete and correct.

Mistake #4: Hiring the wrong legal counsel. You shouldn't rely on a general practitioner or general corporate lawyer to guide you through the M&A process or negotiate and draft the acquisition documents. Instead, you should use a lawyer who primarily or exclusively handles mergers and acquisitions. There are many difficult and complicated issues in structuring M&A deals, putting together acquisition agreements, and executing the transaction. You want a lawyer who thoroughly understands those issues, understands customary market terms, understands the M&A legal landscape, is responsive with a sense of urgency, and who has done numerous acquisitions. The CEO's bias will often be to use existing company counsel, but this is almost always a mistake.

Mistake #5: Not hiring a great financial advisor or investment banker.

In many situations, a financial advisor or an investment banker experienced in M&A can bring value to the table by doing the following:

Assisting the seller and its legal counsel in developing an optimal sale process

Helping to prepare an executive summary and confidential information memorandum for potential buyers

Surfacing up and contacting prospective buyers

Coordinating meetings with potential buyers

Coordinating signing of NDAs

Assisting the seller in properly populating the online data room

Advising on market comparable valuations

Coordinating the seller's responses to buyer due diligence requests

Prepping the management teams for presentations to the potential buyers

Assisting in the negotiations on deal terms and price

One tip when hiring a financial advisor or an investment banker: Have them give you a list of likely buyers, with annotations listing their relationships with senior executives of those buyers and recent deals done with them. You want an advisor who already has strong relationships with likely buyers and who can get their attention.

The first draft of an investment banker engagement letter is generally extremely one-sided in favor of the investment banker. Companies that just sign or minimally negotiate such letters are making a huge mistake. These letters are negotiable, and savvy legal counsel/deal professionals typically negotiate on the following issues, among others:

The compensation payable to the advisor is typically a success fee, based as a percentage of the ultimate sales price. What is often negotiated is the percentage (for example, the bankers will want 3% or more, the company will want a fee closer to 1% to 2% but possibly increasing if certain sales price thresholds are met). The calculation of the fee owed should also exclude various items, such as any portion of the purchase price attributable to the cash that the company has on its balance sheet at the closing, or contingent purchase price payments that may never be made.

Whether there is a minimum fee payable on a sale regardless of the purchase price (companies should avoid this, otherwise there may not be an alignment of interest between the company and the buyer)

How long and under what situations a "tail" applies (meaning when a fee will be due after the engagement letter is terminated but the company subsequently is sold). Companies try to limit this tail to 6 to 9 months and only for potential buyers that signed an NDA with the company during the terms of the engagement letter.

The amount of any upfront or monthly retainer payable to the banker (it is common that any retainer is waived and the advisor or banker is paid nothing unless a transaction is successfully completed)

The amount of any expenses reimbursable to the investment banker (usually a cap is negotiated with a requirement that any amounts expended must be "reasonable")

The circumstances where the engagement letter can be terminated without any liability and without a tail applying (for example, if the key banker departs from the banking firm or the banker breaches the engagement letter)

Whether the banker will deliver a fairness opinion and the fee for such opinion

The scope of indemnification protection to the banker

An outside termination date when the engagement letter will automatically expire

A restriction/representation and warranty regarding any conflicts of interest by the banker

Mistake #6: Having incomplete books, records, and contracts.

Due diligence investigations by buyers frequently find problems in the seller's historical documentation process, including some or all of the following:

Contracts not signed by both parties

Contracts that have been amended but without the amendment terms signed

Missing or unsigned Board of Director minutes or resolutions

Missing or unsigned stockholder minutes or resolutions

Board or stockholder minutes/resolutions missing referenced exhibits

Incomplete/unsigned employee-related documents, such as stock option agreements or confidentiality and invention assignment agreements

Deficiencies of this kind may be so important to a buyer that the buyer will require certain matters to be remedied as a condition to closing. That can sometimes be problematic, such as instances where a buyer insists that ex-employees be located and required to sign confidentiality and invention assignment agreements.

To the extent that key contracts or leases may require consents for a change of control transaction, those consents should be identified early, and a plan should be put in place to obtain those consents.

Mistake #7: Not having a complete disclosure schedule far in advance.

A disclosure schedule is the document attached to the acquisition agreement setting forth a great deal of required disclosures relating to outstanding key contracts, intellectual property, related party transactions, employee information, pending litigation, insurance, and much more. A well-prepared disclosure schedule is critical to ensuring that the seller will not breach its representations and warranties in the acquisition agreement.

Accordingly, this is an extremely important document to have ready quickly, and it is very time consuming to get correct. But virtually every company gets this wrong, requiring multiple drafts that potentially delay a deal. And disclosure schedules prepared at the last minute are more likely to be poorly prepared, creating unnecessary risks for the seller and its stockholders.

Mistake #8: Not negotiating the key terms of the deal in a letter of intent.

This is one of the biggest mistakes made by sellers. A selling company's bargaining power is greatest prior to signing a letter of intent. As Richard Vernon Smith, an M&A partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco, says, "The letter of intent in an M&A deal is extremely important for ensuring the likelihood of a favorable deal for a seller. Once the letter of intent is signed, the leverage typically swings to the buyer." This is because the buyer will typically require a "no shop" clause or exclusivity provision prohibiting the seller from talking to any other bidders for a period of time. The key terms to negotiate in the letter of intent include the following:

The price, and whether it will be paid all cash up front, all stock (including the type of stock), or part promissory notes

Any adjustments to the price and how these adjustments will be calculated (such as for working capital adjustments at the closing or for a "cash free/debt free" deal)

The scope and length of any exclusivity/no shop provision (which is always in the seller's best interest to keep as short as possiblesay 15 to 30 days.)

The non-binding nature of the terms (excluding with respect to confidentiality and exclusivity)

The amount of any escrow and a provision stating that the escrow will be the exclusive remedy for breaches of the agreement (and any exclusions from this exclusive remedy, such as for breaches of designated "fundamental representations")

The length of any escrow

Other key terms to be included in the acquisition agreement (discussed in the next section)

Mistake #9: Failing to negotiate and agree upon a favorable acquisition agreement.

One key to a successful sale of a company is having a well-drafted acquisition agreement protecting the seller as much as possible. To the extent feasible and depending on the leverage the seller has, you want your counsel to prepare the first draft of the acquisition agreement. Here are some of the key provisions to negotiate in the acquisition agreement:

Amount of the escrow holdback for indemnification claims by the buyer and the period of the escrow/holdback (the typical ideal scenario for a seller is 5-10% for 9 to 12 months); in some deals it may be possible to negotiate for no post-closing indemnification by the buyer and no escrow/holdback

The exclusive nature of the escrow/holdback for breaches of the acquisition agreement (except perhaps for breaches of certain defined "fundamental representations," such as capitalization and organization of the company)

The conditions to closing (a seller will ideally want to limit these to ensure that it can actually close the transaction quickly)

The adjustments to the price (a seller ideally wants to avoid downward adjustment mechanisms based on working capital adjustments, etc.)

The triggers for earnouts or contingent purchase price payments

Where stock is to be issued to the selling stockholders, the extent of rights and restrictions on that stock (such as registration rights, co-sale rights, rights of first refusal, Board of Director representation, pre-emptive rights, etc.)

The nature of the representations and warranties (a seller wants these qualified to the greatest extent possible with materiality and knowledge qualifiers); intellectual property, financial and liability representations, and warranties merit particular focus

The nature of the covenants applicable between signing and closing (a seller wants these to be limited and reasonable, with the ability of the seller to get consents from the buyer if changes are needed, with the consent not to be unreasonably withheld, delayed, or conditioned)

The scope of and exclusions to the indemnity (baskets, caps, carve outs from the indemnity all being important issues)

The treatment of employee options

The terms of any employee hiring by the acquirer

Provisions for termination of the acquisition agreement

The treatment of any litigation against the seller

The cost for obtaining any consents and governmental approvals

The allocation of risk, especially concerning unknown liabilities

As David Lipkin, an M&A lawyer in San Francisco, notes, "A well-drafted M&A agreement will reduce the risks of not closing the deal, mitigate the potential post-closing risks, and ensure that the expectations of the target company and its stockholders are met. One of the worst mistakes a seller can make is to assume that a 'middle of the road' approach to each issue will offer it appropriate protection."

Mistake #10: Not appreciating that time is the enemy of all deals.

The longer an M&A process drags on, the higher the likelihood that the deal will not happen or the terms will get worse. The CEO and the company's lawyer must have a sense of urgency in getting things done, responding to due diligence requests, turning around markups of documents, and the like. It is also essential that one seller representative is delegated authority to make quick decisions on negotiating issues so that the deal momentum can be maintained.

Mistake #11: Having the CEO negotiate the deal terms.

In my experience, it is often a mistake for the CEO of the selling company to negotiate the deal. CEOs and entrepreneurs often do not have relevant M&A experience and generally are no match for the buyer's sophisticated lawyers or corporate development team. Moreover, the smart CEO will want to avoid being seen as difficult in the negotiation when the buyer will be expecting the CEO to stay on after the acquisition. Just because someone is a great CEO does not make them a great M&A negotiator or able to orchestrate an appropriate M&A process.

The selling company wants to avoid acrimonious negotiations, as this could eventually kill a deal if the buyer determines that there won't be a cultural fit. Often, a representative from the Board, an M&A Committee of the Board, or a representative from a major shareholder in collaboration with experienced M&A counsel will be more appropriate and effective as lead negotiator. Having said that, the CEO is crucial to the process in that he or she is best positioned to articulate the business and its upside for the buyer.

Mistake #12: Neglecting the day-to-day operation of the business during the M&A process.

The process of selling a company will be hugely distracting and time consuming. Nevertheless, the CEO must keep his or her eye on the ball and ensure that the business continues to grow and operate efficiently in line with projections given to the buyer. One of the worst things that can happen in an M&A process is for the selling company's financial situation to deteriorate during the process. This may kill the deal or result in the buyer renegotiating price and terms.

Mistake #13: Absence of complete financial statements and credible financial projections.

The buyer will expend a great deal of time doing diligence on the company's current financials and future projections. The CFO or controller of the selling company must be prepared to provide comprehensive financial statements and underlying schedules, and to fully answer questions related thereto. Having unreasonable projections or unrealistic assumptions will adversely affect the credibility of the management team. If the management team does not know the company's key metrics cold and lacks the ability to convincingly demonstrate the reasonableness of the projections, this will give the buyer pause.

Mistake #14: Not adequately taking into account employee-related issues.

Transactions will typically include a number of employee issues. The questions that frequently arise in M&A transactions are the following:

What is the acquirer's plan for retention and motivation of the company's employees?

How will the company's stock options be dealt with? (From the seller's perspective, it is desirable to have the acquirer assume all the options but count only the vested options toward the purchase price.)

Do any options accelerate by their terms as a result of the deal? Some options may be a "single trigger" (accelerate by reason of the deal closing) and others may be "double trigger" (accelerate following the closing only if employment is terminated within a defined period of time). The option plan and related option grant agreements must be carefully reviewed to anticipate any problems.

Does the company need to establish a "carve out" to pay employees at the closing, or a change in control bonus payment to motivate management to sell the company?

How do the investors make sure that the buyer's incentive arrangements to the management team do not adversely affect the price payable to the shareholders? (It is best for the seller if price and key terms of the acquisition are agreed to before incentive arrangements are negotiated.)

Will payouts to employees related to the deal trigger the excise tax provisions of Internal Revenue Code Section 280G (the so-called "golden parachute" tax)? If so, the seller needs to obtain a special stockholder vote to avoid application of this tax liability.

Mistake #15: Not understanding the negotiation dynamics.

All M&A negotiations require a number of compromises. It is critical to understand which party has the leverage in the negotiations. Who wants the deal more: the buyer or the seller? Are there multiple bidders that can be played against each other? Can you negotiate key non-financial terms in exchange for a concession on price? Is the deal price sufficiently attractive that the seller is willing to live with indemnification obligations that are less than optimal? It's important to establish a rapport with the lead negotiator on the other side and it's never good to let negotiations get heated or antagonistic. All negotiations should be conducted with courtesy and professionalism.

In the end, one of the biggest mistakes made by CEOs in M&A deals is "negotiating by concession." If the CEO continually makes concessions to a buyer hoping that this will lead to a final deal, the opposite often happensthe buyer comes to believe that the seller is desperate to sell and can keep asking for additional concessions.

This article originally appeared in AllBusiness.
It may be the best time to graduate from college since the recession. The rate of unemployment for recent graduates is under 5 percent and job prospects are finally brightening.

But theyre still not great.

Since the recession, it has been hard for graduates to find jobs at their education level, and it still is.

Although college historically has been an excellent investment and grads are finding work, 45 percent of recent college graduates have jobs that dont require their degrees, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The marketing major may settle for a 20-hour-a-week gig as a barista.

And while there is more work, statistics show, grads still face stagnant wages and the highest student debt load ever.

Some students have jobs, but they know they may need to return to school eventually.

Fallon OReilly finished her biology degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in May but decided to take a business job instead of pursuing research or medicine immediately.

OReilly plans on returning to school, perhaps to be a nurse practitioner or an anesthesiologist  but she wants to spend a few years in the business world first.

Like OReilly, Alex Mediavilla graduated with a science degree, hers in nursing. She is about to begin working as a nurse with the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City.

Nursing is one of the fastest-growing fields in the nation, according to the Department of Labor. The median wage for registered nurses of $67,490 in 2015 is much higher than the average median wage of $36,200.

I feel very lucky to be in the program that I was, Mediavilla said. Eighty to 90 percent of my graduating class had job offers or positions when they graduated.

But the market isnt equal for all degrees. Health sciences degrees are rising in demand, but the outlook is different for those with a liberal arts degree.

Graduates with liberal arts, humanities, fine arts or political science degrees typically have lower starting salaries and higher unemployment, according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics. Graduates with those types of degrees had an unemployment rate of 6 to 8 percent in 2012, compared with about 3 percent for engineering and health sciences degrees.

Students with liberal arts degrees also tend to be underemployed and cobble together multiple part-time jobs unconnected to their degrees.

Students also face an average debt load that has doubled since 1989. Households with student debt owe an average amount of $26,682, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute. Ten percent of households owe more than $61,895.

Even if students are able to graduate with a bachelors degree without school debt, they may feel that the best way to get ahead is to go back to school.

Mediavilla plans to eventually go back to school for a nurse practitioner degree. Shell have to take out student loans, but the demand for advanced practice registered nurses is growing fast. She thinks it will be a good investment.

Like applying for nursing school and for jobs, Mediavilla views applying and paying for an advanced degree as a challenge to conquer: Thats what I want to do, so Im going to do it.

While student debt is rising, the average starting salary for a college graduate, $38,500, is nearly the same as it was in 2000. Although that salary is much higher than the wages for those with only a high school degree, it has failed to keep up with the rising cost of college.

Young workers are also disproportionally unlikely to receive pension coverage, overtime or employer-provided health insurance.

The outlook is worse for students of color, who are more likely to be unemployed whether the economy is good or bad, according to the Economic Policy Institutes report. Having a college degree and the same starting record still doesnt guarantee equal treatment in the job market.

In fact, the highest young white college graduate unemployment rate reached in the recession (9 percent) is still lower than that of young black college graduates today (9.4 percent), according to the report.
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The California commission accused of growing too close to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday approved an 85 percent jump in the amount of money the utility collects from customers to spend on its natural gas pipelines, saying the money would fund badly needed safety work.

The 4-0 decision by the California Public Utilities Commission comes even as PG&E stands trial in a federal court for criminal charges related to the deadly 2010 explosion of a natural gas pipeline under San Bruno.

Under the decision, the amount PG&E collects each year to fund its gas transmission and storage system will rise in stages, from about $715 million in 2014 to $1.324 billion in 2018. While the increase is substantial, PG&E had wanted more, asking the commission for $1.5 billion.

Although the rate increase is large, this is about work we believe is necessary to the safety and reliability of the system, said Commissioner Catherine Sandoval.

$6 rise in average bill

Gas transmission and storage charges are just one component of PG&Es monthly gas bills, which also cover the wholesale cost of gas that customers use.

As a result, customers bills will rise following Tuesdays decision, but by a smaller percentage. According to the commission, the average monthly residential gas bill will increase from $50.89 last year to $56.79 in 2018.

The money will pay for replacing some aging pipelines, pressure-testing others, installing automated safety valves and making more of the network suitable for inspection by pigs  robot probes that travel through the inside of a pipe.

While we dont agree with all aspects of the commissions decision, we want our customers to know that the dedication to our mission of becoming the safest, most reliable gas company in the country is as strong as ever, said PG&E spokesman Donald Cutler.

The bill increases may end up being less than the commission forecast on Thursday.

When the same panel last year imposed a record $1.6 billion penalty on PG&E for the San Bruno blast, the commissioners specified that $850 million of that penalty should go toward pipeline safety work. Some of the increased pipeline spending approved Thursday will be offset by that $850 million, with the specific details to be hashed out in an upcoming series of hearings.

Increase spread out

The commissioners called Thursdays decision a balancing act, acknowledging the impact on PG&Es customers while insisting PG&Es immense system of pipelines and storage facilities needs upgrades and increased inspections. To minimize rate shock, the commission stretched out the timeline for the increases as well as for some of the work.

The commission also forced PG&E to cover some of the costs that the company wanted to pass on to its customers. That last element of the decision followed a scandal that delayed Thursdays votes and tarnished the reputations of both the commission and PG&E.

Following the San Bruno explosion, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, PG&E submitted a request in December 2013 to raise the amount it would collect for pipeline work over three years  2015, 2016 and 2017. But in 2014, emails disclosed by PG&E showed that company executives had lobbied some commissioners to influence which CPUC administrative law judge would handle the gas-rate case.

Florio recused himself

Those revelations cost two top PG&E executives their jobs and forced one commissioner  Mike Florio  to recuse himself from Thursdays vote.

While the final decision gave PG&E less money than the utility requested, it angered consumer advocates.

The utility, they say, long scrimped on maintenance and upgrades to help boost its profits, and customers shouldnt bear the cost of catching up on overdue work. Meanwhile, the number of PG&E customers disconnected for not paying their bills has risen steadily for years.

According to federal prosecutors, PG&Es pipeline neglect was driven by greed for higher profits, said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network. Those profits came at the expense of customers safety and now should be put back into the system in order to reduce the risks created by PG&Es greed.

His organization argues that, based on the commissions own data, the average monthly residential gas bill will likely rise to $59 in 2018 due to Thursdays decision. PG&E, meanwhile, forecast a $7 per month increase during the same period  close to the commissions estimate.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
Workers remove synthetic racetracks at Shenzhen Foreign Language School, November 12, 2015. [File Photo]

China's Ministry of Education on Wednesday said it had ordered local education authorities to remove all substandard running tracks at schools after children reportedly fell sick from exposure to artificial turf.

In a statement released to the press, the ministry said it had invited environmental protection and quality inspection authorities to check all newly-built synthetic racetracks at schools nationwide during the upcoming summer school break, and immediately remove substandard ones.

Construction of all synthetic racetracks are to be suspended until the bidding process and the contracts for the construction had been reviewed by authorities to ensure their quality, it said.

The development came after students in Beijing reportedly suffered from nosebleeds, dizzy spells and coughs, after running on the tracks.

Similar cases were reported in Jiangsu, Guangdong and other provinces, adding to concern over poor quality supervision of a product that affects the health of students.

China's national TV, the CCTV, earlier reported that some of the substandard racetracks were made of industrial wastes such as scrap tires and wires and cables.

Beijing's education authority has already begun investigations and at least the running tracks of one school have been removed.

In its Wednesday statement, the Ministry of Education said it will soon confer with the Ministry of Environmental Protection to push ahead with checks and removal of substandard racetracks.

It will also coordinate with relevant authorities to up requirements for installation of synthetic racetracks in schools, and strengthen supervision over racetrack manufacturers.

Education authorities and schools must give quality the top priority in the bidding process of racetrack construction projects, it said, adding that those responsible for the substandard and even "toxic" running tracks will be "severely punished with no mercy."
San Francisco is going to court to force HomeAway to provide information on its hundreds of local short-term rentals. The goal is to ensure that landlords are ponying up the citys 14 percent hotel tax whenever they host paying visitors, and that they pay a business registration fee.

Our job is to enforce the citys tax laws, said San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros. Businesses in San Francisco cant ignore our laws. The transient occupancy tax is due whenever a visitor pays to stay in our city. We want everyone who hosts (visitors) to understand that the tax applies.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera petitioned San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday seeking to compel HomeAway to comply with a subpoena from Cisneros and the city tax collector, David Augustine. Issued in October and again in April, that subpoena demands that HomeAway identify its San Francisco hosts and their rental transactions. HomeAway has refused, saying that the city is overstepping its authority. The Austin, Texas, company declined to comment.

The tax collector is entitled to request records to make sure that everybody plays by the rules and that he has all the information he needs to collect the taxes owed to the city, Herrera said. Unfortunately (HomeAway) has taken a very obstinate view and said he doesnt have the power.

Travel giant Expedia purchased HomeAway in November for $3.9 billion, creating the worlds largest booking site with more than 1.5 million hotel room and vacation rentals. HomeAways main rival for the business of turning homes into hotels is San Franciscos Airbnb. Although its a newer company with roughly the same number of listings as HomeAway, Airbnbs rapid growth has pushed its valuation on the private market to $25.5 billion.

Airbnb, which handles all transactions between its hosts and guests, has collected hotel tax from its San Francisco guests since October 2014. It also paid an undisclosed amount of back taxes. It says its guests pay the city about $1 million a month. It now remits hotel taxes in 190 jurisdictions worldwide, and often points to this during its battles with regulators as an example of its efforts to be a good corporate citizen  although a tin-eared bus-stop ad campaign in October highlighting its San Francisco taxes backfired.

Last year, Cisneros office designated Airbnb a qualified website company, streamlining its hosts obligations because Airbnb provides detailed information on each hosts rental history along with the tax remittances. By law, the tax collector keeps that information confidential.

Besides the hotel tax, San Francisco imposes two other requirements on vacation-rental hosts, both of which are widely ignored. All hosts are supposed to apply for a business registration certification from the treasurer. They are also supposed to apply to the Office of Short-Term Rental Administration and Enforcement for a registration number. Out of many thousands of hosts, by March only about 1,500 hosts had the certificate, while only 1,647 had registered, the city said.

HomeAway and its VRBO subsidiary each have about 1,770 listings in San Francisco, according to a city report. The same listings appear on both sites. Airbnb says its has 9,448 listings from 7,046 hosts. FlipKey, which is owned by TripAdvisor, has 896 listings.

TripAdvisor said FlipKey meets San Franciscos tax requirements. From the date that the current San Francisco short-term rental regulations came into effect (Feb. 2015), we have collected and remitted taxes on behalf of San Francisco owners who advertise on our platform, said Laurel Greatrix, a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor, in an email. However, the treasurers office noted that only one company, Airbnb, has received the qualified website designation showing that it is in complete compliance.

HomeAway has had a contentious relationship with San Francisco. It sued the city in 2014 over the short-term rental ordinance, saying the law was crafted to fit the way Airbnb did business and thus discriminated against HomeAway. The lawsuit challenged the hotel-tax collection requirement on the grounds that HomeAway was just a classified listing service, rather than a middleman like Airbnb, and didnt know how often properties were rented out. That case was dismissed on procedural grounds.

HomeAway has since shifted its business to assist its hosts with payment processing, so it does now have insight into rentals for more than half of its properties.

Carl Shepherd, co-founder and former chief development officer, who is no longer with HomeAway, told The Chronicle last year that the vast majority of HomeAways listings break San Francisco law because they are not residents primary homes, as mandated under the short-term rental ordinance. But that wasnt a problem, he said, because the law itself abets scofflaws.

The new law tells you exactly how to skirt it, he said. All you have to do is say you live there 270 days a year. You do have to lie and you do have to obfuscate. But the city is at a distinct disadvantage because they cant catch this.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
Imagine a world in which every building is a miniature power plant, with solar panels on the roof and electric vehicles and stationary battery banks in the garage.

Meters and software would manage the flow of power, allowing homeowners and businesses to seamlessly buy and sell electricity at the best prices, simultaneously lowering their costs and raising the amount of green energy on the grid.

That is the long-term vision behind the plan that Elon Musk described this week, explaining the rationale for Palo Altos Tesla to acquire San Mateos SolarCity and create the worlds only vertically integrated energy company. And it may very well become reality, whether in years or decades and whether Musks version of the vision is one that proves viable.

Still, if Musk and his cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, can trounce the competition and surmount their financial woes  and those are very big ifs  the integrated company they are trying to assemble could be in a position to dominate.

This is an effort to build the Apple of clean energy, said Daniel Kammen, the director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley. That really is part of the new wave of companies that could make this decarbonization addressing climate change really work.

Investors skeptical

Wall Street, at least for the moment, is not on board.

SolarCitys stock, which has been trading at roughly a quarter of its peak value in recent months, rose after the announcement. But Teslas has tumbled. Several analysts and investors have questioned the wisdom of adding to both companies financial pressures  between them the companies lost more than $1.6 billion last year  and potentially distracting Tesla from building its enormous battery factory in Nevada and bringing its first moderately priced car to market next year.

Even some energy analysts say the proposed acquisition is at least as much about helping Musks personal investments as furthering his green agenda. But, some energy experts and investors say, there is logic in combining Tesla, where Musk is CEO, and SolarCity, where he is chairman.

Describing Tesla automobiles as batteries wrapped in a car, Shawn Kravetz, founder of the solar power investment company Esplanade Capital, said the energy storage business is expected to become colossal. And so you can see, he said, how the electricity to power those batteries can be an essential part of this.

The two companies have been moving toward a closer partnership for some time. SolarCity began installing Tesla batteries in pilot projects for residential and commercial customers about four years ago. Last year, Tesla announced its plan to market rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs that could mount to a home garage wall, as well as battery blocks large enough to power commercial and industrial customers and serve in utility-scale installations to smooth out fluctuations in the grid.

At the same time, SolarCity, after years of challenging the utility industry to innovate or die, started acting more like a utility itself. It began a program for cities, remote communities, campuses and military bases to design and operate small, independent power networks called microgrids. At the time, Peter Rive, one of the companys founders and its chief technical officer, called the system a template that can be scaled up to basically be the next-generation grid.

As the leading rooftop solar provider in the country, SolarCity is thought to have the largest collection of data on how solar customers use energy at every minute of the day. With that data  especially if combined with information from electric cars, chargers and stationary batteries  the combined company could be well suited to creating products and services based on customer needs.

They deeply understand what the customers usage patterns are, said Swapnil Shah, CEO of FirstFuel Software, which provides energy management services to buildings. He compared the potential to Amazons ability to adapt and tailor online shopping to buyers behavior.

Theyre creating unique personalized profiles of your habits, Shah said, and they use that to identify what is the next click for the next product.

How firms grew

And yet, while SolarCity was building the infrastructure for a new, decentralized approach to power production known as distributed generation, while earning a reputation for aggressive attacks on the old-school utility industry, Musk was turning Tesla into the brand that everyone wants to buy, Kammen said. That brand burnishing is something that could benefit SolarCity, he said.

But a big challenge for Tesla, said Shayle Kann of GTM Research, which focuses on clean energy industries, is that it is not the only company with such a grand vision. Utility industry stalwarts like Edison International and Con Edison are developing energy services and consulting divisions, while technology giants like General Electric, Oracle, Google and even Apple are getting into the business of providing or managing power.

Of course, the merger plan may not go through, if other investors balk and because of the corporate governance and other issues arising from Musks roles in both companies. He also owns more than 20 percent of each.

But maybe a merger is not necessary to achieve the larger goals.

Do you have to own things in order to leverage or even to a certain extent control them? Kravetz of Esplanade Capital asked. I think the answer is no. You dont have to own the cow to get the milk.
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The California drought is carving an unprecedented path of ruin through Sierra forests, killing trees by the millions and setting the stage for a potentially devastating wildfire season thats already burning homes and closing freeways in the southern half of the state.

Using aerial surveys that revealed stark bands of browning trees amid once-healthy green forests, the U.S. Forest Service estimated Wednesday that at least 26 million trees died between October and May, bringing the total statewide die-off to 66 million trees since 2010.

The vast stands of lifeless timber from the High Sierra to Mount Shasta are largely the result of severe water loss amid a fifth year of drought, amplified by rising temperatures and infestations of bark beetles that feast on the weakened trees. The carnage is not expected to let up soon.

Tree die-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that puts property and lives at risk, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, said in a written statement.

Rushing to remove trees

The race is on to ease the danger as much as possible. The federal government, as part of an emergency task force on tree mortality created last year by Gov. Jerry Brown, is rushing to remove dead and dying trees before the peak of this years fire season.

The Forest Service estimates it has cleared 77,000 trees. PG&E counts more than 60,000 trees felled. And the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, tallies tens of thousands more.

Were talking easily over 100,000 trees in total, maybe 200,000, said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire spokesman. Over the winter and spring months especially, we redirected a lot of resources. We hired seasonal firefighters months early.

So many trees have been removed that logs are being piled up at makeshift way stations along Sierra roads, while chipping companies and bio-energy plants that process the wood are operating at capacity.

That continues to be something we look at, Berlant said. What do we do with all the trees?

The clearing efforts target areas where the fire danger is greatest, mostly in the Sierra foothills along roads, next to communities and near power lines.

When you have a tree that is dying or is dead and its near our lines, it has the potential to fail and fall into our line. That would have the potential to spark a fire, said PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo.

She said the utility expects to take down eight times as many trees this year as it did last year as part of its drought plan.

Already, the fire season has hit hard in Southern California. A pair of wildfires east of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest had scorched 4,900 acres by Wednesday, forcing thousands to evacuate. Farther south, the Border Fire in San Diego County grew to 6,500 acres, destroying at least two homes and 11 outbuildings. None of the fires was more than 15 percent contained.

Statewide, about 2,100 wildfires have burned close to 40,000 acres this year. While the totals are not high compared with past years, officials say, the pace of ignitions has begun to accelerate after a relatively wet start to the year.

The surge of dead trees not only makes wildfires potentially more destructive, but it also hampers the ability of forests to naturally clean vital water supplies and soak up the increased levels of carbon dioxide that have helped fuel global warming.

Assessing the damage

The Forest Service has been conducting tree mortality counts by air, with increasing accuracy, since the 1970s. The latest count reflects the results of eight flights in May over 760,000 acres in Fresno, Kern, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Tulare counties  areas where the die-off epidemic is greatest.

Jeffrey Moore, an aerial survey program manager for the Forest Service who piloted the recent flights, described the browning of large swaths of pine in higher elevations and the drying out of oaks in lower reaches.

Its definitely not a normal situation, he said.

Experts say the fallout is likely to continue, as many additional trees are struggling and wont get enough moisture in coming months or years to recover. Already, about 1.6 percent of the states nearly 4 billion trees have died.

If drought persists or weve taken a shift overall to a drier California, were going to see nature take its course, and were going to see a loss of the forests as we know it, said Greg Asner, an ecologist at Stanford University who studies the water content of trees.

Asner and others have speculated that hardier and more drought-tolerant shrubs and grasses could replace much of the states woodlands.

It doesnt always mean doom and gloom, he said. It just means major shifts in where species can be found.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
This article was originally published on cbsSF.com

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF)  Moving day is a thrill for any first time homebuyer, but for someone who was once homeless, it is much more than that.

"It is pretty exciting!" said Janasha Higgins. "It's nice to know that I'm securing land for my family so we can have investments for our future."

She bustles around her new home, unpacking boxes, opening some that were in storage as if they were new gifts. Owning a home offers a security Janasha never had growing up.

We met her 12 years ago, when she was a senior with a bright smile at the Alameda Learning Center.

She was homeless that senior year, but in spite of that she maintained a laser focus on school.

"Her mantra was this is it. I need to focus on school," her mentor at the time, Lorna Velasco told us. "College, college, college is all she thought about and nothing was going to stop her."

Nothing. Period. Not even the stay in the Rescue Mission Homeless Shelter in Richmond.

Janasha had developed a steel-reinforced determination to pull herself out of that kind of poverty and she had developed it the hard way. Growing up, she had to be independent. Her father died of drug overdose when she was only 3. Her mother was in prison for 5 years for selling drugs.

Things were more stable for a time when her mom was released but then her mom had a major stroke. That shook their family like an 8.0 earthquake.

Janasha, at the age of 16, was in charge of everything.

"It was devastating and became a major change to my life," Janasha told us. "I had a job, I had to raise my brother and sister and I was also taking care of my mother and managing school at the same time."

Those experiences shaped and strengthened Janasha and it brought out something else in her. Her mentor, Lorna Velasco was the one who made the observation, that moving around, being homeless, and having a mother with a stroke, "propelled her to want to give back."

Janasha graduated from SFSU with a B.A. in psychology with honors; then went on to got a masters in social work from the University of Michigan.

Her resume is four pages long and packed with accomplishments and years of experience doing research and working with the homeless. All of her work experience involves helping others.

"Other people were there to help me so it's a way to give back to help other people," she says.

Now, she works for the Marcus Foster Education Institute in Oakland, using data for creating more educational opportunities for students of color.

One of the initiatives she is working on targets black males throughout the San Francisco Bay Area region, finding out what works best for them in preparing them for college and/or career opportunities beyond high school.

"My goal is to help support more students get to and through college but to also have better opportunities after high school," she explains.

But the whole reason she came back to the Bay Area was for family. With her mother in a homeless shelter, Janasha returned to help her grandmother co-parent her younger sister.

"I love her dearly," she says of her sister. "I almost feel as if I'm her mother and I now that sometimes she wishes she could call me mom, but you know... We're close. We're very, very close."

Her sister is living with her in their new home.

Back in high school, Lorna Velasco said something that seems even truer today  "she's very tenacious. Nothing can stop her."

Her new home is an example of that fighting spirit.

"It's very tiny, but it's mine," says Janasha.

Well, it's true her unit is tiny, but she bought the whole triplex. So, she is already a landlord. A landlord with plans, as she tells us.

"I will continue to have it in the family for about 7 years, before I try to buy something else," she says.

And we believe her!

This article was originally published on cbsSF.com
Religious conservatives mounted a new attack Wednesday on Californias ban on conversion therapy for gay youths, telling a federal appeals court the law violates some therapists religious freedom and minors right to privacy.

The persons who seek this type of treatment are primarily religious people, attorney Kevin Snider of the Pacific Justice Institute, whose clients include two mental health professionals who are also clergymen, told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Prohibiting the counselors from providing the therapy they consider both spiritually and medically appropriate interferes with their religious beliefs, he argued, and also infringes on minors right to make intimate choices.

The law, the first of its kind in the nation, took effect in June 2014 after the appeals court rejected a free-speech challenge by parents seeking treatment for their children and the U.S. Supreme Court denied review. It prohibits licensed therapists from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with patients under 18.

Therapy can range from counseling to hypnosis, hormones and nausea-inducing drugs. National medical organizations say the therapy is deceptive and can lead to depression and suicidal impulses.

The current three-judge panel is the same one that ruled in 2013 that the law regulates conduct, not speech. That ruling did not address religious freedom or privacy, but the judges suggested Wednesday that the issues were similar.

This statute regulates only the professional counseling relationship and nothing more, said Judge Susan Graber, author of the 2013 ruling.

Snider argued that legislative transcripts showed that the law was targeted at religious conservatives, and thus violated a standard set by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in a 1990 ruling that said the state could regulate religious practices, like the use of peyote, as long as it did not seek to suppress a particular religion.

But Judge Morgan Christen replied that California lawmakers had made it clear their purpose was to speak to a type of therapy that the Legislature deemed to be harmful to minors.

Judge Alex Kozinski indicated the state, out of concern for youths drinking wine at religious ceremonies, could increase penalties for serving minors even a tablespoon of alcohol, as long as it was motivated by health concerns rather than religious discrimination.

Deputy Attorney General Alexandra Gordon, the states lawyer, noted that the law allows non-therapists, including members of the clergy, to advise youths to change their sexuality and to refer them to non-licensed counselors.

She also said past rulings have found that medical patients have no privacy right in any particular treatment, especially one that has been found to be harmful.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
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The way weddings are done is changing rapidly.

Traditions are different, dresses are naked and costs are higher, but what really has people up in arms is the newest wedding gift trend.

In a new blog released by Pinterest, it says that millennials are asking for money in place of a registry, specifically a fund for their honeymoon or a "honeyfund."

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Young couples are usually living together before the wedding and have already bought all their household appliances and such, so a registry doesn't make much sense to them.

I am going to be perfectly honest here, while we aren't asking for honeymoon money, my fiance and I are asking for money. The difference is we aren't living together and we want the money to go pick out our own appliances and household items. Since we don't have our own place yet, it is hard to pick out typical registry items like towels or a bath set or a comforter.

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We did however, do a registry with about 20 items on it because we understand that some people would rather pick from a list, and that's perfectly fine.

Traditions, like all things, will continuously shift as young generations grow up and become the working class.

I can see why some people would think it's tacky or tasteless to ask for money, but ultimately isn't it about the new couple and their happiness?

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At least you know your gift was appreciated and put to good use instead of stored in the attic or re-gifted.

Wedding gifts aren't the only tradition that has changed over time.

Take a look through the gallery above to see what weddings were like the year you were born. Tell us what you think in the comments below.
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Season six spoilers below.

Hodor, last seen beyond The Wall being commanded to "hold the door" at two different points in the space-time continuum, will reappear in the present at San Francisco's Mezzanine this August. This time he will probably bring more words with him.

Kristian Nairn, the actor and DJ behind Hodor's "Game of Thrones" character, has been using his television off-time touring the world on an elongated tour he's calling "Rave of Thrones." Hailing from Northern Ireland, he last performed his deep house music set in the Bay Area in 2015, meaning this appearance in the area will be the first since the tragic demise of his beloved character.

In the heavily-discussed cinematic death, Hodor held the door closed against an army of zombie White Walkers to allow the escape of Bran Stark and Meera Reed. Nairn has since told the New York Times that, while it was all very heartbreaking, he is enjoying fan tributes to his character since his final episode aired.

"There's a very nice thing going around the Internet that says, 'Not all heroes hold weapons, some hold doors,' he said. "He is a hero now, but I think he always was, in his own way."

See Kristian "Hodor" Nairn when he DJs Mezzanine in San Francisco this August 12.

Alyssa Pereira is a staff writer for SFGATE. Follow her here on Twitter.
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WASHINGTON  Furious over Republican inaction on gun violence, House Democrats, including dozens from California, staged a rare and spontaneous sit-in on the House floor Wednesday, forcing an end to the days regular business and a shutdown of official live coverage in the chamber.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said her caucus had planned various dilatory actions to draw attention to the issue, but nothing like what happened after Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights icon, stood at the podium and asked his colleagues just before 11:30 a.m. to join him in a protest over House Republican leaders refusal to consider legislation to restrict gun sales. As he was speaking, Republicans abruptly shut down the chamber, cut off his microphone and ordered that C-SPANs live television coverage be discontinued.

Undaunted, Democratic lawmakers who had joined in the sit-in on the Houses blue-carpeted floor turned to social media, broadcasting photos and videos of what was going on, and the protest soon consumed cable television news shows. By early afternoon, more than a dozen senators had arrived at the House to join in.

No bill, no break, the protesting lawmakers shouted, demanding that Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., keep the House in session through its planned break next week to vote on gun legislation.

Ryan said he would not bow to the demand for a vote, and as the sit-in extended into the evening, there were suggestions he would attempt to clear the House floor. But Pelosi said members were ready to be arrested.

The higher the profile of our activism, the bigger the risk to them, she said.

Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin said the Democrats were driven by constituent indignation over legislative inaction after the carnage left by gun violence in Orlando, San Bernardino, Charleston, S.C., Newtown, Conn., and other places. On Monday, the Republican-led Senate turned down four bills, three of which would have restricted the sale of firearms or expanded background checks.

People are wondering why we are so powerless in the most powerful place in the world, Swalwell said. People are fed up with feeling powerless. We didnt come here to do nothing.

Orlando shooting

Nearly 100 Democrats joined Lewis to demand that Ryan allow a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists in the aftermath of the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53. As the day went on, the lawmakers stood one by one, giving unscripted speeches and often naming the victims of gun violence in their own communities.

Ryan spent part of Wednesday afternoon presenting his ideas to replace the Affordable Care Act at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. In an email, his office called the Democratic action a publicity stunt.

Recess declared

The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair, the Ryans spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in the statement.

The protest followed the Senates failure Monday to pass measures, one by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that sought to prevent people whose names appear on terrorist watch lists from obtaining guns, and another that would expand background checks to people buying weapons at gun shows and on the Internet.

House Democrats became enraged, Swalwell said, after the Orlando shooting, when they sought votes on similar measures, but Republican leaders refused, asking instead for a moment of silence for the Orlando victims.

Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, a gun sportsman who joined the sit-in, has led a House Democratic task force on gun violence, since the 2012 shootings in Newtown that took the lives of 20 elementary schoolchildren and six teachers. Since then, he said, more than 34,000 people have been killed in gun violence, including 1,158 in what have been categorized as mass killings involving three or more people.

And what have we had, 30 moments of silence, Thompson said. Thompson cited polls showing that 90 percent of Republicans support keeping guns away from people on terrorist watch lists.

TV coverage resumes

C-SPAN eventually resumed intermittent House coverage through a jury-rigged smartphone feed from Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego.

Meanwhile, the GOP intransigence on measures to prevent people on terrorist watch lists from obtaining weapons began showing cracks Wednesday as a few Republicans and Senate Democratic leaders began coalescing around a bill by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. The bill, a narrower version of Feinsteins bill, would ban gun purchases to people who are listed on a federal no-fly list as known or suspected as terrorists.

Republicans had argued that the federal government makes too many mistakes in compiling the watch lists, the largest of which includes 1 million people. The no-fly list is a tiny fraction of that  an estimated 81,000 people, fewer than 1,000 of whom are classified as U.S. persons.

Pelosis view

Pelosi said the Collins measure was too narrow, but said if it could pass the Senate, it would provide a starting point that could open the door to legislation in the House. Banning terrorists from obtaining weapons legally and expanding background checks to all commercial gun sales has bipartisan support and would pass the House if Republicans would permit a vote, she said.

Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who also took part in the protest, told The Chronicle, We have to shame Republicans into realizing theyre complicit in the deaths of innocent people because of their failure to act.

Were not going to tolerate this any more, she said.

Wednesdays protest was not the first time House Democrats had staged a sit-in on Capitol Hill. In 1995, Democrats refused to leave the chamber without coming to an agreement on how to end a partial shutdown of the government. Freshman Democrats seized the floor in 1973 to express their views on a spending veto during an era when freshman lawmakers were encouraged to be seen and not heard.

House Republicans held a similar protest in August 2008, when Democrats refused to vote on GOP energy bills at a time of soaring gas prices. After Pelosi, who was then speaker, had declared the House out of session for the summer recess, Republicans took to the floor to give speeches protesting Democratic inaction. Pelosi shut off the lights.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
A 77-year-old Santa Rosa woman was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after officials said she drove under the influence of prescription drugs and alcohol and hit two women who were residents at her retirement community, killing one of them.

Gayle Diane Gray was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison following the death of 85-year-old Jackie Simon, District Attorney Jill Ravitch said Wednesday. Gray had misdemeanor DUI convictions in 1994 and 2003.

Simon and her friend, 91-year-old Josephine Ross, were walking on the sidewalk near a market in Oakmont Village, a retirement community on the 6500 block of Oakmont Drive, when Gray sped out of the store parking lot and hit them on Jan. 20, police said. All three women were residents of Oakmont Village, staff had said.

This was a terrible event that could have easily been avoided. Instead, a selfish choice to drive while intoxicated ended in tragedy, Ravitch said in a statement. The defendant knew from experience that drinking and driving dont mix, and yet that day disregarded that knowledge and forever shattered many lives.

The incident occurred around 1:15 p.m. after Gray had gone shopping at the store, said Sgt. Ryan Corcoran of the Santa Rosa Police Department. She was heading out of the parking lot onto Oakmont Drive as Simon and Ross were walking south on the sidewalk in front of the market, crossing the driveway when Gray hit them in her 1994 Lexus sedan, Corcoran said.

Gray told investigators she went to slam the brakes but accidentally hit the gas and ran into the women. She also told officers that her small dog sitting on her lap at the time distracted her, Corcoran said. Simon and Ross, who was badly injured, were knocked onto the hood of the car and fell to the pavement as Gray accelerated, he said.

The Lexus continued across the center divide and the northbound lanes of Oakmont Drive before hitting a fence and dirt embankment on the east side of the road.

Ross and Simon were taken to Memorial Hospital, where Ross was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.

Gray stayed in her car until police arrived. Her blood alcohol content was 0.052 percent more than 3 hours after the accident, prosecutors said. She also had a variety of prescription medications in her system.

Gray must serve 85 percent of her sentence before she will be eligible for parole. As part of her sentence, she was ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution, which will mainly go toward the medical expenses for Ross.

The length of her sentence could have varied from probation to up to 9 years and 8 months in prison, officials said.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
A man stands on the roof of his home, which is steeped in water in the ancient town of Liye in Longshan county, Hunan province, on Tuesday. China Daily

Storm dangers are not over, forecasters warn; southern China swelters under scorching sun

Scorching temperatures in South China are expected to continue into the end of this month as the national forecaster warned of more rainstorms in the river basin areas of the Huaihe River in coming days.

The rainstorms have given way to lingering heat waves in parts of Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces in the past two days, and the hot days and warm nights are expected to continue until the end of the month, according to the National Meteorological Center.

"The area will be in the firm grip of a belt of atmospheric high pressure in the coming days, which means the heat will linger there in the foreseeable future," He Lifu, chief forecaster with the center, said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

High temperatures in South China, expected to be about 35 to 39 degrees, could even extend to the beginning of next month, unless a typhoon comes and interrupts, He said.

Meanwhile, in North China the heat is expected to disperse starting from Thursday after the arrival of a cold front, he said.

Zhang Jianzhong, deputy chief of the meteorological service office of the center, said the lingering heat could raise the level of energy consumption in South China and increase risks of heatstroke.

The national forecaster said that the basin area of the Huaihe River could experience two sweeping rainstorms starting from Thursday, which could trigger flash floods and landslides in Henan and Anhui provinces.

The strongest rainstorms are expected to occur on Thursday and Sunday, with some areas expected to receive precipitation of about 250 millimeters during the period.

"It is vital for people in those areas to keep close tabs on the weather alerts and react in time to the early warnings by authorities," Zhang said.

It is still difficult to forecast whether Yangtze River areas will experience similar flooding to that of 1998, forecaster He said.

"The patterns of El Nino and the subtropical ridge are all similar to that of 1998. But it is still too early to know whether we can expect a similar lingering rainfall," he said.

In 1998, the basin areas of the Yangtze River experienced more than 70 days of torrential rainfall. Those storms eventually triggered a major flood that left at least 1,800 people dead, with more than 100 million people affected.

Floods triggered by heavy rain left 22 people dead and 15 others missing in South China since Saturday, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
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A federal judge on Thursday rejected a bid by lawyers for Vallejo kidnapping defendant Matthew Muller to suppress much of the evidence in the bizarre case, clearing the way for a trial set for early next year.

Attorney Tom Johnson argued that deputies illegally searched his clients phone, which he left behind at the scene of a separate Dublin home invasion on June 5, 2015. The phone led authorities to Muller, 39, and they charged him not only with the Dublin attack but also the kidnapping three months earlier of 30-year-old Denise Huskins from her boyfriends Mare Island home.

The case made national headlines, in part because Vallejo police initially believed the two-day abduction of Huskins  during which her captor emailed The Chronicle a proof of life recording of Huskins voice  was a hoax concocted by the couple. Police officials later apologized but face a civil rights lawsuit.

At a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, family members of the couple were relieved when Judge Troy Nunley found Muller had no right to privacy when he left behind his phone during the Dublin invasion. Police obtained the phones number without a warrant in the minutes after the crime by calling 911, then asking dispatchers for the number that showed up in their system.

This has been pretty much a major emotional trauma, said Marianne Quinn, whose 31-year-old son, Aaron Quinn, was bound and drugged during the attack on Huskins on Mare Island. She said she was very happy the motion was suppressed.

Muller appeared before the judge in orange Sacramento County Jail clothing, his wrists shackled in front of him. Members of his family declined to comment as they rushed from court.

A disbarred Harvard-educated attorney who once practiced immigration law in San Francisco, Muller has already pleaded no contest to the Dublin crime, in which he broke into a home and tried to subdue a husband and wife who had been asleep.

The husband, Chung Yen, fought back while his wife ran to the bathroom to call 911. Authorities said Yen, who was bludgeoned, shouted for his wife to get the gun, which apparently spooked the intruder, who ran out the back door.

After picking up Mullers phone and figuring out its number with the 911 call, authorities later obtained a warrant to do a more thorough search of the device, which led them to Muller, who was at his parents South Lake Tahoe vacation home. Other searches allegedly uncovered a trove of evidence that implicated Muller in the March 23, 2015, kidnapping of Huskins.

Johnson, the attorney, had also objected to how police obtained the phones number during a September hearing in the Dublin case in Alameda County Superior Court.

This would be a terrible result for the government, but it would be the right result, Johnson said Thursday. The Fourth Amendment and its protections need to remain intact, regardless of the facts of this case. He said phones are just a different animal in American society. They contain everything we are. Its your whole life in that little device. Should society recognize an expectation of privacy with a phone? Absolutely.

Nunley, though, sided with Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Segal, who asserted that Muller had no right to privacy for information in a phone abandoned at a crime scene and that Dublin police acted properly when faced with the threat of a fleeing suspect in a neighborhood.

Muller is suspected in similar attacks around the Bay Area in which a masked intruder bound and drugged his victims.

In the Vallejo case, a masked man sneaked into Aaron Quinns home, bound and drugged the couple, and disappeared with Huskins. Quinn later came to and alerted Vallejo police, saying the kidnapper demanded what seemed to be a surprisingly low ransom: $8,500. Two days later, Huskins showed up at her parents Huntington Beach (Orange County) home, raising unfounded suspicions within the Vallejo police force.

A jury trial in the kidnapping is set for Jan. 30.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
TASHKENT, June 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Legislative Chamber of the Uzbek Supreme Assembly in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)

TASHKENT, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping called for building a "green, healthy, intelligent and peaceful" Silk Road while addressing the Uzbek Parliament on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis, the Uzbek parliament, Xi assessed the primary achievements of the Belt and Road Initiative and invited Uzbekistan and other countries to jointly carry forward the initiative in both breadth and depth.

"We will, on the basis of the principles of voluntarism, equality and mutual benefit, join hands to build a win-win cooperation network for the Belt and Road Initiative featuring pragmatism, enterprise, inclusiveness, mutual learning, openness, innovation and common development, and contribute to the revitalization of the global economy," Xi said.

The Chinese president pledged to uphold the principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and synergize development plans among countries joining in the Belt and Road Initiative.

"On that basis, we will carry out bilateral and regional cooperation and create a new cooperation model underpinned by trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, focusing on connectivity, production capacity cooperation and people-to-people exchange, and enabled by mutually beneficial financial cooperation," he said.

The president said China aims to make consorted efforts with partner countries to develop a new multi-player, all-dimensional and cross-sectoral platform of win-win cooperation.

He also voiced support for advancing projects in priority areas under the Belt and Road Initiative, including the infrastructure networks, production capacity cooperation, financial innovation and cooperation on people-to-people exchanges.

In particular, Xi suggested that the partner countries deepen cooperation in environmental protection, intensify ecological preservation and build a green Silk Road.

"We need to deepen cooperation in medical care and health, strengthen win-win cooperation in the alert of communicable diseases, disease prevention and control, medical assistance and traditional medicine, and build a Silk Road for health," said the president.

Meanwhile, on human resources cooperation, China proposed a vocational skills cooperation alliance to train and produce professionals in various fields to build an intelligent Silk Road.

On the security front, the president called for fostering a security governance model with Asian features and building a Silk Road for peace.

Summing up the early harvests of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said over 70 countries and international organizations have taken part in the grand development plan and some 30 countries have signed cooperation deals with China to jointly push forward the initiative over the past three years.

China's trade with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative surpassed 1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2015, accounting for a quarter of its total foreign trade, according to the president.

Chinese enterprises' direct investment in 49 countries along the economic corridor reached nearly 15 billion dollars in 2015, up 18 percent year on year, while those countries' investment in China exceeded 8.2 billion dollars, up 25 percent.

China has inked production capacity cooperation deals with 20 countries and jointly set up 46 overseas economic cooperation zones in 17 Belt and Road countries, with accumulated Chinese investment topping 14 billion dollars and creating 60,000 local jobs.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank entered into operation with 57 active participant countries, along with the establishment of the Silk Road Fund and the China-Eurasia Economic Cooperation Fund.

As the Belt and Road Initiative's primary planning and layout has completed, Xi said it is now stepping into the stage of taking roots and intensive cultivation for sustained development.

On his part, Uzbek President Islam Karimov extended gratitude for Xi's "passionate speech," saying that the Chinese president and the Chinese people are "true friends" of the Uzbek people, and that Uzbekistan is willing to constantly deepen traditional friendship and win-win cooperation with China.

Qodir Djuraev, a member of the Uzbek Parliament, told Xinhua after the speech that he is impressed by Xi's extensive knowledge of, and respect for, the Uzbek culture.

"President Xi visited my constituency Bukhara yesterday. I am grateful that an important world leader like him came to my hometown," Djuraev said.

"China was among the first countries to recognize Uzbekistan. Its support for us during our most difficult times is precious and we will never forget a friend like this," he said.

The Chinese president arrived in the central-southern Uzbek city of Bukhara on Tuesday, kicking off his state visit to the Central Asian country.

China and Uzbekistan upgraded their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership earlier on Wednesday after talks between Xi and Karimov in Tashkent.

Xi will also attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on June 23-24.

Uzbekistan is the third and final stop of Xi's three-nation tour, which has already taken him to Serbia and Poland.
When a Dallas-area father drove his three children to daycare on Tuesday at about 9 a.m., he didn't drop off the youngest because she was running a fever.

Michael Thedford returned home in the family minivan with 6-month-old Fern, but when he got out of the car and went inside to take a nap, he forgot she was still in the vehicle.

Temperatures soared into the low 90s in Melissa, Tex., that afternoon and when he woke at 1 p.m. and remembered she was in the car, he found her unresponsive, stiff and "hot as a brick." Thedford told police that he placed her in the refrigerator in an attempt to revive her as he called 911 and his wife, who was at her job as a veterinarian.

The father also performed CPR, but when officers arrived the child was dead.

Thedford, an unemployed high school chemistry teacher, has been charged with manslaughter and is free on $20,000 bond. Booking records list no attorney for the 33-year-old man.

As stated in a previous SFGATE article, it's hard to imagine that a parent would ever walk away from their child in a hot car but the reality is that mothers and fathers who forget their children could be any of us. Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten made this point in a Pulitzer Prizewinning 2009 article.

"What kind of person forgets a baby?" he writes. "The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate."

These people often leave their children in hot cars for a simple reasonforgetfulness. In 53 percent of hot car deaths a loving and protective parent simply forgot the child in the car due to a stressful day, lack of sleep, an overbooked schedule. A parent forgetting their child for two to 10 minutes seems likely, but several hours? In these cases, the parent often thinks she dropped the child off at daycare or maybe grandma's house, and this idea becomes locked in her mind.

WFAA-TV in Dallas spoke with Thedford's dad who said his son was a doting father and this was a terrible accident.

"Every year at this time it happens to people from all walks of life," Stan Thedford said. "It's something we should all be more aware of."

Child Protective Services is investigating the situation.

With reporting from the Associated Press
Fair Oaks' Derrick DeAnda thought he was doing a good deed when he pulled over to rescue a man and his children after their van rolled over in an accident. The local Sacramento emergency services unit hadn't yet arrived, so DeAnda busted the windshield of the vehicle on its side so that the family could crawl out of the car and away from danger.

"I pulled up right as it happened," he told CBS Sacramento. "There was a guy standing inside the van, because it was on its side, holding a 2 year-old infant."

The Cosumnes Fire Department corroborated the rescue.

"[Mr. DeAnda] stopped at the scene, and immediately went to work to remove the windshield so that he could help the family out of their vehicle," a statement released by the Fire Department stated. "I am sure the family took great solace in knowing that Mr. DeAnda, a perfect stranger, was there for them while emergency crews responded."

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Due to his heroic actions, the family got out safely, but in the process of freeing them, DeAnda received what he calls "a small scrape" on his hand. He was given a bottle of water to rinse it, and had his pulse checked by the emergency technicians who arrived later.

However, as he found out a few weeks later, that tiny "injury," as the Cosumnes Fire Department called it, may cost him nearly $150.

"A couple months later I get a bill for $143 for a bottle of water???" he wrote in a Facebook post after receiving a bill from the fire department. "Makes you wonder why people don't want to stop to help at an accident scene. All I can say is the look on the man's face when I was able to break that windshield and get him and his kids out of that vehicle was all the thanks I needed. I'm glad I was able to help. But now I have a bill to pay and they won't let it go."

Cosumnes Community Services District Fire Chief Tracey Hansen confirmed that DeAnda was billed a $143 "first responder fee," but stated that fire staff cannot waive the $143, even for "good Samaritans." Rather, "the Board is the only body that can waive the First Responder Fee, once an appeal has been made."

She went on to say that the department will be "initiating the appeals process on his behalf to have the fee waived."

Since the statement release on Tuesday, "nothing else is going forward" at the moment while the department waits for DeAnda to return their call. Stating to SFGATE that they are beginning the appeals process anyway, Battalion Chief Kris Hubbard adds, "We are hoping he reaches out."

Alyssa Pereira is a staff writer for SFGATE. Follow her here on Twitter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 22, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua]

In a two-day state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, China and Uzbekistan, two important nations along the ancient Silk Road, agreed to upgrade their bilateral relationship to a "comprehensive strategic partnership," vowing to deepen ties in various fields.

LIFTING RELATIONS

Following three-hour-long talks in Tashkent on Wednesday, Xi and his Uzbek counterpart, Islam Karimov, signed a joint statement to elevate China-Uzbekistan relations to a "comprehensive strategic partnership."

The upgrade was based on the "unprecedented high standard of China-Uzbekistan high-level interaction, political mutual trust and win-win cooperation" they have scored since establishing a strategic partnership in 2012, said the document.

In the joint statement, both sides outlined the cooperation plan for their new partnership in such areas as political mutual trust and support, the China-proposed Silk Road Economic Belt initiative, national and regional security, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and collaboration on international affairs.

"The upgrade set a new significant milestone in China-Uzbekistan relations," Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Huilai told a press briefing later Wednesday, noting it "opened a new page in the history of bilateral ties."

The two sides decided to continue to strengthen mutual support on issues concerning their core interests such as territory, sovereignty and security, render strong support to each other in their choices of development paths, and enhance communication and coordination on major international and regional issues.

They also vowed to resolutely crack down on "the three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and actively cooperate on cyber security, drug control and combating cross-border organized crimes.

"To strengthen all-round cooperation between us is in keeping with the trend of the times and serves the fundamental interests of both countries and peoples," Xi said in an address to the Uzbek Parliament on Wednesday afternoon.

He called on both sides to "think creatively to explore the full potential of our cooperation, so that it will have new models and richer contents."

BELT AND ROAD

Addressing the parliament, the Chinese president highlighted the role of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The initiative, proposed by Xi in 2013, refers to the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. It is aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.

China would like to invite Uzbekistan and other countries to seize the historic opportunity to jointly pursue greater progress of the Belt and Road Initiative in both breadth and depth, stressed Xi, noting the Silk Road has witnessed the peaceful and harmonious interactions between Chinese and Uzbeks for over 2,000 years.

China has been Uzbekistan's second largest trading partner and biggest source of investment for three years in a row.

Yismat, a scholar at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, said that the Belt and Road Initiative has opened up many opportunities for Uzbekistan and that early harvests are expected on some projects.

During the visit, both sides agreed to push for the implementation of previously agreed projects and strengthen win-win cooperation in wide-ranging fields such as high-tech, trade, investment, energy, transportation, agriculture and finance.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi and Karimov hailed the inauguration of the 19.2-km Qamchiq Tunnel, which is part of the Angren-Pap railway line that connects Tashkent and Namangan. Built by the China Railway Tunnel Group, the tunnel goes through Qurama Mountains and is the longest of its kind in Central Asia.

"It is a major outcome of the Belt and Road Initiative that China and Uzbekistan are jointly promoting, and also a new link in the friendship and cooperation of both peoples," Xi said.

In his address at the parliament, the Chinese president called for building a "green, healthy, intelligent and peaceful" Silk Road.

He pledged to uphold the principles of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The initiative's primary planning and layout have completed and it is now stepping into the stage of taking roots and intensive cultivation for sustained development, according to the Chinese president.

CULTURAL CHARM

The first stop of Xi's Uzbekistan visit was the famous historical and cultural city of Bukhara, which he called a "shinning pearl on the ancient Silk Road."

On Tuesday, Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, accompanied by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, took a detailed tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central-southern Uzbekistan with great interest.

After asking detailed questions on the history and traditions of Bukhara, the Chinese president said the tour gave him profound understanding of the deep-rooted historical connections between China and Uzbekistan.

Qodir Djuraev, a member of the Uzbek Parliament, told Xinhua after Xi's speech on Wednesday that he is impressed by Xi's extensive knowledge of, and respect for, the Uzbek culture.

In the speech, Xi said that Uzbekistan has a rich and proud cultural heritage. "This land has produced a galaxy of eminent scholars of world renown," he said, adding the precious jewels of Uzbek culture continue to exude wisdom and truth now as ever.

Xi's visit to Bukhara showed his "true respect" for the country's history and culture, Karimov said, calling Xi and the Chinese people "true friends" of the Uzbek people.

In recent years, China and Uzbekistan have maintained close cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Uzbekistan opened the first Confucius Institute in Central Asia in Tashkent in 2005, and a second such institute was established in 2014 in Samarkand, a historical city Xi visited during his first state visit to Uzbekistan in 2013.

Accompanied by Karimov's wife Tatyana Karimova, Peng paid a visit to the Confucius Institute in Tashkent on Wednesday, encouraging the institute to cultivate more talents for promoting bilateral friendship.

In Tashkent, Xi will also attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on June 23-24.

Uzbekistan is the third and final stop of Xi's three-nation tour, which has taken him to Serbia and Poland.
MOSCOW, June 23 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to China on June 25, which experts say could better coordinate the development projects of both countries.

Sergey Sanakoev, president of the Russian-Chinese Analytical Center, told Xinhua recently that he expects to hear more about the "integration of integrations," namely the pairing of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

"This means that our countries are ready to develop transport infrastructure in the vast territory of Eurasia, which includes major energy projects, increasing investment cooperation, as well as the possible creation in Russia of new industries for future sale," Sanakoev said.

He noted that Putin's visit is politically important as regular exchanges at the highest level show a willingness to maintain solid ties.

"This visit has a symbolic character...I believe the parties will emphasize the similar positions of both countries on key international issues," Sanakoev added.

The expert suggested that besides energy cooperation, Russia should attract more Chinese companies in fields like high-tech, agriculture, tourism and the food industry, considering that production costs in Russia have becomes lower than that in China due to the devaluation of Russian currency.

Alexey Maslov, head of the Oriental Studies Department at the Russian Higher School of Economics Research, said Russia-China ties could transform into "a fundamentally new level of interaction."

"Now Russia itself offers a range of products, which it can sell in the Chinese market or produce together with China," Maslov specified.

"Russia, especially at the end of 2015 began to develop export plans focused on the Chinese market," he said.

Currently the Russian side is focused more on supplying agricultural goods to China, while more detailed negotiations are needed for more Russian products to enter the Chinese market, Maslov said.

Moreover, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have plenty of chances to interact, and there's opportunity in the development of Russia's Far East as well as in e-commerce, according to the expert.

Maslov mentioned that it is normal for Russian-Chinese cooperation to decline somehow as both countries are restructuring their economies.

"If both countries address restructuring issues competently," Maslov said, "then new channels for cooperation will immediately open."
Liaoning aircrft carrier. (Photo/navy.81.cn)

On June 18, an article on the website of the National Interest "The Ultimate Way to Sink an Aircraft Carrier" said that "American and Japanese subs that will undoubtedly hound the Liaoning every time she leaves port, practicing to sink the carrier in the event of war."

Regarding this, Cao Weidong, a military expert, said at a TV program that if the Liaoning aircraft carrier conducts blue water training, it will also be escorted by destroyers and frigates, practicing antisubmarine, air defense and anti-ship strikes.

The article on National Interest said: "Stealthy and heavily-armed, subs are by far the most powerful naval vessels in the world for full-scale warfareand arguably the best way to sink those more obvious icons of naval power, aircraft carriers." "In 2012 Liaoning was finally ready to set sail from the Dalian shipyard. As Beijings only carrier facing a fleet of 10 American flattops, Liaoning was widely expected to stage from Chinas most modern naval base on Hainan Island in the south, near Taiwan and Vietnam. Instead Beijing announced the 70,000-ton carrier would be heading north to Qingdao. The apparent reason was that the area around Qingdao was already home to a squadron of Song-class submarines plus Type 091 nuclear subs. Those vessels are the best defense China possesses against the American and Japanese subs that will undoubtedly hound Liaoning every time she leaves port, practicing to sink the carrier in the event of war."

According to Cao, currently, the main task of Liaoning is training and conducting scientific experiments. Although it has been through a long term voyage, it has never sailed out of the island chain. If Liaoning trains in open seas, it will strengthen its defensive force and further guarantee its safety.
"This is my first time skydiving from a height of 3,000 meters, which gives me a chance to have an aerial view of the splendid scenery of Badong county," Chen Xingjia, Badong county Party Committee Secretary, posted to his moments on Wechat on June 21.

In order to promote the Badong leg of the "2016 Wings for Love" flying event, Chen Xingjia chose to make the jump after others made a suggestion. Generally speaking, professional skydivers also jump from a height of 3,000 meters.

Chen recalled that he felt a little bit afraid when he skydived from such a height, but he managed to finish his task in order to promote this activity and accelerate tourism development in Badong, a county in central China's Hubei province.

Chen unfurled a banner of promoting tourism in Badong when he glided through the air and all the gliding process was filmed in a video clip, which was later posted on the Wechat Account of Badong TV. This video clip helped this Wechat Account win more than 70,000 clicks. Several media outlets of importance gave a live broadcast on that day.

Chen revealed that the tourism industry is the focus of the county's economic development as Badong is a mountainous county with few resources. Thus, it is impossible to drive economic growth by developing industry and agriculture.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Anakhanum Idayatova  Trend:

Germanys Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier has held a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, the OSCE German Chairmanship tweeted June 23.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed during the meeting. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk also took part in the meeting.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

Trend:

OSCE chairperson-in-office and German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Igor Popov and Pierre Andrieu, and with Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, personal representative of the chairperson-in-office on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference in Berlin June 23.

The co-chairs informed the chairperson-in-office about the results of the summit of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, held in St. Petersburg June 20, and the agreement reached there about increasing the number of staff of the Office of the Personal Representative in order to bring additional international observers into the conflict zone, said a message posted on the OSCE website.

The aim of the agreed increase is to stabilize the situation in the conflict zone and to create an atmosphere conducive to fostering the peace process, said the message.

Steinmeier welcomed the recent improvements in the upholding of the ceasefire. There was agreement among the participants of the Berlin meeting that a sustainable ceasefire and a return to political negotiations remain indispensable.

Todays talks also served the goal of coordinating possible further steps towards achieving a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also with a view to Steinmeiers upcoming visit to the region, said the message.

In the framework of the German OSCE Chairmanship, Germany is supporting the negotiation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and its co-chairs and will continue to work actively towards a settlement of the conflict, according to the message.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Anakhanum Idayatova  Trend:

OSCE Minsk Groups US co-chair James Warlick says the meetings between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia bring us closer to a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

We are hopeful that the situation along the line of contact will remain stable, he said speaking to Trend June 23. These developments are important and allow us to make progress on a comprehensive settlement.

Presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan adopted a joint statement following their meeting in St. Petersburg June 20.

Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents confirmed the agreements reached during the Vienna meeting May 16 on stabilizing the situation in the conflict zone and creating an atmosphere to push forward the peace process. For that purpose, the sides agreed to increase the number of international observers in the conflict zone.

Warlick added that the presidents stated in St. Petersburg their respect for the ceasefire as they did at the May 16 meeting in Vienna.

Presidents committed to measures that will reduce the risk of future violence, and agreed on the need for resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement, he said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Anahanum Idayatova  Trend:

In October 2016, the EU will issue Azerbaijan a mandate to start negotiations on a new agreement on strategic partnership, Deputy Head of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev said June 23.

He made the remarks in Baku at the International Conference "Mobility Partnership in Azerbaijan".

Mammad-Guliyev added that a draft agreement on strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan was presented at the EU summit in Riga in 2015. He said that the signing of this agreement will further enhance the level of cooperation between the two sides.

He noted that in the second half of 2016, it is planned to hold meetings of the subcommittees on Azerbaijan in the EU. We also plan to continue negotiations on the agreement with the EU in the field of aviation, said Mammad-Guliyev.

Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of the partnership and cooperation agreement which was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999.

The new agreement envisages bringing Azerbaijan's legislation and procedures closer to the most important international and trade standards of the EU. This process is meant to improve the access of Azerbaijani products to the EU markets.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
If Donald Trump continues to implode, Hillary Clinton will win simply by being the presidential candidate who isnt Trump.

But the prospect of a President Trump is so terrifying that Clinton shouldnt take any chances. The latest matchup polls show her about six points ahead  a comfortable but not surefire margin.

What else can Clinton offer other than that shes also experienced and would be the first woman to hold the job? So far, shes put forth a bunch of respectable policy ideas. But theyre small relative to the economic problems most Americans face and to Americans overwhelming sense the nation is off track.

She needs a big idea that gives her candidacy a purpose and rationale  and, if shes elected president, a mandate to get something hugely important done.

What could that big idea be? I can think of several big economic proposals. The problem is they couldnt get through Congress  even if, as now seems possible, Democrats retake the Senate.

Nor, for that matter, could Clintons smaller ideas get through.

Which suggests a really big idea, an idea thats the prerequisite for every other one, an idea that directly addresses whats disturbing so many Americans today  an idea that, if she truly commits herself to it, would even reassure voters about Hillary Clinton herself.

The big idea Im talking about is democracy.

Everyone knows our democracy is drowning under big money. Confidence in politics has plummeted, and big money is the major culprit.

In 1964, just 29 percent of voters believed government was run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, according to the American National Election Studies survey. In the most recent survey, almost 80 percent of Americans said they believe that.

And because the free market depends on laws and rules, big moneys political influence has rigged the economic system in favor of those at the top.

Which has fueled this years anti-establishment rebellions  propelling Bernie Sanders political revolution that won him primaries in 22 states, and contributing to Donald (I dont need anybodys money) Trumps authoritarian appeal.

A study published in 2014 by Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page shows that big money has almost entirely disenfranchised Americans. Gilens and Page took a close look at 1,799 policy issues, determining the relative influence that economic elites, business groups and average citizens had on them.

Their conclusion: The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. Instead, lawmakers respond to the policy demands of wealthy individuals and big business.

The super-wealthy account for a growing share of both parties funds. In the presidential election year 1980, the richest 0.01 percent accounted for only about 15 percent of total campaign contributions. In 2012, the richest 0.01 percent accounted for an astounding 40 percent.

Adding to the cynicism is the revolving door. In the 1970s, only about 3 percent of retiring members of Congress went on to become lobbyists. In recent years, half of all retiring senators and 42 percent of retiring representatives have done so.

This isnt because recent retirees have fewer qualms about making money off their government contacts. Its because so much money has inundated Washington that the financial rewards of lobbying have become huge.

Meanwhile, the revolving door between Wall Street, on the one side, and the White House and Treasury, on the other, is swiveling faster than ever.

Clinton should focus her campaign on reversing all of this. For a start, she should commit to nominating Supreme Court justices who will strike down Citizens United vs. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court case that opened the big-money floodgates far wider.

She should also fight for public financing of general elections for president and for Congress  with government matching small-donor contributions made to any candidate who agrees to abide by overall spending limits on large-donor contributions.

She should demand full disclosure of all sources of campaign funding, regardless of whether those funds are passed through nonprofit organizations, through corporate entities, or both.

And she should slow the revolving door, committing to a strict two-year interval between high-level government service and lobbying or corporate jobs, and mandating a similar interval between serving as a top executive or director of a major Wall Street bank and serving at a top-level position in the executive branch.

Will Clinton make restoring democracy her big idea? When she announced her candidacy, she said, The deck is stacked in favor of those at the top, and that she wants to be the champion of everyday Americans.

The best way to ensure that everyday Americans get a fair deal is to make our democracy work again.

 2016 By Robert Reich

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters.
How did homelessness suddenly become such a hot issue across California? There are many reasons, few of which have anything to do with homeless people.

Those reasons  economic anxiety, budget surpluses, tax schemes, housing prices, prison reform, urban development and politics  have combined to create todays homeless moment.

For decades, homelessness has been a civic obsession in the Bay Area, with its progressive politics and generous homeless services. Now that homelessness hubbub is spreading statewide. To the surprise of many at the state Capitol, a $2 billion bond to pay for housing for the mentally ill homeless became a central focus of this months budget negotiations. Around the state, law-enforcement officials have stirred the pot by claiming measures to reduce the California prison population have exacerbated homelessness.

In Los Angeles, which has the nations second-largest homeless population, a homeless emergency has been declared, and the biggest political fights in town are over city and county plans to ramp up spending on homeless services. In San Diego, with Americas fourth-largest homeless population, a leading city councilman called for ending all homelessness by the end of this year. (He since has said it will take longer).

In Fresno, Mayor Ashley Swearengin just announced a plan to end homelessness in three years. In Sacramento, homelessness was a leading issue in this months mayoral election. Orange County may appoint a homeless czar.

Given this drama, you might expect homeless populations to be rapidly rising. But homeless counts (the accuracy of which is always debated) suggest homeless populations are flat, or in decline, in many California cities. So why the sudden urgency? The homeless are now more visible to the rich people who drive civic conversation. New restaurants and high-end housing have brought wealthy folks into central-city neighborhoods and old industrial areas that once were havens for the homeless.

At the same time, anxiety about housing has never run deeper. The housing crisis of the previous decade cost many Californians their homes. Californias total failure to build sufficient housing of all types has led to sky-high prices in this decade. So sleeping on the street no longer seems such a distant prospect.

This fear, reflected in polls, has provided space for politicians to take risks. In an extraordinary public letter late last year, Santa Cruz Mayor (and now Councilman) Don Lane urged bold experiments with the problem  and criticized his own previous inaction. I am as responsible as anyone in this community for our failure to address our lack of shelter and our over-reliance on law enforcement and the criminal justice system to manage homelessness, he wrote. I have been a direct participant in many of my Citys decisions on homelessness. I have failed to adequately answer many of the questions I am posing.

Such self-criticism is easier for politicians when money is on the way. The federal government has stepped up funding for homeless veterans. The state has approved a plan to borrow $2 billion from a state fund for mental health services (which has been filled by a tax on millionaires) to fund housing for the mentally ill homeless.

This homeless moment has also created opportunities for clever political money grabs. Some L.A. County supervisors have asked the state to permit them to impose their own millionaires tax to pay for more homeless programs. That money would free up other funds for other purposes  which is all the more reason to decree a homelessness emergency.

To be fair, much of this money will be spent on a strategy that has shown some success  providing permanent supportive housing for the homeless. But such housing is no panacea for a problem this complex. And todays windfall for homeless services is unlikely, in Californias volatile budget system, to last. Even if it did, the disparate nature of the funding  incentives, borrowing, matching grants  isnt efficient or big enough to create the capacity to cover Californias homeless populations.

In his acclaimed new book, Evicted, Harvard Professor Matthew Desmond argues that ending homelessness requires a much bolder stroke: establishing universal housing as a right, like the well-established right to public education.

Under Desmonds proposal, the government would issue housing vouchers to families below a certain income threshold so that they pay no more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Such rental assistance has a strong track record in some European countries, which dont suffer from American-style homelessness. In the U.S., universal housing via vouchers would cost $60 billion, Desmond estimates  a fraction of the hundreds of billions spent subsidizing the housing of wealthier people via programs like the mortgage-interest tax deduction.

Universal housing is just the sort of idea that California should try  if our homeless moment is really about ending homelessness.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters.
HAVANA  Colombias government and leftist rebels announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal on a cease-fire that would be the last major step toward ending Latin Americas oldest guerrilla war.

President Juan Manuel Santos will travel to Cuba on Thursday to unveil details of the agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he also would be present to witness the signing of the deal.

The presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Chile  the three nations sponsoring the now almost 4-year-old peace talks in Havana  were also expected, and the Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.

Colombias conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions since 1964. But a 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned the rebels ranks and forced its aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Santos said this week that he hoped to end a half-century of bloodshed by July 20, the date of Colombias declaration of independence from Spain.

But Wednesdays agreement went further than expected, removing all doubt that a final deal is around the corner.

In addition to announcing a framework for the cease-fire, both sides said they agreed on how the FARCs estimated 7,000 fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons, as well as the security guarantees that will be provided to leftist activists after the conflict ends. Negotiators in January tasked the United Nations with monitoring adherence to an eventual cease-fire and resolving disputes emerging from the demobilization.

With the latest advances, only a few minor pending items remain, the biggest being how the final deal will be ratified and given legal force so that it wont unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

Santos has vowed to put the deal to a referendum vote so Colombians can express their opinion. Opinion polls show the FARC are widely despised among conservative Colombians and frustration with the rebels has grown as the talks have dragged on, making reconciliation seem more distant.

But if a final deal is reached, it would end Latin Americas last major insurgency, one accused of being a major supplier of cocaine to the U.S.
FRANKFURT, Germany  A masked, armed assailant attacked a multiplex movie theater Thursday in the German city of Viernheim and took hostages before he was killed by elite police units that stormed the building, officials and the media reported.

Despite initial reports that up to 25 people had been hurt in the mayhem, Peter Beuth, the interior minister for the state of Hesse, said he had no information that anyone had been harmed.

Some German media reported that the injuries were from police tear gas and that the assailant had carried a weapon loaded with blank cartridges. Beuth said the assailant had been armed with a long-barreled weapon, but it was not clear whether it was capable of firing live ammunition.

Because the attacker had taken hostages, the special forces moved in on him and he was killed, Beuth told the Hesse state legislature.

The assailants identity and motive were not clear. Authorities said there was no immediate indication the assailant had a terrorist background or motive. Beuth said the man appeared confused, suggesting he may have been mentally ill.

The multiplex was showing four mainstream U.S. films: The Jungle Book, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Angry Birds and Central Intelligence. It was not clear which theater the assailant entered.

Bernd Hochstaedter, a spokesman for the police command in Southern Hessen, told the N-TV private news channel that a special police team had carried out the action. He said the team had approached the gunman, supported by local police officers.

Viernheim is a city of about 33,000 people near Mannheim, which is known for its chemicals industry.

The swift response reflected how Germany remains on edge in a heightened atmosphere of fears over terrorist attacks in Europe.
FALLUJAH, Iraq  Iraqi commanders are preparing to dislodge Islamic State group fighters from pockets of territory in Fallujahs northern and western neighborhoods where the militants have dug in after largely fleeing their positions in the city center last week.

Before Iraqi forces rolled into central Fallujah under cover of U.S.-led coalition air strikes, they were bogged down for weeks, trying to push through deep defensive trenches, tunnels and houses converted into bunkers by Islamic State militants on the citys southern edge. Now looking to the citys north, Iraqi commanders expect to encounter a similarly fierce fight.

Its not going to be easy, Iraqi special forces Brig. Gen. Ali Jameel said of the upcoming battle for the last pockets of Islamic State resistance where an estimated 100 militants are largely surrounded.

They are going to fight to the death because they have nowhere to run, he said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi launched the offensive to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State group on May 22. The Sunni-led extremist group has held the city west of Baghdad for more than two years.

Last week, Iraqi forces raised their flag above a government complex in central Fallujah and declared victory, saying 80 percent of Fallujah was under their control. It was some much-needed positive news for al-Abadi amid growing antigovernment protests and civil unrest in Baghdad.

But nearly a week later, Iraq appears to have only a fragile hold on the territory its forces claim to have liberated. The U.S.-led coalition, which has been conducting air strikes in the offensive, said Tuesday that only a third of Fallujah can be described as cleared, while other territory remains contested.

One of the militants remaining strongholds is Fallujahs Jolan neighborhood, the northwestern corner of the city that was also the scene of some of the most persistent skirmishes between U.S. forces and insurgents in 2004 and 2007.

Its jumble of narrow streets and dense concentration of residential buildings is expected to make it harder to use air strikes and Iraqi armor. Additionally, thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the Islamic State-held territory, according to the United Nations.

Capt. Muthhour Sabaar of the Anbar provincial police said his men fought alongside the Iraqi militarys elite special forces as they pushed into central Fallujah last week from the south. Since then, his men have moved north and west.

This fight will be our hardest yet, he said. The defenses in the remaining Islamic State neighborhoods are expected to mirror what his forces encountered in the southern edge  the trenches, tunnels and fortified houses that are now shredded and collapsed from artillery fire and air strikes.
CAIRO  Fierce clashes in Libya between pro-government militiamen and Islamic State militants in the city of Sirte and an explosion at a depot near the capital, Tripoli, left more than 60 dead in just one day, a spokesman and a Libyan state news agency reported Wednesday.

In Sirte, the last bastion of the Islamic State group in the North African country, Tuesdays clashes killed 36 militiamen aligned with the newly-U.N. brokered government. The militias, mainly from the western town of Misrata, have been leading an offensive since early May to take full control over Sirte.

At first, the militiamen rapidly advanced into the city, but the push got bogged down in recent days amid a series of suicide bombings by Islamic State. Along with the 36 militiamen killed, mostly in direct gun battles with the militants, Misrata hospital spokesman Abdel-Aziz Essa also said that about 140 were wounded in Tuesdays battles.

Islamic State fighters reportedly have hunkered down at the militant groups headquarters in Sirte, the sprawling Ouagadougou convention center that was built by the late dictator Moammar Khadafy. Sirte was also Khadafys birthplace and the city he fled to during the 2011 civil war, when Libyan rebels backed by NATO bombings forced him out of the capital, Tripoli.

Meanwhile, the state LANA news agency said an explosion at a depot on Tuesday in the town of Garabuli, near Tripoli, followed clashes with militias and killed 29 civilians.

According to a statement on the Facebook page of the Qarabouli municipal council, the clashes took place between militiamen in charge of the town security and armed local protesters. When the protesters stormed the militias barracks, the depot exploded, the statement said. It said that the depot housed firecrackers, not ammunition.

The high death toll illustrates the violence that has roiled Libya since Khadafys ouster and death in the 2011 uprising against his rule that turned into a civil war. Over the past years, rival militias and governments have torn the country apart while Islamic State-linked militants gained strength, setting up a base in Sirte, along Libyas central Mediterranean coast.

As Libya slid into chaos, hundreds of thousands of mostly African migrants flooded the countrys coastline, attempting to cross to Europe.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Anahanum Idayatova  Trend:

Azerbaijan is an important partner of the EU, and the official structures of the country are interested in cooperation with the EU in the field of mobility, Project Coordinator of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) Violeta Wagner said June 23.

She made the remarks in Baku at the International Conference "Mobility Partnership in Azerbaijan".

The conference was organized by the European Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.

The EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Malena Mard believes that this conference reinforces the idea put forward by Federica Mogherini, high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy, highlighted during her last visit to Baku.

The European Union and Azerbaijan have confirmed once again their willingness to move forward in many areas of cooperation, working together as partners and looking to develop relations to their full potential, Mogherini said during that visit.

Ambassador Mard expressed her trust that MOBILAZE project is an example of deep and mutually beneficial cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union.

Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of the partnership and cooperation agreement which was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999.

The new agreement envisages bringing Azerbaijan's legislation and procedures closer to the most important international and trade standards of the EU. This process is meant to improve the access of Azerbaijani products to the EU markets.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Joe Rosenthal/Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa  One of the six men long identified in an iconic World War II photograph showing the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima was actually not in the image, the Marine Corps said Thursday after conducting an investigation prompted by the claims of two amateur historians.

The Marines formed a review panel earlier this year after the two history buffs studied a number of photos shot during two flag-raisings atop Mount Suribachi during an intense battle between American and Japanese forces in 1945. They claimed the identifications made by the Marines of the six men in the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal (who later worked for The Chronicle) included mistakes, and after the review, the Marines Corps agreed.
1 South Africa riots: Rioters looted shops on the outskirts of South Africas capital on Wednesday, and police reported two deaths and more than 40 arrests since violence erupted in the Pretoria area two days ago. Looters targeted shops in the Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa neighborhoods belonging to immigrants, echoing similar attacks last year against foreigners, including Pakistanis and Somalis, who run businesses in poor urban areas of the country. The violence started Monday after the selection of the ruling partys mayoral candidate for Pretoria ahead of local elections on Aug. 3. Some residents said they were not adequately consulted about the selection.

2 Lightning deaths: Lightning has killed 74 people, mostly farm laborers working in fields, across eastern and northern India over the past 24 hours, officials said Wednesday. A majority of the deaths occurred in the eastern state of Bihar, where 57 people died after being struck by lightning, a state official said. At least 24 others were injured when thunderstorms and monsoon rains lashed 14 districts of the state. Lightning strikes are common during Indias monsoon season, which runs from June to September. However, the recent toll is unusually high. At least 2,000 people have died in lightning strikes in India every year since 2005, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
WASHINGTON  A small plane with two sick U.S. workers left Antarctica on Wednesday in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said.

After making a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers flew to Chile, where they were expected to arrive for medical care Wednesday evening, said British Antarctic Survey spokeswoman Athena Dinar.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles round trip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. They arrived back at Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation, which runs the U.S. station.

Then the two workers boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas in southern Chile, Dinar said.

Its all going according to plan, said Paul Seagrove, another spokesman for the British Antarctic Survey in London, which operates the countrys research station.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees Wednesday afternoon. Thats toasty compared with the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole, where it was minus 75 in the morning.

The National Science Foundation hasnt identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin. It wasnt known until Wednesday whether the second ailing worker would also be evacuated.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the station for the winter.

Normally planes dont go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole till the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew.

The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring, Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, according to West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees, he said.
BEIRUT  The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces pushed into the outskirts of the Islamic State groups stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria on Thursday and were advancing slowly to the center of town, an adviser to the predominantly Kurdish force and a monitoring group said.

The town lies along the only Islamic State supply line between the Turkish border and the extremist groups self-styled capital, Raqqa. If Manbij is captured, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for Islamic State in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the border town of Tal Abyad.

Rami Abdurrahman, the director Britains Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists in Syria, said the SDF seized two squares on the western side of the city, then advanced toward a third square with air support from the U.S.-led coalition.

An adviser to the SDF, Nasser Haj Mansour, said troops had moved into the town from its northern edge on Wednesday, close to grain silos, prompting clashes with Islamic State militants. He confirmed that other troops entered Manbij from the west.

Journalist Mustafa Bali, who accompanied the SDF fighters on the front line Wednesday, said it was only a matter of time before the silos are taken. They are separated from the city by a main highway, he said, estimating that the SDF are about 1.8 miles from the city center and only 1 mile from the main city hospital.

There are intense clashes on all the citys edges, Bali said.

Abdurrahman said Islamic State still controls the silos.

The U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the fighters of the Syrian Arab Coalition, which is part of the SDF, have consolidated their position around Manbij in anticipation of the next phase of operations.

The U.S. has embedded 300 Special Forces troops with the SDF. France has also confirmed it is providing training to the SDF.

The Observatory said around 63 SDF fighters and 458 Islamic State militants, including field operators and foreign fighters, have died in fighting in the Manbij campaign, which began on May 31.

Thousands of civilians have fled the town and surrounding areas, though some are beginning to return to their villages as they are cleared of Islamic State fighters, according to the U.S. central command.

The international coalition has since conducted more than 233 air strikes in the vicinity of the town, according to the command.
Sky Network Television chief executive John Fellet has increased his modest holding in the pay-TV operator ahead of a special meeting of shareholders next month to vote on a merger with Vodafone Group that would create the country's largest telecommunications and media group.

Fellet bought 19,800 shares for $98,604, or $4.98 a share, on the market on June 21, lifting his total holding to 156,300. It was his second purchase in less than a week after he picked up 19,900 shares at the same price on June 15. Fellow director John Waller bought 5,000 shares on June 14 as a trustee of the Jaw No.2 Trust.

Shareholders will vote at a meeting in Auckland on July 6 on the merger proposal, which would see Sky TV acquire Vodafone NZ for $3.44 billion through the issue of new shares, giving Vodafone Europe a 51 percent share in the combined group, and cash of $1.25 billion. Sky plans to borrow $1.8 billion from Vodafone to fund the purchase, repay its existing debt and fund the working capital needs of the group after the merger.

Analysts at Morningstar said in a report yesterday that the merger would create a business with "a more strategically certain future than Sky TV as a stand-alone unit" and recommended shareholders approve the deal, although its existing model wasn't dead in the water.

Even though online video-on-demand players had made rapid inroads into the market, Sky TV remains "a highly profitable and financially robust entity" with an earnings margin forecast at 33.5 percent by 2020, from 40.9 percent in 2015, and free cash flow falling to $109 million before dividend payments from $167 million, analysts Brian Han and Benjamin Chan wrote in a report.

Han and Chan say they have long suggested Sky TV cut its prices to fend off competition. "Instead, it appears Sky has bitten on a strategic bullet of an even more audacious kind," they said. "It is aiming to secure its future and become a triple-play convergent provider, by snapping up the second-largest telecommunications entity in New Zealand - one that is the leading mobile operator with a 42 percent subscriber share and the number-two player in the fixed-line space with a 33 percent subscriber share."

The merger proposal, they say, "suggests that Sky harbours greater strategic concerns about its long-term future than our current thinking," they said.

The independent appraisal of the deal by Grant Samuel concluded that Sky TV didn't have an attractive future as a standalone pay-TV business in the longer term as it faces increased rivalry and a "fundamental deterioration" in its strategic position. Sky TV earnings are in decline as it loses subscribers on its dominant satellite-TV service and faces higher content costs because of increased rivalry from internet-based services such as Netflix. Its directors have unanimously recommended the deal.

Fellet joined Sky as chief operating officer in 1991 and was promoted to CEO and to the board a decade later. His salary package was $1.9 million last year. The 2015 report shows none of its board members held meaningful stakes in the company. Fellet held 2 million share options prior to 2005 but these were terminated as part of a scheme of arrangement for the merger with INL.

Vodafone's local head Russell Stanners has been named to lead the enlarged company, with Fellet reporting to Stanners as head of media and content.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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Godfrey Hirst, the Australian carpet maker, has sought leave of the High Court to challenge its June 8 ruling that dismissed an appeal against a merger of New Zealand's wool scouring operations that would give rival Cavalier Corp a monopoly in the domestic industry.

The High Court this month rejected Godfrey Hirst's appeal against the merger, which was approved by the Commerce Commission in November. The regulator had signed off on a plan for Cavalier Wool Holdings to acquire New Zealand Wool Services International's wool scouring business and assets, with Cavalier Corp, private equity firm Direct Capital and the Accident Compensation Corp owning 55 percent of the merged business, and WSI parent Lempriere taking a 45 percent stake.

The backers of the merger successfully argued that the real competition for the New Zealand scouring industry was in China, where increasing volumes of greasy, unscoured wool is being exported.

Cavalier Wool Holdings said it was "disappointed but not surprised" by Godfrey Hirst's decision to launch another appeal.

There is currently excess wool scouring capacity in New Zealand, this proposal is about consolidating assets and realising efficiencies in order to keep wool processing in the country longer term," it said. "We want to avoid what has happened with off-shoring of scouring in Australia and instead create a single, internationally competitive wool processing entity in New Zealand.

Cavalier shares last traded at 67 cents and have gained 91 percent in the past 12 months.

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CBL Corp plans to buy France's Securities and Financial Solutions Europe SA (SFS) for 94 million euros, taking over its biggest customer in a deal expected to lift the credit and financial risk insurer's earnings.

The Auckland-based company has been granted exclusivity to pursue the acquisition, which would include IMS Expert Europe SA, a related claims management operation, it said in a statement. The deal is subject to regulatory processes and consents and is expected to be wrapped up before Oct. 31.

SFS is France's biggest specialist producer of construction sector insurance and, with the IMS claims management operation, generated normalised operating earnings of 8.2 million euros on revenue of 41 million euros in 2015.

"The strategic acquisition would assist in removing the distribution concentration risk that SFS represented to CBL in being such a large client, and would further vertically integrate and consolidate CBL's market position in Europe, particularly in France," managing director Peter Harris said. "The acquisition would be expected to be earnings accretive in the first full year of CBL ownership."

Reinsurance business originated from SFS accounted for about 41.4 percent of CBL's gross written premiums in 2015, down from 49.9 percent in 2014. The NZX-listed insurer posted an annual profit of $35.5 million last year, beating the forecast in its initial public offering prospectus for earnings of $26.1 million.

CBL will pay for the acquisition through cash, bank debt and vendor funding, with 11.4 million euros of the purchase price paid over two years after the deal was completed, subject to any adjustments based on the European firms' performance.

SFS executive chairman and shareholder Antoine Guiguet will keep his position and reinvest a portion of his takings from the transaction to retain 26 percent of the CBL subsidiary acquiring the companies. IMS managing director Gerard Marichy will also keep his position and buy a 3 percent stake in the subsidiary. SFS's principal owner Patrice Gilles will exit and become an advisory chairman of SFS.

Guiget and Marchy will be given the option to convert their shares in the subsidiary for CBL stock after three years, based on the average weighted price and other terms and conditions. If not exercised, the options will lapse on the fourth anniversary of the deal's completion.

The transaction comes at a volatile time in Europe, with the UK set to vote today on whether or not to quit the European Union economic bloc. CBL this week downplayed the impact a 'Brexit' would have on its business, with its European insurer based in Ireland. If the UK does vote to leave, CBL's UK-based European Insurance Services will keep operating in Tunbridge Wells, but CBL would shift its legal domicile, probably to Ireland.

CBL listed on the NZX last year, raising $90 million at $1.55 a share to help fund the acquisition of Australian insurer Assetinsure. Since then, the shares have climbed to $2.49.

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Australian publisher APN News & Media has reached a binding heads of agreement with the Inland Revenue Department to settle its alleged tax avoidance case and other disputed tax issues for $36.3 million.

The move comes ahead of its planned demerger of New Zealand-based NZME, which would have retained the New Zealand tax risk. The cost of the settlement is being shared by APN and NZME on a near equal basis, the company said in a statement to the ASX. The settlement amount will be funded by existing debt facilities of both APN and NZME and will be paid after the demerger.

A protracted litigation and disputes process with the IRD would be costly and the ongoing uncertainty regarding the quantum of potential IRD claims and future liabilities could adversely impact APN and NZME management and shareholders, the company said.

The settlement allows APN and its subsidiaries to use $56 million of deferred tax assets that will be written off for accounting purposes after the demerger.

One of the tax wrangles concerned APNs High Court challenge to an IRD finding that it avoided paying tax through mandatory convertible notes in arrangements with its New Zealand subsidiary. The case was one of a string involving the use of convertible notes to finance trans-Tasman acquisitions in the 2000s, most of which have been either lost or settled before they got to court.

In an explanatory memorandum last month ahead of a shareholder vote on the NZME demerger, APN said the dispute involved tax of $64 million for the period up to Dec. 31, 2014, when the transaction was completed and the IRD was seeking to impose penalties of between 10 and 50 percent of the tax in dispute as well as the tax claimed. NZME had tax losses of $48 million to offset any tax payable, it said.

In another dispute, the IRD indicated it intended issuing a Notice of Proposed Adjustment last month relating to non-resident withholding tax and thin capitalisation rules following an audit of certain transactions to finance the acquisition of mastheads by a New Zealand branch of an APN Australian entity.

In May APN expected the NOPA would say that around $27 million was owed in respect of the branch financing arrangement and the tax losses couldnt be used to offset the non-resident withholding tax. APN also believed the IRD would seek to impose penalties in respect of the disputed taxes. The explanatory memorandum said that following the demerger associated with the NRWT would remain with APN and the risk around thin capitalisation would be spread across the relevant APN and NZME entities.

The Australian Tax Office is also auditing the New Zealand branch of the Australian APN entity in relation to the New Zealand mastheads, and both the ATO and IRD were also auditing or reviewing other matters within the APN Group, the memo said.

Under the demerger tax conduct deed, a coordinating party was to be nominated to deal with each tax matter with the costs incurred borne by the party primarily at risk, it said.

The demerger of NZME, which has newspaper, online, and commercial radio assets, has gained shareholder and regulatory approvals and APN has also sold its Australian regional newspaper titles to News Corp for A$36.6 million, retaining a still-profitable Australian commercial radio network and outdoor advertising business.

NZME and rival publisher Fairfax Media are in talks over creating a merged media group from their New Zealand assets.

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Marlborough Wine Estates Group, the Chinese-owned maker of O:Tu and Music Bay wine brands, will join the NXT market next week in a compliance listing valuing it at $14.7 million.

The Auckland-based company will list 293.3 million shares at 0.5 of a cent on June 30 in a compliance listing on NXT, a notice to the stock exchange says. Marlbourgh Wine Estates is controlled by executive chairman Min (James) Jia, who owns 91 percent of the company directly, and a further 8.6 percent through MPMB Trustee Ltd.

Marlborough Wine Estates "is committed to producing high-quality Marlborough sauvignon blanc and targeting the premium end of the white wine market," the notice said. "The company is developing growing recognition for its O:Tu and Music Bay brands as quality New Zealand white wines, particularly in China."

O:Tu Investments, a related entity, was granted Overseas Investment Office approval in 2013 to buy 336 hectares of land in Awatere Valley out of receivership for $8.2 million.

Marlborough Wine Estates other directors include Ly (Lily) Lee, Zhong (Jack) Yin, Danny Chan, and Songyuan (Benny) Huang, none of whom show up as shareholders on the Companies Office register. The winemaker's 18 remaining shareholders on the register are Chinese nationals. Auckland-based Catherine Ma is listed as the company's sole director.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Anakhanum Idayatova  Trend:

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink is on a visit to Azerbaijan, the US embassy in Baku told Trend June 23.

Brink will hold a number of high-level meetings during which it is expected to discuss the possibilities of intensifying the Azerbaijan-US bilateral cooperation.

The visit will end June 24.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23



Trend:



Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on June 23 received US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink.



Stressing the successful development of Azerbaijan-US relations, the president recalled his recent visit to the US and participation in the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.



President Aliyev said that the adherence to strengthening the partnership relations between Azerbaijan and the US was again reaffirmed as part of his visit to the US, where very fruitful and important discussions were held with US Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.



President Aliyev expressed gratitude to the US President Barack Obama for the letter addressed to the participants of the 23rd International Caspian Oil and Gas Conference held in Baku and for the positive words in the letter, reflecting the true essence of friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries.



Recalling Brinks visit to Azerbaijan in 2015, President Aliyev stressed its significance in terms of the positive dynamics in the development of Azerbaijan-US relations.



President Aliyev said that the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the US covers very broad areas of the agenda, noting that Azerbaijan and the US jointly cooperate in such areas as security, energy and regional development.



Stressing very good current relations between Azerbaijan and the US, the president expressed confidence that Brinks visit to Azerbaijan will contribute to the successful development of Azerbaijan-US relations.



Brink expressed gratification with her another visit to Azerbaijan as part of the regional tour. Brink stressed that the visit is aimed at further strengthening of partnership relations in all spheres between the two countries.



While speaking about President Aliyevs successful visit to Washington and the conducted meetings, Brink also recalled her last year's visit to Azerbaijan.



Brink said that she would make every effort to further improve the sustainable cooperation between Azerbaijan and the US. She also congratulated President Aliyev on the successful completion of the F1 Grand Prix of Europe in Baku.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

Russias Foreign Ministry has said the question asked by the pro-Armenian Regnum news agency about installation of monuments to Mammad Amin Rasulzade in Azerbaijan is a provocation.

During a briefing held June 23, spokesperson for Russias Foreign Ministry Mariya Zakharova refused to answer Regnums question, noting that the Foreign Ministrys position had been made clear in its letter of response to the agencys editorial office.

In its inquiry, Regnum expressed dissatisfaction that earlier Russias Foreign Ministry said it was surprised with installation of a monument to Nazi collaborationist Garegin Nzhdeh in Armenias capital.

In its letter of response to Regnum, Russias Foreign Ministry said:

Regarding your appeal over Russian Foreign Ministrys reaction to installation of monuments to Mammad Amin Rasulzade, we would like to ask a counter question: has Regnum inquired about Russias attitude towards these issues over the last 15 years and why has the agency inquired about the monuments related to the Second World War in the context of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia?

We suppose that in essence, the formulation of your question can only be assessed as a provocation.

Essentially, we would like to note the following:

Russias stance towards Hitler collaborationists is known well and this stance has been repeatedly expressed by Russian Foreign Ministrys representatives both within the country and beyond, during international forums.

During the World War II, Garegin Nzhdeh assisted the Armenian Legion of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of the Nazi Germany. The Armenian Legion fought against the Soviet army and Soviet partisans.

The Armenian Legion was also acting as the Nazis' punitive force and participated in all the criminal acts of the Nazis, including the Holocaust of the Jews.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Kazakhstan in 2015 increased production of marketable gas by five percent to 21.16 billion cubic meters, according to OPEC's Annual Statistical Bulletin.

Gas exports from Kazakhstan in 2015 rose by one percent to 11.98 billion cubic meters, according to OPEC.

Proven gas reserves in Kazakhstan as of late 2015 amounted to 1.92 trillion cubic meters, according to OPEC. The country's natural gas reserves assessment hasnt changed compared to the previous year.

About 90 percent of the gas produced in Kazakhstan is associated gas. A part of the associated gas, which is nearly 30 percent, is pumped back into the reservoir to maintain its pressure.

Some 15 percent of the associated gas is used for Kazakhstans own technical needs, power generation, and a small part of it is burnt. Marketable gas accounts for nearly 55 percent of production. The bulk of the gas produced in Kazakhstan comes from the Karachaganak (natural gas) and the Tengiz fields (associated gas).

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
NEW DELHI: Huawei's smartphone e-brand Honor today announced its entry into the tablet PC segment with the launch of 6,999 device with 7-inch screen size.



"We found a gap in tablet segment. Hence, we launched a tablet which can occupy position of second device of people after phone. It has 4100 mAh battery which can support 12 hours of movie watching, websites browsing and checking mail for up to 8 hours," Huawei India's Director Sales (Devices Business) P Sanjeev said at the launch.

He said the company has not set any sales target and entry in to tablet segment is its effort to meet the consumer's need of mobile devices.

"This tablet has aircraft grade aluminium body which is found in expensive devices," Sanjeev said.

The company also unveiled its first smartphone on Android Marshmallow platform Honor 5C for 10,999 which it expects can mitigate call drop problem.

"Often people cover one antenna in a mobile phone while talking. We have provided dual antenna in Honor 5C so that if one antenna is covered, the other can receive signal. We have attempted to resolve call drop problem on devices front," Sanjeev said.

Honor 5C's camera has professional features like focus mode, shutter speed, white balance etc.

The smartphone has 8 megapixel front camera and 13 megapixel rear camera, 2GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage and external storage expandable up to 128 GB.

Honor has set 300 per cent sales growth of its devices this year. Huawei sold one million smartphones in 2015 that includes 8,00,000 Honor branded phones in India. Globally, Huawei shipped 108 million smartphones in 2015 and became the third largest player after Apple and Samsung.



"We have optimised hardware and incorporated best things from the world for a good consumer experience. We know design is best done in Paris, components in Japan, algorithms in Russia, software in India and USA for chipset," Huawei India President Consumer Business Group Allen Wang said.



Both the devices have in-built panic button feature, which can trigger emergency alert, that is mandatory for all mobile devices from January 1, 2017.

Honor started sale of its tablet on Flipkart from today but Honor 5C will start selling from June 30 on Flipkart and HiHonor website.



"The registration for Honor 5C begins today. There will be flash sale (limited unit) of Honor 5C on June 30," Sanjeev said.

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Motorola Moto G4 To Be Launched In India Soon
BENGALURU: The Lenovo brand, Motorola recently announced the launching of its latest flagship Moto G4 in India. The phone comes with a pretty big and bright 5.50-inch full HD touch screen display with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels. The G4 features a pixel density of 401ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection for the display.

The new Motorola Moto G4 is powered by a 1.5GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM that seems to offer best in class user experience. The Adreno 405 GPU handles the graphics performances for the crazy gamers. The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card. The Moto G4 packs a 13-megapixel auto focus primary camera with flash that can give crystal clear clicks and a 5-megapixel front shooter for the selfie fans.

The phone runs on Android 6.0.1 OS with moto UI. Following the predecessors, the phone is powered by a 3000mAh non-removable battery. The phone has an elegant look with metallic combinations and measures 153.00 x 76.60 x 9.80 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 155.00 grams. The Motorola Moto G4 comes with dual SIM sockets that support micro SIM cards. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, 3G, and 4G. Sensors on the phone include Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, and Gyroscope.

The combination of performance, features and design has been maintained well in the new Moto G4. Even though the device lacks few modern must have features like finger print scanner and water resistance, the device is pretty fast, has a great camera for the cost, a bright screen and better gaming experience. The LCD panel is bright and. Viewing angles are also fine but not as good as on pricier competition, but great for the mid-range.

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PARIS: On the eve of the NSG plenary in Seoul, South Korea, France on Wednesday strongly supported India's bid for a membership in the bloc that controls global atomic trade and technology, saying New Delhi's inclusion "will bolster global efforts against (nuclear) proliferation".

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that India's entry into atomic control regimes "will help better regulate the export of sensitive goods, whether they are nuclear, chemical, biological, ballistic or conventional materials or technologies".

"In line with its active and long-standing support to India's entry to the NSG as a full-fledged member, France calls on its members, who are meeting on June 23 in Seoul, to take a positive decision."

The statement said that India and France have been strategic partners since 1998 and "share common goals regarding the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems".

The French support came even as China ruled out that India's application was on the NSG agenda at a June 23-24 meeting in the South Korean capital.

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BENGALURU: ISRO took a giant leap in Indian space research history by injecting 20 satellites at a time into space by using PSLV-C34 rocket. There are 17 foreign satellites of different countries. The Indian space agency broke its own previous record of sending 10 satellites at once into the orbit in a single mission. The countdown time for launch started after the Launch Authorization Board (LAB) signaled that filling of Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen (MON-3) of PS4 is completed. Here are some facts compiled by The Economic Times website behind ISROs historic launch.

This launch added a golden chapter in the book of achievements of the Indian research agency. ISRO has launched Cartosat-2 series, build by its own scientists along with 19 others satellites. Other satellites include SkySat Gen2 by Terra Bella, a company owned by Google, Planet Labs Dove Satellites, built by former employees of NASA. It also carried Biros and MVV satellites of Germany, LAPAN A3 of Indonesia, M3MSat and GHGSat-D of Canada, 12 Dove satellites from the USA. PSLV also carried two satellites built by engineering colleges of India. Those satellites are Swayam by College of Engineering, Pune and Sathyabamasat by Sathyabhama University, Chennai.

An official from ISRO reported that rocket PSLV was fuelled at the second launch pad at the rocket port of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The countdown started 48-hour prior to the launching schedule of PSLV C-34. The Cartosat-2 Series satellite built by ISRO is successor of its previous Cartosat-2, 2A, and 2B. The combined weight of all 20 satellites was 560kg and they were injected in the polar Sun Synchronous Orbit. Its a proud moment for ISRO as it has launched satellites for countries like USA, Canada, Germany and Indonesia, along with two satellites that are built by Indian Universities.

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WASHINGTON: Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has narrowed down her choices for a running mate, officials said.

Clinton has not yet conducted formal interviews, but has devoted hours studying the records and backgrounds of several Democrats on a list that includes Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro of Texas, the party officials toldCNN on Tuesday.

The list also includes Labour Secretary Tom Perez, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Xavier Beccera of California.

However, the list does not include Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her primary rival who is yet to endorse her candidacy but has pledged to help defeat Republican Party's Donald Trump.

He was not expecting to be considered, Clinton's aides said.

John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign and a trusted confidante, is leading the effort, along with Cheryl Mills, the former secretary of state's longtime adviser and lawyer.

Clinton has repeatedly said in interviews, her top consideration is someone who would be able to step into the presidency should anything happen to her.

"I want to be sure that whoever I pick could be president immediately if something were to happen," Clinton told CNN earlier this month, adding "That's the most important qualification".

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Source: IANS
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 36-year-old man with a prior conviction in a gang-related slaying has been arrested for the beating of a dog and the alleged slashing of the pet's owner in Concord, according to police.

Wilfredo Arroyo of Scenic Lane in Clifton was cuffed on Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. at the 120 Precinct in St. George, according to a spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

Arroyo was apprehended after police asked for the public's help in identifying two men sought for questioning in connection with the slashing of a 32-year-old man who was trying to rescue his dog from a beating in Concord.

Police released a statement indicating that a 32-year-old man saw another man punching, kicking and striking a brown and white dog several times with a belt in front of 860 Targee St. near Clove Road on May 24 at about 6:40 p.m.

The victim, whom a police source said was the dog's owner, tried to stop the attack and a scuffle ensued. During the fight, a suspect pulled out a knife and slashed the victim above his eye, causing a laceration, police said.

Arroyo's wife, Esther, told the Daily News the dog bit her husband, and "he had to give him a spanking."

Advance records indicate that in 2004, Arroyo who was a member of the Latin Kings gang, was sentenced to 12 years behind bars after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter for slaying a gang associate, Miguel Santiago.

Santiago's near-naked body was found Oct. 18, 2001, in a wooded gully near Maryland Avenue and Reynolds Street, Rosebank.

He had been stabbed and slashed several times and his head and body were bruised. The victim was unclothed except for a pair of socks on his feet.



Prosecutors said Arroyo killed Santiago because he had broken gang code by "disrespecting" others in the group. They have declined to specify what, allegedly, Santiago had done.

The victim agreed to a three-minute beat-down on his torso, however, Arroyo stabbed and killed him, prosecutors alleged.

He was released from prison in November of 2014, according to public records.

In the most recent case, police have charged Arroyo was assault, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated cruelty to animals, torture, injury or not feeding an animal and also menacing in connection with the beating of the dog and slashing of his owner.
PS45girlsassess.jpg

PS 45 kindergartners Makenzie Monahan and Madison Lomovsky assess their work in writing class. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- There's nothing like a warm welcome from the School Safety officer to start the day on the right note at a New York City public school.

At PS 45 in West Brighton, that's Ana Cortez.

"I love my job. I love what I do," she oozes from her post inside the main entrance on Lawrence Avenue, which she has staffed for the past four years.

"They're my children," she adds with a smile, happy to be one of the first to greet PS 45's 891 students in the morning and one of the last to say good bye at the end of the school day.

That positive attitude permeates the building, where a staff of 104 is dedicated to developing well-rounded lifelong learners. The staff includes two assistant principals, 65 classroom teachers, four speech teachers, two English-as-a-new language teachers, 21 paraprofessionals, two guidance counselors, two occupational therapists, one physical therapist and a parent coordinator.

"We do everything in teams. We work collaboratively," says Christine C. Chavez, PS 45 principal since September 2010. "We try to involve all constituents in the decision-making process because we are working together to help the students."

Christine Chavez, PS 45 principal since 2010, listens as first-grader Jaslene Lozano self-assesses her work. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Banners in the building proclaim the school's three goals, two academic and one cultural, and Chavez refers to them regularly:

Goal 1: Students continually assess and improve the quality of their work through the use of tools, reflection and feedback.

Goal 2: Students will experience lessons that are clear, purposeful and provide multiple paths to understanding.

Goal 3: Our school is characterized by safety, kindness and the joy in learning.

"Everything we do is related to these three goals," Principal Chavez says, acknowledging there has been "a whole shift in the mindset" about the learning process.

Academic success used to be focused on the teacher, she recalls. "Students did their work to appease the teacher rather than to actually learn."

Now it's all about the students.

"The students are independent learners. They self- and peer-assess. Teachers develop learning progressions and students have multiple opportunities to master or exceed the standards," she explains.

The approach empowers students and "pushes them to know they can go above and beyond."

GROWING INDEPENDENT LEARNERS

For Julia Satt, a teacher with nine years of experience at PS 45, the month of June marks a milestone in her classroom.

Her second-grade students have mastered much more than addition and multiplication skills; they've become independent learners capable of assessing their own progress and reaching for the next level.

Second-grade teacher Julia Satt works with Zamauri McPhail on a math concept. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"It's thrilling to me as a teacher" to see them excel as active rather than passive learners, she beams. "I'm so proud of them. They've worked so hard all year."

"There is no end point" with lifelong learning, she adds.

On a recent Monday morning in Class 5-317, fifth-graders Aaliyah Wentworth and Rebecca Diaz were peer-assessing their narrative stories.

And in Class K-116, kindergartner Elissa Saez was self-assessing her ability to assemble the beginning, middle and end of a story.

"I did well writing a lot of words," Elissa declares, adding that she'll work more details into her story and picture.

A school newspaper called The Eagle Times has been published at PS 45 each month since February by a staff of 20 fourth- and fifth-graders under the direction of teacher Nicole Vega. Its motto: Soaring through the news!

The Eagle Times includes stories and photos about school events, plus a book-of-the-month review, interviews with teachers and students, and even an advice column.

Music teacher Olta Minenna joins first-grader Rylie Clark and fourth-grader Conall Haggerty as they assess their concert etiquette skills. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"I thought it would be a great opportunity for student voices to be heard," Vega says in a profile written by Courtney Jefferson and Aaliyah Wentworth in the March edition. "I also thought it would be a great way to teach kids to use Google docs and get used to typing."

She plans to get one more issue of the paper published before school breaks for summer next week

VIBRANT PART OF THE COMMUNITY

A critical part of her job is responding to the needs of the community, Principal Chavez says. When area parents pointed out the need to restore pre-K classes and begin a gifted-and-talented kindergarten program, Chavez led the way to make both happen.

Community partners are essential in the learning process, she says. PS 45 has partnered with the College of Staten Island on a project about social issues in Brazil, and with the YMCA for a 10-week Swim for Life program for second-graders.

A nine-year connection with Marquis Studios of Brooklyn has brought teaching artists into the school who offer 12-week residencies in drama, visual arts, music and dance to all students.

"With these community partnerships, we combine their strengths with our strengths," Chavez explains.

Helen Evo and Makoyah Kenneh are fifth-graders at PS 45. The West Brighton school enrolls 891 students. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

As the only Staten Island elementary school with a marching band, PS 45 has participated in the Memorial Day Parade and the Forest Avenue Stroll.

Built in 1929, the building is currently covered in scaffolding as it undergoes parapet restoration and roof replacement, both of which are scheduled to be completed in fall 2017.

A graduate of Brooklyn College and Adelphi University, Principal Chavez trained as a reading recovery specialist at New York University. She served as assistant principal at PS 48 in Brooklyn before her appointment to PS 45 six years ago.

She credits an "amazing staff that practices what they preach" by moving students along the learning progression and motivating them to exceed standards.

"They say you're never done learning," Chavez says, revealing her philosophy as an educator. "You can always do more or do something in a different way."
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

Trend:

On June 21, KPMG in Azerbaijan in cooperation with AmCham Azerbaijan, the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication, Service of the Assistant to the President for economic reforms and ADA University organized a conference on "Strategic Vision on Agriculture: Competitiveness, Food Security and Social Aspects" Discussions in line with the Main Directions of Strategic Roadmap on National Economy and Major Sectors of Economy.

The ultimate goal of the conference was to discuss main aspects of the vision on agriculture under the Strategic Roadmap of Economy, namely, Competitiveness, Food security, Social aspect (employment, regional development etc.) in tripartite format representing the government, private sector and academicians.

Mr.Hafiz Pashayev, Rector of ADA University, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan delivered a welcoming speech and talked about the importance of the event. Mr.Pashayev mentioned that according to the Main directions of strategic road map on national economy and major sectors of economy approved by the order of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on March 16, 2016 agriculture is one of the priority areas of national economy aimed to provide the sustainable economic growth and enhance the wellbeing of population.

Mr. Vugar Aliyev, Partner, Financial Services Industry Leader for KPMG in Russia and CIS expressed his pleasure to be a partner in this important event and thanked ADA University for hosting the event. Mr.Aliyev informed the participants on favourable tax regime for agriculture and recent law on investment promotion which provides excellent opportunities for the development and growth.

Mr. Elkhan Mikayilov, Head of the division for Agrarian Issues, under department of agricultural and industrial issues of the Service of the Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Vusal Gasimli, Executive Director of the Center for Economic Reforms and Communication, Firdovsi Fikratzade, Head of Analysis and Statistics Department of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Tariyel Mirzoyev, Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Trade and Innovation of ADA University, Olaf Heidelbach, programme manager of the Delegation of the EU to the Republic of Azerbaijan, Then Dr. Christophe Cordonnier, representing Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, team leader of the EBRD/EU AzAFF project, Ms. Melek Chakmak , Head of Partnership and Liaison Office and of FAO, Savash Uzan, CEO of Azersun were the speakers of the event.

They shared their vision on different aspects of the topic, such as country's demand for food supplies in the future, significance of agricultural reforms, current trends and opportunities, economic diversification and agriculture development: prospects and challenges, food security and nutrition.

Natavan Mammadova, Executive Director of AmCham Azerbaijan, expressed a gratitude to all guests, speakers and ADA University for being a host. Ms.Mammadova underlined that this tripartite format of discussion with active participation of business community and academicians is very important to address expectations of all involved parties. For all sides and once more emphasized AmChams support to the reforms being implemented in the country and further commitment for fruitful cooperation.

Vitaly Sheremet, Partner, Head of Agro sector in KPMG CIS, presented his presentation on Agriculture in Azerbaijan: efficiency gains and competitiveness

Ilya Strokin, Director, agribusiness, KPMG CIS, made a speech on Food security in Azerbaijan: challenges and opportunities and suggested measures to strengthen food safety.

The Conference was followed by active Q&A session.

Mr.Vusal Qasimli made the last speech about the importance of such events and emphasized that the said recommendations during the Conference will have impact on economic reforms in Azerbaijan.
Eric Garner

A still from the youtube video showing Eric Garner being taken to the ground by police officer Daniel Pantaleo.

(Third-Party-Submitted)

CITY HALL -- Mayor Bill de Blasio still thinks a proposed ban on chokeholds would handcuff police officers.

The NYPD Patrol Guide has prohibited the use of chokeholds for more than two decades, but a stalled City Council bill would make performing one during an arrest or arrest attempt a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine and jail time.

"The minute you legislate there is a slippery slope," de Blasio said at an unrelated event in Manhattan on Thursday.

Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) introduced the bill in 2014 after Eric Garner died during an arrest attempt in Tompkinsville. The medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide, caused by Garner's preexisting conditions and a "chokehold" used on him by police officer Daniel Pantaleo.

State law does not explicitly prohibit chokeholds per se, but it's illegal to obstruct someone's breathing or blood circulation.

"An officer could be prosecuted criminally for defending their own life appropriately," de Blasio said of the proposed law. "I'm not comfortable with that."

De Blasio said that officers who use the maneuver inappropriately will face "very serious consequences."

A special grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo in Garner's death, sparking protests. A federal civil rights probe continues as he remains on modified duty.

An NYPD policy order issued on June 1 outlined 11 factors police should consider when determining whether using force -- like the banned chokehold maneuver -- is reasonable. The order still said that members of the NYPD should not use a chokehold.

Police Commissioner William Bratton and the mayor have previously said internal guidelines and retraining are the best way to monitor and reduce use of chokeholds by officers.

De Blasio explained Thursday that the difference between NYPD policy and the proposed ban is that a criminal charge comes with "a whole set of other ramifications and penalties."

The bill's sponsor disagreed.

"The real slippery slope is the mayor giving officers 11 new excuses to use a deadly and uncontrollable maneuver that for the last 20 years the NYPD itself has flat-out banned," Lancman said in a statement Thursday. "Who would have thought that the policy reform arising out of Eric Garner's death would be to make the chokehold more available to officers, rather than less?"

The measure has 27 co-sponsors, including Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore). This is enough to pass the Council, but less than the 34 votes needed to overturn a veto promised by de Blasio.

Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R-Mid-Island) and Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) are both against the proposal.

Though the number of chokehold allegations fell between 2014 and 2015, substantiated complaints increased, according to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Last year, 19 chokehold allegations were substantiated, up from seven the year before, because of better investigative practices and evidence access.

NYPD guidelines say, "A chokehold shall include, but is not limited to, any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air."

Police are shown on a viral video wrestling Garner to the ground while he repeatedly screams, "I can't breathe!"
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Blue, the tan and white dog seen in a video being beaten by his owner, is safe and in the care of the ASPCA, according to a spokesman for the district attorney's office.

The dog owner, Wilfredo Arroyo, 36, allegedly punched, kicked and struck the pit bull terrier with a belt near Targee Street and Waverly Place on May 24, the criminal complaint says.

Arroyo, court documents allege, also pulled a switchblade on a Good Samaritan who who tried to stop the beating. The 32-year-old male victim suffered lacerations to his face and hands, police said.

Arroyo, of Scenic Lane in Clifton, was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with second-degree assault, aggravated cruelty to animals, torturing and injuring animals, criminal possession of a weapon, and third-degree assault, police said.

Authorities also removed another dog, Roxi, from Arroyo's home. Roxi is doing well and is also in the care of ASPCA, the spokesman said. It is unclear who owns Roxi.

Tests are being done to determine the dogs' health.

Arroyo is a convicted felon who was sentenced to 12 years for manslaughter after slaying a gang associate, Miguel Santiago, according to Advance records.

Santiago's near-naked body was found Oct. 18, 2001, in a wooded gully near Maryland Avenue and Reynolds Street, Rosebank.

He had been stabbed and slashed several times and his head and body were bruised. The victim was unclothed except for a pair of socks on his feet.

Prosecutors at the time said Arroyo killed Santiago because he had broken gang code by "disrespecting" others in the group. They didn't specify what, allegedly, Santiago had done.

The victim agreed to a three-minute beat-down on his torso, however, Arroyo stabbed and killed him, prosecutors alleged.

He was released from prison in November 2014, according to public records.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo was on Staten Island Wednesday to sign into law a package of bills fighting heroin and opiate addiction, the first signed into law since the Albany lawmaking session ended last week.

While the actual signing too place earlier on Wednesday in Buffalo, Cuomo traveled both to Long Island and then later to Staten Island to sign ceremonial bills.

Standing in a packed ballroom in the JCC in Sea View, Cuomo laid out the details of the three-bill package that lawmakers passed last week.

It limits opioid prescriptions to seven-day supplies, down from oftentimes 30-day supplies, and mandates training for prescribers on addiction and pain management.

It adds 270 treatment beds and 2,335 program slots for substance abuse treatment statewide.

It eliminates burdensome insurance barriers to getting treatment, allowing patients to begin treatment before their insurance company authorizes it.

It also changes how insurance companies evaluate patient needs, requiring all insurers to use objective, state-approved criteria when making coverage determinations.

The package expands availability and use of the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, including mandating that insurance cover the cost.

"I believe this will literally save lives," Cuomo said to a packed room. He said he received a call from the White House and was told that New York will be used as a model for other states.

He compared the number of lives lost to the heroin/opioid epidemic to the number of lives lost to AIDS during the height of the epidemic.

He criticized insurance companies for being "a hurdle and an obstacle."

As for-profit businesses, insurance companies don't want to pay for expensive treatment and try to give patients less-expensive options.

"If they don't have to provide it, they don't want to provide it," Cuomo said.

Assemblyman Michael Cusick and Sen. Andrew Lanza were both on hand to discuss the impact of addiction on Staten Island, and both praised Cuomo for his work in creating the task force that put forth a list of recommendations, some of which were put into the bills that passed last week.

"For far too long, this nation has been battling and wrestling with this epidemic," Cusick said. He applauded Cuomo for convening the task force and pushing the bills through.

"This has always been a team effort and Gov. Cuomo has led the team," he said.

Lanza called the epidemic "one of the most serious and grave issues of our time."

But, "I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of this scourge in our state."

Introducing Cuomo and speaking of her own heartache from losing her son Christopher, 22, to addiction, Ann Marie Perrotto turned her sadness and frustration into motivation to help others get out from under addiction.

She spoke optimistically about a new treatment center, called "Christopher's Reason," that will keep her son's name alive.

Cuomo stayed after the bill signing to speak with family members whose loved ones died from overdoses or who are now fighting addiction.

With three daughters himself, Cuomo said it was "unimaginable" and "unnatural" to lose a child.

Ending the signing ceremony on a positive note, Cuomo cited Cusick's earlier statement about teamwork.

"If there's a group of people who come together at a time of difficulty and put differences aside and lock arms and get done whatever they need to get done, it is Staten Islanders."
Screen Shot 2016-06-23 at 11.54.22 AM.png

Police and city officials discuss security for the Heritage Pride Parade.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Extra police officers will be deployed to movie theaters in New York City after a masked man stormed a theater in Germany and reportedly fired shots, NYPD officials said Thursday.

Police Commissioner William Bratton told reporters many Critical Response Command units would be dispatched in the city as a precaution after the incident in Germany. There was no known threat to New York, police stressed.

"Many Critical Response Command units deployed to theaters today in response to incident in Germany," @CommissBratton. No Known NYC Threat  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) June 23, 2016

Bratton's remarks came at a press conference discussing security for this weekend's Heritage Pride Parade, which takes place Sunday in Manhattan.

Police officials promised additional officers would be assigned to parade security.

"You'll see extremely prepared NYPD officers along the parade route keeping everyone safe," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

On Thursday, an unidentified man in Germany was killed after police commandoes gathered around the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, near Frankfurt, following reports shots had been fired inside, according to FoxNews.

No one was reported shot by the intruder, according to initial reports. It was not immediately clear if his weapon was real, a German official said.

Details on his identity and motive were not immediately clear.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The "Too Good for Drugs" program was celebrated by fifth grade students, NYPD brass and politicians in a ceremony on Thursday at PS 69 in New Springville.

Over 5,000 Staten Island fifth graders have completed the anti-drug initiative where police officers take their anti-drug message directly to students in their classrooms.

The initiative that began as a pilot program with five schools in the spring of 2015 was expanded this academic year to include 77 schools. Other Island schools are celebrating in whatever manner they choose, but each of the fifth graders is receiving a certificate and a photo with the cop and their class that completed the program.

"Too many Staten Islanders are dying and we have to prevent the next generation from being addicted to these godawful drugs," Borough President James Oddo said.

"It's not just waving your finger saying, 'Drugs are bad," Oddo said. "It's interacting with the children and instilling in them the tools and abilities... to say, 'no,' to drugs."

The program emanated from Borough Hall and addressed the fact that there was no uniform curriculum for anti-drug education in the Island's elementary schools, Oddo said. The initiative teams cops with classroom teachers.

Most of the police officers who participate also are part of a NYPD initiative where trained members revive overdose victims with naloxone spray.

Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre, borough commander, praised Tammy Uster and Louise Sanfilippo, officers and partners in the 122 Precinct, for saving 10 lives by administering Narcan spray in addition to teaching for the "Too Good for Drugs" program.

"How bad is the problem on Staten Island? In one word, I would call it an epidemic," Delatorre said of the drug crisis. "I think we need to do a lot of things to solve this problem. There's no one, simple answer."

Delatorre thanked Mayor Bill de Blasio for providing an infusion of money to keep the program going this school year.

#TooGood4Drugs program over 5,000 5th graders in 77 schools Cops teaching kids abt drugs, alcohol, & tobacco dangers pic.twitter.com/OoJDzVgQF1  NYPD 120th Precinct (@NYPD120Pct) June 23, 2016

Benefits go far beyond deterring substance abuse, Oddo maintained.

"It's a unique thing to have a New York City police officer in the room with a teacher, and now there's mutual respect, dare I say, admiration," Oddo said. "These police officers are seeing the kids outside the school settings and the kids now don't see the cop as an adversary, they see him as a friend."

"It really changed how I police, it made me better," said Police Officer Alexander Deguzman of the 121 Precinct.

"With this program right now I'm sure it's going to make a difference," Deguzman said. "We started with these young ones because they're the future. One day they're going to run this city."

By the end of this school year, nearly every one of the about 5,600 fifth grade students on Staten Island will have completed the 10-lesson curriculum, said a spokeswoman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.
Screen Shot 2016-06-22 at 9.13.08 PM.png

The NYPD is asking for the public's help identifying this man in connection to a car theft in New Springville. (Courtesy: NYPD)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD is seeking the public's help identifying a man sought for questioning in connection with an auto grand larceny that occurred in the confines of the 121st Precinct on Thursday.

A male suspect picked up keys belonging to a 55-year-old woman after the woman left the keys inside the Target store located at 2873 Richmond Ave, according to a written statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

He then allegedly drove out of the parking lot in the victim's 2013 silver Hyundai and fled in an unknown direction, the statement said.

The individual sought for questioning is described as being a white male, last seen wearing a black Batman t-shirt.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. For Spanish, call 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
VERRAZANO TOLL

State Sen. Andrew Lanza introduced a bill on June 11 that supports "The Fair Plan" -- a proposal to decrease the toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. (Staten Island Advance/ Bill Lyons)

STATEN ISLAND -- Staten Islanders are one step closer to a significantly lessened toll when traveling over the Verrazano-Narrows bridge.

State Sen. Andrew Lanza introduced a bill on June 11 that calls for the implementation of "The Fair Plan" -- a proposal to add tolls to four East River bridges, subsequently decreasing the toll on the Verrazano.

Currently a member of the Senate majority, Lanza's backing is imperative in order to see a decrease in toll prices for Staten Island residents who frequently commute through Brooklyn.

"For too long, New Yorkers have tolerated an antiquated and unreliable transit system - and the situation is getting worse, not better," Lanza said in a press release. "Many of our drivers have been punished by an unjust tolling regime where those with the worst transit access are paying the highest tolls, while others who also benefit from our city's road and bridge infrastructure, travel for free."

Under the current construct of "The Fair Deal," the standard toll (now $16 cash) would be $11 and the $11.06 now paid for EZ Pass would drop to $6.08.

The Island resident rates -- which include a 50% discount -- would drop the price for one trip down to $3.04.

Secondly, Staten Island drivers who pay a toll on one bridge would have two hours to get to another bridge before they'd be charged there.

"Not only will this bill create a fairer tolling system," Lanza said, "but it will generate the kind of revenue we need to be able to bring new transit service to those communities who have long suffered without it."

An estimated $1 billion would be generated for infrastructure -- including bus and subway projects -- in transit-starved parts of the city.

The overall goal of the plan is to prevent "toll shopping" into Manhattan's Central Business District. The uniform tolling into Manhattan would allow for a smoother commute by cutting outer-borough congestion generated by drivers trying to funnel into the city's currently free bridges.

Lanza says he plans to use the coming months to reconcile the few differences between the Assembly version of the bill, carried by Assemblyman Rodriguez, and his own -- focusing on the discount percentage for Manhattan's central business district.

He hopes to pass a unified version by the 2017 Legislative Session.

"I'm pleased that Assemblyman Rodriguez's bill and my bill are very close," he added.

"I am confident that working together, and with the help of the Move NY coalition's 75-plus partners, we will at last bring about an effective solution to New York's many transportation challenges."
Joe Torre deserves another ring after Wednesday night's appearance at the Richmond County Bank Ballpark.

The Hall of Famer made a pre-game appearance on behalf of the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation and then threw out a ceremonial first pitch prior to West Virginia's 7-4 victory over the Staten Island Yankees before an announced crowd of 2,058.

The foundation is an advocate for domestic abuse awareness and prevention.

"When I was growing up, my father was a bully," Torre told fans and players while sitting alongside Borough President James Oddo near the home-plate area. "I grew up in Marine Park, Brooklyn, and my mother faced verbal and physical abuse from my father.

"I grew up in fear because my mom did. Whenever I saw his car in the driveway, I didn't want to go home. Growing up in a home where there was domestic violence was very difficult and left lasting scars," he said."Although I didn't realize it then, I used to feel like the abuse was my fault. I felt helpless and alone. For many years, I felt ashamed and worthless."

Torre explained that the foundation's goal since its birth in 2005 is to educate children about violence so that "children understand that they are not alone and that there is hope."

The Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation has 10 fully-funded and operational school-based programming initiatives -- Margaret's Places -- in New York City, Los Angeles, Westchester County and New Jersey. The sites are fully funded and have a minimum commitment of three years.

The Staten Island Yankees presented Torre with a $5,000 check for his foundation.

BATTLE OF UNBEATENS

The Yankees and Black Bears both arrived for the opener of a three-game series with 5-0 New York-Penn League records.

Staten Island rallied to cut a 5-1 deficit to 5-4 in the sixth inning as Jose Rosario had an RBI double, Kane Sweeney a run-scoring single and Mandy Alvarez a sacrifice fly.

But the Black Bears added two insurance runs in the top of the ninth to snap the home team's best start in franchise history.

Albert Baur (3-for-5, 3 RBI) and Hunter Owen (3-for-4, 2 RBI) paced West Virginia's attack, while Ricardo Ferrira, Drew Bridges, Rosario and Sweeney had two hits apiece for the Yankees.

The Black Bears out-hit their hosts 13-11.

THE LOCAL GUYS

West Virginia catcher Kevin Krause (Tottenville HS, Stony Brook) started behind the plate and went 1-for-4 with an RBI infield single in the sixth inning. He lined out to center field in the eighth.

Black Bears' right-fielder Matt Diorio (Moore Catholic, Central Florida), batting .444 with five walks in three games, had the night off.

UP NEXT

The series continues Thursday and Friday nights in St. George.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After 21 years as a police officer, including nine spent working in the K-9 unit with two German Shepherds as his guardian angels, Michael Jacobs is ready to retire.

"I woke up last month after a vacation deciding it was time for me to retire," Jacobs said.

But the 52-year-old won't be riding off into the sunset alone.

His canine partner, Jake, 7, will be calling it a career on Thursday as well, taking his place with Jacobs, his wife, three daughters and another former police dog, Logan, in the family's Great Kills home.

Logan, 12, retired from service three years ago.

"After working late hours for many years when it's just your k9 partner and yourself ,you build a very strong bond. After working many years together I couldn't even imagine leaving them behind," Jacobs said. "Even the fact the dogs loose there medical coverage the day they retire didn't matter to me at all as they are a member of our family now."

He started his career as a police officer at the 62nd Precinct in Brooklyn, where he was stationed for 12 years.

Jacobs then decided to pursue his love for dogs by joining the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit's K-9 squad, also located in Brooklyn.

"I went through a five-month training program," Jacobs said. "After that I was officially a canine officer."

This is how Jake and Logan became part of his life.

"I have so many good memories with my dogs," Jacobs said. "I would put New Year's Eve in Times Square among the most memorable ones. The amount of people that was around us and the excitement they had was incredible."

When Logan retired, Jacobs decided to keep him at home. He'll do the same on Thursday, when Jake joins Jacobs' large family.

Jacobs also has three girls: Justine, 19, Michelle, 14, and Angelina 11.

His daughters, with his wife, Joan, also 52, are the reason why Jacobs is retiring. He said he's looking forward to spending more time with them.

"I absolutely loved the unit and the people I worked with," Jacobs said. "I have no regrets, but now it's time to leave."
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto will visit Azerbaijan the next week, a source in Azerbaijani government told Trend June 23.

A Hungarian delegation led by Szijjarto will visit Azerbaijan to take part in the sixth meeting of the joint intergovernmental economic cooperation commission, to be held June 28 in Baku.

The delegation will be comprised of members of Hungarian government, as well as business structures and companies operating in the spheres of industry, agriculture, consulting and banking services.

The fifth meeting of Azerbaijan-Hungary intergovernmental commission was held in April 2015 in Budapest. During that meeting, the parties signed a protocol, in accordance with which they agreed to expand the cooperation in making investments, industry, energy, tourism, agriculture, trade, environmental protection, water industry, ICT, culture, sports, science and so on.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Hungary stood at $15.56 million in the first five months of 2016, and $14.74 million of this amount accounted for the import of Hungarian products, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Aygun Badalova - Trend:

The proven oil reserves hit seven billion barrels in Azerbaijan as of early 2016, the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin said.

According to the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin, the estimation of the volume of proven oil reserves remained unchanged in Azerbaijan compared to 2015.

According to the OPEC data, oil production decreased by 0.8 percent to 786,000 barrels per day in Azerbaijan in 2015. Oil demand increased by 1.1 percent to 297,700 barrels in Azerbaijan.

The main oil output in Azerbaijan accounts for the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of offshore fields. This offshore block produces Azeri Light oil.

Azerbaijan produced 41.69 million tons of oil and gas condensate in 2015, or 0.8 percent less than in 2014, according to the countrys State Statistics Committee.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Emil Ilgar - Trend:

Iran exported 514,300 barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum products (including gas condensate and natural gas liquids) in 2015, of which 7,000 b/d was supplied to Africa and the remaining volume to Asian markets, OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin said on June 22.

The country's petroleum products imports and exports increased by 9 percent and 31.7 percent respectively year-to-year, said the report.

The country also exported 1.081 million barrels per day of crude oil. Some 110,000 b/d of that amount was exported to Turkey.

The report said that price of Iranian oil decreased from $96.18 in 2014 to $48.8 in 2014, pushing down the country's total petroleum export revenues from $53.562 billion to $27.3 billion year-to-year.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

The Kazakh National Banks share in Kazakhstans currency market decreased to 29.1 percent in May, the bank said in a message June 23.

According to the message, the banks currency interventions in May through the purchase of foreign currency in the domestic market totalled $728.3 million, as compared to $830.9 million in April.

The National Bank said the population is still selling cash dollars in the currency market through the money exchange offices. The population sold $183.8 million in May 2016.

According to the National Bank, the exchange rate of Kazakh tenge (KZT) against the US dollar (USD) was 335.84 KZT/USD in late May 2016, decreasing 2.5 percent over a month, but increasing 1.2 percent since early 2016.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Irans flag carrier Iran Air announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Boeing to purchase new aircrafts.

Under the hire purchase MOU, the Iran Air will buy the new generation of the 737, 777-300ER and 777-900 models from the aircraft manufacturer, the Iranian airline said in a statement published on its website June 21.

The statement underlines that the contract will be finalized once both parties obtain the required licenses from the US and the Islamic Republic governments.

The Chicago-based Boeing also confirmed that it signed the agreement with Iran Air under authorizations from the US government following a determination that Iran had met its obligations under the nuclear accord reached last year.

Earlier on June 19, Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, said that Iran Air reached an agreement with Boeing for purchase of 100 aircraft.

Tehran and Boeing have reached a written agreement on the issue, Abedzadeh said, adding the deal will be finalized once the US Treasury issues the final permission for the deal.

Abedzadeh added that Boeing has submitted an official request to the US Treasury on final authorization for the aircraft sale.

The Islamic Republic says its need about 400 passenger planes in the next decade to modernize its ageing fleet.
"We had hoped EPA and Colorado would try to work with us and come up with solutions," New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told The Associated Press. "But the state of Colorado, its leadership, seems intent on defending EPA at every turn and is unwilling to work with us to move forward in a meaningful manner."
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An Australian Defence Force Academy cadet in Canberra accused of raping a fellow cadet while she was sleeping will fight the charges.

Jack Toby Mitchell, 19, pleaded not guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday and had his bail continued under strict conditions he avoid all contact with his alleged victim and remain at least 100 metres away.

ADFA cadet Jack Toby Mitchell leaves the ACT Magistrates Court after pleading not guilty to raping a fellow cadet while she was sleeping. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

Police allege Mr Mitchell assaulted the 18-year-old woman in the early hours of the morning on Saturday May 28 after the pair shared a taxi back to the ADFA campus from Civic nightclub Mooseheads with a third male cadet.

The Campbell man was arrested on Friday June 3 and appeared in court where he was formally charged with sexual intercourse without consent after the woman reported the incident to the officer in charge and police.
It was very like rich, Toorak-living socialite "Clio" to fancy that "most women" had boxes of surplus jewellery but that was what she was imagining in her Punch column 100 years ago this week.

"Most women possess some box crammed with an odd collection of gold brooches, bangles, chains and rings quite useless because of their obsolete pattern, and long ago put away with the vague resolve of one day 'having something done' with them. Now is the time to do it.



"The appeal of Mrs Swinburne, and also Miss Minnie Bernard Smith, for old jewellery to be melted down in aid of war funds, has set us all rummaging in jewel-cases, and it is quite wonderful to discover quite a lot of old jewellery can be spared in aid of the good cause.



"The truly patriotic woman is not only giving her old stuff for the melting pot, but some of her most valued pieces of modern pattern to be raffled. One of the most beautiful pieces thus disposed of, was a diamond pendant given bv Mrs Norton Grimwade, while another pendant given in aid of Lady Stanley's Fund, was composed of diamonds and pearls of the finest quality.

Socialite about to donate her jewellery to good cause.

"Now, Mrs Hodges has given her always much-admired superb piece of black opal framed with diamonds, and set as a brooch, to be raffled in order that invalid soldiers may be provided with the comfort of invalid chairs.



"Now, who will be the next cheerful giver?"


Baku, Azerbaijan, June 22

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran needs at least 551 new passenger planes till 2025 to renovate its ageing fleet, the countrys Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi said.

The Iranian airlines currently have a total of 266 aircrafts, meanwhile only 12 planes were made after 2000, Akhoundi said, Mehr news agency reported June 22.

Some 100 aircraft of Irans fleet are grounded, he said, adding 166 planes are up to 23 years old which should be retired within one year according to the international aviation standards.

He further touched upon the recent agreement with Boeing, saying the talks are underway following the initial agreement.

Irans flag carrier Iran Air announced June 21 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Boeing to purchase new aircrafts.

Under the hire purchase MOU, the Iran Air will buy the new generation of the 737, 777-300ER and 777-900 models from the aircraft manufacturer, once both parties obtain the required licenses from the US and the Islamic Republic governments.

Earlier on June 19, Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, said that Iran Air reached an agreement with Boeing for purchase of 100 aircraft.
About 40 local staff for ground services at Canberra Airport are being recruited for when Singapore Airlines begins flying to the capital.

Thursday marked 90 days until the first flight touches down, with the airline announcing Aerocare will be responsible for flight operations, check-in and baggage handling for the route.

Aerocare CEO Glenn Rutherford, left, and Singapore Airlines NSW-ACT manager Greg McJarrow. Credit:Jay Cronan

Aerocare's chief executive, Glenn Rutherford, said the company would be hiring mostly Canberrans, and it had already started recruitment.

The roles are in addition to the 15 local staff Singapore Airlines is employing in connection with the Canberra-Wellington-Singapore route.
Insider trader Oliver Curtis will find out this Friday whether he will go to jail, but his professional career is already being dismantled.

The company founded by his father Nick Curtis, which has employed Oliver since the insider trading allegations surfaced, has disappeared from view.

Riverstone Advisory has effectively been mothballed, its website has been taken down and most of the employees - other than Nick and Oliver - are trading under the name of a separate company that shared Riverstone's address and phone number: HHK Advisory.

This includes Kevin Hobgood-Brown, Riverstone's former boss who was among those who vouched for Oliver's character at last Friday's sentence hearing before Justice Lucy McCallum.
It's been a big week for defective masculinity. The Eddie McGuire affair, almost put out  but then petrol bombed by Sam Newman showing that he, too, just didn't get it  was a small window into a very large problem of men who are not psychologically mature. This problem ranges so wide  from the Lindt cafe tragedy, to the murder of Jo Cox in Yorkshire, the nightmare ascendance of Donald Trump, the fear that drives America's endless problem with guns, and right back to violence in our homes.

The problem created by "boy-men"  fully grown men in large bodies, and sometimes in powerful positions, yet with the emotional development of three-year-olds, begs for proper understanding. This small, yet resistant rump of damaged males has so much capacity to do harm that we cannot ignore it any more.

Sam Newman: doesn't get it either. Credit:Getty

In studying the raising of healthy boys, we've learnt to focus on two key things. Firstly, boys and men are usually larger and have about 30 per cent more muscle mass than women and girls their age. And it's likely that males are more hormonally primed than most females, for rapid, defensive reaction. Boys have a gender leaning to act first, think later. So they have to be taught to be safe. In word, and in deed.

The second is that boys have to be raised with empathy  loved and played with when small, and never hit or harmed, and this has to come from both mums and dads. Especially dads who themselves are emotionally literate. Man enough to show grief, fear, vulnerability, and so bounce back and not need the crutches of alcohol or bullying others, to get through their day. Boys raised this way can let in the sorrows of others  can feel for the frightened, and have a wish to protect and care for their fellow human beings. And they are strong enough to do so.
So Myer's Chadstone store is looking "particularly tired", according to Credit Suisse market analyst Grant Saligari. I could have told you that  the layout of my local Myer hasn't changed since I was in there grappling with puberty and downlights and skinny jeans. It's transportative  one walk through the gaping entrance and carefully suppressed memories of childhood tantrums return.

In the change rooms, I see my 13-year-old self hunched on an ottoman in the aftermath of a mother-daughter showdown. My argument, that the Myer Miss Shop long-tee could pass as a dress, didn't fly with mum. She thought I should buy a Witchery number instead  it was a classic. Thankfully, she won.



Saligari, whose findings are a frank assessment of the department store chain's strengths and weaknesses, reports during an assessment of customer service he was approached just once in four hours with a "can I help you?" Understandably, he thinks the staffing needs some work.

Myer is a shopping-with-your-mum kind of store and there's nothing wrong with that. Credit:Melanie Faith Dove

The problem, I think, is that while you or I walk in there and see an expanse of uninterrupted racks, one indiscernible from the rest, the Myer staffer sees it differently  a floor is actually a complex arrangement of discrete dominions, presided over by one or two workers ruling from the counter.

That's why they look at you with bewilderment if you wander into the Country Road turf toting a Calvin Klein dress you'd like to purchase. Retail is a tough gig, but having staff whose loyalty is to their brand, not Myer, isn't conducive to friendly service.



It's an expansive wilderness in there, and that's something Saligari wants to fix: space reduction and "optimisation" is key, he says. Yet, weirdly, despite all the floor space, it still seems cluttered.
In the last century, increased sanitation led to dramatic improvements in public health, including decreased transmission of infectious organisms. But now we may be approaching a generation that is too clean for its own good. Anti-germ behaviours may actually increase the incidence of chronic conditions. In other words, our germaphobic tendencies today may inflict generations to come with asthma, allergies and other autoimmune diseases.

First-time parents would look at my mother in disgust. You're really going to let her eat that? But think of all the germs!

I spent the first four years of my life with a bagel in hand. It often slipped from my fingers, at which point my mum would call over her shoulder, "Five second rule." That was my cue to pick it up off the floor and stick it back in my mouth.

It's time to overcome our fear of dirt. Credit:1Life Images

A 2015 study conducted by Bill Hesselmar of Sweden's University of Gothenburg found that children whose families washed their dishes by hand were significantly less likely to suffer from eczema than were children whose families used a dishwasher. These findings suggest that those who wash their dishes by hand are likely exposed to more pathogens, which actually protect them from the development of eczema. This study represents the latest data in support of the hygiene hypothesis.

In the late 1990s, Erika Von Mutius set out to study the rates of asthma and allergies in the former East and West Germany. Like other researchers at the time, she blamed air pollution for a rise in asthma. She assumed that children growing up in the less developed parts of East Germany would experience higher rates of allergies and asthma than those growing up in the more developed parts of West Germany. What she found was exactly the opposite. From that study she developed the hygiene hypothesis, positing that children who are exposed to more microbes earlier in life develop a greater immunity for the irritants that cause asthma.

According the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an infant's environment can be too clean to properly educate a maturing immune system. Before birth, a child's immune system is suppressed to prevent him or her from rejecting maternal tissue. After birth, the immune system must evolve on its own. Without sufficient exposure to germs, the immune system never learns how to defend itself against infectious organisms. Defense mechanisms go awry and can actually contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases and allergies.

Evolutionarily speaking, humans developed in the presence of parasites and bacteria. In the words of Moises Valesquez-Manoff (author of the 2013 book An Epidemic of Absence), "the more one's surroundings resemble the environment in which we evolved - rife with infections and lots of what one scientist calls 'animals, feces and mud'  the lower the prevalence of" autoimmune diseases and allergies.
He said documents obtained by Fairfax Media under freedom of information laws had revealed "a catalogue of confusion, secrecy and contradiction in relation to the future location, continuity and purpose of the Powerhouse Museum".

"This inquiry will also provide the opportunity to develop leading policies to support museums and galleries and ensure we have world class, properly funded cultural institutions that benefit all the people of NSW," Mr Parker added.

Patricia Johnson from the Save the Powerhouse campaign also welcomed the upper house inquiry: "We are confident that this will uncover previously hidden information about the Baird government's plan to move the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, and will help to answer the many serious questions, particularly about costing, that it has raised."

The NSW government has ploughed on with its plan to move the Powerhouse to Parramatta despite vocal opposition, including from more than 170 prominent people who signed an open letter published in The Sydney Morning Herald in February with the heading "Please Don't Destroy the Powerhouse".

The inquiry will examine "the cost benefits of the sale of the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and its proposed move to Parramatta, and whether there are alternative strategies to support museum development".
Readers do not learn Terry's secret until well into the story, and Suzanne Leal uses this suspense to good effect. There is another kind of suspense at work as well  waiting for Laurie to show a single moment of humility. The acting principal stands out against the other major characters, who bumble along, make mistakes, become victims of the mistakes and cruelty of others, and who try to make the best of things. For some, "making the best" turns out very well indeed, for The Teacher's Secret, though it has a tragic side, is not, overall, a pessimistic book.

Terry is the only male on the staff, a long-serving popular teacher; it is his secret that gives the novel its title. Terry is prone to self-questioning, to fears and doubts, and this enables him to empathise with his pupils, find out about their problems, and then try to help. Laurie follows the letter of the law, and this makes her blind to the complex, sometimes contradictory feelings and situations of the children in her care.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," wrote W.B. Yeats in The Second Coming. "Full of passionate intensity" well describes Laurie Mathews, acting principal at Brindle Public School. Laurie is a zealot, convinced that her pursuit of Terry Pritchard as a child molester is both right and necessary.

The Teacher's Secret by Suzanne Leal.

Nina, whose husband has destroyed their marriage, finds that, after a rocky start, she might succeed as Terry's replacement. Sid, the school handyman, discovers that he's not too old to fall in love with Nina's lonely neighbour. Rebecca, who has had to flee her home in Africa, is told that she will, after all, be allowed to stay in Brindle, where her young son has already found his feet; and Mel, who became pregnant as a teenager and has never left her hometown, finds unexpected sources of satisfaction there.

These characters are all given chapters of their own, but it is the children of Brindle Public who bind them together. Leal has chosen to tell her story through the eyes of adults, but the children's predicaments are memorable, the more so for their inability to act on their own behalf. Two stand out: Bridie, whose family secret, if made public, would shatter her fragile self-confidence; and Elsie, whose mother turns up to scream abuse at her on the first day of school. It is when Terry puts his arms around Elsie to comfort her and shield her from her mother that he falls under Laurie's suspicion.

Given its multiple perspectives, The Teacher's Secret is a fast-paced novel. This is a product of suspense, and Leal's ability to take readers straight to the heart of each character's dilemma. Her style works particularly well for the children, who speak with just enough insouciant slang to make their exchanges realistic, without this slang clogging up the narrative.

Interestingly, the panel on which Leal appeared at the recent Sydney Writers Festival was titled "Things Fall Apart", another line from The Second Coming. Leal is a lawyer experienced in child protection, criminal and refugee law, who obviously knows what she is talking about when describing the impact these laws have on ordinary lives. The Teacher's Secret, an absorbing modern tale of good and evil, is her second novel.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian security forces have recently disbanded several teams of saboteurs in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, a judicial official said.

Farhhad Afsharnia, a provincial head of judiciary said that some saboteurs who crossed the countrys borders have been arrested and others killed, following a couple of recent operations, Mizan news agency affiliated with Irans judiciary reported.



According to the official, the detained people had plans to conduct "sabotage activities" in the central regions of the country. He further added that the countrys security forces keep a vigilant eye on foreign threats.

Separately, Iranian security officials recently announced that they have repelled a plot by Takfiri and Wahhabi groups to bomb the capital city Tehran and a number of other places across the country.
About 10 years ago several independent record labels began focusing attention on Nigerian popular music from the 1970s. Interested listeners would have known about Fela Kuti's serpentine Afrobeat that made international waves through the trance-like grooves from his group Africa '70 and his courageous resistance to military oppression.

But it was left to dedicated crate diggers like Miles Cleret from the UK Soundway label and Samy Ben Redjeb from Analogue Africa to unearth a treasure trove of Afrobeat, highlife, rock and funk recordings that originally arrived in a flood of creativity after the Nigerian civil war, particularly in the sprawling metropolis of Lagos.

A thriving local music industry was responsible for releasing a large volume of high-quality recordings that explored a unique blend of homegrown highlife groove with pulsating funk inspired by the likes of James Brown and Sly Stone. At times, the addition of potent psychedelic guitars confirmed Jimi Hendrix's music as feeding into a universal consciousness. Despite the backdrop of war, this music celebrated creative freedom in a joyful, often raucous melange of funked-up voices and instruments with a righteous commitment to the beat.

But after an initial burst of releases on the aforementioned labels in the late 2000s, the output slowed to a trickle as the number of musical gems yet to be discovered dried up. Now, Los Angeles label Now-Again Records has compiled an appealing two volume set of 1970s Nigerian rock music titled Wake Up You: The Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock with book length liner notes.

Needless to say the music is uniformly excellent and the accompanying book from writer/producer Uchenna Ikonne delves into a fascinating history that shows how music can transcend war and repression to unify a culture.
THEATRE

THE EVENTS 

David Greig, Malthouse Theatre

Until July 10



Through seasons in Sydney and Adelaide, this production of David Greig's The Events has been honed to a fine dramatic point. The play acquires a haunting urgency, and is all the more piercing, for coming to Melbourne in the wake of the recent gay nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida.

Catherine McClements as Anglican priest Claire in The Events. Credit:Pia Johnson

It opens with a large assembly of choristers chatting on a stage that resembles a suburban church hall. Anglican priest Claire (Catherine McClements) enters to welcome the audience; the choir bursts into a jaunty arrangement of Bon Jovi's It's My Life, a pepped rendition of Norwegian Coffee Song.

Upbeat music and community spirit are instantly dispersed by the appearance of The Boy (Johnny Carr), as the play's sombre theme makes itself felt. We learn a young man has targeted Claire's multicultural choir in a mass shooting. She endures a dark night of the soul struggling to understand why.
It's hard not to admire the ambition of Cleverman, even if it's not completely captivating. The new ABC series (Thursdays, 9.30pm) is an energetic mash-up of genres bound together by a bleak vision of the near future, which is rendered in a gloomy palette of cold blues and grimy greys by director of photography Mark Wareham (Redfern Now, Cloudstreet). Blending fantasy and Aboriginal mythology with thriller, horror and action elements, it's the story of a reluctant superhero as well as a drama about fractured families, one of them ripped apart in heart-breaking circumstances. It unfolds at a time when Sydney resembles the capital of a police state, a city riven by fear, suspicion and violence. It's divided between humans and hairypeople, a species seen as "sub-human", hunted by the Containment Authority, confined to harsh detention centres and denied the basic rights afforded to others. Waruu (Rob Collins) is an Indigenous activist and community leader who spends much of his time in the urban ghetto of The Zone. Married and having an affair with a TV journalist (Leeanna Walsman), he's a forthright and charismatic figure, but is also compromised and conflicted. Since boyhood, he's dreamed of being anointed as the Cleverman, a leader of his people possessing supernatural powers and capable of uniting the warring tribes of the city. Waruu's estranged half-brother, Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard), has no such ambitions. A bar owner, he's an opportunist who profits from the plight of the hairypeople, smuggling them from detention and then dobbing them into authorities to claim the reward. But just before his death, their Uncle Jimmy (Jack Charles) chooses Koen to succeed him as the Cleverman, propelling him into the role of reluctant and disbelieving saviour, a calling that once similarly afflicted Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Cleverman: An impressive array of Indigenous talent, on screen and behind the scenes. Overseen by wise, pragmatic, cancer-stricken Aunty Linda (Deborah Mailman), this is one troubled family. But to the mid-point of the six-part series, the major emotional punch has come from the plight of a family of hairypeople betrayed by Koen. In a car park showdown with police, their youngest child was killed and most of the family captured, although teenage daughter Latani (Rarriwuy Hick) managed to escape and remains on the run. Mother Araluen (Tasma Walton) has been forced into prostitution, rebellious son Djukara (an electrifying Tysan Towney) and father Boondee (Tony Briggs) incarcerated in a prison from hell. The scenes of their humiliation and brutalisation have been deliberately disturbing, with the loving family torn apart, its members becoming victims of a systematic assault on their bodies, their identity and their pride. Cleverman is so packed with plot that even when one storyline sags  like the one involving Koen and the silent woman he's spirited from a spooky laboratory  there's enough going on to keep the action rocketing along. An enigmatic media baron, Jarrod Slade (Iain Glen), who lives high above the dirty doings of the city in an imposing waterside castle, has tentacles reaching into all sorts of murky places. He has a wife he adores, Charlotte (Frances O'Connor), who's a doctor working in The Zone and who's worried by her inability to get pregnant. Beyond them, there are a couple of really dodgy authority figures: Geoff Matthews (Andrew McFarlane), the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and sinister Containment Authority operative Steve McIntyre (Marcus Graham). Oh yes, and there's also someone, or something, ripping people's hearts out. Like much admirable sci-fi, Cleverman offers a vision of the future that's a trenchant comment on the present. While conjuring an Indigenous superhero, series creator Ryan Griffen also offers a reflection on the modern world's fear of "The Other", and the repression unleashed against it. Building on the excellent foundation provided by Redfern Now, Cleverman showcases an impressive array of Indigenous talent, on screen and behind the scenes, and enables their contributions to be appreciated by a mainstream, national, prime-time audience. The series has already been renewed for a second season, although the initial ratings for the first three episodes screened on ABC TV have been disappointing: it dropped from an initial 452,000 in the metro capitals to 330,000 and then 257,000. It could well be picking up many more viewers on iView, though Aunty remains pathologically reluctant to reveal the figures.
Given that not even television's satirists have been able to cut through what has often been a stultifying federal election campaign, as politicians learn that, when the likes of The Chaser turn up, you keep smiling and keep walking, the last chance for some skewered insight may rest with John Safran.

The irreverent documentarian, radio host and author is making a last-minute contribution to the political cycle with SBS's The Goddam Election! With John Safran, an hour-long examination of far-right micro-parties that was being edited and having pick-ups shot as late as last week.

John Safran in The Goddam Election! Credit:SBS

"It's about the minor religious parties in this election and the strange alliances that are formed, particularly in regards to anti-Islam groups," says Safran, ducking out of the editing suite. "You might have a Rise Up Australia Party, which has a heavy immigrant membership, in cahoots with Fortitude, the United Patriots Front party, which didn't sign up enough members to make it into the election."

The result is something that has long piqued his voracious curiosity: "Very strange bedfellows." Safran says he found himself at anti-multiculturalism rallies that condemned Islam where many of the protesters were themselves conservative immigrants. He believes the correlation between anti-Islam protests and white power groups isn't as simple as their opponents make out.
Sarah Jessica Parker's return to television could be called No Thanks To Sex In The City.

Her new HBO series, her first small screen role since the end of the groundbreaking Sex In The City 12 years ago, is called Divorce and begins with Parker's character wanting out of a marriage.

No, not this time to Mr Big but to a Mr Wrong, played by Thomas Haden Church, who is best known for characters on the border between slightly off and maybe just bad, as in Alexander Payne's barbed Oscar-winning dramedy Sideways.

The new show, created by Sharon Horgan, the Irish writer and star of the Anglo/American black comedy of uncomfortable relationships Catastrophe, finds Parker's character negotiating the likely end to a marriage and finding it isn't as easy as simply saying you want out.
That the music emerged from black and white musicians working together in inspired harmony against a backdrop of murderous racism. That the whole unlikely thing was created by a farm boy named Rick Hall whose own ambition was forged in grinding poverty and horrific tragedy. And that the musical legacy of Muscle Shoals continues to grow as new generations of musicians come seeking its inspiration and authentic, earthy sound.

Director Greg "Freddy" Camalier does a terrific job of setting out those stories and more, navigating through their twists and turns without slowing the procession of soul and rock royalty queueing up to pay tribute to Hall's genius  and to that of the house musicians who made the magic sound.

At times it seems as if it were all simply meant to be: a young hospital orderly by the name of Percy Sledge walked in and belted out When a Man Loves a Woman; a local hotel bellhop named Arthur Alexander laid down songs that were immediately covered by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But for Hall there were always adversities to go with the triumphs  not least when his house band, The Swampers, left him to set up their own rival studio.

Those sharing their own happy memories of Muscle Shoals include Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Steve Winwood. Wonderful stuff.
When this sci-fi oddity first hit the screen, the year 2008  in which it is set  was a fair way off. Now it has evaporated into the past but the environmental problems which propel the story  alas  have not. We continue to strip mine our planet to the extent the only resource not being depleted is rubbish.

Apocalyptic scenarios vary  from last week's post-corporate wars scenario of Rollerball  to one in which a fleet of space-age Noah's Arks have been launched to save what's left of a ravaged Earth.

They have been parked in permanent orbit around Saturn  facing the sun. Aboard is a complete repository of all the animal and plant life on Earth, which has been laid waste by nuclear warfare. The giver of life as we know it is no longer capable of sustaining it.

One of the crew of the eco rainforest vessel, Valley Forge, is a botanist/astronaut/park ranger, Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern). Dedicated to his work  pruning, fertilising, weeding and maintaining artificial rain  the dedicated Lowell is outraged when orders arrive from the Usual Suspects for the greenhouses to be terminated and the mission aborted.

Rather than comply, Freeman kills his fellow crewmen and, assisted by three willing robot drones, commandeers the ship and begins a voyage to some other place in time and space where his lovingly tended specimens might have a chance of reproducing, re-populating and flourishing anew.

A defoliated Earth may have been deemed unsustainable but while there's hope there's life and vice versa.
It's AD866 or thereabouts and Danish Vikings are rampaging through Anglo-Saxon Britain, conquering kingdom after kingdom until at last only Wessex remains. But it's up in Northumbria that The Last Kingdom's bloodshed begins. The Danes steamroll yet another Saxon army, and a nobleman's son, 11-year-old Uhtred, finds himself taken as a slave by fearsome Viking Ragnar (Peter Gantzler).

With Game of Thrones finishing up and the next season of Vikings still a ways away, lovers of medieval-style scheming and sword thrusts could do a lot worse than checking out the BBC's absorbing adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's historical novel series The Saxon Stories.

As the blood dries and time zips past, captor and captive soon win each other's affection and loyalty. By the time the boy has become a young man (Alexander Dreymon), he has effectively become the old warrior's second son. Such domestic bliss is not to last, however. Another cataclysmic event is about to send Uhtred on a journey south to Wessex, where he must work through his divided loyalties and gain vengeance. It's engrossing stuff, though nowhere near as colourful as Game of Thrones.

The British skies remain a leaden grey, and the blandly handsome Uhtred is a slightly opaque fellow given to an odd sort of cheerful seriousness. It's the characters around Uhtred that really bring the The Last Kingdom to life. The most striking of these are the Danes, with their wild beards, their face tattoos and their lust for fighting and all the other pleasures that the gods have made available to them (Rutger Hauer is particularly enjoyable as the old, blind Ravn). Then there's the scrappy Viking-raised Saxon Brida (Emily Cox), who is Uhtred's lover and blunt-talking best friend  and more than a match for any man in Britain.

Pivotally, there's Alfred (Ripper Street's David Dawson), a manipulative Wessex noble who fancies himself king of all England  and Uhtred as just the tool he needs to make it happen. And, crucially, no doubt, there's Ian Hart (Luck), (Dirt) as the priest who once served Uhtred's father but now serves Alfred. At the heart of it all is a clash of cultures and the mutual disdain and pity with which the pagan Vikings and Christian Saxons regard each other's strange religion.

Thoughtfully plotted, well produced, and with a second season due out later this year, it's well worth checking out.
Alternate title: When Harry Didn't Bed Sally. In writer-director Leslye Headland's follow-up to the acerbic, astute Bachelorette, Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) are a pair of New Yorkers who meet up 12 years after they lost their virginity to each other at university. That the location for their reunion is a support group for sex addicts suggests their subsequent trajectories and fear of commitment. In Headland's world view, where the tropes of the romantic comedy are accepted but the form is broken by genuine emotional pain and then put back together with sexually explicit screwball dialogue, it's natural that they pledge to do the most rebellious thing together they can imagine: start a platonic friendship. Sleeping with Other People is not concerned with cookie-cutter sentimentality, but it has genuine belief in love as a force of profound excitement and satisfaction, not to mention some terrific burns on Aaron Sorkin. Craig Mathieson

Discovery, 8.30pm

Former British army captain Ed Stafford doesn't want to see whether he can survive in inhospitable environments; he wants to see if he can thrive in them. So does he thrive in Mongolia's Gobi Desert tonight? Absolutely! That's assuming, of course, that by "thrive" you mean "spend days without any food at all, eventually avoiding starvation by eating little lizards and rodents". Stafford puts himself at an unnecessary disadvantage by starting out barefoot and shirtless, but the desert gravel soon has him busy fashioning a pair of slippers out of his camera bag. Footwear, however, won't do much to protect him from the burning desert sun, the chilly desert night, or the bears he thinks are hanging around the waterhole that he finds. The gimmickry doesn't detract from the survival tips, which include a demonstration of how to use smoke to kill rodents in their burrows. Brad Newsome

Cleverman

ABC, 9.30pm

It's the penultimate episode of this extraordinary series  the good news is that a second has already been commissioned  and the pace is really picking up. Charlotte (Frances O'Connor) has agreed to one last attempt at IVF, unaware that the new "clinic" offering "new technology" is actually a ruse created by her husband, Slade (Iain Glenn, who grows ever more creepy with each episode), in order to impregnate her with a Hairy embryo. Naturally, just a week or so later she's feeling a little more than queasy. Meanwhile Slade has offered Waruu (Rob Collins) a deal that he surely cannot refuse  more money than he could ever imagine, in return for just one thing: the Cleverman. He and Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard), meanwhile briefly join forces in an attempt to kill the mythical Namorrodor. It's hard to imagine how Cleverman is going to to resolve its multiple storylines in next week's finale, but it's surely going to be a compelling series closer. Kylie Northover
American comedian Jim Gaffigan seems nice and works clean, so you kind of want his sitcom to be good. Sadly, everywhere it needs to be fresh and funny it's just crushingly familiar  like it was 20 years out of date from the moment it was conceived. But that might suit the folks who commissioned it for TV Land, a cable channel that's dipping its toes into original content but still specialising in reruns of Bonanza, The Golden Girls and The King of Queens. In any case, the show follows Gaffigan and his wife, Jeannie (Ashley Williams), as they try to raise five young kids in a two-bedroom apartment in New York. "Imagine you're drowning and then somebody hands you a baby," Gaffigan explains. The early episodes involve Gaffigan eating too much cake and playing vasectomy chicken with his wife. Michael Ian Black is effortlessly sardonic as her gay ex. Brad Newsome

Ten, 8.30pm

It's one of the most popular shows on the planet and "Homefront", an episode from the 13th season, demonstrates why its well-honed formula has made it such a solid stayer. Slick, fast-paced and packed with wisecracks, it features two plotlines. The first concerns a teenager who apparently shoots a man during a home invasion. Henry Marshall (Benjamin Stockham) is the son of a US marine stationed in Iraq and he promised his dad he'd protect the family while he was away. The second storyline involves the ongoing investigation of a decades-old security leak and sees NCIS director Vance (Rocky Carroll) heading to London with FBI agent Fornell (Joe Spano). The high-profile guest star is First Lady Michelle Obama, making an appearance to mark the fifth anniversary of Joining Forces, an organisation that supports the families of military personnel. Debi Enker

The Americans

One, 10.30pm

A taut and emotionally complex espionage thriller, The Americans is one of the best, if not the most loudly acclaimed US drama series of recent years. Set in the '70s, it tracks the exploits of Phillip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), Soviet agents who pose as a suburban American couple and serve their homeland with an expertise and ruthlessness that are frequently shocking. Into its third season, the series has evolved into a gripping tale of love and loyalty, probing the kinds of sacrifices that a sense of duty  to people, institutions or countries  demands. In this typically excellent episode, Elizabeth and Phillip attempt to bug an FBI mail robot, a mission that involves a stunning scene between Elizabeth and an elderly woman (Lois Smith) who finds herself in the firing line. Debi Enker
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called on the international community on Wednesday to work on the creation of proper condition for the resumption of reconciliation talks between Israel and Palestine.

The president added that the conditions include the establishment of ties with moderate regional parties, including Jordan and Egypt, to secure stability, as well as the development of the Israeli and Palestinian infrastructure to improve standards of living, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

"If the international community really wants and counts on being a constructive player, it should make efforts not to resume negotiations just for negotiations, but to create trust between the parties and proper conditions for the success of the talks in the future," Rivlin told the European Parliament.

Rivlin noted that joint projects in the areas of energy, environment, tourism, education and culture would also bring stability to the mutual ties.

Relations between the two countries have been wrecked for decades, as Palestinians have been seeking diplomatic recognition for their independent state on the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which is partially occupied by Israel, and the Gaza Strip.
The Baird government has granted planning approval for four new large-scale solar plants, potentially more than doubling the existing capacity in the state.

The four plants approved for construction have a combined capacity of 175 megawatts (MW), and would generate another electricity for 56,000 homes if built.

"NSW is Australia's large-scale solar leader, with the country's three largest solar farms and hundreds of megawatts of solar electricity capacity online and in the pipeline," planning minister Rob Stokes said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has thrust the Victorian Country Fire Authority dispute to the centre of the election campaign by vowing to make amending workplace laws to protect volunteer firefighters his "first item of business" if the Coalition is re-elected.

Speaking to a group of CFA volunteers in Geelong on Thursday, Mr Turnbull said Labor's behaviour during the dispute had been "an assault not just on the safety of Victorians" but "an assault on what is the very best in our Australian spirit".

CFA volunteers have argued the Andrews government has tried to subordinate their role in the organisation to paid firefighters at the behest of the United Firefighters Union.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has accused the Liberal Party of "sailing close to the wind" on political fundraising after the party's embarrassing apology to Lucy Turnbull.

As revealed by Fairfax Media on Wednesday, Ms Turnbull was forced to distance herself from a $3000-a-head fundraiser in which the Liberals used her state government-appointed job as part of the lure for party donors.

The party has also promised to donate all funds from the women-only boardroom lunch hosted by Minister for Women Michaelia Cash.
Married with a son, Dr Kelly, 56, says he feels the same kind of responsibility to his son as his forebears felt to his own generation. It's particularly acute for Eden-Monaro, which takes in the NSW ski fields and is one of the most vulnerable parts of Australia to global warming, he said. If Australia lags in climate action, it also risks facing "trade measures" enacted by other countries in the future.

Liberal Peter Hendy lost the seat of Eden-Monaro but has since been handed a number of government roles. Credit:Rohan Thomson

Dr Kelly won the seat in 2007 after ending his military career as a full colonel and head of the army's legal branch. His 20-year career included being awarded the Order of Australia for his service in Somalia, where he famously used his bayonet to fend off supporters of a bloodthirsty warlord who had just been convicted and sentenced to death by a court. He reluctantly quit the army standby reserve recently after being asked by Defence to remove a historical picture of himself in military uniform from his campaign material.

Dr Kelly has some detractors within military circles, something of an inevitability for a military lawyer who has gone into politics. But he is widely liked around Canberra, including among political rivals, with one Coalition candidate telling Fairfax Media: "Mike's a good guy, there are no two ways about it."

He lost Eden-Monaro in 2013 to Mr Hendy, a former senior political adviser and head of the business lobby group the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Justice Minister Michael Keenan has been accused of launching a desperate smear campaign against a Labor candidate whose work as a deradicalisation expert has seen her put on terrorist kill lists, invited to the White House and even lauded by federal government figures.

Mr Keenan suggested Anne Aly, Labor candidate in the marginal Liberal-held seat of Cowan, intervened last year in the criminal hearings of radical Islamists to reduce their sentences. Dr Aly responded by defending her role in the case, saying she had simply recommended them for a government-supported intervention and deradicalisation program.

When given the opportunity to later challenge Dr Aly directly on live radio, Mr Keenan refused, saying debating a Labor candidate was beneath him.
So when a reader emailed me to ask about investing for his three-year-old, I jumped at the chance. And just maybe because my own son is also three, and it struck a chord.

It's designed to get a laugh, but also to make a point. Buffett's fortune is estimated at a shade under $82 billion. At a rough average 10 per cent return per year from shares, not starting 12 months earlier has cost Uncle Warren about $8 billion.

When Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, was asked about his biggest investing regret  and despite making his first investment at the tender age of 11  he cites "not starting earlier".

Our correspondent, Paul, has been putting money away each month for his son, and wants to know how to invest it. He's doing an amazing thing for his son.

Let's say Paul puts away $50 a month for his son. That's $600 a year, or a cool $12,600 by his 21st birthday. If he gets a measly 2 per cent bank interest on top of that, he'll add just under $3800 to that pile, and have $16,380 for his son.

But here's where it gets really interesting. Let's say Paul buys shares, instead. And let's say those shares gain value at the historical rate of 10 per cent per year. That $12,600 will be worth a cool $42,800 the day his son turns 21. That's $30,000 for doing almost nothing.

A quick word on nuts and bolts. $600 per year will get eaten up with fees if you trade too often. Put your monthly amount into a dedicated high-return online savings account. Then, every 18 months, buy $900 worth of shares. In what? Vanguard's exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are a quality, low-cost way to track the market. I'd alternate between its Australian ETF (ASX:VAS) and its rest-of-the-world ETF (ASX:VGS). It can be complex to try to invest in a child's name so keep it in your name (or your spouse's name if they are in a lower tax bracket). Oh, and make sure you reinvest those dividends.

Foolish takeaway
Twenty-six prominent Australian lawyers, a former human rights commissioner and the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights have written an open letter calling for the release of seven Baha'i leaders in Iran.

The letter, addressed to Iran's ambassador to Australia, Abdolhossein Vahaji, notes that the seven "have been unjustly imprisoned" since 2008.

John Dowd, QC, who gave the keynote address and launched the letter. Credit:Australian Baha'i Community

The signatories include 16 Senior Counsel and Queen's Counsel as well as senior legal academics, human rights specialists and other leading members of the legal profession.
Like many of Sydney's public schools, Lidcombe Public School is bursting at the seams. With surging enrolments, and much of the outdoor space overtaken by demountables, parents were asking questions about the site of the closed motor registry next door, owned by Roads and Maritime Services. Opposition Leader Luke Foley, the local member, says he lobbied the government to make the land available for the school to expand. But the government sold the land to a private company late last year.

The Opposition Leader tells this story of what he calls the state government's "ultimate shortsightedness in its addiction to asset sales" to explain why he used his Budget Reply speech on Thursday to call on the government to give the Greater Sydney Commission the power to take land from other government agencies for schools.

Even at the current boosted rate of spending on building schools announced in Tuesday's budget, Mr Foley says, the government is spending only about one-third of the $10.8 billion a leaked Department of Education report says is needed to meet surging enrolment demand in the public school system.

"The Premier boasts of the billions the government is making from asset sales," he said in his speech. "If we can't secure the future of our state's schools now, when can we?"
EDITOR'S NOTE: In 2018, Gene Scorringe was found not guilty of sexual intercourse without consent and not guilty of indecent assault. An additional charge of indecent assault was withdrawn in March 2019.

A Bondi Junction osteopath charged with raping a patient has been released on bail and can continue to treat women if someone else is present.

Gene Scorringe leave Waverley police station after being bailed over an alleged sex assault. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Gene Scorringe, 38, appeared before Waverley Local Court in Sydney's east on Thursday, accused of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of indecent assault.

Through his lawyer, the New Zealand citizen indicated he strongly denied each accusation and would plead not guilty.
A farmer who gunned down a NSW environment officer during a protracted and terrifying ordeal has been jailed for at least 24 years.

Ian Turnbull, now 81, used a hunting rifle to murder Glen Turner, 51, who was on public land with a colleague on July 29, 2014, near the farmer's property at Croppa Creek in the state's north.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, Justice Peter Johnson jailed Turnbull for a maximum of 35 years for the "terrifying and shattering" murder and for detaining his colleague for advantage.

Justice Johnson said it was a de facto life sentence for the farmer, who has a life expectancy of just eight years.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

Trend:

Concerns regarding Russias pushing co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group away and limiting the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to itself are unfounded rumors, Mariya Zakharova, spokesperson for Russias Foreign Ministry, said June 23, the website of the ministry reported.

She was commenting on the meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in St. Petersburg.

Such a trilateral format was also previously used to discuss sensitive issues, said Zakharova. Everything happens in close contact with the other two co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan adopted a joint statement following the meeting in St. Petersburg June 20.

Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents confirmed the agreements reached during the Vienna meeting held May 16 on stabilizing the situation in the zone of conflict and creating an atmosphere to push forward the peace process, said the message on the website of Kremlin. For this purpose, the sides agreed to increase the number of international observers in the zone of conflict.

Zakharova added that Russia retains all the achievements and potential reached by the OSCE Minsk Group.

The parties themselves highly appreciated the efforts of Russia and this meeting itself, and that proves its success, Zakharova said.
Drivers on the Hume Highway in Sydney's south-west will face delays as more than 100 firefighters and 18 fire trucks struggle to extinguish a large factory fire that spread to a nearby building.

The fire spread from a car wrecking factory on Rosedale Avenue, Greenacre, early on Friday to Davonne Blinds directly behind it. An employee of the company, who refused to be named, said that the factory and its entire stock had been destroyed in the blaze.

Firefighters rushed to the scene, which is very close to a major intersection of the Hume Highway, about 3am.
People would do double takes when they saw Sharne Willoughby. It was one reason she found excuses to stay home.

The primary school teacher had been diagnosed with cervical cancer when the youngest of her six children was two years old. She beat the disease, but said what afflicted her afterwards was worse.

Twelve weeks after liposuction surgery for lymphoedema, Sharne Willoughby climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Ms Willoughby developed secondary lymphoedema. Commonly caused by the lymph nodes being removed or damaged during cancer treatment, it leads to a build-up of lymph fluid and painful swelling, often in the arms or legs.

Without access to regular therapy, her condition worsened over 10 years until her affected left leg weighed 12.5 kilograms more than her right. She could not work full time, move easily, wear shoes, dress normally. She sometimes wondered if she'd be better off having her leg amputated.
"When you have a process which you describe as being almost an official process and that's an accepted part of naval life, when 15-, 16-year-olds  become part of that culture, it is not very hard to see how things can get out of control, is it?" Justice McClellan said.

Mr Sinclair, who served in the Royal Australian Navy for 41 years, was appointed executive officer of Leeuwin to address low morale on the base following a 1971 investigation which revealed a culture of bullying and violence.

Under cross-examination from Ian Fehring, representing a group of alleged abuse victims, Mr Sinclair agreed that assaults continued to occur at HMAS Leeuwin while he was in charge.

Mr Sinclair denied that the actions he took to address abuse at the base were unsuccessful, saying: "I find that a little bit insulting."

He told the commission: "There were no complaints of sexual abuse made by any junior recruits to anyone in authority or to me during my time at Leeuwin."
Queensland's education minister has backed a regional kindergarten issuing licences to children who want to play with toy guns to teach them about weapon safety.

The C&K kindergarten at Kilkivan, a rural town near Gympie, allows three and four-year-olds to play with guns if they obtain a "licence".

A south-east Queensland kindergarten lets kids play with guns if they obtain a "licence".

The licence lets children "use a pretend gun at kindy" only if they shoot at targets, pretend pests like dingoes and foxes and the ground.

Children lose their licence for the day if they point their gun at other people or pretend to shoot them.
Australia's quality hoverboard industry is dead  leaving only dodgy and unsafe imports, one of the sector's main players says.

The Victorian government rolled out new hoverboard safety regulations on Thursday, designed to protect consumers from a product that had a nasty habit of bursting into flames.

The legislation will require hoverboard sellers to obtain safety certificates from a government regulator before they can be sold.

Thanks, says one of Australia's largest hoverboard suppliers, but it's too late. We've already moved on.
Mr Chaouk appeared, via video link, before Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon and was remanded in custody.

Haddara was fatally shot in Altona North on June 20, 2009.

Mohammed Haddara was fatally shot at the front of his parents' home in Altona North. Credit:Ten News

A man has appeared in court charged with the shooting murder of Mohammed Haddara, a death that escalated a bloody feud between two crime families.

During his appearance he asked the magistrate about a suppression order and told her: "I just want a fair trial."

Police allege that Mr Haddara and another man kidnapped and bashed Ahmed Hablas, on the day of the murder.

Mr Chaouk was told to meet Mr Haddara outside his parents' house in Altona North to discuss the return of Mr Hablas, police allege.

Mr Haddara waited in the street while the other man drove Mr Hablas to a nearby location, awaiting news of when to release him. But Mr Hablas overpowered the man and fled.

Almost simultaneously, police allege Mr Chaouk arrived to meet Mr Haddara. Instead of discussing the release of Mr Hablas, Mr Chaouk shot Mr Haddara up to five times in the back, police allege.
Train update: The 8:08am Flinders Street to Craigieburn service has been cancelled. Next train departs at 8:14am. Otherwise, the trains seem to be running reasonably well so far this morning. Do you know differently? If so, update me on mgriffin@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
Two Victorian men have been committed to stand trial over a "criminal rampage" that is alleged to have begun with Molotov cocktails being thrown at George and Roberta Williams' homes and culminated with a police officer being shot in the head.

Rodney Phillips, 25, of Oak Park, and Sam Liszczak, 23, of Morwell, are accused of fire-bombing homes, shooting at crime figure George Williams' house, stealing a car and shooting at a police officer, Constable Ben Ashmole.

Rodney Phillips regularly removed his long-sleeved T-shirts in the dock to display his singlet and multiple tattoos

Constable Ashmole required surgery to remove shotgun pellets from his skull.

Mr Phillips and Mr Liszczak on Thursday formally pleaded not guilty to the crime spree, both telling the Melbourne Magistrates' Court they were innocent of all the charges.
"A government that has supported my work - has had praise for my work, not just with the Australian government but with other governments around the world and with the United Nations.

"You would think it would be better to have someone with some expertise at this critical time... it would be better to have someone with this expertise in this area in Parliament, rather than fear-mongerers and bullies."

Dr Aly - a moderate Muslim - also emphatically denied the letter she wrote was to assist Mr Thorne getting a lighter sentence.

"I doubt if minister Keenan has seen that letter if thats what he thinks, because the letter itself was around the discussion I had about possible support within the government's own de-radicalisation framework that I had advised the government on, that I had a hand in helping the government devise," she said.

"I was approached by the lawyers - I'm often approached by lawyers or families that are involved with young people that are on the path to de-radicalisation to offer advice, particularly around advice about what things they could access to help in the de-radicalisation process and as part of again, the government's federally-funded intervention framework."
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23



By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

One of the most discussed issues in Turkey is Ankara's full membership in the EU. Some Turkish experts believe that Turkey's EU membership is not in the interests of Ankara.



For example, Naciye Selin Senocak, chair member at UNESCO Cultural Diplomacy Governance and Education, Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS) believes that Ankara's EU membership is of no benefits for Turkey, as any economic problems in the EU can damage the country's economy.



The longer the situation lasts with Ankara's EU accession and non-abolition of the visa regime between the sides, the more Turkey believes that the main cause of obstacles in this issue is a religious factor. That is, Turkey will never be able to become a full member of the EU as it is a Muslim country.



Turkish authorities have repeatedly hinted at this aspect. For example, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly stated that the delay in the process in connection with Turkeys EU full membership proves once again that the EU is a "Christian club".



Earlier, the Turkish Ministry for EU Affairs told Trend that Turkey has fulfilled 67 out of 72 commitments to the EU to introduce the visa-free regime. And, as it is known, Turkey will not fulfill the remaining five commitments as they have to do with countrys security.



The issue is that the EU urges Turkey to soften its fight against terrorism, namely, against the PKK, by accusing the country of violating the rights of its citizens.



While commenting on this issue, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that Turkey will not change its interests for the sake of the EU and will not soften the fight against terrorism in the country, even if the EU does not cancel the visa regime with Ankara.



All this suggests that the remarks made by Erdogan June 22 that Turkey can hold a referendum on continuing the talks on accession to the EU was quite expectable.



Erdogan further said Europe doesnt want Turkeys accession, as it is a Muslim-majority country and noted that this is a discrimination.



However, in reality, Turkey doesnt need to hold a referendum on continuing the talks on accession to the EU, since the countrys government can on its own make a decision on refusing to negotiate. Then, how does one take Erdogan's words?



The issue is that if Turkeys government refuses from negotiating with the EU, the organization will take the advantage of this to put political pressure on Turkey.



There is no doubt that if Turkey holds a referendum on his issue, the countrys people will vote for suspending the talks. Turkish authorities understand that this is the only way to avoid political pressure from the EU which has made the country to wait for years.

---

Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
A Dwellingup man has been charged with a string of offences after police were tipped off children as young as 13 had been visiting the suspected drug dealer's house before school.

Susan Usher, from Police media, said officers raided the McLarty Street address on Wednesday.

Thirty-seven cannabis plants were seized during a police raid in Dwellingup on Wednesday. Credit:Rohan Thomson

"Dwellingup police received information from concerned members of the public alleging that children as young as 13-years-old were attending a local residence before school and exiting with packages," she said.

Officers from Dwellingup, Pinjarra along with Mandurah Detectives raided the house at 9am on Wednesday.
A Californian researcher has visited WA in a quest to find out whether the tiny karaops spider is the world's fastest 'ambush predator'.

Researcher Sarah Crew specialises in the karaops species, and has visited to collect live specimens and take them back home, after initially spending time on them during a visit to the WA Museum a few years ago.

Karaops francesae from Two Peoples Bay, sitting next to her egg-sac. Credit:Mark Harvey, WA Museum

Only found in Australia and related to selenops ('moon eyes'), the new genus was officially named 'karaops' in 2011 - 'kara' is the Nyoongar word for 'spider', WA Museum Terrestrial Zoology department head Mark Harvey said.

Dr Harvey said the spiders were about the size of a five-cent piece at their largest and had very flat legs, rather like a huntsman's, so they could lie flat enough to escape predators.
Australia will formally back India to join the club of nuclear suppliers at a summit in Seoul on Friday, a move that will finally lay to rest a bitter stoush over selling uranium to the nuclear armed giant.

But China has signalled it could veto the bid because India has refused to sign the international treaty to stop the spread of atomic weapons.

Sales of nuclear materials to India is seen as a test of great power rivalry in Asia. Credit:Fairfax Media

The US is strongly backing India to join the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, seen as the last hurdle to allow international trade in nuclear materials to India.

The bid has been complicated by a late application from Pakistan to also join the group.
Foreigners According to pollsters Ipsos MORI, the number of immigrants coming to Britain is the single most important decisive factor in how people will vote (33 per cent - plus another 7 per cent citing the cost of EU immigration on the welfare system). Depending on which Brexiteer you ask, they're angry about EU migrants in general, EU migrants taking benefits, EU migrants taking British jobs, EU migrants "ahead in the queue" when it comes to housing, schooling or the local GP or just migrants in general, not speaking English and quite possibly being terrorists. Some Brexit campaigning has cited the huge flight of refugees into Europe last year from the Middle East (eliding the fact that they were mostly headed to Germany, and weren't EU citizens so Britain could turn them away).

Another factor has been Turkey's potential future entry into the EU, a subject of far more heat than light. Sovereignty Another 12 per cent in the Ipsos Mori survey said a very important factor in helping them decide how to vote was Britain's ability to make its own laws. This topic has been a tabloid favourite, citing the so-called "Toaster Unit" at EU HQ in Brussels, tasked with regulating down the power of British toasters and kettles in order to save the environment and cut power bills.

Red tape is also said to be "strangling" small business  though unions prefers to call such rules "workers rights". While EU regulations (and the Toaster Unit) are real, and the EU itself admits there are too many and is trying to cut back, Leavers and tabloids have often been caught gilding the lily. It is not true that Eurocrats dictate how much cleavage barmaids can display, nor that British sausages will have to be renamed "emulsified high-fat offal tubes", nor that "too bendy" bananas will be banned. But memes are hard to kill and the list of Euromyths is long and viral. There is another argument around the effect of European human rights laws on Britain, manifesting in a feeling of discomfort that the ultimate court of appeal for significant tests of British justice is now on foreign soil. Money The EU membership fee is a hotly disputed figure, but a fair estimate is about 6.5 billion a year. Brexiters feel they could spend this money much more usefully. On hospitals, say.

The Boris factor The charismatic, erudite and persuasive former London mayor Boris Johnson is very popular, and has used the referendum to increase his appeal outside London and within the right wing of the Conservative Party. If the vote is for Brexit it will be in no small part due to his work detoxifying and broadening the Leave brand. Remainers

The economy, stupid The Ipsos MORI poll found that the second biggest issue helping decide votes was the impact on Britain's economy (28 per cent of voters). Though a minority of economists say Brexit would unleash British ingenuity and entrepreneurship, the majority of economists, national and international economics bodies and business leaders only disagree over how much Brexit would hurt the British (and European and global) economy. Up to 10 per cent of GDP would be lost, businesses would migrate to the continent, jobs go, the tax take would slump and the budget bleed red. The pound would plunge and prices in the shops would go up. Even some Brexiteers concede a short-term hit to the economy, though they appeal to national pride in insisting it wouldn't last. They say Britain could negotiate new trade deals  and more quickly than inside the EU. But Remainers say Britain would be at the back of the queue and would lack negotiating power. And any trade deal with the EU comes with a demand for free movement of workers: exactly the thing the Brexiters want to be rid of.

The Jo Cox factor After weeks of trending towards Brexit, the polls took a sharp turn late last week. This coincided with the murder of Labour MP and Remain campaigner Jo Cox, allegedly by a right-wing, Britain-first extremist with a penchant for Nazi memorabilia. It may be a coincidence that this is when the polls turned. Electorates often only start to consider their votes around a week in advance. But some have argued Mrs Cox's death threw a stark light on some of the more extreme propaganda on the Leave side, highlighting its divisive and xenophobic flavour. Brexiteers (and The Sun) said they should be allowed to discuss migration without being tagged racist. But a week ago, many in conservative, comfortable middle England would have taken a closer look at dark undercurrents beneath the Leave cause, and some recoiled at what they saw.

Little Britain Much of the nationalistic chest thumping has come from the Brexit side, but Remain has also painted a Leave vote as a yearning for a bucolic, comfy, outdated and mythical dream of an England that never existed, and which certainly wouldn't be a major player on the modern world stage. A Britain outside Europe would be sidelined politically, and relatively powerless economically, they say. Also, it would be more of a hassle to go to the continent for holidays.
Beijing: An Australian resident on China's most-wanted list of overseas fugitives has turned herself into Chinese authorities, the country's anti-corruption bureau has said.

Melbourne woman Tang Dongmei, 56, is suspected of corruption and embezzlement relating to her employment as an accountant at a state-owned import-export company in China's southern Fujian province.

China is working through a list of its 100 most-wanted international fugitives as part of an anti-corruption campaign. Credit:Bloomberg

Chinese authorities say she fled for Australia in 2008, and issued an Interpol red notice for her repatriation in May 2009. Ms Tang was one of 10 people believed to be residing in Australia included on a list of 100 most-wanted fugitives released by China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection last year.
Jakarta: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has held a cabinet meeting on a warship in the Natuna Islands in a defiant gesture to China that it has sovereign rights over the disputed waters in the far north of the archipelago.

Diplomatic tensions have been rising after three clashes between Chinese fishing vessels and the Indonesian navy in the region in as many months.

Indonesia is not a claimant in the territorial dispute in the South China Sea and China acknowledges that the Natuna Islands belong to Indonesia.
Seoul: North Korea leader Kim Jong-un said after supervising the test launch of an intermediate-range missile that the country now has the capability to attack US interests in the Pacific, official media reported on Thursday.

South Korean and US military officials have said the North launched what appeared to be two intermediate-range missiles dubbed Musudan on Wednesday. The first of the two was considered a failure.

The second reached a high altitude in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea about 400 kilometres away, they said.

The test-fire was successful without putting the security of neighbouring countries at risk, the North's KCNA news agency said, referring to the missile as a "Hwasong-10". Hwasong is Korean for Mars.
Yangon: The European Union said on Wednesday Myanmar needed "space" to deal with human rights abuses in its restive northwest, adding it would respect the call by country leader Aung San Suu Kyi to avoid the term "Rohingya" to describe persecuted Muslims there.

The statement exposes a rift in the West's approach to the sensitive issue, standing in contrast with the United States, which said it would continue to use the term, citing respect for the right of communities to choose what they should be called.

Rohingya girls sit at a refugee camp north of Sittwe in Myanmar last year. Credit:AP

Members of the 1.1 million group, who identify themselves by the term Rohingya, are seen by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingya have not even been considered citizens of Myanmar and the name itself is a divisive issue.
Johannesburg: Oscar Pistorius has denied deliberately killing Reeva Steenkamp and says he believes the late model would want him to "help the less fortunate" rather than "waste my life" in prison, according to advance excerpts from his first television interview since the February 2013 killing.

The Guardian on Thursday published excerpts from the interview the South African athlete gave British broadcaster ITV, which is due to be aired in the UK late on Friday.

The 29-year-old double-amputee Olympic sprinter admits in the interview he deserves a long prison sentence for killing Steenkamp, whom he shot dead through a toilet door in his Pretoria home.
Islamabad: After terrorists killed more than 100 Pakistani schoolchildren 18 months ago, the country's leaders vowed to crack down on religious seminaries that are recruiting grounds for domestic and international Islamist militant groups.

US officials have also continued to pressure Pakistan in their decade-long effort to get the government to deny safe havens to insurgent groups destabilising Afghanistan, especially the Taliban and its brutal offshoot, the Haqqani network.

Despite all of that, Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government is giving $US3 million ($4 million) to the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, also known as the "University of Jihad".

At a provincial assembly meeting last week, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's leaders announced the grant and said it was needed to keep one of the world's most controversial Islamic seminaries operational. Government leaders noted the seminary currently enrolls and houses about 4000 students, and their parents expect they will be taken care of.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

Trend:

Russia is ready to hold bilateral talks with Turkeys Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Sochi if he gives a positive response to the invitation to take part in the meeting, RIA Novosti quoted Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Vassily Nebenzia as saying June 23.

We have invited all the ministers and are waiting for all of them, including those from Turkey and Ukraine. But we havent received a response so far, he said. I believe that this week, or in the beginning of the next week, it will be clear [who will participate].
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Credit:Getty Images Guccifer 2.0 said his hacking effort was underway for almost a year. Based on the nature of the attack, independent researchers in the US concluded the hack was conducted by or for the Russian government. And Assange, who now reportedly holds the rest of the DNC hack information, says more information will soon be released. When contacted about future data releases, WikiLeaks replied only: "We have a very big publishing year ahead." Asked this week via social media if the damning information Assange claims to have on Hillary's campaign comes from "Russian hacks", Kim replied: "No comment."

A Twitter account belonging to Guccifer 2.0 has been contacted for comment. WikiLeaks is gearing up for more data drops. Earlier this month, Assange said his site would be leaking documents that would provide "enough evidence" to indict Hillary Clinton. On June 18, WikiLeaks released a file for followers to download and retain as insurance to back up the organisation's future leaks. Calling it "WikiLeaks Insurance", the file is not viewable without a second encryption key which can be released if "anything happens to WikiLeaks". Although Hillary Clinton is the subject of investigations over her handling of emails, even Assange admitted it was unlikely the US Justice Department would indict her based on whatever information he had. Assange, who has lived at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid a series of extraditions that could see him tried in the US for his role in the Cablegate leak, is seen as being friendly to Russian interests.

In 2013 his father travelled to Syria to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. Not only does Assange's call for transparency appear to be focused overwhelmingly on Western countries, the hacker-turned-dissident tweets statements that tend to support Russian positions on a variety of issues. Assange also claims ot have helped ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden travel to Russia. New Zealand-based Kim, meanwhile, is in a protracted legal battle with the United States Department of Justice, which accuses him of criminal copyright infringement through his now defunct Megaupload file hosting service. In 2012, police raided his home. Fergus Hanson of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute and author of Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century, says that although the Guccifer 2.0 attack is "just a short cut way for [Russian-backed hackers] to gather internal knowledge about Trump (hoovering up the pack that Clinton's team has already gathered)" the theft of the data is "not that surprising". "If they use it to somehow help Trump against Clinton say, then that is totally different."

Nonetheless, Hanson doesn't see it as damaging as other major leaks including the Chinese government hack on the US Office of Personnel Management, which will "will have repercussions for decades." The threat of further data dumps on the Clinton campaign comes as Russia has moved away from traditional diplomacy towards a variety of strategies for advancing its international political goals. After the initial DNC hack was revealed, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign said: "What appears evident is that the Russian groups responsible for the DNC hack are intent on attempting to influence the outcome of this election." Former US intelligence officer Fred Hoffman says there are scenarios in which Russians could try to influence the election. "There's a number of very good reasons for the Russians to have hacked both the DNC and the Clinton Foundation computers," he said.
New York: US Presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders came one step closer to accepting defeat on Wednesday, admitting in an hour-long interview that he most likely would not be the Democratic nominee.

For weeks, Senator Sanders has insisted that he is still running against Hillary Clinton, although she clinched the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination on June 6. But when C-SPAN's Steve Scully asked Sanders about speaking at the Democratic National Convention next month, the senator acknowledged that he was unlikely to best Mrs Clinton, who has already been endorsed by a number of Democratic leaders, including President Barack Obama.

"It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee, so I'm not going to be determining the scope of the convention," Senator Sanders said, adding that he has reached no agreement to endorse Clinton but has been negotiating with her campaign. "What our job is now is to have her listen to what millions of people in this country who supported me want to see happen. We'll see how that evolves."
A leading Australian intelligence company is selling state-of-the-art surveillance technology to Bahrain amid concerns it could be used to target pro-democracy campaigners, according to an investigation by international human rights advocates.

Published on Thursday, the report by London-based non-government organisation Bahrain Watch found that iOmniscient, which is headquartered in Sydney, has since April partnered with US company Pelco and Bahrain's LSS Technologies to provide the Bahrain Interior Ministry with enhanced surveillance equipment.

A company video shows how the facial recognition software works. Credit:Screengrab

This includes 2000 CCTV cameras and facial recognition software to scan for "persons of interest" in crowds.
GREAT BAY:--- Book of The Dead by Lasana Sekou is An important new work of world literature, ... an ambitious book, said Xu Xi, the Indonesian-Chinese novelist who works out of Hong Kong and New York.

The just-published poetry collection by the St. Martin writer is also dominated by poems about crime, but Kings College London professor Richard Drayton pointed out primarily that, Book of the dead risks a new kind of pan-Caribbean poetry.

It is not merely that it reaches into the entire regions space and history. Its verse plays with the whole Caribbean language spectrum: here fragments in Spanish, there across the Afro-English spectrum, to scraps of French, Dutch, Haitian, and Papiamento, said Drayton.

Sekous signature use of multiple language words, terms, and even whole stanzas has practically become his poetry brand for expressing personal and public affairs. In the foreword to Book of The Dead, Xu Xi wrote that, The poems spin around the travesty of history and return to the mundane reality of our globalized life.

Reviewers often look at Lasanas regional or global contexts, but hes also writing his nations literature, said Jacqueline Sample of HNP, the books publisher.

I saw men and women wiping their eyes at the book party in June when Lasana read from Book of the Dead about the brutal death of the gentle Patsy Brooks on the garbage dump, in the Great Salt Pond. Add the poem about the murdered baby in the middle of the middle region road, or the die by bike poem about young boys in French Quarter and Lasanas newest offering is also as local as you can get, said Sample.

Drayton got this when he pointed out that, Sekou weaves a world of Antillean thought around his anchorage in St. Martin.

What some readers might not get right away is the dry humor in poems like posing in town, about a living statues exhibition in Philipsburg, lil smaatin, about police cameras at the border, and my last travels, about how airport security will save the world./will save the empire. Its just wry to the senses, said Sample.

Sekous slim crime-per-poem volume charts a journey across very stormy seasfull of challenges and scary seascapes and memory, said Michela Calderaro, a comparative literature scholar from Italy.

There are poems about mass graves, children killing children, and musings about death and duty. Fewer love poems than usual. Poems about fear and nightlife are stripped down to size (even the usual M. is stripped from the poets name on the book cover).

Some of the poems, like forensics, are excruciating in their execution, but I think theyre all more like signposts. On the journey that Dr. Calderaro mentions in her critique at the 2016 St. Martin Book Fair, Lasana deletes the pit stops, said Sample.

The journey carries us away without pause, here with the angel of death in Gaza, there with a Jewish holocaust reference, and Haitian language text bridging the reconocido poem about the racist Dominican Republic law against its Black citizens. Sekous Magno is assassinated in Curacao and Tom Hurndall is shot to a coma, a world away. To the poet both heart-wrenching accounts are crowned in the kingdom of blood and yet celebratory of the life of each man, said Sample.

Book of The Deads mysterious cover design by Angelo Rombley also contrasts and compliments Cozbi Sanchezs classic line drawings that are found in the book.

Book of The Dead by Lasana Sekou is available at spdbooks.org, Van Dorp, Arnias, Philipsburg Jubilee Library, SoIL, and other libraries and bookstores.
Company has not yet issued a statement about the outage

June 22: A widespread outage starting at about 4 PM Los Angeles time, appears to be affecting Charter internet customers across the U.S.

Citing sources within the company, Turlock California City news Says that the outage is due To a fiber optic cable which has been accidentally severed near Calabasas.

Service was restored in Woodland Hills today just before 1 p.m. PST

Downdetector.com says that outages have been reported in Charter Spectrum Internet, in Saint Louis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Chicago, Madison, Wheaton, Mountain View, Athens, and Sacramento. In Woodland Hills, people assumed the 6th straight day of above 100 degree temperatures had caused a power outage. But the Charter outage appears to be unreleated to high temperatures in the American Southwest.

The company has not responded to our request for comment.

Charter Communications is an American cable telecommunications company, which offers their services to consumers and businesses under the branding of Charter Spectrum. Providing services to over 25 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribers, just behind Comcast, and by residential subscriber lines it is the tenth-largest telephone provider.

In late 2012 with the naming of longtime Cablevision executive Thomas Rutledge as their CEO, the company relocated their main headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, to Stamford, Connecticut, though many operations remain based out of St. Louis.

On May 18, 2016, Charter acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks for a combined $65.5 billion, making it the third-largest pay television company in the United State
The strike is scheduled to last 4 days and involves the nurses' call for improved staffing

Kaiser has had disputes with its employee's unions, faced civil and criminal charges for patient dumping, faced action by regulators over the quality of care it provided, especially to patients with mental health issues, and has faced criticism from activists and action from regulators over the size of its cash reserves

A strike by 1,300 registered nurses begins today at Kaiser's Los Angeles hospital. The strike is scheduled to last 4 days and involves the nurses' call for improved staffing. California Nurses Association/National Nurses United claims Kaiser made profits of $1.9 billion last year, money which should be invested in hiring more nurses and "protect economic gains." In other words, they want a raise.

"Kaiser spends millions of dollars advertising that Los Angeles Medical Center is a world class Tertiary Care Center...Yet on most days we do not have a sufficient number of nurses to take care of our patients," said Tessie Costales, a nurse with 30 years at the hospital. "This needs to change." Nurses complain that short staffing means they cannot take breaks and this affects patient care. Also affected by short staffing is the Pediatric Care unit.
hopTo Inc. Announces New Sales Partnership With Citrix Platinum Partner Applications2U

Posted by Publisher Internet

CAMPBELL, CA  (Marketwired)  06/22/16  (OTCQB: HPTO), developer of the most comprehensive mobile workspace platform, announced today a new partnership with , a complete IT solutions provider based in the Greater Pittsburgh-area. Applications2U is a Platinum Citrix Solution Advisor, which signifies the highest level of commitment and expertise to offering virtualization, networking and more.

In accordance with requirements of the Citrix Platinum Level Solutions Advisor status, Applications2U has an exceptionally trained, highly certified staff that includes a Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer (CCEE) in Virtualization, Citrix Certified Professionals in Networking (CCP-N) and Virtualization (CCP-V), and Citrix Certified Sales Professionals (CCP) for a number of Citrix products.

As a complete IT solutions provider, the Applications2U team has the ability to deliver a combination of traditional IT functions such as, but not limited to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), data storage and security, network monitoring and email hosting  all of which can be carried out with a simple Internet connection to the end-user device. Applications2U utilizes the latest technology and the most robust hardware to deliver a Microsoft Windows platform that is powered and delivered to clients via Citrix. Through Applications2Us partnership with industry leaders Citrix and Microsoft, combined with the knowledge and skills from a distinctly technical team, Applications2U provides a customized, cloud-based solution.

Applications2U is focused on its core mission to develop loyal, strategic partnerships with customers and associations for whom we assist in building innovative and scalable end-to-end technology solutions. The technology solutions we deliver enable our customers to be more efficient, mobile, secure and productive, said Dan Dillman, CEO and President of Applications2U. Software technology partners like hopTo play an important part in helping us achieve our mission. hopTo allows Applications2U customers to transform the user experience of existing Windows and Internet Explorer-based apps on mobile devices. The combination of Applications2Us experience and expertise with application delivery on the Citrix platform and hopTos innovative, touch-enabled mobile experience for existing legacy apps makes for an ever better user experience. Applications2U is excited to offer this Best of Citrix Synergy 2016 Finalist in New Technology solution to our customers.

Were excited to welcome Applications2U into the hopTo partner network, said Barry Flanagan, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at hopTo. hopTo is focused on working closely with the best of the best Citrix Platinum and Gold partners, and Applications2u certainly fits that description. Dan and his team create and implement innovative, end-to-end technology and cloud computing solutions for enterprise organizations. Together, Applications2U and hopTo are committed to deliver the best user experience possible for existing apps deployed to modern mobile devices via Citrix solutions.

Applications2U was founded in 2003 as a cloud hosting and consulting provider before the term cloud computing had reached widespread mainstream use. Applications2U specializes in complete IT solutions, particularly within the healthcare, financial, manufacturing and education industries. Applications2U has been Citrix Advisors since 2013 and the company is certified to sell many Citrix products, including Citrix XenApp virtual application delivery, Citrix XenDesktop full virtual desktop solutions and Citrix XenMobile for mobile device management. More information about the services provided by Applications2U can be found by visiting or by directing inquiries to info(at)applications2u.com.

Citrix XenApp Touch Enabled  Just add hopTo. Founded in its current form in 2012, hopTo Inc. is an innovator of a unique mobile workspace platform. The hopTo mobile solution enables customers to transport and transform existing applications with a Mobile App eXperience. hopTo brings a new standard of mobile user experience with custom, touch enabled access to existing Windows and Internet Explorer applications. The company is based in Campbell, CA. For more information on hopTo, please visit: .

hopTo Work was awarded Best of Citrix Synergy 2016 Finalist in the New Technology category. hopTo Work, first launched in November 2014, was built upon hopTos successful consumer application launched in 2013. hopTo Works mobile workspace was the first app to address the challenges of transporting Windows and Internet Explorer applications to mobile devices, delivering a rich user interface to take full advantage of the devices native technologies. hopTo Work continues to offer a secure and flexible mobile workspace on the Citrix and Microsoft platform for transforming and mobilizing existing Windows and IE based applications.

Media contact:

hopTo

408.688.2674
Apogees New 2016 Internship Program Provides Entree Into World of Enterprise Networking

AUSTIN, TX  (Marketwired)  06/23/16  Apogee, higher educations largest ResNet and video solutions provider, today announced its new Summer Internship Program and selection of 15 engineering students for their entree into the world of enterprise networking. The interns  selected from various universities such as the University of Texas at Austin, University at Albany (SUNY), Oklahoma Baptist University, Texas State University, Texas A&M University and Rice University  will receive practical, real-world development experience from one of the leading telecommunications companies in higher education today.

Apogee is committed to the student experience and in creating the ideal internship, said Keesha Galindo, Director of Human Resources at Apogee. Our program is an opportunity to give eager engineering students hands-on experience that will help them attain gainful employment after graduation and exposes them to the industrys best practices in enterprise networking. With this industry growing by leaps and bounds, the Apogee program gives interns a chance to explore and deepen career interests through targeted work assignments, mentoring and training.

The new program provides any level student (freshman to senior) with the opportunity to complete a ten-week paid internship at Apogees Austin-based headquarters. Interns will gain a 360-degree view behind the scenes as they work closely with a three-member support team including a mentor, manager and sponsor. The program includes:

Real-world training to gain relevant work experience in enterprise and residential networking

Rotation within the logistics and procurement, project management and network installation departments

Attendance at executive sponsored meetings, workshops, social events and training sessions

Opportunity to gain valuable insights and contacts that they can take with them throughout their careers

Ability to contribute directly to product feedback and improvement, which will impact the end experiences of thousands of their peers in schools nationwide

Opportunity to be considered for full-time employment

The Apogee Summer Internship Program is open to engineering students currently enrolled full-time in a four-year undergraduate program and have at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA. While all the internships for this years program have been filled, interested future interns can sign up to receive internship opportunities alert by emailing Keesha Galindo at .

Apogee is the largest, most innovative provider of on-campus residential networks (ResNet) and video solutions in higher education. Partnering with Apogee for ResNet services allows colleges and universities to enhance their network infrastructure while offloading the growing volume of administrative responsibilities associated with managing a student network. This partnership allows IT, Business and Housing to focus on the mission-critical tasks of the university. Find out why nine out of 10 schools that outsource their ResNet choose Apogee at .

Media Contact:

Sharon Sim-Krause

415.420.1889
Genesis Technical Systems trial gets gigabit backhaul speeds and 400 Mb/s access broadband over copper infrastructure

Posted by Publisher Telecommunication

Landmark DSL Rings technology from Genesis Technical Systems achieves ground breaking trial results

Coventry, UK and Calgary, Canada  23 June 2016  Genesis Technical Systems has completed trials of its multi-award winning network enhancing DSL Rings technology with leading North American operator, Cincinnati Bell, Inc., achieving backhaul speeds of up to a gigabit and home broadband speeds of up to 400 Mb/s, significantly exceeding pre-trial expectations.

Cincinnati Bell was carrying out the trial on behalf of the newly formed Residential Access Carrier Consortium (RACC), a consortium of operators from North America, Europe and Latin America, which aims to address the requirement for improved broadband in suburban, semi-rural and rural areas using Genesis solutions.

DSL Rings has been put to its toughest test to date, working with a major US carrier where world class solutions and fast broadband speeds are paramount, said Stephen Cooke, Founder and CTO of Genesis Technical Systems. Genesis technologies enable operators to increase broadband performance and offer enhanced services over their existing network, discarding the need to build fibre all the way to the home.

DSL Rings is composed of a Convergence Node (CN) on the physical network; a Home Gateway (HGW) in each house; and Exchange Gateway Software, which monitors all of the rings deployed across the network, which is installed at the local exchange.

The types of services tested and validated included; rate vs. reach; multi-cast; dynamic bandwidth allocation, i.e., fairness; individual data burst transmissions, i.e. demonstrating that individual homes could get access to the full 400 Mb/s, and Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS).

Tests carried out over the network backhaul infrastructure were completed using copper cables used by Cincinnati Bell in their normal network deployments. Network backhaul bandwidths were measured across a maximum of 12 pairs from the Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) to the CN, at distances ranging from 1000-3000ft, at 500ft increments.

Trials tested distribution around the ring to 12 HGWs. These local access routes were connected with standard copper cables, as used by Cincinnati Bell in their network. Network reach between the CN and the HGWs was initially from 160-500ft.

The backhaul network generated aggregate (upstream and downstream) bandwidth of up to one Gigabit. The access network generated aggregate bandwidths of up to 400 Mb/s, providing more than adequate bandwidth capacity for residential use. The trial results further illustrate that bandwidth of up to 600 Mb/s is available to support additional services, such as small cell deployment.

We serve three-states reaching across 2,400 square miles. We are extremely proud of our network and what it gives to our customers  both at work and in their homes, said Tom Simpson, CTO of Cincinnati Bell. This trial has shown, and proven, the capability to bring more than enough bandwidth to customers served by even the most mature parts of our network. Since the FCC recently changed the definition of broadband to increase the minimum speed, these results are good news for those looking to develop their infrastructure to meet the massive increases in bandwidth demand.

The results of the trial at Cincinnati Bell demonstrate the importance of DSL Rings and the opportunities the solution provides for the members of the Residential Access Carrier Consortium, said Peter Khoury, Chief Executive and General Counsel, Genesis Technical Systems. DSL Rings offers RACC members, including those that are Connect America Fund II (CAF II) recipients, a means to bring affordable significant broadband enhancements to customers currently receiving a limited service over their existing networks. The completion of this DSL Rings trial in North America is another significant milestone achievement for Genesis.

Cincinnati Bell provides integrated communications solutions, including local and long distance voice, data, high-speed Internet and video, that keep residential and business customers in Greater Cincinnati and Dayton connected with each other and the world. The company was originally formed in 1883 and installed its first underground cable in 1891.

For more information about Genesis Technical Systems and DSL Rings, please visit: www.genesistechsys.com.
Alliance Memory Launches New 256M High-Speed CMOS SDRAMs in the 86-Pin TSOP II Package

SAN CARLOS, CA  (Marketwired)  06/23/16  today extended its offering of 256M high-speed CMOS synchronous DRAMs (SDRAM) with two new x32 devices in the 86-pin 400-mil plastic TSOP II package.

Internally configured as four banks of 8M word x 32 bits, the high-density provide reliable drop-in, pin-for-pin-compatible replacements for a number of similar solutions in industrial, commercial, medical, telecom, and networking products requiring high memory bandwidth. The SDRAMs offer a synchronous interface, operate from a single +3.3-V (+/- 0.3 V) power supply, and are lead (Pb)- and halogen-free.

The devices released today feature fast access time from clock down to 5.4 ns and clock rates to 166 MHz, and they are available in commercial (0 degrees C to +70 degrees C) and industrial (-40 degrees C to +85 degrees C) temperature ranges. The SDRAMs provide programmable read or write burst lengths of 1, 2, 4, 8, or full page, with a burst termination option. An auto pre-charge function provides a self-timed row pre-charge initiated at the end of the burst sequence. Easy-to-use refresh functions include auto- or self-refresh, while a programmable mode register allows the system to choose the most suitable modes to maximize performance.

The AS4C8M32S-6TIN and AS4C8M32S-7TCN are the latest in Alliance Memorys full line of high-speed SDRAMs, which includes components with densities of 16 Mb, 64 Mb, 128 Mb, 256 Mb, and 512 Mb in the 50-pin TSOP II, 54-pin TSOP II, 54-ball TFBGA, 86-pin TSOP II, and 90-ball TFBGA packages. For Alliance Memory customers, the devices eliminate costly redesigns by providing long-term support for end-of-life (EOL) components. In addition, the company doesnt perform die shrinks, which frees up engineering resources.

Samples and production quantities of the new SDRAMs are available now, with lead times of six to eight weeks for large orders. Pricing for U.S. delivery starts at $3.95 per piece.

Alliance Memory is a worldwide provider of legacy memory products for the communications, computing, consumer electronics, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. The companys product range includes a full range of asynchronous and synchronous SRAMs, low-power SRAMs, ZMD low-power SRAMs, 3.3 V synchronous DRAMs (SDR), mobile DDRs, and 2.5 V single (DDR1), 1.8 V double (DDR2), and 1.5 V & 1.35 V triple rate (DDR3) synchronous DRAMs. Depending on the family, these products are available with commercial, industrial, and automotive operating temperature ranges and with densities from 64K to 8G. Alliance Memory is a privately held company with headquarters in San Carlos, California, and regional offices in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, China, and Southeast Asia. More information about Alliance Memory is available online at .

Bob Decker

Redpines

+1 415 409 0233

Kim Bagby

CFO

+1 650 610 6800
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Ankara hopes that the EU will keep its word about Turkey's membership in the union, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, TRT Haber TV channel reported June 23.

Cavusoglu added that the words of President Erdogan regarding holding a referendum on the EU accession shouldnt be seen as a threat to the EU.

The minister said that the referendum on accession to the EU may be held after the negotiations between the EU and Ankara.

On June 22, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey may hold a referendum on the continuation of negotiations regarding accession to the EU.

The Turkish president also said that Europe doesnt want to accept Turkey because it is a predominantly Muslim country, noting that it is discrimination.

Earlier, the then prime minister and the current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the EU continues to mislead Turkey [on the issue of accession] and this is upsetting to Turkey.

Meanwhile, the Minister for EU Affairs Volkan Bozkir noted that the accession negotiations "cannot continue in the format required by the EU," and stressed that democracy in Turkey is at a higher level than in some European countries.

Ankara submitted its EU membership application in 1987, and negotiations on accession started only in 2005.
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Thirty police officers were detained Thursday in Istanbul-based operations held across 22 Turkish provinces against the Fetullah Gulen Terrorist Organization or FETO, also known as the parallel state.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued an arrest warrant for 41 police officers, including a number of police chiefs.

One of the suspects had already been arrested in a previous anti-parallel state operation, while three others are currently at large, police said.

The suspects are accused of being behind the 2011 death of journalist Haydar Meric, who reportedly was about to write a book critical of Gulen, who is based in the U.S. and wanted by Turkey for extradition.

The suspected police officers were allegedly tapping the journalist, who reportedly belonged to a leftist terrorist group.

Meric was kidnapped in May 2011 in Turkey's central Kirklareli province, and his body was found the next month in the northwestern Duzce province, according to the prosecutor's office.

The detained police officers are also suspected of having covered up evidence of the journalist's murder.

Police continue to investigate the incident.

The Fetullah Terrorist Organization is led by U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, who is accused of attempting to overthrow the Turkish government through a network of supporters, known as Gulenists, within state institutions.
JUNE 22, 2016

AZGFD receives grant monies from GOHS



PHOENIX -- Arizona Game and Fish Department officers will have an enhanced law enforcement presence to keep our waterways and forest roads safer this summer, thanks to grant funding from the Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS).



Game and Fish officers will conduct and participate in multi-agency task force and saturation patrol efforts, looking for persons operating their OHVs, ATVs and watercraft under the influence (OUI) of drugs or alcohol. Additional targeted patrol efforts have been made possible by overtime grant funding provided by GOHS. The funding also enabled the purchase of breath testing instruments that will be issued to officers and used during these operations.



"GOHS Director Alberto Gutier has always been supportive of our efforts and recognizes the public safety dangers of impaired operation of any recreational vehicle, as well as the importance of passenger safety regulations, including helmets and lap belts for OHV users," said Tim Baumgarten, the law enforcement programs coordinator for Arizona Game and Fish.



Together with county sheriffs' offices and federal law enforcement agencies, Game and Fish officers will be on the lookout for OHV and watercraft operators violating passenger safety who are found to be operating while impaired or above Arizonas DUI/OUI legal limit of a .08 blood-alcohol concentration.



During these patrols, OHV users and boaters may be required to pass through a checkpoint and be subject to a systematic safety inspection. Operators will be checked for any sign of impairment from alcohol or drugs, and officers will ensure the operator has the required safety equipment, such as helmets, lap belts, life jackets and working fire extinguishers, where applicable.



"Our main goal is to raise public awareness so people who are enjoying Arizona's forests and waterways do so safely and responsibly, and to help prevent an avoidable incident that may have a tragic outcome," said Baumgarten. "Nationally and in Arizona, alcohol is the number one contributing factor to all boating fatalities."



Baumgarten pointed out that people who consume alcohol and operate a boat are ten times more likely to be involved in a boating collision because of reduced inhibition, inattention, taking more chances and seeking more thrills.



Before heading out, OHV users and boaters should review all laws and regulations prior to unloading. OHV/UTV users should make sure all passengers use their lap belt; passengers under 18 years of age must wear a helmet. Watercraft users should make sure to have a U.S. Coast Guard-approved lifejacket for every individual onboard and that everyone 12 years and younger is wearing a life jacket.



Boats must also have a working fire extinguisher and a type IV throwable personal floatation device (PFD) on board.



For more information on boating in Arizona or to sign up for a boating safety course (some are free, some involve a fee), visit www.azgfd.gov/boating. For more information on off-highway vehicle recreation in Arizona or to find information on OHV safety courses (most involve a fee), visit www.azgfd.gov/ohv.



The Arizona Game and Fish Department receives NO Arizona general fund tax dollars? We hold the state's wildlife in trust for the public without a dime from Arizona taxpayers. Visit https://azgfdportal.az.gov/Agency/Funds.
At least one person was killed and 12, including three servicemen, were injured on Thursday in a car bombing by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on a military base in the Turkish southeastern Mardin province, local media reported.

The victim was identified as a 39-year-old civilian lorry driver, Halil Ibrahim Sevimli, who was driving by the military base at the time of the blast, Anadolu news agency said, citing a military source. Those injured were hospitalized.

The Turkish military commenced an operation to bust the attackers.

Violence in Turkey escalated in mid-2015, when the Turkish government launched a military campaign against the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, in the country's southeast.
JUNE 22, 2016

Bioactive film improves how implants bond with bone in animal study



Researchers have developed a technique for coating polymer implants with a bioactive film that significantly increases bonding between the implant and surrounding bone in an animal model. The advance could significantly improve the success rate of such implants, which are often used in spinal surgeries. The work was done by researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of Cambridge and the University of Texas at San Antonio.



The polymer in question is called polyether ether ketone or PEEK, which has mechanical properties similar to bone, making it attractive for use in spinal implants. However, PEEK doesnt bond well with bone. To that end, researchers had previously developed a technique for coating PEEK with a substance called hydroxyapatite (HA), which is a calcium phosphate that bonds well with bone. Proof-of-concept studies were promising, but researchers were then only able to apply the HA coating to flat surfaces and had not tested HA-coated implants in an animal model.



We can now use our technique to coat the entire surface of an implant, and testing HA-coated implants in an animal model has given us very promising results, says Afsaneh Rabiei, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper on the work.



The first step of the HA-coating technique  which was developed in Rabieis lab  coats a PEEK implant with a thin film of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The second step applies a coating of HA. The researchers then heat the HA layer using microwaves. The YSZ layer acts as a heat shield, preventing the PEEK from melting. Meanwhile, the heat gives the HA a crystalline structure that makes it more stable in the body, meaning that the calcium phosphate will dissolve more slowly  promoting bonding with surrounding bone.



In their new study, researchers tested three types of PEEK implants in a rabbit model: PEEK implants with no coating; PEEK implants with an HA coating treated only with microwaves; and PEEK implants with an HA coating treated with both microwaves and brief exposure to an autoclave in order to enhance the HAs crystalline structure.



The researchers used microscopic evaluations of tissue cells and three-dimensional X-ray imaging to assess the performance of all three types of implants. Eighteen weeks after surgery, the researchers found that both types of HA-coated implants had more than double the bone formation of PEEK alone, with comparable bone density. The HA-treated implants also had higher bone-to-implant contact ratios than PEEK alone.



These results indicated an improved implant fixation in the body, decreasing the chances of loosening of the implant after surgery and the need for revision surgery to remove and replace the implant, Rabiei says. This improvement is due to increased regenerated bone volume around coated implants compared to uncoated PEEK.



The researchers also did biomechanical testing on the implants, assessing their toughness, or how well the implant bonded to the surrounding bone. To test this, the researchers conducted what is called biomechanical push-out testing, in which force is applied to an implant until it is dislodged. These results are measured in terms of work as Newton millimeters (N-mm).



At 18 weeks, it took approximately 299.1 N-mm of work to dislodge implants coated with microwave-treated HA and about 312.5 N-mm to dislodge implants coated with microwave and autoclave-treated HA. This compares to about 183.9 N-mm of work needed to dislodge unmodified PEEK implants.



It is notable that these results were achieved on completely smooth surfaces of PEEK, while our subsequent studies have indicated that by slightly increasing the surface roughness of PEEK prior to coating, we can accomplish even higher adhesion strength of two-layer HA/YSZ coatings that would require even higher work to dislodge, Rabiei says.



Whether looking at bone growth or toughness, HA-coated samples outperformed uncoated PEEK implants, Rabiei says. This treatment will probably increase the cost of an implant marginally, but should help minimize the need for follow-up surgeries  which means HA-treated implants will more than pay for themselves over time.



And the extent of the cost increase remains unclear, Rabiei adds. We are not aware of any health risks associated with HA or YSZ  both of which are used in devices already approved by the FDA for long-term implantation. As a result, we may not need additional clinical trials before HA-coated implants can be used in clinical practice. Were investigating that now, and are looking for industry partners to help us commercialize the technique.



The paper, Hydroxyapatite coating on PEEK implants: biomechanical and histological study in a rabbit model, is published online in the journal Materials Science and Engineering C. Lead author of the paper is John Durham, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State. Co-authors are Matthew Allen of Cambridge; and Sergio Montelongo, Joo Ong and Teja Guda of UT-San Antonio. The work was supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health under award number R21DE022925.




By Cate Kortzeborn | JUNE 22, 2016

Its never too late to quit smoking!





Its never too late to quit smoking. While it's best to stop as early as possible, kicking the smoking habit at any age will enhance the length and quality of your life.



As soon as you stop, your body begins to repair the damage caused by smoking. You'll also save money and you wont have to run outside your home or office every time the urge to light up hits you!



Medicare now covers counseling sessions to help you stop smoking, even if you haven't been diagnosed with an illness caused by tobacco use. You pay nothing for smoking cessation counseling, as long as you get it from a doctor or other qualified provider who accepts Medicare reimbursement.



Many state Medicaid programs cover smoking cessation services as well.



Smoking tobacco can cause many diseases, including heart disease, respiratory diseases, and lung cancer -- the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. More than 56 million Americans still smoke tobacco, but quitting can reduce your risk of getting these diseases.



So if you have Medicare or Medicaid, make a note to talk with your doctor about quitting. Medicare covers eight face-to-face smoking cessation counseling sessions during a 12-month period.



What happens in these sessions? Your doctor may follow the "5 A's" approach: ask patients about their smoking habits; advise them to quit; assess their willingness to quit; assist their attempts to quit; and arrange follow-up.



To help you get off and stay off tobacco, your physician may prescribe one of seven antismoking drugs currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Medicare often covers such medications under its Part D prescription drug program.



What are the health benefits of not smoking? Heres what you'll experience, according to the American Lung Association:



20 minutes after quitting:

Your heart rate drops to a normal level.



12 hours after quitting:

The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.



2 weeks to 3 months after quitting:

Your risk of having a heart attack begins to drop.

Your lung function begins to improve.



1 to 9 months after quitting:

Your coughing and shortness of breath decrease.



1 year after quitting:

Your added risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.



5 to 15 years after quitting:

Your risk of having a stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker's.

Your risk of getting cancer of the mouth, throat, or esophagus is half that of a smoker's.



10 years after quitting:

Your risk of dying from lung cancer is about half that of a smoker's.

Your risk of getting bladder cancer is half that of a smoker's.

Your risk of getting cervical cancer or cancer of the larynx, kidney, or pancreas decreases.



15 years after quitting:

Your risk of coronary heart disease is the same as that of a nonsmoker.



For more information on kicking the habit, visit www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/tobacco/help-quitting-fact-sheet.
Guest Editorial



By Matt Barber | JUNE 22, 2016

A 'gay' Muslim Democrat walks into a bar 

Sadly, its no joke.



In the wake of the Orlando ISIS bloodbath, the rational world now gazes through the looking glass, jaws agape, into the up-is-down, male-is-female, Muslim-is-Christian alternate universe in which resides Americas caterwauling left.



We have entered an age that George Orwell might never have imagined. Todays American Socialist Party (the secular left) has applied the doublethink mind-control technique on a grand scale. Its slogan?



An Islamic terrorist (a closeted homosexual, according to friends and ex-wife), registered Democrat and admitted Islamic State jihadi enters a gay bar wherein, reportedly, he regularly cruised for random homosexual hook-ups, and slaughters 49 infidels.



Naturally, secular progressives, to include the New York Times editorial board, have, rather than addressing the Allahu Akbar-yelping camel in the tent, twisted themselves into tiny little knots of self-righteous indignation to somehow blame American Christians, Republicans and the NRA. (I address this surreal phenomenon exhaustively in in my new book, Hating Jesus: The American Lefts War on Christianity.



Ban guns? No thank you, comrade. There are as many guns in America as people  over 300 million. While were at it lets ban beer steins and put an end to drunk driving. Christians to blame? Such farcical pablum tells us more about the liberals who believe it than it does a single Christian. (As if they really do believe it. Nobodys that stupid. This is Alinskyite propaganda with a purpose.)



One thing and one thing alone is responsible for the deaths of 49 club-going revelers  precious souls, each  last Sunday in Orlando. It is the global menace of Islam: a despotic socio-political system based on the incoherent and pseudo-religious ravings of a warring tyrant who, as even the Quran concedes, was a murderous anti-Semite and anti-Christian misogynist and pedophile, hell-bent on world domination (Islamic caliphate).



In reality, Christ and his followers deeply love the LGBT-identified community enough to tell them the truth about a sin-centric lifestyle that leads to emotional, spiritual and, with rampant AIDS, syphilis and other STDs increasingly endemic to the lifestyle, even physical death. We pray that each and every person who identifies as LGBT might come to repentance and salvation through Christ Jesus, who is the only Way to eternal Life.



By contrast, Allah the deceiver and his followers kill homosexuals, not out of hate, though it is hateful, but out of compassion. They actually believe theyre being compassionate by killing gays because the Quran and the imams tell them so. (Mateen most likely targeted his fellow gays in an attempt to garner absolution from Allah for sodomy).



Indeed, even after Sundays horror, the dhimmi left nonetheless defiantly, and obtusely, refuses to acknowledge the scourge of orthodox Islam. They prefer, for both political and spiritual reasons, to vilify Christian homophobes, Republicans and the NRA.



Even so, beyond the Orlando slaughter, homosexuals continue to be, at this moment, lawfully executed in Saudi Arabia, Obamas coddled Iran and dozens of other Muslim nations across the globe. Were all victims of Islam, you see. Muslim nations summarily hang, stone and behead both Christians and homosexuals. Were all persecuted  sinners and saints (one and the same)  and will only become more so as incompetent (dare I say seditious?) Western leaders like Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton aimlessly tilt at windmills.



Islamic Shariah law requires the persecution of all non-Muslims. Curiously, its the same cowardly leftists disingenuously accusing Christians of anti-gay hate stateside who remain silent while homosexuals are, in point of fact, regularly executed by Muslims both abroad and, as of Orlando, right here at home.



This is due to the fact that orthodox Christians, who are spiritually imbued with the love of Christ, are perceived as soft targets by both progressives and Muslims, while orthodox Muslims, who are spiritually imbued with the hate of Muhammad, are not.



In other words, bullies steer clear from picking fights with bigger bullies.



But its also because Christ is Truth. Truth is the enemy of progressivism, just as Truth is the enemy of Islam. They each derive from the same antichrist spirit. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.



Yet somehow orthodox Muslims missed the Hey-were-on-the-same-side-here! memo. While, as weve seen yet again, politically correct progressives will trip over themselves to avoid criticizing Islam and, with perplexing incongruity, even promote it, adherents to the religion of peace will gleefully murder the poor lemmings while they do so.



Muhammad taught, and the Quran stresses, that a central tenet of Islam is to convert, enslave or kill the infidel. An infidel is anyone who is not Muslim or, depending on whos doing the killing, belongs to a different sect of Islam. Those who fall into that elusive, perpetually mute category tagged moderate Muslim are also infidels or idolaters. Theyre bad Muslims, and, so, according to the Quran, not Muslims at all. When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them, commands Surah 9:5. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. Faithful Muslims, true followers of Muhammad, slay the idolaters wherever [they] find them (see ISIS, Hamas, Omar Mateen, et al.).



Its what faithful Muslims do.



On the other hand, Jesus taught His followers, who are called Christians, to do to others what you would have them do to you (see Luke 6:31); that, You shall not murder (see Matthew 19:18); and that we are to love [our] enemies and pray for those who persecute [us] (see Matthew 5:44). It goes without saying that those who do not follow these teachings are not Christ followers.



Indeed, while many may claim to be Christian, the word only applies to those who are justified in Christ, spiritually reborn and regenerated through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. The true Christian walks in Christs steps through faith and obedience.



Terrorism and the hatred of persons are in direct disobedience to Christ.



Yet they are in direct obedience to Muhammad.



Whereas Muslim extremists, that is, faithful Muslims, kill people extremely, Christian extremists, that is, faithful Christians, love people, including their enemies, extremely.

As Ive said before, Islam is Christianitys photo-negative. While Christianity brings eternal life to those choosing to surrender to Jesus, who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life, Islam brings eternal death to those who surrender to Allah, who is the best of deceivers ([A]nd Allah was deceptive, for Allah is the best of deceivers. [see Surah 3:54]).



And so, to those in the LGBT-identified community, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, the New York Times and other progressives who have smeared, and continue to smear, Christian Americans in the blood of 49 souls who died at the hands of ISIS in Orlando, know this: We dont hate you. We grieve with you and are praying for you in this shared time of national tragedy.



We also love you.



And we forgive you.



Because you know not what you do.



Matt Barber is founder and editor-in chief of BarbWire.com. He is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. (Follow Matt on Twitter: @jmattbarber).
Guest Editorial





By Robert Romano | June 22, 2016

Of course a president can issue travel restrictions

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has doubled down on his call for a halt in immigration from regions where radical Islam flourishes, in a June 13 speech at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire in response to the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida.



"The immigration laws of the United States give the President the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the President deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate," said Trump.



"I will use this power to protect the American people. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats. After a full, impartial and long overdue security assessment, we will develop a responsible immigration policy that serves the interests and values of America," Trump added.





Here, Trump is referring to 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), a broad grant of power by Congress under the heading, "Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President," which states, "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline."



In fact, there are currently 16 such presidential travel restrictions in place against certain countries.



The proclamations currently in effect are the Belarus Proclamation 8015, the Bosnia Proclamation 6749, the Combat Trafficking In Persons Proclamation 8342, the Corruption Proclamation 7750, the Cuba Proclamation 5377, the Haiti Proclamation 6685, the High Seas Interdiction Proclamation 4865, the Human Rights Proclamation 8697, the Lebanon Proclamation 8158, the Presidential Proclamation 8693, Travel Bans, the Serbia and Montenegro Proclamation 7249, the Sierra Leone Proclamation 7062, the Sierra Leone Proclamation 7359, the Sudan Proclamation 6958, the Western Balkans Proclamation 7452, and the Zimbabwe Proclamation 7524.



At least one of those proclamations dates back to 1981. And President Barack Obama is no stranger to these restrictions, either. He has issued two.



But how did Obama respond to Trump's statement calling for closing U.S. borders to terror hotspots? "It betrays the very values America stands for," said Obama, pushing back against Trump's proposal. As if a president lacked requisite authority to do so.



"We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America," said Obama.



Yet, as Trump noted in his speech, his call is actually broader than that now, calling for a "[suspension of] immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism" Which, the law of the land allows any president to do exactly that, to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."



There need not be any religious test. A president could shut down the borders altogether if that was his or her wish, whenever it is found "that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States."



So what is Obama talking about?



Trump acknowledged that his proposal would not have stopped the Orlando killer necessarily, a U.S. citizen born here but whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan. "Yes, there are many radicalized people already inside our country as a result of the poor policies of the past," he said, adding, "But the whole point is that it will be much, much easier to deal with our current problem if we don't keep on bringing in people who add to the problem."



Is that really so unreasonable?



It wouldn't be the first time. In World War II, then-President Franklin Roosevelt issued nation-based travel restrictions against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. How is Trump's call that much different?



Until such time that authorities can get a better handle on the danger posed from radical Islam abroad and here at home, broader travel restrictions may be warranted until the war is over.



But let's not pretend that this represents some great threat to American values. Travel restrictions, such as were enacted in World War II, or anticipated under 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) are simply restrictions against areas that happen to be at war with us, who we are under no obligation to take in. It is a policy choice  and one that may prove necessary in the coming days to keep the Americans of all races and religions safe. Our borders don't have to be open. Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.



Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
Candidate Forum at Town Hall

Monday, June 27 at 7 p.m

I thank the Sonoran News for providing a forum to introduce the candidates for mayor and council to Cave Creek citizens.



Several aspects of the Sonoran News forum make this a unique opportunity for Cave Creek voters. In the past, The Arizona Republic has sponsored forums, but has not provided that service in recent elections. In fact, they no longer have a reporter assigned to cover Cave Creek and The Arizona Republic seldom reports about issues in our community.



Dan Baxley is an excellent choice as the moderator. Dan has provided leadership in the community for many years. He also demonstrated skill and impartiality moderating the last Sonoran News forum.



As in the past, the Sonoran News forum will honor its history of occurring on neutral ground with the Town Hall venue. In former elections a group of candidates have held public forums they conducted and in a venue they paid for. That practice can bias a forum. As Cave Creek's local newspaper, Sonoran News serves the whole community.



Thomas McGuire

Councilman



Back

Invitation to Forum Candidates

Don, your arrogance never ceases to astound me. Have you really studied at the Hillary Clinton school of politics?



"I will provide these forms to all attendees and collect the questions for Dan to use:"



How can you refer to this political event as a public forum if you are going to screen the questions to be asked of the candidates in advance? Do you really believe the people of Cave Creek are so naive we would believe our questions would be presented as written? Or that your selected candidates won't be prepared in advance?



This is a joke.



A forum is of public interest, not Don's interest.



FORUM: noun  a meeting or assembly for the open discussion of subjects of public interest.



Public interest, not subjects of Don's interest.



Joe DeFazio

Cave Creek



Editor note: For more than 20 years, it has been the assigned duty of someone to accept the questions from forum attendees, de-duplicate them, screen them for foul language, those asked of all candidates, etc. before placing them in the hands of the MC, whose role it is to make the event happen.

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Respect for Americans murdered in Orlando

I write to pay homage to the 49 innocent and gentle Americans who were murdered, and 50 others innocent Americans who were wounded in Orlando in the 86th terrorists attack on American soil by another Radical Islamic Terrorists.



Unfortunately, few Americans are aware that Radical Islamic Terrorists have been attacking and/or killing hundreds of Americans citizens on US soil for the last 8 years; those attacks have been covered up by the left of center liberal media establishment, and the threat continues to be minimized and underestimated by the occupant of the Oval Office.



The United States has been under attack from coast to coast in places like Sacramento, Houston, Philadelphia, San Bernardino, Times Square, Moore, Detroit, Boise, Little Rock, Fort Hood Texas, Portland-ME, Chattanooga, Garland, Boston, Portland-OR, Minneapolis, Merced, Missouri, Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Washington-DC, Orlando, Oklahoma, and many more cities too numerous to list here.



The FBI has over 1000 open cases on Radical Islamic Terrorists planning attacks against Americans on US soil. To date 100 ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorist plots have been broken up by the FBI, resulting in the arrests of over 180 ISIS Muslim Refugees and Radical Islamic Terrorists from across the United States



We are saddened at the loss of any American lives to murderous attacks by Radical Islamic Terrorists who have Declared War Against the United States, and those terrorists have been employing bombs, knives, planes, and guns in 86 Terrorist Attacks to kill Americans on US soil.



We encourage very aggressive action by the US Armed Forces against Radical Islamic Terrorist, ISIS, Al Qaeda in their overseas bases of operations to put them on the defensive and eradicate the terrorist threat.



We also encourage the Obama administration to allow the FBI to interview all entering Middle East and African Refugees to determine if they have terrorist ties, before they are allowed to be resettled in 180 cities across the United States; to date Obama has allowed 915,000 Middle East and African Refugees to be resettled in the United States without allowing the FBI to vet their backgrounds to determine if they have terrorist ties.



We observe Flag Day again this year, and under the Flag of the United States, pay our respects to every American killed by Radical Islamic Terrorists as a result of their Declared War Against the United States.



Joseph R. John, USNA 62 Capt

USN(Ret)/Formere FBI

Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC

2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184 San Diego, CA 92108 http://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org https://www.facebook.com/combatveteransforcongress?ref=hl



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History Lesson on Political Correctness

Don, thought your readers might enjoy this.



What is meant by the modern term referred to as Political Correctness?



These 4 telegrams found at the Truman Library and Museum [Independence, MO] may be the first reference and definition of this doctrine by a sitting President. It is not clear who came up with the doctrinehowever, it is crystal clear what is meant when using the termGive him, hell, Harrydidnt mince words.



The contents of these 4 telegrams are exactly as received at the end of the war  not a word has been added or deleted.



1. Tokyo, Japan 0800- September 1, 1945

To: President Harry S. Truman

From: Gen. DA MacArthur

Tomorrow we meet with those yellow-bellied bastards and sign the Surrender Documents, any last minute instructions?



2. Washington DC  1300- September 1, 1945

To: General DA MacArthur

From: HS Truman

Congratulations, job well done, but you must tone down your obvious dislike of the Japanese when discussing , the terms of the surrender with the press, because Some of your remarks are fundamentally not politically correct!



3. Tokyo, Japan 1630- September 1, 1945

To: H S Truman

From: D A MacArthur and C H Nimitz

Wilco Sir, but both Chester and I are somewhat confused, exactly what does the term politically correct mean?



4. Washington DC  2120  September 1, 1945

To: DA MacArthur/CH Nimitz

From: HS Truman

Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical Minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the Proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end!



There you have it, direct from the horses mouth. And, everyone knows where the buck used to stopWebster couldnt have said it better.



G. Compton

Scottsdale





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Liberals want our guns? Really? Give me a minute to compose myself.

When was the last time they passed a piece of legislation that didn't completely screw us over after they had bent, shaped and manhandled it into something other than what they solemnly proposed?



Do remember the atrocity by the name of the "Affordable" Care Act



Do you recall the promises made?



Do you remember the savings promised?



Do you remember the guaranty of improved care?



Do you remember the lies boldly spoken by Obama at the State of the Union?



Do you remember that after the fact, it came out that it was planned all along because we were considered gullible and easy to manipulate?



Are you still bleeding from the screwing you received?



Are you really stupid enough to trust those proven liars to do what they say this time?



Are you stupid enough to rely on them to protect your family?



Are you aware of how long it takes to have 911 to respond to a threat?



I can tell you this with total certainty, no matter how fast 911 claims they can respond, it is not fast enough when it's your life and the lives of your loved ones that are at risk.



Here's a plan. Why don't they go and clean up Chicago and every other sewer where there are too many guns in the hands of criminals that have too few brain cells? Disarming criminals, now that would actually do some good. Why didn't they think of that? It's not exactly brain surgery.



No matter how they twist and turn it, every shooting is carried out by a mentally unstable criminal, every time. Think about that.



The Revolutionary War was fought because of treatment that was far less egregious than the treatment we, the U.S. citizens, receive from Congress and the lying condescending gas bag in the White House.



Do not get taken in by the ongoing misdirection and lies being spewed out in an attempt to manipulate and disarm us, while only lip service was given to the 103 unarmed souls that were murdered and wounded in a "gun free zone."



Stand up, Speak up, Refuse to be Silenced!



Tom Carbone

Cave Creek



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Why One Day and Not The Other ?

Why one day and not the other I ask? Follow me now ?



Most will agree that commercial jets, along with many military jets, fly precisely the same schedule each and every day. So, an 8:15 AM flight to Las Vegas can be caught on any day on any month unless they change the flight time. If that be the case then why on some days can you view a myriad of Chemtrails over Phoenix and the valley ? It is agreed that planes fly the same schedule right, then why one day and not the other I ask ?



In the early 2000's Carefree led a campaign to halt jet traffic over Carefree. If many in Carefree were that awfully concerned about the noise factor why aren't they (and YOU Don) concerned about the Chemtrail crap that is being dumped on by these high flyers.



Now don't be telling me these are CONTRAILS because if you do, your argument does not hold water. Contrails fall behind the jet's exhaust for a short distance. Whereas, Chemtrails go all the way across the sky and literally form into wide spreading cloud formations.



Congress discreetly passed a law in the 1990's giving the Air Force permission to experiment with aerosol spraying but most brain-dead zombies don't know that. And, most of these same morons look up at the sky and think nothing of the long streaking clouds being made by jet aircraft.



I implore you to do a simple search on the internet re: "Chemtrails" and you will find that this is an ongoing program in which a pourage of very bad stuff is being purposely dumped on us under the pretense that it is for global warming. Materials such as Aluminum, Barium, Radioactive Strontium, and Magnesium just to name a very few.



My wife and I are extremely cognizant of the weather patterns here in Phoenix. On May 11th, 12th and 14th we were bombarded with Chemtrails on those days. The sky with literally filled with them. From May 11th through just last week, there was a hideous sort of haze that hung over the valley and just at the end of last week it began to clear.



I notified every major Phx TV station and Steve Irvin was nice enough to get back with me calling me a conspiracy theorist. The day after my emails, April on TV 3 made it a point to call the haze "smoke from all the fires." She assumed this in spite of shifting winds each and every day. During the 6 week period that the haze remained over the valley there were tremendous floods in S. Texas and a string of extremely violent tornadoes in the Midwest US.



I've read the Sonoran News since 2000 and the one thing I know is that you are absolutely no stranger to controversy. That be the case I believe that this is an extremely newsworthy story because it is and WILL affect the health of each and every one of us. Both you and I know what has been going on now for 7 1/2 years. Why would the spraying of deadly stuff be any different ?



The question is what are they up to? The other question, even more important, is: Why One Day and Not The Other? Why, on one day we see a brilliant blue sky and the very next day dozens and dozens of Chemtrails ?



Thank you and please cover this story will you ?



Cordially,

Gary j. Zalimeni

Carefree



According to PVT South

Dearly Beloved, all We The People have to do now is pick a sound VP for both sides of the aisle. For Trump it is a no brainer, Newt Gingrich is a close friend to him who was a member of Congress and later became House Speaker. (Newt also holds a PhD in American History) That is a landslide ticket if there ever was one. Hillary has Elizabeth Warren and the Democrats think she is wonderful, but PVT South figured The Queen would pick a Hispanic for obvious reasons. (Two Queens on the same ticket is a liberal dream come true)



California is full of gay nightclubs, so if one or two more get shot up before the November elections Queen Hillary won't even carry that state. Obama and Hillary keep talking about gun control, (They also blame the NRA for Orlando) but We The People have no idea what the majority of the folks think. Could Congress make a federal law that gives you automatic jail time for having a hand gun in your possession without a permit and more time if used in a crime? How about the death penalty, or if you are arrested and your picture winds up in the local paper? And how about women in the military and women in combat? Why not ask the folks in New York, LA, Detroit, Chicago and Orlando. The ACLU would not be happy with those questions, but they can (kiss my grits). (PVT South is a member of the NRA)



Now we have a Fox News headline that Trump is behind Hillary by 12 points, what a croc. That information came from Bloomberg News. OKBloomberg was Mayor of New York and changed from Democrat to Republican so he could run after Giuliani. Bloomberg is a billionaire and basically a Democrat, so go figure, the information he puts out will have a Democratic slant to it.



One final thought--In the past PVT South made a list of 13 important issues for Congress to consider. Number 13, and my favorite, to pay all members of Congress Super Star wages to attract better qualified people. An example would be a salary of $100,000 a month. (Remember the old saying, you get what you pay for?) Here is an added bonus--Number 1. Raising the legal driving age to 18 in all 50 States. (How about that.) Have a nice day and keep your powder dry.



PVT South

Email

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American and Mexican hypocrisy

The second most important Mexican source of income, after petrochemicals and before tourism, is what is known as las remesas, or "the remittances" made by illegal aliens working for cash in the USA. Every Central American, African, Middle Eastern, etc.transient who enters Mexico through its southern border and departs unmolested through its northern border into the USA means one less source of remesas for Mexico.



Hypocrites in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the corrupt Mexican government (down to municipal level) collude to ensure that mojados enjoy a monopoly on cheap cash-based, tax-free jobs in El Norte.



Mexico does not like other dog pissing on her tree, and brutally enforces her immigration laws on her southern border: rape, shakedown, battery, torture, mayhem, la mordida (aka baksheesh in Arabic) and murder are the daily menu.



Huh! Not a word about violation of human rights by our State Department! Time for a change in November.



Reference: http://www.msnbc.com/specials/migrant-crisis/mexico



J-P. A. Maldonado

Lafayette, Colorado



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Lights are going out all over Europe:

In view of what just happened in a gay nightclub in Orlando, the speech below indicates that Americas problems arising from Muslim extremism arent yet as bad as what the once great nations of Europe are facing. Ive followed the author, Mr. Wilders for some time now, mostly noting that our media generally classifies him as a bigot and a racist. He is neither.



I fear were witnessing what Prof. Samuel Huntington called The Clash of Cultures. For this, Prof. Samuelson was also denounced as a bigot and a racist. He was neither. Indeed, he was a life-long Democrat, who acted as faculty advisor to the Harvard Young Democrats for many years, and who served in the Carter administration.



Let me add something tangential to the matter at hand. President Obama, and president-wanna-be, Mrs. Clinton, took the horror of Orlando as an opportunity to call for more gun control. Baloney! Rather than justifying more gun control, what happened in that Orlando night club provides a lesson on why sane, law abiding Americans should be encouraged to be armed. Just think what would have happened if a few of the night club patrons packed heat, and knew how to shoot. That murderous bastard, Omar Mateen, would have been taken out after his first few shots. Maybe five, instead of 49, would have been killed.



Bill Sumner



True on snopes

Visit http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wilders.asp for the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem. He is a Dutch Member of Parliament.



Dear Friends,



Thank you very much for inviting me. I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world.



There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic.



We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.



First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.



The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.



All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.



There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: We Rule.



Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseilles and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammad is the most popular name among boys in many cities.



In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the Swine, and that very thought would be an insult to Muslims.



Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.



In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Jewish people or the Holocaust can no longer be taught or made mention of because of Muslim sensitivity.



In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking Ale during the Ramadan.



Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.



A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhardt Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.



Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few if any signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate.



Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.



The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority.



We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.



Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators settler's. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.



Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.



The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammad himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is very bad.



Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is Sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.



Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz. Second because it is a democracy. And third because Israel is our first line of defense.



This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.



The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.



Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, a paper tiger and doomed.



The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything.



So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islam as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing.



The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.



Dear friends, Liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.



We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic barbarism and stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.



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How soon we, or the media, forget.

The "Greatest Boxer of All Time"A lot of people have this title confused.The Greatest Boxer of All Time didn't die recently...he died 47 years ago.He didn't have 5 losses, he had 0.He didn't have 37 Knock Outs he had 43 (88%).He didn't dodge the draft.He wasn't a race baiter and sure as hell didn't convert to islam.He was a local kid named Rocky Marciano aka The Brockton Blockbuster (49-0).Don't let mainstream media idolize false prophets.When he was asked on TV if he could've knocked out Ali in his prime his response was oh so classical!! "Id be conceited if I said I could've, but I'd be a liar if I said I couldn't"
My View



BY DON SORCHYCH | JUNE 22, 2016

The desert and its denizens

The heat is tough on desert wildlife. This time of year is when the animals and birds, even snakes and lizards, search for water and food.



I received a call from a woman who was offended by a press release we published on June 1. It is titled, Feeding wildlife a selfish act that can lead to bigger problems, and Officials warn Arizonans to think twice before luring wildlife with food.



The complaining lady bought none of it and spoke about how friendly the javelinas were that she regularly fed. When I was young, hunting magazines covers showed teeth gnashing javelinas charging men and the stories of their aggressiveness building on the cover paintings. Not true. However, if you get near them when they have young, watch out.





Once I opened the door at night to let my sweet and loyal dog, RCA Victoria, out to potty and before I knew it she raced by to escape the javelina chasing her. Another tried to bite my leg and tore my pants. I went in the house and turned on the porch light to find four javelinas and three babies out there.



The caller said a javelina came by that was skin and bones. She fed it and it became healthy and left. Sometime later, she said, the javelina returned and knocked on the door. She said it had brought its family to meet her.



OK. Maybe.



That notwithstanding, it is illegal to feed wild animals for good reason. There are also numerous organizations that will heal wild animals, birds etc. and return them to the wild.



Shari Jo and I live on the edge of civilization but we dont feed the animals or birds that surround us. We do have water sources however, so we see coyotes, bobcats, an occasional mountain lion, foxes, mule deer, squirrels and rabbits in addition to javelinas.



On the bird side we see hawks, roadrunners, Gambels Quail and dozens of other species.



Roadrunners are our favorites with quail a close second. Roadrunners are predators, not good flyers, but can run like the wind. Roadrunners nested in our yard although we have never seen a roadrunner baby. One used to come to our bedroom sliding doors and fight with his reflection, pecking and clawing his own image.



Once Shari Jo saw a male roadrunner approach a standing female roadrunner and transfer a small snake from his mouth to hers before they mated. The female carried it off, apparently to enjoy alone.



A friend from Florida called to schedule a quail hunt here. I told him if he had a firsthand look at their families he wouldnt shoot them anymore. We discussed a friend who went goose hunting. He killed a goose and its mate circled and circled out of range. He asked the guide what was going on and the guide said geese mate for life and the goose was grieving. My friend quit hunting.



Gambels Quail mate for life and, sadly, if a quail loses its life partner the one left behind is excluded from daily covey activity.



Gambels are great parents. They nest on the ground and lay about a dozen eggs. When they hatch, the baby quail look like an acorn with legs. They grow fast but they are a favorite of predators. I have seen roadrunners with baby quail in their beaks several times. But male quail are good dads and they will fight to protect their babies.



When a pair come for water with babies, the female herds the babies while the male will watch and protect them. After drinking they are led by the mama with daddy watching from behind and keeping them together. Last Sunday, I was outside with my dog Emily when suddenly a roadrunner appeared running for his life with a male Gambels Quail inches from the roadrunners behind. The roadrunner saw me, quickly pivoted and went the other way with the quail still inches away. I followed the trail they were on and found a black, 12-inch, roadrunner tail feather on the ground. My theory is the quail was protecting his flock of babies. If you get to know the wildlife here you will slow down when driving.



I am not against hunting and I am a gun fan. And I dont regret all the trophies on my walls. The trophies all connect to memories with people who were close friends. To say I miss them is an understatement.
June 22, 2016

Border Report





Yuma Border Patrol agents arrest drug, human smugglers







Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents arrested smugglers transporting humans and more than $167,000 in narcotics during separate incidents over a three-day period.



On June 16, agents apprehended a male U.S. citizen and three foreign nationals after finding more than 5 pounds of methamphetamine, valued in excess of $26,000, and a loaded handgun during a traffic stop near Wikieup. The passengers, a Honduran national and two Mexican nationals, were determined to be in the U.S. illegally.



Early June 18, agents arrested a male Mexican national illegally present in the U.S. after stopping a vehicle observed circumventing the checkpoint by passing through Dome Valley. Agents also discovered and seized approximately 214 pounds of marijuana, valued at more than $96,000, in the vehicles trunk.



On June 20, agents arrested a male Mexican national at the Border Patrol checkpoint on the eastbound lanes of Interstate 8, east of Yuma. The driver of the vehicle was referred to secondary inspection after a Border Patrol agent observed suspicious behavior. Agents performing a follow-up search with a canine discovered 23 pounds of methamphetamine, worth more than $69,000, concealed in the vehicles engine compartment.



Federal law allows agents to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows the filing of charges for criminal activity without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless or until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.



Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents effectively combat smuggling organizations attempting to illegally transport people and contraband through southwestern Arizona and California. Citizens can help the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection by calling 1-866-999-8727 toll-free to report suspicious activity. Callers can remain anonymous.



Nogales CBP Officers Seize Drugs, Unreported Currency





Customs and Border Protection officers arrested two U.S. citizens and four Mexican nationals during weekend smuggling attempts at the Port of Nogales, resulting in the seizure of nearly 145 pounds of drugs worth more than $155,000. A separate smuggling attempt involved the seizure of more than $145,000 in cash.



Officers first referred a 21-year-old male U.S. citizen and his two passengers  an 18-year-old female U.S. citizen and a 21-year-old male Mexican national male  for further inspection when they attempted to pass through the Dennis DeConcini crossing on June 17. During the inspection, officers found more than 10 pounds of meth, worth in excess of $31,000, hidden beneath the shifter.



A short time later, officers at the DeConcini crossing referred a 49-year-old Mexican woman for a secondary inspection of her Ford SUV. After a CBP narcotics-detection canine alerted to the rear of the vehicle, officers located almost 24 pounds of meth valued at nearly $72,000.



That night officers referred a Mexican couple, 36-year-old man and his 28-year-old female passenger for further inspection of his Dodge truck at the Nogales West Mariposa crossing. After a CBP narcotics-detection canine alerted to trucks roof and seats, officers removed close to 107 pounds of marijuana worth almost $54,000.



The following day (June 18), officers conducting routine outbound inspections referred a 46-year-old Mexican man for an inspection of his Chevrolet SUV at the DeConcini crossing. Officers found more than $145,000 in unreported U.S. currency in the vehicles rear quarter panels.



Officers seized the vehicles, currency and drugs, and turned the subjects over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.



Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents seize more than one million dollars worth of narcotics

Over a four-day period beginning last Monday, drug seizures increased significantly at and around immigration checkpoints in Yuma Sector. More than 100 pounds of narcotics, with an estimated value of more than one million dollars were seized during that period.



On Monday night, June 13, Border Patrol agents arrested a male Mexican national illegally in the U.S., during a traffic stop near Wikieup. Agents discovered and seized nearly 10 pounds of methamphetamine, with an estimated value of more than $29,000.



On Tuesday morning, a Legal Permanent Resident attempted to drive through the immigration checkpoint on Interstate 8, east of Yuma. A canine alert resulted in the vehicle being sent to secondary inspection, where nearly 17 pounds of methamphetamine was discovered. The drugs were valued in excess of $50,000.



On Wednesday morning, agents detected the odor of marijuana coming from a vehicle at the Highway 95 immigration checkpoint, and called for a canine team. The canine alerted to the vehicle, and it was referred to secondary inspection. A search resulted in the seizure of nearly eight pounds of pure brown heroin, with a value estimated at more than $137,000.



A second seizure on Wednesday occurred after a vehicle was observed circumventing the checkpoint by passing through Dome Valley. A canine team conducted a traffic stop of the vehicle and the canine alerted, resulting in the seizure of more than six pounds of methamphetamine. The meth had an estimated value of more than $19,000.



Today, a Yuma Sector canine alerted to a vehicle driven a by a U.S. citizen attempting to pass through the Highway 95 checkpoint, resulting in the seizure of nearly 70 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $790,000.



These significant drug seizures illustrate the continued threat posed by smugglers attempting to bring illegal drugs into our country, said Acting Chief Patrol Agent Mario Villarreal. Due to the continued vigilance of Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents, these narcotics were removed from our community and the streets of our great



CBP Officers Upend Creative Smuggling Tactics



Customs and Border Protection officers arrested two men Monday (June 13) connected to separate smuggling attempts at the Port of Nogales.



Officers first referred a 19-year-old Nogales, Arizona man for further inspection after crossing through the Morley Pedestrian Gate. Officers were inspecting a bag the man said contained food items when they discovered nearly a pound of methamphetamine worth more than $3,000. The drugs were disguised as tamales.



Later, officers at the Dennis DeConcini crossing referred a 37-year-old man for a secondary inspection of his GMC truck. A CBP narcotics detection canine alerted officers to nearly 264 pounds of marijuana concealed in a shipment of brick pavers. The drugs are valued at more than $132,000.



Officers seized the vehicle and drugs, and turned both subjects over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.



Joint CBP Operation from the Air and Mountaintop Results in Criminal Scout Camp Takedown

Tucson Sector Special Operations Detachment (SOD) Border Patrol agents and Air and Marine Operations (AMO) Tucson Air Branch agents successfully carried out an intra-agency operation on May 20, which took place from the air and continued down a mountain top to arrest scouts working for a transnational criminal organization. The scouting camp was fixed high atop a steep Sonoran Desert mountainside in the Silver Bell mountain range outside of Arizona City, Arizona.



The observation post was targeted after AMO agents flying in a CE550 Cessna Citation aircraft on a reconnaissance mission spotted two scouts dressed in camouflage earlier in the day. Once air agents pinpointed the location, they reported their observations back to the Tucson Air Branch.



After planning and coordination, the operation kicked off that evening with AMO agents flying to the identified location in a UH-60 Black Hawk loaded with Border Patrol SOD agents. SOD agents fast-roped down to the mountain top as the helicopter hovered above its peak, where the scouts were operating from a makeshift post in a mountain-side cave. One of the scouts attempted to flee after a SOD agent spotted him hiding in the cave. The scout was apprehended after a foot chase which ended approximately 30-feet from a cliff with a dangerous and potentially fatal drop to jagged rocks below.



Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent Paul Beeson said this operation is one of many examples which illustrate the dangers Border Patrol agents face day-to-day.



Agents jumping out of helicopters onto mountain tops is dangerous enough on its own, he said. The risk of injury or death to everyone involved is increased more so when you add having to pursue dangerous criminals in a harsh environment.



AMO Tucson Air Branch Director of Operations Mitch Pribble said these types of operations have an element of risk from the air as well.



It takes a great amount of training, expertise and precision by our aircraft crew to operate the Black Hawk during insertion operations over mountain ranges, he said. This is indicative of the dangers and challenges air agents face every time they depart for an enforcement mission. There is no room for error when keeping an aircraft that large steady in gusty cross-winds among narrow mountain peaks to enable other agents to descend as safely as possible.



These joint operations, which illustrate how the integration of assets can overcome environmental challenges, resulted in the seizure of a large cache of counter-surveillance equipment and one suspect facing federal criminal charges.
LINDA BENTLEY | June 22, 2016

Cave Creek adopts $16.5 million tentative budget

Jensen said the town should not only allow concealed carry of firearms but should encourage it

CAVE CREEK  With Vice Mayor Steve LaMar and Councilwoman Susan Clancy absent due to respective family matters, Mayor Vincent Francia reminded everyone about the July 3rd and 4th Independence Day celebrations in town.



Call to the Public brought C.W. Jensen to the podium to say he was a retired police captain and after looking into the towns prohibition of firearms in the council chambers he said the only place the prohibition appears is in the personnel manual under workplace violence.



C.W. Jensen



Jensen said the manual refers to unauthorized firearms but doesnt define what that means and, in any event, the policy is incongruent with state statute.



He also said if an armed shooter decided to enter the council chambers, they would enter the back door and shoot the deputy, whom he said is usually standing with his back to the door.



Jensen said the town should not only allow concealed carry of firearms but should encourage it.



Cave Creek Merchants and Events Association (CCMEA) Vice President Kristin Lewis passed out to council a poster for Wild West Days as she announced L. Austin won the Wild West Days art contest.



Town Attorney Bill Sims explained a proposed ordinance that would add a chapter to the town code allowing for the transfer of development rights.



Sims said a landowner came to the town with a proposal. However, the town didnt have a provision in the zoning ordinance addressing it.



Sims said this was just the first reading of the ordinance but emphasized an applicant must still go through the entire review process and the ordinance doesnt grant rezoning or any special rights.



Planning Director Ian Cordwell said it puts conservation easements where they can be enjoyed by citizens.



Councilman Ernie Bunch asked, Under what circumstances would we involve another municipality?



Sims said it was written to conform to state statute but stated the other jurisdiction would have to have the same ordinance and council could still say no.



During public comment, Eileen Wright said she didnt understand the ordinance and asked why the town needed it now.



Eileen Wright



Wright claimed the hill behind Hogs N Horses cant be built anyway and stated, This just doesnt make a lot of sense right now.



Kerry Smith said the language seemed quite general and urged council to reject the ordinance.



He said there was no provision to do assessments of infrastructure needs, specifically water.



Smith stated the costs should be borne by the applicant and not the town.



Jensen, who seemed confused about what agenda item they were discussing, read goals from the 2005 general plan and said when he developed budgets he used a general plan.



He asked why there was no mention in the budget about how the budget meets those values and said there was no narrative saying why they need to spend what theyre budgeting.



Francia asked Cordwell if the hill behind Hogs N Horsed could be developed.



Cordwell stated it could.



Paul Gilbert



Attorney Paul Gilbert of Beus Gilbert PLLC, whose client is the person who came to the town with the proposal that prompted the ordinance, reiterated there would still be a rigorous review process with notification to adjacent property owners.



Gilbert said, The bottom line is  this is not done in a vacuum and can only be achieved after public review.



He said there were built-in protections so it creates a win-win situation for everyone.



He reminded council the ordinance was the only thing before them at this point, not a specific property.



Bunch moved to approve the first reading and said, This is just one more tool to achieve the goals Mr. Jensen mentioned. This is a tool that will allow us to preserve something in the town core.



Councilman Dick Esser said he agreed with everything Bunch, Gilbert and Sims said, and the first reading is step one.



Councilman Thomas McGuire commented that open space is very dear to Cave Creek.



Francia said he agreed with his fellow council members and stated the ordinance was a tool.



He said the ordinance is similar to density transfer mitigation and emphasized no steps in the process are being negated or pushed aside.



Finance Director Robert Weddigen presented council with the tentative budget, a process he said began in January with budget worksheets for each department.



Robert Weddigen



He said the tentative budget of $16.5 million sets the bottom line but still allows line items to be moved around.



The final budget will be brought to council on July 18.



The town had to do some belt tightening since new state laws that went into effect direct construction sales tax to be calculated based on point of sale of the materials rather than where the finished product is delivered.



Weddigen said its hard to determine what the town is losing but estimates it is between $750,000 and $1 million.



During public comment, Jensen said he would find it helpful if department heads would say what they accomplished with the money and stated, Id rather see more of a story than just numbers.



Jensen also questioned employee raises and the need for 38 vehicles.



Town Manager Peter Jankowski said they do look at those things and stated they did not have any merit raises, only cost of living increases.



Jankowski said theyve had three budget workshops and talked about all those things.



Lewis said Wild West Days will be Nov. 2  6 this year and asked the town to invest in the event.



CCMEA Treasurer Marc Peagler said Wild West Days is historically the towns biggest event and the $10,000 the town has provided in the past is returned in sales tax revenue from the event.



Peagler said, Wed like to get to the point where we dont need the towns help, but were not there.



Jankowski said council could add $10,000 to the budget.



He said its one thing to add more to the budget, but stated the town doesnt need to spend it if funds are short.



Smith asked if the town was cross-subsidizing expenditures for water and wastewater and how much.



Smith said he thinks the economy is weak and wouldnt be surprised if we see a downturn.



Bunchs motion to amend the budget by increasing the community service grants by $10,000 passed unanimously.



Bunch noted if its in the budget they cant spend it.



McGuire said it was a lean but sound budget allowing for conservative estimates.



Councilman John Ford complimented staff and the town manager for the work they put into the budget.



Esser complimented Weddigen and stated, This is the best budget Ive ever seen.



Francia commented, I know sacrifices were made.



Before adjourning, Francia announced Sonoran News will be hosting a forum from 7-10 p.m. on June 27 in the council chambers for all candidates.
June 22, 2016

Supervisor Chucri on Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center

Today, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Approved a Special Use Permit for the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center.
June 22, 2016

Chip Davis Announces Mayor Francia Endorsement



PHOENIX (June 21) -- Today, Chip Davis announced that he had been endorsed by the Mayor of Cave Creek, Vincent Francia. In 1999, Mayor Francia became Cave Creek's first citizens-elected Mayor.



"As Mayor of Cave Creek, I have total confidence that Chip will represent my citizens as part of LD 1," Mayor Francia said.



"I am so grateful and honored to have earned the support and confidence of Mayor Francia," Davis said. "I look forward to working in concert with him for the benefit of Cave Creek residents when I am given the privilege of serving Legislative District 1 in the Arizona House of Representatives."



About Chip Davis

A fourth generation Arizonan, Chips parents still raise cattle on his great grandparents homestead west of the Bradshaw Mountains in southwestern Yavapai County. Chip, his wife Karen, four children, and ten grandchildren all appreciate the rich history, scenic splendor and diverse culture of Arizona and believe it is a heritage that must be treated with respect and safeguarded for the future. Chip's proactive approach to government and his can do attitude has put him at the forefront in changing the way that Yavapai County does business and has marked him as one of the most dynamic leaders in local and regional government.
An employee walks past a logo of Vanke at its headquarters in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 2, 2015. (Photo : Reuters)

Real estate giant China Vanke revealed Friday that it plans to splurge 45.6 billion yuan or $6.9 billion on a unit of Shenzhen Metro Group via new shares, making the subway operator its biggest shareholder.



According to The Wall Street Journal, the plan is "part of efforts to ward off a potential hostile takeover" by Baoneng Group, which currently has a 24-percent stake in Vanke.



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After the purchase, Baoneng's stake would fall to only about 19 percent.



Earlier, the WSJ reported that Vanke chairman Wang Shi had expressed doubts over Baoneng's financing, saying that he does not approve of the company's moves.



In a transcript obtained by the WSJ, Wang said, "The reason for not being welcoming is simple: He lacks credibility."



Wang was referring to Chinese businessman Yao Zhenhua, who was allegedly behind Baoneng.



Baoneng started snapping up shares in Vanke in July last year via its subsidiaries, allowing it to acquire a combined stake of 24.3 percent by December, according to the WSJ.



This has booted out China Resources Group, a state-owned company, as Vanke's biggest shareholder.



Vanke will issue about 2.9 billion A shares at 15.88 yuan each. This is 35 percent cheaper than its last traded price on Dec. 18, when trading was halted upon the company's request.



"The cooperation with [Shenzhen Metro Group] not only enables Vanke to find the best foothold for its new business, but also provides assurance for the rapid development of Vanke's new business," Zhu Xu, company secretary to the board, said in a statement.



However, the deal was not favored unanimously by the board. According to Reuters, China Resources voted three "no" votes, out of the 10 total board seats.



In a statement, China Resources said that it is against paying for the deal via issuance of new shares instead of cash.


LINDA BENTLEY | June 22, 2016

U.S. Department of Political Correctness





WASHINGTON  Only days before the Orlando massacre by a radical Islamic terrorist that left 49 dead and another 53 wounded, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its Interim Report and Recommendations by its Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee.



The subcommittee and report is the result of DHS Secretary Jeh Johnsons direction in November 2015 for CVE to act as an incubator of ideas for the new Office for Community Partnerships (DHS/OCP) and to leverage outside expertise and new thinking to support and enhance as well as assist in reframing and re-envisioning, where necessary the departments CVE efforts.



The subcommittees findings claim the nation requires the full engagement of our whole community to effectively address and conquer the challenge of violent extremism.



The report states, Today, more than ever, we must harness the power of American ingenuity, creativity and resilience. We must engage, activate and align the private and non-governmental and academic sectors to address violent extremism, and the threat that it poses  in all its forms, across all communities.



Topping the list of recommendations, the subcommittee unanimously recommended a significant increase to staffing funding by as much as $100 million for both grants and program administration for the DHS/OCP, the new agency charged with implementing CVE efforts, claiming the current funding level of $10 million for grant programs in 2016 is insufficient to effectively counter the spread of violent extremist ideology in the United States.



According to the subcommittee, the $10 million in grants does not in itself offer the chance to level  much less gain advantage against  increasing aggressive efforts to recruit and radicalize our youth by violent extremist organizations at home and abroad.



While stating a need to recognize the cultural and technological trends shaping identities of Millennials and to directly engage them in efforts, the subcommittee cautioned the government to avoid stigmatizing specific communities or those seeking mental health services and ensure adherence to the privacy restrictions inherent in the Privacy Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).



Although the subcommittee recommends that the government take all forms of violent extremism and radicalization seriously, prioritizing those forms that pose the greatest threats to safety and security, most urgently, it does not specify what those forms of violent extremism and radicalization may consist of.



However, it recommends prioritizing attention on the Millennial generation, those under 30 years old, whom it considers most at risk of online radicalization and recruitment and, by far, the largest demographic being targeted by extremists.



It does not specify what groups or organizations would be most likely to target this broad demographic for radicalization and recruitment but, as one of its key recommendations, it states, Prioritize attention on efforts to counter the recruitment of youth to violent ideologies across race, religion, ethnicity, location, socioeconomic levels and gender.



The subcommittee report becomes a lesson in political correctness and despite disagreement among scholars, government officials and activists about the right lexicon to use around the issues of violent extremism, it claims report after report has recommended that the U.S. Government be consistent in its language and its meaning, highlighting that tone and word choice matter.



It goes on to say, Under no circumstances should we be using language that will alienate or be disrespectful of fellow Americans. Thus we need to be clearer in what we mean and how we say it.



The subcommittee report emphasizes how tone and word choice matter because we are at a particular moment on the world stage with global events driving fear, political and cultural rhetoric leaning on sharp and divisive language, and deep polarization and distrust across communities.



The report claims we have unknowingly constructed an us and them narrative of division.



It then discusses DHSs 2008 guidance about lexicon within the context of the War on Terror and states it is important to review as it has bearing on groups like ISIL. It instructs the Department to ensure terminology is properly calibrated to diminish the recruitment efforts of extremists who argue that the West is at war with Islam.



Condemning violent extremism in all forms the subcommittee says we must be better at communicating with the public and within government because more people know we need to fight the spread of extremist ideologies but many do not know what we mean when we say we want to do that through CVE programs.



Many do not know what they mean because they have scrapped the term radical Islamic extremism, when tone and word choice should actually matter.



Recommendations include rejecting religiously-charged terminology and problematic positioning by using plain meaning American English.



To combat us v. them it recommends using American Muslim instead of Muslim American and Muslim communities instead of Muslim world.



It implores the use of American English rather than religious, legal and cultural terms like jihad, sharia, takfir or umma.



However, the subcommittee provides no English examples for substitutes.



Noting there are new aspects to the threat emerging, such as women radicalizing, but, compared to what is known about foreign populations and radicalization, it claims there is limited data on American youth and their vulnerabilities.



With a desire to implement its politically correct agenda via the new DHS/OCP across all 50 states, the subcommittee again laments that the $10 million in funding for 2016 to expand locally led efforts to implement CVE programming, there is no guarantee from Congress that these woefully low funds will continue to grow in the 2017 budget request, leaving them with a segmented and insufficient domestic approach.



Claiming the new era of threats requires a proliferation of local programs across the nation in a wide variety of ways to protect our nations children, as there are over 120 million youth in America under the age of 30, the subcommittee says Americans must be made aware of the need for non-governmental money to achieve their goal of expanding government-funded programs that deal specifically with stopping the appeal of groups like ISIL.



Because there are less than five small regional government-funded programs, only a handful of experimental initiatives in the pipeline and limited private donations to this cause, the subcommittee concluded, Things must change.



Pointing out 44.2 percent of the Millennial Generation is made up of a minority race or ethnic group and the population currently under 5 years of age is a majority-minority generation, the subcommittee goes on about how the American Freedom Party, a political party that promotes white nationalism, has recently established a youth wing and states, they are not alone in doing so.



It claims youth-focused wings of extremist organizations allow young people to draw in their peers and to facilitate marketing strategies that work.



The report provides no footnote on its assertion: In the last few years, we have watched as youth in our country and globally are being radicalized at a concerning rate, crossing lines of race, nationality, socio-economic status, ideology, education and gender, it seems to imply white supremacist radicalization is the biggest problem.



It states afterward, with a footnote, Researchers confirm that the median age for those recruited and radicalized to become foreign fighters for ISIL is 26 years old.



The subcommittee recommends taking action to develop a curriculum in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, education experts and nonprofit organizations to teach children appropriate online etiquette to mitigate online hate.



It also recommends creating and implementing a cohesive redesign of discussion around American history to puncture incorrect understanding of American history through partners such as the Smithsonian, the Department of states Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Department of Education and the Public Broadcasting Service, and other organizations and experts, to normalize cross-community conversation to eradicate ideas that any community is an other



The Subcommittee also calls for focusing on gender diversity of youth through careful attention to the range of push and pull factors that attracts individuals of differing genders, and creation of a Virtual Department of Homeland Security made up of university students modeled after the Department of States Virtual Foreign Service.




LINDA BENTLEY | June 22, 2016

CAVE CREEK  A fire that started in the attic, most likely electrical in nature, consumed the Silver Spur Saloon in Frontier Town on Tuesday.



According to Rural/Metro Fire Chief John Kraetz, the alarm sounded at 4:48 p.m. and they were on the scene within minutes.

June 22, 2016

PHOENIX (June 21) -- Today, Chip Davis announced that he had been endorsed by the Mayor of Cave Creek, Vincent Francia. In 1999, Mayor Francia became Cave Creek's first citizens-elected Mayor.



"As Mayor of Cave Creek, I have total confidence that Chip will represent my citizens as part of LD 1," Mayor Francia said.

June 22, 2016

Myth: Countries with strict gun control have less crime



Fact: Countries with the strictest gun-control laws also tended to have the highest homicide rates.



Fact: According to the U.N., as of 2005, Scotland was the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. Violent crime there has doubled over the last 20 years. 3% of Scots had been victims of assault compared with 1.2% in America

LINDA BENTLEY | June 22, 2016

Jensen said the town should not only allow concealed carry of firearms but should encourage it

CAVE CREEK  With Vice Mayor Steve LaMar and Councilwoman Susan Clancy absent due to respective family matters, Mayor Vincent Francia reminded everyone about the July 3rd and 4th Independence Day celebrations in town.



Call to the Public brought C.W. Jensen to the podium to say he was a retired police captain and after looking into the towns prohibition of firearms in the council chambers he said the only place the prohibition appears is in the personnel manual under workplace violence.

LINDA BENTLEY | June 22, 2016

WASHINGTON  Only days before the Orlando massacre by a radical Islamic terrorist that left 49 dead and another 53 wounded, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its Interim Report and Recommendations by its Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee.



June 22, 2016

Today, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Approved a Special Use Permit for the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center.

Following is a statement by Supervisor Steve Chucri on this issue. Whether you're talking about coyotes, javelina, bobcats, or grey wolves, we are fortunate to live among them in their natural habitat. The vast array of animals in the Valley is one of the best and most unique aspects of living in the desert. Sometimes these animals get sick or are injured, needing a place to rest, recuperate, and get healthy.

By Saeed Alshamisi | June 22, 2016

The controversial construction of the Desert Discovery Center at the Gateway to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve took another step forward when the Scottsdale City Council voted five to two to approve a contract with the architectural firm Swaback Partners.



While the design of the DCC will proceed, its final location still faces vigorous discussion between Scottsdale residents, civic groups and council members.

June 22, 2016

Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents arrested smugglers transporting humans and more than $167,000 in narcotics during separate incidents over a three-day period.



On June 16, agents apprehended a male U.S. citizen and three foreign nationals after finding more than 5 pounds of methamphetamine, valued in excess of $26,000, and a loaded handgun during a traffic stop near Wikieup. The passengers, a Honduran national and two Mexican nationals, were determined to be in the U.S. illegally.

June 22, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC  Seniors who went back to work after retirement used to do it to keep busy, but the Great Recession has made it an economic necessity for more and more older Americans, according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.


YWCA, police use 11 questions to protect domestic violence victims

The idea: See if a victim is at high risk of being seriously injured or killed. And if they are, hook them up with a shelter or services.
Tourist Industry Taps Into The Three Gorges Dam (Photo : Getty Images)

The international community is waiting for the July 7 decision of the U.N. Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which country owns Scarborough or Panatag Shoal as China, the Philippines and other Asian nations claim it.



The ruling is expected to provide clarity on the issue but also over the other islands in the South China Sea that Beijing claims to own but disputed by its neighbors in the region. China has said it would not recognize the PCA verdict since it did not participate in the discussions at The Hague.



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Chinas insistence that it owns the disputed islands was further emphasized on Wednesday when Beijing announced that it would make available regular civilian cruises to the Spratlys by 2020. The service would be operated by the island-province of Hainan, reported Reuters.



The province plans a pan-South China Sea cruise line and cruise trips business covering countries along the Maritime Silk Road, read the announcement over state media.



At Paracels, which China calls Xisha Islands, China has been running cruises since 2013. China COSCO Shipping, a state-owned company, would launch cruise trips to the Paracels beginning in July. These moves would not only worsen Chinas diplomatic ties with its neighbors but also the U.S. which has called on the countries involved to exercise restraint when the court issues its verdict in a few weeks, reported Fox.



In insisting it would not recognize the PCA decision, Beijing stressed it wants to instead have one-on-one discussions with the countries disputing the claim. However, the proposal favors China because it could flex its military muscle and bully the smaller nations that claim the islands are theirs.






The Tesla exhibit during the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show. The electric carmaker is reportedly eyeing the city as the site of its first ever factory in China. (Photo : Twitter)

American electric carmaker Tesla Motors reportedly wants to put its first Chinese production plant in the city of Shanghai.



According to sources, the company is in talks with Jinqiao Group, a government-owned company based in the city, for the construction of its first factory in the country. The two parties have reportedly already signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the project.



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The two companies will reportedly invest around 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) each for the project, with a large portion of Jinqiao's share coming in the form of land. The total investment would be larger than that of Walt Disney for the construction of the Shanghai Disneyland.



However, Jinquiao subsidiary Shanghai Jinqiao Export Processing Zone Development Co. clarified that they have yet to formally sign documents concerning the project, Bloomberg reported.



Tesla refused to comment on the reports.



Experts said that the deal, if it pushes through, is going to be a major triumph for Tesla, Jinqiao, and the city of Shanghai as a whole. According to auto industry analyst Steve Man, the partnership will help avoid the 25 percent tax being levied on foreign companies importing vehicles since the vehicles will now be manufactured domestically.



Under Chinese laws, a foreign automaker wishing to set up its own manufacturing facility in the country is required to partner with a Chinese company first to be allowed to do so. Ford, Hyundai and Nissan are some of the foreign manufacturers that have gone this route to establish their Chinese production centers.



Meanwhile, analyst Zhang Yu of Shanghai-based Automotive Foresight said that the city should definitely welcome Tesla as it will not only bring economic development, but also support the government's push to further promote the use of new energy vehicles, the South China Morning Post reported.



Aside from Shanghai, the cities of Suzhou and Hefei also reportedly vied for the project.


$1 million Powerball ticket sold in Cudahy

A gas station in Cudahy became the second Wisconsin spot this month to sell a $1 million Powerball ticket, with the big jackpot still to come.
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A still image from a new teaser trailer for the fan-made "Star Trek" film "Axanar." The trailer was provided exclusively to Space.com.

A second teaser trailer for a fan-made "Star Trek" movie was released this week, despite an ongoing lawsuit over the film.

The new teaser trailer for "Star Trek: Axanar" was released by the filmmakers yesterday (June 22). Called "Honor Through Victory," the trailer shows Klingon ships flying through a planetary ring system and features an intense voice-over that sounds like a prebattle pep talk. This is the second of three teaser trailers set to be released this week. The first, titled "Stands United," also appeared online yesterday. The "Honor Through Victory" teaser trailer was shared exclusively with Space.com.

"Long have we watched the scourge of humanity spreading through space, daring to encroach upon our birthright," yells the voice in the trailer (most likely actor Richard Hatch, who has been cast as Klingon Supreme Commander Kharn).

The "Axanar" filmmakers announced previously that the movie's story will focus on a war between humans and Klingons, so it is presumably humanity that the speaker refers to when he shouts, "At last, the time has come to wipe them from the galaxy. Take your battle stations! We storm the gate!"

The movie will tell the story of Garth of Izar, a character featured in the original "Star Trek" TV series. Izar is the "legendary Starfleet captain who is Captain Kirk's hero and the role model for a generation of Starfleet officers. Garth charted more planets than any other captain and was the hero of the Battle of Axanar. His exploits are required reading at Starfleet Academy," according to the Kickstarter website where the filmmakers crowdsourced funding for the film.

"Axanar" is "the story of Garth and his crew during the Four Years War, the war with the Klingon Empire that almost tore the Federation apart, and whose resolution solidified the Federation and allowed it to become the entity we know in Kirk's time," the website reads.

After the fan-made production raised $600,000 on Kickstarter and was planned to be released in 2016, production was halted after CBS and Paramount Pictures filed suit in California in December 2015. The suit alleges that the production violates several "Star Trek" copyrights, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Fans are allowed to make their own "Star Trek" fan art and fan fiction, as long as those works follow guidelines set by CBS and Paramount Pictures. The companies recently announced a new list of "Guidelines for Avoiding Objections." The list includes an introductory paragraph which states: "CBS and Paramount Pictures are big believers in reasonable fan fiction and fan creativity, and, in particular, want amateur fan filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek."

"We are continuing settlement talks, and the discovery process is well underway," Erin Ranahan, a Winston & Strawn attorney representing filmmaker Axanar Productions, wrote in an email to Space.com. "We hope that the lawsuit will be resolved before the need to file any further motions with the court."

Director Robert Meyer Burnett created this trailer from visual effects and voice-overs produced in December before the lawsuit was filed. He declined to answer legal questions about the production but said he hopes the story can move forward soon.

"One of the questions 'Axanar' poses, especially for those in the Klingon Empire, is this: Can there be such thing as an honorable war? Can wars be fought in an honorable fashion?" he said in an email to Space.com. "If so, why? Isn't war simply something to be avoided altogether  or is there a time when war should be embraced?"

The story, Burnett said, is intended to deal with some of the same notions expressed in the first episode of the original "Star Trek" TV series to feature Klingons. The episode was called "Errand of Mercy" (which first aired in March 1967, during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union). It featured Klingon and human negotiations over the planet Organia, which didn't have an alliance with either side in the war.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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Humane Society Petition Photocall (Photo : Getty Images)

The 11 million signatures collected by animal rights activists may not have stopped the 10-day annual Yulin Dog-Meat Festival which started on Tuesday. However, it at least dented the sales of dog sellers who complained of weaker business due to international pressure from dog lovers.



Yearly, about 10 to 20 million dogs are slaughtered for the Yulin Dog-Meat Festival, according to the South China Morning Post. But because of the stronger campaign against the practice now, a butcher named Zhong said that his maximum sales for this year is five dogs daily compared to 30 the previous years, reported Shanghai Daily.



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Zhong blames the campaign on poor sales that even his old customers are no longer ordering dog meat for fear of getting in trouble with the animal rights groups. Even his son, a high school student, has shunned eating dog meat with the family because of pressure from his friends.



The change of attitude of young Yulin residents toward the custom is reflected in results of a recent survey in which 64 percent of respondents from the age group 16 to 50 want the festival to stop. Another 52 percent favor banning the dog meat trade and 70 percent said they had never eaten dog meat.



Other Yulin residents, such as 46-year-old Xie Pingqing, gave up the tradition that goes back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). He explained, The environment has changed and there is much moral pressure on dog eaters today.



Dog meat, eaten with lychees and downed with lychee wine during summer solstice, is believed by older Yulin residents to ward off ailments.



Besides dog being mans best friend, another reason behind the strong opposition to the festival is that a lot of the dogs slaughtered are believed to be pets stolen from their owners or from the streets. There is also the issue of cruel way the dogs are transported, stuffed in cages, while being driven to Guanxi Province with no water or food.



But then, even cats which are also eaten during the festival, are also given the same ill treatment.






Sony PSVR Headset (Photo : Twitter)

Virtual reality's growth shown in the spike of devices and content available has made the VR industry marketable for investors, based on a new research report. Nomura Securities analysts recommended three publicly-traded companies that are earning the biggest revenue from the growth of VR, which include Facebook, Sony, and Samsung.



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Nomura recommended Facebook due to its earning profits from subsidiary Oculus starting in 2020, according to Investor's Business Daily. That is due to high profit margins from royalty revenue.



The Japanese holding company also recommended Sony, which is set to launch its PlayStation VR headset on October 13. It believes high sales for the PS4 console will drive PS VR sales.



Nomura also believes Samsung will get a percentage of the VR business via component sales. That is due to its manufacturing of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays in VR headsets, and memory chips.



Facebook started the VR craze in March when it rolled out its Oculus Rift headset. HTC then launched its Vive headset in April. Sony's VR gadget will hit the market before this year's holiday shopping season.



The holding company believes Sonywill ship an industry-leading 700,000 PSVR units this year. That will be followed by 500,000 HTC Vive units, and up to 400,000 Oculus Rift units.



Nomura predicts that total shipments of VR headsetswill skyrocket from less than 2 million units this year, to 40 million units in 2020. It also believes the consumer VR market will surge to $10 billion in 2020. That includes products such as VR headsets, accessories, and software.



Meanwhile, Nomura also believes low-cost mobile VR headsets that work with smartphones such as Google Cardboard will be popular as entry-level gadgets. It predicts Samsung will ship 4 million Gear VR units in 2016.



The company also pointed out that there are some possible factors that could slow the growth of VR tech. They include little content and evolving hardware performance.



In related news, Samsung has made changes to its Milk VR app that works with its Gear VR headset. The VR app was launched on Google's Play Store in April.



However, Milk VR will now be called Samsung VR. This will make the mobile app easier to recognize for owners of Galaxy devices, and people who have not experienced Samsung's VR ecosystem.



Samsung also announced on June 22, Wednesday at VidCon that it will now allow user-created content in the Samsung VR app, according to Android Headlines.



Here's a video on PSVR:










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GTA 6 is Rockstar Games' rumored sequel to GTA 5 that will likely be released for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. (Photo : YouTube/Gtchy1230)

"Grand Theft Auto" is one of the most popular games ever developed. As a result, avid fans of the "GTA" franchise have been clamoring for the release of the follow-up installment to "GTA 5."



Many fans have speculated about the release date of "Grand Theft Auto 6" ever since it was announced. While rumors have been rife on the internet, "GTA 6" developer, Rockstar Games, is yet to confirm any of these speculations.



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Latest rumors have it that the sixth installment in the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise will be release in 2018, according to Neurogadget. The publication suggests that since Rockstar has a tradition of releasing its "Grand Theft Auto" games after every five years, a 2018 release date for "GTA 6" makes sense.



Rockstar release "Grand Theft Auto 5" back in 2013, and if the company maintains the gap, fans should expect the sixth installment in the franchise in two years time.



"GTA 6" release date news seems exciting and rational. However, since the developer company is yet to make any confirmation, avid fans should take the information with a pinch of salt.



Meanwhile, there are possibilities that the location for the upcoming game will change. Usually, "Grand Theft Auto" stuck to the famous territory, which is a fictitious country in the United States. This time around, it is reported that "Grand Theft Auto 6" action will occur in London.



In an interview with The Guardian back in 2013, "GTA 6" developer Rockstar Games' Dan Houser teased that there is likelihood for the next installment to happen outside the US region.



Houser said, "These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don't know if it would be a GTA game."



Furthermore, it is speculated that the upcoming game will have the biggest map ever. Rockstar is considering bringing together all the maps from the previous games in the franchise to create one map for "GTA 6."



Stay tuned for more details as soon as they trickle in. Here is a sneak peek to have a glimpse of what "GTA 6" will look like when it finally releases:






SPIEGEL ONLINE: When did the mood change?

Moore: By the late 1980s, Thatcher thought the EC had become too dirigiste. She was also becoming anxious of the changing balance of power on the Continent and thought Europe was a cover for German hegemony. She was against reunification. I personally think she was wrong in her interpretation of German motives.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Britain was the driving force behind the single market -- did her government not see the benefits of working together more closely?

Moore: Thatcher wanted a free market, but she realized maybe too late that it also increased the power of European institutions -- the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. It was not a free market, but imposed a new regulatory regime. It was a massive transfer of sovereignty from Britain to Brussels. Thatcher later said the single market went wrong.
The city is cut off, and food, water and medical supplies cannot be brought in. "A kilogram of rice now costs $48," one of those trapped inside recently reported in a rare phone call. "Daesh has erected roadblocks everywhere along with ambushes to prevent people from fleeing."

Several thousand have been able to flee nonetheless, many of them leaving on foot at night through irrigation canals, or even by swimming across the Euphrates River in recent days. Since Friday -- the day the Iraqi government announced the city's liberation -- the number of civilians who have been able to get out has increased dramatically as the reconquering of the city has proceeded, with the International Organization for Migration estimating that over 80,000 have left Fallujah since fighting began in May, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

In the early stages of the attack, IS preachers had made clear that the city would not be given up without a fight, saying "we will remain and you will remain. If we are attacked, we will die together!" In recent days, IS has done its best to live up to the promise, with Iraqi troops struggling to clear the city center of Islamic State militants. On Saturday, an IS sniper shot and wounded a government soldier on camera as he and others were showing off a liberated section of the city.

Reports over the weekend indicate that pockets of fierce IS resistance remain in Fallujah, making it clear that the militant Islamists are following a similar pattern of defense seen in the cities that have been wrested from IS control since 2014. Whether in the Kurdish enclave of Kobani in Syria, the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, the towns of Tikrit, Ramadi and Baiji or smaller towns like Bashir in Iraq -- they were all reduced to ruins. Furthermore, IS digs tunnels underneath the cities it occupies. Even in Bashir, liberators found underground pathways, most of them designed to connect fighting positions. One, though, extended hundreds of meters in the direction of Mosul. "It was big enough for a car," said a military spokesperson. Likewise, streets, bridges and houses are mined long before impending attacks. If ground troops approach, IS snipers are often the only ones that stay behind in the city center, shooting at advancing soldiers without coming out into the open themselves. At the same time, suicide bombers drive trucks sheathed in steel plates and loaded with several tons of explosives into opposing positions.

Exploding Pillows

In Baiji, home to an oil refinery, Shiite militia fighters complained last summer that they kept losing men over the course of several weeks without ever having laid eyes on an Islamic State sniper. And among Kurdish fighters, the story has been circulating of two bomb disposal experts who, after hours of searching through a house, thought that they had found all of the explosives hidden behind doors, in the television, on windows and in cabinets. Exhausted, they sat down on a couple of foam cushions -- which then exploded.

IS began early on manufacturing mines in industrial quantities. Using intermediaries, the group imported kilometers of fuses and thousands of tons of explosive material from India and other countries to Turkey. From there, the supplies are brought across the border and fed into a decentralized network for the production of booby traps. The explosives factories are near the front lines so as to keep supply lines short.

The degree to which IS booby traps a town also reveals how highly it values a place. In Bashir or Sinjar -- "cities of infidels" -- almost every house was transformed into a deadly pitfall. In Mosul, witnesses say, human-sized oxygen tanks were filled with explosives and buried under entry roads. But hometowns of senior IS leaders, like Hawijah, located southwest of Kirkuk, and Tal Afar west of Mosul, have apparently not been booby trapped at all.

The fact that IS is continuing to lose territory despite it all has led to growing paranoia inside its shrinking empire. It is difficult to gather information from within Islamic State and every source puts his life in danger. As a rule, telephones and email are avoided, with details smuggled out using messengers -- and it takes days for questions to be answered. "Daesh members treat everyone they find with a telephone as a spy," one informant writes. He lists the execution methods that await people like him: "Being thrown from the highest roof; being shot to death; being thrown into a vat of acid."

"Strange things are happening here," he says in reference to Islamic State's worsening shortage of cash. Early on, IS paid its fighters the equivalent of $400 per month, but that dropped initially to $150 and now all the way down to just $10. "Now, you can pay money to absolve yourself of almost any infraction except spying," the source says. "Those who are too poor are ordered to the front to dig tunnels. Smokers in particular can buy themselves out of punishment at $3.50 per cigarette. Cigarettes have become 16 times more expensive, and Daesh controls their smuggling."

'We Have a Plan!'

"The mood is ominous," says another source, speaking of Mosul. "Every day, Daesh preachers can be heard over the loudspeakers and they are totally open. 'We know you hate us! It is your fault that we have lost so many cities! You have betrayed us, because even though we came to support you against the Shiites, you don't want to fight with us.' Secretly," the informant continues, "some IS men have admitted that no new fighters are signing up any more, neither in Syria nor in Iraq. That has disconcerted them."

During Friday sermons, the source says, preachers admit that IS leadership believes it will lose even that territory it still controls. "But then," the informant says, "comes their most important point: 'We will be back, stronger than ever! And we have a plan to do so!' But they never say what it is."

Islamic State has experience with defeat followed by triumphant return. At the end of the last decade, the group was defeated once before and went dormant for a period, keeping a low profile in Mosul. It only began expanding again in 2012, taking advantage of the chaotic situation in northern Syria. That, in fact, is the group's official motto: "Survive and expand."

The strategy pursued by IS leadership can be summarized just as clearly: They purposefully stoke the hatred of their enemies. In mid-May, IS commanders used horrific attacks in Baghdad, primarily against Shiite neighborhoods, to provoke the attack on Fallujah, even though they will not be able to hold the city, isolated as it is from core IS territory. And they don't allow their own constituency to leave the city.

Their goal is not the apocalypse, but total sectarian warfare: They want Sunnis to be hated, persecuted and murdered so that they have no other choice but to turn to Islamic State as their protector.

Turned Away at Gunpoint

It has already become impossible to ignore the hatred felt by Shiites in Iraq. Reconquered Sunni cities and territories are largely empty of people, their residents expelled -- along with thousands who have been arrested and disappeared. Satellite images show that in and near Tikrit, hundreds of houses were blown up after Islamic State was driven away in April 2015.

Even the Baiji refinery, which survived the fighting in the region largely unscathed, was dismantled by militants over the course of several weeks. Smaller parts and generators ended up on the black market while other elements were transported to Iran. A delegation from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, which had traveled to Baiji to inspect the refinery's condition following the fighting, was turned away at gunpoint.

Shiite militias in Bashir, meanwhile, have begun speaking of the protective hand of Allah that protects them from the shells of IS, which is dug in just a few kilometers away. A cleric wanders through the ruined city proclaiming: "The liberation of Bashir has opened the pages of the Koran ... the scent of paradise has arrived" -- though the only discernible scent is that coming from the decomposing corpses that haven't yet been recovered from the rubble.

Only the commander, a Shiite from Bashir, looks wearily at the remains of his city. "We have it back, but as what? A deadly pile of rubble where no one can live," he says with a hoarse voice. "I have seen a lot: booby-trapped refrigerators, Korans, doors, sofas. But there was a new one this time around: They even booby trapped the water faucets."
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Xerox this week continued its tradition of filling the corner office from within its own ranks, naming as CEO Ursula Burns replacement Jeff Jacobson, who joined Xerox in 2012 after a stint leading Presstek and before that working for Eastman Kodak.

Burns confirmed last month plans to step down as CEO of Xerox, which she has led since 2009, after she was promoted to replace then-CEO Anne Mulcahy. They share a footnote in business history as the first women to lead a Fortune 500 company in back-to-back tenures as CEO.

Xerox is in the process of carving out its business-process outsourcing operations as a new, publicly traded company called Conduent, with Xerox to retain its legacy document technology operations. This month, Xerox turned to an outsider to lead Conduit in former Infosys executive and New Jersey resident Ashok Vemuri, while having yet to identify a headquarters location for the new company.

Jacobson, 56, is currently president of Xerox Technology and will continue in that role until the separation is complete, with Xerox expected to publish full details on the process in July. Xerox shares (NYSE: XRX) were up slightly in after-hours trading Thursday after the announcement before dropping 4 percent as of Friday afternoon to $9.58 amid a global sell-off in stocks following the United Kingdoms vote to exit the European Union.

Jeff is a great leader with a passion for our business and employees, deep customer relationships and a clear strategic vision to capitalize on the opportunities ahead, Burns stated in a press release. During his four years at Xerox, Jeff has driven significant productivity and cost efficiency efforts while maintaining our commitment to innovation, quality and leading technology. With his previous public-company CEO experience and his track record and achievements at Xerox, the (board) and I are confident he is the best person to lead Xerox forward.

Speaking in early June at a print industry trade show in Germany, Jacobson noted Xeroxs historical relevance and its efforts to reinvigorate sales through inkjet printing technology and other platforms.

When I joined Xerox four years ago, I was truly thrilled to join this company, this industry icon that is Xerox, Jacobson said in his address posted online by PrintingNews.com. There are strong growth opportunities in this industry  capturing the big vision, the vision for (combining) the physical and digital in innovative ways to create new solutions, new businesses and new supply chains.

Jacobson was previously CEO of Presstek, a maker of digital offset printing presses and accessories whose headquarters he moved to Greenwich from Hudson, N.H., in 2007. In its final fiscal year in 2011 as a publicly traded company, Presstek lost $12.4 million on sales of $120 million and reported an accumulated deficit of nearly $83 million. Striking a deal for Presstek to be taken private, Jacobson left the company, which moved its headquarters back to New Hampshire.

Before joining Presstek, Jacobson was chief operating officer of Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodaks $3.6 billion Graphic Communications Group, also leading Kodak Polychrome Graphics, a $1.7 billion joint venture between Sun Chemical and Kodak that had an office in Norwalk until 2009.

Jacobson is a graduate of the State University of New York Buffalo and holds a masters degree in industrial relations from Cornell University as well as a law degree from Pace University.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
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DANBURY  Many Union Savings Bank customers say they dont dread a trip to the bank. In fact, they downright enjoy it.

Its friendly and I feel comfortable here, Danbury resident Mary Fredlund said. Its just a good bank.

Its a feeling the mutual bank has fostered for 150 years. To mark the milestone, Union Savings Bank has started a yearlong celebration that will include special events such as a summer concert series and other community relations programs.

Fredlund has been using Union Saving Bank since 1962, when both the banking industry and Danbury were very different.

I was a small-town girl and now Im still a small-town old lady, she said.

Lenbert Wilson, originally from Jamaica and now a Danbury resident, was introduced to Union Savings Bank by his parents. He also appreciates the down-to-earth, friendly atmosphere of the bank.

Theyre not stuck-up people here. They talk to you and greet you nicely, Wilson said after a visit to the Danbury office on Thursday morning. Excellent customer service.

The bank continued its 150th anniversary celebration by unveiling a monument at Danbury City Hall on Monday. The statue, created by New Fairfield sculptor David Boyajian, is a tribute to Danburys industrial roots and shows a factory worker making a hat.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton attended the ceremony and expressed his appreciation for the banks commitment to the city.

Union Savings Bank has shown unwavering support of the City of Danbury and we were honored to recognize them on their 150th anniversary celebration, especially with the unveiling of the Hatters Monument, Boughton said. We recognize USB as our community partners and appreciate the commitment Union Savings Bank gives to our city through countless community organizations, businesses and initiatives.

The bank also held a birthday card contest for local students and will sponsor a series of concerts this summer on the Danbury Green.

Union Savings Bank was established in 1866 and is now a $2.3 billion mutual bank. It is based in Danbury and has more than two dozen branches throughout Fairfield, Litchfield and surrounding counties. In 2010, it merged with The First National Bank of Litchfield.

Through 150 years, Union Savings Bank has (supported) the individuals and businesses that have driven Connecticuts economy and generated jobs for its residents, Cynthia C. Merkle, the banks president and CEO, said. This support is similarly evident in the extensive, wide-ranging programs weve established and implemented to improve the lives of those in the communities we serve.

Merkle said that the banking industry has changed greatly over the years, but Union Savings Banks core values are as evident today as they were back in 1866.

One of those values is giving back to the community, she said. In the past five years, the bank has given more than $5 million to help local nonprofit organizations. Bank employees have also donated about 80,000 hours of volunteer time to help nonprofits, Merkle said.

Innovation, dedication to our clients and giving back to our local communities are the foundations that weve lived by in the past, and will lead us in the decades ahead, she said.
BRIDGEPORT  Four nursing homes around the state, including one in the city, have been fined in connection with residents who broke bones, required surgery or wandered away.

On Aug. 24, Bridgeport Health Care Center was fined $640 in connection with a resident who left the facility Aug. 1 and was found at a store down the road. A video showed the resident climbed over a patio wall. The person made it seven-tenths of a mile before being returned safely to the home about an hour later, the citation said.

The home failed to follow its policy of having a photo of every resident who needed one-on-one monitoring at the front desk, the citation said. The director of nursing told state inspectors that a licensed practical nurse should have asked one person to watch the resident, the home should have called a special code and the supervisors should have met to plan a search for the resident, the citation said.

In response to the incident, a plan was put in place involving residents who were at risk for wandering, and all of the staff members were retrained, the citation said.

In two separate citations on April 8, Cassena Care at Norwalk was fined a total of $5,370 for a case in which a now-former director of nursing blocked a resident from going to the hospital to maintain the resident count at the home, state records show.

A day after the incident, on Oct. 10, the resident needed emergency cranial surgery and then was placed in hospice care, a citation from the state Department of Public Health said. DPH officials did not have information on whether the resident had died, department spokeswoman Maura Downes said.

The home was fined $3,000 in one DPH citation that said the resident had a change in mental status, was lethargic and difficult to arouse, but an ambulance call was cancelled. A registered nurse said the former nursing director had ordered the staff to try to keep residents at the home to maintain the resident census, the citation said.

A doctor had ordered the resident sent to the hospital and received a text that the director had refused to do so, the citation said. The doctor did not follow up, thinking the resident had been hospitalized, the citation said.

The home was fined $2,370 in connection with the same residents care, a second citation said. A doctor said he should have been notified that the resident had not gone to the hospital as ordered on Oct. 9 and should have been told of the change in the residents mental status, the citation said.

Officials from the home could not be reached for comment.

On May 23, Meadowbrook of Granby was fined $1,815 in connection with a resident who rolled out of bed Jan. 23 and broke a hip.

After the fall, the resident was hospitalized, but returned to the home with no documentation showing that the hips had been X-rayed, the citation said. Two days later, the person was in pain and was sent back to the hospital, where X-rays showed a broken hip, the citation said. The resident underwent surgery to repair the hip.

The state found that a nurses aide had raised the bed to care for the resident, but went to a bathroom and should have lowered the bed before leaving the residents side, the citation said. The aide was retrained about the importance of lowering the bed, the citation said. Administrator Rachel DeMaida declined to comment.

On April 20, Greenwich Woods Rehabilitation in Greenwich was fined $630 in connection with a resident who fell on March 6 and broke a thigh bone.

The resident was found on the floor and initially did not appear to be injured. Two days later, a registered nurse changed the electronic medical record to say that on March 6, the resident was in pain and the injured leg appeared to have shortened by one inch, the DPH citation said.

The nurse did not notify a doctor, did not obtain an order for an X-ray and changed the record at the direction of a director of nursing services who is no longer at the home, the citation said. After an advanced practice registered nurse ordered X-rays on March 7, the fracture was diagnosed and the resident was hospitalized, the citation said.

Administrators at Bridgeport Health and Greenwich Woods could not be reached for comment.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team (www.c-hit.org).
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DANBURY  Angelica Idrovo was crushed when she heard that a divided Supreme Court had blocked key elements of President Obamas immigration policy, which sought to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Idrovo, 20, moved to the Danbury from Ecuador in 2009 with her parents and two younger brothers. In November 2014, Obama launched two programs by executive action intended to shield some 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and grant them the legal right to work in the U.S. Idrovo said she and her two brothers would have been included in that group.

This morning I just felt that my heart was broken again, she said. We have been waiting so long, Im devastated again.

The justices one-sentence opinion, issued Thursday, effectively kills the plan for the duration of Obamas presidency. The outcome underscores that the direction of U.S. immigration policy will be determined in large part by this falls presidential election, a campaign in which immigration already has played an outsized role.

Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the executive actions, which created a new program that applied to parents whose children are citizens or are living in the country legally  called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA)  and expanded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which more than 700,000 people have already taken advantage of.

The programs have never taken effect. The lower courts ruled in the states favor, causing the U.S. Justice Department to seek a Supreme Court review of the decision. Congressional Republicans also backed the states lawsuit.

Todays decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement. This is a major setback to President Obamas attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.

But immigrants and human rights advocates said that while their mood is somber, the fight is not over.

Our community is sad at the moment, said Lucas Codognolla, 25, the lead coordinator for Connecticut Students for a Dream, a state nonprofit that has promoted higher education for undocumented youth. We are saddened by the fact that the Supreme Court, even if its a split decision, sided with Republican rhetoric about DACA and DAPA and the conservative judges who put the injunction on the program.

But Codognolla, a Stamford resident, said the group will continue to push for immigration reforms.

This is not something that is going to make us change our work or advocacy in any way, he said. Were going to continue to fight so we can have an end to deportations and the criminalization of immigrant communities of color, until we have a permanent solution to the fear we constantly live with.

He said the organizations members will reach out to immigrants across the state to make sure accurate information about the Supreme Courts decision is being disseminated.

A 4-4 tie

A nine-justice court agreed to hear the case in January, but by the time of the arguments were heard in late April, Justice Antonin Scalia had died. That left eight justices to decide the case, and the court presumably split 4-4 along liberal and conservative lines, although the court did not say how each justice voted.

The split vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court. In this case, a federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.

The programs announced by Obama in November 2014 included not just DAPA but would also expand DACA, which allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthdays and lived in the U.S. since June 15, 2007, to receive a renewable two-year work permit and exemption from deportation.

Under Obamas 2014 action, DACA was expanded to people of any age who entered the country before the age 16 and lived in the United States continuously since Jan. 1, 2010  and extended the period of DACA and work authorization from two to three years. This is the program that Idrovo thought that she and her brothers would be eligible for.

The Senate had passed a broad immigration bill with Democratic and Republican support in 2013, but the measure went nowhere in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

On Thursday, Obama sought to reassure the millions of immigrants in the country illegally that he has no plans to deport them, while acknowledging that the Supreme Courts deadlock Thursday marks the end of the road for his push to reform the U.S. immigration system.

Were going to have to make a decision about whether we are a people who tolerate the hypocrisy of a system where the workers who pick our fruit or make our beds never have the chance to get right with the law, Obama said. Or whether were going to give them a chance, just like our forebears had a chance, to take responsibility and give their kids a better future.

People who would have benefited from Obamas plan face no imminent threat of deportation because Congress has provided money to deal with only a small percentage of people who live in the country illegally, and the president retains ample discretion in deciding whom to deport.

Still, these immigrants remain in a state of uncertainty.

We thought this would be their chance to come out of the shadows, said Dan Barrett, the legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut, which joined a broad coalition of civil rights groups in an amicus brief that supports the Obama administration in the case.

The states lawsuit was heard by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, who previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration enforcement.

Hanen sided with the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for the states, and the Justice Department rushed an appeal to the high court so that it could be heard this term.

Had Scalia still been alive, though, he almost certainly would have voted with his fellow conservatives to form a majority in favor of the states.

In practical terms, a victory by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump could mean an end to the programs anyway, since he has vowed to deport the roughly 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

If Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is elected, she could attempt to revive the programs or work with the new Congress on comprehensive immigration legislation.

If Clinton wins, the Senate will at some point fill the vacancy created by Scalias death  either with Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or a Clinton choice. In either case, legal challenges to executive action under her administration would come to a court that would have a majority of Democratic-appointed justices and, in all likelihood, give efforts to help immigrants a friendlier reception.

Lisa Rivas, an immigration attorney who kept a list of undocumented immigrants in the Danbury area that might qualify for the two programs, shared in the disappointment and sadness felt across the country.

There was an opportunity to help many individuals and families with both DAPA and extended DACA, but these individuals and families must continue to wait, Rivas said.
The photograph illustrates the new smart phone app 'Uber' logo displayed on a mobile phone next to a taxi on July 1, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo : Getty Images/David Ramos)

Uber China has introduced a new travel app, dubbed Uber+Travel, with a view to get a larger share of industry in the face of stiff competition from Didi Chuxing. With the launch of the app on June 15, Uber China has also shared its customer pool with local travel companies.



With rising income levels and more relaxed visa polices, Uber China sees vast opportunities in the flourishing Chinese tourism market. In fact, the company has observed that the number of overseas visitors to China increased 10-fold during the 2015 Spring Festival Holiday.



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Even the middle class in China has been traveling a lot these days. This is reflected in the 53% increase in spending in outbound travel expenditure since 2014 and 21% hike in leisure tourism spending since 2013, Forbes reported quoting the World Travel and Tourism Council. Even online bookings witnessed a 39.9% rise from 2014.



Keeping this latest development in view, Uber China has partnered with Hainan Airlines, Baidu, Tongcheng Tourism, JD.com, Qunar.com, and China Telecom with a view to assimilate various stages of a trip. The company plans to integrate every aspect from ticketing to hotel reservation, local commutes to selecting an overseas phone plan, all into one app.



Henceforth, different travel companies will rely on Uber for car services between places of interest and also make travel easier for tourists. The partnership will be mutually beneficial; Qunar.com vice-president Zhou Qiang told the publication. Zhou believed that all Uber drivers possess the potential to turn out to be excellent local tour guides.



According to local Chinese media, apparently the launch of Uber+Travel is an indication that Uber China is deliberately moving away from any direct confrontation with Didi Chuxing in the country's car-hailing market. Uber China has been facing fierce competition local car-hailing companies since its launch in Shanghai in February 2014.



Soon after Uber launched its services in China, two largest local car-hailing companies, Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache merged to form Didi Chuxing in 2015 intensifying the competition in the car rental field further. Interestingly enough, the Head of Uber, Liu Zhen, is Didi Chuxing president Jean Liu cousin.



The relationship notwithstanding, Uber China and Didi Chixing are both backed by big players. While Apple, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings have invested in Didi Chuxing, Uber China has become the default car-hailing provider on Baidu Map, which has over 300 million active users in addition to 70% market share.



Meanwhile, Didi Chuxing president Jean Liu has welcomed the competition. Competition is welcome as it makes a company stronger, CNN quoted Liu telling them during an interview. Citing examples, Liu said if one look at the top Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent Holdings, they will find the competition has helped them to grow. Competition helps one to improve and at the end of the day the best player wins, Liu added.



Watch Uber's fight to win China below:






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BROOKFIELD  Two more GOP officials are asking the town to cover their legal expenses related to a lawsuit filed by resident Jane Miller, who was kicked out of the Republican Party in 2015.

In a letter to First Selectman Steve Dunn, the attorney defending ex-town GOP Chairman Matt Grimes and ex-Vice Chairman George Walker in a federal lawsuit filed by Miller said his clients legal expenses should be covered by the towns liability insurance.

Former Republican voter registrar Tom Dunkerton and the town are also battling over payment of his legal fees, but so far Dunn has refused to pay. The first selectman said Wednesday that he also opposes the town paying for Walkers and Grimes expenses, though it will be up to the insurance company to decide.

I believe they have the right to ask for coverage," Dunn said. That, however, is a far cry from believing the town's insurance should cover them.

In the letter, Walkers and Grimes lawyer, Nathaniel J. Gentile, wrote that his clients might be entitled to coverage because of their previously held elected positions.

We write because the plaintiffs recent filing makes clear that her claims arise from conduct that purportedly occurred when Mr. Walker was a member of the Board of Selectmen and Mr. Grimes was a member of the Zoning Commission, wrote Gentile.

Because our clients appear to be entitled to payment of their legal costs and indemnification, we respectfully request that you provide us with the following documents, he added, listing the selectmens 2013 liability insurance policy and the similar policy for the Zoning Commission from 2013 to 2015.

In 2015 Dunkerton and Grimes, then the party chairman, voted to boot Miller from the GOP following a hearing at which the registrar deemed she was not a good-faith party member. At the time, Dunkerton and Grimes cited Millers unsuccessful 2013 run for the Board of Finance on the Democratic ticket and her support of other Democrats as reasons to kick her out of the party.

In 2013 Grimes was a member of the Zoning Commission and Walker was concluding his two-year term as a selectman. Grimes lost his seat on the panel in November 2015, and he and Walker were not re-elected to the Republican Town Committee in March.

The lawsuit claims that Grimes, Walker, Dunkerton and incumbent Selectman Marty Flynn, who was also a RTC officer, conspired against Miller to remove her from the Republican Party voting rolls. The suit seeks more than $1 million and argues that her removal from the party violated her constitutional rights by denying her ability to vote in the presidential primary and other Republican elections.

In testimony during a separate state lawsuit filed against him by Miller last year, Dunkerton said that he had had conversations about Miller with Walker while he was a selectman." Dunkerton also said he discussed Miller with Flynn.

Brookfield maintains an insurance policy for its public officials because Connecticut law mandates their protection from personal liability in certain circumstances," Gentile said Wednesday. Our clients who have served the Brookfield community for years most likely qualify for coverage in this case.

Millers attorney, former Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, declined to comment.

Flynn and Dunkerton, who stepped down as registrar earlier this month, are already covered by Brookfields policy.

Millers earlier state suit against Dunkerton was rejected by a judge, but she has since appealed the decision to state superior court.

Dunkertons attorney in that case, Ward Mazzucco, has said the town is obligated to pay his bills because his client was acting in his official capacity as registrar.

But Dunn has refused to pay the more than $24,000, saying that Millers expulsion from the party is strictly a Republican Party matter that should not be subsidized by taxpayers. Last month Dunkerton sued the town over the unpaid bills, but the town has not yet responded to the suit.

awolff@newstimes.com; 203-731-3333; @awolffster
General Hospital (GH) spoilers for June 24 and the week of June 27  July 1: Kevin makes a discovery, Nathan has disturbing news, Aaron and Kristina make a decision

The cast from "General Hospital" poses after winning the Emmy for "Outstanding Drama Series" at the 39th Daytime Emmy Awards in Beverly Hills, California June 23, 2012. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas (Photo : REUTERS/Gus Ruelas )

"General Hospital" (GH) episode airing on June 24 continue to revolve around Carlos' murder mystery. I the meantime, Kevin uncovers an important clue and Ava finds herself in a difficult situation. Here are the detailed spoilers for the upcoming episodes of ABC's long-running soap opera. Read on to find out what happens next.



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[Spoiler alert! This article contains spoilers for "General Hospital" (GH) episodes airing on June 24 and in the week of June 27 - July 1. Do not read further if you don't wish to know more about it.]



The upcoming segment will open drama revolving around Paul, Anna and Sonny. According to She Knows spoilers for "General Hospital" (GH) episode airing on Friday, Sonny is keen to find out more about Carlos' murder. He urges Paul and Anna to inform him about the latest developments in Carlos' murder case. He asks them for an update.



In the meantime, Nathan makes a shocking discovery at Alexis' house. A knife is found at Alexis' place that can put her in trouble. As for Alexis, she joins hands with Diane for a new plan to tackle Julian.



Elsewhere, Julian and Nina reach an agreement. Finn pays a visit at the Quartermaine mansion. The motive behind his unexpected visit remains unknown.



Meanwhile, Sabrina opens up to Felix and talks to him about her situation. Will Felix be able to help Sabrina? Further, Kevin discovers a clue to the mystery. And Ava gets caught in a difficult situation.



In addition, Soap Central has reported spoilers for "General Hospital" (GH) episodes airing in the week of June 27 - July 1. According to the website, the upcoming episodes focuses on Sam and her mother, Aaron and Kristina's relationship, Nina and Franco and Hayden and Finn. Sam finds out about her mother's problems. Aaron and Kristina discuss the future of their relationship. Tension grows between Nina and Franco and Finn gets help from Hayden.



"General Hospital" (GH) airs Monday through Friday on ABC. More spoilers are expected soon.


T HE City analyst who helped to coin the term Brexit and first warned investors about the threat of a Leave vote backed Britain to stay in the EU today.

Former Nomura senior policy analyst Alastair Newton, a veteran British diplomat and ex-adviser to Tony Blair, startled markets in August 2012 when he warned the Japanese banks clients that it was increasingly likely the UK would exit the European Union.

We see difficulty securing an In vote no matter how the question is framed, he said at the time.

Now, however, Newton believes Britain will remain in the union.

I stand by my 2012 call that this is going to be close but that ultimately  as Peter Mandelson put it  the eurosceptic but pragmatic British will vote to remain in the EU, he told the Standard.

Nomura helped to draw the Citys attention to the issue with the widely-read analyst note, penned by Newton, saying that it would be difficult to get a Remain vote without significant concessions from the EU. It called this new phenomenon Brixit, a term which slowly evolved into Brexit.

Newton said the word was derived from Grexit, which was topical at the time as Greeces debt crisis threatened to force it out of Europe. The expression Brexit was also published in The Economist magazine at the time.

Newton, who spent 20 years in the diplomatic service in Africa, Paris and the US, left his role at Nomura last year after a decade in the City. He has since founded a small business consultancy in Zambia.
F RANCEs most powerful business lobby has called on EU competition authorities to block the London Stock Exchange-Deutsche Borse merger over fears that it will trigger an exodus of French companies to London or Frankfurt.

Pierre Pringuet, president of AFEP which speaks for more than 100 of Frances biggest companies, said the huge size of the new Anglo-German group could spark an exodus of listed French companies looking for more liquid stock markets.

AFEP speaks on behalf of French firms such as Air France, Axa, BNP Paribas, LOreal and LVMH and many more.

If French groups leave Paris, France will lose a great deal of sovereignty to Germany and Britain for supervising its own large companies, Pringuet told Les Echos.

LSE and Deutsche Borse shareholders are expected to vote on the merger next month. All eyes will be on todays EU referendum outcome, which could change the terms of the deal.

Pringuet also said EU regulators should force a carve-up of the new LSE-Deutsche Borse empire to Euronext, the rival EU exchange which owns the French, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese stock markets.

We hope that this merger will not go through. And if it should be allowed, that the various remedies will be significant and beneficial for Euronext, he added.

Euronext has steadily been building substantial firepower to meet the changing landscape after the LSE-Deutsche Borse tie-up.

A recent agreement with the Dutch finance ministry lifting capital requirements, is freeing up cash at the group for bigger deals.

If LSE-Deutsche Borse do spin out assets, the Italian stock exchange and the French arm of LCH.Clearnet would be the most likely candidates, according to analysts.
T he number of passengers passing through Heathrows terminals this year is set to climb 0.7% to 75.5 million, the London airport has said, strengthening its case for expansion.

In its investor report to bondholders, Heathrow said it expects underlying profit growth of 4.5% to 1.7 billion this financial year, and a 0.9% revenue rise to 2.8 billion.

The update comes in the wake of a solid first three months of the year, with sales up 3.2%.

Traffic has been helped by more North American services, larger aircraft to the Middle East and new airlines, such as Vietnam Airways, which serve countries in Asia.

The airport hopes to build a third runway after the Airports Commission, led by Sir Howard Davies, last year recommended the west London site for expansion.

It said today its proposal would deliver a world-leading, ambitious and affordable plan which balances the huge national and local economic gain from expansion with the environmental impacts.

Yesterday, Heathrows plans were branded a rip off by IAG boss Willie Walsh. He wants the airport to double its northern runway instead. A decision on expansion is expected later this summer.
I nsurance stocks have been yo-yoing in recent weeks in line with the polls, but any bounce from a win for Remain could be short-lived, Canaccord Genuity warned today.

The broker argued that the insurance industry faces problems even if the UK votes to stay in the EU.

Though we can attribute part of the weakness in the sector year-to-date to fears around Brexit, it is the decline in the yield curve and long bond yields that is the most concerning of macro-indicators, said analyst Ben Cohen.

To the extent that worries over long-term growth reflected in lower bond yields have had an impact on sector performance, this may suggest that any post-Remain excitement could be short-lived.

Cohen picked out More Than insurer RSA as the most leveraged of all the property and casualty insurance companies. He also warned that Lloyds of London insurers are more exposed to interest-rate movements than investors assume.

Shares in RSA have surged 14% this year against a sector slump of 13%  with the business even outperforming peers before its takeover by Zurich collapsed last year.

With this in mind, Cohen decided to downgrade RSA from Buy to Hold, causing the shares to slip 5.5p to 478.6p.

As the odds of a Remain vote were slashed, the FTSE 100 rocketed 95.63 points, or 1.5%, to 6356.82.

It had been thought that today would be the calm before the storm, with some traders pulling all-nighters in preparation for the biggest trading day in years.

Commodity prices were up on hopes of a Remain vote, lifting miners, including Glencore by 4.8p to 153.65p and Anglo American by 16.1p to 686.6p.

Berenberg sparked concerns that the Government could be retrospectively reviewing its naval strategy and funding, which could spell bad news for warship maker BAE Systems.

The broker cut BAE, which relies on the Royal Navy for 16% of its sales (2.9 billion last year), from Buy to Hold, causing the shares to sink 1.65p to 500.85p.

Weir Group dumped two of its renewables business for up to 36.7 million as part of the oil engineers 100 million asset sell-off. The shares were 7p cheaper at 1346p.

Institutional investors Henderson, Barclays, Axa, Close Brothers, and Hargreave Hale were today left ruing their decision to back speculative AIM stock Stadium Group.

The manufacturing software provider, almost half of which is owned by the aforementioned investors, slumped 31.38p or 29% to 78.62p after a profits warning as Stadium revealed one of its main telematics customers decided to design its own software.

Chief executive Charlie Peppiatt said: Theres no doubt that this sets us back temporarily in terms of our ambitions for growth.
T he pound hit another year-high earlier as Britain voted on its future in the EU and the City prepared for the biggest all-nighter of all time.

Bets on sterling pushed the currency as high as $1.4844 at one stage earlier, the highest since December, amid expectations of a win for the Remain camp.

The FTSE 100 caught the mood, adding more than 1% as the blue-chip benchmark carved out one its biggest five-day winning streaks.

Since last Thursdays close of $1.4177, the pound has gained more than 4%  the largest five-day rise for the currency since June 2009, according to BNY Mellon.

But the cost of buying insurance against swings in the pound overnight also jumped to its highest on record to guard against a shock Brexit vote, which could cause sterling to pound plunge 20%.

Firms across the City were meanwhile preparing for a night of heavy trading  and potential market chaos  as the results come in.

Panmure Gordons Square Mile veteran David Buik said: This will be the biggest all-nighter of all time  certainly in my lifetime. In my 53 years in the City Ive known nothing quite like it.

City sources said some investment banks will be turning off their algorithmic trading systems and only accept phone orders from clients to limit the potential turmoil.

Spread-betting and trading firms have already lifted the margin requirements of their customers  making it more expensive to trade  although volumes are still expected to surge.

Andrew Edwards, chief executive of spread-betting firm ETX Capital, said: Normally wed have a skeleton crew but today well have a third of our staff in  risk management, payment teams to take money from customers and IT. It should start getting really busy from around 4am onwards.

ETX booked hotel rooms months in advance so workers are able to snatch some sleep between two full trading days.

Edwards is expecting double the volumes seen in the markets when the Swiss National Bank suddenly scrapped its currency cap against the euro in January last year, which was the firms busiest day. This time we have had a chance to prepare.

Simon Smith, operations director at FxPro, added: There is going to be volatility in currency and beyond, whatever the outcome.

That means more clients trading, depositing funds and asking questions, so our back-office and dealing teams will be staffed the same as during a normal working day.
Egypt received the helicopter carrier last month as part of a deal signed with France last year

A French Mistral helicopter carrier that Egypt bought last year arrived in the country Thursday after taking part in a joint naval exercise in France earlier this week.

Egypt signed a $1 billion deal with France last year to acquire two Mistral helicopter carriers after their sale to Russia was canceled last August. Egypt had said the second carrier will arrive in September.

The warship, named after late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, arrived to a naval base in western Alexandria Thursday after taking part in the multi-day military drill "Cleopatra 2016" in France, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported. It also made a two-week pilot voyage from France's Saint-Nazaire, with 170 sailors and 50 French defence experts on board, according to Al-Ahram Arabic.

The Mistral deal is part of several defence contracts Egypt signed with France.

In April, Egypt signed deals worth 2 billion Euros ($2.26 billion) with France during a visit by French President Francois Hollande to Cairo that included a contract for a military telecommunications satellite expected to be built by France's Airbus Space Systems and Thales Alenia Space.

France last year agreed to sell 24 Rafale fighters plus a frigate to Egypt in a 5.2 billion Euro ($5.9 billion) deal.

Egypt received three of the combat jets in January.

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S o how was it for you? The answer is probably ghastly. The referendum campaign has been too long, too repetitive and finally too nasty. But there is no denying that it has been a political thriller. London venues usually given over to showbusiness and sport have seen wall-to-wall Brexit, culminating in Tuesdays packed fist-fight at Wembley Arena. Not even general elections do that.

To London the referendum has seemed irrelevant. Polls show Londoners to be the most Remain of Britons (after the Scots). With more than a third of the capitals population born abroad, this is hardly surprising. At Tate Modern on Sunday I hardly heard a word of English spoken. Leave or remain in Europe? can have little meaning to many of todays Londoners.

Amid the cacophony almost the entire London establishment has been for Remain. This embraces a majority of MPs, the new Mayor Sadiq Khan, the City, the West End, the arts, science and academia. I have observed only cabbies and the Conservative press voting for Leave.

At the start of the campaign I wrote here that, for the capital, in or out of the EU would make little difference. If today Britain votes out, Londons bankers, businesses and politicians will bust a gut to scramble back in. By hook or by crook they will cut deals, negotiate and fiddle to pretend the public did not really mean it.

By virtue of sheer scale Londons cosmopolitan industries of finance, tourism, education and health will continue to prosper. As a world city it looks more to the outside world, especially to New York, than to Paris or Berlin. The worlds rich will continue arriving to get richer and avoid tax, and the worlds poor will go on seeking streets paved with gold. A Leave vote might even do some good. It might cool the hysteria in the property market and wipe some smugness off Londons cultural face.

But then the reverse might also apply. If Britain votes a reluctant Remain there will be such a backlash against the EU in many quarters that politicians will end up having to behave as if we had voted Leave. As in Scotland, defeat for Leave would mean a sort of victory. In a nutshell, I think that whatever happens tonight London tomorrow will be not too unlike London yesterday.

What has undoubtedly changed for me, long a Eurosceptic, over the campaign is that I am more aware that London is not alone in this referendum, nor is Britain. Perhaps if I were voting for a selfish London I would still go for Brexit. Less regulation and fewer non-doms and bankers would be no great loss. A liberated London would still draw economic activity from the rest of Britain and the rest of the world.

But London is not an independent state. What is abundantly clear is that this referendum is about the continent as a whole. All Europe is watching today  and Europe is in a mess. A YouGov poll shows roughly a third of the populations of the major European states are hostile to the EU, usually from the Right and far-Right. A poll this week showed only half of French and Italians wanted to remain in the EU.

In other words, any further political unification of Europe is for the birds. Fragmentation is more likely. For that reason some looser and yet more coherent framework for joint action must be found or Europe and its economy will go from stagnation to worse. That is not in Britains interest.

Nor is that all. Europe now has to handle both Russias belligerence and the refugee millions beating on its southern and eastern doors. For the continents leadership, such as it is, to fall apart at this juncture would be a disaster. Look at the Balkans over the past quarter-century, or look at the present borderlands of Greece, Macedonia and Sicily. The prospect of Europe sliding back into Right-wing nationalism, in one country after another, would deeply affect Britain  not just in trade and immigrant pressure but in everything Britons enjoy about the continent.

The only vehicle for concerted action at present is the EU. It may be hopeless and ill-led but, like the United Nations, it is the sole reality. At present it dances to Germanys tune. With France in decline and Italy and Spain suffering the horrors of the eurozone, Germany alone commands the field.

I find it significant that Germany is the one EU country (along with Poland) that overwhelmingly wants Britain to remain a member. From my last visit to Berlin, I know the reason. Germany does not welcome its exposure. It leaders doubt whether their internal politics, again under pressure from the far-Right, can sustain it. They want and need Britain aboard as an ally. They should perhaps have done more to help David Cameron in his recent negotiations to that end.

Many pundits enjoy imagining London as a city state, London as head of a global Hanseatic League, or London as an offshore island, the Hong Kong of Europe. It was in these terms that I initially found the Leave prospectus feisty and appealing. Were the economic case for Brexit unanswerable, and were seizing back control plausible, I would still vote Leave.

In neither case does reality match rhetoric, while the political argument for Remain has become ever stronger. The only feasible axis capable of stabilising Europes rickety power balance now is an Anglo-German one.

I can see that Remain risks Britain sinking back into the EU sludge. But that is a challenge, not an argument for Brexit. Whether or not Cameron wins tonight the battle will be the same, to harness London to the task of rescuing Europes coherence. But it is easier to achieve if Britain stays in the EU.
A gifted Spanish composer who died in the First World War is being remembered next week with a two-day festival marking the centenary of his death.

Enric Granados was killed at the age of 48 when the ship he was on was torpedoed in the English Channel by a German U-boat. Festival organiser Elena Riu, a professor of piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, said: He was a very gifted improviser so there will be a lot of improvised performances in the concerts.

Granados' distinctly Spanish style influenced both Manuel de Falla and Pablo Casals, though he also composed in a more straightforwardly romantic style.

A number of his piano pieces have been transcribed for classical guitar.

Five operas for beginners 1 /5 Five operas for beginners La boheme Puccinis popular masterpiece wasnt always so popular: when it premiered in 1896, the reception was tepid, with critics deriding the music for being too simple. Fortunately, the world ignored such rot and the heartbreaking love story, a romance between poet Rodolfo and seamstress Mimi, has captivated audiences ever since.



Michael Volpe, the director of Opera Holland Park says: La boheme by Puccini is ideal. Sensational music, tragic love and not a dry eye in the house. I think the sneering at Puccini is diminishing; most people have come to accept that he was a genius and worthy of status alongside Verdi. People are also starting to realise that he wrote other great works, like Fanciulla and Rondine.



Volpe recommends Tosca as well. Another Puccini, it is acutely romantic, concerned with jealousy, love, passion, and sacrifice. It also has a cartoonishly evil villain in Scarpia, who has fabulously thundering theme. Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images La traviata Another Italian option, another love story. Set in hedonistic and glorious world of 19th century Paris, La traviata, Verdis most famous work, tells the story of Violetta, who falls in love with Alfredo, much to his fathers disapproval. This is opera, so of course, things dont go well, but as Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, says: If you want to see a good, romantic love story, then evergreens La traviata might make you cry  in the good way.



Holten encourages audiences to be broadminded: Opera is as versatile as life itself, so it is really difficult to say what would be your ideal first opera. What opera is sure to give you, is a deep emotional experience, an overwhelming experience of all the art forms combined into one, and the fantastic sensation when you hear a large orchestra, chorus and soloists at once. Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty Images The Magic Flute Mozarts Magic Flute is enchanting, and more than a little madcap, complete with sorcerer and a Queen of the Night. It follows the story of Prince Tamino as he tries to rescue Pamina, daughter of the Queen, from Sarastro, the sorcerer. Sarastro is apparently evil, and then hes not, and the whole thing bounces around, with light relief from bird-catcher Papageno. Its all at once serious and comic, profound and yet contains the essence of silliness. It has the air of a fairy-tale, and the music is a little bit folky: there is none of the grand, stirring elegance of something like La boheme, but thats exactly the point: its something entirely different  opera covers a lot of ground. Boris Harvat/AFP/Getty Images Peter Grimes First performed in Sadlers Wells in 1945, Benjamin Brittens opera is more modern than others on this list. The English National Operas artistic director Daniel Kramer recommends it as a story full of suspense, chilling choral explosions and orchestral interludes that reflect the unique power of opera, all woven together by Brittens astounding ability to capture raw humanity in melody  in English.



Apart from being in English and from the 20th century, Peter Grimes' plot differs quite dramatically from the love stories already mentioned. Grimes is a fisherman, who local townspeople suspect of being responsible for the death of his apprentice. Let off by a judge, he hires another apprentice, who also dies, and Grimes descends into madness. Its certainly tragic, but its narrative isnt defined by a romance  perfect for anyone who wants drama without the mush (although widowed schoolmistress Ellen Orford provides enough tenderness to tug at the heart strings). Bethany Clarke/Getty Images The Barber of Seville Rossinis work is easy to listen to, and easy to be hooked by. The Barber of Seville is an excellent example  the overture is by turns calm, melodic, but its punctuated by great stabs of drama, and then lifts, sunny and running away with itself. Michael Volpe recommends it for those looking for something light and effervescent. Its certainly a cheerful piece, fast moving and funny. Upbeat, joyful, if the audience are crying, its either with laughter or something has gone horribly wrong. Patrick Riviere/Getty Images

One of his famous pieces, the opera Maria del Carmen, resulted in Granadoswas being awarded the Charles III Cross.

Homage to Catalonia is at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance on Monday and Tuesday.

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T here's an inscription on a tombstone in a cemetery in the French village of Bailleulmont which reads: Private A. Ingham. Shot at dawn. One of the first to enlist. A worthy son of his father.

From this haunting epitaph playwright Mark Hayhurst has concocted a compelling piece about Albert and his friend Alfred Longshaw, who enlisted early in the 3rd Manchester Pals, distinguished themselves at the Battle of the Somme and were eventually shot for desertion.

Hayhurst has form with this sort of meaty historical drama; his debut play, Taken at Midnight, about a mother who stood up to the Nazis, was a West End hit last year. Here, he skilfully spins two timelines, the first about the adventures  and then tragedy  of quiet Albert (Tom Gill) and self-taught live-wire Alfred (David Moorst), the second centring on Alberts close-knit family and their reaction to the news. Gill and Moorst are a terrific pairing, ably balancing each others up-and-down humours. Moorst, last years winner of the Evening Standards theatre award for emerging talent, fizzes with jokes and insubordination until, too late, the consequences of Alfreds rash decision hit home.

Theres fine support from Phil Davis as Alberts dogged father and Kelly Price as his conflicted sister. Jonathan Munbys production is stylish and serious and boasts some wonderfully fluid and inventive scene changes between the home front and the blood-soaked fields of France.

Until July 2, Minerva, Chichester (01243 781312, cft.org.uk)

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A rriving at the Kingdom of Kicks workshop on a windswept and unlovely street in the far reaches of Hackney Wick, the first thing you notice are the bikes. There are dozens of them  dozens and dozens, of every colour and make imaginable  propped up against the brick wall of the nondescript building. Inside, there are more  as well as assorted tools, helmets, bolts  and a poster of a naked woman shot from behind.

Its not the sort of place Id expect to find fashion designer and former model Tamara Bell (5ft 7in, 25, part Atlanta de Cadenet, part Jennifer Garner). She certainly doesnt fit the stereotype of a beefy, male biker. Yet few could question her credentials: she rides a customised Harley-Davidson, is working on building her dream chopper from a Triumph T100 engine, and knows enough about bike mechanics to make it across India, Romania and the California deserts with countless breakdowns along the way. For me riding isnt about having a destination in mind, she grins. Its more about hitting the road and just seeing what happens.

How did a girl from Ealing became such a passionate petrol head? Bell says shes always had it: When I was three, my mum says I asked for a motorbike for my birthday, she laughs. As a teenager, she hated school, hated routine, and instead focused on saving up money for her first bike. I bought a Yamaha SR as soon as I was old enough. I used to ride it around London at night.

Turns out, the biker stereotype is changing. Grizzly old men in leathers still meet at biker cafes on the North Circular, but more girls in London are getting in the saddle. Bells not the only member of the new wave of motorbike-loving women. Her business partner Ame Pearce, 33, is a fashion designer by day; together they run biker-inspired clothing brand Burds London, a collection of tough-girl jeans and jackets. Then theres biker gang VC London, based in Limehouse and founded by former fashion designers Gemma Harrison, 31, and Namin Cho, 28.

(Francesca Allen)

Bell remembers the first time she went to a party organised by a motorbike magazine in London seven years ago and was the only girl there. Now, she says, she meets lots. In August the US-based biker event Babes Ride Out comes to Britain, meaning hundreds more biker chicks will descend on UK soil.

Whats behind the biker boom? I think a lot of it is down to the internet, says Bell. Now social media exists the culture is more readily available to see on Instagram and you can connect with other female riders more easily. When you scroll through the Burds London Instagram account its not hard to see how the aesthetic of leather-clad girls lounging on silver Harleys could be alluring. The business partners claim that their intention is not to market biking as a throwaway trend. Weve gone through the whole process of building our bikes as opposed to just going and buying them, says Pearce. If youre going to do it, you should do it cause youre interested in it, not cause you think its a cool trend.

Francesca Allen

The new breed of bikers have brought a new culture with them. The Bike Shed in Shoreditch pitches itself as a kind of Soho House for bikers; a new members club set in exposed brickwork arches, boasting a restaurant, coffee shop and barber, its the brainchild of former MTV brand strategist Anthony Dutch van Someren. We have a lot of experienced bikers come in, but we also have a younger core demographic than the average bike shop, he says. And Bolt, tucked away near London Fields, sells vintage bikes in an airy railway arch where young professionals can also get a haircut in an old-fashioned barber chair. Both Bolt and The Bike Shed stock female apparel and hold talks by female bikers. Harrison thinks this might be part of the reason more aspiring female bikers are coming out the woodwork: A lot of women want to get on two wheels but arent sure how. Has she experienced sexism from male bikers? Ive never come across a guy saying you cant do this, [but] I do know girls whove tried to learn who say guys took the piss when they fell off.

When the VC girls put out an offer on Instagram to teach aspiring girl-bikers how to ride a motorbike, Harrison says the floodgates opened. They had so many female applicants they couldnt cope with them all, so VC teamed up with a training school and have since set up discounted compulsory basic training (CBT) courses for women. They reckon theyve helped around 50 women take their CBT test.

The course itself is relatively simple  you only need a provisional licence, it takes just one day, you can borrow the bike from the driving school, and if you pass you can legally hit the road with learner plates on a small bike or scooter right away. The bad news is that upgrading to a bigger and more badass bike takes a bit more commitment. Youve gotta do a theory test and two practical tests, it sucked. says Bell. Biking doesnt come cheap either. While there might be a bike for most budgets, it can be costly to train for a full licence since, as Bell puts it, to get the experience on the bike youll be tested on, you have to be supervised by an instructor at all times.

When you weigh up the hours, costs and dangers attached to getting on a motorbike, you start to wonder what drives this new generation of girl-riders. Ultimately, it seems, its a mix of practicality and passion. Pearce says her bike saves her the hassle of public transport, and riding to work and back each day also helps clear her head. For Harrison, the motivation to ride is similar: Its a bit of me time. In a busy city like London its nice to have that moment to yourself when riding, just as much as sharing it with your friends.

Bell still likes to ride around the city in the dead of night, particularly central London or along the Thames  places that would normally be busy. She sees biking as the best way on earth to seek adventure, recounting a recent trip to Ghent. On the way back, the heavens opened. Before I even had the chance to pull over, my boots had filled up with water and my entire body was drenched and the only option was to ride on. This doesnt sound pleasant. No, it sucked. But you know what? It reminded me I was alive.

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I ve bought a rainbow umbrella. As marks of solidarity go, its not exactly up there with the thousands who gathered in Old Compton Street for a vigil to honour those who lost their lives in Orlando, but it feels right, and not just because its supposed to be the wettest June on record. Like the rainbow flag that first flew over San Franciscos Gay Freedom Day Parade in 1978, my umbrella is a small, if useless, show of support for a community that was attacked in one of the places it should have felt safest.

What can I do? you ask when yet another gunman fires hate from a weapon whose ready availability is unfathomable to all but the lobbyists who profit from its sales. There is nothing you can do to change the gun laws, but maybe, just maybe, your little acts of kindness can combine with others little acts of kindness to make the world a less hostile place. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that, Martin Luther King Jr said. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Prince William didnt know what horrors would unfold in Orlando when he agreed to be the first member of the royal family to appear on the cover of the gay magazine Attitude. Still, the timing couldnt be more sublime. No one should be bullied for their sexuality you should be proud of the person you are, he said. To those who shrug and say So what? Check your privilege. Try being gay in one of the 73 countries where its illegal. Or try being proud of Londons tolerance when compared with so many other places in the world. Because you should be.

The Soho vigil showed our city at its best. This weekend we get the chance to be our best again, by celebrating our culture of tolerance at Pride in London. And we should celebrate that tolerance, whether thats by joining the throngs at this Saturdays parade, hanging a rainbow flag from your window  or carrying a rainbow umbrella.

Pumped up

The trainer is facing stiff competition from a more elegant flat. Enter, stage left, tripping daintily through the puddles, the ballet pump. It was Miu Mius version that first sparked the trend: with its mismatched ribbons (one black, one checked, pictured) and buckled straps, they are the perfect batty-enough-to-stand-out-on-Instagram shoes. I badly want the white satin ones (460), but clearly these would be unwise. Guess Ill plump for a more waterproof leather pair instead.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

The recent death of Margaret Vinci Heldt, the woman who invented the beehive hairstyle, is a fitting opportunity to remember beehive wearers past and present, a roll-call of names as various as Audrey Hepburn, Beyonce, Elizabeth Taylor, Adele, Diana Dors, The Ronettes, Dusty Springfield and Amy Winehouse, not to mention two of my fave writers, Suzanne Moore and Grace Dent. Factor in Marge Simpson and Patsy Stone, and its all I can do to stop myself running to the mirror with a can of Elnett and a fine-tooth comb. In an era where sleek, poker-straight hair is considered a beauty ideal, the beehive is the rebels choice  chic yet subversive, like all the best things in life.

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Y ouve taken part in the glorious democratic process and now all thats left to be done is to wait for the results to roll in. But sleep is for the weak, and whatever the outcome of this referendum, you dont want to appear feeble.

Gear up to pull a booze and Twitter-fuelled all-nighter, ensuring youre there for all the nervous 1am predictions, 3am whisky fisticuffs, first declarations at 4am and the champagne pops or wails of despair at 7am, when this whole debate is finally over. Hurrah!

Boozy Brexits

We all know that the main appeal of Brussels is its vast selection of lethal high-proof Trappist beers. Make sure you fill your boots at The Dove in Broadway Market, which is holding a referendum results party from 10pm to 5am, screening the results as they swarm in while you drown your sorrows in a gallon of 8 per cent Achel Blonde.

If a Belgian pub is too EU for you, wander over to Angel, where Kentucky-themed pub The Lexington is also pulling an all-nighter, fuelled by a stonking range of American whiskies.

Eat your words

Europeans eat far later than we do. Whether you think thats admirable, or another sign of the wildly inefficient system of which were unwillingly part, youre going to get peckish if youre staying up till dawn. Luckily theres a host of restaurants open late tonight. Chase nachos with tequila at El Camion in Soho, and slurp dumplings until 3am in Opium.

And if you cant drag your eyes from David Dimblebys penetrating gaze on BBC1, Deliveroo is open as long as your favourite curry house. Just think, without immigration we wouldnt have our classic British dishes of doner kebab and chow mein.

Wales and Northern Ireland declare at 4am, when most chefs are heading home for their hour or two of sleep. But theres still options: the 24-hour Duck & Waffle in the Heron Tower. Make sure you get your order in quick if you need a foie gras creme brulee to steady your nerves for Londons declaration at 5am, as they technically stop serving between 5am and 6am.

If all else fails  or youre not a fan of any of that foreign muck  go round the corner to the infamous Polo Bar. Traditional British cafe fare, for modern Londoners translates into a massive Full English, which youll still be eating long after the vote counting is over.

Raverendum

If youre already looking for escape at 7pm, get to Glastonbury  at least in spirit. Although the music proper doesnt start until tomorrow, Annie Mac will be covering the lesser-known warm-ups from 7-10pm on BBC Radio 1.

If youre actually there (and not yet sucked into a bog), you can escape your Europhile tent mates obsessive Twitter refreshing with some of the odder Glasto offers. From 11pm to 2.30am, theres Club de Fromage at Williams Green (cheesy madcap antics with dancers, men on BMXs and all that malarkey), or you can obliterate the EU from your mind with acid purists Paranoia on the Wow! Stage from 2am to 3am.

For a lighthearted alternative to the referendum, kill the hours between midnight and 3am by watching Aliens at the Pilton Palais cinema  after all, youll welcome the sweet relief of death by extraterrestrial at this stage.

EU Referendum polling day - in pictures 1 /22 EU Referendum polling day - in pictures Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave after casting their votes in the EU referendum at a polling station in London Tim Ireland/AP Nuns leave a polling station after voting in the EU Referendum in London Hannah McKay/EPA Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn stops for a photograph with members of the public as he leaves his home to cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington Matt Cardy/Getty Images A dog is tied to railings outside a polling station waiting for its owner to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea Ian Forsyth/Getty Images A member of a polling station stands next to a polling box as she waits for citizens during the EU referendum in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar Jon Nazca/Reuters London Mayor Sadiq Khan arrives to vote in the EU referendum in Tooting, South London Lucy Young Chelsea pensioners arrive at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital, London Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox Danny Lawson/PA UKIP leader Nigel Farage carries newspapers as he arrives outside his home in Downe, Kent, as the voters go the polls in the EU referendum Gareth Fullerl/PA Justice Secretary and prominent 'Vote Leave' campaigner Michael Gove poses with his wife Sarah Vine (R) after voting in the European Union referendum at their local polling station in Kensington Jack Taylor/Getty Images Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samamtha vote at Westminster Methodist Hall Alex Lentati Gary Howard, owner of the Little Braxted Bakery in Little Braxted, Essex, arrives at the polling station set up in his own tea rooms by the local council Nick Ansell/PA Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon, poses for photographers as leaves after voting at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow Robert Perry/AFP/Getty Images A man wearing a European themed cycling jersey leaves after voting at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London Neil Hall/Reuters Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and his wife Justine depart after voting in the EU Referendum at a polling station in Gibraltar A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Birstall library, West Yorkshire, near where Labour MP Jo Cox was attacked and killed outside her constituency surgery Danny Lawson/PA A flooded car park at a polling station in Chessington, south London, after heavy overnight rain @hjyoungs/PA

Lets be friends

Eastern, North West and South Eastern areas declare at 7am, heralding the result  and all the key stats will be printed first in the Evening Standard. But 7am is also when the real negotiations start. Not between Brussels and the Government, or David Cameron and the Cabinet  but between you and your loved ones. Because regardless of whether we stay or go, the fact that you screamed the words racist bastard at your boyfriends dad two weeks ago isnt going to just disappear.

So quick: make a reservation at The Ivy, which has seen far worse histrionics than an EU spat, and treat nearby family and friends youve slagged off and spat at in the past few months. The only question is: full English or French toast?

And as for the grandparents who cut you out of their will after a heated, gravy-spattered dispute over Sunday lunch? 10am on Friday is the ideal time to call them, allowing for several nice cups of calming tea to take effect. If you came out for the losing side, grovel. If you came out for the winning side, grovel harder in order to smother the gloat. Because ultimately, this silly referendum isnt worth falling out with the people who really matter to you. We should all remember that.

Follow Frankie McCoy on Twitter: @franklymccoy
Y esterday, in the process of sending a text to a mum friend (The latte was lukewarm again. Hate that new barista. Yes will pick up the kids at usual time) I noticed a name in Contacts that I didnt recognise. Who was Alvin Quek? Intrigued, I carried on scrolling. Who was Pepe Palmer? They sounded like characters from a Tarantino film. Had I ever known such mysterious, improbably named men?

Like most people I have a long, unwieldy Contacts list that, if you discount butcher, doctor and plumber, makes me appear far more sociable and connected than I really am. Like my Facebook page (370 friends) and my Twitter feed (21,000 followers), it suggests I am wildly popular, with a bevy of pals I can summon at whim.

But while my digital self is engaged in a sociable maelstrom of pithy comments about the plotline of Orange Is the New Black, my real self is often sat on the sofa, alone. Trying to get anyone to go to the pub for a pint is a process more complex than Brexit. Everyone in London is so busy that its easier to flirt with shallow friendships than it is to meet real friends.

Those left feeling lonely by endless pics of #SquadGoals should be heartened by new research which finds that we may all actually have only five real friends. Scientists claim that while humans have the capacity to form complex societies there is an upper limit to how many friends we can have in our inner circle  one that has gone unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. Take that, Taylor Swift.

All friendships, however good, will ebb, flow and evolve according to your stage of life. The older I get the more blessed I feel still to have good friends from school: that we knew each other as teenagers feels wonderfully reassuring. In my twenties I was a bit mistrustful of people who had zero school friends, until it dawned on me that maybe theyd just hated school.

London is full of people who have reinvented themselves; crammed with folk who view friendships as commodities to be traded with for currencies more dubious than companionship and love. But it is also a city where people finally find a sense of belonging, often after years of feeling like misfits in the place they were born.

When you first move to London your new friendships are like love affairs: passionate and intense, every emotion heightened by the fizzing backdrop of the city. Sometimes they burn out. Sometimes they endure. Sometimes they lead to more friendships, a criss-cross of connections strung across the city like fairy lights, illuminating the path ahead.

When you first move to London your new friendships are like love affairs / shutterstock

Since most people move to the city in search of work, then swiftly find that work consumes them (since were all working longer hours than ever), its no surprise that work relationships hold a special place in Londoners hearts.

It takes real skill to handle the range of crazies you meet in any given office; to endure eight hours a day with someone who, normally, youd cross the street to avoid. It is one of the great tragedies of life that we must spend so long among ambitious people whose only agenda is to claw their way to the top at any cost.

But in every herd of swine there are pearls. Some of my dearest friendships have been forged over a computer. There is something uniquely bonding about working together against a common adversary, moaning about the canteen chips and the psychotic boss.

What fashion postcode do you live in? 1 /21 What fashion postcode do you live in? Which shopping postcode do you belong to? Click to find out... Getty SW1 Shoppers are the biggest buyers of Balmain blazers Press Battersea Chloes Drew bag is popular Press Chelsea ...loves shoes. The top five most shopped brands include Nike, Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin Press SW3 Shrimps colourful fake fur is a must-have Press Dalston Flats outsell heels by 3 to 1, where sneakers are the most popular shoes for women. Nike, Converse and Adidas Stan Smiths top wishlists Press Shoreditch Residents are most likely to shop for Stella McCartney lingerie Shoreditch Residents are most likely to shop for Stella McCartney lingerie Hackney A Vetements hoodie is most-wanted Press Islington Buys the most statement knitwear Press Knightsbridge Ordered the most Gucci loafers last year Press Loewe's puzzle bag is most often ordered in W2 Press Hampstead & Belsize Park Buy the most coats and spend the most on them: luxury tailored styles by MaxMara, Joseph and Burberry are most popular  with an average coat order value of 480 Press Clapham Ordered the most sports bras of all the postcodes Press Shepherds Bush Ordered the most skinny jeans. Diesel is a popular brand Press Kensington Residents spend the most on handbags, shopping at Valentino, Chloe and Gucci Press

In London, friendships face particular pressures. Everyone is busy and exhausted. After a long work commute involving the Circle line it can be hard to find the time and energy for a social commute. This is why I still havent visited As new house in Ealing, even though she moved there in 2014. How many times have I met her two-year-old son? Twice. I see A quite regularly, but as our friendship group lives in W13, NW6, SE11 and NW5, we always meet centrally, minus our kids, so that we can talk without interruption. And drink wine.

Which brings us to the New Parent Years. However much of a gadabout you profess to be, nothing  repeat, nothing  can prepare you for the fact that your social life will shrink to the size of your postcode once the baby comes along.

Did I say postcode? I meant own street + local park + nearest source of coffee  a radius of approximately half a mile.

You thought youd dealt with every human life form at work? Ha. Eventually, you will find yourself at a soft play centre, talking to a woman wearing a surfeit of jade. Her toddler cant eat your organic rice cakes because theyre berry-flavoured. She will tell you  with a straight face  what an advanced sense of rhythm he has and how well hes doing in Mandarin.

These tales arent the urban myths you thought they were when you were 28 and eating arancini at Polpo. Theyre real. The good news, though, is that there are a lot of parents in this town. You will find your tribe. And as your kids grow up, struggle with maths, become infested with nits, and get sick with something youre convinced is meningitis, you will find more solace than you ever thought imaginable in a Friday morning text that says Hot today! Park after school? Beer?!?!

Congratulations! You have turned into a person who feels deliriously happy at the prospect of sitting on some grass drinking a warm bottle of Peroni.

Things to do in London this weekend (June 24-26) 1 /13 Things to do in London this weekend (June 24-26) Three Bears Brunch pop-up The Joker, 58 Penton St, Islington N1 9PZ (June 25-26) Find event details here

For one weekend only, the people behind Londons first ever porridge cafe are opening a pop-up brunch cafe in Islingtons The Joker pub. The four-course brunch meal begins with a 3-hour infused lemon and basil porridge, before moving on to quails eggs with seeded soldiers. The Jokers mixology staff will also be experimenting and creating cocktails fit for the Three Bears Brunch pop-up. Porridge Cafe BFG in pictures House of Illustration, 2 Granary Square, King's Cross, N1C 4BH (June 24-Oct 2) houseofillustration.org.uk

One of the most influential illustrators alive, Quentin Blake is perhaps best known for his iconic work with Roald Dahl. Having recently collaborated with musician James Blake on his album artwork, and being in the process of launching his latest work, Under The Atlantic, which premieres at top London restaurant J Sheekey, Quentin Blake is also turning back time at the House of Illustration with a variety of unpublished work from Roald Dahls book, The BFG.  Quentin Blake London Dragon Boat Festival London Regatta Centre, Dockside Road, E16 2QT (Sunday June 26) lhkdbf.co.uk

The second biggest cultural event of the Chinese calendar is here, and its about to get wavy. Whilst raising money for charity, the dragon boat racing hosts four different cups for the competitive racers. With a variety of food, drink, DJs, bands and a raffle draw, a day of racing at the docks is sure to wash away doubts about the end of the weekend. Paul Keene Abbeville Fete Abbeville Road, SW4 9JX (June 25) 12-6pm abbevillefete.com

With over 80 street stalls, this years Abbeville Fete is pulling out the stops to keep local residents entertained. With an endless list of live DJs and performers set to appear at the fete, the family-friendly event is sure to have bustling streets, especially thanks to their kids fancy dress parade, in which this years theme is the seaside. Rick Astley at London Palladium 30 Argyll St, W1F 7TE (June 25) rutlive.co.uk

The Never Gonna Give You Up singer is appearing alongside Burt Bacharach, Rumer, Marc Almond and Jean Martine this Saturday following Rick Astleys new album reaching the new album top spot on June 17. Although Astley's hit has lived up to its name, Bacharach classics are sure to make an appearance, and the other supporting acts arent to be forgotten. Gelato Festival Old Spitalfields Market, Horner Square, Spitalfields, E1 6EW (All weekend) Read our preview

Think of a haven where all you can eat is ice-cream of over 100 different flavours. The mouth-watering Gelato Festival stops off in London again to provide that summer satisfaction with their gelato goodness. Whether you prefer boozy, savoury, or sweet flavours, this years Gelato Festival is sure to be cool. Pride Parade Begins at Portland Place near Baker Street (June 25) 1-4:30pm Read our guide on Pride events

Commencing from Portland Place and ending in Whitehall, this year's Pride Parade won't be shy of sparkling sensations and tight clothing as the LGBT community and all the supporters take to the streets of central to celebrate their freedom to love. Lauren Anderson GROW London GROW London Marquee, East Heath Road, Hampstead, NW3 1TH (June 24-26) growlondon.com

Hampstead Heath welcomes back the blooming marvellous garden and lifestyle fair GROW. With a variety of art installations, gardening utilities and plants themselves, the family-friendly festival arrives just in time for the beginning of summer. With a variety of gardening-experts to appear too, aspiring gardeners can get the best tips and tricks from Richard Reynolds and more. Scandinavian Midsummer Market Albion Street, Rotherhithe, SE16 7HZ (June 25) scandimarket.co.uk

For your second annual influx of Scandinavian culture, head to the Midsummer Market, where you can find the best Danish pastries, fish markets and reindeer stew. As well as all the culinary goodness, the market will also bring a variety of fashion, jewellery, and unique goods from the Scandinavian region. Moving Stories British Museum, Great Russell St, WC1B 3DG (June 24) 6-8:30pm britishmuseum.org

As part of Refugee Week, the British Museum is putting together an evening of music, storytelling, theatrical performances and talks in commemoration of all those displaced across the world. With all performances and stories provided by actual migrants and refugees, this will prove to be the ultimate insight into the people suffering in the current refugee crisis. Getty Images

It isnt the rooftop pool at Shoreditch House. There will be no long, meandering conversations about lifes great mysteries. But its amazing how strong a bond can be forged between a bunch of people who only ever get five minutes and 43 seconds to talk to each other before a child interrupts and tells them its going to pee its pants if you dont take it to the toilet.

Whether youre a parent or not there is something uniquely comforting about friends who are in the exact same life stage as you. Nobody understands the horror of being made redundant/getting divorced/trying to buy a house like someone who is going through it at the same time.

Even so, its wise not to be myopic and surround yourself solely with people who spout the same politics, like the same music and wear the same Stans. One of the ironies of living in London is that you are exposed to a vast and diverse gene pool of potential friends, yet find yourself with scant spare time to forge alliances.

No wonder we all rely on social media so much. It might be a poor substitute for meeting up over dinner but sometimes a quick WhatsApp conversation is all theres time for.

Recent research by an online marketing company found that four out of five teenagers rank their Facebook friends as more important than their school friends. If a fairly unencumbered demographic like teenagers are more engaged by the digital world than the real one, what hope is there for the rest of us? Engaging as an online conversation can be, its no substitute for a hug. Or eye contact. Or watching a friends tense face relax into happy acquiescence because you told them a not-even-that-funny joke.

The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. Its not the most sentimental quote about friendship but its surely one of the most apposite in an age which pressures us to present the best possible version of ourselves at all time.

Haters gonna hate. Squadders gonna squad. Ill stick to having friends, thanks.

Follow Laura Craik on Twitter: @lauracraik
A nab Jain wants to help turn the blind into super-seers. Her brainwave was that technology could not only give them a semblance of their sight back but help them see in spectrums invisible to the ordinary eye: ultra violet and infrared. The idea is that people would go from being blind to feeling super-sighted, she says.

Jain, who co-founded tech firm Superflux with designer Jon Ardern, came in when scientists hit a hurdle. A protein had been found in an algae which, when injected into a human in the form of a virus, made dead cells light-sensitive. Researchers realised it could help those who had lost vision as a result of the degenerative disease retinitis pigmentosa.

When injected into dead retinal cells, the virus made them light-sensitive. With the addition of an opto-electronic headset, the cells would then be able to read and process information: Its like plugging a Scart lead into your brain.

There was a problem, though. [The researchers] thought blind people would like their vision back in any form, but it turns out they would rather be blind than get their vision back like this. Theyd seen the world before, and they didnt want it reduced to an outline.

The prosthetic vision device Jain designed

Superflux worked with Dr Patrick Degenaar from Newcastle University to consider what else it could do  and came up with seeing in different spectrums. Using thermal imaging cameras (which allow you to see heat), Superflux made a film showing how previously blind people would be able to see the world. Its not high-resolution. It could be blurry but they are able to see the world in new ways. A handset would then enable users to dial into the type of vision they wanted.

Ive met 39-year-old Jain at her office in Bermondseys converted biscuit factory. She was born and went to university in India, where she studied film-making at the National Institute of Design. After moving to London, she worked for Nokia and for Microsoft Research, including on an ecological robot project. You put organic waste in the fuel cell and they leave behind a trail of poo. Its smelly. Im sure theyve sorted that out now!

Superflux designs tools that help people ask the right questions. That can mean both physical and conceptual tools, looking at changes in society through the lens of a specific technology. A particular focus is robotics: What happens when machines start making decisions autonomously?

On Saturday, Jain is speaking at the Southbank Centre about the impact robots will have on the workplace. She points to Oxford University research that estimated 47 per cent of jobs in the US will be handed to machines.

Every time a new technology comes, there are job losses  but theyve always created more jobs than have been lost, she says. This is the first time there are more job losses than jobs created.

Superflux does consultancy work for industries including insurance (focusing on the impact of self-driving cars) and finance, where there are jitters about robo-advisers replacing asset managers. It shakes their business models... [Theres an estimate that] 90 per cent of Wall Street jobs will be taken over by AI.

Jain says the question isnt will robots take our jobs? (they will) but what happens afterwards? And that, she believes, is linked to the debate about whether states should provide a universal basic income: Its a great idea [but] the details make or break the thing.

The best apps for Londoners 1 /16 The best apps for Londoners Zip car Join, reserve, unlock and drive  it really is that simple. The capitals preferred car clubs app gives 24/7 access to cars and vans in your neighbourhood and lets you extend or cancel reservations on the go. Free Uncover Sick of being stuck on waiting lists? You need Uncover, which redistributes cancelled reservations at some of the capitals top restaurants, including The River Cafe and Nobu. Not for planning freaks, though  tables typically become free at 40 minutes notice. Free Uber So popular its become a verb, this private driver service has revolutionised travel in the capital. Its speedy and affordable, making it a welcome alternative to the night bus. Free Santander Cycles Launched this summer, the official app for Boris fifth child can be used to search for nearby docking stations and check bike availability. Theres also a journey planner featuring easy, moderate and fast routes to satisfy all cycling tribes. Free Plume Air Report This new app has been downloaded by 3,000 Londoners. Sensors gathering air pollution data submit updates every hour, resulting in a scale that ranges from fresh to extremely polluted. Free Nightcapp Heres an app that will have booze hounds raising their glasses. NightCapp is a map that pinpoints more than 1,500 London watering holes that stay open past 11.30pm. It also shows users when a bar is about to close by highlighting it in orange. Better get moving. Free Money Dashboard An award-winning budget planner, this helps you keep track of personal spending across multiple accounts, pay off credit cards and even makes suggestions on how to manage your finances better. Free Her Promising to introduce women to a lesbian that hasnt slept with any of your friends, this revamped dating app includes queer-themed news and blogs, upcoming event notices and an improved algorithm-matching system. Free FoodMood This new startup, which reckons its Tinder for food, pledges to narrow down your choice of lunchbreak destinations. Hit yum or yuk on photos of dishes in your area. Juvenile, but strangely addictive. Free Daily Yoga This offers more than 50 yoga sessions, as well as a database of 500 yoga poses. Suitable for all levels, programmes include yoga aimed at specific areas of the body and weight loss. Namaste to that. Free Coffee Meets Bagel Billed as the anti-Tinder, this new kid on the block delivers just a single match to users once a day. Coffee Meets Bagel uses Facebook profile information to recommend suitors based on friends of friends. Neither coffee nor bagels are included. Free. Bristlr Do you have a beard? Perhaps youd like to stroke one on a regular basis? This can be arranged. Unlike other dating apps, Bristlr is unashamedly all about hooking up the hairy with the hairless. Theres even a beard-rating option for aficionados. Free

The second dilemma she believes humanity faces is the degree of agency we give robots. We can control that. I want that to be a broader discussion across countries, not just some governments and a few companies. Technology labs need to be more transparent. What are they building? What is [Googles] Deepmind doing? I ask if governments should regulate that. She nods. Regulation is key  we need [governments] to be informed to make the most flexible regulations.

Artificial Intelligence is getting smarter: shifting away from programming and towards training. Coders will soon ask wheres my job? because they start by coding, but then [the AI] feeds on data. So the robot makes a lot of choices.

AI is still specific task-oriented, Jain explains, but the future is not about telling it what to do: Itll be able to do things you didnt train it for. And then theres ASI  artificial super-intelligence. Itll keep training itself. By 2060, the difference between the human and the ASI will be like a spider trying to understand a humans mind. Well be that spider.

One way we spiders might find ourselves interacting with our new superiors is sexbots. Jain feels views might shift from our current aversion. Its what porn was to the internet. Many cultures have no problem with sexbots. In Japan, theyre huge. If youre lonely, and theres something responsive, and intelligent... her voice trails off.

But it wouldnt feel like a free choice, I say. Thats good, isnt it? she jokes. Sometimes the most annoying things about our partner is the choice. People might say this suits me just fine, it keeps my life simple. Everyones aspirations of relationships are different.

There are some debates Jain finds simpler, including the EU referendum. Please dont let it be Brexit. Everything in this world is increasingly about collaboration  by cutting ourselves off, we are isolating ourselves. And I have no faith in what [the Leave campaign] are proposing for afterwards.

Follow Rosamund Urwin on Twitter: @rosamundurwin

Anab Jain is taking part in a debate examining the role of artificial intelligence in The robots are coming: The future of work this Saturday at the Royal Festival Hall, as part of Southbank Centre's Power of Power festival. southbankcentre.co.uk
F rom Incan ruins, cosmopolitan cities, a colourful culture, and tropical rainforests, Peru is one of the most exciting, diverse countries in the globe, complete with a dynamic foodie culture. Thanks to the new British Airways flight, its never been easier to visit.

1. World-class restaurants

Lima has a world-class gastronomic scene and is home to not one but three of the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants. Virgilio Martinezs restaurant, Central, comes in at number four with its sublime 17-course tasting menu which takes diners on a culinary expedition through Perus ecosystem. Martinez and his team forage all of the ingredients from Perus jungle, desert, mountains and sea, to create a menu organised by altitude. Flavours are punchy, ingredients are unique (you might need to Google a few), and 17 courses is a lot. But all for 82? Its an absolute steal.

2. A new direct flight

Thanks to British Airways new direct route from Gatwick to Lima, getting to Peru has never been easier. Its the first time theres been a direct route to Peru from the UK since the 1980s so its big news, and means no more layovers in Madrid.

3. Once in a lifetime journeys

From flying over Amazon, to arriving at your jungle lodge by boat, and winding around the mountainside to Machu Picchu on a train, Peru has plenty of once-in-a-lifetime journeys to experience and cherish. One of the most special has to be taking the Inca Rail First Class train from Ollantaytambo to Aquas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu. Whilst the rest of the passengers pile on and sit out the 1.5-hour journey, your experience is very different and far more luxurious, starting with a welcome Pisco Sour, before moving onto a three-course meal complete with wine. Before you know it youre there, but its certainly an experience you wont forget any time soon, and is the most luxurious way to start your visit to Machu Picchu.

Welcome pisco sour on the Inca Rail / Alice Tate

4. The cuisine

A trip to Peru is worth it for the food alone. A mix of international influences from Africa to India and Asia, coupled with plentiful native crops gives way to a bold and exciting offering. Staples include quinoa, corn and cassava  the latter used in place of potatoes for the tastiest fries, perfect for dunking in the countrys favourite condiment: huancaina sauce (spicy cheese sauce). You can eat ceviche for breakfast, lunch and dinner  most often with trout  otherwise theres alpaca, or, if youre feeling adventurous, cuy... thats guinea pig, and it features on most menus. Along with the core cuisine, Peruvians are proud of their chifa cuisine, a Cantonese fusion, which especially popular in Lima. Get a taste for the countrys flavours at Martin Morales restaurant, Ceviche, which dishes up a very authentic selection of Peruvian classics.

Hotel B

5. New hotels

As tourism continues to blossom, so do new hotels. Peru has a seen a flurry of new openings this year, one of the most notable being Hotel B, an art-focused boutique hotel in Barranco, Limas trendiest neighbourhood, which is welcoming 5 new rooms this year, accessible via the art gallery next door. The whole hotel embodies the districts bohemian vibe, with its al fresco restaurant, gin and tonic bar, rooftop terrace, modern art collection, and contemporary rooms with sun terraces. Other notable openings include the new Explora hotel in the Sacred Valley and the unique Victorian-era Yavari Steamship on Lake Titicaca.

Zone out in the Amazon / Alice Tate

6. Digital detox

Have a hard time putting down your phone? Head to the Amazon for a digital detox. With zero phone reception and limited Wi-Fi, you can embrace life away from the screen for a few days - huzzah! Though Peru is much developed in the sense that theres Wi-Fi in most bars and restaurants, and good phone reception over a lot of the country (including up Machu Picchu!), the majority of the Amazon on the east side of the country has zero phone reception. Plus, even the most luxury of jungle resorts have limited hours of electricity meaning Wi-Fi is turned off and theres no means of charging that drained battery. Sort of bliss, right?

Elsewhere, whilst there might be perfectly good reception in the Urubamba Valley, the dramatic landscapes of towering mountains against pure blue skies will leave you enchanted, forgetting all about those notifications.

7. Mistura food festival

This September, Mistura, the largest food festival in Latin America returns to Lima. Six hundred thousand chefs, restaurateurs, street food vendors, bakers and more, gather in the city to celebrate the dynamic foodie culture of the gastronomic capital of Latin America. With the majority of the continents best foodies descending on Lima from September 2-11, you can expect to eat very, very well.

Alice Tate

8. Pisco!

If theres one thing Peruvians love, its Pisco, a grape brandy, which Peru has been making and drinking since the 16th century. Its most commonly served as a Pisco Sour, with lemon, sugar, egg white and Angostura Bitters, which is sweet, refreshing and all too drinkable. Prepare to knock back a fair few on your visit. Try variations at the Museo del Pisco in Cusco (now thats our kind of museum!)

9. Peruvian superfoods

Go to Peru, come back glowing. Well, sort of. If youre in to the world of superfoods, Peru is basically heaven. A lot of the native crops like quinoa, maca, lucuma, golden berries and amaranth have developed cult status in the western world, hailed for their various health benefits. To Peruvians though, theyre not fads, theyve been staples for centuries, thus intrinsic to the culture and cuisine. Lap them up!

A private jungle hut at Inkaterra Hacienda Concepcion / Alice Tate

10. The Amazon Rainforest

A childhood dream for most of us, The Amazon Rainforest intersects Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, and is easy to slot into your itinerary whilst in Peru, thanks to tourism developments making it both safe and accessible. Regular flights connect to Puerto Maldonado, the tiniest airport imaginable, and various jungle resorts run along the Madre de Dios river. From the creepy crawlies, to the caimans, tropical climate and cheeky wild monkeys, its everything you wish it would be, completely unspoilt and absolutely beautiful. Inkaterra Hacienda Concepcion is a brilliant base and one of the most luxurious in the Tambopata area. Spend the night in a private jungle hut, with mosquito nets for windows; explore local flavours with native set dinner menus; and enjoy excursions such as rainforest canopy walks and caiman boat tours as part of the guest experience.
A former gynaecologist has been found guilty after he carried out a series of sexual assaults on women during their medical examinations.

Mahash Vidyadhar Patwardhan, 53, assaulted four women at two hospitals in south-east London between 2008 and 2012.

Today he was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court for crimes committed while he worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich and Blackheath Hospital in Lewisham.

On each occasion, the women attended the hospitals for medical consultations.

Detectives said Patwardhan abused his position of trust and used it as an opportunity to sexually assault his patients.

He was struck off the medical register in October 2014 following a General Medical Council hearing which found charges against him in relation to three victims.

A fourth came forward to detectives from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command upon hearing he had been suspended.

Further victims came forward as a result of the publicity surrounding the hearing.

Patwardhan was arrested at Heathrow Airport in November 2014 when he returned to the UK from India.

He was charged in September last year with six counts of sexual assault and one count of fraud. Another charge of fraud was added in May.

He was found guilty of making false claims to insurance companies for procedures he had not carried out on two of his victims.

Detective Constable Mark Azariah, from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command at Lewisham, said: Patwardhan is a highly manipulative individual; having used his position of trust and authority to pray on the victims' under his medical care; believing that they would be too embarrassed to report such offences to police.

Thankfully he was mistaken and I commend the victims for their courage in speaking out despite the sensitivity surrounding their personal medical concerns.

I hope that today's result and the fact he is no longer a practising doctor brings them some comfort and peace of mind in what has been a traumatic ordeal.

It is hoped that this result will reassure other vulnerable victims of crime that the police take all allegations of crime very seriously and will work effortlessly to see that justice prevails."
Egypt's high school final French, Spanish and Economics exams were leaked online early Thursday, several news websites reported.

The Facebook page "The Revolution of Corrupted Education" published the French language exam as well its model answers, as verified by Ahram Online.

The Spanish language and Economics exams were also leaked with model answers on other Facebook pages.

These are latest exams to be leaked since the start of the high school "Thanaweya Amma" exams started earlier this month.

Ministry of Education officials told Al-Ahram Arabic news website that if the French, Spanish and Economics exams were proven to be leaked the exams would be annulled and new exams would be set.

The Egyptian Ministry of Interior announced in the past few week the arrest of the administrators of several Facebook pages used to publish leaked high school exams and their answers.

Earlier this week, the ministry announced that its investigations reached to education ministry officials in the ministry printing house. The prosecution ordered the detention of said officials for 15 days pending investigations.

The general secondary certificate  essentially concluding high school  previously covered a period of two years before it was changed to one year in 2013.

Grades from the Thanaweya Amma exams determine students' university prospects and thus are often a source of stress and pressure for pupils and family alike.

The leaking of the exams for the fourth year in a row was the top trending topic on Egyptian social media, with the prevalence of smart phones seen as facilitating the leaks.

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A n Islamic State-inspired extremist who plotted to behead a British poppy seller in the street on Remembrance Day has been jailed for life.

Nadir Syed, 23, wanted to emulate the brutal murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby as he planned a horrific attack on the day set aside for honouring the war dead.

He had bought an 11-inch knife to use in the decapitation, and targeted a poppy seller or another member of the public linked to Remembrance Day.

Syed, whose phone PIN number was 77911 in reference to the 7/7 London bombings and the 9/11 attack in New York, had filmed himself stamping on plastic poppies in the run-up to the planned attack.

His phone was full of "sickening" pictures of ISIS killings and pictures of decapitated and mutilated bodies.

Syed was arrested just days before Remembrance Day 2014, but intelligence officers knew he had already travelled to Turkey earlier in the year, believed to be a bid to join ISIS fighters in Syria.

Syed wanted to emulate the brutal murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby (Metropolitan Police ) / Metropolitan Police

He was convicted at trial last December of plotting a terrorist attack, and today was sentenced at the Old Bailey to life with a minimum of 15 years behind bars.

Mr Justice Saunders warned Syed "will remain dangerous until the threat from Islamic terrorist has gone" and may never be freed from prison.

The long-haired jihadist stroked his long beard but displayed little emotion as he was sentenced.

"I am satisfied that the act of terrorism that the defendant intended to commit was to attack a person in the street and decapitate him or her.

"That intention guided the choice of knife - it needed to be large and extremely sharp to cut off someone's head.

"There was no particular victim identified, but I am satisfied the attack was going to take place at a time close to Armistice Day.

"I am also satisfied that the victim was to be someone connected to Armistice Day such as a poppy seller."

The judge added: "If he was released from prison, he would go and try to carry out what he had failed to achieve in this case. He would set out to kill in furtherance of his beliefs.

"He is an intelligent man, he had thought out what he wanted to do. There was no sign in evidence he gave of any change of view on his part."

In online rants, Syed described poppies as "like a middle finger to our faces" and posted a link to a YouTube video called "Wearing poppies supports murdering terrorists".

Syed, whose family are Pakistani, used the name John after ISIS executioner Jihadi John, and scoured the internet for gruesome videos of death and mutilation.

The court heard he abandoned a partying lifestyle in 2012 when he began attending extreme Islamic lectures and joined online chatrooms which praised the killers of Lee Rigby.

The murderous plot was hatched after ISIS spokesman Muhammad al-Adnani issued a September 2014 fatwa, calling for attacks on "police, security and intelligence members".

Syed, who was applying for apprenticeships at the time of his arrest, was convicted while his cousin, Yousaf Syed, 20 and Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, were both acquitted at a retrial of being involved in the plot.

They said joining in with Syed's messages on WhatsApp about the plot was just "banter" and never a real intention to carry out a terrorist attack.

Mark Summers QC, mitigating, said Syed's parents "remain supportive of him despite all that's occurred".

He said the plot was "embryonic", adding: "This is about the least advanced and sophisticated knife plot one could conceive of."

Nadir Syed, from Southall, denied but was found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism.
A man has been extradited from St Lucia accused of knifing a teenager to death in south London three years ago.

Devante Clifford, 20, was arrested after landing at Gatwick Airport and was charged with the murder of 17-year-old Champion Ganda.

Scotland Yard said he is the first man to be extradited from the Caribbean island.

Clifford is the third man to be charged with the killing - Amani Lynch and Marvin Simos, both 19, are due to stand trial for murder on November 14 at the Old Bailey.

Champion was pronounced dead at the scene in Sandringham Road, Forest Gate, on May 9 2013.

A 16-year-old boy, who has not been named, also suffered stab wounds in the incident.

Clifford is due to appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on Friday to face charges of murder and an alternative count of manslaughter.

He is further charged with attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to the second victim.
T he parents of British Muslim convert "Jihadi Jack" who are accused of funding terrorism by sending money to their son in Syria will not stand trial until next year, the Old Bailey has heard.

Renowned organic farmer John Letts, 55, and his wife, book editor Sally Lane, 54, allegedly wired money to their son Jack while he was with Islamic State forces in the Syrian city of Raqqa.

They deny the charges of funding terrorism, and appeared in the dock today where Mr Justice Saunders set the trial for January 9 next year.

The couple's son attracted the nickname "Jihadi Jack" after he was revealed as the first white Briton said to have joined Islamic State.

The 20-year-old left the family home in Oxford for Kuwait in 2014, and is believed to have eventually made his way to Raqqa.

It has been reported he is now living in the Iraqi city of Fallujah going by the name Abu Mohammed, and is married to an Iraqi woman with a son called Muhammed.

His parents allegedly sent 223 to their son in September last year, and tried to send a further 1500 in transactions in December last year and on January 4.

Following their first appearance in court two weeks ago, the couple were remanded in custody.

They spent five days behind bars before Judge Saunders agreed to free them on bail.

In his ruling, he said: "The defendants have now spent some time in custody. I have no doubt that they have found that very difficult.

"I hope and believe it has brought home that to them that, however well intentioned, they cannot and must not transfer money directly or indirectly to their son without express permission of the appropriate police department."

At today's brief hearing, Letts and Lane were told to return to court on November 17 for a plea and case management hearing.

They will remain free on bail until the start of their trial, which is expected to take place in London and last up to four weeks.

The couple, from Oxford, both deny three counts of arranging the availability of property for the purpose of terrorism.

Lane also denies two charges of providing money for use in acts of terrorism in relation to the January 4 attempted transfer.
D rug mule Melissa Reid has returned to the UK after being released from a Peruvian prison.

The 22-year-old Scot arrived at Glasgow Airport at about 9.45pm on Wednesday after completing the last leg of her journey home from Lima.

Reid, from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, was released from jail after serving nearly three years for a cocaine smuggling plot.

She was caught in August 2013 with 23-year-old Michaella McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, trying to transport 1.5 million worth of the drug in food bags from Peru to Spain.

The pair - nicknamed the "Peru Two" - were jailed for six years and eight months after admitting the offence.

But a judge last month ordered Reid to be expelled from the South American country under an early release scheme for deporting first-time drug offenders.

Reid, who is understood to have travelled to Scotland on a flight from Amsterdam, was accompanied by her father Billy.

She did not appear before waiting media at the international arrivals area. It is understood she accepted an airside transfer.

Around 24 hours earlier, Reid smiled as she arrived at Lima Airport on Tuesday evening with her father and British Embassy staff, before being whisked through security by Peruvian officials overseeing her deportation.

Janeth Sanchez, a spokeswoman for Peru's prison service, said that the Scot had "served her time in prison according to the law and can now go to her country, free, to the streets".

A Scottish Prison Service spokeswoman said it is not involved with Reid's case.

McCollum was freed in March under new legislation but was required to remain on parole in Peru for an undisclosed period of time.

The two women had initially claimed they were forced into carrying the drugs - around 24lb (11kg) of cocaine - but then pleaded guilty to the charges.

McCollum and Reid faced the prospect of a maximum 15-year prison term but struck a behind-closed-doors plea bargain to secure the shorter sentence.

Around nine in 10 of the 1,809 foreigners in Peru's prisons are either sentenced or awaiting trials for drug trafficking.

Reid's father has previously said the impact of his daughter's crime on his family had been "horrendous", and spoke in a video warning of the consequences of drug offences abroad.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "We continue to provide assistance to Melissa Reid and remain in contact with her family and local authorities."

It is understood Reid, who has served about a third of her sentence, will not have a criminal record in the UK as a result of her conviction in Peru.
S even people have been injured after a packed London bus and a fire engine crashed today at a busy road junction at rush hour.

Emergency services rushed to the scene after the two vehicles collided in Brixton Hill at about 6.15pm.

Dramatic pictures emerged of the aftermath of the crash at the junction with Acre Lane outside Lambeth Town Hall.

Medics treated seven people at the scene, London Ambulance Service said.

A male firefighter and the male bus driver were taken to hospital, along with a 48-year-old female bus passenger complaining of back pain.

A police cordon in place at the scene

Their injuries are not thought to be serious and nobody was trapped during the incident, a London Fire Brigade spokesman said.

Shocked bystanders posted photos of the collision on Twitter and reported traffic chaos in the area as the road was cordoned off.

Claire Dargo tweeted: Scary scenes in #Brixton. A bus and a fire engine have collided. Praying there's no serious injuries. Looks horrific. Stay safe.

Hywell Kennedy said: Avoid car journeys and bus routes through Brixton. Really bad bus crash.

Adam Engle said: Just saw a firetruck crashed into a bus in Brixton. Heavy stuff.

Firefighters at the scene / Natalie King

Anna Wells said: Serious accident in #Brixton as a #fireengine smashes into a #bus at the junction to Acre Lane."

Nick Albrow said: "What is going on today!? Head on collision in front of my eyes in Brixton."

It is not known if the fire engine was responding to an emergency call.

Aftermath: The bus and fire engine collided in Brixton / Andriy Filkevich

Mike Weston, director of buses for TfL said: "At approximately 6.10pm this evening a Route 35 bus, operated by Go Ahead, was involved in a collision with a fire engine on Acre Lane in Brixton.

"Emergency services attended the scene. We are currently working with police to investigate."
J ubilant Iceland fans in London today said it was a dream come true to play England and warned that the tiny nation would be no pushover.

Iceland will play Roy Hodgsons team after a 94th-minute strike from substitute Arnor Traustason gave them victory over Austria.

It is the latest step in a fairytale tournament for the smallest nation to have ever qualified for the Euros.

Last night, 100 Icelandic expats gathered at Tommis Burger Joint in Kings Road, Chelsea, which erupted in cheers at the stoppage-time winner, seconds from the final whistle.

Johanna Larusdottir, 50, a director of a travel company who has lived in England for 20 years, said: We are a small nation, but were strong and if we put our mind to things we get to places you wouldnt expect. To play against England is like a dream come true for the players.

A-level student Florence Koller, 16, said: England have no chance. Iceland are going to win  we will come and kick their butts.
T wo polling stations in south west London have been closed after they were overcome with water in flash floods.

Torrential downpours throughout Wednesday evening and Thursday morning caused chaos across the capital after a months rain fell in a matter of hours.

The flash floods caused travel nightmares for many Londoners and risked preventing many from voting in the EU Referendum.

Kingston Council was forced to find new locations for two polling stations in the borough after they flooded during the storm.

Flooded: The polling station in Devon Way, Hook, was moved elsewhere / @Shyman33

Devon Way Centre in Devon Way, Hook  close to Chessington World of Adventures  was pictured surrounded by deep water.

The 2,806 eligible voters who were due to use the polling station will now have to cast their votes at the Hook Centre in Hook Road.

A second polling station, at the Shiraz Mirza Community Centre in Old Malden, has also been moved.

The 1,343 voters who were due to cast their vote at the centre will now have to use Malden Manor Childrens Centre in Lawrence Avenue.

In a statement, Kingston Council said: There has been heavy rainfall overnight resulting in flooding at a number of polling places, including Devon Way in Chessington which has had to close.

This polling station has been moved to the Hook Centre, so if you were due to vote at Devon Way, please go to the Hook Centre on Hook Road instead.

Flash flooding hits London - in pictures 1 /25 Flash flooding hits London - in pictures A BMW left under water in Clapham after the floods Elliot Wagland A resident is helped by the London Fire Brigade after flash flooding in Romford Paul Wood Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood A car stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water after heavy overnight rain Neil Lancefield/PA Barking this morning A car is abandoned under a bridge in Battersea after getting stuck in floodwater water Jack Taylor/Getty Images A van stuck in floodwaters on the A13 Movers Lane underpass Barking Paul Wood Heavy overnight rain which left two cars stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water @Thapelo_VK/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking in standing water @jGLOVER79/PA Barking this morning Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking, Essex @jGLOVER79/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking @jGLOVER79/PA Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx A local resident wades through flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx

Heavy rainfall overnight has led to the flooding of the area surrounding Shiraz Mirza polling station.

We recommend that anyone who was due to vote here, instead makes their way to Malden Manor Childrens Centre on Lawrence Avenue.

A council spokesman added: "We had plans in place to minimise this disruption and alternative polling stations have opened nearby."

London Fire Brigade said it had taken more than 550 weather-related emergency calls and attended over 400 incidents caused by heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Firefighters are still attending incidents across London, with the east of the city worst affected.

EU ref result: When will the Brexit poll outcome be announced?

A fire brigade spokesman said: "The high volume of weather-related emergency calls received between 0130 and 0630 this morning is nearly twice the total number of all 999 calls that our control officers deal with in a normal day."

Local residents reported that polling stations in Barking and Newham in east London were difficult to access because of floodwater.
F irefighters used rescue boats to free Londoners trapped in their homes as torrential rain brought chaos to the Tube, road and rail network.

London Fire Brigade attended more than 400 incidents after receiving 550 calls - almost two days worth of 999 calls - in a couple of hours as extraordinary thunderstorms deluged the capital overnight.

Emergency services asked people only to dial 999 if life was at risk.

Fire crews helped residents to get to work or to polling stations to vote in the EU referendum after 60 homes in Romford were flooded when the River Rom burst its banks.

Thunder road: a dramatic lightning strike over Docklands / Alamy

Station manager Rod Vitalis said: They have been flooded to a depth of about one metre and were using rescue boats to get people safely out of their properties if they want to leave them to go to work or out to vote. Were also pumping away water and using sands bags to try and prevent more homes from flooding where we can.

Rescue bid: The firebrigade rescues a family from a flooded street in Romford / Paul Wood

There was massive disruption across the Underground, with stations closed, the Circle line suspended and commuters unable to board overcrowded trains.

One passenger, whose 40-minute journey from East Sheen to Kensington took two hours, said: Its worse than on Tube strike days.

Flooding in Canning Town / @ellaburrettx

Problems were set to continue tonight with many train services not expected to resume until 6pm. Track flooding saw delays and cancellations to many Southern and South West trains, including services between London and Brighton and on the Gatwick Express.

Battersea was one of the worst-hit areas, with a row of flats flooded and a BMW deluged as waters rose under a railway bridge in Latchmere Road.

The car is thought to have been abandoned by its owner after being unable to drive through the flood. Other flooded vehicles were abandoned under a bridge in Queenstown Road.

Flash flooding hits London - in pictures 1 /25 Flash flooding hits London - in pictures A BMW left under water in Clapham after the floods Elliot Wagland A resident is helped by the London Fire Brigade after flash flooding in Romford Paul Wood Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood A car stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water after heavy overnight rain Neil Lancefield/PA Barking this morning A car is abandoned under a bridge in Battersea after getting stuck in floodwater water Jack Taylor/Getty Images A van stuck in floodwaters on the A13 Movers Lane underpass Barking Paul Wood Heavy overnight rain which left two cars stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water @Thapelo_VK/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking in standing water @jGLOVER79/PA Barking this morning Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking, Essex @jGLOVER79/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking @jGLOVER79/PA Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx A local resident wades through flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx

Chris Brennan, 27, who woke to find the ground floor of his two-bedroom basement flat in Battersea under 2ft of water, told the Standard: I came downstairs and saw men pumping water.

They had been called at about 3.30am. The whole of the downstairs is damaged. Everything is already starting to smell. Its uninhabitable at the moment. I dont have water or electricity and there was a gas leak.

A thick black sludge covered his hardwood floors and his TV and furniture were water-damaged. I was meant to be going on holiday today, he said. Luckily a lot of my stuff was in the upstairs bedroom because Id been packing.

In Victoria, Abdul Choudhury, 27, a consultant, awoke to find his basement flat submerged in one foot of floodwater. He was told the fire brigade was too busy to attend.

A polling station in Chessington after the downpours / @hjyoungs/PA

He said: I literally woke up in bed and had to put my feet into water as I got out. Everything has been destroyed, my laptop, passport, books and other documents because the floodwater brought in the muck with it too and we had stuff in storage boxes. I dont have insurance. Its a nightmare.

Havering, Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, and Lewisham were also badly hit. Flooding caused huge delays on the A13 and A12 after the Blackwall tunnel was briefly closed.

Platforms and walkways at Clapham Junction were described as being a mass of bodies, with passengers left bewildered about incoming trains that disappeared from information boards.

South-West London was also badly affected, with the District line part-suspended between Parsons Green and Wimbledon and Earls Court station massively overcrowded.

Cars stuck in floodwaters A13 Movers Lane underpass IN Barking / Paul Wood

Embankment, Borough, Canning Town, Tooting Broadway and Lambeth North stations were all closed for a period this morning. London Overground services were suspended in numerous areas including between Surrey Quays and New Cross.

South-West Trains was unable to run services between Waterloo and Weybridge. Southern said all lines between Clapham Junction and Milkon Keynes were blocked.

In Surbiton, lightening strikes affected the railway and a manhole overflowed so much that it began spurting water. Kingston police officers tweeted a 17-second video clip of the dancing man-hole cover.

The Environment Agency issued four flood warnings covering rivers in Bromley, Sidcup and Basildon, and 22 flood alerts across the South East.

The Met Office issued a weather warning for the South East until 6am tomorrow. Forecaster Luke Miall said: If youre in the South East, you definitely need your umbrella and possibly a pair of Wellington boots.
F lash floods have left parts of London submerged under water and threatened to cause travel chaos on EU referendum polling day.

Emergency services reported a huge surge in calls as heavy thunderstorms and torrential rain hit the south-east overnight.

A months rain fell in a matter of a few hours during the storms  with more heavy downpours forecast for this morning.

Flooding caused chaos during the morning commute.

Several Tube stations across London  including Tooting Broadway, Lambeth North, Embankment, Borough and Canning Town - were closed due to flooding.

The District Line was also hit by delays and a part closure between Parsons Green and Wimbledon early this morning.

Flash floods: Cars left under water due to the storms / Elliot Wagland

South West Trains warned disruption was causing delays of up to an hour on busy commuter routes into London, with problems also reported on Southeastern and Greater Anglia services.

Blackwall Tunnel was also shut early this morning, threatening major delays for drivers heading in and out of London during the rush hour.

There were reports of flooded streets as storms swept through, threatening disruption as voters head to polling stations.

Flooding in Kingston, south-west London, this morning / Twitter/@MPSKingston

London Fire Brigade (LFB) said it received hundreds of calls to reports of weather-related incidents including lightning striking property, flooded homes and businesses and rising waters trapping vehicles.

An LFB spokesman said: "Crews are being mobilised to incidents as quickly as possible but the Brigade is appealing to people to only call 999 in an emergency - where there is a risk to life or property.

Flash flooding hits London - in pictures 1 /25 Flash flooding hits London - in pictures A BMW left under water in Clapham after the floods Elliot Wagland A resident is helped by the London Fire Brigade after flash flooding in Romford Paul Wood Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood A car stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water after heavy overnight rain Neil Lancefield/PA Barking this morning A car is abandoned under a bridge in Battersea after getting stuck in floodwater water Jack Taylor/Getty Images A van stuck in floodwaters on the A13 Movers Lane underpass Barking Paul Wood Heavy overnight rain which left two cars stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea in standing water @Thapelo_VK/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking in standing water @jGLOVER79/PA Barking this morning Romford flooding with London Fire Brigade at the scene Paul Wood Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Flooding under the railway bridge at Raynes Park @renbenbear Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking, Essex @jGLOVER79/PA Heavy overnight rain which left cars stranded in Barking @jGLOVER79/PA Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx A local resident wades through flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx Flooding in Canning Town @ellaburrettx

"Between around 1.30am and 3am our control officers took over 300 calls - around as many as they would receive in an average day."

In just one hour, 20.5mm of rain fell in Bexley, south-east London, close to half the June average, with some parts expected to see multiple showers bringing a month's rain on Thursday morning.

The Environment Agency has issued four flood warnings covering rivers in Bromley, Sidcup and Basildon, and 22 flood alerts across of the south east.

Showers are expected to ease by 10am on Thursday morning before returning with similar intensity from 2pm.

The Met Office issued an amber "be prepared" warning of rain for part of Kent, Sussex and Surrey effective until 6am on Thursday, while a yellow warning covering the South East is in place until 6am on Friday.

Flooding in Barking, east London, after the storms / Twitter/@louise17march

Forecaster Luke Miall said: "If you draw a line from The Wash to the Isle of Portland everything east of that is in the firing line.

"A band of showers is coming across the English Channel and moving north-eastwards, that will bring some heavy downpours and localised surface flooding. There's going to be a bit of hail in there too, so there's quite a lot going on.

Submerged: A car under water in Clapham / Elliot Wagland

"If you're in the South East, you definitely need your umbrella and possibly a pair of Wellington boots."

The storms threatened widespread travel disruption across the south, with Abellio Greater Anglia, South West Trains and Southern all warning of major delays on some routes.

In London parts of the underground and overground railway were suspended due flooding.

There were reports of flooded streets across the capital with roads in Battersea, south-west London, Barking in East London and Lewisham under several inches of water.

Louise March tweeted that there was serious flooding in the Longbridge Road area of Barking and she was concerned over her property insurance.

She wrote: "I saw a car under water people helping to push it out if the water never seen this in the 15 years I've lived here."
A London choir which performed Bridge Over Troubled Water in a moving tribute to the Orlando shooting victims are releasing the song.

The London Gay Mens Chorus sang the Simon & Garfunkel hit at a vigil in Soho, where thousands of Londoners had gathered to pay tribute to the victims.

Vidoes of the emotional rendition were viewed millions of times around the world after being shared on social media.

Members of the choir could be seen wiping away tears as they receive a huge ovation at the end of their vocal.

The choir has now decided to release a cover of the song to raise money in memory of the 49 victims of the worst mass shooting in US history.

LGMC artistic director Simon Sharp said: "We were truly overwhelmed by the public response to our performance at the Soho Vigil and want to do everything we can to raise money for the victims of the Orlando attack and for victims of LGBT hate crime in the UK.

"We had recorded Bridge Over Troubled Water for our forthcoming album. It's a song that has taken on new meaning for us as a chorus but we hope it sends out a message of love and support to all of our LGBT brothers and sisters and our straight allies across the world."

The single will be released tomorrow, with proceeds to be equally split between the Pulse Victims Fund and London LGBT charity Galop.

Omar Mateen opened fire inside Pulse gay club on June 11, killing 49 people and injuring 53 in Americas worst ever mass shooting.

Bridge Over Troubled Water will be available to download or stream on all major online platforms for tomorrow.
The appeal was brought by a government legal authority two days ago

Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court has set 26 June to hear the government's appeal against a ruling earlier this week that quashed a decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, a lawyer said.

The controversial maritime demarcation deal was announced by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in April during a visit to Cairo by Saudi King Salman.

An administrative court Tuesday "cancelled the signing" of the deal that put the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, long believed to have belonged to Egypt, in Saudi waters. The court said the two islands remain "Egyptian."

The State Lawsuits Authority  the body representing the government in legal cases  was prompt to appeal the verdict hours later, and a higher administrative court decided Thursday to set Sunday for hearing the appeal.

"The Supreme Administrative [Court] set Sunday, 26 June, to look at ... the government's request to stop upholding the ruling that annulled the deal," rights lawyer Khaled Ali, who brought the case against the deal, said on Facebook.

Egypts decision to transfer the two strategic islands at the southern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba into Saudi hands sparked widespread public outcry, with some critics accusing the government of "selling the islands."

Dozens of youths were arrested and put on trial for protesting against the deal; many have been recently released, however.

Egypt insists the islands belong to Saudi Arabia and that the government merely administered them while on lease from Saudi Arabia since the 1950s.

Evidence presented by Ali to the court included a 1917 book, a 1914 map and a 1940 Cambridge University atlas, all referring to the two islands as Egyptian.

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A couple who are due to become parents for the first time next month have been made homeless after their ground-floor flat flooded.

David Sandor and his wife Lidia, who is eight months pregnant, had to leave their home in Romford after torrential rain and flash floods in the early hours of this morning.

Mrs Sandor is due to give birth on July 24 but will not be able to return to her home until after her baby is born.

David's sister, Elizabeth Bodea, 28, who lives in the same block with her husband and another brother, said she had never seen anything like the rain this morning.

She said: "The rain started around 1am and around 3am the ground floor was flooded because the drainage couldn't cope.

"We phoned the emergency services but they said they had to go to people in greater need.

"I am worried about my sister-in-law because I wanted to be there to help her with the baby. They have just bought all the baby stuff and some of it was damaged.

"Thankfully most of it was upstairs as the flat is two floors but their kitchen is destroyed."

Rescue bid: The firebrigade rescues a family from a flooded street in Romford / Paul Wood

Mrs Bodea shared a photo on social media of cars, including hers, submerged in floodwater outside Linton Court.

She said several neighbours' cars have been written off and they believe they were not covered by insurance.

Another neighbour who lives on the ground floor, Lucy Penfold, 28, who has a five-year-old son, has also been made homeless by the flooding.

She said: "We just woke up at 4.30am this morning and our home looked like a swimming pool. All the sofas are damaged and the carpets soaked.

"I don't want to leave my home.

"The fire brigade came round in the end but they couldn't do anything."

The neighbours are due to meet with the company which owns the building later.
G ay and straight Muslims will unite to march together at the Pride in London Parade this Saturday.

An LGBT  Muslim Solidarity contingent is being formed for the annual march in response to 49 people being brutally shot dead in the Pulse gay club in Orlando.

Veteran rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who has taken part in every Pride march since the first in 1972 came up with the idea.

He said: We will highlight the need for dialogue, unity and solidarity between the Muslim and LGBT communities  to oppose all hate.

Well also challenge homophobia in the Muslim community and defend LGBT Muslims against persecution by fellow Muslims.

The LGBT-Muslim Solidarity campaign was launched in East London last year to support Muslims who had suffered homophobic abuse and bring people together.
P rotesters have reclaimed a celebrated east London music venue after landlords changed the locks.

Passing Clouds in Dalston, one of Londons leading platforms for alternative music for more than a decade, faces closure as its lease is at an end.

The owners of the building took it back last week. Those running the club thought its lease ran until August and protesters occupied the building on June 16, allowing Passing Clouds to continue operating.

The venue, which opened in 2006, was sold last September to a new landlord, Landhold Developments.

Eleanor Wilson, who founded Passing Clouds, is collecting a petition and wants a lease extension or the possibility of buying the premises, just off Kingsland Road.

It hosts a variety of music styles, particularly world and African, and a weekly Peoples Kitchen that makes use of donated food and offers it to community groups free of charge.

Ms Wilson claims they have spent 200,000 upgrading the building over the years.

A spokesman for Landhold Developments said: For over six months the tenant has known the lease was coming to an end. We had hoped to work with the tenant to enable them to find an alternative premises and transition smoothly.

"Regretfully, following the tenants decision not to find alternative premises, weve been forced to seek legal possession.
A quarter of London flat-sharers are so hard up that a rent rise of just 25 a month would force them to move out, according to a survey.

One in 10 say their personal finances are so precarious that even a 10 increase would make them seek new accommodation. If the rise was as much as 50 almost half of flat-sharers said they would be unable to afford their rent.

Matt Hutchinson, director of flat-share site SpareRoom.co.uk, which commissioned the research, said: Flat sharing is the most affordable way to rent in London, so its a scary prospect to think that an increase of just 25 per month could force so many out of their homes.

Its not a case of simply finding somewhere cheaper to live, either  not that finding somewhere cheap in the capital is simple. The typical London sharer has to find 1,792 in rent, deposit and agents fees every time they move.

Private tutor Amy Heslop-Mullens, 34, said she was forced to take on extra work when the rent for a room in a Putney flat-share went up from 590 to 720 a month over three years.

She said: I was working all time I could. I had very little spare time. It doesnt sound a lot but when we asked the landlord for things to be done it was always a battle.

When the quality of your standard of living is not being improved and you dont know what part of the house is going to fall apart next, it doesnt make for happy living.

Ms Heslop-Mullens eventually moved out of her flat-share in February last year and is now paying just 650 a month for a larger room in a better-quality flat.

A separate survey earlier this year found that one in five renters are not able to meet their monthly payments out of their salary.

Of those, two thirds said they would rely on back-up forms of finance such as credit cards, pay day loans or even their pension savings to keep the landlord happy. But the other third admitted they would not be able to pay all the rent.


L ondoners were urged to vote In the rain today as more torrential downpours were set to hit the capital.

Mayor Sadiq Khan led the calls for people in the capital to defy the wet weather and not let it put them off casting their EU referendum vote.

I am voting for Britain to remain in the EU today and I urge Londoners to brave the rain and do the same, he said.

Remain campaigners believe a high turnout is likely to favour their side.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan arrives to vote in the EU referendum in Tooting (Lucy Young ) / Lucy Young

London is one of the most pro-Remain areas, according to polls, but parts of it, including St Jamess Park, were hit with a months rain  4cm or 1.5 inches  in an hour last night.

Research from the US and Holland suggests every inch of rain above average can depress turnout by around one per cent.

Further downpours were forecast for the capital from around 4pm, and also for the wider South-East.

London MPs urged people to vote whatever the weather. Treasury minister Greg Hands, Conservative MP for Chelsea and Fulham, tweeted: Beat the rain, vote Remain! Is the cry at Gloucester Rd station! Great response from Tube users! #StrongerIn.

Labours former deputy leader Harriet Harman, MP for Camberwell and Peckham, added: Were used to braving a bit of wet weather in this country, so lets not let this downpour stop us from voting in todays referendum. Id urge all Londoners to vote IN the rain, because we are stronger, safer, and better off in Europe.

A Vote Leave spokesman said: If you vote Leave today, we can secure a more prosperous future  and much better weather.

There were delays in opening a small number of polling stations in Newham this morning.

A council spokesman said a couple had staffing problems, but that centres were operating soon after the official 7am opening time, with all then functioning effectively.

Rush hour chaos as London hit by flooding after thunderstorm

Home Office minister James Brokenshire voted in Bexley despite flooding around the entrance of his polling station.

He said: Staff have done a great job of clearing a side entrance so people can get in.
S enior ministers and MPs will attempt to calm the markets tonight by backing David Cameron to stay in office even if he loses the referendum.

A Save Dave operation to shore up the Prime Ministers position and avert a currency collapse is also backed by senior MPs in the Leave campaign.

A procession of loyalists are primed to appear on TV and radio as soon as the polls close at 10pm to say there is no need for a messy leadership contest, regardless of the result.

A senior minister said: The markets are jittery already  nobody wants the added uncertainty of a resignation.

If Mr Cameron loses the referendum, ministers expect him to make an early statement outside No 10 tomorrow, promising Leave leader Michael Gove will have a key position overseeing the timing and terms of an EU withdrawal. If Mr Cameron wins, he will emphasise that the Government has four more years in power and must knuckle down to deliver on its promises.

EU Referendum polling day - in pictures 1 /22 EU Referendum polling day - in pictures Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave after casting their votes in the EU referendum at a polling station in London Tim Ireland/AP Nuns leave a polling station after voting in the EU Referendum in London Hannah McKay/EPA Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn stops for a photograph with members of the public as he leaves his home to cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington Matt Cardy/Getty Images A dog is tied to railings outside a polling station waiting for its owner to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea Ian Forsyth/Getty Images A member of a polling station stands next to a polling box as she waits for citizens during the EU referendum in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar Jon Nazca/Reuters London Mayor Sadiq Khan arrives to vote in the EU referendum in Tooting, South London Lucy Young Chelsea pensioners arrive at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital, London Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox Danny Lawson/PA UKIP leader Nigel Farage carries newspapers as he arrives outside his home in Downe, Kent, as the voters go the polls in the EU referendum Gareth Fullerl/PA Justice Secretary and prominent 'Vote Leave' campaigner Michael Gove poses with his wife Sarah Vine (R) after voting in the European Union referendum at their local polling station in Kensington Jack Taylor/Getty Images Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samamtha vote at Westminster Methodist Hall Alex Lentati Gary Howard, owner of the Little Braxted Bakery in Little Braxted, Essex, arrives at the polling station set up in his own tea rooms by the local council Nick Ansell/PA Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon, poses for photographers as leaves after voting at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow Robert Perry/AFP/Getty Images A man wearing a European themed cycling jersey leaves after voting at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London Neil Hall/Reuters Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and his wife Justine depart after voting in the EU Referendum at a polling station in Gibraltar A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Birstall library, West Yorkshire, near where Labour MP Jo Cox was attacked and killed outside her constituency surgery Danny Lawson/PA A flooded car park at a polling station in Chessington, south London, after heavy overnight rain @hjyoungs/PA

He is also likely to call for further European Union reform, including on immigration  aiming to forestall other EU leaders from responding with complacency to a Remain vote and seeing it as a return to business as usual.

As he fights to reunite his party, Mr Cameron may postpone an expected reshuffle until September  or even as late as 2017  ministers believe, to use the spectre of sackings and promotions to keep MPs and ministers in line.

In the short term, the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war on July 6 is anticipated as a major event that will bring Tories together in attacking Labours record.

Tory whips are also saying they may rush forward a vote on renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent, which promises to divide Jeremy Corbyns party.

Mr Cameron said he believed the Tories would quickly come together again in an interview with the Standard last week. Well-placed MPs say No 10 has drawn up a strategy to see off any leadership challenge and repair party unity, even if Britain votes for Brexit.

The PM is keeping things close to his chest and only half a dozen people probably know what he is planning to do, said a minister. But his two priorities are clearly to ensure good government and unite the party.

Even Right-wingers who opposed Mr Cameron in the referendum think there is unlikely to be an imminent attempt to oust him, unless he loses by a humiliating margin. One senior MP who backs Leave said: I think he can survive until a time of his choosing, even if he loses. However, a minister said: There will obviously be some temperature-taking over the weekend.

To forcibly remove Mr Cameron would need a confidence vote, under party rules, which MPs say he would win easily since a large majority of his MPs have backed him in the referendum.

I cannot see 50 signatures even being found right now, said a Leave-backer, referring to rules requiring 50 MPs to write to the chairman of the partys 1922 committee to start the process.

Several senior Tories said Mr Cameron will not rush to hold a reshuffle, believing that the card is too valuable to play early. His first serious reshuffle after the 2010 election took over two years, said a Tory well-versed in the PMs thinking on such matters.

Delaying it will focus peoples minds. Those MPs elected in 2010 and 2015 will be forced to ask themselves, Do I really want to spend the next four or nine years moping in the Tea Room with Bill Cash and Bernard Jenkin, plotting the next referendum? Even those who backed Leave will not wish to waste their careers like that. Cameron could easily put the reshuffle off until 2017.
E lectronic cigarettes should be banned in public places to avoid the risk of passive vaping, doctors have warned.

The British Medical Association (BMA) yesterday called for e-cigarettes to be outlawed in bars, cafes, restaurants, museums and schools.

Glasgow public health consultant Dr Iain Kennedy warned there was evidence of second-hand vaping, particularly at peoples homes.

He claimed the activity, judged to be around 95 per cent safer than smoking tobacco, still polluted the air with harmful chemicals.

Dr Kennedy told the associations annual meeting in Belfast: There is growing evidence that passive vaping happens, particularly based around testing nicotine levels in households.

"What we don't know yet is what the precise mechanisms of that are, what long-term harm there is.

This is cutting edge research, with findings being published at the moment."

But the BMAs position put them at odds with Public Health England, which has warned that banning e-cigarettes would damage peoples chances of quitting smoking.

The organisations director of drugs, alcohol and tobacco, Rosanna O'Connor, said: "Vaping is not the same as smoking.

"Second-hand smoke is harmful to health but there is no evidence that e-cigarette vapour carries the same harms.

"In fact a ban on using e-cigarettes in public places could be damaging, as it may put off smokers from using e-cigarettes to help them quit."
A quarter of schoolchildren have had takeaways delivered to them at school, according to health gurus.

A report published by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) today revealed that one in four children have ordered burgers, pizzas or curries to school for their lunch.

The society, who polled 570 teenagers for their study, have called for an outright ban on takeaway food in schools, which they see as a significant reason why one in six under-16s being obese in England today.

RSPH chief executive Shirley Cramer said: Our childhood obesity rates are disappointing, and tackling this must be a priority for government.

There can be no excuses for fudging action on what is our number one public health challenge.

There are more than 55,000 fast food and takeaway businesses in Britain and 28 per cent are within a five minute radius of a primary or secondary school.

But children in schools not near takeaways simply used their smartphones, with half of them who ordered takeaways using apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat.

Nearly half of the children polled said they thought fast food and takeaway companies were most at fault for childhood obesity.
A masked gunman has been shot dead during a siege at a cinema in west Germany.

The armed man is said to have barricaded himself in the Kinopolois cinema in Viernheim near Frankfurt this afternoon.

German media reported that the masked man was seen carrying a gun and wearing an ammunition belt.

He is believed to have fired his gun into the air four times as he entered the cinema.

Police said that no-one inside was injured by the armed man.

German police were called to the incident at a cinema complex / Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images

Heavily armed police, wearing helmets and body armour, were seen storming the Kinopolis complex as a couple fled the building.

Germany's Interior Ministry confirmed that the gunman has been shot dead.

The gunman had a rifle or "long gun" and special forces intervened and shot him, interior minister Peter Beuth told the Hesse state parliament.

German police at the cinema complex near Frankfurt / Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images

He said that the gunman appeared to be "a disturbed man".

Up to 50 people were said to have been injured by tear gas, according to local media.

The area around the cinema was cordoned off as elite German police attended.

Viernheim shooting 1 /8 Viernheim shooting Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images A person escapes from a movie theatre complex Kinopolis, where an armed man reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images

A police spokeswoman at the scene, Christiane Kompus, told reporters that she had no information on the assailant's identity and motives.

She said the man had been holding several hostages but didn't have a precise number.
K im Jong-un says North Koreas latest missile tests show it has the sure capability to attack American interests.

The dictator supervised two launches yesterday of the intermediate-range Hwasong-10 ballistic missile, which is also known as the Musudan.

The first launch failed, according to South Korean and American officials. The second missile managed to reach an altitude of about 620 miles in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea 250 miles from North Korea.

We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre, said Kim, according to North Korean state media agency KCNA.

The missile, fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of almost 2,000 miles, meaning all of Japan and the US territory of Guam, in the western Pacific, are potentially within reach.

The North is believed to possess up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media. Officials said the weapons were first deployed around 2007, although North Korea had not attempted to test-fire them until this year. It is thought to have failed in at least five launch attempts.

South Koreas military said the second launch demonstrated technical progress in terms of engine capacity. Experts said it appeared the North had deliberately raised the angle of the launch to avoid hitting any territory belonging to Japan.

South Korea and America called the tests a violation of the United Nations Security Councils resolutions, which ban North Korea from the use of ballistic missile technology. In January, as part of its nuclear programme, the dictatorship, led by Kim, 33, since 2011, claimed to have detonated a hydrogen bomb.
The rights advocacy group says that the arrest of the group's members violates international laws that guarantee freedom of expression

The international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Egypt's government to free four members of a satirical performance group who posted video clips on social media mocking the government

Five of the group's six members were detained in May, with one later released on bail. The sixth member is being investigated but has not been arrested.

The men are accused of using social media to insult state institutions, inciting demonstrations, disturbing public order, spreading false news and incitement to topple the regime.

The New York-based rights group said Egyptian authorities "should drop their investigation" into the six young men and free the four being detained, adding that the case violates the right to free speech.

"This kind of blanket repression leaves young people with few outlets to express themselves or joke about their daily hardships," Nadim Houry, HRW deputy Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement on Thursday.

The defendants lawyer, Mahmoud Othman, told HRW that prosecutors also threatened to use terrorism charges against the men, which could lead to lengthy person terms if convicted.

The group posts online satirical music videos shot on the streets that lampoon Egyptian politics.

One week before their arrest, the group released a video mocking President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and calling on him to leave office.

The investigations against the Street Children group contravenes international human rights laws and conventions, to which Egypt is a signatory, that guarantee freedom of expression and opinion, the rights advocacy watchdog said in the statement

Egypts youth have been a driving force for change since the 2011 uprising, Houry said. Upholding human rights and free speech is the best way for El-Sisi to begin to repair the governments relationship with them.

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P aralympian Oscar Pistorius has given a graphic account of what happened the night he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steemkamp.

Pistorious, 29, broke down as he recalled the 'smell of blood' in his first television interview for one off documentary Oscar Pistorius: The Interview.

The South African athlete claimed the February 2013 killing was an accident and said he feels the same pain as others over Steenkamps death.

He was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 and served 12 months of a five-year prison sentence. Last year the conviction was upgraded to murder following an appeal by state prosecutors which could see him serve a 15 year sentence.

Pistorius is currently under house arrest at his uncles house where the interview with investigative journalist, Mark Williams-Thomas took place.

Speaking ahead of his sentencing on July 6, Pistorius recalled the moment he found Steenkamp slumped over the toilet after he had fired four shots through their bathroom door.

At that point I knew that I'd killed her, he said. I knew that she was dead. And I went down on my knees and pulled her onto me.

I turned so I could get her out of the toilet cause I couldn't pick her up in the small space. And I put her on the bathroom floor; and I pull the curtain the towel down for her head. And I just see blood and it's just blood everywhere. Its just blood everywhere... So much blood.

And I don't know what to do. I try and pick her up. Im trying to pick her up but there's so much blood I can't stand up.

Together: Reeva Steenkamp with Oscar Pistorius / Waldo Swiegers/AFP/Getty

And I thought Reeva had started breathing, so I had my fingers in her mouth and I was trying to give her mouth to mouth, but there was so much blood.

Overcome with emotion, Pistorius stopped the interview and walked out before continuing: I did take Reevas life and I have to live with that.

I can smell the blood. I can feel the warmness of it on my hands. And to know that thats your fault, that thats what youve done.

The South African athlete said he would like to believe that Steenkamp would not want to see him in serve a prison sentence and voiced his plans to help those less fortunate.

I dont want to go back to jail and I dont want to have to waste my life sitting there, he said. If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption I would like to help the less fortunate.

I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down on me then she would want me to live that life.

Oscar Pistorius: The Interview is on ITV on Friday at 9pm.

Oscar Pistorius demonstrates walking on his stumps - ITV

Follow @StandardShowbiz for more news.
An Egyptian committee tasked with appraising and freezing the funds of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group decided on Thursday to seize several hospitals, medical centres, and pharmaceutical companies owned by the group.

The committee said in a statement that it decided to seize Ahmed Labban Surgical Hospital in Ismailia, owned by Ahmed Mohamed Hussieny, and the Osama Ebaid Radiology Centre, owned by Osama Mohamed Ebaid in Menoufeya.

The committee also seized several pharmaceutical companies; Hygienic International Pharmaceuticals in Qalyoubya, El-Fatemia for Medical Supplies in Gharbeya, and Aman Hospital in Helwan.

The seizures also included the Avano Pharma, Pixel Pharma, and Roventis Pharma companies, which the committee said were operated by Hossam Mohamed Tag El-Din El-Sayed, Ahmed Abdel-Aziz El-Sayed Ebaid and Mohamed Ramadan Abdel-Halim.

The committee did not reveal the exact value of the confiscated assets.

The committee has so far frozen the funds and taken control of over 1,000 NGOs and nearly 100 schools allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and seized the assets of over 700 of the groups leaders.

In January 2016, the governmental committee said at a Cairo press conference that the seized funds belonging to members of the banned group included bank credits of 1,370 members worth EGP 154.7 million, $2 million, 435,000, 1.3 million Saudi riyals, 9,000 and 16,480 Swiss francs.

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Artillery fire from Turkey and air strikes by U.S.-led coalition warplanes killed at least eight Islamic State fighters in northern Syria, military sources said on Thursday.

They said Turkish army howitzers and multiple rocket launchers fired on the militants on Wednesday as they were preparing to strike Turkey with rockets and mortars, destroying one defensive fighting position.

The coalition has stepped up air strikes against Islamic State in the area in recent weeks, in response to rocket attacks by the militants on the Turkish border town of Kilis.

Kilis, just across the frontier from an Islamic State-controlled region of Syria, has been hit by rockets more than 70 times this year. More than 20 people have been killed and parts of the town reduced to rubble.

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Witnesses say that Al-Qaeda fighters have been seen in southern Yemeni cities, nearly a month after the militants withdrew from the towns following tribal-led negotiations.

Local residents reported Thursday that Al-Qaeda militants were seen in the cities of Jaar and Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan province. They say that during the day fighters can be seen driving pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, but at night they retreat to hideouts.

The residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group militants have exploited the security and power vacuum after rebels known as the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital in 2014 and the president fled to Saudi Arabia. The militants withdrew this spring under pressure from a Saudi-led coalition that is fighting the Houthis.

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Turkey on Thursday confirmed it would hold new membership talks with the European Union next week and would pressure the bloc to "keep its promises" over visa-free travel.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would hold talks with EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans on June 30, which would also be attended by Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag and EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik.

"We will go to Brussels to meet the EU Commission vice president and discuss the stalling on the visa exemption dossier, on the occasion of the opening of a new negotiating chapter," he said.

EU member states will meet on the same day to agree to open a new negotiating chapter with Turkey on finance and budget affairs in its membership bid, sources in Brussels said on Wednesday.

The question of Ankara's accession came up in Britain's bitterly-fought EU referendum campaign, with the high-stakes vote taking place Thursday on whether to stay or go.

Speaking ahead of the vote, an irate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Turkey could hold its own referendum on whether or not to continue the long-stalled EU accession process.

"We want to continue the discussions on the visa exemption. But the EU must also keep its promises and show its determination," Cavusoglu said.

A landmark deal agreed in March between Turkey and the EU had been expected to calm tensions and give new momentum to the Turkish membership bid.

But the EU says it cannot grant Turkey the key sweetener of visa-free travel to the passport-free Schengen zone if it does not narrow the scope of its anti-terror laws, something Ankara has refused to do as it battles Kurdish militants.

"In the current conditions, we cannot make any change in the anti-terror legislation," said Cavusoglu.

He also said that Erdogan's remarks on holding a referendum was "not blackmail or a threat".

"We are also under great pressure from our people who ask us what we are doing in a place where there is so much anti-Turkish sentiment."

"They want more action on our side and a revision if there is a stalling," he said.

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Two top employees at Kearneys Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center no longer work at the facility.

Rey Rodriguez, facility operating officer at YRTC, and Matt Christiancy, an administrative assistant, left the youth center Wednesday. Both have worked at the facility since 2001.

Russ Reno, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services in Lincoln, which operates the center, declined to comment on the circumstances of the mens departures.

Reno said no internal investigation is going on at the youth center.

"As we do in all personnel-related situations, we handle human resources matters in a confidential manner," he said.

Rodriguez and Christiancy had worked under former YRTC Administrator Jana Peterson. In September, Peterson was removed from her administrator role and became a consultant for the state as a liaison between HHS and the State Probation Office.

Reno said that Peterson remained in her state consultant's role Wednesday but that Rodriguez and Christiancy don't have other jobs with the state.

On April 11, Mark LaBouchardiere was hired as YRTCs new administrator.

Reno wouldnt give further details about what YRTC was doing to fill Rodriguez's and Christiancys positions.

In his role, Rodriguez managed the youth center's operations, including food service, maintenance and laundry. Christiancy served as the state compliance officer for the center and reported to Peterson.
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The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State group (IS) in Syria and Iraq said on Wednesday it was tightening the noose around militants in the Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border but expected them to fight to the end to defend their stronghold.

A U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters supported by coalition air strikes cut off the group's supply lines to Manbij in a rapid advance this month against IS group in the area.

The offensive aims to sever the group's only major route to the outside world.

But it has stopped short of an assault on the city itself out of concern for civilians inside, the U.S.-backed alliance says.

An IS group counter-attack on Monday inflicted heavy casualties, monitors reported.

"We're around the city and we're coming in, and we've cut the lines of communication into it and the noose is getting tighter around the city," Baghdad-based U.S. Army Colonel Chris Garver told reporters.

"We are anticipating that that's going to be another good fight when we get in there."

"We've anticipated that they (IS group) would hold Manbij till the last, that it would be one of those places that they defended till the end and we have not seen anything that's going to change that assessment right now," Garver said.

The Syria Democratic Forces, which include the Kurdish YPG militia and Arab fighting groups, has led the offensive on the ground.

A statement from the alliance on Tuesday said they had thwarted an IS group counter-attack outside Manbij which included the use of vehicles laden with explosives.

British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says scores of IS group fighters and dozens of SDF fighters have been killed in the three-week offensive.

The U.S.-led coalition says at least 20 fighters from the Arab contingent of the SDF have died.

The Observatory said more than 3,000 civilians have fled Manbij during the fighting, and that clashes continue in the countryside around the city.

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Bahrain began court proceedings to dissolve the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq on Thursday, bringing them forward from October in defiance of UN and US appeals for them to be dropped.

The bloc was the largest in parliament before its lawmakers resigned in protest at the crushing of 2011 protests for an elected government and Washington has called the crackdown on it "alarming".

The administrative court had not been due to meet on the government's request to dissolve it until October 6 but brought the session forward at the request of Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa, a judicial source said.

It set its next meeting for September 4.

The court already suspended all of Al-Wefaq's activities on June 14, ordering its offices closed and assets frozen.

The justice ministry said the bloc provided a haven for "terrorism, radicalisation and violence" and opened the way for "foreign interference" in the kingdom's affairs.

That was an allusion to Shiite Iran, which Sunni-ruled Bahrain accuses of fomenting unrest among its Shiite majority.

Despite repeated appeals from its US ally for "reform and reconciliation", Bahrain has carried out an intensifying crackdown on leading Shiite figures in recent weeks.

On Monday, it stripped the kingdom's top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his nationality, prompting street protests in his home village of Diraz, west of Manama.

Last month, an appeals court more than doubled a four-year prison sentence handed down against Al-Wefaq leader Ali Salman on charges of inciting violence.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.

It has been wracked by persistent unrest ever since the crushing of the 2011 protests.

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Wednesday, 22 June 2016 00:02:17 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo

Brazilian sales of flat steel by local distributors in May rose 2.2 percent, year-on-year, and 11.8 percent, month-on-month, to 275,100 mt, the nations distributors association, Inda, said.





According to Inda, purchases of flat steel by local distributors in May declined 0.9 percent, year-on-year, but improved 3.5 percent, month-on-month, to 250,700 mt.





Inventories in the fifth month of the year declined 2.7 percent, month-on-month, to 878,400 mt, while inventorys turnover fell to 3.2 months, from 3.7 months in April.





Steel imports by local distributors in May diminished 70.5 percent, year-on-year, but increased 12.3 percent, month-on-month, to 51,800 mt.





As for June, Inda expects both local sales and purchases of flat steel to remain stable when compared to Mays results.





Indas president, Carlos Loureiro, said it sees no room for further price increases, following several hikes by the major steelmakers this year.





Commenting Mays figures, seen by Inda as positive, Loureiro said the distributors performance could have been better.





He said Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) had an issue at a blast furnace and as a result delayed several orders, but the local steelmaker should soon keep up the pace of steel shipments.


Thursday, 23 June 2016 12:11:43 (GMT+3) | Istanbul

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has announced preliminary determinations in its antidumping (AD) duty investigation of certain welded large diameter (LD) carbon and alloy steel line pipe originating in or exported from China and Japan and in its countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of the abovementioned goods originating in or exported from China

Accordingly, the preliminary antidumping duty rates stand at 96.7 percent for China and 20.1 percent for Japanese steel producer Marubeni-Itochu Steel Inc., 46.2 percent for Japan -based Metal One Corporation, 43 percent for Japan -based Sumitomo Corporation and 96.7 percent for all other exporters in Japan . Meanwhile, the CBSA has calculated a preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) margin of 30.3 percent for China

The products in question currently fall under the Customs Tariff Statistics Position Numbers 7305.11.0021, 7305.11.0029, 7305.12.0020, 7305.19.0021 and 7305.19.0029.
In the first four months of the current year, Colombia exported 41,183 mt of ferronickel, down 6.2 percent, with a value of $93.8 million, decreasing by 47.4 percent, both year on year, as announced by the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). In April this year, the country's ferronickel exports amounted to 9,465 mt, rising by 31.4 percent, while the revenue from these exports was $24.17 million, down 8.4 percent, both compared to April last year.
Thursday, 23 June 2016 09:53:39 (GMT+3) | Shanghai

As of June 20, overall domestic inventories of the five main finished steel products in China totaled 8.126 million mt, up 10,000 mt or 0.13 percent month on month, as announced by the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA).

In particular, as of the given date, domestic inventories of hot rolled coil (HRC), cold rolled coil (CRC), common medium plate, wire rod and rebar amounted to 1.417 million mt, 1.399 million mt, 985,000 mt, 977,000 mt and 3.348 million mt, down 2.31 percent, down 2.62 percent, rising by 3.14 percent, increasing by 16.49 percent and decreasing by 2.53 percent month on month, respectively.
Thursday, 23 June 2016 22:31:08 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo

Gerdau announced Thursday it has completed the sale of its Spanish specialty steel mill to Clerbil SL, which will operate the facility under the brand name Sidenor.





The Brazilian steelmaker said the sale is in line with the companys goal of focusing its activities in the best performing and most profitable assets it has. With the move, Gerdau has no more producing units in Europe.





The specialty steel unit was sold to Clerbil for EUR 155 million. Additionally, Gerdau could also receive another EUR 45 million within a five-year timeframe depending on the future performance of the business.





The Sidenor brand has mills in Basque Country, Cantabria and Cataluna and has a 1 million mt/year capacity.





Gerdau added it will keep collaborating with Sidenor to develop new products, specially those aimed at the automotive industry.








Thursday, 23 June 2016 23:14:22 (GMT+3) | San Diego

According to local media reports, Gerdau s mill in Wilton, Iowa, is stopping its shredding operation, affecting 15 workers. In March, the company laid off approximately 35 workers at the plant.





The companys decision to idle was based on market analysis, our production capabilities and identification of cost competitive alternatives to help ensure the sustainability of the Wilton steel mill, which employs approximately 250 people, said a company statement to media.





It was not easy for the company to make this decision since it impacts employees lives, but it was necessary in order to ensure the long-term success of the Wilton mill. A potential restart of the shredder would be considered if market conditions improve and appear to be sustainable.








Lingyuan Steel to issue non-public bonds worth RMB 1.2 billion

Thursday, 23 June 2016 11:42:35 (GMT+3) | Shanghai



Liaoning Province-based Chinese steel producer Lingyuan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd (Lingyuan Steel) has announced that it plans to issue non-public bonds worth RMB 1.2 billion ($0.18 billion). In particular, the period for the companys non-public bonds will not exceed three years. The money in question will be used to repay loans and fund the companys working capital.

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Thursday, 23 June 2016 16:35:01 (GMT+3) | Istanbul

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced the final results of its administrative review of the antidumping (AD) duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe (standard pipe ) imported from South Korean steel producers Husteel Co., Ltd. (Husteel), Hyundai HYSCO (HYSCO), and SeAH Steel Corporation (SeAH) for the period between November 1, 2013 and October 31, 2014.

Accordingly, the US DOC has calculated final dumping margins of 1.42 percent for Husteel, 1.62 percent for HYSCO and 4.80 percent for all other exporters in South Korea. Meanwhile, the US DOC determined that SeAH did not sell the subject product below its normal value.

The products in question currently fall under the Customs Tariff Statistics Position Numbers 7306.30.10.00, 7306.30.50.25, 7306.30.50.32, 7306.30.50.40, 7306.30.50.55, 7306.30.50.85 and 7306.30.50.90.
Wednesday, 22 June 2016 23:59:11 (GMT+3) | San Diego

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) today determined that a US industry is materially injured by reason of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan that the US Department of Commerce (DOC) has determined are sold in the United States at less than fair value and subsidized by the government of China.





All six Commissioners voted in the affirmative. As a result, the DOC will issue a countervailing duty order on imports of these products from China and antidumping duty orders on imports of these products from China and Japan.





The Commission also made negative findings with respect to critical circumstances with regard to imports of these products from China and Japan. As a result, goods that entered the United States from China prior to December 22, 2015, will not be subject to retroactive countervailing duties, and goods that entered the United States from China and Japan prior to March 7, 2016, will not be subject to retroactive antidumping duties (dates are the dates of the Department of Commerces affirmative preliminary determinations).








Residents of a village in central Yemen said Iran-allied Houthi fighters shot dead seven farmers on Thursday while searching for the leader of a pro-government militia.

Peace talks in Kuwait between Yemen's government and the Houthis to end a civil war have dragged on for two months with few concrete results. A truce that began on April 10 has dampened fighting, but skirmishes continue almost daily.

Residents of the village of Nadara in Ibb province said the Houthis could not find the militia commander but blew up his house and killed seven men working in the fields.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen's war in March 2015 on behalf of the internationally backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The conflict has killed at least 6,400 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

The Houthis said the attack was a raid on a "terrorist cell" and that eight al-Qaeda fighters had been killed in the operation, according to the Houthi-run state news agency Saba.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the war to seize a vast swath of the country, winning new recruits and enriching themselves from oil smuggling.

There have been reports of al Qaeda militants joining pro-government and tribal fighters in battles against the Houthis in central Yemen.

However, the Houthis also routinely characterize the militia forces opposed to them as al Qaeda militants and accuse the Saudi-led coalition of abetting AQAP's expansion, something the alliance denies.

The alliance members fear the Houthi movement is a proxy for their arch-rivals in Tehran - something the Houthis deny - and have launched thousands of air strikes in a bid to defeat them.

United Nations Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Tuesday told the U.N. Security Council he would present a roadmap in the coming days to advance the stalled process.

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Thursday, 23 June 2016 22:35:53 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo

Venezuela s state-run steelmaker Complejo Siderurgico Nacional (CSN) has resumed operations at four mills, the nations ministry of basic, strategic and socialist industries said.





According to minister Juan Arias, the Barquisimeto, Lara, Casima and Antimano mills have resumed activities, while two other mills, Guarenas and Valencia, are also expected to be resume operations.





The four mills produce steel for both the domestic and the export markets, serving the civil construction and metal machinery segments.





The Casima and the Barquisimeto mills produce semi-finished products through EAF and continuous casting processes.





According to the nations minister of the basic, strategic and socialist industries, Juan Arias, Venezuela is committed to recover the countrys iron, steel and aluminum industries.




Thursday, 23 June 2016 15:58:22 (GMT+3) | Istanbul

During the past two weeks, Turkish merchant bar export offers have softened further, while demand for Turkish merchant bar in the export markets has remained weak in the same period. Turkish steel producers' merchant bar sales to the export markets have been very limited, but are expected to improve after the end-of-Ramadan holiday (July 4-7).



Turkish merchant bar export prices have decreased by $17.5/mt in the period in question to the following levels:

Product Price ($/mt) Angle 415-440 IPN-UPN 425-450 Flat bar 435-460 IPE 425-450

All prices are on FOB basis and for July shipment.
By MARK EVANS mevans@stegenherald.com Bloomsdale will probably host a major fireworks display. The pyrotechnics will not take place until 2024, however. During the Oct. 12 board of aldermen meeting, Kevin Wehner and city officials again discussed the possibility of a July 4 fireworks display at the youth soccer fields on land leased by the city
A hoped-for first meeting between Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas under EU auspices in Brussels failed to materialise, diplomatic sources said Thursday.

European Parliament head Martin Schulz on Wednesday tried to arrange an meeting between the two leaders, who were in Brussels for talks with top EU officials trying to kick-start stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

"There was no meeting because their timetables did not match up," an aide to Schulz told AFP.

Speaking after talks with Rivlin on Wednesday, Schulz had said that since both he and Abbas would be in parliament later in the day, it would be positive if they met.

But no meeting took place, with the two sides blaming each other on Thursday.

"President Abbas is ready to meet any Israeli personality working for peace but such a meeting needs preparation, which was not the case here, and it should not be done via the media," a Palestinian diplomat said.

Rivlin said he was "very sorry to learn (Abbas) rejected such a meeting ... I was very happy to welcome the initiative."

"I must say I find it strange that President Mahmud Abbas... refuses again and again to meet Israeli leaders," he said.

Rivlin said direct talks between the two sides were the only answer, not the international forum that Abbas -- and the European Union -- supports as the best way to reach a peace deal.

EU foreign ministers on Monday backed a French initiative to call an international conference on the Middle East aimed at restarting peace talks deadlocked since 2014.

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US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters advanced Thursday into the Islamic State jihadist group's bastion of Manbij in northern Syria, sparking fierce street fighting as they push to take the city.

Backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq, fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance entered Manbij from the south, a monitoring group said.

The advance marked a major breakthrough in the battle for Manbij, once a key link on the supply route between the Turkish border and IS's de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.

The loss of the city would deal another blow to IS following a string of recent battlefield defeats, including the taking by Iraqi forces earlier this month of the centre of the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said SDF forces were able to break through IS defences in Manbij a few hours after taking control of a village on the city's southwestern outskirts.

"Fierce street fighting between buildings" erupted as they entered the city, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a broad network of sources inside Syria to monitor the country's conflict.

An SDF commander at the front told AFP that IS fighters were using car bombs and other explosives to try to slow the assault.

"Our forces, in coordination with the coalition, are determined to advance inside the city and eliminate all Daesh fighters," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Abdel Rahman said tens of thousands of civilians were trapped inside the city, though some 8,000 had been able to flee since the start of the SDF offensive on Manbij on May 31.

There were fears the jihadists would use civilians as human shields inside the city, which had a population of about 120,000 before the start of Syria's civil war in 2011.

The SDF managed to encircle the city on June 10 but its advance slowed as IS fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.

At least 63 SDF fighters and 458 jihadists have been killed since the start of the offensive, according to the Observatory.

The jihadists have held Manbij since 2014, the year IS seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its "caliphate".

The US-led coalition of Western and Arab states launched air raids against IS in both countries the same year and in recent months has stepped up support for ground forces like the SDF.

A statement from US Central Command said the coalition had carried out 73 strikes in the Manbij area last week and a total of 233 since the assault began.

Formed in October 2015, the 25,000-strong SDF is dominated by the powerful Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) but includes an Arab contingent that has been steadily growing to around 5,000 fighters.

As well as air support, coalition countries have provided ground advisors to the SDF, including some 200 US special forces.

The Manbij assault has coincided with another offensive launched by Syrian regime forces against IS in its stronghold province of Raqa.

Backed by Russian warplanes, government forces re-entered the province this month as part of an offensive to retake Tabqa, another key town on the IS supply route to the Turkish border.

But after advancing to within seven kilometres (four miles) of Tabqa airbase, they were driven back late Monday in a jihadist counter-attack that killed 40 loyalists.

Three Russian soldiers supporting regime troops in the area were seriously wounded on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine, the Observatory said. They were recovered by Russian forces.

Syria's conflict began five years ago with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.

IS emerged from the chaos of the war, committing widespread atrocities in areas under its control, as well as organising and inspiring jihadist attacks across the Middle East and in Western cities.

Washington has backed rebel forces in Syria and Moscow is supporting President Bashar al-Assad's regime, but the rise of IS has seen efforts focus on defeating the jihadists.

Russia and the United States launched a major effort last year to bring about peace talks between Assad and rebel forces, but the negotiations faltered and a partial truce announced in February has all but collapsed.

Clashes have been especially intense in and around Syria's second city of Aleppo, where the Observatory said six people including a child died Thursday in rebel shelling of pro-regime neighbourhoods.

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A car bomb exploded near a gendarmerie station in southeastern Turkish province of Mardin on Thursday, security sources said, killing one truck driver and wounding two officers.

The explosion took place outside the gendarmerie outpost near the Omerli district of Mardin province and was carried out by Kurdish militant group PKK, sources said.

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Hotel Angad will be the name of the 145-room inn at the Missouri Theatre building the Lawrence group is redeveloping in St. Louis' Grand Center.

The hotel's name is meant to honor Angad Paul, who died Nov. 8 in a fall from a balcony at his eighth-floor residence in London. Paul, 45, was chief executive of Caparo Group.

His connection to the Missouri Theatre building is that Caparo shares ownership of the 12-story structure with Lawrence Group. Caparo is the parent of Bull Moose Industries, which is moving its headquarters to the building from Chesterfield.

Paul's father, Swaraj Paul, the Indian-born entrepreneur who founded Caparo, attended a ceremony Thursday at which the hotel's name was made public. Paul, who holds the title Lord Paul of Marylebone, spoke quietly to the small crowd led by Mayor Francis Slay.

Bull Moose, a maker of metal tubes largely for the construction industry, will occupy two floors of the Missouri Theatre building. The company's headquarters employment will grow from 80 to about 100 after it relocates to the building at 634 North Grand Boulevard.

Steve Smith, Lawrence Group's chief executive, said financing of the $55 million project is close enough to allow work to proceed now. Completion of the independently operated hotel, Bull Moose offices and commercial space will be in July 2017, Smith said.

Lawrence Group bought the building in 2013 and had planned to convert it into apartments until he heard of interest from Bull Moose. A 500-car parking garage is to be erected on the east side of the building. A second development phase includes a new 150-unit apartment building next to the garage.

Bull Moose, founded in St. Louis in 1962, has eight U.S. locations, including a plant in Gerald, Mo. Caparo acquired Bull Moose in 1989.
LONDON  Britons from the far Scottish isles to the tip of Gibraltar began casting their ballots Thursday in a historic referendum that could reshape Britain's place in Europe and radiate economic, political and security implications across the globe.

After months of bitter campaigning that sharply divided the country over questions of immigration and identity, election day dawned with a cliffhanger. Among the five polls released on the eve of the vote, two showed a lead for "in," two gave the edge to "out" and one forecast a tie. The final average of all polls was 50-50, with Britons evenly split over whether the country should exit the 28-member European Union.

Although "leave" had been leading the polls as of last week, "remain" has caught up since pro-E.U. member of Parliament Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed last week, jolting the country and prompting calls for an end to some of the campaign's more hateful rhetoric.

Voting takes place throughout the day on Thursday, and the results are expected early Friday (Thursday night in St. Louis).

The referendum marks an existential decision that could dramatically reshape Britain's global role in a way not seen since London shed its empire after World War II. It could also lead to another push on Scottish secession, the further unraveling of the European Union and the fall of Prime Minister David Cameron's government.

As the first votes were cast  with the often-variable British weather running the gamut from a torrential downpour in London to sunny, clear skies in Scotland  anxiety was the prevailing mood.

Hilary Clarke, a 45 year-old full-time mom, was the first to vote at a southwest London polling station. She said she would use her stubby pencil to check "remain" on her ballot, but was hardly assured that the rest of the country would agree with her.

"If I had been confident I wouldn't be standing in the rain at 7 in the morning," she said as she sheltered beneath a colorful umbrella. "The reason I'm first in the queue is I'm going straight to the airport to go to Barcelona, and I may not return if vote goes the wrong way."

Clarke, who had endured a sleepless night tuned to the cracks of thunder and the cries of woken children, said she couldn't understand the logic of those pushing for "leave."

"I can see that sometimes it seems we are hemorrhaging money to the E.U.," she said. "But at the same time we seem to get so much more back than we give. Even if you're disagreeing with what's said at the table, it's better to have a place at it."

Other voters still hadn't made their minds up as they prepared to enter the polling station. At Methodist Central Hall, in the shadow of Westminster Abbey, Steve Devereux was still weighing his options Thursday morning. He said that while he would likely vote "remain," he felt the pull to leave.

"Giving the government a kick in the backside and really telling them actually they can't take people for granted," he said. "I think that's the big thing I really want to say."

Prime Minister David Cameron will hope Thursday that voters resist that urge. He voted in central London Thursday morning alongside his wife, Samantha. He smiled and gave a quick wave to photographers before entering the polling station.

Advocates for a British exit  popularly known as Brexit  argue that tossing off the shackles of E.U. bureaucracy will restore Britain's sovereignty. A powerful selling point for many votes is the claim that a farewell to E.U. ties could give the country the latitude to dramatically reduce immigration, which has hit record highs as Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and others from across Europe have flocked to the relative prosperity of the British economy.

"I really think tomorrow can be independence day," former London mayor Boris Johnson told supporters Wednesday as he posed for photos with fishmongers and waved copies of the virulently anti-E.U. Sun newspaper.

Pro-Brexit leaders used the hashtag #IndependenceDay on Twitter Thursday morning to exhort their followers to get out and vote for what they promise will be a liberation from Brussels bureaucrats.

But opponents say a vote to leave could be a grievous self-inflicted wound from which it would take years, if not decades, for Britain to recover.

"We don't solve our immigration challenge by leaving the European Union, but we do create a massive problem for our economy," Cameron told the BBC on the eve of the vote. "This is irreversible. You can't jump out of the airplane then climb back in through the cockpit hatch."

Most economic, political and defense authorities  including nearly all foreign leaders  have joined the call for Britain to stay, and they have issued dire warnings about the consequences of Brexit.

Economic forecasters have said a British break could push the country back into recession, with the rest of the globe vulnerable to the ripples. Many geopolitical strategists also warn that a vote to leave could divide the Western alliance and be a boon to others such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But many of the 46 million Britons eligible to vote have paid little heed, with surveys showing that anxiety over immigration is trumping all other voter concerns.

The "leave" campaign has played on those fears, arguing  with little supporting evidence  that Turkey will soon join the European Union and intensify the flood of migrant workers arriving on British shores under the bloc's free-movement rules.

It has also dismissed warnings from independent experts as part of an elitist plot, what it terms "Project Fear."

Two of the top Brexit campaigners  Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove  have invoked provocative Nazi comparisons. Johnson has suggested that E.U. ambitions mirror those of Hitler's Germany, and Gove has painted Brexit critics as akin to Nazi propagandists who sought to discredit Albert Einstein.

The "remain" side has returned fire in recent days.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan castigated the anti-E.U. camp's anti-immigrant message as "Project Hate." Meanwhile, former prime minister John Major on Wednesday called Johnson and Gove, both fellow Conservatives, "gravediggers of our prosperity."

Another former prime minister, Gordon Brown, decried the overall tone of a debate that has been marked by xenophobia and nativism. "This is not the Britain I know," he said.

Whichever side wins Thursday will have to reckon with the profound and emotional schisms in British society that have come to the surface during the campaign.

When Cameron promised a referendum in January 2013, he had hoped the vote would put to rest a debate over Europe that has bedeviled Britain for decades and that has generated particularly deep fault lines in his Conservative Party.

Instead, the campaign appears only to have made those divisions worse, while also layering the debate with the added complexity of personal ambition. Several prominent campaigners  especially Johnson  are thought to be jockeying for Cameron's job if the country defies the prime minister and votes for an exit.

Even if "remain" wins, Britain's angst is unlikely to be resolved. Some "leave" campaigners have said they will press for another referendum if they come up short in a close vote.

Thursday's vote also has the potential to reawaken another fundamental question of British identity. Scottish leaders say that if Britain votes to leave the European Union against the will of the pro-European Scots, they will renew their push for independence just two years after losing a referendum vote.

The outcome will be watched closely in capitals around the globe. President Obama has weighed in strongly for the "remain" side, saying he thinks Britain is a more valuable ally from within the European Union.

All of Britain's E.U. allies have said they, too, want Britain to stay. To illustrate the point, European landmarks from Paris to Warsaw have been bathed in the colors of the Union Jack this week, along with the message "Vote Remain."

In an op-ed in Britain's Guardian newspaper Wednesday morning, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wrote that a vote to leave would be "the wrong choice."

"It would be a mistake for which you, the voters, primarily would pay the price," he wrote. "Because who really wants Britain to be small and isolated?"

European allies also have their own interests to protect. If Britain leaves, it could set off a chain reaction of defections and attempted defections across the continent as Euroskepticism surges.

This is all unknown territory for the European Union, which has steadily expanded over past decades.

Under E.U. rules, a departing member has two years to negotiate the terms of its exit. But, in reality, most experts think that the divorce proceedings would last far longer and that Brussels-based negotiators would have little incentive to give Britain a good deal.

Cameron on Wednesday warned voters not to allow Britain to be downgraded from a place at the table to press for British interests in Europe, and instead wind up "standing outside, ear pressed to the glass."

But in the febrile environment of British politics, it was not clear that voters would care whether they have a voice in the European Union, an organization that inspires little love even among "remain" backers.

In his final speech of the campaign, pro-leave firebrand Nigel Farage said Wednesday that the vote was a chance to liberate the country from European bureaucrats and other continental elites.

"This referendum," said Farage, head of the U.K. Independence Party, "is about the people versus the establishment."

And that's what worried Cay Schroder, 72, a painter who was in Trafalgar Square late Wednesday afternoon along with thousands of others for an emotional memorial to Cox on what would have been her 42nd birthday. The event featured a speech from Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, a video message from Irish rock star Bono and a school choir featuring the classmates of Cox's young son.

The crowd was heavily for "in," but Schroder said he knew that was deceptive.

"I've been campaigning for a fortnight, and I think London is mainly in and the rest of the country is mainly out," said Schroder, who proudly sported a "Remain" T-shirt.

Young voters, he said, were "in" but may not vote. The "out" voters were older, and determined to recover a bygone time for Britain that cannot be re-created.

"They long for something," he said, "that doesn't exist anymore."
The United States expressed deep concern Thursday about basic freedoms in its ally Turkey after the arrest of three free speech activists.

Reporters Without Borders Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu, journalist Ahmet Nesin and rights activist Sebnem Korur Fincanci were charged on Monday with "terrorist propaganda."

The three had taken part in a campaign by the daily Ozgur Gundem for prominent figures to guest-edit the newspaper on a daily basis in a show of solidarity at a time when the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accused of eroding press freedoms.

Istanbul prosecutors have asked for the three to each be given jail sentences from a minimum of two years up to a maximum of fourteen-and-a- half.

"This appears to be just a continuation of a troubling trend that we've seen in Turkey to discourage legitimate discourse and freedom of expression, freedom of the press," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"As we've said, as Turkey's friend and ally, we urge the authorities there to ensure their actions uphold the universal democratic values enshrined in Turkish constitution, which includes freedom of speech," he said.

"In a democratic society, we believe that critical opinion should be encouraged, not silenced. We believe democracies becomes stronger, not weaker, by allowing an expression of diverse voices within society and the actions and the work in the important efforts of independent journalists."

Delphine Halgand, US Director for Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at the state prosecutor's call for long custodial sentences.

"Erol's imprisonment and these of the two other press freedom defenders mark a new step in the criminalization of the defense of human rights in Turkey," she said.

"We will continue to fight for these rights tirelessly."

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Your TVs set-top box is ratting you out to advertisers. At least thats the contention of consumer groups that have filed complaints with federal authorities demanding a crackdown on overzealous data collection.

The complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission say pay-TV companies fail to disclose to customers the extent of their data collection or the ways peoples viewing habits will be used for marketing purposes.

Theyre hiding the ball, said Dallas Harris, a policy fellow with the advocacy group Public Knowledge who co-wrote the complaints. They say in their privacy policies that they may collect data on you and they may use it for marketing. They know thats what theyre doing. So theres a big disconnect between what they say and whats actually happening.

Most consumers know theyve traded privacy for convenience as information technology plays an ever-larger role in daily activities. From websites visited to goods purchased, almost every move people make these days is watched, recorded and frequently shared by businesses.

Still, Harris said, many people probably think the digital surveillance ends when they settle on the couch to watch TV in the privacy of their home. They dont realize, she said, that theyre being spied on by their set-top boxes.

This should be a huge concern for everyone, Harris told me. Consumers just arent aware of the breadth and depth of information thats being collected and combined with information from other sources.

The complaints to the FCC and FTC were filed by Public Knowledge, Consumer Watchdog, San Franciscos TURN, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Consumer Federation of America.

Spokespeople for both federal agencies declined to comment on the complaints or what action may be taken.

The privacy concerns come amid jockeying by the pay-TV industry to dodge a proposed FCC rule that would unlock set-top boxes and allow any company to make them. The industry last week said it would be willing to ditch the boxes and instead have customers stream programming via Netflix-style apps. The FCC said more details of the plan are needed.

In the meantime, consumer advocates say, Big Brother is watching.

In their complaints, the groups call for better disclosure of industry practices and to allow pay-TV customers to opt in to having their viewing shared with marketers, rather than the current requirement that they opt out. They also call upon federal officials to better enforce existing rules.

Title 47, Section 551 of the U.S. Code says that pay-TV companies must disclose the nature of personally identifiable information collected or to be collected with respect to the subscriber and the nature of the use of such information.

It also says pay-TV companies shall not disclose personally identifiable information concerning any subscriber without the prior written or electronic consent of the subscriber.

I reached out to all the major pay-TV companies. The ones that responded were unanimous in dismissing privacy issues raised in the complaints and said they fully comply with regulations.

Our disclosures tell our customers exactly how we use that data and provide tools for customers to opt out, said Jim Cicconi, AT&Ts senior vice president of external and legislative affairs. Frankly, this complaint is bogus and seems mainly designed to distract the public from the overwhelming bipartisan opposition to the FCCs controversial set-top box plan.

Javier Mendoza, a spokesman for Frontier Communications, which took over Verizons California FiOS service in April, said the company is sensitive to privacy issues with respect to the use of identifiable customer information provided over the Internet.

Unless we are explicitly given permission to do so, Frontier does not collect and then sell, distribute or exchange personal information with third parties.

That sounds great until you ask, as I did, if Frontier interprets customers failure to opt out as giving explicit permission to have their data shared.

Mendoza replied that Frontier, like many other businesses of all types, has a legitimate business use for customer information, which didnt answer my question but sounds like not opting out is as good as an opt-in as far as theyre concerned.

Most pay-TV companies say they dont need an opt-in because the information they collect is in aggregate form  that is, customers are grouped together and individual viewers are not identified to marketers.

Harris at Public Knowledge called that claim ridiculous. Once aggregate information is combined with data from other sources, she said, it can be very easy to identify specific customers.

Moreover, theyre telling marketers that they can target individual customers with ads, she said. They can only do that if they know and share what individual customers are watching.

Thats the crux of it. If I see ads for travel and hotel packages because I watch the National Geographic Channel, theres nothing aggregate going on. Theyre looking right at me.

Federal rules say prior consent is required in such cases.

The complaints make a fair point.

David Lazarus, a Los Angeles Times columnist, writes on consumer issues.
Ed Glasscock landed in St. Louis and had flashbacks.

The Louisville lawyer led the campaign in 2000 to merge the city of Louisville with Jefferson County, a long-sought marriage that had failed three times previously when voters left the bride and groom at the altar.

On Wednesday, Glasscock was in town to speak to community leaders at a luncheon organized by Better Together, the civic organization that has been laying the groundwork for St. Louis to consider its own such merger. When he arrived, the news of the day was about a brewing conflict between St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger.

The mayor and most of the top regional civic leaders recently signed a letter supporting a request for a federal grant to help jump-start future development of a North-South MetroLink line that would connect south St. Louis County to North County. The line would run through the most densely populated areas in the city, on the south side, and connect people there to jobs downtown and other MetroLink stops.

Then it would head north, connecting downtown to the new location of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and its 3,000 jobs, and the most impoverished and blighted areas of the city.

Stenger wouldnt sign the letter. In fact, he wrote his own letter to the federal government, making sure officials in Washington knew how divided the region was.

The episode reminded Glasscock of how things used to be in Louisville. We were really splintered, he said of his city.

Before 2000, Louisville had a government structure very similar to what exists today in St. Louis. The city had a mayor and Board of Aldermen. The county had a county judge who was similar to the county executive, and a commission that operated much like the St. Louis County Council. Jefferson County had 83 municipalities  and continues to have almost that many today.

Some of the disputes were small.

The mayors staff and judges staff would get into arguments about who would speak first at events, Glasscock said.

But the infighting would get in the way of Louisvilles larger success, Glasscock said. Whether it was businesses relocating or federal officials awarding grants, the regions division often worked against it.

We lost credibility, Glasscock said. You have so many challenges from the outside, you dont need to be fighting internally. Youve got to be sure everybodys on the same page.

Thats simply not the case in St. Louis today.

There have been some regional successes  the effort to keep NGA in the city, most notably  but the sort of cooperation that is necessary to grow a region and earn sustained success in the state Legislature or tap federal resources is mostly absent.

The problem is not primarily a personal one  its no secret that Slay and Stenger have yet to develop a strong working relationship  its structural.

Unity is but a dream in a region with 90 municipalities, 81 municipal courts, 57 police departments and 43 fire districts.

After Louisvilles merger, Glasscock said, it was much easier for the region to speak with one voice.

Because of Better Togethers voluminous studies on how our regions division is costing us in terms of tax revenue, the high cost of government and lost opportunity, St. Louis has a leg up on where Louisville was in 1997, when the three-year process of persuading voters to merge began in earnest.

But getting to the finish line wont be easy. People dont like change, Glasscock said.

He hopes to help regional leaders learn from Louisvilles experience. Key to the success of the 2000 merger vote, he said, was a lot of polling and community discussion that helped civic leaders decide how to structure the merger.

For instance, voters preferred the idea of keeping their own municipality, he said, but understood that a merged, professional police department for the entire region would improve public safety.

They liked the idea of merging the offices of mayor with county judge, and the county commission with the Board of Aldermen, but they liked having some smaller government bodies to deal with more local affairs. They loved the idea of reducing the cost of government.

What a potential government merger in St. Louis might look like is an open question at this point. But there are plenty of options. A new nonprofit called St. Louis Strong is collecting ideas and seeking more on its website (stlstrong1764.org).

In the end, voters will be more important to determining whether the region unites than Slay and Stenger, the current leaders of the city and the county, Glasscock said.

But the leadership of elected officials and other civic leaders will be key to determining whether a well-constructed plan gets presented to voters and a campaign that can win is forged.

Some elected officials, Glasscock said, will have a decision to make:

Theyll have to decide if they are more worried about re-election or the communities they serve.
ST. LOUIS  A St. Louis man accused of fatally shooting two people in Dutchtown within three days now faces murder charges.

Da 'Twon Thompson, 19, of the 2300 block of Indiana Avenue, is accused of shooting and killing John Jerome Moore, 24, on June 9 and robbing and killing Jessica Paxton, 23, on June 12.

Thompson was charged Wednesday with ten felonies, including two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of robbery, and associated counts of armed criminal action. A judge issued a $1 million cash-only bond.

He was charged in a separate robbery on June 3. In that case, police said he approached a man in the 3400 block of Miami Street in Gravois Park, pointed a gun at him and stole the victim's gun, which had been holstered on him.

On June 9, in the 3500 block of Bingham Avenue, Thompson pointed a gun at a male victim and demanded his money, police said. After the victim gave up his money, Thompson pointed his gun at Moore, who was with the other victim, and shot him in the head. Moore died at the scene. He lived in the 1400 block of Monroe Street.

On June 12, Paxton drove her boyfriend, 25, to the 4600 block of South Spring Avenue so he could buy heroin, police say. That's when Thompson and two other men produced guns and announced a robbery, police said. Thompson pointed a gun at the male victim and demanded his property. He didn't comply, and so Thompson demanded Paxton's property, police said. When she tried to drive away, Thompson shot and killed her, police said.

The male victim and Paxton's two-year-old son, who was also in the car, were not hurt. Paxton lived in the 4400 block of Osceola Street. Her parents told the Post-Dispatch that their daughter was not a drug user and worked hard as a waitress.

Davante Rejay Lindsey, 19, of the 4400 block of Neosho Street, was charged last week in connection with Paxton's death. He faces charges of second-degree murder and attempted sale of narcotics. Police were looking for a getaway driver.

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect date for Moore's death. This version has been corrected.
French President Francois Hollande will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of an EU summit on Tuesday following Britain's referendum on its EU membership, France's European affairs minister said.

"We will together come up with a response for relaunching European construction, France will be up to the task," Europe minister Harlem Desir said during a questions and answer session at the French Senate.

The meeting between the two leaders will be on Monday in Berlin, according to a French diplomatic source.

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FULTON  The killing of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub is not playing a major factor in Missouri Gov. Jay Nixons review of an expansion of state gun laws, the governor said Thursday.

A day after his fellow Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House to express frustration over gun control laws, Nixon called the incident in Florida a horrific crime, but said his ongoing analysis of a Republican gun measure is focused on other issues.

Those individual actions, they may spur public discussion and focus on these issues, Nixon said.

But, he added, Were talking about the values of our state. Were talking about constitutional rights. Were talking about peoples ability to defend themselves. Those are longer term issues than a single occurrence.

In May, the GOP-led Legislature sent the governor a series of proposed changes to the states firearms laws, including an expansion of the castle doctrine law, which allows Missourians to use deadly force to protect their homes. The proposal would take away a persons duty to retreat before using deadly force, no matter where the person is.

It also would allow a gun owner to carry a concealed weapon wherever open carry is allowed, generally making a concealed-carry permit unnecessary within Missouri.

Gun owners also would be able to apply for a lifetime concealed carry permit that eliminates the need to renew every five years.

Nixon earlier called the changes a significant shift in state policy.

On Thursday, following a tour of an ongoing $221 million construction project at the Fulton State Hospital, he said the permitless carry provisions were troubling because people would not have to take basic firearms training in order to go out in public places with a gun.

In addition, he said current law puts the approval of a concealed carry permit in the hands of county sheriffs while also leaving them the responsibility of making sure their communities are safe.

I think the sheriffs at the local level should have the continued authority to say `no, Nixon said.

The House sponsor of the measure, Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Springfield, said the permitless carry provision is already allowed in Missouri if someone openly carries a gun. The proposed change would allow people to conceal a weapon.

"If the governor has a problem with carrying without training, then he already has got an issue with current law," Burlison said.

As for a time frame for taking action on the legislation, Nixon said hes pretty close to making a decision. He said he has meetings scheduled Thursday and Friday with law enforcement officials and others to try and wrap up his deliberations by next week.

It is not the first time this year Nixon has voiced concern about the Legislatures efforts to expand gun laws in Missouri. He earlier criticized a proposal to allow firearms on college campuses. That measure did not advance before lawmakers adjourned on May 13.

Even with a veto from Nixon, the proposals outlined in Senate Bill 656 still could become law. Both the House and the Senate approved the changes with veto-proof majorities.
WASHINGTON  John Lewis, beaten at Selma but triumphant beyond, had a message.

Never, ever get lost in a sea of despair, the representative from Georgia and civil rights leader said. Keep the faith.

And so the Democrats 25-plus-hour sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives came to an end at 1 p.m. Thursday. Dozens filed out of the House chamber, back-patting and hugging, a weary parade toward a wearied world.

Depending on your point of view, it had been a day and night of principled standing, or simply wasted hours of grandstanding. Based on the reactions, more positions were solidified than minds changed.

When it ended, the roiling of Washington continued. The campaign money game went on unabated  Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., alone had two D.C. fundraisers Wednesday night while the Democrats held the floor in the House. Finger-pointing intensified, character was questioning and motivations were doubted with a renewed fury on social media.

And despite polls showing overwhelming support for tighter background checks and a stricter law banning those on terrorism watch lists from getting guns, nothing was resolved on what to do about mass violence in these hard, hard times.

This Congress is so divided on safety and security that legislative solutions to seriously pressing issues  lone-wolf mass killers, gun violence, rising domestic terrorism threats, immigration reform  are simply not possible in the current political atmosphere.

If anything, the post-Orlando days have intensified the schism of personal rights versus public safety.

In the wake of the deaths of 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub from the arsenal of a man who pledged allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State but may also have had problems coming to grips with his sexuality, Democrats again tried to close gun-buying loopholes and prevent those on terrorism watch lists from getting guns. Republicans held fast to concerns that due-process protection must be guaranteed for law-abiding gun owners and that focusing on guns doesnt touch root causes of terrorism and violence.

The National Rifle Association was denounced and defended anew.

House Democrats called Republicans cowards for going home for the July 4th break without a gun vote.

The civil rights history that Lewis tried to summon on the floor of the House of Representatives was sullied with accusations that Democrats, knowing they dont have the votes in Congress to go it their way on gun control, were simply putting on a selfie-show for voters who have already been subjected to 15 months of often nasty presidential campaign rhetoric.

On the contrary, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said of the House sit-in: I think it shows we are listening.

The calls and letters to my office have been overwhelming about these two basic, very popular positions, said McCaskill, who participated in a Senate filibuster that successfully pushed for gun votes last week. Making sure that you dont have a different background check in the store on the corner than you have with two clicks on the Internet. And a very basic provision that if you are too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.

That argument, Republicans said, misses the point that President Barack Obama has not done nearly enough to confront and defeat the terrorists who may have inspired the Orlando shooter  in Syria, Iraq and other theaters of plotting and chaos.

There is no real legislation we can pass that can get the president to do a better job as commander in chief, said Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, Ill.

So whats ahead when Congress comes back after the Independence Day holiday? Judging by what was said as members left town, more of the same.

This unprecedented obstruction by the D.C. Democrats will only widen the gulf and make it that much harder to get Congress working for the American people again, predicted freshman Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, Ill.

Said Davis: I would assume all the publicity that the Democrats got for breaking the House rules and filming on the floor ... I am sure they are going to be more emboldened to do the same thing.

Lewis, the civil rights icon who started the sit-in, ended it with a short speech, his voice sometimes falling to a whisper, at other times booming to the ceiling.

He offered a long and short view.

We must not ever, ever give up until the end, he said. We must come back here on July 5 more determined than ever before.
Can we be assured that the plant will not pollute our land or water supply so that we are not discovering something decades later like so many areas in Missouri?
The yields on Egypt's six-month and one-year Treasury bills rose at an auction on Thursday, central bank data showed.

The average yield on the 182-day T-bill rose to 14.908 percent from 13.965 percent at the last sale on June 16. The yield on the 364-day bill rose to 15.185 percent from 14.188 percent at an auction a week ago.

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LONDON MARKET CLOSE: Investors see end of hefty rate hikes on horizon

Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - 17:29

Stocks in London closed solidly higher on Wednesday as investors took heart from a smaller-than-expected rate hike from the Bank of Canada.

The FTSE 100 index closed 42.59 points, or 0.6% at 7,056.07 on Wednesday. The FTSE 250 ended up 274.26 points, or 1.5%, at 18,105.89. The AIM All-Share closed up 10.23 points, or 1.3%, at 809.67.

The Cboe UK 100 ended up 0.5% at 704.52, the Cboe UK 250 closed up 1.8% at 15,499.59, and the Cboe Small Companies ended up 0.7% at 12,342.94.

Markets are hopeful that the BoC's decision to lift rates by 50 basis points instead of the expected three-quarter point lift is a signal that central banks are ready to take their foot off the monetary policy tightening accelerator.

The optimism comes ahead of a busy few days of central bank action. The European Central Bank announces an interest decision at 1315 BST on Thursday, before the Federal Reserve next week Wednesday and the Bank of England a day after its US counterpart.

The ECB raised interest rates in July for the first time in 11 years, by half a percentage point. Analysts are all but convinced the central bank will up rates by another 0.75% on Thursday, but some say there is room for a full percentage point raise - 100 basis points.

Sterling continued to gain ground on Wednesday, keeping poise despite a two-week delay to the UK government's fiscal plan.

The medium term fiscal plan will now be published on November 17 as an autumn statement  alongside a new set of economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The pound was quoted at $1.1612 at the London equities close Wednesday, up sharply from $1.1464 at the close on Tuesday.

Helping to boost the pound was dollar weakness, amid expectations of a less hawkish Fed.

In the FTSE 100, Standard Chartered was the worst performer. The stock closed down 5.1% despite recording a substantial increase in profit as it benefitted from rising interest rates across the world.

In the three months that ended September 30, the Asian-focused bank reported a 40% increase in pretax profit to $1.39 billion from $996 million a year before.

Chief Executive Bill Winters called the results "strong" and said the bank remains confident in the delivery of its 2024 financial targets, adding it has made "significant progress" against the five strategic actions outlined in February.

Reckitt Benckiser closed down 3.7%. The consumer goods firm posted strong quarterly revenue growth as prices and mix improved, despite a decline in volumes.

In the third quarter, total revenue grew 14% year-on-year to 3.74 billion, or 7.4% on a like-for-like basis. Meanwhile, price and mix improvements of 12% helped to offset a volume decline of 4.6%.

With a strong performance in the year so far, Reckitt reiterated its annual targets. However, for like-for-like revenue growth, it tweaked the range upwards to between 6% and 8%, compared to 5% and 8% previously.

Fresnillo climbed 3.8% as it posted solid quarterly production figures and backed annual its annual guidance.

The Mexico City-based silver and gold miner said volumes at Fresnillo and Saucito continued to improve, but this was partially offset by lower ore throughput and grade variability at San Julian.

Despite the challenges, Fresnillo said it remains on track to meet annual guidance of 50.5 to 56.5 million ounces of attributable silver and silverstream, and 600 to 650,000 ounces of attributable gold.

In the FTSE 250, Bytes Technology dropped 14% despite posting double-digit top-line growth.

The computer software firm posted revenue of 93.5 million in the six months to August 31, up 28% from 73.1 million. Pretax profit grew 18% to 27.0 million from 22.9 million.

Bytes Technology said it has also made a decent start to its second half.

Elsewhere in London, IGas Energy plunged 27% after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reintroduced the moratorium on fracking in England.

The Lincoln, England-based oil and gas producer had previously supported the UK government's support of fracking under Liz Truss.

Truss had lifted the ban as she argued it would strengthen the country's energy supply.

In European equities on Wednesday, the CAC 40 in Paris ended up 0.4%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt ended up 1.1%.

The euro stood at $1.0064 at the European equities close Wednesday, higher against $0.9963 at the same time on Tuesday.

Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JP146.50 late Wednesday, lower compared to JP147.77 late Tuesday.

Stocks in New York were mixed at the London equities close, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.9%, the S&P 500 index up 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.3%.

Brent oil was quoted at $93.93 a barrel at the London equities close Wednesday, up from $91.91 late Tuesday.

Gold was quoted at $1,665.70 an ounce at the London equities close Wednesday, higher against $1,655.96 at the close on Tuesday.

On Thursday's UK corporate calendar, there are third quarter results from Shell and Unilever, as well as trading statements from Lloyds Banking and Anglo American.

In the economic calendar, the ECB announces its interest rate decision at 1315 BST before a US GDP reading at 1330 BST.

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Egypts sugar production reached 2.2 million tonnes in 2016, 900 000 tonnes less than consumed domestically, said the Ministry of Agriculture in a press release on Thursday.

The government seeks to raise the production of sugar to meet domestic consumption by expanding sugarcane and beet farming while boosting their productivity.

Sugar is a main staple in the food subsidy system, which benefits around 69 million Egyptians.

Several sugar factories are currently under construction in Sharqiya governorate at a cost of EGP 2.5 billion and are planned to start production in 2018 to add 250,000 tonnes annually.

The United Arab Emirates has also invested EGP 6 billion in developing existing sugar plants, read the statement.

The government also expects to see an expansion of the area in which sugarcane and beet are grown as part of the 1.5 million-feddan reclamation project.

In December, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated the first phase of the national project to expand the countrys farmland by reclaiming 1.5 million feddans nationwide.

In November, the cabinet approved the establishment of a company with a capital of LE 15 billion (around $2 billion) to manage the megaproject.

In efforts to meet the domestic consumption of sugar, Egypt had imposed an export tax worth EGP 900 per tonne in May.

The government cancelled in February a 20 percent temporary tariff on sugar imports imposed last year for 200 days to defend the local industry from dumping.

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This week, friends and admirers of the late Farag Fouda  a man of tremendous moral and intellectual courage  marked the 24th anniversary of his killing at the hands of Gamaa Islamiya

Ousted President Mohamed Morsi actually pardoned one of those convicted of the killing of Farag Fouda, and this man has since joined the Islamic State group in Syria.

Fouda was a secular liberal who took part in the re-launch of the Wafd Party  the New Wafd as it was called  in the 1970s when late President Anwar El-Sadat allowed the presence of political parties.

Fouda, however, resigned from the party when it decided to enter into an electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood for the legislative elections. He insisted that joining hands with the Muslim Brotherhood ran counter to all secular principles the Wafd supposedly stood for. He was convinced that this alliance would mark the end of the Wafd as a leading civil party.

According to the narrative of the Islamists, Egypts military defeat by Israel in the 1967 war was an inevitable result of the countrys alienation from Islam under Nasser. The same narrative suggests that the 1973 military victory under Sadat was the result of the countrys re-embrace of Islam.

For his part, Fouda was convinced that our defeat was the product of our failure to keep pace with modern military techniques and our lack of national resolve. He was equally convinced that the victory in the October War was the result of a military commitment to reverse the defeat and the strong national will that stood behind the army at the time.

Fouda was strongly against the narrative propagated by Islamists that suggested that angels were fighting on the side of the Egyptian army during the October War, and supposedly led to the victory.

Fouda was always a strong believer in the values of science and hard work. He stood firmly against the constitutional amendments of 1981 that allowed for Islamic Sharia to change from being one of the main sources of legislation to being the main source. This was a major battle that he undertook.

Fouda was always brave in his battles against the Islamists, especially the militant Gamaa Islamiya.

He openly accused Sadat of being responsible for the rise of Islamist currents and always insisted that Islamist groups were set up in universities by national security bodies and the agents of the National Democratic Party (which Sadat led) to combat the Leftist and Nasserist trends.

Fouda tried to establish an independent party but his efforts were frustrated by the regime.

In 1992, in an article run by the state-owned weekly October Magazine, Fouda published an article whereby he anticipated the end of the Arab-Israeli struggle and the shift of positions that would turn Iran into the main enemy. He also warned of the increase of power of Islamists in Sudan.

He was one of the early voices to argue the need for Egypt to work to secure its Nile water share. These are all positions of a man who had a clear vision.

Fouda firmly believed that the parallel economy that Islamists were allowed to have was crucial to the power enjoyed by Islamist groups.

He warned of Islamist investment agencies and of the expanding financial capacity of Islamists, including the strong influence of Islamists across the media that allowed for an overdosing of religion.

It was on the eve of the devastating sectarian strife in Imbaba that Fouda failed to get government approval for a national security NGO he was keen on establishing.

In remarks on the Imbaba events, he wrote in the weekly paper of the Leftist Tagammu Party that the gangs of Imbaba were only echoing the arguments that being broadcast by the media, where the Islamists were allowed, by direct approval of the national security apparatus, a great deal of influence.

In his analysis, Fouda divided the Islamist trend into three camps: the traditional camp represented by the Muslim Brotherhood; the revolutionary camp represented by militant groups; and the wealthy camp that was the trend among those who had amassed considerable fortunes during years of working in Saudi Arabia.

Fouda argued that the Saudi regime had always declined to acknowledge the revolutionary trend within the Islamic movement because it had not been brought under Saudi guidance. He also argued that the Saudis were sceptically accommodating the Muslim Brotherhood, but that their heart and support was really with those who represented the Saudi way of thinking after having spent long years of work and money-making in Saudi Arabia.

Fouda was a very thorough researcher on matters related to the history of Islam. This put him exactly in the right position to argue with the Islamists. It also placed him as direct target for their scorn as he made arguments against the call for an Islamic caliphate or against Islamist objections to interest provided by banks on savings, among other matters.

Fouda was a strong supporter of Ijtihad  endless research on Islamic matters in the search for answers to modern questions  even if this research might take to task established Islamic convictions.

Fouda offered a direct definition of secular rule, in being civil rule based on constitutional principles of equal rights for all citizens and complete freedom of faith.

Fouda was the author of several important books including his Before the Fall that warned against and anticipated the dominance of Islamists that a few decades later manifested itself in the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

I was a close friend of Fouda, whom I met through a joint friend, Mohamed Sharaf. Together we took part in the activities of several cultural and feminist organisations, including the Arab Woman Association led by Nawal Al-Saadawi.

Fouda manifested incredible courage in standing up against the Islamist argument during a famous debate at the book fair with leading Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood figures.

I was very alarmed when he insisted to go debate against three leading Islamist figures after two secular figures decided to skip the event. But he was committed and insisted that even if he had to die for saying what he believed, this would not undermine his position but would give it more strength and weight.

I clearly remember the day of the debate that was attended by a large mass of young Islamist men in galabiyas and who later widely distributed video of this debate where I think Fouda crushed the three Islamists present.

Fouda died for the love of his country, for its future and the unity of Muslims and Copts. He died for the freedom of all Egyptians. People like Fouda might be killed as a price for their positions, but their ideas never die. They live on and they introduce change into the future.

The writer is former head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.

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(Beijing)  After their parents divorced, 12-year-old Tong Tong and her 13-year-old sister lived with their father. And over the following two years, according to China's top prosecutor, the father sexually abused the girls on multiple occasions.

Tong Tong eventually reported the abuse to police in their home city of Ningbo, eastern Zhejiang Province. The father was arrested and, in March 2015, sentenced to 13 years in prison. The girls are now in their mother's care.
PASHLEY Cycles, Englands longest established bicycle maker, is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.

And this week the Stratford-upon-Avon-based company has teamed up with the Herald to offer readers the chance to win a fantastic bicycle worth 675. The five-speed Britannia bike is a Pashley classic, complete with a wicker basket.

The company, which was founded in 1926, remains committed to the tradition of UK production and craftsmanship from its factory in Stratford, resisting the pressure to shift to cheaper overseas manufacture.

Speaking about the anniversary, Pashleys managing director, Adrian Williams, said: We are proud to be the last of the UK traditional bicycle makers and one of only three remaining bike manufacturers.

We make cycles for the public, industry and commerce which are not only unique in their design and quality, but also in their connection to a well-established heritage of hands-on manufacture at our Masons Road factory.

Pashley distributes to over 50 countries worldwide and, with its ongoing investment, strives for constant innovation to match the needs of discerning customers. After so many years of continuous manufacture, where does Pashley see itself 90 years from now? Adrian Williams is looking forward to the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead for the group which employs 52 people in Stratford.

When William Rath Pashley established the company in 1926 he concentrated on making high quality, specialist cycles.

The same is true today, 90 years later, as we look forward to a promising future.

For your chance to win a Britannia bike, answer the question on page 10 of this week's Stratford-upon-Avon Herald.
VidCon Announces International Expansion for 2017

The Worlds Largest Online Video Conference Adds New Events in Europe and Australia.

Anaheim, CA( )

VidCon (vidcon.com), the worlds largest online video conference for fans, creatives and industry professionals, today announced its first-ever international expansion. VidCon Europe will debut April 8-9, 2017, at the RAI Amsterdam

Convention Centre, while VidCon Australia will launch September 9-10, 2017, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The original VidCon will return to the Anaheim Convention Center in the summer of 2017. The new events will welcome approximately 7,500 fans and creators, with a custom experience designed to celebrate the online video world.

The growth of online video, and the ability for creators like myself to have such enjoyable careers, is due to a passionate and engaged community that is truly global, said Hank Green, co-founder of VidCon, online video creator, and internet entrepreneur. We are excited that we can bring the VidCon experience to Europe and Australia, where the fan and creator communities are so strong and truly thriving.

Similar to the flagship Anaheim event, VidCon Europe and VidCon Australia will feature keynotes, breakout panels, performances, a robust exhibit floor, and a signing hall where fans can meet their favorite online video creators. And just as the 2016 VidCon features a variety of both endemic and non-endemic sponsors and exhibitors  including YouTube, Kia Motors, Mars Inc., Facebook, Taco Bell, Samsung, Warner Bros, NBC and more - the VidCon team will create a number of opportunities for local and global brands to participate at each show, and to engage with the fans and creators in attendance. Sponsorship and exhibition inquiries can be made by emailing EuropeSponsors@vidcon.com or AustraliaSponsors@vidcon.com

Amsterdam was chosen for VidCon Europe due to its centralized location and easy access via plane, rail and car, relative to the large pockets of online video fans across Western Europe. The RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre also is an ideal location for an event that VidCon expects to grow year to year.

We are proud that VidCon is coming to the RAI, says Maurits van der Sluis, COO at the RAI

Amsterdam Convention Centre. We strongly believe that events like VidCon are an important part of the future of events: innovative face to face gatherings with a strong focus on content as well as technology. With strong cooperation between Amsterdams local government and its business and service sectors, we are highly committed to making VidCon Europe a resounding success.

Melbourne is the ideal location for VidCon Australia, both due to its large concentration of online video fans, and the support of Melbourne Convention Bureau. Fan registration for the new events will open approximately six months prior to each show.

We are delighted to be the first ever city in Australia, and among the first two cities ever outside of North America, to host VidCon, said Melbourne Convention Bureaus Chief Executive Officer, Karen Bolinger. Melbourne is Australias leading technology hub and home to more than half of Australias top technology companies. Melbourne produces more ICT graduates than any other Australian city, with the countrys largest pipeline of fresh talent, fed by our world-class universities and advanced technical colleges. The industry is thriving and the ICT community will be buzzing when they hear the news of VidCons arrival in Melbourne, Ms Bolinger said.

Over the past several years, we have seen tremendous demand to take the VidCon experience overseas, and we are excited to give European and Australian fans and creators the opportunity to take part in what has become such a special experience, said Michael Gardner and Colin Hickey, VidCons Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, respectively.

Anyone interested in learning more may sign up to receive updates at vidcon.com/europe and vidcon.com/australia.

About VidCon

VidCon is the worlds largest conference for and about online video. VidCon assembles fans, veteran and amateur creators, working professionals, and industry thought-leaders for three days of celebration, introspection, and discussion. Hank and John Green founded VidCon in 2010, and total attendance in 2015 was 21,000. For the fourth year in a row, YouTube has signed on as the title sponsor of VidCon Anaheim.

VidCon Anaheim programming follows a three-track format, designed to appeal to everyone from the biggest media companies to the most passionate fans. The Industry Track features keynotes, fireside chats, seminars, and product demonstrations geared toward attendees working in the online video industry. The Creator Track serves attendees looking to make better content, grow their online presence, enter the industry, meet fellow creators, and learn the ins-and-outs of online video culture. The Community Track engages attendees interested in experiencing the online video culture through Q&As, discussions, concerts, interviews, movie nights, meet-ups, and games.

Held June 23-25, 2016, the 7th annual VidCon gathers 25,000 people who love and are a part of this new culture. Join the fun!
Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) founder and executive Chairman, Jack Ma, set the record straight in a Wall Street Journal op-ed reaffirming Alibabas commitment to being the global leader in the fight against counterfeiting.

Ma said recent reports in the press took his words about counterfeit goods out of context and he wants to set the record straight. The observation that he shared was: that the dynamics between some brands and their manufacturing partners, and brands and their customers, are shifting due to economic and technological developments.

He said Chinese manufacturers face declining exports because demand from Western markets is not what it used to be. In addition, the internet has given consumers ever-increasing access to products without the need for complex and costly distribution channels.

"I want to let you know where I stand on this: Counterfeit goods are absolutely unacceptable, and brands and their intellectual property must be protected," Ma said. "Alibaba is only interested in supporting those manufacturers who innovate and invest in their own brands. We have zero tolerance for those who rip off other peoples intellectual property."
Xerox (NYSE: XRX) announced today that its board of directors appointed Jeff Jacobson to be chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation following the completion of the companys planned separation into two publicly traded companies. Jacobson currently serves as president of Xerox Technology and will continue in his current role until the separation is complete.

An industry veteran, Jacobson joined Xerox in 2012 as the president of Global Graphic Communications Operations. He became the president of the Xerox Technology business in 2014 with responsibility for worldwide strategy, sales channel operations, marketing, technical services and customer support, product development, manufacturing and distribution. Prior to Xerox, he served as the president, chief executive officer and chairman of Presstek, a supplier of digital offset printing solutions, where he drove a global expansion program.Jeff is a great leader with a passion for our business and employees, deep customer relationships and a clear strategic vision to capitalize on the opportunities ahead, said Ursula Burns. During his four years at Xerox, Jeff has driven significant productivity and cost efficiency efforts while maintaining our commitment to innovation, quality and leading technology. With his previous public-company CEO experience and his track record and achievements at Xerox, the Board and I are confident he is the best person to lead Xerox forward.

I am honored by the boards decision to appoint me to lead one of the worlds most iconic companies and confident that we will build a bright future for Xerox on the foundation of disciplined management, operational excellence and customer focus that is in place today. As an independent company and with the benefit of the strategic transformation we are aggressively implementing, we will capture the many opportunities available to us to strengthen core businesses and pursue select growth opportunities, Jacobson said.

Jeff is clearly the right leader for Xeroxs document technology company, said Ann Reese, Xeroxs lead independent director. The board employed a rigorous internal and external search and undertook a thoughtful process to identify the right talent. Jeff has shown he is well-equipped to execute on the work we are doing now and to leverage future opportunities for the benefit of our shareholders, clients, partners and employees.

On January 29, 2016, Xerox announced its plans to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies  Xerox, which will be comprised of the companys Document Technology and Document Outsourcing businesses, and Conduent a business process services company. The company is on track to complete the separation by the end of 2016.

Xerox will be a global leader in document management and document outsourcing with superior technology, solutions and innovations. With $11 billion in 2015 revenue, the company will continue to be a trusted partner to its customers, helping them improve productivity, workflow and business performance through our deep understanding of how, why and where people work.

Conduent will be a business process services leader that helps businesses and governments manage transaction intensive processes at a large scale. With approximately $7 billion in 2015 revenue  90% of which is annuity based  the company is focused on attractive growth markets including transportation, healthcare, commercial and government services.

Jeff Jacobson Biography

Jeffrey Jacobson is president of the Xerox Technology business. He was named to this position and appointed an executive vice president of the corporation in July 2014. Jacobson has been a corporate officer since February 2012.

In his current role, Jacobson leads the companys technology business, which offers a diverse portfolio of hardware, software and services to customers ranging from small businesses to multinational enterprises. He is responsible for worldwide strategy, sales channel operations, marketing, technical services and customer support, and product development, manufacturing and distribution.

Jacobson joined Xerox in 2012 as the president of Global Graphic Communications Operations where he led strategy, operations and product development of the companys production systems portfolio for the global graphic communications market. In 2014, as the chief operating officer of the Xerox Technology business, his responsibilities were expanded to include strengthening the technology product and solutions portfolio, managing the cost base and driving supply chain, manufacturing and overall efficiencies.

Prior to Xerox, Jacobson served as the president and chief executive officer of Presstek, adding the title of chairman in 2009. Previously, Jacobson was chief operating officer of Eastman Kodak Company's $3.6 billion Graphic Communications Group. He also served for five years as CEO of Kodak Polychrome Graphics, a $1.7 billion joint venture between Sun Chemical and Eastman Kodak.

Jacobson, age 56, is a graduate of the State University of New York Buffalo and holds a master's degree in industrial relations from the Cornell School of Industrial Relations. He also holds a juris doctor degree from Pace University School of Law and is admitted to the bar in New York and New Jersey.
XL Group plc (NYSE: XL) announced that its ordinary shareholders have approved a scheme of arrangement that will change the place of incorporation of the ultimate parent holding company to Bermuda from Ireland. XL shareholders also approved the other proposals necessary for the redomestication to proceed as set forth in the Company's definitive proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on May 11, 2016.

The redomestication remains subject to receipt of necessary regulatory approvals, satisfaction of other conditions and sanctioning by the High Court of Ireland. A hearing before the High Court of Ireland to sanction the scheme of arrangement is currently scheduled for July 20, 2016. XL expects to complete the redomestication in the third quarter of this year.

XL's Chief Executive Officer, Michael S. McGavick, said: "We are pleased that our shareholders are supportive of our plan to set up our corporate home in Bermuda. Given, in particular, our long-standing and substantial operations in Bermuda that have been bolstered by the Catlin Group Limited acquisition, and Bermuda's position within the international (re)insurance market, including Bermuda's recent achievement of Solvency II equivalency, we believe a change in the country of domicile of our parent company to Bermuda will be advantageous to the Company and its shareholders."

XL does not expect the redomestication to have any material impact on its financial results, including the Company's global effective tax rate.

To effect the redomestication, a new Bermuda exempted company, XL Group Ltd, will replace XL Group plc as the ultimate holding company of the XL group of companies, and the Company's ordinary shareholders will receive one common share of the new Bermuda company in exchange for each ordinary share of the Company held by them.

XL Group Ltd will be registered with the SEC under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and be subject to SEC reporting requirements applicable to domestic registrants. Further, XL Group Ltd will be subject to the applicable corporate governance rules of the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"), and will report its financial results in U.S. dollars and under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. XL Group Ltd's shares will trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol "XL" and it is expected to be included in the S&P 500 Index.
WASHINGTON, DC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Ambassador John Bolton announced today his endorsement of Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the U.S. Senate and Ron DeSantis (FL-6) for the U.S. House of Representatives. The endorsement comes after Rubio's statement that he will run for re-election to the Senate, and is part of a larger effort by Ambassador Bolton to ensure Republicans maintain their majority in Congress.

Statements from Ambassador Bolton on the candidates:

On Representative DeSantis: "As chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Ron DeSantis' voice has been critical in keeping America safe," said Ambassador John Bolton. "We cannot afford to lose his leadership in Congress, and Ron has my endorsement and a contribution from the John Bolton PAC, which gave $10,000 to his campaign. Ron has a bright future in Florida politics, and I will support him as he continues to serve this nation's interests and the people of his district in the House of Representatives."

On Senator Rubio: "Marco Rubio has proven himself to be a valuable asset to the United States during his time in the Senate," said Ambassador John Bolton. "He is one of the most powerful voices in the areas of foreign affairs and national security, and we cannot afford to lose his presence at a time when our nation is facing terrorism at home and abroad. Due to his track record and experience, and my great concern for our nation's security, I am supporting Senator Rubio for re-election to the United States Senate."

Ambassador Bolton will continue to endorse candidates in the months ahead of the November elections.

About John Bolton PAC (www.boltonpac.com): The John Bolton PAC was founded by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton to raise the importance of American national security in federal elections. The PAC will support and contribute to candidates who are committed to restoring strong American economic and national security policies that secure America's interests in a challenging world.

Source: John Bolton Pac
ASE30 Environmental Conservation Fund demonstrates commitment to Taiwans environmental conservation and protection efforts

TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (TAIEX:2311, NYSE: ASX) today announced it has received the 2016 Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Award (AREA) in the category of Social Empowerment for its ASE30 Environmental Conservation Fund (ECF). The AREA program recognizes and honors Asian companies for championing sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship and implementing programs that demonstrate their leadership, sincerity and ongoing commitment in incorporating responsible and ethical values, legal compliance, respect for people and individuals, involvement in communities and protection of the environment into the way they run their businesses.

Despite the globalization of the ASE Group, the company has not forgotten its beginnings in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where its first semiconductor assembly production facility was established in 1984, commented Jason Chang, Chairman and CEO, ASE Group. Taiwan is an island with finite resources, and through the ASE30 Environmental Conservation Fund, we hope to ensure the continued protection of the land and care for the local community.

The ASE30 Environmental Conservation Fund, for which ASE is being honored, was established in 2014 to commemorate the companys 30th anniversary and to promote programs in support of environmental protection efforts in Taiwan. The company has committed to contributing NT$100 million (US$3 million) per year from the NT$3 billion (US$100 million) fund for the next 30 years.

The ECF focuses on four key aspects  environmental education promotion, environmental quality enhancement, environmental impact minimization and environmental arts promotion. To date, ASE has undertaken the following projects under the ASE30 ECF:

Environmental Education Promotion Program:

Green Classrooms Project

Environmental Thesis/Dissertation Awards

Environmental Education Video Projects

Environmental Technology Research Projects

International Environmental Law Seminar

Environmental Education in Elementary Schools

Environmental Quality Enhancement Program:

Afforestation Projects

Green Fence Project at the Nantze Export Processing Zone

Environmental Impact Minimization Program:

Campus LED Donation Projects

Water Recycling Model Plant Operation Sponsorship

Green Supply Chain Projects

Environmental Hygiene - Dengue Fever Prevention

Environmental Arts Promotion Program:

Environmental Arts Promotion - KUSAMA YAYOI

3-D Musical about the Environment - Voyage undersea

Seeking to lead by example, ASE personnel themselves have been actively involved in organizing and participating in the programs funded by the ASE30 ECF. Since the funds establishment two years ago, approximately 60 schools and 230,000 students have benefited from the program, and over 84 hectares of land have been reforested with the planting of 90,000 native trees.

Going forward, ASE will continue to reinforce its corporate social responsibility through the integration of its technology know-how and financial and human resources for the greater good of the local community. ASE will continue to advocate for the nurturing, support and hiring of local talent in an effort to raise the quality of living standards. ASE will also further pursue green initiatives and sustainability objectives as a responsible corporate citizen.

About Enterprise Asia

The AREA award program is organized by Enterprise Asia, a non-governmental organization in pursuit of creating an Asia that is rich in entrepreneurship as an engine towards sustainable and progressive economic and social development within a world of economic equality. For more information, visit www.enterpriseasia.org.

About ASE Group

The ASE Group is the worlds largest provider of independent semiconductor manufacturing services in assembly, test, materials and design manufacturing. As a global leader geared towards meeting the industrys ever-growing needs for faster, smaller and higher performance chips, the Group develops and offers a wide portfolio of technology and solutions including IC test program design, front-end engineering test, wafer probe, wafer bump, substrate design and supply, wafer level package, flip chip, system-in-package, final test and electronic manufacturing services through Universal Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries, members of the ASE Group. The Group generated sales revenues of US$8.64 billion in 2015 and employs over 65,000 people worldwide. For more information about the ASE Group, visit www.aseglobal.com.

Safe Harbor Notice

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding our future results of operations and business prospects. Although these forward-looking statements, which may include statements regarding our future results of operations, financial condition or business prospects, are based on our own information and information from other sources we believe to be reliable, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this press release. The words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, intend, plan and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify these forward-looking statements in this press release. Our actual results of operations, financial condition or business prospects may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements for a variety of reasons, including risks associated with cyclicality and market conditions in the semiconductor or electronic industry; changes in our regulatory environment, including our ability to comply with new or stricter environmental regulations and to resolve environmental liabilities; demand for the outsourced semiconductor packaging, testing and electronic manufacturing services we offer and for such outsourced services generally; the highly competitive semiconductor or manufacturing industry we are involved in; our ability to introduce new technologies in order to remain competitive; international business activities; our business strategy; our future expansion plans and capital expenditures; the uncertainties as to whether we can complete the acquisition of 100% of SPIL shares not otherwise owned by ASE; the strained relationship between the Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China; general economic and political conditions; the recent global economic crisis; possible disruptions in commercial activities caused by natural or human-induced disasters; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; and other factors. For a discussion of these risks and other factors, please see the documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 2015 Annual Report on Form 20-F filed on April 29, 2016.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006242/en/

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.

USA & Europe

Patricia MacLeod, +1-408-636-9500

[email protected]

Asia Pacific

Jennifer Yuen, +65-6631-4229

[email protected]

Source: Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.
SAN MATEO, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ryan Craig, Partner at Bertram Capital, was recognized at the 6th Annual ACG New York Champion's Awards as the 2016 "Dealmaker of the Year." Mr. Craig was honored at a black tie awards gala at the Metropolitan Club on Thursday, June 16th. The ACG New York Champion's Gala honored leading deal teams and professionals whose activities set the standard for middle market M&A transactions. An independent body of experts representing a cross-section of the middle market industry selected the winning deals and dealmakers from among the finalists.

"Ryan Craig's leadership and deal execution have helped demonstrate Bertram Capital's differentiation in middle market private equity," said Jeff Drazan, Managing Partner. "This award recognizes Ryan's success as the leader of Bertram Capital's consumer team. As a private equity professional, Ryan's deal-making creativity has directly contributed to our firm's performance. The entire Bertram team is extremely proud of Ryan's well-deserved recognition as Dealmaker of the Year."

Mr. Craig is a founding member and Partner at Bertram Capital, where he oversees all investments in the Consumer sector. Mr. Craig has lead six platform investments (A1C, ECS Tuning, Genascis, One Distribution, Paula's Choice, and Omnis) and four add-on investments. The sale of One Distribution in 2015 to K-Swiss, Inc. showcased the firm's unique tech-enabled brand building strategy by expanding the company's distribution channels into e-commerce and brick and mortar retail globally. Additionally, Ryan's work with portfolio company Paula's Choice transformed the company's approach to identifying and more effectively engaging with its customers, driving significant growth in revenue and EBITDA during Bertram's three and a half year control ownership. Mr. Craig was awarded the M&A Advisor's 40 Under 40 Award (2013) and has been a key contributor to Bertram winning the M&A Advisor's Private Equity Firm of the Year in (2012) and ACG NY Champion's Awards Private Equity Firm of the Year (2015) awards1.

"Ryan Craig has distinguished himself among M&A professionals," said Heidi Deiner, President of ACG New York. "We are honored to recognize Ryan as the ACG New York Champion's Awards 2016 Dealmaker of The Year for his leadership in the purchase and majority recapitalization of Bertram Capital's portfolio company, Paula's Choice."

Prior to Bertram Capital, Mr. Craig worked on strategic transactions for Health Net, a large managed care company. He also held positions with Mitchell Madison Group and Bizbuyer.com. Mr. Craig graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and served as President of his class as a Sloan Fellow at the Graduate School of Business. Mr. Craig is an active member of multiple environmental and health related non-profit organizations and is a proud father of two.

About Bertram CapitalWith over $850 million in committed capital, Bertram Capital is a private equity firm targeting investments in lower middle market companies. By supplying flexible investment capital and committing a wealth of operational and strategic resources to each investment, we make it our core objective to move companies, management teams, and employees toward unlocking their full potential. Visit www.bcap.com for more information.

1 Awards are for informational purposes only and do not imply or constitute an endorsement by the sponsoring organization.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131002/SF90488LOGO

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bertram-capital-partner-ryan-craig-wins-dealmaker-of-the-year-award-300288851.html

SOURCE Bertram Capital
Boeing-funded trainer has estimated completion date of October 2016; delivery in early 2017

Completed trainer may be used to train Chinook crews worldwide

HALIFAX, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Bluedrop Performance Learning Inc. (Bluedrop) [TSX-V: BPL] together with Boeing [NYSE: BA], announced today that it has completed a major milestone in the development of the next-generation CH-47 Chinook helicopter Rear Crew Trainer with the integration of its Canadian-built fuselage with Boeings cockpit training simulator system.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006413/en/

Boeing CH-47 Chinook Rear Crew Mission Trainer (Photo: Business Wire)

The fuselage is part of a forty-two foot-long mock-up of the Chinook helicopter that was manufactured by Bluedrop and installed in its Bluedrop Training and Simulation Centre facility in Halifax, Canada. In addition to this latest milestone, the team has tested, and is on track to achieve a 100% untethered, or wireless, virtual reality training experience that will maximize the flexibility and safety of the trainer.

Bluedrop has designed an important part of a high-fidelity, immersive training environment that will enhance the effectiveness and safety of service members operating the Chinook in the United States and elsewhere, said Roger Schallom, Boeing senior manager of the Americas for International Strategic Partnerships. Together with Boeings existing cockpit training device, it allows for fully interactive crew and mission-scenario training, with unparalleled realism for greater effectiveness.

The initial development phase of the trainer began one year ago following a more than US$2 million cash commitment from Boeing as well as, an intellectual property license associated with the specific technical characteristics of the Chinook platform, engineering support from the Boeing training and simulation group during the development phase, and a five-year commitment to support the on-going sales and marketing of the new product within Boeings global supply chain.

This major milestone would not have been reached without the full commitment of Boeings engineering group, said Jean-Claude Siew, Bluedrops vice president of Technology and Simulation. The combined efforts and expertise led to the design of the most innovative solution integrating Virtual Reality and real time simulation.

The integration and testing process will continue through the fall, with a full demonstration of the stand-alone trainer ready by year end. Final delivery of the trainer to Boeing is anticipated in early 2017. The Chinook is used by the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, National Guard and more than 19 counties including Canada, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

About Bluedrop Training & Simulation

Bluedrop Training & Simulation Inc. designs and develops advanced training systems and state-of-the-art simulation products to safely train operators and maintainers of complex equipment. Our approach leverages innovative technology to provide cost-effective blended-media training content, from classroom instruction and computer-based training (CBT) through to high-fidelity training devices. Bluedrop Training & Simulation is a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) providing a strong value proposition offering 100% Canadian designed and developed solutions.Follow us on Twitter: @Bluedrop_BPL.

For more information about Bluedrop, visit www.bluedrop.com.

This news release may contain "forward-looking information" as defined in applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the impact of the operational restructuring and future plans and objectives of Bluedrop, constitute forward-looking information that involve various risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking information is based on a number of factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such information but which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to, assumptions in connection with the operational efficiencies associated with the integration of technological and financial systems and general economic and market conditions. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Bluedrops expectations include general global economic conditions. For additional information with respect to risk factors applicable to Bluedrop, reference should be made to Bluedrop's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with securities regulators, including, but not limited to, Bluedrop's Managements Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Condition for the Year Ended September 30, 2015. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date of this release and Bluedrop does not undertake to update publicly or revise the forward-looking information contained in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About Boeing

In 2016 Boeing celebrates 100 years of pioneering aviation accomplishments and launches its second century as an innovative, customer-focused aerospace technology and capabilities provider, community partner and preferred employer. Through its Defense, Space & Security unit, Boeing is a global leader in this marketplace and is the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Defense, Space & Security is a $30 billion business with about 50,000 employees worldwide. Follow us on Twitter: @BoeingDefense.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006413/en/

Bluedrop Performance Learning

Shanelle Clowe

Marketing/PR/Communications

Mobile: +1 709-699-2902

[email protected]

or

Boeing Defense, Space & Security

Andrea Woods

Communications

Office: +1 703-414-6008

Mobile: +1 703-638-8521

[email protected]

Source: Bluedrop Performance Learning Inc.
ST. LOUIS, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Edgewell Personal Care Company (NYSE: EPC) today announced the appointment of Elizabeth "Lisa" Valk Long to its Board of Directors, effective July 6, 2016. Upon her appointment, Ms. Long will serve as a member of the board's Audit Committee and its Nominating and Executive Compensation Committee.

Ms. Long had a 22-year career at Time Inc., during which time she served as Executive Vice President as well as publisher for Life, People, and Time magazines. She currently serves on the board of the J.M. Smucker Co. and previously served on the boards of Steelcase Inc., Belk Inc., Wachovia Corp. and Jefferson Pilot Corp., as well a number of not-for-profit organizations.

"Lisa is an accomplished executive and proven business leader, and we are pleased to welcome her to the Edgewell Board of Directors," said David P. Hatfield, Edgewell's President, Chief Executive Officer and incoming Chairman of the Board. "She brings significant expertise from her years of boardroom service at consumer and retail companies, as well as from her senior executive roles at Time Inc. I am confident that we will benefit from her contributions and insights as we continue executing on our strategies to drive value creation."

Ms. Long said, "It is an honor and a privilege to join the board of Edgewell Personal Care Company, a strong company with globally recognized brands and products, and an experienced management team. As I step into this new role, I look forward to working closely with the rest of the board and management team to deliver enhanced value for all Edgewell shareholders."

About Elizabeth Valk Long

Ms. Long has served as a director on the board of the J.M. Smucker Co. since 1997, and is Chair of the Executive Compensation Committee. She previously served as director for Steelcase Inc. and Belk Inc. She also served as a director on the boards of Wachovia Corp. and Jefferson Pilot Corp. Ms. Long is Trustee Emerita at Hollins University, chairs the board of St. Timothy's School in Stevenson, MD and is a director of The Summit Charter School Foundation in Cashiers, NC. She also previously served on a number of not-for-profit boards, including the United Way of NYC and East Side House Settlement.

Ms. Long retired as Executive Vice President of Time Inc. in 2001. In her role, she was responsible for the Company's consumer marketing, customer service, newsstand distribution, production, human resources, legal affairs and communications. She was the first woman to hold the position of publisher at Time Inc., serving in that capacity for Life, People, and Time magazines.

Ms. Long received her BA from Hollins University in 1972 and her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979.

About Edgewell Personal Care

Edgewell (NYSE: EPC) is a leading pure-play consumer products company with an attractive, diversified portfolio of established brand names such as Schick(R) and Wilkinson Sword(R) men's and women's shaving systems and disposable razors; Edge(R) and Skintimate(R) shave preparations; Playtex(R), Stayfree(R), Carefree(R) and o.b.(R) feminine care products; Banana Boat(R) and Hawaiian Tropic(R) sun care products; Playtex(R) infant feeding, Diaper Genie(R) and gloves; and Wet Ones(R) moist wipes. The Company has a broad global footprint and operates in more than 50 markets, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan and Australia, with 6,000 employees worldwide.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/edgewell-personal-care-appoints-elizabeth-valk-long-to-board-of-directors-300289509.html

SOURCE Edgewell Personal Care Company
NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 06/22/16 -- A leading reputation management agency, ICMediaDirect details how companies and individuals can use search engine optimization (SEO) to improve their personal or business' online reputation. As consumers tend to use Internet search engines to gain information about products and services before making purchases, the agency is advising businesses to implement SEO to optimize their online presence. Tailored strategies will ensure that the top hits on Google and other search engines engage customers and present an uplifting presence that will improve a brand's reputation. See your Online Reputation Report now, by visiting http://www.icmediadirect.com

Fully utilizing dedicated social media accounts is a powerful way to effectively improve online reputation. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter rank well on Google; when potential customers search for a brand, service, or individual one of the top hits will likely be a focused social media account. Businesses can then push down irrelevant listings about their companies with a thoughtful and engaging social media presence, as well as provide a controlled outlet to increase interesting postings with excellent SEO. Another benefit of having a presence on these sites is being able to respond quickly to feedback, both positive and negative. Utilizing SEO within responses, social media platforms provide businesses a medium through which to efficiently respond to consumers, while also increasing their Google rankings. Companies gain from having relevant means to express the strengths of their brand and to address concerns voiced by customers. This is going to be especially important in 2016, as ICMediaDirect predicts more platforms will be indexed by Google so that individual posts will soon have the same value as standalone web pages.

By creating relevant, interesting, and shareable content, brands can create a captivating online presence. According to the firm, Google rewards brands that offer readers rich online posts. Strong content developed with expert SEO strategies has the power to go viral, reach a wide audience, and potentially draw in more customers and enhance a brand's reputation. By releasing well-developed content, companies and individuals can foster a positive online reputation. ICMediaDirect stresses the importance of regularly putting out content and implementing the latest in search engine optimization in order to successfully improve online reputation.

Founded in 1996, ICMediaDirect is a recognized leader in the public relations industry. The agency has offices in New York and Washington DC, and serves clients in 49 countries with reputation management packages tailored to the specific needs of an individual or company. The company won the New York Excellence Award from the Small Business Institute for Excellence in Commerce (SBIEC) for three consecutive years, and brought out a well-received book on Google brand repair. ICMediaDirect is a regular sponsor and highly valued participant of industry conferences including Affiliate Summit, Leadscon, and ad:tech.

IC Media Direct -- PR and Marketing News: http://icmediadirectnews.com

Reputation-Control.com -- 100% Reputation Control: http://www.reputation-control.com

ICMediaDirect.com -- Reputation Management -- IC Media Direct to Attend New York ad:tech 2016: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/icmediadirect-com-reputation-management-ic-041656580.html

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/23/11G104030/Images/ICMediaDirect_-_Reputation_Management_-_IC_Media_D-b140a1342f43ae02a34c9434a030436a.jpg

Embedded Video Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3QHOeY8qAM

Source: ICMediaDirect.com
PASADENA, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Urging more engagement by members in chapter, committee and interest groups, Andrew Mintzer, CPA, today became chair of the California Society of CPAs (CalCPA.org) for 2016-17.

Speaking at the CalCPA Council's annual meeting at the Langham Huntington Hotel, Mintzer said, "My priorities for the coming year will be to elevate the engagement of our members by supporting a structure and increased opportunities for involvement  all with the goal of helping our members serve the public."

Mintzer said he is committed to advocating for members, supporting their professional and personal growth and promoting the visibility of CalCPA and the profession. He also encourages collaboration with other organizations and financial professionals.

"So many of the skills, credentials and connections that define who I am as a CPA are a direct result of CalCPA," Mintzer told his fellow Council members. "So much of the visibility and value of CPAs in California that I enjoy is due to the efforts of CalCPA."

Mintzer previously served as CalCPA's first vice chair. He is a forensic accountant and a principal with Hemming Morse LLP in Los Angeles. He currently serves on the AICPA's Professional Ethics Executive Committee and previously served on the Auditing Standards Board and the AICPA's Accounting Standards Executive Committee. He also has been chair of several CalCPA state committees.

"CalCPA has been there for me, and I want to do my part to ensure that a valuable and vital CalCPA is there for our members of today and tomorrow."

For the CalCPA Education Foundation, Mintzer has taught an auditing course. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting from the University of South Florida, Tampa. At one time, he was the youngest CPA in Florida.

After working in Texas and Virginia, Mintzer settled in Los Angles in 1985.

About CalCPA Headquartered in San Mateo, California, the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA) (calcpa.org) is the nation's largest state accounting organization and the largest CPA association in California. It serves more than 40,000 members in public practice, private industry, education and government. Through CalCPA Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, CalCPA members provide financial literacy programs to high schools and community groups.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-chair-promotes-more-involvement-by-members-in-calcpa-activities-300289059.html

SOURCE CalCPA
DALLAS, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sunoco LP (NYSE: SUN) ("Sunoco") announced today the execution of a definitive agreement to purchase the fuels business (the "Fuels Business") from Emerge Energy Services LP (NYSE: EMES) ("Emerge") for $178.5 million, subject to working capital adjustments. The Fuels Business comprises Dallas-based Direct Fuels LLC and Birmingham-based Allied Energy Company LLC, both wholly owned subsidiaries of Emerge, and engages in the processing of transmix and the distribution of refined fuels.

The Fuels Business includes two transmix processing plants with attached refined product terminals located in the Birmingham, Alabama and greater Dallas, Texas metro areas. Combined, the plants can process over 10 thousand barrels per day of transmix, and the associated terminals have over 800 thousand barrels of storage capacity.

"We are pleased to add the Emerge Fuels Business to the existing Sunoco operating platform," said Bob Owens, Sunoco's President and Chief Executive Officer. "This transaction is consistent with our strategy of expanding our business through the acquisition of assets that are both complementary to our core wholesale and retail network and that further diversify Sunoco's income stream."

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Sunoco with respect to distributable cash flow. It is expected to close during the third quarter of 2016 and is subject to regulatory clearances and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

About Sunoco LPSunoco LP (NYSE: SUN) is a master limited partnership that operates approximately 1,300 retail fuel sites and convenience stores (including APlus, Stripes, Aloha Island Mart and Tigermarket brands) and distributes motor fuel to convenience stores, independent dealers, commercial customers and distributors located in 30 states at approximately 6,800 sites. Our parent -- Energy Transfer Equity, L.P. (NYSE: ETE) -- owns SUN's general partner and incentive distribution rights. For more information, visit the Sunoco LP website at www.SunocoLP.com

Cautionary Statement Relevant to Forward-Looking InformationThis press release includes forward-looking statements regarding future events. These forward-looking statements are based on SUN's current plans and expectations and involve a numbers of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to vary materially from the results and events anticipated or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the "Risk Factors" section of SUN's most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and in other filings made by SUN with the Securities and Exchange Commission. While Sunoco may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so, even if new information becomes available.

Investor Contacts

Sunoco LP:Scott GrischowSenior Director  Investor Relations and Treasury (469) 646-1188, [email protected]

Patrick GrahamSenior Analyst  Investor Relations and Finance(610) 833-3776, [email protected]

Anne PearsonDennard-Lascar Associates(210) 408-6321, [email protected]

Media Contact

Sunoco LP:Jeff ShieldsCommunications Manager(215) 977-6056, [email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sunoco-lp-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-purchase-wholesale-fuel-distribution-and-terminalling-business-300289716.html

SOURCE Sunoco LP
An Afghan Sikh holds his child inside a Gurudwara, or a Sikh temple, during a religious ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan June 8, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Only bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country struggling with growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and economic challenges.

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

"This is how we begin our day - with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes," said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling center of Kabul. "I don't know what to do or where to go."

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 220,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992.

Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its constitution, drawn up after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered.

"The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders," Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

"Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day," he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 200,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

HOSTILITY

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium.

As the capital has expanded in recent years, the neighborhood has become densely populated and some newer residents oppose Hindu and Sikh cremations, a practice foreign to Muslims, who bury their dead.

"When they burn the body the smell makes our family sick and we don't want this to happen here," said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

The Sikhs say local Muslim hardliners have stirred up hostility against them, and the community now requires police protection for their funeral rituals.

"They throw stones and bricks at us, at the bodies of the dead, whenever there is a funeral," said Avtar Singh, pointing to a newly built house next to the crematorium.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs.

"We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim," Abid added.

"We have allocated them a place to burn their bodies because inside the city people complained about the smell, but they did not agree," he told Reuters.

Harassment is also common.

Jasmeet Singh, eight, stopped going to school because of what he said was daily harassment. He and other children from the community now either go to private schools or study inside the temple.

"While I was at school, other students were making fun of me. They were removing my turban, hitting me and calling me Hindu and kaffir (infidel)," said Jasmeet Singh, as other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, their spiritual homeland, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go.

"When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan," said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. "We are lost between both worlds."

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iran's national flags are seen on a square in Tehran February 10, 2012. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

By Louis Charbonneau, Jonathan Saul and Parisa Hafezi

UNITED NATIONS/LONDON/ANKARA (Reuters) - An international group that monitors money laundering worldwide is expected to decide this week to keep Iran on its blacklist of high-risk countries despite aggressive lobbying by Tehran to come off the list to help it access the global financial system, Western officials said.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), established in 1989 to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, compiles the list, which it regularly updates. Its 37 member states are meeting in South Korea.

"No changes to Iran's status on the blacklist are imminent, though I think perhaps we can expect some words of encouragement and recognition of Iran's attempts to make progress," said one Western official familiar with FATF discussions, who asked not to be named. Two other Western officials concurred this week with the opinion that Iran would not be taken off the blacklist at this time.

Tehran has complained that it is not getting economic benefits it was promised during last year's negotiations on a nuclear deal with six major powers.

As a result of that agreement, many international sanctions against Iran were lifted. The United States, however, still has sanctions in place that prohibit trade with Iran in dollars and Iranian access to New York's financial system.

Financial Action Task Force spokeswoman Alexandra Wijmenga-Daniel responded to a request for comment by saying the group would publish an update on high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions after the session later this week.

Getting off the FATF blacklist, which also lists North Korea, would remove a major hurdle Iran faces in dealing with outside banks and other financial institutions. Iranian and Western officials have said that is why Tehran has been pushing hard to come off the list or at least to have the current FATF warning about it softened.

Paris-based FATF said earlier this year that it remained "particularly and exceptionally concerned" about what it called Iran's "failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system."

The burden of proof is on Iran to show that these concerns are unfounded.

Iran has said such criticism is unfair and contributes to the reluctance of major Western banks and financial institutions to do business with it, despite encouragement from U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. Many large banks are disinclined to deal with Iran for fear of violating remaining U.S. sanctions.

Since January, Iran has secured banking links only with smaller financial institutions.

A spokeswoman for the European Union's foreign policy section declined to comment until the FATF meeting had ended. The United States also declined to comment, though a U.S. Treasury Department official said, "We are confident that the FATF will treat Iran fairly."

One Iranian official said there had been multiple meetings between senior Iranian and European officials in recent months "to help Iran get off the blacklist." He said the head of Iran's central bank had discussed the FATF issue with U.S. officials during a recent visit to the United States.

"We are very optimistic," he said.

Adding to the unwillingness of international businesses to work with Iran is apprehension over the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) hold on the economy.

The IRGC was the driving force behind Iran's nuclear program, its money laundering activities and its foreign military activities, and remains subject to extensive international sanctions.

Another Iranian official said the IRGC had hoped to use its front companies and banks to cash in after sanctions were lifted but was disappointed that foreign investors had shunned them.

Businesses are also wary about wading into Iranian waters until after the U.S. presidential election in November.

"If (Donald) Trump becomes the next president, then he says he'll tear up the Iran deal," a European official said. "Hesitancy on the part of business is understandable."

European banking sources told Reuters that regardless of Iran's status on the FATF blacklist, they are not ready to do business with Iran because of the high risks.

The United States has sought to assure international companies that doing legitimate business with Tehran is acceptable. Last month U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a meeting of bank executives in London that European banks should not fear punishment from the United States for resuming legitimate trade with Iran.

The European banking source, who was familiar with that meeting, said Kerry was told, "You may want the European banks to do business in Iran, but you do not let the U.S. banks do so. The message to the politicians is that most banks still see too many risks."

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Anti-Semitic assaults rose dramatically in the United States last year to 56, and the overall number of hateful incidents targeting Jews increased by 3 percent, the Anti-Defamation League said in a report on Wednesday.

Colleges in particular have become a place where Jews are particularly exposed to harassment, with anti-Semitic incidents at university campuses accounting for 10 percent of occurrences nationwide, the league said.

"We are disturbed that violent anti-Semitic incidents are rising," Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

The 56 anti-Semitic assaults nationwide in 2015 represented an increase of more than 50 percent from the year before, according to the ADL.

The group said it was not clear what may have led to the spike.

Overall, the ADL report said, the United States had 941 anti-Semitic incidents in 2015, which aside from assaults included harassment, threats and vandalism.

The figures, which the group said may not include incidents that were not reported by victims, are based on reports collected by the ADL at its regional offices and data from law enforcement agencies.

Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses has concerned many in the Jewish community, and it has occurred as on-campus activists have led heated anti-Israel protests and calls to boycott and divest from the Middle East country in a movement they call anti-Zionism.

The University of California's regents declared in March that they would not tolerate anti-Semitism on campus but rejected a proposal to equate anti-Zionism with religious bigotry, as they tried to defuse tensions between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students.

Attacks on Jews have long accounted for a significant share of hate crimes in the United States.

The FBI, in its latest hate crime statistics released in November, said that in 2014 more than 56 percent of the anti-religious hate crimes in the United States that year were motivated by anti-Jewish bias.

More than 16 percent of anti-religious hate crimes targeted Muslims, according to the FBI.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
By Suzanne Barlyn

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial institutions that settled misconduct charges with New York State's financial regulator have committed new improper behavior and "serious compliance failures," the agency's head said on Wednesday.

Monitors keeping tabs on the institutions discovered intentional misconduct, including improper foreign exchange trading practices, right up to the present day, said Maria Vullo, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services. She declined to name the banks.

The department oversees banks in the state, including branches of some of the world's largest financial institutions, and can revoke their licenses for doing business.

"Some of the discoveries are very troubling," Vullo said during a forum for legal and compliance professionals in New York.

"There could very well be enforcement actions," she told Reuters on the sidelines of the event.

The misconduct coming to light was not part of the regulator's initial investigations, Vullo said. The remarks were her first since the state Senate confirmed her last week to lead the agency.

The agency first plans to work with the institutions in question to impose safeguards and improve the culture that led to the misconduct and compliance failures, Vullo said.

The department is involved in about 12 cases in which monitors have been appointed to check up on whether financial institutions are complying with settlement terms.

Some of those monitorships overlap with others imposed by a number of authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice, that are involved with certain cases along with the state agency.

Cases involving multiple authorities include agreements last year with Barclays Plc, which agreed to pay a total of $2.4 billion to settle allegations of foreign exchange manipulation by the U.S. Department of Justice, Commodities Futures Trading Commission and Federal Reserve, as well as the New York regulator. Barclay's was also fined a record 284 million pounds ($441 million) by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority.

Vullo declined to comment on whether other authorities or regulators had reached conclusions about misconduct that are similar to those of her agency.

Her remarks follow a U.S. monitor's findings that HSBC Holdings Plc had not done enough to thwart money laundering, despite making significant progress since reaching a landmark 2012 settlement with U.S. prosecutors. [L2N1741TH]

On another front, the regulator is close to releasing a revised version of rigorous anti-money laundering regulations it proposed last year, Vullo said.

Vullo signaled that the regulator may soften a provision that could result in criminal penalties for compliance officers who file incorrect or false certifications about the effectiveness of their firms' anti-money laundering systems.

While compliance officers can still be held accountable, the regulator also plans to consider steps that compliance officers take to uncover problems, Vullo said during the forum, organized by Exiger, a New York-based compliance consultancy.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Andrew Hay)
Emblems of VW Golf VII car are pictured in a production line at the plant of German carmaker Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, February 25, 2013. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer/File Photo

HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG will not assist the United Auto Workers' efforts to organize its plant in Tennessee and reaffirmed its resistance to the union's demands that it start talks over wages for a small fraction of the factory's workforce, its human resources chief said.

"If the UAW wants to organize the American auto workers at our plant in Chattanooga it has to do so by itself, like the IG Metall does it in Germany," Volkswagen human resources chief Karlheinz Blessing said on Wednesday. "The VW management board or the IG Metall cannot handle this for the UAW."

Late last year, a majority of the maintenance, or skilled trades, workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to be represented by the UAW. The vote marked a rare victory for the union in the U.S. South, where it has fought many unsuccessful battles to organize nonunionized auto plants.

But the full plant, which has about 1,500 hourly workers, rejected UAW representation in a vote the union narrowly lost in February 2014.

The UAW worked closely with the German union IG Metall in fostering a good relationship with VW before that vote. IG Metall has much more power within VW than the UAW has at any major automaker.

Blessing, speaking at VW's annual shareholder meeting in Hanover, Germany, stood by the carmaker's refusal to bargain with about 140 skilled trades workers representing a fraction of the hourly workforce.

"We don't want to establish some kind of a branch union in Chattanooga and, with it, a split of the workforce," Blessing said.

(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 23, 2016 Registration No.333-148723 Registration No.811-22172

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM N-1A

REGISTRATION STATEMENT UNDER THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933 [X] Pre-Effective Amendment No. [ ] Post-Effective Amendment No. (180) [X] and/or REGISTRATION STATEMENT UNDER THE INVESTMENT COMPANY ACT OF 1940 [X] Amendment No. (181) [X]

WORLD FUNDS TRUST (Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Charter) 8730 Stony Point Parkway, Suite 205, Richmond, VA 23235 (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (804) 267-7400 (Registrants Telephone Number) The Corporation Trust Co. Corporation Trust Center, 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801 (Name and Address of Agent for Service) With Copy to: John H. Lively The Law Offices of John H. Lively & Associates, Inc. A member firm of The 1940 Act Law GroupTM 11300 Tomahawk Creek Parkway, Suite 310 Leawood, KS 66211

Approximate Date of Proposed Public Offering: As soon as practicable after the effective date of this filing .

It is proposed that this filing will become effective (check appropriate box):

[ ] immediately upon filing pursuant to paragraph (b); [X] on June 30, 2016 pursuant to paragraph (b); [ ] 60 days after filing pursuant to paragraph (a)(1); [ ] on _________________ (date) pursuant to paragraph (a)(1); [ ] 75 days after filing pursuant to paragraph (a)(2); or [ ] on _____________ (date) pursuant to paragraph (a)(2) of Rule 485. If appropriate, check the following box:

|X| This post-effective amendment designates a new effective date for a previously filed post-effective amendment.

Title of Securities Being Registered: shares of beneficial interest.

This Post-Effective Amendment to the Registration Statement on Form N-1A is filed pursuant to Rule 485(b)(1)(iii) for the sole purpose of designating June 30, 2016 as the new effective date for Post-Effective Amendment No. 163 to the Registration Statement filed on March 31, 2016 for the Toreador Select Fund. This Post-Effective Amendment incorporates by reference the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information contained in Post-Effective Amendment No. 163 to the Registration Statement.

OTHER INFORMATION

Item 28. Exhibits



(a)(1) Certificate of Trust of World Funds Trust (formerly, Abacus World Funds Trust) (the Registrant) dated April 9, 2007.1 (a)(2) Certificate of Amendment dated January 7, 2008 to the Registrants Certificate of Trust dated April 9, 2007.1 (a)(3) Registrants Agreement and Declaration of Trust dated April 9, 2007, as revised June 23, 2008.2 (b) Registrants By-Laws dated April 9, 2007.1 (c) Not applicable. (d)(1) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Union Street Partners, LLC with respect to the Union Street Partners Value Fund.37 (d)(2) Investment Sub-Advisory Agreement between Union Street Partners, LLC and McGinn Investment Management, Inc. with respect to the Union Street Partners Value Fund.37 (d)(3) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Perkins Capital Management, Inc.15 (d)(4) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC with respect to the DGHM All-Cap Value Fund.10 (d)(5) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC with respect to the DGHM V2000 SmallCap Value Fund.10 (d)(6) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC with respect to the DGHM MicroCap Value Fund.46 (d)(7) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and B. Riley Asset Management, a division of B. Riley Capital Management, LLC with respect to the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.36 (d)(8) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador International Fund.17 (d)(9) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador Core Fund.33 (d)(10) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador Explorer Fund.33 (d)(11) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador Select Fund.47 (d)(12) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC with respect to the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund)).18 (d)(13) Investment Sub-Advisory Agreement between Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC and Shikiar Asset Management, Inc. with respect to the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).43

(d)(14) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Real Estate Management Services Group, LLC with respect to the REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.12 (d)(15) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Real Estate Management Services, LLC with respect to the REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.19 (d)(16) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Real Estate Management Services, LLC with respect to the REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.20 (d)(17) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Clifford Capital Partners, LLC with respect to the Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (d)(18) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Strategic Asset Management, Ltd. with respect to the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (d)(19) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and VestSM Financial LLC, a CBOE company with respect to the CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 Fund, CBOE Vest Dynamic Distribution Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (January) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (February) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (March) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (April) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (May) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (June) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (July) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (August) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (September) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (October) Fund, CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (November) Fund and CBOE Vest Armor S&P 500 (December) Fund (collectively the CBOE Vest Funds).47 (d)(20) Investment Advisory Agreement between the Registrant and Systelligence, LLC with respect to The E-Valuator Very Conservative RMS Fund, The E-Valuator Conservative RMS Fund, The E-Valuator Tactically Managed RMS Fund, The E-Valuator Moderate RMS Fund, The E-Valuator Growth RMS Fund and The E-Valuator Aggressive Growth RMS Fund (collectively The E-Valuator Funds).45 (e)(1) Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp.41 (e)(2) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the Union Street Value Fund.47 (e)(3) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the Clifford Capital Partners Fund.47 (e)(4) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the Perkins Discovery Fund.47 (e)(5) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (e)(6) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp. with respect to the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.42 (e)(7) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp. with respect to the Global Strategic Income Fund.43

(e)(8) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp. with respect to the REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund, the REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund and the REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund (collectively the REMS Funds).44 (e)(9) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated April 21, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the DGHM All-Cap Value Fund, the DGHM V2000 SmallCap Value Fund and the DGHM MicroCap Value Fund (collectively the DGHM Funds).46 (e)(10) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated April 21, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the CBOE Vest Funds.47 (e)(11) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated April 21, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to The E-Valuator Funds.45 (e)(12) Schedule A to the Principal Underwriter Agreement dated February 18, 2016 between the Registrant and First Dominion Capital Corp with respect to the Toreador International Fund, the Toreador Core Fund the Toreador Explorer Fund and the Toreador Select Fund (collectively the Toreador Funds).47 (f) Not applicable. (g)(1) Custody Agreement dated July 30, 2008 between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A.2 (g)(2) Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated July 30, 2008, between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the Union Street Partners Value Fund.13 (g)(3) Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated July 30, 2008, between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the Perkins Discovery Fund.13 (g)(4) Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated July 30, 2008, between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.13 (g)(5) Custodian Agreement dated July 25, 2005 between the Funds prior Registrant and Brown Brothers Harriman with respect to Toreador International Fund and the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).25 (g)(6) Novation Agreement dated August 15, 2014 for Custodian Services between the Registrant and Brown Brothers Harriman with respect to Toreador International Fund and the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).25 (g)(7) Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated August 15, 2014 between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.19 (g)(8) Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated August 15, 2014 between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.20 (g)(9) Form of Amended Appendix B and revised Appendix C to the Custody Agreement, dated October 31, 2014 between the Registrant and UMB Bank, N.A., to include the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (g)(10) Custody Agreement between the Registrant and Fifth Third Bank on behalf of certain portfolio series.33

(g)(11) Amended Exhibit A to the Custody Agreement between the Registrant and Fifth Third Bank on behalf of certain portfolio series.47 (h)(1) Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc.41 (h)(2) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Union Street Partners Value Fund.47 (h)(3) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Perkins Discovery Fund.47 (h)(4) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.42 (h)(5) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Global Strategic Income Fund.43 (h)(6) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the REMS Funds.44 (h)(7) Fund Services Agreement dated November 10, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (h)(8) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.417 (h)(9) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the DGHM Funds.46 (h)(10) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the CBOE Vest Funds.47 (h)(11) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of The E-Valuator Funds.45 (h)(12) Exhibit A to the Fund Services Agreement dated December 1, 2015 between the Registrant and Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc. on behalf of the Toreador Funds.47 (h)(13) Accounting Services Agreement dated August 23, 2006 between the prior Funds Registrant and Brown Brothers Harriman with respect to Toreador International Fund and the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).25 (h)(14) Novation Agreement dated August 15, 2014 for Accounting Services between the Registrant and Brown Brothers Harriman with respect to Toreador International Fund and the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).25 (h)(15) Accounting Services Agreement dated October 31, 2014 between the Registrant and UMB Fund Services, Inc. with respect to REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.22 (h)(16) Form of Amended and Restated Schedule A to the Accounting Services Agreement dated November 11, 2015 between the Registrant and UMB Fund Services, Inc. with respect to Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41

(h)(17) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Union Street Partners, LLC with respect to the Class A Shares and Class C Shares of the Union Street Partners Value Fund.7 (h)(18) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Perkins Capital Management, Inc. with respect to shares of the Perkins Discovery Fund.15 (h)(19) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC with respect to the DGHM Funds.46 (h)(20) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Real Estate Management Services Group, LLC with respect to the REMS Funds.47 (h)(21) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and B. Riley Asset Management, a division of B. Riley Capital Management, LLC with respect to the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.42 (h)(22) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador Core Fund, Toreador Explorer Fund and the Toreador International Fund.33 (h)(23) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Toreador Research & Trading, LLC with respect to the Toreador Select Fund.47 (h)(24) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC with respect to the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).43 (h)(25) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Strategic Asset Management, Ltd. with respect to the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (h)(26) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and VestSM Financial LLC, a CBOE company with respect to the CBOE Vest Funds.47 (h)(27) Expense Limitation Agreement between the Registrant and Systelligence, LLC, with respect to The E-Valuator Funds.45 (h)(28) Shareholder Services Plan dated October 1, 2008.2 (h)(29) Revised Schedule A to the Shareholder Services Plan dated October 1, 2008.4 (h)(30) Shareholder Services Plan, dated August 2, 2013 as amended April 21, 2016, with respect to Investor Class Shares of the DGHM Funds.46 (h)(31) Shareholder Services Plan, dated April 21, 2016, with respect to the CBOE Vest Funds Class A Shares and Class C Shares.47 (h)(32) Amended Schedule A to the Shareholder Services Plan with respect to the REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.12 (h)(33) Administrative Services Plan with respect to the Retail Class Shares of the Toreador Core Fund.33 (h)(34) Shareholder Services Plan, dated April 21, 2016, with respect to The E-Valuator Funds Investor Class Shares and Institutional Class Shares.45 (i)(1) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Union Street Partners Value Fund.5 (i)(2) Consent of Legal Counsel for Union Street Partners Value Fund.39 (i)(3) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Perkins Discovery Fund.9

(i)(4) Consent of Legal Counsel for Perkins Discovery Fund.30 (i)(5) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for DGHM Funds.11 (i)(6) Consent of Legal Counsel for DGHM Funds.29 (i)(7) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for DGHM MicroCap Value Fund.46 (i)(8) Consent of Legal Counsel for B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.42 (i)(9) Consent of Legal Counsel for Toreador International Fund and Toreador Core Fund.33 (i)(10) Opinion of Legal Counsel for Toreador International Fund.24 (i)(11) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Toreador Core Fund.28 (i)(12) Opinion of Legal Counsel for Toreador Core Fund.28 (i)(13) Opinion and Consent of Counsel regarding tax matters for the Toreador Core Fund.32 (i)(14) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Toreador Explorer Fund.26 (i)(15) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Toreador Select Fund.47 (i)(16) Consent of Legal Counsel for the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).43 (i)(17) Opinion of Legal Counsel for the European Equity Fund.24 (i)(18) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.12 (i)(19) Consent of Legal Counsel for REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.34 (i)(20) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.19 (i)(21) Opinion of Legal Counsel for REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.24 (i)(22) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.20 (i)(23) Opinion of Legal Counsel for REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.24 (i)(24) Consent of Legal Counsel for REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund, REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund and REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.44 (i)(25) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (i)(26) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (i)(27) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for CBOE Vest Funds.47 (i)(28) Opinion and Consent of Legal Counsel for The E-Valuator Funds.45 (j)(1) Consent of independent public accountants for Union Street Partners Value Fund.39 (j)(2) Consent of independent public accountants for Perkins Discovery Fund.30 (j)(3) Consent of independent public accountants for DGHM Funds.29

(j)(4) Consent of Independent Certified Public Accountants, Grant Thornton LLP for the DGHM MicroCap, G.P.46 (j)(5) Consent of independent public accountants for REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund, REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund, and REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.44 (j)(6) Consent of independent public accountants for REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.34 (j)(7) Consent of independent public accountants for B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.42 (j)(8) Consent of independent public accountants for Toreador International Fund.33 (j)(9) Consent of independent public accountants for Toreador Core Fund.33 (j)(10) Consent of independent public accountants for the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).43 (j)(11) Consent of independent public accountants for Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (j)(12) Consent of independent public accountants for The E-Valuator Funds.45 (k) Not applicable. (l) Not applicable. (m)(1) Plans of Distribution Pursuant to Rule 12b-1 dated October 1, 2008, with respect to Class A Shares, Class C Shares and Class P (Platform) Shares.3 (m)(2) Amended Schedule A to the Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1 for Union Street Partners Value Fund.22 (m)(3) Fixed Compensation Plan pursuant to Rule 12b-1 for Perkins Discovery Fund.15 (m)(4) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1 for the Investor Class Shares and Class C Shares of the DGHM Funds.46 (m)(5) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated November 26, 2013, for the Investor Class Shares of the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.16 (m)(6) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated August 15, 2014, for the Investor Class Shares and Class C Shares of the Toreador International Fund.17 (m)(7) Distribution and Service Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated January 27, 2015, for the Investor Class Shares of the Toreador Explorer Fund.33 (m)(8) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated February 18, 2016, for the Investor Class Shares of the Toreador Select Fund.47 (m)(9) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated August 15, 2014, for the Class A Shares and Class C Shares of the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).18 (m)(10) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated August 15, 2014, for the Platform Class Shares of the REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.19 (m)(11) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated August 15, 2014, for the Platform Class Shares of the REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.20 (m)(12) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated May 16, 2014, for the Class A Shares, of the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.16

(m)(13) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated November 10, 2015, for the Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (m)(14) Amended Distribution and Shareholder Services Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated February 18, 2016, for the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (m)(15) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated April 21, 2016, for the CBOE Vest Funds.47 (m)(16) Distribution Plan Pursuant to Rule 12b-1, dated April 21, 2016, for The E-Valuator Funds.45 (n)(1) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Union Street Partners Value Fund.37 (n)(2) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the DGHM Funds.46 (n)(3) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund.16 (n)(4) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Toreador International Fund.17 (n)(5) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Toreador Core Fund.47 (n)(6) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Toreador Explorer Fund.33 (n)(7) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Toreador Select Fund.47 (n)(8) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund).18 (n)(9) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund.19 (n)(10) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund.20 (n)(11) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Clifford Capital Partners Fund.40 (n)(12) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the Strategic Global Long/Short Fund.41 (n)(13) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for the CBOE Vest Funds.47 (n)(14) Rule 18f-3 Multiple Class Plan for The E-Valuator Funds.45 (o) Reserved. (p)(1) Code of Ethics for the Registrant.47 (p)(2) Code of Ethics for Union Street Partners, LLC.5 (p)(3) Code of Ethics for McGinn Investment Management, Inc.17 (p)(4) Code of Ethics for Perkins Capital Management, Inc.8 (p)(5) Code of Ethics for Real Estate Management Services Group, LLC.19 (p)(6) Code of Ethics for B. Riley Asset Management, a division of B. Riley Capital Management, LLC.13 (p)(7) Code of Ethics for Toreador Research & Trading, LLC.23 (p)(8) Code of Ethics for Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC.18

(p)(9) Code of Ethics for Shikiar Asset Management, Inc.35 (p)(10) Code of Ethics for Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC.14 (p)(11) Code of Ethics for Strategic Asset Management, Ltd.22 (p)(12) Code of Ethics for Clifford Capital Partners, LLC.40 (p)(13) Code of Ethics for VestSM Financial LLC, a CBOE company47 (p)(14) Code of Ethics for Systelligence, LLC45 (q) Powers of Attorney.29 1. Incorporated herein by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on July 8, 2008 (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 2. Incorporated herein by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 28, 2008 (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 3. Incorporated herein by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on October 2, 2008 (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 4. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on November 25, 2008 (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 5. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on December 13, 2010 (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 6. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on January 24, 2011 (file Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 7. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 7, 2011 (file Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 8. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 17, 2012 (file Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 9. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on October 29, 2012 (file Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172) 10. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 9, 2013. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 11. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on October 23, 2013. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 12. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on December 26, 2013. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 13. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on February 10, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 14. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on June 30, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 15. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on July 29, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 16. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 1, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 17. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 15, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 18. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 15, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 19. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 15, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 20. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 15, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 21. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on September 19, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 22. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on October 31, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 23. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on December 29, 2014. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172).

24. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on January 28, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 25. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on March 31, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 26. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 29, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 27. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 30, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 28. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on May 8, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 29. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on June 29, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 30. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on July 29, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 31. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on July 29, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 32. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 6, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 33. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on August 28, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 34. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on September 16, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 35. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on September 22, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 36. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on November 6, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 37. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on November 20, 2015. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 38. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on January 15, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 39. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on January 28, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 40. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on February 8, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 41. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on February 23, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 42. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 29, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 43. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 29, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 44. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on April 29, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 45. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on May 26, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 46. Incorporated by reference to Registrants Registration Statement on Form N-1A filed on May 31, 2016. (File Nos. 333-148723 and 811-22172). 47. To be filed by Amendment.

Item 29. Persons Controlled By or Under Common Control With Registrant

None.

Item 30. Indemnification

See Article VIII, Section 2 of the Registrants Agreement and Declaration of Trust and the section titled Indemnification of Trustees, Officers, Employees and Other Agents in the Registrants By-Laws.

Insofar as indemnification for liabilities arising under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (Securities Act), may be permitted to trustees, officers and controlling persons of the Registrant by the Registrant pursuant to the Declaration of Trust or otherwise, the Registrant is aware that in the opinion of the Securities and Exchange Commission, such indemnification is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act and, therefore, is unenforceable. In the event that a claim for indemnification against such liabilities (other than the payment by the Registrant of expenses incurred or paid by trustees, officers or controlling persons of the Registrant in connection with the successful defense of any act, suit or proceeding) is asserted by such trustees, officers or controlling persons in connection with the shares being registered, the Registrant will, unless in the opinion of its counsel the matter has been settled by controlling precedent, submit to a court of appropriate jurisdiction the question whether such indemnification by it is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act and will be governed by the final adjudication of such issues.

Item 31. Business and other Connections of the Investment Adviser

The list required by this Item 31 as to any other business, profession, vocation or employment of a substantial nature in which each of the investment advisers and sub-advisers, and each director, officer or partner of such investment advisers or sub-advisers, is or has been engaged within the last two fiscal years for his or her own account or in the capacity of director, officer, employee, partner or trustee, is incorporated herein by reference to Schedules A and D of each investment advisers or sub-advisers Form ADV listed opposite such investment advisers or sub-advisers name below, which is currently on file with the SEC as required by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended.

Name of Investment Adviser / Sub-Adviser Form ADV File No. Union Street Partners, LLC 801-72120 McGinn Investment Management, Inc. 801-40578 Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC 801-62895 Perkins Capital Management, Inc. 801-22888 B. Riley Asset Management, a division of B. Riley Capital Management, LLC 801-78852 Real Estate Management Services Group, LLC 801-61061 Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC 801-60040 Shikiar Asset Management, Inc. 801-44062 Toreador Research & Trading, LLC 801-66461 Strategic Asset Management, Ltd. 801-70903 Clifford Capital Partners, LLC 801-78911 VestSM Financial LLC, a CBOE company 801-77463 Systelligence, LLC 801-107695

Item 32. Principal Underwriters

a) First Dominion Capital Corp. also acts as underwriter to The World Funds, Inc. b) First Dominion Capital Corp. The information required by this Item 32(b) with respect to each director, officer or partner of FDCC is incorporated herein by reference to Schedule A of Form BD, filed by FDCC with the SEC pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (File No. 8-33719). c) Not applicable.

Item 33. Location of Accounts and Records

The accounts, books or other documents of the Registrant required to be maintained by Section 31(a) of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, and the rules promulgated thereunder are kept in several locations:

a) Commonwealth Fund Services, Inc., 8730 Stony Point Parkway, Suite 205, Richmond, Virginia 23235 (records relating to its function as transfer agent to the Funds). b) First Dominion Capital Corporation, 8730 Stony Point Parkway, Suite 205, Richmond, Virginia 23235 (records relating to its function as distributor to the Funds). c) Union Street Partners LLC, 1421 Prince Street, Suite 400 Alexandria, VA 22314. (records relating to its function as investment adviser to the Union Street Partners Value Fund). d) McGinn Investment Management, Inc., 201 North Union Street, Suite 101, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 (records relating to its function as sub-adviser to the Union Street Partners Value Fund). e) Perkins Capital Management, Inc., 730 East Lake Street, Wayzata, MN 55391-1769 (records relating to its function as investment adviser to the Perkins Discovery Fund). f) Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Co., LLC, 565 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2101, New York, NY 10017 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the DGHM Funds). g) Real Estate Management Services Group, LLC, 1100 Fifth Avenue, South, Suite 301, Naples, FL 34102-6407 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund; REMS Real Estate Income 50/50 Fund and REMS Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund). h) B. Riley Asset Management, a division of B. Riley Capital Management, LLC, 11100 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 800, Los Angeles, California 90025 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the B. Riley Diversified Equity Fund). i) Toreador Research & Trading, LLC, 7493 N. Ingram Avenue, Suite 104, Fresno, California 93711 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the Toreador Funds). j) Commonwealth Capital Management, LLC, 8730 Stony Point Parkway, Suite 205, Richmond, VA 23235 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund)). k) Shikiar Asset Management, Inc., 1185 Avenue of the Americas, 18th Floor, New York, New York 10036 (records relating to its function as sub-adviser to the Global Strategic Income Fund (formerly known as the European Equity Fund)). l) Strategic Asset Management, Ltd., Calle Ayacucho No. 277, La Paz, Bolivia (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the Strategic Latin America Fund and Strategic Global Long/Short Fund).

m) Clifford Capital Partners, LLC, 40 Shuman Boulevard, Suite 256, Napierville, Illinois, 60563 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the Clifford Capital Partners Fund). n) VestSM Financial LLC, a CBOE company, 8300 Greensboro Drive, Suite 800, McLean, Virginia 22102 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to the CBOE Vest Funds). o) Systelligence, LLC, 7760 France Avenue South, Suite 810, Bloomington, Minnesota 55435 (records relating to its function as the investment adviser to The E-Valuator Funds).

Item 34. Management Services

There are no management-related service contracts not discussed in Parts A or B of this Form.

Item 35. Undertakings

Not applicable.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, the Registrant certifies that it meets all of the requirements for effectiveness of this registration statement under Rule 485(b) of the Securities Act and has duly caused this Post-Effective Amendment No. 180 to the Registrants Registration Statement to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Richmond, Commonwealth of Virginia on the 23rd day of June, 2016.

WORLD FUNDS TRUST



By: /s/ John Pasco, III John Pasco, III President and Principal Executive Officer

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, this Post-Effective Amendment No. 180 to the Registration Statement on Form N-1A has been signed below by the following persons in the capacities and on the dates indicated.

Signature Title Date *David J. Urban Trustee June 23, 2016 *Mary Lou H. Ivey Trustee June 23, 2016 *Theo H. Pitt Trustee June 23, 2016 /s/ John Pasco, III President and Principal Executive Officer June 23, 2016 /s/ Karen M. Shupe Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer June 23, 2016 *By: Karen M. Shupe
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

______________

FORM 8-K

______________

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): June 23, 2016

______________

AOXING PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

______________





Florida 0-24185 65-0636168 (State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation) (Commission File Number) (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)





1098 Foster City Blvd., Suite 106-810, Foster City, CA 94404

(Address of Principal Executive Office) (Zip Code)





(646) 367 1747

(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)

N/A

(Former name or former address, if changed since last report)

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:

 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)

 Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))





Item 5.07 Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders





On June 23, 2016, Aoxing Pharmaceutical Company, Inc. (the "Company") held its annual shareholder meeting. The shareholders approved the following proposals:





Proposal 1 - Election of Directors. The shareholders elected Zhenjiang Yue, Jun Min, Guozhu Xu, Yang Li and Yuelin Zhang as directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders and until their successors are duly elected. A summary of votes cast follows below:





Nominee Votes for Votes Withheld Broker Non-Votes Zhenjiang Yue 55,990,800 49,399 0 Jun Min 55,987,081 53,118 0 Guozhu Xu 55,977,992 62,207 0 Yang Li 55,987,120 53,079 0 Yuelin Zhang 55,976,950 63,249 0





Proposal 2 - To ratify the appointment of BDO China Shu Lun Pan Certified Accountants, LLP as independent registered public accounting firm of the Company for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016. This proposal was approved with 56,029,450 shares voting for and 10,249 shares voting against it (with 500,000 abstaining votes).





Proposal 3 - To approve the 2016 Stock Incentive Plan. This proposal was approved with 55,821,050 shares voting for and 213,149 shares voting against it (with 6,000 abstaining votes).





Proposal 4 - To ratify the grant of 590,000 stock options to certain employees identified in the proxy statement. This proposal was approved with 55,802,461 shares voting for and 213,078 shares voting against it (with 24,660 abstaining votes).





Proposal 5 - To ratify the grant of 150,000 common shares to certain employees identified in the proxy statement. This proposal was approved with 55,809,075 shares voting for and 206,464 shares voting against it (with 24,660 abstaining votes).





Proposal 6 - To approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation paid to the Company's senior executive officers. This proposal was approved with 55,859,111 shares voting for and 160,986 shares voting against it (with 20,102 abstaining votes).





In addition, the shareholders provided the Board of Directors the shareholders' advisory vote on the frequency of shareholder advisory votes on executive compensation, as follows:





17,299,112 votes for an advisory vote on compensation every year.

27,911 votes for an advisory vote on compensation every two years.

38,704,284 votes for an advisory vote on compensation every three years.

8,892 votes abstained.





After the conclusion of the annual meeting of shareholders, the Company's Board of Directors held its annual meeting. At that meeting, after considering the shareholder advisory vote on the frequency of shareholder votes on executive compensation, the Board of Directors decided that, until the next required vote on the frequency of shareholder votes on compensation, the Company will include a shareholder vote on the compensation of executives in its proxy materials once every three years.





SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, hereunto duly authorized.





Aoxing Pharmaceutical Company, Inc. Date: June 23, 2016 By: /s/ Zhenjiang Yue Zhenjiang Yue, Chief Executive Officer




UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

SCHEDULE 13D/A

(Amendment No. 8)

UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Elizabeth Arden, Inc.

(Name of Issuer)

Common Stock, par value $0.01

(Title of Class of Securities)

28660G106

(CUSIP Number)

M. Allison Steiner

Nightingale GP LLC

630 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2710

New York, New York 10111

(212) 218-6700

With a copy to:

Trevor S. Norwitz

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

51 West 52nd Street

New York, New York 10019

(212) 403-1000

(Name, Address and Telephone Number of Person Authorized

to Receive Notices and Communications)

June 16, 2016

(Date of Event Which Requires Filing of This Statement)

If the filing person has previously filed a statement on Schedule 13G to report the acquisition that is the subject of this Schedule 13D, and is filing this schedule because of Rule 13d-1(e), 13d-1(f) or 13d-1(g), check the following box. 

Note: Schedules filed in paper format shall include a signed original and five copies of the schedule, including all exhibits. See Rule 13d-7 for other parties to whom copies are sent.

*The remainder of this cover page shall be filled out for a reporting persons initial filing on this form with respect to the subject class of securities, and for any subsequent amendment containing information which would alter disclosures provided in a prior cover page.

The information required on the remainder of this cover page shall not be deemed to be filed for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the  Act ) or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section of the Act but shall be subject to all other provisions of the Act (however, see the Notes).

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 2,865,727(1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 2,865,727 (1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 2,865,727 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 9.24%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON PN

(1) Includes warrants covering 1,078,805 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days.

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 1,078,805 shares of Common Stock.

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P. 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 3,650,627(1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 3,650,627 (1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 3,650,627 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 11.6%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON PN

(1) Includes warrants covering 1,373,462 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days.

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 1,373,462 shares of Common Stock.

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Nightingale GP LLC 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 6,537,164(1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 6,537,164(1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 6,537,164 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 20.18%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON OO

(1) Includes warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days.

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock.

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Rhone Capital IV L.P. 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 6,557,974 (1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 6,557,974 (1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 6,537,164 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 20.2%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON PN

(1) Includes (a) warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days, (b) grants of Restricted Stock Units covering 11,400 shares of Common Stock issued pursuant to the Issuer's 2014 Non-Employee Director Stock Award Plan (the  Plan ) to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer, and (c) shares issued pursuant to the Plan in lieu of a cash payment of the annual director retainer to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These persons each have an understanding with entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C. pursuant to which they each hold reported securities for the benefit of entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C .

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock.

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Rhone Holdings IV L.L.C. 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 6,557,974 (1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 6,557,974 (1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 6,557,974 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 20.2%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON OO

(1) Includes (a) warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days, (b) grants of Restricted Stock Units covering 11,400 shares of Common Stock issued pursuant to the Plan to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer, and (c) shares issued pursuant to the Plan in lieu of a cash payment of the annual director retainer to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These persons each have an understanding with entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C. pursuant to which they each hold reported securities for the benefit of entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C .

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock.

1 NAME OF REPORTING PERSON Rhone Capital L.L.C. 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS WC 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS  REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEM 2(d) OR 2(e) 6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Delaware

NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER None 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 6,557,974 (1) 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 6,557,974 (1)

11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 6,557,974 12 CHECK BOX IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 20.2%(2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON OO

(1) Includes (a) warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock exercisable in the next 60 days, (b) grants of Restricted Stock Units covering 11,400 shares of Common Stock issued pursuant to the Plan to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer, and (c) shares issued pursuant to the Plan in lieu of a cash payment of the annual director retainer to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These persons each have an understanding with entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C. pursuant to which they each hold reported securities for the benefit of entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C .

(2) This calculation is based on 29,949,317 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of May 3, 2016, based on information contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2016, by the Issuer and warrants covering 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock.

This Amendment No. 8 (this  Amendment ) amends the Schedule 13D, and related amendments, filed by the following entities (collectively referred to herein as the  Reporting Persons  and each as a  Reporting Person ) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 22, 2014 (as previously amended, the  Initial Statement ):

(a) Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership (the  Purchasers ).

(b) Nightingale GP LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.

(c) Rhone Capital IV L.P., a Delaware limited partnership.

(d) Rhone Holdings IV L.L.C., a Delaware limited liability company.

(e) Rhone Capital L.L.C., a Delaware limited liability company.

Capitalized terms used in this Amendment but not otherwise defined herein have the meanings ascribed to such terms in the Initial Statement. Except as otherwise set forth herein, this Amendment does not modify any of the information previously reported by the Reporting Persons in the Initial Statement.

ITEM 4. Purpose of Transaction.

Item 4 is hereby amended to add the following:

Merger Agreement

On June 16, 2016, the Issuer entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the  Merger Agreement ) with Revlon, Inc., a Delaware corporation ( Revlon ), Revlon Consumer Products, a Delaware corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of Revlon ( Operating Parent  and together with Revlon,  Parent ), and RR Transaction Corp., a Florida corporation and a wholly owned direct subsidiary of Operating Parent ( Acquisition Sub ). The Merger Agreement provides that, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, Acquisition Sub will merge with and into the Issuer with the Issuer continuing as the surviving corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent (the  Merger ). Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, upon consummation of the Merger, each outstanding share of Common Stock will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive $14.00 per share in cash.

The foregoing description of the Merger Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the Merger Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 2.1 hereto and is incorporated herein by reference.

Support Agreement

In connection with the Merger, on June 16, 2016, the Purchasers entered into a Support Agreement (the  Support Agreement ) with Parent and Acquisition Sub. Pursuant to the terms of the Support Agreement, the Purchasers agreed, among other things, to vote, at a meeting of the shareholders of the Issuer, in favor of the approval of the Merger Agreement and the approval of any other matter that is required to be approved by the shareholders of the Issuer in order to effect the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement. The Support Agreement will terminate upon the earliest to occur of (i) the termination of the Merger Agreement, (ii) the effective time of the Merger, (iii) the date on which the board of directors of the Issuer changes its recommendation to vote in favor of the Merger Agreement, and (iv) the date of the entry, without the Purchasers prior written consent, into any amendment or modification of the Merger Agreement that results in a decrease in, or change in the form of, the consideration being offered in the Merger.

The foregoing description of the Support Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the Support Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 99.1 hereto and is incorporated herein by reference.

Preferred Stock Repurchase Agreement

Also in connection with the Merger, on June 16, 2016, the Purchasers entered into a Preferred Stock Repurchase and Warrant Cancellation Agreement (the  Preferred Stock Repurchase Agreement ) with the Issuer, Parent and Acquisition Sub, pursuant to which the Purchasers agreed to sell to the Issuer, and the Issuer agreed to purchase from the Purchasers, on the closing date of the Merger, all right, title and interest in the 50,000 shares of Series A Serial Preferred Stock of the Company, par value $0.01 per share, held by the Purchasers for a price per share of 110% of the liquidation preference set forth in Section 7(a)(ii) of the Articles of Amendment to the Amended and Restated Articles of Incorporation of the Company designating Series A Serial Preferred Stock. The parties also agreed that, on the closing date of the Merger, the warrants to purchase up to 2,452,267 shares of Common Stock held by the Purchasers (each of which has an exercise price that is higher than the per share consideration to be offered in the Merger), and the Shareholders Agreement, dated as of August 19, 2014, between the Purchasers and the Company, would terminate. The Preferred Stock Repurchase Agreement will terminate upon the termination of the Merger Agreement.

The foregoing description of the Preferred Stock Repurchase Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the Preferred Stock Repurchase Agreement, which is included as Exhibit 99.2 hereto and is incorporated herein by reference.

Equity Awards Issued Under the Plan

On December 2, 2015, the Issuer issued grants of Restricted Stock Units pursuant to its Plan to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These grants vest in full three years from the date of grant; however, vesting is expected to accelerate in connection with the Merger in accordance with, and subject to, the terms and conditions of the Plan. In addition, on December 2, 2015, the Issuer issued

shares of Common Stock pursuant to the Plan in lieu of a cash payment of the annual director retainer to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These persons each have an understanding with entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C. pursuant to which they each hold reported securities for the benefit of entities affiliated with Rhone Capital L.L.C.

The Issuer has also granted options to acquire shares of Common Stock pursuant to its Plan to persons who are managing directors of Rhone Group L.L.C. and, at the time of grant, directors of the Issuer. These grants vest in full three years from the date of grant; however, because the exercise price is higher than the per share consideration to be offered in the Merger, these options would terminate in connection with the Merger.

ITEM 6. Contracts, Arrangements, Understandings or Relationships with Respect to Securities of the Issuer

The information set forth in Item 4 is incorporated herein by reference.

ITEM 7. Materials to Be Filed as Exhibits

Item 7 is hereby supplemented as follows:

Exhibit Number Description of Exhibit 2.1 Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of June 16, 2016, by and among Revlon, Inc., Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, RR Transaction Corp., Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P., Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P., and Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (filed as Exhibit 2.1 to Elizabeth Arden, Inc.s Current Report on Form 8-K, filed June 17, 2016, and incorporated herein by reference). 99.1 Support Agreement, dated as of June 16, 2016, by and among Revlon, Inc., Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, RR Transaction Corp., Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P. 99.2 Preferred Stock Repurchase and Warrant Cancellation Agreement, dated as of June 16, 2016, by and among Elizabeth Arden, Inc., Revlon, Inc., Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, RR Transaction Corp., Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P.

SIGNATURE

After reasonable inquiry and to the best of my knowledge and belief, I certify that the information set forth in this statement is true, complete and correct.

Date: June 23, 2016 Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. By: Nightingale GP LLC, its general partner By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Manager Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P. By: Nightingale GP LLC, its general partner By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Manager Nightingale GP LLC By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Manager Rhone Capital IV L.P. By: Rhone Holdings IV L.L.C., its general partner By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory

Rhone Holdings IV L.L.C. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory Rhone Capital L.L.C. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Manager

Exhibit 99.1

Execution Version

SUPPORT AGREEMENT

SUPPORT AGREEMENT (this  Agreement ) dated as of June 16, 2016, by and among Revlon, Inc., a Delaware corporation ( Ultimate Parent ), Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, a Delaware corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Ultimate Parent ( Operating Parent  and, collectively with Ultimate Parent,  Parent ), and RR Transaction Corp., a Florida corporation and a wholly-owned direct subsidiary of Operating Parent ( Acquisition Sub ), on the one hand, and Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership (collectively, the  Shareholders  and each a  Shareholder ), on the other hand.

WHEREAS, the Shareholders are shareholders of Elizabeth Arden, Inc., a Florida corporation (the  Company );

WHEREAS, as of the date hereof, each Shareholder is the beneficial owner (as defined in Rule 13d-3 under the Exchange Act) of (a) the shares of Common Stock of the Company set forth opposite such Shareholders name on Schedule A hereto under the column Number of Shares of Common Stock Owned (the  Common Shares ) and (b) the shares of Series A Serial Preferred Stock of the Company set forth opposite such Shareholders name on Schedule A hereto under the column Number of Shares of Series A Serial Preferred Stock Owned (the  Preferred Shares  and, together with the Common Shares, the  Original Shares );

WHEREAS, the  Subject Shares  as used in this Agreement shall mean the Original Shares collectively with any additional shares of capital stock of the Company that become beneficially owned by such Shareholder after the date of this Agreement;

WHEREAS, contemporaneously with the execution and delivery of this Agreement, Parent, Acquisition Sub and the Company have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (as amended, supplemented, restated or otherwise modified from time to time, the  Merger Agreement ), providing for, among other things, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, the merger of Acquisition Sub with and into the Company, with the Company continuing as the surviving corporation and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Parent in such merger (the  Merger );

WHEREAS, in order to induce Parent and Acquisition Sub to enter into the Merger Agreement, the Shareholders have each agreed to enter into this Agreement and abide by the covenants and obligations with respect to the Subject Shares set forth herein; and

WHEREAS, capitalized terms used but not otherwise defined herein shall have the respective meanings ascribed to such terms in the Merger Agreement.

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the premises and for other good and valuable consideration given to each party hereto, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, and intending to be legally bound, the parties hereto agree as follows:

Article I





AGREEMENT TO vote

Section 1.1 Voting of Subject Shares; Irrevocable Proxy .

(a) Each Shareholder agrees to vote (or cause the holder of record of the Subject Shares on any applicable record date to vote), in person or by proxy, all Subject Shares in connection with any meeting of the shareholders of the Company (including any adjournment or postponement thereof) or any action by written consent in lieu of a meeting of shareholders of the Company (i) in favor of the approval of the Merger Agreement and the approval of any other matter that is required to be approved by the shareholders of the Company in order to effect the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement (including any proposal to adjourn or postpone a meeting of the shareholders of the Company to a later date if there are not sufficient votes to approve the Merger Agreement on the date on which the meeting is held); and (ii) against (A) any Competing Proposal or any agreement or arrangement constituting or related to an Competing Proposal, (B) any action that would result in a liquidation, dissolution, recapitalization, extraordinary dividend or other significant corporate reorganization of the Company; or (C) any action, proposal, transaction or agreement involving the Company or any of its subsidiaries that would reasonably be expected to prevent, interfere with or delay the consummation of the Merger and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement or that would otherwise be inconsistent with the Merger and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, and in connection therewith, such Shareholder agrees to execute any documents that are necessary or appropriate in order to effectuate the foregoing. Such Shareholder shall (or shall cause the holder of record of any Subject Shares on any applicable record date to) be present (in person or by proxy) at any meeting of shareholders of the Company (including any adjournment or postponement thereof) called to approve the Merger Agreement or otherwise cause the Subject Shares to be counted as present thereat for purposes of establishing a quorum.

(b) In furtherance of the foregoing, each Shareholder hereby irrevocably grants to, and appoints, until the termination of this Agreement in accordance with Section 2.1, Parent, each of Parents officers and any person or persons designated in writing by Parent, and each of them individually, as such Shareholders proxy and attorney-in-fact (with full power of substitution and resubstitution), for and in the name, place and stead of such Shareholder, to vote or grant a written consent in respect of all of such Shareholders Subject Shares, or execute and deliver a proxy to vote or grant a written consent in respect of such Subject Shares, on the matters and in the manner specified in Section 1.1(a) , provided that each Shareholders grant of the proxy contemplated by this Section 1.1(b) shall be effective if, and only if, the Company has not received prior to the date of the meeting at which any of the matters described in Section 1.1(a) are to be considered, a duly executed irrevocable proxy card of such Shareholder directing that the Subject Shares of such Shareholder be voted in the manner required by Section 1.1(a) . Each Shareholder hereby affirms that such irrevocable proxy is given in connection with, and in consideration of, the execution of the Merger Agreement by Parent, Acquisition Sub and the Company, and that such irrevocable proxy is given to secure the performance of the duties of such Shareholder under this Agreement. Each Shareholder hereby further affirms that such proxy is irrevocable and is coupled with an interest sufficient in law to support an irrevocable

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power and may under no circumstances be revoked. Such proxy is executed and intended to be irrevocable in accordance with the provisions of Section 607.0722(5) of the FBCA until the termination of this Agreement in accordance with Section 2.1. Each Shareholder shall execute any further agreement or form reasonably necessary or appropriate to confirm and effectuate the grant of the proxy contemplated herein. Each Shareholder hereby revokes (or causes to be revoked) any and all previous proxies, powers of attorney, instructions or other requests with respect to such Shareholders Subject Shares. Parent may terminate this proxy with respect to any Shareholder at any time at its sole election by written notice provided to such Shareholder.

Section 1.2 No Transfers; No Inconsistent Arrangements . Except as provided hereunder, each Shareholder agrees not to, directly or indirectly, (i) transfer (which term shall include any sale, assignment, gift, pledge, hypothecation or other disposition), or consent to, agree to or permit any such transfer of, any or all of the Subject Shares or any interest therein (except for a transfer for estate or tax planning purposes, for charitable purposes or as charitable gifts or donations where the transferee or third party agrees in writing to be bound by the terms hereof), or create or permit to exist any Liens, proxies, voting trusts or agreements, options, rights, understandings or arrangements or any other encumbrances whatsoever on title, transfer, or exercise of any rights of a shareholder in respect of the Subject Shares (collectively,  Encumbrances ) that would prevent such Shareholder from voting the Subject Shares in accordance with this Agreement or from complying with its other obligations under this Agreement, other than any restrictions imposed by applicable law on any Subject Shares; (ii) enter into any contract, option or other agreement, arrangement or understanding inconsistent with the terms of this Agreement with respect to any transfer of Subject Shares or any interest therein; (iii) grant or permit the grant of any proxy, power of attorney or other authorization in or with respect to the Subject Shares relating to the subject matter hereof; (iv) deposit or permit the deposit of the Subject Shares into a voting trust or enter into a voting agreement or arrangement with respect to the Subject Shares; or (v) take or permit any other action that would reasonably be expected to in any way restrict, limit or interfere with the performance of its obligations hereunder or the transactions contemplated hereby (any of the actions set forth in clauses (i) through (v) above, and any conversion, exchange or other disposition of the Subject Shares in a transaction related to an Competing Proposal being referred to in this Agreement as a  Transfer ). Any action taken in violation of the foregoing sentence shall be null and void ab initio. To the extent a Shareholders Subject Shares are represented by certificates, such Shareholder shall make available to the Company such certificates in order for the Company to mark such certificates with legends required by the FBCA regarding the foregoing Transfer restrictions. If any involuntary Transfer of any of the Subject Shares shall occur, the transferee (which term, as used herein, shall include the initial transferee and any and all subsequent transferees of the initial transferee) shall take and hold such Subject Shares subject to all of the restrictions, liabilities and rights under this Agreement, which shall continue in full force and effect until the valid termination of this Agreement.

Section 1.3 Non-Solicitation . Without limitation to Section 6.5 of the Merger Agreement, each Shareholder agrees to, and to direct and cause its Representatives to, immediately cease any discussions or negotiations with any persons that may be ongoing with respect to a Competing Proposal and, until the earlier of the Effective Time or the date, if any, on which this Agreement is terminated pursuant to Section 2.1, not, directly or indirectly: (i) solicit, initiate, or knowingly facilitate or encourage any Competing Proposal; (ii) participate in any

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negotiations regarding, or furnish to any person any information with respect to, any Competing Proposal; or (iii) engage in discussions with any person with respect to any Competing Proposal.

Section 1.4 Capacity . Each Shareholder is signing this Agreement solely in its capacity as a shareholder of the Company, and nothing contained herein shall in any way limit or affect any of such Shareholders Representatives and Affiliates (or any future director or officer of the Company who may be affiliated or associated with any Shareholder or any of its Affiliates) from complying with his fiduciary duties in his capacity as a director or officer of the Company or from otherwise taking any action or inaction in his capacity as a director or officer of the Company, and no such action or inaction taken in compliance with such fiduciary duties in such capacity as a director shall be deemed to constitute a breach of this Agreement. Nothing in this Section 1.4 shall be construed to limit the obligations and agreements of the Company under the Merger Agreement.

Section 1.5 Documentation and Information . Each Shareholder (i) consents to and authorizes the publication and disclosure by Parent, Acquisition Sub or the Company of such Shareholders identity and holding of Subject Shares, and the nature of its commitments, arrangements and understandings under this Agreement (including, for the avoidance of doubt, the disclosure of this Agreement), in any press release, the Proxy Statement and any other disclosure document required in connection with the Merger Agreement, the Merger and any transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, and (ii) agrees to give to Parent as promptly as practicable any information related to the foregoing that Parent may reasonably require for the preparation of any such disclosure documents. Each Shareholder agrees to notify Parent as promptly as practicable of any required corrections with respect to any written information supplied by such Shareholder specifically for use in any such disclosure document, if and to the extent such Shareholder becomes aware that any such information shall have become false or misleading in any material respect.

Section 1.6 Changes to Subject Shares . Each Shareholder agrees that all shares of the Common Stock, Series A Serial Preferred Stock or other capital stock of the Company entitled to vote on the Merger Agreement and Merger, that such Shareholder purchases, acquires the right to vote or otherwise acquires beneficial ownership (as defined in Rule 13d-3 under the Exchange Act) of after the execution of this Agreement, including shares issued upon the exercise of the Restricted Share Units or Company Options, shall be subject to the terms of this Agreement and shall constitute Subject Shares for all purposes of this Agreement. In the event of any share dividend or distribution, or any change to the Subject Shares by reason of any share dividend or distribution, split-up, recapitalization, combination, exchange of shares or any other similar transaction, the term Subject Shares as used in this Agreement shall be deemed to refer to and include the Subject Shares and all such share dividends and distributions and any securities into which or for which any or all of the Subject Shares may be changed or exchanged or which are received in the relevant transaction. Each Shareholder hereby agrees, while this Agreement is in effect, to notify Parent promptly in writing of the number and description of any additional Subject Shares of which such Shareholder acquires beneficial ownership or ownership of record.

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Section 1.7 Shareholder Representations and Warranties . Each Shareholder represents and warrants to Parent and Acquisition Sub, severally but not jointly, as follows:

(a) Such Shareholder (i) is the sole owner of, and has, and at the time of the Shareholder Meeting will have, good title to, such Shareholders Subject Shares, free and clear of any and all Encumbrances except for Encumbrances arising (A) hereunder or (B) from any restrictions on transfer imposed by applicable federal or state securities laws; (ii) does not own, of record or beneficially, any shares of capital stock of the Company (or rights to acquire any such shares) other than the Subject Shares and shares underlying the Restricted Share Units or the Company Options or Warrants; and (iii) has the sole right to vote and dispose of, and holds sole power to issue instructions with respect to, the matters set forth in this Agreement with no material limitations, qualifications or other restrictions on such rights, subject to applicable federal or state securities laws and the terms of this Agreement. As of the date hereof, such Shareholder is the beneficial owner (within the meaning of Rule 13d-3 under the Exchange Act) of the Subject Shares set forth opposite such Shareholders name on Schedule A hereto , and does not own any other shares of capital stock of the Company.

(b) This Agreement has been duly and validly executed and delivered by such Shareholder and, assuming this Agreement constitutes a valid and binding obligation of each of Parent and Acquisition Sub, constitutes a legal, valid and binding agreement of such Shareholder enforceable against such Shareholder in accordance with its terms, subject to bankruptcy, insolvency, fraudulent transfer, reorganization, moratorium and similar laws of general applicability relating to or affecting creditors rights and to general equitable principles.

(c) The execution, delivery and performance by such Shareholder of this Agreement and the consummation of the transactions contemplated hereby do not and will not (i) conflict with, or result in the breach or termination of or constitute a default (with or without the giving of notice or the lapse of time or both) under any note, bond, mortgage, indenture, contract, agreement, lease, license, permit or other instrument or obligation of any kind to which such Shareholder is a party or by which the Subject Shares are bound; or (ii) violate, or require any consent, approval, or notice under any provision of any judgment, order or decree or other Legal Requirement applicable to such Shareholder or any of the Subject Shares.

(d) The execution and delivery of this Agreement by such Shareholder does not, and the performance by such Shareholder of its obligations under this Agreement and the consummation by it of the transactions contemplated hereby will not, require such Shareholder to obtain any consent, approval, authorization or permit of, or to make any filing with or notification to, any Governmental Authority, other than the filings of any reports (or amendments thereto) with the SEC.

(e) Such Shareholder understands and acknowledges that each of the parties to the Merger Agreement are entering into the Merger Agreement in reliance upon the execution and delivery of this Agreement by such Shareholder and the representations, warranties and covenants of such Shareholder contained herein. Such Shareholder understands and acknowledges that the Merger Agreement governs the terms of the Merger and the other transactions contemplated thereby.

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Section 1.8 Parent Representations and Warranties . Parent represents and warrants to the Shareholders, severally but not jointly, that this Agreement has been duly and validly executed and delivered by Parent and, assuming this Agreement constitutes a valid and binding obligation of the Shareholders, constitutes a legal, valid and binding agreement of Parent enforceable against Parent in accordance with its terms, subject to bankruptcy, insolvency, fraudulent transfer, reorganization, moratorium and similar laws of general applicability relating to or affecting creditors rights and to general equitable principles.

Section 1.9 Non-Survival of Representations and Warranties . The representations and warranties of the Shareholders contained herein shall not survive the closing of the transactions contemplated hereby and by the Merger Agreement.

Section 1.10 Proportional Vote . In the event that this Agreement is terminated in accordance with clause (iii) of Section 2.1 , then, notwithstanding such termination, each Shareholder agrees, until the earliest to occur of the events described in clauses (i), (ii) and (iv) of Section 2.1 , (x) to vote (or cause the holder of record of the Preferred Shares on any applicable record date to vote), in person or by proxy, all Preferred Shares in connection with any meeting of the shareholders of the Company at which the holders of the Preferred Shares are entitled to vote in a separate class from holders of Common Stock (including any adjournment or postponement thereof or any action by written consent in lieu of a meeting of the shareholders or otherwise requiring approval of the shareholders of the Company) in the same proportion as all Total Votes are actually voted on any matter to which the first sentence of Section 1.1(a) applies, (y) that Section 1.1(b) shall survive, but with references therein to Section 1.1(a) deemed to be references to this Section 1.10 , and (z) Section 1.2 and Section 1.6 of this Agreement shall survive solely with respect to the Subject Shares that are Preferred Shares.

Article II

MISCELLANEOUS

Section 2.1 Termination . Subject to Section 1.10 , this Agreement shall terminate in its entirety upon the earliest to occur of (i) the termination of the Merger Agreement in accordance with its terms; (ii) the Effective Time; (iii) the date on which the Company Board effects a Change of Recommendation; and (iv) the date of the entry, without the prior written consent of the Shareholders, into any amendment or modification of the Merger Agreement or any waiver of any of the Companys rights under the Merger Agreement, in each case, which results in a decrease in, or a change in the form of, the Merger Consideration. The provisions of this Article II (Miscellaneous) shall survive any termination of this Agreement. In the event of termination of this Agreement, this Agreement shall, subject to the immediately preceding sentence and Section 1.10 , become void and of no effect with no liability on the part of any party hereto; provided , however , that the termination of this Agreement shall not prevent any party hereto from seeking any remedies (at law or in equity) against any other party hereto for such partys breach of any of the terms of this Agreement occurring prior to such termination.

Section 2.2 Notices . All notices and other communications hereunder shall be in writing and shall be deemed duly given (a) on the date of delivery if delivered personally, or by facsimile or e-mail transmission, upon confirmation of receipt, (b) on the first Business Day

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following the date of dispatch if delivered by a recognized next-day courier service, or (c) on the earlier of confirmed receipt or the fifth Business Day following the date of mailing if delivered by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, postage prepaid. All notices hereunder shall be delivered as set forth below, or pursuant to such other instructions as may be designated in writing by the party to receive such notice:

(i) if to any Shareholder, to the address set forth opposite such Shareholders name on Schedule A hereto;

and

(ii) if to Parent and Acquisition Sub, in accordance with Section 9.2 of the Merger Agreement, or to such other persons, addresses or facsimile numbers as may be designated in writing to each other party hereto by the person entitled to receive such communication as provided above.

Section 2.3 Amendments; Waivers; Extensions .

(a) This Agreement may not be amended except by an instrument in writing signed on behalf of each of the parties hereto.

(b) At any time prior to the Effective Time, the parties hereto may, to the extent permitted by applicable law, (i) extend the time for the performance of any of the obligations or other acts of the other party, (ii) waive any inaccuracies in the representations and warranties contained herein or in any document delivered pursuant hereto, and (iii) waive compliance with any of the agreements or conditions contained herein. Any agreement on the part of a party to any such extension or waiver shall be valid only if set forth in a written instrument signed by a duly authorized officer on behalf of such party. The failure of a party to assert any of its rights under this Agreement or otherwise shall not constitute a waiver of those rights. No single or partial exercise of any right, remedy, power or privilege hereunder shall preclude any other or further exercise thereof or the exercise of any other right, remedy, power or privilege. Any waiver shall be effective only in the specific instance and for the specific purpose for which given and shall not constitute a waiver to any subsequent or other exercise of any right, remedy, power or privilege hereunder.

Section 2.4 Expenses . All costs and expenses incurred in connection with this Agreement shall be paid by the party incurring such costs and expenses, whether or not the transactions contemplated by this Agreement or the Merger Agreement are consummated.

Section 2.5 Binding Effect; Benefit; Assignment . Neither this Agreement nor any rights, interests or obligations hereunder shall be assigned by any of the parties hereto (whether by operation of a Legal Requirement or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the other parties hereto, except that the Agreement may be assigned by Parent or Acquisition Sub to an Affiliate of such party; provided that the party making such assignment shall not be released from its obligations hereunder. Subject to the preceding sentence, this Agreement will be binding upon, inure to the benefit of and be enforceable by the parties and their respective successors and permitted assigns.

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Section 2.6 Governing Law . This Agreement shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, without giving effect to any choice or conflict of laws provision or rule (whether of the State of Delaware or any other jurisdiction); provided, however, that the laws of the State of Florida shall govern any matters pertaining to the internal corporate governance of the Company.

Section 2.7 Counterparts . This Agreement may be executed in counterparts (including by electronic means), each of which shall be considered one and the same agreement and this Agreement shall become effective when a counterpart signed by each party shall be delivered to the other party, it being understood that both parties need not sign the same counterpart. Delivery of an executed signature page of this Agreement by facsimile or other customary means of electronic transmission (e.g., pdf) shall be effective as delivery of a manually executed counterpart hereof.

Section 2.8 Venue; Waiver of Jury Trial .

(a) Each party hereby submits to the nonexclusive jurisdiction of the Delaware Court of Chancery (or, if (but only if) the Delaware Court of Chancery shall be unavailable, any other court of the State of Delaware or any federal court sitting in the State of Delaware), for the purpose of any action or proceeding arising out of or relating to this Agreement and each of the parties hereto hereby irrevocably agrees that all claims in respect to such action or proceeding may be heard and determined in any such court.

(b) Each of the parties hereto (a) irrevocably consents to the service of the summons and complaint and any other process in any other action or proceeding relating to the transactions contemplated by this Agreement, on behalf of itself or its property, by personal delivery of copies of such process to such party and nothing in this Section 2.8 shall affect the right of any party to serve legal process in any other manner permitted by law, (b) consents to submit itself to the personal jurisdiction of the Delaware Court of Chancery, any other court of the State of Delaware and any federal court sitting in the State of Delaware in the event any dispute arises out of this Agreement or the transactions contemplated by this Agreement and (c) agrees that it will not attempt to deny or defeat such personal jurisdiction by motion or other request for leave from any such court. Each party hereto agrees that a final judgment in any action or proceeding shall be conclusive and may be enforced in other jurisdictions by suit on the judgment or in any other manner provided by law.

(c) EACH PARTY HERETO HEREBY IRREVOCABLY WAIVES ALL RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY ACTION, PROCEEDING OR COUNTERCLAIM (WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE ACTIONS OF ANY PARTY HERETO IN THE NEGOTIATION, ADMINISTRATION, PERFORMANCE AND ENFORCEMENT THEREOF. EACH PARTY (A) MAKES THIS WAIVER VOLUNTARILY AND (B) ACKNOWLEDGES THAT SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN INDUCED TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT BY, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THE MUTUAL WAIVERS CONTAINED IN THIS SECTION 2.8.

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Section 2.9 Entire Agreement; Third Party Beneficiaries . This Agreement (including the documents and the instruments referred to herein) (a) constitutes the entire agreement and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings, both written and oral, between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and (b) is not intended to, and does not, confer upon any person or entity other than the parties hereto any rights or remedies hereunder.

Section 2.10 Severability . Any term or provision of this Agreement that is invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction shall, as to that jurisdiction, be ineffective to the extent of such invalidity or unenforceability and shall not render invalid or unenforceable the remaining terms and provisions of this Agreement or affect the validity or enforceability of any of the terms or provisions of this Agreement in any other jurisdiction. If any provision of this Agreement is so broad as to be unenforceable, the provision shall be interpreted to be only so broad as is enforceable.

Section 2.11 Enforcement . The parties agree that irreparable damage would occur in the event that any of the provisions of this Agreement were not performed in accordance with their specific terms on a timely basis or were otherwise breached. It is accordingly agreed that, in the event of any breach or threatened breach by any other party of any covenant or obligation contained in this Agreement, the non-breach party shall be entitled (in addition to any other remedy that may be available to it, including monetary damages) to seek and obtain (on behalf of themselves and the third-party beneficiaries of this Agreement) (a) a decree or order of specific performance to enforce the observance and performance of such covenant or obligation, and (b) an injunction, restraining such breach or threatened breach. No party or any other person shall be required to obtain, furnish or post any bond or similar instrument in connection with or as a condition to obtaining any remedy referred to in this Section 2.11, and each party irrevocably waives any right it may have to require the obtaining, furnishing or posting of any such bond or similar instrument.

Section 2.12 Descriptive Headings . The descriptive headings used herein are inserted for convenience of reference only and are not intended to be part of or to affect the meaning or interpretation of this Agreement.

Section 2.13 Interpretation . The parties have participated jointly in the negotiation and drafting of this Agreement. Consequently, in the event an ambiguity or question of intent or interpretation arises, this Agreement shall be construed as if drafted jointly by the parties hereto, and no presumption or burden of proof shall arise favoring or disfavoring any party by virtue of the authorship of any provision of this Agreement. When a reference is made in this Agreement to an Article, Section, Annex or Exhibit, such reference shall be to an Article or Section of, or an Annex or Exhibit to, this Agreement, unless otherwise indicated. Whenever the words include, includes or including are used in this Agreement, they shall be deemed to be followed by the words without limitation. The words hereof, herein and hereunder and words of similar import when used in this Agreement shall refer to this Agreement as a whole and not to any particular provision of this Agreement. The definitions contained in this Agreement are applicable to the singular as well as the plural forms of such terms and to the masculine as well as to the feminine and neuter genders of such term. Any statute defined or referred to herein or any agreement or instrument that is referred to herein means such statute, agreement or instrument as from time to time amended, modified or supplemented, including (in

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the case of statutes) by succession of comparable successor statutes. References to a person are also to its permitted successors and assigns.

[REMAINDER OF PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]

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IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have caused this Agreement to be duly executed by their respective authorized signatories as of the day and year first above written.

Revlon, Inc. By: /s/ Fabian T. Garcia Name: Fabian T. Garcia Title: President and Chief Executive Officer Revlon Consumer Products Corporation By: /s/ Fabian T. Garcia Name: Fabian T. Garcia Title: President and Chief Executive Officer RR Transaction Corp. By: /s/ Michael T. Sheehan Name: Michael T. Sheehan Title: Vice President and Secretary

[ Support Agreement (nightingale) ]

NIGHTINGALE ONSHORE HOLDINGS L.P. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory NIGHTINGALE OFFSHORE HOLDINGS L.P. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory

[ Support Agreement (nightingale) ]

schedule a

Name of Shareholder Address Number of Shares

of

Common Stock

Owned Number of

Shares of Series

A Serial

Preferred Stock

Owned Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. 630 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2710 New York, NY 10111 4,064,897* 21,996 Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P. 630 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2710 New York, NY 10111 4,064,897* 28,004

* Both Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P. may be deemed the beneficial owner of these securities. For the avoidance of doubt, the number of Shares of Common Stock owned by both Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P., taken together, is 4,064,897.

Exhibit 99.2

Execution Version

PREFERRED STOCK REPURCHASE

AND WARRANT CANCELLATION AGREEMENT

PREFERRED STOCK REPURCHASE AND WARRANT CANCELLATION AGREEMENT (this  Agreement ) dated as of June 16, 2016, by and among Elizabeth Arden, Inc., a Florida corporation (the  Company ), Revlon, Inc., a Delaware corporation ( Ultimate Parent ), Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, a Delaware corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Ultimate Parent ( Operating Parent  and, collectively with Ultimate Parent,  Parent ), RR Transaction Corp., a Florida corporation and a wholly-owned direct subsidiary of Operating Parent ( Acquisition Sub ), Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership ( Nightingale Onshore ), and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership ( Nightingale Offshore  and, together with Nightingale Onshore,  Nightingale ).

WHEREAS, contemporaneously with the execution and delivery of this Agreement, Parent, Acquisition Sub and the Company have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (as amended, supplemented, restated or otherwise modified from time to time, the  Merger Agreement ), providing for, among other things, the merger of Acquisition Sub with and into the Company, with the Company continuing as the surviving corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of Parent in such merger (the  Merger );

WHEREAS, Nightingale is the beneficial owner in the aggregate of 50,000 shares of Series A Serial Preferred Stock of the Company, par value $0.01 per share (the  Preferred Stock ), and warrants for the purchase of up to 2,452,267 shares of common stock, par value $0.01 per share, of the Company (the  Warrants ), and is party to that certain Shareholders Agreement, dated as of August 19, 2014, with the Company (the  Shareholders Agreement );

WHEREAS, in order to induce Parent and Acquisition Sub to enter into the Merger Agreement, the Company and Nightingale have agreed to enter into this Agreement and abide by the covenants and obligations set forth herein; and

WHEREAS, capitalized terms used but not otherwise defined herein shall have the respective meanings ascribed to such terms in the Merger Agreement.

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the premises and for other good and valuable consideration given to each party hereto, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the parties hereto, intending to be legally bound, agree as follows:

Article I

Redemption of Preferred STock; Cancellation of Warrants

Section 1.1 Redemption of Preferred Stock; Cancellation of Warrants . On the Closing Date (whenever that may be), (a) Nightingale shall irrevocably sell to the Company, and the Company shall purchase from Nightingale, all right, title and interest in and to the Preferred Stock, free and clear of any liens and encumbrances, for a cash purchase price equal to the amount payable pursuant to Section 7(a)(ii) of the Articles of Amendment to the Amended and

Restated Articles of Incorporation of the Company Designating Series A Serial Preferred Stock (the  Preferred Stock Designation ) for each share of Preferred Stock in respect of a Change of Control Date (as defined in the Preferred Stock Designation) occurring on the Closing Date (the  Purchase Price ), and (b) the Warrants and the Shareholders Agreement and any other agreement between the Company or any of its subsidiaries on the one hand and Nightingale or any of its affiliates on the other hand (other than this Agreement) shall irrevocably terminate and be of no further force or effect, excluding, for the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of any such agreements which are intended to survive the agreements termination in accordance with the terms thereof, and, provided, that any agreements for the benefit of the directors of the Company who were appointed by Nightingale pursuant to the Shareholders Agreement shall remain in effect in accordance with their terms. As long as this Agreement is in effect, the provisions of this Agreement shall supersede and replace the notice procedures set forth in Section 7(b) of the Preferred Stock Designation. Nightingale hereby irrevocably waives any and all consent or approval rights it possesses, if any, under the Shareholders Agreement with respect to the Companys entry into, and consummation of transactions contemplated by, the Merger Agreement.

Section 1.2 Closing . The closing of the transactions contemplated by Section 1.1(a) (the  Nightingale Closing ) shall occur at the Closing, effective as of the Effective Time.

Section 1.3 Closing Deliverables .

(a) At the Nightingale Closing, Nightingale shall deliver to the Company and Parent:

(i) a duly executed signature page of Nightingale to a termination of Warrants and Shareholders Agreement in a form to be mutually agreed among the parties hereto; and

(ii) certificates complying with the provisions of Section 1445 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the  Code ), to the effect that each of Nightingale Onshore and Nightingale Offshore is not a foreign person within the meaning of Section 1445 of the Code.

(b) At the Nightingale Closing, the Company shall deliver to Nightingale:

(i) payment of immediately available funds in the amount of the Purchase Price by wire transfer to an account number specified by Nightingale at least three days prior to the Nightingale Closing; and

(ii) a duly executed signature page of the Company to a termination of Warrants and Shareholders Agreement in a form to be mutually agreed among the parties hereto.

Section 1.4 Further Assurances . Nightingale hereby agrees to execute and deliver such further instruments of sale, transfer, conveyance, assignment, release termination and confirmation as the Company or Parent may reasonably request in order to effect the purchase of

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the Preferred Stock by the Company and termination of the Warrants and the Shareholders Agreement as contemplated by this Agreement.

Section 1.5 Withholding . The Company shall be entitled to deduct and withhold from the amounts payable under this Agreement such amounts as are required to be deducted and withheld under the Code and any other applicable tax laws. Any such deducted and withheld amount shall be treated as though it had been paid to the person in respect of which such withholding was required, provided that the Company timely pays over such deducted and withheld amount to the applicable taxing authority.

Article II

MISCELLANEOUS

Section 2.1 Termination . This Agreement shall terminate in its entirety upon the termination of the Merger Agreement in accordance with its terms or by the mutual written agreement of the parties hereto; provided , however , that the provisions of this Article II (Miscellaneous) shall survive any termination of this Agreement. In the event of termination of this Agreement, this Agreement shall become void and of no effect with no liability on the part of any party hereto; provided , however , that the termination of this Agreement shall not prevent any party hereto from seeking any remedies (at law or in equity) against any other party hereto for such partys breach of any of the terms of this Agreement occurring prior to such termination.

Section 2.2 Notices . All notices and other communications hereunder shall be in writing and shall be deemed duly given (a) on the date of delivery if delivered personally, or by facsimile or e-mail transmission, upon confirmation of receipt, (b) on the first Business Day following the date of dispatch if delivered by a recognized next-day courier service, or (c) on the fifth Business Day following the date of mailing if delivered by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, postage prepaid. All notices hereunder shall be delivered as set forth below, or pursuant to such other instructions as may be designated in writing by the party to receive such notice:

(i) if to Nightingale to:



Nightingale Onshore Holdings L.P. and Nightingale Offshore Holdings L.P.

c/o Rhone Capital IV L.P.

630 5th Avenue, Suite 2710

Fax: +1.212.218.6789

E-mail: [email protected]

Attention: M. Allison Steiner



and

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(ii) if to the Company, Parent or Acquisition Sub, in accordance with Section 9.2 of the Merger Agreement, or to such other persons, addresses or facsimile numbers as may be designated in writing to each other party hereto by the person entitled to receive such communication as provided above.

Section 2.3 Amendments; Waivers; Extensions .

(a) This Agreement may not be amended, modified, altered or supplemented, except by an instrument in writing signed on behalf of each of the parties hereto.

(b) At any time prior to the Effective Time, the parties hereto may, to the extent permitted by applicable law, (i) extend the time for the performance of any of the obligations or other acts of the other party, (ii) waive any inaccuracies in the representations and warranties contained herein or in any document delivered pursuant hereto, and (iii) waive compliance with any of the agreements or conditions contained herein. Any agreement on the part of a party to any such extension or waiver shall be valid only if set forth in a written instrument signed on behalf of such party. The failure of a party to assert any of its rights under this Agreement or otherwise shall not constitute a waiver of those rights. No single or partial exercise of any right, remedy, power or privilege hereunder shall preclude any other or further exercise thereof or the exercise of any other right, remedy, power or privilege. Any waiver shall be effective only in the specific instance and for the specific purpose for which given and shall not constitute a waiver to any subsequent or other exercise of any right, remedy, power or privilege hereunder.

Section 2.4 Expenses . All costs and expenses incurred in connection with this Agreement shall be paid by the party incurring such costs and expenses, whether or not the transactions contemplated by this Agreement or the Merger Agreement are consummated.

Section 2.5 Binding Effect; Benefit; Assignment . Neither this Agreement nor any rights, interests or obligations hereunder shall be assigned by any of the parties hereto (whether by operation of a Legal Requirement or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the other parties hereto, except that the Agreement may be assigned by Parent or Acquisition Sub to an Affiliate of such party; provided that the party making such assignment shall not be released from its obligations hereunder. Subject to the preceding sentence, this Agreement will be binding upon, inure to the benefit of and be enforceable by the parties and their respective successors and permitted assigns.

Section 2.6 Governing Law . This Agreement shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, without giving effect to any choice or conflict of laws provision or rule (whether of the State of Delaware or any other jurisdiction); provided , however , that the laws of the State of Florida shall govern any matters pertaining to the internal corporate governance of the Company.

Section 2.7 Counterparts . This Agreement may be executed in counterparts (including by electronic means), each of which shall be considered one and the same agreement and this Agreement shall become effective when a counterpart signed by each party shall be delivered to the other party, it being understood that both parties need not sign the same counterpart.

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Delivery of an executed signature page of this Agreement by facsimile or other customary means of electronic transmission (e.g., pdf) shall be effective as delivery of a manually executed counterpart hereof.

Section 2.8 Venue; Waiver of Jury Trial .

(a) Each party hereby submits to the nonexclusive jurisdiction of the Delaware Court of Chancery (or, if (but only if) the Delaware Court of Chancery shall be unavailable, any other court of the State of Delaware or any federal court sitting in the State of Delaware), for the purpose of any action or proceeding arising out of or relating to this Agreement and each of the parties hereto hereby irrevocably agrees that all claims in respect to such action or proceeding may be heard and determined in any such court.

(b) Each of the parties hereto (a) irrevocably consents to the service of the summons and complaint and any other process in any other action or proceeding relating to the transactions contemplated by this Agreement, on behalf of itself or its property, by personal delivery of copies of such process to such party and nothing in this Section 2.8 shall affect the right of any party to serve legal process in any other manner permitted by law, (b) consents to submit itself to the personal jurisdiction of the Delaware Court of Chancery, any other court of the State of Delaware and any federal court sitting in the State of Delaware in the event any dispute arises out of this Agreement or the transactions contemplated by this Agreement and (c) agrees that it will not attempt to deny or defeat such personal jurisdiction by motion or other request for leave from any such court. Each party hereto agrees that a final judgment in any action or proceeding shall be conclusive and may be enforced in other jurisdictions by suit on the judgment or in any other manner provided by law.

(c) EACH PARTY HERETO HEREBY IRREVOCABLY WAIVES ALL RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY ACTION, PROCEEDING OR COUNTERCLAIM (WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE ACTIONS OF ANY PARTY HERETO IN THE NEGOTIATION, ADMINISTRATION, PERFORMANCE AND ENFORCEMENT THEREOF. EACH PARTY (A) MAKES THIS WAIVER VOLUNTARILY AND (B) ACKNOWLEDGES THAT SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN INDUCED TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT BY, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THE MUTUAL WAIVERS CONTAINED IN THIS SECTION 2.8.

Section 2.9 Entire Agreement; Third Party Beneficiaries . This Agreement (including the documents and the instruments referred to herein) (a) constitutes the entire agreement and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings, both written and oral, between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and (b) is not intended to, and does not, confer upon any person or entity other than the parties hereto any rights or remedies hereunder.

Section 2.10 Severability . Any term or provision of this Agreement that is invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction shall, as to that jurisdiction, be ineffective to the extent of such invalidity or unenforceability and shall not render invalid or unenforceable the remaining terms and provisions of this Agreement or affect the validity or enforceability of any of the terms or provisions of this Agreement in any other jurisdiction. If any provision of this Agreement is so

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broad as to be unenforceable, the provision shall be interpreted to be only so broad as is enforceable.

Section 2.11 Enforcement . The parties agree that irreparable damage would occur in the event that any of the provisions of this Agreement were not performed in accordance with their specific terms on a timely basis or were otherwise breached. It is accordingly agreed that, in the event of any breach or threatened breach by any other party of any covenant or obligation contained in this Agreement, the non-breach party shall be entitled (in addition to any other remedy that may be available to it, including monetary damages) to seek and obtain (on behalf of themselves and the third-party beneficiaries of this Agreement) (a) a decree or order of specific performance to enforce the observance and performance of such covenant or obligation, and (b) an Injunction, restraining such breach or threatened breach. No party or any other person shall be required to obtain, furnish or post any bond or similar instrument in connection with or as a condition to obtaining any remedy referred to in this Section 2.11, and each party irrevocably waives any right it may have to require the obtaining, furnishing or posting of any such bond or similar instrument.

Section 2.12 Descriptive Headings . The descriptive headings used herein are inserted for convenience of reference only and are not intended to be part of or to affect the meaning or interpretation of this Agreement.

Section 2.13 Interpretation . The parties have participated jointly in the negotiation and drafting of this Agreement. Consequently, in the event an ambiguity or question of intent or interpretation arises, this Agreement shall be construed as if drafted jointly by the parties hereto, and no presumption or burden of proof shall arise favoring or disfavoring any party by virtue of the authorship of any provision of this Agreement. When a reference is made in this Agreement to an Article, Section, Annex or Exhibit, such reference shall be to an Article or Section of, or an Annex or Exhibit to, this Agreement, unless otherwise indicated. Whenever the words include, includes or including are used in this Agreement, they shall be deemed to be followed by the words without limitation. The words hereof, herein and hereunder and words of similar import when used in this Agreement shall refer to this Agreement as a whole and not to any particular provision of this Agreement. The definitions contained in this Agreement are applicable to the singular as well as the plural forms of such terms and to the masculine as well as to the feminine and neuter genders of such term. Any statute defined or referred to herein or any agreement or instrument that is referred to herein means such statute, agreement or instrument as from time to time amended, modified or supplemented, including (in the case of statutes) by succession of comparable successor statutes. References to a person are also to its permitted successors and assigns.

[REMAINDER OF PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]

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IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have caused this Agreement to be duly executed by their respective authorized signatories as of the day and year first above written.

ELIZABETH ARDEN, INC. By: /s/ E. Scott Beattie Name: E. Scott Beattie Title: Chairman and CEO

[ Preferred Redemption Agreement ]

Revlon, Inc. By: /s/ Fabian T. Garcia Name: Fabian T. Garcia Title: President and Chief Executive Officer Revlon Consumer Products Corporation By: /s/ Fabian T. Garcia Name: Fabian T. Garcia Title: President and Chief Executive Officer RR Transaction Corp. By: /s/ Michael T. Sheehan Name: Michael T. Sheehan Title: Vice President and Secretary

[ Preferred Redemption Agreement ]

NIGHTINGALE ONSHORE HOLDINGS L.P. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory NIGHTINGALE OFFSHORE HOLDINGS L.P. By: /s/ Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Name: Franz-Ferdinand Buerstedde Title: Authorized Signatory
Work continues on the Omaka Landing subdivision, on New Renwick Rd, from left, section owner Nicola Mitchell, Colonial Vineyard chairman Mark Davis, Colonial Vineyard director John Davis and section owner Rachel Anderson.

Fancy living in Mustang Alley or Spitfire Drive?

Developers behind a Blenheim subdivision have come up with street names that are far from the 'plane' Jane offerings branded boring by the Marlborough District Council in May.

The streets in the Omaka Landing subdivision have all been inspired by planes and the developer hopes they'll take off with the public.

GRAPHIC New subdivision Omaka Landing in Blenheim is getting aviation-inspired street names.

The council's environment committee has signed off on street names Lancaster Ave; Harvard Rd; Corsair Cres; Caproni Rd; Mustang Alley; Piper Lane; Spitfire Dr; Catalina Cres; Kittyhawk Rd; Nanchang Rd; Dakota Plc and Hurricane Way.

READ MORE: Blenheim subdivision's street names branded 'boring'

In May, the developer Colonial Vineyard Ltd suggested calling the subdivision's main road either Omaka Drive or Colonial Drive, which was shot down by Marlborough councillors as "tedious".

Councillors also shunned calling one of the development's streets The Row, a reflection of vineyard activity at the site.

Omaka project manager John Davis said they had gone back to the drawing board and used their routine "socials" with section buyers to get input on the names.

"We didn't want to tell people what we were calling the streets, we wanted to ask them. It was all about collaboration and communication.

"There was a huge amount of names evaluated. We looked at airmen and air ladies but planes were the best. We had a lot of fun."

The subdivision was near Omaka Airfield, the cradle of aviation in Marlborough, home to one of New Zealand's oldest aero clubs.

Davis said his favourite was Mustang Alley, which had a "nice ring to it".

"Fokker Place was a bit of a joke. We would have made a goat of ourselves if we put that forward."

The street names would go in when the roads were finished in September.

The names had been circulated to iwi, local historians and Marlborough Roads for comment before they went to full council for approval next Thursday.

Under the Local Government Act, the council allocated road names and addresses.

Resource management officer Ian Sutherland said the proposed road names complied.

"The names were all aviation themed, imaginative, non-offensive and nearly all fully comply with the policy."

Councillors Cynthia Brooks, Peter Jerram and Jenny Andrews met with the developers to discuss the names.

Andrews said she would love to live in Mustang Alley.

"The name Fokker Place passed our lips but that was rejected," Andrews said.

"I love all the names. Colonial were great to work with."

Brooks previously said they did not want names that were too ridiculous.

"Pilot Colin Bint was a bit of a legend and there was a lot of laughs about Binty Boulevard or Gipsy Moth Place.

"You have to respect the history of that area. It's quite a special part of the Marlborough landscape.

"It might seem a small matter today but it has ramifications for future generations."

Meanwhile, a new 200-section subdivision in Springlands had the working title of Rose Manor.

DeLuxe Group property managing director Greg Smith said Rose Manor was a reflection that the west of Blenheim was known as Roselands.

Rose Manor was a modern twist, he said.

"Originally I wanted rose names for the streets but the botanical names for roses are hard to pronounce and spell."

Smith was keeping tight-lipped on the street names until they received approval from the council.
Mike's Organic Brewery owner Ron Trigg said the company's inability to pay an excise duty debt lead to it being put into voluntary liquidation.

Taranaki's pioneering craft beer company has been put into liquidation.

White Cliffs Organic Brewery Ltd, which operates Mike's Organic Brewery just north of Urenui, went into voluntary liquidation on Wednesday.

Owner Ron Trigg said the decision had been a long time coming and was largely due to a customs and excise debt accrued four to five years ago that the company could not pay.

ANDY JACKSON Mike's Organic Brewery owner Ron Trigg in 2011 with the four pallets of beer about to be exported to Rome via Belgium.

"We got to a point where it wasn't responsible carrying on further," he said.

READ MORE:

* Another Taranaki fruit winery at risk of being liquidated

* Taranaki fruit winery Sentry Hill put into liquidation

* Taranaki Brewery scoops Brewers Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards

* How Mike's beer started as a university experiment

* Mike's expansion to focus on its wholesale business

Trigg would not specify how much the company owed but said the Customs Service was the largest creditor.

Robert Charles/STUFF Joebin Huggins from New Plymouth takes centre table at Mike's Organic Brewery's popular Oktoberfest.

He said the decision to put the company into liquidation had been building since April when he meet with Customs Service to discuss his debt. He said he was told then that the additional duty on the original debt was more than the debt itself.

"We thought 'holy hell'. There is no way we are going to manage this," Trigg said.

It is the third Taranaki alcohol manufacturer to have gone into liquidation this year over unpaid excise duties.

Earlier this week New Plymouth's Cottage Wines Limited into liquidation over an unpaid debt of $14,625.25, most of which was related to excise duty. In April NZ Lepperton's Sentry Hill Winerywas placed into liquidation in April for an unpaid debt of about $130,000.

Trigg said the missed customs and excise payments happened when bank loans the company had were restructured during the global financial crisis.

At the same time he took the option of making excise duty payments biannually rather than monthly and missed several payments. While the brewer made subsequent excise duty payments it was unable to catch up on those it missed.

He said the decision to go into liquidation had been a frustrating one as the company had been making good profits in the last two years.

The brewery was founded in 1989 by Mike Johnson and bought by Trigg in 2007, when it produced just two beers.

It now has has a line of 11 beers including the original Mike's Mild Ale. It is available in bars, liquor stores and Foodstuff supermarkets throughout the country.

"We put a lot of blood and sweat into it, no question about it. And lots and lots of people have helped us and worked really really hard for us," Trigg said.

Trigg said a company he started two years ago, Mike's Holdings Ltd, was looking to purchase some of the equipment and stock from the liquidators so they could carry on.

"It's a question of if we are able and the values stack up and we have enough resources so we would be able to purchase the stock."

Taranaki's regional Society of Beer Advocates (Soba) coordinator Warwick Foy said the brewery was one of the oldest and most influential craft brewers in the country.

"It made it possible for people to see you could brew. You didn't have to be one of the two big breweries," Foy said.

He said in the last 10 years, with Trigg at the helm, the brewery had expanded its range significantly.

"They have kept up and at times led the rise of craft beer in New Zealand," he said.

Liquidator John Scutter confirmed the directors and shareholders decided to put the company into liquidation because it could not meet obligations it had to its creditors.

Scutter said the brewery at Urenui was still operating as liquidators looked at ways to get as much value for creditors as they could.

"We recognise the brand is a long standing brand. It's one of the first craft beer brands in the country. It's something we don't want to lose," he said.
Maureen Fenton was the 155th New Zealand police woman sworn in.

When Maureen Fenton joined the police in 1957, she was armed with a pair of handcuffs, a baton and a notebook.

"We weren't allowed to drive police cars," she said.

"If we had to go anywhere we had to have a driver.

David Unwin/Fairfax NZ On August 30, 1957, Maureen Fenton was the 155th New Zealand policewoman sworn in.

"It was 1957 and they were very protective of the women."

READ MORE: Central District region celebrating 75 years of women in police

Times have changed since then but Fenton said she was pleased to be involved in celebrating 75 years of women in police.

Fenton, 86, joined the police on August 30, 1957, when she was 28 years old.

Now living in Hunterville, she said had always been interested in signing up.

She was the 155th woman in New Zealand to join after the police started accepting women in 1940.

Only eight women were at police college when Fenton attended and after she graduated she was sent to Auckland, where 11 other women were stationed.

She said a memorable moment of her career was when she recognised three seamen who had been missing from New Plymouth getting into a taxi in Auckland.

"I couldn't believe my eyes."

After convincing a male colleague she had seen them, she managed to get him to approach them, and it was confirmed they were the missing men.

"The constable got in the car with them and took them up to the police station.

"They were men and I, as a woman, wasn't allowed to be arresting them."

Fenton also spent time working as a detective in Auckland, where she was one of three women among 50 men.

"You got used to being one woman with a whole lot of men."

However, not all of the men were happy about their presence.

"Some of them didn't like you, but you can understand that because they weren't used to dealing with women."

She was in the police for seven years before she got married to another police officer, Bob Fenton, and had to resign from her position as a constable.

"In those days, when you joined the police, if you got married you had to leave and if you were pregnant you had to leave."

Fenton was presented with a Queen's Service Medal in 2013 for her service to the Hunterville community.

"Put it this way, I sign six cheque books that aren't my own," she said.

She put this involvement down to her experiences learnt in the police.

"When I joined the police I was quite shy and they taught us public speaking ... all sorts of things that gave you the confidence to deal with people."

Looking at the police now, she said everything was so different but she would encourage young women to join.

"I enjoyed my time there."

Manawatu police will be holding a wine and cheese function on July 26 at 6.30pm for women in police of the past, present and future.

For more information contact Jeanette.Park@police.govt.nz.
Some female students at Hornby High School wore trousers in protest after they were told their short skirts distracted male staff.

A Christchurch principal is defending staff, after female students were told to wear longer skirts because it was distracting to male teachers.

Male students at Hornby High School were asked to leave an assembly last week so senior staff could tell the girls they were rolling their skirts up too high.

One student told Stuff the year 11 to 13 girls were told their skirt lengths could be classed as "sexual harassment", and were accused of making teachers feel uncomfortable.

Hornby High principal Robin Sutton said he was not at the assembly and could not verify the claims.

READ MORE:

* Henderson High principal defends school uniform rules

* Student leaves Hornby High School to keep facial hair

"I have no reason or cause to doubt my staff," he said on Thursday night.

He likened the issue to students wearing non-regulation jackets or non-regulation shoes.

"If you went out into the workplace, there are rules that employers' will have about how you dress," he said.

A year 11 student, who did not want to be named, said she did not like how the message was conveyed.

She chose not to attend classes taught by male teachers the next day.

"I didn't really want to walk into a class where I feel like I've been looked at as a sex object," she said.

"It was made out that it was our fault and the teachers were in the right to feel uncomfortable."

Other girls turned up wearing trousers to class in protest.

The school's website states skirt lengths should reach 10 centimetres below the knee.

Sutton said he would not take action against staff in light of the students' claims.

"It's that old story about what one person thinks they're saying might not be what one person thinks they're hearing.

"Nothing has been relayed to me about the words that were used," he said.

Another student said she was approached by a teacher two days ago, while her and a friend were walking through the school grounds.

"She told us [to lengthen out skirts] because it is making the male teachers feel uncomfortable."

The 14-year-old said it made her feel uneasy.

She suggested the school consider introducing kilts to the winter dress code, which would keep students warm and ease teachers' concerns about skirt length.

Sutton said kilts were removed from the dress code several years ago, for various reasons.

Earlier this year, year 11 students at Auckland's Henderson High were told their uniform skirts were deemed too short.

Outraged pupils responded by saying they should not be blamed for distracting boys with their bare knees.

Principal Mike Purcell said the school uniform rules were there to help everyone focus on learning.

The school's rules said skirts must not be shorter than 7.6cm above the knee.

Comments on this article are now closed.
Simon Bridges

National MP

simonbridges.co.nz

I attended the Bay of Plenty Young Fruit Grower awards on Wednesday evening. After a day of competitive events, the winner was announced at a gala dinner at Mills Reef Winery. Congratulations to all of those who took part.

If the calibre of the contestants is anything to go by, the future of the horticulture sector in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty is in good hands. This is vitally important for our region, because the sector contributes about $1 billion worth of exports each year to the local economy. About 80 per cent of national kiwifruit production is in the Bay of Plenty, employing 6000 people

The Government is committed to helping the horticulture sector continue to grow and create more jobs by reducing barriers to trade and removing tariffs. The recently-signed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will save $34 million per year in tariffs on fruit and vegetables when implemented. Together with the NZ-Korea Free Trade Agreement signed last year, it is worth $14,000 to every kiwifruit grower in New Zealand.

Tonight, I will be at the Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Awards. This event is always a great occasion, recognising and celebrating local export success stories. The companies nominated represent only a fraction of the fantastic export businesses in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty.

It is these businesses that create jobs, not Government. We are focused on what we can do to help these businesses increase investment and grow, hire more people and pay higher wages.
Chris Clement is the 2016 Bay of Plenty Young Grower of the Year, winning the title in Tauranga last night after a day-long event which tested competitors practical and technical skills.

The 29-year-old technical operator with Apata Group Limited in Te Puke was up against tough competition from five other entrants.
The new $14.9 million Lyttelton Primary School was today officially opened by Education Minister Hekia Parata.

The school, which opened its doors at the beginning of this term, is the result of the merging of Lyttelton Main and Lyttelton West schools. It is built on Lyttelton Main Schools former site and will accommodate up to 300 students.

Lyttelton Primary Schools new teaching spaces will support a wider range of effective teaching practices and a lift in achievement for kids, says Ms Parata.

Today is a celebration of everyones hard work and commitment to this modern new school, which is a welcome addition to the Christchurch schooling network.

The school is sharing their brand new theatre with the Loons Theatre Trust in a unique partnership arrangement.

The internationally-known theatre company was left without a home following the Canterbury earthquakes.

The Trust contributed additional funds to the schools new performance space to bring it to the level of a professional theatre, and they are continuing to provide performance education at the school.

This is a great outcome for the community. The students have access to a professional-level performance space, and the Loons are able to continue their artistic contribution to the community, says Ms Parata.

The 10-year Christchurch Schools Rebuild programme is in its third year and Lyttelton Primary is the seventh new school to be completed.

Source: Office of Hekia Parata.
The pretence of the government that it is putting extra funding into rural state highway blackspots is diabolical, says New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters.

The big question is, where is the rest of the money it siphoned off from rural road support funding over seven years, from 2009-2016, and put into the Roads of National Significance?

Today Minister of Transport Simon Bridges announces a project titled, Safer Roads and Roadsides Programme, but thats just already proposed projects being cobbled together under a new collective name.

Work has already started on some according to information supplied.

SOURCE: Office of Winston Peters
Voters queue at the polling station in Gibraltar. EFE

Gibraltar is no stranger to referendums; it has held them in the past about whether to remain British or whether to accept joint sovereignty between Britain and Spain, but this one is unusual because, of course, it is the first time anyone on the Rock has voted on whether or not Britain should remain part of the EU.

The people of Gibraltar are not able to vote in UK General elections  Gibraltar has its own government, elected every four years, and parliament  but as the only British Overseas Territory to be part of the EU it was included in the franchise for this referendum.

It is its status as part of the EU which is expected to result in Gibraltar voting resoundingly for the UK to remain. Its economy relies very much on the single market and free movement of goods and people across the border, and there is concern about Spains actions if Gibraltar were no longer to be part of the EU: if the UK leaves, Gibraltar automatically does as well.

Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo has already said that if Britain votes to leave the EU, the subject of Gibraltar will be on the table the very next day, and has yet again proposed joint sovereignty on the grounds that it would be the only way it could retain access to the single market in the event of a Brexit. The Gibraltar government was swift to respond that joint sovereignty would not be considered, under any circumstances.

There is also concern that Spain could close the border with Gibraltar if Britain left the EU. Many local families remember the years when the border was closed by General Franco, and it only fully reopened in 1985 as a condition of Spain joining the EU.

With the potentially devastating effects of a Brexit firmly on their minds, all political parties in Gibraltar set aside their differences and have been campaigning together to urge the local population to vote to Remain. 24,117 people were entitled to vote in the referendum, and turnout was brisk from the moment the polls opened at 7am. By 2pm over 40 per cent of the population had already cast their vote.

Of course, nothing is ever certain and some voices in Gibraltar have spoken out to say they would prefer Britain to leave the EU, but as voters continue to head to their polling stations in the Mediterranean sunshine, it is fair to say that most people believe the Rock will send a resounding message to the world that they want Britain to Remain.
There aren't many guarantees in life, but here's one: Guaranteed you won't find two finer classic Oldsmobiles anywhere unless somehow they're brand new and encased in Bubble Wrap. Even then the two cars owned by George Kuhn, of Cape Vincent, N.Y., most likely are better.

His Oldsmobiles could be called rare and rarer, and they are: 1965 4-4-2 Cutlass convertible, and an ultra rare 1968 Oldsmobile 442 Holiday Coupe Hurst Olds. The convertible is one of 1,695 manufactured in 1965 while the coupe is one of 515 that rolled off the assembly line and went directly to Demmer Engineering, in Lansing, Mich., for conversion into a Hurst product.

This isn't a case of a man loving the cars he's with; this is a man who loves Oldsmobiles and knew exactly what he wanted. One car is like an Oldsmobile he owned as a kid, the other is the car he almost owned.

Even though the 1965 convertible was the first to arrive it has to be said the 1968 Hurst car is the apple-of-his-eye, a car he longed for over a span of 48 years. It's the car that got away.

Kuhn's son, George Jr., quipped that the Oldsmobiles are the "third and fourth children."

If you saw these cars in person you'd get some idea of what this is about. These cars are rolling perfection but there's a deeper connection than paying respect to two muscle cars. The fact is GTOs and Super Sport Chevelles from the same era produced similar performance and beneath the trim they were all very much alike whether the motor's valve covers carried the names Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac or Chevrolet. But even though there were strong family similarities, it was the Oldsmobiles he longed for.

Kuhn said he had a fondness for the 1965 4-4-2 and a desire for one for many years.

"Growing up in that era when they were popular I always wanted one," he noted. At this point you have to know that Kuhn's father was once an Oldsmobile salesman so he comes by his love of the cars honestly.

After high school he got a job as a mechanic at a Cadillac-Oldsmobile store and eventually ordered a 1965 4-4-2 convertible. He waited seven weeks and took delivery of the car, but then Uncle Sam came calling and Kuhn found himself in basic training at Fort Dix, N.J. The '65 Oldsmobile was sold while Kuhn did duty at Fort Gordon, Ga., and later in Wurzburg, Germany. He was discharged in March 1968.

He returned to work at the dealership and ordered a 442 W30 coupe, a high performance version of the car. He took delivery but then learned about the Hurst cars and ordered one, "the car I really wanted," he said.

It turns out thousands of other people wanted one too, and Oldsmobile ultimately couldn't fill the orders. Only 515 1968 Hurst cars were made. Kuhn's order was never filled.

Kuhn and his then fiance, Kathy, married in 1970, and, as often is the case, thoughts of fancy cars were put on a back burner. But the flame continued to burn for Kuhn until 2004 when Oldsmobile went out of production. In September of that year Kuhn started his search anew and found the 1965 numbers-matching 4-4-2 convertible, like the car he owned decades earlier.

Finding the car was no easy matter. A continuous Internet search revealed the car in San Jose, Calif., in the possession of a dealer. "I called him and he told me the car was sold but he suggested I call back in a couple of days just in case the deal fell through," he said.

Kuhn, who works in auto business for the F.X. Caprara stores, called again and was told the deal did fall through and the car was available.

Kuhn wanted to verify the claimed condition of the car so he contacted a Chevy store located near the dealer who had the Olds. "I said I'd be willing to pay a technician to look at the car and give me an evaluation. I was put in touch with a guy who, by chance, had serviced the car and told me it needed work but it was solid," he said.

The deal was made and the car was shipped to Kuhn. Because of his auto business connections he knew technicians who have worked on muscle cars so he entrusted the 4-4-2 to them.

"It needed a few parts but overall it was solid and fun to drive," he said. The car had been painted somewhere along the line, and now it was in showroom condition.

The backstory of the 1968 car is something that couldn't be made up. Here it is: The car was ordered by Dunham Oldsmobile, in Eugene, Ore., and sent directly from the GM factory to Demmer Engineering, in Lansing, Mich., where it was finished as a Hurst Oldsmobile. It was then delivered to Dunham Oldsmobile but never registered for the road. Dunham turned it into a dealership sponsored drag car.

Five years later, in 1973, Dunham Oldsmobile sold the car to Dennis and Debbie Strilzuk, of Eugene, Ore. They drove the car for three years and by then they had three children and the Oldsmobile coupe didn't meet their needs.

So they offered the car for sale and a man came to look at it and take a test drive. Dennis Strilzuk would later say he let the prospective buyer take the car for a ride when all along he was being taken for a ride. He didn't know the man's name and he didn't hold his license. You guessed it; the man never returned with the car.

That was July 15, 1976, and the Hurst Olds was long gone. Strilzuk said a police officer told him to "kiss it goodbye."

Fifteen years go by and the Strilzuks are contacted by the Washington State Police, telling them their Oldsmobile was recovered. Strilzuk still had the title.

There's no clear record of how many owners the Oldsmobile had while it was missing, but there were a few. Someone else who thought he had a claim on the car and the Strilzuks got into a legal hassle that was settled in favor of the Strilzuks.

Advance to 1996 and the car is sold to Robert Thomsen, of Eugene, Ore., who put it through a show-quality restoration. He sold it during January 2007 to a man named Patrick Doyle, in Arizona, who put the car into a private collection. Doyle took the car out of his collection eight years later and offered it for sale and now it's in the hands of George Kuhn, of Cape Vincent.

Kuhn explained that he had been hunting for such a car "on and off" over the years, and never saw one in person. While searching the Internet during March, 2015, he saw the Hurst Olds consigned to an auction in Atlantic City, N.J., but when it crossed the block it didn't make reserve and was returned to a dealer in Florida.

Kuhn talked to the dealer who had possession of the car and decided to go to Florida for an inspection.

"When I saw the car it was everything they told me it was. The car was flawless," he said.

You know the rest. Kuhn bought the car and now it's the big dog in his collection, which also includes a 1998 Chevy Beretta, an all-original car.

You pick the adage -- what goes around comes around, good things come to those who wait, patience is a virtue -- they all apply here. George Kuhn waited a long time for these cars, but it appears they were worth the wait.

1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass 4-4-2 convertible



Owner:

George Kuhn, Cape Vincent, N.Y.



Relatively rare:

3,468 produced including 1,695 convertibles



Motor:

400 C.I., V-8, 350-hp/440 lb-ft



Transmission:

4-speed close ratio standard



Color:

Triple black



Cost new:

$3,718.56



4-4-2:

Four-barrel carburetor, four-speed transmission, dual exhausts



Badge usage:

4-4-2 hyphenated was used from 1964 through 1967 and then hyphens were dropped on 442 badging, although GM internal documents and brochures continued to use hyphens.

1968 Hurst Oldsmobile 442 Holiday Coupe



Owner:

George Kuhn, Cape Vincent, N.Y.



So rare:

515 Hurst Oldsmobiles were built



This one is:

Number 159



Cost new:

$4,660.85



Color:

Peruvian Silver (all Hurst cars were the same color)



Motor:

455 C.I., V-8, 390-hp/500 lb-ft



Transmission:

Turbo Hydra-Matic



Special equipment:

Force-air induction, power front disc brakes, heavy-duty radiator, anti-spin rear axle, heavy duty performance axle 3.91,

Hurst conversion at Demmer Engineering, Lansing, Mich. The $418, included special machined crankshaft, distributor curve and carburetor jetting, modified Turbo Hydra-Matic, Hurst Dual-Gate shifter and console, other items included.



Red fender liners:

All Hurst cars had this GM exclusive. Red fender liners were used on certain GM models as far back as the mid-1950s.

Know about a car you'd like to see featured? Contact Kenn Peters: kpeters@twcny.rr.com. Previously from Kenn:

The MG Car Club of Central New York and its annual show of stylish European autos.

More great cars and news about cars.
Lynne DiGennaro, M.D., joins St. Joseph's Physicians Family Medicine - The Heritage Group, in Fayetteville.

Previously, she was a practicing family physician at Tri-Valley Family Practice in Vernon.

DiGennaro earned her doctor of medicine from SUNY Upstate Medical University, and completed her residency in family practice at St. Joseph's Family Medicine.

She is board certified in family medicine, and is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Xiaomi sales soared in 2014, when the smartphone manufacturer drew Chinese consumers by offering premium phones at a low price through an online sales strategy. Since then Xiaomi's revenue has declined as Chinas domestic smartphone market became saturated.

"I think they are doing what a U.S. patent attorney would like to see. They are strengthening their portfolio and preparing a business case for long term entering the U.S. market. So I think it's possible they are going into the U.S. market pretty soon," Wang said.

In exchange Microsoft-owned software will be bundled on Xiaomi phones. Ningling Wang, a partner in Shanghai with the law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, said the Xiaomi Microsoft deal may indicate that Xiaomi intends to sell phones to American consumers.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has purchased 1,500 patents from Microsoft, as part of an effort by Chinese companies to acquire intellectual property rights in preparation for expansion into overseas markets.

 Patent Portfolio

Through its arrangement with Microsoft, Xiaomi will now bundle Microsoft software, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and Skype on its phones. The company says the deal has expanded its patent portfolio to include video, wireless communication and cloud computing technologies.

Xiaomi's purchase of 1,500 patents from Microsoft is a fraction of the 60,000 patents Microsoft currently owns, but through this deal Xiaomi has eliminated a potentially litigious rival should it enter the U.S. market. Matthew Laight, head of the intellectual-property group in Asia Pacific for the law firm Bird & Bird, said many Chinese companies are purchasing patents to further their expansion goals abroad.

"Xiaomi is wanting to build its own patent portfolio, so it's got a bargaining chip in the cross-licensing discussions, and theyre doing that by way of developing their own technology, filing their own patents, and buying from overseas," Laight said. "And Xiaomi is not the only company that is doing that. The other significant players are Huawei, Lenovo, etc, have been building their patent portfolios for years, and sometimes that is by way of acquisition as well."

The acquired patents also allow Chinese companies to increasingly go on the offensive rather than defensive in cases involving intellectual property rights. Beijing authorities have recently ruled that some Apple devices violate the design patents of Chinese smartphone maker Shenzhen Baili. Last week the Beijing city government ordered a halt to sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s because of the patent case, which Apple is appealing.

China's State Intellectual Property Office recently revoked both patents owned by both Jaguar Land Rover and Jiangling Motors Co., after Jaguar Land Rover had filed a lawsuit against Jiangling Motors, claiming that it copied a car design. In May, Huawei filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court against Samsung, saying that it infringed on as many as 11 patents related to 46 devices.

 Market Strategy

Haifeng Huang, a partner with Jones Day in Hong Kong, said the purchase of patents allows Chinese companies greater leverage to target and compete with rivals, through transforming them into business partners and incorporating their technologies into their own products.

"Chinese companies, they are in the process of doing more and more R & D. In the meantime they want to catch up with technologies developed by other companies, and they want to incorporate those technologies into their own products. So by purchasing those patents they will be able to use those patents and incorporate those technologies in their own products," Huang said.

Xiaomi phones sold 71 million smartphones in 2015 in Greater China, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Brazil. A year ago Xiaomi was ranked number one in market share in China and third in global market share. Its sales have slipped since then, and the company has fallen outside the top five global smartphone vendors. The company says it is focused on building sales in India, before it enters the U.S. or other markets abroad.
Marotta's spinach pie is light, crispy phyllo crust enveloping a creamy, cheesy spinach. (MARIBETH RENNE/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

Maribeth Renne Columnist SHARE Marotta's lobster ravioli is pasta pillows filled with lobster with a choice of sauce, in this case marinara. (MARIBETH RENNE/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

A reader emailed me to ask why I'd never written about Marotta's. I wondered why I'd never heard of this restaurant and pizzeria.

Apparently, it is the best-kept secret of those living and working on the far west side of Vero Beach.

Just a quarter of a mile east of I-95 in a little strip of shops on Route 60, this tiny eatery whips up an impressive selection of Italian entree specialties and thin-crust, pan or double-decker pizzas, subs, and one of the best spinach pies I've ever eaten.

And at some very reasonable prices, too.

What makes a great spinach pie ($5.99)?

Marotta's light, crispy phyllo crust enveloping a creamy, cheesy spinach filling easily transported me to a Greek hillside on this particular rainy South Florida night.

We took full advantage of the Tuesday through Thursday cheese pizza special ($8.99), a large, thin-crust pie that ranks right up there with my favorite Indian River County pizzas.

Dinner entrees come with choice of soup or salad and light, airy and delicious homemade rolls.

My friend ordered lobster ravioli ($15.95). These delicate pasta pillows filled with lobster were a bit overpowered by her choice of marinara for the sauce. She probably should have gone the $3 extra and had the lobster ravioli with vodka sauce ($18.95).

She was a little disappointed with the Italian wedding soup. She scooped out broken bits of meatball rather than the full little meatballs she anticipated.

Her husband, quite pleased with his choice, had the special, a pasta trio ($8.95) with stuffed shells, ravioli and manicotti. He enjoyed his pasta with a simple side salad of iceberg lettuce and some tomato.

Chicken marsala with fresh mushrooms and onions ($18.95) arrived as three large, tender cutlets over a mound of spaghetti with savory marsala sauce.

After trying my readers' excellent recommendations of pizza and spinach pie, I ordered her other suggestion of chicken cutlet parmigiana ($16.95), prepared just the way I like it with a spicy, tangy meat sauce.

You can choose the marsala and parmigiana as veal entrees as well.

There are some interesting seafood entrees on the menu, including zuppa de pesce for two ($44.95).

This entree is an array of mussels, clams, scungilli, scallops and calamari sauteed in your choice of mild, medium or hot marinara sauce and served family style over linguini. It comes with a couple soups or salads and rolls.

Next time, we all want to try dessert, including homemade tiramisu ($3.95), cannoli ($1.95) or a variety of cakes ($3.95).

Remind me to save some room!

Maribeth Renne dines anonymously at the expense of Treasure Coast Newspapers for #TCPalm Social. Contact her at maribeth.d.renne@gmail.com or follow @mebpeb on Twitter.

MAROTTA's

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 8710 20th St., Vero Beach

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Closed between 3-4 p.m.

Phone: 772-569-9874

Alcohol: Beer and wine
SHARE Apple iPhone 6S (AP file photo/Kiichiro Sato)

By Nicholas Samuel of TCPalm

A former Martin County Fire Rescue chief pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge in connection with stealing a woman's iPhone 6S while drinking at a bar in Warrenton, Virginia, according to the Fauquier Now news site.

Thomas M. Billington, 53, of Warrenton, admitted guilt on a reduced charge of petty larceny as part of a plea agreement, Fauquier Now states.

If Billington completes alcohol addiction treatment and remains on good behavior for six months as part of the plea deal, he will avoid a guilty verdict, according to the news site.

Billington's case is being continued in Fauquier County General District Court by Judge Steven Garver until Dec. 22, Fauquier Now said.

Warrenton police charged Billington last month with grand larceny after he was accused of stealing an iPhone 6S.

Billington was employed with Martin County Fire Rescue for nearly 30 years and retired on Aug. 31, 2009. He moved to Virginia to work as fire chief for Fauquier County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services on Sept. 14, 2009.
Kristofer White

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By Elliott Jones of TCPalm

ST. LUCIE COUNTY  The state has fired corrections officer Kristofer White, 32, of Port St. Lucie, because of his arrest on charges of child abuse in St. Lucie County, a Florida Department of Corrections spokesman said Thursday.

White worked at Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown.

"The allegations against Kristofer White constitute a fundamental departure from the values inherent to our organization's mission," said spokesman Alberto C. Moscoso. The agency "holds our members to the highest standards, both at the workplace and at home."

On Monday, White was arrested on charges of child abuse and child neglect of a 15-year-old boy. That was after a relative intervened and brought the child to the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office on June 15, according to a sheriff's report.

The 15-year-old boy cried as he told Sheriff's Office investigators of being locked in a room for long periods of time, food deprivation and whippings, the report shows.

A 3-year-old in the house called him a "caged animal, " according to arrest affidavits.

White's wife, Ashley White, 26, also was arrested and charged with child neglect and cruelty toward a child without great bodily harm. Kristofer White is described in sheriff's reports as the abuser; Ashley White is depicted as a person who stood by and didn't intervene.

Kristofer White is out of the St. Lucie County Jail on $50,000 bail. Ashley White is out on $30,000 bail, jail records show.

In his arrest affidavit, Kristofer White denied any abuse. He said he spanked the 15-year-old boy and grounded him by putting him in a room for a week at a time.

The sheriff's investigation began June 15 when a relative of the boy's intervened and took him to the Sheriff's Office. The arrests are based on interviews with the boy, a 12-year-old girl and the relative.

According to the report, the boy was watched through a remote camera, along with a baby monitor, while he was in a locked room. He was not allowed to read books or play video games. His posterior was dunked in water then lashed with a belt.

The boy told deputies he understood that at times he needed to be spanked. On one occasion, he threw a pumpkin off a bed, put a sock on a dog's head and tossed toilet paper around a bathroom.

On several occasions, the state Department of Children and Families went to the house to investigate reports of child abuse, according to Sheriff's investigators.

"These investigations were not further looked into because (at the time) the child did not disclose any abuse, " according to the arrest affidavit.

Kristofer White

Age: 32

Job status: Fired as state correctional officer at Martin Correctional Institution, Indiantown, because he was arrested on child abuse charges away from work.

Background: He was hired Aug. 2, 2013. His rank as correctional officer was sergeant.

Source: Florida Department of Corrections
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. speaks to media outside his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio announced he will run for re-election to the Senate from Florida, reversing his retirement plans under pressure from GOP leaders determined to hang onto his seat and Senate control. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

By Ledyard King, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  Sen. Marco Rubio's decision to reverse course and run for re-election is good news for the GOP  but maybe not such good news for Rubio himself.

His pivot, announced Wednesday, gives Republicans their best shot at keeping Florida's Senate seat, and could be key to their hopes of retaining control of the Senate next year.

It means GOP leaders probably won't have to pour millions of dollars into the Senate race, freeing up resources for races in other battleground states.

And it helps soften the serious image problem that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has with Hispanics  including those in the nation's most important presidential swing state.

But Rubio's decision poses big risks for his own political future. He's expected to be a White House candidate in 2020 or 2024, but he would be political toast if he loses this year's re-election bid after getting trounced in the March 15 Florida presidential primary to Trump. And if he wins re-election, he'll cast dozens more controversial votes over the next few years that his opponents in a future presidential race could use for campaign fodder.

It's not clear voters will overlook Rubio's decision to break his no-re-election pledge, all the Senate votes he missed while running for president and his previous comments expressing frustration with the Senate's slow pace. He said he feels compelled to run now largely from a sense of public service  and to act as a "check and balance on the excesses of a president."

Even with Rubio in the race, the contest remains a toss-up, according to one key handicapper.

"He has solid name identification, an organization, and about $3.3 million in his presidential campaign account that can be used on a Senate bid," Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report wrote on the group's website. "However, that does not mean that Rubio will glide to victory in the general election. His 11-month presidential bid resulted in chronic absenteeism both from his Senate duties and from his constituents in Florida. He also has a voting record that Democrats will mine for fodder."

In an interview with CNN hours after his announcement Wednesday, Rubio seemed to acknowledge that a re-election run might endanger his potential presidential aspirations.

"If my plan was to run for president in 2020, jumping into a race like this with all the political risks associated with it would not be the decision one would make," he said.

He said he's "fully prepared to have the U.S. Senate be the last political job that I ever have," but he also he refused to shut the door on a future presidential run.

His rivals in the Senate race already are seizing on that to brand him as untrustworthy.

"Marco Rubio's spent a lot of time in Washington, so it's not surprising that he's lost touch with the values of the people of Florida," said Chris Hartline, spokesman for Republican businessman Carlos Beruff's campaign. "But the fact that he won't even commit to doing the full job he's asking the people of Florida to hire him to do shows just how much Marco Rubio has become Washington's candidate."

Beruff, a Manatee County developer who's reportedly willing to spend as much as $20 million of his own fortune on the race, poses the most significant obstacle to Rubio's nomination path, now that three would-be rivals  Rep. Ron DeSantis, Rep. David Jolly, and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera  have dropped out.

Still, two separate polls released over the past week show Rubio with a commanding lead in the GOP primary race.

If he wins, Rubio will face a tough battle in November from Democrats eager to attack his record on guns in the wake of the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, one of the Democrats running for Rubio's seat, already plans to spotlight his votes this week against strict gun-control measures.

"This is going to be one of the defining issues of this Senate races and a lot of races around the country," Murphy said. Another Democratic congressman, Rep, Alan Grayson of Orlando, also is running for the Senate seat.

Republicans running statewide in Florida have a tougher time in presidential election years given increased turnout among young voters, minorities and other traditional Democratic constituencies.

That helps explain why GOP leaders in Washington were pressuring Rubio for weeks to get in the race. They warned that the seat would almost certainly flip in November unless he jumped back in.

"I think Marco, name-ID wise (and) ability to raise money is very well positioned," South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, said the day before Rubio's announcement. "It's going to be a heavy lift to win that seat if he doesn't run. Nobody in the (GOP) field can start at the point that Marco starts in. It's going to be expensive either way but he can raise it."

Rubio spent $21.6 million to win the open seat in 2010. Analysts say it could require $30 million this time. And that doesn't include the money that super PACs and other outside groups are expected to spend. Within hours of Rubio's announcement, the free-market Club for Growth PAC pledged to support Rubio, while the League of Conservation Voters blasted what it called his anti-environmental agenda.

But Rubio's biggest hurdle could be Trump.

The real estate mogul's controversial statements  his pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, his support for forced deportations of undocumented immigrants, his recent criticism of the Mexican-American judge presiding over a lawsuit against the former Trump University  could depress Hispanic turnout for GOP candidates in November, which would hurt Rubio.

Rubio said he doesn't plan on campaigning with Trump, even in Florida.

"I think the difference between us on some key issues is so significant that I just don't plan to campaign (with him)," Rubio told CNN. "I've got to run my own race. I have my own identity."
SUBMITTED TO YOURNEWS Attorney Portia Scott is pictured with her parents, Catharine and Bill Scott, and her husband, Stuart City Commissioner Troy McDonald, during a family celebration of King Kamehameha Day, which, in keeping with a tradition started by Bill Scott, she closes her law office in observation.

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By Ike Crumpler, YourNews contributor

STUART  Paying homage to a tradition her father W.R. "Bill" Scott established decades ago, the Elder Law Offices of Portia B. Scott at 921 Central Parkway close on June 10 in honor of King Kamehameha Day. It's the 206th anniversary of King Kamehameha Day, which commemorates the uniting of the Hawaiian Islands with the state of Hawaii.

"My dad brought color and creativity to the work force as well as the practice of law," says Portia Scott, a fierce advocate for seniors who holds a rare degree in Elder Law and cares for her elderly father. "He's influenced me in so many ways  and this is a fun way to emulate him."

A former state legislator, Martin County attorney, City of Stuart attorney and founding member of the Martin County Bar Association, Bill Scott practiced law in Stuart for 50 years. He started closing his office for King Kamehameha Day to honor his late wife's Hawaiian ties and offer a make-up day to his employees for remaining open on President's Day, which falls during season. On June 29, 1988, a local newspaper interviewed Bill Scott about his unique holiday, noting the "little statue of King Kamehameha with a lei around its neck left at Scott's office."

"(King Kamehameha Day is) actually June 11," the article quoted Scott as saying, "but in true bureaucratic fashion, we celebrated it on the 10th."

"I guess we can say now the same thing," says Portia Scott. "Happy King Kamehameha Day, everyone!"

Contact the law offices of Portia B. Scott at 772-287-0096 or Scottlaw1@aol.com
Christina Phillips /SUBMITTED TO YOURNEWS Pictured is the 2016 graduating class of CLC at The Citadel.

SHARE Christina Phillips /SUBMITTED TO YOURNEWS First year cadets are shown getting ready for in-processing. Christina Phillips /SUBMITTED TO YOURNEWS A cadet is pictured on the Marine Corps obstacle course.

By Christina Phillips, YourNews contributor

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA  Treasure Coast High School Air Force Junior ROTC cadets returned from a week-long Cadet Leadership Course (CLC) at The Citadel Military College of South Carolina on June 18. TCHS was able to send 21 cadets this year to participate in CLC with more than 10 other high schools and cadets from the National Cadet Corps of Singapore.

First year cadets (basics) learned how to form a coherent group through team building (leadership lab), orienteering, drill, marksmanship, team sports, physical fitness and the Marine Corps obstacle course. Second and third year cadets capitalized on their previous training by practicing organizational, management and leadership skills by running functional areas such as mission support, standardization and evaluation and mentoring basic cadets as flight leaders.

TCHS cadets performed admirably and took home five top awards, including Overall Outstanding Basic Cadet and Top Female in Drill. There were also five honor graduates and four academic honors winners among the 15 basics that attended.

All participating cadets will use their experience gained at CLC to mentor and lead the TCHS AFJROTC unit's cadets in the coming school year. Congratulations, cadets!
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By Gabriella Insabella, YourNews contributor

PORT ST. LUCIE  One June 25-28, a group of four volunteers from the University of Florida, including myself, will travel to Washington, D.C. for the RESULTS International Conference, where we will have the chance to impact policy making at its highest levels and build support for the most effective solutions to poverty.

RESULTS is a movement of passionate, committed everyday people who together use their voices to influence political decisions that will bring an end to poverty. I am personally motivated to speak to people with legislative power about solutions to end the poverty I see in Florida, especially in my hometown Port St. Lucie.

We will meet face to face with legislative assistants of Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio as well as top congressional staff for Rep. Patrick Murphy, Rep. Ted Deutch and Rep. Ben Graham. During our time on Capitol Hill, Gainesville's group will push for changes in tax policy to ensure no one in the United States is taxed into poverty. We will also ask Florida's members of Congress to take up legislation that will help put an end to preventable maternal and child deaths in low-income countries once and for all.

We will hear directly from some of the leading experts on poverty, including advocate and broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health. In addition to sessions with top experts, the conference includes a series of advocacy skills workshops, and it culminates in a day of lobby visits with key decision makers.

In several hundred congressional and World Bank meetings, volunteer advocates will call for smarter policies and increased support for programs that are proven to help people move out of poverty. The annual conference will bring together more than 400 advocates from across the United States and all around the world all working together to fight poverty. The conference runs from Saturday, June 25 to Tuesday, June 28.

For more information, contact Gabriella Insabella at ginsabella723@ufl.edu or 772-224-5715.
SUBMITTED TO YOURNEWS More than 200 students will be in Fort Pierce this week to work as 'World Changers' on a variety of assignments ranging from painting 15 homes to collecting food for local food banks.

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By Shyanne Helms, YourNews contributor

FORT PIERCE  The City of Fort Pierce is excited to announce the arrival of our 2016 World Changers volunteers! More than 200 students will be in Fort Pierce this week to work as "World Changers" on a variety of assignments ranging from painting 15 homes to collecting food for local food banks.

This summer, World Changers projects will take place in more than 75 cities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Following a six-session "how-to" study that participants complete before coming, students serving Fort Pierce will hit the ground running. Students will be paid $280 to volunteer in the Fort Pierce work week.

"The City of Fort Pierce is honored to partner with the World Changers organization in its 26th summer of operation," said Mayor Linda Hudson. "To date, World Changers have volunteered for 16 summers in Fort Pierce and completed over 450 projects."

The World Changers initiative is in partnership with the City of Fort Pierce, who provides paint and supplies needed to complete the 15 homes and food for a neighborhood block party that will be held during the week. Area churches provide housing and meals for the volunteers. Many local businesses also participate by donating supplies and materials.

The World Changers organization is sponsored by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. World Changers began with a focus on involving senior high youth in hands-on missions. Since its beginning in 1990, World Changers has been committed to offering first-rate mission experiences. World Changers has expanded every year. It now offers a variety of projects for all ages.
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Just one quantum computer running artificial intelligence algorithms would be capable of connecting pretty much all the devices on the planet, Android creator Andy Rubin told an audience at the Bloomberg Technology Conference on Tuesday.

Rubin, who also launched Googles efforts in robotics, is now CEO of Playground, which together with Redpoint Ventures has invested in an unnamed startup working on quantum computing.

Working in concert, AI and quantum computing could yield a conscious intelligence that would underpin every piece of technology, Rubin suggested.

New computing platforms emerge every 10-12 years, and the next platform will be based on data and people training AI systems to learn, Rubin said.

Yes, were moving towards intelligent solutions, some of which will be locally controlled and others network controlled, on the edge of the network or in the cloud, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

But that intelligence just applies to the function of the device, McGregor told the E-Commerce Times. Its not like your toaster is going to be able to perform quantum mechanics.

Taking Baby Steps

Rubins vision extrapolates the way the Internet of Things could evolve.

Internet-connected household appliances already are available on the market, as are Web-connected hubs such as Amazons Echo and Googles Home.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon are battling for dominance in the smart home market, which will hit nearly US$122 billion by 2022, according to Markets and Markets.

Those companies, along with major automakers around the globe, also are fighting for position in the connected car market, which is projected to hit more than 70 million units by 2020, according to Global Industry Analysts.

Google, Microsoft and Facebook are working on AI technology and machine learning. More than 80 of the worlds 100 largest enterprise software companies, by revenue, will have integrated cognitive technologies into their products by the end of this year, Deloitte Global predicted. Those technologies include machine learning, natural language processing and speech recognition.

Meanwhile, IBM is racing ahead to make Watsons AI capabilities widely available. It recently opened access to its quantum processor, the IBM Quantum Experience, which runs on the IBM Cloud, to the research and scientific communities.

IBM also is working on ways to mass produce quantum computer processors, a technology Rubin reportedly considers necessary for his vision of the future.

IBM and other large companies  including Oracle, Salesforce, Google and Microsoft  also are working to leverage IoT.

The industrys going at a frantic pace right now, driven by the potential of the applications  especially in the industrial IoT applications like smart cities, autonomous vehicles, healthcare and industrial automation, McGregor said.

Were already seeing new processing architectures emerge, like those from IBM and KnuEdge, which are enabling technologies, but we are still at least a few decades away from the Minority Report scenario, McGregor noted.

No One AI to Rule Them All?

Rubins vision of one overarching intelligence running everything is reminiscent of some other failed predictions, observed Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. One could do this  but competition, differences between nation states, privacy concerns and latency will more likely result in a lot of [such intelligences running different devices].

That said, most connected things will likely be linked in some way, both for data acquisition and control, he told the E-Commerce Times. Still, it will take a number of years to replace existing standalone solutions with better-integrated AI alternatives.

Expect a 20-year window for this vision to play out, Enderle suggested, and places like Korea, China and Japan will move more quickly than the United States does.

Should one intelligence actually end up running things, that system will be substantially more intelligent than we are, he pointed out. At some point it may call our intelligence artificial.

AI recently has been the target of grave concerns from luminaries like Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil and others.

The AIShield is an effort to create a defense if AIs should get out of hand, Enderle said, and that effort should be better supported than it currently is, given the nature of nation states and the possibility of an AI doomsday device.
Britain prepares for a momentous vote Thursday that will decide whether it leaves the European Union. The debate has centered on immigration and economic security and has often been bitter. Both sides have lowered the tone of their arguments after a three-day suspension of campaigning that followed the murder of an anti-Brexit lawmaker, an incident that polls indicate has shocked many previously undecided voters who now say they will vote to remain.

These are uncertain times in a nation whose economy is the second largest in the European Union. The stakes are huge.

There are warnings that leaving the 28-member bloc may cause the British pound to lose 15 percent of its value and bring the resignation of David Cameron, the country's prime minister, whose mandate depends on whether Britain listens to him and votes to remain.

"If we choose to leave, we can leave. But let us be clear -- if we do leave, that is it. We are walking out the door," said Cameron.

For such an important election, many voters complain there has been too little solid information to make a decision and too much scaremongering, and grandstanding by both sides. Flotillas of the "Leave" and "Remain" camps recently faced off on the River Thames.

For months, the Leave campaign has been hitting the streets. Its arguments are based largely on immigration, and the belief that Britain has handed control of its borders to a European super state.

"The U.K. has lost control over migration. We have to accept anyone into this country if they have an EU passport, no matter if they have a criminal record or not. We are not allowed to say 'no' to people and that is damaging for the security of the U.K., but it is also putting pressure on jobs and opportunities for young people," said Tom Harwood, a Brexit campaigner.
Since mobile computing put an end to the good old days when IT departments had absolute control over software deployed in the enterprise, theres been a rise in employees use of third-party applications  a rise that poses security risks to corporate environments.

That is one of the findings in a report CloudLock released last week.

The number of third-party apps connected to corporate environments increased by 30 fold over the last two years, the firm reported, from 5,500 to 150,000 apps.

CloudLock ranked more than a quarter of the apps found in business environments (27 percent) as high risk, which means they were more likely than other apps to open pathways into an organization for cybercriminals.

Companies have not ignored that danger, CloudMarks researchers also found. More than half of third-party apps were banned in many workplaces due to security-related concerns.

Dangerous Permissions

All third-party apps pose a risk to the enterprise, but a specific subset of apps are particularly risky, according to Ayse Kaya-Firat, director of customer insights and analytics at CloudLock.

The apps that touch the corporate backbone are the riskiest of all shadow applications, she told TechNewsWorld.

Problems arise from the kinds of access the apps request from users, Kaya-Firat noted. When you want to use them, some of them ask you to authorize them to use your corporate credentials. When you do that you give those apps  and by extension their vendors  access to your corporate network.

The apps can pose a risk not only when theyre being used, but also when theyre not.

I may enable an apps access and two years later, I may not even remember I have the app on my phone, but the app continues to have programmatic access to all my data, Kaya-Firat said.

Because of the size of the challenge, organizations need to develop a high-level strategy to address the shadow app problem.

They just cant go over each application one-by-one, because of the growth rate. They need specific application-use policies. They need to decide how they will whitelist or ban applications, Kaya-Firat suggested.

They need to share those decisions with their end users, she added. It cant be a secret thing, because end users are taking action on these things on a day-to-day basis.

Loose Lips Sink Hackers

Its no secret that the information underworld often adopts techniques, processes and models from the legitimate world for criminal purposes. Such is the case with Operations Security, or Opsec.

The idea behind Opsec is an old one: Deny your adversaries information they can use to harm you. For hackers, that means denying authorities intelligence that can lead to detection of their activities, dismantling of their attack infrastructure, and exposure of their compromised environments.

Cybercriminals exercise Opsec in a number of ways, noted Rick Holland, vice president of strategy at Digital Shadows.

For example, they create legends about themselves  that is, false identities to prevent law enforcement or even other hackers from tracking them.

The ones that have mature Opsec will not use anything that ties their personal life to the legend theyve created, Holland told TechNewsWorld.

Theyll also try to mask the identity of the workstations they use.

Theyll use specialized operating systems designed to preserve anonymity, Holland explained.

Theyll try to obfuscate network connections, too.

Theyll do their evil from public hotspots and spoof their MAC address so they cant be traced from the logs for the hotspot, Holland said.

As some of the means for maintaining Opsec become more vulnerable to compromise  as has happened with Tor and bitcoin  hackers will need to adopt another legitimate technique to preserve their security.

Cybercriminals will need to adopt a defense in depth strategy, said Holland. Its something theyll need to do across their spectrum of people, process and technology.

Rewriting the Hacker Handbook

Ransomware not only has attracted many practitioners in the information underworld, but also has changed long-held expectations about garnering profit from online scams.

Ransomware has changed the entire model of how these criminal enterprises make money, said Ed Cabrera, vice president of cybersecurity strategy at Trend Micro.

If you look at the criminal handbook on how to make money, the first chapter is targeting, the second chapter is the attack  but theres multiple chapters on how to monetize the data that is stolen, he told TechNewsWorld.

It usually takes weeks or months to monetize that data, Cabrera continued. Ransomware is like direct sales. They go after a victim, and they can monetize in days. [*Correction  June 24, 2016]

Breach Diary

June 13. T-Mobile confirms that an employee in the Czech Republic attempted to steal and sell customer marketing data for that country. News reports peg the number of affected users at 1.5 million.

June 14. FICO purchases QuadMetrics with an eye toward creating an enterprise security score that can be used by companies to gauge their online risks and manage risk from third-party contractors.

June 14. Hartford Steam Boiler and Inspection Company announced first cybersecurity insurance program for consumers. Program coverage includes protection against computer and home systems attacks, cyber extortion, data breach losses and online fraud.

June 15. Home Depot files federal lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard claiming those companies are using security measures for their payment cards that are prone to fraud and that put retailers and customers information at risk.

June 15. IBM and Ponemon Institute report average cost of a data breach has risen 29 percent since 2013 to US$4 million per breach.

June 15. City of Geneva, Switzerland, announces it has arrested a suspect connected to the data leak at the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which led to the resignation of the Icelands prime minister and a number of government investigations into tax avoidance through shell corporations.

June 16. A hacker with the handle Guccifer 2.0 claims responsibility for stealing digitial files from the Democratic National Committee and posting them online. Earlier in the week, CrowdStrike attributed the data breach to Russian hackers.

June 17. GitHub has begun resetting an undisclosed number of passwords on accounts where those passwords were part of data breach dumps from other websites, Infoworld reports.

June 17. Acer announces that personal information for an undisclosed number of users who performed transactions at its online store between May 12, 2015, and April 28, 2016, is at risk from a data breach.

Upcoming Security Events

June 23. Machine Learning in Security: Detecting Signal in the Vendor Noise. Noon ET. Webinar by Agari. Free with registration.

June 23. Stop Breaches with Holistic Security Visibility. 2 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by Cyphort. Free with registration.

June 23. Securing Agile IT: Common Pitfalls, Best Practices and Surprises. 3 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by 451 Research and CloudPassage. Free with registration.

June 25. B-Sides Athens. The Stanley Hotel, 1 Odisseos Str., Karaiskaki Square, Metaxourghio, 10436, Athens, Greece. Tickets: free, but attendance limited.

June 25. B-Sides Cleveland. B Side Liquor Lounge & The Grog Shop, 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Tickets: free, sold out; with T-shirt, $5.

June 27-29. Fourth annual Cyber Security for Oil & Gas. DoubleTree by Hilton, 6 Greenway Plaza East, Houston. Registration: main conference, $2,295; conference and workshops, $3,895; single workshop, $549.

June 27-July 1. Appsec Europe. Rome Marriott Park Hotel, Colonnello Tommaso Masala, 54 Rome, Italy. Registration: members, 599 euros; nonmember, 610 euros; student, 91.50 euros.

June 27-July 1. Hack in Paris. Maison de la Chimie, 28 Rue Saint-Dominique, 75007 Paris. Tickets: before April 5, 288 euros; student or unemployed, 72 euros. Before June 9, 384 euros; student or unemployed, 108 euros. After June 8, 460.80 euros.

June 28. AuthentiThings: The Pitfalls and Promises of Authentication in the IoT. 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET. Webinar by Iovation. Free with registration.

June 29. UK Cyber View Summit 2016  SS7 & Rogue Tower Communications Attack: The Impact on National Security. The Shard, 32 London Bridge St., London. Registration: private sector, Pounds 320; public sector, Pounds 280; voluntary sector, Pounds 160.

June 30. DC/Metro Cyber Security Summit. The Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, 1700 Tysons Blvd., McLean, Virginia. Registration: $250.

July 16. B-Sides Detroit. McGregor Memorial Conference Center, Wayne State University, Detroit. Free with advance ticket.

July 23. B-Sides Asheville. Mojo Coworking, 60 N. Market St, Asheville, North Carolina. Cost: $10.

July 30-Aug. 4. Black Hat USA. Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: before July 23, $2295; before Aug. 5, $2,595.

Aug. 25. Chicago Cyber Security Summit. Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago. Registration: $250.

Oct. 11-14. OWASP AppSec USA. Renaissance Marriott, 999 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Registration: Nonmember, $750; student, $80.

Oct. 17-19. CSX North America. The Cosmopolitan, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas. Registration: before Aug. 11, ISACA member, $1,550; nonmember, $1,750. Before Oct. 13, member, $1,750; nonmember, $1,950. Onsite, member, $1,950; nonmember, $2,150.

*ECT News Network editors note  June 24, 2016: The following text has been removed from our original published version of this story: Although ransomware criminals typically use the bitcoin digital currency for their extortion schemes, cybercriminals concerned about anonymity have been turning to WebMoney, [Trend Micros Ed] Cabrera noted. Even though law enforcement over the years has been able to take down other anonymous payment systems, WebMoney is a more difficult proposition because its hosted in Russia.'

In fact, WebMoney has a multi-level authentication system, spokesperson Tania Milacheva told TechNewsWorld. According to the rules of WebMoney Transfer, each system participant should have a WM-Passport. The user can fully use the system services, only after his/her personal data was checked, verified and he/she has received a higher level of WebMoney Passport.

Further, its head office is located in Cambridge, UK. The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) license granted to WebMoney Europe Ltd. has secured the companys status as an e-money issuer in all countries within the European Economic Area, Milacheva said.

Trend Micro subsequently acknowledged Cabreras errors in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Jerrod Resweber.
ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application. It has several 'Modes', each one for performing a different task:

Read - Read a disc to an image file

- Read a disc to an image file Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc

- Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc Write - Write an image file to a disc

- Write an image file to a disc Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct

- Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing.

ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI. It can burn Audio CD's from any file type supported via DirectShow / ACM - including AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.

You can use it to build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEOTS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVDTS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder) with ease. It supports Unicode folder/file names, so you shouldn't run in to any problems if you're using an international character set.

ImgBurn supports all the Windows OS's - Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and 7 (including all the 64-bit versions). If you use Wine, it should also run on Linux and other x86-based Unixes.

It's a very flexible application with several advanced features that are often lacking in other tools, especially when it comes to burning DVD Video discs. It supports all the latest drives without the need for updates (including booktype / bitsetting / advanced settings on many of the major ones - i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, LG, NEC, Plextor, Samsung, Sony).

There is an image queue system for when you're burning several images (which you can automatically share between multiple drives if you have more than one) and an easy-to-use layer break selection screen for double layer DVD Video jobs. The Automatic Write Speed feature allows you store your favourite burn speed settings on a per 'Media ID' basis, right down to a drive by drive level. Data captured during the burn (write speed, buffer levels etc) can be displayed / analysed using DVDInfoPro.

Whilst ImgBurn is designed to work perfectly straight out of the box, advanced users will appreciate just how configurable it is.

Oh and let's not forget the best thing about it.... it's 100% Free ;-)

What's New:
Netflix was a pioneer in the early days of streaming video. After dropping a bomb on the traditional video rental industry in the first half of the 2000s, Netflix has spent the last decade forging a streaming business model that is loved by its customers (but has also served as a blueprint for the competition).

Competition is typically seen as a good thing for consumers but that's not always true. In the streaming industry, companies like Amazon and Hulu are vying for the same licensing contracts as Netflix. This means that A) Netflix will have to pay more to license content, B) it's not going to win every contract and C) some customers will inevitably jump ship to a competitor, resulting in less revenue coming in.

There are a couple of possible ways to handle the situation - raise membership rates or introduce ads -neither of which are great options for the consumer. But that begs the question, which of the two options would you rather have if you had to choose.

That's the very question that AllFlicks recently asked of more than 1,200 people on Reddit: would you rather pay more for Netflix or see advertisements while you stream? Incredibly enough, 90 percent of respondents said they would rather pay more per month than have to sit though ads.

Those that said they'd rather pay more were asked how much more they'd be willing to part with each month. The overwhelming majority said they'd be willing to pay between $1 and $2 more to continue to receive an ad-free experience. Just over 20 percent said they'd spend up to $3 more while around 15 percent said they'd drop an additional $4 or more to keep ads at bay.

When asked if the introduction of ads would drive them away from Netflix, a staggering 74 percent said they would cancel their subscription if the company introduced advertisements.

While Reddit isn't the most scientific of venues to host a poll for a multitude of reasons, the numbers speak for themselves. As AllFlicks notes, the results likely gel with Netflix's own internal findings which is why we haven't yet seen ads make their debut. It's highly unlikely that three out of four users would actually leave if ads were introduced but if even just a fraction of them did follow through with their threat, the impact would be tremendous.

That said, we'd like to hear your opinion on the matter. If you're a current Netflix subscriber, would you consider canceling your subscription if ads were introduced? Also, how much additional per month would you be willing to fork over to keep Netflix ad-free? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section below!
North Korea on Wednesday test-fired two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and while one failed the other traveled some 400 km.

A government source said the missile launched at around 6 a.m. blew up after some 150 m in the air, but the other, launched at around 8 a.m., traveled for some 400 km and fell into the ocean.

Five previous tests since April all failed disastrously. The successful missile was launched at a high angle that caused it to more than 1,000 km into the sky.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was apparently present at the launch.

A senior military source said the Musudan appears to have traveled 400 km, "which shows that the North has made some progress in terms of technology."

If the missile's range is indeed some 3,000-4,000 km, as experts estimate, it would be able to reach the U.S. military base in Guam.

Military officials here are trying to figure out why the North Korea tilted the second missile up at such a high angle and whether it carried a miniaturized inert nuclear warhead.

National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin chaired a session of the National Security Council at Cheong Wa Dae in the aftermath to discuss the next steps.
T-Mobile announced on Thursday that customers traveling to Europe this summer will be able to enjoy complementary unlimited high-speed data (up to 4G LTE speeds).

The promotion, which starts July 1 and runs through August 31, offers Simple Choice customers unlimited data across all of Europe (except in Andorra, oddly enough). The nation's third largest wireless provider said customers traveling abroad will get the highest available data speeds across the continent.

T-Mobile also highlighted the fact that texting around the globe is free and voice calls are $0.20 per minute throughout Europe.

Outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the carriers see your summer trip as the perfect occasion to slam you with insane international roaming charges. Traveling with T-Mobile, he said, lets customers use their phone the way they want without thinking twice.

The free European texting benefit is included automatically for Simple Choice customers meaning this isn't an opt-in offering.

In related news, T-Mobile is offering everyone - not just its customers - free in-flight Wi-Fi this weekend. Starting Friday, June 24 through Sunday, June 26, passengers on any domestic flight with Gogo Wi-Fi service can automatically get one free hour of Wi-Fi on their smartphone courtesy of T-Mobile.

Legere said they're offering this promotion to wireless subscribers of other brands to show them what it's like to be a T-Mobile customer.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile rolled out a new promotion that rewards its customers every Tuesday with freebies and other goodies. Part of that perk (at least, for the first two weeks) was a free medium pizza from Domino's. The promotion was so successful, however, that the pizza chain couldn't keep up and ultimately had to pull the offer.

Image courtesy Ekaterina Pokrovsky, Shutterstock
A new research has found a link between holding a university degree and higher chances of developing a mass of abnormal cells in the brain.

This association may seem unlikely, but researchers from Sweden and the United Kingdom discovered that a certain type of brain tumor was particularly common among those who studied at university for at least three years, compared to those who did not go on to higher education.

Basis Of The Study

Every year, more than 70,000 new cases of brain tumors will be detected in the United States. Incidentally, malignant brain tumor is the leading cause of cancer death among adolescents and young adults in the country.

The most common type of brain tumor is meningiomas, which represent approximately 36.4 percent of all primary brain tumors.

On the other hand, gliomas, which include tumors from the brain's supportive tissue, represent 27 percent of all brain tumors, and 80 percent of all malignant tumors. Gliomas begin in glial cells that support and surround brain neurons.

Although there are at least 100 distinct types of central nervous system and brain tumors, the primary causes of the illness are still largely unknown.

Indeed, few risk factors have been identified for brain tumors. Some factors include certain rare genetic syndromes and exposure to ionizing radiation.

Studying Risk Factors For Brain Tumor

In order to investigate risk factors for brain tumors, experts from University College London and the Karolinska Institutet assessed records involving more than 4.3 million Swedes born between 1911 and 1961.

All of the participants lived in Sweden in 1991 and were monitored from 1993 to 2010 to see if they developed any type of brain tumor. The researchers also collected data on income, educational attainment, marital status and occupation from the national census, national insurance and labor market data.

Within the said period, 1.1 million Swedes died and more than 48,000 relocated to a different country. A total of 7,101 women and 5,735 men developed a primary brain tumor.

Results Of The Study

The research team discovered the following:

1. Men who studied at university for three years had 19 percent chances of developing glioma, compared to men who did not go beyond compulsory schooling.

2. Women who had higher education faced a 23 percent higher risk of developing glioma as well as a 16 percent higher risk of developing meningioma compared to other women who did not go to university.

3. High disposable incomes were linked to 14 percent more chances of glioma for men. However, there was no link for women.

4. Occupation played a role for both men and women. Compared with men in manual roles, men in professorial or managerial jobs had 20 percent higher glioma risks and 50 percent risk for acoustic neuroma  a brain tumor that is non-cancerous but affects hearing and balance.

5. For women in professorial and managerial roles, the glioma risk was 26 percent, while the meningioma risk was 14 percent, compared to those in manual professions.

Limitations Of The Study

Although the study was based on a large, population-based cohort, the researchers emphasize that it is an observational study and they cannot draw any cause-and-effect relationship.

Another limitation is the fact that experts did not have information on lifestyle factors that could affect the chances developing a brain tumor.

Still, the research team asserts that the findings were constant. Details of the study are published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Photo: Paul Cleary | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Months after U.S. President Barack Obama reached a truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop supporting cyber espionage of American trade secrets, Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. targets appear to be on the decline.

A new report by cyber security company FireEye Inc. revealed on June 20 that security breaches most commonly attributed to Chinese black hat hackers had decreased by 90 percent in the past two years.

The most significant decline came during the weeks approaching the bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China, researchers said.

Possible Reasons

FireEye is best known for battling sophisticated Chinese hacking. In 2013, its Mandiant unit blamed a certain unit of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of China for a major campaign of economic espionage.

What could be causing the decline in cyberattacks? Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia, who took over as the CEO of FireEye, says there are several factors behind the drop.

He mentioned embarrassment from the 2013 Mandiant report and the 2014 indictment of five PLA officers from the same group that Mandiant uncovered. The victims of this cyberattack included Alcoa Inc., U.S. Steel and Westinghouse Electric.

Mandia also mentioned that the threat just before the truce between China and the U.S. could impose sanctions on Chinese companies and officials.

Still Monitoring

A spokesperson from Obama's office said the government is not yet ready to proclaim that China has indeed been complying with the agreement. However, he says the FireEye report could factor into the monitoring.

The U.S. official, who refused to be named, said that a second round of talks with China on the more intricate details of the agreement had gone well.

The East Asian country sent senior leaders, even after the secretary of the U.S. Homeland Security pulled out due to the Orlando shootings.

Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China, said the country has expressed its position on the matter countless times.

"We oppose and crack down on commercial cyber-espionage activities in all forms," she added.

Less Attacks, But Stronger

According to FireEye, intrusions from Chinese hackers into several U.S. companies have continued, with at least two firms breached this year. However, although hackers installed "back doors" to allow future spying, FireEye said there is no evidence that data had been stolen.

Laura Galante, an analyst for FireEye, said both hacked companies were in contract with the government. It was likely that the intrusions were methods to gather information on military and government projects.

And as Chinese hackers dropped cyber espionage of U.S. intellectual property, FireEye said these groups increased activity on other military and political targets such as Russia, South Korea, Japan and the Middle East.

Furthermore, FireEye said that although the cyberattacks decreased in volume, it increased in complexity. Like Russian hackers, Chinese intruders pick their targets more carefully and are more cautious in covering their tracks.

Photo: Day Donaldson | Flickr

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Samsung is determined to invest in the Internet of Things and has set its attention on the United States for that purpose.

Samsung Vice Chairman Oh-Hyun Kwon told the media about his company's plans for crafting and expanding the web-connected network of devices dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT).

The company's strategy is two-fold: first, the OEM will invest serious cash into R&D, and second, it will support U.S. policymakers in taking the best course of action.

Over a period of four years, Samsung will invest a whopping $1.2 billion into U.S. based research and development. The first stage will entail crafting systems that serve individual consumer needs, with a second phase where the technology will be expanded for larger social benefits.

Kwon exemplified the process by referring to nursing homes and healthcare systems.

Samsung announced that half of the hefty sum will go to finance IoT-related startups, while the other $600 million will support the company's U.S. facilities. The OEM already has a chip facility in Austin, Texas and the Innovation Center in Palo Alto, California.

One key element in the strategy is to persuade startups to use hardware built by Samsung, with a special interest in the components sector. The recent years showed that Samsung can be a reliable and massive supplier of chips, ranking second in global sales. As IoT is a chip-dependent industry, the company has a big interest in gaining a larger footprint.

In 2015, Samsung announced that it provides Artik chips for low-power IoT gadgets.

According to the president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics, Young Sohn, the company "still has a lot to do" in the components area. He explains that Samsung is working on a novel chip architecture that will equip autonomous robots, such as drones and cars, so that the IoT hardware gets computer vision.

The company is no stranger to the IoT industry. During the Consumer Electronics Show this year and the last, the company touted the progress that it has registered in the field. Samsung is certain that by 2020 each of its devices will feature IoT-support.

The company announced its latest plans during the "Internet of Things - Transforming the Future Conference" in Washington D.C. on June 21. The event gathers technology companies, politicians and academics who are keen on promoting the benefits of this technology.

In Samsung's opinion, authorities could accelerate the adoption and support the penetration of the IoT technology.

"The government shouldn't be a late adopter," Sohn says.

Samsung is already working on rolling out a new OS for its IoT devices, and you can read all about it in our coverage.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The latest Unicode 9.0 is officially here, adding a slew of new characters, scripts, symbols and emoji to spice up your conversations.

We already knew the Unicode 9 goodies were set to launch on June 21 and it's good to see that no delays ensued. The latest version now offers 7,500 new characters, 19 symbols for the new 4K TV standard, six new scripts, and 72 new emoji.

The new scripts and characters now support lesser-known languages such as Nepal Bhasa (a language of Nepal), Osage (a Native American language), Fulani (an African language) and more, as the Unicode Blog announcement notes.

The new emoji, meanwhile, include bacon, selfie, face palm, avocado, pregnant woman, half kiwi, baguette, lizard and many more. You won't find any rifle emoji, however, as Apple reportedly lobbied to remove it from this year's list of emoji candidates.

The new emoji will allow for more colorful conversations and more means of expression, adding to the growing trend of "emojifying" communication. Emoji have become so popular, in fact, that we even have a Bible translated to emoji so millennials would find it more appealing (the new face palm emoji might come in handy here).

The rolling on the floor laughing (ROFL) emoji is also in the mix with Unicode 9, as are clinking glasses, a person doing a cartwheel, a hand gesture emoji with the index and middle fingers crossed, a drooling face and many more. To see what other emoji are included in the new Unicode version, check out the full list.

Keep in mind, however, that although the latest Unicode 9.0 version is out, it will still be a while to see those new characters, symbols and emoji on devices. Apple, Google and Microsoft need to add them in their future software updates to make them available for users.

It shouldn't be too long, though, as the new emoji are expected to hit the scene this summer with Google's Android N and Microsoft's Windows 10 Anniversary Update. When it comes to iOS, users might have to wait until the final iOS 10 release this fall, as the latest iOS 10 beta doesn't include the Unicode additions.

With the latest batch of characters, the Unicode Standard now has 128,172 characters in total and it will surely grow even further in the future. This trend is showing no signs of dying down and emoji are a huge part of today's conversations, so more options are always welcome.

Are you excited about the new emoji? Which one do you like best?

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Jon Snow and his direwolf Ghost in Game of Thrones go to together like peanut butter and jelly. Considering that Ghost has proven to be fiercely loyal to Jon and a fearsome combatant in previous seasons, it seemed a little strange when he didn't make an appearance during season six's massive battle for Winterfell.

It turns out there's a reason why Ghost wasn't shown ripping into the Bolton army: Wun Wun the giant, or more specifically, how much Wun Wun cost to bring to life. CGI characters aren't cheap or easy to bring to life, so the showrunners had to choose between depicting Jon's direwolf or one of the last living giants during what proved to be one of the show's most impressive action sequences to date.

"[Ghost] was in there in spades originally, but it's also an incredibly time consuming and expensive character to bring to life," episode director Miguel Sapochnik says to Business Insider. "Ultimately we had to choose between Wun-Wun and the direwolf, so the dog bit the dust."

Sapochnik goes on to describe the difficulty of working Wun Wun into the events of the show.

"Anything with the giant is a challenge," Sapochnik says, "because he's not there, and you have to shoot multiple layers for each shot, and get extras to react to something that doesn't exist, and then shoot the actual giant played by Ian Whyte months later on a green screen stage."

Though Ghost didn't get the chance to shine at the battle, fans did see the direwolf earlier this season as he guarded Jon's lifeless body from those in the Night's Watch looking to kill the supporters of the momentarily-dead Lord Commander. Wun Wun ultimately sacrifices his life for Jon and the Wildling army, breaching the gates of Winterfell in order to bring victory for the Starks.

Perhaps with Wun Wun's death, fans can expect to see more of Ghost in action. Jon and Ghost are nearly inseparable in the Game of Thrones book series, but that obviously hasn't been the case on the show, where the CGI Ghost proves to be a costly addition. It does, however, seem like the show's budget only continues to grow, so here's hoping Ghost will get his moment in the spotlight in the few seasons left to come.

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A teenager from Ohio died from a rare, brain-eating amoeba after a rafting trip in Charlotte, North Carolina.

On Sunday, June 19, 18-year-old Lauren Seitz died of primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), said Mitzi Kline, Franklin County Public Health's director of communication. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the brain-eating amoeba's presence in Seitz's cerebral spinal fluid.

The rare and fatal brain infection is caused by the amoeba known as Naegleria fowleri (N. fowleri), which is also called the "brain-eating amoeba." The organism is typically found in soil and warm freshwater such as lakes, hot springs and rivers, and it can also grow in pipes and water systems, according to the CDC.

People cannot get infected by the brain-eating amoeba from drinking contaminated water. However, the one-celled organism can enter the body through the nose. Once in, it travels to the brain and causes the infection, which is usually fatal.

Based on a statement from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the teenager's "only known underwater exposure" was during a rafting trip at the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) in Charlotte on June 8.

During the rafting trip, Seitz's raft overturned, causing her to fall into the water along with several others who belonged in her church's youth music group. The fall could have sent the amoeba-contaminated water up her nose. The other church members who were in the raft with Seitz have not reported any illness.

The USNWC said in a statement that the facility gets its water from the two wells located on its property and from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities Department. The USNWC also mentioned that it disinfects all of its water using chlorine and ultraviolet radiation.

"The levels of UV radiation disinfection utilized every day, continuously, at the Center are sufficient to 'inactivate' the water-born amoeba in question to an effective level of 99.99 percent," said the USNWC.

Upon learning of the incident, the USNWC said it increased the chlorine in its system. According to Dr. Marcus Plescia, the director of the Mecklenburg County Health Department, the Center is "as safe as any body of water."

"Any time you go into a lake or pond, there are things in the water that can cause illnesses," said Plescia.

The CDC and the USNWC are conducting an investigation in relation to the incident with the help of county and state health officials. The CDC states that people, especially those who engage in recreational water activities, should be aware and exercise caution in warmer locations where N. fowleri has been found to be more common. The federal agency advises that people prevent freshwater from going up their noses.

During its initial stages, the infection's symptoms are similar to that of a bacterial meningitis, and can start between one to seven days after getting infected. These include fever, headache, vomiting and nausea.

As PAM progresses, symptoms can include confusion, loss of balance, stiff neck, seizures, hallucinations and lack of attention to surroundings and people. The infection's progress is rapid and can lead to death between one to 12 days after the symptoms start.

Anyone who experiences PAM symptoms related to the amoeba infection should seek medical care as soon as possible.

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President Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg will take part in a Facebook Live discussion as part of a summit that aims to bring the emerging markets and big industry players closer together.

The 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) will take place in Palo Alto, California, and 1,200 entrepreneurs from 170 countries are expected to be in the audience.

The Silicon Valley event wants to tighten the ties among relevant players in the United States tech sector, the community of venture capital and global entrepreneurs.

It should be mentioned that a slew of political issues that made the headlines during the past months will be missing from the agenda. These are extremists' use of social media, the private sector and government's battle for encryption and cyber safety.

The GES is at its seventh edition, with the idea for the summit appearing in 2009 after President Obama visited Cairo. During his speech in the Egyptian capital, Obama signaled that the U.S. aims to alter its policy towards the Middle East. Since then, the White House took steps to heal the relationship with the Muslim world.

According to a Reuters report, the event reached 17,000 people so far, a majority of which come from Muslim countries.

"We wanted to discuss not just what we're against, but what we're for," says Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

Rhodes also mentions that the U.S. must stand for the affirmative values it promotes globally, and which are an important aspect alongside the efforts to crack down on terrorist actions.

At the GES 2016, Obama and Zuckerberg will do an interview on Facebook Live, followed by discussions with four entrepreneurs from around the world. The subsequent talks will be held through Google.

Obama's focus at the GES will drift from the possibilities of technology to counter violent extremism. The President is expected to approach subjects such as the connection between entrepreneurs in emerging markets with each other, and with potential sources of capital. This should boost the value of tech entrepreneurship in emerging markets, leading to stronger security, albeit indirectly.

The Facebook Live discussion's format is still anyone's guess, but some hints are out there. Zuckerberg did not ask users to chip in with questions for the President, so we might be looking at a pre-designed pattern for the dialogue between the two.

Keep in mind that one significant appeal of Facebook Live is audience participation, as viewers can make use of reactions and comments in real-time.

Zuckerberg and Obama have met before as hosts of a public discussion. Five years ago, the President joined the Facebook CEO in a town hall kind of meeting with.

In 2016, however, the audience will be exponentially larger. Whereas the 2011 talk was addressed to the company's employees, the GES event has the capability to reach each one of the social network's 1.65 billion users.

It is expected that the high-profile summit will bring some wind in the sails of Facebook and make its live-streaming feature more prominent. Zuckerberg recently took part in a Q&A session of himself on Facebook Live, and it featured some hilarious moments. Check out our coverage to learn more.

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The Solar Impulse 2 recently and successfully flew over the Atlantic Ocean to mark the 15th leg of its circumnavigation complete.

The aircraft, as the name suggests, is fully powered by photovoltaic cells that harness the energy from the sun to operate its propellers. It has completed more than half of its journey around the world using only solar energy and has never wasted a single ounce of jet fuel. It's incredibly environment-friendly and just proves that renewable technology is the future of energy consumption.

"The goal is not to change aviation ... but to inspire people to use [renewable] technologies and show people they can use these technologies every day to have a better quality of life," pilot Bertrand Piccard comments.

Piccard is the second pilot of the Solar Impulse 2, working alternately alongside seasoned pilot Andre Borschberg, who previously completed the Solar Impulse 2's 118-hour journey across the Pacific, taking off from Japan and landing in Hawaii. This Pacific leg also holds the record for the longest uninterrupted flight in history and it's on solar battery too.

The impressive Atlantic feat, on the other hand, is a "symbolic" moment as it replicated what most transportation events in the history of mankind had accomplished.

"All the means of transportation have always tried to cross the Atlantic, the first steamboats, the first airplane, the first balloons, the first airships and, today, it is the first solar-powered airplane," Piccard described.

The original plan was to echo Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic where he landed in Paris, France, but due to inclement weather reports, the Solar Impulse 2 team had to find an alternate route to ensure the plane and pilot's safety. Seville, Spain, was the chosen destination instead, which also provided lesser complications for the plane's next takeoff.

"If we would have arrived in Paris like we wished, it would have been very complicated because we would have had to cross a lot of air traffic controls," explains team member Yves Andre Fasel, in charge of air traffic liaisons. "From Seville, if we go along North Africa, I don't think there will be a lot of difficulties - from traffic."

The Solar Impulse 2's journey will end in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where it initially launched back in March 2015. The team is reportedly working on the next and possibly the last route for the airplane to finally complete its journey around the world.

More information can be accessed through the Solar Impulse 2's web page. Its historic landing can be viewed in the video posted below:



Photo: Anthony Quintano | Flickr

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It seems that Microsoft finally addressed the persistent power-management issues plaguing its Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, with new firmware updates now rolling out.

The June firmware updates from Microsoft arrived not only for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, but also for the previous-generation Surface Pro 3.

For the latest flagships, battery issues particularly in sleep mode have been marring the experience from the very beginning. Back in December, Microsoft apologized for the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 issues and promised to issue a comprehensive update this year to fix a number of inconveniences.

While the two flagships had a number of bugs and problems, the more persistent issue and the one users complained about most was the battery drain in sleep mode. Normally, a device should conserve battery life while in sleep mode, but for some reason the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book did the exact opposite. The issue reportedly stemmed from power-management problems related to the Intel Skylake processors.

Microsoft released an update in January this year to fix various bugs affecting the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, but no sleep bug fix was included. The company finally addressed the issue in another update back in February and has been released a number of firmware updates since then to further improve the battery efficiency.

It remains to be seen whether the sleep bug issues are gone for good, but the latest firmware update should bring additional improvements in the battery department.

The Surface Pro 4 gets two driver updates, while the Surface Book received three driver updates. Both devices get a new driver for Surface UEFI, which claims to improve the system's stability when resuming operation from sleep and hibernation. At the same time, this driver also brings battery performance optimizations in connected standby.

Surface Book owners have also been complaining about the device shutting down all of a sudden while in sleep mode, and a driver in the latest firmware update should fix the issue.

Another driver for both the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4 will fix the issue causing the touchscreen to remain active even when the clipboard is closed against the keyboard.

If you haven't updated your device already, head over to Microsoft's site to grab the latest Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book firmware updates. If you've already installed them, drop by our comment section below and share your experience. Does it fix the issues, or are you still having trouble with power management?

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A Swiss ban on exports of luxury goods to North Korea is weakening the regime's ability to buy the loyalty of the elite, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday.

RFA quoted the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry as saying North Korea bought 87 watches worth US$11,000 just between January to April this year, before the sanctions went into force in May.

That rate suggests there will be a serious shortfall in gifts for top officials. Swiss sanctions will also affect other sectors like finance, RFA speculated.

On May 18, the Swiss government froze North Korean assets, closed bank accounts, and banned exports of 25 luxury items to the North.

The regime's imports of Swiss watches nearly doubled from $112,930 in 2011 to $201,880 in 2012 right after Kim Jong-un took power.


With this year marking the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, expect more retailers to release more Trek-related merchandise.

That includes a set of stuffed animals now available from Build-A-Bear Workshop. The Star Trek Build-A-Bear collection features four new bears marking the franchise's anniversary, including two versions of Mr. Spock, an anonymous red shirt bear from Star Trek: Voyager and a special 50th anniversary bear.

Like all Build-A-Bear plushies, each bear can be personalized with other outfits and accessories. Prices for the bears range from $25 to $52. It's almost worth it to pay more for the "red shirt" bear, because as all Trekkies know, his life probably isn't going to last much longer.

Build-A-Bear customers can also buy separate Star Trek uniforms for the company's bears, as well as other accessories, including the Star Trek theme song. Set phasers to stun!

Here's what the bears look like:

The first episode of Star Trek aired in 1966 on NBC and ran for three seasons. Although its time on television was short, the series remained in the hearts and minds of fans, and eventually launched into its own movie franchise. TV spin-offs also followed, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.

The movies also continued, covering both the original series and The Next Generation. J.J. Abrams rebooted the movie franchise in 2009, with the third film, Star Trek Beyond, premiering this year (although many longtime Star Trek fans would argue that those films don't belong in the franchise).

Star Trek remains more popular than ever: CBS also plans on releasing a new series next year, and so far, it seems promising, although there are concerns about it launching solely on the network's streaming platform All Access. Not only has CBS tapped Nicholas Meyer - who directed Star Trek: Wrath of Khan - as one of the show's writers, but Bryan Fuller - who got his start writing for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager - will serve as the showrunner.

Meanwhile, this year will see more 50th anniversary celebrations. Merchandise includes Star Trek Barbie dolls and there's a special 50th anniversary convention heading to New York later this year, featuring many actors from the various Star Trek series and movies, including William Shatner, Karl Urban, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Walter Koenig and the cast from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

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Beefing Up Security- Googles New In-app Verification | TechTree.com

On 11th June, Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKessons Twitter account was stolen by a hacker.

Two-step or two-factor verification is an extra layer of security that all leading sites use, be it Twitter, Google, or Facebook. It does, in most cases, work well; but it isnt foolproof, as McKesson found.

In scenarios where you receive a text with a verification code on your phone (which is usually the default setting), a determined hacker can engineer your carrier to forward text messages to their phone by simply calling the customer service and pretending to be you. So in effect, your security is really only as good as the customer service agent working for your service provider.

So once the hacker has tricked said agent, they can log in with your username and password (easily stolen from some leaked database), get your two-step verification code sent to their phone- and voila, theyre in.

Now, though, Google is fixing this by replacing the six-digit verification code with simple yes/no buttons. This immensely simplifies the verification process; its now super-easy, so you really should set it up. Its going to be available on both Android and iOS platforms, although although iOS users will have to download the Google app in order to take advantage of the new feature.

The update is expected to roll out this week for both.







TAGS: Google Security, Hacking
Almost Half Of India Affected By GODLESS Android Malware | TechTree.com

Most Android users have recently come across a family of mobile malware called Godless (detected as ANDROIDOS_GODLESS.HRX) that has a set of rooting exploits in its pockets. By having multiple exploits to use, Godless can target virtually any Android device running on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) or earlier.

As of this writing, almost 90% of Android devices run on affected versions. Based on the data gathered from the company's Mobile App Reputation Service, malicious apps related to this threat can be found in prominent app stores, including Google Play, and has affected over 850,000 devices worldwide.

Godless hides inside an app and uses exploits to try to root the OS on your phone. This basically creates admin access to a device, allowing unauthorized apps to be installed. It contains various exploits to ensure it can root a device, and it can even install spyware. A newer variant can also bypass security checks at app stores like Google Play. Once the malware has finished its rooting, it can be tricky to uninstall, the security firm said.

Trend Micro has also found various apps in Google Play that contain the malicious code.

The malicious apps weve seen that have this new remote routine range from utility apps like flashlights and Wi-Fi apps, to copies of popular game. Some apps are clean but have a corresponding malicious version that shares the same developer certificate. The danger there is that users install the clean app but are then upgraded to the malicious version without them knowing.

So far, Trend Micro has seen 850,000 affected devices, with almost half in India and more in other Southeast Asian countries. Less than 2 percent were in the U.S.

"When downloading apps, regardless if its a utility tool or a popular game, users should always review the developer. Unknown developers with very little or no background information may be the source of these malicious apps. It's also best to download apps from trusted stores such as Google Play and Amazon. Users should also have secure mobile security that can mitigate mobile malware," Mr. Nilesh Jain, Country Manager- (India and SAARC), Trend Micro said.

Trend Micro Mobile Security Personal Edition and Mobile Security Solutions detect all related threats in this attack.

TAGS: Mobile Security, Godless Mobile Malware
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Under the leadership of the current Brazilian president, "in the Amazon alone, deforestation has nearly doubled since 2018," the British journal recalled. | Read More
Pantech has bounced back from bankruptcy under new ownership to unveil a brand-new smartphone.

The company in a press conference in Seoul on Wednesday unveiled the IM-100, which celebrates its 13th-hour rescue because the name sounds like "I'm back" when read in Korean.

It is Pantech's first new smartphone in 19 months and the first since the Solid-Optis consortium acquired the manufacturer in October last year.

Pantech was once Korea's No. 2 smartphone maker, but its focus on premium models proved disastrous, so the IM-100 shifts strategy to more affordable models.

It costs W449,000, dropping to around W300,000 with packages offered by mobile providers (US$1=W1,155). It has a 5.15-inch screen and 32 GB memory.

Pantech also showcased what it calls the "Stone" as a companion device -- a wireless charger and 2.1-channel Bluetooth speaker in one. For cutting-edge simplicity of design, the IM-100 bears no logo. It will go on sale through KT and SK Telecom next week.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has warned Chinese President Xi Jinping that Japan may arm itself with nuclear weapons if North Korea's nuclear development remains unchecked.

Japan could go nuclear "virtually overnight," unless Beijing does more to rein in North Korea, Biden told Charlie Rose on PBS on Monday.

"When I tell President Xi, you have to understand we got a guy up there in North Korea who is talking about building weapons that can strike, nuclear weapons strike the United States and not only Hawaii and Alaska, but... the mainland of the United States," Biden said. "And I say, so we're going to move up our defense system, and he says no, no, no, wait a minute, my military thinks you're going to try to circle us."

Biden was talking about the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system that Washington is pushing Seoul into deploying here.

"And what happens if we don't work out something together on North Korea?" he added. "What happens if Japan, who could tomorrow, could go nuclear tomorrow? They have the capacity to do it virtually overnight."


The strong desire for more content options and content-on-demand is driving consumers to source online-delivered content which in the past has been the domain of traditional media sources. Photo credit: Vietnam News Agency

Traditional TV continues to maintain its leading position in terms of content distribution platforms by far with 72 percent of consumers watching broadcast TV, according to a report released Wednesday by global measurement company Nielsen.

However, alternative platforms are emerging as 78 percent of digital consumers report watching TV content and movies via online platforms such as video-on-demand (VOD). And 67 percent of VOD subscribers claim to stream VOD content every day.

YouTube (97 percent) and Facebook (81 percent) are acknowledged as the top two popular sources to access VOD content, the Nielsen Vietnam Cross-Platform Insights Report 2015 said.

The strong desire for more content options and content-on-demand is driving consumers to source online-delivered content which in the past has been the domain of traditional media sources, Doan Duy Khoa, director, consumer insights ,Nielsen Vietnam, said. Consumers are exercising their choice of how, when and where they can obtain their content and are more active in their media habits than ever before.

According to the report, more than 9 in 10 Vietnamese are dual-screeners. Regardless of age, they all love to access some form of content through TV and online sources at the same time. There is no single primary device for the two screens as smartphones, desktops and laptops are all used.

Khoa said: As device ownership increases, dual screening could become the norm. There is likely to be increasing experimentation to access content through new devices like smartphones, tablets, Connected or Smart TV.

As ownership of connected devices surges across the region, consumers are taking the driving seat when it comes to their consumption of media, choosing when, where and how they access content.

According to the report, 91 percent of consumers in Vietnam own smartphones compared to 82 percent in 2014.

Besides, Pay TV/cable TV (79 percent), laptops (78 percent) and desktops (75 percent) are the top devices owned by Vietnamese digital consumers.

The level of ownership for connected TV, smart TV and tablets remains quite high, at more than 43 percent.

The report also reveals that consumers in Vietnam on average spend 24 hours and 7minutes online per week, an increase of almost nine hours from 2014.

Consumers in the Philippines also spend the same amount of time on digital platforms. In Asia, consumers in Singapore are the most digitally active, averaging 25 hours and 9 minutes per week.

More specifically, Vietnamese aged 21-29 are spending the most time on the Internet, up to 27 hours and 2 minutes per week.

Next is the group aged 40 and above.

The rapid up-take of connected devices, especially smartphones and tablets, is instrumental in media consumption shifting beyond traditional media formats such as broadcast TV, and also beyond traditional time parts, Khoa said.

For media owners, it is becoming increasingly important to understand consumers viewing habits in order to deliver the right content at the right time, working in partnership with advertisers to uncover new opportunities to connect with and engage consumers to build brand awareness, affinity and loyalty.
As a construction boom spurs steel demand across Southeast Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are challenging a flood of imports from China by retooling their steelmaking technology or imposing tariffs.

U.S. and European steelmakers are leading complaints over alleged dumping, but cheap Chinese imports account for two thirds of steel consumed in many Southeast Asian countries. The region includes six of the top 10 buyers of Chinese steel, and capacity utilization in its own mills has slumped to less than 40 percent.

While steel from China is expected to dominate for many years, swelling demand is driving efforts in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia to build more modern plants to better compete with China's vast mills.

"China is a major force with huge supply dominating the world, but we have solutions to deal with it," Tran Tuan Duong, general director of Vietnam's biggest steel firm Hoa Phat Group, told Reuters.

Hoa Phat aims to triple production capacity to up to 6 million tons over 5-10 years using modern blast furnace technology.

The local unit of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group has begun work on a $10.6 billion steel complex in Ha Tinh province with an initial annual crude steel capacity of 7 million tonnes, although this month's planned start-up of the initial phase has been delayed by an environmental dispute.

Trade tensions

China has raised global trade tensions as its steel exports have soared, with surplus capacity estimated at more than 300 million tons, or triple Japan's annual output.

Steelmakers in Southeast Asia have been hit hard as many of the region's electric arc furnace plants, which use scrap as their raw material, are unable to compete with Chinese blast furnaces using far cheaper iron ore.

Many electric arc furnace plants have been idled and capacity utilization across the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping has fallen to less than 40 percent from around 65 percent following a 2010 regional free trade agreement with China that cut tariffs on a raft of goods, including steel, said Roberto Cola, president of the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council.

A man works at Hoa Phat steel mill in Hai Duong province, Vietnam June 14, 2016. Photo: Reuters.

Hoa Phat's Duong said Vietnam could compete with other Southeast Asian countries.

"But the trade deal is plus C, which means including China, and all troubles come from that," he said.

Vietnam was the second-biggest market for Chinese steel in 2015, with imports of 10.11 million tonnes, according to UK consultancy MEPS. Its own steel output that year stood at just 6.1 million tons, World Steel Association data showed.

"With Southeast Asia as a whole it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation," said MEPS analyst Jeremy Platt. "The cheap imported steel is benefiting their economic development, but it is hindering the ability to develop their steelmaking sector."

Tariffs rise

Several countries are introducing tariffs to protect local industry.

Vietnam in March imposed temporary anti-dumping tariffs ranging from 14 percent to 23 percent on steel imports from China and elsewhere. It slapped additional import duties of up to 25 percent on more Chinese steel products that last until October 2019.

Thailand's commerce ministry is working on the final draft of an anti-dumping law and expects to propose the draft for approval by end-2016, a spokeswoman said.

The moves come as local steelmakers hope to cash in on an expected jump in demand.

Indonesia and the Philippines face a huge backlog in infrastructure, said the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council's Cola, with steel consumption in ASEAN forecast to reach 80 million tons by 2018 from 70 million tons last year.

Indonesia's Krakatau Steel is building a blast furnace with a capacity of 1.2 million tons west of Jakarta, which it expects will be completed shortly.

Red hot molten iron pours from a steel furnace at Hoa Phat steel mill in Hai Duong province, Vietnam June 14, 2016. Photo: Reuters.

Vietnam's steel consumption surged 34 percent in the first five months of 2016, and demand is expected grow at more than 10 percent a year over the next decade as rapid economic growth fuels infrastructure development, said Hoa Phat's Duong.

Steelmakers' share prices have risen in anticipation. Vietnam's Hoa Phat Group has climbed 35 percent this year, smaller rival Hoa Sen has gained 94 percent, and Krakatau Steel has rallied 123 percent.

In Thailand, steelmakers expect the first annual growth in demand in three years as the government begins work on over $50 billion in infrastructure projects. Shares of Tata Steel (Thailand) Pcl, have surged nearly 40 percent.

A unit of India's Tata Steel Group and Thailand's largest steel producer, the firm canceled some shipments from Thailand to India in April to supply the metal to the Thai market.

"We have seen signs of improving demand for steel, mainly from the government projects including city rail and road projects," said Rajiv Mangal, chief executive of Tata Steel's Thai unit, who sees sales rising 10 percent this year.
The State Bank of Vietnam has approved a plan to acquire a stake of 52 percent in state-controlled PVcombank as part of the ongoing restructuring process at the medium-sized lender, local media reported on Wednesday.

The stake is currently held by national oil giant PetroVietnam and the change of ownership will not cost the central bank money, news website VnExpress said, citing a plan that PVcombank is expected to present to shareholders.

Established in 2013 from a merger between PetroVietnam Finance Corp. and Western Bank, the lender officially known as Vietnam Public Joint Stock Commercial Bank has a charter capital of VND9 trillion ($398 million). Morgan Stanley currently owns a stake of 6.66 percent, according to the bank's website.

PVcomBank reported a net profit of VND56 billion (US$2.47 million) last year, down 39 percent from 2014.

Vietnam has asked state-owned enterprises to pull out of sectors that are not their main business areas. As PetroVietnam planned its divestment from PVcomBank, the central bank emerged as a suitable candidate to take over the shares, local media reported.

Last year the central bank took over three small loss-making lenders -- Global Petro Bank, Vietnam Construction Bank and Ocean Commercial Bank -- at zero dong, after their reportedly failed restructuring attempts.

The acquisitions were part of the central bank's efforts to restructure the overcrowded banking sector that was blamed for dragging on the economy with bad debts in previous years.

The central bank has orchestrated 12 mergers among 22 commercial banks and four financial companies. Another five mergers between five banks and five financial companies organizations approved by the central bank over the years are waiting for conclusion.

Vietnam now has 43 banks, including six wholly foreign owned. That number is expected to be reduced to 20-25 in the next two years, according to the central bank's plan.

The banking sector's bad debts were equivalent to 2.62 percent of total loans at the end of March, compared to 2.55 percent at the end of last year, official data showed.
An Australian veteran who lost a leg has arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on a bicycle ride from Hanoi to Sydney to support fellow veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Laurie Truck Sam, 67, served with the Special Air Service Regiment in Vietnam in 1970 before losing a leg in a parachute accident in 1995, according to a press release by the Australian Consulate in HCMC.

He left Hanoi on May 12 and aims to finish the 10,000km ride, which he calls "The Longest Ride Home", at Sydney Opera House on November 20.

Photo provided

So far hes pedalled 2,500 km through the steamy jungles and paddy fields of Vietnam in intense wet season humidity dodging potholes, motorcycles, buffalos and lumbering lorries, the release said.

He will leave HCMC for Bangkok on June 23, this time joined by other SAS veterans.

A world champion parachutist, Truck was awarded Australias Star of Courage in 2001 for saving his tandem parachute student in the 1995 accident.

After learning to walk with a prosthetic leg he led two trekking expeditions in Thailand and has completed charity bike rides around Asia, especially in Vietnam.
Police in Hanoi on Thursday arrested a woman accused of publishing dozens of posts on Facebook which they say have defamed many local celebrities over the last few months.

They said that Tran Thi Huong Giang was the key member of a group of several individuals who anonymously posted many libellous notes on their Facebook accounts.

Giang, 37, was arrested at her house at around 10 a.m. for abusing democratic freedoms."

Police said that Giang had managed two Facebook accounts followed by thousands of regular readers.

Some of the most popular posts accused Vietnamese top models of working for a luxury prostitution ring. The group also wrote about alleged love affairs between pop stars and rich married men.

Police said they are expanding the investigation into the case.

Hours after Giang's arrest, a surprise statement was released on the group's Facebook accounts, saying that the anonymous exposers would continue to unmask " ugly sides of the showbiz world.

The statement claims that the real mastermind of the group is in New York.

It also says that what has been written by the group is not defamatory because there are documents to prove it.
A photo shot and tweeted from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. House Rep. Katherine Clark shows Democratic members of the House staging a sit-in on the House floor 'to demand action on common sense gun legislation'

Democrats staged a "sit-in" on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday demanding the chamber remain in session until Republicans agree to a vote on gun control legislation following the Orlando mass shooting.

Chanting "No bill, no break!" scores of Democratic lawmakers joined in the protest that began around midday and continued well into the evening even as House Republican leaders sought to maneuver around the Democrats' sit-in by using procedural rules to schedule a vote on unrelated legislation.

Democrats vowed to continue their demonstration.

"We are in for the long haul here," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, saying members intended to keep up their sit-in as long as it takes to get a vote on a bill.

But Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said he would not bend to the Democrats' demands, which he called a "publicity stunt" and vowed not to bring up any bill that would take away gun owners' constitutional rights.

Not since August 2008, when House Republicans, then in the minority, took the floor to demand a vote on allowing offshore drilling has the House been brought to a standstill by a protest.

The Democrats' move echoed last week's filibuster by Senate Democrats to protest inaction on guns in the wake of the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

After the Senate talk-a-thon, the Senate's Republican majority scheduled votes on four gun control measures - all of which failed on Monday. Work on a compromise is under way.

Guns are a potent U.S. political issue and Americans are on edge after mass shootings in recent years in Connecticut, Colorado, California and elsewhere. Congress has not passed major gun control legislation since 1994, with gun rights defenders saying such measures infringe on the constitutional right to bear arms.

Ryan said he would not follow suit: "They know that we will not bring a bill that takes away a person's constitutionally guaranteed rights without ... due process," he said on CNN.

Instead, Republicans said on Wednesday evening they would reconvene to vote on financial regulation legislation and file a $1.1 billion funding measure to fight Zika in a move aimed at returning the chamber to order.

Chanting lawmakers

But the Democratic protesters stayed in the chamber into the evening giving impassioned speeches and urging action before a break scheduled to begin this weekend through July 5, vowing to stay all night beyond any votes.

A photo shot and tweeted from the floor of the House by U.S. House Rep. David Cicilline shows Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Rep. John Lewis (R) staging a sit-in on the House floor "to demand action on common sense gun legislation" on Capitol Hill in Washington, United States, June 22, 2016.

Led by Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, Democrats urged gun control measures such as tighter background checks and legislation to curb the sale of weapons to people on government watch lists.

More than eight hours into the sit-in, Lewis gave an impassioned speech on the House floor to the more than 100 fellow Democrats huddled around him urging them to "never, ever give up."

"They (the American public) want us to do something. We have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate to do something," Lewis said to applause and cheering.

Pelosi invoked not only Orlando but other mass shootings including the attack a year ago by a white man at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine. Right now there is an opportunity," she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the House's presiding officer, Republican Representative Ted Poe, entered the chamber around noon (1600 GMT) to find a number of Democratic lawmakers in the front of the chamber chanting, some sitting on the floor.

After banging the gavel in an attempt to clear the protesters, he announced the chamber would be in recess and left.

Several Democratic senators crossed the Capitol to join protesters, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine and Cory Booker, all mentioned as potential running mates for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Clinton's rival in the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders, also appeared.

Tweets of support came from outside Congress. "Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most," President Barack Obama tweeted.

Clinton tweeted: "This is what real leadership looks like."

Lawmakers also took to social media to document their demonstration with video and pictures, particularly after House Republicans shut down video cameras that normally document the chamber.

Outside the Capitol, nearly 50 people gathered in solidarity at a rally organized by Everytown for Gun Safety, the advocacy group backed by former New York Mayor Bloomberg.

Many House Republicans said they viewed the problem differently from Democrats. "We don't view the fact that someone becomes radicalized and decides to kill a bunch of Americans ... as a gun problem," Representative John Fleming of Louisiana said on Wednesday. "We view that as a terrorist problem."
Indonesian President Joko Widodo gestures during an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 10, 2016.

Indonesia's president visited the Natuna Islands aboard a warship on Thursday, making a bold move to assert sovereignty over the area in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters.

President Joko Widodo's visit along with his chief security minister and foreign minister was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue.

A presidential palace statement said Widodo intended to hold a cabinet meeting aboard the warship.

"In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Beijing said on Monday that while China does not dispute Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests".

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Wednesday rejected China's stance, saying the waters around Natuna are in Indonesian territory.

There have been a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in the area but both sides have denied that the matter is a territorial or diplomatic dispute.

Widodo's visit to the remote island chain, which lies over 340 kilometers (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Kalimantan - Indonesia's portion of Borneo island - was also aimed at promoting infrastructure development in Indonesia's border areas.

"We want to show that Indonesia is a big country and we have to show this physically," Widodo said in a statement, referring to those infrastructure ambitions.
Displaced Iraqi children, who fled from Falluja because of Islamic State violence, are seen at a camp on the outskirts of Falluja, Iraq, June 22, 2016.

Upcoming military offensives in Iraq against Islamic State, including an assault on the northern city of Mosul, could displace at least 2.3 million people, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday.

The prediction of such a vast humanitarian emergency creates additional complications for the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, who have announced plans for offensives to drive Islamic State fighters this year from most of their Iraqi territory.

More than 3.4 million people across Iraq have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes, according to the United Nations. In the past month, 85,000 people fled Falluja, an hour's drive from Baghdad, amid a military campaign that has recaptured large parts of the city from the jihadists.

Most of the displaced are from Iraq's minority Sunni community, raising concerns among officials that U.S.-backed military gains against Islamic State will not bring stability to Iraq more than 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

Islamic State fighters swept through much of northern and western Iraq two years ago and declared a caliphate to rule over territory there and in neighboring Syria.

The jihadists have lost ground in recent weeks to a number of enemies on several fronts in both countries, with the main battles still looming for the caliphate's two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters in an interview that at least 430,000 more people could be displaced this year in Anbar, Iraq's sprawling desert province stretching west from Falluja to the Syrian border.

Displaced people, who fled from Falluja because of Islamic State violence, wait for security checks from Iraqi security forces during a dust storm on the outskirts of Falluja, Iraq, June 18, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer.

Government forces have retaken several cities in Anbar from Islamic State in the past six months and are still pressing up the Euphrates river valley towards the border town of Qaim.

Grande said another 830,000 people would be displaced along "the Mosul corridor", stretching more than 100 km (60 miles) from northern Salahuddin province towards the Islamic State stronghold.

In Mosul itself, by far the largest city under the militants' control, the worst case scenario could see one million people displaced, said Grande.

"We're literally talking in just a few months about doubling the number of families who are displaced in the country," she said. "We're trying to pre-position supplies and develop contingencies for all of those areas and we're doing so with 30 percent of the appeal that we've asked for."

The humanitarian community this year requested $861 million to assist 7.3 million Iraqis in need across the country, but so far it has only received about $266 million.
Heads up to prevent injury from falls Morning walks in my neighborhood are one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. I love the coolness of daybreak and the special sightings of the stag and two does that frequent our open space. I also enjoy my walk because each day at...

Signs that point to the best time for retirement Ive been thinking a lot about retirement lately. One of our amazing staff members, who has been with Senior Concerns for the last 13 years, retired last month. It just doesnt seem real. I always thought of Dana as young. Certainly not the person to...

Rethinking the mandatory retirement age How old is too old for working at a job? Last week a news story hit my inbox and it really got me to thinking about age and retirement. The article noted that Target Corp. abandoned its mandatory retirement age of 65 for its CEO,...

Tips to promoting a healthy nights sleep for children Question: Help, please. My daughter is almost 2 years old and has been an easy child to put into her own bed. Yet in the past few weeks she is purposefully stretching out the bedtime routine longer and longer. She wants more: more stories, more...
Every now and again a play comes along which is too important to ignore. Disgraced by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar is such a play. It is being staged for a short season at the Playhouse at the Canberra Theatre Centre. Do whatever needs to be done to get a ticket, but do not miss it.

Akhtar's script is as tightly woven as a richly tapestried Persian rug, unique in its tantalising and intertwined plot and electrifying in its relentless argument and impassioned debate. From the outset, Steve Francis's portentous soundtrack pervades set designer Elizabeth Gadsby's luxury New York apartment with a sense of foreboding.

Sachin Joab, left and Shiv Palekar in Disgraced. Credit:Prudence Upton

It all begins innocently enough. Highly successful corporate lawyer, Amir Kapoor (Sachin Joab) is being painted by his artist wife, Emily (Geraldine Hakewill). The conversation turns to the plight of an imam, imprisoned on suspicion of collecting money to support terrorism, an accusation vociferously denied by Amir's young nephew Abe (Shiv Palekar) and Emily. An innocent and urgent request for Amir to argue on the imam's behalf, and its subsequent reporting provides the catalyst for Akhtar's powerful human tragedy. What ensues is a deep and disturbing analysis of human vulnerability. A dinner party, hosted by Emily and Amir with Jewish gallery owner and art dealer Isaac and his wife and colleague of Amir, Jory (Paula Arundell) erupts into a hostile assault on faith, opinion, and personal recrimination. With illuminating contemporary relevance, the dinner party descends into a violent confrontation and bitter attack on the irrefutability of personal conviction. In an ironic twist, Akhtar turns the argument to the personal with shocking revelations that leave Amir in a crouching position of agonised confusion. Forced to confront the consequences of his ambition, his belief and his actions, Amir is left struggling to search for his own truth, his true belief and his real identity.

Compelling, confronting and provocative, Sarah Goodes' superbly timed and deliberately paced production allows time between scenes for considered reflection. Her direction demands an audience to listen, to contemplate every action, absorb every idea and weigh belief with opinion in the search for truth and understanding. Goodes is assisted by a brilliant cast and creative team. As Amir, Joab gives a riveting performance in his depiction of a tormented soul brought down by hamartia, a single error of judgment that conspired with his other failings to bring about his downfall. He is supported by an outstanding ensemble in Hakewill as Emily, striving for mediation and reason in the interpretation of dogma, Shiv Palekar as the confused Pakistani-American youth, Glenn Hazledine as the self-assured, opinionated art dealer and Paula Arundell, feisty, forthright and forceful in her performance as Jory.
A man out on bail who reported to a police station with a stolen bank card and a "significant" quantity of drugs hidden in his sock was "either not real bright or incredibly arrogant", according to a magistrate.

Simon Milne Snowden, 44, was remanded in custody in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday after breaching the conditions of his bail.

Mr Snowden had been required to report to the City Police Station each Wednesday between 8am and 8pm as a condition of his bail for a drug supply charge from June 9, the court heard.

On Wednesday he arrived at the station 2 hours late at 10:30pm and police allegedly found 20 pills thought to be MDMA, two bags of ice, a bag of cannabis, a stolen bankcard and two stolen health cards when they arrested him for breaching his bail.

Snowden was already facing several other charges including another count of drug supply, two counts of possessing a knife and conspiracy to defraud and the court heard he was due to return for a hearing in November.
SEEK has paid $182 million to completely buy out its Brazil business and up its stake in its Asia venture.

On Thursday morning, the employment group announced it had bought the remaining 49 per cent of its Brazil Online business for $104 million. It also paid $78 million to increase its stake in Seek Asia from 80.8 per cent to 86.2 per cent.

SEEK chief Andrew Bassat. Credit:Josh Robenstone

News Corporation owns the remaining 13.8 per cent of Seek Asia.

SEEK said the transactions are expected to be earnings per share accretive from the 2017 financial year onwards. The company also reaffirmed its 2016 guidance of approximately $195 million net profit, not including the sale of education business IDP and around $20 invested in early stage ventures.
Telstra has completed the sale of a 47.4 per cent stake in Chinese car website Autohome, giving it funds for a $1.5 billion capital management program - most likely an on-market share buyback, according to one analyst.

Ping An Insurance Group paid $US1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) for the stake, with Telstra pocketing about $1.8 billion from the sale once adjustments including foreign exchange rates are made.

Details of a planned capital management program will be announced in August, Telstra boss Andy Penn says. Credit:Bloomberg

"Autohome has been an excellent investment for Telstra and we are pleased to have realised significant value for Telstra shareholders," said Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn, who added details on the capital management program will be announced in August when the company reveals its full-year results.

Telstra will retain a 6.5 per cent stake in the site after the sale and keeps one seat on the board. The deal faces "residual litigation" in the Cayman Islands, which the company is contesting, Telstra said.
As I listened to the stormy debates in the run-up to the vote on whether Britain should exit the European Union, my thoughts keep drifting to my friend Jo Cox, a member of Parliament assassinated last week.

Jo was a leader who fought for genocide victims in Darfur, for survivors of human trafficking, for women's health, for Syrian refugees and, yes, for remaining in the European Union. She was also a proud mom of two small children: When she was pregnant, she used to sign her emails "Jo (and very large bump)".

Jo's dedication to the voiceless may have cost her her life. At least one witness said that the man who stabbed and shot Jo shouted "Britain first!" and when he was asked to say his name at a court hearing he responded, "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Yet from awful events bittersweet progress can emerge. In five days, a fund in Jo Cox's memory has raised more than 1.3 million ($2.5 million) for causes she supported. Likewise, perhaps revulsion at the murder will leave voters wary of the xenophobic tone of some of the Leave campaigners in the "Brexit" referendum.
Donald Trump delivered a cohesive and effective indictment of Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign on Wednesday, painting the former secretary of state as a pay-to-play politician who purposely keeps the public in the dark about her activities and who puts personal ambition above all else.

"Hillary Clinton's message is old and tired," Trump said. "Her message is that [things] can't change. My message is that things have to change  and this is our one chance do it. This is our last chance to do it."

That's the right message for Trump. Finally. After almost two months of wasted motion, Trump put a frame on the race  Clinton as corrupt insider, Trump as crusading outsider  that could actually beat the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

The problem? The messenger. Campaigns work when the message and the messenger complement each other. Barack Obama ran on a message of "hope" and "change". It worked because he embodied what he was promising: a fundamentally different approach to politics. He was African American. He was named "Barack Hussein Obama." He had spent two years in the Senate before running for the White House. It all worked together. The message was the messenger.
Is there is a collective wisdom and wit in the crowd? The world over, there seems much evidence communities have metaphoric antennae that identify cant and calumny. But there are, too, abundant examples of crowds getting things terribly wrong  to be popular does not necessarily imply being right. The rise of the Nazi regime last century comes to mind as a particularly egregious case.

It would appear Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten think voters, or a lot of them, are witless to the point of stupidity. The shrillness and sheer dishonesty of the leaders' recent scare campaigns not only show a disdain for the intelligence and sophistication of voters, but are a cynical trashing of the very notion that should be at the heart of lawmaking and governance  positions of public office are positions of public trust.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson

Mr Turnbull snatched the prime ministership last September amid buoyant community expectations he would keep his undertaking to lead mature debate and to end negativity and an unseemly reliance on slogans. And yet this is the man whose popularity has so quickly plummeted amid community disappointment at his performance, which, as we near the end of an unnecessarily long election campaign, has been reduced to repeating a three-word slogan: jobs and growth.

Worse, indicating the unexpected tightness of the election, our Prime Minister is knowingly misrepresenting Labor's policies on border protection. For years, both the Coalition and Labor have competed to produce harsh and even cruel policies to prevent people seeking asylum reaching Australia by boat. Both sides repeat the lie that it is unlawful to seek asylum in such a way. Both sides support mandatory offshore detention and turning back boats.
Poor Scott Morrison. A rich, white man in an expensive suit facing hatred and bigotry. The point he misses is that he tries to force his strong religious views on others, who understandably do not like him for it. No one is trying to force him to be gay. His job is to represent all Australians and ensure that our laws reflect the more tolerant attitudes of most of the population. His religion is of no interest to anyone but himself. Margaret Stead, Sorrento Ostracism, depression, self harm and suicide Scott Morrison, you just do not get it. I do not think there are many teenagers out there who are ostracised from their families, suffer depression, self harm or commit suicide because they are Christian. I suppose that is a bit "gay". Peter Mclisky, Docklands

End live animal exports How much longer will we continue with the live animal export trade when it is clearly barbaric? Dr Lynn Simpson, who was a vet on 57 of these voyages, has been expelled from her government role after she produced a report with graphic images of the abominable conditions endured by the animals (The Age, 22/6). This is bad enough but then they are inhumanely butchered on arrival. Surely if they were humanely killed here and their frozen meat exported it would provide jobs in remote and regional communities and spare the suffering of these creatures. Estelle Ross, Riverside, Tas Compliance overload As a teacher for 20years, retirement is looking more and more attractive. It is not because of my age, but more to do with compliance overload, leaving very little time to concentrate on educational outcomes. The knee-jerk reaction to the rorting by private institutions has meant that the innocent VET providers have been inundated with pointless paperwork, to prove they are providing the quality that they always have. The exodus of experienced staff in both administration and teaching is increasing significantly, leaving those remaining even more overloaded. When will adequate funding be reinstated so that teachers can once again be employed to teach, rather than be be bogged down by red tape?

Kathy Lang, Vermont South Opportunistic ploy It appears the Immigration Minister and Prime Minister deliberately delayed announcing until this week the arrival of an asylum seeker boat from Vietnam earlier this month. When operational details have not been offered over the last three years, it is hard to believe this is not politicisation of the world refugee crisis and an election tactic. Robert McDonald, Sailors Falls Shorten message sick

Anything for a television grab on Tuesday. Sick children in their hospital beds nodding politely as Bill Shorten leans down, looks them in the eye and give his campaign message: "I will fund hospitals and won't cut company taxes". How tacky does it get? Virginia Studdert, Kew Tragic, not funny I am surprised that Jeff Kennett, chairman of beyondblue, dismissed critical reactions to Eddie McGuire's misguided "joke" as threatening Australia's sense of humour. In what way is it funny if someone in water fails to surface? After the recent floods, there are families and friends mourning the drowning loss of loved ones. What about people who have had to deal with the drowning death of someone in their care, or been unable to save a life? More to the point, how many people who have had their lives changed by a drowning have needed services such as beyondblue? There is nothing funny about drowning, Mr Kennett, and you should be more sensitive to that than others. Sue Wragge, Taroona, Tas

The memory lingers As someone who was held under water as a child, I can say that the effects are long lasting. Even today, after more than 70years, I still have a fear of water and I cannot swim. And like Penelope Jones and Cate Bunn (Letters, 22/6), I too am moving on. I have supported the Pies for 70years through good times and bad, but Eddie's comments about Caroline Wilson are the last straw. Alan Howie, Richmond Tell me it's not true I know that competence in a particular policy area is often an unimportant consideration for ministerial appointments (Wayne Swan and Scott Morrison being prime examples), but the idea of Tony Abbott as defence minister defies belief. Apart from the fact that he has had a long parliamentary career - by date, this is the bloke who wanted to send armed troops to the Ukraine to face off against a former superpower. Added to this is his record of poor judgment. In Marise Payne we finally have a minister who knows something about her portfolio, in addition to the fact that she improves cabinet's gender and age balance. A better result would be for Mr Abbott to leave politics.

Harry Kinread, Brighton The right to die I read with disappointment "Plan to legalise assisted suicide is still deeply flawed" (Comment, 22/6). I lived through my husband's terminal illness with him having access to Nembutal. It gave him peace of mind to know that if it all became unbearable, he could end his suffering. I have no doubt it was the major contributor to him living the last year of his life happily and fully. In the end he died in a palliative care facility, attached to a morphine pump which kept him reasonably sedated while suppressing his breathing. He was incapable of eating or drinking. An acceptable and legal method of assisted dying but with no safeguards or guidelines, and dependent on each individual's medical team, not their individual choice. I would love the professors who wrote this article to throw their intelligence, knowledge and energy behind this proposed legislation and how to make it the best it can be, instead of giving 1001 "reasons" why it should not happen. Elizabeth Short, Malvern East

A disillusioned Green Full of enthusiasm for their goals, I volunteered with the Greens. I agreed to do personal or telephone canvassing, and asked for a summary of their policies so I could answer any questions. This was not forthcoming, as the campaign "launch" is not until this weekend. So I agreed to do administrative tasks in the local electorate office. This was disillusioning: too many volunteers for insufficient workstations, so we stood around waiting for chairs and laptops to be found. In response to many emails requesting donations, I gave a cheque for four times the requested amount. It appeared to be lost; no one remembered accepting it and no receipt was provided. Two and a half weeks later they rang to say it had been found. The most disturbing finding was that on the lists of enrolled electors that are given to canvassers, the names of voters aged over about 55 were "whited out". I was told they were not worth wasting time on as they probably had closed minds and would have already decided how to vote. Sorry, Greens, you have lost this over 55-year-old as a donor and supporter. Bronwen Bryant, St Kilda West Why we need maths

An embarrassment for Australia is that it is socially acceptable to "have never been good at maths". When do you hear someone say they never "got" reading and writing? So, to make maths compulsory in VCE (Letters, 23/6), even if it was not made to count significantly towards an ATAR, could reduce the ambivalence towards it that exists in early high school. Students will no longer be reassured by the fact that they can drop maths after year 10 and, as such, will not limit their future pathways by jettisoning their application in the area. In this way we can hope to become a society that values the rigorous thinking taught by maths and science. Thomas Baker, Camberwell Cutting by stealth Malcolm Turnbull is giving us all sorts of assurances about Medicare funding. Meanwhile his government has stopped most chronically ill or injured people being able to claim any sort of refund on their tax returns for high-cost medical expenses and Medicare has been quietly cutting funding to numerous items that used to be rebatable. Does this mean the Coalition government will keep Medicare but gradually refuse more claims, thus unofficially achieving its objectives? I do not hear Labor protesting these changes either. Too bad if you are chronically ill or severely injured unless you happen to be wealthy.

Bernadette Earl, Parkville Climate emergency This week I have been snorkelling in the Gili Islands in Indonesia. Almost all the coral was bleached and dead, with the sea about 3degrees warmer than usual. I can understand, but not condone, the government's intervention to prevent mention of our Great Barrier Reef in an international scientific report on the impacts of climate change. With a dead reef, Queensland's tourist industry faces an annual loss of a million visitors, $1billion dollars tourism expenditure and the loss of 10,000 jobs. This is a world-wide emergency. All our politicians need to act against global warming. Amaryll Perlesz, Wonthaggi Cold? Hot? Rain?

Why has the Age's Weatherzone chosen not to have the weather map cover areas not within one hour of Melbourne? Have we country folk been made redundant and thus don't need to know if we need sunscreen, hat or a coat when we venture outside? Barbara Williams, Portland AND ANOTHER THING Politics

Lord Mayor Sam Newman. Defence Minister Abbott. President Trump. I'll remain living and working in Iraq. David Werner, Erbil, Iraq Let's not discuss "on water matters"  boat turnbacks and hideous live exports. We're a sleazy country. Don Stewart, Port Fairy Labor drags out Hawke to do an ad on Medicare. A "silly old bugger" promoting Shorten's lie.

Coke Tomyn, Camberwell The CFA dispute is the last thing Victorians will have on their minds when they vote in the election. Stephen Bickell, Mount Evelyn Simon Crean, you should be ashamed. I've voted Labor all my life. Clean up the live animal trade or Labor has lost my vote. Joy Carroll, Flemington

Scott Morrison A white, middle-aged guy discriminated against? Surely Morrison's tongue was firmly in his cheek. Linda Mackie, Collingwood Where's the evidence that conservative Christians face discrimination, threats of violence, depression and suicide because of bigotry? Michael Beresford, Sandy Bay, Tas

Scott Morrison, not one straight politician knows what it's like. Christine Barker, Malmsbury Eddie McGuire It was a man who invented the term "humourless feminist". Sue Ingleton, Castlemaine

The Eddie McGuire "thing" has been blown out of proportion compared to the atrocities occurring around us. Betty Cardwell, Chirnside Park I'm disappointed Eddie is supported by the Collingwood board. What constitutes a sacking offence? Ralph Lewis, Canterbury Suspend Eddie from all things Collingwood for one month, then maybe he'll get the message.
THE LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES

Opera Australia. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Opera House, June 23. Until July 9.



Mixing fairytale, burlesque, comedia dell'arte and surrealism, Prokofiev's 1921 opera The Love for Three Oranges was written in part as a wittily ironic reaction to the theatrical realism of the then dominant figure of Russian theatre, Stanislavsky, and also, perhaps, operatic realism and the ever-popular Puccini.

Rosario La Spina (The Prince) and Catherine Bouchier (Princess Nicoletta) in The Love for Three Oranges. Credit:Prudence Upton

Today, Puccini survives, while realism has been replaced by reality TV and political figures who transcend parody.

The postmodern burlesque of Francesca Zambello's 2005 production (revived here by Matthew Barclay) is a brilliant adaptation to a modern context of the inscrutable brittleness of Prokofiev's score and theatrical conceit.
But speeding up video is more than an efficiency hack. I quickly discovered that acceleration makes viewing more pleasurable. Modern Family played at twice the speed is far funnier - the jokes come faster and they seem to hit harder. And I get less frustrated at shows that want to waste my time with filler plots or gratuitous violence. As I've come to consume all my television on my computer, I've developed other habits, too. I don't watch linearly anymore; I often scrub back and forth to savour complex scenes or to skim over slow ones. In other words, I watch television like I read a book. I jump around. I re-read. Sometimes I speed up. Sometimes I slow down. I confess these new viewing techniques have done something strange to my sense of reality. I can't watch television in real-time anymore. Movie theatres feel suffocating. I need to be able to fast-forward and rewind and accelerate and slow down, to be able to parcel my attention where it's needed. The most common objection I hear is that this ruins the cinematic experience. Annette Insdorf, a film professor at Columbia, told me: "Sometimes watching a movie is like lovemaking: Isn't a sustained seduction more gratifying than momentary thrills?" But the more I've learned about the history and the science of media consumption, the more I've come to believe this is the future of how we will appreciate television and movies. Maybe not everyone will watch on fast-forward like I do, but we will all be watching on our own terms. Cram an entire season of Credit:HBO

In a way, what's happening to video recalls what happened to literature when we stopped reading aloud, together, and started reading silently, alone. Beginning in the Middle Ages, people no longer had to gather in groups to hear tales or learn the news or study religion. They could be alone with a text and their own thoughts, an unprecedented freedom that led to political and religious turmoil and forever changed intellectual life. With computers, video consumption is also becoming a solitary, self-paced act - and maybe a more analytical act, as well. If you believe, as I do, in the artistic potential of television and film, then perhaps we are on the brink of another cultural transformation - viewers finally seizing control of this medium. And the medium will be better for it. For a very long time, life was limited by the rate at which we spoke. Although we have had writing systems for millennia, early texts were designed to be read aloud, meaning that literature unfolded at the pace of human speech. Many ancient Greek and Roman documents, for instance, lacked punctuation, spaces or lowercase letters, making it challenging for people to understand them without sounding out the words syllable by syllable. "A written text was essentially a transcription which, like modern musical notation, became an intelligible message only when it was performed orally to others or to oneself," historian Paul Saenger writes. There are physical limits to how quickly we can form sounds, as anyone who has attempted a tongue-twister can attest. Mouths need time to move into position for the next vowel or consonant. A good estimate for the natural rate of speech in English is 200 to 300 syllables per minute, which translates into 150 to 200 words per minute.

According to Audible, the audiobook company, the typical book recording is performed at 155 wpm. A 1990 study found that radio broadcasts run at 160 wpm on average, while everyday conversations, which use shorter words, occur at about 210 wpm. The average number of syllables spoken per minute in English. Credit:Washington Post For much of human history, this was the sound barrier for communicating ideas. It's not that silent reading was impossible in antiquity. It was just very difficult. There exist tales of scholars who seemed to absorb books silently; in the fourth century, Saint Augustine told of an odd monk who read without forming the words with his mouth. "When he read," Augustine wrote, "his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still." Historians debate whether these silent readers were regarded as freaks or the practice was merely unusual. Even by the fifth and sixth centuries, reading still tended to be a group activity. One person read aloud while others listened. Even for scribes who copied manuscripts in solitude, the act of reading was intertwined with the act of speaking. Many early medieval monks who had taken vows of silence were still allowed to mumble as they read, Saenger writes, because mumbling was considered part of the reading process.

During the Middle Ages, scribes began introducing spacing and punctuation into texts, which made silent reading much easier for everyone. The practice began in monasteries around the 10th century and slowly spread to university libraries a few hundred years later, and finally to the European aristocracy by the 14th and 15th centuries, according to historian Roger Chartier. The technique of silent, solitary reading released people from the sluggishness of the spoken word - as well as from the judgment of their peers. Reading in private gave people room to engage with a text, the freedom to think critically and sometimes heretically. Opinions too controversial for group reading could be disseminated and consumed in private. The result, historians say, was an intellectual, scientific - and spiritual - blossoming in Europe. "Silent, secret, private reading paved the way for previously unthinkable audacities," Chartier writes. "In the late Middle Ages, even before the invention of the printing press, heretical texts circulated in manuscript form, critical ideas were expressed, and erotic books, suitably illuminated, enjoyed considerable success." Chartier called silent reading the "other revolution" - together with the printing press and mass literacy, these developments created both the demand and the supply for a vast quantity of writing. The faster pace of silent reading accelerated the spread of new ideas and vaulted Western society toward religious and political schism. "This 'privatisation' of reading is undeniably one of the major cultural developments of the early modern era," Chartier argues.

What silent reading also revealed was that the rate of human thought far outstrips the rate of human speech. Broadcasters speak at about 160 wpm, but college students can comfortably devour a text at 300 wpm, which also seems to be the most efficient speed for reading comprehension, on average. Some people, of course, read slower, and others read much, much faster. The beauty of text is that we absorb it at our own pace. Not so for audiovisual recordings, at least not for much of the 20th century. If you play back a tape or a phonograph record too quickly, the voices turn squeaky and unintelligible. Recordings remained difficult to skim until the 1950s, when researchers made a set of discoveries about human speech. It turns out that sounds of the spoken word are vastly redundant. Vowels and consonants drag on longer than necessary for us to understand them. In the late 1940s, Harvard researchers discovered they could cover up more than half of a speech recording without damaging a listener's comprehension. The trick was to rapidly mute and unmute the audio. These silent gaps were brief enough that people's minds could fill them in easily. Words sounded choppy, but they remained perfectly intelligible. "It is much like seeing a landscape through a picket fence," the researchers wrote. "The pickets interrupt the view at regular intervals, but the landscape is perceived as continuing behind the pickets."

The Harvard researchers rapidly muted and unmuted audio recordings. The top picture shows the original sound wave. The bottom picture shows the resulting sound wave, which has silent bits. Even though half of the sound wave has been destroyed, the researchers found that people could still understand it. (Miller and Licklider, 1950.) Credit:(Miller and Licklider, 1950.) A team of engineers at the University of Illinois soon had another idea: Instead of leaving the gaps in, why not cut them out and stitch the remaining slivers of audio together? For instance, deleting every other millisecond of audio would cause the recording to play in half the time. This new way of speeding up sound, which became known as the sampling method, had the benefit of not making people sound like chipmunks. In the 1960s, a blind psychologist named Emerson Foulke began experimenting with this technique to accelerate speech. A professor at the University of Louisville, Foulke was frustrated with the slowness of recorded books for the blind, so he tried speeding them up. The sampling method proved surprisingly effective. In Foulke's experiments, speech could be accelerated to 250-275 wpm without affecting people's scores on a listening comprehension test. Foulke found that beyond 250-275 wpm, speech becomes much harder to understand. These limits were suspiciously close to the average college reading rate. Foulke suspected that beyond 300 wpm, deeper processes in the brain were getting overloaded. Experiments showed that at 300-400 wpm, individual words were still clear enough to understand; except at that rate, many listeners couldn't keep up with rapid stream of words, likely because their short-term memories were overtaxed.

Some, of course, fared better than others. Just as people naturally read at different rates, subjects varied in how well they could understand accelerated speech. Further studies found a connection to cognitive ability. Those with higher intelligence, as well as faster readers, were more adept at understanding sped-up recordings. (The NSA once considered using tests involving accelerated speech to screen for people who could become morse code operators.) The most startling discovery, though, was that people actually enjoy listening to accelerated audio. Foulke and his colleagues noticed that college students preferred recordings that had been sped up by 30 per cent, from 175 wpm to 222 wpm. More recent studies find that, given the choice, people will increase playback rate by about 40 to 50 per cent on average - a 1.4 to 1.5x speedup. This tendency extends to video as well, as experiments with video lectures and even Discovery Channel shows have demonstrated. Increasing the tempo of a recording seems to stave off boredom and help people stay engaged. "With the slower pace, my attention span actually wavered, and I focused on too much detail," one subject told researchers at Microsoft. Sometimes, people don't even notice that they are watching on fast-forward. Cable companies will slightly speed up shows to make room for more ads, but the difference can be hard to detect - in part because the brain adapts to the higher speeds. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Defense Department began investigating compressed speech as a way to boost learning. Military-funded experiments showed that people can be trained to better understand accelerated recordings. Just a few weeks of regular exposure seemed to alter how people perceived and processed language, causing them to prefer faster and faster listening rates.

Some of those changes happen within minutes. An experiment in 1997 found that listening to just five sentences of accelerated speech boosted subsequent comprehension rates by 15 per cent. This process may be related to how our brains adjust to unfamiliar accents. Have you ever noticed that it becomes easier and easier to talk to someone with a foreign accent? It's not them. It's your brain making short-term adaptations. Our brains also make long-term adaptations to accelerated speech. Continued training increases people's accuracy rates and their comfort with sped-up recordings. Functional MRI scans show changes in how their brains respond to speech. Anecdotally, many subjects found that repeated exposure to accelerated speech caused speech at regular speeds to sound strange. This seems to have happened to me as well. After watching accelerated video on my computer for a few months, live television began to seem excruciatingly slow. Ilya Grigorik, the Google engineer who invented the Chrome extension, had a similar experience. He regularly watches videos at double speed, adjusting the pace up or down depending on how complex the ideas are. "Whenever I describe it to people, I get a very weird look," he said. "Then I actually convince them to try it. It's uncomfortable for them at first, but once they get into it, they really get into it." We all chart our own paths through a text. I rarely read a book straight through from start to finish. I take detours, I backtrack, and I always scan the plot summary on Wikipedia to learn what's coming next. Psychologists at the University of San Diego have found that people enjoy a story more if the ending has already been spoiled. Suspense, it seems, is overrated.

The Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov believed that re-reading was the only way to truly enjoy a novel. Not until the second or third go-around can we perceive a novel's grand schemes and secrets. Of the initial encounter, he once said: "When we read a book for the first time, the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation." There's no one right way to enjoy a book. The literary critic Roland Barthes encouraged us not to treat novels so literally or linearly, but to traipse around in search of our own meanings. Why, then, do we still watch television straightforwardly? Why do we relinquish ourselves to the pace set by a film's director? Can't we find more interesting ways to be a couch potato? For a long time, the answer was that the technology did not allow it. But with the rise of computer viewing, everyone can take charge of how they travel through a video. I often consume reality programs at double speed or faster because the idioms of these shows are so familiar. For me, watching The Bachelorette is like shucking a crab. I know where the juicy bits are, and I know which parts are inedible. These alternative styles of viewing are no less illuminating. At double speed, the Red Wedding scene from Game of Thrones crosses the threshold from high drama to high farce. You start to see how the directors strained to create a moment of maximum trauma, how the death scenes are overacted, how the massacre operates like the mechanical gnashings of a meat-processing plant. I recently described my viewing habits to Mary Sweeney, the editor on the cerebral cult classic Mulholland Drive. She laughed in horror. "Everything you just said is just anathema to a film editor," she said. "If you don't have respect for how something was edited, then try editing some time! It's very hard."

Sweeney, who is also a professor at the University of Southern California, believes in the privilege of the auteur. She told me a story about how they removed all the chapter breaks from the DVD version of Mulholland Drive to preserve the director's vision. "The film, which took two years to make, was meant to be experienced from beginning to end as one piece," she said. I disagree. Mulholland Drive is one of my favourite films, but it's intentionally dreamlike and incomprehensible at times. The DVD version even included clues from director David Lynch to help people baffled by the plot. I advise first-time viewers to watch with a remote in hand to ward off disorientation. Liberal use of the fast-forward and rewind buttons allows people to draw connections between different sections of the film. I found something of a sympathetic ear in Peter Markham, who teaches directing at the American Film Institute Conservatory. "This notion of privacy, of watching privately and forming your own cathedral of narrative - that's interesting," he said. "But that, I think, is mostly an intellectual or cerebral experience. The thing about dramatic narrative is that it creates an emotional, visceral, subconscious experience. That stuff has its own rhythm, its own insistence." Markham argued that film is more than a stream of dialogue or a sequence of events. The timing of the images imprints on our brains in a special way. "If you speed up Hitchcock, if you speed up Rear Window, you won't get the same experience," he said. "It's like trying to speed up a Beyonce track. It's already at the perfect speed." It didn't occur to me until later, of course, that people do mess with Beyonce all the time. DJs chop her up, stretch her over new beats, snatch bits of her vocals to craft new songs. Today's cinema fans also engage in forms of creative remixing. They assemble montages of their favourite characters. They create entirely original shows by re-editing scenes from ones. The actor Topher Grace, for instance, famously made his own unauthorised version of the Star Wars prequel movies called Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back. Those who have seen it say it's a masterful recombobulation of those three flawed films.

Henry Jenkins, a media theorist at the University of Southern California, reminded me that creative repurposing has been happening in fan communities for decades. Throughout his career, Jenkins has studied the rise of "participatory culture" - ways in which fans take control of favourite stories through fanzines, fan art, fan fiction, and more recently, fan videos. "Fans reject the idea of a definitive version produced, authorised, and regulated by some media conglomerate," Jenkins wrote over a decade ago. "Instead, fans envision a world where all of us can participate in the creation and circulation of central cultural myths." Perhaps fan culture offers the most optimistic vision for the future of media consumption. The power of the auteur is diminishing, but our appreciation for the art form is increasing. More and more, we will watch TV on our computers, on own terms, creating our own meanings and deriving our own, private pleasures. "I think your experience is very similar to my own," Jenkins said. "I do treat television more and more like a book. I totally get that analogy, and it's a good way to think about the degree of control we now have over what we watch - which has been building up over time, with VCRs, then DVRs, and now streaming and digital distribution. We're learning to think about television in a different way." "I'm fully convinced that everything is better in a box set," he added. Netflix, which is essentially the motherlode of box sets, has made this kind of careful viewing much easier. That's one reason that serialised shows have become so popular in recent years. Since audiences can easily catch up on missed episodes - many of them are bingewatching anyway - show-runners can tell longer, more complicated stories with less repetition. The rewind button allows television to be a little more sophisticated. If you didn't understand the first time, just watch again.
A beef farmer from the bush has ridden his horse across the Sydney Harbour Bridge sending a message to the city about protecting the land.

Wearing an Akubra and a Driza-Bone vest, Glenn Morris from Inverell in north-west NSW saddled up his Australian stockhorse, Hombre, on Thursday morning.

Traffic slowed as Mr Morris trotted along lane eight of the bridge just after 10am.

"I'm sorry about that for anyone that was caught in the traffic, but I just had a message to deliver which I think was important," he told reporters afterwards.
"Labor has already said that they will abandon, abolish temporary protection visas. That will be used as a marketing ploy, as a marketing plan by the people smugglers, they will say if you get to Australia and there's a Labor government, don't worry, you will be able to stay permanently," he said in the marginal seat of Corangamite, in Victoria.

"That is a golden opportunity for them to be marketing and we see evidence of that marketing already. Of course, in terms of turn-backs, the question is, does Labor have the will to do it? Their policy says that they retain the option of turning boats back. The real question is do they have the will?"

"We saw what happened under Kevin Rudd. He said he would do it but [the] truth is Labor does not have the same policy as the Coalition on border protection because of the three pillars, they avowedly have abandoned one of them."

Mr Shorten has played down the policy differences between the two major parties over asylum seeker policy during the campaign  despite candidates breaking out and questioning the hardline approach Labor has adopted  and has pointed out the policy to abolish TPVs has been public since July 2015.

"People smugglers should know that on July 3rd, whoever wins this election, you are not back in business, full stop," he said last week.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been challenged to put his hand on his heart over Labor's Medicare scare campaign in a sometimes tense interview with the ABC's Leigh Sales.

Appearing on 7.30 on Thursday night, Mr Shorten was asked to explain how voters could trust him over his Medicare campaign after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull explicitly and repeatedly ruled out any sale.

The Labor leader refused to restate his earlier comments when Sales challenged him to "put your hand on your heart and look Australians in the eye" and say privatising Medicare was Coalition policy.
The National Press Club has already hosted debates on innovation, defence and employment, and this week began a series of events for party leaders' speeches.

Both parties have escalated their attacks on the issues in the penultimate week of the campaign, with Labor accusing the government of intending to privatise Medicare, and the Coalition saying Labor would abandon its policies preventing boat arrivals.

The Coalition and Labor are unlikely to debate health and immigration, the two biggest issues in the final weeks of the election campaign, after party negotiations with the National Press Club reached a standstill.

Its chief executive officer, Maurice Reilly, said he had extended an invitation to both the Coalition and Labor headquarters for debates on both portfolios at the start of the year, which he renewed at the start of the the eight-week election campaign. But the parties were unwilling to participate in debates on their respective perceived weaknesses, which he said made it "highly unlikely" they would be held in the final week before the July 2 poll.

Voters are set to miss out on discussions of two key policy areas. Credit:Jessica Shapiro JLS

The Coalition, he said, had not offered dates to participate in a debate on health policy, while Labor similarly failed to offer dates for a debate on immigration. The club had hosted health debates ahead of every election since 2001, he said, with immigration debates also regularly held in that period.

"Both are very important debates that we would've loved to have seen happen but I'm pessimistic that one or both will happen before polling day."

Mr Reilly added that the club would be willing to host the debates if either side changed their mind in time.
Pay and work conditions for Uber and ride-sharing drivers in NSW are set to become the next area of contention in the regulation of new forms of transport services.

Uber and other ride-sharing services such as competitor GoCatch were legalised on Wednesday night, as part of a package of policies that includes $250 million in compensation for the taxi industry.

Taxi and ride-sharing passengers will have to pay a $1 levy per trip to help fund the compensation package.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance described the compensation as one of the "most generous industry adjustment packages in the world" for taxi plate owners.
Brisbane City Council's sole Greens councillor has blasted the city's highest-ranking bureaucrat over a decision to "censor" a gazebo to be used at community events.

The Gabba ward councillor Jonathan Sri said the council's chief executive, Colin Jensen, refused to allow him to use his discretionary ward funding to purchase the gazebo because it contained "political messaging".

Greens councillor Jonathan Sri says he's being censored by Brisbane City Council chief executive Colin Jensen. Credit:Glenn Hunt

The reason, Cr Sri said he was told, was the 'people before profit' slogan on two sides of the design.

"Stopping councillors from using public money on producing party-political materials is an excellent measure, but 'people before profit' is not a party-political slogan," Cr Sri said.
Ms Rice, 22, was hitchhiking with her boyfriend Joe Perry in Scotland when she was struck by a truck and killed.

The family of Sunshine Coast woman Madison Rice, who was fatally hit by a truck in Scotland earlier this month, has released a touching tribute ahead of her funeral on Friday.

"Unfortunately for the family that means that this is now real and not a bad dream. We cannot wake from this nightmare. We are all still coming to terms with this. The rest of the family arrived tonight and we will try and help each other come to terms with the reality that is, the loss of our Maddy."

He said the reality of the family's deep loss was beginning to be felt.

"I don't think the true gravity of the situation will reach many of us until the dust settles and everyone goes back to their normal lives," he said.

"Then when we go to chat with Maddy on messenger and find that we get no reply because she isn't there. She isn't able to talk to us or laugh with us anymore. That will be a hard time to bear."

Describing her as a bright and bubbly person, Mr Welsh said the family would remember her through the happy moments they shared.
A 19-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder over the attack of a man in his Wellington Point home.

A 63-year-old man received multiple stab wounds including to his chest, back, leg and arm, when he disturbed an alleged intruder in his home.

Police at the scene of a reported stabbing at Wellington Point. Credit:9 News Queensland

Police began an immediate search for the suspect and nine months later have charged a 19-year-old Redland Bay over the attack.

At the time, Queensland Ambulance Service Intensive Care Paramedic Andrew Colen said the 63-year-old was very lucky.
Police in Queensland are searching for two men accused of a carjacking in which a man was stabbed south of Brisbane.

The 23-year-old victim was found lying on a Woodridge footpath early on Thursday morning after the pair forced him out of his car and attempted to steal it.

A man underwent surgery for stab wounds after his car was stolen in Woodridge. Credit:Tom Threadingham

He was taken to hospital in a serious condition and underwent surgery.

Police said they were hoping to speak to him after he recovered.
A man has been charged with murder after a stabbing at a factory estate in Melbourne's south-east on the weekend.

Karl Lamblin, 32, was arrested in Whittens Lane, Doncaster about 10am on Thursday.

Paul O'Donnell was killed at this Keysborough workshop. Credit:Deborah Gough

Ambulance officers were called to a mechanical workshop in Olive Grove, Keysborough, about 7.30pm on Saturday.

Paul O'Donnell, 48, was dead when paramedics arrived.
University students are being warned when classes contain graphic or sensitive content, including sexual abuse, rape and transgenderism, to protect their mental health.

Australian academics are issuing so-called "trigger warnings" for confronting material in classrooms at the start of each semester, and before classes, to give students the chance to opt out.

Dr Lauren Rosewarne and other academics are using 'trigger warnings' in class. Credit:Penny Stephens

The warnings - aimed to avoid triggering a post traumatic stress reaction - have stemmed from trends in online chat forums and blogs, and has expanded to universities in the UK and the US, but have sparked a backlash in Australia.

University of Melbourne's Dr Lauren Rosewarne, who teaches about gender and sexuality, has been warning students about potentially disturbing content since she started teaching 13 years ago.
The prospect of a catastrophic bushfire in Western Australia is increasingly likely without greater investment in prevention and fuel hazard management, a parliamentary inquiry has concluded.

The report by former Victorian Country Fire Service chief, Euan Ferguson, was tabled in parliament on Thursday and called for WA to follow NSW, Victoria and South Australia in having a specialist rural fire service.

The fire ravaged Yarloop Hotel. Credit:Greg Burton

Mr Ferguson also said there was a strong argument that the state needed to shift expenditure away from fire response and recovery towards prevention and fuel hazard management.

"The current system for managing bushfire in Western Australia is failing citizens and the government," Mr Ferguson wrote in the summary of his report, but warned apportioning blame for the fire was a "waste of energy."
A community group is rallying for a last-ditch effort to stop a Dan Murphy's being built at the Como Hotel.

There is already a small drive-through BWS at the hotel but residents believe the Dan Murphy's will be a different beast and the application, part of a larger hotel redevelopment, has had a troubled history.

The Como Hotel is up for redevelopment, but the application to build a Dan Murphy's has been a troubled one. Credit:James Mooney

The City of South Perth consistently recommended the local development assessment panel reject it and the DAP twice did, but applicant, the ALH Group, took the matter to the State Administrative Tribunal.

The DAP finally approved it in April, with the three expert panellists out-voting the two local councillors who remained opposed.
A teacher sacked from Guildford Grammar after he was charged with possessing child porn has appeared in court.

Jeffery McKinnell was remanded on bail when he appeared before Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday.

The teacher at Guildford Grammar was sacked over child porn allegations. Credit:Facebook

He's due to appear back before the court on August 4.

After a tip-off to the Australian Federal Police earlier this month the WA Police Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team searched the 37-year-old's Mount Lawley home and allegedly seized digital evidence before charging him with possessing child exploitation material.
In fact, one of the few certainties about a vote in favour of Britain leaving the EU, known as Brexit, is that initially, at least, it will plunge capitals on both sides of the English Channel, but in Britain in particular, into complex negotiations and political jockeying that could last for years. David Cameron campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU. Credit:Bloomberg Despite Cameron's plans to invoke Article 50 swiftly after the vote, he would face pressure to delay starting the two-year clock from those in his party who favour leaving. Their thinking is that before starting the clock, Britain should start informally negotiating a new trade deal with the EU in tandem with the terms of Britain's departure from the bloc. They suggest that Britain would lose considerable leverage in negotiating a new trade deal once it was outside the bloc, and that it could get a better trade deal as part of a negotiation that encompasses all aspects of the new cross-Channel relationship. British MP Boris Johnson, voice of the 'Leave' campaign. Credit:Bloomberg

Once the two-year Article 50 term expires, Britain would be outside the single European market for services and become subject to possible tariffs on goods. The pro-departure camp does not want to negotiate a new trade pact with that clock ticking. But while Britain might want to move slowly to leave Europe, countries like France and Germany would want to move swiftly, to reduce Britain's leverage. They can also be expected to take no prisoners in the negotiations, in an effort to limit political contagion by making a tough example of Britain for other member states. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage campaigning for Britain to leave the EU. Credit:Bloomberg Yet there appears to be no mechanism to force Britain to invoke Article 50 and set the two-year clock running. Cameron's assurances that he would do so in the event of a Brexit vote may not count for much, in that he may not survive such an outcome. Were he to quit, it would take the Conservative Party several weeks at least to select a successor. If he loses the referendum but decides to try to remain prime minister, as he has said he would, Britain could be consumed by political maneuvering for weeks or months, postponing a decision on how to proceed.

UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn at a London rally to keep Britain in the EU. Credit:Bloomberg "We don't know who's going to be in charge," said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King's College London. "The uncertainty extends to who's going to be leading this show." Some Brexit supporters suggest that they could negotiate a departure without using Article 50. By contrast, in Brussels, there is discussion of somehow forcing the British to invoke it. Most legal experts say it would be impossible to avoid. Whatever Conservative government emerges would have to decide what kind of relationship to seek with the European Union, and get the British Parliament on its side for eventual ratification of a new arrangement covering trade and immigration, among other issues. The problem is, fewer than a third of the current Parliament members support leaving the bloc. Stephen Kinnock, an opposition Labour Party MP, has said that MPs might press for a relationship like Norway has with the EU - outside the bloc but still having access to its single market.

However, Norway not only pays into the bloc but also accepts the free movement of workers - two of the biggest and most emotional arguments Brexit supporters have made against membership in the EU. Analysts say that the arguments in Parliament could become so polarised that the government might be forced to seek new elections. But that would require changing a recently passed law on elections, and even then a new Parliament might still be hopelessly divided. Roger Liddle, a pro-EU member of the House of Lords and a chairman of the Policy Network research institute, said, "Even if, as is likely, within weeks of a 'leave' vote we would have a new Brexit government with a new prime minister, which may be reinforced by a general election victory within six to nine months, it is very unlikely that a majority in either House of Parliament could be found for a credible leave option." A vote to leave the bloc would put Britain in a worse position to curb European migration until it actually departed. In February Cameron negotiated limits on welfare payments as a disincentive to some European migrants, but this concession is conditional on a vote to remain. Not only would this deal be moot in the event of a Brexit vote, but European citizens might race to enter Britain before the gates are closed. Chris Grayling, a Cabinet minister campaigning to leave the bloc, has proposed quick legislation to end the right of free movement before Britain leaves formally, something that would put Britain in breach of EU law.

While European law would be hard to enforce on a country in the bloc's departure lounge, it is unclear whether British MPs would approve such a legally contentious step in any case. Even if they did, that would complicate exit negotiations and could provoke retaliatory measures from Continental Europe. If a deal can be reached within the two years, it may need to be ratified in all 28 member nations and perhaps approved by the Parliament in Scotland, where all major parties want to remain in the bloc. Some of those not normally given to hyperbole have deep misgivings about what could go wrong while disentangling Britain from four decades of European integration. Sir David Edward, a former judge at the European Court of Justice and professor emeritus at Edinburgh University, warned a committee of the House of Lords: "The long-term ghastliness of the legal complications is almost unimaginable".
Berlin: Police in southwestern Germany shot dead a suspect who entered a movie theatre on Thursday and tried to take hostages.

The man wore a mask and carried what appeared to be a weapon when he entered the cinema in Viernheim, a town near Frankfurt, reports said.

It was not immediately clear whether the weapon was real or not, or if the man carried live ammunition, although early reports suggested he was wearing an ammunition belt.

There also were conflicting reports on whether others had been injured.
GM and U.S. Navy Collaborating on Fuel Cell-Powered Underwater Unmanned Vehicles







Hydrogen fuel cell technology could augment ships and subs on patrol

WASHINGTON, DC - June 23, 2016: General Motors, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory are cooperating to incorporate automotive hydrogen fuel cell systems into the next generation of Navy unmanned undersea vehicles, or UUVs.

Hydrogen fuel cells convert high-energy hydrogen efficiently into electricity, resulting in vehicles with greater range and endurance than those powered with batteries. Under the ONRs Innovative Naval Prototype program for Large Displacement UUVs, energy is a core technology in the Navys goals for vehicles with more than 60 days endurance.

The Naval Research Laboratory recently concluded an evaluation of a prototype UUV equipped with a GM fuel cell at the heart of the vehicle powertrain. The tests, a key step in the development of an at-sea prototype, were conducted in pools at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Carderock, Md.

Our in-water experiments with an integrated prototype show that fuel cells can be game changers for autonomous underwater systems," said Frank Herr, ONR's department head for Ocean Battlespace Sensing. "Reliability, high energy, and cost effectiveness  all brought to us via GM's partnering  are particularly important as Navy looks to use UUVs as force multipliers."

Hydrogen fuel cell propulsion technology helps address two major automotive environmental challenges: petroleum use and carbon dioxide emissions. Fuel cell vehicles can operate on renewable hydrogen from sources like wind and biomass stored for later use. Once converted to electricity, water vapor is the only emission. Recharging takes only minutes.

GMs fuel cells are compact and lightweight, and have high reliability and performance. Lower cost is achievable through volume production. These attributes match the goals of the Navy to develop reliable, affordable systems.

The collaboration with the Navy leveraged what we learned in amassing more than 3 million miles of real-world experience with our Project Driveway fuel cell program, said Charlie Freese, executive director of GM Global Fuel Cell Activities. Our customers will benefit from additional lessons we learn about the performance of fuel cells in non-automotive applications that will be useful in GMs drive to offer fuel cells across consumer markets.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/06/2016 (2317 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RCMP said today they fully support the LGBT community and the Steinbach Pride March for Equality.

Our officers will be there to ensure security and are looking forward to walking alongside participants on July 9th, said RCMP in a statement Wednesday.

Police said they are working with event organizers to find a safe route for the parade and its participants.

In May, at the time of events announcement, RCMP indicated the July 9 march would need to be restricted to sidewalks citing potential construction conflicts and lack of RCMP resources. RCMP acknowledged in their Wednesday statement that a parade permit was initially declined for safety reasons but that they were reassessing the request.

Our primary concern was and remains the safety of event participants, RCMP said in the statement.

Steinbach City Council issued its own statement on Wednesday afternoon about the equality march.

Steinbach is a welcoming community to all. Our residents and our faith institutions have proven this many times by accepting newcomers to our city from all over the world. From a small Mennonite settlement in 1874 to the third largest city in Manitoba today, Steinbach residents are appreciative of our citys many accomplishments.

Council believes that all people, including those who identify as LGBTQ, deserve to be treated with love and respect at all times. Council also recognizes the importance of respecting the rights of individuals and organizations who hold different beliefs from those in the LGBTQ community. Everyone in our city has the right to express their views in a peaceful and respectful manner.

Council has not officially endorsed the July 9 Pride March. Steinbach residents will decide for themselves whether they wish to attend this event.

Steinbach is a safe community for all. Lets continue to foster a caring and respectful community.
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Muzzle is not a bad word If you see a dog in a muzzle, you immediately think the dog is aggressive. Right? Well, this is not always true. Unfortunately, seeing a dog in a muzzle carries...
If Omar Mateen had been apprehended alive after the Pulse nightclub massacre, Florida prosecutors would have been able to enhance his punishments with state hate crime legislation. His misdemeanor and felony charges would all be bumped up a degree. Any of his first-degree misdemeanors would become third-degree felonies. He would already been guaranteed to spend life behind bars for murdering 49 clubgoers, of course, but symbolically speaking, adding extra centuries to his prison sentence would have sent a powerful message of protection to a badly-s haken LGBT community.

In the wake of the Pulse massacre, public attention has rightly turned to gun laws, with Democratic House members staging a sit-in over the Houses inaction on the issue. But after Orlando, its also obvious that state-level hate crime laws are also in dire need of strengthening.

For LGBT people living in the United States, hate-crime laws are a messy patchwork system. The majority of states have hate crime laws, but only some are inclusive of sexual orientation and even fewer cover gender identity.

According to data from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 20 states do not enhance penalties for crimes motivated by a victims sexual orientation. Thirty-four states lack penalty enhancement for crimes targeted at transgender people. These figures include five states that have no hate-crime laws at all: Georgia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana, and Arkansas.

The categories of race, religion, and ethnicity are protected in almost every state that has a hate crime law. But LGBT people are excluded in many  even though they are now the most probable target for hate crimes.

As the New York Times reported last week, FBI statistics from 2014 show that LGBT people are now more likely than Jews, Muslims, African-Americans, Asians, and Latinos to be victims of a hate crime. Black transgender women of color are especially likely to be killed. In 2015 alone, a record 21 transgender people were murdered in the United States, primarily young trans women of color. All together, one in five hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2014the most recent year on recordwere based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The picture is as clear as it is frightening: LGBT people are the most likely to be targeted with hateful violence, and the least likely to be protected from it.

The federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama signed in in 2009, can sometimes provide assistance when states do not have the means to investigate or prosecute a hate crime.

For example, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch brought hate crime charges against white supremacist and domestic terrorist Dylann Roof, who perpetrated the Charleston church shooting, last July. As CNN reported at the time, South Carolina could not charge him with a hate crime because it hadand still hasno applicable laws. But the Shepard/Byrd Act is far from a perfect solution for the many gaps in state-level legislation. The HRC perceives it as a backstop, not a replacement for state enforcement. And as the HRC notes, the Justice Department can only prosecute a tiny fraction of the thousands of hate crime cases reported to the FBI each year.

States could easily fill in the gaps on their own by simply adding categories to their current hate crime laws. But they still arent doing so.

As recently as this February, the Utah state legislature turned down a simple measure that would have enhanced penalties for crimes motivated by both anti-religious and anti-LGBT bias. Utah Governor Gary Herbert said of the measure, If I kill you, youre just as dead whether I hated you or I love you and killed you. And in the wake of the Orlando shooting, most of the governors of the five states that have no hate crime legislation whatsoever merely offered prayers.

Much like requiring universal background checks for gun purchases, expanding hate crime legislation to include LGBT people is hardly controversial. As long ago as 2007, 68 percent of Americans supported fully LGBT-inclusive federal hate crime legislation, according to Gallup polling. More recent polling on that question is not available but CBS polling on the Pulse shooting suggests that the vast majority of Americans perceived it as a hate crime: 54 percent said it was both terrorism and a hate crime and an additional 25 percent said it was mostly a hate crime.

After the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was perpetrated in a gay nightclub on Latin night, there are no more excuses for state hate crime laws that protect some groups while leaving LGBT victims to rely on federal law.

Three Democratic U.S. senators announced on Tuesday that they want to boost funding to the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division as a result of the Pulse massacre but, so far, with limited exceptions like Milwaukee State Senator Tim Carpenter, state representatives have been quiet about revisiting their hate crime legislation.

Making even slight changes to U.S. gun laws appears to be something of a brick wall, with the Senate voting down a background check measure just days after the Pulse shooting. In the meantime, it would be simple for states to respond to the tragic events of Orlando by expanding their hate crime legislation.

It is, quite literally, the least they could do.
You know that the fundamentals of the Brexit argument are a bit shabby when its main domestic proponent resorts to racism to refuse the president of the United States.

When Barack Obama visited London in April and published a comment piece in the pro-Tory Daily Telegraph outlining the U.S. interest in Britains continuance in the European Union, former London mayor Boris Johnson took to the pages of the right-wing, Poujadiste Sun tabloid to channel Dinesh DSouza and Donald Trump. Some said it was a snub to Britain, the tow-headed Johnson remarked, of the presidents intervention. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan presidents ancestral dislike of the British empireof which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.

As Nick Cohen, a dissenting contributor to the pro-Leave Spectator, observed, the weaselly evasion heresome saiddid nothing to mask the sinister innuendo Johnson was resorting to in suggesting that a black man of African ancestry had no business intruding in a strictly Anglo affair, even if he was leader of the free world. Cohen also might have added that Winston Churchill was himself half American, had no such compunction about involving his mothers homeland in World War II, and went to his end a loud proponent of the special relationship, to which Obama was explicitly appealing in asking London not to forfeit its place as Americas foremost ally in Brussels.

Brexit, as it happens, is the business of the United States because it has a direct bearing on our national security, as a host of former and current military and intelligence officials have attested in recent months. Latest to join this chorus is NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, whose native Norway is not in the European Union but who nevertheless has twinned the cohesion of a supranational government to the alliance he leads. To fight the terrorist threat we need both the EU and Nato and we need stronger cooperation between Nato and the European Union, Stoltenberg told the Guardian on Wednesday, on the eve of the U.K. referendum.

Earlier, the director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, highlighted the threat to Britain from jihadism that would result from Britains exit from the EU at a time when multiple security services are overtaxed to monitor the to-and-fro flow of ISIS foreign fighters and CIA Director John Brennan has emphasized that two years of attritional war have done nothing to diminish the caliphates capacity for conducting terrorism in the West.

If you take away that infrastructure that [the British police] have helped to design over the past 40 years, Wainwright said at a press conference at Europol headquarters in The Hague several months ago, it would make the United Kingdoms job harder to protect citizens from terror. Britain is not a part of the visa-free Schengen zone but, as an EU member, it continues to have access to the Schengen information system and is part of a common European Arrest Warrant protocol, which makes it easier to grab suspects who have previously slipped seamlessly between continental borders and wound up at Heathrow, St. Pancras, or Portsmouth.

But what are a few beheadings or car bombings in the face of putting an end to the apocryphal tyranny of misshapen bananas and hidden barmaid tips?

Notably, a bevy of sensible critics of the EU on the British and European center-right have come out for Remain because they appreciate the exorbitant costs of a nasty and untimely divorce coinciding with what is arguably the most volatile period for international security since the 1930s.

One of the shrewdest of these voices is Dalibor Rohac, a Slovakian-born, Hayek-quoting libertarian political scientist now ensconced at the American Enterprise Institute. In his newly published book, Towards an Imperfect Union: The Conservative Case for the EU, Rohac notes that with Washingtons pivot to Asia and continuing calamity in the Middle East, the United States can no longer be expected to continue to play the same role that it did throughout the Cold War.

And yet there is no obvious national successor prepared to inherit this mantlea long desired outcome of both the more vituperative Europeanists such as Horst Teltschik, the foreign policy adviser to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who openly stumped for having a counter-weight to the USA, and the more parochial Little Englander Euroskeptics such as UKIPs Nigel Farage, who admires Vladimir Putin and sounds like Philip Larkin without the irony or wit.

Meanwhile, a revanchist Moscow has gobbled up European territory in the last two years and not so subtly threatened the invasion or irradiation of NATO states. As bad as the current climate is, what impact would exclusively British or German or French sanctions have had on Russias behavior in Ukraine as against economic penalties implemented and renewed jointly by 28 countries?

The EU is now doing more to combat Russian disinformation than the U.S. State Department because it rightly recognizes elaborate lies about fascist juntas banning Cyrillic in the Baltics or marauding, gang-raping Muslim migrants in Berlin are imminent social and political dangers.

The Kremlins influence in Central and Eastern Europe has flourished thanks to clever energy policy, covert bribes and attempts to coopt political elites, and skilled propaganda, Rohac writes. NATO does not have the tools to respond to these threats. No military alliance can defeat the corruption of the political class by Russian money, nor can it change an intellectual climate that is hostile to liberal democracy. And neither have European countries, acting alone, been particularly effective in responding to these challenges.

The more metaphysical aspects of Britains EU membershipthe mutual trust it establishes with other member statescannot be discounted either. Will British soldiers really commit themselves to being in harms way to defend another European country on their periphery, post-Brexit? And could the U.K. do so if withdrawing from the single market led to British recession? When then of the U.K.s spending commitment of 2 percent of its GDP on defense efforts, which NATO and the United States might need to rely on once again, sooner rather than later?

Absent a prominent platform in Brussels, does London really want to resort to older and more anemic sodalities such as the Organization of Cooperation and Security in Europe (which has done little but monitor Putins violation of the Minsk II treaty in the Donbas) or the Council of Europe, which has become a Star Wars cantina for shady lobbying efforts and infiltration by kleptocratic and undemocratic regimes that did not deserve membership in the first place? Few in Washington want to see this happen.

Still another conservative Remain pragmatist is Economist editor (and Daily Beast contributor) Edward Lucas, who argues that Britains pro-American role in the EU is particularly important in furthering the common goal of energy and cyber security. Britain, he says, is a cyber superpower and guarantor on trans-Atlantic data sharing within Brussels. Also, it can do what America cant, such as make Lithuania gain energy independence and lead a collaborative assault on Gazprom's coercive economic practices, which Lucas says has done more than any NATO contingency plans.

Furthermore, Britain has a solid record of pushing back against the protectionism of its fellow member-states, which has a direct bearing on the U.S. economy. When the French and Germans say they dont want U.S. tech giants in Europe, Lucas said, Britain is a safe harbor. Europeans are trying to use privacy as a closet protectionist policy. There is little reason to count on this largess continuing if Brexit goes through. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has stated that theres no [free-trade agreement] with the U.K. so they would be subject to the same tariffs and other trade-related measuresas China, or Brazil or India.

Perhaps Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would be happy to spend the next few years elevating Britains economic status in America to that of the BRICs. But would David Cameron, or, if Brexit does come off, his Churchill-besotted heir apparent, Boris Johnson?
The small but esteemed Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California has dramatically and publicly fallen from grace in the past year, after all seven students in the 2016 studio art MFA class dropped out last May in protest of diminished funding packages and forced faculty departures.

Now, the only remaining student in the MFA program has also withdrawn from the Roski School.

After one year in the program, HaeAhn Kwon announced her withdrawal in an embittered, punishing letter addressed to USC provost Michael Quick, citing a downward spiral of predatory, wrongheaded, and woefully oblivious decision making on the part of the school; a delusional administration and lack of structure.

A representative at USC provided The Daily Beast with a copy of both Kwons letter and a response statement from Robin Romans, associate vice provost at USC and director of the schools International Artist Fellowship program, which brought Kwon from Seoul to Los Angeles.

Much of Kwons letter echoed the disappointments expressed by the seven MFA students who dropped out en masse--namely, that the program failed to provide the resources they were promised when they applied.

In a statement explaining their decision to collectively drop out, the students claim that the MFA program was once exceptionally well-funded so that its students could graduate with teaching experience and without debt.

These financial resources were part of the programs appeal, but they allege that they were greatly diminished after they were admitted.

Kwon was immediately dissatisfied upon arriving at the Roski School and met with the administration after her first semester about the programs lack of a studio component.

There was no midterm, no finals, nor any review of any kind for my studio practice, which is an essential purpose of an MFA degree in visual art, she writes.

All of these benchmarks were in place the prior year, when the school had a functioning program with capable leadership, and the fact that their known removal was not resolved prior to my arrival was a travesty.

Romans fired back in her response that, after meeting with Kwon in January, Kwon was still eager to avail herself of the fellowship, which paid all of her tuition, educational fees, room and board (including those of her spouse), provided a travel insurance and more.

Kwon did not return requests for further comment from The Daily Beast.

Both Kwon and the students who withdrew from the program last year have blamed many of schools failures on Dean Erica Muhl, who was appointed to the position in 2013 and has no experience in the visual arts.

Dean Muhl is a tenured professor of Fine Arts and Composition at USCs Thornton Music School, according to a lengthy bio on USCs website (a shortened version describes her as an expert in music copyright infringement, plagiarism, music composition and orchestration).

Faculty members who have left Roski since Erica Muhl was appointed Dean in 2013 say the art school has taken a backseat to the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation.

In addition to being Dean at Roski, Muhl is also the founding executive director of the Iovine Academy, which was funded by a $70 million gift from rapper Dr. Dre and Iovine, a record producer.

Muhl did not return an emailed request for comment.

When compared to many of the protests on elite, undergraduate campuses in the past year, complaints from MFA students at Roski seem eminently reasonable.

Both are reacting to what educators have referred to as a business model approach to higher education.

Writing for Inside Higher Ed in 2009, a former vice president for academic affairs at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York argued that this approach has led to a culture of entitlement and instant gratification on campuses and creates a dangerous imbalance in the power relationship between faculty and students, one which might have a deleterious impact on the very thing--teaching--which it is supposed to improve.

And that was in 2009, when student protests were relatively quiet compared to today.

The distinction is that while many of these undergraduate protests are part of a larger movement, the MFA students at Roski are responding to specific changes in the program which have led to its collapse--to the the plummeting of the schools rankings, which now rest at sixty-nine, as Kwon put it.

In a nod to last years Change.org petition calling for Dean Muhls ouster, Kwon

writes: The question remains, how much is USC willing to lose in faculty, students, reputation, and integrity in order for this deana composer with no knowledge or professional awareness of art or designto maintain control of Roski?
Ever since Ben Carson endorsed presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, he has served as a liaison of sorts between the thrice-married former reality television star and the evangelical community.

Carson is one Trumps Christian whisperers; he speaks the language of faith and has a deep network of devoted followers, especially in the evangelical community. That makes Carson a necessary ally for Trump who has mispronounced Biblical terms, questioned the existence of Heaven and Hell and mused about the prospect of dating his daughter.

But after an extensive meeting with hundreds of evangelical leaders in New York City on Tuesday, Carson rebuked Trump on one point: questioning Hillary Clintons faith.

I think peoples faith is a very private issue, Carson said in a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday. The proof is in the pudding.

During a day-long conference that included a question-and-answer session from faith leaders across the country, Trump said we don't know anything about Hillary in terms of religion.

Now, she's been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there's no  there's nothing out there, Trump said of the presumptive Democratic nominee who has frequently discussed her Methodist beliefs. There's like nothing out there. It's going to be an extension of Obama but it's going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don't, and it's going to be worse.

Trump once even questioned Carsons faith in the fall of 2015, when the former neurosurgeon was gaining on him in the polls. He later said he would not apologize to Carson for this.

Addressing Trumps remarks about Clinton, Carson cited a verse from the Book of Matthew saying by their fruit, you will know them. Thats probably the better way, he concluded.

Asked more pointedly if he believes that Clinton is in fact a devout Methodist, Carson told The Daily Beast I have invested absolutely zero thought in what her religious inclinations are.

The former neurosurgeons role in the Trump orbit has changed substantially in recent months. Initially put in charge of the candidates vice presidential search, Carson was replaced by (now fired) campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

In conversation, Carson did not want to emphasize any specific role he now has besides a concerned American citizen. But he does have Trumps ear and the unlikely duo has maintained a chummy relationshipCarsons business manager Armstrong Williams previously described the two as brothers.

According to a transcript obtained from the closed door evangelical meeting, Carson was the introductory speaker before a question-and-answer session took place with Trump.

Through the questions, he will have an opportunity to hear your heart, and he heard several different leaders this morning talk about whats on their heart, Carson reportedly said.

We need to just keep in mind that Hillary Clinton, when she was in college, was on a first-name basis with Saul Alinsky, who was her hero, Carson continued. Saul Alinsky, who wrote the book Rules for Radicals. If you havent read it, please read it. You need to know who youre dealing with. And on the dedication page, guess who it acknowledges? Lucifer, who gave his own kingdom as a radical.

This last line allegedly drew some shocked moans from the audience.

Alinsky was a democratic socialist with whom Clinton met while attending Wellesley College.

When asked if citing this decades-old relationship, and specifically the Lucifer line, was meant to link Clinton with the devil himself, Carson demurred.

Im bringing it to peoples attention, Carson explained. Anyone who associated with Alinsky is someone that they need to know about, he said of the attendees at the conference.

He has been citing the Alinsky letters as far back as 2014.

This is not the first time that Carson has disagreed with Trumps rhetoric. When the presumptive nominee was spouting off about the ethnicity of a judge handling a lawsuit against Trump University, Carson warned that Trump was nearing a phase of moral descent.

In the interview, Carson characterized the difficulty with which Trump is going to have to walk a fine line between moderating his tone for a general election audience and seeming like just another vapid pol.

Its possible to moderate to some degree but bear in mind that the reason that he is the nominee is that people are sick and tired of the political class, Carson explained. If he becomes a part of that political class he will be rejected.

Carson hadnt had the opportunity to speak with Trump about the candidates view of the hours-long sit-in waged by Democrats in the House yesterday, but Carson offered a reasoned view of the situation.

I certainly believe that those people involved in the sit in are sincere in their beliefs and they believe that they are right, Carson said. Its part of our process, he explained. Protesting, demonstrating. Itll play out.

What Carson does next with Trump is not entirely clear and he didnt want to give any details about the vice presidential process as it stands. But one thing he did intimate was that with Lewandowski gone, Trump is basically controlling the entire show.

He has the most important role, Carson said coyly.
Joe Arpaio may be a local sheriff, but his national profile has helped him build a war chest three times the size of Donald Trumps.

According to Arpaios latest campaign finance disclosure (PDF), the combative immigration hardliner has raised nearly $9.9 million for his November bid for a 7th term as Maricopa County sheriff, including $1.94 million since January alone.

But despite the famous sheriffs enormous fundraising haul, Democrats are convinced that an ongoing federal trial against Arpaio, along with Arizonas growing Latino voting population, will not only make the sheriff vulnerable, but will also make him as much of a drag on Arizonas Republican ticket as Trump, especially for Sen. John McCains bid for a 5th Senate term.

The 84-year-old sheriffs national appeal shows up in his massive small-dollar donor list. Of the more than 100,000 people in his active donor file, 26 percent come from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, while the rest are a hodgepodge of retirees, teachers, cops, cashiers, and electricians from California to North Carolina.

Most of those have probably seen Arpaio on Fox News, where he has long been a fixture as a conservative attack dog on everything from President Obamas fake birth certificate to the finer points of Donald Trumps candidacy. Arpaio endorsed Trump before nearly any other Republican elected official in the country and recently hammered Republican leaders as gutless for not getting behind Trump more strongly.

Arpaios own November election is a re-match against veteran Phoenix police officer Paul Penzone, who lost to Arpaio by six points in 2012. Since then, Arpaio has faced a failed recall effort and remains at the center of a years-long federal racial profiling case challenging his departments roundups of undocumented immigrants in 2011. In May, a federal judge found Arpaio and several top deputies in contempt of court for continuing the immigration sweeps. A month later, the judge said he is considering dismissal for the deputies and federal criminal charges for Arpaio.

Penzone said the federal case has absolutely changed the dynamics of the race this time around.

To be a person who says he stands for the rule of law, but then defies the courts, day by day these things show the voting community at large that hes no longer effective, Penzone said. Its become slowly corrosive to the point where voters now realize its time to look for new leadership, qualified leadership.

An internal poll conducted in the first week of June and provided to The Daily Beast by the Penzone campaign shows Penzone beating Arpaio for the first time, 48 to 44 percent with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

A key to the races outcome will be the states Latino population, which is expected to make up as much as 20 percent of the electorate, but has historically voted at much lower rates than white voters. Eduardo Saenz, the Arizona deputy director of the Latino advocacy group Mi Familia Vota, said the Arpaio race is as important, if not more important, to his group as defeating Donald Trump.

Arpaio has been criminalizing our community. People want to register to vote to make sure he doesnt make it back to office, said Saenz. Trump has been getting a lot of national media attention, but for Arpaio, its a local fight we have every day.

Chad Willems, a consultant to the Arpaio campaign, dismissed predictions that 2016 will finally be the year Democrats beat him.

Theyve been saying that for the last 16 years at least, Willems said. The problem for them is that the sheriff enjoys support from across party lines.

In addition to votes from Republicans and independents, Willems said Arpaio typically picks up between 25 to 30 percent of registered Democratic and Latino votes. They know him and theyve elected him time and time again.

Another veteran Arizona Republican said hes no Arpaio fan, but predicted he will win easily. Arpaio has been under investigation almost as long as hes been a sheriff, but it only makes him more popular, he said. People want an asshole for a sheriff.

With Trump and Arpaio dominating national and local headlines, Democrats are openly hoping that their combined weight will take John McCains Senate bid down with them. McCain is facing a crowded primary field Aug. 30 and an unusually tight race against three-term Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a relative newcomer to McCains 30-plus career representing Arizona in Congress. A PPP poll showed McCain leading Kirkpatrick by 6 points in May, with 55 percent of Latinos saying theyd be less likely to support a Senate candidate who supports Trump, which McCain has said hell do.

Arizonans are ready for new leaders who will work to keep families together, support local communities, and put our state first, said D.B. Mitchell, a spokesman for the Kirkpatrick campaign. Thats why folks across Maricopa County and all over our state are registering to vote and getting ready to turn out in record numbers this November.

The Democrats will have their work cut out for them to knock of the veteran Republicans, who have won 11 statewide races in Arizona between them. While Arpaios last race was within single digits, McCain won reelection in 2010 by 25 points. And the same poll that shows Arpaio possibly losing to Penzone by four points in November also shows McCain dominating Maricopa County 50 to 35 percent, with Trump ahead of Clinton by 5.

Since the county accounts for roughly 60 percent of the states population, it gives McCain hope that as of now, 2016 may be just another near death experience for him, no matter the fortunes of Trump and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Officer Caesar Goodson, Jr. is a free man.

A year after 25-year-old Freddie Grays life came to an end after he fell into a coma while in the back of a Baltimore police van and the city erupted, Goodson, 46, strode down the courthouse steps and into the next chapter of his life. That the 16-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department broke its policies in handling Gray is not in dispute. That Gray got into that van alive, only to be removed later with a devastating spinal injury, is a matter of fact.

Goodson was behind the wheel of the transport van and was accused of giving Gray what proved to be a fatal rough ride. Among the six police officers indicted by a grand jury, Goodson faced the heaviest charges, including second-degree depraved heart murder. Thursday, he became the second officer tried and acquitted of all charges in a bench trial before Circuit Judge Barry Williams.

If States Attorney Marilyn Mosby is trying to represent a new generation in criminal justice reform or even a new chapter for Baltimore law enforcement by bringing charges against the officers in the first place, the new book is reading a lot like the old onewith experts erring little chance of a conviction in the remaining trials given the verdicts so far.

Baltimore officials, including Mosby, had to know what few will admit out loud: Getting a conviction would be next to impossible, especially in a system so reticent to see young men like Gray as victims.

I think that this is a reminder that there is a shadow justice system for police officers, said social justice activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate DeRay Mckesson. This is a reminder that the work to make police officers accountable at the structure level must continue.

In fact, there was never much chance that Goodson would ever have seen a day in prison, that a jury of twelve or a judge would ever sent him to the state penitentiarynot in a place like Baltimore nor almost any other place in America.

In all likelihood, those six police officersfive men and one womanwill walk away scot free. A third trial ended in a mistrial late last year. Prosecutors say they expect to re-try Officer William Porter. But there is little hope that Porter or the three remaining cops (theyve all opted for bench, rather than jury, trials) will be convicted of anything. In fact, with the Goodson verdict, those cases are in jeopardy and they may never come to trial.

The officers involved may well have done of every single thing the public suspects: Intentionally placing an unsecured suspect in a metal-lined police van and then purposely finding every pothole and sharp turn along the way in an effort to send the shackled black man careening across the steel encasement. Then, according to prosecutors, they denied him immediate medical attention. Gray subsisted in a coma for a week until he died from his injuries.

Goodson reportedly had five separate chances to help Gray after his neck was broken and did nothing. His defense attorneys blamed the judgement of the other officers and even Gray himself, when it was Goodson who had the keys to the van.

Unfortunately, at least on some level, as a society we agree with the defense and think Gray deserved it. When they are black and poor, we are culturally prone to exact a moral examination of the victim.

Injustice is injustice no matter who it touches or who they were in the moments before. But we dont believe that. He had to have done something wrong, right?

When all is said and done, a negotiated civil settlementworth nearly $7 millionmay be the only justice Freddie Grays family ever sees. The plain fact of the matter is that jurisdictions across the countrysmall and largecollectively pay millions to resolve police brutality cases. All the while, few officers are ever charged, tried, let alone convicted on criminal chargeseven when the suspect dies, even when that suspect is unarmed.

Even when that suspect is helplessly shackled in the back of a recklessly driven police van.

The proliferation of video cameras has certainly meant more public inspection and, sure, a few more indictments. Prosecutors, who normally sail to re-election now face an additional layer of accountability. However, as the Eric Garner case demonstrates, video evidence can mean next to nothing in a grand jury room. Unfortunately, the same implicit bias that sometimes fuels the actions of officers also functions to protect them in the criminal justice system.

The police understand how well they are protected from criminal liability, Mckesson told The Daily Beast. Clearly, Freddie Gray got into that van alive and left it with his spine severed and there are six people who contributed to that.

For their part, Baltimore officials did not admit the officers were at fault. They didnt have to. The money tells the story. However, if one listens closely, the criminal justice system is saying something else: This is all the justice we have.
The House of Representatives erupted into chaos on Wednesday night as Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to regain control of the chamber. The move came 10 hours into a sit-in led by House Democrats over Republicans refusal to consider gun control measures in the wake of the Orlando terror attack, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Ryans words were inaudible as Democrats repeatedly shouted Shame! and No bill, no break! toward him and other Republicans as members voted on an unrelated and highly unusual late-night veto override intended to force Democrats into order.

It did not. As Republicans began to leave the chamber, almost all of the Democrats who were present before the vote stayed put. Some went home at around 11 p.m., but most vowed to remain through the night.

The Democrats remained committed to following each others lead as it neared midnight and as the speeches pushing for a vote on gun control measures continued. The House was gaveled back into session at around 1:00 a.m. and again at 2:30 a.m. for votes on a Zika virus funding bill. With tensions still running high, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told her members that they could either stay on the floor, or return in the morning for a whip meeting.

California Rep. Maxine Waters vowed to stay on the floor, encouraging her colleagues to do the same: Youve gone this far, youve been this strong, she said. At that point it was a waiting game to see who stayed and who left. Most exited the chamber, leaving no more than 20 Democrats participating in the sit-in by 4:00 a.m.

The events inside the chamber Wednesday were unprecedented in modern American politics. For hours, Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver sat in a chair holding a striped pillow. Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky got comfortable on the ground, leaned against a chair, and covered herself with a blanket.

For much of the day, the sit-in, which began at 11:30 a.m., was not viewable on C-SPAN. Republican leaders quickly ordered the House into recess after it began and, in accordance with House rules, the cameras are off when it is not formally in session.

But at around 2 p.m., C-SPAN began broadcasting various Democratic House members live Periscope feeds from the House floor. Reps. Mark Takano and Scott Peters livestreamed the entire sit-in on their phonesa violation of House rules when in session.

Members of the public sitting in the galleries were cheering throughout the afternoon and late into the night, applauding as Democrats continued to chant and raise pieces of paper displaying the names of victims of gun violence, in addition to banners showing the faces of the Orlando victims. Pelosi hurried up and down the chambers rows, checking in with members as the unprecedented disruptions continued.

Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who spearheaded the effort, remained seated on the floor next to a lectern even as Ryan gaveled the body into session.

Lewis and his Democratic colleagues are demanding that Republicans allow votes on legislation that would expand background checks for firearm sales and prohibit suspected terrorists from purchasing guns. Four similar amendments fell short in the Senate on Monday.

The proposal to prohibit persons placed on terror watch lists from buying gunscalled no fly, no buy has prompted GOP concerns about infringing on due process rights.

Speaking from the floor during the sit-in, democratic Rep. Seth Moulton said due process concerns should not be an excuse to block every gun control-related proposal.

If there are problems with the no fly list, then lets fix it, Moulton said. But tell me this, if they are so many problems on the no fly list, then why do we have it?

Ryan did end up calling a votebut not about gun control measures. Over the two votes on unrelated mattersthe first about a Labor Department fiduciary rulethe House settled into a bizarre process. Members recorded their votes, but shouting Democrats remained in the well while Republicansmost stone-faced and clearly annoyedkept to their side of the floor, talking among themselves.

Lewis finally got to his feet. The crowd of Democrats began singing a version of We Shall Overcome, adapting the second chorus to the events of the night: We shall pass a bill someday.

One of the most heated exchanges came when firebrand conservative Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas approached the Democrats, finger pointed, yelling, Radical Islam killed these people. A Democrat could be heard responding: Why do you want to let terrorists buy a gun?

Earlier, as the sit-in extended into the evening, the atmosphere among Democrats in the House got another boost of energy as they learned that a crowd of supporters was gathering outside the Capitol building. Later, those protesters chanted Do your job to exiting GOP representatives.

The sit-ins stalwarts included Rep. Tammy Duckworthan Iraq war veteran and U.S. Senate candidate in IllinoisDNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Wasserman Schultz read aloud a letter from former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in support of her protesting colleagues. (Giffords left her House seat after being critically wounded in a shooting in 2011.)

Nearly all the Democrats speeches included stories of constituents who had been killed by gun violence. Some of the speakers represented districts where the nations most tragic mass shootings have taken place, including Newtons Rep. Elizabeth Esty.

Reporters packed the House Press Gallery as chaos unfolded below. By 8 p.m., around 90 members were on the floor, many of them huddled around a lectern as one of their colleagues spoke. Nearly everyone stood and cheered as Lewis made his way through the crowd to take his place at the lectern.

Lewis was defiant from the start.

Thank you for getting in trouble, he began, to resounding cheers. Even the members of the public in the gallery above shouted their approvaljust another of the many House rules flouted throughout the night.

Many of the Democrats mentioned the need to put their sit-in in contextperhaps an attempt to counter GOP criticism that it was a stunt to drum up support in an election year.

The Democrats acknowledged that any proposals on gun control measures were unlikely to be approved by the GOP-controlled House. But Democrats could still reap political benefits. A vote would force Republicans to take a public stance on gun control, during a week in which a CNN/ORC poll showed a vast majority of Americans supports no fly, no buy and expanded background checks.

Lewis described the sit-in in the context of his work during the civil rights movement.

In his dramatic speech, Lewis said the sit-in was another bridge in a reference to the Bloody Sunday march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, 1965.

When we come back in July, we will start all over again, Lewis said before departing around 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning.
What would the Fourth of July be without Nathans hot dog eating contest? Eager crowds cheering on competitors with cavernous stomachs who tackle mounds of food at an alarming rate of consumption.

Its a truly American spectacle and completely fitting for the countrys Independence Day celebration.

But even before it was fodder for a special telecast on ESPN (or its highlights worthy of inclusion on SportsCenter) the event was always of interest in my familys home.

From a young age, I knew that there was not only an actual Nathan, Nathan Handwerker that is, but that he was somehow related to my father. The connection was distant, so distant it would possibly take Henry Louis Gates to figure out the necessary extended family tree to connect me with the hot dog king. (From what I have been able to deduce, my great-grandmother was Nathans second or third cousin.)

Nonetheless, I felt a pang of family pride when wed stop at a Nathans location for lunch (and more than likely some video or pinball games for me) or if I saw the familiar green, red and yellow packs of hot dogs at the supermarket.

But besides the fact that Nathan liked his hot dogs cooked on a griddle and not boiled like at street corner carts or in the old Yankee Stadium and that he preferred bulbous crinkle cut French fries as opposed to McDonalds long, straight ones, I didnt know anything else about him.

In fact, by the time I was old enough to nosh on my own frank with mustard and a pile of sauerkraut he had already passed away and the family had merged the business with fast-food chain Wetsons.

It was one of those family storieslike the one about my grandmother vowing that she shopped at the Breakstones store before the business became a dairy empirethat I vowed to one day investigate.

Fortunately, I wasnt the only one fascinated by Nathans. Just in time for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the original Coney Island location, Nathans grandson, Lloyd Handwerker, just published Famous Nathan. Lloyd spent decades researching his grandfather and the success of his eponymous restaurant and food brand. Ive been working on this for most of my life, he says. I just started recording and talking to my relatives.

In 2014, he released a film documentary about Nathan based on the hundreds of hours of footage he had amassed over the years, which is also called Famous Nathan. But Lloyd had so many other stories and interviews leftover from the project that, with the help of writer Gil Reavill, he turned his trove of family research and anecdotes into an engaging book. There were always more stories, he says. It overwhelmed me.

But the work is more than just a business case study or a rosy-colored family portrait.

(And I imagine it will be interesting to people even not distantly related to the Handwerkers.)

The book, naturally, opens with a recent hot dog eating contest (including the author interviewing a spectator holding up a sign that say Nathan Handwerker is my homeboy) and then traces Nathans life back to his birth in 1890s Poland. Describing his childhood as hardscrabble is putting it politely. Its amazing that he was able to escape the areas abject poverty and institutional antisemitism, which would have been a major achievement even if he never became a business success.

Once he arrived in New York, Nathan proved to be an extremely hard worker and gravitated towards jobs in restaurants. At an early age, he realized that if you worked in the food industry, a major side benefit was that you had something to eat. He definitely knew hunger, says Lloyd. As a result, food was an obsession for him.

This passion meant that he inspected everything and tried everything that his restaurants served. He would even go up to Maine to find potato farmers whose produce he liked and, according to Lloyd, buy their entire seasons crop, which would be turned into his signature crinkle cut fries.

Those spuds, back in the day, would be peeled and cut by hand with some workers doing that single task for 10 hours straight. To make sure the fries tasted fresh, they would be blanched first in the kitchen and then finished out front in a deep-fryer. He was insistent that the oil be changed frequently to ensure a high-quality product.

Nathans childhood hunger may also be the reason why he was extremely hesitant about raising his prices. Part of his early success was that he sold his dogs for a nickel long after his competitors were charging a dime or more.

In fact, he charged a nickel for nearly 30 years. Finally, his meat supplier forced him to change the price and promised that he would make up any loss in revenue the increase would cause.

So, what would Nathan have thought about the modern-day popularity of the hot dog eating contest? Lloyd was a bit hesitant when I asked him. Some of the old timers are disgusted by it, he admitted. While he wasnt sure if his grandfather would have agreed with them, he couldnt deny the advertising impact on the company. But on the other-hand he hated waste and each night he even inspected the garbage to see what people werent finishing.

Certainly, the starving Polish boy that Nathan started life as could never have imagined such a contest and, to boot, that it would be named for him.

On July 4th, I will be watching the event with my young son sitting on my lap, and I will, of course, be telling him that we are Nathans relatives.
ROME  Most people know what it feels like to stay in a relationship too long. What were once small annoyances become huge fights as patience wears thin. And before you know it promises are being broken and doors (or in this case borders) are slamming shut.

Thats kind of how the European Union is behaving right now, or at least thats what recent polls suggest when it comes to the question of whether or not British voters should vote to stay in the European Union on Thursday. Its as if Europe is saying to the U.K., OK, then, just go But if you go, dont come back!

And if the U.K. does vote to divorce itself from Europe on Thursday, there is no telling just how nasty the final settlement might be, or even how many other countries are going to follow the U.K.s lead and try to get out, too.

Countries like Sweden are already contemplating a referendum of their own if the U.K. votes to bail. One might envision years of Swexit, Frexit, and Italexit sagas unfolding as countries consider the value of staying in a broken union while popular opinion weighs against it.

Whats more, it sometimes seems that nobody outside the U.K. is really fighting to keep it in the European Union save arrogant Eurocrats and multi-national and British-based pan-European businesses that will be directly affected by the British vote.

A recent survey by the German Bertelsmann Foundation suggests that the majority of Europeans may favor the U.K. remaining in Europe, but they are not exactly pleading with their friends across the English Channel to stay. And some may be inspired to ditch the European project themselves.

Take France, a founding member and architect of the European Union. According to the Bertelsmann poll, only 41 percent of the French think British voters should vote to stay. Next year, Marine Le Pen, a fervent anti-EU campaigner, will almost certainly dominate the first round of Frances presidential elections, even if, like her father when he was a candidate in 2002, she is forced out in the second round.

In the wake of a Brexit vote, its certain that Marine Le Pens calls for France to hold its own referendum will gain momentum, and its no accident that she announced this week she was very much in favor of Britain pulling out.

I would vote for Brexit, even if I think that France has a thousand more reasons to leave than the U.K., she said, since the French have to deal with the euro currency and the open borders of the continent under the Schengen agreement, both of which the British refused to join long ago. Whatever the result, said Le Pen, it shows the EU is decaying, that there are cracks everywhere.

In Germany, another founding EU member, just 54 percent would like to see their British mates stay in the gang, according to the Bertelsmann poll. Italians and Spaniards are more accommodating, polling at 56 and 64 percent respectively. But other data suggest that they might be among the first to follow suit with their own referendums if the EU starts tearing apart at the seams.

The same Bertelsmann poll suggests that if Italy would hold a similar referendum on maintaining its membership, it would be a close, close race, with only 52 percent voting to stay. In a separate Eurostat survey 47 percent of Italians said they have not benefited at all from EU membership, with nearly 10 percent more answering that they didnt know if they did or not, which implies that they likely dont. And the fact that Italians voted over the weekend to elect mayors of Rome and Turin from the anti-Europe Five-Star Movement could spell trouble if they prove to be effective leaders.

In the Eurostat survey, 56 percent of Greeks said they did not benefit from EU membership and 45 percent of Austrians just dont see what the EU has done for them.

Interestingly, only 37 percent of Britons actually said they did not benefit from EU membership, despite the fact that the Leave campaign is polling much higher than that.

Such data underscore the basic concern of many European leaders when it comes to holding a referendum: the vote is likely to reflect short-term emotions driven by current events, not long-term development strategies. In 2005, for instance, the French voted down the European constitution that their leaders had taken a major hand in drafting. The basic reason: the vote had become a de facto referendum on the increasingly unpopular presidency of Jacques Chirac.

When British Prime Minister David Cameron made a pledge in 2013 to hold the Brexit referendum, he was trying to protect his right flank inside and outside the Conservative Party, and felt reasonably certain Britain would vote to stay in. But that was before the onslaught of ISIS organized and inspired terrorism in nearby France, and the refugee crisis overwhelming Europes southern and eastern borders. Those concerns are being exploited by the right wing throughout Europe, and tend to overshadow the often confusing economic arguments pro and con.

Some reports suggest that countries like Italy will see as much as a 7 percent drop in exports to the U.K., while Germans could see a 3 percent drop in their overall growth rate. Yet other reports, like Standard & Poors recent sensitivity index of the top 20 countries that would be most affected by a BrexitWho Has The Most To Lose From Brexit?suggests that it might not be that bad. Ireland and Malta face the biggest economic risks while Italy and Austria apparently wont feel much pain at all. The United States doesnt even make the list of affected countries.

Much of the disaffection with the EU among Europeans can be attributed to Brussels handling of the refugee issue, according to a multi-national Pew Research Center poll in early June.

The British are not the only ones with doubts about the European Union, according to the Pew findings. The EUs image and stature have been on a roller coaster ride in recent years throughout Europe.

Front line countries facing the refugee and migrant influx, like Italy and Greece, obviously see the refugee crisis as a problem for all of Europe to share. Land-locked countries quite obviously disagree with that concept and have tightened up their borders accordingly.

The only thing most EU countries agree on is how badly Europe has handled the crisis. In every country surveyed, overwhelming majorities disapprove of how Brussels has dealt with the problem. This includes 94 percent of Greeks, 88 percent of Swedes and 77 percent of Italians. The strongest approval of EU management of the refugee crisis is in the Netherlands, but that backing is a tepid 31 percent.

If British voters do decide to stay, one has to wonder if it will it be like the couple that remains together for the sake of the kids where the troubles that led them to this point will continue to bubble below the surface. Or, if they leave, is there going to be a contagion of divorce all through the neighborhood? Whatever happens on Thursday, much damage already has been done.
Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson has something to say to all Americans: when it comes to civil liberties, immigration, foreign policy, trade, and a host of other issues, the Republican and Democratic Parties have both lost their minds.

Hes not very good at saying it, mind you. The former Republican two-term governor of New Mexico is not a polished speaker, and gave ramblingand occasionally incoherentanswers during a CNN-sponsored town hall telecast Wednesday night. Voters who have no idea what the Libertarian Party stands for may have come away just as confused.

Which is a shame, because on pure substance, the Libertarian ticket should appeal to voters who are fed up with an election cycle that has produced the two most hated major-party presidential candidates in modern history. The message will resonate with Americans, but only if they ignore the fact that the messenger sounds like he stopped consuming marijuana only recentlywhich, in fact, he did.

Johnson made his pitch to voters Wednesday night alongside his vice presidential pick, former Massachusetts Republican governor William Weld. The socially liberal, fiscally conservative former state executives asked the nation to reject the extremes of both parties.

Their timing could not have been better. As Johnson and Weld spoke to CNN viewers, a curious spectacle was unfolding in the House of Representatives where Congressional Democrats, led by former civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, staged a sit-in to demand federal action on gun control. Specifically, they want Republicans to sign off on a plan, supported by President Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, that would prohibit citizens on the no-fly list from purchasing firearms.

Such a policy would obviously violate the Constitution, which stipulates that the government may not deny citizens their rightsand like it or not, gun ownership is a right, according to the Second Amendmentwithout due process. Putting someone on a watch list does not constitute due process, which is why the idea is vehemently opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

But extremism in opposition to liberty is not solely the province of the Democratic Partynot remotely. Earlier this week, Republican leadership began scheming to approve new surveillance powers for the FBI. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gets his way, the agency would be able to monitor online activity without seeking warrants.

In the wake of national tragedies like the horrific mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Republicans and Democrats alike retreat to their preferred policy solutions, which would invariably punish vast swaths of peoplebe they immigrants, gun owners, or Muslimsfor the misdeeds of a few. Neither party cares very much about civil liberties when civil liberties are inconvenient.

Johnson and Weld, however, are a breath of fresh air for Americans who want the government to consistently respect their rights. On immigration, both are horrified by Donald Trumps plan to deport 11 million immigrants. Noting that he governed a border state, Johnson slammed the plan as wildly impractical. He maintained that illegal immigrants are hard-working people who dont take jobs from American citizens. Weld pointed out, as he has before, that only an authoritarian government on par with Nazi Germany would be able to accomplish mass deportation.

They also criticized Trumpa huckster, according to Weldfor working to undermine free trade.

Johnson was more measured toward Clinton, even referring to her a wonderful public servant. It wasnt his best moment, to be sure. Even so, he implicitly criticized the former Secretary of States role in crafting the Obama foreign policy, which has made America less safe by intervening the country in too many Middle Eastern conflicts.

Johnsons best answer, sadly, came when he asked Weld to field a question on his behalf. The former governor of Massachusetts has a much better way with words: he was both polished and presidential. Its no wonder former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he could easily vote for Weld, but wasnt sure about Johnson yet.

That said, charisma isnt actually a qualification to be president. Clinton and Trump are charismatic: they both possess ample star-power, give entertaining speeches, and inspire fiercely loyal followers. At the same time, they are both flawed, evidently corrupt, possibly amoral human beings. Clintons signature contribution to recent public policy was the catastrophic decision to intervene in Libya, and Trumps embarrassing temperament could well be a threat to national security.

Mild-mannered Johnson doesnt want to put American citizens on secret lists and deprive them of their rights. He doesnt want kill the families of terrorists. He doesnt want to start trade wars with China or Mexico. He doesnt want to continue failed wars, be they domestic (like the drug war) or abroad.

There are a lot of voters who could find something to like in all that: Bernie Bros who (rightly) think Clinton is a neoconservative shill, anti-Trumpers who (rightly) think the GOP nominee is mentally unstable, and of course, libertarians themselves.

But if Johnson wants to put together anything resembling a coalition to overturn the two-party systemor, more realistically, put a respectable dent in ithe must sell himself and his ideas a lot better than he did last night.

And hes only going to get so many more chances.
It might be that easygoing Texan drawl that makes Matthew McConaughey the emblematic all-American movie star of his generation, or the patriotic sizzle cemented by the sight of him swathed in red, white, and blue chasing the American Dream as a male stripper-cum-entrepreneurthe Uncle Sam of Magic Mike. Even the current issue of People magazine excitedly proclaims McConaughey Our #1 Reason To Love America! and who among us would dare argue with that?

But in his latest film, the Civil War biopic Free State of Jones, the Oscar-winning actor takes a different tack toward serious historical introspection. In bringing the extraordinary and controversial life of farmer, father, Confederate deserter, and militant Southern Unionist Newton Knight to the big screen, McConaughey asks us to consider Americas ugly pastand in doing so, ponder its future.

Im in South Africa at the moment and its just after sundown, McConaughey murmurs in that unmistakable genteel drawl via phone from Cape Town, where hes been filming the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower since April.

Apartheid was just ended 22 years ago. And you look at America. You look at the East, and you look at Asia, and you look at Europe, and Im reminded how young we are as a country. Im reminded of how ambitious we are. But Im also reminded of how we are, and there are a lot of things going on right now.

McConaughey sure is right: Shortly after our conversation, dozens of House Democrats would launch into an epic sit-in protest on the floor of the House of Representatives seeking a gun control vote in the wake of the terrorist attack in Orlando, garnering viral media attention with their uncharacteristic display of good old-fashioned disruption.

So its prescient, or perhaps just a sign of our times, that even while working halfway around the world McConaughey is eager to shed light on the patriotic legacy of Newton Knight, a figure so contentious that historians today on either side of the Mason-Dixon line still argue bitterly over whether he was a hero or some kind of scoundrel.

In many ways Knight was probably both. The sprawling historical biopic Free State Of Jones, written and directed by Hunger Games and Seabiscuit helmer Gary Ross, tracks Knights journey from reluctant Confederate soldier to deserter to freedom fighting local militia leader, one who not only led a group of poor white farmers and freed black slaves in brutally violent rebellions against the South, but also fathered several children with a white wife and a black common-law wife (not to mention his second wifes daughter, a fact overlooked in the film) to the lasting chagrin of his critics.

As told by Free State of Jones, Knight was a fierce leader who believed that love is love, and also believed in using deadly force for a cause. In his time, both acts openly defied the laws and morals of the American government.

I had never heard of Newton Knight or this story, or of stories of Confederate defectors myself, McConaughey says. When Gary Ross gave me the script my first question was, Wowthis is true? I remember thinking this script is worthy of making even if its not true. It happens to be true.

Knights journey, he notes, was an evolution that only began when he stood up for his individual rights, fed up by a Confederate Army that was exploiting the men and women of the South to fuel its war machine. You cant treat me like that, You cant take my mamas mule, You cant make me fight for your rich mans war, that turned into, You cant treat my neighbor like that. And that turned into, You cant treat anyone like that.

This mans sense of his family became the sense of a family of manmankind, womankind, all kind, he continues. But it started off as very selfish. You cant treat me like that. You cant take 10 percent of what I own. He was defending his own rights, and that became defending freedom for everyone.

The value in Knights awakening, McConaughey suggests, is that it led to a similar awakening in others. His growing band of followersfellow deserters, fed up farmers, women and slaves and freedmenbecame thorns in the Confederacys side, outliers armed in open defiance and hidden in the impenetrable swamps of Mississippi.

And one clear intention of the film is to remind audiences that even as we believe weve progressed as a nation, theres still plenty of wrong that hasnt yet been righted.

McConaughey says hes inspired by the sense of righteousness and sense of justice that Knight found in the Bible. With one eye on the presentwhere a divided America is bitterly split along lines of politics and faith that spill over into matters of policy, from the anti-LGBT legislation championed by the religious right to a 2016 election so intertwined with faith that even the pope called shenanigans on GOP frontrunner Donald Trumpsuch a sentiment might be read as encouragement for Christians to pause and remember the teachings of the text.

The actor, 46, politely declines to comment on the current election and its players, although he admits he has many opinions on those matters. Instead, he deliberately focuses on the nonpartisan issues that parallel Knights tumultuous times and our own.

Knight had a moral code rooted in the Bible and the Declaration of Independence: love thy neighbor as thyself, and all men are created equal, he offers. So he had a very radical relationship with his own independence, and interdependencewhich is very American. Extremely American.

It is my personal belief that mankind has bastardized religion, he says. Religion actually means, if you look up the Latin root, re which means again, and ligare, which means to bind together. It means exactly the opposite of what and how we are often practicing it these days!

All of this, the abolition of slavery in the Civil War at this time, they were almost all led by religious movementsChristian movementsthat were trumping the ideals that everyone else had. They went further into it and said, No, this is not rightbecause of the Bible.

Actual images of the real Knight depict a fierce man with wild eyes and a shock of unruly hair. Historical accounts suggest he snuck into the home of Confederate Major Amos McLemore, who had led efforts to hunt down deserters, and shot him dead, right in the back. The film depicts him as a noble but brutal leader who wasnt afraid to kill his enemies to defend his community and its people.

He was not a turn the other cheek New Testament guy, McConaughey chuckled, offering the understatement of the century. One of the things I noticed about him was if he saw something that was wrong or unjust, he really had no way to ignore it. It was not in his DNA to ignore it, damned be the consequences. He didnt lose sleep over any decisions he made. Thats something I really admired about the guy.

Have we evolved? Sure we have. Must we be aware of the progress weve made? Absolutely. Do we still have challenges that we have to overcome? Absolutely.

Portraying Knight and his righteous crusade had its great difficulties. Neither McConaughey nor his costars shy away from using the n-word, for example. Personally, I think you put it out there in front of a light and lets examine that, lets examine what its historical meaning is, what its present meaning is, he explained to Moviefone. And understand how it hurts. It was a hard but beautiful scene that we did.

The ugliness of slavery and the continued murder, disenfranchisement, and exploitation of African-Americans during Reconstruction, which comprises the films final act, are important truths to confront. McConaugheys key takeaway from the experience? Contextfor himself and for his young children.

American history. World history. My own familys history, he says. Taking my children to set, telling them the storytrying to find a way to tell the story to young kids when I get home every night and before work in a way that they can understand it, and then hearing the questions that they had. Taking my children to set and saying, This is a horrible thing, but its true. And you know what, the truth burns. But Id rather us talk about some really ugly scars in our history that are still relevant today than you go play Call of Duty and shoot a bunch of people in a video game.

It happened. Its real. So lets sit here and go, Yeah, guess what man, the world is not all clean and neat. We want to expect the best in everyone but we have to understand that we all have good and bad in us, and these are some times when weve made mistakes, there are some things where people were just wrong, and this is how weve improved and are still evolving. This is a situation that you will be handed and which will be more evolved when you get to it.

McConaughey describes an optimism for the future his three kids, aged 6 through 8, will grow into.

America turns the page and evolves quicker than most places historically. In that way Im inspired, and it makes me happy to be, and honored, to be an American, he says. Im not saying everything is just as they should be. But our ambition and our diligence to march forward for change, to test it out, to not give in to every new idea Where do we hang onto tradition, and where do we progress with new ideas, and ones that will hopefully stand the test of time? That excites me about our country.

He bids me goodbye to return to The Dark Tower, in which he plays the villainous Man in Black to Idris Elbas dystopian sci-fi Western hero. Even in that world, good and evil are relative depending on whose shoes youre standing in. McConaughey considered whether his Walter Padick, the greatest villain in the Stephen King multiverse, would believe himself to be evil incarnate. He pauses. He sure doesnt think he is, he says. A good villain believes hes a minister of peace.
In one of the most important cases of the year, the Supreme Court was unable to decide.

Thanks to the unprecedented stalling of President Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, the short-staffed, broken, and divided court reached its first major deadlock today, tying 4-4 in U.S. v. Texas, a case challenging Obamas executive orders on immigration.

The entirety of the Courts holding is one sentence: The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.

In practice, this means that the injunction against the Obama order remains in place while a federal district court adjudicates the case on its merits. Translation: Obama loses, and undocumented immigrants will continue to be deported (which they have been in record numbers).

This is a travesty of justice, perpetrated by the Republicans in the United States Senate. No previous filibuster, delay, or political game has ever denied the Supreme Court its full membership for this long. No customary rule or practice has ever stalled a nomination beginning in March of an election year. And while conservative pundits may be as delighted by the effects of the Courts deadlock as they are on blocking a qualified judge from joining the Supreme Court, true patriots should hang their heads in shame.

Because this is what broken government looks like.

"Republicans in Congress currently are willfully preventing the Supreme Court from being fully staffed and functioning as our Founders intended," Obama said at the White House. "And todays situation underscores the degree to which the Court is not able to function the way it's supposed to. "

Its not surprising that the first high-profile deadlockthere have been other 4-4 ties in lesser casescame in U.S. v. Texas, a case whose very name perhaps reflects the divisions within our country at large. There were two major questions in play: first, whether President Obama exceeded his executive authority in issuing the orders, and second, whether Texas has standing to sue the federal government to block them.

And now the answer is: we dont know.

The case was on appeal from District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Brownsville, whose 123-page injunction order was a masterpiece of activist judging filled with right-wing talking points about the evils of illegal immigration. Since everyone knew the case would be appealed in the end anyway, the parties cut to the chase and appealed the preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction, bouncing the merits of the case up to the Supreme Court. Which has now done nothing.

So, the injunction remains in place, and the case now goes back to Judge Hanen. That adjudication process will take many monthsthe next hearing in the case is set for August 22and will likely outlast Obamas time in office. And then, of course, it will be appealed, whoever wins, thus repeating the process that has just led to stalemate.

In some ways, the practical effects of the non-ruling are most acute for the 4 million undocumented immigrants who would have been shielded from deportation under the Obama orders, but are now back on the deportation list. Its not like anyones suddenly about to be deported as a result of the Courts deadlock. Of the 11.3 undocumented immigrants in America, Congress has only provided funds for removing around a third of them. Really, what the Obama orders did was set administrative priorities for who should be removed first.

But the injunction against those orders means that chaos reigns again in terms of who stays and who goes.

To be sure, immigration is now a central issue in the 2016 election, with one candidate promising to immediately deport all 11.3 million (though without any details as to how).

But to call the Courts deadlock a good result is to misunderstand its role in our democracy. Unlike immigration policy, the boundary of executive power is not a political issue. It is a constitutional one. Whatever one feels about the rightness or wrongness of Obamas executive orders, todays inaction is a grievous failure of our system of government.

Yes, let the people decide questions of politics. But Article I of the Constitution is not up for a popular vote. Nor is the Bill of Rights. Nor is the Equal Protection Clause. Under our system of government, these are judicial, constitutional questions that are to be decided by judges, and ultimately by the Supreme Court.

Its easy to miss that distinction in the fiery haze of partisan punditry. Most coverage of U.S. v. Texas depicts it as an immigration case. Well, sort of, but really, its a case about what a president can and cant do. Likewise, the pending case on abortion, Whole Womens Health v. Texas, is partly an abortion case but actually a due process case, about when a state may limit a citizens basic civil rights.

But in the hyper-partisanship of the current Republican Party, theres no distinction between politics and law. Thats why so many GOP SenatorsRepublican senators felt betrayed by Chief Justice Robertss rulings on Obamacare. We hate Obamacare!, they screamed. Those decisions are terrible!

But those decisions werent about whether Obamacare is a good thing or a bad thing. The first one was about the U.S. Constitution, and whether the federal government has the power to compel individuals to purchase health insurance. And the second one was about how to interpret an ambiguous statutory provision, and how judges should read the laws that Congress passes.

Likewise, though liberals have decried the Supreme Courts decision that the Second Amendment protects gun rights, they at least seem to understand that that question is distinct from whether gun control is a good idea or not.

This should all be Civics 101. And yet the distinction between what a politician does and what a judge does seems lost on conservatives, who have decried the Roberts Courta court led by a judicial and political conservative  as hopelessly political. As if ruling on the Constitution were somehow a political act, rather than precisely what the Supreme Court was designed to do.

Now, that design has failed, thanks to the concerted efforts of the modern GOP and its anti-government mega-funders to undermine the court system and break down government itself. They have, as they have long tried to do, broken the courts.

Now what?
PARIS  Europe is not immune to mass murder. Its rare, but it happens, and when a deranged masked man erupted in a German cinema complex on Thursday afternoon, wearing an ammunition belt and firing a gun into the air, authorities feared the worst.

Would he try to emulate the prolonged, systematic slaughter in Orlando earlier this month, or at the Cineplex in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012? Initial reports in Germany talked of 50 people injured and a hostage scene.

Worse still, according to the recorded program at the Kinopolis complex in the town of Viernheim, which is about 20 minutes from a U.S. Army base in Heidelberg, half the movies playing there when the gunman burst in at about 3 p.m. were tailored for children, including The Jungle Book, Zootopia, and Alice Through the Looking Glass.

In the end, the only person who died appears to have been the shooter himself, described by German police as a confused individual with no evident terrorist connection. He had tried to hide, according to some reports. A special weapons and tactics police unit, the SEK, killed him to end the siege and free any potential hostages.

Still unclear is whether the choking gas that reportedly was released in the theater and affected several people there came from the police or the shooter.

In the 2012 Aurora massacre, James Holmes released gas in a theater during a midnight showing of a Batman movie. The arsenal he had with him included an AR-15 type assault rifle, a tactical shotgun and a Glock pistol. With these he killed 12 people and wounded scores more.

The gun or guns carried by the shooter in Germany have not yet been identified authoritatively. According to the Bild website, he fired four shots in the air from a long gun, possibly a hunting rifle or shotgun, and had a cartridge belt around over his shoulder. Some reports suggest he had a gas pistol.
Saudi Arabias Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old son of the king and ever more obviously the heir apparent, is just winding up a fairly low profile public relations tour of the United States. Last week he met with President Barack Obama in Washington. This week he got together with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in New York. In between he visited Silicon Valley and talked up his Vision 2030 program to overhaul and modernize Saudi Arabias economy.

But MBS, as hes known, has attracted the worlds attention since his appointment as deputy crown prince and minister of defense early last year mainly for his heavy-handed efforts, including a war in Yemen, to contain and roll back Iranian influence in the region.

When MBS met with Obama, according to the official read-out, they discussed Irans destabilizing activities and agreed to explore avenues that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions.

Interesting phrase that: de-escalating tensions. It could have just as easily referred to the growing rift between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as to the ongoing confrontation between Riyadh and Tehran.

Ever since the U.S. started to approach energy independence, largely due to fracking, America has been less dependent on Saudi oil and thus less obligated to Riyadh than it once was. And while the mullahs in Tehran may pose some dangers to the United States, Americans do not regard a resurgent Iran as an existential threat. The Saudi monarchy, on the other hand, feels very threatened indeed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its ongoing regional revolution.

Washingtons effort at rapprochement with Tehran, exemplified by the Iranian nuclear deal, is only one of many issues that have led the Saudis to believe they can no longer count on Uncle Sam to have their back.

Recently the Obama Administration blocked the transfer of cluster bombs to the kingdom over concerns that previous shipments had been used in Yemen, resulting in significant civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate passed a bill which would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged role supporting the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. All this in a business environment in which the Saudi decision to maintain a high volume of oil exports, despite low prices, has depressed the international energy market and led to wide-scale layoffs and bankruptcies among Americas oil producers.

Even assuming that the recent diplomatic offensive by the Saudi leadership is successful, and US-KSA relations improve, the recent strain has proven to the Saudi royals that they can no longer take America, and its security umbrella, for granted. What are the Saudis to do?

The following is an attempt to Red Team Saudi planning for war with Iran, a work of the imagination founded in fact that tries to get inside the thinking of those who advise the king and his son.

To: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

From: Colonel Faris bin Saif Al Harbi

Subject: Preparations for the Inevitable

My King, at the direction of your most worthy son, the Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, I have prepared a plan for the inevitable conflict against the Persians and Rejectionists [Shia Muslims]. To win we must apply our strengths, but we must also be cognizant of our shortcomings. The Persians are clever and numerous. To defeat their plans of domination, we must also be strong and clever, but we should ensure that we do not fight alone. Once we could count on the Americans, but no more. While it is obvious to us that we must lead the faithful, others may take some convincing.

The most significant conventional threat posed by rejectionist forces is against our Gulf oil infrastructure. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval, missile, and irregular forces threaten our refineries and oil facilities along the Gulf coast.

To defend these we should continue our investments in NATO standard air defense, navy and air forces. We are already in the process of acquiring diesel electric submarines from Germany and upgrading our American made Patriot missiles. However, instead of buying outrageously expensive American ships, we should instead buy larger numbers of smaller corvettes and fast patrol craft to counter Irans swarms of attack boats in the Arabian Gulf. Our existing Apache helicopter fleet should also be positioned near Dhahran as the Americans have told me that the Apache and its Hellfire missiles can be effective against small naval craft.

Defense is not enough. We must also acquire the capability to strike at the Persians oil and gas infrastructure. To this end we might take a lesson from the Persians and acquire shore-based anti-ship missiles and additional ballistic missiles to threaten their infrastructure and to project power from our coastline.

Here, other than Identify Friend and Foe (IFF) systems, NATO standard is not a priority. The Chinese and Russians are receptive to selling capable anti-ship systems, and the Pakistanis are a good source for reasonably capable and affordable ballistic missiles to supplement our existing Chinese missiles. We should be cautious with the Chinese and Russians. Both have evidenced a desire to draw the Persians into their sphere. While I have faith in Persias jingoistic obstinacy to sabotage any relationship, we must be careful to avoid betrayal by foreign powers looking to curry favor with the ayatollahs.

We should also follow the example of the United Arab Emirates and acquire a genuinely expeditionary ground and air force capability. Unfortunately the Kingdom lacks sufficient numbers of men with both the discipline and the flexibility to excel at modern combat as practiced by the West. Therefore we shall have to hire qualified mercenaries, not just the Pakistani rabble who make up the bulk of our ground forces now.

While we have invested heavily in our Special Operations Forces since 2003, for the most part they have been focused on domestic counter-terrorism. This is obviously important to maintaining internal stability, but we need to engage and train foreign proxy forces as a counter to the Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Despite our strained relationship with America, we can still count on the CIA for training as long as we keep feeding them information on some of our more fractious countrymen currently abroad.

Even the Takfiri [extremists aligned with ISIS or Al Qaeda] among our population have a role to play in the coming war. While we have learned that controlling the followers of Bin Laden can be problematic, we can still take advantage of their baser instincts. The Takfiri of Daesh [ISIS] and Jabhat al-Nusra are at the forefront of the fight against the Rejectionists. While neither group has any love for the Family or the Kingdom, they can be relied on to focus the attention of the Persians and their lackeys.

Unfortunately, they also distract the Americans and Europeans from the real threat, the Persians. With some subtle encouragement and resources, they can continue to fight the Qods Force and their lickspittles, the Houthi in Yemen and Assad and Hezbollah in the Levant. However, we must be vigilant and thoroughly identify the membership of the various Takfiri groups so that once we have achieved victory we can deal with them as your father handled the Ikhwan following the unification of the Kingdom.

Your Majesty has already set the conditions for the financing of the war both in the short and the long term with your wise handling of the currently depressed oil market. While our resources are, perforce, constrained by current oil prices, our enemies are in even greater distress. We must stay the course in order to maintain our share of the international market. Production at current levels also reminds the entire world, that despite the cursed fracking of the Americans, the Kingdom is still the arbiter of the Market.

Further, maintaining market share ensures that our customers keep their refineries optimized to the Kingdoms oil. This discourages customers from changing to crude acquired from the Persians or their Rejectionist clients in Iraq. While both Persia and Iraq wish to sell more oil, they will find it hard in the current market glut. We have significant, if shrinking, currency reserves. Our enemies do not.

Of course some of our most important allies are also poor. The Egyptian al-Sisi regime in particular needs our aid and, once the war comes, we will need theirs. Egypt has the potential to be a critical ally in the fight. Should we be unable to develop our own ground forces, mercenary or otherwise, then Egypt would be an excellent source of military power. Their army is large and both well-equipped and trained by the standards of the region. While they are still no match for the Zionists (who beside the Americans are?), they would be invaluable should we face a ground war against the Persians. While such a conflict on Saudi soil is unlikely, a confrontation could develop over the carcass of Iraq.

Turkey also has an interest in confronting the Rejectionists. President Erdogans hatred for Assad is well known, just as is his love of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the former is useful, the latter is problematic. He has also extended an olive branch from time to time towards the Persians. Nonetheless, there is little reason to believe that Turkey would take the Persian side in the coming war. Rather, with some judicious diplomacy, coupled with appropriate personal remunerations, we should be able to ensure Turkey remains within the camp of the Rightly Guided. Ankaras support will be guaranteed if we assure it that we have little interest in how it chooses to handle their Kurdish problem. Should Erdogan remain obstinate in his neutrality or support for the Brotherhood, however, we can use the Kurds as a goad, just as we are currently doing in Iraq.

Two particularly sensitive preoccupations should also be addressed: the Zionists and the Bomb. While in the long run, the destruction of the Zionists is inevitable, in the short to medium term, they have a useful role to play against the Persians.

The Likudniks hostility towards Persia is as great as our own. Open cooperation is, of course, impossible. Having said that, we might quietly pursue our common purpose. The Zionists reportedly have close contact with the dissident Baluch population of Persia. As fellow Sunnis, however uncivilized, they are a natural vector for sowing discord. The Zionists previous efforts along these lines were suppressed by the IRGC, but between the Zionists expertise and our resources we should be able to reinvigorate the Baluchi rebellion.

Our relationship with Pakistan will need close cultivation. Pakistans shared border with Iran and large army makes it the ideal partner to contain Persian ambitions. However, Pakistans first priority is, and will remain, its confrontation with India.

Of course, Pakistan is also the first and only Muslim nuclear power. While we remain skeptical of Persias Nuclear Deal, there is reason to believe that the Persians are currently constrained from developing nuclear weapons. As long as that is the case, our nuclear insurance plan with Pakistan [obtaining bombs from Islamabad] can remain on hold.

The Americans pose the greatest diplomatic challenge. With them on our side the war will be short and decisive. Without them we run the risk of repeating the mistakes of Saddams Qadisiyyah [the eight-year Iran-Iraq War].

In the upcoming election, President Clintons wife is far preferable to the alternative. While we would undoubtedly be able to make a deal with Trump, the former president and his wife have a solid record of being sympathetic to our requirements. The Wife represents a likely return to continuity within American foreign policy. This would be preferable to the current policy of grudging and episodic attention to our reasonable needs. With this in mind, we should assist our friends in the American energy industry to bolster the Clinton campaign as appropriate.

Please keep in mind that the coming war, even under the best of circumstances, will be difficult. Difficult, not because we lack the faith, vision or resources for victory, but rather because what we must do will have repercussions beyond the immediate war. It is not enough that we defeat the Persians and Rejectionists, we must also ensure that at the end of the war we are indisputably, in the eyes of Allah (SWT) and the world, the champions of the faithful.

Your most humble Servant,

Colonel Faris bin Saif Al Harbi
In a surprise decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the use of race in university admissions. But the hedgy, compromise opinion by Justice Kennedy will cause so much litigation that few universities will be able to afford it.

The poster child for the case, Fisher v. University of Texas, is a now-twentysomething named Abigail Fisher, who claims she didnt get in because UT preferred non-white candidates over her.

The real plaintiff, though, is the far-right Project on Fair Representation, funded by the far-right Bradley Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, and Koch-founded Donors Trust. That organization, headed by conservative activist lawyer Edward Blum, has fought against diversity initiatives worldwide and was also behind the successful effort to destroy the Voting Rights Act.

Todays ruling, though technically a loss, is actually yet another success for the Kochs, Searles, and Bradleys. Because while so-called affirmative action was narrowly upheld in this case, the ruling was so narrow that it paves the way for more lawsuits against more universities in the future. Indeed, Blum has promised exactly that.

In fact, the Court placed three significant burdens on universities seeking to include race in their admissions considerations.

First is the purpose. Most people think affirmative action exists to remedy past discrimination. And indeed, it once did. For the past 20 years, however, it is only allowed in educational contexts for the purposes of promoting diversity. As Justice Kennedy wrote in todays case, the compelling interest that justifies consideration of race in college admissions is not an interest in enrolling a certain number of minority students. Rather, a university may institute a race-conscious admissions program as a means of obtaining the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.

Second is the limited discretion universities have. Its up to universities, the Court said, to determine how important diversity is. But its not up to them to decide how to achieve it. In Justice Kennedys words, the university bears the burden of proving a nonracial approach would not promote its interest in the educational benefits of diversity about as well and at tolerable administrative expense.

In other words, if theres any other way to achieve diversity goals, thats what universities have to do. They can only factor race into admissions as a last resort. And that question will be reviewed by courts  indeed, the last time the Fisher case came to the Supreme Court, the Court said that it will not defer to universities good faith in saying that the requirements are necessary. The schools have to prove it.

Third, race cant be a direct factor in admissions. In the University of Texass program, Justice Kennedy said, race is but a factor of a factor of a factor. If a student doesnt get in because shes in the top ten percent of her class, then a complex set of factors gets put into play, one of which maybe, sometimes, is race.

As this case indicates, this third requirement is the messiest. A simple plus is too much. A numerical quota is definitely not allowed. But some vague holistic consideration is okay. And what that means will be up to a judge.

As a result, these cases get into the weeds, fast. Justice Kennedys opinion, for example, quickly devolved into the particulars of UTs program. Theres a bit of a game everyone has to play, counting race but not counting race, factoring it in somewhat, but not too much. Its messy.

These cases also get expensive. Since race is only one factor in some vague, holistic evaluation, basically, every schools program is going to be a little bit different. And since the Project for Fair Representation has an effectively infinite amount of money, they can just sue everybody all the time. Indeed, theyre already looking for new plaintiffs at University of North Carolina and University of Wisconsin.

Which means that public universities, with their budgets slashed by Republican governors like Scott Walker and with barely enough cash to pay professors, have to pay for endless litigation.

Does Fisher still sound like a victory for racial equality  as the Southern Policy Law Center declared it today?

Only if by victory one means not a total washout, but a messy legal regime that will cost cash-strapped institutions millions of dollars to litigate. Really, the victory goes to the Koch/Searle/Bradley consortium, because the cost of diversity is now so high that few institutions can afford to pay it.

Indeed, even Justice Kennedys opinion said that the unique parameters of the UT program may limit [the cases] value for prospective guidance.

To be sure, the case does give some hope to civil rights activists. Justice Kennedy might easily have swung the other way in this 4-3 case (Justice Kagan was recused because she argued the case years ago as solicitor general; Justice Garland was recused because he isnt yet Justice Garland). Indeed, his frustration at oral argument  at one point kvetching that the Court was hearing the same case twicesuggested that he might be done with the whole idea of race-conscious admissions.

In addition, the Courts opinion refused to say how much diversity is enough (the plaintiff said UT already had critical mass of non-white students) or how much the racial considerations had to matter (perversely, the plaintiffs argued that since they didnt make that much of a difference, they should be scrapped entirely).

To be sure, the Courts balancing was far too much for Justice Thomas, who wrote to say that any use of race in admissions is categorically prohibited, and Justice Alito (with whom Chief Justice Robert joined), who said that something strange happened since the first Fisher case, since the nebulous standards the Court upheld are functionally the same as no standards at al.

Tellingly, Justice Alitos dissent was twice as long as Justice Kennedys majority opinion, going into even more detail about UTs program, and picking apart UTs statements about it at oral argument. Justice Alito, too, had to get into the weeds.

Now, if it is true race-conscious admissions are about striking this sensitive balance between the compelling interest in diversity and the constitutional right of all people to enjoy equal protection of the laws, then balancing various factors against one another is what organizations and courts simply have to do. On the other hand, as Justice Alitos dissent convincingly demonstrates, its hard to do thislet alone to do it objectively.

That, alas, will mean more lawsuits, as long as the Koch Brothers can afford to pay for them, which is probably for a very long time.
Taiwan holds ritual to commemorate legendary hero in Chinese culture

From:chinadaily.com.cn | 2016-06-23 11:21

People attend a sacrifice ceremony to pay tribute to Fu Xi, a culture hero in Chinese legend and mythology, in Taipei, Southeast China's Taiwan, June 22, 2016. Fu Xi is believed to be the inventor of writing, fishing and hunting. [Photo/Xinhua]

A grand ceremony was held Wednesday in Taipei to commemorate legendary hero Fuxi, who was said to be the first man to use ropes to make nets for hunting and fishing.

A similar annual event was also held the same day in Tianshui, Gansu province, where Fuxi was born. It was the third time since 2014 that compatriots across the Taiwan Strait jointly commemorated this legendary character.

After a drum beat and three tolls of a bell, participants made offerings and bowed in front of an icon resembling Fuxi in a large hall in downtown Taipei. A visiting delegation from Gansu also attended the event.

During the ritual, a eulogy was read lauding the great contributions made by Fuxi to Chinese culture and wishes of common development and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait were expressed. A dance was performed at the end of the ceremony telling of Fuxi's feats.

"It is significant for both sides of the Strait to jointly commemorate Fuxi," said Lin Junq-tzer, vice chairman of Kuomintang (KMT), at the ceremony.

Much of Taiwan's cultural and religious traditions have their roots on the mainland, he said.

"Fuxi is our common ancestor. Jointly commemorating him will promote cultural exchange and strengthen the sense of national identity," said Li Zhenya, head of the Gansu delegation.

According to old records, Fuxi created "bagua" (a set of divination symbols), invented writing, advised people to marry and taught people to fish with nets. Tianshui in Gansu is recorded as Fuxi's birthplace and there are many Fuxi-related relics and historical sites located in and around the city.
The CIA said it would only torture detainees to psychologically break them, according to a previously-unreported passage from a 2007 Justice Department memo. Its a claim thats at odds with how congressional investigators say the agency really handled captives in the early days of the war on terror.

And its not the only eye-opening assertion found in newly declassified portions of Bush-era documents on the CIAs use of torture. A second document says that the CIA believed itself to be legally barred from torturing others countries detaineesbut not from using so-called enhanced interrogations on its own captives.

In a passage from a 2007 memo by the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, the CIA said it would only subject detainees to harsh techniques, such as waterboarding, in order to break a detainee down to the point where he would no longer withhold information. The interrogations werent designed to get answers to specific questions; in fact, the agency interrogator generally does not ask questions... to which the CIA does not already know the answers, the memo states.

But that claim is contradicted by the agencys actual record, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the government to disclose the portions of the document.

The CIA claimed that it had the ability to torture its captives to the precise point where they would become compliant and produce useful, accurate information, Dror Ladin, an ACLU attorney who reviewed the documents, told The Daily Beast. As we know from the Senate [Intelligence Committee] report [on torture], these representations were not remotely accurate. Instead, the CIA would brutalize prisoners in search of answers they didnt have, leading desperate prisoners to fabricate information.

After a lengthy investigation of the CIA program , the Senate Intelligence Committee found that CIA interrogators asked open-ended questions... to which the CIA did not know the answers, while subjecting detainees to the enhanced interrogation techniques.

The CIA took that approach with Abu Zubaydah, an al Qaeda operative who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and is one of three CIA detainees who was known to be waterboarded. According to the committees report, his interrogation focused on him being told to provide the one thing you dont want me to know, and remained a central figure of the program.

The committee excoriated the integration program and found that it didnt produce useful intelligence. President Obama has called the techniques that the agency deployed under his predecessor torture, and the CIA has abandoned them .

The passage from the 2007 memo, authored by Steven Bradbury, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, for the CIAs top lawyer, John Rizzo, was released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU. While much of that memo, and others from the office, had previously been declassified and published, the group had fought to have more passages revealed.

The documents are significant because they deepen the publics understanding of how the Office of Legal Counsel went so far astray during the torture program, Ladin told The Daily Beast. These memoranda demonstrate the legal contortions that OLC lawyers engaged in to repeatedly reauthorize, under a shifting set of rationales, an obviously unlawful torture program.

The CIA rejected claims that it systematically misled the Department of Justice to secure approval of its program through 2007.

The CIA continues to stand by its response to the [Senate] study, which was publicly released in December 2014. CIAs response addressed many of topics that are now being reexamined by virtue of the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act, CIA Spokesperson Ryan Trapani explained to The Daily Beast.

In a December 2014 memo in response to the study, the CIA asserted:

The Studys conclusions fail to note the general trend that, beginning in April 2003, as interrogators became more knowledgeable, as it became easier to use information from one detainee to get more from another, and as our understanding of the effectiveness of various techniques grew, CIAs interrogations gradually relied less on coercion.

The documents also reveal the lengths the CIA went to persuade the Justice Department that the program was useful and wouldnt cause long-term harm.

Newly disclosed passages in a 2002 memo regarding the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah show that the agency asserted he was mentally strong enough to withstand the pain of enhanced interrogation.

At the time, the CIA interrogators were seeking the Justice Departments legal guidance on placing Abu Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. A newly revealed passage shows that the agency specifically wanted to prey on his fears in order to make him more compliant: Your goal in doing so is to use his fears to increase his sense of dread and motivate him to avoid the box in the future by cooperating with interrogators, the memo states.

While it had been previously known the CIA was aware Abu Zubaydah was afraid of insects, this is believed to be the first time that officials have been on record saying that they intended to exploit that fear in order to make their detainee more cooperative.

The newly revealed passages also show that Abu Zubaydahs captors conducted what they deemed a comprehensive psychological profile and determined that he has no history of mental health problems. The CIA said it came to that conclusion based on Zubaydahs diaries, observations of him in captivity, and intelligence and press reports.

Your profile further emphasizes that, in addition to his excellent mental health history he is quite resilient, the memo notes, adding that Zubaydah had a durable support system through his faith, the blessing of religious leaders, and the camaraderie he has experienced with those who have taken up the cause with him.

The ACLUs Ladin called that assessment absurdly inaccurate and self-serving... crafted so that psychologists and lawyers could each create a fiction that torture was harmless and legal.

Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at Center for American Progress, told The Daily Beast that the reasoning offered in the documents are rationalizations that undermine the U.S. argument that it is fighting an immoral enemy.

How can we say what you stand for is horrible when in fact you are doing horrible things? Korb asked.

The documents raise further questions about how the CIA attempted to legally defend the program. A newly revealed footnote in a 2005 memo shows that the CIA acknowledged it had a long-standing policy against using torture during interrogations. But, the agency told the Justice Department, it didnt apply to the post-9/11 program because that ban pertains only to participation in interrogations of detainees not in United States custody and therefore is not implicated by the program under consideration.

In other words, the CIA considered itself barred from helping other nations torture prisoners, but not from conducting brutal interrogations of its own prisoners.

In the early 1980s, the CIA had started training foreign intelligence services on interrogation techniques, but the agency terminated the practice in 1986 following allegations of human rights abuses in Latin America. The agency established a policy to neither participate directly in nor encourage interrogation involving mental or physical torture, and said that there must be firm intelligence or operational justification for participation in interrogation and reasonable assurances that no human rights violations will occur, the memo states.

At the time, the CIA and the Justice Department didnt characterize the interrogation techniques as torture and had concluded that the use of physically coercive methods, including waterboarding, didnt violate U.S. law or treaty obligations. Its not clear why, then, the agency felt compelled to justify the program by distinguishing it from earlier banned practices if officials didnt see the interrogation techniques they had authorized as torture.

Theres new information, as well, about perhaps the most notorious CIA detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been described as the architect of the 9/11 attacks. As early as 2005, the CIA had told the Justice Department that Mohammed personally murdered Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose decapitation was recorded and subsequently released, according to one memo. Mohammed is currently imprisoned at Guantanamo, and while he would later claim at a 2007 hearing to have killed Pearl, at the time there were doubts about his credibility. The memo suggests, however, that the CIA was certain that Mohammed was to blame.

The latest batch of documents isnt just about past practices. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for the resurrection of torture against suspected terroristsa position condemned by many intelligence experts . Studying the ways the CIA justified its tacticsand what information came from themare worth revisiting in the run up to the 2016 election, observers said.

To the extent we have a candidate who has said we should return to those tactics, we should discuss the moral legal issues and overall effectiveness of enhanced interrogation tactics, Paul Pillar, a former chief of analysis at the CIAs Counterterrorist Center and current professor at Georgetown University, told The Daily Beast. That is good reason to debate these things.

As recently as March, during a Face the Nation interview, Trump said he supports torture because we have to beat the savages. In the past, Trump has suggested he supports waterboarding , saying nobody is sure if it is indeed a form of torture. President Obama has said that it is.

The new information about CIA practices is unlikely to change minds about the program, Pillar said. Those who believe the tactics went against U.S. values and norms will still feel that way reading the latest ACLU-obtained documents.

For people not bothered by the torture, they will say this was part of a well prepared approach to interrogation, Pillar said.
Britain is set to decide in a deeply contentious referendum whether to exit the European Union.

Starting Thursday morning, polls will open for citizens to vote on the so-called "Brexit," which has become a top issue in the United Kingdom as the refugee crisis and economic turmoil spread across the rest of the continent; and fears about EU control over British sovereignty take hold. Some worry that exiting the Union would itself cause economic problems for the UK.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time. All citizens of the United Kingdom are eligible to vote, including those living abroad who have registered to vote in the UK within the past 15 years. There will be no exit polls broadcast during the voting process because of legal restrictions.

The Electoral Commission expects to have full results of the referendum by roughly 7 a.m. BST (or 2 a.m. EST). Results from the various 382 voting wards are expected to trickle in throughout the evening, however, with the first scheduled for 11:30 p.m. BST.

American audiences can watch live coverage of the results on all the cable news networks. CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, Fox Business Network, and CNBC are all expected to begin their Friday morning news coverage earlier than usual to report on the historic vote. Across the pond, British audiences can turn to BBC World News, ITV, and Sky News for all their real-time information.

Sky News offers a free live stream of its broadcast online, above via YouTube. Cable subscribers can also stream the networks coverage on Apple TV and Roku. Alternatively, BBC offers a live feed via its own iPlayer, available on Apple TV and other devices.
Mark Meadows Ordered to Testify in Georgia Election Case

JUST DO IT

Meadows, former President Trumps chief of staff, is seen as a key proponent of Trumps efforts to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.
The Chinese government will take strong measures to further unlock business potential in the private sector and encourage private investment.

Premier Li Keqiang called on local and central government departments to take concrete measures to boost the enthusiasm of private enterprises, after hearing reports from an extensive inquiry on private investment across the country, during the State Councils executive meeting he chaired on June 22.

During the meeting, Premier Li urged government at all levels to pay attention to problems revealed during the inquiry, especially private firms difficulties in obtaining financing as well as excessive administrative charges.

He said that private investment is of crucial importance for China to maintain stable economic growth, secure job employment and pursue economic structural reform.

A month ago, Chinas State Council initiated a nationwide fact-finding mission about private investment, covering 30 provinces and regions across China.

A third-party evaluation of the results of the inquiry was carried out by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce as well as research institutions, which engaged more than 500 enterprises conducting more than 10,000 surveys on private investment policies.

Major factors leading to declines in private investment growth include the countrys ongoing efforts to reduce excess capacity, insufficient policy implementation, as well as difficulty in obtaining financing for small private companies at local levels.

Premier Li said the countrys goal in nurturing new economic driving forces, developing new economy, carrying out structural reform, particularly supply-side reform, requires strong development of medium and small companies in the private sector.

Otherwise, we will not achieve the goal we expected, he said.

It was revealed through the inquiry that many State-level policies aimed at encouraging private investment were not fully implemented. In November 2014, the State Council published 39 policies to give well-rounded support for private investment. Yet these policies met setbacks at lower levels, and suffered from lack of policy consistency, as discovered during the recent inquiry.

Some private entrepreneurs complain that, though government has done a lot in easing institutional barriers standing in the way of entrepreneurship in recent years, they were still far from being treated equally with local SOEs, and were sometimes ruled out from market access by stringent requirements. These companies asked for a more transparent level playing field.

High cost and difficulty in obtaining finance were revealed as a major culprit in restricting private investment growth.

Premier Li said during the meeting that the key to boosting private investment is to deepen reform, and properly handle the relationship between government and the market.

The government should fulfill their duties, but must not abuse their power, he said.

He said that government and the private sector should maintain a friendship both close and clear, while both strictly obeying market regulations and legislation.

Further measures will be taken by the State Council to address these problems, such as improve access to credit for private companies, offer better regulation support for local PPP programs, reduce administrative costs and further expand market access for private firms.

Stabilizing expectation on private investment and building up strong confidence in private investment is important, when Chinas economic growth is slowing down, Premier Li said.

During his visit to the Peoples Bank of China on Monday, the Premier stressed that the financial sector must also support the new economy, which features integration with the Internet, innovation entrepreneurship and smart manufacturing.

Private investment has been playing a vital role in Chinas economy in recent years. It has been responsible for more than 60 percent of Chinas GDP, about 80 percent of the countrys jobs, more than half of tax income, as well as 67 percent of Chinas outbound investment.
BALTIMORE (AP)  A judge acquitted a police van driver of all charges including "depraved-heart" murder on Thursday in the death of 25-year-old arrestee Freddie Gray, whose broken neck on the way to the station set off Baltimore's worst riots in decades.

Six officers were charged in Gray's death, but only Officer Caesar Goodson was accused of murder. Gray was fatally injured after officers bound his hands and feet and Goodson left him unprotected by a seat belt that prosecutors say would have kept him from slamming into the van's metal walls.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams delivered his verdict after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial. He also found Goodson not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment.

Protests and rioting after Gray's death on April 19, 2015 set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard. The unrest forced the city's mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse.

Prosecutors said Goodson was criminally negligent when he failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt or call for medical aid after Gray indicated that he wanted to go to a hospital. But Goodson wouldn't talk to investigators or take the stand at trial, leaving the state with slim evidence of intent to harm.

The acquittal of Goodson, 46, is perhaps the most significant blow to State Attorney Marilyn Mosby's efforts to hold police accountable for Gray's death.

Last month, the same judge acquitted Officer Edward Nero of misdemeanor charges, and in December, he declared a mistrial after a jury failed to agree on manslaughter and other charges against Officer William Porter.

Porter faces a retrial in September, and three other officers have yet to be tried.

Gray was arrested April 12 after running from an officer on bike patrol outside a public housing project not far from the Western District station house. A neighbor's video showed him handcuffed behind his back and hoisted into Goodson's van.

The van made a total of six stops that day, and Gray was unresponsive on arrival at the station house 45 minutes later. Prosecutors said Goodson was there throughout and checked on Gray during the third and fourth stops, so he should have known Gray was in distress. They said his failure to call a medic amounts to murder.

A prosecution expert testified that Gray could not possibly have broken his own neck. Prosecutors said the injury happened somewhere between the second and fourth stops, when Goodson and Porter lifted Gray off the floor.

Porter testified that Gray was lethargic, but could breathe and speak, and didn't seem injured. Prosecutors countered that the initial injury became critical as the trip continued.

Second-degree "depraved heart" murder, which carries up to 30 years in jail, would mean that Goodson was so negligent in his inaction that he cast aside any consideration for Gray's life.

During opening statements, prosecutors for the first time accused Goodson of giving Gray a "rough ride," intentionally leaving him unbuckled "to bounce him around in the back of the van."

But by closing arguments, they all but abandoned the theory, saying Goodson's failure to belt Gray in under the circumstances was sufficient to prove the intent necessary for a murder conviction.

"Officer Goodson never calls a medic, he never takes Freddie Gray to the hospital," said Deputy State's Attorney Jan Bledsoe. "He has breached his duty, and because of that breach Freddie Gray's life was shortened."

The judge seemed skeptical, peppering prosecutors with questions and asking what evidence they had supporting the "rough ride" theory. What if Gray had emerged from the van unhurt, despite being unbuckled, and was found to be falsely claiming injury in order to avoid jail?

Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow said the failure to belt him in would still be a crime, although a difficult one to prosecute.

Goodson's attorney Matthew Fraling fiercely rejected the allegations, telling the judge that Goodson was a "gentle" officer who didn't buckle him in because Gray was exhibiting "violent and erratic" behavior, citing witness testimony that he was making the wagon shake back and forth by kicking and flailing inside.

Fraling also said Gray said yes when Porter asked if he wanted to go to a hospital only because Gray hoped to avoid jail.

"They have failed to cobble together any type of case with reasonable inferences, let alone evidence," he said. "The mere fact that harm resulted doesn't mean the Officer Goodson's conduct is the cause of that harm."

Goodson's acquittal may impact the remaining cases. Officer Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice are scheduled to stand trial in July on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office; Rice also faces a manslaughter charge.

All the officers but Goodson have filed defamation lawsuits against Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Maj. Sam Cogen of the sheriff's office, who signed the charging documents. The officers claim the criminal charges amounted to false and damaging information.
In the aftermath of horrific terrorist massacres such as the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting, the natural impulse of the American people is to ask what the government can do to prevent such tragedies. Securing public safety is indeed the government's most important job; keeping guns away from terrorists has obvious value. But this must be done in a way that complies with the Constitution.

This admonition has animated much of the recent debate about the rules governing National Security Agency surveillance of suspected terrorists. Regrettably, it has not been embraced in the gun control debate unfolding in the aftermath of Orlando.

Yet the Constitution's due-process protections are the vital safeguard of individual liberty and mitigate against arbitrary government action by setting the procedures the government must observe when it seeks to deprive an individual of a given substantive right.

Constitutionally "appropriate" procedure varies based on the importance of the right at issue and the risk of an erroneous deprivation of that right, and the government's interest. For example, while government officials may commit a person who is dangerous to himself or others on an emergency basis, a judicial determination of the validity of the commitment must follow. Law enforcement officers may arrest a person they believe to be guilty of a crime, but the person who has been arrested is entitled to appear before a judge.

Our legal traditions spell out the process that is due for the categories of people currently denied the right to keep and bear arms. Those include felons and those charged with felonies, people adjudged "mentally defective" and those dishonorably discharged from the military. The unifying factor is that people subject to these bars have all received their day in court.

But that's not the case with the new gun control proposals. One proposal is to block gun sales to those named on the terrorist watch list maintained by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. The list, however, is entirely unsuited to that task.

According to National Counterterrorism Center guidance, agencies can add someone to the list based on a "reasonable suspicion" or "articulable evidence" that the person is a "known or suspected terrorist." Listings can be based on anything from civilian tips and social-media postings to actual government investigations. The guidance makes clear that "irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary."

The predictable result is a very long list, with entries of varying quality. As of July 2014, the main list contained about 800,000 names. More than 40 percent are designated as having "no recognized terrorist group affiliation." This kind of list may be valuable for prioritizing counterterrorism activities, supporting investigations and determining where additional scrutiny may be warranted, such as with visa applications.

However, the watch list was never intended to be used to punish listed individuals by depriving them of their constitutionally protected rights. And, legally, it is unsuitable for that task. While there is an administrative redress process to remove a name from the list, there is no judicial review, no hearing and not even notification of whether a request was granted or denied, much less the grounds of the decision.

The no-fly list, which contained about 47,000 names in 2013, is subject to the same shortcomings. Individuals are never informed why they've been listed and have no opportunity for a hearing before a neutral judge to clear their names. In court filings, the government has explained that the list represents officials' "predictive judgments" about who may pose a threat. Whatever the merits of that approach as applied to the eligibility for air travel, it falls far short of the kind of concrete proof and procedure necessary to deprive a person of a constitutionally protected right.

Even narrower approaches being bandied about raise similar concerns. For example, an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, would authorize the attorney general to block a firearms sale if the attorney general determined that the buyer was engaged in conduct relating to terrorism. The amendment does provide that a frustrated buyer may bring a lawsuit in federal court to challenge a denial. But its text suggests that this is just window dressing: The attorney general may withhold the evidence underlying the denial from the plaintiff, placing the burden on the plaintiff to prove his innocence by rebutting evidence that he's never seen.

Those agitating for firearms restrictions now should understand that the precedent they set is a dangerous one that extends far beyond the realm of the Second Amendment. If the government's say-so is sufficient to block a gun sale - thereby abridging a right enumerated in the Constitution, with little or no ability for redress - what right wouldn't be at risk of arbitrary deprivation, particularly among the powerless?
Conservatives who are understandably appalled by the prospect of a Donald Trump nomination - and therefore understandably intrigued by the notion of a revolt among the delegates - should be careful what they wish for. Dumping Trump at next month's Republican convention could cause far more permanent damage to the GOP than sticking with him. That outcome should be avoided at all costs.

Trump has legitimately won the GOP presidential nomination. He played by the rules, beat out 16 other candidates and surpassed the required 1,237-delegate limit. If disgruntled Republicans want to question voters' rationale in supporting Trump, they have that right. But to deny, ignore or spin away the fact that he won the nomination fair and square, and deserves to be the nominee, is beyond comprehension.

Party rules are crystal clear about voting for the nominee on the first ballot. The winner of a particular primary or caucus receives the largest number of bound delegates at the convention. Trump, having won 40 of these contests, has accomplished this impressive goal. While some senior Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, have suggested delegates should follow their conscience at the convention, this approach defeats the spirit of the entire process. It's not illegal, but it's morally wrong.

Such a move would smell of sour grapes on the part of the GOP establishment, which would be seen as having changed the rules to remove the undesirable figure who won the nomination. Yes, it's their party and they can do as they please. At the same time, such a move would be perceived as undemocratic, underhanded and incredibly devious by many party members and potential voters.

Senior officials such as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus would have to explain to the nearly 14 million people who supported Trump that their votes don't count. I strongly doubt any political spin doctor would eagerly raise his or her hand to take up this near-impossible task.

Dumping Trump would set a horrendous precedent for the GOP. If the party opts to take the nomination from Trump, it could easily do the same thing to future candidates that the party establishment and grass-roots members had issues with. It would also defeat the purpose of running in the Republican presidential primaries, because the party could simply change the result at the very end. That's hardly the public image a major political party should want or pursue.

And if it were to happen, widespread media coverage of a delegate revolt would be devastating for the GOP. Hordes of TV cameras, microphones and handheld devices will be focused on this convention. If the nomination were taken from Trump, he would scream bloody murder to every reporter in sight. His supporters would erupt in justifiable anger, and God knows what else would happen. It would be a public relations nightmare for the party, and every second of this pandemonium would be permanently recorded somewhere by someone.

A delegate revolt would badly splinter the conservative movement. Many party members could abandon the Once-Good Ship Republican after the dust had settled. They could refuse to support the GOP's preferred candidate and park their votes with other parties. This would likely include principled individuals who dislike Trump but would be furious at the party's decision to arbitrarily remove the nomination from the most popular (albeit controversial) candidate.

Finally, but far from least, a delegate revolt against Trump would all but ensure that Hillary Clinton became the next president. Is this something that Republicans wish to see play out?

For the record, I dislike Trump as much as his fiercest critics. He has made many offensive comments on the campaign trail, acted like a bully as well as a petulant child, and doesn't adhere to the cherished values and principles of modern conservatism. He's a detriment to the GOP, and right-thinking individuals fully know this.

But while some Republicans would relish the opportunity to revolt against Trump's candidacy, they would end up destroying their own party in the process. That's far too high a price to pay. Like it or not, we're stuck with The Donald.
Yes, was all about the big vote and we published plenty of Green opinion over the last few weeks indicating which vote would have been a better vote for the planet.

If you've been waking each morning thinking Brexit must surely be a bad dream then here's a bit of uplifting light relief which happened on the same day the UK nation went to the polls and revealed just how much of a divided nation we have become.

The wildlife charity People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority released 38 rare hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) into an undisclosed woodland location near Aysgarth in the National Park in an attempt to stem the decline of the species.

Once a familiar sight throughout much of England and Wales, over the past 100 years dormice have suffered from the loss of woodlands and hedgerows, as well as changes to traditional countryside management practices. As a result, the species is now rare and vulnerable to extinction.

The reintroduction follows a similar event in 2008, when dormice were returned to another nearby woodland after a century's absence from the Yorkshire Dales.

PTES has worked in partnership with the National Park Authority and Bolton Estate to carefully select a suitable new site very close to that original 2008 location and one which has been chosen to provide the best chances for the long-term survival of the species.

Ian White, Dormouse Officer at PTES explains: "The two reintroduction sites are close enough that the separate dormice populations will eventually be able to meet up and breed, creating a self-sustaining population. In addition, the programme of habitat management in the area will have great benefits for a number of other species too such as birds and bats."

Ian Court, the National Park Authority's Wildlife Conservation Officer, adds: "It is fantastic that we are undertaking this additional release that will help build on the original successful re-introduction in the heart of Wensleydale.

"We look forward to working with landowners and managers to help create a network of managed hedgerows and woodlands within the lower Wensleydale area that will look to re-establish a species back into the Yorkshire Dales that has been missing for many generations."

These reintroductions play an important role in the long-term conservation of this endangered species and are part of Natural England's Species Recovery Programme.

The release marked the culmination of weeks of work by all of the partners involved in the different stages of the reintroduction process, which also include Natural England, Zoological Society of London, Paignton Zoo, Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Group, and the Bolton Estate.

The dormice that were released have been captive bred through the Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Group. Prior to release, the dormice undergo a six-week quarantine at Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and at Paignton Zoo in Devon, during which vets conduct a full health examination to check they are in top condition and reduce the risk of them passing non-native disease, ensuring they have the best chance of forming a healthy population in the wild.

Following the health checks, the dormice are then released on-site in breeding pairs or trios in their own wooden nest box fitted inside a mesh cage secured to trees. The mesh cages, filled with food and water, help the dormice adjust to their new home in the wild. The cages are eventually removed once the animals have settled into the wood.

This year marks the 26th dormouse reintroduction led by PTES, with more than 750 dormice released at 19 different sites across 12 English counties over the last two decades.

Visit www.ptes.org or @PTES.
Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear spoke to the media during a press conference talking about the AG's office suing the Bevin administration for disbanding two boards in recent weeks. June 22, 2016. (Photo: By Michael Clevenger, The C-J)

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By Tom Loftus, The Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky.  Saying Gov. Matt Bevin's recent reorganization orders amount to a dangerous power grab that "threatens our very liberty," Attorney General Andy Beshear announced Wednesday he is going to court to block changes Bevin ordered on Friday to the University of Louisville Board of Trustees and the Kentucky Retirement Systems Board.

"Gov. Bevin's executive orders eviscerate or rewrite all of these statutes passed by an elected General Assembly and they continue an unmistakable pattern of reorganization right before major decisions need to be made so, apparently, the governor can control those decisions, not the board, " Beshear said at a news conference in the Capitol.

The pattern, Beshear said, shows "these reorganizations are not about efficiency. They are about power. They are about control."

Bevin Communications Director Jessica Ditto responded in a statement that called Beshear's action "purely political in nature." She said Beshear is being hypocritical because Beshear's own father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, "relied on the exact same authority" Bevin is now using to issue more than 100 reorganization orders while he was governor from 2007-2015.

But Andy Beshear said there is at least one vital distinction between how prior governors have ordered reorganizations and what Bevin is doing.

"What's unprecedented here is a governor doing it in a pattern not to increase efficiency but to assert control, doing it in a pattern of reorganizing boards right before major decisions," Beshear said. He said Bevin abolished the U of L Board as it was trying to decide on how to cope with budget cuts, whether to raise tuition and the fate of President James Ramsey.

At U of L, an ad hoc group of 47 faculty members who oppose Bevin's move said in a statement that they were "gratified" that Beshear had decided to intervene and warned that the governor's appointment of 10 new board members would endanger the university's accreditation, making courses "meaningless and degrees worthless."

Some members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee Wednesday said the faculty should ignore Bevin's action as illegal, and the committee agreed the full Senate would hold an emergency meeting June 29 to consider measures denouncing the move. One speaker said the reorganization was merely a cover to allow Ramsey to get rid of critics on the board of trustees, while another questioned whether Ramsey should "serve another day" given his support for the governor's effort to undermine academic independence at the university.

But Ron Butt, one of Ramsey's supporters on the former board, called Beshear's lawsuit "politics as usual," while another, Dr. Bob Hughes, said it was unfortunate. "It is way past time to let the University of Louisville begin to function again by focusing on teaching and research," Hughes said. And it's "time to respect the current governors attempts to solve these problems he inherited."

Beshear also warned that the governor's actions may threaten the "very accreditation of the university itself."

"Teachers and students rightfully argue that if the governor can take the action he's taken, he can remove that board at any time he disagrees with a decision," Beshear said. "That not only makes him the de facto president and de facto board at U of L, it makes him the de facto president and board of every public university."

Beshear said "even more dangerous" have been Bevin orders affecting the retirement systems board just before it was to elect a chairman and vice chairman. More dangerous, Beshear said, because Bevin's actions "put the $16 billion of investments and assets controlled by that board directly under the control of this governor."

This raises "a whole host of conflict issues," Beshear said, "especially for a governor whose financial statement lists companies that are involved in pensions and pension management."

Beshear also said Bevin abolished and appointed a new Horse Park Commission just as it was to hire a new executive director and overhauled the Workers' Compensation Nominating Commission amid its work to nominate several candidates to the governor for appointment as judges who oversee workers' comp claims.

Beshear speculated on the possible bad effects of a governor using such executive orders to seize immediate control of other boards, such as the Board of Elections, Kentucky Registry of Election Finance or boards that award incentives for economic development projects.

"Simply put, the governor's claim of power here threatens our very liberty," he said.

But in her statement, Ditto said, "Gov. Bevin will continue to do the job he was elected to do. Attorney General Beshear's frivolous political lawsuits will not deter the Bevin Administration from working to fix Kentucky's economy, protect the pensions of teachers and state workers, and clean up the mess and corruption left behind by the previous administration."

Beshear will not initiate his challenge to Bevin's reorganization of the U of L and retirement systems boards as a new lawsuit but instead said he will intervene in a pending lawsuit against Bevin challenging his reorganization of the Retirement Systems Board.
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By Laura Acchiardo, laura.acchiardo@thegleaner.com

When Codi Samples was traveling to work on April 26, another vehicle collided with Samples at the intersection of Barret Boulevard and U.S.-60 after turning left in front of his motorcycle.

Samples' accident is one of 57 that has occurred at that intersection in the past year, according to information from the Henderson Police Department, and Brad Staton, a financial advisor in Henderson, contacted Kentucky Senator Dorsey Ridley about the issue in May after writing a letter to the editor.

"My office is literally there at the stoplight," said Senator Ridley. "I have watched more accidents as I'm on the telephone looking out the window just collide. More recently there have been two motorcycle accidents there."

With the high volume of traffic and the climbing number of accidents at the Barret and U.S.-60 intersection, Senator Ridley reached out to the Kentucky Department of Highways for district two.

"I have already requested from the chief engineer for our highway district to come and investigate and do the research necessary to see what the traffic flows are and the patterns and so forth," said Ridley.

According to Keith Todd, public information officer for districts one and two, the Kentucky Department of Highways has conducted traffic studies at the light in regards to traffic volume and are in discussion with Kentucky state officials.

Throughout the state, the department is installing 4-section traffic signal head arrangements, which adds a flashing yellow arrow for left turns to the traffic light rotation.

"There is a new system coming to Kentucky in regards to left turns, having a flashing yellow left turn light," said Ridley. "It gives caution to a left turn. That is available if there is no oncoming traffic."

With the high number of accidents, the Barret and U.S.-60 intersection has moved up the list to receive the new traffic signal. According to Todd, KDOH will be back to change the signal heads and add the flashing yellow arrow.

"I do know how busy this intersection is, and we will make it a priority to go ahead and change this traffic signal over to flashing yellow operation and make other signal phase changes if needed," wrote Kenny Potts, chief engineer for district two at KDOH, in an email.

Since the project has started, Staton has been involved. He is pleased with the action that has been taken and hopes the progress continues.

He thinks the speed limit may contribute to the problem at the intersection and hopes the highway department will look at that as well.

According to Potts, they will conduct speed studies to determine the need for a change in the speed limit. Speed limits in Kentucky are based on the speed at which 85 percent of vehicles are traveling at or below in a given area.
Kentucky State Capitol (Photo: The Courier-Journal)

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By Tom Loftus, The Courier-Journal / USA TODAY Network

FRANKFORT, Ky.  The Republican Party of Kentucky reports it had $1.5 million in the bank at the end of May while the Kentucky Democratic Party had just $107,000.

Reports filed this week by both parties with the Federal Election Commission for the month of May continue to show a shift of support among some gubernatorial appointees and others to Republican Party now that it controls the governors office.

The Republican Party of Kentucky's report includes a May 9 contribution of $10,000 from Mark Lynn, a Louisville optometrist. Records of the Kentucky Secretary of State show that on May 10, Gov. Matt Bevin re-appointed Lynn as chairman of the Kentucky State Fair Board.

For years, Lynn had been one of the biggest donors to the Kentucky Democratic Party. During the eight-year administration of Democrat Steve Beshear, who originally named Lynn chairman of the Fair Board, Lynn contributed at least $70,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party.

During the month of May, the RPK got only one other $10,000 contribution  which is the maximum any person can give to a state party during any year. It came from Thomas D. Scott, of Plano, Texas, the president of Preferred Care West.

In May, the RPK reported $144,000 in total receipts and spent $86,000.

The RPK got three donations of $5,000 in May from political action committees: Advocat Inc, of Brentwood, Tenn.; American Health Care Association, of Washington, D.C.; and Direct Supply Inc., of Milwaukee.

The Kentucky Democratic Party reported $71,489 in total receipts in May, but $23,000 of that was in transfers from other Democratic Party committees such as the Democratic National Committee.

It reported one $10,000 contribution. It came from Karen May, of Frankfort. And It got one $5,000 PAC contribution  from the Kentucky Distillers Association, of Frankfort.
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By Beth Smith of The Gleaner

Maxwell McMain was driving with an alleged blood alcohol content of .116 at the time of the vehicle crash that killed 16-year-old Kaci Wood of Sebree earlier this month.

The blood test results were part of testimony Thursday during a preliminary hearing in Union County District Court.

McMain, 19, who has been charged with wanton murder, driving under the influence (third offense, aggravated circumstances), driving on a DUI suspended license (second offense, aggravated circumstances), first-degree wanton endangerment and failure to wear a seat belt, appeared Thursday with his attorney Dax Womack of Henderson.

Called to testify on behalf of the Commonwealth was Kentucky State Police Detective Chris Baker, an accident reconstructionist and the lead investigator in the case.

The purpose of a preliminary hearing or probable cause hearing is to determine if there was "probable cause" for the charges.

A judge, in this case Union County District Judge Daniel Heady, hears the evidence presented and decides whether it is enough to substantiate the charges.

At the end of the hearing, Heady did rule there was probable cause for the charges and bound the case over to be heard by the Union County grand jury on July 12.

During questioning from Assistant Union County Attorney Julie Wallace, Baker described the crash that occurred around 2 a.m. June 5 in the 1500 block of Kentucky 492 near Morganfield.

Baker said the 2013 Durango driven by McMain crashed and rolled multiple times, ejecting him and Wood, according to Kentucky State Police. Authorities said neither McMain nor Wood were wearing a seat belt. A third passenger, Jacob Hood, 20, Morganfield, was not injured. The state police said Hood was wearing a seat belt.

Wallace asked Baker the results of McMain's blood test.

"His blood alcohol content was .116 which is above the .08 legal limit," for those 21 and older, Baker said.

Those under the age of 21 are considered under the influence if their blood alcohol content is .02, according to Kentucky law.

During cross examination, Womack asked Baker at what point after the crash was McMain's blood drawn.

"To my knowledge it was drawn at the scene of the collision by EMTs before he was transported to the hospital," Baker said.

Womack asked if Baker had questioned Hood about the accident.

Baker said he interviewed Hood roughly 14 hours after the crash.

The detective testified that Hood said he was asleep when the crash occurred.

"Did you ever question my client?" Womack said.

"No. I did go to the hospital in Evansville to speak with him, but his family told me that he had just started to rest so out of respect for that I left."

At the end of the hearing, Womack asked Judge Heady to dismiss the first-degree wanton endangerment charge.

"Wanton endangerment is merged into the wanton murder charge," he said.

"The wanton endangerment charge is for the passenger," Wallace said.

Heady did not dismiss the charge.

The judge also did not lower McMain's $1 million bond after Womack again made the request.

"Mr. McMain still poses a danger to himself and others," Heady said.

McMain is being held at the Union County Detention Center.
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The following information is based on public records from local and area law enforcement agencies and/or court systems:

HENDERSON POLICE DEPARTMENT

Michelle L. Outlaw, 36, 2800 block of U.S. 60-East, was arrested Tuesday afternoon on a warrant for manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The charges stem from a traffic stop in late March. Outlaw was additionally served a warrant for a probation violation. She was lodged at the Henderson County Detention Center.

A resident in the 800 block of Claymark Way reported Tuesday night that someone stole a white 2015 Kawasaki EX300 street bike from his property.

HENDERSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE

Andrew J. Filkins, 25, 2000 block of Poplar Avenue, was arrested Tuesday night at Palmer's Market on three outstanding warrants, first-degree possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.

Filkins was spotted at the gas station/convenience store by authorities who knew he allegedly had outstanding warrants.

According to officials, when a sheriff's deputy "made contact with Filkins, he was found to be in possession of a controlled substance known as heroin."

Filkins was also allegedly found in possession of drug paraphernalia and marijuana. He was lodged at the Henderson County Detention Center.

HENDERSON CIRCUIT COURT

Charles M. Felty, 38, 500 block of Fair Street, was sentenced Monday to a total of 10 years on three counts of theft of a motor vehicle registration plate, five counts of theft over $10,000 and one count of third-degree criminal mischief.

Adam L. Overfield, 41, Morganfield, pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree sodomy. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 18.

Isaiah Johnson, 19, Waverly, was sentenced to a total of two years for third-degree burglary, theft of a controlled substance and theft under $10,000.

Mattison W. Stone, 52, 700 block Lieber Street, was sentenced Monday to five years for first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.

Kolby L. Poindexter, 22, Rankin Avenue, was sentenced Monday to two years total for complicity to receiving stolen property (firearm).

Matthew E. Murray, 43, Evansville, was sentenced Monday to one year for first-degree possession of a controlled substance.

Shane Kirkman, 47, Adamsville, Tennessee, pleaded guilty Monday to attempted manufacturing meth, amended from manufacturing meth, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 25.

Louis Stokes, 40, 5500 section of U.S. 60-West, was sentenced Monday to 12 months for attempted theft of identity.

Patrick C. Conley, 41, Sebree, pleaded guilty and was sentenced Monday on two charges. He received a total of 15 years for second-degree robbery and being a second-degree persistent felony offender, amended from first-degree robbery and/or complicity and being a first-degree persistent felony offender, and being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a second-degree persistent felony offender, amended from first-degree.

Bradley Turner, 48, Newburgh, was found guilty by a jury Friday, June 17, on a charge of theft by failure to make required disposition of $500 or more. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 11.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Those charged with crimes are considered innocent until they are found guilty in a court of law. Every effort is made by this newspaper to report the final disposition of each case. In the event we fail to do so, a call to our newsroom, 827-2000, will prompt a background check on those cases and, if necessary, a published report on the final disposition.
Donald Trump will travel to Iowa for 2022 election rally

Former President Donald Trump will travel to Iowa next week to help boost Republicans ahead of Election Day.
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Should transgender people be allowed to use public bathrooms consistent with their gender identity?

And should the federal government order public schools to let transgender students use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify?

Voters are divided over these issues, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday in the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those states were selected because since 1960, no candidate has won the presidential race without taking at least two of these three states.

Voters in thoses states are about evenly divided on whether transgender people should be allowed to use public bathrooms of their choice, but they oppose - by large margins - forcing public schools to extend these rights, according to the poll.

In Florida, 48 percent of voters say transgender people should have the right to use public bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, while 44 percent say they should not be allowed. Voters oppose 54 - 37 percent, however, requiring public schools to allow transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.

In Ohio, 48 percent of voters say transgender people should not be allowed to choose a bathroom, while 43 percent support that right. Voters oppose a bathroom mandate on public schools 55 - 36 percent.

In Pennsylvania, voters support the transgender right to choose a bathroom 49 - 43 percent. But they oppose a mandate on public schools 53 - 39 percent.

The issue of transgender people and the use of public bathrooms finds voters split on exactly what should be done, Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a release announcing the results.

Voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania oppose the federal government order to public schools that they must let transgender students use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. But they are split roughly evenly on whether these students should be able to use whatever bathroom they choose, Brown added.

Zika virus questions

Voters in each state are concerned about the Zika virus, and only a slim majority in each state believes the U.S. Olympic team should compete in Brazil this summer, the poll found.

Eight in 10 voters in these states are aware of the Zika virus, and many are concerned enough about it to worry that they or someone they know might catch it. They are split on the question of whether the U.S. government is doing enough to protect Americans from Zika, Brown said.

Perhaps most eye-catching: Only slightly more than half think the U.S. Olympic team should participate in the summer Olympics held this summer in Brazil, considered an epicenter of the virus.
NORWALK  Most of the Board of Education members seemed pleased to approve the first two steps in the three-year process to build a special education system that can serve all local children with individual needs.

But most of the audience members at Tuesdays board meeting did not seem pleased at all, particularly with a plan to have students from High Road School, a private school for students with emotional challenges, moved to Norwalk High School.

I vehemently oppose the program being housed at Norwalk High School and abhor the fact that decisions keep being made without adequate public notification or offering to have a discussion on such important issues, said Erin Herring, a former board member and a parent of a Norwalk High student.

This fall, Norwalk High School is set to house seven Norwalk students who were currently attending High Road School. They will take a classroom left vacant by one of the two preschool classes that are moving to local elementary schools.

The second action was for Wolfpit Elementary, which is now set to house up to eight autistic children who had previously been outplaced  attending out-of-district schools to get the special education services they need.

The plan is to simultaneously train local special education teachers with contracted teachers from High Road and, for the Wolfpit class, professionals from the Capitol Region Education Council.

The special education fund that was approved by the Common Council on June 9 set in motion a three-year plan to provide more special education services in-house to decrease the number of outplaced students.

This is a question of equity for all children to be able to have all programs for their learning needs in their neighborhood school, in their hometown, in the least restrictive environment, Adamowski said.

But encouraged by a vocal crowd, these parents  all mothers of band students  expressed frustration at the decision to bring High Road students to NHS during the public comments portion of the meeting. No comments were made about the autism program at Wolfpit.

They questioned the safety of their children and the safety of the High Roads students.

Other childrens lives may be impacted by this as well as those who attend the High Road program now. Why would you put them back in an environment where they couldnt flourish or grow in the first place? Herring asked.

Carol Freding expressed concerns about the safety of Norwalk High students when exposed to the violence of the High Road students, saying they are wanded multiple times a day at their school.

Adamowski later said that was a piece of misinformation  that these seven children are at the highest level of competency at High Road.

They are not dangerous, they are not subject to restraint, they are not wanded when they come into a building or go into a bathroom. They are like the rest of our children except they have a disabling condition that requires treatment and therapy, like any other special education student that we are serving in our district, he said.

Herring and Freding also said that money was a concern. Freding worried that it was coming from Norwalk High Schools budget, unaware that the money is set to be pulled from the special education fund.

And both of these pieces of supposed misinformation stem from another argument that all parents shared: not enough communication with the public.

When we say things that may be inaccurate or we dont feel very well informed about the population that is coming into the environment that our children are sharing with them, its because there hasnt been a forum for open discussion about it, said Tracy Richards.

She said it seemed like the administration was rushing to put a Band-Aid on a problem without allowing for any community input.

Can we see examples of where other emotionally disturbed children were put into a mainstream environment with success? she asked. Its my understanding there may be programs in other school districts where this was done on some level or another  were there successes involved? Can someone speak to us about that?

Herring said there was not full disclosure to the public, and that these genuine concerns about the safety of our children (were) never discussed, vetted or considered.

Board member Mike Barbis piped up after the public comments on the boards lack of transparency.

I just wanted to say this is the largest public audience Ive seen. ... Public participation has been very, very weak. Its a two-way street, he said.

Freding later responded to his comment before she left the board meeting, saying it was rude and uncalled-for.

Questions and accusations from audience members erupted after the public hearing portion of the meeting had ended. Board of Education Chairman Michael Lyons and Adamowski heard some of them out, and responded that they had been getting the word out for a while now.

This plan has been in the press over and over and over again, Lyons said.

Adamowski said he has had meetings at Norwalk High with special education staff to plan with the transition, that there had been a letter from the parents to the principals and that he personally met with NHSs student government council to explain why the students would be coming to their school.

He agreed to ask the Norwalk High School principal to re-send an email that was sent to parents last week.

These students probably should not have been placed at High Road to begin with, Adamowski said. They, given their special needs, had the right to attend their public school like everybody else. They were placed at High Road because the district had no program for them.

And that, he said, is what he hopes to change.
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WILTON  Three-thousand eight-hundred days, more than 2,000 students, 1,300 concerts and 11 musicals.

Its nearly impossible to quantify the effect that a teacher has on his students, but in the case of Wilton High Schools legendary music teacher, Chip Gawle, these numbers paint a partial, yet precise, picture.

These numbers help outsiders reach a conclusion that most Wiltonians intrinsically know to be true: If youve passed through Wilton High Schools music program in the past 35 years, then chances are you have your own unforgettable Chip Gawle story.

To honor the countless tales that Gawle inspired in those surrounding him, present and former students, devoted parents and his many, many colleagues from over the years gathered together at the schools Clune Center to honor the music teacher at his retirement ceremony on Thursday, June 17.

Sam Gumins, who had three children under Gawles leadership, opened up the proceedings with an anecdote about the first time he had met the teacher.

It was the first day of high school for my oldest son, he was recounting the good and the bad about his classes and his teachers, and when he got to his band teacher, he stopped short and he paused, said Gumins. He finally said, I think I have a new favorite teacher. That was really interesting to hear after just one day, and I wanted to meet the teacher that left such an indelible impression.

Not only would Gumins go on to meet this man whom he referred to as a kind-hearted drill sergeant who offered the Wilton community his blood, sweat and tears, but he would also come to consider Gawle his beloved friend.

Gumins was only the first of several people to share similar stories about Gawles dedicated fervor and how his passion infected an entire town.

Former Wilton Superintendent Gary Richards shared another story that perfectly illustrated Gawles dedication to Wiltons music program.

A few years back, Gawle had been selected to receive the University of Connecticuts Neag School of Education Outstanding School Educator Alumni Award, a huge honor that was only amplified by the fact that Gawles father had also been awarded the distinction.

The award was a matter of pride for Gawle, said Richards, and he was supposed to attend a ceremony up at UConn to receive the award, except the ceremony conflicted with Wilton Highs spring musical that year. Predictably, Gawle chose his students over personal accolades, and elected to attend the musical instead of the ceremony.

The next year, Gawle was again selected for the distinction and, again, the ceremony conflicted with the schools musical. Once more, Gawle selected to conduct the pit orchestra for the school play over accepting the award.

He simply was not going to shirk his responsibility to the students, said Richards.

When Gawle was nominated again for a third time, UConn finally relented and decided, if Gawle would not leave his community for his award then they would bring the award to his community.

Throughout his work, his instruction and his leadership, Chip has helped mature the arts program in our school system. It is now first-rate, said Richards.

Under Gawles leadership, Wilton Highs music program flourished and ascended to previously unreached heights, becoming what Principal Robert O'Donnell called, the best performing arts program in the United States.

But Gawles influence exceeded his capacity as a music teacher. As Superintendent Kevin Smith said, Gawle was also a leader, a pioneer, a peacemaker, a translator and an alleviator.

In each of these instances, I could not be more grateful to have Chip involved as a partner. His positive and long-lasting impact on our schools and in our community cannot be overstated. Though Ive only just started to get to know him, Ive witnessed firsthand the profound force of nature that is Chip Gawle, said Smith to an audience that responded with a minute-long standing applause.

While Gawle may not have come away with the Grammy award that he had been a nominated finalist for earlier this year, but as ODonnell noted, Gawle will always be number one in the hearts of Wiltonians everywhere.

The Who, Bob Marley, Diana Ross, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Doors and Buddy Holly. What do these music legends have in common? As incredible as they all were, none of them have ever won a Grammy, said Gumins, I have no doubt that Phillip Riggs, the North Carolina music director that stole Gawles Grammy, is a deserving music educator, hes just not the most deserving.

While Gawle was Wiltons Highs first ever induction into their newly minted Hall of Fame, if you asked Gawle what best exemplifies his 35-year career, he would tell you to look no further than any one of his more than 3,000 students.

I have been blessed with thousands of amazing students, hundreds of incredibly supportive parents and scores of passionate and dedicated colleagues all committed to the constant task of making the most of the opportunities given by this wonderful community, wrote Gawle. The love and appreciation I have received here has touched my heart forever.

ptomlinson@hearstmediact.com; (203) 354-1046; Tomlinson_PE
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NEW FAIRFIELD  When police interviewed Michael Giannone, a self-described firearm specialist, he told them his gun-making operation was run by the books.

But on his business card, he promised to have all your AR needs  a reference to assault rifles  with no names, no numbers, no witnesses.

Police also say he sold parts for assault rifle to an undercover cop without any paperwork.

The card and undercover deal were just two of the dozens of pieces of evidence police cited in saying Giannone illegally manufactured and sold assault rifles and handguns out of his home.

During a search in March of Giannones home and two cars, authorities found 59 complete firearms, 48 of which were legal, State Police said in a news release. The nine unregistered weapons were all assault rifles, including five AR-15s and two AK-47 rifles with no serial numbers, police said.

Authorities said they also found more than 10,000 live rounds of ammunition; 12 illegal AR-15 parts without serial numbers; 65 illegal high-capacity magazines; one rifle with an illegal silencer and two additional silencers.

Additionally, police seized several firearms components and parts, as well as records of firearms sales. An AR-15 rifle that had been sold to a drug dealer before the search warrant was also seized.

The raid took place about 9 a.m. on March 24, after detectives watched Giannone drop off his 9-year-old son at Meeting House Hill School, according to the release. He was pulled over after leaving the school and officers found a loaded handgun in his car, police said.

After police searched his home, they charged him with firearms trafficking, sale of assault weapons and other offenses.

The investigation resulted in a new arrest warrant, which a judge signed this week. Giannone was charged Tuesday with 65 counts of possession of high-capacity magazines, nine counts of possession of an assault weapon, three counts of possession of a silencer and one count each of improper storage of firearms, possession of a weapon on school grounds and risk of injury to a minor.

Connecticut banned new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown.

Giannone, 44, was held on $100,000 bond and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in state Superior Court in Danbury. He could not be reached for comment.

The suspect told state police he made weapons and sold them at gun shows and that everything was done by the book, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

If I can make, you know, money on something, Ill buy it and, you know, flip it and sell it, Giannone told investigators, according to the affidavit. I owned a restaurant for 10 years. I lost everything. I mean, Im like on the verge of bankruptcy.

Giannone owned Bella Ellas Pizzeria in Croton Falls, N.Y., according to a LinkedIn profile.

Police said firearms and ammunition found at his home were not secured, including a loaded handgun on a kitchen counter.

The findings prompted police to notify the state Department of Children and Families, but it was not clear Tuesday whether the agency took any action.

Also during the search, police found a United States Postal Service package on the driveway with new AR-15 gun parts, according to the release.

The investigation was conducted by the State Police Statewide Urban Violence and Cooperative Crime Control Task Force in partnership with the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations, the State Police Special Licensing and Firearms Unit and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

noliveira@hearstmediact.com
Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine alumni Darryll Beard, DDS, and Randall Markarian, DDS, are co-chairs for the Illinois State Dental Society (ISDS) Foundations Mission of Mercy (MOM). They will host a free dental clinic Friday-Saturday, July 15-16 at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville.

They expect to treat approximately 2,000 patients from Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa and Kentucky, and provide more than $1 million in free dental care. This will be the fourth mission in Illinois.

Beard and Markarian are passionate about delivering this vital healthcare service, because so many dont have access to dental care. These people have nowhere to turn and have significant unmet dental need, Markarian said. We provide a way for them to receive some dental care to get them on track.

I am amazed at how appreciative these patients are at the care provided. Given the link between dental health and overall health, our hope is to get one person motivated enough to address their dental needs and have it positively impact their general health.

Markarian finds the experience to be highly rewarding. I certainly have been surprised by how much patients are shocked by the level of care provided, and more importantly at the level of compassion shown, he said. I have been fortunate to volunteer in the lab area where patients received flippers (retainers with front teeth), and many left the area in tears of joy, because they had given up on being able to smile and show a full set of front teeth.

I was completely unprepared for the level of happiness they exhibited. Many of us in the dental profession take for granted results like this as we see them regularly. We forget just how life changing it can be for someone that has forgone dental care for years or even decades.

Beard points to three factors that result in the events success: donations, volunteers and a supportive dental community. The free clinic costs approximately $120,000 to execute. Equipment and venue rental are the most expensive items in the budget. Donations from area churches, corporations, foundations, individuals and the dental community contribute the largest amount of funds.

Volunteers outside of dentistry are extremely important to the clinics success, Beard said. Approximately 600 of the necessary 1,000 volunteers are people outside of dentistry. Patient escorts, nurses, pharmacists and emergency medical technicians are all needed. Their help is vital to the missions success.

Lastly, the mission could not be a success without the dental community. Dentists, hygienists, dental assistants, lab technicians, dental equipment technicians and dental supply houses are also significant contributors.

Beard has participated in the previous three missions held in Bloomington, Grayslake and Peoria. I recognized the need for such a clinic and lobbied to get a mission in our area, he said. I was quite happy when our area and venue were chosen for this mission.

Markarian got involved at the Grayslake event, the second in the series. I didnt volunteer for the first MOM, because I thought that as an orthodontist I couldnt offer any help to patients that needed fillings, cleanings and oral surgery, he said. By volunteering time, I realized anyone could make a difference for these patients. I recognized just how important it was to be involved. At my second MOM, I worked all shifts and saw how much patients were positively affected.

Beard pointed to his academic background for his activism. My professional journey began with a high quality education, he said. Graduating from SIUE and the SIU School of Dental Medicine prepared me to build a successful dental practice. A successful practice, strong faith, an amazing wife and a best friend as a business partner allow me the freedom to serve my profession, my church and give back to the community through programs like the Mission of Mercy.

For more information, visit ISDSFoundation.org. The deadline for volunteer registration is July 1.

The SIU School of Dental Medicine students manage approximately 35,000 patient visits each year at its patient clinics in Alton and East St. Louis. In addition, students offer oral health treatment, screenings and education to more than 10,000 people annually through a wide variety of off-campus community outreach events. These opportunities provide students the training they need to graduate and become highly skilled dentists. The School of Dental Medicine is a vital oral health care provider for residents of southern and central Illinois, and the St. Louis metropolitan region.
Leclaire Park will be a busy place Saturday - quiet, but busy.

Edwardsville's Parks and Recreation Department is putting the park to good use, hosting both its annual Fishing Derby and Yoga in the Park.

Both activities are scheduled in the morning - before the day really heats up - and Leclaire has no shortage of shade.

The Fishing Derby begins with registration at 9:30 a.m.

At 10 a.m., a representative from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources will give participants tips on reeling in the big one and host a discussion on fishing safety.

The derby, open to children 15 and under, begins at 10:30 a.m. and an air horn will blow at 11:45 a.m. to signal its end - breaking the silence all good fishermen know is required.

Fish will then be counted and weighed with prizes awarded for the biggest fish and the most fish.

Participants may only have one line in the water at a time.

The event is free and the first 50 participants will receive a goodie bag and free Cherry Limeade courtesy of Sonic Drive-In.

Assistant Recreation Director Haley Verheyen said the derby typically draws between 50 and 75 participants.

And the fishing at Leclaire is good.

"There are a lot of fish in there," Verheyen said, noting that the most common catches are blue gill, bass, catfish and sunfish.

Meanwhile, Yoga in the Park will begin at 9 a.m. on the east side of the park off Madison Avenue.

The hour-long session, also free to participants, offers yoga for those just beginning or for those who are experts.

Participants should bring a towel, yoga mat and water.

The lake will separate the fishing derby contestants from the yoga session until it is completed.

Further, Yoga in the Park will be conducted on July 2 for those interested in stretching out and relaxing over the holiday weekend.

Yoga in the Park, now in its third year, runs through Sept. 3.

After a rainout on June 4, the first two yoga sessions have drawn about 40 participants each.

"Every class has been going really well," Verheyen said.

Once Yoga in the Park runs its outdoor course, Verheyen said she expects sessions to return to the Wildey Theatre.

For more information on either program, contact the Edwardsville Parks and Recreation Department at 692-7538 or visit the website, www.cityofedwardsville.com.
Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois (GSSI) is pleased to share that Villie M. Appoo, Chief Executive Officer, was recently honored by the Whos Who Diversity in Color with the organizations Most Intriguing award. For the past seven years, Ms. Appoo has been CEO of GSSI which serves over 13,000 girls and 4,800 adult volunteers in 40 1Z2 counties in southern Illinois.

Girl Scouting is all about diversity and inclusion so this award reiterates all that we do and all that Girl Scouts stand for. Appoo said she has personally gained far more than she could ever give back through her experience of working in diverse communities with such a dedicated group with varied interests. But, all Girl Scout volunteers and supporters have one goal in commonto serve ALL girls, regardless of race, ethnic origin and to help them reach their full potential, Appoo said.

Whos Who Diversity in Color is an annual publication with the mission of documenting and celebrating the achievements of all people of color! Its goal is to highlight the best and brightest in all ethnic communities. WWDIC understands that our differences unite us. When we celebrate that which separates us from the norm, we add value to our cultural stance, both individually and collectively.

Villie M. Appoo, the first CEO of the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, (GSSI), was born in Mumbai, India. When she was in first grade, Villie followed in her mothers footsteps and joined the Girl Guides, an organization similar to Girl Scouts. Villie first developed her passion for social service as a volunteer for the Society for the Education of the Crippled through Girl Guides. As a Girl Guide, she learned perseverance and gained self-confidence. As a member of the Zoroastrian community, an ethnic minority in India, the value of education and personal integrity were instilled in her at an early age. This early exposure to serving others laid the foundation for her chosen career in social services.

Villie worked in the slums of Mumbai for two years before moving to St. Louis to pursue her MSW at the Brown School of Social Work, Washington University. Villie applied for several scholarships and had to overcome numerous obstacles and biases against funding higher education for girls. Villie did her field practicum at Grace Hill Settlement House and was offered employment there upon graduation. During her 30 years at Grace Hill, Villie worked her way up to become the COO and Vice President of Grace Hill Neighborhood Health Centers. At Grace Hill, Villie procured numerous grants to implement innovative primary care and community health programs and increased access to affordable health care for the underserved. One of her most notable accomplishments was procuring federal funding to implement the Health Care for the Homeless program in St. Louis, expanding it over the years to include Respite Care and Mobile dental services with an annual budget of over 2 million dollars. Throughout her 30 years at Grace Hill, Villie did an outstanding job of identifying unmet needs, finding the needed resources and touching many lives along the way. She believed strongly in making a difference.

After leaving Grace Hill, Villie came full circle to become the first CEO of the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois in 2009. Through Girl Scouting, girls are helped to discover their full potential and are exposed to career opportunities in different fields including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) - programs that lie very close to Appoos heart. Over the last 7 years, GSSI has grown from having one robotics team to over 30 robotics teams throughout GSSIs service area of 40 counties in southern Illinois. Additionally, Villie ensures that GSSI also offers programs to develop financial literacy, leadership, provide community service and address issues such as bullying in schools by ensuring the emotional and physical well-being of young girls. Villies commitment to providing girl scouting to underserved girls resulted in the expansion of outreach services to girls in the East St. Louis school district, detention centers and in public housing. It is her mission to make sure that through Girl Scouts, girls grow up to be well rounded, informed, and confident women and leaders.

Villie brings many strengths to her work, including project design, program development and implementation, grant writing, and fund development. She is extremely analytical and enjoys tackling complex issues. These skills show through her lifes work. Villie successfully guided the merger of two Girl Scout councils to form a new organization, the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, addressed serious budget deficits and restructured programs and staff. Outside of her CEO responsibilities, she actively volunteers for GSUSA and other organizations, and serves as a consultant to North American Management.

In 2013, Villie received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Brown School, Washington University, for the life changing work she has completed with her social work degree. She credits these successes to the dedicated colleagues, mentors and friends with whom she has had the privilege to work, and without whom she could not have helped all of the people she did. Like a good Girl Scout, Villie believes in looking for an opportunity to make a difference and to leave this world a better place.

Villie will always be remembered as a passionate woman who succeeded in making a positive, lasting difference by touching the lives of many others.

The mission of Girl Scouting states: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts is the world's pre-eminent organization dedicated solely to girls - all girls - where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character and skills for success in the real world. In partnership with committed adults, girls develop qualities that will serve them all their lives - like strong values, social conscience, and conviction about their own potential and self-worth.

Todays Girl Scouts not only enjoy camping and crafts, but they also explore math and science and learn about diversity, good citizenship, leadership and teamwork. Girl Scouting is the place where girls experience the fun, friendship and power of girls together. Girl Scouting has inspired more than 59 million girls and women since its founding in 1912.

Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois is a not-for-profit organization supported by various United Ways throughout the region. Girl Scouts is a Proud Partner of United Way.

For more information, please call Jay Strobel at 618.692.0692.
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Linkedin Levina Chandra Khoe (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

More than 40 Sri Lankans were stranded in Indonesian waters following a failure of their boats engine. The group of asylum seekers includes a pregnant woman and children and is in dire need of medical care to restore their physical condition after a sea voyage of more than 20 days. However, local authorities have refused to allow them ashore, as they have no passports or other supporting immigration documents.

Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and therefore has no obligation to abide by it. However, since Indonesia is surrounded by destination countries for the flow of asylum seekers, such as Malaysia and Australia, it is inevitably a transit country. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has recorded an increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Indonesia, from 385 people in 2008 to more than 13,000 in 2015. Most of them came from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

Refugees are in a vulnerable position regardless of their age and gender. Without legal status, they are unable to access local healthcare services. Communicable diseases are one of the most significant morbidities among refugees. Overcrowding, a lack of adequate health care facilities, unavailability of health services and poor hygiene expose them to various infectious diseases. Respiratory infection, malaria and intestinal worms are the top three diseases among refugees (UNHCR, 2012 ). Furthermore, they often have psychological health problems due to violence, displacement and other traumatic experiences back in their home countries.

Arriving in a new environment, they face many challenges because of the cultural and linguistic differences. In Indonesia, they are banned from working and are only allowed to stay in temporary detention facilities while waiting for approval of their refugee status applications.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported overcapacity in many centers, besides a lack of hygiene and poor sanitation facilities. Moreover, refugees are at risk of violence while staying in the centers. These conditions make them more susceptible to communicable diseases and mental health problems.

International human rights law has long declared that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and this includes refugees and asylum seekers. The 1951 Refugee Convention also states that refugees should enjoy access to health services equivalent to that of the host population.

The UNHCR recommends proper monitoring of refugees' health and encourages host countries to improve refugees access to health care. However, no regulation has been established in this country to ensure the availability of emergency or primary health care services for this marginalized group.

The UNHCR, the US and the EU support the implementation of initial health screening to identify any illnesses that can affect the local population as well as to improve the health condition of refugees. Emergency and obstetric neonatal care, vaccination, a referral system for serious medical conditions and health promotion are essential public health interventions that should be provided to this group.

Hong Kong is one of the few Asian countries that shares the same struggle as Indonesia as a transit point for many asylum seekers. Even though not obliged to abide by the Refugee Convention, Hong Kong provides basic healthcare services to refugees despite the language barriers. Emergency and primary health care services are available to those in need by presenting an official letter from the immigration department. Learning from Hong Kongs experience, Indonesia could also apply adequate public health services to the refugees. The lack of immigration documents should not be an excuse for not helping them.

***

The writer is an academic staff member at the Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia. She previously worked as a project coordinator on a health program for asylum seekers at a Hong Kong-based charity. The writer is a medical doctor graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, and has a Masters degree in public health from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

---------------

We are looking for information, opinions, and in-depth analysis from experts or scholars in a variety of fields. We choose articles based on facts or opinions about general news, as well as quality analysis and commentary about Indonesia or international events. Send your piece to community@jakpost.com.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Rafiqa Qurrata A'yun (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

The issue of replacing the Criminal Code (KUHP), which is based on the Dutch East Indies 1918 penal code, has intensified. There has been considerable debate since the amendment began among well-known jurists and legal scholars from the 1960s, resulting in many drafts since the first bill was released in 1993.



After more than half a century, the House of Representatives finally set a target to pass the bill into law in mid-2016. The updated draft contains over 780 articles proposed by the government.



While an amendment is no doubt important, it does not mean the House has to rush the bill.



Several issues still need discussion, especially given the incomplete understanding about the concepts of criminal law.



A discussion held by the criminal law department at the University of Indonesias (UI) School of Law found a number of problems regarding the general rules as a basic part of the Criminal Code, which would have wide implications on our future criminal justice system.



First, we need to criticize the legality of the 2016 draft regarding the living law concept. One controversy is how to accommodate living law to punish someone even though offenses are not regulated in the statute law. This could lead to injustice because it might violate legal certainty and lead to contradictions in local regulations.



The second problem regarding the general rules of the draft amendment of the Criminal Code is how the draft formulates the active nationality principle by eliminating the rule about double criminality.



Thus, whoever commits offenses outside Indonesia has a criminal liability although the offense was not a crime in the state where it took place.



Therefore, the proposed article violates human rights protection.



This is ironic because the amendment aims to include the state ideology of Pancasila, human rights and general principles of law recognized by civilized nations, as the philosophy of the criminal code, as stated in a related academic paper.



The third problem appears in Article 58 on changes or adjustments of legally enforceable decisions, which overlaps with the Presidents authority to grant pardons and the authority of the justice ministry to give remissions to convicts.



A similar problem is clear in Article 59 in which a judge has the authority to aggravate criminal principal penalties although it is not defined in the statute law.



These articles could further disrupt legal certainty. The fourth problem regards the criminal law concept where severe mental illness is added only to relieve the punishment of a convict. Such an idea is inappropriate because insanity should be statutory grounds for justification or excuse.



Considering such potential problems, we must strengthen the integrity of law enforcers and maintain the fairness and impartiality of judges.



No matter how perfect the statute law, implementation will be poor with corrupted law enforcement. Then again, bad laws also can block access to justice.



Amending the Criminal Code has been a main point on the agenda of Indonesias legal reform. As the Indonesianist Daniel Lev wrote, colonial law worked primarily to ensure efficient exploitation during colonial times.



In the authoritarian era, a number of the articles were used to restrict the rights of individual expression, which could be considered unconstitutional.



Since the Reform Era, we have witnessed several judicial reviews of the Criminal Code to examine the offenses.



The judicial review requests granted by the Constitutional Court include that of Article 134 on insulting the President or Vice President and Article 335 on unpleasant acts. The decision repealed the article or its problematic phrases.



Such revisions clearly aimed to throw off authoritarian characters within the Criminal Code and change them to better infuse an egalitarian spirit into the law, as Supreme Court Justice Artidjo Alkostar once noted.



In short, the amendment is important to remove outdated articles and to add the modern concept of criminal law to ensure justice.



But it does not mean that Indonesia needs a deadline to have its own pure, national Criminal Code. We have to admit that the draft does need a qualified discussion to resolve the above potential problems.



Against this backdrop, passing the amended Criminal Code would be a great time to change the history of Indonesias legal system, but it does not mean that we have to do it in a rush.



Instead, if the House insists on passing the bill only to boost its reputation, it could be a disaster for the future of Indonesian criminal law.

***

The writer is a lecturer at the University of Indonesias (UI) School of Law and a researcher at UIs Djokosoetono Research Center.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

In accordance with the Security Trust Agreement N G00-T-0915-0850, with a Public Deed dated September 2, 2015, executed before the Notary Public in and for Manantay, Province of Coronel Portillo, Department of Ucayali, Dr. Paul Richard Pineda Gavilan, among Plantaciones de Pucallpa S.A.C. and Plantaciones de Ucayali S.A.C., as Settlors; SH UOL Administrative Agent Ltd., as Trust Beneficiary; Mr. William James Randall, as Depository; and La Fiduciaria S.A., as Trustee, the Trustee hereby informs any interested party of the impending auction of Trust Estate comprised of (i) the real properties and (ii) the plantations that to date are located on these real properties, in accordance with the bidding procedures detailed in the conditions for the public auction that have been prepared for that purpose. The public auctions will be held on June 30, July 7 and July 14 at a location in Lima, Peru that will be subsequently informed to the interested bidders.



Interested bidders may expressly indicate interest in participating in the public auction and request the auction conditions by delivering a notary letter to Calle Los Libertadores N 155 Piso N 8, San Isidro, to the attention of La Fiduciaria. In order to have access to the auction conditions and accompanying materials related to the Trust Estate, as well as to be eligible to participate as a bidder in the auction, an interested bidders notary letter must be received by La Fiduciaria no later than Tuesday, July 12.



LA FIDUCIARIA S.A.

Legal Department

Peruvian Trustee
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Linkedin Maria Cheng (Associated Press) London  Thu, June 23, 2016

Warning: Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed at night could wreak havoc on your vision.

Two women went temporarily blind from constantly checking their phones in the dark, say doctors who are now alerting others to the unusual phenomenon.

The solution: Make sure to use both eyes when looking at your smartphone screen in the dark.

In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, doctors detailed the cases of the two women, ages 22 and 40, who experienced "transient smartphone blindness" for months.

The women complained of recurring episodes of temporary vision loss for up to 15 minutes. They were subjected to variety of medical exams, MRI scans and heart tests. Yet doctors couldn't find anything wrong with them to explain the problem.

But minutes after walking into an eye specialist's office, the mystery was solved.

"I simply asked them, 'What exactly were you doing when this happened?'" recalled Dr. Gordon Plant of Moorfield's Eye Hospital in London.

He explained that both women typically looked at their smartphones with only one eye while resting on their side in bed in the dark  their other eye was covered by the pillow.

"So you have one eye adapted to the light because it's looking at the phone and the other eye is adapted to the dark," he said.

When they put their phone down, they couldn't see with the phone eye. That's because "it's taking many minutes to catch up to the other eye that's adapted to the dark," Plant said.

He said the temporary blindness was ultimately harmless, and easily avoidable, if people stuck to looking at their smartphones with both eyes.

One of the women was relieved the short-term blindness didn't signal a more serious problem like an imminent stroke. He said the second woman was more skeptical and kept a rigorous monthslong diary tracking her fleeting vision loss before she finally believed him. But she couldn't stop checking her phone for messages from bed, he said.

Dr. Rahul Khurana, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, called it a fascinating hypothesis but said two cases weren't enough to prove that one-eyed smartphone use in the dark caused the problem. He also doubted whether many smartphone users would experience the phenomenon.

Khurana, who acknowledged that he's an avid cellphone user, said that he and his wife tried to recreate the scenario on a recent evening, but had difficulty checking their phones with only one eye. "It was very odd," he said.
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Linkedin Terence Chea (Associated Press) San Jose, California, United States  Thu, June 23, 2016

Like many autistic children, Julian Brown has trouble reading emotions in people's faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder.

Now the 10-year-old San Jose boy is getting help from "autism glass"  an experimental device that records and analyzes faces in real time and alerts him to the emotions they're expressing.

The facial recognition software was developed at Stanford University and runs on Google Glass, a computerized headset with a front-facing camera and a tiny display just above the right eye.

Julian is one of about 100 autistic children participating in a Stanford study to see if "autism glass" therapy can improve their ability to interpret facial expressions.

"There's not a machine that can read your mind, but this helps with the emotions, you know, recognizing them," Julian said.

Julian wears the device each day for three 20-minute sessions when he interacts with family members face-to-face  talking, playing games, eating meals. The program runs on a smartphone, which records the sessions.

When the device's camera detects an emotion such as happiness or sadness, Julian sees the word "happy" or "sad"  or a corresponding "emoji"  flash on the glass display. The device also tests his ability to read facial expressions.

"The autism glass program is meant to teach children with autism how to understand what a face is telling them. And we believe that when that happens they will become more socially engaged," said Dennis Wall, who directs the Stanford School of Medicine's Wall Lab, which is running the study.

Stanford student Catalin Voss and researcher Nick Haber developed the technology to track faces and detect emotions in a wide range of people and settings.

"We had the idea of basically creating a behavioral aide that would recognize the expressions and faces for you and then give you social cues according to those," said Voss, who was partly inspired by a cousin who has autism.

Google provided about 35 Google Glass devices to Stanford, but otherwise hasn't been involved in the project. The Silicon Valley tech giant stopped producing the headset last year after it failed to gain traction, but the device found new life among medical researchers.

Jena Daniels, clinical research coordinator at The Wall Lab, left, watches Julian Brown point to images, used in an emotion recognition exercise, that would appear on Google Glass glasses in Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Like many autistic children, Brown, 10, has trouble reading emotions in people's faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder. Now Brown is getting help from "autism glass" - an experimental device that records and analyzes faces in real time and alerts him to the emotions they're expressing.(AP/Jeff Chiu)

(Read also: A study asks: Too much folic acid a cause of autism?)

Brain Power, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup, is also developing Google Glass-based applications to help children with autism improve their face-reading abilities and social skills.

Autism advocates are excited that researchers are developing technologies to help the estimated one in 68 American children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

"Glass and wearable technology are the future. They're going to play a pivotal role in how we understand, manage and diagnose disorders like autism," said Robert Ring, chief science officer at Autism Speaks.

Currently, many autistic children learn to read facial expressions by working with therapists who use flashcards with faces expressing different emotions. The Stanford team hopes autism glass can provide a convenient, affordable therapy that families can do at home.

"Kids with autism are not getting enough of the care that they need for as long as they need it, and we need to fix the problem," Wall said.

If the study shows positive results, the technology could become commercially available within a couple years, Wall said.

"Anything that can help this population is very welcome and very important, but even the best technology will never be enough because we are dealing with a population with often very, very profound needs," said Jill Escher, president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area.

The study is still in its early stages, but Wall said participating children have shown gains in their face-reading abilities and family feedback has been encouraging.

"It has helped our son who's using the Google Glasses connect with the family more," said Kristen Brown, Julian's mother. "I think the glasses are a positive way to encourage a kid to look someone else in the face."

Julian also gives the device positive reviews: "I really think it would help autistic people a lot."
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Linkedin Masajeng Rahmiasri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Aside from Tanah Abang, the nearby Thamrin City shopping mall is another place that is frequently visited by shoppers seeking new clothes, especially during Ramadhan and prior to Idul Fitri. Apart from locals, the place is also popular among foreigners such as Singaporeans and Malaysians.

Although smaller in size, Thamrin City offers goods similar to those sold at Tanah Abang. As it is less crowded, some people find it a more convenient place to shop.

However, visiting the mall can be confusing as the different sections are rather unorganized. In some areas, the stores are very cramped and visually similar, making it almost impossible to pinpoint a stores location unless you are familiar with the place or have the exact address.

To ease your way while exploring Thamrin City, heres a glimpse of the general categories of goods within the mixed-use building.

(Read also: Going shopping at Tanah Abang market? Check out this directory first)

Muslim wear

Occupying the largest part of the mall, visitors can find Muslim wear stores almost anywhere throughout Thamrin City, especially on the D1 (Ground 1), D (Ground), 3A and fifth floors. From men and womens Muslim clothes to accessories, everything related to Muslim wear can be found here, with a range of prices.

Batik

Known as a place to shop for batik in Jakarta, the batik section at Thamrin City offers various designs of ready-to-wear batik from regions countrywide. Batik can be found on D1, D and the first and second floors.

(Read also: Five good reasons to shop at the market)

Family wear and cellular center

Family wear, from adults to childrens clothes, can be found on the mall's second floor. There is also a cellular center on the same level, concentrated near the main escalator.

Woven fabric and crafts

Visitors can find a variety of Indonesian woven textiles in the Pusat Tenun (Woven Fabric Center) on the first floor. Meanwhile, Indonesian crafts are available on the third floor.

(Read also: Kaftan: A guide for beginners)

Pasar Tasik

Pasar Tasik (Tasik Market) is a term used to describe stores run by people from Tasikmalaya, West Java, on the third and 3A floors of the mall. Unlike other stores, this area is only available on Mondays and Thursdays. Shoppers can find locally made goods from Tasikmalaya, with cheap Muslim wear products being the most popular. As the goods sell out very fast, the stores are usually only available between 4 a.m. and 12 p.m. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

As part of its global expansion, Instagram has announced a new feature that will enable users to easily translate stories or profile bios on the app into their preferred language.

"In the coming month, youll see a translation button on feed stories and profile bios written in languages different from your own. The Instagram community has grown faster and become more global than we ever imagined. And were excited that youll soon be able to understand the full story of a moment, no matter what language you speak," said the company's official account.

Although the company did not provide details on when the new feature will be available, kompas.com reported that the "See Translation" button could already be found under several posts in Bahasa Indonesia.

(Read also: 10 local travelers to follow on Instagram)

The company has also just celebrated the milestone of reaching 500 million users.

"Today, were excited to announce our community has grown to more than 500 million Instagrammers  more than 300 million of whom use Instagram every single day. Our community also continues to become even more global, with more than 80 percent living outside of the United States," the company stated on its official blog on Tuesday. (ken/kes)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Wed, June 22 2016

Academic atmosphere: Students engrossed in study at the Nottingham University library in Nottinghamshire, England, UK (left photo). A teacher writes on a whiteboard, teaching students during a class in Singapore. (Courtesy of Nottingham University & Courtesy of top10indo.com)

Youve been accepted at the foreign college of your dreams. You cant wait to get started. Before you do that, you have to get ready for life in another country. Studying abroad, after all, isnt just about attending classes and getting good grades. Anyone who wants to have a smooth study experience abroad has a long list of things to do before they even think of going to their first lecture.



Prepare the paperwork



The most important order of business is to have all your papers ready before you leave. This includes your travel documents. Preparing these documents cant be done overnight. Specifics vary, but applying and getting a visa can take several months. Be sure to visit the consulate of the country you are visiting for all the exact travel requirements. Also ensure that you have your passport renewed and valid for the entirety of your stay abroad. Just like the visa application, renewing your passport can be a time-consuming process. So start now.



Aside from travel papers, other important things to carry with you abroad are medical records. Take them with you and make sure youve got all the immunization you need to enter the country. The last thing you want is to be sent home for not being immune against a certain disease. Be sure to also bring personal identification-related documents like your birth certificate or other things like your high school graduation certificate, so that the local Indonesian embassy where youre studying can help you in times of need.



Get ready for the journey



Buy yourself an airplane ticket. Some websites, like STA Travel and Student Universe, can help you find cheap ticket prices for students. You will likely be on your own in a country with barely anyone you know. Therefore, it is important that you have the right health and accident insurance to protect you while youre studying. You will also need travel insurance, just in case something goes wrong during your flight and you lose some of your belongings. It is better to be safe than sorry in situations like that.



Learn more about where youre staying



Once youve got these basic things set, it is important that you get to know the conditions and culture of the place you are visiting. After all, you could be spending anywhere between several months to several years there. Learning about your destination can help reduce potential culture shock.



What languages do locals speak? What are the general dos and donts of interpersonal life in that country? Are there certain forms of social behavior that would be considered unacceptable in the country youre visiting? For example, did you know that giving a thumbs-up in the Middle East is considered offensive? Did you know that extending the palm of your hand outwards in Greece is a no-no?



Other, smaller questions you should consider include: If you have any allergies, what should you avoid in your destination country? What is the weather like? Is it four seasons? If so, will you need to prepare extra winter clothing? Or is it hot all year long? Where is the nearest Indonesian embassy? Is there any local Indonesian diaspora where you can find people to help you adjust? These considerations will help you prepare for life in a different country.



Find a student-friendly place to stay



Equally important to knowing about the country is knowing about your housing conditions. Will you be staying at a student dorm or will you be finding some place off-campus for boarding? If you will be off-campus, you need to find a place that has easy access to public transportation, preferably of the kind that gives discounts or free passes to students. An off-campus site should also be conducive for your life as a student. You do not want a place with a disruptive neighborhood that prevents you from studying.



Bring the right stuff



It can be tempting to just carry as many things as possible to your new home. But, really, traveling lean is much preferable. Aside from avoiding possible overweight fees on your flight, it also helps you stay mobile. After all, you never know if youre going to have to move to a different campus or to a different boarding house. You also dont want to have too much in case youre only staying for a short while and want to bring home souvenirs for family and friends. Bring enough clothes to last for a week. Bring power adapters. Have spare cash at hand in the countrys currency in case of emergency. Lastly, bring a thing or two to remind yourself of home. (JP)

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Linkedin Dadan Wardhana, Wim Heijman and Rico Ihle (The Jakarta Post) Wageningen, Netherlands  Wed, June 22 2016

Indonesia has institutionalized the human right to adequate food for all its residents under Food Law No. 18/2012. Some policies for enhancing access to sufficient, safe and nutritionally balanced food have been developed.

The law has been implemented by increasing domestic food productivity, by establishing governance structures that link relevant institutions and by empowering local communities.

How successful has the policy been since nutrition and food security were declared priorities for the country more than three decades ago?

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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 22 2016

The local stock market has been quiet so far this month as investors take a wait-and-see approach over looming global risks that include Britains EU membership referendum, but the outlook is bright, analysts and Bank Indonesia (BI) say.



In June, daily transaction values were below the Rp 5.6 trillion (US$422.6 million) average so far this year and the daily trading frequency only surpassed the year-to-date (ytd) 238,371 average three times during the month.



Foreign net buys of Indonesian stocks only stood at around Rp 674 billion so far this month, according to data from the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), while the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) gained 1.39 percent.



These low levels of transactions and low net buying of stocks seen in the local bourse have been caused by investors tendency to await the outcome of the UKs referendum on whether to remain or leave the EU regional bloc.



The referendum is scheduled for June 23 with recent polls suggesting an increase in remain supporters over the leave campaign by a slight margin following the recent murder of pro-European lawmaker Jo Cox.



However, the wait-and-see reaction from investors is not going to last long as recent polls suggest no Brexit, Investa Saran Mandiri analyst Hans Kwee said. Nevertheless, if Britain does exit the union, all local shares will be affected negatively, especially commodities.



Emerging-market assets will be fully focused on the probabilities of Brexit until we have the final results on Friday morning, said Simon Quijano-Evans, chief emerging-market strategist at Commerzbank AG in London, as quoted by Bloomberg. Net commodity-exporting currencies have been trading fully in line with oil-price action, with oil now following the whims of global growth and thus any Brexit scenario. It all boils down to democracy in the end.



Asjaya Indosurya Securities analyst William Surya Wijaya predicts a net buy this week as worries over Brexit ease and the market anticipates a draft tax amnesty being passed into law at the end of the month.



The tax amnesty, a policy to impose low tax penalties on undeclared wealth, is expected to bring in more than Rp 100 trillion of tax revenue to Indonesia amid an expected tax deficit as a result of a plunge in commodity sales. The deadline for passing the law is the end of this month.



If the tax amnesty is passed into law, property stocks will be most affected as wealth brought back from abroad is likely to be used either to invest in stocks and property, William said.



Stocks under the property, real estate and building construction sub-index were up 6.29 percent year-to-date, in line with JCIs 5.89 percent gain.



Meanwhile, the rupiah has appreciated around 2.4 percent so far this month to Rp 13,286 against the US dollar on Tuesday, according to the BI Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR).



We view the current period as a risk on period, BI Governor Agus Martowardojo said in explaining the recent rupiah appreciation and fund inflows. When investors turn on their risk appetite, funds pour into emerging markets with riskier assets than those in developed countries.



We expect that this stability is maintained and hope that economic growth in Indonesia can improve, he said.

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Linkedin Setiono Sugiharto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 22 2016

Knowledge transfer: A Stenden University Bali lecturer talks to students during class. Despite technology allowing students to elect to study through distance learning programs, by-and-large students still prefer to enter formal educational institutions. (Courtesy of Stenden University Bali)

In the context of information technology-driven society, a radical change in educational practices seems ineluctable. Having ensconced themselves in traditional methods of transferring knowledge via lecturing, university lecturers now ought to gain a new perspective brought about by the constantly changing needs of society and the geopolitics of education.



The old teaching paradigm no longer holds water, as students entering institutions of higher education cannot be assumed to lack the wherewithal to digest any information presented to them.



With information now no longer being bound by place and time, students bring with them a vast amount of knowledge when they enter formal education institutions. As the world now gets wired, information can be accessed via the World Wide Web. Thus, students do not always need to go to a library to look things up. Instead, they can obtain answers from their workplace, living room or even their bedroom.



It is worth noting that advanced technologies are becoming more user-friendly, increasing students willingness to learn from afar a practice popularly known as distance learning or cyber-study. Consider, for example, the use of audio- and video-conferencing, audio-graphics, satellite courses and cable television, to mention just a few.



Yet, despite the popularity and practicality of such tele-study, obvious drawbacks remain: learning via a virtual world limits interaction with fellow students and thorough discussions with lecturers as well as students. Another problem is the possible isolation and need for self-discipline.



As such, most students still prefer to enter formal educational institutions to socialize with others, build up a new identity, experience real learning contexts and get a ticket to enter the professional world, including perhaps landing a career in academia.



The growing number of both undergraduate and graduate schools in the country testifies to the mounting need of the community to invest in formal education in the hope that learning institutions will contribute to quality human resources.



Given such a costly investment and high expectations for future success, higher education institutions must be sensitive and adaptive in accommodating the communitys expectations professional and qualified graduates ready to enter the job market.



This expectation and the rapidly changing needs of the community are motivated by the changing geopolitical constellation of education, which in turn puts pressure on national institutions of higher education to compete globally.



For this reason, a shift in perspective in running higher eduction institutions needs to be seriously considered. Initial steps to this aim can be taken at both the micro (i.e. classroom) and macro (i.e. curriculum) level.



At the classroom level, for instance, the rapport between lecturers and students should be rebuilt from a completely new perspective. Students are no longer a blank slate to be filled; they bring with them insights and knowledge they gain from their close interaction with the ubiquitous technological devices; they are now partners, who have the right to articulate their voices and to engage in disagreement that may occur in class discussions; they must be given the opportunity to demonstrate their interests, even when these interests go against their lecturers.



By the same token, lecturers and professors are students partners; in addition to being an adviser, counselor and mentor, they are figures that help unearth students potential to the full and inspire them to achieve their learning goals.



A close professor-protegee relation can enable the main activity in academia: individual and joint research. While it is customary in universities overseas for a professor to produce and publish joint research with his students, such an intellectual tradition has yet to be initiated at universities here.



At the curriculum level, it is high time that higher education institutions integrate teaching and research with activities that encourage real world ventures, such as internships, work and volunteering. In fact, much can be gained through these direct experiences. They are the perfect place to apply skills and knowledge in a meaningful way.



No less important, such integration provides excellent chances for students to explore a career they may someday pursue. Internships, for instance, allow students to get practical first-hand experience and to develop intellectually and personally. Volunteer activities also offer huge benefits to students. By collaborating with others on a meaningful and worthwhile project, students can get to know each other and be known by others. This certainly increases their career options once they graduate from university. (Setiono Sugiharto)

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

CD

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has ordered police to arrest residents that attempt to block trucks transporting garbage from Jakarta to a waste treatment facility in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, West Java on Wednesday.

The temporary solution is for the sanitation agency to report the people to the police. Tell police to arrest them, Ahok said, as reported by kompas.com on Thursday.

Hundreds of residents blocked on Wednesday garbage trucks in response to a third warning on June 21 by the Jakarta Sanitation Agency to two operators of the waste treatment facilities in Bandar Gebang: PT Godang Tua Jaya (GTJ) and PT Navigat Organic Energy Indonesia. Four garbage trucks from Jakarta were blocked by the residents. The trucks were prevented from entering the garbage treatment facility.

Another reason of the blockage was that the volume of garbage from Jakarta had reached more than 2,000 ton per day.

Ahok said the companies had not complained about the amount of garbage sent to the Bantar Gebang waste treatment facility. The people either want to rebel against the government or they just want to defend Gondang Tua Jaya. Dont be a thug. The state will never be defeated by thugs, he said.

The Jakarta administration has long been dissatisfied with the performance of the two waste treatment operators. With the third warning letter, the administration wants to end its cooperation with the two companies.

The companies rejected the city administrations decision and hired lawyers, including former law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra to challenge the decision.

Ahok questioned the move by the residents, saying that for years, the residents did not oppose the waste treatment in Bantar Gebang when it was handled by PT GTJ. My question is, are they defending the government or GTJ?, the governor added.

Jakarta reportedly produces 7,000 ton of garbage per day. The city had long planned to construct its own garbage treatment facility, but the plan failed to be materialized. Therefore, Jakarta still relies on its neighboring city to treat garbage. (bbn)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama has recommended an increase in the vehicle tax to 15 percent of a vehicles price to reduce the number of cars in the capital.

"We have proposed the increase to the City Council, so that it revises the [2015] regulation on the vehicle tax, Ahok said at City Hall on Thursday.

According to City Bylaw No. 2/2015 on Vehicle Tax, an owner's first vehicle is taxed at 2 percent of the sale value and each additional vehicle is charged an additional 0.5 percent. Therefore, a tax of 2.5 is due for the second vehicle and 3 percent for the third. For larger fleets, a tax of 10 percent is payable on any vehicle after the 16th.

The proposed increase in the vehicle tax was part of city administration efforts to tackle congestion by discouraging people from purchasing new vehicles, particularly private cars, in the hope that people would shift to public transportation, Ahok said.

The tax increase may mitigate traffic congestion in the city, Ahok said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Jakarta city councilors have slammed Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama for his inconsiderate leadership, which contrasts with the achievements claimed by Ahok during Jakarta's 489th anniversary commemorations.

Ahok often ran the city administration without involving the capitals legislative members, City Council Speaker Prasetyo Edi Marsudi said after a plenary meeting for Jakartas anniversary on Wednesday.

Remember, there are executive and legislative bodies within the city administration," said the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician at the City Council building.

Another councilor William Yani also pointed out Ahok's lack of involvement with the council following the big shake up of his administration. The reshuffle of city officials was made without the councilors consent, he claimed. Similar critics also came from Gerinda politician Muhammad Taufik, who labeled Ahok's programs as lip service as he cited reforming the capital as a smart city was unrealistic.

The plans should be based on our regional budget [APBD], not his fantasies, Taufik said slamming Ahok's speech at the plenary meeting to commemorate the citys 489th anniversary.

Abdul Ghoni also from Gerindra also pointed out the ongoing woes still lingering in the capital such as traffic congestion and flooding in several parts of the city.

Meanwhile, council deputy speaker Triwisaksana from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) strongly urged Ahok to cooperate better with the City Council so that his policies could be implemented more effectively.

In his commemoration speech, Ahok listed his achievements during his term as governor including transparent budgeting through an electronic system, cashless transactions, the one-stop integrated public service (PTSP) program and development of information technology services. (vps/rin)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) is investigating alleged irregularities in a West Cengkareng land acquisition case and a Bina Marga road agency procurement, says Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

The acquisition of land in West Cengkareng, West Jakarta, was conducted in 2015 for low-cost apartments, the governor said on Thursday, adding that some people were suspected of falsifying official documents regarding the land worth some Rp 600 billion (US$45.21 million).

We suspect that there are people who forged the citys official documents. We have reported our suspicions to the Corruption Eradication Commission [KPK] and the police. The BPK is now holding the data about the project, Ahok said at City Hall after meeting with a BPK representative.

The BPK would need 50 to 54 days to audit the case, the governor said.

Regarding the Bina Marga project, the BPK is investigating the procurement of heavy equipment through an electronic catalog by the National Procurement Agency (LKPP), the governor said.

Neither Ahok nor BPK representative I Nyoman Wara would reveal the amount of state funds potentially lost in the cases.

Previously, the BPK investigated a case of land acquisition for a hospital in West Jakarta. In reporting the results of the investigation, the BPK said the purchase had potentially caused Rp 191 billion in state losses. The KPK then stopped its investigation, saying there were no criminal elements in the case. (bbn)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) has proposed a Rp 2 trillion (US$ 150.6 million) capital injection to create storage-integrated dryers and milling facilities to increase the quality and quantity of three primary commodities: rice, corn, and soybean, the agency chief said.

"There is a need for modern-dryer facilities because the harvest time for corn and rice happens in the rainy season, where the traditional method cannot do the job properly," Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti told the jakartapost.com on Wednesday at the House of Representative (DPR) complex in Jakarta.

The Bulog, which previously controlled 11 commodities, is expected to allocate Rp 1.4 trillion of the proposed funds to rice milling plants and another Rp 479 billion for corn dryers and soybean, he said. (dan)
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Linkedin Chappy Hakim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

The EU recently announced the lifting of bans on several airline companies, including Indonesias Batik Air, Citilink and Lion Air.

A paragraph from the announcement release reads: Following todays update, all airlines certified in Zambia are cleared from the list, along with Air Madagascar and three airlines certified in Indonesia (Citilink, Lion Air and Batik Air). In addition, most aircraft of Iran Air are allowed to resume operation to the EU.

From this, it can be concluded that Indonesias position is considered by the EU to be below that of Zambia. The next conclusion is that in order to resume operation to the EU, Indonesian airline companies cant just be locally audited but also have to be subjected to European Commission auditing.

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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

Conflict between the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and state-owned electricity company PLN is undermining investor confidence in the states electricity-generation program.

Tensions have been slowly rising amid the governments efforts to boost generation of electricity across the nation, with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said acknowledging that PLN was reluctant to move forward with policies the ministry has issued.

As a result, investors have begun to question the seriousness of the governments commitment to its massive 35,000 megawatt (MW) electricity generation program, Sudirman said.

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Linkedin Liza Yosephine and Nurni Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Balikpapan  Thu, June 23, 2016

Seven Indonesian crewmen were kidnapped while sailing in the waters of southern Philippines, in the latest incident suspected to involve the notorious Abu Sayyaf militant group. The situation is still developing, an official has confirmed.

"Relevant institutions in Indonesia are probing the situation to confirm the news, as well as looking for supporting evidence," Wibanarto Eugenius, minister counselor at the Indonesian Embassy in Manila, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Wibanarto said in the case of a kidnapping, the perpetrators would usually contact the shipping company after the crewmen had been safely relocated. "So far this has not happened," he said. However, Wibanarto cited that communication could often be problematic when the group was still on the move.

He asserted that the government would continue to look into the issue.

Meanwhile, the Post's source who has knowledge of the matter also confirmed that the kidnappers were members of the same network that hijacked the Brahma 12 tugboat in March, under the leader of Tawing Humair.

Authorities at Samarinda Port, where the boat departed from on June 4, confirmed the hostage situation. Col. Yus Kusmany would not identify the perpetrators but said the police and military were investigating further.

News of another kidnapping near the Sulu waters in the southern Philippines caught media attention on Wednesday night when the wife of a sailor aboard the Charles tugboat conveyed her husbands condition. The sailor, one of 13 men aboard, had reportedly contacted his wife to say that the boat had been taken hostage by a faction of the Abu Sayyaf militant group.

Seven men were taken from the boat while the remaining six were set free.

The kidnappers have reportedly asked for a ransom of 20 million ringgit (US$4.9 million) for the release of the hostages.

This is the third incident in recent months involving the kidnapping of Indonesian sailors by the Abu Sayyaf group. The southern Philippine waters borders with the Sulawesi Sea in North Kalimantan. The area is known as the new Somalia for the spate of kidnappings and pirate attacks involving terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. The waterways are part of main sailing track for cargo ships in the region.

Abu Sayyaf terrorist network(US Department of State/-)

Separately, Samarinda Mayor Syaharie Jaang met with executives of the company that owns the boat, Rusianto Bersaudara, and attempted to contact the kidnappers. The communication was hampered by a language barrier since the kidnappers could only speak Tagalog.

Below are names of the TB Charles crewmen kidnapped in Philippine waters, as released by the company:

1. Ferry Arifin (captain)

2. M. Mahbrur Dahri

3. Edi Suryono

4. Ismail

5. M.Nasir

6. M.Sofyan

7. Robin Piter

(dmr)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

West Jakarta Police destroyed 10,150 bottles of liquor and drugs worth Rp 5 billion (US$375,000), seized in operations during Ramadhan, at the Palmerah Police office on Wednesday.

The bottles of liquor were destroyed by West Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Rudy Heryanto Adi with a bulldozer while the drugs were burned.

Police regularly hold operations to control alcohol and drug distribution to maintain a conducive situation during Ramadhan in the lead-up to Idul Fitri, Rudy said on Wednesday as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Jakarta, the nations capital, known for its liveliness and clogged traffic, celebrated its 489th anniversary on Wednesday. It is home to more than 10 million people and is led by Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama. Here are some hopes expressed by its residents on the citys anniversary.

Ratna Listy, actress

I wish for a Jakarta that is free from crime and where all the residents live in prosperity. I also hope the governor revives the family planning (KB) program to control the citys population. I think the root of crime in the city is overpopulation. Therefore, I hope the city administration can focus more on this matter.

Vera Tjandra, homemaker

I wish more Jakartans used public transportation to mitigate traffic congestion. I also wish to see a cleaner Jakarta.

Ida, college student

We need to implement New Jakarta as a slogan. Both the city administration and residents need to help implement breakthrough policies. No more negative thinking, please.

Zulkifli, street sweeper

I support Ahok. He creates jobs for people like me at the infrastructure and public facility maintenance agency.

Ngatiyo, security officer at City Hall

I wish for improved welfare for all Jakartans, especially city officials. I have to admit, I feel more at ease under Ahok's leadership because he is a firm leader. (vps/rin)
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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

After six months of deliberations, the House of Representatives is rushing to pass the much-awaited tax amnesty bill to help the government patch holes in its state budget and pave the way for an unprecedented repatriation of billions of dollars kept overseas by wealthy Indonesians.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut B. Pandjaitan said he had communicated with several political party leaders and received assurance that the bill would be passed sooner than later.

"Insya Allah [God willing] deliberations will conclude on Thursday morning for approval during the House's plenary session scheduled for Tuesday," Luhut told The Jakarta Post late on Wednesday.



The bill's deliberation has gained traction after the Golkar Partys new leadership agreed to join President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's ruling coalition.



The government earlier estimated that around Rp 2.7 quadrillion (US$195 billion) worth of assets were kept by wealthy Indonesians overseas and Rp 1.4 quadrillion of domestic assets had not been properly reported. It also expects to book additional revenue of over Rp 100 trillion (US$7.5 billion) from the tax penalty rate imposed on evaders that participate in the amnesty.
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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's visit to Natuna in Riau Islands province on Thursday will send a clear message that Indonesia is "very serious in its attempt to protect its sovereignty", Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said on Wednesday.

Jokowi will lead a limited Cabinet meeting to discuss development in Natuna Islands on board a warship sailing around Natuna waters on Thursday.

In our course of history, weve never been this stern [to China]. This is to demonstrate that the President is not taking the issue lightly, Luhut told The Jakarta Post late Wednesday.

Of the thousands of islands that make up the Indonesian archipelago, Natuna Islands and its surrounding waters are the closest to the Nine-Dash Line, a demarcation used by China as the basis of its unilateral claim to a majority of the resource-rich South China Sea.

Unlike the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, Indonesia is not a claimant in the dispute, but around 83,000 square kilometers of Indonesias exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in Natuna is included within the area demarcated by the Nine-Dash Line.

It is on this basis that Chinas coast guard and fishing fleet often operate there, claiming the waters to constitute part of the countrys traditional fishing grounds.

We have already conveyed our position to Beijing, but we want to amplify it again in Natuna; we refuse to acknowledge the Nine-Dash Line and the claims of traditional fishing grounds. We also dont want any power projections [by major powers in the region], and we want to ensure freedom of navigation, Luhut added.

The visit came after Beijing's protest to Jakarta on the detention of its citizens caught fishing by the Navy in Indonesian waters last week.

[with corrected version on paragraph 5]
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Linkedin Ina Parlina, Tama Salim, Fadli and Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Batam  Thu, June 23 2016

In a rare gesture aimed at showing Jakartas firm resolve in preserving its territorial integrity, President Joko Jokowi Widodo will lead a limited Cabinet meeting on board a warship in the Natuna Islands in Riau Islands province on Thursday.

The President is expected to discuss issues pertaining to the South China Sea (SCS) dispute in the waters surrounding Natuna, sending a clear message that Jakarta will not accept any claim by Beijing over the area.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told The Jakarta Post late on Wednesday that the Presidents visit to Natuna would send a clear message that Indonesia was very serious in its efforts to protect its sovereignty.

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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is set to lead a limited Cabinet meeting on economic development that will for the first time be held on a warship in Natuna regency, Riau Islands province, on Thursday.

Jokowi departed for Ranai in Natuna on Thursday morning from Jakarta, accompanied by Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut B. Pandjaitan, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, National Development Planning Minister Sofjan Djalil, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung and Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Gatot Nurmayanto.

Natuna is directly adjacent to Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia, making it among the country's strategic areas. The Natuna waters are also one of the world's major shipping lanes, especially for vessels bound for Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.

The President will hold the meeting on board Navy warship KRI Imam Bonjol 383 in a bid to send a stern message to China amid a recent spat over the arrest of a China-flagged vessel caught fishing in Natuna waters last week.

Economic development in Natuna is a top priority for the government, not only because of its strategic position but also in line with Jokowi's ambitious plan to make Indonesia a global maritime axis.

Maritime development in Natuna regency is expected to provide benefits for locals and the nation as a whole. (rin)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

During a limited Cabinet meeting that was held on board the Imam Bonjol warship in the Natuna waters on Thursday, President Joko Jokowi Widodo asked the Indonesian Military and the Maritime Security Board (Bakamla) to upgrade their capabilities to safeguard Indonesian territorial waters.

I ask the military and Bakamla to upgrade their capabilities to safeguard our territorial waters in terms of technology, equipment, radar and preparedness, Jokowi said in a statement distributed to the media.

The statement came on a rare occasion when President Jokowi visited the Natuna Islands to hold a limited Cabinet meeting on board the same navy warship that clashed with Chinese fishing vessels last week, apparently trying to send a clear message that Jakarta will not accept any claim by Beijing over the area.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi stressed the fact that two-thirds of Indonesian territory consist of water and therefore President Jokowi gives serious attention to the countrys maritime sovereignty.

"Since the President took office, he always emphasizes two things: first, the development of the outer areas should become a priority; second, the countrys sovereignty should be maintained and upheld, Retno said.

"On this occasion, the President comes to the Natuna Islands as they are among the countrys outer islands, she added.

Also present at the Cabinet meeting were Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, Cabinet secretary Pramono Anung, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said, Navy commander Adm. Ade Supandi, National Development Planning Agency head Sofyan Djalil, Bakamla chief Arie Soedewo and Riau Islands Governor Nurdin Basirun. (dmr)
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Linkedin Anggi M. Lubis (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

British voters will soon go to the polls to decide whether or not their country should remain a part of the EU.

Those campaigning to stay in or leave EU are competing ferociously against one another. Both sides have taken slight leads over the other at different points of the campaign, according to a number of surveys, and the uncertainty is enough to jitter investors in Asian markets as they fear a possible crash in the worlds biggest economic entity.

The EU is the biggest investor in ASEAN and a top trading partner. Nonetheless, a British split will have little impact on the regional community, experts have said.

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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

The state capital injection (PMN) allocation, set to reach Rp 53.98 trillion (US$4 billion) in the revised 2016 state budget, seems to be a top secret as the House of Representatives holds a closed meeting to discuss the matter.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro attended the meeting, held at House of Representatives Commission VI overseeing trade and industry, substituting State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno. This is the third time he has attended a meeting instead of Rini.

The House's special inquiry committee recently demanded Rini to be removed from her position on account of her alleged mismanagement in the state-owned seaport operator Pelindo II.

"The meeting is to discuss a report from the PMN working unit, to gather final opinions from each faction and to make a decision on PMN," House Commission VI chairman Teguh Juwarno told thejakartapost.com on Thursday.

In the initial 2016 state budget, the PMN allocation was only Rp 40.4 trillion, for 24 state-owned firms. However, the disbursement has been long delayed due to political conflict between lawmakers and the government since 2015.

In the meeting on Monday, Bambang explained the PMN rose due to additional capital injection to state-owned power firm PLN worth Rp 13.56 trillion. PLN received additional injection after launching an asset revaluation that led to dozens trillion of value-added tax. (ags)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

MNC Kapital Indonesia is looking closely at medium-sized banks in the industry that could be merged with its subsidiary MNC Bank, following uncertainties over its initial plan to merge the lender with Bank Pundi.

The company's president director Darma Putra said the merger and acquisition team was currently monitoring three banks in the industry. However, only two banks would be selected to be merged with MNC Bank.

"Theyre not big banks, but medium-sized ones. Nevertheless, they must be retail-based banks because our group is strong in the media business and handles retail customers," he told thejakartapost.com on Thursday in Jakarta.

In 2015, MNC planned to take over Bank Pundi, owned by Recapital group, and merge it with MNC Bank. However, the plan was ditched following the Banten administrations interest in buying Bank Pundi and transforming it into a regional bank for people in the province.

"We will probably not be the majority shareholder in Bank Pundi. It depends on the evaluation from the Recapital team," Darma said.

MNC Kapital has allocated Rp 1.5 trillion in cash for the merger and acquisition this year. The company is also looking for two insurance companies to be merged with its subsidiary MNC Insurance. (ags)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Cement plants must be moved outside Java to prevent worsening ecological damage to the most densely populated island, an environmental expert said on Wednesday.

The cement industry should be included on the list of business sectors in Java closed to foreign investors to protect the environment, a senior adviser to the environment and forestry minister, Suryo Adi Wibowo, said.

We need to tighten regulations on the extractive industries, especially cement, he said in a discussion on Wednesday.



The cement industry causes environmental damage as the extraction of its raw materials drains water sources in many areas of Java.



Cement plant activities also hamper agriculture sectors as it deprives farmers of their farmland from the ecological damage, forcing them to find other jobs, Suryo added.

In some areas of Java, limestone quarries have already met rejection from residents. Women from Kendeng, Central Java protested the establishment of cement plants by cementing their feet in Jakarta last month, urging the government to shut down the plants. (sha/rin)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

The House of Representatives claims that there is no urgent need to replace current National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chairman Sutiyoso with Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, citing that Sutiyoso behaved meticulously during his tenure.

Hes been good so far, said Hanafi Rais of the National Mandate Party (PAN), deputy chairman of House Commission I overseeing information, intelligence and foreign affairs.

The response follows rife speculation that the government is to appoint Budi to lead the spy agency and that top cop candidate Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian will soon carry out an internal reshuffle in the police corps, kicking Budi from his current position as deputy chief.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Petaling Jaya  Thu, June 23 2016

Abu Sayyaf gunmen are believed to have struck again in international waters in the Celebes Sea.

Hardly two weeks after four Malaysians were released by the militant group, gunmen are believed to have taken at least six Indonesian sailors off a tugboat in waters between the Philippines and Indonesia at about 11am Wednesday.

The gunmen are believed to be hiding on an island in Tawi Tawi and are poised to demand ransoms of nearly 200 million ringgit for their release.

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Linkedin P. Ramasamy (The Jakarta Post) Penang, Malaysia  Thu, June 23 2016

It is the responsibility of the central government of Indonesia to provide a humanitarian solution to resolve the problem posed by the recent arrival of Tamil refugees in Aceh. The phenomenon of refugees has become a global problem and its resolution requires a new methodology grounded in ethical and humanitarian considerations, not based on outdated laws and practices that have their roots in the security of nation states.

As in the earlier case of Rohingya asylum seekers and the present case of the Tamil people, the approaches of both the Aceh administration and the central government seem to be quite positive. However, a preoccupation with national security considerations seems to outweigh a more rational approach.

My recent conversations with Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah and Vice President Jusuf Kalla suggest that both governments are trying their best to offer humanitarian assistance to the Tamil men, women and children who recently landed on the provinces shores.

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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

A hearing of the bribery case plaguing the Jakarta Bay reclamation projects at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday did not implicate powerful tycoon Sugianto Aguan Kusuma or Sunny Tanuwidjaja, Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahja Purnamas special staffer.

Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors several times mentioned the name of Aguan, the owner of Agung Sedayu Group, one of the reclamation project developers, claiming he had organized a series of meetings with city lawmakers and developers to influence the deliberation of zoning bylaws in the reclamation area. However, his name was not mentioned in relation to an Rp2 billion (US$152,149) bribe allegedly given to Jakarta councilor Mohamad Sanusi to expedite the approval of the bylaws.

Thursdays hearing also did not mention the name of Sunny, who according to the KPK played a role in connecting the developers, Aguan and Ahok.

The failure to implicate the two in the indictment has raised questions about the KPKs handling of the case because they have both been questioned several times and have had travel bans slapped on them for their alleged involvement in the case.

During the first hearing of the trial, KPK prosecutors indicted publicly listed property developer PT Agung Podomoro Land (APL) president director Ariesman Widjaya and his personal assistant Trinanda Prihantoro, accusing them of bribing Sanusi to change a number of articles in the bylaw so that they would benefit developers including APL and Agung Sedayu Group, which belongs to Aguan.
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Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

A man and a woman were unloading dozens of parcels from a pickup truck just as the rain stopped pouring down one afternoon in Cikini, Central Jakarta. After a while, two cars full of officers in uniform pulled over beside them.

As several officers of the Jakarta Transportation Agency got out of their vehicle, Kokoi and her employee started to put their parcels back into the pickup truck.

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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu  Thu, June 23 2016

The Operation Tinombala task force has claimed that residents in Poso regency, Central Sulawesi, still have faith in the police eradicating terrorism in the region and capturing the leader of the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT), Santoso, alias Abu Wardah, soon.

Task force spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Hari Suprapto told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that this trust could be seen from the fact that locals had been handing over their homemade weapons to the operations field personnel.

When they handed over their weapons like that, it means they do not have any intention of aiding Santoso and, thus, trust the task force, said Hari, who is also a spokesperson for the Central Sulawesi Police.

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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23 2016

The government is anticipating the possibility of the Canadian government filing a case review against a controversial child sex-abuse verdict involving the latters citizen, Neil Bantleman.

Such anticipation is being felt after the Foreign Ministry submitted a copy of the teachers cassation verdict from the Supreme Court to the Canadian embassy.

If the Canadian government takes up the case review and wins, it could affirm the international communitys concerns about Indonesias justice system, which in regards to Bantlemans case put on show a year-long drama over his verdict, ranging from the Canadian initially being convicted, to acquittal at a higher court, before ending up behind bars again after the Supreme Court deemed him guilty.

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Linkedin Nurni Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Balikpapan, East Kalimantan  Thu, June 23, 2016

The Samarinda Port authority has confirmed that seven Indonesian crewmen of the TB Charles boat have been kidnapped by an unidentified group in Philippine waters.

We can confirm the kidnapping. We are coordinating with the police and military to follow up on the report, said the authority chief Col. Yus Kusmany on Thursday.

We were informed of the kidnapping by one of the crewmen, Syaril, who was on board the boat. We were in contact with him last at 10:20 a.m. [local time] this morning. The boat was in the area around Mangkaliat cape, Kusmany said.

Seven of the boats crewmen were kidnapped while six others were released. The boat is expected to reach Samarinda on Friday afternoon.

The boat departed Samarinda on June 4 and was expected to return on June 27.

Terrorist group Abu Sayyaf has reportedly demanded a ransom of 20 million ringgit from the owner of the boat, PT Rusianto Bersaudara, for the release of the hostages, according to the phone call received by Dian Megawati Ahmad, the wife of one of the kidnapped crewmen, Ismail, on Wednesday.

Samarinda Mayor Syaharie Jaang reportedly visited Rusianto Bersaudara to follow up on the report on Thursday. (liz/dmr)
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Linkedin Desy Nurhayati (The Jakarta Post) Bali  Thu, June 23 2016

Behind the veil of its idyllic beaches, Bali hides a chronic waste problem.

The average person in Bali contributes 2.8 kilograms of potentially harmful solid waste per day to the islands rubbish pile, more than twice as much as the average person in the countrys capital Jakarta and considerably more than the national average.



Every day, 15,000 cubic meters of trash is disposed of along the islands roadsides and at illegal dumpsites, enough to completely fill six Olympic-sized swimming pools.



The population of the island continues to grow at a rapid rate, having reached 4.2 million people by 2014, but quality waste management practices appear to be lacking. It can come as no surprise that such a staggering amount of waste has resulted in serious problems.



According to ROLE Foundation  an NGO involved in environmental sustainability  up to 75 percent of waste in Bali is left uncollected due to a lack of official collection services. Instead the waste pollutes local waterways, farms and coastal areas.

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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post)  Thu, June 23 2016

Oil and gas shipping company Soechi Lines expects better growth prospects from its shipping and shipyard businesses thanks to a steady income from oil shipments and a cabotage rule requiring ships to be owned by Indonesian companies.



The publicly listed company booked total revenues of US$141.8 million last year, an increase of 11.3 percent year-on-year (yoy), which was mainly contributed to by its shipping business, which remains its best prospect because of stable utilization despite a slump in global oil prices.



The weak oil prices did not negatively affect the company as it seeing growing demand for shipping services, the operational director of shipping, Pieters Adyana Utomo, said.



It is true that crude oil lifting is decreasing, but we are still importing oil. The countrys demand for oil is still growing as we continue to invest in accordance with the governments moves, he said on Tuesday.



President Joko Jokowi Widodo is pushing forward maritime development in archipelagic Indonesia, envisioning the country to be a global maritime axis. The administration is working to develop maritime highways for shippers to be able to cut high logistics costs and increase the competitiveness of Southeast Asias largest economy.



Soechi Lines this year will purchase three to five vessels to support its shipping business, having allocated at least $30 million in capital expenditure (capex), said finance director Paula Marlina.



However, the shipping business is a long term investment, so we need to be prudent when acquiring vessels. We always avoid investing big, yet being vulnerable to losses, she said.



Currently, it operates 35 vessels with a total capacity of 1.46 million deadweight tons (DWT), comprising two very large crude carriers (VLCC) and six aframax, while the rest are medium and small ones.



As part of the effort to maintain revenue growth, the company is also trying to balance the value of its existing, or on hand, shipping contracts at around $200 million to $250 million this year by seeking new ones to replace the expired ones.



In maintaining the value of contracts, Paula said the company could calculate whether it needed to buy new vessels to replace the expired ones, or simply seek ones in the second-hand market for good prices.



In order to diversify business, the company also allocated $16 million of its capex this year to support vessel repair and maintenance services in its 200-hectare shipyard in Tanjung Balai Karimun, Riau Islands, covering 1.3 kilometers of beach line.



As of now, the companys shipyard holds contracts to build eight vessels worth $110 million, three of which will be owned the Transportation Ministry.



She said the countrys cabotage principle, which was introduced in 2005, has benefited the companys shipyard business as all vessels operating within Indonesian waters were required to be owned by Indonesian companies and fly Indonesian flags.



In line with the governments maritime program, the cabotage principle is positive for Soechi and creates multiplier effects to other industries because shipyard investment is supported by many suppliers. It is positive for the countrys economic growth in the long run, she said.



On Tuesday, the companys general shareholders meeting approved a dividend payout of Rp 52.94 billion (nearly $4 million) of its total net profits last year of $40.9 million, which grew by 23.2 percent yoy.



Shares in Soechi Lines, traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange under the code SOCI, cost Rp 426 apiece on Wednesday, having dropped 10.7 percent so far this year. That compares with the broader Jakarta Composite Indexs 6 percent gain.



JP/Grace D. Amianti

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Linkedin Words and Photo Wiradiatma Wijoga (The Jakarta Post)  Thu, June 23 2016

Located on one of the easternmost islands in Indonesia, Ambon is a world-famous name among underwater macro photographers, but less so among mainstream divers and, unfortunately, even less among Indonesians other than those who love to travel.

Situated in the very heart of the Coral Triangle, Ambon, the capital city of Maluku, together with North Maluku province, are geographically the closest neighbors to the world-renowned dive site Raja Ampat in Papua.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama supporter Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok) has said that it will not disclose its financial records to the public before it submits its 1 million photocopies of Jakarta voter IDs to the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD Jakarta).

Teman Ahok spokeswoman Amalia Ayuningtyas said it was to prevent any misuse of the data by certain parties to discredit the group.

We have been frequently discredited. We dont want to be audited by the media as well. Just ask the relevant authorities, said Amalia said in Jakarta on Wednesday as reported by kompas.com.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is investigating the alleged disbursement of Rp 30 billion (US$2.26 million) to Teman Ahok by developers of reclamation projects in Jakarta Bay, as accused by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Junimart Girsang.

Teman Ahok has denied the accusation.

Amalia said that her group would make its financial records public soon after it handed over the photocopies of the IDs to the elections body as a requirement for Ahok to run as an independent candidate in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election.

We will be cooperative. But we cannot disclose our records now. We assure you that we will disclose what Teman Ahok has received, including printing material as well as logistics, Amalia added.

Teman Ahok announced it had collected 1 million copies of IDs, exceeding the minimum of 532,000 needed for individuals to run as an independent candidate in a Jakarta election.

Amalia had expressed her concerns over the efforts of certain parties to discredit her group, including the latest move by former volunteers on Wednesday, who claimed that many copies of the IDs collected were not collected directly from the ID holders but rather from other parties, such as heads of neighborhood units. (bbn).
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

Lawmakers praised National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian for his humble lifestyle after a visit to the official residence of the sole candidate for the position of the country's top cop.

Lawmakers from the House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal affairs visited Tito's house on Wednesday in the National Police housing complex as part of their assessment before holding a fit and proper test with him on Thursday. From the visit and interview with Tito's family members, the lawmakers saw that his family was far from enjoying a lavish lifestyle, in accordance with Tito's official wealth reports that suggested no irregularities, the commission chairman Bambang Soesatyo said.

"We can see that the condition of his house [and family] are in accordance with Tito's statement, reports and purposes," the Golkar Party lawmaker told journalists after the visit.

The commission's visit was a part of the fit and proper test for Tito's candidacy following the reports from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Tuesday that suggested no suspicious activities were found in Tito's official wealth reports (LHKPN).

During the visit, not only did the commission's members have a long talk with Tito's wife, Tri Suswati, they also had a chance to talk about Tito's nomination with his youngest son, Muhammad Taufan, 17, who currently resides in Singapore, through a Skype conversation.

Tito's other children, Muhammad Garda Ramadhito, 20, and Laviyah Augusta, 18, were not able to accompany their parents during the visit either, as they were both also studying in Singapore.

The lawmakers of the commission are scheduled to hand over their decision on Thursday evening about whether to forward Tito's name to the plenary meeting for approval for him to be the new National Police chief. (rin)
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Linkedin Erika Anindita Dewi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

The National Police chief nominee Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian vowed on Thursday to internally reform the police institution.

"The most important thing is how we repress the corrupted culture, the hedonistic culture and the behavior toward the public," the current National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Tito told journalists after passing a screening by the House of Representatives to be named Indonesias next top cop.

Tito, the best graduate in the Police Academy's class of 1987, acknowledged that the need for internal reforms was one of the challenges that the institution faced.

National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti is to retire this July when he turns 58 years old. Article 30 (2) of the 2002 National Police Law stipulates that that is the maximum retirement age for National Police officers.
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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

In the wake of extreme weather that has devastated parts of Indonesia and claimed dozens of lives, the government is being urged to overhaul the countrys disaster management by introducing disaster literacy in school curriculums, as well as by strengthening its early warning system.

Indonesias disaster literacy in general is still low compared to other disaster-prone countries like Japan, a senior researcher has said.

In Japan, disaster literacy is already internalized. In every school and village, there is training to prepare for disasters. For instance, elementary students are trained once every three months on what to do during earthquakes, Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) senior researcher Soeryo Adiwibowo said.

While disaster literacy might not prevent disasters from claiming any lives, it can at least reduce the death toll, Soeryo said.

Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) head Andi Eka Sakya said disaster literacy should be introduced through a formal mechanism that could reach a wide range of the population.

Indonesia is a supermarket of disasters. Therefore, many kinds of disasters have to be integrated in a mechanism so that our disaster literacy can be improved, he said.

In order for disaster literacy education to be effective, it has to be designed by taking into account local characteristics, according to Andi.

Every region has differing characteristics. Therefore, local regulations [on disaster literacy education] are needed, he said.

Being literate in disasters can determine whether one survives. Usually its not an earthquake

that kills people, but panic, Andi explained.

Disaster literacy is not new for the country. Since 2008, UNESCO and the Education and Culture Ministry have been implementing a natural disaster literacy program in Central Java, Yogyakarta and Lampung. The program aims to mitigate the harmful effects of natural disasters on communities by equipping participants with the knowledge and skills they need to cope.

The program also raises awareness of the risks associated with natural disasters and helps communities to recover from disasters. Most of the programs beneficiaries are poor adults and out-of-school young people with low literacy levels.

However, the implementation of the program is still far from what was desired because of limited infrastructure, facilities and funding.

Besides introducing a thorough disaster literacy education, the government should also improve the countrys early warning system, which so far has failed to prevent massive casualties in this years floods and landslides.

Following the 2004 tsunami, which killed 168,000 people in Aceh, Indonesia introduced a sophisticated early warning system using buoys, sea-level gauges and seismometers that can send alerts to the countrys tsunami warning centers within 10 minutes of a quake.

But all 22 of the early-warning buoys Indonesia deployed after the 2004 tsunami disaster were inoperable when a massive undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Padang earlier this year.

Most of the buoys were broken by vandalism and the government did not allocate enough money to maintain them, which should have cost around US$2.3 million a year.

We as a country are easy to forget. Once we do something, it goes back to business as usual. Actually the 2004 tsunami was a good entry point for improvement of disaster management, but now it seems that our readiness is declining, Soeryo said.

Besides better early warning systems for tsunamis, the government is also being urged to improve its early warning system for landslides, a common occurrence during the rainy season in the country.

Landslides have been especially deadly this year, as the country is experiencing an abnormally wet dry season with heavy rains hitting parts of Indonesia.

As of Wednesday, floods and landslides in Purworejo regency, Central Java, had killed 38, with nine people reported missing.

Andi said the government should build more devices that could detect seismic movement.

This early warning system could detect not only rainfall, but also landslides, he said.
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Linkedin  Thu, June 23, 2016

Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation Prak Sokhon pledged to strengthen cooperation between the two foreign ministries during his talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi on Wednesday.



The talks were part of the official visit of the Cambodian minister to Vietnam from Tuesday to Thursday, at Minhs invitation.



Host and guest expressed approval of the rapid and effective development of bilateral links in politics-diplomacy, national defense-security, economy, trade and investment. Both also approve of the effective operation of mutual cooperation mechanisms.

Deputy PM Minh asked Cambodia to provide all possible support for Vietnamese nationals living in the country, reinforcing traditional neighborly friendship between the two countries.



He also suggested the Cambodian Foreign Ministry offer more favorable policies to Vietnamese investors in Cambodia, including granting certificates of land use and concluding negotiations on the double taxation avoidance agreement, toward lifting two-way trade to US$5 billion.



The two sides agreed to maintain close co-operation and co-ordination of viewpoints at regional and global forums, while increasing collaboration with other ASEAN member states to consolidate ASEANs solidarity, unity and central role: for the sake of peace, security, stability and cooperation in the region and the world.



On the East Sea issue, the two sides share the view that disputes should be solved by peaceful means, without using or threatening to use force. This view is in line with widely-accepted principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC). It also represents work-in-progress towards formulating a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).



Both sides also committed to continue working closely together, and with other members of the International Mekong River Commission, to ensure the sustainable management and use of Mekong River water resources and to promote Mekong  Lancang co-operation.

During the meeting with his guest on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked that the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Committee on Economic, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Co-operation mechanism - and the conference on cooperation and development among Vietnamese and Cambodian border provinces - be promoted.

He also asked the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation to assist in removing challenges faced by Vietnamese nationals living in the country, particularly related to their legal status. Addressing these issues would allow overseas Vietnamese to live more stable lives and to contribute to the host countrys socio-economic development and the friendship between the two countries.

The host urged increasing co-operation between the two countries in multilateral frameworks, particularly the ASEAN. He hopes Cambodia will continue to express its stance, together with other ASEAN member states, on the East Sea issue, with a view to consolidating ASEANs role in regional security as well as in the ASEAN Community.

In the meantime, President Tran ai Quang urged the two countries foreign ministries to join hands with each other in organizing practical activities marking the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties (June 24, 1967) to educate younger generations about the relationship.

President Quang asked the minister to convey his invitations to King Norodom Sihamoni and leaders of the Cambodian Senate, National Assembly and Government to visit Vietnam.

Sokhonn told Vietnamese leaders that his Vietnam visit aims to demonstrate the Cambodian Governments resolve to step up the friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.
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Linkedin Jaanam Jaswani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 23, 2016

If youre the kind of person who reads news articles during your leisure time, youre probably up to date on the hoopla that is Brexit, or the UKs referendum pertaining to membership of the European Union (EU).

Brexit involves plenty of changes in the countrys policies toward trade and many other aspects as well. The implications and scenarios have all been worked out, but what impact would Brexit have on the youth in the UK, UK citizens currently residing outside, non-UK European Citizens, or internationals looking for opportunities in the UK?

Before diving straight into the implications, lets get to know a little more about the EU. It is whats known as a single market, which means they have an agreement between countries to trade freely among themselves and adopt common external barriers; along with common policies on product regulation, and the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor. They also have a common currency (followed by 19 out of 28 EU countries) and a central bank. Arising post-World War II, the EU decided to adopt commerce rather than combat as its core value for the countries.

Heavily criticized by John Oliver, "Brexit: The Movie" put across Britains concerns to the public about the notorious EU regulations.

(Read also: Brexit not significant threat to Indonesia: BI)

Along with that, the main reason for Brexit would be the overflowing influx of immigrants and refugees, and the belief that the economic benefits of leaving would outweigh the hefty costs of membership. This includes the financial contribution Britain gives to the EU to provide free National Health Services (NHS) for its citizens all through Europe.

Despite clear reasons for Brexit, many have speculated the underlying racism within it all. In fact, Rozanne Duncan, an ex-member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) was quoted as saying, The only people I do have problems with are negroes. And I dont know why.

Additionally, a former UK Prime Minister pledged to endorse British jobs for British workers in the past.

What does this mean for EU citizens seeking jobs in the UK, then? Most obviously, encountering such discrimination is not ideal at all. The fact of the matter is that it will be much, much more troublesome to find employment in UK-based firms. One of the main causes of this is their inward-oriented employment strategies due to the rise in costs stemming from the cuts in benefits given to the UK by the EU.

One such benefit is the subsidies given to the UK in the agricultural sector. Despite this, the UK still intends to continue funding agriculture, even though this would add another cost to the government, which could have easily been used on more important projects.

(Read also: Voters decide in Britain's historic EU referendum)

Some of you international students might be considering studying and/or settling into the UK. Well, a fun fact here is that about 20 percent of the staff in prestigious universities there are non-UK European Union citizens. Furthermore, the UK is the highest recipient of funding from the EU for research, with 78 universities conducting about 1,000 projects. With the funding cut off as well as the increased formalities regarding non-British staff, there is bound to be a colossal uncertainty over the quality of education.

On the topic of uncertainties, Brexit will make things even more complicated for British citizens looking to live outside the UK, especially since they will no longer be covered by the right to work and own property in Europe. To add on to that, free healthcare outside the UK will not be available, as Brexit would mean cutting funding for the NHS in Europe. Unfortunately, this spells trouble to the pockets of British expats.

British citizens will, unfortunately again, gain no benefit from the EUs regulations such as flat prices for telecommunications services. Undoubtedly, UK-based companies will seek to take advantage of this and form a monopolistic competitive market, rather than a perfectly competitive one. With regards to the EUs regulations on food and beverages, Brexit raises a few concerns regarding the ambiguity of the the UKs future policies. The regulations were deemed wasteful and ineffective by the UK, but there is still no hard evidence of planning to either improve or deregulate.

According to me, Brexit is an instability-causing ordeal (not just for Britain, but the whole world), and even though the UK has clear reasons for leaving, there would be catastrophic consequences if it happened -- at least initially.



***



Jaanam Jaswani is a 17 year-old blogger and occasional poet. Impulsive and controversial, she has an insatiable curiosity when it comes to literature, performance arts, philosophy, and food. She can be found on biryanibabe.blogspot.co.id, @exist_sensual on Instagram, or @inbreadwecrust on Twitter.



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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
The Two Bridges area is already a major construction zone. As Extell Developments 80-story luxury tower rises on Cherry Street, at least three more large-scale projects have been added to the drawing board. In recent weeks, local residents have begun asking whether theres anything that can be done to block the powerful real estate interests that are descending on the neighborhood.

The development bonanza was a main topic of last weeks meeting of Community Board 3s land use committee. Some community activists are pushing to fast-track sweeping zoning proposals from the Chinatown Working Group, a neighborhood planning coalition formed eight years ago. They believe the plan, which calls for height limits along the waterfront, is their best hope of protecting the neighborhood from over-development.

In February of 2015, the citys Planning Commission rejected the Chinatown Working Group proposal, calling it too expansive. As we noted earlier this month, Community Board 3 recently followed up with a more targeted pitch, offering to focus first on the historic core of Chinatown, the waterfront and the public housing campuses of the Lower East Side. At last weeks meeting, CB3 Chair Gigi Li announced that the planning commission responded in a June 7 letter, agreeing to meet with community board members. Carl Weisbrod, director of the Department of City Planning, wrote:

I am pleased to see that Community Board 3 has committed to taking a focused look at the Chinatown Working Group proposal. I would like to reiterate that we share many of the same goals for Chinatown, particularly the preservation and development of affordable housing. We are hopeful that with a more focused look  one that is specific to Chinatown  we can accomplish these and other important planning goals for the neighborhood.

The Chinatown Working Groups grand plan covered a large swathe of the Lower East Side, as you can see in the map posted above. The proposed special zoning district was divided into sub-districts. While Weisbrod was not specific, it is assumed that his offer to look at a plan specific to Chinatown means Subdistrict A only, and not the waterfront area (Subdistrict D).

Concerns about mega-towers in the Two Bridges neighborhood boiled over after JDS Development Group announced in April that it intends to build a one-thousand-foot tower at 247 Cherry St., next door to Extells development site. Large-scale plans are also in-the-works for adjacent sites along the East River.

Chairperson Li told community board members, Im not convinced that pursuing rezoning of the waterfront would prevent any of the buildings that are already being discussed. One reason why: community-driven rezonings do not happen quickly; they take a minimum of two years.

Trever Holland, a member of CB3 and a tenant leader in the Two Bridges area, said the community board needs to try harder to fight the plans. Referring to members of the land use committee, he said, There are some creative minds up here We need to think of something (even if its simply approving a statement in opposition to the towers).

As we first reported, City Council member Margaret Chin wants the changes being proposed in the area to be considered a major modification of the Two Bridges Large-Scale Development Plan. Shes made that request of the Department of City Planning. If the agency agrees, it would result in a ULURP for the Two Bridges area, with required consultations with the community board, borough president and approval by the City Council. A spokesperson for Chin previously told us she sees the the request for a ULURP and the Chinatown Working Group plan as two separate initiatives.

Another community board member, Damaris Reyes, quizzed a representative from Chins office about the Council members commitment to the Chinatown Working Groups full vision. Reyes is executive director of GOLES, a housing advocacy group already on the record in opposition to JDS Development Groups tower. A lot of people from this community and lots of groups, she said, worked for a really long time to do a comprehensive plan, not just the core of Chinatown.

Reyes asked Roxanne Earley, Chins director of land use and planning, whether the Council member has an opinion on the city Planning Commissions decision to only address the Chinatown core. Earley responded by saying that Chin is very concerned about development and change all over the neighborhood and all throughout the district. She added that the three new Two Bridges projects pose an immediate concern, suggesting that rezoning is not necessarily the answer to the neighborhoods most pressing worries.

When pressed further by Reyes, Earley added, We have to engage in conversations where we can get agency buy-in. Once at the negotiating table, Earley explained, Council member Chin is hopeful the city will adopt more of the Chinatown Working Groups vision. Reyes emphasized the importance of presenting a united front. Were going to count on our elected officials, she said, who we believe care about our community, to stand with us as we push forward Otherwise, were spinning our wheels, were wasting our time.

Since Weisbrod sent his letter to Gigi Li, a meeting has been scheduled to discuss the Chinatown zoning plans. Li will be attending, along with representatives from the Chins office and the office of Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Its happening before the end of this month, although the exact day and time have not been disclosed.

Li said shes been talking with representatives of JDS Development Group about two appearances before Community Board 3 in the coming months. In September, theyll provide an informational briefing on their Cherry Street tower. Then sometime before the end of the year, the developers will return to present either a minor modification or a major modification of Two Bridges Large-Scale Development Plan.

As for Chins request of City Planning, a spokesperson told us yesterday that a letter has been sent to officially request a ULURP on the proposed development sites. Other elected officials signed on to the letter. Chin is awaiting a response from the city.

Meanwhile, it should be another dramatic night at Community Board 3s monthly meeting this coming Tuesday evening. Last month, community activists demanded that CB3 sign a pledge to push for full implementation of the Chinatown Working Group plan. Theyre going to show up again next week. Incidentally, its Gigi Lis last board meeting before stepping down as chair (community board rules prevent her from running for a fifth term). Shes running in the upcoming Democratic Primary in the 65th Assembly District.
Government wont legalise meth

BANGKOK: Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya has confirmed the government will not legalise methamphetamine, but will remove it from the dangerous narcotic drugs list that includes hard drugs such as heroin.

drugscrimehealth

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 23 June 2016, 09:08AM

Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya (right): Dont send drug patients to jail. Photo: Pattanapong Hirunard

Theres no way ya bah (methamphetamine) will be made legal. It will remain as an illicit drug. Were not ready to legalise the drug, said Gen Paiboon following a meeting of the National Administration Centre for Narcotics Prevention and Suppression.

Gen Paiboons earlier proposal to lift ya bah from the narcotics list came under fire despite several parties agreeing with the idea, while many questions and concerns were raised. However, the justice minister said yesterday (June 22) the current policy toward speed pills is not working and needs to change, especially in the area of punishments for drug offenders.

Traffickers and major dealers will face drastic measures while those who suffer abuse by drug networks as well as drug addicts will receive measures proportionate to their offences, he said.

A new bill which was drawn up to reform the system of drug laws will draw a distinction between producers, traders, workers and addicts and they will be treated differently, he said.

However, he said Thailand is not ready to abolish the death sentence in narcotics cases.

Gen Paiboon said putting methamphetamine in the same category as heroin which carries severe penalties is deemed wrong and unfair to drug addicts. Other drugs, not just methamphetamine, will be reviewed and reclassified, he said.

Gen Paiboon said meeting delegates agreed the drug policy should have three approaches  prevention, suppression and rehabilitation. The Public Health Ministry is likely to be the core agency in drug rehabilitation.

Dont send drug patients to jail because jails are not places where they can be treated. Weve been sending patients to prison, he said.

Once the public health system is ready for drug rehabilitation, reclassification of drugs could proceed, he said.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) secretary-general Boonchai Somboonsook said health authorities agreed with the Justice Ministrys new policy towards drugs.

However, he said the proposed change in the status of methamphetamine will need to be discussed thoroughly.

After methamphetamine was called ya bah and declared an illicit drug in 1996, its abuse continued to increase and so did the amounts of the drug, he said. The FDA is responsible for storing and destroying seized methamphetamine.

Office of the Narcotics Control Board secretary-general Narong Rattananukul said Thailand is the only country that classifies methamphetamine as a narcotic drug as dangerous as heroin. Elsewhere, the drug is a controlled substance.

He said if methamphetamine is reviewed and reclassified, its demand may decrease and so may the price, which will discourage traders and traffickers from dealing the substance.

National Legislative Assembly committee on public health chairman Jate Sirathranont has also thrown his weight behind the justice ministers policy, saying a new approach is needed to fight drugs.

However, he said the policy towards methamphetamine might trigger public criticism and called on relevant authorities to explain to the public any change in attitude toward drugs.

Meanwhile, four people have been arrested with large amounts of methamphetamine worth about B100 million in two separate incidents, the Royal Thai Police Narcotics Suppression Bureau said.

In Nakhon Pathom, Mongkol Kasemjit, 45, a former drug convict, was nabbed at the entrance of a soi in Kamphaeng Saen district.

Police allegedly found 600,000 methamphetamine pills and 5kg of crystal meth (ya ice) in his car.

In a second operation, three suspects, a 17-year-old whose name was withheld; Peerapas Nutcharoen, 24; and Suwinai Boon-iem, 23, were arrested in Sikhiu district.

The suspects were travelling from Sakon Nakhon to Nakhon Ratchasima. Police said they found them in possession of 214,000 methamphetamine pills.

The suspects allegedly told police they had been offered B50,000 to deliver the drugs to customers in the Central provinces.

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Trick or Treat: Why do we do it? According to the National Retail Federation, Halloween is the countrys second largest commercial holiday, boasting an estimated $3.1 billion in candy sales. The roots of the holiday stem from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain in which people gathered during the Middle Ages, dressed and performed as ghosts and demons...

Covering the gap The lump shows up at a routine mammogram. The thyroid has enlarged. Theres blood in the stool. The EKG reading is abnormal. Every one of these indicators are symptoms of potentially life-threatening conditions or disease. These conditions are often identified through preventive screenings at the local health department, and additional...

KICK OFF EVENT The BCHF welcomes Tim Tebow on Thursday, November 10. The Heisman trophy winner will speak at the Burke County High School J.D. Smith Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Tickets sales benefit the foundation and its mission to serve our communitys underprivileged. For tickets, call 706-55-3456.

Breast Cancer; Burke Health asks if you are at risk Convenient appointments using state-of-the-art 3D technology can be performed right here in Waynesboro at the new Burke Imaging building at the Burke Health campus. Other than skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer in American women, accounting for 30% of all diagnosed cancers. In addition, early onset breast...
Officially at least, Ratan Tata, patriarch of one of India's wealthiest business families, retired in late 2012. In reality, he has been a driving force behind Tata's bet on airlines and a rare public campaign to open up the booming aviation sector.

The $100 billion Tata group conglomerate is a major beneficiary of the decision last week to open up aviation in India, making it easier for start-ups to fly overseas sooner.

The decision is no panacea for Tata, whose airlinesVistara and AirAsia Indiahave had a slow start in a competitive market dominated by IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, and Etihad-backed Jet Airways, both of which opposed the rule change.

But it marks a victory for 78-year-old Ratan Tata, and ends more than two years of airlines lobbying, of Twitter rows and of frequent public statements from the usually circumspect steel-to-salt group.

"This was a David-and-Goliath kind of situation," said a source close to Tata group. "There was huge lobbying from the other side."

Ultimately, sources familiar with the talks said, it was Ratan Tata, a trained pilot, who was key to sealing the deal, capitalising on his clout.

In a message earlier this year, he called for "a new open market economy" and said airlines lobbying against a rule change was "reminiscent of protectionist and monopolistic pressures by vested interests' entities who seem to fear competition."

A spokesman for Tata Sons, which promotes the group, denied Ratan Tata was directly involved, saying he had "nothing to do with operations or management of either of the airlines" after his retirement, and that views he expressed were personal.

Turbulent beginnings

Not that either of Tata's two airline venturesa low-cost carrier owned with Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd and Vistara, a full-service carrier run with Singapore Airlinesis yet ready to fly overseas. Both have had turbulent starts.

Vistara initially focused on domestic business travellers, but had to reconfigure its aircraft after a year, to replace pricier seats with cheaper ones.

AirAsia underwent a management shake-up earlier this year.

Vistara's share of India's passenger air market is rising but is still just 2.5 per cent after nearly 18 months in business. AirAsia's share after two years has stagnated at about 2 per cent, government data showed, compared with IndiGo, which has a 39 per cent share, and Jet Airways with 19 per cent.

But flying overseas is critical. It means higher profits and margins than in India's cut-throat market dominated by low-cost carriers, and Vistara and AirAsia now aim to boost their fleet sizes within a year.

A Tata Sons spokeswoman said making profit can take several years and the group had a "clear road map": "Aviation is a long gestation business sector."

The new rules water down a requirement known as 5/20, which barred domestic airlines from flying overseas before being in operation for five years and having 20 aircraft.

Now they can fly overseas as long as they deploy 20 aircraft or 20 per cent of total capacity in India, whichever is higher. Tata Sons and the two airlines said they would prefer the rules to be abolished altogether.

Tata's re-entry

Tata group, a business empire stretching from Jaguar Land Rover and steel mills in Britain to salt pans and India's cheapest car, has a long history in aviation.

J.R.D. Tata, the group chairman before Ratan Tata, became India's first qualified pilot in 1929, and set up an airline that was later nationalised as state carrier Air India.

Under Ratan Tata, the group sought to snap up Air India in a privatisation process, later aborted.

Instead, even as current chairman Cyrus Mistry has sought to wind up some of Tata group's more ambitious projects, Ratan Tata pulled the group back in with two joint ventures. For his critics, the intervention was too little, too late.

In 2013, a year after India liberalised foreign direct investment in aviation, Tata returned, first with AirAsia and then Vistara.

"India's market has only just started and it could provide growth for global aviation for the next 10 or 15 years," said Kapil Kaul, New Delhi-based chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) consultancy.

India is the world's fastest-growing aviation market, clocking more than 20 per cent growth last year, and CAPA expects domestic passenger travel to grow to 500 million by 2035 from 70 million in 2015.

Tata group is moving to capitalise on the win.

Vistara, which has 11 aircraft, had an original plan to scale up to 20 by June, 2018, but could speed that up.

"We do not rule out accelerating the deliveries or procuring more aircraft from leasing firms, manufacturers or, for that matter, from our parent Singapore Airlines also," Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh said in response to a query.

Yeoh said the company was reviewing its international plans.

AirAsia is in the process of ramping up its aircraft to 20 from six to meet the criteria, India CEO Amar Abrol said, adding that the airline lobbied hard for the removal of the 5/20 rule.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is all set to make an international debut in a grand manner, according to a media report.

What's more, Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio will be rooting for the Sangh's stance on the beef ban issue.

RSS has planned an event on July 31 in the United Kingdom to commemorate the golden jubilee of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. Besides, DiCaprio, the high-profile guest list includes broadcaster Sir David Attenborough and business magnet Richard Branson among others, according to a report in DailyO.

The report said about 10,000 NRIs are expected to take part in the event.

While the anti-beef movement led by RSS is driven by its hindutva ideology, DiCaprio has non-religious reasons. DiCaprio is an environmental activist and a vegan.

He plays an active role in spreading awareness about animal rights, climate change and other global environmental challenges. He has contributed millions of dollars to groups that carry out environmental and wildlife conservation programmes.

Last year, he teamed up with Netflix for a documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, on animal agriculture industry highlighting its contribution to global warming. A year earlier he was part of an anti-poaching expose.

On the other hand, for RSS, cow slaughter is a political issue. And its outrage against beef consumption stems from its religious beliefs.

Now the question is, will DiCaprio support the RSS' beef-ban movement, if he comes to know it has to do more with politics than climate change?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Thursday to a warm welcome as he kicked off a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the SCO with an aim to expand India's engagement with the China-dominated grouping in areas of security, defence and energy.

In a special gesture, Modi was received at the Tashkent international airport by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoev.

In the two-day summit that begins on Thursday, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will start the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

However, the spotlight is on Modi's bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the day during which the Prime Minister is expected to seek China's support for India's membership at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Giving clear indications of its opposition to India's bid for entry into the atomic trading club, China had on Wednesday underlined the differences within NSG members, saying "parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue".

It, however, said it will play a constructive role in the discussions.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," the Prime Minister said in a statement before leaving for Tashkent.

He said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehtahad yesterday said "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations".

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign over 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in July last year when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India, Pakistan and Iran.

SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.

The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for expansion of the grouping.

India feels as SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia has been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.
A lack of consensus amid strong opposition from several countries led by China thwarted India's bid for NSG membership in Seoul on Thursday night even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent to consider New Delhi's bid on its merit.

Representational image | AP

The Indian application for membership to the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group was taken up at a post-dinner special session in the South Korean capital where heads of delegation of NSG are holding a plenary, highly informed sources in Seoul said.

The sources said several countries led by China opposed the idea of letting India in on the grounds that New Delhi was a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those siding with China included Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Turkey and Ireland.

Signing the NPT is one of the main requirements to be part of the elite club of nations that regulate global nuclear trade and technology.

China had earlier brought up Pakistan's NSG application that virtually stonewalled India's chances of getting into the bloc without signing the Non-proliferation Treaty.

China had been insisting that if any concession is given to India, the same should apply to Pakistan which has an alleged bad track record on non-proliferation after it was said to have sold atomic weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The sources said Pakistan's application didn't come up for the discussion.

The issue of considering applications of non-NPT countries, including India, was not on the main agenda of the NSG's closed-door plenary.

But several diplomatic sources said that Japan raised the issue in the opening session. It was later decided that the matter would be discussed at the special session convened by Chairperson Rafael Grossi of Argentina.

Argentina and South Korea along with several key member nations, including the US, Britain, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, France and Russia, have been supportive of India's NSG aspirations.

Earlier, Prime Minister Modi, who met President Xi in Tashkent on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Uzbekistan capital, urged China to judge India's application on its "merit".

"Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup briefed reporters in Tashkent.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the opposition to India's membership won't impact bilateral ties between them.

"We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the media, adding that the two countries "have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship".

Ahead of the Seoul plenary, India made hectic diplomatic efforts to secure the membership in the grouping which works on the principle of consensus and allows a new member only if all existing members agree.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar is in Seoul as part of India's diplomatic outreach to push through the NSG.
North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said after supervising the test launch of a "medium long-range strategic ballistic missile" that the country now has the capability to attack US interests in the Pacific, official media reported on Thursday.

South Korean and US military officials have said the North launched what appeared to be two intermediate-range missiles dubbed Musudan on Wednesday. The first of the two was considered a failure.

The second reached a high altitude in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea about 400 km (250 miles) away, they said.

The test-fire was successful without putting the security of neighbouring countries at risk, the North's KCNA news agency said, referring to the missile as a "Hwasong-10." Hwasong is Korean for Mars.

"We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre," KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

The missile, which is fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles), meaning all of Japan and the US territory of Guam are potentially within reach.

South Korea and the United States condemned the launch as an unacceptable violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

Japan's Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the launch was an indication that North Korea's threat to Japan was intensifying.

The United Nations Security Council, which in March imposed new sanctions on the North following its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, met at the request of the United States and Japan.

Alexis Lamek, Deputy UN Ambassador of France, which holds the Security Council presidency for June, said after the meeting all 15 members believed the launches were in violation of UN resolutions.

All expressed a strong concern as well as their opposition (to) these launches, Lamek told reporters. He said he hoped a statement condemning the move could be agreed on soon.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking before the Security Council meeting, described North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches as a "brazen and irresponsible act".

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he did not know if the test was a success but acknowledged one of the two missiles "flew for a long time".

North Korea had failed in at least five previous attempts to launch the intermediate-range missiles. South Korea said Washington and Seoul were analyzing whether the sixth missile launch was successful.

Japan and South Korea said the missile flew at a height of 1,000 km (620 miles) over a distance of 400 km (250 miles) off its east coast. Experts said it appeared North Korea had deliberately raised the angle of the launch to avoid hitting any territory of Japan.

North Korea is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never attempted to test-fire them until this year.
The dump Trump movement is gaining followers among delegates to next months Republican National Convention, an effort that could tarnish Donald Trumps coronation even if it ultimately fails.

Several hundred Republican delegates are organizing to oppose Trump at the convention. Thats not enough delegates to topple Trump. But its more than enough to create turmoil at an event that is typically used to bring a political party together in support of a presidential candidate.

If Trump is the nominee, we truly believe its the end of our party, said Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate who is leading the effort to dump Trump. Were trying to save the party.

There could be floor fights over convention rules and the partys platform. And instead of a coronation, the roll call to nominate Trump could be an opportunity for delegates to voice their displeasure on national television.

Whats worse for the Republican Party  this is the calculation  one week of absolute chaos and all sorts of recriminations or four and a half months of this looming, rolling catastrophe? conservative Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes said on his Tuesday show.

Some delegates are appalled that their party would endorse a candidate who has publicly insulted women and a reporter with disabilities. Many were alarmed by his incendiary remarks following the Orlando massacre, and some were distressed by his assertion this month that a Mexican-American judge couldnt fairly preside over a Trump civil case.

When asked about her objections to Trump, Unruh said: You mean besides the fact that hes not a Republican? Hes progressive populist protectionist.

Trump dismisses attempts to deny him the nomination, noting he will have more than enough support at the convention to win the nomination and control the proceedings.

He has noted correctly that he received far more votes, won many more states, and collected nearly three times as many delegates as his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The dump Trump group faces another obstacle: It has no candidate to challenge Trump.

I have zero clue who is going to do this, said Unruh, who supported Cruz.

Some veteran Republican strategists and Republican National Committee members expressed resignation about the effort and predicted it will factor little in the convention proceedings.

I expect the whole thing to fizzle before the convention, said Charlie Black, an adviser to John McCain in 2008 and other GOP nominees.

Toppling Trump is a longshot effort, according to the math.

Unruh said she has the support of at 400 delegates, including some who are alternates. There will be 2,472 delegates at the convention. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.

Trump has 1,542 delegates, including 1,447 who are required by party rules to vote for him on the first ballot at the convention, according to the Associated Press count.

People in the Cruz camp say there is no organized effort on their part to encourage delegates loyal to the senator to oust Trump. But they arent discouraging a delegate revolt, either.

Youve got (House Speaker) Paul Ryan saying over the weekend that they should be allowed to vote their conscience  thats a pretty big deal, said Chris Wilson, who led polling and data operations for Cruz. If they somehow end up becoming unbound, I dont know. All bets are off there.

Unruh said she and her supporters will work to adopt rules that allow delegates to support the candidate of their choice. They are busy trying to contact members of the influential rules committee, which will meet the week before the convention.

The entire convention will vote on the rules adopted by the 112-member rules committee. It would take 28 votes by committee members to issue a minority report, which would also get a vote on the convention floor.

I can confidently say that I will have a minority report, said Unruh, who sits on the rules committee. Were saving the party and (GOP Chairman) Reince Priebus will send me flowers, Im sure.

Former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Bradys job is rounding up anti-Trump delegates in the Midwest. He acknowledged its a longshot campaign, but said theres little to lose.

Can I see it falling into place, given how poorly his campaign has gone? Yes, Brady said.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Tuesday that delegates should be free to vote their conscience at the convention.

I think historically, not just this year, delegates are and should be able to vote the way they see fit, Walker said. Well see how things go between now and the convention as to what the next steps are. Im not going to speculate now only because you all know the situation may change by this afternoon, let alone between now and the convention.

Walker has endorsed Trump.

(AP)
Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB) Head Dr. Eviatar Matania and National Cyber Security Authority Head Buky Carmeli have signed a joint declaration on operative cyber defense cooperation between Israel and the US, in the presence of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Under Secretary of Homeland Security (National Protection and Programs Directorate) Suzanne Spaulding.

The declaration expresses the vital nature of an international integration of forces in order to more effectively deal with joint threats in the cyber sphere, especially given the commitment of the US and Israeli governments to expand and deepen bilateral cooperation in cyber defense, which has grown in recent years.

The declaration refers to main efforts by the two countries regarding aspects of managing cyber events, the cyber defense of critical infrastructures, building partnerships with the private sector and research and development vis-a-vis innovative technologies and solutions. The declaration places special emphasis on the establishment of networks and procedures between the National Cyber Security Authority and its US counterpart in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to facilitate the sharing of operative information regarding cyber defense in real time. As such and in keeping with its place as a global leader in the field, Israel will be among the first countries in the world to join the DHS Automated Indicator Sharing initiative, which is designed to create an automated platform between governments and companies for the efficient and rapid sharing of information in order to thwart or deal with cyberattacks.

The senior DHS delegation participated in the 6th Annual International Cybersecurity Conference at Tel Aviv University, which is being attended by government, industry and academic representatives from around the world.

At the opening of the conference on Monday 14 Sivan, INCB Head Dr. Eviatar Matania described how five years ago there was a turning point in the view of the cyber threat and the readiness necessary to meet it, and how since then additional countries have joined in dealing with complex questions of strategy and policy stemming from this complicated and changing challenge. He explained that currently, and looking at the next five years, it has become apparent how ideas and concepts that have been developed up until now are gradually becoming tangible and providing practical solutions, and that the State of Israel is at the forefront of this effort regarding both innovation and defense.

National Cyber Security Authority Head Buky Carmeli, on Tuesday morning, presented the authoritys overall concept regarding national defense in the cyber sphere, which is considered among the most advanced in the world. He explained the goal is to maintain the free use of technology without concern regarding cyber threats by means of providing a credible and complete defensive response for the privacy of citizens and the business of companies.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo: Haim Tzach, GPO)
Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern Shlita speaks out regarding what he feels is the need to educate children with limud Torah in addition to secular subjects to permit them an existence. He feels the State of Israel cannot exist as chareidim believe, learning Torah exclusively, and while this is of paramount importance, one must learn security subjects to earn a livelihood.

He feels it is most unfortunate that this is still neglected in the chareidi world, adding there is no reason for this. He uses himself as an example, seeking to explain that as one who is learning, the study of secular subjects does not detract from limud Torah, but the two work well together side by side at some point, adding One neednt give up on something but encourage this.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
During the demolition of a house in the hilltop community of Givat Gal near Hebron late at night on Monday, 7 Sivan, policemen violently detained two protesters. One of the detainees is a 37-year old married Givat Gal resident and father of four children who does not have a criminal record. The other detainee is a 21-year old local yeshiva student. Honenu Attorneys Yehuda Shoshan and Adi Kedar are representing the two detainees.

At a court deliberation on Tuesday, 8 Sivan the yeshiva student stated that he was severely beaten by a policeman and the police admitted that he sustained many injuries, which were photographed and reported to the Police Investigation Unit. Honenu Attorney Yehuda Shoshan described the situation and presented evidence to Judge Gabai Richter, showing how the head of the Kiryat Arba Local Council, Malachi Levinger, was beaten by policemen, apparently the same policemen who beat and detained the two detainees.

On Wednesday the Attorney Generals office announced to Jerusalem Magistrate Court that they intend to serve the two detainees with an indictment. Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge David Shaul Gabai Richter extended the remand of the two detainees until Friday 11 Sivan in order to facilitate filing an indictment.

On Friday the Attorney Generals office filed an indictment accusing the Givat Gal resident of throwing a rock which injured a tractor driver, who was demolishing a house in the community, and accusing the yeshiva student of shoving a border policeman. Both of them deny all charges.

On Monday 14 Sivan Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Sharon Larry-Bavli ruled that the two detainees be released on condition of a ban on entering Yehuda and Shomron until the end of proceedings. The condition separates both of them from their families and their places of residence. The Attorney Generals office filed an appeal with the Jerusalem District Court, which held a deliberation on the case on the morning of Tuesday 15 Sivan. Judge Arnon Darel partially accepted the appeal and ruled that both detainees be under complete house arrest outside of Yehuda and Shomron until the adult probation service gives an expert opinion on their cases. The judge did not accept the demand for remand until the end of proceedings. The Attorney Generals office demanded a delay in carrying out the decision to facilitate considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Judge Darel delayed the release of the detainees by 48 hours, during which the Attorney Generals office must announce its decision.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Tel Aviv is Startup City of the Startup Nation, and has evolved into one of the worlds leading hubs for technology and innovation, named in 2015 the worlds #1 Ecosystem outside the United States by Compass and one of the most innovative cities in the world by Tech Republic.

Tel Aviv is only 52sqkm, yet has 50 accelerators across the city (a growth rate of 137% since 2012). The startup ecosystem is continuing to grow in 2016: since the beginning of year many countries and multinationals have been opening startup centers in Tel Aviv, understanding that the Startup City of the Startup Nation is the best place to be.

The list includes:

Rise Community by Barclays: the new Fintech network is an innovation community in Tel Aviv connecting startups, corporates and experts of financial technology.

Techstars accelerator in collaboration with Barclays: a 13-week mentorship and support program that provides access to a network of alumni and industry experts.

TechCode by China: the Chinese incubation platform is building a network of innovative ecosystems all over the world, and has recently opened a space for entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv who are interested in the Chinese market.

Australia: the Australian government has launched its first landing-pad, a space with access to venture capital funds, facilities and contacts, for Australian entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv.

The Floor with partners HSBC, RBS, Banco Santander and Intesa San Paolo: based at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the Floor provides a physical home for local Fintech entrepreneurs and serves as the focal point of access to Israeli Fintech for leading international financial players, tech giants and VCs.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
At a deliberation on Monday 14 Sivan, for the youths detained earlier the same day as they attempted to block the entrance of Christians to the King Davids Tomb complex on Har Zion, the police representative revealed that Christians have planned more events for the coming month at the site.

Out of the dozens of Jews who attempted to prevent the entrance of Christians to the site, six were detained for interrogation at the police station, two of whom were brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court for a deliberation.

Jewish mispallalim at the site report that policemen brutally beat them. In a video clip publicized by Honenu, a policeman is seen knocking a Jewish worshiper to the ground and then kicking him.

The detainees received legal counsel from Honenu Attorney Rehavia Piltz at the police station. In the afternoon Piltz sent a letter to the Merchav David (Old City) Police Commander Chief Superintendent Doron Turgeman describing a serious incident of a Yassam policeman shoving a Jew holding a Sefer Torah, which fell to the ground RL.

At the court deliberation the police demanded that the two youths, one of them a minor, detained during clashes at the King Davids Tomb complex on suspicion of assaulting a policeman and disorderly conduct, be banned for two months from entering the Old City of Jerusalem. During the deliberation the police representative stated that the ban is necessary in light of the additional events planned by Christians for the coming month at the site. In order that Jews opposed to the entrance of Christians would not be aware of the exact timing, the representative refused to specify any dates.

Honenu Attorney Zeev Wolf, who represented the detainees, mentioned at the deliberation that the police prevented the entrance of Jews to the complex while the entrance of Christians wearing crosses was allowed. Their entrance caused a disturbance, during which the policemen beat Jewish worshipers. The detainees denied that they had assaulted policemen and pleaded that they had been assaulted by policemen.

Judge Keren Miller released the minor on condition of a bond. The other youth was released on condition of a one-month ban on entering the Old City of Jerusalem.

Honenu Attorney Zeev Wolf: Unfortunately once again it turns out that the police are a cause of incitement, and use needless, extreme violence in order to limit and prevent the access of Jews to holy sites while allowing unlimited access to members of other religions. As was shown in the video clip presented to the court, the police brutally treated the Jews who arrived at the King Davids Tomb complex. One of the significantly absurd claims by the police in court was that the two Jewish detainees pose a danger during the month of Ramadan. It is well known that during the month of Ramadan the danger to Jews is greater and there is a greater likelihood of terror attacks. A short time ago we celebrated Jerusalem Day, but to our great sorrow Jews in Jerusalem continued to be discriminated against concerning access to holy sites.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A Pittsburgh-bound JetBlue Airways flight had to return to Boston because of a cracked windshield.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the Wednesday morning incident in which no one was hurt.

JetBlue tells The Boston Globe that flight 1285 left Logan International Airport at around 6:25 a.m. and returned to Boston at 7:35 a.m.

According to JetBlues flight tracker, the flight left again at 8:39 a.m.

A passenger told New England Cable News that the pilot who made the announcement said it was a common occurrence.

(AP)
New York is limiting opioid drug prescriptions to seven days of painkillers following a patients initial visit to a doctor.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, signing the new law Wednesday, said its among four significant measures that he and state lawmakers are enacting to address the opioid and heroin addiction crisis.

The changes also require insurers to cover initial inpatient drug treatment without prior approval; extend from 48 to 72 hours the time someone can be held for emergency treatment; and add 2,500 addiction-treatment slots statewide.

Its not just what people are going through today. Whats most frightening is the exponential increase in the numbers, Cuomo told a gathering in Buffalo. Ten years ago we had about six deaths. Now we have about 100 every year in Erie County.

Overdose deaths have roughly matched the losses from the AIDS epidemic at its peak, Cuomo said. Its a nightmare for families, especially parents trying to help a child whos struggling and those whose children have died in heartbreaking situations, he said.

I think probably the most unnatural pain in life is the loss of a child, he said.

Opioid-related emergency rooms visits in the state increased 73 percent during the years 2010 to 2014, according to state health officials. There were 952 deaths in 2013, the most recent year for which figures were available.

Cuomo headed to Long Island and Staten Island later Wednesday to make similar addresses.

He told the Buffalo group that his own daughter was prescribed a 30-day painkiller supply after having her tonsils out, far more than anyone needs for that procedure.

The law, effective in 30 days, limits initial prescriptions for acute pain to seven days, down from 30 days, with refills or renewals after further consultations. There are exceptions for chronic pain and hospice and palliative care.

It requires insurers to cover necessary inpatient services in their networks for detoxification and rehabilitation without pre-authorization or utilization review during the first 14 days of inpatient treatment, provided the company is notified within 48 hours of admission.

The state this year has budgeted nearly $200 million through the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to address heroin and opioid addiction, administration officials said. That includes $66 million for residential treatment beds with counseling and support services for about 8,000 individuals, $38 million for medication-assisted treatment for 12,000 clients in residential or outpatient settings, plus other programs.

The measure signed by Cuomo on Wednesday will allow for 270 more treatment beds and 2,335 additional program slots, according to the governors office.

(AP)
Two former Air Force psychologists from Washington state who helped design CIA interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects are denying civil rights groups allegations of torture and war crimes.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued James E. Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen last October on behalf of three former CIA prisoners, creating a closely watched case that will likely include secret information.

The lawsuit contends the psychologists condoned waterboarding, loud music, confinement, slapping and other harsh tactics.

Lawyers for the pair filed documents this week in federal court in Spokane, denying they committed torture or war crimes.

But Mitchell and Jessen declined to respond to many of the allegations, saying much of the information is classified. They asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit and award them court costs.

(AP)
Hillary Clinton received a rousing reception from House Democrats on Wednesday, making her first stop on Capitol Hill since clinching the Democratic nomination.

Greeted by chants of Hillary, Hillary, the presumptive Democratic nominee promised to use her massive campaign infrastructure to help Democrats win congressional races as part of what she called a 50 state strategy.

She said: I know the difference between having the House and not having the House, and I want the House, recalled Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.

So far, Clinton has focused much of her efforts on traditional battleground states, though she told Democrats that her efforts may expand to include Georgia. Some Democrats point to recent demographic changes in that traditionally GOP state as a sign that it could be winnable for their party, particularly with Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket.

Democrats stressed the unity within their party, drawing a contrast with Republicans, some of whom have offered only lukewarm support for Trump.

I love my candidate for president, said Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y. Id love to be a fly on the wall on July 7th and see what affection they have for their candidate. House Republicans meet with Trump that day.

While Democrats have largely united around Clinton, shes struggling to win over the young and liberal voters who supported rival Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator has not yet endorsed Clinton or conceded the nomination to her  though he seems to be slowly shifting that position.

It doesnt appear that Im gonna be the nominee, he said, in a Wednesday interview with CSPAN, when asked if he will speak at the convention.

Clinton and Sanders campaigns are discussing ways of addressing key economic issues in the Democratic platform which will be approved at the Philadelphia convention, including trade, providing free college tuition and cutting student debt and expanding Medicare and Social Security.

That is a problem for the party, said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. I would love to see Mr. Sanders endorse. Go all in.

Democrats said there was little discussion of Sanders or Trump in the meeting, which was more like a pep rally for Clintons campaign. At one point, the members ribbed Rep. Xavier Becerra  whos been mentioned as a possible running mate  when he poured Clinton a glass of water.

It was a thing of beauty, joked Crowley, who shouted, youre really working it, after Becerra jumped up in the meeting.

Becerra later said that he is not currently being vetted as a potential running mate.

I really dont have knowledge, he said, before acknowledging that he has not been notified by the campaign that he is under consideration.

Other potential contenders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, have been informed that Clinton has begun eyeing them for the role.

(AP)
A Muslim police officer, who sued the New York Police Department over a policy limiting beards allowed for religious reasons, would face irreparable harm without protection from the courts, a judge said Wednesday as he ordered the city to reinstate the officers pay and benefits a day after he was suspended and escorted from police headquarters.

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel criticized the city repeatedly before finding it was probable Officer Masood Syed would succeed and issuing a temporary restraining order that will remain in place until a July 8 hearing.

The department says it bans beards as a safety measure so gas masks fit tightly across faces but allows beards for religious reasons up to 1 millimeter in length.

The judge, who is bearded, said 1 millimeter of hair exists when a man is unshaven for a day or two. He said it seemed the policy is enforced haphazardly.

I am very relieved, Syed said afterward as he celebrated his 32nd birthday with a half dozen fellow officers supporting him in the Manhattan court.

Syed said two uniformed supervisors escorted him from Manhattan NYPD headquarters where he works as a law clerk to administrative judges, sometimes preparing legal documents for the police commissioner about disciplinary issues.

It was extremely humiliating, Syed said. I felt insulted, frankly.

Syed said he has maintained a 1-inch beard for most of his 10-year career, only occasionally drawing critical comments. He said he hoped his lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, would help over 100 police employees who find the religious exception to the departments no-beard policy insufficient because they say the length of the beard allowed is not reasonable.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order banning the NYPD from enforcing its beard policy until it provides reasonable religious accommodations.

City attorney Michael Fleming said the beard ban was necessary. Besides for religious reasons, exceptions exist for undercover duties and medical conditions. Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require annual fit-testing and prohibit respirators for employees with facial hair.

The judge became impatient as he questioned Fleming about the policy and the departments failure to respond to a December 2015 request by 37 police officers for an exception to the no-beard policy.

Lets play 20 questions, Castel said at one point.

The court is troubled by the fact it cannot get an answer, he said at another.

Attorney Joshua Moskovitz, representing Syed, told Castel the departments policy violates the First Amendment and threatens Syeds job, his retirement benefits and his reputation. He said the department took Syeds shield and weapon Tuesday before he was escorted out in front of his friends and colleagues.

As he announced his ruling, Castel referenced a November 2013 ruling by the late-Judge Harold Baer Jr. after an Orthodox Jewish officer sued the department after it forced him out because he insisted on growing a 1-inch beard.

In that case, the city argued that the 1-millimeter rule was consistent with counterterrorism and emergency preparedness goals, but Baer found the rule was applied unevenly and was too broad to satisfy the law.

(AP)
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has announced that failure to comply with a beis dins ruling to give a get is a criminal offence. He has ordered launching a criminal investigation in a case brought to him in which a Chief Rabbinate beis din ordered a husband to give his wife a get. The psak added that due to the difficult circumstances of the wife, the husband must be compelled to give the bill of divorce.

The beis din learned the father of the recalcitrant husband is the dominant player in the case and he has instructed his son not to grant the divorce. The beis din had the father-in-law arrested to detain his departure from Israel. The father turned to the High Court.

The beis din turned to AG Mandelblit asking to have the backing of the civil court system towards getting a divorce for the wife. Mandelblit has ordered a criminal investigation against both the father and husband for failing to abide to the beis dins ruling. Others are likely to be involved in the investigation as it moves forward.

Mandelblit explains it is in the publics interest to back the beis dins efforts to compel the recalcitrant husband to give a divorce to his wife. By ruling defiance of the beis din is a criminal act, Mandelblit provides the tools for police to act in the matter.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A Belgian judge has ordered six people detained for another month in the investigation into the November attacks in Paris.

The Thursday ruling was announced in a communique from the Belgian Federal Prosecutors Office.

One of the detainees affected is Mohamed Abrini, 31, who also is being investigated for suspected links to the March 22 suicide bombings that killed 32 victims in Brussels.

In separate judicial proceedings, a Brussels appeals court panel is hearing Abrinis appeal of a June 9 ruling that he can legally be extradited to France in connection with the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.

Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

(AP)
Five years before Donald Trump accused a federal judge of bias against him in a Trump University lawsuit, the New York billionaire tried to get another judge pulled from a case, court records show.

The attempt to remove the judge in a 2011 lawsuit over a leaky roof at Trumps Wall Street skyscraper is another example of aggressive legal tactics attorneys representing Trumps various business interests have employed over the years in courtrooms, according to a review of hundreds of lawsuits in state and federal courts across the country.

Besides fighting to have judges removed when they rule against him, Trump has also used his public stature to attack his legal opponents through the media, and in at least one case, his businesses were accused of allowing documents to be destroyed during an ongoing civil case, the records show.

Trumps legal tactics and history of finger-pointing at judges when he doesnt get his way offer a preview of how he could react in the White House when challenged by the judiciary a government branch with a constitutional check on the presidency. The courts have historically set limits on the presidents power and expected the executive branch to abide by their legal interpretations.

Trump has been widely criticized in recent weeks, even from members of his own party, since claiming that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel cannot preside fairly over the civil fraud case against the now-defunct Trump University in California. Trump justified his comments by citing his pledge to build a wall along the Mexican border and noting Curiels Mexican heritage. Curiel was born in Indiana.

The presumptive Republican nominee has also raised the prospect that a Muslim judge may treat him unfairly in court because he has proposed a temporary ban on allowing foreign Muslims into the country.

In the 2011 case, a lawyer for Trump argued that a handful of rulings against him by New York state Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling showed that Tingling was clearly biased or prejudiced against them and cannot be expected to preside over the upcoming trial in an impartial manner, according to a court filing.

Trumps lawyer also seized on a series of procedural rulings against Trump and a comment Tingling made about a voluminous Trump filing being purely for billing.

That argument echoes one Trump lawyers made in 2009, when they called another state Supreme Court judge biased because of rulings that didnt go their way during a lawsuit between Trump and Chinese businessmen over a Manhattan real estate development. The New York Times first reported that recusal effort earlier this month.

In the Tingling case, the judge refused to step down, telling Trumps lawyers the judiciary couldnt function if judges were to cave every time one side or the other feels aggrieved, according to a transcript.

I cannot, and I will not, allow the appearance of judge shopping, Tingling said at the time.

Tingling did not respond to a phone message left with his clerk for comment. He ordered tenant John Bostany to pay back-rent and attorneys fees to Trump, a decision that was reversed on appeal.

Trumps campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer specific questions about Trumps legal tactics including the Tingling case. She responded to a detailed email only by saying: Trump is brilliant.

Judges arent the only targets of Trumps courtroom tactics.

He has used the press to publicly criticize his legal opponents. One recent example came in the Trump University case in which Curiel presides. The main defendant in the case, Tarla Makaeff, dropped out of the litigation earlier this year, citing in part tremendous stress and anxiety suffered because of Trumps verbal attacks on her from his bully pulpit.

In other cases, Trumps companies have defied judges orders.

In a long-running dispute in Florida over a casino venture, one of Trumps companies repeatedly refused to turn over documents and emails to the opposing side. The case was first reported by USA Today.

Documents and court transcripts obtained by the AP show the judge ultimately ordered both the Trump Organization and an affiliate company to allow their computers to be examined by an outside forensic firm.

Im not satisfied that there was due diligence in this case at all, then-Broward County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld said during a 2007 hearing, adding that the company had not done anything in-house to stop the deletion of emails and other records.

How could there not be a hold place? Be careful, weve just filed a major lawsuit in which were seeking billions of dollars, but routinely continue to wipe out computers,' Streitfield told Trumps attorneys. That doesnt work.

Streitfield told the AP last week that Trumps attorneys actions werent uncommon in high-stakes litigation like the casino case, which settled for an undisclosed amount in 2010. But he said he didnt accept that the company wasnt able to archive electronic documents.

I was incredulous about that, he said.

(AP)
A judge acquitted a police van driver of all charges including depraved-heart murder on Thursday in the death of 25-year-old arrestee Freddie Gray, whose broken neck on the way to the station set off Baltimores worst riots in decades.

Six officers were charged in Grays death, but only Officer Caesar Goodson was accused of murder. Gray was fatally injured after officers bound his hands and feet and Goodson left him unprotected by a seat belt that prosecutors say would have kept him from slamming into the vans metal walls.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams delivered his verdict after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial. He also found Goodson not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment.

Williams ruled that the state failed to show that Goodson knew hed cause harm to Gray by leaving him unbuckled, or that Goodson was aware that Gray was injured and intentionally failed to call a medic.

The state failed to prove the defendant knew or should have known that Mr. Gray needed medical care, the judge said.

Unlike in a shooting or a stabbing, or a car accident, this injury manifests itself internally, Williams said, citing conflicting testimony from medical experts. If the doctors werent clear, how would a person without medical training know?

The judge also said the state failed to prove that Goodson gave Gray a rough ride.

The state had a duty to show the defendant corruptly failed in his duty, not just that he made a mistake, the judge said.

Protests and rioting after Grays death on April 19, 2015 set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard. The unrest forced the citys mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse.

Prosecutors said Goodson was criminally negligent when he failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt or call for medical aid after Gray indicated that he wanted to go to a hospital. But Goodson wouldnt talk to investigators or take the stand at trial, leaving the state with slim evidence of intent to harm.

The acquittal of Goodson, 46, is perhaps the most significant blow to State Attorney Marilyn Mosbys efforts to hold police accountable for Grays death.

Last month, the same judge acquitted Officer Edward Nero of misdemeanor charges, and in December, he declared a mistrial after a jury failed to agree on manslaughter and other charges against Officer William Porter.

Porter faces a retrial in September, and three other officers have yet to be tried.

Gray was arrested April 12 after running from an officer on bike patrol outside a public housing project not far from the Western District station house. A neighbors video showed him handcuffed behind his back and hoisted into Goodsons van.

The van made a total of six stops that day, and Gray was unresponsive on arrival at the station house 45 minutes later. Prosecutors said Goodson was there throughout and checked on Gray during the third and fourth stops, so he should have known Gray was in distress. They said his failure to call a medic amounts to murder.

A prosecution expert testified that Gray could not possibly have broken his own neck. Prosecutors said the injury happened somewhere between the second and fourth stops, when Goodson and Porter lifted Gray off the floor.

Porter testified that Gray was lethargic, but could breathe and speak, and didnt seem injured. Prosecutors countered that the initial injury became critical as the trip continued.

Second-degree depraved heart murder, which carries up to 30 years in jail, would mean that Goodson was so negligent in his inaction that he cast aside any consideration for Grays life.

During opening statements, prosecutors for the first time accused Goodson of giving Gray a rough ride, intentionally leaving him unbuckled to bounce him around in the back of the van.

But by closing arguments, they all but abandoned the theory, saying Goodsons failure to belt Gray in under the circumstances was sufficient to prove the intent necessary for a murder conviction.

Officer Goodson never calls a medic, he never takes Freddie Gray to the hospital, said Deputy States Attorney Jan Bledsoe. He has breached his duty, and because of that breach Freddie Grays life was shortened.

The judge seemed skeptical, peppering prosecutors with questions and asking what evidence they had supporting the rough ride theory. What if Gray had emerged from the van unhurt, despite being unbuckled, and was found to be falsely claiming injury in order to avoid jail?

Chief Deputy States Attorney Michael Schatzow said the failure to belt him in would still be a crime, although a difficult one to prosecute.

Goodsons attorney Matthew Fraling fiercely rejected the allegations, telling the judge that Goodson was a gentle officer who didnt buckle him in because Gray was exhibiting violent and erratic behavior, citing witness testimony that he was making the wagon shake back and forth by kicking and flailing inside.

Fraling also said Gray said yes when Porter asked if he wanted to go to a hospital only because Gray hoped to avoid jail.

They have failed to cobble together any type of case with reasonable inferences, let alone evidence, he said. The mere fact that harm resulted doesnt mean the Officer Goodsons conduct is the cause of that harm.

Goodsons acquittal may impact the remaining cases. Officer Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice are scheduled to stand trial in July on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office; Rice also faces a manslaughter charge.

All the officers but Goodson have filed defamation lawsuits against Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Maj. Sam Cogen of the sheriffs office, who signed the charging documents. The officers claim the criminal charges amounted to false and damaging information.

(AP)
Glamorous, Guyanan-born investment manager Gina Miller (right) recently appeared in a referendum debate in Mayfair alongside Tory MP Mark Pritchard, politely arguing the benefits of remaining in the EU.

A boorish audience member shouted: I dont see why anyone should listen to you. Perhaps you should stay in the kitchen.

Witnesses report Miller maintained her composure and ignored the oafish heckler. A pity.

The feisty mother-of-three, 55, is a tough cookie with a spectacularly acid tongue.

Outgoing ITV chairman Archie Norman is to advise Homebase under its new Australian owner Wesfarmers.

The former Asda chief and ex-Tory MP, who is 55, is a fan of novel management techniques.

He encouraged Asda staff to wear thinking hats during brain-crunching sessions, demonstrating they were not to be disturbed while considering some new brainwave.

Busy boy Archie may need to wear his biggest ten-gallon thinking hat to turn things around at the struggling DIY store.

Credit Suisses snugly tailored boss Tidjane Thiam, currently facing revolt at the struggling bank, is advised to soften his brusque tone by its second-largest shareholder, US-based fund Harris Associates.

Says Harris boss David Herro: If change is going to happen, it has to be done with good communication and empathy toward employees.

Ivory Coast-born Tidjane, 55, recently came second in a poll of European bank bosses investors would most like replaced. He was pipped by HSBCs past-his-sell-by-date chief Stuart Gulliver.

Garrulous Ryanair boss Michael OLeary visited CNBCs London studios yesterday to make a final plea for viewers to stay in the EU.

He appeared on screen in a gaudy suit, one side showing the Union Jack, the other the European flag.

Says a Ryanair spokesman: We got it made especially. Look out for it on eBay on Friday!

Amusing exchange at yesterdays embattled car maker Volkswagens AGM in Hanover. Investor: Who is this Mr Jones Day you keep mentioning?

Volkswagens moustachioed executive Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz: Jones Day is not a single person. It is a law firm.
City traders are braced for their most turbulent night since the financial crisis as Britain heads to the polls for the European Union referendum.

Finance giants including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are drafting in round-the-clock teams to buy and sell as the result of the vote becomes clear.

It is rumoured hedge funds have commissioned secret exit polls to get a feel for the national mood, and central banks are preparing to pump billions into the economy to keep markets afloat if the system seizes up.

All hands on deck: City traders are braced for their most turbulent night since the financial crisis as Britain heads to the polls for the European Union referendum

Analysts have warned of wild swings in share prices and currencies depending on the result  affecting the investments and pensions of millions of savers as well as the cost of holiday money.

One top executive compared the atmosphere to New Years Eve 1999, as Britain fretted that a potential Millennium bug could bring technology to a standstill.

BREXIT CURRENCY BOOM Foreign currency sales have surged ahead of todays vote as holidaymakers stock up to avoid being hit by swings in the pound. The Post Office, responsible for one in four foreign exchange transactions in the UK, said overall currency sales have risen 74 per cent since the weekend. Money transfer companies including Azimo and Transferwise have suspended some of their trading until tomorrow morning and high street lenders have put IT upgrades on hold to ensure any glitches dont spark a panic. Watchdogs have ordered the banks to fill up cash machines for the same reason.

This is a bit like that. Everybodys worried about it and has really prepared for it, the banking source said. Were prepared, weve been prepared for a while. Our traders are going to be in throughout the night.

There have been wild swings in the pound as the markets try to second-guess the result. Sterling plummeted early last week as a series of polls put the Leave camp ahead.

The cost of insuring against swings in the pound hit levels not seen since 2008 and traders wiped 98billion off the blue-chip FTSE 100 index in four days.

On Monday the currency recorded its biggest one-day jump in eight years as traders bet on a Remain vote and the Footsie saw its biggest gain in four months.

This confusion is set to continue until the result is known  meaning there are fortunes to be made or lost.

While the stock market will close as usual at 4.30pm today  protecting most institutional investors such as pension funds from overnight chaos  trading in currency and complex products such as derivatives will not stop.

Get the coffee on: Traders are now gearing up for their busiest night in years after polls close at 10pm

Traders are now gearing up for their busiest night in years after polls close.

Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and US giants such as JP Morgan Chase and Citi are among those calling in senior staff.

A number of banks are said to be booking hotel rooms and laying on food overnight for their teams.

Some firms are even believed to be offering small bonuses to staff drafted in.

And many are taking automatic trading systems offline in case they struggle to cope.

Barclays is understood to be planning to fully staff its foreign exchange and commodities teams.

NatWest owner RBS is also manning trading desks for 24 hours with teams in London, Singapore and Stamford in the US.

Even Lloyds  which is more focused on retail banking  will have some employees in overnight to deal with clients.

Grandees are planning to follow the results of the referendum live, with City of London Corporation chairman Mark Boleat saying it will have an all-night session.

Meanwhile, hedge fund bosses are hoping to earn huge profits by correctly guessing the votes outcome.

No official exit poll is expected tonight as the referendum is a one-off political event and voting behaviour is much harder to predict.

Several hedge funds are rumoured to have commissioned private exit polls. They will keep this information secret and use it to bet on the price of sterling or pick up shares at rock-bottom prices.

Speaking to Bloomberg, David Neuhauser of hedge fund Livermore Partners said: You want times when people are afraid to invest so you can put money to work.

Investment bank UBS has warned clients to expect extreme swings and a surge in activity regardless of the result, meaning some electronic trades on its platform could fail.
Addressing fire safety Living in San Diego County, the threat of fires is constant, that is why I have made fire safety one...

Supporting animals As a trained Project Wildlife Native Songbird Rehabilitator, my experience raising orphaned and injured songbirds and returning them to the...
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By Patrick Donachie

Queens Democrats will head to the polls Tuesday for primary elections to determine the candidates who will face off against Republican opponents in this Novembers general election.

Five candidates are competing in the Democratic primary in the 3rd Congressional District to succeed U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Melville), who announced his retirement in January. Attorney Jonathan Clarke, North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman, North Hempstead Town Councilwoman Anna Kaplan, Suffolk County Legislator Steve Stern and former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi are all running to face Republican Jack Martins.

The 3rd District includes parts of Bay Terrace, Little Neck, Glen Oaks, Floral Park and Whitestone as well as sections of Nassau and Suffolk counties in Long Island. During the campaign northeast Queens voters expressed concern about airplane noise from the LaGuardia flight paths and the need for better, affordable transit options to the candidates in the race.

In District 5, which includes parts of Jamaica, South Jamaica, St. Albans, Queens Village and the Rockaways, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) is in the midst of a primary challenge from Ali Mirza, a small businessman who is running on a platform decrying corruption in Washington and proclaiming progressive bona fides. The winner will face Republican challenger Michael OReilly, an attorney and a 2015 candidate for judge in New York City Civil Court.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) will face off against Jeffrey M. Kurzon, who also challenged her in 2014, and Yungman Lee, a banking executive, in a primary for District 7, which includes parts of Maspeth, Ridgewood, Woodhaven and Ozone Park, as well as areas in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In District 12, which includes parts of Astoria, Long Island City and Woodside, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) will face challenger Peter Lindner.

Additionally, Reform Party voters in six districts will be able to write in the name of a candidate to be on the ballot in the general election, according to the city Campaign Finance Board site.

The primaries are closed, so voters must be registered as Democrats to cast a ballot. You can check your enrollment status on the New York State Board of Elections website.

Polls in New York City will open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. To determine your polling location, you can search by your address at nyc.polls itelo cator.com/ searc h or you can call the citys Voter Phone Bank at 1 (866)-VOTE-NYC or e-mail your address to the citys BOE at vote@ boe.nyc.ny.us .
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By TimesLedger staff

The Queens congressional delegation hit the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday as more than 50 Democratic representatives from across the country staged a sit-in to demand a vote on gun legislation.

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) was positioned on the floor next to colleague John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement, who led the sit-in. U.S. Reps. Joe Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), who spoke from a podium above the seated reps, Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) and Grace Meng (D-Flushing) were also part of the protest, which involved using social media to get their message out.

Several Democratic senators crossed over into the House to support the sit-in, where cries of no bill, no break were heard in the chamber.

Meeks said Democratic representatives had come up with the idea the day before to offer short speeches concluding with Lewis, at which point they would sit on the House floor. Meeks said the protest sprang from Lewis exasperation over Congress inaction on gun control.

He said he was tired of just coming here after mass shootings and just having a moment of silence, Meeks said. Lets take a vote on it. Let them know where you stand.

Meeks said the group was pushing for expanded background checks and to prevent people on the federal no-fly list from being able to purchase a weapon. He said several senators, including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), had joined the congressional representatives during the day.

Meeks was adamant that they would stay as long as was necessary to achieve their goal.

Were not leaving. The House is not going to be able to operate until we get a vote, he said. Members are going to stay on the floor of the House until we get a vote.

Once the sit-in began, House Majority Leader Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) let Texas Republican Ted Poe gavel a recess, which ended C-Spans coverage of the official session. But the representatives immediately jumped onto their cell phones to express their frustration over Congresss most recent failure to pass bills that would have denied suspected terrorists on the no-fly list the right to obtain firearms.

From the floor of the House, Maloney said, It has been two days since the Senate failed to pass four pieces of legislation aimed at curbing gun violence prevention; two days since the Republican Party showed once again that they are willing to put the lives of millions of Americans at risk. And in the House, we cannot even get a vote. Time after time we have pushed for Congress to say Enough is Enough! but our attempts have been blocked at every turn.

The congresswoman went on to say she and her colleagues had been pushed to the breaking point.

She added, I find it appalling that Speaker Ryan would allow the House to recess without bringing this to a vote. This inaction is an insult to those who have lost their lives to gun violence.

In a telephone interview from the floor of the House, Crowley said: Our message is simple: Let the House vote on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation and let us vote now.

Determined to break the stalemate, he said: We cant keep holding moments of silence without taking action to prevent the next tragedy. We owe it to the victims in Orlando, and across the country, to take a stand and hold a vote. Speaker Ryan shouldnt adjourn the House without addressing this crisis.

(adding texas rep. ted poe gaveled the recess)
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By Bill Parry

On the last day it was in session, the state Assembly passed a bill that would speed up the testing of rape kits and prevent future backlogs. The legislation, sponsored by Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas (D-Astoria), mandates that rape kits are sent to a forensic laboratory for testing within 10 days and that their progress is tracked from police agencies to the lab.

For the sake of sexual assault victims, who must undergo an immediate, intrusive and arduous exam for evidence collection, we have a duty to make sure rape kits are never neglected, Simotas said. New York state needs this law if we want to have justice for victims, prosecution and punishment for the guilty and for innocent suspects to be set free.

The state Senate passed a companion bill earlier, according to Simotas. The legislation solves the problem of untested rape kits wherever they may be sitting on shelves.

In 2003, New York City received $2.5 million from the federal government to test a backlog of 17,000 rape kits. Without the tracking and reporting requirements of the Simotas bill, however, there is no way to prevent future backlogs from developing.

In 1993, I was violently raped and robbed at gunpoint in New York City. The horror and trauma of that event is indescribable, but I was fortunate: medical examiners recognized that my body was a crime scene, said Natasha Alexenko, a rape survivor and founder of Natashas Justice Project,. All rape victims in New York deserves this justice, and deserve the same minimum standard of care in ensuring their rape kit is tested. Justice matters. It matters to victims like me. It matters to the families of victims. It matters to the wrongfully accused and it matters to the people of New York.

Meanwhile, the state Senate passed a bill co-sponsored by state Sen. Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (D-Howard Beach), that would require the state Education Department and the state Office of Mental Health to develop materials focusing on suicide prevention and signs of depression among school-aged children and to provide them with educators throughout the state.

There is no question that early intervention and recognition of suicidal behavior is key to preventing these heart-breaking incidents among students, Addabbo said. We need to keep our eyes wide open, paying close attention to our children both at home and at school and working to better recognize the signs of impending tragedy.

To underscore the importance of these efforts, Addabbo noted that suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24 in the United States.

In addition, a study released by the National Center for Health Statistics in April showed that the overall U.S. suicide rate has surged to it highest levels in almost 30 years, affecting all age groups, he said. By teaching our educators to better recognize the signs of potential suicidal tendencies, and by helping our young people understand the gravity of this problem, I hope we will see fewer students giving up on life before they have had a chance to live it.
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By Madina Toure

Traditions Pub, a Jamaica Hills bar that elected officials and community leaders contend has frequently violated liquor laws and been the site of underage drinking, has been shut down by the state Liquor Authority.

The SLA held a special full board meeting June 9 where it ordered an emergency suspension of the license of the bar, at 84-28 164th St., which is a popular watering spot for St. Johns University students.

New Traditions Inc. has an alcoholic beverage license originally issued May 3, 2012 that is scheduled to expire April 30, 2018, according to an SLA document. There are also pending charges against New Traditions.

An SLA spokesman said the bar is entitled to an expedited hearing before an administrative law judge. In March, the NYPD closed the bar three times due to window obstructions, fire exit issues and overcrowding, and in the past year, the Health Department has shut it down twice, according to Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest).

Lancman also cited incidents such as an 18-year-old found unconscious in the bar, an individual treated at Queens Hospital Center for intoxication, people visiting family at the Margaret Tietz Nursing & Rehabilitation Center across the street being harassed by bar patrons and one being robbed by people hanging out in front of the bar.

The councilman said he does not expect the bar to reopen, given that there are 24 allegations against the owners.

It seems very unlikely that they would win an appeal, Lancman said. Their conduct was quite egregious.

Lancman and state Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Fresh Meadows) each wrote separate letters to SLA Chairman Vincent Bradley and SLA Commissioner Kevin Kim in mid-April, asking them to revoke the bars license.

Weprin said the bar had a tradition of problems and that the SLA finally realized it.

I think (the letters) led to the suspension eventually, but at that particular time, they did not take our advice of not renewing their license, he said.

At a Community Board 8 liquor license committee meeting April 12 where members voted 13-0 against renewing the bars license along with one abstention, Michael Hannibal said the bar owner was supposed to work with the 107th Precinct and St. Johns University to ensure the safety of the students and customers and cited incidents such as public urination, choking, criminal mischief, marijuana smoking and sex abuse.

At the meeting, New Traditions Kirk Johnston, the bars co-owner and operator, said he thought too many issues were thrown at him at once and that he tried to work with St. Johns but that the school was not responsive, the meeting minutes said.

Johnston also said several NYPD undercover operations have come into the bar and tried to buy liquor, but all came back saying the bar did not sell to underage patrons.

But at the meeting, Carolann Foley, president of the precincts community council, said the bar had been caught selling to underage clients.

New Traditions attorney, Argilio Rodriguez, referred to the incidents as allegations.

Paul Lazauskas, St. Johns associate director for community relations, said the school met with Johnston and 107th Precincts Community Affairs around April 2014 and discussed building code violations, increasing lighting, having additional bouncers at the bars entrance and having ID scanners.

Lazauskas said there were promotional fliers for the bar going up on campus, which is prohibited, and that Johnston said he was not aware they were being posted.

The university sent out an email to students about an incident that took place in the vicinity of the school, which he said Johnston erroneously interpreted as saying that it occurred at his bar.

He took offense to that and from that point forward thats when the communication really just broke down, Lazauskas said.
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By Bill Parry

In the aftermath of the worst gun massacre in U.S. history, the father of Omar Mateen said it had nothing to do with religion. Mateen had gone to a gay nightclub in Orlando, murdered 49 people and injured another 53 after he saw two men kissing, Mir Seddique told NBC News.

The following day, City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), one of seven openly gay members on the City Council, sent an e-mail to his constituents and supporters with a photo of him kissing his husband, Dan Hendrick.

In the face of unspeakable hatred and violence we often feel powerless, Van Bramer wrote under the photo. But terror is meant to stop us from being who we are, from living our lives as we want. But we cant go back or live in fear. I want to respond with more love, more pride, and yes more kisses in public!!

The defiant response to the Queens-born gunman Mateen also served as a reminder of Van Bramers 6th annual LGBT Pride Month Brunch held Saturday at the Riverview Restaurant in Long Island City. Hundreds turned out, a larger crowd than usual, according to his office.

I believe the response to that horrible, horrible act is what we are all doing today, Van Bramer said. which is live in their memory to live louder, to live prouder, to be stronger.

After a rousing standing ovation, Van Bramer spoke of the early years of his relationship, when Dan wanted to hold hands or kiss in public.

Im not afraid to say I was a little afraid to do that, he said. But after all of what happened in Orlando it reminds me that all of us should commit to showing our love and even more public displays of affection in their memory. No act of violence can or ever should change who we are and how we should live. Instead it should provoke us to live even prouder and to fight even harder for equality for every single person in the country.

Vigils and marches have been a nightly occurrence in Jackson Heights where an evening of Rights and Reflections was scheduled to take place Saturday. Leading community activists and artists will share their experiences with racial and religious discrimination throughout the world beginning at 4 p.m. at Diversity Plaza.

Last Saturday, dozens gathered for a vigil on the Great Lawn in Astoria Park. City Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria) remembered the victims and stood in solidarity with the LGBT community.

This heinous crime shows that our Congress must enact gun violence prevention legislation on a federal level, he said. Gun safety legislation is a common sense solution that would help prevent many of the hundreds of shootings and gun deaths that happen every day throughout the nation.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) said much the same thing during a rally on the steps of City Hall last Friday with elected officials, LGBT leaders and gun safety advocates calling on Congress to past gun safety reforms.

Gun violence is an epidemic in our country, Maloney said. We just had the deadliest mass shooting in American history in Orlando when a man full of hate murdered 49 people because of their sexual orientation. That was on top of another 6,000 people who have been murdered by guns this year. This country needs to wake up and pass meaningful gun safety reforms like renewing the assault weapons ban and keeping guns out of the hands of people on the terrorist watch list or those convicted of hate crimes.

On Monday, the Senate rejected four proposals to strengthen the nations gun laws.

The same day the U.S. Supreme Court refused to strike down gun control laws in New York and Connecticut, which were enacted after 20 children and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded the justices; action.

From Orlando to San Bernadino to Newtown, far too many Americans have seen their families and communities ripped apart by gun violence, de Blasio said. Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have no place on our streets. They are weapons of war that until Congress acts will continue to kill and injure innocent men, women and children.

The annual Gay Pride March will take place Sunday in Manhattan.
A German nurse jailed for life last year for murdering two patients is now a suspect in at least 33 more deaths, investigators said Wednesday, adding that he has admitted to have killed even more.

The man, identified only as Niels H., 39 who was jailed for life in February 2015, has been found guilty of two murders and three attempted murders of intensive-care patients.

He had previously claimed to have killed more than 30 patients with lethal overdoses at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen, which would make him one of Germany\s worst post-war serial killers.

Analyses carried out on 99 exhumed patients at Delmenhorst suggest that at least 33 were killed by the nurse through lethal injections, investigators said Wednesday.

But they added that the tall and heavyset man had also admitted to killing other patients at another hospital nearby  the Oldenburg Clinic, without giving a figure.

"We can say that the horror hasn\t ended," said Johann Kuehme, police chief of the city of Oldenburg.

Oldenburg prosecutor Thomas Sander added that in addition to the 33 likely cases, "we assume that the real number of victims is higher than that."

Hundreds of patient records will be examined at the Oldenburg clinic before deciding if mass exhumations of patient corpses would need to be carried out there as well.

The grisly case dates back to 2005, when a colleague witnessed Niels H. injecting a patient at the Delmenhorst hospital.

The patient survived and Niels H. was arrested and, in 2008, sentenced to seven and a half years in jail for attempted murder.

Amid the media publicity, a woman then contacted police, voicing suspicion that her deceased mother had also fallen victim to the killer-nurse.

The authorities exhumed several patients\ bodies and detected traces of the drug in five of them, declaring it either the definitive or possible contributing cause.

Nils H. eventually admitted to injecting some 90 patients with the drug so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He said he felt euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life, and devastated when he failed.

After the shocking revelations of the nurse\s murderous obsession, police and prosecutors launched a special forensic commission dubbed "Kardio" (Cardio) to look into other patient deaths.

The sweeping investigation is expected to take many more months.

The nurse had previously also worked at an elderly home and an emergency medical service.

SOURCE: AFP
The Colombian government and the FARC rebel force signed a ceasefire and disarmament agreement Thursday, one of the last steps toward ending a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The deal puts a definitive end to fighting in Latin America\s longest civil war, which has torn the country apart with shootings and bombardments in its coca-rich jungles and hills.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez shook hands and smiled after negotiators signed the deal at a ceremony in Cuba.

The deal establishes "a bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities and the definitive laying down of arms," according to the text.

"This is a historic day for our country," Santos said in a speech to assembled leaders including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"After more than 50 years of confrontations, deaths, attacks and pain, we have put a final end to the armed conflict with the FARC."

Disarmament will begin after the signing of a full final peace agreement, expected within weeks.

Thursday\s agreements "leave us on the verge of completing a final accord relatively soon," Jimenez said.

The final deal "will allow us to return at last to legal political activity through peaceful and democratic means," he added.

In the Colombian capital Bogota, crowds gathered to watch the announcement on a big screen.

One man, Camilo Gonzalez, was moved to tears.

"It has been a tragic journey. Millions of victims, people displaced, fighting, broken dreams," he said.

"But I think now we have reached a moment of hope."

Under the agreement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) must hand over its weapons to United Nations monitors within six months.

The FARC\s members  an estimated 7,000 or so  will gather in "normalization zones" for a demobilization process.

The sides also agreed to government action against "criminal organizations" blamed for fueling the conflict.

The United States congratulated Colombia. "We will stand ready to help the Colombian people as they work toward a just and lasting peace," said US National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

The European Union\s foreign representative Federica Mogherini in a statement called it a "a turning point in the Colombian peace process."

"Now all efforts must be devoted to reaching a final comprehensive agreement that will pave the way to durable peace in the country" and justice for victims, she said.

The Colombian conflict started in the 1960s as a rural uprising for land rights that spawned the communist FARC.

The conflict has drawn in various leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades.

It has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced, according to official figures.

Human rights groups say atrocities have been committed on all sides. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.

Thursday\s deal resolves one of the final points in peace talks between the government and the FARC, the country\s largest rebel group.

However, the means of implementing the final peace deal remain to be settled after three-and-a-half years of negotiations.

The two sides said they would wait for the courts to rule on whether a referendum can be held to endorse the accord, and would accept the court\s decision.

Although peace with the FARC would virtually end the conflict, other armed groups are still operating in Colombia.

A bid to hold peace talks between the government and the second-biggest rebel group, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), has stumbled because of its alleged kidnappings.

"The activity of the ELN above all and the criminal gangs means that we cannot yet talk of a complete end to the armed conflict," said Kyle Johnson, Colombia analyst for the International Crisis Group.

"It will be the end of Colombia\s biggest armed conflict, but not all of them."

SOURCE: AFP
Colombia\s government and the FARC guerrilla group reached agreement Wednesday on a definitive ceasefire in Latin America\s longest civil war, they said in a joint statement.

"The national government and FARC delegations inform the public that we have successfully reached an agreement for a definitive bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities," it said.

The announcement heralds an end to a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the jungles of the major cocaine-producing country.

The deal would all but end the conflict by resolving one of the final points at peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country\s biggest rebel group.

FARC commander Carlos Lozada tweeted: "On Thursday, June 23, we will announce the last day of the war."

Another FARC leader had earlier said a deal was "nearly" agreed with one point still to be settled.

But the later statement confirmed the deal was complete and would be formally announced Thursday at a ceremony with Colombia\s President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez.

It said foreign leaders and officials including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would attend the ceremony.

Presidents Raul Castro of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Michelle Bachelet of Chile will be among the other leaders present.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said this week he hopes to seal a full peace deal by July 20.

The means of implementation of such a deal remain to be settled.

The Colombian conflict started as a rural uprising in the 1960s.

It has drawn in various leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades in this South American state of 49 million people.

It has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced, according to official figures.

Human rights groups say atrocities have been committed on all sides. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.

The accord covers "the laying-down of arms, security guarantees and the fight against the criminal organizations" accused of fueling the conflict, the statement said.

"This means the end of the longest and most bloody conflict in the western hemisphere and a new opportunity to bet on democracy," said Angelika Rettberg, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of the Andes.

Santos\s government wants a referendum to put the seal of popular approval on its peace effort.

For that it needs the country\s constitutional judges to approve a law already passed in Congress.

Peace talks have been underway in Havana since 2012. They got a boost when the FARC declared a unilateral ceasefire a year ago.

The Marxist guerrilla group agreed to remove child soldiers from its ranks as part of the peace deal.

The questions of disarmament and justice for victims make the road to peace and reconciliation a hard one.

The sides are discussing designating zones where the FARC\s estimated 7,000 remaining fighters can gather for a UN-supervised demobilization process.

Santos and the country\s second-biggest rebel group, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), have also said they will start peace talks.

That initiative has stumbled due to alleged kidnappings by the group.

SOURCE: AFP
Some 5,000 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the Italian coastguard said, averting another potential high seas disaster.

A coastguard spokesman said it appeared many people had left the Libyan coast to attempt the perilous voyage across the sea to Europe during a spell of good weather.

"Around 5,000 people were saved in 43 rescue operations," the coastguard said in a statement.

A body was found on board one of the rubber dinghies, a coastguard spokesman told AFP earlier.

"We registered a large number of voyages today, after several days of bad weather at sea had stopped people leaving Libya," the spokesman added.

Most of the migrants were on the dinghies, while three wooden boats were being used by Libyan people traffickers, the coastguard said.

The Italian navy also noted a mass movement of boats in the Mediterranean from "the first light of dawn."

Five Italian navy ships took part in the rescue operations, together with two vessels from the EU\s Operation Sophia, which was set up to combat human smuggling in the Mediterranean, and another four from humanitarian organisations.

More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in overcrowded boats since 2014, according to UN figures published earlier this month.

This year alone more than 50,000 migrants and asylum seekers from Africa have managed to complete the journey to Italy, a country that, like Greece, acts mainly as a gateway to northern Europe for most of the newcomers.

SOURCE: AFP
Times' Game of the Week Preview: Central Valley at Aliquippa

Central Valley and Aliquippa are set to face off in arguably the biggest game of the year in the WPIAL. Check out the Times' Game of the Week preview.
JMG file photo Make sure to bring your photo ID to vote.

So, you are already a registered voter in Texas and you plan to take part in the knock-down-drag-out that will be the presidential election? In that case you need to start working on it now.

Making sure you will be able to vote under Texas law is all in the details. It's been a legal juggling act for years.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature and at-the-time Gov. Rick Perry passed Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) creating a new requirement for voters to show photo identification when voting in person. Current Gov. Greg Abbott says voter fraud is "rampant."

Texas has seen three cases of voter fraud for every 1 million votes. A federal court quickly blocked the law, ruling Texas hadn't proved it "lacked a racially discriminatory purpose or effect."

Section 5 of the Voters Rights Act of 1965 required states with a history of racial discrimination to receive federal approval for changes to voting laws before enforcing them. Analysts pointed to the law's ability to leave thousands of elderly, poor, often African-American and Hispanic communities unable to vote.

Dead in the water, SB 14 got a boost from SCOTUS in June 2013 when in a tight 5-4 vote the court voided Section 4 of VRA which decided which jurisdictions came under Section 5's requirements. Texas was quick to enforce its new voter ID law.

Organized Texas voters challenged SB 14 with VRA Section 2, which puts the burden of proving racial discrimination on voters themselves.

Taken before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, three of its judges ruled SB 14 violated Section 2 of the VRA that banned racial discrimination in election laws. Unsatisfied that not all 15 of the Fifth Circuit judges had taken part in the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed for a repeat hearing.

Texas voters are currently (vis-a-vis the Supreme Court's ruling) required to present an approved form of photo identification to vote in all Texas elections.

Which comes back to voter ID.

If you don't have a Texas drivers license, a Texas Concealed Handgun License or License to Carry issued by the Department of Public Safety will do. As will a Texas personal identification card, U.S. passport, U.S. Citizenship Certificate, Certificate of Naturalization or military ID card; all must have the registrant's photo.

If none of the above are available, voters can get a Texas Election Identification Certificate. Just visit a drivers license office and apply. To qualify, the applicant must bring documented proof of U.S. citizenship and their identity (birth certificate), be a Texas resident age 17 years and 10 months or older. All names and date of birth must match.

Using a name different from the one on your birth certificate? Bring a certified copy of your marriage license, divorce decree or court ordered name change. Photocopies won't be accepted.

Voting by mail? A photo ID is not required. The disabled can get a permanent exemption with documents from Social Security or the Department of Veterans Affairs.

If you have a "consistent religious objection" to being photographed or have lost your photo ID in a U.S. or Texas declared natural disaster you can vote a provisional ballot. Just appear at the county voter registrar's office within 6 calendar days after the election, sign an affidavit swearing to the religious objection of disaster so your vote can be counted.

Remember, carry your voter registration and approved ID at all times. Someone may question your identity.

Judith McGinnis, whose column appears here on Thursdays, may be reached at mcginnisj@timesrecordnews.com or 940-763-7534.
SHARE Carlos Lynn Byrd

By Times Record News

A Wichita Falls man whose criminal background includes charges related to the shooting of three men over a span of 23 years will go to prison after taking a plea deal on Wednesday.

Carlos Lynn Byrd, 40, received two 12-year sentences for aggravated robbery stemming from a shooting in July 2013 and a 25-year sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm connected to a case in August 2013 in which Byrd was accused of a shooting and killing a man.

Byrd, who was arrested in the Dallas area four days after the 2013 homicide, was originally charged with murder in the death of Glen King. A Wichita County grand jury dropped that charge the following December but Byrd remained jailed on a weapons charge connected to the gun used in the homicide.

In the July incident, police found a man wounded by gunfire outside a room at the Catalina Motel in the 1100 block of East Scott Avenue.

In 1994, Byrd pleaded guilty to his role in a drive-by shooting in which one man was killed. In that incident in July 1993, a carload of young men fired shots into a crowd of about 10 people outside an apartment complex at 1520 Trout Street. One person, , 19-year-old Hamilton Roosevelt III died of bullet wounds. Police charged six men in that case. Byrd pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated assault and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In the July 2013 case, Byrd was accused of shooting and killing Glen King outside an apartment in the 400 block of Bailey Street after King reportedly got into an altercation with Byrds son. Witnesses said both Byrd and King were armed with hanguns and Byrd shot King several times.

In the August 2013 incident, police were called to the Catalina Motel where they found a man wounded from gunfire outside of a room. A woman told officers she and the victim were in the room when three armed men barged in and demanded money. The womans companion was shot and seriously wounded, but recovered. Byrd, his son, Tavares, and a third suspect where charged. Tavares Byrd pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison on aggravated robbery charges. Charges against the third suspect were dropped.

Other charges that Byrd has been convicted of over the years include possession of drugs and burglary.
TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS A 202-megawatt wind farm in southwest Clay County includes 118 turbines spread across 10,000 acres.

By Christopher Collins of the Times Record News

State Rep. James Frank, R- Wichita Falls, plans to file a proposal in Texas' next legislative session that would place restrictions on tax abatements for some wind energy projects near military bases.

Two possible wind farm developments in Clay County could threaten flight training missions and radar operations at nearby Sheppard Air Force Base, according to base officials and wind energy opponents. The worst case scenario, officials have said, is that Sheppard's missions are moved elsewhere and Wichita Falls loses an estimated $750 million in annual economic impact.

Frank told the Times Record News on Wednesday that the economic benefit of wind energy development in North Texas is undeniable, but so is the large fiscal shadow cast by Sheppard Air Force Base and other military operations in the state.

And when it comes down to it, he said, Sheppard is more important.

"Obviously Sheppard is the No. 1 driver around here. You can't take a risk with that," Frank said.

The dust-up between the base and Horn Wind PM LLC, the developer of the wind projects, began in March when Sheppard officials held a town hall meeting in Henrietta, telling attendees that proposed wind farms in Bluegrove and Byers would threaten their missions. The message was clear: if the wind projects reach fruition, the Department of the Defense could move Sheppard's missions elsewhere.

The proposed projects span more than 11,000 acres and have an estimated value of $450 million. Alterra Power Corp., the ownership interest in the developments, already has brought online the Shannon wind farm in southwest Clay County.

Frank has his sights set on a state process that awards real estate tax abatements to for-profit enterprises. Formally called a Chapter 313 application, the Texas Comptroller-led process is referred to in some circles as "corporate welfare." The representative's proposal would aim to nix abatements for wind energy projects within a 25-mile radius of military installations.

"The (abatement) is supposed to be done if it helps economic development. It is not supposed to be done if it hurts economic development," Frank said.

Frank, the vice chairman of the House Committee on Defense and Veteran Affairs, is not the only Texas legislator to side with the military in a fight against wind farms. In April, New Braunfels Sen. Donna Campbell vowed to fight for a buffer zone between wind turbines and military bases.

Frank said he and Campbell have worked together to draft a proposal, though they have not decided who will file the initial measure and who will be a sponsor. It is expected any piece of legislation filed in the House will have a companion proposal in the Senate.

Texas' next legislative session begins in January.
Here's what to know as the annual dove hunting season approaches
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For most Americans, the battle in Mali with militant Islamist terrorists is as an obscure and peripheral sideshow in the Global War on Terror. However, the UN peacekeepers and French troops deployed there know the Mali sideshow is most deadly.

StrategyPage.com recently reported that Mali is now the most physically dangerous UN peacekeeping mission, exceeding the risks UN peacekeepers confront in eastern Congo, South Sudan, Sudan's Darfur region and in Lebanon. Since 2013, 81 UN peacekeepers have been killed in Mali. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeeping mission operates next door to Syria's chaotic civil war, and some analysts believe its peacekeepers are increasingly vulnerable to spillover from Syria.

Geographic isolation is one reason Mali gets little U.S. media attention, but recall that prior to al-Qaida's 9-11 terror attacks, Afghanistan received little notice beyond U.S. defense agencies. Mali might as well be as obscure a nowhere as Timbuktu. The idiom "Timbuktu" means a "an inaccessible location." Check your atlas. The physical Timbuktu is a city in Mali.

Like Afghanistan, Mali is large (about twice the size of Texas). Mali is wedged among Algeria (a major oil exporter) and the Saharan nowheres of Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. The African states of Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Senegal lie to the west. Algeria has a comparatively strong government, but the other nations are extremely fragile.

West African powerhouse Nigeria is south of Niger. Nigeria's vicious Islamist militant Boko Haram terrorist group does attract international media. Boko Haram's Islamist terrorists hack Muslim and Christian tribespeople with machetes, they rape and enslave Christian schoolgirls, and then they tout their savageries on the internet.

Boko Haram -- now an official affiliate of ISIS -- seeks sensational headlines that magnify the effects of its terror attacks. Spectacular crimes all but ensure sensational global headlines -- the nightclub slaughter committed by an Islamist terrorist in Orlando, Florida is a chilling example.

Mali, however, rarely rates mention, much less a spotlight headline, but the fight there connects to militant Islamist operations in Algeria and Nigeria.

The UN calls its Mali peacekeeping operation the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. MINUSMA is an awful acronym, but blame the bureaucrats, not the soldiers. Currently 10,900 soldiers and 1,100 armed police serve with the force. France has an additional 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers in Mali. The size of the French contingent may vary week to week, since the French troops are assigned to a French military task force operating throughout west and central Africa (primarily but not exclusively in in former French colonies).

Even with Malian forces, there aren't enough troops to secure the huge country and monitor is porous borders. So the UN is seeking another 2,500 soldiers. The troop increase could serve a diplomatic purpose. Tuareg tribespeople in northern Mali see the Malian Army as an occupation force. The Tuareg are increasingly at odds with al-Qaida's Saharan Africa affiliate, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. A more robust UN presence would further the peace process between the Tuareg and the Mali government. The Tuareg believe UN peacekeepers would insure the Mali government compliance with a tentative peace agreement. Unfortunately, none of the nations currently supplying peacekeepers want to reinforce MINUSA until the Mali government provides the Tuareg with economic aid and political autonomy.

AQIM does not want peace. Militant Islamist extremists thrive on the chaos of conflict so they take every opportunity to stir tribal war and incite grievance.

Why? AQIM'S Islamist militants aren't fighting for Tuareg autonomy. They are 21st century religious internationalists waging ware on behalf of Islamist global imperialism. Mali may be a backwater, but for Islamist militants, a win anywhere on Earth furthers their global goal.

Austin Bay is a commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," covering foreign affairs but often addressing issues in Texas that have a national interest.
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Albany

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will appear on Friday at the Empire State Plaza as part of his New York tour addressing the question of "where we go from here."

Sanders will appear at 1 p.m. at the Egg. Doors will open at 11 a.m. The event is open to the public, though RSVPs are encouraged by the campaign at https://go.berniesanders.com/.

While Sanders has not officially dropped out of the race to seek the Democratic nomination for president, Hillary Clinton has wrapped up enough delegates to make herself the likely nominee heading into the July convention.

Sanders was appearing in Manhattan on Thursday night and, in addition to Albany on Friday  a late add by the campaign  he also will appear in Syracuse in the evening.

Campaign spokesman Michael Briggs told USA Today that Sanders' Thursday night focus (likely to be his Friday focus) will be "on policy  from income and wealth inequality to climate change  and how he hopes the Democratic Party will adopt the most progressive platform ever."

As the Democratic primary battle crept toward its fever pitch in April, Sanders drew thousands at an Albany rally at the Washington Avenue Armory, where he recited his stump speech.

In addition to Sanders, the four other candidates on both the GOP and Democratic sides at the time made stops in the Capital Region during the month of April in the lead up to one of the most important presidential primaries the state has held in decades. That five candidates would swing through the region in a matter of weeks was unprecedented.

Ultimately, Clinton beat Sanders handily in her adopted home state on April 19.
Albany

Gov. Andrew Cuomo doesn't believe that holding a special legislative session later this year to close a notorious campaign finance loophole or restrict lawmakers' outside income would be productive.

"There's no point to calling them back, because the measures they didn't do, they don't want to do," Cuomo said Wednesday after an event in Buffalo hailing the signing of a bill targeting heroin and opioid addiction. "And I don't believe they're going to get done without what's called the constitutional convention  without the people actually coming back to the table and the people actually rewriting the constitution to make those changes."

The governor and lawmakers have received generally poor reviews for their productivity in the second half of this year's session  especially on the topic of ethics reform.

Cuomo was also asked about the federal investigation into the Buffalo Billion initiative and other upstate development deals, and whether members of his administration had been contacted.

"We have many people in our administration who have been talking to the U.S. Attorney's office," Cuomo said. "If there's any way we can be helpful, we will be. If anyone did anything wrong on the Buffalo Billion, we want to find out more than anyone else."

Cuomo said he had not himself been contacted, but "if there's any way I can be helpful, I would love to."

The governor also said that the potential takeover of SolarCity, the solar energy company that is at the center of the Buffalo Billion initiative, by the electric car maker Telsa Motors Inc. would be a positive because of Tesla's larger size.

"If it actually went through, I can't see anything but good," Cuomo said of the deal. "Telsa is a $20 billion company, SolarCity is a $2 billion company. If Tesla takes over SolarCity, that makes the company that much stronger."

The $2.8 billion takeover offer, which was made public Tuesday evening, caused the price of Tesla shares to plummet as the market reacted unfavorably to the proposed deal.

Asked about the Legislature's failure to pass insurance regulations allowing ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate upstate, Cuomo said that the situation was different from New York City, where those companies operate legally.

"I think the economics are different in upstate than in New York City," Cuomo said. "Some of the legal requirements are different."

"I have no doubt that we will figure it out," Cuomo added.

cbragg@timesunion.com  518-454-5303
Albany

Local and federal law enforcement officials hope to learn who set fire to an LGBT banner that hangs on the front lawn of the Albany Damien Center, a resource center for people living with HIV and AIDS.

Albany police and the FBI are investigating the incident as a hate crime that occurred sometime between 7 p.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday.

Center officials were "deeply saddened" to find the banner had been vandalized, not two weeks after the nation's deadliest mass shooting targeted a gay nightclub. "In the wake of the Orlando tragedy, it is very disheartening to have this happen in our local community," the center wrote on its Facebook page. "We appreciate all of our community's support and love extended and stand in unity with our LGBT community during this time."

The post prompted an outpouring of support from members of the community, including an offer from the Pride Center of the Capital Region to bring the Damien Center a new rainbow flag.

The Albany center, housed in the First Lutheran Church on Western Avenue, was founded in 1990 as one of the first AIDS drop-in centers in the nation, and today serves as a resource center to improve health, reduce stress and increase the quality of life in a supportive atmosphere for individuals and families living with and affected by HIV AIDS.

When Perry Junjulas, the center's executive director, first caught sight of the flag Thursday morning, his first thought was that a storm had blown through and torn it apart. Upon closer examination, he noticed the burns.

"When I saw it, it was this automatic almost punch-in-the-gut feeling, like 'Oh my God, there are people out there who really do hate us, and they're right here,'" he said.

One week ago, the Capital Area Council of Churches, another tenant in the First Lutheran Church, held a vigil for Orlando victims.

Though he worried that publicizing the vandalism might make people fear coming to the center, Junjulas said it was more important to stand up and send a message that a crime like that would not be tolerated.

"If anything good came out of this, it's that the community has stood together and said strongly, 'This is not OK, this is not OK here in Albany, just a couple miles down from the Capitol of the state of New York," he said. "This is not who we are."

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Albany detectives at 462-8039.
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Mayfield

"This is the book that I use, and it is my bible," Douglas Kampfer said, pulling out a thick green textbook.

Aside from a few law classes in community college, the copy of "O'Connor's Federal Rules and Civil Trials 2016" has guided Kampfer from Fulton County all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, though not successfully.

"This tells you all the motions, the paperwork involved," he added, as a rooster crowed outside of his Native American-influenced home just down the road from Great Sacandaga Lake.

Kampfer, 60, has spent the past two years fighting the 2013 SAFE Act gun control law, which expanded the pre-existing definition of banned assault weapons in New York. He opted to forgo a lawyer, and collected bottles and cans to pay for expenses such as paper and filing costs.

"I only spent $1,125," he said.

After Kampfer v. Cuomo suffered a series of losses in lower federal courts, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the case. He has already filed for a rehearing, accusing the nation's highest court of bias against the AR-15  one of the weapons banned by the SAFE Act  after the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month.

Kampfer, who works as caretaker at Mayfield Cemetery, admitted that he supports portions of the state law, but said New York overstepped when regulating assault weapons, especially the AR-15. He believes that in order for Americans to be prepared for invasion  Kampfer conjures the image of North Korean forces rolling into San Francisco  they will need proficient weapons.

"Not all of the SAFE Act is bad," he said. "But when (Cuomo) attacked a very special part of our national security, that's when I thought it was necessary for me to step in."

Citing the 1939 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Miller, Kampfer insists the power to regulate military weapons is reserved for Congress.

"Unless Congress is telling me I can't own it, then I should be able to obtain it," he said.

The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the SAFE Act and a similar Connecticut law in October. Both laws were approved in the aftermath of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

In March, the same court later denied Kampfer's appeal.

After the Supreme Court turned the suit aside this week, New York Rifle and Pistol Association President Tom King  a major opponent of the SAFE Act  expressed relief. With only eight judges on the bench following the February death of conservative Antonin Scalia, it was possible the court could have ruled in favor of Cuomo's legislation, King said.

Kampfer doesn't agree. "Regardless of how many judges are there, the court should use the right standard of review and the law that's there," he said.

Kampfer hopes his case will make it to a hearing so he can voice his concerns on not only the SAFE Act but also firearm regulations across the country.

He is not your standard Second Amendment purist. "What I'd like to be able to do before the Supreme Court," he said, "is to give them my opinion that no weapon should ever, ever go across the counter of any store or gun shop until a person has passed a gun safety course."

But if his appeal doesn't make it to the Supreme Court, Kampfer is already considering a career shift to the political sphere.

"If the courts aren't going to listen," he said, "I have to go somewhere else."

mkilgallen@timesunion.com (518) 454-5305
New Scotland

A New Scotland husband and wife attacked by a bobcat outside a neighbor's residence were recovering quietly at home Thursday as they awaited test results on whether the animal had rabies.

The 22-pound adult male bobcat was shot dead by the neighbor during the attack on Wednesday afternoon, which started when the woman heard a hissing noise before the feline lunged, biting her on the arms and legs on Wednesday afternoon.

Hearing screams, her husband came outside to help, and the animal bit him repeatedly in the abdomen.

The animal's brain was being tested for rabies by the state Health Department at the Wadsworth Center's Griffin Laboratory in Guilderland, said Benning DeLaMater, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

After being taken to St. Peter's Hospital for treatment, the couple returned home that evening.

"They are both pretty sore, and really do not want to talk with anyone about it," Sheriff Craig Apple said.

DeLaMater said the dead bobcat was taken to the DEC Wildlife Health Center at Five Rivers in Delmar. An examination found that the cat had porcupine quills embedded in its face, and smelled like it had recently been sprayed by a skunk.

Bobcat attacks on people are extremely rare and usually are a result of the animal being sick with rabies or other illnesses, he said.

Since 1990, there have been 12 documented cases of rabid bobcats in the state, he said. All were a result of the raccoon variant of rabies. Five of these cases involved bites or scratches to humans.

Bobcats are typically solitary, territorial animals occurring in a wide range of habitats. Average size ranges from about 14 pounds for females and 21 pounds for males although weight exceeding 30 pounds is possible. Bobcats feed primarily on small mammals but can take animals as large as white-tailed deer.

bnearing@timesunion.com  518-454-5094  @Bnearing10
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Washington

A small plane with two sick U.S. workers left Antarctica on Wednesday in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said.

After making a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers flew to Chile, where they were expected to arrive for medical care Wednesday evening, said British Antarctic Survey spokeswoman Athena Dinar.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles roundtrip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. They arrived back at Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation, which runs the U.S. station.

Then the two workers boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas in southern Chile, Dinar said.

"It's all going according to plan," said Paul Seagrove, another spokesman for the British Antarctic Survey in London, which operates the country's research station.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees (minus 2.5 Celsius) Wednesday afternoon. That's toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 75 (minus 60 Celsius) in the morning.

The National Science Foundation hasn't identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the station for the winter.

Normally planes don't go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole till the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew. "The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring," Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, according to West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees (minus 75 degrees Celsius), he said.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you."

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. The station has a doctor, a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the U.S. for consults, West said.

But sometimes workers need medical care that can't be provided at the South Pole.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story misstated the location of the program.

Albany

Hurling birds across magical iPhone landscapes may seem out of place in a classroom, but the Angry Birds game was one method used to teach 14 Albany children and teens how to write computer code.

Fourteen students, ages 7 to 15, graduated this week after working at computers at the City of Albany Department of Youth and Workforce Services building on Central Avenue twice a week for 11 weeks, learning JavaScript, HTML and website development.

Cerima Thomas, who graduated from the University at Albany in 2012, is the founder and teacher of Operation: weCODE, which is in its first year and run by the city using federal funds.

In school, Thomas planned to be an accountant, but took a computer science course on a whim and found her passion.

"I ended up taking Java instead of Greek mythology and my life changed ever since," she said.

Now, Thomas provides that same opportunity to students who may not be able to pay for lessons or a new computer.

"I came up with the idea to offer these services to inner-city youth because there is a lack of people who can relate to them and understand where they're coming from," Thomas said. "I wanted kids to know that this was available in their community."

Pradeep Atrey, director of UAlbany's undergraduate computer science program, said teaching computer science to children "can create a lot of passion in kids to create new technologies and ... be a producer of technology rather than a user of technology." Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg started very young, Atrey said. "They had a passion to do something creative from a very young age."

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Thomas said her students surprised her when they "breezed right through" the original curriculum, making her add higher-level course work.

In a show of the students' dedication, Thomas said two girls ran to the class one day, not having a ride, and arrived at the door of the computer lab saying, "We didn't want to miss it, Ms. Thomas."

Most of the students in the program are low-income, minority students, Thomas said, and many are girls. She wants to help bridge the gap between these students and technology fields.

"I want to be able to have these kids build robots, do 3-D printing, everything that the best schools have, the best technology companies have," Thomas said. "I want the kids to at least be able to say, 'I touched that, I did that.'"

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs is a Times Union intern.
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Kings Philip II and Philip IV of Spain ruled in contradictions. As devout Catholics in the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively, they enforced a strict national morality  sometimes brutally  over their subjects. Yet, at the same time, the two monarchs were keen collectors of the most sensuous works of art: They drank in displays of flesh, excessive ecstasies and mythological scenes.

Now, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, the obsessions of Spanish royalty are on full display in "Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado." With 28 Old Master paintings on loan from the Prado museum in Madrid, the exhibition foregrounds the collecting and display practices of Philip II and his grandson Philip IV.

For both sovereigns the painted nude represented one of the pinnacles of artistic achievement, and the Clark's show, which includes work by Titian, Rubens and Tintoretto, serves as a subtle examination of the subject matter's treatment and reception in this period.

"They always have this mask of the mythological to make it easier," said Miguel Falomir, deputy director of the Prado, during a recent walk through the Clark's galleries, referring to how artists cloaked the nude in mythological or historical narratives. "This is an exhibition that I think is important, since it can provide a different image of 16th and 17th century Spain," added Falomir. "The more common idea is of a very, very devout Catholic people."

More Information If you go: "Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado" Where: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass. Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission: $20; free for members, children under 18, and students with valid ID Info: (413) 458-2303; www.clarkart.edu See More Collapse

While the Catholic Church in Spain exerted a heavy hand over the general public, royalty could freely indulge its appetites under the right circumstances  or within the right rooms. Both Philip II and Philip IV secluded these titillating canvases in private, cordoned-off chambers reserved for the most elite and sophisticated men. Here, unchallenged and guilt-free, the kings could fully express their connoisseurial acumen and immerse themselves in both the painting's eroticism and intellectual content.

"It also became a site of protection," explained the Clark's interim curator of painting and sculpture, Lara Yeager-Crasselt, of these same spaces. Later, in the 18th century, kings Charles III and Charles IV considered burning works in the royal collection that they regarded as obscene. Instead, they concealed the art in these private spaces around Madrid. Without them, many of these paintings would not exist today.

That includes works by Titian. In the history of the painted nude, the Venetian artist's example rules supreme. Philip II was a major patron of Titian, and the exhibition includes his "Venus with an Organist and Cupid" (1550-55). Bejeweled and with glazed-over eyes, Venus is a blue-veined body loafing in an Italian villa, the center of both the organist's lingering attentions and ours. In the distant manicured landscape, a fountain gushes and conveys a perpetual, numbing stasis  pleasure uninterrupted and weirdly unvaried.

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Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish painter whose art Philip IV enthusiastically supported, was wild about Titian. The dialogue that emerges between the two masters represents a crucial subtheme of the exhibition. In "Rape of Europa" (1628-29), based directly upon a work by Titian, Rubens depicts Europa, the mythological figure, as fishlike, blotchy with blues and pinks, dynamic and lively  a body with a living, breathing pulse and presence.

"This is one of the wonderful moments of the show, when you get a sense of how Titian depicts the nude mythological form, and how Rubens handles that form," said Yeager-Crasselt.

"Splendor, Myth, and Vision" also features sections devoted to Flemish cabinet paintings, works depicting Hercules by Francisco de Zurbaran, and a cycle of canvases representing Saint Sebastian. It is here, too, that we find Italian painter Guercino's "Susannah and the Elders" (1617). Based on the story from the Book of Daniel about lusting old men voyeuristically admiring the bathing Susannah, the painting depicts one of the bearded men turning toward us reproachfully as we gaze upon the incandescent nude figure. Here is that contradiction: Even as the picture relishes in nakedness, it also wags its finger at us, disapproving.

James H. Miller is a frequent contributor the Times Union.
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Albany

Some of you have long memories.

That's certainly true of Pat Connally of Nassau, who called me wondering why there hasn't been attention given to a 1998 clash between John Faso, then the leader of Assembly Republicans, and the owner of a general store in the Greene County hamlet of Haines Falls.

In Connally's view, the long-ago incident is relevant to the heated Republican primary to replace Rep. Chris Gibson in the 19th Congressional District, which pits Faso against political newcomer Andrew Heaney.

More Information Contact Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse

I'll confess I had no idea what Connally was talking about. I also doubted that something from 18 years ago would be worth writing about now.

But when I read the old clips, I found an interesting story. I'm sure Connally isn't the only reader who remembers it.

The store owner was Joe Cavallaro. In 1998, he was upset about the size and placement of a state-park sign near his store, so he decided to call his assemblyman, Faso.

It didn't go well. According to Cavallaro, an annoyed staffer hung up on him. Cavallaro got angry and called the office at least 30 times over the next few days.

"I was hung up on 30 times," Cavallaro said this week, adding that, in desperation, he decided to call the Faso home in Kinderhook. He found the number in the phone book.

"He was a big-shot assemblyman, and I barely graduated high school," Cavallaro said. "But even I know that if you don't want somebody to call your house, you don't have the number in the phone book."

Cavallaro called two or three times and spoke at least once to Faso's wife. Cavallaro insists the conversation was pleasant, but Faso says otherwise. The call frightened his wife, he says.

Soon after, Cavallaro was arrested at the Twilight General Store, which he still owns, and arraigned in Albany. He faced a year in jail on harassment charges.

The case received significant attention at the time, largely because Times Union columnist Dan Lynch, now retired, championed Cavallaro as "an ordinary schnook" who paid dearly for getting uppity.

Oddly, the case was assigned to Paul Clyne, a high-level prosecutor who usually handled cases involving hard-core criminals and who would later become the Albany County district attorney.

"The presence of Paul Clyne in that courtroom was proof positive that the power structure in this town was hell-bent on sticking it to Joe Cavallaro," Lynch wrote.

An unimpressed City Court judge nevertheless dismissed the case, finding no hint of criminality.

And that was that.

The 19th Congressional District is a U-shaped district that includes the Catskills and much of Rensselear County. It's a district facing serious issues, including widespread economic decline and the contamination of public water supplies in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh.

It would be a stretch, then, to suggest that an odd episode from 1998 should weigh on voters. But the case still rankles Cavallaro, now 66, who remains furious with Faso.

"He has the nerve to run for Congress?" Cavallaro asked. "This district deserves better."

I might feel the same way if I had been handcuffed in my store in front of family and customers. Cavallaro spent $7,000 defending himself and says he almost lost his business. (Cavallaro later sued Faso for $4 million; that federal case was also dismissed.)

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The seemingly ancient history actually has come up during the campaign.

Heaney challenged Faso on Cavallaro's treatment during a recent televised debate, asking if it represented his approach to constituent services.

Faso's answer then was similar to what he told me Wednesday: The family alerted police because his wife was home alone with children and felt that Cavallaro had threatened her.

"Not knowing what this individual was capable of doing, we thought the best course was to contact them and let them assess the situation," Faso said. "I had no idea they were going to bring charges and arrest the guy."

Any husband will and should act to protect a frightened wife. But with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that Cavallaro's only crime was persistence that crossed into obnoxiousness. He had no criminal record.

As Lynch noted, it's likely that Faso could have gotten the case dropped, if he so desired. Moreover, dealing with annoying or even angry constituents is part of an elected official's job.

It comes with the territory.

"That's true," Faso said, noting the many impassioned calls from constituents he fielded during his 16 years in the Legislature.

"Sometimes you can help them, sometimes you can't," he added. "But your job is to listen to them."

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill
There was a large turnout for the launch of Nenagh priest Fr Sean McDonagh's latest book - his 13th since he was first published in 1986.

One of the foremost ecotheologians in the Church, Fr Sean's latest work is a commentary on Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, On Care for our Common Home.

The encyclical is not something you read to tick the boxes, he said at the launch in Nenagh Pastoral Centre. It is the background to how long we will be on this planet.

Fr Sean pointed out that the curlew is 97 per cent extinct, but that you haven't heard any bells ringing to say this bird will not be heard by future generations.

He thanked all those who had helped with the launch, including local parish priest Fr Des Hillery.

The book was officially launched by Prof Peadar Kirby, who described the author as a pioneer theologian who began to write to wake up the Church to the reality of issues that now form part of the papal encyclical.

The Church owes Sean immense gratitude for opening nature to us, he said. He has been educating us since 1986 that concern for the planet is not an optional extra. He is a prophet before his time.

Prof Kirby described Fr Sean's book as a commentary that opens up the encyclical to all its richness.

Prof Kirby called on the Church in Ireland to lead the way on the environment by calling for a three-year synod, not on doctrine, but on what faces the plant. It could begin in the first year at parish level, then go to national level and then look at global issues, he said. It would honour the greatness of Sean McDonagh.

As resident of the Ecovillage in Cloughjordan, Prof Kirby said the village would be delighted to be part of that synod.

Full report in this week's Tipperary Star
The month of July marks the first anniversary of the passing of Fr Paudie Moloughney, Laharden and Kiltegan Missionary Fathers.

He is sadly missed by the parishioners of Moycarkey who grew to love him over the years, primarily because of his Godliness and his simplistic approach to life, where love and caring for your fellow man underpinned his philosophy.

Anyone who spent quality time in his company were invigorated by his gentle warm understanding smile and attentive ear. Many who shared their personal life troubles and worries with Fr Paudie experienced a calming of the turbulent seas of their anxiety, pain and worry to a serene ripple of tranquillity.

What endeared Fr Paudie to people was that this devout aspect of his life was beautifully balanced with his man of the people mischievous side of his personality which explored all aspects of sport, culture, music & dance, history, tradition, language and folklore.

To honour the memory of Fr Paudie on his 1st anniversary a small committee have come together to pool their thoughts and ideas on how best to commemorate him.

It was decided that a walk would be held on Sunday evening July 3rd with a start time of 6 p.m. Registration will take place from 4 p.m. in the Muintir na Tire hall, Littleton.

It is hoped walkers will pay a 10 registration fee, the proceeds of which will go to the chosen charity, The Kiltegan Fathers Mission for The Republic of South Sudan.

Walk route:  Start at Muintir na Tire Hall  Left along Littleton/Thurles road  Right at Laharden cross  Right at Briens cross  Right at Lacken cross to arrive back at Muintir na Tire Hall. 

On completion of the walk you can enjoy tea, light refreshments, chat, music and craic in the Muintir na Tire Hall.

The theme The Circle of Life Walk reminds us of another July evening in 2011 when The Circle of Life CD launch in Littleton marked the Ruby Anniversary of Fr Paudie Moloughneys ordination.

The chosen walk route follows a circle route which is one Fr Paudie would have walked for leisure or to celebrate Mass in Littleton Church or Two-Mile-Borris Church.

Always remember Fr Paudie loved walking, he undertook countless walks for charity. He also completed the Appalachian Trail, the longest hiking trail in the world, which is 2,200 miles long and passes through 14 American States, walkers have to endure all the hazards nature will present them throughout months of hiking.

Fr Paudie kept a daily diary throughout the months of this walk and each day he remembered and prayed for dear friends deceased and living back home in Ireland and throughout the world.

He also valued the closeness to nature he experienced while walking the trail, also he loved the opportunity to meet people from other countries and cultures with whom he could share his thoughts and stories.

Fr Paudie also walked The Pilgrimage Route of Santiago de Compostela or St James Trail in north-western Spain.

Fr Paudies Circle of Life walk is for all parishioners and those beyond our Parish, there is no upper age limit and infants in strollers are welcome, you are not bound by any rules on Paudie's walk, only to stay safe.

If you wish to take a rest or stop and chat at a water station please do so, you might wish to take time out and sit on a roadside wall and reflect on The Circle of Life as Fr Paudie often did.

Fr Paudie was always a free spirit and of the belief that Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools

It is thus very fitting that we commemorate Fr Paudies first anniversary by walking in friendship one of Fr Paudies walks in the belief that he will walk with us in spirit on a July evening.
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ACIE Consulting Director Visits NCKU to Strengthen Partnership

Consulting Director of Chinese Programs from American Councils for International Education (ACIE) Mr. Anthony J. Kane visited National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in southern Taiwan on June 22, to strengthen partnership and promote public diplomacy between Taiwan and the United States.

NCKU President Huey-Jen Jenny Su welcomed Kane and commented positively on Kane's role as facilitator in the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, an overseas language and cultural immersion program for American students, which is currently taking place at NCKU's Chinese Language Center (CLC).

They also discussed the possibility of seeking the support from NCKU's alumni in Taiwan and in the US to support ACIE's projects.

"I believe this kind of educational proects is not just about education but also about public diplomacy," Kane said.







He noted, the program we ran in the United States are usually supported by the American State department not the educational department because they understand the importance of Americans coming to Taiwan to study Chinese in order to improve Taiwan-US relationship to make it stable and strong.

Kane expressed his concerns over American students choosing to study Chinese in China instead of Taiwan. "My generation of scholars, diplomats and businessmen, all studied Chinese in Taiwan but now more and more young generations go to the Mainland," he said.

"I think it's important to introduce students to Taiwan because once they've been to Taiwan they always want to come back," Kane added.

Kane's projects are supported by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. For which Kane promised to raise private support, individuals and companies, to help support the projects for ACIE, an international nonprofit to advance education.

President Su expressed the willingness to help facilitate the promotion of ACIE projects.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622006569/en/
[June 23, 2016] CMO Axis and Ride5 Group, New York, USA, Form Strategic Partnership for International Growth

CHENNAI, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ride5 Group, located in New York City, has entered into a strategic partnership with CMO Axis based in Chennai, India. Both firms are privately held. CMO Axis, led by Vinod Harith, is a market leader in outsourced marketing solutions for companies across Asia and Europe. The firm was awarded 'Excellence & Leadership in Outsourcing' at the Asia BPO 2015 Summit, ranked among the top 10 global Sales & Marketing Outsourcing (SMO) providers by the U.S. Black Book of outsourcing and listed as one of the top 50 emerging companies to work for in India. Ride5 Group is a business consulting and digital boutique specializing in market positioning, brand building, digital content and cross-platform integration. In addition to branding start-ups from scratch and helping mature firms update their online presence through graphic design, user experience and social/PR outreach, Ride5 has produced high-end branded media and award winning documentary films.



Vinod Harith says, "As we've been planning to extend our reach into the U.S. market, our senior team after a thoughtful search, agreed that Ride5 Group is the best solution. They will enable us to realize our vision of becoming the leading marketing shared services supplier globally. CMO Axis has proven its capabilities in Asia by reducing marketing ROI for organizations through a shared services model, enabling significantly-reduced operating costs and improving efficiencies in ways they can't do internally. This is validated by industry leading metrics that reflect our ability to save brands 15-40% versus their current spend. With Ride5 Group coming under our umbrella, CMO Axis can now provide the same level of operational efficiency improvement and savings for firms in the U.S. and the Americas with local support 'on the ground' as required." Arnie Friedland, co-founder of Ride5 Group, is now an Advisory Board member of CMO Axis. He is also on the Advisory Board of Tube Centrex in New York. Arnie says, "CMO Axis has the resource and capability to extend its reach into the U.S. market by providing top level BPO and marketing outsource services at a significantly reduced cost. Their track record of bottom-line expense savings should motivate senior-level decision makers in the U.S. to leverage these services, focusing less on operations and more on their core business. I'm proud to serve on the CMO Axis Advisory Board and contribute to its global growth."

CMO Axis is currently considering raising Series A capital to fund its growth strategy and to address new market opportunities. Inquiries can be directed to [email protected] or [email protected]. Learn more about CMO Axis and Ride5 Group. Media contact:

Vinod Harith

[email protected]

+91-9790908246

Founder & CMO

CMO Axis Outsourcing Services Private Limited



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[June 23, 2016] Walmart Introduces Walmart Pay in Virginia and the Carolinas

Walmart knows customers want to save not just money, but also time. That's why Walmart introduced Walmart Pay - a safe, easy, convenient way for customers to pay with their smartphones in Walmart stores. Now, customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina have access to the checkout-changing service as it's available in each of the more than 420 Walmart stores across the three states. Built with the goal of improving how customers check out and dramatically expanding mobile payment access, Walmart Pay is like no other mobile payments solution available today. With this launch, Walmart becomes the only retailer to offer its own payment solution that works with any iOS or Android (News - Alert) device*, at any checkout lane, and with any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift card - all through the Walmart mobile app. Open, Scan, Done - It's That Easy Checkout using Walmart Pay happens in three easy steps: 1. Open: Visit any register, open the Walmart app and choose Walmart Pay. Activate the camera. 2. Scan: At any time during checkout, simply scan the code displayed at the register. Walmart Pay is now connected. 3. Done: Associate scans and bags the items and it's done. An eReceipt will be sent to the app and can be viewed at any time. More than twenty million customers actively use the Walmart app each month and it ranks among the top three retail apps in the Google (News - Alert) and Apple app stores. The Walmart app enhances the shopping experience in Walmart stores with features incluing checking in to pick up an online order at a Walmart store, refilling pharmacy prescriptions and finding an item's store location.



"We can't wait to hear what our customers and associates in the area think of Walmart Pay. The service was built to make shopping easier and faster, something we know our customers want," said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president, Services, Walmart U.S. "Walmart Pay is a powerful addition to our app, a tool that we're using to transform the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting our online assets and our stores for customers. The service opens the door to new and better ways we can serve the 140 million customers who shop our stores each week." To learn more about Walmart Pay, please visit news.walmart.com.

About Walmart Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better - anytime and anywhere - in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, nearly 260 million customers and members visit our 11,535 stores under 72 banners in 28 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries. With fiscal year 2016 revenue of $482.1 billion, Walmart employs more than 2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting http://corporate.walmart.com on Facebook (News - Alert) at http://facebook.com/walmart and on Twitter (News - Alert) at http://twitter.com/walmart. Online merchandise sales are available at http://www.walmart.com and http://www.samsclub.com. *Available on any phone that can download the Walmart mobile app. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005287/en/

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[June 23, 2016] Weld North LLC Completes Merger of Performance Matters and Truenorthlogic; The Newly Combined Company Moving Forward Branded as Performance Matters

Weld North Holdings LLC, an operator of digital and SaaS (News - Alert) education solutions, today announced that it has completed the merger of Truenorthlogic and Performance Matters. The combined entity will move forward under the name Performance Matters LLC. Adam J. Klaber, former managing director at Weld North, is leading the company as CEO, and Performance Matters' co-founder Woody Dillaha will serve as president. Truenorthlogic's founder Jeanette Haren will continue as chief product officer, and Performance Matters' co-founder James Waters will serve as chief technology officer. The company operates out of its corporate headquarters in Sandy, Utah, customer support center in Winter Park, Fla., and research and development center in Roswell, Ga. "The growing demand for accountability in K-12 education requires that school districts have access to all kinds of data, as well as the ability to carefully analyze all data points that impact student achievement," said Jonathan Grayer, chairman and CEO of Weld North. "Performance Matters has mastered the student performance side of this with its exceptional assessment, data management and analytics platform. Truenorthlogic's award-winning system helps districts manage professional growth and learning for educators. By combining these two independntly successful organizations, K-12 education will, for the first time, have access to one integrated system that combines professional growth and student assessment tools with powerful analytics capabilities to accelerate student growth."



The comprehensive and integrated Performance Matters Platform focuses on student success by delivering powerful, actionable student and educator growth solutions that make it possible to align student performance and professional growth efforts. From assessment development, delivery and analytics to professional learning management, performance evaluation and observer calibration, Performance Matters uses the insights available from sophisticated data gathering and analysis to provide a comprehensive portfolio of online solutions focused on boosting student performance and building educator capacity. About Performance Matters

With a growing client base of more than 1 million educators and 11 million students from 1,200 districts, Performance Matters accelerates student and educator growth by providing solutions that solidify the connection between student achievement and educator effectiveness. Performance Matters delivers SaaS student and educator tools, content, and real-time analytics enabling district leaders to make data-driven decisions that maximize the success of individual students and increase the impact of educators. Performance Matters is the result of the merger between two best-in-class organizations: Truenorthlogic, an accomplished provider of educator effectiveness tools, and Performance Matters, an expert in student assessment and data analytics. For information, visit www.performancematters.com. About Weld North LLC Weld North LLC is an investment company concentrating on education technology businesses. In partnership with KKR, a leading global investment firm, Weld North makes control investments in businesses with high potential for long-term growth in cash flow. Weld North's portfolio of digital and SaaS education businesses also includes Edgenuity, a provider of engaging online education and blended learning solutions for students grades 6-12; Imagine Learning, a developer of language and literacy software for struggling readers, early childhood students, and the rapidly growing English language learner (ELL) student population; The Learning House, an online education solutions partner that helps colleges and universities develop effective ways to deliver online degree programs; Generation Ready, a national provider of leader and teacher professional learning services; and Intellify Learning, a learning data management and analytics solutions provider. For information, visit www.weldnorth.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005233/en/

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[June 22, 2016] Global Web Cameras Market Status, Technology and Manufacturers' Analysis and Forecasts to 2021

PUNE, India, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ReportsnReports.com adds 'Global and Chinese Web Cameras Industry, 2016 Market Research Report' to its all-inclusive pool of market research reports. This is a specialized and comprehensive study on the existing state of the global Web Cameras industry highlighting the Chinese market. Complete report on Chinese Web Cameras market of 150 pages divided into 11 major chapters that offer an overview of current market scenario as well as 2021 forecasts is now available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/477129-global-and-chinese-web-cameras-industry-2016-market-research-report.html. The scope of this report is extensive and covers the nitty-gritty of the industry and their end-user applications. The Web Cameras market is broken down by the latest developments, cost effectiveness, end-user applications and regional markets. Revenue forecasts from 2011 to 2021 are given for each of these segments including the development, analysis, and trends of the Web Cameras manufacturing technology. Projected values used are based on manufacturers' total revenues. The report is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Web Cameras industry. To start with, the report underlines the elementary overview of the industry right from definitions to applications and manufacturing technology. This is followed by in-detail analysis of the global and Chinese Web Cameras industry along with the major players' descriptions. The report is variously sub-segmented further into company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2011-2016 market shares for each company. The competitive landscape in the Web Cameras Industry is further analyzed by country (USA, EU, Japan, Chinese etc.), by company and by application. The report further estimates 2011-2021 market development trends of Web Cameras industry. Analysis of market entry strategies, countermeasures of economic impact and feasibility studies of new project investment is also carried out. Overall, the rport provides an in-depth insight of 2011-2021 global and Chinese Web Cameras industry covering all important parameters. In the end, the report makes a proposal for a new project of Web Cameras Industry before assessing its practicality. All-in-all, the report provides an exhaustive understanding of 2011-2021 global and China Web Cameras industry covering all important parameters.



Order a copy of this report at http://www.reportsnreports.com/purchase.aspx?name=477129. Another related report is WebCams, Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2015 to 2021. The WebCam market at $3.4 billion in 2014 is expected to grow to $15.2 billion by 2021. Strong growth is triggered by the increasing availability of broadband and Internet connectivity. The Internet protocols of Ethernet dominate all networking.

Security applications are promising to continue to grow rapidly. The ability to remotely monitor one room away or across the world using the Internet provides stunning new functionality that is enormously significant because of the automated process that implements intelligent systems. This intelligence capability promises to be used by everyone for security, security for people in their homes, businesses, police departments, universities, hospitals, and all organizations with a campus. Companies Profiled include Market Leaders: Logitech, D-Link, Microsoft, Flir, Creative Technology, Philips, Sony, Cisco, Samsung, 10Moon, Platinet / Omega Technology, A4Tech, Vivitar, Canon. Complete report available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/411291-webcams-market-shares-strategies-and-forecasts-worldwide-2015-to-2021.html. Market Participants: 10moons, A4Tech, Annke, B2, Blackstone Group / Vivant, Brother, Canon, Creative Technology Ltd, D-Link, Encore Electronics, FLIR / Lorex, Genius, iMirco Electronics, IPEVO, Logitech International, Micron, Microsoft, Nest, Netgear, Nikon, Platinet, Philips, Proxicast, Relleek Electronics, Rosewill, Sakar International / Vivitar, Samsung Electronics, Shenzhen Vigor Electronic Co., Sony, Trust, Vimicro International Corporation, Withings. Explore other new report on Semiconductor and Electronics Market http://www.reportsnreports.com/market-research/semiconductor-and-electronics/. About Us: ReportsnReports.com is an online market research reports library of 500,000+ in-depth studies of over 5000 micro markets. Not limited to any one industry, ReportsnReports.com offers research studies on agriculture, energy and power, chemicals, environment, medical devices, healthcare, food and beverages, water, advanced materials and much more. Connect With Us on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReportsnReports/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reportsnreports Twitter: https://twitter.com/marketsreports G+ / Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/111656568937629536321/posts RSS/Feeds: http://www.reportsnreports.com/feed/l-latestreports.xml Contact:

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[June 22, 2016] UN Global Compact Recognizes SkyPower Founder and Chief Executive Officer as a 2016 Local SDG Pioneer

Kerry Adler honored as a Pioneer Leading CLIMATE ACTION NEW YORK, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2016 in New York, Kerry Adler, founder and CEO of SkyPower, was announced as one of ten 2016 Local SDG Pioneers. Mr. Adler was recognized for his efforts that align with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action. Launched in 2016 as part of the UN Global Compact's Making Global Goals Local Business campaign, the Local SDG Pioneers programme seeks out individuals who are demonstrating how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can enable business to unlock economic, social and environmental gains for the world. Over 600 nominations were received from 100 countries between February and April 2016. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit  officially came into force on 1 January 2016. Over the next fifteen years with these new goals that universally apply to all, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. "Each of the 2016 Local SDG Pioneers exemplifies how business can be a force for good in addressing the challenges we face as a global society," said Lise Kingo, UN Global Compact Executive Director. "Mr. Adler is a passionate advocate for climate change, particularly clean energy. He is leading developments towards a renewable power sector in Canad and international markets for sustainable energy solutions  making him a Pioneer on climate action."



The Pioneers are made up of entrepreneurs who are championing sustainability through their business models and changemakers who are mobilizing the business community broadly to take action in support of the SDGs. A Pioneers Selection Group, comprised of experts from the UN, academia, civil society and the private sector, ranked the nominees based on a set of criteria, resulting in the ten 2016 Global Compact Local SDG Pioneers. In the years to come, the Global Compact's Pioneers programme will become a vital part of the organization's priority to make global goals local business. "I am honoured to be part of the inaugural class of Local SDG Pioneers and humbled by the recognition from the UN Global Compact," said Mr. Adler. "Sustainable Developments Goals are core to SkyPower's global operations because I fundamentally believe that businesses have a duty to be responsible corporate citizens and leave an inhabitable world for future generations."

The UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2016 is a two-day gathering of the private sector, UN, Government and civil society to jump-start action to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Together, over 800 leaders from around the world are gathered in New York to identify how to unleash the business activities, thinking and innovation required for a new era of sustainability. The UN Global Compact is the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, calling on companies to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and take actions that advance societal goals. In Canada, over 80 companies and non-business organization have joined the initiative, and the Global Compact Network Canada has supported their efforts to advance sustainable business practices since 2013. SkyPower prides itself on developing projects in partnership with local companies, suppliers and governments. Interested developers, suppliers, government agencies as well as investors are encouraged to please contact us at [email protected]. About SkyPower

SkyPower is the largest and one of the most successful developers and owners of utility-scale solar energy projects in the world. With roots dating back more than a dozen years, SkyPower's global team possesses a vast track record of over 900 years of combined experience in power and large infrastructure projects. The experienced and accomplished SkyPower team has built, assembled and acquired an extensive pipeline of over 25 GW worldwide  9 GW of which were recently announced in bilateral agreements, and other contract awards, to be built in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia over the next five years. SkyPower's over 30 utility-scale solar Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and Contracts in aggregate represent well in excess of approximately US $80 billion worth of long-term renewable energy sales to leading utilities and governments around the world. SkyPower is majority owned by CIM Group, a U.S.-based real estate and infrastructure investment firm founded in 1994 that has systematically and successfully invested in dynamic and densely populated communities throughout North America. For further information: Hando Kang, Vice President, International Public Affairs, [email protected], +1 647 205 0619; Maria Vorobieva, Director, International Public Affairs, [email protected], +1 647 965 7187; Shamini Selvaratnam, Director, International Public Affairs and Communications, [email protected], +1 647 625 0997





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[June 23, 2016] Salesforce Unveils Lightning Customer Community--Delivering a More Intelligent, Personalized and Rich Experience

SAN FRANCISCO, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, today announced Lightning Customer Communityestablishing a new benchmark for web and mobile customer community experiences. New Lightning Customer Community empowers companies to create highly personalized and intelligent customer experiences that seamlessly extend data, files and processes from the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. Today's customers are more connected than ever. With customer experience overtaking price and product as the key brand differentiator, building an online community to engage customers is key to sustaining a vibrant brand. However, of the 86% of companies seeking to excel at customer experience, only 27% even qualify as "good" in the eyes of their customers. Most companies struggle to deliver valuable interaction because the systems that run their business are disconnected from their online customer experience. Customers can see a website or forum, but their experiences aren't personalized, making it difficult to solve a problem or find the information they need. Salesforce first introduced Community Cloud in 2013, allowing companies to extend their brand experience through vibrant communities of customers. By combining social engagement with CRM data, Community Cloud made it possible to deliver the right information to consumers, at the right time. And today, Salesforce continues to raise the bar with Lightning Customer Community, the most advanced and intelligent community platform available. The re-imagined Lightning Customer Community includes new features such as: Lightning Themes: Companies can now create a visually-rich and highly personalized user experience. The entire look and feel of any community can be completely customized to deliver an immersive, unique and branded experience, on any device.

Companies can now create a visually-rich and highly personalized user experience. The entire look and feel of any community can be completely customized to deliver an immersive, unique and branded experience, on any device. Rich Media Feed: Similar to Facebook feeds, users can now embed videos, images, file link previews and even code snippets into any community feed. The new Rich Media Feed also provides a Q&A-like environment similar to Quora that makes it easier to find the answer a user is looking for.

Similar to Facebook feeds, users can now embed videos, images, file link previews and even code snippets into any community feed. The new Rich Media Feed also provides a Q&A-like environment similar to Quora that makes it easier to find the answer a user is looking for. Recommended Articles and Answers: Companies can curate a personalized experience for every customer. Recommended Articles and Answers uses intelligent scoring to instantly deliver the most relevant articles and answers based on the search query.

Companies can curate a personalized experience for every customer. Recommended Articles and Answers uses intelligent scoring to instantly deliver the most relevant articles and answers based on the search query. Search Optimization: Companies can more effectively surface community content in web search results and direct queries to relevant community discussions. For example, if a customer is searching the web for what size coffee filter to buy for their new coffee pot, Search Optimization can better surface links that bring the customer to the location in a community where their question is most likely to be answeredeithr by the manufacturer, a subject matter expert or another coffee enthusiast in the community.

Companies can more effectively surface community content in web search results and direct queries to relevant community discussions. For example, if a customer is searching the web for what size coffee filter to buy for their new coffee pot, Search Optimization can better surface links that bring the customer to the location in a community where their question is most likely to be answeredeithr by the manufacturer, a subject matter expert or another coffee enthusiast in the community. Smart Moderation: Community managers can proactively identify and eliminate any spam and unwanted posts. Additionally, Smart Moderation uses intelligent routing to create cases in Lightning Customer Community and direct them to Service Cloud Lightning, enabling agents to respond to customers immediately.

Community managers can proactively identify and eliminate any spam and unwanted posts. Additionally, Smart Moderation uses intelligent routing to create cases in Lightning Customer Community and direct them to Service Cloud Lightning, enabling agents to respond to customers immediately. Lightning Reports and Dashboards: With more than 250 new Lightning Reports and Dashboards, community managers are armed with real-time insights into customer trends such as purchasing patterns, top content, escalations and community traffic to make sure they are delivering a personalized and rich customer experience.



Extending e-Commerce Capability with new Lightning Components from the Salesforce Partner Ecosystem

Powered by the Salesforce Lightning Platform, companies can now drag-and-drop new e-commerce functionality into community pages faster than ever with three new partner-built Lightning Components: CloudCraze CartPlus : Enables B2B companies to drag-and-drop a native shopping cart anywhere in their community, making it easy for customers to buy products within one channel of engagement.

: Enables B2B companies to drag-and-drop a native shopping cart anywhere in their community, making it easy for customers to buy products within one channel of engagement. OSF UnifyCOMMERCE Demandware : Integrates Demandware's B2C e-commerce services into any community, allowing companies to provide single sign-on capability, a persistent shopping cart that is always present wherever the customer is, sync customer data and embed the Demandware Customer Service Suiteallowing customer service agents to place orders on behalf of customers.

: Integrates Demandware's B2C e-commerce services into any community, allowing companies to provide single sign-on capability, a persistent shopping cart that is always present wherever the customer is, sync customer data and embed the Demandware Customer Service Suiteallowing customer service agents to place orders on behalf of customers. OSF UnifyCOMMERCE Magento: Connects Magento's e-commerce services into any community, allowing companies to synchronize customer records, orders and reviews from Magento directly in Salesforce. Additionally, companies have access to built-in reporting that provides insight into customers' shopping activity such as order value, number of orders and product reviews. Comments on the news:

"In today's connected world, customers expect every experience to be fast, personal and seamless," said Mike Micucci , GM and SVP, Salesforce Community Cloud. "The new Lightning Customer Community is connected directly into the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, providing companies with the intelligence needed to exceed expectations and build deeper relationships with their customers."

, GM and SVP, Salesforce Community Cloud. "The new Lightning Customer Community is connected directly into the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, providing companies with the intelligence needed to exceed expectations and build deeper relationships with their customers." "We are responsible for piecing together billions of historical records every day, and delivering a fast and personal experience for each of our customers," said Andrew Watt , VP, Member Services, Ancestry. "With Customer Lightning Community, we will be able to leverage a whole new platform that will allow our customers to form deeper connections with one another, unearth even more insights and discoveries with relatives and share their stories." Pricing & Availability Lightning Customer Community is generally available today with the purchase of any Community Cloud license.

Partner-built Lightning Components from CloudCraze and OSF Global Services are generally available today. For more information on each Lightning Component, please visit the Salesforce AppExchange. Additional Information Learn more about the Salesforce Community Cloud: http://www.salesforce.com/communities/overview/ Connect with Salesforce Like Salesforce and Salesforce Community Cloud on Facebook.

Follow @salesforce and @communitycloud on Twitter. About Salesforce

Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit:www.salesforce.com. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130612/SF30598LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/salesforce-unveils-lightning-customer-community--delivering-a-more-intelligent-personalized-and-rich-experience-300289056.html SOURCE Salesforce

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[June 23, 2016] Emerio Malaysia Appoints New Managing Director

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Emerio today announces the appointment of Michael Warren as Managing Director for Emerio Malaysia. He will report directly to Harish Nim, Group Chief Executive Officer, Emerio. "We are happy to have Michael join us. With his proven track record in the industry, I am confident that he will be able to champion our business and societal goals in Malaysia as well as in the region," said Harish Nim. Michael will lead the company in a transformational program to deliver new-age applications, solutions and services, while continuing to nurture existing and new business relationships in the Emerio hallmark IT operations service practice. "Ther are tremendous opportunities for Emerio to leverage our regional and NTT Japanese technology heritage to introduce new solutions and services into Malaysia. We aim to help Malaysian clients and partners move up the knowledge value chain, complementing the Malaysian vision of expanding the digital ecosystem in the country," said Michael.



Michael brings with him over 30 years of industry and leadership experience from across the Asia Pacific region. He will be looking to further elevate Emerio's standing by leveraging on his extensive government and commercial networks across the region. Michael joins Emerio Malaysia from the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) where he served as Vice President for the Global Business Services cluster. In his previous role, he was instrumental in helping Malaysia's lead ICT agency bring in strategic and high-value foreign direct investments and jobs, as well as successfully nurturing the local outsourcing industry into one that is globally recognized as a market leader.

Michael Warren holds a degree in Computer Science & Management from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. About Emerio (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Emerio (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd secured MSC status in 2003 and is part of EMERIO, an NTT Communications company. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Singapore, EMERIO has evolved and grown as an Award-winning provider for Application, Infrastructure and Professional services. Currently Emerio has 2,200+ employees across 11 countries with delivery centres in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160623/8521604134

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[June 23, 2016] iZotope Secures $7.5 Million in New Financing to Fuel Expansion of Audio Technology Products

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- iZotope, Inc., makers of award-winning tools for audio production, today announced $7.5 million in new financing comprised of equity and debt. The $2.5 million Series B round was led by existing investor ABS Capital Partners, a leading investor in later-stage growth companies, with participation from individual investors. The new investment also includes a $5 million debt facility from Comerica Bank. The funds will be used to support the company's continued growth and to accelerate the launch of a groundbreaking new offering. The new product line taps into the potential of modern technologies to enhance the creative experience, providing musicians with unique hardware, mobile and cloud-enabled features not currently available in the market. Building on iZotope's tradition of industry leadership, the new line will change the way musicians create, record and collaborate on their music. "At iZotope, we're committed to expanding the possibilities of audio technology," comments Mark Ethier, CEO and co-founder of iZotope. "We value ABS Capital's continued confidence in our ambitious product plans, and we can't wait to show the world what's next." "iZotope has proven its value to the market with its longstanding history of re-imagining traditional studio tools," said Laura Witt, general partner, ABS Capital Partners. "We are pleased to continue to support the company's strong growth and look forward to seeing both existing and new customers embrace iZotope's innovative product offerings." Founded in 2001, iZotope secured its first $12 million round of funding from ABS Capitalin 2013, marking the beginning of the company's accelerated growth initiatives. This brings the total amount of venture funding to $14.5 million, and total capital of $19.5 million with the debt facility included.



iZotope's current product portfolio is composed of industry-leading solutions for audio creation, repair, mixing and mastering. It recently launched VocalSynth, the first ever plug-in to bring together four advanced vocal engines  Vocoder, Polyvoice, Compuvox, and Talkbox  alongside specialized vocal effects and pitch correction. To learn more about this and other product innovations, including iZotope's Emmy Award-winning RX solution, visit: https://www.izotope.com/en/products.html. ABOUT iZOTOPE

Driven by a passion for audio, iZotope develops innovative products that inspire and enable people to be creative. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the iZotope team has spent over 15 years developing award-winning audio production tools found in professional facilities and home studios alike. The iZotope product line focuses on Music Production, with solutions for mixing, mastering, and creative effects, and Audio Post Production, with tools that enhance audio for film, broadcast, video, and new media. Alongside the development of studio software, iZotope incubates bleeding-edge audio technology for future release and develops rich audio education to help enthusiasts and professionals alike improve their craft. www.izotope.com

ABOUT ABS CAPITAL

For over 25 years, ABS Capital has been investing in later-stage growth companies, helping CEOs capitalize on new opportunities and navigate unforeseen obstacles  while never losing sight of the ultimate goal of achieving lasting excellence. Our partners have decades of experience as C-level executives, investment bankers and investors in the industries we invest in: business and education services, information and communications technology, and health care. This combination of experience and expertise means we have a laser-focus on the specific needs growth companies face as they look to get to the next level. By helping to transform over 115 companies through their most important stage of development, ABS continues to help unleash the potential for lasting growth. ABS Capital Partners. Here, we grow. For more information, visit www.abscapital.com. ABOUT COMERICA BANK'S TECHNOLOGY AND LIFE SCIENCES DIVISION

Comerica Bank's Technology and Life Sciences Division is one of the nation's leading technology banking practices, offering a wide range of financial services tailored to corporate customers, entrepreneurs and professionals. Veteran bankers provide credit and financial services and products to young, growing, venture backed technology and life sciences companies, as well as their more mature counterparts. The Technology and Life Sciences Division serves all major U.S. technology centers from offices coast-to-coast and its headquarters in Palo Alto, California as well as an office in Toronto, Canada. Comerica Bank is a subsidiary of Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA), a financial services company that is among the 25 largest U.S. banking companies. For more information, visit www.comerica.com.

Media Contact: Laura Paine: InkHouse for iZotope: (781) 966-4124 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382649LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/izotope-secures-75-million-in-new-financing-to-fuel-expansion-of-audio-technology-products-300289187.html SOURCE iZotope, Inc.

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[June 23, 2016] Foulston Siefkin LLP Selects Advanced Discovery for eDiscovery Managed Services

AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Largest law firm in Kansas signs multi-year subscription for Electronic Discovery Managed Services International eDiscovery services provider Advanced Discovery announced today that Foulston Siefkin LLP, the largest law firm in Kansas, has selected it for the provision of managed eDiscovery services. For a fixed, monthly fee, Advanced Discovery will provide Foulston and its clients with a Relativity environment, user licenses, and project management support, as well as preferred pricing for all other services. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/356399LOGO )

"Foulston is a diverse and rapidly growing firm that it's our privilege to support," says Todd Deaton, Vice President of Business Development for Advanced Discovery. "We are excited to be partnering with them now to ensure they and their clients will receive quality services at competitive prices ." Michael J. Norton, Commercial Litigation Practice Group Leader, had this to say: The legal market is shifting, and regional firms like ours are rapidly becoming the preferred solution for companies facing growing legal challenges and shrinking legal budgets. Partnering with Advanced Discovery for eDiscovery supports our goal of delivering world-class srvices to our clients at predictable, competitive prices.



Rick Hutchinson, Chief Operating Officer for Advanced Discovery, had this to say: Foulston has long been focused on delivering maximum value to their clients and leveraging technology, where possible, to do so. Advanced Discovery is honored to be selected as their partner in this continuing mission. Our managed services solution, powered by our tools and processes, will save Foulston and its clients time and money.

For more information about Foulston Siefkin LLP, please contact Matt Knoblauch, Chief Marketing Officer, at +1-316-291-9789 or [email protected] . For more information about Advanced Discovery's managed services solutions, please contact Andreas Mueller, Vice President of Forensic Services, at +1-617-895-6615 or [email protected] . About Foulston Siefkin LLP Foulston Siefkin traces its origins from 1919, when founders Robert C. Foulston and George L. Siefkin began their law practice in Wichita. Now with more than 90 attorneys in three Kansas offices, Foulston Siefkin is honored to represent a diverse client base ranging from individuals and emerging businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Our representative clients mirror the Kansas economy in the aerospace, agribusiness, construction, energy, education, financial, health care, manufacturing, retail, real estate, and technology sectors. Since our firm is based in Kansas, our clients benefit from a lower cost basis that can lead to a more personal, cost-effective, efficient, higher-value delivery of legal services. We're proud to have our roots and our future in Kansas. About Advanced Discovery Advanced Discovery is an award-winning, end-to-end eDiscovery services and software provider, supporting law firms and corporations since 2002. Advanced Discovery offers project planning and budgeting, data preservation and forensic collection, early case assessment, hosted review, managed document review, and more from its numerous state-of-the-art facilities across the country. The company employs leading professionals in the industry, applies defensible workflows, and provides industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery lifecycle. This devotion to excellence has earned Advanced Discovery inclusion on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the US four consecutive years and recognition as a top provider by Legal Times, Texas' Best and other publications. More information is available at http://www.advanceddiscovery.com.

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[June 23, 2016] Aflac Selects Mphasis Wyde to Implement Wynsure Solutions

BLOOMINGTON, Minn., June 23, 2016 /CNW/ -- Mphasis Wyde, a leading international provider of Policy Administration Solutions (PAS), today announced the implementation of Wynsure solutions for Aflac, the leading provider of voluntary insurance at the worksite in the United States. Wynsure will offer end-to-end capabilities to administer Aflac's core group business line, with an initial focus on life, accident and critical illness products. As part of the agreement, Mphasis Wyde offers all components of the Wynsure platform, including support, infrastructure, training and data conversion facilities. Beyond the technology partnership, Aflac was also inducted into the Wynsure Product Advisory Board known as "Wyde Guides," demonstrating their mutual commitment for long-term success. Wynsure is a software product with core focus in the group and voluntary benefits markets. Wynsure offers a host of policy administration services, including group case setup, member enrollment, medical underwriting, endorsements and amendments, claims for individual plans and taxes for disability products, renewals, invoicing and commission handling. With Aflac's objectives of system modernization and business transformation, Wynsure will improve operational capabilities to lower operational costs and improve productivity. "We are excited to have Aflac on board as one of our key customers," said Rajesh Makhija, CEO of Mphasis Wyde. "As the leading provider of financial protection to more than 50 million people around the world, Aflac undoubtedly has the industry's best innovations in the insurace, life and health categories in the United States. It gives us great pleasure to partner with an industry leader to be a key enabler of their future successes."



"As the leading provider of voluntary insurance in the United States, we strive for excellence in all that we do on behalf of our policyholders and accounts," said Julia Davis, senior vice president, chief information officer at Aflac. "With Mphasis Wyde, Aflac can better provide the best-in-class services and solutions our valued customers depend on by infusing innovative technological services." Wynsure, an Mphasis Wyde flagship product, is an industry-leading insurance Policy Administration Solution used by many of the leading insurance carriers in North America and Europe. It is a premier platform with multiline support, which offers technology solutions for the entire insurance industry, making the customer more agile and flexible. Wynsure offers multiple deployment options, including traditional on-premises licensing, hosted and cloud models.

About Mphasis Wyde

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a modern research and development center in Paris, France, and an office in Toronto, Canada; Mphasis Wyde has deployed Wynsure, a proven software platform, at many of the leading insurance carriers in North America and Europe. Wynsure is a multi-language, multi-currency, easily customizable software product that offers policy administration, claims and billing solutions across life and annuities, disability, health, and property and casualty insurance. Wynsure can be deployed at an insurance carrier for one or multiple lines of business as a complete end-to-end solution. Mphasis Wyde has over 200 employees who possess significant domain expertise. To learn more about Wynsure, visit www.wynsure.com. About Mphasis

Mphasis (an HP Enterprise Company) enables chosen customers to meet the demands of an evolving marketplace. Recently named by American Banker and BAI as one of the top companies in FinTech and as the "Most Distinguished Digital Company in 2015" by The Economic Times, Mphasis fuels this by combining superior human capital with cutting edge solutions in hyper-specialized areas. Contact Mphasis on www.mphasis.com. Our Social Media Channels

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MphasiSOfficial

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/mphasis

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/mphasis

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/MphasisOfficial SOURCE Mphasis

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[June 23, 2016] Wayne Cooper Joins Board of Advisors of Recruiter.com

FARMINGTON, Conn., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Recruiter.com, an online global recruiting and career service, today welcomes Wayne Cooper to its board of advisors. Miles Jennings, CEO of Recruiter.com, said "Wayne Cooper is an exceptionally talented business person that we are proud to add to our advisory board. He not only has decades of operational and financial experience, but specific work in the recruitment sector. Wayne built up Kennedy Information into a very strong business and its "Red Book" of recruiters into the largest directory of its kind in the world before eventually selling the business to BNA. His experience, network, and advice will be invaluable to our company as we expand." About Recruiter.com, Wayne Cooper said, "I'm excited to help Recruiter take a leadership role in the employment ecosystem and build strategic value for the business. With an incredible network, wealth of career and recruiting content, and cutting edge technology platform, Recruiter is uniquely positioned in the marketplace. Recruiter's Job Market platform makes sourcing candidates from thousands of recruiters friction-less." Wayne is currently Chairman of Chief Executive Group, which publishes Chief Executive magazine and operates the Chief Executive Network and Senior Executive Network, as well as the Chairman of < rel="nofollow" href="https://bongarde.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Bongarde Media. He was also the Chairman of Pyramid Research, a company Greenhaven acquired from the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2001, turned around and sold to United Business Media in September 2008 for a 10x increase in equity value.



He served as CEO of Kennedy Information, which offered the Red Book of recruiters, from 1996 through 2003; as CEO, he grew the company by over 650% during his tenure and orchestrated the sale of the company to The Bureau of National Affairs for a 30x increase in shareholder value. He was also the Chairman and CEO of Vizium, a marketing services company founded by Greenhaven Partners and sold to Carat Worldwide. Prior to Greenhaven, Wayne was a consultant with Bain & Company and Monitor Company in Boston, London, Milan and California (working with leading corporations to improve their strategies and business performance) and managed Monitor's L.A. office and expansion to Korea. Before that he worked at Goldman Sachs and The World Bank.

He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Stanford University. Wayne is the past Chairman and President of the Specialty Information Publishers Association (SIPA). He also serves on the boards of several civic non-profit organizations, and is an active member of Young President's Organization, AIPAC and various organizations that promote tolerance education throughout the world. About Recruiter.com Recruiter.com, Inc., is an online global recruiting service that offers an industry-leading job market technology platform. With a highly engaged membership base, Recruiter.com works with hundreds of clients and employers and manages a social media following of more than 2.8 million people. Recruiter.com was voted Top Tech Company to Watch in 2014 by the Connecticut Technology Council, cited as one of the Top 35 Most Influential Career Sites in 2014 by Forbes and listed by Inc. as one of the 9 Best Websites for Finding Top Talent. The career, HR, and recruiting experts of Recruiter.com have been cited and featured in hundreds of sites and publications, including: Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Mashable, Business Insider, Inc., Fox Small Business, Time, The Next Web, Yahoo Small Business, US News, Business2Community, Bloomberg and SmartBrief. Visit https://www.recruiter.com or follow Recruiter on Twitter @RecruiterDotCom. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wayne-cooper-joins-board-of-advisors-of-recruitercom-300289630.html SOURCE Recruiter.com, Inc.

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What you need to know about Colts starting quarterback Sam Ehlinger
Volunteer walks in honor of her husband Thousand Oaks resident Joan Hull will be among those participating in this years Conejo Valley Walk to End Alzheimers at 9 a.m. Sat., Oct. 22 at the Westlake Promenade. Hull...

Overpass could get protective fencing A substantial safety upgrade for the areas most notorious overpass is finally getting some Caltrans considerationbut dont expect changes any time soon. At the Sept. 21 Moorpark City Council meeting,...

Early detection is the best way to survive breast cancer Every October, we celebrate those men and women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. But what is breast cancer and how can it be diagnosed and managed? There are...
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Weve been waiting on the Aussie rock episode of Play School for some time now, but according to reports, the celebrations for the ABCs iconic childrens programs 50th anniversary are even bigger than that.

As The Music reports, in addition to appearances from Dan Sultan, Bernard Fanning, and You Am I, Play School will play host to a series of Celebrity Covers next month, which will see famous musos and personalities perform or read a story on the show.

Adam Goodes, Annabel Crab, Leigh Sales, Architecture in Helsinki, Benita Collings, Don Spencer, Carrie Bickmore, Costa Georgiadis, Dami Im, Delta Goodrem, Emma Wiggle, and Guy Sebastian are just a few set to appear.

Molly Meldrum will also be tackling his toughest interview subject since Prince Charles when he goes one on one with Humpty Dumpty. Apparently, Meldrum sported a bit of the old flop sweat when questioning Humpty about climbing ladders.
TKC TOLD YOU SO!!! THIS HORSE SLAPPING HOT MESS IN KANSAS CITY EXEMPLIFIES THE DIVISIVE DISCOURSE OF THIS TRUMP ELECTION YEAR!!!

From A KC Power Player Picking Up National NY Daily News: Kansas City cops arrest woman suspected of hitting Dan the police horse during Donald Trump protest





Suggested By Super Dave: Gateway Pundit Takes On The Horse Slapper





Conservative Outlet Breitbart: Charged with Hitting Police Horse in Kansas City

NATIONAL MEDIA AND CONSERVATIVE SITES ARE GOING CRAZY ABOUT THE POLITICS OF KANSAS CITY HORSE SLAPPING AND THE CONVERSATION STARTED RIGHT HERE @ TKC!!!

The topic of alleged animal cruelty and recent Kansas City political confrontation against leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has now gripped the nation.Too wit . . .Our brighter TKC blog community readers suggest these links from bigger media outlets now taking to the story in the slap heard around the world . . .To wit . . .Developing . . .
Committee Applauds Actions by Democratic Congressmen

Like it or not, the locals are united in strident support for gun law reform. Here's what one of the most active Kansas City metro groups has to say about it:Fresh off the biggest mass shooting in American history, many Democratic members of Congress took to dramatic action drawing attention to the historic inaction of that body in addressing common sense gun policy. Led by Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a large number of officials staged a sit-in on the floor of the House to protest the lack of action from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who is refusing to allow a vote on any gun legislation. One proposed measure would simply restrict potential terrorists who are on the "no fly list" from purchasing firearms. Sadly, if such legislation existed, the tragedy in Orlando may have been prevented.Our own Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City joined the demonstration early and remarked, "if you are too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun," which is a sentiment held by an overwhelming majority of gun owners (82% according to the New England Journal of Medicine). As their actions drew more attention, they were joined by many members of the Senate including Missouri's Claire McCaskill.Jackson County Democratic Chairman Tom Wyrsch says this about today's actions: "Not having the guts to hold a vote on such common sense legislation is an incredible sign of weakness made even worse when Speaker Ryan cut off the live television broadcast in an attempt to keep voters from seeing the demonstration. The people demand action, not silence."While the feed of C-SPAN was cut under orders of Speaker Ryan, members of Congress streamed the sit-in and speeches for hours through social media outlets. Among those who spoke passionately about getting a vote included former Jackson County Truman Gala guests Rep. Lacy Clay of St. Louis and Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona.The Jackson County Democratic Committee along with millions of concerned citizens across the nation think we are owed some kind of action to prevent another mass shooting from happening. The people overwhelmingly support keeping weapons out of the hands of our enemies as well as expanding background checks. For the safety of their own citizens, our elected officials must act.###You decide . . .
Chief executive of Lamda Development: The Hellinikon project will begin with a liquidation of the whole area of 6,200 stremmata (one stremma=1,000 sq.m.) and that in the next six or nine months the area will be ready for reconstruction works

"We are ready to begin the biggest project of joint reconstruction in Europe and one of the biggest worldwide. Bulldozers will be ready to begin works in the former airport of Hellinikon from the beginning of next year, in less than seven months, right after the Parliament gives the green light and the State Council approves the master plan of the project," Odysseas Athanasiou, chief executive of Lamda Development told AMNA on Wednesday.

"In the meantime, the consortium is willing to offer any information and help, in asked, in order to get the project started the soonest possible," Athanasiou said, adding that international and Greek companies have drafted surveys covering every aspect of the project: environmental, economic, social, etc, at a cost of more than 10 million euros. He noted that the project will begin with a liquidation of the whole area of 6,200 stremmata (one stremma=1,000 sq.m.) and that in the next six or nine months the area will be ready for reconstruction works, with the first in line creating the largest seaside park in Europe, covering 2,000 stremmata, one of the largest in the world. He stressed that the beginning of works would signal the support of sectors heavily hit by the crisis, such as construction, cement, steel, aluminium, suppliers and transportation.

Athanasiou said that at the same time, works will begin to fully upgrade the seaside area, the marina and construction of five hotels -one seven-star hotel (the only one in Greece) resembling a boat with a capacity of 250 beds, while the other four hotels will have a capacity of at least 2,200 beds. The hotels will operate around the year, creating at least 5,500 new job positions. Lamda Development will also build a landmark building for Greece and Europe, with around 200 apartments. The project also envisaged construction of an aquarium -the biggest one in Europe.

These projects are expected to be delivered in five years, he said. Athanasiou said construction of a shopping mall will create around 4,500 new job positions, another 2,000 for the construction and operation of an international medical center and another 2,500 for the construction of an international university center.

He said that the project will a very low average building rate, less than 0.5 with a less than 30 pct coverage. The contribution of the project will be decisive for the future of Athens and the country as it is expected to attract more than one million tourists.

Athanasiou said the biggest part of the project is expected to be completed in 12 years with the construction of 8,000 homes. He noted that the Greek state will have more than 13.5 billion euros in revenue during the 25-year investment activity of the project.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
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Al Zamil real estate group, one of the arms of the Zamil Group, has signed an agreement with hospitality chain Swiss International for a new hotel at Al Qassim Touristic City project in Saudi Arabia.



Al Zamil real estate group develops residential communities and office commercial properties in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.



The signing ceremony took place at the Governors Palace in the presence of Prince Faisal bin Mishaal bin Saud, the Governor of the Al Qassim region.



The Al Qassim touristic project, is spread over an area of 95,000 sq m, is said to be the biggest of its kind in the Al Qassim region. Al Qassim province is known for its rich heritage, nature and traditional crafts. Furthermore, its geographic location has made it a hub of diverse cultures and a variety of festivals.

The Swiss International Al Qassim touristic project will offer:

135 rooms

Restaurants: Swiss Cafe  restaurant and lounge, Grill room, Mediterranean restaurant

Banquet hall, with a capacity of 1,000 persons

One tennis court

Conference rooms

Children's entertainment centre

With Swiss International carrying four hotels brands - Royal Swiss (luxury), Swiss International Hotels & Resorts (upscale), Swiss Spirit Hotels & Suites (mid-market) and Yes Inn (economy) - and its associated concepts under its umbrella, the company will be able to reach its expansion objective of having 150 hotels globally by 2020. - TradeArabia News Service
Chinese companies invested nearly $15 billion in countries participating in Beijing's new Silk Road initiative last year, up one-fifth from 2014, President Xi Jinping said in Uzbekistan, lauding a scheme that is one of his key foreign policies.



Under the programme, announced by Xi in 2013, and also known as the "One Belt, One Road" programme, China aims to invest in infrastructure projects including railways and power grids in central, west and southern Asia, as well as Africa and Europe.



China has dedicated $40 billion to a Silk Road Fund and the idea was the driving force behind the establishment of the $50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.



In comments carried by state media late on Wednesday, Xi said China's trade with countries participating in the new Silk Road exceeded $1 trillion in 2015, accounting for a quarter of its total foreign trade.



"The Belt and Road Initiative's primary planning and deployment has been completed and is now stepping onto the stage of taking root and intensive cultivation for sustained development," Xi told the Uzbek parliament.



Regions like the Balkans and Central Asia are key to the project, the government has said. Xi's trip to Uzbekistan followed trips to Serbia and Poland.



The initiative envisages the revival of the ancient Silk Road routes from China to Europe to open new trade markets for its firms as the domestic market slows.



Forty nine countries along the economic corridor invested $8.2 billion in China in 2015, up 25 percent, Xi said, adding that over 70 countries and international organizations have taken part in the initiative.



Xi will also attend a meeting in Uzbek capital Tashkent of the Chinese and Russia-lead Shanghai Cooperation Organisation security bloc.



China has long been concerned at links between Islamist militants in Central Asia and those Beijing accuses of promoting separatism in the violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang.



State media said China and Uzbekistan had agreed to deepen their counter-terrorism cooperation, and ensure the safety of pipelines into China from Central Asia which are vital for Chinese energy security.



"China and Uzbekistan share concerns about terrorism, with extremists in the two countries sometimes conspiring together," the official China Daily said on Thursday, noting extremists had been know to enter Xinjiang from Uzbekistan.  Reuters
A gunman took hostages at a cinema in western Germany on Thursday before police shot him dead, a police spokesman told the N-TV television channel, adding that no other people were injured.



German television showed pictures of heavily armed police, wearing helmets and body armour, storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim and a couple fleeing the building.



German media said earlier that the masked man had opened fire at the cinema complex in the small town near Frankfurt.



Police shot the man dead after elite forces stormed the complex, the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper reported, citing the interior minister of Hesse state. The man was described as "disturbed".



Bild daily said that according to police about 25 people had been exposed to tear gas.-Reuters
Science fiction often speculates about robots that are virtually indistinguishable from humans. However, while there are examples of humanoid robots being developed, the majority of robots will not take after their creators, says GlobalData.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince on Wednesday and the pair discussed improving civilian protection in Yemen, after a UN report had briefly blacklisted a Saudi-led coalition.



Ban removed the coalition from the blacklist earlier this month pending review after Riyadh, a major UN donor.



When asked on his way into the meeting if he was still upset with Ban, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is in New York for business meetings after visiting Washington and the US West Coast, said: "I'm not angry."



An official UN statement said Ban and Prince Mohammed discussed "putting into place concrete measures that could improve the situation on the ground" to better protect children and civilians in Yemen.



"The Secretary-General expressed the hope that by the time he presents the Children and Armed Conflict report to the Security Council in August, he could point to progress on the protection of children and civilians in Yemen," it said.



Saudi UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi described the meeting as excellent.



"The focus was on international issues, especially the issues of the region and there was broad agreement on virtually everything that was discussed," Mouallimi told reporters.



He said Ban and Saudi Arabia were both optimistic about peace talks in Kuwait between the government and Houthis, which have dragged on for two months with few concrete results.  Reuters
Oil markets are improving as supply and demand are almost balancing, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said in comments aired on Thursday.

"We see that the market has returned into balance. Supply and demand are almost equal," Khalid Al Falih told Saudi-owned Arabiya television.

"The markets have started to improve in response to this balance," he said.

Falih is in the US accompanying Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a visit aimed at repairing frayed relations with Washington and to promote an economic transformation plan to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil. --Reuters
Valentino owners, the Qatari Mayhoola investment fund, are set to acquire the French luxury fashion label Balmain this week for more than 460 million euros ($522 million), three sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter said.



The deal, which could be announced later in the day, marks the end of months of negotiations between the Qataris and Balmain investors, who include Sanofi co-founder Jean-Francois Dehecq and the family of former chief executive and controlling shareholder Alain Hivelin, who died in 2014 at the age of 71.



Hivelin revived Balmain, which was near bankruptcy in 2004, by hiring gifted designers and turning it into one of France's biggest success stories.



Balmain, known for its pricey embroidered military-style jackets, is one of the country's last few remaining major independent fashion labels along with Lanvin and Hermes.



Under the terms of the agreement, Mayhoola agreed to finance Balmain's international expansion as well as the development of an accessories line.



Balmain declined to comment. Mayhoola also declined to comment.



Balmain is mainly a wholesale business with fewer than 10 flagships stores around the world.



The brand has been enjoying phenomenal success, first under the designer Christophe Decarnin from 2006 to 2011 and then under Olivier Rousteing who became one of the fashion industry's youngest creative directors at the age of 25.



Balmain generated some 130 million euros in sales in 2015, the sources said and enjoyed sales growth of some 25 per cent - a stellar performance in light of the luxury goods downturn.



Rousteing's active role in social media has been instrumental in boosting the brand's profile. The designer boasts more than 3 million followers on Instagram and regularly posts photos of his jet-set lifestyle and Balmain events, attended by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian.



When Rousteing designed a collection for the fast-fashion retailer H&M last year, his clothes sold out nearly instantly, triggering a frenzy unseen in previous H&M designer collaborations.



In some cities such as Seoul, hopeful buyers slept on the pavement in front of the H&M store.-Reuters



After Hivelin died, Emmanuel Diemoz, who was Balmain's finance director, became chief executive and Dehecq chairman. Dehecq is expected to resign from his post while Diemoz should remain in the executive seat for some time after the deal, the sources said.



The final price, which is unlikely to be disclosed, will depend on how much cash the existing shareholders will take out of the company.-Reuters
With the International Air Transport Association projecting Middle East passengers to grow by 4.9 per cent per year to 2034, the GCC is fuelling $100 billion in airport expansion and construction projects in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE, according to industry experts.



Comfortable airport terminals will be key for growing the number of passengers in the GCC, stated Hunter Douglas, the international airport consultancy based in The Netherlands.



Hunter Douglas has advised many of the worlds leading airports, including Brussels Airport in Belgium, Dusseldorf Airport and Frankfurt Airport in Germany, Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport and Wroclaw Airport in Poland, Madeira Airport in Spain, and Manchester Airport Terminal 1 in the UK.



Dubai International Airport is the worlds busiest international airport, and Al Maktoum International Airport is set to have one of the worlds largest capacities at 160 million annual passengers.



Abu Dhabi International Airport is set to reach 40 million passengers by 2017 with the new Midfield Terminal.



"As Middle East airports expand, aesthetic and acoustic considerations are vital for growing passenger numbers, and providing a high-quality traveller experience, whether waiting, dining, or shopping," remarked Mohamed Nawarah, the country manager (Saudi Arabia) at Hunter Douglas.



"Good acoustics are essential for a serene airport atmosphere, such as by reducing loudspeaker sound, and perforated ceilings to minimise the noise of people talking or walking," stated Nawarah.



According to him, the company's main focus is on minimising environmental impact and waste flows is a vital part of the development, production, distribution, servicing and reuse of each product.



At Brussels Airport, it has made use of Connector, an above-ground building connecting Piers A and B, which replaced a dark route through stairs, escalators, and elevators.



The Connector allows departing passengers to walk straight from the check-in desk to their gate, and arriving passengers to easily walk to the baggage reclaim hall and exit. Connector also hosts Europes largest screening platform with 25 lanes.



"Connectors curved, customised Hunter Douglas 300C series ceiling, which is perforated and has an acoustic membrane, meets aesthetic and acoustic requirements by absorbing the sounds of airplanes and the granite floor,' explained Nawarah.



While people inside the transparent building can see the planes, they do not hear them, he stated.



The detachable ceiling also conceals the lighting and sprinkler systems for easy maintenance work.



Erwin Persoons, an architect at the international agency CTHM, said: "The shell-like roof structure naturally raises the ceiling little by little, so that the passengers can get used to the open space without being overwhelmed by it."



"The curved shape of the ceiling does make it really difficult to realise good acoustics, though sounds are reflected in all kinds of different directions. This is why the sound-absorbing capacity of the material is extra important," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
SR Technics, a leading MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) service provider, has signed a five year extension on its maintenance cooperation agreement in Malta with easyJet.



The contract will commence October 2016, and SR Technics will perform base and heavy maintenance along with cabin retrofits for easyJets narrow-body aircraft in Malta. In parallel, SR Technics will perform a stand-alone line of cabin retrofits over a two-year period.



SR Technics opened its facility in Malta six years ago following a landmark contract with the carrier in late 2009. The latest contract extension reinforces the strategic partnership between the two companies, ensuring operational quality and cost effectiveness on a long-term basis.



We are happy to extend our partnership with easyJet in Malta, said Jeremy Remacha, SR Technicss interim CEO. This agreement shows that our strategy in Malta is on the right course contributing to easyJets success. Our teams are committed to provide outstanding levels of safety, quality and reliability, and to delivering aircraft on schedule. We look forward to supporting easyJet in the years to come.



Ian Davies, head of engineering and maintenance for easyJet, said: "We are delighted to extend our well-established partnership with SR Technics with the award of this five year deal. We have selected SR Technics Malta due to the quality of their work and standards in terms of safety, quality and efficiency. We look forward to working with them in the coming years.



SR Technics presently operates a two-bay hangar at Malta International Airport delivering the premium MRO services that it is renowned for worldwide. The company presently employs 180 people and will expand into a three-bay facility, increasing its total number of employees in the coming months. - TradeArabia News Service
Beijing, June 23

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today began his five-day China visit by meeting top Chinese bankers and wealth fund managers pitching for more investments in Indias infrastructure sector.

Soon after his arrival in Beijing, Jaitley met Bank of China chairman Tian Guoli and addressed a closed roundtable meeting of heads of sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors and banks.

The Finance Minister will tomorrow address Business Forum Invest in India in which several Chinese businessmen and heads of state-run firms were expected to take part.

On June 25, Jaitley will attend the Board Governors meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India is the second largest investor after China. India is the second largest shareholder with 7.5% followed by Russia 5.93% and Germany 4.5%.

In all, 57 countries have joined as founding members of the bank, which is expected to announce the first set of loans in various countries.

On Sunday, he would take part in a seminar discussion Infrastructure and Global Economic Growth along with Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, Pierre Egide Gramegna, Minister of Finance, Luxembourg, Imad Najib Fakhoury, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Jordan, Jin Liqun, AIIB President, Chris Heathcote, CEO, Global Infrastructure Hub.  PTI
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, June 23

A young ice-cream vendor was stabbed to death allegedly by three unidentified bike riders following a brawl in Sector 2 late last night. The assailants are at large.

The deceased has been identified as Bimal Kishore (25), a resident of Maheshpur in Panchkula. The police said the reason behind the incident could not be established as all three were on the run and Kishore had died before the police could talk to him.

According to the police, the incident occurred at 12.15 am when the ice-cream vendor was heading home after work. Three bike riders approached him and they had a brawl over some issue at Sector 2 after which, Kishore was repeatedly stabbed by the trio.

A car driver, who was passing by, raised the alarm following which the assailants tried to run away. The eyewitness tried to chase them in his vehicle, but they managed to speed away. The victim was rushed to the Civil Hospital, Sector 6, where he was declared dead.

The deceased hailed from Unnao and his body was handed over to the family.
Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 23

Special children in the city have a reason to cheer! Now, they will be imparted quality education on the doorstep, that too free of cost. Chandigarh today got Indias second school for mentally and physically challenged children.

The brainchild of UT Deputy Commissioner Ajit Balaji Joshi and his wife Gauri Prashar Joshi, Director, Haryana Tourism, the mobile school, christened Kalam Express, was launched by Punjab and Haryana Governor-cum-UT Administrator Kaptan Singh Solanki here this evening.

The first such school was launched by the Joshi couple in Jind where Joshi was the DC and Gauri the ADC last year. Since then, 200 special children have enrolled at the Jind school.

Here, in the first go, we will cover 193 kids and we will start the second such school on wheels within two months, Joshi told Chandigarh Tribune, while disclosing that the school would work for six days a week and focus on slum areas in the city.

The mobile school has been equipped with therapy equipment and educational toys. It will be supervised by a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist while special educators and caregivers will educate and take care of the students.

Sharing the project expenditure, the DC disclosed that Rs 10 lakh was the estimated capital cost of the project while the recurring cost would involve fuel and establishment expenditure, which would be borne by the UT Red Cross Society.

At present, we have used an old Red Cross vehicle for launching the mobile educational-cum-rehabilitation unit, but we will buy a new vehicle for the second school on wheels, Joshi said.

Speaking on the occasion, Solanki said the unit would cover special children in peripheral slums and rural and rehabilitation colonies. A team of physiotherapist and special educators has been appointed to help these children on the doorstep. He said children with special needs, who could not commute to schools for attaining education, would be covered under home-based education.
Harish Khare

Dear Dr Swamy,

I hope you would not allow yourself to get disheartened by all the noise that friends of the Finance Minister have managed to make in the media over your very simple and very legitimate demand that Arvind Subramanian be sacked as the government's Chief Economic Adviser. One newspaper even ebulliently called Arun Jaitleys formulation as full-throated support for the CEA. You are too much of a master of guerrilla tactics to get slowed down by, or even care for, the sniping in the media.

It is perhaps the tragedy of modern India that it is not appreciated that there is nothing personal in this for you. You are only performing your dharma, as becoming of a true nationalist. Your commitment to the nationalist cause and values is, unfortunately, sought to be rubbished as personal vendetta.

And, why should anyone quarrel with your innovative use of social media to make decisive interventions in our nations affairs. Single-handedly you have given a jolt to the Modi regime which was becoming too complacent and too smug, especially after the Americans false praise for the Prime Minister.

You have every right to give a fair warning that there are 27 other officials on your list who you think need to be fixed. This is too modest a figure, for a vast and Byzantine bureaucracy. About time we had a comprehensive purge. A revolution was promised in 2014; the people of India gave a mandate to usher in a Hindu revolution and to transform India. It is time to understand that genuine transformation is not a gentlemanly affair. This, you will agree, has always been our historical civilisational weakness. A revolution is not a picnic. It can be business as usual  not for the babus, not for the political class, and certainly not for the incompetent entrepreneur who has been merrily multiplying his wealth through this bogus mechanism called the PPP. A paradigm shift has to take place, at the very least. You are right in asking how are the Rajans and the Arvinds (Subramanian and Panagariya) different from the Montek Singh Ahluwalias and the C Rangarajans of the UPA days.

Your intervention, first with Raghuram Rajan and now with Arvind Subramanian, was way overdue. Despite all the exertions and contortions in the pink pages, you have effectively knocked Arvind Subramanian out of the RBI governorship stakes. Quite a coup. You must keep up your vigil and ensure that a Rajan is not replaced by another Rajan.

We are all familiar with teachings of Lenin and Mao on the art of revolution, and more importantly, on the need for periodic blood-letting. When societies undertake genuine change, heads get broken, reputations and careers destroyed. Revolution is not for the queasy ones. No Queensberry Rules; in fact, no rules whatsoever if the glorious objective is the greater glory for Mother India.

And, again, there is nothing personal.

I am sure you must be puzzled at the mental deficiencies within the Modi establishment. What a collection of second-rate individuals. So many time-servers have clawed their way back to the centre of things. If the muffassils  the Sangeet Soms and the Hukum Singhs  in western Uttar Pradesh can understand clearly what is to be done (and, mind you, that too without any familiarity with Lenin) and understand that you cannot make an omelette without breaking an egg  or smashing a few heads  why cannot this NRI crowd in Delhi get it?

It may perhaps be a slightly over-drawn parallel but do permit me to quote Clive James, the culture critic who once wrote, in a different context, that culture is a matter not of credentials, but only of intensity, and sometimes you will find things out from fans and buffs that you wont from a tenured professor. I think people like the Sangeet Soms and the Hukum Singhs have intensity. You have intensity and authenticity. The awakened Hindu cannot be asked to undertake all the sacrifices and street fights only to hand over the policy-making baton to the smoothies in Delhi. And, they try to demonise you for showing the chutzpah to point out the mismatch between western UP and South Delhi.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd)

This exaggerated commotion over your demand for the sacking of Arvind Subramanian only underlines the loneliness of your battle. And it is a long battle. Only the friends and patrons in the RSS and the VHP understand that you are a true nationalist, and that you are not easily taken in by the Bent and the Beautiful set that is slowly making a comeback in Delhi. The Jaitleys and the Ravi Shankar Prasads are good people, honourable men; but they are not interested in transforming India. They get easily unnerved at the thought of too much turmoil. They get paralysed at the thought of offending the sensitivities of the foreign investor.

You, on the other hand, have nothing to fear. You now have six years in the Rajya Sabha. There is nothing they can do to take that away from you. They cannot banish you out of Delhi. The highest parliamentary forum is your stage. Make full use of it, perform, scintillate, and you will be heard around the land.

Moreover, you are honest and comfortable with your austerity and audacity. It is too late in the day for you to trade in your views and prejudices for the creature comforts to which many of your comrades in the 2014 war room have succumbed.

You have a historic duty.

The BJP is once again in danger of becoming a roly-poly party, a cleaner version of the Congress Party, open to all, hospitable to every bent businessman, accommodative of every turncoat masquerading as intellectual. And, all of them going through the motion of singing full-throatedly raag darbari in praise of Modi.

They are easy and comfortable, collaborating in Narendra Modis authoritarian project. You, on the other hand, are too educated, too well-versed in history, too knowledgeable about the interplay of economic forces and geostrategic interests, to fall for these false posturings. Modis authoritarianism cannot be just a personal project; it has to serve the nationalist cause.

I think time has come when you should be in the Cabinet. And, not just in the Cabinet, but also be a member of the Cabinet Committee on Security. Because, you alone have the masterly understanding of global and regional forces to help Mother India navigate its way to glory.

The nationalist day has to come and you have to be the helmsman.

Regards and salutations.
Aftab Alam

AS the world commemorated yet another World Refugee Day on June 20, we are witnessing the world's gravest ever and largest refugee crisis. The number of people forced to leave their homes, fleeing wars, conflicts and persecution, is at an all-time high.

Imagine the entire population of Britain uprooted. According to latest Global Trends Report released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on June 20, at present there are approximately 65.3 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP), meaning that one in every 113 people on Earth is now a refugee, an IDP or an asylum-seeker. "If these 65.3 million persons were a nation, they would make up the 21st largest in the world," the report said. As per the UNHCR estimate on average, 24 people were displaced every minute of every day last year - or 34,000 people a day. Global displacement has roughly doubled since 1997, and risen by 50 per cent since 2011 alone - when the Syria war began.

Today the conflict in Syria continues to be the world's biggest producer of both refugees and internally displaced people, followed by ongoing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the UNHCR, Syria has produced 4 million refugees and 8 million internally displaced people this year alone. The prevailing condition in Somalia, Eritrea and Kosovo is also forcing people to look for new and safe lives elsewhere. The image of a drowned little lonely boy Aylan Kurdi from Syria washed up on a Turkish beach in last September has become the haunting symbol of the current international humanitarian crisis. Many more every day suffer and die in the dangerous journey they undertake in search of safety. According to the International Organisation for Migration, more than 3,770 migrants reportedly died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015. Those who survive and reach safely are often unaware of another cycle of miseries waiting to greet them upon their arrival. Many of them are detained. Their basic human rights are violated. They often face violence, persecution, torture and even xenophobic and racist attacks. Such incidents are on the rise and have become acceptable norms of behaviour in many states.

Women and girl refugees are exposed to sexual and other gender-based violence not only in their country of origin but throughout their displacement process and even in the country of refuge, reports Amnesty International. Women travelling alone or with children are the most vulnerable. Notwithstanding the gravity of the global displacement crisis and its wide coverage in the international media, it has failed to shake our collective consciousness, at least not in proportion to the scale of the crisis. Unfortunately, some of the richer states responsible for causing the crisis in the first place, instead of sharing the burden, are questioning the age-old principle of asylum and treating refugees as somebody else's problem. They are being treated as unwanted lot, job seekers and even projected as terrorists. This is immoral and breach of international legal obligations.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his report to the UN General Assembly on the large-scale movement of refugees and migrants admitted that despite bold efforts, responses to the huge movements of refugees and migrants have been inadequate. He emphasised on the "adoption of a global compact on responsibility-sharing that collectively ensures the human rights, safety and dignity of all refugees and migrants". If not tackled in time, the current refugee crisis will soon become unmanageable and assume dangerous proportions. The crisis cannot be solved without the collective involvement of all and sharing the burden --- whether it is giving legal protection or humanitarian assistance. Individual States cannot solve these issues. Displaced people are not only the responsibility of those States where they have arrived first because of geographical reasons. States situated in other parts of the world must contribute equitably, taking into account their differing financial and material capacities. Unfortunately, many countries are still shying away from responsibilities. The forthcoming high-level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the issue of large movements of refugees and migrants, to be held on September 19, 2016, is a step in right direction.

The writer is a Professor of Political Science at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.
Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Mahendragarh, June 23

Deputy Commissioner Sanjeev Verma has recommended action against a private firm, Om Minerals, for illegal mining of gravel along the Krishnawati river at Bhadenti village in Nangal Choudhary tehsil.

An inquiry report prepared by the District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), Narnaul, revealed the firm caused losses amounting to several crores to the state exchequer by carrying out illegal gravel mining in collusion with officials of the Mining and Forest Department. The report also alleged tree felling on large scale by the firm.

The DC has reportedly written to the Mining and Forest Department to take stern action against guilty officials besides directing the Mining Officer to recover losses incurred by the state exchequer from the firm.

An inquiry was initiated on the basis of a complaint by the sarpanch of Bhedanti village, Hariram, about illegal gravel mining on large scale in an area not leased for mining along Krishnawati River.

Meanwhile, the DC assured that no guilty employee would be spared and stern action would be taken against them as per rules. Since illegal mining had been carried out on panchayat land, the DDPO has also been directed to act against those who failed to curb the illegal trade.
New Delhi, June 23

Accusing the BJP of cheating them on the issue of reservation, leaders of Jat organisations and Khap panchayats on Thursday said members of the community would vote against the party in next years assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

We have decided to shun the violent mode of protest and work for defeat of BJP in assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh as the party has cheated the Jats on reservation issue in Haryana, Choudhari Omvir Singh, founder of Vishwa Jat Manch, told reporters here.

Jats from Haryana will tour UP and Punjab and tell the voters there that BJP has cheated the community, he said.

The gathering of Jat leaders passed five resolutions, including one which demanded the Haryana government order a judicial inquiry into the violence during the February agitation by the community.

We demand a judicial probe into the violence allegedly by the Jats during the protests in the state by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. Jats were not involved in violence which occurred in the state as they were busy with their rail-roko agitation, he said.

The other demands included release of innocent Jats arrested in Haryana and reservation to the community under OBC category as has been done in UP, Rajasthan and other states where the community has a sizeable presence.

Singh said Jat organisations from Haryana, Delhi, UP and Delhi will demonstrate peacefully at Ramlila Gorund here on September 28 to force the BJP government in Haryana to immediately stop its work of dividing the people in the state on caste lines.

We are protesting against BJP because the party has not paid compensation to those killed in violence and scores of people who have been arrested have not been released, said SS Sandhu, president of Jat Aakashan Sangharsh Samiti.

We will ask the community to vote against the BJP but we will not ask for voting in favour of any particular party, Sandhu said.

At least 30 persons were killed in the violence during the Jat quota stir in Haryana in February.  PTI
Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, June 23

Various villages falling under 41 panchayats in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh Development Authority (BBNDA) will soon be illuminated with solar lights as the Ministry of Non-Renewable Energy, Government of India, has extended Rs 2.80 crore for the purpose.

The funds have been sanctioned under the Off-Grid Decentralised Solar Applications Programme aiming at promoting ecologically sustainable growth while addressing Indias energy securitychallenge. It is also an effort towards meeting the challenges of climate change and promoting solar energy use. Chief Executive Officer of the BBNDA Lalit Jain said they had mooted a proposal to seek funds under the programme. He added that the authority would also pool in Rs 28 lakh and they would ensure that at least 1,500 solar lights were installed at prominent places.

He said the work would begin soon as funds had already been received. Places which are prone to accidents or comprise dark areas will be lit up while some more are in the process of being identified in 41 panchayats. Panchayat representatives have been asked to ensure that the lights are not pilfered.

Jain said 10 high-mast lights had been placed in 10 prominent places in the BBN while 20 more would soon be installed in other crucial places as part of the authoritys Illuminate BBN Project.

He said at least 150 streetlights had been installed by various industries outside their premises as part of the corporate social responsibility.
Nepalese youth found dead in hotel room

Una, June 23

A Nepalese youth was found dead in a local hotel room here today.

The deceased has been identified as Yogesh Kumar, a resident of Baitadi district in Nepal. He used to sell flowers at the Chintpurni shrine.

According to the police sources, the deceased got injured a few days ago after falling from the stairs. He had hired a room in a local hotel for recuperating.

Late Thursday morning, the hotel staff knocked at the room door where Yogesh was staying, but he did not open the door, thereafter the hotel authorities informed the police. After force opening the door, Yogesh was found dead and pain killer tablets were recovered from his bed side. The body has been sent to the district hospital for a postmortem examination, said Una SP Anupam Sharma, adding a case had been registered. OC
Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 23

Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti today joined thousands of devotees who thronged the shrine of Baba Chamliyal near the international border in the Ramgarh sector of Samba district to observe the annual fair of the mystic saint.

Member of Parliament Jugal Kishore Sharma, Minister for Industries and Commerce Chander Parkash Ganga and Minister of State for Tourism Priya Sethi accompanied the Chief Minister.

Every year devotees from India and Pakistan converge on the border near the sanctum sanctorum to pay obeisance to Baba Chamliyal who holds great reverence for the people from both the countries for being a common saint of friends and foes.

While Pakistani Rangers offered chaddar for the shrine on behalf of the people of Sialkote, BSF and civil administration of Samba handed over shakkar and sharbat (holy soil and water) to Rangers for distribution among people on the other side of the border.

Felicitating the people on both sides of the border for exhibiting affectionate cultural bonding during the fair, Mehbooba said that Chamliyal village would be developed as a part of the governments initiative to promote border tourism in the state. She also pitched for opening new cross-border meeting points to expand people-to-people contact in the region.

Stressing the need for reviving the process of India-Pakistan reconciliation, Mehbooba said this was imperative for bringing peace in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond. We are working with the Government of India for opening Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur and some other roads to expand people-to-people contact, she said, adding that Suchetgarh had the potential of becoming J&Ks Wagah, as was envisioned by her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

She said in the long run Suchetgarh could become a trading point like Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh with the neighbouring country.

She called for highlighting cultural camaraderie that exists between the people of India and Pakistan. I wonder why cant such cultural bonhomie between the two neighbours become news when hostilities can, she said, adding that given its socio-religious significance Chamliyal could become the hub thenew movement for reconciliation in the region.

The Chief Minister said cultural affinity across the two regions is too strong to resist. I hope our good intentions are reciprocated by our neighbour, she said.

The Chief Minister said that like siblings locked in an endless rivalry, India and Pakistan have bickered for well over six decades. Transforming that rivalry into a mature, productive relationship will be difficult, but the consequences of continued animosity will be much worse, she said, adding that there was always a possibility of friendship between the two countries as both the cultures share a fondness for each other. The Chief Minister offered chaddar at the shrine of Baba Chamliyal.

Festival also celebrated in Pak for 3 days

Baba Chamliyal, after whom the village is named, lived about 320 years ago and is revered by the people of all faiths. The shrine is barely one and a half kilometres from the Zero Line. Up to 1971, Pakistani nationals were allowed to come to this side of the border to pay obeisance at the shrine and offer chaddar. However, after 1971 India-Pakistan war, the practice was stopped. Since then only a delegation of Pakistani Rangers comes and offers a chaddar and in return carry shakkar and sharbat from the shrine on Indian side for devotees in Pakistan. The festival is also celebrated by devotees for three days at Saidanwali village on the Pakistani side of the Zero Line. Baba Chamliyal Mela has become very popular since November 2003 following ceasefire and parallel peace initiatives by both India and Pakistan. Secretary Tourism, Farooq Ahmad Shah briefed the Chief Minister about the measures being taken by the Tourism Department to promote tourism in Jammu region.
Jammu, June 23

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday visited a well-known Sufi shrine near the border with Pakistan in Samba district.

The Chief Minister drove to the Baba Chambiyal shrine, whose annual Urs is being celebrated.

The Saint is revered in Pakistan too. Pakistan Rangers personnel come every year to the shrine to offer a "chaddar".

The Border Security Force offers the Rangers sweets on the occasion.

Mehbooba Mufti is the first chief minister to visit the shrine since militancy erupted in the state in 1989.  IANS
Ehsan Fazili

Tribune News Service

Srinagar & Anantnag, June 22

Around 34 per cent voters exercised their franchise today in the bypoll for the Anantnag constituency where Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is in the fray. The polling was held under tight security to fill the vacancy created following the death of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

The polling, held between 7 am and 6 pm, remained peaceful, said Shantamanu, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Jammu and Kashmir. Some complaints about the violation of the model code of conduct were received. These were examined and disposed of, he said.

Of the total 85,000 voters, 28,446 (33.84 per cent) cast their votes, including 15,384 male, 13,062 female and 638 migrant voters, the CEO said.

The polling was held amid tight security as separatist organisations had called for a boycott of the election. The town wore a deserted look as all shops and business establishments remained closed.

The polling went on peacefully it was more in rural areas as compared to the main town, said Anantnag Deputy Commissioner Syed Abdid Rashid Shah.

The byelection was scheduled to be held on May 16, but was postponed on the government plea as regards law and order situation. Later, it was scheduled for June 19, but the date was extended as it coincided with the death anniversary of Qazi Nissar, a religious leader from Anantnag.

Mehbooba visited a number of polling stations on the outskirts of Anantnag. She is pitted against candidates of the National Conference, Congress and five Independents.
V Ravi Shankar

THANK you, Indian Railways! It was May 28 this year, I had been detailed to attend a meeting in New Delhi at a very short notice. Having been brought up on a culture of speaking to somebody for any and everything, I was apprehensive when I did not get the reserved ticket. I was travelling from Hardwar to New Delhi. Since my unit operated the Passenger Reservation System (PRS), while proceeding, I spoke to the operator, who in turn spoke to the person concerned at Hardwar and confirmed the ticket.

The meeting over, I realised I had to return! It was a problem once I reached Delhi. There was not a single person I knew on my return journey and I had to reach the duty station on a Monday morning. My days of knowing the right persons had long been over (I had been posted to Delhi once, where I prided myself at knowing someone who could help).

Thats when someone told me about the Head Office (HO) quota. It is a small box kept outside the Rail Bhavan, where the CISF guard is posted. I was told it is religiously taken out and screened. Anyone who feels that it is impossible to get a confirmed ticket, makes a fervent plea, vide this little box. Invariably, the quota is allotted.

I had a hearty laugh. Maybe it is akin to presidential pardon, I thought! How can  in a country where for everything you need to know/speak to the right person  a simple application suffice? What the hell! I thought of giving it a try. As it is, my ticket was waitlisted at No. 9 on AC-1, and I knew it stood little chance of confirmation.

With great trepidation, I wrote out the application, and as luck would have it, I reached late that day. The box had already been taken out. My train was the day after. The next day, like a drowning man would clutch at a straw, I went and dropped it first thing in the morning.

Thereafter, on the hour, every hour, I kept checking the Internet. The ticket gradually came down from nine to four, to finally steady at two. When I had given up all hope, just before the chart was to be prepared, imagine my joy when I saw HO, CNF against my PNR status.

I was beyond myself with glee and would recommend the little box to anyone in Delhi who feels that his ticket needs to be confirmed. No talking, no pleadingjust a simple application with a xerox of the ticket into the little box should take care of it. Thank you, Indian Railways! You are great.
Kabul, June 23

On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Only bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country struggling with growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and economic challenges.

Afghan Sikh men talk to each other inside a Gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 8. Reuters photo

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

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"This is how we begin our day  with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes," said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling centre of Kabul. "I don't know what to do or where to go."

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

An Afghan Sikh holds his child inside a Gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 8. Reuters photo

According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 2,20,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992.

Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its constitution, drawn up after US-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

An Afghan Sikh receives karah prasad inside a Gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 8. Reuters photo

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered.

"The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders," Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

"Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day," he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 2,00,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

HOSTILITY

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium.

As the capital has expanded in recent years, the neighbourhood has become densely populated and some newer residents oppose Hindu and Sikh cremations, a practice foreign to Muslims, who bury their dead.

"When they burn the body the smell makes our family sick and we don't want this to happen here," said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

The Sikhs say local Muslim hardliners have stirred up hostility against them, and the community now requires police protection for their funeral rituals.

"They throw stones and bricks at us, at the bodies of the dead, whenever there is a funeral," said Avtar Singh, pointing to a newly built house next to the crematorium.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs.

"We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim," Abid added.

"We have allocated them a place to burn their bodies because inside the city people complained about the smell, but they did not agree," he told Reuters.

Harassment is also common.

Jasmeet Singh, eight, stopped going to school because of what he said was daily harassment. He and other children from the community now either go to private schools or study inside the temple.

An Afghan Sikh woman prays inside a Gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 8. Reuters photo

"While I was at school, other students were making fun of me. They were removing my turban, hitting me and calling me Hindu and kaffir (infidel)," said Jasmeet Singh, as other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, their spiritual homeland, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go.

"When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan," said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. "We are lost between both worlds."  Reuters
Bhubaneswar, June 23

Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman has admitted his links with the terrorists involved in the 1999 Kandahar plane hijack and 2002 American Centre blast incident in Kolkata, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Rehman had provided safe shelter in Cuttack to a Pakistani terrorist involved in the Kandahar plane hijack. The said terrorist belonged to Pak-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group that hijacked the Delhi-bound Air India flight IC-184 from Kathamandu to Kandahar, said an official of the Special Task Force of Crime Branch of Odisha Police.

The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.

As one of the terrorists involved in the hijack was close to Rehman, he brought him to Cuttack and kept him in a secret location, the officer said quoting the AQIS operative, who is being interrogated by the STF.

Though Rehman, who has been brought on a 10-day remand by Odisha Police, initially refused to admit his links with terror outfits, he opened up as soon as evidence collected by NIA and IB were placed before him, the officer said.

He added that police had been probing into the truth behind Rehmans statements.

We have been locating the places where Rehman actually sheltered the Pakistani terrorist, the officer said, adding that the operatives brother was also one of the accused persons in the 2002 American Centre blast.

Though Rehmans brother got acquitted in the case, police said that now his younger brother (Rehman) had revealed that one of the terrorists was brought to Cuttack where he got safe shelter.

We will verify both statements before coming to any conclusion, the officer said, adding the STF had been investigating into the Odisha link of Rehman.

The operative, who was running a madrassa at Tangi near Cuttack, was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi Police and Odisha Police on December 16, 2015. He was brought from Delhi to the state on remand.

As a cleric, Rehman was addressing a number of Jalsa functions both in Odisha and Jharkhand, where he allegedly delivered provocative speeches.

Sources said Rehman would be questioned about his links in Odisha and the source of the funds he received to run the madrassa.

He was booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 23

Australia today reiterated its strong support to India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, maintaining that Canberra feels the NSG should remain open for any country based on merit and willing to go through the process.

Australia has been very, very supportive of India joining the NSG. We think it is an absolutely good thing, we genuinely welcome Indias interests in the NSG and in the other non-proliferation regimes too (Wassenar and Australia group). It demonstrates to us Indias seriousness of intent of being a responsible nuclear actor. And we think India can make a solid contribution to the NSG, new Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu told The Tribune in an exclusive interview, her first here.

Full interview: I always had a strong sense of my Punjabi roots

Asked whether India had reached out to Australia to impress upon New Zealand, which has reservations over New Delhis admission to NSG, she said while Canberra has spoken to Wellington about its position, as an independent and sovereign country, New Zealand will make its own decisions.

With both sides of her parents born in Punjab, the envoy said her focus was to take forward the bilateral relations on a higher plane.

Australia, she said, is streamlining the process for Indian students who can apply online for travel permits. The number of students from India studying in Australia crossed the 50,000-mark last year and this year some 70,000 are applying.
Mumbai, June 23

The war of words between the Shiv Sena and BJP has further intensified with a publication by the latter daring the junior alliance partner to take divorce.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandaris article published on Wednesday in the Maharashtra party units fortnightly publication Manogat, titled When are you taking talaq, Mr Raut?, has dared the Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices the BJP has made in the past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie-up intact.

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The article also attacks Sena MP Sanjay Raut for his recent Nizam remarks.

On the one hand, they eat biryani in the plate given by the same Nizam and then criticise us on the other. They have got ministries at the Centre and state, enjoy perks of power only because of the favour of the same Nizam and then curse the BJP. This is called ungratefulness, the article says.

If they feel so oppressed by Nizam, why dont they just walk out, the article says, adding, But, they dont show that courage.

Raut recently said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra were worse than the government of Nizam.

They sit with us, eat with us and then attack us as well...its better to take talaaq from Nizams father. So, Mr Raut, when are you taking talaaq? Bhandari asked.

Criticising Raut for his selective vision, the article says that while he feels the present government has done a lot of injustice, they dont see the great amount of work done through Jal Yukta Shivar in Marathwada.

Highlighting the BJPs better striking rate in elections, the article further says, In 1995, the BJP contested 117 seats and won 65. In 2009, despite contesting lesser seats, the BJP won two seats more than the Shiv Sena.

Sanjay Raut and the Shiv Sena president are not able to digest the fact that their strength is declining and that is why they are frustrated. They should accept the changing political situation and stop blaming us, Bhandari said.

We outnumbered the Shiv Sena in the Aurangabad and Kalyan-Dombivali polls. Voters are considering the BJP as a strong option and that is what is hurting the Sena most, it stated.

The article further said the BJP had made several sacrifices, like leaving constituencies for the Shiv Sena which had repeatedly been won by the BJP candidates in the past, like Pune, Thane and Guhagar.

Defending his article, Bhandari said, Earlier, we chose to ignore such things but they have crossed the limits of decency. This was discussed in our recent state convention as well. But now we want to tell them straight, if they dont find it worth, they should find their own path. PTI
Mumbai, June 23

The Bombay High Court on Thursday sought to know from the Maharashtra government if it had decided to seek a CBI probe in the Govind Pansare murder case as claimed by the lawyer of family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he had no such instruction so far.

The high court also came down heavily on the CID and the CBI, probing the Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder cases, respectively, for slow progress.

The Pansare family had approached the Maharashtra government seeking a CBI probe in the matter and on Wednesday the state government consented, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain communist leader, informed the HC bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi.

However, public prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told the court that he did not have any instruction from the government regarding this.

To this, the High Court directed Shinde to find out if the government had taken a decision to refer the probe to CBI, and if it had done so, then tell the court the reasons behind it.

The bench, which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking monitoring by the HC in both the murder probes, later adjourned the matter for six weeks.

Now that the CBI has arrested someone in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Pansares family also wants the CBI to probe their case and the state government is also promptly saying OK let it go...let it be off my shoulder...one headache gone, the HC said.

The CBI had recently arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawde from Navi Mumbai in connection with the murder of anti-superstition crusader Dabholkar.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. The CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to the HC.

The CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the murder.

The high court, after perusing the reports submitted by both the CBI and CID with regard to the progress of probe in both the murder cases, said it was not completely satisfied with the pace of investigations.

We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder cases need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against society. Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views, the high court observed. PTI
Tribune News Service

Mumbai, June 23

A query from a Norway-based net user seeking to inform the police about people interested in joining the Islamic State has left the police puzzled.

The police said one Iyad El-Baghdadi from Norway had messaged the Twitter handle of the Mumbai police saying he had received queries from some Indians who wanted to join the IS. If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join IS, who in India do I report them to? Baghdadi queried the city police.

The Mumbai police said the message was received from Baghdadi on Tuesday evening and he has been contacted for more information. Email addresses of those who sent the query to Baghdadi would be investigated and those who sent the queries would be traced, police officials said.

Baghdadi has described himself as an Arab Spring activist expelled from the UAE now living in Norway.

The authorities were still waiting to hear from Baghdadi till Thursday afternoon, sources said.
Tashkent/Seoul, June 23

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged China to support India's NSG bid, but there was no breakthrough on the issue at the meeting of the 48-nation grouping in the face of stiff Chinese-led opposition.

As Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Tashkent, some 5000 km away in the South Korean capital, India's case, although not on the formal agenda, came up at a special post-dinner meeting of NSG members, who remained divided over India's entry because it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Besides China, which has been vocal in its opposition to India's membership, it is understood that countries like Turkey, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Brazil took the stand that no exception can be made.

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Clearly, Modi's urgings had not changed the Chinese position, but what transpires on Friday  the final day of the two-day plenary  remains to be seen.

Although admission of members like India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session which led to the matter being taken up at a special meeting after dinner.

Read: Pak appreciates Chinas support for admission to NSG

Indian diplomats, led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to push India's case, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of India's membership. He has met a number of delegation leaders in this regard.

About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary, which was preceded by official-level session that began on June 20.

Seeking China's support for India's membership, Modi urged Xi to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application before the Seoul plenary. The two leaders are in Tashkent for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit. The line take by Modi was that New Delhi's case should be judged on its own merits and that China should contribute to an emerging consensus in Seoul.

That there was no immediate commitment by Xi was indicated by External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup who refused to comment saying: "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this". An indicator of the importance attached by India to the membership of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which will enable it to trade in nuclear technology, is the fact that the Modi-Xi meeting was dominated by this topic.

Asked if India talked about the need to delink India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, "...You have heard what Prime Minister told Xi Jinping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul".

Later, when asked at a press conference about Xi's response to Modi's request, a top Chinese official refused to comment.

China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.  PTI
New Delhi, June 23

More than 400 Indians  most of them fishermen  are currently lodged in jails in Pakistan, according to a new list released in the public domain on Thursday.

A total of 405 Indian nationals  355 fishermen and 48 others  are in Pakistani jails till July, 2015, an RTI query by an Indo-Pak friendship initiative has found.

The Ministry of External Affairs has informed 'Aaghaz-e- Dosti' (A Start of Friendship), a joint initiative between non-government organisations of both India and Pakistan that have come together, about the figures.

The organisation, which released the first such list in 2014, has maintained that the move is to increase transparency.

"This is the first such detailed list in public domain. This is particularly to help the affected people families, who don't even know that they are languishing in the jails," Aaghaz-e-Dosti founder Ravi Nitesh said.

Nitesh said the RTI query was with reference to a 2008 agreement under which the two countries exchange lists of prisoners.

He appealed to the governments of both the countries to release such crucial data on their own so the prisoners are released after the serve their sentences.

"It is for the first time that such a detailed list has been put on public portal. This list provides information about the status of prisoners as on 1st July 2015 in each other's jail," the group said in a release.

The group plans to write to both the governments to release those who are languishing in jails due to bureaucratic hassles, Nitesh said.  PTI
New Delhi, June 23

Taj Mahal and Vaishno Devi shrine are among the 10 iconic places with high footfall identified by the Centre to undergo cleaning on a par with international standards for which foreign experts will be involved.

Top government officials today said World Bank would provide technical assistance. The Centre is also in the process of drafting standard operating procedures to ensure cleanliness at 10 popular sanctuaries and tiger reserves, they said.

We have taken an initiative at 10 iconic places. The idea is to ensure cleanliness of international excellence level here. We have invited international experts for help, Parmeswaran Iyer, Secretary (Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation), said.

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Iyer said the government plans to do bench-marking to ascertain what would be the standard of cleanliness both inside and outside these places.

He said the ministry would organise a two-day workshop next month, when consultations would be held with the experts, who, he said, would help chalk out a roadmap to implement the site-specific programme, fix indicators of international standards and decide on timeframe and financial resources.

The Environment Ministry is working on steps to take forward cleanliness around national park/sanctuaries/tiger reserves and identified 10 locations to begin with  Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary (AP), Gir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park (Gujarat), Flamingo Sanctuary (Maharashtra), Kanha (Madhya Pradesh), Tadoba-Andhari (Maharashtra), Nagarhole (Karnataka), Periyar (Kerala), Sariska (Rajasthan), Mudumalai (Tamil Nadu) and Jim Corbett (Uttarakhand) tiger reserves.  PTI
Raj Sadosh

Abohar, June 23

On the recommendations of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), the Department of Agriculture team today launched a neem-based insecticide to curb whitefly attack in cotton fields.

Using specially designed equipment, the team today sprayed the fields owned by farmer Gokal Chand in Dangarkhera village near here.

The team said the affect of whitefly was mild at present and farmers need not be apprehensive. They have been advised not to try insecticides that PAU had not recommended.

The whitefly attack in Punjab that damaged over 75 per cent crop across the cotton belt had led to widespread protests last year.

The damage to the cotton crop, over 95 per cent of which was Bt cotton, was estimated to be around Rs 4,500 crore.

It was also seen as a reason behind suicides of many farmers in the cotton belt, including Abohar, Fazilka, Bathinda and Muktsar segments.

The whitefly attack on Bt cotton crop was the main reason for the government to work and develop new crop technologies. The state government had to sanction Rs 600 crore as compensation to affected farmers after facing widespread criticism over purchase of ineffective brand of insecticide.
THE inevitable has happened. The Arabs who have always groaned under the oppression of the Turks, have thrown off their yoke of the Turkish temporal power. The Grand Sheriff of Mecca, who is in charge of the Holy of Holies of Islam, has, with the support of the Arab tribes, taken the field. Mecca, Jeddah and Taif have been captured and the Turkish garrisons have surrendered. Medina, the resting place of the Prophet, is closely besieged and all communications to the Hedjaz are in the hands of the Sheriff. This action on the part of the representative of Mecca separates the spiritual interests of the Mahomedan world from the temporal power of Turkey, and put an end to the difficulties which Turkey has been putting in the way of comfort of pilgrims. For the present, however, it is righty urged the shortage of shipping apart from the question of supplies and the necessarily unsettled conditions make it undesirable that large number of persons should attempt to proceed on pilgrimage.
The Central government has released a new aviation policy with much fanfare. It is a good time to reflect on aviation in Uttarakhand. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) data show that the Dehradun airport handled 70,431 passengers in April 2016, an 82% rise over April 2015. Much of the increase came from the introduction of a fourth commercial carrier, namely IndiGo, and the addition of several daily flights. In other words, the Jolly Grant airport, which has taken three decades and cost hundreds of crores of rupees, is seen as a success for the tourism-dependent economy of Uttarakhand.

Still, as statistics often do, this data mask the pitiful state of aviation in Uttarakhand and give no hint as to the enormous untapped potential, especially of short-haul aviation in a mountain state with poor, circuitous roads bedevilled by landslides, traffic jams, accidents and poor maintenance. Only two of the five airports in the state (Dehradun, Pantnagar, Pithoragarh, Gauchar and Chinyali Saud), near Uttarkashi, are operational. While Dehradun is growing fast, Pantnagar has only a single daily small aircraft flight from Delhi of Air India. Pantnagar is a commercial failure, and often has had no flights at all. Pantnagar has long suffered due to a poor location, though misleadingly advertised as well located for Nainital and the Jim Corbett Park. Some have long touted Pantnagar as a model industrial zone but the zone is not too successful, and the Haridwar-Ranipur-Dehradun-Selaqui industrial belt is far ahead.

No flights to Mumbai, Dubai

The quick growth of Dehraduns passenger numbers is misleading. The airport ranks 37th in the country. All Dehradun flights are to Delhi, though the same airlines continuing service is available to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai. There are no nonstop flights to Mumbai though about 2 lakh Uttarakhandis work in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Nonstop flights between Mumbai and Dehradun would surely be financially viable. At the famous Ananda resort, near Rishikesh, which is host to many celebrities, including Prince Charles and Oprah, many guests are rich visitors from Mumbai, yet they have to arrive via Delhi. Thousands of students from Mumbai study in famous boarding schools of Dehradun and Mussoorie, yet they travel home via Delhi. Also, over 3 lakh Uttarakhandis work in the UAE and other Gulf nations, but Dehradun has no flights to the Middle East. Dubai has one of the biggest airports in the world, but there are no flights between Dehradun and Dubai. Around 20 Indian cities do have nonstop flights to Dubai. Clearly, with the new aviation policy easing norms on overseas flights, this would be an opportune time for the state to aggressively induce AirAsia, Indigo, Vistara and other carriers to introduce nonstop flights from Dehradun to Dubai.

Airstrips not utilised

The airstrips at Gauchar, Chinyali Saud and Pithoragarh are rarely used though the first two were vital for disaster relief works after the Kedarnath tragedy. Sparingly, the IAF has used them as advanced landing grounds, given the rising threat we face from the Chinese Air Force, which now has six full-scale bases in Tibet. There has been talk of the IAF further developing all three airstrips, but no progress has been made. Some helicopter services do operate from Dehradun, such as seasonal pilgrim services to Kedarnath, they have a limited capacity and a few seats are available. They often sell out months in advance. Clearly, there is room for much more helicopter traffic in Uttarakhand.

Delhi to Pithoragarh for Rs 2,500 will be welcome

Overall, aviation is a flop in Uttarakhand despite a vast potential. For instance, a key factor that has inhibited aviation in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, both also being sensitive border states, has been land acquisition for new greenfield airports and runway extensions. In Uttarakhand, there is no such problem. Runways have already been built and all land have been paid for. To make flights to unused airstrips viable, it is vital that the state government itself require its officers to travel on these routes. As per the new policy, a Rs 2,500 fare from Dehradun to Pithoragarh or even Delhi to Pithoragarh would be of good value. As proposed, a Rs 1,200 fare from Dehradun to Chinyali Saud, which would cut 4 hours from the journey to Gangotri, would be of tremendous value. The Centre has committed to compensating airlines for losses on such routes.

Short-haul aircraft being used in Nepal

Uttarakhand can learn from Nepal with which it has deep cultural and historical ties. Nepal is far ahead in terms of short-haul civil aviation. It has seven commercial airlines serving short-haul flight sectorsthe state-owned Nepal Airlines and six others. Collectively, the airlines have 40-odd short-haul propeller aircraft of 10 to 40 seats each, exactly the types Uttarakhand needs for short-haul flights. These planes serve, via 100 plus daily flights, as many as 28 airports in Nepal while Uttarakhand only has one properly active airport. Moreover, a majority of passengers in Nepal are not foreign tourists but local people.

Aviation is critical for both tourism and broader economic vibrancy, especially in a nation like India with poor roads and huge point-to-point distances. Even relatively poor nations in Africa and Latin America learned that long ago. By global standards, aviation fuel is expensive due to Central and state taxes. Airport usage fees, aircraft parking fees and landing fees are also above the global norms. The new aviation policy seeks to make flights to small airports cheaper, but the fact remains that unless the state government takes the lead, nothing much will happen. All states want more service to small airports, not only Uttarakhand. The new aviation policy strengthens the hands of the airlines, which would naturally seek out the most profitable routes, which probably lie outside the hill state.

The cold truth is that all airlines are profit-seeking commercial entities that respond to financial incentives and disincentives. Nepal has long known that civil aviation is key and has imposed sensible tax policies, targeted subsidies and low airport usage fees. In India, only 75 out of the countrys 476 airports and airstrips are fully operational. Oddly, India has 1,216 commercial aircraft in use, but only 280 civilian helicopters. By the global norms, there should be more helicopters than aircraft, especially in regions with much difficult terrain, as in Uttarakhand.

Instead of over-analysing the Centres new aviation policy, perhaps Uttarakhandis can learn from their neighbours in Nepal. The state government will have to provide strong incentives to airlines, over and above the Centres incentives, for aviation to develop.
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, June 23

The Congress today sought an apology from BJP national president Amit Shah for his alleged role in the imposition of the Presidents rule in the state.

Chief Media coordinator of the Congress Dhirendra Pratap, while addressing mediapersons here today, said Shah should apologise to the people of the state when he arrives here on a two-day visit tomorrow.

He accused Shah of plotting a political turmoil with the help of dissident Congress legislators, who eventually joined the BJP. He said Shah tried all kinds of tricks to ensure the downfall of the Congress-led state government, but failed miserably.

Dhirendra said the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is biased against Uttarakhand. The Central government first engineered the political turmoil and then imposed the Presidents rule to remove the democratically-elected Congress-led government. However, the Centre had to revoke the Presidents rule after the Supreme Court intervened and declared it illegal. This is a proof that the BJP was indulging in undemocratic and unethical practices to remove non-BJP state governments.

The Union government has still not released the financial grant for the annual budget though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for more cordial relations between the Centre and the states and assured people of keeping the federal structure of our country intact, said Dhirendra, who is the vice-chairperson of the Statehood Agitators Council.

He questioned the attitude of all five BJP parliamentarians from the state and said, on his own, Chief Minister Harish Rawat was trying to put the state on the path of development, particularly after the political turmoil. The BJP parliamentarians had failed to take up the issues of the hill state effectively with their Union government.

The Char Dham pilgrimage is getting a huge response from pilgrims from across the country due to sincere and long-term works and monitoring being done by the state government. Post-flash floods in 2013, the state still needs Central aid and package to restore lives in the affected areas but the BJP parliamentarians are keeping silent over this issue, he added.

State Congress secretary JP Pandey lauded the working of the Chief Minister and said from peasants to statehood agitators, the government was taking care of everyones interests. Mass development was being carried out in the state despite lack of financial support from the Centre.

Youth wing leader Ram Vishal Dev said the Prime Minister, during a visit to Rishikesh in September last year, did not utter a single word about the local issues or projects, thus reflecting the biased attitude of the BJP.
Jotirmay Thapliyal

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, June 23

The process of certification of several organic farmers has been delayed as the field employees of the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board are on a strike for the past 10 days because of the non-payment of salaries for months. They have also been demanding regularisation of service.

The field employees are 52 in number. They conduct on-the-spot inspections of agriculture being done by farmers to ensure they are adhering to the rules of organic farming before certifying them as organic farmers. It is noteworthy that an organic farmer uses only cow dung as manure in cultivation and does not use chemical-based fertilisers or pesticides.

Since the creation of Uttarakhand, the government has been keenly pursuing to make the state an organic state and has been promoting organic farming in a big way. The Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board has so far managed to bring about 68,528 hectares of agriculture in the state under organic agriculture. Over one lakh farmers have been registered in recent months, who, now, have to undertake the first phase of organic certification process that has now been delayed due to the stir. It takes minimum three years for a farmer to be completely organic and a farmer has to undergo various phases of certification process, where these field employees have an important role.

Most of the agitating field employees are employed with the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board since 2003. They work on a contractual basis and claim that they have been neglected. They have been demanding regular jobs for long but the immediate challenge they face is the non-payment of salaries. They claim to have not received travel allowance for the past 10 years.

Sarvesh Sharma, president of the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board Field Employees Association, said, The last salary we drew was in March. No salary has been paid since then. It is becoming difficult for us to make our both ends meet. Sarvesh along with others has been staging dharna at the Parade Ground.

The protesters have decided to stage a protest march to the Chief Ministers residence tomorrow. Chief Minister Harish Rawat should understand that while he hopes to make Uttarakhand organic, the field employees, who are the backbone of the organic board, are suffering, said Gurudev Rana, one of the protesters.

Om Prakash Lakhera, an organic farmer of Balawala, who reached the Parade Ground dharna site to support the agitators, said the organic board staff was very supportive who encouraged them towards organic farming. Farmers and field employees of the organic board have always worked hand in hand. Thus I am here to stand with them in their hour of crisis, he said, adding farmers from across the state would participate in the Dehradun rally tomorrow.

Vinay Kumar, Managing Director of the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board, said the concerns of the field employees were in the knowledge of the board. As per the practice, the field employees are being paid under various time-bound projects which at times result in discontinuity of payment. We are trying to streamline it, he said, adding that the employees had been urged to return to work.
BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, June 23

As trekkers look for more thrill during the trekking season from May 15 to October 15 in this part of the high Himalayas, some of the most thrilling trek routes or religious places, besides picturesque meadows are still not accessible to them. Foreign as well as Indian tourists are not allowed entry to these places due to security reasons.

In Pithoragarh district, two such high Himalayan valleys are still not open to tourists and trekkers. These are situated along the China border in Munsiyari and Dharchula subdivisions of the district.

One of the banned trek routes is from the Milam glacier in Pithoragarh district to Malari in Chamoli district. This trek situated at more than 14,000-feet high Himalayan meadows was once a highway of tribal traders of Chamoli and the Johar valley of Pithopragarh to go to Tibet. Five years ago, the trek route was open to trekkers but the ITBP prohibited their entry citing security reasons, said Puran Pandey, a hotelier in Munsiyari. According to sources, the 24-km highest trek route in this part of the Himalayas is thrilling and awesome with serene and picturesque meadows and scenery around it.

The four-day trek begins from Munsiyari to the Milam glacier. The trekkers could reach the Dung camp the next day and after resting at Dung could reach Malari. They can camp at Topidhunga, Cheam, Badamu, Lapthal and Suma on way to Malari. After reaching Malari, the trekkers can trek to Joshimath and Rishikesh and then travel to Delhi via road, said Devendra Deva, a trekker in Munsiyari.

According to legends, the ancestors of tribal people in Munsiyari came from Tibet through this way thousands of years ago. It is not a mere trekking route, as our emotions are associated with it, said Deva.

Tourist traders in Munsiyari say that if the ITBP opens the Malari trek, which is a very challenging route, the number of tourists in the town will double.

Similarly, the Chaiyalekh to Chhota Kailash trek route in Pithoragarh district is fit for enthusiastic Himalayan tourists and trekkers. It is opened for the annual pilgrimage only and remains closed for the rest of the year. The regions beyond Chiyalekh, which has a scenic mini valley ahead of the Bundi camp on the Kailash Mansarovar trek route, was closed after the place was made the inner line entry point in 1996. Most of the treks and tourist and religious places are situated beyond the Chiyalekh valley. These include Om Parvat, a naturally-erected sign of Om on a snowy hillside, and Parvati sarovar, which is considered the dwelling place of Goddess Parvati, the consort Lord Shiva, said Mahendra Singh Kutiyal, a trader in Dharchula.

According to sources, the inner line to border posts was shifted to Chiyalekh in 1996 to facilitate the construction of the Chirkila Dam for the NHPCs 280 MW hydroelectric scheme, for which workers from outside the region were to be brought. As the people of Dharchula are agitating for the shifting of the inner line down to Jauljibi, it is almost impossible that trekkers will have an open entry to this place in future as both ITBP and district administration restrict tourists from going beyond Chiyalekh, said Kutiyal.
Ajay Ramola

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, June 23

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

This Tibetan proverb is apt to describe the vast expanse of the serene and unchanging Tibetan plateau that extends into the Nelong Valley situated at around 11,000 feet, bordering China in Uttarkashi district.

Tourists who reach the Nelong Vallley, although after a lot of hindrance, are mesmerised by the vast and serene expanse of the barren mountains, crystal clear waters flowing through the rivers redefining the meaning of beauty that nature has bestowed in the region.

The Nelong Valley is the part of the Gangotri National Park and besides enjoying the vast expanse of the mountain desert, one comes across rich wildlife, mostly endangered species such as snow leopard, musk deers and Himalayan blue sheep in the region. For trekkers, snowcapped mountains are enough an attraction, making it a must visit place.

The Nelong Valley, with the stunning view of Tibetan plateau, was part of a popular trade route prior to the China war in 1962. The Jaad community were involved in the trade from India to China from this route.

Following the 1962 war, the government declared the whole area as restricted. Jaad tribes along with other living along the banks of Jad Ganga river were forced to shift to Bagori and Dunda villages in Uttarkashi.

Shanti, a resident of Bagori village, says two villages  Keelang and Jadung across the river Jadh Ganganear Lanka in the Bhairon Valley were her familys home before they shifted to Bagori. It is believed that the Jadung is close to the place where King Janka did penance. Villagers prior to the Chinese aggression used to move up and down for six months and were involved in trade with Tibet. Following the Chinese aggression, the Indian Army moved in and the local tribes were shifted to Bagori and Dunda villages which were familiar to them since they were the important stopovers when the trade with Tibet was opened.

The Ringali Devi and Someshwar Devta temple fair that is held at Jadung village in June every year is the only way left now to reconnect with the glorious trading past with Tibet.

Small rivers and shining glaciers attract many visitors. The trek can also be extended by further going to Mana Pass and Saraswati Tal and finally ending at Badrinath temple, says Tilak Soni local adventure tour operator, who runs a firm Where eagles dare.

Soni says the Nelong Valley, much to the delight of locals and adventure enthusiasts, was opened to tourists last May and it has created much curiosity towards the region.

However, the limitations imposed by the Gangotri National Park on the entry of tourists is hindering the growth of the region as a major tourist spot of Garhwal that has all the ingredients of competing with Leh and Ladakh in Jammu Kashmir.

Soni says giving permission only to six SUV vehicles that too till the Nelong post, which is 23 km from the Bhairon Ghati check post, has no meaning as the main valley begins from the Nelong post. Motorcycle riding is completely banned, much to the disgust of tourists.

Tourists are not permitted to camp in the valley due to it being close to Indo-China border and the endangered species that live in the Gangotri National Park. The multi-permit regime acts as a major hindrance for the tourists who have to run form one department to another to seek permit, thus resulting in a wastage of time. Foreigners are not permitted in the valley due to understandable reasons but relaxation can be given to national tourists by allowing one-night camp in the valley, says Soni.

Narendar Singh and Upendar Sajwan, both local adventure tour guides operating from Uttarkashi, say this area is a hidden treasure for tourism. If utilised to its potential, it can be a major bread earner similar on the lines of Leh and Ladakh.

Former Gangotri MLA Gopal Rawat said Forest Minister Dinesh Agarwal had declared the Nelong Valley open last May and had assured jobs for locals with the increase in number of tourists but only few hundred enthusiasts have made it to the Nelong valley due to the cumbersome requirements imposed by the forest department and Administration. Tourists have to seek inner line permit to visit Nelong Valley and they are not permitted to stay overnight due to forest department restriction. Opening the valley only till the Nelong post has no meaning as the real adventure of Tibetan plateau begins beyond that. It is of no use if tourists are not allowed to camp in such sites. Opening the valley at a cosmetic level will serve no purpose not even that of securing votes, says Gopal.

He says Union Minster of State for Home Affairs Kiran Rijuju during a recent visit to the district was apprised of the demand for removing the inner line permit clause for foreigners from the Harsil Valley and for Indians from the Nelong Valley. Rijuju has forwarded the issue to the departments concerned but nothing has happened so far.

Shantanu Sarkar, director of the Winterline Nature Trust, says tourism and environment can go hand in hand. Considering that hardly an adventurist will travel to Nelong on account of physical challenge, the scope for pollution and environmental degradation is limited. Since it is the valley entrance point, the situation can be properly controlled with strict inspection of baggages.

He said in Europe, the forest department regulates seasonal camps in the Alps that are opened for a few months. The baggage of every tourist is checked to find out plastic litter, if any. Same can be done in the Nelong valley that is being compared to Leh and Ladakh and can be a big revenue earner for the state. Increased tourism will result in sustainable livelihood for the locals, he added.
London, June 23

The parents of a white British Muslim convert dubbed "Jihadi Jack", thought to be fighting in Syria with the Islamic State militants, will stand trial in January accused of funding terrorism.

Jack Letts, 20, is believed to be the first white Briton fighting in Syria.

John Letts, 55, and Sally Lane, 54, appeared at the Old Bailey on Thursday charged with three counts of entering or becoming concerned in an arrangement to make money available, knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used for terrorism.

Jack's mother is charged with two further counts of attempting to provide money or property knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect it could be used for the purpose of terrorism.

The pair will appear in court for a plea hearing on November 17 before their trial commences in the New Year.

They were remanded in custody but after appearing before Justice Saunders earlier this month, they were granted the pair bail.

He had described them as "two perfectly decent people have ended up in custody because of the love of their child".

The couple's defence barrister, Di Middleton, has assured the court they would not attempt to send any more money to their son, and had not done so while on police bail.

Their bail was extended and a trial date of January 9, 2017, has been set, expected to last up to four weeks.

Jack Letts, 20, is suspected of being the first white Briton to join the terror group after he left his Oxford home and travelled to Syria last year.

His parents deny providing money for suspected terrorism and have previously maintained they sent their son money to buy a new pair of glasses.  PTI
Kabul, June 23

On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Only bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan.

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

This is how we begin our day  with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes, said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling centre of Kabul. I dont know what to do or where to go.

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

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According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 220,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992. Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its Constitution, drawn up after US-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered. The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders, Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day, he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 200,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

Cremation tension

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium. When they burn the body, the smell makes our family sick and we dont want this to happen here, said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs. We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim, Abid said.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go. When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan, said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. We are lost between both worlds.  Reuters
London, June 23

A pencil conspiracy theory widely dominated the social media on Thursday as voters favouring UKs exit from the European Union appealed to Brexit supporters to carry their own pens to the polling booths to avert a plot by the spy agency MI5 to rig the votes in favour of the Remain camp.

The UK Electoral Commission took the rumour-mongering seriously enough to welcome voters to bring along their own pens.

By tradition, pencils are available in polling booths for voters to mark their ballot papers. If a voter wishes to bring their own pen and use that, its fine, a spokesperson for the body in charge of polls in the country said.

In regards to security, at the count there are statutory observers to make sure that they are carried out correctly.

Campaigners are also invited to observe the counts taking place, the spokesperson added.

Those warning about the conspiracy suggested that MI5 or another UK government agency could rub out the crosses on their ballot papers before they were counted  presumably either spoiling their vote or changing it into a vote to remain in the EU.

On Twitter, the hashtag #usepens was doing the rounds with common tweets like Please Do Vote today. Take a black pen with you, pencil can be rubbed out.

There have also been instances at some polling booths where USE A PEN TO VOTE was scribbled at entry points.

Traditionally in all UK polls, pencils are provided within polling stations partly for historic and partly for practical reasons but there is no legal obligation to vote with them.

Voting rules are also fairly relaxed, which means while voters are expected to mark a cross next to their choice, any ticks or other clear marks are also acceptable.

The ballot paper for todays referendum asks the question: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? Voters have the option to mark a cross next to either Remain a member of the European Union or Leave the European Union and whichever side gets more than half of all votes cast is considered to have won.  PTI
Tashkent (Uzbekistan), June 23

Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain has reportedly thanked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for Beijings unequivocal support for Islamabads admission to the 48- member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Stating that both India and Pakistan should be included in the NSG at the same time similar to their inclusion in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), President Hussain was quoted by Pakistan state media as saying that Beijings stance was based on the policy of non-discrimination.

Both sides also expressed a resolve to maintain a close collaboration for the regions security and prosperity and to jointly fight against terrorism and separatism.

Presidents Hussain and Xi expressed these views during a delegation-level meeting in Tashkent on the sidelines of 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

The Pakistani President said both Islamabad and Beijing held unanimity of views on regional peace, prosperity and stability and mentioned that the former was supportive of the One China policy.

He also reiterated that Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and also made a mention of the ongoing successful Zarb-e-Azb military operation.

Both nations also agreed not to compromise on the execution of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying the project guaranteed prosperity for the region.

To ensure the timely completion of the CPEC, both leaders also agreed on closer collaboration.

Hussain added that both countries enjoyed a unique level of friendship and expressed the hope that the Sino-Pak friendship would touch new heights in future. ANI
JAKARTA/MANILA, June 23

Southeast Asian militants who claim to be fighting for Islamic State in the Middle East have said they have chosen one of the most wanted men in the Philippines to head a regional faction of the ultra-radical group, security officials said on Thursday.

The claim was made in a video that was recently posted on social media, possibly last week, a military intelligence official in the Philippines said.

The video is significant, experts say, because it shows that Islamic State supporters are now being asked to stay home and unify under one umbrella group to launch attacks in Southeast Asia, instead of being drawn to the fight in the Middle East.

Authorities in the region have been on heightened alert since Islamic State claimed an attack in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in January in which eight people were killed, including four of the attackers.

In the 20-minute video seen by Reuters, young men and some children in military fatigues are shown carrying and training with weapons, and holding Islamic State flags. A section of the video showed some of these men engaging in gunbattles in jungles but it was not clear where and with whom.

The video also showed three men apparently being executed, but it was not clear where and who they were.

The authenticity of the video and when it was taken could not be independently verified.

In the video, a man authorities in Malaysia have identified as Mohd Rafi Udin, a Malaysian militant currently in Syria, says in Malay: "If you cannot go to (Syria), join up and go to the Philippines."

In the video, Udin also urges Muslims to unite under the leadership of Abu Abdullah, a Philippine militant leader who pledged allegiance to Islamic State in January.

Abu Abdullah, also known as Isnilon Hapilon, is a leader of the Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf. He is on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the kidnapping of 17 Filipinos and three Americans in 2001 and carries a bounty of $5 million.

The video was released to mark Islamic State's acceptance of allegiances from jihadists in the Philippines, the first formal recognition of a Southeast Asian group, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, chief of Malaysia's police counter-terrorism unit.

"This video is not just propaganda, but also is a serious threat.We are definitely expecting more attacks in this region," Pitchay said.

Hapilon is known to be based in the interior hills of the island of Basilan in the Mindanao region of the southern Philippines. In April, at least 18 Philippine soldiers were killed and 53 wounded in an attack on his followers on the island.

Kidnap gang

For decades, Abu Sayyaf has been known for extortion, kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, and is one of the most brutal Muslim rebel factions in the south of the largely Christian Philippines.

The group has posted videos on social media sites this year pledging allegiance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The latest video appears aimed at recognising Hapilon as the Southeast Asian leader of the group, anti-terrorism experts said.

"I think this is a very significant video," said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based security expert. "This acknowledges support from Indonesia and Malaysia."

"It suggests there will be more efforts to get people to actually go to Mindanao to launch operations from there." The Jakarta attacks in January were claimed by Islamic State. But the attack did not bear the hallmarks of other spectacular strikes by the radical group  the militants lacked sophisticated weaponry and were amateurish in the execution.

Some security officials fear a more organised and better-trained militant group could launch far deadlier attacks in the region.

But Philippine military officials dismissed these concerns, saying the video was just propaganda and should be ignored.

"People should not be bothered by this," said Philippine military spokesman Restituto Padilla "Authorities are working on this. They can be identified, and they can be hunted down."  Reuters
Seville (Spain), June 23

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain on Thursday after completing a 70-hour flight from New York in the first solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.

Applause broke out as the experimental plane set down at Seville airport in southern Spain just before 7:40 am where a team was on the ground to welcome Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard, an AFP correspondent said.

It is so fantastic! Piccard told the planes mission control centre in Monaco in remarks broadcast live on the Internet as the plane, which took off from New York on Monday, touched down.

@bertrandpiccard lands in #Seville completing, in 70h, the 1st #Atlantic solar flight #futureisclean, the support teams official Twitter account said.

A dream is coming true, the team had tweeted as the plane slowly approached its final destination early on Thursday after flying 6,272 kilometres across the Atlantic.

Solar Impulse, which has just completed the 15th leg of its around-the-world trip, set out on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power.

Good morning Seville! Do you have a lot of direct flights from NYC? Piccard tweeted with a wink shortly before landing.

Prince Albert of Monaco, a patron of the project who had spent the entire night at the control centre, congratulated Piccard on the journey: Bravo, it was magnificent to see! he said from the tiny state on the French Riviera.

I arrived in the middle of an air show, it was absolutely extraordinary, that kept me awake! Piccard told him in response, describing the acrobatic display put on by the Spanish air force as he came in to land.

The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing powered only by sunlight and Piccard has been getting little sleep as he survives on short catnaps.

After a long night of turbulence and little sleep, I see the first light of the day, Piccard tweeted earlier on Wednesday, later saying he had spotted a commercial plane flying past him.

Piccard had kept followers up to date with sightings of whales and icebergs, as well as occasional turbulence on the near three-day transatlantic journey.

Describing the crossing as perfect, Piccard said he had been guided by a group of engineers and meteorologists who had enabled him to pass through the clouds as if through the eye of a needle.

Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-kilometre trip round the world in stages, with Piccard and his Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg taking turns at the controls of the single-seat plane.  AFP
Karachi, June 22

Amjad Sabri, one of Pakistans finest Sufi qawwals best known for his soul-stirring renditions of mystic poetry, was today killed by unidentified gunmen in a targeted terror attack here.

Sabri, 45, and an associate were travelling in a car in Karachis congested Liquat-abad 10 area when two unidentified motorcycle-borne gunmen fired at them. The two were rushed to hospital, where both died.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but a senior police official said it was a targeted killing and an act of terrorism. Sabri was apparently heading for the studio of a private television channel when he was attacked.

Amjad Sabri was the son of renowned qawwal Ghulam Farid Sabri, whose family, originally from Rohtak, is famous in the subcontinent for their contribution to this Sufi art and mystic poetry. Some of the most memorable and famous qawwalis are Bhar Do Jholi Meri, Tajdar-i-Haram and Mera Koi Nahin Hai Teray Siwa.

Sabri, who travelled widely to Europe and USA for his concerts, was known as the rockstar of qawwali due to his modern style of rendition.

Fakhre Alam, chairman of the Sindh Censor Board, claimed that Sabri had submitted an application for security, but the home department did not act on it.

His killing comes just two days after the son of the Sindh High Court Chief Justice was kidnapped.

The spokesman for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insasaf party, Naeem ul Haq, called for those involved in heinous crimes to be given capital punishment. No one is safe in Karachi. The so-called clean-up operation over the last two years is a total failure.

In 2014, the Islamabad High Court had issued a notice in a blasphemy case to two TV channels for playing of a qawwali in a show where a mock wedding had a qawwali sung by Sabri.  PTI
In this episode of Morning Edition, we discuss the award of 7.5 million dollars by the court
The public is hereby advised that the Prisons Administration acknowledges the release of remanded inmate, Vicky Boodram, who was housed at the Womens Prison on fraud charges.
Rake will wrap in two weeks time with 2016 UK drama New Blood to move into the coveted Thursday drama slot (while Barracuda wins the Sunday slot).

Created by Anthony Horowitz (Foyles War), the series stars Mark Strepan and Ben Tavassol as junior investigators working two different angles of the same case against a pharmaceutical company.

Having just premiered in the UK this month, the 7 part series also stars Mark Addy and Anna Chancellor.

Two young investigators take on the establishment in this fast-paced drama from multi award-winning author and screenwriter, Anthony Horowitz (Foyles War). Brimming with action, intrigue and wit, with seven episodes, New Blood is a completely fresh take on contemporary crime.

Rash (Ben Tavassoli) and Stefan (Mark Strepan) are two guys in their mid-twenties, stuck at the bottom of the career ladder. One is a trainee police detective, the other a very junior investigator at the Serious Fraud Office. Theyre both short of cash, struggling with the high cost of London living. Rashs parents were born in Iran, Stefans in Poland. Theyre first generation British  but still outsiders.

Theyve never met. But when theyre brought together by two apparently unrelated cases, they find themselves involved in a worldwide conspiracy. There are bombs, car chases and machine-gun-wielding assassins hot on their heels. They soon realise that together is the only way to survive.

In 21st Century London, a new breed of criminal hides behind legitimate facades of business and government. Rash and Stefan must combine their skills to bring them down. They are opposites in almost every way, but as their friendship develops they realise they can take on the rich and powerful. Just as long as they dont get themselves fired first.

In the first episode, six years have passed since a sinister drugs trial in India took place and

one of the participants is found dead. Eager young PC Rash Sayyad is sure its murder and not suicide as initially ruled. An impressed DS Sands (Mark Addy) offers him a trainee detective position, but as they begin to work on the case, Senior Fraud Office investigator Stefan Kowolski is gathering intelligence on a hospital pharmacist  eventually drawing him into the same case.

8:30pm Thursday July 14 on ABC.
In July, Foxtel is adding a Fast & Furious pop-up channel on CH 400 for Foxtel Movies subscribers.

All seven movies will screen from 6am on Friday 8 July until Monday morning 11 July.

Known for its daring races, street chases, heists and turbo-charged hot-rods, Fast & Furious took to screens in 2001 with the first movie The Fast and The Furious, which created an incredible fan base and spawned an additional six sequels.

Based against a backdrop of undercover investigations, underworld street crime and illegal street dragging, Fast & Furious stars some of the biggest names in Hollywood action including Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto); Chad Lindberg (Jesse); Michelle Rodriguez (Letty Ortiz); Dwayne The Rock Johnson); Elsa Pataky (Elena Neves) and the late Paul Walker (Brian OConner), who all show off their amazing driving skills and tough street talk across the film series.

 The Fast and the Furious (2001)  Street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) falls under the suspicion of the LAPD as a string of truck robberies rocks L.A. Brian OConnor (Paul Walker), an undercover cop, joins Torettos racing crew to take him down only to find himself taken in by this new world. As a rival racing crew gains strength, OConnor must decide where his loyalties lie.

 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)  Now an ex-LAPD cop, Brian teams up with his ex-con friend Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and works with undercover U.S. Customs Service agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) to bring down Miami-based drug lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser).

 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)  American teenager Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) challenges a high school rival to an illegal street race, and ends up totalling his car. To avoid jail time hes sent to Tokyo to live with his father and, as soon as he arrives, discovers a new dangerous way of street racing in the underworld streets of Tokyo.

 Fast & Furious (2009)  Now a fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto reignites his feud with agent Brian OConnor, but the two are forced to confront a shared enemy and give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanoeuvre him. Convoy heists and daring tunnel crawls across international lines push their skills to the limits as the two men drive on with their quest for revenge.

 Fast Five (2011)  Brian and Dom team up again as Doms sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) breaks Dom out of custody and escapes across international lines only to find themselves backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro. Their key to freedom rests in pulling off one last job. With their elite team of racers, they know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead while slipping away from hard-nosed federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) who is out to bring them down.

 Fast & Furious 6 (2013)  After toppling the kingpins empire in Rio in Fast Five Dom, Brian and their crew have scattered across the globe having split their latest $100 million take among them; only, everyones anxious to get back home after life on the run. Meanwhile Hobbs is tracking another group of mercenary drivers and knows the only way to stop them is to cut a deal with Brian and Dom. The deal? Full pardons so the crew can finally go home, but only if they can out match the mercenary team.

 Fast & Furious 7 (2015)  Hoping theyd left their criminal life in the past, Dom and his crew have gone separate ways only to be hunted down by someone out for revenge. Worse still, they cross paths with terrorists out to steal a computer terrorism program that can turn any technology into a weapon. Dom brings the team back together to save the day only to find themselves in a power struggle between the terrorists and the US government.
The death of US actor Anton Yelchin has lead to Jeep issuing a global recall for Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles.

The Star Trek actor was struck and killed by his Grand Cherokee when it rolled away unexpectedly. The incident is under investigation, but the early signs point to him failing to select Park before exiting the vehicle.

Yelchins SUV was one of 1.1 million vehicles recalled by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV in April over the potential to roll away. Forty-one injuries, as well as crashes and property damage, have been linked to the problem.

FCA Australia has now issued a recall notice for Chrysler 300 models built between 2012 and 2014, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee built between 2014 and 2015.

The recall notice pertains to the automatic transmission, which uses a spring-loaded two-stage shifter to select Park.

FCA Australia will contact owners for the subject vehicles to be returned to an authorised dealer for a software upgrade expected to rectify the shift-lever operation.

Source: Motoring Reuters
The Nine Network is yet to comment on its own personalities feuding publicly in the world of AFL.

While Eddie McGuires comments saw the light of day on radio it was able to lay low (but happily pushed Footy Classified into an earlier timeslot and reap the ratings benefits).

On Wednesday it officially became a TV topic when Sam Newman weighed in with victim-blaming comments directed at his own Nine colleague, Caroline Wilson.

Together with James Brayshaw, there are now 4 Nine personalities embroiled in this saga along with topics including violence against women, misogyny, bullying and language.

Footy Show sponsor Nissan has now said via a spokesperson, Nissan does not support Sam Newmans recent comments relating to Caroline Wilson and is raising this matter with Channel Nine.

While Footy Shows Rebecca Maddern was eloquent in condemning the matter and reminding those involved about their choice of words, so far neither Nine CEO Hugh Marks, nor GTV9 Managing Director Ian Paterson have made public statements.

Meanwhile Caroline Wilson has responded to comments made by Sam Newman on The Footy Show, in which he described her as becoming a joke.

Wilson, who has previously been targeted by Newman on the Nine show, told Adelaides FIVEaa, Im not surprised  the guys just a bit of a Neanderthal isnt he?

He lives in the past, hes missed the point completely with all of this as he has with so many big issues in footy in recent years.

I dont think he did Eddie any good at all with his comments  his lack of judgment as hes got older has really baffled me.

I think what he said about me was completely wrong but referring to people whove taken offence to this and written about it  as excrement, that really made me cross, Wilson continued.

This is what he did last time with the mannequin stunt. If that wasnt bad enough he compounded the damage by making disgusting comments about women board members.

That ended up costing Sam and Channel Nine hundreds of thousands of dollars, so he should be careful.

After mocking Wilson in 2008 with the now-infamous mannequin Newman was put on ACMAs watchlist for 6 months with Nine required to advise every time the show received further complaint. He was also suspended for a number of weeks to undergo anti-discrimination training.

In 2010 after likening a Malaysian man to a monkey Nine managing director Jeffrey Browne gave an enforceable undertaking to the Australian Communications and Media Authority to the tune of $200,000 to be paid if Newman or The Footy Show was found to be in breach of the Code of Practice for a period of 2 years. Newman also underwent further training in anti-discrimination.

Yesterday ACMA confirmed it had received enquiries relating to Eddie McGuires radio remarks about Caroline Wilson and held preliminary discussions, but a formal investigation is not yet underway.

While it may yet receive enquiries regarding The Footy Show the show is neither under a formal investigation.

Via: News Corp
Gareth Bale rounded off a dream night for Wales by scoring the final goal in their 3-0 win against Russia on Monday, adding to his free-kicks against Slovakia and England to become only the seventh player in EURO history to score in every group game.

What next for Bale and Wales? If some of his predecessors are anything to go by, he could be picking up the Golden Boot.

Michel Platini, 1984

France's midfield maestro left it late to break the deadlock in the tournament's opening game against Denmark, scoring the only goal in the 78th minute. He was only just getting started, though, netting back-to-back hat-tricks as France demolished Belgium 5-0 and beat Yugoslavia 3-2.

Watch all Michel Platini's EURO goals

What happened next?

The captain orchestrated France's epic semi-final with Portugal in Marseille, turning in Jean Tigana's cross in the final minute of extra-time to set up a 3-2 win. Platini scored a record ninth goal of the tournament to get the party going in the 2-0 win over Spain in the final as France won their first major trophy. He was, by some distance, the Player of the Tournament.

Hristo Stoichkov, 1996

Having scored ten goals in qualifying, Bulgaria's hopes in a tricky group with France and Spain were always going to rest on Stoichkov's ability to find the net. The then Parma striker duly delivered, converting a penalty in a 1-1 draw against Spain and scoring the only goal in a 1-0 success over Romania. He also struck in his team's 3-1 defeat by France.

What happened next?

Despite Stoichkov's efforts, Group B proved too strong for Bulgaria, although the striker still finished joint second top scorer.

Alan Shearer, 1996

Shearer and and Teddy Sheringham's profitable 'SAS' partnership was crucial to England, with the former enjoying his finest tournament. Shearer began in ruthles fashion, scoring against Switzerland and Scotland before hitting a double in England's memorable 4-1 thrashing of the Netherlands.

What happened next?

Shearer was shut out by Spain in the quarter-finals but did his job from the penalty spot as England prevailed in the shoot-out. They had no such luck in the semi-final shoot-out with Germany, although Shearer's third-minute header ensured he picked up the Golden Boot with five goals.

Savo Milosevic Getty Images

Savo Milosevic, 2000

The then Real Zaragoza striker started and completed a sensational comeback from 3-0 down to draw 3-3 in the opener with Slovenia. He struck the only goal in a 1-0 win over Norway and netted the opener in another epic Group C game, his side losing 4-3 to Spain by conceding two injury time goals.

What happened next?

The late collapse to Spain was a sign of things to come, and Yugoslavia were blitzed 6-1 by the Netherlands in the quarter finals, Patrick Kluivert running riot for the Dutch. Milosevic did manage a consolation goal in injury time, which meant he shared the Golden Boot with Kluivert.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, 2004

The Dutchman had already earned a reputation as a ruthless marksman with Manchester United and quickly set about doing the same in his first major tournament. He struck late in a 1-1 draw with rivals Germany and scored in the 3-2 defeat to the Czechs, before bagging a brace in a commanding 3-0 win over Latvia.

What happened next?

Van Nistelrooy scored from the spot in a nerve-wracking shoot-out win over Sweden, but hosts Portugal proved too much for the Netherlands, losing 2-1.

Milan Baros AFP

Milan Baros, 2004

The Czech striker was the surprise star of a surprising tournament, having underwhelmed in his previous two seasons with Liverpool. Baros had a curious habit of scoring his three goals in Group D in between the 70th and 80th minutes as the Czechs won each game, beating Latvia 1-0, the Netherlands 3-2 and then Germany 2-1. Baros twisted his way through their defence before scoring the goal that sent Germany home.

What happened next?

Baros scored twice as the Czechs swatted aside Denmark to set up a semi-final with Greece, but their dream of making the final was ended in extra-time by the eventual winners. Baros, however, had already made his mark on the tournament, collecting the Golden Boot.
Well-known Ukrainian rock band VV led by Oleh Skrypka has arrived in the ATO zone to perform at the concerts for Ukrainian soldiers serving in residential areas near the contact line, Ukrinform reports.

The performances will be organized in three military units which are deployed near Selidovo, Marinka and Kostiantynivka later in June.

"A scene will be set up at a military base. A performance will last about one and a half hour. This concert will be exclusively for the military," said the event coordinator Oleksiy Pasternak.

According to Pasternak, a concert tour was organized and funded by a number of patriotic citizens.

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One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, 11 Ukrainian servicemen were wounded as a result of combat actions in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

Presidential Administration Spokesman on ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzniak said this at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

One Ukrainian solider was killed and 11 soldiers were wounded as a result of military actions over the past twenty-four hours, Motuzniak said.

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Canada and Ukraine have great potential for cooperation and both countries need to take advantage of it.

Such an opinion was expressed by Minister of International Trade of Canada Chrystia Freeland, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Ukraine and Canada have excellent opportunities in agriculture, environmentally friendly technologies and in other areas as both of our governments are focused on innovation," Freeland said.

She separately mentioned the aerospace industry, cooperation in which should be actively promoted.

"I talked with my Ukrainian colleagues about the real opportunities for cooperation in the aerospace sector," the Minister stressed.

According to her, Ukraine and Canada need to strengthen their strategic partnership and deepen economic cooperation.

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iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Department of State and the online education provider Coursera have teamed up to provide displaced people around the world access to an education.



"Coursera for Refugees provides access to world-class, career-relevant education at no cost, to individual refugees and the nonprofits that serve them," Rebecca Taber, head of government partnerships at Coursera, told ABC News.



The initiative will provide financial aid for more than 1,000 online classes to an unlimited number of nonprofit groups that work directly with refugees, Coursera said in a statement.



Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Edinburgh are among the schools that offer classes through Coursera for Refugees.



Our mission is to transform lives by providing access to the worlds best education, Lila Ibrahim, chief operations officer at Coursera, said in a statement. We know that one of the best ways to reach the people who need education opportunities the most is by working with organizations that understand the local needs. Were excited to partner with these organizations including the State Department to provide refugees with comprehensive support as they take Coursera courses -- at no cost -- on anything from English to Python programming.



"We know we cant do this on our own. Our theory of action is to support the organizations that are on the ground," Taber said, citing the company's partnership with the State Department.



The State Department will open up U.S. embassies and consulates for facilitated discussions for course participants, "targeted specifically at communities with significant refugee populations," it announced in a statement. "The first program will be hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and will focus on English language learning for a mixed group of refugees and local Lebanese students."



The State Department will also help connect Coursera with eligible nonprofit organizations in its network.



"Starting with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the State Department will host in-person facilitation of online Coursera courses, targeted specifically at communities with significant refugee populations. These facilitated sessions will offer learners the support of an in-person community -- which provides a deeper, richer learning experience," Evan Ryan, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, said in a statement. "We really feel this public/private partnership is one of the many ways we can make a difference in the lives of real people by bringing educational opportunities to them."



The U.N. Refugee Agency emphasizes the significance of an education for refugees on its website, stating "In times of displacement, education is crucial. It can foster social cohesion, provide access to life-saving information, address psychosocial needs, and offer a stable and safe environment for those who need it most."



In the coming months, Coursera for Refugees will launch with groups of displaced people in Kenya, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Taber told ABC News.



Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Vadym Chernysh, the Minister of Ukraine for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, has outlined the priorities of the Ministrys activity.

Minister Chernysh said this in an interview with the Voice of Ukraine governmental newspaper, Ukrinform reports.

"One direction is the policy towards the uncontrolled territories. Another direction is the policy towards the occupied territories - Crimea and Sevastopol. International humanitarian law. The real things that are being carried out in the field should be monitored by the Ukrainian authorities," the Minister said.

He also stressed he would deal with problems of the internally displaced persons.

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The age of criminal responsibility will be lowered by one year from the current 14, the Ministry of Justice said Wednesday, announcing measures to cope with an increasing number of...

Police on Wednesday made an emergency apprehension of a man in his 40s on suspicion of killing his wife and their two teenage sons at their home in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul...
After hearing worrying stories about fever outbreaks in nearby provinces, Sonia and her neighbours trekked several kilometres to a mosquito net distribution point. The nets they received will help the women and their families protect themselves from malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses. With support from UNICEF, about 44,000 mosquito nets were distributed in communities and health facilities across Angolas Bengo Province.



DANDE, Angola, 21 June 2016  Sonia rests on a piece of wood with her 2-year-old daughter on her lap. She and two of her neighbours have walked several kilometres to reach this point. Next to her is exactly what she came for: a stack of four neatly-packed mosquito bed nets.

The young mother of two is one of the beneficiaries of a mosquito net distribution held in Panguila Commune, which is about 21 km from the centre of Bengo Province in Angola. The distribution point was organized by health staff in coordination with community leaders.

Recently, people in Sonias region have grown worried after hearing about fever outbreaks in bordering provinces. She decided to make the trek to get nets after hearing about the distribution from a neighbour.

Before receiving her nets, she and her daughter had to pass a quick malaria test  fortunately, it was negative for both of them. Despite the result, she says she cannot relax because of the stories she has heard of people who have been dying from strange fevers, including malaria and yellow fever.

It is important to use mosquito nets because fevers are killing," says Sonia. "In our village, fevers, dirty water and mosquitoes never stop.



A persistent threat

Malaria is still one of the biggest killers in Angola. Nearly half of under-five deaths are caused by the disease.
Abdul Aziz Mohammed Basaad knows the importance of getting children vaccinated, which is why he recently welcomed health workers into his home to inoculate his young grandchildren. The health workers were two among a total of 46,000 who are taking part in a nation-wide campaign in Yemen that aims to vaccinate five million children against polio.



AL MUKALLA, Yemen, 22 June 2016  When two young health workers knocked at his door to vaccinate his seven grandchildren, Abdul Aziz Mohammed Basaad welcomed them into his home. Many parents simply bring their children to the door to be vaccinated, but Basaads offer of a brief rest in an air-conditioned room and a glass of juice and cold water were his way of showing his appreciation.

These are angels of mercy. They move from one house to another to help people, the 61-year-old retired teacher said.

These particular health workers were conducting a polio vaccination campaign. Once they had recharged their batteries, Mr. Basaad brought his grandchildren over one by one to be inoculated.

I believe in vaccinating my grandchildren and advise other people to do the same because I saw many physically handicapped people whose parents neglected vaccination, he said.



Spreading the word

Mr. Basaad believes that many families resist vaccination because they are not fully aware of the dangers of leaving their children unvaccinated. He also knows that intensifying public awareness ahead of each new round of vaccination campaigns is crucial.

However, in April 2015, Mukallas radio station was burned and shut down after heavy fighting. Mr. Basaad says that the port city and many neighbouring regions have lost an important vehicle for spreading health awareness among people. He suggests speaking to people directly and putting up posters everywhere in the community to reach beneficiaries quickly.

People should be educated about the importance of vaccination, he said. Health workers need to come to public gatherings to tell people why they should immunize their children."

Mr. Basaad has seen the harmful effects of not vaccinating children. Ten years ago, a large number of people used to refuse vaccination. Now some of those children are paralysed, he said. Vaccination campaigns are part of relief efforts. Relief does not only mean bringing food baskets.



Reaching all children

In 2015, around 3.9 million children under the age of 5 were given the oral polio vaccination and 4.1 million children from 6-59 months were given Vitamin A supplements. From 10 to 12 April, Yemen launched a new countrywide polio campaign to reach even more children. The campaign covers Yemens 327 districts, using more than 19,000 mobile teams and 2,647 fixed health centres. Children in the previously unreachable cities of Taiz city, Saada and Aden also benefited from the campaign.
Lawyers for Donald Trump are on defensive, and they fight claims that Trump University real estate seminar program amounted to a racketeering operation under federal law.

Donald Trumps lawyers are going against racketeering operation allegations under the federal law involving his Trump University real estate seminar program, Politico reported.

Trump's lawyers dismissed the allegations that Trump University violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corruption Organizations Act and that Trump was knowingly involved in the violations, based from the federal class-action lawsuit that was filed in court last Friday night.

Trump is requesting that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel toss out the lawsuit, which is one of two pending class actions. The request comes as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has started to emerge from a media backlash he caused by publicly accusing Curiel of bias and attributing that bias to the judge's Latino heritage. Numerous Democratic leaders and several well-known GOP figures saw Trump's remarks as racist.

Curiel has not publicly reacted to Trump's racial remarks, but briefly noted in a ruling last month that the presidential nominee "has placed the integrity of these proceedings at issue."

Trump's legal advisers appears to face a struggling battle in trying to get the suit dismissed, since the judge issued a ruling in 2014 that the RICO claim could proceed as a class action and has rejected a similar summary judgment motion in the parallel lawsuit.Attorneys pressing the suits against Trump on behalf of former Trump University students say the program fraudulently advertised that instructors were hand-picked by Trump and that students would learn the real estate mogul's "secrets." Even calling the program a "university" was a fraud, the lawsuits contend.

Meanwhile, Trump filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the celebrity chef, Geoffrey Zakarian, LA Times reported. The chef withdrew to open a restaurant in Washington's Old Post Office Building, where a luxury hotel is being renovated by Trump.

According to the source, Zakarian pulled out of deal after Trump made a "bigoted" remarks towards Mexican.
The #TrumpSoPoor contra-campaign goes viral on Twitter!

This social media campaign aims none other than to openly make fun of the quoted losing political campaign of Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump over presumptive democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The social media contra-campaign mechanized by certain Twitter account holders also faces rough backlashes from Trump fans, Fox 13 reported.

Social media and political analysts were not very certain as to what ignited the fire for such mockery. But others have decided that the most possible fire-starter to this is the Federal Election Commission's report in Monday that consequentially compared both Clinton and Trump's funds in a black-and-white sheet.

Apparently, the attitude of the contra-campaign loses all wits to sarcasm, irony and abject humiliation. The series of posts were seen to be direct in tone and open in intention.

Nevertheless, most find the posts to be extremely funny.

One post by Growing Up Mexican in Twitter foes over Trump's campaign and jokes on how poor he has emerged through it.

Another post by Gigi Guerriero angles on Trump's xenophobic views by stating that Trump's campaign have gotten so poor since it has not been funded by Clinton's Saudi cash.

The #TrumpSoPoor continues to circulate heavily over the web as ravaged Trump fans strike back with their might.

Meanwhile, by personal actions, Trump confidently singles out Clinton and currently plans to start a "full-frontal assault" on her.

Previously, Trump was heavily displeased with Clinton's "Open Borders Immigration Policies" and promises to save America from downgraded wages, NBC News reported.

Now as if taken by a surge of want, Trump's campaign immediately launches a very efficient response team. Accordingly, the team does not only focus on the overrated contra-campaign post, but strikes with an even bigger agenda of destabilizing, if not preventing Clinton's hold to the throne, NBC News again reported.
The first experimental Zika vaccine will begin human testing earlier than what they expected.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced on their official website that they received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, which is an approval to begin early-stage safety tests of its DNA-based vaccine against the mosquito-borne virus.

The experimental Zika vaccine was reported to begin human testing in coming weeks, thus put the company ahead of researchers at the National Institutes of Health, who have recently said that they expect to begin testing their own DNA-based Zika vaccine by fall.

According to Invio, in preclinical testing, the synthetic vaccine showed hope to cure Zika because it induced robust antibody and T-cell responses in small and large animals, thus it clearly shows that the product has a potential to prevent infection from this harmful pathogen in humans.

Currently, there are no licensed drugs or vaccines for Zika. This could be the reason why National Institutes of Health or (NIH) is working to develop a Zika vaccine by swapping out the genetic material from its experimental West Nile virus vaccine, Fox reported.

Inovio is partnered with GeneOne Life Science. They plan to begin a 40-person study in order to find out the safest dose of the vaccine in coming weeks, and according to the company's officials, they expect results from the vaccine study by the end of 2016.

Aedes aegypti or known as Yellow fever mosquito, is a carrier of Zika virus, dengue, chikungunya. Zika has spread in Brazil, and was reported spreading fast across the America, and this disease has raised the risk of birth defects. Its common symptoms are fever, headaches, joint pain, muscle pain, skin rash, and conjunctivitis or pink eye.

As a matter of fact, there were requests for abortions reported in some Latin American countries since health officials began issuing warning about the disease.
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UW Literacy Research Center Brings Text Messaging Program to Wyoming

Jayden Diarte, Lionel Martinez Tzompa and Gael Lopez, three participants in Teton Countys Childrens Learning Center, celebrate graduation from their Head Start program in Jackson in June. Their families took part in a texting program involving UWs Literacy Research Center and Clinic. (Leticia Liera Photo)

This past spring, parents of nearly two dozen 4-year-olds in Head Start and preschool classes in Teton and Sublette counties took part in an early literacy text messaging pilot program via a partnership among the University of Wyoming Literacy Research Center and Clinic, CEPA Labs at Stanford University and the Childrens Learning Center.

This fall, the program is poised to go statewide as part of many preschool, Head Start and library offerings.

The program provides parents with three text messages a week. The texts offer ways for parents to engage in early literacy activities as part of their daily routines -- for example, asking their children to name letters and letter sounds on a shampoo bottle during bath time.

Benjamin York, a graduate student at Stanford University, and Susanna Loeb, a professor at Stanford, developed the texting program. After the original eight-month Stanford study, it was shown to increase parental engagement in home literacy activities and encourage parents to ask teachers questions. Most importantly, the children who participated scored higher on a literacy assessment.

Jorge Moreno, the father of a 4-year-old Head Start student at the Childrens Learning Center in Teton County, was one of the parents who tried the program with his son, Jayden.

He was finding out the letter sounds, and it was a review of what he was studying in school, Moreno says. On top of that, it was encouraging us to start practicing reading with our kids.

We know, from evidence, that student achievement is highly correlated with strong family partnerships with learning, says Dana Robertson, executive director of UWs Literacy Research Center and Clinic (LRCC). The parents or caregivers are the first teacher of the child. The kinds of opportunities that are provided in the home correlate right with the types of achievements we see in school.

Sometimes, parents are just trying to survive, and theres not a lot of spare time in their day, says Victoria Gillis, a Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Chair in Literacy Education at UW. These text messages give information about how you can use bath time, or setting the table, or sorting laundry or a trip to the store as a chance to embed literacy activities.

Isabel Zumel, assistant director of the Teton County Library, and Leticia Liera, director of Head Start for the Childrens Learning Center, read about Stanfords program, which is multilingual, and called upon the LRCC to implement it in Wyoming. The program was made possible with funding from the John P. Ellbogen Foundation, the Donne and Sue Fisher Fund for the Advancement of Literacy, and another local family foundation.

The three-month initial implementation wrapped up this past spring, and the early results are resoundingly positive.

The parents were very excited to be working with UW because we are far away, Liera says. It gave them the message that the development of their children was important enough for the state that the university also was involved. It was a win-win situation for everyone.

Zumel says the texts were easy for parents to understand and apply: It opened them up to be hungry for information about early literacy, because they could directly see the benefit with their children as they were doing the activities. It even encouraged some of these families to start doing their own research on literacy skills.

The program is cost-effective, and Liera and Zumel hope all the Head Start programs and public libraries in the state, as well as many preschools, will adopt it in the coming school year. Enrollment will begin in August, with the first texts going out in September.

The texting program is only one of many outreach programs spearheaded by the LRCC, which opened in spring 2014.

The center has maintained its vision for statewide engagement -- engaging in research, clinical services, teacher education and professional development, Robertson says.

The center provides K-12 literacy tutoring on site at the Laramie campus; conducts important literacy research studies with UW doctoral students; offers grants for new and interdisciplinary research; provides hands-on learning for pre-service teachers; and offers an annual literacy conference. It also provides professional development opportunities to districts across the state, and Robertson spearheaded a needs assessment for the early grades in collaboration with the Wyoming Department of Education in order to focus on clearly delineated needs of grades K-3 in Wyoming schools.

In the future, Robertson says the center plans to open satellite clinics in each region of the state where education undergraduate and literacy graduate students will receive practicum experiences and offer tutoring services. The center also plans to offer online video training modules in literacy education.

To learn more, visit www.uwyo.edu/education/lrcc.
UW Trustees Approve Vendor for New Management System

A transformation of the University of Wyomings financial, administrative and research support systems will begin soon, following action by the UW Board of Trustees.

The board voted last week to authorize contract negotiations with Oracle Corp. to use its cloud-based software solutions to serve the entire university. The system will centralize and replace outdated systems across UW, including those handling human resources, financial management, budgeting and external grants. The system also will allow for integrated data reporting across all university systems.

Total cost of the project implementation over about three years is projected at $30 million, funded by a legislative appropriation and internal UW reallocations. This includes consulting costs for system implementation, reporting setup, business and budget process redesign, and project and change management activities.

The need for an improved financial and reporting system at UW has been recognized by groups ranging from trustees and administrators to legislative committees and, with the support of all of them, we can finally move forward with a comprehensive solution, Vice President for Administration Bill Mai says. This will change the way the university does business at every level, providing a modern and synchronized environment that will allow university faculty and staff members to spend less time on paperwork and more time on efforts that contribute to the universitys mission. And, it will provide a level of transparency that is long overdue to those with an interest in the university.

Oracle was selected through a competitive proposal process aided by Huron Consulting Group, with which UW contracted in 2015 to evaluate the universitys financial and reporting processes. A committee of UW administrators and employees from across campus provided the recommendation to the universitys Executive Council and President Laurie Nichols, and it went to a committee of the Board of Trustees before action by the full board.

We selected Oracle because of its proven ability to meet the universitys needs and its depth of experience in higher education, say Jen Chavez and Megan Hanneman, co-chairs of the selection committee. We evaluated vendors based on several factors, including input from employees, vendor commitment and stability, and alignment with our vision. Oracle was the best choice based on UWs unique needs.

Once a contract with Oracle is in place, UW will begin transforming its business operations to:

-- Improve the quality and accuracy of information to make timely and informed decisions about where and how to invest resources.

-- Modernize processes and systems to allow faculty and staff members to focus more of their time and energy on the core mission of the university.

-- Provide new opportunities for employees to contribute to the universitys success.

-- Allow for integrated data reporting of student, financial, human resources and grant information, and other informational sources, from a single platform.

The new system will provide the type of intuitive user interface and seamless functionality that employees expect and are accustomed to from their other work and experiences online.

We have an antiquated and inefficient approach to data management. The series of shadow systems currently used across campus requires significant additional time and effort for individual units to input, organize and interpret data. Yet, despite that extra effort and cost, that approach is still insufficient to manage and forecast unit and institutional needs, Vice President for Information Technology Robert Aylward says. The reporting functionality of the new system will bring us comprehensive data integration, data reporting and a much more productive work experience.

The new system will be especially valuable as the university embarks on strategic planning in the next year, led by Nichols.

This will allow us to measure decisions against the strategic plan and be fully transparent regarding how resources are being used, the president says. We intend for the university to move on a strong upward trajectory in coming years, and the new system functionality will help make that possible.

A team of staff members -- led by Hanneman and Chavez -- dedicated to the implementation project will assemble work groups, with representatives from across the university, to develop the plans and processes necessary to transition from existing systems to the new environment.

We invite members of the UW community to share their ideas and concerns, Mai says. We take the needs of stakeholders seriously, and we will consider all suggestions and comments.
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Just hours after reuniting with veteran right-hander Tom Wilhelmsen, the Seattle Mariners continued to add to their pitching depth as the club acquired LHP Wade LeBlanc from the Toronto Blue Jays, according to a report from Greg Johns of MLB.com on Wednesday morning.

It is said that Toronto will receive either cash considerations or a PTBNL as the exchange piece of the trade.

The news comes just days after losing two quality starters in RHP Felix Hernandez and LHP Wade Miley to the 15-day DL.

Both clubs have since officially confirmed the transaction which will see the year-old take to the hill on Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals in replacement of RHP Taijuan Walker who is currently dealing with tendonitis in the arch of his right foot.

As for the Wilhelmsen signing, this move comes at a crucial time as done by general manager Jerry DiPoto which transfers LHP Charlie Furbush to the 60-day DL.

LeBlanc originally came up with the Tampa Bay Rays back in after having been drafted by the club in the 36th round of the 2003 amateur draft, however, he made the decision to continue on with his education at the University of Alabama. Looking onwards three years later, LeBlanc was selected by the San Diego Padres in the second round of the 2006 amateur draft. He also saw time with the Miami Marlins, New York Yankees and Houston Astros before signing with Toronto.

Wade LeBlanc in action with the Toronto Blue Jays during spring training | Butch Dill - USA TODAY Sports

Looking at his season thus far in, LeBlanc has been pitching with the Blue Jays Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons where he made 14 starts while pitching with an ERA of 1.71 to go alongside a record of 7-2.

A look back at LeBlanc's career

LeBlanc spent the 2015 regular season in Japan after having signed a contract with the Seibu Lions of the Pacific League, however, ended up back in the big leagues with the Blue Jays for the first time since 2014 back in December as he was brought aboard a minor league free agent.

Reflecting on his career as a whole, the 31-year-old owns an ERA of 4.47 to go alongside a record of 21-33 in 107 total games played.

As of now, the team stands in second place in the American League West division while holding a 36-25 record, 9.5 games back of the Texas Rangers and look to maintain their balance in order to compete with the Boston Red Sox for a wild card spot as they are only 2.5 games out behind.

In a statement from DiPoto, he said, "Wade is throwing about as well as anybody in Triple-A this year. He was available, and we snapped him up. He provides us with an experienced hand, and he's left-handed, which is something we don't have in our depth. So he gives us another internal option."
The Arizona Wildcats stay alive in the College World Series after defeating the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos 3-0 in an elimination game. Arizona has now won its fourth straight do-or-die game of the postseason. For UC Santa Barbara, their first College World Series appearance has come to an end.

Setting Up the Matchup

Coming into todays game, Arizona came off a1-0 shutout loss to Oklahoma State on Monday night. As for UC Santa Barbara, they came off a victory of No. 3 Miami in an elimination game.

Justin Kelly took the mound for the Gauchos. His start was short lived as he only went three plus innings, surrendering three runs on seven hits. Kelly ran into trouble in the second after giving up three singles. He got out of the inning without allowing a run.

In the third, Kelly would give up a single to Cody Ramer and then walked Zach Gibbons to start out the inning. Back-to-back sac flies would score Ramer. Kelly would then surrender a two run homerun off the bat of Jared Oliva. Kelly would get JJ Matijevic out at first to end the inning.

Photo: Ted Kirk, AP

Trevor Bettencourt would come in relief in the fourth. Bettencourt would give the Gauchos five strong innings, allowing just one hit and with seven strike outs.

For Arizona, lefty JC Cloney would get the start. Cloney would give Arizona another quality start, going seven innings, pitching to contact. Cloney would get 12 batters out by ground out and six by fly outs. In the eight, Cameron Ming would come out of the bullpen for relief.

Trouble would come for Ming in the ninth, after allowing a leadoff double to Clay Fisher and a walk to Devon Gradford. Ming would settle down in a big way. He would strike out the next three batters he faced to earn his third save of the postseason.

Quite a ride for Santa Barbara

In their first College World Series appearance, Santa Barbara would go 1-2 and would be shut out twice. Santa Barbara would have quite a run in the postseason, winning the Nashville Regional with a group that included Vanderbilt and Xavier, eliminating No. 2 Louisville in the Super Regionals and then eliminating Miami.

Arizona pitching adds to history

Arizona has become the fourth team in College World Series history to allow two or fewer runs in its first three games.

The rematch

Up next for Arizona is a rematch against Oklahoma State on Friday. If Oklahoma State wins, they will head to the College World Series Finals. If Arizona wins, that would set up a third game between the two and the winner of that game would go on to the College World Series Finals.
Contributed Photo The Ojai Film Society will host a screening of "City of Gold," a documentary about Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold, on Sunday at 5 p.m. at Matilija Auditorium.

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Events/festivals

Ventura County

Roadshow Revival: The eighth annual event celebrating American roots music will feature outlaw country, rockabilly, bluegrass and Johnny Cash tribute sets performed live alongside a pin-up girl pageant, vintage car show, food and beverages and shopping. June 25-26, Mission Park, downtown Ventura. $5-$320. For tickets and information, visit http://roadshowrevival.com.

Summer Solstice Nature Hike: Native plant guide Lanny Kaufer will lead a three-mile hike on Pine Mountain through Yellow Pine Forest where the group will stop along the way to identify native plants and wildlife. The outing will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 26, beginning with a carpool from Maricopa Plaza, 1201 Maricopa Highway, Ojai. $25 general admission, $20 seniors and students 13-18, free for children, one per adult. 646-6281; http://herbwalks.com.

Conejo Food and Wine Festival: This annual culinary event features live music and dozens of restaurants, wineries, breweries and bakeries offering samples and tastings. Proceeds benefit Food Share and Many Mansions. 1:30-5:30 p.m. June 26, St. Paschal School, 155 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks. $55-$100. 230-3173; http://conejofoodandwine.com.

DOWN SOUTH

L.A. Zoo's Roaring Nights 2016: The Los Angeles Zoo kicks off its Roaring Nights summer music series with a '90s-themed evening featuring cover band Saved by the '90s performing hits from Backstreet Boys, Blink-182, Goo Goo Dolls, Weezer and more and pop, grunge and house tunes spun by DJ Johnny Hawkes. Other highlights of the 18-and-older event include food trucks, full-service bars, pop-up zookeeper talks and animal encounters. 7-11 p.m. June 24, 5333 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles. $25 general admission, $22 zoo members. 323-644-6001; http://lazoo.org/roaringnights.

Carpinteria Museum Marketplace: The museum will hold its last-Saturday-of-the-month benefit marketplace offering antiques, collectibles, plants and handcrafted gifts from 70 vendors. 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 25, 956 Maple Ave., Carpinteria. Free. 684-3112.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

VENTURA COUNTY

"Great Highway: Journey to the Soul of Bay Area Surfing": Ojai-based production company On the Water Front Creative presents a surf film night featuring this award-winning documentary that traces the roots of Bay Area surfing and explores changes in the area and surf scene over the years. 7 p.m. June 25, Ojai Valley Grange, 381 Cruzero St., Ojai. 646-8414; http://brownpapertickets.com/event/2551563.

"City of Gold": The Ojai Film Society will host a community screening of "City of Gold" at Matilija Auditorium. The documentary follows Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold, a Pulitzer Prime winner. 5 p.m. June 26, 703 El Paseo, Ojai. Tickets $10 or $7 for seniors and students. For more information, visit http://www.ojaifilmsociety or call 646-8946.

"Max": As part of its Summer Movie Series, the Village at Dos Vientos presents the 2015 action/adventure film projected in 1080p high definition Blu Ray onto a 20-foot screen. Guests can purchase food and beverages from local merchants including The Local Table, Sushi Haru, BeanoVino and more. Blankets and/or beach chairs are recommended. Dusk, June 30, 350 Via Las Brisas, Newbury Park. For more information, visit http://thevillageatdosvientos.com.

DOWN SOUTH

"Troop Beverly Hills": Malibu Country Mart presents its fourth annual Free Films Under the Stars summer movie series where guests are invited to bring beach blankets and picnic baskets to watch family movies projected onto a large outdoor screen. Showing this week is the 1989 adventure comedy "Troop Beverly Hills." Rated PG. 7:45 p.m. June 25, 3835 Cross Creek Road, Malibu. 310-456-7300; http://malibucountrymart.com.

LECTURES AND APPEARANCES

UP NORTH

Yoga Lecture: In conjunction with its Puja and Piety exhibit, Santa Barbara Museum of Art presents "The Piety and Puja of the Yogin: Some Philosophical Reflections," an illustrated slide lecture by Gerald J. Larson, Professor Emeritus of Indian Cultures & Civilization at Indiana University, Bloomington and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara. 2:30 p.m. June 26, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara. $10 general admission, $6 seniors, free for museum members. 963-4364; http://sbma.net.

CLASSES

Ventura County

Felt Talk: This month's Ventura County Handweavers and Spinners Guild meeting features a talk by textile artist Sara Smelt, who will discuss her work on the centerpiece of an exhibition commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. 8:30 a.m. to noon, June 25, SCIART, 2222 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo. For more information, visit http://venturaweavespin.com.

DANCE CLUBS

Ventura County

Oxnard Ballroom Dance Club: The club will hold a weekly dance party featuring live music and ballroom, Latin, swing and line dancing. A dance lesson will be held at 6:30 p.m. Light refreshments included. 7:30-10 p.m. Thursdays, Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson Way, Oxnard. $12 general admission, $9 club members. 340-5226 or 407-1709.

Poinsettia Ballroom Dancers: The group's weekly dance features ballroom and Latin music. 7:30-10 p.m. Mondays, Poinsettia Pavilion, 3451 Foothill Road, Ventura. $12 general, $10 members. 415-8842.

Channel Cities Jazz Club: The club hosts a public dance with live music performed by the house band and guest jammers on the third Sunday of every month. Food and beverages are available for purchase. 1-4:30 p.m., ongoing, Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club, 2600 S. Harbor Blvd., Oxnard. $10 general admission, $7 members. 487-3062.

Country Lovers Western Dance Club: The Country Lovers Western Dance Club holds a dance featuring a dance lesson and music by DJ Jammin' Country. 6:45-9 p.m. Tuesdays, Ventura Moose Family Center, 10269 Telephone Road, Ventura. $6 general. On the third Saturday of each month, the club hosts a social dance at House of Dance, 3007 Bunsen Ave., Ventura. 456-9067; http://countrylovers.com.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Inspired by the James Beard Foundation's Blended Burger Project, the Negroni BBQ Burger featuring a beef-and-mushroom patty topped with kale, apple and bacon slaw is available through July 31 at Umami Burger in Thousand Oaks and the chain's other locations.

Lisa McKinnon Columnist SHARE LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Nikki Newman, executive chef at Coastal Grill at Embassy Suites Mandalay Beach Hotel & Resort in Oxnard, calls the Blended Burger Project "a good cause." CONTRIBUTED PHOTO The Sweet Green Chili Burger is Coastal Grill's entry in the Blended Burger Project. It is available through August at the restaurant at Embassy Suites by Hilton Mandalay Beach Hotel & Resort.

Hundreds of restaurants across the country  including two right here in Ventura County  are offering special, for-a-limited-time-only 'shroom burgers in hopes of winning a major prize: an invitation to cook at the James Beard House in New York City.

Co-sponsored by the Mushroom Council, a trade group, and by the James Beard Foundation, a nonprofit culinary organization named for the late food writer and gourmand, the Blended Burger Project calls on chefs to create burgers featuring patties made from ground meat and chopped mushrooms.

The idea, according to a media release from the foundation, is to offer "an incredibly delicious patty that's healthier for your guests and more sustainable for the planet."

But it's also about having fun with flavors, said Nikki Newman, executive chef at Coastal Grill, the on-site restaurant at Embassy Suites by Hilton Mandalay Beach Hotel & Resort in Oxnard.

"Burgers and mushrooms are so perfect together, anyway. You just start looking for ways to heighten that natural pairing," Newman said.

When the Blended Burger Project debuted in 2015, Newman and Coastal Grill were one of just 18 participating chef/restaurant combos in California  and the only one within the 805 area code.

This year, 42 California sites are participating, three of them located in the 805.

At Coastal Grill, diners will find Newman's Sweet Green Chili Burger on the lunch and dinner menus through August.

It starts with a patty made from 65 percent grass-fed ground beef blended with 35 percent chopped and sauteed shiitake and cremini mushrooms. The burger includes an onion ring, chipotle honey and a green chili cream cheese spread spiked with white cheddar and spices.

All of the above is served on a brioche bun from Ann's Bakery in Port Hueneme. The burger ($18) is served with a house-made pickle and diner's choice of fries, fruit or salad (2101 Mandalay Beach Road, 805-984-2500, http://www.mandalayembassysuites.com).

Joining the list of participants this year is Umami Burger. Diners at the Thousand Oaks site and additional locations in the chain have until July 31 to try the Negroni BBQ Burger.

Inspired by the classic cocktail, the burger ($14) features a 50/50 beef and mushroom patty topped with kale, apple and bacon slaw, smoked Gouda and a Campari barbecue sauce (2200 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., 805-413-8626, https://www.umamiburger.com).

In Paso Robles, meanwhile, Villa Creek Restaurant will serve its Countryside Burger ($16) through July 31.

It includes a beef-shiitake mushroom patty served with heirloom tomato, bacon and onion jam, fried enoki mushrooms and Pecorino Romano cheese (1144 Pine St., 805-238-3000, http://www.villacreek.com).

Diners and participating restaurants are encouraged to share photos of the featured burgers on social media by using the hashtag #BlendedBurgerProject.

The winningest burgers will be determined by popular vote. Diners can cast one vote every 24 hours by clicking on https://www.jamesbeard.org/blendedburgerproject/vote.

The five chefs whose restaurants receive the most online votes will each win a trip to the James Beard House to cook their respective Blended Burger creations for the JBF Food Conference in October.

Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. Please send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com.
STAR FILE PHOTO

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By Kathleen Wilson of the Ventura County Star

The Ventura County Community Foundation is negotiating with a Los Angeles nonprofit agency to manage its storehouse of charitable investments after a critical independent audit, an official confirmed Wednesday.

The foundation formed almost 30 years ago would focus on awarding local grants, while the California Community Foundation would manage the investments, Ventura County Community Foundation CEO Vanessa Bechtel said.

Board Chairman Gary Erickson disclosed last fall that the foundation had retained KPMG, a major tax and auditing firm, to review transactions from hundreds of funds held by the foundation. After a seven-month review, the firm found a number of those funds were undervalued due to improper management, foundation officials announced Wednesday.

The auditors found there had been improper investment of endowment funds in money market accounts, overallocation of interest income to funds the foundation used for operations, and assessment of fees in excess of that donors had agreed to in written contracts.

After receiving the findings, Bechtel and other staff members reviewed the records of about 250 funds in less than a month to determine whether any amounts were owed to those funds, the foundation said.

Bechtel declined to provide any details on how much money was at issue or how many funds needed to be repaid, saying she wanted to wait for the state attorney general's office to confirm the staff's calculations. She also declined for privacy reasons to name the holders of the funds.

Next up is determining the scope of the undervaluation and setting up a way to replenish the funds, subject to the attorney general's review, she said.

Some fund holders will see their asset balances increase on subsequent statements and none will decrease as a result of the review, officials said.

Officials said they retained KPMG to audit donor funds after the firm found the foundation had consistently outspent revenues for administrative operations. The foundation also contacted the attorney general's office, which regulates charities, to discuss concerns over financial issues.

Based on KPMG's financial forecast, the foundation cut the staff from 22 to five and reduced salaries up to 20 percent for the remaining employees, officials said.

The foundation closed a research and training center, cut the budget by more than 60 percent in the past year, and has placed the foundation's headquarters in Camarillo up for sale.

The initial listing price of $11 million for the property at 4001 Mission Oaks Blvd. has been lowered to $9.8 million.

Bechtel said the cost-cutting steps have strengthened the foundation's financial condition, predicting that the agency has sufficient cash to fund operations through September 2017.

The local foundation was established in 1987 and has a reported $95 million in investments.

Bechtel, who took over in February 2015, has said she had no idea of the financial problems when she started work.

Hugh Ralston, who preceded Bechtel as CEO, has defended his record and the foundation's regular auditing firm gave clean opinions in annual fiscal reviews.

Ralston resigned in 2014 after 11 years on the job and was subsequently hired as CEO of the Central Valley Community Foundation in Fresno. The Fresno foundation announced this month that he had stepped down but provided no reasons.
ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Wilson Chouest, 64, listens to testimony during a preliminary hearing at Ventura County Superior Court on Monday. Chouest is accused of killing two still-unidentified women in 1980. One of the victims was found in the parking lot of Westlake High School.

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By Marjorie Hernandez of the Ventura County Star

A judge ruled Wednesday there was enough evidence for a man to stand trial for the death of a pregnant woman found at a Ventura County school parking lot and another woman in Kern County nearly 40 years ago.

After three days of testimony during a preliminary hearing, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Nancy Ayers ordered William Chouest, 64, to appear in court on Aug. 17 for an arraignment.

Prosecutors allege Chouest stabbed, raped and killed two unidentified women in July 1980.

"Kern County Jane Doe" was found in an almond orchard in Delano on July 15, 1980 and "Ventura County Jane Doe" was found three days later in the upper parking lot of Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks. Ventura County Jane Doe was 20 weeks pregnant according to Dr. C. Peter Speth, a former county assistant medical examiner who testified during the hearing.

Chouest, a Louisiana native, is facing three counts of murder for the deaths of the two women and the fetus the Thousand Oaks victim was carrying. The charges carry a maximum of three consecutive life sentences if convicted, said Senior Deputy District Attorney John Barrick.

Chouest also faces several special allegations, including engaging in the commission of rape, attempted rape and committing more than one offense of murder.

The killings remained unsolved until a 2012 check with the Combined DNA Index System, a databank that contains DNA profiles of people arrested across the United States, linked Chouest to DNA collected from the victims and their clothing.

Chouest was already serving a life sentence for an August 1980 robbery and a September 1980 rape, robbery and kidnapping of another woman at College of the Sequoias, Barrick said. He was to be eligible for parole in 2017, but was arrested on suspicion of the 1980 deaths.

Dr. Bruce Woodling, who conducted an examination of Ventura County Jane Doe's body on July 18, 1980, testified Wednesday that he found evidence of abrasions in her genitalia associated with forced penetration.

Ventura County Jane Doe was stabbed 16 times in the chest, abdomen, stomach and buttocks.

Woodling said a fetus would be "viable" at 16 to 20 weeks and has about a 50 percent chance of survival with medical care.

Analysis showed the unidentified woman found in the almond orchard in Delano had a blood alcohol level of .29 percent, testified Ronald Smith, a toxicologist with the Kern County Medical Examiner's office.

Smith said the vitreous fluid and blood collected from the body of Kern County Jane Doe showed she could've stopped drinking about an hour before she died. Smith said he has never seen a case where blood alcohol level increases in a deceased body.

When questioned by Public Defender Andre Nintcheff, however, Smith said it is also possible Jane Doe could've been drinking up to the time of her death.

"It's purely speculative that at the time of the actual intercourse that she was unconscious," Nintcheff said in his closing argument. "We also had testimony that suggests this individual had a high amount of sexual activity and no indication there was a use of force."

Nintcheff added it is unknown how long the sperm had been inside Kern County Jane Doe's body.

Brenda Smith of the Kern County Crime Lab testified sperm fraction found on Kern County Jane Doe's panties matched DNA collected from Chouest.

Amy Lee, of the Serological Institute, said analysis showed a Michelob bottle found near the body of Kern County Jane Doe contained a mixture of three DNA profiles, including the woman, Chouest and a third unknown person.

Ayers said she considered DNA found inside the victims' bodies and said she "didn't find it reasonable" that Kern County Jane Doe had consensual sex and consumed alcohol before she was killed.

Ayers also said she considered the statement of Scott Bell, who told District Attorney investigator Steve Rhods that the defendant told him he had picked up a woman in Bakersfield and killed her.

"Presumably, the defendant provided (Bell) with information that was fairly specific to this particular murder," Ayers said. "I attribute those comments to the defendant since I don't know where else that would've come from."

Chouest is not eligible for bail and remains in county jail.
Arrest made in 2021 Oxnard crash that killed deaf man

More than a year after a deaf and mute Oxnard man was fatally struck in a crosswalk, police have arrested the driver in a felony case.
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Not long ago, Donald Trump set a $1 billion fundraising goal for his presidential battle against Hillary Clinton.

Now he says there's "no reason" to raise that much, and his operatives fear they will struggle to raise even $300 million. He brought in only $3.1 million in May to Clinton's $27 million, leaving him with $1.3 million in the bank to her $42 million.

He has virtually no campaign apparatus, has sacked his campaign manager and has one-tenth Clinton's staff. Yet he managed to spend more than $1 million in payments in May to Trump companies and in travel reimbursements to his family members.

Republicans are panicky, for good reason. We have seen this movie before. It's called the Trump Taj Mahal Atlantic City.

In that, the first of his enterprises' four bankruptcies, he convinced regulators he could raise plenty of money to complete the $1 billion project, claiming his golden name meant he wouldn't have to rely on high-interest junk bonds, as other developers did. But then he issued junk bonds. Gamblers didn't show up and spend the money he needed. Costs got out of control. Six months after the Taj opened in April 1990, it was in default, and nine months after that it went bankrupt, followed by two other Trump casinos.

The former head of the casino regulatory authority told The Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. that Trump had built a "Potemkin village." Atlantic City never quite recovered, but Trump came out fine. He told O'Harrow: "I got out great."

Now Trump is doing to the Republican Party what he did to Atlantic City.

Substitute voters for gamblers, "contributors" for bankers and the Republican Party for gambling regulators, and the arc has been eerily similar. Call it the Taj Technique.

Trump did well at first, winning control of the Taj  much as he won the primaries  with what one regulator called a blend of "hyperbole, contradictions and generalities," making grand promises that his name alone guaranteed success. He threatened to walk away from the project if he didn't get full ownership  not unlike his threat to bolt the GOP if he didn't secure the nomination. The massive resort got brisk business at first because of the free publicity Trump generated  much as he benefited from free publicity during the primaries.

But once he gained full ownership of the Taj, he quickly failed in his vow to secure prime lending, just as he quickly abandoned his fundraising goals after locking down the nomination. Then, as now, he made sure the Taj generated money for other Trump businesses. Then, as now, he alienated many who had supported him, and regulators suspected deception  but they continued to support his ownership of the floundering casino (much as GOP leaders support his nomination) because they were already in too deep.

It's worth rereading O'Harrow's definitive January account of the Taj Mahal bankruptcy. The tale of overpromising and underdelivering will sound familiar to those who watched Trump's triumph in the primaries and subsequent swoon.

Trump had based his purchase of the Taj on a basic untruth: He didn't need junk bonds. "I can build at the prime rate," he told regulators. "I mean, the banks call me all the time. 'Can we loan you money?'" He said, "It's easier to finance if Donald Trump owns it."

But Trump blithely walked away from this pledge, claiming this year that doing so was his "prerogative" and that "I would do it again."

Trump ignored stark and repeated warnings that he would not be able to attract enough gamblers to pay the bills  just as many warned last year that Trump's coalition of angry white men was not large enough to win a general election.

Trump expanded the Taj into the biggest, costliest casino ever built at the time. He got fired a securities analyst who warned, correctly, that after the initial "free publicity," the Taj "won't make it."

The analyst was correct, and Trump ultimately had to sell his yacht and give up some casino interests. But his investors, large and small, suffered the most, and Atlantic City didn't rebound the way Trump did.

Now that Trump has clinched the nomination with outlandish promises and free publicity, polls show that the "market" isn't there for his mix of bigotry and strongman promises. Donors are fleeing, and party officials would like to cut him loose but could lose even more if they abandoned him now.

In short, the promissory notes are coming due, and Trump doesn't have the cash to back up his big boasts.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, Milbank. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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The announcement Tuesday of plans to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in 2025 was a historic moment in California.

It means the end of nuclear power generation in the state. The announcement by owners Pacific Gas & Electric was cheered by thousands who have fought since long before the plant went online in 1985 to end nuclear power production at the coastal facility at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County.

PG&E made the decision based, as best we can tell, for economic rather than environmental reasons. Although the majority of Americans now oppose the use of nuclear energy to provide electricity, the utility realized that there probably were going to be cheaper ways to provide power in the future than Diablo Canyon.

The decision has long-term implications.

First, there is the need to replace the power.

The plant currently provides 9 percent of all electricity generated in California. PG&E vows that it will do that by 2025 through new greenhouse-gas-free energy such as wind or solar. If so, that's a major step forward for California. The concern is that the utility will find that natural-gas-powered plants are more cost-effective and push to add them to their grid.

Second, there is the impact on the economy of San Luis Obispo County.

While the rest of us cheer the move away from nuclear power generation, the local residents have a decade to brace for the severe economic hardship from the closure of the plant.

Diablo Canyon employs 1,500 people at the average annual salary of $157,000. It is the largest private industry employer in the county, contributing more than $1 billion to the local economy. It pays $26 million a year in property tax revenue, almost all of which will disappear when it closes.

Third, there is the cleanup of the plant.

One expert predicts that the best-case scenario involves taking 10 years to clear the site. That, according to a consultant hired by PG&E, means dismantling the building remains and shipping it out by train; sending scrap metal to Nevada; sending concrete rubble to a deposit site out of state; and sending all low-level radiation waste to Utah or Texas. PG&E says it has the money in trust to pay for that decommissioning without turning to ratepayers.

But there is one thing that will be left behind. They are the spent fuel rods, the most controversial, the most dangerous and the most difficult parts of a nuclear generating station.

At Diablo Canyon, the spent fuel rods are cooled in a special concrete pool for about five years. Then the rods are put in a helium-filled canister and set inside a 20-foot-tall concrete-filled steel storage cast that is cooled by natural air convection. The casks are bolted to a seven-and-one-half-foot thick concrete pad.

All of this is on the Diablo Canyon property, a short hike from the picturesque Avila Bay.

And there they will stay. The final responsibility for disposing of this high-level nuclear waste rests with the U.S. Department of Energy. And currently the federal government has no approved plan to dispose of any high-level nuclear fuel waste from any nuclear plant in the United States.

The nuclear rods are highly radioactive, enough to kill anyone exposed to them or contaminate local soil or groundwater, and will be in that state for thousands of years.

So until the federal government figures out how to safely get rid of our collective high-level nuclear waste  if it ever does  there will be a piece of Diablo Canyon plant, the most dangerous piece, creating minimal but potential risk for generations.
ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Elizabeth Pepin Silva, a surf filmmaker and photographer based in Ojai, poses for a portrait during a visit to Surfers Point in Ventura on Monday.

SHARE ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Elizabeth Pepin Silva, a surf filmmaker and photographer based in Ojai, packs up her camera and tripod after a visit to Surfers Point in Ventura on Monday. ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Elizabeth Pepin Silva, a surf filmmaker and photographer based in Ojai, scans the beach during a visit to Ventura's Surfers Point on Monday. Contributed photo/Elizabeth Pepin Silva Mayra Aguilar flies down the line at her home break in Southern Baja, Mexico. She is the subject of a documentary called "La Maestra" that Ojai resident Elizabeth Pepin Silva made with film partner Paul Ferraris. Contributed photo/Elizabeth Pepin Silva Kia'i Tallett, age 18 months, duck dives a wave with her mom at a break on the Big Island of Hawaii.

By Doug Thompson, Special to The Star

Filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin Silva uses her keen eye for work, but she didn't need her sharp senses to recognize the sexist practices of the 1990s surf media. Magazines featured photos of men riding big waves while cute blonde women in bikinis posed nearby.

"More and more women were in the lineup in the 1990s, and I thought the surf magazines would pick up on it," said Pepin Silva, 51, who lives in Ojai and learned to surf in Northern California 30 years ago. "I expected to see more pictures of women surfing and there weren't any. I started getting really pissed off about it."

Pepin Silva began photographing women surfing in 1995, first with her long lens from shore and eventually in the water. Her lens captured the female surfers without any posing or makeup, just surfers before, during and after a session.

The photos ran in mainstream surf magazines, as well as women's surf magazines. The photos of female surfers turned into her project "Water Women," which is has been displayed in galleries such as the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and The ARTS at Marks Garage in Honolulu.

It's an ongoing project, now numbering more than 1,000 photographs, and can be viewed online at http://otwfront.net/category/photographs/waterwomen.

"I want the women to be as they are and celebrate beauty in all its various shapes and forms," Pepin Silva said. "I have photos of blond, skinny girls, and African American women, elderly women and 4-year-old kids."

Film flow

Today, Pepin Silva creates films through her company On The Water Front Creative. She also organizes surf film nights every few months at the Ojai Valley Grange, and at 7 p.m. Saturday is a showing of the "Great Highway," about the history of surfing in the Bay Area, focusing on Ocean Beach.

"The filmmakers will be at the screening and will answer questions afterward," said Pepin Silva, who moved to Ojai five years ago with her husband, David Silva, from the Bay area, in pursuit of warmer weather and warmer surfing. "The film night is also a benefit for the Grange, which is an agriculture based nonprofit."

Pepin Silva worked at a public TV station in San Francisco in the 1990s and learned how to make documentaries. In 2001, she began working on "One Winter Story", a documentary about the first woman to surf Mavericks, the monstrous wave that breaks in the freezing waters off Half Moon Bay in Northern California.

"That film will show Oct. 10 at the grange, and we'll have Sarah Gerhardt, the star of the film there," Pepin Silva said. "We'll also have Frosty Hesson of the film 'Chasing Mavericks' there to answer questions."

After "One Winter Story," last year Pepin Silva created the documentary "La Maestra," about a young Mexican teacher and surfer in southern Baja.

The 30-minute film profiles Mayra Aguilar, a teacher in a tiny rural fishing village in Baja, Mexico, who becomes the first Mexican woman surfer in her area. Told in Spanish with English subtitles using mainly Mayra's voice, the film shows how she has gone on to inspire both her students and other local women to take up the sport and follow their dreams.

"I want to create high-quality, surf films that actually have a story," said Pepin Silva. "Our films are not the usual loud music and ripper shots, what we call surf porn, but something that even non surfers can get something out of."

She collaborates with her film partner Paul Ferraris, and their next project is on Linda Benson and Joyce Hoffman, the first two professional women surfers in the U.S. The two had an intense rivalry in the 1960s.

Despite the demands of filmmaking and photography, Pepin Silva still finds time to surf.

"Oh God yeah, I will be surfing until I am in my grave," she said. "We have about 20 different surfboards. I prefer long boards and just like to cruise. I surf between Emma Wood and Hobson Beach. I started surfing because I love being in the ocean and that connection just gets stronger the more I surf."

For more: http://otwfront.net/la-maestra/
Greenery: The entrance leading to Hoa Huong Cave. - Photo courtesy of British Cave Research Associations explorers

The British Cave Research Associations exploration team, led by Howard Limbert, announced the findings in the province yesterday morning, following investigations conducted over more than a month.

According to Limbert, most of the caves are located in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park at 14 locations featuring very hilly topography, hidden inside local primary forest.

Hoa Huong, named after a husband and wife who discovered the caves entrance, is the most prominent newfound cave. It is said to be 5 million years old and 2,876m long. Several Vietnamese accompanied the team, including a local pilot and experts from the national park and Ha Noi National University.

Limbert said the cave was formed underneath a big lake which has now dried up. He also said the cave might experience inflow of water during flood season. Inside the cave, explorers found a new species of scorpion with a transparent body.

Hoa Huong Cave appears to be the oldest one and is thought to be the most valuable find among the 57 newfound caves.

Of the 57 caves, the new 2,519m long Hang Tien - which shares its name with a cave already exploited for sustainable tourism in the province - has the most potential for tourism and will be exploited in the near future.

Other caves discovered include 1,500m long Hang Bom, 1,430m long Hang Dinh, and 1,360 long Ruc Ma Rinh.

The team pledged more exploration trips in 2017.

Experts from the British Cave Research Association have conducted 17 trips in the province, discovering and exploring 311 caves, including the worlds longest watery cave, Hang Ri, and the worlds biggest cave, Son oong.

In the announcement ceremony yesterday, the Peoples Committee chairman of the province, Nguyen Huu Hoai, applauded the efforts of British cavemen and Howard Limbert himself for outstanding contributions to cave exploration in the province.

During this years explorations, explorers took an 8-day trip inside the cave and they had to cut trees to harvest water for survival.
According to the General Department of Taxation, as of June 20, nearly two months since the transfer took place, the local authorities have yet to receive a declaration of tax payment of the deal, while under the provisions of the Vietnamese law the deadline for submission is the 10th day after the transfer is officially completed.

In the document recently sent to the parties involved in the transfer of the Big C Vietnam supermarket chain, the General Department of Taxation announced further delay in tax payment will be rewarded by coercive measures, while at the same time, the change of ownership will not be completed.

Previously, Central Group said that it had no obligation to declare and pay tax on the deal, while Casino Group and the management board of Big C Vietnam refused to comment.

According to Savior Mwambwa, international tax campaign manager of international organisation ActionAid, Big C registered for business in Vietnam, making it obligated to comply with local laws. According to Mwambwas argument, it has to pay taxes for the Vietnamese government.

In this case, Casino Group, as the transferor, has an obligation to declare and pay transfer tax. However, the local authorities can require the transferee Central Group to collect the taxes, due to the size of the deal, leaving the buyer to pay back in instalments.

In December 2015, Casino Group revealed plans to sell its Big C Vietnam supermarket chain, luring both foreign and domestic retailers to a bidding game. The contestants included BJC, Central Group from Thailand, Lotte Shopping from South Korea, Dairy Farm International Holdings from Singapore, Aeon from Japan as well as Saigon Co.op and Masan Group from Vietnam.

In April, Thai company Central Group won over the remaining competitors to become the new owner of Big C Vietnam after paying $1.14 billion.

Big C Vietnam has a network of 43 stores and 30 shopping centres and achieved a net sales of 586 million ($666 million) in 2015.
Lightning kills thousands of Indians every year, most of them farmers working the fields. (Photo: AFP/Rakesh Bakshi)

Lightning strikes are relatively common in India during the June-October monsoon, which hit the southern coast earlier this month, but this week's toll is particularly high.

Most deaths occurred in the eastern state of Bihar, where an overnight storm killed at least 56 people and injured another 28, mainly in rural areas.

"The death toll has climbed to 56 and 28 are injured. Many of the victims are children and women," Anirudh Kumar, a senior official at Bihar's diaster management agency, told AFP.

Another 37 people were killed across Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand and Madhya Pradesh states, according to figures compiled by local disaster management authorities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was "deeply anguished" by the loss of life.

Lightning kills thousands of Indians every year, most of them farmers working the fields.

More than 2,500 people were killed by lightning in India in 2014 according to the National Crime Records Bureau, the most recent figures available.
According to Alfredco Huesca, the LCT general manager, the sea routes will be operated through an alliance between TradeLink Pacifico and Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) rail companies.

Export from Houston, the US, to Vietnam will be transported to Lazaro Cardenas by train before en route to Vietnam by sea, Huesca said, adding that this way is at least 18 days faster than traditional routes through Long Beach or Panama Canal.

The new route from Houston to the port of San Antonio, Chile that passes through Lazaro Cardenas will cut the days of transit by 13 to 5 days and save the cost of transfer up to 10% compared to that through Panama Canal.

Lazaro Cardenas, one of the largest seaports in the Pacific Ocean basin, is operated by Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH). It is the largest container port in Mexico in terms of capacity and efficiency with a modern infrastructure that enables the movement of two million TEUs in an area of 76 hectares.
Wrong information on MTM as the halt of the stock in UPCoM market steal confidence of many investors. - Photo kinhdoanh.vn

The Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX) said it stopped trading in the entire 31 million MTM shares to protect the interests of investors after the approval of the State Securities Commission. MTM was included in the warning list with 38 other stocks that were recently classified by the bourse for a more transparent market.

MTM, which is among the blacklisted firms, recorded good liquidity of millions of shares per day, a very high figure for a stock on Upcom, and had entered the market this April. After trading was stopped, each share of MTM was worth VND2,600 each, 75 per cent lower than its listed value in April. Thus, the value of shares when trading in them was halted was worth VND80.6 billion.

On June 13, the State Securities Commission (SSC) directed HNX to verify and inspect the operations of MTM. Four days later, HNX found that the MTM headquarters in the city of Vinh, Nghe An Province was now a restaurant, while its branch in Ha Noi was now a dental care unit.

After tracking the data from the General of Tax Department, Viet Nam News found that MTM businesses had been shut down and none of its registration numbers were connected.

However, HNX director Nguyen Vu Quang Trung told local media that there was not enough evidence to show that MTM was a fraudulent firm.

"The HNX and SSC are still working with the authorities to verify the case," Trung said, and added that if MTM only changed its addresses without intimating the agencies concerned, it would be fined under the regulation.

He said that if MTM was a fraudulent company, the issue would go to the investigating authorities in accordance with legal regulations.

According to HNX, this was the first such case since the establishment of the unlisted market of UPCoM 2009. It was set up in the simplest manner in the unofficial market for unlisted stocks in Viet Nam to help investors from being cheated and stop them from investing in bad cases. Currently, firms could be listed as long as they were joint stock companies with VN10 billion in charter capital. They were only required to have the audited financial statements and the business registration for the listing.

While HNX director Trung still did not know whether MTM was a fraudulent firm or not, the confidence of many local investors fell after the incident.

Nguyen Manh Hung, an investor in Ha Noi said he never bought stocks on the unlisted bourse as he knew that basically trading on the unlisted market was more risky than the listed one.

Some others on the local stock forum said that of the official markets which including HoSE, HNX and Upcom, Upcom was the least transparent. Some investors said that when such a case occurred there was no mechanism to protect investors.

As a solution to protect the investors in the unlisted market, HNX has divided the stocks in two sets - the Premium and Warning lists from tomorrow.

The Premium set with 86 stocks are those that meet the criteria of the financial report and the standard of information disclosure in the stock market. Under the specific conditions for stocks on the Upcom Premium set, companies with a minimum charter capital of VND120 billion must have made a profit in the previous year and accumulated no losses, while companies with a minimum charter capital of VND30 billion must have a return on equity (ROE) of at least 5 per cent the previous year and no accumulated losses.

These criteria were considered based on the companies' latest audited financial statements. The warning list with 39 stocks, which failed to receive the mentioned demand, would only be traded on Friday.
File photo of an oil rig. (AFP Photo)

Data from the US Energy Information Administration were "quite disappointing" with only a modest drawdown in crude stocks and a jump in gasoline stocks, said Houston energy consultant Andy Lipow.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in August dropped 72 cents to US$49.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent North Sea oil for delivery in August lost 74 cents at US$49.88 a barrel

In the weekly US oil reserves report, gasoline stockpiles were at 237.6 million barrels for the week ending Jun 16, up 0.1 per cent from last week and 8.8 per cent from the year-ago period. The summer is the heaviest season for driving in the US.

As with financial markets, the oil market was waiting for the outcome of the British referendum on Thursday on whether to leave the European Union. US equities weakened in the afternoon following polls showing the "Leave" faction slightly ahead.

Oil prices had pushed back into the US$50 range, after sinking near US$25 a barrel in February, as supply disruptions in Canada and Nigeria countered worries about the global supply glut.
Pro-remain campaigners from "Operation Croissant", a French pro-EU group, hand out postcards written by Parisians urging people in the UK to vote to remain in the EU, to commuters at Kings Cross Station in London on June 22, 2016. (Photo: LEON NEAL / AFP)

Standing outside one of London's busiest commuter rail stations, around 15 volunteers from "Operation Croissant" handed out postcards with handwritten messages from French nationals.

"Because what would you do without French kiss?" read one.

Organisers had hoped to distribute freshly-baked croissants with the roughly 500 postcards sending greetings from the city of love ahead of Thursday's European Union membership vote.

But their plans were scuppered by British police, who cited laws banning campaigners from providing food to voters in the run-up to an election because it could corrupt the result.

Organiser Rosa Rankin-Gee said they wanted to make a gesture which contrasted with the often bad-tempered main debate, in which Prime Minister David Cameron is leading the push to stay in.

"We're all aware of how vitriolic the campaign has been and we wanted to do something happy, to make people smile," said the 29-year-old, who lives between Paris and Britain.

On the postcards, people write about "their love for our eccentricity or our music" or about their families' Anglo-French connections, she said.

Wearing "Operation Croissant" T-shirts, volunteers handed out the messages in the morning rush hour outside King's Cross station.

Some walked on without taking the postcards while others were intrigued by the interest that their French neighbours were taking in the vote.

Kathryn Sygrove, 50, received a postcard which read: "Please don't leave us alone with the Eurovision Song Contest."

"I've already made my mind up," she said. "I'm on the side of the croissant."

Amy Ferguson, 33, who actually works for a company making croissants, said she too had already decided to vote in, but added: "I think it's nice that they have sent us this. I'm touched."

After a long and often bitter campaign, opinion polls indicate that the race is extremely close.

The "Remain" camp is currently on 51 per cent and "Leave" is on 49 per cent, according to a poll of polls by the What UK Thinks project which excludes undecided voters.

Rankin-Gee said the fresh croissants which volunteers had brought with them on the Eurostar train from Paris would now be given to a homeless shelter, with no political message attached.
Photo: missworld.com

Mills, an 18-year-old from the southern US state of Kentucky, wept as outgoing Miss World Kaiane Aldorino of Gibraltar placed the tiara on her head and led her to a diamond-shaped throne marking the pageant's 60th anniversary.

Photo: missworld.com

The 1.75-metre (5'9") beauty in white -- a professional model listed with the Elite Models agency -- waved to the cheering crowd at the 2,000-capacity Beauty Crown Theatre in the resort town of Sanya on Hainan island.

During the two-hour competition, which annually draws a global television audience of about one billion, Mills said her month spent touring China with the other 114 Miss World hopefuls had made a "big impact" on her life.

Botswana's Emma Wareus was second, and Venezuela's Adriana Vasini placed third in the pageant, which was first held in 1951.

The pageant got off to a colourful start with a performance by dancers and drummers from China's Li ethnic minority group, who mainly live on Hainan island, which was hosting the event for the fifth time in eight years.

Before the contestants whirled in national costume for the "Dances of the World" segment, viewers were treated to a video montage of the women's whirlwind tour of China -- from the Great Wall to the shopping malls.

Early favourite Mariann Birkedal of Norway, listed by British bookmaker William Hill as the woman to beat ahead of Mills, finished in the top seven.

A win for Norway could have caused a stir in Beijing, where the government is furious that the Oslo-based Nobel committee awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Aldorino, 24, said she had enjoyed her year as Miss World, saying that in all the countries she had visited, one thing had remained the same: "The smile on a child's face, and that's what has captured the moment".

Photo: missworld.com

The competition emphasises the importance of charity work.

Miss "Beauty with a Purpose" -- Kenya's Natasha Metto, who has worked on combatting an epidemic of parasitic Jigger fleas in her country -- earned a "fast-track" spot in the final group of 25, but was then eliminated.

Ireland's violin-playing Emma Waldron, who won the talent contest and finished in the top five, wowed the audience by greeting them in Chinese, while Miss China, Xiao Tang, spoke mostly in English.

The event rivals the Miss Universe pageant owned by US tycoon Donald Trump, which was won by Mexico's Jimena Navarrete in August.

In 1951, Sweden's Kiki Hakansson became the first Miss World. Oscar-winning American actress Halle Berry was a finalist in 1986.

Venezuela and India have produced the most Miss Worlds, with five titleholders each. Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai took the crown in 1994.

In 2002, the pageant was moved from Nigeria to Britain after more than 200 people died in clashes sparked when a newspaper suggested the Muslim prophet Mohammed would have chosen a wife from among the contestants had he been alive.
View of the UN Security Council meeting in New York. (AFP/Kena Betancur)

Francois Delattre of France said the back-to-back tests were a "clear and unacceptable" violation of Security Council resolutions.

South Korea's defense ministry said the two missiles achieved a significant increase in flight distance over previous failed launches and were believed to be of a much-hyped, intermediate-range Musudan missile - theoretically capable of reaching US bases as far away as Guam.

Delattre called for a swift response by the UN and said the Security Council would likely meet later in the day. "We favour a quick and firm reaction of the Security Council," he said.

"The North Korean ballistic programme is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security," he added. "Confronted by the threat of proliferation we consider that weakness is not an option."

Condemnation was swift from the United States, NATO and Japan, with South Korea vowing to push for tighter sanctions on Pyongyang.

The first test was deemed to have failed after the missile flew an estimated 150 kilometres over the East Sea, or Sea of Japan.

Japanese military monitors said the second test attained a height of 1,000 kilometres and a range of 400 kilometres - a trajectory some experts suggested was calculated to avoid any violation of Japanese air space.

Four previous Musudan tests this year failed either on their mobile launch pad or shortly after take-off.

Existing UN Security Council measures ban North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology.

After Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on Jan 6, followed by a long-range rocket launch Feb 7, the Security Council adopted its most punishing sanctions yet against North Korea.

WORRYING PROGRESS

A successful test would mark a major step forward for a weapons programme that ultimately aspires to develop a proven nuclear strike capability against the US mainland.

Melissa Hanham, an expert on North Korea's WMD programme at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said Wednesday's launches represented a worrying step forward.

"The second was likely a success. Testing is iterative and they are learning from each flight," Hanham told AFP. "Policymakers need to focus on a testing ban to prevent this from becoming a working missile."

US State Department spokesman John Kirby said the latest launches would only increase global efforts to counter North Korea's illicit weapons programme.

"We intend to raise our concerns at the UN to bolster international resolve in holding (North Korea) accountable for these provocative actions," Kirby said in a statement.

Japanese broadcaster NHK quoted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as saying such tests "cannot be tolerated", while NATO "strongly condemned" the launch in a statement from its secretary general.

South Korea's foreign ministry warned that North Korea would face even stronger sanctions and said the tests underlined "the hypocrisy and deceptiveness" of Pyongyang's recent offers of military talks with Seoul.

China, traditionally the North's closest ally, cautioned against "any action that may escalate tension" and called for a resumed dialogue on Pyongyang's nuclear drive.

First unveiled as an indigenous missile at a military parade in Pyongyang in October 2010, the Musudan has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres.

The lower estimate covers the whole of South Korea and Japan, while the upper range would include US military bases on Guam.

STRING OF FAILURES

Three failed launches in April were seen as an embarrassment for North Korea's leadership, coming ahead of a rare ruling party congress that was meant to celebrate the country's achievements. Another attempt in May was also deemed to have failed.

Markus Schiller, a German aerospace engineer who has written extensively on North Korea's missile program, said a lot of information on the Musudan was highly speculative and warned against drawing too many conclusions from Wednesday's launches.

"We do not even know if these were indeed Musudan missiles that were launched today," Schiller said.
Conductor Apo Hsu from the U.S.

Conductor Apo Hsu from the U.S. will direct the concert featuring masterpieces by Germanys greatest composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, including Symphony No. 5, Op.67 in C minor and Piano Concerto No. 1, Op.15 in D minor.

Symphony No. 5, Op.67 in C minor by Beethoven is popular among local audiences while Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 is quite new to most of them.

Beethoven composed Symphony No. 5 in 1808 when he was 37. This composition has four movements which bring audiences to four stages of desperation, tension, victory and celebration of the love of life.

Piano Concerto No. 1, Op.15 in D minor is one of the most voluminous concertos for piano and orchestra. It was premiered by Brahms in Hannover, Germany in 1853 after five years of composing and adjusting. Audiences are advised to pay attention to every elite detail of the work to feel the musicians soul and mind, instead of the dazzlement of fierce and imposing beginning of the piece.

Maestra Apo Hsu began as orchestra director at the National Taiwan Normal University in 2003. Since 2000, Hsu has served as a guest faculty member at the Conductors Institute at Bard College in New York.

Singapore pianist Albert Tiu  Photo: courtesy of organizers

Maestra Hsu studied at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Connecticut for her Artist Diploma in Conducting and Master of Music in Double Bass. She served as music director and conductor of the Springfield Symphony in Missouri in 1995-2003, artistic director of the Womens Philharmonic in San Francisco in 1997-2001 and music director and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon in 1991-1997. She has performed in the U.S., Russia, Asia, South America and Australia.

The forthcoming show in HCMC will also feature Singapore pianist Albert Tiu, who is described as an artist of uncommon abilities by the American Record Guide. He is currently an associate professor of piano at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore.

He studied with Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, Michael Lewin at the Boston Conservatory, John Winther at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Nita Abrogar-Quinto at the University of the Philippines, and Nelly Castro in Cebu. In 1996, he won First Prize in the UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria.

He has appeared with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Cape Town Philharmonic and Philippine Philharmonic.

Standard and VIP tickets are priced at VND250,000 and VND300,000 respectively. Especially, guests who buy one ticket of the show will receive a free ticket to the Yale Alumni Chorus performance on Thursday, June 23. For further information, call 0903 034 112 or email: giaohuongsaigon@gmail.com.

The event will take place at the Concert Hall of the HCMC Conservatory of Music at 112 Nguyen Du Street in HCMCs District 1.
Forbes said Vietnam spent $2 million a year to promote tourism on the international market. This number is very small in comparison to that of other countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

According to Forbes, the tourism industry of Vietnam is growing faster than that in the neighboring countries, while investment for the promotion of tourism in the international market is "modest".

With only $2 million a year, it is extremely difficult for Vietnam to advertise its tourism internationally, Forbes said.

The magazine also noted that $2 million/year was not enough to advertise frequently on the internationally renowned channels such as CNN.

Tourism has become a key industry of Vietnam. The industry was identified by the World Bank as an important sector contributing to the growth of Vietnam's economy in the 2016-2020 period.

At present, the countries leading for the number of foreign arrivals in the region are Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia; these countries invest in tourism promotion in the world market, Forbes said.

Forbes said the $2 million budget/year of Vietnam for the promotion of tourism on the international market is only equivalent to 2.9% of the budget for tourism promotion in Thailand, 2.5% of Singapore and 1.9% of Malaysia.

However, the tourism sector of Vietnam has grown around 6.5% on average over the last 5 years and will continue to grow, Forbes said.

The tourism industry of Thailand and Singapore increased 12% and 10% respectively over the same period. Even the tourism industry Laos increased by 15% - doubling the growth rate of Vietnam tourism.

Forbes said if Vietnam can not take advantage of its favorable geographical location, beautiful natural scenery, and invest more to promote tourism in the international market, its tourism industry will be surpassed by neighboring countries.
Illustrative Image

1. Disclosure of business registration contents: Within 30 days of the establishment or amendment of business registration contents, enterprises must post their business registration information on the National Business Registration Portal (NBRP). Failure to comply with the provisions or incorrect compliance will result in a VND1-2 million fine.

2. Company seal carving and seal sample registration: Enterprises may have new seals engraved and seal samples registered at the police departments of provinces and cities under the central government. Only after being granted a Seal Sample Registration Certificate (SSRC) may the enterprises be permitted to use the seals. Using corporate seals without the SSRC will result in a VND2-3 million fine and confiscation of the seals.

3. Tax registration: Within 10 working days of the grant of the Business Registration Certificate (BRC) or Investment Certificate, enterprises must contact tax authorities for registration. In case of tardy submission of the tax registration dossier, enterprises will face warnings or penalties amounting to between VND400,000 and VND2 million, depending on the nature and extent of the violation.

4. Display of business name: The enterprise's name must be displayed properly at its head office, branches and representative offices (if any). If enterprises fail to comply with the requirement, they will be fined VND10-15 million and are required to display their business names in accordance with the laws.

5. Announcement of opening hours: Within 15 days of being granted a BRC, enterprises must announce the opening hours at their head office to business registration authorities.

6. Sub-licences: With regard to the business sector required by law to have a business licence or certificate of eligible business (collectively referred to as "sub-licences"), enterprises must apply for permission and may only start operating once approved by competent authorities.

7. Capital contribution commitment: Depending on the business entity, enterprises contribute capital as follows:

 Limited liability company (LLC): The company owner or its members must contribute capital adequately and punctually, as committed.

 Joint stock company: The founding shareholders are obliged to fully pay for the shares that they have committed to purchase within 90 days from the day the enterprise is granted a BRC.

In case of inadequate and unpunctual contribution of the registered capital amount, enterprises will face fines ranging from VND5 million to 20 million. In addition, multi-member LLCs are required to register for charter capital reduction while other business entities are obliged to fully contribute the registered amount of capital.

8. Issuance of certificate of capital contribution: Multi-member LLCs must grant their members the certificate of capital contribution at the time capital is contributed. If there is failure to issue, enterprises will be fined VND10 to 15 million.

9. Registry book of members and registry book of shareholders: Enterprises must issue and conserve the registry book of members (for multi-member LLCs) or the registry book of shareholders (for joint stock companies). Any enterprise failing to comply with the requirement is subject to a fine ranging from VND10 million to 15 million and is required to issue registry books of members or shareholders as regulated by the law.

10. Announcement of capital contribution progress: Multi-member LLCs must notify business registration authorities, in writing, of their capital contribution progress within 15 days commencing from when they commit to contribute capital. For joint stock companies, capital contribution progress must be disclosed to business registration authorities within 90 days from the granting of the BRC. The penalties applied in case of failure to announce capital contribution progress range from VND1 million to 2 million. In addition, enterprises are required to notify the provincial business registration office of the contents.

11. Establishment of Control Board: LLCs with 11 members or more must establish a Control Board. It is also mandatory for joint stock companies with more than 11 shareholders who are individuals or shareholders that are organisations holding more than 50% of the company's total shares to have a Control Board. Enterprises without a Control Board will be fined VND5-10 million.


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Sanders: It doesnt appear that Im going to be the nominee
Cambodias ruling party has issued a statement echoing comments made earlier this week by Prime Minister Hun Sen, denying that the country blocked a joint statement on the South China Sea after lobbying from China.

Aseans charter states that member countries cannot interfere in the internal affairs of their neighbors, which has led to support for direct bilateral negotiations over specific conflicts in the disputed waters.

Cambodia, along with Myanmar and Laos, at the last minute reportedly changed their position on a statement that was due to be issued by the bloc following a meeting of its foreign ministers in China.

The Associated Press reported the statement was set to express serious concerns over recent and ongoing developments and cited a Philippine diplomat claiming Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos had withdrawn their support for the statement so as not to offend China.

On Wednesday, the Cambodian Peoples Party issued a statement again denying this claim, saying that Cambodia respects the principle of non-interference of internal affairs, principle of consensus, economic integration, development, and engagement, and use ASEAN as a political gateway for cooperation in the region and the world.

The statement added that Cambodia would not support a verdict in favor of the Philippines filed by the Southeast Asian nation in 2013 regarding waters in dispute with China.

As chair of Asean in 2012, Cambodia played a similar role in blocking efforts by the Philippines and others to mention naval confrontations with China. It was the first time the foreign ministers meeting ended without the issuance of a joint statement in the blocs 45-year history.

Yim Sovann, an opposition parliamentarian, declined to comment.

Kem Ley, a former analyst who founded his own political party this year, said it was understandable that Cambodia might side with China in the dispute, as it is Cambodias largest provider of aid and loans.
Human rights workers and an election official being held on bribery charges in a Phnom Penh prison continued to be questioned this week in relation to an ongoing case against the deputy leader of Cambodias opposition party, Kem Sokha.

The four officials from local rights group Adhoc and Ny Chakrya, a member of the National Election Committee, were arrested in April and charged with bribery and being an accomplice to bribing a witness in the case against Sokha.

Sokha remains holed up in the Cambodia National Rescue Party headquarters in the capital, where he has remained since an attempt was made to arrest him in late May.

Tensions have been simmering ever since, and analysts say that there is little chance of the five being released unless a political compromise can be reached to end the deadlock.

Am Sam ath, head of Licadhos investigations unit, said on Wednesday that he doubted there would be a resolution to the case until both sides sat down at the negotiating table.

Thus, with all these issues, if we look at the case, its involved with the political situation that remains tense. So, if the politicians reached a compromise and the political situation calmed down, I believe that those people would hopefully be released on bail, he said.

Kem Ley, formerly a political analyst who this year founded his own party, the Grassroots Democracy Party, said rather than a political resolution leading to the release of the five detained, he would like to see an investigation into the decision to charge them.

If those people were not found guilty, the Supreme Council of Magistracy must take measures to probe the courts that tried these cases, he said, adding that a political detente leading to their release would be a hollow victory.

Chakrya was charged as an accomplice to the alleged bribery of Khom Chandaraty, the woman at the heart of a solicitation case against Sokha. Along with Chakrya, the four Adhoh workers  Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, Nay Vanda and Lim Mony  are accused of offering Chandaraty money to withhold evidence from the court.

Sam Sokong, a lawyer for Chakrya, said the court had now finished questioning his client and he would now remain in prison until trial.

The detention of the five suspects has received widespread local and international condemnation.

The case was originally sparked by the publication of an audio recording that officials claimed was a conversation between Sokha and Chandaraty implicating him in criminal activity.
Thousands of Myanmar migrants, eager to get a glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi, overwhelmed police in a Thai coastal fishing center Thursday afternoon.

The Myanmar state counselor and foreign minister, on her first official visit to Thailand since her government was inaugurated, went to Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province to address 500 Myanmar nationals working there.

But the overflow crowd of thousands more, barred from entering the venue, lost patience.

Long live mother, they chanted and waved Myanmar flags as security forces tried to regroup and ponder how to get the crowd under control.

Rain out



A downpour thwarted Aung San Suu Kyi's last-minute plan to also address the thousands of supporters who could not get inside.

"Tell my people I am disappointed I cannot give a speech to them outside today, but I know their problems well," she told migrant activist Andy Hall, according to his tweet. 



Hundreds of thousands of migrants work in Thailands fishery-related industries, about half estimated to be illegally employed.The exploitation of some of them has been well-documented.

Overall, there are as many as three million Myanmar nationals working legally in Thailand and perhaps as many as two million more are undocumented.

New agreement on employment of Myanmar laborers in Thailand

Myanmar and Thailand, during Aung San Suu Kyis three-day visit, are expected to announce a new cross-border employment agreement.

The mandatory work-break period would be cut from three years to 30 days.

Thats a concession to reality, said Phil Robertson, the Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch, noting that many from Myanmar prefer to stay in Thailand illegally after their maximum four-year work period than return home for the extended timeout.

The record for migrant workers is to wait around long enough and the policy will change, Robertson told VOA.

Win Win Zaw, who has worked for four years legally at the Bangkok Seafood Factory in Mahachai and was employed illegally four years prior to that, is among those who would benefit from the expected agreement.

It will be much more convenient because most of us dont want to overstay, he said.

Those who remain illegally face exploitation in Thailand, explained Robertson as the military and police see the workers as hordes that are a security threat, and are not sympathetic to their critical role in the kingdoms economy.

Thousands of Myanmar refugees still in border camps in Thailand

Another major bilateral issue for Myanmar and Thailand is the fate of more than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar languishing in nine border camps. Many of them have been there for decades during an era when their country was under military rule.

Aung San Suu Kyi, on Friday, is to discuss their future return with the Thai prime minister, who as army chief two years ago seized control of the government in a bloodless coup.

Any sort of repatriation has to be fully voluntary and rights respecting, said Robertson of Human Rights Watch. We have to be cautious about unilaterally rushing a timetable that would be involuntary and put them in harms way.

Some of the areas to which the refugees might be sent to inside Myanmar remain unstable or littered with land mines, according to human rights agencies.

Media coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi visit will be limited

News coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi is being restricted by Thai authorities to an unusual degree.

A joint news conference with Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is scheduled for Friday during a signing ceremony, but journalists have been told that no questions will be taken.

The Myanmar leader is also to give an address earlier in the day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok but media agencies have been told they will be allowed only to photograph or videotape her opening remarks and a ministry spokesperson will summarize her speech for reporters after it concludes.

No discussion of Rohingya

The sensitive issue of the treatment of Rohingya refugees in Thailand overshadowed the start of the visit of Myanmars de facto leader.

As her jet was en route to Suvarnabhumi Airport activists in Bangkok were quickly muzzled by Thailands military government.

A free speech crackdown in Thailand ahead of Aung San Suu Kyi visit

A small group of police and soldiers, out of uniform, prevented a group from holding a full news conference at a space it had rented in the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

Non-government organizations have called for Thailand to end what they regard as the arbitrary and indefinite detention of the Muslim Rohingya and others who have come ashore in Thailand.

Most Rohingya sailed from Rakhine state in Myanmar. But the Myanmar government does not recognize them, saying they are actually illegal migrants from Bangladesh, and disavows the term Rohingya, instead calling them Bengalis.

Aung San Suu Kyi wants focus on Myanmar laborers in Thailand

Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday was focusing instead on the millions of migrants from her country who are laborers in Thailand.

On her first official visit to Thailand since her government was inaugurated Aung San Suu Kyi is to address several thousand of the Myanmar nationals working in the Thai coastal fishery center of Mahachai (from 09:30 UTC).

The concern is about national security. This event doesnt rise to that level, Amy Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, told VOA at the event venue. This is a violation of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

Two activists advocating better treatment of the minority Rohingya in Myanmar read a brief open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi and explained they were prohibited by the junta from answering reporters questions.

Leaving the stage the secretary general of the Rohingya Thailand Group, Hajee Ismail, added I cannot speak now, as he put his hands over his lips. This is a big problem.

The president of the Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand, Maung Kyaw Nu, who said he was a former political prisoner in Myanmar, briefly taped a napkin over his mouth as he waded through a crowd of Thai and international journalists. He paused for a few minutes to speak to VOA and expressed little hope the plight of the Rohingya would be addressed by Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit.

We cannot get anything from her because she is also violating the human rights [of the Rohingya], he said.

Prayuth, who leads the junta governing Thailand, told reporters Tuesday he had agreed not to discuss any aspect of the Rohingya with Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit.

Its a sad day when its easier to have a discussion about the Rohingya in Yangon than in Bangkok, Sam Zarifi, the regional director of the International Commission of Jurists, told VOA.

Non-government organizations have called for the kingdom to end what they regard as the arbitrary and indefinite detention of the Muslim Rohingya and others who have come ashore in Thailand.
On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country struggling with growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and economic challenges.

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

"This is how we begin our day  with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes," said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling center of Kabul. "I don't know what to do or where to go."

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 220,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992.

Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its constitution, drawn up after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered.

"The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders," Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

"Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day," he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 200,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

Hostility

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium.

As the capital has expanded in recent years, the neighborhood has become densely populated and some newer residents oppose Hindu and Sikh cremations, a practice foreign to Muslims, who bury their dead.

"When they burn the body the smell makes our family sick and we don't want this to happen here," said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

The Sikhs say local Muslim hardliners have stirred up hostility against them, and the community now requires police protection for their funeral rituals.

"They throw stones and bricks at us, at the bodies of the dead, whenever there is a funeral," said Avtar Singh, pointing to a newly built house next to the crematorium.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs.

"We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim," Abid added.

"We have allocated them a place to burn their bodies because inside the city people complained about the smell, but they did not agree," he told Reuters.

Harassment is also common.

Jasmeet Singh, 8 years old, stopped going to school because of what he said was daily harassment. He and other children from the community now either go to private schools or study inside the temple.

"While I was at school, other students were making fun of me. They were removing my turban, hitting me and calling me Hindu and kaffir [infidel]," said Jasmeet Singh, as other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, their spiritual homeland, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go.

"When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan," said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. "We are lost between both worlds."
As the patrol of American troops follow the curve in the forest path they spot movement ahead. Quickly squatting down and against the tree line, they are alert to the possibility of a Nazi German ambush.

But the men of the 41st Armored Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division discover they have bumped into some of their own as well as the No. 4 Commando of the British Army.

Relieved and relaxed, the troops begin chatting in their native Russian.

Turning to a reporter, American soldier Alexei explains in English the Germans fled to their field camp. Now we're going back. That's the real war. About an hour walking, then a few minutes of fighting, or no fighting at all, and we are going back, he says. The other Russians dressed in World War II fatigues of Russias Western allies laugh in agreement.

Despite the lack of action, the heat pounding down on their metal helmets, and a constant swarm of mosquitos attacking exposed skin from their sweat-soaked, olive wool uniforms, this group of re-enactors was still managing to have fun.

Patriotic hobby

Historic battle re-enactment is a niche hobby with a fair number of adherents in Russia, where past military victories are played-up by the Kremlin as a show of national strength.

Re-enactment for me it's like a sport, an active sport, and some fun with my friends, says Maxim Afonin who, when re-enacting, prefers to be called Private Max Garvel of the U.S. Infantry. I don't care about politics, about why Germans are Germans. I mean, why Russian guys wear a German uniform. I don't care. It's like a cool game for friends, says Afonin.

Most re-enactors choose to play the Soviet Red Army on the eastern front because it is patriotic, cheaper, and easier.

But this rare group, camping in a private area for re-enactments and war games on the outskirts of Moscow called Garrison A, prefers to practice their English as Western allies-despite Russia's tensions with the West.

It's different because, if you re-enact as Russian soldier you know how to talk, you know how to think, you know how to use the things, says "British Commander" Andrei Tuzov. If you re-enact as a Western soldier you don't know what a Western soldier thinks, you don't know how they talk. You learn it, he says.

Attention to detail

But re-creating the western front in Russia means ordering expensive, genuine military gear.

These hobbyists re-create historic battles with "air soft", weapons that look historically accurate but fire plastic pellets, as well as realistic-looking firecracker grenades and mortar launchers.

The re-enactors go all-out to make their military camp appear in line with the 1940s. Empty cans of food near the campfire have historic labels printed and glued on them, while an olive green radio plays The While Cliffs of Dover and other classic war songs.

One infantryman distributes copies of the original letter from President Dwight Eisenhower announcing the U.S. D-Day invasion.

Need for recruiting allies

But as military tensions are growing between Russia and the West, some Western troop re-enactors find themselves questioned by fellow Russians.

Well, at work my colleagues have also asked 'why the American soldier? says dental technician Andrey Borovoy. Well, at the moment the relations between our countries are not very good, but let's not mix up policy and history, he says. History is history and we were allies in that war, adds Borovoy.

Meanwhile, this small but dedicated group of Russian Western soldiers says the biggest challenge is getting enough support for their re-enactments.

While hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Russian re-enactors play the Soviet Red Army and Nazi German military, this group estimates there are less than 100 playing Western forces. But they hope it can become more popular.

We can't have any heavy weapons because we need crews. We can't have any vehicles because we need people who are really into it and really interested to make them, laments "U.S. Infantryman" Denis Yachikov. And, of course, for better events we need more people, he adds.
Yazidi mass grave sites in northern Iraq that provide evidence of possible Islamic State genocide are being neglected and face a serious threat of disappearing, Yazidi support groups have told VOA.

The issue caught the attention of the rights groups after a fire broke out around a mass grave in Sinjar, Iraq earlier this month. This site is believed to contain the remains of Yazidi members massacred by IS two years ago. Kurdish officials said their forces controlled the fire before it reached the human remains, but concern among the Yazidi community grew over the damage to the site.

Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch asked Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to protect the gravesites. The group asked international experts and donors to help finance the preservation of the sites.

Justice for the Yazidi victims of the mass killings by ISIS depends on preservation of the Mount Sinjar gravesites, a statement from the groups Deputy Middle East Director Joe Stork read. Kurdish authorities should protect the evidence at these sites and shield them from further degradation by weather and animals.

Yazidi support groups say sites remain unprotected, months after IS was removed from the area.

Bones spread about



According to the groups, bones can be seen spread around the mass graves, which have been degraded by weather, people and animals. In some areas, human remains removed by animals can be found kilometers away from the grave sites, according to the support groups.

It is very painful for Yazidi people to see this happening, said Mirza Dinnayi, a Yazidi and the head of a German-based organization to treat Iraqi children and terror victims called Air Bridge Iraq.

When IS killed these people, it didnt bother to bury them properly, he said. Most of them are covered with only a thin layer of dirt, which is easy to remove.

Dinnayi, who recently visited the sites, told VOA that 25 mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of Yazidis in Sinjar have been abandoned, with little or no protection by authorities in Iraq. He said that in some cases, local residents or the authorities removed the human remains, believing they could identify the victims, or handed them over to the families for burial.

Dinnayi said urgent action is required from the Kurdish government and international community before the gravesites are unrecoverable.

But the Kurdistan Regional Government says it is facing a severe financial crisis and lacks the expertise needed to preserve the mass graves, Dinnayi told VOA. And international organizations want to get paid to work in these areas.

Money shortage



Kurdish officials say their forces are protecting the sites where IS is no longer in control, but security and financial crises are hindering their efforts.

Some of the grave sites are only two or three miles away from IS and are easy for militants to target, Hussein Qasim Hasun, a Yazidi member of the Kurdish governments Higher Governmental Commission on Recognition of Genocide against Yazidis and Other Minorities, and an adviser to Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, told VOA. I was targeted by IS rockets three times in those gravesites.

Hasun said his team has visited the burned site around the mass grave in Sinjar and, as a preliminary action, has used a bulldozer to remove the bushes around the grave site to prevent fire reaching the remains.

This incident was a wakeup call for our commission and the government to act urgently, he said. These graves have been out there for a while and many remains are lost due to rain, summer heat and animals.

In some places, our team has found bones 100 meters to 200 meters away from the grave sites, which are believed to be removed by dogs.

Preservation effort



Hasun explained that his commission has been working with international organizations to help train a team of Kurds on how to preserve the grave sites. But he argued it is expensive and time consuming for his government to prepare a team of experts in compliance with international standards.

Hasun told VOA his commission has decided to collect the bones and remains on the ground, and fence the grave sites that are uncovered after the month of Ramadan.
There will be no Fourth of July fireworks for American troops in Japan this year due to restrictions imposed after a former U.S. Marine was accused of murdering and raping a woman on Okinawa.

The U.S. Navy in Japan said Thursday that it had canceled planned annual Independence Day fireworks at its bases as part of an order for all American troops in Japan. Along with fireworks, concerts and parties with music will be also canceled at Navy bases in Atsugi and Yokosuka near Tokyo, and Sasebo in southern Japan.

The killing of the woman, whose body was found in May, triggered outrage on the southern island, where tensions frequently rise over U.S. military-linked crime.

The suspect, a U.S. contractor and former Marine, is charged with abandoning the woman's body, with murder and rape charges pending.

The U.S. Marine Corps and the Navy then imposed restrictions on their personnel, though some by the Navy have been eased.

Okinawa was already in the spotlight because of contentious plan to relocate a Marine Corps air station to a less-populated part of the southwestern island. The plan developed after the 1995 rape of a girl by three American servicemen enraged Okinawans.

The latest murder case has rekindled Okinawa's anger over its burden of heavy U.S. troop presence there.

Half of about 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under the bilateral security agreement are on the small island, where residents have complained about crime and noise from the bases.

The U.S. military says the crime rate among its ranks in Japan is lower than among the general public.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government, which wants Japan to play a bigger military role internationally, backs the Japan-U.S. security alliance.
Argentina's foreign minister used an appearance at the United Nations on Thursday to issue a fresh appeal to Britain to resume negotiations on the status of the disputed Falkland Islands, an idea that London quickly rebuffed.

"This protracted sovereignty dispute must be solved through negotiations," the Argentine foreign minister, Susana Malcorra, told the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization.

"I would like to reiterate ... the full willingness of Argentine government to resume negotiations with the United Kingdom in order to find a peaceful and definite solution to the sovereignty dispute," she added.

The Falklands are part of Britain's self-governing overseas territories.

Argentine forces seized the islands in 1982, and Britain sent a task force to retake them in a brief war in which more than 600 Argentine and 255 British servicemen were killed and which led to the collapse of Argentina's military dictatorship.

Malcorra said Argentina supported the concept of self-determination, but cautioned that it was "not absolute" and does not apply to the 3,000 inhabitants of the islands, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas. She said Argentina will never cease trying to recover the islands.

A spokesman for Britain's U.N. mission said there could be no dialogue without the permission of the Falklanders.

"The 2013 referendum  in which 99.8 percent of those who voted wanted to maintain their current status  sent a clear message that the people of the islands do not want dialogue on sovereignty," he said. "Argentina should respect those wishes."

Mike Summers, a long-serving member of the islands' Legislative Assembly, concurred.

"Falkland Islanders are comfortable with the constitutional relationship we have with the United Kingdom," he told the committee. "We have a right to move away from it if we so wished, but there is no current wish to do so."

Malcorra, a candidate to replace U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon when he leaves office on Dec. 31, softened the tone of Argentina's presentation compared with previous years when former President Cristina Fernandez herself gave fiery speeches to the committee.

The islands, which have seen exploration by oil and gas firms nearby, are 300 miles off the Argentine coast and 8,000 miles from Britain.

The committee adopted a non-binding resolution calling on Argentina and Britain to enter into negotiations.
A police officer was acquitted Thursday of all charges in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, who died in April 2015 in the back of a police van, sparking the worst riots in decades in the Mid-Atlantic city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Six officers were indicted in Gray's death, but officer Caesar Goodson faced the most serious charges, including "depraved-heart" murder. Goodson was also found not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct and reckless endangerment.



Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams delivered his verdict after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial. Williams ruled state prosecutors failed to show that Goodson, 46, gave Gray a "rough ride" as Gray was left unbuckled in the back of the police van.

Gray, 25, was fatally injured en route to a police station after officers bound his hands and feet in the van without securing him with safety belts.

Prosecutors said Gray was left unprotected and that belts would have prevented him from slamming into the vehicle's metal walls.

Goodson's acquittal jeopardizes the remaining court cases. Other police officers face similar, but less serious, charges.

The first trial of officer William Porter ended in a mistrial last December. Officer Edward Nero was acquitted last month.
As counting winds down, the Leave campaign holds the lead in Britain's historic referendum to decide whether the country remains in the European Union.

A final count could be announced at any time.

The turnout was reported to be high in a vote that touches on immigration, sovereignty, security and Britains economic future.

The leader of the Leave campaign, Nigel Farage is already - tentatively - declaring victory after saying earlier it appeared the Remain campaign would win.

The uncertainty of the count sent the pound tumbling, and it was down more than five percent overnight in London.

Polls closed as scheduled Thursday, despite heavy rain and flooding in southern England that snarled traffic and prompted the closure of parts of Londons tube system, making it difficult for some evening commuters to make it to polling stations. Flooding forced at least two polling stations in the London area to move.

For some braving the rain, the decision boiled down to the ideal of peace on which the European Union was founded.

We have for the first time in hundreds of years, weve had peace in Europe for over 50 years. Im a man of a generation who hasnt had to go to fight a war in Western Europe and I think thats a wonderful thing that is worth celebrating, said Chris Kenyon, 41, one of the first to vote at a polling station in the north London borough of Islington.

For me, this is peace, prosperity and power, and I find it extraordinary that were at this point of even discussing exiting the European Union, he told VOA.

Early polls indicated Remain victory

As voters went to polling stations, opinion surveys showed the two sides in a dead heat, with some polls showing the Remain camp holding a slight lead.

Hopes of retaining the blocs second richest economy boosted investor confidence and European markets rallied. Economists have predicted dire consequences if Britain quits, with some saying the British pound could lose up to 15 percent of its value. In Thursdays rally, the pound reached a 6-month high.

WATCH: What is Brexit?

Despite the bad weather, turnout was high, culminating a bitter, 2-month campaign that centered largely on immigration, a highly sensitive and divisive issue in a nation whose immigration rate has doubled since 2000.

Prime Minister David Cameron led the call to remain. The British leader cast his vote near 10 Downing Street early Thursday. Earlier, he made a final pitch to persuade undecided voters, saying, We are stronger, we are better off in a reformed European Union.

British analysts say Camerons political future depends on the outcome of the poll. The referendum is being held after Cameron in February failed to secure a deal with the EU that would have restricted benefits for immigrants and curbed business and other regulations.

If the voters decision is to leave the EU, pundits say Cameron will lose his mandate and have little choice but to resign, something the British leader has until now said he will not do. Farage has already called for Cameron to step down.

Final push for voters

Proponents of a Brexit also made last-minute calls to undecided voters. Anti-immigration crusader Nigel Farage said, We can vote to get our borders back.

Polls showed the Leave campaign lost some support following the June 16 murder of anti-Brexit lawmaker Jo Cox. The killing, allegedly by a right-wing extremist with a history of mental health problems, prompted the temporary suspension of campaigns on both sides and caused many British voters to pause and reflect on the bitterness surrounding the vote.

This referendum has been very divisive and I think thats completely unnecessary. We ought to be able to work forward on issues of the economy and migration and security, those issues, without being so divisive, said Kimberly Griffin, a Remain supporter attending a memorial for Cox Thursday at Trafalgar Square. We never should have had this referendum, and I think this is a tragic consequence."

It will not be entirely clear how much of an impact Coxs murder will have until votes are counted early Friday.

London voter Maggie Hopkinson, attending the memorial, said she was still undecided. Asked what bearing Coxs murder would have on her decision, she replied, None whatsoever. She was a beautiful person killed by a madman, she said.
The mood in Brussels is one of nervousness with just hours to go before the result of the British referendum on EU membership is known.

If Britons vote to remain in the bloc, the EU would have overcome one of its major crises. If Britain votes to leave, the machinery of the European Union institutions enters crisis mode  but no one really knows what the withdrawal process will look like.



French Member of the European Parliament Sylvie Goulard said the EU is finally waking up to the political storm that could be headed its way. Now, there is some nervousness. After a long sleep, she told VOA.



A vote for a British exit from the EU  or so-called Brexit  would shake the union to its core.



It will be a huge change, we should not underestimate, said Goulard. It could have severe consequences; but of course part of the answer at this stage is impossible to give because it will depend also on the way the institutions and the governments react. I would just underline that from 1950 to 1975, we survived without the UK, so we will try to survive again.



On the surface it is business as usual at the European Parliament Thursday  with debates scheduled on renewable energy and the Panama Papers, among others. In reality, all eyes are on whats happening in Britain. Emergency sessions are planned for Friday morning among the heads of the various EU institutions, when Brussels will have its first response to the outcome of the referendum

'28 on a plate'



Outside parliament on the eve of the vote, an event was staged to celebrate the different cuisine of the EUs 28 members  '28 on a plate.



The British stall offered shortbread biscuits and a cup of tea. Danielle Seeley of the firm Wonderfoods imports these foods into Belgium, and fears a Brexit would mean barriers and trade tariffs.



Which means our prices go up, which means we cant sell at the same prices as we are now, otherwise were at a loss and thats not the point of a business. And I think a lot of other businesses will suffer the same things.



Others take a more philosophical view. Aldo Morelli, a 62-year-old Italian civil servant, was enjoying the wines on display from his home country.



I dont think it is a drama. One must accept the response of democracy. We should reflect for a some minutes, but after, we should turn the page, he said.



A British exit would take considerably longer than that with analysts estimating anywhere from two 2 to 10 years. The EU would lose one of its biggest powers  and the future of the regional grouping itself would be in doubt.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a China-led security bloc, refused to initiate Iran's accession on Thursday despite a request from

Russia which backs Tehran's bid, indicating possible divisions between Beijing and Moscow.

The bloc has served a platform for Moscow and Beijing to project influence in the region. But unlike Russia, China may be reluctant to give it a strong anti-Western flavor.

Iran has long knocked at SCO's door and Russia has argued that with Western sanctions against Tehran lifted, it could finally become a member of the bloc which also includes four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics.

"The Russian position is clear in its support of initiating the SCO admission process [for Iran] without delays, if possible," Bakhtiyor Khakimov, a special SCO envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters as leaders of the bloc's member countries met in Uzbekistan. "We failed to reach an agreement with our colleagues this time, but the work continues."

Khakimov said there were no objections to the idea "in principle", but there were "technical nuances" related to the timing. He did not name the objecting parties.

A Chinese diplomat who also spoke to reporters in Tashkent on Thursday declined to comment on Iran's bid. But Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who visited Uzbekistan last month for a lower-level SCO meeting, said Beijing wanted to focus on the ongoing accession of India and Pakistan before moving on.
Authorities in south China appeared to have tightened control over Wukan village by denying its detained chief legal representation and ordering onsite reporters to leave for their own safety.

Lin Zulian, a democratically-elected local leader, was arrested early Saturday. He had led the villages 20,000 residents in months-long protests since 2011 against the local government, after local Communist Party leaders were found to have pocketed gains from illegal sales of the villages farmland to Hong Kong-based land developers.

Lin was arrested one day before the villages assembly planned to petition authorities for help in more land grab cases.

On Monday, the chiefs family hired rights lawyers Ge Yongxi and Yu Pinjian to represent Lin. However, both lawyers have been barred by local judicial officials from advising Lin, who now faces charges of corruption.

On a statement posted on his Weibo account, attorney Yu said that he began receiving numerous harassing phone calls from strangers the moment he decided to represent Lin.

Last night, Yu tried to make it to the village, but was intercepted by authorities.

While on his way to Wukan last night, he was stopped by local judicial officials who asked him to go home, a non-government organization worker, who stays with Lins family in Wukan, told VOA.



Upon Yus arrival in Shanwei city, where Wukan village is located, Yu wrote on Weibo that his family called and conveyed a threatening message from the authorities: If you return home tonight, nothing will happen. If not, things will get ugly tomorrow.



Yu said he headed back home.

What has happened to the rule of law in China? he wrote.



Abuse of law



Echoing Yus doubts, Ge told VOA that the rule of law has been abused every step of the way in Wukan: be it the arrest of Lin without a warrant, a videotaped confession, coercion of Lins family members, and denial of his lawfully-entitled counsel. He said the incident set another bad example of power abuse in China and the Communist Partys anti-democracy sentiment.



A grass-roots democratic model has been successfully developed in Wukan. But judging from the latest development, they obviously are desperate to put an end to the model, Ge said.



Ge puts the blame on the party-state systems authoritarian nature, in which tolerance for a democratic rule in both local and central government hardly exists.



Land grabs



Five years after the Wukan protests began land grabs remain an issue, as villagers argue another plot of land measuring 170,000 square meters and sold to another Hong Kong developer is also disputed.

In response, Shanwei city authorities said Monday this disputed plot also belongs to several other villages bordering Wukan and thus requires lengthy time for the local government to investigate thoroughly.

They added that more than half of the total 900,000 square meters of land in dispute has been returned to the Wukan village.



It [Wukan incident] may be an isolated case, but it exposes many of our flaws in nurturing grass-root democracy, fulfilling the governments obligations, raising peoples trust in governments and enforcing the rule of law, Ren Jianming, director of the anti-corruption and governance research center at Tsinghua University in Beijing told VOA.



Given the Shanwei city governments poor crisis management, Ren says he expects the provincial government to soon step in and mediate so as to ease public anger.



Yet sources in the village say there are no signs the Shanwei city government is backing down as it has ordered scores of journalists onsite to leave the village, a move that will only attract more media attention.
The Colombian government and the leftist FARC rebels signed a cease-fire and disarmament deal Thursday, bringing Colombia a major step closer to ending more than 50 years of guerrilla warfare and terrorism

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono Echeverri signed the agreement in Havana, which has hosted four years of frequently difficult peace talks.

Cuban President Raul Castro and Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende -- whose countries mediated the talks -- watched the events with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. envoy Bernard Aronson and several other Latin American presidents.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement, calling the cease-fire "welcome news" for the people of Colombia and everyone who desires peace.

"The United States has supported Colombia in its efforts to strengthen its democracy and safeguard the security of its people. That friendship will continue as Colombia's leaders strive to complete the peace process and take steps to recover from the many years of division and conflict," Kerry said in the statement.

The cease-fire is the last major step before both sides sign a final peace agreement. Santos said he expects that to take place July 20, the day Colombia won independence from Spain in 1810.

Final issues to work out

A few final minor issues need to be worked out before the peace deal is put to the Colombian people in a referendum.

Along with a cease-fire and rebel disarmament, the deal includes land reform and will give former rebels some political power. Ex-FARC fighters can also avoid jail time in exchange for community service and travel restrictions.

Both sides had expected to sign the final agreement in March. But questions remain on exactly how the conditions in the peace deal will be implemented and who will preside over a special war crimes tribunal to consider charges against fighters on both sides.

The most important question is how the deal will be implemented legally and whether it would fall apart if a more conservative government succeeds Santos in 2018.

The Marxist FARC rebels launched their uprising as a poor people's rebellion in 1964 and grew into a dangerous fighting force. It turned to drug trafficking and kidnapping to fund its guerilla war.

But the rebels failed to overthrow a succession of Colombian governments, including some which had U.S. military aid.

The fighting in Colombia has left more than 220,000 people dead.
The deadly shooting at a Florida nightclub has reignited the debate in the U.S. on gun control. In Orlando, there have been more tributes to victims, more candles lit in their honor...while in Washington, more debates about gun control. Senators voted down four proposals aimed at keeping suspected extremists from acquiring guns.

In the House of Representatives, members also took up gun legislation.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the task is not impossible. "There are solutions, and for political reasons, people are not doing the kinds of things you would normally do if we had airplanes crashing every day."

Federal agents investigate every U.S. plane crash. Yet 33,000 people die each year in the U.S. because of gun violence. About two-thirds of those are suicides, the rest are victims of homicides. Even more are wounded, but there's no federal study on how to reduce gun violence or how to make guns safer. The Centers for Disease Control  the CDC  tracks the cause of death, but that's about all.

No federal safety research

"The CDC does fund research in injury prevention, but none of their funding goes toward gun violence prevention," Shannon Frattaroli told VOA via Skype. Frattaroli is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research at the School of Public Health. Frattaroli said Johns Hopkins is careful to prevent any money provided by the CDC from being used to study gun violence.

Congress cut out funding for gun research in the CDC's budget in the late 1990s after the National Rifle Association charged that the CDC's research was biased. ((http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-launched-comprehensive-gun-study-15-years/story?id=39873289))

Researchers charge that Congress doesn't treat gun violence as the critical public health issue that it is. And while mass shootings  generally defined as shooting incidents with four or more victims - are widely publicized, they represent only a small number of the people who die from gun violence. There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker website.

Yet, after mass shootings, weapons sales soar, including sales of assault weapons, such as the one used in the Orlando nightclub shooting. Gun shop owners say the sales increase because people are afraid these weapons will be banned after yet another mass shooting. The shop owners also say most people buy guns for personal protection.

Greater risks

Benjamin said having a firearm at home puts everyone in the home at greater risk of being shot. "It turns out that that the people that are more likely to hurt you with your firearm are either yourself, or someone who knows you. The risk that people have around the intruder coming to you with their gun, is far less risky than people think it is."



Benjamin added that there's not enough research to determine how likely it is that a robber will use a homeowner's gun against the victim of a break-in.

"We've also not tested methods that make a lot of common sense around how to have a firearm in a home, and make safe with a firearm," he added. Benjamin cited examples of better education programs that include where to store guns and ammunition so children and others can't get hold of them.

"Were not talking about Draconian science, were talking about common sense studies that help us understand how to make ourselves safer in our communities," Benjamin said.

Experts say they need more information on just about everything related to gun violence and gun ownership in order to make it safer. One thing they do know is who is most likely to commit murder.



In the Skype interview, Frattaroli said, "One of the best predictors of who is going to commit gun violence is who has been violent in the past."



She noted that includes people who abuse members of their families, including their spouses. The former wife of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gunman, said he beat her, even when she was sleeping.
One lonely latrine stands on the dusty edge of an open pit  the only facility for 3,000 people recently escaped from Fallujah.

The women use the latrine. The men and children just use the dusty alleys behind the rows of white tents where they live.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of a group of aid agencies trying to help the displaced, is struggling. Safe drinking water, latrines and medical care remain an immediate priority and extremely urgent, NRC Iraq Country Director Nasr Muflahi said.

An estimated 85,000 people are now living in camps like this one set up outside Fallujah. Some have better conditions. Others do not.

"There is an urgent need of registration of the displaced, coordination and camp management," NRC said in a statement. "New camps [are] opening overnight without any facilities, while others are left without tents and protection."

Inadequate shelter

With the summer heat reaching a searing 45 degrees Celsius, the most vulnerable are collapsing of exhaustion. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is building new camps to house almost 19,000 people, and installing generators to provide electricity to 3,000 families. But that is not even a quarter of the people who now find themselves homeless.

"The speed and size of the population displacement from Fallujah has been overwhelming," said UNHCR official Bruno Geddo.

The U.N. last week released $15 million from its emergency response fund to provide urgent life-saving help the displaced. Those still trapped in Fallujah face dire shortages of food, medicine, electricity and safe drinking water. A New York Times reporter in Fallujah described a city of horrors, with decaying decapitated bodies and dog-sized cages for prisoners.

Battle for Fallujah goes on

Although Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over Islamic State extremists in the city last week, the fighting is still raging on. Iraqi commanders claim that most of the city is under their control. A loose alliance of Iraqi security forces, federal police, Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and Sunni fighters have been fighting for a month to retake the city.

According to the U.S. coalition, by Tuesday only a third of Fallujah had been cleared, and IS militants were still holed up in the citys northwest quadrant.

Fallujah, a Sunni city just west of the capital Baghdad, has been under IS control for more than two years. Many Sunnis at first believed that IS would protect them from sectarian Shi'ite killings and discrimination that plagued Iraq under successive Shi'ite governments. But many also came to suffer under IS' brutal rule, which has been marked by beheadings, hangings, amputations, whippings and drownings.

Once Fallujah has been cleared, Iraqi forces are expected to intensify their advance on Mosul in the north of Iraq. Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters in recent weeks have managed to push the front line to some 20 kilometers outside of the city.
As many as six people are dying daily from disease and malnutrition at a northeastern Nigeria camp for people displaced by Boko Haram violence, Doctors Without Borders said.

The aid group called the situation at a hospital where 24,000 people are sheltering in the town of Bama a catastrophic humanitarian emergency.

Nigerias National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said the dire conditions in Bama are a result of recent fighting between the military and the Boko Haram insurgency.

NEMA spokesman Abdul Ibrahim said most of the people who are ill at the camp have recently arrived in Bama from isolated areas that have become battlefields between the military and the insurgents.

Because theyve been in communities that were cut off without access, they couldnt get food and medical supplies in those locations, Ibrahim said.

Operation Crackdown

Nigerias army last month announced Operation Crackdown, an offensive to push the Islamist Boko Haram militants out of their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest near Bama.

Boko Harams fight against the Nigerian state has killed upwards of 20,000 people and forced 2.7 million more to flee across the region.

In 2014 and 2015, the group was able to overpower Nigerias military and occupy towns across the northeast, including Bama.

Those gains were reversed by an offensive with troops from Nigeria and neighboring states, but several of the reclaimed towns were heavily damaged.

Many of the Nigerians displaced by the fighting have ended up at camps like the one in Bama.

NEMA said it has provided food and medicine to the camp, while the U.N. Childrens Fund is also working in the town.

Deteriorating situation

But Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said conditions have deteriorated.

In a release, the group said of 800 children surveyed in the camp, 19 percent suffered from malnutrition. MSF moved 16 children who were in imminent danger of dying from malnutrition out of the camp and to the Borno State capital Maiduguri.

At least 188 people have died in Bama in the last month, MSF said. The group also counted over 1,200 graves at the camp, 480 of which contained the remains of children.

Ibrahim said NEMA was working with the military to gain access to areas that the military had recently cleared of Boko Haram in order to aid trapped civilians.

We hope to provide medicine and food, which is the major problem, what they are lacking now, he said.
An Australian study has found that tough gun laws enacted 20 years ago have prevented mass shootings and cut rates of firearm-related murders and suicides. The measures were introduced following the Port Arthur massacre on the island state of Tasmania in 1996.

From the late 1970s until 1996, Australia experienced 13 mass shootings in which 104 people died. But research published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association has shown there have been no mass shootings in Australia since strict gun controls were enacted 20 years ago.

The catalyst for change was a massacre at Port Arthur, a former penal colony and popular tourist destination in Tasmania in 1996. Thirty-five people were shot dead by Martin Bryant, a lone gunman armed with two semi-automatic rifles. Bryant is serving multiple life sentences in prison.

Within months of the tragedy, former conservative Prime Minister John Howard acted to ban semi-automatic weapons. The strict measures later included provisions that forced gun owners to sell prohibited firearms to the government. A similar handgun buyback program was introduced in 2003.

While gun crime still persists in Australia, Sydney University Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, who headed the research project, says the laws have prevented mass killings.

There is hard evidence now that if you take away the means of committing a mass killings with firearms, you don't have mass killings for the next 20 years. That's been our experience here. That shows what can happen by sensible legislation. I think Australia's an example for the rest of the world here, said Chapman.

The project also found that although the number of homicide and suicide deaths caused by firearms in Australia had been falling before the reforms, the rate of the fall accelerated for both after the laws were enacted.

Although there is broad public support for the laws, members of Australias Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party have previously described as stupid and crazy legislation that restricts individual freedoms. The party has insisted that Australia should do more to tackle what it calls the real source of gun crime and stop the vilification of law-abiding firearms owners.

Researchers say Australia's example could help countries with gun problems, notably the United States, where recent gun related violence in Orlando, Florida killed 49 people.

But Chapman believes that fear and ideology are so ingrained into U.S. society that tough gun control measures there are unlikely in the near future.
Democratic Party unity was the target when Hillary Clinton, the party's presumptive nominee for the presidential election, met with fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill. But some rank-and-file Democrats who campaigned against Clinton are still skeptical about voting for her in the November general election, and that could put the party's united front at risk.

Mackenzie Hiltz, a 20-year-old woman from Vermont, home state of Senator Bernie Sanders, says talk of party unity will not affect her choice when it comes time to vote.

Asked whether she will vote for Clinton, as former Sanders supporters are being urged to do, Hiltz was firm: "Absolutely not. I truly believe she is in it [politics] for the money, and I dont care if she gets the nomination."

Hiltz said she feels Clinton has changed her positions on key issues over the years, and does not have the same passionate concern for ordinary Americans' problems that Sanders displayed.

Among Sanders supporters overall, Hiltz is not alone in her beliefs.

Sanders supporters split

A Bloomberg Politics survey this month of likely general-election voters said 45 percent of those who have supported Sanders do not intend to vote for Clinton, and nearly half of that group told pollsters they will vote instead for Republican Donald Trump.

Congressman James Clyburn, who was in the group of Democrats who met with Clinton, said, That is a problem for the party."

Clyburn, who is from South Carolina, said he hopes the Vermont senator will try to change his supporters' minds. I would love to see Mr. Sanders endorse [Clinton], go all in, and I think he will.

Sanders, who was not at Wednesday's meeting, appeared to be coming to terms with his political situation following months of primary-election battles with Clinton across the country. It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee," Sander told an interviewer (for the cable television network C-SPAN), "so I'm not going to be determining the scope of the convention."

'Melding' a platform

He was referring to the convention platform - the formal statement of a U.S. political party's principles and goals, presented during the national meeting in each presidential election year. Congressman Elijah Cummings told reporters ideas for the platform were not specifically discussed with Clinton, but he predicted a final draft would be completed this weekend.

Were trying to meld the positions of Clinton and Bernie Sanders - and by the way, thats coming along very good so far, Cummings said.

Sanders' faithful hope the main economic message the senator stressed throughout his campaign will live on: ending corporations' excessive influence on government, and bringing the country's big banks under control - even breaking them up, if necessary.

But for die-hard supporters like Mackenzie Hiltz, even a move by Clinton to adopt the Sanders program might not be enough. I just dont believe that shell make use of Bernie Sanders' ideas and follow through, Hiltz said.

Clinton to be 'inclusive'

Members of Congress at the Clinton meeting said she acknowledged the difficulty of winning over supporters of her opponent from the primaries. Congressman Javier Becerra of California, one of those said to be under consideration as her possible vice-presidential running-mate, said: I especially appreciated her remark that there are people who wont vote for her, but she is prepared to vote for them and work on their behalf.

Clinton is clearly positioning herself as a candidate of inclusiveness, Becerra said. "Shes going to go out there and talk to everyone in America. Not just [to] Sanders supporters, but shes going to talk to those who are not supporting Democrats because, as she said, she wants to be the candidate for everyone.

House Democrats said their meeting with Clinton took place in a calm, relaxed atmosphere. The second-ranking Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, said there was "unity, enthusiasm and confidence in our candidate."

He forecast there would be a "stark contrast" on display when Trump meets with House Republicans in about two weeks. The meeting is currently scheduled for July 7.

Clinton told the Democrats she plans a 50-state election strategy, aiming to win back control of both chambers of Congress from the Republicans, who have wielded majority control since the last presidential vote in 2008.

In Vermont, meanwhile, Hiltz says she has been constantly active on social media, talking to other young Sanders supporters about their opposition to Clinton, and how that could swing support to Trump. Beating Donald Trump is a huge concern of mine, says Hiltz.

Although she maintains she will not vote for Clinton, she also says, I do think we need to get as many people behind the Democratic Party as we can, and she does not denounce Sanders supporters who switch to Clinton's side.

Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of nine House Democrats who have endorsed Sanders' candidacy, declined to say if he was switching his support as he left Wednesday's meeting with the former secretary of state.

The tough decisions many voters have to make in the months ahead could have an impact in the so-called "battleground states" - those parts of the United States where either the Democratic or Republican candidate could come out ahead, and where that outcome could affect state contests as well.

Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, one of those battleground states, is hopeful, even confident, that the choice between Clinton and Trump will be clear.

Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, said Beatty, referring to how the Trump campaign has shaken the political allegiance of many faithful Republicans. Were just hopeful that, over time, people will hear her message, understand what it is that shes saying and know how reckless it would be to elect Donald Trump.
A prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker was charged Thursday for failing to declare a donation from a well-known anti-China media tycoon.

Leung Kwok-hung, known as "Long Hair", is accused of taking $32,000 from Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper. The paper is well-known for being critical of Beijing.

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) charged Leung, 60, with one count of misconduct in public office - a move Leung believes is political.

Sporting his famous long hair and Che Guevara t-shirts, Leung has served in Hong Kong's Legislative Council since 2004. Elections will be held again in September.

When asked if he will deny the charges, Leung simply said "I'll do it in court formally". He has been released on bail and is due to appear in court Friday.

Fears that China is tightening its grip on Hong Kong have recently been exacerbated by revelations of a Hong Kong bookseller allegedly detained in China for eight months. Lam Wing-kee's bookstore was well known for selling gossipy titles about Beijing politicians.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous since being handed back to China by Britain in 1997, with freedoms unseen on the mainland, but there are fears they are being stripped away.
They were hugging each other. Some were crying. Others said they could not believe what had happened.

The large crowd of immigrants, advocates and politicians gathered Thursday outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the justices' tie vote left in place a ruling that blocked President Barack Obama's plan to extend deportation protection to millions of undocumented immigrants.

The 4-4 decision, advocates say, produced tears and disappointment but also will motivate people to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Now, I dont feel defeated. I feel disappointed. But, fortunately, I have relatives who are American citizens, and more than ever I will work hard with all my friends and family, and they will see the answer in November, said Hilaria Bonilla of Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Bonilla is one of the 4 million undocumented immigrants who would have been allowed to live and work legally in the United States without the constant fear of deportation, had the court overruled an earlier decision.

DAPA, DACA

The United States v. Texas case focused on Obama's 2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, and the expansion of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA.

The lawsuit brought by 26 states, led by Texas, as well as congressional Republicans, challenged the executive orders and argued that Obama did not have the power to effectively change immigration laws.

A lower court previously struck down Obama's action as unlawful and issued an injunction on its implementation until the Supreme Court ruled in the case. With the high court evenly divided on the case, the lower-court ruling stands.

Obama called the decision disappointing.

Today, the Supreme Court was unable to reach a decision," he said. "This is part of the consequence of the Republican failure so far to give a fair hearing to Mr. Merrick Garland, my nominee to the Supreme Court. It means that the expanded set of common-sense deferred action policies  the ones that I announced two years ago  cant go forward at this stage until there is a ninth justice on the court to break the tie.

Isabel Aguilar, who was running away from gang violence when she left El Salvador, said she still had hope for the future.

We cant give up. I have three kids, and I tell them every day that we shouldnt cry. We have to keep moving forward, and I always have this positive attitude, and today I cant give up, she said.

A tearful Aguilar added that although the family was not wealthy, her husband was an industrial engineer and she studied law in El Salvador. People like her husband, she said, would be an asset to this country.

U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, spoke to those gathered in front of the Supreme Court and sent a message to opponents of DAPA and DACA.

Every time you stop us, you encourage and motivate us to vote," he said. "You will reap what you have sown. Justice for our community comes next November.

'Now we have to wait'

The call to vote also is what encourages people like Juan Ramos, who was brought to the U.S. in 2008 when he was 15 from Honduras. Ramos, however, did not qualify for the original 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order.

I feel like this could have a relief not just for me, but also 5 million parents that had hope that something was going to change for them, and now we have to wait and wait again," Ramos said. "My hope is always to go back to school. Help my parents. Get a better job.

Ramos lived with relatives in North Carolina and was accepted to five different colleges, but was not allowed to attend any because of his immigration status. As of now, he will continue to work in the restaurant industry and fight for immigration reform.

Since I was little, I loved building, so I wanted to go to school for architecture. I promised my parents that I was going to build a house for them, he said.
Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. coalition airstrikes and Apache attack helicopters, began moving Wednesday toward the crucial al Qayyarah airfield south of Mosul.

Known as a super-base, the airfield has two major runways and previously was capable of handling fighter jets, helicopters and large U.S. transport planes. It lies just west of the Tigris river and of advancing Iraqi forces.

It is like the U.S. fight for Baghdad in 2003, said one Iraqi commander speaking on the phone through a translator. There are jet fighters in the sky, and below them are helicopters and on land we have ground forces with M1A1 tanks, the commander said on condition that he remain anonymous. This is the way it is going right now, he said on Thursday.

Daily strikes

U.S. coalition has been hammering IS targets in the area with airstrikes almost daily since June 1. On Wednesday, four strikes hit an IS tactical unit, destroyed an IS assembly area and eight IS boats. On Tuesday, six strikes near Qayyarah destroyed IS bunkers, tunnel entrances, two mortar systems and six boats.



According to IHS Janes Defence Weekly, photographs released by Iraqs Ministry of Defense last week showed OshKosh M-All Terrain Vehicles armed with heavy machine guns, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles and M1A1 Abrams tanks advancing towards al Qayyarah. Iraqs 9th Armored Division and brigades of the U.S.-trained 15th Infantry Division are moving in from Makhmour, from where Iraqi forces started their offensive towards Mosul in March.

Mosul is the country's second largest city and IS's "capital" in Iraq.

Planning ahead

U.S. Special Envoy Brett McGurk met with Kurdish Regional President Masoud Marzani and Iraqs National Security Advisor Faleh al Fayyad on Sunday to lay the ground for taking the city. McGurk said on his Twitter feed that the meeting aimed at preparing the political-military plan for Mosuls full liberation.



Kurdish commanders have insisted a political agreement on how the city will be taken and how it will be controlled afterwards is essential to a successful military operation. There are concerns that a heavy Shiite militia presence in the operation could aggravate the sectarian divisions exploited by IS in Iraq. Iraqi security forces have been boosted by Shiite militia in other offensives, including in Fallujah.

Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe, with as many as 600,000 people displaced if the offensive is not undertaken carefully.



Capturing al Qayyarah would give U.S. coalition and Iraqi forces a pivotal airbase from where to launch a large offensive against Mosul, the last IS stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces have already moved in from the east to just 20 kilometers of the city, and more peshmerga forces are deployed north of Mosul.
Millionaires in Asia are wealthier than their counterparts in other regions of the world, including North America and Europe, according to a report by the Capgemini consulting firm.

According to the report, Asian millionaires wealth was worth $17.4 trillion in 2015, more than double the $8.4 trillion in 2006. In North America, millionaires saw their wealth increase from $11.2 trillion to $16.6 trillion over the same time period.

Moreover, the sheer number of millionaires in Asia grew by 9.4 percent over last year. The report said there were 5.1 million Asian millionaires in 2015, the majority, 2.7 million coming from Japan and another one million from China. The U.S., by contrast, had 4.5 millionaires.

The report found that Asian millionaires increased their wealth by nearly 10 percent in 2015 compared to just over 2 percent in the U.S. and Canada.

The report said Latin American millionaires fared the worst, seeing their fortunes reduced by 3.7 percent, which was caused by volatility in the Brazilian stock market. European millionaires, meanwhile, saw a 4.8 percent increase in wealth.

Asian millionaires wealth is largely centered around financial services, technology and healthcare.

"It's a more entrepreneurial source of wealth," said Bill Sullivan, head of global financial services market intelligence at Capgemini, according to CNN.

According to the BBC, millionaires were worth $60 trillion globally last year, a 400 percent jump from 30 years ago. It could be as much as $100 trillion by 2015, Capgemini said.
Looks matter more than we may want to believe, and elections are no exception.

Thats what social scientists are finding in a growing body of research.

Carnegie Mellon University social psychologist Christopher Olivola finds that in conservative states, Democrats could pick up votes just by looking more Republican than their rivals.

"Ideally, people would not be choosing candidates based on these superficial qualities," Olivola deadpanned.

Olivola and colleagues showed participants pictures of unfamiliar candidates who ran against each other in recent elections. Subjects were asked to guess which one was the Republican and which was the Democrat.

There's no definition of who looks Republican or Democratic. However, participants guessed right a little more than half the time  better than randomly guessing.

But things got interesting when they guessed wrong.

You don't look like a Democrat...

Democratic candidates who were mistaken for Republicans more often got more votes in Republican-leaning states. You might expect that, right?

But the opposite was not true. Republicans who were mistaken for Democrats didn't win more votes in Democratic-leaning states.

An upcoming study will show the same effect in exit polls, Olivola said. "The people who identify themselves as Republican are more likely to vote for the Democrat who looks more like a Republican."

That doesn't mean Republicans are more superficial than Democrats, Olivola adds. Democrats are just as likely to vote for a candidate based on other qualities found in appearances. But in this one area  looking like you belong to the party  Republicans seem to be more easily swayed.

The effect is not enough to win an election by itself, Olivola noted. "Fortunately, people don't just vote on looks. But in a tied election, it could make the difference between winning and losing."

Face-ism

Olivola and others have been finding that people's looks count for much more than we think. Voters choose candidates who look more competent, based on a one-second look at a photograph.



Criminal defendants who look more trustworthy are less likely to be convicted. Military cadets who look more dominant are promoted to higher ranks than their classmates.

Competence, trustworthiness and dominance are hard to judge objectively. But what Olivola finds remarkable about Republicans choosing Democrats based on looks is, "when you go vote, you don't have to guess the political party. It's written on the ballots."

"It's really interesting that some set of people, maybe on the margins, who would presumably vote for a Republican can be swayed to vote for a Democrat if that person looks more conservative," he said.

Why does it happen?

"That's the billion-dollar question," he said. "I don't know." Olivola guesses it has something to do with face shapes.

Perhaps there is some value in jumping to conclusions based on appearances. Scientists are finding there are certain things we can tell just by looking -- or, at least, our odds at guessing right are better than a coin flip.

Trustworthy faces

Teenagers can tell trustworthy from untrustworthy people based solely on pictures of faces, and they get better at it as they get older. Their accuracy improved from 53 percent at age 13 to 60 percent at age 18 in one study.

In another study, participants could identify the least-charitable people from pictures of their faces 58 percent of the time.

"There's some signal there," says University of Toronto psychology professor Nick Rule. "There's still a substantial amount of noise. But from a scientific perspective this is really fascinating because something is getting through."

But is it enough to vote on? Absolutely not, said Rule.

When people don't know much about a candidate, they will go with their gut instinct, he says. "And your gut instinct is going to be governed by the way that you feel about people, which is going to have a lot to do with how they look.

"There's a lot of danger in that when you're making important decisions," Rule added.

The more people know about the candidates, the less they appear to be influenced by appearances, he noted.

So voter education is the best hope, Olivola said.

Or maybe candidates should wear bags over their heads?

"I think there's a point to be made for that," Olivola joked.
Thousands of Myanmar migrants, eager to get a glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi, overwhelmed police in a Thai coastal fishing center Thursday afternoon.

The Myanmar state counselor and foreign minister, on her first official visit to Thailand since her government was inaugurated, went to Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province to address 500 Myanmar nationals working there.

But the overflow crowd of thousands more, barred from entering the venue, lost patience.

Long live mother, they chanted and waved Myanmar flags as security forces tried to regroup and ponder how to get the crowd under control.

Rain out



A downpour thwarted Aung San Suu Kyi's last-minute plan to also address the thousands of supporters who could not get inside.

"Tell my people I am disappointed I cannot give a speech to them outside today, but I know their problems well," she told migrant activist Andy Hall, according to his tweet. 



Hundreds of thousands of migrants work in Thailands fishery-related industries, about half estimated to be illegally employed.The exploitation of some of them has been well-documented.

Overall, there are as many as three million Myanmar nationals working legally in Thailand and perhaps as many as two million more are undocumented.

New employment agreement

Myanmar and Thailand, during Aung San Suu Kyis three-day visit, are expected to announce a new cross-border employment agreement.

The mandatory work-break period would be cut from three years to 30 days.

Thats a concession to reality, said Phil Robertson, the Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch, noting that many from Myanmar prefer to stay in Thailand illegally after their maximum four-year work period than return home for the extended timeout.

The record for migrant workers is to wait around long enough and the policy will change, Robertson told VOA.

Win Win Zaw, who has worked for four years legally at the Bangkok Seafood Factory in Mahachai and was employed illegally four years prior to that, is among those who would benefit from the expected agreement.

It will be much more convenient because most of us dont want to overstay, he said.

Those who remain illegally face exploitation in Thailand, explained Robertson as the military and police see the workers as hordes that are a security threat, and are not sympathetic to their critical role in the kingdoms economy.

Still in border camps

Another major bilateral issue for Myanmar and Thailand is the fate of more than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar languishing in nine border camps. Many of them have been there for decades during an era when their country was under military rule.

Aung San Suu Kyi, on Friday, is to discuss their future return with the Thai prime minister, who as army chief two years ago seized control of the government in a bloodless coup.

Any sort of repatriation has to be fully voluntary and rights respecting, said Robertson of Human Rights Watch. We have to be cautious about unilaterally rushing a timetable that would be involuntary and put them in harms way.

Some of the areas to which the refugees might be sent to inside Myanmar remain unstable or littered with land mines, according to human rights agencies.

Limited media coverage

News coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi is being restricted by Thai authorities to an unusual degree.

A joint news conference with Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is scheduled for Friday during a signing ceremony, but journalists have been told that no questions will be taken.

The Myanmar leader is also to give an address earlier in the day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok but media agencies have been told they will be allowed only to photograph or videotape her opening remarks and a ministry spokesperson will summarize her speech for reporters after it concludes.

The sensitive issue of the treatment of Rohingya refugees in Thailand overshadowed the start of the visit of Myanmars de facto leader.

As her jet was en route to Suvarnabhumi Airport activists in Bangkok were quickly muzzled by Thailands military government.

Free speech crackdown

A small group of police and soldiers, out of uniform, prevented a group from holding a full news conference at a space it had rented in the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

Non-government organizations have called for Thailand to end what they regard as the arbitrary and indefinite detention of the Muslim Rohingya and others who have come ashore in Thailand.

Most Rohingya sailed from Rakhine state in Myanmar. But the Myanmar government does not recognize them, saying they are actually illegal migrants from Bangladesh, and disavows the term Rohingya, instead calling them Bengalis.

Focus on Myanmar laborers in Thailand

Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday was focusing instead on the millions of migrants from her country who are laborers in Thailand.

On her first official visit to Thailand since her government was inaugurated Aung San Suu Kyi is to address several thousand of the Myanmar nationals working in the Thai coastal fishery center of Mahachai (from 09:30 UTC).

The concern is about national security. This event doesnt rise to that level, Amy Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, told VOA at the event venue. This is a violation of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

Two activists advocating better treatment of the minority Rohingya in Myanmar read a brief open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi and explained they were prohibited by the junta from answering reporters questions.

Leaving the stage the secretary general of the Rohingya Thailand Group, Hajee Ismail, added I cannot speak now, as he put his hands over his lips. This is a big problem.

The president of the Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand, Maung Kyaw Nu, who said he was a former political prisoner in Myanmar, briefly taped a napkin over his mouth as he waded through a crowd of Thai and international journalists. He paused for a few minutes to speak to VOA and expressed little hope the plight of the Rohingya would be addressed by Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit.

We cannot get anything from her because she is also violating the human rights [of the Rohingya], he said.

Prayuth, who leads the junta governing Thailand, told reporters Tuesday he had agreed not to discuss any aspect of the Rohingya with Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit.

Its a sad day when its easier to have a discussion about the Rohingya in Yangon than in Bangkok, Sam Zarifi, the regional director of the International Commission of Jurists, told VOA.

Non-government organizations have called for the kingdom to end what they regard as the arbitrary and indefinite detention of the Muslim Rohingya and others who have come ashore in Thailand.
Phones or watches may be smart enough to detect sound, light, motion, touch, direction, acceleration and even the weather, but they can't smell.

That's created a technology bottleneck that companies have spent more than a decade trying to fill. Most have failed.

A powerful portable electronic nose, says Redg Snodgrass, a venture capitalist funding hardware start-ups, would open up new horizons for health, food, personal hygiene and even security.

Imagine, he says, being able to analyze what someone has eaten or drunk based on the chemicals they emit; detect disease early via an app; or smell the fear in a potential terrorist.

"Smell," he says, "is an important piece" of the puzzle. It's not through lack of trying. Aborted projects and failed companies litter the aroma-sensing landscape. But that's not stopping newcomers from trying.

Like Tristan Rousselle's Grenoble-based Aryballe Technologies, which recently showed off a prototype of NeOse, a hand-held device he says will initially detect up to 50 common odors. "It's a risky project. There are simpler things to do in life," he says candidly.

Mass, not energy

The problem, says David Edwards, a chemical engineer at Harvard University, is that unlike light and sound, scent is not energy, but mass. "It's a very different kind of signal," he says.

That means each smell requires a different kind of sensor, making devices bulky and limited in what they can do. The aroma of coffee, for example, consists of more than 600 components.

France's Alpha MOS was first to build electronic noses for limited industrial use, but its foray into developing a smaller model that would do more has run aground. Within a year of unveiling a prototype for a device that would allow smartphones to detect and analyze smells, the website of its U.S.-based arm Boyd Sense has gone dark. Neither company responded to emails requesting comment.

The website of Adamant Technologies, which in 2013 promised a device that would wirelessly connect to smartphones and measure a user's health from their breath, has also gone quiet.

Its founder didn't respond to emails seeking comment. For now, start-ups focus on narrower goals or on industries that don't care about portability.

California-based Aromyx, for example, is working with major food companies to help them capture a digital profile for every odor, using its EssenceChip. Wave some food across the device and it captures a digital signature that can be manipulated as if it were a sound or image file.

But, despite its name, this is not being done on silicon, says CEO Chris Hanson. Nor is the device something you could carry or wear. "Mobile and wearable are a decade away at least," he says.

Partly, the problem is that we still don't understand well how humans and animals detect and interpret smells. The Nobel prize for understanding the principles of olfaction, or smell, was awarded only 12 years ago.

"The biology of olfaction is still a frontier of science, very connected to the frontier of neuroscience," says Edwards, the Harvard chemical engineer.

More push than pull

That leaves start-ups reaching for lower-hanging fruit. Snodgrass is funding a start-up called Tzoa, a wearable that measures air quality. He says interest in this from polluted China is particularly strong. Another, Nima, raised $9 million last month to build devices that can test food for proteins and substances, including gluten, peanuts and milk. Its first product will be available shortly, the company says.

For now, mobile phones are more likely to deliver smells than detect them. Edwards' Vapor Communications, for example, in April launched Cyrano, a tub-sized cylinder that users can direct to emit scents from a mobile app - in the same way iTunes or Spotify directs a speaker to emit sounds.

Japanese start-up Scentee is revamping its scent-emitting smartphone module, says co-founder Koki Tsubouchi, shifting focus from sending scent messages to controlling the fragrance of a room.

There may be scepticism - history and cinemas are littered with the residue of failed attempts to introduce smell into our lives going back to the 1930s - but companies sniff a revival.

Dutch group Philips filed a recent patent for a device that would influence, or prime, users' behavior by stimulating their senses, including through smell. Nike filed something similar, pumping scents through a user's headphones or glasses to improve performance.

The holy grail, though, remains sensing smells. Samsung Electronics was recently awarded a patent for an olfactory sensor that could be incorporated into any device, from a smartphone to an electronic tattoo.

One day these devices will be commonplace, says Avery Gilbert, an expert on scent and author of a book on the science behind it, gradually embedding specialized applications into our lives.

"I don't think you're going to solve it all at once," he says.
An airplane powered entirely by the sun landed in Seville, Spain early Thursday after a 71-hour journey across the Atlantic from New York.

The one-seat Solar Impulse 2 took off from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport early Monday morning on the 15th leg of its journey around the world.

The solar-powered plane was piloted on this leg of its around-the-world journey by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, cruising at an average speed of 70 kilometers an hour.

The carbon fiber Solar Impulse 2 has a 72-meter wingspan, which is longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 and weighs about as much as an automobile. The 17,000 solar cells built into the wings harness the sun's energy and charge onboard batteries.

Piccard's compatriot and business partner Andre Borschberg will pilot the final leg of the trip from Seville to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where the trip began in March of 2015.
Hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the world have gathered in California for their chance at access to important policymakers, investors and people who have already accomplished on grand scales what they are trying to do.

The list of speakers and panelists from the U.S. government, business community and venture capital firms at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) is extensive.

President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Small Business Administration head Maria Contreras-Sweet are all taking part. So are the founders of companies such as Google and Airbnb.

"In our world today, there is an intimate connection between the creation of economic opportunity and the potential of political stability or peace; between prosperity and peace," Kerry said at the opening session Thursday.

Kerry added "We need you to utilize your business-savvy, your ambition, your dream, your desire to creatively figure out how we can educate a fast-growing generation of kids; how we can modes of transportation; how we can deliver health care to everybody and more effectively and efficiently.

"The marketplace is moving faster; ideas are moving faster, and we simply will not be able to keep up to solve the problems before us, without the talent and contributions of this generation of entrepreneurs of all of you," Kerry said.

"We've got investors, all the ecosystem supporters, educators, business representatives, government officials, and they really represent the full measure of that entrepreneurial talent that comes from diverse backgrounds across our own nation and across the world," said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith. "The caliber of talent here is very high, from many different countries.

Some of the sessions will focus on how government agencies are turning to entrepreneurs as drivers of economic growth and the way those in the U.S. tech haven of Silicon Valley are becoming more involved in emerging markets.

"We believe that entrepreneurship is a fundamental American value that attracts a lot of desire for collaboration around the world," said Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes. "We try to bring entrepreneurs together so that they are networked with one another. Often entrepreneurs from emerging economies don't have the same type of exposure to their peers as you have in the United States.

Liberian on health care

Naomi Tulay-Solanke of Liberia is one of the entrepreneurs chosen to attend the summit. Her company, Community Healthcare Initiative, focuses on providing health care to vulnerable women and children and to educate and empower girls.

"When I was first selected for the GES, thousands of things rolled through my mind," she told VOA. "But as the time grew closer, as things started to unfold, I started to understand that one of the important things I want from here is networking, get to know people. Once you get to know people, people get to know who you are."



WATCH: Naomi Tulay-Solanke

Challenges in Africa

Other sessions at the summit will focus on challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Africa and what it takes for those who start businesses in a country other than their own.

Steven Ozoigbo, the CEO of the African Technology Foundation, was born in Nigeria but now lives in California. He said 90 percent of startups in Silicon Valley fail and that entrepreneurs in Africa need to embrace that such an outcome is a natural part of business.

"The fear of failure in Africa is a cultural fear, so we also need to work on our risk appetite, in looking at certain markets, certain environments where we can actually make change happen, and understanding local problems and local solutions," he told VOA.



WATCH: Nigerian Steven Ozoigbo on startups

His company aims to connect African entrepreneurs with the resources commonly found in places like Silicon Valley. His advice to those who want to grow their own business is to have a local focus.

"Find a problem that's local to you," he said. "Find a solution that no one else has though of and if someone else has thought of it and they're not doing it properly, do it better than they can. Get someone to pay you for that solution, and get more than one person and scale up the amount of people that will pay for that solution."

'My Africa Is' documentary

Nosarieme Garrick, the founder and executive producer of the "My Africa Is" documentary series, also came to the United States after growing up in Nigeria. She advises people to commit to their idea and remain persistent.

"Be flexible, stay true to your idea, but still look at the market and be realistic about what you can change," she said. "Being malleable, being flexible, because that malleability allows you to change strategies if things don't go your way as opposed to sticking to the same thing."



WATCH: Nigerian Nosarieme Garrick on perseverance

Promoting positivity



Rhodes said one of the reasons the U.S. is focused on entrepreneurship is that it "needs to have affirmative values" and not just promote the things it opposes, like with its fight against Islamic State.

"The people who come to this type of event are people who are focused on what they can build. ISIL is simply focused on what they can destroy," he said.



WATCH: Obama announces GES 2016
A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday thwarted President Barack Obama's plan to defer the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.

The 4-4 decision left in place a lower court decision that rejected an Obama bid to set a new immigration policy by executive order after Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration changes.

He called the ruling "heartbreaking" for the immigrants who will not be able to "come out of the shadows to more fully contribute to this country in a meaningful way." But he said there will be no push to deport law-abiding immigrants living in the U.S., even though the ruling leaves their continued presence in the country in legal limbo.

Obama, as he has in the past, condemned Republicans in the Senate for refusing to consider his appointment of federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland to fill the ninth seat on the court left vacant by the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia. The lawmakers say the seat should be filled by the country's next president, after Obama leaves office in January.

Texas and 25 other states sued the Obama administration over his immigration plan, arguing that it was unconstitutional since it conflicted with current federal immigration law. The administration, though, argued that the states had no standing to sue, since immigration law falls under the purview of the federal government.

A lower court previously struck down the Obama action as unlawful and issued an injunction on its implementation until the Supreme Court ruled in the case.

With the court evenly divided on the case, the lower court ruling stands.

"For more than two decades now, our immigration system -- everybody acknowledges -- has been broken," Obama said. "And the fact that the Supreme Court wasn't able to issue a decision today, doesn't just set the system back even further, it takes us further from the country we aspire to be."

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton denounced the court's ruling as "unacceptable," saying the U.S. "should be doing everything possible" to alleviate the fears of undocumented immigrants in the country that they might be deported. She also rebuked Senate Republicans for refusing to consider Garland's appointment.

Paul Ryan, speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, praised the ruling, saying it shows "the president is not permitted to write laws, only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore separation of powers."



Affirmative action

In another major case, the court upheld an affirmative action program promoting the admission of racial minorities at the University of Texas, ruling 4-3 that the program is constitutional.

Obama said he was pleased by the ruling because it "upheld the basic notion that diversity is an important value in our society and that this country should provide a high-quality education to all our young people, regardless of their background."

The case centered on a white woman, Abigail Fisher, who sued the university claiming the school denied her admission based on her race.

Thanks to an unusual law in Texas, the state grants automatic admission to the top 10 percent of students of each high school to its state university. For about 25 percent of other students, the school bases its acceptance decision on several factors, including the students race.

Fishers grades were not high enough to put her in the top 10 percent of her class, so she could not take advantage of the rule. She was denied admission in 2008, and when she found out the university admitted minority students with lower grades than hers, she sued the school, claiming race-based discrimination.

The university, in court arguments, claimed its race-based selection policies are necessary to provide a sufficiently diverse campus community, while Fishers attorneys said the 10 percent program is enough to ensure that minorities are included in the selection process.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from helping decide the case, since she previously worked on it as U.S. solicitor general, so a four-judge majority decided the case.

Abortion case decision next



The Supreme Court is due to hand down another major decision, on abortion, before its summer recess starts in a week.

That case stems from a Texas law passed in 2013 that requires all abortion providers in the state adhere to the same building standards as outpatient surgical centers. Under the law, doctors at the abortion centers must also have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles  nearly 50 kilometers  of their clinic.

Since the laws passage, the number of abortion clinics in Texas has plummeted from 42 - 19, and abortion activists say the number could drop even further if the law is fully implemented. Whole Womans Health, the plaintiff in the case, claims the requirements are unnecessary and overburdensome. John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Texas Health Department of State Health Services, though, argued that the new regulations are necessary to protect the safety of patients seeking abortions.

Since a federal appeals court has already voted to uphold the law, a tie in the Supreme Court would result in the full implementation of the abortion regulations in Texas and nearby states, but not set a national precedent.
The United Nations Security Council expressed concern on Thursday over the arrest of political opposition members in Democratic Republic of Congo and urged the president to hold elections by the end of the year as required by the constitution.

The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections on time for logistical reasons as opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power.

Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term in the poll scheduled for November. But a top Kabila ally has raised the possibility of a referendum to allow him to run.

In a resolution to renew U.N. sanctions, the 15-member Security Council emphasized the protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights in order to pave "the way for peaceful, credible, inclusive, transparent and timely elections in the DRC, particularly presidential and legislative elections by November 2016, in accordance with the Constitution."

The resolution also expanded the sanctions criteria to allow the council to blacklist people for committing rights abuses.

Congolese U.N. Ambassador Ignace Gata Mavita wa Lufuta said his country did not believe the resolution adopted on Thursday should have referred to the electoral process. He said Kabila's government was focused on organizing peaceful polls and that "should not be interpreted as a pretext to defer the elections."

"The experience drawn from two previous elections requires that we find the necessary conditions to organize proper elections that are not affected by violence," he told the council, warning the resolution could revive political tensions.

The council expressed deep concern at increased restrictions on freedom of expression and on the political space in Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically the recent arrests and detention of political opposition and civil society members.

The U.S. government imposed sanctions on a senior Congolese police official on Thursday for his role in what it described as the violent suppression of opposition to Kabila's government.
The United Nations on Thursday dismissed Pakistans assertions that Afghan refugees have become a source of terrorism in the country, urging the host government not to adopt rushed solutions for sending the displaced population back to Afghanistan.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi made the remarks in Pakistan on the last leg of his three-nation trip, which included Iran and Afghanistan, to remind the international community of the importance of solving the protracted Afghan refugee crisis.

U.N. officials say that amid other refugee problems, the world has lost sight of the plight of millions of Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan and Iran.

Dwindling foreign assistance and rising terrorist attacks, they say, have also resulted in a concerted push from the Pakistan government to repatriate about 3 million Afghan refugees, including an estimated 1 million undocumented refugees.

During his visit to a UNHCR voluntary repatriation center near Peshawar, Grandi addressed refugees fears that they are being made scapegoats after attacks or violent incidents in the country.

He said that in meetings with Pakistani leaders, he stressed that the whole refugee population must not be blamed or penalized for such actions.

My appeal is that, not only to the authorities but also to the local population, refugees, as you know, are not terrorists. And if a few of them have been involved in criminal acts, then they should be prosecuted through due process, but according to law, like any other person, the UNHCR chief said.

Calls for deportation

Afghans in Pakistan are the second-largest refugee population in the world, most having fled the Soviet invasion in 1979. But in recent months, public calls for their deportation have spiked in the wake of worsening relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The complication is that very often refugees get entangled in security situations besides being a component of a very complex relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is what makes matters very often more complicated, Grandi said.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Nafees Zakaria on Thursday reiterated Islamabads concerns that Afghan refugee camps in the country have become safe havens for terrorists.

There are still about 3 million Afghans in Pakistan. Besides having a bearing on the economy, some of the refugee camps have become a security risk as terrorists and militants use the camps as hideouts, he said.

Pakistan has not yet announced whether it will renew the legal status of Afghan refugees due to expire June 30, which has raised fears and uncertainty among the displaced population. Grandi, however, said that in his talks with Pakistani leaders, he made the case for extending the deadline.

UNHCR officials say the number of Afghans voluntarily returning home has sharply declined this year, mainly because of an intensified Taliban-led insurgency and deepening economic crisis in Afghanistan.

About 6,000 Afghans have returned home this year from Pakistan, compared with nearly 60,000 last year during the same period, according to the refugee agency.
U.S.-backed Syrian forces entered a Syrian town near the Turkish border that has been held by Islamic State (IS) militants for more than two years, after a three-week-long battle with the terror group around the town.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish and Arab forces, advanced towards Manbij on Thursday with aerial support from the U.S.-led coalition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Clashes are taking place on the southern side of the city, Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory told VOA via phone from Britain.

Two things are preventing the SDF to take full control of the city  civilians who are being used by Daesh (IS) and booby traps that the group has planted all over the city, he said.

IS fighters suspected inside city



Abulrahman, whose group has reporters on the ground, told VOA that at least 1,000 IS fighters are still inside the city, fighting Kurdish-led forces with light and mid-range weapons.

The U.S.-led coalition expected IS militants to fight back in Manbij until the last minute, given its strategic importance to them.

Manbij is a key waypoint on an IS supply line between the Turkish border and the extremist group's self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa, which is also under intense pressure from a Syrian government offensive. If Manbij is captured, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for IS in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the border town of Tal Abyad.

Were around the city and were coming in, and weve cut the lines of communication into it and the noose is getting tighter around the city, U.S. Army Colonel Chris Garver told reporters Wednesday from Baghdad.

Earlier this week the SDF opened a corridor and some residents were able to escape the town toward safer areas.

Daesh was trying hard to keep us in Manbij, one fleeing resident told VOA.

We had been waiting for the [SDF] forces for two months to come to our aid, he said.



Liberating Manbij

At least 20,000 people are still held by IS militants inside the town, local sources said.

The campaign to liberate Manbij began three weeks ago and at least 520 IS fighters were killed, according to Kurdish military officials.

Manbij had been one of the major supply lines for IS militants in areas they control in northern Syria. Local activists say pushing back IS from the town would be a significant setback for the terror group in Syria.
In the U.S. presidential contest, Republican Donald Trump is making claim after claim about the life and times of his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but fact checkers are finding that many of them bear little resemblance to reality. Clinton has also come under some criticism from fact checkers.

On Wednesday, as Trump unleashed a scathing attack on his opponent in a New York speech, he contended that Clinton personally benefited from her four years as the top U.S. diplomat, accepting a $58,000 gold, sapphire and diamond necklace from Brunei's queen.

But several fact checkers noted that she accepted the gift on behalf of the U.S. government and turned it over to the agency that routinely stores such largesse from other countries. Gifts large and small are exchanged by government officials from across the globe when they meet in national capitals.

Middle East turmoil



Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul making his first run for elected office, accused Clinton of "almost single-handedly" destabilizing the Middle East, blaming her for the 2011 Western invasion of Libya that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddhafi that "handed the country over" to Islamic State and a "disastrous strategy" of announcing ahead of time the 2011 departure date for U.S. military troops from Iraq.

The Associated Press said these Trump claims "make only passing acquaintance with reality." The news service noted that Clinton supported a NATO-led attack against Gaddhafi's regime, but that there was no U.S. invasion. AP said Islamic State jihadists control only a small part of Libya and that the U.S. troop departure date in Iraq was set in 2008 by former President George W. Bush. Clinton served in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.

Business loan



Trump, as he often does at campaign rallies, claimed that he started his business career with a "small loan" from his father and that he is now worth $10 billion. Several fact checkers noted that the loan was for $1 million, that he received an inheritance that may have totaled $40 million and that he benefited from loan guarantees from his father. Trump's net worth is also in dispute, with numerous U.S. financial publications casting doubt on the $10 billion figure and saying he is worth much less.

Highest taxes?



Trump claimed that the United States is the "highest-taxed nation in the world," when in fact it is one of the lowest among developed and large emerging-market economies. He said the U.S. trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, more than twice the actual figure, even as trade deficits are more the result of decisions by businesses and consumers in far-flung countries rather than policies advanced by diplomatic figures like Clinton.

Minimum wage



Clinton, seeking to become the first female U.S. president, has not escaped rebukes from fact-checkers either. After her attack on Trump's business career earlier this week, the fact checkers noted that Clinton had correctly quoted Trump as saying that having a low minimum wage "is not a bad thing for this country." But the fact checkers say she then failed to note that Trump since has changed his mind and says that he does not know how someone can live on the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Economic growth



The fact checkers also say she was exaggerating in claiming that Trump would sell off some of the country's most cherished historical sites, such as the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor, to cut the country's national debt. Trump has promised to create robust economic growth that would cut the country's $19 trillion in debt.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Kinshasa's police chief in the Democratic Republic of Congo for violence and the murder of civilians.

All U.S. assets belonging to Celestin Kanyama are frozen and Americans are barred from doing any business with him.

The U.S. accuses Kanyama and his police force of creating a "climate of fear" in the DRC ahead of the December presidential election. President Joseph Kabila is believed to be planning to change election laws to allow himself to run for a third term, which would violate the constitution.

The Obama administration says the Kanyama-led police have used violence to put down anti-Kabila protests, including attacks on women and children, leaving at least 40 people dead.

Police raided a number of homes in Kinshasa, dragging out suspected opposition members at gunpoint and without a warrant. At least 50 men and boys were killed, and 30 others disappeared.

U.S. Treasury official John Smith says the sanctions decision "sends a clear message that the United States condemns the regime's violence and repressive actions, especially those of Celestin Kanyama, which threaten the future of democracy for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo."
The World Health Organization (WHO) will launch emergency vaccination campaigns for Yellow Fever along the border between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it announced Thursday.

The WHO emphasized that preventing further international spread of the disease is the current priority.

While WHO is working with partners and vaccine manufacturers to increase vaccine production and replenish the emergency stockpile currently being used for this outbreak, it is vital to interrupt transmission, especially in cross-border areas to rapidly bring this outbreak under control and halt further international spread, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa.

The initial phase of the campaign will begin in July, and will focus on areas along the border with the most trade and activity to try to prevent further international spread of the disease. Working in a 75-100 kilometer belt spanning the Angola-DRC border and targeting areas such as capital city Kinshasa will create an "immune buffer to prevent further international spread" of the virus, according to the WHO.

As of June 13th, three countries, China, Kenya, and the DRC, have reported cases of Yellow Fever connected to the Angola outbreak.

So far, over 15 million doses of the Yellow Fever vaccine have been delivered to Angola and the DRC, but lack of funding, urgent need, and the difficulty of making the vaccine have resulted in significant shortages.
The Council of Churches in Zambia has expressed disappointment that leaders of political parties have failed to ensure their supporters stop engaging in violence in the run-up to the August 11 general election.

Leaders of political parties including incumbent President Edgar Lungu of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) party, and main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND), recently met religious groups and signed a pledge promising to help end politically related violence in their parties. But supporters of both parties continue to accuse each other of perpetrating violence across the country, including the capital, Lusaka.

On March 29, religious leaders held a meeting with 19 political parties in Lusaka, with the main objective of curbing the violence as the groups intensify their campaigns to canvas for votes in the upcoming presidential, legislative and local elections.

A communique was issued following the meeting signed by all the parties, with the commitment to stop their supporters from engaging in violence. The parties and their leaders also committed to deal internally with all issues that often lead to violence.

Subsequently, the church leaders held another meeting with all of the presidential candidates and their running mates as a follow up, to stress the need to ensure the election is not marred by violence.

Reverend Suzanne Matale, general secretary of the Council of Churches in Zambia, said the spate of violence is disappointing, especially when the country is known in the Southern African region and in Africa as a peace-loving nation.

We as a council of churches in Zambia are hugely worried, very concerned about the escalating violence in all forms, said Matale. "And therefore, on our part as council of churches together with other mother bodies, we have actually tried to bring together political parties to try to speak about this violence and try and find solutions to them. Because it is very worrying that as we look forward to the elections  if this violence does not stop, then the elections are going to be very difficult."

Matale said "we are very disappointed that the political parties, especially the major ones, have completely ignored their commitment that they made actually at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, we want to believe that that is a sacred place, and if you could meet and vow to do something, you must do exactly that.

Even though there is so much prayer in this country and everybody is calling for prayer, but we also need action. Because faith without action is completely dead, and so if we only concentrate on prayer and ignore those things that we can do, those things that are within our powers to do to stop this scourge, Im afraid that we are very quickly losing direction as a nation, and that is a pity.

Matale said the church will not relent on the efforts to continuously engage with the political parties and their leaders to curb violence. The Electoral Commission of Zambia threatened to suspend or prevent a political party, as well as candidates, from participating in elections if it concludes that party supporters have engaged in acts of violence in the run-up to the polls.

Matale said the church leaders also have called on President Lungu to use his constitutional mandate to ensure the enforcement of law and order to stop the violence.

We are not giving up and I think there are plans to gather [the political leaders] again, said Matale. "However, we are concerned that they are all very busy now in the field campaigning and we are not very sure that they will listen to our call once we call them for another meeting. Because they only have a few weeks before we go to the elections. That is our concern."
Look for live updates here as world reacts to Britain's resounding vote in favor of exiting the European Union.
Thousands of MDC-T supporters Thursday held a protest march at the border town of Mutare without their leader Morgan Tsvangirai who is recovering from an undisclosed ailment.

But in a statement read on his behalf by his deputy, Thokozani Khuphe, Tsvangirai said freedom demonstrations such as the one that took place at the eastern border town would continue until the Zanu PF leadership led by President Robert Mugabe capitulates to national demands from the citizens to address the crippling economy among a host of other needs.

The peaceful demonstration, comprising of about 3 000 protesters started from Sakubva Beithall through to the central business districts Meikles Park. Traffic came to a virtual standstill as the demonstrators braved the nearly 5km protest march.

Ms Khupe later addressed the gathering at around lunchtime, stating that the protests would be held in some parts of the country after holding others in the capital and in Bulawayo.

We protesting against poverty, against corruption, against untold suffering, against US-Zim dollar called Bond Notes. Today as Zimbabwe, we find ourselves in an extra-ordinary situation and extra-ordinary situations require extra-ordinary measures. We have and we will continue to invoke Section 59 of the Zimbabwe Constitution which guarantees our right to demonstrate against failures of Mugabe and Zanu PF, said Khuphe.

Khuphe said citizens have to be prepared to make sacrifices until there is real change, that ends Zanu PF corruption and poverty induced on people through poor governance policies.

Said Khuphe: Lets us fight with the last drop of our tears, let us fight with the last drop of our sweat, enough is enough, zvakwana, sokwanele.

We will continue to demonstrate until Mugabe and Zanu PF go packing to Zvimba. As MDC our fundamental promise to the people of Zimbabwe is a better life for all.

We hereby as the MDC demand that there be change, a change that will stop corruption, a change that will bring jobs, a change that will bring food on the table and a change that will bring better service delivery.

Khuphe said Zimbabweans demand to know the whereabouts of $15 billion in diamond revenue from Chiadzwa diamond fields that the Zanu PF led government cannot account for. She added that despite the 2,2 million jobs promised by Zanu PF during its election campaigns in 2013 there has been more unemployment and company closures.

Mr David Tekeshe was among the thousands of demonstrators. He says he supports the democratic path being taken of peaceful protests for regime change.

Said Tekeshe: The statement from the president I support it since he is democratic. He wants democratic means to remove Mugabe and his people so we applaud him so I think that is the way forward we dont want war but we have to remove them democratically.

James Mundenda, a Mutare resident says Mr Tsvangirais message was clear to every Zimbabwean who need political change that benefits every citizen.

The message was straight to the point that gives a clear picture on the ground on the suffering public, he spoke on the need for re-industrialisation, job loses, the forcing of bond notes on the people which everybody is talking about in the streets and everywhere. We heard of the 2,2 million jobs that are not there, the statement was spot on, said Mudenda.

Jobless University graduate Chenai Mangezi from Chipinge says the statement from the MDC leader breathed a lease of life to the dejected citizenry particularly the youths.

Mangezi said: It was a powerful speech because he made us as youth to challenge the system and be aggressive in demanding what is rightfully our from the Zanu PG government

The MDC deputy president was accompanied in Mutare by other top party leaders including Abednigo Bhebhe, Obert Gutu, Paurina Mpariwa, Theresa Makone, Morgan Komichi, Giles Mtsekwa, Douglas Mwonzora among other provincial chairperson from across the country.

MDCs Manicaland provincial spokesperson Trevor Saruwaka said the demonstration ended peaceful without any arrests or disturbances.
Five members of the Occupy Africa Unity Square pressure group who were brutally assaulted by the police while demonstrating in central Harare on Thursday filed an urgent application in the High Court seeking to interdict the police from barring them to protest against President Robert Mugabe.

In papers filed with the High Court in Harare Thursday, the applicants are arguing that the police have no right to bar them from protesting in any peaceful manner.

One of the applicants, Dirk Frey, tells Studio 7 that the assault of his groups members by the police while demonstrating against President Mugabe was illegal.

Another applicant, Linda Masarira says her assault by the cops has actually strengthened her resolve to demonstrate until Mr. Mugabe leaves office. Masarira says the police action was illegal as the national constitution allows freedom of expression and peaceful demonstrations.

Masariras sentiments were echoed by Frey who insists that their mission has to be accomplished very soon.

Masarira urged Zimbabweans to come out in their numbers and fill the streets to show their anger on Mr. Mugabes administration.

Other applicants are Pride Mkono, Tatenda Mombeyara and Patson Dzamara who is the brother of missing Occupy Africa Unity Square leader Itai Dzamara who was abducted last year by suspected state agents.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission revealed earlier this week that it was failing to honor its mandate of registering voters around the year in line with the law due to financial limitations.

But opposition parties are firing back, accusing the ruling Zanu PF of deliberately compromising the electoral body for its own benefit. ZEC has always come under attack from the opposition for colluding with the ruling Zanu PF to disenfranchise voters to boost the partys numbers.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) was brought into existence on February 1, 2005, in conformity with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act after a constitutional amendment was passed which, among other things, abolished the Electoral Supervisory Commission and reestablished the ZEC.

Zimbabweans approved a new constitution in 2013 that, among other changes, introduced a raft of changes to the electoral act, including the introduction of electronic voting and registration but ZEC has yet to effect these changes.

Studio Seven reporter Ntungamili Nkomo reached Peoples Democratic Party official Edwin Ndlovu and MDC-T deputy spokesperson Thabitha Khumalo for perspective. Honorable Khumalo kicks off the discussion.

She said: Surely this country has money. The excuse that is being made by ZEC and (Rita) Makarau is a fallacy is lie its not true. Its a way for Zanu PF to try and rig these elections because we are all aware that ZEC is an appendage of Zanu PF.

Ndlovu concurred. He said they know very well that they work under partisan lines and that the people who intend to vote are youths who want to change for change.

He added: Since ZEC is working under Zanu PF they will only instruct ZEC to register people when they drive around and tell their supporters to register.

He said they were worried because they can tell that ZEC is partisan.
Some civil servants representative organisations have hinted that their members may be forced not to report for duty from Tuesday next week if a meeting between government ministers and civil servants scheduled for Monday afternoon does not yield positive results.

This followed a deadlock between the two parties Wednesday over the shifting of pay dates after the governments proposal to pay June salaries beginning at the end of the month and into next month owing to poor revenue inflows.

PTUZ general secretary Raymond Majongwe said their members will not be able to go to work beginning Tuesday next week if they are not paid this month.

We categorically made it very clear that we are not going to accept this. If the government goes ahead and implement it then we will not be able to report for work because our May salaries will only take us as far as month end, Majongwe said.

David Dzatsunga, who is the president of the College Lecturers Association of Zimbabwe (COLAZ) also said they cannot accept any government explanations with regards to their salaries, adding that they will stick to their demands that government pay them this month.

People will be forced not to report for work if they are not paid this month. Our members will decide in the event we fail to agree Monday, Dzatsunga said.

ZIMTA chairperson Richard Gundani said since they are in the middle of discussing the issue, they will only be able to map they way forward after the Monday meeting.

The government was represented by Labour Minister Prisca Mupfumira, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa and Reserve bBank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya while civil servants were represented by the Apex Council.
This weekend, several Turkish and Israeli delegations will meet in a European capital to finalize the resumption of their diplomatic relations, which had been interrupted after the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara.

In 2010, IHH, an association of the Turkish Muslim Brothers, had organized the Freedom Flotilla, claiming to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza (although the Flotilla was not [in fact] carrying the materials that has been announced). The ships had been pirated by the Israeli army in international waters, raising much concern within the international community.

After asking for an apology, Turkey settled for an international enquiry.

The current Turkish minister of Foreign Affairs, Feridun Sinirlioglu, and Doctor Joseph Ciechanover for Israel conducted the negotiations.

The new Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yldrm, announced his intention to return to the policy of zero problems with his neighbours, a policy which had been abandoned in 2010. At the time, Turkey hoped to capitalize on the Palestinian issue to re-establish its former influence over the Arab world. However, in 6 years, the regional situation has been turned upside down. It is no longer a question of Tel-Aviv seeking to make an alliance of Non-Arab states (Turkey and Iran) in the region, (the Periphery doctrine); instead, Tel Aviv seeking to build a new regional order with Saudi Arabia and Turkey against Iran.

The two parties should announce their meeting on 26 June and resume diplomatic relations in July. It is only then that the Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Israel and Turkey, concluded in April, will be able to enter into force.
In the province of Rakka, while the Syrian Arab army was advancing and liberating villages held by Daesh and its allies, the enemy has used sarin gas, or more precisely its most dangerous version: VX gas.

The Syrian army was forced to withdraw.

To protect Qatari supporters, Saudi and Turkish jihadists, the Atlanticist propaganda assures that Syrian forces are exhausted by years of war.
Uzo Aduba accepts her award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Orange Is the New Black during the 2015 Emmy Awards. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The 2016 Emmy race has begun, and Vulture will take a close look at the contenders until voting closes, on June 27.

Uzo Aduba, Viola Davis, and Regina King made headlines when they took home acting awards in their respective drama categories at the 2015 Emmy Awards. The wins by three black women in one night stirred excitement  was a sea change underway, some wondered?  quickly followed by an inevitable question: Is this a fluke?

Ahead of this years Emmys, Vulture decided to investigate. We took a look back at the awards track record when it comes to diversity, focusing on representation among actors. In the graphics at the bottom of this post, weve documented every nominee and winner for each of the major show and acting categories for drama, comedy, and miniseries since the Emmys began, more than 60 years ago. Given the ensemble casts for many of these shows, weve highlighted certain shows based on how much representation there is for actors of color within their casts.

A caveat: The numbers here dont tell the whole story. They cant account for how fleshed out the characters are on each of these shows or how many lines of dialogue each actor of color is given. Two supporting actors of color on a show like ER, with a huge ensemble cast, dont necessarily account for as much representation as two supporting actors of color on a show like Lost, where a significant amount of time is spent developing each character. But for the purposes of this graphic, we created designations (explained in our key below) to give a general sense of how much meaningful diversity there has been among Emmy winners over the years.

And that said, the data does reveal some interesting takeaways. Heres an overall look:

Outstanding Acting Winners who are people of color (in all acting categories) 5.61% or 39 out of 695 total winners Nominees who are people of color (in all acting categories) 8.69% or 281 out of 3,235 total nominees Outstanding Actress for Comedy is, in recent history, the least diverse category  no women of color have been nominated since Phylicia Rashad in 1986, except America Ferrera in 2007 and 2008.

The 281 acting nominees who are people of color: Race % of total noms, including white Black 6.28%  203 noms Latino/Latina 1.57%  51 noms East Asian 0.37%  12 noms Middle Eastern 0.3%  10 noms South Asian 0.12%  4 noms Native American 0.03%  1 nom

Of the 12 nominations for actors of Asian descent, five went to Sandra Oh for Greys Anatomy . Of the ten nominations for actors of Middle Eastern descent, eight of them were for Tony Shalhoubs role on Monk .

. Of the ten nominations for actors of Middle Eastern descent, eight of them were for Tony Shalhoubs role on . Two categories have seen peaks in recent years: In the past decade, the number of women of color nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy is the highest its been since a peak in the mid-80s, while for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama, the number of nominees is the highest its ever been.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy 2005 Doris Roberts

2005 Conchata Ferrell

2005 Megan Mullally

2005 Holland Taylor

2005 Jessica Walter 2006 Megan Mullally

2006 Cheryl Hines

2006 Elizabeth Perkins

2006 Jaime Pressly

2006 Alfre Woodard 2007 Jaime Pressly

2007 Conchata Ferrell

2007 Jenna Fischer

2007 Elizabeth Perkins

2007 Holland Taylor

2007 Vanessa Williams 2008 Jean Smart

2008 Kristin Chenoweth

2008 Amy Poehler

2008 Holland Taylor

2008 Vanessa Williams 2009 Kristin Chenoweth

2009 Jane Krakowski

2009 Elizabeth Perkins

2009 Amy Poehler

2009 Kristen Wiig

2009 Vanessa Williams 2010 Jane Lynch

2010 Julie Bowen

2010 Jane Krakowski

2010 Holland Taylor

2010 Sofia Vergara

2010 Kristen Wiig 2011 Julie Bowen

2011 Jane Krakowski

2011 Jane Lynch

2011 Sofia Vergara

2011 Betty White

2011 Kristen Wiig 2012 Julie Bowen

2012 Mayim Bialik

2012 Kathryn Joosten

2012 Sofia Vergara

2012 Merritt Wever

2012 Kristen Wiig 2013 Merritt Wever

2013 Mayim Bialik

2013 Julie Bowen

2013 Anna Chlumsky

2013 Jane Krakowski

2013 Jane Lynch

2013 Sofia Vergara 2014 Allison Janney

2014 Mayim Bialik

2014 Julie Bowen

2014 Anna Chlumsky

2014 Kate McKinnon

2014 Kate Mulgrew 2015 Allison Janney

2015 Mayim Bialik

2015 Julie Bowen

2015 Anna Chlumsky

2015 Gaby Hoffmann

2015 Jane Krakowski

2015 Kate McKinnon

2015 Niecy Nash Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama 2005 Blythe Danner

2005 Stockard Channing

2005 Tyne Daly

2005 Sandra Oh

2005 C.C.H. Pounder 2006 Blythe Danner

2006 Candice Bergen

2006 Sandra Oh

2006 Jean Smart

2006 Chandra Wilson 2007 Katherine Heigl

2007 Lorraine Bracco

2007 Rachel Griffiths

2007 Sandra Oh

2007 Aida Turturro

2007 Chandra Wilson 2008 Dianne Wiest

2008 Candice Bergen

2008 Rachel Griffiths

2008 Sandra Oh

2008 Chandra Wilson 2009 Cherry Jones

2009 Rose Byrne

2009 Hope Davis

2009 Sandra Oh

2009 Dianne Wiest

2009 Chandra Wilson 2010 Archie Panjabi

2010 Christine Baranski

2010 Rose Byrne

2010 Sharon Gless

2010 Christina Hendricks

2010 Elisabeth Moss 2011 Margo Martindale

2011 Christine Baranski

2011 Michelle Forbes

2011 Christina Hendricks

2011 Kelly Macdonald

2011 Archie Panjabi 2012 Maggie Smith

2012 Christine Baranski

2012 Joanne Froggatt

2012 Anna Gunn

2012 Christina Hendricks

2012 Archie Panjabi 2013 Anna Gunn

2013 Morena Baccarin

2013 Christine Baranski

2013 Emilia Clarke

2013 Christina Hendricks

2013 Maggie Smith 2014 Anna Gunn

2014 Christine Baranski

2014 Joanne Froggatt

2014 Lena Headey

2014 Christina Hendricks

2014 Maggie Smith 2015 Uzo Aduba

2015 Christine Baranski

2015 Emilia Clarke

2015 Joanne Froggatt

2015 Lena Headey

2015 Christina Hendricks

Not surprisingly, there are far more people of color in supporting roles than leading ones on shows nominated for Emmys (making Daviss win for Outstanding Actress in a Drama last year, quite literally, unique  she is the only actress of color to ever have won in that category). Among the nominee categories, Outstanding Supporting Actor and Actress, for both Drama and Miniseries, have been the most diverse.

Outstanding Drama, Comedy, and Miniseries Shows with predominantly nonwhite casts or a person of color in a leading role that have won 4.71% or 8 out of 170 total winners Shows with predominantly nonwhite casts or a person of color in a leading role that have been nominated 7.04% or 60 out of 852 total nominees Of shows with predominantly nonwhite casts or a person of color in a leading role, 25 miniseries have been nominated compared to 38 dramas and comedies combined, even though there have been 457 fewer miniseries nominations in total. Outstanding Miniseries nominations with casts or leads of color, out of 197 total nominations. = Winners Outstanding Comedy + Drama nominations with casts or leads of color, out of 654 total nominations.

Miniseries in general have been kinder to actors of color: Among the winners, the Outstanding Miniseries and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries categories are the most diverse categories. (This is due in part to the subject matter of many of the nominated miniseries, which often tell historical or biographical stories that focus on minorities.)

Acting Winners (Lead and Supporting) Comedy 3.3% people of color or 8 out of 242 total winners Drama 6.6% people of color or 16 out of 242 total winners Miniseries 7.1% people of color or 15 out of 211 total winners

Comedies account for some of the least diversity among acting winners  as the graph above shows, eight actors of color have won across the four acting categories, compared to dramas 16 and miniseries 15. The comedy categories also have a slightly weaker track record when it comes to nominating actors of color and shows featuring people of color (in part due to the large ensemble casts on dramas). The Cosby Show, which was nominated four times, is an exception, making up almost half of the predominantly nonwhite comedies ever to be nominated for Outstanding Comedy. When it won in 1985, it became the first  and to this day, only  comedy or drama featuring a nonwhite cast to win an Emmy. Even the so-called golden age for black-led sitcoms in the early 90s yielded no nominations for shows with predominantly non-white casts or a non-white lead, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (Home Improvement, meanwhile, received three nominations in that same era.)

The nominations for this years Emmys will be announced in July, and some of the best series of the past year have featured actors of colors in prominent roles. Will new shows like Master of None, Mr. Robot, and The People v. O.J. Simpson break through? Will returning shows, from Jane the Virgin to Fresh Off the Boat, Black-ish to Being Mary Jane, be recognized? Until then, check out our more detailed, category-by-category breakdown on Emmy contenders through 2015, below.

But first! Here are some notes to guide you through:

As the key below indicates, the top row of each graphic indicates the winners for that category. For the acting categories, an orange bubble stands for whether the nominee/winner was a person of color (weve included all biracial actors of color under this designation).

stands for whether the nominee/winner was a person of color (weve included all biracial actors of color under this designation). The same orange bubble that denotes an actor of color also designates a show that features a predominantly nonwhite cast (i.e., The Cosby Show ).

that denotes an actor of color also designates a show that features a predominantly nonwhite cast (i.e., ). Lead roles go to people of color far less often than supporting ones. With this in mind, weve marked shows that include at least one person of color in a leading role, with a dark blue bubble . This means said actor would be eligible for Outstanding Lead Actor at the Emmys versus Outstanding Supporting Actor. (Tracy Morgan in 30 Rock , who was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor, for example, would not qualify in the leading-role category; Debbie Allen , for her role in Fame, would.)

. This means said actor would be eligible for Outstanding Lead Actor at the Emmys versus Outstanding Supporting Actor. (Tracy Morgan in , who was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor, for example, would not qualify in the leading-role category; Debbie Allen for her role in would.) The light blue bubble denotes shows that include at least two actors of color in a recurring supporting role (i.e., a show like Lost ), following the logic Master of None s fictional network executive Jerry Danvers explains to Aziz Ansaris character: On TV, there can be one person of color, but there cant be two. These are roles where the actor is not a background player, and could feasibly be nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor. (An exception was made here for Orange Is the New Black  given how intimately it focuses on each supporting actor, weve categorized it as cast is predominantly nonwhite.)

denotes shows that include at least two actors of color in a recurring supporting role (i.e., a show like ), following the logic s fictional network executive Jerry Danvers explains to Aziz Ansaris character: On TV, there can be one person of color, but there cant be two. These are roles where the actor is not a background player, and could feasibly be nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor. (An exception was made here for  given how intimately it focuses on each supporting actor, weve categorized it as cast is predominantly nonwhite.) For certain shows, you may notice their classification changes from season to season  thats because recurring cast members often change, especially on shows with rotating ensembles.

*Note: Up until 1964, there were no genre-specific categories for comedy and drama acting awards. On the graphics below, youll notice the pre-1964 acting contenders repeat in both categories. For the purposes of our calculations, we looked at each nominee during those years and sorted him or her by genre. For example, Carl Lee appears twice in Outstanding Supporting Actor, Comedy, and Outstanding Supporting Actor, Drama, but he is only counted once in our tally.

Person of color / Cast is predominantly nonwhite

Person of color / Cast is predominantly nonwhite More than one person of color in a supporting role

More than one person of color in a role One or more person of color in a leading role

One or more person of color in a role Winner 1952 The Red Skelton Show

1952 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show

1952 The Herb Shriner Show

1952 I Love Lucy

1952 You Bet Your Life 1953 I Love Lucy

1953 The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet

1953 The Amos N Andy Show

1953 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show

1953 Mister Peepers

1953 Our Miss Brooks 1954 I Love Lucy

1954 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show

1954 Mister Peepers

1954 Our Miss Brooks

1954 Topper 1955 Make Room for Daddy

1955 I Love Lucy

1955 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show

1955 Mister Peepers

1955 Our Miss Brooks

1955 Private Secretary 1956 The Phil Silvers Show

1956 The Bob Cummings Show

1956 Caesars Hour

1956 The George Gobel Show

1956 The Jack Benny Program

1956 Make Room for Daddy 1957 The Phil Silvers Show

1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1957 Father Knows Best

1957 The Jack Benny Program

1957 Person to Person 1958 The Phil Silvers Show

1958 The Bob Cummings Show

1958 Caesars Hour

1958 Father Knows Best

1958 The Jack Benny Program 1959 The Jack Benny Program

1959 The Bob Cummings Show

1959 The Danny Thomas Show

1959 Father Knows Best

1959 The Phil Silvers Show

1959 The Red Skelton Show 1960 Art Carney Special

1960 The Danny Thomas Show

1960 Father Knows Best

1960 The Jack Benny Program

1960 The Red Skelton Show 1961 The Jack Benny Program

1961 The Andy Griffith Show

1961 Bob Hope Buick Sports Awards Show

1961 Candid Camera

1961 The Flintstones 1962 The Bob Newhart Show

1962 The Andy Griffith Show

1962 Car 54, Where Are You?

1962 Hazel

1962 The Red Skelton Show 1963 The Dick Van Dyke Show

1963 The Beverly Hillbillies

1963 The Danny Kaye Show With Lucille Ball

1963 McHale's Navy 1964 The Dick Van Dyke Show

1964 The Bill Dana Show

1964 The Farmer's Daughter

1964 McHale's Navy

1964 That Was The Week That Was 1966 The Dick Van Dyke Show

1966 Batman

1966 Bewitched

1966 Get Smart

1966 Hogan's Heroes 1967 The Monkees

1967 The Andy Griffith Show

1967 Bewitched

1967 Get Smart

1967 Hogan's Heroes 1968 Get Smart

1968 Bewitched

1968 Family Affair

1968 Hogan's Heroes

1968 The Lucy Show 1969 Get Smart

1969 Bewitched

1969 Family Affair

1969 Julia

1969 The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1970 My World and Welcome to It

1970 The Bill Cosby Show

1970 The Courtship of Eddie's Father

1970 Love, American Style

1970 Room 222 1971 All in the Family

1971 Arnie

1971 Love, American Style

1971 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1971 The Odd Couple 1972 All in the Family

1972 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1972 The Odd Couple

1972 Sanford and Son 1973 All in the Family

1973 M*A*S*H

1973 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1973 Maude

1973 Sanford and Son 1974 M*A*S*H

1974 All in the Family

1974 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1974 The Odd Couple 1975 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1975 All in the Family

1975 M*A*S*H

1975 Rhoda 1976 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1976 All in the Family

1976 Barney Miller

1976 M*A*S*H

1976 Welcome Back, Kotter 1977 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1977 All in the Family

1977 Barney Miller

1977 The Bob Newhart Show

1977 M*A*S*H 1978 All in the Family

1978 Barney Miller

1978 M*A*S*H

1978 Soap

1978 Three's Company 1979 Taxi

1979 All in the Family

1979 Barney Miller

1979 M*A*S*H

1979 Mork & Mindy 1980 Taxi

1980 Barney Miller

1980 M*A*S*H

1980 Soap

1980 WKRP in Cincinnati 1981 Taxi

1981 Barney Miller

1981 M*A*S*H

1981 Soap

1981 WKRP in Cincinnati 1982 Barney Miller

1982 Love, Sidney

1982 M*A*S*H

1982 Taxi

1982 WKRP in Cincinnati 1983 Cheers

1983 Buffalo Bill

1983 M*A*S*H

1983 Newhart

1983 Taxi 1984 Cheers

1984 Buffalo Bill

1984 Family Ties

1984 Kate & Allie

1984 Newhart 1985 The Cosby Show

1985 Cheers

1985 Family Ties

1985 Kate & Allie

1985 Night Court 1986 The Golden Girls

1986 Cheers

1986 The Cosby Show

1986 Family Ties

1986 Kate & Allie 1987 The Golden Girls

1987 Cheers

1987 The Cosby Show

1987 Family Ties

1987 Night Court 1988 The Wonder Years

1988 Cheers

1988 Frank's Place

1988 The Golden Girls

1988 Night Court 1989 Cheers

1989 Designing Women

1989 The Golden Girls

1989 Murphy Brown

1989 The Wonder Years 1990 Murphy Brown

1990 Cheers

1990 Designing Women

1990 The Golden Girls

1990 The Wonder Years 1991 Cheers

1991 Designing Women

1991 The Golden Girls

1991 Murphy Brown

1991 The Wonder Years 1992 Murphy Brown

1992 Brooklyn Bridge

1992 Cheers

1992 Home Improvement

1992 Seinfeld 1993 Seinfeld

1993 Cheers

1993 Home Improvement

1993 The Larry Sanders Show

1993 Murphy Brown 1994 Frasier

1994 Home Improvement

1994 The Larry Sanders Show

1994 Mad About You

1994 Seinfeld 1995 Frasier

1995 Friends

1995 The Larry Sanders Show

1995 Mad About You

1995 Seinfeld 1996 Frasier

1996 Friends

1996 The Larry Sanders Show

1996 Mad About You

1996 Seinfeld 1997 Frasier

1997 3rd Rock From the Sun

1997 The Larry Sanders Show

1997 Mad About You

1997 Seinfeld 1998 Frasier

1998 3rd Rock From the Sun

1998 Ally McBeal

1998 The Larry Sanders Show

1998 Seinfeld 1999 Ally McBeal

1999 Everybody Loves Raymond

1999 Frasier

1999 Friends

1999 Sex and the City 2000 Will & Grace

2000 Everybody Loves Raymond

2000 Frasier

2000 Friends

2000 Sex and the City 2001 Sex and the City

2001 Everybody Loves Raymond

2001 Frasier

2001 Malcolm in the Middle

2001 Will & Grace 2002 Friends

2002 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2002 Everybody Loves Raymond

2002 Sex and the City

2002 Will & Grace 2003 Everybody Loves Raymond

2003 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2003 Friends

2003 Sex and the City

2003 Will & Grace 2004 Arrested Development

2004 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2004 Everybody Loves Raymond

2004 Sex and the City

2004 Will & Grace 2005 Everybody Loves Raymond

2005 Arrested Development

2005 Desperate Housewives

2005 Scrubs

2005 Will & Grace 2006 The Office

2006 Arrested Development

2006 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2006 Scrubs

2006 Two and a Half Men 2007 30 Rock

2007 Entourage

2007 The Office

2007 Two and a Half Men

2007 Ugly Betty 2008 30 Rock

2008 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2008 Entourage

2008 The Office

2008 Two and a Half Men 2009 30 Rock

2009 Entourage

2009 Family Guy

2009 Flight of the Conchords

2009 How I Met Your Mother

2009 The Office

2009 Weeds 2010 Modern Family

2010 30 Rock

2010 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2010 Glee

2010 Nurse Jackie

2010 The Office 2011 Modern Family

2011 30 Rock

2011 The Big Bang Theory

2011 Glee

2011 The Office

2011 Parks and Recreation 2012 Modern Family

2012 30 Rock

2012 The Big Bang Theory

2012 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2012 Girls

2012 Veep 2013 Modern Family

2013 30 Rock

2013 The Big Bang Theory

2013 Girls

2013 Louie

2013 Veep 2014 Modern Family

2014 The Big Bang Theory

2014 Louie

2014 Orange Is the New Black

2014 Silicon Valley

2014 Veep 2015 Veep

2015 Louie

2015 Modern Family

2015 Parks and Recreation

2015 Silicon Valley

2015 Transparent

2015 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Since 1989, there have been two nominations for shows with predominantly nonwhite casts or a nonwhite lead: Ugly Betty in 2007 and Orange Is the New Black in 2014 (which moved to the Drama category the next year). Between 19922004, there were no shows with predominantly nonwhite casts or a nonwhite lead nominated for Outstanding Comedy. Notably, there were seven between 19851991 (The Cosby Show, Franks Place, Designing Women), and five between 19691973 (Julie, The Bill Cosby Show, Sanford and Son, Room 222). Modern Family, which features more than one actor of color in a supporting role, has won for Outstanding Comedy five times, while The Cosby Show is the only show with a predominantly nonwhite cast or a nonwhite lead to ever win in the category.

Thirty-eight out of the 324 comedy nominees have featured either a predominantly nonwhite cast (10), at least one nonwhite lead (6), or more than one nonwhite supporting actor (22).

1951 Pulitzer Prize Playhouse

1951 Fireside Theatre

1951 The Philco Television Playhouse

1951 Studio One 1952 Studio One

1952 The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse

1952 Celanese Theatre

1952 Pulitzer Prize Playhouse

1952 Robert Montgomery Presents 1953 Robert Montgomery Presents

1953 Celanese Theatre

1953 Kraft Television Theatre

1953 The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse

1953 Studio One 1954 U.S. Steel Hour

1954 Kraft Television Theatre

1954 The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse

1954 Robert Montgomery Presents

1954 Studio One 1955 The United States Steel Hour

1955 Four Star Playhouse

1955 Medic

1955 The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse

1955 Studio One 1956 Producers' Showcase

1956 Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre

1956 Climax!

1956 Studio One

1956 The United States Steel Hour 1958 Gunsmoke

1958 Lassie

1958 Maverick

1958 Perry Mason

1958 Wagon Train

1958 Playhouse 90

1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1958 Climax!

1958 Hallmark Hall of Fame

1958 Studio One 1959 Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre

1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1959 General Electric Theater

1959 Peter Gunn

1959 The Loretta Young Show

1959 Naked City

1959 Playhouse 90

1959 The United States Steel Hour 1960 Playhouse 90

1960 Ford Startime

1960 The Untouchables 1961 Hallmark Hall of Fame: Macbeth

1961 Naked City

1961 The Twilight Zone

1961 The Untouchables 1962 The Defenders

1962 Alcoa Premiere

1962 Ben Casey

1962 The Dick Powell Show

1962 Hallmark Hall of Fame

1962 Naked City 1963 The Defenders

1963 Alcoa Premiere

1963 Ben Casey

1963 The Dick Powell Show

1963 The Eleventh Hour

1963 Naked City 1964 The Defenders

1964 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre

1964 East Side/West Side

1964 Mr. Novak

1964 The Richard Boone Show 1966 The Fugitive

1966 Bonanza

1966 I Spy

1966 The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

1966 Slattery's People 1967 Mission: Impossible

1967 The Avengers

1967 I Spy

1967 Run for Your Life

1967 Star Trek: The Original Series 1968 Mission: Impossible

1968 The Avengers

1968 I Spy

1968 NET Playhouse

1968 Run for Your Life

1968 Star Trek: The Original Series 1969 NET Playhouse

1969 The F.B.I.

1969 Ironside

1969 Judd, for the Defense

1969 Mission: Impossible

1969 The Name of the Game 1970 Marcus Welby, M.D.

1970 The Forsyte Saga

1970 Ironside

1970 The Mod Squad

1970 The Name of the Game

1970 NET Playhouse 1971 The Bold Ones: The Senator

1971 The First Churchills

1971 Ironside

1971 Marcus Welby, M.D.

1971 NET Playhouse 1972 Elizabeth R

1972 Columbo

1972 Mannix

1972 Marcus Welby, M.D.

1972 The Six Wives of Henry VIII 1973 The Waltons

1973 Cannon

1973 Columbo

1973 Hawaii Five-O

1973 Kung Fu

1973 Mannix 1974 Upstairs, Downstairs

1974 Kojak

1974 Police Story

1974 The Streets of San Francisco

1974 The Waltons 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs

1975 Kojak

1975 Police Story

1975 The Streets of San Francisco

1975 The Waltons 1976 Police Story

1976 Baretta

1976 Columbo

1976 The Streets of San Francisco 1977 Upstairs, Downstairs

1977 Baretta

1977 Columbo

1977 Family

1977 Police Story 1978 The Rockford Files

1978 Columbo

1978 Family

1978 Lou Grant

1978 Quincy M.E. 1979 Lou Grant

1979 The Paper Chase

1979 The Rockford Files 1980 Lou Grant

1980 Dallas

1980 Family

1980 The Rockford Files

1980 The White Shadow 1981 Hill Street Blues

1981 Dallas

1981 Lou Grant

1981 Quincy M.E.

1981 The White Shadow 1982 Hill Street Blues

1982 Dynasty

1982 Fame

1982 Lou Grant

1982 Magnum, P.I. 1983 Hill Street Blues

1983 Cagney & Lacey

1983 Fame

1983 Magnum, P.I.

1983 St. Elsewhere 1984 Hill Street Blues

1984 Cagney & Lacey

1984 Fame

1984 Magnum, P.I.

1984 St. Elsewhere 1985 Cagney & Lacey

1985 Hill Street Blues

1985 Miami Vice

1985 Murder, She Wrote

1985 St. Elsewhere 1986 Cagney & Lacey

1986 Hill Street Blues

1986 Moonlighting

1986 Murder, She Wrote

1986 St. Elsewhere 1987 L.A. Law

1987 Cagney & Lacey

1987 Moonlighting

1987 Murder, She Wrote

1987 St. Elsewhere 1988 Thirtysomething

1988 Beauty and the Beast

1988 L.A. Law

1988 Rumpole of the Bailey

1988 St. Elsewhere 1989 L.A. Law

1989 Beauty and the Beast

1989 China Beach

1989 Thirtysomething

1989 Wiseguy 1990 L.A. Law

1990 China Beach

1990 Quantum Leap

1990 Thirtysomething

1990 Twin Peaks 1991 L.A. Law

1991 China Beach

1991 Northern Exposure

1991 Quantum Leap

1991 Thirtysomething 1992 Northern Exposure

1992 I'll Fly Away

1992 L.A. Law

1992 Law & Order

1992 Quantum Leap 1993 Picket Fences

1993 Homefront

1993 I'll Fly Away

1993 Law & Order

1993 Northern Exposure 1994 Picket Fences

1994 Law & Order

1994 Northern Exposure

1994 NYPD Blue

1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation 1995 NYPD Blue

1995 Chicago Hope

1995 ER

1995 Law & Order

1995 The X-Files 1996 ER

1996 Chicago Hope

1996 Law & Order

1996 NYPD Blue

1996 The X-Files 1997 Law & Order

1997 Chicago Hope

1997 ER

1997 NYPD Blue

1997 The X-Files 1998 The Practice

1998 ER

1998 Law & Order

1998 NYPD Blue

1998 The X-Files 1999 The Practice

1999 ER

1999 Law & Order

1999 NYPD Blue

1999 The Sopranos 2000 The West Wing

2000 ER

2000 Law & Order

2000 The Practice

2000 The Sopranos 2001 The West Wing

2001 ER

2001 Law & Order

2001 The Practice

2001 The Sopranos 2002 The West Wing

2002 24

2002 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2002 Law & Order

2002 Six Feet Under 2003 The West Wing

2003 24

2003 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2003 Six Feet Under

2003 The Sopranos 2004 The Sopranos

2004 24

2004 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2004 Joan of Arcadia

2004 The West Wing 2005 Lost

2005 24

2005 Deadwood

2005 Six Feet Under

2005 The West Wing 2006 24

2006 Greys Anatomy

2006 House

2006 The Sopranos

2006 The West Wing 2007 The Sopranos

2007 Boston Legal

2007 Greys Anatomy

2007 Heroes

2007 House 2008 Mad Men

2008 Boston Legal

2008 Damages

2008 Dexter

2008 House

2008 Lost 2009 Mad Men

2009 Big Love

2009 Breaking Bad

2009 Damages

2009 Dexter

2009 House

2009 Lost 2010 Mad Men

2010 Breaking Bad

2010 Dexter

2010 The Good Wife

2010 Lost

2010 True Blood 2011 Mad Men

2011 Boardwalk Empire

2011 Dexter

2011 Friday Night Lights

2011 Game of Thrones

2011 The Good Wife 2012 Homeland

2012 Boardwalk Empire

2012 Breaking Bad

2012 Downton Abbey

2012 Game of Thrones

2012 Mad Men 2013 Breaking Bad

2013 Downton Abbey

2013 Game of Thrones

2013 House of Cards

2013 Mad Men

2013 Homeland 2014 Breaking Bad

2014 Downton Abbey

2014 Game of Thrones

2014 House of Cards

2014 Mad Men

2014 True Detective 2015 Game of Thrones

2015 Better Call Saul

2015 Downton Abbey

2015 Homeland

2015 Mad Men

2015 Orange Is the New Black

In Emmy history, there have been three predominantly nonwhite shows nominated for Outstanding Drama: The White Shadow, Ill Fly Away, and Orange Is the New Black. NYPD Blue is the only show featuring at least one nonwhite lead to have won for Outstanding Drama, and since 2000, the only show with a predominantly nonwhite cast or nonwhite lead to have been nominated is OITNB. Notably, from 19921999, there were eight nominations for shows with a predominantly nonwhite cast, or at least one person of color in a leading role (five of them went to NYPD Blue), and from 19801985, there were six (half of them went to Fame).

Sixty-four out of the 330 drama nominees have featured either a predominantly nonwhite cast (3), at least one nonwhite lead (16), or more than one nonwhite supporting actor (45).

1973 Tom Brown's Schooldays

1973 The Last of the Mohicans

1973 The Life of Leonardo da Vinci 1974 Columbo: Double Exposure

1974 The Blue Knight

1974 McCloud 1975 Benjamin Franklin

1975 Columbo

1975 McCloud 1976 Upstairs, Downstairs

1976 The Adams Chronicles

1976 Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill

1976 The Law

1976 Rich Man, Poor Man 1977 Roots

1977 The Adams Chronicles

1977 Captains and the Kings

1977 Madame Bovary

1977 The Moneychangers 1978 Holocaust

1978 Anna Karenina

1978 I, Claudius

1978 King

1978 Washington: Behind Closed Doors 1979 Roots: The Next Generations

1979 Backstairs at the White House

1979 Blind Ambition 1980 Edward & Mrs. Simpson

1980 Disraeli

1980 The Duchess of Duke Street

1980 The Scarlett O'Hara War 1981 Shogun

1981 East of Eden

1981 Masada

1981 Rumpole of the Bailey

1981 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 1982 Marco Polo

1982 Brideshead Revisited

1982 Flickers

1982 Oppenheimer

1982 A Town Like Alice 1983 Nicholas Nickleby

1983 Smiley's People

1983 The Thorn Birds

1983 To Serve Them All My Days

1983 The Winds of War 1984 Concealed Enemies

1984 Chiefs

1984 George Washington

1984 Nancy Astor

1984 Reilly: Ace of Spies 1985 The Jewel in the Crown

1985 Ellis Island

1985 Robert Kennedy and His Times

1985 Space

1985 A Woman of Substance 1986 Peter the Great

1986 Dress Gray

1986 The Long Hot Summer

1986 Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy

1986 On Wings of Eagles 1987 A Year in the Life

1987 Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna

1987 Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder

1987 Out on a Limb

1987 The Two Mrs. Grenvilles 1988 The Murder of Mary Phagan

1988 Baby M

1988 Billionaire Boys Club

1988 The Bourne Identity

1988 Gore Vidal's Lincoln 1989 War and Remembrance

1989 I Know My First Name Is Steven

1989 Lonesome Dove

1989 A Perfect Spy

1989 The Women of Brewster Place 1990 Drug Wars: The Camarena Story

1990 Blind Faith

1990 Family of Spies

1990 The Kennedys of Massachusetts

1990 Small Sacrifices 1991 Separate But Equal

1991 Decoration Day

1991 The Josephine Baker Story

1991 Paris Trout

1991 Sarah, Plain and Tall 1992 A Woman Named Jackie

1992 Switched at Birth

1992 The Burden of Proof

1992 Cruel Doubt

1992 Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel

1992 In a Child's Name 1993 Prime Suspect 2

1993 Alex Haley's Queen

1993 Family Pictures

1993 The Jacksons: An American Dream

1993 Sinatra 1994 Prime Suspect 3

1994 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

1994 The Stand

1994 Tales of the City

1994 World War II: When Lions Roared 1995 Joseph

1995 Buffalo Girls

1995 Children of the Dust

1995 Martin Chuzzlewit

1995 A Woman of Independent Means 1996 Gulliver's Travels

1996 Andersonville

1996 Hiroshima

1996 Moses

1996 Pride and Prejudice 1997 Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement

1997 In Cold Blood

1997 The Last Don

1997 The Odyssey

1997 The Shining 1998 From the Earth to the Moon

1998 George Wallace

1998 Merlin

1998 Moby Dick

1998 More Tales of the City 1999 Hornblower: The Even Chance

1999 Great Expectations

1999 Joan of Arc

1999 The '60s

1999 The Temptations 2000 The Corner

2000 Arabian Nights

2000 The Beach Boys: An American Family

2000 Jesus

2000 P. T. Barnum 2001 Anne Frank: The Whole Story

2001 Further Tales of the City

2001 Hornblower

2001 Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows

2001 Nuremberg 2002 Band of Brothers

2002 Dinotopia

2002 The Mists of Avalon

2002 Shackleton 2003 Taken

2003 HItler: The Rise of Evil

2003 Napoleon 2004 Angels in America

2004 American Family

2004 Hornblower

2004 Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness

2004 Traffic 2005 The Lost Prince

2005 The 4400

2005 Elvis

2005 Empire Falls 2006 Elizabeth I

2006 Bleak House

2006 Into the West

2006 Sleeper Cell 2007 Broken Trail

2007 Prime Suspect: The Final Act

2007 The Starter Wife 2008 John Adams

2008 The Andromeda Strain

2008 Cranford

2008 Tin Man 2009 Little Dorrit

2009 Generation Kill 2010 The Pacific

2010 Return to Cranford 2011 Downton Abbey

2011 Cinema Verite

2011 The Kennedys

2011 Mildred Pierce

2011 The Pillars of the Earth

2011 Too Big to Fail 2012 Game Change

2012 American Horror Story

2012 Hatfields & McCoys

2012 Hemingway & Gellhorn

2012 Luther

2012 Sherlock 2013 Behind the Candelabra

2013 American Horror Story: Asylum

2013 The Bible

2013 Phil Spector

2013 Political Animals

2013 Top of the Lake 2014 Fargo

2014 American Horror Story: Coven

2014 Bonnie & Clyde

2014 Luther

2014 Treme

2014 The White Queen 2015 Olive Kitteridge

2015 American Crime

2015 American Horror Story: Freak Show

2015 The Honorable Woman

2015 Wolf Hall

This is by far the show category with the most diversity. Over the years, 15 shows with predominantly nonwhite casts have been nominated for Outstanding Miniseries, and a third of them have won. Peaks include 19892000, when 12 miniseries with predominantly nonwhite casts or a person of color in a leading role were either nominated or won. Just in the last four years, four shows with people of color at the center have been nominated (Luther, Treme, The Bible), though one hasnt won since 2000s The Corner.

Thirty-five out of 197 miniseries nominees have featured either a predominantly nonwhite cast (15), at least one nonwhite lead (10), or more than one nonwhite supporting actor (10).

*Note: The Outstanding Miniseries category wasnt created until 1973. Before then, there was a category designated as Outstanding Single Performance, which meant a performance that only occurred for one season or even less. This eventually became the categories of Outstanding Actor and Actress in a Miniseries, which is why, as youll see below, those two categories begin in 1955, almost 20 years before Outstanding Miniseries would.

1954 Donald O'Connor

1954 Sid Caesar

1954 Wally Cox

1954 Jackie Gleason

1954 Jack Webb 1955 Danny Thomas

1955 Richard Boone

1955 Robert Cummings

1955 Jackie Gleason

1955 Jack Webb 1956 Phil Silvers

1956 Robert Cummings

1956 Jackie Gleason

1956 Danny Thomas

1956 Robert Young 1957 Sid Caesar

1957 Jack Benny

1957 Robert Cummings

1957 Ernie Kovacs

1957 Phil Silvers 1958 Robert Young

1958 James Arness

1958 Robert Cummings

1958 Phil Silvers

1958 Danny Thomas 1959 Jack Benny

1959 Walter Brennan

1959 Robert Cummings

1959 Phil Silvers

1959 Danny Thomas

1959 Robert Young 1960 Robert Stack

1960 Raymond Burr

1960 Richard Boone 1961 Raymond Burr

1961 Jackie Cooper

1961 Robert Stack 1962 E.G. Marshall

1962 Paul Burke

1962 Jackie Cooper

1962 Vincent Edwards

1962 George Maharis 1963 E.G. Marshall

1963 Ernest Borgnine

1963 Paul Burke

1963 Vic Morrow

1963 Dick Van Dyke 1964 Dick Van Dyke

1964 Richard Boone

1964 Dean Jagger

1964 David Janssen

1964 George C. Scott 1966 Dick Van Dyke

1966 Don Adams

1966 Bob Crane 1967 Don Adams

1967 Bob Crane

1967 Brian Keith

1967 Larry Storch 1968 Don Adams

1968 Richard Benjamin

1968 Sebastian Cabot

1968 Brian Keith

1968 Dick York 1969 Don Adams

1969 Brian Keith

1969 Edward Mulhare

1969 Lloyd Nolan 1970 William Windom

1970 Bill Cosby

1970 Lloyd Haynes 1971 Jack Klugman

1971 Ted Bessell

1971 Bill Bixby

1971 Carroll O'Connor

1971 Tony Randall 1972 Carroll O'Connor

1972 Redd Foxx

1972 Jack Klugman

1972 Tony Randall 1973 Jack Klugman

1973 Alan Alda

1973 Redd Foxx

1973 Carroll O'Connor

1973 Tony Randall 1974 Alan Alda

1974 Redd Foxx

1974 Jack Klugman

1974 Carroll O'Connor

1974 Tony Randall 1975 Tony Randall

1975 Jack Albertson

1975 Alan Alda

1975 Jack Klugman

1975 Carroll O'Connor 1976 Jack Albertson

1976 Alan Alda

1976 Hal Linden

1976 Henry Winkler 1977 Carroll O'Connor

1977 Jack Albertson

1977 Alan Alda

1977 Hal Linden

1977 Henry Winkler 1978 Carroll O'Connor

1978 Alan Alda

1978 Hal Linden

1978 John Ritter

1978 Henry Winkler 1979 Carroll O'Connor

1979 Alan Alda

1979 Judd Hirsch

1979 Hal Linden

1979 Robin Williams 1980 Richard Mulligan

1980 Alan Alda

1980 Robert Guillaume

1980 Judd Hirsch

1980 Hal Linden 1981 Judd Hirsch

1981 Alan Alda

1981 Hal Linden

1981 Richard Mulligan

1981 John Ritter 1982 Alan Alda

1982 Robert Guillaume

1982 Judd Hirsch

1982 Hal Linden

1982 Leslie Nielsen 1983 Judd Hirsch

1983 Alan Alda

1983 Dabney Coleman

1983 Ted Danson

1983 Robert Guillaume 1984 John Ritter

1984 Dabney Coleman

1984 Ted Danson

1984 Robert Guillaume

1984 Sherman Hemsley 1985 Robert Guillaume

1985 Harry Anderson

1985 Ted Danson

1985 Bob Newhart

1985 Jack Warden 1986 Michael J. Fox

1986 Harry Anderson

1986 Ted Danson

1986 Bob Newhart

1986 Jack Warden 1987 Michael J. Fox

1987 Harry Anderson

1987 Ted Danson

1987 Bob Newhart

1987 Bronson Pinchot 1988 Michael J. Fox

1988 Dabney Coleman

1988 Ted Danson

1988 Tim Reid

1988 John Ritter 1989 Richard Mulligan

1989 Ted Danson

1989 Michael J. Fox

1989 John Goodman

1989 Fred Savage 1990 Ted Danson

1990 John Goodman

1990 Richard Mulligan

1990 Craig T. Nelson

1990 Fred Savage 1991 Burt Reynolds

1991 Ted Danson

1991 John Goodman

1991 Richard Mulligan

1991 Craig T. Nelson 1992 Craig T. Nelson

1992 Ted Danson

1992 John Goodman

1992 Kelsey Grammer

1992 Burt Reynolds

1992 Jerry Seinfeld 1993 Ted Danson

1993 Tim Allen

1993 John Goodman

1993 Jerry Seinfeld

1993 Garry Shandling 1994 Kelsey Grammer

1994 John Goodman

1994 John Larroquette

1994 Paul Reiser

1994 Jerry Seinfeld 1995 Kelsey Grammer

1995 John Goodman

1995 Paul Reiser

1995 Jerry Seinfeld

1995 Garry Shandling 1996 John Lithgow

1996 Kelsey Grammer

1996 Paul Reiser

1996 Jerry Seinfeld

1996 Garry Shandling 1997 John Lithgow

1997 Michael J. Fox

1997 Kelsey Grammer

1997 Paul Reiser

1997 Garry Shandling 1998 Kelsey Grammer

1998 Michael J. Fox

1998 John Lithgow

1998 Paul Reiser

1998 Garry Shandling 1999 John Lithgow

1999 Michael J. Fox

1999 Kelsey Grammer

1999 Paul Reiser

1999 Ray Romano 2000 Michael J. Fox

2000 Kelsey Grammer

2000 John Lithgow

2000 Eric McCormack

2000 Ray Romano 2001 Eric McCormack

2001 Kelsey Grammer

2001 John Lithgow

2001 Frankie Muniz

2001 Ray Romano 2002 Ray Romano

2002 Kelsey Grammer

2002 Matt LeBlanc

2002 Bernie Mac

2002 Matthew Perry 2003 Tony Shalhoub

2003 Larry David

2003 Matt LeBlanc

2003 Bernie Mac

2003 Eric McCormack

2003 Ray Romano 2004 Kelsey Grammer

2004 Larry David

2004 Matt LeBlanc

2004 John Ritter

2004 Tony Shalhoub 2005 Tony Shalhoub

2005 Jason Bateman

2005 Zach Braff

2005 Eric McCormack

2005 Ray Romano 2006 Tony Shalhoub

2006 Steve Carell

2006 Larry David

2006 Kevin James

2006 Charlie Sheen 2007 Ricky Gervais

2007 Alec Baldwin

2007 Steve Carell

2007 Tony Shalhoub

2007 Charlie Sheen 2008 Alec Baldwin

2008 Steve Carell

2008 Lee Pace

2008 Tony Shalhoub

2008 Charlie Sheen 2009 Alec Baldwin

2009 Steve Carell

2009 Jemaine Clement

2009 Jim Parsons

2009 Tony Shalhoub

2009 Charlie Sheen 2010 Jim Parsons

2010 Alec Baldwin

2010 Steve Carell

2010 Larry David

2010 Matthew Morrison

2010 Tony Shalhoub 2011 Jim Parsons

2011 Alec Baldwin

2011 Steve Carell

2011 Louis C.K.

2011 Johnny Galecki

2011 Matt LeBlanc 2012 Jon Cryer

2012 Alec Baldwin

2012 Louis C.K.

2012 Don Cheadle

2012 Larry David

2012 Jim Parsons 2013 Jim Parsons

2013 Alec Baldwin

2013 Jason Bateman

2013 Louis C.K.

2013 Don Cheadle

2013 Matt LeBlanc 2014 Jim Parsons

2014 Louis C.K.

2014 Don Cheadle

2014 Ricky Gervais

2014 Matt LeBlanc

2014 William H. Macy 2015 Jeffrey Tambor

2015 Anthony Anderson

2015 Louis C.K.

2015 Don Cheadle

2015 Will Forte

2015 Matt LeBlanc

2015 William H. Macy

Only two nonwhite actors have ever won for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy in Emmy history  Robert Guillaume in 1985, for Benson, and Tony Shalhoub, who won three times for Monk. (Fun fact: Guillaume is also the only actor of color to ever win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy, for his role in Soap.) Twenty-eight of the 283 nominees in this category, or 9.9 percent, have been men of color. Shalhoub (who was nominated eight times for Monk), Guillaume (nominated five times for Benson), and Don Cheadle (nominated four times for House of Lies) together make up 61 percent of those nominations. No actors of color were nominated between 19892000.

1954 Eve Arden

1954 Lucille Ball

1954 Imogene Coca

1954 Dinah Shore

1954 Loretta Young 1955 Loretta Young

1955 Gracie Allen

1955 Eve Arden

1955 Jean Hagen

1955 Ann Sothern 1956 Lucille Ball

1956 Gracie Allen

1956 Eve Arden

1956 Jean Hagen

1956 Ann Sothern 1957 Nanette Febray

1957 Edie Adams

1957 Gracie Allen

1957 Lucille Ball

1957 Ann Sothern 1958 Jane Wyatt

1958 Eve Arden

1958 Spring Byington

1958 Jan Clayton

1958 Ida Lupino 1959 Jane Wyatt

1959 Gracie Allen

1959 Spring Byington

1959 Ida Lupino

1959 Donna Reid

1959 Ann Sothern 1960 Jane Wyatt

1960 Donna Reid

1960 Loretta Young 1961 Barbara Stanwyck

1961 Donna Reid

1961 Loretta Young 1962 Shirley Booth

1962 Gertrude Berg

1962 Donna Reid

1962 Mary Stuart

1962 Cara Williams 1963 Shirley Booth

1963 Lucille Ball

1963 Shirl Conway

1963 Mary Tyler Moore

1963 Irene Ryan 1964 Mary Tyler Moore

1964 Shirley Booth

1964 Patty Duke

1964 Irene Ryan

1964 Inger Stevens 1966 Mary Tyler Moore

1966 Lucille Ball

1966 Elizabeth Montgomery 1967 Lucille Ball

1967 Elizabeth Montgomery

1967 Agnes Moorehead

1967 Marlo Thomas 1968 Lucille Ball

1968 Barbara Feldon

1968 Elizabeth Montgomery

1968 Paula Prentiss

1968 Marlo Thomas 1969 Hope Lange

1969 Diahann Carroll

1969 Barbara Feldon

1969 Elizabeth Montgomery 1970 Hope Lange

1970 Elizabeth Montgomery

1970 Marlo Thomas 1971 Jean Stapleton

1971 Marlo Thomas

1971 Mary Tyler Moore 1972 Jean Stapleton

1972 Sandy Duncan

1972 Mary Tyler Moore 1973 Mary Tyler Moore

1973 Jean Stapleton

1973 Bea Arthur 1974 Mary Tyler Moore

1974 Bea Arthur

1974 Jean Stapleton 1975 Valerie Harper

1975 Jean Stapleton

1975 Mary Tyler Moore 1976 Mary Tyler Moore

1976 Lee Grant

1976 Bea Arthur

1976 Cloris Leachman

1976 Valerie Harper 1977 Bea Arthur

1977 Jean Stapleton

1977 Valerie Harper

1977 Suzanne Pleshette

1977 Mary Tyler Moore 1978 Jean Stapleton

1978 Bea Arthur

1978 Valerie Harper

1978 Cathryn Damon

1978 Katherine Helmond

1978 Suzanne Pleshette 1979 Ruth Gordon

1979 Linda Lavin

1979 Jean Stapleton

1979 Katherine Helmond

1979 Isabel Sanford 1980 Cathryn Damon

1980 Katherine Helmond

1980 Polly Holliday

1980 Sheree North

1980 Isabel Sanford 1981 Isabel Sanford

1981 Eileen Brennan

1981 Cathryn Damon

1981 Katherine Helmond

1981 Lynn Redgrave 1982 Carol Kane

1982 Nell Carter

1982 Bonnie Franklin

1982 Swoosie Kurtz

1982 Charlotte Rae

1982 Isabel Sanford 1983 Shelley Long

1983 Nell Carter

1983 Mariette Hartley

1983 Swoosie Kurtz

1983 Rita Moreno

1983 Isabel Sanford 1984 Jane Curtin

1984 Joanna Cassidy

1984 Shelley Long

1984 Susan Saint James

1984 Isabel Sanford 1985 Jane Curtin

1985 Phylicia Rashad

1985 Shelley Long

1985 Susan Saint James

1985 Isabel Sanford 1986 Betty White

1986 Bea Arthur

1986 Shelley Long

1986 Rue McClanahan

1986 Phylicia Rashad 1987 Rue McClanahan

1987 Bea Arthur

1987 Blair Brown

1987 Jane Curtin

1987 Betty White 1988 Bea Arthur

1988 Kirstie Alley

1988 Blair Brown

1988 Rue McClanahan

1988 Betty White 1989 Candice Bergen

1989 Bea Arthur

1989 Blair Brown

1989 Rue McClanahan

1989 Betty White 1990 Candice Bergen

1990 Kirstie Alley

1990 Blair Brown

1990 Delta Burke

1990 Betty White 1991 Kirstie Alley

1991 Candice Bergen

1991 Blair Brown

1991 Delta Burke

1991 Betty White 1992 Candice Bergen

1992 Kirstie Alley

1992 Roseanne Barr

1992 Tyne Daly

1992 Marion Ross

1992 Betty White 1993 Roseanne Barr

1993 Kirstie Alley

1993 Candice Bergen

1993 Helen Hunt

1993 Marion Ross 1994 Candice Bergen

1994 Roseanne Barr

1994 Helen Hunt

1994 Annie Potts

1994 Patricia Richardson 1995 Candice Bergen

1995 Roseanne Barr

1995 Ellen DeGeneres

1995 Helen Hunt

1995 Cybill Shepherd 1996 Helen Hunt

1996 Ellen DeGeneres

1996 Fran Drescher

1996 Patricia Richardson

1996 Cybill Shepherd 1997 Helen Hunt

1997 Ellen DeGeneres

1997 Fran Drescher

1997 Patricia Richardson

1997 Cybill Shepherd 1998 Helen Hunt

1998 Kirstie Alley

1998 Ellen DeGeneres

1998 Jenna Elfman

1998 Calista Flockhart

1998 Patricia Richardson 1999 Helen Hunt

1999 Jenna Elfman

1999 Calista Flockhart

1999 Patricia Heaton

1999 Sarah Jessica Parker 2000 Patricia Heaton

2000 Jenna Elfman

2000 Jane Kaczmarek

2000 Debra Messing

2000 Sarah Jessica Parker 2001 Patricia Heaton

2001 Calista Flockhart

2001 Jane Kaczmarek

2001 Debra Messing

2001 Sarah Jessica Parker 2002 Jennifer Aniston

2002 Patricia Heaton

2002 Jane Kaczmarek

2002 Debra Messing

2002 Sarah Jessica Parker 2003 Debra Messing

2003 Jennifer Aniston

2003 Patricia Heaton

2003 Jane Kaczmarek

2003 Sarah Jessica Parker 2004 Sarah Jessica Parker

2004 Jennifer Aniston

2004 Patricia Heaton

2004 Bonnie Hunt

2004 Jane Kaczmarek 2005 Felicity Huffman

2005 Marcia Cross

2005 Teri Hatcher

2005 Patricia Heaton

2005 Jane Kaczmarek 2006 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2006 Stockard Channing

2006 Jane Kaczmarek

2006 Lisa Kudrow

2006 Debra Messing 2007 America Ferrera

2007 Tina Fey

2007 Felicity Huffman

2007 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2007 Mary-Louise Parker 2008 Tina Fey

2008 Christina Applegate

2008 America Ferrera

2008 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2008 Mary-Louise Parker 2009 Toni Collette

2009 Christina Applegate

2009 Tina Fey

2009 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2009 Mary-Louise Parker

2009 Sarah Silverman 2010 Edie Falco

2010 Toni Collette

2010 Tina Fey

2010 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2010 Lea Michele

2010 Amy Poehler 2011 Melissa McCarthy

2011 Edie Falco

2011 Tina Fey

2011 Laura Linney

2011 Martha Plimpton

2011 Amy Poehler 2012 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2012 Zooey Deschanel

2012 Lena Dunham

2012 Edie Falco

2012 Tina Fey

2012 Melissa McCarthy

2012 Amy Poehler 2013 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2013 Laura Dern

2013 Lena Dunham

2013 Edie Falco

2013 Tina Fey

2013 Amy Poehler 2014 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2014 Lena Dunham

2014 Edie Falco

2014 Melissa McCarthy

2014 Amy Poehler

2014 Taylor Schilling 2015 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

2015 Edie Falco

2015 Lisa Kudrow

2015 Amy Poehler

2015 Amy Schumer

2015 Lily Tomlin

Two actresses of color have won in this category  Isabel Sanford in 1981 for The Jeffersons and America Ferrera in 2007 for Ugly Betty. Fifteen of the 292 nominees in this category, or 5.1 percent, have been women of color. Isabel Sanford accounts for seven of those nominations, for her role in The Jeffersons. Since Phylicia Rashads last nomination, in 1986 for The Cosby Show, no actress of color has been nominated aside from America Ferrera in 2007 and 2008.

1954 Art Carney

1954 Ben Alexander

1954 William Frawley

1954 Tony Randall

1954 Carl Reiner 1955 Art Carney

1955 Ben Alexander

1955 Don DeFore

1955 William Frawley

1955 Gale Gordon 1956 Art Carney

1956 Ed Begley

1956 William Frawley

1956 Carl Reiner

1956 Cyril Ritchard 1957 Carl Reiner

1957 Art Carney

1957 Paul Ford

1957 William Frawley

1957 Ed Wynn 1958 Carl Reiner

1958 Paul Ford

1958 William Frawley

1958 Louis Nye

1958 Dennis Weaver 1959 Tom Poston

1959 Richard Crenna

1959 Paul Ford

1959 Maurice Gosfield

1959 Billy Gray

1959 Harry Morgan 1961 Don Knotts

1961 Abby Dalton

1961 Barbara Hale 1962 Don Knotts

1962 Sam Jaffe

1962 Barry Jones

1962 Horace McMahon

1962 George C. Scott 1963 Don Knotts

1963 Tim Conway

1963 Paul Ford

1963 Hurd Hatfield

1963 Robert Redford 1964 Albert Paulsen

1964 Sorrell Booke

1964 Conlan Carter

1964 Carl Lee 1966 Don Knotts

1966 Morey Amsterdam

1966 Frank Gorshin

1966 Werner Klemperer 1967 Don Knotts

1967 Gale Gordon

1967 Werner Klemperer 1968 Werner Klemperer

1968 Jack Cassidy

1968 William Demarest

1968 Gale Gordon 1969 Werner Klemperer

1969 Greg Morris

1969 Leonard Nimoy 1970 Michael Constantine

1970 Werner Klemperer

1970 Charles Nelson Reilly 1971 Ed Asner

1971 Michael Constantine

1971 Gale Gordon 1972 Ed Asner

1972 Ted Knight

1972 Rob Reiner 1973 Ted Knight

1973 Ed Asner

1973 Gary Burghoff

1973 Rob Reiner

1973 McLean Stevenson 1974 Rob Reiner

1974 Ed Asner

1974 Gary Burghoff

1974 Ted Knight

1974 McLean Stevenson 1975 Ed Asner

1975 Gary Burghoff

1975 Ted Knight

1975 Rob Reiner

1975 McLean Stevenson 1976 Ted Knight

1976 Ed Asner

1976 Gary Burghoff

1976 Harry Morgan

1976 Abe Vigoda 1977 Gary Burghoff

1977 Ed Asner

1977 Ted Knight

1977 Harry Morgan

1977 Abe Vigoda 1978 Rob Reiner

1978 Tom Bosley

1978 Gary Burghoff

1978 Harry Morgan

1978 Vic Tayback 1979 Robert Guillaume

1979 Gary Burghoff

1979 Danny DeVito

1979 Max Gail

1979 Harry Morgan 1980 Harry Morgan

1980 Mike Farrell

1980 Max Gail

1980 Howard Hesseman

1980 Steve Landesberg 1981 Danny DeVito

1981 Howard Hesseman

1981 Steve Landesberg

1981 Harry Morgan

1981 David Ogden Stiers 1982 Christopher Lloyd

1982 Danny DeVito

1982 Ron Glass

1982 Steve Landesberg

1982 Harry Morgan

1982 David Ogden Stiers 1983 Christopher Lloyd

1983 Nicholas Colasanto

1983 Danny DeVito

1983 Harry Morgan

1983 Eddie Murphy 1984 Pat Harrington Jr.

1984 Rene Auberjonois

1984 Nicholas Colasanto

1984 Tom Poston

1984 George Wendt 1985 John Larroquette

1985 Nicholas Colasanto

1985 Michael J. Fox

1985 John Ratzenberger

1985 George Wendt 1986 John Larroquette

1986 Tom Poston

1986 John Ratzenberger

1986 Malcolm-Jamal Warner

1986 George Wendt 1987 John Larroquette

1987 Woody Harrelson

1987 Tom Poston

1987 Peter Scolari

1987 George Wendt 1988 John Larroquette

1988 Kelsey Grammer

1988 Woody Harrelson

1988 Peter Scolari

1988 George Wendt 1989 Woody Harrelson

1989 Joe Regalbuto

1989 Peter Scolari

1989 Meshach Taylor

1989 George Wendt 1990 Alex Rocco

1990 Kelsey Grammer

1990 Woody Harrelson

1990 Charles Kimbrough

1990 Jerry Van Dyke 1991 Jonathan Winters

1991 Charles Durning

1991 Woody Harrelson

1991 Michael Jeter

1991 Jerry Van Dyke 1992 Michael Jeter

1992 Jason Alexander

1992 Charles Durning

1992 Harvey Fierstein

1992 Jay Thomas

1992 Jerry Van Dyke 1993 Michael Richards

1993 Jason Alexander

1993 Michael Jeter

1993 Jeffrey Tambor

1993 Rip Torn 1994 Michael Richards

1994 Jason Alexander

1994 David Hyde Pierce

1994 Rip Torn

1994 Jerry Van Dyke 1995 David Hyde Pierce

1995 Jason Alexander

1995 Michael Richards

1995 David Schwimmer

1995 Rip Torn 1996 Rip Torn

1996 Jason Alexander

1996 David Hyde Pierce

1996 Michael Richards

1996 Jeffrey Tambor 1997 Michael Richards

1997 Jason Alexander

1997 David Hyde Pierce

1997 Jeffrey Tambor

1997 Rip Torn 1998 David Hyde Pierce

1998 Jason Alexander

1998 Phil Hartman

1998 Jeffrey Tambor

1998 Rip Torn 1999 David Hyde Pierce

1999 Peter Boyle

1999 Peter MacNicol

1999 John Mahoney

1999 David Spade 2000 Sean Hayes

2000 Peter Boyle

2000 Brad Garrett

2000 Peter MacNicol

2000 David Hyde Pierce 2001 Peter MacNicol

2001 Peter Boyle

2001 Robert Downey Jr.

2001 Sean Hayes

2001 David Hyde Pierce 2002 Brad Garrett

2002 Peter Boyle

2002 Bryan Cranston

2002 Sean Hayes

2002 David Hyde Pierce 2003 Brad Garrett

2003 Peter Boyle

2003 Bryan Cranston

2003 Sean Hayes

2003 John Mahoney

2003 David Hyde Pierce 2004 David Hyde Pierce

2004 Peter Boyle

2004 Brad Garrett

2004 Sean Hayes

2004 Jeffrey Tambor 2005 Brad Garrett

2005 Peter Boyle

2005 Sean Hayes

2005 Jeremy Piven

2005 Jeffrey Tambor 2006 Jeremy Piven

2006 Will Arnett

2006 Bryan Cranston

2006 Jon Cryer

2006 Sean Hayes 2007 Jeremy Piven

2007 Jon Cryer

2007 Kevin Dillon

2007 Neil Patrick Harris

2007 Rainn Wilson 2008 Jeremy Piven

2008 Jon Cryer

2008 Kevin Dillon

2008 Neil Patrick Harris

2008 Rainn Wilson 2009 Jon Cryer

2009 Kevin Dillon

2009 Neil Patrick Harris

2009 Jack McBrayer

2009 Tracy Morgan

2009 Rainn Wilson 2010 Eric Stonestreet

2010 Ty Burrell

2010 Chris Colfer

2010 Jon Cryer

2010 Jesse Tyler Ferguson

2010 Neil Patrick Harris 2011 Ty Burrell

2011 Chris Colfer

2011 Jon Cryer

2011 Jesse Tyler Ferguson

2011 Ed O'Neill

2011 Eric Stonestreet 2012 Eric Stonestreet

2012 Ty Burrell

2012 Jesse Tyler Ferguson

2012 Max Greenfield

2012 Bill Hader

2012 Ed O'Neill 2013 Tony Hale

2013 Ty Burrell

2013 Adam Driver

2013 Jesse Tyler Ferguson

2013 Bill Hader

2013 Ed O'Neill 2014 Ty Burrell

2014 Fred Armisen

2014 Andre Braugher

2014 Adam Driver

2014 Jesse Tyler Ferguson

2014 Tony Hale 2015 Tony Hale

2015 Andre Braugher

2015 Tituss Burgess

2015 Ty Burrell

2015 Adam Driver

2015 Keegan-Michael Key

This ties with Supporting Actress in a Comedy as the second-least-diverse category among the acting nominees. One actor of color has won in this category: Robert Guillaume in 1979 for Soap. Twelve of the 278 nominees in this category, or 4.3 percent, have been men of color, five of whom were nominated in just the last two years. No actors of color were nominated between 1990 and 2008.

1954 Vivian Vance

1954 Bea Benaderet

1954 Ruth Gilbert

1954 Marion Lorne

1954 Audrey Meadows 1955 Audrey Meadows

1955 Bea Benaderet

1955 Jean Hagen

1955 Marion Lorne

1955 Vivian Vance 1956 Nanette Fabray

1956 Ann B. Davis

1956 Jean Hagen

1956 Audrey Meadows

1956 Thelma Ritter 1957 Pat Carroll

1957 Ann B. Davis

1957 Audrey Meadows

1957 Mildred Natwick

1957 Vivian Vance 1958 Ann B. Davis

1958 Pat Carroll

1958 Verna Felton

1958 Marion Lorne

1958 Vivian Vance 1959 Ann B. Davis

1959 Rosemary DeCamp

1959 Elinor Donahue

1959 Verna Felton

1959 Kathleen Nolan

1959 Zasu Pitts 1961 Don Knotts

1961 Abby Dalton

1961 Barbara Hale 1962 Pamela Brown

1962 Jeanne Cooper

1962 Colleen Dewhurst

1962 Joan Hackett

1962 Mary Wickes 1963 Glenda Farrell

1963 Davey Davison

1963 Nancy Malone

1963 Rose Marie

1963 Kate Reid 1964 Ruth White

1964 Martine Bartlett

1964 Anjanette Comer

1964 Rose Marie

1964 Claudia McNeil 1966 Alice Pearce

1966 Rose Marie

1966 Agnes Moorehead 1967 Frances Bavier

1967 Nancy Kulp

1967 Marion Lorne 1968 Marion Lorne

1968 Agnes Moorehead

1968 Marge Redmond

1968 Nita Talbot 1969 Susan Saint James

1969 Barbara Anderson

1969 Agnes Moorehead 1970 Karen Valentine

1970 Agnes Moorehead

1970 Lurene Tuttle 1971 Valerie Harper

1971 Agnes Moorehead

1971 Karen Valentine 1972 Valerie Harper (tie)

1972 Sally Struthers (tie)

1972 Cloris Leachman 1973 Valerie Harper

1973 Cloris Leachman

1973 Sally Struthers 1974 Cloris Leachman

1974 Sally Struthers

1974 Loretta Swit

1974 Valerie Harper 1975 Betty White

1975 Julie Kavner

1975 Loretta Swit

1975 Nancy Walker 1976 Betty White

1976 Georgia Engel

1976 Julie Kavner

1976 Loretta Swit

1976 Nancy Walker 1977 Mary Kay Place

1977 Georgia Engel

1977 Julie Kavner

1977 Loretta Swit

1977 Betty White 1978 Julie Kavner

1978 Polly Holliday

1978 Sally Struthers

1978 Loretta Swit

1978 Nancy Walker 1979 Sally Struthers

1979 Polly Holliday

1979 Marion Ross

1979 Loretta Swit 1980 Loretta Swit

1980 Loni Anderson

1980 Polly Holliday

1980 Inga Swenson 1981 Eileen Brennan

1981 Loni Anderson

1981 Marla Gibbs

1981 Anne Meara

1981 Loretta Swit 1982 Loretta Swit

1982 Eileen Brennan

1982 Marla Gibbs

1982 Andrea Martin

1982 Anne Meara

1982 Inga Swenson 1983 Carol Kane

1983 Eileen Brennan

1983 Marla Gibbs

1983 Rhea Perlman

1983 Loretta Swit 1984 Rhea Perlman

1984 Julia Duffy

1984 Marla Gibbs

1984 Paula Kelly

1984 Marion Ross 1985 Rhea Perlman

1985 Selma Diamond

1985 Julia Duffy

1985 Marla Gibbs

1985 Inga Swenson 1986 Rhea Perlman

1986 Justine Bateman

1986 Lisa Bonet

1986 Julia Duffy

1986 Estelle Getty

1986 Keshia Knight Pulliam 1987 Jackee Harry

1987 Justine Bateman

1987 Julia Duffy

1987 Estelle Getty

1987 Rhea Perlman 1988 Estelle Getty

1988 Julia Duffy

1988 Jackee Harry

1988 Katherine Helmond

1988 Rhea Perlman 1989 Rhea Perlman

1989 Julia Duffy

1989 Faith Ford

1989 Estelle Getty

1989 Katherine Helmond 1990 Bebe Neuwirth

1990 Julia Duffy

1990 Faith Ford

1990 Estelle Getty

1990 Rhea Perlman 1991 Bebe Neuwirth

1991 Elizabeth Ashley

1991 Faith Ford

1991 Estelle Getty

1991 Rhea Perlman 1992 Laurie Metcalf

1992 Faith Ford

1992 Estelle Getty

1992 Alice Ghostley

1992 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1992 Frances Sternhagen 1993 Laurie Metcalf

1993 Shelley Fabares

1993 Sara Gilbert

1993 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1993 Rhea Perlman 1994 Laurie Metcalf

1994 Shelley Fabares

1994 Faith Ford

1994 Sara Gilbert

1994 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1994 Liz Torres 1995 Christine Baranski

1995 Lisa Kudrow

1995 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1995 Laurie Metcalf

1995 Liz Torres 1996 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

1996 Christine Baranski

1996 Janeane Garofalo

1996 Jayne Meadows

1996 Renee Taylor 1997 Kristen Johnston

1997 Christine Baranski

1997 Janeane Garofalo

1997 Lisa Kudrow

1997 Julia Louis-Dreyfus 1998 Lisa Kudrow

1998 Christine Baranski

1998 Kristen Johnston

1998 Jane Leeves

1998 Julia Louis-Dreyfus 1999 Kristen Johnston

1999 Lisa Kudrow

1999 Lucy Liu

1999 Wendie Malick

1999 Doris Roberts 2000 Megan Mullally

2000 Jennifer Aniston

2000 Kim Cattrall

2000 Lisa Kudrow

2000 Doris Roberts 2001 Doris Roberts

2001 Jennifer Aniston

2001 Kim Cattrall

2001 Lisa Kudrow

2001 Megan Mullally 2002 Doris Roberts

2002 Kim Cattrall

2002 Wendie Malick

2002 Megan Mullally

2002 Cynthia Nixon 2003 Doris Roberts

2003 Kim Cattrall

2003 Cheryl Hines

2003 Megan Mullally

2003 Cynthia Nixon 2004 Cynthia Nixon

2004 Kim Cattrall

2004 Kristin Davis

2004 Megan Mullally

2004 Doris Roberts 2005 Doris Roberts

2005 Conchata Ferrell

2005 Megan Mullally

2005 Holland Taylor

2005 Jessica Walter 2006 Megan Mullally

2006 Cheryl Hines

2006 Elizabeth Perkins

2006 Jaime Pressly

2006 Alfre Woodard 2007 Jaime Pressly

2007 Conchata Ferrell

2007 Jenna Fischer

2007 Elizabeth Perkins

2007 Holland Taylor

2007 Vanessa Williams 2008 Jean Smart

2008 Kristin Chenoweth

2008 Amy Poehler

2008 Holland Taylor

2008 Vanessa Williams 2009 Kristin Chenoweth

2009 Jane Krakowski

2009 Elizabeth Perkins

2009 Amy Poehler

2009 Kristen Wiig

2009 Vanessa Williams 2010 Jane Lynch

2010 Julie Bowen

2010 Jane Krakowski

2010 Holland Taylor

2010 Sofia Vergara

2010 Kristen Wiig 2011 Julie Bowen

2011 Jane Krakowski

2011 Jane Lynch

2011 Sofia Vergara

2011 Betty White

2011 Kristen Wiig 2012 Julie Bowen

2012 Mayim Bialik

2012 Kathryn Joosten

2012 Sofia Vergara

2012 Merritt Wever

2012 Kristen Wiig 2013 Merritt Wever

2013 Mayim Bialik

2013 Julie Bowen

2013 Anna Chlumsky

2013 Jane Krakowski

2013 Jane Lynch

2013 Sofia Vergara 2014 Allison Janney

2014 Mayim Bialik

2014 Julie Bowen

2014 Anna Chlumsky

2014 Kate McKinnon

2014 Kate Mulgrew 2015 Allison Janney

2015 Mayim Bialik

2015 Julie Bowen

2015 Anna Chlumsky

2015 Gaby Hoffmann

2015 Jane Krakowski

2015 Kate McKinnon

2015 Niecy Nash

Only one actor of color has won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy in Emmy history  Jackee Harry in 1987 for 227. Twenty-two of the 280 nominees in this category, or 7.9 percent, have been women of color  ten of them were in the period from 19811988, while nine have come in the last decade. Marla Gibbs was nominated five times for The Jeffersons, and Sofia Vergara was nominated four times for Modern Family.

1954 Donald O'Connor

1954 Sid Caesar

1954 Wally Cox

1954 Jackie Gleason

1954 Jack Webb 1955 Danny Thomas

1955 Richard Boone

1955 Robert Cummings

1955 Jackie Gleason

1955 Jack Webb 1956 Phil Silvers

1956 Robert Cummings

1956 Jackie Gleason

1956 Danny Thomas

1956 Robert Young 1957 Robert Young

1957 James Arness

1957 Charles Boyer

1957 David Niven

1957 Hugh O'Brian 1958 Robert Young

1958 James Arness

1958 Robert Cummings

1958 Phil Silvers

1958 Danny Thomas 1959 Raymond Burr

1959 James Arness

1959 Richard Boone

1959 James Garner

1959 Craig Stevens

1959 Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 1960 Robert Stack

1960 Raymond Burr

1960 Richard Boone 1961 Raymond Burr

1961 Jackie Cooper

1961 Robert Stack 1962 E.G. Marshall

1962 Vincent Edwards

1962 Jackie Cooper

1962 Paul Burke

1962 George Maharis 1963 E.G. Marshall

1963 Vic Morrow

1963 Dick Van Dyke

1963 Ernest Borgnine

1963 Paul Burke 1964 Dick Van Dyke

1964 Richard Boone

1964 Dean Jagger

1964 David Janssen

1964 George C. Scott 1966 Bill Cosby

1966 David Janssen

1966 Robert Culp

1966 David McCallum

1966 Richard Crenna 1967 Bill Cosby

1967 David Janssen

1967 Robert Culp

1967 Martin Landau

1967 Ben Gazzara 1968 Bill Cosby

1968 Robert Culp

1968 Raymond Burr

1968 Martin Landau

1968 Ben Gazzara 1969 Carl Betz

1969 Raymond Burr

1969 Peter Graves

1969 Martin Landau

1969 Ross Martin 1970 Robert Young

1970 Raymond Burr

1970 Robert Wagner

1970 Mike Connors 1971 Hal Holbrook

1971 Raymond Burr

1971 Mike Connors

1971 Robert Young 1972 Peter Falk

1972 Raymond Burr

1972 Mike Connors

1972 Robert Young

1972 Keith Michell 1973 Richard Thomas

1973 William Conrad

1973 David Carradine

1973 Mike Connors

1973 Peter Falk 1974 Telly Savalas

1974 William Conrad

1974 Karl Malden

1974 Richard Thomas 1975 Robert Blake

1975 Telly Savalas

1975 Barry Newman

1975 Karl Malden 1976 Peter Falk

1976 James Garner

1976 Karl Malden 1977 James Garner

1977 Robert Blake

1977 Peter Falk

1977 Jack Klugman

1977 Karl Malden 1978 Ed Asner

1978 James Broderick

1978 Peter Falk

1978 Jack Klugman

1978 James Garner

1978 Ralph Waite 1979 Ron Leibman

1979 Ed Asner

1979 Jack Klugman

1979 James Garner 1980 Ed Asner

1980 James Garner

1980 Larry Hagman

1980 Jack Klugman 1981 Daniel J. Travanti

1981 Ed Asner

1981 Jim Davis

1981 Louis Gossett Jr.

1981 Larry Hagman

1981 Pernell Roberts 1982 Daniel J. Travanti

1982 Ed Asner

1982 John Forsythe

1982 James Garner

1982 Tom Selleck 1983 Ed Flanders

1983 William Daniels

1983 John Forsythe

1983 Tom Selleck

1983 Daniel J. Travanti 1984 Tom Selleck

1984 William Daniels

1984 Ed Flanders

1984 John Forsythe

1984 Daniel J. Travanti 1985 William Daniels

1985 Ed Flanders

1985 Don Johnson

1985 Tom Selleck

1985 Daniel J. Travanti 1986 William Daniels

1986 Ed Flanders

1986 Tom Selleck

1986 Bruce Willis

1986 Edward Woodward 1987 Bruce Willis

1987 Corbin Bernsen

1987 William Daniels

1987 Ed Flanders

1987 Edward Woodward 1988 Richard Kiley

1988 Corbin Bernsen

1988 Ron Perlman

1988 Michael Tucker

1988 Edward Woodward 1989 Carroll O'Connor

1989 Ron Perlman

1989 Michael Tucker

1989 Ken Wahl

1989 Edward Woodward 1990 Peter Falk

1990 Scott Bakula

1990 Robert Loggia

1990 Kyle MacLachlan

1990 Edward Woodward 1991 James Earl Jones

1991 Scott Bakula

1991 Peter Falk

1991 Kyle MacLachlan

1991 Michael Moriarty 1992 Christopher Lloyd

1992 Scott Bakula

1992 Kirk Douglas

1992 Michael Moriarty

1992 Rob Morrow

1992 Harrison Page

1992 Sam Waterston 1993 Tom Skerritt

1993 Scott Bakula

1993 Michael Moriarty

1993 Rob Morrow

1993 Sam Waterston 1994 Dennis Franz

1994 David Caruso

1994 Peter Falk

1994 Michael Moriarty

1994 Tom Skerritt 1995 Mandy Patinkin

1995 George Clooney

1995 Anthony Edwards

1995 Dennis Franz

1995 Jimmy Smits 1996 Dennis Franz

1996 Andre Braugher

1996 George Clooney

1996 Anthony Edwards

1996 Jimmy Smits 1997 Dennis Franz

1997 David Duchovny

1997 Anthony Edwards

1997 Jimmy Smits

1997 Sam Waterston 1998 Andre Braugher

1998 David Duchovny

1998 Anthony Edwards

1998 Dennis Franz

1998 Jimmy Smits 1999 Dennis Franz

1999 James Gandolfini

1999 Dylan McDermott

1999 Jimmy Smits

1999 Sam Waterston 2000 James Gandolfini

2000 Dennis Franz

2000 Jerry Orbach

2000 Martin Sheen

2000 Sam Waterston 2001 James Gandolfini

2001 Andre Braugher

2001 Dennis Franz

2001 Rob Lowe

2001 Martin Sheen 2002 Michael Chiklis

2002 Michael C. Hall

2002 Peter Krause

2002 Martin Sheen

2002 Kiefer Sutherland 2003 James Gandolfini

2003 Michael Chiklis

2003 Peter Krause

2003 Martin Sheen

2003 Kiefer Sutherland 2004 James Spader

2004 James Gandolfini

2004 Anthony LaPaglia

2004 Martin Sheen

2004 Kiefer Sutherland 2005 James Spader

2005 Hank Azaria

2005 Hugh Laurie

2005 Ian McShane

2005 Kiefer Sutherland 2006 Kiefer Sutherland

2006 Peter Krause

2006 Denis Leary

2006 Christopher Meloni

2006 Martin Sheen 2007 James Spader

2007 James Gandolfini

2007 Hugh Laurie

2007 Denis Leary

2007 Kiefer Sutherland 2008 Bryan Cranston

2008 Gabriel Byrne

2008 Michael C. Hall

2008 Jon Hamm

2008 Hugh Laurie

2008 James Spader 2009 Bryan Cranston

2009 Simon Baker

2009 Gabriel Byrne

2009 Michael C. Hall

2009 Jon Hamm

2009 Hugh Laurie 2010 Bryan Cranston

2010 Kyle Chandler

2010 Matthew Fox

2010 Michael C. Hall

2010 Jon Hamm

2010 Hugh Laurie 2011 Kyle Chandler

2011 Steve Buscemi

2011 Michael C. Hall

2011 Jon Hamm

2011 Hugh Laurie

2011 Timothy Olyphant 2012 Damian Lewis

2012 Hugh Bonneville

2012 Steve Buscemi

2012 Bryan Cranston

2012 Michael C. Hall

2012 Jon Hamm 2013 Jeff Daniels

2013 Hugh Bonneville

2013 Bryan Cranston

2013 Jon Hamm

2013 Damian Lewis

2013 Kevin Spacey 2014 Bryan Cranston

2014 Jeff Daniels

2014 Jon Hamm

2014 Woody Harrelson

2014 Matthew McConaughey

2014 Kevin Spacey 2015 Jon Hamm

2015 Kyle Chandler

2015 Jeff Daniels

2015 Bob Odenkirk

2015 Liev Schreiber

2015 Kevin Spacey

Five Outstanding Actor in a Drama awards have gone to people of color  three of these awards went to Bill Cosby for I, Spy from 19661968 (Cosby was also the first black actor to ever win a Primetime Emmy). James Earl Jones won in 1991 for Gabriels Fire, and Andre Braugher took home the trophy in 1998 for Homicide: Life on the Street. Fourteen of the 275 nominees in this category, or 5.1 percent, have been men of color: Jimmy Smits was notably nominated five times for NYPD: Blue. No people of color have been nominated in this category since Braughers nomination for Gideons Crossing, in 2001.

1954 Eve Arden

1954 Lucille Ball

1954 Imogene Coca

1954 Dinah Shore

1954 Loretta Young 1955 Loretta Young

1955 Gracie Allen

1955 Eve Arden

1955 Lucille Ball

1955 Ann Sothern 1956 Lucille Ball

1956 Gracie Allen

1956 Eve Arden

1956 Jean Hagen

1956 Ann Sothern 1957 Loretta Young

1957 Jan Clayton

1957 Ida Lupino

1957 Peggy Wood

1957 Jane Wyman 1958 Jane Wyatt

1958 Eve Arden

1958 Spring Byington

1958 Jan Clayton

1958 Ida Lupino 1959 Loretta Young

1959 Jan Clayton

1959 Phyllis Kirk

1959 Jane Wyman 1960 Jane Wyman

1960 Donna Reed

1960 Loretta Young 1961 Barbara Stanwyck

1961 Donna Reed

1961 Loretta Young 1962 Shirley Booth

1962 Gertrude Berg

1962 Donna Reed

1962 Mary Stuart

1962 Cara Williams 1963 Shirley Booth

1963 Lucille Ball

1963 Shirl Conway

1963 Mary Tyler Moore

1963 Irene Ryan 1964 Mary Tyler Moore

1964 Shirley Booth

1964 Patty Duke

1964 Irene Ryan

1964 Inger Stevens 1966 Barbara Stanwyck

1966 Ann Francis

1966 Barbara Parkins 1967 Barbara Bain

1967 Diana Rigg

1967 Barbara Stanwyck 1968 Barbara Bain

1968 Diana Rigg

1968 Barbara Stanwyck 1969 Barbara Bain

1969 Joan Blondell

1969 Peggy Lipton 1970 Susan Hampshire

1970 Joan Blondell

1970 Peggy Lipton 1971 Susan Hampshire

1971 Linda Cristal

1971 Peggy Lipton 1972 Glenda Jackson

1972 Peggy Lipton

1972 Susan Saint James 1973 Michael Learned

1973 Lynda Day George

1973 Susan Saint James 1974 Michael Learned

1974 Jean Marsh

1974 Jeanette Nolan 1975 Jean Marsh

1975 Angie Dickinson

1975 Michael Learned 1976 Michael Learned

1976 Angie Dickinson

1976 Anne Meara

1976 Brenda Vaccaro 1977 Lindsay Wagner

1977 Angie Dickinson

1977 Kate Jackson

1977 Michael Learned

1977 Sada Thompson 1978 Sada Thompson

1978 Melissa Sue Anderson

1978 Fionnula Flanagan

1978 Kate Jackson

1978 Michael Learned

1978 Susan Sullivan 1979 Mariette Hartley

1979 Barbara Bel Geddes

1979 Rita Moreno

1979 Sada Thompson 1980 Barbara Bel Geddes

1980 Lauren Bacall

1980 Mariette Hartley

1980 Kristy McNichol

1980 Sada Thompson 1981 Barbara Babcock

1981 Barbara Bel Geddes

1981 Linda Gray

1981 Veronica Hamel

1981 Michael Learned

1981 Stefanie Powers 1982 Michael Learned

1982 Debbie Allen

1982 Veronica Hamel

1982 Michelle Lee

1982 Stefanie Powers 1983 Tyne Daly

1983 Debbie Allen

1983 Linda Evans

1983 Sharon Gless

1983 Veronica Hamel 1984 Tyne Daly

1984 Debbie Allen

1984 Joan Collins

1984 Sharon Gless

1984 Veronica Hamel 1985 Tyne Daly

1985 Debbie Allen

1985 Sharon Gless

1985 Veronica Hamel

1985 Angela Lansbury 1986 Sharon Gless

1986 Tyne Daly

1986 Angela Lansbury

1986 Cybill Shepherd

1986 Alfre Woodard 1987 Sharon Gless

1987 Tyne Daly

1987 Susan Dey

1987 Jill Eikenberry

1987 Angela Lansbury 1988 Tyne Daly

1988 Susan Dey

1988 Jill Eikenberry

1988 Sharon Gless

1988 Angela Lansbury 1989 Dana Delany

1989 Susan Dey

1989 Jill Eikenberry

1989 Linda Hamilton

1989 Angela Lansbury 1990 Patricia Wettig

1990 Dana Delany

1990 Jill Eikenberry

1990 Angela Lansbury

1990 Piper Laurie 1991 Patricia Wettig

1991 Dana Delany

1991 Sharon Gless

1991 Angela Lansbury 1992 Dana Delany

1992 Sharon Gless

1992 Shirley Knight

1992 Angela Lansbury

1992 Kate Nelligan

1992 Regina Taylor 1993 Kathy Baker

1993 Swoosie Kurtz

1993 Angela Lansbury

1993 Regina Taylor

1993 Janine Turner 1994 Sela Ward

1994 Kathy Baker

1994 Swoosie Kurtz

1994 Angela Lansbury

1994 Jane Seymour 1995 Kathy Baker

1995 Claire Danes

1995 Angela Lansbury

1995 Sherry Stringfield

1995 Cicely Tyson 1996 Kathy Baker

1996 Gillian Anderson

1996 Christine Lahti

1996 Angela Lansbury

1996 Sherry Stringfield 1997 Gillian Anderson

1997 Roma Downey

1997 Christine Lahti

1997 Julianna Margulies

1997 Sherry Stringfield 1998 Christine Lahti

1998 Gillian Anderson

1998 Roma Downey

1998 Julianna Margulies

1998 Jane Seymour 1999 Edie Falco

1999 Gillian Anderson

1999 Margulies Bracco

1999 Christine Lahti

1999 Julianna Margulies 2000 Sela Ward

2000 Loraine Bracco

2000 Amy Brenneman

2000 Edie Falco

2000 Julianna Margulies 2001 Edie Falco

2001 Loraine Bracco

2001 Amy Brenneman

2001 Marg Helgenberger

2001 Sela Ward 2002 Allison Janney

2002 Amy Brenneman

2002 Frances Conroy

2002 Jennifer Garner

2002 Rachel Griffiths 2003 Edie Falco

2003 Frances Conroy

2003 Jennifer Garner

2003 Marg Helgenberger

2003 Allison Janney 2004 Allison Janney

2004 Edie Falco

2004 Jennifer Garner

2004 Mariska Hargitay

2004 Amber Tamblyn 2005 Patricia Arquette

2005 Glenn Close

2005 Frances Conroy

2005 Jennifer Garner

2005 Mariska Hargitay 2006 Mariska Hargitay

2006 Frances Conroy

2006 Geena Davis

2006 Allison Janney

2006 Kyra Sedgwick 2007 Sally Field

2007 Patricia Arquette

2007 Minnie Driver

2007 Edie Falco

2007 Mariska Hargitay

2007 Kyra Sedgwick 2008 Glenn Close

2008 Sally Field

2008 Mariska Hargitay

2008 Holly Hunter

2008 Kyra Sedgwick 2009 Glenn Close

2009 Sally Field

2009 Mariska Hargitay

2009 Holly Hunter

2009 Elisabeth Moss

2009 Kyra Sedgwick 2010 Kyra Sedgwick

2010 Connie Britton

2010 Glenn Close

2010 Mariska Hargitay

2010 January Jones

2010 Julianna Margulies 2011 Julianna Margulies

2011 Kathy Bates

2011 Connie Britton

2011 Mireille Enos

2011 Mariska Hargitay

2011 Elisabeth Moss 2012 Claire Danes

2012 Kathy Bates

2012 Glenn Close

2012 Michelle Dockery

2012 Julianna Margulies

2012 Elisabeth Moss 2013 Claire Danes

2013 Connie Britton

2013 Michelle Dockery

2013 Vera Farmiga

2013 Elisabeth Moss

2013 Kerry Washington

2013 Robin Wright 2014 Julianna Margulies

2014 Lizzy Caplan

2014 Claire Danes

2014 Michelle Dockery

2014 Kerry Washington

2014 Robin Wright 2015 Viola Davis

2015 Claire Danes

2015 Taraji P. Henson

2015 Tatiana Maslany

2015 Elisabeth Moss

2015 Robin Wright

When it comes to acting winners, this is the least diverse category. The only person of color to ever win here is Viola Davis, who took home the Emmy in 2015 for How to Get Away With Murder. Fourteen of the 244 nominees in this category, or 5.7 percent, have been women of color: Debbie Allen alone was nominated four times for Fame. No women of color were nominated in this category between 19962012; since 2013, there have been four nominations for actresses of color for Kerry Washington (twice), Taraji P. Henson, and Davis.

1954 Art Carney

1954 Ben Alexander

1954 William Frawley

1954 Tony Randall

1954 Carl Reiner 1955 Art Carney

1955 Ben Alexander

1955 Don DeFore

1955 William Frawley

1955 Gale Gordon 1956 Art Carney

1956 Ed Begley

1956 William Frawley

1956 Carl Reiner

1956 Cyril Ritchard 1957 Carl Reiner

1957 Art Carney

1957 Paul Ford

1957 William Frawley

1957 Ed Wynn 1958 Carl Reiner

1958 Paul Ford

1958 William Frawley

1958 Louis Nye

1958 Dennis Weaver 1959 Dennis Weaver

1959 Herschel Bernardi

1959 Johnny Crawford

1959 William Hopper 1961 Don Knotts

1961 Abby Dalton

1961 Barbara Hale 1962 Don Knotts

1962 Sam Jaffe

1962 Barry Jones

1962 Horace McMahon

1962 George C. Scott 1963 Don Knotts

1963 Tim Conway

1963 Paul Ford

1963 Hurd Hatfield

1963 Robert Redford 1964 Albert Paulsen

1964 Sorrell Booke

1964 Conlan Carter

1964 Carl Lee 1966 James Daly

1966 David Burns

1966 Leo G. Carroll 1967 Eli Wallach

1967 Leo G. Carroll

1967 Leonard Nimoy 1968 Milburn Stone

1968 Joseph Campanella

1968 Lawrence Dobkin

1968 Leonard Nimoy 1969 Werner Klemperer

1969 Greg Morris

1969 Leonard Nimoy 1970 James Brolin

1970 Tige Andrews

1970 Greg Morris 1971 David Burns

1971 James Brolin

1971 Robert Young 1972 Jack Warden

1972 James Brolin

1972 Greg Morris 1973 Scott Jacoby

1973 James Brolin

1973 Will Geer 1974 Michael Moriarty

1974 Michael Douglas

1974 Will Geer

1974 Sam Waterston 1975 Will Geer

1975 J.D. Cannon

1975 Michael Douglas 1976 Anthony Zerbe

1976 Michael Douglas

1976 Will Geer

1976 Ray Milland

1976 Robert Reed 1977 Gary Frank

1977 Noah Beery Jr.

1977 David Doyle

1977 Tom Ewell

1977 Will Geer 1978 Robert Vaughn

1978 Ossie Davis

1978 Will Geer

1978 Sam Wanamaker

1978 David Warner 1979 Stuart Margolin

1979 Mason Adams

1979 Noah Beery Jr.

1979 Joe Santos

1979 Robert Walden 1980 Stuart Margolin

1980 Mason Adams

1980 Noah Beery Jr.

1980 Robert Walden 1981 Michael Conrad

1981 Mason Adams

1981 Charles Haid

1981 Robert Walden

1981 Bruce Weitz 1982 Michael Conrad

1982 Taurean Blacque

1982 Charles Haid

1982 Michael Warren

1982 Bruce Weitz 1983 James Coco

1983 Ed Begley Jr.

1983 Michael Conrad

1983 Joe Spano

1983 Bruce Weitz 1984 Bruce Weitz

1984 Ed Begley Jr.

1984 Michael Conrad

1984 John Hillerman

1984 James B. Sikking 1985 Edward James Olmos

1985 Ed Begley Jr.

1985 John Hillerman

1985 John Karlen

1985 Bruce Weitz 1986 John Karlen

1986 Ed Begley Jr.

1986 John Hillerman

1986 Edward James Olmos

1986 Bruce Weitz 1987 John Hillerman

1987 Ed Begley Jr.

1987 John Karlen

1987 Jimmy Smits

1987 Michael Tucker 1988 Larry Drake

1988 Ed Begley Jr.

1988 Timothy Busfield

1988 Alan Rachins

1988 Jimmy Smits 1989 Larry Drake

1989 Jonathan Banks

1989 Timothy Busfield

1989 Richard Dysart

1989 Jimmy Smits 1990 Jimmy Smits

1990 Timothy Busfield

1990 Larry Drake

1990 Richard Dysart

1990 Dean Stockwell 1991 Timothy Busfield

1991 David Clennon

1991 Richard Dysart

1991 Jimmy Smits

1991 Dean Stockwell 1992 Richard Dysart

1992 Ed Asner

1992 John Corbett

1992 Richard Kiley

1992 Jimmy Smits

1992 Dean Stockwell 1993 Chad Lowe

1993 Barry Corbin

1993 John Collum

1993 Fyvush Finkel

1993 Dean Stockwell 1994 Fyvush Finkel

1994 Gordon Clapp

1994 Barry Corbin

1994 Nicholas Turturro

1994 Ray Walston 1995 Ray Walston

1995 Hector Elizondo

1995 James Earl Jones

1995 Eriq La Salle

1995 Noah Wyle 1996 Ray Walston

1996 Hector Elizondo

1996 James McDaniel

1996 Stanley Tucci

1996 Noah Wyle 1997 Hector Elizondo

1997 Adam Arkin

1997 Eriq La Salle

1997 Nicholas Turturro

1997 Noah Wyle 1998 Gordon Clapp

1998 Hector Elizondo

1998 Steven Hill

1998 Eriq La Salle

1998 Noah Wyle 1999 Michael Badalucco

1999 Benjamin Bratt

1999 Steve Harris

1999 Steven Hill

1999 Noah Wyle 2000 Richard Schiff

2000 Michael Badalucco

2000 Dominic Chianese

2000 Steve Harris

2000 John Spencer 2001 Bradley Whitford

2001 Dominic Chianese

2001 Michael Imperioli

2001 Richard Schiff

2001 John Spencer 2002 John Spencer

2002 Victor Garber

2002 Dule Hill

2002 Freddy Rodriguez

2002 Richard Schiff

2002 Bradley Whitford 2003 Joe Pantoliano

2003 Victor Garber

2003 Michael Imperioli

2003 John Spencer

2003 Bradley Whitford 2004 Michael Imperioli

2004 Steve Buscemi

2004 Brad Dourif

2004 Victor Garber

2004 John Spencer 2005 William Shatner

2005 Alan Alda

2005 Naveen Andrews

2005 Terry O'Quinn

2005 Oliver Platt 2006 Alan Alda

2006 Michael Imperioli

2006 Gregory Itzin

2006 Oliver Platt

2006 William Shatner 2007 Terry O'Quinn

2007 Michael Emerson

2007 Michael Imperioli

2007 T. R. Knight

2007 Masi Oka

2007 William Shatner 2008 Zeljko Ivanek

2008 Ted Danson

2008 Michael Emerson

2008 William Shatner

2008 John Slattery 2009 Michael Emerson

2009 Christian Clemenson

2009 William Hurt

2009 Aaron Paul

2009 William Shatner

2009 John Slattery 2010 Aaron Paul

2010 Andre Braugher

2010 Michael Emerson

2010 Terry O'Quinn

2010 Martin Short

2010 John Slattery 2011 Peter Dinklage

2011 Andre Braugher

2011 Josh Charles

2011 Alan Cumming

2011 Walton Goggins

2011 John Slattery 2012 Aaron Paul

2012 Jim Carter

2012 Brendan Coyle

2012 Peter Dinklage

2012 Giancarlo Esposito

2012 Jared Harris 2013 Bobby Cannavale

2013 Jonathan Banks

2013 Jim Carter

2013 Peter Dinklage

2013 Mandy Patinkin

2013 Aaron Paul 2014 Aaron Paul

2014 Jim Carter

2014 Josh Charles

2014 Peter Dinklage

2014 Mandy Patinkin

2014 Jon Voight 2015 Peter Dinklage

2015 Jonathan Banks

2015 Jim Carter

2015 Alan Cumming

2015 Michael Kelly

2015 Ben Mendelsohn

Four actors of color have won here  Albert Paulsen in 1964 for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Edward James Olmos in 1985 for Miami Vice, Jimmy Smits in 1990 for L.A. Law, and Hector Elizondo in 1997 for Chicago Hope. Thirty-seven of the 257 nominees, or 14.4 percent, have gone to actors of color, making it the most diverse acting category, nominee-wise. Smits was nominated six times for L.A. Law, and Elizondo was nominated four times for Chicago Hope.

1954 Vivian Vance

1954 Bea Benaderet

1954 Ruth Gilbert

1954 Marion Lorne

1954 Audrey Meadows 1955 Audrey Meadows

1955 Bea Benaderet

1955 Jean Hagen

1955 Marion Lorne

1955 Vivian Vance 1956 Nanette Fabray

1956 Ann B. Davis

1956 Jean Hagen

1956 Audrey Meadows

1956 Thelma Ritter 1957 Pat Carroll

1957 Ann B. Davis

1957 Audrey Meadows

1957 Mildred Natwick

1957 Vivian Vance 1958 Ann B. Davis

1958 Pat Carroll

1958 Verna Felton

1958 Marion Lorne

1958 Vivian Vance 1959 Barbara Hale

1959 Lola Albright

1959 Amanda Blake

1959 Hope Emerson 1961 Don Knotts

1961 Abby Dalton

1961 Barbara Hale 1962 Pamela Brown

1962 Jeanne Cooper

1962 Colleen Dewhurst

1962 Joan Hackett

1962 Mary Wickes 1963 Glenda Farrell

1963 Davey Davison

1963 Nancy Malone

1963 Rose Marie

1963 Kate Reid 1964 Ruth White

1964 Martine Bartlett

1964 Anjanette Comer

1964 Rose Marie

1964 Claudia McNeil 1966 Lee Grant

1966 Diane Baker

1966 Pamela Franklin

1966 Jeanette Nolan 1967 Agnes Moorehead

1967 Tina Chen

1967 Ruth Warrick 1968 Barbara Anderson

1968 Linda Cristal

1968 Tessie O'Shea 1969 Susan Saint James

1969 Barbara Anderson

1969 Agnes Moorehead 1970 Gail Fisher

1970 Barbara Anderson

1970 Susan Saint James 1971 Margaret Leighton

1971 Gail Fisher

1971 Susan Saint James

1971 Elena Verdugo 1972 Jenny Agutter

1972 Gail Fisher

1972 Elena Verdugo 1973 Ellen Corby

1973 Gail Fisher

1973 Nancy Walker 1974 Joanna Miles

1974 Ellen Corby

1974 Nancy Walker 1975 Ellen Corby

1975 Angela Baddeley

1975 Nancy Walker 1976 Ellen Corby

1976 Angela Baddeley

1976 Susan Howard

1976 Dorothy McGuire

1976 Sada Thompson 1977 Kristy McNichol

1977 Meredith Baxter

1977 Ellen Corby

1977 Lee Meriwether

1977 Jacqueline Tong 1978 Nancy Marchand

1978 Meredith Baxter

1978 Tovah Feldshuh

1978 Linda Kelsey

1978 Kristy McNichol 1979 Kristy McNichol

1979 Linda Kelsey

1979 Nancy Marchand 1980 Nancy Marchand

1980 Nina Foch

1980 Linda Kelsey

1980 Jessica Walter 1981 Nancy Marchand

1981 Barbara Barrie

1981 Barbara Bosson

1981 Linda Kelsey

1981 Betty Thomas 1982 Nancy Marchand

1982 Barbara Bosson

1982 Julie Harris

1982 Linda Kelsey

1982 Betty Thomas 1983 Doris Roberts

1983 Barbara Bosson

1983 Christina Pickles

1983 Madge Sinclair

1983 Betty Thomas 1984 Alfre Woodard

1984 Barbara Bosson

1984 Piper Laurie

1984 Madge Sinclair

1984 Betty Thomas 1985 Betty Thomas

1985 Barbara Bosson

1985 Christina Pickles

1985 Doris Roberts

1985 Madge Sinclair 1986 Bonnie Bartlett

1986 Allyce Beasley

1986 Christina Pickles

1986 Betty Thomas 1987 Bonnie Bartlett

1987 Allyce Beasley

1987 Christina Pickles

1987 Susan Ruttan

1987 Betty Thomas 1988 Patricia Wettig

1988 Bonnie Bartlett

1988 Polly Draper

1988 Christina Pickles

1988 Susan Ruttan 1989 Melanie Mayron

1989 Michele Greene

1989 Lois Nettleton

1989 Amanda Plummer

1989 Susan Ruttan 1990 Marg Helgenberger

1990 Sherilyn Fenn

1990 Melanie Mayron

1990 Diana Muldaur

1990 Susan Ruttan 1991 Madge Sinclair

1991 Marg Helgenberger

1991 Piper Laurie

1991 Melanie Mayron

1991 Diana Muldaur 1992 Valerie Mahaffey

1992 Mary Alice

1992 Barbara Barrie

1992 Conchata Ferrell

1992 Cynthia Geary

1992 Marg Helgenberger

1992 Kay Lenz 1993 Mary Alice

1993 Cynthia Geary

1993 Kay Lenz

1993 Kellie Martin

1993 Peg Phillips 1994 Leigh Taylor-Young

1994 Amy Brenneman

1994 Jill Eikenberry

1994 Sharon Lawrence

1994 Gail O'Grady 1995 Julianna Margulies

1995 Barbara Babcock

1995 Tyne Daly

1995 Sharon Lawrence

1995 Gail O'Grady 1996 Tyne Daly

1996 Barbara Bosson

1996 Sharon Lawrence

1996 Julianna Margulies

1996 Gail O'Grady 1997 Kim Delaney

1997 Laura Innes

1997 C.C.H. Pounder

1997 Della Reese

1997 Gloria Reuben 1998 Camryn Manheim

1998 Kim Delaney

1998 Laura Innes

1998 Della Reese

1998 Gloria Reuben 1999 Holland Taylor

1999 Lara Flynn Boyle

1999 Kim Delaney

1999 Camryn Manheim

1999 Nancy Marchand 2000 Allison Janney

2000 Stockard Channing

2000 Tyne Daly

2000 Nancy Marchand

2000 Holland Taylor 2001 Allison Janney

2001 Stockard Channing

2001 Tyne Daly

2001 Maura Tierney

2001 Aida Turturro 2002 Stockard Channing

2002 Lauren Ambrose

2002 Tyne Daly

2002 Janel Moloney

2002 Mary-Louise Parker 2003 Tyne Daly

2003 Lauren Ambrose

2003 Stockard Channing

2003 Rachel Griffiths

2003 Lena Olin 2004 Drea de Matteo

2004 Stockard Channing

2004 Tyne Daly

2004 Janel Moloney

2004 Robin Weigert 2005 Blythe Danner

2005 Stockard Channing

2005 Tyne Daly

2005 Sandra Oh

2005 C.C.H. Pounder 2006 Blythe Danner

2006 Candice Bergen

2006 Sandra Oh

2006 Jean Smart

2006 Chandra Wilson 2007 Katherine Heigl

2007 Lorraine Bracco

2007 Rachel Griffiths

2007 Sandra Oh

2007 Aida Turturro

2007 Chandra Wilson 2008 Dianne Wiest

2008 Candice Bergen

2008 Rachel Griffiths

2008 Sandra Oh

2008 Chandra Wilson 2009 Cherry Jones

2009 Rose Byrne

2009 Hope Davis

2009 Sandra Oh

2009 Dianne Wiest

2009 Chandra Wilson 2010 Archie Panjabi

2010 Christine Baranski

2010 Rose Byrne

2010 Sharon Gless

2010 Christina Hendricks

2010 Elisabeth Moss 2011 Margo Martindale

2011 Christine Baranski

2011 Michelle Forbes

2011 Christina Hendricks

2011 Kelly Macdonald

2011 Archie Panjabi 2012 Maggie Smith

2012 Christine Baranski

2012 Joanne Froggatt

2012 Anna Gunn

2012 Christina Hendricks

2012 Archie Panjabi 2013 Anna Gunn

2013 Morena Baccarin

2013 Christine Baranski

2013 Emilia Clarke

2013 Christina Hendricks

2013 Maggie Smith 2014 Anna Gunn

2014 Christine Baranski

2014 Joanne Froggatt

2014 Lena Headey

2014 Christina Hendricks

2014 Maggie Smith 2015 Uzo Aduba

2015 Christine Baranski

2015 Emilia Clarke

2015 Joanne Froggatt

2015 Lena Headey

2015 Christina Hendricks

This is the second-most-diverse acting category when it comes to both nominees and winners. Six actors of color have taken home an Emmy here: Gail Fisher in 1970 for Mannix, Alfre Woodard in 1984 for Hill Street Blues, Madge Sinclair in 1991 for Gabriels Fire, Mary Alice in 1993 for Ill Fly Away, Archie Panjabi in 2010 for The Good Wife, and Uzo Aduba in 2015 for Orange Is the New Black. Thirty-four of the 249 nominees in this category, or 13.7 percent, have been actresses of color, and nearly half of them have been in the last 11 years. Fisher was nominated four times for Mannix, Sinclair was nominated three times for Trapper John, M.D., and once for Gabriels Fire, and Sandra Oh was nominated five times for Greys Anatomy.

1955 Robert Cummings

1955 Frank Lovejoy

1955 Fredric March

1955 Fredric March (again)

1955 Thomas Mitchell

1955 David Niven 1956 Lloyd Nolan

1956 Ralph Bellamy

1956 Jose Ferrer

1956 Everett Sloane

1956 Barry Sullivan 1957 Jack Palance

1957 Lloyd Bridges

1957 Fredric March

1957 Sal Mineo

1957 Red Skelton 1958 Peter Ustinov

1958 Lee J. Cobb

1958 Mickey Rooney

1958 David Wayne

1958 Ed Wynn 1959 Fred Astaire

1959 Robert Crawford Jr.

1959 Paul Muni

1959 Christopher Plummer

1959 Mickey Rooney

1959 Rod Steiger 1960 Laurence Olivier

1960 Lee J. Cobb

1960 Alec Guinness 1961 Maurice Evans

1961 Cliff Robertson

1961 Ed Wynn 1962 Peter Falk

1962 Milton Berle

1962 James Donald

1962 Lee Marvin

1962 Mickey Rooney 1963 Trevor Howard

1963 Bradford Dillman

1963 Don Gordon

1963 Walter Matthau

1963 Joseph Schildkraut 1964 Jack Klugman

1964 James Earl Jones

1964 Roddy McDowall

1964 Jason Robards

1964 Rod Steiger

1964 Harold J. Stone 1966 Cliff Robertson

1966 Ed Begley

1966 Melvyn Douglas

1966 Trevor Howard

1966 Christopher Plummer 1967 Peter Ustinov

1967 Alan Arkin

1967 Lee J. Cobb

1967 Ivan Dixon

1967 Hal Holbrook 1968 Melvyn Douglas

1968 Raymond Burr

1968 Van Heflin

1968 George C. Scott

1968 Eli Wallach 1969 Paul Scofield

1969 Ossie Davis

1969 David McCallum

1969 Bill Travers 1970 Peter Ustinov

1970 Al Freeman Jr.

1970 Laurence Olivier 1971 George C. Scott

1971 Jack Cassidy

1971 Hal Holbrook

1971 Richard Widmark

1971 Gig Young 1972 Keith Michell

1972 James Caan

1972 Richard Harris

1972 George C. Scott

1972 Billy Dee Williams 1973 Laurence Olivier

1973 Henry Fonda

1973 Hal Holbrook

1973 Telly Savalas

1973 Anthony Murphy

1973 John Abineri

1973 Philippe Leroy 1974 Hal Holbrook

1974 Alan Alda

1974 Dick Van Dyke

1974 Laurence Olivier

1974 Martin Sheen

1974 William Holden

1974 Peter Falk

1974 Dennis Weaver 1975 Laurence Olivier

1975 Richard Chamberlain

1975 Charles Durning

1975 William Devane

1975 Henry Fonda

1975 Peter Falk

1975 Dennis Weaver 1976 Anthony Hopkins

1976 William Devane

1976 Jack Lemmon

1976 Edward Herrmann

1976 Jason Robards

1976 Hal Holbrook

1976 Nick Nolte

1976 Peter Strauss

1976 George Grizzard 1977 Ed Flanders

1977 Peter Boyle

1977 Peter Finch

1977 Edward Herrmann

1977 George C. Scott

1977 Christopher Plummer

1977 Stanley Baker

1977 Richard Jordan

1977 Steven Keats 1978 Fred Astaire

1978 Alan Alda

1978 Hal Holbrook

1978 Martin Sheen

1978 James Stacy

1978 Michael Moriarty

1978 Hal Holbrook

1978 Jason Robards

1978 Fritz Weaver

1978 Paul Winfield 1979 Peter Strauss

1979 Ned Beatty

1979 Louis Gossett Jr.

1979 Kurt Russell 1980 Powers Boothe

1980 Tony Curtis

1980 Henry Fonda

1980 Jason Robards 1981 Anthony Hopkins

1981 Richard Chamberlain

1981 Toshiro Mifune

1981 Peter O'Toole

1981 Peter Strauss 1982 Mickey Rooney

1982 Anthony Andrews

1982 Philip Anglim

1982 Anthony Hopkins

1982 Jeremy Irons 1983 Tommy Lee Jones

1983 Robert Blake

1983 Richard Chamberlain

1983 Alec Guinness

1983 Roger Rees 1984 Laurence Olivier

1984 Ted Danson

1984 Louis Gossett Jr.

1984 Mickey Rooney

1984 Daniel J. Travanti 1985 Richard Crenna

1985 Richard Chamberlain

1985 James Garner

1985 Richard Kiley

1985 George C. Scott 1986 Dustin Hoffman

1986 Kirk Douglas

1986 Ben Gazzara

1986 John Lithgow

1986 Aidan Quinn 1987 James Woods

1987 Alan Arkin

1987 James Garner

1987 Louis Gossett Jr.

1987 Randy Quaid 1988 Jason Robards

1988 Hume Cronyn

1988 Danny Glover

1988 Stacy Keach

1988 Jack Lemmon 1989 James Woods

1989 Robert Duvall

1989 John Gielgud

1989 Tommy Lee Jones

1989 Ben Kingsley 1990 Hume Cronyn

1990 Michael Caine

1990 Art Carney

1990 Albert Finney

1990 Tom Hulce 1991 John Gielgud

1991 James Garner

1991 Dennis Hopper

1991 Sidney Poitier

1991 Christopher Walken 1992 Beau Bridges

1992 Ruben Blades

1992 Hume Cronyn

1992 Brian Dennehy

1992 Maximilian Schell 1993 Robert Morse

1993 Robert Blake

1993 Robert Duvall

1993 James Garner

1993 James Woods 1994 Hume Cronyn

1994 Michael Caine

1994 James Garner

1994 Matthew Modine

1994 Sam Waterston 1995 Raul Julia

1995 Charles S. Dutton

1995 John Goodman

1995 John Lithgow

1995 James Woods 1996 Alan Rickman

1996 Alec Baldwin

1996 Beau Bridges

1996 Laurence Fishburne

1996 Gary Sinise 1997 Armand Assante

1997 Beau Bridges

1997 Robert Duvall

1997 Laurence Fishburne

1997 Sidney Poitier 1998 Gary Sinise

1998 Jack Lemmon

1998 Sam Neill

1998 Ving Rhames

1998 Patrick Stewart 1999 Stanley Tucci

1999 Don Cheadle

1999 Ian Holm

1999 Jack Lemmon

1999 Sam Shepard 2000 Jack Lemmon

2000 Beau Bridges

2000 Brian Dennehy

2000 William H. Macy

2000 Liev Schreiber 2001 Kenneth Branagh

2001 Andy Garcia

2001 Gregory Hines

2001 Ben Kingsley

2001 Barry Pepper 2002 Albert Finney

2002 Kenneth Branagh

2002 Beau Bridges

2002 James Franco

2002 Michael Gambon 2003 William H. Macy

2003 Brad Garrett

2003 Paul Newman

2003 Tom Wilkinson

2003 James Woods 2004 Al Pacino

2004 Antonio Banderas

2004 James Brolin

2004 Mos Def

2004 Alan Rickman 2005 Geoffrey Rush

2005 Kenneth Branagh

2005 Ed Harris

2005 William H. Macy

2005 Jonathan Rhys Meyers 2006 Andre Braugher

2006 Charles Dance

2006 Ben Kingsley

2006 Donald Sutherland

2006 Jon Voight 2007 Robert Duvall

2007 Jim Broadbent

2007 William H. Macy

2007 Matthew Perry

2007 Tom Selleck 2008 Paul Giamatti

2008 Ralph Fiennes

2008 Ricky Gervais

2008 Kevin Spacey

2008 Tom Wilkinson 2009 Brendan Gleeson

2009 Kevin Bacon

2009 Kenneth Branagh

2009 Kevin Kline

2009 Ian McKellen

2009 Kiefer Sutherland 2010 Al Pacino

2010 Jeff Bridges

2010 Ian McKellen

2010 Dennis Quaid

2010 Michael Sheen 2011 Barry Pepper

2011 Idris Elba

2011 Laurence Fishburne

2011 William Hurt

2011 Greg Kinnear

2011 Edgar Ramirez 2012 Kevin Costner

2012 Benedict Cumberbatch

2012 Idris Elba

2012 Woody Harrelson

2012 Clive Owen

2012 Bill Paxton 2013 Michael Douglas

2013 Benedict Cumberbatch

2013 Matt Damon

2013 Toby Jones

2013 Al Pacino 2014 Benedict Cumberbatch

2014 Chiwetel Ejiofor

2014 Idris Elba

2014 Martin Freeman

2014 Mark Ruffalo

2014 Billy Bob Thornton 2015 Richard Jenkins

2015 Adrien Brody

2015 Ricky Gervais

2015 Timothy Hutton

2015 David Oyelowo

2015 Mark Rylance

Two actors of color have won in this category: Raul Julia for The Burning Season in 1995 (posthumously) and Andre Braugher for Thief in 2006. Thirty-three of the 331 nominees in this category, or 10 percent, have been men of color. Given the limited nature of miniseries, not many actors in this category have been nominated more than once (though Laurence Fishburne was, three times), meaning a greater number of working actors of color are represented here than in other categories.

1955 Judith Anderson

1955 Ethel Barrymore

1955 Beverly Garland

1955 Ruth Hussey

1955 Dorothy McGuire

1955 Eva Marie Saint

1955 Claire Trevor 1956 Mary Martin

1956 Julie Harris

1956 Eva Marie Saint

1956 Jessica Tandy

1956 Loretta Young 1957 Claire Trevor

1957 Edna Best

1957 Gracie Fields

1957 Nancy Kelly

1957 Evelyn Rudie 1958 Polly Bergen

1958 Julie Andrews

1958 Helen Hayes

1958 Piper Laurie

1958 Teresa Wright 1959 Julie Harris

1959 Judith Anderson

1959 Helen Hayes

1959 Piper Laurie

1959 Geraldine Page

1959 Maureen Stapleton 1960 Ingrid Bergman

1960 Julie Harris

1960 Teresa Wright 1961 Judith Anderson

1961 Ingrid Bergman

1961 Elizabeth Montgomery 1962 Julie Harris

1962 Geraldine Brooks

1962 Suzanne Pleshette

1962 Inger Stevens

1962 Ethel Waters 1963 Kim Stanley

1963 Diahann Carroll

1963 Diana Hyland

1963 Eleanor Parker

1963 Sylvia Sidney 1964 Shelley Winters

1964 Ruby Dee

1964 Bethel Leslie

1964 Jeanette Nolan

1964 Diana Sands 1966 Simone Signoret

1966 Eartha Kitt

1966 Margaret Leighton

1966 Shelley Winters 1967 Geraldine Page

1967 Shirley Booth

1967 Mildred Dunnock

1967 Lynn Fontanne

1967 Julie Harris 1968 Maureen Stapleton

1968 Judith Anderson

1968 Genevieve Bujold

1968 Colleen Dewhurst

1968 Anne Jackson 1969 Geraldine Page

1969 Anne Baxter

1969 Lee Grant 1970 Patty Duke

1970 Edith Evans

1970 Shirley Jones 1971 Lee Grant

1971 Colleen Dewhurst

1971 Lee Grant (two noms) 1972 Glenda Jackson

1972 Glenda Jackson (two noms)

1972 Helen Hayes

1972 Patricia Neal

1972 Susannah York 1973 Cloris Leachman

1973 Lauren Bacall

1973 Hope Lange

1973 Susan Hampshire

1973 Vivien Heilbron

1973 Margaret Tyzach 1974 Cicely Tyson

1974 Carol Burnett

1974 Katharine Hepburn

1974 Cloris Leachman

1974 Elizabeth Montgomery

1974 Mildred Natwick

1974 Helen Hayes

1974 Lee Remick 1975 Katharine Hepburn

1975 Jill Clayburgh

1975 Elizabeth Montgomery

1975 Diana Rigg

1975 Maureen Stapleton

1975 Jessica Walter

1975 Susan Saint James 1976 Susan Clark

1976 Jane Alexander

1976 Colleen Dewhurst

1976 Sada Thompson

1976 Rosemary Harris

1976 Susan Blakely

1976 Jean Marsh

1976 Lee Remick 1977 Sally Field

1977 Jane Alexander

1977 Susan Clark

1977 Julie Harris

1977 Joanne Woodward

1977 Patty Duke

1977 Dori Brenner

1977 Susan Flannery

1977 Eva Marie Saint

1977 Jane Seymour 1978 Joanne Woodward

1978 Helen Hayes

1978 Eva Marie Saint

1978 Maureen Stapleton

1978 Sada Thompson

1978 Meryl Streep

1978 Rosemary Harris

1978 Elizabeth Montgomery

1978 Lee Remick

1978 Cicely Tyson 1979 Bette Davis

1979 Carol Burnett

1979 Olivia Cole

1979 Katharine Hepburn

1979 Mary Tyler Moore 1980 Patty Duke

1980 Bette Davis

1980 Melissa Gilbert

1980 Lee Remick 1981 Vanessa Redgrave

1981 Ellen Burstyn

1981 Catherine Hicks

1981 Yoko Shimada

1981 Joanne Woodward 1982 Ingrid Bergman

1982 Glenda Jackson

1982 Ann Jillian

1982 Jean Stapleton

1982 Cicely Tyson 1983 Barbara Stanwyck

1983 Ann-Margret

1983 Rosanna Arquette

1983 Mariette Hartley

1983 Angela Lansbury 1984 Jane Fonda

1984 Jane Alexander

1984 Ann-Margret

1984 Glenn Close

1984 JoBeth Williams 1985 Joanne Woodward

1985 Jane Alexander

1985 Peggy Ashcroft

1985 Farrah Fawcett

1985 Mary Tyler Moore 1986 Marlo Thomas

1986 Katharine Hepburn

1986 Vanessa Redgrave

1986 Gena Rowlands

1986 Mare Winningham 1987 Gena Rowlands

1987 Ann-Margret

1987 Ellen Burstyn

1987 Lee Remick

1987 Alfre Woodard 1988 Jessica Tandy

1988 Ann Jillian

1988 Mary Tyler Moore

1988 Mary Steenburgen

1988 JoBeth Williams 1989 Holly Hunter

1989 Anjelica Huston

1989 Diane Lane

1989 Amy Madigan

1989 Jane Seymour 1990 Barbara Hershey

1990 Farrah Fawcett

1990 Christine Lahti

1990 Annette O'Toole

1990 Lesley Ann Warren

1990 Alfre Woodard 1991 Lynn Whitfield

1991 Glenn Close

1991 Barbara Hershey

1991 Suzanne Pleshette

1991 Lee Purcell 1992 Gena Rowlands

1992 Anne Bancroft

1992 Meredith Baxter

1992 Judy Davis

1992 Laura Dern 1993 Holly Hunter

1993 Glenn Close

1993 Helen Mirren

1993 Maggie Smith

1993 Joanne Woodward 1994 Kirstie Alley

1994 Bette Midler

1994 Helen Mirren

1994 Jessica Tandy

1994 Joanne Woodward 1995 Glenn Close

1995 Sally Field

1995 Anjelica Huston

1995 Diane Keaton

1995 Alfre Woodard 1996 Helen Mirren

1996 Ashley Judd

1996 Jessica Lange

1996 Mira Sorvino

1996 Sela Ward 1997 Alfre Woodard

1997 Stockard Channing

1997 Glenn Close

1997 Helen Mirren

1997 Meryl Streep 1998 Ellen Barkin

1998 Jamie Lee Curtis

1998 Judy Davis

1998 Olympia Dukakis

1998 Angelina Jolie

1998 Sigourney Weaver 1999 Helen Mirren

1999 Ann-Margret

1999 Stockard Channing

1999 Judy Davis

1999 Leelee Sobieski 2000 Halle Berry

2000 Judy Davis

2000 Sally Field

2000 Holly Hunter

2000 Gena Rowlands 2001 Judy Davis

2001 Judi Dench

2001 Holly Hunter

2001 Hannah Taylor Gordon

2001 Emma Thompson 2002 Laura Linney

2002 Angela Bassett

2002 Blythe Danner

2002 Vanessa Redgrave

2002 Gena Rowlands 2003 Maggie Smith

2003 Thora Birch

2003 Helena Bonham Carter

2003 Jessica Lange

2003 Helen Mirren 2004 Meryl Streep

2004 Glenn Close

2004 Judy Davis

2004 Helen Mirren

2004 Emma Thompson 2005 S. Epatha Merkerson

2005 Halle Berry

2005 Blythe Danner

2005 Cynthia Nixon

2005 Debra Winger 2006 Helen Mirren

2006 Gillian Anderson

2006 Kathy Bates

2006 Annette Bening

2006 Judy Davis 2007 Helen Mirren

2007 Queen Latifah

2007 Debra Messing

2007 Mary-Louise Parker

2007 Gena Rowlands 2008 Laura Linney

2008 Judi Dench

2008 Catherine Keener

2008 Phylicia Rashad

2008 Susan Sarandon 2009 Jessica Lange

2009 Drew Barrymore

2009 Shirley MacLaine

2009 Sigourney Weaver

2009 Chandra Wilson 2010 Claire Danes

2010 Joan Allen

2010 Hope Davis

2010 Judi Dench

2010 Maggie Smith 2011 Kate Winslet

2011 Taraji P. Henson

2011 Diane Lane

2011 Jean Marsh

2011 Elizabeth McGovern 2012 Julianne Moore

2012 Connie Britton

2012 Ashley Judd

2012 Nicole Kidman

2012 Emma Thompson 2013 Laura Linney

2013 Jessica Lange

2013 Helen Mirren

2013 Elisabeth Moss

2013 Sigourney Weaver 2014 Jessica Lange

2014 Helena Bonham Carter

2014 Minnie Driver

2014 Sarah Paulson

2014 Cicely Tyson

2014 Kristen Wiig 2015 Frances McDormand

2015 Maggie Gyllenhaal

2015 Felicity Huffman

2015 Jessica Lange

2015 Queen Latifah

2015 Emma Thompson

Five actresses of color have won in this category: Cicely Tyson in 1974 for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Lynn Whitfield in 1991 for The Josephine Baker Story, Alfre Woodard in 1997 for Miss Evers Boys, Halle Berry in 2000 for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and S. Epatha Merkerson in 2005 for Lackawanna Blues. Twenty-five of the 326 nominees in this category, or 7.7 percent, have been women of color. Woodard and Tyson were both nominated four times each  Tyson was also the first black actress to win a Primetime Emmy.

1975 Anthony Quayle

1975 Ralph Bellamy

1975 Jack Hawkins

1975 Trevor Howard 1976 Ed Flanders

1976 Ray Bolger

1976 Art Carney 1977 Burgess Meredith

1977 Martin Balsam

1977 Mark Harmon

1977 Yaphet Kotto

1977 Walter McGinn 1978 Howard Da Silva

1978 James Farentino

1978 Burgess Meredith

1978 Donald Pleasence

1978 Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 1979 Marlon Brando

1979 Ed Flanders

1979 Al Freeman, Jr.

1979 Robert Vaughn

1979 Paul Winfield 1980 George Grizzard

1980 Ernest Borgnine

1980 John Cassavetes

1980 Charles Durning

1980 Harold Gould 1981 David Warner

1981 Andy Griffith

1981 Yuki Meguro

1981 Anthony Quayle

1981 John Rhys-Davies 1982 Laurence Olivier

1982 Jack Albertson

1982 John Gielgud

1982 Derek Jacobi

1982 Leonard Nimoy 1983 Richard Kiley

1983 Ralph Bellamy

1983 Bryan Brown

1983 Christopher Plummer

1983 David Threlfall 1984 Art Carney

1984 Keith Carradine

1984 John Gielgud

1984 John Lithgow

1984 Randy Quaid

1984 David Ogden Stiers 1985 Karl Malden

1985 Richard Burton

1985 John Gielgud

1985 Richard Masur

1985 Rip Torn 1986 John Malkovich

1986 Charles Durning

1986 John Glover

1986 Harold Gould

1986 Pat Morita 1987 Dabney Coleman

1987 Stephen Collins

1987 John Glover

1987 Laurence Olivier

1987 Eli Wallach 1988 John Shea

1988 Dabney Coleman

1988 Anthony Quinn

1988 Ron Silver

1988 Bruce Weitz 1989 Derek Jacobi

1989 Armand Assante

1989 James Garner

1989 Danny Glover

1989 Corin Nemec 1990 Vincent Gardenia

1990 Ned Beatty

1990 Brian Dennehy

1990 Anthony Hopkins

1990 James Earl Jones

1990 Max von Sydow 1991 James Earl Jones

1991 Ruben Blades

1991 David Dukes

1991 Richard Kiley

1991 Leon Russom 1992 Hume Cronyn

1992 Brian Dennehy

1992 Hector Elizondo

1992 Jerry Orbach

1992 Ben Vereen 1993 Beau Bridges

1993 Brian Dennehy

1993 Jonathan Pryce

1993 Peter Riegert

1993
Theres nothing like a high school reunion to bring back memories  and more  and a 20-year-reunion does just that in Craig Wrights The Pavilion, staged this weekend by Baylor Theatre.

The three-person play focuses on a meeting of former high school sweethearts Peter (Cooper Hale) and Kari (Haley Evans), who come together at a 20th-year reunion of their Minnesota high school.

The reunion brings back warm memories for many of their classmates, but theirs has a painful one: Karis unexpected pregnancy that led Peter to dump her.

Two decades later, life has moved on. Shes married, childless and stuck in a boring bank job; hes an unhappy therapist fantasizing that the two of them can repair the relationship broken long ago. Their discussion, continued between frequent interactions with characters past and present, takes place in a lakeside pavilion that once was a part of their high school years, but now  metaphor alert  scheduled for destruction.

Written in 2000, The Pavilion is one of playwright Craig Wrights most frequently produced plays, though the writer is best known for his television work for Six Feet Under, Lost and Dirty Sexy Money.

For theater graduate student and director Aaron Brown, The Pavilion offers a chance to examine time and how it changes us. Its a bittersweet story. It makes you think and wonder what you are doing with your life, he said.

Brown found the play mixed the theatrical  its narrator (Lucas McCutchen) also plays 16 other characters, all in a minimal set  with the emotional.

It deals with regret, guilt, letting go of the past and the question what does time do us  all of that in an hour and a half, he said.

Balancing that expanse of time past, present and future is an obvious directorial challenge. So is working with actors still in college, but who play adults two decades removed from their high school days. Brown, at 29 and with six years teaching theater at Dawson High School in Pearland under his belt, at least has experienced a high school reunion, attending his 10th-year reunion last year.

I keep telling my cast, Trust me, guys, I know this,  he said.

While his Baylor cast may have needed advice on playing older characters, they had sufficient experience  namely, life in high school  to supply another part of the play, the backstories for many of the narrators 16 other characters, whom they quickly defined by personality types, extracurricular activities and high school status level.

Brown graduated from Oklahoma City University in 2009 with a degree in musical theater. He taught high school theater until deciding he wanted a change and applied to the Baylor theater arts departments graduate program. He is interested in collegiate work, where he can share with students his passion for the power that a beautiful story has.

After producing a play that addresses how the past shapes the present, what does he see as his future? That is the question. My wife wants to know, too, Brown said.

The Pavilion runs Thursday through Sunday at Baylors Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center. Those attending are cautioned that the play has some mature content and occasional strong language.
Look, at this stage, it's entirely possible that Irish fans could seriously put together a plan for Israel and Palestine if they made it to the quarter finals.

As of writing, Ireland is facing off against Italy in a last-ditch effort to stay in Euro '16 and the odds are... well, not in our favour.

So, continuing the grand tradition of Irish fans being of service to their fellow man in France, they've managed to sort out a roof dent on a Ford Ka. No, really.

Take a look.

So that's singing lullabies, serenading beautiful French women, fixing tyres, cleaning up after themselves, cheering on French police and panel-beating.

Imagine what we'd do if we made it to the Finals. We could sort out world peace at this rate.

Via YouTube
McLennan County commissioners will spend the next few months reviewing and finalizing the countys fiscal year 2017 budget as department heads submit requests.

During budget talks, the court also will evaluate its property, including the Seventh Street garage, and will revisit its use of state-mandated funds, including one dedicated to graffiti removal that hasnt been used in years.

Commissioners reviewed the countys state-mandated special revenue funds Wednesday. The funds are made up of fines collected according to state law and can be spent only for certain purposes.

Nothing is final in the budget until the court officially adopts the document, which it has until Aug. 26 to do. The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

County Auditor Stan Chambers said review of budget items that affect the tax rate and debt service fund will start at the next meeting.

Well come back to begin the real meaty portion of the proposed budget July 5, Chambers said.

Chambers again reminded commissioners of the untouched $1,170 sitting in one of the special revenue funds, which are not directly related to tax rates.

I havent seen any new money going into this fund in years, he said.

Money hasnt been spent from the fund since 2011 either.

The money in this special revenue fund  required by state law to exist  is specifically for graffiti removal. Money is directed to the fund when individuals pay fines up to $50 for defacing property with graffiti. State law requires the money be spent on graffiti-related items, including removal, education, prevention and intervention.

County Judge Scott Felton said he wishes someone in the community would apply to receive those funds.

Wed be glad to give the money and put it to use, Felton said.

Commissioner Lester Gibson said there is some original imagination on display in his neighborhood by way of graffiti. But removing the graffiti just opens the space up for new work, Gibson said.

Felton said after the meeting there could be some big-ticket items in the fiscal year 2017 budget, but that information is still being pieced together. He mentioned three road projects the county has eyed for some time: Speegleville Road, Surrey Ridge Lane and Chapel Road. Felton said those street improvements will cost about $32 million.

Commissioners Tuesday approved moving forward with issuing a $10 million certificate of obligation before the fiscal year ends to help start those projects, among others. The court is considering issuing $20 million certificates of obligation in both fiscal years 2017 and 2018.

Part of that funding is needed to remedy the countys Americans With Disabilities Act violations. Felton said the county has an engineering consultant working to outline more than 350 violations cited by the Department of Justice, but a final price tag has not been made for all the work.

We know what we need, Felton said. Were trying to figure out what its going to cost.

The DOE returned a list of violations to the county in 2014, and they reached a settlement outlining the final list of 350 violations in November 2015. The countys final deadlines for compliance are in 2018.

Felton said commissioners also will look during budget talks at how to be more efficient with county-owned buildings.

The county owns a building at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Seventh Street that is used as a garage. Felton said the downtown property would serve the county better in another capacity, and the garage could be moved elsewhere. Most of the county employees use gas cards and dont need to stop at the garage to fuel up in downtown, he said.

The facility also is cramped for space because it also serves as a garage to perform maintenance on county-owned vehicles or to retrofit new vehicles to fit sheriffs deputys needs. Material is stacked to the ceiling inside because of a lack of space, Felton said. That location could be used for added parking or sold back to a private owner to get it on the tax rolls, he said.

Its not a very attractive building, Felton said.
The attorney representing a Waco man who filed a complaint claiming he was choked by a Waco police officer during an arrest in May is awaiting evidence from the McLennan County District Attorneys Office before deciding whether to file a civil rights lawsuit.

Attorney Jason Darling is representing Qualon Deshon Weaver, 35. Darling said Weaver requested his services after being charged with possession of marijuana in a drug-free zone and evading arrest. Weaver was arrested after a traffic stop near Rapoport Academy on May 4.

While discussing the charges, Weaver told Darling an officer grabbed him by the throat as two other officers saw what was happening and did nothing to stop it, Darling said.

Darling said any further action on his part will depend on what evidence in the case shows.

He (Weaver) had mentioned the choking, and right now we have filed a discovery of evidence motion with the DAs office so we can review it to see if his civil rights were violated, Darling said. He requested services from our office in the first week of May, and we requested the dash-cam video and information in the second week of May. We are still waiting to hear back.

Darling said motions for discovery typically take several weeks, but he expects to hear back on his motion within the next 30 days.

Shortly after his arrest and after he bonded out of jail, Weaver filed a complaint against the three officers involved in his arrest, Darling said.

Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton reported Tuesday the complaint had resulted in criminal and internal department investigations.

Swanton said the complaint indicated that one officer allegedly grabbed Weaver by his throat, while the other two officers on the scene did not stop the incident.

Serious allegations

These are serious allegations, especially with all the police brutality that is being reported around the country, Darling said.

Swanton said the three officers were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the departments investigations. He declined to release the names of the officers involved or any additional records or information related to the case.

He (Weaver) does not remember the names of the officers who arrested him, Darling said.

According to police records, officer Kevin Spicer, who has been a commissioned officer for more than five years, issued Weaver citations for driving with an invalid license and for failure to identify himself during the arrest. Swanton confirmed the citations were issued but declined to say whether Spicer was one of the officers placed on administrative leave.

The Tribune-Herald has asked for several records related to the case, which have not been released as of Wednesday.

Complaints against officers are taken seriously, and evidence and facts will determine any future action by administration, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman said in a statement Tuesday.
The new Robinson city manager likes a challenge.

After a month on the job, Craig Lemin has received an earful about city street conditions from residents while also working to prepare the proposed fiscal year 2017 budget.

Lemin, who has 32 years of experience in public service, said besides liking the area and being close to his children in Fort Worth, he was attracted to the position because he thinks his experience can help Robinson.

I thought, Can I go in there and take everything Ive learned and help move this city in the right direction?  he said. It looks like a city that has a lot of things in place, it just needs a person to come in and bring it together. I like to feel like Im making a difference.

Lemin signed his contract with the city at a special meeting May 10, not long after the council opted to end its contract with former city manager Bob Cervenka. City leaders have faced growing tension with residents over the years as street improvement work has not lived up to expectations.

Lemin said he has already allowed a few residents to take him to see some of the street damage and has learned the city took on a pretty ambitious project. The one-size-fits-all project didnt succeed, and now hes working to gather information on how to best move forward, he said.

Lemin said he has met with city employees to review true costs of the work done so far and to develop options for how the city can move forward with a more efficient plan.

I think the one thing people are going to have to recognize is were not going to be able to do as much as was promised, he said

The amount of work needed will take longer and cost more than originally reported, he said.

Mayor Bert Echterling said hes excited Lemin joined the city.

Developing a plan

It seems as if Mr. Craig is digging in and learning pretty quickly what some of our deficiencies are and he looks like hes developing a plan to put us on the right path, Echterling said. Im laying back a little bit and letting him get a feel for the job, and its really like an outside opinion coming in getting a fresh point of view.

Echterling said Lemin already has discovered the importance of improving city streets and will bring the council a plan with options on how to address improvements.

Lemin retired from the city of Azle in January. He served as the city manger from February 2004 until January and managed 130 employees and an $18 million annual budget. He said there are a lot of similarities between where Robinson is now and where Azle was when he first got there.

Both cities faced heavy infrastructure needs and a damaged relationship between city officials and the rest of the community. However, in this case, Robinson is in good shape financially, whereas Azle was on the verge of being broke.

Lemin said its a little different parachuting into the middle of it versus working his way up the ladder like he did in Azle.

Knowing that, he said, as he moves forward preparing a proposed fiscal year 2017 budget he will include options because he knows the council has a better feel for the communitys needs.

Lemin was the city of Azles assistant city manager and director of administrative services from January 2001 to February 2004 and served as the Azle police chief for six years after working his way up through the ranks. He also was a Benbrook Police Department detective.

Lemin said he has been in positions of leadership much of his life as he immerses himself in his work. Lemin, who has a masters in public administration from the University of North Texas, said schools teach a lot of theories about how to manage. The key is to be adaptable, he said. There are times when a city manager must play an authoritarian role, while others its best to serve as a mentor, he said.

Staying flexible

Lemin said its important to be flexible, not micromanage staff and to be approachable. Lemin said hes not into summoning people to my office and recognizes that smaller cities function better as a strong team or with a family-like feeling.

We all have to work together, and no one department is more important than the other, even though sometimes some think they are, he said. None of them can do what they need to do without the support of the others. Its all interconnected.

Lemin said its his responsibility to help improve the relationship between the city and its residents. The best way to do that is to be honest and accessible, he said. Each employee has to be professional and efficient and if someone makes a mistake, own up to it and correct it, he said.

Just be honest. Most people, if youll explain to them why youre doing something, theyll understand, he said.

Lemin said one of the better aspects of Robinson that most residents may not be aware of is how water-secure the city is for years to come. Lemin said at a time when the state of Texas is facing severe water shortages, the city of Robinson is in a strong position in regards to accessing water and because of that, has room for growth.

I know just from my short time here, there are some parts of the community that want to see Robinson grow and there are some people that dont, he said.

But the benefits of having the interstate nearby is that the city can grow along that route, while still maintaining a small-town feel in the middle of the city, he said.
Theres an old adage about a vat of wine standing next to a vat of sewage. Add a cup of wine to the sewage, and it is still sewage. But add a cup of sewage to the wine, and it is no longer wine but sewage. Is this what Donald Trump has done to our politics?

 Martha Bayles, in the Claremont Review of Books

Yes  as Republicans should remember when their convention opens in less than a month, on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trumps disparagement of John McCain as unheroic because he was captured. McCain was captured (with a broken leg and two broken arms) when North Vietnamese shot down his plane. He chose extra years of torture, refusing to leave when his torturers wanted to release him because he was an admirals son.

Trump says, however, that he, too, has been very brave by ignoring the danger of venereal disease during his sexual adventures: It is a dangerous world out there  its scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam, I feel like a great and very brave soldier. He was serious; irony is not in this narcissists repertoire. And there is a reason why Britains staid Economist magazine refers to Trumps look of a roue gone to seed.

Every republic, writes Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, eventually faces what might be called the Weimar problem. It arrives when a nations civic culture has become so debased that the nation no longer has the virtues necessary to sustain republican government. Do not dwell on what came after the Weimar republic. But do consider the sufficiency of virtue that the Constitutions Framers presupposed.

Kesler recalls that James Madisons famous notes on the Constitutional Convention contain this from the July 17, 1787, debate on the proposal to have presidents chosen by Congress: Rather than making the president a creature of the legislature, Gouverneur Morris favored election by the people. Rejecting the criticism that the people will be uninformed, he said: They will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character or services; some man . . . of continental reputation.

In Trump, Republicans have someone whose reputation is continental only in being broadly known. He illustrates Daniel Boorstins definition of a celebrity as someone well-known for his well-knownness. It will be wonderful if Trump tries to translate notoriety into fulfillment of his vow  as carefully considered as anything else about his candidacy  to carry New York and California. He should be taunted into putting his meager campaign funds where his ample mouth is. Every dime or day he squanders on those states will contribute to a redemptive outcome, a defeat so humiliating  so continental  that even Republicans will be edified by it.

Trumps campaign has less cash ($1.3 million) than some congressional candidates have, so Republican donors have never been more important than they are at this moment. They can save their party by not aiding its nominee.

Events already have called his bluff about funding himself and thereby being uniquely his own man. His wealth is insufficient. Only he knows what he is hiding by being the first presidential nominee in two generations not to release his tax returns. It is reasonable to assume that the returns would refute many of his assertions about his net worth, his charitableness and his supposed business wizardry. They might also reveal some awkwardly small tax payments.

If his fear of speculation about his secrecy becomes greater than his fear of embarrassment from what he is being secretive about, he will release the returns. He should attach to them a copy of his University of Pennsylvania transcript, to confirm his claim that he got the highest grades possible. There are skeptics.

Various Republican moral contortionists continue their semantic somersaults about supporting but not endorsing Trump. In Cleveland, they will point him toward the highest elective office in a country they profess to love but that he calls a hellhole. When asked in a 1990 Playboy interview about his historical role models, he mentioned Winston Churchill but enthused about others who led the ultimate life:

Ive always thought that Louis B. Mayer led the ultimate life, that Flo Ziegfeld led the ultimate life, that men like Darryl Zanuck and Harry Cohn did some creative and beautiful things. The ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the 30s and 40s  pre-television.

Yes, that job  not the one he seeks.

Famed conservative columnist George Will is also a contributor to Fox News daytime and prime-time programming. His books include One Mans America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation.
FICTION

Buffalo Jump Blues: A Sean Stranahan Mystery

By Kevin McCafferty

In the wake of Fourth of July fireworks in Montanas Madison Valley, Sheriff Ettinger and Deputy Sheriff Little Feather investigate a horrific scene at the Palisades cliffs, where a herd of bison have fallen to their deaths. An Indian man is found dead among the bison, his leg pierced by an arrow. Farther up the valley, fly fisherman, painter and sometime private detective Sean Stranahan has been hired by the beautiful Ida Evening Star, a Chippewa Cree woman, to find her old flame. It appears that his search leads right to the buffalo jump.

The Dog That Whispered

By Jim Kraus

Wilson Steele is a single professor and Vietnam veteran who likes living alone, insisting its too late to have a family. His mother disagrees. She adopted Thurman, a rescued black lab mix that she insists is special. The dog has whispered of the coming of grandchildren. When his mother cant have pets at the retirement facility, she forces Wilson to take Thurman. Wilson notices Thurmans growls do sound like words, but he knows hes just projecting his own thoughts on the animal. Wilson finds himself talking to neighbors now and spending time with Emily, a widow with three children. Could this be because of Thurman?

A Lowcountry Wedding

By Mary Alice Monroe

Wedding season has arrived in New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroes novel set against the romantic, charming Charleston Lowcountry. Nothing could be more enchanting than a summer wedding or two in Charlestons fabled lowcountry. Yet when a stranger arrives, a long-held family secret could silence the bells ringing for the Muir sisters. Scandals surface, family bonds are questioned, and promises are broken and renewed. A Lowcountry Wedding delves into the heart of marriage, commitment and family ties. Monroe serves up a great beach read for the summer.

The Fireman

By Joe Hill

Here is a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit and Seattle. Nurse Harper Grayson treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Harper is pregnant and suspects she is infected. In the chaos there is one man, the Fireman, who may be able to save the child.

Assassins Silence

By Ward Larsen

When it comes to disappearing, David Slaton has few equals. The retired Mossad assassin is hiding out in Malta as a stone mason in order to keep his wife and son safe. Unexpectedly, an assault team attacks him but Slaton is able to escape. He goes on the run across Europe and as he flees violence erupts. The CIA takes notice of these incidents. Then half a world away, in the Amazon, an obscure air cargo plane disappears. It appears the two occurrences are linked. The CIA discovers that the airliner has been modified into a tool of unimaginable terror. The CIA must trust the one man who can save them: Slaton, the perfect assassin.

NONFICTION

Famous Nathan: A Family Saga of Coney Island, the American Dream, and the Search for the Perfect Hot Dog

By Lloyd Handwerker

Nathan Handwerker was an immigrant who left Eastern Europe for a fresh start in America. Nathan arrived at Ellis Island speaking not a word of English, unable to read or write, and with $25 hidden in his shoes. He had a simple goal: work hard and carve out a piece of the American dream. Beginning in 1916, with just five feet of counter space on Coney Islands Surf Avenue, Nathan sells his frankfurters for 5 cents. As New York booms, so too does Nathans humble stand. Written by his grandson, the story reveals how one man and his family created an American icon.

Dog Gone: A Lost Pets Extraordinary Journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home

By Pauls Toutonghi

Fielding Marshall is hiking on the Appalachian Trail. His beloved dog, a 6-year-old golden retriever mix named Gonker, bolts into the woods. Just like that, he has vanished. And Gonker has Addisons disease. If hes not found in 23 days, he will die. The entire family goes into action to find their beloved dog. But as the search continues, the Marshalls realize they may not survive losing Gonker. Even as the wounds of their past return to haunt them and threaten to jeopardize everything, they know they have one mission: bring Gonker home.

Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and Their Epic Escape Across the Pacific

By Bill Lascher

Just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of a community of foreign correspondents with close ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter, the beginning of a journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. They were part of a handful of journalists reporting from the region.

Project Smoke

By Steven Raichlen

Smoke is the soul of barbecue, the alchemy that happens when burning wood infuses its magical flavors into food. Project Smoke tells you how to make the alchemy happen, with Raichlens seven steps to smoking nirvana; an in-depth description of the various smokers; the essential brines, rubs, marinades and barbecue sauces; and a complete guide to fuel, including how each type of wood subtly seasons a dish. Recipes for 100 enticing, succulent, boldly flavored smoked dishes are included.

For the Glory: Eric Liddells Journey from Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr

By Duncan Hamilton

Many people will remember Eric Liddell as the Olympic gold medalist from the award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Liddell would not run on Sunday because of his strict observance of the Christian Sabbath. He was the greatest sprinter in the world at the time, and his choice not to run was ridiculed. This story reveals his missionary work as he traveled to China to work in a local school and as a missionary. He married and had children there. With news of impending war and after evacuating his family, he stayed behind and was interned in a Japanese work camp where he was the moral center in his brave last years.

-----

Barbara Frank is the reference manager at the Central Library of the Waco-McLennan County Library System. In her spare time, she can t pass up a chance to indulge in a good audio book, preferably a mystery.
WAHOO  Area Vietnam veterans who traveled to Washington D.C. with the Vietnam Veterans Combat Flight unanimously agree, the treatment they received upon arrival back home at Eppley Airfield in Omaha will never be forgotten.

The welcome home was very special, said Lynn Maxson of Ceresco, who served in the Army Special Services Group from 1966 to 1967.

Maxson said the veterans knew they would be welcomed home, but they did not expect the crowd of more than 5,000 who lined the hallways of Eppley Airfield June 6, cheering and shaking the veterans hands.

It took us about an hour plus to walk through the crowd from when we came into the concourse to get outside on our busses to go to the hotel, Maxson said. I guess it was the welcome home that you really never got, but you got now.

Jerry Paes, a United States Air Force lieutenant colonel who served in 1963 and again in 1972, said thinking about the parade of people lined up in the airport still overwhelms him. He said a special moment was when he approached a young girl holding a Welcome Home, Grandpa sign.

I went over and shook her hand and said to her, I have to tell ya, Im not your grandpa, but I am a grandpa, and he is very proud of you. At that moment my eyes went like Niagara Falls and I couldnt stay long. There wasnt a dry eye coming out of the airport in Omaha, Paes said.

The Prague man said he will remember the welcome home for the rest of his life.

It would be very hard to top that closing of the day, he said. I dont know anything that could have done it more for us.

Prior to the emotional welcome home, just over 500 Nebraska Vietnam veterans flew to Washington D.C. in three jets to visit the Vietnam Wall on the 72nd anniversary of D-Day.

Maxson said upon arrival at Reagan Airport in Washington D.C., travelers in between flights stopped and cheered as the war heroes passed.

A pinning ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial was first on the days agenda. Veterans were then free to visit the Korean, World War II, Iwo Jima and Air Force memorials and Vietnam Wall at their leisure.

Leonard Bouc, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class, served in Vietnam in 1966, said viewing the life-size memorials was incredible.

The trip was one of my top five experiences of my lifetime, the Mead man said.

The veterans also attended the Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

Maxson said sharing the experience with fellow Vietnam veterans made the trip a meaningful experience.

Youre going with people that understand what took place and what was going on and why we were there. It lets you probably converse about things you normally dont talk about with family and so forth. Its people that understand what we were all doing and to me that was a big difference, Maxson said.

Bouc said the trip provided a moment of healing.

I got a lot of stress gone that was bothering me for a few years, Bouc said. I didnt sleep well, but you lose sleep when youre talking to friends and meeting new ones.

The all-expense paid Honor Flight was organized by Bill and Evonne Williams of Patriotic Productions. The area veterans have a high level of gratitude towards the Omaha couple.

The Williames is a very special couple. Its hard to put into words what two people like that can do for our veterans, Maxson said. Theyre out to take care of the veterans.

Other area Vietnam veterans who partook in the Honor Flight were Kenny Danner and Ron Garner, Ashland; Marv Bales, Cedar Bluffs; Don Hughes, Ceresco; Ed Linderman, Colon; Gus Moreno, Ithaca; Doug Johnson and Leonard Bouc, Mead; Ralph Sabatka, Wahoo; Larry Urbanek; Dwight; and Larry Johnson of Malmo.

As a Vietnam veteran you just want to be accepted, that what you did was no different than Korea or World War II, Maxson said. Vietnam veterans just want to be accepted that they went, they did, and want to come home as proud individuals. I think what we did on (June 6) gets you closer to feeling that way.
Ian Bond and team (Centre for European Reform)

Following the Brexit referendum, the EU will be facing significant changes. The question is whether they will be based on the February agreement between David Cameron and the EU or they will be the consequences of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. This second option would have negative repercussions for the EU institutions, from which the British point of view would disappear. Brexit could also exacerbate euroskepticism in other countries. What else could it bring along?

In the area of economy, London is associated with liberalization. In this field, however, the cabinet of David Cameron is not very active since the liberalization of the internal market is related to the free movement of labor. Therefore, Brexit would not cause major slowdown in this area  quite the opposite, it would remove some obstacles. Similarly, Brexit would not lead to changes in the formation of economic and financial policies of the EU, more concretely to the feared weakening of the influence of the countries outside the Eurozone. The current state is determined by the actual conditions, and not by David Camerons government activity, while a deeper integration of the Eurozone cannot be expected. However, the main opponent to the common rules on taxation, insolvency and commercial law promoted by France and the Commission would disappear.

The United Kingdom is a key player in shaping the rules against crime and terrorism. EU countries would have to pay more attention to these issues if the UK were to leave. It would be also necessary to cope with a reduced ability to fight cross-border crime. The continuity of police and judicial cooperation would involve finding alternative ways to ensure the participation of the British, who would leave both Europol and Eurojust. Brexit could also complicate the cooperation with the US in these areas. London often mediates compromise between Brussels, which emphasizes privacy, and Washington, which focuses on safety first.

In the EU foreign policy, Brexit may lead to a significant reduction in its overall activity. The British tendency to react to violations of international law or human rights, such as by the introduction of sanctions against Russia, could be replaced by pragmatism and commercial interests. The loss of the Unions second largest economy would also weaken its position in the subsequent negotiations. The overall EUs interest in the developments in Asia would be reduced as well and the amount of development aid to the former British colonies would be lowered. With respect to the EUs defense policy, Britains non-participation could lead to the strengthening of co-operation, but at the same time also to the reduction of its capacities. Therefore, the development of the future co-operation between the Union and NATO would be crucial.

(The study can be downloaded here: http://www.cer.org.uk/publications/archive/policy-brief/2016/europe-after-brexit-unleashed-or-undone)
The EU leaders decided on Tuesday (21 June) to extend sanctions against Russia through January 2017, targeting defense, finance and energy sectors. The decision has not yet been officially approved but the high-ranked EU officials said that there was no doubt that they would. The EU is reportedly intending to take stock of its Russia policy in the second half of this year. EU Council President Donald Tusk plans to put the issue on the agenda of the October summit of the 28 EU leaders.

EU sanctions against Moscow were initially introduced in 2014 over Russias involvement in the Crimean conflict. Since their onset, they have targeted both legal entities and individuals. Russia responded by an embargo on agricultural produce, food and raw materials against those countries that take part in the sanctions. Although both sides have repeatedly extended the punitive measures, there are now voices in the EU saying that the sanctions are neither politically effective nor economically sound for both the EU and Russia. Last week, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which he attended despite the resistance from Washington and Brussels, that both sides should nevertheless continue their dialogue despite the sanctions.

We can have no illusions about the problems weighing on our relationship today. They exist. It would be pointless, even dangerous, to ignore them. We must tackle them urgently, Mr Juncker commented. Russian President Putin reacted that Moscow was ready to lift its sanctions if the EU could assure the Kremlin that reciprocal measures would be taken on the EU side as well and that Russia wouldnt be once again deceived by its Western partners. The EU is Russias biggest trading partner, accounting for almost 45 percent of Russias foreign trade in 2015. Russia is the EUs fourth largest trade partner, preceded by the US, China and Switzerland.
Debt default risk 'under control' Updated: 2016-06-24 02:43 By WANG YANFEI(China Daily)

China's debt situation has been exaggerated by some international institutions and its debt default risk is under control and will not pose systemic threats, senior government officials said on Thursday.

"Debt risks in China have been overrated by some international institutions," said Ruan Jianhong, deputy head of the Financial Survey and Statistics Department at the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

The Bank for International Settlements said China's overall debt was as high as 254.8 percent of GDP at the end of last year. But Ruan said the bank has included some factors that should not have been taken into account, thus increasing its estimate.

Whatever method is used, China's total debt load is still lower than that of some major world economies, Ruan said.

Wang Kebing, deputy head of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance, said the government still has room to raise debt levels. This would help the private sector to lower its leverage, which has become the major driving force for debt piling up in recent years.

Wang said the government, whose leverage is estimated to be about 39.4 percent of GDP, will continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and increase leverage in stages.

Sun Xuegong, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the National Development and Reform Commission, said China will help enterprises with short-term financial difficulties to conduct debt restructuring.

But this would not include "zombie enterprises" that waste resources.

"The market will decide which enterprises should be shut down," Sun said.

Responding to concerns over default risks facing the banking system, Wang Shengbang, a senior official at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said the country's banking system remains sound.

In the past three years, banks have written off 2 trillion yuan ($304 billion) in bad loans, the equivalent of 1.75 percent of bank lending, Wang said, adding that if no measures are taken, nonperforming loans will accumulate to 4 percent of total bank lending.

Sun said China's debt defaults will not pose a systemic risk as long as economic growth remains within a reasonable range.

Cai Fang, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the country should step up supply-side structural reform, which will help to improve productivity and generate growth.

Cai was speaking at a forum held by the National School of Development at Peking University

Xin Zhiming contributed to this story.
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'Now You See Me 2' star pours praise on Beijing subway Updated: 2016-06-22 16:12 (chinadaily.com.cn)

Mark Ruffalo praises the Beijing subway. [Photo/workercn.cn]

Now You See Me 2 star Mark Ruffalo showed up in Beijing on June 19 at the movie's press conference. In the following days, Ruffalo posted his little tour around the city on his Facebook page.

Ruffalo posted that he tried to live as a local Beijinger. But in fact, he is more like a tourist experiencing pretty much everything the city has to offer: climbing the Great Wall, visiting the Imperial Palace, practicing tai chi, eating Beijing roast duck and Chinese hotpot.

Aside from that, he went out of his way to take a subway ride, showing approval for his experience, "Not so different than NYC except nicer, newer, cleaner and about 10% the price for a fare".(sic)

As reported, Ruffalo took his son and his family to Beijing this time, as his son's birthday falls on June 19. "I love Beijing, so I must bring him along," he said.

Ruffalo is an American director, actor and film producer, he was known for his portraying of Bruce Banner in the movie Hulk.
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The Sherwin-Williams Company develops, manufactures, distributes, and sells paints, coatings, and related products to professional, industrial, commercial, and retail customers. It operates through three segments: The Americas Group, Consumer Brands Group, and Performance Coatings Group. The Americas Group segment offers architectural paints and coatings, and protective and marine products, as well as OEM product finishes and related products for architectural and industrial paint contractors, and do-it-yourself homeowners. The Consumer Brands Group segment supplies a portfolio of branded and private-label architectural paints, stains, varnishes, industrial products, wood finishes products, wood preservatives, applicators, corrosion inhibitors, aerosols, caulks, and adhesives to retailers and distributors. The Performance Coatings Group segment develops and sells industrial coatings for wood finishing and general industrial applications, automotive refinish products, protective and marine coatings, coil coatings, packaging coatings, and performance-based resins and colorants. It serves retailers, dealers, jobbers, licensees, and other third-party distributors through its branches and direct sales staff, as well as through outside sales representatives. The company has operations primarily in the North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and Australia. As of February 17, 2022, it operated approximately 5,000 company-operated stores and facilities. The Sherwin-Williams Company was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.
SFL Corporation Ltd., a maritime and offshore asset owning and chartering company, engages in the ownership, operation, and chartering out of vessels and offshore related assets on medium and long-term charters. The company is also involved in the charter, purchase, and sale of assets. In addition, it operates in various sectors of the maritime, and shipping and offshore industries, including oil, chemical, oil product, container, and car transportation, as well as dry bulk shipments and drilling rigs. As of December 31, 2021, the company owned six crude oil tankers, 15 dry bulk carriers, 35 container vessels, two car carriers, one jack-up drilling rig, one ultra-deepwater drilling unit, two chemical tankers, and four oil product tankers. It primarily operates in Bermuda, Cyprus, Liberia, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the Marshall Islands. The company was formerly known as Ship Finance International Limited and changed its name to SFL Corporation Ltd. in September 2019. SFL Corporation Ltd. was incorporated in 2003 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.
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Fu Xi memorial held in Tianshui Updated: 2016-06-23 10:23 (chinadaily.com.cn)

A grand memorial ceremony is held on June 22 in Tianshui, Gansu province, to commemorate Fu Xi. [Photo by Hu Zhe / chinadaily.com.cn]

To commemorate Fu Xi, the legendary Chinese forefather and the first of the three sovereigns who created the Chinese civilization, a grand memorial ceremony was held on June 22 in Tianshui, Gansu province, which is also believed to be the Fu Xi's birthplace.

This year's memorial was co-organized by the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and the Gansu Provincial People's Government. What is noteworthy is that the memorial service for Fu Xi was held synchronously both in Gansu and Taiwan at 9:50 am, paying tribute to the common ancestor of the Chinese civilization.

Fu Xi is a legendary figure in Chinese culture. He is credited with hunting, fishing, cooking and many other practical skills which helped advance primitive Chinese civilization. There are many Fu Xi culture-related heritage sites in Tianshui, of which the most prestigious is the Fu Xi Temple, which was built in the Ming Dynasty to worship Fu Xi.

Another landmark scenic spot is the Guatai Moutain, where Fu Xi, the creation god in Chinese mythology, created the bagua (the Eight Trigrams which formed the basis of traditional Chinese philosophies, such as Taoism).

The Fu Xi memorial ceremony was included in the first group of the cultural heritage protection list, making it an important cultural event in Tianshui and Gansu.
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Tesla's stock dropped eight per cent in its first day of trading since the deal was announced. Credit:AP Deal presents problems To investors, it is as if the Walt Disney Co. bought a birthing centre business to offer "end-to-end" service for its parent customers. It's not clear that Tesla owners will really want to buy solar panels, or that if they did, it would be in sufficient number. And SolarCity is hardly a growth business these days. Both companies are burning cash. SolarCity went through $US2.6 billion last year, while Tesla spent $US2.2 billion. SolarCity's business model is struggling as cheap energy shakes up the solar market. So the acquisition is being viewed not so much as a "no-brainer" but as a bailout of SolarCity by Tesla, one that may sink both companies. The idea would be dismissed as yet another Silicon Valley lark (although who knows whether the visionary Musk is right), but there is a second problem with this deal. It's a bit of a corporate governance nightmare.

Musk owns 21 per cent of Tesla and 22 per cent of SolarCity, according to Standard & Poor's Global Market Intelligence. His cousin, Lyndon Rive, is a founder and the chief executive of SolarCity. Given the troubles of SolarCity, the appearance is that Musk is bailing SolarCity out while profiting handsomely. He will be paid a premium by Tesla for a company in which he is the biggest shareholder, one that the market at least views as outside the business of Tesla. Lawsuits are coming Today, companies are separated into makers of ball bearings and makers of steel because even they are viewed as being too different. Only in Silicon Valley could a cross-industry acquisition like this even possibly fly. Tesla did announce some procedures to deal with this conflict. Musk recused himself from the deliberations at Tesla and Rive said the same thing at SolarCity. In addition, Tesla said that any deal would be subject to approval by a majority of its disinterested shareholders.

This is part of the standard procedure in conflict situations. The general idea is that each company forms a committee of independent directors with its own advisers and legal counsel. This would ensure approval of the disinterested directors. Then any deal itself would be subject to approval of the disinterested shareholders. The state of Delaware, where a majority of US companies are incorporated, technically requires only that either the disinterested directors or disinterested shareholders approve the deal, but the standard practice is to do both. Even so, Tesla is not following this standard procedure. It does not appear that Tesla or SolarCity truly formed an independent committee or hired independent counsel, but instead opted for a recusal. (Another director on both boards, Antonio J. Gracias, also recused himself.) That is sufficient for Delaware law, but the optics are not great. Indeed, one of the actions Tesla took on Tuesday was to amend its bylaws to require all shareholder litigation to be filed in Delaware. It knows the lawsuits are coming. So this deal suffers from some significant defects at the get-go. It should have been structured more formally and put through the stricter process of a formal special committee. This is particularly true after the recent ruling in the Dell appraisal proceedings, in which Dell did everything it could to structure the management buyout to the highest standards, and the Delaware court still found fault with the process.

Getting the deal across the line A bigger issue is the shareholder approval requirement. Tesla is issuing shares, but it does not technically need shareholder approval for the issuance because buying SolarCity will not require it to issue more than 20 per cent of its outstanding float, the point at which stock exchange rules require a vote. Institutional shareholders, however, hold 63.57 per cent of Tesla. It is hard to see them liking this deal. Tesla is also a darling of day traders. These short-term holders want the stock to go up, and voting no on the deal is a way to get the shares to rise. Given the reaction, it is hard to see how a deal like this can happen now. In the end, Tesla's offer appears destined to die as quickly as a fruit fly, in part because it does not make sense to the market, but also because the announcement and the structuring show a poor understanding of public relations.
Bookies have drastically revised their odds on Brexit betting after unexpectedly strong early polling for the leave campaign upended their confidence that the United Kingdom would vote to stay in the European Union.

Markets have followed the same dramatic route, with the pound hitting six-month highs before dropping off a cliff.

As voting closed about 7am Australian time, betting agency William Hill was offering odds of 1/9 for a remain victory - indicating a 90 per cent probability the UK would stay in the EU.

Ladbrokes and Paddy Power had the likelihood of a remain victory at 92 per cent.
Premier Mike Baird has introduced a regulation that terminates the redundancy entitlements of public servants who are transferred to the non-government sector.

NSW Labor has moved to block the regulation and unions have vowed to fight the plan they say will treat public servants "like serfs".

NSW Premier Mike Baird is facing a fight with unions over the new regulation. Credit:Peter Rae

"Clearly, this regulation has been put through so the government can privatise public services and do it cheaply," Public Service Association general secretary Anne Gardiner said.

"It's appalling that the biggest employer in the country would treat their workers like they are property and hand them over to the private sector without the employee having any say in the matter. These people are public servants, not public serfs, and the government should be the gold standard for employers."
Elections are fought and won in middle Australia. Sadly it is no surprise that the most disadvantaged people in our country are not at the centre of political campaigns.

The international human rights standards endorsed by Australia are a basic test of how well a government treats its people. After three years in power, a government seeking another term should first be held accountable for its human rights performance.

The Turnbull/Abbott government can claim some achievements, like implementing Labor's National Disability Insurance Scheme, acting against gender violence, and resettling an extra 12,000 refugees from the Middle East.
Much as it must be frustrating having criticisms levelled at your faith, it doesn't compare to the kind of hatred and vitriol levelled at the LGBTQI community.

The tone-deaf response by Treasurer Scott Morrison to Penny Wong's speech at the Lionel Murphy Memorial Lecture on Tuesday perfectly illuminates how little our (presumably) straight politicians understand about homophobia.

Labor Frontbencher Penny Wong expressed concern that Australia's LGBTQI population would have to endure an insurmountable level of hatred and homophobia were a plebiscite on marriage equality to go ahead.

Treasurer Scott Morrison responded that he has also been a victim of bigotry  for his conservative views on gay marriage. And though he is "sensitive" to the concerns of the gay community, Morrison claimed to hold "a bigger view" about Australians' capacity for respectful debate.
Sydney's run of well-above average temperatures is about to come to a chilly halt that will please few save those headed for the snowfields.

Every day this month has been warmer than the June average, with both day- and night-time temperatures about 3 degrees above normal.

The powerful cold front that is raising flood risks to parts of South Australia and northern Tasmania will arrive in Sydney by Friday, bringing dry westerly winds of 30-50km/h to boost the wind-chill factor.

Sydney can expect a top on Friday of 17 degrees, in line with the June average, according to updated forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology.
The Prime Minister knows that a referral to the people is hard to argue against once offered  even though he used to do so persuasively himself. Abandoning that position as a condition of his promotion is thus among the easier tasks for a prime minister who is going back on his word.

When Malcolm Turnbull is asked about his now enthusiastic support for Tony Abbott's public plebiscite, he invokes the unimpeachable virtue of democracy.

Clearly, the Prime Minister has not spent much time on social media lately where the personal dignity of supposed adults is casually surrendered by those who cannot wait to belittle and denigrate those with whom they disagree.

Pro-plebiscite: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison. Credit:Andrew Meares

Penny Wong's personal and social group experience has prompted her to warn of a tide of bigotry and hate speech, which she fears would be licensed by a public campaign period ahead of a vote and which is in any event purely advisory, carrying no legal force.

Turnbull must have been delighted when, in a pitiable attempt at claiming equal victim status with the marginalised, Scott Morrison merely proved Wong's point. If he as an empowered middle-aged white man who opposes marriage equality knows the pain of foulness and bigotry, then the chances of it being worse for minorities are pretty strong. As Morrison reveals, an ugly undercurrent in this debate is already there, and that will be turbo-charged by a formalised public argument.

In any event, the time has now come to change the question because for practical political purposes, the plebiscite debate is now fixed. Neither side will change its stance between now and July 2. If you want to stymie same-sex marriage (the original purpose of the plebiscite) or genuinely favour a public expression, you'll get that from the Coalition.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has lashed out at suggestions he would support the Coalition's corporate tax cuts, calling the $48 billion plan unaffordable.

Mr Keating gradually cut the company tax rate to 33 per cent from 49 per cent while he was treasurer and prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, prompting some commentators to imply he would back the Coalition's controversial enterprise tax plan.

But in a letter to the Australian Financial Review, Mr Keating noted these cuts had been offset by broadening the tax base, including capital gains, fringe benefits and company cars.
"Let us suppose that someone has done the wrong thing for argument's sake," he said.

Mr Abbott has also urged Liberals who are angry with the leadership coup against "getting even" with the new prime minister by voting against the Coalition.

Tony Abbott has admitted he wants a job in Malcolm Turnbull's cabinet  possibly the Defence portfolio  with the former prime minister declaring: "I'm keen to serve."

"Do you want to hurt the country in order to punish someone? Now I don't think that's a very sensible thing to do. You never try to get even with an individual if that means hurting the country."

Still making headlines: former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Asked by Sky News and News Corp conservative commentator Andrew Bolt about reports he is seeking the Defence job, Mr Abbott did not deny the charge.

"Obviously I'm keen to serve, but I'm expecting to serve as the Member for Warringah  that's what I'm expecting to do and that's what I'll be perfectly happy to do in this next term of parliament should I get the support of my electors on polling day, " he said.

The Defence portfolio is currently held by the New South Wales moderate Senator Marise Payne, who after almost two decades in parliament was elevated to the cabinet by Mr Turnbull in the post-leadership change reshuffle.
Rather than whisking you off to a land of make-believe, augmented reality (AR) promises to change the way we view the real world around us.

These days virtual reality tends to steal the limelight, with a new generation of VR headsets hitting Australian shelves this year designed to trick you into thinking you're somewhere else  whether it's fighting your way to the front at a rock concert or fighting to survive after the zombie apocalypse.

The Terminator relied on augmented reality to tell him who to shoot.

At first glance, augmented reality seems a bit boring in comparison because, unlike VR , it's not designed to immerse you in a fantasy world. Instead, it's a lot more practical, superimposing important information over the top of your view of the real world. Think of it as "enhanced reality" like a fighter pilot's heads-up display, or the Terminator's augmented view of the world which could call up anything from facial recognition to engine schematics to help him navigate his way through life.

More than just keeping you well-informed, AR can also blur the lines between the physical and digital realms. You can drop virtual objects into your augmented view of the world and interact with them as though they were real.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed that three Australian citizens and one resident are among a group of people kidnapped in a fatal ambush on their vehicle in south-east Nigeria.

The driver of the vehicle was shot dead in the attack on the outskirts of the city of Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, about 5.30am on Wednesday, local time, Nigerian police commissioner Jimoh Ozi-Obeh said.

Five people who worked for Australian mining and engineering giant Macmahon, which was contracted to cement company Lafarge Africa, were abducted, Nigerian police said.

Peter Zoutenbier, from Brisbane, was one of those kidnapped, his family have said. Also among the group were Jack Couranz, from Perth, and Mark Gabbedy, who is understood to originally be from Tasmania but had worked in Western Australia.
He said their relationship started after they met on a gay dating website and lasted two months until December, during which time they met between 15 and 20 times at a hotel in Orlando.

Mateen, 29, shot dead 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12 in America's worst mass shooting. In an interview with Spanish-language television network Univision the man, who was identified only as Miguel, claimed he and Mateen were "friends with benefits".

Washington: A man who says he was Omar Mateen's lover has claimed the mass murderer acted out of "revenge" after finding out one of his partners was HIV positive.

Although Mateen pledged allegiance to Islamic State at the time of the attack, Miguel claimed that was not his motivation for the attack. He said: "I've cried like you have no idea. But the thing that makes me want to tell the truth is that he didn't do it for terrorism. In my opinion he did it for revenge."

'Miguel' who says he was the Orlando shooter's lover. Credit:Univision

He claimed Mateen had engaged in sex with two Puerto Rican men, one of whom he later discovered was HIV positive, and that he became "terrified". The man suggested that Mateen had also experienced rejection at the hands of gay Latinos: "He hated gay Puerto Ricans for all the stuff they did to him. I believe this crazy horrible thing he did was for revenge. When I asked him what he was going to do now, his answer was, 'I'm going to make them pay for what they did to me'."

The man wore a disguise and his voice was altered for the high-profile interview with Univision, which is the largest Spanish-language television network in the world.

It was not possible to independently verify the man's claims. Univision said it had confirmed with the FBI that they were speaking to "Miguel". The man told Univision: "He (Mateen) adored Latinos, gay Latinos, with brown skin, but he felt rejected. He felt used by them. There were moments in the Pulse nightclub that made him feel really bad. Guys used him. That really affected him."
Washington: This is the slugfest election - so Wednesday in the US was payback time as Donald Trump wiped the floor with Hillary Clinton; in pretty much the same fashion as she had wiped the floor with Trump on Tuesday...and again on Wednesday.

Billing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as a 'world-class liar," Trump lashed out in New York, making wild unsubstantiated allegations and at the same time, using Clinton's record as a smorgasbord: "Just look at her pathetic email statements or her phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack, and the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers."

Clinton, he claimed, had perfected the "politics of personal profit and even theft," doing favours for reprehensible regimes "in exchange for cash." Criticising her multi-million speaking fees, Trump charged: "[The big banks] totally own her.
Patrick Norman Pat Chapman is a 34-year-old, Caucasian male who was last known to be in Piedmont which is near the area of Greenville, Missouri on May 10, 2020.

Pat had stayed the night with a friend and his wife at their home. In the early morning when the friend woke to go to work.

Pat was gone in his own Burgundy color 1995 Ford Escort. That is the last anyone was known to have seen him. The vehicle was later recovered on May 29, 2020 in Mill Spring, Missouri.
The fifth WCO COPES Project Regional Seminar, organized in partnership with Moroccos Customs and Excise Administration, was held in Casablanca from 24 to 26 May 2016.

Mr. Nizar Nasr, Head of Moroccan Customs Prevention Division, opened the Seminar which was also attended by Customs representatives from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.

The new training on the importance of evidence collection for investigation and prosecution purposes, delivered simultaneously in English and French, was very well received by participants, whether managers or field officers. It also served as a discussion forum, fostering lively exchanges between Customs officers operating in different administrative systems and organizations.

During the closing ceremony, Mr. Abdelhadi Said, Head of Moroccan Customs European and American Relations Department, welcomed the content of this training and its innovative approach for forward-looking Customs administrations. He concluded by urging the continued roll-out of this training, whose modules meet the new requirements for Customs evidence collection.

For further information please contact Mr. Gilles Thomas, WCO COPES Project Coordinator, at the following e-mail address: Gilles.Thomas@wcoomd.org.
Following a request for technical assistance by Cameroon Customs (DGD), two experts from the WCO Secretariats Valuation Sub-Directorate conducted a diagnostic mission from 6 to 14 June 2016. The aim of this mission was to assess the Customs valuation control system for imported goods and make recommendations accordingly.

The experts held working sessions with the heads of the various DGD divisions/units involved in Customs valuation control in Yaounde and Douala, as well as with representatives from the business community.

At the end of the mission the WCO Secretariat representatives reported their preliminary findings to the Director General of Cameroon Customs and senior managers from headquarters and operational services involved in Customs valuation matters. The initial results and recommendations from the diagnostic mission will help DGD to strengthen its valuation control system and ensure proper implementation and application of the WTO Valuation Agreement.
Under the auspices of the WCO INAMA project, a training on investigations of CITES was held in Kampala (Uganda) from 6 to 10 June. The objective of the training was to support Members by providing exposure to criminal investigation techniques with a focus on the illegal wildlife trade.

The training was hosted by the Uganda Revenue Authority and attended by delegations from Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, and Uganda. In addition delegates from Kenya and Uganda Customs participated to this event tanks to the support of the UNODC-WCO CONTAINER CONTROL PROGRAMME

The one-week course covered topics that included how to conduct interviews and interrogations of suspects, surveillance techniques, consensual contacts of suspects and operations planning in preparation of controlled deliveries.

The training was officially opened by Mr. Dicksons Collins KATESHUMBWA, Commissioner of Customs, Uganda Revenue Authority. Also present during the opening was Mr. Omar Farooq, Economic and Commercial Officer, U.S. Embassy Kampala and Ms. Ashley Netherton, Foreign Service Officer (Environment) at USAID

The INAMA Project is funded by the US Department of State, Sweden, the German Agency for Development Cooperation (GiZ) and the CITES Secretariat). This particular training was funded by the US Department of State.

For more information about this training and the WCO-INAMA Project, please contact the WCO-INAMA project manager, Marco Foddi (marco.foddi@wcoomd.org).
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 23, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 23, 2016 | 10:35 AM | PADUCAH, KY

A captains meeting will be held today for anyone organizing a team for Paducah's Big Brown Truck Pull event in August.



The meeting will take place at Texas Roadhouse starting at 6 p.m.



The Big Brown Truck Pull is held at various locations across the state, as the largest annual fundraiser for Special Olympics Kentucky. Teams of 15 people take turns to see who can pull a loaded UPS 18-wheeler for twelve feet in the shortest time.



Winners will be crowned in men's, women's and co-ed divisions. There are also younger divisions where teams of children age 12 and under or 13-16 will pull a UPS deliver van.



Each team is asked to raise at least $750 (about $50 per team member) to participate. There are prizes for top individual and team fundraisers, and an award for the best team t-shirt.



Paducah's Big Brown Truck Pull is scheduled for August 6th on the riverfront.




By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 22, 2016 | 05:38 PM | PADUCAH, KY

A McCracken County doctor faces federal charges of fraudulent possession of a controlled substance, wire fraud and making false statements related to health care matters.

According to the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky, 46-year-old Sean P. McDonald defrauded Lourdes Hospital and Western Baptist Hospital (now Baptist Health Paducah), by means of wire communication. According to the indictment, from February 2009 through November 2010, McDonald caused a request for payment to be sent from Baptist and/or Lourdes to patients' insurance carriers.

During the same time period, it's alleged that McDonald made false and fraudulent statements to insurance carriers indicating that he had provided medication to patients when he had not.

McDonald also allegedly wrote prescriptions for Dilauded, a Schedule II controlled substance, in violation of his DEA registration, to patients, when in fact he never provided the controlled substances to the patient.

If convicted at trial, McDonald would face a combined maximum term of imprisonment of 113 years and a combined maximum fine of $3,000,000.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 22, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 22, 2016 | 05:55 PM | PADUCAH, KY

A Paducah physician is facing up to 113 years in prison for his alleged role in a scheme to obtain pain medication illegally.



The U.S. Attorney's Office says 46-year-old Dr. Sean P. McDonald has been charged with fraudulent possession of a controlled substance, wire fraud and making false statements related to health care matters.



Prosecutors say McDonald devised a scheme to obtain prescription pain medication while he was a treating physician at Lourdes Hospital and Western Baptist Hospital by falsely misrepresenting that he was removing medications for hospitalized patients, falsely possessing the controlled substances, and then falsely causing a request for payment to be sent from the two Paducah hospitals to the insurance carriers of the patients.



The alleged crimes reportedly took place between February 2009 and November 2010. During this time, officials say McDonald made false and fraudulent statements to insurance carriers indicating that he had provided medication to patients when he had not. They also say McDonald wrote prescriptions for Dilauded, a Schedule II controlled substance to patients, when in fact he never provided the medication to them.



If convicted at trial, McDonald could face a combined maximum term of imprisonment of 113 years, a combined maximum fine of $3,000,000 and a three year term of supervised release.



This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Lettricea Jefferson-Webb and Seth Hancock and is being investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Kentucky Attorney Generals Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 22, 2016 | 01:53 PM | PADUCAH, KY





As work progresses on the new playground at 13th Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, volunteers are braving the heat to help get the job done. If you aren't able to participate in the project by giving your time, there is another way to help.Once completed, the playground will have a picket fence installed around it, and anyone who wants to defray the cost of the project can help the Paducah Rotary Club by sponsoring a picket.Rotary President John Williams said there will be 800 pickets available on the fence, and each picket has room for 17 custom characters for personalization."My wife and I got one with our grand-daughter's name on it. It's $50, it's a way that everybody can help participate financially, and you can do that here at the site, or you can do that on the website, at www.paducahrotaryplayground.com," Williams said.Individuals, groups or businesses can get a little recognition on the perimeter of the playground by participating. Anyone who needs more information can visit the website link below.

On the Net:
Three juveniles charged with robbing same Paducah store twice in one day
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press Jun. 22, 2016 | 04:40 PM | FRANKFORT, KY

Kentucky's attorney general is going to court to try to block Gov. Matt Bevin from abolishing the boards of trustees at the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Retirement Systems.

Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear said Wednesday the Republican governor's reorganizations are about power, not efficiency.

Bevin spokeswoman Jessica Ditto says Beshear's action is frivolous and "purely political."

Beshear said he's filing a motion to intervene in a lawsuit asking a judge to overturn Bevin's order removing and replacing Thomas Elliott, chairman of the state's retirement system.

Bevin has since issued an executive order abolishing the retirement system board and replacing it with a new board.

Beshear says he's also asking a judge to overturn Bevin's decision to disband the UofL board and replace it with new members he appoints.
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By The Associated Press

Jun. 23, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By The Associated Press Jun. 23, 2016 | 09:05 AM | PADUCAH, KY

The state fire marshal is advising Kentucky residents to celebrate Independence Day by attending a community event instead of lighting

fireworks at home.



State Fire Marshal Mike Haney says the safest way to celebrate is by leaving the pyrotechnics to the professionals. He says home use of fireworks could cause personal or property damage and might also be prohibited by local ordinances.



Haney says those who decide to display fireworks at home should follow tips from the National Council on Fireworks to ensure a safe show. Those guidelines include reading directions, having responsible adult supervision, lighting one piece at a time in an area clear of trees and buildings and obeying all local laws.



Kentucky laws prohibit fireworks from being used within 200 feet of a structure.




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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 23, 2016 | MARTIN, TN

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 23, 2016 | 04:45 PM | MARTIN, TN

A new Soar in Four tuition model, designed to speed progress toward degree completion, was approved for the University of Tennessee at Martin on Thursday by the UT Board of Trustees.



The new model encourages students to take 15 hours per semester and complete their undergraduate degrees in four years. It will also fund new initiatives beneficial to student success, including a completely revamped and upgraded Career Development and Internship Center.



The tuition model is supported by UT Martins Student Government Association, which used student input to decide investment commitments for the new funds. Other improvements include new faculty positions to meet scheduling bottlenecks and gateway courses, new degree auditing and planning software, new living-learning communities, and increased tutoring and advising.



Completing college in four years offers financial benefits for students. The fifth year in college and beyond results in the typical student adding $8,735 in debt. The students average annual cost to attend is $22,058, so graduating in four years will result in significant savings.



The new tuition structure immediately impacts 36 percent of UT Martin students and will be phased in from fall 2016 through summer 2020, at which point 78 percent of students will be affected. The amount of tuition paid will be based on academic hours already earned by a current student.



Most students will enter the university under the new tuition structure and pay a $3,840 flat per-semester rate, plus mandatory fees as full-time students. Part-time and online students will remain on the traditional per-hour model. UT Martin does not charge for enrolled hours above 12, which is the threshold for full-time students for financial aid, tuition and fee purposes.



Mandatory fees at the university will not increase this academic year. Additionally, the university is reducing the overall residential housing rates and increasing private scholarship assistance.



Students enrolled for online courses will pay more for courses in 2016-17. The undergraduate online course fee increased 2.2 percent for in-state and out-of-state domestic students, while graduate online course fees increased 3 percent.



The new tuition schedule is available at https://www.utm.edu/departments/bursar/tuition.php.



For freshmen attending UT Martin this fall, a final Summer Orientation and Registration session is set July 15, followed by the final Transfer Orientation and Registration session for transfer students on July 22, both at the main campus. Fall semester classes begin Aug. 22.
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
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Arguably the most macho of Shakespeare's plays, Henry V is a bold choice for gender-blind casting. Actually, it's less blind here than walked into with eyes wide open. This modern-day production begins with the cast milling in mufti; the chorus, played by a down-to-earth Charlotte Cornwell, holds a crown and toys with who to give it to. A hot young actor, kneeling and expectant, is nimbly dodged in favour of Michelle Terry.

Director Robert Hastie's opening may trumpet its own right-on-ness  but it's also a casting choice that pays real dividends in this otherwise solid but unspectacular show.

Terry's Harry is neither the noble patriotic hero nor vicious war-monger. She's troubled and uncertain, the decision to go to war weighing on her narrow shoulders. And physically, Terry does simply look so small and squishable compared to the blokes in suits and army gear who advise her. This is in the acting, not just the gender; there's little swagger or chest-thumping to her Henry.

The big speeches aren't that big (even with the theatre's patchy amplification), and this isn't a Henry V to stir up much emotional fervour. And yet there's something very refreshing about Terry not doing the whole puffed-chest, declamatory rhetoric. Hastie's decision to swerve bombast would only work with an actress as accomplished as Terry, mind: she can rattle through the famous speeches at staggering speed, or play them trippingly, and they still come through crisp and potent.

And it is actually the bolder decision, to have a woman play Henry V in an interpretation that is in some ways more typically feminine': less cock-strutting and rabble-rousing, more vulnerable and reflective. You become aware of the narrow, limited range of physical and verbal poses we recognise as representing strength' and leadership'  strapping manliness, testosterone-fuelled thundering. Terry might not appear at first a "warlike Harry", but she proves that true power can come in a different cut.

For this is no weak or wimpy king: flashes of anger at slights from the French are met with pure, glinting steel. She's unsentimental, brusquely ordering the slaughter of prisoners, terse and business-like when wooing Princess Katherine. She knows how to take control.

The gender-swapping extends to her betrothed. We first see Ben Wiggins, as Katherine, learning English while fencing. It's a smart little directorial decision  here's violence, but prettified and tidied up. The neat rhythm also adds zest to what can be a not-that-funny extended joke in French about rude words. Wiggins' sulky, pouty turn at the end of the play in a skirt and heels feels more obviously like camped-up drag however, which is a shame given how subtly fluid many of the other cross-cast characters are.

Hastie's production of a play about countries dividing and uniting feels timely, opening on the eve of the EU referendum. The petty political point-scoring by the French feels like it could have come straight out of the Leave campaign (although the acting is a bit over-egged).

The staging is simple: seemingly just a bare metal grid underpinning a bald, bold open space. This works well for battles, gunfights evoked with smoke, lighting and pounding drums. But the slow-mo movement, while initially effective, overstays its welcome, and the stage turning briefly into a paddling pool seems needless.

The empty staging is less forgiving, however, in the bawdier comedy scenes with Pistol, Nym et al. The energy dissipates in the open air, and very little humour lands. Likewise, moments that could pack emotional clout  such as the death of Bardolph  have a tendency to evaporate rather than devastate.

An interesting, fresh Henry V, then, rather than a heart-squeezingly moving one  but worth catching for Terry's Harry.

Henry V is at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre until 9 July.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg police officer is trying to appeal to the maternal instincts of a mother on the run with her two children.

Winnipeg police Det. Sgt. Shaunna Neufeld may be the co-ordinator of the Missing Persons Unit, but on Thursday she was speaking directly to Sandra Giesbrecht as one mother to another to convince her to bring back her two children and turn herself in.

Neufeld said she fully understands the circumstances Giesbrecht is in and she wanted to tell the woman that all she and the rest of the police department wants to do is help her.

I am a mother too of three children, Neufeld said, looking directly at television cameras gathered at a news conference inside the police headquarters building.

I know the unconditional love you have Sandra you have two beautiful children Were going to help you.

Im waiting for you to connect with me. I know you are a smart intelligent woman.

There is a way to work this out right now isnt good.

Sandra Giesbrecht is wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant. Montana and Josh were last seen getting into a white four-door car in the Crestview area Monday evening. The warrant was issued because the children may have been taken out of the province,

Police said Giesbrecht, 44, snatched her two children, Montana, 11, and nine-year-old Josh, on Monday evening in the Crestview area. Police believe they are in a white four-door car with black trim around the windows.

Neufeld said police never considered issuing an amber alert because that is only used when it is believed a child is in danger or facing grievous bodily harm.

This is a mother who loves her children, she said.

We are confident the kids are safe and this mother will take the steps to do the right thing.

We want to resolve this peacefully.

But Neufeld had a warning for the people police believe are assisting the mother and children stay hidden at this point. She told them to think about the needs of the kids first by calling police.

At the end of the day this is a criminal investigation, she said.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS At a news conference Thursday, Det. Sgt. Shaunna Neufeld asked Sandra Giesbrecht, the mother of the two missing children, to contact police.

If people are assisting them you need to know this is serious.

The abduction of children comes on the heels of a nasty, prolonged family court battle, documents revealed.

Christy Dzikowicz, of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said they have been supporting the father of the children and other members of the family.

Dzikowicz said the organization has also been blanketing businesses and organizations with information and descriptions of the mother and her two children.

We want to get the message out, she said.

There may be some people who think the children are with their mother so its okay, but thats not true. These children are away from their dad, their friends, their school and their community. How does that resolve anything?

The solution is to come in.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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TORONTO  The federal government is creating a working group on housing with the Ontario and British Columbia governments as well as officials from Vancouver and Toronto amid warnings that housing prices in those cities are rising at an unsustainable pace.

Overall, the housing market is sound, but pockets of risk have emerged since the financial crisis, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a speech Thursday.

The government has already taken steps to protect borrowers and lenders, Morneau said, but more steps can be taken, if warranted, to help maintain a stable housing market.

These measures are taking some time to take effect, but we do know that they will help, he said. I want to say though, if further steps are warranted, further steps can be taken to protect both borrowers and lenders, helping to maintain a strong, stable and secure housing market and the economy over the long term.

Morneau recently increased the minimum down payment for homes over $500,000, a measure aimed specifically at cooling the Vancouver and Toronto markets.

The working group has not yet been formed  Morneau said he spoke to the respective finance ministers and mayors about it earlier this week  but it will meet through the summer to review factors that affect housing supply and demand, affordability and stability of the market.

While the federal government does have some levers under its control, we dont have all of them, he said. This, in our estimation, is a shared responsibility with provincial governments and municipalities having regulatory and taxation powers to respond to unique local concerns.

The Bank of Canada has warned that housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto are rising at an unsustainable pace that is beyond local economic fundamentals.

It noted that year-over-year house price growth in the greater Vancouver area hit 30 per cent last month, up from 15 per cent in December. In Toronto, the report said prices increased 15 per cent, compared to 10 per cent six months ago.

The Toronto Real Estate Board has reported that the average price for a detached home in the city last month was $1.28 million, while the average price for all homes was $782,051.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said that its benchmark price for detached properties has risen above $1.5 million.
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VANCOUVER  Fortress Paper Ltd. (TSX:FTP) has agreed to sell the assets of an idled pulp mill and saw mill in Quebec for $15.4 million.

The buyers are subsidiaries of Nexolia Bioenergy Inc., a private company focused on investing in natural resources, renewable energy and other projects.

Nexolia will be acquring the buildings, equipment and property at the mill site in Lebel-Sur-Quevillon, 620 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

The transaction is expected to close by July 8.

Vancouver-based Fortress says the sale of the LSQ Mill will release the company from a number of future obligations.

Fortress says the buyer will assume responsibility for paying property taxes. Fortress will also assign a $7-million secured note it receives to Investissement Quebec
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Canadas first ultra-low-cost air service  NewLeaf Travel  is finally ready to take to the skies next month, and it will have some new partners in tow.

The president and CEO of the new no-frills air service told a news conference Thursday it plans to offer 60 flights a week on 18 routes beginning July 25, with one-way introductory fares ranging from $79 to $249, taxes and fees included.

Jim Young also revealed a group of seven Manitoba First Nations that owns the South Beach Casino have bought an ownership stake in Winnipeg-based NewLeaf. He didnt reveal how big of a stake the new consortium  called South Beach Capital Partners  has acquired. But he said it was a significant investment.

We have made a significant investment that we are confident will be returned many times over Brokenhead Ojibway Nation Chief Jim Bear

Thats also the term used by a spokesman for the group  Brokenhead Ojibway Nation Chief Jim Bear.

We have made a significant investment that we are confident will be returned many times over, Bear said in a statement. Profits can be used to improve residents lives in our home communities, and to finance further development opportunities  both social and economic.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS NewLeaf CEO Jim Young. Young told reporters NewLeaf has added five more Canadian destinations to the seven it unveiled at its initial launch in January. The 12 destinations are: Halifax, Moncton, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Kelowna, Kamloops, Fort St. John, Abbotsford and Victoria.

NewLeafs original launch was cut short after questions were raised about whether, as a reseller of air travel, it needed to have an operating licence. It decided to halt ticket sales until the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled on the matter. The agency concluded in March that NewLeaf didnt need a licence because tickets would be booked through its partner in the new venture  Kelowna-based Flair Airlines  which will also be providing the planes and the flight and maintenance crews. Flair Airlines has a valid operating licence.

Young said the partners waited until now  customers could begin buying tickets as of Thursday  to relaunch the service because they wanted to make sure everything complied with the transportation agencys guidelines.

We will absolutely adhere to the CTAs clarified rules for resellers, and have taken the past few months to review our practices to make sure we are in full compliance, he said.

We are glad that we took the extra time to plan our relaunch as we wanted to protect consumers and offer them long-term business stability. It has taken a bit of time to get off the ground, but we are excited to now bring to Canada the ultra-low-cost business model that has proven successful around the world.

He said they arent worried consumers may be leery about buying tickets, given the last aborted launch and the fact air passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs has appealed the CTAs ruling. Lukacs questions whether air travellers rights will be fully protected  for instance if a flight is overbooked  if they purchased their ticket from a company that doesnt operate the planes. He also argues other companies that have operated similar business models were required to hold licences. That appeal hearing is still pending.

We believe we never really lost a lot of our customers faith, and were just coming back to deliver what we said we would, Young said. And we are certainly not going to sit around and wait for a single individual to decide for us whether or not we can fly. We have the legal right to do so.

Although its an ultra-low-cost service, he said NewLeaf customers will have all of the same protections and coverage provided by other airlines.

Young said NewLeaf has no plans at the moment to add more Canadian destinations. But it is looking into the possibility of adding some U.S. sun destinations in the near future. More Canadian destinations will likely he added as business volumes grow.

He said the company also expects to add more flights as business volumes grow. Most of its routes will start off offering two or three flights per week.

At Thursdays news conference, Young also revealed Ben Baldanza, the former CEO of Spirit Airlines, has agreed to serve as chairman of NewLeafs board of directors. Baldanza built Spirit from a tiny airline to the largest U.S. ultra-low-cost carrier.

 with files from The Canadian Press

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
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VANCOUVER  A Vancouver-based mining company says a contract worker has died in an accident at one of its mining operations in Mexico.

Great Panther Silver Ltd. (TSX:GPR) says the worker died Wednesday due to an isolated rock fall at its Guanajuatito Mine.

The company says it is assessing the cause of the incident and has reported it to the relevant authorities.

Great Panther Silver also says that while the area where the accident occurred has been closed for the investigation, the rest of the operations are unaffected.

The company also operates a mine in Durango, Mexico.

Word of the fatality comes a day after another Vancouver-based mining company, Starcore International Mines Ltd. (TSX:SAM), reported the death of a worker in an accident at its San Martin mine in Mexico.

Starcore said that accident claimed the life of an experienced underground miner during wall and ceiling support installation.
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SOUTH Korean automakers Kia and Hyundai tightened their grip on the lead in U.S. new-vehicle quality with Kia ranked best in J.D. Powers annual survey, the first time in 27 years a non-premium brand held the top spot.

General Motors had seven winners in vehicle categories, the most of any company in the Initial Quality Study, released Wednesday, and the Detroit Three automakers domestic brands scored better on average than their import counterparts for just the second time in the surveys 30 years. Kias rate of 83 problems reported per 100 vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership was one fewer than Porsche, with Hyundai third at 92.

Over the last 10 years, Hyundai and Kia kept moving up, up, up, up, Renee Stephens, J.D. Powers vice-president of U.S. automotive quality, said in an interview. Quality has just been a priority in everything they do. Its been pervasive, its been a journey, they never let up and thats what it took.

The survey is an automotive bellwether consumers follow closely and use to make purchase decisions. Industry-wide, new-vehicle quality improved six per cent from 2015, the biggest increase in seven years as 21 of 33 brands rated gained ground. Technology such as dashboard information systems remains a pain point, though automakers are making progress at addressing that, Stephens said. Korean and U.S. companies improved the most in making technology easier to use.

Voice recognition and Bluetooth remain the top two problems, but for the first time since weve been highlighting it, voice recognition actually improved, Stephens said. Thats an indication that maybe were turning the corner on some of these areas.

Hyundai and Kia, its affiliate, have climbed to the top of the studys ranks after striving for years to overcome an image in the United States of making cheap, utilitarian vehicles. They committed themselves to radically remaking their image around better designs and greatly improved quality. In last years survey, Kia was second and Hyundai fourth.

Five U.S. brands were better than this years industry average of 105 problems per 100 vehicles, while an equal number were worse than that mark, including all of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles brands. Yet Fiat Chryslers Chrysler and Jeep brands were the most improved, with each lowering their number of problems by 28 from last year.

The Detroit Threes domestic brands collectively had a score of 103, an improvement of 10 per cent from last year. Import brands were at 106, trailing their U.S. competition for the first time since 2010.

Fords namesake brand and Lincoln luxury division were better than the industry average again, after plunging a few years ago because of complaints about its dashboard touch-screen controls. Last year, the company ditched its MyFordTouch controls, introduced a simpler system known as Sync3 and restored old-style knobs and buttons on the dashboard.

Ford struggled with being one of the first in with touch-screen controls, Stephens said. They learned and listened to the consumer.

Following GM in top ratings in vehicles categories were Toyota, Hyundai and Volkswagen.

Premium brands fell across the board, led by Tata Motors Jaguar, which slipped to below average, with 127 problems per 100 vehicles, from third last year with 93. Nissans Infiniti luxury line also dropped out of the top 10.

Hondas main brand, once a quality leader, fell below the industry average, widening to 119 problems per 100 vehicles from 111 last year. Problems with introductions of the Civic compact car, Pilot sport utility vehicle and HR-V small SUV pushed down Hondas score, Stephens said.

J.D. Power, a unit of S&P Global Inc., collected responses from February through May from more than 80,000 purchasers and lessees of new 2016-model vehicles after 90 days of ownership. The study was released at an Automotive Press Association event in Detroit.

 Bloomberg News
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Trican Well Service abruptly suspended operations at its Brandon shop on Wednesday, forcing roughly 40 employees to look for work elsewhere.

The international oil services company opened its Brandon location in January 2012 and moved into its current 23,000-sq.-ft. building on Limestone Road in September 2013.

Rob Cox, Tricans vice president, Canadian region, broke the news to the employees at 8 a.m. on Wednesday and the shop shuttered its doors later that day.

File Trican Well Service's Riley Ruttan, left, and Eric Hudson, right, lead Mineral Resources Minister Dave Chomiak on a tour during the grand opening of the oil service company's new Brandon location in this June 2014 photo.

Id have to ask what the value in giving more notice is. When you tell somebody Two weeks from now youre not going to have a job where is the focus? he said.

Cox wouldnt say when the decision to close the Brandon shop was made.

Weve been trying to justify keeping the base open for some time and we finally made the decision to close it down, he said.

Some of the employees are being offered transfers to other Trican bases and some are being laid off; however, its unclear how many employees will be transferred.

The closure is due to faltering oil prices and a drop in demand for the pumping services that Trican specializes in, according to Cox. The goal is to reopen the Brandon location down the road.

We anticipate being able to start up operations there again in two to three years as oil prices come back and client spending increases, Cox said. But its far enough off in the future that we couldnt stay open for the time being.

The company recently closed three other bases in Alberta.
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LETHBRIDGE, Alta.  Sentencing arguments are being made for David and Collet Stephan, convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life for their 19-month-old son, Ezekiel. A medical examiner ruled the boy died of bacterial meningitis. Here are some key dates court heard about in the last days of the boys life:

August 20, 2010: Ezekiel Stephan is born at home with the assistance of birthing assistant Terry Meynders, who is also a registered nurse.

February 27, 2012: Ezekiel takes ill at the family home in Glenwood, Alta. His mother describes him as having a cold, stuffy nose and trouble breathing. The sound he was making was heartwrenching. This isnt the kind of sound you want to hear from your child, she testifies later at the trial.

David and Collet Stephan pose with children (left to right) Enoch, 1, Ezra, 8, and Ephraim, 3, while holding a photo of Ezekiel in a family handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Jill Calitz

February 28-March 5, 2012: Ezekiel is treated for what his parents believed to be croup, an upper airway infection that leads to a barking cough. In addition to regular smoothies, they give the boy olive leaf extract, garlic, hot peppers and horseradish. They also attempt to help his breathing with cool air and a humidifier.

March 5, 2012: Ezekiel seems to improve. His father says the boy is not 100 per cent, but he no longer has any difficulty breathing and is able to go to preschool. He plays with his toys and manages to eat some solid food.

March 6, 2012: Ezekiel suffers a setback. He is unusually lethargic, lays in bed the entire day and his only response is to moan unhappily. He doesnt eat or drink and is exhibiting unusual neurological symptoms.

March 7, 2012: Ezekiel seems to improve again. His abnormal movements stop and he can watch TV, but still isnt playing normally.

March 8-10, 2012: Ezekiels parents note he seems to be gradually improving. He regains a bit of his appetite, but is not active or playful.

March 11, 2012: Ezekiels symptoms worsen again. He refuses to eat or drink and is lethargic. His parents notice his body is very stiff.

March 12, 2012: Ezekiels body is so stiff that his back is arched. He is getting fluids through an eyedropper because he will not drink on his own. Meynders comes to the home and checks his vitals. She suggests he could possibly have viral meningitis and says she tells the mother she should take the boy to a doctor. It did not jump out at me that he was that seriously ill, Meynders testifies.

March 13, 2012: The Stephans head to Lethbridge to pick up an echinacea mixture from a naturopath. Ezekiel is too stiff to sit in his car seat and has to lie on a mattress in the vehicle. Back at home that evening, the boy stops breathing on a couple of occasions before his parents leave home to meet an ambulance. The breathing equipment in the ambulance it too large to properly help a small child. The boy is taken to hospital in Cardston and then to Lethbridge for transport to Calgary by air.

March 14, 2012: Ezekiel arrives at Alberta Childrens Hospital in Calgary where doctors tell the parents the boy is showing very little brain activity and the prognosis is bleak. He is put on life support.

March 16, 2012: Ezekiel dies.
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COBBLE HILL, B.C.  When every way of communicating was cut off during an earthquake exercise on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, amateur radio operators were the first to step in with a call for help to the outside world.

Telephone lines, cellular and wireless communications were knocked out in the simulated scenario, but volunteer ham radio operators managed to contact a Canadian Forces long-range patrol aircraft flying over the Rockies to broadcast rescue information.

Theres the old amateur radio saying that when everything else fails, theres amateur radio, said Steve Bradshaw, president of the Cowichan Valley Amateur Radio Society, who participated in the $1.2 million government exercise earlier this month with about a dozen other radio operators.

Steve Bradshaw, Cowichan Valley Amateur Radio Society president, operates a radio from the communications trailer in Cobble Hill, B.C., Monday, June 20, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

Naomi Yamamoto, B.C.s emergency preparedness minister, said the operators made history by communicating directly with the Canadian Forces aircraft on amateur radio frequencies. She said the radio volunteers proved their worth as a vital lifeline during a disaster.

If there is an emergency, the only communication may be these amateur radio guys, said Yamamoto. All I know is that if they werent there for that first hour, we would be behind the eight ball. We wouldnt know what happened to Port Alberni or the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Exercise Coastal Response was based on a scenario where a magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by at least two tsunami waves, struck Port Alberni, a coastal community of about 18,000 people, 200 kilometres northwest of Victoria.

More than 60 different organizations and 600 people participated in the three-day exercise, including Emergency Management BC, the RCMP, Salvation Army, Red Cross, coast guard, First Nations and the volunteer radio operators.

A special effects company was hired to produce disaster scenes.

Port Alberni was the site of a devastating tsunami 52 years ago after a magnitude 9.2 earthquake off Alaska. Two waves gathered force as they funnelled up Alberni Inlet in March 1964, hitting the city with forces that swept away houses and vehicles, but caused no deaths.

Bradshaw said the radio operators set up a self-contained communications system to broadcast and receive messages during the exercise. He downplayed the contact with the military aircraft in an interview inside the societys mobile command trailer parked at his home just north of Victoria, saying amateur radio is always there when disasters occur.

The uniqueness of this trailer and its mobile nature, as well as the training our members do, is we can communicate anywhere in the world at any time, said Bradshaw. Roads have to be available. But we also have portable units we can put on our back in a backpack and do it that way.

The mobile unit is stocked with supplies and enough food and fuel for about a week.

He said amateur radio operators helped guide rescue crews to people stranded on their rooftops after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Amateur radio also played a vital role after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in 14 countries.

Paul Peters, emergency telecommunications co-ordinator for the Cowichan Valley Regional District, said amateur radio operators working with the military marked a historic achievement.

The gold here is amateur radio and the military communicated just like they would in a real honest-to-goodness 9 catastrophic earthquake, said Peters, who is also an amateur radio operator. It was a first for amateur radio, which is 103 years old in Canada.

There are about 70,000 such licensed operators across Canada and Peters said the hobby is experiencing a revival. No, its not a dying breed, if anything its realizing a resurgence.
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OTTAWA  Manitoba has secured a $20-million investment in aerospace training in Winnipeg in compensation for federal legislation, which means Air Canada will not have to resurrect high-paying, heavy maintenance work in the city.

News of the impending deal was announced on the floor of the Senate by Manitoba Sen. Don Plett as third and final reading of Bill C-10 got underway Wednesday afternoon. The bill amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act to water down requirements on the type and amount of maintenance work the airline has to keep in Winnipeg, Montreal and Mississauga, Ont. Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the airline needs more flexibility to decide its own contracts in a globally competitive industry.

The existing act requires overhaul centres  and the accompanying high paying jobs  in those cities, but the new law lessens that requirement to be just any type of maintenance work. Winnipegs current 28 line maintenance jobs will be good enough to fulfill the new requirement and Air Canada can change that number at any time.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Details of the $20-million investment have yet to be released. Neither Garneau's office nor the provincial government could provide any more information Wednesday, as final negotiations were still underway.

Winnipeg had more than 400 heavy maintenance employees until 2012, when Air Canadas heavy maintenance subsidiary went bankrupt and the airline shipped the work out of the country. Today Air Canada has contracts with companies in Quebec, the United States, Ireland, Israel and Singapore to do its overhaul maintenance.

Last week, in an interview with the Free Press, Plett said he would block passage of C-10 before the summer recess unless the government came up with the $20 million in aerospace training funds for Manitoba, which he said had been promised to the former NDP government before the provincial election. The new Tory government had been unable to get any answers about the money until after Pletts threat was delivered.

On Monday, Garneau told Plett at a Senate committee he was investing $10 million to expand the Centre for Aerospace Technology and Training at Red River College over the next five years.

Plett asked where the other $10 million was and Garneau did not respond. On Wednesday afternoon, Plett asked Sen. Peter Harder about it during Senate question period. Harder is the governments representative in the Senate. Harder added $5 million to the pile, saying he had been told by the government it was for aerospace training but that the details were still being worked out with the province.

Then during his speech on third reading of the bill a little later, Plett said he was told in an email from the provincial government that they were close to securing the final $5 million.

As such, Plett said he would no longer oppose the bill. Plett said as a Conservative he is in favour of less government regulation and only disliked the bill because he felt the government was hurting his province.

Garneaus office has provided no further details of exactly how the money will be spent. A provincial spokeswoman said only that negotiations were continuing.

Bill C-10 ultimately passed through the Senate Wednesday afternoon and will now become law. Air Canada will move forward with a plan to create maintenance centres of excellence in Winnipeg and Montreal, as well as to buy new planes from Quebec-based Bombardier. An airline executive threatened Monday to back out of those promises unless C-10 passed.

Details of the $20-million investment have yet to be released. Neither Garneaus office nor the provincial government could provide any more information Wednesday, as final negotiations were still underway.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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Lawyers for a Winnipeg man accused of a deadly restaurant ambush have begun attacking key DNA evidence used to link him to the crime.

Devin Hall, 30, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the September 2012 shooting death of 23-year-old Jeffrey Lau inside the Salisbury House restaurant and the attempted murder of one of Laus five friends who was sitting at the table with him.

Witnesses to the attack were unable to identify the gunman, who had a white shirt pulled over his face. He also wore black gloves on his hands, which meant no fingerprints were left behind. However, investigators were able to develop DNA profiles from the shirt and gloves officers found discarded near the popular Pembina Highway eatery.

Jurors have heard how seven different samples produced a compelling link to Hall. Experts say the chances of another randomly selected person being the primary major source of the DNA found on the items ranged from one in 60 million on the low end, and one in 9.4 trillion on the high end. Some of the items were then re-tested, at the request of Halls lawyer, using a more enhanced DNA system that has recently been put in place. In those cases, the new results suggested the odds of another source to range from one in 1.5 trillion on the low end and one in 4.2 quadrillion on the high end.

The Crown has told jurors DNA evidence is a major part of their case, which they officially closed on Tuesday. But defence lawyer Martin Glazer put his own expert on the stand Wednesday to suggest there is no proverbial forensic smoking gun in this case.

It cant tell you anything about who fired the gun, said Dr. William Watson, an expert in forensic profiling based out of Tennessee. Its impossible to tell from that evidence alone who did the shooting.

Investigators found whats known as a mixed profile on the items, with DNA traces from at least three individuals. The primary contributor was the one linked to Hall. But Watson told jurors that doesnt exclude the other unknown contributors from actually belonging to the real killer.

Its impossible to say who out of that mixture was involved in the crime, he said. Certainly its unlikely three people were firing the gun. Unless you believe three people handled the gun at the same time, you cant say who fired it. Its possible the person who fired the gun didnt even leave a sufficient DNA sample.

As well, Watson said the mere presence of what appears to be Halls DNA doesnt make him guilty of anything. He offered up a number of explanations for how Halls DNA could have got on the items even if he had nothing to do with the shooting.

These include transferring his DNA through contact with the real killer, innocently touching the items at some point or even having the gloves and shirt come into contact with other items or locations where his DNA had been left behind such as a vehicle or home.

Theres no way to say whether it occurred at the scene of the crime, or 50 miles away, said Watson. DNA cant tell you anything about how it got there. Assuming its his, you cant say anything about what was happening when his DNA got on there.

A short surveillance video played in court shows a gunman entering the restaurant, opening fire and then retreating.

Lau was dead on arrival at hospital.

www.mikeoncrime.com
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The abduction of two Winnipeg children  believed to be taken by their own mother  comes on the heels of a nasty, prolonged family court battle that hinted things were only going to get worse.

Court documents reviewed by the Free Press Wednesday paint a troubling picture of how Montana Giesbrecht, 11, and Joshua Giesbrecht, 9, were caught in the middle of an ugly dispute between their parents, who married in 2005.

This include Child and Family Service involvement, allegations of sexual assault that were found to be false, violent threats and psychological abuse.

Josh (left) and Montana Giesbrecht

Queens Bench Justice Cathy Everett awarded full custody of the children to their father, lawyer Jacob Giesbrecht, on April 8 after a four-week trial. Sandra Giesbrecht was only allowed to have supervised visitation once per week after the judge found her to be an emotionally unstable manipulator. She was also ordered to pay monthly child support.

Since the separation, the mothers behaviour has been disturbing. She continues to show an unwillingness to parent the children in a healthy manner. She continues her attempts to prevent their parental bond with their father, Everett wrote. Immeasurable harm has been caused to these children over the past 21/2 years by the mothers toxic conduct. She has attempted to destroy the parental bond between the children and their father. To some degree, the extent of which is unknown, she has been successful.

Sandra Giesbrecht is wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant. Montana and Josh were last seen getting into a white four-door car in the Crestview area Monday evening.

As part of the court ruling, the mother was also banned from having any unauthorized contact with her children or her estranged husband.

This dynamic places the court in an almost impossible situation. The children are attached to their mother and need a relationship with her, but she shows no motivation to change, said Everett.

CFS seized the children in January because of concerns they were being emotionally and psychologically abused by their mother. There had been two previous criminal complaints in 2014 and 2015 made against the father for alleged sexual abuse of his daughter. A lengthy investigation by police and CFS found there to be no merit and deemed they were the mothers attempts to manipulate custody.

This has led to an ongoing police investigation of the mother for possible public mischief charges. As well, police uncovered disturbing text messages the woman sent to her friend, which were presented in court at the recent custody battle.

They confirmed she was having the father followed and that she wanted to kill him if the court gave him more time with the children. In the text messages she also mused about disappearing with the children, said Everett.

When asked about those texts during her trial in April, the mother simply said, I can neither confirm nor deny that I sent them.

The children were recently found to each have secret phones their mother had given them to communicate. The mother was also found in contempt of court for hiring the person to follow her estranged spouse around, apparently in an attempt to dig up dirt on him.

As well, Everett said two unidentified women in a rental vehicle were seen in April taking pictures of the childrens school and all the entrances. An adult woman was also caught by staff in the school that month, speaking briefly with the children. She refused to identify herself before fleeing.

Everett ordered Sandra Giesbrecht to pay a $5,000 fine for the contempt charge and gave her a 45-day suspended sentence.

The mother shows no contrition and no inclination to change her contemptuous behaviour. At trial her, conduct continued to border on contemptuous. This conduct included yelling at the fathers counsel, refusing to answer questions and inappropriate commentary directed at the court following rulings on objections, Everett wrote.

The mother has also lashed out at her estranged husband by recently sending a highly personal and vicious email to the mans co-workers.

Sandra Giesbrecht

Much of the content was not true. It is demonstrative of the unstable behaviour that the mother has exhibited over the past two years, said Everett.

In another incident, the mother threatened to scatter the fathers legal files all over the neighbourhood and then telephone the Law Society unless he gave in to her demands.

The impact on his career from such an action could have been devastating. This threat is indicative of the mothers pattern of behaviour that is intended to destroy the father when she does not get what she wants.

Everett said the mothers actions are beginning to rub off on her children, noting two experts who spent time with them for the purpose of court-ordered reports presented major concerns about their well-being.

Her influence on the children is destructive and is manifesting itself in the behaviour of the children, said Everett. Both experts expressed concern about the mothers refusal to allow the children to have a healthy relationship with their father.

The mother also filed assault charges against the father in 2013 for an alleged incident in a Sobeys parking lot. They were later dropped by the Crown, found to have no merit.

The court battle clearly took a major toll on all parties. The father estimated his legal costs to be more than $70,000. The mother, who owns a real estate licence but hasnt been working since her unlicensed daycare was shut down by the province last year, recently declared bankruptcy.

And it all could have been avoided. Jacob Giesbrecht made a settlement offer in 2014 that would have given his estranged wife much more access than she ultimately was granted by the courts. She refused, and the fight was on.

The mother recently filed documents indicating she planned to appeal Everetts custody decision, but no date for a hearing had been set.

www.mikeoncrime.com
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RCMP said Wednesday they are reassessing their decision to deny a permit to the first Steinbach Pride parade to march on the street.

The Mounties support the Steinbach Pride parade and will march alongside participants on the morning of July 9, the RCMP declared Wednesday afternoon.

Other parades and events have closed down streets in Steinbach, a city of 14,000 people 65 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg.

Eduardo Lima / The Canadian Press files (left) Steinbach Pride parade organizers expect hundreds to attend. Steinbach Mayor Chris Goertzen (top), Conservative MP Ted Falk (middle), and Health Minister and Steinbach Tory MLA Kelvin Goertzen say they wont be among them.

But the Mounties told organizers of the July 9 Pride March they would have to stick to sidewalks because a lane of the street along the march route is partially under construction.

There has been a permit all along for the Pride participants to use the sidewalk to march from Steinbach United Church to city hall, RCMP Sgt. Bert Paquet said by email.

Said Paquet: The RCMP fully supports the LGBT community and the Steinbach Pride Parade. The Steinbach RCMP has been working with event organizers to find a safe route for the parade and its participants.

While a (street) permit was initially declined for safety reasons, we are reassessing the request. Our primary concern was and remains the safety of event participants. Our officers will be there to ensure security and are looking forward to walking alongside participants on July 9, Paquet said.

Pride parade organizer Michelle McHale could not be reached Wednesday but had said on the parades Facebook site the parade would be held on the sidewalk.

There were reports the RCMP had turned down a street parade because of construction and Saturday traffic.

The Manitoba Teachers Society, NDP caucus, and Liberal caucus all plan on having members take part, though Steinbach Mayor Chris Goertzen, Health Minister and Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen and Tory MP Ted Falk have all said they wont be participating.

Winnipeg Pride chairman Jonathan Niemczyk said Wednesday he expects upwards of 700 people coming from outside Steinbach.

Were playing a supporting role for them, Niemczyk said. I get a sense theres going to be pretty large attendance.

The Winnipeg Pride parade had 92 vehicles of some sort  cars, trucks, flatbeds, bicycles  but Steinbach has allowed only pedestrians, he said. At the end of the day, it is a demonstration. If they spill onto the street, the police will have to operate a rolling blockade, Niemczyk said.

There are going to be hundreds  the street is going to be used.

Even with that many people and a short parade route starting at 10:30 a.m., it shouldnt take more than 15 minutes for the parade to pass any given point, he said.

Justice Minister Heather Stefanson told reporters Wednesday parade permit conditions are strictly a police call, with safety the primary concern.

Certainly, it would be inappropriate for me to intervene in any decision made by the RCMP. Its really up to the RCMP  they make those decisions for a reason.

Stefanson was unaware if any Conservative caucus members would be attending Steinbach Pride. Stefanson, who took part in Winnipeg Pride, said she is unable to go that day.

Meanwhile, Hanover School Division said Wednesday that it is still talking to Education Minister Ian Wishart about his offer to provide LGBTQQ* awareness training for trustees and staff.

McHales family has filed a complaint with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission over Hanover trustees refusal to allow classroom discussion of sexual identity issues.

The Hanover School Division also said there is no sign of any public discussion of the sexual identity issue so far at its June 29 public school board meeting.

We continue to be in conversation with the ministers office, said a division spokesman. At this point there are no delegations scheduled for June 29, nor is there a specific agenda item on this topic scheduled for June 29.

Steinbach city council issued a statement Wednesday afternoon stating they have not officially endorsed the parade.

Steinbach residents will decide for themselves whether they wish to attend this event, read part of the statement.

Council believes that all people, including those who identify as LGBTQ, deserve to be treated with love and respect at all times. Council also recognizes the importance of respecting the rights of individuals and organizations who hold different beliefs from those in the LGBTQ community.

-with files from the Canadian Press

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

City+Council+Statement+re+Upcoming+Pride+March
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/06/2016 (2317 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the public relations campaign to win support for the purchase of a $343,000 armored vehicle, the Winnipeg Police Service is resorting to some pretty desperate measures.

Free rides for journalists.

And so it was Wednesday the WPS called journalists to the duck pond at Assiniboine Park to see and experience the newest weapon in the fight against crime. The armoured rescue vehicle, as it is dubbed, is both hideous and spectacular at the same time. With its dramatic, matte-black finish, tinted bulletproof windows and gun ports, it is a pretty menacing ride.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg police unveil the new Gurkha armoured vehicle purchased by the Winnipeg Police Service at a press event in Assiniboine Park. June 22, 2016.

It is also, without a word of a lie, pretty cool.

Journalists scurried to get their spot in the back of the vehicle, and enjoyed a leisurely, 10-minute tour of the park.

When they returned, most appeared to have accepted the argument the vehicle was a tool to enhance public safety and not a tool of evil oppression.

Well played, Winnipeg Police Service. Well played.

All kidding aside, let it be said that appropriately deployed and responsibly utilized, the vehicle could be a positive thing. In a profession that is admittedly becoming more and more dangerous all the time, a bulletproof vehicle that can be used to shield police or innocent civilians from gun-toting criminals has great potential.

However, the very presence of the vehicle is also proof military tactics, equipment and sensibilities are now ingrained in civilian policing. In some cities, including some in Canada, military-style tools often promote a military-style mindset that is not always appropriate in urban policing. The public relations campaign accompanying the vehicle is a pretty obvious sign police are quite aware of the sensitivities at play here.

The name  armoured rescue vehicle  is in and of itself a pretty big tell for the police PR strategy. Although rescue is one possible use of the vehicle, its hardly the central purpose. Parking it beside a paramedic unit for the photo opportunity was also a clever, if not somewhat obvious, attempt to frame the vehicle more as a tool of humanity and less as an offensive anti-crime weapon.

The reality is police believe they need more military and paramilitary weapons, equipment and tactics to do their jobs more effectively, but they do not want to spook the public into thinking its police service is becoming a military unit. That is a very difficult and delicate line to balance.

Deputy Chief Gord Perrier acknowledged as much in an interview at the park when he conceded the WPS is very keen to convince the public the vehicle is not the beginning of a militarization of the police service. Perrier pointed out while the glass and plating in the vehicle are bulletproof, the Winnipeg vehicle is not up to military standards.

It is lighter and offers slightly less protection than true military APVs, he said. And its important to note Winnipegs armoured vehicle is brand new and built specifically for urban policing. Many vehicle in use by police forces in the United States, Perrier added, are converted surplus vehicles either purchased or donated by the military.

I think our vehicle is different (than comparable U.S. police vehicles), Perrier said. I know there are going to be people who disagree, but youre talking about two very different things.

With this comment, Perrier is demonstrating he is aware of how police utilization of military-grade equipment and tactics has become a huge political issue. This was partly prompted by the tragic events in Ferguson, Mo., in the summer of 2014, where the world watched a military-style response by local police to the protests that followed the shooting of an unarmed black man.

The events in Ferguson were alarming enough that U.S. President Barack Obama waded into the debate, urging local governments to decommission or resist procuring military equipment out of a fear it was encouraging a toxic culture in urban police forces.

It is important to note that even without the vehicle, the WPS is already deep into paramilitary equipment and tactics, seen clearly in the equipment sported by the tactical support team. Critics in the justice system, including many defence lawyers, believe the WPS relies too heavily on tactical support and its hallmark manoeuvre, the so-called dynamic or no-knock entry, where police use force to enter a premises without warning to search for a suspect or to execute a warrant.

The WPS released statistics on the number of tactical support deployments that clearly show it is pretty common police response. In 2014 and 2015, tactical support was involved in 308 planned operations to execute warrants involving drugs, weapons and gang connections. However, police officials said tactical support responds to hundreds more unplanned incidents that include reports of suspects carrying firearms, or leaving an armed robbery and retreating to a dwelling.

It is reasonable to assume that workload for tactical support is a reflection of the increasingly dangerous environment police experience on a day-to-day basis. It also confirms tactical support and the vehicle  and their military sensibilities  are both here to stay.

This trend does not have to result in the same kinds of problems seen in Ferguson and other U.S. cities. Effective oversight by the Winnipeg Police Board and discretion on the part of the WPS in deciding where and when to deploy the tactical support team and the new vehicle will determine its combined effectiveness.

However, if police here fall into the traditions established by U.S. police forces and are tempted to send the vehicle out to a broader array of incidents or events simply to ensure it does not sit idle, the likelihood of tragedy will be very high. And that will be a public relations problem that cannot be solved by a joyride in an armoured vehicle.

dan.lett@freepess.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Pallister government continues to keep its cards close to its vest on what amendments it will propose to a new national Canada Pension Plan agreement forged earlier this week.

The new Progressive Conservative government did not sign on to the deal reached by federal and provincial finance ministers in Vancouver Monday, although Manitobans would still be bound by it.

Ottawa estimates it will cost taxpayers $250 million per year to offset the additional financial burden expansion of CPP will eventually place on low-income earners.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Finance Minister Cameron Friesen would only say of proposed CPP changes: Stay tuned.

Premier Brian Pallister and Finance Minister Cameron Friesen indicated Tuesday they would be offering suggestions to tweak the agreement in the coming weeks and months, but provided no details.

Friesen said he briefed the provincial cabinet Wednesday about the ideas discussed at the B.C. meeting. Cabinet also discussed some new ideas Manitoba would bring forward in future pension discussions.

However, Friesen refused to disclose any details Wednesday. We will be updating you as soon as we can, he told reporters. Stay tuned.

On Monday, federal-provincial ministers agreed in principle to enhance the CPP, adding up to $4,300 in annual payouts to Canadians by 2023. Premium increases would be phased in, starting at $7 a month in 2019 for a typical worker earning $55,000 and rising to $34 per month by 2023.

Manitoba abstained from voting on the Vancouver agreement, Pallister said. Manitoba and Quebec were the only provinces not to endorse it. But with Ottawa and the other provinces onside, it has sufficient support to proceed.

Manitoba business leaders were highly critical of the new deal, which they view as a tax they cannot afford, while organized labour applauded it as an important way of helping Canadians to fund their retirement. Both workers and employers fund the plan.

Earlier in the week, Pallister would not say whether he was philosophically opposed to mandatory increases in CPP premiums. He would only say Manitoba would propose amendments to the agreement and solely relying on the CPP would be a major mistake for those planning their retirement.

Both Pallister and Friesen have said the discussion around the CPP should be broadened to address general affordability issues and Manitoba is a high-tax jurisdiction.

 with file from The Canadian Press

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the movie Money Monster, George Clooney plays the dazzling host of a television show dispensing financial advice with the seductive charm of a matinee idol and the zeal of an evangelist.

But then a hapless viewer who has followed Clooneys advice and lost everything in one afternoon breaks into the TV studio. Holding a gun to the gurus head, he asks: Where did my money go?

More than a few critics have found this violent twist of plot beyond believable.

TriStar Pictures Kyle Budwell (Jack OConnell) takes TV host Lee Gates (George Clooney) hostage.

Some seasoned Winnipeg brokers still recall the day news reached them a ruined Miami investor had stormed his brokers office and shot him to death.

They remember also an ominous phone call they received at the outset of the financial meltdown of 2008; and that headquarters warned them not to go outside and to avoid publicly wearing the company logo.

Violence related to personal finance is rarely reported, especially in Canada, but business presses such as the Wall Street Journal have noted clients are much angrier and more aggressive about money than they used to be. The Journal reports that in China, for example, mom-and-pop investors are demonstrating loudly in the streets as they watch their nest eggs shrink. The demonstrators are considered a new challenge to corporate security.

The economic collapse of 2008 appears to have changed everything. Cynicism rules. The term bankster has crept into popular vocabulary.

And no wonder, given the 2008 meltdown saw a peak in suicide statistics, as well as huge numbers of ordinary people around the world who lost their homes, jobs, health care, pensions and their hopes for a secure future.

The meltdown prompted public scrutiny of the worlds financial industry. As always, where public interest goes, Hollywood follows. Clooneys Money Monster is the latest of a glut of movies inspired by the financial meltdown. Screenwriters were quick to recognize an abundance of the elements of gripping drama  charismatic personalities, lust for power, ambition, greed, corruption, betrayal.

Like journalism in its heyday, these movies are afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.

Hollywood has always excelled at organized crime movies, in which morality was black and white. In such films as The Great Train Robbery (1903), On the Waterfront (1954) The Godfather (1972) Goodfellas (1990) and The Firm (1993), Hollywood producers have made a fortune dissing crime.

But then comes this new post-2008 genre, says Brenda Austin-Smith, professor of film studies at the University of Manitoba. Its very specific. It invites people to think hard about a rigged system we once believed was righteous and permanent. In some of these movies, money is a character which can do good or evil. In others, money plays the role previously played by nature in disaster movies. Money itself has become the force humanity is fighting to survive.

Austin-Smiths personal favourite is The Big Short, winner of the 2016 Oscar for Best Screenplay, because it dared to be both funny and complex about financial corruption. In this one, high finance is a sharkfest, everyones a bad guy, but the industrys underdogs try to outsmart the heartless elite. As in real life, the audience can hardly tell the good guys from the bad.

Austin-Smith says moviegoers are eating up these post-meltdown money movies, but react in a variety of ways. Some are merely depressed. Some are exhilarated at the exposure of corruption. Some are enraged and respond with activism.

In any case, the new genre is a powerful movement in popular culture, which may be helping to affect a change in the political climate, she says. It has certainly made it easier for (former Democratic party presidential hopeful) Bernie Sanders to have a new and meaningful conversation with conventional American voters.

No matter where you look  in the paper, social media, in the movies  a sustained critical attack on corruption in the financial system is there, she says. Sanders and (presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald) Trump offer radically different solutions, but the one problem they agree on is runaway corruption in our financial system.

Lesley Hughes is a Winnipeg writer.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steinbach is the most generous city in Canada, according to statistics released last year. In all the nation, Steinbach residents give more to charity than anywhere else. Indeed, southeast Manitoba, with its small towns and villages, is also very giving. These figures are something Provencher MP Ted Falk proudly pointed out in a blog post in early 2015.

Its hard to reconcile the generosity of people who live in Steinbach with the less-than-generous response from its elected representatives at various levels, including Mr. Falk, toward the LGBTTQ* community.

In March, organizers announced Steinbach would host its first Pride parade July 9. Invitations were sent out to the Steinbach mayor and the areas MLA and MP. All three declined to attend.

FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS Conservative MP Ted Falk

At first, Mr. Falk said the parade conflicted with his commitment to attend the St. Pierre-Jolys Frog Follies. But the president for the annual festival, Marie-Christine Bruce, encouraged Mr. Falk to attend the parade.

This is the first Pride event (for Steinbach). It is historic and important, Ms. Bruce said. It is 2016. Dont hide your feelings behind a prior commitment.

MLA Kelvin Goertzen and Mayor Chris Goertzen also declined to attend the parade and provided little reason for the snub.

The Hanover School Division (which operates in Steinbach) decided it would not implement policy that acknowledges LGBTTQ* issues in the middle-school. Board vice-chairman Rick Peters said just because he disagreed with the request, he wasnt homophobic. I do not have fear of them, which is what phobia is. Phobia is a fear, Im not scared of them, I simply dont agree with that lifestyle, he said.

Michelle McHale, a mother from the Steinbach area, made the policy request to the HSD. She is also the organizer for the local Pride parade. She said shes faced some backlash over her activism but shes also received support.

There seems to be a disconnect between the behaviour of the elected representatives and residents of Steinbach. For example, around 200 people attended a vigil in the city this month for the victims of the June 12 shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 49 people dead. As well, Ms. McHale said shes received letters of support from residents of rural Manitoba saying they support her stance. She also said church groups have reached out and shown their support.

Clearly, the elected officials of Steinbach arent really representing all their constituents. Unfortunately, their actions paint the whole area as being anti-inclusionary.

Thats not Steinbach.

Mayor Goertzen knows that. In 2013, he talked about the positive effect immigration is having on the city and its economy. First, at a conference in Morden, he spoke about the importance of diversity, saying its an asset for the community because it allows people to look at things differently. Later, in a year-end interview, he said: Im really proud of how longer-term citizens of Steinbach have embraced immigration. We know this is a good thing for our city, its a good thing for our economy, and its a good thing for our life experience.

Theres that generosity again. The citizens of Steinbach deserve better from their politicians, who seem to pick and choose what diversity they should embrace. They deserve representatives who uphold their spirit of openness and tolerance and are leaders for their constituents.
A second man was sentenced Wednesday in connection with a September incident where a 19-year-old man was held naked in a Winona warehouse and threatened with a saw and sausage grinder.

John Arnold Demaske was sentenced to five years probation and either 360 hours of community service or a $3,600 fine for stalking with intent to injure, a gross misdemeanor.

Demaske was also sentenced to five years of probation and 80 hours of community service or an $800 fine for possession of methamphetamine from an August incident.

The two probations will be served concurrently.

In the sentancing, Judge Jeffrey Thompson told Demaske that if he were to violate probation conditions or be back on other charges, he should not expect any kind of forgiveness.

This case has always bothered me, Thompson said.

According to court documents and police reports, Winona police were called to Second and Vine streets at 2:28 a.m. Sept. 13, 2015, to assist with a naked, hysterical man who claimed to have been assaulted.

The man told officers he had been to a house party and got lost trying to find his way back to his residence hall. He was approached by two unknown men who took him, one on each arm, and frog-marched him to a warehouse on Laird Street, according to court documents.

The men accused him of stealing from them and ordered him to take his clothes off, which he did. There was a band saw and meat grinder in the room where the man was being held. The mans captors turned on the saw and grinder with the implication they might be used on the captive. After about a half-hour, the man was able to flee, naked, running down East Second Street until two people came to his assistance and police were called, according to court documents.

The man feared he would not escape with his life, according to the complaint.

Police found articles of the captives clothing at a warehouse, which also contained a meat saw and sausage grinder. The man identified Demaske, 46, and Abdirhahman Hassan Samatar, 35, both of Winona, as the men who held him.

Samatar was sentenced in May to 45 days in jail and two years probation, with credit for 45 days served.
Youre coming into a world that already exists.

So says Zach Curtis, the Twin Cities-area actor and director who also spent nine years as the artistic director of the Paul Bunyan Playhouse, but this summer finds himself taking on the eponymous role in The Great River Shakespeare Festivals Julius Caesar, which opens on June 25.

While he could be talking about the universe of one of Shakespeares most famous tragedies, beginning in 44 B.C., or the now-famous assassination scene inside the republics senate chamber, Curtis is actually talking about the festival itself.

This marks his debut with the company, which he said is filled with wonderful people.

I already feel like Ive known them for years, Curtis said.

Which is a good thing, since hes putting his life in their hands.

Its a daunting task, to play a Roman dictator known for thinking hes right all the time; one who refers to himself in the third person at least 20 times. And, he noted, hes only in three scenes before hes stabbed to death in front of everyones eyes.

But hes such a charismatic figure on the page, Curtis said.

He also said he spends more time on stage dead than alive, thanks to the famous funeral scene Shakespeare constructed, but thats OK because hes in good company backstage, too. Curtis said for every person you see on stage, theres at least one more back in the dark making it all happen. In fact, there are hundreds of people working on making this Julius Caesar happen.

Theyre all right there where you cant see them, he said.

What you will see is, more or less, the same play thats thrilled audiences since it debuted in 1599: The tale of a band of brothers who sacrifice a tyrant in the belief theyre saving an empire. But, its far more about their disbanding than their bond, a theme which is sadly still relevant.

Although no ones saying it, theres a vague Mad Men-era feel to the costumes and settings. Dont go in expecting togas and ancient porticos; this production moves as sleekly as its senators dress pant legs.

All the quicker to get to the treachery.

Et tu, Brute?

That latinate lapse has gone down in history, alongside a certain biblical kiss, as a sign of ultimate betrayal and disloyalty. Expect, that isnt exactly what happens in the play.

Brutus is a man of honor, said John Maltese who plays him in the festivals production; one who sees his act as a means to save the republic, as well as his own particular lineage: Governance, it seems, is for the aristocrats, at least in Brutuss mind. Hes not a villain at all.

Hes a hero who has a tragic flaw, Maltese said.

Brutus has an utter commitment to a code of honor, he said, which, in fact, is his principle modus operandi. So, it should come as little surprise that hes slow to be convinced that Caesar should actually die. The ultimate pressure comes from an ironic source: The man who ends up being his truest, if not best, friend.

Its really the story of two unlikely politicians bonding together for the same cause, he said.

What they dont know, of course, is the aftermath their murderous act will have. Which makes the play, as it hurdles forward into even deeper psychological murkiness, about something more than an act of premeditated violence.

Basically, its what happens when that doesnt go right, he said.

To weave all the factors together takes trust with the guy youre acting opposite, which in this case Maltese doubtless has in the form of Benjamin Boucvalt, who plays Cassius. The two actors are both returning for their fourth season at the festival.

Weve never played opposite each other before, Maltese said.

When he called up Boucvault to express his pleasure at the prospect of sharing the stage, the compliment was energetically returned.

That just adds so much trust, Maltese said, and you go so much further.

Which, indeed, they do; all the way to the famous tent scene, where Boucvalt said he hit a metaphoric wall. Up to that point, he thought he had the man he played all figured out. Given to fits of rage, forgery, manipulation, and bribery, Cassius has all the earmarks of an epic villain along the lines of, say, Iago. But, standing opposite Brutus in that tent, their friendship reaches a deeper level, one that is genuine.

That was all opened up for me in the tent scene, Boucvalt said.

While Winona audiences will remember him as Romeo in last seasons Romeo and Juliet, Boucvalt has elsewhere played Hamlet, Sebastian in Twelfth Night (not to mention Orlando in this festival seasons As You Like It), and when it comes to the Bard, the accomplished thespian said he focuses and relies on the words.

Anyone can read Shakespeare, he said. He tapped into something universal everyone can relate to.

Even when that requires something all-too-human, as Boucvalt discovered working with Julius Caesars director, James Edmondson, who made him understand something galvanizing about both Cassius and himself.

Its the ones we love the most that we go after the most, he said.

Thats a lot to get under your skin. Then, too, theres the current political environment and its corollaries with the lauded text which havent escaped anyones notice, least of all his.

I dont know if, in my lifetime, theres been rhetoric and manipulation more tangible than what we have going on right now. Thats all in this play, Boucvalt said, slipping instantly into one of his arias. What trash is Rome, what rubbish and what offal, when it serves for the base matter to illuminate so vile a thing as Caesar. Ill bet everybody in the audience has said that, or thought that, at least once.

Curtis said even though its a tragedy, theres still a sense of fun in the room. Maybe even something deeper. Audiences are willing to give up a few hours of their lives to sit in a darkened room and watch this story. Thats something he considers an incredible gift.

And everyones the better for it, Curtis said.
Motorists heading into Minnesota on Interstate 90 once again have a welcome center.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation opened a renovated Mississippi River rest stop Wednesday after a three-year closure during reconstruction of the I-90 bridge at Dresbach. It is the first rest area for westbound traffic coming into Minnesota, serving about 230,000 visitors each year.

The center is open 24 hours a day and staffed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the summer travel season.

During the closure westbound motorists had to drive another 53 miles to the next rest area. MN-DOT made improvements to the building and grounds, improving accessibility. La Crosse contractor Market & Johnson oversaw the $375,000 project.

Access remains closed to vehicles with trailers until completion of the $187.5 million bridge replacement project in November.
About the time Hannibal Choate was born April 28, 1835, the New York state community where his parents lived was renamed Carthage, inspiring his father to give his son the name of the great hero of the ancient city of Carthage.

Like his ancient namesake, young Choate soon sought new worlds to conquer. He made his way west to Janesville, Wis., working for a retail establishment. At 24, he left Janesville, but brief period of travel was brought to an abrupt conclusion when he found himself in Mobile, Ala., at the outbreak of the Civil War, putting him at considerable hazard because of his Yankee sympathies.

He made his way north with $900 in his pocket, which he used to purchase the Chapman Bros. store in Winona.

It was on a raw, wintry day in December 1861 that Choate arrived in the village that was to be his home and the scene of his great merchandising triumphs for the next 62 years.

His first look at the town was not impressive; neither was the towns first look at him.

Winona was a small steamboat landing, with rutted mud streets, sparsely settled and boasting only a cluster of weathered wooden buildings as its business district.

Choate was 26, travel-stained and tired from his trip, carrying in his hand a large, shabby suitcase tied with rope, and in his mind the ideas that were to make him The Merchant Prince of Southern Minnesota within just a few years.

Hannibal Choate was a pioneer of the fixed-price system of merchandising. Previously the price of an item was decided by how shrewdly the customer could bargain for it. At Choates, each item was marked with its price and that price was the same to everyone.

He was among the first merchants to use extensive indoor displays of merchandise, hanging them on lines throughout the store rather than keeping them on shelves.

When Choate opened his store at 117 Main St., he stocked it with an enticing variety of groceries, boots and shoes, yard goods, crockery and more. Yankee Notions were a special feature.

In addition to attending his retail trade, Choate shipped dressed pork and grain to faraway markets, including Europe.

So successful was Choates store that the walls of the little store would not hold the necessary stock, and part of it had to be moved into the then new Simpson building at Second and Center streets. The Simpson block was the finest in the city at the time, besides being in the most desirable location in town near the levee.

Not only was Choates business prosperous during the first year in Winona, but his luck was equally good. Choates was virtually the only downtown business untouched by the great fire of 1862.

Choate was innovative but also eccentric. After the fire, Choate had a sprinkler system installed, a very modern idea at the time. Once the workmen were done putting the system in, Choate set a fire in the basement to make sure his new investment worked.

To help promote his store, Choate put up signs approximately a mile apart on every main road coming into Winona, saying 8 Miles to Choates Cheap Cash Store, 7 Miles to Choates, and so on. Choate marked off the miles himself, traveling the roads with his horse and wagon and equipped with a crude odometer.

After eight years in the Simpson building, Choate purchased what at one time had been a grain warehouse and former livery stable at Center and Third streets, where the present building now stands. He built a brick store on Center Street just back of the Choate block and while operating a store in this location, built the large stone structure that became one of the most distinctive stores in the new West. This was built in 1888 at a cost of more than $50,000.

Meanwhile, all but dry goods lines were disappearing from Choates, and the store was plugging the phrase, We will not be undersold.

The grand opening of the imposing new store at Center and Third streets was Oct. 12, 1888. Banner headlines three decks deep in the Winona Republican advertised that a stock valued at $200,000 was featured, offering Winona men, women and children a variety of dry goods seldom seen in one store.

Wholesaling business gradually tapered off as improved railroad transportation and growth of wholesale houses in Chicago and in the Twin Cities made the business less and less profitable. Around the turn of the century, Choate discontinued wholesaling, and turned to yet another innovation.

Ready-to-wear clothes began making their appearance too during these years. Many western stores viewed the trend as a threat to their success and hesitated to go along with the idea. Choate foresaw that this was the future in clothing sales and embraced the idea by adding a ready-to-wear department to his store.

Management of the successful building passed down through three generations of Choates  from the elder Choate to Hannibal Choate, Jr. and to grandson Charles in the 1920s.

Hannibal Choate died May 6, 1923, after a two-week illness.Jerome Christenson is deputy editor at the Winona Daily News. His phone number is 507-453-3522  leave a message if hes not around  or email at jerome.christenson@winonadailynews.com.
The Winona County Board of Commissioners considered the merits of a frac sand ban at its June 14 meeting, where both commissioner Steve Jacob and county attorney Karin Sonneman agreed that potential frac sand operations are an open community wound in Winona County.

Jacob is correct that frac sand operations are an open wound, but what is he doing to heal it? He thinks regulations are enough. At the April 26 commissioners' meeting he stated: We already have all the rules we need, the rules we have are adequate. Really?

We know from the experiences of our Wisconsin neighbors that 51 percent of the frac sand operators there have repeatedly violated Department of Natural Resources regulations with impunity: polluting both surface and groundwater, reducing property values so neighbors cant sell their homes, damaging small county roads with heavy trucks and cutting off the tops of bluffs  never to look the same again.

To properly regulate frac sand operations, Winona county will need to hire specialists with expertise in mining and processing to monitor, inspect and enforce regulations. Is commissioner Jacob ready to hire those staff to protect us? Usually he is the one wanting to cut staff to keep the budget and taxes low.

Which will it be: low taxes with no enforcement and protection or low taxes with a ban?

Frac sand mining would change our agricultural communities to industrial communities, and thats not what we rural people want. The best way to heal this open wound is to enact a ban on frac sand operations. Its legal and its been done in other jurisdictions in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Residents and elected officials need to come together and heal this wound before it festers and becomes an open sore in our county.

Residents can do their part by attending and speaking their reasons for the ban at the public hearing on Thursday, June 30 at 7 p.m. in the Tau Center on Hilbert Street.
Wild River Studios opens on Main in St. Charles Wild River Studios in St. Charles was the site of last weeks Friday morning Chamber Coffee as the Chamber Ambassadors packed up the giant red scissors and hit the road for another ceremonial ribbon cutting....

WHS students selected to perform with OPUS Honor Choir Many students at Winterset schools were able to audition for the Iowa OPUS Honor Choir, which will perform at C.Y. Stephens Auditorium in Ames on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 4 p.m. The following Winterset students...

Winterset Stage presents Get Smart at the Iowa this week The Winterset Stage opens the curtain on their latest production, Get Smart, this Thursday evening. The cast of over two dozen local actors will give four performances of the play which is based on the...

2022 Harvest Gathering in Earlham The fourth annual Harvest Gathering Farm-to-Table Dinner served 129 guests on Sunday, Oct. 2, at Bricker Price Block in Earlham. The five-course meal was prepared by Proof Executive Chef Diego Rodriguez and his team, utilizing...
The state Department of Corrections is force feeding at least three inmates as a hunger strike aimed at ending a form of solitary confinement that can go on for years  even decades  continues for a third week.

Although the state DOC has detailed the medical conditions of the hunger strikers in publicly available petitions, the agency refuses to confirm that it has obtained court orders to force feed inmates, citing medical privacy issues. Spokesman Tristan Cook did not immediately respond to questions about how often and on whom the department has used force feeding.

Court records show the agency is now force feeding Waupun Correctional Institution inmates Cesar DeLeon and LaRon McKinley Bey and Columbia Correctional Institution inmate Norman C. Green, who also goes by the name of Prince Aturn-Ra Uhuru Mutawakki.

The food refusal campaign, dubbed Dying to Live, which about half a dozen inmates began as early as June 5, is aimed at pressuring the state to end the practice of holding inmates for lengthy periods of time in administrative confinement, which is intended for prisoners deemed a danger to the institution.

McKinley Bey, who escaped during a jail transfer in 1987 after shooting a sheriffs deputy, has been held in this status for at least 25 years, according to a federal lawsuit he filed in Milwaukee. He alleges such unending isolation  at least 23 hours a day alone in a cell  violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Roughly 100 Wisconsin inmates are being held in this type of long-term solitary confinement.

A top United Nations official has declared that such isolation beyond 15 days is tantamount to torture.

On Tuesday, 30 activists gathered in front of the Department of Corrections headquarters in Madison to protest the states continued use of administrative confinement, chanting solitary is torture.

Protester Chance Zombor said he had spent many months in solitary confinement at Waupun and Oshkosh correctional institutions. Zombor said such isolation causes inmates to become psychologically deranged.

The protesters presented Cook with a letter demanding an end to the overuse and abuse of administrative confinement, improved mental health services for inmates in solitary confinement and other steps, including allowing inmates in this non-punitive status to have the same access to property, such as canteen items and TVs, that general population inmates have.

As the public becomes aware of the torturous effect of any kind of solitary confinement longer than 15 days, you can imagine the outrage and bewilderment when they learned that we have inmates who have been in solitary for decades, according to the letter addressed to Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher.

Cook accepted the letter and told the group that corrections officials are working on possible changes to solitary confinement, which the department calls restrictive housing. But he did not respond to requests by the activists to participate in that process.

In an email, Cook said the agency is studying several changes, including moving mentally ill inmates out of solitary and examining ways to increase out-of-cell time and increase programming and services for inmates in restrictive housing and administrative confinement.

In June 2015, the state reduced the maximum stint in solitary confinement for violating prison rules from 360 days to 90 days, with longer stints possible under certain circumstances.

But those limits do not apply to inmates deemed to be violent or hard to manage who are in administrative confinement. The status of each inmate in administrative confinement is reviewed every six months. McKinley Bey, however, charges in his lawsuit that those reviews are a sham.

McKinley Bey said force feeding entails being strapped into a restraint chair and having a tube placed in his nose to deliver liquid nutrition while an officer films the process, according to a letter he wrote to advocates dated June 19. He wrote that he, DeLeon, Green and another inmate, Joshua Scolman, are strong, and are in it for as long as it take to make something happen.

In the June 17 petition for a court order to force feed DeLeon, corrections officials said the inmate began refusing food on June 7 and had also begun refusing water and that he has a history of serious hunger strikes. The petition states that he is suffering from moderate malnutrition and dehydration.

He appears weak, gaunt and has an unsteady gait, according to the petition. Mucous membranes are very dry.

However, in a letter written after the order was issued, DeLeon said that clearly the doctor exaggerated his medical report with the intent to force feed me, to dissuade me and other(s) to stop our strike.

Inmate advocate Peg Swan said she is distressed that it took a hunger strike to highlight the problems with administrative confinement in Wisconsins prisons. Two states  Colorado and California  have discontinued such indefinite confinement in solitary.

I will be rooting for the them to stop, Swan said. They succeeded in getting the public to think about long-term solitary, and we are pledged out here to keep the campaign going, but we don't need them to get sick.

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalisms reporting on criminal justice issues is supported by a grant from the Vital Projects Fund. The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Democrat Russ Feingold has ended his longstanding neutrality in the race for his partys presidential nomination, endorsing Hillary Clinton by saying shes ready to beat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Feingold, in a statement Thursday, said he looks forward to campaigning with Clinton in Wisconsin.

She won a hard-fought campaign, she made history, and its clear that shes ready to take on Donald Trump this fall and win, Feingold said.

Earlier this month, Clinton, the former Secretary of State, U.S. senator from New York and first lady, secured enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. It will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention next month in Philadelphia.

Feingold had carefully avoided tipping his hand on whether he backed Clinton or her rival for the nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders. When pressed by reporters on which candidate he voted for in the April 5 Wisconsin presidential primary, Feingold insisted I didnt even tell my wife.

Feingold, D-Middleton, praised Sanders in the statement Thursday. He said the senator from Vermont has done incredible work to build a movement behind essential issues for middle-class and working families.

Feingold becomes the second previously neutral Democratic elected official from Wisconsin to back Clinton in recent days. U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Black Earth, announced his endorsement last week.

Feingold soon may get his chance to join Clinton on the stump in Wisconsin. Clinton planned to visit Green Bay this month to campaign with President Barack Obama; that event was postponed in the wake of the Orlando, Florida, shooting but is expected to be rescheduled.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval defended his officers' actions, saying one bystander's short video can't capture the context of the "15-minute narrative" of alleged threats that led to police being called.
In the face of every national tragedy, this country is asked to dig deep, analyze itself and forfeit our rights in the name of national security. For once, could the government look at itself to solve a problem and not us? We, the people have forfeited enough.

After an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, James Brady, the presidents press secretary, was confined to a wheelchair from his injuries in the attack. After years of lobbying, the federal government finally passed The Brady Bill, ushering in federal background checks and a 48-hour waiting period on hand guns. We accepted this infringement upon the Second Amendment because we were told it would make us safer.

Since then, we are learning that waiting 48-hours isnt a deterrent. In most cases, the terrorists wait for weeks. Last year, a man on Madisons east side waited at least 72 hours so he could practice shooting his gun before murdering a grocery clerk.

Twice in less than a year, people with known ties to terrorist affiliates acquired guns. The San Bernardino, California shooters went around the system while the Orlando shooter drove straight through it. A man with known terrorist affiliations traveled to known terrorist states and he wasnt in the federal background check system? ISIS commanders have identified a weak spot in this system and were worried about the gun the guy used.

The most invasive threat to American privacy in history resulted in response to 9/11. The Patriot Act was sold as a necessary tool in the War on Terror. Most of us accepted giving up some civil liberties if it made us safer as a nation. It gave the National Security Agency and FBI seemingly unlimited power to search homes, telephone calls and Internet records to track terrorists.

The terrorists have figured out a way around the Patriot Act by going after homegrown dissidents while American Edward Snowden hides out in Russia. Snowden exposed that the NSA wasnt just spying on terrorists; they were tapping in on all of us.

The power of the Patriot Act put the FBI within reach of a now known terrorist and yet it accomplished nothing. They twice interviewed the Orlando shooter, who was headed down a clear path toward terror and when he bought two guns, they didnt even have him in their database. Meanwhile, another 49 people are dead but we cannot transfer money between our checking and savings accounts via the Internet more than six times a month.

The national media immediately turned its attention toward assault weapons after the shooting in Orlando. News flash: Ronald Reagan already banned them. An assault weapon is a fully automatic machine gun. The shooters in Orlando and San Bernardino did not have machine guns. They had semi-automatic sport rifles. Guns that are, in fact, valuable when it comes to hunting fast-moving, and sometimes dangerous, animals.

There is also a call for a No Fly, No Buy rule. The San Bernardino and Orlando terrorists werent even on the no-fly watch list so what is the point of this rhetoric? Its well known that the no fly list has thousands of innocent people on it and in a reversal of due process, the innocent have to fight to be removed from this list. On the other hand, someone being identified as a potential terrorist should be closely watched and theyre not even on it?

We dont need to enact more laws. These homegrown terrorists are breaking several to accomplish their personal jihad against us. If the presidents mission is to enact more laws, then we should do nothing.

If, however, the president wants to get serious about understanding the breakdown in how these laws all interact and improve the policies behind them - then he would be on to something. The model for elevating someone from the rumor mill to the serious threat potential mill has been laid in front of us more than once. We need to improve the system so we recognize when to elevate legitimate potential threats without removing more rights from the innocent. Or we could pursue the presidents anti-gun agenda  and end up doing nothing meaningful in this fight.

We should all be on board with the president if he wants to do something that actually addresses the infiltration of terrorists in our country. The government needs to examine its processes and determine how to improve their work with the tools we have already given them. We, the people, dont need to give up more rights.
Nancy Olsons husband was killed by an improvised explosive device in December 2004 while on foot patrol in Iraq  the only casualty from his unit which that day was protecting the city of Samarra, she said.

Twelve years later Olson shared her familys story at Portage Public Library in a ceremony for a traveling photo memorial, Remembering Our Fallen, and her message Wednesday was one shared by many: Dont forget.

A lot of times memorials or tributes are far away, in places like Washington D.C.  but this is representative of our state, said Olson, an Oshkosh resident and one of the Gold Star Wives of America, women whose husbands died while serving in the armed forces. Todd Olson  who with Nancy had four children  is one of 132 Wisconsin soldiers who died fighting the War on Terror and whose pictures are contained within the memorial.

Its a unique opportunity for people to come and see those who sacrificed for them, Olson said, to actually look at their faces, think about their stories, where theyve been and the families theyve left behind.

The Wisconsin memorial that will be on display in the library through Saturday is one of 18 memorials for different states in the U.S., a project started by Omaha, Nebraska resident Bill Williams. Wisconsins is now under the care of members of The High Ground in Neillsville, who have contributed to displays that, in the past 18 months, have gone up in about 20 Wisconsin locations, Olson said. Before Portage, the memorial was on display in Chippewa Falls and Elkhorn, and will next be displayed in Green Bay, Neillsville and Sheboygan.

Daniel Thompson is one of Wisconsins 132, a 2003 Portage High School graduate who was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2009. Local organizers also set up a table near the photo memorial that honored other local heroes, including 1986 Portage High School graduate Daniel Busch, who was killed in action in 1993 during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

We hear that freedom isnt free. Well, this is a stark reminder that freedom isnt free, said Portage American Legion Post 47 member Dave Eulberg of the display. People should come to the library, walk through and see the faces.  Theyre not names and numbers  theyre people, theyre human beings, and I would urge everybody to come and see this memorial.

Williams said he started the project five years ago in Omaha because every familys fear is theyre going to be forgotten.

Less than 1 percent of us serve in military, so its so small a percentage that it doesnt (directly) affect many people, Williams said. Thats why we think its important they be remembered, and thats what makes these so powerful: its not names, its photos  military and personal. Sometimes its their (familys) favorite picture, showing them in groups like 4-H.

Not to be forgotten is our mission.

Williams said Californias traveling display includes the most fallen soldiers at about 700 followed by Texas at about 600. Californias population is about 39 million and Texas is 27 million, compared with Wisconsins less than 6 million, according to the 2014 U.S. Census.

Florida has about 300 fallen soldiers, and Wisconsins total is similar to Indianas and Arizonas, Williams said.

Wisconsins contribution to fighting the War on Terror, everyone agreed, is significant.

I remember thinking, Why is there such a large number of people from Wisconsin who are killed in action? Olson said. It seems like with population of the U.S. were not one of the biggest, right? Were not California, were not Texas, but theres a large percentage.

Wisconsin is unique in our patriotic support of the military  were very dedicated, we take our freedoms very seriously, and we have developed young people willing to serve and make a difference in the world, and thats what I see in all these faces  people who were willing to stand up and say we do not want things to be what they are, and we will do whatever it takes.

Were not a real populous state, Portage American Legion Post 47 Adjutant Norm Bednarek said, but for the citizens weve certainly done our share in providing military people and personnel to protect our freedoms.

Bednarek added he believes theres a lot more work to be done regarding the War on Terror. I dont think weve improved on protecting citizens but its a different kind of war  the enemy does not wear uniforms and there arent any fronts. Its one nobody knows how to really fight, I think.

Portage American Legion Commander Dean Simonson agreed with Bednarek.

Were about four years behind where we should be. We have to attack it and attack it head on. Get it put to rest. Theyll continue to grow unless we stop them.

Remembering Our Fallen in Portage was sponsored by Portage American Legion Post 47 with assistance from Briggsville American Legion Post 329, Cambria American Legion Post 401, Portage VFW Post 1707 and Poynette American Legion Post 271.

To learn how to host the memorial, call June Berg of The High Ground at 715-743-4224.
PARDEEVILLE  The village of Pardeeville touts itself as the city of lakes.

Sometimes, Joe Schulz observed Tuesday, its easy to forget that the word is plural  that Park Lake isnt the only place in Pardeeville to catch fish.

Thats one reason why the Pardeeville Lakes Management District, of which Schulz is secretary, chose Spring Lake as the preferred site for a new fishing pier that the lakes management district wants to donate to the village.

The proposal to locate the donated pier in Spring Lake (in an area accessed from West Chestnut Street, southwest of downtown) got majority approval Tuesday from the Pardeeville Village Board.

Only Trustee Barry Pufahl voted no. He had expressed a preference for locating the new pier in Park Lake.

Pufahl said the pier should go in the location that was the PLMDs second choice: near, but not right at, an old boat landing in Chandler Park, which is the starting place for Pardeevilles annual triathlon.

He noted that he sees many people fishing from the shore in Chandler Park.

Thats true, Schulz said  because, partly due to the efforts of the PLMD at improving fish habitat, Pardeevilles lakes are attracting more and more anglers.

Original plans had called for the donated pier to be designated as a handicap pier, accessible to anglers who have difficulty walking to and from a pier.

Every effort will be made to make it as accessible as possible, Schulz said. But until he can get grants from entities that offer financial assistance to meet accessibility standards under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, he said, the pier can simply be designated as a fishing pier and not an accessible pier.

Once the pier is installed, it will become the property of the village, and village workers will be responsible for its maintenance, said Village Administrator David Tracey.

According to Schulz, the pier would be T-shaped, with a base about 20 feet long and about 8 feet wide, offering access via a 16-foot walkway to areas where the water is sufficiently deep for fish habitat.

Although it will be equipped with a set of wheels, Schulz said, the pier would not be taken out of the water during winter.

Schulz said significant improvement has been done at Park Lake to accommodate anglers, but Spring Lake tends to get short shrift.

Pufahl pointed out, however, that there is more parking already available at Park Lake than at Spring Lake.

Schulz noted that Spring Lake was the most popular destination for the donated pier, based on views shared by PLMD constituents.

The Chandler Park location was the second choice, and the third choice, also in Park Lake, was an area along Highway 44 outside the village limits.

Trustee Jim Buckley, who represents Columbia County on the PLMD Board of Commissioners, said this is almost certainly not the last pier that that the PLMD will ever donate in Pardeeville.

This is not going to be a one-time thing, he said. It will be an ongoing process to help Pardeeville bring people in.
The seemingly endless parade of provocative or outrage-inducing statements by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took a sharp pivot last week away from the Constitution, that same document we presumed he would swear to support, uphold and defend next Jan. 20 should he be elected president.

On Wednesday, speaking in Atlanta, Trump said: You know the Republicans, honestly folks, our leaders, our leaders have to get tougher. Our leaders have to get a lot tougher. And be quiet. Just please be quiet. Dont talk. Please be quiet. Just be quiet to the leaders because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter.

We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself.

Mr. Trump is aware thats not how American government works, right?

We have, on occasion during the presidency of Barack Obama, criticized his use of executive orders to circumvent the constitutionally mandated role of Congress as the originating branch of legislation. Such actions merit the term imperial presidency.

We have been critical of such presidential actions because they run contrary to the fundamental characteristics of American government as established in the Constitution: A separation of powers, and a system of checks and balances intended to ensure that none of the federal governments three branches becomes too powerful.

Trumps declaration that the Republican leaders  we presume that, within the group hes describing, he refers to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  have to get tougher or let me just do it by myself is well beyond the issuance of executive orders. In this statement, he is calling for being given the authority to rule by decree, something seen only in dictatorships.

Admonishing the leaders of his own party to please be quiet is to tell those holding elective office to not only forego their First Amendment rights, but to abdicate their responsibilities as representatives of the people.

The presidency is not one of Trumps corporations; we doubt that any Republican in a congressional leadership position will accept a subordinate role, a designation below him on the organizational chart in Trumps mind. On the relevant organizational chart  again, that would be the Constitution  Congress is lateral to the presidency, not beneath it.

It would be worthwhile for one of Trumps advisers to point out an important fact that awaits him, should he become president. Perhaps he could phrase it this way, in terms Trump would most readily understand: If he becomes president, for the first time in his life someone named Trump will not be controlling the money.

The governmental purse strings? Those are held by Congress.
Wisconsin company wrestles with the FDA over an infant formula

Nikos Linardakis says the FDA has stymied efforts that he and James Esselman have made to launch their Bene Baby Co.s product.




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By Lisa Lambert and David Henry

(Reuters) - Big U.S. banks are proving themselves to be stronger and sounder in an annual regulatory stress test, even as the Federal Reserve changes doomsday scenarios to keep them on their toes.

On Thursday, the Fed said each of the 33 U.S. banks that underwent its standardized stress test were able to stay above minimum required capital levels in severe economic and market conditions. Banks that participated last year also passed, but their capital levels have largely improved since then.

Overall, the 33 banks would suffer $385 billion in loan losses over nine quarters under the most severe scenario, the Fed said. In aggregate, a key ratio measuring high-quality capital against risk-weighted assets, known as the Tier 1 common equity ratio, would drop to a low of 8.4 percent. That is well above the 4.5 percent minimum set by regulators.

(Click here to see how the banks performed: http://tmsnrt.rs/28QAfLJ)

Since the Fed started stress testing banks in 2009, capital levels have risen and credit quality has improved, with bad loans rolling off the books. The Fed creates new inputs for market and economic chaos each year, and shocked investors in January when it included negative interest rates in the worst-case scenario.

"Today's results are particularly notable given the more stringent test assumptions above last year's test," said Richard Foster, senior counsel for regulatory and legal affairs at the industry trade group Financial Services Roundtable. "Banks now hold extremely high levels of capital and liquid assets as compared with historical averages."

However, Thursday's results are just one part of the Fed's annual stress test process, and do not even offer a glimpse at what many investors really want to know: Will banks be able to use more capital for dividends and stock buybacks?

This first test  called the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Test, or DFAST  is part of the sweeping financial reform law passed in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. It relies on standardized assumptions about capital levels and distributions for the tested banks, allowing for a consistent view across the industry.

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Next week, the Fed will release results of a more nuanced examination known as the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, or CCAR. That test evaluates banks' individually tailored plans for surviving a crisis.

The Fed gives each bank a pass or fail grade for CCAR, based not only on hard numbers, but also on qualitative measures. That means the Fed can fail a bank because it did not approve of how management went about the capital planning process.

"DFAST is sort of like a dress rehearsal for the CCAR," said Ernie Patrikis, a partner at the White & Case law firm and a former bank regulatory official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Thirteen banks have failed CCAR since the Fed began disclosing results, according to research firm Trepp.

In an analysis carried out before DFAST results were released, Trepp analysts predicted two-thirds of the banks will likely be allowed to increase their dividends. The percentage approved for dividends has been ticking down from 72 percent in 2013 to 67 percent in 2014, and 61 percent in 2015.

"Banks generally are doing pretty well on earnings, so there is capacity to increase their dividends," said Matt Anderson, managing director at Trepp.

NEGATIVE RATE PAIN The Fed will announce CCAR results on June 29. Failures are embarrassing, and the Fed allows banks to resubmit capital plans based on DFAST results to give them a second chance to pass. They have until Saturday to do so.

Of the 33 banks that took part in DFAST, Huntington Bancshares Inc produced the lowest minimum Tier 1 common equity ratio, of 5 percent, under a severely adverse scenario. Morgan Stanley and BMO Financial Corp produced the weakest Tier 1 leverage ratio - another measure of capital strength relative to assets - of 4.9 percent, under that scenario.

Banks also released their own stress test results, based on inputs set by the Fed. The figures did not necessarily match up. For instance, Morgan Stanley's own capital ratios under severe stress were higher than the U.S Federal Reserve test result, as were Wells Fargo & Co's and BMO's.

Banks that look marginal in DFAST may well have submitted capital plans that include the issuance of securities that would dramatically affect their capital scores. And, banks with strong numbers can still fail CCAR because the Fed considered the quality of their capital planning faulty.

Citigroup Inc, for example, has had surprising results for both reasons in the past. This year, Citi racked up big gains, with its Tier 1 common equity ratio rising to 9.2 percent from 6.8 percent and its Tier 1 leverage ratio improving to 6.9 percent from 4.6 percent.

Wells Fargo improved less, possibly because it relies more on consumer deposits for funding and therefore could have been hurt more by the negative interest rate scenario. The Fed generally assumes that banks would not be able to pass along negative rates to consumers by charging them for holding their deposits.

Bank stocks rose on Thursday in anticipation of the stress test results, as well as the Brexit vote. Citigroup was one of the biggest beneficiaries, with its shares rising 4.2 percent to close at $44.46, and gaining another 2.9 percent in after-hours trading.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington and David Henry in New York; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Construction permits for two more Shin Kori units

23 June 2016

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South Korea's nuclear regulator has today approved the construction of units 5 and 6 of the Shin Kori nuclear power plant. The APR1400 units are scheduled to begin operating in March 2021 and 2022, respectively.

An artistic impression of how Shin Kori 5 and 6 could look (Image: KHNP)

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) applied in September 2012 for a construction permit for two more APR1400 reactors at the site in south-eastern Korea.

In January 2014, an announcement from the Ministry of Industry confirmed the government's go-ahead for a plan to build the two new Shin Kori units.

The regulator, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, has today voted to approve KHNP's application for a construction permit for the units.

A consortium comprising South Korean construction companies Samsung C&T, Doosan and Hanhwa Construction was awarded a KRW 1.18 trillion ($1 billion) contract in June 2015 to build Shin Kori 5 and 6.

Construction of Shin Kori 5 is scheduled to begin this September, with that of unit 6 set to start one year later. Unit 5 is to enter commercial operation in March 2021 and unit 6 in March 2022.

The Shin Kori site currently hosts two OPR-1000 reactors (units 1 and 2), which began operating in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Two APR1400 have already been built at the site (units 3 and 4). Shin Kori 3 had originally been due to begin operating at the end of 2013, with unit 4 following in September 2014. However, their operation was delayed by the need to test the cabling. Unit 3 achieved first criticality last December and was connected to the grid in January. Unit 4 is expected to start operating in early 2017.

Two more of the 1350 MWe pressurized water reactors are under construction as units 1 and 2 of the Shin Hanul site in South Korea. Those units are expected to enter service in April 2017 and February 2018, respectively. Two further APR-1400 units are planned for the Shin Hanul site.

Four more APR-1400s are under construction at Barakah in the United Arab Emirates. All four are scheduled to be in operation by 2020.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topics
The overturned pickup truck

By: Feng Qian

(Scroll down for video) A teenager tied up a grown man and robbed him before fleeing in his truck.

The teenager died after being thrown from the truck while fleeing the scene of the robbery in Tennessee.

14-year-old Lacey Briggs was accused of tying up a man and beating him along with two of her friends before stealing his truck and leading Unicoi County sheriffs deputies on a high-speed chase.

The chase ended when the stolen Ford Ranger pickup truck crashed and rolled over several times after Briggs lost control.

The other suspects were identified only as male juveniles. They were taken to a juvenile detention center after receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained in the accident.

None of the occupants in the car had been wearing their seat belts, according to a crash report.

Officials found two pistols and a large hunting knife in the car.

The owner of the car called police after he was ambushed by the teens when he came home. The teens had broken into his home and waited inside for him to return.

The man was beaten, held at knifepoint and tied up with bungee cords and rope, the sheriffs office said in a press release.

He was then placed in a closet, while the suspects stole his truck, authorities said.

The victim managed to break free and contacted police. The robbery victim suffered blunt force injuries to the head and body and was taken to a hospital in serious condition, officials said.

Officers soon spotted the vehicle and tried to pull the driver over. The driver refused to follow orders and led police on a chase until she crashed.

The surviving suspects face numerous charges including aggravated robbery, burglary and theft.
Education Images | UIG | Getty Images. Households in the United States and the United Kingdom aren't putting as much money away for a rainy day and that could mean trouble.

The Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law in 2010, was sold to the American people as the solution to our economic woes and the financial crisis that left so many Americans financially insecure. The 2,300 page bill was codified based on the premise that it would promote financial stablity, end too big to fail, and lift our nation's economy.

Nearly six years since its enactment, we should look around and ask ourselves if any of Dodd-Frank's promises have come to fruition. Is our economy more stable? Are taxpayers no longer on the hook for bailouts? And are Americans better off today than they were six years ago? The answer is a resolute no.



Fees for checking accounts have gone up, the personal savings rate has declined and the regulatory burdens stemming from Dodd-Frank are having devastating consequences on local financial institutions. Community banks and credit unions, which serve as the lifeblood of many Missouri towns, find themselves faced with regulations designed for the world's largest, most complex financial institutions.

Many of these are the only financial institutions serving their respective communities, and if the current trend continues, many of them will have to merge with bigger banks in order to spread out the compliance costs or close up shop altogether.







Many of these are the only financial institutions serving their respective communities, and if the current trend continues, many of them will have to merge with bigger banks in order to spread out the compliance costs or close up shop altogether.



Why does any of this matter? Because it makes it more difficult and more expensive for Missourians to get car loans, home loans, and small business loans, putting the American dream further out of reach for many American families.



It is crystal clear that we need a change. After years of holding hearings in the Financial Services Committee with key stakeholders and consumers, Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling recently introduced key elements of a Republican plan to reform and replace Dodd-Frank.



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This plan, the Financial CHOICE Act, offers a new model for financial opportunity. It strives to provide every American with the chance to achieve financial independence, and to ensure consumers are protected from fraud and deception. The CHOICE Act also finally brings to an end the possibility of taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions, affirming that no company should hold the status of being "too big to fail."

The legislation goes a step beyond Dodd-Frank and increases penalites for fraud committed by finanical institutions, promoting not only consumer protection but also enhanced transparency and accountability.



Also included are common sense pieces of legislation that have already passed the House that will offer badly-needed relief for our neighborhood financial institutions. Among them is H.R. 766, my Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, which would bring to an end Operation Choke Point.



Operation Choke Point, designed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Department of Justice under the pretenses of rooting out fraud from the financial system has put the squeeze on legally-operating industries the government doesn't like in an attempt to choke off those industries from our country's banking system.



My colleagues in the House supported this legislation earlier this year and I am incredibly pleased to see it included in this package.



In the coming months, you'll see our Committee work hard to reform and replace Dodd-Frank, and bring to an end the negative impact it has had on consumers and our communities. The mission of the Financial CHOICE Act is not to reward the bad actors Dodd-Frank failed to address, but rather to inject sanity to the financial regulatory system, to restore the access to credit that has evaporated in the last five years, and to provide more Missourians with the opportunity to achieve financial independence.

I look forward to having further discussions with key stakeholders and consumers as we move forward and working with my colleagues in the House so that we can have a better and more stable financial system in our nation.



Commentary by Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, the vice chairman of the House Small Business Committee and a member of the House Financial Services Committee, where he serves as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance. Follow him on Twitter @RepBlainePress.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.







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EU Referendum Today  Go Out And VOTE!

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jun 23rd, 2016

After months of campaigning, TV debates, mud slinging, passionate campaigning and various polling, the day of the EU Referendum has finally arrived.

Described as the vote of a generation, millions of us will take to the polls today to have our say on the United Kingdoms membership in the European Union.

Over 46 million people are registered to vote in this referendum, with around 2.2 million registered in Wales alone.

In Wrexham there are a total of 98,375 eligible voters. Unlike the Welsh Assembly and Parliamentary elections, the votes are not broken down into Wrexham and Clwyd South constituencies  instead this is the figure of those registered to vote in the Wrexham County Borough Council area.

As usual we think you are clever enough to make up your own minds, and our only political message is whether Brexit, Bremain or just unsure, go out and vote!

Polls are open from 7am to 10pm this evening  and nationally it is expected that there will be a very high turnout of voters. It is possible it could be the highest turnout in living memory, so make sure you leave plenty of time to take part as polling stations could get very busy!

In Wrexham the local declaration is expected to be announced anywhere from 2am, with various predictions from 2am until even as late as 4am, and as usual we will bring you the Wrexham specific result LIVE from the count!

The all Wales result will be announced in Flintshire, so for those who are election coverage fans, that announcement is expected in the early hours of the morning  with 4:30am being mooted for the big reveal.

There are also no exit polls on the night  so an indication on the overall decision wont be known until parts of the UK start declaring the votes locally but various money market analysis and other expert guesswork will keep things interesting.

Nationally the final result will be declared after all 11 regional totals  along with Northern Ireland, have been totted up on a Mancunian calculator.

All eyes will be on Manchester City Hall where the future of the UKs membership in the European Union will be announced. Depending on how quickly / slowly votes are counted elsewhere, it is currently anticipated that this announcement will be made at breakfast time on Friday morning which could be 6am or 10am depending how big the turnout and how smoothly the counts go.

Some readers have asked how do you actually vote

Go to your local polling station, which will be open between 7am and 1opm and are usually staffed by volunteers (go them!)

Tell the staff your name and address so they can check the electoral register.

You will get given a ballot paper.

Take your ballot paper into the polling booth and *read it carefully* making sure you put a X where required, do not write more on the paper or it may not be counted!!

After you have voted fold the paper and pop it in the ballot box  do not let anyone else see who you voted for.

NOTE: A few have asked, you do NOT need to take your polling card with you, but if you have one you can. Of course you can only vote if youre actually registered!

Obviously, if youre not registered to vote  dont even bother trying!

We will be live at the count this evening from 10pm  providing you with all the local information, along with bits and pieces that are happening nationally so join us for our coverage
North Wales PCC Vows to Step up The Fight Against Online Paedophiles

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jun 23rd, 2016

A police boss has vowed to step up the fight against online paedophiles after hearing a new crack team has made more than 60 arrests in its first eight months.

Newly-elected North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Afron Jones states that keeping children safe is one of the most important jobs done by the force.

Mr Jones, a former police inspector, was speaking during a visit to find out more about the Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) which was established last October to help tackle the emerging threat of child sexual exploitation via the internet.

Since then the team has executed over 70 warrants and made more than 60 arrests, working alongside the forces Cyber Crime Team and High Tech Crime Unit based in St Asaph.

The growing threat of online child sexual exploitation, said Mr Jones, was one of the biggest things that had changed since he retired from North Wales Police eight years ago.

Mr Jones said: Online child sexual exploitation is a vile crime committed by dangerous and devious people who come from every section of society and often appear to be leading outwardly respectable lives.

Im pleased that were investing so many resources in tackling online sexual exploitation because the care of children is the most important thing we do.

Paedophiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated so it is vitally important that we respond accordingly with a team of our own experts catching those committing these types of crime and bringing them to justice.

This problem isnt going to go away and we need to concentrate on raising awareness, education and reducing harm and I think there is some excellent work being done to reach this priority.

Im very happy to support the force in providing as much resources as needed to ensure that children, wherever they may be in the world, are safe.

He added: I would like to congratulate the POLIT and the colleagues in the High Tech and Cyber Crime teams for their work in a very challenging area of policing.

The POLIT scheme is led by Detective Inspector Sion Williams, who also has operational responsibility for the high tech and cyber crime teams.

Speaking about the work carried out over the past few months, Detective Inspector Williams said:

The team deal with what are essentially digital crime scenes.In the main, 80% of our time is spent dealing with a variety of online child sexual exploitation offences including those more serious incidents when adults are actively online, identifying children they can engage with in social networking sites, trying to gain their trust.

This kind of abuse is real and can lead on to more serious offences taking place. Safeguarding children, wherever they may be, is our number one priority. We are also determined to ensure the level of the defendants offending and the threat they pose to children is clearly identified to the court so that whatever sentence is passed is the appropriate sentence in accordance with the sentencing guidelines.

Since POLIT was established new processes have been adopted and so far the team has already surpassed the number of arrests made for this type of offending in 2015. This can only be good news.

Whilst we are arresting significantly more suspects, we have managed to adopt an effective streamlined process where those offenders who commit crimes of this type are dealt with expeditiously and brought to justice at the earliest opportunity. This considerably reduces the risk of further offences being committed.

The message needs to be clear here, and this should therefore be a warning of our intention to those engaged in this heinous type of criminality  it will only be a matter of time before they are afforded our tenacious attention.

He added: The devastating effect that online child sexual exploitation has on children is wholly apparent. However, our subsequent interaction not only has serious consequences for those who are offending, but also has broader implications for their family and friends.

Every day we operate is a game changer. Our activity is clearly making the communities in which we live far safer for our children  and thats what matters.
Growing spontaneous working class demonstrations, road blockades, food warehouse break-ins and a national strike of bus drivers have raised the specter of social revolution in Venezuela.

The first five months of 2016 have seen an average of 19 protests per day over food scarcities and the breakdown of basic social services. Three demonstrators were killed during demonstrations last week as the Chavista government of President Nicholas Maduro ordered police and the national guard to break up demonstrations with force. Another demonstrator was killed on Tuesday, and videos showing the armed forces firing indiscriminately into crowds of civilians chanting We want food are being widely circulated on the Internet.

Conditions increasingly resemble those that erupted into the bloody caracazo of 1989, when masses of workers and urban poor descended on Caracas and other major cities in an outpouring of rage over an IMF austerity package imposed by the government of Carlos Andres Perez. Then, as now, oil prices had plummeted reducing the ability of the capitalist government to ameliorate the immense class tensions that pervade Venezuela, one of the most socially polarized countries on the planet.

It was fundamentally the caracazo that gave rise to the Chavista movement, which emerged first as a dissident faction of junior army officers, disgusted by the governments use of the armed forces to shoot down thousands of Venezuelans in the street.

In 1992, the late Hugo Chavez, then a paratroop lieutenant colonel, led an abortive military coup. Under conditions in which all the major parties as well as the existing trade unions had been completely discredited, the uprising captured the popular imagination, and, after a brief imprisonment, Chavez was elected president in 1998 on a populist and left-nationalist platform.

The pro-capitalist, bourgeois nationalist policies of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) have produced a social catastrophe for Venezuelan workers. For-profit corporationsboth foreign and nationalhave shut down operations, throwing tens of thousands into destitution. A total absence of planned economic development has left the economy entirely dependent on oil exports and vulnerable to price fluctuations on the international capitalist commodity markets.

The private foreign and domestic banks remain in firm control of the commanding heights of the economy, while the Venezuelan government continues to slash desperately needed imports of food and medicine in order to continue funneling tens of billions of dollars to meeting interest payments to Wall Street bondholders.

Throughout 17 years of Chavez/Maduro rule, pseudo-left groups worldwide have heralded the PSUV as a model of 21st century socialism. In reality, under the Chavistas, a new ruling class layer of financiers, politically-connected businessmen and contractors as well as top government officials has enriched itself at the expense of the Venezuelan masses. The minimal social assistance programs implemented during this period have proven woefully incapable of preventing roughly 80 percent of the population from living in poverty and 51 percent in extreme poverty.

Leading politicians in the right-wing opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) have warned that the country is on the verge of social explosion, and that society will erupt as a result of the growing daily tension. They are seeking a recall referendum, not only to remove Maduro, but to provide an escape valve for the increasing social tensions.

Washington attempted to overthrow Chavez in a failed 2002 coup and has since designated the Venezuelan government as an extraordinary threat to US national security. For his part, Maduro only weeks ago was invoking a supposedly imminent US invasion to justify mobilizing the military in the face of mounting popular unrest.

Yet on Tuesday at a meeting of the Organization of American States in the Dominican Republic, Secretary of State John Kerry announced the US will be hosting high-level negotiations to mediate the political conflict in Venezuela and hopefully alleviate social tensions. After meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, Kerry said Washington was determined to improve the relationship and overcome the old rhetoric.

For his part, Maduro called for the immediate exchange of ambassadors and voiced enthusiasm for the new talks with Washington. I very much like President Obama, he said Tuesday night. He is a nice person ... Why cant I say that?

What brings the two sides together is their mutual fear of and hostility towards the Venezuelan working class. While US imperialism has long viewed the Chavez-Maduro government as an irritant that it would like to eliminate, it has no interest whatsoever in achieving this aim by means of a mass revolt from below.

The US ruling class, as well as the Latin American bourgeoisie, are well aware that the grievances of Venezuelan workers are shared by workers throughout the hemisphere. In Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and across Central America and Mexico, strikes and protests are growing in frequency and intensity. Latin America today is the most unequal region of the world, a social powder keg waiting to explode.

The emergence of the class struggle, moreover, is not limited to Latin America. It is a global phenomenon, marked by the French movement against the Khomri Law and the strike wave in Belgium, as well as the strikes of telecommunication workers in the United States and the millions of votes for a self-proclaimed socialist presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders.

The Venezuelan working class is at a crossroads. It faces hostile enemies in the Maduro government, the military, the right-wing official opposition, the trade unions, and in the form of US imperialist intervention. The Venezuelan pseudo left, epitomized by groups like Marea Socialista and the International Marxist Tendency, blames the working class for the crisis of the Venezuelan bourgeois government and seek to bolster waning illusions in the PSUV.

Seventeen years of PSUV rule shows that workers can trust no section of the bourgeoisieno matter whether they clothe themselves in radical phraseologyto represent their class interests. The brutal suppression of the caracazo in 1989 points to the stark dangers in the present situation. Today, just as then, the Maduro government ultimately relies on the military to drown a revolutionary uprising in blood. US imperialism, for all its democratic and human rights pretensions, will support whatever measures are required to uphold private property and profit interests.

Workers and youth can rely only on their independent mobilization to meet the need for food, healthcare, and other basic necessities of life that the capitalist system is unable to provide.

The International Committee of the Fourth International calls on workers and youth to form neighborhood and workplace committees to seize food warehouses from private hoarders, black marketeers, and the ruling party-controlled food distribution committees (CLAP), and to distribute food to all those in need.

Factories and workplaces must be seized from private and state owners and placed under the democratic control of the working class so that production can be directed to meet the basic needs of the population. Strike committees must be formed to coordinate work stoppages in key industries across the country.

Workers must prepare to defend themselves from PSUV paramilitaries and from the police and military. But most importantly, workers must arm themselves theoretically with an independent, internationalist socialist program. The World Socialist Web Site encourages workers and youth in Venezuela to contact us today and fight for the establishment of a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
Flint, Michigans Democratic Party Mayor Karen Weaver stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Tuesday and announced that the city had no choice but to adhere to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) pipeline scheme that was forced upon its 100,000 citizens by state-appointed financial managers in 2013. Since those contracts were signed, untold suffering and damage have been inflicted on Flint residents.

Weaver announced at the Flint City Hall press conference on Tuesday, Weve gotten information that these are binding contracts. She added, I would have made some different decisions, but decisions were made and we have to play the hands that were dealt.

In other words, the backroom deals that were made between financial interests, speculators and political cronies that led the city into its water disaster are protected by the full force of law.

With callous disregard for public health, Flint was cut off from its decades-long source of treated Lake Huron water, provided by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, in April 2014. The city switched to water from the polluted Flint River distributed through an archaic water treatment facility that had been effectively mothballed for 50 years. The Flint River was to be a temporary source pending completion of the KWA pipeline, which would bring in untreated water from Lake Huron, also to be processed at Flints treatment facility.

When residents complained about the quality of the foul, lead-contaminated water and repeated boil-water alerts, local, state and federal officials covered up the disaster and insisted that there was no alternative but to continue drawing from the Flint River pending completion of the KWA pipeline.

However, when repeated protests by city residents forced the issue to the national spotlight, funds were made available last October by Snyder to return to the original water source while construction continued on the KWA. The pipeline is to be completed this summer, but will not be operational for another year.

The KWA was a scheme hatched after the economic collapse of 2008 and came to fruition at roughly the same time as the forced bankruptcy of Detroit. It fit neatly with the conspiracy to monetize the citys assets, the most valued of which is the DWSDs municipal water system. Switching the source of Flint water away from the DWSD would undermine its economic viability and create better conditions for justifying its privatization.

The legal groundwork for forcing the bankruptcy required the efforts of both Democratic and Republican politicians. Billions of dollars in workers pension funds, which had been protected from plunder in the Michigan Constitution since 1963, were targeted. US bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes ruled in December 2013 that federal bankruptcy law trumped the state constitution, allowing creditors access to workers hard-earned pensions. The Obama administration submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief supporting the bankruptcy.

The Flint catastrophe, just as the forced bankruptcy of Detroit, was a bipartisan operation. While the Republican governor oversaw the destruction of the legal provisions protecting the population, he relied on Democratic Party officeholders to implement them. A case in point is the role of then-State Treasurer Andy Dillon, a Democrat who played a key role throughout the Flint water crisis.

By rights, the Flint disaster should lead to lengthy prison sentences for a whole coterie of conspirators.

Jeff Wright, the CEO of KWA and prime mover of the pipeline scheme, stands to benefit greatly from Flints commitment to 35 percent of the pipelines construction costs. From the standpoint of providing safe drinking water to the city of Flint, the KWA project was completely irrational. The new pipeline to Lake Huron would be just six miles north of the existing DWSD pipeline that supplied water to the city for some 50 years.

Even once the KWA is completed, since Flint will still have to treat the water, itself the same problems with contaminated water will likely arise again.

Shortly after last months public meeting of the KWA Board of Directors, where opposition to the KWA pipeline by Flint residents exploded, Weaver announced publicly that she was reconsidering the citys relationship with the KWA pipeline. At that meeting, angry residents denounced the pipeline scheme as a conspiracy and urged Weaver to renegotiate out of KWA. Animosity was directed at Wright personally for his role in pressuring the city to disconnect from DWSD water, and for using Flints financial commitment to fund a pipeline that would be used mainly to supply raw water to petroleum hydraulic fracturing sites.

Wright revealed at the board meeting that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had mandated an additional minimum 90-day testing period before water from the new pipeline could be distributed to peoples homes. This would require that the city be responsible for the building of an additional 3.5-mile pipeline at an unknown cost. Later estimates put the cost at $7 to $11 million annually, of which the state would only commit to $4.2 million.

Weaver came under pressure after she made her misgivings over the KWA deal public. The press declared that whatever Weavers decision, the city would be liable to pay a $7 million a year bond payment for 28 years. On June 13, the Detroit News published a letter from Wright in its entirety, calling Weavers statements baffling, and simply not correct. He had earlier said that Weaver could cost Flint water customers millions due to her hesitancy.

Weaver responded quickly by endorsing the continuation of the project.

The outcome is one more demonstration that the entire political and legal system exists to serve the interests of the capitalist class. Not only are none of those most responsible for the lead water crisis being held to account, but the underlying conspiracy that created it is going ahead.
In an unashamed display of deception and evasion, Labor Party candidate and sitting MP, Anthony Albanese, when challenged by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) at an election forum in Sydney on Tuesday, defended Australias military alliance with the US and slandered socialists as covering for fascists in the Middle East.

The Green Party candidate, Jim Casey, who postures as a socialist and progressive alternative to Labor, made no attempt to oppose Albaneses statements on war, the Middle East or the US alliance. Only after Albanese left the meeting early did Casey offer the opinion that Labors foreign policywhich is to fully integrate with Washingtons criminal militarist interventions around the globewas not great.

The forum, held in the Addison Road Community Centre, in Marrickville provided a platform for candidates standing for the inner-West seat of Grayndler to speak and answer questions. The small audience, fewer than 40 people, was an indication of the indifference of the broader population to the official election campaign and disenchantment with all the parliamentary parties.

Seven parties were represented, including SEP candidate Oscar Grenfell. Also present were the Drug Law Reform Party, Animal Justice Party, Science Party and the Australian Sex Party. Opposing attempts by Albanese and Casey, in particular, to focus the meeting on so-called local issues, Grenfell insisted that the critical question, which was not being discussed in the campaign, was the drive to war.

In his opening remarks, Grenfell drew attention to the recent report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which advised that the next government will face the possibility that tensions in the South China Sea could draw Australia into a full-scale war with China.

Grenfell noted that Labor, with Albanese as a leading minister, had aligned Australia with the US military build-up in the region beginning in 2011. The Gillard government signed an agreement with the Obama administration to establish a new US marine base in Darwin, along with a host of other measures. Labors Shadow defence minister, Stephen Conroy had recently reiterated his call for Australian warships and military aircraft to be sent to Chinese claimed territory in the South China Seaa provocation that could lead to conflict.

Grenfell pointed out that the Greens, who have made clear they will join a coalition government with Labor, were silent on the threat of war in this region. These war preparations have been carried out entirely behind the backs of the population, he explained. Amid the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, Grenfell concluded, the capitalist system had nothing to offer but a future of war, poverty, unemployment, and a turn to dictatorial forms of rule. The only alternative, he insisted, is the fight for socialismthe reorganisation of social and economic life from top to bottom in the interests of the working class.

When the meeting was opened up for questions, a member of the audience explained that he had not previously known about the SEPs policies, so would direct his question to the other speakers. He demanded to know why there was bi-partisan support and no effective opposition to Australias stance on defence. There was no questioning of the US alliance, even after the country had been drawn into the war in Iraq on the basis of lies. This same ally, he noted, was currently involved in provocative actions in the South China Sea threatening another war.

In reply, Albanese stated falsely that he and Labor had opposed the Iraq war, then immediately reaffirmed that Labor supports the US alliance. He declared that there are real threats to the world from fundamentalists, which the lefts shouldnt dismiss. The Islamic State, Albanese said, would seek to murder everyone in this room. The left, he declaimed, is often ready to criticise the US, but reluctant to criticise a bunch of fascists.

Albanese was attempting to turn reality on its head. The barbaric destruction of the Middle East has nothing to do with protecting people against terrorism. Wars have been waged for 25 years by the US and its allies, including Australia, to establish hegemony over the resource-rich and strategically-vital region.

Grenfell challenged Labors record on Iraq, noting that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had promoted the lies about weapons of mass destruction, thereby contributing to the political conditions for the invasion. Australian troops are currently in Iraq participating in the siege of Fallujah, a city devastated by the criminal 2003 invasion, Grenfell said. In Syria, the Islamist extremists are being supported by the US and its allies in moves to counter Russia.

Grenfell also drew attention to the bipartisan commitment to $A494 billion in military spending, which is being presented as a jobs plan when it is in reality a direct response to demands from the Pentagon that Australia be placed on a war footing in preparation for conflict with China.

An SEP supporter, noting the presence of two US carrier groups currently on war games in the Philippine Sea, asked Albanese if he agreed with Conroys call for Australian warships to be sent on freedom of navigation operations in the region. Albanese attempted to evade the question, declaring I do not necessarily support your characterisation of the situation.

Pressed to answer, Albanese claimed he didnt know what Conroy had said. The former deputy prime minister launched an outburst against the SEP, saying he was not going to get into a debate with the Socialist Equality Party about the future of China and the US with regard to the Grayndler candidates forum. For his part, Casey remained silent throughout, making no attempt to differentiate himself from Albanese or clarify the Greens Partys position.

The discussion over the danger of war opened the way for a series of critical questions from the audience on broad social issues, including health and education. Addressing Albanese, a teacher from Petersham TAFE college described it being gutted and the buildings handed over to other institutions. She described the teaching staff as being on our knees.

Albanese avoided the issue, saying that TAFE funding was a New South Wales state matter. A high school teacher then challenged him, pointing out that the Gillard Labor government had caused a lot of the problems in the TAFE sector by introducing funding contestability which gave contracts to private operators.

Albanese conceded that there were some errors made by Labor. He did not promise, however, to eliminate private contractors, saying only that Labor would get rid of the shonks. Asked if Labor would introduce universal, free pre-school education, Albanese was again evasive, saying vaguely that Labor would prioritise pre-school education.

In fact, Labor has already responded to the worsening economic situation in Australia and globally by dropping promises to oppose or reverse budget measures worth an estimated $71 billion and committing to deep cuts to welfare, healthcare, education, pensions, aged care and family payments.

The candidates were asked their positions on a Labor-Greens coalition government. Casey claimed that the election was not about us trying to form a coalition, but immediately declared that while co-operating with Liberal Prime Minister Turnbull was not possible, doing so with Labor leader Shorten was. He said the Greens would prefer a Shorten Prime Minister to a Turnbull one. He praised Labors health policies and the Gonski education reforms, which are being used to prepare deepening assaults on public education.

Representatives of the other parties largely supported a possible Labor-led coalition. Grenfell, however, cut through this, declaring; A vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor. Behind the progressive rhetoric of the Greens, Grenfell said, they would be taking direct responsibility for a government that would intensify the assault on the working class, continue Australias integration into wars in the Middle East and against China and do nothing to resolve any of the complex social problems facing the working class.

To contact the SEP and get involved, visit our web site or Facebook page.

Authorised by James Cogan, Shop 6, 212 South Terrace, Bankstown Plaza, Bankstown NSW, 2200
Protests are to be held in cities across France today against the Socialist Party (PS) government's despised labor law, after the PS suddenly backed down from threats to ban today's protest in Paris. The unprecedented decision to threaten such a ban points to the advanced state of preparations for state repression of social opposition in the working class.

After Prime Minister Manuel Valls and President Francois Hollande last week repeatedly threatened to ban further protests, the Paris police prefecture issued a brief statement yesterday morning declaring that the protest in Paris would be banned for security reasons.

Talks with the trade unions had failed, it stated, as union representatives refused categorically to hold a static assembly and instead formulated alternative proposals of paths for protest marches.

The statement continued: After a careful examination, these alternative proposals did not allow for the necessary protection of persons and property, nor the necessary maximum mobilization of the security forces against the terror threat that is currently at a high level and imposes exceptional demands on the national soil. Under these conditions, the prefect of police sees no option besides banning the protests.

The significance of the prefecture's position was clear. As the government has given no indication that it believes the terror threat from Islamist networks trained as part of NATO's imperialist wars in Libya and Syria would die down, the prefecture was effectively arguing that social protests in Paris would be banned for an entire period. Fundamental, constitutionally protected democratic rights to strike and protest were to be voided with a few strokes of a pen in the Paris prefecture.

The position manifestly had the support of the entire top leadership of the PS government. At a press conference, its spokesman, Stephane Le Foll, criticized journalists who were asking about Valls' role in pushing for the banning of the protest.

The little game where you let people think that a decision was taken inside the executive by the prime minister falsifies the issue, Le Foll said. Decisions are taken in a collective manner, and the police prefecture tries to balance between the right to protest and the risks that are involved.

Nonetheless, while Le Foll was speaking, the leaders of the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the Workers Force (FO) unions were demanding an emergency meeting with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. At this meeting, they reportedly warned Cazeneuve that, even if the protest were banned, it would be impossible to prevent masses of people from showing up to protest and assembling in a large number of smaller illegal protest gatherings. Attacking and dispersing such rallies would require even more policemen than policing one large protest.

As CGT and FO officials spoke to Cazeneuve, online petitions were circulating in which people declared that they would defy any ban and participate in tomorrow's protest. One petition posted on change.org gathered nearly 150,000 signatures over the course of the day.

At 12:45 PM, after the meeting with Cazeneuve, CGT General Secretary Philippe Martinez and FO leader Jean-Claude Mailly held an unusual joint press conference together with other union officials. Directly contradicting the police prefecture and Le Foll, they announced that Cazeneuve had authorized a protest, mapped out along a short, circular route, starting and finishing at Bastille Square, along which protesters would be authorized to march.

Though the purpose of this decision was clearly to box the protesters in and set up the static assembly that the prefecture had originally wanted, Martinez and Mailly hailed this decision as a victory for the unions and for democracy.

Cazeneuve gave a press conference an hour later to confirm that the circular march would not be banned. At the same time, he threatened the demonstrators, declaring, Nothing should get out of control, no violence will be tolerated.

Press commentators soon began speculating as to whether this humiliating climb-down meant a loss of face for Valls, after his calls for banning protests were disavowed by Hollande and Cazeneuve. In fact, the Socialist Partys decision to ban the protest and its subsequent abrupt reversal have exposed the partys escalating desperation in the face of mass working-class opposition, and its determination to trample on basic democratic rights if this will enable it to impose its program of social attacks.

It once again made clear that the state of emergency imposed by the PS after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris is directed not against terrorists, but against the working class and its democratic rights. While the PS is maneuvering to impose an ever more nakedly antidemocratic regime, the social force that is emerging as the main defender of and social constituency for democratic rights is the working class.

It also exposes pseudo-left parties such as the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) and the Left Front (FdG) of Jean-Luc Melenchon, who called for a Hollande vote in the 2012 elections and claimed that protests could be organized to pressure the PS to adopt left-wing policies. In fact, the NPA and FdG mounted no significant protest action until mass discontent erupted among youth and workers this year against the PS labor law. And the PS has responded to protests not by shifting to the left, but by carrying out ever more brutal repression.

While the PS banned protests by youth groups and Muslim and Palestinian organizations against the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014, its current threat to ban a trade union protest on social issues is unprecedented.

If the ban had been maintained, it would have been the first time a union protest was banned since Paris prefect and former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon banned an anti-Algerian war protest called by the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) and the CGT on February 8, 1962. On that day, Paris police attacked protesters who defied the ban, leading to the death of nine protesters at the Charonne metro station. Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to attend their funeral in one of the major demonstrations of mass opposition to the Algerian war.

Given this history, it is clear that yesterday's announcement of a protest ban by the police prefecture, initially backed by the Interior Ministry, is a threat to escalate the already brutal repression of the three-month-old protest movement against the Socialist Partys regressive labor law.
On Wednesday, three days after the Sunday police massacre of protesting teachers and their supporters in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca State, negotiations began in Mexico City between Mexican chief of staff Miguel Angel Osorio Chong and leaders of the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE).

The meeting, following nearly three years of protests and battles between the teachers and the Pena Nieto administration, signals the extreme crisis of the government. Both Osorio Chong and Education Secretary Aurelio Nuno Mayer up until now had refused to meet until the CNTE accepted the education reform legislation as the law of the land.

Now their aim is to use the bloodshed in Oaxaca to draw the CNTE leadership into a dialogue that they hope will secure its collaboration in imposing the reform on rank-and-file teachers in return for a seat at the table for union officials.

Union leaders entered the secretary of governments building in Mexico City late Wednesday afternoon, chanting the education reform is going to fall.

Before the meeting, they said that they would raise nine points, including the rehiring of over 4,000 fired teachers, the freeing of jailed union leaders and dropping of charges against them, payment of withheld wages, a solution to problems in the education system and the resolution of demands by social organizations and of peoples in resistance in Oaxaca.

The secretary of governments office, for its part, said the talks were aimed at restoring tranquilty to Oaxaca.

The CNTE represents a dissident movement within the official pro-government and notoriously corrupt nationals teachers union (SNTE). It operates in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacan and other states, and claims to have 60,000 members.

The CNTE has politically oriented to Morena, led by the ex-Mayor of Mexico City Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which has been formed to provide a new left face for bourgeois politics in Mexico.

Leaders of the Oaxaca teachers also met on Wednesday to agree on a plan of action. Among their demands is the resignation of Oaxaca Governor Gabino Cue Monteagudo, and of Education Secretary Nuno Mayer. Oaxaca teachers also organized a collection among its members for the victims of the massacre and delivered food and other aid to Nochitxtlan.

The CNTE meeting also voted to ask the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) to launch an independent investigation of the June 19 massacre.

In the southern and central states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chiapas, Michoacan, and Tabasco, protests continued on Tuesday in support of the teachers, and barricades were up, blocking vehicular traffic, as education and other workers defied the government massacre in which 11 people were shot dead and more than one hundred were wounded.

There are concerns in the region that Sundays massacre may be repeated.

In Nochixtlan, the barricade, broken up by federal police on Sunday, was back up. In Michoacan, teachers and their supporters blockaded highways in at least at seven locations, including in Morelia, the state capital.

Barricades were also put up in the state capital of Chiapas, Tuxla Gutierrez, where teachers rallied at the federal education offices.

Guerrero teachers protesting in Acapulco barricaded a stretch of coastal highway and took over a shopping mall in the tourist district.

The CNTE leadership moved to disassociate itself from some of the blockades and protests, including the blocking of the Villahermosa-Ciudad del Carmen federal highway, which was attributed to independent teachers.

Francisco Mendoza, a CNTE leader, told the Mexican media that it had not called the protest, adding that it could get out of control, and they blame the CNTE, in this respect we disassociate ourselves from it.

Osorio Chong is considered by many to have ordered the Nochixtlan attack, an escalation of a series of attacks in recent weeks against the teachers, that includes the arrest of CNTE leaders on spurious criminal charges and the accusation that the CNTE is terrorizing teachers into not collaborating with the education reform.

The massacre in Oaxaca is the latest event in an on-going war between police and security forces and the teachers. In May, protesting teachers camped out in Mexico Citys Santo Domingo Plaza, were rousted in the middle of the night, herded onto buses and transported out of the city in a scene reminiscent of Pinochets Chile, or fascist Germany.

While the talks were about to start, remarks by Education Secretary Nuno Mayer signaled that the Pena Nieto administration has no intention of backing down.

He declared categorically that the so-called education reform would deepen, because it is the transformation that our country needs. Nuno Mayer also praised SNTE leader Juan Diaz de la Torre for his cooperation with the education law, a not-so veiled message to the CNTE to take the opportunity join in with the corrupt SNTE leader. According to some reports, the SNTE was invited to join the talks Wednesday night between the CNTE and the secretary of government.

The education reform consists of changes in the Mexican Constitution originally approved as part of the Pact for Mexico between the leaders of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolutions (PRD) in 2012. It was supplemented by other laws in 2013.

In the name of competitiveness and greater autonomy, the legislation establishes a system of obligatory and periodic teacher evaluations, that teachers are required to submit to, or be fired. Hundreds have already been sacked.

In the name of autonomy and local control, the reform also shifts many of the costs of education directly onto students and their families, creating a many-tiered education system that favors the well off. Particularly in poor states, such as Chiapas and Oaxaca, the added costs for books and teaching materials would impose a financial hardship on parents who now send their children to schools in many cases with no desks or blackboards.

The CNTE opposed the education reform, pointing out that teachers were never consulted in the elaboration of this system and raising questions on the undemocratic nature of the Pact for Mexico itself, signed by unelected party leaders. Many teachers point to the diversity of Mexican society, particularly in states like Guerrero and Oaxaca, where more than 20 indigenous languages are spoken, making a one-size-fits-all method of evaluation impractical. What is being evaluated therefore is what serves the interests of big business and the ruling class.

The teachers struggle is being met with increasing support among youth and students, and among other sectors of the working class. A national strike by health workers, medical doctors and nurses is spreading.

On Tuesday, doctors and nurses from the states of Veracruz, Chiapas, Guerrero and Baja California announced that they would join the strike and linked their struggle, for greater resources to an underfunded care system, to the struggle of the teachers.

Mexican media reports that on the social media the teachers struggle has obtained broad support. Many link the massacre in Oaxaca with the disappearance of the 43 teaching students in Iguala in September 2014.

In support of the teachers, student strikes are taking place, including on campuses of the Autonomous Metropolitan University In Mexico City.
The strike of nearly 5,000 nurses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area against Allina Health, the largest hospital system in Minnesota, is continuing for its fifth day today. Striking nurses have named a number of issues at the forefront of their opposition to company demands, including cuts to their health care, the implementation of a computer staffing system to increase workloads for already overburdened nurses and workplace safety concerns.

The strike affects five major hospitals under the umbrella of Allina Health: Abbott Northwestern and Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis, United in St. Paul, Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and Unity in Fridley.

The walkout followed three months of negotiations between Allina Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) union, an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). Allina is refusing to discuss staffing or any other issues until the MNA accepts the elimination of the nurses current health care plan and its replacement with a company program that provides inferior coverage with higher co-pays and deductibles.

The MNA was forced to call the strike after nurses overwhelmingly rejected the companys contract proposal on June 6. The MNA, however, has limited the walkout to seven days and has kept another 7,000 nurses at other area hospitals on the job.

The company has used various strikebreaking agencies, including Health Source Global, to recruit 1,400 replacement nurses who are reportedly being paid $8,400 a week, plus travel expenses, lodging and meals. While slandering strikers as selfish and oblivious to patient safety, Allina has employed poorly trained replacements.

One replacement nurse from Georgia quit from Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids Wednesday citing concerns about patient care and joined strikers on the picket line.

Meanwhile state regulators dispatched by Democratic Governor Mark Daytons administration have backed the strikebreaking operation and issued no citations over hospital safety. Dayton, who married into the Rockefeller family fortune, served as an aide to former Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich who dispatched the National Guard against striking Hormel workers in the 1980s.

The Twin Cities strike is part of increasing struggles by nurses against poor working conditions and the fact that many cannot afford their own health care plans. Nurses at the Los Angeles Medical Center are carrying out a one-day strike today, following a series of nurses strikes over the last few years, including against Kaiser Permanente in California and Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

Health care workers are facing relentless cost cutting and attacks on their working conditions, as part of the restructuring of the health care system initiated by Obamas misnamed Affordable Care Act.

Reporters from the World Socialist Website on Wednesday discussed the political issues in the strike with nurses at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

Sarah, a nurse with 12 years of experience, told the WSWS, "Obamacare hasn't really benefitted usit's just costing a lot of people more money, which is why the hospitals are trying to come down on their employees, cities on teachers, and everyone else."

Sarah told the WSWS that she agreed that the goal of Obamacare has been to shift the cost of health care onto the working class, while providing less coverage for working people.

As the discussion shifted to the US presidential elections, Sarah said both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were a losing proposition. Referring to the promotion of identity politics by the Democrats, she added, "I don't want to see a woman president elected, just to say 'I was part of that, I made history.' That is not how I want people to get into office. I support people because of their values and beliefs. She's a lying crook, and so is Trump."

Jenny, another Allina nurse, added, "It's like a conspiracy, they're all in it together, referring to the incestuous relationship between the giant corporations and the government. I dont want to be rich. I want to have enough to know that my children will have a good future.

WSWS reporters also spoke with Monique, a nurse with six years of experience, about the broader attack on health care workers. They're getting ready to go after our nursing assistants next, the pharmacists are in a battle, and the nurse anesthetists are in a battle as well.

"We're being put in a situation where the working class will suffer tremendously. There will only be working-class people living in poverty and the upper class, the middle class will just disappear.

Despite nursing being a professional career, Monique added, "What we make is no longer a livable wage. We might make a decent salary but is it going to be sustainable with the cost of living and the way things are going? There are several nurses out there who live paycheck to paycheck. Why? Because they still owe so much in student loans. They pay in student loans what I pay on a mortgage on my house. How can they chase the supposed American Dream when they will never be able to own a house, or own a car?"

The MNA and National Nurses United (NNU) endorsed Bernie Sanders in order to provide themselves with a left cover under conditions of a growing radicalization among nurses. The Sanders campaign has been used to channel rising opposition within the political confines of the Democratic Party, which, no less than the Republicans, is spearheading the assault on workers living standards.

In a recent interview, NNU President RoseAnn DeMoro echoed Sanders fraudulent claim that the Democratic Party can be transformed into a party of working people and the capitalist system can be reformed.

Were staying with Bernie, DeMoro said, Were going to fight for our issues through the convention, and were going to continue to fight for our issues the Sanders campaign is about changing America. And its changing America from being a market to a society. And I think, at a visceral level, thats what people really see and they want. They want their country back. And thats what our campaign has been about.

Decades of bitter experience have demonstrated that the Democratic Partythe second-oldest capitalist party in the worldcan never be transformed into a party of working people. This was proven again over the last seven-and-a-half years as the candidate of change, Barack Obama, oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in US history while overseeing endless wars.

Nurses must draw political lessons from the unions political subordination of workers to the Democratic Party. If the fight for decent living standards and the right to universal health care is to be taken forward, nurses, health care workers and all workers must make a decisive political break with the Democratic Party and the capitalist profit system it defends.
The attempts to cast the horrific June 12 massacre of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando as a case of Islamist terrorism have been further undermined by the testimony of a man claiming to have been the lover of the shooter, Omar Mateen.

In an exclusive interview Tuesday with the Spanish language television network Univision, a man who identified himself only as Miguel and who appeared with his face and voice disguised said that Mateen had attacked the gay nightclub not as an act not of terrorism, but of revenge.

According to his account, Mateen was enraged over a sexual encounter with two Puerto Rican men he had met at the Pulse nightclub, one of whom, he said, later acknowledged that he was HIV positive. He described Mateen as terrified of becoming infected with the virus.

Im going to make them pay for what they did to me, he recalled Mateen telling him, adding that he hated Puerto Rican gays because of the incident.

The man recounted that he had met Mateen via a gay dating app and had gone with him between 15 and 20 times to the Ambassador Hotel in Orlando. A receptionist interviewed by Univision confirmed that she recognized Mateen and that the man the network interviewed had been a regular guest.

The FBI confirmed the mans report that he had been interviewed several times by the agency, which has also sought security video from the hotel.

The testimony of Miguel conforms with accounts given by a number of others, including Mateens former wife and a number of patrons of the Pulse nightclub, who described him as a regular and reported that he had been on gay dating apps for years.

The gunmans ex-wife, Sitora Ysufiy, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, told a Brazilian television news interviewer that Mateen had been mentally unstable and mentally ill, having physically abused her during their brief marriage.

Ysufiy added that she believed he was gay, and that his father, an Afghan immigrant, had denounced him as such in front of her. According to her and her fiance, she recounted this experience to the FBI, but had been asked by FBI agents not to tell this to the American media.

The media, for its part, has largely cooperated. Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, two newspapers that set the agenda for the national press, had published as of Wednesday a word about either the Univision interview or Mateens ex-wifes account of her encounter with the FBI.

Instead, the overwhelming attention has been given to Mateens call to 911 during the massacre, in which he delivered a pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State, and the controversy surrounding the FBIs redaction of this statement from a transcript originally released to the press.

Given the widespread testimony relating to Mateens apparent mental illness and internal conflicts over his sexual identity, as well as the extremely repressive social attitudes within his family, there is every reason to suspect that the invocation of the Islamic State was aimed at concealing his real motives.

There is a clear political purpose behind the medias selective reporting. The aim is to support the narrative that Mateen acted as a domestically radicalized Islamist terrorist, inspired to violence by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), rather than, as with the far more typical mass shooter in America, driven by mental illness, perceived grievances and the toxic social atmosphere that prevails in a country dominated by unending war and deepening inequality.

The massacre in Orlando is being harnessed to a drive by the US ruling establishment to escalate war abroad and political repression at home. The mass killing has coincided with demands by US generals for the dispatch of more American troops to Iraq as well as a call by some 50 State Department officials for the redirection of the US intervention in Syria to more directly target the Russian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, the US Senate Wednesday narrowly defeated legislation that would further empower the FBI to troll through the Internet browsing histories, emails and social media activity of American citizens without the necessity of securing a court order. The measure represents a significant expansion of the warrantless searches authorized under the Patriot Act, which require only an administrative subpoena, called a National Security Letter (NSL). Over the past decade, the FBI has issued some 300,000 such letters.

While supposedly not including access to the content of emails, the legislation in the Senate would allow the FBI to track the web sites viewed by citizens and determine how long they visited them, as well as the to and from lines of emails and location information garnered from IP addresses.

Telephone and Internet companies served with NSLs are barred under the law from disclosing either to their customers or the general public that they have received these letters.

Those backing the legislation have invoked the Orlando attack as the pretext for the further shredding of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

One of the sponsors of the measure, which was presented as an amendment to a spending bill that included funding for the FBI, was Arizonas Republican Senator John McCain. In the wake of the tragic massacre in Orlando, it is important our law enforcement have the tools they need to conduct counterterrorism investigations and track lone wolves, or ISIS-inspired terrorists, he said.

The vote on the measure was 58-38, just two shy of the 60 votes needed for it to go forward. Eleven Democrats joined all but six members of the Republican majority in voting to approve it. In a procedural move, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell changed his vote from yes to no, allowing him to reintroduce the legislation during a later debate.
Whatever the result of todays referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union, it marks a watershed in political life in Britain and throughout the continent.

The referendum was called by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to placate the Eurosceptic wing of his own party and stop the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from gaining further ground at Tory expense. His disastrous political miscalculation threatens instead to split the Conservatives in two, hasten the demise of the EU and precipitate a major economic crisis globally.

Economically, the real issues being fought out are over whether the British bourgeoisie is best served by remaining part of the Single European Market or, in the words of the Leave advocates, repositioning itself out of Europe and into the world in order to better exploit opportunities in China, India and the Commonwealth countries.

Both sidesRemain, led by Cameron and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Leave, led by Tory Boris Johnson and UKIP leader Nigel Farageshroud their real concerns in lies about defending jobs and vital social services and ensuring prosperity.

In reality, the EU defended by Remain is an instrument for imposing savage austerity, as has been so cruelly demonstrated in Greece. But Leave wants only to free big business and the City of London from what little remains of labour legislation and match the benchmark set by the conditions facing workers in the Far East. Whichever faction wins, the offensive against the working class will resume with a vengeance on June 24.

Never before has there been such a concerted intervention of leading figures from the Armed Forces and the security services MI5 and MI6 into political life. Both sides proclaim their commitment to NATO and its ongoing offensive against Russia and China. The Remain camp argues that British membership of the EU and the EU in general strengthen NATO, while the Leave camp maintains that British membership ties the UK to plans, pushed above all by Germany, to create a European Army, which will undermine NATO and raise the spectre of Germany establishing its unchallenged hegemony over the continent.

To conceal these political realities of class war, trade war and military war, and to sow divisions within the working class, the referendum has increasingly focused on whipping up nationalism and xenophobia.

The many social problems resulting from the savage austerity measures imposed by the ruling elite and its parties are blamed again and again on migrants. Again, Remain and Leave differ only as to whether anti-migrant measures require the EUs Fortress Europeguarded by razor wire fences, gun boats and concentration campsor whether the UK must take back control of its borders and end the free movement of European labour into Britain.

The toxic stew this has createdsuch that UKIPs campaign material is redolent of Nazi propagandapollutes social and political life and strengthens the forces of the far right.

Last Thursdays murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a fascist is a grave warning to workers and youth of the implications of this descent into nationalist reaction. It marks a new stage in the class struggle in the UK that will take on ever more brutal forms.

Coxs killing was not the action of a disturbed loner, but a political assassination. It was prepared over decades by the incessant scapegoating of immigrants, the whipping up of nationalism and the paralysing of the working class by the Labour and trade union bureaucracy, which has allowed social reaction to deepen without an effective challenge from below. However, all those who claim that the filthy propaganda of the referendum campaign played no part in triggering this outburst of deadly violence are lying to cover up their own political responsibility.

A particularly criminal role has been played by the pseudo-left groupswhether they are aligned with the pro-EU agenda of Remain or have allowed the Tory right and UKIP to posture as friends of the worker by backing the anti-EU camp.

This applies above all to the organizers of the Left Leave campaign, such as the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party. Their insistence that political principle must be subordinated to the hope of the referendum splitting the Tories and hastening the coming to power of a Labour government is used to legitimise a political alliance with the most reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie.

There is nothing accidental in this. When George Galloway, the former Labour MP, declared on a platform with Farage, Left, right, left right, forward march to victory on the 23rd of June, he gave voice to a political tendency that is emerging not just in the UK, but internationallya realignment of ostensibly left figures with right and far-right tendencies on the basis of nationalism.

In Ukraine, this took the form of an alliance with Svoboda and similar fascistic groups in the so-called Euromaidan coup engineered by Washington in 2014. In Greece, it was an electoral alliance between Syriza and the Independent Greeks. In the UK, sections of the pseudo-left, together with some Stalinist-led trade unions, insist that Boris Johnson and Farage, with their millions of voters, must be entrusted with the task of bringing down Cameron. Their stated or unstated goal is for national protectionist measures to be applied by a Labour government, including ending the free movement of European labour.

An unbridgeable gulf separates the Socialist Equality Party from these rightward careening forces. They articulate the efforts of a wealthy layer of the middle class to protect their privileged existence through class collaboration and a return to the nation as a supposed shield against the forces of globalisation.

The SEP bases itself on a struggle for the unity of the European and international working class against globally organised capitalism. It refuses to lend the slightest support to either faction of the ruling class in the referendum campaign. We call for an active boycott as a means of establishing the political independence of the working class.

The Brexit referendum is a product of the deepening antagonisms produced by the drive of the rival imperialist powers to dominate the worlds markets and strategic resources. It is this conflict that has fatally undermined all efforts to unify the continent economically and politically on the basis of capitalism. Unless the working class intervenes, this will end in the Balkanisation of Europe and a rapid descent into the conditions that gave rise to two world wars.

The crisis facing the bourgeoisie drives it to launch ever more brutal attacks on jobs, wages and social conditions, to move towards authoritarian forms of rule, and to engage in wars of colonial conquest that are opposed by millions. As is being proved in the eruption of opposition in Greece, Belgium and France, this creates the objective conditions for the emergence of a continent-wide social and political struggle against capitalism.

The task placed before workers and young people is not to build new borders, but to tear them down; to replace the bosses EU with the rule of the working class in a United Socialist States of Europe. For this reason, the stand taken by the SEP is of historic significance. It points a way forward not only for workers in the UK, but throughout Europe.
The Socialist Equality Partys candidate for the seat of Wills in the 2016 federal elections, Will Fulgenzi, participated in a lively discussion with a class at Footscray City College on June 16.

Footscray, in Melbournes west, is a working-class suburb with a large proportion of immigrant workers from South East Asia and East Africa. Fulgenzi was invited to address a class of about 25 Year 11 politics students. The class had previously invited candidates to speak from the Labor Party and the Greens.

The SEP candidates opening slide-show presentation began by pointing to the devastating consequences of American militarism over the past 25 years and the successive Australian-backed wars in the Middle East and Africa, which killed over one million people and contributed to the greatest refugee disaster since World War II. The American ruling class has sought to overcome its historic economic decline, he said, through the use of the one area in which it still retains its dominance: military force.

Now the major powers are preparing for a war of even more catastrophic proportions, a war with nuclear weapons. Noting the US military build-up against both Russia and China, Fulgenzi quoted a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report, which warned that the US and Chinese governments are a few poor decisions away from starting a war that could escalate rapidly and end in a nuclear exchange.

The SEP candidates presentation pointed to the resurgence of open class struggle by workers, and a growing political radicalisation on an international scale. Fulgenzi showed images of the massive strike wave in France in opposition to the right-wing Socialist Party governments reactionary El Khomri labour law, and large campaign rallies by self-described democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the United States.

Fulgenzi explained that Sanders is no socialist. He defends American capitalism and supports American militarism in the Middle East, and was now seeking to channel those who supported him into voting for Hilary Clinton. But the support he had won demonstrates the growing interests in socialism, particularly among the youth, and explodes the myth that the American working class is wedded to capitalism.

Fulgenzi condemned the Australian elections as a political fraud in which none of the issues confronting the working class are being discussed. Besides my partys campaign, he noted, there is a conspiracy of silence by all the major parties on Australias integration into the advanced US war plans against China.

Fulgenzi explained that the SEPs campaign was aimed at providing workers and young people with a worked-out political strategy based on the lessons of history. The Big Lie of the 20th century, repeated endlessly over our entire lives since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is that this event signified the failure of socialism, he said. This lie has always depended on the suppression of any discussion of the political alternative to Stalinism within the Soviet Union, represented in the struggle carried out by the Left Opposition, and later the Fourth International, led by Leon Trotsky.

All of the students listened attentively throughout the presentation and participated in a lively question and answer session that lasted over 45 minutes, stopped only by the end of the class. Many had prepared questions in advance, keen to hear a socialist perspective on major historical questions and on wide-ranging contemporary political issues. Others asked questions from the presentation or in response to the discussion itself.

A student noted that Marx and Engels had explained that the state would wither away but that this had not happened in the Soviet Union. What makes you confident this will happen? he asked.

Fulgenzi noted that Marxists characterised the state as a body of armed men for the protection of the social interests of one class over another. In his great work Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky had explained that it was impossible for the state, which he characterised as the guardian of inequality, to wither away so long as vast levels of poverty and inequality existed.

The material pre-conditions for socialism could not be created within Russia for two reasons. Firstly, the immense economic and historical backwardness of the country, with a majority peasant population, compounded by the devastating impact of the first World War, the civil war, the invasion by 14 imperialist armies. To speak about socialism under such conditions was impossible. But above all, this pointed to the necessity of the extension of the revolution internationally.

Fulgenzi pointed to Trotskys analysis that socialism must be based upon the further development of the productive forces built-up under capitalism. Because capitalism itself had created a world economy, socialism must be based on an international revolution and the organisation of production by the working class on an international scale. Both the working class and the Bolshevik Party had always conceived of the Russian Revolution as the opening shot in an international socialist revolution, he said. This was the perspective continued by Trotsky, against Stalins reactionary program of Socialism in One Country.

Taking up from this question, another student asked whether the success of capitalism was not due to human nature. Fulgenzi explained that my party bases itself on a materialist philosophical outlook. This means that human consciousness is a reflection of the external world, rather than the reverse. He noted that attempts to explain the source of human nature must always originate, in one form or another, to the role of a deity in introducing this nature into mankind.

The problem with this analysis is that it cannot explain a historically changing phenomenonthe changes in the different forms of social organisation of humanity, from slavery, to feudalism, to capitalismthrough an unchanging quantity such as human nature. Capitalism is a relatively modern phenomenon. Feudalism may have been said to express human nature at one point, but those social relations were abolished in revolutionary struggle. And the reason is that the very development of societys productive forces at that time made it necessary to establish capitalist property relations. Now capitalism has become a barrier on societys development, and must be replaced by the necessary next stage in mankinds development: socialism.

Later, another student asked whether Fulgenzi was concerned that his partys international perspective may mean a loss of Australian identity. Fulgenzi explained that nationalism, and the promotion of a national identity, is a political tool of the ruling class to insist that the divisions in society are not between classestheyre between nations.

He noted: In this country there has now begun a four-year celebration of Australian participation in WWI, of the Anzacs, and the fostering of the supposed digger spirit and Australian national identity based on militarism. The purpose is to create the conditions where our generation can once again be sent to fight and die in wars for our own ruling classes. He pointed to the campaign of censorship underway against any critical voices, including the sacking of SBS journalist Scott McIntyre, and the ban by the University of Sydney on the Socialist Equality Partys 2015 public meeting on Anzac Day opposing the glorification of militarism.

Our youth organisation, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, he added, has faced ongoing censorship from the student union at my university preventing us from affiliating and being able to hold events on the campus opposing the drive to war.

He concluded: The essential division in society is class. We have absolutely no interest in going and slaughtering our counterparts among young workers in Asia or the Middle East for the profits of the rich. Against nationalism and chauvinism, we fight to unite working people internationally in a common struggle in defence of our interests, against war and capitalism.

Among the many other questions, students asked where revolution would emerge first; whether the events in France signified that it was heading towards revolution; what would trigger revolution in Australia; and what role globalisation had played in politics today.

Yesterday, Fulgenzi was invited to give a similar presentation to around 25 students in politics and history at Princess Hill Secondary College, a high school in the inner-city suburb of Carlton. Many of those present did not have class on but had decided to stay behind at school in order to have the opportunity to hear from and speak with a socialist. As at Footscray, the students were animated and engaged throughout the discussion. The questions included why the SEP believed the working class is the revolutionary force in society, whether Stalins usurpation of political power in the Soviet Union was inevitable. Another student noted that the repeated terror attacks internationally had been carried out by individuals with close ties to governments, but that anyone who said this was labelled by the media as a conspiracy theorist.

At the end of both meetings, students took copies of the SEPs election statement and other WSWS articles with details of the SEPs final election public rally this Sunday.
Donald Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on Monday, in a shake-up that saw his closest political aide marched out of Trump Tower by armed security guards. Lewandowskis sudden departure was widely portrayed in the American media as a sign of severe crisis in a campaign which faces declining poll numbers and the drying up of financial support.

There are also reports that a sizeable group of delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland is seeking a rules change whose adoption would allow delegates bound to Trump to vote for another candidate, potentially blocking a first-ballot nomination.

While internal conflict within the Trump campaign has been widely reported for months, since Trump brought on long-time lobbyist and political operative Paul Manafort to serve as chief delegate counter and campaign chairman, Trump aides had repeatedly denied there were tensions between Manafort and Lewandowski.

Manafort ran operations at campaign headquarters and handled relations with Republican Party officials and office-holders, as well as appearing regularly before the media as a Trump surrogate. Lewandowski handled the candidates day-to-day schedule and accompanied him to every rally and campaign appearance.

Press reports described a showdown Monday morning when Lewandowski was summoned to a meeting with Trump and several of his adult children, sparked by rumors that the campaign manager had been promoting negative press accounts of the role in the campaign of Jared Kushner, the husband of Trumps daughter Ivanka, and the publisher of the right-wing New York Observer.

According to the account in New York magazine, the Trump children peppered Lewandowski with questions, asking him to explain the campaigns lack of infrastructure. Their father grew visibly upset as he heard the list of failures. Finally, he turned to Lewandowski and said, Whats your plan here? Lewandowski responded that he wanted to leak Trumps vice-president pick. And with that, Lewandowski was out.

The conflict between Lewandowski and Manafort was not merely a personal power struggle, but reflected tensions between the semi-fascistic elements that were the initial core of the Trump campaignLewandowski is a former policeman and one-time organizer for the ultra-right political operation of the billionaire Koch brothersand the more traditional influence-peddlers like Manafort, who was a Republican campaign operative as far back as the Ford administration, before making a fortune as a lobbyist for right-wing and authoritarian regimes.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was reportedly one of those pushing for Lewandowskis removal. The RNC and Republican congressional leaders have been increasingly vocal about the disarray and disorganization of the Trump campaign, which has been largely inactive since Trump won the May 3 Indiana primary and his two remaining rivals, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, suspended their campaigns.

According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission Monday, the Trump campaign has only $1.3 million in its bank account, compared to more than $42 million amassed by presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The presidential campaign has fewer liquid resources than any Republican senator seeking reelection. Some 50 House Republicans have larger campaign war chests.

The Trump campaign has not run a single paid advertisement since May 3, while Clinton has poured $24 million into campaign ads in so-called battleground states, those judged to be the most competitive in the November election, including Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Virginia. By comparison, in June 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney spent more than $38 million on campaign advertising in targeted states.

The FEC filing revealed that the Trump campaign has only 69 paid staffers, compared to 685 working for Clinton. In several battleground states, notably Ohio and Florida, Clinton has more full-time campaign staff in the state than Trump has in the entire country. The campaign spent only $115,000 on online advertising and just $48,000 for data management, the basis of get-out-the-vote efforts in the fall.

The filing with the FEC underscores the peculiar character of the Trump campaign, which appears to serve as a money-making operation for the candidate and his family, despite his claim to be self-financing. In May, for example, Trump raised only $5.4 million, of which $2.2 million was a loan from the candidate. The campaign spent $6.7 million, of which more than $1 million was to Trump-controlled companies for travel services, such as Trumps personal jetliner, while amounts nearly as large were laid out for rental of Trump-owned premises like the Mar-e-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

By structuring his donations to his own campaign as loansnow totaling nearly $46 millionTrump is in a position to claim the first $46 million in any new donations to his campaign to reimburse himself. Big-money Republican donors are well aware of this, making them doubly reluctant to write large checks to the presumptive Republican nominee.

The upheaval within the Trump campaign takes place amid new signs of opposition among delegates to the July 18-21 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Trump has some 1,500 delegates pledged to vote for him by primary and caucus results, well above the 1,237 required for nomination.

Press reports over the weekend indicated that there was growing support for a rules change that would allow bound delegates to vote their consciences rather than following the outcome of the primary or caucus in their state. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker became the latest Trump opponent to declare his support for the rules change, telling the Associated Press, Delegates are and should be able to vote the way they see fit.

A three-step mechanism would be required to block Trumps nomination. First, a minority of at least 28 members of the Rules Committee would have to back a new convention rule, enough to force the issuance of a minority report that would be taken up by the convention and voted on. Then a majority of the delegates would have to approve the new rule. Finally, enough delegates would have to switch their votes to other candidates to deny Trump the majority and force a second ballot, in which, by longstanding rule, all delegates cast a free vote.

There are hundreds of delegates formally bound to Trump who actually dont support him. Some are long-time party officials, while others were chosen as a result of efforts by Senator Ted Cruz to place his supporters in delegate slots filled at state or congressional district conventions. As a result, Trump may not be able to claim a majority on a vote on convention rules, where each delegate can vote as they please, without regard to the candidates preferences.

It is significant that the opposition to Trump within the Republican Party is almost entirely coming from the right, from those opposed, not to his fascistic attacks on immigrants and Muslims, but to his comparative indifference to the social issues of concern to the Christian fundamentalists, like gay marriage and abortion, his professed rejection of cuts in Social Security and Medicare, and his erratic pronouncements on US foreign policy.

Such a political coup is still unlikely, because of concerns in the party establishment about the danger of splitting the Republican Party entirely and destroying its prospects, not only in the presidential race, but for congressional and state office as well. That it is even being seriously contemplated is an indication of the deepening crisis, not just of the Republicans, but of the whole US two-party system.

A major factor in the delegate mini-rebellion, the financial crunch and the shake-up in the campaign leadership, is Trumps declining standing in the polls. After running neck-and-neck with Clinton in mid-May, he has slid backwards over the past month, now trailing her in the latest CBS poll by 43 to 37 percent, with 20 percent undecided or supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson or likely Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

In the competitive battleground states, Clinton holds a narrow but distinct leads in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan and New Hampshire, while Trump leads only in North Carolina, with a tie in Pennsylvania. Trump would have to carry nearly all of these states to gain a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

Trumps decline is not the result of any surge in popularity for Clinton, who remains the second most disliked presidential candidate of the past half-century. Only Trump himself ranks lower. Trumps 37 percent showing in the CBS poll is actually lower than the 41 percent who believe that Hillary Clinton acted illegally by using a private email server while Obamas Secretary of State.

Trumps major pronouncements over the past several weeks have contributed to his slide in the polls. This began with his racist attack on the Hispanic judge handling the civil suit by former students claiming they were defrauded by Trump University, and culminated in his self-congratulatory tweets over predicting the Orlando massacre and his renewed demand for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

A New York Times Magazine cover story on the Trump campaign notes the increasingly frenzied character of his language: Trump recently accused President Bill Clinton of rape, Obama of treason, Hillary Clinton of murdering Vince Foster, Cruzs dad of associating with assassins, Romney of not being a real Mormon 

This cover story, and a host of other critical commentary and exposes of Trumps shady business practices in the corporate-controlled media, indicate that sections of the financial elite and the military-intelligence apparatus are shifting toward Clinton as a more reliable servant of their interests. But with more than four months to go before the election, further shifts and upheavals are not only possible, but entirely likely, given the increasingly unstable social and economic environment in the United States and globally.
Britains main pseudo-left groups, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Socialist Party (SP), are calling for a Leave vote in todays referendum. In doing so, they are allied with the faction of the British ruling elite headed by Conservative former mayor of London Boris Johnson and the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP).

The referendum is the outcome of a faction fight between two right-wing camps within the bourgeoisie, both of which are committed to the destruction of the past gains and conditions of the working class.

The campaign by the Socialist Party for a Leave vote has been conducted through its front organisation, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), founded as an electoral coalition with the Stalinist-led Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, with token representation of the SWP.

From the beginning, TUSC sought to legitimise the referendum by applying to be designated as the official Leave campaign. It claimed that only a campaign that was anti-austerity, anti-racist and socialist could secure a Leave vote, as it would reach many more people than the Tory and UKIP-dominated Vote Leave and Grassroots Out campaigns. Its bid was duly rejected by the Electoral Commission because the entire purpose of the binary referendum is to line workers up behind one or another faction of the ruling elite.

With the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn playing critical roles in support of a Remain vote on behalf of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, TUSC has found itself out on a limb while trying to justify its support for Leave.

A TUSC meeting was held in Sheffield, South Yorkshire on Tuesday, just six days after the killing of Labour Party MP Jo Cox in Birstall, West Yorkshire by a fascist sympathiser and supporter of the Leave campaign, Thomas Mair. Her murder graphically underscores the far-right forces mobilised by the referendum.

Chairing the meeting, SP member Alistair Tice mournfully set out TUSCs rejection as the official Leave designate, while acknowledging that the referendum was a narrative that has seen putting it bluntly, one set of right-wing, racist Tory bastards arguing against another set of right-wing, Tory racist bastards. The voice of the working class, of the left and socialists, has not been heard in this debate.

His statement is a damning indictment of TUSCs campaign. If both camps in the referendum are equally reactionary, how could endorsing one side over the other express the voice of the working class?

One of the speakers, Maxine Bowler, a member of the SWP, said that the whole debate around the question of Europe has unleashed an absolute cesspit of racism. She noted that only weeks prior to Coxs murder, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said that if immigration is not controlled, violence is the next step.

But Bowler made clear that the opposition of a section of the pseudo-left to the EU is based not on socialism, but on the attempt by a section of the middle class and trade union bureaucracy to extract some minimal social concessions on a nationalist basis. The EU had to be opposed, she said, because the whole European project was about making sure that Keynesian economics and those kind of policies that were around in 1945 that built the welfare state could never, ever be used again.

The promotion of Keynesian economics is directly bound up with TUSCs promotion of Corbyn. Its attitude to the referendum is determined by narrow, nationalist and self-serving tactical opportunismnamely, the claim that a split in the Tory party caused by the referendum will open the way for a Corbyn Labour government. On this basis, TUSC seeks to blind the working class to the dangers posed by the strengthening of the most right-wing sections of the bourgeoisie through the referendum campaign and create illusions in the Corbyn leadership, which is allied with Cameron in the referendum and has no intention of launching a struggle against capitalism.

In the period allotted for discussion, Socialist Equality Party (SEP) member Tony Robson explained, We are the only political tendency in this referendum that is calling for an active boycott as the only principled standpoint.

He continued: None of the speakers on the platform have really addressed the context in which this referendum is taking place. This is not simply a British question. What is developing is a global economic crises, the growth of social inequality, and the promotion of economic nationalism. It is not just a question here in Britain, but we can see it with Donald Trump in America and throughout Europe.

The SEP had insisted that the only principled position socialists can take in this referendum is to oppose both warring factions of the bourgeoisie. They are essentially fighting over what is the best strategy for defending the interests of British imperialism. We are calling for that boycott to create the preconditions for unifying the working class throughout Europe and internationally.

Noting the chairs description of the referendum as a dispute between two sets of right-wing, racist Tory bastards spewing out racist filth, he said, So on what basis do you advocate siding with a wing of the bourgeoisie on a Leave vote? How can you possibly claim that a vote to leave will provide the basis for a leftward movement of the working class?

Everything youve raised from the platform has been predicated on blurring the distinction between socialism and nationalism. You have counterposed UK law on workers rights and health and safety to that of Brussels. You put forward the position that leaving the EU will create a new lease on life for the national state. What you are identifying the working class with is a national perspective. We completely reject that. People have to take a serious warning from this referendum because what we are seeing is a line-up of supposedly left forces with the most right-wing and nationalist parties.

Robson noted that George Galloway, former Respect MP, had appeared alongside Farage at the launch of UKIPs Grassroots Out, solidarising himself with the promotion of nationalism and xenophobia. Now Galloway was appearing on platforms of the pseudo-left-backed Left Leave campaign in Wales and alongside some of its key figures in Chesterfield the previous evening.

When the SEP opposed Galloways alliance with Thatcherite Tories and UKIP, it was denounced as sectarians. Robson said, There is a real attempt here to chloroform the working class. The only means to oppose this is by initiating a struggle of the international working class. We are fighting for the United Socialist States of Europe, not a return to the national hearth.

In concluding the meeting, Tice called for all those present to do their all to elect a Corbyn Labour government, while Bowler said it would be necessary to oppose racism after June 23. The difference in this country, unlike in France, is that people have opposed the fascists every time theyve turned up, Bowler stated.

This slander against the French working class is aimed at concealing the role played by TUSC and the pseudo-left in politically strengthening the right. At the TUSC meeting in Liverpool the previous week, Roger Bannister, a leader of the SP and member of the national executive of the Unison trade union, attacked the free movement of labour within the EU because it discriminates against local labour.

He added, We should demand legislation that says every job has to be advertised locally, as is appropriate, in local newspapers, and rates of pay and conditions of service, and you select your labour force from the applications that you get. Such reactionary nationalist positions explain why TUSC has the support of a layer of union bureaucrats who are increasingly strident in their opposition, from a nationalist standpoint, to the free movement of labour within the EU.

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[22 June 2016]

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The announced ratification this week of the sellout contract between the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Verizon Communications has been taken as the occasion for celebrations by company management and union officials.

The ratification of the concessionary deals does not mark a show of confidence in the CWA and IBEW. Rather, it signifies that workers saw no way forward to pursue their struggle based on the bankrupt strategy of the unions.

The agreements provide a derisory 10.9 percent pay increase over four years and impose hundreds of millions of dollars in additional health care costs on the backs of workers. The seven-week strike by some 40,000 Verizon workers was systematically sabotaged and isolated by the CWA and IBEW. The deal followed decades of concessionary contracts imposed by the CWA and the IBEW that have contained major attacks on the jobs and living standards of Verizon workers and more broadly telecommunications workers nationally.

The contract settlements were announced just before the Memorial Day holiday after 10 days of secret talks with Obamas labor secretary and a federal mediator. The CWA and IBEW abruptly called for an end to picketing and shut down the strike without providing more than sketchy highlights of the purported agreement in principle.

Nonetheless the unions and a host of pseudo left groups immediately claimed that workers had won an enormous victory.

Now that the contract votes have been completed, management has not been able to contain its expressions of satisfaction. In a statement following the ratification vote Verizon chief administrative officer Marc Reed declared, We are pleased that our employees ratified these new agreementsThe companys key objectives for this round of bargaining were in the areas of health care, post retirement costs and workforce flexibility. These agreements achieve all of those objectives. The company will realize cost savings and cost avoidance through healthcare plan changes, increased healthcare contributions, Medicare Advantage plans for our retirees, maintaining limits on post-retirement healthcare costs and freezing the mortality table for lump sum pensions using the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) rate.

Reed continued, In addition, the agreements allow for greater flexibility in call sharing to better service customers, and give us the ability to offer special buyout incentives to associates.

This gloating statement by a high level Verizon official exposes as lies all the talk by the CWA and IBEW of workers gaining an historic victory. It confirms the assessment of the World Socialist Web Site Verizon Strike Newsletter that the deal was a sellout, tailored to the needs of management.

The entire conduct of the strike belies the claim that workers achieved important gains. From the start the strategy of the CWA and IBEW was based on putting minimum pressure on management and imposing maximum hardship on workers.

In July 2015, CWA President Chris Shelton and other leaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions held a White House conference with President Obama (see photo). The meeting was to discuss the expiration of labor agreements of more than 5 million workers in 2015-16 and how to prevent a unified struggle of workers who were demanding the restoration of lost wages and benefits after the recovery of corporate profits after the 2008 crash.

The CWA and the IBEW refused to call a strike at Verizon when the contract expired the next month, in August 2015, despite the fact that workers had built up their savings in preparations for a fight and that tens of thousands of steelworkers and autoworkers also faced contract deadlines. The delay gave Verizon management time to prepare and train strikebreakers and separated the Verizon workers from powerful sections of workers in basic industry.

In mid-April, after eight months of delay, the unions called a strike without advance notice to workers, who were largely taken by surprise. The company, however, immediately put its strikebreaking plans into effect, using management personnel and scabs to maintain its operations.

The unions did nothing to counter the companys strikebreaking. They did not seek to mobilize broader support for the strike among city workers, transit workers and other sections of telecom workers in the major metropolitan centers on the East Coast. In California and Nevada the CWA instructed 16,000 AT&T West workers to continue on the job after their contract expired in April. When a strike broke out in San Diego, the CWA quickly shut it down before it could trigger similar walkouts statewide.

The unions entire strategy was based on subordinating workers to the Democratic Party and the CWAs endorsed then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to boost his electoral chances and provide the CWA with a left cover for its betrayal of the strike. For his part, Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio penned strikers behind metal barricades while mobilizing hundreds of cops to escort strikebreakers across CWA picket lines.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration intervened in a multi-pronged attack. The National Labor Relations Board sought and obtained an injunction barring picketing of hotels housing strikebreakers. Meanwhile, US Labor Secretary Thomas Perez stepped in to convene closed-door talks in Washington, DC to shut down the strike before it became the catalyst for a broader movement of the working class.

All this time workers were being slowly starved as the union doled out strike checks of $200-$300 per week at a time that the CWA alone controlled assets of some $500 million.

The union executives were also anxious to shut down the strike because of the growing influence of the WSWS Verizon Strike Newsletter, which was followed by and gave a political strategy to thousands of strikers each day.

The outcome of this process could be nothing but a sellout, as the words of Marc Reed confirmed. In addition to huge healthcare and retirement savings, the agreements will facilitate managements plans to consolidate and downsize its call center operations. It will also accelerate the process of ridding the company of older, better-paid workers and replacing them with lower-paid new hires that have few benefits or job protections.

Meanwhile, workers at AT&T West are still without a contract. Talks are reported to be continuing with management demanding a host of regressive changes, including a 5 percent wage increase over four years, freezing of pensions, reduced paid time off and increased cost-sharing on health benefits.

A Verizon worker from Pennsylvania who wished to remain anonymous said that Marc Reeds comments on the contract increased his anger. Why didnt we see a full contract before we voted? Why did the union call us back to work? The union needed to stay out until we had a written contract.

The CWA is selling us out. I dont agree with what happened one bit.

Another Verizon worker from New Jersey said, The union told us we wont go back with concessions and we are giving up cuts in health care while the company is making record profits.

At our local contract ratification meetings people were raising questions about working conditionsthe Saturday schedule is being ramped up for exampleand the union said they were too busy to deal with it. But, people are upset about their treatment. I feel we were out on strike for 50 days for nothing.

In the 2011 strike we violated our own bylaws when the union sent us back to work without a contract.

He said that since the end of the current strike management had increased its harassment. The minute we came back to work they started in again with the same thing. I got a call from my manager that they are going to start reviewing production and asking, Why did you take so long on the job?

Referring to the political impasse presented by the two corporate-controlled parties, the Verizon worker said, We definitely need a party that is for the workers.
Hillary Clinton Bosnia

A false claim that Hillary Clinton made while campaigning for president in 2008 is coming back to haunt her in the 2016 election cycle.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a speech at George Washington University in March 2008 that she landed "under sniper fire" during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. The war ended in 1995, but tensions within the country were still high.

"There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," she said in 2008.

The Washington Post debunked this claim days after Clinton made it.

Old news footage reveals that there was, in fact, a greeting ceremony at Tuzla Air Base when Clinton landed. She met an 8-year-old Muslim girl who read her a poem, and video of the landing shows Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, calmly walking away from the plane and then greeting people on the tarmac:

In the footage, Clinton held a bouquet of flowers while she spoke to people gathered on the tarmac. Another shot showed her strolling near the plane with a group of young people.

Donald Trump has brought up the Bosnia claim on the campaign trail. The likely Republican nominee for president called Clinton a "world-class liar" in a speech on Wednesday, citing her "phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack and the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers."

Clinton's Bosnia story is widely regarded as a lie.

A CBS News correspondent who was on the trip with Clinton wrote her own account of it in 2008, after Clinton's speech at George Washington University. She did admit that there were some potential security risks, but acknowledged that it didn't rise to the level of landing under sniper fire.

Sharyl Attkisson recalled:

Story continues

"Due to the possibility of sniper fire, our pilots used what we were told are 'assault take-offs and landings.' In short, the climb and descent are very fast, and very steep to minimize exposure to hostile fire on the ground."

"It's exciting and frightening and, in the midst of it all, wearing our helmets and bulletproof vests, it's easy to imagine we may be narrowly escaping enemy bullets."

"In reality, we had no known incidents of enemy fire on our aircraft."

To be fair, however, Attkisson did note in her 1996 CBS report that the "frontline outpost" that Clinton and Chelsea visited was "one of the most dangerous places where US forces are operating."

"The president himself never made it this far inside Bosnia when he visited in January," Attkisson said in the report.

Hillary Clinton Bosnia

The Clinton campaign's response

Immediately after the 2008 speech, Clinton held her ground.

PolitiFact noted that when a reporter asked her about the Bosnia trip after the speech, Clinton said: "There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."

But days later, she admitted that she "misspoke" about the Bosnia visit.

"I say a lot of things  millions of words a day  so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she told the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board at the time.

She continued:

"I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her  so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left. Now that's my memory of it."

At the time, the Clinton campaign sought to downplay the Bosnia story.

Then Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters in 2008:

"The facts are clear from contemporaneous news accounts that she was entering a potentially dangerous situation. She has written about this before, she has talked about this before and there you have it. Now, is it possible that in the most recent instance in which she discussed this that she misspoke, with regards to the exit from the plane, but there's no question that I hope everyone is clear about this in the reporting, there is no question if you look at these contemporaneous accounts that she was going to a potential combat zone, that it was by the front lines and the first person since Eleanore Roosevelt to do that and she was going into a hostile military environment."

After The Post ran its original Bosnia fact-check story in 2008, former Clinton speechwriter Lissa Muscatine, who accompanied Clinton on the trip, contacted the newspaper with this statement:

"I was on the plane with then First Lady Hillary Clinton for the trip from Germany into Bosnia in 1996. We were put on a C-17  a plane capable of steep ascents and descents  precisely because we were flying into what was considered a combat zone. We were issued flak jackets for the final leg because of possible sniper fire near Tuzla. As an additional precaution, the First Lady and Chelsea were moved to the armored cockpit for the descent into Tuzla. We were told that a welcoming ceremony on the tarmac might be canceled because of sniper fire in the hills surrounding the air strip. From Tuzla, Hillary flew to two outposts in Bosnia with gunships escorting her helicopter."

But the speech at George Washington University wasn't the only time Clinton told of a dangerous trip to Bosnia.

PolitiFact pointed out that in 2007, she told The Des Moines Register: "We landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anyone offering me tea on the tarmac there."





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ATLANTA (AP) - As they prepare to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter say his recent treatment for cancer has drawn them even closer together.

The former president and first lady told The Associated Press on Wednesday that they will spend their July 7 anniversary together in their hometown of Plains, Georgia. The opportunity is rare for the Carters, still active at the human rights organization they founded in 1982.

Jimmy Carter is 91; Rosalynn Carter is 88. They say mutual respect and giving each other space to pursue separate interests and projects have made each day of their marriage special.

Jimmy Carter revealed his cancer diagnosis in August. In March, he announced that doctors found no more sign of the disease and he would stop receiving regular drug treatments.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - Both FSU and FAMU were collectively awarded $46.1 million dollars for their excellence and improvement in performance measured by the Board of Governors.

In recognition of their accomplishments, the Board of Governors awarded millions of dollars in institutional funding to Florida State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

The schools achievements are measured by the Board's Performance Funding Model, which is made up of 10 metrics that include graduation rates, retention rates, and percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded within certain programs over the last six years.

Both schools will receive funding based on the performance and improvements they have made according to the model. FSU was awarded $10.6 million dollars for its performance with an additional $10 million from the Florida Legislature. FAMU, which saw a 13-point improvement from last year, earned $14 million with an additional $11.5 million from the state.

FAMU says it will use the money to continue improving performance on graduation and retention rates, as well as post-graduation success. FSU says their funds will be invested in hiring and retaining faculty and staff as part of its goal to become one of the top 25 public universities in the nation.
HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) - Officials say a Tampa Bay area teen is dead from apparent drowning after a visit to a north Florida spring.

The Tampa Bay Times (http://goo.gl/sRCxpC) reports that 16-year-old Terry Marshall died Saturday at a Gainesville hospital.

A day earlier, Marshall and his friends visited Blue Springs Park in Gilchrist County. Marshall's mother told the newspaper that the teen jumped into the water at one point and didn't come back up.

A medical examiner has listed the preliminary cause of death as drowning.

___

Information from: Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Fla.), http://www.tampabay.com.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
You are the owner of this article.
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Yakima police are requesting additional charges against a Union Gap man accused of arranging to buy sex from teen girls.
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The dozen Israeli Jews make their way along the stalls of the Ramadan market, looking at the humus, olives, fruit, pastries and other special treats for the daily "iftar", or fastbreaking meal that Muslims eat at sunset during the month of Ramadan. One woman stands in front of a display of six different kinds of olives.

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"Taste one," the seller urges.

"But it's Ramadan, and it's still fasting time," she responds.

"Oh, go ahead," he answers. "Just cover your mouth so people don't see you eating."

Traditional Muslims fast from dawn to dusk for 30 days during the holy month of Ramadan, which began earlier this month. A large majority of Arab Israeli Muslims fast, using the evening hours for large meals with their family.

Jews in the mosque (Photo: Linda Gradstein/The Media Line)

The visit to Kafr Kassem was one of dozens of tours that bring Jewish Israelis to Arab towns and villages in northern and central Israel during the month of Ramadan. While 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab, most Jews and Arabs live separately and go to different schools. Even at universities, while the two groups study together, there is limited social interaction.

Arab citizens of Israel all learn Hebrew, but few Jews learn more than a few words of Arabic. The tensions of the past few years between Israelis and Palestinians, and especially a wave of stabbing attacks in Israel, have made Jews wary of venturing into Arab towns in Israel.

"The goal of these visits is to create social change using tourism," Ilanit Haramati, the director of Via Maris, the NGO that organized the visit told The Media Line. "Tourism brings economic gain to the towns. It also brings Jews and Arabs together and it builds pride in the towns that are visited."

The project is supported by USAID (the US governmental agency for international development) as well as Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Equality in Israel. This year, there are visits to five Arab towns: Nazareth, Sahnin, Tira, Taybe, and Kfar Kassem.

Along with the Ramadan market in Kafr Kassem, where they bought traditional Arab pastries of kata'if, syrup-soaked pastries with nuts or cheese inside, and awameh, little balls of fried dough, the tourists visited a local mosque. The women covered their heads with scarves, and both men and women took off their shoes.

"Welcome," an imam named Ya'qub told the group. "As you can see, we have no pictures on the walls. We pray five times every day, and we fast on Ramadan."

A few members of the group said they were disappointed that there was not more of an in-depth explanation of Islam.

The group heard about the history of the village, which is hundreds of years old. In 1949, after the War of Independence, the village was placed under Israeli control as part of the Rhodes cease-fire agreement.

"We have this crazy situation where people who were enemies of the state one day become citizens of the state the next day," tour guide Joel Rosenfeld told them. All Arab citizens of Israel lived under martial law until 1966.

The group also toured the monument to the Kafr Kassem massacre of 1956, a seminal event in the village's history. The village had become part of Israel in 1949, but the residents, like all Arab citizens of Israel, were still under military rule. On the eve of the Sinai war, Israel imposed a curfew for all Arab towns and villages. In Kfar Kassem, many of the farmers were out in the fields and did not get the news of the curfew. When they returned, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 48 civilians, including 29 women and children. The policemen involved were tried and found guilty, although all were released in a year. The incident is still taught in the Israeli army as an example of an illegal order that should have been disobeyed.

For most of the members of the group, it was their first visit to Kafr Kassem, which is just a few hundred yards away from the nearby Israeli town of Rosh Ha'ayin. From the park at the entrance Kafr Kassem, you can see the buildings of the Jewish town's high-tech zone.

Tour guide Rosenfeld lives in Rosh Ha'ayin and says he has dovish politics as well.

"I walk this line between trying to sound objective and sounding like what my father-in-law would call a 'bleeding heart liberal,'" he said. "The Jews who are here and open to the idea of living with our neighbors can never fully understand what it was like to live as citizens but be considered a fifth column, even though the Israeli Arab population has shown tremendous loyalty to the state."

Several of the members of the group said they hoped to visit the village again.

"I am a tour guide, and I usually stop with my groups at a rest stop on the nearby highway," Rachel Perk said. "But next time I"ll stop here."

Several members of the group said they had dovish political ideas but did not have an opportunity to meet Arab citizens of Israel.

"Anyone who knows me hears about my political ideas day and night," Jennie Levin, a writer and translator living in Tel Aviv said. "Sometimes I feel like a fraud because it's very hard to meet Arabs in Tel Aviv. I hoped to not only make some friends here but to be with like-minded people."

As the sun began to set, the vendors in the market began to pack up their goods. Shawkat Amar, a teacher and local guide who was meeting with the group, got a call from his son, asking when he was coming home for the iftar meal.

As the muezzin in the mosque marked the end of the fast by broadcasting verses from the Qur'an, Amar accepts a pastry and gratefully takes a bite.

"The Islam that you see in the media like that guy in Orlando is not the real Islam," he said before going home to eat with his family. "Islam is not a religious of violence, but of peace. Anyone who says differently is simply wrong."

Article written by Linda Gradstein.
WASHINGTON- The State Department says the government of Bahrain has fallen short in implementing a series of political and human rights reforms.

In a report sent to Congress this week, the department documents Bahrain's implementation of recommendations made by an independent commission after the country crushed widespread protests in 2011. Bahrain hosts the US Navy's 5th Fleet.

The report cites progress: Claims of torture have been investigated and offenders have been convicted. Families of victims of state violence have been compensated. Police and security forces have received human rights training.
UNITED NATIONS- United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Wednesday troops would be sent home from a UN mission in South Sudan due to their response to deadly violence at a compound.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that an inquiry found that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement marred the response by peacekeepers to fighting in February at a UN compound in Malakal where nearly 50,000 civilians were sheltering.

During the two-day incident at least 30 civilians were killed and 123 people wounded. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres accused the UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNMISS, on Tuesday of taking up to 16 hours to act.
Dozens of people demonstrated in Wadi Ara against the participation of Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked with 200 Arab lawyers in an iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their daily Ramadan fast on Wednesday evening.

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The demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and shouted, "We don't want to see you in Arab towns."

The iftar was organized by the Haifa District Bar Association. The lawyers who came to the dinner were also cursed by demonstrators, with one of them shouting, "You're a traitor sitting down to eat with a racist. Back out or we'll ban you."

Arab demonstrators in Wadi Ara (Photo: Ido Erez)

Demonstrators screamed at a group of women who entered the meeting, "Are you not ashamed? It's a shame you cover your hair. I would be better to remove it before entering. By meeting with the Minister you give support to her racist ways."

Also invited to the iftar were Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Supreme Court President Miriam Naor. Shaked, when asked to comment on the protest, said only,"I'm for democracy". She greeted those present in Arabic: "Our Muslim brothers, best wishes on the occasion of the blessed month of Ramadan. May we celebrate it again, when a full and just peace prevails throughout the country".

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the iftar meal

Shaked said further, "We are obliged to remember that despite the differences that exist between us, we are all striving together to establish a model society that will exemplify the values of compassion and helping the weak."

Ahmed Khalifa, an attorney who refused to participate in the meal, said, "I am one of those who initiated the protest. Everyone knows Minister Shaked's positions regarding Arabs and her statements about us...Her party is a party of settlers and her constituents live on Arab lands."

On the other hand, lawyers who participated in the meal said, "Everyone has the right to express their opinion and demonstrate, but to curse us in such a manner - we have never seen anything like it. It's a disgrace that there are people like that among us. They are destroying Arab society."

Police on Wednesday arrested a Hadash activist in Haifa on suspicion that he posted a picture of Shaked in an SS uniform online. After an investigation, he was released under restrictive conditions.
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin while the two are in Brussels it was reported on Thursday. The proposed meeting with Rivlin was to be held at the invitation of President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.

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During a joint press conference held between Rivlin and Schulz on Wednesday at the European Parliament, Schultz was asked if he could be a mediator and conduct a meeting between Abbas and Rivlin. Schlutz replied that Abbas was due to land in Brussels soon, and that he hoped that if Rivlin and Abbas happened to meet in the hallways of the European Parliament, that the two wouldn't run away from each other.

Rivlin responded by saying "don't worry, I won't run away"

Despite this, Mahmoud Abbas turned down the European Parliament President's invitation to meet Rivlin.

Mahmoud Abbas and Reuven Rivlin (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, EPA)

During Rivlin's speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday, the Israeli president said of the Palestinian leadership that "in order to achieve a comprehensive permanent agreement, an effective leadership is required. However, the Palestinian leadership today is divided inat leasttwo," and noted that "Hamas, which rules Gaza and is ideologically committedin both its political and military leadershipto the annihilation of Israel."

He continued saying, "In order to achieve a stable and viable agreement, a reasonable regional and economic infrastructure is required. But we are living in a reality where the plague of murderous Jihadi fundamentalism, religious fanaticism and incitement Israel is devoting, and will continue to do so, vast efforts, more than any other actor in the region even at the price of complex security risk-takingbut Israeli intervention alone will not suffice."

He added that above all, the lack of trust between the sides was a serious obstacle. "The most fundamental trait of Israeli-Palestinian relations today which is, to my deep regret, a total lack of trust between the parties on all levels; between the leaderships and the peoples."
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas strongly criticized Israel during his Thursday address to the European Parliament in Belgium but stressed that his hands were outstretched for peace.

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Abbas said Israel is growing more extreme, both in terms of the settlers and the IDF, which he said carries out "unlawful killings." He also said that "this extremism has led to Israeli politicians like Herzog, Ya'alon and Barak and other members of the media to criticize the government." He further cited their statements as indications that Israel is acting in a fascist manner.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the European Parlaiment (Photo: AFP)

Abbas, who was applauded after his address said, "the non-existence of a Palestinian state and the non-implementation of the two-state solution prolongs the conflict and produces extremism. We are against international terror, and the way to have the terror you face come to an end, you must bring an end to the Israeli occupation."

He turned to the Israeli people, to the government and Israeli political parties in Israel and said, "Our hands are extended for peace and we have the will and fierce determination to achieve peace. But are your hands outstretched for peace? Are you willing to recognize the historical injustice?"

"We oppose any suggestion of temporary borders or an interim agreement because it's a waste of time that doesnt lead anywhere," he told European lawmakers.

"We favor a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital, and the solution will be based on the Arab Peace Initiative that was that was approved in 2002 with no changes to it," he added.

Abbas made a severe accusation: "Only a week ago, a number of rabbis in Israel announced, and made a clear announcement, demanding that their government poison the water to kill the Palestinians." "Isn't that clear incitement to commit mass killings against the Palestinian people?" "Isn't that clear incitement to commit mass killings against the Palestinian people?"

He expressed his expectation that the international community would renew its efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, adding that he hoped that the Paris conference earlier this month "will ripen into an international conference."

Meanwhile, Rivlin responded to Mahmoud Abbas's comments at the end of his statements.

"It is surprising in light of the fact that Mahmoud Abbas refuses again and again to meet with the Israeli leadership. We can't build trust between us if we don't begin to speak to each other directly, without mediators."

The Israeli president was speaking at the end of an official visit to Belgium with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

"As you already know, a big part of my job is to build bridges between Jews and Arabs, and to promote equality for all of the citizens of Israel," Rivlin told them. "The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a huge tragedy, and it's our responsibility and our will to build bridges of trust between the two nations."

"Even if we can't come to a stable agreement now, we need to work to build trust between all of the sides. Under this trust-building framework, we need to promote the bilateral negotiations between us and the Palestinians. Direct negotiations are the only possible way to build trust and to restore the conditions for peace between Israel and the Palestinians," he continued.

"There are no shortcuts or detours in the Middle East," he noted.

Rivlin continued, saying that he was surprised by the fact that Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly refuses to meet with the Israeli leadership, "and because he chooses to turn again and again to the international community to gain support."

Rivlin then took the opportunity to say remind his listners, "I accepted the EU initiative to hold a meeting between myself and Abbas in Brussels with pleasure. I'm sorry to say however, that the meeting was rejected (by Abbas)."

Turning to the issue of terrorism, Rivlin said, "We in Israel have been living with unending terror for a year. We are very worried about the state of the Middle East  Syria, Iraq, ISIS, and the role played by the Iranian regime in supporting terrorism and instability."

"My European friends," Rivlin concluded, "We can't agree on everything. But as friends and allies, I am calling on you all, to please respect the considerations of the state of Israel, even when they're different to yours. Respect Israel's sovereignty, the democratic way in which we reach our decisions, and above all, our job in defending our citizens."
US-backed Syrian forces fought Islamic State militants on Thursday inside the city of Manbij for the first time since they laid siege to the militant stronghold near the Turkish border, a monitor said.

The British-based Observatory for Human Rights said heavy clashes were taking place in western districts of Manbij after the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters swept into the city near the Kutab roundabout, almost 2km from the city centre.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the campaign late last month with the backing of U.S. special forces to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.
Hundreds of Eritrean refugees and dissidents in Ethiopia demonstrated Thursday against alleged human rights abuses committed by their government back home, expressing support for a new U.N. commission report that accuses the government of crimes against humanity, including enslavement, rape and torture, over the past 25 years.

The Eritreans protested outside the headquarters of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Similar protests occurred in refugee camps across Ethiopia, which has no diplomatic relations with neighboring Eritrea.

Eritrean refugees are one of the largest groups trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. The UN report says 47025 Eritreans applied for asylum in Europe in 2015.
A gunman who reportedly opened fire in a cinema complex in the western German town of Viernheim has been shot dead after police stormed the complex, the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper reported on Thursday, citing the interior minister of the state of Hesse.

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Police said earlier there was a "threat situation" at a movie theater in a town in southwestern Germany which probably involved a weapon.

Shots fired in German cinema complex

According to initial reports, between 20 and 50 people were wounded during a shooting at the cinema complex after the shooter barricaded himself in. However, it turned out that no one had been injured.

Police called to cinema complex in Germany

Photo: Gettyimages

Photo: Gettyimages

A German online magazine, Focus Online, said that the police arrested the shooter but it later emerged that he had been shot to death.
The IDF concluded on Thursday a military exercise across Israsel which continued over a period of five days. The drill saw the participation of IDF infantry troops, the Air Force and the Navy, which operated under a number of hypothetical scenarios in different locations.

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The units were tested on their cooperative abilities when faced with various challenges, with emphasis being placed on the northern border.

IDF military exercise (:  ")

X

Ground forces, elite commando units, soldiers on company and commanding courses, soldiers in their mandatory service, reservists, and combat intelligence units, engaged in exercises emphasizing and scenarios demanding cooperative security arrangements, as well as the ability to rapidly switch from peacetime to emergency response.

Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit)

Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit

Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit

The Air Force also carried out a number of offensive scenarios, also with an emphasis on the north. Furthermore, the Navy participated in offensive operations in the sea, providing support for ground forces, thwarting hostile activities and defending strategic Israeli sites. The Home Front Command also polished up on rescue exercises and siren drills.

Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit

Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot visited several of the sites where the exercises took place, reflecting the extent of the drills. As part of the exercises, commanders sought to apply the lessons learned from previous exercises and previous combat situations.

Photo: IDF spoeksperson's unit

Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit

Photo: IDF spokesperson's unit

The IDF spokespersons unit emphasized that the drills were planned in advance as part of a series of similar drills throughout 2016. They added that they were intended to maintain the effectiveness and abilities of the IDF.

During the exercise, Israeli flight routes were changed, and flights to Eilat from central Israel were required to take a different route.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Rome on Sunday to try to fend off pressure from the United States and Europe over his policies and opposition to a French-led effort to forge peace with the Palestinians.

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Beginning three days of intense diplomacy, Netanyahu will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in the Italian capital, followed by talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem.

One of Netanyahu's immediate concerns is a forthcoming report from the Middle East Quartet , a mediation group made up of the United States, EU, United Nations and Russia, that is expected to use unusually tough language in criticising Israel and blaming it for the current impasse in the peace negotiations.

Photo: Motti Kimchi

Diplomats confirmed that the current language in the report is strong, condemning Israel's building of settlement homes on the one hand, and on the other persistent Palestinian incitement against Israel during a recent wave of violence.

What is unclear is whether the wording may be softened before the report is issued, probably next week, although its publication has already been delayed several times.

"As it stands, the language is strong and Israel isn't going to like it," said one diplomat briefed on the content. "But it's also not saying that much that hasn't been said before - that settlements are a serious obstacle to peace."

Netanyahu spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week as part of his efforts to keep the Kremlin closely updated on developments in the region. The leaders have met face-to-face four times in the past year, with one Israeli official saying the two had developed a good understanding.

As well as a desire to defang the Quartet report, there are a series of issues Netanyahu needs to broach with Kerry, including how to conclude drawn-out negotiations with Washington on a new, 10-year defence agreement.

There is also the looming issue of a peace conference organised by the French that is supposed to convene in the autumn, although it may no longer take place in Paris. Netanyahu has already voiced his opposition to the initiative.

UN Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon (Photo: AFP)

Israeli officials oppose the initiative, seeing it as side-stepping the need for Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate directly. They argue that it provides the Palestinians a chance to internationalize the conflict, rather than dealing with the nitty-gritty on the ground.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who addressed the European Parliament on Wednesday, said Israel was feeling impatience with Europe and now was not the right time to push for peace.

"Currently, the practical conditions, the political and regional circumstances, which would enable us to reach a permanent agreement between us -- the Israelis and the Palestinians -- are failing to materialize," he said.

Many diplomats also question whether the French initiative can inject life into an all-but-defunct peace process, which last broke down in 2014, but they are willing to try.

A nagging concern for Israel is that the conference will end up fixing a time frame for an agreement on forcing Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

If that doesn't emerge from the French plan, it remains possible that a resolution along similar lines could be presented to the United Nations Security Council before the end of the year. That is another reason why Netanyahu will be eager to sit down with Ban for talks on Tuesday.
VLPAD program in full motion

The first three officers for the Voluntary Limited Period of Active Duty program are preparing for Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps command while attending the Academic Instructor Course at Air University.



The VLPAD program launched in early 2016, provides an opportunity for Air National Guard and Air Force Reservists to become active-duty Airmen for a period of time.



Lt. Col. Olivia Nelson, Lt. Col. William Magee and Maj. Bryan Gray are the first volunteers to go through the course and take command of their detachments.



Officership is a big, big deal to me, and Id like to impart that on some of the younger kids, said Magee, an Air Reserve Technician, former high school teacher and Louisiana State Universitys next detachment commander. Ive always been a Reservist, so I would like to kill some of the parochialisms that exist. I might as well start that with cadets so that they dont come into the Air Force with the wrong impression.



For three years and one day, Air Force Reserve and Guard officers can fill AFROTC openings for members of certain Air Force specialties. This first wave of commanders yields an Individual Mobilization Augmentee Reservist, an Active Guard Reservist and an Air Reserve Technician.



I want to give back and work with young people, said Gray, a T-6 instructor pilot heading to Tuskegee University. The young people in our Air Force really care about the country and believe in the Constitution. I want to help mentor and shape the next generation like I was mentored through ROTC.



During their time leading AFROTC detachments, selectees will hold the responsibility of molding cadets while they earn their college degree, preparing them for Air Force leadership, regardless if they are active-duty, reserve or guard. As the Air Force places an emphasis on total-force integration, those leading the future officers are an example of the force expanding on that front.



The reserve component offers a way to tap into that talent pool that can fill these positions, said Col. Shelley Kavlick, Reserve Adviser to the Commander, Carl A. Spaatz Center for Officer Education. The quality of the manning coming to these positions is outstanding. Their experience will be exceptionally valuable and bring a lot to our detachments. They have a lot of operational experience in several different capacities that will be useful in their upcoming roles.



More than 78 total-force integration proposals are being pursued, including 41 recommended by the NCSAF. In fact, the Air Force has launched a series of initiatives designed to break down existing barriers to a total Air Force.



Its like a win on three different levels, said Nelson, University of Southern Californias next detachment commander. The Air Force gets a win by filling these positions. The cadets get a win through exposure to total force as opposed to just one aspect. Its a win for the Reservists because of the command opportunities and breadth of experience.



For more on the VLPAD program, visit the myPERS web page: https://gum-crm.csd.disa.mil/app/answers/detail/a_id/30624/kw/vlpad/p/16,17.


10th Air Force plans for combat

Tenth Air Forces subject matter experts gathered here May 17-20 to plan  for combat.



The Combat Planning Councils purpose is to address training and equipment requirement issues across all weapons systems. From the B-52 to the HH-60 to the F-16, system experts broke into working group to address emerging issues.



These issues can lead to requirements. Then those requirements can lead to Congressional funding to help address Air Force Reserve issues. This funding comes from the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Account, otherwise known as NGREA, which allows Citizen Airmen to receive the modernization upgrades to deliver a viable war-fighting capability across the globe.



NGREA is critical to the Air Force Reserve, said Maj. Mark Reed, deputy requirements branch of Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. The requirements that come from the CPC bridges the gap to keep our aircraft relevant.



Many upgrades that have proven combat capability arose from a requirement during the CPC.



We have numerous upgrades that weve accomplished as a result of the CPC process, said Col Jones, 10th AF Director of Air, Space, Information Operations, Requirements and Assessments. LITENING Gen 4 targeting pods, Helmet Mounted Integrated Targeting systems and datalink capability for multiple platforms are good examples of upgrades weve implemented as a result.



Upgrades increase the Air Force Reserves combat capability with an aging fleet. One such beneficiary of the process was the 301st Fighter Wing, who has modernized its aging fleet to maintain air superiority.



Since Ive participated in the CPC, weve submitted numerous requirements to upgrade the F-16 many of which have already been fielded in combat like new suspension equipment to carry laser-guided rockets, said Col. Kevin Zeller, 301st Operations Group commander, and CPC F-16 working group chair for the past four years. We are employing these rockets in combat right now enhancing our precision and lethality against hostile forces.



Nevertheless, CPC doesnt just address modernization concerns with aging fleets. Cyberspace is an emerging area with real threats. Over the past three years, the Air Force Reserve has stood up 10 cyberspace units that fall under the Air Force Reserves only cyberspace unit, the 960th Cyberspace Operations Group.



We need to think about how were modernizing our fleet that cyber is included, Reed said. So that our systems are resilient.



At this years CPC, the topic du jour centered on cyberspace.



Seventeen cyber experts gathered in the basement of a building to discuss the emerging issues in a relatively new field.



CPC is beneficial because it lets all of the different weapons systems come together, chart ahead a course and develop an effective and efficient way to meet those needs, said Col. Lloyd Terry, commander of the 960th Cyberspace Operations Group, Joint Base San-Antonio Lackland, Texas, who has participated in CPC for the past three years. Cyberspace crosses and interfaces with these weapons systems because we function in an operational domain.



Terry continued. Weapon systems are susceptible to ground-based and airborne cyberattacks and we need to defend them.



Twenty-eight new requirements from the numbered Air Force were delivered to higher headquarters for funding considerations.



Last year, the Air Force Reserve submitted 191 requirements with over 80 coming from 10th. However, its not all just about getting equipment on a priority list. Its also about recognizing the best of the best.



On May 17, Maj. Gen. Richard W. Scobee announced the top unit in his numbered Air Force. Tenth presented the Power and Vigilance trophy to the 442nd Fighter Wing, Whiteman AFB, Missouri. This trophy represents a unit that goes beyond to accomplish the mission. Each recipients name is fastened to the trophy. The 442nd FW is the seventh unit to be honored since the awards establishment in 2009.




This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.

As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism.

We hope you are equally as excited as us.

This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers.

Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited.

In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy.

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Philippine presidential candidate and Davao city mayor Rodrigo 'Digong' Duterte gestures during a

Next week, Rodrigo Duterte will be sworn is as the 16th president of the Philippines, and the whole world will get a lot more dangerous.

That's because he will now have a hand in what is arguably the most dangerous dispute in the world  the fight for who controls the waters in the South China Sea.

The Chinese claim the lion's share of the region. Duterte disagrees. And generally, when he disagrees with something, there is violence.

That said, Duterte's rhetoric on this matter has been as erratic as it has been bombastic  you can apply that to much of his policy dicta. At one point on the campaign trail, he said that he would ride a jet ski to the disputed Spratly Islands and plant the Philippine flag there.

At other times, though, he has said that if the Chinese leave his waters alone, then he can work with that.

"He could start a war with China. He's very inconsistent in what he says," one Manila resident, Joyce Asilo, told The New York Times last month.

So this is going to be a wild one, people.

A little bit about this guy

duterte

Duterte was the mayor of the Philippine city of Davao for six terms. In that time, he came to be known for his bombastic, off-the-cuff, and sometimes violent rhetoric. As a candidate, he often used that rhetoric to frame how he would rid the Philippines of violence, drugs, gangs, and corruption  that's what won him the presidency.

That has led a lot of Western media to compare him to US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump, for example, has an obvious distaste for the media. Duterte shares that, and happens to be in a country with one of the highest murder rates for journalists in the world.

Story continues

"Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a b----," he said at a press conference earlier this month.

When it comes to the South China Sea lately, Duterte has exhibited another Trump-like quality. He says that he's ready to talk to China if the US  the main ally to smaller countries countering China's dominance in the region, including Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan  does not support his country the way he thinks it should. From now on, all negotiations will consider the Philippines first.

"We have this pact with the West, but I want everybody to know that we will be charting a course of our own," he said, according to a Reuters report. "It will not be dependent on America. And it will be a line that is not intended to please anybody but the Filipino interest."

He later point-blank asked the US ambassador to the Philippines, Philip Goldberg, "Are you with us?"

south china seas

Goldberg said that the US would back the Philippines only in the event of a Chinese attack.

That didn't seem to be the response Duterte was looking for, as he later said that he would send a representative to China to talk.

"Can you [the US] match the offer? Because if you cannot match the offer, I will accept the goodwill of China," he said, according to Reuters.

That said, China isn't in the mood for "offers" right now.

Duterte's ascension to power is happening at a delicate time in the relationship between the two countries.

The outgoing president of the Philippines filed an arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over China's actions in the waters. Duterte said that he would wait to see what the UN says before he decides what to do, but either way China is upset about that, to say the least.

From Chinese state-media outlet Xinhua:

"The three 'NOs' are: the Philippine action has no basis on international law, the international arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case, and the tribunal has no legitimacy, explained Zhou Jian, a representative for boundary and ocean affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

"China's stance on the South China Sea issue has won many countries' support. However, some nations for their own interests called China 'despising international law' or 'fearing to lose.'

"In response to such slander, Zhou said it is the Philippines that initiated the arbitration against international law."

Yes, people. Slander. Again, this should indicate that China is not in a negotiating mood.

A little about this water  and why everyone wants it

navy ships

The South China Sea will undoubtedly be the battleground of the future.

The aforementioned territorial claims from Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan, and China make the South China Sea one of the most disputed places on the planet.

What's more, this contested region is home to $5 trillion in annual global trade, so the tit for tat over crumbs of land in these waters isn't for nothing.

These waters have proven oil reserves of 7 billion barrels, and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Robert D. Kaplan, an author and the chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor.

9 Dash Line South China Sea Skitched

And if Chinese calculations are correct, then the South China Sea will ultimately yield 130 billion barrels of oil, which is second only to Saudi Arabia, making the South China Sea "the second Persian Gulf."

China, by far, has helped itself to the largest slice of cake in the South China Sea, staking out it's claim with its Nine Dash Line.

All the while, Chinese President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated the world's largest military coupled with roughly $356 billion in military spending power.

In short, China is dominating the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.

Enter the Philippines, stage left.

The Philippines is formally arguing China's Nine Dash Line, and an international-court ruling is expected in the coming weeks.

And while the consensus among experts is that The Hague's ruling will go largely against Beijing, the South China Sea remains in a dangerous limbo.

NOW WATCH: The US Navy just flexed its muscles in the world's most contested region





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Washington, DC - On July 20, the United States will join with Canada, Germany and Japan to co-host a Pledging Conference in Washington, D.C. in Support of Iraq. The reports from Fallujah in recent days on the grave humanitarian situation for those displaced, as Iraqi Security Forces continue their successes against Daesh in the city, are just the most recent reminder of the human toll this conflict has had on vulnerable civilians. It also reinforces the urgent need for the international community to continue to support humanitarian and stabilization efforts in Iraq.

Through its cooperation with the Iraqi government and the International Coalition, the UN has established the Fund for Immediate Stabilization (FFIS) in Iraq, which supports the implementation of rapid stabilization projects. FFIS has been used in Tikrit, Ramadi, Sinuni, Rabia, al-Dawr, Mkeishifa and Saadiyah to help restore electricity and water service, clear rubble, rehabilitate schools and health clinics and help get business in shape to re-open. Through these efforts more than 725,000 displaced Iraqis have been able to return to their homes, but much more is needed. Due to the conflict and upheaval since January 2014, more than 3.4 million people are now displaced throughout Iraq and more than half are children. Across the country, over 10 million people are in urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

The highly prioritized United Nations 2016 Iraq Humanitarian Response Plan calls for $861 million to support frontline humanitarian programs, but it is only 33 percent funded. The UN has already closed dozens of lifesaving programs and has warned that without immediate additional funding, it will be forced to close dozens more as soon as this month. Over the coming months, humanitarian costs could climb to over $2 billion as potentially a million people are displaced from Mosul as military operations liberate Iraqs second largest city.

The goal of the July 20 Pledging Conference is to garner much needed financial contributions to address the challenges faced by the Iraqi people and to ensure the lasting defeat of Daesh in Iraq. The international community has provided a significant amount of humanitarian assistance to Iraq, with the United States alone contributing approximately $800 million since 2014. The United States will make a substantial humanitarian and stabilization pledge during the conference, and we look to other nations to join us in this effort.
Latest News

Washington, DC - Whether through support for researchers designing new 3-D printing and additive manufacturing technologies or for educators developing new methods for hands-on, exploratory learning, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has contributed significantly to development of the U.S. maker movement.

One NSF-supported researcher at the forefront of this movement is Ben Shapiro, assistant professor of computer science at ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado Boulder.

Last fall, ATLAS Institute launched what may be the nation's first undergraduate major in making: the Bachelor of Science in Technology, Arts and Media.

Conferred by the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the degree combines creativity and technology through a rigorous engineering curriculum, emphasizing critical thinking, problem solving and creative production. Students can opt to specialize in topics like sound, design, interactivity, animation, video and narrative media, and take largely project-based courses, allowing students to create and engineer artistic and functional works, including web and mobile applications.

"It's been a smashing success," Shapiro says. "As of this fall, we will have over 90 students enrolled in it. So, it's really a Week of Making every week here."

Students in the school benefit from using technologies and learning approaches developed through NSF-funded research, according to Shapiro. The students' participation, in turn, advances Shapiro's making research by allowing him and his colleagues to study how students learn and to use that data to generate knowledge for the field.

"Being a part of ATLAS has been wonderful for our work because there are many undergraduates excited to get involved in this kind of research," he says. "And, thanks to NSF REU [Research Experience for Undergraduate] support, we have been able to support them doing so."

Students enrolled in the Bachelor of Technology, Arts and Media program create products like "piano gloves" equipped with sensitive accelerometers and other electronics that enable one to synthesize music while playing an imaginary keyboard, and a bathroom mirror that recognizes when someone is standing in front of it and provides a weather forecast and summary of the latest headlines using a programmed Wi-Fi-enabled Raspberry Pi.

In addition to working with students in the ATLAS Institute, Shapiro's team recently completed two units in local middle schools where kids made networked computer music technologies using tools Shapiro and his team have developed. In another project, graduate student Kari Santos, who works in Shapiro's lab, taught a summer program using the same tools where girls made Internet of Things-connected devices and apps.

In the program, a pair of students wrote an app to enhance communication with one of their sisters, who is unable to talk, walk or express her wishes verbally. At home, the family uses a large picture board to ask if the sister wants to go for a drive or eat. The app they developed enables the family to have the same level of communication when away from home.

"Making is exciting because it knocks down walls," Shapiro says. "It brings together computing, engineering, education, design, the arts and other fields under one umbrella: creating meaningful -- and sometimes functional -- products. In this way, making becomes a way to learn technical material and to learn to express and learn about a whole host of other ideas and to process an emotionally challenging experience."
Latest News

Washington, DC - Vice President Biden met with President of Ireland Michael Higgins this morning.

The leaders agreed on the paramount importance of continuing to advance the rights of women and ending violence against women in Ireland, the United States, and internationally. The leaders discussed the continuing need for reconciliation in Northern Ireland, particularly the need to deal effectively with the past. They discussed the vote in the United Kingdom on its membership in the European Union and noted the important, positive role that the European Union has played in consolidating peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. They also discussed the need for the European Union to pursue policies that promote growth across the continent.
Spanish News

Yuma, Arizona - On Thursday, July 7th, the Heritage Library will host Consejos Para Conseguir Empleo (Employment Tips) at 2:00 p.m. Topics include popular job search websites, how to fill out a job application online, and how to format a resume. There is no charge to attend; however, space is limited.

Please note, this program will be taught in Spanish.



The Heritage Library is located at 350 S Third Street. For more information, call Saul Robles at (928) 373-6486.
By Shashwat Pradhan

June 23 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian stock markets stayed

cautious on Thursday, with investors focussing on Britain's

referendum on whether it would remain part of the European

Union.

Two opinion polls published late on Wednesday, a few hours

before voters were due to begin casting their votes, showed the

"Remain" camp nudging ahead in the closely divided campaign, but

trading activity in Asian markets remained erratic, thin and

cautious.

In the light of the impending Brexit vote, risk sentiment is

dragging Southeast Asian markets slightly lower, said Grace

Aller of AP Securities in Manila.

Meanwhile, Singapore Exchange Ltd said it has

raised the amount of cash firms must pledge to cover trading

positions due to an expected rise in market volatility linked to

Britain's vote on whether to exit the EU.

Market volatility has already spiked in the run up to the

referendum, with the CBOE Volatility index surging this

month and up 14 percent on Wednesday alone as polls showed the

outcome was too close to call.

Singapore shares were up 0.6 percent as of 0445 GMT,

with financial stocks such as Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd

leading the gains.

Philippine shares extended losses into a second

straight session, dragged down by financial stocks.

"Investors are just profit-taking at the moment," said

Aller.

Vietnam shares were higher, heading for their third

session of gains in four, on expectations of upbeat corporate

earnings, traders and analysts said.

For Asian Companies click;

SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS

STOCK MARKETS

Change on the

day

Market Current previous Pct Move

close

Singapore 2801.68 2786.13 0.56

Bangkok 1421.26 1424.68 -0.24

Manila 7724.37 7756.37 -0.41

Jakarta 4881.617 4896.852 -0.31

Kuala Lumpur 1637.03 1637.69 -0.04

Ho Chi Minh 629.33 626.41 0.50

Change so far

this year

Market Current End prev yr Pct Move

Singapore 2801.68 2882.73 -2.81

Bangkok 1421.26 1288.02 10.34

Manila 7724.37 6952.08 11.11

Jakarta 4881.617 4593.008 6.28

Kuala Lumpur 1637.03 1692.51 -3.28

Ho Chi Minh 629.33 579.03 8.69

(Reporting by Shashwat Pradhan; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
By My Pham and Khettiya Jittapong

HANOI/BANGKOK (Reuters) - As a construction boom spurs steel demand across Southeast Asia, countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are challenging a flood of imports from China by retooling their steelmaking technology or imposing tariffs.

U.S. and European steelmakers are leading complaints over alleged dumping, but cheap Chinese imports account for two thirds of steel consumed in many Southeast Asian countries. The region includes six of the top 10 buyers of Chinese steel, and capacity utilisation in its own mills has slumped to less than 40 percent.

While steel from China is expected to dominate for many years, swelling demand is driving efforts in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia to build more modern plants to better compete with China's vast mills.

"China is a major force with huge supply dominating the world, but we have solutions to deal with it," Tran Tuan Duong, general director of Vietnam's biggest steel firm Hoa Phat Group (HPG.HM), told Reuters.

Hoa Phat aims to triple production capacity to up to 6 million tonnes over 5-10 years using modern blast furnace technology.

The local unit of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group has begun work on a $10.6 billion (7.1 billion) steel complex in Ha Tinh province with an initial annual crude steel capacity of 7 million tonnes, although this month's planned start-up of the initial phase has been delayed by an environmental dispute.

TRADE TENSIONS

China has raised global trade tensions as its steel exports have soared, with surplus capacity estimated at more than 300 million tonnes, or triple Japan's annual output.

Steelmakers in Southeast Asia have been hit hard as many of the region's electric arc furnace plants, which use scrap as their raw material, are unable to compete with Chinese blast furnaces using far cheaper iron ore.

Many electric arc furnace plants have been idled and capacity utilisation across the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping has fallen to less than 40 percent from around 65 percent following a 2010 regional free trade agreement with China that cut tariffs on a raft of goods, including steel, said Roberto Cola, president of the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council.

Story continues

Hoa Phat's Duong said Vietnam could compete with other Southeast Asian countries.

"But the trade deal is plus C, which means including China, and all troubles come from that," he said.

Vietnam was the second-biggest market for Chinese steel in 2015, with imports of 10.11 million tonnes, according to UK consultancy MEPS. Its own steel output that year stood at just 6.1 million tonnes, World Steel Association data showed.

"With Southeast Asia as a whole it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation," said MEPS analyst Jeremy Platt. "The cheap imported steel is benefiting their economic development, but it is hindering the ability to develop their steelmaking sector."

TARIFFS RISE

Several countries are introducing tariffs to protect local industry.

Vietnam in March imposed temporary anti-dumping tariffs ranging from 14 percent to 23 percent on steel imports from China and elsewhere. It slapped additional import duties of up to 25 percent on more Chinese steel products that last until October 2019.

Thailand's commerce ministry is working on the final draft of an anti-dumping law and expects to propose the draft for approval by end-2016, a spokeswoman said.

The moves come as local steelmakers hope to cash in on an expected jump in demand.

Indonesia and the Philippines face a huge backlog in infrastructure, said the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council's Cola, with steel consumption in ASEAN forecast to reach 80 million tonnes by 2018 from 70 million tonnes last year.

Indonesia's Krakatau Steel (KRAS.JK) is building a blast furnace with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes west of Jakarta, which it expects will be completed shortly.

Vietnam's steel consumption surged 34 percent in the first five months of 2016, and demand is expected grow at more than 10 percent a year over the next decade as rapid economic growth fuels infrastructure development, said Hoa Phat's Duong.

Steelmakers' share prices have risen in anticipation. Vietnam's Hoa Phat Group has climbed 35 percent this year, smaller rival Hoa Sen (HSG.HM) has gained 94 percent, and Krakatau Steel has rallied 123 percent.

In Thailand, steelmakers expect the first annual growth in demand in three years as the government begins work on over $50 billion in infrastructure projects. Shares of Tata Steel (Thailand) Pcl (TSTH.BK), have surged nearly 40 percent.

A unit of India's Tata Steel Group and Thailand's largest steel producer, the firm cancelled some shipments from Thailand to India in April to supply the metal to the Thai market.

"We have seen signs of improving demand for steel, mainly from the government projects including city rail and road projects," said Rajiv Mangal, chief executive of Tata Steel's Thai unit, who sees sales rising 10 percent this year.

(Additional reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr. in Manila, Manunphattr Dhanananphorn in Bangkok, Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta and Gaurav Dogra in Bengaluru; Writing by Manolo Serapio Jr.; Editing by Richard Pullin)
Havana: The Colombian government and the FARC rebel force signed a definitive ceasefire and disarmament agreement Thursday, one of the last steps on the path to ending their half-century conflict.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez signed the deal and shook hands smiling at a ceremony in Cuba alongside international leaders.

The deal establishes "a bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities and the definitive laying down of arms," according to the text read out by Cuban mediator Rodolfo Benitez.

The ceasefire will come into effect after the signing of a broader peace agreement expected within weeks.

Under the agreement, the FARC must hand over its weapons to United Nations monitors within six months.

The FARC`s members will gather in security zones for a demobilization process.

The agreement promises security guarantees for demobilized FARC members. The group was last estimated to have some 7,000 fighters.

The sides also agreed to government action against "criminal organizations" blamed for fueling the conflict in the major cocaine-producing country.
Raleigh (US): Presumptive presidential Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has alleged that her Republican rival Donald Trump launched a personal attack against her because he has no answers on the substance of the facts against him.

"Look, I know Donald Trump hates it when anyone points out how hollow his sales pitch really is," Clinton told her supporters at an election rally in this key city of North Carolina, hours after Trump called her a "world class liar".

"I guess my speech yesterday must have gotten under his skin because right away he lashed out on Twitter with outlandish lies and conspiracy theories, and he did the same in his speech today," she said.

"Now think about it. He's going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance. In fact, he doubled down on being the King of Debt. So all he can do is try to distract us. That's even why he's attacking my faith, sigh," she said as a day earlier, Trump had questioned her religion.

"Of course attacking a philanthropic foundation that saves and improves lives around the world," she said referring to Trump's allegations against the Clinton Foundation.

"It's no surprise he doesn't understand these things. The Clinton Foundation helps poor people around the world get access to life-saving AIDS medicine. Donald Trump uses poor people around the world to produce his line of suits and ties," she alleged.

"We can't let Donald Trump bankrupt America the way he bankrupted his casinos. We need to write a new chapter in the American Dream ? and it can't be Chapter 11," she said.

"Economists left, right, and center all agree Donald Trump will drive America back into recession. Just this week, one of Senator John McCain's former economic advisors said Trump's policies would wipe out, wipe out three-and-a-half million jobs. His tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy would add more than USD 30 trillion to our national debt over the next 20 years," she said.

"That is just astonishing and it's no wonder that the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the leading firms that analyses the top threats to the global economy, now ranks a Trump Presidency at 3, right behind problems in China and volatility in the commodities markets," said the former Secretary of State.

Clinton alleged Trump has no real ideas for making college more affordable or addressing the student debt crisis.

"He has no credible plan for rebuilding our infrastructure, apart from his wall. He has no real strategy for creating jobs, just a string of empty promises," she said.

"Maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone whose most famous words are, 'You're fired'. Well, here's what I want you to know: I do have a jobs program. And as president, I'm going to make sure you hear, 'You're hired'," Clinton said.
Washington: Seeking a vote on strict gun control laws in the wake of America's deadliest mass shooting last week that killed 49 people in Orlando, Democratic Congressmen resorted to an unprecedented sit-in inside the well of the US House of Representatives.

The leadership of the Republican party, which holds a majority in the House, refused to budge and instead shut off the television cameras used for live coverage.

The Democratic Congressmen used their own smartphones to live telecast -- through Facebook and other social media sites -- the proceedings inside the House along with their sit-in demonstrations in the House well.

Images from inside the well of the House reflected a chaotic situation rarely seen.

One television commentator described this like an anarchy and lawlessness as the rare sit-in inside the House crossed midnight even after the lights were switched off.

"Enough is enough," said Indian American Congressman Ami Bera, as he joined his fellow Democratic lawmakers in the protest, which was led by legendary Congressman John Lewis known for his civil disobedience movement.

"Republicans denied us a vote, we sat on the Floor. We sat on the Floor, with John Larson presiding. When they turned off the House cameras, we livestreamed from our phones," said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in her remarks on the House floor late last night.

"Because of you, they cannot ? they can try to shut down the Floor, but because of you, they cannot shut out the voices of the victims and the will of the American people. And now, as you hold up the names of people who have been victims of violence," she said.

Democratic lawmakers were demanding that Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives bring up a vote on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation before the House recesses.

Refusing to budge under pressure, Ryan described this as a publicity stunt by Democrats.

"This is nothing more than a publicity stunt. That's point number one. Point number two is this bill was already defeated in the United States Senate. Number three, we're not going to take away a citizen's due process rights," Ryan said.

"We're not going to take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process. That was already defeated in the Senate. And this is not the way to try and bring up legislation," he told CNN in an interview.

Ryan defended his decision to shut off the cameras and lights arguing that these are as per the House rules.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer demanded that Republicans hold a vote on legislation on gun violence.

"After the unspeakable slaughter of 49 innocent people in Orlando earlier this month, it is unconscionable that House Republicans would continue to block a vote even on commonsense safeguards, including expanding background checks and preventing dangerous firearms from being sold to terror suspects," Hoyer said.

"This is an issue that ought to transcend party - it's about saving lives and keeping our communities safe," he said.
Caracas: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has put aside criticisms and announced a second attempt to re-establish diplomatic relations with the US, officials said.

The two nations have been without ambassadors in their respective capitals since 2010, EFE news reported.

After the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez agreed to a bilateral dialogue with the US Secretary of State John Kerry last week, Maduro on Wednesday received the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon, at the Miraflores Palace, the headquarters of the Venezuelan Executive.

"The government of the US and the Bolivarian government of Venezuela decided to resume their agenda and to build the agenda with respect," Maduro said after the end of the meeting through the national radio and television networks.

The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, was held in private between the Venezuelan head of state and the senior US official, who arrived Tuesday in Caracas.

Maduro asked Shannon to send a message to US President Barack Obama regarding his policies towards the Caribbean country.

"I hope President Obama will rectify the position he has held in the last eight years against the Bolivarian revolution," he added.

This is not the first time that Shannon tried to promote a rapprochement between the White House and the Chavez government. He met in 2015 for similar purposes with a Venezuelan commission but the approach was dissolved soon after without any progress.
Patna: Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, former Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) chairman who was arrested recently, has made startling revelations regarding the Bihar toppers scandal during his interrogation by the state police.

According to a 'Times of India' report, the ex-BSEB chairman has reportedly confessed to have taken Rs 20 lakh from the kingpin of a cheating racket to help each unworthy student become a topper.

Besides, Singh also charged Rs 4 lakh for granting affiliation to each shady intermediate college, police said.

Disclosing more about the Bihar toppers scandal, Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj said Singh, during his tenure as BSEB head, granted affiliation to over 100 colleges.

Both Singh and his ex-MLA and ex-professor wife Usha Sinha were arrested from Varanasi on Monday for their alleged involvement in the cheating racket, allegedly headed by now-jailed college principal Bachcha Rai, that helped students top this year's BSEB class XII exam.

Singh and his wife were later sent in a three-day police custody on Wednesday.

Rai also paid on the behalf of parents, as government grants to his college in Vaishali district, where many fake toppers wrote their papers, increased, police said.

The scam came to light on May 30 when two toppers, Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shreshta, looked clueless during a media interview about the subjects they had excelled in.

Police further claimed Singh's son-in-law Vivek Kumar, son of former Magadh University vice-chancellor Arun Kumar, was also part of the racket as he printed confidential documents of the BSEB.

A raid was conducted on his residence in Patna on Wednesday but nothing was found.
Patna: In a horrific incident and a cruel reminder of 2012 gang-rape case in Delhi, a 21-year-old girl was raped at gunpoint in Motihari, Bihar.

According to News 18, pistol and wooden particles were found inserted in her private parts.

The girl has been hospitalised and her condition is stated to be critical.

One of the accused, identified as Samiullah, had allegedly molested the girl earlier too and made an MMS clip of the incident. When he tried to blackmail her, she hit him with a blade. This left the main accused infuriated and he, along with his aides, brutally raped the girl.

"They raped me and after that, they even beat me. Later their family members came and they also beat me up," the victim was quoted as saying by News 18.

The accused are absconding.

The case is reminiscent of 'Nirbhaya' who was gang-raped and brutalised on December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in New Delhi.
Chennai: In the fourth such incident in the last two months, a lawyer was hacked to death in broad daylight in the city on Wednesday.

45-year-old T Ravi was his way back home after dropping his children at school when he was intercepted by the seven men on bikes. Sensing danger, Ravi abandoned his scooter and ran for his life but he was cornered by them near Ambedkar statue on Sathyamoorthy Nagar Main Road.

They attacked him with sickles and machetes before feeling. Passers-by alerted Ravi's family, who live near to the spot but by the time they arrived he was dead.

Later, his family members and well-wishers staged a dharna at the spot protesting against Ravi's killing.

Ravi had political ambitions and was a 'heavyweight' in the locality.

The police are probing the case from all angles and launched a search for the killers.
New Delhi: In what can bring in huge criticism for the Delhi government, a woman has filed a complaint against Aam Aadmi Party MLA Dinesh Mohaniya for misbehaving with her.

The AAP lawmaker from Sangam Vihar constituency has been accused of pushing and abusing few women, who had visited his office to apprise him about their water woes.

A FIR has been lodged against MLA. The case has been registered under Section 506 (criminal intimidation), Section 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code at the Neb Sarai Police Station.

Speaking to news agency ANI, the woman said, When we went to Dinesh Mohaniya's office, he refused to identify me, even when I meet him daily because of water issues.

The AAP MLA pushed and abused me along with other women, she said, adding that she wanted a case against Mohaniya.

When he abused and pushed us, we also did the same. Are we here to be beaten up? the complainant said.

Meanwhile, reacting to the allegations Mohaniya rubbished the claims made by the woman saying an attempt is being made to defame. "The water mafia is frustrated because of the government's crackdown," he said.

"The woman complainant never came to my office. There is no video or photographic proof to back the allegations," the AAP MLA added.

Mohaniya was appointed as vice chairman of Delhi Jal Board by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) on Monday registered an FIR in the alleged Rs 400-crore water tanker scam. The Delhi BJP claimed the irregularities continued even during the Kejriwal government.

Leader of Opposition and party MLA Vijender Gupta, on whose complaint the ACB registered the FIR, claimed the scam was going on as the monthly payments to the contractors were being made and the government has not taken any action against any official or the guilty contractors.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Whether businesses serve consumers or companies, building a superior customer experience increasingly involves catering to all age groups. SPi Global, one of the world's largest and most diversified Business Process Outsourcing service providers, will lead the workshop "Customer Experience -- Then and Now," at the 17th Annual Call Center Week Conference and Expo on June 28 at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Co-presenting will be Mark Belcher, VP of Operations, Client Services, and Business Development for SPi Global; along with Patrick Lynch, Regional Director for Outsource Operations Asia for DISH.

"Millennials are now the largest living generation in the US and make up the largest portion of the workforce, so companies are learning to address millennial customers as a segment," said Mark Belcher. "These customers are marked by communication across multiple channels and devices, valuing relationships and recommendations, greater willingness to change employers, and a weariness of being sold to. Our workshop will center on the new customer service principles that apply to serving millennial customers."

SPi Global is also a sponsor and exhibitor at Call Center Week. Drawing more than 2,000 attendees from 1,200 companies, 200+ sponsors and exhibitors, and 125 speakers, the 17th Annual Call Center Week Conference and Expo is one of the largest and most comprehensive customer care events in the world.

About SPi Global

SPi Global is a leading technology-enabled Business Process Outsourcing solutions provider for the design, enrichment and management of digital content and customer relationship. We have over 22,000 dedicated professionals across the United States, Netherlands, Philippines, India, Vietnam, China, Australia and Nicaragua. For more information, visit www.spi-global.com.
New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday accused that a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA , MP Maheish Girri and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung "supported the hotel owner who got NDMC officerM.M. Khan murdered", adding that "the accused was working under political patronage".

"Even I am shocked to see how an honest officer was murdered. The murderer is a hotel owner, who is in jail now. BJP's ex-MLA and MP supported the hotel owner. The L-G himself intervened into the NDMC within a week. So, it is clear that the hotel owner had a political patronage," Sisodia told the media here.

Sisodia further stated that with the kind of letters coming out in the open, it is to be seen whether any other person is involved in the murder.

"It is needed to be seen whether any other people are also involved in this other than the LG, Maheish Girri and ex-MLA," he added.

Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the murder of Khan, the Lieutenant Governor's office clarified its stand earlier today that everyone understands that the claims of the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP) are frivolous, and therefore, the attempt to draw political mileage from this tragedy is sad.

The clarification comes just days after Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung's office sent Delhi hotelier Ramesh Kakkar's petition against Khan to the NDMC asking for "action as per law" following reports that the official was allegedly murdered for refusing to take bribe from him.

The statement issued by the Lieutenant Governor's office said the Delhi Police arrested seven people within 24 hours, adding full recovery was made and further investigations are on.

"Further, on receipt of a proposal from the Hon'ble Chief Minister, the Lt. Governor promptly approved a compensation of Rupees One crore to the family of the deceased officer," the statement said.

The L-G office said, "A letter from M/s Prominent Hotels Limited was submitted by Maheish Girri, MP, East Delhi, to Hon'ble Lt. Governor on 10.05.2016, stating that in any dispute between the Licensee and the Licensor, arbitration would rest before Lt. Governor of Delhi under Clause 54 of the License Deed dated 16 July 1982."

This letter was forwarded to Chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council vide U.O. No. RN/16/A-3212 dated 11.05.2016 for necessary action as per the law.

"Subsequently, an arbitration petition dated 12.05.2016 was also submitted by the same Licensee in this Secretariat. This was also forwarded to Chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council, for being legally examined and to intimate action taken/position in the matter," the statement said.

"It needs to be mentioned that the matter had been duly processed on file in this Secretariat on 16.5.2016, prior to the tragic death of Mr Khan, and the letter dated 17.05.2016 was issued in the normal course, without the knowledge of the tragic death," it added.

In response to the above, vide two letters dated 19.05.2016 and 03.06.2016 Joint Director (Estates), New Delhi Municipal Council, stated that the License Deed had been cancelled and the cancellation was upheld by the Apex Court and thus attained finality; as such, the arbitration clause did not survive and the said reference had been filed by New Delhi Municipal Council.

The position was duly noted in this Secretariat and vide letter dated 22.06.2016 of this Secretariat, Chairman, New Delhi Municipal Council was directed to ensure effective and expeditious action in the matter in pursuance of Hon'ble Supreme Court order as also take all consequential action as per law.

The matter was therefore dealt strictly as per rules and procedure. This indeed is the established procedure that is followed when such representations are received.

The NDMC official was shot dead outside his house in Jamia Nagar by two motorcycle-borne assailants on May 16.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Thursday denied allegations of the ruling AAP that the probe into the murder of NDMC estate officer M.M. Khan is being influenced politically, while noting there was "no evidence" against BJP MP Mahesh Girri and former legislator Kanwar Singh Tanwar.

Police also said it is also probing a "letter" being circulated on the case.

"We have take a note from some media reports. The letters which are being circulated in a section of the media by one political party have also been seized," Joint Commissioner of Police R.P. Upadhyay said.

Investigators said they have doubts over the authenticity of the "letter" allegedly written by Girri to Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung.

Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha earlier had alleged that Girri wrote a letter to the LG favouring Hotel Connaught`s owner Ramesh Kakkar and demanded action against the NDMC officer Khan.

Jung, according to Chadha, forwarded that letter to the NDMC with the remark: "Necessary action as per law be taken in the matter and action be reported to this office."

"The murder of an honest officer by a hotelier cannot happen without political patronage. Jung, Girri and Tanwar directly or indirectly helped the accused in getting political patronage," Chadha said.

Girri had denied his involvement in the crime and even sat on a hunger strike in front of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal`s house from Sunday. Only after persuasion of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, he ended his strike on Tuesday.

Upadhyay meanwhile described media reports that the Delhi Police is being influenced "to save few persons" as totally false and the probe was being pursued in a professional and fair manner.

"There have been reports in the media that investigation in M.M. Khan`s murder is being influenced to save few persons. All the allegations are totally false as the investigation of the case has been done in a fair and professional manner. All the evidence collected have been thoroughly examined," Upadhyay told reporters.

The officer further said that all the papers seized from NDMC have been thoroughly scrutinized and there is "no evidence" against Girri and Tanwar.

Upadhyay said seven persons -- including hotel owner Kakkar, 47, Ram Phool, 46, Israil, 31, Saleem Khan, 29, Amir Alvi, 24, Anwar Omais, 21, and Bilal-- have been arrested in the case so far.

Khan, who was the estate officer with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), was shot dead outside his home by unidentified gunmen on May 16.

The officer said that Khan was taking up the matter of Hotel Connaught situated at Connaught Place in central Delhi with its owner Kakkar.

"The hotel was on lease with NDMC. On the directions of Delhi High Court, M.M. Khan had to pass final order in the lease case on May 17. Kakkar hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Khan apprehending an unfavourable order which would have resulted in huge monetary loss to the hotelier," the officer said.

Upadhyay said that the investigation is being done in a professional manner. "All the relevant documents related to the file of Hotel Connaught have been seized from the NDMC. The letters which are being circulated in a section of the media by one political party have also been seized by the investigating agency."

"Delhi Police is a professional force which works as per the rule of law. The attempt by certain quarters of the society to politicise the murder case of the government employee is totally uncalled for," he added.
New Delhi: The Solar Impulse project's Solar Impulse 2 aircraft completed its Atlantic leg today, after it made a successful landing in Seville, Spain.

The three-day trip began on Monday from New York.

For those who aren't in the know, the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft is a fully solar-powered, single seater with more than 17,0000 solar cells built in to wings and which possesses a wingspan of 72 meters  exceeding that of a Boeing 747.

The trans-Atlantic trip was one of the aircraft's toughest sections in its round-the-world flight. Starting its journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the aircraft completed eight stages of its trip, after which, its batteries experienced thermal damage that took months to repair.

Solar Impulse 2 resumed the circumnavigation in April this year, when it flew to California, continued across the United States until it reached New York City and ended its trans-Atlantic leg today, in Spain.

As per reports in BBC, mission managers will now plot a route to Abu Dhabi where the venture began in March, 2015.

This last section of the flight will be split into two or three legs. Greece and Egypt have been highlighted as possible pit-stops, but as with previous legs, this final journey will depend on the weather, according to The Verge.
Rome: About 4,500 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the Italian coastguard said, averting another potential high seas disaster.

A coastguard spokesman said it appeared many people had left the Libyan coast trying to make the perilous voyage across the sea to Europe as the weather improved.

"We saved a total of about 4,500 people in about 40 rescue operations," the spokesman told AFP, adding the operations were continuing and the number may rise.

A body was found on board one of the rubber dinghies, he added.

Most of the migrants were on the dinghies, while two wooden boats were being used by Libyan people traffickers, the spokesman said.

"We registered a large number of voyages today, after several days of bad weather at sea had stopped people leaving Libya," the spokesman said.

More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014, according to UN figures issued earlier this month after a spate of deadly shipwrecks.
Britain has always had an uncomfortable relationship with the European Union. When the idea of EU was first mooted post World War II and Britain was invited for an inaugural partnership, the Brits pooh-poohed the concept. Understandably so. England had not yet come to terms with the fact that its star was fading and the country was no longer considered the centre of the world!

But, this meant it was a missed opportunity. Germany and France got the first mover advantage and have since then been considered the most pivotal players on the Continent.

When UK understood the true potential of the JV with EU, it was already the 1960s, and their offer to join was now at the mercy of prominent leaders like Frances Charles de Gaulle, who was not willing to oblige. It was only after his exit that Britain, at last, was allowed on board.

Over 40 years later, England still wants its country back and pines to be considered a leading power in a standalone way, much the way the United States is.

How practical is this ambition in the new geo-political set-up remains to be seen. But the country is divided deeply and at near half position. With 44-45% on both sides of the viewpoint, and the remaining undecided.

As much as a marriage with Europe offers economic opportunity and free trade, it equally means conceding unilateral decision making powers and being open to an influx of immigrants.

While the likes of the Prime Minister David Cameron argue in favour of remaining, and have proven with figures how immigration translates into GDP growth, his colleagues in the same Conservative party like Boris Johnson are fighting tooth and nail to exit. The maverick ex-mayor of London has always been a Eurosceptic, including in his early years as a journalist with the Times and The Daily Telegraph. Today, as he waits in the wings to take over as the next Prime Minister of Britain, the country needs a discourse over basic points that will determine their future.

Can Britain, for example, absorb 0.5% migrants a year? One would believe so. But it is for the English to decide whether they are comfortable with an influx of European nurses and drivers working for lower wages than what an average local would draw.

That is a price it would have to pay for accessing the vast European market and for the free movement of goods and services. Just as people from the Continent can come and work in Britain without bar, so can the British move to Europe in search of employment and homes.

For those who have Euro phobia, checks and balances are being proposed  no Schengen visa, curbing of state benefits to migrants, continuation of the Sterling Pound etc.

As far as the perception crisis goes, the British would have to take a pragmatic look at their place in the contemporary world. When they talk about taking back control and not wanting to be one of the players in a large super state of EU, they must also brace for job losses and tohubohu in the financial markets.

Unfortunately, as sentiment and debate peaked, fundamentalist attitudes have come forth. The man who murdered Labour MP Jo Cox for her liberal views, had allegedly shouted Britain First. Another politician Yvette Cooper has got a death threat over the Brexit issue. Obviously, the road ahead will not be an easy one.

In terms of leadership, a convincing vote to remain in EU could mean David Cameron continues as the prime minister; a slim lead or a vote for exit would see him yielding to a new leader, possibly Boris Johnson.

Results are out this Friday!
London: The alleged murderer of British lawmaker Jo Cox, whose shock killing cast a cloud over the final week of Brexit campaigning, will be tried in November under anti-terrorism legislation, a judge ruled on Thursday.

Thomas Mair, 52, made a brief appearance via video link at London`s Old Bailey central criminal court, and spoke from prison only to confirm his name, as Britain voted in a referendum that could make it the first country to leave the European Union.

Mair is charged with murder and possession of a firearm and the case is being heard under the "terrorism protocol".

At his first court hearing on Saturday, Mair had said his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Cox was shot and stabbed to death last Thursday as she was on her way to meet local residents in her constituency in Birstall in northern England.

The brutal street killing of Cox, a pro-EU lawmaker who had defended immigration and refugee rights, shocked the nation and led to a three-day suspension in campaigning ahead of the EU referendum.

Judge John Saunders set a provisional trial date for November 14, with a plea hearing set for October 4.

Mair will next appear before the court on September 19.
New Delhi: Accusing BJP of "cheating" them on the issue of reservation, leaders of Jat organisations and Khap panchayats on Thursday said members of the community would vote against the party in next year's assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

"We have decided to shun the violent mode of protest and work for defeat of BJP in assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh as the party has cheated the Jats on reservation issue in Haryana," Choudhari Omvir Singh, founder of Vishwa Jat Manch, told reporters here.

"Jats from Haryana will tour UP and Punjab and tell the voters there that BJP has cheated the community," he said.

The gathering of Jat leaders passed five resolutions, including one which demanded the Haryana government order a judicial inquiry into the violence during the February agitation by the community.

"We demand a judicial probe into the violence allegedly by the Jats during the protests in the state by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. Jats were not involved in violence which occurrred in the state as they were busy with their rail-roko agitation," he said.

The other demands included release of "innocent" Jats arrested in Haryana and reservation to the community under OBC category as has been done in UP, Rajasthan and other states where the community has a sizeable presence.

Singh said Jat organisations from Haryana, Delhi, UP and Delhi will demonstrate peacefully at Ramlila Gorund here on September 28 to force the BJP government in Haryana to immediately stop its work of "dividing" the people in the state on caste lines.

"We are protesting against BJP because the party has not paid compensation to those killed in violence and scores of people who have been arrested have not been released," said SS Sandhu, president of Jat Arakashan Sangharsh Samiti.

"We will ask the community to vote against BJP but we will not ask for voting in favour of any particular party," Sandhu said.

At least 30 persons were killed in the violence during the Jat quota stir in Haryana in February.
Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: In a disturbing revelation, scientists warned that Cancer, one of the most deadliest illnesses, can actually be contagious.

This means, that the illness, previously thought to be non-contagious, may actually be transmitted from human to human.

The basis for this shocking revelation, is a study carried out on mussels, cockles and clams, collected off the coasts of Canada and Spain, that had been infected with tumours which originated in another individual.

According to Your News Wire, originally attributed to the journal Nature, the results indicate that transmission of contagious cancer cells is a widespread phenomenon in the marine environment, with multiple independent lineages developing in multiple species. Cases of transmissible cancer appear to outnumber spontaneous disease, at least in the species investigated so far.

Furthermore, the researchers added that the cancers usually spread between animals of the same species, but they had found one example of cross-species transmission. These transmissible cancers constitute a distinct class of infectious agent and show the remarkable ability of tumours to acquire new phenotypes [genetic types] that promote their own survival and propagation.

Professor Stephen Goff, one of the researchers, from Columbia Medical Centre, expressed a kind of awe at the discovery saying that the findings changed his preception of the marine world.

He told The Independent, that, Its interesting to note that the ocean is a sea of various bacteria and now [cancer] cells that are capable of being pathogens. I guess its a kind of change of thinking, that there are contagious cells floating around in the sea that can colonise a susceptible host.

The next plan of action is to study the genetic processes that allow tumours from one creature to infect another, which might provide an insight into how cancer spreads from person to person.
London: Fears over the Zika virus have contributed to a "huge" increase in the number of women in Latin America wanting abortions, researchers said.

Estimates suggested there has been at least a doubling in requests in Brazil and an increase of a third in other countries, BBC reported on Thursday.

Many governments have advised women not to get pregnant due to the risk of babies being born with tiny brains in a condition known as microcephaly.

The researchers analysed the thousands of requests received by Women on Web -- advises women online and then delivers pills to end a pregnancy -- in the five years before the Pan American Health Organisation issued its warning on Zika on November 17, 2015.

It used this to predict how many abortion requests would have been expected between November 17, 2015 and March 1, 2016.

The analysis of countries that advised against getting pregnant suggested Brazil and Ecuador had had more than twice the expected demand for abortions.

However, a termination remains illegal in many parts of Latin America, but women simply turn to unofficial providers.

Analysis from other countries, which did not advise against pregnancy, suggested smaller increases in abortion demand.

The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Kochi: The one-member panel probing the "solar scam" on Thursday issued an arrest warrant against Saritha Nair, a key accused in the fraud that has shaken political circles in Kerala.

The G Sivarajan Commission probing the scam asked the police to present Nair before it on June 27.

The commission was irked after Saritha`s counsel appeared on her behalf to seek more time for her appearance as she was unwell and had to undergo a surgery on her hand.

The commission observed that she has been purposely keeping away as she did not turn up on three previous occasions as asked.

She had made numerous allegations against top Congress leaders, including erstwhile Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, a few of his cabinet colleagues and legislators, and told the commission that she had substantive evidence to prove her allegations.

Ahead of the April 16 assembly polls, Nair made sure that she came for every sitting and gave enough news to the media and had become a headache for Chandy and the United Democratic Front (UDF) during the election. But she has no longer been keeping her date with the Commission since the election results were announced.

The so-called solar scam case surfaced when Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan were arrested in 2013 on charges of cheating numerous investors who paid money for solar panels.

Over 30 cases of cheating are registered in various courts against Nair and Radhakrishnan. Police estimate that the duo cheated investors to the tune of over Rs 6 crore.

While Nair is out on bail, Radhakrishnan is in jail on charges of murdering his first wife.
New Delhi: BJP and Congress have strongly hit out at the AAP government for hiring a Public Relation agency to publicise its works.

The parties alleged, "AAP was wasting public money for image makeover."

"Instead of Spending on Public Welfare-AAP Government spends Tax-Payers money for Professional help to build image! (sic)," Ajay Maken, president of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) tweeted.

Instead of Spending on Public Welfare-

AAP Government spends Tax-Payers money for Professional help to build image! pic.twitter.com/MuowMdxYaT  Ajay Maken (@ajaymaken) June 23, 2016

'Wastage of hard earned public money'

BJP MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta said: "18 months after the historic win, the Kejriwal government requires a PR agency and is spending crores to improve its image".

"The government hired a private PR agency despite having an army of media advisors, own advertising agency -- Shabdarth and Directorate Information and Publicity. It is wastage of hard earned public money," he said.

'Hiring a PR firm is no crime'

Reacting to it, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds information and publicity portfolio, said the government committed no crime by hiring a PR firm.

"Some tv channels are saying the AAP government has spent Rs 200 crore to hire a PR agency. This is incorrect. Hiring a PR agency to publicise government's works is not a crime.

Let the Lt Governor order a probe into the matter," Sisodia told reporters here.

The AAP government has appointed PR firm Perfect Relations as its media consultant.
Srinagar: Six militants were killed on Thursday in two separate encounters with security forces that broke out in north Kashmir's Kupwara district.

Three militants were killed in the first encounter in Lolab area after a joint team of army and police, acting on a tip-off, launched a search operation in Dobwan forest area, an army official said.

As the search operation was going on, the militants opened fire on the security personnel who retaliated.

In the ensuing gunfight, three militants were killed, he said.

In the other encounter, three militants were killed in Drugmulla area in the evening, the official added.

He said security forces launched a search operation in Waterkhani forests of Drugmulla following information about presence of militants there.

The exchange of firing is going on intermittently, the official said adding the operation is still on.
New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat on Thursday withdrew his resignation from the party, days after he announced to part ways.

"My meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi helped me to make up my mind that Congress is the best platform to serve the people.

"During the last fortnight a large number of senior party leaders tried to convince me to rethink on the decision (of resignation)," Kamat said.

The party was hopeful of his coming back as it said was making efforts to address reasons for his perceived grievances.

Kamat was reportedly unhappy over the way some issues had been handled by Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam and party incharge Mohan Prakash.

"An apparent reason for his unhappiness was the way issues relating to Mumbai North East, the constituency he has represented in Lok Sabha, had been handled," the Indian Express quoted a Congress leader as saying.

Kamat, a five-time MP from Mumbai, had tendered his resignation from the party and active politics earlier this month.

"I will continue to serve under leadership of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Will meet the people of my in-charge states starting tomorrow," Kamat said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that India is glad to be a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and it looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations," said Modi in a statement prior to his departure to Uzbekistan to attend the summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO."

"India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region," added the statement.

The SCO summit will be held in Uzbekistan`s capital Tashkent from June 23-24.
New Delhi: India's application for a membership into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which controls the global trade in nuclear fuel and technology, will come up for hearing at a special session of the 48-member grouping in Seoul tonight, media reports said citing diplomatic sources.

According to ANI news agency, the membership issue was already raised during the plenary session of the NSG held earlier today in the South Korean capital.

The 2008 Indo-US civil nuclear agreement got the green-light from American lawmakers after India managed to pull a diplomatic coup by winning a special waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

The nuclear agreement and the NSG waiver followed after a multi-pronged diplomacy by India and the Americans at a special NSG plenary in Vienna.

However, Beijing has said that application of countries that are signatories of NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) will only be discussed at the plenary. Application of non-NPT countries is not on the meeting agenda.

"Deliberation on the entry of specific countries is on the agenda of the Seoul Plenary Meeting. However, it is worth noting that the meeting is only to deliberate on the entry application of countries that are state parties to the NPT.

As for the entry of non-NPT countries, the group has never put that on its meeting agenda," dailyo.in quoted a statement issued of the Chinese foreign ministry as saying.
Berlin: The Pakistan Army`s media wing chief on Wednesday said that Kashmir is the major cause of causing friction between two neighbouring countries India and Pakistan and that India poses a threat to Pakistan.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle Urdu yesterday, Lt.Gen. Asim Bajwa, the director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations said the major cause of tension between India and Pakistan is the long-standing issue of Kashmir and that India poses a threat to Pakistan.

The Lt. General said that the developments were being made on diplomatic and political forums to engage India.

"But as a military spokesperson, I would like to say that India poses a threat to Pakistan and so our entire defence mechanism in India-specific," Bajwa said.

The army`s spokesperson said if only India is inducted in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it will be a cause of "disturbance of the strategic stability in the region, besides being a step towards discrimination."

Pakistan has steadfastly opposed India`s membership of the NSG, and has sought to become a member itself.

In a rare interview, Bajwa added, "The world had abandoned Pakistan to handle and face the terrorists in the region alone, and Pakistan has completed the task."

(With inputs from IANS)
Puducherry: Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Thursday sought the cooperation of banks in government initiatives to make the Union Territory a prosperous place.

She held detailed discussions at Raj Nivas with managers of more than 30 scheduled banks and sought their partnership in current government programmes to realise this goal.

She elaborated the various modes through which the banks could play a significant role to supplement the government's efforts.

A Raj Nivas release said Bedi requested banks to strengthen municipalities and PWD under 'Swachh' scheme, which could be done by procuring de-silting machines, safety equipment for workers engaged in de-silting works, construction of community toilets and holding awareness campaigns.

She also said that under safety scheme, banks could also strengthen traffic police in procuring CCTVs for road safety, speed detectors and equipment for traffic police.

She also urged banks to take up skill development programmes by conducting training in computer operation and also in strengthening Industrial training institutes.

These could be taken under the Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives of the banks, which now hold around Rs 10,000 crore as deposits, the release said.

Convenor of the State Level Bankers Committee, who was also present, assured the banks' support and said a comprehensive plan would be presented at its July 4 scheduled meeting to support the initiatives of the government.
Mathura: Two persons, alleged to be members of security staff of Jawahar Bag encroacher Ram Vriksh Yadav, were arrested today from Gokul barrage area and arms and ammunition and Rs 20,000 cash recovered from them, police said.

Anil and Devesh, both resident of Badaun district, were arrested from Gokul barrage area under Sadar Bazar police station.

"A .315 bore rifle and 10 live cartridges were recovered from Anil while a .32 bore pistol, 31 cartridges and Rs 20,000 were recovered from his brother Devesh's possession," SSP Babloo Kumar said.

The brother duo were part of the Ram Vriksh's group that had attacked advocates, tahsil staff and litigants on April 4, he said, adding that at that time they were identified but arrested today.

The SSP said chief security officer of Ram Vriksh Yadav, Viresh Yadav would also be arrested soon.
New Delhi: The External Affairs Ministry on Thursday rejected a claim made in a news article of a leading global media house that India has trained North Korean students on classified space technology.

The Aljazeera's article, titled India's embarrassing North Korean connection and authored by Nilanjana Bhowmick, claimed that a government research centre in Dehradun had imparted training to North Korean students on high-tech space technologies.

Sharply reacting to the article, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Insinuation in the article regarding India's assistance to North Korea's UN proscribed activities is baseless and without merit.

According to the article, a research centre in Dehradun is under scrutiny after the revelation that it trained North Korean scientists.

The report claimed that Hong Yong-il, the North Korean embassys new first secretary to India, stayed in the country for nine months In 1996, studying a course in remote sensing technology at the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP).

"Dehradun is a very quiet town," Al Jazeera quoted Hong as saying in an interview. He reportedly said: "The course was very informative, the teachers were very good."

The report said that Hong was one of the first students North Korea had sent to train at the centre, set up by the United Nations in 1995, to impart expertise in space science & technology application.

It claimed that North Korea had sent at least 30 students to train at the institute. Two of its students are still currently studying there and one of whom is affiliated with the National Aerospace Development Administration, which, the report said, plays a key role in the country's nuclear development programme.

It (North Korea) kept sending scientists and space employees, even after the UN issued the first set of nuclear sanctions in 2006, prohibiting member countries from providing technical training to North Korea, the report claimed.

India is reportedly due to present a detailed report to an UN advisory committee on the issue.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise how extraordinarily unwise, and indeed irresponsible, it is nowadays to train North Korean operatives in technologies that can be used to improve and perfect their ballistic missile programme," Aljazeera quoted Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, as saying.

"The government of India needs to acknowledge the seriousness of this error, take accountability for it, and publicly commit that it will not be an enabler of North Korean WMD programmes thenceforth," he added.

The report quoted RP Singh, a former Indian ambassador to North Korea (2002-2004), as saying "India won't knowingly violate US sanctions".
Sheryl Sandberg

Hillary Clinton is Silicon Valley's presidential candidate of choice.

Now technology CEOs and other major players in the industry have started to openly endorse Clinton.

On Thursday, Clinton's campaign announced a list of endorsements from the business community  and it includes leaders at Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

The list also includes a few high-profile venture capitalists at some of the Valley's top firms.

Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump appears to be deeply unpopular in the Bay Area. He received only about 9,000 votes in San Francisco in the California primary election earlier this month, for example. But at least one notable venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, is publicly supporting Trump.

Here are the technology executives who just endorsed Clinton for president:

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet

Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix

Drew Houston, founder and CEO of Dropbox

Anne Wojcicki, CEO and cofounder of 23andMe

Brook Byers, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock

Peter Chernin, CEO of The Chernin Group

Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder and CTO of Airbnb

Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb

Joe Gebbia, cofounder and CPO of Airbnb

Irwin Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm

Paul Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm

David Karp, Founder and CEO of Tumblr

Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box

Mark Pincus, cofounder of Zynga

Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO and cofounder of Yelp

Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia

Candy Ergen, cofounder of DISH Network

Politico has the complete list, which includes some players from older, less disruptive industries, too.

NOW WATCH: Cutting edge tech discovered a popular word inmates say during phone calls  and prison officials were surprised





More From Business Insider


Seoul: Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi today urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a 'fair and objective' assessment of his country's entry to the 48-nation grouping, media reports said on Thursday that no consensus had emerged in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meet about India's induction in the nuke club.

China is said to have 'belligerently' led opposition to India's membership of NSG at a three-hour post-dinner meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group here tonight which ended in a deadlock.

Preceding the two-day plenary of the 48-member NSG, which began today, China had repeatedly said that India's membership was not on the agenda and is said to have made every effort to prevent any discussion on India's bid.

However, Japan is believed to have raised India's case in the morning session after which it was agreed that the matter would be taken up at the special post-dinner meeting.

Indian official sources said that China was joined by countries like Turkey, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Brazil, which questioned as to how a country like India which had not signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can be admitted to the grouping, as per PTI.

Brazil's objections are said to have surprised the Indian diplomats who pointed out that it is a member of the five-nation BRICS grouping. Besides India and Russia, the grouping includes Russia, China and South Africa.

About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary. Officials said that discussions were inconclusive and that it would only be clear before the end of the plenary tomorrow.

Earlier today, meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, PM Modi told Jinping that India's case should be judged on its own merits and China should contribute to an emerging consensus in the Seoul meeting, according to External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

However, when asked about China's response, Swarup refused to comment, saying, "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this."

Swarup also stated that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.

India has been seeking membership of NSG to enable it to trade in and export nuclear technology.

It has been looking at 63,000 MW energy requirement through nuclear programme by 2030.

The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology.

The NSG works under the principle of unanimity.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Over 400 Indians, of whom 355 are fishermen and five women, are lodged in Pakistani jails, according to a new list released on Thursday in the public domain.

A total of 405 Indian nationals - 355 fishermen and 48 others - are in Pakistani jails till July, 2015, an RTI query by an Indo-Pak friendship initiative has found.

The Ministry of External Affairs has informed 'Aaghaz-e- Dosti' (A Start of Friendship), a joint initiative between non-government organisations of both India and Pakistan that have come together, about the figures.

The organisation, which released the first such list in 2014, has maintained that the move is to increase transparency.

"This is the first such detailed list in public domain. This is particularly to help the affected persons' families, who don't even know that they are languishing in the jails," Aaghaz-e-Dosti founder Ravi Nitesh told PTI.

Nitesh said the RTI query was with reference to a 2008 agreement under which the two countries exchange lists of prisoners.

He appealed to the governments of both the countries to release such crucial data on their own so the prisoners do not continue to suffer despite having completed their prison terms.

"It is for the first time that such a detailed list has been put on public portal. This list provides information about the status of prisoners as on 1st July 2015 in each other's jail," the group said in a release.

The group is planning to write to both the governments to release those who are languishing in jails due to bureaucratic hassles, Nitesh said.
New Delhi: Over 400 Indians, of whom 355 are fishermen and five women, are lodged in Pakistani jails, according to a new list released today in the public domain.

A total of 405 Indian nationals - 355 fishermen and 48 others - are in Pakistani jails till July, 2015, an RTI query by an Indo-Pak friendship initiative has found.

The Ministry of External Affairs has informed 'Aaghaz-e- Dosti' (A Start of Friendship), a joint initiative between non-government organisations of both India and Pakistan that have come together, about the figures.

The organisation, which released the first such list in 2014, has maintained that the move is to increase transparency.

"This is the first such detailed list in public domain. This is particularly to help the affected persons' families, who don't even know that they are languishing in the jails," Aaghaz-e-Dosti founder Ravi Nitesh told PTI.

Nitesh said the RTI query was with reference to a 2008 agreement under which the two countries exchange lists of prisoners.

He appealed to the governments of both the countries to release such crucial data on their own so the prisoners do not continue to suffer despite having completed their prison terms.

"It is for the first time that such a detailed list has been put on public portal. This list provides information about the status of prisoners as on 1st July 2015 in each other's jail," the group said in a release.

The group is planning to write to both the governments to release those who are languishing in jails due to bureaucratic hassles, Nitesh said.
Delhi: Indian intelligence agencies are tracking the nuclear trade between Pakistan and North Korea, as per a media report.

An India Today report said that, as per government sources, after receiving information that nuclear missile materials were being transported by Pakistan to North Korea through the sea route using cargo ships, the Indian agencies got active.

They are also supposedly keeping an eye on the white shipping emanating from Pakistan towards South East Asia to track the nuclear trade, the report quoted sources as revealing.

Yesterday, highly placed US sources, who are involved with the tracking of nuclear commerce, had said that Pakistan was continuing to sell nuclear materials to North Korea, as per ANI.

The sources had added that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as ' Monel ' and ' Inconel ' material to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions.

The sources said that nuclear materials supplied to the PAEC by Chinese entities have also found their way to North Korea, with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) recently receiving a written complaint that supplies of a Chinese company, Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited, to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities.

In another alarming revelation, informed sources had said that Pakistan has been giving North Korea equipment which has a direct bearing on producing nuclear weapons.

Sources said the Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited manufactures Vacuum Induction Melting (VIM) furnaces which find application in refining hard metals such as uranium and plutonium, which are used in making nuclear warhead cores. Pakistan is known to have procured these items from China and has passed them along to North Korea.

When asked if this evidence of Pakistan's illicit nuclear trade with North Korea has been brought to the notice of NSG nations, US sources said all proof and evidence which confirms the violation of sanctions against North Korea and more so the ongoing dangerous nuclear trade has been brought to the notice of "those who need to be informed at the NSG level."

Behind the scenes, Pakistan is aware that its nuclear trade with North Korea has been uncovered, but is counting on China to keep the global pressure at bay, said sources.

Giving details of North Korea's nuclear commerce links with Pakistan, informed sources mentioned that two North Korean diplomats - Kim Yong Choi and Jang Yong Son - posted in the North Korean Embassy in Tehran visited Pakistan eight times between 2012 and 2015.

They were associated With the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation ( KOMID ) - an entity sanctioned several times by the United Nations Security Council since 2005 for its involvement in North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction ( WMD ) programme.

These diplomats met with Pakistani officers involved in the nuclear program. They were tracked and investigated by the Western authorities as yet another proof of Pakistan's continuing nuclear links with North Korea.

Based on western inputs on these links, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1718 Committee, which is monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea, sought information from Pakistan in November 2015 regarding the frequent visits of the two North Korean diplomats from Tehran to Islamabad and Karachi.

At first, say informed sources, Pakistan denied it, but when confronted with photographs and other recorded evidence, Pakistan acknowledged that the two North Korean officials under investigation had indeed visited Islamabad and Karachi.

Highly placed sources said that the West has so far kept this information under wraps in recognition of Pakistan's value in the war against terror.

But now, western nations of the grouping are saying that Islamabad needs to "look at itself in the mirror " and ask "how can it run with the hare and hunt with the foxes", meaning it can't claim to fulfill the NSG's requirements, and at the same time, sell nuclear weapons materials to North Korea.

(With ANI inputs)
Tashkent: Seeking China's support for India's membership of NSG, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application which is before the plenary of the 48-nation grouping that is currently meeting in Seoul.

Meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Modi said India's case should be judged on its own merits and China should contribute to an emerging consensus in the Seoul meeting, according to External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

The meeting, which lasted for nearly 50-minutes, comes in the backdrop of stiff Chinese opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector, including trade and export of nuclear technology.

However, when asked about China's response, Swarup refused to comment, saying, "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this."

Swarup also stated that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.

Asked if India talked about the need to delink India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, "...You have heard what Prime Minister told Xi Jingping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul."

While making some right noises of playing "constructive" role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistan's case for NSG membership.

Hussain told Xi that any "exception" in granting membership to the NSG will "disturb" strategic stability in South Asia.

"President Xi welcomed India's accession to the SCO and said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for China's support to India's membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation," Swarup said.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in July last year when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India, Pakistan and Iran.

SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.

Meanwhile, China's official Xinhua news agency in its report did not make any mention whether Prime Minister Modi or President Xi discussed the issue of India's NSG bid.

However, it quoted Xi as saying that India and China have much more common interests than differences, and the two sides should enhance pragmatic cooperation in areas such as trade, railway, industrial parks, energy and electricity, information technology, energy conservation and environment protection.

Xi said China is looking forward to enhancing cooperation with India under the framework of the SCO.

He said that China-India strategic partnership is rapidly growing in the direction set by both leaders.

He recalled the important consensus he had reached with President Pranab Mukherjee on bilateral ties when the latter was paying a visit to China last month.

"China will work with India to master the general course for the development of ties," Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

He also extended his congratulations to Modi over India's upcoming signing of a memorandum of obligation to join the SCO, a key step for India to obtain membership of the organisation.

The Chinese president said China welcomes Prime Minister Modi to attend the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in September. He was also looking forward to visit India in October to attend the BRICS Leaders Meeting.
Delhi: Army has raised objections to a 1,500-km proposed highway along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh connecting remote areas of the hill state, as per a media report.

According to a report in Mail Today, Army fear is that it could be a strategic blunder due to its proximity to China in case of a confrontation.

The report added that this has not gone down too well with state government and may lead to a tussle between the home and defence ministry.

The road project, connecting Tawang with Vijoynagar, bordering Myanmar, is said to be costing between Rs 30,000 and 40,000 crore.

The initial construction between Tawang and Dirang is done but further work is yet to begin, the website quoted sources as saying.

"The matter has been brought to my knowledge and I will call a meeting of officials from home and defence ministry along with state officials to sort out the issues," Mail Today quoted Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs, as saying.

The Army tactics has reportedly been of not developing the border areas to ensure minimal damage and cut off easy access to the enemy in case of an infiltration.

However, this could result in government's plans to develop remote areas and resettle the local population.

"They should be happy that the road is close to the border. It can be a boon for the troops for swift mobilisation," an official was quoted as saying.

On the other hand, Pasang Dorjee, an MLA from Arunachal Pradesh, said, "Instead of saying that the road should be closer to the border, like China did, the Army is saying it should not be along the border."

"Chinese forces have top-class roads till their border outposts. The villages and towns are well inhabited and have excellent infrastructure. If not match them, we need to at least achieve 10 per cent of what they have," a government official told Mail Today.

To be noted is the fact that earlier Beijing had also registered a protest to the road project saying it could complicate the border dispute.
New Delhi: Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) chairman Gajendra Chauhan on Thursday paid a visit to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat.

Chauhan, who faced huge protests after being appointed as the FTII chairman, said Bhagwat ji is like a father figure for him and he had come to invite the RSS chief for his son's wedding.

Amidst massive protests and detentions, actor Gajendra Chauhan took charge as the chairman of the prestigious institute in January 2016.

The appointment of Chauhan, best known for his portrayal of 'Yudhishthir' in Mahabharat, had raised a full blown war between the government and the opposition, especially the Congress.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had visited FTII in support of the students' agitation there against the appointment of Chauhan as its head.

FTII students had gone on strike against Chauhan's appointment and several filmmakers had supported them on the issue.

FTII students' association (FSA) had alleged that Chauhan lacked vision and stature to head FTII.

However, the small time actor had the last laugh, after the students called off their 139-day-long strike in October 2015.
New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi will not host an iftar party this year.

A senior Congress leader said she would not organise iftar but distribute ration among the poor instead.

Gandhi had hosted an iftar party last year but did not do so in some years before which were marked by natural calamities, including drought.
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy has time and again hogged the headlines for giving sleepless nights to the Gandhi family, J Jayalalithaa and many other bigwigs.

Most recently, Swamy launched a new tirade against RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, ruffling feathers in the government and the party.

Here are some of the interesting incidents linked to his life and career, which you would like to know:

Swamy's father was a renowned mathematician. Following his father's footsteps, the Rajya Sabha MP passed with a graduation degree in Mathematics from Delhi University's Hindu college.

The firebrand BJP leader received a PhD degree from the prestigious Harvard University at the meagre age of 24. Later at 27, he started teaching maths at the same institute.

In 1968, Swamy was invited by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to join Delhi School of Economics, which he attended in 1969.

According to a report published in 'BBC', former prime minister Indira Gandhi got upset with Swamy over liberal economic policies put forward by him. In 1972, he was expelled from Indian Institute of Technology.

His sacking from IIT, however became the turning point in political career. Swamy, who was by then known as a daring figure, knocked on the doors of the judiciary and finally won the case in 1991.

After winning the case, the county's well-known lawyer attended IIT for one day and resigned thereafter.

Late Nanaji Deshmukh sent Swamy to Rajya Sabha on a Jan Sangh ticket in 1974.

The BJP leader served as a finance and law minister during Chandra Shekhar Singh government. Notably, despite being in the opposition, he was given a Cabinet rank by late PM Narasimha Rao in his government.

Swamy was very close to late PM Rajiv Gandhi and during Bofors scam, he told the Parliament that the former didn't get any money as kick-backs for the defence deal, the BBC report said.

The BJP leader was instrumental in leading the 2G spectrum scam to the Supreme Court.

At present, he is fighting the National Herald case in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice president Rahul Gandhi along with some senior leaders of the grand old party are named as accused.

With BBC inputs
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena has once again hit out at its alliance partner in Mahasrashtra and found fault in the BJP-RSS' plan to hold an iftar party on July 2.

This is pure hypocrisy from BJP-RSS. They used to criticise Congress for organising iftar parties, said Shiv Sena .

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been relentless in its attacks on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra modi.

From calling Modi a traitor to slamming the BJP for its failure to prevent Kiarana, the hardline right-wing party has appeared keen to break away from the ruling alliance in Maharashtra.BJP for its failure to prevent Kiarana, the hardline right-wing party has appeared keen to break away from the ruling alliance in Maharashtra.

In fact, Uddhav indicated last Sunday that he could not predict whether the alliance in Maharashtra will survive for long.

However, the BJP appears unfazed and has dared the Shiv Sena to take divorce.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandaris article published on Wednesday in Maharashtra party units fortnightly publication Manogat, titled When are you taking talaq? Mr Raut, has dared Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices BJP has made in past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie-up intact.

RSS Iftar

Seeking to shed its anti-Muslim tag, an RSS affiliate is hosting a grand Iftar on July 2 where it has invited ambassadors of many countries including Muslim nations like Pakistan to spread the message of unity and harmony and of making India "riots-free".

Organised by Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an affiliate of RSS, the iftar party here would be a much bigger affair this time. It has also asked its members to hold small iftar parties across the country.

"The aim is to tell the world about Indian-ness, helping people from all communities live in peace and harmony...India is a ray of hope and peace for the Muslim world," RSS leader and patron of the Manch Indresh Kumar said.

"Rashtriya Muslim Manch has urged members to host small iftar parties by inviting people from all communities and spreading the message of brotherhood ," he also said.

The Manch had organised a similar iftar party for some diplomats in Delhi, but this time, it is being organised on a bigger scale. He said that invites to diplomats of 35 to 40 Muslim nations and some others have been sent.

The MRM was formed in 2002 as a platform for Muslims at the initiative of RSS with the aim of bringing the two communities together.

With agency inputs
Delhi: At least four past and present chief ministers may lose their NSG security cover, as per a media report.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the move could be taken with the home ministry deciding to trim the list of politicians guarded by the elite commandos.

These commandos are trained for counter-terror and anti-hijacking operations.

Those who could lose NSG security cover are - Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, former Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi and former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi.

If this happens, then they will be protected by a paramilitary force, HT quoted multiple home ministry sources as saying.

The names for withdrawal of NSG cover was supposedly discussed last week in a meeting of the protection review group headed by home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.

The final approval from Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is awaited, the Daily quoted a home ministry official as saying.

VIP security is provided under the categories of z plus, z, y and x categories.

While the Prime Minister, former PMs and their immediate family members are guarded by the Special Protection Group (SPG), the NSG protectees come in the Z plus category.

The NSG protectees are entitled to a bullet-proof vehicle, two escort vehicles and around 40 personnel each.

Meanwhile, a senior NSG official told HT that the practice of deputing counter-terror commandos as guards was 'very demoralising for them'.

On the other hand, Mos Home Kiren Rijiju was quoted as saying, The home ministry does a periodic review of all protectees according to the latest threat assessment."
New Delhi: An Arab Spring activist on Tuesday said he wanted to get in touch with the Indian authorities to report about people who have flooded him with questions on how to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The reason why the Palestine-born UAE citizen was queried regarding this was that he shares his surname with Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

According to Iyad El-Baghdadi, Indians have been sending him e-mails expressing the desire to join the ISIS and asking for ways to reach the Caliphate.

Paying heed to Iyad's complaints, intelligence agencies are trying to extract information on those who contacted the Arab Spring activist.

In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Iyad, who has been living in Norway ever since he sought asylum, asked how he could get in touch with Indian authorities to report such people.

If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to?  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

In another tweet, he mentioned:

Already contacted the email host and reported. I want to know the security agency to report to as well, just in case. @taufiq_wan  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

A Twitter handle of the Mumbai Police took note of the complaint made by Iyad and said: Thank you for bringing it to our notice. We will look into it.

Notably, this is not the first time Iyad has been confused for the Islamic State chief.

Highly-placed sources in the Indian Home Ministry say the security agencies are keeping a strict vigil on the social media activity of the "potential targets" of terror modules.

Simultaneously, there is an effort to bring youth from the minority community into the mainstream through various employment prospects.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council on Thursday rejected a private member's bill seeking 20 per cent reservation for women in appointment by direct recruitment in the state.

Shehnaz Ganai of opposition National Conference moved the private member's bill in the Upper House to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act 2004.

The statistics available in the state show that women are not adequately represented in state services.

In order to provide equal opportunities and better living conditions to women it is necessary to provide reservation to them in appointment through direct recruitment.

The bill seeks to achieve said purpose, Shehnaz told the House.

She said the total percentage of reservation would not be disturbed by the bill as the women would be provided reservation against available vacancies in each category.

The legislator said even though PDP-BJP government headed by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has taken some initiatives to empower women in the state, the reservation in the recruitment would make a "difference".

Shehnaz pleaded before the House to pass the bill, saying figures suggest there were less number of women employees in almost all the departments in the state except Education, Health and Medical Education Departments.

She said the reservation would help women go a long way.

However, the government while opposing the bill said many steps have been taken for the empowerment of the women in J-K and there is no need to pass the Bill.

There is no such rule in the constitution to employ people on sex reservation.

"I request the member to withdraw it," Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali, said.

Shehnaz, however, refused to withdraw it and insisted the Bill be put to vote in the House.

The bill was defeated in the House after the ruling PDP and BJP members opposed it.

The NC legislator said it was unfortunate that on one hand the ruling parties talk of women empowerment but on the other they opposed the bill.
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday visited a well-known Sufi shrine near the border with Pakistan in Samba district.

The Chief Minister drove to the Baba Chambiyal shrine, whose annual Urs is being celebrated.

The Saint is revered in Pakistan too. Pakistan Rangers personnel come every year to the shrine to offer a "chaddar".

The Border Security Force offers the Rangers sweets on the occasion.

Mehbooba Mufti is the first Chief minister to visit the shrine since militancy erupted in the state in 1989.
Jammu: The State Vigilance Commission (SVC) today directed Additional Deputy Commissioner of Poonch to conduct an inquiry and submit a report in connection with alleged encroachment of forest land by some persons in connivance with officials.

The commission has directed ADC, Poonch (District Vigilance Officer) to furnish action taken report in a forest land encroachment made by some persons at village Lassana in Tehsil Surankote of Poonch district, an SVC spokesman said.

Earlier, the Commission has received a complaint from the inhabitants of Lassana village alleging that some persons of the village have forcibly encroached on forest land with active support of an MLA, he said.

They have also alleged that the encroachers have converted the forest land into agriculture land and have constructed some concrete structures there besides cutting trees, the spokesman said.

The complainants also alleged that although they intimated concerned forest officials about the matter but the authorities did not take any action against the encroachers, which indicated that encroachment has been made "in connivance with forest official".

Taking cognizance of the complaint, the State Vigilance Commission has directed Additional Deputy Commissioner Poonch (District Vigilance Officer) to conduct on-the-spot enquiry in the matter and submit a factual report to the Commission early, the spokesman said.

The report received by the Commission prima-facie revealed that a number of persons of Lassana have grabbed the forest land and have made illegal constructions there in sheer violation of Forest Act, he said.

Taking serious note of the encroachments and dereliction of duty by the officials of forest department, the SVC directed ADC to coordinate with the officials of revenue and forest departments and ensure that Action Taken Report is submitted to the Commission by July 27 in 2016.
Srinagar: Three militants were on Thursday killed in an encounter with security forces in Lolab area of north Kashmir's Kupwara district.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of militants in Dobwan forest area, a joint team of police and Army launched a search operation, an Army official said.

As the search operation was going on, the militants opened fire on the security personnel who retaliated.

In the ensuing gunfight, three militants have been killed, the Army official said.

He said the operation was on when reports last came in.
New Delhi: The mercy plea of two convicts, who killed eight members of a family including a physically disabled youth in Jharkhand nearly nine years ago, has been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.

The President has rejected the plea of the convicts-- Mofil Khan and Mobarak Khan, officials said today.

The duo had in June 2007 killed Haneef Khan with sharp-edged weapons when he was offering prayers at a mosque in Makandu village under Lohardaga district in the state.

After killing him, they murdered his wife and his six sons which included the disabled youth. A case was registered by the local police against Mofil and Mobarak and two other assailants.

Following the probe, a local court there had given death sentence to all the accused. However, the Jharkhand High Court had upheld death penalty to Mofil and Mubarak and modified the sentence to life term for the two others.

The Supreme Court in its final judgement in October 2014 also upheld the death penalty given to the convicts.

A mercy petition was then filed before the President through the Home Ministry. The plea, which was received in December last year at the President's secretariat, seeking mercy has been rejected by Mukherjee, they said.

After taking over as the President in July 2012, Mukherjee has rejected 26 mercy pleas so far including those of 26/11 terror case convict Ajmal Kasab and 1993 blast case convict Yakub Memon.

The death sentence in two cases has been commuted to life by the President.

Two mercy petitions of Jeetendra Gehlaut alias Jeetu, convicted for killing five women and two children during a robbery in Maharashtra, and Shabnam, who was convicted for killing seven members of her family at Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, are pending with the President.
Bhopal: Indicative of the challenge faced by the Modi government on the employment front, as many as 34 PhD holders and 12,000 engineers are among applicants for a 4th grade government job advertised by the Madhya Pradesh government.

What is shocking is that the eligibility requirement for the said job is 10th pass.

Last week, graduates, post-graduates, and M Phil degree holders were found to be among the 2424 applicants vying for the job of 'Coolie' or 'Sahayak' in Maharashtra.

The minimum qualification for the railway porter job is class four pass!.

Last year, 23 lakh people had applied for 368 posts of peon at Uttar Pradesh secretariat.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh Congress has hit out at the Modi government over rising unemployment in the country.

This shows the level of unemployment. Both Modi government and Madhya Pradesh government have failed, the party said.

Expectedly, the state BJP leadership has rejected the charge. Modi government is working for the welfare of the youth, gradually we will see the difference, said party leader Alok Sanjar.
Bhopal: Poking fun at Rahul Gandhi's "energising" foreign trips, a Madhya Pradesh BJP leader on Thursday announced a reward of Rs one lakh to anyone who locates or provides information about Congress Vice-President, who has left for a short visit abroad.

Madhya Pradesh BJP spokesperson Vijendra Singh Sisodia announced the reward by issuing a statement with a title "Rahul ka pata batao, ek lakh rupya pao" (Tell Rahul's address and get Rs one lakh).

Sisodia, who is also the Chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam, said "I will give Rs one lakh from my own pocket to anyone who finds out the address of Rahul Gandhi who has gone abroad."

"Few months' back also Rahul Gandhi went abroad and that time Congressmen were saying that he has gone for a brainstorming session and will come back from there energised. However, later it turned out that Rahul had gone to Thailand, Malaysia, Bangkok and Singapore," the BJP leader said.

"Now Congressmen believe that his energy levels are running low and hence he went (abroad) again to get charged. Where he has gone? Whom did he meet? How he gets charged? How many days he remains charged? The country wants to know it.

"I have announced that if any Congressmen or any citizen of the country provides the address of Rahul Gandhi, I will personally give him Rs one lakh award," he said.

However, Congress spokesperson Ravi Saxena, in a sharp retort said, "BJP leaders are suffering with Rahul phobia."

"If Sisodia is so keen to know about Rahul's address then he should know that he is an SPG protectee and it is fully aware of the movements of guarded people. He should have paid Rs one lakh to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to know his (Rahul's) whereabouts," Saxena said.

A day after his 46th birthday, Rahul on Monday had announced that he is going abroad on a short visit for "few days", but did not specify the country he is heading for.

Rahul's 56-day mysterious sabbatical last year had created much controversy in political circles with the ruling BJP making his absence in the midst of Budget session of Parliament an issue.
Mumbai: The war of words between Shiv Sena and BJP has further intensified with a publication by the latter daring the junior alliance partner to take 'divorce'.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari's article published yesterday in Maharashtra party unit's fortnightly publication 'Manogat', titled 'When are you taking talaq? Mr Raut', has dared Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices BJP has made in past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie-up intact.

The article also attacks Sena MP Sanjay Raut for his recent 'Nizam' remarks.

"On one hand they eat 'biryani' in plate given by the same 'Nizam' and then criticise us on the other hand. They have got ministries at the Centre and state, enjoy perks of power only because of the favour of the same 'Nizam' and then curse BJP. This is called 'ungratefulness'," the article says.

"If they feel so oppressed by 'Nizam', why don't they just walk out," the article says, adding, "But, they don't show that courage."

Raut recently said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra were worse than the government of Nizam.

"They sit with us, 'eat' with us and then attack us as well...It's better to take 'talaaq' from Nizam's father. So, Mr Raut when are you taking talaaq?" Bhandari asked.

Criticising Raut for his selective vision, the article says that while he feels the present government has done a lot of injustice, they don't see the great amount of work done through 'Jal Yukta Shivar' in Marathwada.

Highlighting BJP's better striking rate in elections, the article further says, "In 1995, BJP contested 117 seats and won 65. In 2009, despite contesting lesser seats, the BJP won two seats more than the Shiv Sena."

"Sanjay Raut and Shiv Sena president are not able to digest the fact that their strength is declining and that is why they are frustrated. They should accept the changing political situation and stop blaming us," Bhandari opined.

"We outnumbered the Shiv Sena in Aurangabad and Kalyan-Dombivali polls. Voters are considering BJP as a strong option and that is what is hurting the Sena most," it stated.

The article further said that the BJP has made several sacrifices, like leaving constituencies for the Shiv Sena which had been won by the BJP candidates several times in the past - like Pune, Thane and Guhagar.

Defending his article, Bhandari said, "Earlier, we chose to ignore such things but they have crossed the limits of decency. This was discussed in our recent state convention as well. But now we want to tell them straight, if they don't find it worth, they should find their own path."
Tashkent: Any "exception" in granting membership to the NSG will "disturb" strategic stability in South Asia, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain today told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Making a strong case for Pakistan's bid to join the 48-member NSG, Hussain said that his country had made notable efforts over the years to strengthen its export controls, command and control and nuclear safety and security.

Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan and discussed Pakistan's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"The President also said that any exception given for NSG membership could disturb strategic stability in South Asia," the statement, apparently referring to India, said.

"Both sides reiterated support to each other's core interests and expressed their intention to maintain close coordination," it said.

President Hussain said that the friendship between the two countries is time tested and based on complete mutual trust, understanding and respect. The two countries enjoyed excellent cooperation and convergence of views on regional and global issues.

He also thanked China for its support to Pakistan for becoming full member of the SCO.

Hussain said Pakistan was committed to the timely realisation of all the projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and emphasised that it would not only benefit Pakistan and China but would be a game changer for the entire region.

President Xi said Pakistan and China are "iron brothers" and both nations enjoy an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.

He expressed China's complete support to Pakistan's national security and territorial integrity.

President Xi stated that CPEC was a flagship project of the One Belt One Road Initiative and China was committed to its successful completion.

Both sides expressed satisfaction over the progress of the CPEC related projects. They appreciated the various activities being carried out to celebrate 2016 as the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China.

They also expressed satisfaction on the bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, economy, culture, people to people contacts, defence and counter-terrorism.
Myanmars Aung San Suu Kyi arrives Thursday in Thailand where she is expected to be garlanded by her adoring compatriots, hundreds of thousands of whom have sought work and sanctuary from war across the border.

It is Suu Kyi's highest profile overseas visit since her pro-democracy party took power in April, ending nearly half a century of military domination.

Her government has seeded hopes for a new era of prosperity that could eventually convince the army of low-paid Myanmar labourers in Thailand to return home.

The two Southeast Asian neighbours have travelled in starkly different directions in recent years.

While Myanmars junta has rolled back its choke-hold on politics, last year allowing the freest elections in decades, Thailand remains in the grip of a military that seized power in 2014.

As Myanmars democracy champion, Suu Kyi is expected to receive a rock star welcome during a visit to a fishing village in Samut Sakhon later Thursday.

The port, just outside Bangkok, is the seat of Thailands huge seafood industry and home to more than 100,000 low-paid Myanmar labourers.

The visit "fills me with hope," Myanmar migrant Thon Barami, 50, told AFP at the scruffy port.

"We have problems here in Thailand. She might help us with labour rights... people all around the world will listen to her," she added.

The fishing sector has been battered by revelations of the use of slave labour and the widespread exploitation of workers.

The scandals have prompted threats of sanctions by the European Union -- a key market for the multi-billion-dollar Thai seafood industry. Seeking to escape poverty at home, some one million registered Myanmar migrant workers form the backbone of Thailands manual workforce.

Tens of thousands of others work illegally, with some estimates putting the total number of Myanmar nationals in Thailand at three million.

Rights groups say migrants -- legal and otherwise -- are vulnerable to unscrupulous officials, trafficking gangs and employment agencies who charge huge sums to get them poorly paid work.

Their low status also sees them treated with scorn and mistrust by many Thais.

"They all want to go home, but they are just waiting for the economic situation (in Myanmar) to improve significantly," explained Andy Hall, a migrant rights activist with an office in the port town.

The nemesis of Myanmars generals throughout a quarter-century of struggle for democracy, the Nobel laureate will meet with the leader of the Thai junta in Bangkok on Friday.

But her schedule does not include a single press conference as Suu Kyi continues to fiercely control her governments messaging.

The 71-year-old is officially Myanmars foreign minister and state counsellor, but also the de facto leader of her country despite a military-era constitution that bars her from the presidency.

It is unclear if she will make a scheduled trip to a refugee camp in Ratchaburi province on Saturday.

It is one of nearly a dozen camps in Thailand holding more than 100,000 refugees who have fled conflict in Myanmar.

Many are ethnic Karen displaced by war with Myanmars army. The violence abated following a 2012 ceasefire, but conflict with other ethnic rebel groups continues.

Thailand, which does not accept refugees, wants to repatriate camp residents -- some of whom have been born on Thai soil but are barred from citizenship.

Suu Kyi is also not scheduled to visit any of the Thai centres holding hundreds of Rohingya boat migrants, a Muslim group who have fled poverty and persecution in western Myanmar.

Campaigners say her failure to throw her moral weight behind the stateless minority is a boon to Myanmars Buddhist hard-liners who loathe the Rohingya and say they are illegal immigrants.

In a sign of the sensitivity clouding the Rohingya question, a talk at the Foreign Correspondents` Club in Bangkok just ahead of Suu Kyi`s arrival was cancelled on military orders.
Islamabad: Pakistan Thursday said its application for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group should be considered "simultaneously" with that of India on the basis of "uniform and non-discriminatory" criteria.

"The applications of Pakistan and India cannot be considered in isolation from the goal of maintaining strategic stability in South Asia," Foreign Office Spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at his weekly media briefing here.

He said Pakistan was making efforts to muster support of the NSG members for its membership bid.

"It has been our consistent position that the question of NSG membership for non-NPT states must be dealt with in accordance with a single, uniform, non-discriminatory and fair criteria. Therefore, it is absolutely essential for NSG to consider the Indian and Pakistani applications simultaneously and in an even-handed manner," he said.

Pakistan's membership of the 48-nation grouping is in the interest of nuclear trading countries as it will further promote NSG's non-proliferation objectives by the inclusion of a state with nuclear supply capabilities and its adherence to NSG guidelines, Zakaria claimed.

"I must also tell you that Pakistan has all the credentials to be a part of the NSG. Our position has been reiterated time and again," he said while highlighting that a meeting in this regard was also held with an American delegation led by Rose Gottemoeller, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

"The US delegation recognised Pakistan's significant efforts to harmonise its strategic trade controls with those of NSG's," he said.

Zakaria said with regards to relations with neighbours, Pakistan was guided by the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's vision of good neighbourly relations, including with India.

"We want to resolve all issues with India through dialogue, including the Kashmir dispute, which is the best way," he said.

Zakaria said Pakistan's position is very clear that dialogue is the best way to resolve all problems and when dialogue starts, all the issues will be discussed.

"We have not attached any pre-conditions to it and we also expect that India will not attach any pre-conditions too. I recall that on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia Meeting, both sides had agreed that no incident should have any bearing on dialogue and I think this statement is still valid," Zakaria said.

Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted the imperative of a sustained and result-oriented dialogue on all issues including Kashmir, he said.

Zakaria said the Indian Foreign Secretary was scheduled to visit Pakistan by mid-January but he did not on the pretext of the Pathankot incident.

"The visit is overdue. We have not yet received new dates from the Indian side. After the Pathankot incident, Pakistan extended sincere cooperation. During JIT visit whatever intelligence and information the Indian side shared that is being examined," he said.
New Delhi: Pakistan's "entire defence mechanism is India-specific" as it poses a threat from the neighbouring nation, the country's Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa has said.

Despite ongoing diplomatic and political efforts to engage India and a positive trajectory in Indo-Pak relations, "there is one major cause of tension between the two countries and that is the long-standing issue of Kashmir", Dawn quoted Bajwa as saying.

Referring to the ongoing anti-terror operations in the country, he said that the world has abandoned Pakistan to face terrorists alone.

"For the world to say Pakistan has not done enough in the war on terror is discrimination. It's unfair and I take it as quite an injustice to Pakistan. Pakistan has done a lot in the war against terrorism and for peace in the world," he said in an interview with Deutsche Welle Urdu.

"The world had abandoned Pakistan to handle and face the terrorists in the region alone, and Pakistan has completed the task," he said.
Peshawar: The United Nations refugee chief on Thursday urged Pakistanis not to blame Afghan refugees for terrorism in their country, amid growing public calls for their deportation and worsening relations between the two neighbours.

Warning that the roughly 2.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan risked becoming a "forgotten" crisis, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on the international community to invest more funds to help them.

"My appeal is that, not only to the authorities but also to the local population: refugees as you know are not terrorists," Grandi said during a visit to a repatriation centre outside the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar.

Pakistani officials have recently hinted at the possibility of deporting Afghan refugees, amid tense relations with Kabul.

A decision to renew their legal status by June 30 has not yet been announced, although past deadlines have been extended at the last minute.

The number of Afghans voluntarily returning home is down sharply this year as violence worsens in Afghanistan, where the government and its U.S. allies are fighting a stubborn Taliban insurgency.

So far, about 6,000 Afghans have chosen to return home from Pakistan in 2016, compared with 58,211 voluntary repatriations last year, according to the UNHCR.

At the repatriation centre, refugees wiped the sweat from their faces as they waited in sweltering heat for their cases to be processed, a necessary step before they can set off on the journey home.

Many Afghan refugees say they are being pressured to go back by the authorities, amid worsening diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A recent border spat between the two at the nearby Torkham crossing left four dead and thousands stranded.

"I grew up here, but right now, the situation is not good," said Manzoor Hamdard, 30, one of about 50 people at the centre. His family fled Afghanistan 35 years ago.

"We are poor people, and the police come and take money from us," added Hamdard, who will move with his family of 15 to their native Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan.

"We`ve run out of energy to deal with this."

Huma Zafar, a community leader in an Afghan refugee tribal council, added: "Whatever the relations are, good or bad, refugees should not be affected by it."

On Monday, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan`s foreign policy chief, told a Pakistani television channel that Afghan refugee camps had become "safe havens for terrorists".

On Wednesday, Pakistani federal minister Abdul Qadir Baloch warned that Pakistan was not willing to host Afghan refugees indefinitely.

"In view of the security and socioeconomic impact, the tolerance level of the host communities has reached its threshold and cannot be overstretched," he said, adding, however, that Pakistan would not use force to evict refugees.

Pakistan has the second-largest refugee population in the world, with more than 1.5 million registered and about a million unregistered refugees from Afghanistan, most of whom fled the Soviet invasion in 1979.

UNHCR chief Grandi said he had made the case for extending the June 30 deadline to the government in talks during his two-day visit to Pakistan.

He also stressed the need for the international community to fund efforts to support Afghan refugees.

"I have come here to the region on the week of World Refugee Day to highlight that Afghan refugees should not be forgotten," he said.
New Delhi: The US space agency NASA's Juno spacecraft will soon enter orbit around the largest planet, Jupiter in few weeks.

Juno mission is scheduled to orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

NASA's Juno spacecraft was launched way back in 2011 for a five-year mission to Jupiter, the largest, strongest magnetic field and most lethal radiation belts in our solar system.

The space agency recently released an interesting movie-like trailer for NASA's Juno mission focussing on Jupiter's many intimidating features. The video also shows how challenging it will be for Juno to accomplish the mission to learn more about the largest planet's origin, evolution and the secrets that lie deep within it.

Juno will see the planet for what it really is, but first it must pass the trial of orbit insertion.

Watch the movie-like trailer:

Video credits: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lucknow: More than two dozen trains were diverted through other routes late on Thursday after traffic on the busy Delhi-Howrah rail route was brought to a grinding halt after a crane fell on the rail tracks in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur district, officials said.

Two trains have been cancelled.

Railway officials informed IANS that traffic on both up and down lines has been disrupted. The crane came crashing at a site where a rail overbridge was being constructed between Gaipura and Jigna station in Mirzapur.

The trains which were on the way have since been diverted to Kanpur, Mughalsarai and Allahabad. An official further informed that because of the accident at the site, the overhead high tension wires were snapped.

Another crane was requisitioned by the railway officials to clear the tracks but to no success. DRM Allahabad, Sanjay Kumar Pankaj and other divisional managers are camping at the site to expedite the clearing of the tracks.A

"We hope that the operation would succeed by morning," an official added.


Lucknow: Armed assailants on Wednesday killed a police sub-inspector during a gun battle in Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh, police said today.

The incident took place on the Bareilly highway late Wednesday night.

An official confirmed the news that sub-inspector Sarvesh Yadav received a tip-off about three assailants planning a loot. Yadav along with few other policemen reached the spot and tried to stop and check them, the assailants opened fire on them.

Sub-inspector Sarvesh Yadav was shot dead on the spot, two other policemen received injuries in the exchange of fire with the assailants.

The official added that the condition of police constable Pramod is still critical.

One injured assailant was nabbed by the policemen while two managed to escape.
Lucknow: Keeping in mind safety of those travelling on two-wheelers, Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday made it compulsory for pillion riders to wear helmets.

A decision in this regard was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav here.

"The cabinet has approved a proposal to amend rule 201 of UP Motor vehicles regulation-1998, making helmets for pillion riders compulsory," an official spokesperson said.

The decision has been taken keeping in view safety of those commuting on two wheelers.

The cabinet also okayed several amendments in state's aviation policy after which 18-20 seater aircraft could be used for inter-state transport.

The carrier would be selected through tender and they would be entitled for Rs five crore for 300 hours of flight from viability gap fund (VGF) of the state.

The fare of travel would be decided by a committee of Director General, Tourism.

The selected operator would have to deploy flights on Lucknow-Varanasi, Agra-Varanasi, Lucknow-Allahabad-Gorakhpur routes daily.

In another important decision, the cabinet decided to increase aid given to minority community living below poverty line for marriage of their daughters from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000.

The aid would be given to maximum of two daughters in a family and the entire process will also be made online.

The cabinet also decided to send a letter to the Centre to include 'Aheria' caste in scheduled caste list.

The cabinet also approved channelisation and development of banks at Varuna river in Varanasi which will cost Rs 20165.85 lakh, approval of Rs 177.81 lakh for beautification and expansion of the banks of Yamuna river in Mathura-Vrindavan.
Elon Musk

Investors may be finally turning their backs on Elon Musk.

Musk's electric-car company, Tesla, made an offer on Tuesday to buy Musk's solar-power company, SolarCity.

Up until now, Tesla is a company that's been loved by investors  for the most part  while SolarCity has been loathed.

But the tables turned on Wednesday when Tesla shares dropped 10% on the heels of the news. SolarCity's shares, meanwhile, rose just 5%  even though Tesla's offer is something closer to 30% above its current stock price.

And by the end of trading on Wednesday, a key measure of investor confidence in the deal's success  the gap between SolarCity's shares and the value of Tesla's offer  stood at about 18%.

Another way to put this? There's no confidence in this deal right now.

"The market probably doesn't think the deal is going to get done," said Sachin Shah, a merger-arbitrage strategist at Albert Fried & Co.

This is in small part simply because right now Tesla's offer is just that, an offer. There's a lot of negotiating to do before we know what the actual deal terms will be.

"They don't know what the exchange ratio is  they don't know what the implied price will be," Shah said.

But some concerns are much bigger than just uncertainty about the deal terms. Tesla investors will vote on the offer, and they're worried about the impact of this deal on Tesla's balance sheet. SolarCity needs cash to fund its business, and Tesla needs cash to build its cars.

Tesla Model 3

They also don't love the closeness of these two companies. Musk is the primary shareholder of both, and his cousin is CEO of SolarCity. They will, it's worth noting, recuse themselves from votes on the matter at the board and shareholder levels.

There are other reasons to wonder why Tesla has to be saddled with a cash-burning solar-panel financing company. Musk laid out a vision of product integration that looks something like this: Use the SolarCity panels to power your home, use Tesla's batteries to store that power, and use some of that power to charge up your electric car. No fossil fuels required ever.

Story continues

But as Business Insider's Akin Oyedele reported, Wall Street's analysts are questioning whether Tesla should be pursuing this deal while it still struggles to get its part of this enterprise  building the cars  right.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that this doubt is an opportunity. In fact, assuming that a deal is reached and progresses toward completion, then there's a return of something like 18% for traders willing to bet on that.

But if Musk is going to rally investors behind his deal, then he's going to need the support of his legions of fans: the investors who readily pony up cash every time Tesla looks to raise a few billion dollars, and who believe in his long-term vision of creating a company that changes everything about the way we consume energy  not just with cars, but in our homes and workplaces as well.

Even there, though, he seems to be trying their patience. A noted Tesla bull  so much so that he's been criticized for his willingness to think about how the company will change everything about how we drive  is Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas.

He has a $333 price target on Tesla shares, and here's what he said (emphasis added):



"The potential upside to our $333 price target is dominated by our views of Tesla's potential to be a market leader in a shared, autonomous electric transportation ecosystem at an intra-city and inter-city level. It is not currently clear to us that an acquisition of SolarCity improves the odds of success for this endeavor."

If Musk has lost Adam Jonas, then he might be about to lose everyone else.

NOW WATCH: Elon Musk admits that Tesla may not be prepared to meet demands for $11 billion in preorders for their new Model 3





More From Business Insider


Lucknow: A five-member team of saints constituted by Samajwadi Party to look into the "migration" of Hindus from Kairana on Thursday submitted its report to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav terming it as a "dangerous conspiracy" to disturb communal harmony.

"We have submitted the confidential report to the CM. It (Kairana exodus theory) was a dangerous conspiracy to disturb communal harmony. Strict action should be taken against the guilty," Acharya Pramod said.

The team of saints comprising Pramod, Swami Kalyan, Naraina Giri, Swami Chinmayanand, and Swamy Chakrapani visited Kairana on June 20 for their report.

The team was formed after senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav had in a press conference on June 17 proposed that a team of five "apolitical persons" visit Kairana to probe the reality and suggested the names of these saints.

Samajwadi Party has already trashed the "exodus" theory and accused BJP of "vitiating" the communal atmosphere in the state with 2017 Assembly polls in mind.

"There is no exodus from Kairana or from anywhere in the state. We have intelligence and other reports in this regard. BJP leaders including (MP) Hukum Singh and others are inciting communal passions for political gains as Assembly elections are near," SP spokesman Shivpal had said.
Beijing: Hurricane-force winds, freak hailstorms, pounding rain and a tornado killed 78 people in China`s eastern province of Jiangsu on Thursday and injured nearly 500 others, Xinhua reported.

Whole villages were levelled and huge trees felled when winds of up to 125 kilometres (77 miles) per hour struck around Yancheng city, China`s official news agency said.

Some 200 people were left critically injured by the storms and the worst tornado in half a century, which reduced buildings to rubble.

Photos of the scene showed dazed residents near the remains of houses surrounded by tangled telephone wires, splintered wood and toppled poles.

"It was like the end of the world," said Xie Litian, 62, from Donggou township in Funing County, describing how all the other houses in his neighbourhood had been destroyed.

"I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows," he told Xinhua.

"I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away."

President Xi Jinping ordered "all-out rescue efforts" after what Xinhua said was one of the worst disasters ever to hit Jiangsu.

Citizens in Yancheng used social media to offer help to those affected, from medical assistance to using heavy lifting equipment for free.

Crane operator Xiang Shanfeng said he had pulled dozens of people from rubble during the day after posting his number on messaging service WeChat.

"The losses were astonishing," Xinhua quoted him as saying.

Many parts of China have been lashed by torrential rains this week as summer rainstorms have been heavier than usual, causing damage across the country.

Flooding is common during the summer monsoon season in the south of China, but rainfall has been particularly heavy this year.

In the centre of the country, heavy floods have killed 22 people and displaced 197,000, state media said on Monday.

Eight people were trapped in a flooded coal mine in southwest China`s Guizhou province, Xinhua reported.

Direct economic losses from the floods hit nearly 2.7 billion yuan ($410 million), state media said.

Vice premier Wang Yang said days earlier that China faced volatile weather conditions due to the influence of the El Nino weather system.
Dhaka: The number of Hindus in Muslim- majority Bangladesh has grown by one percent to 1.70 crore in one year constituting 10.7 percent of the population by the end of 2015, an official report said on Thursday.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said their latest vital sample statistics report found the country's total population to be 15.89 crore by the end of 2015 with the number of Hindus at 1.70 crore.

Previous BBS studies showed Bangladesh's Hindu population size was 1.55 crore in 2014 suggesting that the numbers of the country's largest minority community increased by 1.5 million in one year. Hindus are the second largest population group in terms of religion.

The statistics come as Hindu community leaders expressed fears that their number was decreasing gradually as a sense of insecurity forced many Hindus to leave the country for neighbouring India over the decades.

According to the 1951 census, Hindus were 22 percent of the population, in 1974 the figure came down to 14 percent and the last 2011 census suggests the followers of faith consists only 8.4 percent of the population.

"The BBS statistics which has been published today is actually based on a random sampling. If it represents the real picture, definitely I will be the happiest man in the country," Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council presidium member Kajal Debnath said.

A BBS official, familiar with the process said the random sampling report was prepared this year with the data collected from 12,012 areas while the previous report was prepared with data gathered from 1,500 areas.
London: Britain is set to go to the polls in a historic referendum on whether the country should remain a member of the European Union or leave.

More than 46 million people are eligible to vote in the referendum on June 23 to decide Britain's fate regarding the union.

Britons were asked to choose whether the country should stay in the EU or leave in the first vote on Britain's links with Europe for more than 40 years. Britain joined the EU in January 1973.

Prime Minister David Cameron invoked Britain's wartime spirit in a last-ditch bid to win votes on Wednesday on the eve of a knife-edge referendum on European Union membership that has put the continent on alert.

"Winston Churchill didn't give up on European democracy... and we shouldn`t walk away," David Cameron told a crowd in Birmingham, his final rally in a campaign that has been described as one of Britain`s most bitter ever.

Britain will be safer with 'Remain'

PM David Cameron, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron addressed rallies arguing Britain will be better off and safer with a 'Remain' vote in Thursday's poll.

London Mayor Boris Johnson and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage with the ex-London mayor appealed to the people to "believe in our country".

Warning by EU leaders

EU leaders warned that leaving the 28-member bloc would be final, as two polls indicated the "Leave" camp was just ahead of "Remain".

"If you jump out of the airplane, you cannot clamber back through the cockpit hatch," Cameron warned, his sleeves rolled up and pointing for emphasis.

"Put your children`s future first."

As planes with banners from the rival campaigns flew over London to woo the undecided, two polls showed the "Leave" side with the slimmest of leads, both within the margin of error.

Poll: Leave vs Remain

"Our latest poll suggests that Leave is in a stronger position than Remain," said Luke Taylor of TNS, after their poll put "Leave" on 43 percent and "Remain" on 41 percent.

Record numbers of voters have registered for the ballot, and Taylor emphasised the result could all come down to turnout.

A Brexit vote would mean Britain would be the first country to leave the European Union in the bloc's 60-year history, leaving it in uncharted waters at an already troubled time.

Out is out

"Out is out," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels, dismissing any talk of a post-vote renegotiation just hours before polls open.

French President Francois Hollande warned an exit would be "irreversible" while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wanted Britain to stay but that the decision was down to the British people.

The German and French leaders will meet in Berlin next week for talks Hollande said would work "towards relaunching the European project", already struggling with an unprecedented migrant crisis.Cameron`s main rival in the "Leave" campaign and possible successor, Boris Johnson, said Britain stood on the brink of "independence day" from Europe.

"I do think that we are on the verge, possibly, of an extraordinary event in the history of our country and indeed in the whole of Europe," Johnson said in eastern England.

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, said: "I genuinely believe we are going to win this."

US Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump, who arrives in Britain Thursday, also spoke out on Brexit again, saying he thought the country should "go it alone".

A British withdrawal would trigger a lengthy exit negotiation, leading to the loss of unfettered access to its partners in the 28-nation market and forcing the country to strike its own trade accords across the world.

In Europe, the referendum has raised concerns of a domino effect of exit votes that would imperil the integrity of the bloc, already buffeted by the eurozone and migration crises.

Though many voters fret over the financial consequences of a Brexit, others relish the prospect of taking back power from Brussels and reining in high levels of immigration.

Jo Cox's murder

Momentum for the "Leave" campaign, however, appeared to be upended with last week`s killing of pro-EU lawmaker Jo Cox of the main opposition Labour party, which prompted concerns the campaign had been divisive.

"Jo`s killing was political. It was an act of terror," Cox`s husband Brendan told thousands of mourners who gathered in London`s Trafalgar Square to mark what would have been her 42nd birthday.

Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by Taliban extremists for advocating education for girls, told the crowd: "I`m here today as a living proof that they can`t win with bullets."

A floral tribute to Cox was also towed along the River Thames to a mooring outside the Houses of Parliament.

Though the polls show the race is virtually neck and neck, bookmaker Betfair said their latest odds implied a 76-percent chance of "Remain" winning.

In the latest surveys released, Opinium put the "Leave" camp at 45 percent and "Remain" at 44 percent, while TNS gave them a lead of 43 percent to 41 percent for staying.

With everything to play for, a string of prominent figures rolled out last-minute endorsements.

James Bond star Daniel Craig and Irish rock band U2 endorsed "Remain", while bosses from nearly 1,300 of Britain`s leading businesses warning in the Times that Brexit would endanger jobs.
St. Petersburg: Speaking ahead of his state visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin said mutual trust between Russia and China has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua editor Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming state visit to China scheduled for Saturday, the Russian President said the decline in the trade value between both nations was merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates.

Putin also proposed that the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and China set up a free trade area open to other interested countries.

He said that all members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) agreed to beef up cooperation with Beijing within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Highlighting about the Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway project, Putin said smoothly running high-speed railway project is probably just the beginning of massive cooperation between Russia and China on infrastructure construction.

He pressed that the most important task in Russia-China trade is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas.

Talking about the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that begins on Thursday, Putin said the Summit has evolved into a platform for its members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas.

He added that the summit has become a popular, attractive and authoritative international institution with many countries eager to join.
Jakarta: President Joko Widodo visited remote Indonesian islands on a warship Thursday in an apparent show of force after clashes with Chinese vessels and as fears grow Beijing is seeking to stake a claim in nearby waters.

Widodo led a high-level delegation including the foreign minister and armed forces chief to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, arriving at a navy base before being escorted to the warship as fighter jets buzzed overhead and military vessels performed manoeuvres off the coast.

At a meeting of ministers and security force chiefs on the warship, which last week detained a Chinese trawler and its crew in Indonesian waters, the president ordered defences around the Natunas to be stepped up.

"I asked the military and the maritime security agency to better guard the seas," he said. A picture released by the government showed Widodo standing next to a gun turret on deck, flanked by the military chief and ministers.

Before the trip, Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said it was aimed at sending a "clear message" that Indonesia was "very serious in its effort to protect its sovereignty".

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost the entire strategically important South China Sea, and regional tensions are mounting due to Chinese island building and ahead of a UN-backed tribunal`s ruling on a Philippine challenge to China`s claims.

Unlike some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia has long maintained it has no maritime disputes with China in the sea and has no overlapping claims to reefs or islets there.

But Beijing`s claims overlap Indonesia`s exclusive economic zone -- waters where a state has the right to exploit resources -- around the Natunas, and Widodo`s visit came after a sharp escalation in maritime clashes between Indonesian vessels and Chinese fishing boats in the area.Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying Thursday reiterated Beijing`s position that China and Indonesia "have no territorial disputes" and that China does not object to Indonesia`s sovereignty over the Natuna Islands.

But she added that "China and Indonesia have overlapping claims over maritime rights of some part of the waters in the South China Sea".

The term "overlapping claims" was also used in a Chinese statement earlier this week. Analysts say the language indicates Beijing is taking a tougher stance by openly saying that China and Indonesia have competing maritime claims.

The growing tensions come after a senior US State Department official warned this week that China is using its fishing fleets with armed escorts to bolster maritime claims.

The latest confrontation between Beijing and Jakarta came last week when the Indonesian navy seized a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel and detained its crew for allegedly operating illegally in Natuna waters. It was the third such skirmish between vessels from the two countries in the area this year.

Beijing protested and claimed that one fisherman was injured after Indonesian vessels fired warning shots. Jakarta says none of the crew were hurt.

Widodo`s visit to the islands, which are located west of Borneo, was his first as president. The Natuna waters are home to oil and gas deposits as well as fishing grounds.

Confrontations between Indonesian and Chinese vessels around the Natunas have increased since Jakarta launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014.
Jakarta: Indonesia`s President visited the Natuna Islands aboard a warship on Thursday, making a bold move to assert sovereignty over the area in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters.

President Joko Widodo`s visit along with his chief security minister and foreign minister was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue.

A presidential palace statement said Widodo intended to hold a cabinet meeting aboard the warship.

"In the course of our history, we`ve never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Beijing said on Monday that while China does not dispute Indonesia`s sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests".

Indonesia`s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Wednesday rejected China`s stance, saying the waters around Natuna are in Indonesian territory.

There have been a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in the area but both sides have denied that the matter is a territorial or diplomatic dispute.

Widodo`s visit to the remote island chain, which lies over 340 kilometres (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Kalimantan - Indonesia`s portion of Borneo island - was also aimed at promoting infrastructure development in Indonesia`s border areas.

"We want to show that Indonesia is a big country and we have to show this physically," Widodo said in a statement, referring to those infrastructure ambitions.
Jerusalem: Israel accused the Palestinian president of libelling the Jewish people after he charged Thursday that rabbis had called for Palestinian wells to be poisoned.

"Abu Mazen showed his true face in Brussels," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu`s office said in a statement, using a familiar Arabic name for president Mahmud Abbas.

During a speech to the European Parliament, Abbas said, in apparently unscripted Arabic remarks, that recently "a number of rabbis in Israel made a clear declaration and asked their government to poison water to kill the Palestinians".

He cited the accusation, without giving any source, as part of an attack against what he said was Israeli incitement against the Palestinians.

Abbas was in Brussels for talks with top EU officials trying to kick-start stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was there at the same time but an attempt by European Parliament head Martin Schulz to broker a meeting between them failed, diplomatic sources said.

"The person who refuses to meet the (Israeli) state president... and disseminates a blood libel in front of the European Parliament, lies and claims that his hand is outstretched in peace," Netanyahu`s office said.

The accusation that Jews were poisoning the wells of Christians gained traction in 14th century Europe as plague swept across the continent.

Another allegation from the Middle Ages, that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes, is the source of the term "blood libel".

The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported Tuesday that the well-poisoning story had resurfaced in a statement by the Palestinian foreign ministry naming a "rabbi Mlad" as authorising contamination of Palestinian water.

The Post and other Israeli media said they had failed to locate any such person or edict.
Beirut: A US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces pushed on Thursday into the Islamic State group's bastion city of Manbij in northern Syria, a monitoring group said.

Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces managed to enter the city with support from air strikes by a US-led coalition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The SDF entered Manbij from the south under cover of coalition air raids," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, whose Britain-based group relies on a broad network of sources inside Syria to monitor the country's conflict.

He said there was "fierce street fighting between buildings" and that at least two SDF fighters had died when a bomb went off in a residential building.

Abdel Rahman said the SDF was able to break through IS defences a few hours after taking control of a village on the city's southwestern outskirts.

He said progress was likely to be slow as SDF forces were facing booby-traps "planted by the jihadists to try to prevent the loss of the city."

The SDF has faced fierce resistance from IS since launching the assault to take Manbij on May 31. It managed to encircle the city earlier this month but its advance slowed as IS fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.

The jihadists have held the city since 2014, the year IS seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its "caliphate".

Manbij, which had population of about 120,000 before the start of Syria's civil war in 2011, is a key stop on IS's supply route from the Turkish border to its de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.
Bangkok: Myanmar`s Aung San Suu Kyi arrived Thursday in Thailand where she is expected to be garlanded by her adoring compatriots, hundreds of thousands of whom have sought work and sanctuary from war across the border.

It is Suu Kyi`s highest profile overseas visit since her pro-democracy party took power in April, ending nearly half a century of military domination.

Her government has seeded hopes for a new era of prosperity that could eventually convince the army of low-paid Myanmar labourers in Thailand to return home.

The two Southeast Asian neighbours have travelled in starkly different directions in recent years.

While Myanmar`s junta has rolled back its chokehold on politics, last year allowing the freest elections in decades, Thailand remains in the grip of a military that seized power in 2014.

As Myanmar`s democracy champion, Suu Kyi will receive a rock star welcome during a visit to a fishing village in Samut Sakhon later Thursday.

Hundreds of migrant workers -- most wearing Suu Kyi T-shirts -- gathered at a market in the port town just outside Bangkok, awaiting the arrival of their heroine on Thursday afternoon.

The visit "fills me with hope," Myanmar migrant Thon Barami, 50, told AFP at the scruffy port which is the seat of Thailand`s huge seafood industry and home to more than 100,000 low-paid Myanmar labourers.

"We have problems here in Thailand. She might help us with labour rights... people all around the world will listen to her," she added.

The fishing sector has been battered by revelations of the use of slave labour and the widespread exploitation of workers.

The scandals have prompted threats of sanctions by the European Union -- a key market for the multi-billion-dollar Thai seafood industry. Seeking to escape poverty at home, some one million registered Myanmar migrant workers form the backbone of Thailand`s manual workforce.

Tens of thousands of others work illegally, with some estimates putting the total number of Myanmar nationals in Thailand at three million.

Rights groups say migrants -- legal and otherwise -- are vulnerable to unscrupulous officials, trafficking gangs and employment agencies who charge huge sums to get them poorly paid work.

Their low status also sees them treated with scorn and mistrust by many Thais.

"They all want to go home, but they are just waiting for the economic situation (in Myanmar) to improve significantly," explained Andy Hall, a migrant rights activist with an office in the port town.

The nemesis of Myanmar`s generals throughout a quarter-century of struggle for democracy, the Nobel laureate will meet with the leader of the Thai junta in Bangkok on Friday.

But her schedule does not include a single press conference as Suu Kyi continues to fiercely control her government`s messaging.

The 71-year-old is officially Myanmar`s foreign minister and state counsellor, but also the de facto leader of her country despite a military-era constitution that bars her from the presidency.

It is unclear if she will make a scheduled trip to a refugee camp in Ratchaburi province on Saturday.

It is one of nearly a dozen camps in Thailand holding more than 100,000 refugees who have fled conflict in Myanmar.

Many are ethnic Karen displaced by war with Myanmar`s army. The violence abated following a 2012 ceasefire, but conflict with other ethnic rebel groups continues.

Thailand, which does not accept refugees, wants to repatriate camp residents -- some of whom have been born on Thai soil but are barred from citizenship.

Suu Kyi is also not scheduled to visit any of the Thai centres holding hundreds of Rohingya boat migrants, a Muslim group who have fled poverty and persecution in western Myanmar.

Campaigners say her failure to throw her moral weight behind the stateless minority is a boon to Myanmar`s Buddhist hardliners who loathe the Rohingya and say they are illegal immigrants.
Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed the successful test of a powerful new medium-range missile as a direct threat to US military bases across the Pacific, as the UN Security Council met late Wednesday to consider its response.

Kim, who personally monitored Wednesday`s Musudan missile test, applauded a "great event" that significantly bolstered the North`s pre-emptive nuclear attack capability, the official KCNA news agency reported.

"We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre," Kim was quoted as saying.

The Musudan has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres (1,550 to 2,500 miles), with the upper estimate covering US military bases as far away as Guam.

After a string of failures in recent months, North Korea tested two Musudans on Wednesday, one of which flew 400 kilometres into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

KCNA said the missile had been fired at a high angle to simulate its full range, and had reached a maximum height of more than 1,400 kilometres.

The success of the test "marked an important occasion in further strengthening the nuclear attack capacity of our state," Kim said.The launch was condemned by the international community and the UN Security Council met for closed-door consultations on how best to respond.

France`s deputy UN ambassador Alexis Lamek, whose country holds the council presidency, told reporters after the meeting that Council members had been united in "deep concern and opposition" to the test which was a clear violation of UN resolutions.

Existing UN measures prohibit North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

The United States, NATO and Japan also denounced the test, with South Korea vowing to push for tighter sanctions on Pyongyang.

Experts warned that Wednesday`s success marked a significant step forward for a weapons program that ultimately aspires to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear strike on the US mainland.

The North has displayed an ICBM, called the KN-08, which uses the same engine technology as the Musudan but has never been test-fired.Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said the international community had to find a way to get Pyongyang to accept a missile test moratorium.

"If we do nothing, this ends in a successful flight test of the Musudan-based KN-08," Lewis said.

The front and inside pages of Thursday`s edition of North Korea`s ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, were plastered with pictures of a clearly elated Kim Jong-Un watching the test and celebrating with military scientists.

There were also multiple photos of the missile blasting off from a mobile launcher near the eastern port of Wonsan.

The international outcry suggests North Korea could face renewed sanctions, either on a unilateral level or from the United Nations.

After Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket launch February 7, the Security Council adopted its most punishing sanctions yet against North Korea.

Any further measures would require the support of veto-wielding permanent council member China, traditionally the North`s closest ally.

Responding to Wednesday`s launch, China`s foreign ministry had cautioned against "any action that may escalate tension" and called for a resumed dialogue on Pyongyang`s nuclear drive.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, meanwhile, stressed the importance of strengthening US missile defence systems, including those deployed among regional allies South Korea and Japan -- a strategy strongly opposed by China.

"We need to stay ahead of the threat by making sure that our missile defenses are good qualitatively, but also constantly expanding," Carter said.
Visakhapatnam: A worker was killed and two others were injured in an explosion at a pharmaceutical company unit in the district, police said today.

The mishap occurred last evening in Hetero Drugs unit located at Nakkapalli mandal in the district when the workers were engaged in cutting of empty chemical plastic drums at its scrap yard, police sub-inspector L Ramakrishna said.

Some left over chemical solvent in the drums caught fire and caused explosion due to friction generated from the tools while the drums were being cut, he said.

The deceased worker was identified as - S Appa Rao (35). The injured workers were admitted to a corporate hospital in the city and were reported to be out of danger, he said.

A case has been registered and investigation is on into the incident, the SI added.
Vatican City: Pope Francis heads to Armenia Friday for a three-day visit likely to inflame simmering tensions with Turkey over the Vatican`s description of mass killings under the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Turkey reacted furiously last year when Francis, during a mass St Peter`s basilica, said that the massacres were "widely considered the first genocide of the 20th Century."

The same formulation had been employed by Pope John Paul II in 2001 in a written declaration.

Turkey reacted furiously to Francis`s comment. Ankara withdrew its ambassador from the Vatican in protest and relations remain deep frozen at a time when the Catholic church is preoccupied by the plight of Christians in the Middle East, an issue in which Turkey is a key player.

The Turkish government maintains that as many Turks as Armenians died in the latter stages of World War I as a result of civil strife triggered in part by Armenians siding with invading Russian troops.

Turkey has been further riled by Germany`s decision, approved by parliament earlier this month, to recognise the killings as genocide, and fresh diplomatic uproar is anticipated if the pontiff utters the word during his time in Armenia.

The Argentinian pope is due to visit Armenia`s main genocide memorial, the Tsitsernakaberd, on Saturday morning but is not scheduled to make a speech at the site, according to his official programme.

Francis will be the second pope to visit Armenia since it became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Pope John Paul II went there in 2001.

The trip will also be the latest in a series of visits Francis has made to countries on the periphery of Europe where Catholics form a small minority of the population, following earlier trips to Albania and Bosnia.Armenia`s Christians mostly belong to the country`s indigenous church, which belongs to the orthodox family but dates its foundation to the time of the apostles, long before the schism between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity.

Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as a state religion, doing so in 301.

Father Lwis Naamo, rector of the Armenian Pontifical College in Rome, said he expected Francis to use the term genocide during his trip.

"He is very clear, he tells it how it is," said the clerical academic, who is personally from a Syrian Christian background.

"In Armenia, when you say Armenian, that means Christian," he said. "The Armenian people believe in their resurrection after having gone through many Golgothas (Calvaries).

"Francis is our leader and he is coming to visit his children."

In the build-up to Francis`s visit, Vatican officials have notably declined to avoid using the term genocide.

"I cannot anticipate what the pope will say," spokesman Federico Lombardi responded tetchily when pressed on the issue.

The Vatican`s diplomatic service is anxious not to provoke Turkey any more, for fear of further endangering the position of Christians there and the many Christian refugees arriving from Syria and Iraq.

Now that a growing number of countries around the world have complied with Armenia`s request to regard the events of 1915-18 as genocide, the importance of figures like the pope using the term has diminished, according to Antranig Ayvazian, a history professor at Yerevan University.

"Medz Heghem (the Armenian term for the events) has the sense of a major slaughter aimed at the elimination of a people," he said.

"I understand the Holy See`s position, it has to be seen to be neutral. That is why it can help to promote peace and co-existence."
Two days after winter began in the Southern Hemisphere - the sun will not rise at the South Pole till in September - a team of determined professionals pushed the limits of what can be achieved by the man and his machine.

Two workers, employees of Lockheed Martin, fell sick at the Amundsen-Scott station run by the US National Science Foundation. The station is located just 250 metres from the geographical South Pole.

They had to be evacuated...

No flight operations are carried out Amundsen-Scott from February through October - the coldest and darkest months  it was too risky!

Enter the specialists: Canadian company Kenn Borek Air, which provides contractual logistical support to the Antarctic Program. They had carried out two similar operations in 2001 and 2003 but in better weather conditions.

The challenge was bigger this time but the team -a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and medical worker  was nonplussed.

Making a trans-continental journey from their base in Canada, the crew flew into Rothera, a British station on the Antarctic peninsula on Tuesday. Their machine - A specially designed twin Otter turboprop plane that can operate in freezing temperatures.

After taking rest for 10 hours, the crew, taking advantage of a favourable weather condition window, embarked on a 10-hour, 1500-mile dark and cold trip to Amundsen-Scott.

With the aid of South Polewebcam and some light because of the full moon, the Kenn Borek Air aircraft landed on compacted snow at the Amundsen-Scott Station.

Another 10-hour wait later, the plane lifted back into the dark Antarctic sky with the two sick men onboard and returned to Rothera.

The men have since been shifted to Chile.
As Britain head for the much anticipated referendum on its future membership of the European Union, we look back in time at various referendums that are and will always be historically significant:

1.Iran

After the Iranian Monarchy came to an end due to Islamic Revolution in 1979, a referendum was held to decide whether to adopt anIslamic Republic system where direct represrentation is combined with religious authority.Unsurprisingly, 98% of the people voted Yes.

2.Pakistan

On 30 April 2002, General Pervez Musharraf held a referendum to justify his presidency to help bring back democracy in the country. Various claims of irregularities emerged as Musharraf extended his term to five years after the October elections. He later appeared on TV to apologize for the irregularities.

3.Singapore

In 1962, a referendum was held to decide the terms of Singapore's merger into Malaysia. The three choices were: 1) To merge with Malaya, having autonomy in labour and education; 2) To merge with Malaya, having same status as the other states in Malaya; 3) To merge with Malaya, having terms similar to those of the Borneo territories. Option 1 won with 71% votes. \

4.Greece

On July 5 2015, a referendum was held to decide whether or not to accept the terms of an international bailout for the debt-ridden country. A tremendous 61% of voters opted to reject the austerity measures that accompanied the bailout package giving rise to doubts over Greece's position in Eurozone.

5.Scotland

A record 85% voters turned out on 18 September 2014 to vote in the referendum on whether Scotland should exit or remain in the United Kingdom. The voters rejected the call of then Scottish first minister Alex Salmond fro independence as 55% voted 'No'.

6.Referendums for the formation of the European Union

European Union has seem a number of referendums throughout its history. The Pillar of EU, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was only approved after various referendums by the member states. Two referendums each were carried out in Denmark and Ireland before accepting the terms of the treaty. Similarly, in September 1992, people of France narrowly supported the approval of the treaty with 51% voting on favour.

The Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, that amended the two treaties that formed EU's constitutional basis, had to dace similar fate. The Irish electorate rejected the treaty in 2008, which was accepted by the members on 13 December 2007. They secured various concessions before accepting it in 2009, when the treaty finally came into affect.

7.Poland

On June 7 and 8, 2003, a referendum was held in Poland to decide on its joining of European Union.77.6% voters voted in favour of joining the EU, which led to Poland joining the EU after the ratification of the Treaty of Accession later that year.

8.Northern Ireland

A decisive 71.1% votes were in favour of accepting the Good Friday Agreements in 1998, when a referendum was held in Northern Ireland to garner support for this important political agreement among Britain, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. An even bigger support was witnessed for the agreements in Republic of Ireland where 95% voters voted Yes.

9.Norway

Almost all 100% Norwegians voted in favour of Norway's independence from Sweden in 1905 with just 184 opposing the decision.

10.Russia

In 1993, President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Congress of People's Deputies when it and the government failed to come to a compromise on a new constitution draft, leading to a constitutional crisis. This led to Yeltsin calling a new Constituent Assembly that favoured his views. The new constitution was published on November 11. A referendum was then held on December 12 to accept or reject the constitution where a favourable voteshare of 58.4% approved the constitution.

11.Spain

94% of Spanish voters approved a Political Reform Bill to establish a democracy in a referendum on 15 December 1976, after the death of Francisco Franco.

A new constitution was adopted on 6 December 1978 after 91% of voters voted favourably of its adoption.

Also, in 1986 another referendum approved Spain's membership of NATO.

12.Wales

On 3 March 2011,a referendum was held in Wales that asked the question: "Do you want the Assembly now to be able to make laws on all matters in the 20 subject areas it has powers for?"

63.49% voters voted 'Yes' which gave the National Assembly for Wales the right to make laws on all 20 subject areas, without needing the approval from UK parliament.
Sao Paulo: A top ex-minister of Brazil`s suspended president Dilma Rousseff became the latest official to get arrested in a sprawling corruption probe on Thursday, authorities said.

Police also searched the headquarters of Rousseff`s Workers Party in Sao Paulo in one of a series of raids across five states in the country.

In the capital Brasilia they arrested Paulo Bernardo, Rousseff`s former communications minister, the state prosecution service said in a statement.

He was wanted in connection with the paying of $30 million worth of bribes to public officials, it said.

Bernardo was also planning minister under Rousseff`s predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The raids were part of a probe into corruption at state oil firm Petrobras which has netted numerous officials.

Rousseff was suspended last month to face an impeachment trial over separate allegations of fiddling government accounts.

She was replaced pending her trial by vice-president Michel Temer. Three of his ministers have since stepped down over corruption allegations.

The Senate is expected to make a final decision on whether to impeach Rousseff in mid-August, during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Berlin: A masked man with a gun and ammunition belt, who opened fire at a cinema complex in the western German town of Viernheim, near Frankfurt, on Thursday, was shot dead by the police.

German media reported that the shooter, who had barricaded himself in at the Kinopolis complex, was shot dead after the elite police stormed the complex.

Earlier reports had said that the attacker had been arrested.

The gunman had taken hostages before police shot him dead, a police spokesman told the N-TV television channel.

Authorities said no hostages were hurt in the incident.

Local media had earlier said that between 20 and 50 people could have been wounded.

The attacker acted alone and appeared to have been a "disturbed man", the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament.

Police had not identified the man or established his motive, spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that nothing immediately pointed to him having a militant background.

Cinema employee Guri Blakaj told Reuters the gunman, who appeared to be aged between 18 and 25 and was about 1.7 metres tall, entered the cinema at around 3 pm and told workers to get into an office.

He then went into a cinema theatre. Blakaj, who said there were about six workers and 30 cinemagoers in the building, then heard shots fired.

(With agency inputs)
Beirut: Anti-government activists and Syrian state media are reporting that shelling and airstrikes in different neighborhoods of the divided northern city of Aleppo have killed at least eight civilians.

Syria's state news agency SANA said today four people were killed and four others wounded when rocket shells hit the government-controlled al-Khalidia district in Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the anti-government Aleppo Media center said four civilians were killed when airstrikes hit the rebel-held al-Katerji neighborhood.

Bebars Mishal, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense, a team of volunteer first responders operating in rebel-held areas, said the airstrike hit a residence, putting the number of those killed at five members of the same family. He said the search continued for others under the rubble.

Rebels seized part of Aleppo city in 2012.
District of Columbia: Two sick workers evacuated from a remote US research station near the South Pole on Wednesday have reached Chile after a risky rescue mission carried out in the dead of Antarctica`s winter, US officials said.

A Twin Otter turboprop plane flew in dark and cold conditions to pick up the workers from the Amundsen-Scott station, about 250 meters (820 feet) from the geographic South Pole, a spokesman for the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Peter West told AFP.

After a stop at a British station on the edge of Antarctica lasting several hours, another Twin Otter flew the two workers to Puntas Arenas, Chile`s southernmost city, the NSF later said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

The plane landed around 9:40 pm on Wednesday (0140 GMT Thursday).

The plane`s crew and a medical team had made the 10-hour journey to the South Pole from the British Antarctic Survey`s Rothera research station some 2,200 kilometers (about 1,365 miles) away in the middle of the continent`s 24-hour winter on Tuesday night to reach the patients, who could not be treated on site.

The NSF -- the US research agency that operates the Amundsen-Scott Station -- organized the rescue mission last week given the condition of the first patient, which was not disclosed for privacy reasons.

"It was really an emergency," West said.

It later became apparent that the second worker also needed to be evacuated.

The sick workers -- employees of the US company Lockheed Martin who worked on base logistics and were not identified -- were then to be transferred to a hospital in South America, West said, without giving further details.

The Amundsen-Scott base was home to 48 people -- 39 men and nine women -- who work on-site throughout the austral winter, which spans February through October. Near the world`s southernmost point, workers spend this period withstanding nearly complete darkness and dramatically low temperatures -- on Tuesday, the thermometer dropped to -60 degrees Celsius (-76 degrees Fahrenheit).

It was only the third time that an emergency rescue operation has been launched in the middle of winter.

In 2001, the only doctor at the Amundsen-Scott station was suffering from a life-threatening pancreatic condition and required urgent evacuation. A second medical evacuation was carried out that year.

In 1999, the US station`s doctor Jerri Nielsen, who was self-treating her own breast cancer, required medical evacuation but weather conditions were more favorable, as the mission took place in the spring.

The Twin Otter plane, operated by the Canadian company Kenn Borek Air, is specially designed to operate in extremely cold temperatures.

Research projects at the Amundsen-Scott station include monitoring long-term levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

The station also operates two telescopes that observe "cosmic microwave background" radiation -- the faint light signature left by the Big Bang -- to study the origins of the universe, dark energy and dark matter.
Ankara: Turkey`s nationalist opposition leader faced a growing challenge on Thursday after a veteran party member resigned from his parliamentary role, strengthening party dissidents who see his continued leadership as a block to their electoral support.

Party rebels blame slipping support for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Devlet Bahceli, 68, whom they see as a dour figure unable to tap into nationalist sentiments that have swollen the popularity of President Tayyip Erdogan.

His replacement, after two decades at the helm, by a more popular figure could delay plans by the ruling AK Party to procure stronger presidential powers for Erdogan. That would involve early elections providing AK with a bigger majority allowing it to quickly change the constitution.

Leading MHP figure Oktay Vural, hitherto an ally of Bahceli, announced on Wednesday he was resigning from his position as head of the party`s parliamentary group and a source close to Vural said he may align himself with the party dissidents.

"Vural was uneasy with the situation into which the party had fallen. But he definitely will not leave the MHP," a source close to Vural told Reuters. "He may act in line with the (party) dissidents from now on."

At an MHP congress on Sunday, party dissidents took a step toward replacing Bahceli, who has said that congress was invalid. The two sides are now engaged in a battle over who will manage a further congress on July 10 to elect a new leader.

Six rebels are bidding to become leader, most prominently Meral Aksener, a 59-year-old woman seen by pollsters as capable of revitalising the MHP and increasing its support.

The pressure for an extraordinary party congress began after the MHP`s representation in parliament halved to 40 MPs in a November election. A recent survey put it on 12 pct of the vote, just above the threshold needed to be in parliament but polls show its support could rise to 20 percent under new leadership.

At the June 19 congress, a series of changes were made to party regulations, including removing an obstacle to electing a new leader at an extraordinary congress and making it more difficult to expel party members.

The rebels are now seeking official approval from election authorities in Ankara for those changes before next month`s leadership election, which will be closely watched by Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded.

Erdogan says Turkey needs a strong executive presidency to help steer the country through its big security and economic challenges.

Critics say Erdogan is behaving in an increasingly authoritarian way, undermining Turkey`s constitutional checks and balances and clamping down on media freedoms in the European Union candidate nation. Erdogan rejects the accusations.
Washington: The United States will continue to expand its defense systems to protect South Korea and regional allies from North Korean missiles, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Wednesday.

Carter spoke to reporters hours after Pyongyang tested two medium-range Musudan missiles, one of which flew 400 kilometers (250 miles) into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Experts say the apparent success marked a significant step forward for a weapons program that ultimately aspires to develop a proven nuclear strike capability against the US mainland.

"This shows the need for us to continue to do what we`re doing, which is build these missile defenses of various ranges to protect both our South Korean allies, US forces on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and US territory," Carter said.

Carter said he did not know if the missile test could be called a success because he did not know what the objectives of the launch were.

"No matter what... we need to stay ahead of the threat by making sure that our missile defenses are good qualitatively, but also constantly expanding," Carter said.

Seoul and Washington want to deploy the US military`s sophisticated Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), that would protect against North Korean missiles, though China worries about the system being deployed on its doorstep.
Britain on Thursday holding a crucial referendum vote to decide whether the country should remain with the European Union (EU) or part ways. Ahead of the final verdict, experts are worried about its likely impact on the Indian economy and the world if it opts to leave.

What experts said on:

1.Currency and Markets

If Brexit happens, stock markets in UK and the US would take a hit and it will have a snowball effect in India. Thats because foreign investors would try to hedge their losses by sell-offs in emerging markets, including India.

In the event of Brexit, stocks in the UK are estimated to fall between 10% and 20% while those in the US could take a hit of more than 7%, estimates from various brokerages show.

-For India, it would be more of a reaction to global news, which does not affect it directly to a large extent, except possibly some of the corporates which have large exposure to UK. Post the knee-jerk reaction, we may again get on track due to benign domestic factors, Ambareesh Baliga, an independent equity markets analyst, told Quartz.

-Indian markets remain uncertain over the UKs referendum and, hence, (are) mirroring global sentiment, Anand James, chief market analyst at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, told Reuters.

-In the run up to the referendum in the United Kingdom on its continuing in the European Union, uncertainty about the poll outcome has resulted in some amount of turbulence in global financial markets, including in India. The RBI is maintaining a close vigil on developments, and will take all necessary steps, including liquidity support, to ensure orderly conditions in financial markets, the RBI said in a statement on June 22.

-RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said, the central bank will infuse whatever liquidity is needed into the Indian market to keep it "well behaved".

-"We expect the RBI intervention to smooth any INR volatility. In case of BREXIT later this week, it would likely allow any US Dollar strength to play out. Our Asia FX strategists expect the INR to depreciate to Rs 68.5/USD in September from Rs67.3/USD today," Bank of America Merill Lynch said on Monday.

2.Trade

In the 2016 financial year, India-UK bilateral trade was worth $14.02 billion. India exported goods and services worth $8.83 billion while imports from the UK were at $5.19 billion. In the last five years, the trade has been quite stable.

- Britains exit from the EU probably wont have any significant impact on this, said Biswajit Dhar, a professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Dhar, a former consultant to the Indian governments planning commission explained that two-way trade between India and the UK has been fairly stable since the end of the last decade. This sharply contrasts with Indias total trade with EU members, which has been declining during the same period.

It may, thus, be argued that the historical relationship between the two countries still plays itself out in the realm of trade, he added.

-A Brexit-UK will have far greater latitude to negotiate with India as it will be free from the vast set of rules that come with EU membership, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser to the State Bank of India, the countrys biggest lender, said in a report in May. UKs investment and expertise in cyber security, its military technology are still competitive, and can become the point of convergence under Make in India.

-Nonetheless, there will be roadblocks that will need to be sorted out, as Swati Dhingra, an assistant professor of economics at the London School of Economics, explained in a recent post,Today tariffs are already quite low and trade agreements are much more about harmonising policies, such as food safety regulations, so that businesses can easily trade across borders. Its unlikely that Britain would harmonise its regulations with that of China or India, so it is questionable as to whether any new deals would have significant benefits.

-Lord Meghnad Desai, an India-born economist and a UK Labour politician, argued that the impact of Brexit on the India-UK trade will be hardly at all. Asked whether Brexit will make it easy for UK to increase its ties with India, Desai said,the EU is not preventing UK from making inroads into India if it wants to even now.

3.Companies

India Inc. could also take a hit if the UK votes to leave.

Indian companies have traditionally had substantial operations in the UK. Currently over 800 of them function in that country, employing more than 100,000 people in all. The UK has also been an entry-pointfor Indian businesses to the rest of Europe.

-Indian companies will have to rework their existing strategies both for UK domestic market as well as UK as manufacturing base for exports, said Abdul Majeed, a partner at PwC, a consultancy. The overall impact depends on how the UK moves after the exit in the long run with respect to free trade agreements with EU countries or WTO-based arrangements.

-Brexit will have significant impact on the UK automotive industry since over 75% of vehicles assembled in the UK are exported and around 50% vehicles are exported to other EU countries. JLR exports around 80% vehicles to other countries and around 20% goes to other EU countries, PwCs Majeed said.

-Deepesh Rathore, co-founder of Emerging Markets Automotive Advisors, a global automobile forecasting company, said that with Brexit, the vehicles JLR sells in Europe may end up attracting high duties, making them uncompetitive to rivals BMW, Mercedes, and Audi..
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh says overnight June 22-23 Azerbaijan fired RPG-7 grenade launcher (1 grenade) in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijani contact line.

The Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight June 22-23 relative calm was maintained in Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire regime by firing mainly small arms and RPG-7 grenade launcher (1 grenade) in the eastern direction of the contact line.

The Defense Army forces are in control of the situation and continue confidently fulfilling their military tasks.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel, Vice-Chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group of the European Parliament, says the most suitable Parliament for recognizing the Armenian Genocide and taking the responsibility of guilt is the Turkish Parliament itself.

That is the responsibility of that country, not others, Henkel said in an interview to ARMENPRESS.

According to him, the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in the educational system of German schools is a very good idea, because it is a part of history.

I think it really must be taught in schools. I would like it to be firstly taught in Turkish schools. It is a well known fact in the world, that separate countries try to teach the history, which will present their country by the good side only. In this case, Germany is an exception, which presents its people the atrocities committed during the First and Second World Wars, he said.

Speaking on Turkeys response, which forced one of the Turkish MPs of Germany to urge banning Erdogan from entering the country, Henkel said its just a terrible occurrence.

Erdogan is taking the entire country in a wrong direction, 10 years ago it may have been another country, for example it had a relatively free press, however under Erdogan, it goes down, Henkel said.

The Bundestag adopted the Armenian Genocide resolution on June 2.

Immediately after Germanys recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey recalled its Ambassador from Germany, followed by a barrage of accusations addressed to Bundestag MPs with Turkish origin, which sparked a wave of protest inside the Bundestag against Turkey, up to Bundestag President Norbert Lammerts announcement to Erdogan : Pressuring individual MPs with threats means attacking on the entire Parliament.

On June 16 it was announced that the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in Germanys education system is being discussed.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. Russian political scientist, expert on the South Caucasus Andrey Areshev considers positive the discussions of issues related to the increase of the number of the OSCE observers and the installation of investigation mechanisms in the contact line during the St. Petersburg meeting between the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan.

We saw that significant results were not achieved, however, it is understandable since the sides views differ. The discussed issues, of course, are important, but it is much more important that the talks and discussions become legally binding mechanisms or to be added to the documents which were signed 20 years ago and have a legal force, however, they are not implemented in practice. The Russian side, including also Sergey Lavrovs visit to Armenia has repeatedly stressed the necessity of that process. Now it is hard to say whether it will be practically implemented or not, we must hope that positive developments will take place, he said in an interview with Armenpress.

To the question that Azerbaijan always demonstrates unconstructive stance, what are the guarantees that this time the process will not be failed, the Russian political scientist said the major guarantors of this process are the Armenian and NKR Defense Armies.

Yes, the official Baku demonstrates extremely uncompromising stance. I think that the Defense Armies of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh are the major guarantors of this process which will be able to give counter measures to the possible aggressive actions, he stated.

Referring to the military exercises conducted by Azerbaijan before the Presidents meeting, Areshev said those were large-scale military exercises by which the Azerbaijanis were trying to exert pressure on the Armenian side, on Yerevan and Stepanakert.

Russia is familiar with such steps, military exercises are frequently conducted by the NATO and the European partners in the Russian border which have demonstrative, provocative character. I can say the Azerbaijani military exercises did not contribute to the improvement of the atmosphere of St. Petersburg meetings, he said.

On June 20 trilateral negotiations over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement were held with the participation of the Presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in St. Petersburg.

After the April four-day war, this was the second meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The first meeting was held on May 16 in Vienna.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. A decision was made to establish Viticulture and winemaking foundation in Armenia during the Armenian Governments session. Minister of Agriculture of Armenia Sergo Karapetyan said the Government will allocate 103 million 500 thousand AMD from the reserve fund for the establishment of the foundation.

This decision was made based on the necessity to strengthen the achievements in the fields of viticulture and winemaking and to ensure the further development process, Armenpress reports, the Minister said.

He said as a result of various huge works conducted in the fields of viticulture and grape alcohol production, significant developments were achieved in the restoration of grape production and winemaking. However, the analysis of the existing issues showed that there is a necessity to take steps aimed at improving the current situation and strengthen the opportunities for the development of these fields.

He said one of the reasons of such issues is that both the executive leadership and the unions of this field have not yet found the ways to improve the production quality, to expand the product types, to form a unified Armenian brand and to increase its popularity. However, these are the major driving factors that contribute to the sales growth, as well as the development of that field.

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said there are great expectations from this Foundation, works need to be done in order to increase the export of the field products. Similar foundation established in Georgia has achieved significant progress. Within 5 months it has exported nearly 25 million bottles of wine. We create this foundation based on these expectations, the Prime Minister said.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Minister-Chief of the Government Staff of Armenia Artur Sargsyan says the implementation of amendments on the Electoral Code, which were approved by the Armenian Government, requires 16 million USD investments. He stated that the amendments must be made until September 1. It is planned to bring also funds from the international structures.

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said little time has left until September 1.

Head of the Presidential Staff Vigen Sargsyan said the amendments are the result of exceptional agreement, and the state must be able to give solution to this issue. Except from the good will and huge effort, the implementation also requires financial package. The whole financing costs 16 million USD. The project can be done only when the following funds will exist. This is a really great burden for the state, Armenpress reports, he said.

The Prime Minister stated that they must wait until the Minister-Chief of the Governments Staff and the Justice Minister return from Strasburg, and after that, they will clarify the issue.

The Armenian Government approved the draft package on making amendments on the Electoral Code on June 23.
2000 - 2022   24 .-   .       focus-news.net,                 () .                  24 .                 24      .       .       24 .
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. Serbias airlines Air Serbia has resumed direct air links between Belgrade and New York, reports TASS.

"The dream has come true. We promised a while ago that we will do that although we knew that it would be hard to do, that all checks would have to be passed first and the airport must do a great deal, too," Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said at a special ceremony at the airport, as he and also Air Serbia CEO Dane Kondic and US ambassador to Belgrade Kyle Scott cut the red ribbon.

Vucic said he was very sorry he was unable to use that first flight himself, because the process of forming Serbias government was still in progress and it should be completed as soon as possible.

Among the 254 passengers of the first flight were Serbian celebrities, politicians, athletes and cultural workers.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. The 4th stage of negotiations between Armenia and EU on a new agreement was held June 21-22 in Brussels.

The Armenian delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Karen Nazaryan. Armenian Ambassador to the EU, EU Ambassador to Armenia, Armenian Foreign Ministry and EU officials were also taking part in the negotiations.

Provisions of political dialogue, reforms, justice and freedoms provisions of the draft agreement were discussed.

A plenary session was held in the end of the talks, during which the sides summarized the results of negotiations on political, sector cooperation, trade and investments.

The next stage of talks is scheduled to take place in autumn of 2016 in Yerevan.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. An unidentified person opened fire in a cinema of the German Viernheim city. Armenpress reports, citing BBC, 20-50 people are wounded. There is information that the person has taken hostages in the cinema. The Police have besieged the cinema house.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. German Police have arrested the gunman that opened fire in the cinema house in the city of Viernheim, Armenpress reports, Ria Novosti informs.

Earlier it had been reported that the gunman had taken hostages in the cinema house. According to Bild, the Police have not confirmed the information yet.

The armed man entered the cinema at 15:00 by local time. Witnesses heard shootings. The number of wounded is between 20-50.
NewLeaf Travel, Canadas latest entrant into the discount airfare seller market is back to wooing travellers with their $79 one-way base-level flights, after a turbulent few months.

Weve worked long and hard to get to this point and it looks like the Canadian public was patiently waiting for us, NewLeaf CEO and president Jim Young told Yahoo Canada Finance. Were selling tickets as we speak, in fact the demand is above expectations as of this moment and were only about two hours into it.

The Winnipeg-based company, which sells flights operated by partner Flair Airlines to Halifax, Moncton, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Kelowna, Kamloops, Fort St. John, Abbotsford and Victoria, is planning to be sky-bound on July 25.

NewLeaf hit its first snag in January this year when it started selling flights scheduled for mid-February. About ten days later, passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs expressed some concerns over whether or not NewLeaf needed a license to operate flights. The Canadian Transportation Agency had yet to rule on whether or not NewLeaf  which was considered an indirect air service provider at the time needed a license.

This entire controversy was creating a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt in the marketplace and we did not want to leave our customers in any kind of ambiguous situation, says Young. So the company suspended sales and refunded customers.

By the end of March, the CTA decided NewLeaf was a travel company and didnt need a license given that Flair was the licensed airline.



This week, NewLeaf re-entered the market as a travel company, a new spin on the ultra low cost carrier model that has a well-documented history of failure in Canada. In principal, past and now-defunct players like JetsGo, Zoom Airways and Roots Air have all used similar strategies to snatch market share away from dominant players Air Canada and WestJet by offering no frills service  a seat and a seatbelt  with travellers paying for add-ons like luggage and meals.

Story continues

But NewLeaf is hoping to break what Young calls an airline duopoly by flying out of airports outside of big international centres where rent and fees are a less expensive and driving more competitive pricing in the airfare marketplace.

Youve got absolute price coordination, youve got absolute schedule coordination  you need a third player in the marketplace to bring competition, meaningful competition, he says. Weve given a lot of thought to our business plan and we believe theres room in the market for someone like us.

When pressed about the legacy of failure, Young says hes not too concerned.

I have no fear of failure, this is a model thats well-tested in the marketplace, says Young. Were the only G20 country without an ultra low cost airline or airline model.


By Ralf Banser VIERNHEIM, Germany (Reuters) - A masked gunman took hostages at a cinema in western Germany on Thursday before police stormed the complex and shot him dead, police said. No other people were injured, a police spokesman said. The attacker, who carried a rifle or "long gun", acted alone and appeared to be a "disturbed man", the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament. Police have not identified the man or established his motive, spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that nothing immediately pointed to him having a militant background. German television showed pictures of heavily-armed police, wearing helmets and body armour, storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, south of Frankfurt, and a couple fleeing the building. Cinema employee Guri Blakaj told Reuters the gunman, who was aged about 18 to 25 and about 1.7 metres tall, entered the cinema at around 3 p.m. and told workers to go into an office. He then went into a cinema theatre. Blakaj, who said there were about six staff and 30 cinemagoers in the building, then heard shots fired. Police special forces stormed the building and shot the gunman. The identity and motive of the attacker remained unclear. A police spokesman said investigators found no identification documents with him. There was still a heavy police presence at the scene into the late evening, and a helicopter circled overhead for several hours. Some 300 police officers and special forces were involved in the operation. U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed about the hostage situation at the cinema, the White House said. Spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters U.S. officials were in contact with their German counterparts, but had no details. (Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber, Madeline Chambers, Sabine Siebold and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Andrew Roche)
A Volkswagen Golf car is loaded in a delivery tower at the plant of German carmaker in Wolfsburg, Germany, April 28, 2016. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch (Reuters)

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) - German investors' association DSW said on Thursday it was going to court to push for an independent investigation of the diesel emissions test-rigging scandal at Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE>.

DSW said in a statement it was still convinced that such an investigation was the right tool for clearing up the scandal, even after its motion for a probe was voted down at VW's annual shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.

"That is why we will now enforce a special investigation in court," DSW President Ulrich Hocker said in the statement.

DSW has been pushing for an independent investigation to determine whether the 16.2 billion euros ($18.45 billion) of provisions VW set aside last year will cover the costs of the scandal and to determine if control mechanisms at the carmaker have been improved to ensure that such deliberate manipulations will not happen again.

Shareholder advisory firm Hermes EOS has also called for an external investigator to review corporate governance at VW, which is controlled by its founding Porsche and Piech families, VW's home state of Lower Saxony and the Gulf state of Qatar.

Hermes EOS, which represents large institutional investors, also wants more independent representatives on VW's 20-member supervisory board. VW on Thursday had no comment on the DSW investor group's move.

"A special investigation did not achieve the necessary majority at the shareholder meeting," a company spokesman said. "Beyond this we have nothing to say."

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Arno Schuetze and Jane Merriman)
By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is likely to deploy advanced nuclear-capable missiles in its European exclave of Kaliningrad by 2019, casting the move as a reply to a U.S.-backed missile shield, and may one day put them in Crimea too, sources close to its military predict. That would fuel what is already the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War and put a swathe of territory in NATO members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the cross-hairs. Russia would probably have deployed the missile -- called the Iskander, the Persian name for Alexander the Great -- in Kaliningrad regardless, and the targets it will cover can be struck by longer-range Russian missiles anyway. But Russian and Western experts say the U.S.-backed shield, which Moscow says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear capabilities, gives the Kremlin the political cover it needs to justify something it was planning all along. "The Russians plan to do a lot of things they have had in train for some time," said Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "There's a long history in Moscow of saying what they're doing is in response to what you guys did, even though they planned it in advance." NATO is holding a summit in Warsaw next month to decide how best to deter Russia after Moscow's lightning annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. The United States, Britain and Germany have said they will command new battalions in Poland and the Baltics to send Moscow a message. The summit may prompt Russia to announce counter-measures, but sources close to the Russian military believe Moscow will wait until a planned Polish missile defense site opens in late 2018 to unveil a more serious response. The Kremlin has often threatened to put nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles in Kaliningrad, a slice of Russia wedged between Poland and Lithuania, as a riposte to the shield, part of which went online in Romania last month. But it has kept the West guessing about its real intentions. 'INEVITABLE' DEPLOYMENT Mikhail Barabanov, a senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), which advises the Russian Defence Ministry, said it now looked like the Kremlin would deploy them there permanently by 2019. "By all accounts, the deployment of the Iskanders in Kaliningrad Region is now inevitable," Barabanov told Reuters, saying the missile brigade currently stationed there was using older shorter-range Tochka-U missiles slated for replacement. The Iskander, a mobile ballistic missile system codenamed SS-26 Stone by NATO, replaced the Soviet Scud missile. Its two guided missiles have a range of up to 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) and can carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. Russia has twice deployed Iskanders to Kaliningrad on exercises only to reportedly later withdraw them. U.S. military officials say the U.S.-backed shield which Russia objects to is not aimed at countering a possible Russian threat, but at shooting down missiles from what it describes as rogue states like Iran. Russia says it simply doesn't believe that explanation. After the United States switched on the Romanian part of the shield, President Vladimir Putin warned Romania and Poland could find themselves targeted by Russian missiles. "There's a very high chance Iskanders will be deployed in Kaliningrad," Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow, told Reuters. "But the Iskanders are our ace card in the standoff over missile defense and NATO's activity around our borders. We need to use it cleverly. There's a big game going on and we don't want to throw it away at the start. We'll play it when Russia needs it most politically." A marked reduction in East-West tensions might prompt Russia to think twice about the deployment, he said. Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador, said it was "a matter of time" before the Iskanders showed up in Kaliningrad regardless. "Kaliningrad is worrisome," he said. "If you have that range of missile there you cover not only all the Baltics but probably about two thirds of Poland." Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said Moscow reserves the right to deploy the Iskanders anywhere in Russia and other senior Russian military officials have said Kaliningrad will get the Iskanders in the next few years as part of a routine nationwide upgrade. But in the context of many similar threats that have not come to pass, Western experts are unsure if that is a bluff. Russian experts say it isn't. "I think the Kremlin will officially drag out the decision (on the Kaliningrad Iskanders) until 2018 or 2019 when the new Polish element of the (U.S.) missile shield will be activated and when the re-arming of other missile brigades throughout Russia with Iskanders is due to finish," said CAST's Barabanov. CRIMEA MOVE? The same missiles will probably be deployed in Crimea one day too, he said. Konovalov agreed that was a possibility, but said Russia's Black Sea Fleet was taking delivery of six new submarines armed with cruise missiles and might feel that was enough to counter the Romanian missile site for now. Some NATO officials privately believe Iskanders may already be in Kaliningrad; others reject that, saying they would have shown up on satellite imagery. Barabanov said the Iskanders, once deployed to Kaliningrad, would not be armed with nuclear warheads, which are stored in other parts of Russia, but could later be if necessary. "Deploying nuclear warheads in Kaliningrad would be a separate and serious phase of escalation," he said. Konovalov said arming the missiles with nuclear warheads would be a return to a full-scale Cold War, something he said nobody wanted. Russian officials have complained that the missile shield launcher systems deployed by the United States in Romania and planned for Poland could be used to fire cruise missiles as well as missile interceptor rockets. But experts say Moscow, despite its rhetoric, does not yet see the U.S. project as a serious threat. "Russian missile designers and the military are on record as saying that this system does not pose any threat to our missiles," Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based researcher with the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, told Reuters. "Their point is that while we don't necessarily worry about this we do worry where is this all going." Grigory Podnevolny of online Russian news portal Gosnovosti, a pro-Kremlin site which covers the government, said it would be "scary" when Russia put Iskanders into Kaliningrad and Crimea, but that it was the only way of making America listen. "It will probably only be when they see how serious the situation is that the Pentagon will want to sit down for talks," he wrote. "The Americans ... always need to stumble into a serious crisis before coming to their senses." (Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; editing by Peter Graff)
By Donna Owens BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Baltimore police officer Caesar Goodson Jr. on Thursday became the second officer cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who died of injuries sustained while in police custody. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams found Goodson, who is also black, not guilty of all criminal counts including second-degree "depraved heart" murder, the most serious accusation against any of the six officers charged in connection with Gray's death. The incident sparked a day of rioting and arson last year. The second verdict of not guilty makes it less likely prosecutors will succeed in convincing a judge or jury to convict the other officers, said Tim Maloney, a civil rights attorney with Joseph Greenwald & Laake. "This is what happens when you make charging decisions in the heat of a riot instead of reviewing evidence in the cool light of day," Maloney said. Gene Ryan, the head of Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police, praised the judge's decision and called on the State's Attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, to drop the cases against the other officers. Tessa Hill Aston, president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP civil rights group, was disappointed by the decision. "There has been no justice for Freddie Gray," she said. Mosby announced plans to charge the officers just four days after the rioting that followed Gray's death. Three officers are still awaiting trials, while a fourth, William Porter, saw his trial end with a hung jury in December. He is awaiting retrial. Goodson, 46, was the driver of a police transport van in which Gray broke his neck in April 2015. He had also faced three counts of manslaughter, and single counts of reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and misconduct in office. Attorneys for each side declined to comment following the ruling, citing a court gag order. 'COURT IS SATISFIED' Goodson, a soft-spoken man who was visibly nervous during the proceedings, smiled upon hearing the verdict. "This court is satisfied the state has failed to show" evidence of the crimes, Williams said. Goodson, a 16-year veteran of the force, had waived his right to a jury trial, choosing to have the judge determine his fate. Gray's death came at a time of fierce national debate over the use of lethal force by police - especially against unarmed black men amid questionable deaths in New York, Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri. The deaths and ensuing protests gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Prosecutors contended Goodson gave Gray a "rough ride," failed to ensure his safety and should have called a medic. "That is an inflammatory term ... that when uttered is not to be taken lightly," said Williams. Goodson's defense team argued that Gray caused his own injuries by falling inside the transport van. Goodson also lacked the training to recognize that Gray was hurt, they said. Gray, 25, was arrested after fleeing police officers in a high-crime area. He was shackled and then bundled into Goodson's van and not secured with a seat belt inside the vehicle. The Gray family's lawyer, Billy Murphy, told a news conference: "This family is enormously frustrated, not just for themselves, but for the community." Gray's mother, Gloria Darden, looked stricken and dabbed her eyes, but did not speak. Baltimore agreed last year to pay the family $6.4 million in a settlement. Several dozen protesters were gathered outside the courthouse, chanting "Justice for Freddie Gray." (Writing by Ian Simpson and Scott Malone; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, G Crosse)
By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Patpicha Tanakasempipat MAHACHAI, Thailand (Reuters) - Hundreds of migrants from Myanmar on Thursday gave Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi a thunderous welcome on her first visit to neighboring Thailand since her National League for Democracy swept to election victory in November. Thailand is home to between two million and three million migrant workers from Myanmar, many of whom do back-breaking jobs most Thais are unwilling to do. Suu Kyi's visit has prompted renewed calls for better protection for the workers, who are vulnerable to abuse, rights groups say. "We hope she will pressure the Thai government to have sympathy for us," said Ma Kout Shwe, a Myanmar steel-factory worker in the crowd at the Talay Thai market in Mahachai, a fishing port just west of Bangkok, the capital. Suu Kyi and Thai junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha will sign a pact on Friday to help Myanmar migrants work legally in Thailand, according to a Thai government document distributed before the visit. Many of the workers are undocumented. Their enthusiasm undimmed by the rain, the crowd chanted "Mother Suu" after Suu Kyi, dressed in a traditional blue dress, met workers and responded to questions. In Mahachai, migrants man the fishing boats and work in seafood processing plants. Thailand is one of the world's top seafood suppliers, but the industry's reputation has been tarnished by instances of human trafficking and forced labor. The three-day visit to Thailand is Suu Kyi's second official trip abroad since the NLD government took office on March 30. It will see the first meeting of the democracy icon and members of the Thai military government that seized power in a bloodless May 2014 coup. She is visiting in her official capacity as state counselor, a position created for her, and as foreign minister. The Thai junta has been jittery over the visit. A press conference in Bangkok on the plight of Myanmar's 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya minority ended abruptly on Thursday after the Thai authorities put pressure on the human rights groups that organized it. Suu Kyi has been criticized overseas, and by some in Myanmar, for saying little about the abuses faced by the Rohingya, who live in apartheid-like conditions and are seen by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. (Additional reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Juarawee Kittisilpa; Editing by Simon Webb and Nick Macfie)
BOSTON, June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the National Park Service turns 100 this summer, millions of Americans and thousands of Road Scholars are hitting the road to enjoy the splendor and beauty of hundreds of national parks located in every state, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

National Parks have always been a popular destination for Road Scholar participants. From the largest  Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Arkansas, to the smallest  Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvaniathere is a national park to satisfy the desires of anyone interested in experiencing nature up close and personal.

"As summer begins, heralding peak travel season across the country, we can all be grateful for the extraordinary treasure of America's national parks," said James Moses, President and CEO of Road Scholar. "While there is so much to learn about and see in small towns and big cities across the U.S., discovering America's national parks is an enriching adventure for everyone to experience the natural beauty, view the truly incredible landscapes, and learn about the geology and wildlife of North America."

Road Scholar's National Parks programs include:

Keys and Everglades: Human and Natural History Outdoor Studies

www.roadscholar.org/2801

This extraordinary adventure explores the Florida Keys, its protected islands, coral reefs and cultural heritage. This program offers small, personal experiences with groups of 10-24 participants.

Heart of the winter in Yellowstone

www.roadscholar.org/21771

Witness snow-dusted Buffalo, boiling geysers and all the wonders of Yellowstone National Park cloaked in its winter glory.

Hawaii's National Parks: Exploring Four Islands from Volcanoes to Pearl Harbor

www.roadscholar.org/2810

Join park rangers and historians on an exploration of Hawaii's mythology, unique island ecology, natural monuments and sacred sites.

The Best of Utah's Grand Circle of Parks and Monuments

www.roadscholar.org/2814

Visit some of the most impressive geological formations in the world with experts. Sail Lake Powell and learn about Navajo culture. Dates available in 2017 only.

To learn more about all of the National Parks programs that Road Scholar offers, please visit

https://www.roadscholar.org/collections/national-parks-travel-facts/

About Road Scholar

Road Scholar is the nation's largest educational travel organization for adults. The not-for-profit offers 5,500 extraordinary educational adventures in 150 countries and 50 states for individuals dedicated to lifelong learning. Road Scholars are immersed in a variety of experiential learning activities, enlisting world-renowned faculty and local experts who offer insider access not available to most individuals. Dedicated to making educational travel available to everyone, Road Scholar offers financial assistance for those who otherwise could not participate in its programs.

Road Scholar educational adventures are created by Elderhostel, the not-for-profit world leader in lifelong learning since 1975. To learn more, please visit our new website at www.roadscholar.org/press.
SAN DIEGO, June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SENTE, a privately held specialty aesthetics company pioneering the development of differentiated medical grade skincare products based on the science of glycosaminoglycans, today announced the appointment of Virginia L. Vega, Ph.D. as Vice President Research & Development and Physician Education.



"We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Vega to the SENTE team", said Laurent Combredet, President and Chief Executive Officer of SENTE. Dr. Vega brings tremendous scientific expertise and credentials to our company during this exciting next phase of growth. Her track record of developing innovative and market disrupting skincare technologies is second to none.

Dr. Vega brings to SENTE over 20 years in molecular and cellular biology and physiology research experience in both academia and the skin care industry. Most recently, Dr. Vega was Research Investigator, Director Skin Biology Laboratories and Scientific Communications for SkinMedica, an Allergan company, where she led all aspects of product conceptualization and development as well as external collaborations with skin care and anti-aging experts. Dr. Vega also played a critical role scientifically positioning new products with physicians and media outlets. Previous to SkinMedica, Dr. Vega was Assistant Adjunct Professor at the University of California San Diego Medical School. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Vega holds a Ph.D., Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Concepcion, Chile.

"I am excited and honored to have the opportunity to lead SENTEs research & development and physician education team said Virginia Vega, Vice President Research & Development and Physician Education. SENTEs proprietary technology brings the new millennium approach to the old anti-aging dilemma. I am looking forward to further developing this technology and ultimately producing a physician skin care line like no other.

About SENTE:

SENTE is a privately held specialty aesthetics company leveraging its expertise and foundation in biotechnology to deliver novel, science-based skin care products. SENTE is a recognized leader in the development of innovative and targeted medical skincare products based on glycosaminoglycans. Founded in 2007 and based in San Diego, California, further information may be found at http://sentelabs.com/. SENTE products are available through its exclusive network of physicians and medically supervised spas.
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
Mark Russinovich Demos New Docker Datacenter for Azure

Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich appeared on stage today at the annual DockerCon conference in Seattle where he demonstrated the new Docker Datacenter (DDC) hybrid cloud development and management platform with nodes connected to the Azure public cloud as well as with the company's forthcoming Azure Stack hybrid cloud environment. Also running on the Azure Stack node was the first-ever public demonstration of SQL Server for Linux.

The appearance and demo by Russinovich, his second at a DockerCon in as many years, showcased progress on a number of fronts by Microsoft to embrace Docker containers, an effort kicked off merely two years ago. While Microsoft's Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview now supports Docker containers and Hyper-V Containers, the focus of today's demonstration was on the new DDC platform, announced in February and released yesterday for use in the Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure clouds.

Available in both companies' respective cloud marketplaces, DDC is designed to allow enterprises and service providers to deploy containers as a service either on-premises or in a virtual private cloud, providing a managed and secure environment that allows developers to build and deploy self-service applications. The DDC includes Docker's Universal Control Plane embedded with the Swarm native clustering tool, Trusted Registry (DTR) 1.4.3 that provides Docker image management, security and an environment for collaboration and the most recent version of the Docker engine runtime.

"Our focus is on getting containers ready for the enterprise and addressing enterprise needs when it comes to running containers in production," Russinovich said as he began his demo, where he clicked on DDC in the Azure Marketplace, which launched an Azure Resource Manager template that initiated a form-filled process. "Within a few minutes, I can get a highly available first class Docker Datacenter cluster up and running up in Azure," he said.

For high availability, he said, at least three controller nodes were needed and he also used eight Docker Swarm cluster nodes. Russinovich also showcased the Docker Trusted Registry running 68 container images for a voting app container where he demonstrated the building of results containers, which also used a worker container to process them. A bug in the code briefly stalled the demonstration.

Russinovich also showcased that DDC is deeply integrated with various services including the Azure Load Balancer, allowing for the voting and results apps to be on the nodes connected to it. He then showed the one different node called "local Linux" that had a different subnet address than the other nodes. That node was the Azure Stack server running the SQL Server for Linux database instance. Running on a Ubuntu Linux server, Russinovich said it was the first public demonstration of SQL Server for Linux, which the company revealed in March and in private previews. Those with the private previews can access SQL Server for Linux on Ubuntu as Docker images.

"This is essentially Azure on your own hardware in your own datacenter," he said. "Azure Stack includes the infrastructure services of public Azure, some of the platform services as well as the portal and the API surface that matches public Azure. So we get this consistent experience going from public Azure to on-premises. What we've got here is a hybrid Docker Datacenter Cluster that spans on-prem to public Azure. The VMs on this server are connected to public Azure using site-to-site virtual private network for secure connection between these nodes that are on the back end as well as the nodes that are on the front end."

Russinovich also demonstrated the ability to monitor the containers using Microsoft's Operations Management Center service, where an administrator could see different views of the 68 containers running across the production servers.

"What you're seeing for the first time here, and this is kind of mind blowing, Microsoft's SQL Server, running on Linux in a Docker container, on Azure Stack in a Swarm cluster that's hybrid and being managed by Docker Data Center, running up in public Azure."
Switzerland's BSI bank said Thursday that it has appealed a ruling ordering its dissolution over links to a corruption scandal engulfing Malaysia.

The appeal filed in Swiss Federal Administrative Court seeks to overturn a May 23 decision by banking supervisor FINMA which found BSI in breach of money laundering regulations with the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.

"BSI believes that FINMA's procedure leading to the decision was flawed in many respects and FINMA's decision as such is disproportionate and incorrect," the Lugano-based bank said in a statement.

BSI said it had been fully transparent about its relations with 1MDB over the past year.

"Where deficiencies have been recognised, BSI has taken, and continues to take corrective measures," it added, conceding "certain internal shortcomings in the past."

FINMA approved BSI's takeover by Zurich-based private banking group EFG International on the condition that BSI is integrated "and thereafter dissolved" within 12 months.

It ordered the seizure of 95 million Swiss francs (86 million euros/$96 million) of BSI's "illegally generated" profits.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has battled allegations that billions were looted from 1MDB in a vast campaign of fraud and embezzlement stretching from the Middle East to the Caymans.

The manner in which FINMA publicly linked BSI to that alleged fraud "was wholly inappropriate," the bank said, vowing to challenge the supervisor's version of the facts.

FINMA specifically accused BSI of failing to identify possible money-laundering over a four-year period until April 2015, especially when dealing with "politically exposed persons" whose dubious transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars were not satisfactorily scrutinised.
Mobile Learning

D2L Releases Summer16 Edition of Brightspace

Desire2Learn, or D2L, today launched the Summer16 release of Brightspace, its popular cloud-based learning management system, with a new user interface optimized for mobile devices.

Constructed with a responsive design, Brightspace now works across smartphones, tablets and desktop browsers, making it easy to use for a student population that is increasingly accessing the Internet via phone and tablet. The release also includes smarter analytics, searchable video, and social and game-based learning on any device, D2L said in a statement.

Integrating experiences between desktop and mobile is increasingly important, as 87 percent of millennials said in a Zogby Analytics study that their smartphones never leave their side. However, according to another recent study, mobile technology in learning is not as widespread as the use of mobile devices themselves. Only 50 percent of students claim they complete schoolwork daily from smartphones or tablets, despite the proliferation of these devices. Many families remain underconnected, the Educause report said.

A report by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop stated that nine out of 10 low-income families have mobile-only access to the Internet, severely limiting students ability to do coursework at home.

We are learning more about the importance of learners to consume on technology they are using. Information needs to be available on a mobile device, said D2L chief marketing officer Renny Monaghan in an interview. Today, technology is changing the way learners want to learn.

Here are some highlights of Brightspace Summer16:

New user experience: The Brightspace Daylight Experience is the new look and feel for the LMS, built with a responsive web design so Brightspace can be used on any device. The layout, fonts, icons, navigation and web design have been updated.

Video: Brightspace Capture is now tightly integrated with Brightspace Learning Environment, making it easier for instructors to create and add captured videos for learners to find and watch. Support for HTML5 means captured video can be viewed on any device and delivered with high quality.

Gamificiation: The new Course Adventure Pack takes creating interactive and personalized learning to a new level, D2L said, including a game-based learning service, dynamic story builder service, interactive assessment tools and consultation from D2Ls team of experts.

Learning Analytics: The User Progress tool provides timely information on how students are progressing through a course and how they are accessing it, as well as their content download metrics. A new Class Engagement Dashboard is a class list with interactive data that enables instructors to filter, sort and search student activity, progress and achievement. The dashboard can also predict scores, if enabled. A new Data Hub has been added.

Administrative: Summer16 incorporates streamlined workflows, Microsoft Outlook integration with Brightspace Capture, a teaching and learning certificate program to enhance Brightspace skills and improved eCollege course import capabilities.

We want to build products that our customers love, Monaghan said. More than 25 percent of the features in Summer16 came directly from customer feedback.

D2L will be at ISTE 2016 in Denver, June 26-29. The company's booth will be No. 3721. To learn more about Brightspace, visit the Brightspace Learning Environment website.
Professional Development

Greene County School Teachers Practice CBL for Their PD

A Tennessee school district will be issuing digital badges to its teachers to recognize their professional learning achievements. Greene County Schools is working with BloomBoard, a company with a platform that brings together professional development resources with micro-credentialing to provide competency-based learning for teachers. Micro-credentials are digital certifications that allow a person to show competency in a specific skill set.

BloomBoard works with non-profit Digital Promise, which has provided 150 different micro-credentials, issued by a number of organizations, including itself. Topics cover blended learning, checking for understanding, STEM teaching practices, data literacy, deeper learning, SAMR and dozens of other education topics.

Each micro-credential has its own submission requirements. For example, "Communicating with Families Using Data," requires the teacher to submit two "distinct examples" showing how he or she communicates with families using data, including answers to questions in written reflections. The BloomBoard platform provides the application process but also recommends various forms of professional development, which it also sells and delivers through its site, that will help the teacher achieve the goal.

Experts on the site also offer curated collections of content on specific topics. Those are designed to support the individual learning needs of teachers and help them gain understanding and apply information about a specific problem of practice.

According to the company, 550 educators at Greene County will be using its professional learning program. A core group of "learning leaders" will form and lead professional learning communities (PLCs) to address the specific development needs of groups of teachers. Those PLCs will be hosted through the BloomBoard platform, allowing people to meet with each other in private, virtual meetings.

"We selected BloomBoard because of its unique ability to support our shift to a teacher-centered, teacher-driven model of professional development," said Greene County Curriculum Supervisor Kristi Wallin, in a press release. "We are impressed with the quality of content available through BloomBoard, as well as the diverse library of micro-credentials that help teachers align their interests with their personal growth, and put them in control of their professional learning."
Conference Coverage

Visionaries: A Spotlight on ISTE 2016 Keynote Speakers

This year's conference will feature three keynote presentations focusing on topics ranging from STEM to social justice to innovative teaching practices.

The Colorado Convention Center in Denver is hosting this year's ISTE conference, June 2629. Arina P Habich / Shutterstock.com

The term "keynote" comes from music and designates the note or tone on which the set of tones is founded. It forms the basis of a music composition. Eventually, that definition evolved to mean the main idea or central principle of a speech. Now we simply use it to denote the speakers at an event that everybody in attendance is supposed to listen to. But the modern meaning doesn't do justice to this year's ISTE 2016 keynoters, who will, indeed, set a tone for what else is planned to take place during the event in Denver, officially starting Sunday, June 26.

Sunday with Dr. Kaku

On Sunday evening, futurist and physicist Michio Kaku ends the first day of the event by examining the technologies that peek inside the human brain. Kaku is an interesting choice to kick off an annual conference for the International Society for Technology in Education. After all, he's the author and television personality who, in a panel discussion in January, stated that the "United States has the worst education system known to science," noting that "our graduates compete regularly at the level of third-world countries."

Why doesn't the STEM establishment collapse as a result, you might ask? In the same panel Kaku pointed to "America's secret weapon"  the H-1B visa, which allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialized jobs temporarily. Without the H-1B program, he declared, "the scientific establishment of this country would collapse. Forget about Google. Forget about Silicon Valley. There would be no Silicon Valley."

THE Journal will be tuning in to Kaku's ISTE keynote to find out whether he makes any recommendations for improving education in this country besides continuing to import talent for the jobs of the future.

If you'd like to meet Kaku in person, those willing to attend the keynote at an onsite "satellite location" will get the chance to have their books signed by the futurist and receive a behind-the-scenes virtual tour, delivered by ISTE chair elect Mila Thomas Fuller. Pre-registration is required.

Tuesday with Dr. Ruha Benjamin

Ruha Benjamin is a faculty member in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. But that description minimizes the disciplines her research crosses: science, medicine, and biotechnology; race-ethnicity and gender; and biopolitics and the sociology of knowledge.

Benjamin's most recent book, People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier, explores a favorite topic  the tension that exists between scientific innovation and social equality. As she noted in the book, even as many in the United States resist the concept of universal healthcare, the American health system often embraces the "socially marginalized" to serve as "test-subjects," for medical experimentation and then ignores their pleas when they can't afford new medicines and treatment regimes as patients.

In Tuesday's keynote Benjamin will share her ideas about innovation and equity as it applies to education.

Wednesday with Michelle Cordy

There are people in education who learn new things and apply them in the classroom. Then there are people like this third- and fourth-grade teacher who learn something new, apply it in the classroom and share what they've discovered with the rest of the world through social commentary.

Michelle Cordy teaches in the Thames Valley District in London, Ontario. Her class has a 1-to-1 program, and the learning  for students and for Cordy  never stops. For a long time, she maintained a blog, "Hack the Classroom," to document practices, lessons and ideas. What's it mean to "hack" a classroom? Cordy defines that as "devising ingenious solutions and overcoming obstacles," then sharing the results.

Although Cordy seems to be taking a break from blogging this year, her Twitter account is quite active. And when she's not testing out new apps with students or attending events with fellow .EDU hackers, she's pushing the boundaries of her own tech learning. Cordy is an Apple Distinguished Educator as well as a Google Certified Teacher. She also holds a master's of education in math and science.

Cordy's closing keynote will urge teachers to join her tribe (if in spirit only) and just try teaching differently to overcome obstacles  whatever they may be  in their own classrooms.
- First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and Ethiopia First Lady H.E. Roman Tesfaye bear a striking resemblance

- The two first ladies officiated several functions together on Thursday, June 23

- Ethiopia First Lady accompanied her husband H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia for a state visit in Kenya

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and First Lady Roman Tesfaye of Ethiopia bear a striking resemblance you will be forgiven to think the two are blood sisters.

The two first ladies who both wear short hair, have eye glasses, the same complexion and are of similar height.

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta with Ethiopian First Lady H.E. Roman Tesfaye at State House, Nairobi

Ethiopia's first lady was in the country with her husband H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia for a state visit.

The two first ladies officiated several functions together including the launch of the 43rd Beyond Zero mobile in Kirinyaga County.

Sample some of the pictures below showing the striking resemblance between the two.

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta received Ethiopian First Lady H.E. Roman Tesfaye at State House, Nairobi

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta with Ethiopian First Lady H.E. Roman Tesfaye at State House, Nairobi

READ MORE: Teenager dies before meeting Uhuru Kenyatta as promised by First Lady

President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta receive Ethiopian Prime Minister H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn and First Lady H.E. Roman Tesfaye at State House, Nairobi

The First Lady and H.E. Roman Tesfaye follow celebrations during the ceremony to hand over the 43rd Beyond Zero mobile clinic to Kirinyaga County.

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and H.E. Roman Tesfaye are welcomed to Wang'uru Stadium, Kirinyaga County

First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and H.E. Roman Tesfaye are welcomed to Wang'uru Stadium

The First Lady and H.E. Roman Tesfaye visit the exhibition stands during the launch of the 43rd Beyond Zero mobile clinic in Kirinyaga County.

READ ALSO: Photo: Margaret Kenyatta visits site where Jesus is believed to have walked

The First Lady and H.E. Roman Tesfaye follow celebrations during the ceremony to hand over the 43rd Beyond Zero mobile clinic to Kirinyaga County.

Kenya and Ethiopia on Thursday, June 23, engaged in bilateral discussions and formally inaugurated National bi-lateral commission between the two countries.

Images: Office of the First Lady Kenya/Facebook

Source: TUKO.co.ke
* Egypt introducing high-speed mobile service

* Licenses offered to mobile operators, landline monopoly

* 4G part of plan to reform telecoms sector, end monopoly

* Telecom Egypt will not have to sell Vodafone stake (Recasts with minister's comments)

By Ehab Farouk

CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - Egypt said on Thursday it will offer fourth-generation mobile licences in an international auction if they are not taken up by carriers already operating in the country.

The sale of 4G licences is part of a long-awaited plan to reform Egyptian telecoms and the regulator has approached the three companies currently offering mobile services - Orange (LSE: 0OQV.L - news) Egypt, Vodafone Egypt, and Etisalat about buying them.

Egypt's government will finalise technical negotiations with telecoms groups over the licences next week and start financial negotiations the week after, Communications and Information Technology Minister Yasser al-Kadi told Reuters.

"If any of the companies say they don't want the 4G licence we will offer it in an international auction," he said.

The reforms will enable landline monopoly Telecom Egypt to enter the mobile phone market directly, while allowing the mobile operators to offer fixed line services, ending Telecom Egypt's domination of the sector.

Telecom Egypt will not be required to sell its stake in Vodafone Egypt but will eventually dispose of it when it gets a good offer, telecommunication sources told Reuters.

The state-owned company owns a 45 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt but hopes to offer mobile phone services itself following the introduction of high-speed 4G technology.

Telecom Egypt said earlier this week it was studying the terms in detail ahead of applying for the 4G licence.

Egypt said in 2014 when it laid out the 4G plan that Telecom Egypt would be allowed to offer mobile services if it paid 2.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($282 million) and sold its Vodafone stake within a year of offering the services.

The government says a unified licence will put all four telecoms companies on an equal footing and end a monopoly, it also hopes to collect a total of 22.3 billion Egyptian pounds from licence fees, which will be collected in a lump sum and not over instalments, Kadi said.

All four companies have to submit applications for the licence by the first week of August. The mobile operators will also be able to apply for landline and international gateway licences. ($1 = 8.8799 Egyptian pounds) (Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Mark Potter and Alexander Smith)
DGAP-News: AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH / Key word(s): Scientific publication





The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



Two Recent Publications on Pritelivir Confirm the Potency of the Novel AiCuris Anti-Herpes Simplex Virus Drug Clinical data published in the peer-reviewed "Journal of Infectious Diseases" showed no evidence of resistance in HSV-2 sequences obtained from genital swabs collected during a phase II trial

Pritelivir clinical phase II data were used for the development of a mathematical model to optimize dose selection for clinical trials published in the renowned journal "Science Translational Medicine" Wuppertal, Germany, June 23, 2016 - AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH, a leading company in the discovery and development of drugs against infectious diseases, announced today the publication of results assessing molecular signals of drug resistance over 28 days of therapy; this was a secondary objective from a recent phase II dose finding study with pritelivir. The peer-reviewed article titled: "No evidence of resistance of HSV-2 to pritelivir following four weeks of daily therapy" was prepared in collaboration with Dr. Paul Edlefsen and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA, and will be published in the July issue of "The Journal of Infectious Diseases". Pritelivir belongs to a new class of antiviral compounds, the helicase-primase inhibitors, being developed to treat herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) infections. Oral pritelivir has successfully completed a phase II clinical trial in 156 participants with genital HSV-2 infections showing reduced viral shedding and genital lesions. The mentioned peer-reviewed article reports the results of a secondary objective of this clinical study. It specifically assesses the emergence of mutations consistent with helicase-primase inhibitor resistance in people receiving pritelivir for daily treatment of genital HSV-2 infections, even at suboptimal doses. Importantly, no changes in HSV-2 sequence occurred during treatment in the individual patients and no emergence of resistance mediating mutations was observed. Overall, only few mutations relative to the consensus sequence were found and these observed variations were considered to be reflective of pre-existing HSV-2 diversity among the trial participants. Link to published article:

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/07/infdis.jiw129.abstract "The prevalence of HSV-2 infections in the general population ranges from 10% to 60% worldwide. HSV-2 infections can lead to genital herpes, which typically causes painful ulcers. Infections can also be unrecognized, meaning that infected individuals, with or without symptoms, can shed HSV and so can infect sexual partners," said Dr. Holger Zimmermann, CEO of AiCuris. "These publications show, once again, that pritelivir is proving to be an exceptional approach to herpes treatment. With its novel mode of action and no evidence of resistance to pritelivir, we are confident that this small molecule therapy could become an important option to treat HSV infections," he added. Using data from the same clinical phase II dose finding trial, the renowned journal "Science Translational Medicine" published an article in February 2016 titled "Mathematical modeling of herpes simplex virus-2 suppression with pritelivir predicts trial outcomes." In this article, again in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as well as with ICPD (Institute for Clinical Pharmacodynamics, Latham, New York, USA), Dr. Joshua Schiffer et al. introduced a mathematical model to optimize dose selection for clinical trials by combining for the first time population pharmacokinetics with a previously established model of viral pathogenesis in genital HSV infection to simulate the efficacy of a compound. The mathematical simulation was able to model viral shedding kinetics in the five treatment groups and thus to predict the trial outcome. Moreover, it confirmed that based on its innovative mode of action and its long half-live, pritelivir can effectively and dose-dependently decrease viral replication by decreasing shedding episode frequency, duration, and viral load. In addition, the model indicates that besides inhibiting replication in epithelial cells, pritelivir seems also to inhibit the virus directly in the neuron. Link to published article: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/324/324ra15. About Pritelivir

Pritelivir is an innovative, highly active and specific inhibitor of herpes simplex virus (HSV). As a compound derived from a novel chemical class (thiazolylamides), pritelivir is active against both types of herpes simplex virus (HSV-1 and HSV-2) causing labial and genital herpes, respectively, and retains activity against viruses which have become resistant to marketed drugs. Pritelivir has a mode of action that is distinct from other antiviral agents currently in use for treating HSV infections (i.e., the nucleoside analogues acyclovir and its prodrug valacyclovir as well as famciclovir, the prodrug of penciclovir). Whereas nucleoside analogs terminate ongoing DNA chain elongation through inhibition of viral DNA polymerase, pritelivir prevents de novo synthesis of virus DNA through inhibition of the helicase-primase complex. In addition, it does not require activation within an HSV infected cell by viral thymidine kinase and is therefore also protective to uninfected cells. Currently the company runs two clinical development programs with pritelivir. The most advanced program, pritelivir (oral), showed superiority against standard treatment valacyclovir in a clinical phase II trial in patients with genital HSV-2 infection. Pritelivir (topical), designed for the treatment of recurrent labial herpes (mainly HSV-1), just entered phase I clinical testing. About HSV

Herpes simplex viruses (HSV) are widespread in the human population (seroprevalence up to 100%, depending on geographic area and subpopulation), and are divided into herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2). Infections lead to lifelong persistence of the virus, with frequent and sometimes painful recurrences. While HSV-1 predominantly causes oral lesions (cold sores), HSV-2 manifests in the genital region and is mainly sexually transmitted. In immunocompromised patients, HSV can lead to serious complications. In the immune competent, the negative stigma associated with genital herpes and visible facial lesions might cause psychological distress. About AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH

AiCuris was founded in 2006 as a spin-off from Bayer and focuses on the discovery and development of drugs against infectious diseases. Majority investor is the SANTO Holding. The company is developing drugs for the treatment of viruses such as human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), herpes simplex virus (HSV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and adenoviruses. In the field of antibacterials, AiCuris is concentrating on the search for innovative treatment options for life-threatening (multi)resistant hospital-treated pathogens. In 2012, AiCuris signed a license agreement with Merck & Co (MSD) which attracted significant attention being one of the largest agreements of this kind in the European biotech industry. The agreement covers the development of novel drug candidates against HCMV. Letermovir, the most advanced compound, is currently in phase III clinical trials in patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation.



Contact: Media Relations AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH MC Services AG Katja Woestenhemke Anne Hennecke Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 475/Geb. 302 Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 5 42117 Wuppertal 40545 Dusseldorf Phone +49 202 317 63 0 Phone +49 211 529 252 22 Fax +49 202 317 63 1601 Fax +49 211 529 252 29 Email business@aicuris.com Email anne.hennecke@mc-services.eu Web www.aicuris.com Web www.mc-services.eu

2016-06-23 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

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By Steve Slater

LONDON, June 22 (IFR) - Enter at your peril: investment banks are warning clients to beware of volatile and unpredictable markets at the end of this week around Britain's vote on whether to stay in the European Union.

Banks including HSBC, UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) , Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley (Xetra: 885836 - news) have sent notes to clients warning them of the perils of illiquid trading conditions, which could disrupt the level of execution, liquidity and pricing they offer.

"This is an important event which will most likely impact financial markets through increased price volatility or lower market liquidity," HSBC said in a memo to clients this week, seen by IFR.

"Given our previous experience of events with significant market impact, we are writing to our clients to alert you to the risk of disruption to services as a consequence of increased market illiquidity and volatility," the note said.

HSBC said clients who trade on electronic platforms could see the activation of safety features, which could affect execution.

UBS had a similar warning in a memo to clients,

"In the event that extreme market moves occur in an environment of limited liquidity, our principal spreads may widen for both electronic and voice trading, liquidity may reduce and prices may turn indicative (i.e., non-tradable) for periods of time," UBS said.

"In the event that extreme market moves occur, giving rise to limited liquidity in certain currencies, we may not be able to fill limit orders or take profit orders at the levels, or using the methodologies, expected in normally functioning markets," it said, adding it may adopt other approaches it deems appropriate and feasible.

Other banks expressed similar caution.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority refused to say if it had instructed firms to send out warnings to clients.

Banks are warning clients more regularly than in the past if they expect dramatic price moves, especially since huge swings in the Swiss franc in January 2015 led to conflicts between banks and their clients due to the absence of market prices for several minutes.

Story continues

Bankers said it was good housekeeping and reflected a push by regulators and banks for greater transparency and to try to head off any issues around conduct.

Britons vote on Thursday on whether to remain in the EU or leave. The latter, dubbed Brexit, could create some of the most volatile markets in London in decades, especially in currency markets but also in bonds, derivatives and equities, bankers have said.

Banks in London will be staffed overnight with traders, salespeople, economists and FX strategists, in addition to their regular 24-hour trading operations, given the potential for big swings as results emerge on the tight race.

Voting on Thursday will close at 10pm London time. Broadcasters are not conducting exit polls as the margin of error is deemed to be too large. The majority of the 382 local counting areas are expected to declare results between 2am and 4am.

Banks including ING and Societe Generale (Swiss: 519928.SW - news) have also sent warning memos to clients, but it is not just European banks on their guard.

Bank of America (Swiss: BAC.SW - news) warned clients of possible delays to their trades and temporary suspensions if markets are volatile.

Morgan Stanley asked clients to tell them about proposed changes to their limits for cash and derivatives by the start of the trading day on Wednesday. (Reporting by Steve Slater)
ABU DHABI (Reuters) - State-owned Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has concluded its feasibility study on development of its Guinea bauxite mine and will press ahead with construction, the company said on Wednesday. The mine, which is slated to begin operating in 2018, will help to secure supply of the aluminium ore for EGA's primary production facilities in the United Arab Emirates, with some of the bauxite to be exported to Asia, a company statement said. Once up and running the mine is expected to produce 12 million tonnes of bauxite a year. EGA's owners signed a $5 billion agreement with Guinea in 2013 to develop the West African project. (Reporting By Maha El Dahan; Editing by David Goodman)
* Rough gas storage in outage until Aug. 3

* British EU referendum closely watched

* Dutch decision on Groningen expected on Friday

June 23 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices fell on Thursday morning due to an outage at Rough gas storage site which will reduce the amount of gas which can be injected into storage over the summer and as the country went to the polls in a referendum on EU membership.

Gas for immediate delivery fell by 0.40 pence to 33.50 pence per therm by 0941 GMT, while the day-ahead contract lost 0.95 pence to 33.75 pence/therm.

On Wednesday, operator Centrica Storage Limited announced that its Rough gas storage facility would shut down for 42 days (until Aug. 3) while additional tests on a well were carried out.

As a result, all withdrawal and injection activities have ceased, CSL (Other OTC: CMXHF - news) said.

This means Britain might go into the winter with record low gas inventories because traders are not able to inject gas into storage until August.

Traders said injections into Rough have fallen to zero as expected and flows through the Langeled pipeline from Norway have also fallen, leaving the system just balanced.

Further along the curve, the contract for gas delivery next month, was at 33.50 pence/therm, 0.5 pence down, while the next-winter contract eased by 0.1 pence to 43.45 pence/therm.

Traders are also closely watching the results of a British referendum on Thursday on whether to stay in or leave the EU.

If the referendum's result is to remain in the EU, the pound will likely rise against the euro which would be bearish for British gas prices.

Oil prices were up slightly on Thursday, shrugging off a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . stockpiles, as the market nervously awaited the result of Britain's vote.

In the Netherlands, the day-ahead gas price at the TTF hub rose 0.08 euro/MWh or 0.53 percent at 15.13 euros/MWh.

The Dutch government is expected to decide on Friday on gas production levels at its Groningen field after October 1, currently capped at 27 billion cubic metres (bcm).

In the European carbon market, front-year EU allowances eased 0.09 euro to 5.60 euros a tonne.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Nina Chestney)
We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
There has been a significant increase in the number of GP-led transactions reviewed by LPs over the past 12 months, according to a study by Capstone Partners focused on GP-led Secondaries.
Campus News

Envisioning a new city center

By RACHEL TEAMAN

The 48-hour urban planning challenge was part of a laboratory practicum led by Daniel B. Hess, UB associate professor of urban and regional planning. Hess is currently a visiting Marie Skodowska-Curie fellow in the Centre for Urban and Migration Studies at the University of Tartu, the top university in Estonia. Two students in Tartus Department of Geography were joined by visiting students from UB and Alfred State College to develop new schemes for redeveloping Tartu city center.

Imagine redesigning a city in only two days. Thats exactly what some UB students did recently as part of a summer study abroad program in Estonia.

Students sought to enhance public space on the east side of the Kaarsild pedestrian bridge by trimming trees, enhancing lighting and adding a small amphitheater.

Students sought to enhance public space on the east side of the Kaarsild pedestrian bridge by trimming trees, enhancing lighting and adding a small amphitheater.

Focusing on Tartus town square and nearby locations, the students began by identifying problems in the built environment, including limited access to the banks of the Emajogi River, an overburdened Kaarsild pedestrian bridge connecting the east and west sides of the river, incomplete bicycle networks and a lack of greenery in the town square. The students then set about re-conceptualizing the workings of various parts of this section of the city center.

At the end of the assignment, the students presented their results to Tartu officials.

The purpose of the exercise is to generate new ideas for Tartu, Hess says, while giving students the experience of working at a fast pace and in a dynamic environment.

The teams were interdisciplinary, featuring bachelors and masters students in architecture, environmental design, geography and urban planning.

I especially enjoyed working closely in this challenge with the Estonian students, says UB urban planning student Constance Strother. It was an unforgettable experience and when we combined our talents, we created projects that I am proud of.

Adds Taavi Rebane of the University of Tartu: It was fascinating to learn about how visitors view our city and their suggestions for improving public space.


Goodbody Stockbrokers have today reported that the Irish Times has told its staff that it intends to implement 3.5m of cost cuts over the next two to three years.

The cost cuts will likely include leasing two floors of its offices on Tara Street, cessation of its UK edition, a hiring freeze and voluntary redundancies.



The Irish Times generated revenue and pre-tax profit of 87m and 2m respectively in 2014 and its newspaper is a key competitor to INMs Irish Independent in the Irish broadsheet space. Reports have also suggested that it will intensify its focus on digital content.



According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "The cost saving initiatives are further evidence of the structural challenges faced by the print media vertical. Several media groups across Ireland and the UK have reported an intensification of these challenges in 2016."

They added, "This structural pressure is why we remain cautious on INM which is 95% exposed to the print vertical. However, we acknowledge that the current valuation reflects a lot of these risks."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Modified On Jun 27, 2016 04:29 PM By Raunak

They were present in the Indian market before and most of them failed to excite buyers despite being very competent products. Now these cars are re-entering the market. How will they fare this time around? Read on to know more

The Indian auto industry is growing year by year -- with premium and luxury segments witnessing rampant growth. The buyers nowadays are more aware and they want certain creature comforts as well as mechanical features, forcing automakers to put their best foot forward. Over the years, several vehicles have been discontinued, courtesy such shrunken segments or lack of a diesel counterpart among others. But now these discontinued models are making their way over, yet again. Here are the five nameplates which are re-entering India with their latest generations, powertrains and features.

Honda Civic

Let us begin with the most iconic car of the lot  the Honda Civic. Honda India launched the Civic in 2006. It used to sit between the City and the Accord and was discontinued in 2012. This eighth generation model was admired by a lot of enthusiasts and was a runaway success for the Japanese automaker. But over time, the arrival of newer rivals and lack of a diesel counterpart contributed in decreasing sales. On a brighter side, hopefully, Honda will launch the latest 10th generation Civic, which was recently spied, in 2017.

India Bound Honda Civic: What To Expect

Honda Accord

Honda showcased the ninth generation Accord at the 2016 Auto Expo and it is scheduled to enter the market this year. Just like the Civic, due to low demand, the manufacturer discontinued the eighth-generation model from India, which had been a popular product in its segment since its inception in 2001. Moreover, the Accords demand also fell due to a potent diesel rival in the segment  the Skoda Superb. Now, we will get the facelifted ninth-generation version.

Presently, this segment is shifting toward hybrid and one such successful example is the Toyota Camry Hybrid. Toyota is very happy with the Camry Hybrid's sales in the country, as almost 90 per cent of the Camrys sales come from this green variant. Also, the nameplate has survived till now without any diesel offering. Honda will also launch a Hybrid version of the Accord and is expecting a similar success story.

Nissan X-Trail

Nissan showcased the third-generation X-Trail at the 2016 Indian Auto Expo and it will be hitting the market this year. The new X-Trail will be the countrys first hybrid SUV and unlike the previous generations, it will not have a diesel avatar. The hybrid powertrain will be fuel efficient.

Nissan entered India with the first generation X-Trail and the Teana. The latter was also introduced in its second generation here. However, the SUV never really kicked-off despite being a very potent performer with four-wheel drive setup. A couple of factors also played their hand in the cars failure -- such as Nissan being a relatively newer brand at that time with limited dealerships.

Nissan X-Trail Hybrid Launch In Current Financial Year

Hyundai Tucson

Hyundai is one brand in India which doesnt hesitate from entering a new segment. In fact, the Korean carmaker was itself surprised by the i20 premium hatchback's success when it was first introduced. In 2005, Hyundai introduced the Tucson crossover-SUV in the same space and price band which was made popular by the Mahindra XUV500.

When the automaker launched the Tucson, the buyers were not much acquainted with this segment and the Honda CR-V was its sole competitor. The CR-V comes only in a petrol avatar, has always been a niche product in the market. The Hyundai was available with a powerful diesel and an all-wheel-drive setup. It had caught consumers attention initially, but soon demand dropped and the car was discontinued in 2010.

Hyundai skipped the second generation Tucson from India and is now coming up with the third generation version. The third-gen SUV made its debut at the 2016 Indian Auto Expo and will be launched in the coming months. It is loaded to the brim when it comes features and is coming with a powerful 2.0-litre CRDi diesel engine.

Hyundai Tucson: What We Know So Far!

Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara

Indian customers never grew accustomed to the concept of buying an expensive Maruti Suzuki. The company had offered the Kizashi in the market and the Grand Vitara, and both never really enticed buyers. The products had enough potential, but sadly enough, found fewer buyers despite having the largest service and retail outlets in the country. The Grand Vitara is coming back and will compete with the likes of the Hyundai Creta, the Mahindra XUV500 and others.

Since the company has changed its approach of selling premium cars through its separate Nexa dealerships, the car might work this time around. The new diesel and turbocharged petrol powered Grand Vitara with Suzukis AllGrip and clever packaging has the potential to uplift the Vitara nameplate.

Vitara: Maruti's Answer to Hyundai Creta?

All in all, the scenario of the segments in which these vehicles will eventually fall has changed significantly since their discontinuation. Only time will tell how will these cars fare in their respective segments, but they all look competent and promising.
Modified On Jun 24, 2016 11:15 AM By Khan Mohd.

General Motors (GM) has announced that it plans to continue operations at its Halol plant till March 2017. For the time being, it plans to produce the new Tavera from its facility while the future options for the Halol plant are still under review. Sale of the plant is also on cards.

Kaher Kazem, president and managing director, GM India, said that this extension would give GM as well as other stakeholders some time to streamline things such as orderly transition of workers and suppliers so that work is not hampered in the process.

He said, GM India will continue with the plan to consolidate manufacturing at our Talegaon plant. It is to be noted that last year in July, GM had announced a stage-wise investment of $1 billion in its Talegaon plant.

As far as the plants future is concerned, Kazem said, We are exploring a number of options in relation to the Halol site, including its sale. Selling the plant may include contract manufacturing to ensure continuity for the upgraded Chevrolet Tavera. Chevrolet is committed to putting our customers at the center of everything we do by providing safe, high-quality vehicles backed by a world-class ownership experience that they expect and deserve.

The Indian journey of General Motors has not been very exciting despite it having a decent line-up. However, the American carmaker is in no mood to give up and plans to launch five new Chevrolet models over the next two years. These cars include the new Trailblazer, the new Beat, the Essentia, the new Cruze and the Beat Activ.

Whether these models will be able to turn fortunes for GM or not, only future can tell. We sincerely wish them good luck.
President Obamas senior aides recommended he veto a House Financial Services appropriations bill that contains myriad of legislative riders  including restrictions on the CFPB.

Those provisions, which include subjecting the agency to the annual appropriations process, are supported by credit union trade associations.

Despite that support, the legislative riders are unlikely to be enacted this year. The Senate Financial Services appropriations measure does not include them, and when House appropriators have proposed them in the past, they have been dropped from the final legislation.
With all the complex rules credit unions must follow, it is not surprising that CU leaders sometimes seek a legal opinion from the agency that wrote a particular regulation. What is required in a specific circumstance or whether a planned service fits within legal limits are two common subjects of requests for a legal opinion.

Sometimes the agency responds with clarification. For example, last year the National Credit Union Administrations Office of General Counsel, which writes NCUA opinions, addressed the permissibility of credit union indirect lending participations, with certain caveats. This was done in response to a request from the Georgia Credit Union Affiliates. The business of credit unions is complicated, and such opinions can be useful in applying a legal provision to a credit unions operations or products.

An agency legal opinion, which also may be termed an advisory opinion or legal interpretation among other things, represents the agencys views regarding the application of the law or rules, and can be relied on by the party making the request as an authoritative determination. An agency legal opinion also can provide guidance for other credit unions regulated by the agency that have the same or closely related issues. An opinion also can be very useful, for example, in settling a dispute with an examiner.

An agency legal opinion does not create new authority, but rather must be based on and be consistent with current law, rules or other agency interpretations. Otherwise, the agency would likely need to seek comments from stakeholders and the public regarding the impact of the interpretation.
PENNSYLVANIA FURNACE, Pa.  A new sale will pair Pennsylvania beef producers who are working to build their herds with cattlemen interested in marketing their quality commercial replacement females.

New partnership

The Pennsylvania Premier Bred Heifer Program is a partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Pennsylvania State University. The sale, the first of its kind designed and implemented in cooperation between the department and Penn State, will take place Oct. 22, at the Pennsylvania Livestock Evaluation Center (LEC) near the Ag Progress Days site in Rock Springs, Centre County.

Heifers consigned in the sale must meet vaccination and breeding guidelines to ensure quality and uniformity of sale offerings.

Our nations beef herd is growing, and so is the demand for quality replacement females, said Deputy Agriculture Secretary Greg Hostetter. By partnering with Penn State, we can provide our states beef producers with a venue for marketing premium females  an opportunity that benefits everyone.

The details

The program encourages careful attention to health, nutrition and genetics in replacement heifers to improve Pennsylvanias commercial cow herd. It also fosters stronger relationships between producers, veterinarians and Penn State Extension staff to help producers reach reproductive goals for their herds.

To be eligible, heifers must complete a basic vaccination protocol, receive a reproductive tract score, have a minimum pelvic area of 150 cm2, and be bred at least 60 days prior to the sale.

The program is open to purebred and crossbred or commercial heifers that have been bred to a calving-ease bull. The program is open to producers from neighboring states as well. Nominate heifers by July 15. For complete information, visit www.livestockevaluationcenter.com and click on Programs, then PA Premier Heifer Sale.

Contact coordinator Ben Williamson at 814-867-491, or bcw13@psu.edu.
Teachers and other community activists and unionists protested at the San Francisco Mexican consulate the massacre of teachers and community activists in Oaxaca. They called for an end to US weapons being sent to Mexico and also put responsibility for the massacre on the US multi-nationals and capitalist politicians from the Democrats and Republicans to privatize education through NAFTA and the Merida Initiative which has militarized Mexico.

Mexico Oaxaca Teachers Murders Protested In SF "Massacre Made In USA"The massacre of striking CNTE" Mexican Independent teachers Union, community people and supporters of public education in Oaxaca Mexico was protested in San Francisco on June 22, 2016. Teachers including from the UESF, AFT 2121 and Tim Paulson, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council and labor activists condemned the massacre by police and military who have been supplied by the United States. Protesters also connected the privatization and corporatization of education in Mexico with the charters and the attack on public education in the United States. The use of the military and police on the striking teachers is bringing a growing anger and those unions in San Francisco that participated demanded that the US government cut off military weapons to Mexico. US politicians including Democrats like Hillary Clinton and the Republicans have supported the Merida Initiative which has militarized Mexico and turning it into a colony of the United States and it's billionaires. Al Rojas, a founder of the United Farmworkers Union of America also attacked the so called "comprehensive immigration reform" that according to Rojas will further militarize the border and also expand the use of "guest workers" that will be used as cheap labor by Driscoll and other US corporations. He further charged that the UFWA is setting up broker offices in Mexico in cahoots with the Mexican government to bring in these indentured workers to the US and make them union members. Other participants pointed out that Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton were responsible for NAFTA and continue to support this reactionary trade bill that has enslaved the Mexican people including unionists and peasants and is forcing the privatization of education backed up by the US supplied military and police.Additional media:Production of Labor Video ProjectEl Consejo Sindical para el Progreso de los Latino AmericanosLABOR COUNCIL FORLATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENTEl Consejo Sindical para el Progreso de los Latino AmericanosLa Voz Unida AFL-CIOLic.Enrique Pena Nieto President of Mexico enrique.penanieto [at] presidencia.gob.mx Private Secretary Erwin Manuel Linoelino [at] presidencia.gob.mx Lic. Luis Maria Aguilar Morales President of the Supreme Court of Justice Me xicoscjn_presidencia [at] mail.scjn.gob.mx The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), AFL -CIO, Sacramento California USA, is an organization of trade unionists that fight for justice, democracy and peace. The teachers from the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion (CNTE), who work and struggle for a just, democratic, and peaceful Mexico, remain repressed, persecuted, and imprisoned by the violent Mexican state forces that protect the economic interests of the United States and Mexico. The Mexican governments physical and ideological violent response to the democratic demands of the CNTE teachers proves that the government's political stubbornness is in reality the continuity of the neoliberal project to further privatize and dismantle the educational system at the expense of the worker and the impoverished people of Mexico. With this resolution, the Sacramento chapter of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), demands a halt to the persecution of leaders of the CNTE, freedom for imprisoned teachers, constitutional guarantees for all Mexican citizens, and the development of democratic proposals to resolve the conflict.We are aware that the protests continue in the capital and other states in Mexico. We will endeavor to inform the trade union movement in the United States of the anti-democratic actions by the Mexican government and allocate resources to show solidarity with the democratic teachers of Mexico.The Sacramento chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement Labor AFL- CIO, USA CC: CNTE, Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education, and Sacramento Central Labor Council denounce the following:DISMISSED: In Mexico more than 4,000 teachers have been dismissed for participating in the strike, adding to the 3,360 already fired for missing punitive evaluations, which has culminated to an estimated 8,000 teachers being fired to this day.JAILED: The seven leaders of Section 22, OAXACA jailed. The two latest arrest of professor Ruben Nunez Gines, the Secretary General of the Section and professor Francisco Villalobos, Secretary of Organization section who were arrested June 11th and June 12th. The professors relatives homes have been plagued with great violence after leaving a General Assembly of the CNTE in city of Mexico. After their arrests both were sent to a high security prison to Hermosillo, Sonora, about two thousand kilometers from the city Of Oaxaca. The teachers have been falsely charged and imprisoned for funds of illicit origins. The Mexican government's goal is to discredit the Secretary General of the Section and Secretary of Organization by profiling them as criminals; when in reality, they are political prisoners of conscience.THE EVICTION OF THE SIT-IN TEACHERS IN THE CITY OF MEXICO: On two occasions, during the early morning hours, thousands of police officers evicted teachers who were peacefully sitting in in protest in the Secretary of Public Educations office in the city of Mexico. On the last occasion, the government deported the demonstrators to their states in buses specifically hired for it. Teachers returned, settling in another public space, but with worse conditions.PREVENTING TEACHERS FROM REACHING THE CITY OF MEXICO OR LEAVE THEIR STATES. Thousands of federal police officers equipped with military weaponry have blocked entrance roads to Mexico City. This blockade has prevented the arrival of buses with teachers from Michoacan, Guerrero, Tabasco, Oaxaca and Chiapas on four occasions when the teachers were summoned for demonstrations in the capital. Today, federal police officers have tried to prevent buses carrying teachers from Oaxaca from leaving their state of Oaxaca.PREVENTING TRANSIT IN MEXICO CITY: Police operations have encapsulated the contingent of teachers marching in the city to address points of protest.KILLED: Adding to already hostile situation, in the last three years, following the imposition of educational reform, teachers have been murdered or killed by impacts which were recorded during police repressions, not forgetting, of course the 43 student from the rural teaching college who are missing.Presidencia de la Republica Enrique Pena NietoLenrique.penanieto [at] presidencia.gob.mx Residencia oficial de Los Pinos, Molino del Rey s/n, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, Distrito Federal. C.P. 11850 Telefono: 5093 5300 Atencion a la ciudadania: 01 800 080 1127 Presidencia de la Republica Secretaria de Gobernacion Miguel Angel Osorio Chong Correo: secretario [at] segob.gob.mx Abraham Gonzalez 48, Col. Juarez, Ciudad de Mexico. C.P. 06699 Conmutador: 5728 7300 Telefono: 50 93 34 00 Procuraduria General de la Republica Mtra. Arely Gomez Gonzalez Correo: arely.gomez [at] pgr.gob.mx Direccion: Paseo de la Reforma 211  213 Cuauhtemoc, Guerrero, 06300 Ciudad de Mexico, D.F. Telefono: 53 46 01 08
The EU remains a fundamental attack on the working class and regional democracy. Socialists can, and should, both oppose EU membership and oppose UKIP chauvinism.

From Liverpool to The Irish Northern CountiesThe Working Class Will Benefit from The BrexitYes to The Brexit, No To The EU, NATO, TPP, and TTIPby Steven ArgueThe European Union has been an unmitigated disaster for the European working class. It has created an undemocratic capitalist supra-state that has, among other things, squeezed the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish working classes into horrible poverty for the super-profits of the banking capitalists. It has also worked with the U.S. government in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine to put a far right government in power February 2014 that now slaughters leftists and the Russian minority.The EU remains a fundamental attack on the working class and regional democracy. Socialists can, and should, both oppose EU membership and oppose UKIP chauvinism. Socialists should fear and oppose the actual pro-imperialist chauvinism of the Tories, Liberals, Labour, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Party who all supported the imperialist sponsored coups and counterrevolutionary contra wars in Libya, Ukraine, and Syria.It was the imperialist sponsorship of the counterrevolution in Syria that created ISIS as a real force along with other similar genocidal and anti-woman Wahhabist terrorists fighting to overthrow the secular, pro-woman, and semi-socialist governments of Bashar al-Assad and the Kurds of Rojava.Likewise, it was similar imperialist intervention that overthrew the Gaddafi government in Libya, imposing a genocidal Islamist reign of terror there as well as imposing competing warlords fighting for control of the country. All of this was to overthrow a government that provided free healthcare, housing, and education with the highest life-expectancy in Africa because, for the imperial capitalists, these socialist measures cut into the profits of the international oil conglomerates.It is these imperialist wars, carried out and supported by many of the leftists who now cry crocodile tears for the refugees, that created the refugee crisis in the first place. It has also been the ruling Tories, Liberals, and Labour who have mistreated immigrants while carrying out austerity against the working class in general. These parties want you to stay in the EU not because they care about or even help immigrants, but because they represent big capital and support the anti-working class program of the EU. Throwing yourself in that imperialist chauvinistic lot to oppose UKIP chauvinism is not the correct action. What is needed is a decision to leave the EU based on merit, not to stay in based on association with UKIP.Likewise, in the northern counties of Ireland, Sein Fein which long ago sold out to British imperialism and the capitalist status quo, also supports staying in the EU. In opposition to this perspective is the Irish Republican socialist group Eirigi. The Irish Republican News reports:Republican socialist group Eirigi is campaigning in favour of Leave.Eirigis national chairman Brian Leeson said his party wanted to reassert Irish independence and sovereignty within the island of Ireland and to bring as much power and democracy back to Ireland as possible.Our core argument is that the Irish peoples needs are best served by full independence and control of our own destiny, he said.Obviously partition interferes with the right of the Irish people to control our own destiny - but there is also a massive democratic deficit at the heart of the European Union.It was also concerned by a move towards the militarisation of the EU, he added.Mr Leeson said there were two states preventing Irish people enjoying 32-county national self-determination. One is the British state and the other is, essentially, what is the EU state. There is an opportunity here to potentially end one of those external interferences and then we can start working on the other, he added.Along with the European Union structure itself, all of the international capitalist trade deals from NAFTA to the TPP are part of a race to the bottom that undermine national labor protections and environmental regulations. The TPP, if passed, will go so far as to give corporations the ability to challenge national labor and environmental laws as barriers to "free trade" in unelected international courts of corporate friendly judges. Furthermore, the TPP is also being set-up to further western imperialist aggression against China while the EU and NATO is also used to further western imperialist aggression against Russia, Belarus, Syria, and the Kurds.In the U.S. elections, the TPP is rightly opposed by both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. It is so unpopular that congress probably won't vote on it until after the general elections. Also due to the agreement's unpopularity, Hillary Clinton has been forced to flip flop from support for the TPP to opposing it. As usual, she lies about this as well. She falsely claimed in the October 13th Las Vegas presidential debate that she never called the TPP the "gold standard", only hoped it would be. Yet, here is what she actually said in that speech she gave in Australia in 2012:"This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment."Clinton was lying in Las Vegas and all of this in Australia is of course a lie as well. The TPP is precisely set-up to strengthen the power of corporations while undermining protections of labor and the environment. Clinton, beholden to the Wall Street interests that fund her, has simply had to present a faux opposition to the TPP in order to beat Sanders and Trump. If elected, we will likely see a reemergence of her original position.Similar to the TPP is the TIPP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), a secret trade agreement between the United States and EU. Its contents are being kept secret not only from the public by the EU government, but also from the politicians that rule the EU's nation states. It is in this manner that the EU, TTIP, and TPP are part of forming an international corporate state beholden to no real form of democratic discussion in violation of even bourgeois democratic norms. Even as inadequate as those norms are, they are superior to an openly dictatorial international corporate government and its supranational courts.Presently, EU capitalist austerity against the working class has devastated Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. For countries like Greece, the options have been pretty straight forward. Either maintain a capitalist economy and stay in the capitalist EU and NATO or nationalize the banks and the Greek economy, end capitalist austerity, end payments to imperialist banks, and turn to countries facing the wrath of western imperialism like Russia, Belarus, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China for potential trade and investment. Despite the lies of his party in the elections, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his SYRIZA party chose the option of capitalism, NATO, and austerity. The Revolutionary Tendency can proudly say we never backed SYRIZA and instead advocated the second option for ending capitalist austerity, leaving the EU and NATO, and establishing a socialist economy while giving critical support to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) instead of SYRIZA in the Greek elections.Like the KKE on Greece, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) also shares our position in favor of the Brexit.Like Alexis Tsipras, Jeremy Corbyn of Britain's capitalist, pro-imperialist, and pro-austerity Labour Party supports remaining in the EU. Instead of advocating the correct position in favor of the Brexit, Corbyn peddles the pipe-dream that the EU can be reformed for the establishment of a Social Europe.On the side of the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and David Cameron is former CIA director and U.S. General David Petraeus who says that Britain leaving the EU would "deal a significant blow to [its] strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions". He also stated that he feared "that a 'Brexit' would only make our world even more dangerous and difficult to manage".That management of the world under imperialist powers like the United States, Britain, and the EU has been an unmitigated disaster for labor and the environment, a disaster which is only worsened by the projects establishing supranational corporate governments of the EU, TPP, and TTIP.Britain is voting today, June 23rd, on leaving the EU. Obviously, far more is needed than the defeat of the EU, but this will be a significant step in the right direction.No to the TPP and TTIP!Vote No To The EU On June 23rd!For The Abolition of NATO!No to the capitalist EU, Yes to a socialist Europe!-Steven Argue for the Revolutionary TendencyThe Revolutionary Tendency
From the Open-Publishing Calendar From the Open-Publishing Newswire Indybay Feature

 Pro-Privatization & Charter Supporter Hillary Clinton Toasting Mexico Pres Calderon by Labor Video Project Hillary Clinton who is being supported by the AFT and NEA is a big supporter of privatization and charters in the US and Mexico. She helped push privatization of oil and education in Mexico and has supported the militarization and terror campaign against the Mexican people for US multi-nationals and Mexican bosses. https://youtu.be/wdPUKvFwMi0

 US Plan Marida Pushes militarization terror and murder in Mexico by Labor Video Project The US government including Obama, the Democrats and Republicans have imposed Plan Merida which has militarized Mexico and turned the police and army into a terror force against the teachers and the working class and peasants. These same forcers were used against the farmworkers in San Quintin that went on strike against US California based Driscolls and other multi-nationals. https://youtu.be/wdPUKvFwMi0

 Teachers March and Strike Against Privatization & Union Busting by Labor Video Project The Mexican CNTE Section 9 led mass marches against privatization, union busting and government terror. https://youtu.be/wdPUKvFwMi0
Chieftain denies claim APC disowned Buhari's former minister in Abuja court

Reports that the former minister of mines and steel, Uche Ogah, has been disowned by the ruling party before a Federal High Court in Abuja has been debunked.
Zenith Bank Plc began banking operations in May 1990. The bank changed its ownership of LLC in 2004 and put its shares on the Nigerian stock exchange. Today, the bank is the most extensive bank in Nigeria for capitalization. zenith Bank uses all modern technologies for better serving of its customers. Most popular among them are: Mobile banking and Internet banking by Zenith Bank.

Zenith bank Nigeria

The central office of the bank is located in Lagos. The bank is rightfully considered one of the most successful and efficient in Nigeria, especially concerning Zenith mobile and Internet banking services. Zenith internet banking have become the most popular among bank customers.

After Zenith Bank Plc put into use the USSD code for checking the bank account, it significantly reduced the load from the bank's branches and helped customers always to be aware of their financial accounts. The development and implementation of a mobile application by Zenith Bank greatly increased the number of its customers.

How to check Zenith bank account balance?

READ ALSO: How to transfer money from Zenith Bank to another bank

In today's world, Mobile banking is significant, as the bank's customers no longer need to go to the bank department or look for an ATM to check the account. Now it is possible to do it anywhere and at any convenient time using your mobile phone.

To check the status of your account, you need a USSD code, which, after the introduction, will give you access to your account information in Zenith Bank.

Each customer of Zenith Bank before checking the account on their mobile device must first of all register their mobile number. You can do this with the combination *966*00#. After dialing the combination on your mobile phone screen, a detailed instruction will appear with information on how to complete the verification and to connect your phone to the account.

Mobile Zenith application

The mobile application presented by Zenith has a wide range of features and capabilities. The application is fast enough and easy to install on your smartphone and makes it a convenient banking tool that is always in your hand.

The application itself performs two primary functions of mobile banking, namely Mobile banking and eaZymoney. Remember that checking the status of your account is possible only from the number that you specified during registration in Zenith Bank. Using other phones and numbers will not give you access to information in your account.

The functions of Zenith app includes:

The ability to track all available information on all your accounts (current account, deposit account, etc.)

The option of preventing unauthorized access to the account

Account access through 2FA

Zenith bank account balance

Transfer of funds and payment from your bank account

The rapid development of banking technology in Nigeria simplifies most processes for customers. The use of Mobile Banking has become available to absolutely everyone. Zenith Bank clients using the mobile application will be able to make transfers of personal funds, payments for purchases on the Internet, see the balance of own funds and plan financial expenses for any period.

READ ALSO: Zenith Bank partners Facebook and Mastercard to pioneer QR payments on Facebook messenger

Source: Legit.ng
The country must stop marginalising the scientists it needs to deal with Zika, pollution and recession, says Creso Sa.

The uproar around the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff has pushed to the sidelines three major crises that Brazil faces  and the fact that the country is undermining its ability to deal with them.

To fully recover that ability, the federal government must move science from a low-priority policy file in Brasilias realpolitik to the centre of the national development agenda.

The three crises

The first crisis was the worst environmental disaster in Brazils history, both in terms of the area affected and costs of the damage. The failure of three dams in the state of Minas Gerais in late 2015 released 62 million cubic metres of mine waste into three rivers, destroying ecosystems and depriving local fishing communities of their livelihoods. Recovery will take decades.

The second is Brazils biggest annual economic contraction in a quarter century: a 3.8 per cent drop in GDP (gross domestic product) in 2015, with a similar fall likely this year. Unemployment has reached 11 per cent. The low-value-added exports that previously ensured economic growth, will not suffice to raise the country out of this sinkhole  so longstanding calls for greater industrial innovation become more pressing.

The economic downturn undoubtedly played a role in the cuts  but the federal government has had a hand in it too, repeatedly demonstrating a lack of priority for science. Creso Sa

Finally, Brazil needs to deal with the Zika virus epidemic. More than 1,330 cases of foetal abnormalities linked to Zika have been confirmed and some 3,330 are under investigation. Those affected need healthcare and social assistance. And with Zika cases reported in other countries, not to mention concerns about the forthcoming Olympic Games in Rio increasing the risk of its spread, this is a global health threat, adding to the pressure on Brazil to act.

These disparate problems have something in common: solving them will require tapping scientific and technical expertise in public agencies, research institutes, universities and industry. Will the federal government under Interim President Michel Temer (or, less likely, under an absolved President Rousseff) be capable of leading the charge?

Diverted funding

To judge from how science has fared in Brazil recently, and from the early moves of the interim president, there is no reason for optimism.

Last year, science suffered severe budget cuts. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has lost a third of its budget over the past two years. Approved research projects have not received promised money, funding competitions have been suspended and large investments in a new set of science and technology institutes have been delayed. Public universities and research institutes have lacked the money for basic running costs.

The economic downturn undoubtedly played a role in the cuts  but the federal government has had a hand in it too, repeatedly demonstrating a lack of priority for science.

For instance, legislation in 2014 reallocated funding that had been earmarked for science towards social spending. Similarly, 6.4 billion reals (US$1.9 billion) were switched from scientific research and infrastructure to fund a single initiative  the Science Without Borders exchange programme, an initiative created in 2011 by President Rousseff that has since been suspended after severe criticism.

Things took a turn for the worse with recent political events. Upon becoming interim president, Temer merged the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation with the Ministry of Communications, puzzling and frustrating the scientific community. He considered an evangelical, creationist bishop to lead the new ministry, before appointing Gilberto Kassab, a former Sao Paulo mayor without any background in science governance. He is the fourth science minister in less than two years.

Short-term thinking

Frustration with the deteriorating science environment led prominent neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel to make public her decision to leave the country for a job at Vanderbilt University in the United States in May. Her vocal criticism hit a nerve and was widely reported and discussed on social media.

The Temer administrations justification for these moves has centred on the need to control public spending and national debt. This poses an obvious obstacle to reinvesting in science  but the fundamental issue is the persistent lack of a vision for the role of science as a national asset. Scientists are viewed as a peripheral special interest, not a stakeholder in the countrys development debate.

But serious science is not done in spurts and starts. Research agendas that support national challenges, lead to impactful discoveries and train scientific talent happen over years and even decades. None will flourish spontaneously if scientists cannot plan ahead or simply keep basic operations running.

Although important, a dedicated science ministry is not enough. Brazilian science needs stable governance. That will only happen with strong political support to federal science agencies and institutions.

The scientific community  including organisations such as the Brazilian Academy of Science and the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science  has been vocal in these debates and vehemently condemned the merger of the science ministry. These efforts are important, but more must be done to wrestle science away from its marginalised position. Scientists at large need to make their voices heard too and engage with political representatives at local and state levels. Stories must be told about local accomplishments and the results they can deliver.

Science can no longer be seen as a remote and disconnected sector vying for support. Brazil needs to cultivate sophisticated knowledge and expertise to address its environmental, health and economic tragedies.

Creso Sa is a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. He writes on science policy and higher education. His latest book, The entrepreneurship movement and the university, was published in 2015. Sa can be contacted via cresosa.com and at [email protected]
FULL STORY

As part of a national drive to count the UK's breeding seabirds, this summer a hardy band of fieldworkers will be searching two Pembrokeshire islands, Skokholm and Skomer, for the most mysterious seabird in Wales - the European Storm petrel.



These islands form the Skokholm and Skomer Special Protection Area (SPA) and are world famous for their seabirds, with internationally important numbers of breeding Atlantic puffins and common guillemots delighting visitors by day, and half the world's population of Manx shearwaters coming out of their burrows by night. But as night falls, the Atlantic's tiniest seabird comes ashore to the breeding colonies among the rocks, boulders and scree slopes of these wild Welsh islands.



Storm petrels are related to the world's most famous ocean wanderers, the albatrosses, but weigh only about as much as a sparrow. Despite their diminutive size they range far out at sea for most of the year, braving the wildest of weather and spending our winter off the coasts of South Africa.



Perhaps 5,000 European Storm petrels breed on Skokholm Island, representing up to 20% of Europe's breeding population, and a few hundred on Skomer, but no one really knows simply because they're notoriously difficult to count.. If you turn on a torch they fly away, if you disturb them in their breeding burrows they tend to desert their nest. And they nest in inaccessible places, so it's understandable that ornithologists have to think smart to count storm petrels without disturbing them. Which is why Skokholm volunteer Vicky Taylor will be listening to fairies being sick for the next few weeks!



"We play the sound of a singing storm petrel to a likely nest site," says Vicky, "and if there's a bird in there it often calls back. It's supposed to sound like a fairy being sick, but I think it's more like a purring cat with the hiccups!" The distinctive smell of storm petrels can also reveal a nest. "It's a musty, oily smell, but distinctly pleasant," says Skomer Assistant Warden Jason Moss. "If you get a strong whiff it can help to locate a nest burrow or a new breeding colony."



The survey technique has been refined over the years, but 2016 sees the first attempt a complete census of the largest European Storm petrel breeding colony in England and Wales: the 'Quarry' on Skokholm Island. Warden Richard Brown says, "The Quarry is a natural amphitheatre of old red sandstone where hundreds of storm petrels nest in fragile crevices. Work there is challenging and requires careful planning, but what an office!"



The survey is a great example of cooperation between conservationists, seabird biologists, and government agency: the project is carried out by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales & the University of Gloucestershire, with funding and support from Natural Resources Wales.



Mike Evans, Head of Evidence, Knowledge and Advice at Natural Resources Wales added: "As an evidence-based organisation, it is critically important for us to have a good understanding of our changing environment. We know that we have a very healthy marine environment here in Wales, and by having a better understanding of the wildlife that thrives here, will allow us to give the very best advice we give to government, European Commission and to others."



Dr Matt Wood from the University of Gloucestershire is coordinating the survey: "We need good counts of our seabirds to be able to see how they get on year by year, to monitor the UK's amazing seabird populations. Seabirds are excellent sentinels for the health of our oceans, I'm really looking forward to seeing how many storm petrels we have here so we can safeguard the population for future generations."

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Story Source: Materials provided by University of Gloucestershire. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Direct transmission of cancer among some marine animals may be more common than once thought, suggests a new study published in Nature by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

The study, led by Stephen Goff, PhD, the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at CUMC in collaboration with researchers from Canada and Spain, revealed that in several species of bivalves, including mussels, cockles, and clams, cancer cells from contagious cells that spread from animal to animal through the sea water. The cancer, known as disseminated neoplasia, is a leukemia-like disease that affects bivalves in many parts of the world.

Direct transmission of cancer cells is quite rare. Until recently, the phenomenon had only been observed in two species of mammals.

Last year, Dr. Goff's team found a third example in the soft shell clam (Mya arenaria) after initially suspecting that the culprit behind the cancer cluster was a virus.

The team then wondered if cancers in other mollusks are also caused by contagious cells. To find out, Dr. Goff's team examined the DNA of cancers and normal tissue from mussels (Mytilus trossulus), cockles (Cerastoderma edule), and golden carpet shell clams (Polititapes aureus) collected from the coasts of Canada and Spain.

In each species, the researchers discovered that the cancers were caused by independent clones of cancer cells that were genetically distinct from their hosts. They also found that in one species, the carpet shell clam, the infectious cancer cells came from a related but distinct species. The researchers concluded that this cancer was due to a case of cross-species transmission.

"Now that we have observed the spread of cancer among several marine species, our future research will investigate the mutations that are responsible for these cancer cell transmissions," said Dr. Goff.

The study is titled, Widespread transmission of independent cancer lineages within multiple bivalve species. Additional authors included Michael Metzger (Columbia University Medical Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, NY); Antonio Villalba (Centro de Investigacions Marinas, Vilanova de Arousa, and University of Alcala, Alcala, Spain); Maria J. Carballal, and David Iglesias (Centro de Investigacions Marinas); James Sherry and Carol Reinisch (Environment Canada, Burlington, Ontario, Canada); Annette Muttray (University of British Columbia and SLR Consulting Canada, Vancouver, Canada); and Susan Baldwin (University of British Columbia).
The use of polyethylene mulch is a common practice in vegetable production, but environmental issues related to the disposal of petroleum-based plastic mulches have producers looking for alternatives. To address environmental concerns, commercial vegetable growers are increasingly interested in using organic mulches derived from agricultural or urban byproducts and waste, paper-based mulches, and biodegradable plastic films and fabrics as alternatives. A new study comparing bioplastic films with biofabrics indicates that there is good potential for successfully using biofabric under certain growing conditions.

To learn more about the field performance, durability, and decomposition properties of biofabric, the researchers designed experiments to compare four experimental spunbond, nonwoven biofabrics with two commercially available bioplastic mulch films and a bare soil control. The experiments were performed in field and high tunnel growing environments with cucumber. The scientists collected data to determine the mulch's impact on soil moisture, soil temperature, crop yield, and weed emergence. All mulches were also analyzed for their durability and ability to decompose when incorporated into the soil.

Results showed that the bioplastics and biofabrics increased soil moisture relative to bare soil. Bioplastic films were less durable and deteriorated sooner than biofabrics, especially in the field environment. All biomulches suppressed weed emergence relative to bare soil, but weeds were visibly growing beneath the most translucent biofabric. Marketable yield of cucumber trended highest in the most durable and opaque biofabric, but was not significantly different from weed-free bare soil.

The scientists found no difference in the relative rate of mulch decomposition up to 11 months after soil incorporation among bioplastic and biofabric products. "This is the first study to demonstrate significant soil decomposition of biofabric mulch before 12 months after soil incorporation," they said. "Slow decomposition is one factor that has limited widespread adoption of biomulches in vegetable production. However, this study demonstrates potential progress toward a renewable product that will provide growers with the desirable agricultural benefits of mulch without the potentially deleterious effects of residue accumulation in the soil over time."

The authors added that biofabrics may be most useful in cool-season crops or warmer climates and in high tunnels where soil warming is usually adequate, but where moisture conservation and weed control are still critical. "The permeability of biofabrics may appeal to growers without drip irrigation who rely on rainfall or sprinkler irrigation to meet crop water demands," they added.
For health workers in the field treating people stricken with Ebola and other diseases, a protective suit is the first defense against infection. The suit and head covering itself, however, can hamper their ability to help by impeding breathing, or heating up so quickly in high temperatures and humidity that they can scarcely work for more than an hour.

Johns Hopkins University engineering students and team members hope to solve these problems as they improve a protective suit to be manufactured by DuPont under an agreement forged last year between the university and the international science and engineering company. Two Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering undergraduate teams, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) have developed prototypes for a more comfortable hood and face mask that make breathing easier, and for a battery-powered system that curbs humidity in the suit.

DuPont has a license to manufacture a coverall, hood and full body suit designed and prototyped by CBID last year. The products reduce the number of pieces required by current protocols, take much less time to put on and remove, and cut the number of potential contamination exposure points by nearly a third. The two recent projects by seniors at the Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering are meant to improve the CBID designs even further.

"The hope for us is this could be used for any infectious disease that's transmitted through bodily fluids," said Laura Scavo, who graduated in May with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked on the hood as a final project. Under a grant, she is continuing to work with the CBID team this summer.

"The aim of our device is to extend the working time of health care workers in an Ebola treatment unit by increasing thermal comfort and, thus, decreasing the risk of heat-induced psychological and physiological impairments," the students who worked on the cooling system wrote in their final report.

Worn around the waist, the humidity-control apparatus adapts an off-the-shelf powered air purifying respirator and looks almost like something one would expect to see as part of a space suit. It includes a canister connected by a hose to a boxy fan unit, which in turn is connected with a second hose that runs up the wearer's back to the head covering. The system draws air in through the canister cartridge filled with a chemical drying agent, or desiccant. The desiccant soaks up moisture, delivering drier air to the person wearing the suit.

The project presented many challenges, some solved, some still being worked on. The cartridge containing the desiccant had to be designed not to overheat due to the chemical reaction that occurs as the material absorbs moisture. In one laboratory experiment, the material overheated so fast that it melted a plastic container.

There was also the difficulty of sealing joints between the several pieces to create the most efficient airflow and to keep out potential contaminants. That's still being figured out as the apparatus is tested and refined, but the team succeeded in key goals. The system significantly cuts humidity. The used desiccant cartridge can be regenerated with heating equipment commonly available at field treatment centers, and at 3.8 pounds the unit is well below the goal of 10 pounds.

In the hood project, Scavo improved on a model produced by CBID months earlier. Among other changes, she redesigned the integrated facemask to produce a good fit for a wide range of face sizes, adjusted filter placements so that the design would meet certification by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and worked with DuPont to develop prototypes for testing that could be mass-produced.

Scavo and the team conducted field tests in Liberia this spring for the coverall and facemask. Feedback for refinements will be turned over to DuPont as the Johns Hopkins team pursues further grants to continue working on the project.

"A tremendous amount of effort has been put into this project by Johns Hopkins and DuPont in less than a year of development," said David Kee, North American marketing manager for Tyvek protective apparel, the brand name for clothing made by DuPont Protection Solutions. "DuPont is still evaluating the commercial viability of these enhancements; some innovations are conceptually appealing, but need further refinement prior to mass production. We look forward to our continued work together to strike the right balance and bring a truly innovative product to a wide market."
Women who have a cardiac arrest are less likely than men to receive potentially life-saving procedures such as angiography to look for blocked coronary arteries or angioplasty to open them, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

The study indicates such procedures have helped boost cardiac arrest survival rates, said Luke Kim, M.D., study lead author and assistant professor of medicine in the cardiology division of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "But the troublesome part of our paper is that just as with many other treatments we're still not doing as good a job with women as men. Women tend to get less immediate care when time is essential."

The study is the first to report sex-based disparities across a representative spectrum of cardiac arrest patients from more than 1,000 U.S. hospitals nationally. During the 10-year study, in-hospital death rates fell for both sexes, but remained higher for women. Of those who were treated in hospital for cardiac arrest, 64 percent of women died compared to 61 percent of men.

Using a database of hospital discharge records known as the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, researchers analyzed more than 1.4 million cases in which cardiac arrest patients were transported alive to acute-care hospitals from 2003 through 2012. During that time, the number of cardiac arrests increased by 14 percent.

Adjusting for factors including patient age, health, hospital characteristics and previous cardiac procedures, researchers also found that women who had a cardiac arrest from a shockable rhythm were:

25 percent less likely to receive coronary angiography;

29 percent less likely to have angioplasty, also known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI);

19 percent less likely to be treated with therapeutic hypothermia, in which body temperature is lowered to help improve odds of survival and reduce risk of brain damage.

As a group, women in the study were older than men and were less likely to have been previously diagnosed with coronary artery disease. They were more likely to have other health problems, such as congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, obesity and other issues, and to have cardiac arrest caused by problems other than a blood vessel blockage, such as pulmonary embolism.

The study cannot pinpoint causes of the gender gap, the authors said.

Kim said better educational outreach across the community -- not just to doctors, nurses, and first responders, but citizens on the street -- could improve cardiac arrest survival rates. More people should be taught about cardiac arrest, how to perform CPR, and what defibrillators do.

Unlike some of the other disorders, "cardiac arrest is one of the few medical emergencies where there's a huge impact due to how the public responds to it. If someone can get to a patient right away and do CPR, that patient has a chance," Kim said

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart abruptly stops functioning due to malfunction of its electrical system. In 2014, about 356,500 people in the United States suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrests; only12 percent of those treated by emergency medical services survived.
The implementation of state prescription drug monitoring programs was associated with the prevention of approximately one opioid-related overdose death every two hours on average nationwide, according to a new Vanderbilt-led study released June 22 in the journal Health Affairs.

States with the most robust programs saw the greatest reduction in overdose deaths: these states monitored and tracked a greater number of substances with abuse potential and updated their data more frequently (at least weekly).

Over the last two decades, the sales of prescriptions for opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone have quadrupled. From 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 people died in the U.S. from overdoses related to prescription opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to the epidemic, many states created prescription drug monitoring programs to monitor high-risk patients and provider behaviors. Today, 49 states--all but Missouri--have such programs, but there have been conflicting data about the programs' effectiveness.

In this study, "Implementation of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Associated with Reductions in Opioid-Related Death Rates," the authors analyzed mortality data and data on states' prescription drug monitoring programs from 1999 to 2013 to test if programs were effective in reducing the number of opioid-related overdose deaths.

Researchers' analysis revealed that states with the most robust programs saw reductions of 1.55 fewer deaths per 100,000 population compared to states without such monitoring programs.

"Today, opioid overdose deaths are more common than deaths from car crashes. Our study provides support that prescription drug monitoring programs are part of what needs to be a comprehensive approach to the prescription opioid epidemic," said lead author Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., MPH, M.S., assistant professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in the Division of Neonatology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.

"This work is important not only because it demonstrates that prescription drug monitoring programs can save lives, but also because it shows that there are specific actions that states can take to strengthen their programs," said Melinda Buntin, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the study.

Vanderbilt researchers worked with Timothy F. Jones, M.D., state epidemiologist for the Tennessee Department of Health, who oversees opioid-related research and analyses of the state's prescription drug monitoring data. Tennessee implemented its monitoring program in December 2006.

"Tennessee is one of the states most severely affected by the opioid epidemic," said Jones. "The opioid epidemic affects all segments of our society. It is not limited to one part of the state or one social group. It affects all of us--our friends, families, co-workers, people that we would never expect to be involved. All of us have a role to play in combatting it."

The study authors estimate that if Missouri implemented a monitoring program and other states enhanced existing programs with more robust features, there would be more than 600 fewer overdose deaths nationwide in 2016, or about two deaths prevented each day.

"Congress is currently considering legislation to bolster the U.S. public health response to the opioid epidemic. Our findings suggest that investments in upgraded prescription drug monitoring programs will pay dividends in lives saved," said Patrick.
Chew on this: rice farming is a far older practice than we knew. In fact, the oldest evidence of domesticated rice has just been found in China, and it's about 9,000 years old.

The discovery, made by a team of archaeologists that includes University of Toronto Mississauga professor Gary Crawford, sheds new light on the origins of rice domestication and on the history of human agricultural practices.

"Today, rice is one of most important grains in the world's economy, yet at one time, it was a wild plant...how did people bring rice into their world? This gives us another clue about how humans became farmers," says Crawford, an anthropological archaeologist who studies the relationships between people and plants in prehistory.

Working with three researchers from the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Zhejiang Province, China, Crawford found the ancient domesticated rice fragments in a probable ditch in the lower Yangtze valley. They observed that about 30 per cent of the rice plant material -- primarily bases, husks and leaf epidermis -- were not wild, but showed signs of being purposely cultivated to produce rice plants that were durable and suitable for human consumption. Crawford says this finding indicates that the domestication of rice has been going on for much longer than originally thought. The rice plant remains also had characteristics of japonica rice, the short grain rice used in sushi that today is cultivated in Japan and Korea. Crawford says this finding clarifies the lineage of this specific rice crop, and confirms for the first time that it grew in this region of China.

Crawford and his colleagues spent about three years exploring the five-hectare archaeological dig site, called Huxi, which is situated in a flat basin about 100 metres above sea level. Their investigations were supported by other U of T Mississauga participants -- anthropology professor David Smith and graduate students Danial Kwan and Nattha Cheunwattana. They worked primarily in early spring, fall and winter in order to avoid the late-spring wet season and excruciatingly hot summer months. Digging 1.5 metres below the ground, the team also unearthed artifacts such as sophisticated pottery and stone tools, as well as animal bones, charcoal and other plant seeds.

This study builds on Crawford's previous research into early agriculture in China, in which he has examined the ancient settlements, tools, and plant and animal management efforts that occurred in different regions of the country. He is interested in better understanding the forces that compelled our human ancestors to transition from hunters and gatherers to farmers.

"The question I ultimately want to answer is, what pushed them to move wholeheartedly into the farming regime? Why did they reduce their emphasis on hunting and expand into crop production?" Crawford says. "People did what they needed to do to make their lives more manageable and sustainable, and the unintended consequence was farming. With this rice discovery, we're seeing the first stages of that shift."
Practically all currently available treatments for malaria are based in some form or other on a derivative of artemisinin, a plant substance that is found in the leaves and flowers of annual mugwort (Artemisia annua). However, more and more malaria parasites are becoming resistant to artemesinin -- especially in South-East Asia. In order to provide an accurate view of the spread of resistance throughout the world, an international research group from more than 50 countries -- led by the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) -- has drawn up a map of artemesinin resistance. Under the lead of Harald Noedl and Michael Ramharter, MedUni Vienna and VetMedUni Vienna (Hans-Peter Fuehrer) participated in this study, which has recently been published in the journal, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Scientists examined a total of 14,000 samples, including around 700 from the research areas of Michael Ramharter (University Department of Medicine I, Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine) in Gabon and Harald Noedl (Institute for Specific Prophylaxis and Tropical Medicine) in Bangladesh and Ethiopia. It is one of the largest international and cross-disciplinary projects in the history of malaria research.

The central finding: "Currently artemesinin resistance is exclusively concentrated on South-East Asia; African regions are not yet affected." With the emphasis on "Not yet," say the MedUni Vienna researchers. However, for years now the greatest threat when it comes to malaria has been that a resistant pathogen develops in Africa and then spreads. Ramharter: "The descendants of these parasites are like clones. If one becomes resistant, they may spread and be transmitted further."

However, there is still a high probability that resistance will spread to Africa, because it is based on a genetic mutation -- as has been shown in previous studies. Little more than ten years ago, many malaria researchers did not consider the possibility of resistance developing to artemesinins, because of their new modes of action and because they are administered in combination with other drugs. Noedl: "We were way too optimistic." In a publication that likewise appeared in the NEJM in 2008, MedUni Vienna researchers identified the existence of clinical resistance to artemesinins for the first time.

The scientists stress that the new map of artemesinin resistance will make it possible to observe further developments carefully, to identify any shifts more quickly and to optimize control of one of the humankind's most deadly diseases.

The most important aspect of malaria treatment continues to be strict observance of treatment protocols. However, that is still a problem -- and not only in Africa. Noedl explains: If someone is meant to take the medication for three days but stops after one or two days, because the symptoms have subsided and he/she feels better, then some of the pathogens will inevitably survive. This is the context in which resistance develops." In South-East Asia, resistance is presumably also due to the fact that there are far fewer cases of malaria so that selection pressure is greater. Ramharter: "It is much easier for one resistant parasite in 100 to survive and pass on the resistant gene than it is for one in several thousand."

According to figures from the World Health Organization, worldwide more than 200 million people develop malaria every year. Last year around 600,000 patients died from the tropical disease, 90% of them in Africa, in most cases children under five. Malaria is caused by parasites, which are transmitted by bites from infected mosquitoes.
Previous exposure to the dengue virus may increase the potency of Zika infection, according to research from Imperial College London.

The early-stage laboratory findings, published in the journal Nature Immunology, suggests the recent explosive outbreak of Zika may have been driven in part by previous exposure to the dengue virus.

The study, which included scientists from Institut Pasteur in Paris and Mahidol University in Bangkok, suggests the Zika virus uses the body's own defences as a 'Trojan horse', allowing it to enter a human cell undetected. Once inside the cell, it replicates rapidly.

Professor Gavin Screaton, senior author of the research and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial, said: "Although this work is at a very early stage, it suggests previous exposure to dengue virus may enhance Zika infection. This may be why the current outbreak has been so severe, and why it has been in areas where dengue is prevalent. We now need further studies to confirm these findings, and to progress towards a vaccine."

A second study by the same team, published in Nature, suggests an antibody that works against the dengue virus may also neutralise Zika -- providing a potential target for a vaccine.

Dengue fever has risen dramatically over recent decades and the virus is thought to cause around 390 million infections each year -- with 40 per cent of the world's population living in areas of risk.

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The dengue virus is similar to the Zika virus -- they belong to the same viral family, called the Flaviviridae, and both are transmitted by the Aedes mosquito.

In the new Nature Immunology paper, supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, the researchers used antibodies that recognise the dengue virus collected from individuals who had been infected with dengue. The team, who were also supported by the National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, added them to human cell cultures, together with the Zika virus.

Their results suggest dengue antibodies can recognise and bind to Zika, due to the similarities between the viruses. Crucially, they also suggest that pre-existing dengue antibodies can amplify a Zika infection through a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).

This has been previously identified in dengue fever, and is thought to be why a second infection with dengue is often more serious than the first.

When dengue first infects the body, the immune system makes antibodies against the virus. Antibodies are large proteins that latch onto invading bacteria or viruses, neutralising them and enabling the immune system to destroy the pathogens. The antibodies are then primed to recognise the same invaders should another attack occur.

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However, there are four different types of dengue virus. If someone is infected a second time by a different strain, the antibodies from the first attack can only partially bind to the virus, and are unable to prevent infection.

The antibody, with the virus loosely attached, then shuttles into an immune cell. This immune cell would normally then kill the virus, but because the virus is not properly attached, it breaks free once it gains entry to the human immune cell. Here it hijacks the immune cell's machinery to replicate more viral particles, enhancing the infection.

The new study suggests the same phenomenon occurs when a person who has previously been exposed to dengue encounters Zika. The existing dengue antibodies latch onto Zika, due to similarity between the viruses. However the antibodies are unable to latch onto Zika securely, and so the antibody simply facilitates entry of Zika into the human immune cells, where it replicates.

"We now need to investigate whether the phenomenon of ADE may aid transfer of Zika across the placenta," explained Dr Juthathip Mongkolsapaya, co-author from the Department of Medicine at Imperial.

She added that the team also found that a type of antibody may help protect against the phenomenon of ADE, and prevent the virus from hijacking the immune cells. Previous work from the team has shown the immune system generates different types of antibodies to dengue that bind to various areas of the virus. In the current study, the team found a group of antibodies that bind to a certain site on the dengue virus -- called EDE1 antibodies -- were able to prevent the Zika virus from entering the immune cell.

In a second study, published in Nature and co-authored by Professor Felix Rey from the Institut Pasteur and Professor Screaton from Imperial, the team confirmed that EDE1 antibodies bind efficiently to the Zika virus and potently neutralise infection. The team are now working hard to use these findings to develop new vaccines to dengue and Zika.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "Zika and dengue come from the same family of viruses and we know they share many similarities in their genetic make-up, transmission pattern and in the immune response they trigger. These new studies suggest that prior infection with dengue doesn't offer any protection against Zika, and may in fact predispose people to a more severe infection. We can't say yet whether this interaction is playing a role in the current outbreak, but if confirmed it's likely to have important implications for the control and global spread of Zika, and for the development of any vaccine for the virus. There are still more questions than answers about Zika and this group of viruses including dengue. We know that Zika has been present in Southeast Asia and Africa for many years and yet has not taken off there as it has in South America. This is what the international research effort needs to work out, and quickly."
Mobile phones have become commonplace. Modern communication devices like mobile phones need to exchange huge amounts of information. However, what is hidden underneath the elegantly shaped plastic casings is quickly forgotten: Complex signal processors constantly fighting against noise and steadily adapting themselves to changing environment.

But noise and changing environmental conditions do not only affect electrical circuits. In synthetic biology scientists are facing similar problems. However, in synthetic biology a methodology to deal with noise does not exist yet. Prof. Mustafa Khammash and Christoph Zechner of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering have studied how conventional signal processors can be translated into biochemical processes -- built and operated inside living cells.

A major limitation in engineering biological circuits is that host cells -- even if they are genetically identical -- are never the same. For instance, cell A might be in a different cell-cycle stage or have more ribosomes available than cell B. Therefore, the same synthetic circuit may behave very differently in each of these two cells. In extreme cases, only a small fraction of cells might show the correct behavior, while the remaining cells act unpredictably. This is referred to as context-dependency.

A key strategy for achieving noise-resistant and hence context-independent behavior is to build a circuit that evaluates what the noise looks like, allowing it to be separated from the signal effectively. Noise-cancelling earphones, for instance, heavily rely on this idea: A little microphone measures the background signals. A statistical algorithm predicts how the background signals propagate to the inside of the earphone. Finally, this predicted signal cancels out with the background signal. Apparently, the same principle can be applied to suppress noise in biological circuits. In particular, a circuit can behave context-independently if it can cancel out the effect of its molecular environment with the help of a noise filter.

Such filters have been intensively studied during the rise of telecommunications in the 1950s. The success of the filtering ideas culminated in the invention of the Kalman filter (named after Prof. em. Rudolf Kalman at ETH Zurich), which has had a revolutionary impact on various fields -- ranging from telecommunications to financial engineering. Today there exists hardly any discipline of engineering that is not touched directly by the Kalman filter.

Unfortunately, the Kalman filter does not directly apply to molecular systems because its underlying mathematical assumptions are incompatible with molecular biology. Thus, a statistical noise filter called the Poisson filter has been invented, realizable through a single gene that has both a constitutive and an inducible promoter. As Christoph Zechner explains further: "We found out that under certain meaningful assumptions, a surprisingly simple noise filter can be derived -- the Poisson filter. The name stems from the fact that it is based on a certain probability distribution named after the French mathematician Simeon Poisson." The researchers tested the Poisson filter by using a genetic circuit in bacterial cells that can be induced by green light. They applied arbitrary noise signals to the circuit, which was indeed able to track the light-signals at a remarkable precision. Consequently, the Poisson filter can be understood as a molecular analog of the Kalman filter.

Mustafa Khammash points out that they have collaborated with Georg Seelig at the University of Washington in Seattle on one of the experimental parts of the project. "George Seelig is an expert in DNA-based synthetic circuits. Some of the in vitro experiments were carried out in his lab, while others were done here in Basel."

Circuits like the above could play an important role for synthetic biology to reach many of its potential applications such as new therapeutics or biosensing. For example, ETH researchers have recently proposed a selective medical drug that can distinguish healthy from tumor cells using a synthetic circuit that is transfected into the cells. If a cell is found healthy, it is left unaffected by the circuit. In case a cancer cell is detected, a medical compound is released that induces apoptosis, i.e. programmed cell death. Unfortunately, cell-to-cell variability may severely impact the performance of the circuit such that misclassifications are likely. As a consequence, the drug's intended effect may be inverted in a fraction of the cells, meaning that healthy cells are killed, while cancer cells can proliferate unaffectedly.

Filtering circuits provide a promising strategy to address this issue. More specifically, they could be used to effectively suppress cell-to-cell variations and in turn improve the specificity and efficacy of a drug. "The goal of our project was to design context-independent synthetic circuits. The next important step is to test our framework in practical applications," Christoph Zechner sums up. And as Mustafa Khammash concludes: "The molecular filters we have invented can be utilized for estimating cellular states. Such estimates would enable noise-resistant biosensors and feedback regulation, among other applications."
Behaviors caused by traumatic experiences in early life are reversible. Researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich could demonstrate that environmental enrichment allows trauma-related symptoms in mice to be reversed. This is the first evidence that positive environmental factors can correct behavioral alterations which would otherwise be transmitted to the offspring. The symptoms and their reversal are associated with epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene.

Traumatic experiences in childhood increase the risk of developing behavioral and psychiatric disorders later in life. It is also known that the consequences of a trauma can likewise be observed in the children of people affected even if those children have themselves not experienced any trauma. However, childhood trauma in some conditions can also help individuals deal better with difficult situations later in life. This ability, too, is passed onto following generations. These findings have recently been uncovered by Isabelle Mansuy, Professor of Neuroepigenetics at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, during investigations carried out in mice.

A positive environment reverses behavioral symptoms

Mansuy's team of researchers has now demonstrated for the first time that such trauma-related behavioral alterations are reversible in mice. If male mice exposed to trauma in early postnatal life live in pleasant conditions as an adult, their behavior and the behavior of their offspring returns to normal. "Long after the traumatic experiences themselves, living in enriched conditions reverses the behavioral symptoms in adult animals and also prevents the transmission of these symptoms to the progeny," summarizes Isabelle Mansuy the new findings.

Lead author Katharina Gapp and her colleagues exposed newborn male mice to traumatic stress by separating them from their mothers at irregular intervals and stressing their mother unpredictably during separation. Subsequently, the male mice and their male offspring behaved significantly differently from the control mice when exposed to challenging situations. Examples related to their natural avoidance of bright light or their behavior when confronted with complex and constantly changing tasks, for example to obtain a water ration when thirsty.

Epigenetic dysregulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene is reversible

At the molecular level, these behavioral alterations are associated with an increased level of the glucocorticoid receptor in the hippocampus -- a brain area essential for cognitive processes and that contributes to stress responses. This altered expression results from an epigenetic dysregulation of the gene for the receptor that binds stress hormones like cortisone. The activity of this gene is normally reduced by DNA methylation, an epigenetic mark that silences genes. Traumatic experiences lead to the removal of some of these DNA methylation marks which results in an increase in gene activity and an increased production of the glucocorticoid receptor.

The epigenetic alterations are not only found in the hippocampus of the offspring of traumatized mice, but also in the germ cells of their fathers. The scientists thus assume that alterations in DNA methylation are transmitted to the progeny through the sperm. Isabelle Mansuy and her team have now shown that the impact of childhood trauma can be corrected by a low-stress and enriched environment in adult life. At the same time, the correction the of DNA methylation pattern prevents the symptoms from being inherited by the offspring.

A universal mechanism for transmitting characteristics caused by the environment

"Until now, only pharmacological drugs were known to correct epigenetic alterations in a consequential way for behavior. Now we know that this is also possible through environmental manipulations such as enriched conditions," highlights Isabelle Mansuy. The researchers suspect that this reversible epigenetic transmission is an universal mechanism that may also be partially responsible for transmitting other characteristics to the offspring, for example metabolic disorders due to poor nutrition or pathologies induced by endocrine disruptors.
With the help of University of Alberta scientists, a newly described pterosaur has finally flown home. This spectacular fossil material was discovered in a private Lebanese limestone quarry more than a decade ago and has led to what UAlberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell calls "priceless scientific findings."

"This is the first complete pterosaur from Lebanon and the very first pterosaur from this age of marine-deposited rocks," says Caldwell of the new genus and species, whose name is yet to be revealed. The animal lived in the Cenomanian era -- 95 million years ago during the lowest part of the Upper Cretaceous -- in the middle of what is now called the Tethys Seaway, a vast expanse of shallow seaway filled with reefs and lagoons, separating Europe from Africa and stretching all the way to southeast Asia. "That chunk of ocean was huge -- think 10 or 20 times the size of the Great Barrier Reef and chock-full of living things. I'm sure our little pterosaur was living on one of the reef islands."

The extremely fragile yet nearly perfectly preserved fossil was split into two pieces when it was discovered in its slab of limestone rock. Though the limestone quarries leftover from the ancient oceans are famously filled with fossil fish, this is the first ever complete pterosaur discovered in that region. Besides a fracture to the skull from the pick axe of a quarry worker, the skull is intact, as are the wings, legs, and body. "It is in immaculate condition as a result of a lot of delicate preparation work," says Caldwell. "We can really see how this animal was built. It's a nice little piece of science and a great story about rescuing this specimen from certain doom."

The University of Alberta has long dominated the field of vertebrate paleontology, and the quarry owner allowed a team of experts to prepare and describe the specimen with the intent that it would one day be sold -- an activity that is legal in Lebanon. Caldwell teamed up with his University of Alberta colleague, dinosaur paleobiologist Philip Currie along with lead authors Alexander Kellner from the National Museum in Brazil and Fabio Dalla Vecchia in Italy. The group has described the new species and genus, and scientific results are forthcoming in a prestigious journal.

From one university to another

Following a decade of stewardship at the University of Alberta, the quarry owner recently sold the pterosaur. The buyer subsequently donated the specimen to the Mineralogy Museum at Saint Joseph's University in Beirut -- the oldest university in Lebanon -- to become the centrepiece of their Lebanese vertebrate fossil exhibition.

For his part, Caldwell is pleased to see that the specimen will not only continue to be used for teaching and research but also that it will be publicly exhibited back in its home country of Lebanon. A cast of the specimen now resides at the University of Alberta.
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Chico was bought as a baby for almost 1 million Thai baht - or nearly $30,000 in U.S. dollars. The orangutan then lived his life as a pet for six years.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"It is highly likely that he was captured from the wild in his homeland of Borneo, then illegally smuggled into Thailand," Tom Taylor, assistant director at Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT), told The Dodo.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Earlier last week, Chico's owner decided that he no longer wanted to keep him, and so he reached out to WFFT to discuss rehoming options for his pet "monkey." As WFFT found out in person, Chico was no monkey. He was an ape.

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Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"We made the decision that we could help and the owner started by handing over the personal 'belongings' of the orangutan," WFFT wrote on Facebook.

Chico's personal belongings | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Chico's personal items included a child's go-kart, clothes, sugary foods and human toiletries.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

WFFT noted that it appeared that Chico was treated like a human child, rather than a wild animal. However, it was only when the orangutan started to become aggressive that his owner understood that keeping him as a pet could no longer be an option.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"Chico is now at WFFT and is going through a short quarantine period before we plan to introduce him to the other Bornean orangutan housed here, the beautiful Maggie," WFFT wrote on Facebook.

Maggie | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

The team is dedicated to helping Chico adjust to the natural life he's been denied this entire time. According to Taylor, Chico has been settling nicely into his new surroundings and especially enjoys playtime with the WFFT staff.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"He has a funny character and is very ticklish," Taylor said. "He is very strong. It's easy to see why his owner could no longer control him, and further adds to the reasons why wild animals should never be kept as pets, particularly dangerous wild animals."

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
No one really knew why Lucy's owner refused to give her up. Almost every day, he beat the pit bull mercilessly. Maybe it was because in Egypt, purebred dogs are a status symbol, almost a species apart from the countless street dogs who scavenge for their curbside meals. But one day, her owner got so frustrated over some perceived annoyance, he beat Lucy within an inch of her life. The dog, who was hardly a year old, was kicked repeatedly and possibly pummeled with a brick. Both sides of her jaw were broken.

SNARR

After hearing of the attack, a rescue group in Cairo tried to persuade Lucy's owner to give her up. But he still refused. So, the group got in touch with a U.S. animal rescue called Special Needs Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation (SNARR). While Lucy was getting medical attention, the Egyptian group came up with a plan. "They told him she died and immediately put her on a plane to JFK airport," Lauren Connelly of SNARR tells The Dodo. "If they had not, she would have likely suffered more beatings and starved because she couldn't eat with her jaw the way it was without specially mixed food." Thanks to a network of volunteers, Lucy traveled from New York to Pittsburgh, where she spent her first night at Connelly's house. In the morning, Lucy was taken to the hospital.

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SNARR

Aside from her shattered jaw, her mouth was oozing infection. "You literally had to hold your breath when she was near your face; it was so bad," Connelly says. Gradually, the infection abated. Lucy's next step was an orthopedic specialist, "who essentially rebuilt the jaw from the ground up," Connelly notes.

SNARR

For a while, Lucy had to wear a brace so the bones could bond and heal properly. But Lucy's biggest hurt was on the inside. Her foster mom, who met Connelly and Lucy at the vet, got to healing that right away.

SNARR

Today, everyone loves Lucy. And she's getting her smile back. All she needs now is a real home.

SNARR
Nam Phon was one of the first elephants to retire at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) Elephant Refuge in 2004. She lived a peaceful life at the refuge for six years, enjoying her days in the company of her own kind after spending most of her life carrying tourists at various elephant camps. But in 2010, Nam Phon's former owner decided to take her back - and force her into hard labor once more.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"It is most likely that she was poached from the wild as an infant, witnessing her mother and other herd members butchered and then sold on into the logging industry, and later into the tourist industry," WFFT wrote on Facebook. "She has been at elephant camps giving rides to tourists each day for the last five years. The camp in which she came from is notoriously known as an abusive place for elephants."

Nam Phon's '"resting place" at the elephant camp | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

At the time of her initial rescue, WFFT didn't have the finances needed to pay elephant owners to allow their animals to permanently retire at the sanctuary.

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Nam Phon's restraints while at the elephant camp | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

So, Nam Phon was ripped away from her home and friends, sentenced to more years of hard labor. However, after negotiating with Nam Phon's owner for years, WFFT was able to bring her back, rescuing her from a nearby trekking camp in west Thailand in March 2016.

Nam Fon on the day of her rescue | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Upon her arrival, Nam Phon, who is now 55, was greeted by her old friends, Khan Kluey and Somboon - and ever since her return, she has become close to another female elephant at the refuge, Jele.

Jele | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Jele, who is 60, was found chained to a tree and left to die after her use as a trekking elephant came to an end. But she was rescued, rehabilitated and came to show off her true personality as a friendly and confident elephant - and a master escape artist at that, according to WFFT. She's managed to make it out of her enclosure three times.

Nam Fon and Jele | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

It only made sense that a senior girl like Jele would have a thing or two to teach Nam Phon, who is more relaxed and loves to amble at her own pace.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

The pair is now practically inseparable and they are often seen "holding hands" with their trunks.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Even though Nam Phon's back legs are slightly lame from all the labor she's endured, she seems to have little trouble keeping up with her adventurous best friend.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

More importantly, both elephants now get to spend their golden years together, free from the cycle of abuse they once had no choice but to engage in.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Want to help WFFT continue doing good work for animals in need? Consider making a donation here.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
Before they were named Tulip and Daisy, two little pigs had a terrible accident - which turned out to be an incredible stroke of luck. The baby pigs were in a truck passing through North Carolina when they fell off the back and into the road.

Denise Bitz, founder and president of Brother Wolf Animal Rescue (BWAR), in Asheville, North Carolina, believes Tulip and Daisy were on their way to the worst place possible: a feedlot, a place where livestock animals are fattened up before being sent to slaughter.

But instead they landed in the hands of the animal rescuers at BWAR. "They came into our care after the good people at Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge reached out to us," Bitz told The Dodo. Because the animal refuge wasn't set up for the little pigs who'd just fallen from the truck, it brought them to a place that was.

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"Brother Wolf started out rescuing orphaned dogs in 2007," Bitz said. "Over the years, our work has also introduced us to farmed animals like cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys."

Last year alone, BWAR saved the lives of over 6,000 animals - of all kinds. This year, the organization has saved Tulip and Daisy, and many more. The rescue has also created a sanctuary to give homes to the animals they've saved.

"We have come to see that all these animals are no less sentient than the dogs and cats we share our homes with - and are no less deserving of our compassion and concern," Bitz said.

There's no doubt that the compassion given to Tulip and Daisy - who are now living the good life at BWAR's new 83-acre sanctuary - has totally changed their lives.

Since their rescue, Tulip and Daisy have discovered they love belly rubs, just like any other pig (or dog). "I live at the Brother Wolf Animal Sanctuary and get to interact with the 'girls' daily and spend a lot of time with them," Bitz said. "They have very unique personalities."

Tulip is the "alpha pig," according to Bitz, even though she is smaller then Daisy. Both pigs share a love for belly rubs and wallowing in their refreshing mud pit. They also love to play and run around with anyone willing to interact with them. "They are very interested in playing with my dogs," Bitz added.

Before, Tulip and Daisy didn't even have names. Now their joy is pretty much unmistakeable.

If you live near Asheville, BWAR is always looking for people to volunteer to help socialize Tulip and Daisy or build a larger living area for the lucky, and rapidly growing, rescued pigs. Email denise@bwar.org to express your interest.
Brookfield Asset Management Inc., CGI Group Inc. and Great-West Lifeco Inc., the Canadian firms most exposed to the European market, have led a stock rebound ahead of the U.K. referendum amid growing optimism voters will back the status quo.

Canadian stocks with the most assets in Europe have gained 1.6 per cent this week, double the increase for the broader Canadian market as a shift in the polls show the Remain camp has a slight edge over those urging the U.K. to break away from the European Union.

Canadian companies with revenue and real estate in the U.K. will be watching the vote closely, said Ian de Verteuil, a Toronto-based analyst with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce who created a Brexit index to track Canadian stocks most tied to the vote. For the year to date, the 19 so-called Brexit stocks have risen just 2.8 per cent, less than half the 7.7-per-cent gain for the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index.

Like many variables that investors deal with on a daily basis, Brexit is a known unknown, one where very different investment actions will be required depending on the outcome, de Verteuil said in a report last week.

The outcome of Thursdays vote is far from certain. A Survation poll showed 45 per cent of voters backed the Remain camp, while 44 per cent were in favour of the U.K. leaving the union. Bookmakers, on the other hand, are firmly in the Remain camp, pegging the probability of a vote to quit the union at about 26 per cent, according to Oddschecker.

Other firms with relatively large exposures include software company OpenText Corp.; plane- and train-maker Bombardier Inc.; aircraft simulator maker CAE Inc. and engineering firm WSP Global Inc.

Collectively, less than 3 per cent of the S&P/TSX company revenue is derived from the U.K., according to CIBCs estimates, so a decision to quit the EU should have a limited effect on Canadas economy.

The impact will be pretty marginal overall, said Richard Nesbitt, chief executive officer of Toronto-based research firm Global Risk Institute.

He said the larger concern is the instability an exit vote would bring the global economy, in particular in the embattled EU.

The world is approaching a crescendo of volatility, he said. This just adds to their problems.

Canadian companies with most at stake:

Brookfield

Canadas largest alternative asset manager has the greatest exposure for Canadian firms with about 13 per cent, or $32 billion, of its $240 billion in assets under management in the U.K. and Europe. Those investments include Londons Canary Wharf, which it owns in partnership with Qatar Investment Authority, and British resort operator, Center Parcs, which it has acquired in recent years.

Bruce Flatt, Brookfields CEO, said an interview last week hes firmly in the Remain camp, saying the U.K. and the EU are inextricably tied for trade and commerce.

We have a significant business in London and the U.K. in general. Some businesses we have will be impacted and some wont be, he said at the companys annual general meeting Friday. Were strong in the camp that the U.K. should remain.

OpenText

The Waterloo, Ontario-based software firm gets about a third of its revenue from Europe, according to its most recent financial statements.

OpenTexts customers include EU institutions like the European Central Bank, and the biggest portion of its European business is in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, CEO Mark Barrenechea said in a phone interview.

Were going to be relatively neutral in our business whether Britain remains or leaves, he said. OpenText moved its European headquarters to Germany three years ago, so it wont face any issues with labour laws if the U.K. departs.

We run the U.K. out of the U.K.; we run Europe out of Germany, he said.

Lundin Mining

There is a risk that additional EU countries would follow the U.K. lead if it chooses to leave the union, said Paul Conibear, CEO of Lundin Mining Corp. He said that potentially includes Sweden, where about 10 per cent of Lundins revenue is derived, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Stability is always better than instability and a Brexit will lead to a period of instability in European currencies, Conibear said in an email, adding that any currency weakness would provide a short-term boost.

A period of extreme instability in Europe and economic uncertainty would shake international economic confidence and base metal prices almost inevitably could fall, he said.

Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney said the British are too sensible to leave the EU.

It would be disastrous for the United Kingdom if they voted to leave, Mulroney said Tuesday before an interview on Bloomberg TV Canada in Toronto. They would be excluded from much of if not all of the advantages that come from membership in Europe.

With files from Gerrit De Vynck and Stefanie Batcho-Lino

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This week, a Brazilian advertising agency won top industry awards in Cannes, France for a Bayer campaign.

One promotion featured a balding man. The text directed 38 year olds with hair loss to take aspirin  and teenagers with the same issue to reach for extra strength pills.

Another showed a cardboard box. Movers should prepare with aspirin, the copy suggested. Those getting evicted, however, should opt for extra strength.

A third displayed . . . What?

This one doesnt immediately make sense. Upon closer inspection, it seems to suggest: If someone records you having sex without your permission, take a really strong aspirin.

The advertisement, released in March throughout Brazil, snagged a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, an annual celebration of media and marketing. An international panel of judges select the winners. Per the festivals website:

Once a year, the industrys most curious, capable, ingenious minds are assembled to pore over innovative, inspiring communications from around the world and award the most coveted creative prize there is.

The Bayer ad, titled .Mov, comes from AlmapBBDO in Sao Paulo. Seven authors received credit. Theyre all men. (The agency and Bayer did not respond to requests for comment.)

Cindy Gallop, former chairman and president of the global advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegartys U.S. arm, noticed the spot in Cannes, where she spoke on a panel about sex in the media.

The rampant sexism you see in Mad Men is regrettably still true today, she said

Others expressed similar disgust on Twitter:

This ad about filming yourself having sex with a woman without her consent won an award at #CannesLions.

The Ethical Adman: #canneslions bronze winner for Bayer makes fun of consent

In May, the brutal gang-rape of a Brazilian teenager grabbed international headlines after assailants video-recorded the assault and posted the graphic footage to social media. Many similar incidents have happened in the United States. It speaks to broader views on sex and rape, Gallop said. The poster appeared to make light of surreptitiously recording intimacy. Thats a sex crime with lasting psychological effects on victims.

The fact that ingenious minds lauded the work is troubling, she said. Its a detrimental force when you think how powerful ad is in popular culture.

It also reflects the lack of gender diversity in advertising, Gallop said: The vast majority of creative directors in the United States, for example, are men. Bayers board of management, meanwhile, has six men and one woman.

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The federal government is creating a working group on housing with the Ontario and British Columbia governments as well as officials from Vancouver and Toronto amid warnings that housing prices in those cities are rising at an unsustainable pace.

Overall, the housing market is sound, but pockets of risk have emerged since the financial crisis, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a speech Thursday.

The government has already taken steps to protect borrowers and lenders, Morneau said, but more steps can be taken, if warranted, to help maintain a stable housing market.

These measures are taking some time to take effect, but we do know that they will help, he said. I want to say though, if further steps are warranted, further steps can be taken to protect both borrowers and lenders, helping to maintain a strong, stable and secure housing market and the economy over the long term.

Morneau recently increased the minimum down payment for homes over $500,000, a measure aimed specifically at cooling the Vancouver and Toronto markets.

The working group has not yet been formed  Morneau said he spoke to the respective finance ministers and mayors about it earlier this week  but it will meet through the summer to review factors that affect housing supply and demand, affordability and stability of the market.

While the federal government does have some levers under its control, we dont have all of them, he said. This, in our estimation, is a shared responsibility with provincial governments and municipalities having regulatory and taxation powers to respond to unique local concerns.

The Bank of Canada has warned that housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto are rising at an unsustainable pace that is beyond local economic fundamentals.

It noted that year-over-year house price growth in the greater Vancouver area hit 30 per cent last month, up from 15 per cent in December. In Toronto, the report said prices increased 15 per cent, compared to 10 per cent six months ago.

The Toronto Real Estate Board has reported that the average price for a detached home in the city last month was $1.28 million, while the average price for all homes was $782,051.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said that its benchmark price for detached properties has risen above $1.5 million.

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Finance Minister Bill Morneau has announced the creation of a working group to study the hot housing markets in Vancouver and Toronto, signaling that concerns about overheating are largely isolated.

We have real pockets of risk, he said at a Toronto breakfast speech.

Morneau spoke with the provincial finance ministers of Ontario and British Columbia and called the mayors of Toronto and Vancouver earlier this week to discuss the creation of the working group.

It will study factors affecting supply and demand, affordability and the long-term stability of the housing market. The group will not include officials from other provinces, nor any private sector experts such as bank economists or academics.

We want people to understand that while the federal government has some levers under its control we dont have all of them, Morneau said.

This is a shared responsibility with provincial governments and municipalities, having regulatory and taxation powers to respond to unique local concerns, he said.

The federal government and its predecessor have made several moves to try to tamp down frothiness in the Canadian housing market, which has been an economic hot spot since the end of the 2008-2009 recession.

Most recently, Morneau raised the minimum down payment on CMHC-insured homes from 5 per cent to 10 per cent on homes on the portion of homes over $500,000. He said the government is still waiting to gauge the fallout from the change implemented in February.

But federal level tools are a blunt instrument that could also cause unintended consequences in markets in the majority of Canada that are either stable  such at Halifax or Ottawa  or coolinglike Calgary.

Morneau announced earlier this month the government was doing a deep dive into Canadas housing market to address growing calls for it to act.

BMO chief economist Doug Porter said the governments decision to target Toronto and Vancouver makes sense.

The reality is that whatever strength we have in Canadas housing market is so concentrated in two cities that it really is more of a provincial, municipal issue, he said.

It shows they are concerned about this issue and they likely realize they need to get the municipalities and provinces on board to form an effective strategy.

Average home prices have surged by 15 per cent in Toronto and 17 per cent in Vancouver over the past year. In Vancouver, a detached home cost $1.5 million in May, a 37 per cent rise over the year prior. In Toronto, those homes cost just slightly less, at $1.3 million, a 15 per cent year-over-year increase.

In Vancouver, where there are 5.5 families for every detached home  compared to 1.8 nationally  the City has proposed to tax empty houses. Officials are concerned that investors are buying up homes that sit unoccupied while Vancouverites struggle to find affordable housing.

The City wants the provincial government to create a new tax for unoccupied homes, but said, failing that, it would impose a business tax on empty homes. Some have blamed foreign ownership for the problem.

The federal government is studying the degree to which foreign investment is playing a role in the overheated market. But Morneau would not comment on whether it is considering measures such as higher land transfer taxes or restrictions on foreign ownership, as Australia has done.

Of course foreign ownership is some element in this, Morneau said.

But before getting to conclusions, we really need to look at the data so we really need to get it right before taking action.

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Recently, Douglas Coupland, the Vancouver-based polymath  writer/artist/playwright/actor/curator  declared that 3D printing would be the next big tech tsunami to alter the art world, but it could very well be a wave of his own making.

On Tuesday, Coupland put out an open call for auditions for his latest public sculpture commission: an outsize bust of Vincent Van Gogh, to be created by 3D scanning and printing a close look-alike.

His invitation is simple: If youre red-headed and bearded, upload a photo for consideration by Aug. 20 to iamvincent.com. Visitors to the site can see submissions and place their votes. People can also enter by tagging potential look-alikes on social media with the hashtag #iamvincent.

The eventual winner will be jetted to Vancouver and paid 5,000 euros ($7,211 Canadian) for his trouble, and be immortalized in a large-scale  2-by-3-metre  bronze. The race has barely begun, but the field is yet to broaden: as of 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, 14 entries had been received, with one, an American named Robert Reynolds, leading the field with 10 votes.

Why redheads? Though the famous Dutch artist was red-bearded, a bronze sculpture reveals no such details. Coupland is ready with an answer, calling redheadedness the most recent successful human mutation. . . . This is a complex way of saying that there is no way of telling when a gene is going to change and what sort of characteristic it will bring about.

This genetic magic is a microcosm of the way in which all life on Earth changes with time. I want this first bronze piece to be eternal, but I also want it to be imbued with the 21st century.

Coupland did not specify if applicants were to have one ear or two.

21st century technology, clearly, is something Coupland is keen to embrace. Earlier this year, he embarked on a nationwide portrait project for Simons department stores, in which he 3D scans eager shoppers with a mind to assemble, eventually, what he calls a portrait of Canada.

Scanning and printing mini busts of his subjects in store as a take-home, Coupland keeps their data to be fed into his larger project. The eventual finished product, to be installed at the Simons store at Torontos Yorkdale Mall in 2017, will use data compiled from thousands of shoppers.

Correction -June 29, 2016: A photo caption on this article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Peijnenburg Roland is from Luxembourg.

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New research that for the first time calculates disparity in Ontarios child protection system has found that aboriginal and black kids are far more likely to be investigated and taken into care than white children.

The figures are especially stunning for aboriginal children. They are 130 per cent more likely to be investigated as possible victims of child abuse or neglect than white children, and 15 per cent more likely to have maltreatment confirmed.

Aboriginal children are also 168 per cent more likely to be taken from their homes and placed into care.

The huge disparity is symptomatic of the system thats failing our kids, says Steven Vanloffeld, executive director of the Association of Native Child and Family Service Agencies of Ontario.

The study also found that black children are 40 per cent more likely to be investigated for abuse or neglect than white children, and 18 per cent more likely to have maltreatment confirmed. But the likelihood of going into care is lower. Black children are 13 per cent more likely to be taken from their homes and placed with foster parents or in group homes.

Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, blames the disparity on the harsher lens childrens aid societies use when investigating black families.

What they might not consider abuse or neglect within a white or non-African Canadian family, they will consider abuse or neglect in one of our families, she says. This is not a matter of erring on the side of caution. We feel it is punitive.

The provincial government, which regulates the child protection system, must make the development of an African Canadian child welfare strategy a priority, she adds.

The estimates were extracted from the government-funded Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, compiled in 2013. A team of researchers, led by University of Toronto Prof. Barbara Fallon, examined a representative sample of 4,961 child protection investigations conducted by 17 childrens aid societies. The cases involved children up to age 14.

Of the dozen specific ethnic and racial categories examined, only black and aboriginal children were taken into care at rates higher than white kids.

The study was presented to more than 70 senior childrens aid society officials at a June 7 meeting in Toronto.

The disparity study calculated the relative likelihood of certain groups being involved with the child protection system. It differs from the study on disproportionate representation revealed by an ongoing Star investigation, which found that on a September day in 2013, 42 per cent of kids in the care of the Childrens Aid Society of Toronto had at least one parent who is black. Only 8 per cent of the citys under-18 population is black.

The disparity results coincide with mounting outrage about the disproportionate number of aboriginal and black children in care. Parents and leaders in these communities have for years blamed discrimination and a lack of services for struggling families.

Kenn Richard, executive director of Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, says more than 90 per cent of the families his agency works with are poor. Children are placed at risk as families struggle with a lack food, clothing and affordable housing, and often with addictions and mental health problems, Richard adds.

The disconnect between child welfare and the broad issues of poverty and marginalization is remarkable, Richard says in an interview. Its part of a pattern where the state intervenes on behaviour associated with poverty but never gets to the poverty itself.

I am sorry child welfare does not speak out on these issues, Richard adds, referring to Ontarios 47 childrens aid societies. I think we have a moral responsibility to say, Hey, wait a minute. All these kids are poor!

Societies have so far shied away from demanding dramatic political solutions and a radical reform of child welfare, he says.

The questions are too bold and too threatening, Richard says. So lets pick on the single mother who doesnt have milk in her fridge but is smoking. So we say, Youre smoking but you dont have milk so youre maltreating your children.

Aboriginal families  First Nations, Inuit and Metis  also struggle with a history of trauma and forced assimilation. The Ontario government has so far set up nine aboriginal childrens aid societies. But those in northern Ontario have few services, forcing many First Nations children to be placed with foster parents or group homes far from their communities.

Vanloffeld, whose association represents 10 aboriginal family service agencies, wants universities to form social workers sensitive to the history of aboriginal people by incorporating it in their curriculums.

He also calls for a multi-service model of child welfare.Not just, Were here to take your kids. Its, How can we help and work with you while ensuring the safety of the kid? Vanloffeld says.

Ontarios childrens aid societies are privately run but funded by the province, receiving $1.5 billion in 2015.

On average, 15,625 Ontario children were in foster or group-home care in 2014-15. The latest figures indicate that only 2 per cent of children are removed from their home due to sexual abuse and 13 per cent for physical abuse. The rest are removed because of neglect, emotional maltreatment and exposure to violence between their parents or caregivers.

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SANTIAGO, CHILETwo people who fell ill while working at the U.S. research station at the South Pole have been evacuated by a small plane that made the daring rescue flight in Antarcticas harsh winter.

The National Science Foundation said the two workers arrived safely late Wednesday in Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile, after a long trip from the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole.

They stopped for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica to be put on another plane.

From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott, said a statement on the National Science Foundations Facebook page.

The two were taken to a clinic in Punta Arenas, but it wasnt clear if that was the facility the foundation referred to.

The group, which runs Amundsen-Scott and two other centres in Antarctica, said it was not disclosing the location of the medical facility. It also did not identify the sick workers or give their conditions, citing medical privacy. They were described only as seasonal employees of Lockheed Martin, which is the prime contractor for operations and research support for the foundations Antarctic program.

At Magallanes Clinic in Punta Arenas, nurse Mauricio Seron told The Associated Press that a female patient with a gastric problem was the sicker of the two. He said the second was a male patient who had suffered a heart attack. The woman was carried in on a stretcher and the man walked in on his own accord.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 4,830-km. roundtrip from Britains Rothera station to the South Pole and returned to Rothera with the sick workers Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation. The workers were transferred to a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane for the flight to Punta Arenas.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy -2.5 C Wednesday afternoon. That was toasty compared to the South Pole where it was -60 C in the morning.

West confirmed that the operation, coming right after the equinox, was the darkest and coldest of all past missions to the South Pole for medical evacuation. He said that the departure of the two workers should not affect the functioning of the base.

Before they left, there were 48 people, 39 men and nine women, at the Amundsen-Scott station for the winter.

Normally, planes dont go to the U.S. polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold.

The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday; the sun will not rise at the South Pole until the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station, but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew.

The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring, Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, and batteries and hydraulics, West said. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as -75C, he said.

The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard, said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. If you are complacent, it will bite you.

Things can change very quickly down there, with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

The station has a doctor and a physicians assistant and is connected to doctors in the U.S. for consultation, West said, but sometimes workers need medical care that cant be provided at the South Pole. There have been three emergency evacuations from Amundsen-Scott since 1999.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring during slightly better conditions, rescued the stations doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were undertaken in 2001 and 2003, both for people who suffered from gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. The outpost conducts astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.

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OTTAWAA group of female human rights activists from Mexico is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to show his true feminist credentials and challenge their countrys president on its human rights record.

Trudeau will host Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a state visit next week before the North American leaders summit that will also include U.S. President Barack Obama.

The so-called three amigos will focus on strengthening continental economic co-operation and will likely issue a statement that reinforces their shared commitment to fight climate change.

But four formidable Mexican women, all members of the Nobel Womens Initiative, are calling on Trudeau to push Pena Nieto publicly on the carnage and violence that has gripped Mexico since the start of its war on drug cartels a decade ago, especially its effect on women.

The internationally recognized activists represent torture victims, missing people and other victims of abuse by their countrys security services and were in Ottawa this week for talks with the government with the assistance of Amnesty International.

In a letter to Trudeau, Amnesty asks him to place human rights issues at the forefront of his discussion with his Mexican counterpart, citing the disappearances of 27,000 Mexicans since the country embarked on its bloody war against drug cartels in 2006.

Trudeau and Pena Nieto struck up an easy friendship when they met last fall at a pair of international summits in Turkey and the Philippines; their photos were jointly splashed across the front page of a Manila newspaper that declared them APEC hotties.

This is the propaganda campaign of Mexico. Its fabulous. Theyre really very, very good. I dont know who could be a friend of Pena Nieto, said Marta Sanchez, the co-ordinator of an organization thats trying to bring justice to the families of 120,000 migrant workers who disappeared between 2006 and 2015.

Trudeau can affect change in Mexico, she said, by not letting him (Pena Nieto) get away with it, saying, hey, I know whats going on down there and Im concerned. 

Sanchez and her three colleagues point to numerous reports by organizations such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others. They also cite a March 2015 report by the UN special rapporteur on torture.

Juan Mendez wrote that torture of detained people in Mexico was widespread and occurred in a context of impunity, the aim usually being to inflict punishment or to extract confessions or information. He blamed police, all jurisdictions of the armed forces, as well as some doctors, defence lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

Brenda Rangel is the co-founder of an organization that searches for the loved ones of disappeared Mexicans who have gone missing in the last decade, including her brother, who hasnt been seen since 2009.

Since then, she said shes been threatened with death, vivisection and having her eyes burned with a welding torch.

This is something that the government doesnt like. They dont like people who are trying to make the truth visible, or who, in their eyes, would throw dirt in Mexicos beautiful face.

The UN report linked the increase in violence to the escalation in the war on drug traffickers that former Mexican president Felipe Calderon began in 2006. Since then, annual complaints of torture and ill-treatment by authorities topped 2,100 in 2012, after an average of about 320 a year before 2007.

The UN report also expressed particular concern about sexual violence against female detainees, including forced nudity and repeated rape by multiple individuals.

When Trudeau and Obama meet their Mexican counterpart next week, they need to open their eyes and not trust what Pena Nieto says about the rights situation in Mexico, said Claudia Medina, the founder of Mexicos Breaking the Silence campaign, which highlights violence against women by her countrys security forces.

Medina became an activist after her 36-hour arrest in 2012, when she was subjected to electric shocks, strangulation and sexual torture in a navy barracks to force her to confess to being linked to organized crime. Charges against her were dropped earlier this year.

Pilar Aresse, of Mexicos Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre, said Mexican activists need to go beyond their countrys borders to find justice, because it cant be found at home.

Our own lives may be at risk and we do not trust our Mexican authorities.

In its letter to Trudeau, Amnesty calls on Trudeau to be a real amigo to Pena Nieto by speaking frankly to him about the human rights situation in Mexico.

There is no more powerful way to demonstrate the strength and genuine character of that friendship than to have honest conversations, offer frank advice and lay out clear expectations of the need for major human rights change in Mexico.

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OTTAWAThe Senate is demanding that Mike Duffy repay almost $17,000 in ineligible expenses for which he faced fraud and breach of trust charges and was acquitted by an Ontario judge.

According to a news release from Duffys office late Wednesday, the Senates Committee on Internal Economy wrote him June 8 to seek reimbursement of six claims for goods or services and one travel claim, which the Senate says were non-compliant with the Senates administrative rules at the time.

They include $10,000 for personal fitness consultant Mike Croskery, $300 in makeup services, $500 to pay a volunteer in his office, and $8 for photos in the period from March 2009 to September 2012.

They also include $3,142 to Duffy to reimburse travel expenses to deliver a speech in September 2012 for which the Senate says Duffy did not disclose a $10,000 speaking fee.

The Senates letter to Duffy, included in materials released by the senator, notes Duffy was discharged at trial.

However, new information surfaced in the public domain including the judgment as well as additional supporting documentation, which warranted an assessment of the eligibility of some expenses.

Signed by the clerk of the Senate committee on internal economy, Nicole Proulx (a witness for the Crown at Duffys trial), the letter gave Duffy 10 days to respond with any observations or documents that could change the Senates conclusions he still owed money.

Justice Charles Vaillancourt ruled April 21 that Duffy did not break the criminal law in filing expense claims under broad Senate rules at the time.

Duffy also released his lawyer Don Baynes 15-page letter in response to Senate officials, denouncing the Senates move as a collateral attack on the judge two months after his complete exoneration of the senator.

Bayne pointed out Duffys acquittal on all 31 charges and the fact that the senator was summarily suspended without pay for nearly two years before he was even charged.

Bayne says Duffy has already paid the equivalent of 10 times the value of the amount the Senate is now seeking, after he suffered a net loss of $155,867.56, tremendous stress and a blow to his reputation and health during those years.

A very significant monetary and other penalty has, therefore, already and improperly been imposed by the Senate, he wrote.

Bayne noted that after Vaillancourt acquitted Duffy on charges of fraud, breach of trust and taking a $90,000 bribe from Nigel Wright, former chief of staff in Stephen Harpers office, the Crown decided it had no legal ground to appeal.

This post-judgment, post-penalty attempt to pursue the same expense matters is a further compounding of injustice upon injustice, and should be stopped, Bayne wrote.

Bayne reminded the Senate that the judge examined the specific claims it now seeks repayment for and found them within the rules. He also reminded them that the judge criticized Senate leaders for unjustly doing the bidding of the office of the then-prime minister.

Bayne also told Senate officials that the Supreme Court of Canada has found an acquittal is effectively a declaration of innocence and where there are other proceedings on the same facts, they must be resolved in favour of the accused. He said Vaillancourts findings cannot now be challenged, attacked or contradicted.

He slammed the Senates Committee on Internal Economy, where Conservative senators hold a majority, saying it has a duty to treat all senators equally.

Bayne said it has failed to do so, with none of the 30 other senators whose expenses were called into question by the federal auditor general  including Senate leaders like then-committee chair Claude Carignan, David Tkachuk and then-speaker Leo Housakos  facing similar suspension or loss of pay.

On Thursday, after Duffys public release of the information, Housakos and Sen. Jane Cordy, the current leaders of the internal economy committee  the Senates executive administrative body  replied that Duffy is being treated equally. The committee has chosen to follow the same dispute resolution process that all senators red-flagged by the auditor-general were offered.

Because Duffys case was before the court, it was not examined by the auditor general Michael Fergusons team.

But now the Senate committee says since finance officials have determined some of Duffys claims are ineligible, it is following the same dispute resolution process and offering Duffy the option of choosing to have his case heard by the special arbiter, former (Supreme Court of Canada) justice Ian Binnie.

The documentation submitted by Senator Duffy through his lawyer meets the deadline requirement established as part of that process and will now be taken into consideration, said the statement jointly released by Housakos, the current committee chair, and deputy chair Cordy.

Carignans office said he was not available for any interviews.

The Senate has referred the claims of seven other senators who did not repay a total of $527,788.54 deemed owing to outside counsel.

The largest amount owing, from Manitoba Liberal Rod Zimmer, was $176,014. The senator died two weeks ago. Its not clear whether the Senate will pursue his estate.

A spokesman said Thursday the senate was still awaiting the outside counsels recommendations on next steps in those seven cases.

The others included Gerry St-Germain, of B.C., who was reported to still owe $67,120; Manitoba Liberal Sharon Carstairs, $7,528; Ontario Liberal Marie-P. Charette-Poulin, $125,828; New Brunswick Liberal Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, $110,051; Nova Scotia Conservative Don Oliver, $23,955.54; and Newfoundland Liberal Bill Rompkey, $17,292.

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Almost three decades ago, a jury in Florida convicted a young Canadian misfit of gunning down an acquaintance after what was potentially a death-penalty trial that in essence lasted only seven hours.

He was sentenced to life. And with that, the states prison system swallowed Toronto-born William Russell (Russ) Davies. For 30 years, it has refused to spit him back out. While his five co-accused walked free long ago, Davies presumptive parole date is another 30 years away.

I have been in the worst s---bag institutions that the state of Florida has, Davies, 48, said in a recent prison interview. I have lived in a hell that you probably have watched on television and dont really have a grasp of.

Davies was involved in a serious crime, so its no surprise he found himself enmeshed in the steely maw of Floridas justice system. Yet police and court records and years of post-conviction documentation suggest Davies fell victim to an overworked system that placed expediency above justice, then threw up a wall of indifference.

Weve been voices crying in the wilderness about this, said Loftus Cuddy, a now-retired Toronto lawyer who believes Davies conviction on first-degree murder was a travesty. At minimum, Cuddy said, the evidence presented at trial reveals considerable reasonable doubt.

Davies was just shy of 18 in spring 1986, when he pinched a credit card and cash from his mothers wallet and left home in Richmond Hill. He made it across the border in a car stolen from his boss at the Tim Hortons and high-tailed it to Daytona Beach, Fla.

It was the culmination of years of skipped school, defiance, strained relations with his parents and petty crime. I was just being a dummy. I didnt want to hear nothing. Thats all. I was a kid that thought I knew everything and nobody could tell me nothing. Thats the truth of it, Davies says now.

Within weeks, he had fallen in with The Family, a rougher older group of shiftless louts whose existence revolved around stealing alcohol and cigarettes, drinking themselves blind, roaring around Daytona Beach and taking whatever street drugs they could get their hands on. It was, Davies says, crazy and out of control, but the rebellious teen loved it.

One day in June 1986 members of The Family did what they did best: They stocked up on beer and drove around.

Behind the wheel of the Cadillac up front was George (Georgie) Hughes. Next to him were Carrie (Ma) Parker and Timothy (Big Tim) Hagen. Passing in and out on the back seat was a very drunk James (Jimbo) Noojin.

Following the Caddy was Chaney in his Mercury Cougar with John (John-John) Cavallaro next to him. An unhappy Davies was in the back. Chaney was drunk and driving over curbs.

Late that evening, the two cars drove into a secluded wooded area in Tomoka State Park.

What exactly transpired is now impossible to discern because of conflicting witness accounts. But heres how Davies, who had just turned 18, says it went down:

Chaney was talking trash and Davies says he walked over and hit him on the side of the head with a gun, which went off, the bullet whizzing by Hagen into the woods. Chaney fell to the ground.

I froze when the gun went off. Im scared to death. I dont know what to do. Im stuck, Davies alleges.

Hagen, angry at the gunplay, walked over to see what had happened to Chaney, who by some accounts was snoring, by others was in his death throes. Hagen twice slapped Chaney, who Davies says was trying to get up, and said, Hes all right. At that point, however, Davies alleges Cavallaro went over, grabbed the gun from him, kicked Chaney in the jaw, put the gun under his chin and shot him.

Chaneys decomposing remains were found a month later. In his pocket was identification and registration papers for his Cougar. Police soon arrested all the men present the night he was killed.

Davies, however, had already been arrested within days of the killing for an unrelated offence.

For reasons that remain unclear  but possibly because he lied about his age  Davies was placed in a juvenile detention centre, where, weeks later, police would arrest and charge him in Chaneys death. There is no evidence they attempted to reach his parents or notify Canadian consular officials. Davies refused to talk to investigators, insisting he see a lawyer.

Initially, all six were charged with first-degree murder. Raymond Cass, a legal-aid lawyer, was appointed to defend them.

At one point, Davies says, he was taken to an interview room and confronted by the investigating officer, prosecutor and two correctional officers. Cass, who was supposed to have been there, was absent. What really drew his attention, Davies says, was a detailed drawing of an electric chair on the back wall, with the monikers of his co-accused on each side. On the seat, in bold letters, was written Russ, Davies says.

Eventually Cass told Davies he was withdrawing from the case on the grounds of irreconcilable conflict. Davies co-accused, some housed together in prison, were brokering plea deals. The shifting finger of blame was coming to point squarely at the Canadian teen.

In mid-October, Carmen Corrente, since named assistant attorney general, was appointed to defend Davies.

The new lawyer seemed to view the case as an inconvenience, Davies says, spending little time talking to him. While Corrente pushed his client to plead out, Davies refused, insisting he hadnt killed Chaney.

Despite repeated requests, Corrente refused to discuss the case with The Canadian Press.

By the time Davies got to trial in March 1988, his five co-accused had pleaded guilty to lesser crimes such as accessory after the fact. All were handed sentences ranging from probation to five years.

Cavallaro, who most everyone agrees fired the second shot, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and got 12 years. He was released in 1990 after serving just two years. The Canadian Press tried to contact him in prison  he is there for an unrelated offence  but received no response.

In the end, Davies alone stood trial for Chaneys killing.

I realized I was in deep s--- when I was absolutely by myself and there was no one in the entire world that was going to do or say anything on my behalf, Davies says.

STATE OF FLORIDA vs. WILLIAM RUSSELL DAVIES

Transcripts of the trials opening statements have long been shredded, Florida prosecutors say. But Davies says Corrente promised jurors he would testify. The lawyer later acknowledged that he told the jury he also would call co-accused Tim Hagen, whose testimony might have altered the course of the trial. But Corrente called neither to the stand.

Over the next day and half, prosecutor Gene White called seven witnesses, including the investigating officer, who had taken statements from all the men except Cavallaro, the man Davies says actually killed Chaney. Also testifying was the man who found the body, a medical examiner, and a prison guard who told jurors Davies had confessed  a version disputed by Davies and by other cell-block inmates, according to their affidavits. The defence interviewed none of them.

The prosecutions star witness was Jimbo Noojin, who claimed to have seen Chaney being shot in the head by Davies  while drunkenly relieving himself, seven metres away, by the light of the moon.

The defence called just one witness: an anthropologist who examined Chaneys skeletal remains. He testified the bullet had entered under the victims chin and exited through the top of his head  consistent with Davies assertion that Cavallaro had shot him as he lay on the ground.

In closing arguments, White stressed the bad blood between Davies and Chaney. He highlighted Noojins testimony, the guards recounting of the confession, and a note Davies allegedly wrote in prison in which he said he was thinking of pleading guilty.

Corrente admitted to jurors he had made mistakes  including promising to call witnesses and then not calling them.

I apologize for misleading you, he told the jury, before a contradictory closing statement in which he argued the state had failed to prove Davies had planned the killing or fired the fatal shot. At most, Corrente said, his client was guilty of aggravated battery.

Less than two hours later, jurors returned a unanimous verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder. Davies sat stone-faced, stunned, while breaking out in hives. His mother, Carol Davies, collapsed in hysterics, sobbing: My baby, my baby.

Upon sentencing, the jury recommended life with no parole for at least 25 years. Judge Kim Hammond agreed.

You have been a burden to humankind, Hammond said. You will live in your own kind of hell on Earth, that is unless you find another way.

Corrente filed an appeal a month later. The Appeal Court rejected it without saying why. Instead, Davies began pushing to serve his sentence in Canada. In 2003, documents show, Canada agreed to take him back. But Florida refused then and ever since to let him go. Officials, including the state governor and the head of the transfer program, ignored requests for comment.

What is clear is Florida adheres to a life means life world view, while Canada hews to the philosophy that criminals should eventually get the opportunity to turn their lives around.

Except for the most hardened, incorrigible killers, people convicted in Canada seldom see even two decades behind bars. Had the same crime been committed here, legal experts say, the odds are slim Davies would have been convicted of first-degree in the first place, or still been behind bars 30 years later.

An application made almost two years ago to transfer to Canada to be closer to his ailing parents is still somewhere in the bureaucratic maze, although Correctional Services Canada has done legwork on what supports Davies might have if he does return.

Florida denied prisoner #111211 parole last year. He can ask again in 2019  considered a small victory  but his current presumptive parole date is 2046.

Davies has, he insists, become a much better person, a change his parents and supporters say is real. I was just ashamed to the core of my existence that I had kissed an entire life away and created an entire life of victims and people that I hurt, and I said: I refuse to let that continue.

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A Mississauga woman alleges her own sister snooped on her private health records, launching a proposed class-action lawsuit and investigations by the local hospital network and Ontario privacy commissioner.

In a statement of claim filed in Superior Court last week, Katie Mallinson, 41, accuses her sister of a serious and prolonged invasion of her privacy, allegedly committed by accessing personal health records via a hospital channel at the ophthalmology office where she has worked for more than a decade. Mallinson told the Star she was never a patient at that office, but rather frequented the nearby Credit Valley Hospital, which shares patient records with the ophthalmology practice.

Mallinson believes her sister, Milton resident Lisa Lyons, improperly accessed personal information as her principal pastime at work, according to the statement of claim.

The hospital has confirmed that its own internal investigation found six patients files, including Mallinsons, had been breached, and all had been notified.

With unfettered access to the records of all three Trillium Health Partners hospitals in Mississauga, including Credit Valley, Mallinsons sister could have accessed the files of potentially thousands of patients, the statement of claim says.

The proposed class action claims Mallinson and others affected are owed at least $3 million in damages. Trillium Health Partners and Dr. Antonio Tony Vettese, the ophthalmologist for whom Lyons works, are also named as defendants.

The lawsuit alleges Vettese enabled and facilitated the alleged privacy breaches because such behaviour occurred in his professional premises, using his equipment, during working hours.

Mallinson is the only plaintiff included in the lawsuit so far, her lawyer, Christopher Du Vernet, told the Star. The statement of claim says several other patients have received letters telling them their records were improperly accessed.

None of the allegations has been proven in court and no statement of defence has been filed.

Its not revenge; its nothing like that. Its been gut-wrenching, and its been really hard, Mallinson told the Star in an interview about the lawsuit.

If shes going to do this to a family member, what would stop her doing this to a stranger? Ive cried and Ive had a lot of anxiety, she said. This is an outside doctors office that has had access to the hospital (records) You go to a hospital and see a specialist for help, and you know what? You should feel safe and secure that someone is not reading your records.

The Star was unable to reach Vettese on Wednesday. Lyons declined to comment.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario confirmed Wednesday that an investigation is continuing.

It is not clear whether Lyons still works at Vetteses office.

In a May 26 letter to Mallinson provided to the Star, Trillium Health Partners security and privacy officer David Dowe confirmed there was a privacy breach involving an individual in Dr. Vetteses office. Dowe wrote that an internal investigation found 40 instances where Mallinsons records were accessed, going back more than four years.

Trillium Health Partners would not confirm to the Star whether that individual was Lyons.

In an emailed statement responding to the Stars questions Wednesday, Trillium Health spokesperson Catherine Pringle said the hospitals investigation identified and notified six patients, including Mallinson, whose files had been breached. Pringle said the individual who accessed those records, who is not a Trillium Health employee, has since been denied access to the records system.

The organization is also implementing more frequent audits of its physician access system  Trillium does more than 1,000 random checks on people with access every year  and has written a letter to doctors and their staff reminding them to obey the rules on medical records privacy as outlined in provincial legislation, Pringle said.

There are 1,240 physicians with credentials at Trillium Health hospitals whose offices have access to their patient records.

Such records could include the patients name, health card number, address and contact information, medical history including physical and psychiatric conditions, as well as insurance and treatment details, the statement of claim alleges.

We take this matter extremely seriously and are taking all necessary steps to ensure a resolution that protects the interests of our patients, their families and our community, Pringle said.

She added that, by law, doctors and their staff are allowed to look only at the records of patients in their care.

Speaking with the Star by phone, Mallinson said her sister, Lyons, has worked at Vetteses office about 30 years. She is now estranged from her sister, who she said is eight years older.

Mallinson said she became suspicious when her teenage son was texting her sister before a family event, and Lyons apparently mentioned in a message something specific about Mallinsons health that she shouldnt have known.

It was a shock, she said. You feel violated. You feel sick. All in all, its a family member and you feel nauseous.

She told the Starshe reached out to her hospital, which responded May 26 with Dowes letter. As to her decision to pursue legal action, Mallinson said she wanted to make sure anyone else whod had their records breached would know and be able to seek justice.

She (Lyons) never tried to reach out to me. The doctor never tried to reach to me, Mallinson said. I never got an apology.

There have been several prominent privacy breaches in Ontario hospitals in recent years.

Last month,two workers at Princess Margaret hospital in Toronto were convicted of snooping into former mayor Rob Fords medical records during his cancer treatment. They were each fined $2,505, according to court records.

Mallinsons lawyer, Christopher Du Vernet, argued that his clients case demonstrates there should be tighter rules about access to hospital records.

Its just the virtual absence of an effective system of checks and balances, he said.

While this woman may have a PhD in snooping, she is not a doctor.

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The stern look from up high on the bench was apparently a bit too much for one man.

Kersasp Shekhdar recently tried to have Ontario Court of Appeal Justice David Doherty  considered the top criminal law jurist on the court recuse himself for, among other issues, his tone of voice and scowling visage while presiding over a previous case involving Shekhdar.

Doherty refused to step back from the matter, while writing rather detailed reasons about the importance of an impartial justice system and why judges should take any claim of bias  real or perceived  seriously.

In my view, a judge is best advised to remove himself if there is any air of reality to a bias claim, Doherty wrote in his decision released this week.

That said, judges do the administration of justice a disservice by simply yielding to entirely unreasonable and unsubstantiated recusal demands. Litigants are not entitled to pick their judge.

They are not entitled to effectively eliminate judges randomly assigned to their case by raising specious partiality claims against those judges. To step aside in the face of a specious bias claim is to give credence to a most objectionable tactic.

Shekhdar, who represented himself, lives in Pakistan, according to the decision. He told the Star by email that he intends to ask a panel of three appeal court judges to review Dohertys decision.

Doherty also denied Shekhdars motion for extra time to seek leave to appeal a decision from a lower court. A request for comment from Doherty sent to the court was not returned.

Different judges conduct themselves differently in court; some of them are very reluctant to intervene, some ask a lot of questions, some have a very kind and soft manner and some are a little more aggressive, said Howard Krongold, a lawyer who specializes in criminal appeals and who was not involved in the case.

I think anybody who has ever appeared in front of Justice Doherty would know that hes exceedingly fair-minded, and perhaps this litigant got the wrong impression because of what he perceived in the tone of his voice.

Doherty sat on two previous appeal court panels that heard matters involving Shekhdar.

The man argued that in both instances, the panels reasons for dismissing his cases are so lacking in substance and so clearly wrong in law as to be explainable only by racism, corruption and/or criminal case fixing, Doherty wrote, quoting part of Shekhdars written submissions.

Shekhdar further alleged that Dohertys tone of voice and scowling visage while delivering the reasons in the previous case demonstrated his contempt for Shekhdar.

He writes that he suspects that my contempt reflects my racism and disdain for anyone who is not a white Canadian. Finally, the moving party (Shekhdar) asserts that I did not pay attention during the proceedings and fell asleep, Doherty wrote.

He noted that Shekhdar has made allegations of misconduct against many judicial players in the past, including a number of other judges. Doherty found there was no air of reality to his accusations of bias.

Judges are able in almost all instances to carry out their jobs impartially, and there are rare instances where a judge may create the appearance of bias, and in those cases its necessary for the judge to step away from the case, said criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown, who was not involved in the case.

Simply showing a facial expression is not a basis to prove bias in any way, especially when there is no jury who could potentially be influenced by those facial expressions, he said. In fact, in many cases, the facial expressions are helpful to guide a lawyer on the weaknesses in their own arguments, and what they need to do to persuade the judge of their position.

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Tracy MacCharles, Ontarios new minister responsible for accessibility, must act quickly to reverse a recent regulatory change that weakens the provinces goal of becoming fully accessible by 2025, says a disability rights activist.

This is the closest weve come to having a full-time minister on this file, said Toronto lawyer David Lepofsky, head of a grassroots alliance that monitors progress on the provinces landmark Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

We just hope she can undo the damage that she inherits.

Under the act, passed unanimously in 2005, all businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees must have a written policy outlining how they accommodate customers with disabilities, train staff and receive customer feedback. The policy must be available to the public upon request.

But earlier this month, as part of a periodic review of regulations under the law, the government exempted businesses and non-profits with 20 to 49 employees from having to put their accessible customer service policy in writing or to make it public.

As of July 1, only companies with 50 or more employees must have written policies.

Almost 33,000 organizations will be affected by the regulatory change, according to Ontarios accessibility directorate.

The government has been saying that its really important for organizations to deliver accessible customer service, said Lepofsky, who is blind. But how do you train your staff on a policy thats not in writing?

The organizations being exempted are among those already breaking the law by not filing annual compliance reports to the government on how they are serving customers with disabilities, he noted.

A year ago, 65 per cent of businesses still had not filed their 2012 accessibility reports, and 60 per cent had failed to meet the 2014 deadline, according to former accessibility minister Brad Duguid.

How is this change going to improve compliance? Lepofsky asked. We are calling on the new minister to reverse this decision. It doesnt come into effect until July 1, so its not too late for her to fix it.

James Sanders, former chair of the provincial Accessibility Standards Advisory Council, said his group recommended the change after an independent review of the legislation last year urged the government to simplify the rules for businesses.

The acts accessibility standards for employment, communications and transportation define small organizations as those with 50 or fewer employees. So the council agreed the accessible customer service standard should use the same benchmark, said Sanders, past president of the CNIB.

We really wrestled with this one, he said in an interview. But in the end, we did it in the spirit of harmonization.

All organizations with one or more employees must have accessible customer service policies and those with 20 or more staff still have to file compliance audits, he noted.

One of the main objectives of the customer service review was to harmonize standards to make the requirements clearer for organizations, said MacCharles, who was appointed to her post in a June 13 cabinet shuffle.

These businesses will still be required to comply with the law regardless of whether or not they have a written policy, she said in an email. Our ultimate goal with accessibility is a culture shift, and we believe the best way to accomplish that is through education and awareness.

Under the act, the government is responsible for developing, implementing and enforcing accessibility standards for Ontarios 1.8 million people with a physical, mental, sensory, intellectual, or learning disability by 2025. The law covers goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment and buildings.

The accessibility standards tell public and private sector organizations what disability barriers they must tear down, and by when.

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Toronto Police raided four marijuana dispensaries Thursday, police chief Mark Saunders confirmed Thursday.

If you have dispensaries that are open, your chances of going to court and being charged are very high . . . I havent minced words on this, he said. Its illegal to sell marijuana unless you have a licence from Health Canada.

Cannabis Culture, a downtown dispensary, saw one of its two Toronto locations raided by police around 1 p.m. Thursday. Three officers escorted three people  two women and one man  from the premises at 801 Queen St. W.

Cannabis Culture franchise owner and marijuana activist Jodie Emery, wife of the Prince of Pot Marc Emery, told the Star from Vancouver that the shop is closed, but we do plan to reopen.

The public supports these businesses. The police are working against the public interest and causing harm where no harm is being caused otherwise, she said. We beg the Toronto Police to stop their enforcement.

The Queen St. W storefront is one of two Cannabis Culture dispensaries in Toronto.

Mike Smith was about to enter the dispensary when police turned him away. He said he has been prescribed OxyContin for medical reasons, but would rather use medicinal marijuana.

I wonder if these cops can tell me where I can go get some medicine, he said of the raids. (I) cant find a doctor to prescribe me legal weed, so this means Im stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Both plain clothes and uniformed officers were seen entering and leaving the shop for most of the afternoon. At one point, two left carrying large plastic bags filled with marijuana and cannabis oil paraphernalia.

City of Toronto Licensing and Standards spokesperson Tammy Robbinson confirmed to the Star the downtown pot dispensary was busted as a result of zoning infractions.

Cannabis Business Friendly Association representative Amy Brown, who arrived at the scene after the raid, said employees Erin Goodwin and Pete Melanson were among those detained.

Erin Goodwins husband, Chris, received a text from her that simply read RAID. He replied, but she hasnt responded.

My wife and I have two children, and we have them this weekend, and they may be without their stepmother, Goodwin told the Star. Ive called her mom and dad. They are obviously very upset. As much as they appreciate the activism we do, it can be upsetting.

Saunders was asked about the raids at an unrelated press conference Thursday. He said police will continue to investigate marijuana dispensaries following last months Operation Claudia. The citywide crackdown saw 43 dispensaries raided and 90 people arrested.

Bystanders jeered officers removing the three people under arrest at Cannabis Culture. Several complained the raids were a waste of police resources, given promises by the federal Liberals to legalize marijuana sometime next year.

This is turning into such a nanny state, said Rick Davidson, a bystander. He called it heavy-handed, adding he believes the earlier raids on dispensaries were not justified.

I personally think this is a shame, added Tibor Barna, a customer who frequents Cannabis Culture. He has arthritis and said hed much rather buy from a dispensary than a dealer, which he described as dangerous. Its shifty.

Roughly 30 people tried entering the dispensary throughout the afternoon only to find the door was locked. Dark garbage bags were taped to the windows, preventing anyone from looking inside.

Following the May raids, Saunders said that the operation, carried out in sync with city licensing staff, was not an attack on lawful production, distribution or purchasing of marijuana for medical purposes. In all, 186 possession for the purpose of trafficking charges and 71 proceeds of crime charges were laid. Bylaw officers also laid 79 charges of zoning violations.

Rather, the chief said, the action was launched due to health concerns over the unknown and unregulated amount of THC in dispensary weed and edibles, as well as residents complaints about pot shops proximity to schools.

On Thursday, Saunders said police will release information about the raid Friday.

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Swanseas ship-shaped treehouse wont be sailing into the sunset anytime soon.

After a city committee rejected John Alpezas application to leave his elaborate backyard playhouse alone, the father of two boys has vowed to take the fight to the next level.

Its a fight his neighbours feel forced to continue.

This committee just totally showed no compassion and no consideration for the kids, Alpeza said Thursday after a hearing at the Etobicoke York committee of adjustment.

This is about the kids. This is not a tool shed or a garage, he added.

Alpeza was appealing to the committee to let his $30,000 treehouse stand as is, despite a notice from the city in April that it violated zoning bylaws.

Marita Bagdonas, Alpezas 90-year-old next-door neighbour, has been complaining about the massive playhouse for almost two years. She says the structure blocks the sun, killing her rose garden and foiling her attempts to dry her laundry outside.

After almost an hour of presentations from the families and their lawyers, the committee ultimately ruled the variances were not trivial and unanimously voted against Alpezas application.

The variance is definitely not minor, said committee member Nathan Muscat before moving to reject the application.

The decision left Alpezas two young sons heartsick, with 8-year-old Mateas welling up outside the meeting room.

Its just the worst thing on earth that can ever happen to me. I dont know why anybody would ever want to take it down, said 10-year-old Kristian.

Bagdonas said she was feeling good after the decision, though she said the dispute hadnt been weighing on her mind.

I never was thinking of it all those months. I just was depressed every time I looked at that monster. Thats all, Bagdonas said.

Her daughter Kate Lawson, who also lives on the Alpezas street, says she fears they will be forced to follow the case to the Ontario Municipal Board now.

If we dont fight him then hell get to keep it. So were forced into it, Lawson told reporters following the decision.

Bagdonas faced the Alpezas at the OMB in 2008 in a dispute over the familys attempt to build an addition on their house. The OMB sided with Bagdonas in that case.

Ahead of the meeting, Councillor Sarah Doucette (Ward 13, Parkdale-High Park) wrote to the committee proposing a compromise.

I am definitely not against treehouses or outdoor activities to encourage children to go outside and play, she told the Star ahead of the hearing.

What Im having to do here, though, is try and get this treehouse to come into compliance with city bylaws.

Doucette wrote to the committee proposing a compromise in which the Alpezas would lower the structure to two steps off the ground, in exchange for the city allowing a variance for the lot coverage.

To keep the treehouse as a fort. Slightly different terminology, so it would basically be a treehouse out of the tree, she said.

Ahead of the meeting, Alpeza said he was willing to compromise on some points, but he refused to take down the height.

Its a humiliation beyond imagination. Next to complete destruction, he said.

If you have a minor variance committee, whats the point in having it if everything has to be exactly, 100 per cent to the (code)?

Alpeza has 20 days to appeal the decision to the OMB, something he says he plans to do. Despite the air of defeat, the family was heartened by the promise of more chances to fight, he said.

I told the boys theres another court, so this is not over yet, he said. I dont want to let them down too much. I wouldnt be a good dad if I let that happen.

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In January, Canadian officials matched Sarah Crawford and her sponsorship group with a Syrian family in Turkey and told them the refugees could be here in as soon as four weeks.

The group spent thousands of dollars renting a bungalow near Victoria Park Ave. and Ellesmere Rd. that sat empty for four months before the family of six finally arrived on June 1 from Istanbul.

Despite the long wait and wasted rent money, Crawfords group, Rise Again, from Rosedale United Church, is actually one of the lucky ones. Hundreds of other groups are still waiting for their families to arrive.

According to Canada for Refugees, a coalition of community sponsorship groups, some 2,900 refugees, or about 500 families, who have been fully approved and are ready to travel are stuck in limbo, having already waited two or three months or longer to get on a plane to Canada.

We are asking the Canadian government to arrange charter flights to get these approved families to Canada quickly, said Doug Earl, of Canada for Refugees.

The refugees are in very precarious situations in the Middle East, and there are many citizen sponsorship groups here in Canada waiting to welcome them and help them settle in their new home.

On May 9, Ottawa dispatched 40 additional staff to the Middle East to process Syrian refugee sponsorship applications, in response to a public outcry over processing delays after the government met its target of resettling 25,000 Syrians refugees by the end of February.

The latest revelation of delays came just as the government wrapped up a six-week blitz in which officials completed 6,100 refugee interviews.

According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, these individuals and families will continue through the screening process, including full health and security checks. It will be another three to six months before they arrive.

Once a visa has been issued, the refugees information will be passed to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM will organize the Canada orientation abroad training, obtain the necessary exit permits from the country where the refugee is located and schedule transportation to Canada, the immigration department said.

While it is important to prepare for the arrival of the sponsored refugees, we encourage sponsors not to obtain permanent accommodations too far in advance. Arrival times are approximate and depend on a number of factors.

Earl said the number of Syrian refugees waiting for planes to Canada is increasing by 70 a week, and in one of its members cases, the family was approved in late February and has yet to arrive.

Many of these families have children whose best interests would be being settled in Canada before the start of the school year, said Earl. For that to happen, they need to be moved now.

Ross McGregor, another Canada for Refugees member, said sponsorship groups are willing to book their own flights to fly their approved families to Canada.

The 40 extra staff were pulled out last Saturday and we are now back to square one, said McGregor, adding the government could unlock an estimated $24 million raised by sponsorship groups by investing $3 million in charter flights for the approved refugees.

However, an immigration department spokesperson said sponsors should not book flights for their sponsored families because theyll need exit permits from the host country, and the IOM is best placed to assist with this process.

As of May 29, 27,580 Syrian refugees had been resettled to Canada from the Middle East since the Liberals came into power in November.

We are pleased the government has stepped up to the plate. We know that its not going to be perfect, but some improvement is really needed, Crawford said.

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OTTAWAJohn Snowball got only part way through the accident report that detailed the ORNGE helicopter crash that killed his son before he gave up in frustration and anger.

Now Snowball wants to know who will be held accountable for the 2013 accident in Moosonee that claimed the lives of two pilots and two flight medics.

It made me so mad, Snowball said in an interview

I got into what happened to the copter and why it crashed and who was where and I couldnt read anymore. My son and I were very, very close. It was really tough.

Flight medic Chris Snowball was killed along with fellow medic Dustin Dagenais, Capt. Don Filliter and First Officer Jacques Dupuy in the May 31, 2013 crash of a Sikorsky S-76A helicopter soon after takeoff on a night flight in northern Ontario.

The Transportation Safety Board report into the crash  released last week  detailed a litany of problems leading up to accident.

It noted that ORNGE lacked the experienced personnel to run its helicopter operations, operating procedures were inadequate and the two pilots lacked experience flying at night and in instrument conditions.

And it revealed that Transport Canada inspectors knew of the problems and indeed considered shutting ORNGE helicopter operations down until they could be fixed but instead opted for a more cooperative approach that allowed the shortcomings to continue.

Nobody has been held accountable. Somebody has to be held accountable, the Burlington resident said.

For the families of those who died, the report stirred more than just painful memories from the crash. It stirred anger that the deaths of their loved ones might have been prevented.

Three years on, Filliters wife, Suzanne Pelletier, said the pain of the personal loss makes it tough to discuss the report on the crash.

Now that the report has been released, we will continue our process of grieving for Don, and we look forward to changes being made that will prevent a similar tragedy from happening again, Pelletier said in an email.

She said her concerns centre on gaps in training and oversight by ORNGE. Filliter was chief pilot at the Ministry of Natural Resources at the time, respected for his flying skills and vast experience. He was working part-time at ORNGE while on vacation from natural resources.

Pelletier said her husband was incredibly safety-conscious.

The report concludes that Don himself had reservations about assuming captain duties out of Moosonee, due to his lack of experience in night flying out of that base and in that aircraft. That is the part of the report that is most concerning to me, Pelletier said her email to the Star.

Josee Cousineau, who lost husband Dustin Dagenais, said she was left angry and disappointed by the reports findings.

It didnt look like there was going to be any accountability. It was infuriating because if any other company would do this, people would be in jail. You cant have people die and have it, Oh well, were improving, were doing things better,  Cousineau said in an interview.

They failed to protect the people that were working that day and thats what this is all about.

During his time at ORNGE, Dagenais was required to take tests and certifications to keep up his qualifications as a medic. The couple assumed that the oversight was just as rigorous for the pilots.

They were very thorough and diligent on the paramedic side. He knew how tough it was for him to get through. They didnt give people many second chances. When it came to testing, it was black and white, she said.

He really thought it was the same for the aviation side

Snowball said his son would never have climbed onboard the helicopter had he known about the problems.

I know my son and Dustin would never have gone out if they knew these guys werent capable of night flying. They would never have gone because I know Chris would have turned it down, Snowball said.

Snowball said he didnt know Transport Canada was so involved in ORNGE until he read the report. That was a real shocker to me, he said.

His anger is aimed at the federal regulator as he wonders if the crash could have been prevented had federal inspectors had been more assertive.

They should have been shut down until they could prove these pilots were trained, Snowball said.

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau declined to say whether his department could have done better, saying only that his officials would be reviewing the recommendations.

We havent had a chance to look at the details of it, and well respond accordingly within the next three months, he told reporters.

In its report, the safety board made 14 recommendations  none aimed at ORNGE. Thats because investigators determined that the agency had already taken steps to correct the problems that contributed to the crash.

Dr. Andrew McCallum, president and CEO of ORNGE, arrived just a few months before the accident, at a time when he says the organization was undergoing significant transition.

There was a lot of work to do, McCallum said in an interview.

He pointed to a number of safety improvements made by ORNGE since the accident, including filling staff vacancies to oversee helicopter operations, the retirement of the older Sikorsky S-76 helicopters and plans to introduce night vision goggles for night operations.

We are constantly looking at ways to improve things, McCallum said.

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DOBBS FERRY, N.Y.Former UN General Assembly President John Ashe of the twin-island Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda died on Wednesday in the United States as he was facing criminal charges in a bribery case. He was 61.

Ashe died at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, according to Sgt. Vincent Ingani, of the Dobbs Ferry Police Department. He gave no other details.

His attorney in New York, Jeremy Schneider, and a younger brother in Antigua, Paul Ashe, confirmed his death without providing details about the cause.

I do not know definitively what the cause of death was, Schneider said. Its a tragic loss for his family and the community. He was preparing to fight his case at trial.

Ashe was a former UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served in the largely ceremonial post of president of the 193-nation assembly from September 2013 to September 2014.

Ashe was accused last year by U.S. federal authorities of turning the position into a platform for profit by accepting more than $1 million (U.S.) in bribes.

The alleged conspiracy involves six others including a billionaire Chinese real estate mogul, two diplomats and a humanitarian organization officer. It wasnt clear how Ashes death would affect the bribery case.

Ashe held a doctorate in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the foreign service in 1989 and was awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his global diplomatic service, according to his United Nations biography.

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SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OFNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un trumpeted the success of a powerful new midrange ballistic missile test that state media said Thursday propelled one of the weapons more than 1,400 kilometres high, saying it would allow strikes on U.S. forces throughout the region.

That ability would back up years of threats and boasts from North Korea and has long been a worry for the United States and its allies, Tokyo and Seoul. It explains in part North Koreas tenacious testing of the Musudan missile, which was only a success after five failures in about two months. The missiles potential 3,500-kilometre range puts much of Asia and the Pacific within reach.

Official news agency KCNA quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as saying the launch now gives his country the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre.

Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said Wednesdays launch demonstrated a certain level of capability, and could lead to a further strengthening of North Koreas ballistic missile capabilities that can cover Japanese territory.

Each new test  apparently linked to a command from Kim  likely provides valuable insights to North Koreas scientists and military officials as they push toward their goal of a nuclear and missile program that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang earlier this year conducted a nuclear test, its fourth, and launched a long-range rocket that outsiders say was a cover for a test of banned missile technology.

A statement from South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said a suspected first Musudan launch from the east coast city of Wonsan failed. It didnt elaborate, but Japans Defence Ministry said the missile fragmented and pieces fell into waters off the Korean Peninsulas east coast.

Later on Wednesday, the Souths military said the North fired another suspected Musudan, which flew about 400 kilometres. Seoul didnt immediately classify this launch as either a success or failure.

Japans Defence Ministry said that its radar analysis found that the missile reached an altitude exceeding 1,000 kilometres, which suggests it was a Musudan missile.

We have to see it as a success, Lee Choon Geun, an analyst at South Koreas state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, said of the second launch. No other (previous) missiles fired by North Korea have ever flown that high.

The U.S. Strategic Command in Hawaii said its systems detected and tracked two suspected North Korean Musudan missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan. They didnt pose a threat to North America, it said.

In April, North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch three suspected Musudan missiles, but all exploded mid-air or crashed, according to South Korean defence officials. Earlier this month, North Korea had another suspected Musudan failure, South Korean officials said.

Before Aprils launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang.

The launches appear to stem from Kim Jong Uns order in March for more nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The order was an apparent response to springtime U.S.-South Korean military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

Since the end of those military drills, Pyongyang has repeatedly called for the resumption of talks with Seoul, even as it pursues new missile development, but the South has rejected the overtures. Seoul wants the North to first take steps toward nuclear disarmament. Pyongyang says its rivals must negotiate with it as an established nuclear power, something Washington and Seoul refuse to do.

The string of recent launch attempts show the North is pushing hard to upgrade its missile capability in defiance of U.S.-led international pressure. The North was slapped with the strongest UN sanctions in two decades after its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

The impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Koreas behaviour, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan.

South Koreas Unification Ministry called the launches a clear provocation. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also critical, saying, We find it utterly unforgivable.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Beijing didnt consider the missile launches to be an act of defiance against China, North Koreas long-time ally with whom its relations have cooled substantially in recent years.

To say such an act taken by North Korea shows disapproval against China is reading too much into it, Hua said at a press briefing.

North Korea has recently claimed a series of breakthroughs in its push to build a long-range nuclear missile that can strike the American mainland. But South Korean officials have said the North doesnt yet possess such a weapon.

The North, however, has already deployed a variety of missiles that can reach most targets in South Korea and Japan, including American military bases in the countries.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea; tens of thousands more are stationed in Japan.

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HAVANAColombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the countrys leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a ceasefire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

At a ceremony in Havana, Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timoshenko, watched as their lead negotiators signed a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons after the signing of a final peace accord as early as next month. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a special U.S. envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile and Venezuela and other Latin American countries applauded the signing.

In the Colombian capital, Bogota, hundreds of people watched the ceremony live on a giant screen, hugging each other, signing the national anthem and waving the Colombian flag. Some cried.

Colombia got used to living in conflict. We dont have even the slightest memories of what it means to live in peace, Santos said. Today a new chapter opens, one that brings back peace and gives our children the possibility of not reliving history.

A 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARCs aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012. In Santos, a U.S.-educated economist and scion of one of Colombias richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasnt bound by its prejudices.

The Colombian armed forces that grew enormous during the war are now called to play an important role in peace, Timoshenko said. They were our adversaries, but going forward theyll be our allies.

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Santos said this week that he hoped to deliver a peace accord in time to mark Colombias declaration of independence from Spain on July 20. But the latest agreement went further than expected.

In addition to a framework for the ceasefire, both sides agreed on a demobilization plan that will see guerrillas concentrate in rural areas and hand over weapons that had long been the vaunted symbols of their movements origins as a self-defence force of peasant farmers attacked by the oligarchy-controlled state.

This is historic, a great hope for Colombia, said Jimmy Gonzalez, a 36-year-old hotel worker. Let this end the spilling of blood thats affected us for so many years.

The deal does not mark the start of a ceasefire, which would only begin with the signing of a final peace deal. It requires the rebels to completely put down their arms at most six months after the signing of the final accord, which Santos said would take place in Colombia.

A day after the signing of the final deal, the Colombian army will reposition troops to protect FARC fighters as they move to their transition zones within five days. FARC fighters will move to 23 zones and eight camps where they will leave their arms and begin the process of moving back into civilian life. The arms will be delivered to United Nations monitors, who will use them to build three monuments to peace, according to the deal.

The accord includes security guarantees for the FARC during its planned transition to a peaceful political party. A similar attempt in the 1980s led to thousands of rebels and their sympathizers being killed by paramilitaries and corrupt soldiers.

A few relatively minor items remain to be worked out for a peace accord. The biggest is how the final deal will be ratified and given legal armour so it wont unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

Santos has also promised to let Colombians vote on accepting the final accord in a national referendum, and his government isnt taking acceptance for granted.

A peace deal wont make Colombia safer overnight.

The proliferation of cocaine fuelled a conflict longer than any other in Latin America and will remain a powerful magnet for criminal gangs operating in Colombias remote valleys and lawless jungles. Colombia is the largest supplier of cocaine to the U.S. and only a small fraction of the countrys 12,000-plus homicides last year had anything to do with the conflict.

Although hard work remains to be done, the finish line is approaching and nearer now than it has ever been, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement from Washington.

There is also the risk that the countrys second rebel movement, the much-smaller but more recalcitrant National Liberation Army, could fill the void left by the FARC. That rebel group agreed to negotiations with the government earlier this year but those talks have yet to start because of Santos insistence that it renounce kidnapping

But if FARC members honour their commitments and the fighters are successfully integrated back into society, the government could begin shifting resources away from the battlefield and toward attacking other forms of crime and the crushing poverty and inequality that it feeds on.

One wild card is the posture of critics like popular former President Alvaro Uribe, who spearheaded the military offensive against the FARC last decade. Partly because of his success beating back the FARC, Colombians almost unanimously refer to the rebels as terrorists. Polls say most Colombians cant muster the thought of seeing rebel leaders behind atrocious war crimes walking the streets freely let alone occupying seats in a democratic congress whose legitimacy the FARC didnt even recognize until recently.

It damages the word peace to accept that those responsible for crimes against humanity like kidnapping, car-bombing, recruitment of children and rape of girls dont go to jail for a single day and can be elected to public office, Uribe said Thursday.

But regional and international leaders were unreservedly enthusiastic about the imminent end of the Colombian conflict.

Were getting closer to the end of the armed conflict than at any time in more than five decades, said Cuban President Raul Castro, a guarantor of the talks. The two sides decision represents a decisive step forward. The peace process cant turn back.

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WASHINGTONAn internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War.

The inquiry found that a private 1st class named Harold Schultz was one of the six men in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. And it determined that a Navy hospital corpsman, John Bradley, whose son wrote a bestselling book about his fathers role in the flag-raising that was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, was not actually in the image.

Schultz, a mail sorter who died in 1995 at the age of 70, never publicly acknowledged that he was in the photograph. According to his stepdaughter, he discussed it only once with his family, mentioning it briefly one night during dinner in the early 1990s as they talked about the Iwo Jima battle.

My mom was distracted and not listening and Harold said, I was one of the flag raisers,  his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. I said, My gosh, Harold, youre a hero. He said, No, I was a Marine.

After he said that, it was clear he didnt want to talk about it, she said. He was a very self-effacing Midwestern person. He was already sick, and died two or three years later.

The investigation was opened in response to questions raised last year by producers working on a documentary, The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima, which will air July 3 on the Smithsonian Channel, in what was only the latest controversy about the photograph. It was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, by Joseph Rosenthal of the Associated Press as the Marines battled the Japanese on the strategically important island in the Pacific.

Just days later, the image appeared on the front pages of major national newspapers, quickly becoming a symbol of the sacrifices U.S. service members at war were willing to make. Ultimately, 6,800 U.S. service members were killed on the island, and the image became the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, which depicts six 32-foot-tall figures in the same positions as the men in the photograph.

But in 1946, the Marines conducted a similar investigation in response to claims that the service had misidentified one of the flag raisers, concluding that the man in the far right of the photograph was actually Harlon Block, not Henry Hansen. (Both men had died on Iwo Jima.) In the decades since then, the Marines and Rosenthal have fended off accusations that the photograph was staged.

Matthew Morgan, a retired Marine who worked as a producer for the shows production company, Lucky 8 TV, said it first approached the Marines last year citing evidence that the men in the photograph were misidentified.

Morgan said the Marines were initially not interested in looking into the claim. But in January, the production company provided the chief historian of the Marines, Charles Neimeyer, with detailed evidence that laid out the case for mistaken identity.

Other photographs of the men on Iwo Jima that day, along with forensic analysis of them, showed that the gear Bradley was wearing was different from that worn by the man who was identified as Bradley in the photograph. Facial recognition technology used on the photographs also showed that the man was not Bradley.

In March, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert B. Neller, appointed a retired three-star general to lead a panel of eight active and retired Marine commissioned and non-commissioned officers, including Neimeyer, to investigate the photograph.

The panel began meeting secretly the next month at Marine offices in Quantico, Virginia, where it painstakingly examined Rosenthals photograph. After six days, the panel voted unanimously to endorse findings that it was Schultz  not Bradley  who had participated in the flag-raising.

Bradleys role that day was at the centre of the book Flags of Our Fathers, co-written by his son, James, which was published in 2000 and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 46 weeks. But in May, shortly after it was publicly disclosed that the Marines were investigating the photograph, James Bradley said that he no longer believed that his father, who is deceased, was in the image. He said that his father had participated in an earlier flag-raising and mistakenly believed that it had been the one captured by Rosenthal. Bradley declined to participate in the documentary, according to Morgan.

Bradley, who did not return an email seeking comment, said in May that he had become convinced of this in 2014, after reading an article in the Omaha World-Herald that told how amateur historians had discovered the misidentifications. But he said that it took him a year to examine the evidence in the article because he had been working on a book in Vietnam, and then had become ill.

Days after the photograph was taken in 1945, Schultz sustained wounds to his arm and stomach, and he was sent home. Several months later, Schultz, who was originally from Michigan, was discharged from the Marines.

The federal government helped him get a job in Los Angeles as a mail sorter for the Postal Service. He was single until age 60, when he married MacDowells mother, who lived next door in his apartment building and shared a porch. But he never moved in with her and rarely discussed his time in the military, according to MacDowell.

Why Schultz apparently never disclosed that he was in the famous picture remains a mystery.

Many Marines who had fought on Iwo Jima suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, but little was known about the condition at the time. To cope, many Marines simply never talked about their military experience.

One of the other men pictured in the flag-raising, Ira Hayes, had asked men in his unit not to identify him as being in the photograph, but they could not keep it secret.

On Wednesday, Neller called MacDowell to tell her of the findings about her stepfather.

Im delighted he has gotten the recognition, but I wish it happened when he was alive, she said afterward. He was a kind and gentle man.

Neller said in a written statement that although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines its not about the individuals and never has been.

He added: Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our corps  what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesnt change.

The Marines will now alter any places where they reference the flag raisers, substituting Schultzs name for Bradley.

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Claudia Medina Tamariz was sleeping in her home in the port city of Veracruz on a steamy August night in 2012, when they came for her. Two navy officers and several policemen broke down her door, smashing a hallway mirror. They grabbed her and her husband from their bed, blindfolded them, and rampaged through the apartment. What do you want? Where is your search warrant, I asked them, recounted Medina, 35. They dragged me down the stairs, barefoot and in my pyjamas, put me in a van and drove me to the naval base near the airport.

There, the naval officers tied her to a chair, threw water on her and tortured her with electric cables, shouting, We know who you are. You are la Buena, la jefa, the head of narco-trafficking. Confess.

She was charged with nine offences, including arms and drug trafficking crimes, and was forced to sign a false confession  They threatened to go after my children if I didnt sign it  and paraded in front of Veracruz media, her prison mugshot broadcast everywhere.

Once in court, Medina retracted the confession and all charges were dropped, thanks to the intervention of Centro Prodh, a Mexican human rights organization, and of Amnesty International.

She and three other female human rights activists came to Ottawa this week, in advance of a visit by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who will arrive June 27 for a state visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and for the North American Leaders summit with U.S. President Barack Obama June 29.

The summit will focus on creating a more integrated and globally competitive North American economy, which already accounts for more than one quarter of the worlds GDP. The three leaders will focus on trade and climate change, with Mexico expected to join Canada and the U.S. in regulating greenhouse gases.

Trudeau is expected to announce the revocation of a visa requirement for Mexican visitors.

The summit is not expected to include a discussion on human rights; however, the Amnesty International delegation wants the issue addressed. Killings, disappearances and torture by authorities have become critical problems in Mexico, highlighted by the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students from a teachers college in southern Guerrero state in 2014 by local police and drug cartels.

A new report accuses the Mexican government of incorporating indiscriminate force and impunity into its policy in battling drug cartels. According to Open Society Justice Initiative, which authored the report, there is overwhelming evidence of crimes against humanity, and that a disproportionate number of innocent people are being killed by security forces and/or organized crime. Open Society worked for three years with five independent human rights groups in Mexico to produce the report.

Pena Nieto, who is with the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has rejected the reports findings. He has blamed the killings on criminal organizations and drawn attention to the judicial reforms his government has introduced, as well as new laws to prevent torture and investigate disappearances.

A 2014 UN report found that torture in Mexico is excessively related to obtaining coerced confessions, said Pilar Arrese Alcala, with Centro Prodh, who travelled to Ottawa as part of the delegation. Mexico is waging a war against the narcos, but in reality it has turned into a war against the people.

According to the Mexican armys own figures, for every soldier killed between 2007 and 2014, 19 civilians were killed, an indicator of the disproportionate use of lethal force.

Lawyer Brenda Rangel Ortiz, also a member of the delegation, is lobbying on behalf of the 27,000 Mexicans who have been forcibly disappeared in the last several years. She last saw her brother, Hector, on Nov. 10, 2009, when the 27-year-old student called to say the police had stopped him for speeding in Queretaro. Authorities have done nothing to investigate, said Rangel. Anyone can disappear in Mexico, even foreigners. Its like a horror movie, except it is real life.

Mexicans voted the PRI out of office in seven state elections this month, including in Veracruz where the PRI had held power for 86 years.

Pena Nieto has introduced structural reforms in the telecommunications, energy and banking sectors since taking office in 2012. But he hasnt solved the crucial problem of holding those who have committed crimes to account.

THE TWO AMIGOS

Trade: Canada and Mexico are one anothers third-largest trading partners, with two-way merchandise trade reaching more than $37.8 billion in 2015.

The countries have collaborated closely on regional trade issues, including the Trans Pacific Partnership, an agreement of 12 Pacific Rim countries that has been signed but not yet in force.

Investment: Canada is the fourth-largest foreign investor in Mexico (more than $29 billion between 2000 and 2014), with a strong presence in mining, banking and aerospace. There are 3,517 Canadian companies operating in Mexico, including Goldcorp, Bombardier, Scotiabank and Magna International.

Mexican investment in Canada is increasing; Grupo Bimbo invested $2.5 billion to acquire several Canadian bread companies.

Labour: The Temporary Workers Program, which began in 1974, has slowly expanded and in 2015, more than 21,000 temporary workers from Mexico came to Canada.

Tourism: Almost two million Canadians visit Mexico annually; more than 60,000 live there permanently. More than 200,000 Mexicans vacationed in Canada during 2015.

THE THREE AMIGOS

In 1994, Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, creating one of the worlds largest free trade zones.

The North America region has a combined population of almost 530 million and the three countries are amongst each others largest trading partners and sources of foreign investment.

In 2015, North American trilateral merchandise trade amounted to $1.3 trillion. The combined GDP has more than doubled over the past two decades to $26.2 trillion today.

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The mass killings at the gay nightclub in Orlando have cast a terrible pall on Pride season this year. One recurring theme in the discussion is the importance of gay nightclubs as safe spaces  refuges, havens or sacred places  where members of the LGBTQ community can let their guard down and be themselves. Gay bars and clubs have long been understood to have this important role in the gay community, primarily because there are few other spaces where LGBTQ people can truly feel safe.

On the surface, the business communities in Canada and the United States, two countries where gay marriage has been legalized, may well believe their workspaces seek to do the same. Indeed, in the recent Pride and Prejudice Economist Intelligence Unit report, most people working in a North American context recognize the value of a diverse workforce, including of sexual diversity.

But, there is substantial evidence that this desire for diversity has not translated into psychological safety in the workplace. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 53 per cent of LGBTQ people in the U.S. closet themselves at least to some extent at work. We find similar experiences in Canada.

This past academic year, we hosted a panel of top Canadian executives at the Rotman School on Being Out and a Leader at Work. They talked about how coming out is not something one does once, but takes place at work over and over again. They distinguished between the big reveal and the need to come out each time they moved to a new part of the organization, started working with a new team, or engaged with a new client.

The panellists also said they have to make a choice each time, assessing whether it is safe to come out in that situation or not. Conversations with our own MBA students similarly reflect these concerns: many are out in other parts of their life but not at school, or out at school but not when they start new jobs after graduation. Many may even see the situation as more nuanced than that.

Kenji Yoshino, legal scholar and author of Covering suggests that even in supposedly tolerant settings, LGBTQ people may feel constrained, if not to pass as straight, at least to cover by not putting their gay identities too far forward  a sort of, you can be gay, but not too gay pressure to conform.

What is the cost of this lack of safety? The panellists at our Rotman School event talked about the tax on their mental energies that came from having to always be alert to these issues and make decisions about whether to come out in each situation. They argued they and other LGBTQ workers would be more productive and engaged in their work if they didnt have to pay this tax.

Many advocates for diversity make the case by suggesting diversity improves innovation, decision making and creativity because it introduces different points of view. But, this argument misses the other side to the coin: there are costs to the individuals and to their ability to work effectively if they cannot bring their whole selves to work.

What makes a space safe? And, why might the corporate world not feel safe to many? A safe space is about trust, and to create it, people look to connect with others through what they believe to be shared experiences.

Some point out it is the very heteronormativity (the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm or standard) in our society, even in a Canadian context where gay marriage has been legal for more than a decade, which creates a lack of safety.

Its not just when the guys go out to a strip club (you would think this didnt happen anymore at work, but it does), but also, when a co-worker or client sees a wedding ring on a mans finger and asks about his wife. Perhaps an innocent gesture, but it puts that person in the position of having to make the choice: Do I come out by saying, Well, not my wife, but my husband? or do I make some vague comment that allows me to get out of the situation?

This is the main reason the conversation is turning from diversity per se to inclusion. Diversity does not create safety, but inclusiveness does. Organizations and individuals must consider all the ways  both large and small  that their culture and behaviours contribute to hostility or even just heteronormativity, either of which can prevent people from feeling safe.

Sarah Kaplan and Geoff Leonardelli are professors at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and co-advisors of Rotmans MBA LGBTQA student club, The Letters.

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Re: Trump to campaign manager: Youre fired, June 21

Trump to campaign manager: Youre fired, June 21

His campaign manager doesnt know the answer to why Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fired him on Monday? It was damage control, but not just because of his poor relationship with the Republican National Committee and GOP officials. He was also a scapegoat for Trumps big mouth.

Last week, Trump suggested those killed in the Orlando gay club massacre would have been better off armed, to shoot the terrorist right smack between the eyes. He also backed one of four gun-control measures to be voted on in the Senate; he wanted to ban those on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun in the U.S.

Trump got heat from the National Rifle Association on both counts. On Monday morning he tried to appease the NRA concerns about bar patrons being armed while drinking, When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees. Yeh, right.

That same day, the Senate voted down the gun-control proposals, including the one Trump backed, thanks to NRA pressure on weak-kneed Republican senators. There would not even have been a vote but for a 15-hour filibuster by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy the previous week. Murphy, incidentally, was elected senator only a month before the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in his own state.

There may be a blessing in disguise for Corey Lewandowski: he cant be blamed if Trump loses the election to Hillary Clinton. And Trump will lose, because he is like Jackie Gleasons Ralph Kramden, I have a BIG mouth.

Alan Pellettier, Scarborough

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Re: Top cop in Peel tears into chairman, June 17

Top cop in Peel tears into chairman, June 17

Top cop Jennifer Evans refuses to acknowledge who her boss is. The direct answer: We the people. Perhaps another civics course is in order for the police academy.

This is typical of Toronto area chiefs and unions and shows how weak-kneed the bureaucrats heading up our so-called oversight committees are. Former Toronto previous chief Bill Blair refused for more than a year to implement a new carding directive from his superiors, the Toronto Police Services Board.

Most corporations would have fired the insubordinate without severance.

David LaFerle, Toronto

The impression one gets is that the Peel police chief can do as she pleases and the civilian oversight board is powerless to hold her accountable.

Salmon Lee, Mississauga

Please indulge me while I address Peel police board chair Amrik Ahluwalia directly: The situation is clear, as is the solution: Fire the chief, and a good chunk of her senior command staff.

Jim Conchie, Toronto

I know she is kind of emotional at this time, Ahluwalia said Thursday. Whatever Jennifer Evans qualities are as a police chief, she does not deserve this comment. This is 2016, not 1816.

Alan Belk, Guelph

Clearly, there are serious allegations embroiling the Peel Regional Police  unproven allegations of racism. I feel empathy for Chief Evans because it is never easy to be at the centre of such controversy in the public sector.

However, I take umbrage with Peel Police Services Board Chair, Amrik Ahluwalia, for leveling sexist and patronizing language at Chief Evans. One thing is certain, if Chief Evans was a male, Chair Ahluwalia would not make the comment, I know she is kind of emotional at this time.

Women in leadership roles have faced a long journey in proving such pejorative assumptions wrong. The current issue being reviewed within Peel Police Services is not helped when key players muddy the waters with sexist comments.

Pam Tomasevic, Mississauga

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The floppy-eared pumi may look playful, but it can work hard. (Thomas Pitera/The American Kennel Club via Associated Press)

A high-energy Hungarian herding dog is the latest breed headed to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and many other competitions.

The American Kennel Club (AKC) announced Wednesday that it is recognizing the pumi, the 190th breed to join the roster of the nations oldest purebred dog registry. That means the pumi can compete for best of breed at the Westminster show for the first time next February.

With corkscrew curls and ears that flop at the tips, the pumi (pronounced POOM-ee) has a playful expression but a strong work ethic, fanciers say. The 20-to-30-pound breed goes back centuries in Hungary, where it herded cattle, sheep and pigs.

Theyre not for somebody whos going to sit and watch TV all day long, said Chris Levy, president of the Hungarian Pumi Club of America. But if provided with enough exercise and stimulation, the pumi can chill out.

Considered quick learners, pumis have done well at agility and other canine sports. Some in the United States also herd rabbits, chickens, goats and even cats in a cattery, said Chris Levy, president of the Hungarian Pumi Club of America. She and others have been working for two decades to build up the breed in the United States, but its still quite rare.

AKC recognition requires having at least 300 dogs of a breed nationwide, among other criteria. Some animal-rights advocates say breeding is irresponsible when many mixed-breed dogs need adoption. The AKC says careful breeding helps people and pets match well by making the animals traits more predictable.
Rep. John Lewis leads more than 200 Democrats in demanding a vote on gun-control measures during a sit-in on the House floor that was broadcast via live video over social media. (AP)

When someone writes the history of medias digital transformation, what happened Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Congress ought to get a paragraph or two.

Put it under the heading of democratization.

It was the triumph of live video  and the elimination of the middleman.

The background: As Democratic lawmakers staged a sit-in on the House floor to try to force a gun-control vote, C-SPANs feed was shut off. That happened because Speaker Paul Ryan, calling the event a publicity stunt, had declared a recess. House rules dictate that when Congress is not in session, C-SPAN shuts off its cameras.

The sit-in, led by Democrat John Lewis of Georgia, kept happening but the feed went dark.

But faster than you can say Gutenberg, new technology came rushing in. Using Periscope and Facebook Live  two ways for anyone with a smartphone camera to capture live events and transmit them to the universe  a couple of congressmen took over where C-SPAN had left off.

Here are the key moments you missed from the marathon gun vote protest Democrats staged on the House floor. The sit-in stretched from June 22 into the morning hours of June 23. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

And C-SPAN, to its everlasting credit, felt it was its responsibility to pick up the feed, shaky and flawed and unprofessional as it was.

It showed that you dont need government cameras and you dont need TV networks to speak to the nation. Anyone can do it, Jeff Jarvis, who writes and teaches about digital media, told me. (In fact, C-SPAN is funded by the cable industry, though its affected by the governments rules of operation.)

The anyone this time happened to be a congressman with an iPhone. But the point is larger. The anyone could be you or me, and the implications are boundless. The public is quite familiar with phone-wielding citizen journalists, who have captured everything from police brutality to the horrors of the Orlando massacre. But this took it one important step further.

We are all C-SPAN now, Mark Halperin of Bloomberg News told the Huffington Post last year, explaining why he had just bought himself an iPhone tripod. He said he was planning to live-stream moments from the campaign trail, using Periscope, or Meerkat, a similar app.

Live video was already having a moment this week with the news that Facebook plans to pay out $50 million to media organizations and individuals to capture live events. Jarvis compared this moment to one decades ago, when network TV cameras began bringing the Vietnam War into the nations living rooms. Americans suddenly had a much more visceral sense of what was happening. Some saw it as the beginning of the end, as citizens turned against the atrocities they were seeing in a faraway place.

And that was film that was edited, with narration. Now, were seeing things as they occur, Jarvis said. How will that change things?

Its sure to do so, but will all the change be for the better?

Maybe not. Twitter, too, is praised for democratizing media, allowing a moment-by-moment global transmission of events and random musings. But it would be hard to find anyone to say that Twitters effect has been entirely positive, given its reputation as a cesspool of trolls and a haven for pack journalism, as well as an incomparable information source.

One thing that is certain is that live video is here to stay, in politics and beyond. (That beyond may include the sublime, but surely also the ridiculous: Witness BuzzFeeds transmission of a watermelon explosion, which in April had 807,000 people watching Facebook Live video at the same moment over a 45-minute process of increasing the pressure with rubber bands until the messy moment of truth.)

The moment in Congress had more gravitas than that  a low bar, to be sure  but it also proved a point: That the sun is setting fast on efforts, politically motivated or otherwise, to control what consumers can see.

Media outlets and those who own and run them are accustomed to being the gatekeepers. But the gate just got pried open wider.

It will be instructive to see what comes streaming (make that live-streaming) in.

So, stay tuned. That part, at least, should be easy to do.
Flags fly at half-staff as the sunsets on Lake Eola in Orlando after the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Eva Dickersons recent Orlando visit ended on a less-than-magical note.

Her family vacation coincided with the shocking murder there of singer Christina Grimmie. Over the next few days, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history left 49 dead at a packed Orlando nightclub, and an alligator attacked and killed a young guest at a Walt Disney World resort.

What a terrible trio of events, said Dickerson, who works for a school in Sierra Vista, Ariz.

The tragedies have a broad personal resonance because so many people have visited Orlando, many of them more than once. The theme-park capital of the world, with 66 million visitors last year, is the No. 1 destination in Florida and one of the most popular vacation sites in the country.

This is a confusing time for the city and its guests. Is Orlando still a safe place to visit? And if its possible to discern the long-term outlook for the city, how should you adjust your plans?

Many visitors, Dickerson among them, say they wont let the disasters stop them from returning. We will not hesitate to visit Orlando again, she said. We are not deterred by the events that have recently unfolded.

[What we know about the mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub]

Michelle Weller, vice president of sales and customer service with a Travel Leaders franchise in Houston, reported a similar feeling among others vacationing in Orlando. One of her agents checked on his clients to see if they were okay and needed any assistance. The clients all said they wanted to stay, Weller said.

Janae Melvin, who works for a university in Ottawa, Kan., is a regular visitor to Orlando, and she has plans for a theme-park vacation and cruise in December to celebrate her parents 40th wedding anniversary. She said her family reviewed its plans after hearing the news.

Orlando had a very tough week  a tragic week. But it doesnt change our opinion of the city or the area, or Disney World operations, she said. You cant live your life in fear of what might happen, in fear of the unexpected.

But some visitors arent so sanguine. Travel agencies have been reporting sporadic cancellations. Andrew Reeves, the chief executive of a company that offers translation services in Los Angeles, said he was scheduled to fly to Orlando, but decided to cancel due to the recent incidents.

Vicki OGrady, a marriage counselor from Orlando, said her boyfriend, who works in the timeshare industry, has seen some cancellations, too. She emailed me earlier this week to say that Orlando is probably the safest it will ever be, and asking me to tell would-be vacationers that theyre still welcome. Please tell them not to cancel their plans, she wrote.

Disclosure: I live in Orlando and have many friends and neighbors who are connected to the tourism industry. My first response to the question, Is Orlando safe? is to dismissively say, Of course it is. Orlando has been safe for my family and for a vast majority of visitors. But the more I think about it, the more I understand the worriers. And theres probably nothing Orlandos attractions can say that will reassure every visitor, particularly in light of what just happened.

[The math of mass shootings]

Nevertheless, the city is working on ways to put tourists minds at ease. In reaction to the crisis, the Orlando Convention & Visitors Bureau updated and expanded the safety information on Visit Orlandos consumer website, Visitorlando.com. Tourism authorities have briefed their phone representatives on how to answer security questions from prospective visitors. Walt Disney World closed all beach areas and posted warning signs after the alligator attack, and is reviewing its safety precautions.

Beyond these steps, the city hasnt announced any new long-term initiatives to attract more guests or calm existing ones.

We have adjusted our messaging to recognize the sensitivity of this past weeks events, said George Aguel, president and chief executive of Visit Orlando. We are listening to consumers, answering their questions and thanking them for their support.

So far, there havent been any reports of widespread cancellations, and interest in Orlando remains strong. Queries through the travel search site Liligo.com suggest that it remains one of the most sought-after destinations. Orlando had roughly 6,000 weekly searches on the site, making it the top U.S. destination in June. For the week of June 12, however, search queries dipped to below 5,000 before recovering somewhat last week, according to the company.

People plan vacations to places like Walt Disney World far in advance, and its possible that the events could affect bookings later this year and in 2017. But its too soon to know. Aguel said it would be premature to speculate on future visitation.

[This is why Christina Grimmie stood out on The Voice, above the thousands who audition]

To date, we have not seen indications of change to our visitors plans to visit the destination, he said. What we have seen is an incredible outpouring of support from people all over the world  for Orlando as a community as well as a beloved travel destination.

Potential visitors who arent daunted by the recent news  or who think that avoiding the site of the massacre is a concession to terrorism  might do well to wait and see if cancellations inspire discounts. It pains me to write these words, as someone who calls Orlando home. But I think the worst impact on tourism hasnt hit yet. We might see some deals ahead. If you have a little time before your vacation, it might be smart to wait before you book.

Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org.

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Our readers share tales of their ramblings around the world.

Who: David, Luanne and Dylan Porper of Marietta, Ga.

Dylan, from left, David and Luanne Porper  and the Alps  in Austria. (Courtesy of David Porper)

Where, when, why: We vacationed in Austria in May 2016 for 10 days. Initially, my husband was motivated to travel there by the Billy Joel song Vienna. And, because our son is a musician, we felt there was no better place to visit than Vienna and Salzburg because of their historical connections to Mozart, Beethoven and other classical composers.

[Interested in sharing your own What a Trip story? Apply here.]

Highlights and high points: We knew the Alps were going to be beautiful, but driving the Grossglockner High Alpine Road  with its hairpin turns, abundant waterfalls and rocky peaks glossy with snow  was a spectacular journey. We had no words as the stunning landscape unfolded before us, vista after vista of superlatives. We stopped frequently to take pictures and to gaze in awe at the views.

Cultural connection or disconnect: I had read that Austrians could be formal people, but we found them to be kind, funny and very helpful when we struggled to speak their language. We attended a Mozart dinner concert at St. Peter Stiftskeller in Salzburg and sat with two Austrian couples, none of whom spoke much English. As we dined in the Baroque, candelabra-lit hall, we learned about their lives, shared pictures on our cellphones and felt very welcomed and accepted, despite the difficulty in communicating. Everywhere we went, Austrians wanted to talk politics; there had just been a historic run-off election between their far-left and far-right parties, so people were interested in discussing Donald Trump and the current political climate in America.

Biggest laugh or cry: The experience that moved us the most was one that we hadnt planned. We were checking out of our hotel in Hallstatt, a quaint lakeside village, when we heard cannon fire and church bells ringing. As we stepped out to the cobblestone plaza in front of our hotel, residents in traditional dress  lederhosen and dirndls  were gathering. We were fortunate enough to witness the Feast of Corpus Christi, which included a procession of clergy as well as children throwing flower petals while singing and a marching band. The ceremony concluded with a Mass in which the priest sang parts of the liturgy and the townspeople responded in song. As this lovely display of tradition and unity unfolded before us, I had a hard time holding back tears.

How unexpected: We were surprised at the amount of pristine, undeveloped land we saw as we drove throughout the country. Small towns occasionally dotted the landscape, topped with the spires of ancient churches; cows with metal bells around their necks grazed in steep, flower-studded pastures; and rustic chalets perched upon graceful, green slopes. Magical is a word we used often.

Fondest memento or memory: The greatest gift of our trip was getting acquainted with the Austrian people. Wherever we went, city or tiny village, the locals were amiable and friendly. There was the elderly man who danced as our son played piano at the Haus der Musik in Vienna, then, in halting English, complimented him and encouraged him to follow his passion. And the gentleman with the little terrier who chatted and welcomed me to his country as we sat at St. Stephens Cathedral. And the paraglider who rode the gondola with us to the Dachstein Sky Walk and then soared high above, yelling hello to us. All these people made a lasting impression and reminded us that we really are more alike than different, no matter where we live and what language we speak.

To tell us about your own trip, go to washingtonpost.com/travel and fill out the What a Trip form with your fondest memories, finest moments and favorite photos.

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This week's best travel bargains around the globe.

Land

Costa Rican Vacations is offering a seven-night package to Costa Rica with two free nights. The Romantic Getaway starts at $3,258 per couple (original price was $4,416) and includes airport and hotel transfers; three nights at Arenal Kioro Suites and Spa, with daily buffet breakfast and access to Titoku Hot Springs; four nights at Villa Buena Onda, including all meals; a hidden beaches tour and barbecue; and taxes. Travel by Dec. 18. Info: 800-606-1860, www.vacationscostarica.com.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary and $40 million renovation, Le Guanahani resort on St. Barths has a package with 25 percent off ocean rooms. The 30th Anniversary Package includes three nights accommodations; a welcome drink and gift; a daily buffet breakfast; a daily lunch or dinner at one of the on-site restaurants; $112 in resort credit; round-trip transfers; and taxes. Summer rates are from $2,200 per couple through Aug. 26; fall rates are $2,539 from Oct. 19 to Dec. 1. Info: 800-216-3774, leguanahani.com.

Playa Hotels and Resorts is offering several promotions on its properties in Mexico and Jamaica. With the Summer Splash deal, for example, save up to 55 percent on two all-inclusive Mexican resorts, Gran Caribe Resort in Cancun and Gran Porto Resort in Playa del Carmen. In addition, children age 12 and younger stay for free. A family of four sharing a junior suite at Gran Caribe in late August pays from $267 a night, a savings of $530. Rate includes meals, beverages and taxes. Book by July 5; stay Aug. 15-Dec. 21. Info: 800-760-0944, www.playaresorts.com.

Sea

Avalon Waterways is offering savings of $3,000 per couple plus free round-trip air on select 2016 river cruises in Europe. The deal applies to more than 50 cruises sailing July through November. For example, the 12-night Blue Danube Discovery cruise from Budapest to Prague departing Oct. 22 now starts at $2,585 per person double, including air from Dulles International Airport and taxes. Cruise typically costs $4,085; airfare goes for $880. Book by July 26. Info: 877-797-8791, www.avalonwaterways.com/Special-Offers/select-departures/suite-savings.

Take a South American cruise with Oceania and receive the perks-filled Olife Ultimate inclusive package. The deal applies to 17 itineraries and includes free airfare, unlimited Internet per stateroom, shore excursions (the number of excursions is based on trip length), a house beverage package and shipboard credit per guest. For example, the 21-day Alluring Andes & Majestic Fjords cruise from Lima to Buenos Aires starts at $6,299 per person double (down from $17,598) and includes round-trip air from Washington, WiFi, beverage package, five excursions, a $500 credit and taxes. Depart Oct. 17. Book deal by Sept. 30. Info: 855-623-2642, www.oceaniacruises.com.

Air

Aer Lingus is offering sale fares from Washington Dulles International Airport to Dublin, Amsterdam, London and Manchester , England. Round-trip fares range from $699 to Dublin to $799 to Amsterdam; other airlines are matching. Travel Sept. 1-Oct. 31 for all destinations except Dublin, which is available Sept. 8-Oct. 31. Book by June 28 at www.aerlingus.com.

Package

SmarTours is offering savings of $400 per person on its 13-night Great Cities of Eastern Europe trip. The escorted trip starts at $2,899 per person double for the Oct. 1 departure; pay by check and receive an additional $100 off. The package includes flight from New York to Warsaw, Poland, with return from Helsinki; 13 nights lodging in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Helsinki, Vienna and Krakow, Poland; 17 meals; sightseeing tours; land transportation; flight from Prague to Helsinki; airport transfers; and taxes. Book by July 21. Info: 800-337-7773, www.smartours.com.

 Carol Sottili, Andrea Sachs
Walter E. Fauntroy, the former District delegate to Congress and civil rights legend who left Washington in 2012 for the Persian Gulf  leaving his aging wife in debt and eluding a criminal charge in Maryland  vowed in his first interview in four years that he is coming home next week.

I have my ticket. I have my passport. Without question, its over, Fauntroy said in a phone call with The Washington Post from the United Arab Emirates. Im coming home.

Fauntroy, 83, said he has been living rent-free for the past three months in Ajman, just north of Dubai, in the guest room of an apartment occupied by a South Sudanese couple and their son. He said that at some point in recent weeks, the State Department somehow located him at his hosts apartment and left messages for him to call. Fauntroy did, and eventually, he said, two U.S. officials visited to offer him help to fly home.

They said, Weve been asked to see if we can help you get home. I said, Thank you. It was an answer to prayer, Fauntroy said. I want to come home. Its blistering hot, and Ill be happy to come home for that reason, but also so I can see my wife, my son, my daughter and my new grandson. New for me, because its been two years since hes been born.

[A renowned civil rights leaders descent into debt and delusion]

On Wednesday, a State Department official confirmed that the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi has been providing assistance to Fauntroy. A consular officer, the official said, last visited Fauntroy at a private residence on June 8. The official declined to offer more details.

E. Faye Williams, the president/chief executive of the National Congress of Black Women, said that a group of Fauntroy family friends pitched in money to pay for his flight home next week on Emirates airline. Fearing a crush of reporters at Dulles International Airport, Fauntroy asked The Post not to give the date of his arrival.

Johnny Barnes, Fauntroys attorney, declined to comment.

For a long time, no one could pinpoint the location of Fauntroy, a retired pastor at New Bethel Baptist Church who helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. plan the 1963 March on Washington. A 2015 photo of a gaunt, frail-looking Fauntroy taken by someone in the UAE worried friends. And when Fauntroy emailed former colleagues, he used the alias Shahid Sarkar and talked of conspiracies and of spies blocking his emails.

Over the course of several phone calls this week, Fauntroy spoke frequently of rogue elements within intelligence agencies in the United States and abroad and of others working against him. He was defiant over criticism of his leaving his wife, Dorothy, nearly 82, and failing to remain in the United States to face numerous legal problems.

In January 2012, a bench warrant was issued for him to appear in Prince Georges County, Md., to answer charges of writing a bad check for $55,000 to help pay for a 2009 ball he organized for President Obamas first inauguration. And in spring 2014, the Bank of New York Mellon filed for foreclosure on the couples Northwest Washington home, citing outstanding payments totalling more than $146,000. (The Fauntroys filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2014, but their case was dismissed after he failed to get credit counseling.)

Fauntroy, who said he has been working on plans to build emissions-free power plants around the world for poverty-stricken countries, said his wife has always been supportive.

She knew my heart was in this work. Shes been through every crisis with me, from those in Birmingham and Selma to Mississippi, where I was threatened with death if I continued to do what I tried to do, he said, referring to his activism during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

He dismissed the criminal charge against him and his mounting debts as part of a conspiracy to undermine his reputation.

That whole effort was a determined effort to discredit me as I moved around the world to organize people. You read the news on the Internet that nobody knows where he is and when he comes home, hes going to be arrested? Well, see if I get arrested. It is disinformation which you can dispense easily when you control the media.

When pressed on whether he paid the $55,000 he owed for the 2009 inauguration ball he planned, Fauntroy insisted that the issue was resolved and pointed to shadowy powers orchestrating his downfall.

The charge is a false flag. . . . That is a tactic of intelligence institutions, the KGB, the CIA, Fauntroy said.

Art Reynolds, his attorney in the bad-check case, said Fauntroy has paid some of the $55,000 but that the criminal charge remains active.

They may pick him up when he comes into the country. When he clears customs, the warrant is going to pop up in the computers, Reynolds said. Id like for him to make some arrangements and contact me before he comes into the country. Id like to try and have the bench warrant recalled by the court based on Walters promise to immediately present himself to the court.

Fauntroy told The Post that once he lands, he immediately wants to spend time with his wife at their Crestwood home, where his son Marvin, daughter Melissa Alice, and her son live. He also wants to reconnect with his four brothers and his sister.

Messages left for Dorothy and Marvin Fauntroy received no response. Melissa Alice hung up when a reporter called. In previous interviews with The Post, Dorothy Fauntroy has pledged her support for her husband, saying she has trusted him as he pursues humanitarian projects around the world.

Fauntroy said that while in the UAE, he lived for a time with a Syrian family that provided him food.

They were remarkable. I had nothing, because all my money had been cut off. The family did it as long as they could until pressures were put on them to stop, so I had to leave, Fauntroy said. So, I slept in alleys, and I would sit up on chairs that I borrowed from stores. The rats, the mice, cockroaches didnt climb on chairs to harass me.

He said that when the South Sudanese family invited him to stay with them a few months ago, he tried not to impose too much.

I dont know how much Ive cost them. Im not a big fella. It was like having another child at the table  Im not a big eater.

Fauntroy insisted that he was healthy but also said that in the first years of his odyssey, he passed out several times  incidents he called life-threatening.

I have a lower tolerance for heat, he said. On four occasions since Ive been here, Ive been in 140-degree temperatures and passed out and was taken to the hospital and revived without damage to my brain and body. Its a miracle, quite frankly. Only God could do that.

Day to day, Fauntroy said, he has spent most of his time visiting Internet cafes, reading Scripture and working on his plans to establish green-energy power plants and devices around the world to give poor people access to clean water and energy.

But he said he often felt that he was being tracked by intelligence operatives who were impeding his ability to communicate frequently with his family and friends. He said international intelligence experts from Britain who are members of a group called the White Hats urged him to be cautious with his phone calls and emails.

He said he feels comfortable leaving the UAE now because he has assurances from a Wyoming-based limited liability company called Sceptre Trust Fund that he will receive $50 million a year for 10 years to organize people of goodwill, of every race, creed and color to fund his green-energy humanitarian project and help 780 million poor families.

I just have to leave it at that, Fauntroy said.

Sceptre trustee Alan DArcy did not respond to messages seeking comment. In a previous interview, DArcy said he did not know or remember Fauntroy and had had contact with him only through a middleman. He said they had never agreed to any financial deal.

For now, Fauntroy said he feels grateful  and eager  to return to Washington.

I want to say this carefully, he said. Once I get back, I want to open up on everything.
Bryan Pagliano, center, a former State Department employee who helped set up and maintain a private email server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton, departs Capitol Hill in Sept. 2015. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, Lee) (Cliff Owen/AP)

A former State Department staffer who helped set up Hillary Clintons private email server formally asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions in a deposition Wednesday before lawyers with the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch.

Computer specialist Bryan Pagliano invoked his constitutional right more than 130 times according to a transcript of the 100-minute session released by Judicial Watch Thursday.

The group sought to have Pagliano answer questions under oath as part of its civil lawsuit looking into whether Clintons exclusive use of a private server when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 thwarted the Freedom of Information Act and the release of public records.

Was the Clintonemail.com system created for Secretary Clinton to use during her tenure as Secretary of State for government business? Judicial Watch attorney Ramona Cotca asked in one typical exchange.

On the advice of counsel, I will decline to answer your question in reliance on my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Pagliano said.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke June 22 at a rally in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) (Chuck Burton/AP)

Paglianos attorneys also directed him repeatedly to not answer questions that they said went beyond the creation and use of Clintons email set-up, into which U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan allowed discovery.

Lead Pagliano attorney Mark J. MacDougall, who led a team of three Akin Gump lawyers attending his deposition, declined to comment.

In a statement, Judicial Watch said Pagliano declined to discuss email-related discussions with Clinton and her top aides; how the system was set up; who was paying for his legal representation, or what discussions he had with Clintons lawyers about the email issue.

Pagliano was information technology director for Clintons 2008 presidential campaign and continued to be paid by the Clintons to maintain the server in their New York home in 2009. Officials have said Pagliano did not report payments after he arrived at the State Department in May 2009.

Pagliano stated his intention to the court earlier this month to appear before Judicial Watch attorneys but to not answer any questions, asserting a reasonable fear of prosecution.

[Clintons personally paid State Department staffer to maintain server]

Pagliano was the fifth current or former Clinton or State Department aide to be deposed in the Judicial Watch case. Huma C. Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to secretary Clinton and now vice chair of her Democratic presidential campaign, and Undersecretary of State Patrick F. Kennedy are set to appear for questions next week.

[Judge orders videotaping of deposition of Clinton IT specialist to go forward]

Pagliano last year invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions by a House committee investigating the Sept. 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

His lawyers said after they approached the Justice Department in December, he was granted limited immunity in agreements reached in a criminal investigation into whether Clintons email setup mishandling classified information or violated other laws. Sullivan asked to examine the agreements, which Paglianos attorneys filed under seal,
Former D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray, left, arrives to cast his ballot June 14. Gray said he has big plans for his return to office. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post)

If D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is disappointed after losing three city council allies in the Districts Democratic primary last week, she is refusing to show it  or say there is a lesson in their defeat.

Voters have spoken: They want different people in their wards, and they got them, Bowser (D) said Thursday morning at a unity breakfast organized by the D.C. Democratic State Committee to bring together winners and losers before Novembers general election.

With some prodding, D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander drew the largest applause, embracing former D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray, who beat her for the Ward 7 council seat.

Alexander had run some of the most negative ads of the primary, saying that Gray had thrown his former aides under the bus during a federal investigation of his 2010 mayoral campaign. That probe led to guilty pleas by six Gray associates, but prosecutors did not charge Gray when they ended the investigation in December.

I do trust that he will serve the best interests of the residents of Ward 7, and I will be here to help in any way, Alexander said before leaving the podium and sitting with aides near the bar of Busboys and Poets on K Street NW.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, right, speaks to D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander outside a D.C. polling place June 14. Bowser supported Alexander in her race against Gray. (Ben Nuckols/AP)

Gray shook hands for more than an hour, holding court in the back of the restaurant. In an interview, he said he plans to launch his return to public office with a meeting of hundreds of Ward 7 residents to set community priorities  a smaller version of the one city public meetings he hosted at the start of his mayoral term.

Im not going to publicly criticize Yvette, but . . . all you had to do is listen to the people to hear how disappointed they were  they want to be heard, Gray said. Theres a lot of work to be done on the economic development front, on the education front and certainly on the crime front. We need to get people enthused and energized about the future of Ward 7.

Bowser offered congratulations to each winner. She called for a big round of applause for Gray and, later, for Trayon White, a Marion Barry protege who unseated Bowsers ally LaRuby May in Ward 8.

Gray and Bowser have had a frosty relationship since 2010, when Gray, then council chairman, knocked out Bowsers mentor, incumbent Adrian M. Fenty, in the mayoral primary. Tensions intensified two years later when federal prosecutors announced their investigation into the 2010 campaign and Bowser quickly called on Gray to resign as mayor.

He returns to public office as a critic and counterweight to Bowser and has not ruled out the possibility of running against her in 2018. The mayor said at the breakfast that she intends to seek reelection.

Asked Thursday whether he might run again for mayor, Gray would not say. I dont plan anything two years in advance, he said.

Robert White, who defeated five-term D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange in the only at-large primary, began his address to the crowd with one word: Surprise, he said.

White and nearly every other Democrat who spoke praised the U.S. House of Representatives sit-in by Democrats that began Wednesday as an invigorating moment for the party.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Districts nonvoting member of the chamber, appeared briefly before saying she was heading back to the sit-in. Republicans dont know what to do with us, she laughed.

Orange, who spoke last, vowed that the District had not seen the last of him.

Chapter one is concluded, he said. But there are more chapters and more fish to be fried.
A D.C. Council committee advanced a controversial bill Thursday that would set strict guidelines telling employers in the city how much advance notice they must give their employees when scheduling their shifts.

If the full council approves the legislation, the District will become the second city in the country after San Francisco to end a practice widely used by companies known as just-in-time scheduling.

Employers use just-in-time scheduling to assign workers according to the time of day or month that they expect the most business, requiring them to be available at a moments notice and sometimes sending them home if business is slow.

The practice helps minimize labor costs, but it wreaks havoc on the lives of low-wage workers, making it difficult to schedule child care, commit to a second job or take part-time classes. The practice also results in erratic pay.

The Hours and Scheduling Stability Act of 2015 passed the D.C. Committee on Business, Consumer, and Regulatory Affairs by a 3-2 vote. The full council is expected to take up the matter next week.

The bill endorsed by the committee on Thursday would prohibit employers with more than 40 locations nationwide from making changes to workers schedules less than two weeks in advance. The bill also requires those businesses to give extra hours to part-time workers, instead of simply hiring more part-time workers. Businesses that do not comply could be fined.

Its been a great day for working families, said council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At large), who introduced the legislation and chairs the councils business committee.

The committee vote was a victory for organized labor, which has launched a national campaign against just-in-time scheduling, pushing legislation in cities, states and on the federal level.

The bill is good for employees and employers, said Ari Schwartz, a campaign organizer at D.C. Jobs with Justice, one of several groups that have been pushing for legislation in the District. We are hoping the council sees it as something that works for everyone.

But the business community is opposed, saying it interferes with the flexibility employers need.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, a trade group, is urging the council to reject the bill.

For months, concerned retailers have attempted to discuss the flaws of this legislation with Councilman Orange in order to craft a solution that promotes certainty for employees but also provides the flexibility retailers and our employees need, Joe Rinzel, a spokesman for the association, said in a statement. Our concerns fell on dead ears, and we strongly urge council members to reject this hastily-considered and flawed legislation.

D.C. Jobs with Justice, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and Georgetown University released a survey last year of about 500 local workers showing the impact of erratic scheduling. Forty percent of workers surveyed said their initial schedules changed at least once per month. When schedules do change, they reported a 50 percent chance that theyll get less than a two-day notice of the modification.

The legislation comes less than three weeks after the D.C. Council raised the citys minimum wage to $15. The council is also considering legislation that would require employers to provide generous paid family leave.

If it passes the scheduling bill and paid family leave  on top of a $15 minimum wage  the District will become one of the most labor-friendly cities in the country.

A spokesperson for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said the administration was reviewing the legislation and is looking to engaging the Council and stakeholders on striking the right balance between worker friendly initiatives and employer mandates to ensure we continue to create more pathways to the middle class.

The legislation could put Bowser in a tough political spot. Lobbyists for major national retailers were at theJohn A. Wilson Building this week, urging council members to vote against it.

When the legislation was originally introduced last July, it covered employers with more than 20 locations nationwide and said they could not change workers schedules less than three weeks in advance. It was changed to impact businesses with 40 locations or more and said schedules could not change with less than two weeks notice.

Council members Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) both co-sponsored the legislation but voted against it in committee.

Todd said on the dais that the bill could hurt businesses and dissuade local chains from expanding to 20 locations or more.

I believe that the legislation before us could adversely affect the future hiring of new employees, seasonal employees and college students, and we must ask ourselves what this will do to our local economy, he said.

Allen said that he wants to vote for the legislation, but thinks there are still details that need to be hammered out. For instance, he said, the bill exempts employers from the scheduling rules in the case for severe weather but does not define the term.

It creates a massive amount of conflict between employers and employees, he said. I cant vote on something that we might one day fix down the road. Right now, the bill has a whole lot of question marks.

Orange said he would work out these questions before the council votes and does not think any of the questions raised Thursday are insurmountable.
We cannot allow the students who need our attention the most to be treated unfairly under the law, Education Secretary John King Jr. said Wednesday. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

The Obama administration on Thursday released new guidance explaining what states and school districts must do to meet new legal obligations to students in foster care, who are often among the nations most vulnerable children.

For the first time, schools, districts and states must publicly report on the performance of children in foster care, a requirement that advocates hope will help shine a light on the need for more attention and help.

Also for the first time, schools are legally bound to work with child welfare agencies to ensure that children in foster care can stay in their school if its in their best interest, even if they move  a measure meant to provide stability for children who often otherwise lack it.

If school district and child welfare agency officials decide that moving to a new school would be in a childs best interest, then the receiving school must allow immediate enrollment, even if the child cannot produce the required paperwork.

[These are the faces of Americas growing youth homeless population]

The new provisions were written into the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind as the nations main education law in December. They are meant to protect the approximately 270,000 children in foster care who are enrolled in U.S. public schools; foster children are more likely than their peers to be retained in a grade level and to drop out of high school.

For far too long, we as a country have failed so many of our most vulnerable students, Education Secretary John King Jr. told reporters Wednesday. We cannot allow the students who need our attention the most to be treated unfairly under the law.

The new guidance, released Thursday by the departments of Education and Health and Human Services, explains with more specificity how states and schools should live up to the laws provisions on children in foster care.

It recommends, for example, that states, districts and child welfare agencies set up a process for dispute resolution in cases in which there is disagreement over whether a child would be best served by staying in their original school or moving to a new one. And it clarifies that if an agreement cannot be reached, then the child welfare agency should have the final say.

The guidance does not, however, clear up an important ambiguity in the law: who must pay for transportation to a childs original school if the child moves outside that schools attendance zone.

[Obama signs new K-12 education law]

The law requires that transportation be provided but does not say what should happen if a school district and a child welfare agency disagree over who should cover the bill. The Education Department has proposed regulations that would require the district to pay if negotiations over sharing the cost fail. The department is accepting public comment on those draft regulations, and officials said they would incorporate feedback as they write the final rule.

The department also issued guidance Thursday outlining how states and school districts should solicit feedback from their communities as they figure out how to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. The guidance is meant to ensure that everyone with an interest in education  including parents, teachers and members of historically underserved communities  have a chance to chime in.
Transgender student Gavin Grimm poses on his front porch during an interview at his home in Gloucester, Va. on Aug. 25, 2015. U.S. District Court Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled Thursday that the Gloucester County School Board must allow Grimm to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity while the case is being litigated in court. (Steve Helber/AP)

A federal judge has ordered a school board in rural Virginia to give a transgender student, who was born female but identifies as male, access to the boys bathroom while his discrimination lawsuit against the school board proceeds.

Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old rising senior at Gloucester High in Gloucester County, Va., sued the school board last year after it passed a policy requiring students to use bathrooms based on their biological gender. He alleged that the policy barring him from the boys bathroom violated his civil rights and ran afoul of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public schools.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with the teen in April, deferring to the Obama administrations position that transgender students are entitled to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The judges also ruled that the lower court should reconsider a request that would have allowed Grimm to use the boys bathroom at his high school while the case is pending, saying the judge had used the wrong standard. The school board has said it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

[Federal appeals court sides with transgender teen, says bathroom case can go forward]

The Fourth Circuit is the highest court thus far to weigh in on the question of whether transgender students have the right to use school bathrooms coinciding with their gender identity, and the ruling was viewed as an important development in the battle over school bathrooms, seen as the latest frontier for LGBT rights.

In May, the U.S. Education Department issued a guidance letter directing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, a move that sparked backlash and a lawsuit by 11 states that argued the administration had overstepped its authority.

[Obama administration directs schools to accommodate transgender students]

U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar, who denied Grimms petition last year, this time granted his request to use the boys bathroom while his case proceeds after weighing the ruling from the appeals court. In the 1 -page order, Doumar specified that the injunction allows Grimm to use the boys bathroom but not the locker room.

Attorney Joshua Block of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is representing Grimm, said the injunction marked a concrete victory for the teen who will have access to the boys bathroom his senior year of high school, even if the lawsuit continues long after he graduates.

When he goes back to school this fall for his senior year, hell be able to use the bathroom just like any other boy, Block said.

Grimm, who said he feels dysphoric every time he is forced to use a separate bathroom at school, said he was elated at the judges order.

In his lawsuit, Grimm said he used the boys bathroom for several weeks without incident before the school board passed a policy banning him from it.

After nearly two years of humiliation and intense struggle, equality has finally prevailed. Now hopefully other transgender people will not have to face this type of discrimination, Grimm said.

The school board issued a statement through its attorney, saying that it understands the implications of the order and will continue to defend its reasonable and nondiscriminatory solution to this issue at the Supreme Court and trial court levels.

This story has been updated.
THE DISTRICT

Bicyclist dies

in hit-and-run

Authorities said a bicyclist was struck by a vehicle and killed early Thursday in a hit-and-run in Southeast Washington.

Few details were available. Aquita Brown, a D.C. police spokeswoman, said the victim was not immediately identified.

The incident occurred about 1 a.m. in the 2700 block of Minnesota Avenue SE.

 Dana Hedgpeth

VIRGINIA

Sleeping woman was

assaulted, police say

Authorities in Prince William County are looking for a man who they think sexually assaulted a 20-year-old woman while she was sleeping in her apartment in Triangle, Va.

The incident occurred midday Monday in the 18100 block of Kilmer Lane.The victim did not know the assailant, police said. Police said they think the man entered the apartment through an unsecured door.

The victim told a family member of the incident the next day and police were contacted. The victim was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The assailant is described as a man with a medium complexion and thin build, about 5 feet tall. He has long, black curly hair and an unshaved face. He was last seen wearing a black shirt and black pants.

 Dana Hedgpeth

Woman pinned under

car is pronounced dead

A woman was struck by her car in her driveway in Annandale on Wednesday afternoon, Fairfax County police said.

The woman, 68, was found pinned under the vehicle in the 4200 block of Sleepy Hollow Road shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, police said. She was pronounced dead a short time later.

Investigators determined that the victim apparently slipped under the vehicle after putting it in gear. The womans name was not released.

 Justin Jouvenal

Man allegedly assaults

woman at apartment

Police in Arlington said they are looking for a man who allegedly entered a womans apartment and sexually assaulted her before she was able to escape into a locked bathroom and yell for help.

The incident happened about 2 a.m. Sunday in the 3900 block of Fourth Street North.

According to police, the man entered the 28-year-old womans apartment and sexually assaulted her while using the threat of a weapon. During the attack, police said the woman locked herself in a bathroom and yelled for help.

The man fled on foot, police said.

Police said the suspect is described as 25 to 35 years old, with dark hair and a fair complexion. He was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with dark pants at the time of the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call 703-228-4183.

 Dana Hedgpeth
THE DISTRICT

Man takes taxi ride, steals it at gunpoint

A man who flagged down a taxi in Northwest Washington early Wednesday stole the vehicle at gunpoint in Southeast, according to D.C. police.

The incident occurred about 4:20 a.m. The taxi arrived at the passengers destination in the 3900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE. Police said the passenger, who had hailed the cab in the 1100 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW, then directed the driver to the 2100 block of Suitland Terrace SE, about a block away.

Once there, a police report says, the cab driver told the man the fare was $18.97. The report says the man asked the driver if he had change for a $20, and while the driver was reaching for his wallet, the man pulled out a gun and took the drivers cellphone.

Give me all your cash and get the [expletive] out of the car, the assailant said, according to the report. The driver got out, and police said the man sped away in the cab, a red Dodge Durango with Cab No. J887. Police did not disclose the name of the taxi company.

Authorities did not have a detailed description of the assailant.

 Peter Hermann

28 people displaced after fire in Southeast

Five people, including two children and a firefighter, were treated for burns and smoke inhalation at area hospitals Wednesday after a fire in an apartment in Southeast Washington, according to department officials.

Firefighters rescued three people trapped in an apartment, and one teenager jumped out from the third floor. None of the injuries were described as life-threatening, according to fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo.

Twenty-eight people in nine families were displaced.

The fire was reported about 7:40 a.m. in the 2900 block of Second Street SE, just off I-295 and south of St. Elizabeths Hospital. Firefighters arrived to find smoke and fire coming from a second-story apartment.

Maggiolo said the three trapped occupants were in a third-story apartment directly above the fire. He said a woman and two boys, ages 5 and 12, were taken down an aerial ladder on Truck 16. They were taken to hospitals for observation to check if they suffered smoke inhalation, the spokesman said. The teenager who jumped also was hospitalized.

Firefighters arrived at the scene in about four minutes and had the fire extinguished in under 30 minutes. Officials said the cause of the fire has been ruled accidental.

 Peter Hermann

MARYLAND

Man is found dead in Prince Georges

A man was found dead early Wednesday along Route 450 in Bowie, Prince Georges County police said.

The mans name was not immediately released.

Police said they received a call about 6 a.m. When officers arrived, they found a man in the roadway near Glenn Dale Road.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the public is not in danger. They are calling the incident a death investigation.
Members of the MS-13 street gang stabbed a fellow gang member to death in an Alexandria park last fall to keep him from testifying about the groups criminal activity, according to documents filed in court Thursday.

Boris Elias Rosa Castro, a 19-year-old who lives in Fairfax, admitted Thursday that he helped kill Eduardo David Chandias Almendarez in Four Mile Run Park behind Cora Kelly School around Nov. 28. Almendarezs body was found about a week later.

The victim was also known by the name Edwin Almandarez.

Prosecutors say Castro killed Almendarez, 22, to keep him from testifying against a fellow gang member in another criminal case. They said that case was a non-fatal shooting in June 2015 and the shooter has pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.

Two other alleged gang members, Edwin Alexander Guerrero Umana, 18, of Arlington, and Jonathan Gomez Sorto, 22, of Alexandria, also have been indicted in connection with the killing. Their cases are pending.

In a separate case, Alvaro Saenz Castro, 21, who lives in Alexandria, acknowledged Thursday that he too stabbed a man to death in November and left his body in a local park. Saenz Castro pleaded guilty to killing Jose Luis Perez Ferman, 24, near a jungle gym in popular Beverley Park.

However, although authorities said the killer and his victim have MS-13 ties, they think the slaying of Perez Ferman was motivated not by gang business but by a love triangle involving a 16-year-old girl. She was convicted in juvenile court of destroying evidence in the case, and another teen was charged and is awaiting trial.

Officials have said that recent targeted and brutal killings by MS-13 members are part of an effort by the El Salvador-based gang to rebuild its U.S. operations in the wake of a successful crackdown by law enforcement.
Photo shows how baby oil was doused on a windshield in Germantown, Md., by a woman accused of making racial slurs.

The dispute began  as so many do in the Washington area  at a red light. The signal went green, the first motorist hesitated and the second motorist hit the horn.

It ended, according to police in Montgomery County, in a hate crime.

Once the two cars started moving, police allege in court records filed Wednesday, the first driver could see that the other driver, and her young female passenger, were wearing hijab head coverings. The first driver slowed enough to let the two women pass and followed them into a parking lot. There, according to the records, that driver got out of her car, tossed a fragrant liquid on the women and yelled: Get the hell out of the country you b----a-- Muslims!

Much of the polices case so far appears to be based on what the alleged victims told them.

In an interview Wednesday, the suspect, Kerlina Aviles, 27, strongly denied committing a hate crime. She spoke emotionally about Muslim friends she has had throughout her life. This is outlandish, said Aviles, a 27-year-old cook. I am not anti-Muslim at all. The Muslim religion is beautiful.

The hate-crime suspect allegedly squirted baby oil on the front seat as well.

Aviles described the other driver as the instigator. She said that after that driver blared a horn at the intersection, the woman drove up to her, made an obscene hand gesture and tried to spit on her from her drivers seat.

In the parking lot, where the argument escalated, Aviles acknowledged that she spoke sharply to the other driver, but she said she did so only after the woman tried to spit on her again and spoke in way that had no religious bias. She said: Go back to where you came from, because here we dont spit.

The other driver and her daughter are of Northern African origin and are American citizens, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil-liberties group that has investigated the case. The suspect is of Caucasian-Hispanic descent and was born in Maryland, according to her and to court records.

Aviles was charged with two hate crime counts on Tuesday. She said she turned herself in at the Montgomery jail, where she said a police officer told her: This is a She-said-she-said situation.

Aviles posted a $5,000 bond, was released and said she intends to file assault charges against the other driver and her daughter.

In the interview, she acknowledged following the other driver into the parking lot. I just wanted to talk to them, she said.

And she acknowledged that in the lot, she pulled out a bottle of Palmers coconut-scented baby oil and tossed oil on the woman, on her daughter and inside their car. That was really childish of me. I mean, it was childish, she said.

But she added that her insult about the other driver was born out of traffic-irritation, not religious bias: I feel like I just acted out of frustration.

I think she is saying what is convenient to say, countered the 17-year-old daughter who was in the other car.

In an interview Wednesday, the high school student, who asked not to be named, said she clearly remembered hearing Aviles make anti-Muslim remarks.

It hurt, the longtime Montgomery County resident said. Because this is the first time someone has ever said anything like that to me.

Interviews with Aviles and with the 17-year-old, as well as information in arrest documents filed by Montgomery police, provide additional details.

About 9 a.m. June 4, the 17-year-old and her mother were in their Honda CR-V at Germantown and Middlebrook roads, headed to a doctors appointment, the girl said. When the light turned green, the driver ahead of them appeared to be distracted by using her cell-phone, police wrote in arrest records.

The CR-V driver honked, prompting the driver ahead of her to move forward, records state.

The driver in front then extended her left hand out the window, making an obscene signal toward the CR-V, the teen said. The driver of the car slowed down enough to let the CR-V move ahead.

Aviles, the driver of the car, tells a different version. She said in an interview that after her car and the CR-V started moving, it was the CR-V driver who pulled up to her and made an obscene gesture. Aviles said she brushed it off, owing to life on Washington roadways. It happens all the time, she recalled Wednesday.

Then, Aviles said, the CR-V driver rolled down her window, tried to spit at Aviles and continued her obscene gestures. Aviles said she decided to follow the CR-V and stopped in the parking lot. In short order, all three women were out of their vehicles.

In the parking lot, Aviles said she squirted baby oil at the women but did not push or hit them. Aviles said the CR-V driver continued to spit at her and hit her, and the teenage daughter pushed her.

Not so, according to the daughter, who said Aviles was the aggressor, hitting her on the side of her left arm and saying, You go back to your country. As they walked away, according to the girl, Aviles made two anti-Muslim comments. The teenager said she called the police.

She said on Wednesday that her mother seemed more willing to let the incident pass.

She said its better to forget and forgive, the teen said.

Her father and sister, who also spoke in interviews, said the incident has jolted their family. We are citizens. We live here. This is our country, the father said, adding that he has Christian and Jewish friends in the diverse communities of Germantown, where he lives, and Rockville, where he works. Weve never had this problem.

For her part, Aviles said that even if she files charges, she would not like to see either side suffer long-term consequences.

I hope that it will get worked out, she said. I hope we both learned our lesson.

The case, with a somewhat complicated paper trail, dates back three weeks.

On June 7, Montgomery Police Officer H. Simon went to a court commissioner and applied for two counts of misdemeanor assault against Aviles, according to court records. The charged were issued in the form of a summons.

Simon returned to the commissioner on June 16 and applied for additional charges: two counts each of religious-based harassment and malicious destruction of property. For reasons not entirely clear, he got only the additional destruction-of-property charges.

On June 18, Simon again applied for the religious-based harassment charges. The commissioner approved the charges and issued a warrant, which was served to Aviles on Tuesday.

Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.
Caesar Goodson Jr., one of six Baltimore police officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, arrives at the courthouse.

June 23, 2016 Caesar Goodson Jr., one of six Baltimore police officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, arrives at the courthouse. Patrick Semansky/AP

A judge cleared a police driver on all charges. Grays death from injuries sustained in police custody had set off Baltimores worst riots in decades.

The scene at the Baltimore courthouse as the officer is acquitted of all charges in Freddie Gray death

The scene at the Baltimore courthouse as the officer is acquitted of all charges in Freddie Gray death

A judge on Thursday found the sole officer charged with murder in the death of Freddie Gray not guilty of all counts, leaving prosecutors without a conviction for the third time in the high-profile case that spurred riots and unrest in the city last year.

The verdict in the trial of Caesar Goodson Jr. is the second acquittal handed down by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry G. Williams in the case. The judge last month acquitted the second officer who went to trial in Grays death. The first officers trial ended in a hung jury.

Goodson, 46, drove the van that transported Gray through West Baltimore the morning of April 12, 2015, when the 25-year-old was arrested. Gray suffered a severe neck injury in the back of the van and died a week later.

[Baltimore prosecutors must weigh giving up on Freddie Gray case]

Grays death triggered demonstrations and looting in the city as the nation was already mired in a fevered debate over fatal police encounters involving young black men. The mayor imposed a citywide curfew, and the governor called in the National Guard amid the riots.

Six Baltimore police officers were charged after Freddie Grays death and arrest. Heres who they are. (Claritza Jimenez,Erin Patrick O'Connor/The Washington Post)

Over and over again when reading his ruling Thursday, Williams said the state did not have evidence to prove Goodson acted criminally. Prosecutors did not show Goodson gave Gray a rough ride, that Goodson knew Gray needed immediate medical care or that Goodson meant to harm Gray by failing to put him in a seat belt.

There has been no credible evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen, Williams said.

States Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her team of prosecutors quickly and quietly marched out of the packed courtroom after Williams read the verdict. The subdued scene was a stark contrast to Mosbys news conference on the steps of the citys War Memorial days after Grays funeral, when she forcefully announced charges against six officers in the case and declared she had heard Baltimores call for no justice, no peace.

The verdict casts serious doubt as to whether prosecutors can win a conviction against the four officers awaiting trial, but Mosby is unlikely to drop the remaining cases, said Jeremy Eldridge, a Baltimore defense attorney who is not involved in the case.

[Timeline and charges in the case]

Mosby made this part of her political agenda, Eldridge said. She made promises to the community about seeking out justice. What were seeing here is the complete unraveling of the states case that was laid out the day Mosby announced the charges.

As Mosby hurried out of the courtroom Thursday, Goodson stayed. In a gray suit and purple tie, he exchanged handshakes and pats on the back with his attorneys and fellow officers while, nearby, his family embraced.

A crowd of about 40 protesters who gathered outside the courthouse greeted the news of Goodsons acquittal with disappointment and outrage.

Carl Dix, who grew up near Grays neighborhood, said the verdict has sapped his faith in the legal system.

Theyre saying you can go deaf, dumb and blind and say you didnt know and get away with it, Dix said. To say that no one knew he needed any medical attention really means they can do anything to him.

At a news conference Thursday evening, Gray family attorney Billy Murphy said the family continues to support Mosby and that they still hope for justice.

This family is enormously frustrated not just for themselves but for the community, Murphy said. Grays mother and stepfather stood with him but did not comment.

Goodson faced the most serious counts among the charged officers. He was acquitted of second-degree depraved-heart murder, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, reckless endangerment and three counts of manslaughter.

With more than 30 witnesses testifying over an eight-day trial, prosecutors attempted to convince Williams that Goodson was culpable in Grays death. As the van driver, prosecutors argued, Goodson had ultimate custody and care of Gray but failed to buckle Gray into the back of the police wagon and to get him immediate medical attention. They said Gray got a rough ride, bouncing around the back of the wagon without a seat belt but with his wrists and legs shackled.

[Baltimore prosecutors say Freddie Gray was given rough ride in police van]

Goodsons attorneys countered that the officers decision not to enter the narrow van compartment and put a seat belt on Gray was reasonable because Gray was combative during his arrest. Gray did not say he was in pain or show signs of a medical emergency. And prosecutors did not have evidence of a rough ride or witnesses who saw Goodson driving erratically.

Lawyers were unable to comment on the verdict because a gag order is in place for the duration of the case.

Following Goodsons acquittal, city Fraternal Order of Police President Gene Ryan said the group is pleased with the ruling and optimistic that the remaining officers will also be acquitted. He called on Mosby to drop the remaining charges.

It is time to put this sad chapter behind us, Ryan said.

Goodson remains suspended without pay and his case is under internal review by the department, a police spokesman said. Having been found not guilty, his pay will probably be reinstated.

As he announced the verdict, Williams hammered the states rough ride theory, calling it an inflammatory term of art.

When uttered, it is not to be taken lightly for, at a minimum, it means there are actions and intent on the part of the individual driving the vehicle, Williams said.

Williams said video and photos that prosecutors presented did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Goodson ran a stop sign or recklessly made a wide turn, as the state contended. Witnesses for the prosecution could not specifically define rough ride. And only when pressed in closing arguments did prosecutors say a rough ride could be inferred because Gray got hurt while unbuckled in the back of the van.

The failure to seat-belt may have been a mistake, or it may have been bad judgment, Williams said, but without showing more than has been presented to the court concerning the failure to seat-belt and the surrounding circumstances, the state has failed to meet its burden.

[Complete coverage of the Freddie Gray case]

The judge also said competing testimony from at least four medical experts offered equally plausible scenarios as to when and where Gray was injured. And if experts disagreed, how would the average person or officer without medical training know?

Testimony showed that Gray told police at multiple stops that he wanted to go to the hospital. But according to the judge, there was no evidence until the van arrived at the final stop that Goodson realized Gray  who had a bloodied face and was unresponsive  was in medical distress.

To win the second-degree depraved-heart murder charge, prosecutors had to prove that Goodsons actions or lack of actions created a very high risk to Grays life and that despite knowing the risks, Goodson acted with extreme disregard of the life-endangering consequences.

Defense attorney and former prosecutor Warren Alperstein, who is not involved in the case, said the states case crumbled in two places: its presentation of a rough ride theory and failure to show that Goodson breached his duty as an officer.

The state made the rough ride theory a centerpiece of its case, and when the rough ride theory was not proven at all, a significant part of the states case fell apart, Alperstein said. And if there was no bleeding, bruising or heavy breathing at earlier stops, how could a reasonable officer know Freddie Gray was in need of medical help?

University of Maryland law professor Doug Colbert said that though the state has yet to secure a conviction in the case, the trials have been good for the community.

It is so important, Colbert said, that these public trials are held so that people can come to a courtroom and hear what happened to Freddie Gray and then make their own decision about whether that is the practice they want to embrace or whether it is time for significant changes.

The city remained peaceful throughout the day. As the evening went on, a small gathering of people spoke out against the verdict at the corner of North and Pennsylvania avenues, the epicenter of last years riots. Nearby, a group of officers and kids played a game of pickup basketball.

Joe Heim contributed to this report.
A Hyattsville area elementary school teacher was arrested Tuesday on prostitution and human trafficking charges during a sting in Prince Georges County, police said.

Detectives arrested Martin Rye Brown, 29, of the 8000 block of Walden Road in Silver Spring, during a police operation in Lanham, officials said in a statement. Police said Brown is a teacher at Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School.

Investigators allege that he solicited a prostitute and rented a room that was used for prostitution.

No further details were immediately available.
Flanked by tables filled with assault rifles and long guns, the Districts mayor and police chief warned Thursday about what they called a proliferation of high-powered weapons on the streets of the nations capital.

Twice in the past week, Police Chief Cathy L Lanier officers seized AK-47s, one in the hands of a 17-year-old who also had 180 rounds of ammunition and had threatened to kill his girlfriend and her entire family, and then shoot up her school.

Lanier said cases like that and others make you shudder. Police said theyre seeing more and more shootouts on District streets in which everybody is armed.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser joined Lanier, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and other officials are calling for common-sense gun reform. The event was intended to keep the gun issue in the District at the forefront as discussions continue in the aftermath of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando. It also came the same day that House Democrats staged a sit-in in the chamber to call for a vote on gun-control measures.

Lanier has repeatedly blamed, at least in part, large-caliber weapons with large-capacity magazines, some capable of holding 50 or more bullets, for a 54 percent increase in homicides from 2014 to 2015. This year, there have been 61 homicides, down from the 63 reported at this point in 2015.

An assortment of weapons seized on D.C. streets. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)

[Men from Newport News, Va., arrested with guns in District]

On Thursday, D.C. Police Det. Wayne Gerrish showed some of the firepower spread on one of the tables. He noted that one AK-47 purchased in another state for $100 was resold in the District for $1,500. One gun had a drum magazine, similar to an old Tommy Gun, that could hold 50 bullets. Police said some of guns on the table could shoot into a crowd and the bullets would pass through several people.

We run across these more and more often, Gerrish told Bowser (D).

Earlier this week, police arrested three men, two from Newport News, Va., after finding a TEC-9 semiautomatic assault pistol and a .45-caliber handgun in the trunk of a parked car in Edgewood, in Northeast Washington.

Police said there were 55 bullets and two extended magazines in the vehicle.

There is no clear explanation for why there may be more high-powered weapons in the city, police have said. Lanier said that many of the guns in the District are bought legally in Maryland and Virginia.

We know that in our city, families are torn apart every day, or certainly all too often, by gun violence, Bowser said. We know the residents of the District are fed up with gun violence.

Lanier said members of the Gun Recovery Unit have seized more than 3,000 firearms since mid-2007.

Looking at the array of guns on display, the police chief said: I hate the thought that my officers have to go out and face these weapons over and over again. For them to put their lives on the line against these guns, and sometimes the same people with new guns, is unacceptable.
Authorities are searching for a man who wielded a screwdriver in four area robberies, a police spokesman said. (Prince Georges County Police Department)

Authorities are searching for a robber who threatens area store employees with a screwdriver and stole cigarettes at four businesses, a Prince Georges County police spokesman said.

The robber held up each store in the morning. Officer Tyler Hunter, a spokesman for the department, said no one has been injured.

The man first robbed a 7-Eleven in Oxon Hill on June 8. Hunter said he walked into the store, located in the 6100 block of Oxon Hill Road, around 2:15 a.m. wielding a screwdriver.

Police have also connected the man to a June 11 robbery of a Rite Aid in Riverdale Park that happened at a 5:15 a.m. Then on June 19, authorities said he robbed a Sunoco in Bowie around 8:45 a.m. Lastly, authorities believe that at 5:45 a.m., he robbed a 7-Eleven in College Park on June 21.

Hunter said investigators believe the man  who has used a screwdriver in each of the robberies  later sells the cigarettes he steals.

Authorities ask that anyone with information to call the Prince Georges Police Departments Robbery Unit at (301) 772-4905. Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477) or text PGPD plus your message to CRIMES (274637) on your cell phone.
Family members said this the last picture taken of 24-year-old Shannon Nuth, who died in a bus accident in Guatemala. She was visiting Lake Atitlan just before the crash, they said. (Courtesy of the Nuth family)

Im off to see the world, xoxo, Shannon.

It was the last note 24-year-old Shannon Nuth left her sister before traveling from their Prince Georges County home to Guatemala.

Shannon Nuth, who had just finished training to become a rape counselor at Prince Georges Hospital Center, was headed to Central America for a two-week language-immersion program to brush up on her Spanish and was scheduled to return Thursday. She was killed in a crash there Monday, her family said.

Instead of planning her homecoming, her family gathered together to pore over photographs for her funeral.

She was fearless and stubborn, said her father, Joseph Nuth, a senior NASA scientist.

Shannon Nuth (Courtesy of the Nuth family)

Joseph Nuth said his daughter had just finished a six-week training program. Even though she took Spanish classes in high school, she wanted to brush up on her language skills to help comfort local rape victims.

During her trip to Guatemala, she kept in touch with her family through social media, texts and video chatting. Just before the crash, she had the weekend off and headed for Lake Atitlan. She told her mother that she planned to stay an extra day because it was so beautiful, said her youngest sister, Jenny Nuth.

It was on her way back from the lake toward Antigua that the minivan she was in flipped several times. Shannon Nuths father believes she was thrown from a window and died instantly.

Her family was told that there were about 10 people in the van and that Shannon Nuth was sitting next to a woman, chatting and laughing with her and sharing stories. At some point, the van hit something and the driver lost control, the family said.

Im in a nightmare, and its not happening, said her father, 63, of Upper Marlboro.

Shannon Nuth, who was a part-time nanny and had graduated from Marymount University in 2013, loved to travel. In the last few years, she just realized she had been home too much, said Jenny Nuth, 22, who moved into her sisters Hyattsville home last year.

Shannon Nuth would take day trips to Ocean City and West Virginia just to see the sun rise. She was planning to help her little sister get a passport and had begun whipping up another adventure  in Belize. She wanted to go everywhere and see everything, said Jenny Nuth, who teased her sister for always stopping to snap pictures. The last photo the family has of her was taken on that last day on the lake. She wore a wide smile and a sarong borrowed from her sister.

Now relatives wait for her to come home. They hope her remains can be shipped on Saturday.

Jenny Nuth said losing her sister has made her realize that you just never know how much time you have with someone.

And her sisters final note? At the time, she thought nothing of it.

I told my mom I wanted to take it home, she added. I couldnt not have it on the fridge where she left it.
FILE: Rescue personnel stand near small bus that crashed on the George Washington Parkway near Mount Vernon in Alexandria VA, June 14, 2016. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

Kristen Wood said she was driving behind a shuttle bus last week, when she saw it veer across a double line on the George Washington Parkway, return to its lane and then flip on its side.

There was debris flying all around us, Wood said.

Wood, a nurse from Mount Vernon, was one of more than a dozen commuters who stopped to help rescue passengers following the wreck during the June 14 evening commute. Park Police said the bus carrying 19 tourists from China collided with a passenger car head-on less than a mile from Mount Vernon. Wood said it didnt appear the bus was traveling faster than the speed limit at the time.

The cause of the crash, which left one dead and 15 injured, is still under investigation. Wood said the bus had left the Mount Vernon estate minutes before the crash. Her account of the accident provides fresh details about bystanders efforts to save the victims that police called heroic.

Wood said the bus slid across the northbound lanes of the parkway after overturning, went over a curb and came to rest in some grass. Wood, who was traveling with her son, said she immediately pulled her car over and told her son to call 911.

Wood said it was she who pried open an emergency hatch on the top of the bus and began helping passengers off the bus. Another rescuer had recalled a Coast Guard officer removing the hatch.

[Rescuers describe saving passengers in bus crash]

Soon other commuters began to arrive on the scene to offer help. When she realized at least one woman was pinned inside the bus, Wood said she yelled out.

We need a strong man! Wood wrote in an email. Someone is caught under the seat. We need someone strong to go in the bus and get her!

The rescuers decided to lift the bus. An Army sergeant told The Washington Post he thought four people had lifted the bus back on its wheels, but Wood said the number was closer to eight or 10. It took two tries.

She said someone retrieved the injured woman from the bus and laid her on the ground.

Her lower body, in particular, was terribly injured so I laid my jacket on her lower portion, Wood wrote.

Eventually, after about 10 minutes, emergency crews arrived and began taking over the rescue efforts.

I think everybody was their best self that day, Wood said.


Yolanda Perez-Reyes prepares dinner for her two children at their family home in Falls Church, Va., earlier this month. Her daughter and son are U.S.-born citizens, but she is in the country illegally. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Undocumented immigrants and their supporters reacted angrily Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Courts failure to revive deportation relief programs for nearly 4 million people, vowing to continue to fight for legal status through the November presidential elections.

This is something that we had in our hands, and they took it away, said Rosario Reyes, 38, who has brought her young son to the steps of the Supreme Court every Monday in recent weeks to await word of a ruling.

On Thursday, she said, her son cried when they both learned the news.

We had a dream, to live here in peace away from the gangs, said Reyes, who lives in Gaithersburg, Md.,, Md., and crossed the border into the United States in 2004, after members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang in El Salvador killed one of her brothers.

But the fight is not over, she said, vowing to help register voters for the November election. Were finished with living in the shadows.

[High court wont revive Obama plan to shield immigrants from deportation]

The 4-to-4 tie in the Supreme Court continues the 16-month-old injunction against President Obamas Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program and an expanded version of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The courts liberals and conservatives deadlocked, leaving in place a lower courts decision that the president exceeded his powers in issuing the directive.

In the Washington area, an estimated 120,000 people without legal immigration status would have been eligible to apply for three-year stays of deportation under the programs. DACA has shielded about 700,000 people  all of whom came illegally to the United States as children, before 2007  from the possibility of being sent back.

Thursdays action left would-be applicants feeling deflated, with six months left in Obamas term. Amid a presidential campaign where Republican Donald Trump has vowed to deport most illegal immigrants, while Democrat Hillary Clinton has pledged to take the deferred action programs even further, no resolution on the issue appears likely until after November.

Its absolutely crushing, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the Legal Aid Justice Centers Immigrant Advocacy Program in Northern Virginia. For so many people, this has been their chance at stability.

Thats how Yolanda Perez-Reyes saw it. For weeks now, she had checked every night for news of a Supreme Court ruling after returning to her home in Falls Church, Va., from her work cleaning houses.

Perez-Reyes, who has two U.S.-born children and fled gang violence in her native El Salvador 11 years ago, considered the DAPA program an answer to her prayers. On Thursday, she was quiet as she absorbed the effect of what happened at the high court.

I dont know what Im going to do, Perez-Reyes said, speaking softly in Spanish on her cellphone from inside the Northern Virginia home where she was working. We came here out of necessity to give our families better lives. Will I be able to stay in this country?

[Heres who is affected by the Supreme Courts action today]

The months-long legal challenge to Obamas programs has put many immigrants and their families through an emotional roller coaster, with street rallies, hunger strikes and counter-protests that embody the nations bitter divide over illegal immigration.



Brian Ramirez-Perez, 3, sits at the dinner table while his mother Yolanda Perez-Reyes, 32, prepares dinner. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Its been like a mountain crossing, said Ana Campos, 31, who left El Salvador in 2006, married a Honduran man who arrived in the United States illegally in 2008, and in 2012, gave birth to a son.

Both parents would qualify for DAPA relief under Obamas proposal. Campos, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., is among the would-be applicants who have held vigil outside the Supreme Court each week since the court heard the case in April.

I feel really bad because, sincerely, wed like to emerge from the darkness, Campos said.

Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, said the deferred action programs carried more than just the promise of temporary protections against being deported. They would significantly expand economic and educational opportunities for people who are in the country illegally, according to a study by Cappss organization and the Washington-based Urban Institute, and ultimately could positively benefit up to 10 million people, including relatives of undocumented immigrants.

Unauthorized immigrant parents have a lot of problems with autonomy at work, their working conditions, not being paid, Capps said. One would assume that, under the DAPA program, these things would improve.

Enforcement of the Obama administration's 2014 deferred-action policy remains blocked by a nationwide injunction. This comes after SCOTUS's 4-4 tie on June 23. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

Jon Feere, a legal policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the ruling kicks the can down the road and leaves unresolved questions over whether the Obama administration is effectively enforcing the nations immigration laws.

It guarantees this remains a hot political issue through the presidential debate, he said.

With that likelihood, many of the affected families on Thursday grappled with their continued uncertain futures in the United States.



Yolanda Perez-Reyes, 32, dresses her son Brian Ramirez-Perez, 3, in the bedroom of their family home in Falls Church, Va. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Today is really hard, and Im still trying to find the words to process the pain that I feel, said Zaira Garcia, an 23-year-old immigration activist in Texas, where the federal court challenge to Obamas proposals originated  and gained support from 25 other states.

Garcia, whose parents are both in the country illegally, broke down in tears during a call with reporters that included representatives of immigrant groups across the country.

We live every day with an overwhelming fear of losing our parents, she said.

Thursdays tie also affects families from other parts of Latin America, Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Tsogtsaikhan Tenven and his wife, Yurtnasa Jigjid, are among thousands of Koreans in the Washington region who were awaiting word about the two programs.

The couple arrived in 2005, after being unable to find decent work in their homeland. Soon after, they sent for their son, Tsogtsaikhan Bati, who benefited from the DACA program in 2012.

While his parents worked at restaurants in Northern Virginia, Bati, now 22, used his legal status to attend George Mason University and, after graduating last year, get a job as a mortgage broker.

My dad, hes always been optimistic about the possibility of getting legal status, Bati said, recalling plans his parents have made about moving from Arlington to a rural part of Virginia.

On Thursday, Bati said, he and his family felt duped.

It just seems like theyre toying with peoples lives, he said about the Supreme Court vote.
ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Hillary Clinton, who has pledged throughout her campaign to take on immigration reform in her first 100 days as president, called Thursdays Supreme Court ruling "heartbreaking and "unacceptable."



"Today's heartbreaking #SCOTUS immigration ruling could tear apart 5 million families facing deportation. We must do better," she tweeted.



The Supreme Courts 4-4 deadlock blocked the Obama administration policy that would have offered more than four million undocumented immigrants a chance to remain in the country without fear of deportation.



In a statement released in both English and Spanish, the presumptive Democratic nominee also reiterated her belief that President Obama is within his constitutional rights to use executive actions. She said the decision underscores the high stakes in the presidential election.



"This decision is also a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country. Trump has pledged to repeal President Obamas executive actions on his first day in office. He has called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers.' He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes," she said.



Trump has yet to react to Thursdays decisions.



Clinton has said she will do everything she can to protect the president's executive actions and that she plans to "go further" should she win the White House in November.



Meanwhile, Clinton called the high courts decision upholding the University of Texas admissions policies as a win for all Americans.



The 4-3 ruling rejected a challenge by Abigail Fisher, a white Houston resident, who was denied admission to the University of Texas in 2008 and filed a lawsuit challenging the universitys consideration of race in admissions.



"Having a student body with diverse experiences and perspectives breaks down barriers, enriches academia, and prepares our young people to be leaders and citizens in our increasingly diverse country, Clinton said in a statement.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Jack Fuller, who was a Justice Department lawyer, a novelist and a musician but who was best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a top executive with the Chicago Tribune and a key architect of one of the largest newspaper acquisitions in history, died June 21 at his home in Chicago. He was 69.

The cause was cancer, according to the Tribune, which first reported his death.

Mr. Fuller began his career as a 16-year-old copy boy in Chicago, where his father was a longtime Tribune business reporter and editor.

After serving as a war correspondent in Vietnam and working as a Justice Department lawyer during the administration of President Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Fuller returned to the Tribune as a reporter and editorial page editor.

He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his editorials examining a variety of constitutional issues. Later, as the Tribunes top editor and publisher, Mr. Fuller was considered a national leader in adapting news coverage to the changes brought about by the Internet and other technological changes.

Jack Fuller in 2004. (RODRIGO ABD/AP)

Jack Fuller was one of the best newspaper editors and publishers of his time, Donald E. Graham, former publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, said in an interview. When Jack was running the Tribune, it was the best-run large newspaper in the United States.

In 1997, Mr. Fuller was named president of Tribune Publishing. Within three years, he helped engineer the companys purchase of the larger Times Mirror Co., which owned the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Newsday and other newspapers. The $8 billion deal was the largest in the newspaper industry at the time.

Traveling to newsrooms across the country, Mr. Fuller assured journalists at the newly acquired papers that they would not be micromanaged from Chicago. In part, he was following the principles he outlined in his 1996 book News Values: Ideas for an Information Age.

Newspapers grow out of the soil of the community, he wrote. A paper should reflect its region and aspire to have a distinctive voice that relates well to the community it serves.

Not long after Tribunes monumental purchase, however, a prolonged advertising slump began, and the Internet brought profound changes to how news was consumed. As the Tribunes stock price plummeted, Mr. Fuller retired in 2004. (The company was sold in 2007 to real estate mogul Sam Zell and the next year went into bankruptcy.)

James OShea, a former top editor of the Los Angeles Times, wrote about the Tribunes purchase of Times Mirror in his 2011 book, The Deal From Hell. He was critical of many Tribune managers but singled out Mr. Fuller as someone who could embrace his critics and who had the ability to truly inspire people.

Mr. Fuller was credited with promoting women to prominent jobs, including Ann Marie Lipinski, who became the Tribunes metro editor and ultimately the first woman to lead the papers newsroom.

For a journalist, he was somewhat unusual, Lipinski said in an interview. Jack communicated his values and his standards through his own work or through thoughtful conversations.

Lipinski recalled walking with Mr. Fuller into a newly remodeled newsroom, where the First Amendment had been inscribed on the wall.

Coming off the elevator, almost without missing a step, she said, Jack looked at the carving and said, Youre missing a word. I think it was of. It was classic Jack, showing the intellect and a sharp legal mind.

Jack William Fuller was born Oct. 12, 1946, in Chicago. At Northwestern University, he became a top editor of the campus newspaper before receiving a bachelors degree in journalism in 1968.

After one year of law school at Yale University, Mr. Fuller was drafted into the Army and went to Vietnam as a correspondent for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

He received his law degree in 1973 from Yale, where he was one of 11 members of a mock-trial group called the Barristers Union. In a photograph of the group, he is sitting next to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Bill Clinton is directly behind him.

Mr. Fuller worked in Chicago as a Tribune reporter before coming to Washington in 1975 to work in the Justice Department under Attorney General Edward H. Levi, who had been president of the University of Chicago. In 1977, Mr. Fuller joined the Tribunes Washington bureau before returning to write editorials.

(In 1992, when Mr. Fullers law school classmate Bill Clinton was the Democratic candidate for president, the Tribune endorsed Republican George H.W. Bush.)

Even as a law student, Mr. Fuller rose at 5 a.m. each day to work on a novel before going to class. He studied privately at Yale with novelist and poet Robert Penn Warren.

Among Mr. Fullers eight novels are a 1982 spy thriller, Convergence; Fragments (1984), set during the Vietnam War; The Best of Jackson Payne (2000), about a mysterious jazz musician; and One From Without, published this month, about a company during a corporate takeover.

Mr. Fuller was a board member of the University of Chicago and the MacArthur Foundation. In his free time, he played jazz piano at restaurants and clubs.

His first marriage, to the former Alyce Tuttle, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 11 years, Debra Moskovits of Chicago; and two children from his first marriage.

For all his varied interests, Mr. Fuller considered himself a newspaperman above all else. People come to a newspaper craving a unifying human presence, he wrote in News Values.

They want information that hangs together, makes sense, has some degree of order to it. They want knowledge rather than facts, perhaps even a little wisdom.
Medics and civilians search for bodies at the site of a destroyed ammunition store in Garabuli east of Tripoli, Libya. (Hani Amara/Reuters)

LIBYA

More than 60 killed in clashes, blast at depot

Clashes in Libya between pro-government militiamen and Islamic State militants in the city of Sirte and an explosion at a militia depot near the capital, Tripoli, left more than 60 dead in one day, a spokesman and a state news agency reported Wednesday.

In Sirte, the last Islamic State bastion in Libya, clashes killed 36 militiamen aligned with the unity government backed by the United Nations. The militias, mainly from the western town of Misurata, have been leading an offensive since May to take over Sirte.

About 140 others were wounded, a Misurata hospital spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Libyan News Agency said an explosion at a depot Tuesday in the town of Garabuli, near Tripoli, followed clashes with militias and killed 29 civilians.

According to a statement on the Facebook page of the Garabuli municipal council, the clashes occurred between militiamen in charge of town security and protesters. When the protesters stormed the militias barracks, the depot exploded, the statement said. It said the depot housed firecrackers, not ammunition.

Libya has been in chaos since the ousting and killing of dictator Moammar Gaddafi in 2011.

 Associated Press

EUROPEAN UNION

Member nations agree on new border scheme

The European Union agreed Wednesday to set up a new border and coast guard agency to better manage migrant arrivals after more than a million people entered the E.U. in search of jobs or sanctuary last year.

The border and coast guard agency will be built up from the E.U.s existing border management agency, Frontex. It would establish a pool of 1,500 border guards and technical equipment that the agency could deploy to areas of extraordinary migration flows within about 10 days if needed. Liaison officers would be stationed in all member states with external borders to monitor those frontiers.

The E.U. hopes the scheme will strengthen external borders and ensure that Europes passport-free travel zone  the Schengen area  can function correctly.

If countries refuse to cooperate, putting the E.U.s border security in jeopardy, other E.U. nations would be allowed to reintroduce their own border controls.

The scheme must be endorsed by the full European Parliament.

 Associated Press

INDIA

Lightning kills 74, mostly farmworkers

Lightning killed 74 people, mostly farm laborers working in fields, across eastern and northern India in a 24-hour span, officials said Wednesday.

Most of the deaths occurred in the eastern state of Bihar, which accounted for 57, a state official said. At least 24 others were injured as thunderstorms and monsoon rains lashed the state.

Police said 10 people were killed by lightning in neighboring Jharkhand state, six in northern Uttar Pradesh state and one in western Maharashtra state.

Lightning strikes are common during Indias monsoon season, which runs from June to September. However, the recent toll is unusually high.

 Associated Press

Officials say debris found off Australia not from MH370: Debris found on an Australian island this month is not from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, investigators said. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for the jet in the southern Indian Ocean, said Boeing, the maker of the aircraft, advised that the debris was not consistent with the manufacturing specifications of the missing plane. Flight 370 vanished with 239 people aboard in March 2014.

Dire funding shortfalls will hit aid to Yemen, U.N. says: The United Nations will be forced to scale back already limited food distribution in war-scarred Yemen by August because of severe funding shortages, a senior official said. About 14 million people, or roughly half the countrys population, suffer from food insecurity at crisis or emergency levels, said George Khoury, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen. Emergency level is just one step from famine on the U.N. food insecurity scale.

Norways parliament approves sending troops to Syria: Norwegian lawmakers have given consent to sending troops to join coalition forces in Syria in the international struggle against the Islamic State militant group. About 60 Norwegian soldiers will provide training, advice and operational support to Syrian groups fighting the militants in the country. The troops will be deployed later in the summer and will be based in Jordan.

 From news services
Displaced children who fled Islamic State violence, along with other people in need, wait for food at a Baghdad restaurant during the fasting month of Ramadan. (Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

CHINA

Tornado, hailstorm leave at least 78 dead

A powerful tornado and hailstorm struck the outskirts of an eastern Chinese city on Thursday, killing at least 78 people and destroying buildings, smashing trees and flipping vehicles on their roofs.

The tornado hit a densely populated area near the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu province, about 500 miles south of Beijing.

Nearly 500 people were injured, 200 of them critically, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Roads were blocked by trees, downed power lines and other debris, while heavy rain and the possibility of further hailstorms and more tornados was complicating rescue efforts, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Tornados occasionally strike southern China during the summer, but the scale of the one on Thursday was rare.

 Associated Press

BRAZIL

Ex-minister arrestedin bribery allegations

A key cabinet member in the administrations of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff was arrested Thursday for allegedly channeling millions of dollars in bribes to Brazils Workers Party.

Federal police said Paulo Bernardo was involved in a scheme at the Planning Ministry to overprice contracts of information technology services from 2010 to 2015.

The Sao Paulo and Brasilia offices of the left-leaning Workers Party, which won the past four presidential elections, also were being searched.

Bernardo and his wife also are being investigated in a separate probe of state-run oil giant Petrobras, which has engulfed many of Brazils top politicians.

The arrest is a blow for Rousseff, who is suspended from the presidency and is trying to survive an impeachment trial .

Although she has not been directly implicated, corruption accusations against key members of her party have sparked protests for two years.

 Associated Press

SYRIA

U.S.-allied forces enter Islamic State bastion

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces pushed into the outskirts of the Islamic State militant groups bastion of Manbij in northern Syria on Thursday and were advancing slowly to the center of town, an adviser to the predominantly Kurdish force and a monitoring group said.

The town lies along the only Islamic State supply line between the Turkish border and the extremist groups self-styled capital, Raqqa. If Manbij is captured, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for the Islamic State in Syria since losing the town of Tal Abyad a year ago.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting was taking place on the southwestern edge of Manbij.

Also Thursday, at least eight civilians were killed in Aleppo when airstrikes and mortar shells struck neighborhoods on opposite sides of the divided northern city, anti-government activists and state media reported.

Meanwhile, the United Nations now estimates that 5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid are living in hard-to-reach areas, nearly a million more than a 4.1 million estimate in April.

 Associated Press

No July 4 fireworks at U.S. bases in Japan: There will be no Fourth of July fireworks for American troops in Japan this year because of restrictions imposed after a former U.S. Marine was accused of raping and killing a woman on Okinawa. U.S. Forces Japan said the move is intended to demonstrate respect for Okinawans. The killing of the woman triggered outrage on the Japanese island, where tensions frequently rise over crime linked to U.S. military bases there.

Seven abducted in Nigeria: Three Australians, two Nigerians, a New Zealander and a South African were kidnapped in Nigeria in an ambush that killed their Nigerian driver, Australian officials said. The men were working for the Australian mining contractor Macmahon Holdings, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

 From news services
Lally Weymouth is a senior associate editor at The Washington Post.

After Dilma Rousseff was removed from Brazils presidency in May facing charges of administrative misconduct, Vice President Michel Temer became interim president. He set out to hire a first-rate economic team to guide Brazil out of its recession, but Operation Car Wash, a sprawling federal corruption investigation that began with sweetheart contracts from the state oil company, has already forced three of his ministers to resign. In his Brasilia office, Temer granted his first foreign interview since taking over to The Washington Posts Lally Weymouth. They discussed the Olympics, Zika and the presidential crisis. Edited excerpts follow.

Three of your cabinet members have already been forced to resign due to corruption allegations. Isnt it difficult to govern while charges are flying around and ministers are resigning? Are more ministers going to go?

Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato, doesnt hinder the actions of the government. Obviously, we support any investigation.

It includes your own cabinet.

These people have not been charged with crimes. We said that if any of the ministers or any of the members of government were facing accusations, they would be removed.

Then Sergio Machado, a former head of Transpetro [a subsidiary of Petrobras, the state oil company], said in his plea bargain that youd asked him for money for a candidate who was running for mayor of Sao Paulo. What is your response to that?

I made a public statement about this situation. What Mr. Sergio Machado actually said is that I requested funds, not for myself, but for a candidate who was running for mayor. But there was no request on my part, because I do not have a close relationship with him. I would never ask that, not even if I had a close relationship with him.

So it wasnt true?

I would like to highlight that I have been in public office for 33 years. I was three times speaker of the House of Representatives. I was twice [elected] vice president of the country. So I would never have to go to Mr. Sergio Machado to request anything.

If you are planning to ask for enormous economic sacrifice from the Brazilian people, is it a problem that you are not an elected president?

But I was elected vice president. Here in Brazil the president and the vice president are elected together. Nevertheless, opposition parties are claiming that there was a coup and that there should be presidential elections. But there is only a coup if you violate the constitution, and this is not the case.

It is Dilma Rousseff, your predecessor, who claims that there has been a coup.

Yes.

Was there a moment where you thought enough was enough with Dilma?

I thought that the government was going in the wrong direction, so eight months ago I launched the document Bridge for the Future. From then on, I recognized that there was a separation, a split, between the president and the vice president, which resulted in the PMDB, my party, leaving the government.

People say that Dilma just didnt like to deal with Congress. Was that so?

This is something that the previous administration lacked, definitely.

Did you think that she was corrupt?

She might have committed administrative mistakes, but I wouldnt call her corrupt. I would be unable to tell you if this was corruption or not.

Didnt your administration reveal that Dilma was running a far larger deficit than she declared?

Yes, her figures showed $27 billion. We actually saw that it was approximately $48 billion.

Will she be impeached?

That is for the Senate to say. In a month and a half, we probably will know.

Right in the middle of the Olympic Games?

Yes, regrettably. It will do the country no good to have two presidents in the beginning of the Olympic Games and at the opening ceremony.

Do you think that Brazil is just addicted to corruption? In your system, the president has to go and get votes from the parties in Congress. To get the votes, they have to give favors to the parties. So isnt it endemic in the way the system is set up?

I wouldnt say that it is an endemic problem. I would say that corruption is individualized. It is Congressman A or B or C. The criticism that might be made of our system and would require a political reform is the large number of political parties that we have. We have 32. We need a rule that says only political parties that receive a certain number of minimum votes would be represented.

Today you could get 1 percent and get into parliament?

Even less than that.

Dilmas party, the Workers Party, was nominating its members to positions with Petrobras and with pension funds. The postal workers have virtually nothing left in their pension fund. Werent the party members stealing, essentially?

Yes, we will have a law to prevent this type of thing from happening.

But this was under Dilma, right?

It started before that.

It started under her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right?

[Their party was] in the administration, and they thought that they could occupy all of the positions.

But some people say that your party benefited, too. Do you think that is unfair?

Some individuals might have benefited, but not the party.

Brazil had a negative growth rate last year of 3.8 percent, and its on the path to insolvency. There are only two ways for you to go. One is to raise taxes, and the other is to cut spending. How do you see getting out of the economic morass that you are in?

We wont be imposing new taxes as of now. We are considering reducing public expenditures. As soon as I took office, we cut nine of the federal ministries, and we also cut 4,200 political jobs. The governments first intent is to cut expenditures, and only in a second situation would we impose taxes. Taxes are not being considered as of now.

You have a good economic team and sent Congress a plan to impose austerity measures. Will it pass?

We are working intensely to remove our country from the economic crisis in which it finds itself. We sent a proposal to limit public expenditures, and at the outset we could face some resistance. . . . We will have pension reform very soon in Brazil. One of the central points is to establish a minimum age for retirement. . . . People will only be able to retire once they reach 65 years.

Many believe you are doing the right thing by imposing austerity measures, but at the same time you have this terrible economy and the population is suffering. So wont these measures that you are introducing be very unpopular?

They may not be popular at first, but they will be understood. Because today we have 11 million people who are unemployed, and these people want to get jobs once again.

Didnt Rio declare bankruptcy?

Rio is a special case, and we are opening a special credit line so that we can guarantee a smooth Olympic Games.

How do you feel about the Olympics? Some people are worried about an ISIS-inspired attack.

Everything is under control here. We already had three meetings with the team in charge of security for the Olympic Games. I can assure you that everything is going smoothly, and security will not be a problem.

Athletes complained about swimming in contaminated water.

This is being solved by the municipal administration of Rio de Janeiro. I recently visited the Olympic park, and I can tell you that they are taking care of all of the problems.

And what about Zika?

First, we combatted very thoroughly the spread of the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus. And the weather will also work in our favor, because we are in the middle of winter, and in winter this mosquito does not proliferate as much.

But it is a threat to your country, the disease?

Not now. Six months ago, yes. But not now.

So do you feel like you are getting it under control?

Yes, it is under control.

If you do a brilliant job and get the economy in better shape and restore growth, you said you wouldnt run again for president. Why not?

I hope to win the applause of the population, and I hope to leave a legacy in history, but that is it. Without being pretentious, I have had a very successful public life, and this ending would satisfy me.

So meanwhile, youll support the Car Wash investigation, no matter where it goes?

I have declared my support several times already, but obviously I am in the executive branch, and I believe in the independence of the different branches, so I will never interfere.

People in the United States noted with enthusiasm that your new foreign minister, Jose Serra, spoke strongly about human rights in Venezuela.

Venezuela actually provoked us in the beginning, because they claimed that there was actually a coup taking place in Brazil. That is why the minister of foreign affairs and I decided that it was necessary to give a strong response.

That is why you responded? I would have liked to think it was out of conviction.

Yes, we very strongly defend democracy, compliance with the constitution, with the law, with human rights. Definitely, Brazil has a very strong position on these matters.

Twitter: @LallyWeymouth

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VIEWED IN the abstract, or compared with a Platonic ideal of political speechmaking, Hillary Clintons economic-policy address Wednesday rated as well short of historic. There was little new in the list of proposals she laid out. On one or two points, she was objectionable  as when she pledged to say no to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which she rightly supported when she was secretary of state.

Viewed in its real-world context, however, Ms. Clintons speech was considerably better, and more reassuring, than that. These are troubled times in the United States economically, and also and perhaps more important, politically. The Republican Party is about to nominate an uncivil demagogue for president, a man who offers insults of his opponents in lieu of constructive realistic economic plans. The Democrats, meanwhile, face an internal left-wing revolt spearheaded by a candidate who was more decent personally than the GOP standard-bearer-to-be but whose policy offerings are, in their own way, deeply irresponsible.

In the middle of all this, Ms. Clinton stood before her audience Wednesday and insisted that it takes a plan. And it takes experience and the ability to work with both parties to get results. Whats more, Ms. Clinton refused to paint the still-recovering U.S. economy in dire terms, which is of course in her self-interest because her party is in the White House and also that assessment has the advantage of being true, despite what Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have been saying. Beyond her capitulation on the TPP, there was blessedly little evidence that she feels forced to adopt the more expansive  and expensive  plans of the partys left wing, such as free state college for all or universal zero-co-pay health insurance.

Her plans for keeping the economy on an even keel were incremental but appropriately focused on the needs of working- and middle-class people  promises, essentially, to sustain the progress of the Obama administration and pick up its unfinished business: promoting higher-wage employment through major new infrastructure spending; helping families cope with workplace realities through paid family leave; chipping away at the student-debt burden; enforcing existing Dodd-Frank regulations on Wall Street vigorously ; and extending rules to cover the shadow banking system. Though there wasnt much detail attached, Ms. Clinton also repeated her pledges to encourage longer-range thinking by corporations and to reward them for profit-sharing with employees.

As for paying for it all, Ms. Clinton would place the burden on the wealthiest; this is where she sounded her most populist notes. However, in promising to end the carried interest deduction for hedge-fund managers, she was merely saying what many analysts of the tax code, including some Republicans, support. True, neither that loophole-closing nor any of the others she advocated would raise a tremendous amount of revenue. When it comes to dealing with the countrys long-term debt problems, she had little to say, except for something counterproductive: a promise never to raise taxes on the middle class. For all that, Ms. Clinton at least adhered to the notion that new spending should be paid for, to keep the deficit from growing. Standard fare in ordinary times, this concession to reality rates as courage nowadays.
Roberto G. Gonzales is an assistant professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America.

No one has to wonder about the enormous consequences of the Supreme Courts decision Thursday to let stand a lower-court ruling blocking President Obamas plan to protect from deportation millions of undocumented immigrants who are parents of citizens or permanent residents. All you have to do is look at how much the smaller program it was modeled on has accomplished and multiply.

A little more than four years ago, the Obama administration announced a new and life-changing program that allowed young immigrants the opportunity to apply for deportation relief and the ability to work legally in the United States. Close to 730,000 young people have taken giant steps toward the American mainstream as a result of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and have, in turn, contributed significantly to American society.

Shortly after the implementation of DACA, my team at Harvard launched a national study to understand how these young immigrants were experiencing their new status, reaching nearly 2,700 DACAmented young adults. The findings from the survey pointed overwhelmingly to the programs positive impact on their lives. DACA beneficiaries were becoming part of the U.S. mainstream. Many had obtained new jobs and paid internships and had increased their earnings. Some had also started building credit by opening bank accounts and obtaining credit cards. All states now permit DACA beneficiaries to have drivers licenses, and many beneficiaries have acquired them. As a result, the nations roads have fewer unlicensed and uninsured drivers. And through new work and school opportunities, a significant share reported obtaining health care since receiving DACA.

Enforcement of the Obama adminstration's 2014 deferred-action policy remains blocked by a nationwide injunction. This comes after SCOTUS's 4-4 tie on June 23. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

We recently followed up the original survey with in-depth interviews with more than 500 beneficiaries. Sitting on living room couches, in student centers on college campuses, and in beneficiaries offices, we listened to their stories. By this time, most of our respondents had benefited from DACA for more than two years, and many of them had already gone through the renewal process. The young people we spoke to became emotional when describing their new outlooks on life. A 22-year-old community college student who moved to Phoenix with her family when she was 3 told us, I dont know where I would be right now without DACA. I feel it saved my life. A 21-year-old engineering student from Chicago told us, Its just being able to identify yourself as someone. Because before you were just undocumented and that was it. You literally had no privileges whatsoever. But now its just being able to say, I am someone. I have DACA. 

DACA has broadened educational and work opportunities for hundreds of thousands of young people. With DACA, these U.S. residents improved their access to public universities, trade schools and additional scholarship opportunities. And with work authorization, college-going DACA beneficiaries were better able to meet their tuition needs while balancing work and school responsibilities. In the workforce, they experienced newfound access to more stable jobs with higher pay, better benefits and less stressful working conditions. These better jobs are good not just for DACA beneficiaries but also for the U.S. economy more generally, as higher wages stimulate economic growth and greater tax revenue. And many DACA beneficiaries are also filling critical labor force needs in growth sectors, such as health care.

But DACA beneficiaries do not live in isolation. They belong to families and communities in dire need of relief.

Now, more than ever, the United States needs immigration reform to bring immigrants and their families out of the shadows, to recognize their deep community connections and economic contributions, and to build a strong American society.
The Plaine de Plainpalais square in Geneva, pictured May 14, advertises a referendum on the introduction of an unconditional basic income for all. (Magali Girardin/Keystone via Associated Press)

By an overwhelming 3-to-1 margin, Swiss voters have rejected a proposal that would have guaranteed all residents a monthly income, whether they worked or not. Yet supporters of the concept elsewhere are not taking the Swiss no for an answer.

Frequently proposed in the past, guaranteed income for all is back in vogue because of fears that robots and artificial intelligence threaten whole categories of jobs, especially for less skilled workers, and that any remaining jobs will be unstable gigs. Mass poverty and inequality loom.

Economists usual prescription is greater investment in education and training, to equip people for high-paying work. The guaranteed-income movement says its smarter and simpler to separate subsistence from labor.

Backers span the ideological spectrum: Andy Stern, uber-liberal former president of the Service Employees International Union, cites straightforward social-justice arguments, as the title of his new book, Raising the Floor, suggests. Small-government conservative Charles Murray says a guaranteed income would streamline the welfare state and clearly define societys minimum  and maximum  obligations to the less fortunate. Oakland, Calif., and Finland may soon see experimental guaranteed-income programs.

But even assuming political and financial support could be found for such a program, it would face immense practical issues.

Any minimum income  Murray suggests $10,000 plus $3,000 for health insurance, with a phaseout after $30,000 in earned income  would be insufficient in some areas, excessive in others. In Puerto Rico, $10,000 is more than half the median income; in Manhattan, it seems like a brie-and-prosciutto sandwich costs that much.

What about immigrants eligibility? The rule most consistent with guaranteed incomes goals  apply it to newcomers upon arrival, lest they form an underclass  would stimulate migration, irritating sender countries and U.S. taxpayers alike. We could impose a waiting period: Good luck choosing one that seems fair to everyone.

As for the obsolete-labor problem, no one really knows how large it is. In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University wrote that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk over the next two decades. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says 9 percent. All estimates should be read in light of unfulfilled past predictions of mass technological unemployment.

Should we adopt a policy based on such guesswork? Probably not  when you factor in a guaranteed incomes imponderable, but likely dampening, effect on incentives to seek a job, especially entry-level work, when earnings are lowest. (By the way, is a minimum wage still necessary and justified in a guaranteed-income world?)

Stern cites research showing no significant work reduction during guaranteed-income pilot projects in a rural Canadian town four decades ago and, more recently, in a Namibian village. These tests (and the new ones being contemplated in Oakland and Finland) hardly indicate the repercussions of telling every American, from childhood, that he or she gets a check upon reaching adulthood.

Even after the robot-overlord takeover, someone will have to work, which means society must encourage people to try, even if the ultimate rewards arent certain.

Murray acknowledges his plan would discourage work  he just thinks it would not do so more than current policy. And he sees a bright side: Income-secure citizens would flock to volunteer work, reenergizing civic culture. Stern, for his part, sees guaranteed income enabling todays incipient move toward work driven largely by peoples own motivation, creativity, and the ability to make a job out of nothing.

It all reminds you of Karl Marxs daydream of communism, in which society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Reality check: 25-to-54-year-old American men who have left the labor force watch TV an average of 335 minutes per day, according to a report by White House economic advisers.

If government paid a $10,000-a-year guaranteed income on top of the existing safety net  Medicaid, the earned-income tax credit, Social Security and the rest  it would have to raise taxes and cut other spending by $3 trillion per year, according to Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

If, by contrast, guaranteed income replaced current safety net programs (Murrays proposal), it would shift vast resources away from the poor, because means-tested benefits now devoted to low-income people would be distributed to others higher up. Its not clear how youd sell a Murray-style plan to people who paid into Social Security expecting, in most cases, much more than $10,000 per year upon retirement.

A guaranteed minimum income is thought-provoking. The main thought it provokes is this: We can, and should, rationalize the linkage that U.S. social policy has established between work and economic security  especially by decoupling health insurance and employment, as Obamacare did to some extent. Its probably unnecessary, and definitely risky, to eliminate that linkage entirely.

Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Pamela Newkirk is a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga.

The virulent backlash against President Obamas 2008 election set the stage for this years presidential campaign, in which Muslims, Mexicans and other marginalized groups have been explicitly maligned.

While Obamas historic two-term presidency has inspired the birther movement, an unprecedented spike in death threats, and wanton disrespect by members of Congress and other prominent officials, until now, many observers had been hard-pressed to attribute the hostility to race.

In White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, Carol Anderson compellingly does just that. In this slim but persuasive volume, she catalogues white Americans centuries-long efforts to derail African American progress. She cites the venomous response to Obama alongside a litany of setbacks that have followed African American strides stretching back to the Civil War and emancipation.

[Ferguson isnt about black rage against cops]

Author and academic Dr. Carol Anderson reflects on the history of the civil rights and human rights movements during a 2013 keynote address to the U.S. Human Rights Network. (U.S. Human Rights Network)

Anderson, a professor of African American history at Emory University, traces the thread of white rebellion from anti-emancipation revolts through post-Reconstruction racial terror and the enactment of Black Codes and peonage, to the extraordinary legal and extralegal efforts by Southern officials to block African Americans from fleeing repression during the Great Migration. She continues connecting the dots to contemporary legislative and judicial actions across the country that have disproportionately criminalized blacks and suppressed their voting rights.

Anderson argues that this pattern of advancement followed by retreat has effectively eroded, if not scuttled, every modicum of progress made by African Americans since the Emancipation Proclamation.

Andersons book, which began as a 2014 opinion article in The Washington Post, recounts numerous instances when hard-won gains by African Americans have been reversed. For example, in 2008, for the first time in history, the black voter turnout rate nearly equaled that of whites, and the turnout of voters of all races making less than $15,000 nearly doubled. While the number of whites who voted remained roughly the same as it had been in the 2004 election, she says, two million more African Americans, two million additional Hispanics, and 600,000 more Asians cast their ballots in 2008.

The GOP, trapped between a demographically declining support base and an ideological straitjacket . . . reached for a tried and true weapon: disfranchisement. Anderson notes that despite the rarity of voter fraud, state after state began requiring voters to have documents such as bank statements, utility bills and W-2 forms, which African Americans, Latinos, the young and other economically disadvantaged people are less likely than others to possess.

Then, in 2013 the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act that for decades had protected African Americans from blatant disfranchisement. Since the ruling, 22 states have passed voter-restriction statutes. Anderson also argues that white resistance to the Supreme Courts landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision explains why, six decades later, black children largely remain trapped in segregated and unequal schools.

Anderson singles out President Ronald Reagan for presiding over the rollback of many of the gains blacks made during the civil rights movement. She says that while Reagan positively oozed racial innocence, his policies showed a contempt for blacks.

Black unemployment had declined sharply during the 60s and 70s, actually closing the racial gap, and the number of blacks enrolled in college had doubled between 1970 and 1978. But Reagan erased those gains through massive cuts in federal programs and jobs. Black unemployment rose to 15.5 percent  the highest it had been since the Great Depression  and black youth employment to a staggering 45.7 percent. At this point, Anderson writes, Reagan chose to slash the training, employment and labor services budget by 70 percent  a cut of $3.805 billion.

Among the programs targeted were those that assisted college-bound African Americans, causing their college enrollment to tumble from 34 to 26 percent. Thus, just at the moment when the post-industrial economy made an undergraduate degree more important than ever, 15,000 fewer African Americans were in college during the early 1980s than had been the case in the mid 1970s, Anderson writes.

Her most explosive allegation is that at a time when marijuana use was down, and cocaine, heroin and hallucinogen use was declining or leveling off, Reagans National Security Council and CIA manufactured and facilitated a drug crisis and were complicit in flooding African American communities with crack. She says the administrations shielding of Colombian drug traffickers actively allowed cocaine imports to the United States to skyrocket 50 percent within three years. . . . Soon crack was everywhere, kicking the legs out from under black neighborhoods, she writes.

The Reagan administrations protection of drug traffickers escalated further when the CIA received approval from the Department of Justice in 1982 to remain silent about any key agency assets that were involved in the manufacturing, transportation, or sale of narcotics, she adds.

Anderson cites research showing that between 1984 and 1994, the homicide rate of black males ages 14 to 17 more than doubled, while life expectancy rates among African Americans declined  something that not even slavery or Jim Crow had been able to accomplish, she notes.

And as crack ravaged black communities, Anderson argues, the Reagan administration targeted the victims, rather than the drug-smuggling villains. In 1986 Reagan signed into law the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which mandated minimum sentencing, emphasized punishment over treatment, and disproportionately criminalized African Americans, Latinos and the poor. Two years later, Congress enacted mandatory sentencing for first-time offenders. The war on drugs, Anderson says, replaced the explicit use of race as the mechanism to deny black Americans their rights as citizens.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court, in a series of cases, upheld racial profiling by police and mandatory sentencing for drug offenses, and made it more difficult to prove racial bias in a variety of circumstances, including jury selection and arrests. And while African Americans are the least likely to use or sell drugs, Anderson writes, law enforcement has continued to focus its efforts on the black population. As a result, she writes, blacks, while 13 percent of the national population, make up 45 percent of those incarcerated.

Anderson convincingly shows that African Americans economic and social progress has historically, and sometimes ferociously, been reversed. Less persuasive is her contention that rage, rather than a cool and calculated effort to retain economic and social primacy, is behind the destructive policies she cites. Moreover, Anderson makes little effort to explore how African Americans might ultimately overcome the kinds of willful and anti-democratic machinations she describes. For example, could the Brown ruling have been more effective if it had emphasized racial equality over integration? Also, are African Americans efforts to overcome discrimination inevitably doomed to fail, or have some strategies prevailed?

Still, Anderson deftly draws a straight line from post-Reconstruction setbacks to contemporary measures that follow a discernible, if often overlooked, pattern of one step forward and two steps back. While short on solutions, White Rage is a sobering primer on the myriad ways African American resilience and triumph over enslavement, Jim Crow and intolerance have been relentlessly defied by the very institutions entrusted to uphold our democracy.
Regarding the June 18 Metro article At 75, National soars :

There is an interesting sequel to the first commercial airliner landing at Reagan National Airport  then National Airport  in June 1941. The Pennsylvania Central Airlines DC-3 was piloted by my father, Capt. Albert R. Ricks.

Subsequently, Dulles International Airport was built. Before the airport became operational, American Airlines and Piedmont Airlines both sought the distinction of landing the first airline plane on the new runways. My brother, Capt. Albert W. Ricks, was asked by American Airlines to fly a Convair CV-240 from National to Dulles. Piedmont Airlines wanted the same distinction and also requested that its plane be allowed to land. The two planes circled the field waiting for weather to clear for a visual landing because the instrument landing system was not yet operational.

By the time the weather cleared, the Piedmont pilot had gone to refuel, and my brother became the first pilot to land a commercial airliner at Dulles and thus join our father in another Washington aviation landmark event.

Jay E. Ricks, Arlington
Theres an old adage about a vat of wine standing next to a vat of sewage. Add a cup of wine to the sewage, and it is still sewage. But add a cup of sewage to the wine, and it is no longer wine but sewage. Is this what Donald Trump has done to our politics?

 Martha Bayles, in the

Claremont Review of Books

Yes, as Republicans should remember when their convention opens in less than a month, on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trumps disparagement of John McCain as unheroic because he was captured. McCain was captured (with a broken leg and two broken arms) when North Vietnamese shot down his plane. He chose extra years of torture, refusing to leave when his torturers wanted to release him because he was an admirals son.

Trump says, however, that he, too, has been very brave by ignoring the danger of venereal disease during his sexual adventures: It is a dangerous world out there  its scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam, I feel like a great and very brave soldier. He was serious; irony is not in this narcissists repertoire. And there is a reason Britains staid Economist magazine refers to Trumps look of a roue gone to seed.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio accused Republicans on June 18 of giving Donald Trump halfhearted endorsements. Is he right? (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Every republic, writes Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, eventually faces what might be called the Weimar problem. It arrives when a nations civic culture has become so debased that the nation no longer has the virtues necessary to sustain republican government. Do not dwell on what came after the Weimar Republic. But do consider the sufficiency of virtue that the Constitutions framers presupposed.

Kesler recalls that James Madisons notes on the Constitutional Convention contain this from the July 17, 1787, debate on the proposal to have presidents chosen by Congress: Rather than making the president a creature of the legislature, Gouverneur Morris favored election by the people. Rejecting the criticism that the people will be uninformed, he said: They will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character or services; some man . . . of continental reputation.

In Trump, Republicans have someone whose reputation is continental only in being broadly known. He illustrates Daniel Boorstins definition of a celebrity as someone well-known for his well-knownness. It will be wonderful if Trump tries to translate notoriety into fulfillment of his vow  as carefully considered as anything else about his candidacy  to carry New York and California. He should be taunted into putting his meager campaign funds where his ample mouth is. Every dime or day he squanders on those states will contribute to a redemptive outcome, a defeat so humiliating  so continental  that even Republicans will be edified by it.

Trumps campaign has less cash ($1.3 million) than some congressional candidates have, so Republican donors have never been more important than they are at this moment. They can save their party by not aiding its nominee.

Events already have called his bluff about funding himself and thereby being uniquely his own man. His wealth is insufficient. Only he knows what he is hiding by being the first presidential nominee in two generations not to release his tax returns. It is reasonable to assume that the returns would refute many of his assertions about his net worth, his charitableness and his supposed business wizardry. They might also reveal some awkwardly small tax payments.

If his fear of speculation about his secrecy becomes greater than his fear of embarrassment from what he is being secretive about, he will release the returns. He should attach to them a copy of his University of Pennsylvania transcript, to confirm his claim that he got the highest grades possible. There are skeptics.

Various Republican moral contortionists continue their semantic somersaults about supporting but not endorsing Trump. In Cleveland, they will point him toward the highest elective office in a country they profess to love but that he calls a hellhole. When asked in a 1990 Playboy interview about his historical role models, he mentioned Winston Churchill but enthused about others who led the ultimate life:

: These Republicans refuse to vote for Donald Trump: And theyll tell you why. ( / )

Ive always thought that Louis B. Mayer led the ultimate life, that Flo Ziegfeld led the ultimate life, that men like Darryl Zanuck and Harry Cohn did some creative and beautiful things. The ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the 30s and 40s  pre-television. Yes, that job, not the one he seeks.

Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook.
A DECADE ago, the world of medical research celebrated the introduction of the first vaccine proven to protect people from an identified cancer-causing agent. Studies over subsequent years affirmed the effectiveness and safety of the HPV vaccine and its potential to spare tens of thousands of people from having to suffer horrible cancers. Yet, inexcusably, pediatricians and family doctors remain reluctant to recommend the vaccine. A new campaign targeting these doctors aims to boost use of this lifesaving vaccine.

Concern about the limited use of the HPV vaccine in the United States is not new; only 40 percent of teenage girls and 22 percent of teenage boys have been fully inoculated, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From the start, there was controversy about the vaccine, much of it ill-informed. Not surprisingly, much of the misinformation had to do with sex. Because the vaccine prevents the most common sexually transmitted infections linked to the human papillomavirus, which in turn can cause cancer later in life, there was talk that use of the vaccine might encourage teenage promiscuity. Theres no evidence to support that illogical proposition.

A group of the nations leading oncologists is hoping to reframe the debate, reports The Posts Laurie McGinley. They want to put the focus on cancer prevention, and they are directing their efforts at pediatricians and family doctors, identified by researchers as the main obstacle to wider inoculation. The vaccine is recommended for preteens and is important for both girls and boys. Most cervical cancer in women is caused by HPV infections, and the infections can also result in anal, penile and throat cancers.

According to Lois Ramondetta of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, doctors who are not recommending the vaccine are not doing their job. Its the equivalent, she said, of having patients in their 50s and not recommending a colonoscopy  and then having them come back with cancer.

Doctors need to heed that sound advice, and further efforts must be made throughout society to tear down misconceptions about the HPV vaccine and to encourage its use. In particular, states that were scared off early on from including the vaccine in the portfolio of shots required (with parental opt-out) for school attendance should revisit this critical public-health issue.
Where religion is concerned, Donald Trumps bigotry is his biggest problem, but his ignorance comes in a close second.

We already know that Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clintons faith into question before a group of evangelical Christian leaders Tuesday represented a new low  if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers on an almost daily basis. Trumps comprehensive and often factually challenged attack on Clinton on Wednesday is drawing much attention. But his comments on her faith say even more about him.

Trump does not appear to be very religious and seems uncomfortable around the subject. In principle, this is not a problem. The Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for federal office. Over our history, presidents have varied in their attachment to religion, and there is no surefire way to know whether what a politician says about his or her belief in God is true.

Moreover, many deeply religious people dont talk much about their faith outside intimate circles. One of the years best statements on the matter came from John Kasich (who is, by all accounts, very religious) when he explained why he had not invoked religion much on the campaign trail. Id rather have an eternal destiny, he said, than try to cheapen the brand of God.

Its hard to imagine that God worries about branding, but Kasichs unease with the way politics can devalue faith was admirable.

This is not something that bothers Trump.

Because white, conservative evangelical Christians are an important part of the Republican base and because many evangelicals have expressed qualms or outright opposition to Trump, Trump tried to get them on board by hinting darkly that Clinton is an infidel.

We dont know anything about Hillary in terms of religion, he told the evangelical leaders. Now, shes been in the public eye for years and years, and yet theres no  theres nothing out there. Theres like nothing out there. Its going to be an extension of [President] Obama but its going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you dont, and its going to be worse.

No, we  meaning anyone who has taken the remotest interest in the topic  know quite a lot about Clintons Methodist faith. She has spoken of it often and is a regular churchgoer. In his 2007 biography of Clinton, Carl Bernstein wrote that other than her family, Methodism is perhaps the most important foundation of her character. Just as even George W. Bushs political adversaries freely acknowledge that faith plays a central part in his life, so have Clintons many detractors accepted the role that faith plays in hers.

Trump might usefully check out Clintons remarkably personal speech to the United Methodist Women Assembly in 2014, where she argued that Methodism gave us the great gift of personal salvation but also the great obligation of social gospel.

But of course trashing other peoples faith is standard Trump practice. His willingness to deny basic rights to Muslims is well-known. In March, he said of Mitt Romney, one of his sharpest critics: Are you sure hes a Mormon? Are we sure? Romneys loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is as defining for him as Clintons Methodism is for her.

And when Ben Carson looked to be a serious challenger, Trump went after the physicians allegiance to Seventh-day Adventism. Im Presbyterian. Boy, thats down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness, Trump said. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I dont know about, I just dont know about.

What exactly didnt he know about Adventists? A presidential candidate who uses ignorance as a vehicle for peddling religious prejudice is condemning himself twice over  as both ill-informed and a bigot.

Trumps indifference to truth, to a basic decency toward the religious convictions of his opponents and to any seriousness about how religion should and should not be discussed in the political arena ought to terrify believers and non-believers alike.

But those who defend faiths role in our nations public life should be especially alarmed. Absent anything substantive to say about his belief system, Trump lashes out at others. And lacking an affirmative vision, he plays on fears and tells evangelicals, as he did Tuesday, that our nations leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes.

Well. If religion is being sold out, its Trump who is orchestrating the deal.

Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Michael Taube, a Troy Media syndicated columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.

Conservatives who are understandably appalled by the prospect of a Donald Trump nomination  and therefore understandably intrigued by the notion of a revolt among the delegates  should be careful what they wish for. Dumping Trump at next months Republican convention could cause far more permanent damage to the GOP than sticking with him. That outcome should be avoided at all costs.

Trump has legitimately won the GOP presidential nomination. He played by the rules, beat out 16 other candidates and surpassed the required 1,237-delegate limit. If disgruntled Republicans want to question voters rationale in supporting Trump, they have that right. But to deny, ignore or spin away the fact that he won the nomination fair and square, and deserves to be the nominee, is beyond comprehension.

Party rules are crystal clear about voting for the nominee on the first ballot. The winner of a particular primary or caucus receives the largest number of bound delegates at the convention. Trump, having won 40 of these contests, has accomplished this impressive goal. While some senior Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), have suggested delegates should follow their conscience at the convention, this approach defeats the spirit of the entire process. Its not illegal, but its morally wrong.

Such a move would smell of sour grapes on the part of the GOP establishment, which would be seen as having changed the rules to remove the undesirable figure who won the nomination. Yes, its their party and they can do as they please. At the same time, such a move would be perceived as undemocratic, underhanded and incredibly devious by many party members and potential voters.

Senior officials such as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus would have to explain to the nearly 14 million people who supported Mr. Trump that their votes dont count. I strongly doubt any political spin doctor would eagerly raise his or her hand to take up this near-impossible task.

Dumping Trump would set a horrendous precedent for the GOP. If the party opts to take the nomination from Trump, it could easily do the same thing to future candidates with whom the party establishment and grass-roots members had issues. It would also defeat the purpose of running in the Republican presidential primaries, because the party could simply change the result at the very end. Thats hardly the public image a major political party should want or pursue.

And if it were to happen, widespread media coverage of a delegate revolt would be devastating for the GOP. Hordes of TV cameras, microphones and handheld devices will be focused on this convention. If the nomination were taken from Trump, he would scream bloody murder to every reporter in sight. His supporters would erupt in justifiable anger, and God knows what else would happen. It would be a public relations nightmare for the party, and every second of this pandemonium would be permanently recorded somewhere by someone.

A delegate revolt would badly splinter the U.S. conservative movement. Many party members could abandon the Once-Good Ship Republican after the dust had settled. They could refuse to support the GOPs preferred candidate and park their votes with other parties. This would likely include principled individuals who dislike Trump but would be furious at the partys decision to arbitrarily remove the nomination from the most popular (albeit controversial) candidate.

Finally, but far from least, a delegate revolt against Trump would all but ensure that Hillary Clinton became the next president. Is this something that Republicans wish to see play out?

For the record, I dislike Trump as much as his fiercest critics. He has made many offensive comments on the campaign trail, acted like a bully as well as a petulant child, and doesnt adhere to the cherished values and principles of modern conservatism. Hes a detriment to the GOP, and right-thinking individuals fully know this.

But while some Republicans would relish the opportunity to revolt against Trumps candidacy, they would end up destroying their own party in the process. Thats far too high a price to pay. Like it or not, were stuck with The Donald.
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton speaks to voters at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Exposition Center in Raleigh on Wednesday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton shared a long list of economic priorities during a speech here Wednesday with two objectives seemingly in mind: contrasting her seriousness of purpose with Republican Donald Trump and reassuring supporters of her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders of her progressive bona fides.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, pledged to make the largest investment in U.S. jobs since World War II and recounted numerous initiatives she has offered over her candidacy, including steps to ensure that large companies and the super rich pay their fair share of taxes.

The former secretary of state also touted measures to make college debt-free, increase corporate profit-sharing, expand access to child care and provide more generous Social Security benefits.

Her remarks at the state fairgrounds here came a day after a companion speech in Ohio in which Clinton sought to portray Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, as unfit to manage the nations economy despite his background in business. Trump, in turn, delivered a scathing address about Clinton on Wednesday, accusing her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, of financially profiting off their public service.

[A (somewhat) tamer Trump emerges to focus attacks on Clinton. Will it last?]

Washington Post reporter Jim Tankersley speaks with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton about her stance on jobs and economic policy issues. (Daron Taylor,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

It takes more than stern words or a flashy slogan. It takes a plan, Clinton told the audience. That means we need a president who knows what were up against, has no illusions about what we need to do to move ahead, but can actually get it done. And that is what I am offering.

Seeking to contrast her concrete plans with those of Trump, Clinton chided him for having no strategy to rebuild the countrys infrastructure besides building a wall along the Mexican border.

Her speech  which aides billed as heavy on progressive solutions  also comes as Clinton is trying to court skeptical supporters of Sanders. Trump is making overtures to the same group, promising to fight with them against a rigged political system.

During the taping Wednesday of an interview with C-SPAN, Sanders cast doubt on Trumps prospects for success, saying: I dont think many of the people who voted for me will be voting for him.

Clinton, a former senator from New York who has been criticized by Sanders and others for her ties to Wall Street, pledged during her speech to build on reforms of the financial sector. She also promised to say no to bad trade deals, including the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership, a high-profile target of Sanders.

And in a speech billed as an economic address, Clinton said she would also work to get dark money out of politics, another priority for Sanders and his supporters, who see the political system as heavily tilted in favor of the billionaire class.

[Clinton: Anger and anxiety are driving voters to Trump]

1 of 46 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail View Photos The former secretary of state has the number of delegates needed to be the Democratic presidential nominee. Caption The former secretary of state, senator and first lady is the Democratic nominee for president. July 31, 2016 Hillary Clinton is seen aboard the campaign bus in Cleveland on the third day of a bus tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Melina Mara/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Clinton portrayed herself as someone who would work across the aisle as president to get things done, citing her efforts as first lady to create the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, which she said was accomplished with the help of Republicans.

We need to make Washington work much better, Clinton said.

Clinton, meanwhile, on Wednesday won her second endorsement in as many weeks from a member of the Republican foreign policy establishment, with former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft issuing a statement of support for her presidential campaign.

She brings truly unique experiences and perspective to the White House, wrote Scowcroft, who served four presidents and co-wrote George H.W. Bushs post-presidency book on foreign policy.

Scowcrofts endorsement came just six days after Richard Armitage, a veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, told Politico he would support Clinton.

Clintons speech Wednesday was her second in two days staged in a general-election battleground state, destinations her campaign has made a greater priority than has Trump.

In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama narrowly defeated Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in North Carolina. In 2012, Obama lost the state to Republican Mitt Romney by a narrow margin.

Before heading south on Wednesday, Clinton told House Democrats during a meeting on Capitol Hill that she is planning a 50-state strategy to help the party win the presidency and regain control of Congress.

We are going to win this election, Clinton said after meeting with the group for nearly an hour. We are going to take back the House and the Senate.

Clinton told Democrats that she plans to expand her campaign outside of traditional battleground states like Ohio and Virginia in hopes of luring support from voters who have been turned off by Trump, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended the closed-door session.

She also said she plans to unite factions of the party that previously backed Sanders, who waged a fierce primary challenge against her.

She talked about not writing off any part of the country and even particularly making sure not to write off white males, said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

Clinton, who was invited by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was greeted with loud cheers and applause when she entered the weekly closed-door meeting.

All but eight House Democrats backed Clinton in the primary. Several of those who had endorsed Sanders, including House Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) have embraced Clinton in the days since she clinched the nomination.

Clinton addressed concerns that other progressives have not yet decided to embrace her candidacy and told Democrats they need to work together to persuade the whole party to unite against Trump.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chair of the Democratic Platform Committee, told reporters that the full committee will meet Friday in St. Louis in hopes of hammering out any remaining differences with the Sanders camp. He said he was optimistic that the party can easily mend fences ahead of the convention.

We are going to be trying to meld the positions of Sen. Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Cummings said after the meeting. It seems as if we are going to be able to reach an agreement  hopefully by Saturday afternoon.

Many Democrats said a key step toward unity is for Sanders to formally end his campaign and endorse Clinton.

It is a problem for the party, said House Democratic leader Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.). I would love to see Sen. Sanders endorse and go all in.

Snell reported from Washington. David Weigel contributed to this report
On June 23, the Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to uphold an affirmative-action ruling in a surprising win for affirmative-action advocates. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar,Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

On June 23, the Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to uphold an affirmative-action ruling in a surprising win for affirmative-action advocates. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar,Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

The Supreme Court on Thursday reaffirmed that the value of creating a diverse student body allows university officials to consider race in making admission decisions, upholding a University of Texas plan that has been the subject of years of legal battles.

The 4-to-3 decision was a surprising win for advocates of affirmative action, who had entered the term simply hoping the court would not use the case to ban all uses of affirmative action.

Instead, the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy reiterated previous high-court rulings that diversity justifies some intrusion on the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection, which generally forbids the government from making decisions based on race.

[Affirmative-action advocates thrilled  and surprised  by court ruling]

A university is in large part defined by those intangible qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness,  Kennedy wrote in an opinion joined by the courts liberals.

Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission, wrote Kennedy, who had never before voted in favor of a race-conscious plan. But still, it remains an enduring challenge to our Nations education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity.

Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago who closely followed the case during his previous tenure in Austin, said the decision signals that affirmative action is safe not only at the University of Texas but around the country.

He said UTs policy had been perceived by legal experts to be especially vulnerable to challenges because it augmented a unique admissions plan  guaranteeing acceptance to the top students in each Texas high school  that on its own ensures diversity.

If even this program survives scrutiny, it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that the court will be prepared to strike down any universitys affirmative-action program anytime soon, Driver said.

Marisa Bono, a lawyer at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, described the decision as a green light for colleges to proceed with race-conscious admissions policies.

Todays decision truly represents a clear and resounding message that UT and other institutions of higher education may consider race in the admissions process as long as they can show a very limited use of race that is narrowly tailored to achieve diversity, she said.

Kennedy said UTs approach made race a factor of a factor of a factor in acceptance decisions affecting those beyond the Top 10 program. He accepted the universitys argument that the approach was needed to ensure a diverse student body that benefited all students.

[Deadlocked justices block Obama on immigration]

When the court considered the case in 2013, Kennedy wrote the opinion that sent it back to lower courts for a closer examination. That decisions admonition that the program be evaluated under the judiciarys highest scrutiny made it seem that a majority of the court was skeptical the admissions plan would survive.

Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case, is how Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday began his 51-page dissent, more than twice as long as Kennedys opinion.

He characterized the UT policy as affirmative action gone wild and read a summary of his opinion from the bench to emphasize that he thought Kennedys opinion remarkable  and remarkably wrong.

The majoritys uncritical deference to UTs self-serving claims blatantly contradicts our decision in the prior iteration of this very case, wrote Alito, who was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas.

Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because she had worked on the issue as President Obamas solicitor general.

[The Supreme Court just dropped a powder keg on the 2016 election]

Obama praised the ruling on affirmative action.

The Supreme Court upheld the basic notion that diversity is an important value in our society and that this country should provide a high-quality education to all our young people, regardless of their background, he said. We are not a country that guarantees equal outcomes, but we do strive to provide an equal shot to everybody.

Opponents of affirmative action looked for a silver lining, and they pointed to Kennedys warning that all university plans must be continually reevaluated and that not all might be found constitutional.

Roger B. Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, said the decision was a narrow one. It leaves plenty of room for future challenges to racial preference policies at other schools, he said in a statement. Those challenges will continue.

The case was brought in 2008 by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to UT. Her lawsuit was organized and funded by a conservative legal organization that opposes racial preferences in government and brought the challenge that resulted in the justices striking a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity, Fisher said in a statement. I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action.

Edward Blum, director of the group that supported Fisher, the Project on Fair Representation, called the decision a sad step backward for the original, colorblind principles to our civil rights laws.

Blum is sponsoring challenges to admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina and said the courts ruling Thursday was narrow enough that the other lawsuits could still be successful.

But civil rights leaders disagreed. The ruling in many way closes off many of the doors that some had hoped were open, by so strongly and powerfully reaffirming the value of diversity to universities, said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Several states  including large ones such as California, Florida and Michigan  already forbid the use of race in admitting students to their universities.

The University of Texas has a unique system. The top students in each Texas high school are guaranteed admission to the flagship campus in Austin. Because many high schools are made up overwhelmingly of Hispanic or African American students, that ensures a certain amount of diversity in the freshman class.

But university administrators said it is important to be able to at least consider race in admitting the rest of the freshman class, to ensure the kind of diversity that they said is crucial to creating a learning environment that can benefit all students.

Kennedy systematically knocked down Fishers arguments: that the university had not articulated its diversity goals, that the Top 10 plan was enough to ensure diversity, that it could alter the weight given to academic and socioeconomic factors.

This proposal ignores the fact that the University tried, and failed, to increase diversity through enhanced consideration of socioeconomic and other factors, Kennedy wrote. And it further ignores this Courts precedent making clear that the Equal Protection Clause does not force universities to choose between a diverse student body and a reputation for academic excellence.

What made Kennedys Thursday opinion so significant is that he was a dissenter in the 2003 precedent, Grutter v. Bollinger, to which he was referring.

Alito said the court majority gave too much deference to UT officials, who had provided only a vaguely defined objective for the schools policy. Just as the court does not defer to government officials who say, Trust us, Alito said from the bench, college officials are not angels whose actions are above judicial scrutiny.

He went on to describe what he called glaring defects in the universitys arguments for considering race in admissions. Alito said the university never came close to complying with the courts orders, issued after its first review of the schools policies, that it show that the use of race in admissions decisions is necessary.

He criticized the universitys efforts to expand diversity on campus beyond the program that guarantees admission for top students. Alito sharply questioned the universitys efforts to admit minorities from more privileged backgrounds and to increase the number of African American and Latino students on campus to counteract feelings of isolation and loneliness.

This is affirmative action gone berserk, he said, based on offensive and unsupported stereotypes.

With Kagans recusal, the court considered the case with only seven justices.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who died four months ago, raised a storm of controversy with his comments during oral argument of the case in December. Scalia had openly questioned the benefit of trying to include more minority students at the nations selective universities.

Really competent blacks would win admission without special considerations, he said. There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to  to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less  a slower-track school where they do well.

Some academics call such a theory mismatch, and Scalia noted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case that said most black scientists do not come from the most highly selective schools.

Neither Kennedys nor Alitos opinion ventured into the mismatch controversy.

Alito emphasized in his dissent that what is not at stake is whether UT or any university may adopt an admissions plan that results in a student body with a broad representation of students from all racial and ethnic groups. But he said that UT faced a heavy burden in justifying its specific program and that the majority accepted the universitys explanation even though it relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions.

Thomas filed a short dissent only for himself to repeat his previously stated view that a states use of race in admissions is categorically prohibited by the Constitution. That doesnt change in the face of a faddish theory that racial discrimination may produce educational benefits,  he wrote.

Emma Brown and Ann Marimow contributed to this report.
Enforcement of the Obama adminstration's 2014 deferred-action policy remains blocked by a nationwide injunction. This comes after SCOTUS's 4-4 tie on June 23. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

Enforcement of the Obama adminstration's 2014 deferred-action policy remains blocked by a nationwide injunction. This comes after SCOTUS's 4-4 tie on June 23. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

The bitter fight over President Obamas immigration policies moved quickly from the courtroom to the campaign trail on Thursday, as the White House and its allies sought to turn a legal setback at the Supreme Court to their political advantage ahead of the November elections.

Obama decried the high courts failure to lift an injunction blocking his use of executive authority to provide work permits to millions of undocumented immigrants, and suggested that the unresolved questions about how to move forward on immigration presented voters with a referendum on the future of the country.

Heres the bottom line: Weve got a very real choice that America faces right now, Obama said, speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room. Weve got a choice about who were going to be as a country, what we want to teach our kids, and how we want to be represented in Congress and in the White House.

Obama said he remained confident that most Americans share his vision of a welcoming and tolerant America even as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has promised to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants and build a wall on the southern U.S. border to keep them out.

The courts 4-4 deadlock in U.S. v. Texas meant that Obamas signature immigration initiative, announced in November 2014, is unlikely to be implemented before he leaves office, denying him a important victory in an area he hoped to leave a significant legacy. The president has tried in recent years to scale back deportations, which reached record highs during his first term, in response to fierce pressure from advocacy groups and congressional Democrats.

Yet even as Obama acknowledged that he had reached the end of his efforts to overhaul border control laws, he and other Democrats, including the partys presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, saw an opportunity to gain some advantage in the political fight over immigration reform that has roiled the 2016 campaign.

Immigration reform has animated Republican primary voters, who have expressed concerns that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens, and Trump has made restricting immigration the centerpiece of his campaign. But the politics will be far trickier for GOP candidates, including Trump, in the general election.

In 2012, Obama won reelection with the support of more than 70 percent of Latinos and Asian Americans, two of the nations fastest-growing voting blocs whose electoral power is expected to play an even bigger role this fall. Democrats are targeting those groups in their bid to not just to hold onto the White House but also to win back control of at least one chamber of Congress.

Clinton, who has said she would seek to expand Obamas executive actions on immigration, called the Supreme Courts outcome a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities and our country.

In a statement, issued in both English and Spanish, Clinton referred to Trumps characterization last year of Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers, and she pledged to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill within her first 100 days in office.

I believe we are stronger together. When we embrace immigrants, not denigrate them. When we build bridges, not walls, Clinton said.

Republicans hailed the high courts rebuke of Obama, arguing that the immigration program was a flagrant violation of the will of Congress and the public. Obama announced the program after the GOP-controlled House blocked a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.

The courts have halted one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a President, Trump said in a statement. The executive amnesty from President Obama wiped away the immigration rules written by Congress, giving work permits and entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country.

Under Obamas Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, the parents of U.S. citizens who have lived in the United States at least five years would be eligible for work permits provided they have not committed felonies and do not have ties to terrorist groups.

The program was modeled after a smaller-scale initiative launched in 2012 for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Obama unveiled the expanded version just days after Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections.

Texas and 25 other states responded by suing the administration, arguing that the states incurred unnecessary costs for drivers licenses for immigrants who qualified for work permits. A federal judge in Texas put the program on hold a day before it was to begin in February 2015, and a federal appeals court in New Orleans affirmed the lower courts ruling last fall.

In his remarks at the White House, Obama reassured immigrant rights groups that his administration would continue to focus its deportation efforts on violent criminals, and he emphasized that the 2012 deferred action program, which already has provided work permits to more than 700,000 people, remains unaffected by the court litigation.

As he did last week after the mass shooting in Orlando, Obama cautioned that inflammatory rhetoric over immigrants threatened to undermine the nations democratic values. Without mentioning Trump by name, the president dismissed his proposals to deport all illegal immigrants and build a wall on the border as a fantasy, and he accused Republicans of trying to scare people with words like amnesty in hopes that it will whip up votes.

It is my firm belief that immigration is not something to fear, Obama said. We dont have to wall ourselves off from those who may not look like us right now, or pray like we do, or have a different last name.

Mark Krikorian, the executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration levels, said he was pleased the Supreme Court did not lift the injunction. But Krikorian acknowledged that the outcome is likely to motivate some voters to turn out at the polls to support Democratic candidates  just as a lifting of the injunction would have spurred a backlash from those opposed to Obamas actions.

The election now determines whether the next president either repeals this [executive action] decree or appoints the fifth Justice to break the courts deadlock, Krikorian said.

Clarissa Martinez de Castro, deputy vice president for the National Council of La Raza, the nations largest immigrant rights group, noted that Obamas campaign in 2012 got a boost after he announced the smaller-scale deferred action program a few months before the election.

The Supreme Court outcome, she added, could have a similar energizing effect.
Correction: Real estate agent Thai Hung Nguyen was incorrectly identified in the story. He is an agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Premier.

1 of 12 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Where We Live | Grove at Huntley Meadows View Photos The community of 215 townhouses and 70 single-family homes in Alexandria, Va., is hidden in the trees. Caption The community of 215 townhouses and 70 single-family homes in Alexandria, Va., is hidden in the trees. The Grove at Huntley Meadows in Alexandria, Va., has evolved into a community of 215 townhouses and 70 single-family homes with green yards, shade trees and flowers. BBenjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

As buyers look for homes and inventory across the Washington region lags behind demand, a purchase might require more than pulling out your checkbook. You may have to increase the down payment, accept the sellers rusty lawn furniture or even forgo an inspection.

Paul and Gwen Winter slept in their car in a forest on a hot, mosquito-laden summer night so they could be at the head of the line when the sales office for the Grove at Huntley Meadows in Alexandria, Va., opened.

We were driving down Route 1 and saw a sign  New Homes by Centex  pointing into the woods. We followed it to a trailer posted with a sign: Opening Sat. First Come First Served. I called Centex and was told: We open at 9:00. First come, first served, Gwen Winter said.

I guess we better get ready, I said to my husband, she added. We went home. Made peanut butter sandwiches, packed water and grabbed a flashlight, got back in the car. And there was already someone there when we arrived. By the end of the evening, 50 to 60 cars were in the dark woods. Saturday morning the sales people came. The guy ahead of us got one end unit. We bought the other. Most people walked away empty-handed.

[Poplar attraction: Bethesdas Tulip Hill is close to D.C. and nature]





Community life: A dozen years later, the Grove at Huntley Meadows has evolved into a community of 215 townhouses and 70 single-family homes with green yards, shade trees and flowers.

Many homes look to the woods from the rear and a few face trees front and back. I dont have to cover any of my windows, Gwen Winter said. Theres no one to look in.

Three-level townhouses with pinkish-red brick or cream-colored siding blend with the single-family houses. Welcome signs and flags dot front yards. Many homes have rear decks, some fenced-in yards. All have one- or two-car garages, and extra cluster parking is scattered.

We get a lot of support in the neighborhood for keeping the property nice. And we continuously monitor the landscape and replace trees, said David Mikkelson, who is president of the neighborhood homeowners association and has lived there with his wife, Kathleen, since 2008.

One resident who is intent on beautifying her property is Louise Finkle. Her driveway is a botanical garden with pots of bushes and mini fruit trees, including fig and blackberry. We just got a garden plot at Mount Vernon after four years on the waiting list, she said.

The pool and clubhouse opened Memorial Day weekend. Families can rent the space for childrens parties. Volunteers staff committees for other social get-togethers, such as wine tastings and the annual block party.

[Woodley Park offers green, suburban feel near downtown D.C.  plus a zoo]

The Architectural Standards Committee and the homeowners association board review plans for exterior design changes.

We try to keep the original aesthetics for consistency. You always hear horror stories of HOAs and how strict they can be, said Mikkelson. But people want to have a little creativity so were not so hard on anything. Prospective buyers can go to our website and see our governing documents. Everything is open and everyone has a voice.

Whats nearby: Huntley Meadows Park covers almost 1,500 acres and is an outdoor mecca. More than 200 bird species have been sighted.

The Mount Vernon Plaza shopping center is home to about 75 stores. Home Depot, Walmart and Costco are close. On Saturday, when fliers come out, I determine where Im going for strawberries and who has the best deal on avocados, Gwen Winter said.



Justin Allen, squatting, plays with his children, Noah and Gabriel, while his wife Melissa and Cory Forbrook watch. (Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post)

Living there: The Grove at Huntley Meadows, Zip code 22306, lies in the Hybla Valley and is hidden in the trees, which is one of the appealing things, said Mikkelson.

The community is bordered by Huntley Meadows Park on the west, the southern ends of Lindberg Drive, Grey Goose Way and White Heron Trail on the south; the opposite ends of those roads on the north; and the houses on White Heron Trail on the east.

The subdivision has a quick turnaround. From listing to contract is 23 days, said Thai Hung Nguyen, real estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Premier. Theres a high demand for the area and not much for sale.

According to Nguyen, five properties are for sale, ranging from a three-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse with a single-car garage for $399,000 to a three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse with a single-car garage for $450,000.

Three properties are under contract, ranging from a three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse with single-car garage for $420,000 to a three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse with double-car garage for $490,000.

In the past year, 20 properties sold, ranging from a three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse with single-car garage for $380,000 to a five-bedroom, five-bathroom single-family home with double-car garage for $660,000.

Townhouse owners pay a $114 per month homeowners fee; owners of single-family houses pay $93 per month.

Schools: Hybla Valley Elementary, Sandburg Middle, West Potomac High.

Transit: The Grove at Huntley Meadows is off Virginia Route 1/Richmond Highway. Its close to Virginia routes 633 and 611 and eight miles south of the Capital Beltway/Interstate 495. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is nine miles away, Washington Dulles International Airport is 35 miles away. Its about a half-hour drive to Washington.

Crime: According to CrimeReports.com, no crimes were reported in the past six months.



Children play in the pool at The Grove at Huntley Meadows. (Benjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post)

 To see more photos of the Grove at Huntley Meadows, go to

washingtonpost.com/realestate
After months of campaigning the Leave camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

After months of campaigning the Leave camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

It may be pure coincidence that Donald Trump flew to Scotland on the day that British voters decided to leave the European Union. But in striking ways, the forces fueling Thursdays historic referendum here were similar to those that have shaken U.S. politics to its core in the past year.

On both sides of the Atlantic, political establishments and the elites have found themselves on the defensive. Rising resentment over the fallout from globalization and the effects of the financial collapse of 2008, which has widened the gap between the rich and everyone else, has divided voters in Britain and the United States.

Added to that are emotional issues of national and cultural identity at a time of growing demographic diversity, highlighted in both countries by often-angry debates over immigration. Both Trump and those pushing for Britain to leave the European Union have found the immigration issue to be their most potent political weapon.

[British voters head to the polls for historic vote on E.U.]

Trumps slogan, Make America Great Again, could easily have been adapted to the messaging of those in the leave campaign across the pond. Here, that desire for a return to an earlier time  to make Britain great again  is expressed through the issue of control.

1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  On the ground as Britain votes on staying in the European Union View Photos The country is holding a rare referendum, known as Brexit, on whether it should remain a member of the E.U. Caption In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls. June 26, 2016 People walk over Westminster Bridge wrapped in Union Jacks, toward the Queen Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and the Houses of Parliament in central London. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Those who have pushed for Britain to leave the E.U. want to reclaim a measure of sovereignty by wresting power from the bureaucrats in Brussels, the headquarters of the 28-member bloc. They feel about the E.U. bureaucracy as tea party Republicans do about the federal government.

Even among people leaning toward a vote to remain in the E.U., sending a message to those in power has strong appeal.

Early Thursday, Steve Devereux, an economist and teacher, was passing by the polling place at Londons Methodist Central Hall, a short distance from Parliament. If there is any place where sentiment tips heavily in favor of remaining in the E.U., it is here, near the seat of government, and Devereux said he was inclined to vote that way.

But he called the choice really, really complex, in no small part because of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Asked why he would consider a vote to leave, he said, Giving the government a kick in the backside and really telling them  actually, they cant take people for granted.

On balance, Devereux said he feared that rattling the establishments doors by voting to leave the E.U. would pose a great risk. But it is clear that the sense of disgust and disenfranchisement is deep and widespread.

Distrust with political establishments cannot be overstated, on either side of the Atlantic. During the debate here, Michael Gove, a Conservative Party lawmaker and a leading voice in the leave campaign, sought to discredit studies warning of the economic consequences of leaving. People in this country have had enough of experts, he said.

[13 Brexit facts that will make Americans feel less embarrassed about their own election]

On June 23, Britain faces a fateful decision: whether or not to leave the European Union. And the world will be watching. (Daron Taylor,Jason Aldag,Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)

This has not been a year in which the voices of political leaders have carried much sway. In the United States, Republican leaders stood powerless as Trump rolled through the GOP primaries. Hillary Clinton enjoyed the overwhelming support of the Democratic establishment, yet Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont ignited a progressive uprising that forced her to battle to the end of the primaries.

In Britain, the leaders of the major parties, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, have banded together to push for a rejection of a British exit from the E.U., a move popularly shorthanded to Brexit. Leaders from around the world, including President Obama, have warned of the consequences  for Britain, Europe and the West  of a vote to separate from the bloc.

Still, polls here had shown sentiment to be remarkably split. The latest surveys of voter opinion indicated a movement toward the remain side, but political leaders and others favoring an in vote approached Thursdays balloting with trepidation, fearful that a populist uprising could carry the out campaign to victory.

That same sense of unease has gripped U.S. politicians all year. The choices in the two countries may be different, but what animates the sentiment behind the votes springs largely from the same set of grievances. Even the contours of the electorates are similar. Here, as in the United States, voters are polarized along recognizable lines: young vs. old; college-educated vs. non-college-educated; urban vs. small town and rural.

A SurveyMonkey online poll showed that voters younger than 45 favored the remain campaign, with the very youngest overwhelmingly in favor. Those 45 or older supported the leave campaign. Similarly, those with a college degree supported the remain campaign by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. Those without a degree favored the leave campaign, though by a narrower margin.

Chris Hanretty, a specialist in politics at East Anglia University, wrote in the Observer recently, Older men and women without educational qualifications are very likely to vote for Britain to leave the E.U.  not because theyre stupid or uninformed but because over the past 40 years their relative position within society has worsened.

The poll also showed the significance of the immigration issue among those favoring a Brexit, just as immigration issues were the most powerful force behind Trumps rise.

By better than 2 to 1, those here who cited immigration as their most important issue said they would back Britains exit. Those worried about the economy, poverty and inequality, or defense and foreign affairs, all backed remaining.

Beyond the issues that have shaped the campaign here and in the United States, there are other parallels. As in the United States, the campaign here has been marked by a coarsening dialogue, befitting perhaps of the age of social media and the culture of cable television.

In this new arena, Trump proved more skillful than his Republican opponents at mastering communication. In Britain, there are complaints that Cameron and others leading the remain campaign have been outdone in this category by the likes of Boris Johnson, the flamboyant former mayor of London and a Conservative member of Parliament, whose ambition to take Camerons job is well known.

Trump is not a beloved figure in Britain, but the choice before Americans in November also appears to be a fault line in the campaign here. Trump has said he would be inclined to vote to leave the E.U. if he were casting a ballot here.

The SurveyMonkey poll found that people here who said they would support Trump for president if they could vote in the United States backed the leave campaign by a significant margin. Those for Clinton said they were voting to remain in the bloc.

Paul Cloutman, 78, a freelance writer outside a polling station in Southwest London, said Thursday morning that the vote was a head versus heart decision. He thought that being in the E.U. meant Britain had a lack of control over its own destiny, but in the end, the economic argument won out.

Plus, he said, he did not want to disappoint his son. My son lives in California, and he said, If Trump gets in here and Boris [Johnson] there after a leave vote, he will have nowhere to live. So he wants me to vote in. 

Thats one way voters here are making their decisions, but it will hardly resolve the more fundamental issues  both here and in the United States.

Read more

If Britain leaves the European Union, who might go next?

Trumps experience with a golf course in Scotland

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
It was an idea born in Beijing and, at least initially, greeted with some suspicion in Washington. But this weekend, the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) holds its first annual meeting to finally prove to doubters that it is neither Chinas pawn nor about to undercut and shoulder aside the World Bank.

Fifty-seven countries have signed on to the AIIB, with Canada and Romania the latest reported to express an interest in joining.

On Friday, the banks new board of governors is meeting to consider the first four projects proposed by the banks staff: building roads in Pakistan and Tajikistan, redeveloping a slum in Indonesia and supplying electricity to 2.5 million people in rural Bangladesh.

Tellingly, the AIIB would co-finance three of the projects, led by existing multilateral development banks, including the World Bank. Only in Bangladesh is the AIIB taking the lead and going it alone.

Thats only possible, says one of the banks five vice presidents, Britains Daniel Alexander, because the AIIBs standards for environment and social protection and for procurement are very similar to those adopted by existing multilateral banks and because it believes in working with them.

We are a useful addition to the family of multilateral development banks, but also, as people will see as we start our first projects, we are working very collaboratively with them, Alexander, a former member of Parliament and former No. 2 in the British governments treasury department, said in an interview before the meeting.

China supplied about 30 percent of the $100 billion initial operating capital and has 26 percent of the voting power. Among the other big investors are India, which has a 7.5 percent vote share; Russia with 5.9 percent; followed by Germany and South Korea. In most cases, a simple majority of votes is all that is required to reach a decision, although rare cases require a supermajority of 75 percent, officials say, giving China limited veto power.

Of the 11 governors around the table Friday, only one is from China.

The bank is answerable to all of its 57 founding members, Alexander said. China is an important voice, among many voices, around the table.

When China first proposed establishing the bank, the reaction in Washington was distinctly sniffy.

The Obama administration warned that the bank might not meet international standards of governance and transparency, and it reportedly lobbied allies not to join. It was also reported to have been upset when many European nations broke ranks to sign up, and it came in for criticism by some Washington experts for having been too quick to dismiss the initiative.

There was concern that China saw the bank as part of a broader project to expand its influence in Asia and that it would undercut existing development banks by imposing less-stringent lending standards, especially in protecting the environment and local communities.

Nevertheless, in April last year, President Obama insisted that the idea that the United States had opposed the bank was simply not true, adding that if it adopted global best practices, were all for it.

Alexander said that as the new bank put its policies in place and laid out its standards, there had been a lot more support in Washington for what the AIIB is doing and encouragement that they see as part of that multilateral family.

Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, said the banks collaborative approach could help assuage concerns about the quality of projects and environmental standards. But there are still concerns about the lack of requirements for countries to institute political and economic reforms in return for loans, he added.

He also welcomed the inclusion of expert advisers from nonmember countries, including the United States, as well as a provision that borrowers can turn to nonmember as well as member nations as they purchase materials.

That provides some evidence that the bank primarily seeks to be an engine for efficient growth more than a tool for spreading political influence, Haenle said.

The banks Chinese president, Jin Liqun, has promised to make it lean, clean and green, and experts have welcomed the effort to strip back the layers of bureaucracy that have bogged down other development banks.

But some express doubts that it will find enough commercially viable, environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable projects to finance.

If there were this massive opportunity laying in wait in Central Asia, surely someone would have tapped into it before  with years of institutional knowledge and memory of how to do such things, said Andrew Polk, China economist at Medley Global Advisors in Beijing.

The idea that China is going to come along with this new investment bank and somehow crack that nut that no one has been able to crack, maybe thats going to happen. Youd hope so, but I have my doubts.

Alexander said the bank aimed to approve projects worth a modest $1.2 billion in its first year, with that number rising to $2.5 billion in the second year and steadily growing after that. He expressed confidence that demand for infrastructure financing in Asia was high and that the new bank would be able to play a positive role.

The scale of the challenge for infrastructure in the Asian region is so huge it dwarfs the capacity of all the existing institutions put together, Alexander said. The AIIB alone is not going to fill that gap, but I think we add value because we are very focused.

Although other banks have broader remits, the AIIB does what it says on the tin, devoting itself to improving Asias infrastructure, he said.

Alexander said the bank would aim to improve connectivity in Asia, support projects helping Asian nations meet emissions targets laid out in the 2015 Paris climate change agreement and help attract private-sector funding.

Read more:

[China calls Asia development bank the first step in an epic journey]

[China gloats as Europeans rush to join Asian bank]

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A policeman stands near a cinema in Viernheim, Germany, after an attemped hostage-taking. The suspect was shot and killed by police. (Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images)

Police in southwestern Germany fatally shot a masked assailant who entered a movie theater on Thursday and tried to take hostages.

The suspects motive was not immediately clear, but authorities were initially investigating the incident in the town of Viernheim as a possible criminal act rather than one linked to terrorism. Speaking about the unnamed assailant, police spokesman Bernd Hochstadter said, There is no indication of a terrorist or Islamist background. But, he added, authorities were not ruling anything out.

Authorities said police received an emergency call around 2:45 p.m. local time and responded to reports that a masked man carrying a rifle had entered the multiplex. It was not clear whether the weapon was real or nonlethal, or whether the man was carrying live ammunition.

Peter Beuth, the interior minister for the state of Hesse, where the town is located, told a session of the local legislature that witnesses had described the man as seeming confused.

There were conflicting reports on whether others had been injured. Hochstadter dismissed early reports, widely circulated in the German media, that at least 25 people had suffered injuries related to tear gas. He said police were unaware of any notable injuries.

Local authorities remained at the scene Thursday evening, and the area surrounding the movie theater was cordoned off.

A witness, Mareike Merseburger, described the chaos to the local Hessischer Rundfunk newspaper. People ran out of the theater, she said. The police told people on the scene that a rampage was occurring.

Read more:

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

In the heart of Europe, anti-Islam politics are on the rise

Germany welcomed more than 1 million refugees in 2015. Now, the country is searching for its soul.
After months of campaigning, the "Leave" camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

After months of campaigning, the "Leave" camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

British voters have defied the will of their leaders, foreign allies and much of the political establishment by opting to rupture this countrys primary connection to Europe in a stunning result that will radiate economic and political uncertainty across the globe.

The voters decision to jettison Britains membership in the European Union was expected to jolt markets worldwide on Friday and unsettle Western capitals. By the time the BBC had called the result at dawn in London Friday, the pound had already plummeted to its lowest level against the dollar in decades.

The vote is perhaps the most dramatic to date in a wave of populist and nationalist uprisings occurring on both sides of the Atlantic that are overturning traditional notions of what is politically possible.

For months, the political and economic elite had looked on with growing apprehension as Britain flirted with a choice  popularly known as Brexit  that experts had warned could lead to global recession and a rip in the Western alliance. The vote could also lead to Scottish secession, a broader E.U. unraveling and the fall of Prime Minister David Camerons government.

But most analysts had predicted this pragmatically minded country would ultimately back away from the move, and opt to keep Britain in an organization regarded as a pillar of the global economic and political order.

Instead, a majority of British voters heeded the call of pro-Brexit campaigners to liberate the nation from what many here regard as an oppressive Brussels bureaucracy that enables mass migration into the country.

Let June the 23rd go down in our history as our independence day! cried a jubilant Nigel Farage, a firebrand anti-E.U. leader, in a 4 a.m. celebration. All around him, leave campaigners clinked pints of beer and cheered their improbable victory.

When polls closed six hours earlier, Farage had all but conceded defeat, saying he believed remain had won. But as results poured in through Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday, the remain camp was increasingly despairing.

About a third of results had yet to be counted as of 4 a.m. local time. But the BBC reported that leave had taken an insurmountable lead.

The results came after 15 hours of voting, from the remote Scottish isles to the tip of Gibraltar. The outcome revealed vast divides  with massive victory margins for remain in thriving metropolitan centers such as London and equally resounding victories for leave in small towns, rural areas and struggling, post-industrial cities.

[Three reasons that Americans should care about the British vote]

As local authorities announced results, markets swung wildly between optimism that the country would stay in, the preferred choice of investors, and pessimism that Britain had just voted to get out.

1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Britain cuts ties with the European Union View Photos British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign. Caption In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls. June 26, 2016 People walk over Westminster Bridge wrapped in Union Jacks, toward the Queen Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and the Houses of Parliament in central London. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

After initially rising to a 2016 high, the pound plunged in international trading as jittery investors prepared for a scenario that had not been priced into market calculations.

As the hours ticked by, there was a dawning realization that Britain could become the first country to leave the 28-member E.U. In television interviews, remain supporters looked stricken and predicted catastrophe.

God help our country, tweeted Paddy Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader and an outspoken E.U. advocate.

The outcome will rattle officials in Washington. President Obama had made a high-profile plea for Britain to stay. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was in Scotland on Friday to open a golf course, backed Brexit.

[If Britain leaves, who could be next?]

Although Britain may not actually leave the E.U. for years, Thursdays vote fires the starting gun on what is widely expected to be a messy proceeding as Britain and E.U. officials begin untangling the vast web of connections between this island nation and the other 27 members of the bloc.

Thursdays outcome will be a crippling blow to Cameron, who had campaigned vigorously for Britain to stay in the E.U. and had cast the referendum as a choice between an insular, intolerant little England and an outward-looking, pluralistic Great Britain.

Having failed to convince a majority of voters, he is expected to come under intense pressure to resign.

Cameron initially promised the referendum in 2013 in a bid to unite the country, and especially his Conservative Party, behind a common stance on an issue that has divided public opinion here for decades.

At the time, he may have expected a relatively easy victory. But the campaign soon went off script, as Justice Secretary Michael Gove and then-London Mayor Boris Johnson  friends and sparring partners of Camerons since his days at Oxford  both declared in February their intention to campaign for out.

The populist-minded Johnson will now be seen as the most likely successor to Cameron if the prime minister is pushed from his perch at 10 Downing Street.

I think the Boris Johnson momentum will be unstoppable, said Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham. Cameron will try to find a dignified exit. But its not clear how long the backbenchers will give him to do that.

The leave campaign found a compelling rallying cry with its call for voters to Take Back Control, a slogan that resonated among an electorate ill at ease with record levels of immigration  much of it from Europe under the E.U.s free-movement policy.

Polls suggested that leave alienated some voters with its reliance on what critics saw as increasingly nativist rhetoric. That was particularly true after the killing last week of pro-E.U. lawmaker Jo Cox, a murder that appeared to awaken a passion in remain supporters that had been previously lacking.

A leave lead last week in the polls diminished, and the race turned into a dead heat. Surveys released Thursday as Britons votesdhad shown remain with a clear edge, results that cheered investors and boosted markets across Europe and Asia.

But as with last years British general election, the polls were badly wrong, apparently unable to capture the mood of an increasingly defiant electorate

The prevailing tone of the campaign on either side was fear and loathing, with neither venturing for long into hope or aspiration.

That spirit mirrored the angry mood of voters across the Atlantic, in the United States, and surprised even close observers of a nation that sees itself as deeply pragmatic and rational.

Notions of Britain as a deferential, consensual society at ease with itself have been thrown out the window, Fielding said. This campaign has revealed a very profound mistrust among a substantial segment of society toward conventional political authority. The E.U. became a lightning rod for mistrust of politics more broadly.

The vote split the country along essential lines: Old versus young. Provincial versus metropolitan. Scotland versus England. Native-born Britons versus immigrants.

[European press pens love notes to Britain]

As the first votes were cast nationwide  with the often-variable British weather running the gamut from a torrential downpour in London to sunny, clear skies in Scotland  anxiety was the prevailing mood.

Hilary Clarke, a 45-year-old stay-at-home mom, was the first to vote at a southwest London polling station. She said she would use her stubby pencil to check "remain" on her ballot.

If I had been confident, I wouldnt be standing in the rain at 7 in the morning, she said as she sheltered beneath a colorful umbrella. "The reason Im first in the queue is Im going straight to the airport to go to Barcelona, and I may not return if vote goes the wrong way.

Clarke said she could not understand the logic of those pushing for "leave."

"I can see that sometimes it seems we are hemorrhaging money to the E.U.," she said. "But at the same time, we seem to get so much more back than we give. Even if youre disagreeing with whats said at the table, its better to have a place at it."

But for "leave" voters, Britain's four decades of membership in the European Union and its precursors have only dragged the country down.

Andreas Hajialexandrou, a 48-year-old businessman of Greek Cypriot heritage, said the country could simply not withstand the impact of record numbers of immigrants from elsewhere in Europe.

There are pressures on local services. I speak to our local [doctors] and they are just swamped, he said. The question is, how long can you support that level of immigration?

Read more:

Would break from Brussels also splinter Britain? Probably not.

Why North America wont copy European unity

The world marks Jo Coxs birthday, days after British politician was slain

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately said that a former Stanford University swimmer was convicted of rape; he was convicted of sexual assault. The story has been corrected.

A 29-year-old German model was, according to her own account, drugged and raped by two men who filmed the ordeal and then posted it online. The woman pressed charges. But a judge gave the men a light fine for the incident while ordering the alleged victim to pay the equivalent of $27,000.

The judge  whose name was not disclosed  offered a nuanced argument for the surprise ruling. During the act, the alleged victim, the judge ruled, had said No! to the filming but not to sex. Therefore, the models claim of rape, the court decided, was false, fining her accordingly.

The verdict against Gina-Lisa Lohfink is part of an increasingly heated debate on both sides of the Atlantic over the judicial handling of sexual crimes. The light sentence for a former Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexual assault has sparked broad outrage in the United States. Meanwhile, the Lohfink case  gathering headlines here as it heads to appeal on June 27  is deeply dividing Germany, while adding fuel to a No means no! campaign seeking to broaden the definition of rape in Western Europes most populous nation.

[Former Stanford swimmer gets six months in jail for sexual assault of unconscious woman]

They are turning me from a victim into an offender, Lohfink, a former contestant on Germanys Next Top Model, told Der Spiegel s online edition. Do I have to be killed first? Will the legal authorities only get it then?

German model Gina-Lisa Lohfink (R) arrives at the local court with her lawyer Burkhardt Benecken (L) in Seligenstadt, Germany,. (BORIS ROESSLER/EPA)

In this country long criticized by womens rights groups for what they call relatively weak rape laws, polls show that more than 86 percent of the public now favor stricter codes. Current law states that saying No! to sex is not enough to constitute rape: The victim must also show evidence of physical resistance.

That definition has meant, rights groups say, that a plethora of alleged rapists have gone unpunished. They cite, for instance, an alleged assailant accused of sexually assaulting a pregnant woman in 2012. The courts let him off because the victim  who said she feared for the safety of her unborn child  did not fight back.

Under pressure, German lawmakers are now moving to change laws to state that verbal resistance for example, saying No!  can be enough to constitute rape. Responding to a series of assaults on New Years Eve allegedly committed by suspects including asylum seekers, the new laws would also punish aggressive groping by an individual or groups.

We need a tightening of the sex-crime legislation, so that finally sexual self-determination will be protected unconditionally in Germany, Germanys minister of family issues, Manuela Schwesig, told Spiegel Online this month in reference to the Lohfink case.  Stop it! is clear enough.

But critics insist that the move will only open the door to more false accusations.

Of course a woman needs to be protected by the law even if she looks like a Barbie doll, Svenja Flapohler wrote this week in the Suddeutsche Zeitung. But, the writer added, there is a danger that men are accused out of revenge . . . or regret for the consummated act.

No case is dividing Germany more thanLohfinks, whose punishment by the court has not only outraged critics, it has also generated a storm of accusations against her.

In social media and among outspoken pundits, she is being portrayed as a platinum-blond seductress and attention freak who falsely accused two men of rape. Others counter that Lohfink  a German media personality known for her scantily clad photos  is being unfairly treated specifically because of her free-spirited public persona.

The case goes back to 2012, when Lohfink first accused two men, identified only as Pardis F. and Sebastian C., of rape. She claims that they drugged her, had sex with her and filmed it all while refusing her pleas to stop

The video was later distributed on social media, although various sites have now taken it down. According to German media outlets that saw the video, Lohfink can be repeatedly heard saying Stop it! and No! in the footage.

But in January, the court ruled that an analysis of the video and other evidence suggested that Lohfink had protested only the filming and appeared to consent to the sex. That determination, according to Martin Steltner, a spokesman for the Berlin prosecutors office, had also taken into account the fact that Lohfink had initially accused the men of wrongful filming and distribution of the sex tape and only later accused them of rape.

The court did find the two men guilty of wrongly making and distributing the sex video and fined them 1,350 euros ($1,500) each. But it reserved its gravest punishment for Lohfink, levying her a fine of 24,000 euros for falsely accusing the men.

Lohfinks attorney, Burkhard Benecken, said his client had pressed only charges for film and distribution because her recollection of the incident was initially hazy. Parts of her memory surfaced, he said, after she saw the video in full. He criticized the court for parsing her No! to mean a request only to stop filming the act.

She didnt say No, stop filming! She said No, no, no!  he said. It's a daring theory to say that she referred to the filming. Does this mean a man can just continue without asking her what she means and later say, Oh, I thought she said No! because the music was too loud, or the light was blinding her? 

A movement in support of Lohfink hasgone viral under the hashtag #TeamGinaLisa. Her supporters have been particularly outraged that her character and personality have come under assault, with articles and social media posts commenting on her platinum blonde hair and breast implants.

They are painting an image of someone who isnt credible. . . . Often she was simply described as the blonde, which would never happen, if she had been a man, said the German feminist blogger Anne Wizorek, who has rallied to Lohfinks side. By evoking such images, a judgment is basically being cast on her.

She called the assaults on Lohfink a mirror on German culture that showed how deeply rooted the idea still is in our society that women use their sexuality to take revenge and that they cannot be trusted.

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, left, the head of Colombia's leftist guerrillas, Timoleon Jimenez, center, and Cuban President Raul Castro during the signing of a cease-fire in Havana. (Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images)

In a ceremony meant to mark the symbolic end to 52 years of fighting, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and leftist guerrilla commander Timoleon Jimenez shook hands on a cease-fire pact Thursday that paves the way for a final peace deal and the rebels complete disarmament.

With U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and six Latin American presidents in attendance, Santos and Jimenez celebrated the deal  which overcomes the last major obstacle to a larger peace accord  as a historic moment for a country that has been at war with itself for the past five decades.

This is the end point of the armed conflict, Santos said.

May this be the last day of the war, said Jimenez, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who is better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko.

Santos said this week that he wants to sign a final peace accord in time for Colombias July 20 independence anniversary, but officials with knowledge of the talks say it will likely take longer to iron out the last few details and that a signing ceremony in August is a more realistic target.

A woman and her son in Bogota, Colombia, celebrate the signing of a historic cease-fire deal between the Colombian government and rebels on June 23. (John Vizcaino/Reuters)

Still, the agreement signed Thursday essentially maps out the complex choreography of getting 7,000 heavily armed rebel fighters to leave their jungle camps, lay down their guns and turn their insurgency into a legal political movement. With drug-trafficking gangs and other armed criminal groups still powerful in parts of rural Colombia, the rebels retain deep fears that they will be left defenseless to attacks from their longtime enemies, despite assurances that government security forces will protect them.

But after 3 years of formal negotiations, the most delicate aspects of the peace talks have been settled.

There is nothing big and substantial left that will pull the two parties apart, said Bernard Aronson, the U.S. special envoy to the Colombian peace process, who also attended Thursdays ceremony.

The finish line has been defined, Aronson said. Absent some unanticipated extraneous event, this is the end of the war.

The conflict has killed an estimated 220,000 people and forced nearly 7 million Colombians from their homes over the decades  the highest number of what the United Nations considers internally displaced persons in the world.

[Colombia government, rebels reach major milestone in peace talks]

Santos said Thursday that a final peace accord will be signed in Colombia. The accord will then be subject to approval by Colombian voters through a referendum. While government negotiators and the FARC had been at odds over the form the referendum would take, they announced Thursday that the plebiscite would be defined by Colombias judiciary  meaning that the rebels accepted the governments position.

Women hug in Bogota, Colombia, as they celebrate the signing of a historic cease-fire deal. (John Vizcaino/Reuters)

For the FARC, the most difficult part of the peace process essentially boiled down to two highly sensitive issues.

The rebels did not want a peace deal that would put them in prison. And they refused to give up their guns if it meant they would be exposed to bloody payback from their enemies.

They reached an agreement last year on the first point. Essentially, FARC rank-and-file members whose only formal criminal charge is rebellion will receive a blanket amnesty.

FARC leaders with convictions in absentia or who are charged with serious crimes  including terrorism, murder, kidnapping and drug trafficking  will be eligible for an alternative judicial process.

If they agree to testify to crimes and fully disclose their roles in the conflict, they can qualify for sentences that are less punitive than prison and oriented toward helping the wars victims through something closer to community service. But if they withhold information or do not tell the truth, they could be tried by Colombias criminal justice system and risk lengthy terms in conventional prisons.

Critics of Santos and the peace deal say that amounts to a wrist-slap for FARC commanders and a betrayal of the conflict's victims.

[Colombia's rebels survived war. Now they worry about surviving peace]

Under the terms of the agreement announced Thursday, the rebels will gather in 23 protected zones and eight camps, where they will disarm in phases once the final accord is reached. Colombian government forces will provide security, separated by a one-kilometer buffer zone, and unarmed U.N. observers will be present in the camps with the rebels to oversee the process and mediate potential disputes.

FARC fighters will begin by giving up explosives and heavy weapons, followed by rifles and, eventually, sidearms. The process could take up to 180 days, during which only a limited number of FARC personnel would be allowed to leave the zones, and no civilians would be allowed to enter them without government approval.

"The idea that the FARC would concentrate its forces and lay down its weapons in exchange for security guarantees was always the goal in theory, said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. But agreeing on the concrete steps to make it happen is just huge, she said.

Theres no doubt that the hardest part  implementation of the accords  is yet to come, Arnson said. But recognizing that shouldnt detract from what a transcendental moment this is.

With Santoss public approval ratings sliding and impatience with the peace talks among the Colombian public, the government has done little to conceal its eagerness to close the deal.

The FARC has proceeded more cautiously, knowing that the terms of its disarmament are the last card it holds at the bargaining table. But officials close to the talks say FARC leaders are eager to jump into Colombian electoral politics, with members of its negotiating team hoping to enter congress when Colombia holds its next elections in 2018.

The presidents of Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic also attended Thursday's ceremony.
John Ashe, of Antigua and Barbuda, served as U.N. General Assembly president from September 2013 to September 2014. (Richard Drew/AP)

John W. Ashe, a former U.N. General Assembly president and U.N. ambassador for the twin-island Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda who faced criminal charges in a bribery case, died June 22 at his home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. He was 61.

Mr. Ashes death was an accident caused by neck trauma while lifting a barbell, a medical examiner concluded Thursday.

Despite the many as yet unproven accusations made against him, Mr. Ashe was for many years a hard-working and popular member of the diplomatic corps in New York and at the United Nations, Mogens Lykketoft, the current U.N. General Assembly president, said in a statement.

Mr. Ashe served in the largely ceremonial post of president of the 193-nation assembly from September 2013 to September 2014. He was accused last year by U.S. federal authorities of turning the position into a platform for profit by accepting more than $1 million in bribes.

Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, charged in a complaint that in return for the money, Mr. Ashe supported these businessmens interests within the United Nations and with senior Antiguan government officials.

The alleged conspiracy also involved six others, including a billionaire Chinese real estate mogul, two diplomats and a humanitarian organization officer. Several of the defendants have pleaded guilty over the past several months.

Mr. Ashe pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his attorney Jeremy Schneider had said he would be vindicated. It wasnt clear how Mr. Ashes death would affect the bribery case.

John William Ashe, whose father was a police officer, was born in St. Johns, Antigua and Barbuda, on Aug. 20, 1954. He graduated from Saint Marys University in Nova Scotia and received a masters degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. He also held a doctorate in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

He joined the foreign service in 1989. As a diplomat, he was heavily involved in sustainable development issues, taking leadership roles in some of the major U.N. environmental agreements.

We only have the planet we live on, and if we are to leave it in a reasonable state for the next generation, the quest for a safer, cleaner, and more equitable world is one that should consume us all, Mr. Ashe said in a U.N. release.

In 1996, he married Anilla Cherian, an environmentalist whom he met in Nairobi two years earlier at a conference on biological diversity, according to their wedding announcement in the New York Times. They had children, but a complete list of survivors could not be immediately determined.
After months of campaigning the Leave camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

After months of campaigning the Leave camp has won and Britain will be leaving the E.U. The Post's Adam Taylor talks about what that means for the country and Europe. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

With Britain forecast Friday to have taken a historic decision to leave the European Union, E.U. leaders say their ambitions to build a more united continent will be on hold after the bitter campaign exposed deeper troubles within the 28-nation alliance.

Leaders say that a project of greater economic and political integration  first imagined in the ashes of World War II  may have finally hit its limits amid surging skepticism about how much sovereignty to surrender to Brussels.

Even before campaigners for a British exit appeared to prevail in the referendum held Thursday  according to projections from British broadcasters  they had already scored a broader victory.

From cobblestone streets in France to Soviet-era apartment blocks in Slovakia, questions about the European Unions reach and powers have been given new focus.

[British voters have their say after divisive showdown]

1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  On the ground as Britain votes on staying in the European Union View Photos The country is holding a rare referendum, known as Brexit, on whether it should remain a member of the E.U. Caption In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls. June 26, 2016 People walk over Westminster Bridge wrapped in Union Jacks, toward the Queen Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and the Houses of Parliament in central London. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Even before the vote, European leaders said that British leave campaigners had a sweeping effect in the E.U. capital.

There is a clear signal all over Europe, not only Britain, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said shortly before the vote, calling for a large-scale discussion about the role of the E.U., no matter the outcome of the referendum, when the results are known.

We feel more and more doubts about the European project, he told the Belgian VRT network.

The first discussions are expected to take place as early as Friday, when leaders take stock of the stunning results. More substantive conversations will begin Tuesday, when E.U. leaders are to meet in Brussels for a summit scheduled long before the British vote.

The British fury about the European Union stems in part from a centuries-old ambivalence about the nations relationship with the continent. But much of the anger is shared elsewhere in Europe.

[European press to Britain: We love you]

Populist parties from Spain to Poland have exploited the perception that Brussels is home to an unelected bureaucracy, conspiring to suck away self-rule and delivering only slender economic benefits.

On June 23, Britain faces a fateful decision: whether or not to leave the European Union. And the world will be watching. (Daron Taylor,Jason Aldag,Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)

There are cracks everywhere, gloated the leader of the French anti-E.U. National Front Party, Marine Le Pen, this week.

She said would push for a referendum in her own nation, where 61 percent of residents hold an unfavorable view of the European Union, according to a poll this month from the Pew Research Center.

Her ambitions are likely to be emboldened after the British decision to depart, in what has been called a Brexit.

Its more than the future of the United Kingdom in the European Union thats at stake; its the future of the European Union, French President Francois Hollande said on the eve of the vote. After this vote, Europe could equally reach a new step in its construction.

The European Unions origins as an effort to keep the peace after the destruction of World War II have long been forgotten, eroding the goodwill that once permeated bargaining in Brussels.

Now, other challenges are far more biting.

People cannot imagine going to war with each other, said Fabian Zuleeg, the chief executive of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. The difficulty is that it is taken for granted.

[How the British vote evoked a fresh look at 1966 soccer goal]

Critics say the European Union bungled its response to the global economic crisis in 2008 and is still struggling with recovery nearly a decade later. E.U. leaders miscalculated Russias anger about their attempts to woo Ukraine, leading to a flat-footed response once Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

And the refugee crisis caught European leaders mostly unprepared, despite years in which conflict in the Middle East displaced millions of people.

The result is an alliance where muddling through has become the official term for its strategy, and where temporary Band-Aids are applied to a score of challenges because 28 diverse nations cannot agree on a single permanent solution.

Now that Britain appears to have voted to leave, the stresses will become even greater, giving a jolt of energy to anti-E.U. parties elsewhere that will also campaign for referendums of their own.

There will be intense pressure on other political leaders to negotiate special arrangements for their own countries, potentially turning back the clock on European integration. France, Denmark and the Netherlands are among the likely supplicants for fresh freedoms, if not full-out referendums of their own.

Many leaders were saying ahead of the vote that Europe should take a clear-eyed look at its goals  and potentially dial them back.

We must take a long, hard look on the future of the Union, European Council President Donald Tusk said this week ahead of the vote. We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the U.K. referendum. There are more signals of dissatisfaction with the Union coming from all of Europe, not only from the U.K.

As the European Union becomes more fractured, it is less likely to be able to respond effectively to the challenges it faces, such as a flat-lined economy in Greece, a resurgent Russia and the constant pressure of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict.

Its like an immune system that is weakened and gets bombarded from the outside, said Jan Techau, the director of Carnegie Europe, the Brussels office of the U.S. think tank.

One first sign of Europes weakened gravitational pull came this week from Turkey, which has engaged in a long, painful negotiation process over E.U. membership to which neither side appears fully committed.

We can stand up and ask the people, just like the British are doing, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said hours before the British vote, according to Turkeys state-run Anadolu Agency. We would ask, Should we continue the negotiations with the European Union or should we end them? 

Read more

9 out of 10 experts agree: Britain doesnt trust the experts on Brexit

British campaign on E.U. showed striking parallels with U.S. political debates

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Governments in South Asia, and the ruling elites more generally, have expressed considerable anxiety about todays referendum in Britain over its membership in the European Union (EU). Ministers, commentators and officials have generally backed the Remain campaign and expressed dismay about the potentially damaging economic consequences of a British exit or Brexit from the EU.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking about the British referendum to the Wall Street Journal on May 26, declared his government supported the UK staying in the EU. He added that for us, the UK is the gateway to Europe and, in the situation that the world is in, a united Europe would be favorable.

The Hindu, a leading Indian daily, spelled out in more detail the concerns in ruling circles over the Leave campaign in a comment earlier this month titled India and Brexit forecast. It noted that there were nearly three million British citizens of Indian origin and a large number of Indians who visit Britain every year as tourists, business people, professionals, students, spouses, parents and relatives who could be affected.

However the Hindus main concerns were for the corporate interests of some 800 Indian companies operating in Britain. It referred to the India Tracker 2016 commissioned by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which found that Indian companies generate 110,000 jobs in Britain. Moreover, the number of Indian companies in the UK growing by more than 10 percent had nearly doubled this year compared to last.

In 2015, the total British turnover of Indian companies was UK22 billion and is predicted to rise to 26 billion this year. These firms are involved in fast-growth sectors including hi-tech, telecom, pharmaceuticals and financial services and number such giants as Bharati Airtel, HCL Technologies and the Tata Group.

The Indian Tracker warned: Uncertainty surrounding the UKs impending EU referendum and the possibility of Brexit may have a bearing on both the UK economy and on Indian companies appetite for investing in the UK, particularly those seeking access to the European market.

CII director general Chanrajit Banerjee explained: India invests in the UK [and] in the rest of Europe combined, emerging as the UKs third largest FDI investor. Access to European markets is therefore a key driver for Indian companies coming to the UK.

In a memo encouraging its staff to support the Remain campaign, Tata Steel management declared that access to EU markets was fundamental to our business and called for careful thought to be given to the referendum because the choice you make on June 23 will make a difference to your working life.

Clearly worried about the potential for international financial turmoil, Raghuram Rajan, head of the Reserve Bank of India, said on Monday that Brexit can be quite damaging if it happens. He immediately attempted to calm the markets by declaring that India is adequately prepared to face any consequences.

In Sri Lanka, the government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe joined the South Asian chorus for the Remain campaign. Telecommunication Minister Harin Fernando told the Sunday Times that both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe are of the view that it would be beneficial for Sri Lanka if the UK remains in the EU as it has a strong economy.

Writing in a column published in one British newspaper, Wickremesinghe urged British voters to choose to remain within the EU. In Sri Lanka, we suffered the consequences of losing the GSP+, a preferential trade deal with the EU, in the late 2000s. Going by our experience, the adverse impact off a UK pull-out would be far greater, he declared.

The Sunday Times reported that several Sri Lankan ministers were visiting London to urge British citizens of Sri Lankan origin to vote to remain within the EU.

According to 2014 data, the EU is Sri Lankas biggest trading partner in terms of overall trade (exports and imports) and also stands as its largest export partner. Sri Lanka exported more than 2.5 billion worth of products to the EU, representing 32 percent of the countrys total exports. Britain is in the top 10 of foreign investors in Sri Lanka. It also ranks as Sri Lankas second largest export market after the US.

In Bangladesh, economists have also expressed their anxieties about the impact of a Brexit on Bangladesh exports. Like Sri Lanka, the EU is the largest export destination for Bangladesh. Britain is the third largest export destination for Bangladesh products, totaling $US3.2 billion in the 2015-16 financial year, of which $2.9 billion were ready-made garments.

The fears in South Asian ruling circles over the British referendum is bound up with broader concerns about the global economic slowdown and crisis, as well as rising geo-political tensions throughout the world. A Brexit could trigger financial turmoil that will only worsen the economic and political crises already wracking the subcontinent.

In Britain, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) has consistently explained that the interests of the working class in Britain and internationally cannot be defended by backing any faction of the ruling class, which are all whipping up reactionary nationalism and anti-immigrant xenophobia. The SEP is campaigning for an active boycott of the referendum. The party urges workers and youth not to mix class banners, but to fight for their political independence and for a Socialist United States of Europe as part of the struggle for international socialism.
With less than two weeks to go before the July 2 expiry of the current collective agreement at Canada Post, the management of the government-owned Crown Corporation is brazenly preparing to lock out its more than fifty thousand letter carriers, postal clerks, mail-sorters, and truck drivers.

Conciliation between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post ended June 10, with the company insisting that massive contract concessions are required to maintain profitability under conditions of declining mail volume. Management has since taken the provocative step of announcing that all healthcare benefits for employees and their families will be halted as soon as the contract expires, while warning its large customers to make plans for service disruptions.

Management is demanding sweeping givebacks including: the elimination of the defined benefit pension scheme and its replacement by a defined contributions model; the weakening of job security guarantees so they apply only to workers with ten years continuous service rather than the current five; major attacks on healthcare benefits; a pay freeze for temporary workers throughout the lifetime of the new collective agreement; and the elimination of the paid meal period for employees.

Speaking with CBC, CUPW President Mike Palecek, a former leader of the pseudo-left Fightback group, admitted, We are expecting Canada Post to lock us out.

Despite acknowledging this threat, CUPW and Palecek are doing nothing to mobilize postal workers and the working class for an industrial and political struggle against concessions and in defence of public services. Rather they are boosting illusions in the big business Liberal government and the courts.

In recent weeks, postal workers have participated in strike ballots organized by CUPW. But the union has no intention of calling a strike unless its hand is forced by the company.

The never-ending rounds of attacks on postal workers over the past quarter-century have turned Canada Post into a profitable concern. Just in the first quarter, generally the companys weakest, it took in over $40 million. Canada Post is exploiting technological changeincluding the decline in letters and the growth of online shoppingto justify its calls for increased labour flexibility and other attacks on basic rights.

In the last round of negotiations in 2011, Canada Post succeeded in pushing through major concessions. CUPW confined postal workers to toothless rotating strike action even as the Conservative government urged Canada Post to impose a lockout and then legislated postal workers back to their jobs. Rather than defying the reactionary legislation, which served as a model for the anti-strike laws the Harper government imposed on other sections of striking workers, CUPW initiated a court challenge which took almost five years to reach a conclusion. In the meantime, CUPW capitulated to managements demands, citing the threat of a contract imposed by a government-appointed arbitrator to justify their criminal betrayal.

A court ruling earlier this year that the legislation used by the Harper government was unconstitutional did not overturn a single one of the concessions made by CUPW. Yet Palecek and CUPW are claiming that the judgment shows that the courts can be counted upon to uphold workers rights and that there is no threat of the government intervening to once again criminalize worker job-action.

CUPWs determination to suppress a genuine challenge to Canada Post and the ruling class agenda of concessions, public service cuts, and privatization is exemplified by its fulsome praise for the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau and its ongoing review of Canada Post. In a recent bulletin to members, CUPW enthused, Through the Review of Canada Post, the government is welcoming ideas of service expansion. We launched our campaign for postal banking in 2013. Now we have an opportunity to talk to the public and push hard to make postal banking a reality.

This is nothing but a deliberate effort to deceive postal workers. The Liberal government has already made clear that its review will only consider proposals based on running Canada Post as a profitable concern. It is on this basis that CUPW premises its diversionary campaign for postal banking.

It is revealing that CUPW has chosen to focus considerable attention during the contract talks on Canada Posts proposal to do away with Appendix T. This is a committee made up of representatives from management and CUPW supposedly tasked with overseeing projects to promote innovation and service expansion. Innovation is nothing but a codeword for the destruction of workers rights and jobs, while the expansion of services in some areas has been bound up with worsening conditions for postal workers.

A recent blog post by Palecek welcomed the day-and-a-half given to CUPW to present its ideas to the taskforce which will make recommendations to the Liberals Canada Post review.

The Liberals posed during last years federal election campaign as opponents of the Tory-backed plan to end home delivery and defenders of postal services. But predictably they are now singing a very different tune. Asked about maintaining home delivery, Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote made no secret of the fact that this would be connected to service and job cuts, stating, Theres a potential here for restoring home mail delivery. The question is, is it restored on a two-day a week, three-day a week, five-day a weekwe need to hear from Canadians what they need.

None of this should come as any surprise to postal workers, given that the Liberals, as the Canadian bourgeoisies preferred party of government, have been their vicious enemy for decades. In 1978, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the current PMs father, threatened to fire the entire workforce en masse when postal workers defied a strike breaking-law, ordered the unions offices raided, and subsequently had CUPW President Jean-Claude Parrot imprisoned.

Under the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin from the mid-1990s until 2006, privatization of the postal service was not halted, as CUPW often claims. Instead, the creeping privatization through the franchising process persisted. At the same time, the Liberals implemented unprecedented social spending cuts, slashing jobless benefits and public services.

CUPW, like the union bureaucracy as a whole, has been transformed over this period into an appendage of management, which is fully complicit in the attacks on its own members.

Palecek symbolizes this transformation. From leading the trade union work of Fightback, a self-proclaimed Marxist organization, he seamlessly transitioned over the course of less than two years into a leading trade union bureaucrat. Palecek was among the over 100 union officials who met behind closed doors with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau less than a week after he took office to pledge their readiness to collaborate in implementing the new governments agenda. Predictably enough, Fightback has said nothing about their former leaders evolution.

To prevent further concessions, postal workers must urgently draw the lessons of past confrontations with Canada Post and their political masters, take their struggle out of the hands of the CUPW apparatus, and oppose its attempts to limit any job action to a reactionary and futile effort to pressure the Liberal government to intervene on postal workers behalf with Canada Post management.

A struggle to defend the jobs and conditions of postal workers can only be successful if independent rank-and-file committees are formed on the basis of an explicit rejection of the principle that Canada Post, and public services more generally, must be run as profitable concerns. This requires mounting a challenge to the capitalist profit system, which is producing rapidly deteriorating living conditions for the entire working class. On the basis of a socialist program, postal workers should seek to make their struggle the spearhead of an offensive aimed at mobilizing the entire working in defence of health care, education, and all public services and developing the fight for a workers government capable of organizing society on the basis of human need rather than private profit.
Detectives in Louisiana believe that the 3-year-old siblings found unresponsive on Saturday in the stifling cab of their father's truck may have used a footstool to access the pickup, becoming trapped as the vehicle's internal temperature continued to rise, PEOPLE confirms.



A Bossier City Police Department spokesman tells PEOPLE investigators are still trying to determine how twins Oliver and Aria Orr managed to enter their father's truck, and have been sharing their findings with prosecutors who are mulling potential criminal charges.



The spokesman claims detectives suspect the twins lugged a footstool over to the truck and climbed inside. The children closed the truck's door and were unable to free themselves from the hot car.



PEOPLE has also learned that the children's mother reached out to neighbors to help find the two 3-year-olds after they had gone missing. One of those neighbors located the brother and sister inside the truck at around 3 p.m.; both children were not conscious or moving, according to police.



"The children got into that truck by themselves," the spokesman says. "That's what we believe happened here."



The truck was parked in the Orr family home's driveway, according to investigators.



Autopsies on the Orr twins revealed their deaths were heat-related. No criminal charges have been filed against the children's mother or their father, Travis Orr, who works as a deputy with the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office.



The twins' deaths come just three weeks after Oliver was released from the hospital after suffering a near-fatal injury, according to police. The boy was in the hospital for over a week for treatment of unspecified injuries.



The police spokesman tells PEOPLE the children's father has been placed on administrative leave.



"It was an unfortunate tragedy that he's going to need some time to process," the spokesman explains.



In a statement this week, the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office collectively expressed sadness over "the tragic loss suffered by the Orr family, and our hearts are heavy."



The statement concludes: "This is a very difficult time, but it's even more so, as they are part of our Bossier Sheriff's Office Family. Please keep Deputy Travis Orr and his family in your thoughts and prayers."
An alligator attacked a Florida man Tuesday evening in Bushnell, about an hour away from where a 2-year-old was killed by a gator at a Disney World resort last week, according to the local sheriff's office.



Officials from the Sumter County Sheriff's Office responded to the call at approximately 6:30 p.m. and found the 58-year-old man lying on the ground about five feet from the animal, Click Orlando reports.



Police confirmed the man was airlifted to Ocala Regional Hospital with injuries to his right leg. His current condition is not known.



The 8-feet 6-inches long, 300-pound alligator was euthanized by a Florida Wildlife Commission gator trapper.







The attack occured the same day Lane Graves, the 2-year-old boy who was pulled into a lake and killed by an alligator at Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa last week, was laid to rest in his hometown of Elkhorn, Nebraska.



Lane's parents, Matthew and Melissa Graves, say they are overwhelmed by the support they've received from around the country since the tragic loss of their son.





RELATED VIDEO: Parents of Lane Graves, the Boy Killed by Alligator Set up Foundation in His Honor



"Melissa and I continue to deal with the loss of our beloved boy, Lane, and are overwhelmed with support and love we have received from family and friends in our community as well as from around the country," the family said in a statement.



"Neither Melissa, myself or anyone from our family will be speaking publicly; we simply cannot at this time," the statement continued.



The grieving parents have also set up a memorial fund in their son's honor.



"After the tragic loss of our beloved 2-year-old son, Lane Thomas, we have created the Lane Thomas Foundation to honor his memory," they said in a statement on the foundation's site. "Losing Lane has broken our hearts in the worst possible way. While there is no way to mend our hearts, we can do good work in his honor."



There are several gator attacks in Florida each year, according to statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. In 2015, there were 9 major attacks, including one that was fatal.
Authorities are investigating the death of an Ohio teen who may have contracted a brain-eating amoeba during a visit to a popular North Carolina water park.



Lauren Seitz, 18, was visiting the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte during a trip with her church youth group on June 8.



Jim Wilson, senior pastor at Church of the Messiah United Methodist Church in Westerville, Ohio, told WCMH-TV that Lauren was among 32 students who went to North Carolina to sing at churches and nursing homes and visited the water park for fun.



The youth group returned home to Ohio on June 11, and Lauren died on June 19.



"She was an incredible person, so full of life," Wilson said of Lauren, a recent Westerville South High School graduate who was enrolled at Denison University. According to her obituary, she had declared a minor in music and planned to study environmental science.



Wilson added, aThey had one day of recreation where they stopped at the U.S. Whitewater Center and went whitewater rafting and they had a grand day.a





Picture from Facebook of 18yo girl from Ohio who died from amebic infection after visiting Whitewater center. pic.twitter.com/NlDrbuL2xY a Liz Foster (@lizfosterWSOC9) June 22, 2016





The Whitewater enter, which is located on the Catawba River, is popular for kayaking and rafting and serves as a training facility for many Olympians.



Workers with the Centers for Disease Control arrived at the facility Wednesday to conduct an investigation that includes testing the water.





I've been pretty quiet on the matter recently but I wanted to share with those of you who are not involved with the Band... Posted by John Laswell onA Monday, June 20, 2016





The scientific term for the amoeba Seitz contracted is primary amebic meningoencephalitis, an infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, which is an organism that does not cause illness if swallowed, but can be fatal if forced up the nose. It is naturally present in warm lakes during the summer.



Symptoms of PAM, which include fever, nausea, headache or vomiting and can progress into loss of balance, seizures and hallucinations, begin about five days after infection, according to the CDC. The disease typically causes death within about five days.



In a written statement, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said, aThe deceasedas only known underwater exposure was believed to be when riding in a raft with several others that overturned at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.a



At a news conference Wednesday, Mecklenburg County Health Director Marcus Plescia told reporters, aWe think the Whitewater center is as safe as any body of open water. One of the things you have to realize is any time you go swimming in a lake or pond or any open water thatas not treated the way a swimming pool is treated, there are things in that water that can cause illness.a



In a written statement to PEOPLE, a spokesperson for the facility said, "The U.S. National Whitewater Center conducts water quality tests every week. Based on these tests and all available information, at all times, the USNWC has been in compliance with all required water quality standards and meets the requirements of all regulatory standards and authorities. Furthermore, the USNWC has requested additional testing specific to this issue in an abundance of caution. The USNWC is working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and the Mecklenburg County Health Department to investigate the matter further.a



Naegleria fowleri infections are rare. According to the CDC, fewer than 10 cases have been reported annually in the United State during the last 53 years. This amoeba can cause severe illness up to nine days after exposure. A person cannot be infected with Naegleria fowleri by drinking contaminated water and the amoeba is not found in salt water.



Lauren, who was the drum major in her high schoolas marching band, was honored Tuesday night with a candlelight vigil.



Her parents, James and Heidi Seitz, established The Lauren Elisabeth Seitz Memorial Music Fund in their daughteras honor.
10 brutally honest reasons why Im scared to have kids right now

10 brutally honest reasons why Im scared to have kids right now

As a twenty-six year-old whos in a long-term relationship, the number one question I get from relatives and my parents friends at family dinners isnt about my job. Or where I live now. Or even my health. The most popular question I always get is when will I finally decide to have a baby. I get everything from unsolicited advice (Its better now, to get it over with while youre still young!) to compliments on how great I look with a baby, whenever Im holding my seven-month-old niece  as though a baby is a statement piece of jewelry Im hesitant to buy.

As a lady of the modern age, I get how un-feminist, how opposite of progressive this conversation is in the first place. But in my Russian-Jewish family, its assumed that you start your own family eventually  if not out of the natural inclination to do so, then the desire to keep the bloodline going. So Im not angry whenever Im asked when Im going to have a kid  Im stressed out. Because growing up, I always thought I would eventually become a mom. I mean, I like babies. Theyre soft and somehow always smell like lavender and are everything pure and good about this planet.

But the thought of becoming a parent is SO SCARY, and its gotten scarier the older I become. I come up with more and more reasons why the cons outweigh the pros, and cons fill me with so much dread, Im not even sure I WANT to have a baby. These are the ten thoughts I have about having a baby that truly scare me.

I really love my life right now. As is. With no baby involved. What if having a baby ruins EVERYTHING?

giphy

My schedule is way too full to also accommodate parenting. If im not at work, Im working at home or binge-watching Jane the Virgin, or Im treating myself to some pasta and a glass of wine, and like, Im sorry Baby, but there is just no room for you here. The freedom is just too awesome. One of the reasons why I chose cats over dogs? They. Dont. Need. You.

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I can barely keep a plant alive.

giphy (1)

Is there a correlation between remembering to water succulents once a week and raising a human baby? I dont know. It still worries me I cant keep most low-maintenance forms of life alive though.

Im worried about how pregnancy and giving birth will take a toll on my body.

giphy (4)

Every womans pregnancy and birthing experience is different. Some find pregnancy really difficult and giving birth excruciating. Some have mild (maybe even enjoyable!) pregnancies and say their time giving birth was tolerable. I am personally scared of both and how they might affect my body, in all the physical senses. Im worried I wont be able to handle the pain from giving birth OR the after-care. I worry about my vagina tearing, about being able to move around on my own and take care of myself. I know in the grand scheme of things (ya know, DIYing human life out of your very own cells), pain is not supposed to stop you from wanting to become a parent. But I cant stop thinking about how much its going to hurt, and how long it will take until I feel like myself again.

I might need to go off my meds, and that freaks me out.

giphy (5)

Full disclosure: I take Wellbutrin for depression and anxiety, as well as Xanax if Im experiencing a panic attack  Ive been on these meds for a couple years now, and Ive learned I need them if I want to keep my mental health in check. I also take Ibuprofen for chronic headaches (and yes, Ive gone to *many* doctors about this issue  so far there is no way to treat them. The only option is pain management.).

According to Drugs.com, Xanax can potentially cause fetal harm when administered to pregnant women. And according to the White House, Xanax is classified as a Schedule IV controlled substance and Category D risk in pregnancy. This means, according to American Addicts Centers, that enough studies have been done to prove that Xanax poses enough of a risk for pregnant women that they at least need to discuss the issue with their OBGYN. Wellbutrin has also been considered as risky to take during pregnancy. According to the CDC, a study from 2010 found that Wellbutrin MAY increase the risk of the baby being born with heart defects. However, the CDC also reports that pregnant women who have untreated depression are more likely to not carry their child to full term. Basically, antidepressants + pregnancy is a complicated relationship, one that has many, conflicted studies. Ultimately, whether or not I continue taking antidepressants would be a topic that I would have to discuss with my OBGYN to get a better picture.

Painkillers on the other hand, have always been viewed as a risk during pregnancy. According to Drugs.com, Ibuprofen shouldnt be taken at all during the last trimester, and very rarely in the beginning and middle of the pregnancy. Any anti-inflammatory drugs (aka, NSAIDs) can cause: fetal renal impairment, pulmonary hypertension, and premature closure of the fetal ductus arteriosus.

Obviously, I would want to be responsible if I were to become pregnant  but could I do so while also taking care of the health issues I do have?

What if there will be complications?

giphy (8)

Most medical procedures are invasive  when you hand your body over to a surgeon, youre taking a chance. What if something goes horribly wrong during the delivery?

I love my career and the direction its going.

giphy (9)

I love my job and I want to do it for eternity. I dont want anything to get in the way of that  and I just dont really buy the whole leaning in and having it all ideology. Ive observed the lives of working mothers I know  they sacrificed something in order to have their job AND their kid. They went through tremendous obstacles to ensure they could still work and be mothers. And even then, they were derailed. Their personal relationships suffered. Can you really have a career AND be a parent in 2016? It makes me sad that this is something so many working women have to account for, STILL. But the reality is that the nature of most businesses doesnt cater to the needs of moms.

What if my kid inherits all my badness?

giphy (10)

My kid is bound to inherit some of my traits, just like how I inherited my moms anxiety and my dads impulsiveness. Is that selfish, then? To create someone, knowing they may end up with some of the same, difficult characteristics I have? To see the bad parts of myself in THEM, too?

I cannot afford child care by myself.

giphy (7)

Child care is expensive. If I do have kids, I plan on being a working mom, but it costs thousands a month to make sure competent humans are taking care of your little human. Youll make it work, is something Ive heard over and over again, but like, no. I will not make it work, Ill probably go into debt.

Im scared of pretty much every aspect of being pregnant and giving birth.

giphy (6)

Home-growing a miniature version of yourself is insane. I cant believe humans are capable of that. Its amazing and terrifying at the same time. That we walk around for nine months needing to pee a lot more than normal, deal with someone kicking our ORGANS, and then push pounds of baby out of a hole thats normally pretty small is mind-blowing. I cant seem to wrap my head around it all.

The fear that I might be a bad mom.

giphy (11)

I always imagined myself to become the kind of mom I wanted when I was growing up. Not that my mom was a bad mom  mothering was just not the most natural thing for her. But what if its not natural for me? What I dont understand my kid? What if my kid hates me? What if I dont know how to handle it when they throw tantrums, or want food, or are so sad and they dont know why? What if I dont possess maternal instinct? Because at the end of the day, if I have a kid, I want it to be happy and have an awesome life, and I want to make sure Im capable of providing that.

The post 10 brutally honest reasons why Im scared to have kids right now appeared first on HelloGiggles.
10 of the most intense foods you can eat at the fair this year

10 of the most intense foods you can eat at the fair this year

What good is summer if you dont get your butt to a state fair and experience the deep fried goodness that is fair food? We live in a pretty advanced world, which means the options at our fingertips are only more complex and delightful than ever before (like, did you know Smores Beer was a thing one year?!). Of course, before you arrive to any fair, you know going in that this is gonna be the most unhealthy thing you probably do all year  and thats totally okay. We all deserve a little (or big) splurge every now and again, so you might as well go all in and enjoy every second of it.

Here are 10 of the most intense foods you can find at a state fair this year.

1. Double Bacon Corn Dog

#shamespiral #stampede #doublebaconcorndog A photo posted by Valerie Gypsy (@gypsyskalicky) on Jul 5, 2015 at 5:56pm PDT

This is a good place to start. Anything deep fried with bacon is a winner at any state fair. Iowa is the place to get your hands on this bad boy, and Id imagine youd need an anti-acid pill of sorts after youve polished it off. It was first introduced in 2012, but it has since become a staple, so its available this year as well.

Its pretty much what youd expect. Its a hot dog wrapped in bacon, then deep-fried and refrigerated. Finally, its covered in a batter with bacon bits. All thanks to Campbells Concessions of Des Moines. Apparently, the whole thing is only 498 calories, but its the sodium that gets you. 1,605 mg of it! Drink some water after!

2. Ice Cream Burger

Adventures in Indiana State Fair Food 2014 http://t.co/QYCYsf8Jfp We ate an ice cream burger for you! pic.twitter.com/ziXz1bU8a6  Aaron E. Carroll (@aaronecarroll) August 11, 2014

An ice cream burger?! Im not sure of anything anymore. Florida featured this concotion at their state fair this year. As you can see, its a juicy hamburger patty topped with cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion. On top of all that youll find a scoop of vanilla ice cream thats coated in little crunchy pieces. All between a buttery bun.

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The Florida State Fair has said straight-up that they dont have any nutritional information for this menu item yet because its so new. So let your imagination run wild. Or, you know, dont.

3. Candied Bacon Donut Slider

CANDIED BACON DONUT SLIDERS  One of 32 new foods at the 2016 #mnstatefair! Sliced glazed donut holes with thick candied bacon and a chocolate red wine ganache. @ Minnesota Wine Country. mnstatefair.org A photo posted by Minnesota State Fair (@mnstatefair) on Jun 21, 2016 at 2:02pm PDT

Thank you, Minnesota. Thank you. This is a 2016 newcomer, so once again we cant say how many calories are in those angelic clouds of sweet and salty perfection. What we can tell you is that theyre made with thick candied bacon, topped with a chocolate red wine ganache, stuffed between sliced glazed donut holes. Yes please to seconds.

4. The Defibrillator

#nystatefair #defibrillator #gluttony #syracuse #foodporn #burger #buzzfeed A photo posted by morgan narkiewicz (@narkiewicz) on Aug 29, 2015 at 12:34pm PDT

We must admit that its not confirmed yet whether this hunk of a burger will be available again at the New York state fair, but we cant imagine why they would deprive the world of such a thing. The Defibrillator is a cheeseburger with deep fried pickles and deep fried bacon, set in between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Naturally. Are you ready to handle all 1,605 calories? Of course you are, cause baby youre a firework, as Katy Perry would say.

5. Spam Sushi

SPAM SUSHI  One of 32 new foods at the 2016 #mnstatefair! Grilled SPAM, sushi rice, fried egg and wasabi rolled in nori (dried seaweed). @ Sushi Rolls. mnstatefair.org A photo posted by Minnesota State Fair (@mnstatefair) on Jun 22, 2016 at 5:30am PDT

Okay, so this one isnt as, um, filling as the other choices, but its intense in its own league. I mean, guys, come on, its spam. Spam sushi. Minnesota has gone all out for the 2016 state fair, and this is one of their new creations. You got grilled spam and fried egg tucked in between some rice and seaweed. Id like to say Id try it but Im not 100 percent sold on it.

Spam musubi, which Im guessing is what this dish is loosely based off of, is about 265 calories per serving. So you could choose this as your healthier option. Or just make this your appetizer and leave everything else as the main attraction.

6. Funnel Cake Burger

Lets get ready to rumble!!!!! It was reported that the Funnel Cake Burger in Wisconsin clocked in at a record-breaking 3,500 calories. Wowzas. I suppose thats your ball park for the version that was available a the Florida state fair this year. Two funnel cakes wrapped a huge beef patty, cheese, bacon, lettuce, and ketchup. I triple dog dare you.

7. Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger

Clocking at an impressive 1,500 calories, the Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger (a California state fair native), is a wonderful reminder that there is still good left in the world. Two decadent, original glazed Krispy Kreme donuts envelop a beef patty, bacon, and cheese. Definitely worth a road trip  or maybe even a cross-country flight.

8. Sweetheart Doughnut

How darling! The name is almost so innocent you think itll be a breeze. But I have a feeling this one packs a big punch. The Amish Baking Company is responsible for bringing this new recipe to the Florida state fair, and because its so brand-spanking new, there isnt any nutritional information for it.

From what I can tell, its a honkin doughnut (maybe jelly filled?!) topped with chocolate sauce, glazed strawberries, and a whole lot of whipped cream. Sounds like the most balanced breakfast a state fair can offer.

9. Deep-Fried Oreos

We're hoping to find funnel cake, deep fried candy bars and maybe cotton candy in our eggs this year! Happy Easter from the #IndyStateFair #Easter A photo posted by @indystatefair on Mar 27, 2016 at 6:44am PDT

Dont let the size fool you. One serving of Deep-Fried Oreos, which usually comes in a tray with 3-5 of them, is about 890 calories. I cant imagine any other way Id like to spend 890 of my hard-earned calories, can you? Find them at Indiana this year, among many other states, Im sure.

10. Bacon Bomb Explosion

I dont know whats happening her, but, frankly, it frightens me a little. This was the peoples choice burger for the 2016 Florida state fair. You ready for the description? You should probably sit down for this. Its a ground chuck burger with ranch, BBQ sauce, and a secret seasoning. On top of that youll find bacon crumbles, hickory smoked bacon patties, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles, all on a Kaiser roll. No caloric info available here either. Maybe dont wear a white t-shirt when you eat it.

The post 10 of the most intense foods you can eat at the fair this year appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f124442%2fblakelivelytheshallows

Warning: this post contains spoilers for The Shallows, a movie you can pretty much determine the outcome of from the trailer.

The Shallows is a tale of profound confusion.

For an hour and a half, Blake Lively evades a vicious shark with only a passing understanding of typical human behavior. Nothing makes sense, and yet everything is predictable. Here are our deep questions.

SEE ALSO: Presenting that Blake Lively shark attack movie you've been waiting for

We will refer to Blake Lively's character, medical school dropout Nancy Adams, as Blake Lively in this post because there is no pretending that The Shallows is anything other than that Blake Lively shark attack movie.

1. How is there so much blood?

During Blake Lively's first encounter with a shark, it bites her leg. It's a brutal injury, but that does not explain why the entire ocean is suddenly bright red. Blake Lively is not like you and I, certainly, but famous people do not have more blood than non-famous people  it's one of of the universe's few equalizers.

2. Why did she wear so much jewelry to go surfing?

The Shallows presents Blake Lively's decision to wear large earrings to go surfing as a life-saving foresight. Obviously she knew she would have to perform emergency surgery on herself!

3. How does Blake Lively have perfect cell phone service?

Early on in the movie, Blake Lively takes out her phone and looks at pictures of her mom  exactly three pictures that tell you everything you need to know to contextualize Blake Lively's decision to quit med school and go surfing alone. Blake Lively's mom used to surf at that specific location, she gave birth to Blake Lively and then she fought a losing battle with cancer.

To cement the Nicholas Sparks storyline, Blake Lively places a video call to her kid sister back home without even a second of buffering, despite the fact that she is in a very remote location.

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4. What did Blake Lively think would happen when she asked a shark, "Where are you taking me?"

She was on a whale corpse when she posed the question just to paint a picture.

5. Are sharks total Blairs?

The commanding threat of a shark in a part of the ocean that does not normally have sharks as soon as Blake Lively shows up smacks of a Gossip Girl revenge plot. Leighton Meester was the series' clear gem, and yet, Lively's had a significantly more high profile career.

6. How are Blake Lively's boobs completely unscathed?

The ocean is not kind to Blake Lively in The Shallows  she is burned, bruised, slashed open and infected. But nothing ever happens to her boobs. Not even a cut! While I certainly do not wish any harm on Blake Lively's boobs, I do not understand how they survived without even a scratch.

7. Why do birds listen when Blake Lively speaks?

The breakout star of The Shallows is Steven Seagull  a nice little joke for any of the cinephiles checking out The Shallows. It is a seagull that dislocates its wing and, thus, has no choice but to remain in Blake Lively's company. She talks to the seagull, and it listens for some reason, obeying her commands like a dog.

8. How did the shark catch on fire and not get burned?

Yeah, the shark jumps up into the air in flames at one point. That happens.

9. Why wasn't her leg amputated?

Look, unlike Blake Lively, I do not have a partial medical degree, but I'm pretty sure that when a shark bites your leg open and your lower extremities are ravaged by gangrene, it causes more damage than just a scar. And yet, a year later, Blake Lively's legs are totally fine, except for a scar that shows she's deep.

10. Where are there clean beaches in Galveston?

Galveston, TX is not known for its clear waters, but somehow, Blake Lively's family visits beaches just off the Port of Houston that aren't full of trash in the film's warm and fuzzy send off. It would be great to know where those idyllic locations are so non-Blake Lively residents of the Gulf Coast can also enjoy them.

11. Why aren't there already ten sequels planned?
After spending more than 300 years on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the 17th-century French ship that went by the name La Belle, or "The Beautiful," has finally found a new resting place at a museum in Texas.

Archaeologists discovered the shipwreck in 1995, but it took them 17 years to excavate and restore the ship, they said in a statement. Upon finding the wreck, the researchers were able to identify it as La Belle, a French-made ship that sank off the coast of Matagorda Bay (an area about 110 miles, or 177 kilometers, southwest of Houston) in 1686.

"It's been exciting, a huge headache and a huge frustration at times, but I love old ships and in particular this one, Peter Fix, a watercraft conservator at the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University, said in the statement. "Needless to say, it's been a challenging, emotional ride." [Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep]

La Belle, now housed at the Bullock State History Museum in Austin, is one of the most important shipwrecks ever uncovered in North America, Fix said.

The ship was one of four under the command of Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687), a famous French pioneer who explored the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The ships carried La Salle and 300 settlers who planned to colonize the Gulf Coast, expanding France's influence in the New World.

The ships left France on Aug. 1, 1684, but all four ran into trouble. Within two years, all four ships  Le Joly, LAimable, St. Francois and La Belle  returned to France, sank or were captured by pirates, Fix said.

La Belle's journey

La Belle was constructed in France in 1684, and originally measured 54 feet long by 14 feet wide (16 by 4.3 meters). It was designed with a shallow hull so that it could navigate coastal and river waters, including the Mississippi River, Fix said.

However, La Belle never made it to the Mississippi. Poorly drawn maps led the French explorers astray, Fix said. The small fleet missed the Mississippi River delta, and instead landed more than 400 miles (644 km) away, on the Texas coast.

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Two storms within days of each other first grounded and later sank La Belle in Matagorda Bay in the winter of 1686, just two years after its construction.

There were 27 people onboard when the ship sank, but only six survived and returned to Fort St. Louis, a nearby French settlement, Fix said.

Within months, mutineers killed La Salle near present-day Navasota, Texas, during a trek to Canada, where the explorer was hoping to gather a rescue mission for his colony. Although La Salle's mission failed, it eventually helped pave the way for Texas' creation  that is, without French influence.

"With the ship went a famous explorer's dreams and a kings ambition to expand his empire to the New World," the Texas Historical Commission said.

Artifacts galore

Despite spending more than three centuries underwater, La Belle was chock-full of artifacts from 17thcentury France, largely because "La Salle used the ship as a sort of floating warehouse," Fix said.

"When excavated, the archaeological site was found full of merchandise  everything requisite to form a colony and establish trade; knives, ax heads, pottery, tiny glass beads, bottles and brass pins  there are hundreds, or in some cases, thousands, of samples," Fix said. "Personal items including clothing, combs and even a signet ring were found, and also weaponry such as long guns, lead shot, sword parts and three bronze cannons, which were extraordinarily well preserved." [Disasters at Sea: 6 Deadliest Shipwrecks]

After finding the shipwreck, the Texas Historical Commission decided to build a temporary dam around the sunken ship. This allowed archaeologists to pump out the water around the ship, and excavate it in the mud, instead.

Excavations lasted from September 1996 until April 1997. During that time, archaeologists recovered about 1.6 million items from the La Belle wreck, which gave them insights into how the French explorers planned to set up the colony.

La Belle itself is undoubtedly the largest, and most valuable artifact, Fix said. A team, composed largely of Texas A&M nautical archaeology graduate students, meticulously preserved and reconstructed the ship.

"The reason the project took as long as it did was due to the nature of the material and artifact that had to be stabilized," Fix said.

"La Belles timbers had become waterlogged and heavily degraded during the 300-year immersion in Matagorda Bay, some even had the consistencies of a wet sponge, and we had to employ methods that would slowly displace the water and strengthen the wood."

For instance, the archaeologists decided to "freeze-dry" each timber, then remove any remaining water. "Had we not used this method, the timbers most likely would have shrunk and distorted so much, they could not have been used to reassemble the ship," Fix said.

Three state agencies worked together to restore and bring the boat to the museum. The boat and its artifacts actually belong to France, according to an international treaty, but the exhibit will stay in Texas indefinitely, under the stewardship of the Texas Historical Commission, Fix said.

Original article on Live Science.

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Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The number of dead trees in Californias forests dramatically increased in just one years time.

The latest survey from the United States Forest Service revealed that an additional 26 million trees have succumbed to drought, a devastating bark beetle infestation, and hotter temperatures in 2015. That brings the number of trees that have died in the Sierra Nevada to 66 million since 2010.

For a state already in the throes of fire season, the discovery of a 65 percent increase in the number of dead trees within its forests is a troubling sign.

These new numbers really show that the tree die-off is spreading at an astronomical rate, said Amy Head, a Cal Fire education officer. Its unprecedented, and its changing the landscape of whole ecosystems in California.

The new figures are based on a May aerial survey assessment that found millions of new dead trees across the state. The southern portion of the Sierrasfrom Tuolumne County down to Kern Countyshows the most severe tree mortality rates per acre.

The issue is the persistent drought. Bark beetles have been having a field day on the states weakened trees. Typically the trees are strong enough to withstand the beetles attack, using sap, or pitch, to keep the tiny pests from infiltrating the wood, planting larvae, and cutting off the trees flow of nutrients from the leaves to the trunk. But with ever-increasing temperatures and less water, the stressed trees cant put up a fight.

Most species of bark beetles in California are native, theyve been around here for a while, so thats not a new threat, Head said. The issue now is there are a tremendous amount of trees already weakened when the beetles come in, and they cant fend them off.

RELATED: The Redwoods Last Stand

And droughts like the one California is currently mired in will only grow more severe. Research conducted last year found that climate change made Californias drought 15 to 20 percent worse.

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Thats left the states forests littered with 100-foot-tall matches ready to igniteand led Gov. Jerry Brown to call a state of emergency during last years fire season. An extra $32 million in funding was dedicated for forest restoration work, including removing more than 77,000 dead trees located near urban centers and homes.

But thats just a drop in the bucket compared with what the Forest Service believes it needs to adequately protect the nations forest from devastating wildfires. Just last year, the agency spent more of its allocated budget on fighting wildfires than on all other services combined.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack estimates that by 2025, fighting wildfires will take up two-thirds of Forest Service fundingor nearly $1.8 billionas summer temperatures continue to rise, and fire seasons continue to lengthen.

Vilsack sees the move in California to pay for fire suppression through emergency action as a way to change the way firefighting is funded. Instead of coming out of the Forest Services regular annual budget, wildfire fighting would be funded according to the severity of each seasonsimilar to how Congress funds other natural disasters.

While the fire risk is currently the most extreme in California because of the tree mortality, forests across the country are at risk of wildfire and urgently need restoration requiring a massive effort to remove this tinder and improve their health, Vilsack said in statement. Unfortunately, unless Congress acts now to address how we pay for firefighting, the Forest Service will not have the resources necessary to address the forest die-off and restore our forests.

Take the Pledge: Help Conserve Forests Around the Globe for Future Generations

Related stories on TakePart:





 Reservoirs Are Filling Up, but Californias Drought Isnt Over

 Californias Drought Is Stressing Out Nearly a Billion Trees

 Researchers Are Climbing Trees to Save Californias Giant Sequoias From Drought

Original article from TakePart
The Daily Beast

Mark Hoffman/Pool/GettyDarrell Brooks, the man who killed six people and injured dozens of others when he plowed his SUV into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last November, was found guilty on six counts of intentional homicide on Wednesday. The verdict puts an end to the dizzying trial where Darrell Brooks represented himself, unsuccessfully arguing that he didnt intentionally kill his victims. The jury began deliberations on Tuesday and reached a verdict by Wednesday morning. Brook
Rome (AFP) - Some 5,000 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the Italian coastguard said, averting another potential high seas disaster.

A coastguard spokesman said it appeared many people had left the Libyan coast to attempt the perilous voyage across the sea to Europe during a spell of good weather.

"Around 5,000 people were saved in 43 rescue operations," the coastguard said in a statement.

A body was found on board one of the rubber dinghies, a coastguard spokesman told AFP earlier.

"We registered a large number of voyages today, after several days of bad weather at sea had stopped people leaving Libya," the spokesman added.

Most of the migrants were on the dinghies, while three wooden boats were being used by Libyan people traffickers, the coastguard said.

The Italian navy also noted a mass movement of boats in the Mediterranean from "the first light of dawn."

Five Italian navy ships took part in the rescue operations, together with two vessels from the EU's Operation Sophia, which was set up to combat human smuggling in the Mediterranean, and another four from humanitarian organisations.

More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in overcrowded boats since 2014, according to UN figures published earlier this month.

This year alone more than 50,000 migrants and asylum seekers from Africa have managed to complete the journey to Italy, a country that, like Greece, acts mainly as a gateway to northern Europe for most of the newcomers.
Earlier this month, oil prices settled above the psychologically important $50 per barrel level for the first time in more than 10 months.

The Oil Rally

Crude prices, which reached $110 per barrel in mid-2014, fell to a 12-year low of $26.21 in Feb as investors worried about the oversupplied market. The commoditys collapse threatened the industrys creditworthiness by hurting cash flows, drying up liquidity and pummeling producers profit margins.

However, indications that supply was easing helped oil prices rebound some 90% since then.

The surge in benchmark crude is being driven by supply outages in Nigeria, Libya, Venezuela and Canada  countries that hold some of the worlds major sources of crude.

The upward pressure in oil prices also reflect the U.S. Energy Department's recent inventory releases that show crude stockpile builds turning into draws. Things have been further helped by a continued decline in U.S. crude production and drop in oil-directed rigs  indicating a break in shale drilling activities.

Will the Momentum Last?

The million dollar question now is whether the rally marks the beginning of a powerful turnaround in oil prices on the back of deep cuts from explorers, or a temporary surge based on optimistic forecasts.

Despite oils massive recovery since February, its still under $50  about half the level of two years ago  and far below the breakeven price for many energy companies. Therefore, the commodity is not yet out of the woods and record high inventories amid robust production could still push it to the depths of multiyear lows.

Even the industry, which is cutting deeper, seems to think so. Companies around the world continue to slash jobs, defer/cancel projects worth billions of dollars and renegotiate contracts with suppliers to help protect their balance sheets.

To sum up, even as crude prices continue to make their way up, world oil supply remains in a glut and is likely to remain so through 2016. This might make any oil price strength short-lived.

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Confused? Broker Recommendation Can Help

The uncertainty of oil prices means that the future direction of the commoditys movement is anybody's guess. However, fundamentals suggest that the odds are firmly stacked against a sustained rally and point toward sideways-to-flat crude price expectation. In fact, some industry observers feel that the door is open for one more retest of the recent multi-year lows.

On the contrary though, the commoditys recovery to $50, predictably, has had a positive effect on stocks in the sector. In particular, savvy investors might view the price bump as the impetus the stocks need after freefalling for two years. Undoubtedly, still a long way to go, but improving crude prices may have already primed certain oil producers and linked entities for upward momentum.

In such troubled times, it might be a wise decision to go ahead with stocks preferred by analysts who have a deep fundamental knowledge and understanding of the industry and its companies.

Stocks with brokerage upgrades are often in for a good day and probably more. Consequently, a downgrade may indicate rough days ahead. Whatever the movement, the market tends to react to it. Also, research shows that stocks with broker rating upgrades outperform those that aren't upgraded and they almost certainly record better results than those stocks that get downgraded.

Here Are the Stocks

With the help of our Zacks Stock Screener, we have selected 5 stocks that have been given Strong Buy/Buy rating by 80% or more brokers. A favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy) further adds value to these stocks.

Braskem SA BAK: Together with its subsidiaries, Braskem SA produces and sells thermoplastic resins. Headquartered in Brazil, the company is the largest petrochemical operation in Latin America. Over the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2016 experienced an increase of 25% to $2.32.

Zacks Rank #1

Strong Buy or Buy broker rating: 100%

Independence Contract Drilling Inc. ICD: Houston, TX-based Independence Contract drilling offers land drilling services for oil and natural gas producers primarily in the U.S. It has an excellent earnings surprise history, having beaten estimates in each of the last four quarters at an average rate of 49.68%.

Zacks Rank #1

Strong Buy or Buy broker rating: 85.71%

PetroChina Co. Ltd. ADR PTR: Incorporated in 1999, PetroChina is headquartered in Beijing. The company  one of the leading integrated oil companies in the Peoples Republic of China  is involved in the production and distribution of oil and gas, apart from refining and marketing operations. PetroChinas expected EPS growth rate for 3 to 5 years currently stands at 15%

Zacks Rank #2

Strong Buy or Buy broker rating: 100%

PBF Logistics L.P. PBFX: Parsippany, NJ-based PBF Logistics operates refined petroleum products storage and transporting facilities. It has an excellent earnings surprise history, having beaten/met estimates in each of the last four quarters at an average rate of 13.68%.

Zacks Rank #2

Strong Buy or Buy broker rating: 100%

Murphy USA Inc. MUSA: Murphy USA is a retailer of gasoline products and convenience store merchandise primarily in the US. The El Dorado, Arkansas-headquartered companys expected EPS growth rate for 3 to 5 years currently stands at 15.70%.

Zacks Rank #2

Strong Buy or Buy broker rating: 80%

Bottom Line

The inherent volatility in the energy sector simply cannot be ignored. Also, it may still take some time for the companies to emerge from this prolonged weakness. However, the above-mentioned stock picks are expected to be good bets given their ranks, brokers confidence, past performances and future growth projections.

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Hollywood, California, represents one of the most diverse housing markets within all of Los Angeles. Located in the central-north area of the city, Hollywood comprises a number of different neighborhoods and districts, each of them having distinctive qualities.

The Hollywood Hills, with picture-window views overlooking Runyon Canyon and Griffith Park, wind their way through the north side of Hollywood. Below the hills, the central region of Hollywood is the commercial district, where movie theaters and the Hollywood Walk of Fame make up a tourist district interspersed with condos and small houses. On the east side of Hollywood, between movie studios, are more condensed city lots. And the west side, near the Sunset Strip, is the trendy area adjacent to West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The area's diversity means home prices area all over the map, with some areas featuring multi-million dollar mansions and others consisting of homes selling for $700,000.

[See: The 20 Most Desirable Places to Live in the U.S.]

Curious on how you can find a home in this star-studded Los Angeles neighborhood at the right price? To help answer that question, we've consulted some of Hollywood's top-performing real estate agents as identified by OpenHouse, an agent referral company (and a U.S. News partner). Here are some of the tips those agents had to share.

See the potential. In this high-cost real estate market, most buyers are looking for turn-key properties. However, Richard Schulman of Keller Williams Realty says that buying a move-in-ready property isn't always a smart idea. "Rather than trying to get value by outfoxing other bidders, we encourage buyers to find value in an underappreciated property," he says.

The truth is, many of these properties are not as expensive to remodel as buyers may think. Schulman's team helps buyers find properties at good price and with potential. These properties, located throughout Hollywood, often come at a discount.

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Put together a buyer's package. Sellers are impressed by solid, stable buyers who they can be confident will close on the house. The best way for a buyer to demonstrate stability is by building a relationship with them. Valerie Talbert of Partners Trust helps her buyers put together a package of materials before they even start looking. This includes a pre-approval letter from the bank, proof of funds and a copy of their credit score. She even has them write a letter about themselves that they can personalize and send to each seller, which has been known to help.

"If you already have that all together, you can be ready to look at a house immediately when it hits the market and put an offer down right away," Talbert says.

[See: The 20 Best Places to Live in the U.S. for Quality of Life.]

Consider a condo. Hollywood experienced commercial redevelopment in the early 2000s that has led to a spate of new multifamily housing developments opening in the past few years. Now, with public transportation and safe, walkable streets with trendy shops and restaurants, Hollywood's central district has become home to a variety of luxury condominium complexes at a much more affordable price point that traditional houses.

"You can be in a really nice condo for $600,000. You'll even find one-bedrooms in the high 400s," says Schulman. That's a pretty steep discount from the $800,000, 1,000-square-foot entry level home.

Jump the gun. Buyers should be ready to look at homes the moment they hit the market. Since it doesn't take long for a seller to see offers on a property (most have multiple offers in a week or two), buyers should bid early. Sellers are encouraged not to keep their houses on the market for very long in such a hot market, so an early offer will assure that the prompt buyer will be considered.

It's easier for buyers to do this if they're well prepared and know their limits and criteria ahead of time. "Buyers have to know their market and their price point before they start looking," Talbert says. "It's less about finding a certain area, and more about being prepared and knowing what they want."

[See: The 20 Best Affordable Places to Live in the U.S.]

Go out of the way. Since most Hollywood house hunters these days are concerned with finding a convenient, walkable location, a savvy buyer might want to step just outside the fray. Schulman finds that the more out-of-the-way houses tend to be a better value. "If you go up into the hills, prices peak where you see the first city views. But the hills keep going," he says. "As you keep going up the hill, farther away from the Sunset Strip and everything that's going on in Hollywood, homes get less expensive."

A little counterintuitive? Maybe. But convenience has its value. "The top of Mulholland is actually a pretty good deal," Schulman says.





More From US News & World Report


drying shark fins

With declining populations of sharks worldwide, there have been multiple bans on the sale of shark fins in the United States. However, some species are still allowed to be sold in certain states. It is also almost impossible to know if a shark was caught legally or not, Sea Shepherd

says, because many markets often lie about the species they have caught and where they caught them.

Today, 5 United States senators are introducing the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2016.

Cory Booker (D, NJ), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), John McCain (R-AZ), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) hope to eliminate the selling of shark fins in every state in the nation. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) helped with the original sponsoring of the bill as well. There are currently 11 states (TX, DE, HI, IL, MA, MD, NY, OR, RI, CA, WA) as well as the territories of American Somoa, Guam, and the North Mariana Islands that have implemented a ban.

Sharks are one of the ocean's apex predators, meaning they control the rest of the food chain and countless interactions in the blue abyss. They regulate populations, as well as provide economic value for humans, like tourist boating trips.

Every year, it is estimated that over 70 million sharks end up in the global shark fin trade, and fining is pushing some species of sharks to the brink of extinction," Senator Booker said. "With this bipartisan measure, America can become a global leader by shutting down the domestic market for shark fins. Sharks play a pivotal role in marine ecosystems, and we must do more to protect them.

If the act is approved, it will remove the United States contribution of shark fins to the global market, lowering demand and hopefully creating a lull in finning. It will also allow for stronger enforcement of the "no finning" ban in the United States and put the country in a stronger position to advocate internationally for abolishing the fin trade in other countries.

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Sharks may seem like a terror thanks to exploding negative social perception of the animal since the advent of cinema, but they are a vital part of the world's oceans that need to be saved. The successful implementation of this act will benefit other animals as well as human interest.

NOW WATCH: Bananas give you more radiation exposure than living next to a nuclear power plant





More From Business Insider


If your family has a strong set of values, it could lead to more wealth for you and your relatives.

U.S. Trust, a Bank of America private wealth management firm, conducted a recent survey of U.S. adults who have $3 million or more of "investable" assets. The survey uncovered some interesting results:

-- The wealthy consistently say hard work, personal ambition and family values are the drivers of their success.

-- 80 percent had firm disciplinarians for parents.

-- Three out of four grew up poor or in the middle class.

These findings suggest that when parents instill good -- yet firm -- family values in their children, there is a chance of financial success, no matter the family's income or class level. Perhaps this is because the right family values can create smart financial habits that build wealth. Bad family values, on the other hand, could breed bad habits -- which could lead to financial troubles down the line.

[See: How to Live on $13,000 a Year.]

"It is important to realize that just as positive financial habits can be passed down to generations, so too can negative financial habits," says Aaron Hatch, a certified financial planner and co-founder of financial planning and investment management firm Woven Capital.

Financial habits and family values can span across multiple generations, with each generation reinforcing the same values and habits for the next. The Wall Street Journal recently reported two economists found that the wealthiest families in Florence, Italy today are the descendants of the richest Florence families from nearly 600 years ago, which Hatch also pointed out.

"While it is naive to say that these families have retained their wealth solely because they passed along strong family values, it is nevertheless interesting to note that these families most likely inherited more than money," Hatch says. "Many people learn the value of money -- or other important lessons about money and finances -- from grandparents who may have learned those values or habits from their grandparents."

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Every family could benefit from a strong set of family values -- especially families who want to be rich. If you want to ensure financial success for your kids and even your future great-great-great grandchildren, consider adopting these seven family values.

Trust and Honesty

Many families believe talking honestly and openly about finances is taboo.

"Generally, people would rather have a root canal than talk openly about money or their financial issues," Hatch says. "If you were to ask 10 of your friends how much money their parents earned or the balances in their parents' 401k, the majority would tell you they have no idea."

But, not being honest and transparent can lead to dire consequences for some families that want to pass down their wealth to their heirs. Over a 20-year period, The Williams Group -- which helps families retain control of their assets and family harmony during estate transfers -- found that 70 percent of successful families end up losing control of their assets, failing to pass down the wealth from generation to generation. According to TWG, a "lack of trust and communication are the single most important issues that undermine successful transfer of family wealth."

If you want future generations to retain the family wealth, you and your family members should start talking about money openly and honestly to build trust.

Frugality

Being frugal is a crucial part of saving money and growing wealth. By teaching your kids and family members how to be frugal and live below their means, your family can build a sizable savings nest egg that could one day morph into a large family fortune.

Practicing frugality also teaches family members and children how to avoid situations that can destroy wealth. For example, people who are frugal stick to their budgets and won't pull out a credit card for items they can't afford. By keeping the plastic in their pockets, they're avoiding credit card interest that can chip away at their hard-earned savings.

[See: 50 Ways to Improve Your Finances in 2016.]

Hard Work

Expanding your means is just as important as living below them if you want to get rich. But expanding your means often requires hard work.

In his book "Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to Be Happy and Successful in Life," author Tom Corley writes that expanding your means can involve creating more income sources, such as starting a part-time business or developing a new, marketable skill that can lead to higher earnings.

To teach this family value to your kids, have them perform chores to earn an allowance. And if they're old enough, encourage them to take on jobs outside of the house. Since learning new money-making skills takes time, teach your children when they're young so they have more time to grow their wealth.

Teamwork

When it comes to money, you can only do so much on your own. Recognizing this limitation, wealthy people often create teams of people who can provide financial advice and counsel, Hatch says.

"[They] recognize that it is hard to stay 100 percent objective when you are making decisions about their own money since money can often be a very emotional subject," he says. "Likewise, financially successful families also realize that they need to work together in order to convert their income into wealth."

Creativity

Creativity is an important trait for social interactions, as well as for identifying what you're passionate about. Passion for your work is a key part of success, and you can help unlock this enthusiasm in your kids and relatives by supporting creative activities that can generate money.

"The key is to be able to engage in some lifelong creativity activity that also pays you enough money to help support a family," Corley writes. "You can't be successful in life if you don't have a passion for what you do for a living, and you can only find your passion in life by pursuing creative activities."

Philanthropy

Donating to charity could lead to a richer, more satisfying life. Plus, giving back can help you and your family members achieve financial goals, which in return can help you achieve the wealth you've always wanted.

"Often, by choosing to allocate money toward specific causes, it helps people set priorities and align their finances with their values," Hatch says. "People who are clear about their priorities and align their finances with their financial goals tend to be more satisfied with their life."

[See: 11 Tips for Investors in Their 30s and 40s.]

Higher Education

Over the course of a 40-year full-time working life, the median earnings of bachelor's degree recipients without an advanced degree are 65 percent higher than high school graduates' median earnings, according to 2013 College Board data. With this statistic in mind, you and your family should value higher education.

And remember that going to college isn't just about getting a fancy piece of paper that will help you secure a job; it's about investing in yourself for the long term. You'll develop new skills, make new contacts and join a large network of professionals -- all of which can help you expand your means and make more money.
(Photo: Courtesy of Alex Abramovich)

The babys room is painted pale yellow. The crib is assembled. There are piles of adorable newborn outfits. In short, Alex Abramovich and his wife, Caroline, are ready for their first child and they are over the moon. Carolines due date is July 29.

But their journey to parenthood has been rocky. The healthcare that Abramovich, a transgender man, received at a Toronto fertility clinic was discriminatory because of his gender identity, he says. Now the 35-year-old is considering filing a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

The experience was really dehumanizing, said Abramovich, a scientist at Torontos Centre for Addiction and Mental Health who has researched LGBTQ youth homelessness for 10 years. They made me feel like a disease.

ALSO SEE: Women arent the only people who menstruate



This is a story about peoples discomfort with transgender Canadians. It is about healthcare standards that need improvement. This is a story about love, and our ability to make love and share love. Ultimately it is about understanding the beauty of the changing architecture of families.

The story begins in early 2015 when Abramovich expressed his desire to have a child who would be genetically related to him. He and Caroline, married since September 2014, decided to fertilize his eggs with donor sperm and implant the embryo in Caroline for her to carry.

There was an impediment though; Abramovichs doctors didnt discuss egg freezing with him before he began testosterone. This meant Abramovich had to wean off his male hormones for several months before he could begin a round of ovary (or follicle) stimulating hormone injections in order to produce multiple eggs. These would then be retrieved and fertilized in a lab prior to being implanted in Caroline, who is now 33.

(Photo: Courtesy of Alex Abramovich)



The clinic

Abramovich and Caroline did their research and settled on a busy hospital in downtown Toronto. This is how Mount Sinai Fertility describes itself online: We thrive on being an inclusive and positive community: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people are welcome and encouraged to attend.

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The couple felt safe. We thought, OK, here is a hospital that has gone out of its way to crate a trans-inclusive policy, Abramovich says.

In July 2015, some three months after he stopped taking testosterone, Abramovich had his first ultrasound. He was instructed to put on a hospital gown and sit in a waiting room with female patients.

Obviously people were thinking, Why is this dude here? he says. A nurse looking for another patient saw Abramovich and her jaw dropped. She started to walk away, paused, and looked back. She gawked at him three times.

I wanted to say, Yes, what you see is real. I am actually a person sitting here, Abramovich said. But in the situation you just freeze and feel shame.

ALSO SEE: Transition process full of surprising costs for transgender men and women



He stared at the wall before him and saw a large trans-inclusivity poster. It was ironic that I was made to feel like a freak while I was staring at a picture of three trans people.

He had to deal with the same nurse in the ultrasound room. There was a power imbalance with two doctors and that nurse, he said. That ultrasound room was awkward and silent.

After the appointment he called Mount Sinai to file the first of three complaints and he suggested that, in future visits, he change his clothes in the ultrasound room and wait for the medical team. The nurse practitioner agreed and assured him there would be a plan of care in place.

Yet a month later he was again directed to change into a gown and sit in the waiting room surrounded by female patients. He was crushed. The duty nurse referred to Abramovich as she. Caroline spoke up, He, you mean he. But the nurse continued to use the wrong personal pronoun even as Caroline corrected her.

(Photo: Courtesy of Alex Abramovich)



Abramovich described another appointment in which the doctor was so uncomfortable that she trembled while conducting his ultrasound. It was obvious she couldnt bear to look at me. Instead she stared at the wall, he said. I wanted so badly to say, Just relax. Im not going to bite you.

During his final ultrasound the same nurse who had repeatedly referred to Abramovich as she was present and said she for the third time. The medical director was present and she corrected the nurse.

Afterwards, Abramovich told the medical director he didnt want that nurse present during the egg retrieval procedure. The director told Abramovich: Weve all received training but it just doesnt stick for some people.

Abramovich was dumbstruck. I never had high expectations [but] in Canada, and in a city like Toronto that is so diverse and in a major urban hospital, it should not be so difficult to treat patients with dignity and respect, like a human being.

While he says he understands that transgender fertility and reproductive health may be a newer area for some fertility clinics, if a clinic states it has a transgender-inclusive policy, then this should never happen. Telling a patient all of our staff have received training in this area but it just doesnt stick for some is not acceptable, he said.

ALSO SEE: How different is it to come out of the closet in 2016?



Mount Sinai did not comment on Abramovichs case but in an email statement said it encourages feedback from patients.

We work very closely with leaders of LGBTI2S Community to ensure that access to care, including fertility, is inclusive, accessible and compassionate. This includes extensive training and ongoing research about how to improve access to care, wrote Dr. Ellen Greenblatt, the fertility clinics medical director, and Marylin Kanee, the hospitals human rights director, in a joint statement.

The health-care sector must continue to work as allies to ensure that we are addressing the needs of the trans community, and Sinai Health System is committed to upholding our reputation for leading in this area.

Abramovich was so stressed by his experience that he hesitated before agreeing to be interviewed. Caroline declined to talk about what happened. Abramovich texted: It was a traumatizing experience and it was really difficult for her to witness how they treated me.



(The City of Toronto marks its first official Transgender Day of Remembrance with a flag-raising ceremony on November 20, 2014. Photo: Newzulu)



Family planning

Abramovich isnt the only transgender man in the world raising a family.

A 2011 Belgian study published in the journal Human Reproduction, reported that 22 per cent of transgender men already had children while 37.5 per cent said they would have considered freezing their eggs before transitioning if the procedure had been available. In addition, 54 per cent of respondents said they wanted to have children.

In December 2015, new coverage from the Ontario government came into effect providing one cycle of IVF treatment regardless of sexual and gender orientation or family status. For transgender people, the funding covers the cost of monitoring menstrual cycles and it pays for the retrieval and freezing of eggs and sperm.

Ontario residents pay out-of-pocket for annual storage fees and for fertility drugs. And in May this year the federal government introduced Bill C-16, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code to protect transgender people from discrimination and hate propaganda.

ALSO SEE: What sparks the hate behind homophobia?



Abramovich began his hormone treatment before Ontarios coverage came into effect. He and Caroline spent approximately C$20,000 on fertility medication, egg freezing, embryo transfer, and IVF.

He noted that as Canada passes bills and policies protecting trans people, and community members feel more comfortable coming out. they also need to have access to health care. To that end, he feels doctors need more training. In addition theres a needs for more research and cultural competency resources for medical professionals.

His advice to trans people planning to start a family is to have an honest conversation with the potential fertility clinic and to ensure staff have received cultural competency training.

Healthcare without care

A report released this month in the journal Lancet noted that, many transgender people live on the margins of society, facing stigma, discrimination, exclusion, violence, and poor health. They often experience difficulties accessing appropriate health care.

And an October 2015 report by the National Institute of Health in the U.S. found that although programs providing health care for transgender people have grown in recent years, there remains a gaping chasm between what transgender people need and what is taught in health professional schools and postgraduate training programs.

As a result, many health professionals are unprepared to provide quality care, the report noted, adding that this is true throughout the basics of supporting and affirming gender affirmation, cross sex hormone therapy or a variety of surgeries, as well as routine primary care.

In short, trans-competent or trans-friendly healthcare isnt widely available and the word care isnt an integral part of many healthcare facilities.

ALSO SEE: Bill C-16 protects transgender people but getting government IDs still a struggle



Andy Inkster is a transgender man and health promoter at Torontos LGBTQ Parenting Network which offers cultural and clinical competency workshops to fertility specialists in the GTA. He points out that fertility clinics are hyper-gendered environments where women are in one area and men are in another. For a trans person it makes for a very difficult clinical experience.

In the last five years, though, he has observed administrators at fertility clinics making an effort to establish procedures to accommodate trans clients. But theres a difference between establishing protocols and executing them, he says, adding, It has to be a conscious process.



While he didnt comment on Abramovichs case, Inkster did suggest that clinics examine all aspects of their healthcare protocols, from the reception area to booking appointments to the referral forms. The physicians, nurses, and lab technicians need to examine every aspect of how they can support and celebrate trans people in their practice, he said.

ALSO SEE: How one bank is trying to make their workplaces more LGBT-friendly



For example, a lab technician can explain to a trans man that the clinic is going to use the name the client prefers but it does need to freeze the embryo under the clients legal name. And then you just have to ask him to spell it out, he said. People can do their job in a respectful way and the trans patient gets the best care possible.

He also encourages clinics to create a workflow that increases patients privacy and reduces awkward encounters; the result is that dozens of patients wont be sitting in a waiting room dressed only in a gown. Its also less uncomfortable for cis women who might be sitting there and they see a guy there and feel vulnerable, too, Inkster said.

(Photo: Courtesy of Alex Abramovich)



Home stretch

Its just four weeks to the due date and Abramovich is nervous and excited about fatherhood.

All that matters is that we provide a safe and loving environment, he said. I hope our child doesnt have to face the type of discrimination Ive had to face. I hope our child grows up in a world where people are kind to each other.

Have any thoughts about this article? Let us know by tweeting @YahooStyleCA.


The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies on Thursday, ruling against a white student who sued the University of Texas at Austin for denying her admission.

The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, is a big believer in the myth of reverse racism. She insisted that she was rejected from the school because unqualified non-white students took her place. As ProPublica pointed out, Fisher's low grades probably had more to do with her being rejected from the school than affirmative action.

Twitter threw shade at Fisher in light of the decision, referring to her as #BeckyWithTheBadGrades  a reference to the song "Sorry" on Beyonce's album Lemonade, which contains the line "Becky with the good hair."

Here are some of the best tweets about #BeckyWithTheBadGrades:

You was looking for lawyers when you should've been looking for tutors #BeckyWithTheBadGradespic.twitter.com/sG4kmgh3ep

BeckyWithTheBadGrades is what happens when you're not even smart enough to know that affirmative action helps you more than anyone

BeckyWithTheBadGrades thought she was getting in... #StayMadAbby @ReignOfApril @TheAtlanticpic.twitter.com/W9Bbtgll3O

Your dad gave the school an endowment and they still won't accept you? #BeckyWithTheBadGrades #TrailofWhiteTears

Becky with the Bad Gradespic.twitter.com/1EfozYWNbb https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClpkFk-WQAAW4wM.jpg:large

Can't get into college? U better call #BeckyWithTheBadGradespic.twitter.com/cR2iemCkAQ

BeckyWithTheBadGrades How you gonna hate from outside of the university? You can't even get in!pic.twitter.com/t9jhMln8ST

BeckyWithTheBadGrades better check her white privilege, with her check-minus asspic.twitter.com/nCM75iw5YC

BeckyWiththebadgrades should have applied to Hogwarts. The Weasley's are legacies.

You done spent up your parents retirement to still be wrong. #StayMadAbby #BeckyWithTheBadGrades

when the entire academic institution was created to benefit you and you still don't make the cut #BeckyWithTheBadGrades

Stay mad, Abby.
* Sees 4th-qtr revenue between $8.25 bln-$8.50 bln

* Expects FY net revenue growth between 9.5 pct-10.5 pct

* 3rd-qtr consulting revenue rises 12.4 pct (Adds analyst, CEO comment)

June 23 (Reuters) - Accenture Plc posted better-than-expected quarterly net revenue, driven by demand for its digital services like cloud and security, particularly in its consulting unit.

However, shares of the company fell 1.26 percent to $117.49 in early trading after it forecast mid-range for its fourth-quarter revenue slightly below analysts' average estimate.

Accenture, incorporated in Ireland, said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of between $8.25 billion and $8.50 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $8.39 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

To cope with competition, the company has been investing heavily in its digital business, as more enterprise clients shift to technologies like analytics, cloud and security services.

"We are even now considering the next play...I'm thinking about artificial intelligence," Chief Executive Pierre Nanterme said on a conference call.

The company, whose competitors include, IBM Corp, India's Infosys Ltd, acquired analytics consulting company OPS Rules and Israel's Maglan to boost its cyber security portfolio in the third quarter.

"They are using higher revenue growth to invest in different parts of the business to sustain their model going forward...so the lower margin profile this year seems more discretionary than a sign of fundamental weakness," Stifel Nicolaus analyst David Grossman said.

The company, which offers consulting and outsourcing services, said it expects full year net revenue growth to be in the range of 9.5 percent to 10.5 percent in local currency, up from previous estimate of 8-10 percent.

Net revenue from Accenture's consulting business, which accounts for a little more than half of total revenue, rose 12.4 percent in the third quarter and outsourcing business revenue rose 4.2 percent.

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The net income attributable to Accenture rose to $897.2 million, or $1.41 per share, in the third quarter ended May 31, from $793.7 million, or $1.24 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.41 per share and revenue of $8.34 billion.

Net revenue, or revenue before reimbursements, rose to $8.43 billion from $7.77 billion.

(Reporting by Rishika Sadam in Bengaluru; Editing by Martina D'Couto and Shounak Dasgupta)
Belgrade (AFP) - An Air Serbia plane took off from Belgrade for New York Thursday -- the company's first direct flight to the United States after a 24-year interruption which began during the Balkan conflicts.

The direct connection "will boost our economic growth and bring our country closer to the United States and American people", said Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic at the launch, also attended by US ambassador Kyle Scott.

Departing in the morning after a 40-minute delay, the flight was to due to reach New York's JFK airport in ten hours. The service is set to run five times a week.

In 1992 JAT Airways -- the Yugoslav predecessor of Air Serbia -- stopped its direct flights to the United States after international sanctions were slapped on the country over Belgrade's role in the bloody conflicts surrounding the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Air Serbia is now the only regional airline offering direct flights to the United States, and a company official said 15,000 tickets have already been sold, according to state-run media.
Amazon Fashion Europe is the latest force to throw itself behind the body positivity movement  with a Say Something Nice campaign that strives to combat outfit shaming, and relies on the help of a few key influencers. According to WWD, the initiative comes with a short video in which a group of stylish women recall the times when they were criticized for the way they dress.

An off-hand comment can stick with us for a lifetime, designer Hana Tajima explains in the video. She, along with influencers including consultant Freddie Harel, fashion blogger Susie Bubble, fashion blogger Gala Gonzalez, and fashion writer Samar Seraqui de Buttafoco explain the effect outfit shaming has had on them, and how they decided to not allow the negativity to stop them from expressing their uniqueness. Fear of judgment does not change the way I dress, clearly, Bubble offers.

The U.K. has always been slightly ahead of the curve in comparison to the U.S. when it comes to promoting positive body images. Londons Mayor, Sadiq Khan recently announced plans to ban body shaming advertisements in the citys transportation network. Theres also the Advertising Standards Authority, which held its first meeting in 1962 and which has allowed people living in the U.K. an outlet for complaining about ads that dont sit right with them for whatever reason. Ads have been pulled for reasons ranging from super-skinny models to having depicted young girls in dangerous situations. The authority has been criticized for sometimes being too nitpicky, but at least consumers know they have a place to go to report problematic advertising.

Here in the States, brands like ModCloth are working to get legislation passed to put in place some kind of standard when it comes to the ads we see. Last week, the brand held an event on Capitol Hill in support of the Truth in Advertising Act, urging consumers to write their congresspeople and ask them to back the bill that wouldl put pressure on the Federal Trade Commission to develop regulations for over airbrushing, photoshopping, or altering the appearance of people in advertisements. Hopefully well be able to catch up to our friends across the pond!

Watch Amazons #SaySomethingNice video above.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.


Amber Heard returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday night, stepping out at LAX just under a week after her court face-off with ex Johnny Depp was pushed to later this summer.



Appearing noticeably thinner, Heard walked through the airport with a man who appeared to be her bodyguard. The actress, 30, was wearing black skinny jeans with a long-sleeve black shirt, oversize sunglasses and a wide-brim black hat.



Heard, who filed for divorce last month, has only been seen in public a handful of times since obtaining a temporary restraining order against Depp, whom she has accused of abusing her throughout their relationship.



The star's temporary restraining order was reissued last week, PEOPLE confirmed, but the court hearing for a permanent order was moved to Aug. 15 and 16. A status conference was also set for Aug. 2, but neither Depp nor Heard are required to attend.







In court documents, Depp's attorney, Laura Wasser, alleged that Heard "is attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse."





RELATED VIDEO: A look inside the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's tumultuous 15-month marriage





Depp, meanwhile, has been on his private island in the Bahamas and "has no plans to return to L.A." a source told PEOPLE on Thursday.



The source said that Depp's daughter Lily-Rose Depp, 17, has already visited him on the island, and his son Jack, 14, is expected to arrive with mother Vanessa Paradis, in a few days. The visits are an attempt to "cheer him up."



The actor is expected to return to the U.S. in July to continue touring with his band The Hollywood Vampires, the source said.
Jeff Goudy

Our reader Jeff captures the transition to summer:

Ive really enjoyed your America by Air series and thought Id share this shot from my flight into Denver [on Saturday]. Longs Peak is a very significant mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park, in the Front Range of Colorado, and to anyone who enjoys the beauty of 14,000 ft. mountains. It isnt as prominent in the shot as it is when viewed from Denver, but its famous East Face is clearly visible.

We dont have much about Rocky Mountain National Park in our archives, but a little passage popped out at me from an October 1998 piece from Erika Krouse on being single at weddings:

Sam visited me in September, and I drove him to Rocky Mountain National Park. Sam wanted pictures of elk, bighorn sheep; he wanted a mountain lion. I pulled the car over for every herd of animals. Sam jumped out with his point-and-shoot every time. He paused. The elk stared right at him. The bighorn sheep tossed its big head in Sams face. One after another, the animals stood still and then finally leaped away, disgusted, as Sam lowered his camera. Missed it.

But Jeff didnt miss that mountain goat on the tip of the wing. Previous animals on planes here. Update from Jeff:

I wish I could say that view of the mountain goat was clever and intentional. Its just a happy accident. Ironically, mountain goats arent native to Colorado. They were introduced to some of the ranges here in the 60s. As a non-native species, the ones that roam into Rocky Mountain National now and then are tranquilized and relocated elsewhere. So thats the best view of Longs Peak that a mountain goat has probably ever seen!

(America by Air archive here. Submission guidelines here.)

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Recognized for Highest Standards of Social and Environmental Performance; Developer Becomes the First Cannabis Company to Earn Respected Accreditation

DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / AmeriCann, Inc. (ACAN), a company that designs, develops and leases sustainable, state-of-the-art medical cannabis cultivation properties, has earned certification as a B Corporation, an acknowledgment of the Company's commitment to social and environmental ethics, transparency and accountability.

AmeriCann joins over 1,700 Certified B Corporations globally -- including 71 others in Colorado -- that have met the rigorous standards that measure a company's impact on its employees, suppliers, community, and the environment. Notable B Corps include Ben & Jerry's, Patagonia, Warby Parker, and Etsy, Inc. (ETSY).

"AmeriCann is proud to have earned B Corp certification, which is a formal recognition of the values that are essential to our company," said AmeriCann President Tim Keogh. "Our decision to seek independent certification raises the bar for the cannabis industry. We have always sought to set new standards for our industry and becoming the first cannabis company to receive this important certification validates these efforts."

The B Corp certification was granted by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies will compete to be best for the world and that society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity.

B Lab promotes robust standards that can be used by policymakers, investors and the general public to evaluate companies and their business practices.

AmeriCann designs, develops and leases sustainable medical cannabis cultivation properties exclusively to local partners in regulated markets. The company does not cultivate, process, distribute or sell cannabis. This business model provides AmeriCann great flexibility to pursue national and global opportunities.

Story continues

AmeriCann's sustainable greenhouse designs are more energy efficient than traditional indoor warehouse facilities that rely exclusively on artificial lighting. This can lower utility bills by up to 75%. Also, harnessing natural sunlight is the best energy source for plants.

AmeriCann's facilities are designed with AmeriCann's propriety cultivation and processing system called "Cannopy." The Cannopy system incorporates best practices, processes and procedures designed by AmeriCann's team of experts in traditional horticulture, lean manufacturing, medical research, facility construction, regulatory compliance, security, marijuana cultivation, plant science and genetics, extraction techniques and infused product development.

Utilizing advanced greenhouse technology for cultivation and the Cannopy system, AmeriCann's Preferred Partners have the ability to produce superior sun grown medicine with far less energy and a reduced environmental impact.

"We have the opportunity to make a significant impact on the fastest growing industry in the country," stated AmeriCann founder and CFO Ben Barton. "B Lab's motto of 'B the Change' aligns perfectly with our philosophy. Medical cannabis is in its formative stages and few companies anywhere have the potential to have such a positive influence."

AmeriCann's goal is to develop and own a significant portion of the estimated $27 billion in real estate that the cannabis industry will require nationwide. Previously, the Company announced plans to become a Real Estate Investment Trust "REIT."

As of June 2016, 25 states and Washington D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, 4 states have legalized cannabis for adults over 21 years of age, and in November there are 10 possible ballot measures for new legalization measures.

About B Corp

Certified B Corporations meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include consideration of stakeholder interests, and build collective voice through the power of the unifying B Corporation brand.

About B Lab

B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies will compete to be best for the world and that society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. B Lab drives this systemic change by: (1) building a global community of Certified B Corporations; (2) promoting Mission Alignment using innovative corporate structures like the benefit corporation to align the interests of business with those of society; (3) helping tens of thousands of businesses, investors and institutions Measure What Matters, by using the B Impact Assessment and B Analytics to manage their impact -- and the impact of the businesses with which they work -- with as much rigor as their profits; and (4) inspiring millions to join the movement through compelling storytelling by its multi-platform branded media company B the Change Media. For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net.

About AmeriCann

Americann is a publicly traded company that designs and plans to develop and lease sustainable, state-of-the-art medical cannabis cultivation properties. The Company has over 1,000,000 square feet of facilities in various stages of development. AmeriCann has preferred partners in Colorado, Massachusetts and Delaware. AmeriCann does not cultivate, process or distribute cannabis, but partners with local business to serve marijuana patients in their communities. More information about the Company is available at: www.americann.co.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act") (which Sections were adopted as part of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Statements preceded by, followed by or that otherwise include the words "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "project," "prospects," "outlook," and similar words or expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "should," "would," "may," and "could" are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any anticipated results, performance or achievements. The Company disclaims any intention to, and undertakes no obligation to, revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, a future event, or otherwise.

Contact Information:

Corporate:

AmeriCann, Inc.

3200 Brighton Blvd. Unit 114

Denver, CO 80216

(303) 862-9000

info@americann.co

www.americann.co

Investors:

Hayden IR

hart@haydenir.com

(917) 658-7878

SOURCE: AmeriCann, Inc.
London (AFP) - Breaking down in tears, Anthony Dunn recalled being branded a traitor and told he should leave the country for campaigning for Britain to stay in the European Union ahead of Thursday's vote.

After a campaign filled with confusing and often misleading claims, the 58-year-old Londoner is among many Britons horrified at the way the run-up to the historic referendum has divided their society.

"The most shocking thing about this entire referendum is how deeply personal it has become and how immensely hurtful," Dunn told AFP after attending a television debate.

Shaking with anger, he blamed Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, who pressed for the referendum and have led the rival campaigns.

"I am appalled at what the Tories have done to this country. They are ripping us apart," he said.

Both sides of the EU debate have accused each other of lies and scaremongering, dubbing each other "Project Fear" and "Project Hate" respectively, and both were criticised by independent bodies for misrepresenting facts.

The often aggressive tone of the debate has caused disquiet in many quarters, particularly after the murder of pro-European lawmaker Jo Cox last week, but political analysts are expecting a high turnout.

"While negative campaigning can put some people off, it also mobilises people," said Paul Whiteley, professor of government at the University of Essex.

"Everybody, even if they don't understand this or feel confused, think it's important," he told AFP.

Passions are high as the debate has focused on two key issues -- the risk that leaving could cause an economic shock, or the unwelcome prospect of further mass migration from other EU countries if Britain stays in the bloc.

Britons in general have no great love of the EU and for most people in the past decade it has been a side issue.

Research by Ipsos Mori published this month found significant misconceptions on issues such as the level of EU inward investment -- which was underestimated -- to the numbers of EU citizens living in Britain -- strongly overestimated.

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Polling experts say the campaign has in fact made little difference to public opinion on which way to vote, with the polls close since January with a few brief exceptions.

A Sky News online poll on Wednesday found that 75 percent of respondents did not think the campaigns had been helpful, with 40 percent even saying they had been actively unhelpful.

- 'Fears and emotion' -

Sara Hobolt, a professor in European studies at the London School of Economics, said few voters would have been enlightened by the campaign.

"It has become very negative and quite focused on people's fears and emotion, as opposed to trying to give a more nuanced set of information about what the EU is about," she told AFP.

The emphasis on the economy and immigration has given both sides a clear narrative but at the risk of excluding information on other issues, Hobolt said.

"It's hard to sift through the information and find out what the actual facts are," agreed Daniel Worwood, a 25-year-old engineering PhD student from northwest England who is backing "Leave".

Things are not helped by the fact that the main political parties are themselves divided on the referendum, although Conservative leader Cameron and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn both back "Remain".

- Divisive impact -

Amid the confusion there is also concern about the divisive impact of the campaign, in particular the relentless focus on immigration of those backing a Brexit.

The Daily Mirror, which supports a "Remain" vote, has described it as "the most divisive, vile and unpleasant political campaign in living memory".

One of the most contentious posters of the campaign was one published by the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP), showing a long queue of refugees under the headline "Breaking Point".

The murder of Jo Cox, a passionate pro-European who had campaigned for Syrian refugees, brought only a temporary respite in the campaign.

A YouGov poll this week found that 50 percent of the public -- and 70 percent of "Remain" voters -- thought the referendum had made British society more divided.

"There has been lots of confusing information and anecdotes and lies, which I don't appreciate," said Chet Patel, a 44-year-old telecoms worker in London who wants to stay in.

"I think a lot of people have not understood the real issues in fact. And hence they are not sure which way to vote."
Mexico City (AFP) - Aeromexico became on Thursday the latest airline to indefinitely suspend flights to Venezuela, citing the South American nation's economic problems.

The announcement by Mexico's biggest air carrier, which began flights between Mexico City and Caracas nearly five years ago, comes on the heels of similar moves by Latin America's biggest airline LATAM and Germany's Lufthansa.

Aeromexico said in a statement that its decision was due to Venezuela's "complex economic environment."

Venezuela is in economic and political crisis, with a shortage of dollars making it difficult for businesses to operate.

Currency controls make it impossible for airlines to convert their earnings into dollars and send the money abroad.
Boris Johnson Brexit

The question facing British voters on Thursday is just a specific, local version of a question being considered by voters all over the advanced world:

Should we vent our rage at the institutions we are dissatisfied with by replacing them with some unspecified, nationalism-inflected replacement?

In Britain, it's a Brexit; in France, it's Marine Le Pen; here in the United States, it's Donald Trump.

Ruth Davidson, who leads the Scottish Conservatives, made a strong argument during a Tuesday debate about the risks and uncertainties associated with leaving the European Union. And the argument applies equally to the risks and uncertainties of making Trump president.

You might be unhappy with the way things are now. But Something Else is not a policy. You have to weigh your dissatisfaction with the system against the problems that could be associated with its replacement.

"I know some people find the EU a bit frustrating and fussy," Davidson said.

But:

"You're going to be asked to vote in two days' time, and all you've heard tonight is, 'Trust us and it'll all be fine,' and that's not good enough. They won't tell us how much our economy will be hit by. They won't tell us how many jobs might go. They won't tell us what they're going to replace a single market with, and I'm sorry, this is something if you vote on Thursday, you cannot change your mind on Friday."

The question for voters is, even if you dislike the EU, do you know enough about the consequences of a Brexit to take the plunge?

In the case of a Brexit, the shorthand for a British exit from the EU, changes would bring significant economic turbulence because of interference with international trade without actually freeing Britain from European regulations (since British businesses will still have to follow them to do business in Europe) or from European immigration (since other countries, like Norway, have had to agree to free movement of people to gain access to the European trade area).

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Brexit proponents, including Boris Johnson, have dismissed this line of attack as "Project Fear." But the point is there's much to be afraid of: Britain could be doing better than it is doing right now, but it could also do a lot worse. There's a reason Britain's stock market and the British pound rise on news that makes a Brexit look less likely and fall when Britain seems more likely to leave. There is risk associated with change, and that risk is costly to the economy.

Britain might be able to smoothly rebuild its international trade relationships without the benefit of the EU-wide single market and EU-negotiated trade deals, or it might not. It's not good enough to note that the effects might not be so bad. You need to know with a high degree of certainty.

This anti-Brexit argument is very similar to the one being advanced by Hillary Clinton and her supporters. You may not like the status quo that Clinton represents, and you may prefer a different direction for the country.

But the options on the ballot are not Hillary Clinton versus Something Else. They are Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, and you need to consider the full range of possible outcomes associated with a Trump presidency  some of them very bad.

Fear can be a perfectly reasonable reaction to the prospect of radical change. People should be afraid of destabilizing the institutions that hold together the global economy, whether that destabilization comes from a Brexit or from a Trump presidency.

NOW WATCH: MICHAEL MOORE: 'I think theres an excellent chance' Trump will be president





More From Business Insider


Antonin Scalia

On Thursday, the US Supreme Court upheld race-based decisions in college admissions in the landmark Fisher v. University of Texas case.

The court ruled 4-3 in the university's favor, with Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor delivering the opinion of the court, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts dissenting.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case.

Perhaps one of the most important justices for the outcome of the case was not on the bench for the decision. Antonin Scalia, a staunch opponent of race-based admissions, died in February at 79. Along with Kagan's recusal, Scalia's death removed the possibility of a 4-4 split decision.

The UT case centered on Abigail Fisher, a white woman denied admission to Texas' flagship public university in 2008, who claimed that her race played a factor in her rejection. She argued that the university denied her admission in favor of less qualified black and Hispanic students and that her constitutional right to equal protection was violated.

For its part, UT argued that its "holistic" admissions plan did not make race the sole factor but only one component of the contributions that an applicant would bring to campus.

When the case was first heard in 2013, the justices originally looked to vote 5-3 against Texas. But the court deferred that decision and voted a compromise decision instead, Business Insider's Peter Jacobs wrote, citing legal journalist Joan Biskupic's 2014 book on Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice."

Abigail Fisher Affirmative Action

The case was then sent back down to the lower courts to be reevaluated, with the understanding that the Supreme Court would most likely rehear it.

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After Scalia's death, the justices were forced to decide the case without the possibility of a split with seven justices on the bench. Perhaps surprisingly, Kennedy emerged as the unlikely hero of affirmative action, voting for the first time to uphold an affirmative-action program.

Aside from allowing a possible split decision, Kent Greenfield, a law professor at Boston College Law School, thinks that Scalia's presence may have altered Kennedy's decision.

"If Scalia had been on the court, [Kennedy] might have been persuaded to write the case differently," Greenfield told Business Insider in an email.

He said, further stating the impact of Scalia's death on the case:

"This is a case in which the court could have been different with Scalia, in the sense that it might have been 4 to 4, but Scalia is such a powerful advocate for color-blindness in the law that one could imagine Scalia having some impact on Kennedy's views."

NOW WATCH: A Supreme Court Justice is under fire for racial remarks he made at a hearing





More From Business Insider


BUENOS AIRES, June 23 (Reuters) - Argentina's government will oversee the testing of soybean crops under a deal aimed at satisfying demands by U.S. seed company Monsanto that its genetically altered technology be protected, the nation's agriculture minister said on Thursday.

Monsanto wanted export companies to inspect shipments as they do in neighboring Brazil, but Argentine farmers opposed that system and clamored for government control.

"The (government's) National Seed Institute will work out agreements with public and private entities to carry out selective inspections to determine the legality of seeds," Agriculture Minister Ricardo Buryaile said at a news conference.

Monsanto threatened to stop selling new soybean technologies in Argentina over the dispute.

A seed industry source with knowledge of the situation said Monsanto would examine the results of the new inspection system before making a decision on the introduction of new genetically modified technology, which farmers say they need to keep up with their international competitors.

Argentina is the world's No. 3 soybean exporter and top supplier of soymeal livestock feed.

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein and Maximilian Heath; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
(Adds quote form Monsanto executive)

BUENOS AIRES, June 23 (Reuters) - Argentina's government will oversee the testing of soybean crops under a deal aimed at satisfying demands by U.S. seed company Monsanto that its genetically altered technology be protected, the nation's agriculture minister said on Thursday.

Monsanto wanted export companies to inspect shipments as they do in neighboring Brazil but Argentine farmers opposed that system and clamored for government control.

"The (government's) National Seed Institute will work out agreements with public and private entities to carry out selective inspections to determine the legality of seeds," Agriculture Minister Ricardo Buryaile said at a news conference.

Monsanto threatened to stop selling new soybean technologies in Argentina over the dispute.

Monsanto indicated it would look at the details of the new inspection system before making a decision on the introduction of new genetically modified technology, which farmers say they need to keep up with their international competitors.

"Conceptually, it is very positive that the seed institute strengthens its presence in the marketplace and oversees inspections on the part of the government," Fernando Giannoni, Monsanto's Latin America director of corporate affairs, told reporters after the ministry's news conference.

"We still have not seen the resolution (outlining the new control system) and we have not seen the operating agreements," he added.

Argentina is the world's No. 3 soybean exporter and top supplier of soymeal livestock feed.

(Reporting by Maximilian Heath and Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Bill Trott)
A dissident Hong Kong lawmaker was arrested and charged Thursday as the citys anticorruption body claimed it had uncovered a payment to the legislator from media and retail mogul Jimmy Lai  a well-known supporter of local democratic causes.

A statement from the citys Independent Commission Against Corruption said Leung Kwok-hung, 60  an elected member of Hong Kongs Legislative Council for the League of Social Democrats and popularly known as Long Hair because of his trademark tresses  was charged with one count of misconduct in public office and released on bail ahead of a court hearing Friday.

Antigraft officials say that Leung failed to declare the receipt of a payment of 250,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $32,200) on May 22, 2012. The payment allegedly came via intermediary Mark Simon, then the right-hand man of Lai, who was named in the statement as the source of the funds.

Hong Kongs pro-Beijing camp has long accused Simon, a U.S. Navy veteran and onetime head of the local chapter of Republicans Abroad, of being a sometime spy for Washington  which Simon vigorously denies. Chinese state media has also attempted to discredit Hong Kongs pro-democracy movement by suggesting that it acts under U.S. direction and with U.S. funding.

Simons former employer Lai is the founder of Asian clothing retailer Giordano and Next Media, a media conglomerate that publishes the high-circulation Apple Daily newspaper. Both through his newspaper and as an individual, Lai has lent support to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, which since 1997 has been a sovereign Chinese territory but retaining a high degree of political and legal autonomy.

Lai was a prominent figure in the massive 2014 demonstrations, known as the Umbrella Revolution, in which tens of thousands of Hongkongers took to the streets to oppose the Chinese central governments insistence that candidates to become the territorys next top official must be screened by Beijing. He even appeared, inadvertently, as a white-shirted figure on TIME Internationals now iconic Umbrella Revolution cover, his stooping figure just visible at the edge of the frame, choking on tear gas.

Leung meanwhile is a veteran of Hong Kongs protest movements, and has used his seat in the legislature to stage protests and raise topics the Chinese government considers taboo, like the 1989 massacre of students in Tiananmen Square.

Hong Kong is set to hold elections for its Legislative Council in September.
When misogyny is giving you a headache, you might want to reach for some aspirin. Too bad  misogyny ruined that too.

Brazilian advertising agency AlmapBBDO received pats on the backs from international advertising festival Cannes Lions in the international advertising conference's "indoor posters  cosmetics, toiletries, healthcare & pharmacy" category with an aspirin ad reading, "'Don't worry babe, I'm not filming this.'mov."

Dubious comma splices aside, the ad raised a few eyebrows as it seemed to suggest that a man was filming he and his partner having sex w her consent. The man, somehow, the one who needs an aspirin after his girlfriend, wife, "babe," what-have-you, finds out she's been filmed without her knowledge and yells at him (or, if you prefer, acts hysterical).

The Cut reported English advertising consultant Cindy Gallop as being among the first to call out both the brand and Cannes Lions judges for the sexist message.

"Don't use this to sell aspirin, male-dominated ad industry," Gallop tweeted, "and don't award it, male-dominated juries."

Don't use this to sell aspirin, male-dominated ad industry, & don't award it, male-dominated juries. #canneslionspic.twitter.com/WRo46Txygz https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CloWgiUWgAQ0-yz.jpg:large

The ad firm has relied on stereotypes in the past, but some of them have been innocuous. An ad that ran in 2010 read "Boss's jokes," showing that to deal with one's boss alone requires regular strength aspirin  for their jokes, extra strength.

AlmapBBDO, though, began to lean on tired, sexist cliches with an ad deeming an "ex-wife" is regular strength aspirin-worthy, but her lawyer: extra strength; same deal with a "teenage daughter" and a "teenager daughter's boyfriend." The speaker, it seems, is always male.

If AlmapBBDO copywriters ever try their hand at representing the headache-inducing experiences of women instead, perhaps they'll consider this: Everyday (regular strength aspirin) sexism (extra strength).
AstraZeneca plc AZN confirmed that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided its interim recommendation related to the use of the companys nasal spray flu vaccine - FluMist Quadrivalent Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV).



The ACIP voted that the vaccine should not be used during the 2016-2017 flu season in the U.S. The vote was based on data showing poor or relatively lower effectiveness of FluMist Quadrivalent from 2013 through 2016. The data indicated that the vaccine did not show statistically significant effectiveness in children (2-17 years).



Although AstraZeneca is working with the CDC to understand its data and ensure that eligible patients continue to receive the vaccine, the compact expects limited demand for its vaccine in the U.S. in the second half of the year. FluMist Quadrivalent had brought in sales of $290 million last year, including sales of $206 million in the U.S.



AstraZeneca said that it will be taking an inventory write-down of about $80 million in the second quarter of 2016. However, 2016 guidance remains unchanged. At the time of reporting first quarter results, the company had reiterated its guidance of a low to mid single-digit percentage decline in both revenues and earnings (at constant exchange rates).



The guidance takes into account the recent entry of generic competition for one of AstraZenecas key branded drugs, Crestor, in the U.S. Crestor had brought in worldwide sales of $5 billion in 2015 including U.S. sales of $2.8 billion.



AstraZeneca is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. Some better-ranked stocks in the large-cap pharma sector include Pfizer Inc. PFE, GlaxoSmithKline plc GSK and Johnson & Johnson JNJ. While Pfizer is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, Glaxo and Johnson & Johnson are Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stocks.



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca said it would take an $80 million writedown on stocks of its flu vaccine Flumist Quadrivalent, which is sprayed into the nose, after U.S. health authorities decided they would not use the product.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ruled the vaccine should not be used in any setting, based on U.S. data indicating it did not demonstrate statistically significant effectiveness in children.

Despite the setback, AstraZeneca said it maintained its financial guidance for 2016. U.S. sales of the product in 2015 totalled $206 million.

The company said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

"The distribution and use of the vaccine in other countries are progressing as planned for the forthcoming influenza season, pending the annual release process from relevant regulatory authorities," AstraZeneca said in a statement on Thursday.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Jason Neely)
(Adds shares, analyst comment, further details)

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca said it would take an $80 million writedown on stocks of its flu vaccine Flumist Quadrivalent, which is sprayed into the nose, after U.S. health authorities decided they would not use the product.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ruled the vaccine should not be used in any setting, based on U.S. data indicating a marked drop in effectiveness in children over the last three years.

The decline in Flumist's efficacy in the United States is puzzling, especially since CDC experts had recommended it preferentially in 2014 over injectable flu vaccines in children, citing its superior efficacy.

Flumist is often given to children because they can be immunised without the need for injections.

AstraZeneca said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

U.S. sales of Flumist in 2015 totalled $206 million, or just under 1 percent of group revenue.

"AstraZeneca is working with the CDC to better understand its data to help ensure eligible patients continue to receive the vaccine in future seasons in the U.S.," AstraZeneca said in a statement on Thursday.

"The distribution and use of the vaccine in other countries are progressing as planned for the forthcoming influenza season, pending the annual release process from relevant regulatory authorities."

Despite the setback, AstraZeneca said it maintained its 2016 financial outlook of a low-to-mid single digit decline in revenue and core earnings, at constant exchange rates.

However, Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said the U.S. vaccine problem would likely drag down consensus earnings forecasts for the current year by around 2 percent and there was a 1-2 percent risk to future forecasts, if the issue was not resolved.

Shares in AstraZeneca lagged a firmer European market, gaining 0.5 percent by 0940 GMT, while the European drugs sector rose 1 percent.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Jason Neely and Susan Fenton)
Tesla Motors, Inc.s TSLA proposal to acquire SolarCity Corporation SCTY was the biggest news of the week in the auto sector. Teslas CEO Elon Musk, who is also the chairman and a shareholder of SolarCity, has been vigorously defending the offer but analysts and investors have reacted negatively. It will be interesting to see whether the deal moves forward.

Meanwhile, Winnebago Industries, Inc. WGO posted strong earnings and revenue figures for the third quarter of fiscal 2016, while Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP announced the opening of new Super Hub stores. Further, Ford Motor Co. F posted an increase in Europe sales in May but the figures lagged industry sales growth. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. HMC announced the recall of another one million vehicles in China to replace possibly defective Takata airbags.

Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories

1. Tesla announced an offer to buy SolarCity at an exchange ratio of 0.122x to 0.131x shares of Tesla for each share of SolarCity. This represents a premium of around 2130% over the closing price of SolarCity as of Jun 21. According to Tesla, this acquisition will help it to become the only vertically integrated energy company in the world that offers end-to-end clean energy products (read more: Tesla Proposes to Buy SolarCity: What's in Store?).

However, investors reacted negatively to the news that was viewed by most as a bail out of SolarCity by Tesla. Concerns related to the impact of SolarCitys high cash usage and operating losses on Teslas already strained financials pulled shares of the latter down 11.6% in after hours trading on Tuesday. Shares continued to tumble on Wednesday and in pre-market trading today.

2. Winnebago reported earnings of 53 cents per share in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 (ended May 28, 2016), 25.5% higher than 43 cents earned in the prior-year quarter. Also, the figure surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 46 cents. Revenues for the third quarter increased 2.1% to $272.1 million and surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $270 million. The year-over-year increase in the top line was due to strong growth in the towables business and moderate rise in motorized shipments.

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3. Hondas Chinese joint venture, Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., announced the recall of another one million vehicles to replace possibly defective Takata airbags. The vehicles covered under the latest recall include Honda CR-V utility vehicles, Civic and Platinum Rui sedans, and Civic hybrids produced by the joint venture between 2007 and 2011. The Japanese automaker is the largest customer of the faulty Takata airbags that can explode and shoot out metal fragments in a crashed vehicle (read more: Honda Expands Recall for Takata Airbags in China).

4. Ford recorded an 11.5% year-over-year rise in sales to 111,700 vehicles in its 20 traditional European markets (Euro 20) in May 2016. With this, the automaker lagged the industrys sales growth rate of 15.1%. This is the companys best May sales since 2011. In the first five months of 2016, Fords sales increased 8.6% to 588,500 vehicles, compared with the industrys growth rate of 9.9% (read more: Ford's Europe Sales Rise 11.5% in May, Lag Industry Growth).

5. Advance Auto Parts announced the opening of three Super Hub stores in Marietta, Riverdale and Norcross. These stores increase the frequency of supply of high-quality parts to Commercial repair shops in the Atlanta Metro area.

Performance

Auto sector companies had mixed fortunes on the stock market last week. With a gain of 4.5%, Harley-Davidson, Inc. HOG was leading the winners among the stocks listed below. Tesla lost a massive 9.7% as investors reacted negatively to its SolarCity buyout offer. The news pulled down Teslas stock price by 10.45% on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Honda lost the most among the stocks listed below over the last six months. Advance Auto Parts was the biggest gainer over this period.

Company Last 1-Week Period Last 6 Months GM +1.6% -15.7% F +1.3% -8.2% TSLA -9.7% -14.4% TM +3.9% -16.2% HMC -0.4% -19.9% HOG +4.5% -0.9% AAP -0.3% +2.8% AZO +1.2% +1.6%

Whats Next in the Auto Space?

On Jun 28, 2016, Thor Industries will pay a quarterly cash dividend of 30 cents per share to shareholders of record as of Jun 20.

On Jun 30, 2016, Lear Corporation will pay a quarterly cash dividend of 30 cents per share to shareholders of record as of Jun 10.

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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



FORD MOTOR CO (F): Free Stock Analysis Report



TESLA MOTORS (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report



HONDA MOTOR (HMC): Free Stock Analysis Report



ADVANCE AUTO PT (AAP): Free Stock Analysis Report



WINNEBAGO (WGO): Free Stock Analysis Report



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DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahraini authorities on Thursday summoned five Shi'ite Muslim scholars for questioning, activists said, in what appeared another step in a crackdown on dissent by the Sunni-ruled kingdom. The clerics were called to a police station west of the capital Manama as an administrative court began hearing a justice ministry petition to dissolve the main opposition Shi'ite Muslim group al-Wefaq following a court order last week. The court adjourned the hearing until September 4 to give al-Wefaq time to prepare its defense, the group's lawyer Abdallah al-Shamlawi said on his Twitter account. An interior ministry spokesman was checking the report. The Bahraini government says it is acting against people and groups it accuses of fomenting sectarian tensions and of being linked to non-Arab Iran. Activists said the clerics, including Sheikh Fadel al-Zaki, head of the Council of Shi'ite scholars which was dissolved by the government more than two years ago, were ordered to appear at the Budaya police station in Manama. The reason for the summons was not immediately clear. But Bahrainis suggested it might be linked to speeches made at the home of Ayatollah Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of Bahrain's Shi'ites after authorities stripped him of his citizenship. Bahrain overcame mass pro-democracy protests mainly by Shi'ites in 2011 with support from Saudi Arabia. But political tensions continued to bubble under the surface, aggravated by financial difficulties due to the drop in oil revenues. Separately, a Bahraini court on Thursday sentenced 24 people to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life in prison for setting up an Islamic State cell in Bahrain, local media reported. The court also ordered 13 of them stripped of their citizenship. The Arabic-language al-Ayyam newspaper said the citizenship of the other 11 had been revoked earlier. The move against Qassim and previous measures including the arrest of prominent rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab and the closure of al-Wefaq have drawn strong rebukes from the United States and the United Nations. Thousands took to the streets outside Qassim's house in the village of Diraz, west of the capital Manama, within hours of his loss of nationality, and more demonstrations are expected later in the week, especially after Muslim weekly prayers on Friday. The commander of an elite force in Iran's Revolutionary Guards has warned that the crackdown would push Bahrainis to take up arms against the government. (Writing by Sami Aboudi, Editing by Richard Balmforth)
A Baltimore judge acquitted Officer Caesar Goodson on all counts Thursday in the death of Freddie Gray, who death in police custody last year sparked days of riots throughout the city.

Goodson, who drove the van that transported Gray after his arrest, faced the most serious charges of the six officers involved in his death last April. He was found not guilty on all seven counts, including second-degree depraved-heart murder, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and involuntary manslaughter. The depraved-heart murder charge carried a possible 30-year sentence.

In the trial, prosecutors argued that Goodson, as the vans driver, intentionally tried to injure Gray as he drove him around Baltimore without a seat belt and gave what they said was a rough ride. They also said Goodson was aware that Gray was injured but he failed to provide aid or seek medical care for him.

Goodsons defense said that Gray had actually injured himself in the back of the van and questioned the prosecutions timeline of when Gray was injured.

Goodson, a 16-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, was the third of six officers to stand trial in Grays death. Officer William Porters trial ended in a hung jury and Edward Nero was found not guilty.

In preparation for the verdict, city officials put the Maryland National Guard on notice for potential violence. Last April, Baltimore experienced riots the like of which had not been seen in the city in half-a-century after Gray, a black Baltimore resident, died in policy custody a week after his arrest. Protesters set fire to businesses and looted drug stores, leading to the national guard coming in to restore order. More than 200 people were arrested. In May, Baltimore City States Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced sweeping criminal charges against six officers involved in Grays death, a move celebrated by Baltimores minority communities.

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Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who was criticized for her handling of the riots last year and decided against running for re-election, released a statement saying: We once again ask the citizens to be patient and to allow the entire process to come to a conclusion.

Protesters gathered outside the courtroom Thursday, holding signs saying They killin us alive legally and Justice 4 Freddie Gray!

This is a disappointing verdict, said DeRay McKesson, a Black Lives Matter activist who ran unsuccessfully for mayor this year, according to the Baltimore Sun. I look forward to the remaining trials. The verdict today is a reminder that the current laws, policies and practices protect police behavior at all costs.

The next trial, involving Lt. Brian Rice, will begin July 5. Rice, one of the officers who arrested Gray, faces charges including manslaughter and second-degree assault.
Baltimore (AFP) - The Baltimore policeman facing the most serious charges in the death of Freddie Gray was acquitted, in a case that sparked riots last year and fueled a national debate over how US police treat young black men.

This time the trial was for the officer who drove the van in which Gray was being taken to a police station and suffered an ultimately fatal spine injury.

Caesar Goodson was acquitted on all charges including second degree murder and manslaughter.

Goodson was the third of six officers charged over the death of the 25-year-old, which triggered riots in Maryland's largest city last year. No guilty verdicts have been handed down in the three trials.

Because the state failed to meet its burden of proof in any of the seven charges against Goodson, "the verdict on all counts is not guilty," Judge Barry Williams, who presided over the case, told a packed court room.

Gray was arrested April 12, 2015 after fleeing at the sight of police, and suffered a broken spine while being transported in the back of a Baltimore police van, unsecured and with his hands and feet bound. He died a week later.

Williams had challenged state prosecutors' charge that Goodson had deliberately given Gray a "rough ride" in the back of the van, saying the state provided insufficient evidence of such "actions or intent" by Goodson.

Gray's relatives expressed disappointment with the verdict.

"This family is enormously frustrated, not just for themselves, but for this community," they said through family attorney William Murphy.

"We still have an unaddressed police brutality problem, not just in this city, where very little has changed, but in this nation."

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the officer would now face an administrative review and appealed for patience in allowing the process to run its course.

Baltimore officials this week called for calm in the city ahead of the verdict, stressing that authorities were prepared. The National Guard was on call as well.

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But Baltimore remained mainly tranquil in the aftermath.

There was, however, no shortage of public frustration, with protesters seething outside the courthouse, where several dozen people held up signs and demanded justice for Gray.

"There will be another rebellion because people are not going to stand by and stand for killer cops killing black people, brown people, poor people at will. They think that black lives don't mean a goddamn thing," said Baltimore resident Lee Patterson.

Murphy urged Baltimore residents, however disheartened, to remain peaceful.

"People should be calm. They should not react with unreasonable anger. There should be no disturbances in the wake of this trail," he said, even as he voiced the Gray family's deep disappointment.

"Can you imagine losing a son under circumstances shrouded basically in secrecy?" Murphy said.

"Can you imagine the frustration that nobody yet has been found culpable or liable for something that somebody did?" he said.

Meanwhile, Baltimore's police union said state attorney Marilyn Mosby's failure to convict anyone in the first three trials shows she over-reached with her "malicious prosecution" and urged her to drop all charges against the remaining officers.

- 'No credible evidence' -

Judge Williams dwelled on the dispute between medical experts over exactly when Gray's critical injury occurred, saying his injuries were internal, thereby making it impossible to determine where and when they were sustained.

The judge also declined to convict Goodson for assault or reckless endangerment for failing to seatbelt Gray in the back of the van. He said Goodson assessed the danger level during the detention and determined there was an excessive security risk involved in entering the van and fastening Gray's seatbelt.

"Simple carelessness is insufficient to establish the defendant's guilt," Williams said.

"There has been no credible evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen."

Goodson's seven charges included second degree depraved-heart murder, manslaughter by vehicle, second degree assault and reckless endangerment.

Tony Brooks, who works at a city sports arena, said he was resigned to police abuse, but still shocked at how regular it has become.

"This ain't the first time it's happened in Baltimore. It ain't gonna never stop," he told AFP.

"They're supposed to uphold the law and protect us, but they're killing -- and they're getting off free with it. New York, Texas, Cleveland," he said, citing recent cases of police brutality.

The two other officers tried in Gray-related cases -- William Porter, whose trial ended in a hung jury in December, and Edward Nero, who was acquitted of all charges in May -- were reportedly in the court room and seen hugging and shaking hands after the verdict.

Two other officers face trial next month and the final officer in September.
BARCELONA (Reuters) - Barcelona are not contemplating selling their Brazil forward Neymar, the Spanish champions' financial vice-president Susana Monje said on Wednesday. Neymar, who has been in talks over a contract extension with his current deal expiring in June 2018, has been linked in Spanish media with a move to Paris Saint Germain. "Neymar's renewal is a sporting issue," Monje told a news conference in which she spoke about the club's importance to the city of Barcelona. "We have not studied the impact of hypothetically losing Neymar. We don't contemplate it." El Mundo Deportivo reported on Wednesday that French champions PSG have offered to double Neymar's salary to 30 million euros ($33.86 million) net per season. Neymar has just completed his third year at Barca since joining from Santos. He scored 31 goals in 48 appearances last season to help the club win La Liga and the King's Cup. The 24-year-old Brazil captain did not play at the Copa America in order to rest at Barcelona's request. However, Neymar will compete at the Rio Olympics, which starts in August, as one of the three over-age players allowed in Brazil's under-23 squad. ($1 = 0.8861 euros) (Writing by Adriana Garcia; Editing by Ken Ferris)
(Adds details, quotes, context)

MINSK/MUMBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - Belarus is considering cooperating with Russian potash producer Uralkali, it said on Thursday, the first sign the two sides might work together again since Uralkali broke off a potash alliance in 2013, triggering a fall in global prices.

Uralkali is the world's biggest producer of potash, a widely used nutrient for crops, while state-controlled Belaruskali is the second largest.

"New Uralkali shareholders are coming to me every month saying: 'accept us'. We are not against it - let's unite, on our conditions," Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said at an event in Minsk.

"Let's resume work and agree how much we will produce."

Lukashenko did not disclose his conditions. The previous joint venture was based in Minsk, that time a crucial condition for Belarus and the main concern for Uralkali.

Uralkali declined to comment. Its major shareholder, Uralchem, was not available for comment.

The collapse of Uralkali's joint venture with Belaruskali triggered a fall in global prices as competition between producers intensified. Prices have not yet fully recovered.

Lukashenko also said Minsk signed a new potash supply contract with India on Wednesday, although Belarussian Potash Company (BPC), a trading arm of Belaruskali, later said it was still finalising the deal.

"I think it's a wonderful contract, taking into account the current prices," Lukashenko said, without disclosing the price or volume to be supplied.

BPC said in its statement it expected to sign the contract in June.

A major Indian customer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters both sides were close to signing the deal.

In 2015, Uralkali was the first major producer to sign a one-year contract with India to supply 800,000 tonnes of potash at $332 per tonne.

Apart from Belaruskali and Uralkali, Canada's Potash Corp of Saskatchewan and Agrium Inc, U.S.-based Mosaic Co and Germany's K+S AG supply the crop nutrient to India.

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India and China, the world's biggest fertiliser consumers, usually sign contracts for potash earlier in the year. This year, deals were delayed by high stocks built up by farmers.

India's deal, if signed, will be a rare instance of that country signing a potash supply contract with a major producer before China. Contracts with China usually set a price floor and benchmark for other markets.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky in Minsk, Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai and Polina Devitt in Moscow; Writing by Polina Devitt; Editing by Mark Potter)
Happy National Cheese Month! Oh cheese... Its creamy, its savoury, its sweet, sometimes its both, and has a rind that, when youre a bit drunk, you can eat and feel really great about afterwards. Its also the one thing I cant enjoy without projectile vomiting a few hours later.

Around 15% of the UK population are lactose intolerant. Add to that the estimated half a million vegans and the 2-7% who are allergic to cow's milk specifically, and youve got a significant portion of people who fucking hate National Cheese Month. Not because they hate cheese, oh no, but because they are shut out of enjoying its creamy, savoury, sweet, rind-y goodness. Ignoring the fact that its gone off udder juice for a moment.

If youre the sort of person who believes a pasta dish without grated cheese is essentially bald, then this is for you. Those of us who cant eat cheese (for ethical or physical reasons) dont need to go without. Beautiful, tender, caring humans have created a few cheese substitutes for exactly this reason and one of them has to be, at the very least, sort of alright.

From Violife to Cheezly, and not that much in between (there arent many milk-free cheese brands to choose from, sorry) I will go forth and test the cheeses from the perspective of someone who waited ten years to go see Madame Butterfly, went after accidentally eating some milk that morning, and consequently vommed all over her posh opera dress on the train there.

NB: I wont be including lactose-free cheeses, these are just milk-free. Mainly because Im allergic to cows milk so, if I tested the lacto-free cheeses, Id throw up everywhere again.

1. Tesco Medium Soya Cheese

Huge props to Tesco for creating their own brand of fake cheese. No other supermarket has had a go, and you know what? Its not that bad. Sure, it smells like an aliens interpretation of what cheese might be like if it had forgotten to write it down, but isnt as dreadful as I just made it sound. In fact, its actually pretty nice. Theres also strong soya cheese, which is equally good.

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Tastes like: The cheese on the board that nobody quite understands, but you keep eating it out of curiosity because its actually quite nice. You do feel like youre eating red cheese.

The texture is: Slightly crumbly and a bit like dry wax but still good for grating. A harder, more solid faux cheese than Violife.

Does it melt? Does it ever! This cheese is excellent melted onto things but, like with most of them, might be a bit overpowering on its own on toast. You need other flavours in there. Try on pasta (really great) on pizza (REALLY great) and grated over a jacket potato with beans (dying).

Does it work on a cracker? Yes, Im really coming round to the idea of a slice of this. At first, it was a bit much, but now I find myself craving it topped with branston on an oat cake.

Good if you... Used to eat strong cheeses, or have a real penchant for flavoursome cheese and miss it oh so terribly. This is one flavour you might be able to get your head around.

2. Tesco Smoked Soya Cheese

Even bigger props to Tesco for creating different flavours within their cheese range, showing a real dedication to the vegans out there. And guess what? This is just as good as their normal soya cheese flavours, except it does actually taste smoked.

Tastes like: Smoked cheese! The smokey flavour actually masks the soya aftertaste that all of these cheeses, bar perhaps the Violife, struggle with.

The texture is: Again, slightly crumbly and like dry wax. All too easy to do two strokes of the cheese grater only to find youve grated the entire block.

Does it melt? This stuff is great melted onto stuff if youre into melted smoked cheese, which I really am. Actively adds to the flavour of sauces, rather than being masked by them, and can't recommend it on a bowl of nice tomato soup enough.

Does it work on a cracker? Big time. Tomato, pickle, this cheese, and youve got a party. Again, its a strong taste so if youre not into smoked cheese then give it a miss.

Good if you Really miss smoked cheese with the passion of a thousand burning suns and will do whatever it takes to get some form of hit.

3. Cheezly White Cheddar Substitute

This comes in the sort of packaging reminiscent of medicine or a homemade bath bomb from a market. Confusing, considering its supposed to look like cheese and also a bit disappointing because, when you take it out the fridge, you feel like the kid who brought his packed lunch to the restaurant. Like an outsider. And youre not, OK? You can bring your packed lunch anywhere and who cares if you cant eat cheese? Anyway.

Tastes like: A bit of clay someone found in a river and filled with cheese flavour.

The texture is: Similar to the other soy-based cheeses, but nothing too offensive.

Does it melt? Well, it sort of melts away. When I grated it onto my pasta, it didnt ruin the pasta but it didnt really add anything either. The texture disappeared to nothing, and reminded me a bit of the tofu in miso soup  you want to question it for hours about what it thinks its adding to the party.

Does it work on a cracker? No I felt sick and stopped eating it. Then I put pickle and a tomato on it and the weird aftertaste still dominated. I think that if you threw this cheese through an active nuclear testing site, its weird aftertaste would still dominate.

Good if you Have really, really forgotten what cheese is. Or have never eaten cheese. And like pain.

4. Cheezly: mozzarella substitute

After the white cheddar incident, you can imagine how psyched I was to try their mozzarella. Turns out you shouldnt judge a book by the last fake cheese you ate, because this was genuinely pleasant. No, it didnt really resemble mozzarella, but it resembled cheese. Which is more than I can say for the white cheddar.

Tastes like: Bland mozzarella. It soaks up any flavour around it, and the texture means that if you eat it while doing something else, then you wont notice its not actual cheese.

The texture is: Oops, I wrote about the texture in the words allocated to taste. OK, well, its a bit wet like mozzarella, and a bit softer than their clay cheddar, which makes it a lot more palatable. I even chose to eat more of it on the chunky soup I was planning to eat for lunch.

Does it melt? Again, it goes a bit tofu. It disappeared into my chunky soup like it was embarrassed to be there. I felt a bit sorry for it actually, almost as if it knew that melting was mozzarellas one USP and that it had, therefore, failed. But no, old friend. You havent failed. Because when I put you on a pizza you worked. You soaked up the flavour and, while you werent particularly stringy, you didnt form a weird plastic film or sprout hair or anything.

Does it work on a cracker? Yes! I went for a dijon mustard and had a bloody lovely time. Were considering going away to Dorset together now.

Good if you Want a pizza but cant fathom it without cheese. Also, if you want crackers and cheese.

5. Violife White Cheddar Substitute

Oh hello. Oh hello. I think we may have found a winner here, just because this will appeal to a much wider cheese audience than the stronger tastes. Smooth, light, with a texture that resembles cheese (a genuine feat if some of the other contenders are anything to go by), the first time I tried this was in a Tesco three months after being told I was allergic to milk. I ate it on the way home and burst into tears I was so happy.

Tastes like: Very, very mild edam

The texture is: Like very, very mild edam. Indistinguishable from normal cheese.

Does it melt? This is where it falls down; Violife isnt great at melting. It creates a thick plasticky film which is difficult and sort of unpleasant to eat. Stick to it cold.

Does it work on a cracker? Well, yes. Violife is to crackers what actual cheese is to crackers. A bizarre way of saying that, once youve popped a tomato and some pickle on a chunk, you cant tell the difference. Unless youre really concentrating and someone tells you it isnt cheese.

Good if you Just want something that tastes like actual cheese, and are fed up of weird soya aftertastes.

6. Bute Island Creamy Sheese (not a typo, this is what its called)

God I miss Philadelphia (other brands of cream cheese are available.) I miss it all cool and creamy on a cracker, I miss putting it in sauces and I miss eating it out of the packet with a spoon. This was pretty hard, because Bute Island do a really good job of replicating this, but it just made me miss bae more.

Tastes like: Not the same as cream cheese. It isnt as cool, it isnt as creamy, and weve all got to just deal with the fact that creaminess is nigh-on impossible to come by without milk. So moving on from that, its perfectly palatable and after taste-testing it, I then went back a few hours later and ate it off a spoon which is a good sign.

The texture is: Pretty spot on. The sheese is bit denser than your normal light and airy cream cheese but the difference is minute.

Does it melt? Cream cheese isnt supposed to melt. And dont add it to sauces because the whole point of adding a bit of philly to your pasta sauce was that it would add creaminess. This, however, adds soy and congeals. So just enjoy it as nature intended (on a cracker).

Is it good on a cracker? You know what, yes it is. I had it with cherry tomatoes and mustard, and I genuinely did have a good time with this cheese. Would recommend to a delicately stomached friend.

Good if you Really miss cream cheese but can deal with the fact that nothing will ever compare to it. Starting to think Sinead OConnors smash hit was actually about cream cheese.

7. Violife Prosociano (vegan parmesan)

The other day I was explaining how I dont even miss cheese anymore, then realised my pasta sauce would never be the same again without parmesan and nearly burst into tears so I think I was either lying to myself or Im pregnant. Either way, I needed this from Violife. I really needed it. Also, writing this has made me realise I probably eat too much pasta but whatever. This cheese has saved my life.

Tastes like: Cheese! Theyve gone for the less is more approach, so it has a faint tang of parmesan without overpowering anything. If you were a bonafide cheese eater, youd probably think this was just really mild parmesan and maybe ask for something stronger.

The texture is: Excellent. Hard, good for grating, and looks like parmesan on your plate. Its amazing how important this is for tricking your brain, which is probably why I hate the Cheezly packaging so much. This packaging, however, looks exactly like parmesan too which, again, is really helpful.

Does it melt? In a sense, has parmesan ever really melted? It just sits there and then you eat it. So no, this doesnt melt, but you dont particularly need it to.

Is it good on a cracker? I mean, again, its parmesan so probably dont put it on a cracker.

Good if you Miss parmesan on your pasta, because this nails it.

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When buying a new or used car or truck, you should read the contract carefully, or you could end up paying more than you expect.



Earlier this week, the New York State Attorney General's office said that consumers that shopped at a Nissan dealership from May 2010 to September 2013 were charged as much as $5,000 for service contracts without their authorization. The Attorney General also accused the dealership of crediting customers with less than the agreed amount for vehicles that they traded in, and charging more than the negotiated vehicle price.



The car dealership was sold in 2013, but the settlement with the previous owners, announced earlier this week, requires them to pay nearly $102,000 in restitution to 119 consumers. That number could rise. In settling the case, the former owners did not acknowledge wrongdoing.

Such practices have been taking place for some time. In 2014, for instance, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs obtained a $1.8 million settlement from eight dealerships that were accused of charging customers for unauthorized add-ons, among other wrongdoings.



Dealer bait and switch is everywhere and very common, says Daniel Blinn, managing partner of the Rocky Hill, Conn.-based Consumer Law Group. He estimates that he sees at least one consumer every week complaining about the problem.



If you sign a contract without looking, it will be your word against the dealers if you later find that youve been hoodwinked, says Blinn.

Among the tricks that an unscrupulous car dealership may use, he says, is so-called packing, in which a dealer adds items that the customer didnt authorize, often hoping that theyll go unnoticed.



Such items may include a service contract or credit or gap insurance, which is an optional insurance coverage for newer cars that can be added to your collision insurance policy. There could also be charges for things you didn't request, such as undercoating and paint sealant. If the customer objects, a dealer may say that the government or the bank thats financing the deal requires the add-on.



A very common car dealership tactic is to slip in very expensive extras without bringing it to the customers attention, says Blinn. One dealer, he says, included more than a $1,000 in oil changes in its contracts. In other cases, the dealer simply enters a higher vehicle price than the negotiated amount.

What to Do

Ask about all charges. When negotiating the purchase of a new or used vehicle, discuss all fees the car dealership will add to the contract. Remember that many fees and other charges are negotiable.

Write down the terms . Whether youre discussing fees, the cost of the vehicle, the interest rate on a car loan or any other expense, write down the amount. You can easily forget if you dont. Do the same for the amount you negotiate on a trade-in.

Check the contract carefully. Once you have the contract, look for any products, services or fees that may be listed, but that you didnt agree to. Check the list of charges you created earlier against the amounts in the contract. If youre trading in a car or truck, verify that you are being credited properly for the negotiated amount. Also, make sure youre receiving the full benefit of any rebate.

Dont rush. If youre feeling rushed or find that its hard to concentrate at the car dealership, take a copy of the unsigned contract home, advises Blinn and the New York State attorney general. You shouldnt be intimidated by a dealers insistence that a deal is good only that day or by a warning that youll likely lose the vehicle to another customer if you delay.

Get a copy of the contract . After signing the contract, get a copy and make sure it matches whats on the original.

If you find a discrepancy, complain. If a dealer attempts a bait and switch, or youve been victimized, complain to your states motor vehicle department or to your state consumer protection office. You also can complain to the Federal Trade Commission or, in cases involving vehicle loans and leases, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If youve been defrauded, you might consider contacting a consumer attorney.





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Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright  2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S.
By Steve Slater

LONDON, June 22 (IFR) - Enter at your peril: investment banks are warning clients to beware of volatile and unpredictable markets at the end of this week around Britain's vote on whether to stay in the European Union.

Banks including HSBC, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have sent notes to clients warning them of the perils of illiquid trading conditions, which could disrupt the level of execution, liquidity and pricing they offer.

"This is an important event which will most likely impact financial markets through increased price volatility or lower market liquidity," HSBC said in a memo to clients this week, seen by IFR.

"Given our previous experience of events with significant market impact, we are writing to our clients to alert you to the risk of disruption to services as a consequence of increased market illiquidity and volatility," the note said.

HSBC said clients who trade on electronic platforms could see the activation of safety features, which could affect execution.

UBS had a similar warning in a memo to clients,

"In the event that extreme market moves occur in an environment of limited liquidity, our principal spreads may widen for both electronic and voice trading, liquidity may reduce and prices may turn indicative (i.e., non-tradable) for periods of time," UBS said.

"In the event that extreme market moves occur, giving rise to limited liquidity in certain currencies, we may not be able to fill limit orders or take profit orders at the levels, or using the methodologies, expected in normally functioning markets," it said, adding it may adopt other approaches it deems appropriate and feasible.

Other banks expressed similar caution.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority refused to say if it had instructed firms to send out warnings to clients.

Banks are warning clients more regularly than in the past if they expect dramatic price moves, especially since huge swings in the Swiss franc in January 2015 led to conflicts between banks and their clients due to the absence of market prices for several minutes.

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Bankers said it was good housekeeping and reflected a push by regulators and banks for greater transparency and to try to head off any issues around conduct.

Britons vote on Thursday on whether to remain in the EU or leave. The latter, dubbed Brexit, could create some of the most volatile markets in London in decades, especially in currency markets but also in bonds, derivatives and equities, bankers have said.

Banks in London will be staffed overnight with traders, salespeople, economists and FX strategists, in addition to their regular 24-hour trading operations, given the potential for big swings as results emerge on the tight race.

Voting on Thursday will close at 10pm London time. Broadcasters are not conducting exit polls as the margin of error is deemed to be too large. The majority of the 382 local counting areas are expected to declare results between 2am and 4am.

Banks including ING and Societe Generale have also sent warning memos to clients, but it is not just European banks on their guard.

Bank of America warned clients of possible delays to their trades and temporary suspensions if markets are volatile.

Morgan Stanley asked clients to tell them about proposed changes to their limits for cash and derivatives by the start of the trading day on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Steve Slater)
As the United Kingdom votes on whether to cut ties with the European Union, former Senior Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, Steve Hilton, says the most important question facing U.K. voters is whos really in control?

In Europe, the people who initiate the legislation impose regulation on all the countries, including on immigration, arent elected by anybody  and thats why this really is a question of democracy  about who actually controls and runs a country  the people of that country or some amorphous system of bureaucracy and regulation that no one really can control, he told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

Now living in America as a tech firm head, Hilton said the experience of working in government and the amount of regulation and legislation coming from the EU moved the needle to vote leave.

At one point it was over half of the actions that the British government were taking, were actually driven by the EU  and they were things that the British government didnt actually agree with but we had to concede in order to win other arguments in Brussels. So it really made the job of governing a country, the elected government, kind of impossible and I thought that was fundamentally un-democratic, he said.

Even though he remains at odds with Prime Minister David Cameron, Hilton says they have remained good friends. He also explained how the vote will send signals to the rest of the world.

Its not easy for me to be on the other side from him but I think in the end, this is a really big question that is bigger than any one general election. Its going to have an impact here for generations and I think an impact around the wider world because it will send a signal that this centralization of power that you can see going on everywhere  people have had enough of it.

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Big Brother premiered on Wednesday and introduced the 12 new contestants who will be living in the house for the summer. Four veteran players were also brought onto the show as stowaways.



With his muscles and flowing hair, Victor Arroyo thought of himself as a ladies man, but theres something that got in his way. Right now I live at home with mom, dad, sister, three nieces, and a baby nephew, he admitted. So, its not really the most ideal situation if I want to bring a girl home.

Related: Meet the two men behind Big Brothers signature voices

New contestant Michelle Meyer, meanwhile, listed an endless stream of things shes afraid of, including Amazonian fish and North Korea. Bronte D'Acquisto described herself as a California girl, and she gladly played the part. During all the commotion of the first day, she decided that she needed to be more Zen and proceeded to meditate in the diary room.

New contestant Paulie Calafiore has a familial former contestant of the Big Brother house: His brother, Cody, was the runner-up for season 16. Fellow houseguest Tiffany is another player with a BB-famous sibling: Her sister Vanessa was a major player in BB17.



Big Brother airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram  or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Cevian team

Harlan Zimmerman thinks that there's a problem with stock buybacks.

Companies in the US have spent billions of dollars to gobble up their own shares since the financial crisis. Shareholders generally applaud these moves, as they effectively boost the value of each investor's stake by raising the company's earnings per share.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, for example, pushed for a big buyback when he invested in Apple. But then, this month, Icahn went on CNBC to say that there are too many companies doing buybacks.

Zimmerman, a senior partner at Cevian Capital, the biggest activist hedge fund in Europe with more than $13 billion in assets, shares that sentiment. He explained how buybacks could lead companies to skimp on long-run investments and introduced what he thinks would be a better approach.

The interview with Zimmerman ran as part of our series, "The Price of Profits," with public radio's Marketplace investigating the ways in which attempts to improve shareholder value through techniques like buybacks can sometimes backfire.

Below is the key excerpt from the interview.



Rachael Levy:

"Carl Icahn recently spoke with CNBC and he mentioned there are too many share buybacks over capital improvements. Icahn had influence over the firm in its founding days. So what does Cevian think of buybacks?"

Zimmerman:

"Sure. First off, we hold the view that there's too much short-termism in the market, and it reflects pressure on investors, and that creates pressure on the companies, and that's absolutely the case that companies are often put in a position that they feel they have to do something that's good in the short term, even at the cost of what's right in the long term.

Story continues

"Of course, they can't openly admit it, but it's definitely the case. You can find lots of surveys of management answering these questions anonymously, and it's clear that it's happening. It's people responding to incentives that are given to them across the investment chain, and so this short-termism in many cases is leading to buybacks, enhanced dividends, things of that nature.

"However, absolutely in some cases, it's still appropriate for the companies that are well-capitalized and which have the resources they need to make appropriate investments to grow their businesses.

"That creates more incremental gains in the short term, and we're much more about being with the company that today is achieving a 5% margin and in four years' time achieving a 10% margin. And having a much clearer strategy is much more appreciated by the capital markets. That's how, in our view, big returns are created in the long term."

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With a steady stream of ambitious small-screen productions rolling in, and two major recent features recently wrapped and more on the way  all chasing incentives, talented artisans, and experienced crews  Prague and the Czech Republic have upped the ante in the competitive arena of Central Europe.

Although most countries of the former Eastern Bloc are vying for business, the Czechs are out to prove they are serious and reliable partners on international shoots  a point stressed by the first-ever visit to Hollywood by the countrys prime minister last April.

On his trip, Bohuslav Sobotka trumpeted tweaks that have made the Czech Republics 20% cash-back production incentives as user-friendly as anyones. The program has undergone continuous streamlining since its launch in 2010, and applications to the Czech Cinematography Fund are now accepted year-round.

Recent projects ranging from war drama Mountains and Stones, to Jessica Chastain-starrer The Zookeepers Wife, and Underworld 5 have underscored the core value that U.S. and Western European producers have known about for years: a phenomenal reputation for production design, modern infrastructure, and remarkably capable, affordable crews.

The creative tradition, for its part, dates back to the days of Art Nouveau championed by Bohemian artist Alfons Mucha, and Czech crafts folk can easily transform a Barrandov Studios soundstage into a post-apocalyptic fantasy. 

 Theyre equally adept at time travel, creating World War II settings almost overnight from Czech forest locales and disused factories. Baroque period pieces remain a natural fit for Prague and environs as producers regularly find that entire authentic palaces can be had for less than the time and money needed to build an equivalent set.

The crown jewels  Pragues Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, the Charles Bridge, and the Nostic Theater  were dressed in 1787 finery for the recent U.K.-Czech production Interlude in Prague  which also made use of the towns of Cesky Krumlov, Libochovice, Ploskovice, Jemniste, and Doksany  to convey the story of Mozarts work on his operatic masterpiece Don Giovanni, which he composed in Prague.

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Authenticity and affordability are certainly selling points that Czech regional film offices make as they compete for the title of most film-friendly province, a kudo given out by the Czech Film Commission this year to Karlovy Vary.

Karlovy Vary mayor Petr Kulhanek is keenly interested in attracting new work. We surely strive for more and strongly welcome state incentives, he says.

The three-year-old Regional Film Office there is actively improving access and resources, both financial and in kind, adds Petr Zidlicky of the Karlovy Vary Department of Culture.

Things were not always this way, says Czech Film Commission topper Ludmila Claussova, who has embarked on an ambitious road show to enlist the help of other authorities and created a prize for the most film-friendly region.

In the Czech capital, meanwhile, even political controversy has been turned to advantage. Prague political watchdogs have expressed skepticism over the appointment of Czech media maven Andrej Babis as of finance minister in 2014  but local production companies point out that business-friendly Babis is the most committed national policy leader in memory when it comes to attracting foreign production dollars  and that he understands the value of film incentives.

Babis has told industry types that he is working on increasing the 20% Czech cash-back incentive .

Prague post houses, meanwhile, have won over legions of foreign producers with advanced facilities and impressive effects. Industry leader UPP, usually working with Soundsquare, and veteran Prague company IO Post are booked year-round, putting polish on productions that see no reason to send their dailies back home after shooting.

The latter shingle, founded in 2005 when it worked with Czech New Wave director Jan Nemec on Toyen, has gone on to burnish the look of 45 features, usually as a co-producer.

Others winning market share in Prague are Bystrouska, Virtual Post and Barrandov Sound Music Studio. This area is another Czech forte, as shown by the regular film soundtrack bookings by all the major Czech orchestras.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian investigators said on Thursday they would take the memory chips from the black boxes of crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 to France next week for repairs. The Egyptian investigation committee said in a statement that France's BEA accident investigators would help to remove salt deposits from the chips before they were returned to Egypt for analysis that is crucial to unravelling what caused the Airbus A320 to crash. EgyptAir flight MS804 spiralled down into the Mediterranean early on May 19 on its way from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 people on board. With little debris and no bodies recovered, investigators hope analysis of the black boxes will help them piece together what happened in the final half hour of the flight. But the plane is believed to have crashed in the deepest part of the Mediterranean and the black boxes, which were recovered last week, were found badly damaged. Egyptian investigators have been attempting for days to repair the memory chips, allowing them to begin transcribing and analysing the recordings and data. The Egyptian investigators also said that French forensics experts would be arriving in Egypt to help retrieve human remains as a specialist ship attempts to map the wreckage. So far, only a few remains have been retrieved and sent for DNA testing. (Reporting by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
By Letitia Stein (Reuters) - The U.S. battle over bathrooms and wedding cakes is pushing many African-American leaders in the South to the forefront of the latest civil rights frontier, as the threat of discrimination overshadows long-held reservations on gay issues. In Mississippi, black legislators have led calls to repeal their state's newly adopted law permitting those with religious objections to deny wedding services to same-sex couples and impose dress and bathroom limits on transgender residents. The president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to block the measure from taking effect on July 1. A federal judge was to hear testimony in the case on Thursday. In North Carolina, dozens have been arrested at statehouse rallies organized by a diverse coalition led by the state NAACP conference to protest a new law barring transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice. "Here we are again, facing discrimination towards a group of people," said Sonya Williams Barnes, a Mississippi black lawmaker who opposed the measure and fears that her race could be the next target. "Who knows where that is going to lead to." Just four years after President Barack Obama rocked the religious black community by supporting gay marriage, black leaders are becoming some of the most forceful allies in the fight against a recent wave of legislation seen as harmful to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people. Opposition to same-sex marriage has long offered common ground to white conservative Republicans and religious African-Americans otherwise more liberal in their political views, but the battle lines are being redrawn, said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute. The new wave of anti-LGBT measures is forcing many to come to terms with contrasting views: Blacks who disapprove of homosexuality who also strongly reject anti-gay discrimination. "The experience of discrimination among non-white Americans really does kick in," he said. His research group's poll of 42,000 Americans last year showed that about half of blacks nationally oppose same-sex marriage, more than any other racial and ethnic group. In Mississippi, where Williams Barnes chairs the legislative black caucus, nearly seven in 10 blacks disapprove, the survey found. But it also found that two-thirds of blacks polled nationally objected to allowing small business owners to refuse services to LGBT people on religious grounds. "We know what it's like once you allow racism and hatred to be codified and to be written into the law," said Reverend William Barber II, president of the NAACP in North Carolina. LGBT OR CIVIL RIGHTS? Still, the topic remains polarizing. At North Carolina's capitol last month, several dozen mostly black preachers protested the comparison of the transgender bathroom fight to the 1960s civil rights movement against racial segregation. "It is not a civil rights issue," said Reverend Bill Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African American Pastors, who represents 7,700 church leaders nationally. "I dont want my daughter in the restroom with a man. I dont want my wife in the restroom with a man," he added in a phone interview. "It is sick." Other African-Americans have a different view. They see these new laws as not just bad for the LGBT community, but also harmful to all minority workers. North Carolina's new law prevents cities from requiring private businesses to pay workers a minimum wage above the state level and makes it harder to sue over workplace discrimination. Mississippi's law is so broad, critics say it could allow people with religious objections to deny services to nearly anyone in a relationship outside of heterosexual marriage, including single mothers, as well as restrict bathroom access for transgender people. Both laws were passed at a time of a deepening partisan divide in southern legislatures, where white, Republican majorities can often pass laws without the votes of black Democrats. In North Carolina, Democratic state senators staged a walkout to protest the bathroom legislation during a one-day special session in March. The bill cleared the chamber unanimously and was signed into law by Republican Governor Pat McCrory the same day. "When it looks like all you want to do is sanction discrimination against folk and mistreat them, you cause a totally different reaction in the African-American community," said Dan Blue, a black lawmaker and the Democratic leader of the North Carolina Senate. In his state, the coalition including the NAACP protesting the bathroom law also worked together to fight a state ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in 2012 and a more recent state voting law seen as disenfranchising minorities. Distrust is similar in Mississippi, where Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed his state's religious objections bill after designating all of April to honor the heritage of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War. "They see it not just as a LGBT issue but as a Pandora's box being opened back up to allow discrimination," said Erik Fleming, a former black state legislator who is now director of advocacy and policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, where a judge has rejected its challenge to the state's law. "There's an old saying: 'Weve seen this movie before.'" (Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Phil Berlowitz)
Canadian handset manufacturer BlackBerry Limited BBRY posted first-quarter fiscal 2017 (ended May 31, 2016) adjusted loss of 2 cents per share, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 10 cents. However, quarterly loss (on a reported basis) of $1.28 per share was wider than the year-ago loss of 10 cents.



Results in Detail



Total revenue in the reported quarter was $400 million, down 39.2% year over year. The top line also missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $468 million.

Segment-wise, 39% revenues came from Software and Services licensing, while Hardware contributed approximately 36% of the revenues. Services access fees revenues accounted for the remaining 25%. The company also won 3,300 enterprise clients in the reported quarter.



Geographically, North America contributed 48.8% to the total revenue, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa accounted for 38.7%. Similarly, the Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions generated 2.5% and 10%, respectively, of the total revenue in the quarter.

Quarterly operating loss came in at $655 million. The company had reported a profit of $89 million in the year-ago quarter.



For the reported quarter, BlackBerry used cash amounting to $65 million including $61 million for operations. At the end of the quarter, cash and cash equivalents came in at $1.2 billion compared with $0.96 billion for the quarter ending Feb 29, 2016. Long-term debt in fiscal first quarter totaled $1.25 billion as against $1.28 billion in the previous quarter.

BLACKBERRY LTD Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

BLACKBERRY LTD Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | BLACKBERRY LTD Quote

Outlook

BlackBerry, presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The company expects to sustain a strong cash position, generate positive free cash flow, and allot additional sources in the go-to-market and product development lines to attain a positive adjusted EBITDA in 2017. The company expects to generate 30% revenue growth in software and services this fiscal year. Per BlackBerry, with an enhanced operating model, loss per share should be around 15 cents. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2017 currently hints at a loss of 43 cents per share.



Our Take



Blackberry has suffered in the mobile phone handsets market due to high competition from brands such as Apple Inc. AAPL and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Despite new launches like BES12 and Privy, the companys hardware segment such continues to underperform. Blackberry has been trying to make changes to its business model by focusing more on security software and services. The companys CEO expects growth to be mainly driven by the software and services segment. Blackberrys revenues in the software segment, excluding IP licensing, have more than doubled in the reported quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2017 revenues currently stands at $1,763 million. We expect the company to gain from consolidating its software and services segment, which would eventually turnaround its performance.

Story continues

Other Stocks to Consider



Some better-ranked stocks in the telecom sector include Mobile TeleSystems PJSC MBT and NTT DoCoMo Inc. DCM sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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By Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell WATERLOO, Ontario/TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd Chief Executive John Chen expressed confidence on Thursday that he can make the company's trimmed-down handset business profitable by a self-imposed September deadline, as the smartphone pioneer posted results that beat expectations. BlackBerry broke even before charges and writedowns in its first quarter and forecast a smaller-than-expected annual loss, helping to send its stock up 3.6 percent. The Canadian company has shifted focus from its once-dominant smartphones to software that companies and governments use to manage their mobile devices. Adjusted revenue in that business exceeded handset sales in the quarter. Asked if devices would be a going concern, Chen pointed to outsourced manufacturing and know-how secured by thousands of patents. "I think I can add value to the bottom line because I am attempting in hardware ... a very different model," Chen told reporters at the company's Waterloo, Ontario, headquarters. "I have so much credibility and knowledge in how to build a handset, but I don't have to build it," he said, adding that the company was exploring licensing some of the handset technology. Chen expressed frustration with the market's focus on BlackBerry's handsets, pointing to growth in software sales and cost-cutting that has improved margins. "Despite my best efforts to tell the world I'm a lot more than just a phone company, every question I ever get is about phones," he said. Adjusted software and licensing revenue was $166 million in the fiscal first quarter ended May 31, compared with $152 million for its device business. BlackBerry had annual software revenue of $527 million in its last fiscal year and is targeting 30 percent organic growth. BlackBerry said it expects an adjusted annual loss of around 15 cents per share, compared with the average analyst estimate of a loss of 33 cents for fiscal 2017. "They have not put figures behind some of their forecasts in quite some time, and hopefully that speaks to improved visibility," said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello. The company posted adjusted profit of $14 million, or nil per share, on adjusted revenue of $424 million. Analysts, on average, expected a loss of 8 cents a share on revenue of $470.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It reported a net loss of $670 million, or $1.28 cents a share, which BlackBerry said reflected a $501 million writedown on the value of the handset business and other charges. (With additional reporting by Matt Scuffham in Toronto; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Leslie Adler)
The Boeing Co. BA has entered into an agreement to provide technical assistance to iGA Havalimani Isletmesi A.S. (IGA), developer and operator of Istanbul New Airport.

BOEING CO Price

BOEING CO Price | BOEING CO Quote

Per the agreement, Boeings subsidiary, Jeppesen, will assist IGA and the General Directorate of State Airports Authority, DHMI, in designing airspace structure for the Istanbul New Airport. It will also support the development of an operations optimization program and an operational readiness plan. All this will be done using Boeings Total Airport and Airspace Modeler (TAAM) tool.



TAAM will allow airport developers to simulate and test various operational procedure alternatives for airspace and runway optimization. Jeppesen will train employees of both IGA and DHMI on the utilization of the TAAM tool. This will ensure active participation of both parties in the project. They will also be able to carry out continuing analysis projects as and when necessary, after a successful analysis by Jeppesen.



The project will use the TAAM tool to optimize runway operations at Istanbul New Airport, and improve overall airspace capacity and efficiency. Apart from this, the project will also focus on maintaining safety standards and reducing airspace conflicts in the Istanbul Terminal Control Area.



According to Aysem Sargin, managing director of Boeing Turkey, Using our TAAM tool, we will be able to show the impacts of all operational concepts and assist the Istanbul New Airport team to make the most informed decisions possible for the new airport.



Boeing currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



Stocks to Consider



A couple of better-ranked stocks in the aerospace and defense industry are Engility Holdings, Inc. EGL and Leidos Holdings, Inc. LDOS, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Investors interested in the aerospace and defense equipment industry may also consider HEICO Corporation HEI, with a Zacks Rank #2.



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Per a Wall Street Journal report, Bank of America Corporation BAC is in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to bring an end to the probe related to breach of rules designed to protect client accounts. The bank may shell out $400 to $450 million to settle these allegations, according to people familiar with the matter.



The settlement would be one of the highest ever for the SEC after a $616 million fine paid by the affiliates of SAC Capital Advisors LP in 2013.



Matter In Brief



The SEC investigation was first revealed by a Wall Street Journal report in April last year. The SEC began a probe to verify whether BofA violated rules set for safeguarding of customer accounts and putting retail-brokerage funds at risk for more profits.



The bank was accused of adopting unusual strategy and improper controls for certain client accounts and retail brokerage funds. The use of such strategy, which occurred in BofAs Merrill Lynch unit, was ceased by BofA in mid-2012 due to internal debate regarding its possible regulatory and other related risks.



Also, it was a matter of question whether BofA used complex trades and loans to save millions of dollars in funding costs along with easing billions of dollars in cash and securities for its own uses, instead of keeping it inaccessible in order to meet regulatory requirements.



Rule 15c3-3



SEC designed rule 15c3-3 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to address issues related to customer margin for security futures products. The purpose is to ensure that investment banks and trading firms retain sufficient cash and easy-to-sell securities to be able to repay customers in case of failure.



A bank is supposed to reserve more in segregated reserve funds, known as lockup accounts, the more it owes customers. However, sitting idle on billions of dollars in lockup accounts prove costly to banks, which cannot put this money to any other use given the customer protection rule. Nonetheless, the banks want to free up such money for carrying out trading activities.



BofAs Merrill Lynch came into regulatory radar for this reason. The unit is said to have carried out complex trades and loans since 2009 to minimize the amount of money in lockup accounts. Also, the regulator is looking into the accuracy of the banks statements to the SEC about its lockup practices.



Another Merrill Lynch Case



The SEC is setting up a civil enforcement case against BofAs Merrill Lynch, which is alleged to have misrepresented risks involved in structured notes that later slumped as much as 95% in value. The news was reported by the Wall Street Journal.



Merrill Lynch sold Strategic Return Notes in 2010 and raised nearly $150 million. However, the value of the five-year notes plunged swiftly after issuance due to fall in market volatility and increase in cost of the underlying options, leading to client complains.



This resulted in a dispute between Merrill Lynch and two of its brokers that sold structured notes to their clients. The brokers are said to have secretly taped calls with executives at Merrill Lynch and then quit the bank to join UBS Group AG UBS only to later file a whistleblower complaint with the SEC.



Our Take



Wall Street biggies such as BofA, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS and Wells Fargo & Company WFC continue to be in focus for never-ending investigations pertaining to their past business malpractices.



For BofA, these lawsuits and subsequent settlements add to its numerous litigation headwinds. The company has been striving hard to get past its legal matters and focus on its core operations.



Currently, BofA holds a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).



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June 23 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch unit will pay a $10 million penalty to settle charges its offering materials for a risky type of note misled investors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

The offering materials did not adequately disclose a quarterly 1.5 percent cost within a volatility index linked to the note, for which investors would be responsible, the SEC said.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) separately fined Merrill $5 million for negligent disclosures related to the sale of five-year senior debt notes to retail customers, the regulator said on Thursday.

The Wall Street industry-funded watchdog said it found Merrill had sold about $168 million worth of the notes to its retail customers but did not clearly disclose certain costs, making it appear that fixed costs were lower than they actually were.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in Washington and Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed Tuesday that the South American country ditch the Gregorian calendar and return to the calender that its indigenous ancestors used.

During the Aymara New Year ceremony  which marks the winter solstice and is considered the start of the new year by many indigenous people  Morales said it was important to reclaim the countrys ancestral calendar in a bid to distance the nation from its colonial past, reports Latin American television network TeleSur.

According to the indigenous calendar, it is the year 5524 in Bolivia.

Morales is Bolivias first indigenous leader and declared June 21 a national holiday in 2010. Since assuming office in 2005, he has focused on promoting an inclusive national identity for Bolivia  one of Latin Americas most ethnically diverse countries  and introducing social reforms prioritizing indigenous rights.

Morales also suggested that the indigenous calendar, which has 13 months with 28 days, was far tidier than the Gregorian one, where the length of months vary between 28 and 31 days, reports the BBC.

This is not the first time Morales has suggested ways of redefining the nations relationship to time. In 2014, the clock on the front of the capitals Congress building was set to run anti-clockwise with its numbers inverted, to reflect the countrys location in the southern hemisphere.

[TeleSur, BBC]
From Cosmopolitan

Lauren Seitz, an 18-year-old about to start college in Ohio, died Sunday after she was exposed to a brain-eating amoeba, Fox 26 reports. It's unclear exactly how it happened, but she was possibly infected while whitewater rafting at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Seitz died from a condition called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which is an extremely rare brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, a single-celled organism found in warm freshwater. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it does not cause infection when swallowed, but it does cause infection when the organism enters the nose. Once it gets into the body through the nose, it travels to the brain, where it causes the disease. Of the 133 people infected since 1962, only three have survived.

According to the Charlotte Observer, officials on the local, state, and national level are investigating Seitz's death and testing the water at the whitewater center. The center released a statement explaining that all the water there is tested every week and disinfected with UV rays and chlorine, to the point where it would "inactivate" the amoeba "to an effective level of 99.99%." After her death was reported, the center released additional chlorine into the water and is requesting more tests.

Seitz was in the Charlotte with a church youth group to sing at nursing homes and churches. She had graduated high school in May and was preparing to attend Denison University, majoring in environmental science and minoring in music.

"Lauren understood the overwhelming beauty and fragility of life with uncommon clarity and cared so deeply about the welfare of other people and this world we all share," her obituary reads. "Her genuine kindness and encouragement will continue to inspire and comfort everyone who knew her." Her family is requesting donations to two different funds that support music education programs; you can find more information about how to contribute here.

Follow Megan on Twitter.
By Katy Migiro NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Juma Kalume Musunye's six grandchildren beat her until she fell to the ground crying, and then doused her in petrol, claiming she had used witchcraft to paralyze their mother's hands. "They wanted to kill me," said the 65-year-old widow who lives on Kenya's coast, where the Mijikenda people traditionally blame witches for illness and misfortune. "My son told them I had bewitched his wife." Hearing her screams, Musunye's neighbors rushed out and rescued her. "I am really bitter," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of International Widows' Day on Thursday. "I am old, my health is not good and my children do not care about me." Musunye was speaking by phone from Kaya Godoma, a center set up in 2008 to care for elderly people ousted by their relatives. Millions of widows across Africa are left destitute after being evicted from their homes and are too poor or uneducated to seek legal redress, campaigners say. Musunye is one of 19 elderly people branded as witches who have found refuge at Kaya Godoma, some 30 km (20 miles) inland from the popular tourist town of Kilifi, with its palm-fringed sandy beaches. Her seven sons and their families continue to live on her late husband's land, which she described as "very big". Killings of elderly people for witchcraft in Kilifi County are on the rise, according to local media, with 104 such murders reported to the police in 2014. MOB ATTACKS Under the guise of culture, widows are often mistreated by relatives who want their property, experts say. Hunger for land is growing in Kenya, a country whose 45 million strong population is predicted to double by 2045. "You will see people making up stories that someone is a witch," said Josephine Mongare, chairwoman of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA). "They will go out there and do mob justice on her ... because her right to that property extinguishes upon her death." Traditionally, women in Kenya could not own land, which was passed down from father to son, leaving widows without a male heir vulnerable to eviction. "If you don't have a boy child, you haven't given birth," Mongare said. "You'll find relatives now coalescing around the property and wanting to get rid of you." One percent of land in Kenya belongs to women, with five percent jointly owned by spouses, 2006 government data shows. Most of the 300,000 court cases FIDA has pursued since 1985 on behalf of poor women involve land and property rights. Kenya's 1981 Succession Act grants widows the right to live on their late husbands' property until they die, provided they don't remarry, after which it passes on to their children. This right is often violated, driving poor widows into the slums where they struggle to feed and educate their children, further entrenching poverty. Some widows' children even end up selling sex on the street, said Margaret Gero, a member of the Luo community who runs a widow support group in Kajimbo, some 30 km from Lake Victoria in western Kenya. While Kenya's progressive 2010 constitution recognizes that men and women have equal rights to own property, parliament has not enacted laws to spell out how these rights can be realized. Courts continue to recognize customary laws as long as they are not "inconsistent" with the constitution - an ambiguity which often leads to contradictory rulings. SPIRITS Another traditional belief that has fueled the abuse of widows is the Luo custom of widow cleansing, where a widow is forced to have sex with one of her late husband's brothers as a purification ritual, before being inherited as his wife. "The Luo community believe that when the woman is not (cleansed and) inherited, the spirits of the dead might come back and haunt the community," said Gero, a 48-year-old retired health worker who campaigns against the practice. Wife inheritance was designed to ensure that the wife - and her late husband's land - remained in the family. But it has fueled the spread of HIV in the Luo-dominated counties on the shores of Lake Victoria, which have Kenya's highest HIV prevalence rates, up to four times the national average of six percent, government data shows. Gero blames the practice for her own family's misfortunes. She set up the widows' group to help others avoid the same fate. When her polygamous father died in 1997, leaving behind five daughters, his wife was inherited and contracted HIV. Gero's uncles destroyed their home, pushing her youngest sister, Rose, to run away and get married at the age of 15. She and her child are also HIV positive. Several members of Gero's widows' group have chased away men who were trying to inherit them and their land. "I am homeless, but I don't want their children to be homeless," she said. "They have the right to live in the modern world." (Reporting by Katy Migiro, Editing by Emma Batha.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (Reuters) - Scientists will have to do without an ally in the race to combat the Zika virus. A supercomputer named Santos Dumont has been partially switched off in Rio de Janeiro due to government spending cuts. It was meant to be genetically mapping the Zika virus. "It seems nonsensical, at a moment like this when everyone is talking about the Zika virus," Antonio Tadeu, head of a government group responsible for high performance processing, told Reuters. "The financial problems have meant Santos Dumont is running below capacity since last month," he added. In the midst of Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, funds to Santos Dumont's home at the National Laboratory of Computer Science have been cut by 20 percent, according to the Ministry for Science and Technology. This has meant the supercomputer is working at 30 percent capacity to save energy costs and 75 projects it was meant to be processing are on hold, including the Zika mapping. The supercomputer, which was bought from France's Atos/Bull , is 1 million times faster than an average laptop and costs about 500,000 reais ($148,104) to run per month. The Ministry for Science and Technology said it is negotiating extra funds to restore Santos Dumont to full power. ($1 = 3.376 reais) (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Sandra Maler)
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Scientists will have to do without an ally in the race to combat the Zika virus. A supercomputer named Santos Dumont has been partially switched off in Rio de Janeiro due to government spending cuts. It was meant to be genetically mapping the Zika virus. "It seems nonsensical, at a moment like this when everyone is talking about the Zika virus," Antonio Tadeu, head of a government group responsible for high performance processing, told Reuters. "The financial problems have meant Santos Dumont is running below capacity since last month," he added. In the midst of Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, funds to Santos Dumont's home at the National Laboratory of Computer Science have been cut by 20 percent, according to the Ministry for Science and Technology. This has meant the supercomputer is working at 30 percent capacity to save energy costs and 75 projects it was meant to be processing are on hold, including the Zika mapping. The supercomputer, which was bought from France's Atos/Bull, is 1 million times faster than an average laptop and costs about 500,000 reais ($148,104) to run per month. The Ministry for Science and Technology said it is negotiating extra funds to restore Santos Dumont to full power. ($1 = 3.376 reais) (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Sandra Maler)
By Brad Brooks

CURITIBA, Brazil (Reuters) - For weeks, his possible earth-shattering testimony in Brazil's biggest corruption scandal has been the talk of the nation, filling endless pages in newspapers and magazines.

Breathless reports stated that Marcelo Odebrecht, the former chief executive of Latin America's largest construction firm, was on the cusp of turning state's witness, and he would deliver the biggest catch of all - a confession of funnelling millions in illegal campaign donations to suspended President Dilma Rousseff.

There is just one problem, said Carlos Lima, a lead prosecutor in the sprawling kickback probe at state-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA): None of the above is true.

"Marcelo Odebrecht has never said a word to us, he has not spoken with a single prosecutor," Lima told Reuters from his office in the southern city of Curitiba. "It's bewildering, these stories I'm reading, saying that Marcelo has reached some deal with prosecutors. He's not even close."

Rousseff, who has denied any wrongdoing, faces impeachment in a separate Senate trial for allegedly breaking budget rules to help win re-election. She has not been accused of personal corruption, but Brazil's chief prosecutor has asked the Supreme Court for permission to investigate her for trying to obstruct the Petrobras probe.

The two-year graft investigation into Petrobras is the driving force behind Brazil's political turbulence. It has seen scores of top executives and politicians jailed amid allegations that billions were paid in bribes and stoked popular anger at Brazil's ruling class.

At the centre of it all lies Odebrecht, a firm that spans 15 divisions spread across two dozen countries and has 130,000 employees. It is responsible for most of the building behind the Olympics that will start this August in Rio de Janeiro.

If the firm's executives decide to tell all, few doubt that little of the political establishment will be left standing. Many senior politicians were named in documents seized at the company's offices as apparently receiving bribes.

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Lima said he does not know who is responsible for all the false reports about Marcelo Odebrecht. "I think it is from people who are trying to both help and hurt him, those who may be exposed by any testimony he might actually give."

That significantly ratchets up the intrigue surrounding the once all-powerful head of the Odebrecht firm, now serving over 19 years in jail on corruption convictions.

"Either someone is trying to force an accord on us, which simply will not work," Lima said. "Or, even more duplicitous, somebody is releasing false information in the hope that it would destroy any accord, in the hope that Marcelo stays silent."

A spokeswoman for the Odebrecht firm, who refused to say who is legally representing Marcelo Odebrecht, said in an email the company had no comment on Lima's remarks.

Since his June 2015 arrest, the bespectacled, wiry Odebrecht, who turned his family's company into Brazil's largest employer and one of the top-five private sector groups, has maintained a defiant stance.

Before his conviction, he told a congressional panel that as a parent, he would be more upset with one of his children who tattled on the other, than the one who may have been up to mischief - indicating he would never be a rat.

But last August, his father, Emilio, former head of the conglomerate, reportedly told his son to testify so the company could minimize its financial losses.

Then in March, investigators said that in an Odebrecht raid they found a spreadsheet containing the names of over 300 public officials and others plus amounts of money paid to them, totalling tens of millions of dollars. It is not yet known how much of that may have been bribes or legal campaign contributions.

On that news, the firm announced it was ready to cooperate with prosecutors.

In addition to plea deals with individuals, federal prosecutors have separately signed five leniency deals with companies for lighter sentences in return for information. They have not identified the companies, but Odebrecht is not among them.

Lima acknowledged that Odebrecht could possibly provide the most information, given the size of the company and its deep ties to politicians. But he also said it was not certain that any request for a leniency deal from Odebrecht would be approved.

"We have one space left, there is only one company remaining that will be awarded a leniency deal with us," he said. "Maybe it's Odebrecht, maybe it's not. It depends entirely on who brings us new and substantiated information that we can use."

(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Tom Brown)
London (AFP) - Leading Brexit campaigners Boris Johnson and Michael Gove insisted Thursday that Prime Minister David Cameron should stay in his post regardless of the result of Britain's historic EU referendum.

The Conservative lawmakers had clashed with Cameron, their party leader who led the campaign to stay in the European Union, during a bitter and divisive race.

Johnson, who is widely tipped as a potential successor to Cameron and led the campaign to leave the bloc, was alongside Gove among 84 signatories to a letter to the premier made public after polls closed at 2100 GMT.

"We, who are supporters of Vote Leave and members of the Conservative parliamentary party, thank you for giving the British people a choice of their destiny on June 23, 2016," they wrote.

"We believe whatever the British people decide, you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our 2015 manifesto."

The letter was published online by lawmaker Robert Syms, who said he had delivered it to Cameron's Downing Street office on Thursday evening.

Syms said the letter represented two thirds of the Conservative MPs who went against the government in backing the "Leave" campaign.

He said he had not had time to reach all the Conservative MPs that backed a "Leave" vote.

There is a widespread belief that Cameron would have no choice but to resign if he loses the referendum, although a final opinion poll on Thursday pointed to a narrow victory for his "Remain" side.

If he stays in post, the prime minister will have a difficult task to reunite his centre-right party.

Cameron, who was re-elected with a small parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party last year, said earlier this week that he would want "star players" in his Cabinet after the vote.

"Clearly over time, whatever the outcome, I have to make sure that I have all the star players on the pitch, that we bring together the strongest possible team in the Conservative Party, in parliament, to get on with the job of governing our country," he told ITV television.

Johnson is not currently in the cabinet, having only stepped down as mayor of London in May. Gove is justice secretary.
By Jan Strupczewski and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Whether Britain stays or leaves the European Union after Thursday's referendum, EU leaders are preparing for a clash over how to respond to popular disillusion with the bloc. The Brexit debate is echoed in mounting euroscepticism across much of the continent. This is fuelling a struggle which, crudely put, pits those who want a more integrated Union against self-styled "realists", who dismiss them as "utopian" dreamers disregarding democratic attachment to nation states. Positions are more nuanced and few leaders are arguing for a big shift in power to Brussels. But the confrontation can be seen in permanent tensions between the central institutions of the European Parliament and the executive European Commission on one hand and a majority of the 28 governments that wield ultimate power in the Council. Nations' resistance to ceding rights surfaces in fury among some governments at the Commission's drive to force them to take in refugees or to accept more intrusive EU supervision of euro zone budgets. It puts any federalists on the weaker foot -- not least as France and Germany prepare elections next year with eurosceptics riding high in the polls. Council President Donald Tusk, who will chair a summit on Tuesday and Wednesday to react to the British vote, called on leaders to use the moment to reflect on where Europe has gone wrong. He has also argued that pushing for "more Europe" would only fuel popular hostility to the EU. "Whatever its result is going to be, we must take a long, hard look on the future of the Union," Tusk said on Monday. "We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal." The former Polish premier has denounced "utopian dreams" of a post-national Europe: "Promoting them only leads to the strengthening of eurosceptic moods," he said earlier this month. NO "GREAT LEAP FORWARD" Some in Brussels interpreted his barbs as aimed at Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxemburger whose executive enraged some national leaders by pushing them to accept binding quotas of refugees. EU officials dismiss critics' suggestions that Juncker seeks a "great leap forward" in EU integration after the British vote. Whatever his ideals, he recognises there is no appetite for it among states. His focus if Britain leaves, the officials said, would be to help keep the other 27 from disintegrating in its wake. Juncker himself dismisses suggestions that he is a utopian. "I am no euro-fanatic," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, though he stoutly defended his migration policy. "The EU must not be constructed in opposition to the nations of Europe," he added. "Europe's future lies in a better Europe, not necessarily in 'more Europe'." That view frustrates the most outspoken federalists such as Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian premier who leads the liberal bloc in the European Parliament, itself a bastion of left-right consensus on strengthening its own power. "Europe will be totally different after June 23, whether its a Yes or a No," he told reporters in Paris. "We must take advantage of Brexit to refound Europe. Political leaders have their backs to the wall. They dont have any other choice." "FIX WHAT WE HAVE" German and French officials do not see it that way. French President Francois Hollande, who lags in polls ahead of next April's presidential election behind anti-EU populist Marine Le Pen and mainstream conservative rivals, will visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin next week to launch new EU initiatives. But a senior French official, echoing EU officials, told Reuters there was no prospect of big change. "We don't need either a great federal leap forward or to try to cuddle up to the most fanatical sceptics by deconstructing the EU," he said. "It would look ridiculous to come out with a detailed blue-print for the way forward a day after Britain voted to leave." In Germany, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who in the 1990s advocated a much more integrated "core Europe", has been clear in his view that the days of grand visions have passed. At a meeting with Schaeuble this week, the Dutch chairman of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem showed that even among the hard core of euro states, few see a rapid deepening of integration. "Let's not build further extensions to the European house while it is so unstable. Let's fix what we have," he said. Lack of action carries risks too. A policy document known as the Five Presidents' Report called last year for euro zone states to share more responsibility to stabilise a common currency battered by the debt crisis. But differing French and German approaches, and next year's elections, have stalled the process, and the voters' mood has made leaders wary of pushing ahead. "We can't go on like we have," said Schaeuble, who has been blocking proposals for a European bank deposit insurance scheme. "Or people will say 'They haven't understood'." That argues against the option that smaller groups of states, such as the 19-nation euro zone or the core of the bloc's six Western founders, might move soon towards deeper integration while others, including Britain if it stays, hold back from some of Europe's projects. Such two-track integration seems barely more likely if there is Brexit. While some federalists might call for a dash for unity if the awkward British were to go, most key players favour avoiding rifts among those who remained inside the bloc. The priority would be to make the remaining EU irreversible. As one senior EU official put it: "Europe's got a slap in the face; let's see what we have to do to keep the 27 together." (Additional reporting by Paul Taylor and Yves Clarisse; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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LONDON  As people cast their votes in the referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union, the nation is bracing itself for what could be a future-defining result. To remain or not to remain, that is the question.

SEE ALSO: 67 ways your life may change if the UK 'Brexits'

And, despite Britain's reputation for crippling politeness, the battle over whether we should remain or leave the EU could not be further from polite. Tensions are high, personalities are clashing and in-fighting and double-crossing abound.

This level of passion and fighting spirit is akin to the fierce convictions and fervour displayed in Game of Thrones.

This got us thinking about how key "Brexit" figures would cope if they were in the brutal Game of Thrones realm, and  crucially  which characters they would play.

Angela Merkel  Daenerys Targaryen

Image: ADAM BERRY / GETTY / HBO/ MASHABLE COMPOSITE

Merkel's Brexit stance: House Remain

Of all the badass leaders in the world, Germany's chancellor  Angela Merkel  is the biggest badass around. To start with, she's the most powerful woman on the planet, according to this year's Forbes list. She's been dubbed everything from the "Iron Frau" to "Europe's most dangerous leader," and Germany's support for her has been up and down recently. Merkel has warned against exiting the EU, and recently stated that that countries outside the EU "will never get a really good result in negotiations."

Why is she Daenerys?

Just like Daenerys, Merkel is kicking ass in a male-dominated arena. And much like the Khaleesi we know and love, she's an assertive and strategic power player, who knows what she wants and how to get it. The mother of dragons is a keen empire builder and she would definitely defend Merkel's desire to keep the European empire intact.

Katie Hopkins  Cersei

Image: getty / hbo / mashable composite

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Hopkins' Brexit stance: House Leave

Katie Hopkins recently promised to run naked with a sausage secreted in an unmentionable part of her body if the Conservative candidate didnt win Londons mayoral election. He didnt win, but thankfully Hopkins chickened out and didnt fulfil her promise. Hopkins has been highly vocal about her Brexit stance, and has made it abundantly clear that she considers House Remain her mortal enemy.

Why is she Cersei?

Cersei was forced to walk naked through the streets of Kings Landing by that weird bloke, the High Sparrow. So, Hopkins already has something in common with her. But crucially, Cersei is fiercely loyal to her House. She once said the words: "Everyone who isn't us is an enemy."

David Cameron  Ser Davos Seaworth

Image: getty / hbo / mashable composite

David's Brexit stance: House Remain



David Cameron's having a right nightmare. His party  the Conservatives  is divided over the EU Referendum. The most recent figures show that 185 Conservative MPs have declared as House Remain, while 138 Tory MPs are House Leave.

Why is he Sir Davos?

Much like David "call me Dave" Cameron, Ser Davos got caught up in a mutiny at the Night's Watch, which  spoiler alert  resulted in the death of Jon Snow, albeit a temporary one.

Nigel Farage  High Sparrow

Image: getty / hbo / mashable composite

Nigel's Brexit stance: House Leave

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has played an integral role in the Leave campaign. If you've turned on a TV screen lately, the chances are that you'll have witnessed Farage on the campaign trail, urging voters to join House Leave.

Why is he the High Sparrow?

OK, so Farage hasn't imprisoned anyone lately, or forced anyone to walk naked through the streets. But, he does have one thing in common with the High Sparrow.

The High Sparrow  just like Farage  is passionate about his cause, the Faith of the Seven. Farage shares this fervour, but hasn't quite taken it to the same extremes as the High Sparrow.

Boris Johnson  Joffrey Baratheon

Image: Getty / hbo / mashable composite

Boris' Brexit stance: House Leave

Just like Farage, BoJo has been very vocal about his views on the EU. He believes that "Brexiting" would be a "win-win" for everyone in the UK. His views on the EU are said to have cost him his friendship with his former BFF  and Remainer  David Cameron.

Boris is also a big power player in the Conservative party, and is rumoured to be a contender to succeed David Cameron as Tory Leader  and possibly prime minister.

Why is he Joffrey?

Not gonna lie, this is mostly due to the blonde hair. Nonetheless, Joffrey was hungry for power and had a propensity to act rather foolishly. BoJo  though fiercely intelligent  is widely accepted as a buffoon. Thankfully, he does not share Joffrey's evil streak, and hopefully he won't meet the same grisly demise that Joffrey did.

Jeremy Corbyn  Tommen Baratheon

Image: getty / hbo / mashable composite

Corbyn's Brexit stance: House Remain

If the Labour Party had a throne, Corbyn would be sitting on it. He's been on the campaign trail urging voters to vote to keep the UK in the EU. Since being elected as party leader, he's been doing things a little differently to his predecessors, from attempting to change the format of Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament to subtle sartorial changes, like not wearing a tie.

Why is he Tommen?

Just like Tommen, Corbyn is relatively new to his position as leader. And, while many people view Corbyn as a force for change within politics, he has also been labelled "weak" and "the most unpopular new opposition leader in the history of polling." Tommen isn't quite so unpopular, but he is very weak, impressionable and is yet to prove his mettle.
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - This is a rough outline of the steps Europe plans to take after Britain's referendum on Thursday on whether to leave the European Union, based on public and private comments by officials: DAY 1 - FRIDAY, JUNE 24 - THE THREE R'S - OR MORE Polls close at 10 p.m.. No mainstream exit polls are planned but overnight counts should give a result by around the time the midsummer sun comes up over Brussels. Aside from the result itself, there are already several big imponderables. Cameron says he will notify the European Union "immediately" if Britain is leaving. But he may take some time. If he has lost he will be under huge pressure from his divided Conservative party to resign. He might also be, even if he wins. Money markets will be volatile. The Bank of England and European Central Bank have contingency plans to deal with a "Brexit shock" to sterling and the euro. Leaders of the main parties in the European Parliament plan to meet at 7 a.m. (0600 London time) in Brussels followed by a broader meeting of all party chiefs with the speaker at 8 a.m. Some want British MEPs excluded very swiftly if Britain votes to leave. If it is Brexit, European Council President Donald Tusk, who will chair an EU summit next week and will have spoken to all the leaders in the days before the vote, may deliver a brief statement in the name of the Council, the EU's governing body, possibly soon after Cameron has confirmed the result. However Britons vote, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU chief executive, will host Tusk and European Parliament President Martin Schulz at his Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels at 10:30 a.m. (0930 London time). Also present will be Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose government holds the rotating EU presidency, to take stock and deliver a message. If Britain votes to leave, look for a mantra of Three Rs: Regret - at losing nearly a fifth of the EU economy and more of its military and global clout; Respect - for the will of the British people; and Resolve - to forge ahead with European integration. "The show must go on," one senior EU official said. There may be a fourth message. Call it Reprisal, perhaps, though Britons should not take it personally; warnings of woe for those leaving will aim to discourage others from following suit. "Don't try this at home," as a senior EU diplomat put it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as other key EU leaders, are expected to make statements once the result is in. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will meet counterparts from the other five EU founders -- France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg -- ahead of a routine meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg. All 28 ministers will discuss the result over lunch from 1 p.m. and speak afterwards. If it is Brexit, Tusk may fly to key capitals, such as Rome, Berlin and Paris, EU sources say, though it is not confirmed. DAY 2 - SATURDAY, JUNE 25 - NO, MINISTER? Foreign ministers from the six founders of the bloc - Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - may meet again in Berlin on Saturday after Friday's talks. Some euro zone finance ministers have suggested their Eurogroup might hold an emergency meeting but senior officials call that unlikely; managing banking and market turbulence will be up to the ECB and other regulators. DAY 3 - SUNDAY, JUNE 26 - RALLYING ROUND THE EU FLAG Member states' ambassadors and leaders' "sherpa" advisers are expected to meet in Brussels in the event of a Brexit vote. DAY 4 - MONDAY, JUNE 27 - KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON Commission President Juncker will chair a meeting of the executive's 28 commissioners. A meeting could be brought forward to Sunday, particular if there is turmoil after a Brexit vote. EU officials insist there is no "Plan B" for Brexit. But, recalling the same denials during last summer's near departure of debt-laden Greece, one speaks of a "Room B", where a fire-fighting team of EU lawyers and experts will be ready. French President Francois Hollande says he will meet Merkel in Berlin to discuss EU initiatives "next week". As they will be in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday, he may go on Monday. The start of a new week on global financial markets will see investors and voters demanding answers on where Britain and the EU are heading. Expect both to offer assurances of orderly talks, while nothing changes immediately, for firms or citizens. DAY 5 - TUESDAY, JUNE 28 - "DAVID, ARE YOU LEAVING NOW?" A 24-hour EU summit is scheduled. After any Brexit vote, his political career may be over but Cameron would likely stay on until his deeply divided party elects a successor. He would be expected to appear for dinner in Brussels. Big question - would he notify summit chair Tusk that he is triggering Article 50 of the EU treaty, the legal basis for Britain to leave? In London, pro-Brexit would-be successors may try to play for time. EU officials and diplomats say they would want Britain to launch the process right away and rule out any new negotiations, though for now they see no legal way to force London's hand. The EU treaty does not allow for expulsion but there would be fierce political pressure, urging London to respect voters' wish to leave, and the other 27 could start discussions without Britain. If Cameron secures a referendum win, the summit will discuss enacting the reform package he won from fellow leaders in March to give Britain a special deal to stem EU immigration. The Commission has seven legislative proposals to enact the deal. DAY 6 - WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29 - "PLEASE WAIT OUTSIDE, DAVID." Day Two of the summit and, if it is to be Brexit, leaders of the 27 other states will confer without Cameron in the room - a pattern Britons will have to get used to. Article 50 sets a two-year limit on divorce talks. The EU must fill a Britain-sized hole in its budget and reassure millions of EU citizens living in Britain and Britons on the continent of their future rights. EU leaders may push for a quick show of unity on more integration. Divisions between Berlin and Paris on managing the euro zone probably rule out a big move on that front before both hold elections in 2017. Closer EU defence cooperation, without sceptical Britain, may be revived. A major EU security policy review is already on the summit agenda. Other initiatives, aimed at blunting Marine Le Pen's far-right, eurosceptic bid for the French presidency in 2017, could include a push to create more jobs, especially for the young. However, others, including Polish chairman Tusk, caution against alienating voters by moving ahead too fast. Tusk argues British voters have shown many in Europe are reluctant. EU leaders should give the Commission a negotiating mandate. Some in Britain see exit discussions lasting longer than two years to include talks on new trade terms. But an extension requires an EU unanimity that few in Brussels expect. Some suggest talks with Britain on its future trade terms can run in parallel. Juncker has said the EU's priority would be a two-year divorce, then talks starting "with a blank slate". FROM DAY 7 - NOTHING (AND EVERYTHING) CHANGES; HELLO ESTONIA After a Brexit vote, all EU laws would apply in Britain until two years after London starts the process to leave. Then none would apply. Meanwhile, British lawmakers sit in the EU parliament and thousands of Britons would go on working as EU civil servants and British ministers sit in EU councils. But they will have no real voice. There would be pressure to exclude MEPs and Britain's commissioner, Jonathan Hill, might leave before being stripped by Juncker of his strategic portfolio overseeing the EU financial sector; Britain would be expected to renounce its EU presidency in the second half of 2017; Estonia might come forward to start its first stint in the chair six months early. Other solutions include new member Croatia being slotted in or Malta extending its presidency, which starts in January. There could be another summit in July if there is Brexit. Whatever the referendum's outcome, a host of other EU plans, shelved for fear of alienating British voters, will come out of cold storage, including energy-saving rules to limit the power of toasters and kettles. Dealing with the fallout from a Swiss referendum on EU migration and a Dutch rejection of the EU trade deal with Ukraine will get back on track, as will a review of the EU's seven-year budget, which covers a period out to 2020. If Britain votes to stay in, some, notably in France, fear a new British-led push to free up EU markets and rein in regulation. Some British officials see a mandate to do just that after a referendum win, though others doubt that Cameron, if he survives at all, would have much appetite for deeper EU engagement amid post-campaign Conservative blood-letting. A post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU is the great unknown. Many EU leaders, wary of eurosceptic voters at home, are determined Britain cannot have access to EU trade and financial markets if it wants to keep out EU workers and refuse to contribute to the EU budget. "Out means out," they say. New trade barriers would hurt both sides' economies. But the EU fears a political "domino effect" would cost more long-term. END OF THE ROAD? Leaders have much else on their plates to distract them from negotiating with Britain, including Russia, the euro, jobs and refugees. London may have other priorities, too, not least the likelihood europhile Scotland would bid again to break away. There is a "Brussels consensus" that Britain would face a chilly future, cast out to perhaps talk its way back later into some kind of trade access in return for concessions such as free migration from inside the bloc and contributions to the EU budget - things which Brexit voters want to end. But cautious diplomats do not rule out surprise turns. EU law may seem clear but EU leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel included, are loath to see Britain go and may yet seek a way to keep it in, whatever the vote on June 23. "Will Merkel really shut the door?" a senior EU diplomat said. "It may seem clear-cut in Brussels. But in politics, never say never." (Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
I for work or hoping to switch jobs in the next year, one word on your mind today should be "Brexit."

That portmanteau of the words "British" and "Exit" refers to the United Kingdom's possible break from the rest of the European Union, a move being put to the vote today in a public U.K. referendum closing at 5 p.m. Eastern. So far, polls suggest support is split fairly evenly between the "remain" and "leave" camps.

W

A decision by Britain to break its nearly half-century relationship with the European continent would be unprecedented. The move could roil global markets and shake multinational employers, with serious consequences for global workers, job seekers, and investors   both within and outside of Europe.

While Brexit supporters say that independence from the continent would reduce the costs of bureaucracy and overregulation, the British Treasury itself has warned that the move could leave the nation "permanently poorer," by damaging trade, employment and productivity.

If one more person tells me voting Remain is for the rich: WHO WILL SUFFER IF THE EXPERTS ARE RIGHT AND 100K JOBS GO AND WELFARE IS SLASHED?

Before you start feeling relieved not to live in the U.K., remember that in today's globalized economy, the fates of nations are interconnected. Investors fleeing the pound or euro might drive up the value of the U.S. dollar, for example, which could hurt global demand for American products. That's bad for American companies  and the people who work for them.

"

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It's unlikely that a Brexit would push the U.S. economy into recession, Boston University economics professor Robert Margo said. However, the simple fact that nothing like this has ever occurred before means nobody can easily predict what may follow, he added.

"There might be a short-run negative effect on the British and the European economies, which could affect the U.S. economy and potentially generate a slowdown in employment growth," Margo . "Generally, the expectation is that the effects will not be huge, but that could change if the E.U. decides it's extremely angry and takes retaliatory measures."

Even if stocks and other markets take only a short-term hit, other global economic effects might keep rippling out over the next six to 12 months, Margo s

Source: Mic/Getty Images

Why is this happening?

A scary dimension to the Brexit debate is how it reflects growing racial and social tensions in the U.K.  a trend that Americans might find familiar.

In addition to gripes about E.U. bureaucracy, a leading criticism by Britons in favor of an exit is that Europe is too open to immigration. Those sentiments have already had serious consequences: Pro-immigration and anti-Brexit U.K. legislator Jo Cox was killed last week, allegedly targeted by a right-wing extremist.

The impulse to close borders, both in the U.K. and U.S., should worry those who care about a healthy global economy, said Harvard economist Carmen Reinhart.

International trade still hasn't fully recovered since the downturn in 2008, she said, and the nationalism driving support for Brexit and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump doesn't spell good news for cross-border exchange.

"Barring immigrants and looking inward in terms of trade is an invitation for your neighbors to do the same," Reinhart said. "One of the things that made the Great Depression worse was the rise of inward-looking and retaliatory policies in the 1930s. Those only aggravated the situation."

As economist Anatole Kaletsky has pointed out, the very existence of fear and uncertainty in markets changes economic reality, which can lead to a positive feedback loop of ever-increasing "anti-establishment anger." And when that ire results in policy changes, the whole world gets poorer.

British voters are rolling the dice on a future that extends far beyond U.K. borders: That future includes the prices people around the globe pay at the grocery store, the cost of their debt, the performance of their retirement accounts, and yes  their job opportunities.

Of course, if Brexit fails to pass  and even if it succeeds  the global economy might be spared.

But the nationalist anger driving the vote? That isn't going anywhere.
All eyes are currently on the developments in the United Kingdom and its referendum on European Union membership today. Though chances of Britain remaining in the European Union (EU) have increased over the past week fueling a rally in the global stock markets, a series of latest polls still suggest a close battle between for and against the campaigns, resulting in uncertainty (read: Brexit Vote Approaches: Top Stock and ETF to Watch).



This is especially true as two recent polls  both conducted over the internet  put the Leave camp ahead by one or two points while a telephonic poll pointed to a lead of 48% for those willing to remain in EU versus 42% wanting to exit. Additionally, a poll by Survation for the newspaper The Mail on Sunday showed that 45% favored staying in EU while 44% wanted to leave. A YouGov/Sunday Times polls revealed 44% chances of Britain exiting the EU and 42% of staying. The final poll by ComRes for the Daily Mail and ITV News gave Remain a 6-point lead over Leave.



Likely Consequences



If Britain votes to leave the European bloc, it might be catastrophic for the British markets, at least in the short term. While it might help to promote long-term growth, the short-term pain could be quite severe and lead to worldwide economic instability and chaos in stock markets. In particular, it could threaten more than a trillion dollars in investment and trade with the United States, and result in a sharp decline in the British pound. As such, investors would rush to safe haven avenues and away from riskier assets.



And with Britain being a 10% revenue generator for 30 companies in the S&P 500 index, it shouldnt be surprising if many American stocks are hit hard by this turmoil. In fact, the companies having large exposure to British banks or doing considerable business with Britain will be badly hammered by the falling pound which will reduce U.S. earnings on repatriating the income (read: 6 Sector ETFs Threatened by Brexit Uncertainty).



Nevertheless, a Remain vote would bring back peace and confidence in both the United Kingdom and the financial markets. Further, the focus would return to the Fed policy, growth in China and oil price.



ETFs in Focus on Brexit



We have profiled six ETFs that are in focus because of the Brexit vote:



iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF EWU



The British ETF gained 6.3% over the past one-week after Brexit fears eased. The fund tracks the MSCI United Kingdom Index and is home to a small basket of 114 companies. It does a decent job of spreading assets, as a single stock in the basket makes up for less than 5.3% of the portfolio. From a sector look, financials is the top sector at 21%, closely followed by consumer staples (19.4%) and energy (13.1%). EWU is by far the most popular and liquid ETF in the European space with AUM of $2.1 billion and average daily volume of nearly 4.3 million shares. Expense ratio comes in at 0.48%. The product has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 or Hold rating with a Medium risk outlook.



iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN VXX



While volatility products have been terrible performers over the medium and long terms due to a contangoed market and a steep roll cost, they are intriguing picks during periods of turmoil or uncertainty. That being said, VXX has amassed $1.6 billion in AUM and trades in heavy average volume of 74.8 million shares a day. It charges 89 bps in fees per year and focuses on the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, which reflects implied volatility in the S&P 500 Index at various points along the volatility forward curve. It provides investors with exposure to a daily rolling long position in the first and second months VIX futures contracts. The note was down 5.8% over the past week as Brexit fears eased (read: Market Fears Brexit: Volatility ETFs Take Full Advantage).



SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD



Gold is often viewed as a store of value and a hedge against market turmoil. The product tracking this bullion like GLD could be an interesting pick to play the market turbulence. The fund tracks the price of gold bullion measured in U.S. dollars, and kept in London under the custody of HSBC Bank USA. It is the ultra-popular gold ETF with AUM of $37.1 billion and expense ratio of 0.40%. The ETF exchanges about 11 million shares in hand per day and shed 2.2% over the past week.



iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT



The U.S. government bonds tracking the long end of the yield curve often have a safe haven status. The flight-to-safety on Brexit could push these bonds higher. As such, the ultra-popular long-term Treasury ETF  TLT  which tracks the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index has been in the spotlight. It has AUM of over $8.1 billion and average daily volume of more than 8.3 million shares. Expense ratio comes in at 0.15%. Holding 32 securities in its basket, the fund focuses on the top credit rating bonds with average maturity of 26.52 years and effective duration of 17.90 years. The fund lost 1.5% over the past week after chances of Britain staying in the EU increased (read: Treasury Headed for Best Run: 5 Outperforming ETFs).



CurrencyShares British Pound Sterling Trust FXB



As FXB tracks the movement of the British pound sterling relative to the U.S. dollar, it could see a wild ride in the months ahead if Britain chooses to depart from EU and a rally if it stays. The fund is illiquid, trading in volume of less than 23,000 shares a day, suggesting additional cost in the form of wide bid/ask spread beyond the expense ratio of 0.40%. The ETF has amassed $64.6 million in its asset base and has gained 3.5% over the past week (read: Growing Brexit Debate Brings ETFs in Focus).



iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Europe ETF EUMV



Investors seeking safety from Brexit concerns but wanting to remain invested in Europe could also find EUMV an intriguing choice. This fund provides exposure to European stocks having lower volatility characteristics relative to the broader European developed equity markets. This can be easily done by tracking the MSCI Europe Minimum Volatility Index. Holding 140 securities in its basket, the fund is widely diversified across components with none holding more than 1.57% of assets. United Kingdom takes the top spot at 35.7% while Switzerland and France round off the next two spots with a double-digit exposure each. The fund has accumulated $30.9 million in its asset base and trades in paltry volume of 17,000 shares a day on average. It charges 35 bps in annual fees and gained 2.4% over the past week.



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ISHARS-20+YTB (TLT): ETF Research Reports



SPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research Reports



CRYSHS-BRI PD S (FXB): ETF Research Reports



IPATH-SP5 VX ST (VXX): ETF Research Reports



ISHARS-MS EU MV (EUMV): ETF Research Reports



ISHARS-UTD KING (EWU): ETF Research Reports



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* Political fallout would reach beyond Britain

* Two new polls find "Remain" in the lead

* No exit poll, results expected overnight

* For full coverage click on cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=brexit (Updates sterling, adds details)

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Britons voted on whether to quit the European Union in a bitterly-contested referendum on Thursday that polarised the nation and could change the face of Europe.

Financial markets, on edge for weeks over the uncertain outcome, rose on the strength of late polls that showed a swing towards staying in, but the bulk of recent polls have suggested the outcome was too close to call.

If Britain becomes the first state to exit the EU, the so-called Brexit would be the biggest blow to the 28-nation bloc since its foundation.

The EU would be stripped of its second-biggest economy and one of its two main military powers, and could face calls for similar votes by anti-EU politicians in other countries.

If it votes to stay, Britain has been promised a special status exempting it from any further political integration but European leaders will still have to address a sharp rise in euroscepticism across the continent.

A Brexit vote would also deal a potentially fatal blow to the career of Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum and campaigned for the country to stay in, against a Leave camp led by rivals from within his own Conservative Party.

After four months of campaigning, polling stations opened at 0600 GMT and were due to close at 2100, with results expected to be announced by the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0100 and 0300 on Friday.

There is no exit poll because the margin of error for an event which has no precedent is too large. The only early indication will be a survey of a pre-selected sample of voters by YouGov, to be broadcast on Sky News shortly after 2100.

London and parts of southeast England were hit by torrential rain, causing floods and widespread transport chaos.

Story continues

Five London polling stations opened late as staff struggled to get there, and two closed briefly because of flooding but were quickly re-opened in back-up locations.

"In London/southeast and want to vote in the #EURef? Make sure you plan now to get back to your local polling station by 10pm!" the Electoral Commission said on Twitter, as crowds of frustrated commuters struggled with train cancellations.

CAMERON'S FATE

The Leave campaign focused on warnings that Britain would be unable to control immigration levels as long as it was an EU member. Remain said a Brexit would cause economic chaos, impoverish the nation and reduce its clout on the world stage.

The killing of pro-EU lawmaker Jo Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two who was shot and stabbed on a street in her electoral district in northern England a week ago, prompted soul-searching about the vicious tone of the campaign.

Her suspected murderer told a court his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain". Campaigning was suspended for three days out of respect for Cox, resuming on Sunday.

An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard newspaper found support for Remain on 52 percent and Leave on 48 percent. A Populus poll put Remain 10 points ahead on 55 percent. Both were conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday and published on Thursday.

Cameron called the vote in 2013 under pressure from the rebellious anti-EU wing of his Conservative Party and the surging UK Independence Party (UKIP), hoping to end decades of debate over Britain's ties with Europe.

Unless Remain wins by a wide margin, he could struggle to repair the rifts in his party and hold on to his job. He has said he would stay in office but in the event of a vote to leave he is likely to face calls to resign.

The bookmakers' favourite to replace him is former London mayor Boris Johnson, figurehead of the Leave campaign.

A Brexit could also cause the United Kingdom to break up because Scotland, where sentiment towards the EU is much more positive than in England, could hold an independence referendum if it was being dragged out of the EU against its will. Scots voted by 55 to 45 percent against independence in 2014.

OBAMA V TRUMP

After months of non-stop tit-for-tat confrontation between the sides, any substantive debate was over on Thursday. Due to legal restrictions, there were no large-scale campaign events and no television programmes rehearsing the arguments.

Traders, investors and companies were braced for volatility on financial markets whatever the outcome of a vote that has both reflected, and fuelled, an anti-establishment mood also seen in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

After the Ipsos MORI poll was released, sterling broke above $1.49 for the first time since 2015, although it later fell back and was at $1.48 at 1800 GMT. It had fallen almost to $1.40 last week when polls showed a surge towards Leave.

The likelihood of a Remain vote implied by Betfair betting odds stood at 86 percent, the firm said.

Britain is divided on EU membership along broad age and education lines, polls show. Older and less educated voters tend to favour exit and younger voters and those with higher levels of education lean towards staying.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, the focus on immigration to Britain, which has increased dramatically in recent years, could worsen frictions in a country where the gap between rich and poor has also been widening.

Foreign leaders, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have called on Britain to remain in the EU, a message supported by global financial organisations, many company bosses and central bankers.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who will be in Scotland on Friday for the opening of his luxury golf resort at Turnberry after a refurbishment, has voiced support for Brexit.

"I don't think anybody should listen to me because I haven't really focused on it very much, but my inclination would be to get out," he told Fox Business on Wednesday.

"You know, just go it alone. It's a mess," he said of the EU, citing a migration crisis it has struggled to contain.

International banks have warned that the value of the pound could fall dramatically if Britain votes to leave and traders expect markets to be more volatile than at any time since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Young, Ana Nicolaci da Costa, Michael Holden; Editing by Peter Graff)
London (AFP) - The alleged murderer of British lawmaker Jo Cox, whose shock killing cast a cloud over the final week of Brexit campaigning, will be tried in November under anti-terrorism legislation, a judge ruled Thursday.

Thomas Mair, 52, made a brief appearance via video link at London's Old Bailey central criminal court, and spoke from prison only to confirm his name, as Britain voted in a referendum that could make it the first country to leave the European Union.

Mair is charged with murder and possession of a firearm and the case is being heard under the "terrorism protocol".

At his first court hearing on Saturday, Mair had said his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Cox was shot and stabbed to death last Thursday as she was on her way to meet local residents in her constituency in Birstall in northern England.

The brutal street killing of Cox, a pro-EU lawmaker who had defended immigration and refugee rights, shocked the nation and led to a three-day suspension in campaigning ahead of the EU referendum.

Judge John Saunders set a provisional trial date for November 14, with a plea hearing set for October 4.

Mair will next appear before the court on September 19.
London (AFP) - Millions of Britons were voting Thursday on whether to stay in the EU or quit, in a momentous referendum that has polarised the country and could change the face of Europe.

The evening wave of voters headed to cast their ballots after work before the polls close at 2100 GMT, after a close-fought and often vitriolic campaign focused on immigration, the economy and Britain's very identity.

A record 46.5 million people registered to vote in the once-in-a-generation referendum being nervously watched across Europe and the world.

European leaders fear a so-called Brexit would trigger the biggest crisis in the 60-year history of post-war integration on the continent.

The final opinion polls put the "Remain" camp narrowly ahead and financial markets duly bet on a vote to stay Thursday, with world stocks surging and the pound hitting its highest level this year.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 share index closed up 1.2 percent at 6,338.1 points, while key eurozone indices in Frankfurt and Paris forged even higher, at around two percent up.

In currency trading, the pound hit a 2016 high against the dollar at $1.4947.

An Ipsos MORI opinion poll for the London Evening Standard newspaper put "Remain" on 52 percent and "Leave" on 48 percent.

- Turnout crucial -

Experts predict a high turnout across the kingdom.

Jenny Watson, who chairs the Electoral Commission referendum overseers and will announce the official result, said recounts would not take place "simply because the vote was close".

"If it's a dead heat then it's a dead heat. There is no casting vote," she told the BBC.

While early indications of results could come from around 0200 GMT Friday, the final declaration is not likely until around 0800 GMT.

Leave figurehead Boris Johnson, the former London mayor, said the race was "very close", as he returned to the British capital from Edinburgh, but added: "From what I have heard... turnout is good in areas where we need it to be."

Story continues

In London and southeast England, many voters braved torrential rains and thunderstorms to have their say.

Several polling stations had to be relocated due to flooding and one was being run on a generator due to a power outage.

The referendum asks: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

Commentators suggest Brexit could trigger a constitutional crisis in Britain, prompting another Scottish independence referendum.

There are also fears it could prompt other EU countries, disillusioned with how Brussels has handed the eurozone and migrant crises, to try to break away.

- Voting in a launderette -

Polling stations have been set up at locations including churches, schools and even a launderette and a windmill.

Outside a polling station in suburban Biggin Hill, south of London, 55-year-old Steve Annett, who works in publishing, said: "We're stronger together working with our European neighbours.

"Obviously the economy is a major concern," he told AFP.

Meanwhile pensioner Wendie said older people were "fed up of being taken over, our laws being taken over by the EU. Why can't we rule our own country?"

Thousands of people queued to vote in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, which borders Spain.

Gibraltar's mayor Adolfo Canepa told reporters he was worried about the future if Britain left the EU.

"I know what it was like to live for all those years when the frontier was closed and I wouldn't like to put my children and grandchildren through that again," he said.

The often acrimonious campaign has exposed a wide gulf between Britons on the country's often troubled four-decade membership of the European club.

EU leaders have warned Britain -- the world's fifth-largest economy -- that there would be no turning back from a vote to quit.

"Out is out," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday, dismissing any talk of a post-vote renegotiation of Britain's membership terms.

In many European countries, newspapers pleaded "Please don't go" while several monuments were lit up with the British flag.

- Cameron invokes Churchill -

Prime Minister David Cameron, who faces calls to resign in the event of a "Leave" victory, voted early without making any comment.

At his final rally on Wednesday, the Conservative leader implored people to stay in the bloc, invoking Britain's cigar-chomping wartime prime minister Winston Churchill.

"Churchill didn't give up on European democracy... and we shouldn't walk away," he said.

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, said as he voted that "Leave" had "a really good, strong chance".

"It's all about passion, it's all about who cares enough to go out and vote."

The referendum battle was shaken by the brutal murder of Jo Cox, a pro-"Remain" Labour lawmaker and mother of two who was stabbed and shot in the street one week before the vote.

Thomas Mair, 52, has been charged with her murder and had a provisional trial date set for November at a court hearing on Thursday.

EU leaders will begin a two-day summit Tuesday to deal with the outcome and decide how to cope with the risk of similar referendums on the continent.
(Adds further comment from BSI, detail, FINMA no comment)

By Joshua Franklin

ZURICH, June 23 (Reuters) - Swiss bank BSI is appealing a decision by Swiss financial watchdog FINMA that BSI breached money laundering rules through its business relationships and transactions linked to a scandal-hit Malaysian government fund.

FINMA last month ordered BSI to hand over profits amounting to 95 million Swiss francs ($99.4 million) and to shut down once it has been integrated into EFG International, which is in the process of buying BSI.

1MDB is at the centre of a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal, and its transactions have triggered investigations on three continents.

In a statement on Thursday, Lugano-based BSI said it had taken its appeal to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, arguing that the FINMA procedure was "flawed in many respects and FINMA's decision as such is disproportionate and incorrect".

"In addition, FINMA's communication of the matter has severely harmed the reputation of the bank and its employees," BSI said.

BSI said it had been in contact with FINMA about the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) case since autumn 2013 and that all client relationships related to 1MDB were closed in early 2015.

"Accordingly, while BSI acknowledges certain internal shortcomings in the past, BSI believes that FINMA's decision, its timing as well as the manner in which FINMA decided to communicate it were wholly inappropriate," BSI said.

A FINMA spokesman declined to comment on the BSI actions and referred back to its statement in May.

FINMA had said last month BSI had repeatedly missed red flags in various transfers involving 1MDB over several years, and failed to double-check potentially suspect transactions, including a deposit of $20 million described by a client as a "gift".

($1 = 0.9559 Swiss francs) (Editing by Michael Shields)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada took steps Thursday to limit the risk of a real estate bubble as home prices in Toronto and Vancouver continue to soar.

Despite efforts to cool heady real estate activity on five occasions since 2008, including by tightening mortgage lending rules, prices in both major cities have hit new records.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the creation of a working group to review the housing affordability crisis, and make policy recommendations within three months.

Canadians, he said in a statement, are "worried about their ability to buy their first home, or about the value of their most important investment."

The group will examine factors affecting supply and demand for housing, affordability, and possible "further steps" to protect lenders and ensure real estate market stability.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week an influx of capital from Asia is partly to blame for double-digit housing price increases year after year in Toronto and Vancouver, but provided no supporting data to back up the remarks.

His comments followed warnings by Canada's central bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about a possible housing bubble.

According to their respective real estate boards, Vancouver prices climbed 30 percent in the 12 months ending May 31, while Toronto prices rose 16 percent. The average price for a detached single-family house in Vancouver topped Can$1.5 million (US$1.17 million).

A Simon Fraser University study noted that the proportion of homes in Vancouver valued at more than Can$1 million rose from 19 percent in 2006 to 91 percent this year.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson has blamed speculators, and proposed introducing a tax on vacant homes in the city, whose number has climbed to 11,000 (mostly condominium units).
* TSX up 140.29 points, or 1 pct, to 14,144.1

* Index touches highest since June 10 at 14,150.40

* All of the TSX's 10 main groups were higher

TORONTO, June 23 (Reuters) - Canada's benchmark stock index hit a nearly two-week high on Thursday, led by financial and energy stocks after a series of last-minute opinion polls pointed to Britain staying in the European Union and bookmakers' odds indicated a shift toward the "Remain" camp.

Global equities and oil prices rose with the world watching as Britons voted in a referendum on whether to leave the EU, changing the face of Europe, or to stay.

Some of the most influential movers on the index were Canada's heavyweight banks. Royal Bank of Canada climbed 1.5 percent to C$79.61 and Toronto-Dominion Bank advanced 1.2 percent to C$56.86, while the overall financials group rose 1.2 percent.

Energy stocks rallied 1.8 percent, including a 2.2 percent gain for Suncor Energy Inc to C$35.55.

U.S. crude prices were up 0.7 percent at $49.48 a barrel.

Shares of BlackBerry Ltd rose 3.1 percent to C$8.90. The smartphone industry pioneer broke even in the first quarter, topping expectations, and forecast a smaller-than-expected annual loss, even as its revenue fell sharply.

Planemaker Bombardier Inc said the Canadian province of Quebec agreed to invest $1 billion in its CSeries aircraft program, which has struggled with years of delays and cost overruns. Its shares rose 1.5 percent to C$1.98.

At 12:07 p.m. EDT (1607 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index rose 140.29 points, or 1 percent, to 14,144.1. It touched its highest since June 10 at 14,150.40.

All ten of the index's main industry groups were higher.

A series of late opinion polls favored Britons voting in Thursday's referendum to stay in the European Union, and bookmakers' odds indicated a further shift toward the "Remain" camp, which boosted sterling.

Canadian equity fund managers say they have raised their exposure to domestic stocks over recent months because of improved confidence in the local market, while keeping a close eye on the risk that would be posed by Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

Story continues

The materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 0.6 percent, with the move higher restrained by losses for gold stocks.

Goldcorp Inc fell 2.4 percent to C$22.63 as reduced demand for safe-haven assets weighed on gold. Spot gold dipped 0.2 percent after having hit an earlier two week low.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith; editing by Jonathan Oatis, G Crosse)
More than 8,000 ships ply the waters of the St. Lawrence River estuary in Canada each year, putting at risk beluga whales, minke whales, blue whales, humpback whales, and fin whales that frequent the waterway and that have died from collisions.

But since 2013, there have been no whale deaths from ship strikes. Thats because instead of imposing regulations on ship owners, the government worked with the industry and scientists to develop ways to minimize collisions.

In 2011, Lael Parrott, an environmental scientist at the University of British Columbia, was working on a model to determine how whale watching boats were affecting the marine mammals. Soon the project took on the larger issue of commercial ship strikes of whales. Parrott, along with Guy Cantin, a ocean management team leader with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, put together a group to devise solutions that would keep the shipping lanes open but also protect the whales.

The task force included the head of the ship pilots association and shipping operators representatives. For Cantin, it was a departure from the norm. Ive been working for the government for many years, and usually we develop a solution inside the agenciesmaybe consult experts, and then we consult the stakeholders after we come up with a solution, he said.

The group modeled different scenarios for ships and whales. It found that slowing down ships would reduce whale strikes, but it would increase the time to cross the river, so whales would be exposed to the ships a longer time. Another idea was to have ships avoid traditional routes frequented by whales, but the group found that alternative routes would put ships in proximity to beluga birthing grounds.

The group explored the different findings and arrived at a strategy that was agreeable for everyone: Ships would voluntarily reduce their speed and avoid some areas in the St. Lawrence River estuary.

RELATED: Big Data Is Saving Whales From Ship Collisions

It worked. Ship pilots significantly reduced their speed across the area, with 72 percent of the transits in 2014 occurring at speeds less than 13.6 miles per hour, according to a new report published in the journal Solutions. The majority of ship traffic previously moved at 15 to 18 miles per hour. Data also showed that high speeds have gradually fallen, reducing the risk of fatal collisions with whales by 40 percent.

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Since the voluntary rules went into place in 2013, there have been no whale strikes reported. Previously, about three collisions per year were reported on the St. Lawrence. An analysis of the local blue whale population had shown that at least 5 percent of individuals bear marks of collision with a ship.

The group could be a model for other thorny ocean issues, said Parrott and Cantin. The key is to have a small group of critical people around the table who want to be a part of the process.

Other questions loom. The working group is starting to examine how ship noise affects whales, which rely on sound for navigation and foraging. Parrott said.

Weve been working together for five years now, and we know each other pretty well, she said. That makes the conversations a lot easier.

Take the Pledge: Whales and Dolphins Shouldn't Be in Captivity

Related stories on TakePart:





 China's Marine Park Boom Is Driving the Capture of Whales and Dolphins

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Original article from TakePart
TORONTO, June 23 (Reuters) - The chief lobbyist for Canada's banks, Terry Campbell, is to step down as chief executive of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) next year, he told Reuters, leaving time for a successor to be appointed.

Campbell, who has been in the role since March 2011, said he has notified the country's biggest banks of his decision after informing the board of the CBA earlier this month.

"I'm going to retire a year from now. I've given my board a year" to appoint a successor, Campbell said.

Campbell has worked at the CBA since 1997, having previously had a 16 year career in the Ontario public service, including having responsibility for policy relating to provincially-regulated financial services.

The CBA lobbies on behalf of Canadian banks including Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal.

During his time at the helm of the CBA, Campbell lobbied against the Volcker rule, a key plank of U.S. financial reform which he said would unfairly punish Canadian banks that dealt closely with the U.S. market.

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Leah Schnurr

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Planemaker Boeing Co (BA.N) could include civil aviation work opportunities for Canadian firms if the country were to purchase F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to replace its aging fighter jets, company executives said on Thursday.

The new Liberal government promised during last year's election that it would launch an open competition to replace Canada's CF-18 fighter aircraft and pledged not to buy Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) F-35 jets as the previous Conservative government had planned to do.

But the Liberals, who came into power last November, have yet to release details on a competition.

Boeing executives said the company is making the case for both the capabilities and the economic benefits it can offer Canada with its Super Hornets.

"What we bring to the table is an aerospace company that includes both commercial and defense opportunities," said Roger Schallom, senior manager of Boeing's International Strategic Partnerships for the Americas.

"We don't just look at defense. We bring Boeing commercial and Boeing defense opportunities to Canadian industry," he added, though he did not give specifics on what type of work that would include.

Other work Boeing is looking at under a potential program includes in-service support and assistance with exporting, said Schallom.

"All of these (elements) are, I believe, attractive to the government of Canada," said Schallom.

Asked whether that could include giving work to Canadian planemaker Bombardier (BBDb.TO), Roberto Valla, vice president of global sales for Canada, said that while there have been no requests to work with specific firms, Boeing is open to working with all Canadian companies.

It already works with more than 550 companies across Canada, Valla said.

Recent media reports have suggested Canada could delay a competition and order Boeing's fighter jets as a stop-gap measure. The defense minister's spokeswoman has said the reports were inaccurate.

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Valla said that while the government is exploring a number of options, Boeing has not been asked to provide a formal offer.

Lockheed told Reuters earlier this month that the company is studying whether to shift work on the F-35 away from Canadian firms amid the uncertainty.

In Montreal, Quebec Economy Minister Dominique Anglade said Thursday she would like to see the province's aerospace industry make further inroads in the defense market and would closely follow any competition. Anglade could not say whether Boeing or Lockheed would provide greater benefits to Quebec's aerospace hub, the largest in Canada.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr. Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal.; Editing by Alan Crosby and Dan Grebler)
From LennyLetter

"Men have anger." That's a phrase my dad used to say to me whenever he had a random tantrum over losing his keys or an altercation with a meter maid. He would say it casually, after whatever incident had run its course. After, say, I was still struggling to process why my dad had, in short succession: sped in front of a driver who had cut him off, only to then stop short, blocking the other driver from getting away, turned off his ignition, rolled down the window, and dangled his keys out of it as if to declare, "You wanna keep honking, we'll just keep sitting here."

"Men have anger."

I've thought about this a lot as I've grown up and the conclusion I've come to is that:

SO. DO. WOMEN.

At least I do. Here are things I have done in crazed fury, in no particular order:

When I was a waitress and a man tipped me in pennies, I addressed the entire restaurant and pointed at his wife and announced: "I just had to spend an hour, but I'm so sorry you have to spend a lifetime with him."

I tripped my college roommate after I overheard her say she didn't think I was "fun."

At sixteen, when my parents told me I couldn't go out, I pulled two heavy brass sconces out of the wall by hanging from them, leaving only dangling wires in my wake.

I have seriously contemplated driving my car through my home for "effect."

And yet I seem so mild mannered and sweet on the surface. But just underneath, I'm seething.

I didn't always label it as anger. My dad says as a child I was "challenging." A "handful," raved my grandfather. "Emotional," enthused my aunt Ann. I paid no attention to my mom's dog-eared copy of Raising Your Spirited Child. I was too busy firing the fellow nine-year-olds in our neighborhood who hadn't learned their lines for my backyard production of Cats: The Sequel (rights pending).

I didn't always label it as anger.

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My parents begged me to go easy on Amy. Her parents had recently gotten divorced, and her dad was living on a houseboat. Did I have to use the word fired? Couldn't she havesome part? "Fine!" I yelled. "She can play the telephone." Amy would go on to dazzle the citizens of Alexandria, Virginia, with how long she could remain crouched down stage right with her arm draped over her head as the human receiver and allow me to talk on her. I had - naturally - replaced her in the starring role. Anger, I realized, could mean power.

It could also be exciting. I grew up in a spectacularly heightened household where joy and anger mingled seamlessly. My parents were highly successful, funny, passionate people who taught me life should be lived out loud and all big feelings felt. My mom once tried to throw a dining-room chair at my dad's head, and I barely looked up from Mr. Popper's Penguins. My dad was arrested for screaming at a maitre d' because they wouldn't seat an elderly woman. Later, she told my dad that while she was grateful he had stuck up for a stranger, they hadn't seated her because she was waiting for someone. (Oops.)

I'm positive we all went to the movies after both incidents as if nothing had happened. Popcorn and a dark theater: a great post-rage landing spot for our family, even if my mom was often asked to leave for laughing too loudly. Which also made her furious. "We're Italian," she explained with a shrug.

She called it "Italian"; my now-husband called it "actress" when we were dating. And as an actress, anger had actually served me fairly well, as it can be galvanizing and motivating. But I just wasn't sure what I was so angry about. It wasn't a constant state of being - in general I am quite upbeat. Rather, it felt like a tidal wave waiting in the wings that threatened everything in its path. I had no control over it. Did I want to yell to a woman at a Beverly Hills salon who was rude to the valet "YOU ARE DRENCHED IN ENTITLEMENT!!!" Did I want to pen "newsletters" for my neighborhood shaming a male neighbor who wrote me a nasty note on my parking job? Why, yes I did! I thought I was a vigilante! Others thought I was unmoored.

And it's not just strangers who would get the brunt of my thrice-yearly explosions. It was well-meaning boyfriends who wondered why we couldn't just "sleep on it and talk calmly in the morning?" Because I wanted to scream on it now! My prized girlfriends were patient, but I still have deep regret over the few times I turned my acid tongue on them. I think it was because I always felt like they could handle it (and they could), but they shouldn't have had to.

I've realized that anger doesn't seem to be as palatable on a woman as it is on a man. And I'm angry about that. I'm angry at women who can't access their anger, or who cover it by masquerading as little sweeties, or those who display it and are off-putting. Which are all versions of myself I have spent my life trying to wrangle and negotiate.

I've realized that anger doesn't seem to be as palatable on a woman as it is on a man.

Even as I acknowledged that there's a degree of sexism in the way the world treats an angry woman, as I got older, I started realizing my outbursts were causing real problems. For starters, I lost a lot of phones. Whenever I would feel a flash of white-hot rage overtake me, my first impulse was always the same. To throw my phone. My phone! My very lifeblood! No available slab of drywall was safe.

Over the years, I have thrown a Mountain Dew pager out the window of my boyfriend's car on the highway en route to Rehoboth Beach. I've smashed my beloved bedazzled Sidekick into my dressing-room mirror at SNL and left a trail of crushed BlackBerrys in every shitty apartment complex in LA. I have thrown my iPhone only once, in a tequila-fueled moment (but between us, I knew I had an upgrade coming).

In the moment, these eruptions felt fantastic. Nay, important. But afterward, I started feeling disproportionately upset about my behavior, and it then became about the emotional hangover the anger wrought. Where was this all coming from? I got into therapy with the hopes of figuring it out. It's too boring to blame everything on our moms, but I wonder if, maybe, the conservative wave of the early '80s is something I can blame?

In the moment, these eruptions felt fantastic.

My mom was the president of the National Women's Political Caucus (an organization devoted to getting women elected) for the first several years of my life. I wonder if growing up with a mother who was so angry at the state of things she wore a pro-choice sticker while eight months pregnant with me played a role. She raised me to believe I could be anything I wanted to be. Which was liberating and wonderful. But perhaps this combination had me feeling a little too free to be me. I had become a subway ad: if I saw something, I said something. It wasn't a good look, but no amount of therapy or meditation (my mantra made me EVEN. ANGRIER.) or astrology retreats (I'm a Scorpio, doy) seemed to help with this particular issue. I couldn't get a handle on it.

Surprisingly, the things that ended up helping me the most are arguably the things I have the most reason to be angry about. I was not asked back to Saturday Night Live. My long-term relationship ended poorly. My mom passed away. And yet when I received my things in a brown box from SNL and saw that bottles of alcohol had been thrown in with photos of my mom and everything had exploded all over, I didn't feel angry. I felt sad. When the former boyfriend declined my invitation to meet for coffee years later so I could apologize, I just felt deep regret. And when the woman who did my mom's makeup for her funeral came up to me in the receiving line and asked if she could grab the number of the doctor who had done my mom's eye lift ... I laughed. And gave it to her.

In the realization that life is ever tenuous, I suddenly became less angry. I found such joy in my work. I got married. I had a baby. Now, please note, I'm still an angry bird, to be sure. But now I'm acutely aware that things and jobs and people come ... and go. And I can't afford to destroy what and whom I have.

I'm now aware of the pause. The pause between one state of being and another. It's just amoment. Between life and death. Between when the phone rings and when you say hello. Between feeling and action. Loss has given me a deep awareness of that pause, and in taking it, I have finally been able to harness my anger. Or at least manage it. And take a breath. Before I look for my phone. To either throw it ... or call my husband and see if he wants to go to the movies.

Casey Wilson is an actress and writer from Happy Endings, Marry Me, and Gone Girl and cohosts the podcast Bitch Sesh.
This cat totally hates it when her human sings ABBA

This cat totally hates it when her human sings ABBA

One cat is *not* thanking her human for the singing.

A New Jersey house cat named Sunny may look cute as can be, but she gets her claws out when her owner, Marianne Kane, dares to sing ABBA. Though its unfortunate for Marianne  who has a totally lovely voice, BTW  its pretty hilarious to watch, as Marianne proved when she took a video of Sunny pouncing on her as she sang ABBAs Thank You For The Music.

In the video, Sunny stalks over to Marianne as she sings before pouncing five times, finally swatting her on the face to get her to stop.

cat abba

Maybe she doesnt like my singing, Marianne, who runs a fitness and lifestyle business called Myomy, told Cater News Agency.

But despite her angry quirks, Marianne doesnt have any bad blood toward her feline pal. Sunny has the most amusing character of any cat weve ever owned, Marianne told Caters. She has a ton of energy, shes extremely intelligent, talkative, and always looking for something to destroy or attack. We love her so much in spite of the fact that she has a tendency to play rough.

We have a feeling Sunny doesnt have a problem with Mariannes beautiful voice. Maybe she just doesnt like ABBA. . . so Marianne, whatever you do, just dont sing Dancing Queen.

The post This cat totally hates it when her human sings ABBA appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Channing Tatum is making another venture into TV.

The 21 Jump Street star, who also is executive producing an NBC dance competition series, is teaming with A24 (The Carmichael Show, Playing House) for an action-comedy series set in the 1980s, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Titled Iron Fisting, the project will be made as a fictional '80s Romanian cop show. Inspired by Miami Vice, the series is jokingly billed as "the greatest '80s Romanian cop show ever." It centers on the exploits of two mismatched buddy cops as they seek to protect Communism and comrades from the evils of capitalism. Like a real Romanian series, the project will be dubbed in English, and production set to begin in September in Eastern Europe. No actors have been cast, and no network is yet attached.

Creators Brian Gatewood and Alex Tanaka (Animal Practice) will write the series, as well as executive produce along with director Rhys Thomas (Saturday Night Live, Documentary Now!). Tatum's production banner, Free Association, will produce with A24.

"People are constantly asking us: 'When are you guys going to make a 1980s-era Romanian buddy cop show already ' Well, you're welcome world. Check back soon," Free Association said Wednesday in a statement.

"We are absolutely thrilled to be financing this one-of-a-kind project," added A24. "Brian and Alex have created something funny, fresh and totally unexpected, and we are excited to collaborate with them, Rhys Thomas, Free Association, and of course Channing Tatum."

In addition to the forthcoming dance competition series Tatum is exec producing for NBC, Free Association also is producing his upcoming Marvel film Gambit, Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky, a sequel to 22 Jump Street and a Magic Mike Live Las Vegas show based on the two films headlined by the actor.

In addition to its TV work, A24's recent films titles include Room, Amy, Ex-Machina and the upcoming Swiss Army Men.
Charter Communications and the company it recently acquired, Time Warner Cable, regularly held on to cash they inappropriately collected from consumer overcharges, according to a report out today from the U.S. Senates Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The operators made no effort to trace equipment overcharges to their origin unless customers specifically asked them to and did not provide notice or refunds to customers, the report says.

By contrast, it adds, Comcast and DirecTV provided full refunds to overcharged customers, and Dishs sophisticated billing system is designed to prevent these types of issues from occurring in the first instance.

Charter told the committee that it overbilled customers by at least $442,691 a month. Time Warner Cable kept $639,948 from January to April this year, potentially giving it a $1.9 million boost for all of 2016.

We found that customers are being charged a host of fees that are not included in

advertised pricing, some of which are for programming that used to be included in a customers video package, ranking member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says. We also found that, just as many customers have long believed, some of these fees, like the HD and DVR service fees, arent a true reflection of the cost to the company of the service, but rather are based on the revenue goals of the company, and the price a customer is willing to stomach.

A separate report from the Democratic minority on the committee says it found, in looking at samples of customers in December, that many with billing problems couldnt resolve them on the first call. That affected 40% of Comcast customers in the sample, and 20% of Charter customers.

In addition, the minority report says, when customers called about a problem, they had to listen to sales tactics. For example, when Time Warner Cable customers called to ask about price hikes, the company labeled it as an opportunity to upsell them, and advised agents, [t]he price adjustment brings with it an opportunity to upsell customers. Regardless of the reason that customers may have called, Comcast told its employees to uncover hidden needs of their subscribers for additional services.

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Committee chairman Rob Portman (R-Ohio) says that the investigation led to improvements: Charter says that it will give a one-year credit to those affected by overcharges.

TWC promised to conduct a monthly audit for overcharges and give affected customers an automatic one-month credit. But it wont investigate when it began to overcharge customers unless people bring specific concerns to the companys attention, the report says.

That is a good start but it does not make customers whole, Portman says.

McCaskill says the companies indifference to customer service is due to lack of competition. In its latest competition report, the FCC estimated that about 61% of U.S. homes only have the choice of one cable company or the satellites if they want to watch television, she says. We plan to continue our investigation of competition issues in the pay-TV market, and I look forward to reporting our findings in the coming months.

Responding to the committee report, Charter says:

Since 2012, we have invested $7 billion in network improvements and added more than 7,000 jobs resulting in growing and longer customer relationships. An audit of our set-top boxes charges over the last nine months found them to be over 99% accurate. To move us closer to 100% accuracy and permanently resolve this issue, we have installed new controls to ensure discrepancies are caught and eliminated on a daily basis. Charter customers who were incorrectly charged for set-top boxes are being notified and given a 12-month credit for these fees.

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SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean court ordered that a prominent former senator be placed under nighttime house arrest, while authorities investigate him for possible tax fraud and bribery. Pablo Longueira, who was a presidential candidate in Chile's 2013 election, is accused by prosecutors of receiving close to $1 million from specialty mining company SQM from 2009 to 2013, then hiding the donations through falsified receipts in contravention of Chilean law. He also is accused of accepting bribes while working on a 2010 law that regulates mining concessions. The order for Longueira's arrest came late on Wednesday night, six days after a court jailed conservative senator Jaime Orpis after he was convicted of falsifying donation receipts. It also comes the day after Chile's public prosecutor said it was investigating a former high-level cabinet official in leftist President Michelle Bachelet's government for bribery and tax offenses. Longueira has maintained his innocence. "I understand the charges and I don't agree with them," he said during a brief appearance before a judge. The current scandal caused Longueira to resign in March from the UDI party, which was founded by right-wing allies of former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The UDI, like several other major political parties in Chile, has been wracked by a series of money-in-politics scandals in the past year and a half. That in turn has tarnished Chile's reputation for transparency and left Chileans disenchanted with politicians across the spectrum. (Reporting by Antonio de la Jara and Gram Slattery; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Bill Trott)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry on Thursday brushed off doubts about how many countries have offered support for its position in a case brought by the Philippines over Chinese claims in the South China Sea, saying the number of nations was growing daily. China has stepped up its rhetoric ahead of an expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague on the Philippine case. China refuses to recognize the case and says all disputes should be resolved through bilateral talks. China says more than 40 countries have offered support for its position, the most recent being Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. But only eight countries have come out in public support, including land-locked nations such as Niger and Afghanistan, says Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official voiced scepticism at China's claim that dozens of countries were backing its position, saying it was not clear even about what those countries may have agreed to. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said public reports showed at least 47 countries offering support, though the figure was not complete as some nations' backing had not been publicly reported. "The number of people supporting China rises by the day, so I have no way of giving you a precise figure," she told a daily news briefing, adding that the actual number was not the most important thing. "As long as you have an objective and impartial position, as long as you understand the main points of the history of the South China Sea and the essence of the so-called 'arbitration case', any unbiased country, organization or person will unhesitatingly chose China's just position," she said. China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims. The Philippines is contesting China's claim to an area shown on its maps as a nine-dash line stretching deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia, covering hundreds of disputed islands and reefs and encompassing a vital global trade route. The consensus among officials and analysts is that the ruling will go largely against Beijing. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Rapper Lecrae has returned to WME, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. He first joined the agency when it established a Nashville-based Christian music division with three Paradigm agents in January 2014; he later moved to CAA.

One of the most successful hip hop artists in Christian music history, Lecrae made crossover history with his most recent album, 2014's Anomaly, when it became the first to top the Billboard 200 and Christian Albums chart at the same time. The album before that, Gravity, won the Grammy for best gospel album in 2012. He broke out with his third album, 2008's Rebel, which became the first hip-hop album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Chart.

Last month, Lecrae and his Reach Records label, which he co-founded and co-owns, signed with Columbia Records. He is now recording his eighth studio album, which will be released later this year.

Lecrae was one of the nearly 200 artists and music executives who signed Billboard's open letter to Congress to stop gun violence. He also is active in the Obama administration's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative and co-founded the nonprofit ReachLife Ministries, of which he serves as president.

Lecrae continues to be repped by Career Artist Management.

Read More: Garth Brooks Signs With WME
With a cadre of movie stars including Tom Cruise and John Travolta within its rosters, the Church of Scientology is venturing into the film business with a new production studio in Los Angeles, aimed at making content to promote its teachings. Scientology Media productions, located near the religious organizations West Coast headquarters in Hollywood, boasts film, television and radio broadcasting facilities on a five-acre property valued at $42 million. Scientology was founded in 1954 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, and describes its practices as a religion, believing man is an immortal being whose experience extends beyond one lifetime. Critics of the church say the religion is a cult, and have accused Scientologists of harassing people who seek to quit. The church denies such allegations. Scientology leader David Miscavige said the new studios will aim to raise the public profile of the church and be open to other religious and charitable organizations.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / CIBT Education Group Inc. (TSX: MBA, OTCQX International: MBAIF) ("CIBT" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a financial advisory agreement (the "Agreement") with TriView Capital Ltd., of Calgary, Alberta to raise an aggregate of $110 million equity for two limited partnerships being structured by CIBT and to be managed by one of CIBT's subsidiaries, Global Education City Management Corp., to develop a GEC-branded Education Super Center in Metro Vancouver and Education Mega Center potentially in Surrey, BC (collectively referred to as "Super Centers").

The concept of "Education Super Centers" was derived from CIBT's development and successful launching of its Global Education City projects in Metro Vancouver, now comprising five student centric serviced apartments and hotels located in Metro Vancouver valued over $165 million. With two of these projects fully operational at near 100% occupancy, two projects near completion for August and December 2016 possession, one project expanded from two city lots to three city lots and now at re-zoning phase, the Education Super Center and Mega Center models were developed based on experiences gained and tremendous demand generated through CIBT's schools, recruitment network and agency connections, and other elements of its education infrastructure.

"We have had the pleasure of working with TriView Capital since 2015 and TriView successfully completed $6 million in equity investments for a GEC-branded limited partnership project efficiently," commented Toby Chu, President, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of CIBT Group. "From the experience gained and comments received so far, it is clear to us that investment interest in student housing is fresh and strong, and having CIBT Group's 22 years education infrastructure along with Sprott Shaw College's 113 years' experience in BC's education sector made a tremendous difference when connecting with potential investors. Furthermore, our infrastructure and experience has thus far ensured a steady pipeline feeding international students to our housing properties. Our Education Super Center and Mega Center projects will be the first of its kind in North America in terms of business model, innovation, scale and size. Total aggregated project size for these two projects is approximately C$400 million, and we look forward to working with TriView Capital on these projects."

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"These projects are cutting edge in the terms of thinking outside of the box. Instead of the notion of building housing and hoping that students arrive, these two specific "Super Centers" integrate educational infrastructure with student housing," says Craig Burrows, President & CEO of TriView Capital Ltd. He also added, "Prestigious universities are no longer tied to their original site or city. They're now opening up satellite schools to compete for the post-secondary student market. It's a game changer that instead of people going to the mountain, the "Super Centers" are bringing the mountain to the students. Vancouver is the perfect city for international students and a perfect location for universities / colleges to set up satellite locations."

About GEC Super Centers:

GEC Super Centers will be the first of their kind in North America, aggregating a number of multidiscipline public and private schools at one location, including language schools, colleges, technical and trade schools, and universities, supported by long and short-term stay hotels connected to the GEC Super Centers. Such arrangement will eliminate the need for students attending schools at a GEC Super Center to commute daily to and from school, saving them time and money. Perhaps even more importantly, students will be living and studying in a safe environment.

For commercial tenants and schools to be located at a GEC Super Center, they will be able to substantially reduce their operating cost by sharing common area facilities such as cafeteria, library, computer center, student lounges, job placement agencies and meeting/conference rooms. These facilities are expensive to maintain, often under-utilized but an essential requirement for every school. By pooling these resources together, school tenants located at GEC Super Centers will be able to focus on their core competency being "education", instead of spending valuable capital and operating expenses on supporting facilities.

About TriView Capital Ltd.

TriView Capital Inc. is a registered EMD across Western Canada and Ontario that specializes in private and alternative investments. Focused primarily in the real estate sector and yield products, TriView offers investors unique opportunities not offered in the public markets. To learn more, visit www.triviewcapital.com

About CIBT Education Group:

CIBT Education Group Inc. is an education management company focused on the global education market since 1994. Listed in Canada on the Toronto Stock Exchange and in the U.S. on the OTCQX International, CIBT owns and operates a network of business, technical and language colleges in North America and Asia. CIBT offers cooperative joint programs in 12 countries with campuses, recruitment offices and training centers enrolling over 7,000 students annually. Its education business is operated through Sprott Shaw College (established in 1903), Acsenda School of Management, CIBT School of Business China, and Global Education Alliance Recruitment Centers at various overseas countries. Through these subsidiaries, CIBT offers recognized and approved business and management degrees, programs in college preparation, healthcare, hotel management and tourism, English language training, English Teacher Certifications, junior and high school preparation programs for overseas study, and other career/vocational training. CIBT also owns Irix Design Group, a leading design and advertising company based in Vancouver, Canada, Global Education Alliance ("GEA") and Global Education City Holdings Inc. ("GEC"). GEA recruits international students for many elite kindergarten, primary, secondary schools and universities in North America. GEC is an investment holding and management company with a special focus on education related real estate projects in Canada. Visit us online at www.cibt.net, www.studenthotel.ca and watch our corporate video at http://cibt.net/about/.

Toby Chu

Vice-Chairman, President & CEO

CIBT Education Group Inc.

Investor Relations Contact: 1-604-871-9909 extension 318 or | Email: info@cibt.net

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information (the "forward-looking statements") about CIBT Education Group Inc. and its future plans. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. The forward-looking statements in this news release include, without limitation, plans to develop the Super Centers. The forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause CIBT's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by forward-looking statements, including but not limited to availability of sufficient funds on terms acceptable to CIBT or at all, obtaining all necessary municipal and other required regulatory approvals, and the demand for accommodations and commercial space if and when the Super Centers are constructed. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of CIBT's management at the time they are made, and CIBT does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions or expectations, or other circumstances should change, except as may be required by law.

SOURCE: CIBT Education Group Inc.
By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) - The computer technician who set up Hillary Clinton's private email server for her work as U.S. secretary of state declined to answer questions more than 125 times during a deposition ordered by a federal judge, a transcript released on Thursday shows. Bryan Pagliano worked on Clinton's previous presidential run in 2008. He joined the State Department's technology department the next year as one of Clinton's political appointees and set up the unauthorized server in her New York home. The decision to set up the server has dogged Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate ahead of November's presidential election, and clouded her campaign with legal uncertainty. A majority of voters say they find her dishonest, polls show, with many citing her private server as a reason. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington had ordered Pagliano and other Clinton aides and department officials to give sworn testimony to help him decide whether the server was set up to thwart the public's right to see government records. Sullivan is overseeing a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group suing the State Department. It is one of scores of such lawsuits filed by individuals and groups who were incorrectly told by the government that Clinton had no emails before the arrangement became publicly known in 2015, two years after Clinton left the department. "On the advice of counsel, I will decline to answer your question in reliance on my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," Pagliano said 128 times over 80 minutes in response to a series of questions by a Judicial Watch lawyer. The deposition under oath took place on Wednesday. The Fifth Amendment gives Americans the right not to be forced to be witnesses against themselves in criminal cases. Pagliano is cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal inquiry on the server arrangement in exchange for a form of immunity from prosecution. The inquiry, prompted by the discovery of classified government secrets among Clinton's emails, has been underway for nearly a year. Investigators have interviewed several of Clinton's senior aides. No one has been charged. Clinton has repeatedly said the server was a mistake in hindsight and that she thought it was allowed, which department officials now say was not the case. She has said she does not believe she will be charged with breaking any laws. Her spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Dan Grebler)
SHENZHEN, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / China Information Technology, Inc. (CNIT), a leading provider of internet-based platforms and digital advertising services in China, today announced the receipt of an order for 700 elevator digital ad terminals to be installed in Huizhou City in Guangdong Province. This order is a follow-on to an initial contract, announced on Aug 12, 2015, for the installation of 922 of the company's ad terminals in Huizhou.

The new 700 terminals, which will be installed in elevators in office buildings, hotels, shopping malls and residential communities beginning the second half of this year, will carry advertising targeted to diverse audience groups and enable viewers to request information about advertisers' products and services.

In addition to sales revenue on the terminals, CNIT is expected to receive recurring monthly fees for the life of the units via Elevator Guard, the company's elevator maintenance system providing building management entities with real-time data monitoring services and providing elevator passengers with sophisticated alarm and emergency functions.

CNIT may also receive additional revenue from customers' use of Yunfa Net (www.pubds.com), the company's cloud-based content delivery platform that enables advertisers to design ads on their PC or mobile app and transmit them to their terminals of choice.

Today's announcement follows six previous agreements signed by CNIT since last August providing for combined installation of some 42,000 terminals in 20 cities throughout China.

"We're thrilled to have received yet another order for our elevator ad terminals," said CNIT CEO and chairman, Mr. Jianghuai Lin. "This order confirms the popularity of our terminals in the Huizhou region and will, we believe, provide a springboard for us to capture further sales contracts for our terminals in other major cities."

About China Information Technology, Inc.

China Information Technology, Inc. (CNIT) is a leading Internet service company that provides integrated cloud-based solutions enabling innovation and smart living in the fields of new media, city safety management, education, etc.

Through continuous innovation, CNIT is aiming to leverage its proprietary Cloud-Application-Terminal technology to level the competitive landscape in the new media industry and deliver value for its shareholders, employees, customers, and the community. To learn more, please visit http://en.chinacnit.com.

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Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of China Information Technology, Inc., and its subsidiaries and other consolidated entities. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein, are "forward-looking statements" in nature within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, often identified by the use of forward-looking terminologies such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company and its subsidiaries and other consolidated entities or persons acting on their behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.

For further information, please contact:

China Information Technology, Inc.

Iris Yan

Tel: +86-755-8370-4767

Email: IR@chinacnit.com

http://www.chinacnit.com

or

Asia IR-PR

Jimmy Caplan

Tel: +512-329-9505

Email: jimmy@asia-irpr.com

or

Media Relations: Asia IR-PR

Rick Eisenberg

Tel: +212-496-6828

Email: rick@asia-irpr.com

SOURCE: China Information Technology, Inc.
The Coast Guard reported Wednesday, June 22, that it has located one body in the ongoing search for a Sarasota, Florida, family that went missing Sunday.

Its with a heavy heart that I announce that at about 4:30 this afternoon one of our Coast Guard helicopters located a deceased person in the search area, Captain Gregory Case of the U.S. Coast Guard said during a press conference late Wednesday.

PHOTOS: Most Shocking Celebrity Deaths of All Time

Case did not state whether the body was male or female, though he did note that the body had been transported to local authorities for identification. The family has been notified.



This is still an ongoing search and rescue and we still have three persons out there we are trying to locate, and we still have hope for that, Case said.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost

Earlier in the day, the Coast Guard announced that it had discovered only debris, including six life jackets, a tarp, water bottles and a propane tank  but no bodies in its efforts to locate Ace Kimberly and his three teen kids, Rebecca, 17, Donny, 15, and Roger, 13.



The family of four was last seen Sunday, June 19, when they left Sarasota at 7 a.m. en route to Fort Myers for boat repairs. According to ABC News, at around 3 p.m., Kimberly called his brother to say that the boat was caught in 6-foot waves near Englewood, 30 miles from Sarasota.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2015: Stars We've Lost

Kimberlys brother told the Coast Guard Tuesday that the father of three had called him to ask for weather reports from on land. The Associated Press reports that the brother said that Kimberly had indicated that they were sailing in rough seas and thunderstorms.



Kimberly and his children had been living in the boat for about a year.




The U.S. Coast Guard located a second body in the ongoing search for the missing Florida dad, Ace Kimberly, and his three teen kids on Thursday, June 23.

USCG Capt. Gregory Cage told NBC 6 News that helicopter and boat crews saw what appeared to be a white flare go off at 2:26 a.m. early Thursday and found the second body later that same afternoon.

PHOTOS: Most Shocking Celebrity Deaths of All Time

They have yet to positively identify the second body, although Sadie Dilts, the kids aunt, told the Tampa Bay Times that the body found on Wednesday belonged to her eldest niece, 17-year-old Rebecca.



Rebecca was last seen with her father, Ace, and her two brothers, Donny, 15, and Roger, 13, aboard a 29-foot sailboat on their way to Fort Myers from Sarasota on Sunday, June 19.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost

According to ABC News, at around 3 p.m., Kimberly called his brother to say that the boat was caught in 6-foot seas near Englewood, 30 miles from Sarasota. The Associated Press reports that the brother said that Kimberly indicated the family was sailing through rough seas and thunderstorms and wanted to get weather reports from on land.



We will be holding out hope until the last body is found alive or dead, Dilts told the Times. (Dilts is the sister of Pauline Solsberry, Kimberlys ex-wife and the mother of the three children.)

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2015: Stars We've Lost

On Wednesday, the Coast Guard also found six life jackets, a tarp, water bottles and a propane tank.



Kimberly and his children had been living on the boat for about a year.




* Cobots are inexpensive, safe, easy to use

* Market set to grow to $11.5 billion by 2025 -Barclays

* Market leader Universal doubling sales every year

By Georgina Prodhan

MUNICH, Germany, June 23 (Reuters) - Robots that work as assistants alongside people are set to upend the world of industrial robotics by putting automation within reach of many small and medium-sized companies for the first time, industry players said this week.

Collaborative robots, or "cobots", tend to be inexpensive, easy to use and safe to be around. They can easily be adapted to new tasks, making them well-suited to small-batch manufacturing and ever-shortening product cycles.

Cobots can typically lift loads of up 10 kilograms (22 lb) and can be small enough to put on top of a workbench. They can help with repetitive tasks like picking and placing, packaging or glueing and welding.

Some can repeat a task after being guided once through the process by a worker and recording it. The price of a cobot can be as little as $10,000, although typically they cost two to three times that.

The global cobot market is set to grow from $116 million last year to $11.5 billion by 2025, capital goods analysts at Barclays estimate. That would be roughly equal to the size of the entire industrial robotics market today.

"By 2020 it will be a game-changer," said Stefan Lampa, head of robotics of Germany's Kuka, during a panel discussion organised by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) at the Automatica trade fair in Munich.

Growth in industrial robot unit sales slowed to 12 percent last year from 29 percent in 2014, the IFR said on Wednesday, weighed by a sharp fall in top buyer China.

The world's top industrial robot makers - Japan's Fanuc and Yaskawa, Swiss ABB and Kuka - all have collaborative robots on the market, although sales are not yet significant for them.

But the market leader and pioneer is Denmark's Universal Robots, a start-up that sold its first cobot in 2009 and was acquired by U.S. automatic test equipment maker Teradyne for $285 million last year.

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INTEREST GROWS

"We are approximately doubling every year, in terms of units. That's our ambition and we have almost hit our ambition every year for six straight years," co-founder Esben Ostergaard told Reuters in an interview.

Ostergaard and his co-founders were already working on robotics at university together when the Danish ministry of food launched an initiative to get more robots into the Danish food industry to be more competitive.

They realised that existing robots were not suitable for the industry's frequent seasonal product changes.

"They could not readjust the robots. The whole machine weighed 500 kilos. It was very expensive. And most of all it was impossible to teach them how to programme it," Ostergaard said.

Interest is also growing from larger players.

U.S. competitor Rethink Robotics - another pure-play cobot maker, whose investors include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos - announced this week that logistics giant DHL had ordered several of its Baxter and Sawyer smart cobots for testing in its warehouses on tasks such as packing and assembly.

These smaller, leaner companies typically do not rely on the expensive maintenance contracts that earn fat margins for more established players - partly because the cobots tend to be simple and pay back their costs within months.

"I've heard it's a big potential we are missing - it's apparently a way the big brands make their money," said Ostergaard. "We just want to sell robots." (Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Havana (AFP) - Colombia's government and the FARC guerrilla force say they will sign a definitive ceasefire Thursday, one of the last steps toward ending Latin America's longest civil war.

The move heralds an end to a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the jungles of the major cocaine-producing country.

"We have successfully reached an agreement for a definitive bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities," the two sides said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The deal resolves one of the final points in peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest rebel group.

"On Thursday, June 23, we will announce the last day of the war," FARC commander Carlos Lozada tweeted.

The deal is set to be formally launched Thursday at a ceremony with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez, the statement said.

Foreign leaders and officials including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would attend the ceremony early on Thursday afternoon, it added.

Santos said this week he hopes to seal a full peace deal by July 20.

"Tomorrow will be a great day!" he wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "We are working for a Colombia at peace, a dream that is starting to become a reality."

- Half-century conflict -

The Colombian conflict started as a rural uprising in the 1960s.

It has drawn in various leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades.

The violence has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced, according to official figures.

Human rights groups say atrocities have been committed on all sides. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.

Thursday's accord covers "the laying-down of arms, security guarantees and the fight against the criminal organizations" accused of fueling the conflict, the statement said.

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"This means the end of the longest and most bloody conflict in the western hemisphere and a new opportunity to bet on democracy," said Angelika Rettberg, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of the Andes.

- Demobilization -

However, the means of implementing a final peace deal remain to be settled.

Santos's government wants a referendum to put a seal of popular approval on the peace after three-and-a-half years of negotiations.

The two sides signed provisional accords on compensating victims and fighting the drug trade that has fueled the conflict.

They are also discussing designating zones where the FARC's estimated 7,000 remaining fighters can gather for a UN-supervised demobilization process.

"The UN is prepared to do whatever it can to strengthen the peace process," its deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Wednesday.

"We hope it will lead to a final agreement and the end of this long war."

The United States said its Special Envoy Bernard Aronson was heading to Havana to represent Washington at Thursday's ceremony.

"The United States welcomes (Wednesday's) communique, looks forward to the event tomorrow and hopes the parties will continue to make progress toward a final peace accord," US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Although peace with the FARC would virtually end the conflict, other armed groups are still operating in Colombia.

Santos and the country's second-biggest rebel group, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), have also said they would start peace talks.

However, that initiative has stumbled because of the group's alleged kidnappings.
Havana (AFP) - The Colombian government and FARC rebels signed a ceasefire and disarmament agreement, one of the last steps toward ending a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The deal puts a definitive end to fighting in Latin America's longest civil war, which has torn the country apart with shootings and bombardments in its coca-rich jungles and hills.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez shook hands and smiled after negotiators signed the deal at a ceremony in Cuba.

The deal establishes "a bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities and the definitive laying down of arms," according to the text.

"This is a historic day for our country," Santos said in a speech to assembled leaders including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"After more than 50 years of confrontations, deaths, attacks and pain, we have put a final end to the armed conflict with the FARC."

Disarmament will begin after the signing of a full final peace agreement, expected within weeks.

"Let this be the last day of the war," Jimenez said.

Thursday's agreements "leave us on the verge of completing a final accord relatively soon," he added.

The final deal "will allow us to return at last to legal political activity through peaceful and democratic means."

- Tears of joy -

In the Colombian capital of Bogota, crowds gathered to watch the announcement on a big screen.

One man, Camilo Gonzalez, was moved to tears.

"It has been a tragic journey. Millions of victims, people displaced, fighting, broken dreams," he said.

"But I think now we have reached a moment of hope."

Under the agreement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) must hand over its weapons to United Nations monitors within six months.

The FARC's members -- an estimated 7,000 or so -- will gather in "normalization zones" for a demobilization process.

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The sides also agreed to government action against "criminal organizations" blamed for fueling the conflict.

The United States congratulated Colombia. "We will stand ready to help the Colombian people as they work toward a just and lasting peace," said US National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

The European Union's foreign representative Federica Mogherini in a statement called it a "a turning point in the Colombian peace process."

"Now all efforts must be devoted to reaching a final comprehensive agreement that will pave the way to durable peace in the country" and justice for victims, she said.

- 260,000 dead -

The Colombian conflict started in the 1960s as a rural uprising for land rights that spawned the communist FARC.

The conflict has drawn in various leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades.

It has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced, according to official figures.

Human rights groups say atrocities have been committed on all sides. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.

Thursday's deal resolves one of the final points in peace talks between the government and the FARC, the country's largest rebel group.

However, the means of implementing the final peace deal remain to be settled after three-and-a-half years of negotiations.

The two sides said they would wait for the courts to rule on whether a referendum can be held to endorse the accord, and would accept the court's decision.

Although peace with the FARC would virtually end the conflict, other armed groups are still operating in Colombia.

A bid to hold peace talks between the government and the second-biggest rebel group, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), has stumbled because of its alleged kidnappings.

"The activity of the ELN above all and the criminal gangs means that we cannot yet talk of a complete end to the armed conflict," said Kyle Johnson, Colombia analyst for the International Crisis Group.

"It will be the end of Colombia's biggest armed conflict, but not all of them."
Granada (Colombia) (AFP) - Amanda Suarez weeps as she remembers her husband, one of hundreds of Colombians killed in a crossfire when right-wing paramilitaries battled leftist rebels for the green valley where they lived.

The ceasefire agreement due to be signed Thursday between Colombia's government and the FARC rebels has raised hopes but also painful memories for her and the families of hundreds of thousands of others killed in the half-century conflict.

Lying in verdant hills among coffee and fruit plantations east of the city of Medellin, Granada bears the scars of the war more than anywhere.

Some 1,800 people were killed here and 600 disappeared, caught in the crossfire of the struggle for Granada, where several warring groups arrived one by one beginning in the 1980s.

Suarez, 62, cries as she points to the face of her husband. His picture hangs on a wall covered in similar portraits in the town's museum of the conflict.

"From 2000 the war here got worse. My husband died in the massacre of November 3," Suarez says.

"The paramilitaries killed him. Nineteen people died that day."

Two months later, 600 guerrillas of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) took back the town.

They pounded it for 18 hours with homemade bombs made from gas canisters.

"It was a tragedy," says local man Arnoldo Norena, 68.

"We hid in the town hall. We all shut ourselves in. I could see the canisters exploding. When I put my head outside, everything was just rubble," he recalls.

"My mother died. A bomb killed her," causing her house to collapse on top of her, he says.

- Terror -

Granada became one of the centers of a many-sided fight that has now lasted for more than half a century.

Leftist guerrillas of the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN) fought right-wing paramilitaries and state armed forces.

"All of the sides in the conflict were fighting here," Suarez says.

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"The FARC, the paramilitaries, the ELN and the armed forces."

She picks up a broom and sweeps the entrance to the small exhibition, known as the "Museum of Pain" or "Never Again."

With its fertile fields and illegal goldmines, the area of Granada was a prime battleground.

The warring armed groups battled for territory in regions where the Colombian state had little control.

"We had only 45 police officers to defend the town" of thousands, Suarez says.

The town counted 23 major massacres between 1999 and 2003.

Suarez and thousands of fellow residents fled. She moved to Medellin and lived there three years, a widow and mother of seven.

"There was terror here. People were terrified to go out into the street. Terrified to go to work," she says.

"At six in the evening you had to shut yourself in your house."

- Moving on -

With Thursday's ceasefire expected to pave the way for a full peace deal, Granada's traumatized victims want to move on.

"We have lived through this war. We are not ready to live through something like this again," Suarez says.

Seeing the progress at the peace talks hosted in Cuba, Arnoldo Norena is hopeful.

"It is going the right way. You have to forgive. You have to move forward. What else can we do?"
HAVANA/BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's government and FARC rebels signed a landmark ceasefire agreement on Thursday, a major step toward ending one of the world's longest-running conflicts. Below are some highlights of the accord: * DEFINITIVE BILATERAL CEASEFIRE Both sides commit to democratic values and agree not to use weapons for political ends. The ceasefire will be effective once a final peace deal is signed. * DEMOBILIZATON AREAS The government and FARC will establish 23 transition zones and eight camps where rebels will demobilize and begin the process of returning to civilian life. Teams led by the United Nations, including government and FARC representatives, will monitor the demobilization. Police and other armed officials will only be allowed into the transition zones in coordination with the monitoring teams. No civilians are allowed into the FARC camps. * SURRENDERING ARMS FARC rebels must hand over their weapons to United Nations officials within 180 days of the signing of the final deal. The weapons will be stored in secure containers monitored by the U.N. before being broken down and used for the construction of three memorial monuments. * GUARANTEEING FARC SAFETY The government will guarantee the safety of ex-rebels and their political allies, who have historically been targets for right-wing paramilitary groups. A special investigation unit will be created within the prosecutors' office to focus on rooting out criminal gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups. This unit will have its own elite police force. Special protection units, comprised of both ex-rebels and security forces, will guard FARC politicians and other community leaders. * REFERENDUM During talks on the ceasefire deal, the FARC accepted putting a final deal to a plebiscite, a promise made by President Juan Manual Santos that had been a key sticking point. The FARC accepted the referendum on the condition it is sanctioned by Colombia's Constitutional Court. (Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana and Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Tom Brown)
In a time when police brutality is reaching epidemic levels, some Madison, Wisconsin residents have begun protesting the arrest of Genele Laird, an 18-year-old black girl with no criminal record, who is currently in custody at the Dane County Jail. A recording of her Tuesday arrest has gone viral due to the police officers' violent behavior, in which they fire a stun gun at Laird and roughly throw her onto the ground at the city's East Towne Mall.

In the video, Laird is kicked, punched and kneed until she is on the ground. Officers also fired a stun gun at her legs and put a "spit hood" on her head after she spit at an officer. "I can't breathe," Laird said multiple times during the arrest, which was for threatening a mall employee who allegedly stole her phone with a knife.

The protesters, who held up a sign that read "Hands off black women," say they will continue until Laird receives justice for the brutality she endured.

"I just want to say Genele is a good child, a good young lady," Laird's aunt said, according to WKOW. "She's a loving person. She loves animals. She's assistant manager for her store. She doesn't have any record. What happened to her was unfair. She didn't deserve this. No one deserves this, what happened to her."

Laird's family want her tentative charges  which are disorderly conduct while armed, discharging of bodily fluids, resisting police plus causing injury and also battery to an officer  dropped and for restorative justice to be taken.

"Based upon what I saw, that was a lot of trauma," one protestor named Corinda Rainey-Moore said, according to NBC15. "I was traumatized by what happened to her, and [Genele] experienced it, so I can only imagine what [she's feeling]."
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested a provincial lawmaker accused of leading a militia that raped about 30 very young girls and murdered a German engineer and local rights activist, the justice minister said on Thursday. Repeated rapes of girls as young as 18 months near the village of Kavumu in eastern Congo's South Kivu province since 2013 have led to an international outcry and criticism of the Congolese government for its alleged inaction. Alexis Thambwe told reporters in the capital Kinshasa that Frederic Batumike, a deputy from South Kivu province, and 74 members of his militia were arrested this week. "The militia that works for him recruited a fetishist who advises the militiamen to rape very young girls to be assured of having a supernatural protection," Thambwe said. He added that Batumike is accused of being behind the murders of Walter Muller, a German engineer working in Congo, and a Congolese human rights named Evariste Kasali. Batumike could not be immediately reached for comment. The director of the U.N. human rights office in Congo, Jose Maria Aranaz, praised the arrests, saying: "We welcome the authorities' action to put an end to these horrible practices and bring those responsible to justice." Dozens of armed groups operate in lawless eastern Congo, where a 1998-2003 conflict killed millions of people, mostly from hunger and disease. Both state and rebel forces have been accused by rights groups of using rape as a weapon of war. Rights groups say the government has made some progress in clamping down on sexual violence but that it remains extremely prevalent. (Reporting By Aaron Ross, Editing by Tim Cocks and Angus MacSwan)
This congressmans mom is all of our moms during the #NoBillNoBreak sit-in

This congressmans mom is all of our moms during the #NoBillNoBreak sit-in

Moms. They know you better than anyone else on the planet. They know things before you do. They know things you should be doing before you even do them. And if you resist the wise wisdom of mommom will know.

So its completely warming our hearts with love and giggles to see that the mom of Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) happened to see that he wasnt at the #NoBillNoBreak sit-in happening on the congress floor yesterday, and did what literally all our moms would do. She called his office, wondering where he was, and then asked why he wasnt on the floor with the rest of his party.

At the time, Ellison (who has held this office since 2007, and was actually the first Muslim to be elected to Congress) was meeting with Trita Parsi (the president of the National Iranian American Council), who first shared the note to Twitter. As Parsi writes, the two were meeting when Ellisons scheduler walked in, carrying a note from mom.

So I'm meeting with @keithellison. His scheduler walks in and hands him this note. Meeting ends :) #NoBillNoBreak pic.twitter.com/JwnusZKZuo  Trita Parsi (@tparsi) June 22, 2016

Their meeting came to an end, and Ellison made his way to the floor to make his mom  and honestly, all of us, because that sit-in was AH-MAZING  proud by joining in with the others to force a vote for gun control.

Ellison later posted a picture to Twitter of himself sitting on the floor of the house. You know this was like, 90% to show his mom that yes, he had followed her wishes.

Sitting in on House Floor against Gun violence & Majority's unwillingness to protect Americans from slaughter. pic.twitter.com/SvZ5cV45nn  Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) June 22, 2016

Twitter users were quick to point out that Ellisons mom is totally a cool mom.

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It doesnt matter how many terms you serve in the U.S. Congress because mom still always knows best.

The post This congressmans mom is all of our moms during the #NoBillNoBreak sit-in appeared first on HelloGiggles.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Coronet Metals Inc. (CRF.V) (2CM2.F) (OTC Pink: CORMF) ("Coronet" or the Company") is pleased to provide an update on the work program ("the Program") on its 100% owned White Caps Gold Mining Project ("White Caps" or "the Project"). The Program involve continued independent metallurgical analysis to verify recoveries of the estimated 250,000 tonnes of gold bearing tailings and mine dumps at White Caps*.

The Company has initiated hydrometallurgical process development work at an independent laboratory in Vancouver. The laboratory will conduct extensive testing on the material to determine optimal processing in order to maximize gold recoveries. The process used by the lab, which is proprietary, is a "green" technology which will ensure cleaning up and restoring the tailings in an environmentally friendly manner. This work will form the basis to upgrade or verify the historical estimates of the quantity of the gold bearing tailings and mine dumps as NI 43-101 compliant mineral resources or mining reserves.

In September 2012 assays on five samples of the gold bearing tailings and dumps (Table 1) were conducted by RDI of Denver. Results are summarized in Table 2.

To view an enhanced version of Table 1, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2655/21238_a1466659292946_81.jpg





To view an enhanced version of Table 2, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2655/21238_a1466659293289_29.jpg

"We are confident in the grades of this material and are very eager to conclude the metallurgical testing so that we can unlock the Project's cash-flow potential" says Theo van der Linde, President of Coronet. "Processing the gold bearing tailings and dumps is part of our near-term cash flow strategy that will form a very strong foundation for our exploration strategy in this under-explored area".

Mr. Fred Tejada, P.Geo, a Director of the Company, is a Qualified Person under the meaning of Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this news release.

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* References to tonnages are historical estimates. The estimated tonnage of 250,000 tonnes was provided by the two different mining (name the company) engineering companies in October 2011 that the Company engaged to provide an estimate. The stockpile measurement is a technique to measure the volume and weight of commodity stockpiles. It is a scientific/ instrumental method, using Total Station equipment to determine the volume of the stockpile quantity. While the Company believes that the historical tonnage estimate is useful to guide future work on the project it cautions readers that these historical estimates should not be relied upon.

About Coronet Metals

Coronet Metals Inc. is engaged in the business of acquiring, exploring and developing natural resource properties, with a focus on precious mineral properties/projects which have the potential for both near-term cash flow and significant exploration upside potential. Coronet's White Caps Gold Project is near the town of Manhattan in Northern Nye County. The Project is well in line with its strategy of acquiring precious metals mining projects which have the potential for both near-term cash flow and exploration upside.

The Company has launched a fresh new web site so please visit www.coronetmetals.com for more information on the project, the history of the area and up to date information regarding its near-term plans, execution and strategy.

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulations.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. As a result, the Company cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND ENQUIRIES:

Theo van der Linde

President and CFO

Tel: +1 604-336-3193

Email: tvanderlinde@coronetmetals.com

SOURCE: Coronet Metals Inc.
HONG KONG, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Weyland Tech Inc. (WEYL) ("Weyland Tech" or the "Company"), a provider of mobile business applications, announces that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with 2C2P, the leading Southeast Asian payments services company.

2C2P and Weyland Tech will work together on an m-commerce solution that enables Small-Medium-sized-Businesses to provide multi-payment options to consumers in the Southeast Asia region.

Terms of the agreement will remain confidential for competitive reasons.

About Weyland Tech Inc.

Weyland Tech's CreateApp platform is focused on the Asia markets. Our CreateApp platform is offered in 12 languages and enables small-medium-sized businesses ("SMB's") to create a mobile application ("APP") without the need of technical knowledge and background.

SMB's can increase sales, reach more customers and promote their products and services via a simple easy to build mobile APPs in an affordable and cost-effective manner.

About 2C2P

2C2P is a leading Southeast Asian (SEA) payment services provider. It offers a number of comprehensive, technology-driven, omni-channel payment services tailored to the needs of financial institutions, e-commerce and m-commerce businesses and retailers, facilitating electronic and mobile commerce. 2C2P enables payment acceptance through credit and debit cards, as well as through bank channels such as ATMs, internet banking and mobile banking. 2C2P also facilitates cash acceptance via payment counters, an important feature in SEA, a region characterized by low card penetration. With 2C2P's comprehensive omni-channel solutions, merchants can now transact with both banked and unbanked customers.

2C2P is a PCIDSS Level 1 certified company. The company processes billions of dollars in transactions for many businesses. 2C2P has offices across Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand, as well as in Hong Kong. In 2015, 2C2P was recognized by CBInsights as one of the world's top 25 payment start-ups. It is a 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Award winner, recognized as one of Asia's fastest growing technology companies.

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http://www.2c2p.com/

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements" including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce segment and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into that segment; the ability of the Company to attract customers and partners and generate revenues; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements.

Contact:

info@weyland-tech.com

SOURCE: Weyland Tech Inc.
From Harper's BAZAAR

How do you convincingly transform five accomplished actresses-including rising style star Lupita Nyong'o-into warlords' wives, abuse victims and rebel soldiers? Such was the challenge for Clint Ramos, costume designer for Eclipsed on Broadway. Using photos and documentaries of the Liberian Civil War as his research, Ramos dug up Salvation Army finds and sought out authentic West African fabrics to get the women of Eclipsed into character in the most accurate and respectful way possible. The result included a tattered Rugrats shirt for Nyongo's innocent girl persona, head wraps for the mother figure, crop tops and jeans for the female warrior to carry her AK-47 with.

Ramos' thrift shop scavenging and fabric search paid off in the end. Earlier this month he took home a Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play, Eclipsed's only win that night, and became the first person of color to ever win in that category. (Ramos is a native Filipino.) He wasn't the only one to make history at the awards show, either. Actors of color won all four musical acting awards for the first time ever, proving Broadway, unlike Hollywood, was finally starting to take diversity seriously. It also helped that Eclipsed, which was nominated for six awards including Best Play, gave Broadway its first all-female African American cast and creative team.

The play, written by Danai Gurira, tells the moving story of five women caught in the atrocities of Liberia's civil war in 2003. The production is poignant to begin with, but the fact that its cast (Lupita Nyong'o, Saycon Sengbloh, Zainab Jah, Pascale Armand and Akosua Busia), writer and director (Liesl Tommy) are-for the first time-all black women adds even more significance.

After earning raving reviews at the Public Theater in the fall of 2015, Eclipsed moved to Broadway this March and finally finally closed its curtains this past Sunday. But before taking that final bow, BAZAAR.com caught up with Tony-winning Ramos on the historic production and his well-deserved win.

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Harper's BAZAAR: So how does it feel to win a Tony?

Clint Ramos: "It feels wonderful but now I feel like a lot of anxiety over it I guess. I feel like I can't relax like I always have to do good work now. I can't suck anymore!"

HB: How did you go about putting the costumes together for Eclipsed?

CR: "The way I approached the clothes was I just wanted it to be accurate, almost like a documentary. I was just going for the most realistic naturalistic thing I could possibly do. A lot of it was like the photographs, because it was a photographed war. It was a war that was watched by the whole world-by the UN, by the US, by our European allies-so there were a lot of photos that showed what the women looked like. I based a lot of those clothing on how those women looked. We adjusted once we knew who the actors were, but all of it is based on research. I thought that would be the most logical way to approach the clothing, but it's also because the play is based on real life, I thought it was the most respectful way I could honor the lives of these women."

HB: Where did you source the clothing from?

CR: "In the research you see a mixture of Western clothing, specifically American clothing, because a lot stuff we don't want ends up there. So I went to Salvation Army and a lot of thrift stores and then the African fabric had to be really specific and so I sourced that at the African fabric stores in Brooklyn, Atlantic Avenue and a couple in Harlem. It had to come from West Africa because the prints in West Africa are different than the prints in East Africa or South Africa."

HB: Compared to other shows you might've worked with, what was it like dressing an all female cast?

CR: "I initially approached it with some apprehension because with an all-female cast in a play about women, especially about women who are being abused sexually, I didn't know how they would react to a man dressing them. But thankfully, I have relationships with most of these actors because I've worked with them before. It was a collaboration in the fitting room. These are fantastic actors. Three of them were nominated for Tony's and they're really devoted to their craft. They all, across the board, set their vanities aside and just said, 'Let's just go to work,' and they were on board with honoring these lives of these women by just being totally accurate."

HB: How was working with Lupita?

CR: "I was nervous at first, because she's just coming off of her Academy Award win and she's also a style celebrity, so I didn't know what to expect. But all of my fears were just allayed because, A, she's a super beautiful human being and B, she is a devoted actor. I think part of the reason why she wanted to do Eclipsed is that she had wanted to go back into really deep acting work where she could immerse herself in a role. She was completely egoless. Every single thing that I said to put on, she put on, and we would talk about it. But there were a couple of items, like the Rugrats shirt, that really struck a chord. When she put it on we both gasped. We were like 'There she is, that's The Girl. We found her.' Because she plays a 15-year-old girl, we wanted to convey that without being obvious. What would that 15-year-old African girl wear? When you see that shirt you can form a story-she could've been hanging out with friends while wearing that when the soldiers invaded the village. You can attach your own feelings to it, especially an American audience because it is an American cartoon character. But Lupita was wonderful. She trusted me, and I took that trust very seriously to calibrate her look. One of the things that I wanted to do was honor who Lupita is and also not distract."

HB: How did you differentiate between characters' costumes on the show?

CR: "In talking to Danai Gurira, who wrote the play, and Liesl, the director, we really went into each character. It also helped that each character had their own distinct thing. So there's Lupita, who's the innocent girl. She's dressed in the children's clothing until she's assimilated into the compound and she starts to dawn on the matriarchal figure, who always dressed matronly. Her wrap skirts always go past her knees and her head is always wrapped because a lot of the older women wrapped their heads then, even though she's only 25. Then there's the warrior, who is based on a real lieutenant of that war. In the research, they're all wearing jeans and all of these fancy tops-it's almost like they're going clubbing. It's amazing, the juxtaposition of the clothing and the firearms they carry. They're always in crop tops or halter tops, really tight jeans, jewelry, the weave is on point, and then they carry AK-47's or grenade launchers. There's Mother Peace who's always in white. She's also based on a real figure, a noble peace prize winner named Leymah Gbowee. And then there's Bessie, the clown, who's the pregnant one. She's sort of the comic relief but she breaks your heart in the end-she's basically just trying to find an identity. All of the clothing are provided by the vultures, who basically rip off these clothes from dead bodies, so, that's what they have to work with."

HB: What would you say some of your biggest challenges were?

CR: "I think the biggest challenge, for me, was how could we make these characters not seem like foreigners. I wanted us, an American audience, to relate to these women. I wanted to make them look familiar. I think the use of American t-shirts or familiar logos helped that a lot. Of course the biggest challenge was portraying the clothing so it doesn't look like a costume. The sweat stains and the distressing of the clothing needed to be really on point; they needed to be super accurate. So we had to do a lot of tests on the different levels of sweat and bodily fluids, and the wear. Most of the clothing, most of the wrap fabrics, were new, some of the tops and jeans were new, so we had to batch together jeans and distress them."

HB: A big facet of the Tony's this year was a presence of diversity, especially with Eclipsed, Hamilton, Shuffle Along and other shows with actors of color being highly nominated. As the first person of color to win a Tony for Costume Design of a Play, how did that accomplishment feel for you?

CR: "I actually didn't know that I was the first person of color to win in this category until two days ago. It feels great. It's great that this year was a very diverse year. The theater is not a popular venue for young artists to pursue, you know? Part of the problem is that artist of color don't see themselves having a place in it. I think they think of it as an elitist art form. When you look at majority of the audience who go to the theater, they're very wealthy and very homogenous in terms of race. But what's wonderful about having so much diversity visible is that it actually inspires artists of color to see themselves in a theater-to create young Lin-Manuel Mirandas or young Audra McDonalds, and maybe even young designers of color. And out of the 36 or 26 nominated designs, only two were of color. I mean, we both won! [Ed note: Hamilton's Paul Tazewell won Best Costume Design of a Musical.] But I still think there's work that needs to be done."

HB: And you're the fourth Filipino ever to win a Tony which is also a big deal.

CR: "It's crazy! And that's anxiety that I was talking to you about earlier. It means so much for a small country like the Philippines to have international representation. I don't take it for granted. It's a big responsibility."

Watch the cast of Eclipsed react to their six Tony nominations.
Cairo (AFP) - The damaged black box flight recorders of an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month are to be sent to France for repairs, the Egyptian investigative committee said Thursday.

It said the memory units were damaged from the two recorders recovered from the seabed almost a month after the crash of the Airbus A320.

Investigators hope the recorders will reveal the cause of the May 19 crash of flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo, in which 66 people were killed.

"The memory units of the two flights recorders were damaged," the investigative committee said in a statement.

It said members of the panel would travel to France next week "with the electronic circuits of the two black boxes to have them repaired in laboratories of the (French air safety agency) BEA and to eliminate salt deposits".

The repaired units would be returned to Cairo for analysis in Egypt's aviation ministry laboratories, the committee said.

It also said that French forensic doctors would join their Egyptian counterparts to take part in the recovery operations of body remains at the site of the crash, in which 30 Egyptian passengers and 15 French nationals were among the dead.

The investigative committee began examining the black boxes last Saturday in the presence of representatives from France and the United States, where the engine was made.

The data on the boxes are being unloaded, before they are fully analysed in a procedure that is expected to last several weeks.

Investigators have said it is too early to determine what caused the plane to crash, although a terror attack has not been ruled out.

France's aviation safety agency has said the aircraft transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit minutes before it disappeared.

Egyptian investigators have confirmed the aircraft had made a 90-degree left turn followed by a 360-degree turn to the right before hitting the sea.

The crash came after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula last October that killed all 224 people on board.
Legal hassles continue for Credit Suisse Group AG CS as the Swiss banking giant is under Justice Department scrutiny for its operations in Israel. US regulators are investigating the Zurich-based banking giants procedures relating to handling of American clients.



The Justice Department is enquiring whether Credit Suisse has helped dual Israeli and US citizens in evading American taxes. Notably, per the newly-implemented US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), information of foreign banks American clients should be submitted to U.S. tax authorities.



Amid international pressure on Switzerlands secrecy laws, Swiss banks have been under the scanner due to their transactions with wealthy clients and hidden offshore accounts. Regulatory authorities have claimed billions as settlements and fines from several banks. Notably, in May 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to criminal charges of assisting its U.S. clients to evade taxes and shelled out $2.8 billion as settlement charges to the U.S. authorities.



The plea agreement required Credit Suisse to take several steps, which included full disclosure of its cross-border operations, cooperation in treaty requests regarding account information and revealing detailed information concerning other banks that moved funds into secret accounts. Credit Suisse is also required to take measures in all its present and future transactions with U.S. clients in order to ensure compliance with U.S. laws including FATCA and other related tax treaties.



Further, Credit Suisse is being monitored by the New York Department of Financial Services related to its dealings with U.S. customers. Therefore, the supervisor scrutinizing the bank has been informed about the recent investigation.



We aim to operate going forward at the highest levels of compliance, Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam of Credit Suisse said at a recent news conference. From the past you can find all kinds of legacy issues. Moreover, Credit Suisse is conducting internal investigation after coming under the purview of the new investigation in Israel. Following such a move, five employees have been sent on leave.



The investigation is not linked to potentially fraudulent behavior to the detriment of clients, the bank said in a statement. Credit Suisse is committed to running its business in a tax-compliant manner. It conducts its banking business in strict compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in the markets in which it operates.



In Feb 2016, the Swiss banking giant was reportedly under investigation by Milan prosecutors to ascertain whether the bank was engaged in money laundering and helped clients in tax evasion. The probe involved billions of euros worth of insurance policies sold to Italian clients to hide funds from authorities (Read more: Credit Suisse Under Probe Over Money Laundering in Italy).



Regulatory authorities are determined to put forward a landmark judgment to terminate wrong practices in the future, bringing justice to the sufferers and punishing the wrongdoers. While the settlement of such issues will put to rest a long-drawn investigation and bring reprieve to the banks, these are also likely to come as a huge blow to the banks financials.



Credit Suisse currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked foreign banks include Bank of Montreal BMO, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CM and DBS Group Holdings Ltd DBSDY. All three of this banks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).



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- Convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius has said he believes his late girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than be sent back to prison for killing her. The South African former Paralympian athlete, who is awaiting a jail sentence for murdering Steenkamp in 2013, told British broadcaster ITV that he did not kill his partner intentionally. "I don't want to go back to jail. I don't want to have to waste my life sitting there," he said in footage released ahead of his first television interview. "If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate," he said.

AFP
The Hands-Free Tour App, Designed Specifically for Motorists, Helps Travelers Hear the Stories Behind the Scenery

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Deborah Schull, a writer and producer whose audio tours and apps are featured at the Smithsonian Institution and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, recently announced the launch of her latest project, Cultural Roadmapps. The app, which was created to serve as a travel companion, merges together audio tours and geolocation to create a hands-free travel app.

Equipped with 12 hours of thrilling content, Cultural Roadmapp allows users to drive through a specific set of road and listen to interviews, world-class performances, local humor, and beautiful narration about the area. Unlike distracting multimedia travel apps and other guidebooks, Cultural Roadmapp allows the user to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the view. The app is equipped with the latest GPS geo-fencing technology, hands free automation, expert commentary, captivating stories, local musicians, and narration from leading historians and folklorists.

Cultural Roadmapp's three-hour pilot tour focuses on Ireland's west coast, spotlighting the magnificent County Clare. The app is set to launch officially on St. Patrick's Day 2017, with hopes to one day expand it enough to cover the entire Wild Atlantic Way.

At this time, Schull and her team have taken the Cultural Roadmapp project to Indiegogo, where they seek the necessary funds to continue developing the project. As a thanks for the public's support, Schull is offering donors a wide variety of perks, such as access to special podcasts.

"We have grand plans-nothing short of revolutionizing the travel experience," said Schull. "We see a future in which our one-of-a-kind apps outfit cars, vans, and tour buses around the world, from Italy's Amalfi Coast to Germany's 'Fairy Tale Route' to Ecuador's Avenue of the Volcanoes."

Individuals interested in learning more about Cultural Roadmapp can visit the project's Indiegogo page for additional information.

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About Cultural Roadmapp:

As a fully immersive audio-visual experience, Cultural Roadmapp allows customers to drive through scenic areas in whichever way they wish, while simultaneously providing them with informative audio, including traditional music, brief interviews, and historical context. By combining this multifaceted approach with GPS technology, the Cultural Roadmapp app senses when users approach points of interest and automatically plays the relevant audio file. These points of interest can be explored in any order, giving users the freedom to construct their own tours. The pilot program for Cultural Roadmapp will be in Ireland's scenic and culturally rich Wild Atlantic Waythe perfect location to exhibit Cultural Roadmapp's innovative technology and cultural expertise. For more information, please visit https://goo.gl/8AvGNn.

Contact:

Ross Reese

admin@rocketfactor.com

(949) 555-2861

SOURCE: Cultural Roadmapp
Just last year, Russian hackers attacked the State Department email system in what was called the worst ever cyberattack against a federal agency, and the Office of Personnel Management reported that 5.6 million Americans fingerprints were stolen as part of another malicious attack. The Department of Veterans affairs thwarted 1 billion cyber threats. And last week, hackers invited by the government found 138 security flaws on five Pentagon websites.

Related: Lone Hacker Claims Responsibility for Cyberattack on Democrats

Clearly, cyberattacks are an increasing security threat, with Americans polled last month by Pew Research identifying cyberattacks as the second greatest global threat to the U.S., behind ISIS.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office hints at just how the threat has grown. In a survey of 24 federal agencies, the GAO found that between 2006 and 2015, the number of cyberattacks climbed 1,300 percent  from 5,500 to over 77,000 a year.

Incidents Reported

Eighteen agencies identified as having high-impact systems  those that hold information that, if lost, could cause catastrophic harm to individuals, the government or the country  said that cyberattacks from other nations (think China and Russia, for example) are the most serious and most common threat they see. Phishing was the most frequent type of attack, and email was the most frequent vehicle. During fiscal year 2014, 11 of the 18 agencies reported 2,267 incidents affecting their high-impact systems, with almost 500 of the incidents involving the installation of malicious code, the report says.

The report honed in on how effectively the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Personnel Management and Department of Veterans Affairs managed cyber threats. Each organization could do more to prevent unauthorized access to systems, the GAO found.

Until the selected agencies address weaknesses in access and other controls, including fully implementing elements of their information security programs, the sensitive data maintained on selected systems will be at increased risk of unauthorized access, modification, and disclosure, and the systems at risk of disruption, the GAO concluded.

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Heres a look at the various kinds of attacks 11 agencies reported:

Incidents

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Nicosia (AFP) - Cyprus finally brought a massive wildfire under control on Thursday after a five-day battle that saw two firefighters killed and five foreign governments send aircraft to help, a minister said.

Hundreds of firefighters remain on standby to put out any rekindling flames, Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis told reporters.

Firefighting aircraft deployed by Britain, France, Greece and Italy are also staying on the island as a precaution, Kouyialis said.

Six planes provided by Israel have returned home.

President Nicos Anastasiades was to attend the funeral later on Thursday of the second of the two firefighters who were killed.

He also attended the first funeral on Wednesday and cancelled all official engagements for the rest of the week as the government declared three days of national mourning.

The pair died in hospital on Monday from injuries suffered when the fire truck they were in plunged 40 metres (130 feet) down a cliff.

The blaze destroyed at least 15 square kilometres (six square miles) of orchards and forest in the Solea valley in the northern foothills of the Troodos mountains.

Anastasiades paid tribute to the civilian volunteers and troops who joined the firefighting effort, which was hampered by tinder-dry conditions as the island swelters under temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Cyprus is frequently hit by forest fires in the summer but the Solea blaze was the worst in years.
In 1990, not long after the Velvet Revolution brought an end to 41 years of communist rule, American producer Rick McCallum came to the Czech Republic to work on Lucasfilm TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

The production had to bring in department heads, but it was able to staff the rank and file of the crew with experienced locals. And while the soundstages were in decent shape, the real appeal for McCallum was the practical locations. You could go anywhere  any castle, any building  and the location rates were minimal, McCallum says.

A quarter of a century later, the Czech Republics film and TV production infrastructure has matured along with the rest of the economy, but locations  historic and otherwise  are still plentiful, easily accessible and, while not as cheap they once were, more affordable than those in the U.K., Germany, France, or the U.S.

And local crews, long since adjusted to free market production schedules, earn raves from outside producers for their old-school craftsmanship, ingenuity and strong work ethic.

Producer Kim Zubick says the Czech crew on The Zookeepers Wife literally gave 1,000%. There was none of the guff you get with a Los Angeles crew, for example, when they start grumbling about the catering.

The producers had contemplated shooting Wife in Romania or Serbia, then settled on Hungary. But when they dug deeper, Zubick says they found that the Czech Republic could provide a deeper crew base and better locations  such as an abandoned communist-era town that they could turn into facsimile of a bombed-out neighborhood. They also discovered that the general population had more of a Polish look, which would serve them well when casting extras for the film, which is set in Warsaw during World War II.

Zubick also learned that the country had a wealth of retired animals from old-school circuses and private zoos that could provide the production with animal stars for its re-creation of the Warsaw Zoo, which was constructed at Exhibition Park in the center of Prague.

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For years, the inexpensive high-quality workforce and cheap locations were enough to lure foreign productions to the Czech Republic ranging from 1996s Mission: Impossible to 2002s The Bourne Identity. But as prices rose, spurred by the improving economy  and as neighboring Hungary, not to mention the U.K. and other countries, enacted increasingly rich incentives  the Czech Republic lost more and more shoots to competitors.

So in 2010, the government established its own incentive, which today offers a competitive 20% base rebate on qualifying Czech spend, along with an additional 10% on the cost of foreign cast and crew if they agree to pay the 15% Czech withholding tax on their salaries. The rebate is managed by a single body, the National Fund of Cinematography. According to McCallum, the entire process is quick, painless, and transparent.

It is also easy for visiting producers, casts and crews to communicate with Czech locals. Anybody whos below 30 speaks good English, says William Stuart, the U.S. representative for Barrandov Studios. With older craftsmen, there still can still be a language barrier, but the younger people act as translators.

While the Czech Republic doesnt have the depth of production infrastructure found in Los Angeles, where any piece of technology or talent can be accessed almost instantly, producers say its is easy to ship equipment from neighboring countries, and London, with its wealth of talent, is a mere hour and 45-minute plane flight away from Prague.

Related stories

Rebate Boosts Business at Czech Anglo Productions

Hot Spots in Prague Lure Filmmakers

American Expat Rick McCallum Finds Home in Prague
DCs Legends of Tomorrow has recruited The Originals star Maisie Richardson-Sellers to tackle a new iteration of the superhero known as Vixen for Season 2, Variety has learned.

Richardson-Sellers will play the series regular role of Amaya Jiwe, the grandmother of the present-day Vixen, Mari McCabe (Megalyn Echikunwoke). Like her granddaughter, Amayas powers are derived from the mysterious Tantu Totem, which allows her to magically access the abilities of animals.

Echikunwoke, who headlines CW Seeds animated Vixen series and appeared in live-action on Arrow, was unable to join Legends Season 2 due to scheduling. But since the superhero show focuses on time-travel, producers found a way to avoid recasting Echikunwokes role while still including Vixen on their superhero roster for the sophomore season.

Also joining the show for Season 2 is Nick Zano, who was recently cast as Dr. Nate Heywood, a historian whose grandfather was the hero known as Commander Steel, a member of the Justice Society of America.

Richardson-Sellers is best known for her role as Eva Sinclair on fellow CW drama The Originals. She also starred in ABCs shortlived Biblical drama Of Kings and Prophets and appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Richardson-Sellers is repped by UTA, Suzy Brierley at Denton/Brierley, Lena Roklin at Luber-Roklin Management and James Adams.

Related stories

TV News Roundup: Bill Maher Hosting Specials on Democratic, Republican Conventions; Nick Zano Cast in 'Legends of Tomorrow'

'Legends of Tomorrow' Sneak Peek: Vandal Savage Enlists 'The 100' Alum for a Dark Mission

'Legends of Tomorrow' Sneak Peek: Ray and Kendra Make the Best of Being 'Left Behind'
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against La Quinta Holdings Inc. ("La Quinta" or the "Company") (LQ). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between February 25, 2015 and September 17, 2015, inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the June 24, 2016, lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased shares of La Quinta during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by email at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

According to the complaint, the Company failed to disclose that: (1) La Quinta was experiencing declining customer demand in its key Texas market; and (2) there were on-going disruptions caused by the transitioning of La Quinta's call center operations.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by email at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contact:

KHANG & KHANG LLP

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
By Dinky Mkhize PRETORIA (Reuters) - The death toll from street violence in South Africa's capital has risen to five, police said on Thursday, after two more bodies were found following clashes triggered by the ruling party's choice of a mayoral candidate for a local vote. Police said they also arrested about 200 rioters who attacked foreign-own shops in Pretoria as public anger mounted over economic hardship in the build-up to an Aug. 3 election likely to become a referendum on President Jacob Zuma's rule. Colonel Noxolo Kweza, police spokeswoman for Gauteng Province, said those arrested would be charged with violence, possession of unlicensed firearms and damage to property. Disturbances flared on Monday night when residents of Pretoria's impoverished townships began setting cars and buses alight after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) named a candidate in the Tshwane municipality where the capital city is located, disregarding the choice of regional branches. The ANC leadership named senior party member and former cabinet minister Thoko Didiza as its candidate for Tshwane, overriding regional branch members and refusing to back down as the violence mounted. The protests morphed into looting of shops in the past three night and shells of burned-out cars still blocked some roads. Two suspected looters were shot dead on Tuesday night after an ANC member was shot dead on Sunday as party factions met to decide on a candidate for mayor of Tshwane. Sporadic looting continued in parts of the capital on Thursday. Kweza said the situation was "calm but tense in some of the areas". Speaking to the media for the first time since the clashes erupted, Didiza said she felt at home in Tshwane. "I do not feel foreign in Tshwane, even with the latest incidents, which I think do not reflect the feelings of the people of Tshwane," she said at a meeting in Johannesburg called by the ANC to parade its provincial mayoral candidates. Leaders urged Tshwane residents to shun tribalism and accept Didiza even though she does not originally hail from the area. The ANC has been in power since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 but critics say it is losing its touch in areas - including Pretoria - where it was once unassailable. Record unemployment and a looming recession have exacerbated discontent with President Jacob Zuma's leadership since the Constitutional Court ruled he had violated his oath of office by refusing to refund to the state some of the 240 million rand ($16.25 million) spent on refurbishing his private residence. (Additional reporting by Zimasa Mpemnyama in Johannesburg; Writing by James Macharia; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
The lovely and gorgeous Deepika Padukone is clicked here at the IIFA Awards 2016 press conference. Deepika, who is seen donning a beautiful red Prabal Gurung gown, spoke to the media collected there. She mentioned that she is very excited to be a part of this prestigious awards ceremony. She also said that Spain is her favorite holiday destination and that she is thrilled to be here.

Recommended: Deepika and Priyankas Hug at IIFA 2016 is the Highlight of the Day!

The 17th edition of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards gala celebrates 60 years of Indias diplomatic relations with Spain here starting today with close to 150 film celebrities and over 20,000 fans in attendance. The four-day gala which will conclude with a colourful and exuberant awards ceremony on Sunday, plays host to some of the most celebrated stars of the Indian film industry, notable guests, and dignitaries from India and the region along with Indian cinema fans from across the globe.

Do you dig this look of Deepika?
Dubai (AFP) - Bahrain began court proceedings to dissolve the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq on Thursday, bringing the process forward in defiance of UN and US appeals for it to be dropped.

The bloc was the largest in parliament before its lawmakers resigned in protest at the crushing of 2011 protests calling for an elected government and Washington has labelled the crackdown on it "alarming".

The administrative court had not been due to meet on the government's request to dissolve Al-Wefaq until October 6 but brought the session forward at the request of Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa, a judicial source said.

It set its next meeting for September 4.

But a statement by the ministry of justice said it will on Sunday request bringing the hearing forward, insisting the law of political association stipulates that a court decision in such a case should be reached "within a maximum of 30 days".

The court already suspended all of Al-Wefaq's activities on June 14, ordering its offices closed and assets frozen.

The justice ministry said the bloc provided a haven for "terrorism, radicalisation and violence" and opened the way for "foreign interference" in the kingdom's affairs.

That was an allusion to Iran, which Sunni-ruled Bahrain accuses of fomenting unrest among its Shiite majority.

Despite repeated appeals from its US ally for "reform and reconciliation", Bahrain has carried out an intensifying crackdown on leading Shiite figures.

On Monday, it stripped the kingdom's top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his nationality, prompting street protests in his home village of Diraz, west of Manama.

The interior ministry said Thursday that police summoned a number of people who participated in the Diraz protests, adding that they will be referred to prosecution.

Last month, an appeals court more than doubled a four-year prison sentence handed down against Al-Wefaq leader Ali Salman on charges of inciting violence.

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Amnesty International urged Bahraini authorities to halt its "intensified crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and movement".

The London-based rights watchdog said it was "deeply concerned" by the decision to suspend Al-Wefaq.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.

It has been wracked by persistent unrest ever since the crushing of the 2011 protests.
Democrats from the House of Representatives chanted, No bill, no break! during a rare sit-in to push gun legislation on Wednesday, June 22. The Democrats planned to maintain the sit-in, led by Rep. John Lewis, until the Republican leadership agreed to vote on gun control measures.

Protesters in support of the sit-in gathered outside the US Capitol. Credit: Twitter/NormaJTorres
House Democrats' sit-in to force a vote on gun control passed its 20th hour early Thursday morning, with a handful of members still gathered on the floor of the chamber wrapped in blankets and vowing to hold out until Republicans schedule a vote on a bill that would ban suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed the sit-in would continue until Speaker Paul Ryan put gun control legislation to a vote  a promise that could leave Democrats sitting in the chamber for over a week, as House Republicans gaveled the chamber into recess until July 5.

Pelosi says Democrats "will not stop" until the "no fly, no buy" legislation is passed. "We're not taking a break from this effort." Well.

Led by Rep. John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon who led sit-ins in the 1960s to protest segregation, Democrats hoped the sit-in would get Republicans to act on gun control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting massacre, which left 49 dead and injured more than 50 others.

John Lewis now: Sometimes by sitting down, by sitting in, you're standing up.. never ever give uppic.twitter.com/KkVNUAp4IO https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmkacnWIAAgGRH.jpg:large

The sit-in at times grew raucous.

When Ryan  who dismissed the sit-in as a "publicity stunt"  entered the floor to schedule a vote on an unrelated spending bill, Democrats in the chamber loudly chanted over him.

House Democrats shout down Speaker Ryan, chanting #NoBillNoBreak during a sit-in over guns http://cnn.it/28NUKJy https://vine.co/v/5BPpLpjlDUi

A crowd of protesters gathered outside to support the sit-in at times grew so loud their chants could be heard in the House chamber.

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A message for @SpeakerRyan from the citizens outside the @uscapitol. #ShameOnYou #NoBillNoBreak @HouseDemocratspic.twitter.com/bFe3cJX2Er

A number of Democratic Senate colleagues also joined the action.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who sat with House members in the chamber, arrived at 8:30 p.m. with Dunkin Donuts to help sustain her Democratic counterparts.

Massachusetts knows: America - and #NoBillNoBreak - runs on @DunkinDonuts. #birthdaydonuts #holdthefloorpic.twitter.com/XG1wzU5q41 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmGsQcWYAEBbTT.jpg:large

Other senators also donated home-state snacks.

Just received some delicious snacks for our #NoBillNoBreak sit-in. Thanks to our Senate colleagues!pic.twitter.com/5HO1rwOWtP https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CllMr3sWIAA4MHu.jpg:large

@SenateDems, thanks for joining us in demanding @HouseGOP: #NoBillNoBreak! Oh, and thanks for these sweet goodies.pic.twitter.com/sSvq8n1e98 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmvzXvXEAAyQuI.jpg:large

Most unprecedented of all, however, was the way the sit-in has been broadcast to the public.

With the House in recess, the cameras that feed live video to C-SPAN were turned off, leading a number of members to use Periscope and Facebook Live to cover the sit-in themselves  an unprecedented move in a place where cameras are not permitted.

Good morning! Democrats are still holding the House floor to demand action on gun violence #NoBillNoBreakhttps://www.periscope.tv/w/1MYGNBELmWnGw

Stick with Mic for more updates on this breaking story.
By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in Congress ended a 25-hour sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives where they have been countless times before: short of the votes needed to tighten U.S. gun laws. But many see their latest defeat as a prelude to victory in the Nov. 8 elections. Spurred by the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Democrats are showing a new willingness to make gun laws a top issue in Washington and on the campaign trail, defying powerful lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association that have helped make the United States the most gun-friendly country in the developed world. The effort is not likely to change federal firearms laws this year, as Republicans who control Congress have shown little interest in proposals that they say weaken Americans' constitutional right to bear arms. But Democrats and their allies say that defeat now on Capitol Hill could help them win control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 8 elections. That is a shift from previous elections when Democrats have downplayed the issue on the campaign trail. "The tide has turned, and Republicans ignore this issue at their own peril," said Robert Weiner, a former Democratic congressional aide. Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee, talks frequently in her campaign about banning military-style assault rifles and expanding background checks -- a marked contrast to President Barack Obama, who avoided talk of guns during his 2008 and 2012 elections. In Congress, Democrats have resorted to confrontational tactics to force gun votes since June 12, when a gunman killed 49 people at a Florida nightclub. Senator Chris Murphy's 15-hour speech in the Senate last week forced five votes this week on measures that would make it harder for terrorism suspects to buy guns, though none have advanced. In the House, Democrats occupied the chamber for 25 hours in an unsuccessful attempt to force votes on terrorism suspects and expanding background checks for gun buyers. Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said Democrats' willingness to talk about guns reflects the party becoming more liberal, not a change in public sentiment. Most voters view the shooting in Orlando as an act of terrorism inspired by Islamic State, she said. "The shooter called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS, he did not call 911 and pledge allegiance to Smith & Wesson," she said, referring to an acronym for Islamic State and the firearms manufacturer. A STICKING POINT Still, Democrats' willingness to take a stand on gun control has shifted the debate, said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. "There's a potentially a good electoral outcome for Democrats out of this. They will probably pick up seats," he said. After landslide defeats in 2010 and 2014, most Democrats who remain in office tend to represent safely liberal congressional districts where gun control is popular. But those up for election in competitive states have spoken up as well. U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, who hopes to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio in gun-friendly Florida, said during the House sit-in that gun rights groups like the NRA are "largely responsible" for the country's 32,000 annual gun deaths. "This passion you're seeing is what's needed to get people to wake up," he said on the House floor. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment. Democrats have public opinion on their side: a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll conducted this week found that 48 percent of those surveyed support strong gun regulations, while 23 percent support minimal rules. Support runs higher for specific proposals, like imposing background checks on all gun buyers. (http://bit.ly/28U7CA7) But intensity has been a sticking point for gun control advocates. The NRA has been able to mobilize supporters who are willing to vote for or against a candidate solely because of their position on guns, while gun-control supporters typically consider other issues as well, such as abortion and the environment. "Anytime the Democrats start a gun movement, it costs them votes," said Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, who has worked for centrist Democratic candidates. "I can't imagine it's changing." Shootings in Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; Charleston, South Carolina; and, most recently, Orlando have changed that dynamic, others say. "Mass shootings are highly visible, and force people to pay attention and realize that we have a problem that isn't going to be solved by more guns," said Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist in Atlanta who worked on Obama's 2012 campaign. The gun-control lobbying group Everytown for Gun Safety says its members generated 245,000 telephone calls to Congress, and brought hundreds of its members to Congress to press for action during the debate. "I've been in the fight for a number of years and I've never seen anything like this," said Colin Goddard, an advocate with the group who was wounded during the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting. (Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
dez bryant dallas cowboys

Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant faces a law suit after reportedly leaving the home of Texas state Senator Royce West, which he had rented since 2013, "littered with trash and feces."

According to the Dallas Morning News, White spent over $60,000 in repairs to his home in a gated community in DeSoto, and is now seeking between $100,000 and $200,000 in damages.

From the Dallas Morning News:

"West discovered the 6,400-square-foot home "littered with trash and feces, missing blinds and shutters, with cracked windows and blackened carpeting" after Bryant moved out in January, and his lawyers say Bryant refuses to accept responsibility for the damage."

The lawsuit claimed that Bryant paid $4,720 per month to rent the home, but had moved out in January. When West returned to inspect it, he expected to find the normal wear-and-tear but instead found the home in derelict condition:

"West encountered "irreparable damage to carpeting, flooring, windows, shutters, and blinds; the presence of animal feces, trash, debris, and personal property inside the residence; and distinct and pervasive odors throughout" during the walk-through, the lawsuit says."

As a result, West paid $61,546. From the Morning News:

"Because of the damage, West had to repaint the entire house, clean or replace all of the flooring and carpeting, replace the home security system, replace doors and windows and perform an extensive cleaning, among other repairs, according to the lawsuit."

Here is a look at the outside of the house.

#Breaking Dez Bryant sued by Cowboys mentor Sen. Royce West over $60k in rental home damage https://t.co/5Y5vCVdrLM pic.twitter.com/fpwPpMxPKg  Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) June 22, 2016

The Morning News also reports that West was "part of an informal support group of prominent residents created to mentor Bryant and keep him out of trouble."

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You can read the full suit, and see pictures of the home, over at the Dallas Morning News.

NOW WATCH: CRISTIANO RONALDO: Heres how the worlds highest paid athlete makes and spends his money





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After allegedly being the victim of an accountant who embezzled money and doctored books, reality show producer LMNO Cable Group claims in a new $7 million lawsuit that Discovery Communications used the situation to steal the hit TLC series The Little Couple, now in its ninth season, featuring a married couple living with skeletal dysplasia, more commonly known as dwarfism.

LMNO has produced other shows including Kids Say the Darndest Things for CBS, Guinness World Records for Fox and Behind Closed Doors for ABC. It also does other work for Discovery including 7 Little Johnstons, Unusual Suspects and Killer Confessions.

The company was left in dire straits, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in California federal court, as a result of an accountant who allegedly falsified records to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in embezzled money. LMNO further claims that this accountant demanded more than $800,000 or else he would damage the company's reputation by taking the doctored books to its largest customer. LMNO says it reported to authorities this accountant, who allegedly tried to dispose of accounting records by throwing them in dumpsters.

"In its darkest hour, however, what LMNO did not count on was treachery," states the complaint. "Instead of standing by the side of its long-time business partner, Discovery saw an opportunity to enrich itself at LMNO's expense. Working with, and using documents prepared by a criminal extortionist, Discovery chose this moment to manufacture bad faith claims surrounding the very books and records that it had received from a criminal in a scheme to steal The Little Couple television show from LMNO, and put LMNO out of business."

The complaint explains that Discovery asserted that LMNO had failed to maintain books and records for various shows and that it was being improperly charged. LMNO contends this is nonsense in light of Discovery paying a flat fee to LMNO for each episode ($127,035 per half-hour in the seventh season), which would not be adjusted up or down based on costs.

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"Discovery's actions were all designed to drum up the pretense of a contract dispute, so that Discovery could claim to 'terminate' the contracts and distance itself from LMNO," states the complaint. "On June 17, 2016, Discovery did exactly that: sending notices of termination on six different series, including The Little Couple, 7 Little Johnstons, Killer Confessions, Speaking for the Dead, Unusual Suspects and Hollywood & Crime. Tellingly, Discovery purported to terminate shows on which it had never even seen the books, shows that were newly in production for which current reports had not yet been made, shows that were finished and delivered four years ago, and shows on which it had refused to sign a written contract."

But LMNO says this was a "smokescreen" as Discovery "secretly began shooting new episodes of The Little Couple on its own more than a month ago as part of its scheme to take the show."

Actors on The Little Couple have allegedly been told not to communicate with LMNO.

The plaintiff, represented by attorney Stephen Mick, is suing Discovery on causes of action of copyright infringement, unfair competition, trademark infringement and breach of various contracts.

Discovery confirms that it has canceled contracts with LMNO.

"Discovery is a global content company committed to operating with integrity in all our business practices and we expect our business partners to live up to that same standard," a Discovery spokesperson said in a statement. "We understand that LMNO has issued a complaint against Discovery and while it's not our practice to comment on ongoing litigation, we will vigorously defend against LMNO's lawsuit."

The statement added, "We have worked with LMNO Productions for more than a decade on a number of series and specials that have aired across many of Discovery's global networks. Together, our companies have enjoyed great success. At this time, we have decided to terminate certain of our contracts with LMNO, based on the results of a lengthy review of long-standing production agreements which revealed procedures and practices that did not respect Discovery's contractual rights. We believe that at the heart of any enterprise is trust and mutual respect between commercial partners."
Disney is not going to throw away its shot at the hottest talent in musical theater in a generation.

In late 2013, when Hamilton was in rehearsals, Disney executive vp Tom MacDougall - head of music for Disney's animated divisions and the man responsible for overseeing the Frozen soundtrack - began courting creator-star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who credits The Little Mermaid and other Disney musicals for inspiring his career (he named his son, 19 months, after Sebastian the crab).

MacDougall and Miranda went to New Zealand for a music festival the following March looking for inspiration for the upcoming animated film Moana (Nov. 23), and Disney quickly signed up Miranda, 36, for his post-Hamilton plans.

The star, who announced June 16 that he will leave his show July 9, has written music and lyrics for Moana, and he'll star opposite Emily Blunt in director Rob Marshall's live-action Mary Poppins Returns, which begins shooting this winter and hits theaters Dec. 25, 2018. Miranda will play a lamplighter in the sequel.

Read More: 'Hamilton's' Lin-Manuel Miranda Sets Exit Date as Original Cast Jockeys for Raises (Exclusive)

"Lin's musical passion and energy is undeniable," says Disney production chief Sean Bailey. "To have him part of Mary Poppins Returns is a thrill for all of us."

MacDougall was first referred to Miranda by WME agent John Buzzetti. The exec had hired Robert and Kristen Lopez, whom Buzzetti also represents, to write songs for Frozen - including the smash hit "Let It Go" - and was now on the the hunt for other Broadway composers to bring into the Disney fold.

"It was a dream come true for Lin to work on a Disney animated musical," says one person close to Miranda.

Miranda also penned a song for Disney and Lucasfilm's Star Wars: The Force Awakens after the film's director, J.J. Abrams, visited Miranda backstage at Hamilton and joked that he'd love for Miranda to work on the film. Miranda joked in turn that he'd happily write a song should there be a cantina scene in the film. There was, and he did.

A version of this story first appeared in the July 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
By Jeffrey Dastin June 23 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co has had more than 240 "nuisance" alligators captured and killed over the last 10 years at its Florida theme park property, according to state records.

The records reveal the park's constant struggle to keep alligators away from humans in a region where the creatures live and breed.

Last week, a 2-year-old boy at the Walt Disney World Resort died after an alligator attack at the edge of a hotel lagoon. Critics questioned why Disney hadn't posted signs warning guests of the presence of alligators in the area; the company has since installed such signage.

"You'll never be able to get them all," said Florida trapper Ron Ziemba, who helped trap and kill nuisance alligators on Disney World property for five years until late 2015. "There are just so many canals, so many waterways. The gators travel a lot." As humans encroach into alligators' habitat, encounters are inevitable, Ziemba said, noting that he has removed the reptiles from a Disney parking lot and from the lobby of a nearby hotel not run by the resort.

Under Florida's Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, Disney World's property has been designated a "targeted harvest area," meaning the state has issued a blanket permit for the taking of problem alligators in the area.

The state considers an alligator a nuisance if it is at least 4 feet in length and is believed to pose a threat to people, property or pets.

Disney's alligator harvest permit, which was issued in 2009 and expires in 2019, specifies that the resort can remove up to 300 alligators of more than 4 feet in length from the area during the 10 years covered by the agreement.

Disney has been removing an average of 24 large alligators annually from its property, or about six fewer per year than the permit would allow.

From May 2006 through May 2016, 239 nuisance alligators were removed from Disney property and euthanized, according to documents provided by the state. That does not include six that were removed in the wake of last week's attack.

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The permit designates a state-authorized trapper to remove problem alligators. An additional "special purpose permit" authorizes certain resort employees to trap and kill alligators without a state trapper "where immediate action is required." A Disney spokeswoman declined to say whether company employees have euthanized alligators.

"Walt Disney World is responsible and has a comprehensive approach that helps to reduce the potential for interactions between people and alligators," the Disney spokeswoman said in a statement, noting that staff members are taught to report alligator sightings.

Disney has set aside nearly a third of its land outside Orlando as a wildlife conservation area, she said, and smaller alligators are relocated there.

The state of Florida supports killing rather than relocating large alligators, because they are likely to return to their original location or become a problem in the area where they are relocated.

Trappers generally receive a $30 state stipend for each alligator they remove, but the bulk of their trapping income is from selling the meat and hides of those alligators.

ALLIGATOR COUNTRY Florida has an estimated 1.3 million wild alligators, or about one for every 15 residents, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

While attacks on humans are rare, the state's Nuisance Alligator Program receives many complaints about problem alligators. Between 2005 and 2014, the program averaged about 15,000 requests for help each year and authorized the killing of more than 8,000 alligators annually.

U.S. alligator populations declined drastically during the first half of the 20th century, and alligators were listed as an endangered species in 1967, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since then, with careful management, the population has recovered, and the species was delisted in 1987, though it is still under management by states where it is found.

Tracy Howell, 53, is the state-designated trapper responsible for Disney's targeted harvest area. He does not work for the theme park, but is authorized by the state to remove and euthanize nuisance alligators when the company identifies a problem.

"Disney has a really good alligator program," Howell said. The company is diligent, he added, about trying "to keep large alligators away from the public." Records show the largest alligator trapped on Disney World property in the last 10 years was 13 feet long and was captured in January 2015. Most of the alligators taken from the area were under 7 feet.

Alligators are often removed from the property alive and killed later, but Howell says he tells his trapping team to euthanize them on the spot if they feel threatened.

Trappers say they generally kill alligators with a bullet to the base of the skull, sometimes delivered by a "bang stick," a specialized firearm that discharges upon contact with the alligator underwater.

Capturing reptiles alive has the benefit of buying time for processing the meat, because the reptiles begin to rot if they aren't placed in a cooler within an hour of death, Ziemba said.

"If we're moving them live, we have cages that we put them in," Howell said. "You would never even know we were moving an alligator down the highway." (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Sue Horton and Leslie Adler)
Clothing company Rocawear has chosen DJ and record producer DJ Khaled as brand ambassador for its fall 2016 campaign, according to Women's Wear Daily.

The fall collection will include lots of denim in a range of sizes, as well as knit tops, fleece, activewear and outerwear, all retailing for around $100 or less.

Rocawear was founded by rapper Jay Z and Damon Dash in 1999 before being sold to Iconix in 2007. As its men's line struggles, the company hopes that putting DJ Khaled front and center will bring in business.

DJ Khaled's current single, "For Free" is topping the charts, while he counts 19 million followers on social media. As he prepares for the release of his ninth album, DJ Khaled is also part of Beyonce's Formation tour.
In some cases, doctors took part in schemes to submit claims to Medicare and Medicaid for treatments that were not necessary and were never provided. In others, health care providers offered kickbacks to patient recruiters to help assemble beneficiary information that could be used in phony filings.

One of the biggest scams involved phony billings for costly prescription drugs at a time when Medicares drug costs are spiking.

Related: Billions in Medicare Fraud Still Rampant Despite Federal Crackdown

Taken together, doctors, nurses, licensed medical professionals and health care companies conspired to submit a total of $900 million in fraudulent billing in the past year to the premier federal programs providing health care to the elderly and poor, according to joint announcements on Wednesday by the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI.

The latest chapter in the federal governments highly touted National Health Care Fraud Takedown netted 301 defendants in all, including 61 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, for their involvement in conspiracies to rip off the government. President Obama made the crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid fraud a high priority in his second term.

Since 2010, federal authorities operating as part of the Fraud Takedown initiative have arrested and charged roughly 1,200 people allegedly complicit in defrauding the Medicare and Medicaid programs of more than $3.5 billion.

The most recent charges came after investigators uncovered a wide array of alleged fraud schemes involving a host of medical treatments and services, such as home health care, physical and occupational therapy, durable medical equipment sales and prescription drugs, according to authorities. More than 60 of those arrested were charged with fraudulent claims for Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits, which were deemed the fastest-growing component of the Medicare program overall.

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Related: Audit Uncovers $124.7 B of Overpayments and Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid

As this takedown should make clear, health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense  It is a serious crime, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment. They target real people  many of them in need of significant medical care. They promise effective cures and therapies, but they provide none.

Lynch and other officials described the fraudulent activities by medical professionals as a gross betrayal of the public trust that targets the most vulnerable in society by taking taxpayer money away from the care of the elderly, children and the disabled. Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said the government has perfected techniques for ferreting out Medicare and Medicaid fraud and described the strike force as a model of 21st Century data-driven enforcement.

As the cases announced today demonstrate, the Strike Forces strategic approach keeps us a step ahead of emerging fraud trends, including drug diversion, and fraud involving compounded medications and hospice care, Caldwell said.

Related: Medicare Drug Program Still Plagued by Fraud

HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell noted that $350 million was earmarked as part of the Affordable Care Act for health care fraud prevention and enforcement efforts. Millions of seniors depend on Medicare for essential health coverage, and our action shows that this administration remains committed to cracking down on individuals who try to defraud the program, she said.

From a regional perspective, the Southern District of Florida was a beehive of illegal activity. One hundred people were charged with offenses involving fraudulent schemes totaling $200 million in false billings for home health care, mental health services and pharmacy fraud.

In the Southern District of Texas, 24 people were charged in cases involving over $146 million of alleged fraud. One of the defendants was described as a doctor with the highest number of referrals for home health services in the region. In central California, meanwhile, 22 people were rounded up and charged with conspiracies to defraud the Medicare program of roughly $162 million.

In one case, a physician cheated Medicare out of $12 million through a series of phony billings and by performing medically unnecessary vein ablation procedures on Medicare beneficiaries.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
From ELLE DECOR

Famed architect Eero Saarinen is applauded worldwide for his notable works, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight Center at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

But he also had a crucial hand in unexpected projects: war weapons for the government.

When design and technology blog Gizmodo recently requested official government documents about Saarinen under the Freedom of Information Act, the files that returned confirmed the Finnish-American architect worked for the Office of Strategic Services (which would later become the Central Intelligence Agency) in the 1940s.

Saarinen's job was to work on models of buildings and weaponry during a time when the organization was responsible for foreign espionage operations in World War II, reports Dezeen.

Though Saarinen was best known for creating many architectural and design icons of the 1960s, his role for the government was described as "irreplaceable" by the files. According to the documents, Saarinen's work included "design, construction, and equipping situation rooms and military schools, the development of special display equipment for conferences, pilot models of new weapons and devices," among other tasks, such as creating props for target studies.

The file doesn't go much further into detail, but Gizmodo points out that "devices" could mean a wide variety of things, since the OSS was responsible for counterespionage and sabotage.

It wasn't exactly an anomaly for the United States government to hire a notable public figure. Mental Floss reports that Julia Child was also hired by the CIA to cook up a repellent for man-eating sharks during World War II. Meanwhile, Harry Houdini was an operative for the U.S. Secret Service (he used his magical skills to sneak into police stations in foreign countries and gather information).

After working for the OSS, Saarinen would go on to be the mastermind behind architecutre that pushed the boundaries of experimentation in American design. Apparently, genius is genius, regardless of the assignment.

h/t: Dezeen
The Dow Chemical Company DOW will be presenting The Face of Innovation, throwing light on the people behind its innovations, at K 2016, to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany from Oct 1926. At this gathering  the largest worldwide for the plastic and rubber industry  award-winning innovations of the companys Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Elastomers and Electrical & Telecommunications segments will be showcased.

Dow Chemicals Face of Innovation theme highlights the inspiration behind the innovations, from world-class scientists and researchers to marketing experts and value chain partners. The joint commitment and effort of the whole team result in the development of solutions that customers demand. The company wants to use the global platform to showcase the individuals responsible for transforming all of its ideas into a product, and help customers see and experience its latest innovations.

Dow Chemical provides plastic products to a range of markets, from food packaging to transportation, utilities and medical among others. The company is also expanding to new emerging markets such as Middle East, Turkey, Africa, India and the Asia Pacific. The companys joint venture in the Middle East  Sadara Chemical Company  has started ramping up polyethylene production. Sadara, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), has already begun delivering products to India.

At K 2016, Dow Chemical invites other attendees to learn more about plastics growth investments, its products as well as collaboration opportunities. The companys partners and customers will be able to see and interact with industry leaders and experts as well as understand the unique innovations underway across the industry.

DOW CHEMICAL Price

DOW CHEMICAL Price | DOW CHEMICAL Quote

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Dow Chemicals shares closed around 1.4% higher at $52.93 last Friday.

Dow Chemical saw adjusted EPS growth for the fourteenth consecutive quarter in the first quarter of 2016. Adjusted earnings of 89 cents per share and revenues of $10.7 billion for the quarter beat the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Sales of the Performance Plastics segment fell roughly 2% to $4.2 billion, impacted by lower hydrocarbon pricing. The Packaging and Specialty Plastics business saw record polyethylene sales volume. The Elastomers business also registered higher volumes. Moreover, Electrical and Telecommunications volumes rose by double digits in the quarter.

The company anticipates sustained momentum in consumer-driven end markets. Demand in North America is expected to be strong while a recovery is projected in Europe and China for Dow Chemicals innovative and unique products.

Dow Chemical currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked companies in the chemical space include Asahi Kasei Corp. AHKSY, Albemarle Corporation ALB and Innospec Inc. IOSP, all sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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Romford (United Kingdom) (AFP) - In the working-class east London borough of Havering, there was anger mixed with hope Thursday, as locals voted in Britain's landmark EU referendum.

Citing exasperation at uncontrolled migration and a fierce desire for independence from Brussels, a string of voters said they wanted Britain out of the EU for good.

"I'm going to feel British again," said Diane Booth, a softly-spoken 69-year-old pensioner, adding that she wanted Britain to be self-sufficient so it did not have to rely on European food imports.

"I think we've got enough here," she said at a polling station in Romford, Havering's main town. "We've got pigs in this country, we've got chicken in this country!"

She was speaking as British voters cast their ballots across the country, with the result on a knife-edge betweenm Remain camps and Leave campaigners, who hope Britain will become the first country ever to leave the EU.

A poll by YouGov earlier this year ranked Havering as the most eurosceptic area in Britain.

Local councillors held a symbolic vote in January to leave the EU, the first such local government motion. The borough is also located near England's east coast, the traditional heartland of Britain's anti-Brussels movement.

- 'Gonna be better' -

Emma, a 19-year-old student in mental health nursing, said she was "sick (of) all the propaganda".

But she added that she supported a "Leave" vote so that Britain would not have to be governed by EU regulations on medicines.

"It's gonna be better for us," she said. "There are so many medications that we can't have because of them, because of the red tape."

Joan, a woman in her 50s, also said she was planning to vote "Leave" as a way of reining in "uncontrolled immigration" from other parts of the EU.

"We'll be the first to leave and I think the other European countries will leave after this," she said, as she arrived to cast her ballot.

Story continues

"Leave" supporters have focused their campaign on immigration, particularly the large number of eastern and southern European workers who have arrived in recent years, putting pressure on public services and wages in some parts of Britain.

That message has resonated well beyond Havering.

"The issue that matters is immigration," said 69-year-old retiree Barry Martin outside a polling station in Biggin Hill, a commuter town south of London, where leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage also voted.

"There seem to be open borders and at the moment (Prime Minister David) Cameron doesn't seem to be able to cope with it," Martin added.

"They're just coming in willy-nilly. You see it in the papers every day, theyre getting on lorries, coming over from Calais."

Not everyone in Romford shared similar views.

Kate Garnham, a 47-year-old brand manager, said leaving the EU would be "awful".

"People have been too sceptical about what the 'Remain' campaign has to say," she said, adding that the rival claims had been "very confusing".

Booth, a former public sector worker, added: "My son lives in Germany. He is quite happy there. We do clash."

But Lesley Syer, a 74-year-old pensioner, said the threat of ever more migrants was

agreed thatwith the worry over immigration, asking: "Where are we going to put all these people?"

"Im not racist, but its a small island and nobody ever says were that small," she added.
MILAN, June 23 (Reuters) - Italian energy group Edison, controlled by France's EDF, said on Thursday it had reached an agreement with oil major Eni to revise the pricing formula on gas imported from Libya.

In a statement, Edison said the new price formula would apply to gas imported from Libya as of 1 October 2015 and would last three years.

Under long-term contracts, Edison imports 4 billion cubic meters of gas a year from Eni which is the biggest foreign oil and gas producer in Libya.

The French-owned gas group also confirmed its core earnings target for this year of about 650 million euros.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes)
By Sarah White CORDOBA, Spain (Reuters) - The parched olive groves and tranquil towns of Spain's southern Cordoba province are an unlikely backdrop for a political upset that could reverberate across Europe. Yet some locals like 57-year-old Lorenzo Molina, an unemployed librarian, hope they can help deliver just that in a fresh nationwide election on June 26 following an inconclusive December ballot. Gains for an anti-austerity alliance led by the young Podemos party in tightly-contested provinces like this could tip the balance in its bid to lead the next government, and this could turn Spain into the European Union's next headache after Britain's June 23 referendum on EU membership. A surge into second place for Unidos Podemos ("Together We Can") ahead of Spain's Socialists would make the far-left front a serious contender to form a coalition government, cementing the decline of Spain's once-mighty center-left in the process. After radical leftist Syriza's success in crushing the social democratic Pasok in Greece, a Podemos breakthrough could also buoy euro-skeptic anti-establishment movements in the likes of Italy or France as worsening inequality fuels discontent. For Molina, a dyed-in-the-wool backer of the ex-communists now part of the leftist alliance, it's a momentous prospect after decades on the fringes of Spanish politics, hankering after this so-called "sorpasso" (eclipse) of the Socialists. "It's time to air things out," Molina said on a balmy evening in the city of Cordoba, as an eclectic mix of families and people waving hammer and sickle flags arrived at a rally in a local park. "The Socialists have been in charge of our institutions for many years," he added, as cries of "Yes we can" rang out among the crowd of several hundred. Born in 2014 out of the fervent protests against spending cuts that swept Spain during a recent recession, Podemos placed third in December's election as a standalone party, taking 69 seats in Spain's 350-strong lower house. Its subsequent tie-up with anti-capitalist Izquierda Unida, a revamped communist party formed in the 1980s, could see it clinch between 84 and 95 seats, the latest polls show. Meanwhile, the Socialists, who came second last time on 90 seats, are seen sinking to between 78 and 85. That would be their worst result in over 40 years and put them in an excruciating position in another highly fragmented parliament where no single party is expected to carry a majority. To avoid a third election, the Socialists may have to either back a left-wing coalition fronted by a party that imperils their existence, or enable a minority government led by a foe, the center-right People's Party (PP) which is seen coming first. NOW OR NEVER In Cordoba, one of only a dozen constituencies out of a total 52 where some seats are hanging in the balance, Unidos Podemos is going all in. Based on December's results, the alliance is barely 3,000 votes away from getting a second lawmaker elected out of a possible six in Cordoba. Because of the oddities of Spain's electoral system and the way seats are dealt out, its success here would come at the expense of liberal Ciudadanos ("Citizens"), another newcomer party which should place fourth nationwide, as in the last election, and also secured one lawmaker in Cordoba. But Unidos Podemos is rather eyeing a moral victory in what not so long ago was the Socialists' backyard. To make sure it happens, Pablo Iglesias, the charismatic pony-tailed leader of Podemos, has parachuted his political mentor, Manuel Monereo, to head the party list in the province. The alliance is also making a strong push in the rural areas where the Socialists are strongest, campaigning village by village to try and lure people. And most of Podemos and Izquierda Unida's leading figures visited Cordoba over the last month, putting in on par with much bigger constituencies like Madrid or Barcelona. It was here for instance that the alliance was unveiled nationally on May 13 by Iglesias and ex-Cordoba mayor Julio Anguita, Izquierda Unida's leader in its heyday in the 1990s. "It's now or never," Anguita, a pivotal figure of the left and who started 20 years ago to design the strategy to break the Socialists' hegemony, urged around 2,000 activists and followers, drawing euphoric applause. As a result of the leftist offensive, the Socialists have spent much of the campaign trying to explain their disenchanted voters why they should not cast their ballot for Unidos Podemos rather than discussing their policies. At one twilight rally in the town of La Carlota, a farming community 30 km away from Cordoba's capital, a small gathering of Socialist faithful were told to spread the word and encourage friends to back the party. "With Unidos Podemos it's all about the image. Their speech works well on television but that's it," Juan Pablo Duran, a senior Socialist leader for the Andalusia region told the crowd. ON AND ON If Unidos Podemos' communist roots work well in Cordoba, at a national level it is cultivating a less radical image. Its program, including plans to raise corporate taxes or reverse labor reforms that made it cheaper for companies to fire workers, is not dissimilar to the Socialists', and it has tried to project itself as a cuddly party, including by changing its logo to a rainbow-colored heart. It is also saying it will seek to form a coalition with the Socialists to unseat acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. But political insiders say Podemos is actually less interested in taking over the government than in destroying the 137-year-old Socialist Party. For that to happen, a "grand coalition" between the conservatives and the socialists or a PP minority government enabled by the socialists would come in handy for Podemos. "The Socialists have a clear choice: they can back us, or they can choose to commit suicide by getting involved in a grand coalition," said a senior Unidos Podemos member on condition of anonymity. But with Socialist leaders describing in private a potential deal with Podemos as a kiss of death and the threat of a third election deepening fears for Spain's economic recovery, that may be the only way forward for the center-left party. Such a scenario would help break the stalemate now, but it might be bad news for Spain's political stability down the road. (Editing by Julien Toyer and Mark Heinrich)
Despite auditioning for a role in which the actor playing her love interest was just one year younger, Elizabeth Banks was told she was too old to portray Mary Jane Watson in the original Spider-Man film.



During a recent interview with GlamourUK, the actress revealed that she did a screen-test opposite the film's star Tobey Macguire, 27 at the time the movie was filmed, but was rejected for the role because of her age. She was 28.



"I was told I was too old to play her," Banks, now 42, told GlamourUK, according to Vanity Fair. "Tobey and I are basically the same age. I was like, 'Oh, okay, that's what I've signed up for."



The part ultimately ended up in the lap of Kirsten Dunst, who was 18 at the time.







Banks, however, didn't walk away completely empty-handed, as she was given the role as newspaper secretary Betty Brant.



Telling the same story in 2008, Banks then revealed that the role was offered as a sort of consolation prize.



"I was a nobody. I had no expectations of even being in that movie. The casting director called and said, 'As a consolation prize essentially do you want to be Betty Brant?'" she added. "So it started out as a consolation prize and it's become a favor."
Elizabeth Banks has carved out a swell career in Hollywood, but you cant blame her if she was bitter about one role she didnt get more than 15 ago. The actress and Pitch Perfect 2 director told Glamour UK that she tested for the role of Spider-Mans girlfriend in the 2002 film starring Tobey Maguire but was told she too old for the part.

Banks was about 26 at the time  less than 15 months older than Maguire. (Some outlets say she was 28 then, but that was her age when the film came out, not when the screen test happened.)

I screen-tested for the role of Mary-Jane Watson in the first Spider-Man movie, opposite Tobey Maguire, she told the magazine. Tobey and I are basically the same age, and I was told I was too old to play her. Im like, Oh, OK, thats what Ive signed up for. The role went to Kirsten Dunst, then a spry late-teenager. Banks did land the supporting role of Betty Brant, a secretary at the Daily Bugle, and went to appear in all three Sam Raimi-helmed Spidey pics starring Maguire. Thats Banks at 28 on the right at the 2002 Movie Awards. The following year, Dunst won Best Female Performance for Spider-Man.

Banks would go on to appear with Maquire not long after her Spider-Man tryout, starring with him in 2003s Seabiscuit.

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Elizabeth Banks Red Carpet

In a perfect example of age discrimination thats rampant in the movie industry, Elizabeth Banks has revealed a moment when she was deemed too old for a role, though she was only a year older than the actor she would play opposite of.

In a recent interview with Glamour UK, the actress-director revealed that she was turned down to play Mary Jane Watson in the 2002 release of Spider-Man because of her age.

The movie would go on to become one of the biggest superhero releases of that time with over $114 million for its opening weekend and earning over $800 million worldwide.

It also made its stars, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, into household names. So you can understand if Banks is still a little upset.

I was told I was too old to play her, Banks, who was 28 at the time, told Glamour UK, according to Vanity Fair. Tobey and I are basically the same age. I was like, Oh, okay, thats what Ive signed up for.

Maguire was 27 at the time the movie was made. Dunst, who ended up being cast as Mary Jane, was 18.

Banks instead was cast as Daily Bugle secretary Betty Brant.

Though Banks has gone on to have a great career, this is just the latest example of an actress speaking out about being turned down for a role because of her age.

In March, Olivia Wilde went public that she was considered too old to play the wife of Leonardo DiCaprios character in The Wolf of Wall Street, though at the time she was 10 years younger than DiCaprio. The role went to Margot Robbie, who is seven years younger than Wilde.

However, it makes you think about the number of actresses over the decades who weren't as lucky as Banks and Wilde after being turned down for such career-making roles for the simple fact that they were considered "too old."

NOW WATCH: 4 things you might have missed on this week's 'Game of Thrones'





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By Bruno Federowski and Priscila Jordao SAO PAULO, June 23 (Reuters) - Latin American stocks and currencies extended their rally on Thursday as traders doubled down on bets that Britons will vote to stay in the European Union.

After four months of bitter campaigning, polling stations opened at 0600 GMT and will close at 2100, with results expected to be announced by the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0100 and 0300 on Friday.

The Mexican peso strengthened for a fifth consecutive day to its highest in two weeks after late polls showed a growing lead for the "Remain" camp.

With a possible "Brexit" now viewed as less likely, investors were growing less worried about potential disruption to financial markets and regaining their appetite for risk.

"Markets are currently pricing a higher chance that the status quo will be maintained," analysts with Guide Investimentos brokerage wrote in a client note.

Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 2.2 percent, its biggest daily increase since June 8. Shares of Natura Cosmeticos SA were the biggest gainers as the cosmetics company met with investors in Rio de Janeiro.

Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a client note Natura will likely be able to improve its market share, helping the stock rise by the most in over seven months.

Shares of Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais SA advanced 3.8 percent after state development BNDES agreed with the terms of a debt renegotiation deal between the steelmaker, banks and bondholders.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1535 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % Latest change change MSCI Emerging Markets 836.67 0.89 4.43 MSCI LatAm 2216.01 2.67 17.96 Brazil Bovespa 51279.47 2.24 18.29 Mexico IPC 46084.36 0.61 7.23 Chile IPSA 4012.86 0.49 9.04 Chile IGPA 19815.08 0.43 9.16 Argentina MerVal 13990.37 1.8 19.83 Colombia IGBC 9932.65 0.48 16.21 Venezuela IBC 14061.19 0.74 -3.61 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3.3478 0.85 17.90 Mexico peso 18.2950 1.04 -5.82 Chile peso 669.6 0.66 5.99 Colombia peso 2904.47 0.37 9.12 Peru sol 3.2799 0.19 4.09 Argentina peso (interbank) 14.1900 -0.81 -8.51 Argentina peso (parallel) 14.58 -0.14 -2.13 (Reporting by Bruno Federowski and Priscila Jordao; Editing by David Gregorio)
(Updates prices) By Bruno Federowski and Priscila Jordao SAO PAULO, June 23 (Reuters) - Latin American stocks and currencies extended their rally on Thursday as traders doubled down on bets that Britons will vote to stay in the European Union.

After four months of bitter campaigning, polling stations will close at 2100 GMT, with results expected to be announced by the individual local counting areas between 0100 and 0300 on Friday. Financial markets around the world rose on the strength of late polls that showed a swing towards staying in.

With a possible "Brexit" now viewed as less likely, investors were growing less worried about potential disruption to financial markets and regaining their appetite for risk.

"Markets are currently pricing a higher chance that the status quo will be maintained," analysts with Guide Investimentos brokerage wrote in a client note.

The Mexican peso strengthened for a fifth consecutive day to its highest in two weeks. As a proxy for traders looking to short emerging market currencies, the peso had fallen the most among its peers in Latin America since the beginning of the year.

Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 2.8 percent, its biggest daily increase in six weeks. Shares of Natura Cosmeticos SA were the biggest gainers, jumping 10 percent, as the cosmetics company met with investors in Rio de Janeiro.

Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a client note Natura will likely be able to improve its market share, helping the stock rise by the most in over seven months.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 2030 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % Latest change change MSCI Emerging Markets 835.43 0.74 5.2 MSCI LatAm 2217.22 2.73 21.17 Brazil Bovespa 51559.82 2.8 18.94 Mexico IPC 46145.92 0.74 7.37 Chile IPSA 4022.23 0.72 9.29 Chile IGPA 19854.02 0.63 9.38 Argentina MerVal 14242.85 3.64 21.99 Colombia IGBC 9913.46 0.29 15.98 Venezuela IBC 13296.72 -4.73 -8.85 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3.3438 0.96 15.28 Mexico peso 18.2055 1.51 -5.66 Chile peso 668.96 0.78 5.74 Colombia peso 2894.5 0.71 8.67 Peru sol 3.284 0.06 3.81 Argentina peso (interbank) 14.3600 -2.02 -10.61 Argentina peso (parallel) 14.7 -0.96 -3.01 (Reporting by Bruno Federowski and Priscila Jordao; Editing by David Gregorio and Chris Reese)
When Reza B'Far completed his online master's degree in computer science through University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering, he watched the same lectures as the on-campus students.

"The degree that you got was the equivalent of a normal college degree," says the 44-year-old, who now works as vice president of development for the computer technology corporation Oracle. As an online student, he felt the overall quality of the program helped ensure its legitimacy.

B'Far might be onto something. Today's employers often place more weight on an IT program's reputation -- along with a job applicant's skills and work experience -- than the delivery format of the program where the applicant earned the degree, says Bram Daly, senior manager of client services at Alexander Mann Solutions, which provides talent acquisition services to companies around the world.

In recent years, employers have become more accepting of online bachelor's and master's degrees in information technology and related fields, like computer science, recruiters say -- though not all are totally comfortable with them.

[Learn how to choose the right online IT training.]

"I think in the earlier days, mid 2000s, the commentary was, 'That's not a degree. That's not real' -- sort of dismissive types of comments," Daly says. That's changed to a certain extent, however, as legitimate, well-known universities have launched IT degree programs online.

But some of today's hiring managers are more familiar than others with the value of an online degree from a reputable university, says David Morgan, president of the IT division for the Addison Group, a staffing and search firm.

When deciding between a traditional and online student for a position, Morgan says, "the person hiring probably generationally has a bias toward a traditional school, because there was probably no online school when they were growing up."

Story continues

Some employers, for example, perceive all online degree programs as easier to get accepted into, even though that isn't necessarily the case, says Eoin O'Toole, co-founder and managing partner of the executive search firm Arete Partners.

"It feels like, 'Oh, sure, anyone can get an online degree.' That's a perception; I'm not saying that's the reality," says O'Toole. "But that kind of lack of a threshold, if you'd like, doesn't give the potential employer any potential barometer on the candidate."

Some also value the human interaction that on-campus programs provide, experts say. While online education teaches students how to collaborate with others around the world in a virtual setting, there are significant advantages to in-person communication during the learning phase, Daly says.

[Discover[the do's and don'ts of online group work.]

"At the very beginning, when you're trying to get it down and how the communication should be optimal, you need that physical presence," because in-person interaction and hands-on work still play a large role in many IT jobs, he says.

In the future, as online degree programs become more ubiquitous and those who are more comfortable with this form of education take over management positions, the overall view that employers now hold about online degrees will likely continue shifting to a more favorable one, just as it has started doing in recent years, Morgan says.

As is the case in many fields, Morgan says, a job candidate's education plays a greater role in a hiring decision for a recent graduate with less job experience than for somebody who's been in the workforce for several years. So, for instance, for the job applicant with several years of experience who pursues a master's degree, it probably won't matter as much whether they earned it online, Morgan says.

"There's some companies that just require that you absolutely have to have a degree of some sort, in which case, at the more senior level, hopefully it can just serve as a checkbox for them," says O'Toole, of Arete Partners. "But I think in more junior roles, I think there's more stock weighted on what type of education you pursued."

And at the end of the day, recruiters say, a candidate's education is only one piece of a larger puzzle.

[Explorewhat hiring managers look for in a resume.]

Previous internship or job experience plays a big role in a hiring decision, as do the ability to answer specific technical questions and produce the work that's needed, Daly says. An employer really wants to know if a candidate is a good fit overall, which is difficult to find in a time when IT workplace skills are higher in demand than supply, he says.

"What I have to talk with managers about is, you're not going to get all of the things that you want, so you need to find somebody that's moldable and can grow," he says.

Trying to fund your online education? Get tips and more in the U.S. News Paying for Online Education center.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.


Oil and natural gas transporter Enbridge Energy Partners L.P. EEP, which owns twin oil pipelines in the area where Lakes Huron and Michigan converge, intends to spend $7 million over the next two years on clean up tools that could be deployed in case of an oil spill in Line 5 pipeline.

These cleaning equipments will include skimming and containment devices to help the crew remove oil from open water surfaces, even in icy conditions.

The purchase is a strategic move by Enbridge to convince residents in northern Michigan that its Line 5 pipeline is in good shape and poses no risk to the scenic area and its tourism-based economy.

Line 5, which carries nearly 23 million gallons of light crude oil and liquefied natural gas daily, is feared to create a disaster in Huron and Michigan lakes if spillage occurs. It is believed that an oil spill in Line 5 might risk more than 17,000 square miles of open water in Straits of Mackinac.

ENBRIDGE EGY PT Price

ENBRIDGE EGY PT Price | ENBRIDGE EGY PT Quote

This apprehension stems from the rupture of another Enbridge pipeline in southern Michigan in 2010. This leak released more than 800,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River and a tributary creek and damaged around 37 miles of river.

Houston, TX-based Enbridge Energy, a master limited partnership (MLP), is engaged in the gathering, processing and transmission of natural gas and crude oil. The partnership is best known for its ownership of the Lakehead System, one of the worlds longest petroleum pipeline systems.

Enbridge Energys focus on fee-based and diversified businesses has enabled it to dilute its business risks as well as provide a stable and steadily growing earnings profile. However, Enbridge Energys midstream natural gas business is sensitive to changes in natural gas supply, demand fundamentals and commodity cycles associated with gas processing margins.

As a result, Enbridge carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), implying that it will perform in line with the broader U.S. equity market over the next one to three months.

Story continues

Some better-ranked players from the broader energy sector are Braskem S.A. BAK, North Atlantic Drilling Limited NADL and Halcon Resources Corporation HK. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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With its capacity boosted by nearly three times, Panama's enlarged canal -- set to be inaugurated on Sunday -- is expected to stimulate trade between the United States and Asia, and steal business from the rival Suez canal.

"A good deal of the commerce between Asia and the east coast of the United States can pass through directly on Neopanamax ships, which will help both sides," Nicolas Ardito Barletta, a former Panamanian president and former vice president of the World Bank in Latin America, told AFP.

Neopanamax ships, as their names suggest, are new generation cargo vessels built specifically to pass through the broadened Panama Canal. They can carry up to three times the number of containers the previous generation of smaller Panamax ships do.

Panama has spent the past nine years -- and more than $5.5 billion -- expanding its century-old canal to take on bigger freighters.

New locks and a wider shipping lane will allow vessels as wide as 49 meters (160 feet) and as long as 366 meters (1,200 feet) to pass through.

The aim is to greatly increase the amount of cargo transiting the 80-kilometer (50-mile) long waterway linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

"We are at the dawn of a great time for Panama and the world, thanks to the impact the canal's expansion will have," Panama's Vice President Isabel De Saint Malo boasted to AFP.

- Chinese ship to be first through -

Five percent of commercial maritime traffic already passes through the canal, particularly between ports in America, China, Japan and South Korea. To a lesser degree, it also serves South America and Europe.

On Sunday, a Chinese Neopanamax freighter, named the COSCO Shipping Panama for the occasion, will be the first to officially go through the broadened canal.

Asian exporters, shipping groups and US logistical and trade companies should be the first to benefit from the modified canal, says Carlos Guevara-Mann, a Panamanian political science professor at Florida State University.

Story continues

American consumers will also see advantages, ending up paying "less for imported items from China and neighboring countries", he predicted.

In general, the costs of doing trade worldwide should decrease, as should polluting emissions, because a fewer number of bigger ships would be hauling goods, specialists say.

"The Panama Canal's expansion will greatly boost world trade," Ardito Barletta said. "Bigger ships will be able to transit and that will bring down the transaction and logistic costs."

The United States is the canal's largest client by far, transporting some 160 million tonnes a year through the waterway.

China is next, with 48 million tonnes, then Chile with 29 million tonnes and Japan with 22 million tonnes.

With room for bigger ships now, the main market the canal is looking to attract is transporting liquefied natural gas from the United States to Asia, mostly Japan.

"The gas transport ships are big and now can get directly to their destination by going through the canal," Ardito Barletta said.

- Asians 'first to step up' -

More than 150 ships have already reserved their places in the line to pass through, the Panama Canal Authority's administrator Jorge Quijano says.

"Obviously, the first to step up were the Asians," he told AFP. "We have companies from Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea."

Forecasts say 600 million tonnes of goods a year will pass across Panama this way, twice the current volume, within the next decade.

Panama expects it will triple the $1 billion in revenues it gets from shipping fees.

It also wants to bring back clients that dropped the canal for its rival, Egypt's Suez Canal, which had been the only passage able to handle the bigger ships up to now.

"We'll see what percentage we'll recover," Panama's canal minister, Roberto Roy, said. "But I'm sure it will be appreciable."

Using the Panama Canal would save ships two weeks compared to the Suez Canal, the Panamanian authorities say.

That is "a considerable time saving" for maritime companies, the minister said. "I'm certain they'll appreciate that."
We have updated the research report on Entergy Corporation ETR, a New Orleans, LA-based utility company.

ENTERGY CORP Price and Consensus

ENTERGY CORP Price and Consensus | ENTERGY CORP Quote

Entergy is gradually transforming itself from a hybrid to a pure-play utility. Foremost on its agenda is to lower its exposure to the risk-prone and volatile wholesale commodities market by scaling down its Entergy Wholesale Commodities (EWC) business. This strategy is likely to be prudent as regulated spending offers a secured rate of return.



Entergy is looking to explore the potential of its core utility business, which operates in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy believes adjusted earnings per share from its utility, parent and other segment could rise at roughly 5% to 7% a year.



The company has already closed the Vermont Yankee and RISEC units and will be shutting down Pilgrim and FitzPatrick by the end of 2019. The company will be left with Indian Point, which is currently profitable, and Palisades, which has a power purchase agreement through 2022. The company has outlined plans for growth at its utility segment and a smaller footprint at EWC, the home of merchant nuclear plants.



Overall, Entergy plans to invest $15.6 billion in the 20162020 time frame, with a major share going to its generation and transmission businesses. The company expects grid upgrades, asset replacement, and industrial load growth to drive earnings.

In addition to pursuing growth opportunities in the generation business, the company has a strong project pipeline and has secured the Louisiana Public Service Commission approval to replace 100 miles of pipe over the next 10 years. A combination of different types of projects will enable the company to diversify its revenue stream.



However, the performance of Entergy's regulated utilities depends upon rate relief at regular intervals in the company's different service areas. Any adverse decision in pending regulatory cases can materially impact Entergy's earnings.



Again, Entergy's financial performance is guided by price fluctuations in wholesale power markets. Wholesale power prices are a function of supply and demand, which in turn are driven by factors such as the price of fuels (particularly natural gas and coal), the rate of expansion of subsidized low carbon generation in the markets in which Generation's output is sold and the impacts on energy demand of factors such as weather, economic conditions and implementation of energy efficiency and demand response programs.



Zacks Rank



Entergy Corporation currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked peers include Avangrid, Inc. AGR, Spark Energy, Inc. SPKE and CenterPoint Energy, Inc. CNP. While Avangrid and Spark Energy sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), CenterPoint carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



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ENTERGY CORP (ETR): Free Stock Analysis Report



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DETROIT (Reuters) - Federal officials said on Thursday it is safe for anyone to drink properly filtered water in Flint, Michigan, where a public health crisis erupted after residents were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a statement that the most recent testing at nearly 50 locations in the city showed lead levels far below the levels considered dangerous. But the city's mayor said some homes in Flint cannot be fitted with filters, so bottled water is still needed. Flint, with a population of about 100,000, was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 when it switched its water source from Detroit's municipal system to the Flint River to save money. The city switched back in October. The river water was more corrosive than the Detroit system's and caused more lead to leach from aging pipes. Lead can be toxic, and children are especially vulnerable. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children have shown dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. The EPA, which worked in coordination with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the testing, said properly filtered water is safe even for pregnant and nursing women, and children, groups more susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning. "Residents can be confident that they can use filtered water and protect their developing fetus or young child from lead," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Dr. Nicole Lurie said in a statement. Lurie has led federal support efforts for the Flint crisis. The EPA said the filters distributed by the state of Michigan effectively remove lead or reduce it to levels well below the level of 15 parts per billion at which federal officials say action is needed. In the testing, nearly all filtered water tested below 1 part per billion. In January, water samples tested above 150 parts per billion. The state began offering free water filters in Flint in January. "This good news shows the progress we are making with overall water quality improving in Flint," Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said in a statement. Snyder has been criticized for the state's poor handling of the crisis. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver noted that some homes have faucets where the filters do not fit. "This is not the ultimate solution," she said in a statement. "We still need new infrastructure, replacing the lead-tainted pipes in the city remains my top priority." (Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by David Gregorio)
The Brexit dust has not even settled and exchange traded fund (ETF) options traders are already hedging against a potential slowdown in the Chinese economy as the next major unresolved risk.

The ratio of bearish to bullish options on the largest ETF tracking Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong jumped to the highest level since March 2015, reports Srinivasan Sivabalan for Bloomberg.

The iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) has increased 7.5% over the past month, but it is still down 3.6% year-to-date. Bearish options traders have increased hedging against losses in FXI even after the fund experienced $1.6 billion in outflows this year.

Related: Big China ETFs Draw Bearish Bets

The iShares China Large-Cap ETF is the largest China-related ETF that tracks Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. H-shares, or the Chinese stocks trading in Hong Kong, are not subject to the same regulatory restrictions on foreign investments as mainland Chinese A-shares markets.

Shainghai and Hong Kong markets are among the worst performing areas of the globe this year after a depreciation in the yuan currency and a slowdown in the worlds second-largest economy drove away risk seekers.

Despite a rebound in March on government stimulus, weak economic data, like shrinking private investment and worse-than-expected credit growth, continue to weigh on Chinas outlook. Beijing is struggling to maintain a 6.5% annual growth rate through 2020 while preventing debt from expanding. The mid-term outlook remains pressured by rising credit, excess industrial capacity and financial sector risks, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Trending on ETF Trends

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Moreover, MSCI recently denied mainland Chinese A-shares entry into its benchmark indices, citing ongoing need to diminish heavy-handed regulation and to make the A-share market more accessible.

Story continues

Related: China A-Shares ETFs Wait on MSCI Decision

If things go wrong in China, it affects everyone, Mark Williams, chief China economist at Capital Economics, told Bloomberg. There was a burst of optimism two months ago that growth was beginning to accelerate. Those hopes of acceleration have faded away as more data came in. Stimulus is not having much of an impact.

China ETF traders who are wary of ongoing weakness in the Chinese markets can also look to inverse or bearish options to hedge their positions. For instance, the Direxion Daily FTSE China Bear 3X Shares (YANG) takes three times the inverse or -300% daily performance of Chinese stocks. Additionally, the Direxion Daily CSI 300 China A Share Bear 1x Shares (CHAD) takes the inverse exposure to Chinese A-shares.

For more information Chinese markets, visit our China category.

iShares China Large-Cap ETF
Brussels (AFP) - The atmosphere in Brussels has been surreal for weeks -- business goes on as usual, officials are barred from using the word "Brexit" and life proceeds as if Britain's EU referendum does not exist.

But this phoney calm belies the fact that, whether Britons vote to leave or remain on Thursday, the European Union will have to make some of the biggest changes in its history in order to survive.

If Britain becomes the first member state to leave the EU, it could trigger the beginning of the end for a beleaguered union mired in a migration crisis, economic woes and a growing threat of terrorism.

Even if it stays, the status quo will not be an option, with the questions raised by Britain's referendum reverberating around a continent that is losing faith in the post-war European dream.

"Whatever its result is going to be, we must take a long hard look at the future of the union. We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the UK referendum," EU President Donald Tusk warned this week.

The first problem the EU's fractious leaders will face after the vote is finding any agreement on the way forward, when they have found it so hard to make deals on other crises.

"There is all this sentiment that Europe must change in order to survive," Chris Bickerton, a lecturer at Britains Cambridge University and author of The European Union: A Citizens Guide, told AFP.

"But if you go through the practical details you quickly come up against these difficulties."

- 'Europe-wide plans' -

A British exit will plunge the EU into years of bitter divorce negotiations between Brussels and London, although in some quarters at least there are hopes it will at least let the rest of the bloc get on with its work.

"It's very possible that the EU institutions will have this 'back to work, back to normal' reflex'," Vivien Pertusot, Brussels-based analyst with the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), told AFP.

Story continues

That may be easier said than done.

France and Germany have discussed a joint plan for Europe after the British vote. French President Hollande said Wednesday he would launch "Europe-wide initiatives" whatever the result in Britain.

But Berlin and Paris are already at loggerheads over the integration of the eurozone, meaning any plan will "strictly adhere to security and defence", a senior eurozone official said on condition of anonymity.

"Trying to quickly agree anything on the economy is too difficult."

If Britain remains in the EU, Prime Minister David Cameron has already warned that he will return to Brussels to push for more reform on freedom of movement on top of the renegotiation deal that he secured in February.

"I think reform doesnt end on June 23, the voice of reform will be strengthened, because we will have had a referendum," Cameron said on Wednesday.

Free movement is a core EU value and Britain will face severe opposition. More likely are changes to the rules of the Schengen passport-free area, which has already been semi-dismantled by Europe's migration crisis.

- 'Negative spiral' -

The fear in many European capitals is that either way, the result could trigger a domino effect of referendums in other countries.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Tuesday urged all EU states to follow Britain's example, and eurosceptics in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have made similar calls for referendums.

Tusk has warned that a British leave vote could lead to the "destruction of not only the EU but also of Western political civilisation."

Bickerton said it would unlikely be a "terminal blow", given the core role of the EU in much of European political life, but that it would herald a fundamental change and a move towards a far looser kind of union.

"I don't think it would suddenly disappear but over the longer term we might see it slowly decline and become something different," he said.

The danger for the EU is that even after if makes changes following the British referendum, it will still not be able to quell the forces of history tearing it apart.

"Even Bremain doesn't change the general mood," Janis Emmanouilidis, director of studies at Brussels-based think tank European Policy Centre, told AFP, referring to the opposite of Brexit.

"The EU is in a negative spiral."
DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

British Pound gains as polls suggest support for Brexit ebbing

Follow-through far from assured as markets risk appetite firms

Eurozone PMI data likely to likely to pass unnoticed by investors

The British Pound outperformed in overnight trade, rising against all of its major counterparts after a series of opinion polls showed respondents were leaning against so-called Brexit in the looming UK EU membership referendum. The anti-risk Japanese Yen slumped while the sentient-linked Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Dollars traded higher as the prospect of maintaining the status quo after the momentous vote lifted investors spirits.

S&P 500 futures are pointing firmly higher, hinting the risk-on mood may carry forward. Assuming as much seems dangerous however. Sentiment has been fickle in the run-up referendum and may swiftly change direction as voting begins and early indications begin to cross the wires. Even a seemingly trivial headline that hints the Leave campaign may be pulling ahead could swiftly sour the markets mood.

The preliminary set of Junes Eurozone PMI figures headlines the economic calendar in European hours. The region-wide composite measure is expected to show the pace of manufacturing- and service-sector activity growth modestly slowed, although median forecasts envision a print broadly in line with the medium-term trend.

The results are likely to pass mostly unnoticed. If UK voters opt for Brexit, the Euro looks decidedly vulnerable to aggressive volatility. If Bremain wins the day, the ECB is likely to remain in wait-and-see mode as it continues to implement stimulus measures announced earlier in the year. In this scenario, near-term activity data seems largely moot.

What are the essential traits of a successful trader? See our study to find out!

Asia Session

GMT CCY EVENT ACT EXP PREV 01:30 JPY BOJs Kiuchi Speaks in Kanazawa - - - 01:45 CNY MNI June Business Indicator 54.5 - 50.0 02:00 JPY Nikkei Japan PMI Mfg (JUN P) 47.8 - 47.7 05:00 JPY Leading Index CI (APR F) - 100.5 05:00 JPY Coincident Index (APR F) - 112.2

European Session

Story continues

GMT CCY EVENT EXP PREV IMPACT 07:00 EUR Markit France Mfg PMI (JUN P) 48.7 48.4 Low 07:00 EUR Markit France Services PMI (JUN P) 51.6 51.6 Low 07:00 EUR Markit France Composite PMI (JUN P) 51.0 50.9 Low 07:30 EUR Markit/BME Germany Mfg PMI (JUN P) 52.0 52.1 Medium 07:30 EUR Markit Germany Services PMI (JUN P) 55.0 55.2 Medium 07:30 EUR Markit/BME Germany Composite PMI (JUN P) 54.3 54.5 Medium 08:00 EUR Markit Eurozone Mfg PMI (JUN P) 51.4 51.5 Medium 08:00 EUR Markit Eurozone Services PMI (JUN P) 53.2 53.3 Medium 08:00 EUR Markit Eurozone Composite PMI (JUN P) 53.0 53.1 Medium

Critical Levels

CCY Supp 3 Supp 2 Supp 1 Pivot Point Res 1 Res 2 Res 3 EURUSD 1.1088 1.1189 1.1243 1.1290 1.1344 1.1391 1.1492 GBPUSD 1.4444 1.4576 1.4641 1.4708 1.4773 1.4840 1.4972

--- Written by Ilya Spivak, Currency Strategist for DailyFX.com

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Contact and follow Ilya on Twitter: @IlyaSpivak



original source

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

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(ADVISORY- Follow European and UK stock markets in real time on the Reuters Live Markets blog on Eikon - see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets) Adds details, closing prices)

* European markets make fifth straight day of gains

* STOXX 600 rises 1.5 percent to two week high

* Banks post strongest five-day winning streak since 2011

* Italian lenders outperform as govt bond yields drop

* Miners propped up by firmer copper prices

By Danilo Masoni

MILAN, June 23 (Reuters) - European shares rose for the fifth day running on Thursday, assisted by firmer banks and miners and expectations that Britain would vote to stay in the European Union.

The pan-European STOXX 600 and FTSEurofirst 300 indexes rose 1.5 and 1.3 percent respectively, both ending at their highest point in about two weeks.

The gains follow a sell-off in the previous week when concerns over a possible Brexit mounted, depressing them to their lowest level since February and pushing investors towards safe haven assets like gold and the German bund.

"For weeks, market participants have been speculating about what might the outcome of the Brexit vote will be. While the results are not due in until the early hours of Friday, it looks like the bookies and the markets have made up their minds," Gai Capital analyst Fawad Razaqzada said.

Voting in Britain's referendum on EU membership will end at 2100 GMT, with the final result expected by 0600 GMT Friday.

A series of last-minute opinion polls carried out before the vote started and bookmaker odds have all pointed to a rise in support for the "Remain" camp, propping up risky assets like equities and sending the sterling to a 2016 high.

Razaqzada said a victory of the "Remain" camp could still help stocks and the pound extend the gains although some of that potential had already been priced in.

Banks rose 2.7 percent, making the best five-day winning streak since 2011, helped by prospects of a defeat of the "Leave" camp in the UK vote.

Story continues

Spanish lender Santander, which has a meaningful UK exposure, rose 4.3 percent, while Italian banks outperformed as expectations the UK will remain in the EU pushed Italian government bond yields down sharply. Italian banks are particularly exposed to sovereign debt.

Mining stocks such as Glencore also advanced as London copper prices neared two-week highs.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in London; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
(Reuters) - Firefighters battled on Wednesday to gain control of two wildfires burning across drought-parched foothills northeast of Los Angeles, though authorities lifted some evacuation orders as crews created a buffer around previously threatened homes. Residents of 534 homes in the city of Duarte, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, were beginning to return on Wednesday, according to U.S. Forest Service spokesman Nathan Judy. A total of 858 homes were initially evacuated, according to fire information website InciWeb. "The flames burned through all available vegetation and fire crews created a buffer zone behind those residences in those areas," Judy said. The fire is one of two that make up the so-called San Gabriel Complex that has charred about 4,900 acres (1,983 hectares) in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Forest Service said. Just 15 percent of the fires, which started a few miles apart early on Monday, have been contained, as the flames have been propelled by bone-dry chaparral and severe heat. No property losses or serious injuries were reported. While the cause of the fires has not been determined, some 95 percent of wildfires that burn through tangled, thorny chaparral vegetation in California are caused by humans, the Forest Service said. On Wednesday, state fire officials said that more than 5,000 firefighters were battling four large wildfires across California. "Extreme temperatures and low humidity continue to heighten the fire risk statewide," Cal Fire said in a statement. To the south, firefighters managed to slow the spread of a massive fire near the Mexican border town of Potrero, prompting officials to lift some evacuation orders. Fire officials said some 200 structures remained under threat, down from about 1,000 earlier in the day. That fire, about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of San Diego, has blackened more than 6,700 acres - growing by about 500 acres from Tuesday - and was 20 percent contained by Wednesday night, Cal Fire Captain Kendal Bortisser said. Still, Bortisser warned in a statement that the fire remained active and dynamic, adding that residents should be ready to evacuate again if necessary. (Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Alan Crosby and Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) - A former JPMorgan Chase & Co executive indicted eight years ago for allegedly embezzling about $5.4 million from clients at the bank and at prior employer UBS AG pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being extradited from Argentina.

Hernan Arbizu, who fled to Argentina where he became involved in a tax-evasion probe involving the bank, entered the plea through his lawyer in federal court in Manhattan to charges including wire fraud, bank fraud and embezzlement.

In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sagar Ravi said Arbizu, 47, voluntarily agreed to his extradition and said prosecutors had held discussions with him about resolving the case, which could result in a plea at a later date.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan scheduled Arbizu's trial for Dec. 5. A lawyer for Arbizu declined comment after the hearing.

U.S. prosecutors had sought Arbizu's extradition since he was first indicted in 2008, the same year he was fired from JPMorgan, where he was a vice president in its private banking division. He previously worked at UBS from 2002 to 2006.

While at JPMorgan, Arbizu oversaw over $200 million of its clients' assets and was responsible for managing relationships with high-net-worth Argentine customers, according to the bank.

Prosecutors said that from March 2007 to April 2008, Arbizu initiated 12 wire transfers from clients at UBS and JPMorgan of nearly $5.38 million, almost $2.8 million of which came from a single JPMorgan account.

In lawsuits that JPMorgan filed against Arbizu in 2008 and 2009, the bank said he wired the $2.8 million to an account at UBS to conceal the millions of dollars that he had previously stolen from one of its customers.

JPMorgan said that after discovering evidence of the wire transfers, Arbizu, then living in Connecticut, fled to Argentina, taking with him confidential data on clients.

That data later became the basis of a tax evasion investigation and raid by Argentina authorities of JPMorgan's office in Buenos Aires in 2008 after Arbizu handed over a list of customers. No case against JPMorgan appears to have resulted.

Story continues

In media interviews, Arbizu has meanwhile repeatedly acknowledged his conduct in the embezzlement case.

"Of course I made a huge mistake - I feel really bad," Arbizu told The New York Times in 2009.

The case is U.S. v. Arbizu, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-cr-615.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - John Ashe, a former United Nations General Assembly president accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen, has died at age 61, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The death of Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014 and was arrested in October on federal charges, was confirmed by his lawyer, Jeremy Schneider. Asked if his client had died from a heart attack as reported in the Antigua Observer newspaper, Schneider said that was his understanding. But he later clarified that he did know the cause of death. Ashe's death marked a surprising turn in the corruption case, in which seven people have been charged to date. He had been in plea talks as recently as last month as prosecutors considered bringing further charges. Prosecutors said Ashe received more than $500,000 in bribes from billionaire Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng to seek U.N. support of a United Nations-sponsored conference center in Macau that Ng's company would develop. Those bribes were paid through intermediaries that included Francis Lorenzo, a suspended deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic, and Jeff Yin, Ng's assistant, prosecutors said. Lorenzo pleaded guilty in March. Ng and Yin have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors said Ashe also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the United Nations and Antigua. Those bribes were arranged through Sheri Yan, who was the Global Sustainability Foundation's chief executive, and Heidi Hong Piao, the non-governmental organization's finance director, prosecutors said. Both women pleaded guilty in January. (Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney)
Paul Ryan never wanted to be speaker of the House, and Wednesday was a perfect example of why. The guy who made his reputation as the Republicans wonk-in-chief as chairman of the Budget Committee and then, briefly, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, started the day expecting to spend a good chunk of it talking about the GOPs new plan to replace the Obama administrations signature domestic policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Things didnt go as planned.

Related: Clinton Fleshes Out Her Economic Plan, then Returns to the Trump Slugfest

Ryan was able to deliver his scheduled remarks Wednesday afternoon, but much of the remainder of his day was dedicated to addressing issues that were not remotely related to what he had hoped would drive the days coverage.

Late Wednesday morning, Democratic lawmakers staged a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives. Led by legendary civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), dozens of Democrats at a time sat on the in the well of the House chamber, aiming to prevent action on anything until Republican leadership allowed a vote on a proposal to bar individuals on the governments no-fly list from purchasing firearms.

This was a no-win situation for Ryan from the start. Gun control is a complicated and emotionally-charged issue, particularly in the wake of an apparent terror attack that killed and wounded 100 people in Orlando barely a week ago. Democrats are pushing for action on proposal that has enormous public support on a superficial level -- who doesnt want to block suspected terrorists from buying guns? -- but is really far more complex than it seems.

The governments no-fly list is notoriously flawed. Large numbers of people who should never have been put on it have found themselves not only prevented from flying, but nearly helpless to have themselves removed from the list. This creates obvious constitutional problems for proposals to use a persons appearance on the list as evidence in a case for denying them the right to buy a firearm.

Story continues

Related: GOP Offers a Sketchy Plan to Replace Obamacare

This put Ryan in the awkward position of having to refuse the Democrats a vote on a popular proposal, made worse by his decision to declare their sit-in a publicity stunt.

Then, remarkably, his day got worse. He appeared on CNN for an interview and host Wolf Blitzer asked him a question that in a normal time would be so silly that laughter would have been the only reasonable response.

Do you trust Donald Trump? Blitzer asked.

Ryan did, at least, laugh. But this isnt a normal time. Instead of saying that of course he trusts his partys presumptive nominee, he wriggled like a fish on a hook, refusing to commit to what most people would probably consider the most fundamental prerequisite for supporting a presidential candidate.

About the best he could manage was to say that whether or not he trusts Trump depends on the issue.

Endorsements dont come more tepid than that.

Around 10:30 Wednesday evening, Ryan and his fellow Republicans returned to the House floor in an effort to conduct business over the jeers, shouts, and singing of the Democrats. Rather than exercise his right, as speaker, to have the Democratic lawmakers removed from the floor, Ryan simply talked over them, taking the House in and out of recess several times and conducting votes on various pieces of legislation despite the protests.

At different points, arguments became heated. Colleagues stepped between Republican Louie Gohmert of Texas and the Democratic protesters during one exchange, out of concern that a shouting match would escalate further. Republican Don Young of Alaska was similarly restrained by colleagues and aides.

The spectacle reached its climax after 3 a.m., when after forcing a controversial vote on an appropriations bill that included funding for the fight against the Zika virus, Ryan declared the House adjourned until July 5. The Republican majority's published calendar had indicated that the House would remain in session through Thursday, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, declared the retreat "cowardly." Some Democrats remained on the floor in protest, while others vowed to continue the sit-in when lawmakers return in July.

AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for Ryan, countered, "Democrats can continue to talk, but the reality is that they have no end-game strategy...The Senate has already defeated the measure they're calling for. The House is focused on eliminating terrorists, not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that."

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
The Legend of Tarzan co-stars Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie have a ton of chemistry, and they dished on all the steamy details of their on-screen jungle romance in a behind-the-scenes interview.

"I think it's difficult with someone like Margot to not have great chemistry, because she's the most lovely, warm personality," Skarsgard said. "It didn't take long. We had so much fun together."

WATCH: 'True Blood's' Alexander Skarsgard Is Completely Ripped as Tarzan

Skarsgard plays the titular character in the action-adventure movie, who is called back to his former home in the jungle after acclimating to life in London. Tarzan's presence is required to investigate the activities at a mining encampment.

When Tarzan goes back to his old stopping grounds, Jane (Robbie) tags along, leading to some innovative love scenes.

"We just did that scene in a tree -- our first kiss scene," Robbie said. "Having sex in a tree, as you do."

Some of the love scenes were filled with so much passion that Skarsgard actually sustained an injury. Earlier this year, the 39-year-old actor told ET earlier that Robbie hit him while filming to make the scene more animalistic.

"This is what passion looks like," Robbie, 25, said on set. "We ripped my costume just a wee little bit, but that's alright."

WATCH: 'Frozen' Director Seemingly Confirms 'Tarzan' Fan Theory

It's that unfettered passion that separates this new version of Tarzan from all the rest. "It's almost if the novel and all the adaptations are about taming the beast," Skarsgard explained. "This is about releasing the beast."

The Legend of Tarzan opens July 1.

Related Articles
By Caroline Humer and Diane Bartz

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As questions mount over whether health insurer Anthem Inc's (ANTM.N) proposed $48 billion (32.27 billion pound) purchase of Cigna Corp (CI.N) will win U.S. antitrust approval, an exclusive analysis produced for Reuters suggests the merger could lead to higher costs for large companies offering workplace medical benefits.

More than 154 million people receive health benefits through employers, many of them large national corporations. The large employer market is a top concern for U.S. Department of Justice regulators reviewing the Anthem deal, company officials say. The government could block a deal if it finds evidence it would drive up the cost of such coverage.

Anthem and Cigna, the nation's No. 2 and No. 5 health insurers, are among a handful of carriers selling national coverage plans to employers with thousands of workers across many states.

Anthem has said the added heft will work for employers, not against them. A bigger Anthem, it emphasizes, could drive better deals from doctors and hospitals and pass savings onto these customers.

In addition, Anthem has argued that there still will be plenty of competition: large employers pit smaller, local insurers' bids against those of large national carriers in regional markets. Anthem officials told an investor conference last month that many employers include health plans from several smaller insurers to cover far-flung employees.

But an Aon Hewitt analysis of benefits data for Reuters found that a majority of large employers buy worker health benefits from just one or two insurers.

Among 75 companies representing a cross-section of industries, 54 percent used a single insurer and 26 percent used two, the analysis found. Aon Hewitt, a unit of Aon Plc (AON.N) which helps employers select their benefit plans, based its analysis on data from over 400 customers that participate in healthcare cost research.

The companies cited in the analysis for Reuters are all self-insured and have more than 10,000 employees. It is not known how the Justice Department will define the large employer market.

Story continues

Spokeswoman Maurissa Kanter said Aon Hewitt did not conclude "whether or not carrier consolidation would be a competitive issue that could lead to higher prices for employers." She also said that the data did not "support an argument for or against market consolidation."

Several human resources directors from large corporations also told Reuters they review potential benefits contracts from only the biggest insurers, rather than regional players.

UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N), Anthem, Aetna Inc (AET.N) and Cigna are the only national players in the employer health insurance market.

It is less efficient for companies to hire multiple regional insurers, and the merger could allow the few remaining national insurers to raise their rates, said Peter Carstensen, an antitrust expert and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

"The Aon Hewitt data on its face is bad for the deal and hurts their chances of getting approval," Carstensen said.

A Justice Department official declined to comment on its review of the deal. It is also considering Aetna's proposed $34 billion purchase of Humana Inc (HUM.N).

If both acquisitions were approved, it would result in an unprecedented consolidation of the top insurers, from five to three.

Thomson Reuters Corp has benefits contracts with Cigna and Aetna. A company spokesman declined to comment on the merger.

LOWER ODDS OF A DEAL

Anthem has said that buying Cigna would help it drive deeper discounts from hospitals and doctors, holding down the price of medical coverage.

"What the Department of Justice will see is that we are going to bring a better focus on managing the cost of care," Anthem Chief Executive Joseph Swedish told an investor conference last month.

But at least some large U.S. employers fear they will face higher prices if the deal goes through, according to Wall Street analysts. Concerned employers include Detroit automakers, according to a person familiar with the industry's position.

Other employers found merit in Anthem's assertion that the deal could benefit customers by eliminating overhead.

"There is some chance that consolidation could lower some of those costs," said Michael D'Ambrose, chief human resources officer for Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM.N), which buys coverage from Anthem and other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.

The deal has raised opposition from leading medical groups, California's insurance commissioner and Democratic lawmakers.

Leerink Partners analyst Ana Gupte recently lowered the odds of deal approval to below 50 percent. Cigna shares were trading at a 33 percent discount to the offer price, reflecting investor scepticism that it will close.

If the Anthem deal goes through, its share of the entire market for employer self-insured health coverage would reach 25 percent, up from 15 percent, according to healthcare analytics firm Mark Farrah Associates. That would push it beyond the current No. 1 UnitedHealth, which has a 16 percent share.

David Fortosis, a senior vice president at Aon Hewitt, said when employers compare insurers, they do find regional and local companies can offer discounts and lower fees based on their relationships with local hospitals and doctor's offices. But employers often find the hassle of managing multiple insurance plans is greater than any discounts such insurers offer, he said. "They trade that modest loss of savings in favour of administrative streamlining and simplicity," Fortosis said.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer in New York and Diane Bartz in Washington; Additional reporting by Joseph White in Detroit; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Girion)
What's life like after The Bachelor? Well, we're about to find out!

Former Bachelor Ben Higgins and his fiancee Lauren Bushnell have said "I do" to a TV spinoff series about their lives after the final rose. Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After, which will premiere in October on Freeform, will "follow the happy couple as they prepare to walk down the aisle and begin their brand-new life together while navigating the real world after the splendor of The Bachelor's exotic dates and fantasy suites has ended."

ET jumped on the phone with Ben and Lauren, who shared exclusive details about their current wedding plans, whether or not a baby is on the way, and how Lauren will navigate a career change while Ben plans a move into politics. Plus, the couple gets candid about how worried they are about their relationship surviving the reality TV breakup curse.

MORE: 'The Bachelor' Couple Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell Get Their Own Reality Show

ET: You two are one of those rare Bachelor success stories. Are you worried that by doing this spinoff and having all the cameras around is going to put a strain on the good thing you've got going?

Lauren Bushnell: I'm not worried now. Now, we're totally fine with it, but at first, when the idea was presented to us, there was some worry there. There were some conversations about just really making sure our relationship comes first and nothing gets in the way of that. My and Ben's [television] experience had obviously been on The Bachelor where it was a great experience, but there was also a lot emotions there from him dating other women. It made me worry if those emotions were going to be similar [on this show]. Obviously, they're not because now it's just Ben and I and there are no other distractions, but we made sure that it wasn't going to get in the way -- and if it ever does, then that's a conversation that we're going to be quick to have. Hopefully, it won't because it's not going to be a 24/7 thing. Our life isn't going to change at all, it's just people are going to be with us as we're going about our daily routine. I think we'll be fine, but yeah, there were some conversations that were had and we just really made sure that it was the best thing for us.

Story continues

ABC

The Bachelor is a wildly produced series with pre-planned, over-the-top dates. How is this show going to be different? Are we going to see you both going for a hike and suddenly stumble upon a hot tub in the middle of nowhere?

Ben Higgins: This new show is just our lives. Everybody wants to ask us what they're going to see, what's going to happen, and what kind of events are going to happen, and we don't know yet. It is going to be our lives and it's going to be our lives documented in the best way possible and that's what we expect.

WATCH: Bachelorette Star JoJo Fletcher Reveals Love Lessons She Learned From Ben Higgins Before He Dumped Her

MTV's Newlyweds with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson was such a revolutionary show at the time and really highlighted the couple's downtime away from fame. Is that the kind of the vibe that you both are going for with your series?

Ben: Was that on MTV?

Lauren: [Laughs] Oh, that was so long ago I forgot about that!

Ben: We don't have a lot of downtime right now. Our lives are pretty [busy] and one of the reasons why we decided to do this show was because everybody wants to ask us at all times: What we're doing, what kind of dates we're going on, how Lauren and I are doing together. We're always busy and we're always doing fun stuff, so I think this will just be that. I don't think there will be a lot of downtime because I don't feel like our life has a lot of down time. It would be awesome if we did, though.

So we're not going to be watching you two watching Netflix on the couch?

Lauren: No, I mean, there might be a little bit of that. Obviously, we try to make time for that because that's important stuff and I think any downtime that we do get -- it's not that often -- but when we do, that's exactly what we e do. We're on the couch and we're ordering takeout and hanging out, so I think there will be some of that. Hopefully, [there will be] some wedding planning because that's something that both of us have really made a priority. We're just starting that process now that things have kind of slowed down for us a little bit. I'd also love to include the viewers from The Bachelor and people who have been so supportive of us and kind of include them in that exciting process, so it's kind of going to be a little bit of everything.

In your downtime, have you guys been watching JoJo's season of The Bachelorette?

Ben: No. We haven't been watching, but it's not for any other reason other than we're so busy. I'm not kidding, you don't realize how busy you're going to be until you've done this show and you get spit out of it. As much as we would love to watch The Bachelor, it's not on Netflix, so it's kind of hard to watch it from an iPad on the plane.

WATCH: Bachelor Ben Higgins Gets Stuck in Elevator During First Date in Denver With Lauren Bushnell

ABC

Lauren, the press release for the series mentions that you're going to be "finding your identity" on this series. What exactly does that mean?

Lauren: So I was a flight attendant, and I am still a flight attendant, but I haven't actually been on the airplane [since The Bachelor]. I've kind of been contemplating what exactly I can do. A lot of my life has changed in the last six months and with that, I've kind of also thought about possibly a career change. Whether that means staying on part-time with Alaska [Airlines] and being a flight attendant or doing something else with them, I don't know, but I also really want to explore what it is that I'm passionate about. I'm interested in interior design and I'm also starting a blog. It's more of a lifestyle blog that will include design, fashion, and beauty, which are all things that I really love and also am learning more about on a daily basis, so hopefully I can share that with other people. I'm telling you all this right now and I'm thinking "Well, maybe this and maybe that," but I think the show will really highlight that. I think it'll show going through a career change and kind of my own journey of finding what it is that I want to do in Denver. Finding my own job, and my own passions, and how that's coming about on a daily basis.

Ben, how serious are you about running for a Republican seat in the House of Representatives?

Ben: I'm very excited and now it's the right opportunity because it's always been something I've been really interested in. I've shared this a lot with a lot of the advisors I've met with, but with the platform that's been given to me through The Bachelor, now seems like the right time. I don't think I would be able to do this, or even consider it, if it wasn't in the place in life that I'm at -- or that Lauren and I are at. It just seems like a great way to stay involved in the community and stay involved with the local issues and that's what I'm excited about. I think it would be fun, but it's yet to be determined if that's still a possibility, so we're still searching out if this is the right fit for me and also the right fit for the district.

WATCH: Bachelor Winner Lauren Bushnell Says She Already Has Fiance Ben Higgins 'Trained,' But Does Have One Complaint

Let's talk about that wedding planning. What stage are you guys in? You're also currently renovating a house -- are you making sure there's going to be a nursery in there?

Lauren: [Laughs] That's a good question! No pre-planning in terms of nurseries quite yet. We're not even married yet so we'll focus on the wedding right now. Obviously, the first step for us would be to set a date and then a location and all that. And when it comes to redecorating, I think that we're going to make our house a home that fits just the two of us for right now, and then obviously down the road, when we're married and all that good stuff, I'm sure there will be some nurseries in the future.

Ben and Lauren: Happily Ever After will premiere this October on Freeform.

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By Astrid Wendlandt PARIS (Reuters) - Christian Dior is set to announce after its couture show in early July that Maria Grazia Chiuri is joining the French fashion house from Italy's Valentino, two people familiar with the matter said. Chiuri will be taking on one of the most important jobs at Dior. She will also be the first woman creative director in the company's 70-year history, following in the footsteps of celebrity designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferre and John Galliano. "I understand that it will be announced after the (July) couture show," one of the sources said. Dior was not immediately available for comment. Chiuri will join Dior at a difficult time. The brand's fashion sales growth has dropped in the past year and a half, going from double-digit to flat sales growth in the first quarter of this year. Dior has attributed its poor results to the luxury market slowdown but some fashion industry experts have suggested it might be facing some desirability issues. Dior is the parent company of LVMH , the luxury industry's biggest luxury group. It generates around 5 billion euros in annual sales, of which more than three fifths come from perfume and cosmetics. It has been struggling to find a replacement for Belgian designer Raf Simons who left unexpectedly in October. Chiuri has worked wonders at Valentino together with her design partner Pierpaolo Piccioli, acting as the brand's joint-creative director since Valentino Garavani, who hired them himself, announced his retirement in 2007. The pair won several prizes and helped to turn Valentino into one of the luxury industry's most profitable luxury brands and one of the strongest in terms of sales growth. Under their creative leadership, Valentino has become known for its light, graceful and highly romantic designs, applauded by fashion editors. Dior, which has been producing relatively modern styles, would benefit from a return to more romantic, fairytale-like aesthetics, some fashion critics have said, when asked about Chiuri on an unattributable basis. Mayhoola, the Qatari investment company that owns Valentino, this week acquired the French fashion label Balmain, another fast-growing brand, for around 460 million euros ($524 million), three sources told Reuters on Tuesday. (Editing by Jane Merriman)
Salma Hayek is one of Hollywood's ageless beauties, but even the stunning star admits she sometimes struggles with her body image.

The 49-year-old actress spoke with ET's Deidre Behar at the premiere of her new film, Septembers of Shiraz, at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and Hayek opened up about feeling self-conscious.

"I don't always feel I look so amazing," Hayek shared, when asked about her secret to maintaining her flawless figure. The celebrated star admitted that she has her share of "insecurities. [Just] like everyone else!"

RELATED: Salma Hayek Claims Her Curves Limit Her In Hollywood

However, there's one person who helps Hayek feel as sexy and stunning as everyone else in the world sees her: Her husband, Francois-Henri Pinault.

"I still feel a little bit [sexy] because my husband is very good at making me feel like I still got it," Hayek shared. "But it's ok, it's not the most important thing in my life to feel the sexiest."

WATCH: Salma Hayek Has Jaws Dropping in Cleavage-Baring Gown

That doesn't mean she isn't working hard to stay fit. Hayek admitted that she doesn't like to exercise, but she did find a trainer in London who taught her how to keep in shape while going about her day-to-day life.

"She showed me a way to rearrange the muscles and the way you operate with them," Hayek shared. "It's wonderful to be present with your body instead of just collapsing into the bones."

RELATED: Salma Hayek Insists 'Sex Is Not the Key to a Happy Marriage'

Hayek turns 50 in September, just days before her daughter, Valentina, turns 9. While the actress is happy, fit and healthy, she also admitted that she's not considering having any more children.

"I'm very blessed because I have three stepchildren, so I have a family of four kids," said Hayek, who welcomed her daughter when she was 42. "Four is enough."

Story continues

WATCH: Salma Hayek Shows Off Insane Bikini Bod

For Hayek, it's family that makes her the happiest. "It's not success in this or in that, or money or things, or beauty. What if you're really beautiful and you're not loved? That's not gonna make you happy. But what makes you happy is, for me, my family," she shared. "[They are] the biggest blessing I have."

Septembers of Shiraz opens in theaters on Friday. Check out an exclusive clip from the intense drama below.



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Exelon Corporation EXC finally took formal initiatives to shut down its two loss making nuclear fuel based electricity generation units. The company has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) its intention to close its Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear stations in 2017 and 2018, respectively.



Nuclear Units to Retire



Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear stations have generation capacity of 1,069 megawatt (MW) and 1,871 MW, respectively. Nuclear power comprised 19,500 MW or nearly 59.6% of Exelons total production in the first quarter of 2016. These two plants together contributed nearly 9% of the first-quarter production.



Per Exelons notification, the Clinton Power Station in Clinton, will close on Jun 1, 2017, and the Quad Cities Generating Station in Cordova, will close on Jun 1, 2018. The retirement of these nuclear plants comes much earlier than their effective life.



Why the Closure



Running a nuclear power plant safely and adhering to stringent environment regulations increase the cost of operations. So, if higher costs are not matched by power unit selling prices, it will inevitably lead to losses.



From 2009 through 2015, Quad Cities and Clinton have incurred more than $800 million and Exelon has been working on the Illinois energy legislation for the past two years to find a solution. However, there has hardly been any progress on this front leading the company to take this final step.

EXELON CORP Price

EXELON CORP Price | EXELON CORP Quote

Strong Case for Nuclear Power



Nuclear power plants invariably involve a high degree of risk, but proper maintenance and safety checks make Exelons nuclear generation units among the finest and safest in the nation.



The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency s (EPA) finalized Clean Power Plan calls for CO2 reduction of 28% by 2025 and 32% by 2030, from 2005 levels. We believe retiring old coal-fired units while adding more natural gas and renewable generation units will not be sufficient enough to bring a solution.



The U.S. utility sector needs to pay more attention to the nuclear generating power units, which contribute a substantial volume of clean energy. Per a study from Exelon, nuclear energy facilities currently produce 64% of America's clean, carbon-free electricity.



Zacks Rank



Exelon has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space are Black Hills Corporation BKH, CenterPoint Energy, Inc. CNP and DTE Energy Company DTE, all carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



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After being barred from participating in cases involving the worlds biggest publicly traded oil company ExxonMobil Corporation XOM for almost a decade, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito finally sold his shares in the entity.



Per the financial disclosure report of 2015 released by Alito, either he or his wife sold ExxonMobil stock valued at $100,000$250,000.



Alitos stock holdings in ExxonMobil kept him from taking part in a 2008 case pertaining to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker oil spill. The tanker had sunk, thereby spilling 240,000 barrels of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. Notably, the court had reduced the punitive damage charges to $507.5 million from $2.5 billion. With Alito stepping down from the case, the court evenly split on a separate ExxonMobil argument that might havewaived the entire charge.



Per the Wall Street Journal, Alito had received the ExxonMobil stock as a bequest in May 2004. However, the source of the bequest was not revealed.



EXXON MOBIL CRP Price

EXXON MOBIL CRP Price | EXXON MOBIL CRP Quote

Notably, the Supreme Court Judge has also sold his shares in companies like Target Corp. TGT, Sysco Corp. SYY and Kinder Morgan Inc. KMI.



Under federal law, judges can not participate in cases if they are a party or own stock in the involved company. The annual disclosure form lists investments held by the justices, their spouses and any dependent children.



Apart from Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer too have financial holdings in several companies. This often prevents them from participating in cases related to these companies. In fact, Alito had to stand down from this years Puerto Rico bankruptcy case because of his investments in the territorys municipal bonds.



ExxonMobil is one the leading oil companies in the world that engages in oil and natural gas exploration and production, petroleum products refining and marketing, chemicals manufacture, and other energy-related businesses. Approximately 83% of Exxons earnings are generated from its operations outside the U.S.



ExxonMobil carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



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By Guy Faulconbridge, Kylie MacLellan and Alistair Smout (Reuters) - Britain holds a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union on Thursday. Reuters will offer live coverage of the results throughout the night and carry UK Press Association results from each of the 382 counting areas. For live results on Eikon, please click on cpurl://apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageid=brexit-results&navid=13320 Following are details of how the ballot count will work on the night. All times in GMT, an hour before local UK time. WHEN WILL RESULTS COME? Votes will be counted by hand, starting as soon as polls close at 2100 GMT (1700 EDT). Each of 382 local counting areas will tally the number of ballot papers cast and announce local turnout figures (including spoiled ballots and postal votes) in each of the areas. The Electoral Commission has estimated that most turnout announcements at counting-area level will come between 2230 on June 23 and 0130 on June 24. The last turnout figure is expected at around 0400. Each area will count the votes and announce totals for REMAIN and LEAVE. The majority of counting areas are expected to declare between around 0100 and 0300 on June 24. The last declaration is expected around 0600. Local totals will be collated into totals for 12 regions, and then a final, national, result. The final result will be announced in Manchester by Jenny Watson, Chief Counting Officer. WHEN CAN PEOPLE VOTE? Polling stations open at 0600 on June 23 and close at 2100. ARE ALL THE COUNTING AREAS THE SAME? No. The counting areas, based along the lines of local government authorities, vary widely in population. The biggest counting areas are Birmingham, Leeds and Northern Ireland. The Birmingham area has around 700,000 eligible voters while the City of London counting area, comprising the central financial district of the capital, has just 7,000 eligible voters. The smallest counting area is the Isles of Scilly which has about 1,700 voters. Estimated time of declarations in the bigger areas: Northern Ireland around 0030, Birmingham around 0330, Leeds around 0400, Glasgow around 0400, Sheffield around 0330, Cornwall around 0230-0300, Bradford around 0200, Durham around 0130, Manchester around 0400 and Edinburgh around 0300-0400). London's counting areas are along the lines of the city's 32 boroughs. WHAT TO WATCH FOR 1) Turnout could be key to the result but only partial figures will be available initially. Turnout at last year's British parliamentary election was 66 percent. Turnout well below this is likely to favor Leave as those who back Brexit are considered more likely to vote, according to campaigners on both sides. 2) First results: Sunderland, likely to be one of the first results to declare (2330), has a large number of older, lower income voters who polls show are more likely to back Brexit. If Leave are not strongly ahead here it may indicate they will struggle to break through in areas less favorable to Brexit. If Remain does not have a very big lead in Wandsworth (2330) then it could indicate Leave are going to do well overall. 3) Geography: Leave is expected to do well in eastern England, so close results in some of the most euroskeptic areas such as Southend-on-Sea (0200) and Castle Point (0130) could give an indication the national vote has swung towards Remain. The top ten most likely Leave counting areas, as predicted by respected by elections experts John Curtice and Stephen Fisher, are Boston, Castle Point, Tendring, Fenland, East Lindsey, Great Yarmouth, Bolsover, Thurrock, Rochford, Basildon. The top ten most likely Remain counting areas are Gibraltar, Cambridge, Oxford, City of London, Camden, Edinburgh, Islington, Hackney, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets. 4) Labour voters: Opposition Labour Party supporters are considered key to securing a Remain vote so the results of traditional Labour strongholds such as the north of England and south Wales, where backing for the anti-EU UK Independence Party has risen, will be closely watched. Early declarations in such areas include Oldham (0000) and Salford (0030) in northern England and Merthyr Tydfil (0030) in Wales. 5) Scotland: Scotland is considered to be pro-EU, so any close early results from Scotland such as Stirling (0030) could indicate trouble for the Remain camp. 6) Swing seats: Nuneaton (0100) is considered a bellwether seat in parliamentary elections so will be watched to see if Prime Minister David Cameron has managed to get swing voters who last year backed his Conservatives to turn out for Remain. The ten most evenly split areas, as predicted by elections experts Curtice and Fisher, are: Mole Valley, High Peak, North Hertfordshire, Knowsley, Slough, Anglesey, South Oxfordshire, Worcester, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Portsmouth 7) Count chronology: research from JP Morgan has indicated Remain could be well ahead at first, with results from areas favouring leave coming through by 0300-0400 and balancing the overall total. Others, as the Open Europe think tank, have suggested that by about 0330 most of strongest Leave areas will have declared so if Leave do not hold the lead or even if it is very close, it may bode badly for them. Ron Johnston, a professor of geography at the University of Bristol who has researched the counting areas and modeled how the vote could unfold, said the big picture was that the figures could flip around until about 0300. "All we could find when we used that list of times for places to declare was that really there is going to be no trend. You can find the bellwether places but I don't think there will be any major trend in the overall figures," Johnston told Reuters. "It is more likely to flip around from moment to moment until around four o'clock when the large numbers start to come in and my guess is that unless, and of course this is not what anyone is expecting, it is clear cut from the outset you are not going to see any clear outcome until around three or four o'clock," he said. WILL THERE BE AN EXIT POLL? There are no plans by broadcasters for an exit poll as the margin of error is deemed too large, but there have been reports that some hedge funds may have commissioned private polls which could affect markets. Details of a telephone poll conducted before the voting by Ipsos MORI for the Evening Standard newspaper are expected to be published during the day. The findings of a YouGov poll, based on interviews conducted online on Thursday, are due to be announced by Sky News after the close of voting at 2100. THE QUESTION Voters will be given one piece of paper with the question: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" They will be asked to put a cross beside either: "Remain a member of the European Union" "Leave the European Union" WHO CAN VOTE? The electoral commission says 46.5 million people can vote, including all those who are entitled to vote in a UK parliamentary election. Voters include British citizens 18 and older who are resident in Britain, and those who live abroad if they have appeared on a parliamentary voter register in the last 15 years. Citizens of Ireland and countries of the Commonwealth of mostly former British colonies can also vote if they live in Britain, but citizens of other EU countries who live in Britain cannot. Voting will also take place in Gibraltar, the British overseas territory on the coast of Spain. REGISTERING TO VOTE Britain extended the voter registration period for the referendum to midnight on June 9 after a late surge in applications crashed a website shortly before the original June 7 midnight deadline. CAN THE COUNT AND VOTE BE CHALLENGED? This is unlikely. The electoral commission says the rules do not provide for a national recount under any circumstances. Requests for local recounts can be made at the local level, to be decided by the counting officer. "We expect local recounts to be granted if a specific issue has been identified with the process in that counting area, rather than simply when the local totals are close," the commission says. The only way to challenge the national referendum result is by judicial review, which must be requested within six weeks of the certification of the result. Sources: Electoral Commission, Open Europe, Reuters reporting (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Alistair Smout and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison)
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus behind a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has spread to many countries in the Americas. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbreak: How do people become infected? Zika is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female mosquitoes, primarily the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same type that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Aedes mosquitoes are found in all countries in the Americas except Canada and continental Chile, and the virus will likely reach all countries and territories of the region where Aedes mosquitoes are found. How do you treat Zika? There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika infection. Companies and scientists are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Zika, but the World Health Organization (WHO) had said it would take at least 18 months to start large-scale clinical trials of potential preventative shots. How dangerous is it? The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. The CDC said now that the causal relationship has been established, several important questions must still be answered with studies that could take years. According to the World Health Organization, there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly in babies, a condition defined by unusually small heads that can result in developmental problems. In addition, the agency said it could cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis. Conclusive proof of the damage caused by Zika may take months or years. Brazil reports the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly at 1,434 through May 21 as doctors and Brazilian health officials find that some suspected cases of microcephaly are not the disorder. Suspected ones under investigation declined to 3,257. Colombia confirmed two cases of microcephaly linked to Zika. Brazil registered 91,387 likely cases of the Zika virus from February until April 2. Current research in Brazil indicates the greatest microcephaly risk is associated with infection during the first trimester of pregnancy, but health officials have warned an impact could be seen in later weeks. Recent studies have shown evidence of Zika in amniotic fluid, placenta and fetal brain tissue. What are the symptoms of Zika infection? People infected with Zika may have a mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain and fatigue that can last for two to seven days. But as many as 80 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. The symptoms are similar to those of dengue or chikungunya, which are transmitted by the same type of mosquito. How can Zika be contained? Efforts to control the spread of the virus focus on eliminating mosquito breeding sites and taking precautions against mosquito bites such as using insect repellent and mosquito nets. U.S. and international health officials have advised pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin American and Caribbean countries where they may be exposed to Zika. Cases of sexual transmission have also been reported, prompting health officials to advise use of condoms, or abstaining from sex, to prevent infection between partners. How widespread is the outbreak? Active Zika outbreaks have been reported in at least 48 countries or territories, most of them in the Americas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Brazil has been the country most affected. (http://1.usa.gov/1ovAJyh) Africa (1): Cape Verde Americas (39): Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Bonaire, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthelmy, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela Oceania/Pacific Islands (8): American Samoa, Fiji, Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga. What is the history of the Zika virus? The Zika virus is found in tropical locales with large mosquito populations. Outbreaks of Zika have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and the Western Pacific. The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys and was first identified in people in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania, according to the WHO. Can Zika be transmitted through sexual contact? The World Health Organization (WHO) said sexual transmission is "relatively common" and has advised pregnant women not to travel to areas with ongoing outbreaks of Zika virus. It also advised women living in areas where the virus is being transmitted to delay getting pregnant. The U.S. CDC is investigating about a dozen cases of possible sexual transmission. All cases involve possible transmission of the virus from men to their sex partners. The WHO has also identified Zika cases in Argentina, Chile, France, Italy and New Zealand as likely caused by sexual transmission. British health officials reported Zika was found in a man's semen two months after he was infected, suggesting the virus may linger in semen long after infection symptoms fade. The PAHO said Zika can be transmitted through blood, but this is an infrequent transmission mechanism. There is no evidence Zika can be transmitted to babies through breast milk. What other complications are associated with Zika? Zika has also been associated with other neurological disorders, including serious brain and spinal cord infections. The long-term health consequences of Zika infection are unclear. Other uncertainties surround the incubation period of the virus and how Zika interacts with other viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes, such as dengue. (Compiled by the Americas Desk)
Brits head to the polls today to decide their future. If they choose 'Brexit'-to leave the European Union, supporters say they risk economic and trade disaster. To remain in the EU, however, would keep them under Union rule with Brussels determining their laws on immigration and other issues. Michael Kramer of Mott Capital says if the Brits vote 'no' the big risk is what country may go next and that puts the entire European Union in jeopardy. Tech company Twilio goes public today. The San Francisco based company prices its IPO at $15 for each of the 10 million shares being issued today. The price was $1 above the most recent price range. The capital raise is 50% more than originally expected. Democrats are staging a sit-in on the floor of the U.S House of Representatives, protesting the lack of a vote on gun control. Republicans call the move a 'publicity stunt'. New Home Sales for May are reported. Leading Economic Indicators are released. The Federal Reserve announces the results of stress tests on 33 large U.S. and foreign financial institutions.


Producer Datuk Abdul Malik is confident that "Kabali" will collect RM50 million.

23 Jun  Fans of Fathia Latiff will soon get to hear her voice on the big screen, as the model-actress is lending her voice to the Malay-dubbed version of the highly-anticipated Tamil movie, "Kabali".



The Malay-dubbed Rajinikanth-starrer was previously reported to open in cinemas on 6 July, just in time for the first day of the Aidilfitri holidays.



However, latest update revealed that the release date has now been pushed back to 22 July, according to Bernama.



"Kabali" producer, Datuk Abdul Malik Dashtigeer, said that the movie is set to make history with its Tamil-to-Malay dubbing as several local celebrities will be lending their voices to it.



"For the Malay version, local celebrity Arun Kumar lends his voice to Rajinikanth's character and Fathia Latiff lends hers to the character's daughter, Dhansika.



"To do the dubbing, everyone involved, including Datuk Jalaluddin Hassan who voices the villain, were taken to Chennai, India for seven days for it," said the producer.



Apart from that, two of the movie's soundtracks are also getting their own Malay versions.



The original Tamil version of the movie is scheduled for release this 1 July in 480 cinemas nationwide. Abdul Malik revealed his confidence that the movie will be able to collect as much as RM50 million.



"Kabali" will feature a host of local talents such as Datuk Rosyam Nor, Norman Hakim, Zack Taipan and Tony Kassim.



The Pa Ranjith-directed movie is set to be released in several territories including Indonesia, China, Japan and Hong Kong.
A Fiat Chrysler executive said Thursday said the automaker plans its own investigation into the role of a Jeep Grand Cherokee in the death of Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin.

Yelchin died instantly on Sunday after his 2015 Grand Cherokee rolled backwards and pinned him against a concrete mail box outside his Los Angeles home, according to police.

Fiat Chrysler had announced a recall of the car and others in April after the US auto safety regulator said 117 crashes and 28 injuries had been linked to the vehicles rolling off freely when drivers thought they had locked them in "park".

Mike Manley, president and chief executive of the Jeep brand at FCA US, the US arm of Fiat Chrysler, said the automaker has not yet been able to examine the vehicle and the circumstances around Yelchin's death.

"We're waiting to be able to start our own investigation," Manley told reporters. "Obviously, we would like our own people to go over the vehicle."

Last year, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated hundreds of reports that 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokees like Yelchin's would move freely even after drivers thought they were in "park" gear, which should immobilize them.

The NHTSA said the fault was related to the design of the cars' automatic transmission gear shifts.

FCA's April recall covers one million vehicles, including 2014-2015 Jeep Grand Cherokees.

On Monday, FCA said it was "premature to speculate on the cause of this tragedy."

But late last week, the company told dealers it was addressing the problem with a software update that would effectively immobilize the cars if there is no driver in place.

"It will be ready by the end of the month," Manley said of the fix.

He declined to answer questions about the potential impact of the accident on the company.

"I think FCA has taken the safety of its vehicles very, very seriously. That's an absolute statement of fact," Manley said.

Yelchin's death occurred just as FCA was about to launch a joint marketing effort for the Jeep Grand Cherokee with the new blockbuster film "Independence Day: Resurgence."
With a decision from an international ad hoc tribunal tasked with reviewing Chinas maritime claims in the South China Sea looming, regional tensions are running high. A key problem is that no nation involved in the current round of tension  not even China itself  has a crystal-clear view of what exactly Beijing is trying to achieve in the South China Sea. Thats because three different schools of thought are each struggling for dominance in Chinese analytical and policy-making circles. A look at the debate within China helps explain the lack of effective communication and the rise of strategic distrust between China, Southeast Asian nations with competing claims, and the United States.

Chinas leaders  from President Xi Jinping to Foreign Minister Wang Yi to military leaders like Admiral Sun Jianguo  repeat the well-worn lines that the South China Sea islands have always been Chinese territory, Chinas actions are legitimate measures to safeguard its own sovereignty, China will not pursue expansive policies beyond legitimate territorial claims, and limited military installations on newly built islands are for defensive purposes. Some countries in ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), however, find these explanations unconvincing, feel threatened by Chinas island-building, and therefore want the United States to check Chinese power. Some U.S. officials have claimed that China is seeking militarization in the region, or even hegemony.

But in reality, its not at all clear that China itself really knows what it wants to achieve in the South China Sea. Broadly speaking, there are three schools of thought among Chinese analysts about optimal policies toward the region: lets call them realists, hardliners, and moderates. Chinese academic publications, media reports, and online opinions offer a glimpse into these different views. Since last year, I have also talked to a large number of Chinese scholars, government officials, and ordinary citizens. These three camps are representative of the diversity of Chinese views, although they are certainly not exhaustive of all the different views.

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Because of the intensity of current tensions, Chinese analysts are under pressure to reflect vague government talking points, and sharp criticisms are rarely aired. This may explain why the outside world has commonly missed those debates. But in fact, Chinas domestic debates about the South China Sea are of major importance for understanding the future directions of Chinese policy.

Chinas realists believe that the fundamentals of Chinas current South China Sea policy are sound, with no adjustment needed. They recognize the diplomatic and reputational costs incurred, but tend to slight them because they value Chinas physical presence and material capability much more highly than its image abroad. Their belief is underpinned by a crude realist understanding of international politics: material power  and not ephemeral (and in any case un-measurable) factors such as reputation, image, or international law  is the decisive factor in international politics. They thus think time is on Chinas side, as long as China can manage its rise. This kind of realpolitik thinking now dominates Chinas South China Sea decision-making.

Realists think they are safeguarding Chinas national interests by enhancing its material presence in the South China Sea. But they are uncertain about what to do with the newly constructed islands. Should Beijing push for a new round of military installations including placing offensive weapons systems, or are defensive equipments really sufficient for the status quo? Realists want power in the South China Sea, yet are unsure how much power is enough.

A second school of thought  the hardliners  provides alarming answers to the questions realists havent yet answered. Not only do they think China should present the seven new islands constructed out of existing features, including Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef  as faits accompli to the outside world, but China should further expand its territorial and military reach in the South China Sea. Such expansion could include: building the islands into mini-bases, conquering some if not all of the features currently under other countries control, or turning the Nine-Dash Line map, first published in 1947 and which now serves as Beijings legal basis for its claims in the South China Sea, into a territorial demarcation line, thus claiming most of the South China Seas territorial waters for China. Hardliners have no regard for the concerns and anxieties of the outside world; they wish only to maximize Chinas self-interest.

It is clear that some international media reports about China claiming 90 percent of the South China Sea are actually describing this, and only this, school of thought inside China. The good news is that this view does not yet dominate high-level decision-making. Hardliners within government are usually found in the military and law enforcement agencies. A maximalist policy toward the South China Sea would certainly serve their parochial bureaucratic interests. But hardliners also reside in the Chinese general public, the vast majority of which only has a superficial and impressionistic view of the South China Sea situation. Grassroots hardliner calls for assertiveness are based on emotional nationalism, not a studied consideration of Chinas interests.

The difference between the hardliners and the realists is that, while the hardliners views are also based on realpolitik, there is an additional underpinning of hyper-nationalism, making accommodation with other countries especially difficult. Although the hardliners are not dominating current policy, the leadership cannot easily ignore or dismiss them for fear of stoking popular nationalism, a grassroots force which can easily spin out of control.

The third group, the moderates, believe its time for China to adjust its policy to clarify, if only gradually, its goals in the South China Sea. Moderates recognize that Beijings current ambiguity about its territorial claims and strategic design is feeding the outside worlds fear and distrust. They fault the government for failing to provide a compelling strategic narrative and promote effective communication with the outside world. Chinas habitual just-do-it approach when it comes to major strategic decisions such as island building is actually harmful to its own self-interest. By forgoing any attempt to legitimize island-building, it ensures international suspicion of rather than sympathy for Chinas actions.

Moderates argue that China needs to gradually clarify the Nine-Dash Line. Maintaining deliberate ambiguity would simply make the map a historical burden and an unnecessary obstacle to reaching diplomatic compromise. In their view, it is counterproductive to interpret the map as a territorial demarcation line, because doing so would make China an adversary of most Southeast Asian states as well as the United States. Were China to go down this path, they argue, it would eventually face the ominous danger of strategic over-stretch. The biggest problem for China, the moderates observe, is that it lacks a clear and effective strategy for the South China Sea.

The moderates differ much from the realists and the hardliners. But the three share an extremely important area of agreement: the necessity of island-building. During my extensive conversations with leading Chinese scholars and government officials since last year, I have not come across a single person who would say island building is a mistake. They may give different reasons for construction and offer different assessments of the consequences, but they all believe that this is something China must do, sooner or later. These reasons range from the more strategic to the more mundane; from establishing a strategic foothold in the South China Sea to providing better living conditions for Chinese personnel stationed there. But they all feel that given the current stage of Chinas rise, Beijing must establish a presence in the South China Sea commensurate with its newfound power and status, especially since most other claimant states already have decades-old presences in the region.

Members of the international community have repeatedly criticized Chinas island-building. But given the apparent national consensus inside China, and also given the fact that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not strictly proscribe building on existing maritime features, is it a good policy to keep targeting island building activities themselves? Wouldnt it be in every nations interest to move on to the more strategic question of creating a new but stable regional status quo?

A new status quo demands China clarify its strategic intentions. Right now, not even the Chinese leadership has a clear answer to that question. Among the three schools analyzed above, only the extreme hardliners have a quick, but highly destabilizing, answer. The rest of China is debating what Chinas strategy toward the South China Sea should be. This is an important fact. It suggests that Chinas South China Sea policy has not hardened yet, and is thus malleable.

The international community  especially the United States and ASEAN  should create favorable conditions for shaping Chinas policy toward a more conciliatory and cooperative direction. In particular, they should help raise the importance of the moderates in Chinese decision-making, turning them from a minority view to a majority consensus. The unfortunate effect of some of the rhetoric from U.S. officials about Chinese hegemony in East Asia is to confirm the hardliners view that the United States wants to contain China, thus undermining the moderates position within Chinas domestic debate. Among the three schools discussed above, only hardliners unequivocally seek some sort of military hegemony. If American officials take this view as Chinas national policy, they will simply talk past their more moderate Chinese interlocutors, creating a potentially dangerous communication gap between the two sides.

For its part, China needs to clarify its policy goals and reassure its neighbors, as well as the United States. A veteran Chinese diplomat recently told me that Chinese diplomacy is currently in its adolescence. But a rising China with regional and global responsibilities needs to learn quickly to become an adult.

SAEED KHAN/AFP/GettyImages
If youre an actor playing someone whos sick and twisted and evil, almost nothing will get you into character quite like a startling new look. That tends to be the case whether the look comes courtesy of the makeup department (think Heath Ledgers Joker in The Dark Knight or Robert De Niros Al Capone in The Untouchables) or, simply, the electric razor. In The Duel, Woody Harrelson plays some sort of lethally charismatic Southern cult leader in the years after the Civil War, and his performance, which is all about being the kind of person no one can take their eyes off of, begins with his look: a shaved head, which seems like no big deal, but with matching shaved eyebrows (and occult tattooish squiggles in their place), all of which give Harrelson the appearance of a death-row psycho, or an overgrown baby, or maybe a strutting alien. He has actually sported this exact look once before  in the last act of Natural Born Killers, where Mickey Knox, preparing for a global tabloid-TV interview from prison, shaves himself down to his essence, all the better to communicate his message: that murder isnt wrong, since its something that human beings do as naturally as wild wolves.

In The Duel, Harrelsons Abraham, who is known as the Preacher, spouts a very similar sort of sin-is-good philosophy, which makes you wonder whether bits and pieces of it havent evolved over time out of Harrelson himself, with his pot-smoking outsider-artist Buddhist of Danger mystique. The movie opens with a ritualized knife fight in the mud, and before the duel even begins its obvious that the Preacher is going to win, because his gaze tells you that he has the will to kill. (He cant wait to get started.) The Preacher is a former Confederate officer who fought his way through the Civil War one slash-of-death duel at a time, and he also gathered a thousand scalps (of Indians, Mexicans, escaped slaves  anyone who wasnt white). Now, he presides over Helena, a town with the calicoed look and feel of an Amish village, and with lots of rules for everyone  except him. Hes got a creepy son (Emory Cohen) he lords it over, and a prostitute (Kerry Cahill) he treats like chattel. Its his little fascist oasis, but the cracks are starting to show: The corpses of Mexican immigrants, dozens of them, have been discovered by U.S. authorities on the outskirts of town. So David Kingston (Liam Hemsworth), a Texas Ranger who as a boy lost his daddy in a knife fight (hmmm), is sent in undercover to investigate.

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Hemsworth has another small film you may have heard of thats about to be released  Independence Day: Resurgence  but The Duel offers the first real chance weve had to see how he works as a grown-up leading man who has to hold down the center of a movie with no tricks beyond his actorly magnetism. And Hemsworth does it; wearing a bushy dark beard, he fills the screen with an easy, resolute youthful-macho confidence that may remind you of the Brad Pitt of 20 years ago. The Duel is basically a Western, with Kingston as the noble gunslinger who wanders, fearless and open-eyed, into a place where he knows hes outgunned and outnumbered, but never outmanned. Harrelsons Preacher is the proverbial villain in a black hat  though, in fact, he prefers to wander around in a cream-colored suit and matching bolero hat, which makes him look all the weirder, like an android in his Sunday best.

Kingston has brought along his Mexican wife, Marisol (Alice Braga), who gets bored sitting alone at their homestead, waiting for him. Its her alluring presence that complicates matters. When the Preacher insists that the two of them stay for a while, even going so far as to appoint Kingston the town sheriff, its all a threat masquerading as an invitation. To the Preacher, with his hungry-wolf attitude, Marisol is fresh meat  not just another woman to devour but the object in a power game between himself and Kingston, the new kid in town. Hes got to demonstrate who the alpha dog is. When he pays Marisol a private visit, Harrelson is all smiling caresses and insinuating concern, a charade of courtliness. But he also suggests that shes ill with the fever, and before long, she is. She has come under his spell.

The war between civility and taunting, preening masculine dominance suggests a variation on Sam Peckinpahs Straw Dogs, but The Duel, despite some promising early scenes, doesnt have anything like that kind of force. Its more like Straw Dogs as a mediocre TV-movie, and the tension slowly dissipates. The director, the Australian-born Kieran Darcy-Smith, and screenwriter, Matt Cook, cherry-pick from different sources. When we finally learn whats going on with all those dead Mexicans, its a creepy idea but far from an original one, fusing The Most Dangerous Game with Eli Roths Hostel films, not to mention a touch of anti-racist liberal didacticism perfectly timed for the Trump campaign. The Duel promises a battle of wits and wills, then turns into a violent grab-bag. But it does make you want to see Woody Harrelson get another movie worthy of his leering bald Nietzschean bravura.

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We finally have a scientifically-backed reason to not clean our homes

We finally have a scientifically-backed reason to not clean our homes

Having a clean home is one of lifes little joys, right? But by the time Sunday rolls around youre probably like us and think, I HATE CLEANING!

krusty cleaning gif

While there are plenty of excuses you can come up with to NOT clean your home, deep-down you probably know most of those are not very good reasons.

Heres where science can help!

Allard Dembe, professor of health services mangement and policy at Ohio State Universitys College of Public Health, looked at women from the working generation of the 70s to 80s. This was a time when more and more women were having careers, but also still dealing with daily chores back home.

Dembe told The Huffington Post, My speculation is that women have to play a lot of multiple roles. He continued,

Its less surprising that women who are then into their 50s and 60s are really bearing the disease repercussions of whats happened during those early years of really working their butts off. 20th Century Fox / abortxretryxfail.tumblr.com

working girl bike gif

Backing up this theory, women who work over 60 hours a week are more likely to have have serious health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer vs. men who work the same hours. Largely because of the underlying assumption that women are doing additional work at home in the form of chores.



eyeroll lucille bluth

Its interesting to see that housework isnt just annoying, but possibly very damaging to our health, too. And while we now have a pretty good excuse to NOT do housework, we still have to wonder, Who will do it FOR US? Any volunteers?

The post We finally have a scientifically-backed reason to not clean our homes appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nearly 5,000 firefighters worked on Thursday to gain control over five major wildfires burning in drought-parched California, making enough headway for officials to lift some of the evacuation orders that had forced residents to flee their homes. But the National Weather Service issued a so-called red flag warning for the mountains of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, saying the combination of high temperatures, gusty winds and low humidity could challenge those crews and raise the risk of new blazes. "It is critical that during red flag warnings the public be extra vigilant outdoors to prevent sparking a new wildfire," the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said in a written statement, recommending that power equipment not be used after 10 a.m. or on hot, windy days. In San Diego County, authorities lifted evacuation orders for the Mexican border community of Portrero on Thursday, saying crews had cut containment lines around 20 percent of a wildfire that blackened some 6,800 acres since it broke out But residents of two other mountain communities, Morena Village and Campo, remained under evacuation orders. Flames have already destroyed five homes and a dozen outbuildings since they broke out near the Mexican border on Sunday morning. Another 200 structures were considered threatened by the Border Fire, according to Cal Fire, and Highway 94 remained closed. Authorities on Wednesday lifted evacuation orders on 534 homes in foothills northeast of Los Angeles as firefighters struggled to get control of two wildfires that had merged together, collectively known as the San Gabriel Complex. Evacuation orders were still in effect for another 324 homes. As of Thursday morning, the blaze had charred 5,200 acres of chaparral and grass, and containment lines had been drawn around 15 percent of the flames, according to Cal Fire. The largest of the major California wildfires, the so-called Sherpa Fire in Santa Barbara County, was largely contained as of Thursday, with most evacuation orders lifted. The Pony Fire, which was ignited in the Klamath National Forest near the Oregon border by a lightning strike on June 7 and has since blackened more than 2,800 acres, was 60 percent contained as of Thursday The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said the risk of catastrophic wildfires had increased because of the 66 million trees that had died in California from 2010 to October 2015 due to drought conditions and destructive bark beetles. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Alison Williams and Cynthia Osterman)
From LennyLetter

During this nightmarish election season it's hard to imagine, but politicians of all stripes used to celebrate immigrants coming to this country. Even Ronald Reagan, a man worshiped by conservatives, did: "Call it mysticism, if you will, but I have always believed there was some divine providence that placed this great land here ... to be found by a special kind of people from every corner of the world, who had a special love for freedom and special courage that enabled them to leave their own land, leave their friends and their countrymen, and come to this new and strange land."

Flash-forward to 2016, and the standard-bearer for Reagan's party has turned immigrant status into a dangerous weapon, calling undocumented Mexicans "rapists" and advocating for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Donald Trump's rise - and his threatening behavior toward marginalized communities - has made the voices of immigrants more important than ever to our political discourse.

Anna Kaplan is a Jewish Iranian immigrant who has been living in America for 37 years. She's a town councilwoman in Long Island, New York, in the midst of a tough five-way Democratic primary to determine who will face the Republican candidate, Jack Martins, in November, when voters will decide who they want to represent New York's third congressional district. Her primary is June 28, but Kaplan made some time to sit down with us and discuss her candidacy, her life story, and why she wants to be a voice for all immigrants in Congress.

Marin Cogan: What do you remember of your life in Iran?

Anna Kaplan: I was born in a small city called Tabriz, which is near the border of Iran and Turkey. We moved to Tehran when I was about five years old.

For the most part, I think Iranian people are wonderful people, but there was anti-Semitism. We didn't advertise that we were Jews. Once, my mother took me to a supermarket, and I saw the owner turn around and say to a woman, "Don't touch the fruit. Tell me what you want and I'll put it in a bag for you." I didn't understand.

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Afterward I asked my mom why he had done that, and she told me that the shopkeeper knew the customer was Jewish. He didn't mind selling to her, but he didn't want her to touch the merchandise. That was a very eye-opening experience. Obviously it made an impression, because I still remember it so many years later. I'm truly honored and privileged to be living in this great country where we all have the same rights and the same freedoms.

MC: I'm guessing you probably haven't had an opportunity to go back. But would you ever want to?

AK: Since I came here seeking political asylum, I cannot go back as long as this regime is in power. I would love to go and visit my family, but definitely not right now.

MC: Why did you get involved in public service?

AK: I've gotten involved for many reasons. In Iran, as Iranian Jews, we never got involved politically, because of persecution and threats. We didn't have a voice.

I'm not a very public person; I'm very private and traditional. But I see that as elected officials, we make really a huge difference in people's lives, people who don't have a voice. Children, veterans, seniors. Every time I've been helpful, it has made me feel good about what I do. I'm blessed to be able to do something for someone else. I think the joy of giving is sometimes so much greater than receiving.

MC: Now that you're running for Congress, what is it that you're fighting for? What are the issues that really animate you in this campaign?

AK: One of the main things that I've been hearing is affordability - living affordability and also college affordability. I know college affordability is a bipartisan issue. This is the only way our children can further their lives and give back to their communities. We are responsible for doing whatever we can to enable them.

MC: We just witnessed another really horrific mass shooting in America last week, the deadliest mass shooting in our history. What can we do to prevent these types of atrocities from happening in the future?

AK: It really is a devastating time for all of us. As a mother, as a human being, my heart goes out to every single family that has lost a family member. My heart goes out to the whole LGBT community. I hope that everyone comes out in solidarity with them.

I'm a big believer in tougher gun-control laws. I think we need to realize, as American citizens, that it's not 50 years ago. We need to adjust with time, make purchasing guns tougher, and make sure that we have background checks. We need to do more to ensure the safety of our communities, our homes, and our children.

MC: How should the United States approach the Iranian regime?

AK: I was not for the Iran deal. As much as I love the Iranian people - I think they are good people, and a lot of them love America - the rhetoric that I was hearing was, "Death to America and death to Israel." A lot of my residents and constituents wanted me to voice their opinion that this was not the best deal. Having said that, the deal was reached. We live in a democracy. I believe in moving forward. I've worked very hard to say, "Now that we have a deal, we need to make sure that every part of that agreement, every condition, is being met."

MC: Is Donald Trump's rhetoric about immigrants of concern to you?

AK: Absolutely. If Donald Trump was in the White House and I was in Iran, and I wanted to come here, I might not be able to. I am so grateful for this country for opening its arms to me because we feared persecution for our religion. When we start excluding certain groups, I think it's a very wrong path. It's very un-American.

MC: What does Hillary Clinton's presumed nomination - the first female presidential nominee of a major American political party - mean to you?

AK: It is a huge, huge victory for a lot of women. I think, as women, we bring a very different voice. I don't have anything against men, but we look at things very differently and we solve issues differently than men do. As over 50 percent of the citizens, we need to have a voice. The fact that there's only 17 percent women in Congress in 2016 in the United States means a lot of people are not being heard. In my own race, as the only woman, the only refugee, and the only immigrant, I bring a voice that none of the other candidates bring.

MC: What message would you give to people immigrating to America now?

AK: I would like everyone to know that we're all immigrants, whether we are first generation or third generation. We are the tapestry of America. We are what makes America so special. We come from all over, with our own traditions, our own food, our own way, and to include that in this country and be part of this is a great honor. We are the reason why we are who we are. I would like every immigrant to know that in me, they will have a voice. I will make sure there is always a seat for them at the table and that they will be heard. The things that are important to them are the things I will work hardest on.

Truly this country is great because of all people coming from all over and trying to achieve their goals and dreams, putting their best foot forward. I hope in return, when they succeed and make their dreams come true, that they give back to this country, because that's what it's all about.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Marin Cogan is a writer for New York Magazine. She writes the Mariner, a weekly newsletter rounding up her favorite articles, songs, and recipes. You can subscribe here.
* Software developers should seek growth in cars, global services

* Romanian IT sector posts 3.1 bln euro turnover in 2015

* Tech expertise stems from communist education drive

By Luiza Ilie

BUCHAREST, June 23 (Reuters) - Romania has emerged as one of Europe's most active technology hubs, with the IT industry posting stellar growth and benefiting from a highly-skilled local labour pool as well as one of the fastest internet speeds in the world.

To keep up momentum and cement its reputation, Romania's best-known technology pioneer says local developers should focus on creating software for the car and global services industries -- shunning local market needs in favour of more mature, lucrative sectors.

Multinational companies such as Oracle, IBM and Intel have set up in the former communist country in customer support, business process outsourcing and software development, and young entrepreneurs have launched a wave of new startups, creating an industry with turnover of 3.1 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in 2015.

IT is becoming ever more important to the national economy -- the sector exports around 70 percent of its output, and could generate around 3 percent of GDP in three years' time, according to an industry study.

"The Romanian technology industry doesn't stand a chance if it develops products exclusively for the local market, because its needs are 10-15 years behind that of mature markets," said Florin Talpes, chief executive of Bitdefender, a home-grown cyber security company with half a billion users worldwide.

"If we look at which Romanian markets are mature and state of the art, that is where I would recommend developing technology industries," he told Reuters in an interview.

Romania's auto industry is one of the eastern European country's main growth drivers, through carmaker Dacia, owned by French Renault and Ford. Romania is also home to countless car parts producers and research centres.

"Intelligent cars, connected cars are a main theme in at least five of these research and development centres," said 59-year-old Talpes.

Story continues

Set up in the 1960s after Romania signed a licence contract with Renault, Dacia cars were for decades the ubiquitous automobile of communist Romania.

Renault acquired Dacia in 1999 and the no-frills brand has since developed into a top seller for Renault, which is working on driver-less technology and car connectivity -- enabling occupants to connect to the Internet and cloud services.

Another potential growth area was the IT services sector, where local software engineers should develop value-added products for the dominant multinationals present in Romania.

UNEXPECTED LEGACY

Romania's technology expertise is partly the result of a 1980s education drive spearheaded by the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. With schools already leaning heavily towards science and mathematics, he promoted computer research and technology to promote pride in the nation - laying the foundations for a wave of tech-savy youngsters decades later.

Romania has even made a name for itself in hacking. A 24 year-old Romanian, Razvan Cernaianu, hacked the Pentagon, NASA and Britain's Royal Navy several years ago. Some also honed their skills through software piracy.

There are roughly 14,000 IT firms active in Romania, employing over 75,000 people, according to a study by industry body ARIES Transilvania.

The government's Invest Romania unit, says the IT and Communications sector could be worth 4 billion euros by 2020 - up from 2.1 billion in 2013, with year-on-year growth of 9 percent. The country has more engineers per capita in the sector than the US, India, China or Russia, it says.

According to the most recent figures, 2014 saw 3.6 billion euros worth of foreign investment into the sector.

The IT product development sector was not without problems, Talpes said, including difficult access to financing, lack of business and marketing skills, as well as a shortage of programmers and a need for the education sector to catch up with the times.

($1 = 0.8782 euros) (Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
A Texas grand jury declined to indict a white police officer who was caught on video forcing a black 15-year-old girl to the ground, police announced Thursday.

The Collin County grand jury decided not to indict former McKinney, Texas officer Eric Casebolt, according to the Associated Press. Video captured Casebolt pushing the bikini-wearing girl to the ground following a June 2015 community pool party that was made up of mostly black teenagers.

McKinney police issued a statement confirming the jurys decisions and announcing that there were plans to hold a community meeting Monday to discuss the incident with residents.

Cell phone footage shows Casebolt running after the teens, ordering them to the ground, then forcing the Dajerria Becton onto her stomach and placing his knees on her back. He also drew his firearm on two unarmed teens who rushed forward in apparent protest, but lowered his weapon when other officers intervened.

Civil rights groups held protests following the incident demanding that Casebolt be charged, according to AP. Police Chief Greg Conley called his actions indefensible at the time and Casebolt subsequently resigned.
Brussels (AFP) - The European Parliament is demanding the repayment of 320,000 euros from MEP Jean-Marie Le Pen over a salary it believes was wrongly paid out to a parliamentary assistant, sources said Wednesday.

In a document obtained by AFP, the secretary general of the European Parliament Klaus Welle says the founder of France's far-right National Front (FN) party should reimburse the money "unduly" paid to him for his parliamentary assistant between 2009 and 2014.

It said Le Pen had offered "neither an explanation for nor any evidence of parliamentary assistance work" carried out by the member of staff.

Sources close to Le Pen said the European Parliament last month began withholding half of the 88-year-old's own wages in an apparent bid to claw back the money.

They said he was now receiving a net monthly salary of 3,100 euros ($3,500) instead of the usual 6,200 euros, and none of the 4,300 euros allowed for expenses each month.

"Measures have been taken against Mr Le Pen as part of an inquiry into the FN's hiring policy of parliamentary assistants," said a spokesperson for the European Parliament, confirming an initial report by French magazine Challenges. "But we cannot go into details," he added.

A sum of 380,000 euros is also being demanded from MEP Bruno Gollnisch, another FN veteran, over similar alleged irregularities, added a source close to the matter.

Other claims against the party were expected to follow, the source added.

The Paris public prosecutor's office opened an inquiry in March 2015 into wages paid to around 20 assistants on suspicions they were given fake jobs in Strasbourg while they continued to work for the party elsewhere.

The case was initially launched by the European Parliament's anti-fraud authorities.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was last year unceremoniously ousted as party leader by his daughter Marine after he repeated his assertion that the Nazi gas chambers were "a detail" of World War II history.
* Tidal current energy at the cusp of commercial stage

* Market worth potential 75 billion euros globally

* Traditional players like GE and DCNS branch out in tidal

* Start-ups like Sabella, Atlantis fight for market share

By Geert De Clercq

NANTES, France, June 23 (Reuters) - Tidal power is moving beyond the prototype stage for state-backed French naval shipbuilder DCNS, which is targeting a billion euros in sales from the technology in the next decade.

DCNS, which is 35 percent owned by defence group Thales and 64 percent by the French state, builds warships and submarines but aims to sell its first commercial tidal power system in four years and wants to get up to 25 percent of its sales from renewable marine energies by 2025.

The firm bought Ireland's OpenHydro, which generates power from turbines installed on the sea bed, in 2013 and is working on pilot projects in France, Canada, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has installed two 16-metre tidal turbines in Paimpol-Brehat, Brittany, for utility EDF which will be connected to the grid this summer.

"We have reached a turning point in tidal turbines, we are entering the pre-industrial phase," DCNS head of energy and marine infrastructures Thierry Kalanquin told Reuters.

For now, revenue from the tidal current business is still close to zero, but DCNS expects to start selling its first turbines in 2017-18 for pilot projects and from 2020 it expects to sell its first commercial tidal turbine farms.

"We hope to get one billion euros in sales in tidal turbines in ten years," he said, adding that he sees a big market in Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Asia.

DCNS - which had 2015 net profit of 58 million euros on turnover of 3 billion euros - has invested about 150 million euros in buying Open Hydro and funding further research.

Many players in the fledgling industry are hydropower specialists, like Swiss Andritz and General Electric , or involved in naval construction, like DCNS.

TURNING THE TIDE

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But there are also start-ups, like France's Sabella, which specialises in smaller turbines for isolated sites, and Britain's Atlantis Resources, which became the first listed tidal turbine specialist in 2014.

Atlantis' market value has fallen by nearly 50 percent since then to around 60 million pounds ($89 million), illustrating the challenges the industry faces to become viable.

Kalanquin said that globally potential sites with a combined capacity about 100 gigawatts (GW) had been identified, but only about 25 GW of this can be commercially operated today, which represents a global market worth around 75 billion euros.

"We aim to win a 20 to 25 percent market share," he added.

France has a long coastline, but only one major site on the western tip of Normandy, with a 3 to 4 GW potential, of which about 1.5 GW could be commercially operated at the moment.

Kalanquin called on the French government to speed up planned tenders for tidal current turbine farms, with commercially viable scale of more than 100 MW.

DCNS will install 7 pilot turbines in Raz Blanchard for EDF in 2018. General Electric-Alstom was also selected to install turbines there for Engie.

($1 = 0.6754 pounds) (Editing by Alexander Smith)
By Ingrid Melander and Brian Love PARIS (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators marched under massive police surveillance in Paris on Thursday to try to force the government to drop its labor reforms but President Francois Hollande said he would pursue the plan "to the finishing line". Protesters - whose numbers were put at 20,000 by police but three times that many by organizers - chanted "Scrap, scrap, the labor reform!" as they marched around the capital's Place de la Bastille square, hemmed in by large numbers of riot police. The defiant march was the latest confrontation in Hollande's four-month showdown with the unions which has dragged down the ratings of the unpopular president to new lows. The Socialist government had initially banned the march - the first time a government had taken such a step in more than 50 years - for fear of a repeat of the violence that had marred previous protests against legislation that will make hiring and firing easier. But, after facing a huge backlash the ban was lifted in a u-turn by the government which drew fire on social media and from politicians of all stripes. Many protesters said they joined the march on Thursday because of the ban threat. "No to a police state ! No one will stop us from protesting!," the protesters chanted. More than 2,000 police enforced strict security measures around the Place de la Bastille square, checking bags and turning away people with helmets. The short protest circuit was patrolled by more than one riot police officer per meter. Police also blocked all exit points to force protesters to stay on the agreed route. "The bill must be withdrawn. We must start from scratch," said Julie, a 27-year-old social worker who decided to take part in the protest because she was shocked it had been banned. But Hollande said his government would not retreat from labor legislation that is intended to tackle an unemployment rate that has been stuck at 10 percent for most of his time in office. "We will take this bill to the finishing line," Hollande told reporters just hours before the march. "STUBBORN" In a months-long stand-off, neither side wants to cave in and lose face over a reform plan that opinion polls say is opposed by more than two in three French voters. Polls also show that voters are getting tired of the protests and want a deal. But Jean-Claude Mailly, leader of the Force Ouvriere union, said it could continue for many more months. "We've made proposals, counter-proposals, but the government has not budged," he told reporters. "If the government keeps being stubborn - though I hope it won't - we'll see during the summer and also at the start of the school year (in September)." The march tested police forces already stretched under a state of emergency imposed since deadly attacks by Islamist militants in November and by fan violence at the Euro 2016 soccer tournament France is hosting. Hollande says the reform is key to hauling down unemployment, something he has promised if he is to run in next year's presidential election. Critics say it undermines workers' rights. Philippe Martinez, leader of the hardline CGT union, accused Prime Minister Manuel Valls of pinning the blame for the escalating disorder on his group. He condemned the rioters but said the government had inflamed passions as unions sought a deal on the labor reforms. "Every time we try to calm things down the prime minister throws fuel on the flames again," Martinez told reporters. Though noisy, Thursday's march was peaceful. Police said 95 people were arrested as crowds converged on the marching zone. Previous protests have been marred by hundreds of mostly masked youths engaging in running battles with police, hurling paving stones, smashing shops and plastering anti-capitalist slogans on buildings. Police have said some CGT members were in involved in the violence. (Additional reporting by Jean-Baptise Vey and Simon Carraud; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
(Adds details, comments from GAVI officials)

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - The GAVI global vaccine alliance has offered funding of up to $27.5 million for pilot tests of GlaxoSmithKline's first-generation malaria vaccine, but only if other organisations promise to match that commitment.

Evidence so far on the shot, developed by the British drugmaker with financial backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "suggests a malaria vaccine could have a significant impact in reducing malaria mortality in Africa", but more research is needed, GAVI said.

Speaking to Reuters after a board meeting in Geneva, Seth Berkley, GAVI's chief executive, said the alliance was ready "to play its part" in backing the first phase pilot studies if other funders also came forward. GAVI is working with UNITAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria on the issue, he said.

He added, however, that GAVI's board had made clear that this "should not be considered as an indication of future GAVI funding" for this vaccine, or for future similar pilot schemes for other vaccines.

Since the vaccine - known as RTS,S or Mosquirix - is only partially effective and needs to be given in a four dose schedule outside normal childhood vaccination plans, experts have questioned its potential usefulness and cost effectiveness.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said last year that while Mosquirix is promising, it should be deployed only on a pilot basis before any wide-scale use, given its limited efficacy.

The WHO is now in the process of finalising the design of the pilots in three African locations. The projects are expected to delay any possible broader roll-out of Mosquirix by between three and five years.

"Measuring the vaccine's impact in real life settings is what will ultimately help the health community assess the value of this vaccine in the fight against malaria along with other existing interventions," Berkley said.

Story continues

Malaria infects around 200 million people a year worldwide and killed an estimated 440,000 in 2015. The vast majority of malaria deaths are among babies in sub-Saharan Africa.

GAVI, which is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, the World Bank, UNICEF, donor governments and others, funds bulk-buy vaccination programmes for poorer nations that can't afford shots at developed-economy prices.

"Malaria's heavy burden on Africa means it is vital that we understand the impact of this vaccine in communities," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, chair of GAVI's board and who is also a former Nigerian finance minister, said in a statement. "We call on others to come forward with sufficient funding to enable the pilots to proceed." (Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Susan Fenton)
FRANKFURT, June 23 (Reuters) - Germany's auto industry on Thursday warned that a potential trade dispute between Europe and Britain in the aftermath of a Brexit could put British production sites at risk.

"We all hope the vote is in favour of remain. The German auto industry alone has 100 production sites in Britain including suppliers," Matthias Wissmann, president of Germany's Auto Industry Association VDA, told a news conference on Thursday.

"If there were a trade conflict between Britain and the European Union, the damage would be enormous for everybody," Wissmann explained, saying he hoped for a "remain" vote.

"It would be a serious setback for the industry and would surely result in some production sites relocating."

The VDA represents companies including BMW, Daimler, Bosch, Continental and Volkswagen.

"We would have enormous challenges to overcome if Brexit wins. I hope common sense prevails," Wissmann said.

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, writing by Edward Taylor; Editing by Georgina Prodhan)
A masked man carrying a rifle who stormed a movie theater in Germany late Thursday afternoon and took hostages was shot and killed by police.

No one else was injured in the attack, authorities said.

Peter Beuth, the interior minister of the state of Hessen, where the incident took place, confirmed that police raided the cinema and shot the man dead.

Police later confirmed that he had been armed with a fake rifle and pistol as well as a fake grenade. He has since been identified as a 19-year-old man born in the area.

Early media reports had suggested up to 50 people were injured, either by the shooter or by tear gas reportedly used by police. A police spokesman confirmed that there were no other injuries.

Beuth said the man appeared confused and that authorities were working on the initial assumption this was not an act of terrorism. The dead man has not yet been identified. A police spokesman, however, told local newspaper Mannheimer Morgen that he did not have "an Islamic background."

The police responded to what had been described as a "threat situation" at the Kinopolis movie theater in Viernheim, Germany, near Mannheim, when a masked man carrying a rifle and wearing an ammunition belt, stormed the cinema.
Viernheim (Germany) (AFP) - A masked gunman barricaded himself in a German multiplex cinema with dozens of people Thursday before being killed by police on high security alert following a string of attacks around Europe, officials said.

No-one else was injured at the complex in the western town of Viernheim, 75 kilometres (50 miles) south of Frankfurt, the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, said.

"The assailant moved through the cinema complex... and appeared confused," he said.

"There were hostages inside and there was a struggle (with police) until in the end he was dead."

Beuth added: "We have no information that anyone (among the cinema-goers) was injured."

Security sources quoted by German news agency DPA said there was "no link to terrorism", after deadly attacks in cities including Paris, Brussels and Istanbul that have left European authorities on edge.

A police spokesman said the attacker was seen carrying a bag.

Access to the cinema was sealed off for several hours as police searched for possible explosives but the local Mannheimer Morgen newspaper quoted the police later as saying no explosives were found.

Initial reports had spoken of shots fired and dozens of injured people as the police dispatched heavily armed elite units to the site, equipped with helmets and bulletproof vests.

"There was an acute threat situation," Viernheim police said in a statement.

The reported injuries later appeared to refer to the short-lived choking sensation induced by the police use of tear gas.

- 'Ammunition belt' -

Authorities said they had no information on the man's identity or motive. Media reports said the gunman was seen entering the building with "an ammunition belt" draped over his shoulder.

A spokeswoman for the police in nearby Darmstadt said they were investigating what type of weapon the assailant used, adding that it was possible it fired blanks.

Story continues

Huri Blakaj, 21, was behind the counter in the ticket office when he saw the man, whom he described as small and youthful-looking, heading towards him. Blakaj hit a panic button located under the cash register.

"He pointed his gun at me," said a visibly shaken Blakaj.

The assailant, who spoke in German without a distinguishable accent, told the other cashiers to lie on the ground while ordering Blakaj to close the door to the building. When Blakaj asked him whether he wanted money, the man replied "no", he recounted.

Shortly afterwards, Blakaj said, he heard a volley of gunfire that lasted "around 20 seconds".

Beuth, Hesse's interior minister, said: "We received a call at 2:45 pm (1245 GMT) saying that a man had stormed" the cinema.

"Four gunshots were reported," he added.

"I called the police and told them to come immediately," the cinema manager told Bild daily without giving her name.

Around three hours after the incident began, police began leaving the scene.

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Germany where gun ownership is prevalent but firearm sales and storage are subject to strict regulation.

In the worse case in recent years, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer went on a rampage with his father's gun at his former school in 2009, killing 15 people before turning the weapon on himself.
As a part of big overhaul, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS has commenced the third round of layoffs with the elimination of 98 staff in New York. In March, Goldman updated the job cut list filed with the New York State Department of Labor. According to the amended warn notice, the company disclosed the potential termination of 109 employees, up from 43 reported in February.



Also, the amended filing extended the time period of the concerned layoffs which were scheduled to take place between May 9 and Dec 31. While the filing does not reveal which operations or positions will be affected, it gives the reason for elimination as economic. Further, earlier in April the number was increased to 146.



The employees terminated across various businesses of Goldman were informed in April, May and the first week of June that they will be dismissed between July to October.



Earlier this month, Goldman has retrenched employees in the investment banking division in London, New York and Hong Kong in the wake of reduced deals and a 60% slump in first-quarter profits. Notably, the positions included managing directors, executive directors and vice presidents in the mergers and debt and equity capital markets units.



The job cuts added to the dismissal of 5% of the annual workforce to make way for new recruits. Also, the New York-based banking giants job cuts follow the layoff of over 5% of its fixed-income traders and salespersons this year.



Goldmans move does not come as a surprise as post crisis, investment banks have not been able to boost revenues amid stricter regulations, low rate environment and challenging market conditions. Several other banks that are eliminating employees include Bank of America Corp. BAC, Credit Suisse Group AG CS and Deutsche Bank AG DB.



Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



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Google has been accused of racial bias in its search algorithm in the past. Searches for "black teenagers" yielded photos of mugshots, "beautiful dreadlocks" displayed mostly white people and "unprofessional hairstyles for work" showed mostly black women with natural hair. And now, Google's best guess for a photo of two black men is "gang."

As BuzzFeed's David Mack pointed out, when he dropped an image of two black men in the Google Image search, the site's best guess was "gang."

The photo was from Share the Safety, a website about a gun-sharing program for "at-risk neighborhoods" that some believe to be a hoax.

When I Google Image searched the image Mack did, the best guess was also "gang."

The best guess for this image was 'gang'

The original photo was taken by photographer Victor Torres and features a black man and white man. I put the nearly identical photo  same graffiti background  into Google Image search, and the best guess for the image was "art."

The best guess for a nearly identical photo was 'art'

Maybe it's the graffiti that triggered the result? When I put an image of two white women in front of a graffiti backdrop into Google Image search, the best guess was "best friends aesthetic."

Source: Mic

Algorithms are not free from human bias: People create and maintain them, and algorithms and online search results can "reflect people's attitudes and behaviors," the New York Times reported.

People's effect on algorithms was evident in reports from Gizmodo that Facebook's trending news algorithm is influenced by human input and the way algorithms reflect people's online behavior was evident when Microsoft's chatbot Tay got its plug pulled after it evolved into a racist Nazi.

A recent investigation by ProPublica also revealed that algorithms used by the criminal justice system are easier on white defendants  further proving that data can be influenced or amplified based on human prejudices.

Story continues

"From a machine learning perspective, if you don't think about gender inclusiveness, then oftentimes the inferences that get made are biased towards the majority groupin this case, affluent white males," professor at Oregon State University's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Margaret Burnett told Bloomberg. "If un-diverse stuff goes in, then closed-minded, inside-the-box, not-very-good results come out."

To prevent racial and gender bias from creeping into our software, perhaps the humans creating it need to be more diverse than the predominately white male Silicon Valley.

Mic reached out to Google for comment and will update with a response.
google fiber

Google Fiber, the high-speed internet-access business owned by Alphabet, has bought Webpass for an undisclosed sum.

The deal will help Google expand its service into dense, urban areas like apartment buildings with multiple units. Webpass, available in cities that are in the San Francisco Bay Area and four other cities, specializes in providing high-speed internet service in urban areas.

In a blog post announcing the deal, Webpass president Charles Barr said that the acquisition is expected to close this summer, subject to the standard regulatory approvals.

Google did not comment on the deal, but the company confirmed it in a tweet:

Great news! We look forward to welcoming @Webpass to the Google Fiber team once the deal has closed: https://t.co/bioFpMk4aW  Google Fiber (@googlefiber) June 22, 2016

NOW WATCH: Google is using these seven-person tricycles for team-building





More From Business Insider


Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) perfectly captured the insanity of America's gun control debate Wednesday when he disrupted a sit-in at the U.S. House of Representatives by screaming, "Radical Islam!" at protesters.

Source: Mic/YouTube

"Radical Islam killed these people!" Gohmert yelled, interrupting a speech by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). "Radical Islam!"

Gohmert was referencing the mass shooting that left 50 people dead at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, an attack that prompted a wave of proposed gun control measures in Congress.

The nightclub shooter, Omar Mateen, was Muslim, as well as a documented racist, homophobe and domestic abuser. His attack marked the 173rd mass shooting in the U.S. in 2016 alone  suggesting that perhaps easy access to guns is of more pressing concern than the shooter's religion.

House Democrats have been urging stronger gun control measures ever since, while Republicans  like Gohmert  have been blaming Muslim terrorists and blocking gun control votes in Congress.

Supporters gather on Capitol Hill in solidarity with House Democrats protesting for more gun control votes in Congress.

The Democratic push to force Congress to pass gun control legislation has repeatedly been thwarted by House Republicans, who voted down four proposed measures June 15 after a 15-hour filibuster led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

At least 170 Democrats have participated in the ongoing sit-in since it started shortly before noon Wednesday, according to reports. A small number remained protesting on the House floor Thursday morning.

JUST IN: Democrats staging sit-in on US House floor, reading the names of victims of gun violence - @LukeRussertpic.twitter.com/8bx3o6kjQc https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClkPlooWkAA56yi.jpg:large

Republicans, it's safe to say, are not happy about the protest.

Exhibit A: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) deriding the Democrats' efforts as a "publicity stunt."

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Exhibit B: The full video below of Rep. Gohmert screaming at Sherman.

The irony is that Democrats are fighting to pass a law that's been criticized as racist and ineffectual.

They essentially want to make it illegal for people to buy guns if they are on the federal government's terrorist watch-list  a list on which nearly half the people have "no recognized terrorist group affiliation," according to the Intercept, and that unfairly targets Arab-Americans for inclusion.

In related news: everything is a mess.
It was in a sickly green, fluorescent-lit meeting room in Bukavu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a couple of years ago that someone whispered to me that babies were being gang-raped in a nearby town. Id been there for many hours listening to the stories of rape survivors for an unrelated article, when a researcher at an international nongovernmental organization described a few details. They are very tiny. Maybe three and four years old, she said. We dont know how the men are getting into the houses, but they take the girls and no one else wakes up. The attacks had begun six months prior, in June 2013, and while this is a country rife with sexual violence, the cases were rattling people. These were babies.

The town where the rapes were happening, Kavumu, is devastatingly poor, even by Congolese standards. Residents live in mud-and-stick or wood-slat shacks. Children often sleep crowded into one or two beds in a single room. It is not uncommon for eight youngsters to share such a space. So when men started stealing tiny girls in the dead of night, it was a mystery how no one woke up. Rumors swirled that the attacks were related to witchcraft  that the blood of these virgin girls was being used to fortify the rapists before battle. People said the perpetrators sprinkled a kind of magic sleeping powder over the houses of their victims while they carried out the abductions.

During the next year, the number of cases increased. By the time I wrote about them for Foreign Policy in April 2015, Panzi Hospital  Bukavus famous center for victims of sexual violence  had done what the hospitals medical director, Denis Mukwege, described as heavy surgery on 35 little girls. But still the ongoing attacks were being treated as individual cases, as though they were isolated events. As I was researching the story, I made several inquiries to top Congolese officials asking what the government planned to do to stop the crimes. Days before publication, the government hastily announced that it would launch a national investigation into the rapes in Kavumu. Good news, I thought  except nothing came of it for more than a year.

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I tried to follow up on how this national investigation was going, but the government  and specifically the office of Jeanine Mabunda, the countrys special representative on sexual violence  remained tight-lipped. After six months of making inquiries, I found out through Congolese sources that a single investigator had been put on the cases, but that he had not been given funding, training, or any other resources from Kinshasa. The former head of the North Kivu Sexual Violence Unit, Police Col. David Bodeli, had been called to the capital and told to solve the crimes  but that was it.

So I decided to go back to Congo to figure out what exactly was going on. The day I arrived in Bukavu in late December, a 3-year-old girl had landed at Panzi, having been abducted and gang-raped the night before. She couldnt walk because of the pain. In the same row of hospital beds in the sexual violence ward were two more girls who had been brought in the week before: One was five years old, and the other was six.

Over the following days, I talked to doctors, psychologists, community organizers, lawyers, civil society advocates, government officials, and waiters in restaurants  basically anyone in and around Bukavu and Kavumu who might know something about these crimes. I met dozens of parents and nine more girls who had been raped. With flat, traumatized expressions and choked-up voices, they told me of their ongoing terror and how they no longer slept.

This was a town in psychological ruin.

By the time I left Congo a couple of weeks later, however, I felt confident that there had been significant progress toward helping the victims. Coopera, a Spanish NGO, and Panzi Hospital were both providing the girls and their parents with counseling that the parents told me was helpful. There also appeared to be progress toward stopping the attacks: A task force made up of various U.N. offices, NGOs, and Panzi was working closely with Bodeli and providing him with resources to aid his investigation. And I had a suspect: Batumike Rugimbanya, a parliamentarian from the CCU Party (which is part of an alliance with President Joseph Kabilas ruling PPRD Party) who appeared to have created a local militia under his own leadership. A source close to the governments investigation also told me he believed Rugimbanya to be the ringleader of the group carrying out the attacks. Arrests, I believed, would come very soon.

That was at the beginning of January. Over the next five months, four more children were raped and Rugimbanya continued to walk free. All together, about 50 girls, aged 8 months to 11 years, had been brutally attacked. Two more had died from their injuries. Rather than wait any longer, I decided to write an op-ed in the Guardian asking why the Congolese government had not moved to arrest their suspect.

Then on Tuesday morning, 12 hours after my op-ed was published  and three years after the attacks began  the alleged ringleader was suddenly arrested along with 67 of his militiamen, who had clashed occasionally with the Congolese army. It was a swift early-morning raid involving 120 Congolese soldiers. No shots were fired, Bodeli told me by text message on Wednesday. The only man who had a gun, he said, was Rugimbanya.

These arrests are certainly a step in the right direction. But the real test of the governments commitment to stopping the rapes in Kavumu  and others like them elsewhere in the country  is what comes next.

Justice in Congo is notoriously nonfunctional, especially for its thousands of rape victims  not one of whom has been compensated despite court orders to pay out damages. Yet over the past few months, the task force working to stop the rapes in Kavumu managed to get the cases switched from the civilian justice system to the military one. This is a good thing: While the civilian system is considered to be basically a joke, according to multiple legal experts Ive interviewed, the military justice wing has managed to eke out a few convictions for mass crimes against civilians over the past few years.

Still, the military justice system leaves much to be desired. In the 2013 trial of 39 Congolese soldiers alleged to have raped at least 76 women in the town of Minova in South Kivu province, for example, only two rank-and-file soldiers were ultimately found guilty. No one at the command level was held responsible because of what one of the magistrates who worked on the case told me was a lack of evidence. That speaks to a dearth of investigative training and resources, something that hasnt improved much since then, according to legal experts. There is no system for DNA collection in the country, and even if there was, rape survivors are sometimes washed when they arrive at hospitals in a misguided effort to clean them.

But there are reasons to think the Kavumu cases could be successfully prosecuted. The doctors at Panzi Hospital have meticulously documented each rape victim they have treated, preserving all the physical evidence (although a number of the girls never made it all the way to that hospital). Physicians for Human Rights, a United States-based nonprofit, has successfully pushed to have the cases tried as a single mass crime. Despite the lack of resources from Kinshasa, Bodeli has investigated each attack immediately after the fact.

The men in custody have been charged with crimes against humanity, rape, murder, participation in an insurrection, and the assassination of military personnel, Bodeli said. One would hope that the international attention on this case will ensure a proper trial, although its not difficult to imagine the blame once again falling on one of the less powerful perpetrators or even bribes being paid to facilitate the main suspects escape.

But even if justice is served and Kavumus nightmare comes to an end, the victims will need years of psychological and medical support. Their families will also need to find a way to recover a sense of normalcy in a place where homes tend to be makeshift structures that cant be locked at night. The trauma of the community is profound, and its not clear that bringing the perpetrators to justice will be enough to soothe the souls that have been so damaged by this ordeal.

When I was in Kavumu five months ago, the father of one of the victims told me that he doesnt sleep anymore. You are scared they will come back to take the kids, he said. You have to wake up to touch if the children are there. One saving grace of what has happened this week, I hope, is that for now, perhaps, he and other parents can sleep soundly for the first time in years.

I dont know whether this will be true for the little girls. Their nightmare is a part of them, and their bodies, for life.

Photo credit: LIONEL HEALING/AFP/Getty Images
Suggested tagline for Gotham Season 3: Rise of the Epic Love Triangle.

The Fox drama has cast James Carpinello (The Good Wife, Person of Interest) to play the pivotal role of mob progeny Mario Falcone  and his first order of business appears to be whacking Jim (Ben McKenzie) and Lees (Morena Baccarin) romance.

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The son of feared mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Doman), Carpinellos Mario has rejected his familys criminal ways and made a legitimate life for himself as a well-respected, Ivy League-educated ER doctor. Hes kind, honest and trustworthy, making him the black sheep of the Falcone clan. But  and heres where the official character description gets interesting  his arrival in Gotham will create major waves in the personal life of Jim Gordon, who at the end of Season 2 left town to find and win back his fiancee Lee.

In addition to his stints on Good Wife and POI (which of course starred his real-life bride Amy Acker), Carpinello recurred on USA Networks In Plain Sight and was a regular on Foxs short-lived Mob Doctor.

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Carpinello joins a growing a list of recurring Season 3 guest stars that also includes Once Upon a Time warrior Jamie Chungs as Valerie Vale, Vickis Aunt and All My Children grad Maggie Geha as the new Poison Ivy. Casting, meanwhile, continues for the role of the Mad Hatter.

Gothams third season is set to debut on Monday, Sept. 19 at 8/7.

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Immigrant communities protested outside the US Supreme Court on Thursday, June 23, after the eight-member court deadlocked on a challenge President Barack Obamas plan to prevent deportation for immigrants who are the parents of citizens or lawful residents. The 4-4 tie left in place a lower court ruling blocking Obamas Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

In response to the court decision, immigration rights NGO United We Dream held a protest outside the Supreme Court, where a number of immigrants, mostly of Latino origin, shared their stories of coming to America and their disappointment surrounding the courts decision. Credit: Facebook/United We Dream
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / GREAT ATLANTIC RESOURCES CORP. (GR.V) (the "Company" or "Great Atlantic") announces that it intends to complete non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of up to 4,000,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.06 per Unit to raise up to maximum gross proceeds of $240,000. Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company and one transferable common share purchase warrant (each a "Warrant"). Each Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one additional common share for a period of 5 years at an exercise price of $0.10 As part of this non-brokered financing, the Warrants are subject to an acceleration clause. This clause states that if after the Warrants are issued, the closing price of the common shares of the Company, on the principal market on which such shares trade, is equal to, or exceeds, $0.15 for 10 consecutive days, the Warrant expiry date shall accelerate to a date 10 calendar days after issuance of a press release by the Company announcing that reduced warrant term.

A portion of the Private Placement will be completed in accordance with the exemption set out in BC Instrument 45-536 (Exemption from prospectus requirement for certain distributions through an investment dealer) (the "Investment Dealer Exemption").

Assuming the Private Placement is fully subscribed, the Company plans to allocate the gross proceeds of the Private Placement to: (i) completion of mineral exploration work on the Company's mineral properties ($150,000); (ii) payment of certain professional fees ($ 30,000) and (iii) general working capital ($60,000).

If the Private Placement is not fully subscribed, the Company will apply the proceeds to the above uses in priority and in such proportions as the board of directors and management of the Company determine is in the best interests of the Company. Although the Company intends to use the proceeds of the Private Placement as described above, the actual allocation of proceeds may vary from the uses set out above depending on future operations, unforeseen events or opportunities.

In accordance with the requirements of the Investment Dealer Exemption, the Company confirms there is no material fact or material change related to the Company which has not been generally disclosed.

The Company may also pay a finder's fee in accordance with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable securities legislation. This financing is subject to TSX Venture approval.

About Great Atlantic Resources Corp.: Great Atlantic Resources Corp. is a Canadian exploration company focused on the discovery and development of mineral assets in Atlantic Canada. Great Atlantic is currently building the company utilizing a project generation model, with a focus on antimony, tungsten and gold.

On Behalf of the board of directors

"Lorne Mann"

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein in the United States. The securities described herein have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities law and may not be offered or sold in the "United States", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act, unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to the private placement financing and obtaining TSX-V approval, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements and Great Atlantic undertakes no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that the proposed Transaction will be completed or, if completed, will be successful.

Forward-looking statements are based on the then-current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about the business and the industry and markets in which the Company operates, including that: the current price of and demand for minerals being targeted by the Company will be sustained or will improve; the Company's current exploration programs and objectives can be achieved; the Company will be able to obtain required exploration licences and other permits; general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner; financing will be available if and when needed on reasonable terms; the Company will not experience any material accident; and the Company will be able to identify and acquire additional mineral interests on reasonable terms or at all. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions which are difficult to predict. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including that resource exploration and development is a speculative business; that the Company may lose or abandon its property interests or may fail to receive necessary licences and permits; that environmental laws and regulations may become more onerous; that the Company may not be able to raise additional funds when necessary; potential defects in title to the Company's properties; fluctuations in currency exchange rates; fluctuating prices of commodities; operating hazards and risks; competition; potential inability to find suitable acquisition opportunities and/or complete the same; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the Company's public filings. These risks, as well as others, could cause actual results and events to vary significantly. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information, or the material factors or assumptions used to develop such forward looking information, will prove to be accurate. The Company does not undertake any obligations to release publicly any revisions for updating any voluntary forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law.



Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Great Atlantic Resource Corp

888 Dunsmuir Street - Suite 888, Vancouver, B.C., V6C 3K4

SOURCE: Great Atlantic Resources Corp.
A gunman has been shot dead after opening fire at a German movie theater near Frankfurt on Thursday, June 23, Reuters reports. The unidentified male reportedly injured between 20 and 50 people and was holding hostages.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost

According to USA Today, the shooter was wearing a cartridge belt around his shoulder when he entered the complex, which is located in the small western town Viernheim. Dozens of theatergoers screamed and ran when they heard shots fired. (In July 2015, gunman John Russell Houser killed two people at a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater during a showing of Trainwreck.)

The Germany incident comes less than two weeks after the shooting massacre at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando on June 12. Gunman Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people and injured 53 others at the time, and he was killed by authorities at the scene.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Injuries

The Orlando shooting sparked thousands of vigils worldwide. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden privately met with families of the survivors and victims' families days later. POTUS, 54, addressed the incident from the White House briefing room on June 12.

"We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand for the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city," he said. "As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people."

Celebrity Health Scares

The fight over gun control has only further ignited since the tragedy. On Wednesday, more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers began a sit-in at the House of Representatives to demand a vote on gun-control legislation. Republicans went on their prescheduled recess and were slammed on social media for going on vacation until July 5. The Democrats held up photos of victims of gun violence, chanted "No bill, no break!" and repeatedly shouted "Shame!" when House Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to reconvene the chamber. He left the podium after just a few minutes. As of Thursday morning, the Democratic lawmakers have been protesting for almost 24 hours.

Story is still breaking. More updates to come about the Germany attack.






CALABAR, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen in southern Nigeria have killed a local driver and kidnapped as many as seven people, at least three of whom are Australian citizens and one an Australian resident, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday. There was some initial confusion over the number of victims and nationalities of those involved, as police in Nigeria gave conflicting accounts. The workers, two of whom police said later escaped, were contractors for cement company Lafarge Africa. They were attacked on the outskirts of the city of Calabar at around 05:30 a.m., police said. Calabar is a coastal city 570 kms (354 miles) east of Lagos, and the capital of Cross River State in the Niger Delta region, where both criminal gangs and militants have been active. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the incident a "very serious kidnapping" in response to a journalist's question and urged calm in reporting the incident. "These are the facts as we know them: three Australians and one Australian resident were among seven people kidnapped in an attack on an Australia contractor's operations in Nigeria. One person was killed in the attack," Turnbull told reporters. Two expatriates managed to flee, said Irene Ugbo, a spokeswoman for Cross River state police, adding that she did not know the nationality of any of the workers feared still held. Ugbo had earlier said that only two of the kidnapped were Australians, and one was a New Zealander, while another police officer said a South African had been abducted. The kidnappers had not contacted police, she said. Kidnappings of foreigners are common in the Delta region, which holds most of the crude oil whose sales make about 70 percent of Nigeria's national income. OPEC member Nigeria was Africa's top oil producer until a recent spate of attacks on oil facilities pushed it behind Angola. Production has fallen from 2.2 million barrels at the start of the year to around 1.6 million barrels, helping push up global oil prices. Lafarge Africa said it had been informed of the incident by Australian contractor Macmahon. "Macmahon is working with the security agencies to resolve this situation," said Viola Graham-Douglas, a spokeswoman for Lafarge Africa. Macmahon Holdings Ltd, which was placed on a trading halt in the wake of the incident, confirmed the incident in a statement late on Thursday. "We are working to ensure the safe return of all the men involved and are in communication with their families," the company said. "Macmahon is providing support to the mens families and we ask the media to respect their privacy at this time. Counseling has also been made available for all Macmahon employees and their families." (Reporting by Ani Akpan, Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Alexis Akwagyiram and Matt Siegel and Jim Regan in SYDNEY; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Andrew Roche and Simon Cameron-Moore)
CALABAR, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen in southern Nigeria have killed a local driver and kidnapped as many as seven people, at least three of whom are Australian citizens and one an Australian resident, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday. There was some initial confusion over the number of victims and nationalities of those involved, as police in Nigeria gave conflicting accounts. The workers, two of whom police said later escaped, were contractors for cement company Lafarge Africa. They were attacked on the outskirts of the city of Calabar at around 05:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), police said. Calabar is a coastal city 570 kms (354 miles) east of Lagos, and the capital of Cross River State in the Niger Delta region, where both criminal gangs and militants have been active. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the incident a "very serious kidnapping" in response to a journalist's question and urged calm in reporting the incident. "These are the facts as we know them: three Australians and one Australian resident were among seven people kidnapped in an attack on an Australia contractor's operations in Nigeria. One person was killed in the attack," Turnbull told reporters. Two expatriates managed to flee, said Irene Ugbo, a spokeswoman for Cross River state police, adding that she did not know the nationality of any of the workers feared still held. Ugbo had earlier said that only two of the kidnapped were Australians, and one was a New Zealander, while another police officer said a South African had been abducted. The kidnappers had not contacted police, she said. Kidnappings of foreigners are common in the Delta region, which holds most of the crude oil whose sales make about 70 percent of Nigeria's national income. OPEC member Nigeria was Africa's top oil producer until a recent spate of attacks on oil facilities pushed it behind Angola. Production has fallen from 2.2 million barrels at the start of the year to around 1.6 million barrels, helping push up global oil prices. Lafarge Africa said it had been informed of the incident by Australian contractor Macmahon. "Macmahon is working with the security agencies to resolve this situation," said Viola Graham-Douglas, a spokeswoman for Lafarge Africa. Macmahon Holdings Ltd, which was placed on a trading halt in the wake of the incident, confirmed the incident in a statement late on Thursday. [nASX5GBQJ] "We are working to ensure the safe return of all the men involved and are in communication with their families," the company said. "Macmahon is providing support to the mens families and we ask the media to respect their privacy at this time. Counselling has also been made available for all Macmahon employees and their families." (Reporting by Ani Akpan, Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Alexis Akwagyiram and Matt Siegel and Jim Regan in Sydney. Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Andrew Roche and Simon Cameron-Moore)
Its a big week for Wall Street. Minutes before polls close in the U.K. on the Brexit vote Thursday, the Fed is set to release its first round of stress-test results, followed by a second round of results next Wednesday. The tests are used to determine whether or not the largest banks could weather a major crisis, such as Britain leaving the EU, and whether they can boost their dividend payout to shareholders.

Hal Scott, Harvard professor and author of the new book Connectedness and Contagion, told Yahoo Finances Seana Smith that bank stress tests are not enough to avert financial crises, and that contagion acts as a bigger threat than "too big to fail.

After the 2008 crisis we greatly increased bank capital. Thats good; its now around 15% of equity for the largest banks, said Scott. But in a financial panic, 15% of capital is nowhere near enough to withstand the effect of a run on a financial system. Unlike 2008, where the Fed had very strong powers, to help stop a contagious run, were much less able to deal with that now because those powers have been restricted.

The issue of whether banks had enough capital to withstand a crisis came to the light earlier this year, when the Federal Reserve and FDIC rejected the living wills of Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), Wells Fargo (WFC) and State Street.

In terms of which bank is under the most pressure in regards to this weeks stress test, Scott says theres no particular bank thats feeling the heat. Instead, its "a system wide issue if there is a problem at all."

The Fed is assessing 33 institutions this year, two more than last year. The tests will be on both U.S.-based banks and the U.S. units of big global banks.
If your state exports goods and services to China or Mexico, you may want to pay closer attention to the presidential candidates' positions on global trade .



After decades of liberalized trade deals and lower tariffs helped boost import and export traffic around the world, the engine of global trade is slowing. That's one reason the overall pace of the global economic growth remains relatively weak.

That wave of globalization has also produced a backlash  from American voters who've lost their jobs to British voters who go to the polls Thursday to decide whether to reclaim their independence from the European Union.



In the United States, anti-free-trade sentiment has propelled real estate developer Donald Trump to the front of the GOP pack of presidential candidates, including a pledge to reverse the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, the two top U.S. trade partners.



"We will either renegotiate it or we will break it," Trump said last fall, calling it "a disaster. Every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair."

Trump has also vowed to raise tariffs on Mexico and China. Those higher tariffs would almost certainly cut into U.S. exports, which represent about $2 trillion, or roughly one-eighth of the nation's gross domestic product.

But that impact varies widely from one U.S. state to another, with West Coast states more heavily reliant on Chinese markets and border states seeing the biggest demand from Mexico.

China represents the third-largest U.S. export market, after Canada and Mexico, accounting for nearly $120 billion worth of goods last year. Overall, that represents less than 8 percent of U.S. exports  or less than 1 percent of total gross domestic product.

But the Chinese market is a much bigger deal for a handful of West Coast states.



Among the most dependent: Washington, which sold roughly 20 percent of its exports to China last year, or nearly $19 billion worth of goods. Airplanes, the state's largest export by far, made up the bulk of the state's sales to China.

Story continues

California exports some $16 billion to mainland China, with computers and electronics accounting for more than a quarter of the total. Texas was the third-largest exporter to China, with more than $11 billion worth of products that included chemicals, computers and machinery.

Alaska, which exports a smaller volume of goods, sends $1.5 billion worth of its exports  a quarter of the total  to China. Roughly half of that consists of seafood.

U.S. farm states are also big exporters to China, which is the biggest single market for American agricultural products. Some 20 percent of all U.S. farm exports are sold to China, which bought $30 billion worth of food and other farm products in fiscal year 2014, including soybeans, distillers' grains, hides and skins, tree nuts, coarse grains, cotton and beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mexico  the second-largest U.S. market  bought $236 billion, or nearly 16 percent of last year's total sale of goods and services overseas. Those sales supported an estimated 1.1 million jobs in 2014, according to the latest data available from the Department of Commerce.



The top Texas products sold south of the border include computers ($95 billion last year), transportation equipment ($24 billion) and oil and chemicals ($23 billion).

Other border states also depend heavily on Mexico as a buyer of exports. New Mexico sends 45 percent of its exports south of the border.

But even as the pace of global trade slows, so does support for a pair of deals designed to revive it.

After years of talks and months of high-profile meetings and speeches to win approval, the White House so far has failed to convince Congress  or voters  that lowering trade barriers with Europe and Asia will help boost the growth of the U.S. economy.

Earlier this year, President Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to try to win backing for the so-called Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership , aimed at boosting trade between the U.S. and European economies. The United States is Germany's biggest trading partner.

Supporters of the sweeping deal being negotiated with 28 European Union countries say it could add $100 billion a year to U.S. exports.

The Obama administration's Asia-Pacific trade deal has also gotten a chilly reception from the Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.

The former Secretary of State, who initially supported the idea of expanding Asia-Pacific trade, has come out against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying she doesn't like the terms. (Clinton hasn't taken a position on the ongoing talks to reach a deal with Europe.)

The White House has acknowledged it faces an uphill battle selling trade deals to a skeptical public.

"I think that we have to do a better job  to counteract voices that are distorting the reality of trade agreements," U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker told CNBC earlier this year.

But with little support from the presidential candidates, the deal's future is not looking bright.

Obama has conceded as much in his efforts to win support.

"If we don't complete negotiations this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe could mean this agreement won't be finished for quite some time," Obama said at a news conference earlier this year.

 By CNBC's John Schoen. Follow him on Twitter @johnwschoen or email him.







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On Tuesday, Google bought a high-speed internet provider called Webpass, and is rolling it into its Google Fiber unit.

Google Fiber is one of the most ambitious projects in Alphabet (the holding company that contains Google and several other businesses). It is aiming to provide much faster internet access than the cable and telco providers in the US today. But it won't roll out across the entire country right away. As this map shows, it started relatively small, with cities like Kansas City (2012), Provo, Utah (2013), and Austin, Texas (2013). But Google eventually plans to roll it out in big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, as this map shows.

COTD 062306

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Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton condemned Thursday's Supreme Court deadlock that blocked President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, calling the decision "unacceptable."

She added that the ruling showed "us all just how high the stakes are in this election."

"As I have consistently said, I believe that President Obama acted well within his constitutional and legal authority in issuing the DAPA [Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents] and DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] executive actions," she said in a statement.

"These are our friends and family members; neighbors and classmates; DREAMers and parents of Americans and lawful permanent residents. They enrich our communities and contribute to our economy every day. We should be doing everything possible under the law to provide them relief from the specter of deportation."

She called the court's decision "purely procedural" and added that it "casts no doubt on the fact that DAPA and DACA are entirely within the President's legal authority."

"This decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court," she said. "Our families and our country need and deserve a full bench, and Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote."

The presumptive Democratic nominee said the ruling is a "stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country."

"Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama's executive actions on his first day in office," she said. "He has called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers.' He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes."

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando, Florida, at the White House in Washington, U.S., June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

In a 4-4 decision, the court ruled in United States v. Texas to enforce the prior decision of a lower court, which effectively blocks Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants living in the country illegally from deportation and ends the initiative through the end of his presidency.

Story continues

The ninth seat on the court is vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.

The court heard in mid-April the challenge to Obama's signature immigration-related actions in what was one of the most closely watched cases of its term. The court appeared "deadlocked" in the case.

It's a huge blow for the Obama administration, and it raises the stakes for November's election, as it hands off the issue to the next president.

House Speaker Paul Ryan quickly made a statement after the decision was announced. The Wisconsin Republican said the decision "vindicated" Article 1 of the Constitution.

"The Supreme Court's ruling makes the president's executive action on immigration null and void," he said in the statement. "The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers."

Obama's executive actions, proposed in 2014, aimed to focus deportation efforts on criminally engaged immigrants while providing relief to those who reside in the country illegally but are otherwise law-abiding and meet certain qualifications.

Soon after, lawyers representing Texas and 25 other Republican-led states filed a suit in federal court in Brownsville, Texas. Those states claimed that the costs of issuing state identification cards to the immigrants would be a heavy burden. A US district judge sided with the states, saying they had the standing to sue the federal government. That decision was upheld last year in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

During the challenge, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, one of whose votes the Obama administration would have needed to prevail in the case, "sharply questioned" the administration's attorney, according to The Los Angeles Times.

"Kennedy said Congress, not the president, had the authority to decide which groups of immigrants could stay lawfully in the United States," the paper reported.

"It is a legislative act, not an executive act," Kennedy said, according to The Times.

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As House Democrats embarked on the 11th hour of their sit-in over gun legislation, members of the Hollywood community expressed their support on social media.

The sit-in began Wednesday morning as the Democrats took to the House floor demanding a vote on universal background checks and sale bans for those on the suspected terrorist list. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan instead called a recess, leading to all House cameras and microphones being shut off.

Also Read: Paul Ryan Cuts Off C-SPAN Access During Democrats' Gun Control Sit-In

Captain America: Civil War star Chris Evans echoed the sentiments expressed by House Democrats currently protesting.

We need commo n s ense gun reform. And to be clear, NO ONE IS TAKING AWAY GUNS! Evans tweeted. Just looking for COMMON SENSE reform.

I'm proud of this sit-in. We need common sense gun reform. And to be clear, NO ONE IS TAKING AWAY GUNS! Just looking for COMMON SENSE reform  Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) June 22, 2016

Brandon Routh, who played the titular character in Superman Returns, echoed Evans sentiments, saying I stand with Cap!

Heather Matarazzo, who starred in The Princess Diaries called the sit-in a revolution.

This is what a revolution looks like and it makes me proud. Keep going @HouseDemocrats #NoBillNoBreak https://t.co/dGEH1oes55  Heather Matarazzo (@HeatherMatarazz) June 23, 2016

Even Kim Kardashian West urged her followers to text Congress and demand that they vote on gun control  and claiming the powers that be had gone on vacation.

Story continues

Although Clueless star and Fox News contributor Stacey Dash took to Twitter and Instagram to ridicule the sit-in, several others  including Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Banks, The Office star Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, and Judd Apatow  tweeted otherwise.

Read their tweets below:

What an incredible moment in history watching our reps sit-in for our rights! #NoBillNoBreak  Laura Dern (@LauraDern) June 22, 2016

#nobillnobreak I still cry when I think of those children in Newtown. And yet, nothing was done. We have had enough! https://t.co/cNFiCw9KTG  christina applegate (@1capplegate) June 22, 2016

NOW: Dozens of House champs stage historic sit-in on House floor to demand a vote on gun safety. text DEMAND ACTION to 644-33 to support  Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) June 22, 2016

.@repjohnlewis never have I felt more proud of my representation. Never have I felt so REPRESENTED. I am floored & awed #NoBillNoBreak  zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) June 23, 2016

Proud to be a democrat watching @repjohnlewis & all standing up for sensible gun legislation. #NoBillNoBreak Text DEMAND ACTION to 644-33.  Elizabeth Perkins (@Elizbethperkins) June 23, 2016

Patriots one and all. Thank you from my heart, Mr. Lewis et al. Getting my pride in USA back. @RepJohnLewis #HoldThefFoor #NoBillNoBreak  Nancy Sinatra (@NancySinatra) June 23, 2016

No matter what happens, today is the day @SpeakerRyan and the GOP got pwned by civil rights hero @repjohnlewis & CSPAN#nobillnobreak  Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) June 23, 2016

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Bernie Sanders Supporters Pummel Civil Rights Hero John Lewis on Twitter (Video)
By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts' top court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a homeless man who had been found guilty of criminal trespassing for sleeping in a mixed-use building during the winter of 2014, ruling he had a legal right to argue that there was no safer alternative.

David Magadini, a 67-year-old homeless man, was repeatedly arrested by police in Great Barrington, in the state's hilly west, for sleeping in the mixed-use commercial building to escape frigid cold.

He was eventually convicted of trespassing after a trial in which a judge overruled his lawyers' request that the jury be informed of the "necessity defense," which can excuse a person for a reasonable violation of a law to preserve his or her life.

"The judge erred in denying the defendant's request for an instruction on the defense of necessity," Geraldine Hines, associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, wrote in Thursday's unanimous decision.

Hines noted that Magadini had been arrested during nighttime hours in the winter months, when the town regularly had temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8 C).

"There appears to be little question that the weather conditions on the dates of the offenses in February and March presented a 'clear and imminent danger' to a homeless person," Hines wrote.

The court upheld Magadini's conviction in connection with another trespassing incident, which occurred at midday in June in a ice cream shop's restroom.

The state had argued that his conviction was proper, and that he had created a danger to himself by refusing to move out of a city where he could not afford to live and had been banned from a local homeless shelter.

"Today's landmark ruling affirmed that our law does not permit the punishment of the homeless for simply being homeless," said Jessie Rossman, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which had acted in support of Magadini in the case.

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Traditionally, courts apply the necessity defense to the choices that a person could make at the time he or she chooses to break the law, she said.

"We've never looked to see if someone could make different life choices to avoid getting to that position in the first place," Rossman said in a telephone interview.

David Capeless, the district attorney for Berkshire County who brought the case, said he was disappointed with the ruling.

"We thought the judge had done the right thing, but the Supreme Judicial Court has reinvented the case law in this," Capeless said in a telephone interview.

The number of homeless people in Massachusetts has about doubled since 1990, according to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.

Homeless populations are difficult to measure, but according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development there were 21,135 homeless people in Massachusetts at the beginning of 2015.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung has been charged with failing to declare a donation of HK$250,000 ($32,000) from a media tycoon and outspoken critic of China, the Chinese-ruled city's corruption watchdog said on Thursday. The charge comes at a time of mounting political tension in Hong Kong with a growing trend of radical activists forming political groups and staging disruptive protests calling for democracy for Hong Kong or independence. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said Leung, 60, a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council and a strident China critic who frequently heckles officials, was charged with one count of misconduct in public office. It said Leung concealed the payment from the Legislative Council in May 2012 from Jimmy Lai, the owner of pro-democracy Next Media Ltd which publishes the Apple Daily tabloid. "The charge comes really close to the Legislative Council election," Leung told Reuters. "It might hurt the images of pan-democrats before the election." He was not able to comment further and the ICAC did not give details of the payment. He is due to appear in court on Friday after being released on bail. The idea of Hong Kong independence is anathema to Communist Party rulers in Beijing, who fear any separatist or sweeping democratic demands spilling into China, undermining their power. Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula, allowing it freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland. The Legislative Council election is in September. (Reporting by Farah Master and Sharon Shi; Editing by Nick Macfie)
A veteran pro-democracy lawmaker was charged Thursday by Hong Kong's corruption bureau over a payment from one of the city's best-known anti-China media tycoons, in a case he described as a political move.

Leung Kwok-hung -- known locally as "Long Hair" -- is a prominent activist from the League of Social Democrats. He was arrested and charged with one count of misconduct in public office by the city's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

He is accused of receiving HK$250,000 ($32,000) "in relation to his public office" from the founder of Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai. The paper is highly critical of Beijing.

Leung told AFP his arrest had "political meaning" just months before the city holds parliamentary elections.

It comes as fears grow in Hong Kong that China is tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city and that the local government is increasingly influenced by Beijing.

Those concerns have been exacerbated following the recent revelations by Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee about his eight-month detention in China.

Lam is one of five city booksellers known for selling gossipy titles about Beijing politicians who have disappeared and later resurfaced in China. He claimed he was kept in a cell, blindfolded and interrogated.

- 'Political meaning' -

With his trademark ponytail and Che Guevara T-shirts, Leung has been a defiant figure in Hong Kong's legislature since winning a seat in 2004.

"Everyone in Hong Kong will understand what it means," he said of his arrest.

"I am a very well known opposition (figure) of Hong Kong, there might be some kind of political meaning," he told AFP.

"It will create a lot of political effect just before the next election."

When asked if he denied the charge, Leung said: "I'll do it in court formally".

Leung has not revealed whether he will stand in the September parliamentary vote.

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Lai's spokesman Mark Simon said they had no comment.

A government statement on Thursday said Leung, 60, was charged with "wilfully and intentionally," carrying out misconduct by failing to declare the acceptance of HK$250,000 from Lai between May 2012 and June 2016.

"The case arose from a corruption complaint," the statement said.

Leung is on bail and will appear at a magistrates court Friday morning.

His activism has already landed him in jail several times.

In 2014, he spent four weeks behind bars for criminal damage and disorderly behaviour during a political protest, and in 2002, he was jailed for two weeks after protesting inside the legislative council chambers before he became a lawmaker.

A parliamentary committee decided late last year that Leung and another lawmaker did not breach political donation rules after they received payments from Lai in a separate case.

Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997 and is ruled under a "one country, two systems" deal which allows it much greater liberties than seen on the mainland.

But tensions are high amid fears Beijing's influence is increasing and freedoms are being eroded.
Visually arresting Prague welcomes the world during summer months. Traditional architecture abounds in this riverside capital dotted with cobblestone-paved medieval streets and Baroque buildings. These leading hotels and restaurants confirm Pragues reputation as a destination offering sophisticated options to bizzers working on location. Heres a small sample of worthwhile places to stay and to eat.

HOTELS

Ecclesiastical pedigree: Augustine, Prague

Pragues mix of architectural eras is in evidence at Augustine, located in the picturesque Lesser Town district. The 101-room hotel includes seven buildings, the oldest dating back to 1284. It was was once home to Augustinian monks. Remnants of the St. Thomas Monastery now serve as bar and restaurant spaces. In a nod to its past as a monastic brewery, Augustine has its own dark lager brewed specifically for the hotel.

Castle view: Four Seasons Hotel Prague

Located in the citys historic center, the 157-room Four Seasons Hotel Prague draws bold-faced names and execs to its artfully renovated collection of buildings. All major monuments are close; studios are a 15-minute drive. During the summer, tour the Vltava River via the Four Seasons deluxe river cruiser for a waters-eye view of the citys numerous scenic bridges. Opening this summer: a spa complete with mineral water baths and treatments inspired by such Czech spa towns as Karlovy Vary. CottoCrudo, the on-site Italian restaurant, earns high marks for its seafood specialties and housemade pastas.

Gleaming tower: Corinthia Hotel Prague

The film Crossing Lines transformed the lobby of the 539-room Corinthia Hotel Prague (pictured above) into the fictional Hyperion Hotel for a recent episode. The glass-walled contemporary structure has several restaurants, an indoor pool and spa on the top floor, and a convenient executive lounge. Free train-station pickup is available. Book a Behind the Iron Curtain walking tour through the hotel for a firsthand look at Czechoslovakias dark days under communism. The Corinthia Hotel Prague

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Monastic roots: Mandarin Oriental, Prague

Once a Dominican monastery, the 99-room Mandarin Oriental combines 800 years of architecture and a unique attribute among luxury hotels: The spa is located in a former Renaissance chapel. Asian specialties are served at the Spices Restaurant and Bar; its barrel-vaulted ceilings are another nod to the past. Located in the citys historic core, its a 30-minute drive to the Barrandov Film Studio.

RESTAURANTS

Modernist cuisine: Field Restaurant

An exceptional seasonal concept  with an inventive use of Czech ingredients  awaits adventurous diners who seek out the year-old Field for its creative presentations of traditional continental dishes including frog legs, goose liver, and beef brisket. Refurbished farm implements are used as decor in the contemporary-styled dining room. Field is one of three Prague restaurants with a Michelin star.

Brilliant Italian: Divinis

Wide, wood-plank floors give Divinis, an upscale Italian eatery in the heart of Old Town, a rustic finish. Swordfish carpaccio, veal cheeks, rib-eye steak, and such exquisite desserts as marsala tiramisu are among the refined standouts; the wine list includes central European and Italian varietals.

Pan-Asian mix: SaSaZu

Ex-pats flock to SaSaZu, which melds Southeast Asian cuisines. Open midday to late night, the kitchen serves up fragrant soups, grilled tamarind duck, and vegetarian curries, among many others. Book a quick neck massage between courses for the complete experience.

Film theme: AnonymouS Bar

V for Vendetta inspired the interiors of the high-concept AnonymouS Bar, where bartenders  in Guy Fawkes masks, no less  craft imaginative cocktails. A wide selection of top-flight spirits are available, all served with theatrical flourish.

Related stories

Rebate Boosts Business at Czech Anglo Productions

Czech Republic: Resources Grow as Foreigners Flock In

American Expat Rick McCallum Finds Home in Prague
US Rep. John Lewis addressed his fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday, June 23, as they broke their sit-in to call for votes on gun control measures. The sit-in lasted more than 24 hours, including a time when the Republicans called the House back into session for a vote.

The fight for gun control measures is a struggle, Lewis said. We are going to win the struggle, he said.

We must never ever give up or give in, he said.

Lewis also spoke about protesting during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. He spoke about sitting in during the movement and being told they would be arrested. I was arrested and I went to jail, but even in jail I felt free, he said.

Lewis then led the Democrats outside the US Capitol to address the protesters who had gathered there to support the sit-in.

Lewis, whose skull was fractured during whats known as Bloody Sunday in Selma in the 1960s, started the protest on Wednesday with a speech on the House floor. Republicans quickly called the House into recess before returning just after 10pm for about one hour for a vote. The House is in recess until after July 4. Credit: Facebook/Cory Booker
The fight is only just beginning. Democrats were eager to impress that message upon a crowd that gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon after emerging from a sit-in on the House floor demanding action on gun control that lasted more than 24-hours.

Dont give up, dont give in, the Democratic congressman and civil-rights leader John Lewis said as onlookers waved rainbow-colored signs that read Disarm Hate. The crowd began to sing the civil-rights protest anthem We Shall Overcome, with lyrics slightly modified to suit moment: We shall pass a bill someday. A woman recording a video on her cellphone remarked aloud, This is history, baby, to no one in particular.

The sit-in was an unusual moment of protest inside the United States Congress. The willingness to make such a bold, publicity-ready move suggests the Democratic Party feels emboldened to demand action on gun control in the wake of a tragic mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub earlier this month. In the end, however, Democrats did not succeed in securing a vote on the gun-control measures they had hoped for in staging the protest.

Recommended: How American Politics Went Insane

Faced with that failure, Democrats insist this is only the beginning. Were going to continue to work, Lewis said in a brief interview outside the Capitol. Many people are supporting our efforts, he said. People all over America and around the world are supporting our efforts to do something about gun violence.

The sit-in may also indicate that House Democrats are increasingly willing to make use of confrontational tactics to make their voices heard. Its not just about guns, the Democratic congressman James Clyburn said in an interview. This particular issue is about guns, but this is just the start  I wouldnt get hung-up on sit-ins, but I would call it activism.

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seemed reluctant to declare that this will be the way Democrats try to get their message on future issues. No, I think you have to just take it on a day-to-day basis, she said at Thursdays press conference. She called the sit-in a reflection of the the complete insistence that we cannot go through another moment of silence without taking action on gun violence.

The sit-in seemed to intensify the divide between Democrats and Republicans on guns. House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced the action as a publicity stunt, during an interview with CNN. This is not about a solution to a problem, he said. This is about trying to get attention. House Republicans expressed frustration over the Democrats action, describing the event as a political distraction and a way to obstruct the business of legislating.

Recommended: The Republican Partys White Strategy

In an interview, the Republican congressman Mark Meadows said that while it is certainly within every members right to be able to articulate their concerns, he disagreed with the tactics deployed by Democrats. As Yoni Appelbaum noted, even having phones switched on, much less snapping photos, tweeting updates, or periscoping the proceedings, is a violation of the rules of the Houseall common sights during the sit-in.I think it poses a very bad precedent and quite frankly other nations are watching what is happening, Meadows said.

The Democrats agenda faced criticism from progressives as well. Democrats were agitating for a vote on measures to expand background checks for gun purchases and prevent suspected terrorists from buying the weapons. As The Intercepts Zaid Jilani wrote, the unusually bold and moving tactic was undercut by the fact that its chief goal is a political gimmick that would do little to stop gun violence, while expanding the use of a deeply flawed anti-terror watchlist.

In spite of various criticisms, many House Democrats appeared defiant and energetic Thursday afternoon. The American public has been crying out for help on this issue, for their families, for their kids, and we said We hear you, were listening to you and, were going to do something about it, the Democratic congresswoman Rosa DeLauro said in an interview. We may leave here today, but everybody is going home to a district where theyre going to take this fight on, and in addition to that we get back on July 5th and nothing changes. Weve only just begun.

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Other Democrats reveled in the fact that they had been able to broadcast to a wide audience using social media. Beto ORourke, a Democratic congressman from Texas who live-streamed the Sit-in on Facebook, said, In a one-hour period, when I was streaming, we received 10,000 comments. He pointed to his social-media metrics as evidence of the events resonance. There was obviously a lot of pent-up urgency and excitement about this.

For now, it seems unlikely that House Democrats will win the votes they seek on gun control. But their agitation on the issue will probably continue, and maybe increase. Clare Foran

02:25 PM Nora KellyLink

Roll Call photographer Tom Williams tweeted several images of the scene outside the Capitol this afternoon. House Democrats addressed on-lookers after concluding their sit-in at roughly 1 p.m.

01:47 PM Andrew McGill Link

It was an odd juxtaposition, this sit-in. Led by Representative John Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights movement, it drew its spirit from the non-violent protests at lunch counters and bus terminals across the South that ignited national interest and eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Throughout the day Wednesday, black Democrats shared stories of people shot and killed in their communities, driving home the point that gun violence is not merely a problem of policyit is also a matter of race and justice.

But some have pointed out the incivility of the proposal the sit-in supports, the so-called no-fly, no-buy bill.

Thanks for sitting in. Let's ditch racist no-fly-buy bill and make this a movement for the real fight against guns. https://t.co/W8geMD6sgJ  Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) June 23, 2016

As the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the Senate version of the no-fly bill, argued in a letter, government terrorist watch lists have long been criticized for targeting Muslims with little evidence:

Publicly available information and the ACLUs experience with people who know or credibly suspect that they have been watchlisted raises serious concerns that the government applies the watchlists in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion, particularly against American Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities. An internal August 2013 government document, for example, shows that Dearborn, Michiganhome to the countrys largest concentration ofArab-Americanswas second only to New York City in the number of people on the governments known or suspected terrorist watchlist. This was despite the fact that, as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan noted at the time, not a single person from Dearborn had ever been prosecuted for terrorism.

Granted, Democrats also want other things, including stronger background checks and a ban on assault weapons. But while the central chant of no-fly, no-buy may incrementally help solve one civil-rights crisisthe slaughter of people of color by gunssome say it unfortunately worsens another.

01:09 PM Nora KellyLink

House Democrats are now hugging, shaking hands, and taking photos on the floor. The sit-in is now over, and they plan to address supporters outside the Capitol in the next few minutes.

01:06 PM Nora KellyLink

Georgia Representative John Lewis, who helped lead the House sit-in, is addressing his fellow members on the floor right now. Were gonna win the struggle, Lewis said, calling for members and constituents to organize. To his colleagues, he said: You got it out there, you got in the way, you got in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. So we must never give up or give in. We must keep the faith and come back here on July 5, more determined than ever before."

12:59 PM Nora KellyLink

It sounds like House Democrats might be wrapping up their sit-in. They held a meeting earlier today on steps forward. Were going back to our congressional districts...and we will not allow this body to ever feel as comfortable as they have felt in the past silencing our voices, South Carolinas James Clyburn just said on the floor. They'll return on July 5, he notes, and we will be operating on a new sense of purpose."

12:06 PM Nora KellyLink

House Speaker Paul Ryan's disdain for Democrats' sit-in is clear: I don't think this should be a very proud moment for democracy or for the people who stage these stunts.

Ryan, speaking at his weekly press briefing Thursday morning, seemed agitated, criticizing Democrats for violating the norms of the House. He told reporters that he was worried about the precedent the sit-in could set, and hit Democrats for sending fundraising missives off the sit-in.

If this is not a political stunt, then why are they trying to raise money off thisoff of a tragedy? Ryan said.

11:57 AM Priscilla AlvarezLink

Social media has played a critical role in the House sit-in. Democrats used platforms, such as Periscope, to live stream from the chamber floor when C-SPAN was unable to air the protests. Similarly, the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak and #HoldTheFloor took off on Twitter. Politicos Carla Marinucci reports:

Reported by @Twitter: In the last 24 hours, #NoBillNoBreak and #HoldTheFloor have been Tweeted 1.4M times.  Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) June 23, 2016

11:36 AM Andrew McGillLink

It appears some Democratic members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives are staging a sit-in of their own in the state capitol. Local reports say about dozen legislators are participating.

In solidarity with our friends in DC, #NHHouseDems are sitting in today in Concord. #DemocraticSitIn #NHPolitics pic.twitter.com/WuAjJkhomE  NH House Dem Caucus (@NHHouseDems) June 23, 2016

While Periscope was the Democrats' streaming app of choice on Wednesday amid a broadcast blackout, the New Hampshire legislators are recording their broadcast using Meerkat.

11:16 AM Clare ForanLink

The mood inside the House gallery feels subdued this morning as Democrats continue speeches and a sit-in demanding a vote on gun control measures.

It was a long night, and members of Congress who stuck around are clearly exhausted. At least a few lawmakers dozed off, according to Ted Deutch, a Democratic congressman from Florida. There were definitely some people sleeping, he said, adding that he wasnt going to name any names. I have not pulled an all-nighter in quite a while, Deutch said. Its certainly my first one on the House floor.

Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois, said she was stepped on while sitting on the floor. When asked if it was by a Republican, she said yes. I dont know if it was intentional, but there certainly was no apology, she said, though she noted that she wasnt hurt. He was in a hurry to get over to his side ... and there was a certain amount of contempt. Democrats have been inspired, in part, by the kind of cynicism we saw last night from the Republicans, she said.

What happens next? It could be another hour, it could be five hours, ten hours, that I dont know, Deutch said. I really don't know what the plan is, Schakowsky said, [but] what I do know is this is really just the beginning. She added: We own this issue now. This is now the issue for the Democratic caucus. I dont know what form it will takebut we are not giving up.

Democrats have been sitting on the floor of the House for 24 hours as they try to convince the Republican House majority to hold votes on gun-control measures. And it doesnt sound like theyll be leaving anytime soon. We are going to hold the floor of the House of Representatives  until we can get the majority to do their jobs and give us a vote, Florida Representative and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Thursday morning on CBS. It is a cowardly act that they have not at least allowed a vote.

The only problem with Democrats plan? The House isnt working for the next 12 days. Early Thursday morning, the lower chamber adjourned early for its July 4th break, and the next vote isnt scheduled until July 5. Democrats are meeting this morning to talk strategy for their sit-in, and presumably to decide whether its worth continuing when votes on gun control arent in their near future.

The Hill reports that Democrats may choose to wrap their protest up at the end of this work week, before resuming in whatever form it comes when Congress is back in session. For now, they are still giving speeches and offering testimonials on gun violence from the floor without any breaks in the action. Because the House is in recess, the chambers video cameras remain off. CSPAN is still relying on streaming video filmed by members themselves on their cellphones.

The atmosphere has quieted down since last night, when Republicans and Democrats openly clashed on the floor. For most of Wednesday, Democrats had the House chambers to themselves, filling the well at the front of the room. House Democrats were joined throughout the day by their Senate counterparts in displays of solidarity. In the late evening and into early Thursday morning, Republicans held votes on a couple different pieces of legislation, but none were related to guns. At roughly 3 a.m., the House passed a then-newly unveiled deal on Zika funding crafted by congressional Republicans. Democrats in both chambers opposed it.

After the Zika vote the House adjourned to start its break, earlier than scheduled. On Thursday morning, both Republican and Democratic members hit the cable-news circuit to talk about the sit-in, Politico reports. Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, who confronted his Democratic colleagues on the House floor late Wednesday night, was much calmer on Fox & Friends. He argued Democrats were working against the American peoples best interests. It was incredible to see real American folk heroes like John Lewis, who were brutalized and stood up for civil rights, Gohmert said. "Folks were there using the instruments that helped gain civil rights to try to take away peoples civil rights.

Meanwhile, Democrats suggest they have made progress, despite the adjournment. "Our end game is to really show the American people that there are people here, representatives that are going to fight for them, California Representative Mark Takano told CNN. You can catch up on every twist and turn of the fight so far with our live-blog from Day 1 of the sit-in.

Nora Kelly

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Most of the broadcast coverage of the sit-in staged by House Democrats this Wednesday and Thursday came directly from representatives themselves, many of whom used social media to post photos and livestream video of their push for gun legislation. Those livestreams even ended up on C-SPAN, the network that has for decades broadcasted political proceedings, after House Republicans cut the camera feed typically used by the network.

Although that move sparked criticism from many who wanted to watch the sit-in, it fell within House rulesand those rules have been used by Democrats and Republicans alike.

The way it works is that the Speaker of the Housecurrently Republican Paul Ryancontrols the system for broadcasting House floor proceedings. C-SPAN Communications Director Howard Mortman told TIME that over the years, House and Senate leaders in both parties have repeatedly denied the networks requests to use its own cameras in the chambers. House rules also prevent people on the floor from taking pictures, recording video or using a mobile electronic device that impairs decorum. House Democrats technically broke those rules during the sit-in.

What youre seeing today is brand new. Its kind of unprecedented to show this sustained amount of video basically nonstop from when [the sit-in] began, Mortman said on Thursday. Weve been showing video from the floor in ways that were unimaginable even months ago.

The diversity of video offered by social-media tools like Facebook Live and Periscope compensated, he added, for any deficit in video quality.

Theres perhaps no better way to see the role those tools can play than by comparing this weeks events to those of 2008, when House Republicans staged a similar protest to push for a vote on offshore oil drilling after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House and cut the broadcast feed. That protest preceded the advancements in social media that aided Democrats this week. Back then, Republican Rep. John Culberson, from Texas, shared information about the developing protest on Twitter, and C-SPAN broadcast the more limited video streamed by Culberson through Qik, which has since shut down.

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Here is a powerful use of social media  when they turn off the mike we can still communicate, Culberson posted on Twitter during the 2008 protest, hailing the moment as the dawn of real time democracy through real time representatives.

Retweet these messages  these are the only words being broadcast from the House floor today, he said.

Alas, Twitterfounded in 2006was still relatively new, and most of Culbersons tweets garnered no retweets and just a handful of likes.

Robert Browning, executive director of C-SPAN archives, recalled that Culbersons video couldnt easily be transmitted during the sessions. The technology was not as robust back then, Browning said in an interview with TIME on Thursday, and the lack of video hampered the storys ability to spread. House Republicans, he added, relied instead on press conferences given after the fact.

But 2008 was hardly the beginning of the debate over video access in Congress. The issue predates C-SPAN, which began its regular live broadcasts of the House floor on March 19, 1979. The first live television broadcast of a congressional proceeding took place on Jan. 3, 1947 for the opening of the 80th Congress and was used only occasionally thereafter. Cameras were later banned from regular floor sessions and committee hearings in 1952, after debates over which floor proceedings should be broadcast, who would have the authority to make that decision and who would control the cameras. According to the House Office of the Historian, there was also concern about how working under the gaze of the cameras might impact representatives. (Browning has another theory: They didnt want members to be seen not paying attention, reading newspapers.)

Like so much else in America, the rules about video were changed by Watergate. The House authorized broadcast coverage of floor debates ahead of potential impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. In the wave of pro-transparency feeling that followed, some representatives advocated for live coverage as something that would benefit democracy.

But, even as video became more accepted, questions remained about what its purpose would be. Some leaders in Congress have argued that the official cameras are only there to provide a video record of what is said while the House is in session, Browning said. That would mean that any additional political dramaincluding spontaneous sit-inswas never intended to be included.
By Koh Lay Chin

Of all the shocking reports and comments about paedophile Richard Huckles crimes, a few quotes stand out in illustrating the depths of how severely Malaysia is failing to protect its children.

Someone like Richard Huckle, who is an Englishman, hes intelligent - the community thinks hes coming to do us a favour, therefore we have to go out of our way to make him comfortable, and when children start saying things - we dont know that they raised an alarm, but if they did then very likely they would not have been believed over him. Generally in Malaysia we dont think and believe that things like this can happen. Perhaps it is a belief that this is more of a Western problem - we dont think it can happen in our own back yard. - Voice of the Childrens Sharmila Sekaran on Sky News. My investigations revealed that Marias two other cousins were also his victims. One of Marias cousins told her grandmother that Huckle filmed them while they were urinating. The old woman had kept quiet not quite trusting what the little girl was telling her. She didnt chase Huckle out of the house when he asked to marry Maria, who was then 10 years old. - Journalist Mahi Ramakrishnan on her work with BBC correspondents on the case. Knowing that there is going to be a blow up in the news about this British paedophile  I watched the madness of the press and the normal reactions of the public from afar. This is a good illustration of why children dont tell. They can handle the abuse (one person) better than the reactions of a hundred. What finally got to me was the adults have failed to put children first. Good intentions can have negative repercussions if we do not put the childs feelings and needs before ours. Adults want to hunt down the child survivors and the press did find a few. In one interview with a child survivor there were so many indicators to say stop this interview, and yet they carried on. - Protect and Save the Childrens Madeleine Yong, on her Facebook posting.

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These three women have highlighted how far Malaysia has to go when it comes to protecting our children from abuse.

One, society at large still wants to believe that these cases of child abuse are uncharacteristic and aberrant in Malaysia.

Two, the perpetrator tried repeatedly asking to marry his young victim  this shows that he thought this idea had legs, that it could be accepted in the country. In this respect, Huckle was not actually wrong  in a 2010 progress report to the United Nations on HIV in Malaysia, data from the Health Ministry showed that 32 girls under the age of 10 and 445 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 went through pre-martial HIV screening in order to get married.

Third, as longtime child advocate Yong has pointed out, every reaction to these crimes  whether legalistic or the approach by the press and public  tend to be about what adults should do with regards to adults, and not what adults must do for the wellbeing of children first. As child protection network ECPAT International states, we must distinguish the special needs and vulnerabilities of children, which must be disaggregated from the situation of adults.

Middle class and more well-to-do parents who think that these crimes are concentrated only in impoverished or vulnerable communities should think twice before convincing themselves that their children are immune to these dangers.

Even in the UK, British Metropolitan police CEOP head Jim Warnock said that the 30,000 Britons currently on the sex offenders register was the tip of the iceberg, and that the middle classes had to start accepting that large numbers of paedophiles came from professional backgrounds. Unless society puts pressure on the authorities to get safeguarding measures and laws up to scratch in the country, any child is potentially at risk.

As cases in other countries have shown, there are teachers, celebrities, police officers, doctors, religious leaders, and childcare workers who prey on children. In various cases, paedophiles find ways to be around children as often as possible, and as Huckle did, attempt to groom very young children and their families. Most of all, perpetrators are usually known to their victims  time and time again the abusers are predominantly family or friends.

What is apparent about the collective Malaysian attention span is that this case may probably be eventually cast into the news cycle pocket of abhorrent one-offs.

Malaysians in general are not comfortable talking about child abuse, incest, the rape of babies, digital penetration and so on. We may not have contemplated the possibility of crimes like child sex tourism (CST), which includes paedophiles sharing information on countries where they can exploit children. The Huckle case has made it imperative that we also talk about these uncomfortable subjects.

As child protection mechanisms increase in certain tourism destinations affected by child sex tourism, it is important to remember that neighbouring destinations may also be put at risk, ECPAT International reports. But this is not just about what foreign perpetrators may do in our country, Malaysians seriously need to keep this issue in the limelight so that policies are changed and children are safe from anyone who may perpetrate violence against them.

Pressure must be put on the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and the relevant authorities to develop and promote minimum practice and competency standards and policies to prevent and protect children from abuse, violence and exploitation. It is no secret that our current system is just not good enough, and so much still needs to be done.

This includes looking into standards of child protection services that ensure victims do not face secondary victimisation or re-traumatisation, especially when in contact with organisations, the media, or the criminal justice system. Perpetrators must be quickly apprehended and prosecuted so they can no longer harm children.

What the media can do aggressively is highlight cases that keep these issues in the public eye, and put pressure on the authorities. A case in point is former MARA scholar Nur Fitri Azmeer Nordin, who completely dropped from the medias radar despite being arrested in the UK for having 30,000 images of photos and videos of child pornography.

In April 2016, Malaysia missed an opportunity to ban all marriages under the age of 18, irrespective of faith. Child marriage must be seen as a human rights violation in Malaysia, and the public must continue to speak out about this and support NGOs that do.

In 2011, the nations top cop ordered for the 2010 Crime Statistics booklet to be placed under the banner of Official Secrets Act. This was to the complete astonishment of Womens Aid Organisation, who had asked for statistics of cases of domestic violence, rape, incest, domestic worker abuse and child abuse.

As WAO executive director Ivy Josiah asked, why are the police hiding the truth about sexual crimes against children? The problems exist, we must force ourselves to talk about them, and to do that meaningfully we need statistics, data and analysis for understanding.

Most Malaysians are uncomfortable talking about these topics, so we need more public and privately-led awareness campaigns that focus not only on educating adults, but for campaigns and initiatives that teach children how to be safe themselves.

The topic of child sexual abuse and the rape of babies is so stomach-turning, so wicked, that it is understandably a human reaction to want to tune out.

Our country may have always thought it is immune to such crimes, but as Huckles free and easy reign of terror shows, Malaysia has been spoken about on the Dark Web. It must wake up and smell the horrors.
Donald Trump

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt  who's been highly critical of Donald Trump in recent weeks  made a number of suggestions during a Thursday-morning interview to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee on how to turn around his campaign.

And Trump was open to the entirety of Hewitt's list of suggestions.

The radio host listed off 10 recommendations that he thought would help improve Trump's campaign.

One of his most wild suggestions was that Trump should name his entire cabinet ahead of the election "so that the whole conservative movement and the middle of the country see a serious team." Hewitt suggested that Trump name former UN Ambassador John Bolton as secretary of state and former Sens. Jon Kyl and Joe Lieberman as secretary of defense and as head of the CIA, respectively.

"I think I might be inclined to do that," he said. "I don't think that's that unusual, though. That's been done before, hasn't it, Hugh?"

"No, I don't think ... we've ever had a cabinet member named," Hewitt responded. "There was a hint that Colin Powell was going to be [President George W. Bush's] Secretary of State, but it was just a hint."

"I would be inclined to do a lot of it early," Trump then said. "You don't have to do all of it, but a lot of it early, actually."

"Yeah, no, I like that idea very much," he added.

Hewitt suggested that Trump start practicing for his debates against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the fall. Trump said that he has not started.

Trump said:

"And I must tell you, I think you and I have a little different mode. I watched [Mitt] Romney [go] into a log cabin or something, and he came out and he wouldn't talk to anybody for weeks, and you know, all of that, and then he got to the debate and he wasn't able to speak so well. I've seen that, and you know, to a certain extent, you have to be yourself.

"I do know the issue. I actually know the issues, I think, much better than people understand that I know the issues. But I want to, obviously I will be practicing, but I don't want to put so much practice in that all of a sudden, you're not who you are. Does that make sense to you?"

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He added that he will find someone to serve as Clinton in practice debates so he can tune up for the real thing.

Earlier, Hewitt suggested that Trump name either Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie  a top Trump backer  as his running mate "because this election is going to be about terrorism" and Cotton "sought out and killed terrorists" in the military while Christie prosecuted them while working as a federal prosecutor.

"Well, I think they're both great, and they've been very supportive," Trump said, later adding, "I like those two guys a lot. I think they're terrific guys."

Some of his other suggestions included rebuking all anti-Semites and white supremacists who support him, allowing Washington Post reporters into his events, and attacking President Barack Obama over his "red line" comments related to Syria, assertion that ISIS is "the jay-vee team," and remark from early in his presidency that America will be "leading from behind."

NOW WATCH: These are some of the things Donald Trump has taken credit for





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ian-connor-fight

Image via matthewty

Tensions remain high around Ian Connor following rape accusations from multiple women over the last two months. The stylist (known for his work with Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, and Wiz Khalifa) has been involved in heated discussions through Twitter since the allegations came to light, but today things bubbled over into physical altercations.

While in Paris to promote A$AP Rocky and A$AP Baris VLONE clothing line this morning, Theophilus London was the first in Connors orbit to publicly criticize him following the allegations, tweeting, Every time I see u Im gonna fuck you up, Evrytime u dirty fucking rapist. Then things escalated at an event attended by London, Connor, Rocky, Bari, Virgil Abloh, and others.

A collection of videos uploaded to Twitter (seen below) show London, Connor, and Bari exchanging words (and eventually fists) as the situation spiraled out of control. Rocky even had to step in to break up a fight at one point.

When the situation diffused and everyone went their separate ways, London fired another series of tweets directly at Connor, saying, nobody fucks with u, u was homeless I took u in, I fed you , the whole cultured just texted me thanking me.Ur a loser in everyway. Bari added, now every time I see you I beating the shit outta you.

See a collection of tweets and videos from the day below.

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Damn Ian Connor punched the shit out of Theophilus London. pic.twitter.com/4UCf36RsbF  Kenny (@PhillyCustoms) June 23, 2016





Damn asap bari snuffed the shit out of ian connor pic.twitter.com/oG8Sw8zWZe  A$AP Jacob (@jacobstemkawski) June 23, 2016





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mexico gay pride

In the wake of the Orlando shooting, Gay Pride month has taken on a whole new meaning as people from all walks of life want to show support for the LGBT community.

With that in mind, IBM's diversity chief Lindsay-Rae McIntyre just posted a blog that spells out all the ways that IBM is standing up for its LGBT workers in the US and around the world.

It has become increasingly common for large tech companies to use their weight and power to take a stand on social issues that could negatively impact their employees.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been, perhaps, the most vocal, at times threatening governors that Salesforce would decrease investment in their states if legislation that discriminates against LGBT people is passed.

But IBM wants you to know that it's using its enormous clout to do the same within the US and beyond.

IBM's list of supportive things range from the obvious (allowing gay employees to publicly identify themselves as gay in the personnel site and elsewhere) to a new global program that showcases LGBT employees as role models in growth countries like Brazil, Greece, Israel, the Czech Republic, China, Japan, Mexico and India.

In addition, IBM insurance covers sex reassignment surgery in the US, and it recently added Canada. IBM say it hopes to add other countries in "the next couple of years."

IBM has also battled discriminatory legislation in various US states like Louisiana, it says. And it's one of 60 companies involved in the Human Rights Campaigns Business Coalition for the Equality Act, launched in March. The group supports federal anti-discrimination legislation.

Here's the full IBM blog post:

IBM Stands Strong with its LGBT Employees

LGBT Pride Month is an opportunity for all of us to pause and consider that while progress has been made to afford equal rights to all, we still have much more work to do. That includes standing up against discriminatory legislation that has emerged in certain U.S. states and leading productive discussions in the aftermath of the tragedy in Orlando.

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Inclusion has always been part of our corporate culture and is in alignment with our deeply-held values as IBMers. Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable. IBM will continue to be a leading voice in the push for diversity and inclusion in our communities.

Our policy of inclusion goes beyond employment practices and protections and celebrates the diversity of our workforce. As a company, we understand that to attract the best talent from around the world, we have to create and nurture a culture where employees can bring their authentic selves to work every day.

For instance, when Charles Donnell was looking for a college internship in England in 2011, he applied to IBM after his research found that the company is gay-friendly. Donnell joined IBM UK as an intern, finished his university studies and is now a Program Manager for one of IBMs Global Leadership Development Programs in Armonk, N.Y. At 24, hes already worked for IBM on global programs on three continents.

IBM enables me to identify myself as a gay male in the IBM personnel site, said Donnell. As an employee, Im able to bring 100 percent of myself to work. And that has allowed me to be successful at IBM.

Over the past year, high-profile debates over discriminatory policy measures in several U.S. states have prompted many people  some for the first time  to carefully consider the challenges facing the LGBT community. As part of our global efforts, we have worked to ensure that LGBT IBMers in every U.S. state are afforded the same rights as their colleagues.

When proposed government action has been in fundamental conflict with our values, weve engaged with government officials directly and publicly to make our views known, opposing various state laws and executive actions.

In rescinding his states discriminatory religious freedom order in April, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards recognized IBMs leadership on this issue, saying, It does nothing but divide our state and force the business community, from Louisianas smallest businesses to large corporations like IBM, to strongly oppose it. At the same time, Gov. Edwards signed a new anti-discrimination executive order protecting the rights of gay and transgender residents of Louisiana.

Weve also been part of a larger chorus of voices speaking out against inequality.

IBM joined American Express, Google and 11 other global companies in September 2015 to launch the first business-led coalition that supports LGBT inclusion around the world. And we are one of 60 leading businesses that have signed-on to the Human Rights Campaigns Business Coalition for the Equality Act. The Act would provide, under federal law, all Americans with clear, permanent and equal protection in employment, access to public spaces, housing, credit, education, jury service, and federally funded programs.

IBMs first Equal Opportunity policy was written in 1953, when IBM CEO T.J. Watson, Jr. famously declared, It is the policy of this organization to hire people who have the personality, talent and background necessary to fill a given job, regardless of race, color or creed.

We were one of the first companies to include sexual orientation as part of the policy more than 30 years ago. We extended domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian employees in the U.S. almost 20 years ago. Today, we provide LGBT employees with the professional and family support they need around the world. IBMs LGBT benefits extend beyond local practices in many countries.

Examples include:

IBM Canada extended its employee health benefit plan in January to include coverage for sex reassignment surgery based on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care. This benefit has been available to employees in the U.S. for over a decade. Over the next few years, we expect to introduce the sex reassignment surgery benefit in other countries where local laws, medical practices and facilities support the treatment.

In addition to existing countries, we have recently added medical and leave benefits for same-gender partners of employees in Greece, Chile, the Philippines, Italy and Japan. We plan to announce similar programs for employees in other countries later this year.

A new global program, called Out Role Models, features LGBT employees as role models in growth countries, including Brazil, Greece, Israel, the Czech Republic, China, Japan, Mexico and India.

IBMers that are part of the Business and Technical Leadership program  our leading succession planning program  now have the ability to identify themselves as LGBT employees.

But even as we talk about the many steps forward, we realize that we as a global society have a long way to go. IBMers are incredibly proud of our companys long-standing commitment to equality. We will continue promoting and defending LGBT rights around the world. And we will also continue to foster and grow a shared corporate culture in which global diversity  including diversity of thought  remains central to our company and its values.

NOW WATCH: Heres why flights take longer than they did 50 years ago





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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / INTELLIGENT CONTENT ENTERPRISES INC. (OTCQB: ICEIF) ("ICE" or the "Company"), announces that it continues to accelerate the activities of its global, multi-lingual online creation, proprietary management and advertising platform Digital Widget Factory Inc. ("DWF") adding an additional 265 new websites and URLs, bringing the total number to 565, surpassing its calendar 2016 targets before the end of the first half of the year.

Through its primary URL www.digiwidgy.com, DWF continues to move up in the Top 100K Alexa Global Rankings having reached 30,874 this week, increasing its global rank by over 57,000 sites in less than 4 months since the end of February. DWF is also increasing its global engagement activities, launching a number of new social media initiatives over the summer months, including featured online stories and global influencer programs.

Alexa estimates the average daily visitors and pageviews to sites over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews over the past 3 months is ranked #1. The site with the least is ranked somewhere around 30 million. According to SpinFold.com, the Alexa rank of a website has become so important for monetization of a site that some advertising networks vary the amount paid for advertising based on the Alexa ranking.

DWF powers user and advertising engagement programs in the US, Canada, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Central and South America in over 50 languages in real-time to desktop, mobile and portable devices. Focus is on increasing DWF's ongoing revenue activities and improving the volume of daily content, sites and URLs catering to a more timely audience that is focused on "what is happening today" which is highly shared in the global social media arena.

As reported in April, ICE is in the process of investigating additional opportunities that would leverage the DWF proprietary technologies to deliver enhanced global experiences to other online sites, new media programs and partnerships. On May 25, 2016, ICE announced that the Company signed an initial agreement to license to acquire all the technology, production and client operations owned and operated by New York based Catch Star Studios LLC. ("Catch Star Studios").

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Catch Star Studios provides development services, management and technologies that creates new and enables existing sport and other branded content to be consumed globally through traditional and online media channels. Catch Star Studios also develops and executes world class engagement initiatives enabling brands to extend global video content, reach advertising and direct revenue opportunities through Catch Star Studios' proprietary "in video" marketing platform.

About Intelligent Content Enterprises Inc.

Intelligent Content Enterprises Inc. (ICE) is an emerging Media and Internet company that focuses on the experience of the user, creating brands, products and destinations globally, regionally and by language that are value driven proving an informative, entertaining and engaging look at content.

ICE's 4 pillar strategy is to drive revenue through technologies, platforms and services that deliver Content, Social and Digital Media, eCommerce and Advertising.

ICE's first acquisition, Digital Widget Factory provides the baseline infrastructure and technology platform enabling of content and media to be disseminated globally, efficiently and effectively, creating economies of scale for distribution in over 50 languages, allowing users to create and participate in the content process and consumption.

Intelligent Content Enterprises is a publicly traded company on the OTC QB Markets under the symbol "ICEIF"

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations: investorrelations@intelligentcontententerprises.com

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, ICE assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law.

Although ICE believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because ICE can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in ICE's disclosure documents which can be found under ICE's profile on www.sedar.com.

This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company, its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) the company's financing plans; (ii) trends affecting the company's financial condition or results of operations; (iii) the company's growth strategy and operating strategy; and (iv) the declaration and payment of dividends. The words "may," "would," "will," "expect," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "intend" and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our management's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors including the risk disclosed in the Company's Form 6-K and 20F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE: Intelligent Content Enterprises Inc.
By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An Idaho prosecutor said on Wednesday that internet outlets devoted to carrying anti-Muslim sentiments were to blame for fomenting widely spread, false rumors that three Syrian refugee boys had gang-raped a young girl at knife-point.

There was no gang rape, there were no Syrians involved and there was no knife. None of it is true, Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said of the reports, which originated on blogs and social media postings and have since gone viral.

He told Reuters those reports stemmed from an incident on June 2 in which three boys - aged 7, 10 and 14 - were accused of assaulting a 5-year-old girl in an apartment house laundry room in the southern Idaho city of Twin Falls.

An investigation by Twin Falls police found one of the boys sexually assaulted the girl and the two others were involved in the crime but did not touch the child, Loebs said.

Two boys were charged in the case, which an Idaho court has been sealed because they are minors, and were being held in a juvenile detention facility, the prosecutor said.

Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury, accused by anti-Muslim groups of a cover-up, said publicly that one of the boys was from Sudan, the other from Iraq. He added they had been in the United States for less than two years, but their immigration status was not immediately known.

Anti-Muslim agitators and those opposed to resettlement of refugees from the Syrian civil war nevertheless seized on the incident to buttress their arguments for shutting down a refugee center in Twin Falls to prevent entry by displaced Syrians.

They are not compatible with our culture. They hate us. They dont want to be Americans," Vicky Davis, a local citizen opposed to the refugee center, said during a City Council meeting on Monday night.

The controversy flared as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, escalated his anti-Muslim rhetoric after last week's deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida by a gunman pledging his allegiance to Islamic State militants.

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Trump has called for a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants and heavier government scrutiny of mosques.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Idaho sexual assault should be fully investigated but added the case had become a lightning rod for anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee sentiments.

These two forms of hostility seem to be overlapping and reinforcing each other, he said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman)
By Rajendra Jadhav

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India, the world's biggest cotton producer, has contracted to import 20,000 bales from Pakistan for shipment this month after Indian prices jumped because of limited supply, industry officials told Reuters.

The move is a role reversal from earlier this year, when Pakistan was buying cotton from India after its output had been hit by bad weather.

"Around 20,000 bales have been imported from Pakistan. Landed cost of imported cotton is lower than local prices," Dhiren Sheth, president of the Cotton Association of India (CAI), told Reuters.

Indian cotton prices have risen by 28 percent since the start of 2015/16 season on Oct. 1 to 40,800 rupees per 356 kg candy (77.4 cents per lb) as two years of drought took its toll on output.

Pakistani supplies are available at about 70 cents per lb on a free-on-board basis, said one Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.

"Supplies are dwindling in both countries. The sharp rally in Indian prices is making imports viable from Pakistan, but it has limited quantity for exports," the dealer said.

India has so far imported about 1.2 million bales in 2015/16 and needs another 400,000 bales before the new crop starts arriving from the end of September, Sheth said.

The country has exported about 6.5 million bales of cotton this season, with Pakistan accounting for nearly 2 million bales.

Indian buying has been pushing up prices in Pakistan, said Shahzad Ali Khan, chairman of Pakistan Cotton Ginner's Association.

The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has urged the Pakistan government to restrict cotton exports to India in an attempt to provide raw material for domestic textiles production.

Indian industry officials, including Sheth of the CAI, said that Pakistan should not restrict exports since it imported cotton when it was in need.

Global cotton prices could rally sharply in the coming months as stocks become further depleted in key producing countries, one Karachi-based dealer said.

(1 bale = 170 kg)

(Editing by David Goodman)
By Nidhi Verma and Sankalp Phartiyal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian companies are evaluating buying stakes in Russian state oil firm Rosneft, India's oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Thursday, as Moscow seeks funds to address its state deficit.

Russia has been hurt by Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine, which effectively froze its companies's access to Western capital market, and a plunge in global oil prices.

"Indian companies are looking into the offer," said Pradhan, who met the Russian leadership last week at a conference in St. Petersburg.

Moscow plans to sell stakes totalling 19.5 percent in Rosneft, the world's top listed oil producer by volume, as part of a wider privatisation plan for 2016 to raise about 650 billion roubles ($10 billion).

India has signed deals worth billions of dollars with Russia to buy stake in assets in Siberia at a time Moscow is keen to develop and deepen its Soviet-era economic ties with New Delhi.

The Kremlin sees India as a counterbalance of sorts to China's growing dominance on the post Soviet Union's territory.

India's recent deals with Rosneft are eagerly watched by Middle Eastern producers who see India alongside China as one of the key growth markets.

Pradhan said Indian firms' deals to buy about a 50 percent stake in the Vankor field and about 30 percent in Taas-Yuriakh field would cost about $5-6 billion.

He said Indian companies are also looking at investing in the Yamal liquefied natural gas project in Siberia.

Igor Sechin, the head of Russia's top oil producer Rosneft, told Rossiya-24 TV earlier this week that the company has not held any talks with either Chinese or Indian companies about the state company's privatisation.

Pradhan said India is also talking to Russia for building a gas pipeline through Central Asia as New Delhi wants to increase the share of gas in its energy-mix.

Gas accounts for about 7 percent of India's overall needs compared to the global average of about 24 percent, he said.

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The two countries have a formed a panel to explore the possibility of laying a gas pipeline, Pradhan said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue with Putin during the latter's visit to Delhi last year.

He said India will raise this issue with the Russian leadership during Modi's ongoing visit to Tashekent where the Indian premier is attending a meet of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

"The day is not far when a pipeline from Russia will reach India," Pradhan said. "It will be a very significant step for our energy security."

(Editing by William Hardy)
By Zeba Siddiqui

MUMBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - India's largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries is banking on the launch of newer and more complex products to offset rising competition in its lucrative U.S. dermatology business, its U.S. chief said.

The world's fifth-largest maker of generic drugs was the first among its Indian peers to enter the roughly $5 billion U.S. dermatology space by acquiring a controlling stake in Israel's Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in 2010.

That marked a major effort by Sun to scale up its niche and specialty drugs pipeline, as the market for plain-vanilla generics - most large Indian drugmakers' bread and butter until then - started to get increasingly crowded with smaller players.

But as competition has heated up in the last few years, many companies have also sought niche markets, and dermatology has attracted quite a few. India's Lupin bought U.S. firm Gavis to expand in dermatology, and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is scaling up its pipeline too.

Mid-sized drugmakers such as Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Alembic Pharmaceuticals are working on skin treatments, and many small U.S. firms are increasingly challenging Sun's share in the market, analysts say.

Kal Sundaram, who heads Sun's operations in the United States, its largest market, said the company would lose some share in dermatology in the short-term, but was confident of its pipeline of new products driving growth.

"While the competitive intensity will increase, it is not going to be like atorvastatin (Lipitor), where you have 10 or 15 manufacturers," Sundaram told Reuters. "(In dermatology), maybe from three (manufacturers) it would go to about five."

Sun has high hopes for tildrakizumab, an experimental psoriasis drug that recently completed late-stage trials, full results of which are due out soon.

Most dermatology drugs require clinical studies for approval, which Kal said cost between $7 million and $10 million, on average, "and there is no guarantee if they will be successful," thus limiting competition.

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Nimish Mehta, founder and director of ResearchDelta Advisors, said he expects Taro's sales to rise 18 percent this fiscal year based on approvals for new dermatology products.

Price hikes have largely helped Sun grow its dermatology business over the years, but they are harder to make after a recent wave of consolidation between U.S. drug distributors.

Sundaram said the company expects pressure on prices in the short term, but it is betting on expanding volumes.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna Islands on Thursday, holding a limited Cabinet meeting on board the same navy warship that clashed with Chinese fishing vessels last week.

The visit was designed to send a strong signal to China that the Natunas, including waters around them, are part of Indonesias territory. The Natunas are part of Indonesias sovereignty and that is final, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung told journalists Wednesday.

Jokowi, as the President is popularly known, went to the Natunas along with Pramono, his Chief Security Minister, Foreign Minister, Fisheries Minister, military chief and others.

Indonesia says its navy warship KRI Imam Bonjol  named after a national hero who fought a religiously inspired war against the Dutch  fired a warning shot after spotting Chinese trawlers suspected of fishing illegally in Natuna waters last Friday, and that there were no injuries. China says the Indonesian navy shot at its fishing boats and injured one person.

The Indonesian warship ended up detaining one Chinese fishing vessel and seven people on board  Jokowi is set to inspect the seized boat Thursday. It was the third, and latest, sea confrontation between the two nations. Two previous skirmishes occurred on March 19 and May 27 off the same islands.

Read: What a Retracted Statement Says About Chinas Growing Power in the South China Sea

Pramono tweeted photos of Jokowi at the Natuna, and a picture of the Presidents handwritten note in the warships guest book, which read: Guard  defend the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.

In its statement on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry referred to the Natuna waters not only as Chinese fishermens fishing grounds, as it has done in the past, but for the first time, it said the area was where China and Indonesia have overlapping claims for maritime rights and interests.

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China is in dispute with the Philippines, with Vietnam, with Malaysia and Brunei  it seems that China might be trying to drag Indonesia into this dispute, said senior diplomat and international-maritime-law expert Hasjim Djalal, who was appointed by Jakarta this week to lead a special team to study how to stop Chinas illegal fishing. We dont want that.

Although Jakarta has objected to Beijings nine-dash line, which demarcates parts of the waters off Natuna waters as Chinese, Indonesia is not a claimant in the broader maritime dispute in the South China Seas that has pitted China against other Southeast Asian countries.

Jokowi faces a growing call to abandon Indonesias neutral stance in the conflict. Beijings puncturing of our maritime governance space around the Natuna Islands in recent years reveals the limits of Jakartas non-claimant position in the South China Sea, wrote Evan Laksmana, researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's president held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands on Thursday, asserting sovereignty over waters in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters. President Joko Widodo's visit to the remote island chain along with his chief security minister, foreign minister, and military chief was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue. During the cabinet meeting onboard the Indonesian navy corvette, Widodo called on the military to step up patrols in the wake of a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in area. "The capabilities of the military...in securing our seas should be improved, whether it's technology or general preparedness," Widodo said, according to a presidential palace statement. Officials told reporters the cabinet also discussed matters of sovereignty and development. Indonesia has established a special economic zone in the gas-rich waters around Natuna Islands, which lie over 340 kilometers (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Borneo island. Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, who also accompanied Widodo, posted online photos of the president aboard the warship and of a written message he left for the crew, saying "Defend Indonesia". The president's visit to a body of water that Indonesia calls the Natuna Sea reflected the government's strong stance over the issue, Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said. "In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," he told The Jakarta Post newspaper. Both sides have denied that the matter represents a territorial or diplomatic dispute. But, Beijing officials repeated on Thursday that while China does not dispute Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests". "We hope that Indonesia can meet us halfway, objectively recognize the relevant dispute and appropriately resolve the relevant fishing issue to jointly maintain the overall picture of the development of bilateral relations and regional peace and stability," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's president held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands on Thursday, asserting sovereignty over waters in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters. President Joko Widodo's visit to the remote island chain along with his chief security minister, foreign minister, and military chief was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue. During the cabinet meeting onboard the Indonesian navy corvette, Widodo called on the military to step up patrols in the wake of a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in area. "The capabilities of the military...in securing our seas should be improved, whether it's technology or general preparedness," Widodo said, according to a presidential palace statement. Officials told reporters the cabinet also discussed matters of sovereignty and development. Indonesia has established a special economic zone in the gas-rich waters around Natuna Islands, which lie over 340 kilometres (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Borneo island. Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, who also accompanied Widodo, posted online photos of the president aboard the warship and of a written message he left for the crew, saying "Defend Indonesia". The president's visit to a body of water that Indonesia calls the Natuna Sea reflected the government's strong stance over the issue, Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said. "In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," he told The Jakarta Post newspaper. Both sides have denied that the matter represents a territorial or diplomatic dispute. But, Beijing officials repeated on Thursday that while China does not dispute Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests". "We hope that Indonesia can meet us halfway, objectively recognise the relevant dispute and appropriately resolve the relevant fishing issue to jointly maintain the overall picture of the development of bilateral relations and regional peace and stability," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
London (AFP) - Some British voters were left in a whirl of confusion as to whether they could use a pen to vote in Thursday's EU membership referendum.

As Britain decided whether or not to stay in the European Union, some struggled to decide whether to use the traditional pencil or risk a pen, following a tweet from a local authority that triggered a rash of jokes and conspiracy theories online.

East Northamptonshire Council tweeted: "Please use a pencil on your ballot paper as ink can smudge when it's folded which could make the paper doubtful and it may not be counted."

Soon the hashtags #usepens and #pengate were circulating on Twitter, along with jokey suspicion that spooks could rub out pencilled-in crosses and ink the other box instead.

TV astrophysicist Professor Brian Cox quipped: "I voted in pencil just in case MI5 need to change it later."

The online confusion caused other local authorities to tweet that pens could be used, while one told voters they could bring a pen but urged them not to ask staff for one.

East Northamptonshire Council later clarified its tweet, telling people to "feel free to use a pen but make sure it doesn't smudge when folding so it is clear how you have voted".

Pencils are traditionally used in Britain for marking ballot papers.

"However, there is nothing to stop a voter from using a pen to mark their vote -- there is no legal requirement for ballot papers to be marked with a pencil," said a spokesman for the Electoral Commission, which oversees elections.

He said pencils were historically favoured because there was always a risk that pens could dry out or spill.

"Also, ink may cause some transfer of the mark the voter has made on the ballot paper when they fold it, thus potentially leading to a rejection as it may look like they have voted for more options than they are entitled to."

Online jesters suggested that the blood of a robin, a needle and thread, woodstain or a mini flame-thrower could be used instead by voters suspicious that their crosses could fall victim to correction fluid and erasers.

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At one stage in the day, police were called to a polling station in Chichester, southern England, where a woman was distributing pens after a volunteer reported a "disturbance" outside.

A local police support officer "went to the scene and spoke with a woman who was handing out pens", Sussex Police said.

No offences were committed and the incident was no longer being treated as a police matter.
Nearly two decades ago, Erin Brockovich rose to fame by nearly singlehandedly exposing how a multi-billion dollar power company had been contaminating the groundwater in Hinkley, California.



Since then, she's built a career as an environmental and consumer advocate (she now consults with the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg) but in the last 18 months has become a staunch advocate for communities across the country concerned about their tainted water  starting with the moms in Flint, Michigan who first reached out to her in late 2014.



"She's been fantastic," Melissa Mays, 37, one of the Flint moms who helped discover lead was tainting their drinking water, tells PEOPLE. "She shares our story and got what happened to us on a greater platform. She's given us the best advice and encouragement."



For more on Erin Brockovich's latest efforts, tune into People's List on June 25 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.













In fact, Brockovich says nine times out of ten, it's moms who reach out to her with concern for their children, she tells PEOPLE.



"They all touch me because they are fearful," she says. "And they are not like overly alarmed or alarmist. Something is really happening. I'm taken aback by their strength and courage and determination. Many of them are like when I began."



Brockovich was a single mom herself back in the mid-1990s when she built a case against Pacific Gas & Electric for polluting the groundwater in Hinkley with hexavalent chromium. The case resulted in the utilityas being ordered to pay $333 million to affected families and led to her portrayal by Julia Roberts in the 2000 movie, Erin Brockovich.



For more on Erin Brockovich, pick up this week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.



So when a mom reaches out to her, she listens.



"These mothers are like, 'Wait. We know something is wrong' and they will email meaor they'll send me a picture of their water and say, 'Okay, I know this is not safe to drink. What is going on?' " she says.



In the past year, she's traveled to nearly a dozen states, including Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, and Vermont. She has trips to Pennsylvania and Alabama planned as well.



"I'm going to stay right in the middle of the fight," she says. "No rest, right?"
PARIS (Reuters) - Interpol launched a public appeal on Thursday for help catching people smugglers who make billions of dollars' profit from the flow of migrants to peaceful and prosperous countries from poor and strife-torn homelands. The France-based international police organization published on its web site photos of 11 people it was targeting in connection with an operation focused on 180 fugitives sought in 31 countries. It comes as the European Union, bitterly divided on how to handle its worst migration crisis since World War Two, focuses on stemming the inflow of refugees and migrants after 1.3 million people reached its shores last year. An Interpol study released in May showed people smugglers had made over $5 billion from the wave of migration into southern Europe last year. Catching perpetrators is particularly tricky because the victims are often unwilling or unable to give details, said Michael OConnell, Director of Interpol's operational support unit. "People smuggling is a global issue which is why international cooperation through operations such as Hydra are essential," he said in a statement. Interpol plans to use social media to involve the public in the hunt and has asked member countries to circulate the mugshot posters. The 11 wanted individuals include Mariana Crucerescu, convicted of heading a Romanian organized crime group which illegally smuggled individuals through Hungarian and Austrian border points at a cost of up to EUR 3,000 per person. Also named is Kolyo Georgiev Kolev, suspected of illegally transporting nine Afghan nationals from Bulgaria into Austria, two of whom died when the van in which they were traveling overturned in Hungary. (Reporting by Andrew Callus; editing by Richard Lough and Richard Balmforth)
FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) - German investors' association DSW said on Thursday it was going to court to push for an independent investigation of the diesel emissions test-rigging scandal at Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE>.

DSW said in a statement it was still convinced that such an investigation was the right tool for clearing up the scandal, even after its motion for a probe was voted down at VW's annual shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.

"That is why we will now enforce a special investigation in court," DSW President Ulrich Hocker said in the statement.

DSW has been pushing for an independent investigation to determine whether the 16.2 billion euros ($18.45 billion) of provisions VW set aside last year will cover the costs of the scandal and to determine if control mechanisms at the carmaker have been improved to ensure that such deliberate manipulations will not happen again.

Shareholder advisory firm Hermes EOS has also called for an external investigator to review corporate governance at VW, which is controlled by its founding Porsche and Piech families, VW's home state of Lower Saxony and the Gulf state of Qatar.

Hermes EOS, which represents large institutional investors, also wants more independent representatives on VW's 20-member supervisory board. VW on Thursday had no comment on the DSW investor group's move.

"A special investigation did not achieve the necessary majority at the shareholder meeting," a company spokesman said. "Beyond this we have nothing to say."

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Arno Schuetze and Jane Merriman)
By Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. fund investors pulled out of riskier markets over the last week, data from Lipper showed on Thursday, as they braced for a British vote on its European Union membership even as stocks rallied.

Investors pulled $6.1 billion from U.S.-based stock funds during the weekly period ended June 22, the data showed. That was the most pulled from the funds since the week ended May 4.

"The theme is Brexit, and people are concerned," said Tom Roseen, head of research services for Thomson Reuters Lipper.

Voting closed in the so-called "Brexit" referendum on Thursday, and early surveys pointed to voters' choosing to remain in the bloc.

The weeks before the vote brought dire predictions of economic fallout if Britain decides to leave.

Yet those fears eased in the days before the vote as polls suggested a remain vote might triumph.

U.S. fund investors fled stocks as MSCI's 46-country All World index recorded five straight days of gains.

In the latest week, investors pulled $1.8 billion from U.S.-based stock mutual funds and withdrew $4.3 billion from stock ETFs, according to Lipper data.

Similarly, U.S.-based funds invested in European stocks posted $857 million in outflows during the week, their third straight week of outflows and largest since the week ended May 11. Those funds rose an average 5.3 percent during the week, Lipper performance data shows.

High-yield bond funds, which often move in tandem with stocks, recorded $766 million in outflows. And global debt funds returned $325 million in cash to investors, according to Lipper.

By contrast, precious metals funds took in $662 million and their eighth straight week of inflows, Lipper said.

"Investors have been trying to find places to hide," said Roseen.

Taxable-bond funds in the United States attracted $2.5 billion during the same period, reversing outflows from the week prior. Relatively safe money-market funds took in $1.2 billion, the research service said.

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Roseen said the withdrawals leave money on the sidelines that could be redeployed in stocks in the coming weeks.

For now, Michel Del Buono, global strategist at Makena Capital Management, which oversees $20 billion of assets, said investor aversion to risk in recent weeks stems from "uncertainty and worries" about slowing growth, particularly "a China meltdown."

The following is a broad breakdown of the flows for the week, including ETFs (in $ billions):

Sector Flow Chg Pct of Assets($ Count

($ blns) Assets blns)

All Equity Funds -6.110 -0.12 5,141.761 12,076

Domestic Equities -2.636 -0.07 3,643.438 8,583

Non-Domestic Equities -3.473 -0.24 1,498.323 3,493

All Taxable Bond Funds 2.522 0.11 2,255.847 6,076

All Money Market Funds 1.179 0.05 2,351.056 1,132

All Municipal Bond Funds 1.442 0.39 373.281 1,403

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Jennifer Ablan, Bernard Orr)
Fallujah (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces closed in on the last neighbourhood of Fallujah still held by the Islamic State group Thursday while aid groups struggled to deliver relief to desperate civilians.

A month into a major offensive against one of the jihadists' most emblematic bastions, elite forces were close to establishing full control over Fallujah.

"I can say that more than 80 percent is controlled by our forces," Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, the operation's overall commander, told AFP in Fallujah.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory a week ago already and recent operations have focused on flushing out pockets of resistance in northern neighbourhoods of Fallujah.

Speaking from a recently reconquered area in the north of the city, Saadi said IS fighters only retained a presence in the neighbourhood of Jolan and possibly parts of another called Al-Muallemin.

He estimated that IS only had as little as five percent of the manpower it had in those areas before Iraqi forces punched through defence lines and thrust into the city late last month.

Fallujah, which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, was the first city to fall out of government control in 2014, months before IS swept across Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland and declared its "caliphate".

In the Shorta neighbourhood, counter-terrorism service (CTS) forces had taken an IS explosives workshop, stacked with dozens of homemade rockets and bomb-making material.

Welding equipment, yellow lumps of plastic explosives stored in an pot of paint, bags full of detonators and old sacks of palm dates stuffed with powder were still strewn across the rooms.

- Bomb factory -

In the deserted streets littered with rubble and torn down wires, the silence was only disrupted by the humming of drones, mangled iron creaking in the wind and the occasional controlled detonation of a roadside bomb.

While entire blocks in southern Fallujah were levelled during the height of the offensive earlier this month, substantial areas in the north of the city appeared to have escaped with relatively minor damage.

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Senior CTS officer Mohannad al-Tamimi said he hoped the city's tens of thousands of displaced residents could return soon.

"Just here, eight improvised explosive devices have just been dealt with," he told AFP, pointing to the road in front of Fallujah's main hospital.

"In the next few days or weeks, families should return, once their cases have been approved by the city council," he said.

According to the United Nations, around 85,000 people have been displaced since the start of the operation a month ago.

When families fleeing the fighting and IS rule after months of a gruelling siege that left many starving, Iraqi forces would hold the adult men to screen them for any suspected IS links.

Thousands have yet to be released from screening, an opaque process some local officials and rights groups are concerned is plagued by cases of torture and sectarian revenge against Fallujah's Sunni population.

A massive influx of civilians last week left the aid community struggling to cope and some families without any form of shelter or assistance, even as temperatures started hitting their summer highs.

- Exhausted civilians collapsing -

Aid agencies were struggling to reach the most vulnerable families, said the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the leading groups involved in the Fallujah aid effort.

"Pregnant women, children, elderly people and people with disabilities are collapsing of exhaustion with scant medical services and aid available in the camps," it said.

The NRC and the UN have asked for urgent funds to support the response to the crisis, which they have warned could yet worsen if water-borne diseases break out.

The total loss of Fallujah, which Iraqi forces say is days away, would be a significant blow to IS and further dent its claim that it is running a "caliphate".

IS has been losing ground steadily in Iraq over the past year and gradually relying more on bombing civilian targets in Baghdad or claiming spectacular attacks in the West to spread its ideology and attract more recruits.

The government said before the start of the Fallujah offensive that the percentage of Iraqi territory under jihadist control had shrunk from 40 percent two years ago to 14.

Abadi, who is under intense political pressure over proposed anti-corruption reforms, has promised that the next target would be Mosul, the country's second city and the defacto IS capital in Iraq.

Iraqi forces, including CTS elite troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, have recently revived operations to take back the town of Qayyarah, which lies around 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris river.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel accused the Palestinian president of libelling the Jewish people after he charged Thursday that rabbis had called for Palestinian wells to be poisoned.

"Abu Mazen showed his true face in Brussels," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement, using a familiar Arabic name for president Mahmud Abbas.

During a speech to the European Parliament, Abbas said, in apparently unscripted Arabic remarks, that recently "a number of rabbis in Israel made a clear declaration and asked their government to poison water to kill the Palestinians".

He cited the accusation, without giving any source, as part of an attack against what he said was Israeli incitement against the Palestinians.

Abbas was in Brussels for talks with top EU officials trying to kick-start stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was there at the same time but a bid by European Parliament head Martin Schulz to broker a meeting between them failed "following Abbas's refusal" a spokesman for Rivlin said.

"I find it strange that president Mahmoud Abbas has refused again and again to meet with Israeli leaders," Rivlin himself said in a statement prior to flying home.

"We will not be able to build trust between us if we don't begin to speak directly."

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina denied that any encounter was ever planned.

"There was no appointment or preparation made for a meeting in Brussels between President Mahmoud Abbas and President Reuven Rivlin," he told AFP.

Netanyahu's office said the events in Brussels contradicted Abbas's declared willingness to negotiate an end to the conflict.

"The person who refuses to meet the (Israeli) state president... and disseminates a blood libel in front of the European Parliament, lies when he claims that his hand is outstretched in peace," the statement said.

The accusation that Jews were poisoning the wells of Christians gained traction in 14th century Europe as plague swept across the continent.

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Another allegation from the Middle Ages, that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes, is the source of the term "blood libel".

The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported Tuesday that the well-poisoning story had resurfaced in a statement by the Palestinian foreign ministry naming a "rabbi Mlad" as authorising contamination of Palestinian water.

The Post and other Israeli media said they had failed to locate any such person or edict.
By Luke Baker JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Rome on Sunday to try to fend off pressure from the United States and Europe over his settlements policy and opposition to a French-led effort to forge peace with the Palestinians. Beginning three days of intense diplomacy, the right-wing premier will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in the Italian capital, followed by talks with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem. One of Netanyahu's immediate concerns is a forthcoming report from the Middle East Quartet, a mediation group made up of the United States, EU, United Nations and Russia, that is expected to use unusually tough language in criticising Israel's expansion of settlements on occupied land that the Palestinians seek for an independent state. Diplomats confirmed that the current language in the report is strong, on the one hand condemning Israel's unchecked building of settlement homes, which is considered illegal under international law, and on the other persistent Palestinian incitement against Israel during a recent wave of violence. What is unclear is whether the wording may be softened before the report is issued, probably next week, although its publication has already been delayed several times. "As it stands, the language is strong and Israel isn't going to like it," said one diplomat briefed on the content. "But it's also not saying that much that hasn't been said before - that settlements are a serious obstacle to peace." Netanyahu spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week as part of his efforts to keep the Kremlin closely updated on developments in the region. The leaders have met face-to-face four times in the past year, with one Israeli official saying the two had developed a good understanding. As well as a desire to defang the Quartet report, there are a series of issues Netanyahu needs to broach with Kerry, including how to conclude drawn-out negotiations with Washington on a new, 10-year defence agreement. There is also the looming issue of a peace conference organised by the French that is supposed to convene in the autumn, although it may no longer take place in Paris. Israeli officials oppose the initiative, seeing it as side-stepping the need for Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate directly. They argue that it provides the Palestinians a chance to internationalise the conflict, rather than dealing with the nitty-gritty on the ground. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who addressed the European Parliament on Wednesday, said Israel was feeling impatience with Europe and now was not the right time to push for peace. "Currently, the practical conditions, the political and regional circumstances, which would enable us to reach a permanent agreement between us -- the Israelis and the Palestinians -- are failing to materialise," he said. Many diplomats also question whether the French initiative can inject life into an all-but-defunct peace process, which last broke down in 2014, but they are willing to try. A nagging concern for Israel is that the conference will end up fixing a time frame for an agreement on ending Israel's 49-year-old occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians. If that doesn't emerge from the French plan, it remains possible that a resolution along similar lines could be presented to the United Nations Security Council before the end of the year. That is another reason why Netanyahu will be eager to sit down with Ban for talks on Tuesday. (Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Donald Trump isn't the only member of his family facing lawsuits.

Back in March, Italian-based shoe brand Aquazzura called out Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka, for "blatantly" stealing its "copyright designs."

"You should know better," the brand captioned a side-by-side of Trump's $145 'Hettie' sandal next to its $785 'Wild Things' version. "Shame on you @ivankatrump! Imitation is NOT the most sincere form of flattery."

A photo posted by Aquazzura by Edgardo Osorio (@aquazzura) on Mar 4, 2016 at 5:30am PST

Trump herself didn't respond to the initial accusation at the tim. But according to The Fashion Law, on Tuesday Aquazzura officially filed a trade dress infringement suit against her and her licensee Marc Fischer for "copying nearly every detail of [its] well-known and coveted shoe."

Details include: "the overall shape of the shoe, including the angle and slope of the sole of the shoe, the stiletto heel combined with an open toe, the distinctive fringed vamp (the band covering the toe) and the ankle-wrap closure made of tasseled string."

Aquazzura (left), Ivanka Trump (right)

The lawsuit also claims that this isn't the first time that Trump had "copied" Aquazurra's designs.

Source: United States District Court

In addition to the similarity of the heels, Aquazzura believes that Trump is misleading customers to believe that both brand's shoes are "one and the same," according to The Fashion Law. The brand has issued claims of unfair competition and is seeking damages for "all gains, profits, property and advantages derived by Defendants from Defendants' unlawful conduct."

"This is a baseless lawsuit aimed at generating publicity," Matthew Burris, CFO of Marc Fisher, said in a statement to Mic. "The shoe in question is representative of a trending fashion style, is not subject to intellectual property law protection and there are similar styles made by several major brands. The lawsuit is without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves against the claim."

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Banana Republic (left), Steve Madden (right)

And he's not completely wrong. Although the shoes are very similar, many other brands have also "copied" or created similar pairs. A source close to the Ivanka Trump collection directed us to Steve Madden, ASOS and Banana Republic, all of which are selling products just like Aquazzura's.

Aquazzura is demanding a trial by jury, but it's unclear whether the brand will take action against the other companies as well (Mic reached out for further information).

"As a young designer, you become well known for a silhouette," Edgardo Osorio, the founder of Aquazzura, told Business of Fashion in March. "When they start copying my classic styles, it's a problem."
Ivanka Trump wearing a pair of strappy pumps from her own company. This particular style is not named in the lawsuit. (Photo: IvankaTrump.com)

Fashion entrepreneur and shoe designer Ivanka Trump is being called out as a thief by high-end Italian footwear company Aquazzura. The footwear brand filed suit against Trump for allegedly stealing at least three of its designs and using them in her own, eponymous shoe line, the Huffington Post reports. Also named in the suit is Marc Fisher, the manufacturer Trump collaborates with, as well as two other companies. The suit accuses the companies of repeated infringement and deceptive trade practices.

One of the main complaints in Aquazzuras suit, which was filed Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court, is related to the super-sexy Wild Thing shoe ($785), a fringy, high-heeled sandal that looks almost identical to Trumps Hettie stiletto ($145), which sells through retailers like Bloomingdales, Lord and Taylor, and Nordstrom. Lets compare the two designs below: fringe covered in the front, reddish orange, and an ankle-wrapped tie with tassels. We think they look pretty similar, but Aquazzura will have to let a judge decide.



Photos: Courtesy of Farfetch.com, left, and Pinterest, right



Before he filed the suit, the founding designer of Aquazzura, Edgardo Osorio, called out Trumps supposed thievery during Paris Fashion Week on Instagram, writing, One of the most disturbing things in the fashion industry is when someone blatantly steals your copyright designs and doesnt care. You should know better. Shame on you @ivankatrump! Imitation is NOT the most sincere form of flattery.



A photo posted by Aquazzura by Edgardo Osorio (@aquazzura) on Mar 4, 2016 at 5:30am PST

Osorio told Footwear News he has nothing against Ivanka Trump personally, but rather with the copycat culture of the womens footwear industry. I plan to do the same with Steve Madden and other people who have ripped us off, he told the publication. Even some of my direct competitors are copying me  Sometimes I look at the buys in department stores, and I see copies of my shoes. We need to be harder with our retailers. They need to protect us. You cant cannibalize one business with another.

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Other designs Trumps company has been accused of stealing include Aquazzuras Forever Marilyn and Belgravia shoes.

Photos: Courtesy of Farfetch.com, left, and Lyst.com, right



Marc Fishers CFO, Matthew Burris, told Yahoo Style, This is a baseless lawsuit aimed at generating publicity. The shoe in question is representative of a trending fashion style, is not subject to intellectual property law protection, and there are similar styles made by several major brands. The lawsuit is without merit, and we will vigorously defend ourselves against the claim.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
TOKYO, June 23 (Reuters) - Japan's financial regulator is monitoring foreign currency liquidity among the country's banks and brokerages ahead of Britain's closely-run referendum on European Union membership, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The Financial Services Agency has checked whether financial institutions have raised necessary amounts of sterling and the euro for their daily operations, the sources said, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The regulator is wary of potential difficulties in raising sterling and euro should market volatility increase after Thursday's referendum, but does not have strong concerns about possible depletion of U.S. dollar supplies, the sources said.

Voting in the referendum begins at 0600 GMT on Thursday June 23. The official result is due some time after 0600 GMT on Friday, but partial results and turnout figures will be announced much earlier.

(Reporting by Takahiko Wada; Writing by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Tokyo (AFP) - Japan's multi-billion-dollar pornographic industry has issued a formal apology and promised change in response to allegations that women have been forced to perform sex acts on film against their will.

The move comes after the arrest this month of three talent scouts accused of coercing a woman to perform in more than 100 pornographic films over several years.

While the high-profile case sparked the industry's response, but campaigners say the practice is more widespread and welcomed the apology as "the first of its kind".

The Intellectual Property Promotion Association (IPPA), which represents Japan's adult film industry, said in a statement Wednesday it will "encourage producers to take action to quickly improve the situation and restore the soundness of the entire industry".

"The association deeply regrets that we had failed to take initiatives (to deal with problem before). We are very sorry."

This month, police arrested the three men, including a 49-year-old executive at Tokyo-based agency Marks Japan, on suspicion of violating the country's labour laws.

The talent agency pressed the victim to perform in adult videos by allegedly warning her that she had to pay penalties for breach of contract if she refused, local media have reported.

The unnamed woman thought she was going to be working as a model, media said.

Pornography is widely available in Japan, but the dark side of the industry is seldom discussed openly and the rights of those who work in it even less so.

In an attempt to shine a light on abusive aspects of the business, a coalition of campaigners and attorneys have urged authorities to crack down on sexual mistreatment.

Activists point to abuses including coercive or fraudulent signing of contracts -- sometimes targeting minors.

Some actresses have said they were forced to engage in repeated intercourse without protection and even being gang-raped during filming.

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Shihoko Fujiwara, a campaigner at Lighthouse, a non-profit that helps human trafficking victims, applauded the apology, but added that not all porn producers belong to the industry lobby.

Some 20 percent of adult film producers do not belong to the group while others run underground operations, she said.

"I believe this is the first statement of the kind issued by the industry group," Fujiwara told AFP.

"But the remaining 20 percent and some illegal porn producers need to comply with the rules, which would require the government to take action."

Human Rights Now, a Tokyo-based campaign group, said the number of women seeking counselling over industry abuses jumped more than 80 percent last year from 2014.
Chelsea, MICHIGAN (Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N) chief of Jeep brand Mike Manley said Thursday software fixes for 1.1 million vehicles that were recalled for rollaway risks, including the Jeep Grand Cherokee, will be available by the end of this month.

A Grand Cherokee was recently involved in the death of actor Anton Yelchin. Manley said the company was conducting a "thorough investigation" of the incident but did not estimate when such a probe would be completed.

Manley spoke with reporters at a driving event for new FCA vehicles in Chelsea, Michigan.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
(Reuters) - Xerox Corp (XRX.N) said Jeff Jacobson, the president of its technology unit, would take over as chief executive after the company splits its business process outsourcing unit into a separate, publicly listed entity.

Jacobson, 56, joined Xerox in 2012 and he was appointed the president of the technology business, which includes the company's hardware and software offerings, in July 2014.

Xerox will house the company's legacy printer business. Its business process outsourcing operations will be held under "Conduent Inc", which will be led by Ashok Vemuri.

Xerox, which announced the split in January, said its current CEO Ursula Burns would become the chairman of the printer company after the separation is completed at the end of 2016.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)
If The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon had a swear jar, everyone there would be much wealthier after Gordon Ramsays recent visit.

The Hells Kitchen star repeatedly dropped F-bombs, S-bombs, and possibly some B-bombs  it was hard to tell because there were so many censorship bleeps. Fallon, who is not a big fan of cursing in general, played up his frustration with the chef, which drew a lot of laughs.

At one point Ramsay agreed to use the British curse word bloody, but he immediately followed it up with the American F-word. As a result, he was sent to the naughty step, where he was forced to think about his potty mouth.

In the end, Fallon really has only himself to blame for the expletive-laden outbursts. What does he expect from a guy who has two television shows with the word hell in them?



The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.



See Andy Cohen scold guests on WWHL for cursing:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram  or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose Depp has visited him in the Bahamas as he plans to remain on his private island amid his divorce from Amber Heard.



"He has no plans to return to L.A.," a source tells PEOPLE of the actor. "He misses nothing about L.A. but his kids, and they are visiting him in the Bahamas." According to the source, his daughter Lily-Rose Depp, 17, has already visited him on the island, and his son Jack, 14, is expected to arrive with his mother, Vanessa Paradis, in a few days.



"Having his kids around is always great for him. He has really missed his kids," the source says, adding that Depp has also had friends "flying back and forth for visits" to the island. "He likes being surrounded by people and everyone is trying to cheer him up."



The actor has been staying on the island since concluding the European half of his tour with his band, The Hollywood Vampires.









VIDEO: Amber Heard Withdraws Request for Temporary Spousal Support



Depp avoided making a return to L.A. when a hearing to extend Heard's temporary restraining order was pushed to August. Heard, who is accusing Depp of domestic violence, was granted the restraining order less than a week after filing for divorce.



In a response to Heard's initial court filing, Depp's attorney, Laura Wasser, alleged in court documents that Heard "is attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse."



"Johnny was very nervous about the court date," the source says. "He really didn't want to return to L.A. for court. He was very relieved that his lawyer was able to figure things out for now."



According to the source, Depp hopes to settle the divorce out of court. "He doesn't talk badly about Amber and just wants to move on," the source adds.



Depp will return to the U.S. in July to continue his concert tour with The Hollywood Vampires. "He seems excited about the concerts," says the source.
London (AFP) - Torrential rain and flooding left people racing against the clock to vote in Britain's EU membership referendum -- with chief Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson only just making it in the nick of time.

Johnson, the former London mayor, made it to his local polling station in the capital with just 18 minutes to spare after his flight back from Edinburgh was delayed due to the foul weather in southeast England.

Two London polling stations were forced to close due to flooding, with parts of Britain deluged as voters chose whether the country should stay in the European Union or leave the bloc.

The two polling stations in the leafy southwestern suburb of Kingston-upon-Thames had to move due to the flooding.

"There has been heavy rainfall overnight which has resulted in flooding at a number of polling stations," said Kingston Council, giving details of the changes.

Meanwhile a polling station in Barking in east London was shut due to a burst water main and relocated to a site nearby.

One polling station in Dover on the southeast tip of England suffered a power cut due to storms and ran on a generator.

The rain and flooding disrupted train networks in southeast England, leaving many commuters in a race against time to get home and cast their ballots before polls closed at 2100 GMT.

Several stations on the London Underground train network were shut. The Waterloo and City Line, nicknamed "The Drain", was completely suspended.

"We're working to clear the water as quickly as possible so that services can return to normal," said a Transport for London spokesman.

By 2000 GMT, the Environment Agency for England and Wales had 10 flood warnings still in place, meaning flooding was expected and immediate action required.

There were a further 33 lesser flood alerts, all in the southeast and east of England.

Some 14 flood warnings and alerts were stood down in the preceeding 24 hours.
vineyard vines

Over the years, Wall Street has tried over and over to change its image as a workplace mainly for straight white males who come from the same families, went to the same schools, and share the same views on everything from fiscal responsibility to the greatness of The Gipper.

To shake that image, there are clubs that are supposed to support inclusiveness among minorities already working at banks and initiatives to recruit underrepresented people from different walks of life.

But sometimes banks are a little tone-deaf as to how to make themselves seem open to people who are different from the traditional Wall Streeter. It's been a two-little-steps-forward-one-gigantic-step-back kind of movement.

And at this moment, I can say confidently that JPMorgan just took a step in the wrong direction  in fact, it's an embarrassing direction.

Vineyard Vines' logo is a happy smiling pastel whale

Here's what happened. The bank recently announced that it would move to a business-casual dress code. On the one hand, this is obviously great for people who want to work in a less stuffy work environment. On the other hand, it can be a confusing designation. What is business casual, exactly?

Well, JPMorgan has decided to help its employees figure that out by setting up a Vineyard Vines pop-up store at its New York headquarters for the completely, utterly, miserably, tragically confused adults who don't know how to buy a pair of decently fitting khakis.

Apparently, this is just in case all you have in your wardrobe aside from suits is a bunch of old Grateful Dead T-shirts from your "experimental" phase at Wesleyan.

From The Wall Street Journal, which had the great honor of breaking this story:

"[T]hat may only be the start of a broader apparel push at the biggest U.S. bank by assets. J.P. Morgan is slated to open pop-up shops at its New York, Wilmington, Del., and Columbus, Ohio, locations later this year, said Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Lemkau.

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"These will feature J.P. Morgan specific items  think a fleece vest with J.P. Morgan branding or a custom Vineyard Vines tie with the bank's blue octagon logo..."

Behold:

JP Morgan should be trying to forget about whales

In case you're not familiar with Vineyard Vines, it is in no way a neutral brand like, say, Theory or Banana Republic. It is a brand that comes locked and loaded with a message: It's the preppiest brand for the preppiest preps in prep town.*

Let me break it down for you: Vineyard Vines is the brand that puts grown men in whale-patterned pants. You can get crabs, too, if you're lucky. It also aggressively uses pink and green as a legitimate color combination for men and women who are legally allowed to drive and vote.

Vineyard Vines' aesthetic is not for adults. It's for children's pajamas. At the very most, it's what clueless dad-bros wear to the beach or pool because their wives just figured, "Well, I'm here grabbing cute shorts for the kids, might as well grab him a new pair of trunks."

It is the most grotesque example of preppiness. It is clothing for people who ask other people where they "summer."

If you want to picture someone in them, picture Greg Marmalard and his fellow Delta Tau Chi in "Animal House." Picture Carlton Banks. Do you want to dress like Carlton Banks? The Fresh Prince sure didn't.

vineyard vines bro preppy

But what's more important than any of that bad taste is that Vineyard Vines is for people who all want to look the same  obnoxious pastel-colored drones. And that penchant for uniformity is the very reputation Wall Street is trying to battle.

If JPMorgan is telling its employees that this style is "appropriate" for work, then it's telling its employees  whoever they are and wherever they're from  that this is the kind of lifestyle they should emulate at work. It's telling them that the bank isn't changing with its workforce, it's telling its workforce to bow down to the awkward tradition of who runs the bank.

But whatever  can't wait to see you bros drinking at Snafu in your Vineyard Vines JPMorgan ties.

Oh, and did I mention that Vineyard Vines is a JPMorgan client? Well, it is.

*We should note that the author of this post loves herself a polo shirt. Loves. But not from Vineyard Vines. Just, no.

Check out more of Linette Lopez talking about this snafu with Sallie Krawcheck, founder of Ellevest:

NOW WATCH: There's Some Really Fierce Women's Squash Happening At The JPMorgan Tournament Right Now





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Cleveland Police walk with pedestrians as they patrol the area in downtown Cleveland on March 17, 2016. City officials have been coy about their plans for handling convention protests, saying only they are prepared for challenges and are working to free up jail cells, while activists have warily eyed the citys acquisition of riot gear. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday struck down the city of Clevelands plan for placing limits on protests outside the Republican National Convention, saying the event zone is too large and security regulations too strict, lawyers who sued the city said.

With the convention 25 days away, U.S. District Judge James Gwin issued a preliminary injunction rejecting the citys plan to establish a large security zone in central Cleveland, said Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio.

Attorneys for the city and ACLU were at work in the judges chambers, possibly to set a deadline for designing a new event zone with fewer restrictions, Link said.

The citys chief spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of three groups planning to demonstrate at the July 18-21 convention contends that Cleveland has imposed an unnecessarily large restricted zone of 3.3 square miles (8.5 square km) in the city center where free speech and mobility will be limited.

Presumptive nominee Donald Trump is expected to officially become the Republican Partys candidate for president at the convention, which will attract protesters for various causes who plan to demonstrate outside.

Trump campaign events have drawn large and raucous demonstrations, some of which have resulted in clashes between the candidates supporters and opponents.

The plaintiffs in the Cleveland lawsuit are Citizens for Trump, a Texas-based group that supports the businessmans campaign; Organize Ohio, a liberal activist group; and Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, a charitable organization.

The U.S. presidential election will be held on Nov. 8.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Matthew Lewis)
Los Angeles (AFP) - Jurors in the Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven" plagiarism trial resumed deliberations Thursday after ending their first hours of discussions without reaching a verdict.

A panel of four men and four women at a federal court in Los Angeles are being asked to determine whether the British rockers poached the opening to their signature track from long-defunct LA rock band Spirit.

Songwriting duo Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have denied plagiarizing the melancholic guitar progression of their classic 1971 song from "Taurus," an instrumental track from Spirit's debut album, written four years earlier.

Plant and Page were seen entering the courthouse on Thursday.

The case was brought by Michael Skidmore, the trustee and friend of Spirit guitarist Randy California, who long maintained he deserved credit for "Stairway" but drowned in 1997 having never taken legal action over the song.

The suit, which was filed by Skidmore two years ago, seeks damages and claims California deserves a songwriting credit so that he can "take his place as an author of rock's greatest song."

"Give credit where credit is due. This case has always been about credit," Skidmore's attorney Francis Malofiy said as he presented his closing arguments on Wednesday.

The lawsuit, which seeks damages, comes amid a rise in such copyright cases, with the family of Marvin Gaye last year controversially winning more than $7 million from a jury over the song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams.

The judge rejected Led Zeppelin's argument that it was too late to file a lawsuit, pointing out that the band released a remastered version of "Stairway to Heaven" in 2014.

"Stairway" is estimated to have grossed $3.4 million during the five-year period at issue in the civil trial, although Skidmore's legal team is asking for damages of up to $13.5 million.

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Zeppelin opened for Spirit when the hard rockers -- Plant, Page, John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham -- made their US debut on December 26, 1968 in Denver.

But the surviving members have submitted testimony that they never had substantive interaction with Spirit or listened to 1967's "Taurus" before recording "Stairway" in December 1970 and January 1971.

Experts called by the plaintiffs say there are substantial similarities between key parts of the two songs, but defense witnesses have testified that the chord pattern used in the intro to "Stairway" is so commonplace that copyright doesn't apply.
Nairobi (AFP) - The African Union has deployed less than a quarter of the agreed 200 military and human rights observers to Burundi, amid differences with the country over their role in tackling a festering political crisis, sources close to the AU said Thursday.

"The AU has only deployed 32 human rights observers and 15 military experts out of the 100 due for each category," one African diplomat told AFP, speaking of "persistent differences" over their rules of deployment.

"The Burundian government wants to first endorse the observers' reports before sending them on to the AU headquarters, which is something the organisation refuses," the source explained.

On top of that the African Union wants its observers deployed at the border with Rwanda to be armed, which Bujumbura refuses, he added.

The pan-African organisation feels that "the Burundian government has done everything to delay this mission, even if things seem to be going in the right direction," the same source said.

International efforts are growing to find an end to the turmoil in Burundi, which has seen hundreds of people killed and a quarter of a million flee the country.

The crisis began with President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term, a vote he won three months later amid an opposition boycott.

A senior Burundi official confirmed that there were problems with the deployment of the AU monitors.

The Burundi government is acting "in good faith" but "it must maintain national sovereignty," the official told AFP.

According to a second African diplomat, the observers and military experts will be unable to properly carry out the work due to the "constraints" put on them.

The matter will be discussed during a three-day visit by a team from the AU's Peace and Security Council, which arrived in Burundi on Wednesday.

Five African heads of state secured agreement from Burundi to increase to 200 the strength of its monitoring mission, which has been in place since November 2015.
Anthony Kennedy Supreme Court Justice

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has emerged as the unlikely hero of affirmative action, supplying the swing vote in the court's 4-3 decision to uphold the use of race in college admissions decisions.

This is a first for Kennedy, who before this most recent case, Fisher v. University of Texas, had never voted to uphold an affirmative-action program.

The dispute centers on Abigail Fisher, a white woman now in her mid-20s, who sued the University of Texas at Austin in 2008 after she was denied admission to the state's flagship public university.

She says she was discriminated against because of her race and that UT Austin accepted nonwhite students with worse grades and fewer extracurricular activities.

"Privileging one characteristic above all others does not lead to a diverse student body," Kennedy wrote in his opinion, expressing support of holistic admissions decisions. "Indeed, to compel universities to admit students based on class rank alone is in deep tension with the goal of educational diversity as this Court's cases have defined it."

The Supreme Court first heard Fisher's case in 2013 before ruling to send it down to a lower court to be reevaluated. It's likely that the Supreme Court's conservative justices were relying on Kennedy's skepticism to strike down affirmative action for good when they voted to rehear Fisher's case last year.

Legal journalist Joan Biskupic's 2014 book on Justice Sonia Sotomayor  "Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice"  revealed that the 2013 decision was actually a compromise and that the court was ready to rule against the University of Texas. In a New York Times op-ed article last year, Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse highlighted Biskupic's book in terms of what it might mean if justices again took up Fisher v. University of Texas.

"In the University of Texas case, it initially looked like a 5-3 lineup," Biskupic wrote. "The five conservatives, including Justice Kennedy, wanted to rule against the Texas policy and limit the ability of other universities to use the kinds of admissions programs [upheld in earlier cases]. The three liberals were ready to dissent."

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Noting that the Supreme Court needs four votes to decide to hear a case, Greenhouse wrote, the conservative justices most likely "persuaded themselves that Justice Kennedy will hold firm rather than seek another temperature-lowering compromise  and that the ensuing heat would be an institutional price worth paying."

It seems they were wrong.





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Courtesy of Rimmel

Earlier this month, the nation celebrated the birthday of Queen Liz, who reached the grand old age of 90, but this year we're also celebrating the anniversary of two other British icons, namely Rimmel, the global beauty brand founded in London, and Croydon-born reigning supermodel Kate Moss.

To mark the milestone of an ongoing partnership that's lasted 15 years (Kate featured in her first Rimmel campaign back in 2001 shot by Terry Richardson and has since starred in 40 shoots with the brand for both TV and print) Rimmel and Ms Moss have introduced a special-edition lip and Super Gel nail polish collection in Kate's favourite reds and nudes, launching on the 6th of July.

As Rimmel's muse since 2001, Kate has continuously embodied the experimental style and dynamism of the capital and despite passing on the Rimmel beauty baton to fellow campaign stars Cara Delevingne, Rita Ora and Georgia May Jagger, she's the original (and the best) spokesperson for the London Look. The new anniversary collection, revamped in rose gold packaging, celebrates the different facets of Kate's chameleonic dress sense, from red carpet glamour to grungy goddess.

What better way to kick off the launch than with a personal invitation from Kate and Rimmel to an intimate preview of the collection? We certainly didn't need to think twice. Yesterday, a small group of international beauty editors and bloggers were invited to take a look inside Kate's coveted wardrobe with stylist Zoe Bedeaux. Kate explained how some of her most imitated and iconic fashion moments have inspired each lipstick colour.

Consisting of six shades (three red and three nude) of high-intensity formulas infused with light-reflecting Black Diamonds, Kate began with 'Muse Red', a rich crimson that evokes Kate's effortless elegance. The glamourous 'Retro Red', a Veronica Lake-esque hue, was inspired by a floor-length red dress that Kate wore to Mario Testinos 60th birthday party at Chiltern Firehouse in 2014. The dress was a remake of a vintage wedding gown that Kate found and had made in five colours, although she giggled that after wearing repeatedly to lots of parties, only the red and yellow one exist now, the rest are shredded! God, we love good time gal Kate.

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Next Mossy moved onto 'Idol Red' a vibrant lipstick with an orangey hue that's "80s Rock Chick, when they went all out with the red. Its glossy and hard, harder than now. The supermodel added that she'd pair the shade "with dark eyes and blondey hair. More peroxide, more bleach!

'Retro Red' completing the scarlet trio, is a sumptuous, deep berry that reflects the revamped '40s and '50s retro style that Kate adores. Its that kind of Loulou de La Falaise iconic look. A classic red for a classic dress, in Kate's case her beloved emerald green Saint Laurent gown, a trusty item she referred to as her if in doubt dress.

Next up, Kate introduced us to the nudes. 'Boho Nude' is a warm caramelised colour and Kate advised wearing this with lots of jewellery and maybe a bit of eyeliner with wild hair you havent washed for a while and dry shampoo. This is for the girl who doesnt care, Kate asserted. Alternatively, 'My Nude', Kate's signature beige lip, is the shade for when you want to lighten and brighten your look." Her everyday colour is best worn with her go-to uniform of a tailored blazer, skinny jeans, flats, a blouse and of course a brown, smokey eye.

Lastly, 'Rock N Roll Nude' is a peach-tinted neutral, perfect for a gig when Kate typically "piles on the mascara, with a bit of cheek and a diamond earring off one ear. Kate joked that she wouldnt wear a strong lip to a gig as shed be backstage kissing everyone. Hello.

For the enigmatic supermodel, who rarely gives much away, Kate also revealed that her ultimate fashion icon is Italian-born actress and model, Anita Pallenberg, explaining that "shes like a never-ending archive of inspiration. I love the way she looked in the 60s." And surprisingly Joan Collins is Moss' beauty muse: I took a selfie with her and she looked younger than me!" The supermodel also shared that the biggest makeup lesson she's learnt over the years is to use a brush rather than hands and also advocated the importance of sunscreen, using La Roche Posay religiously. I'm 50 now  not my age, my SPF!

When discussing her more casual looks Kate told us: I do wear an adidas Samba occasionally that Noel Gallagher gave me in 1992! He has the same size shoe as me! So there you have it, Kate Moss, the archetypal Brit style icon, is as unaffected, effortless and carefree in her approach to fashion and beauty as we all might have hoped. A fan of dry shampoo, smudgy eyeliner, the occasional trainer and a 6.49 lipstick, all hail our style queen. Get the London Look indeed.

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Katherine Heigl is expecting.

The actress, known for her roles on ABC's Grey's Anatomy and NBC's State of Affairs, is pregnant with a baby boy, reports People. This will be the third child for Heigl, 37, and musician Josh Kelley, 36.

The couple, who tied the knot in 2007, are already parents to two daughters: 4-year-old Adalaide Marie Hope, who was adopted domestically in 2012, and 7-year-old Naleigh Moon, who was adopted from South Korea in September 2009.

"The Kelley clan is thrilled to announce that we are expecting a third addition to our family," the duo told People in a statement. "Naleigh and Adelaide could not be more excited to welcome their new sibling into the fold, and Josh and I are overflowing with joy and gratitude."

Heigl is set to return to the small screen soon as she takes on the role of defense lawyer Sadie in the new CBS drama Doubt.

Heigl's rep did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter's request for comment.

Read More: See Blake Lively's Press Tour Wardrobe for 'The Shallows' (So Far)
Katherine Heigl is expecting.

The actress, known for her roles on ABC's Grey's Anatomy and NBC's State of Affairs, is pregnant with a baby boy, reports People. This will be the third child for Heigl, 37, and musician Josh Kelley, 36.

The couple, who tied the knot in 2007, are already parents to daughters 4-year-old Adalaide Marie Hope, who was adopted domestically in 2012, and 7-year-old Naleigh Moon, who was adopted from South Korea in September 2009.

Josh Kelley Calls Working with Wife Katherine Heigl on 'It's Your Move' Video 'Very Full-Circle'

"The Kelley clan is thrilled to announce that we are expecting a third addition to our family," the duo told People in a statement. "Naleigh and Adelaide could not be more excited to welcome their new sibling into the fold and Josh and I are overflowing with joy and gratitude."

Heigl is set to return to the small screen soon as she takes on the role of defense lawyer Sadie in the new CBS drama Doubt.

Heigl's rep did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter's request for comment. The couple recently worked together on the video for Kelley's single "It's Your Move," more than a decade after they first shared the screen in his clip for "Only You."

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Houston-based technology, engineering, procurement and construction company KBR, Inc.s KBR winning streak continues with an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services contract from Monroe Energy.

The contract calls for EPC services for the Tier 3 Ultra-Low-Sulfur Gasoline Project at Monroe's Refinery in Trainer, PA.

Per the terms of the deal, KBR will handle the relocation and reconstruction of an idle 60,000 Barrels per Day SCANfining unit from another facility to Monroe's Refinery. The work is expected to be completed in 2017, with the unit slated to start operations in the same year.

The revenues connected with this project will be accounted for in the backlog of unfilled orders during the second quarter of 2016, under KBR's Engineering & Construction Business Segment.

In addition to strengthening its robust foothold in the north-east U.S. region, this noteworthy contract also emphasizes KBR's wide-ranging refining capabilities and proven expertise.

Just last week, KBR secured a Bankable Feasibility Study contract by ECOWAS Refinery Liberia Limited, under which it will conduct refinery configuration development, a market study and an Environmental, Social and Health Impact Assessment study for the project.

Earlier this month, KBR also won a contract extension with Qatar's Expressway Program, wherein it will continue its role as a program management consultant for the project for the next three years. The extension, awarded by Qatar's Public Works Authority's (Ashghal) program management contractor, is valued at over $185 million.

KBR INC Price

KBR INC Price | KBR INC Quote

Such lucrative contract wins, coupled with KBRs ability to execute large-scale logistics and project management services, further add to its strength and are expected to boost its financials. In addition, the companys capital allocation strategies and partnerships are expected to propel growth in the forthcoming quarters.

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However, a steep decline in revenues over the past few quarters, owing to macroeconomic concerns, has been weighing on KBRs financials.

KBR currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the broader industrial products sector include Eaton Corporation plc ETN, Powell Industries, Inc. POWL and ESCO Technologies Inc. ESE, each holding a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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London (AFP) - From immigration to sovereignty, here are the main battleground topics as Britain votes on Thursday whether to stay in or leave the EU.

- Immigration -

Leave: Those who want to leave the EU say Britain should be able to limit the number of migrants coming from the European Union through a points-based selection system. They are particularly worried about the pressure on public services like schools, hospitals and access to doctors created by mass immigration. There are also concerns about migrants who claim welfare and the pressure on housing. Net migration to Britain hit 333,000 in 2015 -- 3,000 short of the 2014 record. EU net migration equalled the record high of 184,000 people. Some 270,000 EU citizens moved to Britain for at least 12 months last year.

Remain: Those in favour of staying argue that EU migrants contribute more to the economy in taxes than they cost. They say that since they are young, they often do not place an undue strain on public services. EU migrants contribute 34 percent more than they receive from the state, according to 2013 research conducted at University College London. Prime Minister David Cameron has secured a deal meaning in-work welfare for new EU immigrants will be limited for their first four years if Britain remains in the bloc.

- Economy -

Leave: Out campaigners say leaving the EU would mean Britain would no longer have to pay its contribution to its budget -- estimated at almost A8.5 billion (11 billion euros) last year. Britain could seek a bespoke trading relationship with the EU and strike trade deals with growing markets like China and India, they say.

Remain: In campaigners say EU membership means a stronger economy creating jobs, trade and investment. Some 45 percent of all British exports go to the EU and three million jobs in Britain are linked to trade in Europe, they argue. They say Britain would still have to pay for access to the single market if it wanted to remain inside.

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- Sovereignty -

Leave: Britain would no longer have to abide by laws created in Brussels, campaigners say. Other states could not force through decisions against London's wishes and Britain would not have to abide by the European Court of Justice, they claim.

Remain: Leaving the EU would undermine Britain's standing in the world and could increase the likelihood of Scottish independence, campaigners argue.

As part of his reform package, Cameron has secured a commitment that Britain would not be bound by the EU drive for ever-closer union.

- Regulation -

Leave: Brussels imposes too much red tape on British business, according to the Leave camp, which says the top 100 regulations cost Britain's economy more than A33 billion a year. If Britain leaves the EU, unburdened businesses, particularly small ones, would have more freedom to make their own decisions.

Remain: The Remain camp claims that if Britain left the EU, it would be bad for businesses as markets would be shaken by the uncertainty and it could take years to strike new trade arrangements with the EU. Britain would still be bound by single market rules if it wanted to remain in the free-trade European Economic Area and have to comply with EU standards if it wanted to sell goods in the EU market.
Theres a new Colonel Sanders at KFC  again.

The fried-chicken chain has hired actor George Hamilton to portray its founder, Colonel Sanders, in television ads for Extra Crispy Chicken.

However, theres a twist. Hamilton will be playing the Extra Crispy Colonel, the first Colonel Sanders to represent a specific product: Extra Crispy Chicken.

Extra Crispy is a huge opportunity for our business, KFC CMO Kevin Hochman told Business Insider. Over half of people dont know that we have more than one recipe.

Hamilton is the fourth actor to play Colonel Sanders since the chain brought back the figure in marketing last year. Jim Gaffigan, who followed in the footsteps of Norm MacDonald and Darrell Hammond, will continue to serve as Colonel Sanders in marketing for Original Recipe chicken.

Unlike the Original Recipe, Extra Crispy Chicken is double breaded and open fried. This creates a crunchier chicken, which Hochman says most Americans actually prefer compared to the Original Recipe chicken  despite the fact that many dont realize its an option.

Hamilton was chosen as the Crispy Colonel because, according to Hochman, he embodies the Extra Crispy brand.

Extra Crispy Chicken is fried to a golden brown. George Hamilton isnt fried to a golden brown, but he is tanned to a golden brown, Hochman says, noting that the actors bold personality matches the chickens bolder flavor.

While the Extra Crispy Colonel represents something new for the company, the new ad campaign also demonstrates a major change at KFC, as the chain doubles down on what it calls its food story.

The ads show Hamilton preparing Extra Crispy Chicken by hand on the beach, in the same way it is prepared in each KFC location. Its a little detail, but for KFC its part of a larger move to put the food front and center  and convince customers that the chain serves authentic, reliable food.

Internally at KFC, Colonel Sanders represents high-quality chicken and doing things the hard way  something that Hochman hopes Sanders will soon represent to the general public as well. KFC lore says that the Colonel would travel to restaurants around the US in the 1970s, testing gravy with a golden spoon. If he didnt like it, he would dump that gravy on the floor of the restaurant.

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Commercials starring Colonel Sanders attempt to make the connection of Colonel and quality for the average consumer, especially in instances such as the Crispy Colonel hand-breading Crispy Chicken on the beach.

KFC is further doubling down on this food story with new packaging for buckets that spell out the step-by-step process of fried-chicken production. The new buckets are rolling out now through July.

With programs like Re-Coloneization  a public recommitment to quality involving national employee retraining and a new satisfaction guarantee  and an endless parade of Colonel Sanders, KFC is eager to prove it makes chicken the hard way.

Originally, bringing back Colonel Sanders was intended to grab Americans attention  something, Hochman says, marketing succeeded in doing. Now new Colonels including the Extra Crispy Colonel, are tasked with convincing Americans that they can trust KFC when it comes to well-prepared, reliable fried chicken.

NOW WATCH: These are Americas 2 most hated fast-food restaurants





More From Business Insider


In recent years Korean carmakers have been surging ahead of other mass market marques for vehicle quality and reliability, but, as the latest JD Power study shows, Kia has now surpassed even premium brands such as Porsche and BMW.

The JD Power 2016 US Initial Quality Study ranks Kia as the most reliable car band on sale today in America and singles out the 2016 Soul and 2016 Sportage for special praise.

The annual report, which invites new car owners to rank their experiences with their vehicle in terms of problems and issues over the first 90 days, shows that Kia scored 83PP100 -- that's Problems Per 100 vehicles. That score puts it one point ahead of Porsche (84) and nine ahead of third placed Hyundai, Kia's sister company. With 93 points Toyota nabbed fourth place and BMW managed fifth with 94.

It is the first time in 27 years that a non-premium marque has topped the overall table. However, given the rate at which Kia is making progress, the results shouldn't be surprising. In 2015, Kia was second for overall quality and first for mass-market brands.

But, Kia's surge is good for all everyone. Its example is being followed by the rest of the pack. US firms in particular recorded some of their highest quality gains in recent history. Chrysler and Jeep have reduced their scores by 28PP100 over the last 12 months. What's more, the combined scores of the three big Detroit companies is now better than that of imported marques -- 103 versus 106.

All of which means that the automotive industry average for quality -- 105PP100 has improved by six points over the past 12 months.

"Manufacturers are currently making some of the highest quality products we've ever seen," said Renee Stephens, vice president of U.S. automotive quality at J.D. Power. "Tracking our data over the past several years, it has become clear that automakers are listening to the customer, identifying pain points and are focused on continuous improvement. Even as they add more content, including advanced technologies that have had a reputation for causing problems, overall quality continues to improve."

The highest ranked US carmaker in this year's study (6th) is Chevrolet. Buick manages seventh ahead of Lexus in eighth, Lincoln is ninth and Ford made 11th place behind Nissan. At the other end of the table, Smart is the least reliable marque of this year's study (33rd place, 216 points) behind Fiat (32nd with 174 points) and Volvo (152 points).
Kino Lorber has snagged North American rights to Sand Storm, the Israeli drama that won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize  Dramatic prize at Sundance in January. First-time feature writer-director Elite Zexers film will open September 28 at New Yorks Film Forum and expand during the fall.

The story centers on Jalila (Ruba Blal), a 42-year-old Bedouin woman pretending to be happy as she hosts her husbands second marriage to a bride who is 20 years his junior. Meanwhile, their 18-year-old daughter Layla (Lamis Ammar) is pretending for a very different reason: Her secretive forbidden liaison with a strange man has just been unveiled. The women try to cope with their new reality in their own individual way, but eventually they realize they must join forces in order to survive.

This is a subtle, intelligent and incredibly cinematic portrayal of a mother-daughter relationshipand their struggle to re-define their place in a world bound by tradition and changing by the minute, Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber said. Were incredibly proud to bring this stunning directorial debut to North American cinemas this year, and we believe the film could be a major contender for this years Academy Awards.

Sand Storm is a Beta Cinema presentation of a 2-Team production in association with United King Films with the support of the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts  Cinema Project and Gesher Multicultural Film Fund. The deal was negotiated between Kino Lorbers CEO Richard Lorber and Beta Cinemas CEO Dirk Schurhoff.

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SXSW Documentary Winner 'Tower', About 1966 University Of Texas Mass Shooting, Sells To Kino Lorber

'The Fundamentals Of Caring' Trailer: Paul Rudd, Craig Roberts & Selena Gomez Hit The Road

Sundance Winner 'Kate Plays Christine' Jumps To Grasshopper Film For Summer Bow
Kinross Gold Corporation KGC and Yorbeau Resources Inc. have inked a non-binding letter of intent, providing Kinross the option to purchase a 100% interest in the Rouyn property in Quebec, Canada from Yorbeau.

Yorbeau, a Canada-based company dedicated to identifying world-class gold deposits, is currently focusing on the Rouyn property. This property has demonstrated substantial prospect for a major gold deposit discovery as well as a mine. Spread over 2,700 hectares, it is situated in a politically and socially stable environment with access to good infrastructure and skilled mining personnel.

The letter of intent specifies certain mutually acceptable conditions, pursuant to which Kinross can acquire a 100% interest in the property. To earn the purchase option, Kinross has to complete a resource estimation for the property after funding exploration expenditures of C$12 million over 4 years, including a commitment to spend C$3 million in the first 18 months, and conduct diamond drilling of minimum 12,500 meters. Although Kinross will be the operator and project manager during the option period, Yorbeau will have representation in the technical committee that will oversee the work being carried out.

On completion of the resource estimate, Kinross will have the option to acquire a 100% interest in the property by making a single cash payment to Yorbeau. The payment consists of $25 million as well as 2% of the current gold price multiplied by the total number of gold ounces in measured, indicated and inferred resources identified by Kinross. The gold price will be determined based on the 30-day trailing average set forth by the London Bullion Market Association in U.S. Dollars.

Additionally, Yorbeau will retain a 2% net smelter return on gold ounces produced in excess of the quantity identified by Kinross in the resource estimate, or the production of any other minerals from the property.

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Kinross has also agreed to participate in a $1 million private placement of units in Yorbeau upon signing the definitive option agreement.

KINROSS GOLD Price

KINROSS GOLD Price | KINROSS GOLD Quote

Kinross reported a net loss of $13.9 million for the first quarter of 2016, wider than a net loss of $6.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Loss widened particularly due to lower gold prices. The figure includes one-time items including foreign exchange losses of $2.8 million and acquisition-related costs of $7.6 million.

Adjusted earnings (excluding one-time items) were $1.4 million or breakeven per share, compared with adjusted earnings of $15.3 million or a penny per share recorded in the year-ago quarter. Analysts polled by Zacks were expecting a loss of a penny per share on an average.

Revenues of $782.6 million were almost in line with the year-ago quarter as higher gold sales were partly offset by lower average realized gold prices. Revenues, however, missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $796 million.

Kinross currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked gold mining companies are B2Gold Corp. BTG, Pretium Resources Inc. PVG and Golden Star Resources Ltd. GSS, all sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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What you need to know about the House Democrats sit-in

What you need to know about the House Democrats sit-in

All eyes are on Congress this week.

First, on Monday, after last weeks Democrat-driven filibuster put forth the demand that Congress take action on gun control, the Senate voted on a bill with several amendments focused on this issue. The bill, if passed, would have required every gun purchaser to undergo a background check, would require that law enforcement be alerted if anyone on the terror watch list attempted to buy a gun from a licensed dealer, and finally, included an amendment popularly known as no fly, no buy, that would allow the attorney general to deny the sale of guns if there is a reasonable belief the buyer would engage in acts of terror.

This bill did not pass in the Senate and now there is a contingency of House Democrats who are bringing the issue to their side of Congress. Today, the House Democrats are staging a sit-in on the House Floor, with over a 100 Democrat Representatives participating. The sit-in began on Wednesday morning, and is led by Georgia Representative John Lewis, a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way. We have been too quiet for too long, Lewis said at the sit-in today. There comes a time when you have to say something, when you have to make a little noise, when you have to move your feet. This is the time. Now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more.

The Democrats currently sitting on the floor of the House, refusing to leave until, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi puts it, they have the bill.

The participating Representatives are bringing the sit-in to us via social media, using the hashtags #HoldTheFloor and #NoBillNoBreak. Heres a sampling of the most powerful posts:

Shame on you @HouseGOP for thinking a moment of silence is enough. Weve had enough of the inaction, so we protest! pic.twitter.com/GFBXgz8nSr  Bonnie WatsonColeman (@RepBonnie) June 22, 2016

Im on the House floor with @repjohnlewis & Dems staging a sit-in to demand action on commonsense gun legislation pic.twitter.com/byIivby5gG  Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) June 22, 2016

After the worst mass shooting in US history, Congress still refuses to act. Well be here until that changes. pic.twitter.com/kKcTbKFSuY  Rep. Scott Peters (@RepScottPeters) June 22, 2016

Additionally, Representative Scott Peters has been Periscoping the sit-in, you can watch the live feed below:

The post What you need to know about the House Democrats sit-in appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Seoul (AFP) - Disgraced South Korean swim star Park Tae-Hwan took legal steps Thursday in his dogged campaign to overturn a doping-related ban on participating in the Olympic Games in Rio.

The multiple Olympic medallist completed an 18-month drug suspension in April after testing positive for an anabolic steroid in out-of-competition controls before the 2014 Asian Games.

But he remains barred from competing in Rio de Janeiro under a Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) rule which prohibits athletes from representing South Korea for three years after the expiration of any doping ban.

Park insists the rule is unfair and has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, which is now considering his case.

On Thursday, Park's legal team sought an injunction from the Seoul Eastern District Court that would make any eventual CAS ruling binding on the KOC.

"The court action is aimed at securing the binding power of the CAS ruling," lawyer Lim Sung-Woo told journalists.

There was no immediate reaction from the KOC, which last week turned down Park's request to have the additional three-year national team suspension lifted.

Park has repeatedly begged for a chance to compete in what would be his third, and probably last, Olympics -- at one point getting down on his hands and knees during a press conference.

The 26-year-old was once the poster-boy of South Korean swimming -- courted by advertisers and idolised by fans.

He won 400m freestyle gold and 200m freestyle silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and two silver medals at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as 400m world titles in 2007 and 2011.

On his competitive return to the pool last month, he easily won the 100m, 200m, 400m and 1,500m freestyle events at the 88th Dong-A meet, which doubles as a national trial.

His positive doping test was only revealed in January last year, and was initially blamed by Park's management team on the incompetence of a doctor at the hospital where the swimmer was receiving treatment.
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson may have concluded, but it's still coming up on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.



In a recently released deleted KUWTK scene, Kris Jenner reveals a rare story about Nicole Brown Simpson's 1994 murder while having lunch with her mother Mary Jo Shannon and boyfriend Corey Gamble.



After the three rave about the highly popular FX series, Jenner, 60, launches into an explanation of visiting her close friend Simpson's home after her death.



"Do you remember the story of when Nicole's mom called me and said, 'Can you go get all of [Simpson's daughter] Sydney and [Simpson's son] Justin's stuff out of their rooms?' " Jenner says.







"The L.A.P.D. left the blood on the steps and it was going all down the front of her house and so after they had finished doing their stuff, I said: 'Somebody's got to wash it off,' " Jenner continues.



"And you did," Shannon replies.



"They left it there for so long," Jenner says. "They had fingerprinted the house. Now, I've never been to a crime scene before, so I didn't know what fingerprinting would entail  I opened the door and I almost fainted because the whole house was black."





RELATED VIDEO: Kris Jenner Opens Up About Her Relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson



Jenner went on to detail what happened once she went inside one of the bedrooms.



"We get to Sydney's room, and you know, it's a four poster bed so on two of the posters, there was a hand print and it was red. And I went, 'I think this is blood,' " Jenner says. "So I called Marcia Clark and I go, 'Oh my god, I'm at Nicole's house and I think I see blood.' "



"They had forensic scientists within 30 minutes after we got there and they did this analysis," Jenner continues.



As for what the mysterious red marks were?



"They rush it to the lab, they call me, they go: 'It was jello,' " Jenner recalled. "And that was that. And that was the last time I ever went to the house."



"It's kind of amazing, the places you've turned up," Shannon marvels.



"You read my mind," says Gamble. And ours too!



Keeping Up with the Kardashians airs Sundays (9 p.m. ET) on E!
Beirut (AFP) - US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters advanced Thursday into the Islamic State jihadist group's bastion of Manbij in northern Syria, sparking fierce street fighting as they push to take the city.

Backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq, fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance entered Manbij from the south, a monitoring group said.

The advance marked a major breakthrough in the battle for Manbij, once a key link on the supply route between the Turkish border and IS's de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.

The loss of the city would deal another blow to IS following a string of recent battlefield defeats, including the taking by Iraqi forces earlier this month of the centre of the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

On the humanitarian front, the United Nations said it would begin flying desperately needed aid from Damascus to the northeastern city of Qamishli, which has been inaccessible by road for more than two years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said SDF forces were able to break through IS defences in Manbij a few hours after taking control of a village on the city's southwestern outskirts.

Director Rami Abdel Rahman said clashes and air strikes around Manbij were ongoing late Thursday.

An SDF commander at the front told AFP that IS fighters were using car bombs and other explosives to try to slow the assault.

"Our forces, in coordination with the coalition, are determined to advance inside the city and eliminate all Daesh fighters," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

- 230 coalition strikes -

Abdel Rahman said tens of thousands of civilians were trapped inside the city, though some 8,000 had been able to flee since the start of the SDF offensive on Manbij on May 31.

He said six civilians including a child were killed Thursday by a mine as they tried to flee the city, which had a population of about 120,000 before the start of Syria's civil war in 2011.

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The SDF managed to encircle the city on June 10 but its advance slowed as IS fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.

At least 63 SDF fighters and 458 jihadists have been killed since the start of the offensive, according to the Observatory.

The jihadists have held Manbij since 2014, the year IS seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its "caliphate".

The US-led coalition of Western and Arab states launched air raids against IS in both countries the same year and in recent months has stepped up support for ground forces like the SDF.

A statement from US Central Command said the coalition had carried out 73 strikes in the Manbij area last week and a total of 233 since the assault began.

The coalition on Thursday said Thursday that the SDF had yet to penetrate the centre of Manbij.

British Major General Doug Chalmers told reporters that SDF forces were in "the outer element of the city rather than the city proper".

Formed in October 2015, the 25,000-strong SDF is dominated by the powerful Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) but includes an Arab contingent of around 5,000 fighters.

- Airlift planned -

The Manbij assault has coincided with another offensive launched by Syrian regime forces against IS in its stronghold province of Raqa.

Three Russian soldiers supporting regime troops in the area were seriously wounded on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine, the Observatory said, adding that they were recovered by Russian forces.

However, the foreign ministry in Moscow said all its soldiers were "alive, in good health and in their barracks".

Syria's conflict began five years ago with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.

The UN on Thursday said it planned to fly in humanitarian aid to the cut-off city of Qamishli, near the Turkish border.

"We have run out of meaningful means to reach people over land," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, told reporters.

He said the airlift "will bring life-saving assistance to a very large number of people".

Qamishli lies in Hasakeh governorate, which can only be reached by road in Syria by driving through the IS-held provinces of Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

Russia and the United States launched a major effort last year to bring about peace talks between the government and rebel forces, but the negotiations faltered and a partial truce announced in February has all but collapsed.

Clashes have been especially intense in and around Syria's second city of Aleppo, where the Observatory said six people including a child died Thursday in rebel shelling of pro-regime neighbourhoods.

And seven civilians, including two children, died in regime air strikes on rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods, the monitor added.
By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that it will launch emergency yellow fever vaccination campaigns along the border between Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Congolese capital Kinshasa next month. The worst yellow fever outbreak in decades has killed about 345 people in Angola, while Congo declared an epidemic in Kinshasa and two other provinces on Monday after reporting 67 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 other suspected cases. In a statement, WHO said that the campaign would target areas within 75-100 km (45-60 miles) of the border where there are high levels of movement and trade in order to create an "immune buffer" and prevent the disease spreading further. WHO said that the campaign would begin in July. There is currently almost no vaccine left in Congo and a new stock of more than 1 million doses may take weeks to arrive. The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunise people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but experts warn this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas. The mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people with poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed, owing to pour drainage. The government and international health organisations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4. But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a few doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa's central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighbouring Congo Republic. To cope with the shortage, WHO has recommended using a fifth of the standard dose of yellow fever vaccine, which would not give lifelong protection to those who receive it but might at least contain the outbreak. However, a WHO spokeswoman said such a move would not be appropriate for the current emergency plan on the border. "Due to the logistical challenges involved in rural areas, dose fractioning would not be proposed in this area. WHO would recommend using full doses," Sarah Cumberland said. She added that the recommendation was being considered only for Kinshasa, "as a way to extend a limited stock of vaccine to cover the entire city". (Additional reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay; Editing by Tim Cocks/Jeremy Gaunt)
Washington (AFP) - The leader of the Democratic sit-in at Congress to push for tougher gun control laws is a veteran African-American activist who has protested with the best of them.

Representative John Lewis, 76, walked with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the historic March on Washington in August 1963 in which King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Lewis also spoke at that huge rally spilling out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Aged just 23, he was the youngest speaker that day.

The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis is now the last remaining living speaker from that rally.

It is considered a defining moment in the movement to end racism against America's blacks -- who today bear a disproportionate share of the toll of the country's epidemic of gun violence.

"We have turned deaf ears to the blood of the innocent & the concern of our nation. We will use nonviolence to fight gun violence & inaction," Lewis tweeted as the sit-in by several dozen Democratic representatives got under way Tuesday.

They acted after the speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to allow votes on two bills demanded by Democrats to make it harder for people to buy guns.

During his work in the civil rights movement, Lewis took part in so-called Freedom Rides -- challenges to segregated facilities at bus terminals in the South.

On March 7, 1965, he led a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ended in an attack by state troopers on the protesters that later became known as "Bloody Sunday."

After Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Lewis said: "When we were organizing voter-registration drives, going on the Freedom Rides, sitting in, coming here to Washington for the first time, getting arrested, going to jail, being beaten, I never thought -- I never dreamed -- of the possibility that an African American would one day be elected president of the United States."

Lewis was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1986 as a delegate from Georgia and has held his seat ever since.

The political news website Politico hails Lewis as "one of the most courageous persons the civil rights movement ever produced."

Lewis has received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the sole John F. Kennedy "Profile in Courage Award" for Lifetime Achievement.
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Emoji have changed the way we communicate, popping up in the place of words in every other text that we send. A new LED handbag lets you literally wear emoji on your sleeve, ironically with the aim of getting people to talk more.

SEE ALSO: 16 of the most useless emoji and how to make them useful

The handbag was developed by a young Indian design student named Madhura Kulkarni, in the hope of starting a conversation. The LED panel on the bag displays a series of five emoji variations and three words in colour. For now. the emoji are coded and play as a video, but Kulkarni plans to develop an app to customise the emoji, the words and the current time.

"People are so engrossed in their phones that they hardly talk to each other verbally," Kulkarni, a student at UK's Birmingham City University, told Mashable. "I wanted to change this. So, if you have a particular emoji on the bag and if another person has the same emoji, it may just start an actual conversation."

Image: madhura kulkarni

Kulkarni is also working on more shapes and sizes for the bags, though they are already up for sale under her brand Madhecii. Priced between 500 - 1000, they are made of aeroply wood and lined with leather.

Emoji have been gradually creeping into fashion, inspiring jewellery collections, phone accessories, manicures, tattoos, and even making an appearance at a Chanel runway show.
(Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)



Led Zeppelin have won a copyright lawsuit that claimed they had plagiarized the music to their most celebrated song, Stairway to Heaven. A Los Angeles jury determined Thursday that the lawyer representing the estate of late guitarist Randy Wolfe, who played with the group Spirit, did not prove that the hard rockers lifted the songs intro from Spirits 1968 instrumental Taurus.

Songs on Trial: 10 Landmark Music Copyright Cases

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2014 filing alleging that because Led Zeppelin had appeared on the same bill as Spirit in the early stage of in their career, they would have been aware of the song Taurus and would have subsequently copied it. The track  penned by California, a guitarist whose real name was Randy Wolfe and who died in 1997  appeared on Spirits 1968 self-titled debut and contains two minutes and 38 seconds worth of cinematic, psych-folk mysticism. The track features an acoustic guitar line playing a pensive melody that transforms into a descending chromatic pattern. A lawyer representing Californias estate, now repped by British former music journalist Michael Skidmore, claimed that Led Zeppelins trippy, acoustic guitar intro to Stairway had borrowed heavily from Taurus.

The trial quickly became a colorful, contentious battle between the two sides right from the start. Attorney Francis Malofiy, who represented Skidmore, carried a briefcase that resembled a Fender amp and played fast and loose with courtroom protocol. He attempted to play videos that werent admitted into evidence (a possible basis for mistrial), conducted exasperating testimony that both the judge and defense found objection-worthy (the judge yelled sustained at one point before the defense could even object) and referred to Jimmy Page as the alleged songwriter of Stairway.

Youre wasting a lot of time, the judge told Malofiy at a point where the lawyer was attempting to claim that the Mary Poppins song Chim Chim Cheree was a possible influence on Page. In his closing statements, Malofiy said that the case was about giving credit where its due, blasted Page and Plants selective memory during testimony and, in perhaps his oddest move, reminded the jury that he needed to prove his case by only 51 percent in order to win.

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The jury was not legally allowed to hear the original recordings of Stairway to Heaven and Taurus in determining their verdict. Instead, they heard an expert perform both songs based on the original sheet music.

Led Zeppelin attorney Peter Anderson kept a cooler demeanor. He argued that the Wolfe Trust did not own the copyright to the song (a claim the judge shot down) and that the musical characteristics Malofiy claimed Zeppelin copied were musical traditions that date back at least to the 1600s and appeared in songs like the Beatles Michelle.

Does It Matter If Led Zeppelin Stole Stairway to Heaven?

In testimony, Page was charming, witty, candid and sarcastic, offering rejoinders to Malofiys observations (when the lawyer said Page discovered he had the ability to play guitar in his youth, Page said, Well, yeah.) Both Page and Plant testified they did not remember ever hearing Taurus. Anderson made an ugly misstep during cross-examination with Skidmore when he accused Wolfe's mother as having an "illegitimate son" that was cut out of royalties. He also brought in a musicologist as a witness who spoke too academically and compared Stairway to the obscure To Catch a Shad by the Modern Folk Quartet.

Anderson closed his arguments by saying that Malofiy had not proved the case and that Spirits music would not even be remembered. It marked the end of a particularly combative trial. Before the judge called for the jury to deliberate he asked of the attorneys, Any other catfights?

Bloomberg reported in April that if Wolfes estate were to win, theyd be entitled to a share of Stairway to Heaven revenue for only the three years before the lawsuit was filed, due to copyright law. The estate would also be entitled to royalties going forward.

Malofiy filed his original complaint against Led Zeppelin, on behalf of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust, in May 2014. He stylized section headers in the font the group used on its untitled fourth album  home to Stairway to Heaven  and claimed that Led Zeppelin had become influenced by Wolfe and Spirits performances after sharing a bill with them. Led Zeppelin would perform on the same bill as Spirit that year, at a gig where Malofiy claimed Spirit played Taurus, and again in 1969.

In his Preamble, the lawyer asserted that Led Zeppelin began performing Spirits Fresh-Garbage  a track on the same record as Taurus  at concerts, and that Page and Plant composed Stairway to Heaven a year after touring with Spirit. Malofiy also included a chart of Led Zeppelin songs he claimed infringed upon other songwriters works. He claimed that Led Zeppelin had knowingly and willfully infringed on Taurus with Stairway to Heaven.

But in a 1991 interview not mentioned in the complaint, Wolfe described Led Zeppelins members as fans of Spirit in the late Sixties and that if they wanted to use [Taurus], thats fine.  Ill let [Led Zeppelin] have the beginning of Taurus for their song without a lawsuit. Malofiy later told Rolling Stone he believed that statement was out of context.

In 1996, the year before his death, Wolfe told an interviewer he felt Stairway was a ripoff of Taurus. Malofiy used the following statement in the complaint: The guys made millions of bucks on it and never said, Thank you, never said, 'Can we pay you some money for it? Wolfe said. Its kind of a sore point with me. Maybe someday their conscience will make them do something about it. I dont know. There are funny business dealings between record companies, managers, publishers and artists. But when artists do it to other artists, theres no excuse for that. Im mad!

Who Were Spirit, the Band From Zeppelins 'Stairway Trial?

Wolfe drowned in 1997 while rescuing his son from a rip current in Hawaii, according to Bloomberg. His mother established the trust in his name, which purchases musical instruments for public schools, and, after she died in 2009, she passed it along to the suits plaintiff, Michael Skidmore, who had assisted her in managing the trust. After teaming with Malofiy, he sued for copyright infringement in various forms and for falsification of rock & roll history (Wolfes alleged right of attribution). He sought the defendants profits, various forms of damages (including exemplary damages to set an example for others) and an injunction on selling the recording and attorneys fees, among other claims for relief.

Malofiy told Bloomberg he felt the lawsuit was worth around $40 million.

This is ridiculous, Jimmy Page said of the lawsuit that month. I have no further comment on the subject.

Led Zeppelin would later allege that the Trust did not even own the copyright to the song. They claimed that Wolfe's son, whom he saved at the time of his death, did, though the judge in the trial nullified that argument.

The suit quickly became a cause celebre in the music industry, as it is the most high-profile copyright case to follow the estate of Marvin Gayes victory over Robin Thicke in the Blurred Lines lawsuit last year. In that case, Thicke and Pharrell Williams were ordered to pay $7.4 million (later reduced to $5.3 million) to the Gayes after a jury ruled that the song infringed on the vibe of Gayes Got to Give It Up. Lawyer Donald S. Passman told The New York Times that the Gaye ruling was aberrational and would not have any long-term effects.

It was determined in April of this year that the case would go to trial. Led Zeppelins lawyer had asked U.S. District Court Judge Gary Klausner to rule in their favor without a trial in February, but the judge decided the songs were similar enough to warrant one. Although he wrote that Malofiy had not convinced him of Led Zeppelins alleged infringement, the judge said that the similarities [between the songs] transcend this core structure and that what would remain is a subjective assessment of the 'concept and feel of two works.

Colbert on Led Zeppelin Trial: 'Theyre Screwed

What would occur over the coming months would become an epic story all its own.

Malofiy said at the time that any kind of settlement on behalf of Led Zeppelin would be a nonstarter. But later that month, he told Bloomberg hed take a settlement of a dollar and a songwriting credit. The band did not take him up on the offer.

Page and Plant filed declarations to the court in March, before Klausner decided the suit should go to trial, in which they described how they wrote the song. Page wrote that while Stairway opened with descending chromatic lines, as did Taurus, hed been aware of that melodic style dating back at least to 1960. Moreover, he stated that he never heard the song until 2014 when Malofiy filed his complaint. I am very good at remembering music and am absolutely certain that I never heard 'Taurus until 2014, he wrote. He also wrote that he did not recall ever seeing Spirit live.

Page has always maintained in interviews that he wrote the song from piecing together his own melodic ideas. Id been fooling around with my acoustic guitar and came up with different sections, which I married together, he once told Guitar World. But what I wanted was something that would have drums come in at the middle and then build to a huge crescendo.  So I had the structure of it.

Interestingly, in his declaration, Page wrote that he discovered a copy of the Spirit LP in his record collection in preparation for the trial. [I] do not know how or when it got there, he wrote. It may well have been left by a guest. I doubt it was there for long, since I never noticed it before. But again I know I did not hear 'Taurus until 2014.

Led Zeppelin 'Stairway to Heaven Trial Gets Ugly

Plant, too, wrote that he believed he never heard Taurus before the lawsuit. I do not now and have never owned a Spirit record album, he wrote.

In April, Judge Klausner rejected all of Malofiys expert witnesses because they had prepared opinions based on sound recordings that werent admissible under copyright law. He also barred recordings of some songs that the attorney wished to present, saying that recordings of songs had to be made from existing sheet music. The judge gave Malofiy time to find more witnesses.

The judge also ruled that anything regarding Led Zeppelins alleged plagiarism in the past would not be allowed before a jury. Rumors about the groups drug and alcohol use would not be allowed either; Malofiy had hoped to claim that the bands substance abuse damaged the songwriters memories.

In May, Led Zeppelin accused Malofiy of attempting to taint the jury pool by claiming that the bands members would not appear in court. Page and Plant always intended to appear in court, the lawyers claimed. [Malofiys] ongoing efforts to try this case in the press should be rejected, they said in a motion.

Earlier this month, Malofiy filed a motion to make Plant, Page and Jones appear in court on the first day of the proceedings, making it so that if they didnt, they wouldnt be allowed to testify. Judge Klausner denied the motion.

The day before the trial was to begin, Malofiy filed a motion claiming that one of Led Zeppelins experts, musicologist Lawrence Ferrara, had engaged in a conflict of interest by working with the group. Previously, hed provided comparative analysis of Taurus and Stairway to the publisher of Taurus, with whom Malofiy says he had conspired with to undermine the lawsuit. Ultimately, the judge allowed Ferrara to testify, signaling the beginning of what became a turbulent trial.

In 1975, Page told Rolling Stone he felt Stairway crystalized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best  as a band, as a unit, he said. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with 'Stairway.

Related
Led Zeppelin has beaten a lawsuit claiming that the iconic guitar riff in "Stairway to Heaven" was copied from Spirit's 1968 instrumental "Taurus."

On Thursday (June 23), after a week's worth of testimony and arguments, the jury came back with its verdict in a case that's been decades in the making. At trial, Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant testified as well as Michael Skidmore, the Trustee of Spirit songwriter Randy Wolfe's estate, who demanded in his lawsuit a rewriting of rock n' eoll history. The jury also heard from a Spirit band member, musicologists and other witnesses and experts opining on such subjects as whether Led Zeppelin had heard "Taurus" before composing their popular song and whether the two songs were substantially similar.

In his lifetime, Randy Wolfe never sued and was ambivalent about doing so upon questions from those who pointed out similarities. After he died in 1997, Skidmore asserted an ownership interest in copyrighted sheet music and was able to push the case to trial despite decades of inaction and non-cooperation from Hollenbeck Music, the publishing company that had signed Randy Wolfe (performing as Randy California) in the 1960s as a teenager who was discovered by Jimi Hendrix.

Both Page and Plant, who denied having access to "Taurus" despite performing concerts with Spirit decades ago, were on hand to hear the reading of the verdict. In his testimony, Page rejected many questions from plaintiff attorney Francis Malofiy that the songs were too similar to be coincidental. Page did, however, alter the official story of how "Stairway to Heaven" was created in 1970, puncturing the mythology that he holed himself up in a remote cottage in Wales called Bron-Yr-Aur, and by fireside, wrote it.

Ultimately, with tens of millions of dollars in recent profits from the song's continued exploitation on the line, the jury after less than a day's worth of deliberation has decided in favor of Zeppelin and various subsidiaries of Warner Music.

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The jury -- eight California citizens -- delivered its verdict that plaintiff owned the copyright to "Taurus," that Led Zeppelin members indeed heard it, but that there was no substantial similarity in the extrinsic elements of "Taurus" and "Stairway to Heaven." The decision came after the jury took one last listen of both songs. Within a half hour of doing so, the jury had made up its mind.

If the multi-million dollar "Blurred Lines" verdict showed that artists can cross the line in being inspired, this latest decision shows that for whatever similarities lay observers spot, there's still ample room for artists to be cleared of song theft.

After the verdict, Page and Plant put out a joint statement. "We are grateful for the jury's conscientious service and pleased that it has ruled in our favor, putting to rest questions about the origins of 'Stairway to Heaven' and confirming what we have known for 45 years," they said. "We appreciate our fans' support, and look forward to putting this legal matter behind us."

Warner Music also cheered the outcome: "At Warner Music Group, supporting our artists and protecting their creative freedom is paramount. We are pleased that the jury found in favor of Led Zeppelin, re-affirming the true origins of 'Stairway to Heaven.' Led Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands in history, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are peerless songwriters who created many of rock's most influential and enduring songs."
The Leftovers is adding to its ensemble cast.

Lindsay Duncan has booked a role on the HBO drama's upcoming third and final season, which is set to bow sometime in 2017. In typical Leftovers fashion, the specifics of her part - even the number of episodes the Birdman actress will appear in - are being keep under wraps.

The enigmatic show from Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta recently wrapped the initial stages of filming on its upcoming season in Texas and has since relocated to Australia, where it will finish out production on the series. The 2017 return date is in line with the timing of the show's first two installments - season one debuted in June 2014 and season two in October 2015.

Read More: Damon Lindelof on Why He Feels "Liberated" Writing 'The Leftovers' Finale

Duncan, fresh off her turn in Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass, will join returning Leftovers castmembers Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston, Liv Tyler, Chris Zylka, Margaret Qualley, Carrie Coon, Janel Moloney, Kevin Carroll, Jovan Adepo, Regina King and Scott Glenn. The Scottish-born actress previously appeared in Sundance TV's Maggie Gyllenhaal vehicle The Honorable Woman and can next be seen alongside Alfie Allen and Angela Bassett in the miniseries Close to the Enemy, which will debut later this year on Starz.

In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Lindelof recently addressed the show's impending finale. "More than anything else, I want to approach the ending of The Leftovers with confidence. Even if we fall flat on our faces and everybody hates it, it's better than hedging or trying to be all things to all people or saying we're going to be one thing and then at the last minute basically cut bait and be another thing," he wrote. "People want consistency in the storytelling."

See More: 'The Leftovers' Set Visit: Behind-the-Scenes Photos of HBO's Existential Drama
The end of The Leftovers means the start of a new gig for Lindsay Duncan: The Rome alumna has been added the cast of the HBO dramas third and final season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

RELATEDThe Leftovers Final Season Cast Revealed: Whos In? Whos Out?

As yet, no details about her role  neither who shes playing nor the number of episodes in which shell appear  have been released. But, of course, whats one more Leftovers mystery?

Our bet: The veteran actress will be involved in one way or another with Scott Glenn. As executive producer Damon Lindelof told TVLine previously, in the shows Australia-set Season 3, I would really like to see some more of Kevin Senior  and not just in the present but in the past.

Who do you think Duncan will play? And how do you hope the series wraps up next year? Hit the comments.

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By Kathryn Doyle LEGO weapon bricks have become more common in toy sets and depictions of violence in product catalogues have increased as well, according to a new study. But the analysis did not assess whether this change had any influence on violent behavior among children. Our study can say nothing about that, cautioned lead author Christoph Bartneck of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Current evidence for a connection between violent toys and actual violence among kids is inconclusive, Bartneck told Reuters Health. The researchers analyzed the LEGO set inventory lists from BrickLink.com, a large online marketplace for after-market LEGO trading, which categorized 155 parts as weapon bricks, including swords, guns and cannons. The LEGO company released 35 sets of toys in 1970 and 419 sets in 2010. The number and proportion of weapon bricks in these sets tended to increase annually over time as well, according to the study results published in PLoS One. The first weapon bricks  a sword, halberd and lance  were released in 1978, so the researchers focused on the appearances of new weapons between 1978 and 2014. In 1989 LEGO introduced handguns and cannons as part of a Pirates set. In 1995, they introduced harpoons and knives with the Aquazone themes. They released a light saber in the Star Wars set in 1999 and added rifles and blasters to the line in 2007. The proportion of weapon bricks per total bricks increased steadily from 1980 to 2001. In 2001 they dropped below 5 percent, only to rise back to almost 30 percent in 2014. The researchers also studied perceived violence of LEGO sets using the company's annual product catalogues from 1973 and later, in which Minifigures and models act out their intended behaviors in scenes. The study team recruited 161 participants from an online crowdsourcing platform to rate perceived violence in the catalogues, paying them $6 per hour for their responses. The odds of physical violence being depicted in a catalogue increased by 19 percent each year. By the period 2010-2015, about 40 percent of catalogue images contained some sort of violence, according to the online surveys. Although shooting and hitting were both depicted in the catalogues, there were no cases of perceived sexual violence. Children are our most important concern. We want to develop play experiences that children love, and that at the same time develop essential skills, said Casey Blossom, an associate brand manager for LEGO in Hartford, Connecticut. Conflict play is a natural part of how children play, and it helps them learn how to deal with conflicts in their own lives. We see a clear distinction between conflict and violence. And we do not make products that promote or encourage violence, Blossom told Reuters Health in a statement. The key for us is not a specific number of a given LEGO element in the portfolio, but the context, the story around it, and most of all: the play experience for the child. Kids are most likely to use a LEGO set according to its building instructions, which are in most cases violent for violent parts, said Dr. Robert Busching of the University of Potsdam in Germany, who was not part of the new study. These days Im one of the fans of the idea that we should toss building instructions and build with the LEGO bricks whatever we want, Bartneck said. That way the child has a better creative experience. Many weapon bricks, like the lightsaber, can also be used as basic building materials, and dont have to be used only for violence, he said. He was surprised as how hard it was to rate violent content for the toys  unlike TV and movies, there arent many established metrics for measuring violent content in LEGOs. The question of what is a violent act, its very complex, Bartneck said. Parents should be concerned about violent content in all toys, not just LEGOs, Busching told Reuters Health by email. When deciding for or against a particular toy, parents should always have in mind that this toy also communicates to a child which behavior is appropriate and which is not and choose accordingly, he said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1TE4cCo PLoS One, online May 20, 2016.
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Letting our imaginations run wild with Lego seemed so easy as a child.

It's something most of us have forgotten about as adults. We're too busy looking over dreary Excel spreadsheets, trying our best to sort out our hectic lives  letting our once strong imaginations fall by the wayside.

SEE ALSO: Awful Australian election made more awful by awful Facebook Live videos

That's why Kanesan Nathan, 41, from Melbourne in Australia has received plenty of attention with an activity he calls "legojacking." It's the act of hijacking everyday environments with the aid of Lego, something which Nathan captures on his aptly named Instagram account, legojacker.

While the work often takes a serious tone, legojacking is fundamentally about inserting a sense of play in the usually dull and mundane environments in the world around us.

"A big part of what I've always done is the idea that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still play," he told Mashable Australia. "Broadly, play is the idea of imagining and seeing the world through a completely different lens  which we used to do as kids, but we forgot while growing up."

It's an activity that helps people go back to the childhood way of seeing the world, while also regaining the creativity and imagination that gets lost in the daily humdrum of adult life.

After rediscovering Lego around six years ago, Nathan began his legojacking work but initially kept the photos to himself. His Instagram account started roughly a year later.

Nathan now has more than 100,000 followers, attributing the interest to strong focus of humanity in his work. "I'm not just taking a photo of toy  I'm taking a photo of a toy and saying this is what the world looks like to me," he said. "I think that's where it's really connected with people."

His legojacking images often reflect on and tell stories about world events, such as the treatment of asylum seekers, wars, riots and deaths. The 2013 riots in Turkey is something Nathan described as a "turning point" in his work.

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"I knew some Instagrammers in Turkey and I saw their accounts of the riots. I decided to use their words and do a photo of a Lego riot," he said.

"The most amazing thing for me is that people in Turkey were saying 'thank you so much for sharing our story.' It really means a lot that people on the other side of the world care. It was something that meant a lot to them."

Nathan admits he rarely plans out his legojacking work, mostly creating his photos on an impulse.

"It starts off on a whim, and then you spend hours [on it]," he laughed. "The whole idea of play is that you don't have a sense of what you're going to do, you're just open to doing it."

Sometimes it's clear to Nathan what a legojacking photograph should look like. This is best exemplified in a recent work which pays respect to the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, which features Lego characters in the colours of the LGBTQ flag.

"I had a very clear idea of how I wanted to represent it, but that's quite rare. Normally I take a bag of characters out with me and respond to the environment. Then when I come home I think, 'how am I going to position this?" he said.

Nathan's photographs are shot on an iPhone, preferring to use generic characters from the Lego Minifigures set in his work, as they tend to be more versatile.

Occasionally he'll use special edition Lego characters that reference pop culture, such as Disney Lego and The Simpsons Lego, if there are any comedic or ironic possibilities.

For example, Nathan used The Simpsons characters in a commentary about the global refugee crisis and the alien character from Toy Story to protest against random visa checks in Melbourne.

Nathan has recently resigned from his day job to take advantage of the opportunities that have arisen from legojacking, such as working with places or organisations to create unique content. He said his photography can help brands become more accessible.

In the future, he'd also like to use legojacking to promote kindness and empathy on a global scale.

"Play is a really great way of promoting understanding, and that's what I've always tried to do in my work," he said. "I think through a simple act you can change the world, or change someone's opinion. That's the next step."
Photo: Getty

When it comes to TV, Hollywood films, newspapers, magazines... any media really... there tends to be a hierarchy in terms of representation; somewhere near the top you have the straight, white, cisgendered man; somewhere near the bottom, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of colour. This pecking order produces some complex problems, namely: If black and minority ethnic (BAME) LGBT communities arent present to have our voices heard, is there an expectation and acceptance that, sometimes, allies will have to speak for us?

The past two weeks have been a tumultuous, heartbreaking and incredibly difficult time for the LGBT community, particularly LGBT people of colour. In the early hours of the 12th of June, during Pride Month in the US, a gunman entered a gay club in Orlando, Florida and shot and killed 49 innocent people. The perpetrator, was  according to his father, as reported by NBC News  spurred on by homophobic feelings, deliberately singling out the Pulse nightclub, which was hosting its weekly Latinx club night.

Just hours after the shooting, white, openly gay journalist, author and political commentator Owen Jones stormed off Sky News during the channels newspaper review segment after host, Mark Longhurst, and fellow panellist, Julia Hartley-Brewer, both also white, attempted to deflect the fact that the shooter had deliberately targeted an LGBT establishment. What both Longhurst and Hartley-Brewer failed to notice was that, by trying to universalise the incident as an attack on, as they said, the freedom of all people, they were attempting to both whitewash and 'straight-splain' Orlando.

Over in the US, meanwhile, a vigil was held at the famous gay pub the Stonewall Inn in New York just days after the attack. Popstar Nick Jonas was invited to give a speech. The decision to include Jonas was a controversial one given his divisive position in the LGBT community. At an event to honour those that had lost their lives, many of whom were people of colour, the validity of having a straight, white, cisgendered male who is often accused of queer-baiting  that is, when public figures and the media deliberately trade on homoeroticism to entice the gay community  was questioned.

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Y'all will literally let a straight white man take center stage over the graves of queer latino victims before letting QPOC have the floor.  Saeed Jones (@theferocity) June 14, 2016

According to a report on Fusion, footage from the vigil saw the crowd chanting say their names in an attempt to draw focus away from Jonas, while Senior Politics Editor at the New York Observer, Jillian Jorgensen, claimed over Twitter that, as Jonas looked out into the crowd, a man yelled: You see money! This came as The Guardian reported that the Hispanic Federation had to hold a press conference to point out that, of those who lost their lives in the attack, 90% were Hispanic. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a representative of activist group Equality Florida, told the paper: There has been a lot of scapegoating [...] I think what has been lost in that message is that this was an attack against the Latino community and the LGBT community.

As a queer person of colour, it is exhausting to try to bring people to my side of the picture

Dr Madison Moore is a Research Associate in the Department of English at King's College, University of London. His work focuses on queer studies, pop culture and the media. As a queer person of colour, it is exhausting to try to bring people to my side of the picture, which is what you are always doing when you are queer, of colour, or both, he sighs. People who are in the majority  so cisgendered, male-bodied, straight and white  nearly never have to think about this.

This, Dr Moore claims, feeds into a wider rhetoric surrounding representation and the media. Earlier this year, rapper and activist Mykki Blanco pointed out how there was a lack of BAME, as well as Latinx, cover stars on gay publications, utilising the hashtag #gaymediasowhite. Blanco highlighted how these publications would often favour straight, white cisgendered men, forging the variety of LGBT voices.

Take for example the recent cover of UK gay publication Attitude, which revealed Prince William as its star. In the accompanying article, the Prince comes out in support of LGBTQ+ issues, taking an anti-bullying stance. While the historical significance of the first royal appearing on an LGBT publication was applauded, the cover polarised members of the community.

Some claimed that Williams stance was admirable, and others that it just wasnt enough. Journalist Hannah Jane Parksinson, writing in the Guardian, argued that the Princes appearance on the cover would only do good things in terms of having the future leader of the Commonwealth speak out against anti-LGBT practices. On Twitter, others complained that the cover wasnt radical or representative enough.

We need straight allies to change the hearts and minds in their own heteronormative world

Ryan Butcher, deputy editor of rival magazine Gay Times, while publicly disagreeing with Attitudes choice of cover star, agreed that it can be easy to forget the impact of seeing straight allies advocating for gay rights can have on young LGBTQ+ people. As the community takes time to grieve and heal [in the wake of Orlando], we need to look to our heterosexual brothers and sisters to help us out, he told me. We need straight allies to change the hearts and minds in their own heteronormative world... As long as, he adds, they dont assimilate into our world and use it as an opportunity to sell a record, tick a box or make themselves feel better."

Allies might be one thing, but Dr Moore believes we need to focus on putting gay and BAME people on front covers. The issue I have goes way beyond the lack of representation and the cultural repercussions of that invisibility, he explains. When you grow up not seeing yourself represented in media it can have detrimental effects on your self esteem, your sense of worth and place in a community that, on the surface, doesn't look like, care about or cater to you at all. What Dr Moore is describing is a vicious cycle; when LGBT people of colour are not represented, we grow up believing there is no place for us.

Yusuf Tamanna, a 26-year-old gay South Asian man living in London agrees. A few years ago when I wasn't out, I was very closeted. I don't think I cared about the LGBT community because I didn't feel a part of it, he says. I was hiding. I was on the outskirts of it. Now that I'm out and I have the confidence, I will challenge someone who says something to me. But I know a lot of South Asian men won't do that.

Yusef's explains that a lack of of BAME LGBT voices isn't always down to white, straight people talking over us, but sometimes it's down to policing from within our own communities. When growing up, he says, many of his family members repeatedly discussed anti-gay feelings, with claims that being gay is a white person problem. He adds, It's crazy to me that you have second and third generation South Asian people living in the UK that still harbour those opinions. But how you go about changing that, I don't know.

As long as white privilege exists in the way it does, BAME LGBT voices will never be clearly heard

Mahta Hassanzadeh, an out Iranian lesbian who works in music, had similar experiences growing up in a Middle Eastern community. In Iran, same sex relations are illegal and unfortunately that has influenced the way my parents and how many other people of colour from similar cultures look at homosexuality, she says. This displays a lack of understanding around the social and cultural aspects of coming out to your family and friends.

For Mahta, its these archaic views surrounding sexuality and gender that need to be addressed, along with how much white privilege permeates, influences and dictates BAME communities. As long as white privilege exists in the way it does, BAME LGBT voices will never be clearly heard because they are not only fighting to be heard within the LGBT community but also within the BAME community, she says. There would be far more tolerance in these communities if we had successful figures like ourselves to point to, not just our gay white counterparts.

The debate rages on about the extent to which BAME LGBT communities have the responsibility to break the cycle that silences them  a responsibility to make themselves heard. This is, after all, something that, while appearing to be objectively simple, is easier said than done. In terms of the media, to paraphrase Ghandi, change needs to happen from the inside. While obviously straight, white cisgender allies are important, those that occupy positions of prominence need to know when to step aside and let LGBT people of colour speak for themselves.

BAME LGBTQ+ voices are woke, says Dr Madison Moore. The last thing we need in times of strength and community building is straightsplaining and whitesplaining.

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Tripoli (AFP) - Libyan pro-government forces targeted the Islamic State group in Sirte with a wave of air strikes Thursday to help pave the way for ground troops to take the jihadists' coastal stronghold.

"Our air force today launched an intense series of air strikes that targeted various (IS) positions in Sirte," Reda Issa, a spokesman for Libya's Government of National Unity (GNA), told AFP.

"Military engineering teams are working to clear mines and bombs planted by (IS) to open the way for our ground forces to continue their advance on different parts of the city," he said.

The fall of Sirte would be a major blow to IS, which has faced a series of setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

Until early May, the extremist group controlled a 280 kilometre (170 mile) stretch of Mediterranean coastline around Sirte.

Since May 12, pro-government forces from the west, Libyan naval forces and eastern militias have pushed the jihadists back into a residential zone of just five square kilometres (two square miles).

But their early advances slowed when they entered Sirte on June 9 and reached built-up central and northern parts of the city. IS hit back with suicide car bombs and sniper fire.

IS announced on social media Thursday that its fighters had detonated two bombs near a group of pro-government fighters in the east of the city, burned a tank and hit a reconnaissance aircraft.

Tuesday was the bloodiest day in the operation so far for pro-government forces, who lost 36 dead and over 100 injured.

The GNA's health ministry on Wednesday appealed to Libyan doctors outside the country to return to the country and help treat "those injured in the war being fought by the sons of the nation".

Since the start of the offensive, nearly 200 members of the pro-GNA forces have been killed and over 600 injured, according to medical sources. The jihadists' losses are not known.

Pro-government forces, commanded out of Misrata, 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the northwest, are primarily made up of western militias that were born during the 2011 rebellion that overthrew dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

A militia set up to guard the country's main oil installations has also been advancing on IS from the east.
Lindsay Lohan and Egor Tarabasov raising money for Caudwell Children, at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. (Photo: Matt Crossick/PA Images)



Red carpet official! Lindsay Lohan and fiance Egor Tarabasov proudly made their red carpet debut as a couple at the Caudwell Childrens Butterfly Ball in London on Wednesday, June 22.

The pair, who have been dating for about 10 months, have made frequent appearances on each others social media accounts, but Wednesday marked the first time the pair stepped out at a public event together.

PHOTOS: Lindsay Lohans Face: How It's Changed

#onwednesdayswewearpink #butterflyball2016 @clairecaudwell and @johncaudwell thank you for including us to support all of the work you do for children bless you, the 29-year-old actress captioned a shot of herself in a pale pink dress, with the Russian business heir, 23, in a suit and bow tie.

#onwednesdayswewearpink #butterflyball2016 @clairelcaudwell and @johncaudwell thank you for including us to support all of the work you do for children bless you  A photo posted by Lindsay Lohan (@lindsaylohan) on Jun 22, 2016 at 12:50pm PDT

Her dapper date posted the same photo to his account, with the caption: Proud to be at #butterflyball16 with @lindsaylohan supporting @caudwellchildren thank you @johncaudwell.

The duo sparked rumors that they had secretly gotten engaged when the former Disney star flashed a giant emerald ring on her left hand at a Duran Duran concert in April.

PHOTOS: Quickest Celebrity Engagements Ever

A source close to the actress later confirmed to Us that the couple is indeed engaged to be married.

It was a big proposal, but it wasnt done in public, the insider told Us. Lindsay texted a friend a picture of the ring.

Another source told Us that Tarabasov was a good fit for Lohan. He loves her, protects her and keeps her out of trouble, the second source said.

PHOTOS: Celebrity Engagement Rings of 2016

Lohans parents are big fans of the Russian businessman. He is cute. Hes a sweetheart. No, hes just a really good person, Lohans mom Dina told Us. The tabloids are like, Oh, hes so much younger. But hes very mature, very worldly. They love each other.

The pair currently live together in London.

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(Reuters) - A Louisiana sheriff's deputy died of gunshot wounds on Wednesday after being shot three times in the back by a pedestrian he had stopped in a high-crime suburb of New Orleans, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said.

Sheriff Newell Normand told reporters at a late night news conference that deputy David F. Michel, Jr., 50, got into a struggle with the suspect around noon local time, believing the man was following another individual.

Normand said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux, pulled a revolver and fired a total of three shots into Michel's back during the confrontation.

Michel, a detective who was assigned to a street crimes unit, died at a local hospital.

"David, I wish I had 1,000 of him," an emotional Normand said, adding that the shooting was "a cold-blooded murder."

Neveaux fled into the surrounding neighborhood and was later apprehended.

Bystander video published online by local broadcaster FOX8 showed two of several officers striking a prone Neveaux more than a dozen times as he is arrested, footage which Normand said his office would investigate.

Neveaux was treated for minor injuries at a hospital. Normand said Neveaux admitted to the shooting, saying he was on probation and did not want to go to jail for possessing a firearm.

Michel worked as a reserve deputy for the department starting in 2007 and became a full-time deputy in February of 2013, the office said.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang and Sandra Maler)
SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia's main opposition party said on Thursday it was boycotting parliament until the constitutional court rules on the status of a special prosecutor appointed to investigate a wiretapping scandal that has plunged the country into turmoil. Macedonia has been in crisis since February least year, when opposition parties accused former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his counter-intelligence chief of orchestrating the wiretapping of more than 20,000 people. The crisis was worsened by President Gjorge Ivanov's decision to pardon 56 officials investigated over the scandal, which led to street protests and the cancellation of an election set for June 5. Under pressure from the European Union and United States, Ivanov then revoked his decision to pardon the officials, removing an obstacle to possible prosecutions. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, Macedonia's political parties agreed last year to an EU-brokered accord to hold the early election in June and to establish a special prosecutor's office to investigate allegations arising from the wiretapping. The office of the special prosecutor is not part of the country's constitution, making it possible for those investigated to question its legality one day and escape prosecution. The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, which holds 34 seats in the 123-seat parliament, said the constitutional court should rule whether the special prosecutor's office was in line with the country's constitution. "The constitutional court must immediately give its opinion regarding the special prosecutor," leader of the Social Democrats, Zoran Zaev, told reporters. Zaev said deputies from his party would not take part in the work of parliament until the constitutional court gives its opinion. The court has been asked to rule on the matter but it is not on its calendar yet and it is not clear when a decision might come. The Social Democrats accuse Gruevski and the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party of controlling the media and the judiciary. They say they will not agree to a new election date until conditions for a free and fair vote are created. (Reporting by Kole Casule; writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alison Williams)
jeffrey gennette macy's

Macy's has announced a plan to replace its CEO of more than a decade.

Longtime executive Jeff Gennette will take over as CEO in the first quarter of 2017, replacing Terry Lundgren. Lundgren, who has been CEO for more than a decade, will stay on as chairman of the board, according to a statement.

Gennette has been president of Macy's since 2014. He joined the company more than 30 years ago.

The company included details about Gennette's experience in a release:

"Jeff Gennette, 55, was named President of Macys, Inc. in March 2014 after serving as Macys Chief Merchandising Officer since February 2009. From February 2008 to February 2009, Gennette served as chairman and CEO of Macys West in San Francisco. He began his retail career in 1983 as an executive trainee at Macys West. He held positions of increasing responsibilities, including vice president and division merchandise manager for mens collection and senior vice president and general merchandise manager for mens and childrens. In 2004, Gennette was appointed executive vice president and director of stores at Macys Central in Atlanta. From February 2006 to February 2008, Gennette was chairman and chief executive officer of Seattle-based Macys Northwest. During his career, Gennette also served as a store manager for FAO Schwarz and director of stores for Broadway Stores, Inc. Gennette, a native of San Diego, is a graduate of Stanford University."

The transition comes at a difficult time for Macy's.

The department store's sales fell 7.4% in the first quarter  marking five straight quarters of declines  as customers cut back on buying apparel.

macy's black friday

The issues plaguing Macy's are the same ones that have brought Sears close to extinction: falling traffic, underinvestment in stores, and a reliance on excessive discounting to attract customers.

"The blunt truth is that Macy's does not give consumers a reason to visit its stores," Neil Saunders, CEO of the retail consulting firm Conlumino, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. "In many locations shops are simply not up to par: they are poorly merchandised, hard to shop, lack any inspiration, and have fairly mediocre customer service. Some of this is about a lack of capital investment, but some is about a lack of basic shop-keeping standards."

Story continues

Hayley Peterson contributed to this story.

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A customer exits the Macy's flagship department store in midtown Manhattan in New York City, November 11, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Macy's recently announced that a new CEO will take over.

Longtime executive Jeff Gennette will become the company's CEO in the first quarter of 2017. He will replace Terry Lundgren, who has been CEO for more than a decade, according to a statement. Lundgren will stay on the board as a chairman.

It's already a crucial time for Macy's. Sales have been sliding for several quarters. Gennette will have some issues to deal with when he ascends to his position as CEO.

Here are some core problems with which Macy's is currently dealing.

1. Traffic problems

macy's athleisure section

"The number of transactions declined 7% in the quarter, which is far worse than what was experienced last year," CFO Karen Hoguet said on a recent earnings call. "This is the proxy, as you know, for traffic."

The company has blamed a decline in spending on apparel  which is true  but it might also be because the company isn't giving people a real reason to come into the stores, something that's harder than ever thanks to the rise of e-commerce.

Neil Saunders, CEO of consulting firm Conlumino, put it in a note to clients, "The blunt truth is that Macy's does not give consumers a reason to visit its stores," Neil Saunders, CEO of the retail consulting firm Conlumino, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. "In many locations shops are simply not up to par: they are poorly merchandised, hard to shop, lack any inspiration, and have fairly mediocre customer service. Some of this is about a lack of capital investment, but some is about a lack of basic shop-keeping standards."

The company is looking for ways to boost traffic, but they seem to just be undercutting its efforts  like launching in-store off-price sections.

"We have to make stores more productive - all of us box stores," CEO Terry Lundgren told CNBC. "Customers buying online have got to find more reasons to visit."

Story continues

To make things worse, a decline in American mall traffic would hurt any Macy's located in a mall  and then when an anchor store falters and closes, a mall suffers, too. It's a vicious cycle.

Macy's appears to have realized that it needs to capitalize on how young people want to spend on experiences and health and wellness in order to boost traffic.

"Let me start with we absolutely agree with you that we need to work hard to make the bricks and mortar experience a lot more exciting and we're working on that and trying to test some concepts, one of which actually is the whole health and wellness," Hoguet said on a recent earnings call.

2. Loss of premiere positioning

clearance jewelry macy's

Macy's flagship store in Herald Square serves as evidence of how the store is at risk of losing its premiere positioning. Everything was haphazard and in disarray, showing a lack of care from employees. If the store doesn't care  how can consumers care? And how can they come back? And why would they ever want to pay a premium? (Fortunately, they don't have to since everything's on sale.)

Macy's is currently working to become high-end again, though. In Ohio, it's testing out a new model that will incorporate high-end experiences like a spa and mini lifestyle "stores," such as a fitness section.

3. Excessive discounting and a focus on the off-price business

Macy's

Not only are there tons of sales at Macy's, giving consumers little to no to reason to pay full price, but the company has also been focusing on its off-price business. The company has plans to open up off-price Backstage Stores, which discount apparel up to 80% off. Macy's has off-price sections in its stores, too.

The goal is to help the overall business.

"When you open it in-store, the capital is less, but then there is also more cannibalization of the existing store," CFO Karen Hoguet said on a conference call with analysts in February.

But the Last Act section in the Herald Square store showed a bleak new reality of the state of Macy's.

Macy's

Gennette has been President of Macy's from 2014. Given his internal status, it's unclear how much will potentially change in the coming years.

And more concerning is that some problems that Macy's is facing remain true for most of traditional, mall-based retailers, from the imminent threat of Amazon and the aforementioned impending death of malls.

Hoguet has spoken directly to the unseasonable weather for the company's troubling sales, too.

"We did have warmer weather than usual in February and March, which hurt our cold weather sales, and when we got to April and the weather was cooler, it impacted the warm weather sales, but I'm not sure why digital would change that," she said on a recent earnings call.

This is a problem that has been plaguing pretty much any retailer that doesn't have a speedy supply chain or a business model like fast fashion behemoth Zara.

If you work in retail and have a story to tell, then send an email to retail@businessinsider.com.

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On Thursday, shares of department store giant Macys Inc. M are rallying, up almost 5% in morning trading after the company announced that Chief Executive Terry Lundgren will step down from his position next year. Lundgren has held the CEO role since 2003.

Macys President Jeff Gennette will assume the role of CEO, which is a move that the company said was part of its succession plan. Mr. Lundgren will remain as chairman.

The department store bellwether has struggled in recent years to adapt to changing consumer demand and shopping style. In May, Macys posted terrible quarterly resultsits worst since the recessionigniting new worries about the U.S. retail industry as a whole.

While our company is larger, stronger, and more resourceful than we were 13 years ago, now is the time to reset our business model to thrive in a future that is being driven by rapid evolution in consumer preferences and shopping habits, Mr. Lundgren said in a statement.

Under the helm of Mr. Lundgren, Macys doubled its annual sales to roughly $28 billion, and became a household name after acquiring chief rival May Department Stores Co. in 2005. The company now operates 870 stores under its namesake brand as well as Bloomingdales.

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Copenhagen (AFP) - Danish oil and shipping conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Thursday it is considering splitting the group into several separate companies, as it named a new chief executive.

The company said the current chief executive of shipping unit Maersk Line, Soren Skou, 51,would replace Nils Andersen, 57, at the helm, combining two roles as he would continue to head the shipping business.

Andersen, who became chief executive in 2007, had strengthened "the customer focus and competitiveness of the businesses," chairman Michael Pram Rasmussen said in a statement.

"The board of directors has tasked the new management to investigate the strategic and structural options to further increase agility and synergies," the group said.

"We will evaluate... whether it makes sense to split up into several smaller units," Rasmussen told Danish news agency Ritzau.

The company said it would "communicate on the progress" of this plan before the end of the third quarter.

Maersk Line is currently facing a depressed shipping market that is weighed down by overcapacity and sluggish global trade, while Maersk Oil has had to cut staff as a result of falls in oil prices.

Other Maersk businesses include port operator APM Terminals and offshore oil drilling company Maersk Drilling.

Shares in Maersk closed 11.9 percent higher on the Copenhagen stock exchange, where the main index was up 1.86 percent.
The Hague (AFP) - Heavy storms swept the Netherlands Thursday leaving one man dead after he was electrocuted in his flooded cellar where he was growing cannabis, police and media said.

The Dutch national weather centre posted an orange alert warning of further flooding from "thunderstorms and heavy rainfall" as insurers estimated there had already been some 20 million euros ($22 million) in damage.

The 45-year-old man was found lying in water in the basement of his Rotterdam home early on Thursday as violent storms battered the west of the low-lying country, the police said.

"He was killed by electrocution," the Rotterdam police said in a statement, indicating that they had opened an investigation but noting that the emergency services had "found cannabis (plants) in the cellar."

The bad weather, which hit the west and centre of the country early Thursday, was to continue for much of the day, with the Dutch national weather service (KNMI) warning of further severe thunderstorms accompanied by hail and high winds.

In Rotterdam, some 26 millimetres (one inch) of rain fell in just 20 minutes early Thursday, the public broadcaster NOS reported.

The central town of Randstad was particularly badly hit, with the Dutch Association of Insurers estimating it had suffered some 20 million euros in damage.

"It's a conservative estimate," a spokesman for the association told the Dutch news agency ANP.
Despite the worlds focus being centered on the upcoming Brexit vote, one investor says Europe is becoming economically irrelevant.

Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, joined the FOX Business Networks Risk & Reward and explained why he believes Europes economy is no longer as significant as it once was.

The future of the world, economically, is in AsiaIndia, China, Indonesia and the other Southeast Asian and Indo-Chinese countries and emerging economies, Faber said. The Western world, relative to emerging economies, is diminishing in terms of importancealso politically and geopolitically.

Faber also said if the U.K. decided to leave the European Union, it would send a message to the elites and bureaucrats who impose regulations that stifle economic development.

An exit would be good for Britain, and it would not destroy the financial markets, quite on the contrary, he said. I think if Britain decided to leave the EU the stock market would rally and the British pound would rally.

Related Articles
A man long credited as one of the six soldiers photographed raising the American flag over Iwo Jima in World War II was misidentified, the Marine Corps admitted.



Instead of Navy Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John Bradley, the internal investigation concluded that the man in the photograph is actually Private 1st Class Harold Schultz.



Schultz died in 1995 without ever publicly acknowledging his presence in the photo, but his stepdaughter Dezreen MacDowell told the New York Times that the Purple Heart recipient once mentioned his participation in passing.



Bradley, whose son wrote Flags of Our Fathers, which was inspired by the photo, was not actually present when Joseph Rosenthal of the Associated Press snapped the image on Feb. 23, 1945 during the battle against the Japanese. The widely circulated picture served as the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.



Earlier this year, Bradley's son James Bradley said that his father had participated in an earlier flag-raising, and long, mistakenly, thought it was the photo made famous. James' book served as the inspiration for the similarly-titled 2006 drama staring Paul Walker.



"Although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines it's not about the individuals and never has been," Marine Corps' commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement. "Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps  what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesn't change."



The other surviving Marines from the image  Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon  went on a tour selling war bonds in the United States with Bradley after returning home. Schultz, on the other hand, was seriously injured during the war, and returned to Los Angeles, eventually beginning what would be a 30-year career with the U.S. Postal Service, according to USA Today.



Marine Sgt. Michael Strank, Marine Private First Class Franklin Sousley and Marine Corporal Harlon Block, all also in the photo, were killed on Iwo Jima.



The now-concluded investigation was prompted by two historians, who investigated the image at length in 2014. A nine-person panel was appointed to handle the task, and identification was made based on equipment and uniform style, according to USA Today. Facial recognition technology was also used.




Wall Street is in rally mode. All three major averages (^DJI, ^GSPC, ^IXIC) are solidly higher in early trading with financial shares leading the advance, as investors bet that Britain will "remain" in the European Union in the closely monitored UK referendum on Thursday.

Twilio makes its debut

Twilio is getting set to make its Wall Street debut. The San Francisco-based company, which builds software that lets people interact with each other will begin trading on the NYSE under the ticker TWLO. The stock priced above its expected range at $15 a share raising $150 million dollars in its IPO. It has been a dismal year for the IPO market, and Twilio will be closely watched to see what kind of appetite investors will have for private tech companies.

Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) shares were lower in early trading after the home goods retailer reported a miss on both its top and bottom lines for the first quarter, as sales came in flat and profit and margins fell.

BlackBerry (BBRY) shares were sharply higher Thursday morning. The Canadian smartphone maker posted revenue that came in way below expectations. However, adjusted earnings came in about flat. The Street was expecting a loss of $0.08 a share. The company continues to struggle in the smartphone market, but its growing its enterprise software business. That segment, which is about 40% of the company's overall revenue, reported record sales.

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Bank of America (BAC) shares are on investors' radars. The bank could pay up to $450 million to settle allegations from the SEC that it violated rules designed to safeguard client accounts. That's according to The Wall Street Journal.

Alibabas stance

Alibaba founder Jack Ma wants to make something very clear. Counterfeit goods are not tolerated on Alibabas (BABA) platforms. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Ma writes the company has zero tolerance for knock-offs, and that honest brands must be protected. Why is Ma writing this op-ed now?

Major money issues for Medicare, Social Security

Matters are only getting worse for Medicare and Social Security. A government review shows that Medicare funds will run dry by the year 2028. Thats two years earlier than previously estimated. Meanwhile, Social Security only has enough money to run till 2034. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says theres time to figure out how to fix the issues.
By Bernie Woodall

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (Reuters) - On the morning before the massacre at Orlandos Pulse gay nightclub, shooter Omar Mateen drastically altered his appearance, shaving his head and face, and seemed agitated and surly, said an acquaintance who saw him that day.

Mateen also talked about staying up all night to do online research into anti-psychosis medication, the acquaintance said in a interview. The acquaintance requested anonymity, saying authorities had asked him to keep quiet.

The 29-year-old gunman, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, called himself an "Islamic soldier" and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group before being fatally shot by police after a three-hour siege.

The FBI would not comment on the acquaintances remarks, but several senior U.S. sources told Reuters the investigation was moving more toward the belief that Mateen's motives were personal rather than political.

"It looks increasingly like this may have been the act of a seriously troubled individual whose personal problems dwarfed any last-minute inspiration from radical groups," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Authorities believe Mateen, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent, was self-radicalized and acted alone in the rampage. He seems to have been a troubled youth, disciplined dozens of times in school and had his aspirations to become a policeman dashed when he was expelled from the academy.

The acquaintance, a resident at the PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where Mateen worked as a gate security guard, said he noticed signs of deteriorating behavior a few weeks before the massacre.

He had passed the gate for three years, meeting Mateen several times a week and exchanging friendly small talk. About three weeks before the attack, he noticed Mateen seemed agitated and asked him if he was all right.

Story continues

Mateen said he was worn out from staying up all night to research psychiatric medication, although he did not say he was taking specific drugs.

Hed been real worried about whether or not hed slipped into psychosis," the acquaintance said. He wasnt as friendly. He was obsessed with researching medication online.

The acquaintance said he thought it was strange that Mateen would confide to him his concerns about his mental health, because they were not very close and he did not know anything about Mateen's personal life, including whether he was married or had children.

"The last month, he looked worried, he looked upset, he looked confused," the acquaintance said. "He didnt seem himself."

In the early morning, about 18 hours before the June 12 attack, the acquaintance said he drove up to the gate but Mateen was not there to open it as usual.

In a couple of minutes, he appeared, silent and with a completely transformed look - a shaved head and face, without his usual short whiskers and glasses.

When asked if he was OK, the usually polite Mateen responded: Whats it to you, anyway?"

(Additional reporting by Jon Walcott and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Matthew McConaughey adores his family!

The Free State of Jones star tops People's first-ever "100 Reasons to Love America" list, but in a new interview with the publication, he gives all his love to wife Camila Alves and the couple's three children -- Levi, 7, Vida, 6, and Livingston, 4.

PEOPLE

"Jones. A club on Sunset Blvd," the 46-year-old actor says of where he met Alves in 2006, explaining that after meeting, he fell very quickly, and has been falling ever since.

EXCLUSIVE: Matthew McConaughey Brought Son Levi to 'Free State of Jones' Set: 'He Got to Explode A Lot of Things'

"I've been wanting to go on a date with her for the last 9 years, and never wanting to go on a date with anyone else."

The two married in 2012, and since then the actor says his oldest son, Levi, has become something of a leader in the family, but it's the youngest, Livingston, who runs the show.

WATCH: Matthew McConaughey Looks Almost Identical to Someone's Great-Great-Grandfather -- See the Pic!

"[Levi is] the architect. Levi observes, Vida sees, Livingston does," he shares. "[Levi is] the most considerate person I know but he loves to measure the anatomy of the situation. Very much a perfectionist like me. Vida just makes sense of situations. She cuts right to the nut of the answer real quickThen Livingston is the doer. He's the monarch."

Last week, McConaughey opened up to ET about bringing Levi to the set of Free State of Jones -- which opens June 24 -- where he learned a valuable lesson.

WATCH: Matthew McConaughey Auditions for 'Star Wars'

"He was there a lot," he said, noting his son enjoyed the classic machinery and props used in the movie. "He got to press the buttons to explode a lot of the things, or at least he thought it was him doing it."

But when Levi stumbled upon "a bunch of dummies that looked very, very real" from an authentic battle scene in the movie, McConaughey said, "I stood beside him and for about a minute he just stared [at them]... He goes, 'Papai, I don't want to go to war.' I was like, 'Yeah I hear you.'"

Story continues

Watch the video below for more.

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As per a recent Reuters report, McDonalds Corp. MCD has received over half a dozen bids for its planned sale of China and Hong Kong units. Notably, the auction could rake in nearly $3 billion for the company.



Reportedly, the China and Hong Kong businesses generate roughly $200 million in earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).



Interestingly, the news of the bids flowing in follows the letter sent by The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) couple of days ago to potential McDonalds buyers. In the letter, SEIU had warned investors of the financial risks associated with the companys master licensee model, which is the core of the companys growth strategy in Asia.



Details



Notably, McDonald's is offering a 20-year master franchise agreement to purchasers as part of the purchase contract.

MCDONALDS CORP Price

MCDONALDS CORP Price | MCDONALDS CORP Quote

The bids reportedly incorporate offers from Beijing Tourism Group, Sanpower Group and ChemChina.



Moreover, as per sources, few global buyout firms such as Bain Capital, TPG Capital and Carlyle Group are participating in the auction with the aim of collaborating with some of the strategic bidders in China.



Refranchising Plans



In March, McDonalds revealed its master licensee model, which is the core of the companys growth strategy in Asia. The company has plans to refranchise roughly 2,800 restaurants in Asia and has thus been seeking master franchisees for key Asian markets like China, Hong Kong and South Korea. Also, last year, the company announced that it intends to sell its Taiwan operations and a significant part of its Japanese business.



Our Take



Through its refranchising efforts, management aims to reduce the companys capital requirements and boost earnings per share growth and ROE expansion over the long term.



Meanwhile, reportedly, Sanpower Group has even confirmed that it has submitted a joint bid with Beijing Tourism Group for McDonald's Hong Kong and China stores.



Thus, it is to be seen whether McDonalds efforts to refranchise its Asian operations reap the desired benefits.



Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider



McDonald's currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in this sector include Papa John's International Inc. PZZA, Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI and The Wendy's Company WEN. All the three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



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If you were searching for stereotypical Euroskeptics in London, the borough of Newham might not be where you would start. Home to Queens Market, and famed for its South Asian delicacies that range from exotic fruit to spices, the diverse East London borough has one of the fewest numbers of white people per capita in Britain.

But Vote Leave  the official campaign to leave the E.U. in Thursdays referendum  has had huge success among the districts first and second generation immigrant communities, according to Emily Knight, Vote Leaves Volunteer Co-ordinator for the area.

It is not just white working-class people who oppose the E.U, she says, standing outside a block of 1950s social housing in Newhams former docklands. Minority voters like Bangladeshis, Indians and Ghanians are getting angry about the European Union.

On voting day, TIME joined Knight and her team of six Vote Leave volunteers in Newham where they were knocking up locals; urging known supporters who have not yet voted to go and cast ballots. One of the volunteers is Bishwajit Bal, a first generation immigrant from Bangladesh who moved to Newham and officially became a citizen four years ago.

The reason why he is voting Leave: too many European immigrants. Bal says Eastern European immigrants dont appreciate what an extraordinary opportunity theyve been given, unlike non-EU migrants. We helped build this country and pay taxes, they dont respect each other.

Having voted for the far-right U.K. Independence Party in the 2015 general election, Bal believes the E.U.s free movement rules, which has seen up to three million Europeans relocate to the U.K., have burdened Newhams creaking public services. I had to wait in the hospital for four hours before someone looked at my baby who got burned.

Todays team of six are distributing wads of leaflets still touting a map that suggests Iraq and Syria would soon share the same border with the E.U. which Sadiq Khan derided as inflammatory and false in a referendum debate less than two days ago, as Turkey has no chance of joining the economic bloc any time soon. With a red Union Jack draped on his soldiers, Newham local Mahyar Tousi, 29, shoves the leaflets into letter boxes as he explains that he moved to the U.K. in the early 90s after his mother gained asylum status.

Story continues

Tousi says Europes open border policy has been dangerous to refugees as well. He believes Germany, which has taken in over 1 million asylum-seekers, has not provided adequate welfare to the new arrivals. This is also not a fight between Europeans and non-Europeans, he says, as he walks up to a terraced house. This is an issue of control, where we want to have the ability to stop people with criminal records from coming in.

As they knock on doors, the volunteers are approached by a 47-year-old man of Nigerian descent who identified himself only as Samuel. He asks whether Britain can really stand by ourselves, the world needs to work together now.

Tousi and Knight, who seemed skilled in their voluntary tradecraft having canvassed for Leave since January, explains the Leave position that the E.U. has yet to make trade deals with Africa, resulting in high tariff fees on products like coffee from the continent.

The conversation then drifts to immigration where a now enraged Samuel, who is a mental health nurse, says he feels like a second-class citizen in my own country because he is unable to bring in his wife and children to the U.K. This is because he does not earn above the required threshold needed to bring over a non-E.U. spouse or children.

The Vote Leave volunteers commiserate, suggesting that the E.U. migration policy is the cause. I am going to vote leave, says Samuel. It is racist and ridiculous. As Samuel walks away, Knight tells TIME that incidences like this happen all the time.

According to the British Election Study, two-thirds of Britains BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) voters favor staying in the E.U. compared to white voters, who are evenly split between Brexit and Remain, reports the BBC.

However, many first-generation immigrants TIME spoke to on Thursday were on the side of the canvassers. Euder Menezes, who is an E.U. citizen from Italy and thus unable to vote in the referendum, says he would vote out due to what he perceives as the British government being unable to provide new homes.

A few doors down a shirtless Billy Simba, 41, who moved here with his wife from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000 and gained citizenship, says he is voting out for his children. I am a father of two and I am voting out because I cant see a future for them, he says. He is worried that more migration will cause house prices to raise even further, and cause his kids to miss out on jobs.

As it nears lunchtime, Knight says that the morning may have seemed successful but Vote Leave analysts have calculated that for them to win, 36% of the votes from Newham have to be to Leave. With a record number of 46.5 million voters having registered to take part in todays referendum and polls showing a dead heat, nothing can be left for granted.
Sitting on the plush blue carpet on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Katherine Clark remarked to Representative John Lewis, the civil rights icon who helped lead the Selma-Montgomery marches in 1965, that this sit-in must surely be cushier than his first.

Indeed, he replied gravely with a hint of a smile, it was.

It was through Clarks actions that Lewis and dozens of other Democratic members found themselves sitting on the House floor protesting the GOPs refusal to hold votes on two gun-control provisions in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. But though this was her first sit-in, Clark is no stranger to civil disobedience.

Clark won her Massachusetts seat in December 2013 in a special election to replace Ed Markey, who was headed to the Senate. One of the first people she met coming to Congress was Lewis. He came over and introduced himself and said to please call him John, I was tongue-tied, Clark told TIME in an interview. I was so in awe that I got to serve with him and that his kindness and generosity extends to everyone  even the very very newest member of Congress.

The two struck up a friendship and Clark would make a point to visit with Lewis whenever he came to her district, which wasnt infrequently. Clark represents Harvard, Tufts and a host of other schools where Lewis was often invited to speak. Clark accompanied Lewis to Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of the march last year. And they would often chat during votes.

So it wasnt unusual when last Thursday Clark approached Lewis during a vote on the House floor. Clark was frustrated. The House was set to hold yet another moment of silence for the victims of a mass murder perpetrated by a mad man wielding a gun. She wanted to do more.

I wanted to do something to keep gun violence in the forefront of not only the American people but, more specifically, members of Congress and he suggested, in his words, that we do something dramatic, and he suggested having a sit-in, and it really went from there, Clark recalled.

Story continues

Clark worked for two years right out of law school in Chicago doing, in part, civil rights cases and she took part in an anti-KKK protest when she lived in Denver that turned into a riot. But this was her first experience engaging in civil disobedience on the floor of Congress. When you have John Lewis, such an icon of the civil rights fight for justice, you know that good things are going to happen, she said. Lewis has credited Clark for the sit-in.

Though the sit-in has ended  for now  Lewis said not to count them out. Lewis and Clark are not done pioneering a path for passage for those two gun-control measures, which would close a loophole in background check for gun purchases and ban those on the FBIs terrorism watch list from purchasing weapons.

Our goal is that when the House is in session and we have the possibility of bringing up that vote, that we are there being vocal about this issue, and that we keep this momentum going, Clark said. I think we have spoken loudly and I think the American people have answered.

Given that 90% of Americans support the two provisions, Lewis and Clark are confident that, as the old political adage goes, where they are sitting, America stands.
New York (AFP) - US securities regulators fined Bank of America's Merrill Lynch $415 million Thursday for wrongly tapping customer accounts for billions of dollars for its own trading activities.

Merrill, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of America, from 2009 through 2012 engaged in complex options trades that enabled it to "artificially" reduce its stash of cash held for customer accounts, freeing up to $5 billion for use by the bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Merrill also failed to honor the requirement that it keep customer funds in accounts that are shielded from claims by third parties should the firm collapse.

Merrill kept up to $58 billion of a customer securities in a clearing account from 2009 to 2015 that was subject to a general lien, exposing that cash to potential loss, regulators said.

"The rules concerning the safety of customer cash and securities are fundamental protections for investors and impose lines that simply can never be crossed," said Andrew Ceresney, the SEC's director of enforcement.

"Merrill Lynch violated these rules, including during the heart of the financial crisis, and the significant relief imposed today reflects the severity of its failures."

Thursday's case included an admission of wrongdoing by Merrill, the SEC said. Ceresney told reporters on a conference call that the agency pushed for the admission given the gravity of the offense and the need for accountability.

The SEC also upped its penalty on Merrill because it failed to disclose the problems to regulators after it ended some of the practices, Ceresney said.

"The lack of transparency significantly increased the relief we sought," he said.

A Bank of America spokesman said the bank cooperated with the SEC in the probe.

"While no customers were harmed and no losses were incurred, our responsibility is to protect customer assets and we have dedicated significant resources to reviewing and enhancing our processes," the spokesman said.

"The issues related to our procedures and controls have been corrected."

In a second case, Merrill was fined $15 million by the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for not fully informing investors on the costs related to structured "strategic return notes" that it sold to retail customers.
By Suzanne Barlyn

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch brokerage unit will pay $415 million and admit to wrongdoing to settle charges that it misused customer cash, the top U.S. securities regulator said on Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, in announcing what it said is the largest customer protection settlement in the United States in the agency's history, said Merrill Lynch kept billions of dollars at its own disposal that should have been deposited into a reserve account that could help protect customers if the firm unexpectedly failed.

Merrill Lynch violated an SEC rule for protecting customers' assets by holding up to $58 billion a day in a clearing account, Andrew Ceresney, the SEC's enforcement director, said in a call with reporters.

The practice, which occurred between 2009 to 2015, freed up billions of dollars per week for Merrill, which financed the firm's trading activities for part of that time.

Firms typically park certain funds in clearing accounts temporarily before transferring them elsewhere. But a reserve account is for setting aside funds for a specific purpose, including the return of customers' funds if a firm unexpectedly fails.

If Merrill Lynch's business failed during those trades, customers would have been exposed to a massive shortfall in the reserve account, the SEC said.

While no customers were harmed and no losses were incurred, our responsibility is to protect customer assets, and we have dedicated significant resources to reviewing and enhancing our processes," Merrill Lynch spokesman William Halldin said in a statement.

"The issues related to our procedures and controls have been corrected. We have cooperated fully with the SEC staff throughout this investigation, Halldin said.

At issue is an industry rule requiring securities for which customers have fully paid to be held in accounts that are not subject to liens. The measure shields customers from claims by third parties should a firm collapse, the SEC said.

Story continues

The clearing account in which Merrill held the customers' funds was subject to a general lien, Ceresney said. Some Merrill employees were aware of the lien as early as 2009, but the firm did not take steps to fix the issue until the SEC brought it to attention, Ceresney said.

The SEC is also suing Merrill's former head of regulatory reporting, William Tirrell, who held the position when Merrill was misusing customers' cash. Tirrell was responsible for determining how much in assets to reserve for customers' benefit if Merrill's business failed, the SEC said.

Tirrell failed to adequately monitor the trades and provide specific information to Merrill's regulators about the trades, the SEC said.

"While we are disappointed that the SEC filed this action, Mr. Tirrell looks forward to the opportunity to vindicate himself," said Steven Witzel, Tirrell's New York-based lawyer.

Merrill Lynch also violated an SEC rule by using language in severance agreements to stop employees from coming forward to the SEC with information, the SEC said. The company has since revised the agreements and launched a whistleblower training program for employees.

The case came to light after multiple former Bank of America executives reported the company's misconduct to the SEC, said Jordan Thomas, the whistleblowers' New York lawyer.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)
Nov 29, 2015; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Leon Hall (29) runs back an interception for a touchdown against the St. Louis Rams in the second half at Paul Brown Stadium. Cincinnati defeated St. Louis 31-7. Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

With some deficiencies in their secondary as well as some major question marks surrounding certain players  were looking at you Reshad Jones  Leon Hall and the Miami Dolphins could be set for a necessary marriage. While Hall has plenty of other suitors the Dolphins need to make this potential relationship work and make it work now.

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Becoming a nine-year veteran this season, Leon Hall has the experience and ability needed to be a solid player for any teams secondary. With around five teams still interested in the 31-year old, Hall will have his pick of teams when he makes his decision within the next couple of weeks.

While he has been a cornerback during his career in college and the NFL, his age and size are leading many teams to think he will be moved to the safety position. Bringing him into Miami would open up some possibilities for the Dolphins with Hall likely to play at either position.

Should he remain at the cornerback position he would likely take over a starting spot from rookie Xavien Howard. Giving the 2016 second round draft pick some more time to develop his game while also pairing an experienced veteran with number one corner Byron Maxwell should enhance the early season play of the Dolphins secondary.

READ MORE: Dolphins will wear color rush jerseys

The other real option would be for Hall to become a safety upon his arrival in Miami. With the Dolphins currently having contract problems with Reshad Jones and the other safety spot lacking a real challenge, Hall would definitely be able to elevate the competition at the top of the secondary.

With two open roster spots entering the last stages of the offseason, the Miami Dolphins do have room to add Leon Hall. Depending on the contract Hall is looking for the Dolphins should go out on a limb and pursue the veteran player. Such a move would bring some talent and experience to an area of the team that could learn much from Halls arrival.

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Not only would Hall be able to bring his talent on the field but it would also be possible for many of the youngsters around him to raise their game. While the addition of Hall is unlikely to make a major difference, the fine details and the effect the team could feel for years to come makes obtaining Halls signature a must for the Miami Dolphins.

READ MORE: Should Miami consider trading Reshad Jones?

The post Miami Dolphins should make push to sign Leon Hall appeared first on Cover32.
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the consideration of race in college admissions, rejecting a white woman's challenge to a University of Texas program designed to boost the enrollment of minority students and bring racial and ethnic diversity to campus.

Here is a timeline of key action in the case.

2008

Abigail Fisher, a high school student in suburban Houston at the time, is rejected for admission to the University of Texas at Austin. Conservative legal activist Edward Blum, a Fisher family friend who has long backed lawsuits against racial policies, enlists Abigail to challenge the university's admissions program.

The white teenager claims she was wrongly rejected while minority students with lesser scores and grades were accepted. That assertion and her individual situation have never been tested at trial. Rather, as the case has worked its way to the Supreme Court, it has tested whether the university's admissions policy was sufficiently tailored to its interest in fostering campus diversity. The state's flagship public university enrolls most freshmen through a program guaranteeing admission to students in roughly the top 10 percent of their high school classes. A supplemental program considers the race of applicants along with other characteristics intended to bring more diversity to the university's student population.

2009

A U.S. district court judge rules for the University of Texas, rejecting Fisher's claim that the racial policy violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

2011

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, affirms the lower-court decision, endorsing the educational benefits of a diverse student population and stressing that the university uses race as just one factor to ensure campus diversity. It also notes that applicants are considered on an individual basis, rather than under a quota system.

Story continues

2012

Fisher graduates from Louisiana State University.

2013

After Fisher appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices hold a contentious session of oral arguments and spend eight months weighing a decision, then compromise with a ruling that sends the case back to the 5th Circuit. The justices decline to assess the constitutionality of the university's admissions program. They instead tell the appeals court it was too deferential to the university in its review and ask the lower court to reconsider its ruling.

2014

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit again upholds the University of Texas program, saying the school had sufficiently justified its limited use of race to foster campus diversity.

2015

Fisher appeals the 2014 ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which again decides to hear the case. During Dec. 9 oral arguments, conservative justices expressed deep doubt about the university's admissions policy. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia suggests some blacks and Hispanics are actually hurt by the Texas program because they are not strong enough candidates to be admitted purely on academic criteria. Scalia dies on Feb. 13, 2016, and is not part of the ruling in the case.

2016

The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the University of Texas policy in a 4-3 ruling written by conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was joined by three of the court's liberals. Kennedy writes that while "it remains an enduring challenge to our nation's education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity," considerable deference is owed to universities when they are seeking to achieve a diverse student population. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who was U.S. solicitor general in the Obama administration when it backed the university in lower-court litigation, took no part in the decision.

(Compiled by Joan Biskupic; Editing by Will Dunham)
A small plane carrying two sick workers from a remote U.S. research station at the South Pole, landed safely in Chile Wednesday, following a treacherous two-day rescue mission across Antarctica.

The crew of four flew a 3,000-mile round trip from the British base at Rothera, on the Antarctic peninsula to the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole in a Twin Otter plane  the only aircraft capable of withstanding Antarcticas sub-zero temperatures, the Associated Press reports.

The patients were then flown on a second plane to a medical facility in Punta Arenas, Chiles southernmost city. The two research workers are reportedly employees of Lockheed Martin although their identities and medical conditions have not been disclosed.

The successful mission is only the third time in the history of the 60-year-old station that a rescue has been attempted during Antarcticas mid-winter season. Planes to the remote outpost are typically on lockdown this time of year as Antarctica is plunged into a 24-hour darkness with temperatures at the polar base hovering at a bitter -70 F.

The National Science Foundation, which runs the South Pole center, put out an urgent call for help last week because they were unable to provide the necessary medical care. It was later apparent that a second person also required emergency attention.

[AP]
By Joseph Guyler Delva PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - More than two dozen people have signed up to run for Haiti's presidency, authorities said on Wednesday, including the four leading candidates from an earlier election aborted after a commission found widespread fraud Unless registrations rise significantly before a 0000 EDT deadline, the number of presidential candidates will be about half those who contested the last ballot in Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest country. Fewer candidates could make the election due on October 9 easier to organize, with several politicians who ran last time pledging support for Jude Celestin, who came second in the previous ballot. "This joint effort is a choice for stability and democracy, against corruption and fraudulent election," Celestin told reporters. Jovenel Moise, who came first last time, again registered to run, as did Jean-Charles Moise and Maryse Narcisse who came third and fourth last time. The registration of Moise removes uncertainty over whether his PHTK party would take part in the new election. The party's position had been that irregularities in the first round were not large enough to alter the outcome and that it would be better to hold a run-off vote between Celestin and Moise, a position supported by Washington and other donors. "There is no question of abandoning the election process because we believe in democracy and the only way to access power in a democracy is through election," Rudy Heriveaux, a spokesman for Moise's PHTK party, said. Haiti's last elected president left office without an elected successor, paving the way for a interim government led by President Jocelerme Privert. He failed to organize elections by May in a timeline set in a multi-party deal, but may end up staying on to organize the next vote. "We continue to believe that Jocelerme Privert should leave power because his term is over and he is manipulating the election process in favor of his political family," Heriveaux said. "If the election is free, fair and democratic, there is no doubt that Jovenel Moise will win," he said. Former presidential candidate, Sauveur Pierre Etienne, who is now supporting Celestin, said he made that choice because he believes Celestin is the best man to lead the country. "I support Jude Celestin because he showed that he is a man of character," he said. (Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Michael Perry)
RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco said on Thursday that it had dismantled a suspected militant cell inspired by the radical group Islamic State and that it had arrested 10 men who were planning attacks in the North African kingdom. The interior ministry said in a statement that the cell was operating in the eastern city of Oujda, and the town of Tendrara in the same region bordering Algeria. This was the latest in a series of radical Islamist groups that Morocco has said it has broken up. It said 10 members of the group were meeting in a safe house and planning to rob a mall in the city of Oujda to fund their attacks across the kingdom. The group includes an Algerian national living in Morocco illegally, according to the statement carried by state news agency MAP said. Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, has actively tracked suspected militants since Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014-15. Hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states like Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts have said. Nearby Libya has become a major draw for jihadists from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as Islamic State has taken advantage of the security chaos there to build a base, operate training camps and take over the city of Sirte. The Moroccan government has said it believes that 1,500 Moroccan nationals are fighting with militant factions in Syria and Iraq. About 220 have returned home and been jailed, and 286 have been killed in battle. Morocco, an ally of the West against Islamist militancy, has been the target of militant attacks, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh when an explosion tore through a cafe and killed 15 people, mostly foreigners. (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
In a light-filled industrial studio in the East Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, John Jay Cabuay scribbles furiously into his sketchbook. Nudging his square glasses up with one hand, he scrawls circles and squares with the other. That was my warm-up, he says before starting on a new piece of paper and sketching a perfectly formed silhouette of a woman.

From Christian Dior to Cartier and Dolce & Gabbana, Cabuay is part of an unlikely tribe of fashion illustrators revered by the industrys elite. Running the gamut from Pop Artinspired prints on blouses and designer bags to delicate watercolor sketches on beauty packaging, these artists  who include Katie Rodgers and Meagan Morrison in New York, Lena Kur in Russia and Mekel in Australia  are breathing new life into a lost art form. At the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, applications for illustration majors grew 26 percent between 2011 and 2015. Designers have been so taken by Cabuay, in particular, that he says one of his clients, Louis Vuitton, regularly asks him to sit in at private parties to sketch portraits of esteemed guests. Sometimes it can cause a riot, he says, sporting slicked-back black hair. Everybody wants to be picked first.

The industry has been dominated by photography for more than 50 years, so this is an exciting moment.

Though the industry has waxed and waned over the last half century as cameras and digital imagery took precedence, celebrated fashion illustrators like David Downton, who has sketched everyone from Dita Von Teese to Carolina Herrera and Elizabeth Hurley, are again en vogue. The industry has been dominated by photography for more than 50 years, so this is an exciting moment, says Downton, 56, who worked for Vogue for most of his career and is the artist-in-residence at Londons Claridges hotel, where he stays 52 nights a year in exchange for drawings. For the first time in a generation, fashion illustration looks like a real proposition.

First revolutionized in early 20th-century France by artist Paul Iribe, who created minimalist illustrations to capture the essence of avant-garde couturier Paul Poirets designs, the medium of pencil and ink quickly gained prominence across the pond. By the 1950s, Andy Warhol was drawing handbags and shoes for Harpers Bazaar and designing Christmas cards for Tiffany & Co. with his trademark blotted-ink technique. Then cameras took up the bulk of the picture, pushing illustration to the side. Photography monopolized the industry; it created instant gratification, says Bil Donovan, the artist-in-residence at Dior Beauty and an adjunct professor at FIT. With the advent of social media, artists have been able to present their illustrations to a new audience, people who had never seen illustrations before or were even aware of them. This opened the floodgates to an emerging generation of wannabe illustrators, drawn to the thrilling backstage sketches at fashion weeks, classical portraits of stars and socialites and the jet-setting lifestyle.

These days, young proteges of Downton and Donovan are making a living from their handiwork. Artists like Rodgers, Morrison, Kur and Mekel have used the same medium that initially destroyed fashion illustration  photography  to revive it, posting photos of their work on social media and amassing hundreds of thousands of followers. And catching the eyes of fashion brands and fashion bloggers along the way.

From my painting session on snapchat last night. (User: paperfashion) A photo posted by Katie Rodgers (@paperfashion) on Jun 1, 2016, at 10:24am PDT

Their rising popularity inevitably produces copycats. But for 30-year-old Rodgers, who started as a designer at Reebok and is known in the industry as Paper Fashion, efforts by others to emulate her work are of no real concern because she knows it takes years of practice that imitators simply cant match. You ask any illustrator in this world, and they know there are a lot of people [who] could copy them, Rodgers says. Some people just want to create whats already been done so they can hop on it too, and some brands will be OK with that and spend less money, she says. Over the years, Ive learned to let that go.

But artists like Rodgers are an exception  not the rule  in fashion, says Cassidy Zachary, a fashion historian who has just published Fashion and the Art of Pochoir, a history of fashion illustration. Fashion photography will never go away, Zachary says, because it remains the fastest and easiest way to relay fashion news to the masses. In addition to competing with photographers and breaking into fashion  which is never easy  illustrators face the prospects of a job market thats expected to grow by just 6.2 percent between 2012 and 2022, according to Sokanu, a digital career guidance platform. Which means there are nowhere near enough jobs for todays fashion graduates, 1,700 of whom hit the market annually, according to the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

But there is one way that illustration always wins: Theres no risk of an unflattering shot. Its part fantasy, part reality  youre capturing the essence of a subject more than creating a likeness, Cabuay says. People ask me, Can you make me look good? Can you make me taller? And I say yes.

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The Use of Real-Time, Intra-Operative MRI-Guided Delivery Allowed the Surgical Teams to Visualize the Delivery of VY-AADC01, Administer Higher Infusion Volumes, and Achieve Greater Coverage of the Putamen

IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / MRI Interventions, Inc. (OTCQB: MRIC), a commercial stage medical device company focused on creating innovative platforms for performing the next generation of minimally invasive surgical procedures in the brain, today announced that real-time MRI imaging enabled by the ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System, was featured in a poster presentation of interim results from an ongoing Phase 1b study of VY-AADC01, Voyager Therapeutics' gene therapy program for advanced Parkinson's disease.

The interim results were presented yesterday at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (ICPDMD) in Berlin, Germany. The study design included the use of both the ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System and the SmartFlow Ventricular Cannula which together enabled real-time, intra-operative MRI-guided delivery of VY-AADC01. The surgical teams utilized the ClearPoint System to precisely target and place the cannula into the putamen, visualize the delivery of VY-AADC01, administer higher infusion volumes and achieve greater coverage of the putamen, the brain region that is being targeted with VY-AADC01. The study showed VY-AADC01 continues to demonstrate safety with increasing coverage of targeted regions of the brain. Obtaining sufficient coverage of the putamen with VY-AADC01 is a key step towards potentially improving patients' response to levodopa, the standard of care treatment for Parkinson's disease.

Due to the presence of the blood brain barrier, which is formed by the brain capillary endothelium and excludes from the brain ~100% of large-molecule neurotherapeutics and more than 98% of all small-molecule drugs, delivery of therapeutic agents to cells in the brain is challenging. In the emerging field of Convection Enhanced Delivery (CED - direct injection of therapeutic agents into the brain, using continuous, low-positive pressure flow), accurate, real-time targeting and infusion monitoring is crucial to obtaining optimum target coverage. With the intra-operative MRI imaging capability provided by the ClearPoint System, the ability to monitor and adjust the infusion during CED is achieved. As a result, the surgeon can make cannula depth adjustments during the procedure to ensure the infusate is convecting within the target volume, and not escaping via other routes. Currently, seven clinical and pre-clinical studies are utilizing the ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System for delivery of a therapeutic agent directly into the brain.

"We are pleased to be part of this groundbreaking study that utilized the strengths of the ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System and SmartFlow Cannula," stated Frank Grillo, Chief Executive Officer for MRI Interventions. "We believe that real-time monitoring of the infusion of therapeutic agents in an MRI environment allows surgeons to accurately deliver these investigative treatments, and to make adjustments to the delivery trajectories in real-time for more precise therapeutic coverage. We are excited to see these results, and we look forward to participating in the continued progress in this exciting field."

The ClearPoint System allows surgeons to plan, target, and adjust trajectories of electrodes, catheters and needles under real time MRI-guided visualization without attaching a large, metal stereotactic headframe to the patient. Real-time MRI imaging provides the surgeon with current views of the patient's brain anatomy at the time of surgical planning, device alignment, and navigation of the device to target, resulting in improved accuracy and reduced risk of brain shift associated with standard imaging techniques.

About MRI Interventions, Inc.

Building on the imaging power of MRI, MRI Interventions is creating innovative platforms for performing the next generation of minimally invasive surgical procedures in the brain. The ClearPoint System, which has received 510(k) clearance and is CE marked, utilizes a hospital's existing diagnostic or intraoperative MRI suite to enable a range of minimally invasive procedures in the brain. For more information, please visit www.mriinterventions.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements herein concerning MRI Interventions, Inc. (the "Company") plans, growth and strategies may include forward-looking statements within the context of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding the Company's future events, developments and future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of these laws. Uncertainties and risks may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by forward-looking statements. Particular uncertainties and risks include those relating to: customer demand and market acceptance of the Company's products; its ability to successfully expand, and achieve full productivity from, its sales, clinical support and marketing capabilities; its ability to achieve the full benefits from cost reduction efforts that have been implemented or are pending; the sufficiency of its cash resources to maintain planned commercialization efforts; and future actions of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulatory body that could impact its commercialization efforts. More detailed information on these and additional factors that could affect the Company's actual results are described in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact:

Wendelin Maners, VP, Marketing

MRI Interventions, Inc.

949-900-6833

SOURCE: MRI Interventions, Inc.
Their country may be about to make what is probably its most important decision in a generation  whether or not to remain a member of the European Union  but some Britons have other priorities.

A significant chunk of the electorate will spend the weekend on a muddy farm in the rural English county of Somerset, within view of a medieval church steeped in Arthurian legend that is a proposed location of the Holy Grail.

The five-day Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts opened its gates on Wednesday, with as many as 200,000 people are expected to attend. (Festival organizers urged visitors to arrange postal votes for Thursdays Brexit referendum.)

Most people have headed to the site early, and inclement weather on Wednesday  its English summertime after all  led to large tailbacks on the small country roads that lead to the festival site, Worthy Farm, which is usually occupied by dairy cows. The BBC reports that some festival-goers were stuck in their cars or camper vans for up to 12 hours. Some local children were unable to travel to school to take their high-school leaving exams because of the gridlock.

The good news for those enduring long queues is that the U.K.s Met Office is forecasting cloudy but dry weather, and even possible sunshine, over the weekend.

Glastonbury has been held, on-and-off, since the early 1970s, and involves films, comedy, politics and, most prominently, music. This year, the largest stage will be opened on Friday by the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, who will be joined by guests including Blur frontman Damon Albarn. The weekends headliners include Adele, New Order and Coldplay.
t is no secret that the eagerly-awaited Udta Punjab was leaked online merely two days before its release. Now, the Mumbai police have arrested the owner of a torrent website in connection with the incident.

As it so happens, the leaked copy carried the words for censors. This led to speculation that the CBFC was in some way connected with the incident. However, these allegations were soon turned down. Reacting to the recent arrest, Pahlaj Nihalani said that the CBFC would cooperate with the investigation if needed.

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The person responsible has already been identified and the leak will be tracked down. We will cooperate if we are approached as part of the investigation, he added.

On a related note, Udta Punjab,which hit screens last weekis touted to be a crime-thriller and revolves around the issue of drug abuse . Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, it features Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor and Diljit Dosanjh in the lead.
Will Chase is trading America's country music capital for Elizabethan England.

The Nashville star will return to Broadway this summer when he joins the cast of the satirical musical comedy Something Rotten! Chase will play Shakespeare, the Renaissance rock star who makes life difficult for two brothers struggling to gain a foothold as theater artists - until they stumble upon the idea of staging a musical.

Chase originated the scene-stealing part in the show's very first reading, but his role as Luke Wheeler on the ABC drama Nashville prevented him from joining the cast when Something Rotten! opened at Broadway's St. James Theater in March last year. The role instead was taken by Christian Borle, winning him a Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical.

Read More: 'Nashville': Two Series Regulars to Exit; Talks With Remaining Cast Going Well

News emerged yesterday that Chase, along with fellow series regular Audrey Peeples, would exit Nashville, which is moving to CMT in its fifth season, after being canceled by ABC.

Borle will play his final performance in Something Rotten! on July 16; he is leaving the production to star in a limited-engagement fall Broadway revival of Falsettos before jumping in the spring to the new musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which he has been cast as Willy Wonka.

Chase steps into Something Rotten! on July 18, along with fellow new cast recruits Catherine Brunell, Josh Grisetti and Leslie Kritzer. Chase's previous Broadway credits include Rent, High Fidelity, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Billy Elliot; he also appeared with Borle on NBC's backstage Broadway drama series Smash.

Directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon), Something Rotten! has grossed $55 million on Broadway to date.

Read More: 'Something Rotten!': Theater Review
Reed Hastings at DealBook

Silicon Valley is throwing its support behind Hillary Clinton.

On Thursday, Clinton's campaign sent out a list of endorsements from the business leaders, including big names from Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, and Alphabet (Google's parent company), as well as prominent venture capitalists.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings went one step further in his support, and put out a statement in favor of Clinton.

"Trump would destroy much of what is great about America," Hastings said, according to Politico. "Hillary Clinton is the strong leader we need, and it's important that Trump lose by a landslide to reject what he stands for."



Here is the full list of supporters from the tech industry:

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet

Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix

Drew Houston, founder and CEO of Dropbox

Anne Wojcicki, CEO and cofounder of 23andMe

Brook Byers, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock

Peter Chernin, CEO of The Chernin Group

Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder and CTO of Airbnb

Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb

Joe Gebbia, cofounder and CPO of Airbnb

Irwin Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm

Paul Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm

David Karp, Founder and CEO of Tumblr

Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box

Mark Pincus, cofounder of Zynga

Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO and cofounder of Yelp

Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia

Candy Ergen, cofounder of DISH Network

Additional reporting by Kif Leswing.

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Newly crowned Miss Missouri, Erin O'Flaherty, is breaking ground as the first-ever openly gay Miss America contestant.

O'Flaherty, 23, was crowned as the Show Me State's representative to the national pageant on Saturday, and is the first openly gay woman to hold the title, said Ann Jolly, chairman of the board of the Miss Missouri Scholarship Organization.

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In an interview with the Associated Press, O'Flaherty said that she came out at 18, competed openly and knew that there was a possibility that she could be making history with her win.

"I'm on cloud nine really just to be Miss Missouri," she told the AP. "I don't know that I intended to be the first, but I am. So I'm very excited about it."

O'Flaherty sent her first official tweet from the Miss Missouri Twitter account on Wednesday, writing, "Hey there! Erin here, officially signing in as Miss MO 2016. So excited to serve this amazing state."

Hey there! Erin here, officially signing in as Miss MO 2016. So excited to serve this amazing state  pic.twitter.com/MRlYYYLqsC  Miss Missouri (@MissAmericaMO) June 23, 2016

WATCH: Vanessa Williams Makes Triumphant, Musical Return to Miss America Pageant

The clothing store owner, whose pageant platform is suicide prevention, also told the AP that she hopes to reach out to the LGBT community during her time as Miss Missouri, but added that it won't be the only focus of her reign.

"My focus of my year isn't going to be that I'm gay," O'Flaherty explained. "It's certainly a big part of who I am, and I will be promoting it and raising awareness for the LGBT community. But also there will be many appearances that I do that have nothing to do with that."

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[Video c/o JCProductions.tv --- Award Winning Live Event production company]

O'Flaherty believes she will also be the first openly gay woman to compete in this fall's Miss America pageant, which is scheduled for Sept. 11 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

"I'm hoping that I can strike a really nice balance of staying true to the values of Miss Missouri and also being able to exercise my personal views," she said.

WATCH: The Top 5 Most Famous Miss Americas Ever

Related Articles
BuzzFeed has been in the media spotlight recently and its not because captivating listicles or cute Corgi videos, but over the companys recent firing of two of its staffers.

Jenny Lorenzo was one of the two comedians who was let go over breaking a non-compete clause in her contract with BuzzFeed. Fortunately, the former BuzzFeed employee found a replacement for her job pretty quickly.

Lorenzo announced on her Facebook page that she will now be working as a video producer at We Are Mitu, a company that brands itself as the voice of young Latinos. She ended her post with a smart remark that we can only guess is aimed at her previous employer.

Also Read: Two Buzzfeed Staffers Fired After Work on America Ferrera Series

Oh, and dont worry. I get to work on any creative projects outside of work. Including Geekgasm, wrote Lorenzo.

Brittany Ashley, the other employee who was terminated, was unavailable for comment due to her non-disclosure agreement with BuzzFeed.

The company fired Ashley and Lorenzo, two actors that frequently appear on BuzzFeeds videos, after they apparently breached their contract with the company. Ashley and Lorenzo appeared in America Ferreras Gente-Fied, a web series focusing on a Latino community tackling the problems of gentrification.

Also Read: Emmy Contender America Ferrera Smashes Ethnic Barrier in 'Superstore'

President of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, Ze Frank, released a memo that detailed the exclusivity clause in the contract:

Ownership of Content. The work created by you and the collaborative teams youre a part of while at the company is owned by BuzzFeed. As is standard across tech and media companies, BuzzFeed owns the work that you, our employees, create. It enables us to create a culture where ideas are easily shared and adapted, and where we can use our successes to grow our business and fund new areas of experimentation. Exclusivity. You cannot work for anyone else while you work for us unless you ask permission for an exception. An approval process allows BuzzFeed to assess whether the proposed outside work will interfere or compete with your work at BuzzFeed. In addition, you cannot work on personal projects outside of BuzzFeed that impact your ability to work for us.

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A representative for BuzzFeed did not immediately respond to TheWraps request for comment.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Why Facebook Is Paying Millions to CNN, Kevin Hart and BuzzFeed

Two Buzzfeed Staffers Fired After Work on America Ferrera Series

BuzzFeed Refuses $1.3 Million in Republican Ad Money Over Donald Trump
Niamey (AFP) - The refugee crisis triggered by jihadist violence in a remote corner of West Africa has brought misery for many but success for a modest Niger company working to fight famine.

The STA food transformation firm has seen it staff swell from four to more than 100 in 15 years as a rare local producer of Plumpy'nut, a peanut-based food used by relief workers worldwide.

"We were able to help save 270,000 children with severe malnutrition in 2015," Ismael Barmou, the 35-year-old head of the Societe de Transformation Alimentaire (STA) told AFP in the capital Niamey.

French-based firm Nutriset, which formulated the specialised high-protein food in the late 1990s, has exported technology to Niger among half a dozen African nations as part of a "PlumpyField" initiative to promote local production.

The impoverished, largely arid west African nation has endured repeated humanitarian crises and food shortages and currently has some 300,000 displaced people and refugees on its soil, who have escaped armed Islamic extremists in neighbouring Nigeria and Mali.

Another 50,000 people in Niger itself fled their homes earlier this month to escape a massive attack from Nigeria-based Boko Haram Islamist fighters ttack across the border, into Bosso in the southeast.

After studies in France and England, Barmou came home and in 2001 launched start-up STA to produce flour for the poorest families.

"The firm consisted of four people who ground (the flour) by hand," he recalls.

Change came when a food crisis in 2005 induced Barmou to expand business into the making of "therapeutic foodstuffs, with a company that could respond in a proactive fashion."

STA is a private firm in which Nigeriens hold two-thirds of the stock, while the remainder today belongs to Nutriset.

The firm on Niamey's industrial estate has automated its production, employing 115 permanent staff, while also taking on about 200 seasonal workers for the peanut harvest in local farms.

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With an annual turnover of six billion CFA francs (9.1 million euros/$10.4 million), STA produces about 27 tonnes of paste per day in individual meal packets that are ready for use, to a total of 8,500 tonnes in 2015.

The sealed packets are delivered to UNICEF and other relief agencies which distribute Plumpy'nut to people in need, like emaciated seven-month-old Ramatou, who fixates on the red packet a nurse opens with scissors at the Creni hospital in Niamey.

Three packets a day give her "all the elements she needs to reach a normal weight and become healthy," said Creni director Mamou Aminatou.

On a daily basis, production requires six tonnes of peanuts -- already part of the local cuisine -- delivered from another STA plant, along with sugar from Brazil, palm oil from Ghana, oil of soja, milk and lactoserum (high-protein whey) from France, and stablisers.

"By producing in Niger, we considerably reduce delivery delays," said Barmou, who plans to expand STA's activities to making other food products that are less urgently needed. STA is already marketing a less rich paste intended to prevent the onset of malnutrition.

"Plumpy'nut has several advantages that meet the needs of humanitarian workers. There's no need for refrigeration and it can be eaten without preparation. It suffices to open the packet," said production manager Garba Mahamam Salissou.
* Sharp soars on report it will slash jobs

* Nitori jumps to record high on strong monthly sales

By Ayai Tomisawa

TOKYO, June 23 (Reuters) - Japanese stocks edged up in choppy trade on Thursday morning as investors held their breath before Britain votes to decide whether to remain part of the European Union.

The Nikkei share average rose 0.3 percent to 16,117.72 in midmorning trade after moving in and out of the black in early deals.

Two opinion polls published late on Wednesday, a few hours before voters were due to begin to cast their votes, showed the "Remain" camp gaining momentum in the closely divided campaign.

"Those who had sold on fears of Brexit seem to have adjusted their positions to neutral," said Isao Kubo, an equity strategist at Nissay Asset Management.

"Most people at this point expect a rise in the market" on expectations the vote will favour Britain staying in the EU, he said. "But you never know, and it will be clear by tomorrow so you don't want to take new positions now."

Sharp Corp outperformed, jumping more than 8 percent after Kyodo news reported that its new boss confirmed plans to lay off 7,000 employees worldwide after Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co takes over the struggling Japanese firm.

Exporters were steady, with Toyota Motor Corp rising 0.4 percent, while Honda Motor Co and Panasonic Corp surging 1.5 percent each.

Discount furniture store chain operator Nitori Holdings soared 5.7 percent to a record high with heavy volume after its June same-store sales jumped 19.9 percent on the year.

The broader Topix gained 0.2 percent to 1,287.58 and the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 advanced 0.3 percent to 11,625.28.

(Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
(SEOUL, South Korea)  North Korea on Thursday trumpeted the success of a powerful new midrange ballistic missile test that propelled one of the weapons about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), saying it would allow strikes on U.S. forces throughout the region.

That ability would back up years of threats and boasts from North Korea and has long been a worry for the United States and its allies, Tokyo and Seoul. It explains in part North Koreas tenacious testing of the Musudan missile, which was only a success after five failures in about two months. The missiles potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range puts much of Asia and the Pacific within reach.

Official news agency KCNA quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as saying the launch now gives his country the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre.

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Wednesdays launch demonstrated a certain level of capability, and could lead to a further strengthening of North Koreas ballistic missile capabilities that can cover Japanese territory.

Each new test  apparently linked to a command from Kim  likely provides valuable insights to North Koreas scientists and military officials as they push toward their goal of a nuclear and missile program that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang earlier this year conducted a nuclear test, its fourth, and launched a long-range rocket that outsiders say was a cover for a test of banned missile technology.

A statement from South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said a suspected first Musudan launch from the east coast city of Wonsan failed. It didnt elaborate, but Japans Defense Ministry said the missile fragmented and pieces fell into waters off the Korean Peninsulas east coast.

Later on Wednesday, the Souths military said the North fired another suspected Musudan, which flew about 400 kilometers (245 miles). Seoul didnt immediately classify this launch as either a success or failure.

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Japans Defense Ministry said that its radar analysis found that the missile reached an altitude exceeding 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), which suggests it was a Musudan missile.

We have to see it as a success, Lee Choon Geun, an analyst at South Koreas state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, said of the second launch. No other (previous) missiles fired by North Korea have ever flown that high.

The U.S. Strategic Command in Hawaii said its systems detected and tracked two suspected North Korean Musudan missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan. They didnt pose a threat to North America, it said.

In April, North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch three suspected Musudan missiles, but all exploded midair or crashed, according to South Korean defense officials. Earlier this month, North Korea had another suspected Musudan failure, South Korean officials said.

Before Aprils launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang.

The launches appear to stem from Kim Jong Uns order in March for more nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The order was an apparent response to springtime U.S.-South Korean military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

Since the end of those military drills, Pyongyang has repeatedly called for the resumption of talks with Seoul, even as it pursues new missile development, but the South has rejected the overtures. Seoul wants the North to first take steps toward nuclear disarmament. Pyongyang says its rivals must negotiate with it as an established nuclear power, something Washington and Seoul refuse to do.

The string of recent launch attempts shows the North is pushing hard to upgrade its missile capability in defiance of U.S.-led international pressure. The North was slapped with the strongest U.N. sanctions in two decades after its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

The impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Koreas behavior, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan.

South Koreas Unification Ministry called the launches a clear provocation. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also critical, saying, We find it utterly unforgivable.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Beijing didnt consider the missile launches to be an act of defiance against China, North Koreas long-time ally with whom its relations have cooled substantially in recent years.

To say such an act taken by North Korea shows disapproval against China is reading too much into it, Hua said at a press briefing.

North Korea has recently claimed a series of breakthroughs in its push to build a long-range nuclear missile that can strike the American mainland. But South Korean officials have said the North doesnt yet possess such a weapon.

The North, however, has already deployed a variety of missiles that can reach most targets in South Korea and Japan, including American military bases in the countries.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea; tens of thousands more are stationed in Japan.

___

Associated Press writers Josh Lederman, Lolita C. Baldor and Kathleen Hennessey in Washington, D.C. , Yuri Kageyama and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.
By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said after supervising the test launch of an intermediate-range missile that the country now has the capability to attack U.S. interests in the Pacific, official media reported on Thursday. South Korean and U.S. military officials have said the North launched what appeared to be two intermediate-range missiles dubbed Musudan on Wednesday. The first of the two was considered a failure. The second reached a high altitude in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea about 400 km (250 miles) away, they said. The test-fire was successful without putting the security of neighboring countries at risk, the North's KCNA news agency said, referring to the missile as a "Hwasong-10." Hwasong is Korean for Mars. "We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. The missile, which is fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles), meaning all of Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam are potentially within reach. A spokesman for South Korea's military, Jeon Ha-gyu, said the second launch demonstrated "technical progress in terms of its engine capacity". However, Jeon said it would not be meaningful to discuss whether it was a success because it was not a normal flight. Japan and South Korea said the missile flew to a height of 1,000 km (620 miles). Experts said it appeared North Korea had deliberately raised the angle of the launch to avoid hitting any territory of Japan. South Korea and the United States condemned the launch as an unacceptable violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Japan's Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the launch was an indication that North Korea's threat to Japan was intensifying. The United Nations Security Council, which in March imposed new sanctions on the North following its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, met at the request of the United States and Japan. All expressed a strong concern as well as their opposition (to) these launches, Alexis Lamek, Deputy U.N. Ambassador of France, which holds the Security Council presidency for June, told reporters. He said he hoped a statement condemning the move could be agreed on soon. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches as a "brazen and irresponsible act". North Korea had failed in at least five previous attempts to launch the intermediate-range missiles. The North is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never attempted to test-fire them until this year. North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States, South Korea's main ally. (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Paul Tait)
Tal Abyad (Syria) (AFP) - Rebels, Christian militiamen, local fighters: a cluster of Syrian Arabs united by their hatred for the Islamic State group have cast their lot with Kurdish forces to defeat the jihadists.

But the choice is a controversial one, as Syria's mainstream armed opposition has branded them traitors for foregoing the fight against the regime in Damascus to wage war on the jihadists.

Formed in October 2015, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have dealt blows to IS across swathes of territory in the north of the war-torn country.

The 25,000-strong force is dominated by the powerful Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) but the Arab contingent has been steadily growing to around 5,000 fighters.

The alliance comprises 25 Arab factions, three Kurdish ones, one group of Syriac Christian fighters as well as two Turkmen factions.

Many were rooted in the rebel movement that rose against President Bashar al-Assad but which has become largely gutted after the rise to power of hardliners and jihadists groups like IS.

Arab SDF members say their alliance stands out as the most efficient amid the disjointed chaos of other opposition groups.

"We allied ourselves with the Kurds because they are the most organised and have the most weapons and money," Yasser al-Kadro, a military commander in the Raqa Falcons Brigade, told AFP.

The 1,000-strong brigade is a key Arab component of the SDF, and its fighters all hail from Raqa, the northern border province that has served as IS's bastion since 2014.

These fighters believe the SDF is their best chance at kicking IS out of Raqa.

- No other choice -

"In Raqa, there is either IS or the YPG -- so we allied ourselves with the YPG to fight IS," Abu Saleh, Raqa Falcons Brigade's top military commander, told AFP.

"If we had found a united Syrian faction that brought together all Syrians, we would have joined it."

The same applies to fighters around Manbij, a key transit town on IS's supply route from the Turkish border.

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Ali Hajjo deserted from the government's police force and now heads the Euphrates Brigades, one of the main factions encircling IS-held Manbij.

He said local fighters joined the SDF because it was by far "the most organised group" and the best shot they had to recapture their towns.

A journalist working with AFP who toured several SDF positions said even when Arab units were engaged in battle, senior Kurdish field officers are present to monitor developments.

The SDF receives air support from the US-led coalition, while more than 200 US special operations forces advise them on the ground.

According to the US, Arab fighters make up the majority of the SDF's operation around Manbij.

The SDF has even appealed to Christian fighters.

The Syriac Military Council was formed in the northeastern Hasakeh province in 2013, but recently merged its 500 fighters with the SDF.

Its spokesman, Kino Ghibrael, said his group aims to "protect the Syriac presence in the region" from IS.

- 'Betrayed the uprising' -

While its primary focus is to battle IS, the SDF has also been active in Aleppo province where it seized territory from an alliance of rebel groups led by Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.

The Army of Revolutionaries (Jaish al-Thuwwar) fought alongside the SDF to seize the key Minnigh airport and expel Al-Nusra and allied rebels from a series of towns north of Aleppo city.

Its head, Ahmad al-Omar, told AFP he decided to align himself with the SDF to confront "Islamist factions on the ground".

Al-Nusra, a rival of IS, kicked Jaish al-Thuwwar out of their home province of Idlib in 2014 and Omar says his goal now is to drive them out.

The predominance of YPG fighters in the SDF alliance has sparked concerns in Turkey.

Ankara regards the YPG as a branch of the rebel Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish army.

And by opting to fight jihadists instead of the regime, the SDF's Arab fighters have also faced fierce criticism from Syria's mainstream opposition.

"The regime warplanes don't bomb them at all. This is enough to call them traitors," said Ali Jawad, 23, from Aleppo's Nureddin Zinki Islamist group.

"Anyone who joins the SDF or fights alongside them must be called out for betraying the uprising."

The regime is also suspicious of the SDF but considers that since they have a "de facto alliance" with the group since both sides are fighting the jihadists, according to a high-ranking military source.

"The Syrian government does not want to open any new fronts. The priority is to fight terrorism," the source told AFP.

The SDF is also treading a fine line in its ties with the regime.

Spokesman Talal Sello, a Turkman, said the SDF would not attack government forces, but also insisted it would be "impossible" for the group to fight alongside loyalist troops.
Many investors like to look for momentum in stocks, but this can be very tough to define. There is great debate regarding which metrics are the best to focus on in this regard, and which are not really quality indicators of future performance. Fortunately, with our new style score system we have identified the key statistics to pay close attention to and thus which stocks might be the best for momentum investors in the near term.

This method discovered several great candidates for momentum-oriented investors, but today lets focus in on NTT DOCOMO, Inc. DCM as this stock is looking especially impressive right now. And while there are numerous ways in which this company could be a great choice, we have highlighted three of the most vital reasons for DCMs status as a solid momentum stock below:

Longer Term Price Change for NTT DOCOMO

While any stock can see a spike in price, it takes a real winner to consistently outperform the market. That is why looking at longer term price metricssuch as performance over the past three months or year-- and comparing these to an industry at large can be very useful.

And in the case of DCM, the results are quite impressive. The company has beaten out the industry at large over the past 12 weeks by a margin of 10.2% to -2.3% while it has also outperformed when looking at the past year, putting up a gain of 36%. %. Clearly, DCM is riding a bit of a hot streak and is worth a closer look by investors.

NTT DOCOMO -ADR Price

NTT DOCOMO -ADR Price | NTT DOCOMO -ADR Quote

Fiscal Year EPS Estimate Change for DCM

In addition to price performance, it is also important to take a look at earnings estimate changes for the full year. This can show if DCM is poised to make a run based on fundamentals, or if the company is simply moving on speculation.

Over the past week, the full year earnings estimate for DCM has risen by 10.8%. On its own this is impressive, but consider that it also beats the industry average of 0.0% too. The trend is undeniably in NTT DOCOMOs favor right now, and it suggests that the momentum might be long lasting for this stock.

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DCMEarnings Estimate Revisions Moving in the Right Direction

While the great momentum factors outlined in the preceding paragraphs might be enough for some investors, we should also take into account broad earnings estimate revision trends. A nice path here can really help to show us a promising stock, and we have actually been seeing that with DCM as of late too.

Over the past two months, 1earning estimate has gone higher compared to none lower for the full year. This revision has helped to boost the consensus estimate as two months ago DCM was expected to post earnings of $1.30 per share for the full year, though today it looks to have EPS of $1.44 for the full year now, representing a solid increase which is something that should definitely be welcomed news to would-be investors.

Bottom Line

Given these factors, investors shouldnt be surprised to note that we have DCM as a security with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a Momentum Score of B. So if you are looking for a fresh pick that has potential to move in the right direction, definitely keep DCM on your short list as this looks be a stock that is very well-positioned to soar in the near term.

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NTT DOCOMO -ADR (DCM): Free Stock Analysis Report



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Washington (AFP) - The leader of the Organization of American States urged member countries Thursday to support efforts in Venezuela to hold a referendum on removing President Nicolas Maduro from office.

At a special meeting of its Permanent Council on the political and economic crisis in oil-rich but beleaguered Venezuela, OAS secretary general Luis Almagro said the country is in the midst of a "grave disruption of constitutional order."

But the four-hour meeting ended with no decision on measures against Venezuela.

Venezuela's oil-dependent economy, saddled with the world's highest inflation rate, is in a dramatic free fall because of the drop in crude prices, and Maduro's government has jailed opposition leaders.

The opposition has collected signatures to try to force a referendum on removing Maduro from power.

"The Permanent Council should stay on the right side of history and defend a people who need a voice," Almagro told the assembly.

He said the council should express support for political prisoners in Venezuela and "support the will of the Venezuelan people in their call for a recall referendum" against Maduro -- the former bus driver who was the handpicked successor to the late charismatic populist leader Hugo Chavez.

- Crisis reaches 'critical moment' -

Almagro presented delegates with a report that describes the political and economic woes of Venezuela. The country is enduring severe shortages of food and other basic goods. Looting has broken out.

"This crisis is reaching a critical moment," he said.

"A country that should be one of the richest in the region is instead facing unprecedented levels of poverty, a severe humanitarian crisis and one of the highest crime rates in the world," the secretary general said.

The special session was opposed by Venezuela. Its Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez walked out of the chamber when Almagro began his speech. Earlier, she complained that the OAS was effectively putting one of its member states on trial.

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The countries attending the meeting were supposed to determine if Venezuela is abiding by the terms of a blueprint called the Democratic Charter. But the session ended with no decision made on whether to invoke the charter.

This is a binding document that spells out what democracy entails and lets the OAS intervene diplomatically if a constitutional crisis is deemed to pose a threat to democracy in a member country.

As a last resort, a country can be suspended from the OAS for failing to comply with the charter.

Venezuela's allies Bolivia and Nicaragua have sided with Caracas in solidarity, and demanded that Almagro resign.

The session was the second in the space of a week that the OAS held about the Venezuela crisis, efforts that have won the support of opposition leaders working to rid the country of the socialist regime.
President Barack Obama on Thursday, June 23, addressed the US Supreme Courts tie on a decision on his executive action on immigration reform two years ago. The decision was on an action by Obama to allow parents of citizens or lawful residents who are unauthorized to remain without fearing deportation.

The president also took time to point out that the decision shines a light on why his Supreme Court justice nominee needs a hearing. The court tied because it only has eight members without a new member being confirmed by Congress after the death of Antonin Scalia in February. Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the post on March 16. Credit: YouTube/The White House
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that President Barack Obama had been briefed about a masked man who took hostages at a cinema in western Germany and was later killed by police. White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that U.S. officials were in contact with their German counterparts about the situation, but had no further details. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Chris Reese)
President Barack Obama forcefully condemned the tie Supreme Court ruling on Thursday effectively blocking his plan to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling the decision "heartbreaking" for those it puts at risk.

"The fact that the Supreme Court wasn't able to issue a decision today doesn't just set the system back further. It takes us further from the country that we aspire to be," Obama said, speaking from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House.

The court's 4-4 tie in the case, United States v. Texas, let stand a lower court ruling preventing implementation of Obama's executive actions allowing up to 5 million undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S., provided they have family members in the country and do not have criminal records.

@POTUS responds to the #SCOTUS 4-4 block of immigration plan:pic.twitter.com/LQCMxxeyKO

"I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who raise families here and hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military and more fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way," Obama said.

Obama vowed to press forward with his program, which allows those brought to the country illegally as minors to remain in the U.S. That program was not at stake in Thursday's ruling.

The president also seized on the ruling to renew his call for Senate Republicans to allow a hearing for Judge Merrick Garland, Obama's nominee to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans have refused to hold a vote on Garland's nomination, arguing that the next president should be allowed to fill the vacancy.

"The court's inability to reach a decision in this case is a very clear reminder of why it is so important for the Supreme Court to have a full bench," Obama said. By refusing to take up Garland's nomination, he charged, Republicans are "allowing partisan politics to jeopardize something as fundamental as impartiality and integrity of our justice system."

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The political fallout: Obama announced his immigration actions in November 2014, after Republicans took full control of Congress and it became clear that there would be no congressional action on immigration reform.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who vows to forge ahead with an immigration reform push if she succeeds Obama, blasted the court's ruling on Thursday, calling it a "stark reminder" of the stakes of the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has pledged to deport all of the estimated 11 million immigrants living undocumented in the United States.

While Republicans may be cheered by the court's immigration ruling on Thursday, they're less likely to applaud the court's ruling upholding affirmative action in university admissions. Obama praised that ruling during his press conference.

"I'm pleased the Supreme Court upheld the notion that diversity is an important value in our society and that this country should provide high quality education to all young people regardless of background," he said.

However, he added, "One of the reasons why America is such a diverse nation is because we are a nation of immigrants."
Barack Obama science fair

When the next US president steps up to the inauguration lectern in January, Barack Obama will leave his post as the nation's commander in chief and hand off the country to his successor.

He's already announced that he will be staying in DC after office, but he might also try his hand in the venture-capital market.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Obama voiced his little-known inclination toward the private sector, specifically Silicon Valley and the VC scene.

"The conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying," Obama told Bloomberg.

"The skill set of starting my presidential campaignsand building the kinds of teams that we did and marketing ideasI think would be the same kinds of skills that I would enjoy exercising in the private sector."

When pressed, Obama pointed out biomedical sciences as a particular interest of his, being a topic the president is able to "sit and listen and talk to folks for hours about."

It's a far cry from his current day job, but could have a lot of similarities, according to Obama. If you think of the president's office like the CEO of America, or its chairman of the board, then becoming a businessman after office begins to make more sense.

Gathering and organizing a top-notch political team began before the 2008 election and required Obama to demonstrate his leadership chops not just to the American people but also to his staffers.

Besides, after dealing with divisive partisan politics for eight years, the private sector might be easier than his public office. Obama told Bloomberg:

"Now, Im always careful about drawing too many easy parallels there, because sometimes there are CEOs who come in and start explaining to me how I should be running the presidency. And I sometimes have to stop them and say, 'All right. One, I appreciate your advice. But imagine a situation in which half your board and management were actively trying to get rid of you and prevent you from accomplishing anything. And you had 2 million employees, and you couldnt fire a large portion of them. And your competitors werent simply promoting their own products, but were continually saying how your products were the worst that were ever invented and will cause a civilizational crisis. If you pull that all together, then youve got about half of what Im dealing with on a daily basis.'"

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No one is saying the president's role is an easy one, that's for sure.

Obama pointed out that the complex American financial system lends itself well to helping new businesses. With a large amount of free-flowing capital, US startups have a strong advantage over their foreign counterparts, according to the president.

As for the companies he might one day fund, they might have an advantage because of Obama's experience in leadership and innovation.

"If you get a good idea, and you organize some people to support you, and you learn from your mistakes, you can create something entirely new."

Check out the full interview at Bloomberg here.

NOW WATCH: Sacha Baron Cohen recounts his 2003 Trump interview: 'I was the first person actually to realize that hes a d---'





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barack obama

President Barack Obama would like to dispel the notion that Donald Trump is America's most successful businessman.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published Thursday, Obama dismissed the idea that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was America's most successful entrepreneur.

"Theres no successful businessman in America who actually thinks the most successful businessman in the country is Donald Trump," Obama said.

He added: "I know those guys, and so do you, and I guarantee you, thats not their view."

Throughout the interview, Obama attempted to push back on Trump's economic vision. The president said that he often advises interns not to "believe people when they tell you they wish they could go back to the good old days," a major theme of Trump's campaign.

But the president also pinned some of the anxiety about trade that's fueled Trump's rise on corporate leaders and shareholders who failed to share profits with their employees.

"If I am a CEO in a boardroom right now, I should be thinking about, how do I make sure my workers are making a decent wage? And if Im a shareholder, that is something I should be paying attention to, too, because if youre not, thats when you start getting the kinds of political pushback that youre seeing here in the United States. Thats how you start getting a Brexit campaign," Obama said, referring to Britain's referendum on whether to leave the European Union.

He added: "Over time, youll strangle this goose thats been laying you all these golden eggs. Share the eggs."

Obama's comments came as presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has sought to undermine Trump's business record.

In a speech on Tuesday, the former secretary of state repeatedly noted the rockier parts of Trump's career in business, noting his bankruptcy filings in the 1990s.

"He's written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11. Go figure," Clinton said.

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NOW WATCH: 'When does this stop?': Obama slams Trump's Muslim ban





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Defiant in the face of a Supreme Court rebuke, President Obama warned Thursday that immigration reform is at stake in the November election and called on Americans to reject Donald Trumps fantasy approach to the contentious issue.

Obama also admitted explicitly for the first time that his nominee to the high court, Judge Merrick Garland, would not be confirmed before the country has a new president-elect.

The president, speaking after a 4-4 high court ruling that blocked his sweeping plan to protect some 5 million immigrants from deportation, never spoke Trumps name but alluded to the presumptive GOP nominees proposals to force Mexico to pay for a border wall and to freeze Muslim immigration to the U.S.

Thats the real amnesty  pretending we can deport 11 million people or build a wall without spending tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, Obama said in the White House briefing room. Its not going to work, and its not good for this country. Its a fantasy that offers nothing to help the middle class, and it demeans our tradition of being both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

And, the president underlined, we dont have to wall ourselves off from those who may not look like us right now or pray like we do, or have a different last name, because being an American is about something more than that.

What makes us American is our shared commitment to an ideal that all of us are created equal, all of us have a chance to make of our lives what we will, he continued.

Ninety-nine days after picking Garland to succeed the late Antonin Scalia, Obama acknowledged that the nomination would not advance until after the election.

We are going to have to abide by that ruling until an election, and a confirmation of a ninth justice of the Supreme Court, so they can break this tie, the president said.

And he seemed to suggest that the Republican strategy to deny Garland confirmation hearings may have envisioned outcomes like the deadlocked immigration ruling all along.

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If you keep on blocking judges from getting on the bench, then courts cant issue decisions. And what that means is, then, you are going to have the status quo frozen and we are not able to make progress on some very important issues, he said.

Now, that may have been their strategy from the start. But its not a sustainable strategy, and it is certainly a strategy that will be broken by this election  unless their basic theory is, is that we will never confirm judges again, Obama said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by telephone on Thursday with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about the need for strong international support for refugees living in the East African country, the White House said. Obama and Kenyatta "agreed that the United States and Kenya would work closely together on this issue, to better ensure that the needs of refugees and host communities are met," the White House said in a statement. (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, editing by G Crosse)
Barack Obama

President Barack Obama on Thursday called the Supreme Court deadlock that effectively blocked his executive actions on immigration "heartbreaking" for millions of immigrants living in the US illegally.

Speaking from the White House briefing room, Obama said the decision set the country's "broken" immigration system "back even further."

"They're Americans in every way but on paper," he said of those affected by the decision, insisting, however, that the ruling would not lead to their deportation.

"I think it's heartbreaking," he said.

"During election years, politicians tend to use the immigration issue to scare people," Obama added, seemingly referring to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who has made immigration from Mexico a major issue in his campaign.

"Leaving the broken system the way it is, that's not a solution," Obama said. "In fact, that's the real amnesty. Pretending we can deport 11 million people or build a wall while paying tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money ... [is] factually incorrect. It's not good for this country. It's a fantasy."

The president also insisted that, sooner or later, immigration reform would get done.

"We get these spasms of politics around immigration and fearmongering, and then our traditions and our history and our better instincts kick in," he said. "That's what's going to happen this time."

supreme court

The court was evenly divided Thursday in the case involving Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants living in the country illegally from deportation, upholding a lower court's ruling and effectively ending the initiative through the end of his presidency.

The court heard the challenge to Obama's signature immigration-related actions back in mid-April, in what was one of the most closely watched cases of its term.

A 4-4 vote leaves in place the decision of the lower court in the case, United States v. Texas. That decision blocked the implementation of the actions.

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The decision is a huge blow for the Obama administration, and it raises the stakes for November's election, as it hands off the issue to the next president. Trump has vowed to revoke Obama's actions, while presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would expand upon those actions.

The ninth seat on the court is vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia's seat, but Republicans have refused to hold hearings on his nomination and said the next president should fill the vacancy. A ninth justice could swing the balance if the issue is revisited.

House Speaker Paul Ryan quickly pushed out a statement after the decision was announced. The Wisconsin Republican said the decision "vindicated" Article 1 of the Constitution.

"The Supreme Court's ruling makes the president's executive action on immigration null and void," he said in the statement. "The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers."

Clinton, calling the result "unacceptable," said the ruling showed "us all just how high the stakes are in this election."

"This decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court," she said. "Our families and our country need and deserve a full bench, and Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote."

The former secretary of state said the ruling was a "stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country."

"Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama's executive actions on his first day in office," she said. "He has called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers.' He has called for creating a deportation force" to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes."

Obama's executive actions, proposed in 2014, aimed to focus deportation efforts on criminally engaged immigrants while providing relief to those who reside in the country illegally but are otherwise law-abiding and meet certain qualifications.

Soon after, lawyers representing Texas and 25 other Republican-led states filed a suit in federal court in Brownsville, Texas. Those states claimed that the costs of issuing state identification cards to the immigrants would be a heavy burden. A US district judge sided with the states, saying they had the standing to sue the federal government. That decision was upheld in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last year.

During the challenge, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, one of whose votes the Obama administration would have needed to prevail in the case, "sharply questioned" the administration's attorney, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Kennedy said Congress, not the president, had the authority to decide which groups of immigrants could stay lawfully in the United States," the paper reported.

"It is a legislative act, not an executive act," Kennedy said, according to the Times.

Kennedy, a typical swing vote on the high court, seemed to side with the states' argument, The Hill reported.

"It seems to me that's a legislative, not an executive task," he said. "It's as if the president is setting the policy and the Congress is executing it ... That seems upside down."

In April, the court appeared "deadlocked" in the case.

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By Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Upcoming military offensives in Iraq against Islamic State, including an assault on the northern city of Mosul, could displace at least 2.3 million people, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday. The prediction of such a vast humanitarian emergency creates additional complications for the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, who have announced plans for offensives to drive Islamic State fighters this year from most of their Iraqi territory. More than 3.4 million people across Iraq have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes, according to the United Nations. In the past month, 85,000 people fled Falluja, an hour's drive from Baghdad, amid a military campaign that has recaptured large parts of the city from the jihadists. Most of the displaced are from Iraq's minority Sunni community, raising concerns among officials that U.S.-backed military gains against Islamic State will not bring stability to Iraq more than 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Islamic State fighters swept through much of northern and western Iraq two years ago and declared a caliphate to rule over territory there and in neighboring Syria. The jihadists have lost ground in recent weeks to a number of enemies on several fronts in both countries, with the main battles still looming for the caliphate's two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters in an interview that at least 430,000 more people could be displaced this year in Anbar, Iraq's sprawling desert province stretching west from Falluja to the Syrian border. Government forces have retaken several cities in Anbar from Islamic State in the past six months and are still pressing up the Euphrates river valley towards the border town of Qaim. Grande said another 830,000 people would be displaced along "the Mosul corridor", stretching more than 100 km (60 miles) from northern Salahuddin province towards the Islamic State stronghold. In Mosul itself, by far the largest city under the militants' control, the worst case scenario could see one million people displaced, said Grande. "We're literally talking in just a few months about doubling the number of families who are displaced in the country," she said. "We're trying to pre-position supplies and develop contingencies for all of those areas and we're doing so with 30 percent of the appeal that we've asked for." The humanitarian community this year requested $861 million to assist 7.3 million Iraqis in need across the country, but so far it has only received about $266 million. (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Peter Graff)
Hugh Biggar is a writer in California, with stops in D.C., Eastern Europe and Indonesia. The following is an edited version of his interview with Hussain Raza, an Afghan refugee.

At 15, I landed in Quetta, Pakistan, full of excitement to see my family again. Three years before, we had left Afghanistan to get medical help for my brother. He had been tortured by the Taliban because they suspected him of helping NATO forces.

In Quetta, my brother didnt make it, and after his death, my mother faced a difficult choice. Just like in Afghanistan, she knew we faced persecution for being ethnically Hazara  people who came from Mongolia long ago, and who have distinct faces and light skin. For my safety, she sent me to a place in Iran where young boys could work in unskilled jobs. But the police found me and sent me back to Afghanistan.

I finally made my way back to Quetta, excited to see my mother and sister after three years. But my family wasnt there, and I learned they had left for Australia. I knew I must go too. I missed my family, I had never been to school and there was no life for me at home. A former landlord and family friend helped me find a smuggler and, even better, agreed to pay the $5,000 cost.

Soon after, I found myself in a van with three other Hazara refugees heading in darkness to the airport. There, protesters armed with rocks blocked the road. Two days earlier, a multiple-bomb blast in a pool hall had killed and injured many people. People responded in protest, demanding security and justice from the government. The protesters angrily asked where we were going. The driver, thinking quickly, said we were protesting too. They cleared the road and let us pass. We made it to the airport and flew to Karachi, and then Sri Lanka.

I saw the ocean for the first time and understood the enormity of what lay ahead.

In Colombo, the hotel was crowded and smelled of other men. We ate dry biscuits and water. Sleeping was difficult because of the sounds of men praying and music thumping from a disco next door, so I headed to the beach in search of peace. There, I saw the ocean for the first time and understood the enormity of what lay ahead.

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The next morning, we took a flight to Bangkok, and then an all-day bus trip to Dannok, near the Malaysian border. We were all scared of Malaysia, which wed heard was the worst place to get caught because they beat you or sprayed you naked with water hoses before they deported you.

Then the smuggler told us to get in the trunk of a white car. We squeezed in, with one guys shoes at anothers mouth and elbows jammed into ribs, and stayed that way, barely able to breathe.

After about two hours, the car stopped and someone approached, footsteps scuffling on the dirt. Our hearts hammering, we held onto the trunk from the inside while someone tried to open it from above. He won, and we saw a policeman staring at us. The policeman  maybe corrupt, maybe someone in a fake uniform  let us stay in the car and drove us through the rain forest until we were transferred to a taxi.

The taxi brought us to a wooden hut. There, I saw three guys I had met in Karachi. They had arrived after midnight, injured and bloody, having nearly been caught in Thailand but escaping through a hole in a barbed-wire fence. Five others in their group hadnt been so lucky and were caught by authorities.

After darkness fell, two cars arrived, and we traveled to the boat that would take us to Indonesia. We drove to the edge of a jungle. Crouched down and attacked by mosquitoes, we ran toward the boat in a single file. When we reached the shore, we waded in until the water was up to our chests and then climbed onto a speedboat.

The boat ran like a bullet over the water. We hunched low so passing boats would not see us. Our lips dried out from the salty water, and we hit our heads against the side of the boat with each wave. Then it started to rain. Being stuck in a car trunk had been bad, but this was worse, especially since I didnt know how to swim.

I prayed for forgiveness for all the bad things I had done; I prayed to see my family again. Everyone else shouted out prayers too.

After two days with no food and only rainwater to drink, we suddenly saw lights in the distance. The captain steered the boat away from the lights so we wouldnt be spotted.

We reached the shore under moonlight. I stumbled onto the sand, exhausted. A new smuggler rushed us into two waiting cars. We drove to a cabin, where we rested uncomfortably in a small room, piled head to toe again. We stayed locked in for two days. The walls were covered with handwritten names, places and dates. All day we read the walls. We tried to sleep, sang songs and peeked through a hole in the wall. We hoped for food and water, but none arrived.

On the third day, a man unlocked the door, and we were loaded onto a bus to Jakarta with just biscuits and water.

After two more days, the tall office buildings and lights of Jakarta came into view. Dropped off at 4 a.m. near the U.N.s refugee office, we lined up to register as asylum seekers. That morning, I received my registration card, and, for the first time in years, I felt safe.

Hussain Raza waited for asylum for two years in Jakarta, home to more than 13,000 refugees. With the help of the Roshan Learning Center, he received a visa in the summer of 2015 and left for Melbourne to join his family and enroll in school for the first time.

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This Oregon court cast just majorly changed the rights of pets  yes, pets

This Oregon court cast just majorly changed the rights of pets  yes, pets

There are plenty of pet owners out there who love their furry friends more than they love most (if not all) humans. However, pets have always been considered mere property in the eyes of the law. . . until recently, that is.

Last week, the Oregon Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking ruling that viewed an emaciated dog named Juno as a living being, rather than just a thing. Of course, any human with a heart knows that dogs are more than just things, but under the law, they were considered to be property just as much as a bookcase or a car. Oregon law cared more about who *owned* an animal rather than the animals rights. However, in the case last week, the court unanimously ruled that Junos negligent and abusive owner is guilty, despite a vets gathering evidence via medical exams and treatments without a warrant.

A photo posted by Sammy Nickalls (@sammynickalls) on Feb 7, 2016 at 8:11am PST

The case began six years ago, when the Oregon Humane Society found that a Portland resident, Amanda Newcomb, was beating and starving Juno. Juno had no fat on his body and was kind of eating at random things in the yard, and trying to vomit, according to Oregon Live.

When Juno was brought to the Humane Society, he was given a body condition score of 1.5 on a scale of 1 (emaciated) to 9 (overweight). The Humane Society vet also drew blood from Juno to make sure he didnt have a condition that would have caused a low body weight. Finding nothing, Newcomb was charged with second-degree animal neglect.

During the trial, the defense tried to argue that because the vet had obtained evidence without a warrant, it was like searching through a chest of drawers  it was illegally obtained, because Juno was Newcombs property. However, the prosecutor argued in response that it was rather like drawing blood from a child suspected of abuse, which is legal. Luckily and awesomely, the court agreed.

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It is really a landmark ruling, Attorney Lora Dunn of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, told BarkPost. In this specific context, the animal sentience matters.

dogggg

Oregons animal cruelty deputy district attorney, Jacob Kamins, added to Oregon Times that the ruling is the third to boost animal protection efforts in the past two years. Theres a feeling that the issue of animal welfare is really coming into its own in the criminal justice world, he said.

We could not be happier about this landmark decision. Pets are so, so much more than just property  theyre living, breathing beings who feel pain and love. Hopefully, with this decision, we can lessen the former and increase the latter.

The post This Oregon court cast just majorly changed the rights of pets  yes, pets appeared first on HelloGiggles.
After advancing to the finals of ABC's Dancing with the Stars, women's strawweight standout Paige VanZant (6-2) is ready to return to the Octagon. The UFC announced on Thursday that 12 Gauge will take on Bec Rawlings (7-4) on Aug. 27 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

The 22-year-old VanZant had a four-fight winning streak snapped by Rose Namajunas in her last outing and hopes to rebound with a win over the TUF 20 alum in August.

RELATED > CM Punk's UFC Debut Set for September in Cleveland

Rawlings is coming off back-to-back wins over Lisa Ellis and Seo Hee Ham. The Australian will be looking to extend her winning streak when she faces VanZant on the UFC on Fox 12 main card.

UFC on FOX 12 takes place at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. Three bouts have been announced for the event, including former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis featherweight debut against Charles Oliveira.

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Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistan, home for decades to millions of Afghan refugees, called for the support of the international community as it warned that without help, the flow of those fleeing Afghanistan's decades-long war to Europe could increase.

After the Soviet invasion in 1979, "five million Afghan refugees came to Pakistan," then with the support of the international community, said minister for border areas Abdul Qadir Baloch at a meeting devoted to Afghan refugees in the capital Islamabad Wednesday.

Thirty-seven years later, there are 1.5 million registered and about as many undocumented refugees, with growing insecurity in Afghanistan impeding voluntary return programmes.

Over the last decade, international support has vanished, the minister said.

Pakistan receives just $5.20 per refugee per year in international aid to provide the displaced with healthcare and education -- and that is only for those who are registered.

He denounced the meagreness of this aid compared to that provided to Turkey, which officially hosts 2.5 million refugees, including many Syrians.

However Western countries are now beginning to recognise the problem, he said, "because refugees are pouring into Europe and 30 percent of them are Afghans".

"This percentage could increase," he warned, stressing that there was a limit to Pakistani tolerance for the problem.

"The issue of Afghan displacement has been overlooked," agreed high UN commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi at the same event. "We must strengthen the support to host countries."

The refugee crisis in Europe, which is struggling to cope as millions try to reach its shores while fleeing war and poverty, "is a tragedy but also an eye opener: if you don't solve problems which appear to be far away from you, these problems will come to you," he warned.

Afghan refugees living mainly in camps in the poorest rural areas of Pakistan exist in administrative uncertainty because of the short duration of residence permits issued by the Pakistani authorities, who regularly threaten to deport them.
Even as Pakistan grapples with hard-line Islamic militancy, with regular attacks across the country claiming dozens of lives, the provision of a $3 million grant by one of its provincial governments to a seminary dubbed the University of Jihad has unsettled many and prompted sharp criticism.

Leaders from the volatile Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province announced the grant to the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in a provincial-assembly meeting last week, the Washington Post reports. According to government officials, the institution currently houses around 4,000 students.

A large number of students study, live and eat in this seminary, and its doing great service for the poor people, the provinces Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani told the Post.

However, the highly controversial seminary is known as a breeding ground for Islamic militants, advocating an extreme form of Islam known as Deobandi that supports Sharia law. Mohammad Omar, the founder of the Taliban, and Asim Umar, the head of extremist group al-Qaedas South Asian affiliate, are both believed to have studied there, as is the head of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.

The Taliban are killing our children, and our government is giving money to their sympathizers, said Pakistani Senator Shahi Syed.

However, the countrys central government leaders, including aides of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, insist that the disbursement of funds is a purely local decision.

[Washington Post]
After 10 years of work and $5.4 billion in investments, the new access lane to the Panama Canal will open on Sunday, tripling the capacity of the original canal, which was inaugurated more than a century ago.

As readers might imagine, expectations have been building up for quite some time, and so have investments. In fact, so much money has been spent around the world, from New York to Brazil and even the Netherlands, that the $5.4 billion price tag suddenly seems insignificant.

For instance, in order to be able to welcome the mega ships that will go through the Canal, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey spent $6 billion in harbor deepening tasks and related projects, Beth Rooney, an assistant director with the port, said.

Related Link: The Panama Canal Is About To Double In Capacity

Now, in the eve of the new lane's debut, a few questions arise. In a context of softness in the shipping industry, will the investments pay off? Will the expansion of the Canal have an impact on global economy that is comparable to the one the original Canal had?

One thing is for sure: Taking into account that the renewed Canal will allow ships to transport almost three times as many containers as they could before the overhaul, some products  like natural gas, which couldnt be carried across the Canal  will be able to go from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean much faster.

Nick Pansic of MWH Global went on to explain, Its not just a matter of importing more stuff to meet our [the U.S.s] demand, but theres a real opportunity for the export of agricultural products more efficiently to Asia.

Panama Canal Authority officials are so optimistic the global shipping slump will end, they are thinking about how the canal will host even larger ships, a USA Today article read. And, while such ships still represent a very small percentage of the total fleet, and thus, do not need immediate attention, the Panama Canal Authority has reserved some land, just in case they decide to build a fourth set of locks in the future.

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Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.

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 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
The father of the 3-year-old Louisiana twins who died Saturday afternoon after becoming trapped in the sweltering cab of a pickup truck tells PEOPLE he and the children's mother are "doing the best we can" following the tragedy.



"We are holding up," Travis Orr, who works as a deputy with the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office, says in an interview with PEOPLE. "We are still mourning, so we haven't been doing any interviews."



Last Wednesday, the twins, Oliver and Aria Orr, were buried following a private funeral service.



Police in Louisiana believe they used a footstool to climb into their father's unlocked truck. After closing the truck's door, the two children were unable to free themselves from the vehicle's stifling cab.



The children's mother, Alisha, reached out to neighbors to help find the two 3-year-olds after she couldn't find them. One of those neighbors found them inside the truck at around 3 p.m.



Police say both children were unconscious and not moving. They were transported to a nearby hospital where they were pronounced dead.



 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.



"We're just doing the best we can right now," Orr tells PEOPLE before ending Thursday's interview with a request for privacy.



Autopsies on the Orr twins revealed their deaths were heat-related. No criminal charges have been filed against the children's parents, but investigators are continuing their investigation into Saturday's tragedy.



The twins' deaths come just three weeks after Oliver was released from the hospital after suffering a near-fatal injury, according to police. The boy was in the hospital for over a week for treatment of unspecified injuries.



Ginger Hartman, a spokeswoman for Boone Funeral Home and Crematory in Bossier City, which handled the children's funeral, describes the service as "very small and very private," noting only close family members were invited to attend.



"I can't really say much more than that about the funeral as the family would just really like to keep everything private at this point," Hartman tells PEOPLE, adding that Oliver and Aria's deaths hit particularly close to home.



"Handling funerals for children is always hard, but this one really touched me because they were twins  a boy and a girl," Hartman starts. "I have twins who are male and female so this tragic accident really did touched my heart."
Traffic is starting to clog the road leading to South Delhis favored bar and restaurant district, Hauz Khas Village. In a dingy strip mall, Summer House Cafe is bumping with electronic beats. Its Thursday night, and people are ordering their first, then third beers, when a bouncy French girl comes up to the owner of the joint to show off her T-shirt slogan: Je suis le party!

Its an honor that proprietor Ricky Teja, 32, seems willing to cede to this regular patron, though not so long ago, Teja would have been the one most deserving of it. But now the former DJ has gone behind the scenes to orchestrate many of the capitals finest fetes, letting others have the fun. Tejas Summer House is a well-known must-stop on any posh Delhi partyers beat; his latest venture, Bandstand, a bar and music venue right next door to Summer House, is only on the rosters of those in the know. Teja himself can be found mentioned here and there in the society pages, alongside actors and the citys oligarch-rich.

Teja is hoping to expand the Summer House brand outside Delhi, to Mumbai and the college town of Pune, following a well-trod path established by two of the most successful Indian hospitality impresarios, Riyaaz Amlani and Manu Chandra, in an attempt to build an empire all his own. That endeavor will require slowly taking over the strip mall that is home to Summer House and Bandstand and turning it into a Saturday-night arcade  an Indian-fusion place is in the works  which just might give Teja a veritable monopoly on any hip Delhites weekend plans.

Summer House, named after the summer home of Tejas Scandinavian girlfriend, is as Western as it sounds, complete with wood-paneled seating, white cabins and cozy booths reminiscent of American beachside towns. Theres also a themed bar with a yellow van covered in Indian monuments thats run by Absolut (only Absolut vodka is served out of the van)  one sign of Tejas business acumen, copped from van bars popular in Southeast Asia. Though he looks like a party guy  handsome, bearded, wearing a white T-shirt that reveals a few of his 13 tattoos  Teja is all about work, and hes using the relationships he established during the decade-plus spent in the hospitality business to strike deals like the Absolut sponsorship.



Delhi, like New York or London, is a fiendishly difficult place to run a restaurant. The countrys food world is booming  a 2013 report by the National Restaurant Association of India predicted the market would hit some $61 billion by 2018  but navigating regulations, permits, spiraling rents and constant competition can be grueling. Teja, it would seem, has three solutions. First: Hire women. Girls are more mature, he says, fondly. Guys get carried away.

I had to grow this beard, otherwise I look like a kid. Ricky Teja

Second, make yourself a brand by playing the experiential card, like Amlani or the Hard Rock Cafe. Tejas specialty? Music, music, music. No Bollywood jams, he says, and certainly no commercial EDM. His joints are for those who like real electronic and techno sounds  namely the millennials tuned into Indias expanding experimental music and festival scene. Third, and most important, tap into the varied interests of the countrys upscale 20- and 30-somethings. Summer House has really found different niches to explore, says beverage writer and consultant Karina Aggarwal, pointing to the salsa, comedy and karaoke nights the venue hosts. Aggarwal doesnt think Summer Houses food is top-notch, but because its all about the atmosphere, they dont really have to make it a priority, she says.

I had to grow this beard, otherwise I look like a kid, Teja tells me. His resume, though, certainly doesnt look like a kids. Summer House may be his first venture as sole owner, but hes been a partner in several others, including the burger spot Fork You down the road (Teja has since sold it), and he was involved in PR, customer relations and management  virtually everything but owning the joint  at a bar in nearby Saket. Teja says his real education, though, came from years spent DJing for spare change while in college.

Tejas first job, at Wipro, had him providing technical support to U.K.-based customers. He decided to quit after two months; when his manager tried to persuade him to stay, the top bosses looked Teja up in the system to find he hadnt been to work for 25 days.  Dude, you cant quit, youre fired,  he recalls being told. Esther Lalrinzuali, Summer Houses culture manager, says she respects Teja because he didnt inherit the scene but has worked for it.

Its not easy to keep reliable staff in the nightlife business, Lalrinzuali points out. But as the night rolls on and some of Tejas team gather around a table  pizza slices and beers in hand  it becomes clear why they stay: Here we are, in the bar where everybody knows their names.

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After growing in the safety of his mom's pouch for the last six months, this little joey is starting to peek out and explore the world.

Read: Grieving' Kangaroo May Have Actually Been Trying to Mate With Female

Mian, the baby tree kangaroo, is the latest addition to the Perth Zoo.

"He's getting more and more adventurous day by day," a zoo representative said in a press conference. "His mother is giving him a little more free reign but she's still piling him back in her pouch if he goes too far."

According to Network Ten, Mian  who was named a province in its species' native Papua New Guinea  was the size of a jelly bean when he was born.

When he turned four days old, keepers studied his development inside his mother's pouch using a camera.

He joins only 14 other male tree kangaroos in a world wide breeding program in an attempt to save the species from extinction due to loss of habitat and hunting.

"He is going to be an incredibly valuable addition to that breeding program," the representative said. "We are trying to get an estimation of how many there are in the wild, so we can look after them and conserve them better."

Read: For the First Time Ever A Wallaby Raises Orphaned Kangaroo in its Pouch

Huli, the father kangaroo from Queensland, will now be mated with another female with hopes of starting a tree kangaroo baby boom at the Perth Zoo, Network Ten reported.

Watch: Kangaroo Caught Hopping Around Iowa After Escaping from His Owner

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Cevian team

Ask around about activist hedge funds in the US and you might get a mixed response.

A number of activists have built up an unpopular reputation of being short-term, focusing only on profits for themselves.

In Europe, the activist landscape is different, with different rules and social codes.

Business Insider caught up with Cevian Capital, the biggest activist hedge fund in Europe with more than $13 billion, to learn more about what works, and what doesn't, across the pond.

The interview with Cevian senior partner Harlan Zimmerman ran as part of our series "The Price of Profits" with public radio's Marketplace.

It turns out that US-style activism, seen as hostile and aggressive, doesn't work in Europe. European investors, who can get behind activist campaigns, don't like it, according to Zimmerman.

"There's a feeling that it's not necessary to be that hostile here in Europe," Zimmerman said. "People don't like it."

He added that the "wolf pack" mentality evident in many activist campaigns can be "very destructive."

Here's the key excerpt from the interview.

Rachael Levy: How do you get shareholders on board?

Harlan Zimmerman: We're focused on making the companies more competitive in the long term, and more valuable. For us, this means a holding period that normally ranges between three and seven years. By making companies more competitive, because most of them are exposed to a great deal of international competition, if it's a Swedish company, they might be exposed to German competitors, Chinese competitors, US competitors. By making them more competitive, we're making them more secure for everyone, and we're making them more valuable for shareholders.

Story continues

And so when you're talking about a company that has owners that are big, long-term institutions, then we don't have to mobilize them in these sorts of initiatives. It's the sort of thing they want to happen anyway, and for most companies, it's the sort of thing they're interested in, as well. They're interested in becoming more competitive over the long term.

So it contrasts a bit with the US classical activist style, or at least the more hostile type where it's short-term initiatives usually to get jumbo dividends or put a company in play or something of that nature, which can be very destructive. And where it often can be about bringing in certain types of shareholders, the "wolf pack," as it's sometimes called. And there you can have really a big conflict between what's good for the company and its shareholders in the long term, and what's good for some of the shareholders in the short term.

NOW WATCH: These are the phrases that will get your email flagged at Goldman Sachs





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The photographer who captured kids recreating scenes from The Walking Dead in disturbing photos is speaking out amid outcry over her images of bloodied children brandishing weapons.

Read: Teen Who Screamed While Watching 'The Walking Dead': 'I Didn't Expect the Cops to Show Up'

Alana Hubbard, owner of Mother Hubbard Photography, is a big fan of the show.

Not every photo of kids has to be lollipops and gumdrops, she told Inside Edition.

During the fourth season of the AMC hit, a little girl was executed and told to look at the flowers

Hubbard recreated the scene with her kid subjects as well as another scene in which character Darryl Dixon leads a pack of zombies away on his motorcycle.

Alana got quite a reaction after posting the photos on social media.

"This is disgusting teaching children how to shoot someone in the head," read one comment.

"This is wrong on so many levels," said another.

Facebook actually shut down her page for 72 hours.

All the kids are having fun, she said. It's all pretend, no one's hurt, the tracks are inactive; we're having fun and photographing it.

Read: Cops: 'Walking Dead' Fan Kills Friend He Believed Was Turning Into a Zombie

She put out an open casting call and got an incredible response at a recent shoot in New Jersey. More than 30 kids and their parents showed up, some from as far away as Boston.

Everybody's having a blast, they had a blast at the last shoot and so, she wanted to come again, Hubbard said.

Watch: Man Dressed as Zombie Gives Girlfriend a Fright with Proposal at Haunted Theme Park

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Red-pigmented snow algae in the Arctic. (Liane G. Benning/GFZ)

Pink snow may be aesthetically pleasing, but scientists have found that it is indicative of the rapid pace of global warming.

This snow, which thrives in high-latitude and high-altitude regions, is found in areas comparable to the Arctic, where Chlamydomonas nivalis algae, which is normally green, has a chemical reaction to the UV rays from the sun and takes on a reddish-pink hue.

Scientists have been aware of rose-tinted snow since 1818, but they initially misunderstood its origins, believing it came about as a result of iron deposits left behind by a meteor. However, subsequent findings from the same year suggested that a kind of algae, not extraterrestrial iron, is to blame for the nontraditional hues. More contemporary findings have corroborated this notion.

This pink snow, sometimes referred to as blood or watermelon snow in the Arctic regions, is harmful despite its quirky facade. The algae expedites the melting of the Arctic, which is already happening at a faster rate than expected, due, in part, to global warming, a new study shows.

This study, which is included in the Nature Communications journal and published Wednesday, contains findings based on 40 samples taken from 16 Arctic glaciers in regions like Greenland, Norway and Iceland. It shows that the red algae darkens the snow, causing it to melt at a faster rate because it absorbs more light and heat. This is due to the algae-laden-snows low albedo, which relates to a surfaces ability to reflect and absorb light and heat. The lighter a surface, the higher the albedo. White surfaces, like pure snow, have a high albedo and can therefore maintain a cooler temperature. Lower albedo is responsible for accelerating the melting of ice caps and the discomfort you feel when you wear black on a summer day.

The red snow caused the albedo in the arctic regions to decrease by 13 percent and subsequently increased the amount of melted ice and snow, the study found. The biological effects of albedo had not been previously factored into global climate concerns, but scientists are now pushing for their inclusion.

Our results point out that the bio-albedo effect is important and has to be considered in future climate models, Lutz said in a statement.

At the present time, scientists are unsure of what kind of long-term ramifications the bio-albedo effect will have on the glacial melting. In the meantime, the scientists are wrestling with concerns that the albedo will contribute to a positive feedback loop, a detrimental cycle in which  hypothetically speaking  algae blooms, snow thaws and the melted ice provide the algae with more fodder to bloom. In any case, the confirmation of the bio-albedo effect sheds light on the fact that global warmings reach extends to even the smallest organisms.
* Manslaughter conviction upgraded to murder on appeal * Paralympian faces minimum 15-year jail sentence * Due to be sentenced on July 6 By Pete Vernon JOHANNESBURG, June 23 (Reuters) - Oscar Pistorius said that Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend he was convicted of murdering on Valentine's Day 2013, would want him to go free, in a television interview due to be broadcast on Friday. The Paralympic athlete, who shot Steenkamp dead through a locked toilet door, told British broadcaster ITV she would want him to dedicate his life to charity, not waste it behind bars. The 29-year-old gold medalist, known as the "Blade Runner" for his carbon-fibre prosthetics, is awaiting sentencing for her murder on July 6. Prosecutors have asked for at least the minimum 15-year jail term. Steenkamp's family have not commented on his decision to give his first television interview since her death - though prosecutors have questioned why he felt unable to give testimony but was willing to talk to journalists, accusing him of showing no remorse. "I don't want to go back to jail. I don't want to have to waste my life sitting there," Pistorius told ITV, which issued excerpts from the interview on Thursday. He said that if he managed to avoid imprisonment, he would like to help the less fortunate. "I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life," he said. TEARS The prosecution said Pistorius deliberately murdered his girlfriend after she locked herself in the bathroom during a late-night argument. He argued that he had mistaken her for an intruder. In the interview, filmed at his uncle's house in the capital Pretoria, Pistorius often broke down in tears as he described the events of that night. "I opened the toilet door and immediately when I saw Reeva she was over the toilet," Pistorius said. "She had slumped over the toilet and at that point I knew that I had killed her." ITV said that Steenkamp's family had declined an interview. The athlete was originally jailed for five years for culpable homicide, South Africa's version of manslaughter, then released on parole after serving less than a year. But the conviction was later upgraded to murder on appeal. Pistorius reached the pinnacle of his fame in London 2012 when he became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics, reaching the 400 metres semi-finals, before taking two golds in the Paralympics. (Editing by James Macharia and Andrew Heavens)
By Pete Vernon JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Oscar Pistorius said that Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend he was convicted of murdering on Valentine's Day 2013, would want him to go free, in a television interview due to be broadcast on Friday. The Paralympic athlete, who shot Steenkamp dead through a locked toilet door, told British broadcaster ITV she would want him to dedicate his life to charity, not waste it behind bars. The 29-year-old gold medalist, known as the "Blade Runner" for his carbon-fibre prosthetics, is awaiting sentencing for her murder on July 6. Prosecutors have asked for at least the minimum 15-year jail term. Steenkamp's family have not commented on his decision to give his first television interview since her death - though prosecutors have questioned why he felt unable to give testimony but was willing to talk to journalists, accusing him of showing no remorse. "I dont want to go back to jail. I dont want to have to waste my life sitting there," Pistorius told ITV, which issued excerpts from the interview on Thursday. He said that if he managed to avoid imprisonment, he would like to help the less fortunate. "I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life," he said. TEARS The prosecution said Pistorius deliberately murdered his girlfriend after she locked herself in the bathroom during a late-night argument. He argued that he had mistaken her for an intruder. In the interview, filmed at his uncle's house in the capital Pretoria, Pistorius often broke down in tears as he described the events of that night. "I opened the toilet door and immediately when I saw Reeva she was over the toilet," Pistorius said. "She had slumped over the toilet and at that point I knew that I had killed her." ITV said that Steenkamp's family had declined an interview. The athlete was originally jailed for five years for culpable homicide, South Africa's version of manslaughter, then released on parole after serving less than a year. But the conviction was later upgraded to murder on appeal. Pistorius reached the pinnacle of his fame in London 2012 when he became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics, reaching the 400 metres semi-finals, before taking two golds in the Paralympics. (Editing by James Macharia and Andrew Heavens)
Roxanne, an adorable 18-month-old pit bull, was hours from death when she was found wandering around the streets of Columbia, South Carolina.

As soon as police officers saw the poor pup, they couldnt believe what was wrapped around her neck as they rescued her  a 6.3 pound metal chain that caused severe swelling to her face.

Read: Meet the Warthog Piglet and Rottweiler Puppy That Became Best Friends After Being Rescued

Rescuers suspected someone may have freed Roxanne but had no idea how long she had been walking around or who wrapped the painful chain around her.

The pit bull needed immediate medical attention as she was just hours from dying.

South Carolinas animal shelter, Pawmetto Lifeline, requested help from Rescue Dogs Rock NYC, a dedicated rescue program, to save the pups life.

The bulky chain made up more than 10 percent of the pups body weight and dug deeply into her skin.

And because of the swelling, the chain could not be slipped over the dogs face.

Read: Family Discovers Furry Friend in Dishwasher: 'It Was Bizarre'

This was one of the worst embedded collar cases weve ever seen, and weve seen many, Stacey Silverstein, co-founder of Rescue Dogs Rock NYC, told InsideEdition.com.

Instead, doctors began to break the chain with bolt cutters. Once the skin became visible enough to operate, the doctors noticed that one of Roxannes major arteries had become exposed.

95% of the pups skin around her neck was damaged by the chains intense grip.

After countless hours of surgery, the brave pit bull pulled through and miraculously survived the life-threatening ordeal.

"We were shocked she survived," Jackie OSullivan, co-founder of Rescue Dogs Rock NYC, told InsideEdition.com. She is recovering now and doing quite well!

The brave pit bull is now recovering and waiting for a new forever home.

Story continues

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After its inaugural journey from Hawaii to Silicon Valley in April, a plane that runs solely on solar energy just successfully landed in Seville, Spain, completing its first-ever trans-Atlantic flight.

The plane, Solar Impulse 2, left New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday around 2:30 a.m. Eastern and touched down in Seville at about 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, according to the Huffington Post, about 71 hours later.

Though it may not be the speediest mode of travel  the plane moves at a speed of just 43 miles per hour  Solar Impulse 2's pilots, Bertrand Piccard, has expressed excitement over what his latest historic flight means for the future of clean energy.

Pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg celebrate their successful landing in Seville on Thursday.

"The Atlantic has always been this symbol of going from the Old World to the New," Piccard told the crowd gathered at Seville's airport, according to the BBC.

"Everybody has tried to cross the Atlantic, with sailboats, steamboats, airships, aeroplanes, even rowing boats and kitesurfs," Piccard continued. "Today, it's a solar-powered aeroplane for the first time ever, flying electric with no fuel and no pollution."

The next leg of Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg's journey will venture across the Mediterranean to Abu Dhabi.

"The adventure continues," Piccard told a news conference following his April flight, the Los Angeles Times reported. "The story is not finished."
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Poland will launch poultry exports to South Africa for the first time from this month in a deal granting one of the EU's top poultry producers unlimited access to Africa's most industrialised country, a Polish trade official said. Imported chicken has been a contentious issue in South Africa, with local producers accusing their overseas counterparts of "dumping" their unwanted chicken in the country and flooding the market with an uncompetitively priced product. Under the deal, negotiated since 2013, will see Poland export poultry meat bone in, mechanically deboned meat, as well as offal to South Africa from June 20, Andrzej Krezel, head of trade and investment at the Polish Embassy said on Thursday. Krezel said according to the health certificate the deal kicked in on June 20. "The first container will reach South Africa within two or three months if not earlier," Krezel told Reuters. "The limit is the capacity of the market to absorb the product, so it is unlimited in terms of quota imposed by government but is limited by the purchasing power and the interest in the product," he said. A diplomatic spat in 2015 with the United States over poultry imports nearly led to South Africa's deal to send exports duty-free into the world's largest economy being suspended. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by James Macharia)
The Baltimore police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray was fatally injured last year has been acquitted of all charges, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, June 23.

Officer Caesar Goodson was one of six officers charged in Gray's death but the only one to be charged with second-degree "depraved heart" murder, which suggests reckless indifference for human life. He also faced charges of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. He was found not guilty on all counts.

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"The court finds there is insufficient evidence that the defendant gave or intended to give Mr. Gray a rough ride," Judge Barry Williams said in court, per The New York Times. He added that there was no "evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen."



Goodson was at the wheel of the police van when Gray, 25 at the time of his death, was arrested on April 12, 2015. According to reports, officers neglected to buckle him in for the ride to the station, during which they made several stops.

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Gray, whose hands and legs were cuffed and shackled, reportedly asked for medical attention, which he did not receive. By the time the van reached the police station, he had suffered a spinal injury and was unresponsive. His death  a week later on April 19  set off some of the worst riots in the city's history.



Prosecutors argued that Goodson had intentionally given Gray a "rough ride." They also accused him of breaching his duty to protect a prisoner by failing to seek medical help when Gray indicated that he needed it.

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Goodson's lawyers, however, said that Gray's death was an accident and that he had been injured when he stood up in the van.



Goodson is the third officer to be tried in connection with the incident. Officer William Porter's trial in December ended in a mistrial, and Officer Edward Nero was acquitted of misdemeanor charges in May. Five of the six involved  excluding Goodson  have filed defamation lawsuits against Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby and Major Sam Cogen.

Story continues

Christina Garibaldi and Ian Drew discussed all the latest on this story during Us Weekly's Facebook Live News Update.










Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis on Thursday welcomed France's new ambassador to the Vatican, two months after Paris abandoned its attempt to have a gay Catholic installed in the post.

Philippe Zeller, a 63-year-old father of two, presented the pontiff with his credentials as he took up a position that had been left vacant for 18 months amid a diplomatic stand-off between France's Socialist government and the Holy See.

French President Francois Hollande named Laurent Stefanini to the post in January 2015 only to be discreetly informed that he would not be accepted. The Vatican's stance was never publicly articulated but was widely interpreted as a calculated snub related to Stefanini's sexuality.

French Catholic paper La Croix said last year the Vatican considered Stefanini's nomination to have been a "provocation", and there was also speculation that the Church was penalising Hollande for enacting same-sex marriage legislation in 2013.

France signalled it was resigned to losing the battle when it named Stefanini as its new envoy to the UN cultural body UNESCO in April.

The row was seen as having damaged Francis's attempts to get the Church to adopt a more welcoming approach to gay believers that was most famously illustrated by his "Who am I to judge?" remark early in his papacy.
* Start-up costs for OTC platform could amount to $100 mln

* Basic platform could be built in a year

* Liquidity could be a major obstacle

By Pratima Desai

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - The idea of launching a platform to rival the London Metal Exchange, the world's biggest market for industrial metals, is unlikely to become reality without large amounts of capital but a viable alternative could be a tie-up with another exchange.

Former LME chief executive Martin Abbott raised the concept after being approached by brokers, unhappy with a steep rise in fees and a move to boost volumes by trying to attract more speculators and funds.

A potentially cost-effective option is a link-up with another exchange such as the CME Group, already trying to enter LME territory with new base metal contracts and expanding its network of warehouses.

"Clearing, infrastructure and other systems are already in place," a metals industry source said. "If the people backing Abbott don't want to fund a new platform, they could go for an option like this."

It was unclear exactly how an arrangement with another exchange would work.

Sources said the proposal for a new platform had generated interest across all sectors of the industry, including consumers, producers, trading houses and brokers, but that few would be prepared to put up the cash.

Still, a source familiar with the situation said: "An active series of discussions potentially leading to a funded consultancy project to determine the feasibility of the plan, is taking place in the City and internationally."

Abbott declined to comment.

Other options include an over-the-counter (OTC) platform, which would be the cheapest possibility, or a full-blown exchange.

Premvir Jain, head of metals at technology solutions firm Openlink, estimates the cost of building a basic online OTC platform from scratch at $100 million in the first year.

Operating and development costs could amount to about $25 million a year, "but would depend on the number of products", Jain said. "You could get a basic product out in a year."

Story continues

Also cited as an obstacle would be liquidity, which would mean inefficient pricing. Commitments to deal through any new platform would be needed, but that could mean liquidity being split between exchanges.

"Look at this as people hoping it will push the LME into rethinking its strategy," the head of a commodity brokerage said.

The exchange has been on a drive to promote monthly dates in its electronic trading system to attract funds, which members say will erode liquidity on the trading floor where benchmark prices are set.

"Growth in electronic activity on the LME has predominantly been in three-month trading, and has had no impact on volumes (on the floor)," the LME, owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, told Reuters.

Another major grievance against the 139-year-old LME is fee hikes of around 31 percent in January 2015.

(Reporting by Pratima Desai; Editing by Dale Hudson)
President Obama said Thursday the Supreme Courts decision in U.S. v. Texas dealt a disappointing blow to the countrys broken immigration system.

For more than two decades now  everybody acknowledges  our immigration system has been broken, Obama said. And the fact that the Supreme Court wasnt able to reach a decision today doesnt just set the system back even further it takes us further from the country we aspire to be.

Earlier in the morning, the Supreme Court split 4-4 in the case of U.S. v Texas, a challenge to the presidents plan to expand deferrals in deportation action to include the parents of children who are in the country legally and expand protection for some children who came to the country illegally. The tie does not set precedent, but it did not allow for the Supreme Courts input on an issue the president deemed a key legacy project of his last term. The decision, instead, remands the case back to a lower court decision that said the Obama administration did not have the authority to shield to four million undocumented immigrations from immigration.

President Obama said the decision would not impact a policy he put in place in 2012 to stop deportations of young undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements as well as his administrations policy to prioritize criminals for deportation, but agreed the lack of Supreme Court input was heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who have raised families here.

Obama blamed Congress for not acting on comprehensive immigration reform and also for its failure to confirm his Supreme Court nominee. Obama said the decision underscores the degree to which the Court is unable to do its job.

Thomas A. Saenz, the president & general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, agreed with that sentiment in a call shortly before the president spoke. Todays 4-4 deadlock is clear indication that the U.S. Senates refusal to do its job has very real consequences, he said.

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The national President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Robert T. Maldonado, said in a statement Thursday that it is a sad day for millions of hard-working immigrant families, their friends and allies but argued the community will continue their efforts.

The fight could reach its pressure point in the voting booth this November. In the White House Press Briefing Room on Thursday, President Obama said voters will play a critical role in deciding how the country moves forward on this issue.
June 23 - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

The total cost of a two-year competition investigation into the British energy market could exceed 80 million pounds ($118.40 million), according to industry officials. The Competition and Markets Authority is set to publish its final 500-page report on Friday, bringing a formal end to a detailed study of the energy market that began in June 2014. (http://bit.ly/28YELtL)

City banks including UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have written to clients telling them to prepare for disruption tomorrow once the EU referendum result is declared. The Bank of England is on high alert to intervene if markets freeze. (http://bit.ly/28YEMxX)

The Guardian

Toymaker Hornby Plc has warned its future is in doubt unless shareholders back an 8 million pounds emergency fundraising plan. (http://bit.ly/28PYzmd)

Bunnings will arrive in UK in October when the Australian DIY chain will convert the first of the Homebase stores it bought for 340 million pounds this year. The company has hired British retail veteran Archie Norman and fellow former Kingfisher executive Matt Tyson to sit on an advisory board for the venture. (http://bit.ly/28PYC1t)

The Telegraph

Finance industry lobby group TheCityUK has itemised a list of "demands" for politicians if Britain votes to leave the European Union in Thursday's referendum, according to confidential documents seen by the Daily Telegraph. (http://bit.ly/28OkFC9)

Heathrow's new runway plans are a "rip off", according to airline boss Willie Walsh, and billions could be saved by extending an existing runway instead. (http://bit.ly/28PZ2Fe)

Sky News

Banks and money transfer services are warning that a surge in market volatility surrounding Thursday's EU referendum may impact electronic trading platforms. (http://bit.ly/28PZ8g7)

Story continues

One of BHS's biggest creditors is demanding the appointment of a second administrator to the stricken retailer amid concerns about the complex web of ties connecting the company's former owners. (http://bit.ly/28PZcfQ)

The Independent

Britons have been rushing to get foreign currency ahead of the EU referendum, according to the Post Office. Sales of currency at the Post Office have surged 74 percent since the weekend, compared to the same period last year. (http://ind.pn/28PZhjs)

($1 = 0.6757 pounds) (Compiled by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Hay)
June 23 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Headlines

* Twilio prices IPO at $15 a share, above range (http://bit.ly/28QJ5O2)

* London mayor blocks green belt development (http://bit.ly/28QJnV4)

* EDF workers seek further delay to Hinkley Point project (http://bit.ly/28OGRvR)

* U.S. to hike duties on Chinese steel to over 500 pct (http://bit.ly/28OHJAE)

Overview

- Communications technology company Twilio priced 10 million shares at $15 each, beating the $11.31 price it sold shares in its last private funding round.

- London Mayor Sadiq Khan has blocked a housing development because it was on "Green Belt" land and said he intended to use his planning powers "to much greater effect" than his predecessors.

- The EDF's workers' committee has turned to the French courts to attempt delaying Britain's Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, an 18-billion-pound project.

- The United States will impose duties of more than 500 percent on imports of certain steel products from China after a ruling that the influx of Chinese steel has hurt the U.S. industry.

(Compiled by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)
* Findings may explain why current Zika outbreak is severe * Dengue virus is also carried by mosquitoes * Dengue antibodies attach to Zika, but only partially By Kate Kelland LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Scientists studying the Zika outbreak in Brazil say previous exposure to another mosquito-borne virus, dengue, may exacerbate the potency of Zika infection. Early-stage laboratory findings by researchers in Britain France and Thailand suggest Zika uses the body's own defences as a "Trojan horse", allowing it to enter a human cell undetected. Once inside the cell, it replicates rapidly. The scientists said their results, published in the journal Nature Immunology, suggested that some dengue antibodies can recognise and bind to Zika due to the similarities between the two viruses, but that these antibodies may also amplify Zika infection in a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement. This effect is already known with dengue, they said, and is thought to explain why, when a person gets dengue fever a second time, the infection is often more serious than the first. "Although this work is at a very early stage, it suggests previous exposure to dengue virus may enhance Zika infection," said Gavin Screaton, a professor at Britain's Imperial College who led the research. "This may be why the current outbreak has been so severe, and why it has been in areas where dengue is prevalent." Dengue infections have increased dramatically over recent decades. The virus causes around 390 million infections a year globally - with 40 percent of the world's population living in areas of risk. Dengue is common in Brazil, and the health ministry there reported a leap in cases this year. Zika is spread by the same mosquitoes and has been causing alarm throughout the Americas since cases of the birth defect microcephaly were reported in Brazil, the country hardest hit by the current outbreak. The rare birth defect is marked by unusually small head size and potentially severe developmental problems. Brazilian authorities in Brazil have confirmed more than 1,400 cases of microcephaly in babies whose mothers were exposed to Zika during pregnancy. People from all over the world are already beginning to converge on Brazil for the Olympics in Rio in August. INVADERS Antibodies are large proteins that latch onto invading bacteria or viruses, neutralising them and enabling the immune system to destroy the pathogens. The antibodies are then primed to recognise the same invaders should another attack occur. The studies found that existing dengue virus antibodies latch onto Zika when it invades. But because the two viruses are not exactly the same, they cannot latch on securely, and instead the antibodies actually help Zika to get into the human immune cells. Here, the Zika virus replicates and causes disease. Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity which part-funded the research, said the results offered potential clues about the current outbreak and about how to make progress on vaccines. "We know that Zika has been present in Southeast Asia and Africa for many years and yet has not taken off there as it has in South America. This is what the international research effort needs to work out, and quickly," he said. In a second study by the same team and published in a sister journal, Nature, the scientists found that one of several antibodies that work against dengue can also neutralise Zika - providing a potential target for a vaccine. "We now need further studies to confirm these findings, and to progress towards a vaccine," Screaton said. (Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Andrew Roche)
As part of a broader campaign to portray Donald Trump as divisive and mean-spirited, the major super PAC backing Hillary Clinton on Thursday launched a new website targeting younger voters called Stop Trump/Stop Hate.

The super PAC, Priorities USA Action, is aiming to reach out to millennials and create a shareable, anti-Trump message with videos, tweets and messages that brand Trump as bigoted and full of hate.

Along with the anti-Trump website, Priorities on Thursday released a digital advertisement that features a 17-year-old Dante Latchman of Las Vegas, who has been disabled by a rare form of cancer, along with images of Trump mocking a disabled journalist. I dont want a president who makes fun of me, Latchman says. I want a president who inspires me, and thats not Donald Trump.

The messages at the core of the effortstop hate, spread kindness, stand up against bigotryare part of a bigger campaign among Democrats to attract millennials who are disillusioned by politics but eager to dismiss Trump. The Clinton campaign has repeatedly broadcast similar messages; one-of Hillary Clintons often-repeated mantras is that America needs more love and kindness.

Democratic strategists believe young voters are more persuaded by social identity and combatting perceived racism than they are motivated by candidates specific policies. Much of the digital efforts by both the Clinton campaign and Priorities, which are not allowed to coordinate, have centered on creating viral messages and shareable content for social media.

The new website is not branded as pro-Clinton and there is little to indicate its ties with Priorities, aside from a paid for line at the bottom of the page. It is part of a number of efforts by Clinton and her allies to create content that appears to be independently created and not specifically political. Priorities has released several similarly-themed advertisements, including a television ad that shows the same clip of Trump mocking a disabled journalist and another set targeting Trump for his rhetoric about women.

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Joining in on the Stop Trump/Stop Hate campaign are pro-Clinton groups including Planned Parenthood Votes and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, LCV Victory Fund, Latino Victory Fund, AFT, LPAC, EMILYs List WOMEN VOTE!, PowerPAC.org, & The Human Rights Campaign.

The new Priorities advertisement is playing on Facebook, Instagram and Pandora in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina, in a $500,000 buy, part of a total of $6 million Priorities has spent so far on digital.

Throughout his career and campaign Donald Trump has repeatedly ridiculed and marginalized people who are different than him and its up to us to save America from his message of hatred and ridicule, said Guy Cecil, Priorities USAs chief strategist.

Priorities is planning to spend some $150 million on television, radio and online advertising and outreach, a commitment that could grow before the general election in November.
By Allison Lampert MONTREAL (Reuters) - A hostage-taking at a detention center in Sept-Iles, Quebec, has ended peacefully, with two suspects surrendering and a female correctional officer released unharmed, police said on Wednesday. The incident ended early Wednesday evening with the arrest of two suspects, ages 22 and 26, according to Sergeant Helene Nepton, a spokeswoman for Quebecs provincial police force. The incident began around 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) at the detention center in Sept-Iles, located some 650 km northeast of the provincial capital of Quebec City. Nepton could not say how the suspects had been able to take the female guard hostage, but said that she was safe and sound. The detention center is located in the basement of the Sept-Iles courthouse, said Patrick Melo, a director of a union representing Quebecs special constables who work in courthouses. There were two special constables on duty Wednesday at the courthouse, but that number will be raised to five on Thursday to provide additional security, Melo said by phone from Quebec City. He said the union has long called for higher staffing and better maintenance at courthouses in outlying areas of the province. (With additional reporting by Catherine Ngai in Calgary, Alberta and Jeffrey Hodgson in Toronto; Editing by Leslie Adler)
In the wake of the media storm surrounding a judge's controversial decision to give sexual assault convictBrock Turner six months in jail for the attack on Stanford's campus, one sex crime survivor is speaking out in a heartfelt letter to the victim.



Delaney Henderson, 21, posted the emotional letter on Facebook, recalling her own trauma as she encouraged the Stanford victim, who is 23 and has not been publicly named, to stay strong.



"I am writing to tell you that I understand your pain a I know what it feels like to have a school and the justice system completely fail you. I felt like my attacker, like yours, only received a slap on the wrist for raping me," Henderson wrote.





Rape Survivor Pens Letter to Stanford Sex Assault Victim: 'I Understand What You Are Going Through Because I Am Going Through it With You'| Crime & Courts, Sexual Assault/Rape, True Crime, True Crime

In March, Turner, a former Stanford swim team member, was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus. He was sentenced to six months in county jail  though authorities told PEOPLE he will likely be released on September 2  and three years of probation.



"There was not enough justice for you when your attacker received such a lenient sentence. They took so much from us, and justice has not been served for the pain we continue to feel every day," Henderson wrote.





Henderson's Story

Henderson was just 16 years old when she was the victim of a sex crime by two fellow classmates, a minor and a then 17-year-old named Shane Villalpando.



"I know nothing can change the way you feel or the way you have been hurt. I know this because on June 3, 2011, I was raped, taken advantage of, humiliated, and robbed of my self-worth and innocence," Henderson wrote.



"Two older, wealthier and more popular boys from my Catholic high school in California assaulted me in my own bedroom. The physical pain was bad enough, but the emotional toll I endured after the assault is what truly broke me."





Villalpando was convicted of one felony county of unlawful sex with a minor and, as part of a deal, pleaded no contest to the charge. He was ordered to pay a total of $20, 726 in restitution to Henderson and her family, the Santa Maria Times reported. He was sentenced to one year in prison for the rape of another teen girl who also attended Henderson's school, St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California. (The other alleged perpetrator was a minor and his records are sealed.)



 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.



Henderson wrote that, after the incident, she was ridiculed, bullied and threatened by her classmates  including some of Villalpando's friends. She left school and even attempted suicide, she wrote.





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Moving On

As Henderson worked to move on, she wrote that she got a call from Angela Rose, a rape survivor who founded PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment), a non-profit organization that works both to help rape survivors and prevent sexual assault.





Rape Survivor Pens Letter to Stanford Sex Assault Victim: 'I Understand What You Are Going Through Because I Am Going Through it With You'| Crime & Courts, Sexual Assault/Rape, True Crime, True Crime

"That call changed my life a I became a PAVE ambassador, and with the support of Angela and PAVE, I slowly began to gain back my power," she wrote, noting that she co-founded her own organization called SafeBAE, which works to combat sex assault among youth.



Both Henderson and Anderson spoke out about their respective incidents in an episode of CBS's 48 Hours in 2014. The episode will air again on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.



"I am writing this to tell you that you are not alone. I understand what you are going through because I am going through it with you. You are truly inspiring to me and to so many other survivors out there," Henderson wrote to Turner's victim.



"I hope you realize that you've given a sense of hope to every survivor out there, who has never thought they could win. You've already helped so many lives by using your powerful voice and standing as that beacon of light for all of us in the darkness."
It's the wedding day nightmare no couple has  but apparently should: a photo sesh that devolves into an emergency room situation.

Newlyweds Johnny and Laura Benson and photographer Maddie Mae found the perfect patch of greenery Monday outside the Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins, Colorado, when an uninvited guest crashed the photo op  a rattlesnake.

Mae discussed with Good Morning America in hilarious detail how the groom was attacked by the snake.

"A Larimer County Park Ranger was driving by, and all three of us started waving furiously at him. He rolls down the window and we yelled, 'He just got bit by a rattlesnake!'" Mae said. "The ranger, obviously not hearing what we said, yelled back, 'Congratulations!'"

The ranger eventually recognized their desperation and contacted paramedics. The three rushed to the hospital for treatment with the hopes of, you know, eventually making an appearance at their own wedding reception. While Johnny was initially told he might have to stay for a few days in the hospital, he didn't have any venom in him.

"The people at in the ER at Poudre Valley Hospital then became the heroes as they made it the world's shortest ER visit in history," Mae said. "Johnny and Laura were back in my car, driving to their reception in less than 20 minutes."

The couple made it to their reception only an hour late, with Mae describing the somewhat grand entrance as one of the most beautiful reactions she's ever seen.

"I've never seen such an emotional grand entrance as all 184 guests cheered when Johnny and Laura walked in and showered them in a sea of passionate hugs," Mae said. "I admire Laura and Johnny so much for staying calm, and holding each other's hand through the first great test of their brand-new marriage."
Ushering in good news for Realty Income Corporation O, Moody's Investors Service, the rating arm of Moody's Corp. MCO, announced that it has affirmed the ratings of the company  senior debt at Baa1  and revised the outlook to positive from stable.



Per the rating agency, this move reveals Realty Income's sturdy balance sheet and liquidity profile that is aided by steady cash flows generated from its triple-net leased retail properties.



The positive outlook reflects the rating agencys anticipation that the retail real estate investment trust (REIT) would grow in a disciplined way, backed by robust earnings and operating margins together with credit metrics improvement.



In fact, the rating agency noted that strong performance in the triple-net lease sector has helped the company endure market doldrums together with solid liquidity profile that is backed by its large unencumbered asset base.



The rating affirmation reassures a companys creditworthiness in the market and is likely to support investors confidence in the stock. This ensures continuous accessibility to capital required for a companys growth.



Realty Income is a California-based company, which targets well-located, freestanding, single-tenant, net-lease, commercial properties. The company generates over 40% of its annualized rents from investment grade tenants. Its estimates have been stable lately ahead of the companys Q2 earnings release. The company had a mixed record of earnings surprises in recent quarters.



REALTY INCOME Price

REALTY INCOME Price | REALTY INCOME Quote

Realty Income currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). However, investors interested in the retail REIT industry may consider stocks like Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. ROIC and Saul Centers Inc. BFS. Both these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



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The past three years have been the best we have had for a long time, says Kevan Van Thompson, head of Czech Anglo Productions.

He ascribes the boom to one main development: Prior to the rebate, work was in very short supply.

Unlocked, a thriller contemplating the risk of biological terror, subbed Prague for London, and art directors made the swap all but undetectable. With some good dressing and a few days in London we were able to produce London at a much reduced price, says Van Thompson.

Czech Anglo also passed off the multi-faceted Prague as New York, and director Michael Apted was happily surprised at how easy it was to work here. The project, Unlocked, featuring Michael Douglas, Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, and John Malkovich, is just one recent score, along with Niki Caros The Zookeepers Wife, a World War II story of survival in Warsaw shot in Prague with Jessica Chastain.

As a warm-up act, Czech Anglo handled three seasons of the BBCs irreverent actioner The Musketeers, which required 30 weeks of shoots for three years. Series producer Colin Wratten says Pragues versatility was key: They had everything we needed  castles, cobbled streets, basements with vaulted ceilings, churches, monasteries and ruins.

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Maria Grazia Chiuri with Pierpaolo Piccioli, her designer partner at Valentino. (Photo: Getty Images)

Seventy-year-old French fashion house Dior reportedly will soon appoint a female creative director for the first time ever.

According to Reuters, at least two sources have disclosed that Valentinos Maria Grazia Chiuri will be trading Milan for Paris to head up the iconic maison. She will be replacing designer Raf Simons, who left suddenly in October 2015. The announcement is expected to be made in early July, after Christian Diors fall/winter couture show on the 4th.

Dior is undoubtedly hoping Chiuri will help turn around its recently ailing sales. During her nine years at Valentino  along with her design partner Pierpaolo Piccioli  Chiuri turned Valentino into a $1 billion-plus brand. And while Dior may be a $5 billion brand, the profits are mostly attributed to fragrances and makeup  and fashion sales have actually flatlined.

The move to Dior will also be a big switch for Chiuri artistically. At Valentino, she and Piccioli have developed a signature style featuring fantasy-like gowns with lush embellishments. The collections tend to be both thematic and dramatic. Conversely, Dior has gone a more minimalist route since ditching controversial former creative director John Galliano in 2011. Itll be interesting to see how Chiuri updates Diors wares with her own vision, potentially as soon as Paris Fashion Week in October.

There is currently no word on whether Piccioli plans to stay with Valentino when Chiuri exits. Valentino said in a statement that the company has no comment at this time as nothing has been confirmed.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.


Pennsylvania and North avenues was the epicenter of last April's unrest. People in the Sandtown-Winchester community also have strong opinions about the verdict. At Penn-North, city residents spoke with anger and disappointment about the verdict in the trial of Officer Caesar Goodson. Police officers had quite a presence in the area after the verdict was announced. Police chaplains and the Community Collaboration Division of the Police Department also walked the streets. The chaplains were there to engage with the public in ways that sometimes officers cannot.
By Ashutosh Sharma UDHAMPUR, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When a landslide swallowed up the mountain village of Saddal in September 2014, Neemu lost his wife and a child, along with his terrace farm and livestock. He and his surviving son were evacuated to a nearby village in Udhampur district to join over 130 other families who had also lost homes and family members to landslides triggered by relentless heavy rain. But for the growing numbers of people in Jammu and Kashmir that have been displaced by landslides or have moved to avoid risk zones, creating a new life in a new place has proved difficult. Many are struggling not just with poverty and a lack of farmland and services but also with mental illness brought on in part by their losses. "There is no one in Neemu's family who could perform certain rituals to help his dead family members rest in peace," one villager told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. As a result, Neemu now struggles to cope mentally, the neighbor said, and has turned from a self-sufficient farmer to someone who roams the streets begging for alms, with his child riding piggyback. Experts fear such problems are set to rise as a growing number of people in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir carrying out a gradual but desperate migration to other parts of the region, fleeing landslides or the risk of them. Many end up homeless, with no access to healthcare and no reliable source of income, local people say. That creates lasting stress, and many complain of depression and nightmares. For some, the psychological damage is so severe they cannot find a way to cope. 'SPIRITS OF THE DEAD' According to displaced villagers now living in Sui Chakhar camp, on the outskirts of Udhampur town, Neemu's is not an isolated case. "My brother and his wife get possessed by the spirits of their dead family members regularly," said Bansi Lal, 41, whose brother lost two daughters, his father and another brother in the landslide. Bansi said his brother and other relatives had recently gone back to Saddal to perform rituals and set up moray - stones engraved with symbolic figures of the dead - in the hopes of escaping aatya, the wrath of his family's angry souls. Other villagers have developed speech problems or have started experiencing what Bansi termed "attacks of insanity" after losing their families and livelihoods in the landslide. Without sufficient help from the government to rebuild their lives, displaced villagers are seeking help wherever they can. "Those who are accepting the advice of the dayala (local faith healer) are getting relief," said villager Kunj Lal, 55. But others are suffering, he said. EARTHQUAKE RISK Landslides in Jammu and Kashmir state "have almost doubled during the past 20 years," said G.M. Bhat, a geologist and rector at the Bhaderwah campus of the University of Jammu. Continuing deforestation and badly planned development have contributed to the problem, he said. According to Bhat, more prolonged periods of rainfall, associated with climate change, are destabilizing slopes. The state also sits in a region of high seismic activity, and earthquakes often trigger landslides. A study published in April by the Geological Society of America predicted the Jammu region could see an earthquake of at least magnitude 8.0 in the future, which study authors said could endanger a million lives. The earthquake risk to people in the region is large and probably underappreciated, the authors wrote. In some mountain villages people live at risk of getting crushed under landslides but have nowhere to go," Bhat said. In the wake of the September 2014 tragedy, the government created the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) to help prepare for and respond to earthquakes, floods, avalanches and landslides that hit Jammu and Kashmir state. But experts argue that the authority - made up of government officials, bureaucrats and police - lacks the resources and expertise it needs to do its job. "The SDMA lacks a heart," said Bhat. What it needs, he said, is a research wing, employing scientists and technical experts, to develop effective plans to cut rising disaster risks. SEEKING MORE HELP Two years after the 2014 landslide, villagers said as many as 20 bodies still have not been found. In several cases, rescue workers only retrieved severed body parts, they said. The government insists that is not the case. "Forty people were killed in the landslide and 36 bodies had been recovered when the rescue operation was called off," said Angrez Singh Rana, additional deputy commissioner for Udhampur. Families were given 500,000 rupees ($7,500) for each family member who died, he said. But villagers insist the government needs to do more, and quickly. Of the 134 families who fled Saddal and adjoining areas, about 51 are living in Sui Chakhar village in poverty, without toilets or safe drinking water. Despite the tragedy they suffered, the farmers said they still had to repay bank loans they had taken to purchase seeds, fertilizer and livestock as they tried to restart their livelihoods. At the camp, many of the displaced said the government should give them more money to help rebuild their shattered lives. Others want the government to help them heal in other ways. Some families, who have continued digging at the landslide site in hope of retrieving the bodies of lost family members, want the government to bring in men and machinery to retrieve all the bodies. They also want a temple built in memory of the deceased villagers. "Before the landslide, we were self-sufficient. There was a certain dignity in that life as we had houses, farms, livestock and a sustainable livelihood," said villager Kunj Lal. "The disaster and official apathy has turned us into paupers." (Reporting by Ashutosh Sharma; editing by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
Sao Paulo (AFP) - A top ex-minister of Brazil's suspended president Dilma Rousseff became the latest official to get arrested in a sprawling corruption probe on Thursday, authorities said.

Police also searched the headquarters of Rousseff's Workers Party in Sao Paulo in one of a series of raids across five states in the country.

In the capital Brasilia they arrested Paulo Bernardo, Rousseff's former communications minister, the state prosecution service said in a statement.

He was wanted in connection with the paying of $30 million worth of bribes to public officials, it said.

Bernardo was also planning minister under Rousseff's predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The raids were part of a probe into corruption at state oil firm Petrobras which has netted numerous officials.

Rousseff was suspended last month to face an impeachment trial over separate allegations of fiddling government accounts.

She was replaced pending her trial by vice-president Michel Temer. Three of his ministers have since stepped down over corruption allegations.

The Senate is expected to make a final decision on whether to impeach Rousseff in mid-August, during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Bogota (AFP) - A conservative politician from a rich family and a rural Marxist guerrilla were the lead players in the landmark Colombian ceasefire agreement signed Thursday.

Here are short profiles of President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebel leader "Timochenko", former foes now on the verge of a final peace pact in Latin America's longest civil war.

- Santos: fighter for peace -

Santos, 64, spearheaded a major offensive against the FARC as defense minister from 2006 to 2009.

After becoming president in 2010, he shifted tack and negotiated for peace.

"He made war as a means to achieve peace," said Santos's brother-in-law and adviser, Mauricio Rodriguez.

"He weakened the FARC to oblige them to sit at the negotiating table."

Santos comes from a wealthy, powerful family.

His great uncle was also head of state.

He was educated at the London School of Economics and has served in various ministerial posts.

- Timochenko: convict negotiator -

The bearded, bespectacled FARC leader's real name is Rodrigo Londono but he is better known by his noms-de-guerre Timoleon Jimenez and Timochenko.

He was born in a coffee-growing region and studied medicine in the Soviet Union and Cuba.

Timochenko, 57, is renowned as a strategist and former intelligence chief in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He has been convicted in absentia for various attacks for which he has been sentenced to more than 150 years in jail overall.

He took over as leader of the FARC in 2011 after his predecessor Alfonso Cano was killed by the army.

The following year, he wrote to Santos proposing fresh peace negotiations after efforts by previous leaders had failed.

He agreed to one of Santos's key conditions, pledging to end kidnappings by the group.

"He is one of the most well-liked guys in the FARC," analyst Ariel Avila of Colombia's Peace and Reconciliation Foundation told AFP.

"He is the man who will go down in history for bringing the FARC into the peace process."
Cruel Intentions is forever!

Sarah Michelle Gellar shared a sweet birthday message with Selma Blair on Thursday, writing, "Smooches on your #birthday. To my friend @therealselmablair , who may be an award winning kisser, but should be an award winning friend and mother!! (And style icon)."

The photo Gellar shared is from the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, where the actresses won "Best Kiss" for their steamy moment in the 1999 film.

WATCH: Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair Have Amazing 'Cruel Intentions' Reunion!

Blair celebrated her 44th birthday with her 4-year-old son, Arthur, and expressed gratitude to fans who forgave her for her plane incident on Monday.

"A sincere thank you to all those who sent me the spirit of loving and forgiveness," she wrote. "It is a new birth year. Thank you."

MORE: Selma Blair's Ex-Boyfriend Shares Pic of Son After Her Alleged Outburst on Plane

On her way home from a Father's Day trip to Mexico with Arthur and her ex-boyfriend, Jason Bleick, Blair allegedly had an outburst on the plane and was reportedly taken off in a stretcher when the flight landed in Los Angeles.

"I made a big mistake yesterday," Blair said in a statement to Vanity Fair the following day, taking full responsibility for the incident. "After a lovely trip with my son and his Dad, I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret."

NEWS: Selma Blair's Ex-Boyfriend Shares Pic of Son After Her Alleged Outburst on Plane

"I take this very seriously, and I apologize to all of the passengers and crew that I disturbed and am thankful to all of the people who helped me in the aftermath," she continued. "I am a flawed human being who makes mistakes and am filled with shame over this incident. I am truly very sorry."

Watch the video below for more on Blair's mile high incident.

Story continues

Related Articles
Paris (AFP) - Police arrested 85 people ahead of Thursday's protest march in Paris against France's labour reforms, mainly for carrying objects that could be used as projectiles, authorities said.

At least one was on a list of around 100 people who had been barred from the march, which set off from the historic Place de la Bastille in the early afternoon under tight security after a march last week saw bloody clashes.
The sex life of a fly whose name translates to "man-eater" has netted two researchers a posthumous award from U.S. politicians.

The 2016 Golden Goose Award, which honors basic research that might seem silly but led to important breakthroughs, will go to Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the researchers' study of the reproductive behavior of screwworm flies (Cochliomyia hominivorax), a parasitic species that caused major problems for farmers and ranchers before Knipling and Bushland's work led to a new type of insect control in the 1950s.

"Given the recent rise of infectious diseases like the Zika virus, developing eradication programs for carrier pests is a much-needed field of scientific research," Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., a supporter of the Golden Goose Award, said in a statement. "Even though 'worms' might make some members of Congress - as well as the public  a little squeamish or skeptical of the research we invest in, these studies by Drs. Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland have clearly paid off." [6 Politicians Who Got the Science Wrong]

Freaky fly

Adult screwworm flies look like large houseflies with orange heads. It's their young, however, that do the real damage. Female flies lay their eggs in scratches or cuts on the hides of livestock or other animals. The maggots, or larvae, of the screwworm fly burrow into the wounds, feeding on both the dead and living flesh of the infected animal.

"Untreated screwworm infestations can be fatal," reads a fact sheet on the insect put out by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. "The larvae will continue to feed on the animal and will eventually eat the host alive."

Even creepier, the maggots can infect humans, too. In 2008, an emergency-room doctor won a photo competition held by the journal Pediatric Emergency Care with a gruesome picture and case study of a 12-year-old girl who returned from a trip to Colombia with painful blisters on her scalp. A "blunt haircut" revealed the squirming larvae of the screwworm fly burrowed into the girl's skin. In total, doctors removed 142 larvae from her head. [Giant List of the Strangest Medical Cases Reported by Live Science]

Story continues

Eradicating the screwworm

Knipling and Bushland's research made such infections  for humans and for livestock  much less common. The two worked in Texas and Florida through the 1940s and 1950s to understand the fly's biology and behavior, according to the World Food Prize organization, which honored Knipling and Bushland in 1992. (The pair also have a USDA insect research laboratory in Texas named after them.)

With annual meat and dairy losses to screwworm flies totaling more than $200 million a year in the 1950s, Knipling and Bushland became focused on disrupting the natural life cycle of the flies, according to their World Food Prize biography. They reasoned that if they could release enough sterile male flies into the wild, mating would result in fewer and fewer offspring, eradicating the fly population. The researchers then figured out that they could treat the flies with doses of radiation calibrated to render them sterile but healthy enough to mate.

The first test came on Sanibel Island, Florida, in the early 1950s. It worked. The researchers named their method the "sterile insect technique." According to the USDA, the sterile insect technique eradicated the screwworm fly in the U.S. in 1966. Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have been screwworm-free since the 1990s.

"Screwworm research may sound like a joke, but it isn't. It saved the livestock industry billions," Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., who invented the Golden Goose Award, said in the statement. Scientists are now looking to transfer the sterile insect technique to Aedes mosquitos, the species that transfers the Zika virus. For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced in March that it was granting 2.3 million euros ($2.6 million) to researchers applying the technique to Zika-carrying mosquitos.

The Golden Goose Award stands in contrast to the "Golden Fleece" Award, a congressional award that mocks purportedly wasteful science, and former Sen. Tom Coburn's "Wastebook," which highlighted National Institutes of Health grants the Oklahoma Republican judged as pointless. Researchers highlighted in Coburn's "Wastebook" consistently reported that their research was misrepresented.

Original article on Live Science.

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From ELLE

Last week while on a flight from Cancun, Mexico to Los Angeles, Selma Blair was removed from a plane on a stretcher and rushed to a hospital. Blair, flying with her four-year-old son Arthur and her father's son, ex-boyfriend Jason Bleick, reportedly had an "outburst" that involved her crying and saying phrases like "He burns my private parts. He won't let me eat or drink." and "He beats me. He's going to kill me." Witnesses said she seemed to have combined medication with her wine. Today, Blair released a statement about the incident to Vanity Fair.

"I made a big mistake yesterday. After a lovely trip with my son and his Dad, I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret," she writes. Her son, she says, was asleep with his dad and wearing headphones. "I take this very seriously and I apologize to all of the passengers and crew that I disturbed and am thankful to all the people who helped me in the aftermath."

"I am a flawed human being who makes mistakes and am filled with shame over this incident," she continues, "I am truly very sorry."

So far, fans have been showing their support by commenting on the Instagram photo she took before taking off that day. "I thought your apology was genuine and sincere. I'm sure this happens all the time, it just got blown out of proportion with you because you're well known and there isn't a lot going on in the news at the moment," one follower wrote, "Keep trucking along sister."
From Cosmopolitan

After an alleged mid-flight outburst, Selma Blair was removed from her returning flight from Cancun, Mexico to Los Angeles on Monday night and immediately rushed to a hospital. Witnesses claim that the actress had been seen mixing something with a glass of wine while on the flight, and after drinking it, she began crying and making concerning statements about an unknown male.

Selma had reportedly been returning home from a weekend Father's Day trip with her son, Arthur, and his father, Jason Bleick. In a statement to Vanity Fair on Tuesday, the actress apologized for her actions on the flight, and expressed embarrassment over the entire incident.

"I made a big mistake yesterday," Selma said. "After a lovely trip with my son and his Dad, I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret. My son was with his Dad asleep with his headphones on, so there is that saving grace."

"I take this very seriously, and I apologize to all of the passengers and crew that I disturbed and am thankful to all of the people who helped me in the aftermath," she continued. "I am a flawed human being who makes mistakes and am filled with shame over this incident. I am truly very sorry."

Follow Gina on Twitter.
Shocking incidents of gun-related violence have horrified people on both sides of the pond in recent days.

In the United States, a man killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida. And in the U.K., Britons reeled after the shooting and stabbing murder of Parliament member Jo Cox ahead of the contentious Brexit vote.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, led a 15-hour filibuster to force lawmakers to take action on stronger gun control regulations after the Pulse murders.

"Certainly something isn't adding up when you have 90% of the American public who support the anti-gun violence measures that we're proposing," Murphy says in a deep-dive interview on the latest episode of the Special Relationship podcast with Mic senior political correspondent Celeste Katz and John Prideaux, U.S. editor of the Economist.

Source: Evan Vucci/AP

"This is not controversial anywhere in the country, except for here [in Washington], where, unfortunately, the gun lobby has a vice grip  a vice grip that's loosening every day since Orlando in significant, significant ways, but a grip that right now still prevents these consensus measures from becoming law," says Murphy, who as a congressman represented a district that included Newtown, Connecticut, the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

"That's deeply, deeply frustrating for everybody, but certainly for those of us that have come from states that have been ravaged by this epidemic."

Reports came Thursday that a masked man had opened fire in a movie theater near Frankfurt in yet another example of the rampages that have given new urgency to calls for better gun regulation.

Source: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Murphy expressed his anger and frustration  but also his hope for change  as he and like-minded legislators battle the gun lobby for measures including a ban on gun sales to people on the terror no-fly watch list.

He also spoke about how the the fate of stricter firearms regulations could play out under a President Hillary Clinton  or Commander in Chief Donald Trump.

Story continues

We also touch on the legal and cultural differences between  and the hosts' own experiences with  the American and European approach to guns.

Listen here:

Subscribe to Special Relationship on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts. Please rate and leave a review, and stay tuned for our sixth episode in two weeks.
(Reuters) - Indian shares reversed two sessions of losses to close higher on Thursday as poll booths opened for Britons to vote on a referendum about whether or not to exit the European Union.

The benchmark BSE index (.BSESN) ended 0.88 percent higher at 27,002.22, while the broader NSE Nifty (.NSEI) rose 0.81 percent to 8,270.45.

Reliance Communications (RLCM.NS) said late in the afternoon that a deal with Aircel will be announced shortly, triggering shares to rise as much as 5.77 percent.

(Reporting by Arnab Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)
Seth Meyers wants Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race in exchange for a TV series in which he plays a fictional president.

Meyers mentioned the idea last week, but he said NBC - who has in "no way approved" this fictional show - hasn't heard back from Trump. "This is not a joke," said Meyers, addressing Trump. "To entice you to do the show, we've come up with some casting ideas."

In this make-believe show, called Chicago President, Megan Fox would play Trump's first lady because she's "gorgeous, sexy, classy, and most importantly, not age-appropriate." However, after a few seasons, they would replace her with someone younger since she's already 30.

Michael Cera would play Paul Ryan so that Trump can "bully him by calling him stuff like 'little guy' or 'puny Paul'" and show him who's boss. Kevin James would be Trump's vice president, Bradley Cooper would be young Trump and Ryan Gosling would be older Trump.

Read More: Seth Meyers Jokes About Republicans Dodging Donald Trump

"Just for you, ISIS will be played by Rosie O'Donnell," continued Meyers. He said Harrison Ford would be cast as Hillary Clinton because in Trump's show, Clinton "has been indicted for her emails and is a fugitive."

Then came the big reveal. President Obama would be played by Bill Cosby," said Meyers, which was met by groans from the audience.

"If that doesn't make you want to drop out of the race and star in a TV show to play the president instead, I don't know what will," he said.
BALA CYNWYD, PA / ACCESSWIRE / June 22, 2016 / Law office of Brodsky & Smith, LLC announces that it is investigating potential claims against the Board of Directors of Elizabeth Arden, Inc. ("Elizabeth Arden" or "the Company") (RDEN) for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with the sale of the Company to Revlon, Inc. ("Revlon").

Click here to learn more about the investigation http://brodsky-smith.com/1091-rden-elizabeth-arden-inc.html, or call: 877-534-2590. There is no cost or obligation to you.

Under the terms of the transaction, Elizabeth Arden shareholders will receive only $14.00 in cash for each share of Elizabeth Arden stock they own. The investigation concerns whether the Board of Elizabeth Arden breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders and whether Revlon is underpaying for the Company. The transaction may undervalue the Company and would result in a loss for many long-term Elizabeth Arden shareholders. For example, Elizabeth Arden stock traded at $18.24 per share on January 14, 2015. In addition, in the transaction Revlon will pay less than one times Elizabeth Arden sales when beauty companies have previously sold for two to three times sales.

If you own shares of Elizabeth Arden stock and wish to discuss the legal ramifications of the investigation, or have any questions, you may e-mail or call the law office of Brodsky & Smith, LLC who will, without obligation or cost to you, attempt to answer your questions. You may contact Jason L. Brodsky, Esquire or Evan J. Smith, Esquire at Brodsky & Smith, LLC, Two Bala Plaza, Suite 510, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004, by visiting http://brodsky-smith.com/1091-rden-elizabeth-arden-inc.html, or calling toll free 877-LEGAL-90.

Brodsky & Smith, LLC is a litigation law firm with extensive expertise representing shareholders throughout the nation in securities and class action lawsuits. The attorneys at Brodsky & Smith have been appointed by numerous courts throughout the country to serve as lead counsel in class actions and have successfully recovered millions of dollars for our clients and shareholders. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

SOURCE: Brodsky & Smith, LLC
Welcome back to Shark Week on Discovery, where all they do is fin.

An eight-day attack of shark-centric programming is furiously swimming your way, with 17 programs set to be unleashed from June 26 to July 3. Hostel director Eli Roth is back to chum the waters and lord over the festivities on Shark After Dark, Game of Thrones star Lena Headey will lend her voice to the latest Air Jaws special, and Jacques Cousteau's grandson Philippe and Philippe's wife Ashlan, bring you an exotic program whose title will make Syfy envious: Nuclear Sharks.

Warning: There is a ton of programming to sink your teeth into. But don't get scared and run screaming out of the water because you don't know where to start and how to prioritize. EW has outlined the entire schedule below, and asked the people behind each special to tell you what sets their program apart from the pack/school/shiver.

SUNDAY, JUNE 26

Tiger Beach (8 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: In an area of the Bahamas named Tiger Beach, shark biologist Dr. Neil Hammerschlag tracks 40 tiger sharks  the deadly creatures that are sometimes referred to as "garbage eaters" because they will consume almost anything  in an attempt to answer several questions: Where do these giant sharks mate? Where do the pregnant females gestate? Where do they give birth? Are they offended by being labeled "garbage eaters"? (That last question may not be answerable.)

IF YOU WATCH ONLY ONE SHARK WEEK SPECIAL, WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Tiger Beach is a shallow water area in the Bahamas famed for its high number of huge tiger sharks," says Hammerschlag. "The show documents our research team as we use a set of amazing new technologies to investigate why there are so many large tiger sharks at Tiger Beach. In fact, we employ the same ultrasound imaging technology used by medical professionals on pregnant woman in order to determine the reproductive status of live female tiger sharks in the wild. Trying to do an in-water ultrasound on a 1500-pound shark with razor-sharp teeth is no easy task, however, determining the reproductive strategies and mating behaviors of animals is important for the conservation and management of sharks."

Story continues

Return of Monster Mako (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Shark tagger Keith Poe, along with underwater cinematographer Joe Romeiro and marine biologists Greg Stuntz and Matt Ajemain, bust out the latest technology to document a live-predation of a "grander," which is what a 1000-pound mako shark is called behind his/her back. These super-sized sharks tend to be more elusive and hunt down bigger prey, such as seals, further fueling your nightmares.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Our team of scientists and wildlife filmmakers will put together the pieces as day turns into darkest night to try and locate, track, tag and document a rare, 1000-lb. mako shark, known as the fastest shark in the world," says Romeiro. "Plus, you get to see me put my neck on the line and swim under the cover of moonlight to find and film one of the most Apex of all predators, alive! Before there are none left!

Isle of Jaws (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: After discovering that great white sharks had mysteriously vanished from the waters of the Neptune Islands off South Australia, shark cinematographer Andy Casagrande headed west and found a cluster of all-male great whites off an uncharted island. With the aid of marine biologist Dr. Jonathan Werry, the pair spend some quality time with the predators to learn all about their mating habits, because, well, who isn't interested in underwater sex?

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Isle of Jaws showcases a team of top shark scientists and cinematographers on an expedition of a lifetime!" says Casagrande. "With the use of the latest dive and camera technology, my team discover a brand-new great white shark hotspot never before showcased on Shark Week! Using self-propelled cages and SharkFinCams, the team explore this new hot spot and face off with some of the wildest Great White Sharks on the planet! And an entire act of this episode can be experienced in full 360-degree spherical VR 'Virtual Reality' both topside and underwater!

Shark After Dark (11 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Film director/fan of scary things Eli Roth returns as host of the late-night talk show that looks back at the best moments from the each day's attack of programming and tees up the next day's action.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Shark After Dark offers the chance to discuss current shark events with all our amazing celebrity guests and shark experts," says Roth. "As incredible as Shark Week programs are, they take an entire year to produce. What our show offers is the chance to discuss recent events like the Newport Beach shark bite and discuss why the bites are increasing and what we can do to keep people and sharks safe. We can also get into other subjects that shark week doesn't cover, such as the tragedy of shark finning and the needless slaughter of 100 million sharks annually for fish fin soup. Also, it's just fun to geek out and talk sharks with shark fans like Kevin Hart, Chelsea Handler, Anthony Jeselnik, and all the other amazing guests."

MONDAY, JUNE 27

Shallow Water Invasion (8 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: There is a self-propelled shark cage called "The Explorer," and marine biologists Mauricio Hoyos and Grant Johnson will drop it in the ocean to figure out why great white sharks are moving into the waters off Guadalupe Island at night. Could their research help explain why shark encounters are happening more often in the shallow waters along coastlines? Sure hope so.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "I will be piloting a one-of-a-kind motorized shark cage, untethered from the boat, to face off with some of the largest great whites on Earth," says Devon Massyn, who serves as an underwater cameraperson on Shallow Water Invasion. "And then for the first time ever we will use the Explorer at night, in the pitch-black waters of Guadalupe, to track these sharks into the shallows, and the mission starts to resembles space exploration more than it does shark science."

Jaws of the Deep (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Marine biologist Greg Skomal and the REMUS SharkCam team head back to Guadalupe to track down the worlds largest great white shark, named Deep Blue. They're not fooling around this time, as they drop two robot subs into the water, with one of them capable of diving to 2,000 feet.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "We will show you footage of white sharks that has never been seen before," says Skomal. "Quite literally, never before." Adds Amy Kukulya, senior engineering assistant for REMUS SharkCam: "Only one technology, REMUS SharkCam, can take you on a special ride alongside great white sharks deepest dives in unknown, unchartered waters. Our latest scientific breakthrough with this technology debuts on Jaws of the Deep, which will blow the minds of shark enthusiasts around the world.... I have seen shark behavior that is unprecedented in the making of Jaws of the Deep. For this SharkCam expedition, we took two robots. I was certain that the smaller, 100-meter REMUS SharkCam would be attacked and mistaken to be a seal or a yellow fin tuna. However, the second, much larger SharkCam, I wasn't so sure even Deep Blue would be brave enough to attack. But I might have been wrong. Our 13-inch diameter, 7-foot long deep- diving robot was ambushed multiple times by a very large white shark, and could very possibly have been Deep Blue."

Sharks Among Us (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: As the number of encounters we have with sharks uncomfortably increase, marine biologist Dr. Craig OConnell reveals his system that will allow sharks and humans to share the sea without deadly results. (No, it's not a giant gray fin that you strap to your back.)

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "The show follows the development of a new shark deterrent technology that may one day allow sharks and humans to peacefully coexist," says O'Connell. "This technology may make deadly shark culls and shark nets of South Africa and Australia a thing of the past. To top it off, I put the technology to the ultimate test where I leave the safety of the shark cage and come face to face with huge great white sharks. Does the technology work? Watch and find out!"

Shark After Dark (11 p.m. ET/PT)

TUESDAY, JUNE 28

Wrath of a Great White Serial Killer (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Great white sharks are now beginning to populate the waters off the Pacific Northwest coast. What's the reason? We have no idea  we're not shark experts. But Ralph Collier and Brandon McMillian are, and they embark on a mission to solve this important migration question.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "In our previous Serial Killer specials we looked at a series of attacks off California's Surf Beach, but now the investigation has gotten personal," says McMillian. "A friend of mine was brutally bitten by a white shark off Oregon and I want to know why... Why would a massive great white shark travel thousands of miles from across the Pacific into the icy-cold waters off Oregon? Why would they migrate to an area where great whites aren't supposed to go? The answers may surprise you!"

Air Jaws: Night Stalker (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Photographer and Air Jaws veteran Chris Fallows joins forces with shark expert Jeff Kurr and Dr. Hammerschlag to learn how great white sharks can hunt in complete darkness  without night-vision goggles. Your guide on this chilling mission? Lena Headey, who narrates the action.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Together with my friend and shark photographer Chris Fallows, I have been studying the amazing hunting behavior of great white sharks at Seal Island in South Africa since 2002," says Hammerschlag. "Over this time we have documented over 8,000 white shark attacks on seals and learned a tremendous amount about the predatory strategies of these incredible animals. However, our observations have been limited to the daytime, but we have always believed that great whites may be capable of hunting seals at night. In this show, we embark on an epic adventure using a variety of exciting new technologies, such as imaging sonar and special low-light cameras, to investigate if great whites are actively hunting seals at night, and if sharks could be using moonlight to their advantage to launch ambush attacks on seals."

Shark After Dark (11 p.m. ET/PT)

NEXT: Sharks Vs. Dolphins! Nuclear Sharks!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29

Deadliest Shark (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Dr. Michael Domeier and Dr. Barry Bruce will have the rare oceanic white tip in their sights as they explore the waters off the Bahamas and Hawaii to determine whether this deadly breed has rightfully earned the label of Worlds Deadliest Shark. (Sounds a lot more fearsome than "Garbage Eater.")

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "The oceanic whitetip shark has killed more people in the history of mankind than any other shark on the planet, and yet it's a shark that is virtually unknown to the public and poorly understood by scientists," says Domeier. "I set out on a mission to determine if the oceanic whitetip is still a threat to humans, or if perhaps the tables have turned and we are a threat to the oceanic whitetip. Yes, the oceanic whitetip shark is a beautiful but potentially deadly shark, as indicated by the never-seen footage of an oceanic biting a swimmer, but there's more to this story than one would think, and my program definitely puts this shark back on the radar!"

Sharks Vs. Dolphins: Face Off (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Sure, the sharks and the jets own a storied rivalry, but sharks and dolphins also have their fair share of conflict too. Of course, those Ivy Leaguers of the sea usually wind up as shark food when push comes to bite. A team led by Dr. Mike Heithaus examines the relationship between the two creatures, in hopes of answering exactly why sharks target dolphins.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "You will see sharks and dolphins as never before while we investigate the tools and tactics they use in their cat-and-mouse game of survival in the oceans," says Heithaus. "We get hands-on with bull and tiger sharks, dive with great hammerheads, and swim with dolphins to investigate their strength, speed, intelligence, and amazing sensory abilities. Amazing footage reveals what happens when sharks win the battle, and what happens when the tables are turned!"

Shark After Dark (11 p.m. ET/PT)

THURSDAY, JUNE 30

Nuclear Sharks (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau journey to Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands with marine biologist Luke Tipple to check out a stretch of sea that was ravaged by Cold War-fueled nuclear weapons tests. The revived ecosystem is now home to plenty of reef sharks, which are supposedly non-migratory, which begs the literal question that they will seek to answer: Where on Earth did they come from?

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "During the Cold War the U.S. detonated 62 atomic bombs in the Marshall Islands, annihilating everything in their wake and completely destroying the ecosystem," says Ashlan. "Just how is nature able to bounce back after total devastation? We set out on an epic expedition to find out how grey reef sharks were able to repopulate in such mind blowing numbers at Bikini Atoll. Our show has nuclear bombs, hundreds of sharks, real science, pirates and bikinis... enough said!"

Jungle Shark (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: This special whisks you away to Costa Rica's Serena River, where the aforementioned Dr. OConnell and Casagrande to study the young bull sharks who swim up the river. Why do they do it? And how do they steer clear of those giant American crocodiles lurking in the water? Could it be that sharks smell their foes? Funny you say that; this is O'Connell's theory. Harnessing the power of olfactory science, he concocts a crocodile scent-based bull shark repellant that we're guessing doesn't smell like lavender or peppermint.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "As we journey through the Costa Rican rainforests, we cross paths with venomous snakes, huge 18-ft. American crocodiles, and sharks!" says O'Connell. "Not only that, my head nearly pops as I make a brand-new discovery that not only may lead to a new type of shark deterrent, but most importantly, reveals how American crocodiles and bull sharks may co-exist in the murky waters surrounding Corcovado National Park."

Shark After Dark (11 p.m. ET/PT)

FRIDAY, JULY 1

Shark Bait (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Remember a few specials ago when we told you about that whole sharks vs. dolphins battle? Well, great whites and seals are far from friends as well. And as Dr. Greg Skomal and his team have found out, there's an unusual war taking place in Cape Cod, where the sharks have learned different ways to hunt seals  when they're not stopping for the occasional lobster roll break, of course.

IF YOU CAN WATCH ONLY ONE SPECIAL, WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "Since the passing of the Marine Mammal Act protecting seals, there has been an explosion of them all over the coasts of Cape Cod," says Romeiro, who serves as an underwater cinematographer on this special as well: Unfortunately for them, their biggest predator has also become protected and is recovering from the brink of extinction. The great white shark has come home. To the very place that Jaws was born, the film that most hold responsible for the high popularity of sharks world wide. Watch as these two amazing animal battle through the gauntlet to fight to survive another summer in the dangerous cold waters of the Cape and not become shark bait."

Blue Serengeti (10 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Marine biologist Barbara Block, who knows a thing or three about the white sharks swimming the seas off California, probes this dangerous world by using cutting-edge camera technology, including camera tags on sharks and their prey, who, by the way, were totally cool about signing the waiver so their faces wouldn't have to be blurred.

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "I want to see science on Shark Week and

Blue Serengeti is real cutting-edge science," says Taylor Chappele, a white shark scientist featured in Blue Serengeti. "It's not just a show about sharks, it's an exploration of the whole marine ecosystem from plankton to whales that supports some of the largest predators on the planet." Adds executive producer Sarah Nixon: "Nine sharks, a whale and a juvenile elephant seal named Steve are our shooters! They are taking the viewer beneath the waves to reveal the unseen blue world off the California Coast  through their lens!"

SATURDAY, JULY 2

Sharksanity (9 p.m. ET/PT)

For the attention-span challenged, this is a highlight reel from Shark Week 2016 that features "the closest calls, biggest bites, and greatest gadgets," followed by your top picks from the all-time best programs in Shark Week's 29-year history.

SUNDAY, JULY 3

The Killing Games (9 p.m. ET/PT)

BITE-SIZE SUMMARY: Let's head back to South Australia, where Dr. Jonathan Werry and Casagrande marvel at a new hunting strategy used by great white sharks: Instead of waiting for the seals to hop back into the ocean, these sharks swim up to the coastline and grab them on the shore. Screw you, laws of nature!

WATCH THIS ONE BECAUSE: "We explore new and remote areas where large white sharks are almost void of human contact," says Werry. "This provides a fantastic, genuine research opportunity and real insight into the 'wild' and untamed behaviors of white sharks." Adds Casagrande: "Killing Games takes you into the mind of the shark. A lot is known about the physically prowess of hunting great whites  now we also reveal fascinating details about how they think, how they calculate their approach, how they use the sun to their advantage, and ultimately, how they are also able to attack prey on land. How crazy is that?"
German media reports said late Thursday afternoon that a masked gun man was killed when police stormed a movie cinema.

The police was responding to what had been described as a "threat situation" at a movie theater in Viernheim, Germany, near Mannheim. A major police action became necessary at the Kinopolis movie theater in the town, Zeit Online cited a police spokesman as saying. He didn't identify the gunman. Reuters also said the gunman was shot.

Unsourced German media reports in tabloid Bild and broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had said that an armed man had entered the movie theater and fired at least one shot. The reports said 20-50 people were believed to have been injured. Reuters also said that as many as 50 people were injured. Some local reports said the attacker used some form of gas.

German tabloid Bild said elite police forces were believed to have surrounded the theater after the gunman barricaded himself inside.

A spokesman for police in nearby Mannheim, said the police force there was not directly involved in the incident, but had sent officers to support their colleagues in the town.

More to come...
German media reports said late Thursday afternoon that a masked gun man was killed when police stormed a movie cinema.

The police was responding to what had been described as a "threat situation" at a movie theater in Viernheim, Germany, near Mannheim. A major police action became necessary at the Kinopolis movie theater in the town, Zeit Online cited a police spokesman as saying. He didn't identify the gunman. Reuters also said the gunman was shot.

Unsourced German media reports in tabloid Bild and broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had said that an armed man had entered the movie theater and fired at least one shot. The reports said 20-50 people were believed to have been injured. Reuters also said that as many as 50 people were injured. Some reports claim some people were injured by tear gas used by police.

German tabloid Bild said elite police forces were believed to have surrounded the theater after the gunman barricaded himself inside.

It is unclear whether there was a political or ideological motive behind the act or, as some local media sources have suggested, the shooting was a robbery that went wrong.

A spokesman for police in nearby Mannheim said the police force there was not directly involved in the incident, but had sent officers to support their colleagues in the town.

More to come.
By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will head to Silicon Valley on Friday to a summit aimed at connecting about 1,200 entrepreneurs from 170 countries with the biggest and brightest players in the U.S. tech sector and venture capital community.

Hot-button political issues that the White House and tech sector normally grapple with, such as the use of social media by extremists, the desire by law enforcement for a way around encryption, and cyber security, will not be on the agenda.

Obama is using the summit - the seventh in a series which have reached a total of 17,000 people mainly in Muslim-majority countries around the world - to help bolster his foreign policy legacy as his time in offices draws closer to the end on Jan. 20, 2017.

The idea for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit series emerged from a speech Obama made in Cairo in 2009, which he used to signal he wanted to overhaul U.S. policy on the Middle East and try to repair the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world.

When he took office, Obama worked to extract U.S. troops from long and costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Syria's civil war and the rise of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq have tested his strategy.

Islamic State has used social media to attract followers. Some have become self-radicalized, including a man who killed 49 people and wounded 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando earlier this month, and a married couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California last year.

But Obama's focus on Friday will not be about using technology to counter violent extremism. Rather, it is about connecting entrepreneurs from emerging markets with each other, and with potential sources of capital, giving a lift to emerging markets and contributing to security, said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

"We believe the United States needs to have affirmative values that we are promoting around the world, in addition to the efforts we do to counter terrorism," Rhodes told reporters.

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"We wanted to discuss not just want we're against, but what we're for," Rhodes said.

Obama is set to make remarks on Friday at the summit, held at Stanford University, and be part of a panel discussion with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

Obama will also do an interview with Zuckerberg on Facebook Live, and then talk with four entrepreneurs from around the world via Google, Rhodes said.

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco; editing by Diane Craft)
Continuing with our defining the Greeks series, this article will explain Theta. Remember, Greeks are merely a fancy name for a math formula used to measure or explain a price movement.

Theta is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet. This is how it is written in upper  and lowercase . When used in finance, the uppercase form is used.

Theta is how much the price of the option will change with time decay. This is actually quite useless when trading spreads, because it is a measurement of one days time value and all Nadex spreads are less than one day.

But Theta could be useful for trading options. Theta is lost when an option is bought, and made when an option is sold.

In reality, all that needs to be known when trading spreads is the premium, which is the extrinsic value, or the price subtracted from where the underlying market is currently trading. When trading Nadex spreads, use the Indicative Index as the reference for the current underlying market.

Look at this example on Wall St 30. The following example shows two spreads with the same ranges (floors and ceilings) but different expirations.

theta_image7.png

For a larger image, click HERE.

This image shows how Theta (Premium) decays with time. Notice the bid price of the 17775-17875 spread expiring at 4:00 p.m It is 17819. When the Indicative Index of 17817 is subtracted from it, the premium is +$2, which is Theta. Contrast this with the offer price of the same spread: 17823 minus 17817 is $6, but since the offer price is above the Indicative, premium would be reflected as a negative number.

Keep this simple since Theta is the one-day time value of a spread. All of the extrinsic value is Theta; there is no hard math or graphs needed.

Look at the following things: Where is the underlying market quote, and where is the spreads price? The further away they are from each other, the slower the contract will move. It does not matter if it is above it or below it. The proximity will determine the speed of the spreads price change relative to the price change of the underlying market.

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The following example may help in understanding how Theta works when trading instruments held longer than one day.

Suppose that Theta is .03 and an option is bought. It would lose .03 a day in extrinsic value. It may gain or lose more from movement of the underlying or if volatility changes.

Theta is on a curve. For example:

.03 three hours away

.04 two hours away

.05 one hour away

Then Theta will rise rapidly (as all extrinsic value has to be gone before expiration.) If the option is At the Money, or Out of The Money, then it would lose value much faster. Theta drops over time, not just in the last five minutes. There are no complex graphs needed. Simply consult a price ladder.

Theta can be overridden by implied volatility (IV). This means premium can rise as expiration approaches, if IV rises.

Remember, Theta is the amount the option will make or lose each day until expiration. It is very easy to figure on spreads that expire in one day or less. For more free trading education, visit www.apexinvesting.com.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
* SGX first Asian exchange to confirm margin hike on Brexit risk

* ASX warns clients of potential margin hikes

* Britain voting underway, results due Friday

* HSBC says prepared for any market impact (Adds detail on exchanges and brokers in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Thai)

By Michelle Price and Swati Pandey

HONG KONG/SYDNEY, June 23 (Reuters) - Singapore Exchange Ltd said it has raised the amount of cash firms must pledge to cover trading positions due to an expected rise in market volatility linked to Britain's vote on whether to exit the European Union.

Asia's markets will be the first to open in the wake of a landmark referendum on Thursday that will see UK citizens decide whether or not the country should remain a member of the European Union.

Traders expect extreme volatility, especially in currency markets and related currency derivatives contracts, particularly if the "Leave" camp wins.

"SGX has been assessing the potential impact of the UK's referendum on the country's EU membership," Agnes Koh, Chief Risk Officer, SGX told Reuters.

"Given the potential for increased market volatility, we have taken the precautionary step to introduce higher margins for contracts, including those with material open interest."

SGX is the first Asian exchange to publicly confirm increasing trading margins, although several others including the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd and the Australian branch of London Stock Exchange Group-owned LCH have privately told dealers they may also hike margins or require additional intra-day margin calls, traders told Reuters.

SGX, which raised margins on June 17, said it would continue to monitor market developments and may make further adjustments if needed.

Market volatility has already spiked in the run up to the referendum, with the CBOE Volatility index or VIX up 14 percent on Wednesday alone as polls showed the outcome was too close to call.

The Australian and Japan markets are expected the bear the brunt of the opening Asia-Pacific trading session.

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In notices issued to market participants on Thursday afternoon, the Australian Securities Exchange warned of potential additional margin calls on cash and futures products during the Friday trading session. "Participants should be prepared to meet all intra-day margin calls," the notice added.

A spokeswoman for the Japan Exchange Group, which runs the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange, said the bourse had not changed margins but was taking measures to ensure smooth trading in anticipation of increased trading volumes, including increasing the number of monitoring staff.

A spokeswoman for LCH, which clears over-the-counter derivatives in Australia, declined to comment on discussions with clients, but said the company's rules allow it to make additional margin calls.

Officials at the Korea and Thailand exchanges said they had no plans to raise margins. HKEX declined to comment.

BE READY

Dealers and traders in Asia Pacific have also taken a series of precautionary measures, including raising the margins they charge clients and stress-testing trading systems, traders told Reuters.

Many staff will be on call and key decision-makers will have to be present on the trading floors.

"We have increased margin requirements for a lot of instruments, all European indices, all FX and precious metals as well," Sydney-based CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy told Reuters.

"It's an important move from us both in terms of making sure there is enough capital in the trading accounts to protect the traders but also as a signal to them that we're expecting potentially unusual markets and they should be ready for that."

Many brokers were hit by a sudden lifting of a cap on the Swiss franc against the euro in January 2015 by the Swiss National Bank that saw trading seize up, prices disappear and the currency's value balloon by 40 percent in minutes. That led to a trail of losses and bankruptcies, especially in the retail trading segment.

Pattera Dilokrungthirapop, chairwoman of Association of Thai Securities Companies told Reuters some brokerage firms may raise cash for margin trading on case by case basis to help manage risk.

"Currently, brokers have managed risk quite well and set collateral at about 35-40 percent, which is higher than minimum requirements. I don't think it should be any problem."

Major banks around the world are also preparing.

One senior HSBC executive said the bank had ramped up staff levels in its global markets business and had extra people on call. An HSBC spokesman said the bank has prepared for any market impact caused by the referendum.

In a notice sent to FX clients on Tuesday, Swiss investment bank UBS warned clients it may fail to execute some orders on its electronic trading platform.

Some money remitters, many of which were burnt by the SNB incident, sat out the market entirely on Thursday.

Azimo, one of the leaders of the new breed of online brokers, said it would make an unprecedented move to halt operations from 6 a.m. on Thursday.

It said it would resume after "things have settled down on Friday and we can safely trade again."

(Additional reporting by Saikat Chatterjee in Hong Kong, Sano Hideyuki in Tokyo, Manunphattr Dhanananphorn and Wirat Buranakanokthanasan in Bangkok and the South Korea newsroom; Editing by Denny Thomas and Lincoln Feast)
A divided Supreme Court issued a one-sentence ruling on Thursday that blocked President Obamas sweeping plan to protect 5 million immigrants from deportation. The ruling is likely to make waves in the 2016 presidential race.

The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court, the Supreme Court announced. In a tie, the lower courts decision prevails. There have been only eight justices on the court since the February death of Antonin Scalia.

With the decision, the court waded into the politically charged issue of illegal immigration and, by default, significantly scaled back President Obamas executive powers without actually reaching a decision. Obama named Judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, but Senate Republicans have refused to even consider replacing the late justice until 2017, when Obama will be out of office.

In a statement after the tied ruling, Obama urged Congress to pass immigration reform and approve his Supreme Court nominee. He also called the decision heartbreaking for immigrants.

In November, Americans are going to have to make a decision about what we care about and who we are, Obama said, condemning election-year fear mongering about immigrants.

Jackelin Alfaro, 7, of Washington, D.C., hugs her aunt, Gelin Alfaro, of Veracruz, Mexico, during an immigration rally at the Supreme Court, Thursday, June 23, 2016. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

Up until now, the conservative-majority court has been kind to Obamas legacy, upholding several challenges to his health care law and his Justice Departments decision to discontinue defending the Defense of Marriage Act.

During oral argument in this case, however, both Justices John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy seemed skeptical that the president had the power to unilaterally shield millions of immigrants from deportation, with Kennedy saying it seemed upside down for Obama  and not Congress  to set those priorities. The government argued that the president has long been allowed to decide where to direct enforcement resources and that the president wanted to focus on deporting criminals and recently arrived immigrants instead of young people or their families with ties to the country.

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The courts deadlock not only prevents Obama from extending his program to 5 million new immigrants: It also leaves open the possibility that states could challenge his earlier executive action that protected about a million young people who illegally immigrated to the U.S. as children. That program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has been less controversial, and no significant legal challenges exist to it so far. In his Thursday statement, Obama said that fortunately the four-year-old DACA program was not affected by the Supreme Court action.

Because the lower-court injunction was preliminary, the Obama administration still has the option of appealing the lower court for a full ruling on the stalled executive action. The administration could then appeal that decision back to the Supreme Court, hoping that by the time it arrived, Congress would have approved a ninth member. But Obama did not mention appealing the decision and suggested on Thursday that his expansion attempt was over.

This election-year move by the Supreme Court will be fodder for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Both presidential candidates can credibly argue that their Supreme Court pick will decide the fate of the 5 million immigrants who would have been protected by Obamas DAPA  Deferred Action for Parents of Americans  program, according to Jack Chin, law professor at the University of California.

If we have a Democratic president who appoints one or more Democrats to the Supreme Court, then were going to have executive immigration reform. And if we have a Republican, then were not, Chin said.

Trump has vowed to repeal Obamas executive actions on his first day of office, which would include the earlier DACA program, which shields young immigrants from deportation. He has also run on a promise to temporarily block immigration from Muslim countries.

Clinton released a statement Thursday condemning the Supreme Courts deadlock, saying she would do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families and to pass comprehensive immigration reform if elected.

Meanwhile, Republicans were celebrating the decision. The law is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement. Trump said in a statement that the Supreme Court had blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a President.
11:10 AM Yoni AppelbaumLink

As the sit-in hits the 24-hour mark, were shifting our continuing coverage to a new post. Scroll down below to see how the action unfolded on Wednesday, or follow along with us as we continue to update the story in real time here:

Democrats have been sitting on the floor of the House for 24 hours as they try to convince the Republican House majority to hold votes on gun-control measures. And it doesnt sound like theyll be leaving anytime soon. We are going to hold the floor of the House of Representatives  until we can get the majority to do their jobs and give us a vote, Florida Representative and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Thursday morning on CBS. It is a cowardly act that they have not at least allowed a vote.

07:44 AM Yoni AppelbaumLink

The House, it turns out, can bring timely, controversial legislation to a votejust not the bills that Democrats had hoped would make it to the floor.

Shortly after 3 a.m. on Thursday morning, Speaker Paul Ryan pushed a bill to fund the fight against the Zika virus to a vote, The Hill reports. It was an unusual procedureappropriations bills are rarely rushed through to a floor vote without debate. As Nora wrote, it represents a compromisebut a deal struck among contending Republican factions, and which includes provisions that seem sure to leave many Democrats dissatisfied, and which includes crucial differences with the Senates measure, although it provides the same top line amount. The White House has already signaled its discontent.

A Ryan spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, explained the logic of the move:

Despite the publicity stunt on the floor, House Republicans were intent on not allowing these tactics to stop us from completing this important business. With that tangible accomplishment, we will be moving on to the previously scheduled district work period.

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Thats legislator-speak for recess time. The chamber will rehearse the kabuki theater of the pro forma session at 9 a.m. on Thursday, but isnt scheduled to take another vote until July 5.

For Ryan, it means making the best of a tough situation. The Democratic sit-in may have eclipsed his rollout of a concrete legislative agenda, but by reacting with a measure of restraint and stressing his desire to keep working, hes adroitly avoided the sort of dramatic confrontation that might have proved politically disastrous.

House Democrats, a couple dozen of whom remained on the floor through the night, will reportedly meet this morning to decide on their next steps.

10:42 PM Russell BermanLink

And just like that, the brief House session is over. Republicans gaveled the chamber back out of session shortly after 10:30 p.m. following a pair of votes unrelated to the Democrats' protest over inaction on gun control measures, which passed the 11-hour mark. (The House failed to override President Obama's veto of the resolution blocking a financial regulation.) For now, however, Democrats are continuing their sit-in in the well of the House chamber. A Periscope video broadcast on CSPAN and taken by Representative Scott Peters showed a group of Democrats giving speeches once again with the official cameras and the microphones off.

10:30 PM Priscilla AlvarezLink

Meanwhile, outside of the Capitol, hundreds of people are gathering:

Hundreds of people are outside of the @uscapitol at 9:30 PM. Men, women & children, standing & sharing pic.twitter.com/S37lpv2bWI  Alex Howard (@digiphile) June 23, 2016

10:18 PM Russell BermanLink

The choice of the votes the Republicans are holding is significant here. It is a procedural vote that will lead into a veto override of a joint resolution to block an Obama administration regulation on retirement savings. Democrats have the votes to sustain the veto, so this discourages them from abstaining to continue their protest. They are casting votes now, though in a slower, manual way to slow down the vote. Had Republicans chosen to bring up a normal piece of legislation that would pass by simple majority, Democrats might have chosen not to vote. It appears they will still continue their sit-in once these votes are done.

10:15 PM Yoni AppelbaumLink

Its a surreal scene on the House floor, as Speaker Paul Ryan gavels it back to order, and the CSPAN cameras switch back on.

The Democrats wave signs, chanting No Bill, No Break. Ryan bulldozes ahead, moving through the ritualized process of bringing a bill to a vote. The polite fictions of regular order are on clear display as he calls for a voice vote and solemnly intones, In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, almost drowned out by the shouted objections of Democrats on the floor.

The vote is on the repeal of the Department of Labors fiduciary rule, which requires investment advisors to serve the best interests of their clientsand not their own. Republicans object that the rule is a classic act of government overreach, strangling small businesses with unnecessary regulations.

Its an important battle, but like the Democratic sit-in, its an act of pure political theater. Theres no indication that Republicans possess the votes to override Obamas veto. But Ryan offers a convincing performance, remaining calm and avoiding open conflict. Now, as the House votes, the political drama takes its intermission. Well see who prevails in the next act.

10:12 PM Andrew McGillLink

House Speaker Paul Ryan is conducting his business like nothing is happening. Over the shouts of the Democratic members, Ryan calmly called for comment on the planned item, the override of Presidents Obamas veto of a House action to defang new Labor Department regulations over financial advisors. Theyre now in the midst of a 15 minute electronic voteand the Democrats are still on their feet.

I've never seen an image like this before in congress. #NoBillNoBreak pic.twitter.com/VwudyWJgkT  Steven Dial (@StevenDialTV) June 23, 2016

10:07 PM Nora KellyLink

Assuming the chair, House Speaker Paul Ryan said he appreciates that lawmakers have differences. But the chair would hope that the business of the House could be conducted in a way that reflects positively on the dignity and decorum of this institution to which we all belong. Democrats keep yelling No bill, no break!"

10:04 PM Nora KellyLink

It looks the showdown between House Republicans and Democrats will indeed be starting soon.

House Republicans are starting to stream in, taking their seats and waiting patiently  Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 23, 2016

#GOP members now yelling "due process" Dems saying sssssssh  Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) June 23, 2016

Republicans might already be in the chamber, but Democrats haven't stopped talking these last few minutes.

09:53 PM Nora KellyLink

House Republicans are planning to hold a vote in a few minutes, but don't expect Democrats to move. They can conduct a vote on the veto override, but that doesn't mean that we leave the floor, Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen said in a call from the House Democratic cloakroom, just off the floor. He emphasized lawmakers' intent to stay put, through the night if need be, and said House Republicans must agree to two votes: one on a bill to restrict suspected terrorists' access to guns, and another on background checks. The American public would like to see democracy work its will in the House, Van Hollen said. Votes should be held in the light of day and with the microphones on.

09:51 PM Yoni AppelbaumLink

In 1960, John Lewis took part in a campaign to integrate lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, using a series of sit-ins. The first demonstrations brought torrents of abuse, but no response to the city. But then a sit-in at six stores across Nashville brought out the police force, and the arrests of the protestors. For the civil-rights movement, though, it wasnt a defeatbut a crucial victory. So many were arrested that the jails couldnt hold them, and they were soon released. We were exultant, Lewis later wrote:

Those six hours had been an act of baptism for all involved. We felt as if wed won a huge victory. We felt that way the next day when we saw newspapers trumpeting the violence and arrests with huge headlines.

This was the lesson of the sit-in campaignthat acts of civil disobedience could advance a cause by provoking gross overreactions, and arousing the sympathy of a watching nation. And its one that Lewis clearly seeks to apply tonight.

That presents Speaker Paul Ryan with a difficult choice. His carefully orchestrated roll-out of a comprehensive legislative agenda is being drowned out by the Democrats on the House floor. He can continue to mount a principled case against the Democratic billand on the no-fly list, in particular, hell find plenty of liberals who share his concerns about singling out Americans without due process of law. But that wont move the Democrats off the floor.

Alternatively, he can instruct the sergeant-at-arms to have the Capitol Police clear the floor. As Nora noted, there are reports that officers are standing byand that the House will move to a vote at 10 p.m. Earlier this afternoon, Representative Charlie Dent, a close ally of Ryans, hinted at what might be ahead. It will be loud and probably be noisy, he told The Hill. You might want to get in the gallery and watch the show.

Its hard to imagine, though, that the sight of John Lewis once more being dragged away by police officers, splashed across front pages across the country, will yield the results that Ryan seeks.

09:50 PM Priscilla AlvarezLink

House Republicans will reconvene at 10 p.m. to vote on legislation, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthys communications director.

At approximately 10:00 p.m. we will to reconvene and vote to override the Presidents veto on H.J. Res. 88.  Mike Long (@MikePLong) June 23, 2016

H.J. Res. 88 is unrelated to the sit-in. The bill is regarding the Labor Departments fiduciary rule. House Republicans were originally scheduled to vote on a veto override of the rule earlier tonight, before that vote was delayed by the House Democrats' sit-in.

09:28 PM Nora KellyLink

Reports on Twitter suggest that a group of law enforcement officers are idling in the Capitol building. While officers consistently provide security in buildings on the Hill, it seems many are assembled in just one room on the first floor, the one below House chambers.

Confirmed: Just peaked inside room full of officers on 1st floor of Capitol (pic coming) https://t.co/NJUzfXaRWu  Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) June 23, 2016

Pic from outside Capitol on first floor. Counted 7 officers inside rm and could only see one half of room. 4 outside pic.twitter.com/sKGKhuISxX  Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) June 23, 2016

08:51 PM Nora KellyLink

North Carolina Democrat G.K. Butterfield just called for Speaker Ryan to come to the House floor. He first arrived in House chambers more than eight hours ago, and thinks its going to be a long night for House Democrats.

08:42 PM Priscilla AlvarezLink

Even if phones arent permitted on the House floor, theyre certainly in full use today. So much so that theres a call on the floor for phone batteries:

Calls going out for extra phone batteries from Dems on House floor to keep livestreaming going for #sitin.  Suzanne Gamboa (@SuzGamboa) June 23, 2016

As Nora noted earlier, CSPAN hasnt been able to stream the House sit-in due, in part, to tensions between the network and House leadership. As a result, a number of members have had to live stream it on their own devices. But theyll have to charge up to keep them going.

08:23 PM Yoni AppelbaumLink

The rule against mobile phones on the House floor isnt even as old as mobile phones. A version first came into effect in 1995 as a ban on personal electronic office equipment. In 2003, it was modified to bar the use of a wireless telephone or personal computer on the floor. It assumed its present form in 2011, as a ban on any mobile electronic device that impairs decorum.

But what does that mean? The bodys parliamentarian explains:

Pursuant to the modification of this clause in the 112th Congress, the Speaker announced that mobile electronic devices that impair decorum include wireless telephones and personal computers, but that electronic tablet devices may be used unobtrusively in the Chamber, although no device may be used for still photography or for audio or video recording (Speaker Boehner, Jan. 5, 2011, p. l). The Chair has also announced that Members should disable wireless telephones on entering the Chamber (e.g., June 12, 2000, p. 10369).

So tablets are allowed on the floor, but even having phones switched on, much less snapping photos, tweeting updates, or periscoping the proceedings, is a violation of the rules of the House.

It may be the least of the acts of civil disobedience on display today. But like other acts in defiance of formal rules and established norms, its likely to have ripple effects that extend beyond this particular protest. Now that members have seen how effective a tactic live streaming can be, expect to see it deployed in support of initiatives of all kinds.

08:06 PM Andrew McGillLink

John Lewis is rallying the troops before the Republicans enter the chamber. I want to thank each and every one of you for finding a way to get in the way, he told his fellow Democrats. We have a right to protest for what is right. This may be the floor of the House, but this is the people's house. They sent us here to represent them. That's all we can do.

His gave some counsel to legislators unused to a sit-in, especially one that will soon be surrounded by determined members of the opposite party. My advice would be to be orderly, be peaceful, and respectful  I don't know what's going to happen tonight. But my idea is, just stay here.

07:51 PM Andrew McGillLink

House Republicans will apparently try to hold a vote tonight, despite the seated Democrats, to overturn a Labor Department regulation on financial advisors.

From The Hill:

"It will be loud and probably be noisy, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), part of Speaker Paul Ryans group of advisers, told reporters after House Republicans held a special meeting about how they should respond to the day-long Democratic sit-in. You might want to get in the gallery and watch the show, Dent added.

The Democrats say theyre not moving; from CSPANs livefeed, it appears theyre amping up for a bit of a fight. If the Republicans want to take a vote, theyll "need a crane to clear the chamber, one member joked.

07:21 PM Nora KellyLink

Democrats have been occupying the House floor for almost eight hours. In that time, as weve already noted, CSPANs cameras have been turned off. Politico noted earlier today that the cameras are cut off because the House is not in session. But Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have suggested Republicans are deliberately trying to hide their sit-in from the American people. In his interview with CNN, Paul Ryan said thats not true. This is the way the rules work, Ryan said, and this is how they have [worked] ever since weve had TV. Ryan noted that Democrats turned off the cameras in 2008 when House Republicans staged a similar protest, an incident my colleague Russell Berman wrote about earlier this afternoon.

The Hill has more on the longtime tension between CSPAN and House leadership:

The incident highlights a major conflict between C-SPANthe network that has provided floor coverage for decadesand the House administration, which controls the video, audio and angles of the cameras. The feed itself is produced by the House recording studio, which is under the control of the House majority leadership. Since 1979, the cable network has had to rely entirely on the House feed for its coverage. The company has made numerous requests to both parties over the years to set up its own cameras, which have been denied. "We have a long history of asking for access and being denied by both parties over the years," C-SPAN Communications Director Howard Mortman said. He said it is common for the cameras to go off when the chamber is in recess, though that did not stop viewers from expressing their outrage.

07:17 PM Andrew McGillLink

Democratic Representative John Lewis, the elder statesman behind the sit-in, just sent an email blast asking for petition signatures to put pressure on Paul Ryan.

(Recipients name), Ive had enough. Enough of my Republican colleagues inaction. Enough of the empty thoughts and moments of silence. Enough of the daily toll of gun violence in this country. It is time that Congress do what is just, what is right, and what is long overdue. But House Republicans wont consider any action on gun safety. Thats why I, and many House Democrats in Congress, began a sit-in on the House floor just hours ago. Join us in fighting for common-sense gun safety. How many more people need to shed tears of grief, before we do something? Republicans cannot continue to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the plague of gun violence in our country. The American people are demanding action and we have the obligation to do what we can to reduce gun violence in our great nation. The time for silence is over. Stand with us: Add your name now. Thank you, John Lewis

The email links to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee petition featuring a rather unflattering photo of Ryan, and requests an email address and a zip code. As of 7 p.m., it appeared the petition had close to 900,000 signatures, though the site only shows an overall progress bar and not individual responses.

06:57 PM Andrew McGillLink

Word has it that House Republicans met at 6 p.m., either to discuss the Democratic sit-in or to figure out what the heck they're going to do the rest of this week. Earlier on CNN, as Nora notes, Paul Ryan broke his day-long silence on the Democratic takeover, calling it a "publicity stunt."

But looking at Twitter, you wouldn't think Republican members of Congress had noticed at all. This GOP-curated list of official House Republican Twitter accounts is almost entirely devoid of any mention of the sit-in, instead hyping Ryan's health care speech. Compare that to the Democratic feed, which is packed wall-to-wall with Tweets of support for #NoBillNoBreak.

But did I speak too soon? Two Republicans just dropped tweets deriding their Democratic colleagues:

The sit-in is a misdirected attempt to distract the public from the true issue, radical Islamic terrorism.  Gary Palmer (@USRepGaryPalmer) June 22, 2016

It's time for Democrats to get off the floor and stand up for the Bill of Rights. https://t.co/yMkYtn7Ehy  John Fleming (@RepFleming) June 22, 2016

Is this the beginning of a deluge?

06:43 PM Nora KellyLink

Paul Ryan never gets to talk about what he wants to talk about. In a CNN interview Wednesdaythe same day House Republicans released their new health-care planWolf Blitzer peppered Ryan with questions about the sit-in happening in his House chamber. This is a publicity stunt, Ryan said, when Blitzer asked if he would schedule a vote on a terrorist-watchlist-related bill. They are trying to get you to ask me those questions for publicitys sake.

Ryan is used to having his policy agenda sidelined since becoming House speaker last fall. For months, his press conferences have been hijacked by questions about Donald Trump, who was also the subject of much inquiry in the CNN interview. Gun control dominated the first part of Ryans interview Wednesday, with Blitzer asking Ryan directly whether the National Rifle Associationwhich Blitzer said has contributed tens of thousands to Ryanis blocking action in Congress. No, the Constitution is, Ryan said, adding that people have a right to own guns.

06:18 PM Nora KellyLink

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker joined House Democrats on the floor earlier this afternoon, and if theyre still there later tonight after he attends an event, he plans to go back. House Democrats supported the Senates gun-control filibuster last week, and Booker intends to return the favor.

Were at a point now where the crisis before usI thinknecessitates us using our moral imagination in finding new ways to come together on gun control, Booker told me. In his view, John Lewiss role in the sit-in is of the utmost significance, and could bring outsized attention to Democrats efforts. He said a compromise in the Senate on gun control is an impressive change for that chamber, and hope[s] youll see in the House some of the same movement youre seeing in the Senate.

I can only hope that a moral giant like John Lewis, the activism of other members, the engagement of the American public as a whole, call to the conscientiousness of those who are resisting common-sense steps, Booker said.

06:04 PM Andrew McGillLink

Harry Reid lent his support today to Senator Susan Collins's gun control compromise bill, saying that while it may be a small step, at least it is a step forward.

I support Senator Collins legislation to keep guns and explosives out of the hands of terrorists, the Senate minority leader said in a statement. Democrats and Republicans are working together to find solutions and protect Americans from gun violence. The Senate should vote on Senator Collins amendment.

Reid's support will lend momentum to a bill that hasn't yet completely won over Senate Democrats, including No. 3 Chuck Schumer, who has pushed for wider reform. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to give the bill a vote but has yet to reveal his own position.

05:40 PM Nora KellyLink

Members have applauded the spontaneous nature of todays events, but behind the scenes, plans for the sit-in have been brewing for several days. Massachusetts Democrat Katherine Clark told me it all started last week on the House floor, when she approached Representative John Lewis. She told him her concerns that Congress would not act on gun control in the wake of the Orlando shooting, and Lewis suggested they make a dramatic moveand stage a sit-in. Clark and Lewis formulated their plan over the weekendwith some other members joining inbut they mostly tried to keep it somewhat under wraps. By Tuesday morning, lawmakers had prepared a letter to send to House Speaker Paul Ryan, and word about their effort began to spread. The Ryan letter, with 19 total signatories, describes what they had planned for the floor:

[W]e stand with thousands of brokenhearted families who have not been served by this Congress, and millions more who are counting on us to find the moral courage to do the right thing. We stand together in our refusal to sit by while this Congress abdicates its fundamental responsibility to protect American families from harm. We urge you to keep the House in session until we have robust debate and votes on expanding background checks and banning the sale of firearms to suspected terrorists. Until then, we are resolved and committed to speaking out for victims, survivors, and families at home who deserve a vote. We are prepared to continue standing on the House floor whenever the House is in session to assist you in bringing these bills to a vote.

Clark said the response to the sit-inseeing the ranks of lawmakers on the floor grow, and the normally empty gallery fill uphas been heartening. It has been a very emotional and powerful day, Clark said, noting that shes listened to her colleagues talk from their hearts about their experiences in their districts and their neighborhoods with gun violence, and [about] how what were asking for is so simple. She said shes hopeful theyll get news from GOP leadership about scheduling a vote. But if that doesnt happen, Clark is prepared to stay: Before she came to the Hill this morning, she packed a suitcase, toothbrush, and as many phone chargers as I could.

05:25 PM Clare ForanLink

Will House Democrats get a vote on the gun control measures they're hoping for?

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters that he spoke with Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, but said McCarthy didnt seem willing to negotiate. The majority leader came over and talked to me, and we simply talked about what I thought was needed to get on with the business that they want to pursue, Hoyer said. I said, well, very simple, just give us a vote. Asked what the majority leader said in response, Hoyer said: He didnt give us a vote, yet. McCarthy also didnt give any indication that he would negotiate, according to Hoyer. He added: I made it pretty clear that what members wanted was to have the opportunity to vote, and that I would think his members would be amenable to voting, and he ought to be amenable to voting.

Are House Democrats planning to hold the floor until a vote is allowed? I think were intending to hold the floor for a long time, Hoyer said. That doesnt mean a vote will actually happen. I dont know that Im optimistic, Im hopeful, he said. The majority leaders office did not immediately return a request for comment. This post will be updated if they respond.

04:54 PM Nora KellyLink

The Boston Globes Matt Viser notes on Twitter that House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has not yet made public remarks on the sit-in, will appear on TV in just over an hour.

Paul Ryan will be on CNN at 6pm. Hes planning to talk health care. But most likely will be asked about whats transpiring on House floor.  Matt Viser (@mviser) June 22, 2016

Viser is surely rightno reporter could resist asking Ryan what he makes of the House chamber takeover. But whether Ryan's new health-care plan gets much airtime at all is another matter.

04:41 PM Vann R. Newkirk IILink

Senator Bernie Sanders has made his way to the House floor to participate in the Democrats' sit-in. It is unclear if he will give remarksor even what the proper procedure is for such remarks, but his presence is already important as the presidential candidate has been hammered by Hillary Clinton and others in the party for his stance on gun control. He has recently supported the proposed background check legislation and rule banning people on the terrorist watch list from buying guns.

04:33 PM Clare ForanLink

At least one House Republican seems to think the sit-in is a distraction. Republican Representative Jeff Duncan, of South Carolina, took to Twitter to offer a theory as to why Democrats are holding the House floor.

Dems protesting on House Floor over GOP refusal to destroy 2nd & 5th amdnts. Is this to distract from State Dept scandal & GOP health plan?  Rep. Jeff Duncan (@RepJeffDuncan) June 22, 2016

04:21 PM Andrew McGillLink

Though their individual agendas may differ, most Democratic participants in this sit-in want the same thing: legislative movement on gun control proposals, which are largely jammed up in the Senate. Several bills seek to deny firearms to people listed on a government-maintained terrorist watch list, including the no-fly list. The most recent proposal came from Senator Susan Collins of Maine, whose legislation would make it harder for folks with suspected terrorist ties to purchase a gun, and would require to FBI to send up a red flag if someone listed in a broader terrorist watch list bought a weapon.

But as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf recently noted, this approach has serious civil rights implications, even though most Americans say they'd support such a move. Denying a person their constitutional rights based on their inclusion in a dicey government-run database is troubling, he said:

Americas terrorist watch list is an opaque abomination. Members of the public are unaware of what actions might get them placed on the list. Individuals cannot verify whether or not they've been designated by their government as an enemy. They can't challenge their status before a neutral arbiter, or know when their status changes. The Obama administration has run a system in which watch-list standards are beyond debate, and in which individual determinations are made entirely within the executive branch, short-circuiting the American system of checks and balances. This degree of secrecy and arbitrariness is un-American, and may even prevent scrutiny of why this latest terrorist was erroneously excluded as a threat. It is already a scandal that a list like this can prevent a person from flying, as if moving about the country is a privilege, not a right. And now, Democrats are proposing that being on a secret, due-process free list should strip people of a constitutional right.

It's not clear whether the measures Collins supports would have kept Omar Mateen from obtaining a gun. Though investigated by the FBI and briefly included on a broader terror watch list, Mateen was no longer being monitored when he made his purchase. Indeed, as Russell noted last week, Mateen was working as a licensed security guard at the time. Collins's look-back provision might have alerted the FBI that he had his hands on an assault rifle, but unless they reached him within a week of the purchase, it would have been too late.

04:12 PM Conor FriedersdorfLink

While I'm not opposed on civil liberties grounds to bans on high-capacity magazines or other gun control measures that preserve the individual right to own a weapon, I'm highly skeptical of efforts toward even those ends that feature members of Congress adopting the tactics of the powerless. Sit-ins are righteous when they're the tool of an oppressed minority group insisting on equal rights. And the tactic is at least defensible when it's the only way to draw attention to an ostensibly righteous cause no one would otherwise know about or have a chance to rally behind.

But members of Congress are among the most powerful political actors in the country, and they are acting on an issue that is endlessly discussed and debated, not one that requires unusual tactics, like subverting order in the national legislature, to air all sides of the matter. When Republicans respond to not getting their way by undermining legislative norms, the press objects.

It should object here.

Legislators who lack the votes to do what they want have the platform to persuade the public and to campaign to oust their colleagues. Precisely because of their political power, their extra-political machinations have less legitimacy. And they are likely to fail, because they do nothing to change the underlying obstacles to more gun control: the Constitution, a determined minority interest group that cares about the issue more than its opponents, and voters who, while well to the left of the NRA, are well to the right of congressional Democrats on guns.

04:02 PM Russell BermanLink

Republicans may have shut off the cameras and the microphones in the House, but at least they havent shut off the lights. Eight years ago, it was Republicans doing the protesting on the House floor, and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was shutting them down. That demonstration was over the refusal of Democrats to hold a vote on energy legislation, which I wrote about here.

03:59 PM Clare ForanLink

Tom Cole, a Republican representative from Oklahoma, expressed frustration over the sit-in. It's disappointing, he said while stepping into an elevator outside the House gallery.

Asked if he had a sense of what Republicans plan to do in response, Cole replied: I don't know what the plans are, but I don't think we should allow any group to bring the work of the House to a halt. For now, House Republicans may not have a concrete plan, but they seem to steering clear of the House gallery and surrounding area.

03:55 PM Nora KellyLink

Floridian Debbie Wasserman Schultz read a letter from former Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords to her fellow Democrats. As I mentioned earlier, Giffords was shot in 2011 and has been a powerful symbol for the gun-control movement ever since. She and her husband Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, started their own advocacy group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, in 2013. Its founding coincided with the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting in which Giffords was wounded, just weeks after the Newtown massacre.

In her letter, Giffords emphasized that gun violence affects a wide variety of people and communities. They die by murder, they die by suicide, and they die by neglect, she wrote. Often, they dont die, but they carry the scars and their lives change forever. She wrote there is nowhere that I would rather be than the House floor, and called on members of Congress to put aside their differences and move forward on gun-control measures. Speaking is difficult for me, but I havent been silenced, Giffords wrote, her words moving Schultz to tears. And neither should the American people. Their representatives must vote to prevent gun violence.

03:42 PM Marina KorenLink

Elizabeth Warren is in the House.

The senator from Massachusetts is hitting the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton this month, starting in Cincinnati on Monday. Warren was one of the last Democratic senators to endorse Clinton, and is reportedly being considered as her potential running mate.

03:33 PM Marina KorenLink

Congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas has begun streaming the sit-in on Facebook, giving people outside of the chamber another way to tune in as the House's televisions, which are controlled by Republican Party leaders, remain turned off. It looks like Facebook does not allow users to embed videos while they're still live, so go here to watch.

03:30 PM Nora KellyLink

This sit-in is about to enter its fifth hour. Members are supposed to be voting today, but it's not clear if and when those votes will happen. According to a floor schedule circulated by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer before the sit-in started, the first vote was expected between 3 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. ET.

03:26 PM Clare ForanLink

Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden are two of the Democratic senators who made the trek over to the other side of the Capitol to show support for the sit-in. I really appreciate their [House Democrats] courage in joining with what we started in the Senate, Stabenow said, alluding to the recent filibuster that took place in the upper chamber.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need action, she said, adding: The people of the country deserve a vote. Right now the House Republicans are blocking even a vote. There is carnage in our country. Wyden echoed her remarks, saying: These mass shootings are happening like clockwork.

Stabenow said that Senate Democrats did not know about the action ahead of time, but we immediately got involved to support them.

03:19 PM Andrew McGillLink

Speaker Paul Ryan has been tweetingbut not about the open revolt on the House floor. Instead, he's promoting a speech he just gave at the American Enterprise Institute on a proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act. It's led to an interesting string of replies on his Twitter feed.

@SpeakerRyan no bill no break! Address the issue that the American people are demanding!  Belinda Campbell (@BelindaCampbe11) June 22, 2016

03:14 PM Nora KellyLink

Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona House member, has evidently prepared a letter for House Democrats. Giffords was shot in 2011 while meeting with constituents, and has been a prominent advocate for gun control ever since. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said moments ago that she wants to read the letter, but wont do so while the mics are off. She called on House Speaker Ryan to act: Mr. Speaker, turn on this microphone.

03:11 PM Marina KorenLink

Periscope is catching on to the high demand, and has created a channel for footage coming out of the House floor:

With official broadcasts suspended in the House, weve created a channel to follow #NoBillNoBreak on #Periscope live pic.twitter.com/1xM0QGqvzh  Periscope TV (@periscopetv) June 22, 2016

03:06 PM Nora KellyLink

Democrats seem to be reveling in their rule-breaking. To claps and cheers, Representative Jared Huffman noted moments ago that while CSPANs House cameras arent on, far more people are watching the floor on pirated video than would normally be watching CSPAN. Referring to his Republican colleagues, Huffman said they can cut off the mics, they can cut off the cameras, they will not silence our voice.

Representative Scott Peters, whose Periscope stream CSPAN is carrying, just recommended that his fellow members download Periscope and stream the floor with him.

03:03 PM Andrew McGillLink

U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, of Missouri, referenced the widespread support among the American public for new gun laws on the House floor. Ninety percent of Americans are with us, he told his colleagues. Ninety percent of Republicans say that we ought to restrict guns so that people on terrorist lists can't get guns. Everybody's for this. He scoffed. We can't get the mics on.

Cleaver didn't cite his source. But a recent survey by CNN/ORC mostly backs up his assertions. Around 85 percent of respondents said they'd support preventing people on the no-fly list from owning guns. (Republicans were actually more likely than Democrats to agree with this measure, at 90 percent versus 85 percent). More than half of Americans favor a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of semi-automatic rifles, and an identical proportion support banning high-capacity ammo clips.

That said, support for these measures have generally slipped over the past five years. The percentage of people who support an assault rifle ban, for instance, fell 7 percentage points since January 2011, from 61 percent to 54 percent.

02:53 PM Marina KorenLink

Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, has begun reading the names and ages of the 49 victims of the Orlando shooting. The city of Orlando has a list of the names on its website here. Most of the shooting victims were men in their 20s and 30s; the youngest was 19, the oldest was 50.

02:51 PM Clare ForanLink

Alan Grayson is optimistic. They [Republicans] haven't even attempted to take the floor from us, so that's encouraging, the Democratic representative from Florida told me outside the House gallery. Maybe that means they're trying to decide ... what they can do to acknowledge people's understandable feelings that action is necessary right now.

Grayson wants a vote on gun control measures, but more than just a vote, I'm hoping that we actually pass solid gun safety legislation, he said, adding: but obviously without a vote we couldn't possibly do that.

The congressman said he's never seen anything like this before. It's heartfelt, he said. We are showing up, and standing up in any way that we can to save people's lives.

02:47 PM Vann R. Newkirk IILink

This sit-in is a return to old habits for its leader Representative John Lewis, who is well-known for his history as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He has experience with dozens of protests, sit-ins, and the famous Freedom Rides.

With the Republican and Democratic conventions on the horizon and with black protest perhaps brewing again, the sit-in on the House floor for gun legislation is a reminder of Lewiss involvement in the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, where his Freedom Summer ended with a powerful speech from Fannie Lou Hamer and a sit-in from the black Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in favor of a voting rights law. That sit-in precipitated a massive change in American electoral politics and was a key contributor to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The third volume of Lewiss graphic novel series, March: Book Three, created by Lewis himself along with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell takes a look at the 1964 Democratic Convention, and the parallels to the current moment and the tension around the 2016 Cleveland and Philadelphia conventions are striking:

March: Book Three comes out August 2 and I think its a great companion for understanding Lewis and his choice of action on the floor today. Heres a look at the cover too:

02:35 PM Nora KellyLink

According to Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, the sit-in didnt start as some organized plan. He called me after making remarks on the floor about the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, when my community, Fairfax County, buried five young people. More than 30 people died in that incident. Unfortunately this is being repeated all over the country, he said. Connolly said the sit-in happened almost spontaneously, and has taken on a life of its own. In his view, the ad-hoc nature of the protest reflects members feeling that enough was enoughthey had just had it.

02:27 PM Marina KorenLink

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has taken a seat on the House floor.

Other senators present, according to Twitter reports: Chris Coons, Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, Barbara Boxer, Ed Markey, and Claire McCaskill.

02:23 PM Emma GreenLink

Even though many Democrats are participating in today's sit-in, this isn't necessarily a unified push within the party. Many on the left do not agree with the current proposal to ban gun sales to those on two separate terrorist watch lists. As the ACLU wrote in a letter to legislators earlier this week:

Our nations watchlisting system is error-prone and unreliable because it uses vague and overbroad criteria and secret evidence to place individuals on blacklists without a meaningful process to correct government error and clear their names.

One piece of evidence: John Lewis, who is leading the charge in the House, spent months being stopped by authorities at airports.

02:16 PM Clare ForanLink

Speaking to reporters and a crowd of onlookers gathered outside the U.S. Capitol, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said: Members, they have just had it. When asked to comment on the significance of the event, Pelosi replied: What's important about this moment is the spontaneity of it all on the part of each and every member. She added: All of them want to be a part of the echo chamber against gun violence in our country.

02:08 PM Nora KellyLink

More Senate Democrats are joining their House colleagues on the floor, according to reports on Twitter.

Spotted senators so far at House sit-in: Murphy, Blumenthal, Markey, Franken, Hirono  Alex Gangitano (@AlexGangitano) June 22, 2016

Schumer/Booker head to House floor to join Dems protest on guns  Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 22, 2016

Continuing in showing solidarity with House Democrats, Sen Durbin is now on House floor demanding vote on guns.  Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) June 22, 2016

Meanwhile, on the Senate floor, Republicans are talking about national security as it relates to the Orlando massacre. Based on my periodic check-ins with CSPANs Senate stream, Democratic lawmakers there have not tried to dominate speeches with similar gun-control talk.

02:04 PM Andrew McGillLink

U.S. Representative Denny Heck, who represents Washingtons 10th District, just spoke to his colleagues from the commandeered House floor. In the time that weve been here, maybe while you were sitting down, three people were shot and killed in Lacey, Washington, he said. Lacey sits inside Hecks district. Ill tell you what Im not going to do. Im not going to ask for a moment of silence...How numb, how inured do we have to get to this before were prompted to action? How used to this do we have to get?

01:55 PM Vann R. Newkirk IILink

I'm not sure how much it falls in line with regulations, but sit-in members just held a vote to suspend the rules and thus keep phones and recording devices on through their speeches.

01:50 PM Priscilla AlvarezLink

President Obama chimed in on Twitter, thanking Georgia Representative John Lewis, who led the sit-in on the House floor.

Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most. https://t.co/vctfqAH5Wt  President Obama (@POTUS) June 22, 2016

01:46 PM Nora KellyLink

Democratic Whip Steny Hoyers office posted a video on YouTube of the moment the House went into recess, with Democrats yelling No bill, no break! The chair finds that the House is currently not in a state of order, due to the presence of members in the well who are not recognized, Republican Representative Ted Poe said. The chair would ask members to leave the well so the House may proceed with business and decorum."

01:39 PM Chris HaughLink

Sit-ins and protests on the floor of Congress are rare but do occur from time to time. Over the past few decades, both parties have engaged in them.

Republicans mounted a floor protest over energy legislation on August 1, 2008. After then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House, the billwhich would, in part, lift a federal ban on offshore oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refugewas left without a vote.

Republicans were outraged. According to John Boehner, the minority leader at the time, around a dozen or so Republicans occupied the otherwise vacant floor to protest the decision and demand a special session for a vote. News reports indicate that they encouraged tourist to fill the galleries. One lawmaker brought a stack of gas station receipts, which he brandished above his head.

The protests continued for days. Congress would pass an energy bill later in the session. It did not include drilling rights in the refuge. The whole floor was packed, the gallery was packed, Boehner said. This has never happened before. But it had.

On November 18, 1995, in the midst of a full government shutdown over the federal budget, 28 Democrats stormed the floor after the Republican leadership refused to keep working, called a recess, and left.

The Democrats chanted work, work, work, save Medicare, and wheres Newt? in reference to the House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Notably, the Republicans turned off the television cameras in 1995, as well. But Harold Ford, a Democrat, climbed up to the press gallery and turned them back on.

The protesters threatened to stay all night. But two hours later they were gone. Congress passed a temporary spending bill the next day.

01:30 PM Andrew McGillLink

Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of Congress are holding a press conference on the steps of the Capitol. There's no more scream than primal nor pathetic than the sound of a mom who has learned her child has been shot, Pelosi said. Charles Rangels Periscope feed is streaming the speeches live.

01:27 PM Andrew McGillLink

And more on their way, Nora.

Stuck in committee hearing, but hoping to make it to @HouseDemocrats sit-in w/ @repjohnlewis & demand action on #gunviolence #NoBillNoBreak  Mike Quigley (@RepMikeQuigley) June 22, 2016

.@DrBFPalmer - Heading to the floor right now!  Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 22, 2016

01:16 PM Nora KellyLink

About 30 Democratic members started the sit-in more than one hour ago. Since then their numbers have grown, Scott Wong, a staff writer for The Hill, reports on Twitter:

@nora_kelly I would say at least 70 Dem lawmakers, maybe more. Plus staffers  Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) June 22, 2016

For some perspective, thats less than half of the 188-member-strong Democratic caucus. More members may decide to participate as the sit-in continues, or may be coming and going from the chamber.

01:13 PM Russell BermanLink

Democrats are certainly getting attention for their sit-in, but their best legislative strategy for getting a no-fly, no-buy gun bill passed through the Republican-controlled House may be to wait for Senate action on Susan Collins's compromise, which Nora wrote about yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised her a vote on the bipartisan amendment. Its inclusion in an appropriations bill funding the Commerce and Justice Departments could be the only realistic way to get it to President Obamas desk. If Republicans called up a Democrat-sponsored bill in response to the sit-in today, it would likely fail.

The House sergeant-at-arms is now trying to enforce the ban on photography by asking Democrats to refrain from taking pictures or video, Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky tweeted.

The Sgt at Arms is asking us to stop taking photos and video from House floor. Republicans should turn the cameras back on. #NoBillNoBreak  Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) June 22, 2016

01:07 PM Priscilla AlvarezLink

Democrats have escalated their rhetoric on gun control in recent days. On Tuesday, the White House denounced the U.S. Senates rejection of a series of gun proposals. What we saw last night on the floor of the United States Senate was a shameful display of cowardice, said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on MSNBC. President Obama echoed Earnest on Twitter, saying, Gun violence requires more than moments of silence. It requires action. In failing that test, the Senate failed the American people. On Wednesday, the White House noted its frustration again, according to the reporter Michelle Kosinski.

As House Dems stage a sit-in over lack of gun legislation, White House says it speaks to the anger and frustration that many have.  Michelle Kosinski (@MKosinskiCNN) June 22, 2016

01:04 PM Nora KellyLink

Hillary Clinton has weighed in on House Democrats protest: Shes with them.

This is what real leadership looks like. https://t.co/4Nh6QpqSxL  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 22, 2016

Its possible Clinton knew the protest was going to happen. As my colleague Priscilla Alvarez wrote earlier this morning, the presumptive Democratic nominee was scheduled to meet with the House Democratic caucus at 10 a.m.

01:03 PM Russell BermanLink

Not that reporters will complain about transparency, but any photosor Periscope videos that you see Democratic lawmakers posting to social media from the House floor are against the rules, as photography is prohibited in the chamber. Members also frequently flout the ban during State of the Union addresses.

12:54 PM Russell BermanLink

At least one Republican is backing the Democrats' push for a vote on "no fly, no buy" gun legislation: Representative David Jolly of Florida. Jolly had been running for the Senate but dropped out last week and decided to seek reelection to the House instead. He tweeted during the sit-in Wednesday afternoon that GOP leaders should put his proposal to prohibit suspected terrorists from buying guns on the floor. Jolly, of course has already lost support of GOP leaders in a fight over party fundraising.

12:52 PM Nora KellyLink

Politico reports that Speaker Ryans office does not seem amenable to Democrats move. The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair, Ryans spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said in a statement to The Atlantic.

12:51 PM Russell BermanLink

C-SPAN wants its viewers to know that it does not control the TV cameras in the House chamber and cannot broadcast when the House is not in session. This is reminiscent of when Republicans staged a protest against the Democratic majority during the summer recess in 2008, speaking in a darkened chamber to demand action on energy legislation.

12:52 PM Vann R. Newkirk IILink

"What is the tipping point? Are we blind? Can we see? How many more mothers and fathers must shed tears of grief before we do something?" Thats how Representative John Lewis exhorted Congress to vote for "common sense" gun measures. His speech evokes Lewis's own history of nonviolent protest, and is a powerful reminder of what his work has accomplished. His colleague John Larson called him the "soul of America" in accompanying remarks.

12:41 PM Nora KellyLink

Senator Chris Murphy, who led the Senate filibuster on the same issue, is now on the House floor, in solidarity with his fellow Democrats. CSPAN is still not broadcasting a live feed of the chambers, but the network is replaying members speeches online.

12:40 PM Nora KellyLink

John Lewis has championed nonviolent protest his entire career. As a young man, he was the chairman of the civil-rights-era Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which his congressional biography notes was largely responsible for organizing student activism  including sit-ins and other activities. He spoke at Martin Luther King Jr.s 1963 March on Washington, and led the Selma March two years later. On Wednesday, he said the time for silence and patience is long gone.

House Democrats, led by civil-rights pioneer and Georgia Representative John Lewis, are staging a sit-in on the House floor to protest what they see as congressional inaction on gun control.

Recommended: How American Politics Went Insane

We have to occupy the floor of the House until there is action, Connecticut Democrat John Larson said, as his fellow members began to sit down late Wednesday morning. Rise up Democrats, rise up Americans, this cannot stand.

More than two dozen Democrats appear to be participating in the sit-in, though CSPANs cameras, which are controlled by the Republican majority, are switched off. Members have instead taken to Twitter to spread awareness of their action, tweeting statements and pictures from the floor.

Time to occupy the House to demand action. #NoBillNoBreak #DisarmHate pic.twitter.com/C7BZpzNvxL  Rep Donna F Edwards (@repdonnaedwards) June 22, 2016

The move parallels Senate Democrats gun-control filibuster last week. Both were inspired by the recent attack in Orlando, in which a gunman shot and killed 49 people at a gay nightclub. The 15-hour Senate filibuster led to votes Monday on four gun-control-related measures, but all failed. On Tuesday, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins unveiled a bipartisan compromise amendment that would seek to prevent terrorists from obtaining guns. A vote on that measure is expected soon.

Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is reportedly headed to the House floor to join his House counterparts.

In an introductory speech, Lewis asked all his colleagues to come to the front of the House chamber. We have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence, Lewis said. Tiny little children, babies, students, and teachers, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, friends and neighbors. And what has this body done? Mr. Speaker, not one thing.

Recommended: The House Democrats' Sit-In Comes to an End

Before Lewis spoke, Maryland Representative Donna Edwards went after the gun lobby in a short speech. It is past time for Congress to listen to the American public instead of the National Rifle Association, Edwards said, calling for stricter background checks and for Congress to pass a bill to restrict suspected terrorists from buying guns. Edwards emphasized that she is not just concerned about mass shootings, but about gun violence at large. She said a minority of pro-gun voices are forcing a false choice between constitutional rights and safe streets.

Nora Kelly

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
If the occupation of the floor of the House of Representatives by Democrats has showed the world anything, it's that peaceful protests are best fueled by food. Indulgent food. Namely goodies like Dunkin' Donuts, pizza and Pop-Tarts.

Democratic members of Congress started the sit-in protest Wednesday morning to demand a vote on gun reform laws. The sit-in is still on nearly a full 24 hours later, and supporters have been sending snacks to the politicians to keep them going.

Massachusetts-native Senator Elizabeth Warren brought sustenance in the form of one of her home state's most well known delicacies: boxes of Dunkin' Donuts, the Boston Globe reported. Upon entering the room, Warren apparently "received cheers and applause."

Massachusetts knows: America - and #NoBillNoBreak - runs on @DunkinDonuts. #birthdaydonuts #holdthefloorpic.twitter.com/XG1wzU5q41 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmGsQcWYAEBbTT.jpg:large

Thanks @SenWarren for the donuts! #NoBillNoBreakpic.twitter.com/RL50WX9IZ6 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmE81lWIAELqT1.jpg:large

The protesting Democrats also received a glut of pizza deliveries. Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose 6-year-old daughter was shot and killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago sent pizzas with a note that said, "LOVE WINS!!!," noted the Hartford Courant. An annonymous citizen in California also paid $344 dollars to have nearly a dozen Domino's pizzas delivered to the politicians (by one very jazzed woman), the Huffington Post reported.

Someone in California paid $344 to deliver 10-12 Domino's pizzas to John Lewis. This woman is excited to deliver em.pic.twitter.com/sIaAP0Rwg5 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClmsCpzWkAEH9gP.jpg:large

There were other members who sent in food, too, noted NBC News. Senator Richard Blumenthal sent a large variety box of Newman's Own candy. Mazie Hirono, a senator from Hawaii, sent in several boxes of classically Hawaiian snacks, including macadamia nuts (protestors do need protein, after all). Ohio senator Sherrod Brown also contributed to the munchies pile with many, many boxes of Pop-Tarts. He attached a note that read, "Make Good, Necessary Trouble."

Story continues

My care package to House #gunviolenceprevention sit-in. Proud of #CT delegation-keep fighting #NoBillNoBreak #Enoughpic.twitter.com/VBVyMrsqDK https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CllZaDcXEAAJ3sD.jpg:large

Proud to organize @SenateDems in delivering snacks to @HouseDemocrats in support of #NoBillNoBreakpic.twitter.com/xJOkw9BURD https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CllEFfvWkAACEUw.jpg:large

Thanks for bringing us snacks, @SenSherrodBrown and @SenBlumenthal. #GoodTrouble #NoBillNoBreakpic.twitter.com/lT7ighbFDv https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CllkZziVAAACo6L.jpg:large

So far, Republicans have dismissed the sit-in, meaning that the protest could continue for a while. For some real sustenance, someone should send the patient politicians a couple of Outback Steakhouse's loaded Bloomin' Onions. Just one of the dish has more calories than most people need in a day  meaning it could fuel a lot of protesting.
Navy brass under scrutiny over Iran mess. A small group of U.S. Navy officers and sailors are under the microscope for their actions earlier this year when an American patrol boat wandered into Iranian waters and was briefly detained.

FPs Dan De Luce gets the scoop that naval commanders are considering potential punishment for nine individuals in connection with the case, but unlike some other high-profile cases in the military, six of the nine service members in the crosshairs are officers, not lower-ranking enlisted personnel. One of those under intense scrutiny serves as the commodore overseeing a task force in the Middle East with more than 1,000 personnel, Capt. Kyle Moses. Much more here.

Fallujah troubles. At least 85,000 civilians have fled the Iraqi city of Fallujah since government forces kicked off an assault last month to retake the city from the Islamic State. And thousands of those refugees continue to be stranded in the open desert, desperate for food, shelter, and water.

The Baghdad government is struggling to deliver aid to the homeless Sunnis, and the slow response raises questions over how it will handle an even bigger humanitarian flow when the fight to wrest Mosul from the Islamic State eventually begins. The United Nations expects as many as 1.2 million people to be displaced in and around Mosul then the operation kicks off.

So far, the roughly 5,000 U.S. forces in Iraq have stayed focused on training Iraqi forces and have not helped out in the humanitarian response around Fallujah, military officials tell SitRep. American troops are currently not providing direct support to the humanitarian assistance effort ongoing outside Fallujah, Baghdad-based spokesman Col. Christopher Garver said. That effort is being led by the Govt. of Iraq and by the UN and non-governmental organizations.

There have also been reports that Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen  who have promised to stay outside of the city  are dressing in federal police uniforms and have moved into Fallujah.

Story continues

American aid. Earlier this week, the State Department pledged $20 million in aid to the Iraqi government to help the estimated 3.3 million internally displaced Iraqis. Washington also announced Wednesday it would co-host a humanitarian aid pledging conference for Iraq in Washington July 20 with Canada, Germany and Japan. This will be an effort to help the people of Iraq weather the humanitarian crisis and destruction wrought by Daesh in the country, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters, using an alternative name for ISIS.

Guantanamo release. The Defense Department announced Wednesday evening that one of the longest-serving detainees at Guantanamo Bay was being released to Montenegro. Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab, 37, is the latest detainee to be released as the Obama administration tries to move as many prisoners out of the camp by the end of the presidents term in January. As recently as March 2014, a review board determined al Rahabi should remain in US custody. A native of Yemen, al Rahabi was among the first detainees transferred to Guantanamo in early 2002 after being captured fleeing the battle at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, where U.S. forces briefly had Osama bin Laden and his followers surrounded.

No data for you. If theres a predictable cycle to U.S. national security politics, FPs Elias Groll writes, its that the pendulum between civil liberties and surveillance authorities tends to swing toward the latter in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. But on Wednesday, the Senate refused to advance just such a measure  despite invocations of the attack on an Orlando nightclub that killed 49 people ten days ago.

The measure would have handed the FBI additional powers to obtain internet data through so-called National Security Letters. The tactic allows the bureau to poke around for information in secret, and the proposed reform would allow the bureau to use the letters to obtain information about what websites a terrorism or espionage suspect visits, whom he emails, and when  all without a warrant.

Good morning again from the Sitrep crew, thanks for clicking on through for the summer 2016 edition of SitRep. As always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley

China

The U.S. is warning China not to do anything it might regret if Beijing doesnt get its way in an upcoming arbitration panel ruling on territorial claims in the South China Sea. An anonymous senior State Department told the AP that countries in the region should exercise restraint once a panel in The Hague hands down its decision in a few weeks. Chinese officials have already said they wont feel bound by whatever the panel decides, but the State Department is urging Chinese officials to use the case as an opportunity to settle the various territorial disputes in the South China Sea diplomatically.

Europe

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is on the stump for stay in Thursdays referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union (EU). The alliance leader said the matter is up to Brits but that a Britain thats in the EU is good for the U.K., but its also good for NATO. Stoltenberg pointed to the twin threats of terrorism and a more aggressive Russia, saying that the political unity that the EU brings makes it easier for European countries to address such problems.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her countrys commitment to beefing up defenses along NATOs eastern border with Russia in an apparent rebuke to recent comments from the countrys foreign minister, Reuters reports. Earlier this week Germanys Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier denounced NATOs loud saber-rattling and shrill war cries as a means of addressing Russias increasingly aggressive behavior in Eastern Europe. But Merkel stood firm on Wednesday, saying her government is committed to increasing defense spending and tackling new threats.

Ralf Brauksiepe, a Parliamentary State Secretary in Germanys Ministry of Defense, would like to visit Incirlik air base where around 250 German soldiers and a half dozen Typhoon reconnaissance jets are currently based as part of the fight against the Islamic State. Theres just one problem  Turkey wont let him. Reuters reports that Turkey is blocking the visit in what many view as Ankaras political retribution for a number of issues currently straining the two countries relationship. Germanys parliament recently recognized the 1915 Armenian genocide, which Turkey denies, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been battling German media officials in the courts over insulting comments made against him.

Iraq

Iraqs Ministry of Defense released footage on Wednesday of Iraqi security forces shooting down and capturing an Islamic State drone. The downed aircraft appears to be an X7 Skywalker-type hobby drone available for around $150 online and an increasingly popular model with the jihadist group. It also appears to be popular with the Islamic States Shiite enemies next door in Iran. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses a very similar-looking drone to the X8 under the name Chamrosh.

Afghanistan

Irans recruitment of Afghan men to fight in Syria may be hurting the effort against the Taliban, Stars and Stripes reports. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-organized Fatemiyoun militia has enlisted Afghans to join up and has been sending them to Syria, where theyve served as frontline troops in the war to preserve the Assad regime. Col. Steve Lutsky, deputy commander of NATOs Train Advise Assist Command-West, says that the recruiting effort is cutting into the market of available personnel in western Afghanistan to join Afghan security forces and fight the Taliban. Iran pays better than the Afghan army, and you dont have to potentially fight your family members, Lutsky said of the Iranian recruitment drive.

Air Force

The Air Force could tell you how much its new stealth bomber program will cost, but then itd have to kill you. Defense News reports on comments by Randall Walden of the Air Forces Rapid Capabilities Office saying that the service will not disclose the top line cost of the next generation B-21 bomber program. Walden claims that disclosing the bill would reveal classified information about the advanced aircrafts capabilities. Critics, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have pushed back strongly on the assertion, noting that the Air Force has already disclosed the planes per unit cost  $550 million  and the subcontractors who will be involved in making it.

Whos where when

9:00 a.m. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program will host a discussion on the U.S. Armys priorities with General Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. Livestream here.

Photo Credit: PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images
Brexit polls in Britain close in less than five hours, and the latest data from TickerTags could be the best measure of which direction the vote is leaning.

TickerTags monitors social media sites to identify trends by searching for words and phrases that appear together in social media content, such as tweets.

Related Link: Social Data Suggest Big Release Of New Pokemon Game

The official results of the referendum vote may not happen until around 2 a.m. Eastern time in the U.S., but voters are free to speak their minds on social media throughout the day.

#iVoted is the number one trend on UK twitter today. While polls in recent weeks have suggested that the leave vote had been gaining some momentum, social media data suggests what global markets seem to be expecting: there will be no Brexit.

Todays organic Twitter mentions including the words voted, iVoted, leave, remain, and stay suggest that the remain camp is leading 58 percent to 42 percent.

The positive Thursday momentum of both the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) (+0.9 percent) and the iShares rust (NYSE: EWU) (+2.0 percent) suggest that traders are also confident that Britain will vote to remain in the EU.

The Bloomberg Brexit Tracker suggests the chance of a Brexit has now fallen to only 25 percent.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.

See more from Benzinga

 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Seville (Spain) (AFP) - The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain Thursday after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.

Applause broke out as the experimental plane set down at Seville airport in southern Spain just before 7:40 am (0540 GMT) where a team was on the ground to welcome Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

"It is so fantastic!", Piccard told the plane's mission control centre in Monaco in remarks broadcast online as the plane, which took off from New York on Monday, touched down.

Exhilarated, the 58-year-old told AFP he had thought a lot about aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, during the 6,765-kilometre (4,200-mile) flight.

"I met him when I was 11, we were both at the Apollo 12 take-off, and for me Lindbergh is one of these heroes who did what no one thought was possible," Piccard said by phone.

With the success of this challenging crossing, Solar Impulse has completed the 15th leg of a round-the-world trip aimed at promoting clean, renewable energy.

It set out on March 9, 2015, in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power -- able to fly through the night with energy stored in its 17,000 photovoltaic cells.

- 'Magical experience' -

The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing of a plane with only solar power -- a trip close to Piccard's heart as he had crossed that same ocean in 1999 on the first non-stop air balloon circumnavigation of the globe without fuel.

"Good morning Seville! Do you have a lot of direct flights from NYC?" he tweeted with a wink shortly before coming in to land, when he was treated to a surprise acrobatic display put on by the Spanish air force.

Piccard got little sleep during the near three-day journey, surviving on short catnaps.

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He experienced what he described as "a long night of turbulence" but was also treated to sightings of whales and icebergs, and even spotted a commercial plane flying past him.

"I just tried to soak in this magical experience -- when you fly without any noise or fuel, it's magic," he said.

Piccard said he had been guided by a group of engineers and meteorologists who had enabled him to face challenges and pass through clouds as if "through the eye of a needle."

Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-kilometre trip round the world in stages, with Piccard and his Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg taking turns at the controls of the single-seat plane.

Borschberg piloted a 8,924-kilometre flight between Japan and Hawaii that lasted 118 hours, smashing the previous record for the longest uninterrupted journey in aviation history.

After the Atlantic crossing, Borschberg is due to fly to Egypt, and Piccard will make the final journey back to Abu Dhabi in early July.

- Like sci-fi -

No heavier than a car but with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, Solar Impulse typically travels at a mere 48 kilometres per hour (36 miles per hour), although its flight speed can double when exposed to full sunlight.

Borschberg and Piccard say they want to raise awareness of renewable energy sources and technologies with their project.

"When you fly in a plane like this, you have the impression of being in a science fiction story," Piccard said.

"You look at the sun above you, and then you realise that the sun is providing the necessary energy to run the four electric engines and charge the batteries, spend the night flying and continue the next day.

"At the same time it's not science fiction, it's the present, it's today," he added.

"When you see what can be done with this clean energy, you think 'why is it not used more everywhere'?"
SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) - An airplane powered solely by the sun landed safely in Seville in Spain early on Thursday after an almost three-day flight across the Atlantic from New York in one of the longest legs of the first ever fuel-less flight around the world. The single-seat Solar Impulse 2 touched down shortly after 7.30 a.m. local time in Seville after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 2.30 a.m. EDT on June 20. The flight of just over 71 hours was the 15th leg of the round-the-world journey by the plane piloted in turns by Swiss aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg. "Oh-la-la, absolutely perfect," Piccard said after landing, thanking his engineering crew for their efforts. With a cruising speed of around 70 kilometers an hour (43 miles per hour), similar to an average car, the plane has more than 17,0000 solar cells built in to wings with a span bigger than that of a Boeing 747. (Reporting by Marcelo Pozo; Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
* Company looks to offset growth for telecoms basic services

* MTN faces regulatory hurdles in mobile banking

* Expansion pits MTN against dominant Safaricom's M-Pesa

By Tiisetso Motsoeneng

JOHANNESBURG, June 23 (Reuters) - MTN's new chief executive Rob Shuter has been brought in to boost profits at Africa's biggest mobile phone group after a $1.7 billion fine in Nigeria, by persuading its 200 million clients to use their handsets to store money and pay bills.

But the hunt for returns by the outsider, the current European head of Vodafone and a former banker, will throw MTN into an unfamiliar world of finance with increasing regulatory risks as authorities step up efforts to combat illicit money transfers.

It will also pit MTN against African rival Safaricom , which is 40 percent owned by Vodafone, and whose mobile money business M-Pesa helped offset falling prices for basic telecoms, convincing investors that financial services is the industry's next growth area.

"It will not be easy for MTN or any other operator to replicate the M-Pesa success story because a regulatory loophole in Kenya meant that Safaricom did not need a formal banking partner or license to launch services," said Ovum telecoms consultancy analyst Richard Hurst.

Shuter will start no later than July 2017 and replaces Sifiso Dabengwa who resigned last November after a the fine in Nigeria exposed corporate governance flaws at MTN..

MTN has also struggled to make money at a faster pace as years of price wars and regulation aimed at bringing tariffs down hit profit margins and make it less appealing to spend on new networks.

Operators now entering the financial transactions market face even tougher regulations, which differ according to country and region, as authorities weigh whether to bring standards in line with those that apply to banks, Hurst said.

In MTN's biggest market Nigeria, where about 40 percent of the population has no bank account, fewer than 1 million people used mobile money in 2014, according to an EFInA survey.

Story continues

This is partly because regulators only allow banks to operate mobile money accounts rather than telecoms companies.

Payments by mobile are predicted to increase rapidly around the world over the next few years, with telecoms groups, retailers and banks all trying to secure a piece of the pie.

Recent research by consultancy McKinsey suggested that by 2025, 360 million people in sub-Saharan Africa will have access to the internet via smartphones making it easier for users to send and receive money across countries.

BANKING EXPERIENCE

Investors are hoping Shuter will use his experience as head of investment banking at Standard Bank SBKJ.J and managing director at Nedbank NEDJ.J retail banking unit division, to shake off MTN's reputation as a stock with a limited potential for growth.

"It's a strategically sound appointment because mobile phones are moving from being just a communication tool to distributing content and provide banking services," said Momentum SP Reid analyst Sibonginkosi Nyanga.

Shuter's background should help him fit "very well within MTN as it repositions itself as both a telecoms, e-commerce and financial services player," Anthony Sedgewick, the founder of fund manager Abax Investments, which has an MTN shareholding of just under 0.2 percent, told Reuters by email.

MTN said it had also appointed a yet-to-be-named new head the mergers, acquisitions and strategy, with a "wealth of banking experience".

"His substantial commercial experience will assist in the formulation of a revised strategy for MTN, particularly in the area of convergence between mobile telephony and financial services," the company said in a statement.

MTN and its rivals, including Etisalat, the Gulf's second biggest mobile phone operator, have been waging price wars that have hurt their bottom lines and the share price.

Shares in MTN have slumped about 40 percent from their peak in September 2014, lagging behind a slightly higher blue-chip JSE Top-40 index.

MTN has also made forays in e-commerce as part of the search for fresh revenue streams including a stake in German's Rocket Internet, a company behind a loss-making Nigeria-based online retailer Jumia that was established in 2012.

"We are also looking to extend our service offering to customers that include insurance and we are currently piloting a money lending platform in our Cameroon, Uganda, Zambia and South African as a means to expand our mobile money services offering," MTN head of digital services Herman Singh told Reuters.

But some investors say MTN, founded with the help of the South African government shortly after the end of apartheid in 1994, needs to do more to grow.

"For a while now, it's been difficult to look at MTN and say: 'there is a company that growing'" a top ten MTN shareholder said. "Management have done very little to put this company back on growth path except to allow a big regulatory breach happen under their watch in Nigeria."

MTN said on June 10, after months of talks, that it had agreed to pay a heavily reduced fine of $1.7 billion, or a third of the initial penalty, in a settlement with Nigeria for missing a deadline to deactivate more than 5 million unregistered SIM cards.

(Editing by Anna Willard)
By Tiisetso Motsoeneng JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - MTN's new chief executive Rob Shuter has been brought in to boost profits at Africa's biggest mobile phone group after a $1.7 billion fine in Nigeria, by persuading its 200 million clients to use their handsets to store money and pay bills. But the hunt for returns by the outsider, the current European head of Vodafone and a former banker, will throw MTN into an unfamiliar world of finance with increasing regulatory risks as authorities step up efforts to combat illicit money transfers. It will also pit MTN against African rival Safaricom, which is 40 percent owned by Vodafone, and whose mobile money business M-Pesa helped offset falling prices for basic telecoms, convincing investors that financial services is the industry's next growth area. "It will not be easy for MTN or any other operator to replicate the M-Pesa success story because a regulatory loophole in Kenya meant that Safaricom did not need a formal banking partner or license to launch services," said Ovum telecoms consultancy analyst Richard Hurst. Shuter will start no later than July 2017 and replaces Sifiso Dabengwa who resigned last November after a the fine in Nigeria exposed corporate governance flaws at MTN.. MTN has also struggled to make money at a faster pace as years of price wars and regulation aimed at bringing tariffs down hit profit margins and make it less appealing to spend on new networks. Operators now entering the financial transactions market face even tougher regulations, which differ according to country and region, as authorities weigh whether to bring standards in line with those that apply to banks, Hurst said. In MTN's biggest market Nigeria, where about 40 percent of the population has no bank account, fewer than 1 million people used mobile money in 2014, according to an EFInA survey. This is partly because regulators only allow banks to operate mobile money accounts rather than telecoms companies. Payments by mobile are predicted to increase rapidly around the world over the next few years, with telecoms groups, retailers and banks all trying to secure a piece of the pie. Recent research by consultancy McKinsey suggested that by 2025, 360 million people in sub-Saharan Africa will have access to the internet via smartphones making it easier for users to send and receive money across countries. BANKING EXPERIENCE Investors are hoping Shuter will use his experience as head of investment banking at Standard Bank SBKJ.J and managing director at Nedbank NEDJ.J retail banking unit division, to shake off MTN's reputation as a stock with a limited potential for growth. "It's a strategically sound appointment because mobile phones are moving from being just a communication tool to distributing content and provide banking services," said Momentum SP Reid analyst Sibonginkosi Nyanga. Shuter's background should help him fit "very well within MTN as it repositions itself as both a telecoms, e-commerce and financial services player," Anthony Sedgewick, the founder of fund manager Abax Investments, which has an MTN shareholding of just under 0.2 percent, told Reuters by email. MTN said it had also appointed a yet-to-be-named new head the mergers, acquisitions and strategy, with a "wealth of banking experience". "His substantial commercial experience will assist in the formulation of a revised strategy for MTN, particularly in the area of convergence between mobile telephony and financial services," the company said in a statement. MTN and its rivals, including Etisalat, the Gulf's second biggest mobile phone operator, have been waging price wars that have hurt their bottom lines and the share price. Shares in MTN have slumped about 40 percent from their peak in September 2014, lagging behind a slightly higher blue-chip JSE Top-40 index. MTN has also made forays in e-commerce as part of the search for fresh revenue streams including a stake in German's Rocket Internet, a company behind a loss-making Nigeria-based online retailer Jumia that was established in 2012. "We are also looking to extend our service offering to customers that include insurance and we are currently piloting a money lending platform in our Cameroon, Uganda, Zambia and South African as a means to expand our mobile money services offering," MTN head of digital services Herman Singh told Reuters. But some investors say MTN, founded with the help of the South African government shortly after the end of apartheid in 1994, needs to do more to grow. "For a while now, it's been difficult to look at MTN and say: 'there is a company that growing'" a top ten MTN shareholder said. "Management have done very little to put this company back on growth path except to allow a big regulatory breach happen under their watch in Nigeria." MTN said on June 10, after months of talks, that it had agreed to pay a heavily reduced fine of $1.7 billion, or a third of the initial penalty, in a settlement with Nigeria for missing a deadline to deactivate more than 5 million unregistered SIM cards. (Editing by Anna Willard)
By Randy Fabi and Manuel Mogato JAKARTA/MANILA (Reuters) - Southeast Asian militants who claim to be fighting for Islamic State in the Middle East have said they have chosen one of the most wanted men in the Philippines to head a regional faction of the ultra-radical group, security officials said on Thursday. The claim was made in a video that was recently posted on social media, possibly last week, a military intelligence official in the Philippines told Reuters. The video is significant, experts say, because it shows that Islamic State supporters are now being asked to stay home and unify under one umbrella group to launch attacks in Southeast Asia, instead of being drawn to the fight in the Middle East. Authorities in the region have been on heightened alert since Islamic State claimed an attack in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in January in which eight people were killed, including four of the attackers. In the 20-minute video seen by Reuters, young men and some children in military fatigues are shown carrying and training with weapons, and holding Islamic State flags. A section of the video showed some of these men engaging in gunbattles in jungles but it was not clear where and with whom. The video also showed three men apparently being executed, but it was not clear where and who they were. The authenticity of the video and when it was taken could not be independently verified. In the video, a man authorities in Malaysia have identified as Mohd Rafi Udin, a Malaysian militant currently in Syria, says in Malay: "If you cannot go to (Syria), join up and go to the Philippines." In the video, Udin also urges Muslims to unite under the leadership of Abu Abdullah, a Philippine militant leader who pledged allegiance to Islamic State in January. Abu Abdullah, also known as Isnilon Hapilon, is a leader of the Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf. He is on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the kidnapping of 17 Filipinos and three Americans in 2001 and carries a bounty of $5 million. The video was released to mark Islamic State's acceptance of allegiances from jihadists in the Philippines, the first formal recognition of a Southeast Asian group, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, chief of Malaysia's police counter-terrorism unit. "This video is not just propaganda, but is a serious threat. We are definitely expecting more attacks in this region," Pitchay told Reuters. Hapilon is known to be based in the interior hills of the island of Basilan in the Mindanao region of the southern Philippines. In April, at least 18 Philippine soldiers were killed and 53 wounded in an attack on his followers on the island. KIDNAP GANG For decades, Abu Sayyaf has been known for extortion, kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, and is one of the most brutal Muslim rebel factions in the south of the largely Christian Philippines. The group has posted videos on social media sites this year pledging allegiance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The latest video appears aimed at recognizing Hapilon as the Southeast Asian leader of the group, anti-terrorism experts said. "I think this is a very significant video," said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based security expert. "This acknowledges support from Indonesia and Malaysia." "It suggests there will be more efforts to get people to actually go to Mindanao to launch operations from there." The Jakarta attacks in January were claimed by Islamic State. But the attack did not bear the hallmarks of other spectacular strikes by the radical group - the militants lacked sophisticated weaponry and were amateurish in the execution. Some security officials fear a more organized and better trained militant group could launch far deadlier attacks in the region. But Philippine military officials dismissed these concerns, saying the video was just propaganda and should be ignored. "People should not be bothered by this," said Philippine military spokesman Restituto Padilla "Authorities are working on this. They can be identified, and they can be hunted down." (Additional Reporting by Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur and Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
On June 12, one man left the LGBT nightclub Pulse just minutes before the gunfire started. Another was shot six times and left to die until a first responder dragged him to safety. Now, these four stories reveal how so many are grappling with the nightmare of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which ended with 49 dead and 53 wounded: "I can't get those images out of my head"

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Colon (left) and Delgado photographed June 20 at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Wesley Mann

Angel Colon, 26, survivor

Gravely injured, he made it out of Pulse alive

I was shot six times. The first three shots were in my right leg, then my left hip, my right hand and my butt. I thought I was going to die.

I was lying on the club floor, and I didn't know if I was going to bleed to death or be shot again. The lady beside me had been shot too. I told her, "It's going to be OK. Just hold my hand." We held each other, but we could hear gunshots again. He got closer. I was holding her hand tight and I didn't let go. Then I felt gunshots, one at a time, go into her back. I can still hear the gunshots and feel their heat. I thought I was next.

Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Nearly 200 Artists and Execs Unite With Billboard to Pen Open Letter to Congress to Stop Gun Violence

A cop called out to see if anyone was still alive and then pulled me out of there. I couldn't move from my waist down. Another cop helped him carry me the rest of the way; I was losing a lot of blood. As soon as my cop dropped me off, he went right back in to rescue someone else.

I was awake in the ambulance. My head was throbbing. I got to the hospital around 3:30 a.m. I was waiting around for probably an hour. It was so chaotic because all of the victims were coming at once. They sewed me up a little before surgery because I was bleeding so much. My body was numb. They took care of all of my wounds and gashes and my broken femur bone. They put a rod in my hip with some screws. I remember waking up from the surgery, with a sense of relief that I was OK.

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I did a press conference in the hospital [on June 14]. I was really nervous. I got in there and all I could see were cameras. The hospital asked me to do it: The nurses thought I would be the best [survivor] to talk, so I said I would -- I couldn't let the nurses down. They have all been so awesome; They love me and they have saved me. But it was hard talking about it, especially in front of so many people. It's still kind of fresh.

Today I saw something about the shooting on the TV and I got nauseous. I was like, "All right, change the channel." Sometimes it makes me want to throw up. Social media has been really weird. It's weird seeing how many messages I'm getting. I was a trend on Twitter. It's very overwhelming, really.

Meeting the officer [who saved my life] was pure happiness. I loved it. It was so great to meet him. I told him, "I love you. Please give me a hug!" It was so awesome, I nearly cried. I just kept wanting more hugs from him. I told him once I get a car, I'm going to visit him all the time. I told him he was like my brother now; he's always going to be a part of my life.

I keep thinking about the lady I was holding and seeing her get shot. Her son called me yesterday. He was happy because she didn't die alone and she was with someone showing her love. That hit me really hard.

At night I get scared, but I know I am safe here. I don't know how I will feel when I get out of rehab -- probably in about five or six months from now -- when I will go outside and see the world again. I don't know how I will feel. But for now, I can still hear those people screaming and the gunshots. I hope at some point that noise will leave.

I still can't believe that I was a part of this big massacre. It's seriously unbelievable. When I lifted my head and I looked around at the club, I just kept thinking, "This cannot be happening." But it happened and I got out of it. I'm still in shock.

- AS TOLD TO DANIELLE BACHER

Orlando's Pulse: 'A Place of Love and Happiness' for the City's Artists, Punks, LGBTQ Community

Omar Delgado, 44, first responder

The police officer saved lives that night

Eatonville, where I work, is maybe 10, 15 minutes away from Orlando. That night a distress call went out and when I arrived at the scene, between 2 and 2:15 a.m., it was frantic. Picture a worst-case scenario: a lot of chaos, a lot of screaming, a lot of yelling, crying. People covered in blood.

An officer outside said, "There's an active shooter..." I don't think he even got to finish his sentence when we heard shots and all ran inside. I immediately noticed bodies on the ground and yelled, "Is anybody alive? Can you come toward my voice?" It took me a minute before it hit me: Nobody was getting up.'

Minutes later, we noticed somebody moving. Another officer grabbed that individual. I grabbed my flashlight, scanned the room and saw -- I can't tell you if it was Angel [Colon] or not -- an individual moving, covered in blood. There was glass everywhere: Imagine so many bottles shattered that when you walk, you just hear glass. So when me and another officer dragged him toward the patio, I knew I was cutting him just by pulling. Then another team of officers put him on a truck. We helped out three or four people like that.

I don't know if it was the second, third body we were pulling out when we heard a burst of shots. We had to take cover: We didn't know if he was shooting at us or if he could see us; we just heard the loud firing of the weapon. Once the firing stopped, we finished pulling out that last person.

I didn't get out of there until almost eight in the morning. What happened didn't hit me until I was driving home. When I got home, I sat in my car in shock.

I hadn't been watching the news until a co-worker called me at home [on June 14] and said, "Do you remember the guy you dragged and were cutting up with glass? He's on TV." Angel's press conference was on every channel. He started telling the story of how I went up to him and dragged him out. He couldn't tell who I was and said, "I really wish I could find out who [the officer] was -- I want to thank him." It was like, "Oh my God!" Before that, I'd sat in my bedroom and wondered if anybody we pulled out made it. It wasn't like I could find out their names so I could check on them later. No, it was pull and pull and pull.

Meeting Angel was a wonderful experience. His sisters hugged me and didn't want to let me go. It's not every day you get thanked for saving a person: People I've dealt with before in accidents go on with their lives.

Angel said, "Oh, you're a hero." I don't see myself as a hero. Anybody would have done it. When someone needs help, you help.

As an officer, you know you've got to deal with evil. You've got to deal with seeing one or two or maybe three bodies in a gunfight or a car accident. That's livable, to a degree. When you see 25 bodies massacred -- that doesn't sit with anybody, I don't care how much training you've had. I can't get those images out of my head.

- AS TOLD TO DANIELLE BACHER

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Jacobi Ceballo, 27, eyewitness

He swears he saw the shooter earlier that night

My friends and I got to Pulse at 9:40 p.m. -- we were some of the first people there. After an hour or so, I met another friend in front of the club and noticed a van -- and a guy in that van, on the phone, driving around the building, being really suspicious. That's when I started to notice something wasn't right. That was almost 11.

My friend and I went for a drive, then went back in the club -- I was actually in a dance competition. A little bit after the performance was over, I went to the hip-hop room and made a Snapchat video. This was 45 minutes before the massacre started. I met these two girls and we were dancing, having a good time. Tragically, one of the girls, Akyra Murray, died that night.

At about 1:30, my friends wanted to go because they were tired. Leaving, I noticed [the same] suspicious man walking on the opposite side of the club. I told my friend I felt like something bad was going to happen -- like a fight was going to go down. We get back to the car and my friend forgot to close his tab, so he went back. After five or 10 minutes, we got nervous and called him. He finally came out. We left the parking lot and the mass shooting started.

I didn't know until later that the shooting occurred, when I got this gruesome text from a friend: "Please tell me you're alive -- I just saw the Snapchat video you created at 1:20 and then I turned on the news."

I went back to the crime scene the next day, trying to find out information about the victims. Thinking about those people cramped up, dead and dying -- oh my God, it's horrific.

I'm pretty confident [the shooter was] the guy I saw. Five or six other people have matching stories -- seeing someone super-suspicious with a hat, pacing around the perimeter. Thinking about it now, my eyes get watery and I want to cry. I feel guilty, like maybe I could've said something.

I haven't been able to eat. I've been getting very little sleep. I was crying for the past three days, but I stopped because my eyes are puffy and red; I feel like I can't cry anymore. Every time I think about that night and look at these victims' faces, it breaks me. One of the first people I spoke to that night -- a bouncer named Kimberly [Morris] -- was a victim. Where [shooter Omar Mateen] kept the hostages, I was there, 45 minutes prior to the shooting.

I'm very traumatized. I'm thinking about going to therapy. It's going to take some time for me to stop thinking about this, honestly.

- AS TOLD TO BILLY JENSEN

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Giselle Morales, 34, friend and bandmate of victim

She sang with Shane Tomlinson, 33, the night he died

I met Shane in October 2013, when he called me to audition. We had great chemistry off the bat. We performed at least twice a week, sometimes four times, at private and club gigs. I spent a lot of time with Shane. A lot. We shared hotel rooms. He prayed with me over the phone many times when I was going through stuff. He was like a brother.

Our group The Frequency Band was his baby. He sang, he managed us, he was our leader. He always maintained an image: We had photo shoots once a month because he wanted the band to look good. He was a clown when he wanted to be, but when it came to business, he wanted his productions to be golden. He loved Janet Jackson, Beyonce, Brandy, Jazmine Sullivan, Lisa Fischer, Michael Jackson and held himself to their standards. When we did weddings, the clients freaking loved him. He was one of those guys you couldn't take your eyes off of -- he commanded the crowd. He had a million-dollar smile.

That Saturday [June 11] we had a gig at [Orlando lounge] Blue Martini. He was so freaked out because Christina Grimmie got shot the night before: "Girl, that hit too close to home -- this is what we do. Where was the security?" He was upset.

Sometimes I would hang out after shows, but that night I was tired. I literally said, "Bye, boo, I'll call you tomorrow." Gave him a kiss. Walked away. You don't think that's the last time you're going to see that person alive. You don't even think that.

I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I wish we took a picture together that night.

My father called on Sunday morning: "Have you heard about that mass shooting?" I was like, "Really? That's crazy." Then a friend from Miami called to ask if I'd heard from Shane. It all happened so fast, figuring out who last had seen him: One of our bass players stayed out with him until 12:30, then another girl was with him until 1, but she had no idea where he went after that. I thought he probably went home. Then a friend texted me: "Giselle, the last text I got from Shane was at 1:58 a.m." The news said the shooter came in just after 2, but I thought there was no way Shane went to Pulse. We didn't know he ever went there.

But then someone posted on Shane's Facebook page, "Hey man! I saw you at Pulse last night. Is everything OK?" When we saw that, we lost it. We freaked out. We called all the hospitals. We gave his name and picture. They said there were a lot of John Does coming in injured. We figured he was probably unconscious and lost his wallet and that's why they didn't have his name. It was frustrating because if Shane was alive and well, he would be on the phone texting somebody -- social media king. But I didn't want to believe the worst. I refused.

Almost 24 hours passed and we hadn't heard from him. Then we found out from his parents that he was on the [victims] list. I was in the gym and I broke down crying. People were consoling me, complete strangers in the gym.

As a band, we are moving forward. He put his heart and soul into this, so we want to live up to the legacy that he created. When we wake up, we have to remind ourselves that he's not here. There's nobody like him.

- AS TOLD TO CAMILLE DODERO

Tragedy in Orlando: The Aftermath

This article originally appeared in the July 2 issue of Billboard.
Here are 5 stocks added to the Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) list today:

 Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP engages in the automotive replacement parts, accessories, batteries and maintenance items for domestic and imported cars, vans, sport utility vehicles, and light and heavy duty trucks. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings has been revised 1.4% downward over the last 30 days.

 BBVA Banco Frances S.A. BFR provides various financial services to corporations, medium and small companies, and individual customers in Spain, Mexico, South America, the United States and Eurasia. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings has declined 3.9% over the last 30 days.

 Coca-Cola European Partners Plc CCE produces, distributes and markets a range of nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages. It has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings being revised 14.6% downward over the last 30 days.

 Covenant Transportation Group, Inc. CVTI provides truckload transportation and brokerage services primarily in the continental United States. The Zacks Consensus Estimate revision for its current year earnings was a negative 1.9% over the last 30 days.

 Fluor Corporation FLR provides engineering, procurement, construction, fabrication and modularization, commissioning and maintenance, and project management services worldwide. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings has moved 0.7% lower over the last 30 days.

View the entire Zacks Rank #5 List



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Barack Obama sad

The Supreme Court was evenly divided in a case involving President Barack Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants living in the country illegally from deportation, upholding a lower court's ruling and effectively ending the initiative through the end of his presidency.

The court heard the challenge to Obama's signature immigration-related actions back in mid-April, in what was one of the most closely watched cases of its term.

A 4-4 vote leaves in place the decision of the lower court in the case, United States v. Texas. That decision blocked the implementation of the actions.

The ruling is a huge blow for the Obama administration, and it raises the stakes for November's election, as it hands off the issue to the next president. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed to revoke Obama's actions, while presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would expand upon those actions.

"For more than two decades now our immigration system, everybody acknowledges, has been broken. And the fact that the Supreme Court wasn't able to issue a decision today doesn't just set the system back further, it takes us further from the country that we aspire to be," Obama said in a press conference after the ruling.

The ninth seat on the court is vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia's seat, but Republicans have refused to hold hearings on his nomination and said the next president should fill the vacancy. A ninth justice could swing the balance if the issue is revisited.

House Speaker Paul Ryan quickly pushed out a statement after the decision was announced. The Wisconsin Republican said the decision "vindicated" Article 1 of the Constitution.

"The Supreme Court's ruling makes the president's executive action on immigration null and void," he said in the statement. "The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers."

Story continues

Clinton, calling the result "unacceptable," said the ruling shows "us all just how high the stakes are in this election."

"This decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obamas nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court," she said. "Our families and our country need and deserve a full bench, and Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote."

The former secretary of state said the ruling is a "stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country."

"Trump has pledged to repeal President Obamas executive actions on his first day in office," she said. "He has called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers.' He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes."

Obama's executive actions, proposed in 2014, aimed to focus deportation efforts on criminally engaged immigrants while providing relief to those who reside in the country illegally but are otherwise law-abiding and meet certain qualifications.

Soon after, lawyers representing Texas and 25 other Republican-led states filed a suit in federal court in Brownsville, Texas. Those states claimed that the costs of issuing state identification cards to the immigrants would be a heavy burden. A US district judge sided with the states, saying they had the standing to sue the federal government. That decision was upheld in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last year.

During the challenge, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, one of whose votes the Obama administration would have needed to prevail in the case, "sharply questioned" the administration's attorney, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Kennedy said Congress, not the president, had the authority to decide which groups of immigrants could stay lawfully in the United States," the paper reported.

"It is a legislative act, not an executive act," Kennedy said, according to the Times.

Kennedy, a typical swing vote on the high court, seemed to side with the states' argument, The Hill reported.

"It seems to me that's a legislative, not an executive task," he said. "It's as if the president is setting the policy and the Congress is executing it ... That seems upside down."

In April, the court appeared "deadlocked" in the case.

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In a crushing blow to President Barack Obamas domestic legacy, the Supreme Court effectively blocked the presidents plan to shield as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. The ruling potentially eliminates the hope that the president would be able to substantively change the nations immigration laws before he leaves the Oval Office.

The justices tied 4-4, a glaring reminder that the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to consider Merrick Garland, Obamas choice to replace deceased conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. It also is likely to add to the already ferocious debate about illegal immigration that is taking place on the 2016 campaign trail, where presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump rocketed to early prominence by promising to deport the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States.

The decision leaves in place an appeals court ruling blocking Obamas executive action, called the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program. The president took the action in 2014 after Republicans refused to update immigration laws to address those living and working in the United States illegally.

Under Obamas executive action, people living in the United States for more than five years with children who are U.S. citizens were granted temporary deportation relief and the right to apply for three-year work permits. It was challenged by Texas and 25 other states, many of whose top officials celebrated the ruling as a needed bulwark against what they see as Obamas over-reliance on executive actions.

Todays decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: One person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. This is a major setback to President Obamas attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.

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In a press conference shortly after the decision was announced, Obama called the ruling heartbreaking and said it takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.

Proponents of the plan quickly painted Thursdays ruling as a setback and insisted the matter was not settled. I am confident that this case will come before the Supreme Court again, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), said in a statement.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus vowed to continue to fight for immigration reform, both on Twitter and during a press conference outside of the Supreme Court after the verdict was announced. They also said they would get revenge against opponents of immigration reform this November, when Americans take to the polls to vote for the next president, as well as for Congress.

Remember, there are 45 million more coming behind them that are citizens of the United States whose wrath you are going to have to deal with come November, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), said in the press conference after the vote.

The decision heightens the importance of immigration reform on the campaign trail, as the matter will now likely be left to the next president. Trump has vowed to build a fence along the United States-Mexico border and characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, as well as planning mass deportations. He took to Twitter Thursday to praise the decision.

SC has kept us safe from exec amnestyfor now. But Hillary has pledged to expand it, taking jobs from Hispanic & African-American workers.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016

His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, used the occasion to blast her opponents. Shes called for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Todays decision by the Supreme Court is purely procedural and casts no doubt on the fact that [Obamas immigration orders] are entirely within the presidents legal authority, she said in a statement. This decision is also a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country.

Photo credit: MARK WILSON/Getty Images
The United States Supreme Court finally ruled on major cases about affirmative action and immigration on Thursday, as it released four decisions and a per curium opinion.

The facade of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

The facade of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

In the widely anticipated case about affirmative action, the Supreme Court affirmed, in a 4-3 decision from Justice Anthony Kennedy, a lower court ruling that allowed the University of Texas to use a race-conscious admissions policy under the Constitutions Equal Protection Clause.

The Courts affirmance of the Universitys admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement. It is the Universitys ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies, Kennedy said.

But in a 4-4 tie, the divided Court said in a one-sentence per curium opinion that the judgment of the lower court in the immigration case, United States v. Texas, was confirmed, leaving in place an injunction against President Barack Obamas recent deferred immigration policies.

Also, in Mathis v. United States, a majority of the Court overruled a lower federal court that said state sentencing guidelines can be applied to the federal Armed Career Criminal Act.

Richard Mathis under a federal federal law for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and received a mandatory minimum sentence based on his prior burglary convictions in Iowa. The Court said that because Iowas burglary law is broader than laws about generic burglaries, Mathiss prior convictions couldnt be applied under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

The Court also issued a ruling about the ability of law enforcement officers to compel drivers suspected of DUI to take breathalyzer tests.

Writing for the majority in Birchfield v. North Dakota, Samuel Alito said the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless breath tests related to an arrest for drunk driving, but it doesnt permit warrantless blood tests.

And in Dollar General Stores v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a tied court issued a per curium opinion upholding a lower-court ruling giving a tribal court jurisdiction over tort claims against defendants who arent official members of a tribe.
Abigail Fisher, the plaintiff in Fisher v. Texas, speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington December 9, 2015.

The US Supreme Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit's opinion in the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin case, ruling that the "race-conscious admissions program in use at the time" is lawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court ruled 4-3 in the university's favor, with Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor delivering the opinion of the court, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts dissenting.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case.

The Equal Protection Clause requires states to provide the same basic rights to all people in similar circumstances.

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin considered whether race used as a factor in the university's admissions policy was constitutional.

Abigail Fisher, a white woman denied admission to Texas' flagship public university in 2008, claimed her race played a factor in her rejection. She argued that the university denied her admission in favor of less-qualified black and Hispanic students, and that her constitutional right to equal protection was violated.

For its part, UT argued that its holistic admissions plan did not make race the sole factor, but only one component of the contributions an applicant would bring to campus.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 to send the case back to the lower courts to be reevaluated.

Experts watching the case have argued that the outcome could have a far-reaching effect on the ability of universities around the US to consider race in admissions.

The justices, however, made clear the ruling applied specifically to Fisher's experience with the university.

They wrote:

"The Court's affirmance of the University's admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement. It is the University's ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies."

Story continues

Justice Kennedy has emerged as the unlikely hero of affirmative action, voting for the first time to uphold an affirmative-action program.

Justice Alito filed the dissenting opinion in 50 pages, while the opinion was 20 pages.

"The University still has not identified with any degree of specificity the interests that its use of race and ethnicity is supposed to serve," he wrote.

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By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a child sexual molestation lawsuit against discount retailer Dollar General Corp to move forward in a Native American tribal court in Mississippi.

The justices were split 4-4, leaving intact a lower court decision that said the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians' tribal court can hear a family's civil suit accusing a male manager of a Dollar General store located on tribal land of molesting a 13-year-old boy. Dollar General, questioning the impartiality of tribal courts, argued the suit should have been filed in state court because it involved a non-tribe member. The decision sets no nationwide precedent on tribal court jurisdiction
Energy Transfer Equity, L.P. ETE is an oil and gas company that could be an interesting play for investors. That is because, not only does the stock have decent short-term momentum, but it is seeing solid activity on the earnings estimate revision front as well.

These positive earnings estimate revisions suggest that analysts are becoming more optimistic on ETEs earnings for the coming quarter and year. In fact, consensus estimates have moved sharply higher for both of these time frames over the past four weeks, suggesting that Energy Transfer Equity could be a solid choice for investors.

Current Quarter Estimates for ETE

In the past 30 days, 1 estimate has gone higher for Energy Transfer Equity, while 1 has gone lower in the same time period. The trend has been pretty favorable too, with estimates increasing from 25 cents a share 30 days ago, to 30 cents per share today, a move of 20%.

Current Year Estimates for ETE

Meanwhile, Energy Transfer Equitys current year figures are also looking quite promising, with 1 estimate moving higher in the past month, compared to 1 lower. The consensus estimate trend has also seen a boost for this time frame, increasing from $1.01 per share 30 days ago to $1.12 per share today, an increase of 10.9%.

ENERGY TRAN EQT Price and Consensus

ENERGY TRAN EQT Price and Consensus | ENERGY TRAN EQT Quote

Bottom Line

The stock has also started to move higher lately, adding 17.4% over the past four weeks, suggesting that investors are starting to take note of this impressive story. So investors may definitely want to consider this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock to profit in the near future.

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Apartments are shrinking and getting smaller than they were a decade ago, says a new report.

In an age where soaring housing prices and the urge to downsize are giving juice to the tiny-house movement, it isnt surprising that rental units across the U.S. are getting even smaller. Maybe its a sign to finally purge those dusty shoes and record collections taking up valuable space?

The average size of a brand-new apartment is 8% smaller this year, at 934 square feet, than it was in 2006, according to a recent report from RentCafe.com.

The report from the rental website looked only at studios and one- and two-bedroom rentals in buildings with more than 50 units in the largest 100 cities.

Weve been seeing a lot of construction in large cities across the U.S., mostly because there is growing demand for urban living, says Ama Otet, a real estate writer and editor at RentCafe. [But] a lot of these new apartments are going up in these cities urban cores where theres not a lot of space. Theyre high-rises.

Often, the developments, particularly in smaller cities, are part of broader efforts to revitalize their downtown, she says.

But as it turns out, squeezing into a smaller apartment has nothing to do with saving money. Rents are steadily going up, hitting a national average of $1,204 in May, according to the report.

One theory is that spaces are getting smaller as microapartments, often miniature, luxury units, are taking off in the most expensive cities.

The smallest spaces of all, studios, shrank even further, according to the report. They went down 18%, from an already tiny 614 square feet a decade ago to a claustrophobic 504 square feet this year.

One-bedrooms went down 5%, to 752 square feet, and two-bedrooms were squeezed 1%, to 1,126 square feet.

The largest rental units in buildings with 50 or more apartments, regardless of when they were built, are in Atlanta, according to the report. Studios in the Southern city were 570 square feet. One-bedrooms were a spacious 786 square feet. And two-bedrooms were a downright luxurious 1,125 square feet.

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Atlanta real estate broker Dac Carver believes apartments may be bigger in the Big Peach because developers may want to convert them into condos down the line. And the larger size may make them more appealing to potential buyers.

Rents have gotten so expensive, says Carver, of Beacham & Co. Realtors. Larger apartments allow more roommate situations and sharing of rent costs.

Atlanta was followed by Plano, TX, with Jersey City, NJ, and Henderson, NV, tied for third place. Chesapeake, VA, and Charlotte, NC, rounded out the top five.

Meanwhile, the teeniest apartments in large buildings were in Arizona, which nabbed three of the five top spots.

Notoriously small rentals in cities like New York and San Francisco may not have made the list, because its more cost-effective for builders (hampered by high labor, land, and governmental regulation costs) in expensive cities to erect larger developments for which they can charge more.

The smallest units overall are in Tucson, AZ, a city not far from the Mexican border. Studios are a mere 398 square feet, while one-bedrooms are a cramped 595 square feet and two-bedrooms are just 907 square feet.

Tucson was followed by El Paso, TX. Guess not everything is bigger in Texas.

Buffalo, NY, and Glendale and Mesa, AZ, rounded out the top five cities for the smallest new apartments.

The post Surprise: Cities With the Biggestand SmallestApartments appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com.





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LONDON (Reuters) - The man accused of murdering British member of parliament Jo Cox in her electoral district in northern England last week was told on Thursday he will go on trial in November. Thomas Mair, 52, is accused of shooting and stabbing Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, in the street as she arrived for a meeting with residents in the town of Birstall. A 77-year-old man who came to her aid was also stabbed. The murder of the pro-European Union lawmaker horrified politicians and the public and overshadowed the last days of campaigning ahead of Thursday's referendum on whether Britain should remain in the bloc. Charged with murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and possession of a gun and a knife, Mair appeared at London's Old Bailey criminal court via videolink from prison for a brief hearing on Thursday where he spoke only to confirm his name. At an earlier court hearing, Mair had said his name was "death to traitors, freedom for Britain". He was remanded in custody is next due in court on Sept. 19. Judge John Saunders said his trial, which is being handled under terrorism protocols, would start on Nov. 14 and would be led by a High Court judge. Mair is due to enter a plea on Oct. 4. (Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Estelle Shirbon)
Geneva (AFP) - Switzerland's BSI bank said Thursday that it has appealed a ruling ordering its dissolution over links to a corruption scandal engulfing Malaysia.

The appeal filed in Swiss Federal Administrative Court seeks to overturn a May 23 decision by banking supervisor FINMA which found BSI in breach of money laundering regulations with the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.

"BSI believes that FINMA's procedure leading to the decision was flawed in many respects and FINMA's decision as such is disproportionate and incorrect," the Lugano-based bank said in a statement.

BSI said it had been fully transparent about its relations with 1MDB over the past year.

"Where deficiencies have been recognised, BSI has taken, and continues to take corrective measures," it added, conceding "certain internal shortcomings in the past."

FINMA approved BSI's takeover by Zurich-based private banking group EFG International on the condition that BSI is integrated "and thereafter dissolved" within 12 months.

It ordered the seizure of 95 million Swiss francs (86 million euros/$96 million) of BSI's "illegally generated" profits.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has battled allegations that billions were looted from 1MDB in a vast campaign of fraud and embezzlement stretching from the Middle East to the Caymans.

The manner in which FINMA publicly linked BSI to that alleged fraud "was wholly inappropriate," the bank said, vowing to challenge the supervisor's version of the facts.

FINMA specifically accused BSI of failing to identify possible money-laundering over a four-year period until April 2015, especially when dealing with "politically exposed persons" whose dubious transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars were not satisfactorily scrutinised.
Yerevan (AFP) - When a bomb destroyed his workshop in war-ravaged Syria, silversmith Levon Keoshkerian followed other Armenians heading with a heavy heart for their ancestral home in the Caucasus.

He now lives with his elderly mother in Yerevan, where he goes every morning to the outdoor flea market to sell the silver ornaments he rescued as he fled the divided city of Aleppo.

"All my life I worked to preserve and develop the ancient craft of Armenian silversmiths," said Keoshkerian, 47, who came to the Armenian capital in 2015.

"Now I have returned to the blessed land where the tradition was born."

His silver plates, chalices and jugs were crafted in Syria, but they are decorated with traditional Armenian motifs: birds, grapes and pomegranates.

Keoshkerian and his elderly mother are among some 18,000 members of the Syrian Armenian community who have resettled here since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011.

"For a long time we didn't want to abandon our house and flee. We kept hoping that life would go back to normal," Keoshkerian said.

"But after a bomb fell right on my workshop, we understood that we could not wait any longer."

The craftsman drove his mother through Turkey and Georgia to Armenia, braving a difficult journey after Islamist fighters in Aleppo forbade him from selling silverware embellished with pictures of animals.

"Our trip to Armenia was no safer than living under constant bombing in Aleppo," Keoshkerian recalls, citing shelling on roads, militia attacks on buses and harassment by Turkish border guards.

"But finally, my mother and I found safety here in Armenia, where we must start a new life from scratch."

- 'We need help' -

When war broke out in Syria, it was home to a small community of 60,000 to 100,000 Armenian Christians, many of whom lived in Aleppo.

Syrian Armenians were "long-established and law-abiding Syrian citizens -- wealthy merchants, craftsmen, doctors," said Firdus Zakaryan, head of an Armenian diaspora ministry commission overseeing the recent arrivals' integration.

Story continues

"They preserved the Armenian language and traditions, which helped them adapt to a new life in Armenia," he said.

The Armenians are a small part of the tide of people fleeing Syria's war in one of the worst refugee crises in modern history.

Almost half of the country's population of nearly 25 million have been displaced, and four million people fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.

Home to three million people, the ex-Soviet republic of Armenia has become home to the world's third-highest refugee population per capita, according to the UN refugee agency.

But Syrian Armenians fleeing war today mourn the fact that their ancestors were themselves survivors of the Ottoman Turkish massacres during World War I -- meaning their community has suffered displacement twice in just a century.

Armenian authorities have taken measures to make it easier for Syrians of Armenian descent to seek shelter here, including a visa waiver, but the impoverished country is struggling to cope.

"The government has simplified the naturalisation process, covered their health insurance costs, allocated educational funds and even subsidised housing until at least one family member finds a job," Zakaryan said.

"But our small country can't shoulder the burden alone, we need international financial assistance."

- 'Just like our ancestors' -

The UN refugee agency is helping Armenia establish a microcredit scheme to help refugees set up businesses.

"We run courses to familiarise Syrian refugees with Armenian laws and tax regulations and provide those who plan to set up a small business with working tools and equipment," UNHCR coordinator Anahit Hayrapetian said.

In a sign the community is eager to integrate, many Syrian Armenians have opened car service stations, bakeries and tailors' shops in Yerevan and other cities, Hayrapetian said.

"Dozens of new Syrian restaurants and cafes have transformed Yerevan's culinary scene," she added.

Salbi Jabakhchuryan and her son Kaits who came from Aleppo in 2012 run one of Yerevan's most popular restaurants, located right in front of the seat of government.

While their mastery of Armenian cuisine has been key to their success, they have had to tone down some of their recipes to adapt to local tastes.

"In our two restaurants in Aleppo, we used to cook hot and spicy dishes, but Armenians prefer milder food," said Kaits, 28, pulling a freshly baked lahmajoon -- a thin, crusty bread topped with ground meat -- out of the oven.

"So, we adjusted," he shrugged.

"In Syria we lived a hundred times better than here, we were respected, but here it is safe and nobody will hurt you just because you are Armenian," his mother said.

"When we left Aleppo, we shut the doors of our house, but we kept the keys -- just as our ancestors had when they fled Turkey during the Armenian genocide in 1915."
RALEIGH, N.C.There was no shortage of differences between recent rallies by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in this newly minted battleground state, but it was the thing they shared in common that stuck out most. Sooner or later, and usually sooner, every conversation came back to Trumps unpopularity, his temperament, and whether hes qualified to be president.

Take Mark Johnson, who was standing apart from the crowds waiting for Clintons rally at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds to begin. With his work boots, jeans, and trucker-style N.C. hat, the resident of suburban Apex could have fit in at a Trump event. Yet Johnson explained that while he was undecided about November, he was sure of one thing: I dont like Trump. The presumptive Republican nominee didnt have enough business experience, wasnt diplomatic enough, and wasnt presidential, Johnson said: He just runs off at the mouth.

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As we talked, though, Johnson seemed to be in the process of convincing himself to back Clinton. Like with your group of friends, youre not going to agree with everyone about everything, he said. A self-identified independent, he supported Bill Clinton in the 90s and saw him as a big asset for Hillary. And anyway, Johnson reasoned, Trump hadnt offered any plans for how hed carry out his proposals.

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Meet the New Trump, Same as the Old Trump

Not everyone was lukewarm. Gail Wiesner, a Raleigh resident, said shed been a superfan since she lived in Arkansas during the days when Clinton was first lady, and proudly wore an I voted for Hillarys husband button in 1992. But time and again, the rationales voters offered for supporting Hillary turned out to be rationales against voting for Trump. Jose San Martin told me he loved Clinton. But when I asked what attracted him, the conversation just as quickly turned to Trump. San Martin, who was sporting a Duke Class of 2020 shirt, lives in Fuquay-Varina, south of Raleigh, but hes originally from Mexico. Right now, hes on a student visa, but wants to become a citizenand for that, I need a Democrat, he said. San Martin didnt mince words about Trump. I dont agree with anything he does, he said. Hes a racist. People say hes not, but come on, he wanted to ban all Muslims!

Story continues

One might expect that people at a Trump event would be unequivocal about their candidate. But they have their hesitations, too. At a big rally in Greensboro last week, one woman wouldnt to let me quote her by name. Im not ready to come out as a Trump supporter yet, she said with a sheepish grin. (Although Trump has been using the media as a punching bag for months, something had changed at this event. More than at any other Trump rally Ive covered, attendees declined to talk to me, and one of Trumps biggest applause lines came when he boasted of refusing to credential reporters from The Washington Post.)

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The recognition of how toxic Trumps reputation has become isnt lost on his strong supporters. Theres never going to be a perfect candidate, but Donald Trump is the strongest candidate out there, Bijan Vaziri told me off the bat. Donald Trump says some out-there thingswe all know he doesbut hes not a career politician.

More than anything, Vaziri was skeptical of Clinton, who he viewed as essentially dishonest. Like many attendees, he was a veteran, having served in the Marines. He was frustrated by a culture of political correctness that he blamed on leftists who were unwilling to respect differing opinions. But he wasnt a typical small-government conservative. He lamented the state of the economy in his hometown of Winston-Salem, but he thought the answer wasnt the private sector, but making the public sector better. What I believe it is, over the last two generations, weve said, Forget the government, he lamented. It was time for people to come together to repair the national project, he said. Vaziri had frustrations about the way the government was run, but he recognized its value. (He pulled up a pantleg to reveal a prosthesis hed gotten at the VA.) In fact, he was thinking of going to law school and entering public service, and he spoke in crisp soundbiteswith more discipline, perhaps, than his chosen candidate.

Come November, the deciding factor could be whether Trump scares enough voters into either staying home or backing Clinton to hand her the win. The fact that North Carolina is now viewed as a swing state underscores how Trumps toxicity is turning voters off. Two polls a month ago showed Trump up by narrow margins in the state, which Barack Obama won narrowly in 2008 but lost in 2012. It is deeply polarized, meaning the outcome could hinge on whether Republicans turn out more rural voters or Democrats turn out more urban ones. The Clinton campaign included North Carolina in a recent ad blitz in swing states, and it expects frequent campaign visits.

Recommended: The House Democrats' Sit-In Comes to an End

Even the states standard bearers in each party demonstrate the ambivalence. Republican Governor Pat McCrory, who is up for reelection, endorsed Trump through gritted teeth, saying he backed his partys nominee. Neither McCrory nor Senator Richard Burr, whos rumored to be on Trumps vice-presidential list and also up for re-election, showed up in Greensboro. On the Democratic side, neither Attorney General Roy Cooper, whos running against McCrory, nor Deborah Ross, whos up against Burr, showed up for Clinton in Raleigh, each sending regrets. Presidential coattails could affect both the gubernatorial and Senate races, but no one seems quite sure how. Clinton was instead introduced by former Democratic Governor Jim Hunt to enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

In most other respects, the two rallies provided a study in contrasts. Trumps evening rally was larger, with a reported attendance of more than 9,000 (similar to what Bernie Sanders gathered in the same space in the fall). Clinton drew a more modest 2,000 at midday. The soundtrack in Greensboro was Trumps signature playlist; Clinton attendees were treated to a live gospel band, whose sound boomed around a barn-like space. More than a few attendees waited for Clinton with fingers plugging their ears.

Although he gave a carefully scripted speech in New York on Wednesday assailing Clinton as corrupt, Trumps more typical mode is free-associative and free-wheeling. He meandered at will through various topics in Greensborodelivering a spoken-word rendition of Al Wilsons The Snake, mocking his primary opponents, strangely accusing U.S. soldiers of stealing Iraq reconstruction funds.

Clinton, meanwhile, is relentlessly on message. She was charged up and energetic, which she attributed to the grandmother glow of her newborn second grandchild. But her material was on the wonky side. Following on a speech she delivered in Ohio on Tuesday, Clinton was focused on her economic plans. She laid out a four-point agenda: A major jobs-stimulus package; debt-free college; discouraging offshoring and encouraging corporate profit-sharing; and increasing taxes on banks and the wealthy.

There isnt much fresh in Clintons economic plans. She gave her first major economic speech of the campaign nearly a year ago, in July 2015. At the time, she was drawing contrasts with Bernie Sanders; these days, shes figuring out how to incorporate some of his ideas into her own platform. The Clinton campaigns struggle to settle on a single, snappy sloganthe current champ is Stronger Togetherhas been well-covered, but theres a parallel situation on policy. In that July 2015 speech, Clinton heavily emphasized what she called quarterly capitalism, the phenomenon of corporations putting short-term shareholder returns over long-term investment. In Raleigh on Wednesday, she returned to the theme, but the phrase was nowhere to be found. Apparently it hadnt taken, either.

Of course, just because ideas arent new doesnt mean theyre not good. Theres widespread support in liberal and centrist economic circlesand among some Republicans, including Trumpfor greater infrastructure investment, though her promise of the biggest investment in American infrastructure in decades, exceeding even the 2009 stimulus, is notable. Besides, Clinton has the benefit of not having to argue against specific ideas proposed by Trump; instead, she assails him for lacking any plans at all.

The self-proclaimed King of Debt has no real ideas for making college more affordable or addressing the student debt crisis, she said. He has no credible plan for rebuilding our infrastructure, apart from his wall. He has no real strategy for creating jobs, just a string of empty promises. Maybe we shouldnt expect better from someone whose most famous words are, Youre fired.

Even though Trump had unleashed his attack against her earlier in the day, she took her time replying to him. Early in the speech, she subtly sniped at his claim that nothing was known about her religion, saying her ideas about economic justice were rooted in the values I learned from my family and my faith, stressing the last word. As we Methodists say: Do all the good you can to all the people you can in all the ways you can, she added.

This sort of speech can be a little tough going for a crowd, even with the occasional sharp jab (We need to write a new chapter in the American Dreamand it cant be Chapter 11), but Clinton seems to truly enjoy these bullet-pointed, numbered lists. Right now, the race is playing right into her hands. As long as Trump is making Republicans nervous and Democrats either terrified or furious, Clinton doesnt have to rile up her crowds. She just has to look like a viable alternative.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Target never seems to disappoint when it comes to collaborating with fan-favorite, trendy designers or bloggers, like Marimekko and Joy Cho. Now, the retail chain is adding 13 seriously stylish sneakers from the Italian brand Superga to their shelves at a fraction of the normal price.

Normally Superga sneakers cost between $45 and $160 per pair, but Targets most expensive pair is just shy of $35. The retail giant will offer two silhouettes in several colors and patterns: a low-top version and a high-hop version in both canvas and faux-leather. Theres even a stars and stripes patternjust in time to wear to your Fourth of July party.

No matter what pair you choose, these trendy sneakers pair well with just about anything (a maxi dress, jean shorts, or even a romper). But youll want to jump on this collabthe Superga collection is only available for six weeks. The shoes, which are already available online, will launch in select Target stores by June 26.

To buy: $30, target.com.

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

http://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/shoes-accessories/shoes/targets-latest-designer-collaboration
By Aditi Shah and Tommy Wilkes

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Officially at least, Ratan Tata, patriarch of one of India's wealthiest business families, retired in late 2012. In reality, he has been a driving force behind Tata's bet on airlines and a rare public campaign to open up the booming aviation sector.

The $100 billion Tata group conglomerate is a major beneficiary of the decision last week to open up aviation in India, making it easier for start-ups to fly overseas sooner.

The decision is no panacea for Tata, whose airlines - Vistara and AirAsia India - have had a slow start in a competitive market dominated by IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation <INGL.NS>, and Etihad-backed Jet Airways <JET.NS>, both of which opposed the rule change.

But it marks a victory for 78-year-old Ratan Tata, and ends more than two years of airlines lobbying, of Twitter rows and of frequent public statements from the usually circumspect steel-to-salt group.

"This was a David-and-Goliath kind of situation," said a source close to Tata group. "There was huge lobbying from the other side."

Ultimately, sources familiar with the talks said, it was Ratan Tata, a trained pilot, who was key to sealing the deal, capitalizing on his clout.

In a message earlier this year, he called for "a new open market economy" and said airlines lobbying against a rule change was "reminiscent of protectionist and monopolistic pressures by vested interests' entities who seem to fear competition."

A spokesman for Tata Sons denied Ratan Tata was directly involved, saying he had "nothing to do with operations or management of either of the airlines" after his retirement, and that views he expressed were personal.

Tata Sons is a significant shareholder in major Tata group companies, and about two-thirds of Tata Sons' equity capital is held by philanthropic trusts endowed by the Tata family.

TURBULENT BEGINNINGS

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Not that either of Tata's two airline ventures - a low-cost carrier owned with Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd <AIRA.KL> and Vistara, a full-service carrier run with Singapore Airlines <SIAL.SI> - is yet ready to fly overseas. Both have had turbulent starts.

Vistara initially focused on domestic business travelers, but had to reconfigure its aircraft after a year, to replace pricier seats with cheaper ones.

AirAsia underwent a management shake-up earlier this year.

Vistara's share of India's passenger air market is rising but is still just 2.5 percent after nearly 18 months in business. AirAsia's share after two years has stagnated at about 2 percent, government data showed, compared with IndiGo, which has a 39 percent share, and Jet Airways with 19 percent.

But flying overseas is critical. It means higher profits and margins than in India's cut-throat market dominated by low-cost carriers, and Vistara and AirAsia now aim to boost their fleet sizes within a year.

A Tata Sons spokeswoman said making profit can take several years and the group had a "clear road map": "Aviation is a long gestation business sector."

The new rules water down a requirement known as 5/20, which barred domestic airlines from flying overseas before being in operation for five years and having 20 aircraft.

Now they can fly overseas as long as they deploy 20 aircraft or 20 percent of total capacity in India, whichever is higher. Tata Sons and the two airlines said they would prefer the rules to be abolished altogether.

TATA'S RE-ENTRY

Tata group, a business empire stretching from Jaguar Land Rover and steel mills in Britain to salt pans and India's cheapest car, has a long history in aviation.

J. R. D. Tata, the group chairman before Ratan Tata, became India's first qualified pilot in 1929, and set up an airline that was later nationalized as state carrier Air India.

Under Ratan Tata, the group sought to snap up Air India in a privatization process, later aborted.

Instead, even as current chairman Cyrus Mistry has sought to wind up some of Tata group's more ambitious projects, Ratan Tata pulled the group back in with two joint ventures. For his critics, the intervention was too little, too late.

In 2013, a year after India liberalized foreign direct investment in aviation, Tata returned, first with AirAsia and then Vistara.

"India's market has only just started and it could provide growth for global aviation for the next 10 or 15 years," said Kapil Kaul, New Delhi-based chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) consultancy.

India is the world's fastest-growing aviation market, clocking more than 20 percent growth last year, and CAPA expects domestic passenger travel to grow to 500 million by 2035 from 70 million in 2015.

Tata group is moving to capitalize on the win.

Vistara, which has 11 aircraft, had an original plan to scale up to 20 by June, 2018, but could speed that up.

"We do not rule out accelerating the deliveries or procuring more aircraft from leasing firms, manufacturers or, for that matter, from our parent Singapore Airlines also," Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh said in response to a query.

Yeoh said the company was reviewing its international plans.

AirAsia is in the process of ramping up its aircraft to 20 from six to meet the criteria, India CEO Amar Abrol said, adding that the airline lobbied hard for the removal of the 5/20 rule.

(Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy in Singapore; Writing by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
A recent episode on the fight against AIDS from CNN's original series The Eighties highlights the impact thousands of gay activists had in speeding up the FDA's approval of drugs, lowering the pharmaceutical company's astronomical drug costs, and increasing funding for AIDS research. After the Orlando massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub on June 12, will it be the LGBTQ community that rallies together and finally does something about gun control?

Sara Quin of indie-pop duo Tegan and Sara thinks so. "The LGBT community is going to spearhead some serious, serious, sh--," she told Billboard on the red carpet at the iHeartRadio Much Music Video Awards this week in Toronto. Both she and identical twin sister Tegan are both openly gay.

Tegan & Sara: 'When Men Like Drake or Kanye Talk About Sex and Feelings, They're Geniuses'

The pair recently released a new album, their eighth, called Love You to Death and just kicked off a worldwide tour June 22. All this traveling the past 17 years while performing music has given her a wider perspective on human rights.

"Not to take away how amazing the Supreme Court ruling was for same-sex marriage in the United States [in June 2015], but one of the things Tegan and I talk about a lot is internationally," said Sara, who was born in Calgary but now lives in Los Angeles.

"We spend a lot of time in countries where we're not just talking about marriage; we're talking about health care; we're talking about security; we're talking about adoption rights, hospital rights; these things, they need to be legislated. They have to be protected by the government. And this just shows that there are still so many things that can be done to protect people -- not just gay people, but people."

Orlando's Pulse: 'A Place of Love and Happiness' for the City's Artists, Punks, LGBTQ Community

Backstage in the MMVA pressroom, one reporter asked Tegan and Sara what they think is one of the biggest hurdles the LGBT community has to overcome; Tegan answered at length.

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"The past weekend is a prime example of a hurdle we have to overcome. I think that ultimately, every step that the LGBT community takes forward, there are about 10 steps back. And it's not exclusive to our minority group. Ultimately, there's just racism and homophobia and sexism and a million other things that are holding a lot of people back.

"I'd like to say that after 17 years of traveling the world, the world is changing -- and I think it is -- but ultimately there's still a lot of ignorance and hate in the world, and this past week was a tough one for us. It was a really big loss for our community and it was really sad to see this happen at a time when so much change is happening.

'I Can Still Hear The Gunshots': Orlando Shooting Survivors Recall Their Night of Horror

"We just released a record and a lot of people are asking us, 'What are you going to focus on now? Gay marriage -- everyone's equal in America. What are you going to focus on now?' and we were like, that's so strange, because they legislated some change, sure, but the world is still a very complicated and difficult place for LGBT people.

"We have a huge civil-rights movement happening right now with transgender people in America and I think the worst thing that could happen to our community is we could become apathetic and we could think that everything has changed -- everything has not changed. We are still a minority group and a lot of people still hate us, and that was proven last weekend.

"But this is an exciting time too. It means we can band together and we have a really good chance of legislating change and we need to change the laws in America and I think we need to remember that we're on this planet for a short time. We should love each other."
The Television Academy is suing to stop Whitney Houston's heirs from selling her Emmy statuette because the sale would tarnish the award, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in California federal court.

Houston's Emmy is currently listed at $10,000 on Heritage Auctions' website and is set to be sold on Friday, but the Academy says if the sale is allowed to proceed it will undermine the prestige of the award.

The Academy also claims the statuette is not actually Houston's property; the awards are loans, not gifts.

"When the Television Academy honors an artist for an achievement, it lends a copy of the Emmy Statuette to the artist to signify and symbolize the honor," states the complaint. When an honoree dies, the Academy "permits the artist's heirs and successors in interest to retain custody of copies to symbolize the achievements of the deceased honoree."

Read More: Whitney Houston's Passports, Wedding Dress and Other Personal Items Put Up for Auction

Houston won the Emmy for outstanding individual performance in a variety or musical in 1986 for "Saving All My Love for You," which she performed at the Grammys. The Academy claims there was a notice affixed to the bottom of the award that makes it clear an honoree or heir can't sell it. That notice wasn't attached when Heritage received it, according to the complaint, so the auction house has ignored previous warnings from the Academy.

"The Television Academy has never intended that the Emmy Statuette copies be treated as articles of trade," states the complaint. "The original statuette is registered under the copyright laws as an 'unpublished' work of art: copies of the statuette are not, and never have been, offered for sale or given to the general public."

The Academy is suing for copyright infringement and conversion. It is asking the court to have the award returned to its possession during the lawsuit and to make a determination of its rights in the Emmy.

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Greg Rohan, president of Heritage Auctions issued a statement on Wednesday saying the statuette was consigned to the auction house by Houston's family and he has yet to be shown proof that the artist agreed to never sell the award.

"Why is the Academy now demanding return of Houston's Emmy when they did not stop over three dozen earlier public auctions of Emmy awards the past decade?" says Rohan in the statement. "Based on their behavior thus far, we think the Academy is simply trying to bully the Houston family, and we're going to stand up for our consignor, regardless of the cost. In addition, Heritage Auctions will donate our entire commission earned on the sale of the Emmy to a charity of the Houston family's choice."

June 22, 6:15 p.m. Updated with a statement from Heritage Auctions.

Read More: Whitney Houston Estate Challenges $11 Million Tax Bill
By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Conservatives including the Texas attorney general condemned the Supreme Court's decision on Thursday backing a race-based admissions program at the University of Texas, but there were words of support for the ruling on the school's Austin campus.

"There is a reality of minorities having a harder time getting into college," said Christopher Vasquez, 24, a senior majoring in government and philosophy at the university's main campus in Austin, with about 50,000 students.

On campus, left-leaning ideas among students and faculty can often be at odds with the university's segregated past. Last year, the university moved a statute of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States defeated in the American Civil War, from campus in response to protests over the public display of symbols of the pro-slavery Confederacy.

The campus also has clashed with the socially conservative policies of the Republican politicians who govern the state.

On Thursday, Ken Paxton, the state's Republican attorney general, faulted the Supreme Court for allowing colleges to favor applicants of one race over another.

"The University of Texas is one of the finest educational institutions in the world. The opportunities it offers should be available to all students based on their merit, not the color of their skin," Paxton said.

The court upheld the university's policy that considers race among other factors in admitting students who do not gain automatic acceptance by ranking in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. The justices sided against a white woman who said she was rejected in favor of lesser-qualified black and Hispanic applicants.

Brian Schwarz, a university staff member, said a diverse array of people on campus benefits the university.

"I am sympathetic to the argument that all admissions should be color blind," Schwarz said. "But I think by doing that, a fraction of the population who are under-served and under-represented will not get a fair shake."

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Figures from the university show that racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented at the Austin campus. For example, Hispanic students make up 19.5 percent of the student body even as Hispanics comprise nearly 40 percent of the state's population.

Civil rights groups hailed the ruling.

"At a time when our country is increasingly divided, university campuses provide critical opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds to interact, learn about one another and become informed citizens and leaders," said Sherrilyn Ifill, head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

But Carrie Severino of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network legal group said the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law "simply doesn't allow discrimination based on race, and schools shouldn't be given a pass."

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Will Dunham)
Microsofts (MSFT) June 13 announcement to acquire LinkedIn (LNKD) focused on the transformation this $26 billion acquisition would bring to Big Blue.



But overlooked are key implications for the growing $55 billion software giant in Silicon Valley Salesforce.com (CRM).



After all, Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said he had also put in a bid for LinkedIn. Meanwhile, its been rumored for over a year that Microsoft has been courting Salesforce itself as a potential target.



Social and enterprise intertwine



Microsofts decision to buy the career networking site reflects a growing integration between social and enterprise software, which speaks to Salesforces sweet-spot.



Stifel analyst Tom Roderick said that the overlap of social networks and software companies is becoming more indistinguishable.



The lines are blurring here across all of this social data and its impact on enterprise platforms, he said. The very idea that Microsoft would pay $26 billion for LinkedIn and that Salesforce.com might have been interested tells you that just about anything and everything in tech might be for sale right now.



The collision of social media and software can be seen in Salesforce.coms own platform. Its Chatter platform in particular embraces social on the enterprise stage.



Marc Benioff has a broader vision



A Microsoft-Salesforce tie-up has been discussed for over a year now. And while Roderick believes Microsoft has more firepower for more deals, they would have to be prepared to pay a hefty multiple for Salesforce.



After all, Benioff has been a true visionary.



He was an early pioneer that advanced the very idea of the cloud better than anyone out there, Roderick said. Meanwhile, all software companies are clamoring for more cloud.



I think it would have to be a whale of a multiple to convince him to be a part of and reporting to a bigger entity in software, he said. It would have had to have been a heck of an offer and of course palatable to Benioff himself.



Thats not to say that Salesforce wouldnt be a willing seller to Microsoftat a price, according to Roderick. While Benioff has cast names like SAP (SAP), Oracle (ORCL) and IBM (IBM) as old tech, he hasnt been so quick to put that label on Microsoft, which has transformed under CEO Satya Nadella.



Under Nadellawho succeeded Steve Ballmer in 2014Microsoft has been transforming.



Theyre willing to open their doors and embrace the co-opetition angle more than the old Microsoft was able to do, Roderick said. Theyve been willing to pivot their business around the cloud and around Microsoft 365.



And now, the next step is smart acquisitions.



I think Nadella recognizes that jump starting that is going to require some really serious M&A, Roderick said said. I dont think theyre done. I think well see something else behind LinkedIn.



Whether or not Microsoft can erase their historical spotty acquisition track record will be an important primary proof-point, Roderick added.



Salesforce.com is looking for more deals



Meanwhile, losing out on LinkedIn isnt stopping Salesforce anytime soon.



When Salesforce announced the acquisition of Demandware (DWRE) in the beginning of June, Benioff said in an interview on CNBC that the environment for mergers and acquisitions was just heating up.



The M&A season right now is the most intense, most exciting Ive ever seen, Benioff said. Ive never seen more deals and more things happening. Were not winning every deal. This is just a deal that we were able to get done...Its tough to get deals done in this environment because everyones positioning for growth next year.



Other deals that Salesforce could gobble up include ServiceNow (NOW) and Workday (WDAY), according to analysts.



This comes especially as the company is trying to build out its verticals, including commerce and marketing.



Meanwhile, temporary disruption at Microsoft could be good for Salesforce, according to Roderick.



Longer term, the Microsoft-LinkedIn tie-up may create a more formidable threat for Salesforce on the sales cloud side. But for right now, creates disruption at Microsoft that Salesforce isnt too upset about.



One things for suremore deals are likely in the coming year in the software space.




It may never receive the critical acclaim lauded upon many of its more PC contemporaries, but Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia has consistently been one of the funniest comedies on TV across its 11 series span. For the uninitiated, the gang comprises of five utterly narcissistic, selfish and downright awful friends, Mac, Charlie, brother and sister Dennis and Dee and their dad, Frank. Between them they own a bar in Philadelphia and spend most of their free time drinking heavily and coming up with increasingly elaborate get rich quick schemes. Its tough to narrow them down, but of all the depraved and offensive episodes theres been to date, here are some of the very best:

Dennis And Dee go on Welfare: S2 E3



(credit: Screenrant)

A brilliant early episode here which cemented the shows determination to mine even the darkest of plotlines for humour. In this instance, in a bid to gain welfare so they can stop working and pursue their dreams, Dee and Dennis get addicted to crack. As the pair succumb to addiction, Frank hires cheap labour under a government programme while Mac and Charlie team together to spend some of Franks secret money stash on hookers and limos. Inevitably it all begins to go wrong but it never stops being fun seeing Dee and Dennis get their comeuppance and Mac and Charlie get into things way over their head.

The Gang Solve the Gas Crisis: S4 E2

(credit: Its Always Sunny Wikia)

The gang often take it upon themselves to tackle broader social problems and in this episode they decide to try and solve the gas crisis. This soon results in them scheming to stock up on gasoline and then sell it on when the prices increase. Inevitably this doesnt go according to plan and they ultimately wind up having to sell it door to door. This was also the episode where the gang finally nailed down their roles as they decide that Dennis is the looks, Mac is the brains, Frank is the muscle, Dee is the useless chick and Charlie is the wildcard. The inevitably doomed scheme is a joy to watch unravel, but its Charlie who steals the show, revelling in his wildcard role and delivering one if the worst Southern oil man impressions of all time.

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The Nightman Cometh: S4 E13

(credit: AVclub)

Season Four is pretty much gold from start to finish but this legendary episode stands out as one of the shows all-time greats. The basic premise is thus, Charlie writes a rock opera and is convinced hes written a touching love ode to the object of his affections, the waitress. The rest of the gang however become fairly convinced its actually a worryingly dark tale of sexual abuse. The sight of the group giving it their all in this twisted musical is hilarious from start to finish with Franks performance as a troll a particular highlight. Its absolutely insane, but be warned, you will have the Nightman song stuck in your head for days afterwards.

The DENNIS System: S5 E10

(credit: Its Always Sunny Wikia)

Dennis character has gradually descended from the slightly egotistical brains of the group, to a full blown emotionless sociopath. Perhaps the first major step on his way to fully blown psycho came in this epside where he broke down his terrifying DENNIS system for seducing women, providing a startling insight into his mindset as we learn that D stands for Demonstrate Value while I stands for the rather telling Inspire Hope. We also see the sexual hierarchy of the group in action with Macs own MAC system which sees him Move in After Completion once Dennis is no longer interested. Its a twisted insight into his inner psyche, but Dennis deluded yet steadfast belief in his own sexual appeal is great fun to witness.

The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore: S7 E2

(credit: Its Always Sunny Wikia)



While other sitcoms may have their cast go on fun holiday adventures, in Sunny they face a hellish trip to the Jersey shore instead. The fun holidays of Dennis and Dees youth lead to them getting excited, only for the trip to turn increasingly dark as they get caught up in the seedier side of the modern shore. Charlie is at first apprehensive to leave Philadelphia but begins to enjoy things more when his beloved waitress turns up on the same beach. Frank and Mac steal the show though and after enjoying their rum soaked ham on the beach but then getting bothered by wild dogs, they decide to drift out to sea in a dinghy to escape them. Eventually they end up getting picked up by a party boat and spend their evening getting drunk and spray tanned. A day trip to remember for all concerned.

Chardee Macdennis - The Game of Games: S7 E7

(credit: Its Always Sunny Wikia)



This whole episode revolves around the gang playing a game that they invented which combines trivia, challenges, darts, cheating and lots and lots of booze. The competitive nature of the whole group soon comes to the fore and we are swiftly reminded of just how awful they can be to each other. Its chaotic, absurd and often downright dangerous, but it also shows just how much fun the group can have together. The episode was so successful it warranted a sequel in season 11, Chardee Macdennis 2 ; Electric Boogalo.

Charlie Work: S10 E4



(credit: AVclub)

An extremely clever spin on the typical Sunny episode here as we follow Charlie, so often the butt of all the gangs jokes, as he single handily pulls off the task of getting the bar through its yearly health inspection. The group dynamic is turned on its head as Charlie takes the lead, and the rest of the gang prove to be nothing but a nuisance. The episode is presented as being one long continuous shot following Charlie as he puts his elaborate scheme together despite the overwhelming odds. Its a neat Birdman-esque premise that gives Charlie a great chance to shine.





(Main image credit: Den of Geek US)
Turbo (Colombia) (AFP) - It is a dangerous, grueling odyssey to reach this Colombian port city that migrants from around the world use as a way station to try to make it to the United States.

So imagine doing it while pregnant, as Yadira Torres of Cuba is.

After three miscarriages, she thought she would never have kids. Then, during the rough journey from impoverished Cuba, the miracle happened.

And here she is, six months pregnant, along with hundreds of other Cubans biding their time in this Caribbean port city as they dream of a better life in the United States.

"Like all the Cubans who are here, I want to make it to the United States. I would like my baby to be born there," Torres told AFP.

In Turbo, more than 500 Cubans have been waiting since mid-May for their migratory status to be cleared up. The trip north has been made harder by tougher border controls in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Torres, a 24-year-old nurse, left Cuba on November 2 with her husband, 37-year-old Odeiki Hernandez. They flew to Guyana, and then to Brazil -- "That is where I conceived", Torres says -- and then to Peru, Ecuador and finally Colombia.

"We use planes, boats, taxis, buses and even walk," said Torres. Like the other Cubans, she wants to take advantage of a preferential migratory status that the United States provides to Cubans.

They fear this special treatment -- which dates back to the Cold War -- will end now that the United States and Cuba have buried the hatchet and restored diplomatic relations.

The trip was long and hard. "At times we had no place to sleep, and I had nausea. In Colombia, the police would tell us to slip money into our passports or they would deport us. On the way from Cali to Medellin they took all my husband's clothes. They did not do it to me because he stood up and defended me."

"You end up giving away watches, necklaces, money to keep going. Sometimes we had no food to eat," said Torres, who is determined to keep fighting for her baby.

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She is hopeful about the future, like many Cubans living in an abandoned warehouse in Turbo.

For many the next step is to try to reach Panama, and from there keeping moving through Central America.

But on May 9 Panama cracked down on entry by foreigners without immigration papers. So the number of Cubans in Turbo is rising.

- An expensive trip -

Another Cuban, Mercedes Salazar, cannot help but laugh over the fact that the first place she landed after leaving Havana for Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, was in fact Panama City. But she could not stay, and has yet to make it back there.

"The flight from Georgetown stops off in Panama City. But we could not leave the airport," said Salaza.

She says that during the long journey Cubans are robbed and cheated. They end up abandoning their luggage. They go hungry.

"We arrived here with nothing. No money, no cell phone, almost with just the clothes on our back," she said.

Cubans in Turbo said they spend between $7,000 and $12,000 to reach the United States.

Xiomara Hernandez said she sold her apartment to pay for the trip. Many Cubans confessed to having taken such drastic steps.

"And today I do not even have clothes to wear," said Hernandez, who is 50.

- Disappointment and generosity -

Other migrants who left Cuba did not originally plan to head to the United States. But economic troubles in other Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Uruguay prompted them to change their minds.

Some worked as doctors or professors as part of official Cuban delegations in Venezuela or Ecuador. But they ended up so discouraged and poor that they decided to defect.

And they ended up in Turbo, which since late 2015 has seen an increased migrant flow not just from Cuba but also Haiti, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Nepal, Cameroun, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia.

In the warehouse that some anonymous kind soul lent to the Cubans, the air is stuffy and smells of tobacco.

A few days ago, someone high on drugs threatened them with a knife. So at night they close the doors, and two or three take turns on guard duty outside.

Sometimes gunshots can be heard from a nearby neighborhood where streets gangs wage turf battles.

But the Cubans are very grateful to the people of the nearby community, the vast majority of whom have been affected by Colombia's more than 50-year-old war with leftist rebels.

"We have received donations of clothing and food, or even just a few eggs. What little they have, they share," said 45-year-old Cuban Andy Sanchez.
Thomas Greer was recently elected as the President of the newly-renamed Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association

MEMPHIS, TN / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Attorney Thomas R. Greer, partner at Bailey & Greer, PLLC, has been named the President of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association. Mr. Greer has been a member of the TTLA since 2005, serving on the Board of Governors since 2011, and as its Vice President since 2012.

"I am very honored to have been named President of this incredible organization," Thomas Greer said. "The members are some of the most dedicated, innovative and ethical attorneys I have ever had the privilege to work beside, and I am excited to continue the good work we do in my tenure as the Association's president. The right of Tennesseans, of Americans, to seek justice through the courts is one of the most important rights we have. I will do whatever I can to help our organization continue to advance that right."

Thomas Greer has extensive experience in federal and state courts, having secured impressive verdicts and settlements on behalf of his clients. He joined Bailey & Greer in 2005, and is well recognized in both the local and legal communities for his work.

About the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association

The Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association was founded in 1964 by a group of trial attorneys as a non-profit organization. It "works to protect the civil justice system and advocates for the accountability and rights of all systems" by upholding the laws of the Tennessee and U.S. Constitutions. It offers members myriad resources and educational opportunities to better support attorneys in their practice of the law.

The Association also offers specific support for members who practice in the following areas:

 Civil Rights & Governmental Tort Liability

 Consumer Protection & Insurance

 Family Law

 Medical Malpractice

 Nursing Home Law

 Worker's Compensation

Bailey & Greer, PLLC was founded in 1986. Based in Memphis, there are additional locations in Jackson and Nashville. The firm's attorneys primarily focus their practice in the areas of:

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 Auto accidents

 Truck accidents

 Medical malpractice

 Birth injuries

For more information, please visit http://www.baileygreer.com

Contact Info:

Name: Thomas Greer

Organization: Bailey & Greer, PLLC

Address: 6256 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN 38119

Phone: (901) 680-9777

SOURCE: Bailey & Greer, PLLC
Trying to think up couple names for Jake Gyllenhaal and Rooney Mara? You can give your brain a break.

Rumors started flying that the actors were an item after photos surfaced of them walking side-by-side in New York City on June 18.

WATCH: Jake Gyllenhaal Reveals He Had a Crush on Jennifer Aniston For Years

Many claimed that the two looked flirty, but the pics also only showed Gyllenhaal and Mara in the frame. If you zoom out, however, you'll see a guy in a gray shirt to the right of the Southpaw star. His name is Charlie McDowell, and he's not only an actor, but he's also Mara's longtime, live-in boyfriend.

FameFlynet

Yup. Sorry, Marahaal hopefuls!

While it's not totally clear how Gyllenhaal and Mara know each other, A-list Hollywood is a pretty small world. Plus, the Carol star's older sister, Kate Mara, was in 2005's Brokeback Mountain, one of Gyllenhaal's most well-known films.

Mara, 31, has been with McDowell for about six years. Gyllenhaal, on the other hand, has been linked to a number of actresses over the years, including Kirsten Dunst, Taylor Swift and Reese Witherspoon. The 35-year-old actor most recently had the rumor mill churning around him possibly dating Charlize Theron and Dakota Johnson.

Last July, Gyllenhaal revealed that despite his many relationships, he's only been in love "twice." During an appearance on Howard Stern's Sirius XM radio show in July, he admitted that his exes shouldn't blame themselves for those breakups. "It was me, man," he told Stern. "I think I probably just got scared."

Nonetheless, he also admitted, "I love love, man. Are you kidding me?"

MORE: Rooney Mara Regrets Playing Tiger Lily in 'Pan'

In fact, that same month, Gyllenhaal told ET's Kevin Frazier that he hopes to have a family one day. "I am not a father yet, but it is definitely a dream of mine, should I be lucky to have that happen," he revealed.

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Hear more of his interview with ET in the video below.

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ATHENS (Reuters) - Three people were killed and two injured during a shootout in Cyprus's tourist resort of Ayia Napa on Thursday, police said, in an incident possibly related to local crime gangs. Police declined to speculate on what was behind the killing, but a terror motive appeared to be ruled out. State radio reported that four people were killed in the shootout, including a local businessman. Serious crime is rare in Cyprus, which attracts more than 2 million, mainly western European tourists each year. But there are sporadic incidents of gangland violence. In June 2012, five security guards were shot dead in Ayia Napa, in what was widely considered a contract killing. (Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Leslie Adler)
The last year has been a rather productive one for the detectives investigating the unsolved murder of Erik Cross, a 16-year-old boy who was found lying dead on the side of the road outside his home during the summer of 1983.



A spokesman for the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office tells PEOPLE investigators believe they are moving closer to solving the 33-year-old mystery. Within the past year, detectives have developed "key information" about how Cross died that seems to implicate a number of individuals, the spokesman reveals.



"About a year ago, we got some real, key information we had never released and it hit dead center," explains Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas. "At one point, the phone was ringing off the hook. We've been pursuing a number of tips, with half actually helping to further the case."



The 16-year-old was found by his father outside his home in Vicksburg, Michigan, on the morning of June 26, 1983. He was last seen the night before, stumbling home from a drinking party. Police claim witnesses recalled seeing Cross near a gas station that same evening, and that he was interacting with the occupants of two vehicles: a yellow car and another dark-colored vehicle.



Erik's parents allegedly told police they heard a car turning around in their driveway about 30 minutes before his body was actually discovered.



At first, police suspected Cross was mowed down in a hit-and-run accident. But detectives have since revised their thinking. They now suspect the teen died before his body was purposely run over by someone staging it to look like he'd been struck by a fleeing car.



Erik's body was then dumped on the side of the road near his home.



 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.



Matyas tells PEOPLE that investigators suspect Erik was killed during a failed "hood-surfing" attempt. Specifically, police think Cross fell from the hood of an erratically-operated automobile before being subsequently crushed under the car's tires.



"Last year, we definitely caught a break with this case," says Matyas, noting detectives are anxious to present their case to prosecutors. "We're definitely a lot further along with the investigation than we were even a year ago."



Matyas tells PEOPLE his officers have identified five people of interest "who were either involved in this incident or assisted in covering it up."



One of the lead suspects, Matyas says, won't be hard for cops to track down, since he's currently serving time in prison.



Matyas refused to discuss what new information investigators have developed and would not discuss when an arrest might occur.



"We are still building our case and to speculate would just cause more rumors, which don't help our cause," Matyas explains.
Havana (AFP) - After a half-century of conflict, the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government signed a definitive ceasefire and disarmament agreement on Thursday.

Here are key dates in Latin America's longest armed conflict, which has killed 260,000 people according to official data.

- 1964: FARC formed -

The government launches an offensive against communist groups in the center and west of the country. On May 27, rebel commander Manuel Marulanda Velez flees the government assault with 47 other men and forms the FARC.

- 1984: First peace bid -

On March 28, conservative president Belisario Betancur launches peace talks with the FARC under a bilateral truce.

The initiative breaks down in 1987 after right-wing paramilitaries assassinate a presidential candidate from a party allied to the FARC. Further peace efforts collapse in 1992 and 2002.

- 1996: Hostages taken -

On August 30, the FARC takes 60 Colombian soldiers hostage at a military base in the south.

The raid marks the start of its strategy of mass hostage-takings that dominates the conflict over the following years.

- 2000: 'Plan Colombia' -

In June, the United States and Colombian president Andres Pastrana launch "Plan Colombia," a joint anti-narcotics strategy.

It is later broadened to include anti-guerrilla operations. Washington has spent more than $8.0 billion on the effort.

- 2002: Betancourt captured -

In February, the FARC kidnap Ingrid Betancourt, a Franco-Colombian politician.

During six years in captivity in the jungle, she becomes an international symbol of the conflict. She is rescued by the military in 2008.

- 2011: FARC leader killed -

The FARC's top commander Alfonso Cano is killed in a raid by the Colombian army on November 4.

Two other top leaders of the force, Raul Reyes and Jorge Briceno, were killed in 2008 and 2010.

Cano is replaced by current leader Timoleon Jimenez, who reaches out to the government for peace talks.

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- 2012: New peace talks -

On October 4, President Juan Manuel Santos's government launches the latest peace talks with the FARC, weakened by the loss of its top leaders.

- 2016: Full ceasefire -

On June 23, the FARC and the government sign a definitive ceasefire and disarmament agreement.

Santos says he hopes to seal a full peace deal within weeks. Under the accord, disarmament must be completed within the following six months.
The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago: 1947: Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda's Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948: Virus recovered from Aedes africanus mosquito in Zika Forest 1952: First human cases detected in Uganda and Tanzania 1954: Virus found in Nigeria 1960s-80s: Zika detected in mosquitoes and monkeys across equatorial Africa 196983: Zika found in equatorial Asia, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan 2007: Zika spreads from Africa and Asia, first large outbreak on Pacific island of Yap 2012: Researchers identify two distinct lineages of the virus, African and Asian 201314: Zika outbreaks in French Polynesia, Easter Island, the Cook Islands and New Caledonia. Retrospective analysis shows possible link to birth defects and severe neurological complications in babies in French Polynesia March 2, 2015: Brazil reports illness characterized by skin rash in northeastern states July 17: Brazil reports detection of neurological disorders in newborns associated with history of infection Oct. 5: Cape Verde has cases of illness with skin rash Oct. 22: Colombia confirms cases of Zika Oct. 30: Brazil reports increase in microcephaly, abnormally small heads, among newborns Nov. 11: Brazil declares public health emergency November 2015-January 2016: Cases reported in Suriname, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay, Venezuela, French Guiana, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Ecuador, Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Curacao, Jamaica Feb. 1: World Health Organization (WHO) declares public health emergency of international concern Feb. 2: First case of Zika transmission in United States; local health officials say likely contracted through sex, not mosquito bite Feb. 5: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says virus being actively transmitted in 30 countries, mostly in the Americas Feb. 8: U.S. President Barack Obama requests $1.8 billion to fight Zika Feb. 12: Brazil investigating potential link between Zika infections and 4,314 suspected cases of microcephaly. Of those, 462 confirmed as microcephaly and 41 determined to be linked to virus Feb. 17: Brazil investigating potential link between Zika and 4,443 suspected cases of microcephaly. Of those, 508 confirmed as microcephaly and most of those cases are linked to the virus. WHO seeks $56 million to fight Zika. Feb. 18: CDC adds Aruba and Bonaire to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 32. Feb. 23: CDC investigating 14 cases of possible sexual transmission of Zika. CDC also adds Trinidad and Tobago and Marshall Islands to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 34. Feb. 25: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases number more than 580 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,100 suspected cases of microcephaly. Feb. 27: France detects first sexually transmitted case of Zika. Feb. 29: CDC adds St. Maarten, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 36. March 1: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 641 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,222 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 8: WHO advises pregnant women to avoid areas with Zika outbreak and said sexual transmission of the virus is "relatively common." March 9: CDC adds New Caledonia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 37. March 15: Cuba reports first case of Zika contracted in the country. March 16: Cape Verde identifies first case of microcephaly. March 18: CDC says during Jan. 1, 2015 to Feb. 26, 2016, 116 residents of the United States had evidence of recent Zika virus infection based on laboratory testing. Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 863 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,268 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 19: CDC adds Cuba to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 38. March 21: South Korea confirms first case of Zika. March 22: CDC adds Dominica to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 39. Bangladesh confirms first case of Zika virus. Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 907 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,293 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 29: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 944 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil said the number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped slightly to 4,291. March 31: According to the World Health Organization, there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis, though conclusive proof may take months or years. April 1: CDC adds Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 40. April 4: CDC adds Fiji to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 41. April 5: Vietnam reports first Zika infections. April 6: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 1,046 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. The number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped to 4,046. April 7: St. Lucia confirms first two cases of Zika, contracted locally. April 12: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 1,113 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. The number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped to 3,836. It was the second week in a row that the overall total figure fell. April 13: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. The CDC said now that the causal relationship has been established, several important questions must still be answered with studies that could take years. CDC adds St. Lucia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 42. April 14: Colombia confirms two microcephaly cases linked to Zinka. April 18: Peru reports first case of sexually transmitted Zika virus. CDC adds Belize to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 43. April 19: Chilean authorities find Zika mosquito for first time in decades. April 25: Canada confirms first sexually transmitted Zika case. April 26: Brazil says the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly climbed to 1,198 from 1,168 in the week through April 23, but suspected ones under investigation continued to decline to 3,710 from 3,741 a week ago. Brazil registered 91,387 likely cases of the Zika virus from February until April 2, the health ministry said, in its first national report on the epidemic. April 29: Puerto Rico reports first death related to Zika, according to the CDC. The country also confirmed 683 Zika cases, including 65 pregnant women, and five suspected cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from Zika, the CDC reported. May 4: Panama confirms four microcephaly cases tied to Zika. May 6: Spain gets first case of Zika-related brain defect in a fetus. May 9: CDC adds Papua New Guinea, Saint Barthelemy and Peru to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 46. Honduras suspects first case of microcephaly in Zika patient. May 11: Brazil says the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly dropped to 1,326 in the week through May 7 as doctors and Brazilian health officials find that some suspected cases of microcephaly are not the disorder. Suspected ones under investigation continued to decline to 3,433. May 12: CDC adds Grenada to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 47. May 13: Puerto Rico reports first case of Zika-related microcephaly. May 20: WHO says an outbreak of Zika virus on the African island chain of Cape Verde is of the same strain as the one blamed for birth abnormalities in Brazil. May 24: Brazil reports the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly at 1,434 for the latest week to May 21. Suspected ones under investigation declined to 3,257. May 26: CDC adds Argentina to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 48. June 9: WHO issues updated guidelines on prevention of sexual transmission of the Zika virus, including advising women living in areas where the virus is being transmitted to delay getting pregnant. June 14: El Salvador confirms first case of microcephaly linked to Zika. SOURCES: World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by the Americas Desk)
Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis was reportedly assaulted by a stranger who broke into her North Carolina home last week.

After a short struggle with the suspect, identified by news station WYFF4 in Greenville as Laurence Marie Dorn, McGillis was able to get ahold of authorities, the actress wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.

Im alright. Scratched and bruise, the actress, who starred as Tom Cruises love interest Charlie in the 1986 classic, wrote on Facebook. I feel very thankful it turned out well. But who I feel heartache for is the little girl that was with her. Mental illness takes many hostages. I dont know her namebut I would like to asked that you pray for her and her mother. [sic]

Dorn has been charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency communication, according to WYFF4.

The Henderson County Sheriffs Office could not be reached for additional information.

Read More: Star Wars Gets Kenny Loggins Top Gun Treatment
Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria's ex-national security advisor Thursday blamed his current legal woes on his military past, indicating he believed President Muhammadu Buhari was settling old political scores by prosecuting him.

Sambo Dasuki was arrested last December and is facing three trials in connection with illegally diverting security funds earmarked for fighting Boko Haram Islamists and the illegal possession of firearms.

But critics have speculated that Buhari is trying to settle an old political rivalry dating back decades.

Dasuki, a former army colonel, is reported to have been the officer who arrested Buhari in 1985 during a bloodless coup that ended his 20-month stint as military ruler.

In a statement submitted to an Abuja court, Dasuki said it was "crystal clear" he was being "punished by the powers that be for the perceived offences committed long before", without elaborating.

Despite being granted bail by the three separate courts, Nigeria's secret service has continued to detain Dasuki without pressing any new charges.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court will decide on June 29 whether the Nigerian government denied Dasuki's "right to freedom".

Should the regional court rule in favour of Dasuki, he would be freed from custody but continue to be prosecuted on criminal charges.

The country's anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, considers Dasuki a flight risk while Buhari has said the country cannot allow him to "jump bail".
BEIJING (Reuters) - A tornado, hail storms and driving rain killed at least 78 people and injured some 500 in eastern China on Thursday, flattening power lines, overturning cars and ripping roofs off houses in Jiangsu province. The storm struck mid-afternoon near Yancheng city, a few hours' drive north of China's commercial capital, Shanghai, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. Winds of 125 km per hour (78 mph) battered several townships in Funing county, the official Xinhua news agency said. "I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows," Funing resident Xie Litian, 62, told Xinhua. "I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away." When the storm subsided and Xie escaped, all the neighboring houses were gone. "It was like the end of the world," Xie said. Of the roughly 500 hurt about 200 have serious injuries. Power and communications are down in some areas and emergency supplies, including 1,000 tents, have been rushed to the scene, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement. Pictures posted online showed injured people lying amid destroyed houses, overturned cars, split tree trunks and broken power lines. The summer often brings severe weather to China. Severe floods in the south killed at least 22 people and left 20 missing earlier this week. Last June, a freak storm led to the sinking of a Yangtze River cruise ship that killed 442 people, many of them elderly tourists. Only 12 people survived when the Eastern Star capsized in what was China's worst shipping disaster in seven decades. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Nick Macfie and Robin Pomeroy)
Earlier this month, Ben Rhodes, the architect of Barack Obamas diplomatic opening to Cuba, characterized the full restoration of U.S.-Cuban relationsin other words, Congress lifting the U.S. travel ban and trade embargo against the islandas inevitable and imminent. It would be the next domino to fall after the first U.S. presidential visit to Cuba in 88 years, the first authorization of commercial flights from America to Cuba in five decades, the first sales of Cuban coffee to the U.S. market, and so on.

The fact of the matter is that the American people and the Cuban people overwhelmingly want this to happen, Rhodes said. Frankly, whatever the political realities in either country, for somebody to try to turn this off, they would have to be working against the overwhelming desires of their own people.

As the Obama administration seeks to cement one of its principal foreign-policy achievements, its worth pausing to unpack that complex word: desire. Rhodes is right that the majority of Americans and Cubans support re-establishing ties between the two nations. Yet most Americans and Cubans dont think re-established ties will bring more democracy to Cubas one-party state. In one 2015 poll, just over 50 percent of Cubans said they were dissatisfied with the countrys political system and wanted more political parties than the Castros Communist Party. But roughly the same percentage didnt think their countrys new relationship with the United States would change the Cuban political system (Cubans were more likely to anticipate change in their widely despised economic system). They desire normal relations with America. But many also desire democracy. And they dont expect the former to lead to the latter.

For Rosa Maria Paya, such an outcome is patently unacceptable. Paya is the daughter of Oswaldo Paya, a Cuban democracy activist who in 2012 was killed in a mysterious car crash that official accounts labeled an accident, but that Payas family, and the driver of the car, have condemned as a brazen assassination by the Castro regime. Paya is 27 years old, a recent college graduate who studied physics like her father and relocated from Havana to Miami after his death; shes part of a generation of Cubans that is especially supportive of democracy, the United States, and emigration from Cuba. And Paya is an activist in her own right, continuing her fathers campaign for a national plebiscite on whether to overhaul Cubas political system.

Paya cannot be counted among the overwhelming number of Cubans who, according to Rhodes, are enthusiastic about Obamas Cuba policy. She is not as quick as Rhodes to downplay the political realities in her country. At the Human Rights Foundations Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, she offered sobering and, at times, searing commentary on what the Obama administrations outreach to Cuba has producedand, critically, what it hasnt.

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Paya said shes in favor of countries engaging with and investing in Cuba, but argued that media coverage of the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, and the ways both governments have sold the rapprochement, have created the false perception that a political transition is underway on the island. That perception is in part the result of Cuban elites cynically exploiting the free market and the symbols of the free world, she said: Im talking about Mick Jagger in Havana, or Chanel [fashion shows], or a Fast & Furious [film shoot] taking place on the Malecon.

The totalitarian regime is still intact, she told me. Fundamental human rights that have been violated for 55 years are still being violated, and the life of the common Cuban hasnt changed at all.

Yes, more Americans can now travel to Cuba and more Cubans can now travel to America, Paya conceded, but the Cuban government still bars its critics from leaving the country by denying them passports. Recent visits by Obama, Pope Francis, and EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini, she added, have granted legitimacy to a government that is not legitimate  that is not normal even if you normalize relations with it, that relies on violent suppression and dynastic succession to maintain power, and that deprives its citizens of freedoms of expression, association, internet access, and multiparty elections.

Cubans are not less than Americans. Why must we wait for a king to die?

She applauded Obama for emphasizing, during his March trip to the island, the right of Cubans to determine their own future. And she doesnt believe its the U.S. governments role to transform Cuba. What she wants from the United States is more coherence between its rhetoric and its actions on democracy and human rights: Ask for Cubans the same things that you [would] ask for yourselves, and dont allow for Cubans something that you would never allow for yourselves.

Paya recalled Obamas offers to extend a hand to Americas foes, including Cuba, and then cited a saying of her fathers: If you are going to extend a helping hand to the Cuban people, you should first ask for the Cuban people to have their hands untied.

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I countered that for nearly 60 years, the U.S. government had largely followed her fathers advice, with little to show for it. Cubans hands remained tied, despite all of Washingtons asking and demanding and coercing. The Obama administration appeared to be rejecting that logic, prioritizing dialogue over democracy and betting that a hand extended might ultimately be more beneficial to the Cuban people than a hand withheld. A number of international-relations theorists believe engaging enemies is more productive than isolating them, I noted.

Paya bristled at my mention of theory. We Cubans shouldnt be the objects of any theoretical experiment, she responded. We are human beings.  Conversation [between countries] itself is not enough. What matters is whats being discussed. Ten years after the U.S. and China established full diplomatic relations, she pointed out, the Chinese government committed the Tiananmen Square massacre with impunity: Im a physicist. I know what [proof] you need to demonstrate a theorem. And we dont have that. We cannot say that the process that has been started [between the U.S. and Cuba] is a process that is going to end in democracy.

What doesnt need to be proved is that if people can decide [their future], you dont have a totalitarian regime, she added.

Cubans are not less than Americans, Paya insisted. Why do we have to sit down and wait for a king to die? No. We can have rights today. Theres not a single reason to deny human rights to a whole population.

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The Democracy Report

I asked how that denial manifested itself in her daily life in Cuba. You cannot choose how to live your life, she said. You cannot choose the work youre going to have after university. You cannot choose the school youre going to attend. You cannot choose your leaders. You cannot decide to move not even out of the country, [but] inside the country because you could be calledand this is a good onean illegal in your own country. National deportations [from Havana to other parts of the country] are taking place in Cuba. And if you join civil society or oppose the government and political system, then you could face prison, you could face isolation, you are definitely going to suffer the persecution of the state security [forces]. And if you succeed [in your campaign for political reform], like my father, then you could face death.

Paya is now lobbying both Cubans and international actors to exert pressure on the Castro regime to hold a nationwide referendum on the Cuban political system. Such a vote, in her mind, could result in a constituent assembly that drafts a new constitution and a transitional government that organizes free and fair elections. U.S. officials, she reasons, should be talking to their Cuban counterparts not just about coffee sales and commercial flights, but also democratic reforms, like the plebiscite, that are advocated by Cubans.

But its far easier to talk coffee than constitutions. After all, the Cuban Constitution enshrines the countrys socialist system as irrevocable. And, as Paya herself admits, authoritarians dont commit suicide.

This reporting was made possible in part with the support of the Human Rights Foundation.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Why did production designer Tom Burton replicate the England of 43 A.D. in the Czech Republic instead of in England, for Sky Channels historical drama Britannia?

First of all, the Czech Republic was cheaper.

My construction costs in the Czech Republic are two-thirds of what theyd be in the U.K., Burton says. Shooting here means I can build a lot more for the budget that we have. And the crew wasnt fazed about having to build Stonehenge in 12 weeks.

The Czech Republic was also much better for Britannia logistically, with all the open countryside and forests it needed located within 45 minutes of downtown Prague, although it did go to Wales for some coastal shots.

Prague has only 1.5 million people, Burton says. In London, you have 10 million people to get through. And, with so much of the U.K. densely developed, we would have to be so spread out.

Not only is much of the Czech Republic undeveloped, it also has a wealth of historic buildings that, unlike their counterparts in other European countries, were spared from damage and destruction during Word World II.

That attribute was put to good use by production designers Will Hughes-Jones and Dave Arrowsmith on BBC series The Musketeers, set in France in the 1820s.

In the Czech Republic, there are lots of subterranean basements with vaulted ceilings, monasteries, churches, and an endless supply of castles open to the public, says Musketeers producer Colin Wratten. They havent had much done to them since they were built, so theyre freaking cold and they havent had all the modern fixtures and fittings put in. So, for us, it was just a case of going in and dressing them to what we needed.

Not everything about the production was vintage, however. The Musketeers needed digitally replaced skies, added rivers, and replicated crowds. Fortunately, the production was able to call on Prague-based UPP for that work.

Czech production designer Martin Kurel, who recently won a Cesar award for his work on the French-Czech co-production Marguerite, likes to quote an old Czech director who used to tell him, Dear boy, you can find anything within one hour from Prague.

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I thought he must be kidding, but now I understand what he meant, Kurel says . Quite frankly, a couple of things would be a problem [like] Niagara Falls [and] the Sahara Desert. But even the Sahara Desert could be [created with] 200 trucks of sand brought into Barrandov [Studios].

Many productions avail themselves of the resources of Barrandov Studios, the largest facility in the country. We do a lot of business with productions outside of the Czech Republic, like Game of Thrones,  says William Stuart, Barrandovs U.S. rep.

Nonetheless, productions often find it necessary to bring in materials from outside the country. For instance, on The Zookeepers Wife, set in WWII Poland, costume designer Bina Daigeler turned to rental houses in Germany, Spain and England for most of the casts costumes. For the custom-designed outfits for leads, Jessica Chastain and Daniel Bruhl, made with the help of a German cutter and a dressmaker from Prague, Daigeler imported the materials from the U.K., Italy and France.

If items are not available in the Czech Republic, they can be easily manufactured. When the 19th century props needed for The Musketeers were not available in sufficient numbers, the production commissioned a local metalworker to make swords, daggers, wrought-iron gates, spears, fake bombs and muskets. When there was a scene involving a boat going down a river, a boat builder was brought in to build a wooden boat using period-correct production methods. When the musketeers garrison was constructed in the courtyard of a disused monastery, the construction crew used solid wood.

If you were doing that in the U.K., you would build it with scaffolding then clad all the scaffolding with wood and plaster to make it look like it had been built with wooden beams, Wratten says. They built as they wouldve done it at the time, with actual wooden beams, so it had a much more authentic look to it.

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Donald Trump has forgiven $50 million in loans he made to his campaign, and fundraising efforts have kicked into high gear, his national finance chairman told CNBC on Thursday.

"[Trump] loaned $50 million to the campaign. He's now forgiven that loan. So that is a contribution," said Steve Mnuchin. "[Trump] has also said he will contribute significantly more money."

"We just forgave the loan this week," Mnuchin added in a " Squawk Box " interview.

Trump was severely lagging last month in efforts to raise money compared with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton , according to the latest filings with Federal Election Commission made public this week.

The New York tycoon and the Republican National Committee brought in about $18.6 million in May, including another loan from Trump. Clinton and the Democratic National Committee raised more than double that amount.

Trump's campaign started June with just $1.3 million in the bank, while Clinton's campaign began this month flush with $42 million, according to the filings.

Mnuchin told CNBC those numbers are "irrelevant," because the joint fundraising agreement with RNC was only signed in the last week in May. "Donald financed the campaign ahead of time, so there was no reason to have extra cash in the bank," he said.



"We've really ramped up the effort this month," said Mnuchin, who is also chief executive of hedge fund Dune Capital Management. "We've had some successful events in New York ... [and] those events have raised approximately $10 million in conjunction with the RNC."

Mnuchin said online fundraising began this week. "We've done about $6 million," he said. "[In] the first email that went out Monday, Donald matched $2 million online."

Overall, Trump does not need nearly as much money in the general election as Clinton, Mnuchin said. "He's proven in the primary that he's been able to be very efficient," he said.

"[Trump] has a huge online presence with over 20 million followers. This is going to be a nontraditional campaign," the finance chairman added. "This is going to be a campaign driven by social media and driven by free TV."

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The May fundraising totals were double whammy in the headlines for Trump on Monday, which also saw the departure of two high-profile campaign staffers.

First, Trump fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, following long-simmering disputes with chief Trump strategist Paul Manafort.

Second, Trump's New York campaign director Michael Caputo  who reveled in Lewandowski's dismissal by tweeting, "Ding dong the witch is dead"  stepped down on Monday.



"They're not going to replace [Lewandowski], per se. Paul is overall managing the strategy of the campaign," Mnuchin said. "The campaign is in transition and growing."

Addressing the issues, Mnuchin said: "This campaign and this election is all going to come down to two things: national security and the economy."

"I'm absolutely convinced he has plans on both to make this country great," he said, such as plans to reform the tax code, reduce regulations for businesses, and make sure fair trade.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report.





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The candidate speaking at Trump SoHo Hotel in New York City on June 22. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

More incredible news for the Donald Trump juggernaut!

After a 10-day stretch in which Trump found himself rebuked by Republican leaders, plummeting in polls and firing his much-maligned campaign manager, news broke that, according to public filings, his campaign now had about $1.3 million in the bank.

This is awesome if youre running for a House seat in, say, Maine. Its slightly less awesome if youre running for president.

How much less awesome? About 40 times less than what Hillary Clinton has at her disposal  not counting outside groups that have been revving up on her behalf for at least a year. So, yeah, a lot less awesome.

This really is something, considering that all through the primaries Trump bragged about how he was so rich you wouldnt believe and how he was the only guy on stage who didnt need to ask for money.

Ill tell you what it looks like when a seriously rich guy gets serious about winning. When Michael Bloomberg won a third term as New Yorks mayor in 2009, he spent about $102 million, or $183 per vote. At that rate, had Bloomberg decided to seek the presidency as an independent, he would have had to spend about $12 billion.

And you know what? He would have, too. Because Bloomberg is not a man who plays around. He has cash and uses it.

But if Bloomberg is the John D. Rockefeller of modern politics, then Trump is its P.T. Barnum  a master of spectacle and illusion. His billions are tied up, spread around, whatever other euphemisms for not real you want to employ.

This, Im guessing, is why he doesnt want you to see his tax returns. Trump would be happy to shout from the top of Trump Tower that he hasnt paid a dime in taxes  that fits his narrative of being smarter than everyone else and knowing the flaws in the system that need fixing.

What hes less enthused to have you know, perhaps, is that he really hasnt earned much, either. His vast wealth exists on paper, his lifestyle sustained by credit. Kind of like the government.

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Lets leave all that aside for now, though, and focus on the more complicated question of whether Trumps money problems really matter all that much, and why.

Ive long argued that money is a vastly overrated resource in presidential politics, generally. Theres certainly a threshold a candidate has to cross in order to be competitive, and safe to say its higher than $1.3 million. But whatever that threshold is  lets say its $300 million  the return on every dollar you raise after that is probably marginal, compared with other factors in a campaign.

Just look at what happened in the primaries. Bernie Sanders raised more than $200 million and essentially matched Hillary Clinton in spending, and if youre going strictly by votes cast in primary states, he got crushed anyway.

Meanwhile, while Trump relied largely on the generosity of cable networks, Jeb Bushs L.A.-based super-PAC blew through more than $100 million and impressed pretty much no one. That had to make the producers of Tomorrowland feel better.

Sure, Trump needs to narrow his fundraising gap with Clinton. But money just isnt as big or as predictable a part of the equation as we make it out to be  and by we I mean the journalists who cover campaigns as if they belonged on ESPN and the professionals who profit from campaign payrolls.

That said, if we step back from the fundraising minutiae for a moment, we can derive at least three pretty relevant insights on the state of Trumps candidacy from his political penury. And none of them is likely to lift Republican insiders out of their growing despondency.

First, Trump is now in something of a box, strategically. Why? Because his campaign, as I noted, has been propelled to this point by free media exposure, and its clear hell have to rely more on dominating the news cycle and the cable shows this fall than on traditional advertising.

The problem here is that, in order to maintain his title as the Most Talked About Man in America, Trump has to give us something to talk about, as he did last week after the Orlando shootings. He has to keep sending outrageous tweets and hurling reckless insults, because thats what gets the media machine all ginned up.

Which means Trump couldnt really pivot toward a general election even if he wanted to and had the capacity. As long as he has to rely on free exposure to compete with Clinton, Republican leaders should probably relinquish all hope of ever seeing a more responsible, electable version of their nominee.

Second, Trump has just about wasted the small window he had, after the contested primaries and before the convention, to reassure Republican influencers and consolidate their support. If contributors werent moved to invest in Trump before he called the president a terrorist sympathizer and renewed his calls to ostracize Muslims, theyre probably not bursting with enthusiasm now.

Trumps best hope for building up his bank account rests with small-dollar donors. If I were Trump, Id use my convention speech to advertise the website or even a toll-free line where people can send him 20 bucks. Sure, its absurdly crass, but come on, hes set a pretty high bar there already.

Of course, the easiest solution for Trump would be to free up some of his own cash and spend it, as hes already threatened to do. But this leads me to my third takeaway, which is that he still doesnt seem all that invested in himself.

Saying that Trump moved to reorganize his campaign this week, as many news reports did, is like saying NASA has a plan to recolonize Mars. You cant reorganize something that was never really organized to begin with, and Trumps so-called campaign is really just a small project in his business empire, populated by a handful of junior executives and based entirely on personal celebrity.

I was clearly wrong about Trumps viability as a candidate deep into the primaries, but I dont think I was wrong when I said his presidential bid was mostly an exercise in brand promotion that somehow went awry. What the financials are telling us  along with Trumps reluctance to build any real campaign apparatus or to calibrate his own rhetoric  is that the man still sees this whole enterprise principally as theater.

Trump wants to run for president, all right, but my guess is he still wants to be president about as much as I want to be on Dancing With the Stars. (Not that it wouldnt be nice to be asked.)

And that right there is the real problem for Republicans who hope they never have to refer to the Clintons as 42 and 45. Theyve allowed their party to become an elaborate prop in a tasteless stunt, used by a man who to this point shows very little seriousness of purpose.

Its not that Trump cant win with a lot less money than his opponent. Its that hed probably have a lot more money if he were actually running to win.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been sparring with economists recently, taking issue with a report by Moodys Analytics that predicted his economic plan would cause a lengthy recession if fully enacted.

Trump responded by pointing out that Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics and lead author on the study, is a registered Democrat who has donated money to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and other Democratic politicians. Trump didnt rebut the findings of the report, but implied that Zandis political leanings may have led to a biased analysis.

Ive worked on both sides of the aisle, Zandi tells Yahoo Finance in the video above, pointing out that he advised Republican John McCain during the 2008 presidential race. The study was done by a team of economists, with folks from both sides of the aisle, some of whom have contributed to Republican candidates.

Zandi isnt backing down on his analysis of Trumps plan. Trump has articulated three major economic priorities: raising tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports, slashing federal taxes, and deporting roughly 11 million illegal immigrants. All these things conflate and create a pretty noxious economic environment, Zandi says.

Thats the prediction if all of Trumps priorities were enacted. Were they to get watered down  which normally happens when legislation is crafted  the economic impact would be milder, according to Moodys analysis. Other economists and business leaders have criticized Trumps economic ideas, suggesting that Trump might want to focus more on mainstream critiques of his plan and less on the political persuasion of economists.

Moodys Analytics will also publish an analysis of Hillary Clintons economic ideas, probably around the third week of July. Clinton has many more proposals than Trump, and Zandi says that is requiring more thorough analysis that takes longer. Whatever the timing, voters will still have months to digest the economic ideas of both candidates.

Zandi also gave some impromptu advice for the candidates. He cites three things that would likely boost a stagnant economy: streamlining the tax code without adding to the federal deficit, investing more in roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and finding a way to let more qualified immigrants into the United States, to expand the labor force. Doing those three things would be a big plus for the economy, he says. And it wouldnt matter which party the president belonged to.

Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman .
Donald Trump.

Donald Trump on Thursday praised the Supreme Court for blocking President Barack Obama's executive immigration action.

"SC has kept us safe from exec amnesty--for now," he tweeted. "But Hillary [Clinton] has pledged to expand it, taking jobs from Hispanic & African-American workers."

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee expanded on his thoughts in a lengthier statement released by his campaign shortly after posting the tweet.

He wrote:

"Today's 4-4 Supreme Court ruling has blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a President. The executive amnesty from President Obama wiped away the immigration rules written by Congress, giving work permits and entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country.

"This split decision also makes clear what is at stake in November. The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country."

The Thursday decision, which regarded Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants living in the country illegally from deportation, upheld a lower court's ruling and effectively ended the initiative through the end of the president's term.

The court heard the challenge to Obama's signature immigration-related actions in mid-April, in what was one of the most closely watched cases of its term.

A 4-4 vote leaves in place the decision of the lower court in the case, United States v. Texas. That decision blocked the implementation of the actions.

The ruling is a huge blow for the Obama administration, and it raises the stakes for November's election, as it hands off the issue to the next president. Trump has vowed to revoke Obama's actions, while Clinton has said that she would expand upon them.

Obama said in a press conference after the ruling:

"For more than two decades now our immigration system, everybody acknowledges, has been broken. And the fact that the Supreme Court wasn't able to issue a decision today doesn't just set the system back further, it takes us further from the country that we aspire to be."

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The ninth seat on the court is vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia's seat, but Republicans have refused to hold hearings on his nomination and said that the next president should fill the vacancy. A ninth justice could swing the balance if the issue is revisited.

Clinton, calling the result "unacceptable," said that the ruling shows "us all just how high the stakes are in this election."

She said:

"This decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Our families and our country need and deserve a full bench, and Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote."

The former secretary of state also called out Trump in her statement, and said that the ruling is a "stark reminder of the harm" he would cause.

She said:

"Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama's executive actions on his first day in office. He has called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers.' He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes."

NOW WATCH: Obama slams Trumps half-baked plan to make Mexico pay for a US border wall





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By Tom Bergin LONDON (Reuters) - New York real estate developer Donald Trump says he has "unlimited" personal wealth to fund his White House run, but a Reuters review of his financial disclosures suggests he does not have enough cash to see his campaign through to Election Day. Trump this week dismissed concerns about his campaign finances after electoral filings showed he raised just $3 million in individual contributions in May and had a war chest of only $1 million at the end of the month. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, raised $26 million and ended May with a war chest of $42 million. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee who says he is worth about $10 billion, said in a statement on Tuesday that "if need be, there could be unlimited 'cash on hand' as I would put up my own money." Trump had cash and other liquid investments - money in funds, equities and cash - worth $60 million to $180 million in May, according to his filings with the Office of Government Ethics. The form does not require candidates to give precise values for their assets, only ranges. If President Barack Obama's spending in his successful re-election bid in 2012 election is any guide, then Trump is a few hundred million dollars short. Obama spent almost $600 million between June and November 2012, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Trump's campaign declined to comment for this story but referred to his earlier statement, in which he said his White House bid costs less than a traditional one because it is "leaner and more efficient." If Trump did decide to self-finance his campaign, he could, in theory, tap the hundreds of millions dollars of revenue he says is generated annually by his businesses. But its not clear how much of this revenue he could use. Business owners can take money out of a business only after deducting operating costs and taxes. Even then, much of an entrepreneurs corporate earnings are often used to invest in building their businesses and maintaining their property assets. Trumps liquid assets stood at $80 million to $230 million in July last year, according to an earlier electoral filing. Using the midpoint of the ranges, Trumps liquid assets have fallen $35 million in the past year. The drop shows his campaign spending so far has already been funded in part by dipping into savings, rather than solely from his income. There is a real question about how much he has in terms of liquid assets, said Norman Einstein, a political scholar and expert in political finance at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, citing the regulatory filings, which do not give a precise picture of Trump's wealth. Its quite possible that he doesnt have anywhere near what he suggests he has and what he does have is tied up in real estate, and selling that is no easy task, he said. As a result, a more likely scenario would be Trump trying to borrow the funds, which could be probably done more quickly than trying to sell one of his buildings, he added. Jan Barani, a former general counsel with the Republican National Committee, said Trump may not need as much money as people think. Hes breaking the mold on everything ... he has proven that spending large sums of money does not guarantee success, Barani said, referring to how Trump defeated well-funded Republican rivals such as former Florida Governor Job Bush in the early nominating contests, or primaries. If Trump does not use his own money, he can seek donations, the traditional fund-raising route. Individual donors can contribute $2,700 each to his general election campaign. Trump has also signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee. The NRC currently has $20 million in cash, money that will be used to help elect Trump and Republican lawmakers across the country. Trump could also benefit if external groups like Super PACs raise money to campaign on his behalf. However, Trump has not yet blessed a Super PAC. THE GROUND GAME Trump has spent around $63 million so far in his presidential bid, including $46 million in loans he made to his campaign, FERC data shows. Typically, television advertising and creating infrastructure at a state and local level to mobilize voters are the most expensive aspects of a U.S. presidential campaign. TV networks charge high fees for prime time slots and many ground troops needed to bring out the voters must be paid. So far Trump has not needed to spend much on television advertising - his fiery rhetoric on illegal immigrants and what he says are the security risks posed by refugees from the Middle East have guaranteed him blanket media coverage. Daniel Weiner, a campaign finance expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice said you can get only so far with free media in an election. TV advertising has been decreasing in importance for a long time, but the get-out-the vote stuff is crucial, particularly in an election that people perceive as being more about motivating their core voters, as opposed to winning over swing voters. And what we call the ground game is quite expensive, he said. Trump has said he plans to outsource some of that ground game to the NRC, for example relying on their field staff in battleground states to help get out the vote. BANKING ON BUILDINGS Trump has significant real estate holdings, which he says have low debt on them. With Election Day on Nov. 8 now just four months away, some real estate experts say selling them to generate cash would be a challenge. But several bankers say Trump could conceivably borrow hundreds of millions against them, despite his history of business bankruptcies and litigation with lenders. Exactly how much he could borrow, how easily and at what interest rates depends on how much Trump owns of the buildings that he cites as his own and how much debt he has. "You have years of prosperity and you have all of these alternative lenders and you have banks that are hungry for loans," said one veteran banking executive, who was not permitted to speak on the record." If Trump needs to borrow tens of millions of dollars, he probably can, the executive said. "If it is hundreds of millions, that's another matter." (Additional reporting by David Henry and Grant Smith in New York, Ginger Gibson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin)
ANKARA (Reuters) - A man who depicted Tayyip Erdogan as the 'Lord of the Rings' character Gollum was convicted of insulting the president on Thursday and warned he faced a year in jail if he committed another crime, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. A court in the southwestern province of Antalya sentenced Rifat Cetin - who likened Erdogan on social media to the "small, slimy creature" immortalized in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels - to a year in jail, suspended for five years. Under Turkish law, the offense is punishable by up to four years in prison. Prosecutors have accused more than 1,800 people, including cartoonists and a former Miss Turkey, of insulting Erdogan, who has dominated - and polarized - Turkish politics for a decade and a half. The court also stripped Cetin of his parental custody rights, Hurriyet said, without giving details. A court official declined to comment on the case when contacted by Reuters. Cetin posted an image on Facebook in 2014 in which he combined three pictures of Erdogan with Gollum, the newspaper said. Cetin told another newspaper, daily BirGun, he planned to appeal the verdict given that Erdogan was not president, but prime minister, at the time the image was posted. Gollum appears in Tolkien's tale "The Hobbit" and his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which have been turned into blockbuster movies. The creature is portrayed as both an antagonist of Tolkien's heroes, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, and a victim of the most powerful of the trilogy's eponymous rings, which has twisted his mind and body. Doctor Bilgin Ciftci is being tried for sharing an identically juxtaposed Facebook picture, his lawyer said in December. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by David Dolan and John Stonestreet)
Ankara (AFP) - Reaching out to Russia and working to normalise ties with Israel, Turkey is moving to mend fences and restore its waning regional clout by returning to a policy known as "zero problems with neighbours".

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hinted at a new approach after he took over in May from Ahmet Davutoglu, a former academic who masterminded an aggressive foreign policy that some analysts fear brought Turkey more problems than profit.

Davutoglu left office with Turkey in the throes of an unprecedented diplomatic crisis with Russia, as well as having reduced ties with Israel and Egypt and having failed to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Analysts said the appointment of Yildirim lets Erdogan quietly distance himself from this legacy, and keeps Turkey from plunging into a risky isolation.

Mending ties with neighbourhood foes is also of crucial importance at a time when Turkey's relationship with the European Union is hit by heavy turbulence, with Erdogan threatening to hold a referendum on whether to continue its EU membership bid.

- 'Charm offensive' -

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Programme at The Washington Institute, said Davutoglu's foreign policy initiatives resulted in Turkey ending up with "nearly no friends" in the Middle East, with the exception of Qatar and the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan.

"It looks to me that the new Turkish prime minister's mission is to launch a charm offensive to undo the foreign policy wreck left behind by ousted premier Davutoglu," he told AFP.

Yildirim, a loyalist of Erdogan, said last week he wanted no permanent enmity with Israel, Syria, Russia or Egypt.

Turkey has previously boasted of "precious loneliness" -- a phrase first floated by Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin to defend the government's policies.

Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Turkey's "reckless foreign policy," however Ankara describes it, was an "embarrassing failure."

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"Realising the catastrophic results of isolation, Ankara was forced to switch to an 'any neighbours?' policy, desperate to enter into transactional relations with neighbouring countries," he told AFP.

- 'Shaky ground' -

The list of troubled relationships for Ankara is troublingly long, but in at least three cases it is trying to make progress.

- Israel: Six years after a deadly storming by Israeli commandos of a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza leaving 10 Turkish activists dead, officials from both countries have been negotiating for months to forge a deal to normalise ties.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday there was a "big possibility" that a potentially final round of talks could take place this month.

- Egypt: The row with Egypt came to a head after the country's military rulers ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Turkey's AKP government.

Erdogan condemned the "coup," and in a show of solidarity he often uses at rallies a hand gesture known as "Rabia" showing four fingers -- seen a symbol of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

But Turkey's increasingly close ally Saudi Arabia is keen to bring about reconciliation with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with Yildirim saying political disputes should not be an obstacle in developing commercial relations.

- Russia: Turkey has reached out to Moscow after the 2015 downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey's air force, which resulted in a drastic drop in the number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey.

Erdogan this month sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin marking Russia's national day, in their first contact since the plane crisis.

But Ankara has refused to bow to the Russian demand for an apology. "If there is one thing Erdogan is not capable of, it is to apologise," said Cagaptay.

- Syria: This month, the El Watan newspaper reported that Algeria had been secretly mediating between Ankara and Damascus about Syrian Kurdish aspirations to create an independent state.

But Cavusoglu denied any mediating role by Algeria and said it was "out of the question" to cooperate with a Syrian regime that murdered its people.

Erdemir said in general finding compromise for Turkey would be hard, with the charismatic and combative personality of Erdogan casting a long shadow.

"As long as Erdogan dominates Turkish politics, any pragmatic partnership that Ankara establishes would be on shaky ground and unlikely to be sustainable."
By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Two days after calling for Turkey's justice minister to resign on Facebook, prosecutor Menderes Arican received a letter reassigning him from a western province to a relative backwater in the east with immediate effect. The 49-year old, a prosecutor for two decades, has little doubt that his sudden self-described "exile", seven months into a new posting, was punishment for his criticism of the government. His reassignment, part of a nationwide shake-up of thousands of judges and prosecutors, comes as the ruling AK Party pushes wider reforms within the higher judiciary. Critics see it as a bid by President Tayyip Erdogan to remove troublesome judges and tighten his grip on the courts, at a time when he is seeking constitutional change to bolster his powers and introduce an executive presidential system. The AK Party says it will clear bottlenecks in the legal system. "We're going through a period where the executive seeks total control of the judiciary," Arican told Reuters by phone from the western province of Canakkale, where his family still lives even though he has been working in the east since February. "This is against the separation of powers." An official at the Justice Ministry said Arican's claims on his appointment were "not true, do not reflect the truth" but did not elaborate further. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told Reuters last week that the aim of the reforms was to end a crippling bottleneck in the court system, something he said was demanded by the business community. The European Union has repeatedly raised concern about the erosion of judicial independence in Turkey, with officials warning it is taking the country away from European standards and further undermining an already strained EU membership bid. Under a draft law being debated in parliament, most of the 711 judges at two of the highest courts - the Council of State, which hears cases lodged by citizens against the government, and the Supreme Court of Appeals - will be removed. It is not clear how many of them will be reappointed in the new structure, which will have fewer courts and judges. Erdogan will then be able to appoint a quarter of the judges at the Council of State, allowing him to stack one of the country's most important legal bodies with his allies. The head of the bar association, Metin Feyzioglu, has described the changes as dangerous, while a senior EU source said they "look like payback for judgments challenging Erdogan". The reforms come on top of an unprecedentedly big reshuffle this month by the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), which oversees judicial appointments and falls under the control of the Justice Ministry. The HSYK reassigned more than 3,700 judges and prosecutors in its latest biannual reshuffle, a quarter of those in office, sparking accusations of a witch hunt. It said in a statement on June 10 that the calendar was announced as usual but there were more reassignments to plug shortages in some regions. "The HSYK now sees everyone who doesn't think in line with its own values as 'the other' and is basically is telling them all to face the consequences of being on the wrong side," said Murat Aydin, 45, a judge who was transferred from the Aegean province of Izmir to the Black Sea province of Trabzon. His reappointment came a few months after he appealed to the constitutional court challenging Turkey's law on insulting the president - an article prosecutors have invoked more than 1,800 times since Erdogan took office in 2014, suing journalists, academics, a former Miss Turkey and students. NEW FORM OF TUTELAGE? Many court cases in Turkey are already heavily politicised. A five-year jail term handed in May to Can Dundar, editor of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, for revealing state secrets came after Erdogan said he would not forgive the newspaper's reporting of an alleged Turkish weapons shipment to Syrian rebels. Rights groups condemned the sentence. Four Turkish academics were held for several weeks earlier this year on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda for reading a declaration calling for an end to military operations in the mainly Kurdish southeast. They are still facing trial and Erdogan has said they must pay a price for such "treachery". He has also said he wants to see members of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), parliament's third-largest party, prosecuted for alleged links to militant groups and has stripped lawmakers of their immunity as a first step. The courts have become more loyal to Erdogan's agenda, his opponents say, since large-scale purges in the judiciary following a corruption scandal in 2013. Erdogan, then prime minister, cast the scandal as a plot orchestrated by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally-turned-foe whose network of religious followers held key positions in the court system. AKP lawmaker Resat Petek, a member of parliament's justice commission, said the reforms currently under discussion were aimed at flushing out any remaining influence of Gulen, whom Erdogan accuses of trying to form a "parallel structure". "There will be a liquidation of this parallel organisation from the higher ranks of the judiciary," Petek told Reuters, estimating that around 160 members of the court of appeals were chosen while the HSYK was still under Gulenist influence. Opponents fear one system of tutelage will simply be replaced with another. "We don't want a Gulenist structure within the judiciary but neither do we want an Erdoganist structure," said Feyzioglu, the bar association head. AKP officials say the reforms will speed up a judicial system swamped by as many as two million cases, some waiting years to be heard. But Ali Suat Ertosun, who has worked at the Court of Appeals for 16 years, sees a different agenda. "They will get rid of the members they don't like and will fully control the judiciary," he said. "It is unconstitutional, and an intervention against judicial independence." (Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Anna Willard)
Istanbul (AFP) - A court in Turkey's southern resort city of Antalya has handed a Turkish man a suspended jail sentence of over one year for comparing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the "Lord of the Rings" character Gollum, a report said Thursday.

The man, named as Rifat Cetin, had in 2014 while Erdogan was still prime minister posted three pictures on his Facebook account comparing Erdogan to Gollum, a thin, pale, gangrel creature with a personality split between good and evil in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels and the hugely successful films.

The court convicted Cetin of insulting Erdogan and sentenced him to one year and 15 days in prison but suspended the sentence for five years, the BirGun daily reported on its website. There was no official confirmation of the sentence.

Without specifying further, the report said Cetin had been stripped of his parental rights. He said he would appeal on the grounds of the fact he was convicted of insulting the president although Erdogan had been premier at the time.

This case had previously not been publicised and is separate from another widely publicised investigation also involving Erdogan and Gollum.

A doctor in the western province of Aydin, Bilgin Ciftci, is facing up to two years in jail for "insulting" the president after sharing images of Erdogan and Gollum. There have so far been no reports of an outcome in that case.

The cases come amid growing concern over the spiralling numbers of journalists, bloggers and ordinary people who are being taken to court on charges of insulting Erdogan and other top officials.

Erdogan's supporters say there is a line between criticism and abuse that must not be crossed. But critics accuse the president of wilfully abusing existing legislation that allows for the prosecution of citizens for insulting top state officials.
By Ercan Gurses ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's nationalist opposition leader faced a growing challenge on Thursday after a veteran party member resigned from his parliamentary role, strengthening party dissidents who see his continued leadership as a block to their electoral support. Party rebels blame slipping support for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Devlet Bahceli, 68, whom they see as a dour figure unable to tap into nationalist sentiments that have swollen the popularity of President Tayyip Erdogan. His replacement, after two decades at the helm, by a more popular figure could delay plans by the ruling AK Party to procure stronger presidential powers for Erdogan. That would involve early elections providing AK with a bigger majority allowing it to quickly change the constitution. Leading MHP figure Oktay Vural, hitherto an ally of Bahceli, announced on Wednesday he was resigning from his position as head of the party's parliamentary group and a source close to Vural said he may align himself with the party dissidents. "Vural was uneasy with the situation into which the party had fallen. But he definitely will not leave the MHP," a source close to Vural told Reuters. "He may act in line with the (party) dissidents from now on." At an MHP congress on Sunday, party dissidents took a step toward replacing Bahceli, who has said that congress was invalid. The two sides are now engaged in a battle over who will manage a further congress on July 10 to elect a new leader. SIX CONTENDERS Six rebels are bidding to become leader, most prominently Meral Aksener, a 59-year-old woman seen by pollsters as capable of revitalizing the MHP and increasing its support. The pressure for an extraordinary party congress began after the MHP's representation in parliament halved to 40 MPs in a November election. A recent survey put it on 12 pct of the vote, just above the threshold needed to be in parliament but polls show its support could rise to 20 percent under new leadership. At the June 19 congress, a series of changes were made to party regulations, including removing an obstacle to electing a new leader at an extraordinary congress and making it more difficult to expel party members. The rebels are now seeking official approval from election authorities in Ankara for those changes before next month's leadership election, which will be closely watched by Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded. Erdogan says Turkey needs a strong executive presidency to help steer the country through its big security and economic challenges. Critics say Erdogan is behaving in an increasingly authoritarian way, undermining Turkey's constitutional checks and balances and clamping down on media freedoms in the European Union candidate nation. Erdogan rejects the accusations. (Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan)
(Reuters) - Two people died and a third was hospitalized after their kayaks overturned off the coast of Maine's Mount Deseret Island, a popular tourist destination, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday.

One of the paddlers' wives called authorities on Thursday evening after her husband and two friends were two hours late in returning from a planned trip, officials said in a statement.

Local boaters found one woman clinging to an overturned kayak in nearby waters, hypothermic and unable to speak. She was transported to a Bangor hospital, officials said.

The bodies of the other two paddlers were also recovered by local boaters, officials said.

"This is a very tragic outcome," said Kenneth Stuart, the Coast Guard's command duty officer for northern New England. "We deeply appreciate the efforts of those local boaters who assisted tonight and we'll be working to determine what happened and how to prevent such accidents from occurring in the future."

Located about 150 miles northeast of Portland, Mount Deseret Island is home to Acadia National Park, which draws some 2.5 million visitors a year.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Johannesburg (AFP) - The death toll from days of pre-election violence in townships around South Africa's capital Pretoria has risen to five after the discovery of two more bodies Thursday, police said.

The unrest erupted Sunday over the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party's choice of a mayoral candidate in Pretoria ahead of fiercely contested municipal elections due to be held nationwide on August 3.

Supporters of factions opposed to the candidate took to the streets, burning buses, stoning cars and looting shops in a wave of violence condemned by the ANC as "thuggery".

The latest two bodies -- one with gunshot wounds -- were found in the early hours of Thursday in Mabopane, north of Pretoria, which is also known as Tshwane, police said in a statement.

"This brings to five the total number of bodies recovered since the start of the unrest in various areas in and around Tshwane on Sunday," the statement said.

Nearly 200 people have been arrested.

Protesters complained that the ANC candidate for mayor, former government minister Thoko Didiza, was imposed on the local community by the national leadership.

Although Didiza lives in Pretoria, she is seen by some as an outsider as she is originally from the eastern port city of Durban.

Speaking to reporters for the first time on Thursday, Didiza said she was unfazed by the violence triggered by her candidacy.

"I do not think it reflects the feelings of the community of Tshwane," she said.

"I therefore don't feel in any way alienated, I feel part of that community."

The situation in Pretoria Thursday was "calm but tense" police said, while local media reported fresh looting in Mabopane.

Several deaths attributed to tension between rival factions within the ANC have been reported around the country in the run-up to the elections, in which analysts say the party faces the possible loss of some major cities.

Municipal elections touch a raw nerve, dealing with issues such as unemployment, housing, water and sewage services in a country where many feel they have not benefited as they should have from the end of white minority rule.
This was awkward. The karaoke-bar proprietor had been rather insistent  forceful even  in her promise that there would be real North Korean staff to sing, pour drinks and chat with guests. This being Dandong, a bustling entrepot of 2.5 million perched on Chinas riverine frontier with the secretive socialist state, its not as though there werent plenty of North Koreans milling around. You can spot them by their lapel pins honoring the nations founding father, Kim Il Sung, and ensembles that looked like they walked off a Cold War film set.

But the plump and obviously Chinese girl fidgeting in the karaoke salon  replete with fake variegated ivy and vibrating miniature dance floor  didnt quite fit. Sure, Golden Light, as she called herself, was decked in a billowing traditional chima jeogori dress, but she answered questions in impeccable Mandarin and struggled with the K-pop songs on the flickering television screen. She is from North Korea, the boss insisted.

Dandong is a strange place. Across the Yalu River lies the worlds most repressive regime, yet the city has a waterfront charm, complete with selfie-obsessed tourists and kitschy souvenir shops. The incongruity is hard to ignore. Between two enormous banners advertising the Yalu River Beer Festival hangs another in vivid red that warns: Everyone Should Defend the Nations Security: Our Nations Interest Is Above All. The city is one-third military frontline, one-third tourist trap, one-third import-export hub.

Read More: What Its Like to Be a Western Tourist in North Korea

China is North Koreas only major trading partner, and roughly 70% of all the goods that pass between these neighbors comes across Dandongs rickety iron bridge, or on the ships that chug between the riverbanks. But following Pyongyangs recent barrage of nuclear and missile tests, Beijing signed up to unprecedented U.N. sanctions in March. (Another test took place on Wednesday.) Chinese imports of coal  North Koreas main cash cow  and exports of building materials and assorted household goods have been slashed. Shopkeepers in Dandong say they can no longer openly display popular contraband like North Korean cigarettes. No matter. Following the September opening of a new high-speed rail route to Beijing, tyranny tourism is booming.

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Every day we send dozens of people across to Sinuiju for one- or four-day trips, says local travel agent Li Qiang, referring to North Koreas third largest city that sits opposite Dandong. You cant take a mobile phone and can only take an old film camera. Anyone can go  except Americans, Japanese and South Koreans.

There are easier ways to get a glimpse of North Korean life, though. Whereas the nations border with South Korea is 4-km-wide demilitarized zone  ironically, the most militarized place on earth  just a few kilometers outside Dandong the opposite frontier narrows to barely 20 m of silty water. A tourist path winds its way along the river below the easternmost section of Chinas Great Wall, providing unobstructed views of North Korean farmers toiling in fields, soldiers manning watchtowers and bedraggled women trailing behind tractors.

Im really curious and wanted to see the mysterious North Korea, says Luan Shicai, a 42-year-old hairdresser from provincial capital Shenyang, standing by a Chinese government sign that warns visitors against throwing food to the North Koreans. After seeing their life, it makes me feel good about my life here.

Those not satisfied with gazing across the Yalu River can get a bit closer. Boat tours weave between North Korean islands that sit in the middle of the waterway. For about an hour, passengers are completely surrounded by North Korean territory. A young North Korean solider squatting on concrete defenses dating from the Japanese occupation begs for money. A couple more in threadbare, muddy-brown uniforms lounge in a rust-bucket boat, and implore our guide to bring them waterproof jackets and umbrellas on his next trip. A fourth herds a gaggle of ducklings down the shore using a twig. On the opposite bank, a regiment of female marines  all wearing white shirts, black pants and straw hats  returning from the cornfields, wipe their brows with yellow squares of cloth.

More and more foreigners are coming here to see North Korea, says the captain called Mr. Kang, explaining that he makes 10 trips a day in peak season. The boat slows next to a well-dressed girl and Mr. Kang strikes up a conversation. I know her well, he says. She is from a wealthy family, you can tell by her dress. She always smiles. I tease her to get on my boat.

Read More: Inside the Lives of Two Young North Korean Defectors

Teng Xiang, the company that runs the tour, started the service in 2009 and has three ports with around eight large cruisers and a dozen speedboats at each. Rumors that the firm pays the North Korean government $300,000 annually to ply the route were denied by a staff member contacted by TIME.

A single-engine longboat approaches driven by a man in black flat-cap, utility waistcoat and cloth trousers rolled up to his knees. He begins hawking an assortment of wares  eggs, North Korean cigarettes, plastic tubs of kimchi pickled cabbage, tiger bone liquor. But hes not a chancing smuggler  hes an employee of the North Korean government, running probably the worlds smallest duty-free shop.

He can collect 2,000-3,000 yuan [$300-500] a day, says Mr. Kang, as he guns the engine away. But he gives all that to the government. He only gets paid 50 yuan [$7.5] per month. Thats an extremely good wage in North Korea.

Because of the ramped up sanctions, North Korea now relies heavily on dispatching workers abroad to earn foreign currency  most commonly to China, but also to Russia and the Middle East. There are around 50,000-60,000 laborers working abroad in factories, fields and restaurants. Their below-standard wages are collected directly by the authorities, with only a tiny fraction kept for the workers themselves. Different North Korean government departments also run around 130 restaurants in foreign cities such as Beijing, Rangoon, Dhaka, Vladivostok and Phnom Penh. Dandong has many such enterprises  the largest employing more than 200 North Korean staff; others just a handful.

Waitresses typically remain for three-year stints and hail from Pyongyang. Working abroad is deemed a mighty privilege in North Korea, and citizens permitted to live in the capital are considered the most loyal. Security is tight, nonetheless: girls reside together in dormitories under the watchful gaze of minders, who sit in the rear of restaurant during their shifts, conspicuous by their dour demeanors and gleaming Kim Il Sung pins.

Read More: North Korea Needs 3 Things to Hit the U.S. With a Nuclear Weapon

Occasionally, though, waitresses do join the tens of thousands of North Korean who choose to defect. In April, a dozen women from a restaurant in the Chinese city of Ningbo fled to Seoul, much to the ire of the North Korean authorities, who insist they have been kidnapped by South Korean agents.

Of course, the significant downside of visiting these restaurants  and all of Dandongs tyranny tourism, by varying degree  is the ready cash funneled to the repressive regime of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Even art is so tainted. Right on the riverbank, an outpost of North Koreas prestigious, state-run Mansudae gallery hawks an eclectic array of pastoral landscapes and animals paintings. A portrait of a young woman relaxing against the backdrop of Pyongyangs unfinished Ryugyong Hotel is listed at $25,000. A large portrait of a pig? $2,500. The scarcity of North Korean art evidently holds tremendous cachet.

And that cachet also apparently applies to karaoke workers  even inspiring counterfeit efforts. Passing by the same karaoke bar the following day, we bump into the boss and Golden Light. But this time Golden Lights traditional garb has been replaced by a lacey top, jeans and swathes of dusky makeup  much more fitting attire for a Chinese karaoke-bar worker. The boss gives us a knowing grin. Are you coming back tonight?

 With reporting by Zhang Chi / Dandong


AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Syrian forces were fighting through Islamic State defenses on the edge of Manbij city, a militant stronghold near the Turkish border, a senior military official with the American-led coalition fighting the group said on Thursday. The forces encountered improvised explosive devices and rocket positions, the official said, as they tried to cut off an area that provides the militants with their main access route to the outside world. "So there is still a civilian population, there are Daesh in defensive areas and the Syrian Democratic Forces are moving closer to them," said British Army Major General Doug Chalmers, deputy commander for strategy and sustainment with the U.S.-led coalition, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State. He was speaking with reporters in Washington via video link. The comments come after the British-based Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that U.S. backed forces fought Islamic State militants inside the city of Manbij for the first time since they laid siege to the militant stronghold near the Turkish border. The monitor said heavy clashes were taking place in western districts of Manbij after the fighters swept into the city near the Kutab roundabout, almost 2 km (1.2 miles) from the city center. "The reporting I've had puts them on the edge and the outskirts for some areas which I describe as the outer (part) of the city rather than city proper," Chalmers said. The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the campaign late last month with the backing of U.S. special forces to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier. If successful it could pave the way for an assault on their Syrian capital Raqqa. Manbij is in a region some 40 km (25 miles) from the Turkish border and since the start of the offensive on May 31, the SDF has taken dozens of villages and farms around it but had held back from entering the city with many thousands of people still trapped there. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Idrees Ali.; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Andrew Hay)
By Patricia Zengerle and Aaron Ross WASHINGTON/KINSHASA (Reuters) - The U.S. government imposed sanctions on a senior police official in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday for his role in what it described as the violent suppression of opposition to President Joseph Kabila's government. Kabila is ineligible to stand in Congo's next election in November after serving two elected terms. Opponents accuse him of plotting to hold on to power by delaying the poll or changing the constitution to remove the term limit, as several African leaders have done. The Treasury Department said Kabila's government has engaged in a pattern of repression, including the arrest of members of the opposition and violent suppression of political protests to avoid scheduling national elections. The department put Celestin Kanyama, police commissioner in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, on its list of "specially designated nationals" whose assets are blocked and are generally blocked from dealing with Americans. Treasury accuses Kanyama of responsibility for dozens of deaths and other actions that have created a "climate of fear" over the past three years. These including raids during "Operation Likofi," commanded by Kanyama, in which uniformed police wearing black masks dragged suspects out of their homes at night at gunpoint, with no arrest warrants. At least 50 young men and boys were reportedly killed and more than 30 others reportedly vanished. In January 2015, when Kanyama was police commissioner, more than 40 people were killed during demonstrations in the capital city, including at least 20 fatally shot by security forces. "Treasury's action today sends a clear message that the United States condemns the regime's violence and repressive actions, especially those of Celestin Kanyama, which threaten the future of democracy for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo," said John Smith, acting director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. Kanyama was not immediately reachable for comment. Congo's government has rejected accusations that police carried out summary executions during Operation Likofi or used excessive force during the 2015 protests. Congo condemned Treasury's announcement, saying it would infringe upon its sovereignty and undermine bilateral relations. "It will also embolden those who seek to divide our nation and impede our democratic processes," Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, a diplomatic advisor to Kabila, said in a statement. Reuters reported this month that members of Congress and other U.S. officials had been pushing for sanctions against members of Kabila's inner circle, but had run into opposition from European powers wary of moving too quickly. (Additional reporting by Aaron Ross in Kinshasa; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
(Reuters) - A federal court ordered a Virginia school district on Thursday to let a transgender student use the same bathrooms as other boys in a case that may be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case of Gavin Grimm, a high school student in Virginia's Gloucester County, has been closely watched in the national bathroom wars between transgender rights activists and social conservatives. A U.S. district court in Norfolk, Virginia, ordered the Gloucester County School Board to allow Grimm to use the boys' restrooms in his high school. The court had initially dismissed Grimm's claim of sexual discrimination and request for a court order. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in Grimm's favor in April and reinstated his suit in the lower court. "I am elated to hear that I'll be able to attend my senior year of high school with my full rights restored, Grimm said in a statement. The ruling was the first by an appeals court finding protections for transgender students under the 1972 Title IX Act, which bars sex-based discrimination by schools receiving federal funding. Grimm filed suit after being barred from using the boys bathrooms. He was born a female but identifies as a male. The school board said this month that it would ask the Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling. (Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
By Asad Hashim PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee chief on Thursday urged Pakistanis not to blame Afghan refugees for terrorism in their country, amid growing public calls for their deportation and worsening relations between the two neighbors. Warning that the roughly 2.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan risked becoming a "forgotten" crisis, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on the international community to invest more funds to help them. "My appeal is that, not only to the authorities but also to the local population: refugees as you know are not terrorists," Grandi said during a visit to a repatriation center outside the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar. Pakistani officials have recently hinted at the possibility of deporting Afghan refugees, amid tense relations with Kabul. A decision to renew their legal status by June 30 has not yet been announced, although past deadlines have been extended at the last minute. The number of Afghans voluntarily returning home is down sharply this year as violence worsens in Afghanistan, where the government and its U.S. allies are fighting a stubborn Taliban insurgency. So far, about 6,000 Afghans have chosen to return home from Pakistan in 2016, compared with 58,211 voluntary repatriations last year, according to the UNHCR. At the repatriation center, refugees wiped the sweat from their faces as they waited in sweltering heat for their cases to be processed, a necessary step before they can set off on the journey home. Many Afghan refugees say they are being pressured to go back by the authorities, amid worsening diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. A recent border spat between the two at the nearby Torkham crossing left four dead and thousands stranded. "I grew up here, but right now, the situation is not good," said Manzoor Hamdard, 30, one of about 50 people at the center. His family fled Afghanistan 35 years ago. "We are poor people, and the police come and take money from us," added Hamdard, who will move with his family of 15 to their native Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan. "We've run out of energy to deal with this." Huma Zafar, a community leader in an Afghan refugee tribal council, added: "Whatever the relations are, good or bad, refugees should not be affected by it." TOLERANCE AT ITS LIMIT? On Monday, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's foreign policy chief, told a Pakistani television channel that Afghan refugee camps had become "safe havens for terrorists". On Wednesday, Pakistani federal minister Abdul Qadir Baloch warned that Pakistan was not willing to host Afghan refugees indefinitely. "In view of the security and socioeconomic impact, the tolerance level of the host communities has reached its threshold and cannot be overstretched," he said, adding, however, that Pakistan would not use force to evict refugees. Pakistan has the second-largest refugee population in the world, with more than 1.5 million registered and about a million unregistered refugees from Afghanistan, most of whom fled the Soviet invasion in 1979. UNHCR chief Grandi said he had made the case for extending the June 30 deadline to the government in talks during his two-day visit to Pakistan. He also stressed the need for the international community to fund efforts to support Afghan refugees. "I have come here to the region on the week of World Refugee Day to highlight that Afghan refugees should not be forgotten," he said. (Writing by Asad Hashim; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council expressed concern on Thursday over the arrest of political opposition members in Democratic Republic of Congo and urged the president to hold elections by the end of the year as required by the constitution. The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections on time for logistical reasons as opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power. Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term in the poll scheduled for November. But a top Kabila ally has raised the possibility of a referendum to allow him to run. In a resolution to renew U.N. sanctions, the 15-member Security Council emphasized the protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights in order to pave "the way for peaceful, credible, inclusive, transparent and timely elections in the DRC, particularly presidential and legislative elections by November 2016, in accordance with the Constitution." The resolution also expanded the sanctions criteria to allow the council to blacklist people for committing rights abuses. Congolese U.N. Ambassador Ignace Gata Mavita wa Lufuta said his country did not believe the resolution adopted on Thursday should have referred to the electoral process. He said Kabila's government was focused on organizing peaceful polls and that "should not be interpreted as a pretext to defer the elections." "The experience drawn from two previous elections requires that we find the necessary conditions to organize proper elections that are not affected by violence," he told the council, warning the resolution could revive political tensions. The council expressed deep concern at increased restrictions on freedom of expression and on the political space in Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically the recent arrests and detention of political opposition and civil society members. The U.S. government imposed sanctions on a senior Congolese police official on Thursday for his role in what it described as the violent suppression of opposition to Kabila's government. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Wednesday troops would be sent home from a U.N. mission in South Sudan due to their response to deadly violence at a compound. The United Nations said on Tuesday that an inquiry found that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement marred the response by peacekeepers to fighting in February at a U.N. compound in Malakal where nearly 50,000 civilians were sheltering. During the two-day incident at least 30 civilians were killed and 123 people wounded. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres accused the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNMISS, on Tuesday of taking up to 16 hours to act. "I will not name names at this point. But certainly there will be repatriation - in some cases a unit, in other cases of individual officers," Ladsous told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on the incident. Ladsous said he had already spoken with the U.N. ambassadors of the relevant troop contributing countries. A U.N. special investigation into the circumstances leading to the violence found that the immediate trigger for the fighting - which pitted Shilluk and Nuer people against Dinka and Darfuri people - was an attempt by two South Sudanese soldiers to smuggle ammunition into the U.N. compound. The report, seen by Reuters, found that some armed elements in South Sudanese (SPLA) army uniforms took part in the destruction of Nuer and Shilluk accommodations in the compound. South Sudan spiraled into civil war at the end of 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar. Thousands have been killed and millions driven from their homes during the conflict that began barely two years after the oil-rich state's independence from Sudan. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Andrew Hay)
(Adds details from CDC, background, byline, dateline)

By Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have advised doctors not to use AstraZeneca's FluMist in the upcoming flu season based on three years of U.S. data showing that the nasal spray vaccine is not effective at preventing influenza.

The decision, announced late Wednesday, was based on a review by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - a panel of experts that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - showing the vaccine did not offer adequate protection.

As a result of the move, the CDC said it will be working with manufacturers throughout the summer to ensure there is enough alternative vaccine supply.

FluMist Quadrivalent is currently the only licensed flu vaccine that does not require a shot, making it a favored choice by parents of young children.

In the past year, among children aged 2 to 17, FluMist was only 3 percent effective, meaning it offered "no protective benefit," the CDC said. That compared with conventional flu shots, which were 63 percent effective against any flu virus among children in this age group.

AstraZeneca said it would take an $80 million writedown on stocks of its Flumist Quadrivalent vaccine as a result of the decision.

It said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

U.S. sales of FluMist in 2015 totaled $206 million, or just under 1 percent of group revenue.

The CDC said FluMist made up about 8 percent of the total projected supply of 176 million doses of flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season.

"AstraZeneca is working with the CDC to better understand its data to help ensure eligible patients continue to receive the vaccine in future seasons in the U.S.," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Story continues

"The distribution and use of the vaccine in other countries are progressing as planned for the forthcoming influenza season, pending the annual release process from relevant regulatory authorities."

Despite the setback, AstraZeneca said it maintained its 2016 financial outlook of a low-to-mid single digit decline in revenue and core earnings, at constant exchange rates.

However, Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said the U.S. vaccine problem would likely drag down consensus earnings forecasts for the current year by around 2 percent and there was a 1-2 percent risk to future forecasts, if the issue was not resolved.

Shares in AstraZeneca gained 0.3 percent while the European drugs sector rose 0.4 percent.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Susan Fenton and Marguerita Choy)
By Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have advised doctors not to use AstraZeneca's FluMist in the upcoming flu season based on three years of U.S. data showing that the nasal spray vaccine is not effective at preventing influenza.

The decision, announced late Wednesday, was based on a review by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - a panel of experts that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - showing the vaccine did not offer adequate protection.

As a result of the move, the CDC said it will be working with manufacturers throughout the summer to ensure there is enough alternative vaccine supply.

FluMist Quadrivalent is currently the only licensed flu vaccine that does not require a shot, making it a favored choice by parents of young children.

In the past year, among children aged 2 to 17, FluMist was only 3 percent effective, meaning it offered "no protective benefit," the CDC said. That compared with conventional flu shots, which were 63 percent effective against any flu virus among children in this age group.

AstraZeneca said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

U.S. sales of FluMist in 2015 totaled $206 million, or just under 1 percent of group revenue.

The CDC said FluMist made up about 8 percent of the total projected supply of 176 million doses of flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season.

"AstraZeneca is working with the CDC to better understand its data to help ensure eligible patients continue to receive the vaccine in future seasons in the U.S.," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

"The distribution and use of the vaccine in other countries are progressing as planned for the forthcoming influenza season, pending the annual release process from relevant regulatory authorities."
(Adds expert's comments)

By Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have advised doctors not to use AstraZeneca's FluMist in the upcoming flu season based on three years of U.S. data showing that the nasal spray vaccine is not effective at preventing influenza.

The decision, announced late Wednesday, was based on a review by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - a panel of experts that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - showing the vaccine did not offer adequate protection.

As a result of the move, the CDC said it will be working with manufacturers throughout the summer to ensure there is enough alternative vaccine supply.

AstraZeneca said it would take an $80 million writedown on stocks of its FluMist Quadrivalent vaccine as a result of the decision. The loss of the vaccine may be a problem for some pediatric practices that have already ordered supplies for the upcoming flu season.

FluMist is currently the only licensed flu vaccine that does not require a shot, making it a favored choice by parents of young children.

In the past year, among children aged 2 to 17, FluMist was only 3 percent effective, meaning it offered "no protective benefit," the CDC said. That compared with conventional flu shots, which were 63 percent effective against any flu virus among children in this age group.

"Unfortunately, and for inexplicable reasons scientifically, the nasal spray vaccine has performed very, very poorly," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who attended the advisory meeting.

"ACIP decided it could not in good conscience recommend the use of this vaccine until the problem had been resolved and new data had been presented," Schaffner said.

AstraZeneca said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

Story continues

Schaffner said differences in the performance of the vaccine seen in the United States and other countries were puzzling. He said it may have something to do with the H1N1 component of the vaccine - the strain of flu that cased a pandemic in 2009 - or it may be related to the fact that U.S. children are more likely to be vaccinated for flu than children in Europe and elsewhere.

Since 2010, the United States has recommended annual flu shots for everyone aged 6 months and older. Young children and older adults are at the greatest risk for serious complications of flu, which kills between 3,000 and 50,000 people each year.

AstraZeneca said U.S. sales of FluMist in 2015 totaled $206 million, or just under 1 percent of group revenue.

The CDC said FluMist made up about 8 percent of the total projected supply of 176 million doses of flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season, and it comprised a third of all flu vaccine given to children aged 2 to 17.

Schaffner said it was not clear whether practices that had ordered FluMist would get rebates, and many would have to 'hustle" to find vaccine. "There will be turmoil, confusion and grumpiness generally," he said.

The British drugmaker said it was working with the CDC to better understand its data and to make sure U.S. patients can receive the vaccine in future flu seasons.

In other countries, distribution and use of the vaccine "are progressing as planned," the company said in a statement.

Despite the setback, AstraZeneca said it maintained its 2016 financial outlook of a low-to-mid single digit decline in revenue and core earnings, at constant exchange rates.

Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said the U.S. vaccine problem would likely drag down consensus earnings forecasts for the current year by around 2 percent and there was a 1-2 percent risk to future forecasts, if the issue was not resolved.

Shares in AstraZeneca gained 0.3 percent while the European drugs sector rose 0.4 percent.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Andrew Hay)
Uber talks a big game when it comes to how much its drivers make. They create video games, ad campaigns, and stalk drivers from other ride sharing services to promote a single message: Uber is a great way to make a living.

New leaked Uber data says otherwise.

Spreadsheets of raw driver data, acquired by BuzzFeed, show that while Uber sometimes claims that its drivers make nearly six-figure salaries, many drivers actually make close to minimum wage.

BuzzFeed's calculations had to account for factors many people neglect when reporting hourly wages. Uber drivers incur expenses on top of their hourly wages: They pay for their own gas, insurance and maintenance costs, not to mention the depreciation of the vehicles they use. These expenses knock their hourly wage down by a few dollars and cost thousands of dollars a year on aggregate.

After all these expenses, the hourly wages in Houston during the examined period was $10.75. In Denver, the healthiest market BuzzFeed examined, the hourly wage ended up at $13.17, which is less than $28,000 after working 40 hours a week.

The worst city in the leaked dataset is Detroit, where drivers make approximately $8.77 in a state where the minimum wage is $8.50. Walmart pledges higher wages.

Source: Seth Wenig/AP

Rhetoric vs. record: No two Uber drivers are the same in the way they work and why. They drive different kinds of cars, make their own hours and often use Uber to supplement their income. Combine this with the fact that Uber keeps its driver data close to the vest, even under penalty of law, and it's difficult to transparently evaluate how much the average driver makes.

But Uber puts out its own numbers every once in a while. Two years ago, Uber said that its drivers in New York City made about $90,000 a year, while San Francisco drivers made about $74,000.

Things have gotten worse in the past few years. In the global race for car service domination, Uber has slashed prices to undercut cab companies and competing services like Lyft. How have Uber drivers responded? By holding protests in New York, blockading the roads in Brazil, and setting cars on fire in France.
Kampala (AFP) - Uganda, the largest contributor to an African Union mission fighting jihadists in Somalia, will pull out its troops from next year, the head of the military said Thursday.

Uganda was the first country to send soldiers to Somalia, spearheading the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in March 2007 to fight Shebab insurgents and protect the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu.

Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya have since joined up and the 22,100-strong mission has 6,200 Ugandan soldiers.

"We plan to disengage from Somalia beginning December 2017," said chief of defence forces General Katumba Wamala.

"It's a decision Uganda is taking and the key actors are informed on the way forward," he said.

Last month army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said Uganda was "reviewing... involvement in AMISOM".

Wamala declined to give specific reasons for the planned withdrawal saying only: "There comes a time when a man must come home."

The announcement comes in the wake of European Union funding cuts to AMISOM and amid negotiations ahead of an expected renewal of the AMISOM mandate by the UN Security Council next month.

In January the EU, a major donor to the Somalia mission, cut its funding by 20 percent saying African countries must bear more of the burden of soldier salaries.

Soon afterwards Kenya threatened to withdraw its 3,700 troops in protest.

In late May the UN approved an extension of the AMISOM mandate until July 8 when a full renewal will be discussed.

Uganda has made similar threats in the past. In 2012 it failed to follow through on a threat to pull out of all peacekeeping missions after UN investigators accused it of backing rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Polls have closed in the United Kingdom, and the Remain side in the countrys contentious Brexit referendum that will decide whether Britain will stay in the European Union appears to have the edge. Polling results published by British-based market research firm YouGov put the Remain vote at 52% and the Leave vote at 48%, which would mark a narrow victory for advocates of the EU after several weeks in which polling data suggested that Albion might bolt the Eurozone.

The British territory of Gibraltar was first to provide an official tally, confirming just after 3:30 PM Pacific that it had voted to remain within the EU.

An internal poll of 10,000 people conducted by the group Leave.EU already suggested a victory for Remain according to The Independent, and Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party told Britains Sky News earlier today that he believed Remain would win.

Both sides in the debate have fielded prominent Britons as advocates, including Jeremy Clarkson, David Beckham, Benedict Cumberbatch and J.K. Rowling arguing in favor of staying in the EU, and Michael Caine and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes among those pushing to leave. The remain side has also been supported by some of British television and films biggest luminaries, including industry legend Lord Puttnam, Working Titles Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Slumdog Millionaire producer Christian Colson, The Kings Speech producer Iain Canning and James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli.

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shared footage on Thursday, June 23, described as showing Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka coming under fire from Russia-backed separatists late on Wednesday evening. The footage was captured by an RFE/RL correspondent embedded with Ukrainian government troops, who reported that the shelling lasted for more than two hours.

One man was injured and several homes were damaged as a result of the shelling, according to reports. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Today, Stephan Bogner from Rockstone Research published an update on Umbral Energy Corp. (CSE: UMB) as the company provided an update on exploration activities at its Gerlach Lithium Brine Project in the San Emidio Desert near Gerlach, Washoe County, Nevada.

It was also stated that assays from its second project, Tule in Utah, are pending and expected shortly. Rockstone is looking forward to these results as favorable lithium values may create significant shareholder value since the company is currently valued at $2 million.

However Umbral's Gerlach Project in Nevada looks also very promising: Nevada Energy Metals Inc. (market capitalization: $13 million CAD) states that previous work on their San Emidio Lithium Project has detected the presence of up to 312 ppm lithium (average 250 ppm) in the playa sediments, located in the southern lobe of the San Emidio playa (26 km south of Umbral's property) and adjacent to US Geothermals' plant. Furthermore, they state that US Geothermal has reported "anomalous" lithium content from brine samples at their facility. Thus, the San Emidio desert playa offers great potential for Umbral's upcoming geophysics and drilling program to discover highly elevated lithium values in subsurface brine aquifers.

The full report can be accessed with the following links:

English (PDF):

http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Umbral5en.pdf

English (web version):

http://rockstone-research.com/index.php/en/research-reports/1198-Assays-pending-for-the-Tule-Lithium-Brine-Project-in-Utah

German (PDF):

http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Umbral5de.pdf

Disclaimer: Please read the full disclaimer within the full research report as a PDF as fundamental risks and conflicts of interest exist.

SOURCE: Rockstone Research
Geneva (AFP) - The UN said Thursday it would begin flying desperately-needed aid from Damascus to the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, which has been inaccessible by domestic roads for more than two years.

"We are just about to launch an air bridge into Qamishli from Damascus," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, told reporters.

"The reason for this is that we have run out of meaningful means to reach people over land," he said, adding that the airlift "...will bring life-saving assistance to a very large number of people."

Qamishli, near the Turkish border, lies in Hasakeh governorate, which can only be reached by road in Syria by driving through the governorates of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, which are dominated by the Islamic State group.

"They haven't been reached by land from within the country since early 2014," said Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) which will coordinate the operation.

She told AFP that the flights, 25 in all over the next month, each carrying 40 tonnes of aid, are expected to begin "in the next few days."

Some 1,000 tonnes of relief items -- consisting 70 percent of food -- will be flown in to a nearby airport and distributed in the town, Luescher said.

She said the aim during the first month was to feed 150,000 people.

The UN previously set up an airlift to bring aid to Qamishli in 2014, and has also delivered assistance across the border from Turkey, but the main border crossing has been closed since the beginning of the year.

- 'Starvation' -

Qamishli is far from the only part of war-ravaged Syria desperate for aid.

Jan Egeland, head of a UN-backed international humanitarian taskforce for the war-ravaged country, told reporters that aid workers were still struggling to reach all of Syria's 18 besieged areas -- most of them encircled by government forces or their allies.

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Since the beginning of the year, aid has been delivered at least once to 16 of those areas, but Erbin and Zamalka in rural Damascus have gone without potentially life-saving assistance since November 2012.

"We hope to reach them next week," Egeland said, adding that the sticking point was a disagreement over how many people are inside the two areas.

The UN estimates the number is around 40,000, but "the government has so far only cleared a fraction of that for delivery," he said, stressing that "we need to be able to go to all of the people there."

Egeland also voiced alarm that fighting was hindering aid from reaching a number of areas that had previously been accessible, including Madaya, where dozens of people starved to death late last year, and which has not received aid since April.

"Starvation will start in those areas if there is no cessation of hostilities," he warned.

Syria's conflict began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.

Peace efforts have failed to end the violence, and a truce brokered by the US and Russia has all but collapsed.

UN mediator Staffan de Mistura hopes peace talks can resume in July, but has warned they cannot proceed "while hostilities are escalating and civilians are starving".

He told reporters Thursday he was travelling to New York and would take part in a UN Security Council meeting on June 29 to seek guidance on how to ensure "the best conditions" for the talks.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Thursday rebuked North Korea for its latest missile tests, calling for redoubled enforcement of sanctions imposed after Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test earlier this year.

The council "strongly condemned" the back-to-back June 21 intermediate-range missile tests, characterizing them as "grave violations" of a string of resolutions dating to 2006.

"The members of the Security Council deplore all DPRK ballistic missile activities noting that such activities contribute to the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension," the Security Council said in a statement.

North Korea's formal name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The members of the Security Council further regretted that the DPRK is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while DPRK citizens have great unmet needs," the statement said.

In calling for redoubled enforcement of sanctions, the Security Council urged member states to report on concrete measures they have taken in that regard.

The sanctions -- the toughest yet against North Korea -- were imposed after it conducted a fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket test February 7.

After a series failures in recent months, North Korea tested two intermediate range Musudan missiles on Wednesday, one of which flew 400 kilometers into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un boasted that the tests significantly bolstered the North's preemptive attack capabilities in the Pacific.

"We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater," the KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.
To most people, crowdfunding means that someone invented a thermos that sings Yankee Doodle, and it just raised $750,000 on Kickstarter. But thats about to change. In May, a regulation called Title III, a part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, clicked into effect, and it has the potential to alter the way many startups are funded -- and how people use the word crowdfunding.

The law itself, commonly known as the JOBS Act, is old news. It was passed in 2012, and part of it went into effect a year later. It initially allowed companies to publicly solicit and raise capital from accredited investors -- that is, people who the government determines are wealthy enough to take big investment risks, often meaning they have a net worth of at least $1 million. Were not talking Kickstarter-style funding here, where backers are essentially buying a product ahead of time, or donating in exchange for a token gift. Were talking about true investors getting equity in a company -- a very different kind of crowdfunding, available only to an affluent crowd.

In May, the masses were finally let in on the fun. Title III allows early-stage companies to raise money from unaccredited investors -- that is, anyone willing to pay. At long last, it seems, heres a level playing field for cash-starved startups that are too new or small to qualify for a bank loan, or to capture the imagination of deep-pocketed angel investors and venture capitalists. Now you can get money from the masses! Like Kickstarter, only with cap tables!

It could be great for your young company, but dont get too excited just yet. Like everything in finance and law, things are complicated. Theres a mountain of paperwork standing between you and that money. Theres also a limit: You can raise only up to $1 million during a 12-month period from the unaccredited crowd. And as you raise it, youll need to adhere to the Securities and Exchange Commissions very strict rules and regulations.

This is what youll need to know.

What startups want

Most kickstarter campaigns fail, and the same may become true for equity crowdfunding campaigns. Sometimes the crowd just isnt buying what youre selling. So before you pin all your hopes on the masses, consider whats reasonably possible.

If you have a consumer-facing company with a dedicated customer base (or the potential to grow one), youre probably best positioned to benefit, says Aaron Pollak, CEO and cofounder of Venture.co, a broker-dealer based in Burlington, Vt. Why? Your product or service will be easy to understand -- a must if youre appealing to casual investors. A difficult-to-comprehend business-to-business database for enterprise customers just may not sparkle in quite the same way.

You should also consider your needs. Do you have a massively appealing commercial product? Maybe Kickstarter-style sites are still the best route for you: Youll raise your money without giving away shares of the business. Thats what Andy Karuza is thinking; hes the founder of FenSens, a wireless fender sensor, and he plans to presell on Indiegogo and keep all his equity. He does want investors but is interested only in strategic investors who can help his company grow. That is one major benefit that comes with traditional investing, he says.

Also, consider how transparent youre willing to be. These companies have to publicly disclose their financials, says Ron Miller, partner at the equity crowdfunding portal StartEngine, based in greater Los Angeles. If you require secrecy around your spending and growth figures, equity crowdfunding isnt the financing vehicle for you.

But if youre willing to be open, the tradeoff could be worth it: Unlike just about any other kind of crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding will drum up an army of brand ambassadors, Miller says. Theyll be dozens or hundreds of people who invest and then sing your praises to everyone they know, if for no other reason than to see their own investment cha-ching. If you can rally those troops, youre in business.

The middlemen who make it happen

For the old crowdfunding world, a Kickstarter-style website handled the back end. In this new world, youll also need a go-between -- what the SEC calls intermediaries, which can take many forms. You have options about which kind of intermediary to choose, but by law, you have no choice about this: You must use one.

There are two main types of intermediaries: broker-dealers and funding portals. Broker-dealers like Venture.co, FlashFunders and North Capital do a lot of the work for startups and investors -- offering additional document drafting and investment management services, for example. They also allow startups to raise money in two ways at the same time -- through an equity crowdfunding campaign for those wealthy accredited investors while also raising cash from the masses. This may be useful to established startups that need growth capital.

Funding portals such as StartEngine, SeedInvest and NextSeed offer a more basic option. Like Kickstarter, theyre basically a clearinghouse where startups and backers can find each other and interact online. But unlike broker-dealers, portals cant insert themselves into the transaction -- say, by finding investors on behalf of startups or offering investment advice. The portals are just that: portals.

Regardless of which you choose, youre now up against a new challenge. The intermediary is going to vet you. Most important, it needs to make sure youre following all the SECs rules. But it will also often decide whether your startup is worth its time -- and theres no rule saying that it must list you. We were always about quality over quantity, says Ryan Feit, CEO and cofounder of SeedInvest, a platform that has listed campaigns for the accredited set and plans to do it for the unaccredited as well. His platform has listed only 1 percent of the companies that apply.

If you pass the test, your intermediary will then walk you through the process -- ensuring that you have the necessary documentation and marketing materials. Once your campaign goes live, the intermediary will oversee all the financial transactions. And rather than leaving you to correspond with all your individual investors -- a red-tape nightmare that would strangle even the most detail-oriented trep -- you can use the intermediary to issue a quarterly update by email, webcast or another medium.

Transparency comes into play again here. The SEC requires a comments section for every campaign so investors can talk publicly about what theyre seeing -- and can hear from you. In order for the wisdom of the crowd to develop, there needs to be some time to have discourse and dialog, which happens on the platform, StartEngines Miller says. Communication between startups and prospective investors is viewable by everybody.

The overseers

Get some coffee. Then maybe an espresso. Title III comes with a lot of mundane paperwork, but you cant let your eyes glaze over.

First, you must file a Form C with the SEC, which essentially announces your intent to raise money this way. You must file annual updates with the SEC and post them on your companys website. Your legal pros can help you nail these pieces, and all the tiny details along the way.

Youll also need to shift how you think and talk about your startup. As a trep, youre genetically predisposed to turn the hype machine to 11 -- but in equity crowdfunding, silence is often golden (and also, the only legal option). You cant talk about your Title III raise before it goes live on your intermediarys platform, says Douglas Ellenoff, a corporate and securities attorney with New York City-based law firm Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP. Thats why you dont see any entrepreneurs quoted here saying theyre gearing up for one. We called around, but everyone knows to stay mum. Talking to the media (or basically anyone!) before an offering goes live would violate SEC rules.

And once your campaign is live, you cant talk it up like a salesperson. The SEC does not take kindly to such hyperbole or sugarcoating. This is a securities transaction, Ellenoff says. Language matters. You may not overstate your situation. You have to give an investor a true north accurate read of your opportunity as it exists today -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Depending on state laws where you operate, big talk could be fined, or worse.

Its not something where you slap together a video and people come running with their checkbooks, Miller says. (Heck, that barely works on Kickstarter).

So is it right for you? Between the legwork and the associated costs -- namely the equity you sell, the percentage points the intermediaries take of the funds raised and the thousands of dollars in legal and accounting fees -- equity crowdfunding may not work for young companies that need a couple hundred thousand to tide them over. But for treps who need mid-six figures and up, it could make the difference between getting a company off the ground and scrapping an idea altogether.

Even if you think your company is a perfect candidate, the wisdom of the crowd may think otherwise -- which Miller believes is a good thing. Let more entrepreneurs fail faster, he figures. Because now theyve got to get the market to buy in first rather than a small group of angel investors or their family, he says. With the JOBS Act, nobodys putting their money in a deal they dont believe in.
Washington (AFP) - The United States placed Kinshasa police chief Celestin Kanyama on its sanctions blacklist Thursday, calling him responsible for deaths, abductions and other violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The US Treasury Department tied the move to an upturn in political repression and arrest of opposition members in advance of the expiration of President Joseph Kabila's term in December.

The Treasury said Kanyama was responsible for a 2013-2014 police operation in which at least 50 young men and boys were reportedly killed and more than 30 others were forcibly "disappeared".

Likewise, it said he was responsible last year when more than 40 people were killed during anti-Kabila demonstrations in Kinshasa, at least half of them shot dead by security forces.

The sanctions, which are authorized for anyone judged "contributing to the conflict" in the DR Congo, freeze any assets Kanyama might have in US territory and forbid Americans from business dealings with him.

"Treasury's action today sends a clear message that the United States condemns the regime's violence and repressive actions, especially those of Celestin Kanyama, which threaten the future of democracy for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

In power since 2001, Kabila is widely believed to be eyeing a third term in office in contravention of the constitution which allows only two.

In a statement, the DR Congo government condemned the US sanctions move, while not commenting specifically on Kanyama's actions.

"It is an infringement on our sovereignty and will undermine bilateral relations. It will also embolden those who seek to divide our nation and impede our democratic processes," said Ambassador Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, diplomatic adviser to Kabila.
Washington (AFP) - The United States expressed deep concern Thursday about basic freedoms in its ally Turkey after the arrest of three free speech activists.

Reporters Without Borders Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu, journalist Ahmet Nesin and rights activist Sebnem Korur Fincanci were charged on Monday with "terrorist propaganda."

The three had taken part in a campaign by the daily Ozgur Gundem for prominent figures to guest-edit the newspaper on a daily basis in a show of solidarity at a time when the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accused of eroding press freedoms.

Istanbul prosecutors have asked for the three to each be given jail sentences from a minimum of two years up to a maximum of fourteen-and-a- half.

"This appears to be just a continuation of a troubling trend that we've seen in Turkey to discourage legitimate discourse and freedom of expression, freedom of the press," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"As we've said, as Turkey's friend and ally, we urge the authorities there to ensure their actions uphold the universal democratic values enshrined in Turkish constitution, which includes freedom of speech," he said.

"In a democratic society, we believe that critical opinion should be encouraged, not silenced. We believe democracies becomes stronger, not weaker, by allowing an expression of diverse voices within society and the actions and the work in the important efforts of independent journalists."

Delphine Halgand, US Director for Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at the state prosecutor's call for long custodial sentences.

"Erol's imprisonment and these of the two other press freedom defenders mark a new step in the criminalization of the defense of human rights in Turkey," she said.

"We will continue to fight for these rights tirelessly."
From Cosmopolitan

Herpes is more commonplace than we'd all like to think. Over half the U.S. population has Herpes Simplex-1-the virus that causes cold sores-although many are asymptomatic, according to the CDC. One in six Americans carry the Herpes Simplex-2 virus, which causes genital outbreaks. HSV-1 can be also be spread to genitals via oral contact.

Here's the good news: new research unveiled at the American Society for Microbiology suggests that a new vaccine "could reduce the activity of the [HSV-2] virus, leading to fewer outbreaks and maybe even a lower transmission rate," Vocativ reports. The vaccine wouldn't cure herpes, but rather activate the immune system to prevent outbreaks.

The treatment, called GEN-003, works differently than many vaccines. "[It recruits] T cells, which are critical to controlling chronic infections such as herpes," Dr. Kenneth Fife, an investigator and professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, explains in a press release. The participants in the study, who all suffered from frequent genital herpes outbreaks, were given three shots of GEN-003 over the course of a year. While the exact data is still being analyzed, the doctors found that the shots decreased the duration of the participants' herpes outbreaks.

"The importance of these clinical findings is that it represents a new approach to treatment, and may provide a new option for patients suffering from chronic, recurrent genital herpes," Dr. Fife says.

Follow Eve on Twitter and Instagram.
Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri is set to be named the first ever woman creative director of Dior, the famed French fashion house, according to reports Thursday.

Women's Wear Daily, which is regarded as the industry bible, said they had been told that Chiuri has finalised her contract.

Both Dior and the Italian brand Valentino, where Chiuri has worked alongside her longtime creative partner Pierpaolo Piccioli since 2008, refused to comment.

Under the pair's leadership, Valentino has become one of the hottest and most profitable designer brands in Europe.

If her appointment is confirmed, she would be following not only in the footsteps of the house's legendary founder Christian Dior but also of such designers as Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferre and John Galliano.

Dior has been without an artistic director since the shock departure of the Belgian Raf Simons in October, which sparked soul-searching in the industry about the pressure creators were now under.

Rumours have been linking Chiuri -- known for her romantic, intricate style -- and high-end label, founded in 1946, for some time.

Dior's chief executive Sidney Toledano told AFP last month that they would "soon say" who was to take over.

"We turn the pages at our rhythm," Toledano said, insisting they would not be hurried into making a decision.

"There are extremely important issues at stake about the direction (Dior) will take in the years to come," he added.

The duo of Swiss designers Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, who have been holding the fort since Simon's exit, are likely to move on to Dior's haute couture range.

Toledano said they were in charge of Dior's forthcoming couture show in Paris on July 4.

Even before they took over at Valentino, Chiuri and Piccioli had forged a tight creative partnership over two decades, with her hiring him to join her when she was snapped up by Fendi in 1989.

Dior Couture has seen its growth fall by four percent in the last quarter, with its turnover also down by one percent to 1.39 billion euros ($1.5 billion).

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The French luxury goods giant LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault, France's richest man, owns 70.8 percent of Dior.

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LVMH - MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON

CHRISTIAN DIOR
Paris (AFP) - Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri is set to be named the first ever woman creative director of Dior, the famed French fashion house, according to reports Thursday.

Women's Wear Daily, which is regarded as the industry bible, said they had been told that Chiuri has finalised her contract.

Both Dior and the Italian brand Valentino, where Chiuri has worked alongside her longtime creative partner Pierpaolo Piccioli since 2008, refused to comment.

Under the pair's leadership, Valentino has become one of the hottest and most profitable designer brands in Europe.

If her appointment is confirmed, she would be following not only in the footsteps of the house's legendary founder Christian Dior but also of such designers as Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferre and John Galliano.

Dior has been without an artistic director since the shock departure of the Belgian Raf Simons in October, which sparked soul-searching in the industry about the pressure creators were now under.

Rumours have been linking Chiuri -- known for her romantic, intricate style -- and high-end label, founded in 1946, for some time.

Dior's chief executive Sidney Toledano told AFP last month that they would "soon say" who was to take over.

"We turn the pages at our rhythm," Toledano said, insisting they would not be hurried into making a decision.

"There are extremely important issues at stake about the direction (Dior) will take in the years to come," he added.

The duo of Swiss designers Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, who have been holding the fort since Simon's exit, are likely to move on to Dior's haute couture range.

Toledano said they were in charge of Dior's forthcoming couture show in Paris on July 4.

Even before they took over at Valentino, Chiuri and Piccioli had forged a tight creative partnership over two decades, with her hiring him to join her when she was snapped up by Fendi in 1989.

Dior Couture has seen its growth fall by four percent in the last quarter, with its turnover also down by one percent to 1.39 billion euros ($1.5 billion).

The French luxury goods giant LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault, France's richest man, owns 70.8 percent of Dior.
After a leaky pipe at about 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, firefighters have halted the estimated 700 barrels of crude oil leaking from a pipe in Ventura County, California. With each barrel containing 42 gallons of oil, that was about 29,400 gallons on the move toward the coastline, but it was halted before it could reach the nearby beach.

Although the owner of the , Crimson Pipeline, had turned off the pump attached to that pipeline, gravity made the oil continue to spill. "The pump has been shut down," Ventura County firefighter Marisol Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times. "There's no way it can get to the ocean." said officials were "in cleanup mode."

At about 9 a.m. Eastern, officials said the oil moved about half a mile beachward.

Breaking: Up to 5,000 barrels of oil spill in Ventura County http://fw.to/Egtnklh #nottheanswerpic.twitter.com/ACwihsgvw2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClpePklWMAERbQj.jpg:large

No evacuations were issued. The Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Office of Spill Prevention and the Oxnard Fire Department also responded to the leak.

The air quality of the area is currently being monitored following the spill, according to KTLA-5.

In 2015, up to 143,000 gallons of crude oil did reach the beach in Santa Barbara, California, creating tar balls and killing local sea life.
Viacom and its CEO Philippe Dauman asked two courts today to order an immediate exam of controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone to determine whether the 93-year-old is competent to run his media empire.

The necessity of an immediate mental examination cannot be overstated, Daumans lawyers told the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court.

Viacom Lead Independent Director made a similar appeal to Delawares Chancery Court.

In the Massachusetts case, Dauman and Viacom director George Abrams have asked the court to overturn Redstones May 20 notice replacing them on his familys trust and the board of National Amusements.

They say that Redstones being manipulated by his daughter, Shari  Viacoms Vice Chair. She denies the charge.

Redstones moves were important: The seven-member trust will control his holdings in the theater chain when he cant manage his own affairs. National Amusements controls 80% of the voting shares of Viacom and CBS.

Without an immediate examination, the evidence of Mr. Redstones capacity as of May 20, 2016 will be lost, the Massachusetts filing says. Meanwhile, momentous events relating to the control of [Redstones media] empireare unfolding at a quick pace, and are in danger of becoming irreversible.

That might refer to a deal Dauman has been trying to arrange to sell 49% of Paramount. Redstone opposes the sale. National Amusements wants to change Viacoms bylaws to require that the board unanimously approve any transaction, giving the Redstones the ability to block.

In the Delaware case, Viacom objects to National Amusements effort to replace five directors including Dauman. The judge in that case said yesterday that he wants to see what happens in Massachusetts before ordering Sumner Redstone to submit to an examination.

Im not going to wade into that terrain right now because it is pending elsewhere, and

Im not going to duplicate that, Judge Andre Bouchard said. There are questions of human dignity to a very elderly person. Thats treacherous ground to dive into too quickly.

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Viacom says it requires a medical examination to confirm that Mr. Redstones mental condition, like his physical condition, has severely diminished, such that he did not have the capacity to take the actions being challenged in this litigation.

RelatedSumner Redstone Doctor: Exec Retains The Legal Mental Capacity To Make The Decisions

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Redstone Lawyers Urge Massachusetts Court To Dismiss Dauman Charges
The judge presiding over a case that could decide Viacoms future wants more information about Sumner Redstones mental health before making a ruling.

Andre Bouchard, the Delaware judge assigned to hear Fred Salernos lawsuit over his removal from the media giants board, told attorneys on Wednesday that he wants to hold off making any big decisions in the case until the issue of Redstones capacity is clarified.

Redstone, the driving force behind the company whose brands include MTV and Comedy Central, is 93 and in frail health. His mental competency has been at issue in separate court cases in Massachusetts and California.

Also Read: Sumner Redstone Asks Judge to Toss (Or Relocate) Philippe Dauman's Lawsuit

There are questions of human dignity to a very elderly person, Bouchard said in court. Thats treacherous ground to dive into too quickly.

Bouchard told attorneys for Salerno and Redstone that he wanted to be notified immediately of any developments in the other cases involving Redstone and Viacom.

There will be no further proceedings scheduled, but I want to be kept abreast of developments in the other proceedings in other courts, Bouchard said.

Earlier this week, Redstones attorneys filed a motion for dismissal in the Massachusetts case, where Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and director George Abrams are suing Redstone after being booted from a trust that could control Viacom.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Philippe Dauman Blames Media for Viacom Circus: 'The Press Loves Drama'

Top Entertainment Companies Where People Want to Work  Where Does Viacom Rank?

Viacom Owner Rips Board for Bankrolling Philippe Dauman Lawsuit
Victorys Gas vs. Electric Pikes Peak Battle Set to Take Place Sunday

Victory motorcycles is in the final stages of preparing for this Sundays Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

The Minnesota-based brand is bringing two bikes to compete at the iconic event: one electric, and one of the more traditional dino-juice variety. Victory has dubbed the match-up: Thunder vs. Lightning.

Victory Empulse RR

Victorys electric Empulse RR will be raced up the mountain by Cycle World Road Test Editor Don Canet, whereas the fire-breathing Project 156 bike that Canet piloted for Victory last year will this year be ridden by former Pikes Peak Champion Jeremy Toye.

The Victory Empulse RR is a race-prepped version of the road-going Victory Empulse TT. It is the same bike that helped Victory earn a podium spot at last years Isle of Man TT (Victory was also at this years Isle of Man TT, with a different, and managed to improve upon its 2015 performance https://rideapart.com/articles/dunlop-victory-earn-2nd-isle-man-tt ).

READ MORE: PIKES Peak POV With Commentary | RideApart

Victory Empulse RR

While the base frame and overall design of the Empulse RR is essentially the same as the production Empulse TT, a lighter monocoque carbon-fibre subframe is used. The battery, controller, and Parker Hannifin-sourced motor have been upgraded with repackaged battery cells offering more capacity. The engine also has new motor windings and an updated control system and wire harness. Visual differences from the IOMTT version raced last year include less bodywork, a more upright riding position and the addition of hand guards to protect Canets hands from the cold mountain air.

The Empulse RR has a couple of things going for it that are going to make it hard to beat, owing to its all-electric powertrain, said Brian Wismann, Victory Racing team manager. Does this make the Empulse RR the clear favourite? Not necessarily. Batteries are negatively affected by cold temperatures and theres no place to charge on the mountain, meaning any misstep in logistics or setup will cost Don the time he needs to get up to speed.

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Victory Project 156

Canet, though, says hes looking forward to the challenge and likes his chances of out-racing Toye.

I jumped at the idea, Canet said. We all know thunder follows lightning, and itll be no different at this venue. Toye is going to have a heck of a job cut out for himself in trying to beat me to the top.

Meanwhile, seasoned racer Toye  who has also raced at the Isle of Man TT and Macau GP, among others  will be behind the bars of a bike that has had a year to work out the kinks that resulted in a 2015 DNF. Victory Product Manager Brandon Kraemer concedes that the brand is excited about the race, regardless of which of its bikes manages a better time.

READ MORE: DNF For Victorys Project 156 Pikes Peak Effort | RideApart

Victory Project 156

Whichever platform takes top honours, the winner is the Victory rider of the future who will be enjoying the same technology on their future street motorcycles someday, he said.

The 94th running of the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb takes place Sunday 26 June. The race is run on a 12.42-mile course with 156 turns that begins at 9,390 feet and finishes at the 14,115 foot summit of Pikes Peak. As drivers/riders climb toward the summit, the thin air can rob internal combustion engines of 30 percent of their power.
VidCon, the largest, hippest conference of online creators, kicked off on Thursday, and if you're not there, at least you can feel like you are  people are freaking out about it on the Internet.



YouTubers like Tyler Oakley, Grace Helbig, Lilly Singh and more  as well as thousands and thousands of their adoring fans  are tweeting about the convention in Anaheim, California, while attending panels, discussions, meet-and-greets, performances and taking gratuitous selfies, of course.



If the FOMO is getting to you, pretend that you're actually there by joining in on the online party:















RELATED VIDEO: VidCon Fans Share Ideal Celeb Collaborations

Zero Chill About It" data-ad-channel="Brightcove" data-ad-subchannel="" data-auto-play="no">





Make sure to check PEOPLE.com for videos, photos and articles on the biggest news out of this year's event. We have a feeling it's only going to get more intense.
Tough, reliable, and endlessly capableits not hard to see why engineers and tradesmen working in the worlds harshest terrain use Toyota Land Cruisers to get around. If a Land Cruiser can get you into the wild, theres a good chance itll bring you right back out too.

For that reason, plenty of companies have supplied their employees with Cruisers, much like this one in fact, especially like this one.

Back in 1981, this Toyota Land Cruiser FJ43 was imported from Japan to Colombia for use by a local energy company as one of its rural transport vehicles. Fast forward quite a few years and it has survived its work life, escaped largely rust-free, but now its getting pressed into a different line of workvintage off-roading.

RELATED: See More of this 81 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ43

To those familiar with Miamis The FJ Companyhigh-end restorers specializing in Toyota Land Cruisersit comes as no surprise that this pristine FJ43 is a product of their handiwork. Nicknamed the Copperstate Overland Edition, the FJ folks have built this rig for the second annual Copperstate Overland vintage 44 rally, held later this year in October and with the picturesque Arizona desert as an off-road playground and backdrop.

If you like it, well youre in luck. The spotless Toyota will cross the auction block in August at Gooding & Companys Pebble Beach event, and it comes with free entry into the 2016 Copperstate Overland, as well as mechanical support at the race. Not a bad package.

RELATED: This May Be the Worlds Most Expensive Toyota Tacoma

So whats new on this Cruiser? Crucially, not the engine. According to The FJ Company, this 81 FJ43 still retains its original and numbers-matching 2F straight-six engine, albeit fully rebuilt, now fitted with a new carburetor, starter engine, fuel and water pumps, plus a new aluminum radiator. The modern advancements continue with new power steering and front disc brakes as well, creating an overall very usable rig.

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Inside and out, things are looking spiffy thanks to new leather upholstery, which is likely much more luxe than the original trimmings, plus a new custom soft top and a lick of genuine Toyota Olive 637 paint. Its not all for show, however, though it is quite beautiful.

RELATED: Inside The FJ Company  Classic Cruisers, Restored with Love

Given that this is still an adventure 44, the vintage Toyota Land Cruiser features new four-point seat belts, a fire extinguisher system, roll cage, LED headlights, PIAA fog lights, a high-lift jack, external fuel cans, and a sturdy Warn winch.

Its running gear is also heavy duty tooa five-speed manual transmission, four-wheel drive transfer case, and 33-inch BFGoodrich mud terrain tires mounted on a rugged Old Man Emu suspension. Trails will be conquered, in style.

The price for all this overland excellence? That all depends on the bidding in August, however The FJ Companys standard classic restorations start at around $55,000.

RELATED: This 66 Toyota Land Cruiser is a Dune-Crushing Monster
A good movie can transport audiences, taking them to other worlds and briefly immersing people in characters' lives. And with virtual-reality technology, movie writers and directors have more tools at their disposal than ever before to create immersive experiences.

Danish filmmakers Johan Knattrup Jensen and Mads Damsbo and their production company Makropol are using virtual-reality (VR) technology to explore the boundaries of movie narratives, building on traditional visual storytelling and introducing new opportunities for audiences to interact with plotlines and characters  and with one another.

Their short film "Ewa: Out of Body," premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and enabled viewers to see the world through the eyes of Ewa, the main character. The short is a brief introduction to Ewa's life. A planned feature-length film will allow audiences to share her experiences from infancy through adulthood, centering on a significant conflict with her mother. [Beyond Gaming: 10 Other Fascinating Uses for Virtual-Reality Tech]

Seeing and experiencing

The filmmakers say VR could inspire movie creators to approach visual narratives in an entirely new way.

"VR opens up a different way of telling stories  one you haven't seen before," Jensen, the film's director, told Live Science. "Instead of simply trying to tell a story, I'm trying to convey an experience."

Jensen shot "Ewa" as a single take, which means that the camera's point of view  what the audience sees in the headset  travels uninterrupted from start to finish, mimicking the way that we experience the world. Making a film with no edits, Jensen explained, meant that all the movements of the actors and the camera had to be carefully choreographed and coordinated at every step, with movements linked to actions that would advance Ewa's story.

"How do we acknowledge the audience's presence in the film, and how do we use that for telling the story? This is something we're really interested in," Damsbo said. And with VR, filmmakers can begin to imagine an active, participatory role for audience members within their movies, Damsbo told Live Science.

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VR gets social

It might seem that wearing VR headsets in a theater would isolate viewers from one another, and may reduce the shared enjoyment of a movie, but Jensen emphatically disagrees.

"If that were true, we'd say books were an anti-social medium," he said. "VR has the power that any good experience has  right after you have it, you want to share it."

Another Makropol VR film shown at Cannes, "The Doghouse," did exactly that. It offered a group of five viewers the chance to not only participate in a communal VR experience  a film about a family sharing a meal  but also to discuss it after the movie ended and see how their perceptions of the same story differed, depending on whose role they were playing.

SKAMMEKROGEN // THE DOGHOUSE - interview with the artists on Vimeo.

"We wanted to say, there isn't really one truth about a story  about this family dinner  there are five truths," Damsbo said. "And each one is just as true."

Talking about the film enabled participants to appreciate how VR allowed each of them to experience a very different narrative, he added. [Photos: Virtual Reality Puts Adults in a Child's World]

"A new language is being born"

Some established members of the Hollywood community are ready and willing to explore what VR technology can do. Michael Bay, director of the blockbuster "Transformers" movies, is embracing VR. He recently announced a partnership with the production company The Rogue Initiative to create VR experiences that include highly dynamic action sequences  a trademark of Bay's movies  within an immersive environment.

And at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, a roster of VR short films  live action and animated  which included Makropol's "Ewa" and "The Doghouse," were presented at a special pavilion. Festival officials even included a cardboard VR headset in the event's official "swag bag" giveaway.

However, certain moviemakers have expressed skepticism about VR's effectiveness for telling stories.

At Cannes, director Steven Spielberg suggested that VR might offer audiences too many choices, which could lead them to "forget the story" that the writer and director imagined.

But perhaps allowing a viewer to choose among several stories means that the director's role is more important than ever, Jensen suggested.

"I can still control my audience," Jensen told Live Science. "But now I have to make a game with them, where I try to persuade them to find the story  to find my story," he added.

"The medium is changing, aesthetics are changing and a new language is being born. We can only embrace the art of this new language," Jensen said.

(Looking for a VR headset? Our sister site Tom's Guide put together a great primer on the best ones on the market right now: The Best VR Headsets.)

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Vivica A. Fox at the Independence Day: Resurgence Hollywood premiere at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 20, 2016 (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)



Vivica A. Fox had a breakthrough year in 1996, thanks to two big hits: F. Gary Grays female bank-robber saga Set It Off, and Roland Emmerichs alien-invasion blockbuster Independence Day. This weekend, shell bring it back full circle in the long-awaited sequel Independence Day: Resurgence, returning as stripper-turned-medical-professional Jasmine Dubrow, whose son (played by Jesse T. Usher) is following in the footsteps of his fighter-pilot dad Steven Hiller (Will Smith, who chose not to reprise his role). On the eve of the films Tuesday night premiere, she talked with Yahoo Movies about whats changed between Independence Day and its follow-up, how the original film changed her life, and what happened to her characters famous fireball-outrunning dog Boomer. (Fox has been working with Independence Day: Resurgence promotional partner Twizzlers, unveiling a replica fighter jet made from the candy at the premiere; our chat was arranged as part of that.)

At the Independence Day: Resurgence premiere, youll be unveiling a fighter jet constructed out of Twizzlers. Have you seen it?

No, Im going to be surprised just like everyone else. But what I do know is that its an exact replica of the hybrid fighter jet thats in the film. Its 7 feet tall, weighs 372.5 pounds  all made of Twizzlers. But you cant take a bite!

So you wont get to eat it?

No, I dont think that thats a wise choice, my friend.

Fox and Independence Day: Resurgence costar Sela Ward alongside the newly unveiled Twizzler Fighter Jet at the films Hollywood premiere (Photo: Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Twizzlers)

I assume the Twizzlers jet plays no role in the film itself? No launching it into any alien crafts a la Randy Quaids kamikaze flight at the end of the original Independence Day?

[Laughs] Hey, not a bad idea. Itll be freaking them out like kids when you give them too much sugar. Maybe we can try that out next time.

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Twenty years after ID4, were you excited about coming back for Resurgence?

Absolutely. I was thrilled. I was just, wow  I cant even tell you. When I got that call, I felt like that young girl 20 years ago who got that call. I had to audition six times the first time to get the role. So when I got the call and they were like Yeah, theyre bringing your character back, its on, I was like Yes! We are back! Loving it!

Theres been considerable talk about making an ID4 sequel for years  when did you get the sense that it was really going to happen?

For the last five years, on and off, it was like Oh, were going to do it! And then it would disappear. Oh, were going to do it! And then it would disappear. So I kind of lost a little bit of faith. And then, when I heard that Will [Smith] had decided that he wanted to do Suicide Squad instead of ourssorry to be a selfish actor, but I was like, There goes my storyline! So when I got the call from them saying [director Roland Emmerich] is going to keep your story alive and its going to be about you and your son, I was like, Yes! Were back!

Related: Remember That Time the Independence Day Producer Explained the Infamously Inept Hacking Scene?

Can you give us some background on what your character Jasmine has been up to since the last film, and what her role is in Resurgence?

I can tell you this about Jasmine  shes no longer working the pole, which is great, so I didnt have to dust off my g-string [laughs]. Shes now a hospital administrator, and because she married Steven [Will Smiths character] at the end of the first movie, shes also a military wife. Shes mentoring her young son, whos played by the incredible Jesse T. Usher  who I totally feel has next  and whos stepping into the shoes of Steven Hiller by leading a fighter-pilot squad. Its good to see that whole mother-son relationship be really good. He keeps her grounded and moving forward, because they have the loss of Steven. Youll see a wonderful relationship between mother and son that I was really happy to do with Jesse.

Do you get any further scenes opposite everybodys favorite fireball-outracing dog, Boomer?

[Laughs] No, Boomer doesnt make it. Its been 20 years, so in dog years, Boomer would come limping in.

Did they at least let you reprise the hair?

No [sorrowfully]. She got her professional do on. We all must evolve and grow up sometime.

As you said, Will Smiths Steven Hiller doesnt return. Was that disappointing?

It changed both of our lives 20 years ago. It made us household names. Of course, we miss working with him. But he gave us his blessings, and we all kept going forward. I think I was bummed because I was like, Damn, Im not going to win an MTV award for Best Kiss this time. Who am I going to get to make out with? Dang! Cmon! [Laughs] Now its time for her to pass the torch.

But let me tell you, the rest of the people who showed up  from Bill Pullman to Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch, and then the young kids  it was just a great cast. We all spent a lot of time hanging out together. No one was like, Ill be in my trailer. It was just a great movie to work on.

We had six stages in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which made it a lot more comfortable this time compared to what it was on the first film. The first film, the first 11 days we filmed on Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah  and that, sir, let me tell you, was not fun.

Independence Day: Resurgence: Watch Vivica A. Fox talk about the status of Col. Steven Hiller:



What particularly fond or not-so-fond memories do you have of making the first film?

Oh gosh. I remember filming on Wendover, Utah, on the Salt Flats, and it was like 107 degrees, almost 110, with the salt reflecting up. I think I changed a couple different shades of chocolate. [Laughs] And it was grueling! One time, we had a wind storm come through, and it was like, Weve got 45 minutes to get out of here, we got to pick up everything because itll blind you! So it was nice [on Resurgence] to walk into a soundstage, and it was air-conditioned. It was just different. It was like, wow, technology has advanced. I mean, some of the stages were completely blue screen.

Was a lot of your work not done on location?

Well, we did shoot in Albuquerque, and I dont know if you know, but theres a story there  some little alien sightings that have happened around there. [Laughs] So it was the perfect spot for us to be at.

The first time, I remember only having a day of green screen. And this time, coming to the set, it was a lot more. Roland, the director, had illustrations, which helped because you knew exactly what you were reacting to. Exactly what he was expecting. And that I appreciated.

How much bigger is Resurgence compared to the last film?

I think [it was just about] continuing the resurgence. And to bring it back bigger, badder, and bolder than ever. That was the goal. And thats what I liked, more than anything else. He didnt go, Well, remember the first movie! There was none of that going on. He just embraced it, and wanted everything to evolve, from the characters to the aliens coming back. Theyre bigger and badder, youre going to see.

The entire thing was just about going forward. He didnt want to trip too much on what we did.

So the first time youre seeing it is tonight?

Yeah. Me and Jesse. Twenty years ago, when I starred in the first movie, I didnt see any screenings. Ill never forget sitting there, and after I saved the dog and the kid, and I was like Boomer! And we made it. And everyone clapped for me. I had a Sally Field moment  They like me, they really like me! This is cool!

Jessie T. Usher on 'Dylan growing up as the son of a world hero in Independence Day: Resurgence:

1996 was a big year for you, given that you also starred in Set it Off.

Yeah. Totally career-changing. I just remember going from wanting to make it, and always playing the co-star, and having patienceand then Boom! I ended up doing like five movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I didnt have to audition anymore. I mean, it totally changed my life.

Set it Off featured strong, nuanced female characters, which is something thats defined most of your subsequent roles, including in Quentin Tarantinos Kill Bill.

I finally got strong cool characters to play. For a long time I was just the hot chick. And then after I got Kill Bill, now they wanted me to fight all the time. Im serious! So now its great to play roles where shes like the hospital administrator  more professional roles. Shes the boss, or the head chick in charge. Thats been fun to evolve to.

But it sounds like you enjoy those badass Kill Bill-type roles too.

Why not? Who doesnt mind playing a badass chick, OK? [Laughs]

I assume that, despite Jasmines professional career in Resurgence, you still get a chance to kick some ass in this too.

Oh yeah. Theres going to be one scene that youre going to be like, Wow, holy cow. Just know that thats all me. I got in there and did it.

Independence Day: Resurgence: Watch the trailer:


Washington (AFP) - Volkswagen has agreed to pay $10 billion to settle a huge US civil case over its diesel emissions-cheating scandal, a person familiar with the negotiations told AFP on Thursday.

As part of the settlement, Volkswagen would compensate owners of around 480,000 2.0-liter diesel cars up to $7,000 in cash each, and would also fund a program to fight air pollution, the person said.

Volkswagen admitted in September that it had installed software on diesel cars that tricked US emissions tests into showing the cars met environmental standards. After testing, the device switched off, allowing the vehicles to spew up to 40 times the permitted amounts of nitrogen oxides.

The scandal, which emerged with the revelations in the United States, went global after Volkswagen admitted it had installed the emissions-cheating software in 11 million VW, Porsche and Audi cars with diesel engines worldwide.

The San Francisco civil lawsuit accuses Volkswagen of major damages to the environment and to the owners of the illegally rigged diesel cars.

A settlement could be enough to allow Volkswagen to avert a huge trial over how it would deal with the scandal that has already deeply damaged the world's second-largest automaker.

To help the various sides reach a deal, the federal district court in San Francisco court recently pushed back the deadline by a week to June 28. A court hearing on the final settlement agreement is scheduled on July 26.

The San Francisco judge supervising the settlement negotiations, US District Judge Charles Breyer, has imposed a gag order, stressing the need to keep the talks confidential until an agreement can be presented to the court.

Volkswagen has set aside 16.2 billion euros ($18.4 billion) to cover the costs of the scandal, including seven billion euros for legal risks.

A settlement would not end Volkswagen's troubles in the United States.

The company needs to address similar charges over its 3.0 liter diesel cars with emissions-cheating devices. It also faces fines potentially running to the tens of billions of dollars from US regulators, and a criminal investigation over the scandal.

At the same time it is facing similar charges and litigation in Europe and elsewhere for the same issues.
Democratic lawmakers attracted national attention, angry Republicans and a swarm of social media posts with their day-long hold of the House floor.

Using social media to broadcast their sit-in, House Democrats and some visiting Senate colleagues demanded that Republican Speaker Paul Ryan allow a vote on gun control measures. The Speaker and his Republican colleagues refused to budge, and the protest ended just after 1 p.m. Thursday. Lawmakers have promised to resume on July 5, when the House is scheduled to gavel back into session.

Heres a look at five of the most interesting moments of the sit-in.

Democrats revolt against Speaker Paul Ryan

Almost 12 hours into the sit-in, Ryan attempted to retake control of the House floor with his Republican colleagues. GOP members streamed into the House as Democrats chanted, No bill, no break! House cameras were briefly turned back on to document the drama. Democrats held pieces of paper with the names of victims of the Orlando shooting.

Rep. Louie Gohmert shouts at Democratic colleagues

As Democrats continued to occupy the House floor, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas decided he had enough. Gohmert walked up to Democrats and began yelling, Radical Islam! Democrats yelled back and eventually separated Gohmert from the core group at the center of the House.

Democrats sing We shall pass a bill someday

Around 10:30 p.m., as the House voted on legislation unrelated to guns, Democrats broke into song. They held hands and sang, We shall overcome, an anthem of the civil rights movement. In certain verses, Democrats amended the song, singing, We shall pass a bill someday.

Rep. Keith Ellison gets a note from his mom

While meeting with Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council tweeted that the House member got a note from his scheduler. Your mom called and wants you on the floor, the note read. Parsis #NoBillNoBreak tweet spread quickly on Twitter.

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Democrats turn to the Internet

Because the House was technically not in session for most of the Democratic sit-in, the cameras were turned off. The outside world was blind to what was happening inside. But only briefly. Various Democrats began livestreaming the sit-in on platforms like Facebook and Periscope. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California has done multiple livestreams. His current Periscope of the House has been going since 5 a.m.
A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing lands at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, November 12, 2015. Six F-15Es are deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and counter-ISIL missions in Iraq and Syria. Picture taken November 12, 2015. REUTERS/USAF/Airman 1st Class Cory W. Bush/Handout via Reuters

The US military has released a video that shows the anti-ISIS coalition eliminating an ISIS weigh station near Qayyarah, Iraq.

The strikes occurred on June 11 as part of the anti-ISIS coalition's efforts to eliminate ISIS's abilities to carry out terrorist attacks across the world and hold territory in Iraq and Syria.

US Central Command notes that the strikes in Qayyarah were part of a larger series of attacks against the terrorist group throughout Iraq and Syria. In addition to destroying the weigh station, the coalition also hit ISIS oil-well heads and tactical fighting positions in Syria. It also struck ISIS bunkers, car-bomb factories, artillery, and tactical units throughout Iraq.

You can watch the strike on the ISIS weigh station below:

via GIPHY

NOW WATCH: The US Army is sending Apache attack helicopters to fight ISIS in Iraq





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Forest product manufacturer and supplier Weyerhaeuser Company WY recently announced its decision to permanently shut down its lumber and plywood mill in Columbia Falls, MT.



As revealed, this strategic move by Weyerhaeuser has been primarily triggered by the low capacity utilization of the mill in the wake of shortages of logs in the area. By closing the mill by August end or early September, the company hopes to better align the capacities of remaining mills, including lumber and plywood mills in Kalispell and a medium-density fiberboard mill in Columbia Falls, with the regions logs supply.



In addition, Weyerhaeuser plans to add shifts to its Kalispell mills as well as move its Montana office to Seattle headquarters.

WEYERHAEUSER CO Price

WEYERHAEUSER CO Price | WEYERHAEUSER CO Quote

We believe such strategic decisions will enable Weyerhaeuser to boost its profitability in the quarters ahead. Earlier this month, the company signed a deal with Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. to sell its liquid packaging board business for approximately $225 million while in May, it had agreed to sell its Cellulose Fibers pulp mills for approximately $2.2 billion cash to International Paper Company IP. Such dispositions will enable the company concentrate on its core timber, land, and forest products business. However, the company is still working on finding a suitable alternative for its publishing papers joint venture facility.



Weyerhaeuser, with a market capitalization of $21.4 billion, currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in the building products industry include Louisiana-Pacific Corp. LPX and Universal Forest Products Inc. UFPI, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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BOSTON -- Two pitchers who signed big contracts before last season, but are now experiencing completely different results, go against each other Thursday at Fenway Park.

Rick Porcello, who signed an $82.5 million extension before ever throwing a pitch for the Boston Red Sox and James Shields, he of the four-year, $75 million contract with the San Diego Padres and now with the Chicago White Sox, close the four-game series in the matinee affair, as the White Sox look for the four-game road sweep, which would be their first four-gamer at Fenway since 1927.

Porcello, who struggled last season, is pitching well. Very well.

Shields, 13-7 with San Diego last year, is not. To say the least.

"He's trying to figure it out right now," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said before Wednesday night's game. "For him, you got a guy who's been around for a while that's had a couple tough starts. For him, it's just getting through it and keep grinding through it."

A couple tough starts? Bombed in his final start with the Padres, who had to eat a chunk of money to trade Shields back to the American League, Shields has three dreadful starts with the White Sox, who added him for stability in their rotation behind Chris Sale.

In the four starts, Shields has allowed 32 hits, 31 earned runs and seven home runs -- in just 9 1/3 total innings.

Acknowledging his new pitcher might be trying too hard with his fourth team, Ventura said, "He's a proud guy. I think this is all new to him."

Red Sox manager John Farrell and some of his hitters know Shields well. David Ortiz is 18-for-60 (.300) with three homers and 16 RBIs and Dustin Pedroia 17-for-58 (.293) with two homers against the right-hander.

"Strong competitor," Red Sox manager John Farrell said when asked about Shields. "A put-away changeup. A guy that was, I think, thrived on the bigger stage or in the spotlight.

"We don't take anything for granted. Yeah, he's had a rough go of his time coming back to the American League, but he's still very capable of making quality pitches."

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Shields is just 9-13 with a 4.37 ERA lifetime against the Red Sox -- 2-9 with a 5.42 at Fenway Park. Now, he's trying to both straighten himself out and give his team a win that would put the White Sox, once 23-10 before hitting hard times, back over the .500 mark.

Porcello had a string of four straight no-decision snapped with a win over the Seattle Mariners his last time out. That was his eighth win of the year and now he has to play stopper.

He is 10-8 with a 4.09 ERA lifetime in 21 career starts against the White Sox, much of that compiled while pitching in the same division with the Detroit Tigers.

Porcello enters this game 6-0 in six Fenway starts this season -- making him the 10th Red Sox pitcher since 1913 to open a season with six straight wins at the old ballpark.

Before play on Wednesday, Porcello was tied for fourth in the American League in wins, sixth in walks per nine innings (1.93), eighth in strikeout to walk ratio (4.65) and ninth in WHIP (1.09).

Chicago's Melky Cabrera, a Wednesday night hero with four hits and four RBIs, has owned Porcello, going 14-for-25 for a .560 average, while Avisail Garcia is 7-for-18 (.389).
Whiting Petroleum WLL went down 9% after the firm announced that it agreed to exchange another $1.06B worth of notes into new mandatory convertible notes.

This marks the second time this year that WLL has done so, the first of which was back in March, when it exchanged $477 million worth of bond debt into convertible debt.

Four percent of the new convertible notes will be converted into WLL shares every day for the next 25 days, so long as the stock price remains above $8.75. Todays drop is due to current shareholders concerns over dilution of the stock as a result of the exchange. If all of the notes were converted according to WLLs closing price of $12.10 yesterday, they would need to issue 83 million more shares.

As our team points out, the steep fall of oil prices from $110 per barrel in mid-2014 to about $50 now has had a negative impact on all oil firms. WLL, the Delaware based firms with rigs across the U.S. has experienced the same financial woes as a result.

Outlook on WLL remains mixed, with 7 analysts revising earnings estimates up and 4 revising theirs down for Q1 in the last sixty days. Long term outlook seems a bit murky, with 10 analysts revising their estimates up vs. 6 revising down for this fiscal year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate predicts a loss of $0.56 per share in Q1 and a loss of $0.43 per share in Q2.

WLL currently sits at a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

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The Brexit vote on whether Britain will leave the E.U. is underway, but no matter the result, the Euroskepticism that forced the referendum in the first place isnt going anywhere. In fact, we should stop calling it Euroskepticism. Its really Eurohostilityand it wont go away even if Britain votes to stay in the E.U. These five facts detail anti-E.U. anger beyond the British Islesand what it means for Europe going forward.

Read More: Britons Will Heal After BrexitBut Americans Will Only Keep Fighting

1. Italy

In Italy, much of public anger focuses on the impact of the euro on the countrys economy. The Eurozones third-largest economy, Italys debt-to-GDP ratio (currently above 130%, fifth-highest in the world) makes it both too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-save. Traditionally, its been a political basket casethe country has had 63 different governments since the end of World War IIthough current center-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has provided some stability and a credible push for much-needed reform. Renzi is trying to streamline the countrys unwieldy legislative process by concentrating power in the parliaments lower house and granting the winning party an automatic minimum of 53 percent of seats to help ensure government stability. Hes called for a constitutional referendum this October to push through these changes.

Renzi is facing pushback from the fiercely anti-establishment 5 Star Movement (M5S), an economically populist party pushing Italy to leave the Euro. M5Ss message has found plenty of ears. Significant victories came this past weekend: Virginia Raggi won Romes mayoralty with 67 percent of the vote, and another M5S candidate was elected mayor of Turin, the industrial heartland of the country.

Renzi has vowed to resign should his constitutional referendum fail to pass; at the moment, 28.6 percent of Italians support the reforms, 27.2 percent oppose them, and 44.2 percent are undecided. But polls show that if elections were held today, M5S would squeak by Renzis party to secure first place.

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(The Economist, CIA World Factbook, Reuters (a), Bloomberg, Reuters (b))

Read More: Brexit Day of Reckoning Here as Britons Finally Go to the Polls

2. Scandinavia

For other E.U. member states, Eurohostility is focused much more directly on the current migration crisis. Consider Scandinavia. Sweden, a country of less than 10 million, has accepted more asylum seekers per capita than any other European nation. Not coincidentally, the nationalist, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrat party has begun to play a more significant role in the countrys politics.

The party was founded in 1988, but didnt find much political traction until the 2010 elections, entering parliament for the first time with 5.7 percent of the vote. It continued to grow, capturing 13 percent of the vote in 2014. Recent polls have them at 17.3 percent, making them the countrys third-largest party. Finlands ultra-nationalist True Finn party has also recently emerged as a political force, securing nearly 20 percent of the vote in last years elections.

The Danish Peoples Party won 21 percent in last years general elections, a 50 percent uptick over the past eight years. More importantly, its been able to push its anti-immigration agenda by forming a minority government with the Liberals, resulting in some of the harshest immigration rules in Europe. Danish legislators even passed a law this year requiring asylum seekers to hand over valuables to help pay the costs of resettlement.

(BBC, CNN, Statistics Sweden, The Guardian)

Read More: Mud, Music and Miles-Long Lines as Glastonbury Clashes With Brexit Referendum

3. Eastern Europe

Migration woes have also boosted Eurohostile parties in Eastern Europe. Sometimes, political parties dont need to win seats in government to change their countries political agendas. Nigel Farage and the upstart U.K. Independence Party forced British PM David Cameron to run to the right in last years parliamentary elections; the Brexit referendum was a last-ditch promise by Cameron to keep some Euroskeptic Tories from defecting to the UKIP camp.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban, the head of the ruling, right-wing Fidesz party and current prime minister, faced a similar threat from the surging anti-Semitic, racist Jobbik party, which went from 2 percent of the vote in 2006 to 21 percent today. Orbans decision to build a razor-wire fence to keep out Syrian refugees was intended to burnish his nationalist credentials. The wall has slowed the flow of refugees into the country from more than 4,000 a day last fall to less than 100 within two months.

(The Guardian, Bloomberg)

4. Germany

As Hungary built fences, German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed refugees. To date, more than a million asylum seekers have arrived in Germany. Merkel once had approval ratings in the mid-70s; today, 64 percent of Germans say Merkel shouldnt run for re-election next year. Still, with no clear alternative, Merkel and her ruling CDU coalition are the favorites to win.

But the past few years have seen the rise of the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), a right-wing, anti-EU party that has found traction by taking a strong line against Islam, for example by passing a motion in the partys policy platform that declares the religion incompatible with the German constitution. The party failed to reach the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament in 2013, but its currently polling between 10 and 12 percent. Should those numbers hold until next years election, AfD would become the first right-wing party to win seats in the Bundestag since World War II.

(USA Today, AP, International Business Times, New York Times)

5. France

In France, the risk is more immediate. The ultra-nationalist, anti-E.U. Front National has remained mainly on the political fringes since Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the party in 1972. Following a flirtation with greater influence when Le Pen reached the second round of presidential voting in 2002, the party fell on hard times. It gained new life once his daughter Marine took over in 2011. The younger Le Pen pivoted from overt anti-Semitism and other right-wing populist ideas to a more streamlined (and logically consistent) anti-immigration, anti-Islam and anti-E.U. platform.

The party went from 0.1 percent of the vote in 2007 to 3.7 percent of the vote in 2012 as the Euro financial crisis took hold. Today it is polling solidly in the 20s range; Marine Le Pen is now a leading presidential hopeful with 28 percent of the projected vote. Given Frances two-round presidential system, which favor mainstream parties, few analysts believe she will become president, but her influence on French politics is clearly on the rise.

Thats a concern for Brussels, since Le Pen dubbed herself Madame Frexit and has promised the French people a referendum on E.U. membership should she come to power. At the moment, 55 percent of French citizens say they want a vote; 41 percent say they would vote Leave. Demand for a referendum appears to be growing in a number of E.U. member states.

Thats why, no matter the outcome in Britain, the story of anti-E.U. fury and demand for referenda has only just begun.

(Election Resources (a), Election Resources (b), Business Insider, Le Monde, Quartz)
Today Britons have gone to the polls to vote on a referendum that has profound implications not just for the country, but for the rest of the world: whether or not the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union.

A right-wing populist movement in the U.K. has been a driving force behind the "Brexit" (British exit) campaign and it's a movement worryingly similar to Trump's base. It's nationalistic, it's xenophobic, it's inward looking and it's myopic.

If the Brexit succeeds, it would be the British equivalent of Donald Trump winning the White House  in short, it would legitimize the percolating populism across the Western world.

"The success of these campaigns reflects a global political shift that is much bigger than Brexit or the U.S. elections, and it is driven in large part by economics," Fortune's Daniel Alpert explains.

Source: Ralph Freso/Getty Images

"A glut of global resources has rung the death knell for traditional business cycles in the developed world, creating fertile ground for populists across Europe and the U.S. who are angry about rising inequality and are anti-globalization, anti-immigrant and anti-elite," Alpert adds.

The U.K.-EU relationship has existed in some form or another for over fifty years. Proponents of the EU argue it is beneficial for member states as it creates a collaborative economy, which allows for the freedom of people, money and goods to move across borders.

But members of the Vote Leave camp argue that the EU threatens the country's sovereignty and there's too much regulation, which is hurting the British economy (conversely, there are robust arguments for why a Brexit would, in fact, damage the global economy).

Consider Nigel Farage, head of the far-right U.K. Independence Party, a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign and a politician with striking parallels to Trump. And consider the Farage-approved Brexit ad, which pictured a long line of migrants and refugees and the words "Breaking point: the EU has failed us all" the same ad that was reported to the police for its "blatant attempt to incite racial hatred."

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Brexit : l'affiche anti-migrants du Ukip, symbole d'une campagne de "caniveau" http://f24.my/28ITgV5 pic.twitter.com/JznmsE5o9W https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClaHoDsUgAAIgw7.jpg:large

Some are concerned that a Brexit could galvanize the movement for Scottish independence. On Sept 18, 2014, Scots ultimately voted in a referendum to remain in the United Kingdom, though 44% of those who voted disagreed with the outcome  not an insubstantial number.

Indeed, it is possible that drastic nationalistic measures, like a Brexit, could reopen the question of Scottish independence, a move that could weaken Britain's military might and, in turn, trigger a panicked domino effect of insularity.

"The Trump people will be overjoyed if Leave wins," Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor and Obama's former economic advisor, told Politico. "It would say that the same problems we have with accurate polling in the U.S. exist in the U.K. and that the populist element is much stronger than polls say."

If Britain's right-wing populist streak successfully maneuvers the exit of Britain from the EU  regarded as virtually inconceivable for half a century  it would not just rearrange the world order, but it may well be a chilling indication of what's to come. And that's reason enough to care.
As we wait to see what Britons will do on Thursday, theres little doubt that a leave vote will be a market-moving event, in part because markets are currently only pricing in about a 25% chance that it will happen. Brexit would be economically impactful in many ways. Groups like the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of England and the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimate that it would shave as much as 5,000 pounds annually off British incomes, but it would also hugely effect currency markets, trade, and economic growth in the U.K. (For a quick tally of some of the possible effects, see this article by George Soros, who made billions the last time the pound tanked in a major way.)

The global spillover effects could be compounded by the fact that, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. institutions like the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Treasury Department are restricted from doing some of the things that they did back then to save the financial system  increasing deposit insurance, backing non-bank entities, and so on. There were good reasons for these rules. Still, there are those, like Harvard professor and capital markets expert Hal S. Scott, who believe they could come back to bite the global markets if Brexit were to create market contagion. In the (still small) chance that this happens, the U.S. financial authorities would be able to do much less to prevent a liquidity crisis, says Scott. That would leave the heavy lifting for the Bank of England and the European Central Bank. (For those like me who like to geek out on all this, Scotts new book, Connectedness and Contagion, has more on how the ramifications of Dodd-Frank might effect future responses to financial crises.)

Read more: Everything to know about Britains E.U. referendum

But rather than imagining possible disaster scenarios, Ill focus here on what the longer term future of Europe might be beyond the Brexit vote, regardless of which way it goes, and why that matters. As I wrote when the European debt crisis first reached a fever pitch, the E.U. is the most benevolent experiment in globalization ever conducted. But it was founded on a flawed premise  that you could have a solid, sustainable union based on a single currency, without true economic and political integration. It worked in good times, but the minute things turned bad, it was clear that true union  meaning the free flow of goods, people, and capital, underpinned not only by a common currency but also by a common fiscal, tax, and foreign policy  was a heavy ask. In tough times, people tend not to come together, but to get tribal. Thats exactly whats happened over the last few years in the U.K. as well as the rest of Europe, where extreme politics and nationalism is rife, as it is here in the U.S.

If the U.K. votes to leave, the future of the E.U. and its Balkanization will become a pressing topic in the immediate term. But even if it votes to stay, the core issue of whether to create a true, deep, federal union  a kind of USA of Europe  will remain. That will require tough measures, like wealth transfers from the core to the periphery (anathema to the Germans, who have yet to come to terms with the fact that they have benefitted hugely from the current model), as well as serious, continued reform on the part of weaker economies like Greece, Spain, Italy and so on.

Read next: 5 Reasons Americans Should Care About the Brexit Vote

Can it be done? Its not clear. Thats why Im coming to think that the future of Europe may involve some kind of break-up or evolution regardless of what the U.K. does. Some economists envision a kind of inner ring of countries, like Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, that agree to totally free movement of capital, people, and labor (and develop shared rules and systems to underwrite and insure those things.) There might be a ring of outer countries that have some of the benefits of union  the use of the single currency, as well as free trade in goods, maybe some services, and perhaps more limited labor mobility  but dont have to sign onto mutual underwriting of each others debt, or deal with the benefits and challenges of a banking union. There might even be a third ring, including some of the Eastern and Southern European countries that perhaps should never have been in the E.U. in the first place, which would be treated like preferred trading partners.

One could imagine the U.K. having a place somewhere in such a system. That would allow it to avoid the economic costs of breaking entirely with the E.U. while allowing national politicians more control over contentious issues like migration. Its not a perfect solution. But then, Europe never had that to begin with. As we all wait for the results of a momentous vote, imperfect seems to be the best we can hope for.
From Cosmopolitan

Joshua Corsa, a former army medic and current surgical resident at Orlando Regional Medical Center, was operating on shooting victims the night of the attack for 30 hours straight, he told WMFE. The enormity of the trauma didn't fully hit him until he returned to work Monday and saw his brand-new, bloodied sneakers on the floor of his office - and posted a picture of them to Facebook, which was shared hundreds of thousands of times before he made his account private. Still, Corsa tells WMFE, he promises to not take those same sneakers off until everyone he treated is sent home from the hospital.

"Because there's blood on them, I'm wearing shoe covers all the time now, but true to my word, I'm gonna keep them on until the last person leaves," Corsa explained. And after the last patient is discharged, "I don't know if I'm gonna put them anywhere for a while, but eventually I think it's a good reminder."

He first promised to keep the shoes on until his last patient left in his original June 17 Facebook post: "This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever," he wrote. "In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours."

Corsa told the Washington Post he'd assumed his Facebook was private when he wrote the post. "It was certainly not my intention to get it out there but I'm flattered if people found even a modicum of solace in it," he said. Corsa is now interviewing for surgical trauma fellowships around the country, which has, in a way, made him feel guilty.

"You feel ... like you're abandoning them by carrying on with your life," he told the Post. "I think keeping the shoes on is another way to remind myself that I'm not abandoning them, that I'm carrying them on me all the time, until they are better." Eventually though, he told WNCT, he'd like to be a surgeon farther up east.

You can hear Corsa read his formerly public post over on NPR. A GoFundMe for the victims, survivors, and their families has raised more than $5.8 million since June 12. You can donate to the fund here.

Follow Tess on Twitter.
The Libertarian Party had one of its most high-profile tests in its history on Wednesday night when both members of its 2016 presidential ticket answered questions during a town hall aired on CNN. They might want to ask for a makeup exam.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the partys nominee for president, and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, its pick for vice president, fielded queries on issues ranging from taxes to terrorism to legalizing drugs. The results were mixed.

The fact that Johnson and his running mate were able to secure an hour of prime time on CNN is a victory in itself and evidence that interest in the party is great enough that he will likely surpass his 2012 election performance, when he secured roughly 1% of the popular vote.

But given all the obstacles that third party presidential nominees face, Johnson needed to take the opportunity to wow the American public with a convincing vision of how the country would operate differently under a Libertarian president. And by this measure, Johnson failed.

Johnson often hesitates to make a full-throated endorsement of the libertarian vision of significantly smaller government, and on Wednesday he offered more of the same. When asked whether he would replace Obamacare as president, Johnson hedged, saying that he was running for president, and not Congress. If the GOP bill lowers costs and improves care, Ill sign it, Johnson said.

Thats all well and good, but when people vote for a president, they are also voting for a vision for America. Johnsons answer didnt leave viewers with much of an impression of what kind of health care system they would be supporting when they pull the lever for Johnson.

In an interview with Fortune last week, Johnson was coy when asked about how he would both eliminate the corporate income tax and present a balanced budget to Congress as his first major act, something he promises to do on his campaign website. That will involve cutting hundreds of billions in spending, but he declined to be specific about what he would cut, arguing once again that he was running for president and that Congress is responsible for passing legislation.

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That may be true, and it may be an answer that conforms to libertarian principles of limited executive power, but it doesnt give the American public a strong sense of what Johnson would fight for as president.

Presidents dont just sign or veto bills. They also lobby Congress, twist arms, and lead public relations pushes for major reforms. Wedensdays town hall didnt paint a clear picture of how Johnson would leverage the bully pulpit to shape policy.

The waters were further muddied by the fact that Johnson and his running mate Weld at times gave contradictory answers. When discussing taxes, Johnson argued that if he could wave a magic wand, he would eliminate income taxes altogether and move the country to a system where the government is financed by a single sales tax. Think about how this country would be like without the IRS, Johnson urged the crowd.

Seconds later, Bill Weld contradicted his running mate, saying that we wouldnt need to go so far as to abolish the IRS. Well, which is it?

All is not lost for the libertarians this year. They are going up against the two most unpopular major party nominees in recent history. And the unorthodox tactics Donald Trumps campaign leaves a lot of room for Johnson to grab support from Republican voters, including free market fundamentalists and the business community. But Johnson cant afford to let another opportunity to clearly explain his vision to a national audience slip away.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.com
Abigail Fisher

The Supreme Court delivered a surprise victory for supporters of affirmative action on Thursday, ruling 4-3 in favor of race-conscious admissions.

The decision came as a surprise to many following the case.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (UT), involves a woman named Abigail Fisher who argued she was unfairly rejected from the university because she is white.

The university's policy automatically accepts students in the top 10% of their high school class and uses a "holistic," race-based policy to fill the rest of the incoming class. Fisher claimed she would have been accepted if she had been a different race and contends that the University of Texas' policy denied her equal protection under the law.

This wasn't the case's first time in front of the Supreme Court. In 2013, the justices heard arguments and compromised with a decision to send the case back to a lower court for more fact-finding, with the expectation that it would return. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, arguing that the Court should have upheld the University of Texas' policy.

And when it returned last year, the inevitably of a tie loomed. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself, and Justice Antonin Scalia, who deeply opposed affirmative action, would likely have sided with the three reliably conservative justices  Roberts, Thomas, and Alito  against Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg. Or, Kennedy could have sided with the conservatives, and the court would have ruled 5-3 against affirmative action.

But when Scalia died in February, the case was left to only seven justices to decide, and the outcome depended on Kennedy.

Justice Antonin Scalia

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As the first time Justice Kennedy has ever voted to uphold an affirmative action program, the decision came as a surprise to many. He has previously acknowledged that schools have a legitimate interest in diversity but opposed affirmative action as a policy.

In the 2003 admissions case Grutter vs. Bollinger, in which the Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action policy of the University of Michigan Law School, Kennedy dissented.

Preferment by race, when resorted to by the State, can be the most divisive of all policies, containing within it the potential to destroy confidence in the Constitution and in the idea of equality, Kennedy wrote.

But this time around, Kennedy was supportive, even writing the majority opinion.

A university is in large part defined by those intangible qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness, Justice Kennedy wrote, quoting from Sweatt v. Painter, a desegregation case. Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission.

Vinay Harpalani, a law professor at Savannah Law School, believes Kennedy might have foreseen a more liberal court in the future that would lean in favor of affirmative action  and didn't want to resist the inevitable if the issue returned.

"Does he really want to be the justice who tries to get rid of affirmative action?" he said. "I don't think he wants to be remembered that way."

Kent Greenfield, a professor at Boston College School of Law, who also expects the Supreme Court to become more liberal in the coming years, does not forsee much resistance to affirmative action policies in college admissions after today.

"The opponents of affirmative action had keyed this case up for years to be the case that the court strikes down," he said. "I think this case will go down as the last gasp for affirmative action opponents."

But the decision won't bring any sweeping changes to the status quo  many universities have been using race-conscious admissions for years. Harpalani said the Supreme Court's decision just gives other colleges and universities a "blueprint" for how to justify their race-conscious admissions policies.

"I don't see any broad consequences for universities in general," he said. "They didnt change the doctrine that much."





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By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) - Women in cardiac arrest in the U.S. are less likely than men to receive life-saving treatments, and less likely to survive, a study found. Compared to men, fewer women received cooling therapy to prevent brain damage, imaging studies known as angiography or treatment for blocked arteries. "Traditionally women have not been treated as aggressively as men," said lead author Dr. Luke Kim, of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart's electrical system malfunctions and the heart suddenly stops working, according to the American Heart Association. More than 300,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of hospitals in the U.S. each year, the researchers write in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Survival rates after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests have risen from about 6 percent in 2005 to about 8 percent in 2012. For the new study, the researchers reviewed data from 2003 to 2012 on nearly 1.44 million cardiac arrests. Some of the patients had been in the hospital when their heart stopped. Others had survived long enough after a cardiac arrest out in the community to be brought to a hospital. About 45 percent of the patients were women, who tended to be older and sicker than the men. Over the course of the study, in-hospital deaths fell from about 69 percent to about 61 percent in women and from about 67 percent to about 57 percent in men. Overall, roughly 64 percent of women died in the hospital after cardiac arrest, compared to about 62 percent of men, according to the report. Women were 25 percent less likely than men to undergo coronary angiography. They were also 25 percent less likely to have an angioplasty procedure to open blocked arteries and 19 percent less likely to undergo therapeutic hypothermia, which cools the body to prevent brain damage. Their lower rates of these treatments aren't the only reason women are more likely to die in hospitals after cardiac arrest, Kim and his colleagues say. A subset of women who received the appropriate treatments still had worse survival, they found. It could be that women are less likely to have cardiac arrests that respond to treatment with a defibrillator and less likely to have cardiac arrests in the presence of other people who can call for help, the authors suggest. Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Womens Cardiovascular Center at the Cleveland Clinic, emphasized that the women in the study tended to be older and sicker than the men. "Sometimes the difference can be due to older patients being less likely to want more aggressive procedures," said Cho, who was not involved with the new study. She was surprised, however, that women were less likely to be treated with cooling therapy, because that is a decision made by doctors - not patients. "We need to treat both men and women aggressively," Cho said. She advises women to watch for signs of heart trouble, including chest pressure or tightness and increasing shortness of breath. "It again speaks to the fact that if you feel like something is wrong with you, its important to be seen" by a health care provider, Cho said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/28Pp9uy Journal of the American Heart Association, online June 22, 2016.
Himisaboo, a 9-year-old mixed-breed vying for the dubious title of Worlds Ugliest Dog, is running on a Donald Trump platform.

With an elaborate comb over and no body hair, Himisaboo bears more than a passing resemblance to the bombastic billionaire who is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

Read: Owner Makes Reluctant Dog Lift Its Paw to Pledge Support to Trump

Or so says the poochs owner, Heather Wilson of Idaho.

Whether you LOVE The Donald or LOATHE him, a vote for Himisaboo is a vote for a dog that looks like Donald Trump! That can be taken either way, but you have to admit, I am a dog who TRUMPS all others! Wilson wrote on her dogs profile page for Fridays contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California.

Read: Hillary Clinton Barks Like A Dog In Donald Trump's New Ad

The half-dachshund, half-Chinese Crested pup has competed four times for the title and is currently in second place.

Lets make ugly great again! proclaimed his mom.

Watch: Charlie Sheen: Donald Trump Gave Me Fake, Cheap Cufflinks As Wedding Present

Related Articles:
The long awaited Brexit vote is underway, and judging from the positive early market tone around the world, theres a sense Britain might choose to stay in the European Union.

The final vote tally is expected by about 2 a.m. ET Friday morning, but markets could get some indication on where voters stand perhaps by late in todays U.S. trading day, partly due to possible exit polling, and even some early voting numbers. Late-day volatility could be worth watching as many investors will likely try to protect themselves from any possible ramifications of a leave vote.

A remain vote is expected to be bullish for the stock market and a leave vote could be bearish, mainly because investors dislike uncertainty. A stay vote means status quo, which investors understand. A leave vote represents the unknown, and when people are unsure, they tend to sell. Early Thursday, stock markets around the world moved sharply higher as the idea took hold that voters might choose to stay. This appeared based on late polling that showed a rise to just above 50% for remain votes. Obviously its too early to make predictions, but the markets often prove correct in circumstances like this.

CBOE VIX futures, which measure market volatility, had climbed above 20 at times on Wednesday, but fell back below 19 early Thursday. Generally, a VIX reading of 20 or more indicates a high level of fear in the markets. There was a major late-day rally in the VIX on Wednesday, so stay tuned late Thursday to see if VIX rallies again as investors seek last-minute protection prior to Brexit results.

In one sign that investors might expect a stay vote, the pound sterling rose early Thursday to new 2016 highs above $1.48. This sort of trade seemed to indicate investors being more sanguine about the prospects for a Brexit, but some analysts warned not to get complacent, and predicted as much as a 20% drop in the pound should a leave vote win the day.

Even if British voters do decide to leave, its important to keep things in perspective. A leave vote doesnt mean Britain is immediately cast out of the European Union and left to sail on its own. The referendum simply sets the process in motion, and it could be years before any changes occur in Britains trading status. It would, however, be a psychological blow to the idea of economic union, and perhaps create expectations that other European Union countries might decide to take the same step. But as for immediate ramifications, its hard to say, in part because no country has ever left the E.U.

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Besides Brexit, another thing to watch today is at 4:30 p.m. ET, when the Fed is scheduled to release results of its stress test for 33 banks. New home sales are due at 10 a.m. ET after yesterdays strong existing home sales report. Consensus is for new home sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000 in May, down from 619,000 the prior month, according to Briefing.com. April new home sales were the highest since early 2008.

U.S. weekly jobless claims came in at 259,000 on Thursday, below consensus of 270,000.

From a technical perspective, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) tested resistance at 2100 around midday Wednesday and then fell back. Resistance above that is seen near 2115, and key support is at around 2040, a level the index has bounced off of several times since March.

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Yellen Hopes May Jobs Report Was Outlier: In her second day of testimony before Congress Wednesday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen addressed a question that could be on many minds: Was the May jobs report, with its surprisingly weak addition of just 38,000 jobs, a one-time event or the sign of something more dramatic happening in the economy? Yellen said that the weak report is likely to be transitory, according to media reports, and may reflect earlier weakness in economic growth. The economy seems to be picking up in the 2Q, she added, and shes hopeful job growth will pick up as well. Well learn more when the June jobs report comes out on July 8. Thinking ahead to that, its helpful to remember that a strike in May by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) workers may have been partially to blame for the disappointing headline jobs figure. But in the months after previous Verizon strikes in 2011 and 2000, job growth rebounded strongly. Could a repeat be in the offing?

FedEx Delivers: FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX), considered a bellweather of U.S. economic activity, posted what analysts called solid 4Q sales and earnings. But it gave a subdued outlook for U.S. economic growth this year, dialing down its previous expectations. In a conference call with analysts, the company said it expects the U.S. economy to grow at a rate of 1.8% in 2016, below its previous forecast of 2.2%, Reuters reported. FedEx said it expects consumer spending to help U.S. economic growth rise to 2.4% in 2017. While FedEx still helps provide a solid view into U.S. economic activity based on the nature of its business, some analysts warn that the growth of e-commerce may make FedEx less of a canary in the coal mine than it used to be.

Home Cooking: Sometimes economic indicators surprise. Other times, they come in just as one might suspect, and Wednesdays existing home sales data appeared to be the second type. U.S. 30-year mortgage rates fell to three-year lows this week down around 3.54%, and on Wednesday the government reported a 1.8% rise in existing home sales for May. That put existing home sales at an annual pace of 5.53 million units, the highest since February 2007. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors, noted that sales rose in May for the third consecutive month, and added that low mortgage rates arent the only reason. "This spring's sustained period of ultra-low mortgage rates has certainly been a worthy incentive to buy a home, but the primary driver in the increase in sales is more homeowners realizing the equity they've accumulated in recent years and finally deciding to trade-up or downsize," he said in a press release. Yun predicted continued solid health for the home market. "Barring further deceleration in job growth that could ultimately temper demand from these repeat buyers, sales have the potential to mostly maintain their current pace through the summer, he said.

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Kuwait City (AFP) - The Yemeni government said Thursday that Shiite rebels must withdraw from all territory they have seized since 2014 and hand back control of state institutions ahead of any political settlement.

The statement from the government delegation to peace talks in Kuwait is a new blow to proposals put forward by UN mediators in an effort to close the gap between the warring parties.

On Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it would not sign up to any deal on military and security issues until there was agreement on a consensus president and a national unity government to oversee the transition.

The peace roadmap put forward by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposed the formation of a unity government in tandem with the withdrawal and disarmament of the rebels, although he acknowledged major differences between the two sides on their sequencing.

The government delegation said "nothing has been agreed" in two months of negotiations in Kuwait.

"There can be no talk of any political arrangements before the (rebel) militias completely withdraw and hand over their weapons, and state institutions and agencies are restored to the legitimate government," it said.

"Any political partnership in the future must be between political parties and groups that have no militias."

Despite a 15-month-old Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the rebels and their allies remain in control of swathes of territory they have overran since 2014, including the capital Sanaa.

More than 6,400 people have been killed since the intervention began, the majority of them civilians, and there has been growing international pressure for an end to the conflict.

But as the talks in Kuwait have dragged on, there have been a growing number of breaches of a UN-brokered ceasefire that went into effect on April 11.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Residents of a village in central Yemen said Iran-allied Houthi fighters shot dead seven farmers on Thursday while searching for the leader of a pro-government militia. Peace talks in Kuwait between Yemen's government and the Houthis to end a civil war have dragged on for two months with few concrete results. A truce that began on April 10 has dampened fighting, but skirmishes continue almost daily. Residents of the village of Nadara in Ibb province said the Houthis could not find the militia commander but blew up his house and killed seven men working in the fields. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen's war in March 2015 on behalf of the internationally backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The conflict has killed at least 6,400 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. The Houthis said the attack was a raid on a "terrorist cell" and that eight al-Qaeda fighters had been killed in the operation, according to the Houthi-run state news agency Saba. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the war to seize a vast swath of the country, winning new recruits and enriching themselves from oil smuggling. There have been reports of al Qaeda militants joining pro-government and tribal fighters in battles against the Houthis in central Yemen. However, the Houthis also routinely characterize the militia forces opposed to them as al Qaeda militants and accuse the Saudi-led coalition of abetting AQAP's expansion, something the alliance denies. The alliance members fear the Houthi movement is a proxy for their arch-rivals in Tehran - something the Houthis deny - and have launched thousands of air strikes in a bid to defeat them. United Nations Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Tuesday told the U.N. Security Council he would present a roadmap in the coming days to advance the stalled process. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Few have had an upclose look to turmoil like Ryan Crocker, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon  and thats just in the past two decades. After a career navigating whats become a whos who of the worlds most tumultuous regions, the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient recently became a dean at Texas A&M University. In this conversation with OZY, before speaking at the Common Good Forum in New York, Crocker tries to make sense of the chaos left in places he once tried to help piece together.

OZY: Whats the gist of your assessment of the Middle East today?

Ryan Crocker: The modern Middle East emerged in the wake of World War I. And in the century since, there has never been a time of greater chaos or disorder than now. Its not just the revolutions and overthrow of regimes, but the failure of states themselves. And with the failure of states, weve seen the rise of the Islamic State, al-Qaida, Hezbollah.

To try to make sense of it, I find the notion of a Middle Eastern Cold War helpful. The principal protagonists are Iran and Saudi Arabia  they are not fighting each other, but their proxies certainly are.

U.s. ambassador to iraq ryan crocker speaks during the multi national corps dvids66499

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker

Source: Public Domain

OZY: Why is that the case?

R.C.: This period of unprecedented chaos coincides with a period of unprecedented U.S. disengagement in the region. The Obama administration has deviated  from a pretty consistent post-World War II pattern of deep engagement in the area by both Republican and Democratic presidents  to a policy of relative disengagement. That, to me, is the true Obama doctrine.

This is a generation coming of age that looks at their countries and the world from a perspective that no previous generation ever mustered. Ryan Crocker

OZY: You would argue that we need more engagement, even though places like Iraq and Libya are more destabilized today than they were before U.S. intervention?

R.C.: It isnt military, in its essence. Its political and diplomatic.

Story continues

Take Iraq. I learned, one, be careful what you get into  that military interventions dont have just third- and fourth-order consequences, but 30th- and 40th-order consequences. You are putting into motion forces that you are likely unable to control or understand or predict. The second thing I learned is to be just as careful about what you propose to get out of. Disengagement can have consequences as great as the original intervention. Thats what weve seen in Iraq after we disengaged, not just militarily but also politically, in 2011. And what happened? The space that we were working in was taken over by Islamic State on the one hand, and by the Iranians and their proxy militias on the other.

We need a secretary of state who has the full backing of the president. Its no secret that Secretary Hillary Clinton wanted a much more active U.S. role at the outset of the Syrian crisis. She wanted to establish no-fly zones, things like that. She didnt get them. And when the Syrians used chemical weapons on their own people, John Kerry very publicly said that we would retaliate  as the president had said we would, previously. And, of course, he was basically publicly contradicted by the White House.

OZY: You said the region is more chaotic than ever before. How does it feel to have spent so many years working on this, and not see progress?

R.C.: Its heartbreaking, really. I was back in Iraq two months ago  my first trip back since I left at the end of my tour there in 2009  and to see the level of violence, of human suffering, throughout the country, really is enormously sad. The same thing in Syria, where I was also ambassador during quieter times. It weighs on anyone who thinks about it at all, and it certainly weighs on us who have spent a lot of time in that area, and who have high regard for the culture and the people.

OZY: How do you see the future unfolding for locals in these places?

R.C.: Thats the heartening part of it, I suppose  the incredible resilience of ordinary people. Life goes on, even during war. Kids go to school. People have to eat. I remember my first tour in Lebanon, during the height of its civil war in the early 80s. When the fighting permitted it, the restaurants would just open up. War demonstrates both the best and the worst of the human condition. But the average Iraqis, average Syrians, are just getting on with life, taking care of their neighbors and families.

You have a new generation entirely in Iraq and Afghanistan that has grown up in a free media and intellectual environment, where anyone can access anything on the Internet, and say anything. That wasnt Afghanistan under the Taliban and certainly wasnt Iraq under Saddam Hussein. This is a generation coming of age that looks at their countries and the world from a perspective that no previous generation ever mustered. And when you talk to them about the society they want to see, they are harshly critical of their parents generation and determined to do it differently. I hope they get that chance.
Younger star Nico Tortorella has revealed he's sexually fluid.

The 27-year-old actor opened up about his sexuality to Page Six at a pride event on Tuesday, but made it clear he was never hiding anything.

RELATED: Nico Tortorella Gives 'Younger' Fans a Sexy Reason to Look Forward to 2016

"I've never been in any sort of closet I was never really in the house," Tortorella joked at an American Express event with the Infatuation blog. "I think it's one thing to hideand it's one thing to come out of the closet in a public statementBut I've always done me and never been shyand have been vocal about it."

While he's currently in a relationship with a woman, the actor shared, "It's just a fluidityWe're all kind of moving into this one situation."

Since news of his sexuality caught fire, Tortorella has taken to Instagram, responding to all the attention with one last declaration.

"Call me whatever you want, just call me," he posted on Wednesday, along with a playful statement on labels.

NEWS: 'Real O'Neals' Star Noah Galvin Slams Colton Haynes, Eric Stonestreet & More, Immediately Apologizes for 'Hurtful' Comments

Tortorella isn't the only one who has a disdain for labels. Former Arrow star Colton Haynes recently found himself responding to rumors of a "secret gay past." See what the actor had to say in the video below.

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  June 23, 2016  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL), Spirit Airlines (SAVE), GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. (GOL), American Airlines Group (AAL) and Southwest Airlines (LUV).

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Wednesdays Analyst Blog:

Airline Stock Roundup

The past week saw United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) issuing an improved outlook with respect to passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM: a key measure of unit revenue) for the second quarter of 2016. The company, at an investor call, also highlighted its plans to improve financial performance and operations. The announcement found favor with the investors and the stock gained 3.36% on Jun 21 to close at $44.86.

Low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines (SAVE) also rallied following its upgrade by Credit Suisse. On the traffic front, Latin American carrier GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. ( GOL) revealed disappointing numbers for the month of May. Load factor (% of seats filled by passengers) declined as the contraction in traffic was more than that in capacity.

Meanwhile, according to the employment data for passenger airlines, there was a substantial year-over-year increase in full-time equivalent (FTE) employment this April.

On the price front, the NYSE ARCA Airline index gained only 0.26% to $82.98 over the past week.

Read the last Airline Stock Roundup for June 15, 2016 .

TRANSPORTATION-AIRLINE Industry Price Index

Recap of the Past Weeks Most Important Stories

1. Chicago-based United Continental Holdings, which has been struggling for long, recently revealed plans to boost revenues, trim costs in a bid to improve its financial performance and gain customers. The company also unveiled an improved PRASM outlook for the second quarter of 2016.

Story continues

The company now expects the metric to fall in the band of 6.5% to 7.5% (earlier forecast had called for a 6.5% to 8.5% decline). Through the proper execution of its initiatives, the carrier aims to generate additional revenues of $3.1 billion by 2018 ($300 million through operational improvement, $1.5 billion through commercial betterment and $1.3 billion by trimming cost structure).

2. GOL Linhas, weighed down by weak economic conditions and currency headwinds, reported dismal traffic numbers in May with all three key metrics viz. traffic, capacity and load factor moving south. Traffic  measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK)  stood at 2.80 billion, down 7.8% from a year ago.

Also, on a year-over-year basis, consolidated capacity (or available seat kilometers/ASKs) was down 6.6% to 3.74 billion mainly because of declines of 6.3% and 8.8% in domestic and international capacity, respectively. Load factor contracted 90 basis points to 74.9% in May 2016. Furthermore, in the month, the carrier witnessed a 21.3% decline in the volume of departures.

3. According to data released by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there was a 3.6% increase in the number of workers employed by U.S. scheduled passenger airlines. This marked the 29th consecutive month of year-over-year increase. The report also stated that the number of FTEs (407,763) for Apr 2016 was the highest since Jul 2008. According to the update, the most number of FTEs in the month were employed by the American Airlines Group (AAL), among the network airlines. Southwest Airlines ( LUV) took the honors in the low-cost carrier category.

4. Good news flowed in for Spirit Airlines as analysts at Credit Suisse upgraded the rating on the stock to Outperform. The firm also raised its target price on the carrier as analysts are bullish on its 2017 prospects despite increasing oil prices. Not only 2017, analysts expect performance of the low-cost carrier with respect to unit revenue to be better than its peers in the second half of 2016 as well.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  June 23, 2016  Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses Health Insurance, Part 3, including Anthem Inc. (ANTM), Cigna Corp. (CI), Aetna Inc. (AET), Humana Inc. (HUM) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH)

Industry: Health Insurance, Part 3

Link:https://www.zacks.com/commentary/83821/health-insurers-suffer-on-high-costs-unprofitable-exchanges

Health insurers called upon themselves the close scrutiny of regulators, with Anthem Inc.s (ANTM) proposal to acquire Cigna Corp. (CI) and Aetna Inc.s (AET) buyout deal with Humana Inc. ( HUM).

Recently, the viability of the proposed merger between Anthem and Cigna was challenged by Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who contends that the mega deal worth $48 billion would curb competition and hurt consumers in the state of California.

Moreover, the presidential candidates are looking at ways to fine-tune the provisions of healthcare legislation, which, if implemented, will see insurers reworking their business strategies.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clintons priority includes a crackdown on insurers to limit out-of-pocket costs. These costs are expenses like deductibles, coinsurance and copayments for covered services among others that aren't reimbursed by insurance.



Also on Clintons agenda is giving more power to lawmakers to reject undue rate hikes by health insurers. Under the current healthcare reform, this authority is in the hands of certain select states only.



Donald Trump said that he would end Obamacare and replace it with something that would require a lot less money.



Coming back, the legislation has undoubtedly altered the regulatory landscape in ways that are not always beneficial to a private health insurers bottom line. But calling it a permanent drag would be an overstatement.



U.S. health plans are expected to operate in a lowered margin environment. Some health plans  especially the smaller ones  may not survive. Pricing pressure, higher taxes and fees, rising medical costs, regulatory compliance costs, increased competition and general marketplace uncertainty are some of the headwinds faced by the players in the industry.



While the aim of this write-up is to put the spotlight on the headwinds facing the industry; an earlier write-up in this space had the opposite focus.

Story continues

Public Exchanges Losses

Public Exchanges made their debut in Oct 2013, and were considered one of the signature achievements of Obamacare aimed at providing subsidized insurance to millions. The insurers were also sanguine about the exchanges, hoping to make big business out of them. But health insurers are now struggling to make profits from the public exchange business.

These insurers are saddling high medical expenses of individuals who are buying the subsidized policies under the health care law. The public exchanges attracted a disproportionate number of unhealthy individuals compared to healthy ones. A higher percentage of unhealthy patients led to higher claims for the insurers, thus leading to losses from the policies sold to these groups of people.

In Nov 2015, UnitedHealth Group (UNH) disclosed concerns about losses incurred on its individual business from the public exchange. Compelled by the loss suffered from the individual insurance policies sold on the exchanges, the health insurer announced that it will not entertain such losses and may exit this unprofitable market completely by 2017. The company has already scaled back its marketing efforts for individual insurance policies sold on exchanges.

Another insurer, Aetna, also suffered losses in its public exchange business in 2015 and reduced its operations to 15 states this year from 17 states last year. It is, however, taking measures such as re-pricing and product modification to generate profits in 2016.

Another player Humana is also contemplating to drop individual insurance coverage through exchanges in the states of Alabama, Kansas, Wisconsin and Virginia. The company is considering to exit this business which brought in meager profits in this years first quarter and would likely result in a loss for the full year.

If the players realize that the exchanges are not seeing profitable business opportunities, a mass exodus may happen which may hamper the functionality of the exchanges and cause a failure of the ObamaCare exchanges, thus defeating the basic aim of providing coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

Some of the other challenges faced by the industry are briefed below:



Margins to Shrink



The health insurers are expected to witness lowered margin environment onward. A host of factors including compliance costs related to health care reform regulation, increased fees and taxes, pricing pressure, stiff competition and rising medical costs will squeeze the bottom line. A general shift in patient mix from Commercial insurance to Government (Medicare, Medicaid and State-subsidized marketplace or exchange) will also affect profitability to a large extent. Premiums for Medicare, Medicaid and State-subsidized policies tend to be higher due to serious health issues for many enrollees; however, they carry smaller profitability margins compared to commercial insurance.

High Compliance Costs

Regulatory reform sweeping through the sector has hit insurers with high compliance costs. The expenditure involved in redoing the internal systems can pinch the players hard. There has been huge spending on health information technology (HIT), following the implementation of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), or "Recovery Act," which contains the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or the "HITECH Act." Notably, HIT includes electronic health records (EHRs), health information exchanges (HIEs) and other initiatives.

The federal government's emphasis on the use of health IT, which helps providers communicate better with each other about patient care, reduces medical errors, paperwork and needless duplicate screenings and tests, leading to better coordinated patient care and lower health care costs. These have increased current health care information technology spending. Financial incentives offered by regulators to providers and hospitals for the implementation of the meaningful use of health care IT products are primarily driving IT spending.

Growing Consumerism



Rising consumerism has now become the reality of the health insurance industry. Until the implementation of the ACA, the insurance companies had an upper hand in choosing who to provide coverage to and consumers (people receiving health care) had no active role in the decision-making process. But now the trend has changed. Health insurance reform has put consumer power and choice in the hands of the Americans, and ensure that all Americans receive the health care services that they need and deserve. Consumers increased purchasing power and access to information to take health care decisions are the major threats to insurers.



Prior to reform, big insurers dominating large markets hardly ever bothered to provide consumers with even basic information, such as the performance of health insurance policies, procedures to claim, the size of the provider network and cancellation processes. Now, customers demand transparency, value and convenience, leaving insurers grappling for innovative ways to satisfy these unmet needs. The new mission, however, will not be easy to execute.



Global Economic Woes and Regulatory Challenges



A fragile global economy presents a headwind for insurers looking to expand their international operations. One of the largest insurers, UnitedHealth Groupmade an acquisition to reap benefits from the Brazil market but is now facing slowing growth rates in that country.



In case of India, which remains one of the most profitable opportunities for insurers, the regulatory environment still remains somewhat challenging. China -- which merits the highest risk-adjusted opportunity ranking, largely because of its immense scale -- poses significant investment restrictions to foreign insurers entering and operating there.



Bottom Line



The changed regulatory landscape has undoubtedly created hurdles that would weigh on profits and margins of industry operators going forward. But it is hardly the unmitigated disaster that some industry players make it out to be. Beyond the ACA, the investment appeal of the space also reflects its perceived defensive and counter-cyclical orientation, which is crucial amid the current uncertainty.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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(Reuters) - A New Zealand man was jailed on Thursday for spreading images of Islamic State (IS) violence, the first person sentenced to prison for circulating and possessing objectionable material linked to extreme violence, local media reported. Imran Patel, 26, was jailed for three years and nine months by an Auckland court after he admitted to making, distributing and possessing videos depicting cruel violence perpetuated by IS, according to news website stuff.co.nz. The prison sentence was the first for someone on an objectionable material charge related to violence. To date, all such charges in New Zealand had related to indecent child images, said Auckland District Court Judge Russell Collins, according to the news site said. Patel had sent text messages with a link to an IS beheading video to 52 people last year, after which police discovered a laptop containing 62 objectionable videos showing extreme violence or cruelty, stuff.co.nz reported. Patel told police he wanted to provide information on what was happening in the Middle East, because he believed western media wasn't showing a balanced view, the news website said. A court official was not able to offer any information on the proceedings to Reuters and Patel's lawyer did not return a call requesting comment. (Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Michael Perry)
HARARE (Reuters) - Drought-hit Zimbabwean will import more than 250,000 tonnes of maize from Mexico to fill the shortfall caused by the severe drought sweeping through the southern Africa, the agriculture minister said on Thursday. Joseph Made said Zimbabwe would also import the staple crop from neighbours South Africa and Zambia, as well as from the Ukraine but did not give precise figures for these imports. "We anticipate anyway upwards of 250,000 tonnes will be coming from Mexico. The other maize will obviously be coming from Zambia as well some from South Africa and Ukraine," Made told reporters. An El Nino-induced drought has hit southern Africa, slashing the output of the staple maize crop. Zimbabwe's government previously said the drought forced it to cut the 2015 growth forecast to 1.5 percent from 3.2 percent, with the 2016 output unlikely to be any better. The U.N. World Food Programme said earlier in June that output in Zimbabwe would fall below 60 percent of the five-year average of between 700,000 and 1 million tonnes. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Writing by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia)
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's Hwange Colliery Company is considering cutting a third of its 3,000 workforce as part of measures to revamp the loss-making coal miner, a government official said. Hwange, in which Zimbabwe's government is the biggest shareholder with a 37 percent stake, is the nation's second-largest coal producer and supplies coke to state-owned electricity generating firm Zimbabwe Power Company. Fred Moyo, the deputy minister in the mines ministry, told parliament on Wednesday that Hwange, which has been making losses for more than a decade, would cut overheads, trim its workforce and has set a meeting with creditors next month. The firm should have 2,000 employees, the official parliament record, Hansard, quoted Moyo as saying on Wednesday. Moyo did not say when the job cuts would be effected. The deputy minister said the High Court had approved a scheme by Hwange that would suspend all litigation against the company from creditors who are owed $160 million. Hwange chief executive Thomas Makore said on Thursday approval for the scheme was granted in the first week of June. Moyo said Hwange would meet the creditors on July 14 to find an agreement on how to repay its debts. Hwange produces 150,000 tonnes of coal a month and Moyo said the company was working to double the output by end of year. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia)
Walt Disney Studios Zootopia kept the No. 1 spot on the home video sales charts the week ended June 19, topping the NPD VideoScan First Alert sales chart, which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray Disc unit sales, as well as the dedicated Blu-ray disc chart.

The animated adventure had debuted in the top spot on both charts a week earlier and doubled the unit sales of the No. 2 debut of London Has Fallen, a Universal-distributed sequel to 2013s Olympus Has Fallen. The follow-up again stars Gerard Butler as a secret service agent protecting the president (Aaron Eckhart) from terrorists, but transplants the setting from the White House in the first movie to the city of London. London Has Fallen earned $62.5 million in U.S. theaters.

Foxs Deadpool stayed at No. 3 and Paramounts 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi dropped to No. 4.

Another newcomer, Paramounts 10 Cloverfield Lane, debuted at No. 5 on both charts. The sci-fi thriller features Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman trapped in a bunker during a crisis. It earned $72.1 million domestically.

Disneys Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally slipped from the top 5, landing at No. 6 on both charts in its 11th week.

The only other newcomer in the overall top 10 was Foxs Eddie the Eagle, a biopic about Olympic ski-jumper Eddie Edwards, which debuted at No. 9 (No. 11 on the Blu-ray chart).

Foxs DVD and Blu-ray release of the six-episode The X-Files: The Event Series revival debuted at No. 11 overall and No. 10 on the Blu-ray chart.

About 51% of Zootopia unit sales were of a Blu-ray Disc version in its second week, down from 60% in its first. Blu-ray accounted for 55% of London Has Fallen sales, 59% of Cloverfield, 47% of Eddie the Eagle and 52% of X-Files.

On Home Media Magazines weekly rental chart, 10 Cloverfield Lane scored the No. 1 spot, as most of the other newcomers were from studios that hold back new releases from Redbox rental kiosks for a month.

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Zootopia gained some rental traction to move up to No. 2 for the week, while Deadpool dropped to No. 3 after topping the chart the week before.

Rounding out the rental top five were 13 Hours and Universals Ride Along 2.

John Latchem is Managing Editor of Home Media Magazine, http://www.homemediamagazine.com.

Top 20 NPD VideoScan First Alert, powered by Nielsen, chart for the week ended 6/19/16:

1. Zootopia

2. London Has Fallen (New)

3. Deadpool

4. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

5. 10 Cloverfield Lane (New)

6. Star Wars: Episode VII  The Force Awakens

7. The Revenant

8. Gods of Egypt

9. Eddie the Eagle (New)

10. The Martian

11. The X-Files: The Event Series (New)

12. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay  Part 2

13. Now You See Me

14. Dirty Grandpa

15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

16. Risen

17. Daddys Home

18. American Girl: Lea to the Rescue (New)

19. Straight Outta Compton

20. The Young Messiah (New)

Top 10 Home Media Magazine rental chart for the week ended 6/19/16:

1. 10 Cloverfield Lane (New)

2. Zootopia

3. Deadpool

4. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

5. Ride Along 2

6. Gods of Egypt

7. Dirty Grandpa

8. Hello, My Name Is Doris

9. The Boy

10. The Revenant

For complete sales and rental charts, visit HomeMediaMagazine.com.



Related stories

'Zootopia,' '13 Hours' Take Two Top Spots on DVD, Blu-ray Disc Charts

'Gods of Egypt' Strikes Down 'Deadpool' Reign Atop Disc Sales Charts

Japan Box Office: 'Zootopia' Dethroned by Local Romantic Drama 'Evergreen Love'
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Lundin Law PC announces it is investigating claims against Zosano Pharma Corporation ("Zosano" or the "Company") (ZSAN) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. The investigation is related to allegations that certain statements issued by Zosano were false and misleading and/or failed to disclose material information regarding the Company's financial performance.

To participate in this class action lawsuit, please contact Brian Lundin, Esquire, of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or via email at brian@lundinlawpc.com.

The investigation concerns whether the Company violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Specifically, the investigation will focus on whether the Company's filings with the SEC concerning its January 2015 Initial Public Offering were misleading. The Company offered more than 6,500,000 shares of its common stock at $11.00 per share in connection with its IPO.

No class has been certified in the above action. Until a class is certified, you are not considered represented by an attorney. You may also choose to do nothing and be an absent class member.

Lundin Law PC was created by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

Contact:

Lundin Law PC

Brian Lundin, Esq.

Telephone: 888-713-1033

Facsimile: 888-713-1125

brian@lundinlaw.com

SOURCE: Lundin Law PC
A robot in Russia caused an unusual traffic jam last week after it "escaped" from a research lab, and now, the artificially intelligent bot is making headlines again after it reportedly tried to flee a second time, according to news reports.

Engineers at the Russian lab reprogrammed the intelligent machine, dubbed Promobot IR77, after last week's incident, but the robot recently made a second escape attempt, The Mirror reported.

Last week, the robot made it approximately 160 feet (50 meters) to the street, before it lost power and "partially paralyzed" traffic. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]

Promobot, the company that designed the robot, announced the escapade in a blog post the next day.

The strange escape has drawn skepticism from some who think it was a promotional stunt, but regardless of whether the incident was planned, the designers seem to be capitalizing on all the attention. The company's blog includes photographs of the robot from multiple angles as it obstructs traffic, and the robot's escape came a week after Promobot announced plans to present the newest model in the company's series, Promobot V3, in the fall.

The company said its engineers were testing a new positioning system that allows the robot to avoid collisions while moving under its own control. But when a gate was left open, the robot wandered into the street and blocked a lane of traffic for about 40 minutes, the blog post states.

The Promobot was designed to interact with people using speech recognition, providing information in the form of an expressive electronic face, prerecorded audio messages and a large screen on its chest. The company has said the robot could be used as a promoter, administrator, tour guide or concierge.

In light of the robot's recent escapes, and citing multiple changes to the robot's artificial intelligence, Promobot co-founder Oleg Kivokurtsev told The Mirror, "I think we might have to dismantle it."

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But in its blog post, the company said it considers the escape a successful test of the machine's new navigation system, because the robot didn't harm anyone and wasn't damaged during the getaway.

According to the company's English-language website, one of the advantages of the Promobot compared to a human promoter is that it "will not be confused and stray."

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
You may finally be able to dump your cable box and its $10-to-$20 monthly fee.

But will you believe that promise when it comes from the companies that have foisted that box on you for years? You may have to decide sooner than you thought.

A group of cable operators last week announced a new proposal called Ditch the Box, pledging to ship apps for smart TVs that could do pretty much everything cable boxes could do (except pause or record shows).

The group pushing Ditch the Box called the Future of Television Coalition  said its aiming to provide an alternative to the Federal Communication Commissions flawed proposal to Unlock the Box. The Unlock the Box deal pushed by FCC Chair Tom Wheeler would not only free you to use the hardware of your choice but would let you watch in an app of your liking.

Cables new deal

The Ditch the Box plan is something of a compromise between the status quo and the FCCs Unlock the Box plan, and its backed by the Motion Picture Association in addition to the Future of Television Coalition members including Comcast (CMCSA) and other major cable operators as well as AT&T (T) and Dish Network (DISH).

Comcast is part of the group backing Ditch the Box.

Heres how Ditch the Box would work (as an outline, a FAQ and a presentation to the FCC explain): Your cable or satellite service would provide apps built on the HTM5 standard that you would install and run on smart TVs, tablets, streaming players, and other connected devices at no extra charge. If you watch cable TV, the video would come on a walled-off part of your cable internet bandwidth, and you would be free to return every one of your cable boxes  and their button-encrusted remotes  to your cable operator.

(This use of a managed connection would exempt your viewing from any data caps set by your cable company; other video services would not be so fortunate.)

if you use satellite, however, your programming would continue to be beamed down from orbit to your homes dish, and youd still need one gateway device to share that video over your home network to your screens.

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Youd be able to look for programming in your smart devices built-in search instead of having to open the subscription-TV app. But you would have to launch that app to browse for shows. It would be somewhat like how you can search for a movie from a smart TVs home screen to see if its on Netflix  but if you dont know what you want to watch, you have to launch the Netflix app to see whats on.

Future of TV members pledge to ship these apps in two years, with the FCC empowered to enforce deadlines.

Whats not bundled

This concept adds up to a major advance over Big Cables current crop of apps, many of which disable iOS and Android features to prevent you from watching the TV content you pay for on an actual TV. But it does not cover digital-video-recorder capabilities  easily added with cloud-based DVR systems like the one in Comcasts upcoming HTML5 and Roku apps. It doesnt exclude them, either; thats something the FCC would have to negotiate.

These apps are supposed to be free. But one current software alternative to a box, DirecTVs RVU system, comes with a fee. AT&T, that satellite services owner, wouldnt clarify if a future DirecTV app would cost extra.

The Ditch the Box plan also requires you to accept your cable or satellite services interface. If somebody else can come up with a better front-end for your subscription TV  which, having seen too many of them, would not be hard  they couldnt put it into the market.

That shortfall led the user-rights group Public Knowledge to respond with a critical post that said "Ditch the Box" does not allow for true user interface competition. That is one thing that Wheelers "Unlock the Box" would have enabled, since it called for allowing third-party developers to write their own apps as long as they complied with a standard  including measures to stop copyright infringement  defined by the cable operator.

The FCC may be falling apart on this

Ditch the Box does seem good enough to fracture the FCC  even after President Barack Obama endorsed ending the cable boxs reign in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, nominated to the FCC by Obama in 2012, told Broadcasting & Cable that it has become clear the original proposal has real flaws and that We need to find another way forward."

(Rosenworcels office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo Finance.)

Without Rosenworcels vote, Wheelers proposal cant advance past the five-member commission. Republican appointees Ajit Pai and Mike ORielly cant stand the idea. Summed up ORielly in an onstage appearance at the cable industrys INTX show in Boston last month: Put it in the trash where it belongs."

Obama may not like that, but he is a little busy at the moment.

A counterproductive cable strategy?

Before you hang your head at yet another victory for cable orthodoxy  coming after decades of failed attempts to open the market for pay-TV hardware  remember were only at this point because of cables own attempts to escape an earlier regulatory regime: CableCards.

Back in 2004, the FCC began requiring cable companies to provide consumers with CableCards  credit card-size modules you can plug into a TiVo to watch cable. But cable companies werent required to use the cards in their own boxes and consequently provided lousy support for them. That changed in 2007, when the FCC established a rule that effectively forced cable operators to use the cards in their own boxes.

Starting in 2013, the cable industry lobbied Congress to repeal that rule, saying it was obsolete and raised the cost of cable. The cable industrys campaign to work the refs paid off in late 2014 when Congress approved a measure to get rid of the mandate that cable operators use the CableCard. But Congress also signed off on an amendment calling on the FCC to research a CableCard replacement.

That set up a working group called the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee, DSTAC for short, that last summer endorsed an app-based approach as one way to resolve this issue  at about the same time that Comcast began work on its HTML5 app. One year and an ambitious Wheeler proposal later, having apps replace all of a cable boxs viewing function has become the middle ground of the debate.

But if the subscription-TV industry had let CableCard lie three years ago, we might not even be having this discussion. Thanks, cable lobbyists?

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.




A version of this story on Christian Slater first appeared in the print edition of TheWrap Magazines Comedy/Drama/Actors Emmy Issue.

Something about the pilot script of Mr. Robot made Christian Slater pause. His character, the leader of an anarchist hacker collective and the person for whom the show was named, was a great role to play, but there was something else going on that wasnt in the script  so Slater sat down with the shows creator, Sam Esmail, and asked him point blank: Whats the deal with the character?

He asked me if I really wanted to know, said Slater, 46, and I said yes. He told me, and I got very excited.

Also Read: Golden Globes Marks Huge Comeback for Christian Slater (Video)

Photographed by HollenderX2

If you havent binged Season 1 of the USA show, you might want to stop reading now, because were about to spill the beans: In the final episode of the first season, viewers learn that Slaters character doesnt actually exist  that Mr. Robot is a Fight Club-style hallucination of Rami Maleks character, Elliot.

I never played it as if I was a figment of his imagination, said Slater. I always looked it as I was as real as Elliot imagined me to be. But I had fun with it. And for those who wonder how the character will exist in Season 2 now that we all know hes not real, Slater would only say that he had the same question, and that hes really looking forward to viewers seeing how Esmail dealt with it.

Also Read: Watch Christian Slater, Garrett Clayton in First Clip for James Franco's Porn Drama 'King Cobra' (Video)

Since he was a teen star making movies like Heathers three decades ago, Slater has often been cast as an instigator and provocateur. I have no idea why thats the image that people project on me, but I do love playing those characters, he said. And when asked if he agreed with the premise of Mr. Robot, that huge corporations are evil and are out to get us, he thought back to an Oliver Stone movie made the year before Heathers.

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This morning it hit me that in Wall Street, [Michael Douglas character] Gordon Gekko said, Greed is good. He could have said any word  he could have said humility, he could have said responsibility. Unfortunately, he said greed. Im not gonna put it all on Gordon Gekkos shoulders, but that certainly did set the template for things to come.

Also Read: Emmy Contender: 'Mr. Robot' Star Rami Malek Talks Keeping Secrets for Twisty Series

He laughed. But USA Network is a huge conglomerate, so its sort of ironic that theyre involved in a show about taking down a huge conglomerate. I enjoy that.

See more of TheWrap Magazines Comedy/Drama/Actors Emmy Issue:

Related stories from TheWrap:

Christian Slater's Father Threatened to Kill Him, Actor Claims

Golden Globes Marks Huge Comeback for Christian Slater (Video)
By Melissa Fares (Reuters) - A Florida burglar who posted a Facebook video bragging about a $500,000 jewelry haul has landed himself and one of his accomplices in jail, police said on Thursday. Officers from Pinecrest, Florida said they arrested Raderius Glenn Collins, 18, after he uploaded the video to Facebook on May 27. His friend, Marcus Terrell Parker, 27, was arrested after another burglary on June 9, police said. They are still searching for a third suspect, who is seen in the video in the passenger seat of the car flashing $100 bills to the camera. The video, which runs more than seven minutes long and has over 3,000 views, showed the men bragging about their illegal earnings, exclaiming: "We got a safe" and "Can someone say check please?" The man in the driver's seat makes sure the traffic light is still red and proceeds to proudly reveal his bag of cash to the camera while the other two men cheer. The burglars stole a safe from a home with jewelry valued at more than $500,000. Police say Collins and Parker later burglarized a second home and stole jewelry valued at more than $10,000 and a screwdriver that would later tie one of the arrested men to the burglary. One of the arrested subjects told police that he and the other two subjects sold the stolen jewelry to a jewelry and watch shop and received $1,300 each in return. Michelle Hammontree, communications director for Pinecrest, told Reuters that the Facebook video helped police establish a link between the burglary and the jewelry store, where the suspects pawned their ill-gotten goods. The bag featured in the video is the same one given to the suspects at the store. "It was just one dumb decision after another," Hammontree said. Police said that while they are seeking a third suspect in the May 27 burglary, it is unclear whether he had involvement in the second break-in. The Facebook video can be viewed here: (http://bit.ly/28QfTTi) (Reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Alan Crosby)
TipRanks

Markets are rewriting the same story weve been looking at all summer  investors are skittish, and wary of the headwinds. Those headwinds are enough to spook even the most experienced traders. High inflation is making everyone nervous, the Feds turn to higher interest rates  to combat inflation  brings with it the risk of recession, and macro data on the economy is starting to show declines in the housing markets and consumer confidence and spending. As if all that wasnt enough, now add in
BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German mechanical engineering group Voith [VOITH.UL] is selling its 25.1 percent stake in robotics maker Kuka to Chinese bidder Midea, paving the way for the merger to go through smoothly, people close to the deal said on Thursday. A Voith spokesman said no decision has been taken on the sale of its Kuka stake and the company continued to consider all options. Midea and Kuka declined comment. Midea has offered 4.5 billion euros ($5.1 billion) for Kuka, making it the biggest German industrial technology company to be targeted by a Chinese buyer in a wave of deals over recent months. Voith, which took a stake in Kuka in late 2014, will be able to roughly double its investment by selling its stake to Midea. In an initial response to Midea's buyout offer, the chief executive of Voith said last month that he viewed Kuka management's positive stance towards the Midea offer as premature. But on June 10, Voith CEO Hubert Lienhard met Midea CEO Paul Fang in Hong Kong to discuss Midea's Kuka offer, the Voith spokesman said. According to people familiar with that meeting, Fang replied to a question by Lienhard if Voith would be welcome to remain a 25 percent shareholder: "I cannot say you would." Voith's owners resolved at a meeting on June 15 that it did not make strategic or financial sense for Voith to remain a minority shareholder alongside Midea, monthly Manager Magazin reported earlier. News of Midea's bid for Kuka last month caused a furor among German politicians, though Midea has since said it would allow Kuka to operate independently and help it expand in China. On a visit to Beijing this month, Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled that she would not try to prevent a takeover but also left the door open to German firms making a counter-offer. However, no potential German or European rival bidder has emerged at this stage. Another Kuka investor, Friedhelm Loh, had signaled in a newspaper interview that he may be willing to tender his shares. While Loh has not said directly whether he planned to sell his 10 percent stake in Kuka to Midea, he added: "You have to ask yourself what an investment brings if you don't have a blocking minority at least." (Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Alexander Hubner; Additional reporting by Denny Thomas, Arno Schuetze and Ilona Wissenbach; editing by Adrian Croft)
By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge granted preliminary approval to ride service Lyft's $27 million settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by California drivers who claimed they should be deemed employees instead of independent contractors. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco had previously rejected a $12.25 million deal as too small. Lyft and larger rival Uber are attempting to resolve lawsuits by drivers who contend they should be classified as employees and therefore be entitled to reimbursement for expenses, including gasoline and vehicle maintenance. Drivers currently pay those costs themselves. The profits and valuations of so-called on-demand technology companies would be affected by a determination that these workers are employees. Chhabria had said the previous Lyft deal "short-changed" drivers because it represented only 9 percent of the potential value of drivers' reimbursement claims. The new deal represents about 17 percent of that amount. In his order on Thursday, Chhabria said the new deal "adequately addresses the flaws identified in the Court's prior ruling." Like the previous agreement, drivers would remain independent contractors. Representatives for Lyft and an attorney for the drivers could not immediately be reached for comment. Chhabria will likely set a hearing for later this year to consider final approval. Uber has agreed to settle a similar lawsuit involving California and Massachusetts drivers in a deal worth up to $100 million. That agreement is under review by a different federal judge in San Francisco. (Reporting by Dan Levine)
Microchip Technology Inc. MCHP, a leading provider of semiconductor products, recently unveiled two next-generation Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) solutions. These consist of an easy-to-use ASCII-style command interface that simplifies the usage of devices and eliminates any complicated code compiling.

The companys RN4870 and RN4871 modules support the latest Bluetooth 4.2 specification and encompass a Bluetooth stack on board with a scripting engine to facilitate standalone operation and eradicate microcontroller use for simple applications. These next-generation Bluetooth devices enable fast time to market and improve total manufacturing cost.

The RN4870 and RN4871 devices offer up to 2.5 times data compared to other available variants which run on Bluetooth 4.0 standard. In addition, the new Bluetooth solutions offer Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) based connection security along with advanced features.

The devices can effortlessly transfer serial data over BLE devices and support various beacon formats like iBeacon or Eddystone using a single command. These products are fully certified under regulatory standards for usage all across the globe.

These next-gen products from Microchip will enable Internet of Things (IoT) developers build a better end application which will decrease power consumption. Utilizing the companys products, developers will be able to reduce design complexity and shorten time to market significantly. The companys new RN-style modules will assist customers to get started with Bluetooth Low Energy solutions in their products.

Microchip was the first company to offer Bluetooth 4.2 compliant silicon, modules and software. The upgraded BLE solutions are likely to drive bottom-line growth, going forward. Constant innovation has in fact made the company a leader in Bluetooth technology.

MICROCHIP TECH Price and Consensus

MICROCHIP TECH Price and Consensus | MICROCHIP TECH Quote

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Incorporated in Delaware in 1989, Microchip develops and manufacturers microcontrollers, memory and analog and interface products for embedded control systems, which are small, low-power computers designed to perform specific tasks. High quality standards, solid performance, reliability features, ease of use, pricing and diversity of products make Microchip one of the better-positioned companies in the semiconductor universe.



With a diligent focus on right-sizing the various components of inventory holding, Microchips investment strategy takes a holistic view of the rapidly evolving market and deploys a dynamic capital allocation approach. Over the years, Microchip has consistently returned significant cash to its shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.



Microchip carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. MTSI, Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. MPWR and Silicon Laboratories Inc. SLAB. All three stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



MICROCHIP TECH (MCHP): Free Stock Analysis Report



SILICON LAB INC (SLAB): Free Stock Analysis Report



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Modern laptops have now arrived at a point where pretty much anything you purchase is going to offer enough power to handle web browsing, media streaming and basic work without any problems  unless it's really a budget machine. Modern processors and graphics chips are nice and powerful, and most software from big-name developers is pretty well-optimized. With that in mind, battery life becomes an increasingly important piece of the puzzle when people are choosing a new laptop. What you might not realize, however, is that battery performance is about much more than just hardware.

MUST READ: Why the boring iPhone 7 is the smartest thing Apple has done in years

There's a new type of web browser war going on right now, and the end result is nothing but big benefits for you, the end user. It started with Opera making the bold claim that by switching to its browser of the same name on your laptop would increase your battery life by a whopping 50%. That's a bold claim, and testing from independent sources found that the Opera browser did indeed have a big impact on battery life.

Then more recently, Microsoft jumped into the fray and said that its new Edge browser offers even more benefits where battery life is concerned. A video posted alongside its claims showed Edge outperforming Opera, Chrome and Firefox in battery longevity tests.

Needless to say, Opera wasn't going to take Microsoft's claims sitting down. And new the company is back with a new blog post explaining that Opera does indeed offer better battery life than Microsoft's Edge browser.

Opera explained that it didn't even include Edge in its earlier comparisons because the browser is only available on Windows 10. Following Microsoft's new claims though, the company decided to respond.

"Like most other engineering teams, we love it when someone picks a fight," Opera's Bazej Kazmierczak wrote in a blog post. "If we get beaten in a test like this, we consider it a bug."

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He continued, "our first step was to see if it actually is the case that 'Edge gives longer battery time than Opera'? As Microsoft hasnt revealed its full methodology, we were unable to run the same tests. The methodology we applied instead was exactly the same as we provided before: browsing a set of popular websites where the automation simulates interaction with the website, making it close to what we expect normal browsing would be on such page."

Here are the results of Opera's testing:

opera-powersaver

Opera's full post is an interesting read, and the company says that its browser is the clear winner over Edge. If you still don't want to ditch Chrome for either of these rival browsers though, there are two important things you should note: first, there are ways to speed up the Chrome browser and some of them have the added benefit of reducing battery drain. Second, you can be sure that Google engineers are already hard at work following this new round of interest in battery life, and future versions of Chrome will likely offer big improvements in this area.

Related stories

One simple change can increase your laptop's battery life by 50%

Switching to this browser will instantly increase your battery life by 50%

Ditching Chrome for Opera can increase your laptop battery life by 50%

More from BGR: This sleek new case from SanDisk adds up to 128GB to your iPhone

This article was originally published on BGR.com
Late last week, reports began to surface indicating that Apple was being forced to halt sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in Beijing due to a patent infringement claim from a company called Schenzhen Baili. Specifically, the company alleged that Apple's 2014 iPhone models infringed upon the design of its own 100C smartphone.

DON'T MISS: Why the boring iPhone 7 is the smartest thing Apple has done in years

As it turns out, sales of Apple's iPhone 6 models were never halted, but the allegations against Apple were very much real, albeit frivolous. The short of it is that Apple will be able to continue selling the iPhone 6 as the case makes its way through the Chinese court system.

Understandably, the very possibility -- no matter how slight -- that iPhones in China might be taken off the shelves caused great concern among investors. After all, China remains Apple's most strategic market as it hopes to reverse stalling iPhone sales.

In light of all this, the Wall Street Journal dug a little bit deeper and discovered that Schenzhen Baili "barely exists." Not only does the company have no working phone, the Journal discovered that there's not even a company office to speak of. In other words, what we have here is nothing more than your run of the mill patent troll.

Nonetheless, the lawsuit will reportedly continue.

Baili, its unit that registered the phone patents, will continue to battle Apple in court, said Digione lawyer Andy Yang, of Beijing Wis & Weals. Shenzhen Baili is still operational in its necessary functions, he said. ... The issue here is not whether Digione makes phones anymore, but whether the iPhone 6 infringes on this patent, he said.

According to reports, Beijig's Intellecutal Property Court will likely issue a ruling on the matter in just a few months. Of course, with the impending release of the iPhone 7, it's entirely likely that production of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will have already ceased by the time a ruling is issued.

Story continues

Notably, a number of former Schenzhen Baili employees told the Journal that the lawsuit was nothing more than a publicity stunt, presumably to draw attention to the company's smartphone lineup.

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Is John C. Dvorak is trying to cement his position as the worst industry "analyst" of all-time? It's entirely possible because Dvorak's latest article for PC Mag is one of the most peculiar and inane pieces we've seen from the man who in 1984 famously predicted that no one would want to use a mouse and who, in 2007, boldly predicted that the original iPhone would amount to nothing more than an embarrassing flop.

And now Dvorak is back again with a kindly suggestion for Apple: spin-out the company's Mac business into an entirely separate company. Usually, boneheaded ideas like this are reserved for message boards, not a featured spot in PC Mag of all places. But so it goes in the world of tech where the ability to formulate a well-reasoned opinion piece is clearly not a prerequisite for participation.

Let's dive into Dvorak's madness, shall we?

DON'T MISS: Youre about to start paying more for Netflix

First things first, Dvorak's idea to spin out Apple's Mac division as a separate company stems from the fact that it just recently renamed OS X to macOS.

Putting this elementary leap in logic aside, Dvorak goes on to lay out the "obvious" reasons why his business plan for the Mac makes perfect sense.

The reasons to do this are obvious and simple. PC sales are flagging. While the market for desktop computers and laptops is still enormous, it's seen as dead. You can see it in all the worldwide tech reporting. It's become a boring replacement market as people keep their systems longer and longer. This means the computer division of Apple will eventually become a genuine albatross around the company's neck. So it's better off as a standalone company focused on computers, pretty much like it was pre-2001 when the iPod showed up.

Say what?

PC sales have been on the decline, to be sure, but it's anything but a dead market. Besides, sales of the Mac have proven to be more resilient against a downturn market than PCs. Furthermore, it's important to remember that Apple enjoys extremely healthy margins on Mac sales. During the company's most recent quarter, revenue from the Mac actually surpassed revenue from the iPad.

Story continues

So to declare that Apple's Mac division will become something of a noose around the company's neck is bizarre and unfounded, to say the least.

By Dvorak's logic, any division within Apple experiencing a downturn should be spun out into a new company. And as for the market for Macs, rumors of an exciting new MacBook Pro refresh might turn things around sooner rather than later.

Now as for any perceived benefits resulting from spinning out Apple's Mac business as a standalone entity, Dvorak explains:

The new Mac company would be assured success by contracting with Apple for access to the Apple stores for its primary sales channel. It could also contract with Apple for the use of its industrial design team. If Apple maintained the majority of the shares of the new company, it could roll out an IPO and add the value of its shares as an asset while writing off the loss of the division. Maintaining majority ownership would prevent any third party such as Google or Microsoft from acquiring the company. Thus the current Mac mavens, who hate any alternative, would see almost no change in the milieu.

This take is so asinine and demonstrates such a fundamental lack of knowledge regarding Apple's development process that it's hard to even know where to begin.

Over the years, Apple executives have said that they don't keep profit and loss balance sheets for each division within the company. The reason? Apple focuses on the bigger picture and wants each of its "divisions" to concern themselves with innovation rather than profitability.

More importantly, one of the reasons Apple is so successful is because it has an entire product ecosystem where the strength of one product can be leveraged to improve the user experience across other products. One of the upcoming macOS Sierra features, for example, allows users to seamlessly unlock their MacBooks via the Apple Watch. This is only possible because Apple's varied OS teams are able to work together in an environment of cross-collaborative innovation. Similarly, other features such as universal copy and paste would effectively be non-starters if Apple's Mac division was spun out as a separate company likely governed by different priorities.

In short, Dvorak's advice would undermine one of Apple's longstanding advantages -- vertical integration. One of the benefits of owning a Mac is that it's so well integrated with other Apple products and services. From various continuity features to the ability to use iMessage on the Mac, Dvorak's embarrassing master plan would serve to make Apple products less useful.

Dvorak concludes:

Years ago, IBM pulled a similar stunt with its extremely popular ThinkPad laptops, selling the division to Lenovo. Such a drastic move from Apple, though, would upset the community. Instead, it should look to IBM's successful spin-offs, like Lexmark. This is the kind of thing that mature companies do, and I'm guessing that it's something Apple may be planning...because it's a good idea.

No, it's a bad idea unsupported by any cogent arguments whatsoever. Essentially, Dvorak argues that it's a good idea simply because he thinks it's a good idea.

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MASON CITY  A Mason City police officer was hurt while chasing a suspect Wednesday.

Police say Officer Jay Stiles injured his hand while trying to apprehend James Ellingson around 10:30 p.m.

Ellingson, 24, fled while an officer collected information about him and three other occupants of a car parked at Caseys General Store, 813 N. Federal Ave., said Police Capt. Mike McKelvey. The car matched the description of a vehicle spotted driving recklessly through downtown.

McKelvey said all of the cars occupants except Ellingson, who was a passenger, gave their information to the officer.

Ellingson allegedly gave differing answers and then ran.

He was caught within minutes about three blocks away, in the 600 block of North Delaware Avenue, McKelvey said.

Stiles returned to duty Thursday night.

Ellingson was charged with misdemeanor interference with official acts.

He was being held Thursday at the Cerro Gordo County Jail on that charge as well as a hold for the Iowa Department of Corrections community-based facility in Waterloo where he is accused of leaving without permission.

 Molly Montag.
As the sun set over New York on June 12, hundreds of Muslims gathered in Hudson River Park to break their Ramadan fast together.

Iftar, the evening Ramadan meal, is often a joyous celebration of faith and family. But the mood that Sunday was solemn: That morning, news had broken of the ghastly massacre of LGBTQ revelers at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

A lone Muslim had allegedly perpetrated the attack. Here by the Hudson, over 200 knelt in prayer.

Were praying for those who were lost, one woman explained in a video circulated by the Huffington Post, her voice breaking. As Muslims, were united in our outrage over this senseless act of violence.

Meanwhile, an Orlando imam condemned terrorism as un-Islamic and affirmed his belief that Islam teaches peace. The Florida chapter of a national Muslim group called on members to donate blood for the victims. And statements of sympathy tumbled forth from American Muslims in what CBS News called an avalanche.

Today, we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, said the group Muslim Advocates. Your grief is our grief. Your outrage is our outrage.

Unfortunately, none of those touching gestures deterred Donald Trump from warning darkly that radical Islam is coming to our shores.

In a falsehood-riddled speech following the Orlando massacre, the presumptive GOP nominee blamed the shooting on immigration and political correctness.

As Muslims all over America sent their sympathies to Orlando, Trump mocked his Democratic rivals insistence that Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people. He accused Muslims of causing death and destruction by covering up terrorism in their midst (though it was later revealed that a Muslim member of Mateens community had reported him as suspicious).

Then, in perhaps the most ominous part of the address, Trump claimed that Democrats will take away Americans guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.

Muslim immigrants are the problem, he seems to be saying. And guns are the solution.

If you ask me, Id feel much safer with the crowd at Hudson River Park than anywhere near a rally of armed Trump supporters. But heres the creepier part: For all his blathering that we have to get smart about radical Islam, Trump is stupidly playing right into ISISs hands.

Like Trump himself, the group benefits immensely from anything that drives a wedge between Muslims and the societies they live in.

ISIS said as much itself  in plain English  in a publication detailing its plan to destroy the gray zone between infidels and believers. Since most Muslims seem to like living in the liberal societies of Europe and North America, ISIS propagandists have written, the only way to drive up recruitment is to make Muslims feel unwelcome there.

No wonder ISIS recruiters are now featuring Donald Trump in advertisements.

Its not because theyre afraid of him  its because few people are working harder to make Muslims feel unwelcome than he is. Civil rights groups report that Trumps rise has paralleled a shocking increase in hate crimes against Muslims in this country.

Thats an outrage. And its thoroughly self-defeating.

In fact, the United States has arguably the most prosperous, well-integrated Muslim population in the western world. Even as ISIS has scored a few recruiting successes among the much more marginalized Muslim communities of Europe  though even there the group falls way outside the mainstream  its flat-lined here.

Scenes like the iftar gathering in New York, in other words, are the rule, not the exception. Theyre a touching rejoinder to the toxic politics of division, and a far more accurate reflection of our Muslim neighbors than anything peddled by Trump.

And, not least, theyre a much better asset in the fight against terrorism than any bullet or bomb  or any demagogue who urges his followers to reach for their guns at the first sign of trouble.
Watch out, minorities of America. Mr. Identity Politics himself, U.S. Rep. Steve King, doesnt want even your greatest heroes on U.S. currency.

King, the Republican who represents northwest Iowa, quietly filed a proposed amendment Friday to the Treasury Departments funding package, a move first reported by Huffington Post. The change would have barred the Treasury from spending any cash on redesigning bills or coins. Treasury, of course, is planning on remaking the $20 bill, replacing slave-hunting, native-slaughtering President Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman, a titan of the Underground Railroad.

Thankfully, the House Rules Committee agreed to deny floor debate of the proposal.

Now, theres no reason for surprise for Kings move. His career is littered with dehumanizing attacks on illegal immigrants and anchor babies, half-baked English-only bills and a general disdain for anything relating to cultural pluralism.

The planned removal of Jackson from the $20 bill hasnt been without debate. Treasury first hoped to swap Tubman for Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. But a smash-hit Broadway musical about the architect of centralized federal banking, for now, solidified Hamiltons place in monetary history.

Plus, Jackson loathed central banks. And yet, for decades, the very institution he so hated honored him with a place on whats become, in the age of automated teller machines, the most significant bill in circulation.

Yes, white men were instrumental in the formation of the U.S. They were, after all, the only ones allowed at the table. But over the past 240 years, women and minorities have played huge roles in crafting this ever-evolving republic.

Tubman, a black woman, is a powerful recognition of those struggles and sacrifices.

Its ironic that one of the largest crusaders of English-only policy would so mangle the language, too. The insertion of Kings amendment would have changed the bill to read, may be used to redesign the any Federal Reserve note or coin.

Oops.

Tradition. Heritage. These are standard buzzwords employed to defend outmoded norms. Unfortunately, such claims are specious, at best. In God We Trust, for example, wasnt added to U.S. currency until 1956, at the height of the Cold War.

Mores come. Mores go.

Kings record shows a general bent toward anything that keeps the country thoroughly whitewashed. His proposed amendment, which would swap $1 for any might have seemed small. But its practical implications are undeniable.

Its time for a woman to grace American currency. Its time that the contribution of African-Americans is recognized on the most obvious symbol of U.S. economic power. And Tubmans place on the $20 accomplishes both goals.

But King is in the midst of a re-election bid. And throughout his career, hes relied on white anger and a lust for social exclusion to consolidate his base. Its worked seven election cycles. Why not go for eight?

And thats what Kings ridiculous amendment was all about. The identity politics well has provided life to Kings congressional career for years. And no amount of toxicity will keep him from lapping it up.
LISLE, Ill., June 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eckrich, the makers of naturally hardwood smoked sausage and savory deli meats, partnered with Operation Homefront, a national nonprofit whose mission is to build strong, stable and secure military families, to honor a Tacoma, Washington military family on Wednesday.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b2cb8c28-8129-4600-8b8c-b922bf326188

Eckrich hosted a special presentation at the McChord Field Air Force base in Washington to honor, thank and support the Bishop family. The family was surprised with free groceries for one year at the McChord Field Commissary, courtesy of Eckrich.

As part of the event, Eckrich distributed samples of delicious smoked sausage and deli meat and coupons to the service men and women of the McChord Air Force base.

Daric Bishop served in the United States Army as a signal support system specialist for 11 years. He earned eight medals and numerous ribbons and badges for his tours in Iraq and Kuwait. His wife, Michelle, is Darics full-time caregiver. The couple has four children.

We really appreciate this gift from Eckrich, said Daric Bishop. We have a big family and we have a service dog, too. It takes a lot of groceries to feed all of us, so this is a big deal. We just want to say thanks."

The surprise is part of the ongoing campaign by Eckrich to honor, thank and support military families through its partnership with Operation Homefront. The Bishop family is supported by Operation Homefronts Hearts of Valor program, a network of caregivers for wounded, ill or injured service members. Operation Homefront supports these caregivers through annual retreats, support groups and online communities.

Eckrich, a brand of Smithfield Foods, in its fifth year of partnership with Operation Homefront, has donated more than $2 million to the organization since 2012. Now through July 4th, Eckrich is donating 5 cents for every purchase of specially marked products, up to $500,000, to Operation Homefront to assist military families.

Eckrich is proud to visit our military bases across the country and support military families, said Chuck Gitkin, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Smithfield Foods. This is part of our dedication to thank, support and honor military families. Today, we thank the Bishop family for their service and are proud to present them with one year of free groceries.

For more information about Eckrich, please visit www.eckrich.com or follow Eckrich on Facebook and Twitter.

About Eckrich

Founded by Peter Eckrich in 1894, Eckrich has a rich heritage starting from a small meat market in Fort Wayne, Ind. Through it all, Eckrich meats have been recognized for their great taste and supreme quality, craftsmanship, care and pride. For more information, visit www.eckrich.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, Cook's, John Morrell, Gwaltney, Kretschmar, Margherita, Curly's, Carando and Healthy Ones. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Operation Homefront

A national nonprofit, Operation Homefront builds strong, stable, and secure military families so that they can thrive in the communities they have worked so hard to protect. With more than 3,200 volunteers nationwide, Operation Homefront has provided assistance to tens of thousands of military families since its inception shortly after 9/11. Recognized for superior performance by leading independent charity oversight groups, 92 percent of Operation Homefronts expenditures go directly to programs that provide support to our military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.net.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., June 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued a State of Emergency declaration for Navajo County, where firefighters continue to battle the growing Cedar Creek Fire, Second Chance Center for Animals was on its way to rescue dogs and cats affected by the disaster. Twenty-three dog and cat residents from the Humane Society of the White Mountains were evacuated to make room for additional animals arriving from the front lines of the raging inferno. Of the animals evacuated, 9 dogs were healthy and will be available for adoption.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dd088c7a-9a8f-4916-ac05-fb750c2e64d9

All of the animals are safe and receiving loving care from the wonderful staff and volunteers at Second Chance Center for Animals in Flagstaff, Arizona, according to Sean Hawkins, Executive Director for Second Chance Center for Animals. All of the dogs, including Hope, a sweet and loveable 4 year old American Pit Bull mix who was found starving and unable to eat after an encounter with a porcupine, will be available for adoption at the Pets in the Pines this Sunday, June 26, 2016 from 10 am to 3 pm at Wheeler Park, 212 W Aspen Ave., Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, Hawkins said.

The cats and kittens evacuated from the disaster area appear to be healthy but will be examined by the Second Chance veterinarian, spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped before they are ready for adoption early next week. Second Chance Center for Animals, located at 11665 N. Hwy. 89, Flagstaff, Arizona, 86004, is open from 11 am to 6 pm Wednesday through Sunday for adoptions. All pets available for adoption can be viewed at www.SecondChanceCenter.org.

The animals rescued from the evacuation area today were lucky, says Hawkins. Second Chance Center for Animals caring staff and volunteers were there for them. Now we are turning to the community to ask people to help us by adopting an animal displaced from the fire, donating to help for their care, or volunteering time, he added.

About Second Chance Center for Animals

We believe the safest place for every dog and cat is in a home. Part of Second Chance Center for Animals' unique mission is to "rescue from the rescues." We partner with 38 organizations across Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah who transfer homeless dogs and cats to us for adoption. Since 2004, more than 10,000 dogs and cats have found forever homes through Second Chance. Our state-of-the-art facility, knowledgeable staff, and passionate volunteers make our 100% placement guarantee possible. For more information visit www.SecondChanceCenter.org.
Brooklyn, NY, June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The research study provides an in-depth analysis of the global denim jeans market, focusing on the introduction, definition, manufactured goods classification, applications, policy analysis, industry chain structure, and news analysis of the industry. The research study on the global denim jeans market presents a detailed competitive landscape and vendor analysis of the market. It also includes current market development trends and a thorough evaluation of the market. In addition, the development history of the global denim jeans market is presented in the study.

The research study has further provided historical data and forecast statistics of the global denim jeans market with the help of charts, tables, and info-graphics. The use of several analytical tools helps in determining the growth factors and restraints of the global denim jeans market. It also helps the players in the market in formulating their policies and strategies effectively and creating a strong position for themselves.

Get Sample Copy of Report for more Professional and Technical insights visit at http://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=723399&type=E

Denim jeans are a type of trousers that are made of denim or dungaree cloth. Denim jeans are very popular among teenagers and hold a major share as a fashion item in the clothing industry. They are considered as casual wear and are donned by women, men, and children. The tremendous popularity of denim jeans and the rising demand for them is the major factor fueling the growth of the global denim jeans market. On the geographical front, North America accounts for the largest share in the overall denim jeans market, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. However, the introduction of yoga pants and other active wear is expected to hamper the growth of the market in the forecast period.

The research study further talks about the technical data, coupled with the evaluation of manufacturing plants of the major manufacturers operating in the global denim jeans market. In addition, the research study evaluates the manufacturers capacity and manufacturing plants distribution, commercial production date, raw material sources, technology sources, and research and development activities.

Browse Complete Global Denim Jeans Market Professional Survey 2016 Market Research Report with TOC at http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-denim-jeans-market-professional-survey-report-2016.htm

Furthermore, the company profiles of the major players, along with their product portfolio, are presented in the research report. The study also provides the production, capacity, production value, price, cost, and contact information of the major companies operating in the global denim jeans market. It also offers the investment feasibility evaluation of new projects in the global market. It gives a detailed SWOT analysis of the players to help the readers gauge the potential opportunities in the global denim jeans market. Some of the prominent players in the global denim market are Zengzhi, Aarvee Denims and Exports, Mavi, Edwin, Diesel, PVH, True Religion, H & M, Texwood, Inditex, Uniqlo, Gap, 7 For All Mankind, Parasuco, Levi Strauss, KIPONE, AEO, and VF.

Related Reports:

United States Denim Jeans Market 2016- http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/united-states-denim-jeans-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm



http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/united-states-denim-jeans-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm Europe Denim Jeans Industry 2016- http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/europe-denim-jeans-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm



http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/europe-denim-jeans-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm Global Premium Denim Jeans Market 2015: Overview - http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-premium-denim-jeans-industry-2015-market-research-report.htm



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QYResearchReports.com is the trusted source of market research reports among clients that include prestigious Chinese companies, multinational companies, SMEs, and private equity firms. Our market research reports focus on categories including but not limited to: Chemicals, Energy, Alternative and Green Energy, Machinery, Manufacturing, Glass, Pharmaceuticals and Materials.
EAST GLACIER PARK, MONT., June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- It's an elite feat requiring elite feet, as well as stamina, skill and smarts.

The Triple Crown of Thru-Hiking is only achieved by traversing the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail, each in its entirety. And for Lizzy Corliss, 24, of Vashon, WA, only one leg remains.

"Nature has already given me so much," Lizzy declares. "This is my way of paying it forward, raising awareness of our environment, and saluting those who got me started on this amazing journey."

Lizzy states the seeds to this trek were planted in 2010, when she was a trail volunteer with the Student Conservation Association (SCA) deep in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. That's when she encountered "this big, bearded, smelly, sweaty, yet endearing character" along the Pacific Crest Trail. "There was spark in his eyes. He'd returned to nature," Lizzy recalls. "He joined our crew for lunch and shared his story, a ribbon of experiences miles and miles long."

Lizzy never forgot those tales. After graduating from the University of Montana with a degree in Parks, Tourism and Recreational Resource Management, she thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with her brother, Josh, in 2014. Last year, she conquered the Appalachian Trail. Now, the Crown is a mere 3,100 miles away, give or take.

A seasonal county park employee, Lizzy says she's hiking to support expanded outdoor service opportunities like the one that changed her life years ago. "SCA is preparing the next generation of public land managers, environmental advocates, and world leaders," she says. "SCA gave me my start, and I want to inspire more kids to return to nature and get that spark in their eyes."

Lizzy will begin her mountainous trek on June 28th in Glacier National Park and expects to reach the Mexican border in mid-autumn. "The CDT is supposed to be the toughest of the three," she notes. "Most of it is at 10,000 feet elevation, much of it requires GPS [global positioning system], and weather and the long-range spacing of resupplies pose their own challenges."

Since 1994, the American Long Distance Hiking Association (West) has accredited fewer than 300 people with achieving the Triple Crown. But Lizzy, whose trail name is Laugh Track, says she is drawn by the quirky culture of thru-hiking as well as the spectacle of nature.

"I'll be hiking with ten or twelve members of my trail family  or my 'tramily,'" she jokes. "Out there, you're operating on a different plain than you do back in society. You really feel your place in the world.

"It's like nothingness and everything-ness all rolled into one!"

Throughout her hike, Lizzy will post updates on Facebook and also share blogs and photos at www.thesca.org.

About the Student Conservation Association

The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is America's oldest and largest youth conservation organization. SCA conserves lands and transforms lives by empowering young people of all backgrounds to plan, act, and lead, while they protect and restore our natural and cultural resources. Founded in 1957, its mission is to build the next generation of conservation leaders, and seven in 10 of SCA's 80,000 alumni worldwide are employed or studying in conservation-related fields. Headquartered in Washington, DC, SCA also maintains regional offices in Charlestown, NH, Chicago, IL, Houston, TX, Oakland, CA and Seattle, WA. For more, visit www.thesca.org.
IRVINE, Calif., June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Roland DGA's new Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Roland Imagination Center celebrated its Grand Opening with a reception that included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, guided tours of the state-of-the-art 3,500 square-foot facility, demonstrations of the company's latest wide-format digital printers, and more. Attending the June 16 event were Roland DGA dealers and end users, members of the press, the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, and even a State Senator. Now open to the public, the Imagination Center will serve as a product display and application venue, as well as a training and sample production site for Roland resellers, customers and prospective customers.



"The Grand Opening was a lively, well-attended event, and we were thrilled to receive such a warm welcome from not only the Chamber of Commerce, but also State Senator Bruce Tarr and other important Massachusetts representatives," said Rick Scrimger, president of Irvine, California-based Roland DGA Corporation.



In addition to serving as an East Coast training and product demonstration facility, the new Imagination Center features a Roland Creative Center gallery showcasing a wide variety of products made by Roland DG customers and technologies.



For more information on Roland DGA's new East Coast Imagination Center, or the complete Roland product lineup, visit www.rolanddga.com.



About Roland DGA



Roland DGA Corporation serves North and South America as the marketing, sales and distribution arm for Roland DG Corporation. Founded in 1981 and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Roland DG of Hamamatsu, Japan is a worldwide leader in wide-format inkjet printers for the sign, apparel, textile, packaging and vehicle graphics markets; engravers for awards, personalization and ADA signage; photo impact printers for direct part marking; and 3D printers and CNC milling machines for rapid prototyping, part manufacturing and the medical and dental CAD/CAM industries. Roland DGA is ISO 9001:2008 certified, and Roland DG is ISO 9001:2008 and 14001:2004 certified.



Captions for Attached Images:



Grand Opening Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: Roland DGA President Rick Scrimger (center-left) and Imagination Center Manager Scott Burgess (center-right) do the honors in a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce for Roland DGA's new East Coast Imagination Center in Wilmington, Massachusetts.



Wecome to the Imagination Center: The entrance to Roland DGA's new East Coast Imagination Center, a state-of-the-art 3,500 square-foot facility that will serve as a product display and application venue, as well as a sample production site for Roland resellers, customers and prospective customers. Open to the public, visitors can view the company's advanced wide-format printers and other innovative Roland devices in action.

Photos accompanying this release are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=40671

http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=40672
8) Stealing this from someone else, but realize that your score on the GMAT is determined before you ever step foot in the testing center. Your months of hard work and dedication, trial and failure are what determine your score. Once you realize this you will study harder and be less stressed on test day. The official day should be a victory lap for all of your hard work.



9) Take the GMAT as a personal challenge. Studying for the GMAT was the first academic thing that I went after full force. I took stock in seeing measurable improvement over time. I put in the hard work and saw the results. It is an incredibly powerful feeling of accomplishment when you give something everything you have and, after setbacks/failures, you overcome the challenge.

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My GMAT Journey (Long debrief)Background: 25 year old white American male, undergrad-marketing, 4 years as an Army OfficerGMAT640 (Q43, V35) October 2015700 (Q47, V39) December 2015700 (Q47, V40) May 2016 cancelled710 (Q50, V36) June 2016GMAT 1: 640 (Q43, V35) October 2015I took this test after 1.5 months of preparation. I utilized Kaplans self-paced online program and reviewed all the basic concepts and strategies. I think this is a great resource to get started. I was forced to take the exam before I was ready, but figured I would give it a shot anyways.GMAT 2: 700 (Q47, V39) December 2015I decided to retake the exam when I realized that I hadnt been doing enough practice problems. For the next two months I did almost every single Kaplan problem. I had a very solid foundation and was confident going into this test.GMAT 3: 700 (Q47, V40) May 2016 cancelledGeneral Prep: After talking to a consultant and fellow vets at b-school, I decided to retake the GMAT. I scoured GMAT Club for a strategy and found that people were using this thing called the  . I honestly had no idea what it was. I saw it on many posts, but really didnt know what it was. Bought all three books and went to work. I completed every single question in all the books and went through again to hit the ones I had missed. I utilized CATs and I must say that you cannot take stock in the scores of these CATs. I took the first one and scored a 580, this was weeks after scoring an official 700. The quant is ridiculously challenging. Use these to prep, but dont lose sleep over your scores. I also started using the and . All of these resources helped tremendously and I learned a lot. I went into the test very nervous that after almost 9 months I would finally be done with the GMAT. All of the pressure of the moment weighed on me and I did not do well. Out popped the score and I was so disappointed. I immediately cancelled the scores and scheduled the closest exam date that I could get.GMAT 4: 710 (Q50, V36) June 2016Quant: I CANNOT GIVE GMATCLUB QUANT TESTS ENOUGH CREDIT. THEY WERE THE SOLE REASON THAT I EVER GOT PAST QUANT 47! One of the main reasons that I retook the GMAT was because of my mediocre score of 47. I was always good at math growing up, but just couldnt get to that next level. I started taking the GMAT Club quant and started improving immediately. The tricks in the GMATClub quant tests are very similar to the actual GMAT. My real issue wasnt the math. My problem was that I looked at a problem and immediately started working. It was very hard for me to take a step back to find the most efficient way to solve it. I also fell for many, many GMAT traps. If I could solve a question in under a minute, I immediately looked for trap answers. It took a lot of practice, but I eventually figured out quant.Verbal: I read that LSAT tests can be very beneficial to GMAT preparation. As a native speaker, verbal was my strength. I thought that if I could push myself I might be able to get into the V42-43 range to really boost my overall score. Through my preparation I got better at RC and stayed about the same in CR. I would time the sections being sure to complete each question in under two minutes. I continued to review and do practice problems. I was very confident going into the exam.Three weeks after my mediocre performance, I took my final GMAT. The essay went well, no surprises. IR also went well, but I was disappointed to see a score of 7. The Quant. My god the quant. I started off well, cruising through all of the problems. I was so far ahead at one point that I made an effort to slow down. I saw all of the traps and double checked most of my work. I cannot get over how well GMATClub quants prepared me. There was not one question that I didnt know how to do. To emphasize this point further, my final question was exactly like one that I saw through GMATClub. When I first saw it while studying, I unknowingly fell for the typical trap, but when I got to the question on the test I knew exactly how to approach it. The question was a round table probability question that I never thought that I would receive again, but there it was. I confidently answered and completed the section.I was very confident after my quant performance and knew that I could score really well. I started going through the questions and was just nailing them. RC went smoothly, SC went well, and CR went okay. I remember being very confident until about questions 20 or so when I looked up at the clock as saw that I had 25 minutes left.. I tried to pick up the pace, but I still had two RC passages. I had ten minutes remaining with 10 questions and a RC passage. I remained relatively calm, but absolutely flew through the problems, solving most in 30 seconds or so. Looking back on this, it was probably a mistake to do this. I should have just guessed on a few and actually solved the other ones.. oh well, barely finished the test and was very nervous waiting the result. Out popped a disappointing 710, but a Q50! I accepted the score and went home to think about it.. I had just scored 10 points higher on my GMAT despite studying for 5 extra months, but I also scored a Q50! Big reason why I decided to retake was my low quant score. I scored a miserable V36 though.. I know that I am more than capable of getting a V40 (I did it just a few weeks earlier, and could probably push V41) that being said, it isnt guaranteed. My Q50 is not guaranteed. I actually think the test played right into my strengths, I was realistically expecting a Q48 with a slim chance at Q49. I could take the test in two weeks and score Q48, V39 and not even be surprised. I could take it and score a Q49, V38. All of these scores are 710 and I would rather have the Q50.. I am still disappointed at myself for squandering my great quant performance with a terrible verbal one. I know that most of you will tell me to take it again, but that would be my 5th time, 4th for record.. I dont see myself repeating my quant performance and nothing is a given in verbal. I also need to start working on my applications as I plan to start applying this fall. Given everything, I am much more confident applying with a 710 (Q50, V36) than I would have been with a 700 (Q47, V39).Take Aways:1) Take a realistic look at where you stand and what your goals are. I scored a 580 on my diagnostic test, my first goal was a 650, then a 700, then a 730. As I improved, I realized that the sky was the limit. That being said, it took me A LOT of time. I studied while working 12 hours a day and I really do not know how it is possible to study if you have a family. For those of you who somehow accomplish that feat, I salute you. I studied continuously for 4 months, took a month and a half off, then studied another 3 months. That month and a half off of studying really set me back, it was by far my biggest mistake of my prep. If you are dead set on a high score and are not scoring very high in quant or verbal off the bat, then be prepared to study hard for months. You have to really commit to it.2) Everything starts with the basics, make sure you get a reliable prep company and review until you are comfortable with all the basics.3) Read debriefs from people who scored highly (but take care not to get discouraged when they study for only 2 months and score 750.) Look at the resources that they used and see if those resources would benefit you. The best resources for me were:a. GMATClub Quantb.c.d. Kaplan self-paced onlinee. Bible4) Take tons of CATs, but do not get discouraged by the results. As you can see I took a ton of CATs and didnt see improvement on all of them. Take a look at the bigger picture and the trend over time. Once you become experienced you have a tangible feeling of where you stand. I was scoring 660/670 on GMATPrep, but I could tell that I was so close to breaking through. It was finally starting to click for me, I didnt get discouraged by the score, but instead noted my weaknesses and continued to improve. Also, when you take CATs there are probably a lot of distractions. For me, I had my roommate playing video games less than 10 feet away, phone calls, neighbors listening to music, fire truck sirens going off a few feet away, etc. Needless to say, I felt that my practice CATs were lower than I would score on the real exam when I would be completely focused and free of distractions.5) After taking CATs, identify your areas of weakness. GMATPrep does a great job of this. To attain a high score you have to be well-rounded. For example, I would get a 40 on CR after only missing one question. This was due to the fact that I had a low SC or RC score and would get lower difficulty questions on CR. If I improved my RC and SC I could get more out of my CR strength by getting harder questions. The same applies for Quant, but to a lesser extent.6) When you get tired of studying or hit a plateau research some schools you are interested in, look at the careers you would like to pursue, and look at GMATClub debriefs/success stories. Doing this helped me get through the inevitable hard times. Envisioning success and having an iron resolve are crucial. GMATClub really has all the resources that you need to succeed.7) Try to find debriefs from individuals who are similar to you. I had to improve drastically in both quant and verbal. Debriefs of individuals that needed to improve in only one area didnt help me as much as these:Special thanks to all those authors as those debriefs really helped me.*side note: I think the business schools should start publishing their scores of accepted students by region. This will be beneficial to everyone. Both foreign and American students will see scores that they need to be competitive. I feel that foreign students are eschewing the GMAT scores upwards.**second side note: I think the GMAC should also show percentiles by region. If I score a Q49, it is 83 percentile overall, but I guarantee it is 90 percentile in the US. Same goes for verbal, a V41 score might be 93 percentile overall, but it might only be 85 percentile in the US.
12bhang wrote:

In a study conducted among servers in restaurants in Canada, it was observed that the tips on bills with a "Thank you " note attached were on an average 3 percentage points higher than those without the note. Thus, regularly writing Thank you on the bills will increase the average income from tips significantly.

What is the assumption on which the argument depends.



A) the thank you would have the same effect on regular patrons of the restaurant as on the occasional ones

B) regularly seeing thank you written on the bill will not make the customers change their tipping habits.

C) The thank you reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a major part of the income to the servers

D)The rate at which the customers tip does not vary with how expensive the restaurant is

E) Virtually all patrons of the restaurant who were given a bill with a thank you written on it left a larger tip than they would have.





The clear assumption in this question is that the patrons of the restaurant will continue their tipping habits,even after regularly seeing a Thank you written on the bill.



Considering choice A: If the regular patrons contribute towards a larger portion of the revenue earned by the restaurant, the tips that they give will also constitute a significant part of the total income received from tips. In this case, if regular patrons are not affected by the new thank you note, average revenues might not go up significantly - the key word here.



12bhang wrote:

On the other hand, if regular patrons constitute a very small proportion of the customer base, then whether they tip higher or not does not matter at all as far as significant increase in revenues from tips are concerned.



Regular patrons total customers

20 1000 -very small effect

700 1000 -significant effect



So, does the statement as it is stand as a strengthener?



Also, choice A says that the thank you will have the same effect on both regular ones and non regular ones? What effect is this, we do not know. It could mean that both are affected in a way that they tip higher or both are affected in a way that the thank you has no effect. Or are we to assume that the effect being talked about in this option is that they will tip higher?



Suppose we change this statement- " Regular patrons are as likely to tip higher than are occasional patrons"-



Now, we don't know how likely the occasional patrons are to tip. If the likelihood is high- revenues will go up. If not, then revenues will not go up.



What do you think?



Could you suggest possible strengtheners?

In the context of the passage, "significant" means around 3%. The argument can't sensibly refer to a sample in which tips increased by 3% and say that in the future it will be a 10% increase.Secondly, we don't know how much of the revenue of the restaurant or tips of the servers are generated from regular patrons or from occassional patrons, so comparing them does not help us any bit. We don't know about any of these and the option statement makes a comparison between these two.Whatever you do with option A, it is going to remain on OFS answer choice till it keeps comparing regular patrons with occasional ones. We don't know about any of these. What would we gain by a comparison of these two? If we had known about tipping habits of one category of guys, then, by comparison, we might have gained something but as is, option A is completely non-nonsensical and out of scope.Thanks,Chiranjeev_________________
Quote:

Mideast immigrants rates of entrepreneurship exceed virtually every other immigrant group in the increasingly diverse United States economy.



A. Mideast immigrants rates of entrepreneurship exceed

rates

immigrant group

Quote:

B. Mideast immigrants are exhibiting rates of entrepreneurship exceeding

rates of entrepreneurship

virtually every other immigrant group

Quote:

C. Immigrants from the Mideast exhibit rates of entrepreneurship exceeding those of

Quote:

D. The rates of entrepreneurship in immigrants from the Mideast exceed

in

Quote:

E. The rates of Mideast immigrants entrepreneurship exceeds those of

of entrepreneurship

exceeds

I irrationally sort of love this question as an example of how the GMAT deals with comparisons (more on comparisons in this video and this sequel ), so here's a QOTD-style explanation:The most important thing on GMAT comparison questions is to be maniacally literal. In this case, "Mideast immigrants'of entrepreneurship" is being compared to "virtually every other." And it makes no sense to compare the rates of entrepreneurship to the immigrant groups themselves.So (A) is out.(B) has a similar problem as (A): "Mideast immigrants are exhibitingexceeding." And once again, it doesn't make sense to compare "rates of entrepreneurship" to immigrant groups.Also, there's no good reason to use the progressive verb tense "are exhibiting" when we could just use a nice, simple present tense ("exhibit"). It's not WRONG, exactly, to say "are exhibiting", but that particular verb tense emphasizes that there's an ongoing action, and we really don't need to do that here.So (B) is gone.The pronoun "those" has to refer to a plural noun, and "rates of entrepreneurship" is the nearest candidate. So that gives us: "Immigrants from the Mideast exhibit rates of entrepreneurship exceeding [the rates of entrepreneurship] of virtually every other immigrant group..." That's perfect! Now we're comparing entrepreneurship rates of one immigrant group to entrepreneurship rates of other groups. Nice.So let's keep (C).(D) has all sorts of problems. First, it makes no sense to say that the rate of entrepreneurship isimmigrants. That's pretty ridiculous.Second, we still have the same comparison problem as in (A) and (B): "The rates of entrepreneurship... exceed virtually every other immigrant group..." Again, it doesn't make sense to compare "rates of entrepreneurship" to immigrant groups.So (D) is gone.In theory, I like the use of "those" as a pronoun in (E). In practice, it doesn't quite work. "Those" seems to refer to just "rates", and that gives us: "The rates of Mideast immigrants' entrepreneurship exceeds [the rates] of virtually every other immigrant group..." That's much less clear than the version in (C), which tells us that "immigrants from the Mideast exhibit rates of entrepreneurship exceeding [the rates] of virtually every other immigrant group..."You could also argue that the possessive construction is less than ideal in (E). There's no good reason to write "the rates of immigrants' entrepreneurship" when (C) has a better, clearer way to say the same thing.And best of all, there's a nice, clear subject-verb error in (E): "the rates [of... entrepreneurship]." That's a killer.So (C) is our winner._________________
The three Pennsylvania residents who were trying to "rescue" a teenager from Brooklyn but got caught with an arsenal of guns and ammunitions before entering the Holland Tunnel remain in custody, and one of their lawyers is accusing the Port Authority of trampling on his client's Second Amendment rights.

John Cramsey, 50; Dean Smith, 53; and Kimberly Arendt, 29 are being held on numerous gun charges after a Port Authority police search of Cramsey's neon green-red-and-black truck yielded a pump action shotgun, an assault rifle, numerous pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition (including a clip that said 'Merica), plus body armor, night vision goggles and more. Police say they stopped the vehicle because of a low crack on the windshield; when the officer went to talk to Smith, who was driving, he apparently saw a loaded magazine for a gun and ordered everyone out of the car.

Cramsey's attorney is skeptical of that claim: James Lisa told reporters after the arraignment in Jersey City, "The police officers said they stopped them because they saw a crack in the windshield, but clearly that's not what happened... They saw all the decals and the painting basically espousing their Second Amendment rights and that's why they stopped them."

Lisa also said, "They took a small window crack and turned it into a Fourth Amendment violation. The only reason this bail is this high is because it got all the publicity. My client owns a gun range. Under certain exceptions, he is allowed to transport guns. What happened here is they saw all these people expounding on their Second Amendment rights and they only stop them because they had guns."

The trio's lawyers also objected to the bailset at $75,000 each, "cash only, with no 10 percent bond option"but Superior Court Judge Sheila Venable said, "It's not like it's one weapon. I'm looking at all the issues in the case," adding, "This is not Pennsylvania, this is New Jersey. The law does allow for a 10% permission, but these are guidelines. Its the number of guns. Its not like its one weapon. That is the reason for the bail. And as for the attention surrounding this case. Maybe it could be youre making such a zealous case because the cameras are here. Im keeping the bail at $75,000 cash only."

Lisa insisted that Cramsey, a gun dealer and owner of a shooting range, was transporting the guns for legal purposesthough a man in a holding cell with Smith and Cramsey said the pair claimed that the weapons were for a photo shoot and forgotten aboutand that NJ had an exception for that. But Cramsey had posted on an anti-heroin Facebook group, Enough is Enough, about a half hour before his Tuesday arrest that he, Smith and Arendt were heading to NYC:

"I'm currently 11 miles outside of Brooklyn New York and going to a hotel to extract a 16 year old girl who went up there to Party with a few friends. One of those friends she went up there with will not be returning . This young lady from Wilkes Barre is scared and wants to come home. Last night she woke to find her friends body next to her in the same bed were her friend died of another heroin overdose. The Child named Janaee Patterson and she is from the Wilkes Barre area. A Facebook message to the Mother and the Brother with no response yet. I'm bringing her out of NY today and anybody else in that hotel that wants to go home too."

Cramsey turned into an anti-heroin activist after his 20-year-old daughter died of an overdose earlier this year; after her death, he told a Morning Call reporter that "he knew the identity of the dealer who sold to his daughter. Cramsey said he had weapons and 'put on body armor' to 'go after this guy.' He told the reporter that his anger ran so deep, he was sure the next time he spoke with the reporter that 'the interview would be in prison.'"

A friend posted on Enough is Enough, "I have known John for 3 years gong on 4 now after we met on FB thought our enthusiast for Military trucks and we both own them so that's how our friendship started and he has always been there when I need to talk to someone or there was a problem. When I was under attack where I live over my military trucks John was there telling me to not give up and I didn't and guess what it got better but ONLY over time. John gets a little excited over stuff but what he was doing was trying to save a life like any normal humans would. Was John going to murder anyone I honestly don't think so and if he off a drug dealer so what."

The mother of the teen who was the target of Cramsey's rescue operation is coming to NYC to get her daughter; she said, "My daughter doesn't do heroin. It was her friend."
Son of Brooklyn and Democratic presidential hopeful (make that extremely hopeful) Bernie Sanders is back in New York City today. He'll be giving a speech at Town Hallwhich is open to the public (RSVPs here)tonight and the subject is, "Where We Go From Here."

Two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton claimed victory as the Democrat to beat, after securing Super Tuesday wins in California, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico. Yesterday, Sanders admitted in an interview with CSPAN, "It doesnt appear that Im going to be the nominee, so Im not going to be determining the scope of the convention... What our job is now is to have her listen to what millions of people in this country who supported me want to see happen. Well see how that evolves."

From the NY Times:

Mr. Sanders did not acknowledge that Mrs. Clinton was going to leave the convention as the nominee, or that she would become the first woman presidential nominee of a major party. He did say she was very, very intelligent and has faced challenges, but he focused mainly on their policy differences. She has clearly had to fight her way through a lot of sexism and unfair attacks over the years, he said. But there are areas where we have strong disagreements. She is more or less an establishment Democrat. Its kind of hard to deny that. And I think weve got to move beyond that.

Tonight's event at Town Hall is free and open to the publichere's the RSVP page; the Sanders campaign says "RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Admission is first come, first served. Public entrance through the 43rd St Main doors."

Also, here's the drill: "For security reasons, please do not bring bags and limit what you bring to small, personal items like keys and cell phones. Weapons, sharp objects, chairs, and signs or banners on sticks will not be allowed through security. Street parking is available. Taking public transit is strongly encouraged. Use the Bryant Park stop for B, D, F, or M trains and Times Square subway stops on the Q, N, R, A, C, E, 1, 2, or 3 lines."
In Spanish, the word is el acoso. Harassment.

Last October, when Wanda Perez paid the rent for the Bronx apartment shes lived in for 20 years, the superintendent handed her a receipt with When are you leaving? written on it.

Perez, a fortyish woman wearing a denim vest over a gold T-shirt, tells the story again June 18th, at a rally in a church gymnasium a few blocks away from her building at 2200 Aqueduct Avenue, a few blocks south of Fordham Road on the last ridge before the west Bronx slopes down to the Harlem River. But Im not going! she says in Spanish, setting off a chant of No Nos Vamos to the beat of plaster buckets, drums, and pot lids.

The 56-apartment building is a blocky U-shape with a rectangular courtyard leading to the doors, typical of 1920s Bronx architecture. Its residents went without cooking gas for 18 months, getting it turned back on in March after a settlement between the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the landlords, Charles Rosenwasser and David Pilch of Brooklyn. HPD violation records for the last year show multiple complaints for no heat and no hot water in the entire building, and no electricity in several apartments.

There are huge holes in the walls with rats coming out, Sandra Rodriguez says in Spanish, and a neighbor has had to put nylon over the hole in her bathroom ceiling so her six children could take baths during the last six months. The front-door lock has been broken for more than 2 months, in the police precinct that had the sixth-highest murder rate in the city in 2015.

We dont feel safe inside, Wanda Maldonado, a Mexican immigrant holding a baby, says in Spanish. She says her cousin was stabbed in the hallway, and the door to a nearby apartment was set on fire. (In the last two years, police say, two grand larcenies have been the worst crimes reported in the building.)

Harassment is the biggest complaint neighborhood residents have about their housing, say organizers from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which coordinated the rally and a march to 2200 Aqueduct afterwards. Typical tactics include fraudulent rent surcharges and eviction attempts, failing to make repairs, threatening to call immigration enforcement agents, and, increasingly common recently, simply demanding that they leave.

People in 2200 Aqueduct have also been told that repairs wouldnt get done if they called 311 to complain about problems in the building, says Marika Dias, a lawyer with Bronx Legal Services, which, together with the Legal Aid Society in a citywide project called the Tenants Rights Coalition, has been working with tenants there since September.



(Steve Wishnia / Gothamist)

They enter the apartment like it was their own, Sandra Rodriguez says. She says she fell behind on the rent while the gas was out because she was spending extra money on food while she couldnt cook, and the landlord told her, if you dont pay right now, youll have to leave, in front of her 7- and 8-year-old sons. Rodriguez and her fellow tenants want to be reimbursed for the extra money they spent on food and heat while the gas was out.

HPD brought a civil case against the landlords, who had run up $335,000 in fines. It was settled for $25,000 in March, says Dias, with an agreement to turn the gas back on and correct the violations within 90 days. The Tenants Rights Coalition is now working with tenants to develop a legal strategy to deal with harassment and lack of repairs.

Perez and Maldonado say they want security cameras installed in the halls. (The Police Department doesnt monitor security cameras, a spokesperson says.) The landlord has entered the building in the departments Safe Halls program, in which officers patrol inside private buildings, but thats a double-edged sword, says Dias. It requires giving the police a list of all building residentssomething the tenants, some of whom are undocumented, perceived as another attempt to intimidate them.

The central and west Bronx is one of the main parts of the city that still has a large concentration of old-fashioned slumlords, owners who let buildings stay in disrepair. Two of the 18 Bronx buildings the Public Advocates office lists as having over 300 HPD violations are within four blocks of 2200 Aqueduct.

That doesnt mean rent is cheap. One-bedroom apartments in the building and nearby now go for around $1,500 and two-bedrooms for $1,700. When a Northwest Bronx Coalition member asks the crowd at the rally60 to 70 people, mostly Latino, some black, a few gray-haired whiteswhos spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent, virtually everyone raises their hand. About three-fourths live in a building where repairs havent been made, and half have gone without heat or hot water in winter.

The whole community is having their rents raised, says Perez.

The neighborhood is not gentrified. The restaurants under the 4 train on Jerome Avenue dont serve artisanal gluten-free kale-infused cupcakes; they cater to Dominican, Mexican, Jamaican, and African immigrants. Few of the Saturday-morning shoppers on Fordham Road are white. Unlike in the Lower East Side, Crown Heights, or Bushwick, landlords cant triple the rent by renovating vacant apartments for more upscale and whiter residents, but they still have an incentive to get people out. They can raise rents by 20 percent every time a tenant leaves.



(Steve Wishnia / Gothamist)

Low-income tenants are at a disadvantage anywhere in the city, says Dias. In a poor neighborhood, their landlords dont make repairs. In a gentrifying one, theyre harassed to leave. And in between, theres a general incentive for landlords to displace tenants because they can get the vacancy increase. If the market wont command the full 20 percent, owners can give the new tenant a lower preferential rent and then raise it to the legal limit when the lease runs out.

Gentrification may be coming, however. The neighborhood is at the north end of the area along Jerome Avenue that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to rezone for affordable housing, using trickle-down from luxury development to finance it. There are 73 blocks that would be included, and I am on one of them, Pastor Eddie Pierce of United Fellowship House tells the meeting. The community has four demands, he says: Real affordability; good jobs and hiring local residents; strong anti-harassment policies, not just a little slap on the hand; and real community engagement.

Forty years ago the Bronx was burning, Northwest Bronx Coalition board member Evelyn Rodriguez tells the rally. Now that we have brought back investment, we are being pushed out.

Its all rooted in a history of displacing us. Were not viewed as human beings. Its about money. Capital, adds Yorman Nunez, a goateed man with black eyeglasses. The most revolutionary thing you can do to disrupt that pattern is stay.
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When it's sweltering outside and it feels like you could boil noodles in the atrocious New York City humidity, there's only one seriously slurpable way to cool down: cold noodles.

Soba, udon, ramen and all kinds of pastas are all hugely refreshing when served cold for your summertime carbo-loads. Restaurants specializing in the cuisines of East and Southeast Asia are particularly adept at these hot weather adaptations.

Below, a handful of spots to fill up while cooling down.



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Soybean Kong Ramen at MokBar, ($13) Imagine a savory iced soy latte but filled with noodles when imagining this dish at Chelsea Market Korean hotspot MokBar. A chilled soybean and black sesame broth offers the perfect pool for a nest of thin ramen noodles, noodle-like cucumber slices (like zoodles, but crispier) and garlic roasted tomatoes that offer a juicy burst of flavor. Completely vegan, this cold soup is provides a nice cool down after a walk on the High Line. Mokbar also serves two other cold ramen dishes, a 'miyeok' ramen ($15) that's the cold soup equivalent of a seaweed salad complete with green tea noodles and a 'yachae' 'bibim' ramen ($15), basically the cold noodle version of bibimbap.

75 Ninth Avenue, (646) 964-5963; website



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Hiyashi Udon at Raku, ($9) This chilly udon is served in ice water with a cherry on top (yes, a fresh cherry). Though the small subterranean restaurant is sufficiently air conditioned, we understand the temptation to press this chilly bowl against your sweaty bod on a sweltering day. The noodles, however, are to be plunged straight into your mouth after a quick dip in a side cup of sauce. Imported from Japan, these special skinny udon noodles are designed to be served chilled for that extra snap and all around coolness.

342 East 6th Street, (212) 228-1324; website



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Cold sesame noodles at Sheng Wang ($4, cash only) Veer left as you descend into Chinatown's Sheng Wang: You'll get the best air conditioning action at the tables under the handwritten poster board menus. To eat: Slick noodles drenched in sesame oil and soy sauce with just enough bok choy on top to make stuffing your face with a plate piled with wheat noodles feel healthy. Served slightly cooler than room temperature, these noodles can be consumed for a quick lunch in a matter of minutes. They're cheaper than an iced latte. Pair with a can of Jia Duo Bao iced tea and you'll almost forgot the horrendous humidity outside.

27 Eldridge Street, (212) 925-0805



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Tsukemen at Momosan Ramen and Sake ($14) A consistent crowd even in the sweltering heat of a midtown summer day at Morimoto's newest restaurant proves that it's never not ramen season. Opt for the tsukemen, a dipping ramen served with a side of soup just slightly warmer than the weather outside. Thick noodles in garlic oil are served chilled with a wedge of lime, almost like a noodle cocktail, topped with bamboo shoots, a thin slice of pork and a soft boiled egg. Mixing the runny yolk with the noodles and a few miniature spoonfuls of the communal hot sauce could be enough flavor to this chilly noodle bowl, but some may enjoy dipping bundles of noodles into the rich tonkotsu sauce, too.

342 Lexington Avenue, (646) 201-5529; website



(courtesy Xi'an Famous Foods)

Liang Pi Cold Skin Noodles at Xi'an Famous Foods ($5) These, thick chewy noodles serve as the perfect template to absorb the fail-proof combo of soy sauce, black vinegar, garlic and as much chili oil as you can handlesweat it out, it's summerthat makes up Xi'an's noodle sauce. Served icy cold with crisp bean sprouts and cucumber slices, along with spongey gluten and a generous toss of fresh cilantro, the only fault with this dish is not being able to get the slippery noodles from your chopsticks to your mouth fast enough. Gluten haters can instead cool down with Xi'an's Mi Pi Cold Rice Noodles, introduced last summer and nearly as good as their gluten-full older siblings. These thin rice noodles tangle together in a cold, tangy sauce with just a few bean sprouts to add some crunchy texture.

Xi'an's noodles come with an ominous warning that takeout noodles will NOT taste as good as eating them fresh in the store, so plan your dining location appropriately.

Multiple locations in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan; website

Noodles with Mashed Sesame Sauce at Vanessa's Dumplings ($4) The sesame noodles at Vanessa's Dumplings are a bargain summer staple. Served cool and coated in nutty sauce, with a heap of carrots and cucumbers, these thick wheat noodles are worthy of replacing any summer sandwich and probably should at any and all picnics. Upgrade to a topping of homemade chili oil for $.46 for some extra heat.

Multiple locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn; website



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Design your own Cold Noodle Salad at Vien ($10.50) This unsuspecting order-at-the counter Vietnamese interpretation to Chipotle is a fantastic spot for a heaping portion of cold noodles. The chilled rice noodle base, made from thin vermicelli strands of rice noodle, serves as the perfect starting point for a customizable bowl topped with grilled ginger beef, seared turmeric tofu, lemongrass chicken, slow-cooked pork or spice roasted vegetables. Top with a variety of garnishes including spicy bird's eye chilies, fresh herbs and an avocado smash, i.e. guac, which is $1.50 extra.

Spicy and sweet sauces can be drizzled on top and portions are generous enough to rival Vien's Mexican-style chain competitor. Ingredients are sourced from local farms and producers, so you can feel good about eating the giant portion of cold noodle salad. Just a few blocks from the Hudson River, this takeout chilled noodle bowl comes picnic-ready.

220 Varick Street, (212) 255-8808; website



(Melissa Kravitz/Gothamist)

Cold Sesame Noodles at Han Dynasty ($7.95) It's hotter uptown and therefore the noodles are cooler. Well, kind of. Han Dynasty's uptown restaurant uses a thinner Taiwanese noodle in its cold sesame noodle dish, as opposed to the thicker noodles of Han Dynasty's East Village location. These more authentic noodles stay springier longer, and hold up to the thick coating of not-too-sweet peanut sauce. Think peanut butter toast, but cooler and really easy to shove in your mouth with chopsticks. Visit during happy hour, 5 -7 p.m. on weeknights, for $5 beers, $6 wine and $7 well drinks.

215 West 85th Street, (212) 390-8685; website

Hiyashi Chuka at Jin Ramen ($14) An unintentional twist on every Midwestern mom's favorite summer slaw with ramen noodles, this ramen salad is too good to bring to a potluck. Cold curly noodles are dressed in a lemon soy vinaigrette and twist well with the tomato, cucumber and bean sprout garnish. Topped with pickled ginger and tempura flakes for extra texture and flavor, diners can also opt for ham, tofu or chashu pork (+$2) to top the zesty cold noodle salad.

462 Amsterdam Avenue, (646) 657-0755 and 3183 Broadway, (646) 559-2862; website



(Facebook)

Naengmyun at Gammeeok ($13) Escape the sweaty streets of Herald Square with a visit to K-town 24-hour restaurant Gammeeok. Order a bowl of Naengmyun, which features homemade thin potato noodles bathing in an icy slushy of cold broth. Thin slices of cucumber, Korean pear, beef and a soft egg help break up the starchiness in this savory soup.

9 West 32nd Street, 2nd Floor, (212) 868-1180

Zaru Soba at Cocoron ($8.80) Homemade soba noodles are presented on a platter as tempting as a free stretch of beach on a hot summer day. Available with various toppings and sauces, Cocoron's magnificent noodles are best enjoyed in the buff, with a quick dip in bonita-based soba sauce stirred with your desired amount of wasabi and scallion. The pile of noodles is far too easy to devour, so pace yourself with an iced green tea before putting in a second order.

61 Delancey Street, (212) 925-5220; website



(Gabriele Stabile)

Chilled Spicy Noodles at Momofuku Noodle Bar ($14) This cold ramen dish brings on some heat with crumbly Sichuan sausage, but feel free to add more hot sauce if you need to sweat it out. Noodles are topped with cashews, which add a satisfying crunch and just enough greens to color your Instagram happy.

171 First Avenue, (212) 777-7773; website

Bun at Saiguette ($10.50) When it's too hot for pho, this casual Vietnamese joint within walking distance of Morningside, Riverside and Central Parks is perfect for a quick order of cold noodles. Bun, rice noodles served room temperature, is available with a variety of not-cold proteins, including spring rolls, grilled shrimp, pork belly and more, and is topped with very-cold toppings including bean sprouts, lettuce and cucumber. Pour a generous portion of nuoc chom sauce on top, mix it up, and you're in for a lovely symphony of flavors and textures. Pair with a bubble iced coffee, because summer.

935 Columbus Avenue, (212) 866-8886; website

Melissa Kravitz moved to New York City in 2009 and has been writing about food ever since. Her work can be seen on Thrillist, Mashable, Elite Daily, First We Feast and more. She eats mostly noodles and is working on a novel.
For years now, the city has said it will dial back arrests and prosecution of low-level marijuana cases: in 2014, Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bratton said the city would start handing out more tickets and summonses in place of arrests, and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said it would no longer prosecute most cases in which people were caught with amounts of marijuana under 25 grams. But according to the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP), it's all just lip service: earlier this month, the group found that arrests for the possession or sale of small amounts of marijuana had increased by nearly 34% in the first quarter of 2016, and in a new report out today, PROP is accusing the city's district attorneys of racially discriminatory practices in their prosecution of such offenses.

PROP obtained data from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, and the group's analysis of those numbers shows that in 2015, 27.8% of black defendants arrested in low-level marijuana cases were convicted and sentenced, compared to 25.8% Latino defendants, 12.6% Asian defendants, and 12% white defendants. The conviction rate citywide was 25.1%.

The disparities revealed through PROP's analysis were even starker in some boroughs: in Manhattan, for example, 43.8% of black defendants were convicted and sentenced, compared to 16.5% of white defendants, and on Staten Island, it's 52.9%, compared to 26.5%.

"The DAs' prosecutorial practices are reinforcing and rubber-stamping the racist arrest patterns of the NYPD in regard to low level marijuana infractions," said Bob Gangi, director of PROP. "92.5% of people the NYPD arrested last year for marijuana offenses were people of colorthat's their own numbers. There's already a stark racial bias, because the research shows that white people use and sell marijuana in equal or greater proportions to African-American and Latino people. The DAs, they reinforce that bias by prosecuting more severely African-American and Latino people, as compared to white people."

This report comes just a day after the Department of Investigation released its own findings that NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton's Broken Windows policing strategycracking down on issues such as public urination and excessive noisedoesn't correlate with a reduced rate in felony crime. But Gangi argued that while that report was significant, it didn't go far enough.

"They go very flabby when they talk about the racist nature of the Broken Windows practices," he said."They'll say that quality of life enforcement is practiced unevenly across the city, and they're in effect stating that there's a racial bias, but they don't call it out fully and they don't demand that it stop. When we put out these findings, it's to expose the racist bias among the police force, among the prosecutors, and among the courts, and to challenge the powers that be to stop these practices. Not to amend them, fix them, tinker with themto stop them."

PROP also looked at the rates that the DAs offer Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissalthe most lenient sanction available once a marijuana case is taken to prosecution, which allows charges to be dismissed and the case sealed so long as the defendant avoids contact with law enforcement for a year. They found that in Manhattan in 2015, 82% of white defendants in low-level marijuana cases received an ACD, while 50% of black defendants did, and in the Bronx, the breakdown was 81% compared to 62.7%. Citywide, 81.3% of white defendants received ACDs in 2015, compared to 68.5% of Latino defendants and 66% of black defendants. In every borough, white and Asian defendants received ACDs at higher rates than defendants of all other races, PROP found.

Two summers ago, Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson announced that he would effectively decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, dismissing any such cases prior to arraignment. That wouldn't include cases whose defendants were violent offenders, gang members, those with open warrants, or those smoking marijuana in public.

PROP analyzed the rates at which the city's DAs have declined to prosecute low-level marijuana arrests, and the group claims that the Brooklyn DA's office actually had the lowest rate: Thompson's office declined to prosecute just 0.4% of low-level marijuana arrests in 2015, compared to .5% in Queens, 1.6% in Manhattan, 3.1% in Staten Island, and 5.3% in the Bronx, according to PROP's analysis.

DA Thompson's office, however, says that PROP's analysis is a misrepresentation: the office screens all desk appearance tickets (which comprise the majority of low-level possession arrests), and, if they fall under the policy, declines to prosecute before the defendant's court appearance, and destroys the arrest records. As a result, those cases aren't reported to the State Division of Criminal Justice Services, so they were not included in the data that PROP analyzed. That would seem to account for the puzzling drop in decline-to-prosecute cases in Brooklyn from 2014 to 2015, as Thompson's policy went into effect: in 2014, the year the policy was announced, there were 843 cases, but last year, when it was fully in effect, there were just 23, as desk appearance tickets were no longer included in that figure. According to the raw data from DCJS, Thompson's office also dismissed 72% of low-level marijuana cases.

"This report is incomplete, misleading and misrepresents DA Thompson's progressive marijuana possession policy, which mostly applies to arrests processed as desk appearance tickets," a spokesperson for Thompson's office said. "In 2015, our office declined to prosecute over 900 of those DATs. The fact that the report completely omitted these stats and altogether ignored dismissals shows that its authors cherry-picked numbers that support their agenda and, by doing so, intentionally misled the public."

Gangi, in turn, argued that a desk appearance ticketin which an individual is given a court date for arraignment, rather than being processed through central bookingis an arrest like any other, and should be included in the figures the the DA sends to the state. If the Brooklyn DA did indeed decline to prosecute some 900 cases, he said, it would be "a welcome thing, but it's not clear from what they're saying that is what they are in fact doing."

A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA's office said that "in low-level marijuana misdemeanor cases in Manhattan, prosecutors rely on a standardized process to guide case dispositions. This process does not take into account a defendants race or ethnicity, but does factor in a defendants previous arrest record. Adjournments in contemplation of dismissal or dismissals in the interests of justice are offered to all eligible first- and second-time arrestees charged with misdemeanor or violation possession of marijuana."

The Queens DA's office declined to comment, and neither the Bronx nor Staten Island DA's offices responded to our request. We'll update if they do.
Earlier this week, I spent a solid half hour crying after I read about the death of Snowy, the adorable and very photogenic cub of famed Grand Teton National Park's Grizzly 399. Nothing can bring Snowy back, but it's good to know our own iconic local bear's doing finePedals, the famed New Jersey black bear frequently sighted walking around like a human, was spotted in Oak Ridge this week. Bless you, Pedals, bless you.

Pedals ambled into our hearts in 2014, after videos surfaced showing him wandering around on his hind legs in NJ neighborhoods. Apparently he hasn't been seen since last December, and last year experts were concerned he wouldn't make it through the winter, sparking a fundraiser that attempted to send him to a wildlife sanctuary . Luckily, Pedals is a fighter, and he seems to be doing quite well. A spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection told reporters he'll likely make it through next winter, too.

Though Pedals's humanlike ambling habits are adorable, there is a sad story behind all the cutenessit appears he has some injuries to his front paws, hence all the walking upright.

Keep on keeping on, Pedals!
Veteran NYPD officer Masood Syed says that he was suspended without pay earlier this week after he refused to shave his beard to one millimetereven though he's maintained a longer beard for "nearly all" of his decade on the force. A practicing Muslim from Queens, Syed has filed a federal class-action lawsuit alleging that the NYPD's beard policyan amalgamation of guidebook rules and unwritten accommodationsviolates his Constitutional rights.

Former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly revised the department's patrol guide in 2008 to prohibit facial hair, making exceptions for undercover officers andon a case-by-case basiscops seeking religious or medical accommodation. Those exempt from the no-beard policy are often allowed facial hair up to one millimeter in length, according to the suit.

"It's a bizarre thing where [officers] are limited to a beard of one millimeter by this unwritten policy," Syed's attorney Luna Droubi told us. "If you're undercover and you want to fit in with a biker gang or do Muslim surveillance, that's fine. But if it's for a religious accommodation, that's not okay."

Captain James Kobel of the Equal Employment Opportunity office allegedly told Syed last summer that his beard was against policy, as it exceeded one millimeter (the equivalent of one day's stubble, according to Droubi). Syed refused, prompting a series of meetings with superiors. Syed made a formal exemption request in Decembermaintaining his beard all the whileand didn't hear anything more on the matter until this week, when Kobel gave him an ultimatum, according to the suit.

An emergency hearing was held in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, the NY Times reports. The NYPD has been ordered to keep paying Syedwho's assigned to a unit that handles internal disciplinary proceedingsuntil his next court date on July 8th. Ultimately, Syed hopes the suit will protect the rights of about 100 officers seeking religious accommodation.

In June 2013, a Hasidic police cadet alleged that he had been fired for refusing to shave his beard. Cadet Fishel Litzman sued the NYPD, and a judge found the policy in violation of the First Amendment.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However Lawrence Byrne, NYPD deputy commissioner for legal matters, told the NY Times that the beard policy was in accordance with federal guidelines for gas masks. We remain the No. 1 terrorist target in the world, he said. And we need to have all 36,000 of our officers able to respond.

But Droubi says that her client was certified to wear a gas mask, despite his beard. "I can't speak to why they are suddenly making this a big deal," she said. "But there's a lot of inherent discrimination that can be masked under words that sound neutral."

"The NYPD in some ways represents the city, and it's not representing the city accurately if it's not allowing all of its Muslim, Sikh and Jewish officers to present their religious beliefs," she added.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the child who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. I said the mother was to blame, because she should have been watching the child at all times. The repercussions from that article were momentous: I lost some friends, including a dear one whom I miss and will likely not see again. I was asked to be on CNN, which was pretty darn amazing, because they sent a limousine and had someone do my makeup (which I expect will happen again only when I die). And I got more hate mail than I usually do, which  believe me  is saying a lot. To put it in terms you might understand, imagine I were Charles Manson and the only people with typewriters were related to Sharon Tate. Then double the number.

So I was a little reluctant to weigh in on a similar situation that occurred this week, one that was overshadowed by the horrific massacre in Orlando, Florida, at the Pulse nightclub and which had eerie echoes of what has come to be known as Gorillagate. A 2-year-old child from Nebraska who was vacationing with his parents was snatched by an alligator and dragged to his death. According to reports, the toddler was standing in about a foot of water within arms reach of his parents, who at the time were relaxing by the manmade lagoon at Walt Disneys Grand Floridian resort.

And yet, it occurred to me that there are levels of negligence, just as there are levels of grief and levels of expectation, and they need to be addressed even if that opens you up to criticism. Because, frankly, not all situations are the same, and not all parents are equally at fault for the injuries to their children. And, frankly, losing your child forever insulates you from the type of criticism that would otherwise be justified if, hypothetically, your toddler fell into a gorilla exhibit because you werent looking, the gorilla had to be killed and you got your child back to hold and love forever.

Im sorry, but as vocal as I was against the mother in the gorilla case, I cant find it in my heart to say anything negative about the grieving mother from Nebraska. You probably will have the same reaction several Facebook acquaintances had at my refusal to attack this mother for negligence. One person suggested in a message that I was gun-shy from the reaction to my last piece and was backing down. This, ironically, was someone who attacked me for being mean to the Cincinnati mom.

Someone else pointed out that the parents from Nebraska were white, letting that comment hang there in the air like an invisible noose, the better to hang myself with because of my racism. Youll all remember that the Cincinnati mom was black, and there were accusations that people were critical because she wasnt the perfect white mommy from the suburbs.

I expected that reaction, even though I wasnt even aware of the race of the Cincinnati mom until Id already burned my bridges and accused her of being Negligent Mother of the Century. And the race of the parents at Disney didnt even factor into my calculations, despite what some might think. A bad mommy is a bad mommy, regardless of what she looks like. An endangered child is an endangered child, regardless of his DNA or cultural makeup.

But these are different cases.

In the first place, the mother in Cincinnati was not watching her child. Eyewitness reports established that she had turned away, and when you do that at the edge of a primate preserve where there is apparently a rather flimsy fence, you shouldnt be surprised when your child wriggles away from you and ends up where he shouldnt be. You especially shouldnt be surprised if, moments before, the child has said, Mommy, I want to swim with the gorilla.

But when you pay a lot of money to go to a resort, and you are told you are permitted to hang out by the shores of a manmade lagoon, and the only signs of warning say No Swimming, it is less reasonable to assume that you or your children are in any danger. Yes, Florida is known for its alligators, but if you are from Nebraska, you wouldnt necessarily have that sixth sense about the insidious ability of alligators to infiltrate safe spaces.

Beyond this lawyerly discourse on foreseeability, the biggest difference in the cases is that one child is alive and that childs mother caused the death of an endangered and beloved gorilla, and another child is dead. One child will grow up, and the other suffered the type of trauma that stabs the heart and sears the brain with nightmarish imagery. One childs adventure will be an interesting footnote in his high school yearbook, and another child will remain forever frozen in toddler snapshots.

My point is that there are tragedies, and there are tragedies, and the ridiculous commentaries from pretentious people about how the Ohio mother was being crucified (give me a break) made me realize that self-delusion is the last refuge of hypersensitive parents. Here, though, is a true tragedy, not a fabricated one, and we owe the Nebraska family what we absolutely did not owe the mother of the Cincinnati tot: space to grieve, and our prayers.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Readers may send her email at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
BIGFORK  First Questa, a 51-foot Q-class sloop built in 1929, was hoisted into the air above Flathead Lake by a crane and deftly deposited in the water  but not before boat builder Jon Derry splashed a glassful of single-malt Irish whiskey across her bow.

Youd usually do it after it was in the water, but I was afraid Id be busy by then, Derry said later. He forwent the champagne bottle christening, he explained, because that requires a bottle made specially to break easily, and trying to locate one while he was focused on getting Questa ready for launching, he felt, was a bit beyond his organizational skills.

Next, Questas 62-foot-tall mast was swung through the sky by crane operator Dan Harmon of Kalispell, and bolted into place.

Then it was Caitlin Greens turn to fly.

Skipper Scott Plum attached Greens harness to a wire and used the winch on the mast to raise her into the sky, where she freed the straps that had lifted the mast into place.

Id have stayed up a lot longer, Green decided after completing one of the more unusual duties of her relatively new summer job.

All that was left to do  besides attaching the boom, and sails, and probably a hundred other things  was to let Questa drink up the waters of Flathead while three bilge pumps peed them right back into the lake.

Shes a wooden boat, and shes going to be thirsty this year, Plum said.

High and dry

Its been a decade since Questa, one of the most impressive parts of the fleet at Averills Flathead Lake Lodge, has touched Flatheads waters. She was taken out for major repairs 10 years ago, a process rudely interrupted by the Great Recession, and a long time for a wooden boat to be high and dry.

For the last two months, sprinklers set under her hull have done their best to remind Questa of the liquid environment she was built for, 87 years ago in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Itll take all day for her to swell up once shes back in the lake, Plum said on the Wednesday morning of her re-launch. Then well have to go out in the wind and lean her over to get the planks up high wet. It will take a few sails to get her back to her old self.

Flathead Lake Lodge has not been without a 51-foot Q-class sloop during the 10 years Questa was getting a new deck, deck beams, cabin top and a host of other things uncovered during the work.

NorEaster V, a similar-looking, yet remarkably different, Q-boat built a year earlier in 1928, is also a part of the lodges fleet.

This summer marks yet another reunion of the sister sailboats, designed by L. Francis Herreshoff.

How the boats, which raced each other in the Atlantic Ocean 80-some years ago, wound up in Flathead Lake is a good story. It involves an airplane, a man who made his fortune in trash, and a bit of detective work by guests at the resort and dude ranch.

Well let Doug Averill, whose father Les started Flathead Lake Lodge in 1945, explain it.

Averill's story

In the early 1980s, wanting to build up his flying hours, Doug Averill took a couple of friends on a plane trip back to the Midwest.

We landed and went for a couple of drinks at the Milwaukee Yacht Club on Lake Michigan, Averill says. We met this old fellow who was enthralled with Montana  I think he made his money in garbage collecting. He was showing us this neat old boat he had, and he said, Im going to sell this to you.

I was kind of like, Oh, sure. It was just a bar room conversation.

Months later, one of the other people on the trip, lodge manager Kevin Barrows, went back to Iowa to visit his parents. He called and told Averill that he wasnt going to believe this, but Barrows had just seen what he was sure was the same boat being hauled down an interstate highway in the general direction of Montana.

Sure enough, a few days later the junk man pulled into Flathead Lake Lodge with Questa. Averill negotiated a price with the owner, a figure that may or may not surprise you.

We got it for $11,000, Averill says. We made up for it in restoration. I dont even want to calculate what weve put in it the last 32 years.

Ahoy, Nor-Easter V

So the lodge and dude ranch, in 1984, came to own a sailboat built the year of the Wall Street Crash.

It wasnt long before an older gentleman arrived to vacation at Flathead Lake Lodge, and was surprised to find Questa moored there.

He had sailed on it as a kid, Averill says. Hed watched it compete against the NorEaster.

Questa and NorEaster V were the only Q-class boats ever designed by Herreschoff, a naval architect better known for several clipper-bowed ketches, including the 72-foot Ticonderoga.

We asked all our guests to keep an eye out for NorEaster, Averill says.

The odds were long. In 2003, WoodenBoat magazine said by one estimate, only 67 Q boats were built between the turn of the century and the Great Depression, which ended their construction.

By the time Averill bought Questa, only about 16 were said to survive.

With the lead built into their keels -- Questa has more than 5 tons of it, according to Derry A lot of them got scrapped during World War II to make bullets, Averill says.

But in 1991 NorEaster V ,which had also spent many years on the Great Lakes, turned up a continent away from where shed been built, on Puget Sound.

Some hippie was living on her, Averill told WoodenBoat in 2003. She had no mast, just a stovepipe coming through the deck. I went to see her, and she was quite a fright.

The mast had snapped off when a previous owner had been hit by a freighter.

Shed had a hard life, Averill says.

In 1991 he bought this one, too.

Major rehab

NorEaster V required a lot more initial work to make her seaworthy again.

We replaced 100 ribs, put in all-new bronze screws, Averill says. It got a new deck and a new cabin. We worked with a marine architect so it was perfectly done to marine standards.

The two sloops have not been restored to their original design.

They were designed to be sailed by a crew, Derry says. We had a different purpose, and made modifications to accommodate passengers.

Several winches that had been mounted on the cabin top, which allowed crew members to pull lines from virtually anywhere on the deck, were moved back to where the helmsman could handle them himself.

They remain exciting boats to sail.

Theyre very dynamic, Derry says. They were built to heel. That varnished rail you see there (that frames the deck) will be in the water when you get up to speed. When you think of the forces needed to tip 11,500 pounds of lead that much, its really something.

Universal rule

Q-class boats were designed to the Universal rule, Dan Spurr explained in his 2003 WoodenBoat article, same as the J-boats that raced for the Americas Cup.

Derry, a former stone mason and carpenter who spent years learning the craft of wooden boat building in Maine, clarified it further.

To meet the requirements of a class, he said, designers needed to come up with the same answer at the end of a very long formula that allows for widely divergent hull shapes and sail area.

And so NorEaster V, the same length as Questa, has a waterline that is two feet shorter than her sister, and a beam that is eight inches narrower.

It has the same sail area (as Questa), but weighs a ton less, Derry said. In light air, NorEaster sails faster. Questa was built for 15 to 20 knot breezes, but NorEaster can equal that speed in a 10-knot wind.

I read an article that said designing sailboats back then was like designing spacecraft today, Averill said. When it was built, people pooh-poohed the NorEaster for having the worst lines, but it turned out to be the best.

Derry and a team of craftsman that included Ken Beiser of Western Woodwrights in Whitefish, metalworker Jeffrey Funk and machinist Eric Wolfe, both of Bigfork, spent almost half of the last 10 years getting Questa ready for re-launch.

Ill bet there were at least 20 people within a 40-mile radius of the lodge involved, including suppliers, Derry said. Plus a naval architect in Connecticut.

Next generation

Caitlin Green, the young woman who found herself dangling several stories above Questas deck Wednesday unhooking straps from the mast, will be one of the lodge employees sailing the sloops this summer.

We like to train the kids to sail, because we like to hand the tiller over briefly to passengers who want to try it, Averill says. Its so much easier for a kid to hand it over as opposed to some crusty old sailor.

Green, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, has sailed since her father began teaching her when she was 8 years old.

But never on this cool of a boat, she says. Im ridiculously excited.

In addition to taking guests of the lodge and dude ranch out, Questa and NorEaster V make daily trips open to the general public.

Years ago, Averill says, two of the younger employees had a group of women who were headed to the Bigfork Playhouse that evening out on Questa.

They got caught in a microburst, with 80 mile-an-hour winds, he says. They dropped the sails and turned on the motor, but werent getting closer to shore.

We were up on the mountainside on horseback doing a barbecue for the guests when we got word the Questa was in trouble.

Down the mountain they rode, into a power boat they climbed, and off they went to the rescue in our cowboy hats and cowboy boots, Averill says. You should have seen the look on the ladies faces when these cowboys got on board to put the sails up and get them back to shore.

Today, Averill says, only eight of the Q-class sailboats are known to survive. The only two designed by L. Francis Herreshoff will be back together again this summer  Harmon will return in the coming days to lift NorEaster V back into the lake.

There, in the Flathead Valley, the beautiful old sloops will sail on toward their 90th year on earth.
With the presidential election coming up, its important that you know about the former president who Republicans consider as one of our best, Ronald Reagan. For this purpose, Ive compiled a list of articles and their internet links, which Ill post on the letters to the editor blog at the Herald & Review.

Herere a few examples of what youll learn:

In the 1950s, while working as a spokesman for General Electric, Reagan claimed business regulations and spending on public social programs was wealth redistribution, and said if it didnt stop, it would destroy the capitalism that was the genius of America.

Campaigning for president in the 1970s, Reagan told a tale about an African-American woman from Chicago, claiming she had 80 aliases, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and had claimed over $150,000 in government benefits. The woman who Reagan made famous was convicted of only using two aliases, used to collect $8,000.

President Reagan supported apartheid in South Africa and made it a priority to fight domestic and international divestment efforts; efforts that later helped to pressure the South African government to enter into negotiations and free Nelson Mandela.

Reagans supply-side economics, which is based on massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and doubling the Pentagon budget in peace time are the main reasons the national debt tripled from $934 billion to $2.7 trillion during his time in office.

Reagan lied by denying wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra scandal, publicly declaring, We did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.

Reagan spent WWII in Hollywood, but in 1983 told the Israel Prime Minister that he was at the liberation of Nazi death camps.

Ron Adams, Decatur
DECATUR  A 55-year-old Illiopolis man is being held in the Macon County Jail on $105,000 bond after he allegedly drove north on southbound lanes, forcing two sheriff's deputies into ditches to avoid head-on collisions.

About 4:30 a.m. June 5, deputies drove south on Lincoln Memorial Parkway, just south of U.S. 36 near Harristown, on a report of a reckless driver.

A white Buick was seen northbound approaching Pebble Springs Road, traveling about 30 mph, said a probable cause affidavit by deputy Jessie Owens.

As the Buick was within about 50 yards of Owens' southbound squad car, it drifted into his lane, causing Owens to swerve completely into the ditch to avoid striking the vehicle, Owens wrote in his statement.

The Buick's driver-side tires were on the fog line, at the west edge of the road, as it barely missed the squad car.

As deputy Cassandra Barnes approached in a squad car behind Owens, the Buick driver continued to drive north in the southbound lanes toward deputy Barnes's squad car.

She took evasive action, backing up at a high rate of speed and going into the ditch on the west side of the roadway to avoid being struck by the vehicle.

Owens made a U-Turn, activated his emergency lights and siren and followed the Buick as it reached a speed of 70 mph, continuing north in southbond lanes, running through a stop sign at Harristown Boulevard. When the vehicle arrived at the dead end of Lincoln Memorial Parkway, it turned east, then south across a bean field.

After going airborne while crossing a culvert, the driver stopped the Buick and fled on foot before officers arrived on the scene. A search of the vehicle, registered to Marion Bradham, turned up two bags containing a total of 3 grams of methamphetamine, as well as several meth ingredients and packaging, including lithium batteries that had been stripped open.

Bradham was arrested about 10:30 a.m. Monday at a Springfield construction company. He had been identified as the Buick driver by his driver's license photo.

He is being held on charges including methamphetamine possession, aggravated reckless driving and resisting a peace officer.

Bradham has 15 prior criminal convictions, including a 2000 conviction in U.S. Court for methamphetamine manufacture, for which he was sentenced to 41 months in prison; a 2006 Class X felony conviction in Sangamon County for participation in meth manufacture, six years in prison; and a 2007 Sangamon County meth precursor conviction, three years.

In his most recent case, he is due in circuit court for his arraignment by Tuesday.
DECATUR  The annual Showchoir Camps of America in session this week at Millikin University isn't just about blending voices and synchronizing choreography.

Sessions offered right after lunch Monday through Thursday are designed to let the 652 participants, ages 11 to 18, branch out.

Nick Clark, a sophomore at Mount Zion High School, discovered that by trying tai chi he was almost literally doing that, when all he was looking for was a place to rest muscles sore from rehearsing all morning.

Workshop leader Denise Myers, a professor of theater and dance at Millikin, explained that the five elements of Chinese philosophy are fire, water, metal, earth and wood, the latter of which heralds the beginning of life and seeks always to grow and expand.

It felt awkward at times, but I enjoyed it, said Nick, 15. It made me very aware of my feelings, I guess.

This is the 37th annual showchoir camp in Decatur, started in 1980 by Millikin alumni Dwight Jordan, a native of Blue Mound who graduated in 1976, and Susan Moninger, a 1978 graduate originally from Flossmoor. Both live in Naperville.

We love coming back to campus, Jordan said. It's exciting to see what it's becoming.

The veteran choreographer was referring to construction under way to transform the former Staley Library to take on student center functions under the name University Commons at Staley Library, scheduled to open for the 2017-18 academic year.

None of the work seemed to be putting a crimp in anyone's style, with the camp starting on Sunday with a performance by Sound Check, an Aurora show choir based at Waubonsie Valley High School, continuing with a visit from Broadway and TV actor Brent Barrett and concluding Saturday with group performances.

This year's campers and choir directors represent 25 states and include Jeff Gemar, director of the Glenwood High School Titan Fever Show Choir in Chatham.

On Wednesday, one of his tasks was to lead a team-building exercise at the front of Kirkland Fine Arts Center involving a human-size game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

This activity is about teamwork, but the special sessions are not just about group, Gemar said. They also teach individual skills students can take back to their schools.

Myers pointed out that Barrett incorporated tai chi into his performance Monday evening on the very same Kirkland stage the class was using.

Didn't he hold this house? she asked. He was amazing.

Margo Lanier, a 17-year-old senior at Mount Zion High School, concluded that the ancient Chinese tradition of mindful movement is both similar to the yoga her mother teaches and different.

It's not as much about meditation as I thought, but I do feel calmer than I did before, she said.
DECATUR  A new president has been selected for Richland Community College after a search to replace former president Gayle Saunders.

The college announced Thursday that Cristobal Valdez has been selected for the position following a visit to Decatur last week that included a public forum. Valdez is currently president of Central Wyoming College.

He was one of two finalists interviewed for the job. The other was Melissa Denardo, who is currently provost at the Community College of Beaver County in Pennsylvania.

Valdez is a Montana native who has been at Central Wyoming College since July 2014. Prior to that, he was president of Edison Community College in Ohio.

He and his wife have four children, the eldest in college, with the others in middle and high school.

Saunders retired on Feb. 29 after 15 years at Richland. Former President Chuck Novak has served in an interim role in the meantime.

Valdez is expected to start at Richland on Aug. 1.

For more on this story, see Friday's Herald & Review.
Decatur City Council member Bill Faber wants to put a referendum on the November ballot that would require the council to approve the firing of any police or fire chiefs.

Thats a bad idea and one that the council should dismiss immediately.

Faber said at Mondays meeting that the unexpected firing of Police Chief Brad Sweeney has wounded the community. Sweeney was fired in February and sued the city to get his job back. His suit has been dismissed, although Sweeney is expected to appeal.

"When a body politic suffers a wound, the wound must be addressed, or else infection will set in. Action is needed, not evasion," Faber said. "As a community, and as a council, we must not turn our heads and pretend nothing has happened."

While there are many that believe Sweeney was fired unjustly, or that the situation wasnt handled properly, there is no need to undermine a form of government that has served the city well for several years. Fabers proposal would be a step away from professional management of the city and a step toward more involvement by the council in the day-to-day operations of the city.

As council member Dana Ray stated, the council does not work with department heads on a daily basis and the measure would undermine the city managers position. "We really need to equip the manager to do his job and to do it properly."

Under the city manager form of government, the elected council sets policy and directs the city manager on several issues. But the council is not supposed to be involved in the day-to-day operation of the city. The council sets the budget for street repairs, for example, but should leave it to the professionals on when and how those streets get repaired.

The same concept holds true for personnel issues. In the current form of government, it is the city managers responsibility to hire and fire department heads, including the police and fire chief. The council hires the city manager and if the citys operations arent being done properly the council should address those issues with the city manager. Every form of government has its flaws and each form of government is dependent on the people that work at it every day. But the manager form of government does limit cronyism and political influence and it has served Decatur well for several years.

It is certainly true that there are people in the community upset about the firing of Sweeney, although it cant be described as a groundswell.

Fabers proposal is a blunt instrument approach to an issue that is well on its way to being resolved. Faber is expected to bring the issue up at the next council meeting where it will need the support of two council members to obtain a study session on the issue.

The remaining council members would be wise to let this issue drop. Its a waste of time while the city has other, more pressing, issues that need to be addressed.
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Around 40 people marched in the Armenian town of Vanadzor in defense of Jirayr Sefilyan who was arrested the other day in Yerevan on charges of illegal arms trafficking and possession.

The demonstrators marched towards the center of town carrying signs proclaiming Freedom to Jirayr Sefilyan and Death to the Traitors.

Organized by members of the New Armenia and Founding Parliament branches in Lori Province, members of the HAK (Armenian National Congress) and the Heritage Party Lori office branches joined the march.

According to Razmik Evoyan, representing the Founding Parliaments Lori office, Sefilyans arrest was due to the fact that he revealed the traitorous nature of the government during the April four-day war along the Karabakh Line of Contact, and that Sefilyan was planning to organize a national resistance committee.

HAK Vanadzor Council member Ashot Manoukyan told Hetq that he is concerned that the government is preparing to concede some of occupied territories and its is trying to isolate those whom they believe pose a serious risk.

The marchers stated that the charges levied against Sefilyan are unsubstantiated.

We were waiting for them to say that Sefilyan wanted to seize the Eiffel Tower, joked Evoyan, a reference to the fact that the government had initially stated that Sefilyan and the alleged arms trafficking group were planning to seize the TV antenna tower in Yerevan.

Manoukyan raised the alarm that the indifferent bystanders watching the march should realize that they too might be detained at any moment if the government deems it necessary.

He said that the government had crossed all permissible borders and was using the law as a club to suppress those who spoke out.

Vardan Vardanyan, a Founding Parliament MP, said the indifference of the people was due to the fact that they were more concerned with mere survival.

Today, people are in a daze and most are just trying to get by, Vardanyan said and went on to criticize the intelligentsia of Armenia for not speaking out in the name of the people.

Upon reaching the town square, the demonstrators remained there for about an hour.

Their hope is that similar protests will be held in other Armenian towns in order to hasten the release of Sefilyan.
Many Madison residents expressed frustration Wednesday afternoon over videos that surfaced online showing Madison police officers arresting 18-year-old Genele Laird Tuesday afternoon.

Lue Lueck, who co-owns Ritual Barbers near the Capitol, saw the video and said he was bothered by the amount of force the officers used while arresting Laird.

"It could have been a bad day for her. She could have been upset. They could have handled that much better," he said. "There's never a need to be that violent with someone."

Lueck, who is white, said he thought the encounter demonstrated larger issues regarding the way police officers are trained and said officers kneeing Laird and using a taser was excessive.

Madison resident Jenny Schienle, also white, said she was "shocked" when she first saw the video, although said she tried to not jump to conclusions about who was right or wrong, as the video footage doesn't show what led to the arrest.

Schienle described the Madison as a "somewhat racist community". She said the uproar over Laird's arrest could be a catalyst for the community members to recognize and address the city's problems with racial inequality.
A headquarters in Downtown Madison is off the table for Summit Credit Union.

The company previously considered a spot in the Capitol East corridor, but the high cost of building Downtown will push the company out of the citys center and into the suburbs, said Kim Sponem, the companys president and CEO.

Sponem said conversations about moving to the 1000 block of East Washington Avenue were preliminary, and that Summit has been simultaneously looking at several locations as it searches for future headquarters.

The new space would bring together the companys administrative employees across the Madison area, including some in Waunakee and Sun Prairie. The building would also be used as a training center, Sponem said.

Sponem said with the rate the company has been growing, itll likely be out of space at its current offices by 2020. Summit currently has about 478 employees.

Summit merged with Greater Milwaukee Credit Union in 2014 and Educational Employees Credit Union in 2015. Now, its the second-largest credit union in the state, with $2.4 billion in assets.

The business doesnt have a set date for moving into new headquarters, Sponem said.

When we find a space that will work for us, we will then put together the timeline, she said.

Had the company, currently at 4800 American Parkway in Madison, moved to the Near East Side location, it would have needed to construct a parking ramp since there arent any others in the area, which would have been a large additional cost.

We didnt want our staff driving around the neighborhood looking for parking, Sponem said.

The proposed plan on East Washington Avenue involved Summit and Stone House Development building a 10-story, 140,000-square-foot headquarters, townhouses and a 420-vehicle parking structure on the 1000 block, right next to an 11-story Stone House redevelopment planned for the west end of the same block.

Summit leaders looked into receiving tax incremental financing from the city for the project, but she said the company wouldnt have received as much funding as it would have liked due to the constraints with the way the city distributes TIF.

I feel like the TIF calculations for the city of Madison are much more generous for those building residential apartments, she said.

Ald. Ledell Zellers, 2nd District, who represents parts of the Capitol East corridor, said community members showed a lot of enthusiasm over the possibility of Summit moving into the area, especially because of the additional jobs the company would bring.

Still, she said some residents were concerned with the large amount of parking needed and the high traffic the headquarters would create.

Zellers said she has no concerns about developers being able to fill the space. She said shed ideally like to see an employer move into the area.

Im disappointed about Summit, she said. But Im hopeful we can get something in there.
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
A tip last week helped Sauk County drug agents nab two people on drug charges.

Sheriff Chip Meister said in a news release that the Sauk County Drug Task Force received a tip Friday that an individual would be transporting heroin from Madison to Cazenovia.

Around 3 p.m., deputies pulled over the suspects vehicle for unrelated traffic violations and deployed a drug sniffing dog, which detected the odor of narcotics, Meister said.

Deputies allegedly seized 2.3 grams of heroin, packaging material, heroin related paraphernalia, and arrested two people: 22-year-old Trevor Honer and his passenger, 32-year-old David Frey, both of Cazenovia.

Both were arrested for heroin and drug paraphernalia possession. Frey also was charged with bail jumping because he was free on bond in a Dane County case.

Frey was released on a $500 signature bond and is due in court July 26. Honer was released on a $250 signature bond and is due in court July 28.
What started as an apparent case of mistaken domestic abuse led to battery charges for two Juneau County men.

Tyler J. McKay, 23, of Necedah, and Gene E. Sheppard, 26, of Mauston, face charges of substantial battery and disorderly conduct. McKay also faces a charge of bail jumping. The battery charge has a maximum sentence of up to three years and six months in prison.

According to the criminal complaint, on June 10 two police officers were dispatched to East State Street and Hickory Street to deal with a fight in progress.

When they arrived at the scene they found a man and woman on ground with blood on them.

The woman said she could not remember what happened because she was intoxicated and had memory issues from a previous accident.

A witness near the scene said they saw the man hit and throw the woman to the ground, and then multiple people came to the scene to intervene  this account appears to be inaccurate.

Another witness stated someone from the bar said the man had thrown the woman down on the sidewalk.

The day following the incident, police located video camera surveillance footage of the event in the parking lot.

The video showed the man and woman holding hands as they walked westbound on State Street.

While walking, the woman attempted to pull away from the man to walk to the bar. The officer said it appeared the man pulled the woman back in an attempt to take her home as she was intoxicated. They then observe the woman slapping and punching the man multiple times.

When the man pulls at the woman, the two of them fall to the ground. A group of people can be seen running towards the man and woman  including McKay and Sheppard.

McKay and Sheppard proceeded to punch the man multiple times.

When officers arrested McKay, he told them he believed the man had thrown the woman to the ground. He said the first punch he gave the man knocked him out.

Sheppard refused to give a statement when he was arrested.

McKay will meet with the Juneau County District Attorney at 9 a.m. June 30 for a pre-trial conference. Sheppard is due in Juneau County Court at 9 a.m. July 13 for his initial appearance.
A fight that began outside a Rock Springs bar Saturday resulted in the serious injury of one man, and criminal charges against another.

Prosecutors say 33-year-old Patrick G. Nodolf of Rock Springs intervened shortly after midnight in a fight outside the Flood Zone Bar & Grill.

One of the two brawlers told a Sauk County Sheriffs Department deputy that during a break from the fighting, he witnessed Nodolf approach his opponent and grab him around the neck, according to the criminal complaint.

Nodolf allegedly then punched the man in the face, knocking him unconscious and causing him to hit his head on the concrete sidewalk. The witness told the deputy he was unsure if the unconscious man had said anything to Nodolf before the punch was thrown.

When interviewed by a sheriffs sergeant, Nodolf allegedly said the man who had been losing the fight became upset when he separated the two. Nodolf reported that he punched the man because he had become verbally abusive.

When authorities arrived, the unconscious man was on the ground, bleeding from the head in a womans lap. The woman told investigators that the victim had vomited and urinated himself.

The victim was placed on a backboard with his head stabilized and transported to a local hospitals emergency room. There, a doctor told investigators that his condition was very serious, that he had a cracked skull and his brain was bleeding. The victim was transported to the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, according to the complaint.

Nodolf was released on a $1,000 signature bond, and is due to appear in court July 27.
A June 12 stabbing incident near Richland Center has resulted in charges against one man, with police still investigating the case.

Jerome Lux, 59, of Richland Center was charged in Richland County Circuit Court on Wednesday with battery, trespassing and disorderly conduct for his role in a fight with Tom Wagner on Wagner's property in the town of Marshall. He was released on a cash bond.

The Sheriff's Office did not indicate what charges if any would be filed against Wagner.

Sheriff Jim Bindl told the State Journal the case is still under investigation.

According to the Sheriff's Office:

Lux and a passenger in his vehicle were driving on Cribbin Hill Road in the town of Marshall on June 12, when Lux saw Wagner outside in his yard.

Lux stopped in front of Wagner's property and got out of the vehicle, telling the passenger he was "Going to end this once and for all," and that she should drive away.

"Lux then climbed over a locked gate and entered the Wagner property," the report said. "Tom Wagner was in his yard and Lux approached Wagner on foot."

A fight ensued, with both getting hurt, Lux more seriously than Wagner.

Lux was found in the road suffering from life-threatening stab wounds to his chest and neck, while Wagner was found injured in his driveway. Both were taken to a local hospital, with Lux transferred by Med Flight to UW Hospital in Madison and Wagner treated and released.

Court records show Lux got a harrassment restraining order against Wagner in 2013. Wagner also had a harrassment restraining order against him by Robert Bailey in 2009.
A Madison man charged with trying to get into Syria from Turkey to join the Islamic State terrorist group will plead guilty in August to a charge that has been pending against him for more than a year, U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil said Thursday.

An agreement in principle has been reached with Joshua Van Haften, 35, to plead guilty in August to attempting to provide support to terrorists, Vaudreuil said, but details of the agreement are still being worked out. The deal must also be approved by the U.S. Department of Justices National Security Division, he said.

The plea hearing on Aug. 12, before U.S. District Judge James Peterson, was set during a brief hearing Thursday before Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker. A February jury trial was also scheduled in case an agreement cant be finalized, Vaudreuil said.

Van Haften was charged in April 2015 with attempting to cross from Turkey into Syria to join IS and was arrested in Chicago after he returned from Turkey, where he had spent time in custody. Court documents state that Van Haften was to meet a contact to take him into Syria, but nobody appeared, and he ended up getting a ride back to Istanbul.

There had been some debate as to whether Van Haften was competent to stand trial in the case, but an examination concluded in January that he was competent. After consulting with a defense expert, Van Haftens lawyer, Joseph Bugni, decided last week not to contest the findings of the competency examination.

The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years, but Vaudreuil said that federal sentencing guidelines applicable to Van Haftens case are still being researched.
A 45-year-old female pedestrian died Wednesday after being struck by a vehicle on Highway 30 while attempting to escort a bird off the road, Madison police said.

The incident happened around 2:30 p.m. in the eastbound lanes of Highway 30 between Interstate 90/94 and Highway 51. Police said the driver who struck the woman is cooperating with the investigation.

The eastbound lanes were closed for about three hours after the incident, police said.
A Richland Center man has been arrested for allegedly providing prescription drugs to a person who almost died from an overdose.

Harrison Schwichtenberg, 25, was tentatively charged with delivery of a Schedule IV drug, which is a felony, police said.

Police Chief Lucas Clements said the victim bought the pills from Schwichtenberg which led to the near-fatal overdose at a Richland Center residence late last week.

"At the time of his arrest, Schwichtenberg was out on bond for a previous arrest for alleged manufacture and delivery of non-narcotics and possession of a controlled substance," Clements said.

The investigation that led to Schwichtenberg's arrest was conducted by Richland Center police and the Richland-Iowa-Grant Drug Task Force.
The amount of state money spent on each student using a private school voucher has increased by about 14 percent since 2010, according to a recent state memo.

At the same time, the amount of money the state spends on each public school student has decreased by about 4 percent, according to a memo released this week by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau at the request of Sen. Janet Bewley, D-Ashland.

During the 2010-11 school year, the state spent $5,318 per public school student.

This past school year, the state spent $5,108. In that time, the number of public school students decreased from 858,205 to 854,419.

The amount of state money dedicated to each school voucher increased from $6,442 in the 2010-11 school year to $7,214 for students in grades K-8 and $7,860 for high school students this past school year  an increase of about 14 percent when using a weighted average of the K-8 and high school payments, according to the memo.

In that time, the Republican-controlled Legislature expanded school vouchers to include schools in Racine and across the state. Previously, school vouchers were only available to be used by students living in Milwaukee.

The 2015-16 school year was the first year school districts experienced a loss in state aid to pay for students living in district boundaries who were attending private schools using a school voucher. Previously, state general purpose revenue paid for vouchers.
The answer, as you know is a resounding yes. President Nixons sitting vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign when past bribery came to light. Senator Thomas Eagleton was forced off the Democratic presidential ticket in 1972 when his medical history was made known. And Richard Nixon himself was forced to resign due to a single coverup of a single minor burglary.

If the presumptive nominee for president or vice president was discovered  either before or after the convention  to have murdered someone, or committed a bank robbery, or participated in a massive foreign tax dodge scheme  would the party be within its rights to swap out that candidate for someone else?

If the presumptive nominee for president or vice president was discovered  either before or after the convention  to have accepted bribes that influenced his decisions in a prior office  such as, for example, a states governor  would the party be within its rights to swap out that candidate for someone else?

If a presumptive nominee for president or vice president was discovered  either before or after the partys convention  to have gone through electro-shock therapy for mental problems, would the party be within its rights to swap out that candidate for someone else?

It was their respective parties that forced these choices, usually before or entirely separate from the law enforcement community. The party has considerable power in who it allows to be its public face at the presidential level. If only Democrats had called for Nixon and Agnew to go, or if only Republicans had called for Eagleton to go, they wouldnt have left. It was the fact that their own parties made the decision to eject them, that forced them to voluntarily get out of Dodge.

In fact, youll note, only Vice Presidential candidate Eagleton was just a candidate when he was forced off the ticket. Nixon and Agnew were already elected, holding office, when forced to resign. The party does have some control over the public face it presents to the world, and there are crimes or issues of character that are considered severe enough to merit ejection from that role.

The Bar Room Analogy

Youve probably already foreseen this one: A man approaches a beautiful woman in a bar, and asks if shed sleep with him for a million dollars. She chuckles and says Sure! He then asks if shed sleep with him for fifty bucks. She slaps his face and shouts What do you take me for?  to which he responds Thats already been established; were just arguing about price.

I realize that this is not a perfect analogy but the concept of arguing about degree is indeed an appropriate one.

What we seek to determine in this ghastly presidential year is how completely we should be wedded to the strict delegate count in selecting nominees for president. What level of authority should the parties have over who presents their public face in November?

Each party has the job of selecting a presidential ticket  somehow  to place before the electorate in the fall. Minor parties tend to do this through caucuses and a national convention, while the major parties tend to do it through a mixture of caucuses and primaries, followed by a more complex national convention of elected, appointed, and standing delegates. In the end, the result is the same: they pick their candidates at the national convention.

Since moving gradually over the past century from a mostly-caucus format to a primary-and-caucus mixed format, Americans have tended to assume that the voters have ever more power to directly select their respective parties nominees, to the point that people watch the committed delegate count after every state speaks, and assume that the winner of the most delegates is  by law  the nominee. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the primaries and caucuses elect delegates, who may be committed to a certain candidate in theory, but they must still vote their conscience when they arrive at the convention hall. By convention time, both parties have delegates who are committed to a frontrunner or an also-ran or even an early casualty. When they arrive at the convention, what is their duty?

Frankly, their duty remains the same: to select the best possible public face for the party, factoring in the partys issues, history, membership, philosophy, suitability for the job, and of course, electability. The delegate is not a rubber-stamp, his every move set in stone way back in March, or February, or even January. His role is to select the best possible public face for the party, which by convention time may be  or may NOT be  the person he and his district originally expected it to be.

The voters may have thought they were securing a 100% guaranteed vote but they should have known all along that their candidate might drop out by the convention (which happens every cycle) or their candidate might have been assassinated or died of natural causes before the convention (which hasn't happened in a while, but has indeed happened), or something else might change, more news might have been discovered since then.

So the question in our bar room analogy is critical. At what point is the problem with the candidate so severe that the party needs to intervene, to step in and overrule the primary voting population? Certainly if he or she is discovered to be someone who has committed murder, or treason, or bribery, or grand larceny; these are obvious. Character issues are less so but we do have recent precedent  1972 in fact  of a party taking back a vice presidential nomination just because the candidate had endured electric shock therapy. He had kept it secret during the primaries. So the hurdle really doesnt have to be as high as one might expect. How many secrets have Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton kept from their respective voting publics, this year, which the delegates know now, and the voters didn't then?

The fact is, the party has an obligation to try to nominate someone who represents them well and can win. If they discover in July that the person they thought right in March wasnt right after all, they owe it to their membership to jettison the candidate and select someone good.

Where does a responsible political party draw that line? We can argue about that but first, we must begin by acknowledging that, yes, somewhere, there IS such a line.

The Case Against Hillary Clinton

There is a strong case for Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Partys nominee in 2016. She served eight years in the US Senate, followed by four as Secretary of State. She is universally known, has raised oodles of money, and won the most delegates in the primary season.

There is, however, also a strong case against Hillary Clinton. Her public opinion negatives are incredibly high (the only type of polling thats really useful, several months out), and she has a track record of criminal accusations going back some forty years with hardly a break.

From her irresponsibility during the Watergate Committee hearings in the 70s, to her allegedly corrupt investments and law firm behavior in Arkansas in the 80s, to her dictatorial and illegal activities as First Lady (do the words White .House Travel Office and HillaryCare ring a bell?), to her incredible lapses of ethics (or allegedly worse by hundreds of orders of magnitude) as Secretary of State and afterward, through the alleged and apparent linkage between Clinton Foundation fundraising, government policy, and the email scandal this candidate is the most ethic-challenged, handicapped candidate in Democratic Party history.

The Republican Party might have the sense to nominate someone who can beat her. The Democratic Party has to be concerned not only that she might lose, but that she might bring the rest of her ticket down with her.

The Case Against Donald Trump

Similarly, there is a strong case for Donald Trump to be the Republican Partys nominee in 2016. He has never held office, at a time when anti-establishment fervor is at its highest point in memory, and he has apparently made billions of dollars as a businessman. He is also universally known, and won the most delegates in the primary season.

There is, however, also a strong case against Donald Trump. His public opinion negatives are also incredibly high  off-the-charts high, irrecoverably high  and his track record includes countless reasons for voters to disbelieve his promises. With an ordinary, experienced candidate, one can look at a voting record to see if he has been consistent throughout his career. With a private citizen, one only has his public pronouncements  and Donald Trumps public pronouncements are all over the map.

In addition, Donald Trump has forty years in the public eye as a non-politician  not as a quiet, responsible businessman, but as a playboy, showman, radio guest and reality TV star. His antics as a serial dater of supermodels and operator of casinos and beauty pageants have provided a decidedly non-presidential portrait of the candidate, appealing to a share of the public, severely unappealing to the majority.

On top of this, Donald Trump is now associated with a type of candidate  fairly or unfairly  roughly known as a nativist populist. Other countries have seen such people run nationally  Frances Le Pen, Italys Berlusconi, Americas own George Wallace but in the United States system, partially because of our electoral college, and partially because of our two-party system, such candidates are almost guaranteed to be relegated to third tier status.

Finally, Donald Trump does not, by objective measures, appear to be running seriously. His campaign  if it can be called that  has virtually no money in the bank, has purchased virtually no television ads, and has some 30 paid staff, as contrasted against Hillary Clintons 700.

If one didnt know better, one might think that Donald Trumps inaction is so intentional, he is actually hoping that the Republican convention will replace him with someone more serious, more electable, and more Republican.

Besides The Democratic Party might take advantage of Hillary Clintons ethical challenges (including a massive ongoing federal investigation) and her obviously bad health to nominate someone who can beat him. The Republican Party also has to be concerned not only that he might lose, but that he might bring the rest of her ticket down with him.

If Donald Trump is as toxic a candidate as many are now convinced he is, his presence at the top of the ticket wont just cause members of the Republican base to skip the presidential race, it might even so disgust members of the base that they stay home and that means defeat for scores of Republican candidates downballot, not just in the Senate and House, but also at the state, county, and local levels.

This is an unusual year, for many reasons. After eight years of an Obama residency in the White House, it should be a natural year for a Republican landslide. But the nation has been invaded  our electorate transformed by massive immigration, both legal and illegal, and generations of people raised in a welfare state and a corrupt education system. Every election is harder for principled candidates than ever before.

An agreement to serve as a convention delegate, or even an agreement to hold a primary or caucus, is not a suicide pact. When delegates arrive at their respective conventions, they have one key obligation: to select the best possible nominee for their party. If primary voters voted with good information and made good choices, their selection may indeed be appropriate but if the primary voters voted with bad information  due to a dearth of real information, thanks to an irresponsible mainstream media  then the delegates owe it to their party members and the country at large to rectify that error.

As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke once said, Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. Burke was right; the convention delegates were not chosen to be a rubber stamp; they are empowered to think and act, in the best interest of their party and their country.

The delegates of both parties will have a chance at their convention to do the right thing, and to nominate an honest, experienced, freedom-loving, constitutional representative of their party to serve as their champion for the fall contest instead of the errant choice who came out ahead in the combination of luck and science and trickery that constitutes the modern primary system.

It may be our nations only chance.

Copyright 2016 John F. Di Leo

John F. Di Leo is a writer, actor, trade compliance trainer and recovering politician, based in Chicagoland. His columns are found regularly in Illinois Review.

Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included.
" " Dirt bike and ATV trails contribute to siltation and habitat destruction at Yellow Creek in Ohio. See more off-roading pictures. Photo courtesy of Ohio EPA

Few people would argue that off-roading isn't exciting -- going off the beaten path in a blaze of speed over jolting terrain to the roar of an engine. And with 44 million Americans devoted to off-roading as of 2007, the sport must have something going for it [source: CSM]. Vehicles like ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) and dirt bikes give their riders a real thrill as they maneuver over unpaved ground. But there's a problem.

A debate has been raging for years about the wisdom of allowing off-road vehicles -- ATVs, dirt bikes, snowmobiles or Jet Skis -- the unregulated use of natural public spaces, since off-roading can disturb vegetation, wildlife and the general ecosystem. The land-based vehicles have garnered additional attention due to a 2010 deadline for U.S. National Forests to finish mapping out designated areas for off-roaders, effectively limiting their access to public lands [source: Burns].

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Off-roaders are up in arms, claiming they should have full use of the space. Environmentalists are up in arms, some claiming off-road vehicles should be banned completely. But why?

It's pretty simple, really: By definition, off-roading puts automobiles in areas not designed for automobiles. This has a variety of effects on the natural environment, including:

Disturbing the ground : Off-road vehicles can churn up soil, leading to ruts, damaged root systems, compacted soil, accelerated erosion, more frequent dust storms and/or increased sedimentation in waterways.

Disturbing vegetation : In addition to damaging plants in the process of driving over them, off-road vehicles can spread seeds as they churn up soil and vegetation, aiding in the spread of weeds that can damage native plant life. A Montana State University Extension Service study found that one dirt bike can distribute 2,000 seeds over a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius [source: : In addition to damaging plants in the process of driving over them, off-road vehicles can spread seeds as they churn up soil and vegetation, aiding in the spread of weeds that can damage native plant life. A Montana State University Extension Service study found that one dirt bike can distribute 2,000 seeds over a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius [source: NTWC ].

Disturbing wildlife: As a natural habitat is churned up, eroded or invaded by noxious weeds, the wildlife that depends on it suffers. Also, the engine noise from ATVs and dirt bikes can frighten off animals, not only kicking them out of their habitat but also depriving hikers and campers of the chance to spot them.

There is, of course, plenty of disagreement about the extent of these effects, making it difficult to establish sweeping regulations. For their part, many off-roaders do agree there needs to be some level of regulation. After all, 1 million new off-road vehicles are purchased every year in the United States, making for some pretty crowded open spaces [source: Burns]. There's not much point in going off the beaten path if there's no space to maneuver -- or scenery to enjoy -- once you're out there.

For more information on off-roading and related topics, look over the links on the next page.
Calicut University will declare the results of 1st degree allotment today, June 23. The students can check their results through the official website, universityofcalicut.info .

By India Today Web Desk: Calicut University will declare the results of 1st degree allotment today, June 23. Students can check the results through the official website, universityofcalicut.info .



The university announced the degree trial allotment results on June 18. The candidates who were not satisfied with the results changed their options till June 21. The results of the revised degree allotment will be declared today, June 23.



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Steps to check the results:



Log on to the official website

Click on the result tab

Enter the required details

Results will appear on the screen

Save the results and take a print out for future reference.



About Calicut University



Established in the year 1968, it is the largest university in located at Thenjipalam in Malappuram district of Kerala. The university conducts graduation, post graduation and various other examinations.





Read: Writing with her leg, she dreams to become a Judge



Read: UGC ruling: Male students can now file sexual harassment complaints



For latest updates on exam related news click here.

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The Union HRD ministry has given its clearance to a scheme called Swayam Prabha, allowing 32 direct-to-home (DTH) television channels to broadcast programs for school and university students from August.

By India Today Web Desk: The Union HRD ministry has given its clearance to a scheme called Swayam Prabha, allowing 32 direct-to-home (DTH) television channels to broadcast programs for school and university students from August.



Approved by Smriti Irani, the scheme is likely to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ministry hopes that the telecast will help students in the countryside.



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After watching the content, students can clear their doubts through a toll-free helpline number that to be uplinked by the Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications and Geo Informatics (BISAG).



The ministry will appoint subject experts to provide good quality content who will be paid on an hourly basis. The content will have pictures, videos and diagrams to make the things more interactive and to help students understand the concept well.



The ministry is planning to broadcast live classroom lectures from IIT Mumbai, Delhi, Kharagpur, and Kanpur.



"Although more than three crore youth are pursuing higher education, the standard of education is not uniform, raising the issue of quality access to knowledge. Youth in the backward pockets of India need a fair deal in accessing high-quality knowledge to confidently enter the job market," a senior ministry official told HT.



"This scheme will help them to learn and understand key concepts while sitting at home."



A total of 32 DTH channels will broadcast quality educational programmes throughout the day. "Every day, there will be new content of at least four hours that would be repeated six times a day, allowing students to choose the time of their convenience," the official said.



Read: Bihar siblings defeat all odds, clear IIT exam: Read on to know their inspiring story

Read: Tribal girl from Maoist-controlled region cracks IIT JEE 2016

Click here for more education related news.

To get more updates on education related news, send in your query by mail to education.intoday@gmail.com

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The University Grants Commission (UGC) has made various changes in its guidelines regarding collaboration between Indian and foreign universities.

By India Today Web Desk: The University Grants Commission (UGC) in a meeting on Wednesday, June 22 made various changes in its guidelines pertaining to tie-ups with foreign institutions.

The following changes have been made in the UGC guidelines, according to PTI:



Indian educational institutions, which enter into academic tie-ups with foreign institutes, will have to ensure that students who opt for these courses get to study minimum one semester for post-graduate degrees and two semesters for under-graduate degrees abroad.

Indian institutes, which get top accreditations, will now be able to approach the UGC to seek its approval for entering into academic tie-ups with esteemed education institutions abroad.

"Today, the UGC has taken a decision as per which the highest graded Indian institutions can engage in academic collaboration with foreign educational institutions of highest grade in their country or those who have crossed the threshold limit," HRD minister Smriti Irani told reporters as she announced the decisions.

As per the new norms, the degree certificate for such courses will also mention the name of the foreign institute.

For institutes that already have a global partnership, a window of one year has been given to them to get their pacts approved by the UGC, the HRD minister said.

A committee of experts will examine the proposals for these collaborations.

The minister also said that in view of the instances where institutes fraudulently advertise collaborations with foreign institutions was creating problems for students, it has been decided that the UGC will approach the state government concerned for action in such cases.

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According to the officials, the MoUs will provide sufficient autonomy to the institutions. They also revealed that students from foreign institutions will also be allowed to come to Indian campuses under these new guidelines.



The HRD minister also said that it will be ensured that within 30 working days all applications will be responded to and in a yes-or-no situation not more than 60 working days would be taken to come up with a decision.



Why did the need for bringing changes in the UGC guidelines arise?

Under the previous norms, only foreign institutes could seek permission for academic collaborations.

Officials said that guidelines for collaborations had been previously brought out in the year 2012 during the previous regime but they had failed to attract any proposals.

Read: 33 schools get notice for refusing admissions through RTE



Read: Rajasthan Class 10 results declared at results.intoday.in: Steps to check the results online



Click here for more updates from India Today Education.

--- ENDS ---
Tina Dabi and Athar Aamir Ul Shafi Khan, the top rank holders of UPSC Civil Services examination have, as expected got the prestigious Indian Administrative Services (IAS).

By India Today Web Desk: The toppers of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services examination 2016 Tina Dabi and second rank holder Athar Aamir Ul Shafi Khan have bagged the prestigious Indian Administrative Services (IAS).

The 902 successful candidates have been allocated for various services by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

Of them, 178 candidates managed to get the coveted IAS, 138 aspirants got Indian Police Service (IPS), 43 were given Indian Forest Service (IFS) while 543 others have been allocated different Group 'A' and 'B' services, according to PTI.

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(Read: UPSC IAS topper Tina Dabi shares her secret formula)

Delhi-based candidate Tina, Aamir and Jasmeet Singh Sandhu, who is also from Delhi, have been allocated the IAS, the DoPT revealed.

While Tina topped the 2015 civil services examination, Khan and Sandhu secured second and third position, respectively.

(Read: UPSC result: It's like a dream which I never thought would come true in this way, says Tina Dabi)

Now, candidates allocated to Group 'A' services can be nominated for Foundation Course at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, it said.

The civil services examination is conducted annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select candidates for IAS and IPS, among others.

As many as 1,078 candidates -- 499 in general category, 314 belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC), 176 from Scheduled Castes (SC) and 89 from Scheduled Tribes (ST) -- had qualified in the test result, which was declared on May 10. There are 172 candidates in the waiting list.

Read: Bihar siblings defeat all odds, clear IIT exam: Read on to know their inspiring story

Read: Tribal girl from Maoist-controlled region cracks IIT JEE 2016

Click here for more education related news.

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As Mallikarjun Kharge takes charge as the Congress president, we raise these questions on the show: Can Mallikarjun Kharge transform Congress? What will be Gandhis' new role in the party? Rahul Gandhi still the face of Congress? Is Kharge capable of taking tough decisions? Watch as Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid and Prithviraj Chavan share their views on the road ahead for Congress.
After a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team brought the sick workers from the US Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole to Chile for treatment.

One of the sick workers arrives at a clinic in Punta Arenas, Chile. Source: AP

By India Today Web Desk: Two sick US workers, who were stuck in a remote South Pole research station, were rescued in a daring mission from Antarctica. Their plane landed in Chile's Punta Arenas yesterday evening.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles (4,800 km) round trip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the US Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole.

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After reaching Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, the two workers boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas, a spokesperson for the foundation confirmed.

"From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott," the National Science Foundation said, not disclosing the location of that facility.

The National Science Foundation has not identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin.

Source: AP



The 'toasty' temperature of South Pole

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy minus 2.5 degree Celsius Wednesday afternoon. That's toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 75 degree Celsuis in the morning.

Before they left, there were 48 people - 39 men and nine women - at the station for the winter.

Normally, planes don't go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday - the sun will not rise at the South Pole till the first day of spring in September.

Source: AP



The daring rescue

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the US now, lauded the rescue cre:. "The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring."

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you. Things can change very quickly down there."

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. The station has a doctor, a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the US for consults, said Peter West, spokesperson to the foundation.

But sometimes workers need medical care that can't be provided at the South Pole.

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The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.

Source: AP

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By Press Trust of India: The Malaysian Government has banned the non-governmental Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), branding it as a threat to national security.



Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar on Wednesday issued a statement declaring Hindraf, which has been advocating ethnic Indian rights since late last year for the minority community, an illegal organisation.



He said the government move followed the result of monitoring and investigations by the country's Registrar of Societies (RoS) since Hindraf was formed.



"As a result of the investigations, the Home Ministry, as per its authority under sections 3 and 5 of the Societies Act 1966, has declared Hindraf unlawful and detrimental to peace, public order, security and the moral values of Malaysia," he said in the statement.



Albar accused the Hindraf of exploiting "racial issues which caused an uprising against the government and created hatred between them and the Malays. I feel that if we don't rein in their activities, they will continue to jeopardise security and public order, our country's sovereignty, as well as upset the harmony among races."



Hindraf came into international focus after it organised a massive rally on November 25 last year to protest alleged marginalisation of the ethnic Indian minority in this country.



More than 20,000 people attended the rally, which was branded as illegal by the government. The large participation took the Abdullah Badawi government by shock.



A large section of the ethnic Indians supported the Hindraf as they felt that the Malaysian Indian Congress, led by Samy Vellu, had done little to uplift the community over the past several decades.



Syed Hamid said the decision to ban the movement was not made based on only one or two misdemeanours committed by Hindraf, but covered the entire gamut of activities the group had been involved in since its inception.



"Hindraf submitted a registration application to the RoS on October 16 last year. The application had not been approved, but it went ahead and organised several public gatherings and demonstrations without a permit," he said.



"Considering all the facts and evidence we have, I am satisfied that Hindraf was and is being used in a manner detrimental to public order and national security,"New Staraits Timesquoted him as saying on Thursday.



An opposition MP has called the government's decision to ban Hindraf as ridiculous and uncalled for, adding that he would move an emergency motion asking for an open debate in Parliament on Thursday.



"This is against the interest and aspirations of the Indian community that is seeking a more tolerant and fair government," M. Kulasegaran said, adding that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had agreed to hold a dialogue with Hindraf leaders but "nothing was done".



Hindraf national coordinator, R.S. Thanenthiran said the ban was unfair as they had not committed any crime or broken any laws, adding that Syed Hamid could have done this in retaliation to the police reports Hindraf supporters lodged against him.



Thanenthiran said Hindraf chairman P. Waythamoorthy, who is in self-exile in Britain, had instructed coordinators to wait for a day before making further statements.



Coalition of Indian NGOs secretary-general Gunaraj George said that by banning Hindraf, Syed Hamid had rendered the Indian community voiceless, but said it would not dampen the spirit of its supporters.



"I know that their struggle will go on especially to free all those detained under the Internal Security Act,"Starnewspaper quoted him as saying.

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The attacker, who carried a rifle or "long gun", acted alone and appeared to have been a "disturbed man", the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament.

A masked man with a gun opened fire in a cinema complex in German town of Viernheim. Photo: @Glonarey (Twitter)

By Reuters: A masked man took hostages at a cinema in western Germany today before police stormed the complex and shot him dead, police said.

No other people were injured, a police spokesman said.

The attacker, who carried a rifle or "long gun", acted alone and appeared to have been a "disturbed man", the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament.

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Police had not identified the man or established his motive, spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that nothing immediately pointed to him having a militant background.

German television showed pictures of heavily-armed police, wearing helmets and body armour, storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, south of Frankfurt, and a couple fleeing the building.

Cinema employee Guri Blakaj told Reuters the gunman, who appeared to be aged between 18 and 25 and was about 1.7 metres tall, entered the cinema at around 3 p.m. and told workers to get into an office. He then went into a cinema theatre. Blakaj, who said there were about six workers and 30 cinemagoers in the building, then heard shots fired.

Police special forces stormed the building and shot him.

There was still a heavy police presence at the scene into the late afternoon, and a helicopter circled overhead.



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In a country where Islamic rightwingers very often call the shots, Haider, 47, has quietly succeeded in attracting tens of thousands to yoga, achieving a feat that once seemed near impossible.

By Indo-Asian News Service: In the world of yoga, Pakistan has produced an unsung yogi: Shamshad Haider, popularly known as Yogi Haider.

In a country where Islamic rightwingers very often call the shots, Haider, 47, has quietly succeeded in attracting tens of thousands to yoga, achieving a feat that once seemed near impossible.

On June 21, when the world celebrated the second International Day of Yoga, Haider did yogic asanas along with his 20,000 yoga students across Pakistan -- but minus media publicity.



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"We are also practising in yoga in a nice way in Pakistan but without beating the drums," the modest Haider told IANS in a telephonic interview. If Haider is to be believed, Pakistanis celebrated the International Yoga Day in almost all major towns and cities including Islamabad.



While others around the world got plenty of publicity, Haider's success went unnoticed.

KNOW MORE ABOUT HAIDER



Born in Pakistani Punjab, Haider is emphatic - in contrast to what many Muslims think - that yoga has nothing to do with the Hindu religion and should be accepted by people of all faiths. Muslims, he suggests, should do at least five minutes of meditation - a key component of yoga - after every "'Fajar Nimaz" or early morning prayer. "Yoga helps to gain mental stability, peace, balanced living. Moreover, it teaches us discipline which is vital in Islam and all religions." What does he say about critics who link yoga with religion? "Agar ache cheez be burey hathoon mai aajaye, tho woh cheez be kharab hoti hai (Even if bad people touch good things, the good too become bad)," is his stock reply. "Yoga belongs to humanity in the form of a pure science and is not the sole entity of India," he said, speaking in Urdu. "While Indian Hindus and Muslims fight over its origin and practice, our clubs have people from all sects of Muslims, Christians and Hindus who have made it a part of their life to reap its health benefits," Haider said. Among the over 50 yoga clubs in Pakistan, Haider oversees the major ones in Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi. Even some Islamic clerics come to the centres to learn and practise yoga and meditation. "I have top clerics of (Islamabad) as my students. They are happy about it and they encourage others to join." Haider, who sports a flowing beard, is an eternal optimist. "I want yoga in every school, every community in Pakistan." The man married recently one of his students who came to him with various health issues after being denied treatment by many doctors and hospitals. "She came for yoga sessions. By the grace of God, she is doing absolutely fine now." Haider has some 60 trainers. His wife, Shumaila, looks after the female students. He says his inspiration and role model was the late S.N. Goenka, the Myanmar-born master of Vipassana meditation. "He taught me meditation when I travelled to India. That changed my life. After that I started yoga sessions in Pakistan. He was my hero." When he was in Saudi Arabia early on, Haider suffered pain in appendix and was suggested an operation. He refused and instead went on to read books on Mind Science by a Somalian decent doctor. "After reading the books, I started feeling visible changes in my life. Then I dug more and that led me to learn yoga," said Haider, who travelled to China, Tibet, India and Nepal to learn the ancient science. Haider holds both free and paid sessions. The Pakistani government has granted him permission to hold yoga camps on its land and has also allowed him to promote yoga.

Also read: In a first for East India, Visva Bharati varsity commences PG diploma course in yoga studies



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The model, who had won Miss Queen Karnataka contest in 2014, is the fifth person to be arrested in connection with the drug racket.

By India Today Web Desk: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has arrested a top female model on charges of drug peddling in Bengaluru. According to NCB officers, the model was part of a multi-state racket which provided drugs to several high-profile customers and college students in Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Goa.

EXCLUSIVE: Mamta Kulkarni breaks silence in drug racket row, says leave my husband alone



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Reports said Darshitmita Gowda, who won the Miss Queen Karnataka contest in 2014, was a regular at major fashion events in Bengaluru.. The 26-year-old model is the fifth person to be arrested in connection with the case, in which a probe has been on since November 2015.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN AND THE DRUG RACKET

The NCB had raided an apartment in the upscale RT Nagar locality on November 30, 2015. Huge cache of banned drugs was seized during the raid at the flat in which Darshitmita lived with her boyfriend Nishant. While Nishant was arrested the sleuths failed to locate the model.

High-profile sex racket involving TV stars, models busted in Goa

During interrogation, Nishant told the police that Darshitmita played a key role in the racket and managed the financial transactions.

On the basis of Nishant's statement, Darshitmita was summoned by the police. She appeared before the cops on Tuesday (June 21) and was later arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

Also Read:

Mamta Kulkarni an accused in India's biggest ever drug seizure: Police

NCB busts Nigerian drug racket in Delhi, seizes drugs worth crores

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 23 (PTI) BJP and Congress today hit out at the AAP government for hiring a Public Relation agency to publicise its works, saying it was "wasting" public money for "image makeover".

"Instead of Spending on Public Welfare-AAP Government spends Tax-Payers money for Professional help to build image! (sic)," Ajay Maken, president of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) tweeted.

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BJP MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta said: "18 months after the historic win, the Kejriwal government requires a PR agency and is spending crores to improve its image".

"The government hired a private PR agency despite having an army of media advisors, own advertising agency -- Shabdarth and Directorate Information and Publicity. It is wastage of hard earned public money," he said.

Reacting to it, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds information and publicity portfolio, said the government committed no crime by hiring a PR firm.

"Some tv channels are saying the AAP government has spent Rs 200 crore to hire a PR agency. This is incorrect. Hiring a PR agency to publicise governments works is not a crime. Let the Lt Governor order a probe into the matter," Sisodia told reporters here.

The AAP government has appointed PR firm Perfect Relations as its media consultant. PTI BUN/VIT GVS SMJ

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State BJP spokesperson Vijendra Sisodia said that he would personally reward anyone with Rs 1 lakh for providing the name of the country where Rahul Gandhi was in during his foreign tour.

By Rahul Noronha: A BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh has announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh to whoever provides him information on the whereabouts of Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi. On June 20, Rahul Gandhi had announced on Twitter that he was travelling out of the country on a short visit.

Traveling out of the country for a few days on a short visit.Thanks again to all who met &wished me y'day,truly grateful for your affection!&; Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 20, 2016

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State BJP spokesperson Vijendra Sisodia who is also chairman of the state owned MP Urja Vikas Nigam (renewable energy development corporation) and carries a rank of cabinet minister said that he would personally reward anyone with Rs 1 lakh in case he provided him the name of the country where Rahul Gandhi was in during his foreign tour. He said when earlier Rahul had gone on a foreign tour, the Congress party had said that he had gone there to reflect and would return re-energized. He said that the Congress should accept that the energy levels of Rahul Gandhi were low which is why he needed another trip to re-energize himself.

STATE CONGRESS CRITICISES SISODIA'S COMMENTS

State Congress spokesperson Ravi Saxena has reacted sharply to the BJP leader's announcement. Saxena said that the BJP is suffering from 'Rahul Phobia' and added that though Vijendra Sisodia was a senior BJP leader, he seems to be unaware that Rahul Gandhi has SPG protection. " If Sisodia is so keen to find out where Rahul Gandhi is, he should simply ask the Home Minister for the details and in fact pay him the reward amount," said Saxena. He added that Sisodia was unhappy with his party at being denied the nomination for MLA and was trying to remain in the news by making such claims.

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By PTI: Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 23 (PTI) BJP today urged the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala to quash all decisions taken by the previous Congress-led UDF regime during the end of its tenure and probe all corruption charges against it.

The saffron party raised the demand in a draft political resolution passed in the state committee meeting convened here.

"The LDF government should show readiness to quash all the decisions taken by the previous ministry. It should also fulfill its promise to investigate all corruption allegation cropped up against them," it said. It specifically demanded withdrawal of permission granted to the controversial Aranmula airport project by the state government.

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The proposed project in Pathanamthitta district had run into trouble from the start with environmentalists and local Aranmula Heritage Protection Committee coming out against it.

The resolution also said that the Left governments stand in the proposed 163 MW Athirappilly hydro power project and Mullaperiyar damissues was "mysterious". The government and the CMs stand amounted to insulting the people and environment activists in these issues, it said.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are at loggerheads over the dam in Idduki district of Kerala, but under administrative control of Tamil Nadu as per a 999-year lease agreement, the dam caters to the irrigation needs in southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

Kerala has been pressing for a new dam on the ground that the present one is dilapidated, but Tamil Nadu says it is safe. Based on the report by the Empowered Committee, the apex court had allowed TN to raise the water level to 142 feet in 2014. The Athirapally project, which received techno economic clearance in 2005, has raised fears among environmentalists that clearance to it would result in destroying wildlife in Athirapally-Vazhachal forest ranges along Western Ghats. On June 22 last year, Kerala High Court had said the project cannot go ahead without environmental clearance from the Centre.

The resolution also alleged that besides the anti-incumbency wave against the Oommen Chandy government, its "secret alliance" with communal forces had also helped CPI(M) come to power in the May 16 Assembly polls. PTI LGK APR SRY

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The Bharatiya Janata Party's fact-finding team that visited the town after reports of mass out-migration of Hindu families rocked the nation submitted its report to the governor.

The team has asked a few salient questions in its report which are to be answered by the state government.

By Siddhartha Rai: There is not a single functional petrol pump in the embattled town of Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh.

The assertion is part of the report compiled by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) fact-finding team that visited the town after reports of mass out-migration of Hindu families rocked the nation. The report has been submitted to the governor.

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ONLY LAW AND ORDER PROBLEM?

The investigation team of the BJP, which is in Opposition in UP and is locked in a do-or-die battle with the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), has deliberately tried to keep the issue at the level of a law and order problem so far, and has thus asked the state government to rein in "criminal elements" in the town.

"There are two dreaded criminals from the minority community in the town who have been patronised by the Samajwadi Party government and thus the local police administration.

In the interest of the once-thriving trading community of the town, of which the best and leading have almost left town, the state government needs to be restore law and order," said BJP's human rights' cell head Sudhir Aggarwal.

QUESTIONS ASKED IN THE REPORT The team has asked a few salient questions in its report which are to be answered by the state government so as to unravel the true nature of causes behind the alleged exodus. "We have asked a number of questions, which when answered will reveal the true nature of the problem. It solves no problem to behave like an ostrich as the state government is doing by denying that there is a problem at all. We are in the know that over 350 families from Kairana, all from the Hindu community, have migrated to other parts of the state or the country. For instance, a leading iron trader, cinema hall owner, etc have all moved out," said Aggarwal. The report has also asked the government to find out the dropout rate of students, especially girls, from schools in the town in the past four years and the community they come from. The team has also asked the administration to find out the religion of offenders who have been booked under various offences such as kidnapping and murder - alleged to be one of the main reasons behind the Hindu exodus. "First of all criminal elements are not booked here. Even if they are, we need to know which community they belong to. We have also asked the Akhilesh government to find out the number of criminals who are in jail from Kairana and their religious demography," Aggarwal said. Most of all, the team has also raised the question of who are the buyers of the property of those who are opting to move out of the town . The reason is "commonsensical", as a senior UP BJP leader put it, not wanting to be named. "If people are leaving and selling their property, we should be told who is buying htem. If Hindus are selling and the Muslims are buying, it establishes the nexus behind crime and the resulting economy," he said. The report also raised the issue of arms licences and the religion of their owners. It has asked the government find out the number of arms licences issued in the last four to five years and their owners, in an obvious reference to whether the owners are Hindus or Muslims.

Also Read:

Kairana: Akhilesh steps up attack on BJP, will not be UP poll

Kairana exodus: Who is Babu Hukum Singh?



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By Vidya : The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government to confirm the reports of Govind Pansare's murder case being transferred to the CBI and also obtain the Scotland Yard report on Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Narendra Dabholkar murders in six weeks.



Pansare's family told the Bombay HC on Thursday that they were informed that investigation into his murder has been transferred to CBI. While advocate Abhay Navagi told the division bench of justice SC Dharmadhikari that they were informed that the case is being transferred to CBI.

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However, public prosecutor Sandip Shinde asserted that no such decision was taken and that in case of any such development it will be made official.

CBI AND SIT PRESENT PROGRESS REPORT



Since the information was not confirmed, the court proceeded with the hearing of a public interest litigation filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar. Meanwhile both CBI which is investigating the murder of Dabholkar and SIT that is probing into Pansare's murder produced their progress reports before the court.



"One word of the dictionary - juvenile is also childish not just child like. This is childish what we have been noticing for the past one month," said Justice Dharmadhikary commenting on the reports.

After Shinde, informed the court about CBI's arrest of Virendrasingh Tawade in connection with the murder of Dabholkar, the high court voiced its displeasure.



"Were you ignorant about this person and the organization to which he is affiliated? It is a shame that officers sought help of family members to find suspects. This needs to end as you will be ruining the investigations if work continues in this fashion," said Dharmadhikary.

ACTION AGAINST COPS DISCLOSING INFORMATION



He added that the absconding accused may be getting all details from the media because of the CBI. "Although this may seem trivial but they are important for the case. Who will protect the witnesses? I will not hesitate to take action against police officers disclosing information to the media," added Dharmadhikary.

He also asked the CBI to get the report from Scotland Yard by speaking to the officers of the Indian high commission in UK. The agencies feel that all three murders are similar in nature and thus ballistic reports and material were sent to Scotland Yard for their opinion.

The reports are expected to take time so a six weeks adjournment was sought by CBI. SIT in the meantime had also taken a stay from the Bombay high court on the trial of lone suspect Sameer Gaekwad as they too are awaiting the Scotland Yard report.

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Also read:

Dabholkar murder: Tawade's confidant, now a prime witness, hints at conspiracy





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Officials in the Finance Ministry said that all the other meetings of Jaitley while in Beijing were on schedule.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrived in Beijing today on a five-day official visit, an important financial dialogue between India and China was pushed back to July, as interlocutors were busy monitoring the referendum developments in Britain, officials said.

According to Finance Ministry officials in New Delhi, the 8th India-China Financial Dialogue was to be held in Beijing on June 27. But a week ago, the two sides decided to defer it by a month in the wake of the referendum in Britain to stay or pull out of the European Union.

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IF BREXIT HAPPENS, INDIA IS READY: SHAKTIKANTA DAS

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das was to represent India in the bilateral dialogue.

"If Brexit happens, India is ready," Das had tweeted earlier today. "Brexit vote today. We are closely tracking developments in UK. India well prepared," he added, referring to the crucial vote, the results of which are expected on Friday.

Senior officials in the Finance Ministry in New Delhi and at the Indian mission in Beijing said the dialogue, in any case, is at the level of secretaries, and not ministers.

ALL OTHER MEETINGS OF JAITLEY ON SCHEDULE

They added that all the other meetings of Jaitley while in Beijing -- including an engagement with his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27 and interactions with investors and bankers -- were on schedule.

The Finance Minister will also represent India at the first meeting of the board of governors of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on June 25-26.

The India-China Financial Dialogue was established during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005. Thus far, seven rounds have been held -- the last one in December 2014 in New Delhi.

Discussions are generally held in areas such as challenges facing the global economy, the macro-economic situation and policies in the two countries, progress on structural reforms, and the status of bilateral multilateral frameworks.

In the last round, India was represented by Dinesh Sharma, Additional Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, during which it was agreed that Chinese long-term investments in the Indian infrastructure sector will be encouraged, among other matters.

Also read:

Brexit vote on Britain's EU membership begins; fallout to hit politics, market

Brexit: What is UK's referendum about today? Here's what you need to know



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British voters are going to the polls today to vote on whether their country should remain a member of the European Union.

British and Irish citizens 18 and over who are resident in the United Kingdom, as well as UK residents from Commonwealth countries who have the right to live in the country can vote. Photo: Reuters.

By AP: British voters are going to the polls on Thursday to vote on whether their country should remain a member of the European Union. As months of fierce debate pause on referendum day and Britons hold their breath for what has been described as a "once-in-a-lifetime" decision.

Why Was The Vote Called?



British Prime Minister David Cameron courted conservative and anti-EU voters during the last election by promising to hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the 28-nation bloc by the end of 2017. Those campaigning to leave say the EU has evolved into an undemocratic and oppressive entity far removed from its original purpose as a trading bloc that Britain originally joined in 1973. They claim that only a British exit - or Brexit - can restore sovereignty and effectively limit immigration. Those campaigning to remain argue that the EU ensures peace and prosperity for more than 500 million people from Portugal to Finland and the benefits far outweigh the costs.

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Who Can Vote?



British and Irish citizens 18 and over who are resident in the United Kingdom, as well as UK residents from Commonwealth countries who have the right to live in the country can vote in the referendum. UK nationals who live outside the country but were registered to vote in Parliamentary elections in the past 15 years, and Irish citizens overseas who were born or registered to vote in Northern Ireland in the same period, can also vote. In addition, some citizens of Gibraltar - a British enclave on the south coast of Spain - and members of the House of Lords, who cannot normally vote in general elections, have been given permission to participate in the referendum. The Electoral Commission says a record number of 46,499,537 voters were registered for the referendum by Tuesday.

What's On The Ballot Paper?



Voters are asked to answer one question: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" The options are: "Remain a member of the European Union" and "Leave the European Union."

What Happens On The Day Of The Referendum?



Polling stations open at 7 am (0600 GMT) and close at 10 pm (2100 GMT). Many votes will have been cast in advance by postal ballot. Election officials in 382 areas will begin counting the votes immediately after polls close.

Is There Campaigning On Voting Day?



The law doesn't prohibit campaigning on voting day, but by convention political parties refrain from doing so. Publishing exit polls prior to the end of voting at 10 pm (2100 GMT) is, however, a criminal offense.

When And How Will The Result Be Announced?



Regional counting offices will send their results to Manchester, where the chair of the UK Electoral Commission is expected to announce the official outcome at about 7 am (0600 GMT) on Friday. However, the result may well be known as early as 4 am (0300 GMT) as media tally the local results.

Would There Be A Recount If The Vote Is Close?



The rules don't allow for a national recount, but courts can order recounts at the local level. The overall outcome can be challenged by judicial review filed within six week.



Is The Referendum Binding?

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No. Parliament isn't legally required to abide by the vote, but there would be strong political pressure to do so, especially if the result of the referendum is clear-cut.

Also read:

Does Brexit matter for India?

Brexit to have significant economic repercussions: US Fed

Brexit vote: Britain divided on eve of key EU referendum



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By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 23 (PTI) The Centre will soon send a reminder to Uttar Pradesh government on its communication to it seeking a detailed report on the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana village in the state.

A senior Home Ministry official said the state government is yet to responded to its letter, sent about 10 days ago, seeking a report on the allegations of migration of Hindus from the western part of the town.

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It had also asked the state government to verify the allegations and send a detailed report to it as early as possible.

"Since, there is no response from the state government, we will soon send a reminder to them," the official said.

There have been allegations that Hindus from Kairana village in Shamli district were "forced" to leave their homes by people from another community.

However, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had accused BJP leaders of "lying" and being "dishonest" on the issue.

Yadav claimed that most of the people had left the village about 10 to 15 years ago while others left in search of jobs about seven or eight years ago.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said if the information is correct, Uttar Pradesh government must take proper action.

"If some people are forced to leave their native place by any individual or gang, state government must take proper action," he had said. PTI ACB KND ZMN KND

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The Army is sticking to the old tactic of not developing the border areas to ensure minimal damage and cut off easy access to the enemy in case of an infiltration.

By Abhishek Bhalla : A 1,500-km proposed highway along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh connecting remote areas of the hill state has hit a roadblock with the Army raising objections fearing that it could be a strategic blunder due to its proximity to China in case of a confrontation.

This has irked the state government and could end up in a tussle between the home and defence ministry.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Act East Policy pushing for development in the neglected Northeastern parts could have severe impact with the Army opposing the mega road project costing between Rs 30,000 and 40,000 crore connecting Tawang with Vijoynagar, bordering Myanmar.

HIGHWAY HITS ROADBLOCK

While initial construction between Tawang and Dirang is done, the work ahead is yet to begin, sources said. Sources said local leaders from the state will be writing a protest letter to the prime minister.

"The matter has been brought to my knowledge and I will call a meeting of officials from home and defence ministry along with state officials to sort out the issues," Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs, who also represents Arunachal Pradesh said.

The Army is sticking to the old tactic of not developing the border areas to ensure minimal damage and cut off easy access to the enemy in case of an infiltration. However, this would create hurdles in home ministry's plan to push to develop the remote areas and resettle the local population.

Sources said since there were no infrastructure, locals have been pushed as far as 50 km from the border, posing a threat from Chinese forces who could claim it to be their territory in case there is a faceo-ff.

THE HIGH ROAD



The road has also been planned considering the largescale migration of people from border areas and the need to push them back by creating all basic amenities.

"They should be happy that the road is close to the border. It can be a boon for the troops for swift mobilisation," said an official. Pasang Dorjee, an MLA from Arunachal Pradesh, said the Army is creating hurdles for road project that will affect development in the area.

"Instead of saying that the road should be closer to the border, like China did, the Army is saying it should not be along the border."

While the lack of infrastructure and roads on the Indian side has been old grievance of the locals, the situation across the border is completely different. "Chinese forces have top-class roads till their border outposts. The villages and towns are well inhabited and have excellent infrastructure. If not match them, we need to at least achieve 10 per cent of what they have," said a government official.

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Earlier Beijing had also registered a protest to the road project as it could complicate the border dispute. India has been concerned with the development of areas across the border and with China's road network getting expanded.

ALSO READ:

How China is provoking India: 250 soldiers intrude into Arunachal, Beijing blocks India's NSG bid



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By PTI: Chamliyal Border (Samba), Jun 23 (PTI) Thousands of people from either side of India-Pakistan border thronged the shrine of Baba Dalip Singh Manhas, popularly known as Baba Chamliyal, in Jammu and Kashmirs Samba district today.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Pakistan Rangers joined the devotees on the occasion of the annual mela of the saint.

A team of Pakistan Rangers exchanged sweets with BSF personnel at Zero Line in Ramgarh sector. The Pakistani team offered Chadar at the shrine, located one-and-a-half kilometre from Zero Line.

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BSF troops handed over a trolley of shakkar (holy soil) and a tanker of sharbat (holy water) from the shrine to the Pakistani team for the devotees in their country.

Every year, devotees from both sides converge at the border, near the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine, to pay obeisance to Baba Chamliyal, Shamsher Singh, a member of the shrine panel, said.

Baba Chamliyal, after whom the village is named, lived about 320 years ago and is revered by the people of all faiths because of his saintly qualities and spiritual powers.

Till 1971, Pakistani nationals were allowed to come to the Indian side of the border to pay obeisance at the shrine. However, after the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the practice was stopped. Since then, only a Pakistan Rangers delegation comes to offer chadar and, in return, carries shakkar and sharbat from the shrine for the devotees in Pakistan.

Baba Chamliyal Mela has become popular since November, 2003 following a ceasefire and parallel peace initiatives by both the countries.

While it is held for three days at the shrine complex on the Indian side, located around 50 kms from Jammu, it is held for a week in Saidanwali village of Sialkote district in Pakistan.

A popular belief on both sides is that the soil and water from the shrine cure skin diseases. As a result, it draws devotees from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana as well.

Baba Chamliyal was beheaded by those who did not like his growing influence. They dropped his body at Saidanwali village in Pakistan, around 300 metres from the border, and the head on the other side, now known as Chamliyal.

The legend has it that where his blood fell, the soil turned fertile and a well was dug at the site where his head was dropped. Later, his devotees built a tomb in his memory at the spot.

BSF and the civil administration had made elaborate arrangements, including transport and food, for the benefit of the devotees on the occasion. PTI AB RC ZMN SRY

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China launches its first-ever dark sky reserve in Tibet. Book a trip to the place only if you love stargazing.

The night sky at Ngari Prefecture looks stunning with multitudes of stars. Picture courtesy: Facebook/Earth Science Picture of the Day

By India Today Web Desk: Living in congested cities, urban dwellers are often bereft of the true beauties of nature. Inside our four-walled homes, we are either busy watching television, listening to those boomboxes, flipping through our mobiles, or perhaps chatting with family. When not at home, we are busy sitting in front of our computer screens, commuting to or back from work, or out with friends.

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We are not trying to suggest that what we do is wrong. But what about the simple pleasures we're missing out on? For instance, when was the last time we spent our time doing nothing but stargazing. When just the thought of it is itself so calming, imagine how beautifully soothing the actual experience would be.

Now don't get disappointed if you can't see the stars tonight. They are either covered by a cloud of vehicular pollution or the presence of light pollution limiting your view.

Fret not. China has just launched its first-ever dark sky reserve in Tibet's Ngari Prefecture, which is dedicated to limiting light pollution, thus letting people enjoy stunning views of the night sky.

So, the next time you travel to China, do visit the 2,500-square kilometre long Ngari Prefecture for unparalleled views of the Milky Way. Trust us, it would be an experience you won't forget for a lifetime. Lying on a meadow and gazing at the stars, you won't even know where the hours fly.

Also read: Top 10 international destinations Indians are flocking to this summer



Jointly launched by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation and the regional government of Tibet, the reserve is looking to seek accreditation from the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit organization based in the United State that is devoted to preserving and protecting the night-time environment and dark skies globally.

The main reason why Ngari was chosen for this purpose is the fact that it is considered to be one of the best sites for astronomical observation on earth, due to its high altitude and large number of cloudless days throughout the year.

As far as facilities for tourists are concerned, the foundation has inked an agreement with authorities in Tibet's Nagchu prefecture to establish a night sky park, which will feature limited lighting facilities and a special area for astronomical observation.



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With the 17th annual IIFAs being held in Spain, expect major style inspiration from the European nation.

Deepika and Athiya are killing it with their style. Pictures courtesy: Instagram/@athiyashetty; Instagram/@lollywoodreport

By Hemul Goel: Spain is all set to play host to the IIFAs, aka the International Indian Film Academy Awards. With the 17th edition of the awards kicking off in the European nation today, Bollywood's already switched on its party mode.

Also read: Style Files: You can totally copy Deepika Padukone's American style

While we prep-up for some red carpet spotting at the event, as the hottest faces from the film industry (besides the lucky few from the telly) get ready to take the red carpet in Madrid, it's also time for some off-duty style spying.

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Actress Deepika Padukone was seen fulfilling her ambassador duties for watch brand Tissot, attired in a pantsuit by Chloe. Does anyone else feel that the ensemble could pass for luxurious pyjamas, obviously the kinds only Deepika Padukone could afford and manage to own outside the bedroom?

Her look was finished with nude pumps from Christian Louboutin and sexy, blow-dried hair.

We love them luxe pyjamas. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@deepikapadukone

Hero actress Athiya Shetty, on the other hand, was seen looking cute in a tiered number from Plakinger in soothing blues. The actress kept it boho with a pair of tan gladiators and wavy hair. The soft makeup also works well for the actress.

Athiya's look is a super cute pick for a vacay. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@athiyashetty Athiya's look is a super cute pick for a vacay. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@athiyashetty

Priyanka Chopra's already heading to Madrid after finishing her promotional duties in Paris for her television series, Quantico. The actress was last spotted in the French capital looking smashing in a structured perforated ensemble from Dion Lee.

Also read: Five yellow sarees that will make you look almost as pretty as Priyanka Chopra

Girl's working it. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@biscootlive

We can't wait for her to reach Madrid and give us new #outfitgoals!

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The woman who went to complain about a water supply issue was allegedly abused and manhandled by AAP MLA Dinesh Mohaniya.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi Police booked AAP MLA Dinesh Mohaniya for allegedly misbehaving with a woman today. A group of women had gone to his office to complain against the irregular supply of water. "I go to Dinesh Mohaniya's office everyday but this time when we went he refused to identify me," said the complainant.

"He pushed me and an other women and hurled abuses at us. We want to file a case against Mohaniya and he should be arrested," she added.

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However Mohaniya denied the charges against him saying that they were incorrect but accepted that the woman was coming to his office for the last three-four days regarding access to bore water.

The agitated women reached Neb Sarai police station and lodged an FIR against the MLA. A case has been filed against him for outraging the modesty of women.

"When he abused and pushed us, we also did the same. Are we here to be beaten up? We are facing severe water issue here," the complainant said.



Mohaniya was appointed as vice chairman of Delhi Jal Board by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The FIR against the AAP MLA has left the Kejriwal government red-faced. The party is already embattled with charges of flouting constitutional norms by appointing 21 parliamentary secretaries.

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Iftar parties are keeping Mamata Banerjee busy in the evenings. The West Bengal chief minister can be seen reciting Urdu couplets and sharing meals with members of the minority community.

By Romita Datta: The advent of Iftar parties calls for the time to break the fast with friends and foes alike. While celebrities are usually seen shuffling between Iftar parties, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is leaving no stone unturned to make the most of the festive occasion.

Banerjee has been keeping her evenings free to attend Iftar parties being organized at various venues. If it is the chilling sharbat at one party, fruits, dates and fried food stuff are the delicacies in the next party.



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Not an avid foodie owing to her efforts to stay fit, Banerjee is breaking bread well for political diplomacy with the members of the minority community.



BANERJEE QUOTES URDU COUPLETS



Banerjee can be seen attending several fast-breaking ceremonies with her cabinet colleagues. With her head covered and her colleagues wearing skull caps. Banerjee can be even heard quoting Urdu couplets in a bid to display her skills with the language and familiarity with the community.



In the last five years of Banerjee's tenure, the state has witnessed huge sops for the Muslim community. Sources said that in her current term too, Banerjee is looking forward to expand the number of beneficiaries.



BANERJEE BANKS ON MINORITY VOTES



This election, 28 per cent of the minority votes in Bengal largely went to the Trinamool Congress. However, Malda and Murshidabad districts, where 60% of the population constitutes the Muslims, have given their verdict against Mamata Banerjee. While Malda was lost, she got only three seats in Murshidabad.



Banerjee believes that the internal dispute within her party was largely responsible for this debacle and not the community's disappointment with her. Apart from the Trinamool Congress leaders, no other political party is showing interest in Iftar. Some Congress leaders are considering to holding Iftar parties locally. There has been no such initiative from the Left so far. Meanwhile, ISKCON at Mayapur in Nadia district organized Iftar by inviting the local imams.

Also read:

RSS tries to shed pro-Hindu image, invites 140 countries to Iftar party

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Bengaluru, June 23 (PTI) Discontent today snowballed in the ruling Congress over Karnatakas major ministry revamp as disgruntled party legislators decided to meet shortly to plan their next course of action, keeping the option open of pressing for leadership change.

A series of meetings were being held for the past two daysby several dropped ministers and ministerial berth aspirants after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah carried out a major rejig on Sunday, sacking 14 ministers and inducting 13 others to burnish the partys image with two years left for Assembly polls.

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"...we will meet on Sunday or Monday. We will all sit together, whatever decision is taken there, is final. Now we have gone one step ahead. To save the party, if leadership change is needed, we are ready for it," senior Congress MLA from Yadagiri Malka Reddy told reporters after a meeting.

"We will fight being within the party. First option is to see if there is any chance to strengthening the party without leadership change. First, we will give medicine, if things are not solved, we will be open for surgery," he added.

Another MLA from Afzalpur Mallikayya Guttedar, sulking over not being given a ministerial berth, said "wewill decide whether leadership change is needed."

The state Congress leadership continued its efforts to douse dissidence, with newly-appointed Working President Dinesh Gundu Rao seeking to pacify key sacked ministers like Ambareesh and Srinivasa Prasad, who have openly questioned Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs action of dropping them.

After meeting Ambareesh and Prasad, Rao said, "...he (Ambareesh) has no resentment against the party. I feel he will come out of these things soon, his support is needed for the party."

Senior leaders like Prasad, Qamarul Islam, Ambareesh, Baburao Chinchansoor who were dropped from the Ministry have openly criticised Siddaramaiah.

Ambareesh has even resigned as MLA, which has not been accepted.

Ministerial aspirants like Guttedar, Malka Reddy, S T Somashekar and Rajshekar Patil among others have madeopen remarks against Siddaramaiah and Mallikarjuna Kharge (Congress Leader in Lok Sabha), whose son Priyank Kharge has managed to find a ministerial slot.

Somashekar has claimed that eight legislators were contemplating resigning their Assembly membership in protest.

Sources said partys state in-charge Digvijay Singh is expected to visit here soon in order to control the growing resentment within the party.

Siddaramaiah had carried out the reshuffle after the Congress High Command gave its clearance for the major rejig, seen as an attempt to improve the partys image to retain power in the next polls in the only major bastion under its control after losing power in several states, most recently in Assam. PTI KSU RA VS SAI

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A PIL filed in the Supreme Court in 2014, presented the same material, excerpts of taped conversations which were forwarded by lawyer Suren Uppal to the PMO last week.

By Anusha Soni: The controversy in the Essar leaks case has deepened after the revelation of a mysterious Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that was filed in the Supreme Court back in February 2014 by an NGO called "International Civil Enforcement Group for Anti-terrorism Ethics ( ICEGATE)".

The PIL presented the same material, excerpts of taped conversations and other relevant evidence that have been put forward by lawyer Suren Uppal to the PMO last week.

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But the PIL was never pursued further and never came up for hearing.

According to the website of the Supreme Court the petition was discarded due to defects.

THE MYSTERIOUS PIL

The PIL made Prashant Ruia, Basit Khan and others respondents in the matter. Interestingly, Basit Khan who was made a respondent is allegedly the source of the tapes and evidence against Ruia for Suren Uppal.

When India Today reached the registered address of the NGO, Masood Ahmed, vice chairman of ICEGATE revealed that he received this information through a trusted friend who was earlier an employee with the Essar group.

He claimed that his repeated letters to ministries, politicians and even CBI went unanswered. He also said that he fears for his life and safety and has been struggling to ensure the protection of his family for the last four years.

"I did not have the financial means to pursue the case at the Supreme Court. But I have much more damaging information about how the national interests were compromised. I want the Supreme Court to hear my petition and I shall reveal all the details to them. Basit Khan is the person who did the tapping. He is the person who conducted the entire tapping operations for Ruia. I have no other interests but to bring the truth forward," said Masood Ahmed.

When the advocate on record in the 2014 PIL, KR Chitra was contacted she confirmed that the petitioner NGO "was not resourceful" to pursue the case at the Supreme Court. The filing counsel Prashant Koushik told similar reasons that the NGO did not pursue the matter further due to monetary constraints.

A copy of the petition accessed by India Today made allegations of 'menace of corporate espionage thereby circumventing the security and integrity of the Republic of India'.

ESSAR'S RESPONSE

When contacted the Essar group in an email reply to India Today said that the group is not aware about any earlier petition.

The much talked about Essar leaks which earlier exposed the links between the govt, corporates came to light again after lawyer Suren Uppal wrote a letter to the PMO.

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In his letter Uppal had said that new conversations and recordings reveal that Ruias had allegedly tapped the telephone conversation between senior government officials and top corporates which include Ambanis.

These conversations are also evidence that how major policy decisions like 2g spectrum license allocation, KG- D6 gas allocation have been impacted. However, the petition filed in 2014 by ICEGATE already had the same information.

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By India Today Web Desk: Walking to work for the staff at Banjara hills traffic police station in Hyderabad was a shocking experience on Thursday morning, after they spotted a five-foot-long python that had strayed into the police station.



Sighting of the massive reptile at the station mortified the cops and locals. The reptile was spotted at around 2.30 am. Moments later, the cops alerted a local animal welfare NGO that sent its personnel to rescue the python.



THREE COPS WERE PRESENT AT THE STATION



According to sources, there were three policemen on duty inside the police station. A home guard who was walking outside the station had spotted the reptile entering in to the police station. The cop later informed other two policemen and they allegedly fled from the spot.



PYTHON RELEASED INTO THE WILD



Sources from the police said that the python is in good health and that it will be handed over to the forest authorities who will release it into an appropriate habitat in the wild soon. According to the cops, there is an open space near the police station that has dense bushes and the snake must have come from there.

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Also read:

No, this python is not a serial killer! Viral story of drunk man eaten by snake in India is fake

Watch as python kills and then swallows crocodile whole

Watch: 15-foot-long King Cobra rescued from a house in Odisha

Four deadly cobras stand guard and protect sleeping baby



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Kerala police on Wednesday booked five seniors of the 19-year-old nursing student who allegedly forced her to consume phenyl on May 9.

By India Today Web Desk: Over a month after a student from Malappuram, Kerala was forced to drink phenyl at a Gulbarga-based nursing college in Karnataka, the Kerala police on Wednesday booked five of her seniors.

Two of the seniors identified as Lakshmi and Athira, also natives of Kerala, have been booked for attempt to murder. The other accused have been identified as Krishna, Shilpa and Joe. They have been booked under sections of Kerala Ragging Act and Atrocities under the SC, ST Act.



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Aswathi (19) a first year student of Al-Qamar College of Nursing in Gulbarga is battling for her life at a hospital in Kerala after she was forced to consume the liquid. Her internal organs suffered severe burns following the incident.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED:



On May 9, Aswathi was forced to drink phenyl by five of her seniors at the nursing college. "They told me to go and die by drinking phenyl. I tried to escape but they caught me and forced me to drink it," said Aswathi in her statement to the police.' Following the incident she was rushed to a local hospital. She was later transferred to Kerala after her condition worsened. Her mother said that she was unaware of the incident as the college did not inform her. She came to know about the incident after her friends brought her to the hospital in Kerala. College authorities denied reports of ragging and said that she attempted suicide due to family issues. Following the incident, the girl's mother approached the DG and IGP of Karnataka demanding strong action against the culprits. Gulbarga SP N Shashikumar received message from Kerala police on June 21 regarding the complaint. Gulbarga SP formed a 13-member team to probe the incident. The girl's condition continues to be critical. Doctors say the chemicals damaged the food pipe severely. The girl alleged that the college was complicit. In fact they seldom take action in such cases, she claimed. Hailing from a poor Dalit family, her mother had taken a loan of Rs 3 lakh to enroll her at the college.



Also Read:

Ragging in Kerala nursing school: She drank phenyl because of family problems, says principal





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The girl has been admitted to a local hospital in critical condition.

By India Today Web Desk: A girl was allegedly gangraped in Bihar's Motihari town late on Wednesday.

The girl has been admitted to a local hospital in critical condition.

The accused are absconding, police said.

More details are awaited.

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This guy's resume is one of the best resumes ever. Well, GQ definitely thinks so.

By India Today Web Desk: How many times have we tried landing a great internship at some point in our lives, and succeeded? It's a struggle so many of us are familiar with, and it's fair to say that hardly only of us will have a story that can compare with the story of Sumukh Mehta of Bangalore.

Sumukh's story is ironical as well as inspiring. After having assisted about 160 professionals in making their resumes, Sumukh finally decided to create his own resume, which finally landed him an internship with GQ, UK, without even an interview.

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In order to impress the Editor-in-Chief of the British GQ, Sumukh constructed a resume in the style of a GQ magazine that contained 20 pages showcasing his skills, education details, and reasons stating why the magazine should hire him.

Also read:This American's YouTube channel is as Delhi-tful as it gets



"In today's competitive world, everything is just so difficult that you need to be creative if you really want to make things work and that's what I did," Sumukh wrote on Facebook.

It took Sumukh three weeks to design the beautiful resume, which even has an editorial spreadsheet, by the way. In order to design the 'magazine,' he also took the help of some of his friends, who, surprisingly, had no clue what Sumukh was up to.

GQ India's Editor Che Kurrien even posted Sumukh's cover page on Instagram.

If only all of us were this creative, chasing our dreams wouldn't seem like such hard work. Sigh!





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Considered a hard-working family in Saharanpur, the Gupta brothers are making headlines because of their close relations with South African President Jacob Zuma. They have been accused of exercising political influence in South Africa.

By Sanjana Agnihotri: There were Gupta Brothers of Saharanpur. They are the Zupta brothers of Saxonwold, Johannesburg. They haven't changed their surname, but the Guptas became Zuptas thanks to their proximity to Jacob Zuma, the President. And their 'close relations' are often questioned by South Africans because the Guptas rags to riches story is seen as made possible by state patronage or as some call it 'state capture' by the Guptas.

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On Wednesday, a member of the wealthy Gupta family denied allegations of undue political influence, including offering cabinet positions, in its first public comment on charges that have plagued President Jacob Zuma's time in office.

The family's relationship with the scandal-troubled Zuma has been under question for years and several South African firms, including all four major banks, have cut links with companies associated with them.

Ajay Gupta, one of three brothers who moved to South Africa from India at the end of apartheid in the early 1990s and now head a business empire that stretches from technology to media and mining, said his friendship with Zuma was above board.

"I am not a lobbyist. I am not a state capturer. As far as I am concerned, I am a friend only," he said in an interview on state-owned broadcaster SABC.

"Capture is when you are taking any advantage of anything."

Zumba in December changed finance ministers twice in a week, alarming investors and triggering financial turmoil.







Atul Gupta with South African President Jacob Zuma(Source: Groundup.org)





SAHARANPUR TO SAHARA

The Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, lived in a dilapidated building in Rani Bazar in Western UP's Saharanpur before moving to South Africa in 1990.



Their father Shiv Kumar Gupta ran 'Gupta and Company' that specialised in distributing soapstone powder. He also made money by importing spices from Madagascar and Zanzibar through his Delhi-based business SKG Marketing.



Juggling between his various business setups, Shiv Kumar Gupta used to cycle daily to the Lord Shiva Temple in Bada Baba Lal Dass to feed rotis to cows and stray dogs.



In the late 1980s, his three sons used to commute between Saharanpur and Delhi to look after SKG Marketing.



That's when Atul completed courses on assembling, repairing and maintaining Apple hardware and went on to become a computer supervisor at a printing company in Delhi. The family could see a future in IT hardware business as India had just began adopting computers.

Shiv Kumar sent Atul to China to find out how they could get into this business and speak to vendors to work out importing motherboards. Had things worked out there, the brothers would probably not have made to South Africa.



After their little China exploration, Shiv Kumar Gupta bet on Africa. He told his sons that Africa would become the next 'America of the World'. Atul was sent to explore business opportunities.



He landed in the country just when the white minority rule was ending and South Africa was opening up to the world. There was no red tape at all. Opening a business was easy. He opened a shop with the money wired by his father. Then another. Before he set up his much-dreamt computer business Sahara Computers in 1993. Today, Sahara has an annual turnover of about 22 million dollars and employs 10,000 people.



Apart from computers, the family expanded their business to mining, air travel, energy, technology and media.



Even though Gupta brothers talk about their 'humble roots', soon after Atul went to South Africa the Gupta family transferred R1.2-million into an account he had opened in 1993.



From this 1.2 million along with another double-digit million figure that the family transferred later, he opened Correct Marketing in 1994, an import and distribution business selling computers and components.

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The family now has a Sahara Estate in Johannesburg that comprises of at least four mansions. The members of the family have personal security guards and have five personal chefs to their disposal. The estimated cost of the mansion is $3.4 million.



The lives of Gupta brothers and their children, if juxtaposed would show the rise and the making of the "Gupta empire". While their children are sent to top private schools in Johannesburg in chauffeur driven cars, the fathers took the rickshaw to a primary school. However, there is one thing similar, both the generations were particular about their security.



The Gupta's still visit Saharanpur, they also took the South African cricket team to the city in 2005.



Atul and Rajesh Gupta (fondly called Tony) along with their families have taken citizenship in South Africa. However, the eldest Ajay and their mother, Angoori, still hold Indian passports.

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How the Zumas and Guptas became Zuptas



According to Atul Gupta, he met South African President Jacob Zuma in 2002/03 during one of Sahara's annual functions where Zuma was a guest.



Rajesh, the younger Gupta brother who came to South Africa in 1997 to join the family business, is a "very close friend" and business partner of Zuma's son Duduzane.

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One of Jacob Zuma's wives, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, worked for the Gupta-controlled JIC Mining Services and Duduzile Zuma, his daughter, was a director at Sahara Computers.

Duduzane Zuma, his son, is a director in more than one Gupta-owned companies





Rajesh Gupta with Duduzane Zuma (Source: Gallo images)

Gupta's influence in the politics?

The wealthy Gupta family is accused of exercising political influence in South Africa.



In March 2016, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas revealed that a member of the Gupta family had offered him the position of Finance Minister in 2015.

Ajay Gupta denied the allegation saying he had never met Jonas. "I can say I have never seen him in my life," he said. Though he had met cabinet ministers many times at business functions, his relationships with government officials were above board.



In 2013, the family was busy splashing millions on a four-day wedding affair of one of the daughters of the younger generation of the Gupta family, Vega.



23-years-old Vega is Achala's daughter, the only sister to the three brothers.



The controversy around the relationship between Guptas and South Africa's first family came under direct question. It was found that a family plane carrying wedding guests landed at the Waterkloof Air Base near Pretoria, the base is usually reserved for visiting heads of state and diplomatic delegations.





Achala's daughter Vega Gupta got married to Aakash Jahajgarhia at Sun City

This raised many eyebrows including those in Zuma's party, the African National Congress which agreed with the opposition Democratic Alliance that this was a blatant abuse of power.



The Guptas also booked the entire five-star Palace of the Lost City hotel for four nights and said to have paid million for such exclusivity.



The "state capture" allegation have added to the investor concerns about governance and stability in the country. However, Zuma remains seems in a safe place with the support of his party.

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Santosh's parents Palanivel and Madheswari had been pretending to have accepted their son's marriage. When they heard that their son was transferred, they took the opportunity to get to Sumathi.

By Pramod Madhav: Santosh had lived a content life with his wife Sumathi for 8 years in Namakkal.

He first met Sumathi in Coimbatore where she was doing her post-graduation. Soon, the friendship blossomed into love.

WHAT HAPPENED The couple was educated, had a good family background, but belonged to different castes. They married without their parents' concern. Soon, Santosh cleared a job interview and became an assistant manager at a bank in Namakkal. He was recently transferred to Hossur. Santosh was supposed to take Sumathi to Hossur after he settled at work and set things up. But when he called her on June 20, she didn't answer the calls. Sumathi was found dead with her throat slit. Her father filed a complaint of theft as her jewellery was missing from the house. However, as it was an inter-caste marriage, police didn't want to rule out honour killing and took Santosh's parents for questioning.

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IN-LAWS TURN MURDERERS

Upon investigation, shocking details emerged. Santosh's parents Palanivel and Madheswari had been pretending to have accepted their son's marriage. When they heard that their son was transferred, they took the opportunity to get to Sumathi. Planning to meet her with the idea of organising a reception for her and Santosh, they entered the house.

When Sumathi was busy in the kitchen. Palanivel and Madheswari overpowered her and slit her throat. They later took some jewellery and her phone to make it look like it was a theft.

The police cornered them with their contradictory statement. Palanivel and Madheswari have been booked for honor killing and locked up in Salem prison.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Juhi Chakraborty

Madrid, Jun 23 (PTI) Superstar Salman Khan today chose to keep mum on the "rape remark" controversy and jokingly said he should talk less as these days whatever he says gets misinterpreted.

The 50-year-old actor had courted controversy after he compared himself with a raped woman in an interview when quizzed about the gruelling shooting of his upcoming film "Sultan", drawing sharp reactions from all quarters.

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"I will not take much time because nowadays the less I speak the better it is," said Salman in a jovial mood here while addressing the inauguration of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards.

The actor is yet to apologise for his comments despite many political parties and National Commission for Women (NCW) demanded a public apology for his rape remarks.

At IIFA, the "Kick" star will perform in the gala night besides his cross-border drama "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" being one of the front runners at the award nominations this year.

The award ceremony, which has travelled to several continents over the past 17 years, will mark its 17th edition this year in the European city, which is hosting the three-day event. PTI JCH NDS PMS

--- ENDS ---
Before the madness begins, TV stars like Mouni Roy, Arjun Bijlani, Manish Paul are chilling out and clicking selfies. Take a look.

By India Today Web Desk: The countdown to the IIFA Rocks, a musical extravaganza which is part of the IIFA weekend, has begun. And right now, the streets of Madrid are invaded by Indian film and TV stars who are ready to perform at IIFA in Spain. While the event would be hosted by Karan Johar and Fawad Khan, TV actors Manish Paul, Mouni Roy, Arjun Bijlani among others will be part of the event.

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Before the madness begins, the TV stars are chilling out and clicking selfies. Take a look.

Television host and Bollywood actor Manish Paul is apparently hosting a segment at IIFA. Here he's seen clicking a selfie.



#madrid day 2!!!lets go!!! Here comes paul!!! #mp#host #style #class #fun #blessed #happy#iifamadrid2016 A photo posted by Manish Paul (@manishpaul) on Jun 23, 2016 at 2:25am PDT

Arjun Bijlani is right now catching up with friends and newlyweds Sanaya Irani and Mohit Sehgal.





When friends meet in Spain ..Madrid .#happiness #funtimes#friends #friendsforlife #sanaya#mohitsehgal A photo posted by Arjun Bijlani (@arjunbijlani) on Jun 23, 2016 at 1:13am PDT

Mouni Roy seems to be enjoying all by herself by roaming in the streets of Madrid.

Oh the journey! You gotta lovee a good journey! #Madrid #iifa2016 A photo posted by mon (@imouniroy) on Jun 22, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT

A fan girl moment for Mukti Mohan.



Haina "Ekdum JhakKaaaas"???? So fortunate to have spent such a lovely #iifaweekend moment with you Sir Honestly You are a deadly combo of a superb Actor, Producer & the Most Fun SuperStar ever!! Congratulations for getting nominated for DDD at #iifamadrid2016 A photo posted by MUKTI MOHAN (@muktimohan) on Jun 22, 2016 at 6:56pm PDT

Priyanka Chopra's Namaste moment, ahead of IIFA, in Madrid.





Au Revoir France. And thank u #M6 for being such wonderful hosts in Paris #QuanticoInFrance ...Hola Madrid...! #iifa A photo posted by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jun 23, 2016 at 4:44am PDT

--- ENDS ---
By Maha Siddiqui: It may have signalled its support for India's NSG bid only very recently but Mexico has made it clear that despite its concerns on India not being an NPT signatory it is firmly backing New Delhi. The Mexican ambassador to India Melba Pria said, " It is important for India to be on-board the NSG." She however clarified that unlike US and France, Mexico will not make an appeal to member nations in support of India but vouched for her country's backing.

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While talking about what held Mexico back earlier the envoy said that her country believes in the use of nuclear energy strictly for civilian purposes. She also added that Mexico's concerns on countries like India not being NPT signatories remain however it will not impact their backing at the plenary underway in Seoul.

The Mexican ambassador also pointed out that once India becomes an NSG member the elite nuclear group will have to consider applications of other non-NPT signatories as well. When asked does it mean Pakistan, she said " anyone who knocks on the door." The Mexican ambassador spoke exclusively to India Today on the sidelines a press meet in Delhi.

She also spoke about the possibility of a civil nuclear cooperation deal with India. However, she was quick to add that there is no immediate plan in place.

PM Modi had made a pit stop at Mexico while heading to India after his US visit earlier this month. The visit was important as it was meant to extract a backing for India's NSG bid from one of NSG's key members, Mexico. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced his country's support to India's bid after holding wide-ranging talks with the Prime Minister Modi on bilateral and global issues. The Prime Minister had thanked Mexico for its support saying "Mexico is an important partner for India's energy security. We are now looking to move beyond a buyer-seller relationship, and into a long-term partnership."

Also Read:

NSG agenda tonight includes India's membership bid: Top 10 developments

China says Modi, Xi meet will boost trust, NSG issue won't affect ties

Indian agencies tracking Pak-North Korea Nuclear Trade

--- ENDS ---
A move that reflects how much Dubai's rulers value the revenue both tourists and alcohol tax bring into this emirate.

By AP: Dubai, the Mideast's desert party town, has just gotten even wetter.

The city-state is breaking new ground with its decision to loosen rules prohibiting day-time alcohol sales during the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, a move that reflects how much Dubai's rulers value the revenue both tourists and alcohol tax bring into this emirate.

In years past, those wanting a beer or a glass of wine needed to wait until sundown, when Muslims break the daylong Ramzan fast with their first sips of water and their evening meal called iftar. Bars in this city of skyscrapers would also play quiet music and make sure to hide those imbibing behind closed doors and tinted glass during the holy month.

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Just before this Ramzan, however, Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing issued a seemingly benign notice to hotel managers across the emirate. Bars and nightclubs in Dubai are almost entirely limited to operating inside of or connected to hotels - even drink receipts at the Dubai International Airport show up as coming from a hotel attached to the airport.

That May 31 notice, obtained by The Associated Press, informed hotels that during the dates encompassing Ramzan, alcohol sales would be governed by normal rules, as opposed to limiting their hours.

Asked by the AP about the rule change, Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing said that "ensuring a superlative visitor experience consistently is at the center of our destination proposition and remains in line with Dubai's significance as a world-class tourism destination."

RESPECT RAMZAN RULES

The tourism department did appeal on tourists to respect Ramzan rules.

"With nearly 1 million tourists expected to visit and enjoy all aspects of our city over Ramzan, we expect all operators and travelers to be respectful of the Holy Month and be mindful of cultural sensitivities," the department said in a statement.

Dubai, home of the long-haul airline Emirates, long has sought to make itself a tourism hub. AP photo

It declined to say why officials decided to change the long-standing rules on alcohol this year.

Dubai, home of the long-haul airline Emirates, long has sought to make itself a tourism hub. It has the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa - as well as man-made islands, an indoor ski slope and miles of air-conditioned walkways in its high-end malls. Under-construction amusement parks and other attractions are planned ahead of it hosting the 2020 World Expo, a world's fair held every five years.

Part of Dubai's year-round tourism draw is also its alcohol sales, as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran ban the purchase of liquor and beer. Even neighboring Sharjah, another of the United Arab Emirates' seven sheikhdoms, bans it.



LUCRATIVE BUSINESS

Beyond tourism, there's another lucrative reason for Dubai's rulers to sell alcohol.

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Every beer poured and mixed drink decanted in a bar is subject to a 30-percent municipality tax. There's also a 50-percent import tax for alcohol, so drinking can be expensive, though tourists and residents can buy from duty-free stores at Dubai's airports or from bootleggers.

The taxes haven't slowed down drinkers. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates saw 67.2 million liters (17.8 million gallons) of beer and 20 million liters (5 million gallons) of spirits sold. That's according to research firm Euromonitor International, which also forecast that by 2019, a total of 91.2 million liters (24 million gallons) of beer and 27 million liters (7 million gallons) of spirits will be sold in the UAE.

"Strong population growth driven by political unrest in neighboring Arab countries and economic hardships in Europe ... is likely to drive the sales of alcoholic drinks over the forecast," Euromonitor said in an October 2015 report. "Strong investments in the real estate and hospitality industries in preparation for Expo 2020 will also push tourism higher, which will have a positive effect on alcoholic drinks."

Despite Dubai's flushed embrace of alcohol, the city-state's laws are incredibly strict. In theory, anyone transporting or consuming liquor, beer or wine at home must carry a government-issued liquor license, obtainable only after gaining their employer's permission. Anyone driving with any trace of alcohol in their system is subject to immediate arrest and charges.

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Being drunk in public also is a criminal offense.

"Independently of any other crime, you certainly can get reported just for that," said Radha Stirling, a lawyer based in Britain who runs the advocacy group Detained in Dubai. "Anything else that you do while in the UAE, add alcohol to it and you'll certainly get a conviction for it."



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Indian Embassy officials said they would not comment on why the dialogue was postponed, although it comes amid differences between the two countries over India's bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

China pointed out that it was Washington that first came up with the rules for NSG membership and linking it to the NPT.

By Ananth Krishnan: India and China have postponed a high-level June 27 financial dialogue that was to be held in Beijing during Finance Minister Arun Jaitely's 5-day visit which begins on Thursday.

Indian Embassy officials said they would not comment on why the dialogue was postponed, although it comes amid differences between the two countries over India's bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

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Officials said the dialogue was not cancelled but rescheduled to a later date. The dialogue was due to take place in Beijing with the last round held in Delhi.

Officials refused to explain the reason for the postponement.

Jaitley will however on Friday attend a high-level investment summit in Beijing, where major Chinese companies are expected to attend, and will pitch for Chinese investment in manufacturing, infrastructure and other sectors.

Jaitley will also attend a board of governors meeting of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Saturday and Sunday. India is the second largest shareholder after China.



Day after China rebuff, US asks NSG to back India's membership

India hopeful of NSG consensus, says Sushma Swaraj

Exclusive: Positive about India's entry into NSG: Vladimir Putin to India Today





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By PTI: Islamabad, Jun 23 (PTI) India poses the "biggest threat" to Pakistan which has forced the country to make its defence mechanism India-specific, a top Pakistan army official has said.

Pakistan Army spokesperson Asim Bajwa said that efforts are going on to engage India.

However, the long-standing issue of Kashmir is the cause of tensions between the two nations, he said.

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During an interview with Germanys international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, he said that the countrys defence mechanism was India-specific.

This is "due to the fact that India posed the biggest threat to Pakistans security", he was quoted by Geo TV as saying.

He also accused the international community of not doing enough for Pakistan.

"I would say that the international community has not done enough for us," Bajwa, the Director-General of the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), said.

Bajwa also criticised the recent American drone strike which killed former Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan. He said that it was unfortunate since Pakistan was not informed of the strike despite being an ally of the US and Mansour was part of the Afghan reconciliation process.

"Mansour entered into Pakistan from another state and then he was traced and attacked. He was a part of the reconciliation process and was required to play his role for peace," he said. "Pakistan was not informed despite being an ally. This is the issue Pakistan has been protesting," he added.

Pakistan has done a lot to combat terrorism but criticism from the West that the Pakistani army is not "doing enough" against militants is "both regretful and unjustified." PTI NSA AKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Manash Pratim Bhuyan

Tashkent, Jun 23 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held a meeting with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov during which the two leaders called for more security cooperation to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations.

During the meeting, the two leaders recalled old historical and cultural connections and discussed ways to further expand and strengthen relations.

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The Prime Minister, who is on a second visit to the country within a year, conveyed Indias decision to extend e-Tourist Visa to Uzbek nationals.

He also said India will organise a Festival of India and an Indian Trade Exhibition in Uzbekistan to mark 25 years of Uzbekistans independence and 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations with India.

Both leaders noted that cooperation was growing in defenceand an MoU on Cyber Security had been concluded. They called for more cooperation in security.

The Prime Minister also thanked President Karimov for support to Indias membership of SCO. PTI PMS AKJ PMS

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Top government sources told India Today that Indian agencies have got active after they received information that nuclear missile materials were being transported by Pakistan to North Korea through the sea route using cargo ships.

Agency sources have said that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as 'Monel' and 'Inconel' material to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions.

By Manjeet Negi: Along with global spy agencies, Indian intelligence agencies are tracking the nuclear trade between Pakistan and North Korea.

Top government sources told India Today that Indian agencies have got active after they received information that nuclear missile materials were being transported by Pakistan to North Korea through the sea route using cargo ships.

The agencies are also keeping an eye on the white shipping emanating from Pakistan towards South East Asia to track the nuclear trade, sources revealed.

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The American spy agency CIA has been saying that Pakistan continues to sell nuclear materials to North Korea at a time when Islamabad has been urging the international community to accept its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Agency sources said that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as 'Monel' and 'Inconel' material to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions.

The sources said that nuclear materials supplied to the PAEC by Chinese entities have also found their way to North Korea, with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) recently receiving a written complaint that supplies of a Chinese company, Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited, to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities.

Chinese government hushed up the matter as it could have consequences for Beijing's bid to support Pakistan at the NSG. However, the information leaked out of North Korea and came to the knowledge of western governments who are members of the NSG.

Also Read:

NSG agenda tonight includes India's membership bid: Top 10 developments

China says Modi, Xi meet will boost trust, NSG issue won't affect ties



--- ENDS ---
In a protest against abortion laws, women's rights group used a drone to send abortion pills to women in Northern Ireland.

By India Today Web Desk: In a bid to protest against restrictive rules surrounding the termination of abortion laws, women's rights activists used a drone to send abortion pills to women in Northern Ireland.



A coalition of pro-choice groups- Dutch group Women on Waves, Northern Irish group Alliance for Choice, Irish group Rosa and Northern Irish group Labour Alternative staged this bizarre protest.

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The drone was flown from Omeath in County Louth in the Republic and landed a short distance away, near Narrow Water Castle in County Down shortly after 10 AM on Tuesday, reports the Guardian.

The drugs being carried by the drone, mifepristone and misoprostol, can be taken up to nine weeks into a pregnancy according to the World Health Organisation.

The law in the Republic of Ireland deems abortion illegal and the potential sentence can go up to 14 years of imprisonment. Abortion is allowed only in exceptional cases when the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother's life.

Thousands of women in Northern Ireland who bear the brunt of this stringent abortion law are forced to travel all the way to UK for an abortion at their personal expense.

Statistics by the UK Department of Health show that "between January 1980 and December 2015, at least 166,951 women and girls travelled from the Republic of Ireland for abortion services in another country."

The women's rights activist stated that they did not violate any law by delivering abortion pills via drone across the border. The laws in UK deem electronic prescription legal and the same is applicable in Northern Ireland.



The 'abortion drone' protest is set to change the existing restrictive abortion law by making abortion more easy, affordable and safe for women.



Police officers present at the landing site and filmed the entire event but did not disrupt the protest.

--- ENDS ---
By India Today Web Desk: Tom Cruise is back in his action-star avatar (when did he leave you ask?) with the sequel to 2012's Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back also stars Cobie Smulders (of How I met you mother-fame)

The film follows its protagonist, as he heads back to his old military unit to meet the head of his former unit. What makes things murkier is that he is charged with a crime committed nearly 20 years ago, and there's also a possibility that he might have a daughter he didn't know about.



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The sequel will be directed by Edward Zwick, replacing Christopher McQuarrie from the original. The film looks bone-crushingly brutal and comes out four years after its predecessor.

This will be Tom Cruise's first release since the fifth instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation). Off late, the Top Gun actor has only been known to be doing high-octane action movies and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back doesn't look any different. But who is complaining?



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According to reports, the actor might join hands with Ram Charan for a yet-untitled film, which is currently in its nascent stage.

By India Today Web Desk: Kajal Aggarwal and Ram Charan are the most-adored pair of Tollywood. From Magadheera to Mevvudu, all the four films of the pair are known for their on-screen chemistry. Now, it is rumoured that the actors might come together for fifth film.

ALSO READ:Chiru 150 - Chiranjeevi's comeback film goes on floors

ALSO READ: Kajal Aggarwal's lip-lock scene with Randeep Hooda has set the internet on fire

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According to News Minute, the actor might join hands with Ram Charan for a yet-untitled film which is currently in its nascent stage. However, Kajal will make a special appearance in his upcoming film Dhurva, a remake of Tamil film Thani Oruvan.

Kajal will be shaking a leg with Ram for a peppy number in the film, which also stars Arvind Swami in a pivotal role.

The film is directed by Surender Reddy and is about the mind games between an IPS officer and a cunning entrepreneur.

Geetha Arts is bankrolling the project and Dhurva has music by Hip Hop Tamizha duo.



--- ENDS ---
Be it the dressy number or a casual one, Kareena Kapoor Khan can easily ace both!

By Hemul Goel: While Kareena Kapoor Khan's no stranger to setting trends--be it with her makeup or the sexy gowns she sports--she rules the roost when it comes to ethnic wear.



Also read: Five times Kareena Kapoor Khan gave us major ethnic-wear goals

Be it a dressy pink number or a muted printed one, Kareena can look equally gorgeous in completely different attires.

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This high cheek-boned stunner was spotted wearing a lovely pastel pink hued hand-embroidered sharara from Malasa for a shoot for Malabar Jewellery. The simple blow dry and soft makeup kept the youthful, she-looks-like-a-fresh-rose vibe intact.

Pink is her colour! Picture courtesy: Instagram/@dhoomdhaamweddings

There's no point saying anything about the jewellery, as the bling was for the shoot of the jewellery brand.



Also read: Kareena Kapoor Khan twirling in her all-white outfit would make Snow White jealous

Her second look had Kareena taking a much more casual route, in printed separates from Label : Anushree. While the print-on-print pairing is a hard look to ace, the actress seems to pull it off with surprising ease. A statement neckpiece from Aquamarine, waves and grey juttis rounded off her look.

Print on print perfection! Picture courtesy: Instagram/@karishmashaikhh;

Though both the looks are diametrically opposite to each other, we still won't be able to choose a favourite between the two.

Maybe you can help us?

--- ENDS ---
The father of two and the future king of England just let the world know the secret behind his trim shape.

Like always, the two look regal together. Picture courtesy: Instagram/@catherinemiddleton_duchess

By India Today Web Desk: Prince William and Kate Middleton are always busy attending events and while any pictures of them together are enough to make the fans of the British royals go awww, it's moments like these when one gets an insight into the couple's camaraderie that are relationship gold.

Also read: Feeling Blue: Kate Middleton finds a way to rock the colour, thrice over

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While attending an evening hosted at the residence of their friends, the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley, the couple indulged in light banter, during which the two ended up revealing Prince William's secret to his lean physique.

According to People, while talking to the Michelin-star chefs at the event, Kate commented that, "William was looking forward to a break from her cooking when the couple attended the gala dinner."

She said, "William has to put up with my cooking most of the time."

Also read: Take a look at Princess Charlotte's first public appearance on the Buckingham Palace's famous balcony

Not missing an opportunity to throw a jibe his wife's way, William said, "It's the reason I'm so skinny."

We guess the reason lies in his desire to keep up with Ms K herself, rather than the cooking.

--- ENDS ---
According to him, Chandy government mismanaged public finance by paralysing the tax collection machinery in the state leading to the financial crisis.

By Jeemon Jacob: Dr Thomas Isaac, a renowned economist and finance minister of Kerala, is busy in writing his first Pinarayi government's budget, which will be presented in the Assembly on July 8.

Isaac knows very well that Kerala is on the verge of financial mess. But he wants to take a bold step to minimize revenue deficit of the state that may go up to Rs 27000 crores by next year as the government has to pay salary arrears by next March 31 and state's annual borrowing is Rs 20000 crores.



PENSION SCHEMES BY CHANDY GOVT WILL BE HONOURED

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"Kerala is passing through a financial mess and revenue deficit is shooting up with every year. 14th Finance Commission has directed to reduce revenue deficit considerably. I've accepted the fact and wanted to cap the deficit," Dr Isaac told India Today.

"I'm planning to reduce revenue deficit of the state within three years through increasing revenue collection. But I can say that pension schemes announced by Chandy government for the poor and socially disadvantageous people will be honoured and we may include more people in the welfare schemes," he added

The economist holds mega projects and the biased attitude of the previous UDF government responsible for pushing Kerala to the brink of financial collapse.

"The previous government's mega projects that require huge investment will be put in cold storage," he explained.

"The UDF government announced several colleges and other institutions for some influential groups and communities to win election," he added.



CRIPPLE TAX COLLECTING MACHINERY

According to him, Chandy government mismanaged public finance by paralysing the tax collection machinery in the state leading to the financial crisis.

"I'm planning to introduce novel methods ensuring effective tax collection. Recently I've met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia to have a firsthand knowledge how Delhi has improved tax collection mode. They have introduced a program to upload bills directly to a master server managed by the Finance Department. So the sales tax or any other tax collected from the public will be accounted to the government data base," he explained.



STRENGHTEN THE INFRASTRUCTURE



But his major thrust is to bring in mega money for the infrastructural development of Kerala.

"We need huge fund to develop the state. We are planning to mobilize Rs 50000 crores to Rs 100000 crores within three years. According to the Opposition it is an impossible task. I'm taking their challenge and identified sources of funding," Dr Isaac said.

According to him, special purpose vehicles will be launched in the state under semi-public sector units. "We are identifying sectors that require mega investment. We will create a platform to ensure financial security for semi- public sector units. We need Rs 15,000 crores for the development of the National and State High ways," he explained.

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CONSERVE ENERGY

Being a green soul, 63 year old Isaac plans mega drive to save energy. During his tenure as the finance minister in the Achuthanandan government he had initiated a campaign to replace all street lights with LED bulbs in Alappuzha and also introduced "two CFL bulbs free" scheme for all families in the state.

He told India Today that if the project is introduced to replace all filament bulbs by LED bulbs, the state may save 265 mega watts of power annually and needs only Rs 250 crores.

"Athirapilly hydro electric project can only generate 263 MW and for that the state had to spend around Rs 15000 crores. When we have challenges, we should think about extra-ordinary solutions. Our government has a will to change and develop Kerala. State Budget will have all these surprises," he assured.

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By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 22 (PTI) Drug firm Lupin has received final approval from the US health regulator for its generic Amabelz tablets in the American market.

The company has received "final approval for its Amabelz tablets (Estradiol and Norethindrone Acetate tablets USP, 0.5 mg / 0.1 mg and 1 mg / 0.5 mg) from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," Lupin said in a filing to BSE.

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The companys tablets are generic version of Amneal Pharmaceuticals Activella tablets in the same strengths, it added.

As per IMS MAT March 2016, Activella had US sales of USD 95.6 million, Lupin said. The tablets are used for treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms due to menopause and prevention of post-menopausal osteoporosis.

Mumbai-based Lupin produces and develops a wide range of branded and generic formulations, biotechnology products and APIs globally.

Lupin stock closed over 1 per cent up at Rs 1,464.60 per on BSE. PTI AKT AP RSY ABM

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By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, Jun 22 (PTI) Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai today paid a moving tribute to murdered British MP Jo Cox as hundreds of people gathered for a special memorial event at Trafalgar Square in London to mark what would have been the lawmakers 42ndbirthday.

The Pakistani activist, who survived a shot to the head by Taliban gunmen, said the gathering and the outpouring of support from the world over for the British MP proved that extremists have failed once again.

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"Extremists resort to bullets because they cannot win the battle of minds. I am living proof that they cannot win with bullets either. Jos message of peace is more powerful than any weapon of war and once again proves that the extremists have failed," said the teenager, who is now based in Birmingham with her family.

"When my family needed a haven, this country offered it with open arms. Jos arms were open to all humanity. She embodied all that is best about this country," said Yousafzai, as she joined the MPs family and friends at the #MoreInCommon event to commemorate the life of the Labour MP who was shot and stabbed to death on the street near her constituency office in northern England last week.

The organisers of the event in a statement said, "One of the causes which was closest to Jos heart was education for girls andMalala and Jos work intersected at many points. Malala was shot for daring to defy those who had banned education for girls in her region of Pakistan and has spent much of her life since campaigning for human rights and education."

People gathered at Trafalgar Square as well as the Market Square in Jos constituency of Batley, West Yorkshire, to celebrate her life.

Herhusband, Brendan Cox, and two young children made their way down the river Thames on the family house-boat for the memorial service in Trafalgar Square.

The vessel, decked with colourful flags, sailed through the city tugging a miniature boat called the Yorkshire Rose in a tribute to Cox.

"When she saw pain, she wanted to do all that she could to alleviate it. Jo lived her life to the full with a pedal to floor and missing brake-pads," her husband said in his tribute to his late wife.

He had tweeted earlier in the day: "Today would have been Jos birthday. If you can, please join us this afternoon to celebrate her life & legacy."

A moment of silence was observed as actor Bill Nighy performed a reading and there was also be a musical tribute from U2, recorded by the band in Los Angeles.

Tributes are also planned in New York, Paris,Washington DC, Dublin, Brussels, Oslo, Buenos Aires and Beirut.

The event in London included an honour guard from Jos friends from the womens movement,wearing sashes in the suffragette colours of white, green and purple.

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Brendanhad earlier said that his late wife, a passionate campaigner for human rights, international development and the plight of refugees during her parliamentary career and in her previous role working for the charity Oxfam, "died for her views".

Tommy Mair, a 52-year-old far-right loner, has been remanded in custody after being charged with Jos murder and will appear in court again tomorrow. PTI AK PMS

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By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 23 (PTI) Maldivian opposition today called on India to take on a more active role in "restoring democracy" in the island nation and put pressure on President Abdulla Yameens government by taking steps like imposing sanctions.

"The Maldives United Opposition supports Prime Minister Narendra Modis Region First policy, without reservation. We believe that the Indian Ocean is Indias Ocean, and it should remain that way," Ahmed Naseem, former Maldivian Foreign Minister and senior leader of Mohamed Nasheeds Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), said here.

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"We reject President Yameens attempts to balance priorities between our neighbour India on the one hand, and a large country 5,000 kilometres away, on the other. We believe that Yameens policy of playing one country off against another is undesirable, untenable and unwarranted," he said in an apparent reference to China and India during an interaction at the Observer Research Foundation.

Asserting that India can play a much bigger role in the Maldives, Naseem sought more active Indian role in bringing back democracy on track in his country.

"India should not allow fatigue to set in," Naseem said when asked about what the opposition expected from India.

Naseem, who is heading a delegation of shadow ministers of the Maldives United Opposition which has brought together political leaders and parties from across the spectrum, expressed concern over "growing radicalisation" in that country and alleged that there were training camps of ISIS on its soil.

Naseem said Maldives United Opposition is trying to get the message across that it is impossible to have an election in 2018 under the prevailing conditions.

"So we are appealing to the government of India as our closest and the biggest democracy in the world to pressure the government of the Maldives to get away from what they are doing," he said.

"We know that even major countries huge countries...also bend to pressure...sanctions, various things...and Maldives you know is no exception. 80 per cent of the foreign exchange is earned through tourism," Naseem said.

The call for sanctions was made during an interaction between Naseem-led visiting delegation of the shadow ministers of the newly-launched Maldives United Opposition with experts, media and the diplomatic community here.

Naseem, shadow minister for foreign affairs, said the primary objective of the Maldives United Opposition is to bring the country back on a democratic path, which respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, as guaranteed under the Maldives Constitution.

"President Yameen has shown no interest in upholding the Constitution he was elected to protect. Instead, he has made it abundantly clear -- through his words and deeds -- that he intends to make the Maldives an authoritarian state under his rule," he alleged. MORE PTI ASK PYK RT

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Six of the discharged people are from Malegaon and are alleged to have engineered the serial bombings on September 8, 2006 that killed 31 people.

By Vidya : Maharashtra government has challenged a special NIA court's decision to discharge eight people in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case. Six of the discharged people are from Malegaon and are alleged to have engineered the serial bombings on September 8, 2006 that killed 31 people.

Sandeep Shinde, public prosecutor in the Bombay High court, said, "Yes we filed an appeal in the high court." However, he refrained from giving further details as he will be returning from Chandigarh today.

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The NIA court had found no evidence against the discharged people, but the appeal against the discharge has been filed by the Anti-terror squad of Maharashtra government which was the first agency to investigate the case and had arrested nine accused in the case. The case was later handed over to CBI and then to NIA.



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The imposter, identified as Pormit Kumar Mitra, had donned a Major General's uniform.

As soon as the imposter entered the HQ premises, he fished out a camera and started taking pictures.

By India Today Web Desk: In a major security breach, a man gained entry into the sensitive Eastern Command Headquarters at Fort William, Kolkata, allegedly masquerading as a Major General.

The imposter, identified as Pormit Kumar Mitra, had donned a Major General's uniform. As soon as he entered the HQ premises, he fished out a camera and started taking pictures.

His activities raised the suspicions of a security guard who demanded to see Mitra's identity card.

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On failing to provide any papers, Mitra was immediately arrested.

He has been handed over to Kolkata police and is being interrogated.

The Eastern Command of the Indian Army is one of the seven operational commands of the army.

It is responsible for defending northeast and eastern India, including the strategic Siliguri corridor.

It consists of the III, IV, and XXXIII (23rd) Corps.

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The Chief Minister attacked Muslim clergy for raising Handwara molestation case and Article 370 from pulpits of mosques, saying since Handwara incident several other incidents of molestation have taken place.

By Naseer Ganai: In Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, today targeted Muslim clergy and ridiculed it for talking about Article 370 being in danger, questioning industrial policy of the government and repeatedly mentioning Handwara molestation case.

The Chief Minister said she was not accountable to anyone for her alliance with the BJP and insisted that if required, for peace of the state, she would forge an alliance with the BJP thousand times, thus nonchalantly rejecting the assertion of National Conference and Congress members, who had questioned her decision of entering alliance with the BJP.

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She said the PDP's alliance with the BJP was the toughest decision of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. Her father, she said, was not in habit of moving away from tough decisions after taking them thus making it clear that alliance with the BJP would continue.

She said it would have been a betrayal to the mandate of people of Jammu, who overwhelmingly voted for the BJP in 2014 elections, had PDP not formed alliance with it.

MUFTI ATTACKS MUSLIM CLERGY FOR RAISING ISSUES FROM MOSQUES

The Chief Minister attacked Muslim clergy for raising Handwara molestation case and Article 370 from pulpits of mosques, saying since Handwara incident several other incidents of molestation have taken place. She said civilians were involved in these incidents of molestation. She said incidents of molestation had taken place during school picnics and in the classrooms. "Is it necessary that you (clergy) talk about it only when men in uniform are involved", she asked.

Earlier former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had sought response of the government on Handwara incident.

On April 12 afternoon massive protests had erupted in Handwara town, around 75 km northwest of Srinagar, following allegations that a minor girl was molested by a soldier at a lavatory used by the army troopers stationed in the bunkers at the main market in Handwara.

On the same day two persons were killed after the army opened fire on the protesters and three others were killed in police and army firing during next three days of protests. The angry protesters razed down the bunkers.

The Chief Minister while alluding to moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who usually issues statements on various political and social issues from the pulpit of the Grand Mosque of Kashmir, Jamia Mosque, Srinagar, said they always feel that the Article 370 was in danger.

MUST TALK ABOUT OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES: MUFTI



She said they raise the issue of the Article 370 being in danger without knowing anything about it. "What is Article 370? The Article will be relevant only when our rivers, mountains and forest will remain."

"I want to ask these people who sermon from pulpits on Fridays, have you ever wondered what has happened to Dal Lake. Have you ever mentioned this in your sermon. Have you ever made people to understand that Dal is dying? Have you ever talked about it", she asked. "I want to ask these preachers that scores of people are falling ill because of pollution. Why are these preachers not talking about it", she added.

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"Before 370, we have to take care of climate, environment and water bodies of J-K," Mehbooba said. "Article 370 is not the issue. They are looking for something else", she said.

She, however, described Article 370 as shared inheritance of the state and said nothing would happen to it. "We will safeguard it", she said amidst applause from the members.

She said the government was committed towards return of Kashmiri Pandits to Kashmir, but a sense of security must prevail in the community.

Also read:

Anantnag polls to be a popularity test for Mehbooba Mufti



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So, smart-phone addiction is as real as reality gets; more so for men.

By India Today Web Desk: All of us are so used to our phones that we can barely survive without looking at them every few minutes, or every minute, or 30 seconds, or 15 seconds.

According to a recently conducted study, a man can make it just 21 seconds without checking his phone. Yes, you read that right.

In the study, the participants were left on their own in a room with their phones, and they could keep their hands off of it for an average of 44 seconds before having a look at it again.

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Men fared worse than women at the test with their average timing being 21 seconds, while women did a tad bit better, at 57 seconds.

The research was organised by University of Wurzburg, Germany, and Nottingham University in London on behalf of cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab.

What was more extraordinary was the fact that all of them thought they had not seen their phones for a total of two-three minutes. Now, THAT says a lot about our perception of real time, doesn't it?

Also read:This 86-year-old grandma thinks Google is a real person!



"The experiment suggests that people are far more attached to these devices than they realise and it has become second nature to turn to our smart phones when left alone with them. We do not just wait anymore," said Jens Binder from the University of Nottingham Trent.

The study also found a direct relationship between the usage of smart phones and the increase in stress.



Further research conducted by the institutes suggests that this compulsion to check phones could be a fear of missing out (FOMO) on something that happened when they were not online.

Priorities, people!



(With inputs from IANS)



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This letter was sent a day after NDMC official, MM Khan was shot dead just outside his residence in Jamia Nagar on May 16 by two bike borne men.

By Ankit Tyagi: The AAP has got new ammunition in their fight against the L-G. A letter written by L-G Najeeb Jung's office to NDMC chairman on May17, 2016 seeking action on the petition of hotel owner and murder accused Ramesh Kakkar is now going to become the latest flash point better the AAP government and the L-G Office.

This letter was sent a day after NDMC official, MM Khan was shot dead just outside his residence in Jamia Nagar on May 16 by two bike-borne men. Since then the police has arrested 3 people including Delhi hotellier Kakkar in connection with Khan's murder.

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Khan was allegedly gunned down for refusing to take bribe by Kakkar to quash the cancellation order of licence deed of Connaught Hotel in CP Delhi by the NDMC. According to the police Khan was killed just a day before he had give his final order in the case. In Feburary 2015, the hotel was sealed by NDMC for failing to pay Rs 140 crore as fee to the civic body.



BJP, AAP FIGHTING TOOTH AND NAIL

Meanwhile, this murder saw a massive political fight between the AAP and the BJP. The AAP had accused BJP leaders Karan Singh Tanwar and MP Maheish Giri of helping Kakkar in trying to put pressure on Khan to revoke his order. Letters allegedly written by Tanwar and Giri to L-G have been used by the AAP to establish their collusion and demand police investigation against them. These charges have been vehemently denied by both Tanwar and Giri, with the BJP MP even fasting for 3 days outside CM Kejriwal's residence to challenging Kejriwal to provide evidence against him.

Delhi CM citing communication between BJP leaders and notes by L-G Office to NDMC seeking action ?on murder accused Kakkar's repeated petitions has accused L-G Najeeb Jung to shielding BJP leaders.



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With India set to become a member of the China-led grouping, Modi is hopeful of 'fruitful outcome, particularly in the field of economic cooperation'.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for Tashkent on Thursday to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit hoping to seek support for India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group.

Modi will also be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping to push forward his diplomacy for 'mission NSG'.



HOPING FRUITFUL OUTCOME



With India set to become a member of the China-led grouping, Modi is hopeful of 'fruitful outcome, particularly in the field of economic cooperation'.

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"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit & interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

Modi further asserted that ties with Central Asia is of great importance for economic expansion of the country.

The summit of the six-nation grouping is expected to focus on enhancing security cooperation to curb down terrorism.

"PM goes to Tashkent tomorrow for the SCO summit. The SCO summit kicks off with a gala, dinner and a cultural programme. He will be meeting the host, the present Chair of the SCO, President Karimov of Uzbekistan, tomorrow. After that he will be attending what they call the extended session of the SCO. The following day, that is the June 24, there will be a couple of bilaterals as well and he returns to India on Friday evening, that is June 24," said MEA Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta at a press conference.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others will also be present at the event, at which leaders will discuss various issues including terrorism and energy cooperation.

"Our engagement in these areas will intensify through this. The SCO is a major group in terms of countries that have huge potential in terms of energy. We believe, in fact there is stock of SCO energy club emerging. So we will wait and see how that develops," Mehta added.

ENERGY BOOSTER

For the first time, SCO will accommodate new countries and make both India and Pakistan as its members. Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia are observers at the SCO.

Membership of the SCO will give a boost to India's energy cooperation with the Central Asian members.

"SCO is a major group in terms of countries that have huge potential in terms of energy. There is also a talk of an SCO energy club emerging," Mehta said.



However, China had said on Wednesday that India's entry into the bloc was not on the agenda of the Seoul plenary as New Delhi is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).



The SCO is a regional grouping comprising China, Russia and four Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.



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India along with Pakistan was granted membership of the SCO last July. Both the South Asian nations are expected to join fully by 2016.



The SCO was founded in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

ALSO READ:

Mission almost accomplished, India set to enter Missile Control Group

Mission NSG: China says NSG divided, issue can't be discussed in plenary



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A special meeting was convened on today night after the 26th plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group kicked off, to discuss urgent items. But the special meeting could not get pass discussions on technical consequences of entry of Non-NPT signatory countries and take up the India specific bid.

The special meeting could not get pass discussions on technical consequences of entry of Non-NPT signatory countries and take up the India specific bid.

By Smita Sharma: Three hours of deliberations in a closed room at a luxury hotel in Seoul. But the deadlock remained on Thursday as delegations of 48 member countries left around midnight with plans to restart dialogue Friday morning. The special meeting had been convened on Thursday night after the 26th plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group kicked off, to discuss urgent items. And prominent on the agenda was India's bid for entry to the elite nuclear club. This found voice through countries like Japan, US, UK, France, Hungary, Australia, Germany, Canada in behind the door deliberations during the plenary. But the special meeting could not get pass discussions on technical consequences of entry of Non-NPT signatory countries and take up the India specific bid.

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According to diplomats privy to the conversations, while China continued to find ways to block India's entry , other nations too had their share of concerns on issues of criterion, procedure. Ireland, Austria and New Zealand raised questions on merits of non-NPT signatory nation with Turkey flagging Pakistan's right of membership to NSG in future. While Brazil emphasised upon non-discriminatory, criterion based process.

32 POSITIVE INTERVENTIONS

However top Indian government sources claimed that the questions of merit raised by some countries can not be equated to Chinese opposition and that there were 32 positive interventions in favour of India during the day. Diplomatic officials feel confident that this apparent opposition is about trying to find ways to come to an agreement for India despite it not signing the NPT, based on its impeccable non proliferation record.

Just two hours ahead of the special NSG meeting, all eyes were set on the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent. India raised the NSG plenary issue in the nearly fifty minutes long meeting along the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit . MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup informed, "PM Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its merit."

CHINA STILL NON-COMMITTAL

The Prime Minister also said that China should contribute to emerging consensus in Seoul, according to the Ministry Spokesperson. China however remained non-committal.

Earlier the 26th plenary summit the Nuclear Suppliers Group got underway on Thursday morning with South Korea as Chair. Korea is concurrent chairman this time for NSG and MTCR. Inaugurating the session Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se focused heavily on North Korea's nuclear clandestine program. But on the issue of way forward for the elite nuclear grouping, he outlined as a challenge, "Maintaining the balance between nuclear trade for peaceful uses and non-proliferation objectives, especially following the Paris agreement on climate change and the rising demand for nuclear energy."

Byung Se also highlighted the challenge of 'striking the right balance between guarding the confidentiality of sensitive information and enhancing the transparency in information sharing.'

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At the plenary remarks though there were no clear indications that India's membership push was on the agenda. In his opening remarks, the Korean Foreign Minister simply said, " We NSG members also need to strive to forge a consensus on the membership issue, considering our needs to further strengthen this group." He later evaded a direct question posed by Mail Today if New Delhi's application would figure at the plenary.

Meanwhile the Indian delegation in Seoul led by top diplomat S Jaishankar, despite not being inside the consultation room, has been holding dialogue on the side. The Indian Foreign Secretary met delegation members over the last 24 hours including with Brazilians to assuage their concerns.

The Indian side now hopes that delegations will go back and consult with their ministries and come back to the negotiating table on Friday to resolve the deadlock.For now New Delhi has its fingers crossed.

Also Read:

China stonewalls India's NSG bid, deadlock over entry of non-NPT nations continues

India's bid for NSG membership: Will PM Modi be able to scale the Great Wall of China?

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China says Modi, Xi meet will boost trust, NSG issue won't affect ties



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NCRB figures are an eye-opener. From 2004 to 2014, as many as 8900 inmates, many of them hardened criminals facing serious charges like murder and rape, have skipped parole and never returned to serve remainder of their sentences.

By Amitabh Srivastava: A Google news search on "parole jumpers India" brings out just two country-specific entries. One pertains to June second week's arrest of one Gyanendra, a parole jumper. He was nabbed in New Delhi with two automatic pistols.

The second news is about October 2015 arrest of another parole jumper, Jaivir, a rape and murder accused, who despite his tainted record was granted parole by Haryana authorities in June last year. He rightfully jumped it, and was planning to kill a woman when cops got lucky and nabbed him with Ratvinder, another parole jumper.

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Two entries hardly raise eyebrows. In an era, when the number of entries on Google news is considered directly proportional to the intensity of the issue, just two news stuffs on parole jumpers cannot be more misleading.

FROM 2004 TO 2014: 8900 INMATES HAVE SKIPPED PAROLE

The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) figures are an eye-opener. From 2004 to 2014, as many as 8900 inmates, many of them hardened criminals facing serious charges like murder and rape, have skipped parole and never returned to serve remainder of their sentences. Of these, the cops could arrest only 2062. As things stand, 6838 of the criminals are still free, off the hook and perhaps waiting to strike again.

The most uncomfortable fact about parole jumpers is that convicts and prison authorities often connive to hoodwink the system. For a convict, it is always tempting to use escape prison sentence on one pretext, or the other, as there are enormous incentives outside.

Incidentally, parole is granted only to a convict; and not to an under trial prisoner, which means every parole jumper is a convicted criminal who has used the permission to go out of jail as a get- out -of -jail- free- card.

The rules allow two types of leave for prisoners. The first is furlough, which is a matter of right, whereas parole is granted for family emergencies. Furlough leave is of 14 days, and can be extended by another 14 days. A convict can apply for parole for 30 days, for emergencies, such as illness or death of a family member. Parole can be extended by another 60 days.

Police officers work hard to arrest criminals; and then prosecution toil hard secure conviction against them; and everything get ripped off once they jump parole. "One needs to know the conviction rate to fully understand what a parole jumper means for the society. India has a conviction rate of just about 45.1%, which means not even half the number of arrested prisoners are convicted. Worse, conviction rate in serious crime like murder and rape are even less, currently pegged at 39.1 % and 28% respectively. Clearly, a convict is a rare criminal against whom the charges have been proved beyond any doubt. Now, think about letting such a rare criminal go scot free on the pretext of parole. Unpardonable," says Sanjeev Kumar, a lawyer in Patna High Court.

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COP BLAMES JAIL OFFICIALS

A senior police officer in Delhi blames the jail officials for allowing the undeserving convicts the luxury of parole. "The prison authorities often allow parole to offenders for some petty gains. The system is such that the parole granting authority does not have to share any blame if the offenders do not report back to prison. Then, it becomes the headache of the police to look for the criminals. Worse, common man suffers because of the presence of more criminal in the society," he said.

The police officer, however, does not see the parole jumpers as the real problem. "It is the prison administration that patronises criminals and give them an opportunity to rejoin the crime world," he said. The biggest problem, as of now, is not only to nab the parole jumpers, but also crackdown on loopholes in the parole system to ensure that the system does not have to face any more parole jumpers.

MAXIMUM CONVICTS HAVE JUMPED PAROLE IN MAHARASHTRA

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Among the States, Devendra Fadnavis ruled Maharashtra has emerged as the state from where maximum convicts have jumped parole. The NCRB data confirms Maharashtra registering 2292 parole jumping between 2004 and 2014. Clearly, for more than a decade, Maharashtra alone has accounted for more than one-fourth of parole jumpers in India.

For Maharashtra, the most infamous parole jumper has been double murder accused Vijay Palande, who was already convicted in Swaraj Ranjan Das murder case, when he jumped parole in 2003 and killed a few more. His accomplice Jagdish Shejwal also jumped parole in 2010, assumed a fake identity to procure a passport and also travelled to Thailand.

There are several such examples across the country. But the most infamous of course is of Bittihotra Mohanti. Son of Odisha DGP rank officer, Mohanti, a rape convict, jumped parole in December 2006. When cops finally arrested him, he was working with a private sector bank under an assumed name of Raghav Rajan.

Over the years, states like Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh- have granted parole to maximum number of criminals whereas states like Bihar and Jharkhand have granted the privilege to very few. "It is high time uniformity is evolved," said a police officer in Patna.

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While such a move does not look imminent, not by a long shot; just be a little vigilant.



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By India Today Web Desk: Modi leaves for SCO Summit today, to push for NSG diplomacy with China

With India set to become a member of the China-led grouping, Modi is hopeful of 'fruitful outcome, particularly in the field of economic cooperation'.

Brexit: What is UK's referendum about today? Here's what you need to know

British voters are going to the polls today to vote on whether their country should remain a member of the European Union.

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Mary Kom will not go to Rio Olympics

Indian boxer, five time World Champion Mary Kom will not travel to Rio for the Olympic Games after IOC denied India a wildcard.



Kangana Ranaut on Salman's rape remark: Horrible, extremely insensitive thing to say

The Queen actor Kangana Ranaut went on to add that the entire society was to blame for such a thought process, not just Salman Khan.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Ahmedabad, Jun 23 (PTI) An NGO run by St Xaviers Non-formal Education Society here ran into controversy after its advertisement said General category candidates will be preferred for job as sanitation workers in an attempt towards social equality through inclusiveness and give impetus to Swachh Bharat campaign.

In a recruitment advertisement for sweepers issued in April, director Prasad Chako of NGO Human Development and Research Centre (HDRC) in an additional clause mentioned that preference will be given to applicants belonging to Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaniya, Patel, Jain, Saiyad, Pathan, Syrian Christian, and Parsi communities.

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The premises of the NGO, situated at St Xaviers College here, had been "gheraoed" for the last two days by people claiming affiliation to little-known outfits like Rajput Shaurya Foudation, Yuva Shakti Sangathan, and a Muslim outfit Sunni Avami Forum.

A delegation of NGOs today met Ahmedabad Collector Avantika Singh and sought the administrations help in the matter, conveying that "there is nothing wrong in the advertisement."

On June 20, a group of over three-four dozen people barged into the premises of the NGO and shouted slogans saying the advertisement was an attempt to denigrate the upper caste.

They came again the next day and allegedly broke windowpanes and earthen pots and shouted slogans seeking immediate apology from the NGO for the "inflammatory advertisement".

In a memorandum submitted to the Collector, a delegation of around 30 members associated with several NGOs in the city, said the aim behind the advertisement was to bring "social equality through inclusiveness".

"HDRC is an NGO working for the rights of oppressed sections of society to ensure their social inclusion and justice. We initiated the recruitment with an aim to give impetus to the Clean India campaign and also ensure social equality," the memorandum said.

"In this context, we decided to provide opportunity to people from all sections of society...It is to request you all to help us bring social equality through inclusiveness.

"The advertisement in question was not intended to hurt any religious, class or community sentiments. There is nothing wrong in the advertisement," it further said.

Secretary of HDRC, Jimmy Dabhi said the timing of the protest is questionable.

"The advertisement was issued in April and suddenly, people of different groups come to our premises and shout slogans. A delegation of NGOs yesterday had also met deputy commissioner of police and today and sought security. All we want to convey is the message of social inclusion," Dabhi said. PTI KA PD DK TIR BAS

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The latest scramble for these funds follows of a court in the UK ruling in favour of a full trial in what is known as the Hyderabad Funds Case setting aside an appeal by Pakistan for a summary disposal of the claim in her favour.

By Amarnath K. Menon : Descendants of the Nizam of Hyderabad are staking claim to the funds transferred by the last of the ex - rulers of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, way back in 1948, to the National Westminister Bank, now Natwest, in the UK About 110 of them want a share as these funds are neither part of the will of the Nizam or was committed to any of the 54 trusts that he had created to bequeath his fabulous wealth. The claimants are crying shrill that these funds were not earmarked and, therefore, should be distributed among the heirs.

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"We want the money to be distributed among us as provided for in the Islamic shariat, " says Najaf Ali Khan, president, Nizam Family Welfare Association, who is tracking the case since 2004. Much of the legacy of the Nizam has been willed to grandsons Prince Mukarram Jah and Prince Mufakkam Jah while he provided substantial sums for the offspring from his many legendary wives whom Osman Ali Khan treated as his extended family.

The latest scramble for these funds follows of a court in the UK ruling, earlier this week, in favour of a full trial in what is known as the Hyderabad Funds Case setting aside an appeal by Pakistan for a summary disposal of the claim in her favour. Both Pakistan and India too, which have spent large sums as legal fees, are seeking the funds which, inclusive of interest, adds up to about Rs.350 crore now.

The transfer saga is still now, in the absence of the recovery of documents if available at the state archives in Hyderabad, a mystery. Significantly, just two days after the Nizam decided to accede to India after the Army stormed in with Operation Polo, on September 20, 1948, a sum of 1,007,940 pounds and nine shillings was transferred from the erstwhile State of Hyderabad's account to an account in the same bank of the then High Commissioner of Pakitan in the UK apparently for the then newly formed country post - Partition. But a week later, on September 27, the Nizam sought to reverse the transaction claiming it had been done without his authority.

The bank refused to comply with the Nizam's request without the agreement of the account holder. Such consent was not forthcoming and the Nizam sued leading to the money staying with the bank and swelling to 35 million GBP pending resolution of the contentious issue. Since then, both countries and the Nizam's family have been claimants but none pursued the case even though the British House of Lords ruled in 1957 that to defreeze the account all involved parties have to reach an agreement.

For decades it was glossed over by both countries while some in the Nizam's family spoke of an undisclosed sum lying in a UK bank which they believe belong only to the legion of successors of the ex - ruler of Hyderabad. As the successor state to the Nizam's State of Hyderabad, India has all along maintained its claim over the monies. Faced with no prospect of recovering the monies through the courts, the government of India has time and again approved of efforts aimed at pursuing an out of court settlement with Pakistan and the Nizam's heirs to recover what in the past has often been referred to as the sacred inheritance of the people of India.

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However, it is only after the heir apparent and the successor in title, Prince Mukarram Jah, the grandson of the last Nizam, tried to take stock of what is left for the family, after the priceless family jewels, held by two of the richer trusts created by Osman Ali Khan, were sold to the government of India that he and other descendants set their eyes seriously on the UK funds. It is only after that in 2008 that the government of India decided to open negotiations with Pakistan. But she refused to budge and took the issue to court in the UK in 2013 which prompted the descendants of the Nizam to join issue and stake their claim.

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India is still to piece together evidence though officials have scoured the archives in Hyderabad for some original documents to pursue its case. A fresh search is being made. Now that a full trial is to be held and more from the extended family are voicing their claims the 68 year old row is getting even more complex and nowhere near its end.

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By PTI: Panaji, Jun 23 (PTI) Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar today refuted AAPs allegations that the state government had issued notices to its party office in Porvorim as part of "political vendetta" against it.

The state unit of AAP had said that it received a notice dated June 17 served by Bardez Block Development Officer, demanding its presence during a site inspection at a building in Porvorim, where the party has rented a flat.

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"The officers are doing their duty. There is no political vendetta against them. Government does not stoop to such level," Parsekar told reporters.

The Chief Minister said he was not involved in issuing the notice and got to know about it only through newspapers next day after AAP addressed media.

"During Kejriwals rally, AAP had their banners and posters all over. If we wanted to take some action, we could have taken (then)," he said.

AAP had alleged "vendetta politics" by the Goa government after the party questioned Parsekars move of reinstating his brother-in-law, who was suspended from Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) for accepting bribe. PTI RPS NP SRY SRE

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Beijing to make a " fair and objective assessment of India's bid for membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on its own merit."

By Smita Sharma: The deadlock over India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG continues as member countries have failed to arrive at any consensus over allowing non-NPT nations into the elite group during a meeting in Seoul. The meeting will continue tomorrow.

Five other countries - Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Turkey and Ireland - opposed India's entry during the Seoul meeting even as Beijing continues to block New Delhi's bid for entry into the 48-nation group. During the meeting, Brazil stressed on criterion based non-discriminatory process.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashken urged China to make a " fair and objective assessment of India's bid for membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on its own merit."

The PM also asked China to "join the emerging consensus."

FOCUS ON N KOREA'S COVERT NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

Earlier, the 26th plenary summit the Nuclear Suppliers Group got underway on Thursday morning with South Korea as Chair. Korea is concurrent chairman this time for NSG and MTCR. Inaugurating the session Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se focussed heavily on North Korea's nuclear clandestine program. But on the issue of way forward for the elite nuclear grouping, he outlined as a challenge, "Maintaining the balance between nuclear trade for peaceful uses and non-proliferation objectives, especially following the Paris agreement on climate change and the rising demand for nuclear energy."

Byung Se also highlighted the challenge of 'striking the right balance between guarding the confidentiality of sensitive information and enhancing the transparency in information sharing.'

INDIA'S NSG BID ON AGENDA

At the plenary remarks though there were no clear indications that India's membership push was on the agenda. In his opening remarks, the Korean Foreign Minister simply said, "We NSG members also need to strive to forge a consensus on the membership issue, considering our needs to further strengthen this group." He later evaded a direct question posed by India Today if New Delhi's application would figure at the plenary.

Though sources confirmed Japanese delegates raised the issue of India's application at the closed door session, and support was voiced by some others too.

The latest developments:

India's big for the NSG membership is being opposed by China on the grounds that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). China has stonewalled India's aspiration on the grounds that the grouping has not arrived at a consensus to allow non-NPT members. Turkey, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand are supporting the Chinese view. In his meeting with Jinping, PM Modi is expected to seek China's support as it continues to oppose India's bid. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar reached Seoul on Wednesday for a final diplomatic push ahead of the NSG meeting beginning today. Most other members of the 48-member NSG, including the US, have come out in support of India, ahead of the Seoul plenary. On Wednesday, France issued a statement to assert that India's participation in nuclear control regimes will help better regulate the export of sensitive goods, whether they are nuclear, chemical, biological, ballistic or conventional materials and technologies. The French statement came a day after the US said India was "ready" for NSG membership and asked participating governments to support India's application. China is insisting on clubbing India's case in the NSG agenda with Pakistan for which it is being seen batting. Meanwhile, the India-China Financial Dialogue due to be held in Beijing between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.

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Also Read

India's bid for NSG membership: Will PM Modi be able to scale the Great Wall of China?

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China says Modi, Xi meet will boost trust, NSG issue won't affect ties

PM Modi in Tashkent: India expects fruitful outcome during SCO summit



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Beijing also said that as the two leaders meet at the SCO Summit, it did not think that differences between both countries on India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) would affect bilateral ties.

By Ananth Krishnan: China on Thursday said that the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Tashkent would help boost strategic trust between the two countries.

Beijing also said that as the two leaders meet at the SCO Summit, it did not think that differences between both countries on India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) would affect bilateral ties.



NSG NEEDS TO OUTLINE THE CRITERIA FOR THE ENTRY OF NON-PARTIES TO THE NPT

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The Foreign Ministry underlined its view that the entry was an issue because the NSG itself needed to resolve by agreeing on the criteria for the entry of countries that are not parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Hence it was not "a bilateral issue" between India and China.

"We believe that with regard to the NSG's inclusion of new members a decision shall be made through thorough consultations in the group, and we don't believe its an issue concerning bilateral relations between China and India," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said when asked if the issued could strain ties.

BILATERAL TIES WILL NOT BE IMPACTED

Despite the recent strains on the NSG, Beijing sought to strike a positive note as Prime Minister Modi and President Xi were set to meet in Tashkent. India's hope is the meeting might be able to push China to back India's bid as the NSG's plenary concludes in Seoul on Thursday and Friday.

"Both of our countries are emerging markets that are acquiring a more and more significant role in international affairs. Bilateral relations maintain sound momentum of growth," Hua said.

"Thanks to mutual visits by leaders of two countries we have agreed to make joint efforts to make a closely knit relationship. Recently President Mukherjee paid a very successful visit to China and President Xi is going to meet with Prime Minister Modi during Tashkent SCO summit. We believe series of exchanges and visits will deepen strategic consensus and strategic mutual trust and chart a future course for the development of bilateral relations."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was not aware of the details regarding the postponement of the June 27 financial dialogue that was set to be held on Monday during the visit of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Also read

Amid NSG row, India, China postpone crucial financial talks scheduled next week

Modi in Tashkent today to push for NSG diplomacy with China



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By PTI: Ahmedabad, Jun 23 (PTI) Norwegian software company Opera Software ASA today said it has launched a faster version of its Opera Mini browser which also supports 13 Indian languages.

The new version comes with built-in ad-block setting which enables the browser to provide up to 72 per cent faster web surfing, the companys Director of International Product Marketing Kiran Dhillon told reporters here.

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The ad-block feature blocks unwanted advertisements that pop up when a browser is opened, thereby consuming less Internet data and making browsing faster, she claimed.

"Ad-block can enhance mobile performance and make browsing faster. This new, faster version of Opera Mini also comes with new updates such as support for 13 Indian languages, as we feel the next billion users will come from non-English background... it is specifically for Indian market where Internet speed is much slower than global average," Dhillon said.

Opera also uses "compression technology" to enhance browsing speed by compressing a web page to 10 per cent of its size, Dhillon said.

"We have a separate server called Thor which is based in Iceland where the web page is compressed without any data loss," she said.

Dhillon said with only 10 per cent in India using English as a preferred language, Opera has been made available in 13 languages.

The web browser, with 350 million users world-wide, has nearly 50 million users in India, making it an important market for the company, she said.

The company is betting big on India where nearly 84 per cent use mobile phones to access Internet, Dhillon added. PTI KA PD NRB JM ABM SRE

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By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 23 (PTI) Japanese tech major Panasonic is betting big on segments like government and manufacturing to boost revenues from its rugged PC range Toughbook to Rs 100 crore by March 2018.

The company, which claims to have a 60 per cent share of the rugged PC market in India, said it expects a major chunk of the business to come from the government sector.

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"We have seen a 30 per cent growth, which is faster than the 20 per cent growth seen in the market. We see strong demand in new areas like police, fire service, pharma, oil and gas," Panasonic Senior GM and National Business Head Gunjan Sachdev told reporters here.

Panasonic is poised to keep up the strong pace of growth it has been witnessing in the segment in the past few years and touch Rs 100 crore by March 2018, he added.

Sachdev said about 40 per cent of the revenues currently come from the government sector, while the remaining is from the private players.

This, he said, would be reversed in the next few years with the government accounting for a larger share given the strong demand being created under initiatives like Digital India.

Panasonics competitors globally in the segment include Dell, HP and Getac, among others.

"In India, the rugged PC market is still small, about Rs 110 crore. This is expected to grow to Rs 165-170 crore in the next few years. We also expect to increase our share of the market from 60 to 65 per cent by then," Sachdev said.

Apart from India, Panasonic is also betting on markets like China to contribute to the growth of its Toughbook range.

The companys rugged PCs are manufactured at its facilities in Japan and Taiwan. It has no immediate plans of making the Toughbooks in India as of now.

Panasonic today launched a fully rugged, 2-in-1 laptop that detaches to become a 10.1-inch tablet, priced at about Rs 2.25 lakh. It features Intel Core processor, 8GB RAM and 128GB memory (upgradeable to 256GB or 512GB). PTI SR SRK ABM

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PM Narendra Modi also urged China to "join the growing consensus in support of India."

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today urged China to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's bid for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which Beijing has so far blocked.

In his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Tashkent, Modi said China should contribute to the "emerging consensus" in Seoul over India's admission, which is being backed by the US, France and most other members of the elite 48-member nuclear club.

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Refusing to divulge more on what transpired between Modi and Jinping, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, "It is a complex and delicate negotiation process that's going on in #Seoul. We should wait."

Meanwhile, in Seoul, the NSG is expected to hold a special session tonight to discuss India's application for the NSG membership.

Multiple diplomatic sources have confirmed to India Today that a special session has been convened at 9:00 pm local time after the Head of Delegation dinner.

Sources said that 'urgent items' would be brought up for consultations, indicating India's NSG bid is likely to figure prominently. This despite China's statements over the last few days that membership of any non-signatory to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty will not be discussed in Seoul.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar reached Seoul on Wednesday for a final diplomatic push ahead of the NSG meeting.

Also Read

NSG agenda tonight includes India's membership bid: Top 10 developments

India's bid for NSG membership: Will PM Modi be able to scale the Great Wall of China?

China says Modi, Xi meet will boost trust, NSG issue won't affect tiesPM Modi in Tashkent: India expects fruitful outcome during SCO summit

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By Hemul Goel: With all the ruckus created over Priyanka Chopra's blatantly Photoshopped underarms for the cover of Maxim, and her hillarious response to the same, armpits are back in the limelight.

While the attention Priyanka's pits have been getting easily warrants a separate Twitter account (like the one created for Angelina Jolie's right leg in 2012), till the time that doesn't happen, let's talk about armpits for a second. Some people see dark underarms as a complete menace. And what worsens them is the use of depilatory creams. Hair-removal creams contain harsh chemicals, leaving the skin looking darker--simple logic.



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Here are five ways in which you can lighten your underarms using DIY home remedies:

Coconut oil



Besides the various magical properties of coconut oil, it also contains vitamin E, which makes it a great pick for skin lightening. Massage coconut oil on your underarms and let it stay for 10 to 15 minutes. Rinse with soap and warm water and repeat everyday for faster results.

Also read: 10 reasons coconut oil is perfect for your beauty bag

Potato/cucumber

Cut a potato into thin slices and rub the slices on your underarms everyday. Alternatively, you can grate potatoes and apply the juice on your underarms, followed by rinsing them with cold water. It will take a month for the results to show, but it will be worth the effort. You can replace a potato with a cucumber and use it in the same way.



Orange

Don't toss the orange peels in the bin. Cover them with a muslin cloth and leave them to dry in the sunlight. Grind the peels into a fine powder and mix rose water or milk to form a thick paste. Apply the paste on your underarms and let it dry, before rinsing with warm water. Works best if practiced thrice a week. Also read: Orange Peels: The free beauty ingredient for glowing skin

Baking soda

Create a thick paste by mixing baking soda and water or rose water. Thrice a week, scrub and rinse your underarms with this paste.

Also read: Beauty Fix: 7 uses of baking soda that have nothing to do with baking

Gram flour, lemon and turmeric paste

The good old naani's nuska i.e. a paste of (chickpea flour) besan, lemon juice and turmeric can also take care of dark underarms. Just apply the paste on your underarms till it dries and rinse with warm water. Use thrice a week for best results.

These remedies and any other things you try to lighten your underarms will be completely redundant if you don't stop using depilatory creams. So, when it comes to hair removal, make your choice wisely!

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OMG, Rekha is that you? Is that look supposed to be #grannygoals?

By Hemul Goel: If you ever had any doubts about Rekha's sartorial abilities then let us tell you that she can switch from an Indian bombshell in a kanjeevaram saree to a badass babe at the bat of an eyelid.

Also read: #BeautyGoals: Rekha and Sridevi together in the most ageless picture of all time

The actress--who has always managed to give people all sort of #goals with the fierce manner in which she embraces her style--seems to be on a mission to kill it with her off-duty style as well.

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Rekha has been known for her love of gold-on-gold be it the saree, the accessories or the jewellery, but the funny part is that it all works on the actress. However just like her red carpet essentials, Rekha also has off-duty essentials that define her style.

Rekha cuts an elegant picture every single time. Picture: Yogen Shah

White turban bands, statement sunglasses and red lips and red nails seem to always finish her laidback look. And we call those her essentials, because that's the exact style in which we spotted her last time too. Remember the time she had been seen on the airport, and pleasantly surprised us with her look, while she was accompanied by Bollywood's reigning queen Deepika Padukone?



hese girls are working it. Pictures: Viral Bhayani

Also read: Rekha in denims is a sight we absolutely love

This time Rekha was seen looking chic in a similar casual look while helping Bhumi Pednekar's stylist Shaina Nath shop for her wedding. Shaina posted the picture on Instagram quoted, "This 1 was long overdue, catching up with my aunt & getting the ultimate #styling tips for my #wedding #outfits (sic)."

Here are pictures of Rekha hanging out with Shaina Nath. Jealous? Picture courtesy: Instagram/@shainanath

Two seasons ago, crochet, pearls, florals became popular as a part of the granny chic style of dressing, however with an icon like Rekha around the corner, our #grannychic goals seem to be full of pizzazz.

Just take a look at the arm party going on. Rekha's layering is totally on trend.

And those sunglasses! *Brb looking for a cheaper version online *



Her layering is perfect! Picture courtesy: Instagram/@shainanath

Who wouldn't want Rekha to be their wedding shopping partner? Seriously Shaina, you lucky, lucky girl.



And here's a shot of Rekha rocking a headband on one of her crazy covers for Filmfare magazine. Talk about being an all round veteran!

Yes, she always had it in her. Picture courtesy: www.guiltybytes.com

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By PTI: Jammu, June 22 (PTI) Declaring revival of economy of Jammu and Kashmir as a priority, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today promised to take positive steps towards revival of sick units and promoting industry in the state.

"Revival of economy in the state is our priority," she said while addressing BJP workers here as part of Vikas Parv programme.

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Referring to the revival of sick units and promoting industry in the state, she promised to take positive steps after going through the Industrial Policy of the state.

She said the Modi government wants the economic empowerment of the next generations of poor people.

The Commerce Minister claimed that the price rise has been checked under the NDA rule. She expressed commitment of the Modi government towards the rehabilitation of displaced people including refugees.

With regard to the issue of Indias entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), she said all countries support it except China with which the matter will be discussed.

"Under (Prime Minister Narendra) Modis leadership, all the countries stood up for us and are saying India should be given membership in NSG. But China is in opposition. For that also External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that it will resolved by talking to China," she said.

Sitharaman said times have changed under Modis leadership from a periodwhen sanctions were slapped against the country during the rule of Indra Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"Indias respect across the globe has increased during Modis period.

Everybody knows that we have conducted nuclear tests since Indira Gandhis time...Pokhran-I and second explosion took place during Vajpayeejis time," she said.

"The world stood against us that India should not be nuclear power and slapped sanctions against us twice. They wanted India should not be be nuclear power and should have not have nuclear capability. They slapped sanctions against us.

"But today as Modi ji continues that journey (toward India to be powerful nuclear power), we tried hard for the membership in NSG and all countries came out in our favour by saying that India should be given the NSG membership," she said.

Sitharaman asked the workers whether they ever thought "that a time will comewhen the world, which stood against us in the past, will stand with us. But today Modiji has changed the environment. All preparation for India to get NSG membership have been done". Attacking the previous UPA government, she said the country witnessed "total policy paralysis" during UPA-II and the nation had to suffer.

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"After taking over as PM, Narendra Modi brought the system on rails, introduced work culture and India entered into a new era," the minister said.

She said that during previous government, there was no check on infiltration but NDA brought it down.

She said the Congress had launched MNREGA with a slogan of gareebi hatao (remove poverty) but "unfortunately it was misused and the poorpeople were exploited". PTI AB AKK AKK

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This CCTV footage shows Russian prisoner's incredible escape from a jail. He manages to slither out a tiny space through which food is given in his cell.

By India Today Web Desk: This incredible CCTV footage Russia shows a prisoner slither out of a tiny space through which food is given in a cell.

Just as he squeezes out of the tiny space, he realizes that he might be out of his cell but still imprisoned.

Local media claims that the man, who has a long criminal record, is known to squeeze his way out through extremely tiny space.

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Police and military are currently on the look-out to nab who escaped the prison.



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By PTI: Lucknow, Jun 23 (PTI) A five-member team of saints constituted by Samajwadi Party to look into the "migration" of Hindus from Kairana today submitted its report to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav terming it as a "dangerous conspiracy" to disturb communal harmony.

"We have submitted the confidential report to the CM. It (Kairana exodus theory) was a dangerous conspiracy to disturb communal harmony. Strict action should be taken against the guilty," Acharya Pramod said.

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The team of saints comprising Pramod, Swami Kalyan, Naraina Giri, Swami Chinmayanand, and Swamy Chakrapani visited Kairana on June 20 for their report.

The team was formed after senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav had in a press conference on June 17 proposed that a team of five "apolitical persons" visit Kairana to probe the reality and suggested the names of these saints.

Samajwadi Party has already trashed the "exodus" theory and accused BJP of "vitiating" the communal atmosphere in the state with 2017 Assembly polls in mind.

"There is no exodus from Kairana or from anywhere in the state. We have intelligence and other reports in this regard. BJP leaders including (MP) Hukum Singh and others are inciting communal passions for political gains as Assembly elections are near," SP spokesman Shivpal had said. PTI ABN TIR ZMN TIR

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Indian Olympic Association (IOA), which appointed Salman Khan as the Goodwill Ambassador for the Rio Olympics, wants the Bollywood superstar to tender a public apology after his rape remark.

By India Today Web Desk: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan maybe dropped as India's Goodwill Ambassador for the Rio Olympics following his controversial 'raped woman' remark during a promotional event about his upcoming movie "Sultan".

The actor drew flak for his latest controversy and now even the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) wants Salman to tender an apology.

IOA ANGRY

"His comments as goodwill ambassador would send (the) wrong message to all the sportspersons in the country," Rakesh Gupta, IOA joint secretary and India's chef-de-mission, said.

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"Salman Khan should not have used this analogy to describe his shooting schedule. He should have given a different answer or cited some other example. This way he has hurt the image of Indian sports. This statement will have an adverse effect with the Rio Olympics fast approaching. He should immediately apologise for his remark," Gupta told media.

Salman had made these comments during an interview for his upcoming film Sultan.

"While shooting during those six hours, there was so much of lifting and thrusting that it was unbelievable. If I was lifting a 120kg person and dropping him down, I had to do it 10 times. I did it 10 times from five different angles. So, six-and-half or seven hours. Either, I was picking him and throwing him or else, he was picking me up and throwing me. So it was like the most difficult thing. When I used to walk out of the ring, I used to feel actually like a raped woman walking out," Khan said.

SALIM KHAN APOLOGISES

While Salman is yet make a public apology, his father Salim Khan came in defence of his son, saying his son's intention was not wrong.

"Undoubtedly what Salman said was wrong...but his intention was not wrong," Salim Khan had tweeted.

SPORTSPERSONS UNHAPPY

Salman's appointment as brand ambassador in April was heavily criticised, with prominent sportspersons and Olympians questioning IOA's move.

"It doesn't make sense to appoint someone in this role. If an ambassador is required, we have many great sportspersons, like Sachin Tendulkar, PT Usha, Ajitpal Singh, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore," Milka Singh had said in April.

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Earlier this month the Saudis threatened the United Nations with retaliation, including massive funding cuts for Palestinian aid and other programs, if it did not remove the Saudi-led Yemen coalition from a list of countries that maim and kill children during armed conflicts, UN officials said.

Ban then withdrew the Saudis from the list pending a review of cases the UN had analyzed, though he publicly criticized the Saudi pressure on him.

On his way into the meeting, Salman was asked if he was still angry with Ban over the blacklisting. "I'm not angry," he said.

Salman, who is also the kingdom's defense minister, did not answer questions when he left the meeting. It was not clear what was said, though one diplomatic source told Reuters without any detail that the meeting "went well."

Salman kept Ban waiting for 45 minutes before arriving with his advisers and security detail. Also scheduled to attend the meeting was Leila Zerrougui, the UN special representative on children and armed conflict who originally decided to blacklist the Saudi-led coalition.

Zerrougui had vehemently opposed Ban's decision to remove the Saudis from the blacklist, despite Saudi threats that the United Nations could face a fatwa declaring it anti-Muslim, UN diplomatic sources said.

A fatwa is a legal opinion used in Sharia, or Islamic law. In Saudi Arabia fatwas can only be issued by the group of top, government-appointed clerics and are sometimes commissioned by the ruling family to back up its political positions.

The Saudis have denied pressuring Ban, though they said the UN report was inaccurate.

The UN report on children and armed conflict said the coalition, which began an air campaign in March 2015 to defeat Iran-allied Houthi rebels, was responsible for killing 510 children and wounding 667, or 60 percent of such deaths and injuries in the conflict last year.
By PTI: Mumbai, Jun 23 (PTI) With the Centre approving Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds for Startups, the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has ramped up its start-up funding operations to boost the sector.

"SIDBI has ramped up the start-up funding operations to boost Start-up India initiative with the launch of funds like unique India Aspiration Fund and Fund of Funds operations," SIDBI Chairman and Managing Director Kshatrapati Shivaji said.

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The lender has so far supported 95 funds, including 11 regional funds, with an aggregate commitment of Rs 2,576 crore.

"The Cabinets approval for establishing FFS will help enhance the scale of operations under its Fund of Funds activities with a deeper engagement with startup ecosystem and boost ambitious Startup India initiative.

"SIDBI would be using its expertise built over the years and address major challenges being faced by startups in the country at present," he said.

"Under FFS, Rs 500 crore has already been released to the corpus in FY 2016 and Rs 600 crore has been earmarked for FY 2017 by the government," he added.

Based on drawal of around Rs 1,065 crore, so far from the aggregate commitment, these funds have invested in 714 enterprises with an equity support of Rs 9,520 crore out of which Rs 4,794 crore were invested in 604 MSMEs, a bank statement said.

In line with the objectives of Startup India Action Plan and to accelerate its operations, the Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC) has considered proposals from 16 venture capital funds for contribution under the proposed FFS, the CMD added.

"Out of 16 venture capital funds, SIDBI has already committed Rs 215 crore to 5 venture capital funds with aggregate corpus of Rs 2,200 crore. Contribution to balance 11 venture capital funds are under different stages of sanction, for sanction of Rs 394 crore", he added. PTI KD NRB MR

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By PTI: Hyderabad, Jun 23 (PTI) The Telangana government wants the Centre to transfer to it the entire land currently in possession of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi, saying the estate belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today wrote a letter to the Union Home Ministry seeking transfer of the land and expressed readiness to compensate Andhra Pradesh.

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"Therefore, while bringing these facts to your kind notice in a historical perspective, it is requested that the entire land presently in possession of AP Bhavan be transferred to the Government of Telangana, as it belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad," Rao said in the letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The land on which the AP Bhavan and Telangana Bhavan are situated originally belonged to the erstwhile government of Nizam (before Independence), he said.

"The government of India later took over Hyderabad House and land in extents of 7.56 acres in Pataudi House and 1.21 acres in Nursing Institute was allotted to the then government of Andhra Pradesh in lieu of this property.

"Therefore, these properties belonged to the then state of Hyderabad under the rule of VI Nizam, which remained a separate state even after the independence of India. It was eventually included in the Union in 1948," he said.

The Andhra state did not exist then as it was carved out of erstwhile Madras state only in 1953, whereas the state of Hyderabad continued to exist as such from 1948 until November, 1956, he contended.

AP came into existence in 1956 with the merger of Andhra state and the Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad state.

The Andhra Pradesh government (post-bifurcation) may be allotted some other land in the national capital and the Telangana government is ready to compensate the neighbouring state as the buildings at the site were built with the common resources of Andhra Pradesh, he added.

State Bhavans in New Delhi, all government properties, serve as guest houses of sorts for politicians and officials visiting the national capital. PTI SJR RS RSY KIS SRE

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By PTI: Raipur, Jun 23 (PTI)Atwo kg tiffin bomb, planted by Maoists to apparently harm security personnel, has been recoveredfrom an insurgency-hit pocket of Chhattisgarhs Dhamtari district, police said today.

The Improvised Explosive Device (IED), weighing about 2 kg, was unearthed by a team of district force from a dirt track in the dense forest under Borai Police Station limits last evening, Dhamtari Additional Superintendent of Police Ashok Pipre said.

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Acting on a tip-off, the security personnel launched theoperationto trace the bomb in the region, located around 150 kms from the state capital.

They spotted theIEDplaced in a steel tiffin hidden underground between Katti and Saiguda villages, the ASP said.

The explosivewas defused by the bomb disposal squad after it was brought to the police station, he said.

Thebomb was meant to harm the security personnel during their operations in the region, he said. PTI TKP GK DV

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The Congress has dispatched emissaries to Karnataka and Chattisgarh. Oscar Fernandes and former Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde have to douse the fire in Karnataka. While its General Secretary incharge BK Hariprasad in Chattisgarh to do the same.

By Ashhar Khan: It seems that trouble and Congress party are walking hand in hand these days. How has the party been able to hold together it's legislators in various states is something only a magician can explain.

Barely had the dust settled in Uttarakhand and the Congress is now busy firefighting in Karnataka. After many consultations a cabinet rejig took place following which the trouble started. In Chhattisgarh also with Ajit Jogi launching his own party, six Congress MLAs may leave the party and go to him.

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CONGRESS SENDS EMISSARIES

The Congress has dispatched emissaries to both the states. Oscar Fernandes and former Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde have to douse the fire in Karnataka. While its General Secretary incharge BK Hariprasad in Chhattisgarh to do the same.

These three have been trying to salvage the situation for the Congress. The problem started in Karnataka when the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in consultation with General Secretary incharge Digvijaya Singh shaped up a cabinet reshuffle.

The Chief Minister was summoned to Delhi and had two meetings with the Congress President Sonia Gandhi. That was followed by a cabinet reshuffle in which 14 ministers were dropped. This created a huge furore, several MLAs threatened to quit. But senior Congress leader and Congress Lok Sabha MP Veerappa Moily says, "when such a big reshuffle happens there are bound to be some tremors , but there is no crisis."

SUPPORT FOR CONGRESS



However the Congress in Karnataka has the support of seven JD (S) legislators. While according to Moily others are also supporting the government. There are about 145 MLAs with the government out of total 224. Siddaramaiah and Oscar Fernandes have been holding consultations with disgruntled MLAs.

In a bid to ease the transition the Congress has already appointed Dinesh Gundurao who was one of the fourteen ministers as working President of the Karnataka Congress.

In Chhattisgarh Congress General Secretary BK Hariprasad said, " There is no such issue here. Jogi has not been able to make a dent in the Congress MLAs." However one of the MLA is his wife so it's a difficult call for the Congress. But the Congress is not in power so it will not hurt so much. While some of the Congress leaders feel that it is better that Jogi left two and half years before the assembly elections.

Reshuffles are a common occurrence in Congress. This time around with the Congress being perceived as weak at the centre, the legislators are taking liberties. A phenomenon if not nipped at the bud will certainly have a tendency to spread far and wide.



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By PTI: From Yoshita Singh

United Nations, Jun 23 (PTI) The United Nations will send back home those peacekeeping troops found responsible for "lack of responsiveness" during a deadly attack on a UN base in South Sudan where 48,000 civilians had sought refuge, the world bodys top peacekeeping official has said.

"We take it very seriously the fact that the Board of Inquiry points to an inadequate response by some of our people on the ground (in Malakal); there was a lack of responsiveness from some and lack of understanding about the rules of engagement," Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations HervA Ladsous told reporters yesterday after what he described as "very extensive" closed-door consultations with the UN Security Council.

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Ladsous did not name the troops countries but sources said Ethiopian, Rwandan, Indian and Bangladeshi units were deployed in Malakal at the time of the incident.

He said he has already spoken with the Permanent Representatives to the UN of the countries concerned.

"That time to call names has not come. I have talked to the Permanent Representatives of the country concerned and there will be follow up as there has been. I will not name names at this point but certainly there will be repatriation, in some cases of a unit and in other cases of individual officers," he said.

Ladsous along with Atul Khare, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, and Stephen OBrien, Under- Secretary-General for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed the 15-member Council on that state of what are now known as Protection of Civilian (PoC) sites that have been up and running in for the past two years in South Sudan.

The UN peacekeeping chief stated that "there was no question that at the time, we made the right decision to take in these people ? many of them would be dead now if we had not done that. But then, no one expected the crisis (in South Sudan) to continue for such a long time and that we would still have these huge numbers in our protection sites."

The briefing came after the release of a note to correspondents, in which the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that a special investigation and a UN Headquarters board of inquiry were convened to review the circumstances of the violence that erupted in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) PoC site in Malakal from February 17 to 18, in which at least 30 internally displaced persons were killed, 123 others were wounded, and a significant portion of the camp was destroyed.

According to the note, the preliminary report of the board mentions, among others, that a number of issues contributed to the incident.

On the UNMISS response, there was confusion with respect to command and control and rules of engagement, and a lack of coordination among the various civilian and uniformed peacekeepers in Malakal at the time of the crisis, the note said. PTI YAS PMS

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The limited edition 'Watt a Box' will help you charge your phone while you enjoy a 5-in-1 meal.

This new KFC meal box comes with everything you want--food and a phone charger. Photo courtesy: Instagram/gadgetgaul

By Shreya Goswami: We have seen KFC India take some great initiatives in recent months. The masters of fried-chicken meals all over the world introduced their 5-in-1 meal boxes in Mumbai by getting the city's famed dabbawalas to deliver the boxes to office-goers at lunchtime. In April, they started an edible bowl trial in Bengaluru. KFC Rice Bowlz were served in tortilla bowls instead of plastic ones.

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Also read: In a clever campaign, KFC gets Mumbai's dabbawalas to deliver meal boxes



Now, as a modification to their 5-in-1 meal boxes, KFC is serving a new 'Watt a Box' with a smartphone charger!

The 'Watt a Box' comes with an attached power bank and a wire to connect your phone with. Photo courtesy: Instagram/tech_hatke

The box is designed specially to hold a power bank in a concealed compartment below the meal box, with an outlet on one side. A USB wire is also provided in the box to help you connect your phone to the power bank.



These limited edition boxes will be available to a few lucky customers in Delhi and Mumbai. KFC has also initiated an online contest to market these boxes: tag a friend whose phone is always out of charge and help him or her win a 'Watt a Box'.

KFC's online contest will help you win the 'Watt a Box'. Photo courtesy: Twitter/srini9778

Tag a friend who forgets to charge his/her phone to win a KFC 'Watt a Box'. Photo courtesy: Twitter/195harshpreet

This incentive has led to a number of people tagging friends who are too attached to their phones but often forget to charge them in time.



Also read: Edible bowls and cutlery are clearly the new and eco-friendly way to serve food



A recent report in the Times of India quoted KFC India's CMO, Lluis Ruiz Ribot, "Each one of us spends a considerable time on our smartphones daily, and the phone battery going dead is almost like a nightmare! No longer is that the case, with the Watt a Box around."

KFC's 5-in-1 box just got a trendy and user-friendly modification. Photo courtesy: Instagram/kfcindia_official KFC's 5-in-1 box just got a trendy and user-friendly modification. Photo courtesy: Instagram/kfcindia_official

KFC's new 'Watt a Box' is definitely going to turn our lives around. Forget power banks; here's a box that will help you charge up on energy with a crunchy and juicy meal, and charge your phone so that you can get in touch with your loved ones, or post photos on Instagram, or play games, or you know, just stay afloat.

Take a look at the KFC 'Watt a Box' commercial:



Help your friend win the Limited Edition #WattABox ! That one friend whose phone is always out of charge, tag him/her & tell us why the #WattABox is a match made in heaven for them! A video posted by KFC India (@kfcindia_official) on Jun 21, 2016 at 2:14am PDT

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By PTI: London, Jun 23 (PTI) Health warnings about complications related to Zika virus significantly increased demand for abortions in Latin American countries, according to a new study.

However, in many of these countries, abortion is either illegal or highly restricted, leaving pregnant women with few options and potentially driving women to use unsafe methods, access abortion drugs without medical supervision or visit underground providers, said researchers at University of Texas at Austin in the US and University of Cambridge in the UK.

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On November 17 last year, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) issued an alert about the Zika virus in Latin America.

Although the virus, spread by mosquitoes, causes only mild symptoms, it can have serious complications for unborn children, ranging from eye and hearing defects through to microcephaly (abnormally small heads) and other severe foetal brain defects.

Following the PAHO alert, several countries issued health advisory warnings, including urging women to avoid pregnancy.

For several years, one option for women seeking an abortion in Latin America has been Women on Web, a non-profit organisation that provides medical abortion outside the formal health-care setting through online telemedicine, in countries where safe abortion is not universally available.

Researchers analysed data on requests for abortion through the website between January 1, 2010 and March 2 this year, in 19 Latin-American countries, assessing whether requests for abortion increased beyond expected trends following the PAHO alert.

They found that in almost all of the countries that had issued health warnings about Zika and had legal restrictions on abortions, the number of requests for abortion through Women on Web rose significantly ? effectively doubling in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, and increasing by over a third in most of the other countries.

In countries that had issued no health warnings, there was no statistically-significant increase.

"Accurate data on the choices pregnant women make in Latin America is hard to obtain," Assistant Professor Abigail Aiken from the University of Texas at Austin, said.

"If anything, our approach may underestimate the impact of health warning on requests for abortion, as many women may have used an unsafe method or visited local underground providers," said Aiken.

"The World Health Organisation predicts as many as four million Zika cases across the Americas over the next year, and the virus will inevitably spread to other countries," Dr Catherine Aiken from the University of Cambridge added.

"It is not enough for health officials just to warn women about the risks associated Zika ? they must also make efforts to ensure that women are offered safe, legal, and accessible reproductive choices," she said.

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The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. PTI SAR SAR

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First flash sale of Le 2 and Le Max2 will kick off on June 28 on LeMall and Flipkart.

By India Today Web Desk: LeEco's recently launched second generation Superphones Le 2 and Le Max2 are definitive trend-setters in the industry given their distinctive features, many of which are industry firsts. It is hardly surprising that the new Superphones have received such a tremendous response from users securing a record-breaking number of 150,000 registrations for Le 2 and Le Max2, in just 24 hours. It has surpassed the record of 1 lakh registration within 24 hours achieved by the predecessor Le 1s back in January. Given the unmatched value proposition of features and content at an extremely attractive price, both Superphones have stirred up the Indian smartphone market.

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In less than 24 hours since the registrations for Le 2 and Le Max2 began on June 20th, the Superphones have received impressive traction on its recently launched marketplace e-commerce website, LeMall.com as well as its e-commerce partner, Flipkart.

With exponentially growing registrations now well underway, the first flash sale for Le 2 starts at 12 noon on June 28, registrations for which will close at 11 AM, on the same date. For Le Max2, registrations are open till 28 June 1 PM followed by the flash sale at 2 PM just an hour later.

It is logical to surmise that the unprecedented response and demand for both Le 2 and Le Max 2 can be attributed to the distinct features that set them apart from any other smartphone in the industry. Both, Le 2 and Le Max 2 come with USB Type-C audio port featuring CDLA (Continual Digital Lossless Audio) standard, patented by LeEco and a world first. The introduction of CDLA technology is a testimony to the companys history of setting new trends and pioneering cutting-edge technology, which means the Superphones Le 2 and Le Max 2 are all set to redefine the audio experience for users.

Again, the concept of content ecosystem and membership model in smartphones in India, is unique to LeEco Superphones. With impressive additions to its Supertainment Membership Program the Le 2 and Le Max2 come bundled with one year LeEco Membership worth Rs 4900. Through LeEco Membership program, users can get access to a collection of 2000+ movies. LeEco has the largest collection of blockbuster and award winning movies from across the world including top Regional Cinema from India across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi & Bengali films.

Meanwhile, the membership program provides 3000+ hours of curated shows, 150+ live TV channels and 3.5 million songs for users choices. LeEco also takes the lead in offering 1.9 million songs and online international live concerts with lossless audio, bringing the users CDLA audio experience to a brand new height.

During the flash sale of Le 2 and Le Max 2 on June 28, users can look forward to some amazing offers -



10% SBI cashback (Applicable only on Flipkart. Users can avail a discount of maximum Rs.1200 per card. The 10% cashback, valid on 28 June, is also applicable on EMI transaction on SBI Credit Cards).

Free CDLA Earphones worth Rs.1990 (Introductory offer, applicable only in the first flash sale).

Both Superphones include a one-year LeEco membership worth Rs 4900.

Le Max2, the 4GB + 32GB model is priced at an attractive Rs 22,999 while the Le 2, the 3GB RAM and 32 GB ROM combination Superphone, comes at a compelling price of Rs 11,999. Following are the portals for potential users to embark on a journey to fully experience the disruptive technology and a connected ecosystem world.









Disclaimer: This article is paid for by LeEco.

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The Supreme Court will hear next Wednesday a petition seeking a ban on WhatsApp on the ground that the messaging platform's end-to-end encryption gives terrorists a means of communication that is impossible to intercept.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The Supreme Court will hear next Wednesday a petition seeking a ban on WhatsApp on the ground that the messaging platform's end-to-end encryption gives terrorists a means of communication that is impossible to intercept.

Filed by Sudhir Yadav, a Haryana-based right-to-information (RTI) activist, the petition said WhatsApp has from April started to enable its every message with 256-bit encryption that cannot be broken into.

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"Even if WhatsApp was asked to break through an individual's message to hand over the data to the government, it too would fail as it does not have the decryption keys either," Yadav said in his petition.

Seeking a ban on WhatsApp in India, Yadav said any terrorist or criminal can safely chat on WhatsApp and make plans to harm the country and the Indian intelligence agencies would not be able to tap into their conversations to take necessary actions.



Also Read: WhatsApp update will let you quote messages

The petition said that in order to decrypt any message on WhatsApp, one would need a whopping 115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,935 key combinations, which is almost impossible for even a super computer.

Decrypting a single 256-bit encrypted message would take hundreds of years, Yadav said.

Other messaging platforms such as Hike, Secure Chat, Viber and a few others are also using high encryption and constitute a threat to national security, the petition said.

Yadav, 27, told IANS that he had written letters to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Ministry of Communications and IT before filing the petition, but received no reply.

The apex court is now scheduled to hear his public interest litigation (PIL) petition on June 29.

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Xiaomi may have at least two new phones up its sleeve.

By India Today Web Desk: Chinese company Xiaomi may have at least two new phones up its sleeve. One of them is said to be a successor to the popular Mi Note, and the other is touted to be some kind of variant of its current-generation flagship phone Mi 5. The phones have been tipped to be called the Mi Note 2 and the Mi 5S.

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According to a new report doing the rounds, the alleged Mi Note 2 will have as many as three different models: standard, high, and top-end.

While the standard variant is said to come with a single rear camera setup, a Hi-Fi chip, support for quick charging and 4GB RAM, the high-end Mi Note 2 is said to include a dual camera setup on the rear. The top-tier Mi Note 2 meanwhile is said to have a curved display and pack in 6 gigs of RAM.

Previously, Xiaomi co-founder and president, Lin Bin had said that the company is planning to launch a new high-performance flagship -- probably the Mi Note 2 -- in July. Rumoured specs already doing the rounds include a curved screen, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 processor with 6GB of RAM under the hood and a dual-camera setup on the back. The new report adds weight to ongoing rumours.



Also Read: Xiaomi's phones are not waterproof for a reason

The Mi 5S on the other hand will reportedly come with a pressure-sensitive display technology akin to Apple's 3D Touch. The phone is said to include Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint sensor alongside a dual rear camera setup. It is said to launch sometime in the second half of this year.

In another news, Xiaomi is expected to launch its first-ever Smart Bike in China on Thursday. Xiaomi's Smart Home section, or MIJIA recently took to Weibo to tease the said device which is expected to be Bluetooth-enabled.



Meanwhile, Xiaomi will launch its 6.44-inch Mi Max phablet in India on June 30. The Mi Max was recently announced in China at a starting price of RMB 1,499 (roughly Rs 15,333) for the 3GB RAM and 32GB storage variant with Snapdragon 650. Meanwhile, the 4GB RAM and 128GB of memory variant with Snapdragon 652 of the Mi Max costs RMB 1,999 (roughly Rs 20,451).

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* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
Pan-Armenian reported upon Zarifs visit and said that the French government might also use part of the meeting to discuss Irans foreign affairs and particularly its interventions in the Syrian Civil War on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. But the report made it clear that any conversation along these lines would be an afterthought in comparison to the main focus of European investment in the Islamic Republic.

In apparent response to this narrow focus, some opponents of the Iranian regime made efforts to raise awareness about Irans intrusive foreign policy and domestic repression, in the context of Zarifs visit. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is itself headquartered outside of Paris, staged a protest to coincide with that visit, calling attention to the Iranian role in Syria and the roughly 2,500 executions that have been carried out by the Iranian judicial system just in the time that Rouhani has been president.

The protestors also sought to call attention to a much larger rally that will be taking place on July 9, also just outside Paris. The annual international gathering of supporters of the NCRI is expected to draw tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates, as well as Western politicians and foreign policy experts, including some of the 270 members of the European Parliament who signed a statement last week calling upon European governments to avoid the sorts of expanded economic relations that are reflected by Zarifs visit to Paris.

The statement emphasized Irans terrible human rights record and urged establishing improvements to this as a precondition for future trade agreements and other types of collaboration with the Islamic Republic. Naturally, similar and arguably more aggressive criticism of recent Western policy has repeatedly been expressed by lawmakers in the US, many of whom opposed the JCPOA in the first place.

Those lawmakers have sought to either obstruct or discourage the prospective deals that have been made possible by that nuclear agreement. And their skepticism has likely contributed to the current situation in which many European businesses are reportedly uncertain of the stability of the Iranian market and the extent to which they will be at risk of future enforcement of US sanctions should they reenter the Iranian market.

To date, that confusion has been compounded by the fact that no major US company has joined in the apparent rush to invest in Iran. However, this could change in the wake of an emerging deal between the Iranian airline industry and American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. The latest reports seem to indicate that negotiations for the sale of over 100 commercial jets have concluded on both sides, but also that the deal is still awaiting the approval of both nations governments.

It is unclear how the pursuit of that approval will turn out on either side. On one hand, Iranian officials are generally understood to have accepted nuclear negotiations because it was desperate to be rid of economic sanctions. But even before those negotiations concluded, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned against broader negotiations with the US and insisted that Western entities would try to utilize the agreement to facilitate economic, political, and cultural infiltration of the Islamic Republic.

This has led to significant hardline pushback against possible economic deals, including new contracts governing foreign investment in the countrys oil economy. The originators of that pushback can be expected to be especially wary of allowing US companies into Iranian markets. In fact, several types of American goods have already been banned from importation into the Islamic Republic, at the behest of the supreme leader.

On the other hand, the aforementioned protests are indicative of the obstacles that exist for developments like the Boeing deal, on the Western side. But despite the persistence of this opposition, it has been insufficient to prevent the Obama White House from pushing through the nuclear agreement and subsequent implementation measures. The extent of those efforts has led some congressmen to accuse the administration of going far beyond its requirements under the JCPOA, so as to actively encourage Western investment in the Islamic Republic.

In any event, other news organizations reported on Wednesday that the State Department has already expressed support for the Boeing deal, calling it an example of legitimate commerce under the JCPOA. But while this may suggest that the deal is poised for approval at least on the Western side, there are signs that the State Department will face opposition from other aspects of the executive branch, along with the Republican-dominated legislature.

The Washington Free Beacon explains that the Boeing deal has reinvigorated discussions over whether the Obama administration intends to allow Iran to reclaim access to the US financial system  something that it had previously promised not to do, and something that Treasury Department officials still categorically oppose based on Irans propensity for support of terrorism, money laundering, and other financial crimes.

The administrations eager endorsement of Iranian business deals has led to speculation that it is not serious about its former promise, even though the Treasury still promises to block access. This in turn signifies an apparent split within the administration, with one source telling the Free Beacon that Treasury officials are seething with anger at Secretary of State John Kerry over communications that they view as endangering Western businesses and financial institutions by giving them the false impression that Iran is open for business.

While the administration may be hoping that such claims will become reality, especially in the wake of the Boeing deal, others certainly hope for the opposite trend. Toward that end, Biz Journals reported on Wednesday that US Congressman Mike Pompeo recently issued a statement criticizing prospect plans for US government financing of the Boeing deal and emphasizing that the need for such financing would point to the incredible risk of doing business with the Islamic Republic.

Pompeo and others continue to emphasize this risk to Boeing and other Western businesses, in hopes that the lack of independent financing and legitimate connections between Iran and the global financial system will discourage major companies from contributing to Irans recovery.
The article notes that Abdollahian is thought to be close to the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and that he is unpopular in the Arab world, having made highly critical comments about Saudi Arabia in the midst of the current diplomatic crisis between the two Middle Eastern powers. That crisis reached a critical point in January when Iranian mobs attacked the Saudi embassy and consulate in response to the Saudi execution of a Shiite dissident cleric.

The Saudis responded to the incident by severing ties with the Islamic Republic, and subsequently the two have been engaged in rather fierce competition for shares of the oil market as the Saudis seek to contain Irans recovery, which could engender even greater Iranian influence in the region, at a time when the Islamic Republic is already deeply involved with Yemeni rebels and the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, both of which are opposed by Saudi Arabia and most of its Arab allies.

Al Arabiya suggests that the removal of Abdollahian is indicative not only of willingness to pursue reconciliation with the Saudis, but also of greater willingness to engage with other world powers over the Syrian situation. In previous international negotiations, Iran has been blamed for torpedoing would-be solutions to the factional fighting, because the Iranian leadership refuses to consider any alternative to Assads continued rule.

But while Al Arabiya implies that this position may be on the verge of softening, such claims may appear dubious in light of other reports that also emerged on Tuesday. Those reports highlight ongoing  and newly emergent  conflicts between Iran and its Arab neighbors, and raise questions about whether Abdollahians removal can realistically be viewed as evidence of a shift in the Islamic Republics foreign policy.

Particularly of issue on Tuesday was the fact that Iranian officials had issued multiple statements, ranging from plainly critical to arguably threatening, in response to the news that the Sunni kingdom of Bahrain plans to strip its leading Shiite cleric of his citizenship. Irans commentary on the situation is reminiscent of its public commentary on the Saudi execution in January, which was blamed for inciting the riots that led to the burning of the Saudi embassy. However, in the present case, the potential consequences may be greater, as Iran could help to foster tensions between Bahrains Sunni leadership and the roughly two-thirds of its population that is Shiite.

Agence France-Presse reports that Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the division of the IRGC responsible for foreign operations, issued his own statement in response to Bahrains actions. In it, he stated that the supposed mistreatment of a Shiite cleric would leave the Bahraini people with no option but to resort to armed resistance.

Given the depth of Suleimanis recent involvement in conflicts like those still raging in Iraq and Syria, as well as the IRGCs backing and possible incitement of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, it would be easy for Bahrain and other Arab powers to regard such commentary as a veiled threat of Iranian intervention. Irans theocratic government is the only major Shiite power in the world, and analysts view many of its regional actions as indicative of a desire to position itself as the chief defender of the Shiite sect both at home and abroad.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels aim to make permanent their ouster of Yemens Sunni President Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi, thereby establishing another Shiite government in the region. Bahrain is a likely candidate for another effort of this kind, given its Shiite majority population and the fact that Iran has already been accused of being linked to Shiite terrorist plots on the island nation, which is also the home of the US Navys Fifth Fleet.

IranWire published an article on Tuesday examining the context of Suleimanis letter to Bahrain, which emerged an hour earlier than the Iranian Foreign Ministrys official statement regarding the Bahraini plan to rescind the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qassim. The sequence of messaging demonstrates the primacy Soleimani execises over the Foreign Ministry in regional issues, IranWire argued.

The article went on to suggest that there is nervousness among Irans hardliners, including the IRGC regarding what is perceived as a softer approach to foreign policy by the administration of President Hassan Rouhani. This apparent internal conflict is reflected in the replacement of Abdollahian as deputy foreign minister, but IranWire stops well short of ascribing the same significance to this that Al Arabiya does.

In fact, IranWire underscores that Foreign Minister Zarif has sought to push back against accusations of weakness by defending his own credentials as a tough diplomat and promising to strengthen the resistance front by which Iran strives to confront and contradict the interests of the United States and its allies in Middle Eastern affairs. The apparent unwillingness to defend a less confrontational foreign policy suggests either that the regimes foreign policy is set not by the Rouhani administration but by figures like Qassem Suleimani, or else that Zarif and his colleagues actually agree with the hardliners on most such matters.

Some commentators would even go so far as to say that Zarif and most of the Rouhani administration actually agree with the hardliners on most all matters of Iranian policy, both foreign and domestic. This has always been the position of the resistance coalition organized under the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which will be holding its annual Iran Freedom rally in Paris on July 9, to argue that regime change is the only means by which Irans major policies can realistically change.

Irans regime has given itself self-proclaimed moral authority to counsel neighboring countries like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on the treatment of their own religious populations.

Accordingly, Gulf News reports that Gulf Arab states have expressed strong support for Bahrain in the face of Irans threats regarding an Islamic revolution. Saudi Arabia insisted that its island neighbor sought to remove Sheikh Qassims citizenship in order to fight terrorism and preserve stability  a claim that is at least as plausible as Irans claim that many of its religious minorities and ethnic organizations undermine national security or spread propaganda or insult Islamic sanctities by virtue of their very existence. At the same time, Saudi and other Gulf Arab officials ascribed Suleimanis threats to the persistence of Irans expansionist ambitions, which can be expected to continue interfering in any possible reconciliation between Iran and its neighbors.
[June 22, 2016] RBLTracker Launches Enhanced Management Portal and Social Media Threat Monitoring

TORONTO, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RBLTracker, the leader in multi-channel threat monitoring, announces a ground-up rebuild of its management portal and website, providing customers with easier management of their RBLTracker service, as well as long sought-after new features. Key new features include: Threat Exchange integration, providing shared threat vectors from 300+ of the most popular social media and SaaS organizations around the world.

Enhanced management tools for customers with large numbers of monitored hosts (1000+ hosts).

Support for multiple account roles, to allow separation of account management duties.

Improved reporting and graphing features, to make it easier and faster for customers to identify and resolve issues.

And many more! p>"We're excited to launch such a significant update to the RBLTracker platform," said Mike Pultz, CEO, RBLTracker. "This latest release is the culmination of over a year of design and development, and much of it was directly based on feedback from our amazing customers, so we can't thank them enough for their input."



Sign up and try RBLTracker for free, at rbltracker.com. About RBLTracker

RBLTracker is the global leader in multi-channel threat monitoring. The company's innovative real-time monitoring solution provides organizations and individuals with the confidence that their email, websites, and social media, are free from modern day threats like malware and phishing. RBLTracker provides up-to-date threat information, via multi-channel notifications, and integrations with tools such as PagerDuty, Slack, and HipChat. Processing around 450,000 checks per day, RBLTracker is trusted by thousands of companies, in over 45 countries around the world. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rbltracker-launches-enhanced-management-portal-and-social-media-threat-monitoring-300288678.html SOURCE RBLTracker

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A worker carries glass at the factory of Fuyao Glass America in Ohio. [Photo/Xinhua]

Andrew Lange, director of international business development at JobsOhio, can't tell you how proud he is of Fuyao Glass America's $360 million investment in the state.

The factory is expected to create some 2,000 jobs by the end of the year and will produce glass for 4 million vehicles annually. It is already supplying products for Hyundai Motor Co and General Motors Corp.

Lange called Fuyao Chairman Cao Dewang a "wise man to make that happen".

"It was a quick entry. It shows a great business culture. Mr Cao, the governor and all the local and state government officials - we all got along very well," Lange told China Daily at the JobsOhio booth in the exhibition hall of the SelectUSA Investment Summit held in Washington from Sunday to Tuesday.

In his earlier campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich praised the Fuyao investment for creating American jobs. The Fuyao factory in the city of Moraine was one of his rally venues in March.

Ohio opened a trade office in Shanghai in 2006 and another in Beijing in 2008.

"We think the Chinese economy and Ohio economy are very similar. We make things, really good things," Lange said. JobsOhio is a private nonprofit corporation designed to create jobs and attract investment to Ohio.

Lange said Chinese investors are coming to Ohio almost on a monthly basis and "we are hopeful that we can have more nice investors like Cao." A typical foreign investment in Ohio creates about 100 jobs.

Erron Smith, at the booth for the state of Connecticut, said some Chinese delegates attending the summit have talked to him about business opportunities in Connecticut. "We want to see if there's anything we can find to fit their needs," he said, noting that aerospace, defense, pharmaceuticals and healthcare are some of the strong industries in the state.

Vincent Perez, project manager with Alabama's department of commerce, said some Chinese investments in the state are doing very well. "We have great logistics in the state, centrally located in the fastest-growing region in the United States, all kinds of opportunities are in front of you in Alabama," he said.

Timothy Kelley, president and CEO of Imperial Valley Economic Development Corp in California, said he has a full-time intern originally from China working for him. He said Chinese investment there has changed quite a bit over the years. Many investments are now in renewable energy, agriculture, hospitality and manufacturing.

While SelectUSA is a federal program that aims to draw foreign direct investment to the US, governors and mayors have also embarked on busy trade missions abroad, including to China, seeking to attract foreign direct investment into their cities and states.

US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp talked last week about his recent trade mission to China. He announced that the Sinopec's investment in the US Virgin Islands will result in hundreds of new jobs for the territory.
[June 22, 2016] TitanHQ Enters the US Education Sector Through Partnership With the Douglas Stewart Company

TAMPA, Fla., June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- TitanHQ (@TitanHQ), the Galway based world leader in email and web security solutions for business, today announced a major distribution deal in the United States with The Douglas Stewart Company. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382276LOGO Under the agreement, The Douglas Stewart Company, a leading distributor and marketer of computer products, consumer electronics and school supplies exclusively serving the education market, will distribute TitanHQ's cloud based web filtering and gateway solutions to its network of more than 4,500 academic resellers in the United States and Canada. The partnership highlights the continued growth of TitanHQ and its focus on becoming the No. 1 web filtering provider for Wi-Fi. Educational organisations are focused on providing students and teaching staff with a safe and secure internet enabled learning environment. The elimination of web based threats such as malware and ransomware allied with the blocking and control of inappropriate content is key to achieving this. "We're delighted to announce this exciting partnership with The Douglas Stewart Company. We're seeing growing demand in the education sector for our email and web security solutions and have concentrated our product development in this area. Our simple, cloud based, cost-effective and easy to use web filtering solutions are appealing to educational organisations when compared to the complex and expensive deployments of the past" states Ronan Kavanagh, CEO of TitanHQ at today's announcement. Chuck Hulan, CEO, The Douglas Stewart Company, commented: "At Douglas Stewart, we recognize that the e-security landscape is constantly evolving. The unrelenting demand for campus wide BYOT further galvanizes the requirement for the most robust policies and best technology. "The introduction of Web Filtering and Email Anti-Virus solutions to The Douglas Stewart Company portfolio will enhance our partner capabilites to deliver turnkey solutions to their clients and by utilizing TitanHQ technology they can deliver true excellence in e-security," he concluded.



Eric Simpson, Alliance Manager at TitanHQ, will be attending the ISTE 2016 Conference in Denver on June 27th where TitanHQ will sponsor The Douglas Stewart Company's annual networking event on Monday evening. About TitanHQ

TitanHQ provides organisations worldwide with comprehensive network security protection through their award-winning suite of email and web security solutions. In operation since 1999 TitanHQ has a deep understanding of the increasingly complex IT threats that face IT professionals today. Offering organisations a comprehensive, cloud-based, affordable, subscription-based suite of security solutions that incorporates the latest spam and virus protection, web filtering and email archiving technology. It's been a scintillating 2016 for TitanHQ who were awarded an exclusive Red Herring Top 100 award in addition to their recent Secure Computing, Computer Reseller News and Virus Bulletin Awards. With an impressive 95% customer retention rate the company has customer in 129 countries worldwide. Headquartered in Galway, Ireland, the company also operates a US office in Tampa, Florida as well as 75 partner offices worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.titanhq.com. About The Douglas Stewart Company The Douglas Stewart Company, a leading education distributor specializing in technology, education software, and supplies, links more than 270 manufacturers with over 4,500 academic resellers in the United States and Canada. With a solid focus on the demand for Mobile Learning solutions, the company represents a strong ecosystem of products and vendors to assist in the evolution of the digital classroom. The Douglas Stewart Company's exceptional knowledge of the education marketplace and a holistic array of solutions and services add value to its business by focusing on innovation and the mutual success of its partners. Its subsidiary, Douglas Stewart EDU, provides similar services to 36 countries in Europe. The Identit-e service division exemplifies Stewart's value-added initiative with its global student verification services. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, and founded in 1950, The Douglas Stewart Company is a privately held business. For more information, please visit www.dstewart.com Press Contacts Geraldine Hunt

[email protected]

www.TitanHQ.com Angela Bluhm

[email protected]

www.dstewart.com Related Images

image1.jpg

image2.jpg This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/titanhq-enters-the-us-education-sector-through-partnership-with-the-douglas-stewart-company-300288691.html SOURCE TitanHQ

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[June 22, 2016] Top 20 Cyber Security Companies 2015: Analysis of Leading Players, Competitive Positioning & Future Market Opportunities

NEW YORK, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Report Details

The latest report from business intelligence provider visiongain offers comprehensive analysis of the top 20 cyber security companies revealing their revenues and market share derived from the $80.7bn cyber security market.



Now: The latest announcement that the cyber security pact between the US and China agreed to in September has not prevented Chinese hackers from continuing their efforts to steal intellectual property from US companies, has led visiongain to publish this unique report, which is crucial to your companies.



This is an example of the business critical headline that you need to know about - and more importantly, you need to read visiongain's objective analysis of how this will impact your company and the industry more broadly. How are you and your company responding to this news? Are you sufficiently informed?



How this report will benefit you

Read on to discover how you can exploit the future business opportunities emerging in this sector. Visiongain's new study tells you and tells you NOW.



In this brand new report you will receive 472 in-depth tables, charts and graphs PLUS 4 EXCLUSIVE interviews with experts from Kaspersky Lab, Honeywell International, IBM and Dell  all unavailable elsewhere.



The 421 page report provides clear detailed insight of the top 20 companies in the cyber security market. It reveals the key activities and performance of these companies in cyber security as well as detailed insight into how current threats to cyber security and requirements for solutions are shaping individual business strategy.



By ordering and reading our brand new report today you will be better informed and ready to act.



Report Scope

- Detailed profiles of the top 20 cyber security companies revealing their cyber security revenues, market share and top 20 ranking

- BAE Systems plc

- Check Point Software Technologies Ltd

- Cisco Systems Inc

- Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd (DTTL)

- EMC Corporation

- rnst & Young Global Ltd (EY)







- General Dynamics Corporation

- Hewlett Packard Company

- International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation

- Intel Corporation

- Kaspersky Lab

- L-3 Communications Corporation

- Leidos Inc

- Lockheed Martin Corporation

- Northrop Grumman Corporation

- PWC

- Raytheon Company

- Symantec Corporation

- Trend Micro Inc

- Each profile contains tables and charts detailing key financial performance indicators

- Detailed tables for a total of 113 cyber security contracts

- Each profile contains contract, services, product and M&A information

- Detailed analysis of company performance and activities, identifying how cyber security threats and protection requirements are influencing business strategy

- Analysis of the key factors, threats and security solutions that are driving the cyber security market

- 472 detailed tables, charts and figures

- 4 Interviews with key opinion leaders informing and underpinning the analysis:

- Alexander Erofeev , Chief Marketing Officer, Kaspersky Lab

- Jeff Zindel , Global Cyber Security Business Leader, and Erick Knapp , Director of Cyber Security Solutions and Technology, Honeywell International Inc

- John Burnham , Director of Strategic Communications, IBM Security Systems

- Julia Pope , Analyst Relations Lead, Dell Inc



Who should read this report?

- Anyone within the cyber security industry

- CEO's

- COO's

- CIO's

- Business development managers

- Marketing managers

- Technologists

- Suppliers

- Investors

- Banks

- Government agencies

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How will you benefit from this report?

- This report will keep your cyber security knowledge base up to speed. Don't get left behind

- This report will reinforce strategic decision decision-making based upon definitive and reliable market data

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- You will be able to realise your company's full potential within the market through competitive landscape analysis

- You will better understand the competitive landscape and identify potential new business opportunities & partnerships with leading companies in cyber security



Visiongain's study is intended for anyone requiring commercial analyses for the leading companies in the cyber security market. You will find data, financial performance, contracts and analyses of these companies.



Buy our report today Top 20 Cyber Security Companies 2015: Analysis of Leading Players, Competitive Positioning & Future Market Opportunities. Avoid missing out by staying informed  order our report now.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03421852-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/top-20-cyber-security-companies-2015-analysis-of-leading-players-competitive-positioning--future-market-opportunities-300288895.html SOURCE Reportlinker

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[June 22, 2016]

Intel Support Honored by Computer Memory Test Labs, (CMTL)

ANAHEIM, Calif., June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CMTL, (www.cmtlabs.com), Computer Memory Test Labs announced today marks its 20 year anniversary as the industry leader for memory compatibility and functionality testing on computer platforms and systems.

CMTL President, John Deters stated, "CMTL was formed as a temporary solution in 1996 in small quaint Hillsboro Oregon lunch restaurant called the Chart House with two progressively thinking Intel TME's, Ken Reid and Doug Steffen. The goal of the meeting was to figure out a way to relieve the massive backup of 3rd party module manufacturers requesting to be "Full Functional" qualified on specific Intel desktop platforms. What was intended to be a short 6 month outsourced project grew into complete compatibility and functionality independent test lab for 20 years. Over 25,000 Intel Advanced tests have now been perfomed to date."







At this time CMTL is recognizing the contributions, efforts, determination and sacrifices made by the following Intel employees, past and present that allowed Intel desktop, server, workstation, disk array and NUC customers to have the freedom and flexibility of choice to buy memory products from a number of third party memory module manufacturers that offer, high quality, reliable fully functional and compatible products .

In alphabetical order by first name:

Akia Uno, Alan Clampett, Bill Colson, Brenda Culberston, Bruce Patterson, Debbie Welter, Derick Marks, Doug Steffen, Gary Hanson, George Buckmaster, Greg Scalfaro, Hadeel Hazim, John Jaeger, Ken Reid, Lois Hill, Ravuth Uth, Robert Stoddard, Ron Suttor, Sven Haugan, Tim Denker, and Tony Shields.

To all the additional Intel group employees that CMTL may have inadvertently missed recognizing with this public tribute, I sincerely apologize. Feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].

Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation; all others are the property of respective owners.

Contact: John Deters, CMTL, 770-238-2085, [email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/intel-support-honored-by-computer-memory-test-labs-cmtl-300288975.html

SOURCE CMTL
[June 22, 2016] Return Path Signs White House "Tech Inclusion Pledge," Commits to Building a Diverse, Inclusive Workforce

Data solutions provider Return Path today announced it is among the inaugural signatories of the Tech Inclusion Pledge, a White House initiative to address the critical issue of inclusion and diversity in the tech workforce. The pledge, which was announced by the White House today and will be highlighted in President Obama's keynote address at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University, creates a coalition of tech brands with a clear and compelling long-term vision for making concrete progress toward workforce diversity. An excerpt from the Tech Inclusion Pledge reads as follows: "We resolve to take action to make the technology workforce at each of our companies fully representative of the American people, as soon as possible. We will treat this goal as a top management priority and business imperative, because tapping the full measure of talent from across the country is critical for the long-term success of both our individual companies and the nation as a whole." By taking the pledge and joining the newly formed Tech Inclusion Coalition, Return Path commits to: Implementing and publishing company-specific goals to recruit, retain, and advance diverse technology talent;

Operationalizing concrete measures to create and sustain an inclusive culture;

Publishing data and progress metrics on the diversity of the technology workforce; and

Investing in partnerships to build a diverse pipeline of technology talent. "At Return Path, we believe that running a great business requires diversity. The best way to deliveramazing products to our customers is by creating a culture where every employee is deeply engaged and committed to the business," said Matt Blumberg, Return Path CEO. "We aspire to provide a welcoming environment for all employees, regardless of gender, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious or political views, age, or socioeconomic status."



The National Center for Women & Information Technology and CODE2040 have launched a website where additional companies can join the Tech Inclusion Coalition and find free implementation resources to help meet their commitments. Additionally, the White House will convene a meeting of the Tech Inclusion Coalition in the coming months to work through long term implementation strategies. "We don't have all the answers when it comes to diversity-but we're confident that we are heading in the right direction," continued Blumberg. "This White House initiative is an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to building a diverse workforce, holding ourselves accountable for our progress, and raising awareness among other companies about the importance of creating an inclusive environment."

About Return Path Return Path analyzes the world's largest collection of email data to show businesses how to stay connected to their audiences, strengthen their customer engagement, and protect their brands from fraud. Our data solutions help analysts understand consumer behavior and market trends. We help mailbox providers and security providers around the world deliver great user experiences and build trust in email by ensuring that wanted messages reach the inbox while spam and abuse don't. Find out more about Return Path Email Optimization, Email Fraud Protection, and Consumer Insight solutions at returnpath.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622006451/en/

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[June 23, 2016] Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year: Penta Security Systems Honored for 2016

APAC market leader Penta Security Systems Inc. awarded by Frost & Sullivan SEOUL, South Korea, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 15, Penta Security Systems Inc. was awarded the honor of Frost & Sullivan Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year. The award was given at this year's 13th annual Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381646 Frost & Sullivan selected Penta Security Systems after concluding evaluations with a team of 30 analysts and consultants based in the Asian-Pacific region. Analysts examined a variety of indicators including revenue growth, market share, leadership in product innovation, major customer acquisitions, and business and market strategy. Specifically, Frost & Sullivan noted that Penta Security continues to make headway into new industries with its smart car security solution - AutoCrypt. AutoCrypt detects vehicular attacks from external systems utilizing its Application Layer Firewall, and has garnered significant attention with the increase in the nws of vulnerabilities in smart cars.



CEO and Founder Seokwoo Lee attended the annual ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore in order to receive the award. Regarding reception of the award, he stated, "We are honored to receive the Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year award. It affirms the 19 years of hard work we have put into the development of information security." He added, "We will continue to pursue excellence and growth in web and data security - not only in APAC, but worldwide." Having built relationships globally among enterprises and institutions, Penta Security Systems has grown rapidly along with the rise in demand for web and data security products. In 2015, its web application firewall (WAF), WAPPLES, was acknowledged by Frost & Sullivan as the leading WAF in the APAC region in terms of market share. The top WAF in Korea for three consecutive years, WAPPLES boasts a COCEP (Contents Classification and Evaluation Processing) engine, rather than traditional pattern-matching methods utilized by other cyber security vendors.

About Penta Security Penta Security Systems Inc. was founded in 1997 by CEO Seokwoo Lee, and the company is a market-leading provider of web and data security products, solutions, and services in the APAC region. Penta Security protects more than 117,000 websites and blocks more than 108,000,000 web attacks per month. Recognized by Frost & Sullivan, Penta Security Systems is the top Web Application Firewall vendor in the APAC Region based on market share. For more information on Penta Security, please visit www.pentasecurity.com/en. For potential partnership inquiries, please send an email to [email protected]. For more details on the Asia Pacific ICT Awards, please visit http://www.ict-awards.com/. Contact: Esther Jeohn

Penta Security Systems Inc.

+82-2-2125-6676

[email protected]

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[June 23, 2016] Caringo Webinar Touts Benefits of Thin Provisioning NetApp and Windows File Servers

AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Caringo Product Manager Glen Olsen is presenting a live webinar, "Thin Provisioning and Protecting Primary Storage," June 28 at 10:30 EDT. The webinar will showcase how thin provisioning primary storage with feature-rich policy-based automated tiering can help organizations gain additional flexibility, reduce complexity and lower overall storage TCO by 75%. The solution is completely transparent to existing users and applications and files are consolidated and protected on a searchable platform while active data remains on primary storage. With more than two decades of industry experience and a keen focus on architecting data and storage solutions, Olsen leads Caringo's efforts to bridge the gap between traditional storage and the company's leading-edge scale-out storage solution. In the webinar, Olsen will share the advantages of thin provisioning and protecting primary storage with Caringo FileFly and Swarm to achieve benefits including: Reducing storage TCO by up to 75% while freeing 90% or more of existing primary file server capacity

Automating file lifecycle management policies to simplify data management and provide cost-effective data protection from creation to expiration

Mnimizing complexity and manual management with smart file movement that is completely transparent to applications and users

Taking advantage of today's cloud-like scalable storage infrastructure on standard hardware



Interested parties can register for the latest Caringo webinar at https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/13173/209337. The presentation will also be available on-demand following the conclusion of the live event as part of the company's series of free educational videos hosted on its BrightTALK channel.

Follow Caringo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caringo-inc- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaringoStorage About Caringo Caringo was founded in 2005 to change the economics of storage by designing software from the ground up to solve the issues associated with data protection, management, organization and search at massive scale. Caringo's flagship product, Swarm, eliminates the need to migrate data into disparate solutions for long-term preservation, delivery and analysisradically reducing total cost of ownership. Today, Caringo software is the foundation for simple, bulletproof, limitless scale-out storage solutions for the Department of Defense, the Brazilian Federal Court System, City of Austin, Telefonica, British Telecom, Ask.com, Johns Hopkins University and hundreds more worldwide. Visit www.caringo.com to learn more. Contact:

Mark Smith, JPR Communications

818-798-1472

[email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120619/LA26635LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/caringo-webinar-touts-benefits-of-thin-provisioning-netapp-and-windows-file-servers-300289075.html SOURCE Caringo, Inc.

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[June 23, 2016] The Stephenz Group Launches MyStudio[Pros], a New Division to Help Independent Home Security Dealers Differentiate Themselves in the Growing Smart Home Automation Market

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Stephenz Group (TSG), one of Silicon Valley's largest independent branding, marketing and digital agencies, announced the launch of a new division: MyStudio[Pros]. MyStudio[Pros] is the only on-demand marketing services firm in the US which is 100% dedicated to serving the marketing needs of independent home security dealers. While working with technology companies targeting home security, TSG discovered the large underserved market of independent home security dealers. This new division will serve the over 15,000 dealers nationwide who need affordable, high quality, professional marketing services. With the home automation market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26.3% it is projected to be worth more than $21 billion in 2020 (Transparency Market Research) and dealers need these marketing resources to be competitive and grow their business. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382651LOGO The new "on-demand agency" offers personalized services with Account Reps assigned to specific dealers, as well as easy-to-order items on its website www.mystudiopros.com. "We are transforming how independent security dealers market their home security services to the consumer," said Barbara Zenz, The Stephenz Group President and CEO. "As the consumer embraces smart home automation, home security dealers must compete with large cable companies, while marketing and branding their own business, retaining their customers, and selling new services. MyStudio[Pros] is the partner that will help them compete by bringing world-class marketing services to their fingertips." Zenz further stated. How it works. The agency launched the division with an innovative business model based on a monthly VIP mebership fee of only $50 per month. This provides dealers with discounts on services and access to affordable resources such as strategic planning and top quality creative resources, including: website design, SEO and complete lead generation programs. This model allows MyStudio[Pros] to give its dealers "big ideas for small prices".



Dealers have options. They can connect with MyStudio[Pros] through their central monitoring service provider or they can sign up directly. MyStudio[Pros] has strategic relationships with leading central monitoring companies, including UCC in San Antonio, Texas. "MyStudio[Pros] offers our dealers access to resources normally not available to them. Now they have their own marketing department." Teresa Gonzalez, President, UCC, San Antonio, Texas. The Stephenz Group brings a unique perspective to the home security sector, based on years of experience with home security services as well as extensive channel marketing experience with major technology brands. "We saw a need in the market," commented Barbara Zenz. "There haven't been many options for independent dealers to partner with marketing services agencies, so by combining our innovative service approach with a breadth of creative options, dealers can work with marketing experts to help them build their brand with customized marketing tools."

"Independent dealers have never had it tougher. With the growth in home security and home automation, UCC dealers need additional services to help them grow their business. MyStudio[Pros] is an example of UCC's goal to provide our dealers with the tools they need. Our dealers and their success is what matters to us," added Ron Bowden, Director of Dealer Services, UCC. About The Stephenz Group and MyStudio[Pros] The Stephenz Group is one of the largest independently owned B2B branding and digital advertising agencies in Silicon Valley. The Stephenz Group has experience building brands for clients such as Enlighted, Epson, HP, Icontrol, Infoblox, Qualcomm, and Samsung. In addition to MyStudio[Pros], the company also has a division called STUDIO that helps clients of all sizes to optimize their communications with high-quality, fast, and scalable web services, presentation design & events. The Stephenz Group has received hundreds of national, regional, and local creative awards, and is ranked among the Top 100 B2B agencies in the United States by B2B Marketing Magazine, Top 25 High-Tech Agencies in the United States by AdWeek, and Top 200 Agencies in the United States by Ad Age. For more information, please visit stephenz.com or mystudiopros.com. PR CONTACT:

Judith Rosgen

The Stephenz Group

408-938-5432

jrosgen@stephenz.com This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-stephenz-group-launches-mystudiopros-a-new-division-to-help-independent-home-security-dealers-differentiate-themselves-in-the-growing-smart-home-automation-market-300289163.html SOURCE The Stephenz Group

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[June 23, 2016] Anomali, Powered by New Products, Funding and Company Rebrand, Experiences 170 Percent Growth Year-Over-Year

LONDON, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Company Expands Footprint with New Boston Office and Announces Anomali Detect, its First-Ever Industry Conference Anomali, the provider of the market-leading ThreatStream threat intelligence and Anomali Enterprise platforms, today announced it has exceeded its goals for the first half of 2016 after experiencing 170 percent growth year-over-year. As a result of several key milestones in 2016 - including $30 million in Series C funding, expansion of its product portfolio and rebranding of the company - Anomali has experienced significant growth and has established an East Coast office in Boston to support growing customer demand. In addition to expanding its U.S. presence, Anomali will also host it's first-ever industry event, Anomali Detect, in Washington D.C. from Sept. 11-13. Anomali Detect is a one-of-a-kind event that will offer sessions and workshops targeted at identifying the most effective ways to leverage threat intelligence to increase the effectiveness of an organization's cyber defenses. Anomali, formerly known as ThreatStream, provides products that unlock the value of threat intelligence for security operations and incident-response personnel. In early 2016, the company rebranded to Anomali at the 2016 RSA Conference in San Francisco, Calif. and launched two new products - Anomali Reports and Anomali Enterprise. The products address the threat intelligence big data and scalability challenges, provide deep retrospective analysis, nd help to realize the goal of an intelligence-driven security operations center. Anomali's new products provide relevant threat intelligence to discover and track attackers at each phase of the attack chain.



In April, the company announced it raised $30 million in Series C funding. The round, led by Institutional Venture Partners, included significant investments from General Catalyst Partners, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Paladin Capital Group. The round raised Anomali's total funding to more than $56 million since launching in 2013. "The momentum we're experiencing in 2016 is a testament to our team, our customers and our partners who are all dedicated to sharing threat intelligence data and best practices and improving our community's security posture," said Hugh Njemanze, CEO of Anomali. "Over the past several months Anomali has joined the Facebook ThreatExchange community, become an associate member of the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center, and added a variety of partners to the Anomali Alliance of Preferred Partners Store including most recently Taia Global, Intel 471, BlueLiv and Media Trust. This momentum is the result of our dedicated efforts to best serve our customers and provide protection against and ultimately thwart cybersecurity threats."



The company's efforts have also resulted in numerous prestigious industry acknowledgements. Anomali has been awarded a Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Award, was recognized as the Company of the Year in the 2016 Best in Biz Awards, and most recently was named in the 2016 Red Herring Top 100 North America list. The Anomali Boston office is located at 179 South Street, and houses sales and customer service personnel. Additional positions are currently open at the Boston location. To learn more, please visit: https://www.anomali.com/company/careers. For more information on the Anomali product suite, please click here Follow us on Twitter: @Anomalidetect Follow us on LinkedIn About Anomali Anomali delivers earlier detection and identification of adversaries in your organization's network by making it possible to correlate tens of millions of threat indicators against your real time network activity logs and up to a year or more of forensic log data. Anomali's approach enables detection at every point along the kill chain, making it possible to mitigate threats before material damage to your organization has occurred. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., the company is privately held and has received venture capital backing from General Catalyst Partners, GV, Institutional Venture Partners, and Paladin Capital Group, as well as individual investors. To learn more, visit http://www.anomali.com and follow us on Twitter: @anomali

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Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Compliance Officers in the financial sector have a tough job. Whether they work in banking, insurance or capital markets, these employees are tasked with ensuring their companies comply with regulatory requirements and internal policies. With scrutiny intensifying, fines and other penalties on the rise, companies are making their compliance departments a priority.

As technology changes the way companies communicate with their customers, accelerating the pace at which financial services business operates, the speed of compliance departments operations must keep up - across information coming in, moving around the organisation and finally going out to their stakeholders.

Compliances Seat in the C Suite

Just how important is the compliance department? While getting new customers and serving existing ones is top priority for any financial services provider, proper and timely regulatory compliance ranks a close second. Most compliance officers77 percent, according to Accentures (News - Alert) 2015 Compliance Risk Studyreport directly to their companys board or CEO, giving them a seat at the decision-makers table.

Compliance is also a significant change agent; 80 percent of respondents to the same study say compliance will be the pre-eminent group able to affect culture change within their firms over the next five years. In our view, Accenture states, expectations of compliance have never been higher, with the function needing to leverage its influence to become a positive and disruptive force in how banks and other financial services firms innovate and evolve.

How Compliance is Changing

Compliance officers operate in a range of industries, from healthcare to telecom to agriculture. But in no area is the role more important than in financial services. The maze of laws, regulations and internal policies, not to mention the increased scrutiny used to oversee firms, makes financial services compliance particularly challenging. The changing ways in which customersfrom large institutions to individual investorsare interacting with financial firms further complicates matters. Whats more, the increasing burden of digital documentation, email records and other online communications means todays compliance officers must place a greater focus on information management.

Emma Isichei

Several key technology areas need particular attention, and if handled correctly, they can pay significant dividends to compliance departments:

Data management: With the increased volume of data within an organisation, it is vital that the business understands what it has, how it is stored and what the journey of this information is; as they need to be able to comply with the audits and reporting that they need to regularly provide the relevant regulatory agencies, and also, the general public.

With the increased volume of data within an organisation, it is vital that the business understands what it has, how it is stored and what the journey of this information is; as they need to be able to comply with the audits and reporting that they need to regularly provide the relevant regulatory agencies, and also, the general public. Data analytics: Its not enough to just store data. Financial services companies need analytics tools to uncover trends (and pain points) as early as possible. This is especially important in the compliance area, where getting ahead of issues can make all the difference. Handling the issue before it gets out of control can help avoid a large fine and negative press.

Its not enough to just store data. Financial services companies need analytics tools to uncover trends (and pain points) as early as possible. This is especially important in the compliance area, where getting ahead of issues can make all the difference. Handling the issue before it gets out of control can help avoid a large fine and negative press. Communications management: Managing customer interactions is particularly challenging today, as customers visit retail locations, interact with call centres and communicate with the bank via email, text, web, live chat and more. Managing all of this unstructured or semi-structured data is an important task for todays compliance departments. While digital communication is difficult to manage, paper trails may be even harder.

Managing customer interactions is particularly challenging today, as customers visit retail locations, interact with call centres and communicate with the bank via email, text, web, live chat and more. Managing all of this unstructured or semi-structured data is an important task for todays compliance departments. While digital communication is difficult to manage, paper trails may be even harder. Improved data management toolsincluding more automated document workflows and analytics are needed to pull needles out of the data haystacks. This can turn data into an asset rather than a burden.

The Compliance Answer

Leveraging advanced data management tools and processes can transform the role of compliance. At a time when compliance departments are being inundated by more data than ever, these tools are essential. Modern Information management solutions that enable web and mobile capture can help financial services compliance departments get their job done better, faster and at a lower cost and are well-suited to help transform document and data management-heavy departments such as regulatory compliance via improved workflow automation.

Furthermore, it is vital that a business has the right capture process, whether at point of need, centralised or though mobile tools, as this can turn data into an asset rather than a burden. Better solutions can also help legal departments keep up with new regulations and ensure compliance is on top of evolving rules and laws. The entire organization benefits from improved operational efficiency, and concerns about potential fines and penalties for non-compliance are reduced.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
The nationalist AfD has promised to file a motion to expel controversial legislator Wolfgang Gedeon from Baden-Wurttemberg\s parliament. Gedeon has called Judaism an "enemy" of the West and downplayed the Holocaust.

The populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) was set to make a move to oust controversial lawmaker Wolfgang Gedeon from the state parliament of Baden-Wurttemberg. After initial hesitance to penalize Gedeon over his antisemitic statements, party spokesman Jorg Meuthen said the AfD would file a motion in court on Tuesday to have him removed from office.

After the Stuttgart court has received the brief, the nationalists said, they would give Gedeon five days to leave of his own accord; otherwise they would force him out with a majority vote.

Meuthen, who is also a lawmaker in Baden-Wurttemberg on top of acting as federal party spokesman, has said that should the AfD fail to expel Gedeon, he would resign himself.

The charges against the doctor-turned-politician stem from writings he published several years ago where he argues against the existence of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, saying that "certain crimes" should not be given too much prominence. He also called Judaism the "domestic enemy" of the "Christian West," while Islam was the "external enemy."

While finally taking issue with Gedeon\s remarks, the AfD continued its stance against Islam on Tuesday with party leader Frauke Petry saying that the West was "threatened" by "increasing Muslim immigration."

Despite nearly constant infighting since the party was founded as a Euroskeptic, financially conservative group in 2013, the AfD has made huge gains in recent regional elections and is now represented in half of Germany\s 16 state legislatures.

At its party convention in April, the AfD voted to adopt the stance that "Islam is not part of Germany," as part of its first official manifesto, drawing fierce criticism at home and abroad.
CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- Midway through their season, the Charleston Community Band is set to take the stage again at 7:30 p.m. today at the John Daum Amphitheater at Kiwanis Park for their fourth concert.

The band will perform 11 songs. Under the direction of Ginger Stanfield, they will perform again starting with The Star Spangled Banner, and continuing on with The Washington Post March, highlights from Fiddler On The Roof, Mack The Knife, Toccata For Band, Let There Be Peace On Earth, An American Tribute, Precious Lord, Take My Hand, Hello, Goodbye (Songs of the Beatles in Concert), I Saw The Light, and Emblem of Unity March.

Under rainy or wet conditions, the free concert will be moved to the Dvorak Concert Hall in the Doudna Fine Arts Center on the campus of Eastern Illinois University, according to a press release. Today, there is a 20 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms during the day with partly sunny skies and high near 88 in Charleston.

The community band consists of approximately 70 volunteer musicians from Charleston and the surrounding area.

It's suggested that people bring lawn chairs and blankets if they are going to the concert, the release added.
SPRINGFIELD -- With the start of the new fiscal year just over a week away, the Illinois Department of Transportation is preparing to put the brakes on road and transit projects statewide.

The department began notifying contractors this week that they shouldnt start tearing up any roads or closing bridges lanes unless work can be completed by June 30, the final day of the current fiscal year. No work -- including engineering -- will be able to continue after that unless the General Assembly gives IDOT authority to spend money in the new fiscal year, Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn said Wednesday.

Repeating a message he delivered last week at a Statehouse news conference with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, Blankenhorn urged lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow work to continue.

The message from last week isnt different, he said. Its just were another week that weve gone by without a budget, and this brings this crisis even closer.

Steve Brown, a spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, dismissed the warnings as a PR stunt and said House Democrats are trying to work with the administration on the stopgap budget.

Brown noted that the House passed a spending plan for the new budget year that appropriated money for IDOT projects. The plan, which was more than $7 billion out of balance, was rejected in the Senate but could be reconsidered.

Democratic lawmakers continue to participate in working groups in a good faith effort to negotiate with their Republican colleagues and the Rauner administration on a plan to keep state government operating while broader discussions over the full budget and the governors policy agenda continue, Brown said.

Blankenhorn said IDOTs announcements arent a PR stunt but represent the reality of the day.

Im glad the working groups are continuing to talk, he said. I remain  optimistic that something can happen in the next eight days or so, but the reality of the situation is, without an appropriation, I have no ability to pay any bills.

The shutdown would affect more than 800 ongoing road projects statewide, totaling roughly $2 billion. Another $2 billion worth of projects slated for next year wouldnt be able to move forward.

The state would also incur tens and tens of millions of dollars in additional costs by stopping and restarting the projects, Blankenhorn said.

In IDOT District 7, which includes Coles County and more than a dozen others, $86.6 million worth of remaining work on current projects would be affected, including the $8.4 million replacement of the U.S. 51 bridge over the Sangamon River south of Harristown. This also would include a $61.6 million reconstruction project around Interstates 57/70 in Effingham.

The Transportation for Illinois Coalition, made up of business, labor, government and nonprofit organizations across the state, issued a letter to its members and state officials Wednesday urging immediate action.

A shutdown of this extent is unprecedented, and presents very real economic hardship and safety concerns, reads the letter from co-chairmen Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, and Michael Kleinik, executive director of the Chicago Laborers District Councils Labor-Management Cooperation Committee.

The coalition expects as many as 25,000 workers to be without work directly as a result of the shutdown, with many others impacted at local businesses who now provide goods and services to these workers, the letter adds.
MATTOON -- Douglas-Hart Nature Center has turned to a herd of goats for help with removing willows from wetlands at this site.

The 17 goats, provided last week by a Charleston farm, have been nibbling on willow leaves and using their horns to strip the bark off of these small trees within their temporary pen next to the water.

Nature Center Executive Director Gary Boske said willows are a good cover plant and pollinator in wetlands, but can take over and crowd out other vegetation. Boske said he was considering options for removing willows when he recalled growing up on a farm and seeing his goats happily graze on this vegetation along a creek.

Boske said he subsequently contacted the Fuqua family to see if they could bring out some of their goats to eat the willows in the wetlands on the west side of the nature center.

"It's natural way to do it without spraying the willows with chemicals or cutting them," Boske said, adding that using chainsaws on the willows is labor intensive. He said removing the willows will allow desirable vegetation to grow in the wetlands.

Goats can eat approximately 4 pounds of forage a day, Boske said. The goats from the Fuqua family farm have already cleared more than a third of the willows inside their pen.

Boske said their temporary pen and their water trough will be relocated to another section of the wetlands once the goats have depleted the supply of willows in the first section. He said the goats will be at the nature center for a total of approximately six weeks.

Alex Fuqua said the goats that are grazing at the nature center are kiko goats, a hardy breed of goat from New Zealand. Fuqua said his family has raised them for five years now as meat goats, but had never been asked to use them for removing unwanted vegetation until Boske contacted them.

Fuqua said his family and their goats are happy to help the nature center get rid of the willows in the wetlands.

"That is one of their favorite foods. It's a nice little treat for them," Fuqua said of the goats. "They are helping us feed them and we are helping them clean up. It's a win-win."

Fuqua said he has already received a couple of inquiries from nature center visitors who have seen the goats in action there and would be interested in putting them to work on their property. He said using the goats to remove unwanted vegetation has worked out well, so he and his family plan to keep on trying this elsewhere.

Boske said the friendly goats have been a big hit with children in the summer day camps at the nature center and with other visitors to this site.

"Everyone wants to go see the goats," Baske said. "They all want to see how the goats are doing."
Coles County Associate Judge Mark Bovard will have a chance Aug. 4 to bring some justice to this county.

Here's hoping he's ready to put the hammer -- or the gavel, as the case may be -- down hard.

"Justice: the process or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals," according to Merriam-Webster.

The case is against William L. Beck, who Bovard found guilty of a felony driving under the influence charge after hearing Monday that he had well over the legal limit of alcohol in his system when he caused an accident that seriously injured another teenager.

Beck is now 21; the accident happened the night of Oct. 25, 2014 -- when he was underage. The Teutopolis man was accused of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol in the accident, which occurred on Illinois Route 16 east of Charleston.

As JG-TC staff writer Dave Fopay has reported, evidence that went before Bovard showed that Beck was intoxicated, speeding and driving without his car's headlights on when his vehicle crossed the center line and collided head-on with another. That driver, Alyssa Camp, then 17, of Kansas, was almost killed due to the crash.

According to evidence presented in court, Camp spent three months in the hospital after the accident, then another three months in physical therapy. She initially wasn't expected to live. Now, prosecutors say, she is disabled and has no chance to go to college.

Bovard isn't going into Beck's official sentencing without guidance. The prosecution and defense have agreed to recommend that Beck receive two years of probation including jail time: 50 days, with another 130 days included but stayed. So he'll serve only 50 days if he doesn't violate terms of the suggested sentence.

Yep. Fifty days in jail. Why don't they just recommend he take a stroll through a woods full of roses and come out smelling oh, so sweet on the other side?

Bovard doesn't have to accept the sentencing recommendation by the prosecuting and defense attorneys. He made note of that to Beck during Monday's court session. The conviction could bring a prison sentence of one to 12 years, in fact.

The defense had the gall to note that Camp wasn't wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident and, if she had been wearing one, her injuries wouldn't have been so severe.

Talk about blaming the victim.

And, in the very definition of "irony," Bovard already has agreed to allow Beck out of jail for a single day college orientation next month.

I don't know those involved in this case personally. But I can empathize with Camp in particular.

Imagine receiving severe injuries in a car accident after a drunk driver swerved into your lane, leaving you nowhere to go. I'm sure it happened so fast that Camp doesn't even remember the impact. Both she and Beck were injured, but she was far more seriously hurt.

Bovard has a history in this case of following the attorneys' recommendations. As Fopay previously reported, in April of 2015, Bovard agreed to a bond amount of a whopping $750 for Beck when the defendant pleaded not guilty to the Coles County charge against him.

Bet the defendant had to break a piggy bank for that one.

The judge also ordered that Beck be monitored to be sure he didn't use alcohol.

Let's hope this worked amazing wonders, as, in a separate, earlier case, Beck allegedly "intentionally strangled" a woman in Madison County in February of 2015 and there were indications that he was intoxicated at the time.

Meanwhile, Camp was welcomed back to Kansas High School in December 2014 after she had healed enough to return to classes. Students and staff lined up with signs and balloons to support her.

I understand a defense attorney's job is to get a client found not guilty of the alleged crime, or get the least punishment possible. But what's wrong with the prosecution in this case?

That would be Assistant State's Attorney Jesse Danley, under the umbrella of State's Attorney Brian Bower's office. Why on earth would they agree to a recommendation of essentially only 50 days in jail for what Beck did to Camp?

However, the proverbial ball is in Bovard's court.

I'm not too optimistic about a just outcome to this case, based on how it's gone so far. Family, friends and other supporters of Camp must not be either, as they turned out in court Monday to make their presence known and represent her side of the story.

Judge Bovard: Introduce Coles County to justice. Hold Beck responsible and level an appropriately severe penalty for him for almost killing another person due to his irresponsibility and gross negligence.

Beck deserves at least a 10-year prison sentence. We all know that with the way the system works, that would mean he'd be out in five.

Camp won't stop struggling with the disabilities she has from this avoidable accident in five years, or 10, or 20. She is sentenced to a lifetime of struggle, courtesy of Beck.

In all fairness, Bovard should have to meet with Camp and see her daily struggle. That is only sensible as part of his decision in the interest of justice. Beck should have to do the same; or, at least, both need to hear a detailed accounting of what every single day is like for Camp since this drunken man changed her life forever.

Again, to be fair, Bovard should gain knowledge on whether or not Beck has turned himself around. That is part of the equation as well.

Let's have some justice in this county. It's up to you, Judge Bovard.

***

I can't discuss court action here this week without weighing in on the Mattoon case of the pit bull which a judge ordered to be euthanized after the dog bit two children and then again got loose from his owner's yard after she was ordered to keep him contained.

Euthanizing the dog isn't justice.

Where is the punishment for the owner? It is a human or humans who made the animal vicious or allowed it to run free, and it is a human who should be penalized for the situation(s) that allowed the dog to hurt the two children involved.

Euthanizing the dog is necessary. It saddens me on behalf of the dog, which, raised properly, likely would have never bitten anyone. But the children affected will have scars for life from the incidents. Their needs and consideration of their pain certainly take precedence over the dog's.

I love dogs, and I believe that proper training is key, but when a dog bites someone -- a child, in particular -- for no apparent reason, the dog has to go.

Now, the county needs to look at its system for handling these kinds of things. Any owner in a case like this should face some penalty, such as a fine or community service work, or be prohibited from owning other canines.

Every case is different, and the penalties should fit each one. In this case, "justice" still was not done, even if the dog deemed vicious will be put down.

Coles County needs more justice across the board. We as citizens need to speak up to see that it's delved out more appropriately.

We must remember that "justice" is considering the whole of a situation, not just a portion of it. But the victims of crime must be at the center of any such vision.

That's when justice is served.
You may not have heard of Midwest Door & Hardware, but chances are you have used one of its products.

The Lincoln company has provided commercial doors and door hardware for a number of major projects not just in Lincoln but across the state over the past 24 years, including the Nebraska Heart Hospital, the Journal Star's production building and expansions of the north and west stadiums at Memorial Stadium.

Now nearing a quarter-century in business, the company is doing its own expansion project.

Midwest leased the building next door to its offices at 5001 Russell Drive in northeast Lincoln, nearly doubling its current space.

The new space will be mostly offices, said President Dick Selig, and the old space has been remodeled to provide more warehouse and fabrication space.

Midwest showed off its new digs Thursday at an open house and ribbon cutting.

The company buys steel door components and then fabricates the doors in its own shop, the only Nebraska company outside of Omaha to do so.

Selig, who started the business with a partner in 1992, said the expansion is made possible by a new majority ownership stake taken by a local group, which he declined to name.

He said the company needed to expand after growing from four employees to 22 over the years, and the investment helped that to become a reality.

"We were to the point where we couldn't even add one more person" because of space constraints, Selig said.
Throughout Francofonia, his film about the Nazi occupation of The Louvre, Russian director Alexander Sokurov talks about his belief that museum are the centers of culture that bind together cities, nations and, on some level, the world.

After screening the film at the Ross Media Arts Center, where it will run through Thursday, Ive found myself in agreement with Sokurov -- with a caveat.

That is that museums dont reach the entire culture anywhere. Some people just arent interested, some dont have access for various reasons, including high admission costs some places, and some museums, frankly, arent good.

With that said, Sokurov is dead-on with his observation, particularly for the worlds great museums, The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he filmed Russian Ark, The Prado in Madrid and Londons British Museum.

The museum community is probably the most stable part of the cultural world, Sokurov says in the movies press notes.  What would we be without museums? Museums show us that a grand and magnificent culture existed before -- considerably grander, smarter, than anything we are able to create today 

Im not sure the latter proposition is true. Contemporary work can often touch the level of the masters of the past.

But what the best museums do -- whether large and encyclopedic with collections that span millenia and come from across the world, like Kansas Citys Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art or smaller and more focused ala the Sheldon Museum of Art -- is present worthy works to people who would otherwise have no access to the art and artifiacts.

Thats also what Sokurov aims at when he makes his movies in the museums.

It seemed to me that under these conditions we could create a hymn to this world, he says in the press notes. The museum is a world within a world. By creating films in museums and about museums, we invite different people, people from different cultures, to actually meet these original works.

In the case of Francofonia, that means an up-close view of the Mona Lisa, the worlds most famous painting and other gems from the Louvres collection.

Id highly recommend Francofonia and a trip to the Nelson-Atkins, Sheldon, Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Art Museum ... you get the idea.

'Destruction Was My Beatrice' chronicle dada

Dada is not dead and, in truth, continues to be the most influential art movement from the 20th century.

Those are among the claims made and backed up by Jed Rasula in his enlightening new book Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the 20th Century.

An historian by trade, Rasula traces the rise of dada from its origins in Zurichs Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 and looks at the anti-art art movement geographically, strongly connecting the European form of dada to the American version propounded by the irreplaceable Marcel Duchamp, contemporary arts father of us all and Francis Picabia.

The rebellious true dadaist Picabia, a Frenchman who was a real character, and German folk-style artist Kurt Schwitters are most prominently covered in Rasulas account that effectively argues that the subversive, sometimes baffling, seriously funny or humorously serious dada continues to be at the heart of much contemporary art.

Ive had a long time interest in dada and have a pretty good collection of books and catalogs about the movement, its art and especially Duchamp. Even with that background, Destruction Was My Beatrice illuminates and informs -- and puts dada right where it should be in the world of art and pop culture.

Cornhusker Marriott joins First Friday artwalk

The Cornhusker Marriott Hotel is joining the First Friday art walk, beginning Friday July 1. The hotel will host the artwalk in its new artist-in-residence studio and gallery on the main level outside the hotels grand ballroom.

This month will feature the encaustic work of Margaret Berry, the hotels 2016-17 artist in residence.

The hotels art walk hours will be 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
OMAHA  Attorneys representing the city of Omaha say the city's restaurant tax does not favor food trucks and a lawsuit challenging the tax should be dismissed.

The city's legal department filed court documents Monday in response to a lawsuit filed in Douglas County District Court last month by restaurant owner Michael Henery.

Henery's lawsuit says it's not fair that food trucks don't pay the 2.5 percent municipal restaurant tax. He also argues that parking regulations are not enforced against them. Henery claims the tax is unconstitutional and is seeking a $100,000 refund.

City attorneys pushing to dismiss the lawsuit argue that, among other reasons, the Nebraska Supreme Court previously found the tax to be constitutional in 2012 after legal challenges from two Omaha restaurants.

City attorneys also argue that when the tax was authorized in 2010, food trucks had not been established yet so it could not have been the intent of the City Council to create a special privilege for food trucks.

Brandon Henery, general manager at the restaurant, said they will continue to try and get the lawsuit to move forward.

Omaha Food Truck Association President Kelly Keegan said members of his group will gladly pay the restaurant tax if so required. Keegan also said that progress is being made to draft a city ordinance to deal with objections with food trucks, such as parking meter usage and operating in proximity to brick-and-mortar restaurants.

"We want to take the City Council a solution, not a problem," Keegan said.
The prosecutor behind the Beatrice 6 convictions returned to the stand Wednesday, a day after a defense attorney accused him of withholding reports that could have helped his client.

This time, Dick Smith, the longtime Gage County Attorney, was asked if he declined to have DNA testing done -- or tell defense attorneys it could be done for $350 per test -- because of what he knew then it might show.

Even according to his expert witness in 1989, there was only a possibility -- not a probability -- that it was Joseph White's DNA on a swab taken from the victim.

White and five others who served decades for Helen Wilson's 1985 rape and murder, a crime later tied by DNA to another man, sued Gage County, then-Sheriff Jerry DeWitt, Deputy Burdette Searcey and reserve Deputy Wayne Price seeking damages for an investigation so reckless it violated their constitutional rights.

On day 16 of the civil rights trial in Lincoln on Tuesday, Smith was back and on the defensive again.

White, Thomas Winslow, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Debbie Shelden, James Dean and Kathy Gonzalez originally had sued him, too, until U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf found he was protected by absolute immunity as a prosecutor and dismissed him from the case.

Still, his actions in 1989 were under the microscope.

Last week, he testified that he was concerned about the cost for DNA testing and whether a judge would admit it at trial, given how new it was then.

But, attorney Jeffry Patterson said Tuesday, the letter Smith got in 1989 from a company that did the testing showed they were $350 per sample. So for $700, the test could do what commonly used blood typing then couldn't: distinguish between White's DNA and the victim's, which had the same blood type and genetic markers.

And Dr. Reena Roy, who was a forensic scientist at the Nebraska State Patrol Crime Lab who tested the crime scene evidence, testified she told Smith that in 1989.

"You didn't pursue DNA testing because you knew all along that Joseph White's DNA wasn't at the crime scene?" Patterson asked.

"That is definitely not why I didn't pursue DNA testing," Smith answered.

So why didn't he?

"Today that sounds logical," Smith said. "Back then, in 1989, no it didn't."

For $2,100, he could have gotten six samples tested that would have excluded both White and Winslow, Patterson said. If cost really was a concern, why hadn't he shared the letter from the DNA testing company with defense attorneys, he asked?

Smith said he didn't remember if he had or not.

There's no record he did.

A day earlier, attorney Richard Schmeling accused Smith of failing to provide reports about witness statements and crime scene evidence that showed inconsistencies that could have helped Dean's case.

Dean, like five of the six, entered pleas to reduced charges as part of an agreement with Smith. A jury found White guilty.

Smith denied Schmeling's claims. He also denied objecting to the DNA testing that White's attorneys asked for in 1990, before the judge sentenced him to life in prison.

But, after he was shown a transcript, Smith conceded he had, in fact, objected. In 2005, he objected again to White's request for DNA testing that ultimately led to him, Winslow and Taylor being released from prison.

No matter what representation the six had in 1989, it didn't mean a prosecutor could commit misconduct, did it? attorney Maren Chaloupka asked him.

"A prosecutor can never commit misconduct," Smith said.
A 30-year-old Lincoln man was sentenced Tuesday to 20-30 years in prison, in part for illegally possessing a gun seized when police arrested him on an attempted murder warrant last year.

Julio Valenzuela was arrested in Lincoln on July 30 in connection with a shooting in Holdrege.

Authorities received a call from a person who saw Valenzuela hide a gun in a 2000 Chevrolet Malibu at an apartment, according to Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner. The car was impounded. Investigators got a warrant to search it and found two loaded pistols -- a 9mm Glock and a .22-caliber Phoenix -- hidden in the center console.

Valenzuela had several felony convictions dating back to 2005 in California, according to the sheriff's office.

He pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm in May.

Lancaster County District Judge John Colborn sentenced him to 10 to 15 years in prison.

Colborn gave him an additional 10 to 15 years for a methamphetamine possession charge that stemmed from a November 2013 traffic stop when officers found an ounce of meth.

Colborn gave him credit for 427 days served in jail.

Phelps County prosecutors on Wednesday requested that Valenzuela be taken to the county jail there so he can be tried on pending charges connected to the April 23, 2015, shooting.
The 21-year-old woman Lincoln police were looking for when they mistakenly detained a 13-year-old girl at gunpoint last month has been arrested.

Quanissa Rhodes, 21 of 1143 B St., has been charged with terroristic threats in connection with a May 21 incident at The Willows apartment complex near 18th and Knox streets.

Just before 8:45 that morning, Rhodes went to the apartment carrying a black handgun with a curved magazine attached, police said in an affidavit to arrest Rhodes.

A man inside saw Rhodes, who he knew, and immediately took the five children inside to a back bedroom, the affidavit said.

He told police he saw Rhodes break out a double-paned window and point the gun inside the apartment as she threatened to kill the eight people inside.

She left after someone inside said they were going to call police, according to the affidavit.

The next day, investigators staking out Rhodes' home saw someone matching her physical description get into a vehicle and leave, Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said in May.

Police pulled the car over a few minutes later near 12th and D streets and conducted a high-risk traffic stop, ordering the teenager, who was a passenger, out of the car and pulling their weapons, he said.

Officers determined the teenager was not the suspect they were looking for but was, in fact, a relative of hers, he said.

They found no weapons in the car, and no one was injured.

Photographs of the incident posted on social media were shared hundreds of times.

On Tuesday, investigators learned that Rhodes was at a home at 16th and Garfield streets and arrested her on unrelated warrants, the affidavit said.

Rhodes appeared in court Wednesday from the Lancaster County jail.

A judge set her bond at $10,000 and ordered her not to contact the eight people who live in the apartment on Knox Street.

She remained in jail Wednesday night.

If convicted, she could be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
WASHINGTON  A short-handed and deeply divided Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday on President Barack Obama's immigration plan to help millions living in the U.S. illegally, effectively killing the plan for the rest of his presidency and raising the stakes even further for the November elections.

The hotly debated direction of America's national immigration policy as well as the balance of power on the high court now will be determined in large part by the presidential and congressional elections. Immigration and the court vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February already were featuring prominently in the campaign.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts called the decision an "affirmation of what many Nebraskans believe about President Obama's immigration plan: it is unconstitutional, illegal, and fundamentally unfair."

Scalia's vote likely would have meant an outright ruling against Obama's immigration expansion rather than the 4-4 tie, a much more significant defeat for the president and immigrant advocates.

Yet Thursday's ruling "keeps thousands of Nebraska families in danger of separation and threatens communities across the state that have been enriched by the contributions of immigrant Nebraskans," said Darcy Tromanhauser, director of the immigrants and communities program at Nebraska Appleseed.

The high court's tie is not likely to lead to an immediate increase in deportations since the president retains ample discretion to decide whom to deport. But the ruling stymies Obama's effort to bring people "out from the shadows" by giving them the right to work legally in the U.S.

Democrat Hillary Clinton declared that as president she would work to restore the programs and go further. Republican Donald Trump said he would make sure Obama's "unconstitutional actions" never return.

One of the Obama programs would have protected the parents of children who are in the country legally. The other was an expansion of a program that benefits people who were brought to the U.S. as children. Obama decided to move forward on his own after Republicans won control of the Senate in 2014 and the chances for an immigration overhaul, already remote, were further damaged.

Obama said Thursday's impasse "takes us further from the country we aspire to be."

Rep. Brad Ashford, an Omaha Democrat, said the split decision should provide Congress with more motivation to act on immigration reform.

We can no longer allow executive orders to take the place of legislation on such an important issue," Ashford said in a news release. "Congress must do its job and fix our broken immigration system.

Mexican immigrant Cristina Molina of New York City said she was frustrated and upset by the ruling.

"I feel like I'm in limbo," Molina, 48, said through an interpreter. She has lived in the United States for 23 years and said she would have been eligible for one of the programs Obama announced in 2014.

A Supreme Court tie sets no national precedent but leaves in place a ruling by a lower court. The justices issued a one-sentence opinion, with no further comment.

A full nine-justice court agreed to hear the case in January, but by the time of the arguments in late April, Scalia had died. That left eight justices to decide the case, and the court presumably split along liberal-conservative lines, although no breakdown was announced.

The federal appeals court in New Orleans had said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress. That ruling now remains in place.

Texas had led 26 Republican-dominated states, including Nebraska, in challenging the Obama initiatives in court. The lawsuit was heard by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration enforcement.

Hanen sided with the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the Justice Department rushed an appeal to the high court.

Had Scalia been alive, he almost certainly would have voted with his fellow conservatives to form a majority in favor of the states.

In practical terms, an election victory by Trump could mean an end to the programs anyway, since he has vowed to deport the roughly 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

If Clinton wins, the Senate will at some point fill the vacancy created by Scalia's death  either with Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or a Clinton choice. In either case, legal challenges would come to a court with a majority of Democratic-appointed justices.

The Republican-led Senate has refused to hold a hearing or a vote on Garland's nomination. He would not have been able to participate in the cases argued this term, but the court might have avoided 4-4 ties and ordered cases to be argued anew in the next term if he had been confirmed.
On Saturday, someone tried to kill Donald Trump.

You may not have heard about it. The story didnt get much play, the attempt wasnt well planned and the candidate was never in jeopardy.

Still the fact remains that authorities arrested one Michael Steven Sandford, 19, after he allegedly tried to grab a gun from the holster of a Las Vegas police officer with the idea of using it to kill Trump at a campaign rally. Authorities say Sandford, who carried a UK drivers license but who had been living in New Jersey for about a year and a half, had visited a nearby gun range to learn how to handle a firearm. They say he has wanted to kill Trump for a year.

Let us be thankful he was not successful. The assassination of Donald Trump would have been a new low for a political season that is already the most dispiriting in memory. It would have deprived a family of its father and husband. It would have traumatized a nation where political murder has been a too-frequent tragedy.

And it would have imparted the moral authority of martyrdom to Trumps ideas. That would be a disaster in its own right.

Like most would-be assassins, what Sandford apparently did not understand is that you cannot kill an idea with a bullet. Even bad ideas are impervious to gunfire.

Trump, of course, has been a veritable Vesuvius of bad ideas in the year since he took that escalator ride into the race for the presidency. From banning Muslim immigrants to building a wall on the southern border to punishing women who have abortions to advocating guns in nightclubs to judging judicial fitness based on heritage, to killing the wives and children of terror suspects, if there has been a hideous, unserious or flat-out stupid thought floated in this political season, odds are, it carried the Trump logo.

It is understandable, then, that even people who wish Trump no bodily harm might feel as Sandford presumably did: that if he were somehow just  gone, the stench of his ideas  of his anger, nativism, coarseness and proud ignorance  might somehow waft away like trash-fire smoke in a breeze.

But it doesnt work that way. Martin Luther Kings dream of racial equality did not die on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Nor did Adolf Hitlers dream of racial extermination perish with him in that bunker beneath Berlin. Ideas, both transcendent and repugnant, are far hardier than the fragile lives of the men and women who give them voice.

So, any hope that Trumps disappearance would somehow fix America is naive. Americas problem has nothing to do with him, except to the degree he has made himself a focal point.

No, Americas problem is fear. Fear of economic stagnation, yes, and fear of terrorism. But those are proxies for the bigger and more fundamental fear: fear of demographic diminution, of losing the privileges and prerogatives that have always come with being straight, white, male and/or Christian in America. It was the holy quadfecta of entitlement, but that entitlement is under siege in a nation that grows more sexually, racially and religiously diverse with every sunrise.

Trumpism is only the loudest and most obvious response to that, and it will not disappear when he does. Indeed, there is no instant cure for what has America unsettled. There is only time and the hard work of change.

In a sense, we are bringing forth a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women really are created equal. If for some of us, that fires the imagination, it is hardly mysterious that for others, it kindles a sense of displacement and loss. The good news is that their Trumpism cannot survive in the new nation.

In the end, you see, only one thing can kill a bad idea.

And thats a better one.
After Adam Lanza gunned down 20 children aged 6 and 7 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as well as six adults, the state of Connecticut passed a law banning many semi-automatic weapons.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court chose not to hear the case. As it has in similar cases, it let stand the state ban against military-style semi-automatic firearms that can fire upwards of 40 rounds per minute.

If Congress ever comes to its senses, it ought to pass the similar legislation. In a better world Congress would also strengthen and expand the countrys system of background checks for gun buyers and place a limit on the size of gun magazines.

Those are common-sense measures that would be effective against the epidemic of mass shootings that plagues America.

Its not going to happen soon, clearly. It took only a day for the Senate to vote down rival proposals from Democrats and Republicans.

A new bipartisan proposal by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, which also has potential to reduce the carnage, probably will meet the same fate. Aimed primarily at stopping mass shootings by terrorists, it would allow the attorney general to block the sale of a gun if an individual is on the "no-fly" list or the so-called "selectee" list, which requires additional screening at an airport. Collins said the two lists affect approximately 109,000 people, most of whom are foreigners. according to The Hill.

The legislation would allow the decision to be appealed. If an appeal is successful, Collins said Americans and green card holders could get their attorney fees covered.

Its obvious why military-style semi-automatics are popular with killers intending to take many lives quickly. Military-style weapons like the Bushmaster XM-15 rule used by Lanza are lightweight, relatively inexpensive, can be fired with little training and can use high-capacity magazines.

The Sig Sauer MCX, one of the weapons used by Omar Mateen to slaughter 49 at the Orlando night club in the deadliest mass shooting to date was described by its manufacturer as a groundbreaking tactical rifle and mission-adaptable weapon system.

In their jeering attempt to strike down the Connecticut ban, the plaintiffs described the Connecticut ban on many semi-automatic weapons as irrational, ineffective, unconstitutional and nothing more than an argument advanced by a political slogan in the guise of a definition.

The U.S. Court of Appeals said they were wrong; the ban on semiautomatics does not violate the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court let the decision stand.

There is no doubt that the courts have made clear that some limits on gun rights are constitutional. The recent spate of mass shootings by lone-wolf terrorists may have made some gun advocates rethink their positions. But dont expect most members of Congress to analyze the issue rationally. Its going to take political muscle.
In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, I'd like to commend our Congressional delegation on their fervent support and protection of our 2nd Amendment rights.

According to OpenSecrets.org., both Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse each received $4,950 in support from the NRA. Moreover, Senator Fischer voted against the Machin-Towney Amendment which was catalyzed by the Sandy Hook murders of twenty 6- and 7-year-olds and six faculty members. This amendment would have required background checks on gun sales at gun shows and over the internet.

Meanwhile, over at the House of Representatives, Congressman Jeff Fortenbury received $10,950 dollars and a grade of "A" from the NRA. Representative Adrian Smith received $14,300 and also a grade of "A" from the NRA as well as $3,000 from the Gun Owners of America. I am sure the NRA will be adding to their 2016 re-election coffers this year as well.

I find it odd that I have to jump through so many hoops to renew my driver's license, and, yes, I drive what could be a lethal weapon, and can spend more time doing so than in purchasing a firearm.

Jim Hejduk, Lincoln
A check by state Auditor Charlie Janssen's office into the financial operations of a Falls City nonprofit found problems with mileage reimbursement and expense and travel logs of the director.

Janssen's office said that after being contacted about concerns with Project Response, it did preliminary work, but determined a full financial audit wasn't warranted.

The examination by the auditor showed Project Response Director Dawn Parriott might also have used the nonprofit credit card for personal purchases, which she later paid back, and approved her own expense vouchers and signed her own paychecks.

Project Response provides support and advocacy for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse and their families.

The nonprofit gets more than half of its income from government grants, according to its 2014 federal income tax records. In 2014 and 2015, Project Response received more than $250,000 from the state Department of Health and Human Services and the Nebraska Crime Commission.

Other government grants, provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, totaled more than $143,000.

The Auditor's office expressed its biggest concerns about Parriott's travel reimbursements and the lack of documentation to support them.

Twenty-three days worth of travel expenses in 2015 for workshops, totaling $8,871, might have been falsified, the auditor said. And there was a lack of any documentation for 82 days of travel for workshops, meetings and conferences, totaling $23,481.

Also, there were unreasonable mileage reimbursements and travel expenses paid prior to or during trips, the auditor's report said.

"Whether legitimate or otherwise, none of the agendas provided for these trips contained sufficient details to substantiate whether the conference or workshop actually occurred," the auditor's report said.

The agendas provided included titles and topics easily found using a Google search, the report said.

For proper internal control, procedures should ensure payments made for travel are supported by adequate documentation, with details, and other records, the report said.

"Without such procedures, there is an increased risk for misuse of Project Response funds," the auditor's office said.

Parriott's salary is paid through grant funds and her travel is paid by donations and other funds.

The Project Response Board of Directors, of which Father Thomas Dunavan is president, told the auditor's office it met with Parriott on June 16 to discuss the concerns.

The board said it would seek to implement the auditor's recommendations in a timely fashion.

Dunavan told the Journal Star it appears to the board that documentation by the director needs to improve.

"Dawn wants to cooperate with us on everything and with what the auditor found," he said. "She seems to be pretty transparent with things, and until that's proven otherwise I guess I'm standing behind her until she gives me a reason why I shouldn't."

Janssen's office forwarded a copy of the report to the Nemaha County Attorney's Office for review and any appropriate action, and Dunavan said he will leave it to that office to investigate the issues further.

Parriott could not be immediately reached to respond to the report.
Nancy Nguyen, a 2016 graduate of Lincoln North Star High School, is one of four Nebraska students to receive a $10,000 Women in Leadership Scholarship from Cabela's and the Harry and Reba Huge Foundation.

The Cabelas and Harry and Reba Huge Foundation Women in Leadership Scholarships are part of an initiative by leaders within Cabelas and Cabelas CLUB to encourage young women who exhibit leadership qualities to become tomorrows leaders. This is the fourth year Cabelas has partnered with the Harry and Reba Huge Foundation to issue these scholarships.

Each student receive $2,500 a year for four years and have opportunities to receive mentoring from women in leadership positions at Cabelas and internships with the company.

Nguyen graduated in the top 3 percent of her class at North Star. She was a member of National Honor Society, was on Honor Roll and in the Top 3 percent of her class all four years of high school. She participated in the orchestra, track and field and cross country. Nguyen is looking at several universities while planning to major in biological systems engineering.

Cabelas and Harry and Reba Huge Foundation Women in Leadership will again be offered to young women graduating from Nebraska high schools next year. The 2017 application will be made available in the fall through The Harry and Reba Huge Foundation website (www.thehugefoundation.org) and through the Nebraska Education Quest/ScholarshipQuest website (www.educationquest.org).
Many children from Lincolns low-income families will have more opportunities for quality early childhood education and health, nutrition and fitness programming thanks to the Community Health Endowments (CHE) most recent grants. The CHE Board of Trustees approved grants totaling $707,137 for year one and $960,929 over three years. New grants will:

 Construct Head Start early childhood classrooms at the Health 360 clinic at 2301 O Street. (Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties, $235,000 over one year)

 Help renovate the 98-year-old Willard Community Center in southwest Lincoln to provide quality early childhood education, before and after school programs, educational enrichment, recreational opportunities and health/neighborhood activities. (Willard Community Center, $100,000 over one year)

 Support health and fitness in low-income neighborhoods in central Lincoln through construction of a health and wellness center. (City Impact, $40,000 over one year)

 Establish a running/fitness program for youth and adults with a focus on neighborhoods served by the F Street Community Center. (Lincoln Parks and Recreation, $13,360 over one year)

 Support a mobile farmers market located at the Health 360 clinic to serve low-income clinic patients and residents of nearby neighborhoods. (Community CROPS, $25,055 over one year)

 Provide fresh fruit to students using public school food markets at selected Lincoln Public School sites. (Food Bank of Lincoln, $30,000 over three years)

 Pilot peer-based mental health support for students in selected high schools and provide staff training to reduce student mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse, self-harm and suicide. (Mental Health Association of Nebraska, $71,862 over three years)

 Ensure legal representation for low-income patients of the Health 360 clinic and Peoples Health Center who are facing legal issues that may negatively impact their health. (Legal Aid of Nebraska, $150,000 over three years)

 Develop and pilot a community-based Mobile Grief Response Team to support businesses, schools and organizations following a death in their community. (Mourning Hope, $8,000 over one year)

 Develop a community-based Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program to support victims of sexual assault. (Family Violence Council, $35,000 over two years)

 Extend equine-assisted psychotherapy for women in treatment for addiction and train a local clinician to provide ongoing equine-assisted therapy. (St. Monicas, $40,000 over one year)

 Provide service coordination at no cost to low-income, high-risk elders to enable them to age in their homes. (Tabitha, $212,652 over two years)
President Barack Obama mentioned SC Johnson by name Wednesday during the bill-signing ceremony of legislation that reforms the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Earlier this month SCJ applauded final passage of the TSCA by the Senate, saying the bill provides critical reforms to the act which had not been amended since its passage in 1976, despite significant advances in science and chemical assessments.

The act is also known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

The legislative changes were approved by the House of Representatives on May 24 by a 403-12 vote, and Obama signed the measure Wednesday at the White House.

SCJ provided the presidents statement: Im absolutely confident that we can regulate toxic chemicals in a way thats both good for our families and, ultimately, good for business and our economy, because nobody can innovate better than folks here in this country and our businesses.

Weve got a lot of industry leaders here today whove pushed hard for this law, and I want to give them credit, from the American Chemi(stry) Council to SC Johnson, because they know that it gives them the certainty they need to keep out-innovating and out-competing companies from other parts of the world, Obama said.

SCJ said in a June 7 news release it has long championed reform of the TSCA.

This legislation is a win for families and I am thrilled to see it finally approved, SCJ Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson stated. This modernization of TSCA raises the standard for all companies and can help provide the public with confidence that the products they use in their homes are safe for their intended uses.

The details

SCJ said different parts of the TSCA have different implementation dates.

According to SCJ, as part of the TSCA reform, for the first time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be required to systematically prioritize all chemicals currently in commerce for safety evaluations. Other key reforms to this legislation include:

Requiring the EPA to make an affirmative safety determination before a new chemical can be brought to market.

Promoting greater transparency in the TSCA program by reforming the way in which confidential business information is protected and shared.

Promoting application of a uniform federal chemical management program through limited and reasonable pre-emption of state regulatory authority.

Providing EPA with adequate resources, through fees on industry, to help defray the costs of administering a revamped TSCA program.
PLEASANT PRAIRIE  A 9-year-old boy has been returned safely to his family after the car he was sleeping in the back of was stolen from a Pleasant Prairie gas station early Thursday morning, according to police.

Police responded at approximately 2:11 a.m. to the Mobil gas station in Pleasant Prairie at 7511 118th St. for a report of a stolen vehicle, according to a Pleasant Prairie news release.

A caller indicated that the vehicle was stolen while a child was sleeping in the back seat. The father said that he and his two sons were here on vacation from California. They had stopped at the station, and the father and his 14-year-old son went inside, leaving the sleeping 9-year-old in the rear seat of the running vehicle, according to the release.

Moments later, they exited the store and found that their 2016 Hyundai rental vehicle was gone. Officers shared the vehicle description with area law enforcement agencies and began efforts to track the fathers cell phone, which was in the rental car, police said.

At approximately 2:40 a.m., a Lake County Sheriffs Deputy observed the stolen vehicle on I-294 near Willow Road. Illinois law enforcement authorities pursued the vehicle, which initially refused to stop. When the vehicle eventually stopped, the child was found unharmed, still sleeping in the back seat of the vehicle, police reported.

A 58-year-old Kenosha man was taken into custody by Illinois authorities and is being held in the Lake County Sheriffs Department Jail pending extradition proceedings.

It is a good reminder that we need to keep our property secure. We go through a number of thefts from vehicles. When you leave your vehicle...make sure your valuables are out of sight and your valuables are locked up, said Pleasant Prairie Police Chief David Smetana.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about this matter is asked to contact the Pleasant Prairie Police Department at 262-694-7353 or Kenosha Area Crime Stoppers at 800-807-8477.
A Republican lawmaker plans to introduce legislation that would discourage private businesses from banning firearms on their property.

The proposal from Rep. Bob Gannon, R-Slinger, is the first measure put forth by state Republicans in the wake of a shooting at an Orlando, Florida, gay nightclub that killed 49 and wounded more than 50, the worst gun massacre in modern American history.

Wisconsins 2011 concealed carry law creates immunity from civil liability for gun-related deaths for businesses that allow guns on their property.

Gannons proposal, dubbed the Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act, would go a step further in discouraging gun-free zones by allowing a victim of gun violence to sue businesses with such bans and recover triple the amount of damages without regard to who was at fault.

There are violent thugs in our midst, some homegrown, some international, who are determined to cause us harm, Gannon said in a statement. This bill will give the citizens of Wisconsin a better chance of defending themselves and their loved ones against this scourge of terrorist activity.

Gannon said in an interview he announced the bill now, as opposed to in the legislative session that begins in January, in response to the national debate about gun control sparked by the Orlando shooting.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said Gannons proposal would expose businesses to significant potential litigation, which clearly would hurt our business climate.

This is a radical departure from the idea of allowing businesses to make their own decisions about what is best for their operations, Barca said.

Gannon said he had some concerns about coercing a private business to take certain actions, but likened his approach to the smoking ban, which Democrats justified as protecting the public from secondhand smoke. He said it would apply to all businesses, including bars, malls, churches, day care centers and nursing homes.

If youre going to allow somebody to come in and put a bullet in my brain, you should have some liability, Gannon said.

Gannon said if businesses still want to post gun-free zone signs then they should consider adding metal detectors and armed security guards.

Ladd Everitt, communications director for the national Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, called the proposal utterly idiotic and one that could hurt tourism in the state.

He noted The Pulse nightclub in Orlando had an armed security guard, who traded gunfire with the gunman before it became a hostage situation. The shooter, Omar Mateen, declared allegiance to the Islamic State and was killed after police stormed the nightclub.

You can imagine how much worse that situation would have been if three cowboys had whipped out guns and started trying to figure out who the good guys and the bad guys were, Everitt said.

Gannon said he assumed someone with a gun could have accidentally shot the wrong person, but when a guy is shooting over 100 people, theres a good chance a good guy could have dropped him.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, was unavailable for comment on the proposal Wednesday. Gov. Scott Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not respond to a request for comment.

Last session, Republican bills that would have allowed guns on K-12 and college campuses were introduced but didnt come up for a vote.

Gannon has been an ardent critic of gun-free zones, criticizing Madisons East Towne Mall last year after a man was injured in a shooting. After the incident, he issued a statement saying, Wisconsin does not have a death penalty law, but with significant practice and careful aim, law-abiding citizens can help clean our society of these scumbags.

Democrats decried the statement, saying it was a call for vigilantism. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said in response that if more guns made the public safer, then the United States should be the safest country in the world.
Why I Own the Same Gun The

Pulse Nightclub Terrorist Used

By Robert Farago. June 21st, 2016

Let's not mince words. I own an "assault rifle" because I fear my government. I'm afraid that the government -- a self-serving alliance of politicians, bureaucrats and law enforcement officers -- will take away my liberty at the point of a gun. I want to be prepared to counter that eventuality by force of arms, if necessary. So I bought the best "weapon of war" I could: a rifle that gives me a fighting chance against my own government.

Gun control advocates consider that premise laughable. For one thing, the government is your friend! It's just another word for the things we do together! For another, a gun owner wielding a modern sporting rifle (a.k.a., "assault rifle") doesn't have a hope in hell of defending him- or herself against the might of the United States government's legions of well-armed, trained agents.

Both of these arguments are demonstrably false and hugely revealing.

The only people who believe that government is the average citizen's friend are people who ignore history, both past and present. .....

As Robert states, why is an "assault weapons ban" so highly desired? Put very simply, it has little do with keeping such guns out of criminal hands -- it is simply "they" do NOT want anyone to to own one. That is the 'control' approach. Those who seek to disarm everyone are scared ****less about an armed populace -- all the more so with rifles such as the AR. Let us not ignore history and remember what can happen to a disarmed populace.

Be sure to Read the rest of this article.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."

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Govt imposes ban on Afghanistan as work destination

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High returns lure many into cardamom farming

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IBN to sign agreement to manage valleys waste

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Lack of empathy sparks outrage

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LPG bottlers call off protests

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Monsoon brings cheer after two years of drought

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NC obstructs Parliament demanding PMs answer in reconstruction delay

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NC Prez Deuba expresses solidarity with Gathabandhans protest

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NCs Kul Bahadur Gurung elected PHSC chairman

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Nepathya to rock US cities

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Online Media Directives-2073 will be revised: Minister Rai

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PHSC calls for complaints on 34 nominees for various posts

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PM Oli lays foundation stone to build wildlife Park

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Police open fire in Capital to arrest notorious goon Jaswant

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Rana elected CEDAW member

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Rs 56.6m released in housing aid for Barpak

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SRK gets 20 mn on Twitter, thanks fans in quirky way

Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, at 20 million, now has the third highest Twitter followers among Indian celebrity. He chose to thank his fans for the milestone in a quirky way.
Stop smuggling of Nepalis to high risk zones: House panel

The Parliamentary Committee on International Relations and Labour has asked the government to take action against the foreign employment agencies involved in illegal smuggling of people to war-torn countries like Afghanistan, promising them jobs.
Yes, its hard to to tell when one enters the city limits

Yes, they will make the city more inviting

Maybe ... does it really matter?

No, the signs in place are fine

No, it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars

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The abbot of Liuzu Temple (left) talks with Sim Sokhaya, who is pursuing a masters degree in Chinese history at South China Normal University in Guangzhou. Xu Jingxi / China Daily



Course will give foreign students more insight into Chinese Buddhism

Sim Sokhaya, a monk from Cambodia, has been learning more about Chinese Buddhism at the Liuzu Temple in Guangdong province, where hundreds of worshippers gathered to celebrate the Buddha's birthday on May 14.

The 28-year-old, who is pursuing a master's degree in Chinese history at South China Normal University in Guangzhou, chanted in Chinese with the abbot of the temple to mark the special day.

As a fan of Chinese kung fu movies and costume dramas, Sokhaya has been interested in the country's culture since childhood. But it was only after coming to China for a master's program that he started to build up a comprehensive knowledge of Chinese Buddhism.

"My master sent me to China to learn the similarities and differences between Chinese Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism that is popular in my country. A better understanding of each other's cultures will facilitate communication in the future," said the young monk.

He is a disciple of the current Supreme Patriarch of the Dhammayuttika order of Cambodia and wants to open a tuition-free school in Cambodia to teach people Chinese and Chinese culture.

Sokhaya is among the first 12 foreign students enrolled by South China Normal University and the Liuzu Temple for a three-year master program.

"As China's strength grows, more and more foreigners become interested in Chinese culture and the master's program meets their needs," said Chen Wenhai, dean of the faculty of history and culture at South China Normal University.

"Meanwhile, we hope the program's graduates will serve as a bridge for cultural exchanges between China and their countries and spread Chinese culture overseas."

Buddhism is an important part of Chinese traditional culture, but the master's program provides an extensive curriculum covering many other perspectives such as Chinese philosophies and an introduction to Chinese martial arts.

All 12 students admitted last year were from Asian Buddhist countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.

But the program is not limited to Buddhists, said He Fangyao, a professor who teaches the history of Buddhism in China.

"We also welcome believers of other religions, such as Christians," He said.

The master's program plans to expand enrollment to about 25 students this year.

Cooperation links temple, university

South China Normal University and the Liuzu Temple in Guangdong province jointly launched a master's program last year for foreigners who are interested in Chinese Buddhism and culture.

The three-year program mainly focuses on the history of Chinese Buddhism and its exchanges with different schools of Buddhism overseas. But it also has an extensive curriculum covering many other perspectives of traditional Chinese culture such as language and philosophy.

Besides taking classes on the university's campus in Guangzhou, students are also shown around temples and tourist spots that display Buddhist culture. The Liuzu Temple covers the students' study and living costs in China, as well as providing internship opportunities, while the master's degrees will be granted and issued by the Ministry of Education.

xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn
The opposition Democratic Party says one of its senior Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament (MP) Betty Namboozes health condition has deteriorated.

Democratic Party Chief Whip, also Kalungu West MP Joseph Ssewungu says Betty Nambooze who was last seen in parliament at the recent Budget Reading is now unable to eat solid foods.

He says doctors have confirmed that the legislator has intestinal wounds which require specialized treatment in South Africa.

Ssewungu says the opposition Democratic Party has written to the Speaker of parliament informing her of the legislators health condition.

Story By Ivan Ssebulya
NongHyup Bank CEO Lee Kyung-seop, left, listens to instructions from Poonglim Foods employees during his visit to the egg-processing company in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, in February. / Courtesy of NongHyup Bank



By Nam Hyun-woo

NongHyup Bank said Thursday it will take a two-track approach to becoming a specialist bank in the agriculture and food industry, standing on equal footing with global leading cooperative banks.

The Korean agricultural cooperative bank said in a statement that it will increase loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the agri-food sector and strengthen its consulting services for agri-food companies. By doing so, the company said it seeks to compete on the same level with the Netherlands' Rabobank or France's Credit Agricole CIB.

According to NongHyup Bank, its loan balance to agri-food businesses has increased to 15.29 trillion won at the end of last year, up 150 percent or 9.19 trillion won from five years earlier.

At the end of March this year, the bank piled up an additional 530 billion won in its end-2015 balance, inviting expectations that it could add 1.7 trillion won to the balance by the end of this year.

NongHyup Bank said that it seeks to secure 40 percent of Korea's agri-food business loans by 2020. According to a study from the bank, Rabobank's share of loans to agri-food businesses in the Netherlands was 84 percent as of 2012, while Credit Agricole CIB holds a 38 percent share of such loans in France.

To enhance its consulting services for agri-food SMEs, the bank said it is running a marketing campaign this year. Through the campaign, farms receiving the bank's consulting services will be introduced to other farms growing similar crops and food companies using those crops for raw materials.

Through NongHyup Bank's consulting service, experts analyze a farm's assets, debts, revenues and overall managerial status and suggest solutions.

Since 2005, the bank has provided 3,226 comprehensive consulting services and 3,651 money management counseling services as of the end of last year. It said it seeks to offer 3,500 comprehensive services and 4,000 money management counseling services this year.

"The agri-food industry has been off commercial banks' marketing coverage because the industry is composed of SMEs based in rural areas and the products have volatility in supply and demand as well as fluctuating prices," a NongHyup Bank official said. "Thus, NongHyup Bank's tailored business models for agri-food businesses have advantages in supporting them."
South Korea is set to convene a meeting of top commanders on Thursday to check the country's readiness to counter North Korea's latest missile provocations, Seoul's defense ministry said.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo plans to preside over the meeting to be attended by about 150 top-ranked military commanders, to discuss the North's test-firing of two mid-range ballistic missiles and the South Korean military's countermeasures, it said.

On Wednesday, North Korea fired off what is believed to be two Musudan intermediate-range missiles from the east coast city of Wonsan, making its fifth and sixth launches since April.

Of the two missiles launched, the second one reached an altitude of about 1,000 kilometers and flew some 400 km. Pyongyang claimed Thursday the successful test-firing of what it called the Hwasong-10 missile.

The military commanders plan to strongly condemn the North's move as it clearly violated relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions and poses a grave threat to peace and security on the divided peninsula, according to the ministry.












Four recent Bangor High School graduates will be headed to school this fall with a little extra cash in hand after receiving scholarships from the Bangor Business Club this spring.

Josh Shrake, Ben Olson and Samantha MacDonald each received a $100 scholarship this year for their dedication to pursing a career in business and in recognition to their community service in Bangor.

This is a first for the Bangor Business Club.

According to club secretary Sue Turnmire, the Business Club normally only selects one student to receive a $300 scholarship.

She said this year, the Business Club wouldnt decide which student should receive the scholarship and instead, decided to split it among the students.

They were all so qualified, she said.

She said this year they had 19 students apply for the scholarship.

In order to be eligible for the scholarship, students must be attending college pursuing a business-related field and have to have given back to the community in some way.

Turnmire said while the Bangor Business Club has been around for more than 20 years, it only began offering the scholarship more recently.

Its the fourth year weve been doing it, she said.

The club is responsible for helping out struggling area businesses and placing flower pots throughout the village.

In addition to the Bangor Business Clubs, Paul Turnmire, Sue's husband and owner of Turnmire Auto in Bangor, gave a $500 scholarship to Seth Plenge to learn a trade.

We give out a scholarship for a student who is going to school for some kind of trade, Paul said.

He said money for the Turnmire scholarship comes from candy and chip sales at their shop.
After 15 years and more than 1,700 shows, Deuces Wild Dueling Pianos performers Ted Manderfeld and David Charles Eichholz have perfected their act. Yet, no two shows are exactly the same. A mesmerizing blend of vocals, instruments, comedy and audience interaction, each performance manages to please even the most discerning crowd.

This isnt a 12-year-olds piano recital! Manderfeld said. Men come up to us after the show saying their wives dragged them along. They expected to be bored, but they were blown away.

Manderfeld describes Deuces Wild as a comedy show driven by music. The duo write musical parodies and perform songs ranging from Eminem to the Tennessee Waltz. In addition to piano, Manderfeld plays the harmonica and ukelele, while Eichholz has mastered the guitar and saxophone.

Its a clap along, sing along, drink along show, Manderfeld said. We play for two hours or until the cops kick us out.

The boisterous duo paired up in 2002, when Manderfeld stopped by a show featuring Eichholz and Eichholzs original musical partner. Manderfeld was a 22-year-old college graduate working as a bilingual travel agent.

They were playing at a bar next to where I worked, Manderfeld explained.

He ripped his headset off, said see ya to his coworkers, walked up to us and said, How can I do what youre doing? Eichholz said.

Manderfeld discovered that Eichholzs partner was moving and a replacement was needed, so he followed them for two months until they gave him an audition.

He stalked us! Eichholz said. He moved to my town, got an apartment, came to every show and learned the material. He was tenacious.

Eichholz described Manderfeld as green, but a childhood spent playing music helped Manderfeld catch up quickly. Manderfeld taught himself to play piano at age 10; Eichholz started at 4 years old.

My mean red-haired sister would hog the piano, so Id copy what she was playing when she was at school, Eichholz laughed. I learned to play the piano out of spite.

She made me harmonize with her on Hey Jude, Eichholz continued. I would consider her and the Beatles my musical influences.

Manderfeld and Eichholz tailor their song selections to the audience of each show and also take requests.

We have a road map of how the show will start and finish, but a million things could happen in between, Manderfeld said. No rehearsal can prepare for what will happen. We feed off the energy from the audience.

The show is very off the cuff, Eichholz added. We dont know what will happen and we dont want you to know either.

The duo have become experts at handling the unexpected. During a show attended by 300 people, the power abruptly went out when they were finishing their first song. Eichholz grabbed his acoustic guitar and they kept going.

Weve reached a level of experience where we arent shaken by things, Manderfeld said. We know how to hold a crowd.

Manderfeld and Eichholz perform around 130 shows each year throughout the U.S. and Mexico, yet they consider every show an audition.

Youre only as good as your last show, Manderfeld said. You have to win people over one venue at a time. Id rather play for 200 people who are excited to be there than 10,000 who are indifferent.

Deuces Wild continually draws excellent audience feedback, and tickets sell out fast. Eichholz likens the response to a big Facebook thumbs up.

Their last public show in La Crosse was 10 years ago, and Eichholz describes the city as a fun place to see the grown ups let loose: Happy hour in La Crosse is as good as it gets!

Manderfeld encourages those who are skeptical to visit their website and view their videos on YouTube. He has found that audiences are always pleasantly surprised by the level of interaction and variety.

Eichholz added his own endorsement: Its more fun than you expect. We play songs you know, songs you like, and were funnier than you think!
The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsins local site is on pace to provide more syringes than ever before as the region continues to fight heroin and methamphetamine use.

More than 1,500 drug users picked up 114,322 clean needles in the first five months of the year. The agency also collected about 75,000 used syringes during the same period, prevention supervisor Laura Runchey told the countys Heroin and Illicit Drug Task Force on Thursday.

The Lifepoint Needle Exchange Program aims to prevent the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C by equipping users with clean needles and materials to use drugs.

You can get Hepatitis C from cotton or the cookers, Runchey said.

The program is the most effective evidence-based disease prevention tool, Runchy said, but its also criticized for enabling drug use.

Illegal today in some states, injection drug users in 1988 started the first program in Tacoma, Wash. It spread to Wisconsin in 1994.

The AIDS Resource Center in La Crosse provides users HIV and Hepatitis C testing, referrals to treatment, detoxification and social services, and the antidote to an opiate overdose, along with needles. The agency offers needle delivery elsewhere in Wisconsin.

It gave away 11,263 needles to local users in 2008. Last year, that number grew to 218,895.

Users return about 60 to 80 percent of needles for safe disposal, Runchey said.

Were never going to get 100 percent back, she said. But we always ask, Do you have a safe place to dispose of these?

The agency also trains users to administer Narcan, the opiate overdose antidote. Users have used it hundreds of times since 2008 and 42 times already this year, Runchey said.

Thats a lot of people who are still alive today, she said.
Back in the day, snake-oil salesmen were tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail for conning customers out of cash for miracle remedies that didnt work.

Although we long since have abandoned that crude method of keeping the riffraff out, we still must guard against scams. Con artists still make unbelievable claims, then disappear with your money  for example, sometimes leaving only an oily, weed-infested driveway instead of the promised lifetime-guaranteed asphalt surface.

The old buyer beware slogan warns that if a product seems to be too good to be true it probably is. Thus, the promise of underwear that makes you feel naked gives me pause.

Yet here we are, with the new Duluth Trading Co. store in downtown La Crosse hawking its Buck Naked briefs, boxers, panties, etc., as having the ability not only to leave the wearer feeling naked but also to result in no sweat, no stink, no pinch.

By all appearances, the company is on the up-and-up, despite its roots in Wisconsin arch rival Minnesota. Besides, it now is headquartered in Belleville, Wis., a village that is a Madison suburb, with one foot in Dane County and the other in Green County. It has nine other stores, a website that does a land-office business and a liberal satisfaction guarantee.

But urging patrons to ditch your tighty whities reeks like the pitch of a flimflam man who would just as soon fleece you as look you in the eye.

As an advocate of the publics right to know, I went undercover to in a quest for the naked truth.

I launched the probe with no preconceived notions and no conflicts of interest, other than being a fan of Duluth Tradings wildly entertaining ads and commercials.

First, lets address the elephant in the room (no pun intended): Wee-ee-ee-ee-ee doggies, as Jedd Clampett used to say: Buck Naked loincloths are expensive.

The costs of the five versions I tested ranged from $19.50 for the basic briefs to $27.50 for the Armachillo boxer briefs, touted for cooling qualities to keep hot weather (from) scorching the family jewels.

Those price points are eye poppers for a guy who is used to snapping up Hanes briefs on clearance for a pittance.

Duluth Tradings prices thrust the underwear into the category of gifts suitable for a man who has everything, or perhaps as a way to convert a fellow who habitually goes commando because he doesnt let anything come between him and his jeans.

I guess that crack requires an apology to Brooke Shields for her 80s Calvin Klein commercials, but her tune may have changed by now. At her ripe old age, her choice may Depend on an unexpected sneeze, no?

Duluth Trading also has Buck Naked panties, and women will experience less sticker shock. After all, Victoria discovered the secret long ago that women will pay a lot for skimpy skivvies. I confirmed that with a reluctant, red-faced research visit to Victorias Secrets online catalog  with my eyes focused not on products but rather on prices in the $16.50-to-$28 range.

Before I reveal my findings, I confess that  even though its none of your dadgum business  Mikeys secret always has been that Im a briefs man. I had imagined remaining one even when I become a crotchety old man.

That said, here are my findings:

Buck Naked briefs  Although the $19.50 black pair I tried for a day were comfortable, they were skimpier than my normal cotton briefs. They violated the no pinch guarantee, but there was no sweat. As for the stink, my only indicator is that Jazzy, our underwear-obsessed and thieving cockapoo, sniffed them but didnt roll in them and put them on her head, then run madly around the house like she often does not only with my briefs but also with panties she filches from guests laundry piles. I give the briefs a 2-buck rating on a 5-buck scale.

Buck Naked boxer briefs  This $22.50 selection was a pleasant surprise, making me wonder whether my bias against boxers has been a bunch of bollix. The dark cobalt color is as pleasant to behold as the britches are to wear. 4.5 bucks.

Armachillo short boxer briefs  I expected my test run of these jade cooling-infused shorts to be a laugher. After all, it defies logic to believe that even $27.50 undies could be so cool that wearing them is like sitting in a horse trough of ice, as the package portrays. Remember how hot it was Sunday? I was amazed that the boxer/briefs kept me cool as a cucumber. I even had to get up in the middle of the night to don flannel jammy bottoms because my buns were cold. The Baltimore blue boxer briefs also have a waistband that is much softer than DTs other models. 5 bucks.

Buck Naked boxers  Aha! I was right all along in berating boxers. Granted, there was no sweat or pinching in this classic red pair at $22.50, but sorry  no sale. 1 buck.

Buck Naked extra long boxer briefs  Another hint that boxers and briefs are a cool combo, this $24.50 rendition is very comfortable, and Kate assessed them as fashionable even on a granddad bod. This pair busted the buck barometer to a 5.5-buck rating.

Proving that even an old dog can learn new tricks  one leg at a time  Duluth Tradings coup de crotch prompted me to join Buck Naked Nation, in the boxer/brief combo camp.

Although I didnt feel totally naked wearing them, and I wont be doing a pole dance like the guy in the commercial, they were so light that I occasionally checked to see whether I forgot to don my drawers.

As far as the basic briefs and the boxers that didnt pass muster  for me, at least  Im tempted to test Duluth Tradings no bull guarantee and return them: Simple, unconditional, no nonsense, NO BULL.

Naw, that might give Duluth Trading honchos knots in their knickers.
The state Department of Corrections is force feeding at least three inmates as a hunger strike aimed at ending a form of solitary confinement that can go on for years  even decades  continues for a third week.

Although the state DOC has detailed the medical conditions of the hunger strikers in publicly available petitions, the agency refuses to confirm that it has obtained court orders to force feed inmates, citing medical privacy issues. Spokesman Tristan Cook did not immediately respond to questions about how often and on whom the department has used force feeding.

Court records show the agency is now force feeding Waupun Correctional Institution inmates Cesar DeLeon and LaRon McKinley Bey and Columbia Correctional Institution inmate Norman C. Green, who also goes by the name of Prince Aturn-Ra Uhuru Mutawakki.

The food refusal campaign, dubbed Dying to Live, which about half a dozen inmates began as early as June 5, is aimed at pressuring the state to end the practice of holding inmates for lengthy periods of time in administrative confinement, which is intended for prisoners deemed a danger to the institution.

McKinley Bey, who escaped during a jail transfer in 1987 after shooting a sheriffs deputy, has been held in this status for at least 25 years, according to a federal lawsuit he filed in Milwaukee. He alleges such unending isolation  at least 23 hours a day alone in a cell  violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Roughly 100 Wisconsin inmates are being held in this type of long-term solitary confinement.

A top United Nations official has declared that such isolation beyond 15 days is tantamount to torture.

On Tuesday, 30 activists gathered in front of the Department of Corrections headquarters in Madison to protest the states continued use of administrative confinement, chanting solitary is torture.

Protester Chance Zombor said he had spent many months in solitary confinement at Waupun and Oshkosh correctional institutions. Zombor said such isolation causes inmates to become psychologically deranged.

The protesters presented Cook with a letter demanding an end to the overuse and abuse of administrative confinement, improved mental health services for inmates in solitary confinement and other steps, including allowing inmates in this non-punitive status to have the same access to property, such as canteen items and TVs, that general population inmates have.

As the public becomes aware of the torturous effect of any kind of solitary confinement longer than 15 days, you can imagine the outrage and bewilderment when they learned that we have inmates who have been in solitary for decades, according to the letter addressed to Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher.

Cook accepted the letter and told the group that corrections officials are working on possible changes to solitary confinement, which the department calls restrictive housing. But he did not respond to requests by the activists to participate in that process.

In an email, Cook said the agency is studying several changes including moving mentally ill inmates out of solitary and examining ways to increase out-of-cell time and increase programming and services for inmates in restrictive housing and administrative confinement.

In June 2015, the state reduced the maximum stint in solitary confinement for violating prison rules from 360 days to 90 days, with longer stints possible under certain circumstances.

But those limits do not apply to inmates deemed to be violent or hard to manage who are in administrative confinement. The status of each inmate in administrative confinement is reviewed every six months. McKinley Bey, however, charges in his lawsuit that those reviews are a sham.

McKinley Bey said force feeding entails being strapped into a restraint chair and having a tube placed in his nose to deliver liquid nutrition while an officer films the process, according to a letter he wrote to advocates dated June 19. He wrote that he, DeLeon, Green and another inmate, Joshua Scolman, are strong, and are in it for as long as it take to make something happen.

In the June 17 petition for a court order to force feed DeLeon, corrections officials said the inmate began refusing food on June 7 and had also begun refusing water and that he has a history of serious hunger strikes. The petition states that he is suffering from moderate malnutrition and dehydration.

He appears weak, gaunt and has an unsteady gait, according to the petition. Mucous membranes are very dry.

However, in a letter written after the order was issued, DeLeon said that clearly the doctor exaggerated his medical report with the intent to force feed me, to dissuade me and other(s) to stop our strike.

Inmate advocate Peg Swan said she is distressed that it took a hunger strike to highlight the problems with administrative confinement in Wisconsins prisons. Two states  Colorado and California  have discontinued such indefinite confinement in solitary.

I will be rooting for the them to stop, Swan said. They succeeded in getting the public to think about long-term solitary, and we are pledged out here to keep the campaign going, but we dont need them to get sick.
RICHLAND CENTER  Wisconsins pollution regulators on Wednesday defended their efforts to keep toxic pollutants out of lakes, streams and drinking water as their policy board grilled them for more than an hour about a state audit that detailed deficiencies in enforcing the laws on private industry, sewage treatment plants and animal feedlots.

Some Natural Resources Board members praised the Department of Natural Resources for making progress under difficult circumstances while others questioned why the agency hasnt yet figured out how keep staff levels up by promptly hiring replacements for retirees in critical jobs.

DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp said money and state work rules complicate things, but a year-long internal study may help by identifying less important employee positions that can be shifted to environmental protection.

The board was questioning Stepp and her top administrators about a Legislative Audit Bureau report released this month showing that over the past 10 years the DNR failed 94 percent of the time to take enforcement action against private industries and municipal sewage plants that exceeded water pollution limits, violating its own internal policies.

DNR employees didnt have time to review reports from polluters, werent reissuing discharge permits with updated standards on a timely basis, and frequently failed to meet the departments own standards for inspections and enforcement action against polluters.

Board member William Bruins said the department has known for five years that the cost in staff time of regulating concentrated animal feeding operations far exceeded the revenue the state budget allows it to keep from fees CAFOs pay.

So in the five years has there been any effort by the department to correct that? Bruins asked during the boards regular monthly meeting.

The DNR keeps less than $80,000 of the roughly $6 million in fees it collects annually from CAFOs, sewage treatment plants and private industry, with the rest going to the states general fund.

Another board member, Frederick Prehn, told Stepp the problem of inadequate fee revenue must be driven home with elected officials who control the budget.

Stepp said she has discussed those challenges with her boss, Gov. Scott Walker, and its possible she could request an increase in revenue this year. But Stepp said she is mindful that other state agencies  such as those that provide health services and run prisons  also need money. And the Legislature wants requests for more tax dollars only as a last resort, she said.

This Legislature expects the agency to document and prove that we have shaken every tree, Stepp said.

Top DNR administrators are now looking for solutions in the departments internal staffing study, prelude to a reorganization to be announced later this summer after a 20 percent decline in full-time department employees over the past two decades.

Some work done by DNR employees may be eliminated so that more staff can be added to water pollution regulation and other core functions, Stepp said.

Some of the problems in regulating water quality stem from employee turnover and job vacancies at the DNR, she said.

It can take up to two years to train a new employee to work proficiently with complicated laws and rules governing pollution permits, said Patrick Stevens, the DNRs top administrator for regulation of industrial and municipal pollutants. The permits are issued to polluters spelling out limits their discharges and practices for controlling toxins.

Stepp recalled her days as McDonalds restaurant manager as she talked about how state employment rules that have hobbled the DNR. Stepp said she could quickly mobilize her fast-food employees when a busload of customers arrived unexpectedly, but the DNR cant react that nimbly to retirements.

Even when large numbers of retirements are expected, the agency cant hire replacements early so that they can be trained by the people they will replace because the agency cant exceed its budgeted allocation for employees, Stepp said.

Hiring of replacements is further delayed when retirees take weeks or months of paid time off just before their officials retirement dates in some cases, Stepp said. State employment rules allow employees to accumulate unused time off and use it before they retire, she said.

The department fell far behind in permitting when a huge wave of retirements swept through state government, including the DNR, around the time Republicans took over state government and eliminated most public sector union rights in 2011.

Another problem in keep trained people in place is that the job of regulating CAFOs is very demanding, so front-line staff often try to move into other positions within a few years of being hired, said Mark Aquino, DNR division administrator for business services and science. The DNR sought a $2-an-hour pay increase for them several years ago, but the state human resources office declined, Aquino said.

Stepp has said the department has new hires in the pipeline and will soon propose the start of a lengthy rule-making process aimed at better scrutiny of CAFOs that spread millions of gallons of manure each year in areas with vulnerable drinking water.
With millennials ascending, the world is sick of lousy leaders. Servant leadership is the answer.

James Hunter spoke about the importance of inspiring employees through servant leadership during his keynote address Wednesday at the second annual Wisconsin State Conference on Servant Leadership at Viterbo University, the fourth time he has spoken at the university. Hunter, consultant to household names such as American Express and McDonalds, penned The Servant almost 20 years ago.

Servant leadership guru Dave Skogen, chairman of Festival Foods, the company his family founded in 1946, admires Hunter.

Viterbos master of arts in servant leadership degree program, which started in 2001, presented the conference Tuesday and Wednesday. With a theme of La Crosse-style servant leadership, the conference offered sessions on how to use servant leadership techniques to motivate employees, grow companies and communicate more effectively.

Tom Thibodeau, director of the Viterbos servant leadership program, which focuses on collaborative leadership skills and public service, and Viterbo President Rick Artman started off the days events. Artman spoke about how servant leadership has become one of Viterbos premier programs, training future business and organizational leaders.

One of the things we believe at Viterbo is if service is beneath you, leadership is beyond you, Thibodeau said.

Dave and his wife, Barb Skogen, introduced Hunter, whose presentation was sponsored by the Skogens and the Viterbo University Paula Ripple Comin Fund. Dave Skogen briefly recounted how he came to know the business expert nearly 20 years ago.

An acquaintance had given Skogen a copy of The Servant, saying it was required reading at his company. Dave was on the way to a conference and read the book on the flight, not knowing that the conferences keynote speaker was none other than Hunter.

Skogen said Hunters book book inspired him, and Skogen introduced himself to Hunter backstage after the speech. Hunters philosophy of servant leadership inspired Skogen to change the corporate culture at Festival, and the two have been colleagues ever since.

During his remarks, Hunter focused on how rapidly the world is changing, especially the business world. Growing up in Detroit in the 1950s, he said he saw firsthand what happens when leaders fail the people they serve.

Old models of leadership only care about the person from the neck down, he said, while servant leadership focuses on the neck up. True leaders are able to motivate and inspire their colleagues, unleashing their creativity and ambition to make their company or organization a better place.

Creating an employee-centered culture focused on servant leadership has helped make companies like Southwest Airlines and Starbucks household names, he said. When Herb Kelleher started Southwest more than four decades ago, analysts told him he was crazy to focus on his employees first instead of the customer. Hunter added that Southwest has had 43 years of profits, unlike other major airline firms that have suffered from mergers, bankruptcy and the aftermath of 9/11.

The data is in, he said. The data on servant leadership is in and you cant touch it.

Character and culture are two important aspects of servant leadership, Hunter said. Both are incredibly important in a world sick of lousy leaders who act more like little tyrants. Great leaders are focused on others and are able to capture both the heads and the hearts of their employees.

Leadership is very simple, he said. It is the skill to influence and inspire people to excellence. Can you get your people to own it?
TOMAH  Jake Mason has received treatment for substance abuse from the private sector and the Veterans Administration.

He has no doubt which delivered the more effective care.

The VA  they take it from the standpoint of veterans, said Mason, an ex-Marine. A lot of doctors hear about PTSD, but these are people who know what youve gone through.

Mason was one of 15 patients and employees of the Tomah Veterans Administration Medical Center who held a lunchtime Keep the Promise rally Thursday at the facilitys entrance.

Carrying signs and chanting hey, hey, ho, ho, hospital closings got to go, and hire nurses, hire doctors, rally participants objected to proposals that would transition much of the VA system to private providers.

Lin Ellinghuysen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union chapter that represents Tomah VA employees, said privatization is bad for veterans, VA employees and taxpayers.

Today is primarily about the veterans, and secondarily about the VA employees careers and their families, Ellinghuysen said.

The union has raised objections to a congressional commission assigned to study veterans health care and issue recommendations. Ellinghuysen said seven of the 15 members are backing a plan that would close numerous VA hospitals across the country. The commission is expected to release its report next week.

Ellinghuysen said privatizing the system would make care more expensive and overwhelm private providers.

If all VA services are privatized or contracted out ... thats going to put an enormous burden on our current health care system, she said. There are not enough doctors and nurses out there now. If we have these veterans go out in the private sector, everyone is going to have to wait, not only the veterans, but the non-veterans as well.

A vocal critic of the VA dismissed the rally as self-serving. Ryan Honl, a former Tomah VA employee who helped expose reckless prescription drug practices at the facility, wrote on his Facebook page that the rally was a blatant example of a self-serving government special interest more interested in scaring veterans to remain shackled to a choiceless system.

Honl favors a system of expanded choice.

In realty what this means is that public-sector unions are scared to death that veterans would have the right to be a customer that can decide for themselves what is best for their health care and where to take their lives and their benefits, Honl wrote.

Mason, who now is a vocational rehabilitation specialist at the Tomah VA, said the VA has an inherent advantage over the private sector.

When veterans are sitting in the mental health waiting room, theyre talking to each other, he said. I opened up more in the waiting room than I did with any other doctor.

He credits the care he received at the Tomah VA for putting him on a path toward a stable life that includes a wife and two children.

I was crashed and burned, but now here I am, Mason said. Without this VA, I dont think I would be married. I would have never gotten straightened up enough for anyone to put up with me.
MADISON (AP)  Gov. Scott Walkers administration told state workers Wednesday it is still working out the details of what would constitute performance so poor that they could be fired under a new law.

In an email to workers and at a hearing before a state Senate committee, the Walker administration gave an update on how some of the new workplace rules will be implemented. Most of the law takes effect July 1, but agencies have until Sept. 1 to work out the performance measurement system.

The overhaul of Wisconsins 111-year-old civil service system was approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Walker in February. Supporters said the system needed to be modernized to be more efficient and effective, and better able to handle the expected retirement of 40 percent of state workers over the next decade.

Opponents, including Democrats and labor unions, argued that the changes would take away long-held protections and make it easier for political cronies to get jobs.

The new law makes it easier to hire and fire workers in a number of ways, including basing layoffs on performance, followed by seniority and ability. The changes require extensive revision to the states administrative code, the memo said.

We dont have a robust performance management system, Department of Administration official Stacey Rolston told the Senates Labor and Government Reform Committee. We need to develop one.

State agencies are working as quickly as they can to get those in place, and smaller ones will likely have them operating soon after July 1, but DOA did not want to rush, she said.

Democratic Sen. Chris Larson, an opponent of the changes, said he was glad Walkers administration was looking at the transition with sober eyes and taking its time to make it work.

Walkers own Division of Personnel Management last year raised concerns about changing the process for disciplining or firing a worker. A memo from the agency, written in October before the bill passed but made public in May following an open records request by the Wisconsin State Journal, said the changes related to discipline created the potential for increased litigation.

The law listed nine offenses that are cause for immediate firing. Those include intentionally physically harming someone, being intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, possessing drugs without a prescription, theft and harassing someone.

Workers will also be subject to a new uniform disciplinary progression that begins with a one-day suspension, then goes to three-days, five-days and finally being fired.

Modernizing our states workforce is critical as we work to deliver the value and accountability taxpayers expect, Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said in a statement. Implementing the new law will nearly cut in half how long it takes to hire staff, he said.

The memo said that under the changes, the hiring timeline is expected to shorten from 105 days to 60 days. All applicants will be required to submit an application and resume. While the law no longer requires applicants to take a civil service exam, the memo said agencies may still create and administer them if they feel that is the best method for evaluation.

Make no mistake, these changes mean the end of a system that protected taxpayers and employees from waste and cronyism because employment decisions were based on what you know, not who you know, said Rick Badger, executive director of the largest state employee union the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 32.

The memo said the administration worked with more than 200 human resources professionals across the state on the implementation plan. The state is also working on revamping a new hiring website and mobile interface thats set to launch in March.
MADISON  Even as some Wisconsin Republicans are urging delegates to the national convention to get aboard the movement to dump presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, others in the state GOP continue to urge unity.

The tension is playing out as campaign workers from the Republican National Committee are spreading out across Wisconsin to contact voters and get them to the polls in November. The coordinated campaign is focused on helping all Republicans, including Trump, incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson, those running for the Congress and the state Legislature.

The RNC forces are tapping the state Republican Party's vast voter information database and experience running campaigns. That is in addition to the Trump campaign, which has hired a state director but shown little sign of activity in Wisconsin.

Not having a unified front threatens all Republicans on the ballot this fall, not just Trump, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. He has been one of the most outspoken advocates for Republicans to get behind Trump.

"Listen, we've got to get our act together," Fitzgerald said on Tuesday. "I mean we've got victory centers to run throughout the state, we've got get-out-the-vote plans, we've got volunteer bases, phone banks, fundraising. All of this has to come together in a very short period of time. And if we have Republicans fractured in every direction and not supporting the nominee, it's going to make it that much more difficult."

But Fitzgerald's call for unity is being drowned out on conservative talk radio in southeast Wisconsin, which continues to beat the "dump Trump" mantra. And earlier this week Republican strategist Brian Fraley penned an open letter to Republican delegates to the Republican National Convention, urging them to seek rule changes that will allow all delegates to cast their ballots for someone other than Trump.

"Donald Trump wants you to now enter into a political suicide pact with him," Fraley wrote in the open letter that has been generating chatter on talk radio and across online social media. "Please do not oblige him."

The call for delegates to be able to vote as they wish, even if they are bound to vote for Trump, has also gained steam thanks to comments from Wisconsin's two highest profile Republican office holders.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Janesville, said last week that delegates should follow their conscience in deciding whether or not to support Trump. And Gov. Scott Walker, who backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz but then endorsed Trump when he became the presumptive nominee, has agreed with Ryan and said delegates should be free to vote their conscience.

But Walker and the state's 41 other delegates are all bound to vote for the winner in Wisconsin's primary, both statewide and in each congressional district. That means 36 of Wisconsin's votes go to Cruz and six are for Trump on the first ballot.

The delegates can only switch if they are released by the candidate or he fails to get a third of the vote in any given round.

Delegate Brian Westrate, an activist from Eau Claire who voted for Cruz, is one of the state's six delegates who are bound to vote for Trump. Westrate said Wednesday that's what he intends to do, and he's gotten no pressure to join the "dump Trump" movement.

"Not even a tiny bit," Westrate said. "I haven't gotten a phone call from anybody, a request to sign on. I haven't gotten any emails."

Delegate Jim Miller, of Hayward, is bound to vote for Trump and believes calls to abandon him will eventually die out.

"I think it's just a phase," Miller said.

Fitzgerald said attempts to replace Trump won't work, and he's optimistic Republicans will ultimately come together.

"We've had weak presidential candidates in the past, which certainly didn't help us down ticket," Fitzgerald said. "But at this point it's like we've still got some time, we're still four weeks from the convention, so there's still time to pull things together and I think we will do that."
In Monday's Tribune, letter writer T. Larry Mell claims that the Bill of Rights is under assault by liberals ... . He states that free speech is being taken away by political correctness and that the Second Amendment will be a target of Hillary Clinton. I will allow the reader to decide if those are valid concerns.

The author should have addressed the Fourth Amendment, which establishes The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures ... .

In an article on page A2 of the same paper, Donald Trump suggests that the United States should seriously consider profiling Muslims inside the country as a terrorism-fighting tool. That would seem like a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, if applied as a general practice with no indication of wrongdoing by an individual who happens to be Muslim.
A viral video of the forceful arrest of a young black woman Tuesday outside East Towne Mall sparked outrage from Madisons black community and has local leaders and elected officials calling for a review of whether police officers used excessive force.

Genele Laird, 18, was arrested outside the mall after she allegedly displayed a knife and threatened to kill security staff after she said her cellphone had been stolen.

Video taken by a person outside the mall shows Laird resisting police as they try to handcuff her. Two officers then forcefully take her to the ground, where she continues to struggle and kick her legs and allegedly spits in an officers face.

The officer strikes her several times with his knee and fist before using a Taser to get her to comply with demands to put her hands behind her back.

Dozens of leaders from Madisons black community joined the Young Gifted & Black Coalition for a protest Wednesday outside the Dane County Public Safety Building, where they collectively condemned the officers efforts to control Laird.

Here is a 120-pound kid, 18 years old, said Caliph MuabEl, executive director of Breaking Barriers Mentoring Inc. She was thrown to the ground, bag put over her head, punched, kicked and Tased ... If that isnt excessive force, I dont know what is.

At an early afternoon news conference Wednesday, Police Chief Mike Koval said he met with several people close to Laird on Tuesday night and said they were moved to tears, to anger by what he acknowledged looks like a very one-sided transaction. But he defended his officers actions, saying one bystanders short video cant capture the context of the 15-minute narrative of alleged threats by Laird that led to police being called.

Koval said Laird threatened a fast-food employee in the malls food court who she believed stole her phone. Laird allegedly displayed a knife and didnt cooperate with the malls private security officers, prompting a call to police.

The charge ... at that point was disorderly conduct while armed, Koval said. If things had gone according to Hoyle at that point and she had gone with the program and surrendered her liberty at that point, at the officers request, none of the other things that occurred would have been transpiring.

At the end of the day when called to deal with a behavior ... it is our obligation to restore order. Thats what we do, Koval said. When you ... spit in the eye of a police officer, thats a felony. When you resist arrest and you cause soft tissue injury to an officer, thats a felony.

Koval declined to immediately name the officers involved, saying the 911 center had received death threats against them. They will be named, he said, but for the moment he said he wanted to provide them with sanctuary and a cooling off period.

Video of the arrest, which had been viewed online more than a million times by Wednesday night, shows one officer holding Laird on a sidewalk shortly after the incident inside the mall. A second officer approaches in an attempt to get Lairds hands behind her back for cuffing, at which point Laird yells out that the officers are being so (expletive) forceful, for no (expletive) reason.

A struggle ensues as at least one officer repeatedly yells commands to get on the ground. One of the officers strikes Laird several times with a knee to the abdomen before all three fall to the sidewalk.

The struggle continues on the ground with one officer yelling at Laird, Stop kicking me, while he delivers three more knees and a punch to the abdomen.

Laird then rolls onto her back as one of the officers continues to try to restrain her hands. The other officer then removes a Taser from his belt and delivers at least one shock to Lairds abdomen. He holds the device to her left leg, but its unclear if it continued to fire.

At Wednesdays news conference, Madison Police Officer Chris Masterson said Tasers only work when two probes make contact with the skin, completing a circuit and creating an electric shock. In Tuesdays arrest, Masterson said, only one of the probes hit Laird, which is why the officer was seen repeatedly pressing the device against her leg to complete the circuit.

Just before Laird is shocked, one of the officers can be seen holding one of Lairds hands behind her back and struggling to pull her other hand behind her. Laird shrieks as the other officer repeatedly yells, Put your hand behind your back. Do it now, and the struggle stops briefly as she is handcuffed.

Asked what Laird, who was on the ground and being kneeled on, could have done differently to comply with officers demands, Koval said: Stop resisting.

In video of the arrest, Laird briefly pops up again, at which point the officer with the Taser pushes her head back down to the pavement and yells, Keep your face down. Dont spit at me again.

Laird responds to the officer, I will bite you. I will (expletive) bite you. The officer threatens to use the Taser again if she bites him, and Laird responds, Let me go. I cant (expletive) breathe.

Police then put a spit hood over Lairds face, which Koval said consists of a loose, breathable material, and carry her to a squad car.

Koval said one officer received spit in his eye, while the other officer was put on workmans compensation leave for back spasms related to the apprehension. Laird was treated with ointment for a cut and was seen by medical professionals from the fire department, a local hospital and the Dane County Jail, he said.

Koval ordered an internal review of the arrest to evaluate whether department policies, procedures and professional standards were followed during the arrest. Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney has agreed to have his department oversee the internal investigation.

While video of a forceful arrest can be alarming, Koval said its not the norm for Madison police, adding that records show such encounters constitute well below 1 percent of all police calls.

Im going to be looking at with a critical eye the rights of this woman to ensure that we did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness that we are entitled to use, Koval said. Force when administered, especially when somebody is motivated not to be taken into custody, can be very ugly.

Outraged to my core

But many people, particularly members of the black community, sought better answers for why two male officers needed to resort to kneeing, punching and using a Taser to control a slight young woman.

I am outraged to my core, Ruben Anthony, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The abuse this young woman faced at the hands of these police was savage and excessive, Anthony said. As a community, we must make it clear that we will not tolerate this type of barbarism.

The Black Leadership Council met Wednesday morning and agreed to help find Laird an attorney, said Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County.

Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, 5th District, was part of a group of local leaders and elected officials who met with Koval, Lairds aunt and several of her friends Tuesday night to discuss the altercation.

Bidar-Sielaff applauded the chief for meeting with them but said the meeting provided few concrete answers.

I dont think there is a way of seeing this video and not feeling disturbed, she said. My reaction is that the community deserves a full investigation and an explanation of the level of force used that we can see in the video. It also speaks to the need for leadership in looking at our policies and practices for the Madison Police Department.

Council scrutiny

The incident comes on the heels of a high-profile feud between Koval and local elected officials over the City Councils decision to spend $400,000 to hire an expert to help a city committee review the operations of the police department. Koval challenged the need for the study in a blog post laced with sarcasm and frustration.

Bidar-Sielaff said the incident confirmed her belief that the money was well-spent.

State Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, was also at the meeting and called the police treatment of Laird brutal and extremely disproportionate to any threat posed.

As our country has experienced, too often videos like this one have exposed violent mistreatment of people of color at the hands of the police, Taylor said. We deserve a full and impartial investigation of what occurred.

Deirdre Thompson, 35, an older sister of Laird, said she was traveling with her parents from Danville, Illinois, where they live, to Madison on Wednesday afternoon to try to get answers.

We just want to see Genele released, because regardless of what shes done, we really believe she did not deserve that treatment, and that, in itself, should be enough to persuade them to release her, Thompson said.

None of us have seen that kind of behavior where she would just lash out at the police, because thats one thing Ive always tried to tell her, you know, respect the police no matter what and just try to get justice, she said.

Laird has no adult criminal record, but Dane County Jail records contain a mugshot and fingerprint set of her from 2010.

Lt. Kerry Porter, of the Dane County Sheriffs Office, said there was no charge attached to the file. Records for minors are kept with the Juvenile Jail and are confidential, he said. Juvenile photos are typically related to criminal activity, but Porter said they are sometimes taken for runaway children.

Laird remained in the Dane County Jail Wednesday night and was expected to have an initial court appearance Thursday, Porter said.

State Journal reporters Bill Novak and Logan Wroge contributed to this report.
UW-Madison will not have to change its affirmative action policies after the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to the use of race in college admissions, officials said.

The Supreme Court's decision in Fisher v. Texas could have resulted in major changes to how colleges across the country factor race and ethnicity into their admission decisions, had the court struck down the University of Texas affirmative action policy at issue in the case.

But in a 4-3 ruling, the justices upheld the policy, delivering a win to proponents of affirmative action.

UW-Madison officials said in a statement Thursday that their analysis of the decision found that the university's admissions practices "are consistent with the court's ruling."

UW-Madison considers the race of applicants as one factor in a "holistic" admissions process that also includes their scores on standardized tests, written statements, extracurricular activities and other categories, officials say. Academics are given the greatest weight in that process, and students are not accepted solely because of their race.

It's important to consider race and ethnicity as factors in admissions, UW officials say, because doing so helps create a more diverse student body, which in turn benefits students by promoting cultural understanding and preparing them to enter a diverse workforce.

We are committed to a diverse and inclusive university because of the educational benefits that come from such diversity, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said. Our commitment enhances our academic mission, provides a wealth of experiences and viewpoints for our students and improves the overall quality of our university.
Johnny Jones has joined the ranks of Wisconsin artists showing at Wildes Art Gallery in Tomah.

Jones, a self-taught photographer, started by taking, developing and printing his own photos in high school. Locally, he has had his photos published in the Masonic Journal and with the Tomah Chamber of Commerce.

Though he specializes in portrait photography, Jones takes a variety of scenes, including landscapes, special events and wildlife. He enjoys looking for new challenges in photography and explores different uses of light to make his photos come to life.

Jones lives in Tomah with his wife, Treavis, and two children.

For more information on Jones or other Wisconsin artists, contact Wildes Art Gallery at 608-372-7853, The gallery is located near the junction of Highway 21 and Interstate 94 in Tomah.
No one had any inkling this was happening, Michael Blumenfeld told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. We are just scratching our heads. Why would you do this?

Mr. Blumenfeld spoke for the Wisconsin Family Care Association in early spring of 2015.

The frail elderly, disabled and their families learned the governor sought to privatize the successful Family Care and IRIS programs, handing them over to a few large insurance companies.

The birth of this idea happened in secret.

The Department of Health Services secretary  charged with shepherding the plan through the legislative process  acknowledged to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she learned of the proposal only when the governors budget was released. Evidently her staff also knew nothing of the plan.

None of them knew anything about this, said Barbara Beckert of Disability Rights Wisconsin. They are in a state of shock.

In December 2014, the governors office invited advocacy groups to a meeting to discuss what they would like to see happen with the programs. Jason Endres and his spouse Julie of Eau Claire attended that meeting.

We were never listened to, Jason said. The governor did a complete 180 when the budget came out.

Later an email circulated around the Capitol revealing that the governors office directed the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to write budget language dismantling Family Care and IRIS programs. Governor Walker sidestepped the public agency budget process entirely. He ignored the advocacy/agency councils set up to design changes to long-term care programs.

His proposal would upend a critical safety net for almost 60,000 of our states most vulnerable citizens without their consultation.

According to an analysis done by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, The administration did not solicit the recommendations of the Long-Term Care Advisory Council before or during the development of the Family Care/IRIS 2.0 proposal.

The council had requested meetings but was not granted input.

Days after the budget came out, Jason and Julie along, with other IRIS recipients and their families started the Save IRIS citizen advocacy effort to inform people about the proposed changes to their critical programs. Thousands of people from around the state participated in two disability awareness days and a SAVE IRIS rally at the Capitol.

During the spring of 2015, hundreds came to testify during the public budget process. More than 200 statewide and local organizations jointly passed a resolution against the governors plan.

Then the Joint Finance Committee met to vote. Jason related what he saw: During the executive session they all talked about it. Talk (for the governors proposal) didnt go all that great as far as getting rid of it. All of a sudden (Assembly Speaker) Robin Vos walked in the room. And the mood changed. The Republicans went into a little meeting room within the Joint Finance Committee room. Then they all came back out and everything had changed. Now they were going to get rid of IRIS. Not five minutes later they voted to get rid of IRIS ... I was infuriated.

For Jason, Julie and thousands like them, IRIS means a sense of pride about determining for themselves how and whom assists them with daily care most of us can do ourselves. The programs help people stay and function in the community like everybody else.

After the final budget vote, the DHS secretary scheduled meetings essentially to tell advocates to get on board. Jason told me about an IRIS recipient who was ousted from the table and read the riot act because she refused to support the administrations plan.

Jason then learned of a mysterious meeting in the governors office between representatives of big insurance companies expected to benefit from the governors plan, DHS officials, and Republican budget committee members. Thursday night DHS Secretary Kitty Rhodes withdrew the plan.

This gave us a huge uplift, said Jason. Julie added, This is a major victory!

For over a year our disabled and elderly struggled with the stress of uncertainty. Home care workers were also affected. Many left for other jobs, which created a huge shortage of workers for the disabled who need help for basic functions.

The unconscionable actions by the governor and his legislative allies caused chaos in so many lives. However, a fighting spirit brought about the death of their very ill-conceived idea.

Democrat Kathleen Vinehout, Alma, represents the 31st state Senate District.
Have you stopped by the Wednesday farmers market in downtown Viroqua yet? We are so pleased the market is located right next to the library in the Blue Dog parking lot. The market runs from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Every Wednesday we are pleased to be able to offer a 30-minute story time activity at the market! From 5:30 to 6 p.m. Miss Mary will set up a small area for books, songs and activities. We hope you take advantage of this outdoor story time on Wednesday evenings.

On Wednesday, June 29, at 2 p.m., staff from VMH and Donate Life Wisconsin will be spending a couple of hours at the library talking about the importance of organ donation. You will have an opportunity to hear from a local organ recipient, meet Dottie the Dot the official mascot of Donate Life Wisconsin, plus learn about the online Wisconsin Donor Registry. Staff from VMH will be on hand to offer free blood pressure screenings. The program will conclude at 4 p.m.

A reminder the library will be closed July 2-4 for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

To stay up-to-date on everything happening at the library, like the Viroqua Library Facebook page.
An airplane powered totally by the sun landed in Seville, Spain early Thursday after completing a 71-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

The plane, a Solar Impulse 2 model, has just one seat. It left from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York Monday morning.

This was the planes 15th stop in its planned around-the-world trip. The trip began in Abu Dhabi in March of 2015.

Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard operated the solar-powered plane on this leg of the tour. The Solar Pulse 2 had an average speed of 70 kilometers an hour during his flight.

The planes power comes from 17,000 solar cells built into the wings. The cells capture the suns energy, which is stored in batteries on the plane.

The Solar Pulse 2 has a 72-meter wingspan. That is longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 passenger plane. The solar-powered plane weighs about as much as an automobile.

Piccards friend and business partner Andre Borschberg will operate the plane on the final part of the trip. He plans to fly from Seville to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Im Anne Ball.

Jim Dresbach adapted this VOA News story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

cells  n. containers for holding substances that are used for producing electricity

batteries  n. devices that are placed inside a machine to supply it with electricity

wingspan  n. the distance from the tip of one wing of an airplane to the tip of the other wing

aviator  n. a person who flies airplanes
Even Steven Spielberg would have to admit, Nope is one of the best close encounters weve had with aliens. Peeles suggestions make sense. Best of all, they entertain thoroughly.
Nuclear threats, human rights complaints and political strife constantly keep North Korea in the news. Here are more a dozen charts that help 
Have you ever heard of Gary Johnson? If not, that might change very soon.
Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 pm Thursday. [Photo/Weibo]

A fatal storm and tornado killed 51 people on Thursday afternoon when it hit Yancheng city in China's Southeastern Jiangsu province, local authorities confirmed.

The extreme weather causes downpours, hailstorms and a tornado which battered parts of Yancheng city at 2:30 pm, causing many houses to topple. Transportation and electricity have been cut off.

Dozens are injured in the storm according to media reports.
Samsung introduced a sleek new line of notebooks at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, including the super-slim and light-weight Samsung Notebook 9 and Notebook 9 Spin convertible laptops. But if the $1000+ price tags for those laptops seems a bit steep, now the company has more affordable options.

The Samsung Notebook 7 Spin is a convertible notebook with a starting price of $800.

The spin in the name refers to the notebooks 360-degree hinge, which lets you fold the screen back and hold the notebook like a tablet.

Samsung will offer models with 13.3 inch and 15.6 inch display options. Both versions feature 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreens and backlit keyboards. Other features include HDMI and USB Type-C ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and one USB 3.0 port.

The 13.3 inch model features an Intel Core i5 processor, Intel HD graphics, and 8GB of RAM, while the larger version has a Core i7 chip, NVIDIA 940MX graphics, and support for up to 16GB of RAM.

Samsung will offer up to 1TB of hard drive storage or an optional SSD for some models.

The laptops also feature quick charging support. Samsung says a 20 minute charge should get you two hours of battery life. It takes 90 minutes to fully charge the 15.6 inch model or 100 minutes to give the 13.3 inch Samsung Notebook 9 Spin a full charge.

While Samsung hasnt provided details about the dimensions or weight of the new notebooks, they certainly look a lot bulkier than the premium Notebook 9 series, which start at just under 1.9 pounds.

The Samsung Notbeook Spin will be available starting June 26th from Samsung.com and Best Buy.

via Windows Experience Blog and The Verge
Lucknow: A case was registered in Kanpur and Lucknow courts on Thursday against Bollywood actor Salman Khan for his recent statement that "he felt like a raped woman" while shooting for his forthcoming flick "Sultan" slated to release on Eid next month.

Social activist Rafat Jamaal, in a petition filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Lucknow has asked for legal action against the actor for the statement which showed "disrespect to rape victims" and also "revived the ugly memories of such heinous crimes".

The CJM has asked the petitioner by the end of the day to prove why and how is the matter tenable to the court in Lucknow. In a related development, a lawyer Manoj Kumar Dixit has filed a petition in the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) IIIrd's court in Kanpur seeking action against the actor.

"Freedom of expression in the country does not allow sentiments to be hurt in this manner" the lawyer told IANS while explaining the reason behind filing the case.

The court has ordered the testimony of the petitioner be recorded on 14 July.

Salman Khan had irked his fans and people across the country by a statement, given in response to a question by a reporter on how he felt doing the strenuous shooting of Sultan, where he plays a wrestler.

Khan responded by saying that "he felt like a raped woman...he could barely stand straight after the shoot."

The statement invited sharp rebuke on social media and his father, writer Salim Khan soon apologised on behalf of his son and admitted that the statement was in bad taste.
New Delhi: To encourage saving in its pension scheme, retirement fund body will provide 8.16 percent higher pension to all those subscribers opting for deferring the benefit till the age of 60 years.

All those subscribers who will choose to defer their pension under Employees' Pension Scheme 1995 till the age of 59 years, will get 4 percent higher pension compared to those fixing retirement pay at 58 years, a senior official said.

The official said that the notification in this regard was issued on April 25 this year to encourage subscribers to contribute beyond the mandatory age of 58 years. The Employees' Provident Fund Organization has also allowed to contribute in the scheme till the age of 60 years.

In that their contributory service after the age of 58 years will be included in calculation of pensionable service and salary, but will not be considered for determining eligibility.

The subscribers who wish to opt for deferring their pension beyond 58 years of age and to continue contribution towards the scheme, are required to apply for it in the field office.

The official said that the EPFO's trustees' meet is scheduled to be held on 7 July, where the board members will take stock of various initiatives of the body. The official said that the issue like housing scheme for subscribers and review of EPFO's investments in exchange traded funds can come up for discussion.

EPFO had entered stock market in August last year. It has invested over Rs 6,000 crore in the ETFs so far amid trade unions' strong opposition over parking its funds in volatile stock markets.
New Delhi: The "extra push" given to the textiles industry through an incentive package will help create more jobs and push exports, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today.

"It is a sector where India has gained a lot of advantage ... It has a great potential for job creation," the minister told reporters here.

This "extra push" was given to the sector due to various global developments, she said.

The Union Cabinet yesterday approved a Rs 6,000 crore package for textiles and apparel sector with an aim to create one crore new jobs in three years and attract investments of $11 billion while eyeing $30 billion in exports.

Textiles exports contribute significantly to the country's total exports at about $17 billion in 2014-15. The sector is witnessing huge competition from small countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, which have access to developed markets at lower tariffs.

When asked about the impact of Brexit (possible exit of Britain from European Union) on India, Sitharaman said that the government is "watching the situation".

"We will be observing the developments. It is too early for me to comment (on its impact)," she added.

Talking about the stalled India-EU free trade agreement, the minister said India is waiting for the dates to resume the talks.

"We are waiting for the dates. It is my doubt that if because they are waiting for the outcome of Brexit, they have not yet given the dates as yet. The moment they give the dates, we will be keenly wanting to continue the talks to reach the conclusion at the earliest," she added.

Launched in June 2007, the negotiations for the proposed agreement have witnessed many hurdles with both sides having major differences on crucial issues like intellectual property rights, duty cut in automobile and spirits, and liberal visa regime.

The pact is aimed at reducing or significantly eliminating tariffs on goods, facilitating trade in services and boosting investments between the two sides.

When asked about Apple Inc's proposal to open single brand retail stores in the country after announcement of the tweaked FDI policy in the sector, Sitharaman said: "We have announced the policy. We will wait to hear from them".

The ministry has stated that it will give exemption to foreign firms such as Apple Inc coming with state-of-the-art technology from the mandatory local sourcing norms in the single-brand retail sector for up to three years.
Another UPA government appointee at the country's highest public institution has decided to step down abruptly. This time state-run life insurance behemoth LIC Chairman S K Roy has resigned from his post with nearly two years remaining to complete his five-year term.

Roy, who took charge as chairman in June 2013, has been with LIC since 1981. He has cited personal reasons for his premature exit from the country's biggest public sector financial institution.

Last Saturday, the current RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said he is not seeking any extension after his term ends on 4 September, and he will pursue academia at Chicago.

Although, Rajan's decision to call it quits was marred by several controversial statements by a key government person made in past few months, Roy's exit announcement has so far been free of any negative press so far.

According to sources, Roy has officially tendered his resignation and the Finance Ministry will send it to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for acceptance.

However, the exact reason for his sudden exit is not yet known.

In fact, he had made similar request some months ago but the Finance Ministry asked him to reconsider that, sources told PTI.

After the approval from ACC, the Finance Ministry would begin search for his replacement, the sources have added.

He assumed charge as Managing Director of LIC on 31 May 2013. Prior to his elevation, he was head of the International Operations division.

A senior finance ministry official said Roy wanted to quit before this year's budget.

According to another official, LIC Managing Director VK Sharma may succeed Roy at the helm, Economic Times reported. "He has more tenure left and unless there is a decision to bring someone from the outside, he may sail through," the person said. The other managing director with an outside chance is Usha Sangwan, the person said.

Having taken charge as chairman in June 2013, Roy was focused on regaining market share lost to private insurers that promised better returns and customer service. After slipping to around 65 percent, LIC's share of the insurance pie has climbed up to 71 percent.

According to a ToI report, Roy had complained about being poorly paid. The corporation's chairman is paid a gross salary of Rs 1.7 lakh per month. The corporation has assets worth over Rs 21 lakh crore and is more than 20 times larger than the next life insurance company.

With agency inputs
Des Moines, Iowa: One of the six men long identified in an iconic World War II photograph showing the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima was actually not in the image, the Marine Corps announced on Thursday after conducting an investigation prompted by the claims of two amateur historians.

The Marines formed a review panel earlier this year after the two history buffs studied a number of photos shot during two flag-raisings atop Mount Suribachi during an intense battle between American and Japanese forces in 1945. They claimed the identifications made by the Marines of the six men in the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal included mistakes, and after the review, the Marines Corps agreed.

"Our history is important to us, and we have a responsibility to ensure it's right," Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement.

A panel found that Private First Class Harold Schultz, of Detroit, was in the photo and that Navy Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John Bradley wasn't. Bradley had participated in an earlier flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, and his role took on a central role after his son, James Bradley, wrote a best-selling book about the flag raisers, Flags of Our Fathers, which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

The Marines began a review after being contacted by researchers working on a Smithsonian Channel documentary spurred by amateur historians Eric Krelle, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Stephen Foley, of Wexford, Ireland, whose questions about the photo were first reported by the Omaha World-Herald in 2014.

More than 6,500 US servicemen died in the battle at Iwo Jima, a tiny island 660 miles south of Tokyo that began 19 February, 1945. About 70,000 marines and 18,000 Japanese soldier fought for 36 days before the Americans completely controlled Iwo Jima, which was deemed essential to the US war effort because Japanese fighter planes were taking off from the island and intercepting American bomber planes.

Krelle and Foley compared a number of images shot of an earlier flag-raising and the raising of a second, larger flag captured by Rosenthal. They found discrepancies between what the men were wearing, their weapons and equipment that had, prompting Krelle and Foley to argue that some of the Marines had been misidentified and that Bradley participated in the first flag-raising but not the second effort that made for the famous image.

The Marines now agree that Schultz, who died in 1995 at age 70, helped raise the flag, along with Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley and Michael Strank.

Block, Sousley and Strank died at Iwo Jima before the photo was distributed in the US.

Neller said it's important to set the record straight but that the photo was never about the individuals shown in the image.

"Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps  what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesn't change," Neller said.
Entrepreneurs and investors are skeptical about the Rs 10,000 crore startup fund of funds cleared by the Cabinet on Wednesday as no details of the disbursement have been revealed as yet.

"The fund is expected to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment...A corpus of Rs 10,000 crore could potentially be the nucleus for catalysing Rs 60,000 crore of equity investment and twice as much debt investment," said an official statement on Wednesday.

However, the statement did not have details on how will it be disbursed, who will disburse it, who will qualify to get the funds.

Welcoming the governments move, many experts and those working in the startup ecosystem were pondering aloud on how the capital will be disbursed.

In 2014, start-ups employed over 65,000 people and this number is expected to rise to 250,000 in 2020. According to the Nasscom Startup Report 2015, India is among the five largest startup communities in the world with the number of start-ups crossing 4,200, registering a growth of 40 per cent, by the end of 2015.

In 2015, the story changed with as many 13 start-ups shutting shop. Investors want to know long-term plans before they invest money in a start-up. An idea alone that got funded like in the dotcom period or during 2014 and earlier, changed in 2015 with valuations too hurting unicorns. Year 2016 has now got the governments much announced funds for the start-up sector. How will this pan out for the ecosystem?

Anish Jhaveri, Co-Founder, Oliphans Capital  an early stage investment firm was skeptical of the fund reaching the target entrepreneur. He reasoned that PM Modis intentions were honourable but he wasnt sure that that intention percolated to the Finance Ministry. Citing Gujarat, Jhaveri explains his point, There is a 15 percent entry tax on e-commerce goods and products into Gujarat. This is an addition to the 10 percent VAT charges. So Gujarat is not in tandem with the PMs wishes to aid entrepreneurship as those outside the state who have innovative and good products and services will be taxed. There is a disconnect then, he said.

Mahesh Murthy, Co-Founder, Seedfund, hoped that it would not be like the Atal Incubation Centre. This was set up to promote and encourage start-up in specific sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, transport, etc and funding would be considered only for those applicants who had 10,000 sq ft built-up space. Would the government come with similar riders? asks Murthy, adding that with real estate being so costly in metros, how did the government even come up with this rider.

It is well-known that no funds announced by the government will be easily available and there will be multiple filters before it ever reaches its target. That should be something that one should accept, points out Ravi Gururaj, entrepreneur, evangelist, mentor. I would like to see the government disburse the funds quickly after due diligence.

The devil is in the details, which as of now has not been spelt out. Rajat Tandon of Nassocm hoped that the execution of the funds would be transparent and beneficial to the ecosystem it is targeted. I hope there are no riders to the fund being disbursed, he said.

The number of VCs in the country are only a handful and any funding for the sector is a welcome step. A fund by the government for the people is a big step.

But how is this 'big number going to be disbursed, asks Harish HV, Partner, Grant Thornton India LLP. We are talking about disbursing funds to around 5,000 or 10,000 startups. Just providing funds wont work. Startups need mentors, manager, experienced people. Who will ensure that they get this support?," he said.
Bengaluru: Describing BJP MP Subramanian Swamys remarks against Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian as 'noise' in a democracy, industry body Confederation of Indian Industrys President Naushad Forbes said on Wednesday that people should not judge India on the basis of a politicians 'outlandish' statements.

Calling Arvind as one of the finest brains among economists, officials of CII said as a vibrant economy, India must welcome talent from all parts of the world and underscored that government would have taken into consideration all issues before appointing him as the Chief Economic Advisor.

If you are asking me about his tweets, I would describe Subramanian Swamy as the noise in our noisy democracy. It is a part of vibrancy of our democracy that you hear all kinds of statements and frankly you should not judge India on the basis of any politicians outlandish statements, Forbes told reporters.

After attacking RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, who has said no to a second term as the central banks head, the BJP leader has now trained his guns on Arvind Subramanian and demanded his sacking.

Swamy tweeted that it is Arvind Subramanian who encouraged Congress to become rigid on GST (Goods and Services Tax) clauses, apparently referring to CEA panel recommendations on GST.

In his second tweet, he had alleged that Subramanian had encouraged the US Congress to act against India to defend the interests of US Pharmaceutical companies.

Forbes said since Indias is the most robust economy in the world, it is necessary to welcome talents from various parts of the world.

In terms of this particular issue, I think every country benefits from attracting talent from everywhere, and we are the most vibrant economy in the world. I repeat, we must welcome talent. We must make talent comfortable and get the best out of it, he said.

Commenting on one of the tweets seeking Subramanians sacking, CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said he has not gone into the details of Swamys allegations, but the industrys experience with him had been good.

Banerjee said Subramanians report on GST itself answers a big part of the question, and his comments on different points of history about Indian economy needs to be seen in perspective.

We have been working very closely with him and we have seen that he is one of the finest brains as far as an economist is concerned, he said.

Reacting to the second tweet by Swamy, Forbes said the government would have taken these things into consideration before appointing him as the Chief Economic Advisor.
In West Bengal, the Left Front sarkar lasted for 34 years. Aveek Sarkar's rule over the Bengali mindscape fell short by just one year. It is only fitting perhaps that the chief editor of the ABP Group has finally stepped down at a time when the 'jote' (alliance) he so staunchly backed (and even allegedly engineered) has been demolished and his bete-noire has returned to power with an overwhelmingly stronger mandate.

The company, though, has put forward the change in leadership as part of the "streamlining of news operations." In a communique to employees on Wednesday, Dipankar Das Purkayastha, the ABP Group's CEO and MD, said R Rajagopal has been appointed editor of English daily The Telegraph and Anirban Chattopadhyay has been redesignated as editor of Anandabazar Patrika, the group's flagship, and Ebela, the Bengali tabloid. Both will report to Arup Sarkar, Aveek's younger brother, who until now was the chief editor of the groups Bengali magazines. All these changes are "with immediate effect".

Aveek babu, as he is called within the organisation, will be ABPs vice-chairman and editor emeritus. Known as an extremely hands-on editor, he will apparently distance himself from the daily operations of the groups key publications but "will support the news operations of the group in an advisory role but will continue to lead digital and other initiatives of the group, the notice added.

The ABP Group is privately owned by the Sarkars and the role of an editor has always stayed with family members. Indian Express, however, has reported that in Chapala Kanta Bhattacharya, there was one exception to this rule.

Well may the company insist that the move to hand over group's reins to the quieter of the two brothers is merely part of a succession plan, the timing of Aveek-babu's exit makes it impossible to see the decision as "routine". There seems to be a strong correlation between the resignation and the result of 2016 Bengal Assembly polls.

Aveek babu, the flamboyant face of the ABP Group, had put all eggs in one basket in launching a virulent attack against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee through his publications and the Bengali news channel, ABP Ananda. During the run up to Assembly elections, Mamata declared war against the 71-year-old and devoted as much energy in taking on the media mogul as she did in vanquishing her political rivals. In a state where Trinamool Congress faced virtually no opposition until a late alliance between the Left Front and Congress, Aveek Sarkar had emerged as the chief adversary.

Faced with unremitting hostility from Anadabazar Patrika  the most popular Bengali newspaper with a daily circulation of 1.1 million (as of July-Dec 2015)  The Telegraph and ABP Ananda channel, Mamata frequently lost her cool, complaining to the electorate on multiple occasions during campaign that she is being subjected to a media witch-hunt.

"I have tolerated enough, they have contacts at various places, they own channels, but I only have this one mic in my hand, this is my strength," an emotional Mamata said just before Bhawanipore in Kolkata, her own constituency, went to vote on 30 April.

"Let me ask my 'Maa, maati, maanush', if you think I have committed a mistake, slap me, I wouldn't mind. I will accept it. But it hurts if you call me a thief, a liar."

The bad blood reached such a stage that TMC MP and her trusted general Derek O'Brien, who had a long association with the ABP Group, stopped writing columns and in a letter to Aveek Sarkar titled 'Time I stopped writing columns for ABP/The Telegraph', alleged that the groups prejudices were making it impossible for him to continue.

TMC's national spokesperson upped the ante during the Assembly polls campaign, uploading a video on Facebook where he named ABP an 'Assiduously Biased Newspaper' and called its editor a 'megalomaniac'.

Aveek babu responded by giving unbridled coverage to the Left Front-Congress 'jote' and The Telegraph, ABP and ABP Ananda virtually became Opposition mouthpieces. It wasn't just an ideological attack on the establishment, it wasn't just a case of media acting as a watchdog, it seemed as there was deep antagonism of a personal nature between the ABP Group chief editor and the state's chief minister.

What was the reason behind such barely concealed animosity?

At a rally in Durgapur in the run-up to the polls, Mamata gave an indication that there may be a less-publicised motive.

"Go tell ABP that they are the most destructive elements in Bengal. They are conspiring against us because they asked me to forcefully acquire land from farmers. They wanted me to remove the urban land ceiling. I cannot do that."

According to a report in Millenium Post, Mamata Banerjee had come in the way of business ambitions and expansion plans of Aveek Sarkar, a self-proclaimed 'card carrying capitalist' and a vociferous free-marketer.

"Sarkar had hoped to persuade Mamata Banerjee to allow him to make a windfall profit of Rs 500 crore, from a prime piece of land measuring more than three acres on the EM Bypass, which he had been leased by Kolkata Municipal Corporation for a measly Rs three crore, for media-related activities. But instead of media activities, ABP later sought permission from the TMC-controlled KMC for commercial activities such as real estate development," said the report.

The report also published a letter, dated 15 January, 2014, where Group MD Purkayastha urged the chief minister to effect an amendment in the lease agreement and allow the ABP Group to carry out commercial activities. Following the missive, on 10 July, 2014, the KMC in its mayor-in-council meeting cancelled the lease of the prime land. This, says the report, "made the ABP group see red and start its all-out campaign to oust Mamata Banerjee."

There was friction also over modification of the Land Ceiling Act in Bengal which Aveek Sarkar apparently demanded but was met with only a cold response from the chief minister. Quite possibly it would have been political suicide for Mamata Banerjee who rode to power in 2011 riding an emotive appeal against forced acquisition of land from farmers.

The group's revenue may have also been affected with the TMC regime blanking out all government advertisements from its publications. Mamata's second five-year term with a stronger mandate and the Left Front's simultaneous demise has also squeezed the space for political opposition. In the end, this was perhaps an obvious step.
New Delhi: On Wednesday Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against nine senior Income Tax officials including Principal Commissioner Income Tax, Delhi S K Mittal and three private persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices as it carried out searches at 17 locations across the country.

CBI sources said residential and official premises of the officials and a chartered accountant Sanjay Bhandari were searched during the country-wide operations on Wednesday which covered 17 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Khammam in Telangana.

The sources claimed that CBI recovered documents related to properties worth Rs 2.6 crore, cash of Rs 16 lakh, 4.25 kg of gold jewellery besides 13 kg of silver articles during searches at the premises of one of the officials.

They claimed that from another official Fixed Deposit Receipts worth Rs 68 lakh were recovered. Underlining that these were initial recoveries, they said the searches are still going on and that more recoveries could be made.

Besides Mittal, the agency registered case against Income Additional Commissioner (exemption) Bangalore, T N Prakash, Deputy Commissioner (Exemption) Chennai, R V Haroon Prasad, Deputy Commissioner (Investigation) Chennai, S Murali Mohan, Commissioner (audit-2) Chennai, Vijayalakshmi, Additional Commissioner Mumbai, S Pandian, Commissioner (DR) ITAT Mumbai, G Lakshmi Baraprasad, Additional Director General (systems-4) Ghaziabad, Vikram Gaur and Additional Director (investigation) Mumbai, Rajendra Kumar, CBI sources said.

A chartered accountant Sanjay Bhandari and his sons Shreyans and Divyang are also named as accused in the case, the sources said.

It is alleged that these officials were availing favours including stay at five star hotels, conveyance in the form of luxury cars and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons and helping him in the cases of his clients as a quid pro quo.

The present case stemmed from another case registered by the agency in January, 2015 in which Bhandari was named along with Joint Commissioner Sallong Yaden who was arrested while allegedly 'receiving' the bribe amount from Shreyans Bhandari of SH Bhandari and Co, Chartered Accountants.

Yaden had allegedly demanded and accepted the bribe for giving a 'favourable' report on the Income Tax search conducted on a city-based private company, the CBI said.

During the probe, CBI found a deep rooted nexus between Bhandari and senior Income Tax officials who were allegedly giving favourable reports for his clients in lieu of favours received from him.

Following the trail for nearly one year, CBI has filed cases against these officials and Bhandari and his sons.
The Centre on Thursday extended the Suspension of Operations agreement with the pro-talks National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Progressive) for a period of six months up to 31 December, 2016, reported ANI.

Suspension of operations agreement with NDFB (P) extended for a period of 6 months upto December 31, 2016.  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

Decision was taken in a meet of Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) consisting of representatives of GoI, Assam Govt & NDFB(P), held in Delhi today  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

The decision was taken at a meeting of Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) consisting of representatives of Government of India, Government of Assam and NDFB (P) in Delhi.

According to Bussiness Standard, Bodo Security Force, a militant group formed in 1986 was the predecessor of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and the current name was adopted in 1994. The militant group was first banned on 23 November, 2002.

The National Democratic Front of Boroland split in 2008 after Chairman Ranjan Daimary decided to go ahead with serial blasts. The decision prompted NDFB Secretary Gobinda Basumatary to quit the organisation and set up NDFB (P).
Assam resident Ameerul Islam is accused of the gruesome rape and murder of a Dalit law student in Ernakulam, Kerala, and his arrest a week ago sparked off a torrid debate on whether there is a need to maintain a database for migrant labourers entering the state in search of livelihood.

Rumours abounded too, of an exodus of the migrant population, fearing a backlash. But the Kerala state government is all set to bring in a social security scheme to ensure that the migrants working in Kerala are assimilated into its society.

A pioneering effort of sorts in the country, this is undoubtedly a step beyond just a mere registration of migrants. An official announcement is expected soon.

For the 40 lakh-odd migrant population in the state (as per 2016 records), which is growing at a fast rate of close to 2.3 lakhs every year, this step might come as a huge relief. The government does not feel that all migrant workers are criminals. There may be a section which is doing mischief. But they have every right to work in Kerala just like in any other place. The problem is that till now we had no records of these people. So we have now decided to bring them all under one workers beneficiary scheme so that they enjoy all benefits at par with workers here. The blueprint of this will be ready soon, said TP Ramakrishanan, Keralas labour minister.

The CPM-led LDF (Left Democratic Front) government hopes that this is the right step to bringing accountability amongst this large floating population. A separate allocation for this scheme may also feature in the next state budget. Also for the Left, the policy falls in line with their ideology of protecting the working class, be it migrant or local.

The state government hopes to make the scheme work for both sides. Not only will it bring the migrant workers under the usual benefits enjoyed by the local residents, including medical insurance and death claims, but it will also help the government keep a tab on their activities and sort out the mischief-mongers from the genuine workers.

Activists are welcoming the move. Many say this would help to break down the cultural barriers and make it easier for the migrant community to assimilate into the middle class fabric of Kerala.

After all this is a land which believes in the slogan, workers of the world unite. So it is better we start this assimilation process and wipe away the cultural differences, said CR Neelakandan, an activist based in Ernakulam. Neelakandan also adds that it is important for Kerala to realise why it needs to retain its migrant work force. We all need to understand that Keralas economy will break down the moment these migrants leave. Almost every sector is dependent on them. Thats the reality, he added.

Neelakandans words stand testimony to the huge influence the migrant population has on Keralas economy. It is also for the same reason that Kerala can never think of going the Maharashtra way in antagonising its migrant population. There is certainly more at stake here than just twisted nationalism, say Left leaders.

The arrival of the first batch of migrant workers to Kerala a decade ago was seen as a boon for the states struggling manpower. From then on it has been a symbiotic relationship that the state has enjoyed with the migrants. What the Gulf has been for the average Malayali, Kerala has been for the worker from Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and even Odisha for years.

While a worker in any of these states gets between Rs 100 to 150 after a days hard labour, in Kerala, the worker makes between Rs 800 to 1000 a day, allowing him to send out an annual remittance of Rs 25,000 crore from the state. Every year close to 2.35 lakh migrant workers land up in the southern state looking for jobs.

For the state too, their retention is crucial. Thousands of business establishments ranging from construction to hospitality, manufacturing to agriculture are run by migrant hands alone. Contractors admit that migrant workers are the lifeline of the state and one glimpse at the little town of Perumbavoor, the scene of the gruesome rape-murder, a stones throw away from Cochin, will prove why.

There is hardly anything in the town that would give away its existence as a part of Kerala. It is more akin to a busy Tier III town in West Bengal or Odisha.

Signboards in Bengali and Oriya greet the visitor to this little town. Theatres run Bengali and even Bhojpuri films. Churches have special masses in Hindi, Bengali and Oriya. Some migrants have bought lands, married from the local community and are settled here. But still the assimilation into local society has been painfully slow.

Father Sabu Malayil, who runs the Jeevika Migrant Workers Movement, says that it would take some time for the average Malayali to except the migrant worker as one of his own.

Today if you want to build a house you need a Bengali or an Oriya to do your mason work. You need him to sweat it out for you, but when it comes to dealing with a problem that he faces, you will just turn away. This attitude of the Malayali has to change. We need to understand that a migrant worker is here because he needs work, said Father Malayil.

People like Father Malayil who have been working for migrant workers welfare hope the new step by the government would sort out at least a few of the problems. But experts on migration studies are not ready to bite yet. They say social security measures need to be voluntary in nature and should never be enforced upon anyone just because the person hails from a different state.

Binoy Peter, who heads the Centre for Migratory Studies and Inclusive Development, says such measures need to be tailormade for the worker who will never stick to one place forever.

Most importantly the schemes should be portable and voluntary. Otherwise it will never work because these people are seasonal in their movements. If a worker registers in, say Cochin, works here for five years and then goes back to Khandamal, he should be able to receive the benefits there too. Government should ensure this. Otherwise this will be a meaningless exercise, added Peter.

While the state government strongly believes in the dictum that a few rotten apples dont spoil the entire basket, it would also not like to ignore the concerns of the police force. According to the State Crime Records Bureau, in the last five years alone 1,200 criminal cases of various kinds ranging from theft to murder to rape have been registered against migrant workers. A sudden spurt in narcotic cases in the last two years is also attributed to the migrant population who are easy carriers.

All of this means the state government has on its hands a Herculean task, not to forget the sheer numbers of an ever-growing migrant population. Spirits, however, seem to be running high for now.
On Wednesday, Maharashtra government opposed an NIA court's decision to acquit eight people in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case. According to a report in India Today, six of those discharged allegedly engineered the bombings. However, public prosecutor in the case, Sandeep Shinde as quoted in The Times of India report said that they have filed papers in the court last week seeking to challenge the discharge of those accused.

Two powerful bombs which were placed on bicycles had exploded near the Hamidia Mosque in Malegaon on 8 September, 2006 after the Friday afternoon prayers on the occasion of the solemn 'Shab-E-Barat' when special prayers are offered for the departed souls. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad had probed the case first and arrested nine Muslim youth, some of whom were allegedly linked to the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India.

They were Noor-ul Huda Samsudha, Raees Ahmed Rajabali Mansuri, Salman Farsi Abdul Latif Aimi, Farogh Iqbal Ahmed Magdumi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam, Asif Bashir Khan, M Zahid Abdul Majid Ansari and Abrar Ahmed Ghulam Ahmed and had all spent minimum five years in jail after they were arrested, said advocate Shahid Nadeem Ansari who represented some of the accused. While one accused  Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah  died during the pendency of the trial, four others  including a Pakistani national  were declared as absconders.

The National Investigative Agency (NIA) court found no evidence after taking over the probe from CBI in 2011 because Swami Aseemananda had confessed in another case about the involvement of Hindu right-wing groups in Malegaon blasts. Last April, the NIA informed the Special Designated Court that it had no evidences against the nine Muslim accused and thereafter the charges against them were dropped by the court.

After almost ten years, the eight-accused were discharged on 25 April, 2016.

With inputs from IANS
Without clearing the cloud on the uncertainty to India's admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup in an extremely brief news conference in Tashkent said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chinese President Xi Jingping "to make a fair assessment of India's application."

The Prime Minister conveyed to President Xi that China must contribute to emerging consensus in Seoul.

However, citing it as a "delicate and complex" deliberation, the spokesperson refrained from making any comment on President Xi's reaction to PM Modi's proposal.

PM Modi was received at the Tashkent international airport by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoev.

In the two-day summit, the SCO will start the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

However, the spotlight was on Modi's bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during which the prime minister was expected to seek China's support for India's membership at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Giving clear indications of its opposition to India's bid for entry into the atomic trading club, China had on Wednesday underlined the differences within NSG members, saying "parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue."

It, however, said it will play a constructive role in the discussions.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," the Prime Minister said in a statement before leaving for Tashkent.

He said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had on Wednesday said, "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations".

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign over 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
People in Bihar have taken to the streets to vent their anger at the administration after two girls, one of them a 10-year old, were allegedly gangraped in Motihari district, reported NDTV.

According to Deccan Chronicle, the 10-year-old girl had to undergo major surgery after two men allegedly raped her last Wednesday. A day after the incident, police arrested suspects Pramod Sahni and Kamal Sahni.

"They kidnapped her and raped her. When she shouted they put a knife to her throat," NDTV quoted the girl's brother as saying. He alleged that the family is being pressured to withdraw the case.

The girl is in a critical state at Patna Medical College Hospital.

In another part of the district, a girl was allegedly gangraped at gunpoint, reported DNA.

According to ANI, the girl was going to defecate in the field when one of the accused molested her and recorded a video of it. She complained to the police about it and that angered the accused so much that he and four men from his family, returned and gangraped her. They then left her on the side of a road, assuming that she was dead. But the girl regained consciousness and got the attention of cops patrolling nearby. She was admitted to Motihari Sadar Hospital in a critical condition. The accused are absconding.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday sought to know from Maharashtra government if it has decided to seek a CBI probe in the Govind Pansare murder case as claimed by the lawyer of family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he has no such instruction so far.

The high court also came down heavily on the CID and the CBI, probing the Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder cases respectively, for slow progress.

The Pansare family had approached the Maharashtra government seeking CBI probe in the matter and on Thursday the state government consented, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain communist leader, informed HC bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi.

However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told the court that he does not have any instruction from the government regarding this.

To this, the HC directed Shinde to find out if the government has taken a decision to refer the probe to the CBI, and if it has not done so, then tell the court the reasons behind it.

The bench, which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking monitoring by HC in both the murder probes, later adjourned the matter for six weeks.

"Now that the CBI has arrested someone in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Pansare's family also wants CBI to probe their case and the state government is also promptly saying OK let it go...let it be off my shoulder...one headache gone," the HC said.

Notably, the CBI had recently arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawde from Navi Mumbai in connection with the murder of anti-superstition crusader Dabholkar.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot on 16 February, 2015 in Kolhapur. The CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.

The CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the murder.

The high court, after perusing the reports submitted by both CBI and CID with regard to the progress of probe in both the murder cases, said it was not completely satisfied with the pace of investigations.

"We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder cases need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society. Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views," the high court observed.

The HC, while adjourning the matter for six weeks, asked the CBI to make all endeavour to obtain reports immediately from forensic science laboratory in Scotland, where the agency has sent bullets and empty cartridges recovered from the body of another slain rationalist M M Kalburgi.

"Expedite the proceedings and try obtaining the reports immediately," the bench said.

The court also noted that since a month both the agencies have been dragging their feet in the probe which, it said, was very "juvenile and childish".

Public Prosecutor Shinde informed the court that the CID has sought custody of the person arrested by CBI in the Dabholkar case.

To this the court said, "Didn't you know about this person before and the organisation with which he is

affiliated. It is very shameful that officers instead of investigation ask the family members who they suspect. This needs to stop."

The HC also lambasted the CBI for divulging details regarding the probe to the media.

"Your (CBI) progress report is nothing but news reports. All this is already there in the public domain. How does media come to know about the identity of witnesses in the case and where the agency is going to conduct searches. Everything is revealed to the media," the court pointed out.

"You will be ruining the entire probe if you conduct yourself in this fashion. Absconding accused in the case must be getting details pertaining to the probe from the media. Hats off to CBI," the HC further observed.

"All this may seem trivial now, but they are very important lacunae when the trial is conducted. Tomorrow who is going to protect the witnesses and family members who are speaking freely to media these days. Some restraint and patience is required by the family members. This cheap publicity for everything is disgusting and it affects fair investigation and trial," it said.

The court warned that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against the concerned officer/s revealing investigation details to the media and will put him in jail. The matter has now been adjourned for six weeks, by when both the probing agencies will have to submit further progress reports.
Agartala: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has rescued 44 children from trains in Assam while being trafficked and arrested 485 persons for various crimes last month, a release said in Agartala on Thursday.

The RPF personnel also recovered and seized stolen properties and contraband goods worth Rs 5.36 lakh in May.

"Forty-four children were rescued from trains in Assam last month while being trafficked to other regions. These children were later handed over to their parents and local NGOs," NFR Chief Public Relations Officer Pranav Jyoti Sharma said in a release.

He said over 485 persons were arrested during May by the RPF for various crimes and handed them over to Government Railway Police (GRP) for prosecution.

The release said the crimes on trains and at railway stations for which they were arrested included trafficking of children, theft, carrying smuggled goods, injecting drugs to innocent railway passenger and looting their belongings, illegal hawking on trains and at stations, touting, stopping the trains by pulling alarm chain and unauthorised entry into the ladies compartments.

Another NFR official said that crimes aboard trains and at railway stations are increasing in the northeastern region.

"Earlier, there were almost zero crimes in trains and railway stations in the northeastern states. With the increase of crimes, the RPF stepped up their vigilance in the railway stations and running trains," the official said.
Srinagar: Six militants were on Thursday killed in two separate encounters with security forces that broke out

in north Kashmir's Kupwara district

Three militants were killed in the first encounter in Lolab area, after a joint team of army and police, acting on a tip-off, launched a search operation in Dobwan forest area, an army official said.

As the search operation was going on, the militants opened fire on the security personnel who retaliated.

In the ensuing gunfight, three militants were killed, the army official said. In the other encounter, three militants were killed in Drugmulla area in the evening, the official added.

He said security forces launched a search operation in Waterkhani forests of Drugmulla following information about presence of militants there.

The exchange of firing is going on intermittently, the official said adding the operation is still on.
New Delhi: BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on Thursday appeared to target Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, which prompted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to call it an "unfair and false" attack on a disciplined civil servant.

"I think there a property deal case pending against him (Das) for assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations," Swamy tweeted on Thursday.

It was in reply to his twitter handle followers who had sought blacklisting of RBI Deputy Governor Urjit Patel and Das from RBI Governorship as well as sending Das back to his parent cadre Tamil Nadu.

Shortly thereafter, Jaitley, who is in China, tweeted, "An unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the Finance Ministry."

Jaitley had yesterday led a strong defence of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian after Swamy had attacked him, and rued how far politicians can go to attack those in government whose discipline and constraints of office restrain them from responding.

The Minister is in China to attend the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Board of Governor's meeting.
Kollam: Two suspected Bodo militants, who are believed to have been living in Kerala for some time, were arrested here on Thursday, police said.

The duo, hailing from Assam, was held in a joint operation by Kerala police and the military intelligence wing.

According to the state police, the duo had been living here in the guise of migrant labourers and they were tracked according to the request of the military intelligence.

"The military intelligence asked us to track them and we held them in a joint operation today. Interrogation is going on and we can confirm about their Bodo links only after that," Kollam city police commissioner S Satheesh Bino told PTI.

"It is all up to the military intelligence. Our duty was only to support them to track the suspects and hand them over to them," he said.

However, he did not divulge any further details of the arrested.

Sources said that both of them have been lodged in a police station here.
Stressing that the governments smart cities initiative was not meant only for a handful of rich people, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced that 10 cities in Maharashtra would be developed on the lines of the centre's Smart City programme

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, while inaugurating the Smart City Summit at Kalyan in Thane district, has said that 10 cities in the state would be developed on the lines of the Smart City programme of the union government.

Credible, efficient, transparent and inclusive planning, are the base for any smart city and these cities (to be developed) would be provided with the necessary funds, he added.

The chief minister further said that the Smart City concept initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Was not meant only for a handful of rich people but was meant for one and all. Unless and until all classes of the society participate, the city will not become smart. The investment made in the city will definitely be useful.

The state government will think positively, to implement cluster development for Kalyan-Dombivili on the lines of the one in Thane city, Fadnavis said.

The chief minister also revealed that Oracle had selected the twin cities of Kalyan-Dombivili, for implementation of its e-governance pilot project. The technology being used in Los Angeles, in the United States, would be used in Kalyan-Dombivili. In this connection, a team of state government officials would be visiting the firms headquarters in Bengaluru on June 22. A MoU will be inked with the company in July, he added.

In the next two years, citizens will not be required to go to any government office for their services. All the apps will be available on the mobile itself, he said.

On a related issue, Fadnavis added that hereafter, the civic bodies would not be given permission for dumping grounds. Instead, they should find ways and means to dispose of the waste scientifically, he said.

PTI
Giving a major push to clean energy, the AAP government on June 6, 2016, came out with an ambitious policy, announcing incentives and tax breaks to promote solar power and making it mandatory for government and public institutions to install rooftop solar panels.

The solar policy, finalised at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, aims to make Delhi a solar city, through generation of 1,000 megawatt of power by 2020, and taking it further to 2,000 MW by 2025.

The government said building bye-laws were amended for rooftop solar installations, up to a height of two metres.

The height of the installed solar panels, will not be counted towards the total height of the building as permitted by the building bye-laws, except near airports where building regulations issued by the Airport Authority of India take precedence, said a government official.

The official added that no approvals will be required from the municipal corporation or any other urban development bodies concerned, like the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), for putting up solar plants and any additional system for monitoring the performance of the solar plant in existing or new buildings.

Making Delhi a solar city, is part of our 70-point agenda. This policy, which is very progressive, will help in providing clean and green energy, said Kejriwal, pointing out that rooftop solar systems offer sustainable energy, environmental benefits, low gestation period and minimum transmission and distribution losses.

The policy outlines a combination of regulations, mandates, incentives, and tax breaks for the growth of rooftop solar power in the capital.

1)The policy mandates deployment of solar plants on all government-owned rooftops in the next five years.

2)It requires private power distribution companies to meet at least 75% of their solar renewable purchase obligation (RPO) within Delhi.

3)The government said it was talking to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council, for exempting electricity tax, which is currently 5% on solar power.

4)Government is in consultation with the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, to provide exemption on various other charges, such as wheeling, banking and transmission charges, for solar energy within Delhi.

5)The policy also exempts certification by electrical inspectors, for solar systems of up to 200 KWp and self-certification will be accepted.

The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Management Centre (EE&REM) of the power department, will be the nodal agency responsible for effective implementation of this policy in consultation with the state government, eligible consumers, the central government, other states and different stakeholders.

Benefits for consumers

Group net metering: To encourage solar plants on rooftops of buildings that cannot consume all of the energy generated locally, discoms will facilitate group net metering. This provision will maximise utilisation of rooftop space for solar energy generation for consumers with multiple buildings and service connections.

Virtual net metering: Also, to give access to the solar net metering facility, for consumers who do not have a suitable roof for installing a solar system (for example, residential consumers who live in apartments and consumers with shaded rooftops), there will be a facility of virtual net metering.

In virtual net metering, consumers can be beneficial owners of a part of a collectively owned solar system, whose energy will be fed into the grid through an energy meter and credited in the electricity bill of each participating consumer.

Generation-based incentives: The policy approves a non-capital subsidy model for implementation of the targets outlined by it. It provides for performance-based incentives or generation-based incentive of Rs 2 per unit, for domestic households coming forward for installation of solar panels, on a first come, first served basis. It will be applicable to solar plants which generate more than 1,100 units per KW per annum.

Delhi government will also facilitate capital subsidy (30% at present), provided by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, to domestic consumers.

PTI
The Delhi High Court has ruled that no service tax can be levied, in respect of the agreements entered into between buyers and builders for flats in an under-construction building in a housing project.

A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Vibhu Bakhru, however, noted that service tax could be levied on the amount charged by the builders, for preferential location of the flat, saying that it was based on the preferences of customers and amounted to value addition.

The order came on petitions filed by several persons who had entered into separate agreements with M/s Sethi Buildwell Pvt Ltd, to buy flats in a multi-storeyed group housing project developed by the builder in sector 76 in Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

The petitioners had moved the court against the levy of service tax on services in relation to construction of the complex, as defined under the Finance Act 1994, as well as the levy of service tax on preferential location charges (PLC).

Refund, with interest

The bench said that the government shall examine, whether the builder, in this case, has collected any service tax from the petitioners and if such amount has been deposited with it, the money shall be refunded to them with 6% interest.

We accept the petitioners contention that no service tax under section 66 of the Act, read with section 65 (105)(zzzh) of the Act, could be charged in respect of composite contracts, such as the ones entered into by the petitioners with the builder, the bench said.

The impugned explanation (inserted by virtue of Finance Act 2010), to the extent that it seeks to include composite contracts for purchase of units in a complex within the scope of taxable service, is set aside, it said.

Service tax on PLC to remain

Regarding service tax levied on preferential location, the bench said, We do not find any merit in the contention that there is no element of service involved, in the preferential location charges levied by a builder. We are unable to accept that such charges, relate solely to the location of land. Thus, preferential location charges are charged by the builder, based on the preferences of its customers. They are in one sense, a measure of additional value that a customer derives from acquiring a particular unit.

The bench noted that service tax cannot be levied on the value of undivided share of land acquired by a buyer of a dwelling unit, or on the value of goods which were incorporated in the project by a developer. It also said there was no machinery provision to ascertain the service element involved in the composite contract.

PTI
Washington: A truck loaded with 2.6 million dead bees made its final stop Wednesday: the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in downtown Washington.

It arrived after a two-week trip across the United States sponsored by a group calling itself Keep the Hives Alive.

James Cook, a Minnesota beekeeper, drove the truck carrying the dead bees all the way from California, hoping the action will emphasise the alarm over the death of bees in the United States.

Cook said despite having worked with bees for only five years, he's already experienced multiple bee die-offs and sees the need for "monumental" change to environmental policies affecting bees and other pollinators.

"Something really deep and concerning [has been] happening in the environment," Cook said. "It [is] really apparent we needed to pay a lot more attention to honeybees."

Bees are important because about 84 percent of the crops grown for human consumption  from fruits and vegetables to nuts and sunflowers  must be pollinated by bees and other insects to increase their yields and quality.

The 2.6 million dead bees were visible through clear plastic containers loaded onto the back of the truck that Cook drove. The Keep the Hives Alive organisers said they were only a portion of the the bees that died between April 2015 and April 2016 in the US alone.

Of the 2.8 million bee hives in the country, 840,000 of them were completely wiped out in that period, Cook said.

The US government has acknowledged the problem, which has been a cause of concern worldwide for more than a decade. The USDA defined the problem as colony collapse disorder in 2006 after receiving reports about large-scale bee deaths in the US.

According to a study supported by the Department of Agriculture (USDA), beekeepers in the US lost 44 percent of their colonies, or groups of hives, in the past year.

Environmentalists have long suspected pesticides are a major factor behind the bee die-offs, and Wednesday's protest sought to urge policymakers to take action to ban certain pesticides that are known to harm bee populations.

Activists attribute bee deaths to a widely used class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The EPA is currently conducting a study of the pesticides and confirmed in January that one of them, imidacloprid, harms bees.

The EPA has not officially proposed any restrictions for use of neonicotinoids, and beyond imidacloprid, has yet to release data on the other three neonicotinoids.

Activists are calling for immediate action to restrict all of them.

"What's happening today to pollinators is no different than what happened 50 years ago with the collapse of the osprey, bald eagle, and other bird and aquatic animal populations due to the use of DDT," said Scott Nash, chief executive of a small chain of organic food markets.

Nash, who spoke at the rally Wednesday, referred to a pesticide that was widely used in the US for decades until it was outlawed in 1972.

While the EPA has not said it would change current rules, it has said it would accelerate the review process for neonicotinoids.

In Europe officials are examining their own response to colony collapse disorder. The European Union banned neonicotinoids in 2013 over the same concerns linking the pesticides to bee deaths.

Scientists with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are currently reviewing the ban, which could potentially lead to a rollback of the ban.

Officials from the European Commission said Wednesday it was too early to tell what actions the review of data would bring. Results of the review not due to be presented until 2017.

"This review will be based not only on new studies submitted by applicants, but also on other publicly available scientific information," Enrico Brivio, a spokesman for the European Commission, said in an email to dpa. "On the basis of EFSA's analysis, the commission will consider whether further measures are needed and the way forward."

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment on the Keep the Hives Alive protest but said it was researching neonicotinoids to see if following the EU's lead would be effective.

The EPA also said other factors like bee pests and pathogens, nutrition, and bee breeding and genetics need to be taken into account.

Citing other factors influencing bee declines does not excuse neglecting action on pesticide control, said Madeleine Carnemark from the Center for Food Safety.

Carnemark said she hoped to emphasize the importance of reforming pesticide control in a meeting activists have with EPA officials Thursday.

"We need the EPA to see [that] we need action against [neonicotinoids] now," she said. "If we keep doing nothing, soon, it's going to be too late to try out anything."
In politics  as in everyday life  it is prudent to always downplay your setbacks in order to move on. And no one has done it any better than Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, in the last few years.

Always the one for complete confidentiality and an over-confident demeanor, she has braved many a crisis in the last four years, while never appearing to be shaken or cornered. But the sudden departure of her most trusted associate, Swami Prasad Maurya, has unnerved her to the extent that she not only levelled all sorts of allegations against him, but for the first time, referred to the practice of collective decision-making in her party.

Her admission at the press meet immediately after Maurya announced his decision was surprising, since all decisions in the BSP, so far, had always been referred to in the first person by Mayawati.

Maurya, the Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly, is a grassroots level politician who was responsible for the success of several big-ticket events in the BSP, and had been in the party since 1996. Prior to that, he had been with the Lok Dal and the Janata Dal. At present, he is an MLA from Padrauna, and has also been a minister in subsequent governments headed by Mayawati.

He wields considerable influence among the most backward Maurya community in eastern UP. However, events of the last few years indicate that the BSP has not been too accommodating towards the MBCs and many of them have quit the party  or have been expelled from it  citing their marginalization.

This section accounts for about 4 percent of the OBC vote share, which is politically important for all parties. For Maurya, the BJP too could have been a destination but the party already has the community covered with their newly-appointed state president Keshav Maurya.

There are indications now that Swami Prasad Maurya may join the Samajwadi Party, and be rewarded with a ministerial berth as well.

It is certainly a setback for the BSPs preparations ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, as it is a first in the state that the leader of a legislative party has quit the party itself amidst a flurry of allegations.

Insiders indicate that a section of BSP leaders had been questioning his ability ever since the party lost the 2012 Assembly election, followed by the debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. He had then been removed from the post of state party president, and replaced by Ram Achal Rajbhar.

The revelations made by both Maurya and Mayawati make for interesting reading in the background of the changing political environment in the state. Maurya has alleged that Mayawati has been auctioning party tickets for the 2017 polls, giving them to the highest bidder, and that she has strayed from the principles laid down by Dr Ambedkar, and BSP founder Kashiram. At the end of it, the predictable footnote was that he was feeling suffocated in the party and could not continue in it anymore.

Even though he had been a legislator from Padrauna  near Deoria  this time, the party had announced his candidature from Unchahar  closer to Lucknow  near Rae Bareli. In fact, Maurya had been asked not to visit Padrauna so as not to influence the chances of the official BSP nominee announced from the area. Maurya was known to by piqued by this.

An interesting aside that emerged a short while after Mauryas press conference was that he had recently got his house re-painted. It is customary for BSP leaders to have a predominant blue in the colour scheme of their clothes, homes, decor, etc. But Maurya chose to get the earlier blue colour of his house changed, triggering speculation that he might quit the BSP soon.

In her retaliatory press conference, Mayawati labeled Maurya as a habitual party hopper and said that he had done a favour to the BSP by quitting, as otherwise the party would have expelled him in a day or two.

She said that he had been demanding party tickets for himself and his children, and that this was not the BSP party policy. She also quipped that Maurya had perhaps eaten out of Mulayams plate and would feel comfortable in SP, since it was the norm there to give tickets to family members.

But the move came as a big blow to the internal communication system that Mayawati had established within her party. No leaders  regardless of position  are allowed to talk to the press, leave alone hold a press conference, without informing Mayawati. All documents meant for the press are cleared by her or persons deputed by her in her absence.

In Mauryas case, the preparation of a lengthy press release and the decision to hold a press conference went unnoticed by the BSP core team that reports to Mayawati. Also, it is for the first time that a senior leader of this stature has left the party, since in earlier such instances, Mayawati expelled such leaders before they could make a unilateral declaration of quitting. Examples are RK Chaudhary, Barkhu Ram Verma, Baburam Kushwaha, Akhilesh Das, Jugal Kishore etc.

Mauryas soft corner for the ruling SP  especially Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav  has been noticeable in the last two years. Not only has Maurya stood with the ruling partys stand on issues like Lok Ayukta, he has been sparing in his comments against the government of late.

On Wednesday too, when Maurya came out of his press conference, he was greeted by senior SP leader and minister Mohammad Azam Khan, who embraced him with a big smile and publicly made him an offer to join the SP. Incidentally, an expansion of Akhilesh Yadav's ministry is scheduled for June 27, and if Maurya obliges, he may be among those who take oath of office.
Hitting out against maverick BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday tweeted out that the MP's outburst against Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian is "an unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the Finance Ministry."

Swamy showed no sign of relenting even after Jaitley firmly backed the CEA in a press conference on Wednesday.

"Government has full confidence in CEA. His advice to government from time to time has been of great value," the finance minister had said.

In a brazen and direct attack on the finance minister Thursday afternoon, Swamy responded to reporters by saying, "I have nothing to do with what Jaitley says. I might talk with the party president (Amit Shah), PM (Narendra Modi)."

Earlier on Thursday, Swamy in a series of tweets even dragged the Prime Minister into the raging controversy.

https://twitter.com/Swamy39/status/745788018565521408

"If BJP Union govt says that we know all about AS but still he is an asset, then I will suspend my demand and wait for events to prove truth," the BJP leader tweeted.

https://twitter.com/Swamy39/status/745791148799725568

"If an Indian?, held patriotic, can advise a foreign nation where he works, to twist India's arm, is to be forgiven, then I suspend my demand," Swamy said in an apparent jibe to the government his party runs at the Centre.
Lucknow: Dropping enough hints that Samajwadi Party's doors were open for former BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday described him as "the right person in the wrong party".

"The fact that Swami Prasad Maurya was the right person in the wrong party has been amply proved," Yadav said, a day after the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly quit BSP accusing its leader Mayawati of auctioning party tickets for the 2017 Assembly election.

The Chief Minister was talking to mediapersons after a meeting of the state cabinet.

"Maurya is a strong leader. We have good relations. It is good that he left BSP," Yadav said.

Though the chief minister said that it was for Maurya to decide which party he would join, speculation is rife that he could be inducted into SP and might even get a berth in the council of ministers when it is expanded on Monday.

"Where he will go, it is up to him to take a decision," Yadav said to repeated questions on whether Maurya would join the ruling party and get a ministerial berth.

Attacking the BSP chief, Maurya had said on Wednesday, "Tickets are being openly auctioned by Mayawati on a large scale. She is not making the right choice of candidates. Tickets are not only on sale in the party, they are being auctioned."

The 62-year-old leader said he felt "suffocated" in the BSP and could not continue in the party any longer.

Hours after his announcement, Mayawati said he was a "habitual party-hopper" and she would have expelled him within a few days for insisting on tickets not only for him but also to his son and daughter as BSP does not promote dynastic politics.

Mayawati had said SP would be the right party for him as it encourages dynasty, giving tickets to sons and grandsons and looking at others only after no one in the family is left out.
After RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian, the next target for BJP legislator Subramanian Swamy seems to be Shaktikanta Das, the Secretary of Economic Affairs.

In a tweet today morning Swamy alleged that there is a property deal case pending against Das for helping P Chidambaram "swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations".

He said as a reply to tweet that Das should be sent back to Tamil Nadu as he served the country a lot.

@cominvestor @devforpeace: I think there a property deal case pending against him for assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations  Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 23, 2016

Interestingly, the common factor in all the three targets of Swamy is RBI. While Rajan is the present RBI governor whose term is about to end in September, the other two are supposed to be the candidates being considered for his replacement.

Das had earlier served as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Government of India; Special Commissioner and Commissioner of Revenue Administration, Tamil Nadu; and Secretary, Industries Department, Tamil Nadu.

A 1980 Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, Das had also been Secretary, Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizers, Government of India. He was also CMD of Titan Industries during June 2006 to December 2007.

He served as chairman and director of Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd from 24 May 2006 to 3 November 2007, according to his executive profile on Bloomberg.

On Tuesday, Swamy had targeted Arvind Subramanian saying he had had urged the US to initiate disputes against India before the World Trade Organization. Subramanian had pointed out to the fact that pharmaceutical companies in India sought frivolous patents and then sought extensions on these patents by `tweaking existing drugs, which they then termed as innovations. He also alleged that the CEA was hand-in-glove with Congress to become rigid on GST clauses.

However, finance minister Arun Jaitley made it clear that the government has full confidence in the CEA and his advice has been of great value. Jaitley also launched a counter attack on Swamy saying that there is a question of to what extent politicians should attack those in government who cannot respond. This is a direct warning to Swamy that dont mess with good officials.

Although unrepentant, the BJP MP today said that he will "suspend" his demand for sacking the chief economic advisor if the government considers him patriotic despite his attempts in the past of trying to twist India's arm.
In the previous Budget session of Parliament  when there was pandemonium in the Rajya Sabha over Subramanian Swamy's provocative remarks against Sonia Gandhi  one of the prominent leaders from the Congress benches had cautioned the BJP that, 'today the ruling party members may be relishing but wait for another day and it would be their time to rue over Swamy's nomination as an MP'.

The Congress leader's prophecy proved to be right. It is the BJP's time to find cover. The 'asset' in Rajya Sabha, who could take on the Sonia Gandhi-Rahul Gandhi duo and the entire Congress cadre with his one-liner facts  which he gathers through unknown sources and research  has suddenly turned into a liability of sorts.

His recent disparaging remarks on chief economic advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian  based on some purported remarks that the CEA had made to the US Congress in 2013  with the two-word closing punch of "sack him", have come as a surprise bombing, that too from within the BJP.

Its ripple effects would last long in North Block at Raisina hill, the seat of power of the finance ministry; its side effects will echo in the South Block as well, where the Prime Minister's Office is housed.

The BJP didn't know how to handle Swamy's latest salvo aimed against Arvind Subramanian, a person who was appointed as CEA with dignity by his own government, and was even being considered for the post of RBI governor.

The only thing, then, that the BJP could do was to distance itself with Swamy's statement. The idea was to contain the damage. Party national secretary Shrikant Sharma said that Swamy's remarks did not reflect the party's opinion, and that it could be his own view.

An hour later, the finance minister decided to brief an official press conference about the decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting. Ravi Shankar Prasad was also present to address the media on the subject, so Jaitley's presence as such was not really required.

But he came there nonetheless, knowing very well that the media's interest would be in seeking out a headline  on how he responds to Swamy's surprise attack on his CEA. He came prepared for that, perhaps only to make the government's and his own position clear.

A charge of this magnitude, that too from someone from inside the ruling clan, could not go unchallenged by the government. It was important for the leadership to put a lid on the controversy to any extent possible.

Jaitley rejected Swamy's charge without getting into the specific charges levelled by the Rajya Sabha MP against the CEA, he said, "The government has full confidence in chief economic advisor Mr Subramanian...His suggestions from time to time are of great value...Party has said that we don't share Mr Swamy's view...Constraint of their offices prevents some people (the CEA) from responding."

The leadership in Modi government was obviously aware of Subramanian's opinion on IPR issues before he was appointed to the CEA post in October 2014.

The BJP could manage to deal with Swamy's diatribe against RBI chief Raghuram Rajan, though it was mindful of the fact that the MP's statements had placed the party in bad light, and polarised a number of economists and influential writers against the government while turning Rajan into a super hero.

The BJP was not in agreement with some of the actions and statements made by Rajan but still it didn't want to invite unnecessary controversy and had the thought of giving a graceful exit to him. Thus, BJP president Amit Shah was categorical in asserting that Swamy's views were not the party's views. Jaitley and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu too negated Swamy's statements.

That Swamy and Jaitley don't share a cordial relationship is known to everyone. The list of Swamy's grudges against Jaitley is long  including the fact that Jaitley blocked his candidature to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Delhi.

When Swamy was nominated as Rajya Sabha MP, Jaitley was not kept in the loop. Remember, Jaitley is the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha. But on the floor of the House, Jaitley stood for Swamy and strongly defended his right to speak on a subject in the manner he so chose to speak.

Swamy was taken to be a Parivar (the RSS) nominee in Rajya Sabha. He made it no secret that he wanted the BJP to nominate him to Parliament and give him a ministerial position. When Swamy was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, there were many in the BJP who were apprehensive of his unhindered, outspoken character whereby he could target anyone unmindful of its consequences on the party.

But then again, there was broad unanimity on the fact that his commitment to the Hindutva cause was unflinching, and that his commitment to fight it out against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi was absolute  which was liked by the RSS.

That, however, had still left open the question as to who will tame Swamy, if need be. That question is being raised again now. Will it be Prime Minister Modi, or party president Amit Shah, or someone from the RSS that will get to do the honours.

Only two days ago, while pulling an 'Arvind Kejriwal' on Kejriwal at Kejriwal's residence, Swamy had said that his next target after Raghuram Rajan (who would vacate his post as RBI governor in September) was Arvind Kejriwal. He stated that he was in the process of collecting facts to expose the admission of the Delhi chief minister to IIT Khargpur on considerations other than merit. But within the next 48 hours, he turned his guns to CEA Arvind Subramanian.

From the same venue at Civil Lines  the official residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal  Swamy had taken on Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, claiming that he still took directions from Sonia Gandhi and the Congress party. That was contrary to BJP's unofficial position.

Again, Jung is perceived to have developed a proximity with Jaitley. In Jung's case, the BJP leadership is generally happy with the way he has kept Kejriwal under constant pressure. He has mostly done it the way that BJP would have liked. More so, Jung has proved to be an asset for two reasons  first, that he is a Muslim and second, that his professed views lean to the left and not to the right of centre. A supposed Leftist Muslim taking on Kejriwal is always good for the BJP, it couldn't have asked for more. Swamy sought to disturb that arrangement.

Swamy may not be able to damage Arvind Subramanian's position, but the Modi government simply cannot afford to be seen working on Swamy's diktats. But the Rajya Sabha MP can surely dent the image of the party he has so painstakingly striven to be a part of.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs move to reshuffle his ministers has led to Malikayya Guttedar deciding to resign from the state assembly and the party, reports The Hindu. The six-time MLA from Afzalpur was reportedly upset on being over looked for a position in the state Cabinet and announced on Wednesday that he will be quitting his posts.

According to The Hindu, Guttedar stated that 40 "like-minded" legislators, who were meted out the same treatment, would send their resignations to the Assembly Speaker.

A report by Deccan Chronicle, says Guttedar would now focus his energy to defeat Congress. He also targeted the chief minister and said that if Congress has to stay in power in the state then both Siddaramaiah and his ministers need to go. The sooner the high command realises this, the better, otherwise Karnataka would become Congress-mukt," he was quoted as saying.

Guttedar is not the first minister to resign due to dissatisfaction from the Cabinet reshuffle. Earlier on Monday, a day after the reshuffle took place, actor-turned-politician MH Ambareesh, who lost his Cabinet position, resigned from the state assembly, according to DNA. Ambareesh was the state minister for housing. Srinivas Prasad too expressed his disappointment after losing his Revenue portfolio and called Siddaramaiah "the most inefficient chief minister".
The riddle of William Wordsworths The Child is Father of the Man continues to remain mysterious, even more so in Uttar Pradesh where you just dont know who is in command  the son (Akhilesh Yadav) or the father (Mulayam Singh)?

Apparently, the government in Lucknow is run by Akhilesh Yadav while almost everything thats associated with the ruling Samajwadi Party is controlled indisputably by Mulayam Singh. The dividing line between the party and the government, however, gets blurred with the existence of too many wheels within wheels in both the entities that, more often than not, get active causing confusion in the corridors of power. And you are bound to ask yet again: who the hell runs the show here?

Otherwise, how on earth can it be possible for a minister to successfully lobby for a tie-up between the ruling party and a mafia-infested political outfit without the prior knowledge and approval of the chief minister? Like it or not, this is precisely what had happened in the case of the Samajwadi Party-Quami Ekta Dal merger on Tuesday. The chief minister didnt know that despite his well publicised aversion to the likes of DP Yadav and Mukhtar Ansari, his ministers including Balram Yadav and uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav would strike a deal with the QED.

He was kept in the dark. And by the time he came to know about the deal, it was perhaps too late. In anger, he sacked from his council of ministers Balram Yadav who had played a key role in the merger between the two parties. But Shivpal Yadav, who presided over the merger, remained unscathed. Who can, in the current scenario, even dare to touch Mulayam Singhs brother? The chief minister can, at best, be a passive onlooker under the circumstances.

The deal was concluded with much fanfare at the headquarters of the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow. A beaming Afzal Ansari, president of the QED, said: We are all secular parties and we shall see to it that the secular votes do not get divided in the ensuing election. And on his part, Shivpal Singh Yadav, welcomed with both arms what he described as homecoming of the QED.

Founded by Mukhtar Ansari, the QED has been an eastern UP based political party. Its clout over the Muslim masses is known to all. The party, which had put up its candidates in 43 constituencies in 2012 elections, has two MLAs  Mukhtar Ansari and Sibgatullah Ansari. It is significant that Mukhtar is still in jail because of his alleged involvement in the murder of BJP MLA, Krishnanand Rai.

Those who observe how things move in the SP from close quarters know it for sure that the chief minister, who loves to be seen to be following the development agenda in the state, often looks dwarfed before the seniors such as Shivpal Singh and Azam Khan. The otherwise invisible extended arm of Mulayam Singh is omnipresent in the corridors of power. You can feel it. And everyone knows about it.

But, to be fair to Mulayam, you cant overly criticise the SP for its moves to strike potent alliances with elections less than a year away. The party is trying to cobble up an electoral understanding with Ajit Singh in the Jat-Muslim belt in Western UP. And in the east, it has already struck a deal with the QED to ensure that its minority vote-bank remains intact. After all, everything is fair in love, war and politics.

Lots of unforeseen things are happening in the Mayawati camp too. Swami Prasad Maurya, leader of opposition in the state assembly and national general secretary of the Bahujan Samaj Party, has turned a rebel. He resigned from his party post all of a sudden on Wednesday. He accused Mayawati of selling party tickets. In retaliation, Mayawati organised a press conference to attack Maurya. She said: I am happy to note that he has left the party on his own. Otherwise, we would have expelled him.

Not a thing about Mauryas next moves is known. But a section in the Samajwadi Party seemed to believe that he might join Mulayams forces sooner rather than later. And dont be surprised if he is made a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav cabinet this very month. If this happens, the father and the son duo in Lucknow would be seen as swimming together in perfect harmony for a change.
KABUL On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Only bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country struggling with growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and economic challenges.

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

"This is how we begin our day - with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes," said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling centre of Kabul. "I don't know what to do or where to go."

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 220,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992.

Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its constitution, drawn up after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered.

"The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders," Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

"Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day," he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 200,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

HOSTILITY

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium.

As the capital has expanded in recent years, the neighbourhood has become densely populated and some newer residents oppose Hindu and Sikh cremations, a practice foreign to Muslims, who bury their dead.

"When they burn the body the smell makes our family sick and we don't want this to happen here," said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

The Sikhs say local Muslim hardliners have stirred up hostility against them, and the community now requires police protection for their funeral rituals.

"They throw stones and bricks at us, at the bodies of the dead, whenever there is a funeral," said Avtar Singh, pointing to a newly built house next to the crematorium.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs.

"We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim," Abid added.

"We have allocated them a place to burn their bodies because inside the city people complained about the smell, but they did not agree," he told Reuters.

Harassment is also common.

Jasmeet Singh, eight, stopped going to school because of what he said was daily harassment. He and other children from the community now either go to private schools or study inside the temple.

"While I was at school, other students were making fun of me. They were removing my turban, hitting me and calling me Hindu and kaffir (infidel)," said Jasmeet Singh, as other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, their spiritual homeland, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go.

"When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan," said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. "We are lost between both worlds."

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Indians are unusually preoccupied with the events unfolding at a small yet important meeting in Seoul: The Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary meeting.

Up for discussion will be the membership process for countries not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. China insists that this agenda item does not focus in India's application but considers the establishment of a clear set of guidelines for all future applicants  Beijing's code for its client, Islamabad.

India has been trying to gain admission to the NSG ever since the historic India-US nuclear deal to gain access to nuclear material, equipment, know-how, and technology for use in its civilian nuclear energy programme. Ironically, the nuclear cartel was set up in November 1975 in response to India's peaceful nuclear explosion a year-and-a-half earlier. Yet, the agreement with the United States on nuclear commerce ended four decades of India's pariah status and brought the country in from the nuclear cold.

The NSG waiver for India in 2008 allowed the South Asian country to buy nuclear reactors and uranium from the international market but still kept several dual-use technologies out of reach. Delhi hopes that membership to the group will allow it a role in global nuclear governance and perhaps, even the latest in enrichment and reprocessing technology that could be very useful for its fast-breeder reactor programme.

Not all countries were pleased with the waiver given to India.

They felt that such ad hoc and exceptional measures weakened the non-proliferation regime as a whole. The international community would come to regard the group as merely an elite cartel trying to maintain its technical superiority. Another strand of opposition  though it is never worded as such  comes specifically from China: India is not its rival but an inconvenience of concern nonetheless, and India's international elevation would put its client Pakistan at a disadvantage. Opposition to Indian membership now comes from these same quarters.

That Beijing's position is purely political and hypocritical is blatantly obvious. For a country that is so committed to the process and mission of the NSG, it sold two reactors to Pakistan in 2010 in violation of the body's guidelines. Two years later, Pakistan announced that it is considering acquiring two more reactors from China. Bejing argued that these reactor sales were being grandfathered into a 2003 agreement  before China had joined the NSG  between itself and Islamabad and therefore do not come under the nuclear cartel's purview. Although India protested at this perfidy, the NSG did little to censure China. Substantial assistance to Islamabad's nuclear weapons programme before it joined the NPT indicates a pattern in Beijing's diplomatic behaviour.

The non-proliferation lobby has grabbed on to China's nuclear obstinacy at the NSG and also supported a process-driven membership protocol. This process should be guided, they suggest, by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. Passed under Chapter VII of the UN charter, the resolution is legally binding upon all members and lays down the obligations to curtail the spread of atomic, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction. An Indian waiver is offensive to the institutional memory of a group created in response to the Pokhran PNE. The irony that the standard suggested  UNSCR 1540  was created in response to the revelations of Pakistan's nuclear black-marketeering in 2003 seems to have missed their attention.

Interestingly, Chinese diplomats insist that they have not opposed India's entry into the NSG. Delhi has clung to this statement as hope that its bid is not dead in the water. After all, South Block cannot be seen to be participating in its own keen. China is indeed holding open a door, but for Pakistan when the day comes that the international community will be willing to move on from AQ Khan. Indian optimism has no cause here.

The question arises whether India's efforts to join the nuclear cartel are worth the trouble. After all, the tightening of controls on enrichment and reprocessing technology, now available to only NPT countries, in Noordwijk in 2011 leaves little by way of material gain for India. The 2008 waiver gives India all that it can hope for in the near future. The BJP must also come to terms with the fact that the country's nuclear industry could not capitalise on the Indo-US nuclear deal in large part because of the liability law it pushed through when it was in Opposition.

There are, however, two gains to be had from membership: One, that discriminatory regulations will not be passed in the future. The 2011 ruling was in fact a backtracking from the India-US understanding of 2008. And two, India would be on a firmer footing to propose the idea of plutonium trade for its thorium programme that has been waiting in the wings. An early adoption of thorium technology would give India enormous energy independence and security.

China's stubbornness at Seoul has been predicted to damage relations between the two Asian giants. There have also been reports in the Indian media that some of the NSG countries are considering a Plan B in the face of Chinese obstructionism. This will never happen  if they could not condemn China's blatant violation of NSG guidelines in 2010, there is no chance that they will do anything now that may effectively blow up their precious cartel.

Delhi must realise that China has never been its friend or even a competitor, but an enemy.

Its transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan, not to mention its non-cooperation at the United Nations in designating Masood Azhar as a terrorist ought to have been clear. India's only option is to develop the technology it needs indigenously as it did cryogenic engine technology.
Washington: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders admitted that he will not be Democratic candidate for the White House as he indirectly recognised Hillary Clinton's victory in the race for the party's presidential nomination for the first time in public.

"It doesn't appear that I'm going to be the nominee, so I'm not going to determine the scope of the convention in July in which the party nominee will be officially named," Sanders said on Wednesday during an interview with C-SPAN TV channel.

The Vermont senator, 74, advises Clinton to choose "the most progressive candidate that she can find" for vice president, while several media published a short list of candidates for the position which excluded Sanders, EFE news reported.

"It would be a terrible mistake for her to go to a candidate who has roots from Wall Street or has been backed by Wall Street," underlined Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, who campaigns against the excesses of large corporations.

On 14 June, the Democratic presidential hopeful met with Clinton at a hotel in Washington near the White House, but he still has not announced his endorsement of the former US Secretary of State.

The Senator has not explicitly suspended his campaign, arguing that he wishes to continue until the party's convention in Philadelphia slated for 2 July to voice his political agenda.

Sanders has also offered to help defeat the unofficial Republican nominee, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, in the November elections.

Democratic leaders such as US president Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have officially endorsed Clinton as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the White House following her victory in the California and New Jersey primaries on 7 June.

Sanders praised the intelligence of the former First Lady but stressed that "there are areas where we have strong disagreements".
The D-day has arrived - the day Britons will decide whether to stay on or leave the European Union.

According to a Reuters report, the 'Vote Leave' and 'UK stronger in EU' camps are neck and neck - 45:44 percent in the last poll published by Opinium.

The vote, which echoes the rise of populism, will shape the future of Europe. A victory for "out" could unleash turmoil on financial markets.

A vote to exit the European Union in the referendum could leave Britain's economy more than 5 percent smaller by 2019 than if it stays in the 28-nation club, said the International Monetary Fund last week.

In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip termed the possible exit of the UK from EU as "the starkest repudiation yet of the postwar consensus favoring ever-deeper global integration".

"A further unraveling would undermine global growth prospects already clouded by aging populations and miserable productivity," he said in the article.

Indeed a decision to exit will have a deep impact on the global economy and in turn on India.

Here's a low down on what Brexit means for India and how the country is dealing with it:

India-UK connection: A note by Deloitte in May said India is the third largest source of FDI to the UK in terms of numbers of projects, with 122 projects encompassing inward investment in the last financial year, an increase of 65 percent from the previous year, which lead to the creation of 7,730 jobs and protection of 1,620 jobs. According to the consultancy firm, key sectors attracting Indian investment include healthcare, agritech, food, and drink. "There are an estimated 800 Indian owned businesses in the UK, including companies like Tata Motors, with more than 110,000 employees. Further, the UK is also Indias largest G20 investor," it said.

IANS, meanwhile, says that Britain ranks 12th in terms of India's bilateral trade with individual countries. It is also among just seven in 25 top countries with which India enjoys a trade surplus.

"India invests more in the UK than in the rest of Europe combined, emerging as the UK's third largest FDI investor. Access to European markets is therefore a key driver for Indian companies coming to the UK. Anything that lessens this attractiveness may have a bearing on future investment decisions. It is important also to ensure continued border-free access to the rest of Europe for the many hundreds of existing Indian firms that have base in the UK," Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has been quoted as saying in the IANS report.

So clearly, India will see a major impact, if the UK indeed decides to leave the EU.

Forex outflow: One of the major impact is going to be the outflow of dollars. If the UK decides to exit, foreign funds are likely to move out of the riskier markets like India. What is required in such a scenario is forex reserves. India's foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at $363.46 billion for the week ended 3 June.

The finance ministry said on Wednesday the country has sufficient foreign exchange reserves to handle any impact. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said the central bank will infuse whatever liquidity is needed into the Indian market to keep it "well behaved".

On Monday, after RBI governor Raghuram Rajan made his intention clear that he wouldn't serve a second term at the central bank, the rupee had fallen to a month low. The RBI's intervention by selling dollars had averted a deeper decline. However, many analysts expect the rupee to decline further.

"We expect the RBI intervention to smooth any INR volatility. In case of BREXIT later this week, it would likely allow any US Dollar strength to play out. Our Asia FX strategists expect the INR to depreciate to Rs 68.5/USD in September from Rs67.3/USD today," Bank of America Merill Lynch said on Monday.

Impact on companies: Nasscom recently said a Brexit will have a negative impact on the $108 billion Indian IT sector in the short term. However, it said the exact nature and extent of the impact will emerge over a longer period of two years or more.

"An initial analysis indicates that the impact on India's technology sector may be mixed; clearly negative in the short term and harder to discern in the longer term with either scenario having some positive and some negative points," Nasscom said.

However, leading IT firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies have not commented on the issue yet. Tech Mahindra, meanwhile, said the company will "wait and see what the outcome of the referendum is" and then assess the situation.

With the pound expected to fall 20 percent in case of a Brexit, Indian companies with sizeable presence in the UK will have to bear the brunt.

A report in the Deccan Chronicle says the stocks that would face turmoil include that of Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, Bharat Forge, Motherson Sumi, Infosys. Hindalco, Wockhardt and Mindtree. Apart from these, the Indian Depository Receipts of StanChart are also likely to get impacted negatively.

Jaguar Land Rover, Britain's biggest carmaker and Tata Motors subsidiary, estimates its annual profit could be cut by 1 billion pounds or $1.47 billion by the end of the decade if Britain leaves the European Union, said a Reuters report.

As Deloitte explains in the note, one of the key factors, among others, that attracts Indian enterprises and their investment into the UK is the gateway that it provides to the EU.

"Majority of Indian businesses chose to locate their European offices in the UK, to gain the ease of operating in the UK and avail the benefits while still remaining a part of Europe. Removing this gateway would be problematic for Indian businesses in the UK, who may choose to relocate and direct investment someplace else," it said.

Sebi's preparedness: Sebi and stock exchanges have beefed up their surveillance mechanism to deal with any excessive volatility. The domestic capital market has a robust surveillance and risk management framework in place and it has been beefed up to deal with any eventuality emanating from the 'Brexit' referendum, a senior official said.

The official said Sebi and the bourses would keep a close tab on manipulators looking to exploit the volatile trends expected in stocks and derivatives, including those linked to the rupee's movement against other foreign currencies. A strict vigil would also be kept on brokers, portfolio managers and other market intermediaries for any attempts to lure small retail investors into promises of hefty gains from the futures and options trading, especially in banking stocks and indices, the official added.

With inputs from agencies

Data support Kishor Kadam
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Page said Thursday that heavy rain in London may affect the vote, because the British capital is seen as a "remain" stronghold.

The poll of 1,592 people was conducted for the Evening Standard newspaper and was completed Wednesday night.

Polling firm Ipsos MORI says the "remain" camp enjoyed a four-point lead ahead of the vote. But the polling firm's chief executive, Ben Page, says 13 percent of those polled said they still might change their minds.

An opinion poll conducted on the eve of Britain's referendum shows a narrow lead for those who want Britain to remain a part of the European Union.

The Independent says that the result can be expected in the early hours of the morning -- sometime between 5 am and 6 am. But you can get a likely indication of what the result will be.

She noted that an already-scheduled EU summit starting next Tuesday will give countries "the opportunity to discuss all together and calmly how we continue to implement our agenda.

Merkel said after meeting her Austrian counterpart in Berlin on Thursday that she doesn't favour discussing the consequences in small groups of EU countries. "Overall, I think discussions must now be continued with 28 (countries) if possible and otherwise with all countries  that would be 27  but my hopes are pinned on it possibly being able to remain 28."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the European Union should respond in a calm and inclusive way to whatever result emerges from the British referendum on EU membership.

With just about six million of an expected 16 million votes counted, the result was effectively a 50-50 split  but "remain" was underperforming analysts' expectations... ( read more here )

The pound initially soared as polls closed and two opinion surveys put "remain" ahead and two leading supporters of the "leave" campaign said it appeared the pro-EU side had won. But it then suffered its biggest fall in years, plummeting from about $1.50 to almost $1.40 as results began to show stronger-than-expected support for quitting the bloc.

London: The British pound seesawed wildly Friday and betting markets dramatically shortened the odds on Britain leaving the European Union as increasingly mixed signals challenged earlier market anticipation of a narrow victory for "remain."

According to the BBC, voters came out in full force to vote whether UK remains in the European Union or not. UK-wide turnout was 72 percent.

BBC forecasts Leave has won the referendum and the United Kingdom will quit the European Union. Around 70 percent of votes have been counted.

The UK's departure from the European Union is almost certain, with shockwaves hitting stock markets across the world. This comes a day after UK Independence Party (Ukip) leader Nigel Farage has pocketed a lion's share of the credit for the referendum actually taking place...

"The British people have voted to leave the EU and their will must be respected. The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered. There can be no doubt about the result. Across the world people have been watching the choice that Britain has made. This will require strong, determined and committed leadership. I am very proud to have been Prime Minister of this country for six years. I have held nothing back. The british people have made a very clear decision to I think the country requires fresh leadership. I do not think I can be the captain to take the country to its next destination. In my view I think we should have a new prime minister in place by the start of the Conservative conference in October."

British stocks are plunging as the market opens as investors scramble to react to the news. The pound has hit a 31-year low.

He says he will resign by the time of the Conservative party conference in the fall.

Cameron says there can be no doubt about the result of Thursday's historic vote but that he is not the "captain" that will steer the ship through difficult negotiations with the EU.

Prime Minister David Cameron says he will resign by the fall and insists the British people's will must be respected after voters chose to leave the 28-nation European Union.

Cameron's voice broke as he finished his speech, watched on by his wife Samantha outside Number 10. The Cabinet will meet on Monday and a timetable for him stepping down will be drawn up.

"The British people have voted to leave the EU and their will must be respected. The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered. There can be no doubt about the result. Across the world people have been watching the choice that Britain has made. This will require strong, determined and committed leadership. I am very proud to have been Prime Minister of this country for six years. I have held nothing back. The british people have made a very clear decision to I think the country requires fresh leadership. I do not think I can be the captain to take the country to its next destination. In my view I think we should have a new prime minister in place by the start of the Conservative conference in October."

British stocks are plunging as the market opens as investors scramble to react to the news. The pound has hit a 31-year low.

He says he will resign by the time of the Conservative party conference in the fall.

Cameron says there can be no doubt about the result of Thursday's historic vote but that he is not the "captain" that will steer the ship through difficult negotiations with the EU.

Prime Minister David Cameron says he will resign by the fall and insists the British people's will must be respected after voters chose to leave the 28-nation European Union.

Cameron's voice broke as he finished his speech, watched on by his wife Samantha outside Number 10. The Cabinet will meet on Monday and a timetable for him stepping down will be drawn up.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, told Radio 4's Today programme: "Of course it's extremely sad news and I would have preferred him to stay on to help make this decision work but it's his decision and I think it's the honourable and decent thing to do. He lost the argument in the referendum campaign and it does answer your question as to who is best placed to take this renegotiation forward." Fallon added, however, that "it's too early to speculate" on who will replace Mr Cameron.

Angela Smith, a Labour MP: "Labour needs now to show that it can offer constructive opposition in what is going to be a period of terrible political and economic instability for the country. We need leadership that will do that and commit to the very difficult task of helping to unite a very seriously divided nation."

"David Cameron has become the latest Conservative leader to fall victim to his partys dangerous obsession with Europe. The Conservatives political maneuvering has taken our country to the brink, and today we have toppled over the edge."

Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron said the result of the referendum left Cameron no choice but to resign. In a statement he added: In this immediate period, the government must act quickly to steady the economy, reassure the markets, and immediately set a new course.

"This is a momentous and historic decision and we respect the wishes of the British people," Turnbull told reporters in Devonport.

But he said the global uncertainty and instability the decision would cause underscored the need for Australians to re-elect his conservative coalition at elections on 2 July.

Reacting to Britain's exit from the European Union, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Australians that Britain's decision to leave the European Union was no cause "to be alarmed."

"The Dutch people deserve a referendum as well. The Party for Freedom consequently demands a referendum on NExit, a Dutch EU exit," Wilders said earlier.

"I don't believe there's much interest in a referendum about it," Rutte said when asked about the eurosceptic Wilders' earlier call for a so-called "NExit", shortly after Britain voted to leave the EU.

Rutte, who has been an ardent supporter for Britain to remain within the 28-nation bloc, also refuted far-right leader Geert Wilders' call for a referendum to leave the EU.

"Firstly it's a disappointing result. It's also a stimulus to reform the EU," Rutte told Dutch media, shortly before leaving for Brussels to meet with the EU's top officials.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday said he was disappointed by Britain's decision to leave the EU, but said it should be seen as an incentive to carry out reforms in Brussels.

"We expect the President will have an opportunity to speak to Prime Minister Cameron over the course of the next day, and we will release further comment as soon as appropriate," it added.

"The President has been briefed on the incoming returns in the UK referendum, and he will continue to be updated by his team as the situation warrants," the White House said in a statement.

US President Barack Obama is expected to speak to British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday following Britain's vote to leave the European Union, the White House said.

He says there has been "extensive contingency planning" and adds: "the Bank of England will not hesitate to take additional measures as required as markets adjust and as the UK economy moves forward."

He admits it "will take some time" for Britain to establish new relationships with Europe and the rest of the world, adding "some market and economic volatility can be expected as this process evolves. But we are well prepared for this."

"Inevitably there will be a period of uncertainty and adjustment following this result, but as the Prime Minister said just this morning, there'll be no initial change in the way our people can travel, in the way our goods can move, or the way our services can be sold," he tells a press conference.

The Bank of England "stands ready to provide" 250 billion to support the UK economy, its governor Mark Carney says.

Let's not turn our back on our neighbours. We must work together to meet the challenges of our time. #LabourInForBritain #EUref

Corbyn has been a vocal supporter of 'remain' and has maintained that one must not "turn our back on our neighbours. We must work together to meet the challenges" of current times.

Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has said that he won't resign despite the UK deciding to leave the European Union.

Twitter is quite unhappy with Britain's choice to leave the European Union. Memes, gifs are floating around encapsulating what's actually going on in their mind. Here's a compilation:

He has flown in to attend the ceremonial re-opening of his refurbished Trump Turnberry golf course on the southwest coast, where coach-loads of protesters are planning to greet him.

"I think it's a great thing, I think it's going to be great. I think it's a fantastic thing," Trump tells reporters as he touches down by helicopter in Ayrshire.

Donald Trump shares his views on Britain's vote as he lands in Scotland for his first international trip since becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee:

In a landmark referendum, Britain on Friday decided to leave European Union and be on its own.

According to a Reuters report, the 'Vote Leave' and 'UK stronger in EU' camps are neck and neck - 45:44 percent in the last poll published by Opinium. The vote, which echoes the rise of populism, will shape the future of Europe. A victory for "out" could unleash turmoil on financial markets.

A vote to exit the European Union in the referendum could leave Britain's economy more than 5 percent smaller by 2019 than if it stays in the 28-nation club, said the International Monetary Fund last week. In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip termed the possible exit of the UK from EU as "the starkest repudiation yet of the postwar consensus favoring ever-deeper global integration".

"A further unraveling would undermine global growth prospects already clouded by aging populations and miserable productivity," he said in the article. Indeed a decision to exit will have a deep impact on the global economy and in turn on India.

Voting gets personal

Breaking down in tears, Anthony Dunn recalled being branded a traitor and told he should leave the country for campaigning for Britain to stay in the European Union (EU) ahead of Thursday's vote. After a campaign filled with confusing and often misleading claims, the 58-year-old Londoner is among many Britons horrified at the way the run-up to the historic referendum has divided their society.

"The most shocking thing about this entire referendum is how deeply personal it has become and how immensely hurtful," Dunn told AFP after attending a television debate. Shaking with anger, he blamed Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, who pressed for the referendum and have led the rival campaigns.

"I am appalled at what the Tories have done to this country. They are ripping us apart," he said. Both sides of the EU debate have accused each other of lies and scaremongering, dubbing each other "Project Fear" and "Project Hate" respectively, and both were criticised by independent bodies for misrepresenting facts.

The often aggressive tone of the debate has caused disquiet in many quarters, particularly after the murder of pro-European lawmaker Jo Cox last week, but political analysts are expecting a high turnout. "While negative campaigning can put some people off, it also mobilises people," said Paul Whiteley, professor of government at the University of Essex.

"Everybody, even if they don't understand this or feel confused, think it's important," he told AFP. Passions are high as the debate has focused on two key issues  the risk that leaving could cause an economic shock, or the unwelcome prospect of further mass migration from other EU countries if Britain stays in the bloc.

Britons in general have no great love of the EU and for most people in the past decade it has been a side issue. Research by Ipsos Mori published this month found significant misconceptions on issues such as the level of EU inward investment  which was underestimated  to the numbers of EU citizens living in Britain -- strongly overestimated.

Polling experts say the campaign has in fact made little difference to public opinion on which way to vote, with the polls close since January with a few brief exceptions.

A Sky News online poll on Wednesday found that 75 percent of respondents did not think the campaigns had been helpful, with 40 percent even saying they had been actively unhelpful.

'Fears and emotion'

Sara Hobolt, a professor in European studies at the London School of Economics, said few voters would have been enlightened by the campaign. "It has become very negative and quite focused on people's fears and emotion, as opposed to trying to give a more nuanced set of information about what the EU is about," she told AFP.

The emphasis on the economy and immigration has given both sides a clear narrative but at the risk of excluding information on other issues, Hobolt said. "It's hard to sift through the information and find out what the actual facts are," agreed Daniel Worwood, a 25-year-old engineering PhD student from northwest England who is backing "Leave".

Things are not helped by the fact that the main political parties are themselves divided on the referendum, although Conservative leader Cameron and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn both back "Remain".



Divisive impact

Amid the confusion there is also concern about the divisive impact of the campaign, in particular the relentless focus on immigration of those backing a Brexit. The Daily Mirror, which supports a "Remain" vote, has described it as "the most divisive, vile and unpleasant political campaign in living memory".

One of the most contentious posters of the campaign was one published by the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP), showing a long queue of refugees under the headline "Breaking Point". The murder of Jo Cox, a passionate pro-European who had campaigned for Syrian refugees, brought only a temporary respite in the campaign.

A YouGov poll this week found that 50 percent of the public -- and 70 percent of "Remain" voters -- thought the referendum had made British society more divided.

"There has been lots of confusing information and anecdotes and lies, which I don't appreciate," said Chet Patel, a 44-year-old telecoms worker in London who wants to stay in.

"I think a lot of people have not understood the real issues in fact. And hence they are not sure which way to vote."
LONDON Britons voted on whether to quit the European Union in a bitterly-contested referendum on Thursday that polarised the nation and could change the face of Europe.

Financial markets, on edge for weeks over the uncertain outcome, rose on the strength of late polls that showed a swing towards staying in, but the bulk of recent polls have suggested the outcome was too close to call.

If Britain becomes the first state to exit the EU, the so-called Brexit would be the biggest blow to the 28-nation bloc since its foundation. The EU would be stripped of its second-biggest economy and one of its two main military powers, and could face calls for similar votes by anti-EU politicians in other countries.

If it votes to stay, Britain has been promised a special status exempting it from further political integration but European leaders will still have to address a sharp rise in euroscepticism across the continent.

A Brexit vote would also deal a potentially fatal blow to the career of Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum and campaigned for the country to stay in, against a Leave camp led by rivals from within his own Conservative party.

After four months of campaigning, polling stations opened at 0600 GMT and were due to close at 2100, with results expected to be announced by the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0100 and 0300 on Friday.

The Leave campaign says Britain would recover full sovereignty and the economy would benefit from a Brexit. It focused its campaign on warnings that Britain would be unable to control immigration levels as long as it was an EU member.

Remain says a Brexit would cause financial chaos, impoverish the nation and diminish its influence on world affairs, emphasising the economic benefits of membership and the risks posed by leaving.

The campaign was suspended for three days after the killing of pro-EU member of parliament Jo Cox a week ago, which prompted soul-searching about the vicious tone of the debate.

An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard newspaper found support for Remain on 52 percent and Leave on 48 percent. A Populus poll put Remain 10 points ahead on 55 percent. Both were conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday.

CAMERON'S FATE

Cameron called the vote under pressure from the rebellious anti-EU wing of his Conservative Party and the surging UK Independence Party (UKIP), hoping to end decades of debate over Britain's ties with Europe.

Unless Remain wins by a wide margin, Cameron could struggle to repair the rifts in his party and hold on to his job. He has said he would stay in office but in the event of a vote to leave he is likely to face calls to resign.

The Evening Standard newspaper, citing party sources including ministers, reported that some senior Conservatives from both sides of the divide planned to swiftly back Cameron to stay in office, regardless of the outcome.

"The markets are jittery already. Nobody wants the added uncertainty of a resignation," the newspaper quoted an unnamed minister as saying.

Cameron voted early and said on Twitter: "Today's the day you can vote for a stronger future - with Britain leading, not leave, Europe. #VoteRemain"

His main rival, fellow Conservative former London mayor Boris Johnson, who is the favourite with bookmakers to succeed Cameron, tweeted: "Now is the time to believe in this country and #VoteLeave. Let's make today our Independence Day."

If Britons choose to leave, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has suggested Scotland, where sentiment towards the EU is much more positive, may hold another a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom. Scots voted against independence in a plebiscite in 2014.

Traders, investors and companies were braced for volatility on financial markets whatever the outcome of a vote that both reflected, and has fuelled, an anti-establishment mood also seen in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

After the Ipsos MORI poll was released, sterling broke above $1.49 for the first time since 2015, although it later fell back and was at $1.48 at 1500 GMT. It had fallen almost to $1.40 last week when polls showed a surge towards Leave.

The likelihood of a Remain vote implied by Betfair betting odds stood at 86 percent, the firm said.

If Britain votes to leave, finance leaders from the Group of Seven leading economies will issue a statement stressing their readiness to take all necessary steps to calm markets, government officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Britain's AAA credit rating could swiftly be downgraded by Standard & Poors if the Brexit camp prevails, S&P chief sovereign ratings officer Moritz Kraemer told German daily newspaper Bild.

OBAMA V TRUMP

Britain is deeply divided on EU membership, with older voters favouring exit and younger voters wanting to stay. London and Scotland favour staying in, while much of middle England wants out.

The killing of Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, stabbed and shot on a street in her electoral district in northern England, cast a pall over the final days of campaigning.

The man charged with her murder told a London court on Saturday when asked his name: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain". He is due to go on trial in November.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, the focus on immigration to Britain, which has increased dramatically in recent years, could worsen frictions in a country where the gap between rich and poor has also been widening.

The nation's divisions were reflected in newspaper front pages. "Independence Day" was the front page headline of the Sun tabloid, Britain's biggest-selling newspaper, while the Daily Mirror warned "Don't take a leap into the dark".

The issue also dominated news bulletins far beyond Britain. In China, the Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, warned Britain would lose its influence globally if voters backed Brexit.

Foreign leaders, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have called on Britain to remain in the EU, a message supported by global financial organisations, many company bosses and central bankers.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has voiced support for a Brexit.

"I don't think anybody should listen to me because I haven't really focused on it very much, but my inclination would be to get out," he told Fox Business on Wednesday. "You know, just go it alone. It's a mess," he said of the EU.

International banks have warned that the value of the pound could fall dramatically if Britain votes to leave and traders expect markets to be more volatile than at any time since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The "Out" campaign says a fall in the value of the pound would boost exports and has found support among some financial specialists and small businesses. It has urged voters to ignore what it calls the "establishment" which it says has the most to lose from Brexit.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Young and Ana Nicolaci da Costa, writing by Estelle Shirbon and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Peter Graff)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
HAVANA/BOGOTA Colombia's government and leftist FARC rebels signed a historic ceasefire deal on Thursday, bringing them tantalizingly close to ending Latin America's last major insurgency and sparking scattered celebrations in the Andean nation's capital.

The accord, capping three years of peace talks in Cuba, sets the stage for a final deal to end a conflict born in the 1960s out of frustration with deep socio-economic inequalities and that outlived all other major uprisings in the Americas.

"May this be the last day of the war," said bearded FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, his voice choked with tears after shaking hands with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at a ceremony in Havana.

Santos, 64, is half-way through his second term and has staked his legacy on peace in the face of opposition from sectors of the country who think the FARC should be crushed militarily.

This means nothing more and nothing less than the end of the FARC as an armed group, Santos said, adding that the final peace deal would be signed in Colombia. The children and youth of our country have never known a single day without the violence of the conflict. Neither have the adults.

In Colombia, even before Santos spoke, church bells pealed at noon to mark the start of the signing. Crowds in Bogota, the capital, gathered around giant TV screens set up in the streets to watch the ceremony unfold.

About 1,000 people gathered in the Plaza Bolivar, near the presidential palace and the city's main square, to celebrate. Some waved flags and balloons, others hugged.

"Im 76 and have lived this war all my life  I never thought the time would come when these characters would sign peace. Im so happy  I can die in peace," said Graciela Pataquiva, a retired teacher, crying as she spoke.

Santos' government says a peace deal would add one percentage point annually to economic growth in Colombia, which over the past two decades has turned itself around from a failing state to an emerging market darling.

The deal went further than many had hoped, with the FARC committing to putting a final accord to the Colombian people in a plebiscite, a promise made by Santos that had been a key sticking point.

Not everybody supports the peace process, and Santos will have to work hard to convince opponents to back it in a referendum.

Under the agreement read out by mediators Norway and Cuba the rebels will lay down their arms within 180 days of a final agreement and demobilize into 23 temporary zones and eight camps. The ceasefire will only kick in when the final deal is agreed, although have already effectively stopped attacks for almost a year.

During their transition into democratic politics the FARC's weapons will be handed over the United Nations, which will begin a mission to verify the ceasefire.

The government will guarantee the safety of ex-rebels and their political allies, who have historically been targets for right-wing paramilitary groups, the accord said. Special protection units, comprised of both ex-rebels and security forces, will guard FARC politicians and other community leaders.

Under accords already struck in Cuba, perpetrators of the worst crimes in the war will face "transitional justice" aimed more at finding out the historical truth than meting out harsh punishments.

"This is an extraordinary achievement. But there are serious challenges ahead related to security, implementation and guarantees of no repetition," said Roddy Brett, director of peace and conflict studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

"WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS"

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was one of many 20th century Latin American guerilla movements inspired by Marxist ideology and the success of the 1959 Cuban revolution. It began as a peasant revolt before exploding into a war that killed at least 220,000 and displaced millions.

Across the region, other rebellions were either crushed by right-wing military governments or convinced to lay down their arms and join conventional politics by the 1990s. But funded by its involvement in the cocaine industry, the FARC grew in strength to a 17,000 strong force controlling vast swaths of territory. Kidnappings for ransom also helped bankroll the rebel group.

That began to change in 2002, when former President Alvaro Uribe launched a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency campaign that killed many FARC leaders and reduced it to an estimated 7,000 fighters.

Even after peace with the FARC, formidable obstacles to will remain. The smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) only recently said it will start talks, while gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups have taken over drug trafficking routes, filling the vacuum left by rebels, some say.

"It's great to end the war with the FARC, but we've got to be serious, we finish with the FARC but what about all the others?" said Jhon Duarte, a 26-year old mechanic, echoing the concerns of many Colombians.

Despite the challenges and fierce opposition from some quarters to letting FARC rebels re-enter society after years of kidnapping and attacks across the country, the mood on Thursday was buoyant.

"This is a beacon of hope, our children will be able to enjoy what we could not - a childhood of peace and a life in peace," said Adriana Beltran, a 25-year-old housewife in Bogota.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh and Nelson Acosta in Havana and by Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Tom Brown)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Tashkent: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged China to support India's NSG bid, but there was no breakthrough on the issue at the meeting of the 48-nation grouping in the face of stiff Chinese-led opposition.

As Modi and the powerful Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Tashkent, some 5,000 km away in the South Korean capital, India's case, although not on the formal agenda, came up at a special post-dinner meeting of NSG members, who remained divided over India's entry because it is not a signatory to NPT.

Besides China, which has been publically vocal in its opposition to India's membership, it is understood that countries such as Turkey, Austria, New Zealand and Ireland took the stand that no exception can be made in the case of India.

Clearly, Modi's urgings had not changed the Chinese position, but what transpires tomorrow, the final day of the two-day plenary, remains to be seen.

Although admission of members such as India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session which led to the matter being taken up at a special meeting after dinner.

Indian diplomats, led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to press India's case, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of India's membership. He has met a number of delegation leaders in this regard.

About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary which was preceded by official-level session that began on June 20.

Seeking China's support for India's membership, Modi urged Xi to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application which is before the Seoul plenary. The two leaders are in Tashkent for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

The line take by Modi was that New Delhi's case should be judged on its own merits and that China should contribute to an emerging consensus in Seoul.

That there was no immediate commitment by Xi was indicated by External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup who refused to comment saying, "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this."

An indicator of the importance attached by India to the membership of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which will enable it to trade in nuclear technology, is the fact that the Modi-Xi meeting was dominated by this topic.

Asked if India talked about the need to delink India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, "...You have heard what Prime Minister told Xi Jinping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul."

Later, when asked at a press conference about Xi's response to Modi's request, a top Chinese official refused to comment.

China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.
NEW YORK John Ashe, a former United Nations General Assembly president accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen, has died at age 61, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

The death of Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014 and was arrested in October on federal charges, was confirmed by his lawyer, Jeremy Schneider.

Asked if his client had died from a heart attack as reported in the Antigua Observer newspaper, Schneider said that was his understanding. But he later clarified that he did know the cause of death.

Ashe's death marked a surprising turn in the corruption case, in which seven people have been charged to date. He had been in plea talks as recently as last month as prosecutors considered bringing further charges.

Prosecutors said Ashe received more than $500,000 in bribes from billionaire Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng to seek U.N. support of a United Nations-sponsored conference centre in Macau that Ng's company would develop.

Those bribes were paid through intermediaries that included Francis Lorenzo, a suspended deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic, and Jeff Yin, Ng's assistant, prosecutors said.

Lorenzo pleaded guilty in March. Ng and Yin have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors said Ashe also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the United Nations and Antigua.

Those bribes were arranged through Sheri Yan, who was the Global Sustainability Foundation's chief executive, and Heidi Hong Piao, the non-governmental organisation's finance director, prosecutors said. Both women pleaded guilty in January.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Officially at least, Ratan Tata, patriarch of one of India's wealthiest business families, retired in late 2012. In reality, he has been a driving force behind Tata's bet on airlines and a rare public campaign to open up the booming aviation sector.

The $100 billion Tata group conglomerate is a major beneficiary of the decision last week to open up aviation in India, making it easier for start-ups to fly overseas sooner.

The decision is no panacea for Tata, whose airlines - Vistara and AirAsia India - have had a slow start in a competitive market dominated by IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, and Etihad-backed Jet Airways, both of which opposed the rule change.

But it marks a victory for 78-year-old Ratan Tata, and ends more than two years of airlines lobbying, of Twitter rows and of frequent public statements from the usually circumspect steel-to-salt group.

"This was a David-and-Goliath kind of situation," said a source close to Tata group. "There was huge lobbying from the other side."

Ultimately, sources familiar with the talks said, it was Ratan Tata, a trained pilot, who was key to sealing the deal, capitalising on his clout.

In a message earlier this year, he called for 'a new open market economy' and said airlines lobbying against a rule change was "reminiscent of protectionist and monopolistic pressures by vested interests' entities who seem to fear competition."

A spokesman for Tata Sons, which promotes the group, denied Ratan Tata was directly involved, saying he had "nothing to do with operations or management of either of the airlines" after his retirement, and that views he expressed were personal.

Turbulent beginnings

Not that either of Tata's two airline ventures - a low-cost carrier owned with Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd and Vistara, a full-service carrier run with Singapore Airlines - is yet ready to fly overseas. Both have had turbulent starts.

Vistara initially focused on domestic business travellers, but had to reconfigure its aircraft after a year, to replace pricier seats with cheaper ones.

AirAsia underwent a management shake-up earlier this year.

Vistara's share of India's passenger air market is rising but is still just 2.5 percent after nearly 18 months in business. AirAsia's share after two years has stagnated at about 2 percent, government data showed, compared with IndiGo, which has a 39 percent share, and Jet Airways with 19 percent.

But flying overseas is critical. It means higher profits and margins than in India's cut-throat market dominated by low-cost carriers, and Vistara and AirAsia now aim to boost their fleet sizes within a year.

A Tata Sons spokeswoman said making profit can take several years and the group had a "clear road map": "Aviation is a long gestation business sector."

The new rules water down a requirement known as 5/20, which barred domestic airlines from flying overseas before being in operation for five years and having 20 aircraft.

Now they can fly overseas as long as they deploy 20 aircraft or 20 percent of total capacity in India, whichever is higher. Tata Sons and the two airlines said they would prefer the rules to be abolished altogether.

Tata's re-entry

Tata group, a business empire stretching from Jaguar Land Rover and steel mills in Britain to salt pans and India's cheapest car, has a long history in aviation.

J. R. D. Tata, the group chairman before Ratan Tata, became India's first qualified pilot in 1929, and set up an airline that was later nationalised as state carrier Air India.

Under Ratan Tata, the group sought to snap up Air India in a privatisation process, later aborted.

Instead, even as current chairman Cyrus Mistry has sought to wind up some of Tata group's more ambitious projects, Ratan Tata pulled the group back in with two joint ventures. For his critics, the intervention was too little, too late.

In 2013, a year after India liberalised foreign direct investment in aviation, Tata returned, first with AirAsia and then Vistara.

"India's market has only just started and it could provide growth for global aviation for the next 10 or 15 years," said Kapil Kaul, New Delhi-based chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) consultancy.

India is the world's fastest-growing aviation market, clocking more than 20 percent growth last year, and CAPA expects domestic passenger travel to grow to 500 million by 2035 from 70 million in 2015.

Tata group is moving to capitalise on the win.

Vistara, which has 11 aircraft, had an original plan to scale up to 20 by June, 2018, but could speed that up.

"We do not rule out accelerating the deliveries or procuring more aircraft from leasing firms, manufacturers or, for that matter, from our parent Singapore Airlines also," Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh said in response to a query.

Yeoh said the company was reviewing its international plans.

AirAsia is in the process of ramping up its aircraft to 20 from six to meet the criteria, India CEO Amar Abrol said, adding that the airline lobbied hard for the removal of the 5/20 rule.
Washington: Seeking a vote on strict gun control laws in the wake of America's deadliest mass shooting last week that killed 49 people in Orlando, Democratic Congressmen resorted to an unprecedented sit-in inside the well of the US House of Representatives.

The leadership of the Republican party, which holds a majority in the House, refused to budge and instead shut off the television cameras used for live coverage.

The Democratic Congressmen used their own smartphones to live telecast  through Facebook and other social media sites  the proceedings inside the House along with their sit-in demonstrations in the House well.

Images from inside the well of the House reflected a chaotic situation rarely seen.

One television commentator described this like an anarchy and lawlessness as the rare sit-in inside the House crossed midnight even after the lights were switched off.

"Enough is enough," said Indian American Congressman Ami Bera, as he joined his fellow Democratic lawmakers in the protest, which was led by legendary Congressman John Lewis known for his civil disobedience movement.

"Republicans denied us a vote, we sat on the Floor. We sat on the Floor, with John Larson presiding. When they turned off the House cameras, we livestreamed from our phones," said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in her remarks on the House floor late last night.

"Because of you, they cannot  they can try to shut down the Floor, but because of you, they cannot shut out the voices of the victims and the will of the American people. And now, as you hold up the names of people who have been victims of violence," she said.

Democratic lawmakers were demanding that Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives bring up a vote on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation before the House recesses.

Refusing to budge under pressure, Ryan described this as a publicity stunt by Democrats.

"This is nothing more than a publicity stunt. That's point number one. Point number two is this bill was already defeated in the United States Senate. Number three, we're not going to take away a citizen's due process rights," Ryan said.

"We're not going to take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process. That was already defeated in the Senate. And this is not the way to try and bring up legislation," he told CNN in an interview.

Ryan defended his decision to shut off the cameras and lights arguing that these are as per the House rules.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer demanded that Republicans hold a vote on legislation on gun violence.

"After the unspeakable slaughter of 49 innocent people in Orlando earlier this month, it is unconscionable that House Republicans would continue to block a vote even on commonsense safeguards, including expanding background checks and preventing dangerous firearms from being sold to terror suspects," Hoyer said.

"This is an issue that ought to transcend party - it's about saving lives and keeping our communities safe," he said.
Berlin: Several people have been injured in a shooting at a cinema hall in the south-western German town of Vierheim near Frankfurt, FAZ newspaper reported on Thursday.

One heavily-armed masked man entered the cinema complex at about 3 pm (1400 GMT) and barricaded himself inside, the report said, adding that witnesses had heard gunshots.

The Bild tabloid says about 25 people have been injured by tear gas used by police.

Security sources told DPA that the man was likely a lone perpetrator and not a terrorist.

Peter Beuth, the interior minister of Hesse, the state where the shooting took place, told parliament that special forces had "fought and killed" the man, who had been visibly confused and fired at least four shots inside the cinema with a rifle. But he also said it wasn't clear whether the weapon was real.

All the hostages were released unhurt.

Police spokeswoman Christiane Kobus said that the man held several hostages at the Kinopolis movie theatre in the town of Viernheim but she didn't have a precise number.

Officers "successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding," Kobus told The Associated Press. "There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague."

Police said that the deployment lasted about three hours. There were no other injuries, Kobus said, adding that she had no information on the assailant's identity and motives.

Norbert Schaetzle, a spokesman for police in the nearby city of Mannheim, said that the police force was not directly involved in the incident, but had sent officers to support their colleagues in the town.

The cinema complex was cordoned off and a special police commando was on its way to the scene by helicopter, a Frankfurt police spokesman said.

With inputs from AP and DPA
Glasgow: Many voters said they wanted Britain to stay in the European Union on Thursday but were well aware that an overall Brexit result could lead to Scottish independence.

"Being in the EU is an advantage for Scotland. It would be silly to leave," said Gemma Rosaria, a 24-year-old office worker, arriving to vote in the EU referendum in the Broomhouse area of east Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city.

"I don't want a Brexit but if there's a Brexit that could be an advantage for Scotland because we can have a new referendum," said Rosaria, adding that she had voted for independence in 2014.

Scotland's independence bid, led by the Scottish National Party (SNP), was thwarted in that vote, which unionists won by 55 percent to 45 percent.

The pro-EU SNP, which dominates Scottish politics, still wants independence but says it will only call for another referendum if a clear majority of Scots back it after a Brexit vote.

"If we were to leave the EU, I'd prefer to break from the UK," said Michael Renfrew, an economics student with a ginger beard and beach shoes.

"The decision-making and the power would become far too centralised in London," the 23-year-old said.

Amanda Walker, a 42-year-old teacher, added: "Better stay with what we got." Pointing to her ginger-haired daughter, who was in a school uniform, she added: "This vote is important for her".

In the car park outside, David Turner, a local SNP councillor, was trying to win over any undecided voters.

"In Scotland, there will be a large 'Remain' vote," the 49-year-old said, as he handed out leaflets.

- English-led Brexit 'not fair' -

Polls have shown Scots are far more favourable to the EU than fellow Britons, who are heavily divided.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Scotland's expected massive vote for staying in the EU could hold the balance on a national level.

"I think it's really important to keep Scotland and the UK in the EU because theres lots of jobs and trade and investment that depends on our place in the single market," Sturgeon said, casting her vote.

"The polls see this on a knife edge across the UK which makes it really important to go out and vote today if you want to make sure that our place in the European Union is protected and we don't allow Tory divisions to drag us out of Europe," she added.

The campaign has pitched Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the "Remain" camp, against fellow Conservatives on the "Leave" side, including popular ex-London mayor Boris Johnson.

Several people were concerned that Britain leaving the EU would strengthen the centralisation of power in London.

Vincent Mellon, an assistant physiotherapist speaking in central Glasgow, said England and Scotland were "supposed to be equal parties".

"If only England voted out, that would not be fair," he said, adding: "People that are leading the 'Out' campaign have no interest in Scotland".

But Alex Blackshire did not want to hear talk about another independence referendum.

"There's been so much division during the last campaign. I don't want it to happen again," the 25-year-old executive said.

Even in Glasgow, there were a few exceptions to the pro-EU mood.

Taxi driver James Ballantine, 44, said he would be voting to leave the European Union.

"There are too many migrants from Europe. People come here and get jobs, benefits," he said, at the wheel of his cab.

"We need to take back control of our country."
Beijing: India-China financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries which was due to be held next week has been postponed to July.

The Postponement has been necessitated because of inability of India's Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das to travel to Beijing for the meeting which was scheduled for 27 June. Das was asked to stay back in Delhi in view of the voting on Brexit which is taking place on Thursday to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or not which will have implications for India.

However, India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is embarking on a five-day visit to China on Thursday, will meet his counterpart Lou Jiwei as scheduled on 27 June.

Fresh dates for the financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries in July are being worked out.

The two countries have so far had seven rounds of financial dialogue at the level of Finance Secretaries, the last being in New Delhi in 2014.
Britain votes on Thursday in a referendum on whether it should stay in or leave the European Union (EU). Here is some key information about the vote, from the question on the ballot paper to when the results are likely to start coming in.

What is the question?

Voters will be presented with one question: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

They will have two possible answers: "Remain a member of the European Union" or "Leave the European Union".

In Wales, the ballot paper will be in English and Welsh.

Who can vote?

British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 who live in Britain, as well as citizens of Gibraltar, are all eligible to vote provided they have registered.

That means that Cypriots and Maltese living in Britain can vote since their countries are members of the Commonwealth, as well as the European Union.

British nationals who have lived abroad for less than 15 years can also vote. A legal challenge to give a vote to expatriates who have been away longer failed last month.

There are a total of 46,499,537 registered voters, according to the latest figures from the Electoral Commission. This is more than in last year's general election when 46,354,197 people were registered.

When are the results expected?

Polls are open from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm (0600 GMT to 2100 GMT) and counting begins as soon as the last votes are cast, with the result expected early on Friday morning. There are no official exit polls because polling experts say the lack of recent comparable votes in Britain could make the results less reliable.

Results from polling will, however, be released after the ballots close. Some hedge funds and banks have also reportedly commissioned private exit polls that would allow them to make trades based on their forecasts even while voting is still going on.

There are 382 local counting areas, including Gibraltar, which will all declare their results independently throughout the night. The first two, Sunderland in northeast England and Wandsworth in London, are expected to declare at about 12:30 am (2330 GMT).

The first big wave of results is expected after 2:00 am (0100 GMT) Friday and another wave a couple of hours afterwards. Turnout is likely to be announced earlier, which may give an indication of the result to come, with a high turnout expected to favour the "Remain" camp.

The formal result will not be confirmed by the chief counting officer until all local areas, collated into 12 regional tallies, are declared. The final national result will be announced in Manchester Town Hall in northern England.
Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has hailed the successful test of a powerful new medium-range missile, saying it poses a direct threat to US military bases in the Pacific, state media reported on Thursday.

Kim, who personally monitored Wednesday's Musudan missile test, said it was a "great event" that significantly bolstered the North's pre-emptive nuclear attack capability, the official KCNA news agency reported.

"We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre," Kim was quoted as saying.

The Musudan - also known as the Hwasong-10 - has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres. The lower estimate covers the whole of South Korea and Japan, while the upper range would include US military bases on Guam.

After a string of failures in recent months, North Korea tested two Musudans on Wedneday, one of which flew 400 kilometres into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

KCNA said the missile had been fired at a high angle to simulate its full range and had reached a maximum height of more than 1,400 kilometres.

"It provided a sure sci-tech guarantee for developing the system of strategic weapons," the agency said.

"The test-fire was successfully conducted without giving any slightest effect to the security of surrounding countries."
BAGHDAD Upcoming military offensives in Iraq against Islamic State, including an assault on the northern city of Mosul, could displace at least 2.3 million people, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday.

The prediction of such a vast humanitarian emergency creates additional complications for the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, who have announced plans for offensives to drive Islamic State fighters this year from most of their Iraqi territory.

More than 3.4 million people across Iraq have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes, according to the United Nations. In the past month, 85,000 people fled Falluja, an Islamic State stronghold an hour's drive from Baghdad, amid a military campaign that has recaptured large parts of the city.

Most of the displaced are from Iraq's minority Sunni community, raising concerns among officials that U.S.-backed military gains against Islamic State will not bring stability to Iraq more than 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

Islamic State fighters swept through much of northern and western Iraq two years ago and declared a caliphate to rule over territory there and in neighbouring Syria.

The jihadists have lost ground in recent weeks to a number of enemies on several fronts in both countries, with the main battles still looming for the caliphate's two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters in an interview that at least 430,000 more people could be displaced this year in Anbar, Iraq's sprawling desert province stretching west from Falluja to the Syrian border.

Government forces have retaken several cities in Anbar from Islamic State in the past six months and are still pressing up the Euphrates river valley towards the border town of Qaim.

Grande said another 830,000 people would be displaced along "the Mosul corridor", stretching more than 100 km (60 miles) from northern Salahuddin province towards the Islamic State stronghold.

In Mosul itself, by far the largest city under the militants' control, the worst case scenario could see one million people displaced, said Grande.

The United Nations projects the Mosul operation will be larger and more complex than any other humanitarian operation in the world this year.

"We're literally talking in just a few months about doubling the number of families who are displaced in the country," she said. "We're trying to pre-position supplies and develop contingencies for all of those areas and we're doing so with 30 percent of the appeal that we've asked for."

The humanitarian community this year requested $861 million to assist 7.3 million Iraqis in need across the country, but so far it has only received about $266 million.

Iraq's cash-strapped government, hit by low oil prices and increased military costs, has struggled to help.

UNPREPARED FOR FALLUJA NUMBERS

Government-run camps are overflowing with Falluja escapees who trekked several kilometres (miles) past Islamic State snipers and minefields in sweltering heat to find there was not even shade.

Grande said the humanitarian community, which has not had access to the city since the jihadists seized control in early 2014, had underestimated the number of civilians trapped inside by more than half.

Camps were overflowing within the first ten days of the assault, prompting the U.N. to redirect stocks from other parts of the country, including some put in place for the Mosul campaign, she said.

"We did not have enough prepared," she said. "The needs are far outstripping our capacity."

Many people at three main displacement sites near Falluja are stranded out in the open or packed with several families in a tent meant for six people.

Grande said with temperatures likely to top 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in coming weeks, the top priority was shelter, alongside water, food, hygiene and healthcare.

"In this heat, if families aren't safely inside of tents, we have to worry about their position," she said. "If we don't get more assistance, we have to face the fact that conditions could deteriorate very sharply."

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Peter Graff)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Tashkent: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tashkent on Thursday to a warm welcome as he kicked off a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with an aim to expand India's engagement with the China-dominated grouping in areas of security, defence and energy.

Namaste Tashkent! PM @narendramodi arrives in Uzbekistan, is received by PM Shavkat Mirziyoev at airport pic.twitter.com/eW8KxGr57K  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) June 23, 2016

In a special gesture, Modi was received at the Tashkent international airport by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoev.

In the two-day summit, the SCO will start the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

However, the spotlight is on Modi's bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the day during which the prime minister is expected to seek China's support for India's membership at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Giving clear indications of its opposition to India's bid for entry into the atomic trading club, China had yesterday underlined the differences within NSG members, saying "parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue."

It, however, said it will play a constructive role in the discussions.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," the Prime Minister said in a statement before leaving for Tashkent.

He said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had yesterday said "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations".

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign over 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
New Delhi: On Thursday Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for Tashkent where he will attend the SCO Summit and meet some world leaders like the Chinese President with whom the NSG issue will figure prominently in the talks.

In the two-day summit, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

Prior to his departure, the Prime Minister said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO Summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he had said.

"A short visit to the heart of Asia. PM @narendramodi departs for Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit," tweeted External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Modi had said that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

The Prime Minister will also have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday on the sidelines of the Summit during which he is expected to seek China's support for India's bid for NSG membership, which Beijing is opposed to.

Coinciding with the SCO Summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had said on Wednesday, "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations."

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign more than 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
VIERNHEIM, Germany A masked man took hostages at a cinema in western Germany on Thursday before police stormed the complex and shot him dead, police said.

No other people were injured, a police spokesman said.

The attacker, who carried a rifle or "long gun", acted alone and appeared to have been a "disturbed man", the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament.

Police had not identified the man or established his motive, spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that nothing immediately pointed to him having a militant background.

German television showed pictures of heavily-armed police, wearing helmets and body armour, storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, south of Frankfurt, and a couple fleeing the building.

Cinema employee Guri Blakaj told Reuters the gunman, who appeared to be aged between 18 and 25 and was about 1.7 metres tall, entered the cinema at around 3 p.m. and told workers to get into an office.

He then went into a cinema theatre. Blakaj, who said there were about six workers and 30 cinemagoers in the building, then heard shots fired.

Police special forces stormed the building and shot him.

There was still a heavy police presence at the scene into the late afternoon, and a helicopter circled overhead.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers, Michael Nienaber and Sabine Siebold; Editing by Andrew Roche)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Amjad Sabri, the qawwal, was shot dead in broad daylight in Karachi, the southern city of Sindh  the land of the Sufis who once practiced interfaith harmony and spread love. Alas, gone are the days when Sindh in particular, and Pakistan in general, could have claimed to sustain and present a peaceful society and culture.

With the creation of the country in 1947, trans-regional political Islam gradually found its way into the corridors of power whereby the early elite, both because of ideological and political reasons, embraced and preferred religion to reason in the matter of the state  which, however, was pretty modern in its outlook in terms of inheriting secular institutions such as civil-military bureaucracy, parliament and an overall secular system of justice.

Little wonder then, that with the passage of the Objectives Resolution in 1949, institutional and socio-economic space for especially the minorities was comprehensively constrained  to the effect that the countrys first labour and law minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal, a Hindu, left for India in November 1950.

The following decades only witnessed a cumulative process of ideology-sation of the state and society with the result that, under the terms of the 1973 Constitution, Pakistan became a religious republic where a non-Muslim is constitutionally disqualified to assume, for instance, the office of the President. Indubitably, such provisions are not only discriminatory but also contradictory with other provisions related to fundamental human rights.

On Firstpost: Killing of Amjad Fareed Sabri is indicative of Karachi's fragile peace

As a consequence of the establishment of Pakistan as an Islamic state  and by empowering the state to directly interfere in matters related to faith  all those religious and cultural communities whose belief structure was arbitrarily determined to be shaky, suspected and heretical were ultimately ousted from the domain of Islam legally, politically and socio-economically. Thus, it was Ahmedis in the 1970s, the Shias in 1980s/1990s and the Brelvis (of which Sufis are a significant part) in the late 2000s, who bore the brunt at the hands of state-led puritanical forces that were already empowered financially and militarily since the Afghan Jihad.

It is to be noted that, in the context of trans-regional political Islam and its militant networks in and around South Asia, Pakistan has been a hub where a variety of such organisations implemented its version of Islam whereby anybody who did not comply with its interpretation was decreed a kafir and hence liable to be killed, ruthlessly. For these forces, Indian and Iranians were already kafir, so it was a religious obligation to attack, annihilate and establish an Islamic state in place of an infidel governing structure.

Paradoxically, however, after the attack on the Twin Towers in the US in September 2001, the Pakistan state pronounced to have shifted its foreign policy against some of the militant forces which initially and ultimately were nourished by the former. Interestingly, having been cheated by the Pakistani security establishment, the ideological fathers of such organisations wasted no time in judging Pakistan a kafir country, hence to be attacked militarily. This may also explain the frequency of the incidents of terror attacks on innocent and unarmed civilians in Pakistan  of which Amjad Sabri is just tip of the iceberg.

Nonetheless, Amjad Sabri can be taken as a case study to understand and explain the intricacies and complexities central to state, society, religion and culture in contemporary Pakistan where puritanical forces are still alive and partly protected by the religious republic. In the eyes of the so-called mainstream Islamic thought, Sabri was a practicing Sufi who used music (prohibited by the high church) to spread polythesism (shirk) to otherwise pious and righteous Muslims of Islamic Pakistan. To add to his misfortunate was the fateful music event at a private TV channel in 2014, where Sabri along with a female host was termed a blasphemer by puritanical forces that enjoy a huge following across width and breadth of the country. The woman had to flee the country to save her skin. Though she recently got back to business, living and working in Pakistan for such persons is a herculean task.

Tragically, however, the qawwal  the voice of peace, harmony and love  has been silenced forever. More will be killed in the name of God in the land of the pure for Pakistani state and society host laws, norms and mindset which overall is rejectionist in nature and militant in character. For such a mindset, it is a matter of convenience either to give or take a life. And there are recent cases to support this claim empirically. A week before the killing of the qawwal, an Ahmedi medical practitioner was killed in Attock; the son of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court was kidnapped just a few days ago; Hindu girls have been forcibly converted to Islam in Sindh, and an octogenarian Hindu man was brutally beaten in rural Sindh for allegedly disrespecting Ramazan.

Also read: With Amjad Sabri's death, legacy of qawwali music in Pakistan faces sudden void

Pakistani state and society have to do a lot at all levels to reform itself in order to be able to shun intolerance, bigotry and religious extremism. At the moment, though certain militant organizations are chased and targeted by the security establishment, there are those which still roam about freely, propagating hate and intolerance. Our educational system is four-tier and needs reforms urgently.

The Pakistani media is quasi-professional, promoting intolerance towards non-Muslims, Muslim minorities and other marginalised communities. Moreover, Pakistani state still views certain militant organisations strategically. If Pakistan ever desires to gain a respectable place regionally and extra-regionally, it has to put its house in order, timely and meaningfully. Any lapse will lead to further hate, bigotry and killings  of qawwals!

Ejaz Hussain has taught politics, religion and foreign policy at different universities in Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbhatty
Karachi: A cash reward of Rs 10 million has been announced by Pakistan's Sindh government for information leading to the safe recovery of the abducted son of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court or arrest of culprits.

Chief Minister of the southern Sindh province Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced the reward after a high-level meeting of officials from the police, paramilitary rangers and government in Karachi on Wednesday.

"I am announcing Rs 10 million reward for the persons who give information of the place where Ovais (Sajjad) Shah (son of Sindh Chief Justice) has been kept or give clues for his recovery or arrest of the culprits," Shah said.

The move came hours after Amjad Sabri, one of Pakistan's finest Sufi Qawwals best known for his soul-stirring renditions of mystic poetry, was killed by Taliban militants who shot him in the head in a targeted terror attack here.

It appears to be a pre-planned conspiracy to create unrest and insecurity in Karachi at a time when markets and shopping areas are packed late into the night due to the coming Eid festival, he said.

"I would not let this conspiracy succeed and the conspirators and terrorists would be crushed with iron hands," Shah said in a statement.

Ovais, himself an advocate and the son of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court, was abducted by armed men from outside a popular shopping mart in the posh Clifton area on 20 June.

He was pleading around 90 cases, including one where he was hired by 700 sacked employees of the Karachi Port Trust to fight their case. Ovais's kidnapping comes just weeks after sons of two high profile politicians returned home after spending years in captivity.

The paramilitary rangers have also announced a reward for any information leading to the arrest of the people involved in the kidnapping of Ovais and his recovery.

The provincial government of Sindh, rangers and police have come under criticism and pressure following the killing of Sabri with opposition leaders, civil right bodies and the media questioning the effectiveness of the clean-up operation launched in Karachi since October, 2013.
Seville: The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain Thursday after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.

Applause broke out as the experimental plane set down at Seville airport in southern Spain just before 7:40 am (0540 GMT) where a team was on the ground to welcome Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

"It is so fantastic!", Piccard told the plane's mission control centre in Monaco in remarks broadcast online as the plane, which took off from New York on Monday, touched down.

Exhilarated, the 58-year-old told AFP he had thought a lot about aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, during the 6,765-kilometre (4,200-mile) flight.

"I met him when I was 11, we were both at the Apollo 12 take-off, and for me Lindbergh is one of these heroes who did what no one thought was possible," Piccard said by phone.

With the success of this challenging crossing, Solar Impulse has completed the 15th leg of a round-the-world trip aimed at promoting clean, renewable energy.

It set out on 9 March, 2015, in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power  able to fly through the night with energy stored in its 17,000 photovoltaic cells.

'Magical experience'

The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing of a plane with only solar power  a trip close to Piccard's heart as he had crossed that same ocean in 1999 on the first non-stop air balloon circumnavigation of the globe without fuel.

"Good morning Seville! Do you have a lot of direct flights from NYC?" he tweeted with a wink shortly before coming in to land, when he was treated to a surprise acrobatic display put on by the Spanish air force.

Piccard got little sleep during the near three-day journey, surviving on short catnaps.

He experienced what he described as "a long night of turbulence" but was also treated to sightings of whales and icebergs, and even spotted a commercial plane flying past him.

"I just tried to soak in this magical experience  when you fly without any noise or fuel, it's magic," he said.

Piccard said he had been guided by a group of engineers and meteorologists who had enabled him to face challenges and pass through clouds as if "through the eye of a needle."

Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-kilometre trip round the world in stages, with Piccard and his Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg taking turns at the controls of the single-seat plane.

Borschberg piloted a 8,924-kilometre flight between Japan and Hawaii that lasted 118 hours, smashing the previous record for the longest uninterrupted journey in aviation history.

After the Atlantic crossing, Borschberg is due to fly to Egypt, and Piccard will make the final journey back to Abu Dhabi in early July.

Like sci-fi

No heavier than a car but with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, Solar Impulse typically travels at a mere 48 kilometres per hour (36 miles per hour), although its flight speed can double when exposed to full sunlight.

Borschberg and Piccard say they want to raise awareness of renewable energy sources and technologies with their project.

"When you fly in a plane like this, you have the impression of being in a science fiction story," Piccard said.

"You look at the sun above you, and then you realise that the sun is providing the necessary energy to run the four electric engines and charge the batteries, spend the night flying and continue the next day.

"At the same time it's not science fiction, it's the present, it's today," he added.

"When you see what can be done with this clean energy, you think 'why is it not used more everywhere'?"
UNITED NATIONS United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Wednesday troops would be sent home from a U.N. mission in South Sudan due to their response to deadly violence at a compound.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that an inquiry found that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement marred the response by peacekeepers to fighting in February at a U.N. compound in Malakal where nearly 50,000 civilians were sheltering.

During the two-day incident at least 30 civilians were killed and 123 people wounded. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres accused the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNMISS, on Tuesday of taking up to 16 hours to act.

"I will not name names at this point. But certainly there will be repatriation - in some cases a unit, in other cases of individual officers," Ladsous told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on the incident.

Ladsous said he had already spoken with the U.N. ambassadors of the relevant troop contributing countries.

A U.N. special investigation into the circumstances leading to the violence found that the immediate trigger for the fighting - which pitted Shilluk and Nuer people against Dinka and Darfuri people - was an attempt by two South Sudanese soldiers to smuggle ammunition into the U.N. compound.

The report, seen by Reuters, found that some armed elements in South Sudanese (SPLA) army uniforms took part in the destruction of Nuer and Shilluk accommodations in the compound.

South Sudan spiralled into civil war at the end of 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar. Thousands have been killed and millions driven from their homes during the conflict that began barely two years after the oil-rich state's independence from Sudan.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Andrew Hay)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
US Republican leaders moved late Wednesday to shut down a dramatic, 12-hour sit-in by Democrats who were demanding Congress vote on gun safety legislation following the Orlando nightclub massacre.

In one of the most extraordinary scenes on the US House floor, Democrats took over the chamber's proceedings for most of the day, prompting Republican Speaker Paul Ryan to gavel the House into session late at night, nearly drowned out by chants of lawmakers protesting his effort to bring the sit-in to a close.

Ryan, who dismissed the protest as a "publicity stunt," refused to allow votes on two bills demanded by Democrats: one expanding background checks to include sales at gun shows and on the Internet, and another that prevents people on the government's no-fly list or FBI terror watch-lists from buying a gun.

Ryan instead called for votes on unrelated issues as he sought a return to regular order. Democrats shouted "No bill, no break!" referring to efforts to prevent Congress from adjourning for the Fourth of July holiday.

After the unrelated votes, the presiding officer declared the House in recess and left the chamber, but dozens of Democrats remained.

"There is a stain on the soul of America, and we must heal it, and it begins tonight," freshman Democrat Brendan Boyle said.

His colleague Steve Israel said the sit-in will last into Thursday "through the night, guaranteed," he told AFP.

Republicans "can shut it down but it would be at their own peril."

The congressional disobedience, which earned praise from President Barack Obama, signaled what is likely to be a protracted election-year battle over firearms -- perennially a hot-button US campaign issue.

The House drama began before noon.

"We have to occupy the floor of the House until there is action," said House Democrat John Lewis- a civil rights icon who marched with Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s- just before he and dozens of colleagues sat down on the carpeted floor in the well of the chamber.

US lawmakers, mainly Democrats, introduced several bills in recent years aimed at reducing gun violence, including legislation to expand background checks- a provision that has broad public support. But none has passed Congress.

"Who has to be shot, and how many have to die before we do anything?" asked congresswoman Robin Kelly of Illinois.

The chamber was scheduled to wrap up business Thursday before going on break.

The sit-in, which quickly grew to about 100 members, drew the attention of the White House.

"Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most," Obama posted on Twitter.

"House Republicans may have cut the cameras, but they can't cut off our voices," Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton added in her own tweet. "We have to act on gun violence."

- 'Give us a vote' -With the C-Span cameras turned off during the recess, the public broadcaster responsible for covering congressional sessions enacted a creative workaround, broadcasting live video from social media applications Periscope and Facebook, filmed by two lawmakers.

It was the first time C-Span aired live social media footage from the House floor- where taking pictures and video is prohibited.

There were extraordinary scenes in the chamber.

Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, a former US Army helicopter pilot who was wounded and lost both legs in Iraq, sat with her colleagues on the carpet of the well, her prosthetics removed, her wheelchair empty beside her.

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi joined the insurgents, then led several lawmakers and gun violence survivors and relatives outside onto the Capitol steps.

"Give us a vote," she demanded of Ryan.

"A moment of silence? We want a moment of truth. We want a time of action to follow it."

Tensions soared on the floor late Wednesday when some Republicans disrupted the sit-in.

"Radical Islam killed these people!" shouted Republican Louie Gohmert, as he pointed to images of the 49 victims of last weekend's Orlando shooting by a radicalized gunman.

Earlier this week, the Senate voted on four gun control amendments- two from Democrats and two from Republicans- after Senate Democrat Chris Murphy delivered a 15-hour floor speech demanding votes on gun control.

The Senate rejected all four measures, but lawmakers crafted a bipartisan compromise bill aimed at preventing terror suspects and people on no-fly lists or FBI watchlists from buying a firearm.

The bill's sponsors said Senate leaders assured them a vote.

Murphy and more than two dozen other Democratic senators, including popular firebrand Elizabeth Warren, entered the chamber to express their solidarity.
Washington: Volkswagen has agreed to pay $10 billion to settle a huge US civil case over its diesel emissions-cheating scandal, a person familiar with the negotiations told AFP on Thursday.

As part of the settlement, Volkswagen would compensate owners of around 480,000 2.0-liter diesel cars up to $7,000 in cash each, and would also fund a program to fight air pollution, the person said.

Volkswagen admitted in September that it had installed software on diesel cars that tricked US emissions tests into showing the cars met environmental standards. After testing, the device switched off, allowing the vehicles to spew up to 40 times the permitted amounts of nitrogen oxides.

The scandal, which emerged with the revelations in the United States, went global after Volkswagen admitted it had installed the emissions-cheating software in 11 million VW, Porsche and Audi cars with diesel engines worldwide.

The San Francisco civil lawsuit accuses Volkswagen of major damages to the environment and to the owners of the illegally rigged diesel cars.

A settlement could be enough to allow Volkswagen to avert a huge trial over how it would deal with the scandal that has already deeply damaged the world's second-largest automaker.

To help the various sides reach a deal, the federal district court in San Francisco court recently pushed back the deadline by a week to 28 June. A court hearing on the final settlement agreement is scheduled on 26 July.

The San Francisco judge supervising the settlement negotiations, US District Judge Charles Breyer, has imposed a gag order, stressing the need to keep the talks confidential until an agreement can be presented to the court.

Volkswagen has set aside 16.2 billion euros ($18.4 billion) to cover the costs of the scandal, including seven billion euros for legal risks.

A settlement would not end Volkswagen's troubles in the United States.

The company needs to address similar charges over its 3.0 liter diesel cars with emissions-cheating devices. It also faces fines potentially running to the tens of billions of dollars from US regulators, and a criminal investigation over the scandal.

At the same time it is facing similar charges and litigation in Europe and elsewhere for the same issues.
There is a lot of anticipation about the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) plenary session that is taking place in Seoul on Thursday and Friday. But what exactly is the NSG and why is it crucial for India to be a member of this group? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has convinced several members, including US, Mexico and Switzerland, to allow India on board but with China yet to accept Indias inclusion and Pakistan's outright protest against it, the plenary session of 23 and 24 June takes on significant meaning.

Heres a primer:

1. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) states on its website that it is a group of nuclear supplier countries that seeks to contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through the implementation of two sets of guidelines for nuclear exports and nuclear-related exports. The guidelines includes a principle that states that transfer of nuclear technology will be authorised only on the condition that such a deal will not lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Thats why all the member states of the NSG are signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NSG guidelines also complement several other international treaties related to nuclear non-proliferation.

2. India is not a member of the NPT. It is a point that China has consistently raised while trying to block Indias membership to the NSG. However, China is supporting Pakistans membership. Pakistan too has not signed the NPT.

3. NSG was set up in response to India's own clandestine nuclear test in 1974, which made New Delhi something of a pariah in the West. Joining the club requires the unanimous approval of all 48 members.

4. Analysts say joining the NSG is chiefly a matter of pride and desire to be taken seriously by some of the world's most powerful nations. Since prompting international technology sanctions and limits on exports by conducting nuclear tests in 1998, India has been eager to gain legitimacy as a nuclear power.

5. Joining the NSG will give India better access to low-cost, clean nuclear energy -- important for its economic growth. Nuclear power is one way India, the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, could cut its emissions and reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

6. As Jaideep Prabhu points out in this Firstpost article, NSG membership would put India on a firmer footing to propose the idea of plutonium trade for its thorium programme that has been waiting in the wings. An early adoption of thorium technology would give India enormous energy independence and security.

7. PM Modi is so keen on the NSG membership that he set up a meet with Chinas President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent on Thursday. It is the same day when the NSG plenary session in Seoul begins, a meeting in which Indias membership application is expected to come up. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar is in Seoul to closely monitor the NSG meet.

8. The US has openly supported Indias membership to the NSG and even urged other members to do so. "We believe, and this has been US policy for some time, that India is ready for membership and the United States calls on participating governments to support India's application at the plenary session of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. Among others who have publicly backed Indias bid to NSG are Mexico, France, Switzerland, Russia, Japan, UK and Canada.

9. Other than China, countries that are opposing Indias inclusion in the NSG are Turkey, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand.

10. While considering Indias membership application, the NSG will also have to consider the fact that accepting this application can pose problems on the processing of applications from Pakistan and Israel, both of whom have not signed the NPT.

With inputs from agencies
Bend, the charming mountain town located along the Deschutes River, is the second most expensive summer destination in Oregon. This finding is the result of a recent survey conducted by CheapHotels.org.

The survey compared 20 popular destinations in the Beaver State, using their lodging cost as the comparative basis. In particular, the average rate for the cheapest available double room (rated at least 3 stars) was established for each destination. The survey specifically looked at the months of July and August when conducting the comparison.

To stay overnight in Bend, travelers will have to spend an average of $221 for the most affordable double room. Only the resort town of Cannon Beach, located on the Oregon Coast, is pricier. It is averaging $234 per night this summer. Portland rounds out the Top 3 podium at an average per-night rate of $216.

Joining Cannon Beach in the Top 10 are five other Oregon Coast destinations: Seaside, Newport, Astoria, Lincoln City and Coos Bay. On the other end of the spectrum, the least expensive destinations in Oregon are Medford, Pendleton and Grants Pass. There, overnight guests should be able to find a room for under $100 nightly.

The following table shows the 10 most expensive destinations in Oregon this summer. The prices listed reflect the average rate for each locale's cheapest available double room (minimum: 3-star hotel) during the time period spanning July 1 to August 31, 2016.

Cannon Beach $234 Bend $221 Portland $216 Seaside $198 Newport $184 Astoria $171 Corvallis $165 Lincoln City $154 Hillsboro $138 Coos Bay $127

For the full results of the survey, check http://www.cheaphotels.org/press/oregon2016.html

Diane Muller

Press

Palasso Ltd
ST. LOUIS  Eugene Dokes, a businessman, real estate broker, author and former Republican official in St. Charles County, reaped more than $48,000 for his family by pretending to be disabled, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Dokes, 33, pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of theft of government funds and admitted applying for and winning Social Security disability benefits in 2007, prosecutors said. Dokes claimed to have been disabled for four years, they said.

In 2010, he and his wife, Kenyota Dokes, maintained that false claim, saying that he did not engage in any social activities and had lost any interest in family and friends, prosecutors said.

The indictment says that after Dokes reported self-employment income in 2011, Social Security Administration special agents began investigating Dokes. They discovered that Dokes was a real estate broker, started his own investment company in 2008, started six other companies, published two books and got his bachelor's and master's degrees, prosecutors said. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the Missouri House, led the St. Charles County Republican Committee and the St. Charles County Republican Caucus and served on the Missouri Advisory Board for United States Commission on Civil Rights, they said.

Dokes was also an unsuccessful candidate in 2008 for the St. Louis County Council.

He now could face a sentence ranging from probation to a year in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Charges against his wife were dismissed June 9 after she entered a diversion program.
House Democrats chanted, shouted appeals to their Republicans colleagues and -- finally as they ended their 26-hour sit-in outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday -- they sang.

Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights icon, led Democrats out to the Capitol steps where they were surrounded by supporters chanting "Thank You! Thank You!" The protesting lawmakers responded by breaking into the song they sang on the House floor hours before, the civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome."

But this time they added words looking ahead to the next session of Congress: "We shall pass the bill."

The song ended a day and night of unprecedented and often intense firsts in the U.S. House of Representatives, as the Republican leadership shut down cameras showing the House floor, causing Democratic lawmakers to turn to social media and live video on the internet via Twitter to stream their protest.

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell's very personal experience with gun violence was one of the most emotional moments streamed live during the sit-in.

"I know what its like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you were going to live," Dingell, of Michigan, said on the House floor late Wednesday. Dingell grew up in a home where "the man who was my father shouldn't have had access to guns."

"It's not easy," she told VOA in a phone interview Thursday about sharing her story. "It was a very difficult night, and I didn't know what I was going to say, and that was a speech that just came from my heart."

Dingell said she has lived the tension between Democrats and Republicans on the gun issue. She said the experience with her home life growing up has "deeply" impacted how she feels about guns. But she is also married to a former National Rifle Association board member and "a responsible gun owner and deep believer in the Second Amendment and the delicate balance of that in terms of our civil liberty."

Dingell said she ultimately decided to share her story because "this shouldn't be a partisan issue. I just felt the need to get people to understand there are issues we need to talk about, and every time something awful happens, we have the same old dialogue."

She said there is a way to have a discussion about keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

In the crowd outside

Like Dingell, Raine Koch personally experienced gun violence as domestic violence. She joined the hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Capitol Wednesday night and into Thursday.

The protesters chanted the same slogans that came from the House floor: "No Bill No Break," ordered pizza and waited out sometimes rainy conditions.

Members of Congress came out from the House floor to thank the crowd for their support. Koch, watching many of them speak, cried.

"I saw my father put a rifle to my mother's head," she told VOA.

While Koch, her mother and her sisters eventually made it out of the home safely, she said the issue has always remained important to her.

"When those kids were killed in Sandy Hook, it broke my heart, and I have a lot of friends who are in the LGBT community," she said, referencing the latest shooting in Orlando.

"Something has to be done with guns in this nation, and I come from a family of hunters, so it's not even like I'm anti-gun. But something has to be done," Koch said.

Republican response

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said the sit-in was not about emotion; it was about money.

In a briefing with reporters Thursday morning, Ryan held up printouts of emails he said showed House Democrats using the sit-in as a "fundraising stunt."

Ryan said he was "very worried" the sit-in set a precedent for future actions by lawmakers who were unable to achieve their goals by bringing up legislation through the normal course of action in the House of Representatives.

"This is the people's house. This is Congress, the House of Representatives, the oldest democracy in the world, and they're descending it into chaos," Ryan said. "I don't think this should be a very proud moment for democracy."

WATCH: Congressman John Lewis leads supporters in We Shall Overcome



Ryan said there were no plans to bring gun control legislation up for a vote, just as legislation was brought up for a vote following a filibuster in the Senate. He said gun control amendments have already been brought up in House committees and failed, and cited FBI concerns about ways gun control legislation could compromise terrorism investigations.

"We want to get it right while protecting people's Constitutional guaranteed rights and not violating the due process rights," he said.

But Democrats vowed to come back after the Independence Day holiday recess to renew the fight.

As the sit-in came to a close Thursday afternoon, Lewis told about a hundred Democrats assembled on the House floor, "When you want to do something about gun violence, it is not a struggle that lasts one day, one week, one month, one year -- it is a struggle. But we are going to win the struggle."

Dingell agrees. "The sit-in for today is over," she told VOA. "But the effort to get people to keep people out of the hands of terrorists, or convicted felons or domestic abusers is still a very real and ongoing effort."
The call went up from the House floor again and again - No Bill. No Break.

House Democrats going into the eleventh hour of a sit-in calling for gun control legislation heard House Speaker Paul Ryan was making his way to the floor and increased the chant they had repeated throughout a day of speeches calling for legislative action in response to the Orlando attack, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Members of the public watching up in the galleries chanted back the lines that have trended on social media since earlier Wednesday, asking for the House of Representatives to vote on gun control legislation before leaving for the Independence Day holiday break.

Ryan could barely be heard calling for a vote as House Democrats chanted and waved a sea of white papers bearing the names of gun violence victims. They booed Ryan and called out, Mr Speaker give us a vote.

During the 15-minute vote, Rep. Ted Deutch called out to My Republican friends, but could not finish speaking as he was shouted down. Democrats responded by singing the Civil Rights anthem We Shall Overcome while Republicans looked on silently.

The chaotic vote capped an intense and unprecedented day on the House floor.

For a second consecutive week, Democrats in the U.S. Congress commandeered a chamber to demand action on gun violence that has shattered numerous American communities  most recently in Orlando, Florida.

House Democrats took to the floor en masse Wednesday, led by civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia, and pledged to remain there in a "sit-in" until legislation is brought forward to stem carnage from firearms.

"Over the last 12 years, gun-related crimes claimed more American lives than AIDS, war and illegal drug overdoses combined," Lewis said in a letter to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan announcing the protest. "We urge you to lead the House into action and work with both sides of the aisle to pass common sense solutions to keep American children and families safe."

Republicans initially responded with gavel-banging and demands for order on the floor. When Democrats refused to disperse, Republicans recessed the chamber and turned off the microphones. Although lights continued to shine, proceedings ceased to be televised, because video is fed from the chamber only when it is in session.

Democrats responded by launching their own broadcasts, using the mobile application Periscope on their cellular phones. A non-profit U.S. cable outfit that covers congressional proceedings (C-Span) began broadcasting the Periscope feeds.

Senators actions

Wednesday's House disruptions followed last week's action by Senate Democrats on the other side of the Capitol. Led by Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Democrats spoke on the Senate floor for 15 consecutive hours, at which point Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to bring gun control measures up for a vote.

On Wednesday, several senators walked across the Capitol to join their House colleagues in a show of support.

Lewis' participation brought poignancy and historical gravitas to the House protest. An African-American, Lewis took part in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma, Alabama, that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday" when state troopers attacked with clubs and tear gas. Lewis suffered a wound to his head.

Lewis and others used sit-ins to great effect in the 1960s to protest racial segregation at lunch counters and public facilities.

Republicans responses

On Wednesday, some House Republicans responded to the Democratic protest with derision.

"Calling this a sit-in is a disgrace to [protests at] Woolworth's [lunch counters]," tweeted Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, adding that the sit-ins of the past pressed for expanded civil rights, while Democrats want to "strip [gun rights] away."

Rep. Steven Russell of Oklahoma told VOA the Democrats' action amounted to grandstanding and "absolute theatrics."

"I'm really disappointed that that's what our institutions are eroding to," Russell said. "I think we can do better."

The sit-in drew attention from Speaker Ryan's long-awaited unveiling of a Republican alternative to President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Ryan was away from the Capitol for much of the day, rolling out the Republican proposal at a Washington public policy research institute.
Overseas voting for the Australian Federal Election began on Monday, for the nationwide decision that will culminate in Election Day on July 2.

Australians living in Macau who are intending to vote, will have to travel to Hong Kong to the Australian Consulate General or mail their vote home to vote. But the polling booths are only available to would-be-voters during the institutions opening hours, causing potential problems for full-time workers.

The Times contacted several Australian nationals living in Macau, who indicated that since they have lived overseas for more than six years, they were not registered to vote and had been disenfranchised.

Australian expats are not required to vote and if they intend to stay overseas for over six years then they become ineligible to vote, Rev. Stephen Durie told the Times. I have been living overseas for 25 years so I am well disenfranchised.

Durie also indicated that he had no comments on the election or its key issues as he is not sufficiently in touch to provide an opinion.

Citizens of Australia are normally required by law to vote in federal elections. However they can avoid this requirement if they are not registered to vote (around 10 percent of the population according to the BBC), have been out of the country for at least six years, or can produce a valid and sufficient reason for not voting, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Voting inconvenience may also present a factor inhibiting the willingness and ability of Australians living overseas to vote, especially for those who may not be able to go to the Consulate General during working hours.

Its not just convenience but its can you or cant you? posited Julie Kirkman speaking to TDM. You cant take a day off work to go and vote.

Others point out that there is little difference between the two major contenders in the Australian parliament, the Liberal-National Coalition and the Australian Labor Party.

One issue that just to me exemplifies everything is that both sides of parliament in Australia treat refugees and immigration in a disgusting way, but theyre both the same [sic], local scholar Richard Whitfield told TDM.

Immigration is likely to be the central issue in next months election. Australia has been shamed in recent years for its treatment of immigrants and its controversial policy of relocating them to Pacific states and Indian Ocean islands such as Papa New Guinea, Nauru, Manus Island and Christmas Island.

Some of these countries accept refugees and illegal immigrants from Australia in return for Australian aid to expedite their development. The system has become informally known as the Pacific Solution, after the actual policy implemented during 2001 and 2007. It was partially revived in 2012 by a Labor government.

The number of refugees worldwide reached their highest level ever, the UN refugee agency said this week, surpassing that even of the Second World War.
In a move to promote safe, efficient and environmentally sustainable engineering operation and professional development, Companhia de Electricidade de Macau (CEM) hosted a delegation comprising the Trustee Board members of the Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) of the United Kingdom and the Committee members of the SOE Hong Kong Regional Group.

Both parties exchanged views on how SOE can support professional training and development for CEMs engineers.

SOE UK Trustee Board Members Chris Grime and John Eastman gave a presentation outlining the benefits of SOE membership, the registration process for professional engineering, and registration processes for Chartered Environmentalists.

The Chairman of CEMs Executive Committee Bernie Leong expressed his gratitude towards SOE for its cultivation of engineering expertise through regular seminars and site visits, as well as technical support for training and development.

CEM hopes to collaborate with SOE in the near future, so as to continuously strengthen the exchange of information and expertise between engineers.

h&m sees lower earnings amid cold weather, strong dollar

Low-cost fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz AB yesterday reported a 17 percent drop in its second-quarter net profit and sluggish sales growth, partly due to cold spring weather and the impact of a stronger dollar.

The Swedish fashion retailer said sales grew five percent in the quarter under review, but rose only two percent  to 54.3 billion kronor (USD6.6 billion)  when converted to Swedish currency.

Profit plummeted to 5.3 billion kronor from 6.4 billion a year earlier, with increased markdowns and investments.

Sales of spring clothes were hurt by a cold March and April in many markets, but H&M said May was significantly better.

CEO Karl-Johan Persson said that the first half of the year had been difficult, but that he expected future growth for the Stockholm-based company. H&M currently has 4,000 stores in 62 markets and plans to open more than 400 new stores this year.

It has been a challenging half-year for fashion retail in many markets, but we have great confidence going forward and are continuing to develop our offerings further within all our brands, Persson said.

The combination of strong brands, a large body of retail stores in good locations, and a successful e-commerce business puts us in a unique market position for future growth.

H&M now offers e-commerce services in 32 markets, having launched online sales in nine new markets this year. H&M will launch e-commerce in Canada and South Korea later in 2016, and plans to scale up its online business in 2017.
The mainlands anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) warned late on Wednesday night that it is about to begin an investigation into the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, as part of its four-year-long anti-graft campaign.

Also to be investigated is a number of National People Congress agencies, including the Basic Law committees for Hong Kong and Macau and 29 other ministerial-level party and government organs.

CCDI head Wang Qishan, who unveiled the inspection plans on Wednesday, said that they would be an effective way to reduce corruption in the government bodies.

Inspections are an important way to carry out internal-party supervision, he said, as cited by South China Morning Post. Inspections will examine whether the partys guidelines and policies have been truthfully enforced in a bid to resolutely safeguard the partys central leadership, added Wang.

The latest anti-corruption crackdown orchestrated by the central government is the 10th since president Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012. It comes after a mainland official in charge of internal control at the State Councils Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office was found to have breached such controls himself.

The crackdown signals that the central government is serious about cracking down on corruption, and no department is spared, Hong Kong-based commentator Johnny Lau told SCMP. In the past, they might not highlight the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office or the Basic Law Committee in their propaganda [] but that does not mean the two departments were corruption-free [sic].
Asias financial-hub twins, Hong Kong and Singapore, are facing increasing brakes on growth even before potential turmoil from a Brexit vote in their ex-colonial master, with Chinas slowdown and the continuing shrinkage of the financial industry striking both.

Hong Kongs economy unexpectedly contracted in the first quarter, weighed down by falling retail sales and the weakest property market in 25 years. Singapore eked out only a modest expansion in the same period, hurt by weak exports and a downturn in financial services.

Problems in the two cities are similar. Banks are finding it harder to grow profits, hiring has slowed and stock trading is in a slump. Capital inflows propelled by U.S. Federal Reserve quantitative easing and, later, by Chinese investors, are now in the rear-view mirror. While they have seen tougher times before and are building on strengths in other areas, such as tourism, the years of finance-charged growth looks to be over.

When Barclays Plc announced in January that it would close its Asian cash equities operations, it was just the start of whats been a laundry-list of job cuts that have affected Hong Kong and Singapore this year.

The numbers explain the story:

Hong Kong-listed shares saw daily average volume of HKD67 billion (USD8.6 billion) in turnover this year, down 46 percent from HKD123 billion the same period last year. First-time share sales have raised $5.6 billion this year, less than half the $14.4 billion of deals priced during the same period in 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, the worst start to a year since 2013.

Singapore, as the center for Southeast Asian deal-making, has experienced a decline in activity. Acquisitions involving companies from the region have fallen 24 percent this year to $64.9 billion, compared with $85 billion the same period in 2015, the data show. About SGD1.57 billion ($1.17 billion) worth of stocks changed hands on average daily this year, a 6 percent decline compared with the same period last year.

As financial centers, both cities cannot escape the geopolitical and economic forces coming out from China, said Andrew Sheng, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong, who previously worked at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Malaysias central bank. So the slowdown will affect them both.

The China slowdown is part of a powerful storm Asia-Pacific banks will face, which will probably hurt profit growth in an industry that earned half a trillion dollars last year, according to a McKinsey & Co. report released this week. China, which had led regional banks profit gains for most of the past decade, is going to drag on that growth as its economy weakens, the consultancy said.

Its all a far cry from the years when Chinas super-charged expansion spurred its industrial giants and banks to tap Hong Kong and Singapore for financial know-how and billions worth of debt and share issues, fueling rapid growth in banking, tourism and luxury goods shopping.

Thanks to those years of growth, the financial industry came to make up a significant shares of the twin cities economies. Singapore is home to more than 1,200 financial institutions including banks, insurers and finance companies, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The financial sector employs about 5 percent of the total workforce, MAS data show. Finance and insurance make up the fourth largest component of Singapores economy, accounting for almost 13 percent in 2015, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Hong Kongs financial-services industry was the second-biggest contributor to gross domestic product in 2014, with a 16.6 percent share, according to government data, only behind trading and logistics. The financial sector employed 6.3 percent of the workforce in 2014. Hong Kong is home to 156 licensed banks as at June 17, according to HKMA data.

It is very challenging for banks now, said John Mullally, financial services director of Robert Walters Hong Kong. Theres a lack of confidence and stability right there. When you have that, market participants such as banks are unlikely to want to hire.

Its not all doom-and-gloom. Singapores tourism sector is enjoying a bump from wealthy Chinese visiting the countrys flashy casino resorts. Credit Suisse Group AG has forecast that tourist arrivals this year will probably exceed forecasts from the Singapore Tourism Board, climbing as much as 8 percent to 16.5 million compared to 2015.

In Hong Kong, the city remains a key gateway for Chinese companies looking to raise capital and as a private banking center for the regions rich.

Still, the two finance hubs face major challenges. So long as Chinese growth struggles for traction, the worlds no. 2 economy will cast a long shadow over Hong Kong and Singapore too.

The headwinds for economic growth are nowhere near over for either of the two, said Klaus Baader, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Societe Generale SA. The challenges are very significant. Enda Curran and Alfred Liu, Bloomberg
The future landscape of the hotel market in Hong Kong and Macau was discussed yesterday at the Business Luncheon of American Chamber of Commerce in Macau at the St. Regis hotel.

The speaker, Chun-Kong Lau, international director and head of Valuation Advisory Services of Jones Lang LaSalle Limited, emphasized the importance of tourism in the growth of Macaus economy.

Lau stressed that Macau has a lot to offer, especially now that the hotel rooms in the region have increased in number and improved in quality over the years.

He noted that the number of luxury hotel rooms in Macau has already overtaken that of Hong Kong.

The room size itself and the facilities [that are] offered in the hotels have a lot of attractions and these appeal to the visitors, no matter [visitors from] Hong Kong, China or overseas, the real estate expert said.

Lau added that attracting high-rollers was the right move for the city, given the current trend of more wealthy tourists investing in creating good experiences.

He said that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HKZMB) will play a vital role in encouraging visitors from across the Pearl River Delta to visit Macau, as the traveling time and costs will both be reduced.

The HKZMB is expected to help generate non-gaming revenues in the city, as incoming tourists will be attracted to larger retail spaces and the food and beverage offerings at the citys hotels.

Lau also commended the local government for driving innovation in its creative industries.

These are all non-gaming [activities and] all of these would be able to help Macau to grow further. These will help diversify the economic base, Lau stressed.

Although Lau believes that the bridge will create several economic benefits, he is unsure whether it will generate a significant or large amount of income. The three regions have invested a staggering sum of over HKD110 billion in the bridge to date.

The discussion also focused on the significance of the regions MICE industry. Events facilities and convention halls like the Cotai Arena are already a major attraction for several guests.

Lau also revealed that as the price level of properties are dictated by several factors  including the citys economic performance  the good performance of the tourism, hotel and gaming sector will be critical for the MSAR.

Lau said the regions hotel sector will continue to attract visitors with significant spending power, adding that the citys hotel offerings are a major factor in the creation of quality events.

The tourism industry is a very important pillar of the Macau economy, Lau said. Whether the tourists spend in casinos, shopping, the food and beverage sector [], it will support the growth of the Macau economy.

Although Lau mentioned that the local government must carefully consider future land reclamations or the construction of more residential buildings, he is certain that the quality of accommodation in Macau has improved compared to past years. Lynzy Valles
In a demonstration of her popular appeal, Myanmar de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi received a rapturous welcome yesterday as she presided over a town hall-type meeting with some of the huge population of migrant workers from her homeland who eke out a living in Thailand.

Her meeting with countrymen in the Thai port town of Mahachai, where many work, reprised a similar meeting in 2012 that drew tens of thousands. The numbers this time appeared to be lower, but the level of adulation was high, as the cheering crowd had to be held back from mobbing her.

Overshadowing her visit  though not addressed by her or her Thai hosts  is her governments treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority of about 1 million who generally have been deprived of citizenship under Myanmar law and are targets of discrimination and violence.

Suu Kyi spoke to several hundred people in a meeting hall for 20 minutes before stepping down from the stage in frustration at a faulty sound system to engage face-to-face with members of the audience, who gave her questions and comments about what she could do to help their often difficult lives.

A large crowd of several thousand waiting outside burst into cheers and song as she was leaving, after staying for the duration of her 45-minute meeting even as a heavy rain poured down on them.

When Suu Kyi last visited Thailand four years ago, it was as head of her countrys opposition party to offer moral support to her countrymen who work here in menial jobs, often in exploitative conditions.

She arrived back as her countrys elected leader to tackle on an official basis the problems faced by Myanmar migrant workers the government estimates to number 1.4 million but advocates say is at least twice that.

In her new position of more power and responsibility, Suu Kyi faces greater scrutiny than she did as a democracy heroine fighting military rule. The trip puts her in the spotlight as questions have arisen about her governments policies, particularly toward the Rohingya minority, which critics say fall short of what they expected from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Many in the countrys Buddhist majority say the Rohingya are mostly illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and not a native ethnic group, although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Rights activists have criticized Suu Kyi for failing to ensure justice for the Rohingya, many of whom live in poor conditions in internal displacement camps after communal violence forced them from their homes.

Suu Kyi is being hosted by Thailands military junta, and her trip is being tightly scripted, with no opportunities for the media to question her on the issue.

Thai police forced organizers to change the format of a news conference held by Rohingya activists yesterday, allowing them to read prepared statements but not take questions. Police said the event could violate a law against instigating unrest.

Her focus, however, is on the migrant workers situation. She is scheduled to sign two agreements to improve the migrants working conditions and make it easier for them to work legally.

In 2012, she gave a promise to the workers [] that she would support them, both to return to Myanmar but also to have a better life here, said Andy Hall, who advises the Migrant Workers Rights Network. I think the workers see her visit, both as something that would result in greater protection for them, but also [as] another sign that the time is coming when they can eventually go back home to their motherland and continue their lives there.

Suu Kyi was scheduled to visit a refugee camp tomorrow in the western province of Ratchaburi, bordering Myanmar, but that was canceled due to poor weather, the Thai foreign ministry said. There are about 100,000 refugees from Myanmar in camps just inside the Thai border, and their eventual repatriation has been discussed for decades. But combat in Myanmars ethnic-controlled border regions has never completely ceased, though there are hopes that with the army out of power, peace can be achieved.

Suu Kyis National League for Democracy party swept last years general election to take power in March, but she is blocked from becoming president by a clause in the constitution enacted under army rule that bars her from holding the post. As a workaround, her party created the post of state counsellor, putting her in charge of her amenable colleague, President Htin Kyaw. She also is foreign minister. Jerry Harmer & Vicky Ge Huang, Mahachai, AP
U.S., European and Chinese regulators said yesterday they will jointly enforce product safety in online commerce, and an American official said they are making progress on crafting standards for hoverboards.

The statement by American, European Union and Chinese officials reflects the rapid growth of international e-commerce, which the officials said has created new challenges in protecting consumers from dangerous products.

They pledged to watch online sales more closely, make it easier to track products to their manufacturer and to cooperate in product recalls. They said manufacturers will be encouraged to do more to design safety standards into products.

U.S., European and Chinese regulators have held five such meetings since 2008. They began amid scandals over fake or shoddy toothpaste, tires and other goods from China that revealed weaknesses in safety enforcement.

The latest pledge marked the first time such a meeting produced an agreement to do something concrete, said the American envoy, Elliot F. Kaye, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Kaye said the U.S.-Chinese relationship in product safety is close and cooperative, in contrast to disputes in other areas.

Kaye said regulators need to respond to the rise of online commerce that links consumers directly with foreign suppliers, eliminating traditional importers who would have been responsible for product safety. In the United States, online sales have grown to account for 8 percent of total consumer purchases, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Meanwhile, Kaye said, regulators are making progress on developing safety standards for hoverboards, the popular electric scooters that have suffered crashes and fires. Kayes agency is investigating 13 manufacturers, including Chinese companies.

UL, formerly Underwriters Laboratories, a product-testing company, has developed fire-safety standards.

A second group, ASTM, is working on guidelines for stability and is expected to release them in six months, Kaye said. He said Washington would share those with Chinese authorities. AP
Chinas stocks rose the most in a week, while Hong Kongs equities extended gains to a fourth day as traders weighed the odds of Britain staying in the European Union.

The Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.9 percent at the close, led by energy companies. Technology and small-company shares also rallied, sending the ChiNext index to its highest level in two weeks. The Hang Seng Index climbed 0.6 percent. HSBC Holdings Plc paced gains for lenders. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., which received about a fifth of its revenue from the U.K. last year, jumped the most in almost a month.

Stocks added to gains in the afternoon even as opinion polls and financial markets grew divided about the likely Brexit outcome. While an index of betting flows compiled by Oddschecker shows the chance of leaving has fallen to 26 percent from 43 percent since June 14, polls say the race is too close to call. Asian nations such as China with slowing growth, high reliance on EU exports and exposure to capital flight look most at risk, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Li Ka-shing, Hong Kongs richest man, stepped up his calls for Britons to vote in favor of staying as the world braces for the outcome of tomorrows vote.

Investors tend to be more positive regarding the U.K. referendum now, which is contributing to the advance in the stocks, said Ronald Wan, chief executive at Partners Capital International Ltd. in Hong Kong. The higher oil price is supporting some energy companies, he said.

In mainland trading, the ChiNext jumped 2.5 percent. The Shenzhen Composite Index advanced 1.7 percent. Hong Kongs Hang Seng closed at the highest level since June 10, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index increased 0.7 percent. Turnover picked up in Hong Kong, with trading volumes in the benchmark rising 13 percent from the 30-day average.

Shenzhen-based technology companies and small caps rallied amid lingering speculation a stocks link between Hong Kong and Shenzhen will be announced soon, said Partners Capitals Wan. Hong Kong is about to take the second step with the Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect later this year, HKEx Chief Executive Officer Charles Li said on the exchanges website yesterday.

A lot of investors have been betting that the Shenzhen-Hong Kong link will be announced as early as July, said Wan.

A gauge of energy producers in the CSI 300 Index advanced 1.6 percent for the steepest gain among 10 industry groups. Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. surged by the 10 percent daily limit, while China Coal Energy Co. added 3.2 percent. China Shenhua Energy Co. soared 6.2 percent to lead gains for stocks in the Hang Seng. Oil traded near USD50 a barrel as U.S. industry data showed crude stockpiles declined, trimming a glut.

China, with its slowing growth, significant capital outflows and substantial exports to the EU, scores as one of the most vulnerable, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Fielding Chen and Tom Orlik wrote. The small, open financial centers of Hong Kong and Singapore are at the highest risk, they said.

HSBC, which is also listed in London, advanced 1 percent in Hong Kong. The lender is among several Hong Kong-listed companies with the highest correlation between their share prices and pound moves. HKEx climbed 1.9 percent. The citys bourse operator generated 20 percent of its revenue from the U.K. in 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The prospect of Brexit may cause difficulties for Chinese policymakers, given the likely turmoil in financial markets that would follow a British vote to leave. Sharp declines in the yuan  already trading near a five-year low  would prompt intervention by the nations central bank, according to Roy Teo, a senior currency strategist at ABN Amro Bank NV.

The U.K. referendum is just around the corner and the result is still highly uncertain, said Liu Xuezhi, an analyst at Bank of Communications Co. in Shanghai.

China will continue its prudent monetary policy this year and continue two-way opening of capital markets, the Peoples Bank of China said in a report released Tuesday. The government is planning opening measures that may allow foreign firms to list shares in the nation, it said. The monetary authority didnt give a time frame for the move. Bloomberg
Mark Ruffalo praises the Beijing subway. [Photo/workercn.cn]

Now You See Me 2 star Mark Ruffalo showed up in Beijing on June 19 at the movie's press conference. In the following days, Ruffalo posted his little tour around the city on his Facebook page.

Ruffalo posted that he tried to live as a local Beijinger. But in fact, he is more like a tourist experiencing pretty much everything the city has to offer: climbing the Great Wall, visiting the Imperial Palace, practicing tai chi, eating Beijing roast duck and Chinese hotpot.

Aside from that, he went out of his way to take a subway ride, showing approval for his experience, "Not so different than NYC except nicer, newer, cleaner and about 10% the price for a fare".(sic)

As reported, Ruffalo took his son and his family to Beijing this time, as his son's birthday falls on June 19. "I love Beijing, so I must bring him along," he said.

Ruffalo is an American director, actor and film producer, he was known for his portraying of Bruce Banner in the movie Hulk.
The Court of Final Appeal (TUI) yesterday upheld the governments decision in 2010 to reclaim the lands housing the upmarket residential project La Scala, which has been linked to the corruption case of the disgraced Secretary for Lands and Public Works Ao Man Long.

The ruling is the final blow to the hopes of Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau. Lau owns the offshore company (Moon Ocean) that was developing the project before the nullification.

Chief Executive Chui Sai On, reacted to TUIs decision yesterday via a government spokesperson statement: Given yesterdays TUI decision, the Chief Executive has instructed the Secretary for Transport and Public Works to begin the preliminary works of urbanization in order to utilize the land plots. The government will implement the commitment made during the Policy Address, namely to use the land plots to benefit the public, giving priority to public housing.

The statement added that around 4,000 flats are expected to be built at the location.

The 106-page Portuguese version of the TUI ruling is available online. The ruling notes that Moon Ocean doesnt have ownership over the five land plots, despite having paid MOP1.3 billion for them.

A ruling signed by judges Song Man Lei (rapporteur), Sam Hou Fai and Viriato de Lima states that the land granting process was tainted by illegalities linked to the Ao Man Long corruption case. The former secretary had received a HKD20 million bribe to grant the plots to Moon Ocean.

According to the TUI, Joseph Lau and his partner Steven Lo took the decision to buy the land plots and negotiated directly with Ao Man Long.

The nullification of the acts is based on the criminal conduct of the former secretary but also of the bidder, the ruling reads. PB
The Dalai Lama delivered his message of peace and compassion yesterday to thousands of people during a visit to Utah that included a luncheon with the governor and a planned meeting with senior Mormon leaders.

The Tibetan spiritual leader encouraged the audience at the University of Utah to start with themselves and their families to spread a sense of wonder in humanity.

Who creates violence? Who destroys peace? Not God, but you. So you have the responsibility to solve this problem, he said.

The self-effacing Nobel Peace Prize laureate wore an honorary medal on a thick chain and a white university visor during the talk punctuated by his hearty chuckles.

This is very, very practical, he said about the cap that contrasted with his crimson robes.

His speech came after stops in Washington, D.C., and California. The Tibetan spiritual leader was greeted when he arrived at his Salt Lake City hotel by an admiring crowd of a few hundred people who waited in nearly 100-degree heat.

Gov. Gary Herbert hosted the private lunch for the 80-year-old Dalai Lama that was attended by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the mayors of Salt Lake City and county. The spiritual leader is also expected to meet with two senior Mormon church leaders yesterday.

The meetings with politicians came despite a warning letter from a Weber State University professor who helped broker Utahs relations with China.

Professor Taowen Le said that officials could jeopardize that relationship if they met with the Tibetan spiritual leader, but Utah leaders said the China connection doesnt mean giving up core values such as freedom of speech.

The sentiment echoes Beijings position on President Barack Obamas meeting with the Dalai Lama last week.

Beijing accuses the Tibetan spiritual leader of heading a campaign to split the region off from the rest of China, though the Dalai Lama says he simply wants a higher degree of autonomy under Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama said Tuesday that a relationship with China is good for Tibets economy, but the country still wants to maintain its traditions. He said hes sensing ordinary Chinese tourists want to visit Tibet and change could come even though hard-line Chinese leaders remain opposed.

The appearance in Utah was scheduled after the Dalai Lama had to cancel a speech last year when doctors at the Mayo Clinic told him to rest. Lindsay Whitehurst, Salt Lake City, AP
The dump Trump movement is gaining followers among delegates to next months Republican National Convention, an effort that could tarnish Donald Trumps coronation even if it ultimately fails.

Several hundred Republican delegates are organizing to oppose Trump at the convention. Thats not enough delegates to topple Trump. But its more than enough to create turmoil at an event that is typically used to bring a political party together in support of a presidential candidate.

If Trump is the nominee, we truly believe its the end of our party, said Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate who is leading the effort to dump Trump. Were trying to save the party.

There could be floor fights over convention rules and the partys platform. And instead of a coronation, the roll call to nominate Trump could be an opportunity for delegates to voice their displeasure on national television.

Whats worse for the Republican Party  this is the calculation  one week of absolute chaos and all sorts of recriminations or four and a half months of this looming, rolling catastrophe? conservative Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes said on his Tuesday show.

Some delegates are appalled that their party would endorse a candidate who has publicly insulted women and a reporter with disabilities. Many were alarmed by his incendiary remarks following the Orlando massacre, and some were distressed by his assertion this month that a Mexican-American judge couldnt fairly preside over a Trump civil case.

When asked about her objections to Trump, Unruh said: You mean besides the fact that hes not a Republican? Hes progressive populist protectionist.

Trump dismisses attempts to deny him the nomination, noting he will have more than enough support at the convention to win the nomination and control the proceedings.

He has noted correctly that he received far more votes, won many more states, and collected nearly three times as many delegates as his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The dump Trump group faces another obstacle: It has no candidate to challenge Trump.

I have zero clue who is going to do this, said Unruh, who supported Cruz.

Some veteran Republican strategists and Republican National Committee members expressed resignation about the effort and predicted it will factor little in the convention proceedings.

I expect the whole thing to fizzle before the convention, said Charlie Black, an adviser to John McCain in 2008 and other GOP nominees.

Toppling Trump is a longshot effort, according to the math.

Unruh said she has the support of at 400 delegates, including some who are alternates. There will be 2,472 delegates at the convention. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.

Trump has 1,542 delegates, including 1,447 who are required by party rules to vote for him on the first ballot at the convention, according to the Associated Press count.

People in the Cruz camp say there is no organized effort on their part to encourage delegates loyal to the senator to oust Trump. But they arent discouraging a delegate revolt, either.

Youve got [House Speaker] Paul Ryan saying over the weekend that they should be allowed to vote their conscience  thats a pretty big deal, said Chris Wilson, who led polling and data operations for Cruz. If they somehow end up becoming unbound, I dont know. All bets are off there.

Unruh said she and her supporters will work to adopt rules that allow delegates to support the candidate of their choice. They are busy trying to contact members of the influential rules committee, which will meet the week before the convention.

The entire convention will vote on the rules adopted by the 112-member rules committee. It would take 28 votes by committee members to issue a minority report, which would also get a vote on the convention floor.

I can confidently say that I will have a minority report, said Unruh, who sits on the rules committee. Were saving the party and [GOP Chairman] Reince Priebus will send me flowers, Im sure.

Former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Bradys job is rounding up anti-Trump delegates in the Midwest. He acknowledged its a longshot campaign, but said theres little to lose.

Can I see it falling into place, given how poorly his campaign has gone? Yes, Brady said.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said that delegates should be free to vote their conscience at the convention.

I think historically, not just this year, delegates are and should be able to vote the way they see fit, Walker said. Well see how things go between now and the convention as to what the next steps are. Im not going to speculate now only because you all know the situation may change by this afternoon, let alone between now and the convention.

Walker has endorsed Trump. Stephen Ohlemacher, Thomas Beaumont, AP
When does a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence become a felony? For one Twin Falls man, it was when he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence twice in less than 48 hours.

Virgil Keith McCabe, 43, was arraigned Tuesday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on two felony counts of driving under the influence.

McCabe was pulled over the first time about 10:15 p.m. on June 14 by an officer from the Twin Falls Police Department. The cop said he pulled McCabe over because his exhaust was too loud, but when McCabe rolled down his window, the officer could smell the odor of alcohol coming from his breath.

Police ran several field tests which confirmed their suspicions, and at the county jail McCabe submitted to a breathalyzer test. Two tests showed his blood alcohol level about 0.11. The legal limit to drive in Idaho is 0.08.

McCabe was arrested and booked but posted bond right away. At that point, he was charged only with a misdemeanor.

But two nights later, McCabe was again pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence, this time in Hansen. Police say McCabe, driving the same 1994 Honda Civic he was driving two nights prior, failed to stop at a stop sign, went off the road while turning and then swerved as he drove north on Rock Creek Road.

An officer from the Kimberly-Hansen Police Department pulled McCabe over.

He was clear of warrants but had a suspended drivers status, the officer wrote in a sworn affidavit. The more he talked, the more he slurred his words.

McCabes eyes were bloodshot and he couldnt smoothly track movements, court documents said. Tested twice with a breathalyzer, McCabes blood alcohol level was about 0.14, once again well over the legal limit to drive.

McCabe was again arrested on a misdemeanor count, booked and released on bond. But prosecutors amended both misdemeanor counts to felony counts because of the circumstances.

Court records show McCabe was also convicted of driving under the influence in Twin Falls County in 2005, and he has several other alcohol-related misdemeanors on his record. McCabe is set for preliminary hearings on both counts July 1.
Anglers should find casting easier now at three small ponds after the Idaho Department of Fish and Game used chemicals to kill aquatic weeds.

Were doing more and more of it because were seeing slightly warmer water temperatures and more vegetation than we did 20 years ago, said Scott Stanton, Fish and Games regional fisheries biologist.

But this month was Fish and Games first time to treat these three: Carey Lake, the duck pond at Niagara Springs and Bluegill Lake, a pond inside Auger Falls Heritage Park at the north end of Twin Falls.

Aquatic vegetation made access and fishing difficult, Stanton said, because the weeds are right up to the surface of the pond and you cant cast.

Fish and Game intends to treat Crystal Lake and a few more south-central Idaho waters in the next few weeks, he said Friday. Hopefully well be hearing good reports that the vegetation has died off a little and theres better fishing access at the ponds.

I report with satisfaction that 3-acre Bluegill Lake is seeing a lot of anglers since my mid-May story about the new bass and bluegill fishery there. Thanks for reading.

If youre stuck indoors and wish you werent, check out the Sawtooth Interpretive and Historical Associations webcam (DiscoverSawtooth.org/webcam) for images of Redfish Lake.

Mounted on the roofline of the visitor center at the developed north end of Redfish Lake, the camera looks out across the lake toward two peaks  Heyburn Mountain on the right and Grand Mogul on the left  and the area where Fishhook Creek enters the lake.

The webcam produces images every 10 minutes. Look for the View Redfish slideshow link to see a slideshow of the most recent images.

Whos watching?

I think its mostly people looking at weather conditions, said Terry Clark, executive director of SIHA.

Like any good executive director, he mentioned that you can donate to the webcam at Discoversawtooth.org.

South-central Idaho waters this month produced Fish and Games first catch-and-release fish records for two species.

Peter McBride of Boise claimed the first walleye record with a 17.75-inch catch from Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir on June 5. Ten days later, Michael and Andrea Wehrer Nicholson of Boise caught a 28-inch freshwater Chinook salmon in Anderson Ranch Reservoir.

Actually, Michael Nicholson first claimed the record alone, Sportfishing Program Coordinator Martin Koenig told me when I called to ask for photos. Then Nicholson thought better of it and asked that his pregnant wife, who hooked the landlocked Chinook, be included in the record.

Fish and Game is overhauling its website, and its revised page for fishing records  now at Idfg.idaho.gov/fish/record  includes more specific guidelines for documenting a big catch and applying for a record.

If you can meet up promptly at 7 a.m. Sunday, youre welcome to join a Prairie Falcon Audubon Society field trip to see northern goshawks in the South Hills.

The birders will meet in a gravel lot on the east side of Rock Creek Road, where the roads pavement ends by the Diamondfield Jack campground. And they really do mean 7 a.m.

For those who arent early risers, a night at Porcupine Springs or Diamondfield Jack (campgrounds) might be in order, wrote Sarah Harris, president of the Audubon chapter. Her emoticon was winking, but I know she was in earnest.

The South Hills host one of North Americas most dense breeding populations of goshawks. Rob Miller, a research biologist with the Intermountain Bird Observatory, will lead the field trip, highlighting whats known and not known about the species, with emphasis on South Hills ecology.

The trip will respectfully visit up to two goshawk nesting territories with opportunities to observe adults and nestlings, the chapters announcement said. We will also have good opportunities to observe other great species in the area including South Hills crossbill, green-tailed towhees, Williamsons sapsuckers and broad-tailed hummingbirds.

Youll have to hike off trail, but likely less than two or three miles round-trip. Bring food, water, binoculars and a camera.

To get in touch with someone in advance, search for Prairie Falcon Audubon Society on Facebook.

Last week, I told you about the summertime programs at Bruneau Dunes State Parks observatory every Friday and Saturday night.

This Saturday, theres a special reason to show up: guest speaker Jim Steinfort, a former NASA employee during the Apollo missions.

His job was to run the flight simulators for the astronauts, so he got to know them well! He has some interesting things to share about those moon missions, but Ill just leave it at that, a park employee posted on Facebook. That weekend, the moon will be bright, but wont be rising till we are closed, so basically well be enjoying an extra new moon weekend! Cant get any better than that!

Details on the weekly programs: Parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/upcoming-events/20.

Birds rarely seen in Idaho are making appearances at Big Cottonwood Wildlife Management Area, Fish and Game reported June 15. Wildlife technician Austin Young this month photographed blue grosbeak, black-throated sparrow and scissor-tailed flycatcher there while conducting bird surveys.

And on Tuesday, Castle Rocks State Park posted a bird photo with this note: A yellow-breasted chat was observed in the Almo Creek wetland in early June. The fact that it continues to be seen here suggests that it is nesting in the wetland, which is a first for the park.
HAILEY  A Western tanager flits above rolling hills of sagebrush dotted with arrowleaf balsamroot, magenta-colored monkey flowers and fragrant yellow lupine. A blue camas nods in the breeze, while 6-inch trout swim nearby in a crystal-clear creek.

The 10,400-acre Rock Creek Preserve is an unfettered landscape of meadows and buttes, sage grouse leks and rock outcroppings west of Bellevue and Hailey.

A couple of roads, a few telephone poles and an old barn and corrals dating back to the 1920s are all that remind you that youre not in the wilderness.

Shoshone Indians wandered through the area during their seasonal journeys. Beaver trappers trapped here. Miners looked for lead, silver, gold and copper on the hillsides. And Oregon Trail pioneers once drove covered wagons over the Goodale Cutoff, which remains marked by a few white markers.

This summer, representatives of both The Nature Conservancy and the Wood River Land Trust are inviting the public to come out and hike, bike and ride horses through the area.

There are a few trails for hikers, primarily near the barn and Hatties Gulch area. And horseback riders and bikers are invited to ride along the Rock Creek and Glendale roads, both of which are dirt, as well as roads leading off them, such as that along the East Fork of Rock Creek.

The University of Idaho is putting 150 cattle on the land this summer for research, but that shouldnt affect recreational use much.

Half of Idaho consists of public lands  much of which is grazed by cattle, noted Toni Hardesty, state director for The Nature Conservancy. So anything the researchers learn here can be used to educate cattle grazers throughout the state, which should benefit the land.

Rock Creek was homesteaded in the early 1900s by miner George Stewart, his wife, Ella Mae, and their eight children, said Patti Lousen, who researched the areas history for the land trust. They were joined by eight more families, including the Schmidts, who raised cattle and sheep, and the Tews, who moved cattle between Rock Creek and Black Butte north of Shoshone from 1943 to 1963. Part of the Tews family lived in Cowboy Camp at Rock Creek between 1927 and 1934.

Harry Rinker, who developed the elegant Golden Eagle subdivision north of Hailey, purchased the ranch in the 1980s with the idea of building a town there  possibly in conjunction with the owners of the nearby Diamond Dragon Ranch.

But a couple of years ago he and his family sold the ranch to The Nature Conservancy and the Wood River Land Trust for a fraction of its market value. A conservation easement now protects it for the enjoyment of wildlife and recreational users.

Snowmobilers groomed the road last winter, allowing access by snowmobiles, cross-country skiers and snowshoers. And hunters are expected to use it this fall.

Rock Creek flows year-round, so it provides good winter wildlife habitat, said Clark Shafer, director of development for The Nature Conservancy. Were trying to restore it following years of degradation by cattle.

Its an entire drainage so you have a landscape thats all encompassing, thats not impacted by downstream water users, added Keri York, who works with conservation easements for the land trust. I think its neat that we can preserve an area that people once homesteaded. Hopefully, well have some signs up that will better identify the hiking trails by next summer.

Shafer drove out Glendale Road south of Bellevue, continuing on it as it turned to dirt past the last of the ranch houses overlooking Poverty Flats. To the left, he said, is Magic Reservoir  which he could see if the hills of sagebrush werent blocking it.

When he reached Rock Creek Road, he turned right. An old jeep trail marked by telephone poles sat to the right along the East Fork of Rock Creek. It provides a nice eight-mile loop for bikers, as well as access for hiking and hunting, Shafer said.

While hikers can poke around nearly anywhere, there is no motorized use off county roads like Rock Creek Road and Glendale Road, with the exception of jeep roads like the East Fork. Small signs remind motorists of the restrictions.

Shafer passed a barn and corrals built in the 1920s. There is some pretty good hiking behind the barn, he noted, but he continued on.

A few minutes drive past the barn, he turned left. A couple of minutes more and he stopped. His passengers got out and passed behind a sign that restricted motorized access, onto a trail.

They walked up the hill, past white and pink phlox to a viewpoint looking over a landscape of tall native grasses, gullies and creeks. Off in the distance to the right was 8,800-foot Kelly Mountain, which looms over the plain offering a view stretching to the Jarbidge Mountains south of Twin Falls.

The trail led past outcroppings, through gullies and along creeks shaded by cottonwood.

This is amazing, said Marie Gallo, a Belgian now living in Hailey. Such wide open space. The true West.
Volunteers  The Senior Companion Program at the CSI Office on Aging needs volunteers, age 55 and older, to assist homebound seniors by providing friendly visits and transportation as needed. Info: Marisol, 208-736-2122, or toll free, 800-574-8656.

Volunteers  The Foster Grandparent Program at the CSI Office on Aging has openings for volunteers, age 55 and older, to read to children ages 2 to 9 and assist with their academic and social skills. Placements are available throughout the Magic Valley in Head Start programs and public elementary schools. Info: Marisol, 208-736-2122 or toll free, 800-574-8656.

Volunteers  Hospice Visions Inc. is looking for volunteer handy men and women for light home modifications, Light Touch Massage therapists, hair dressers, volunteers for meal assistance, and to visit with, play music and games with those on hospice services. Volunteers are needed with licensed certified therapy animals to love our hospice patients in their own homes or assisted living centers. Hospice Visions is looking for volunteers interested in doing art projects with our patients or filming and creating a Life Legacy Video, or can take someone to the store, run an errand or out for a drive. Veterans can become a Vet-to-Vet Volunteer and visit with other veterans. Volunteers are also needed to assist with fundraising events and provide office assistance Info: Nora at 208-735-0121 or nwells@hospicevisions.org

Volunteers  The Twin Falls Senior Center has a ladies group (The Crazy Quilters), who are looking for individuals to put finishing touches on quilts as a group while socializing at the same time. The group meets from 9 a.m. to noon every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. All quilt project proceeds are given to the Twin Falls Senior Center. Info: 208-734-5084.

Volunteers  The Fifth Judicial District CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) Program is seeking community volunteers to become advocates for abused children. Advocates receive training and support to investigate, report, monitor and advocate for children involved in the child protection system. Advocates are needed in all eight counties of the district, but it is critical to the program to recruit volunteers in the Mini Cassia area. Information: Tahna, 208-735-1177.

Drivers  The Twin Falls Senior Center delivers meals to homebound seniors in the Twin Falls area Monday through Friday, and the routes take an hour or less to complete. Commitment is based on your availability; pick a day of the week or drive once or twice a month, pick a week to drive, or be a substitute driver. Volunteers must be 18 years of age with their own car, and have proof of liability insurance. Drivers receive 54 cents a mile fuel reimbursement. Information: Sandee Earl, 208-734-5084.

Volunteers  St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center is in need of volunteers for a variety of positions from shuttle drivers to care volunteers to gift shop volunteers and more. The medical center is looking for pleasant, and friendly individuals with a sincere interest in voluntary services offered to patients, visitors, employees and guests. Meet new people and learn new experiences and challenges. Information: Kim Patterson at 814-0861 or kimpa@slhs.org, or visit the Volunteer Services Office, lower level at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center; 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls. Applications are available at the Front Information Desk.

Volunteers/drivers  Habitat for Humanity of the Magic Valley and the ReStore are seeking adult volunteers. At the ReStore, volunteers are needed to provide general customer service, receiving, coordinate volunteers, fixing items to be sold in the store, and drivers to pick up donations. Information: 208-735-1233 or the Habitat office, 669 Eastland Drive S., Twin Falls.
RUPERT  A Rupert woman has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.

Prosecutors say Tiffaney Campbell, 28, sexually abused the boy while both were living at a shelter for domestic violence victims.

She was originally charged with four felony counts of lewd conduct with a minor, but, in a deal with prosecutors, Campbell pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a minor younger than 16.

Prosecutors will recommend she serve two to five years in prison.

The maximum penalty for sexual abuse of a minor is 25 years in prison and $25,000 fine.

Campbell abused a 13-year-old boy between December 2015 and New Years Day, court records said. Police said she would touch the boy and brought a blanket to a couch where she undressed and had sex with him.

She is scheduled to be sentenced July 11 in Minidoka County District Court.
TWIN FALLS  ASSE International Student Exchange Programs is seeking local host families for international high school boys and girls.

The students are 15 to 18 years old and are arriving for the upcoming high school year or semester. Students are conversant in English, and will share their culture and language with their host family.

Exchange students arrive from their home country shortly before school begins and return at the end of the school year or semester.

Each ASSE student is fully insured, brings spending money and expects to contribute to household responsibilities.

For more information, call 1-800-733-2773 or visit www.host.asse.com.
BOISE  The daughter of an Oregon man who defied a World War II curfew order against Japanese Americans says she fears the same thing could happen again.

Holly Yasui is the daughter of Minoru Yasui, who was jailed in Portland before being sent to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. At a weekend program in Ontario, Ore., she said shes troubled by broadsides against Muslims from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and others.

Trump has said he is against internment camps but supports blocking Muslims from entering the United States.

Its frightening to hear this rhetoric, Holly Yasui said. Sometimes it appears this country is going to hell in a handbasket, but I do have faith in people. And I hear people here on the left and on the right saying that its important to respect the Constitution and the rights of all people.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has hit a fevered pitch in recent months.

Trump has blasted Muslims and called Latino immigrants criminals and rapists.

Many others have spoken out negatively after an American of Afghan descent killed 49 people and wounded 53 two weeks ago at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

And anti-refugee websites last weekend spread false claims that Syrians gang-raped a child at knifepoint at a Twin Falls apartment complex earlier this month. Three boys, 7, 10 and 14, were involved in some sort of assault on a 5-year-old girl, officials said, but the details didnt match the wild claims made online. The boys, who are being held at a juvenile detention facility, are from Sudan and Iraq; only one of the younger boys is alleged to have touched the victim, and no knife was involved.

Resentment against Muslims grew following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Holly Yasui said. Muslims in the United States had nothing to do with those attacks, just like Japanese Americans had nothing to do with the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she said.

In the decades following World War II, most people came to the realization that imprisoning the Japanese Americans was wrong, said longtime Malheur County Circuit Judge Frank Yraguen, whose family is Basque.

Could it nevertheless happen again? I surmise that it could happen again, Yraguen said during the program at the Four Rivers Cultural Center.

A 2012 anti-terrorism law gives the military authority to arrest civilians anywhere in the world and detain them without trial as accused supporters of terrorism, Yraguen said. Its troubling, he said, to think that even U.S. citizens could be held without due process.

Could a situation like what happened in World War II happen again? Theres no question in my mind, Oregon Senate Republic Leader Ted Ferrioli said.

Ferrioli, a John Day resident who represents southeastern Oregon, carried the bill creating Min Yasui Day on the floor of the Senate. He said he was moved by Yasuis lifelong commitment to help minorities and his fight against the injustices against him.

More than 120,000 people of Japanese descent  two-thirds of them United States citizens  were rounded up along the West Coast and imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. No one of Japanese descent was ever accused of assisting the enemy.

Min Yasui grew up in Hood River, where his father and uncle operated a store. His father, Masuo, later held ownership in five ranches. Min graduated from the University of Oregon Law School and became the first Japanese American attorney in Oregon.

On March 28, 1942, Yasui deliberately violated a military curfew for people of Japanese ancestry, ordering a Portland police officer to arrest him in a test of the regulation. His subsequent conviction stood until it was overturned in 1986 by a federal court in Oregon, the same year he died.

Earlier this year, the Oregon Legislature declared March 28 as an annual Min Yasui Day. It followed the posthumous awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom last November by President Barack Obama.

Saturdays program in Ontario  Vision and Vigilance: Minoru Yasui, An Oregon Civil Rights Hero  included readings from Holly Yasuis play, Citizen Min; a photo display; a roundtable discussion and screening of a partially finished film on Min Yasui.

The program, which attracted about 100 people Saturday, will go to Portland and Hood River in October.

Ontario resident Bob Komoto, whose father, Joe, was one of the founders of Ontario Produce, said he admired Yasui for waging a one-man fight for his constitutional rights. He showed great courage, Komoto said, even with the lack of support from others.

In the next crisis, who will I be? Everyone hopes they will be Min, Komoto said.
TWIN FALLS  Tara Hansen wanted to inspire others to do better, and now shes getting a chance to speak in front of 2,000 people.

The president of the Magic Valley Toastmasters club pulled ahead of the competition at the Toastmasters district competition, and will move on to the international contest in Washington D.C. this summer.

Hansen, a 35-year-old Gooding resident, said shes more excited than nervous to share her message with the world.

I have become a better person listening to motivational speakers, she said. I want to have that same influence on other people.

Her winning speech at the district competition in May in Logan, Utah, was centered on Hansens personal experiences following her 24-year-old younger brothers sudden, unexplained death.

I think its important to talk about those things and to do it in a way that doesnt leave people feeling bad in the end, Hansen said.

A core piece of her message was to remind people to talk about the memories made, and gratitude cures the regret.

Donna Erickson, with Magic Valley Toastmasters, said the club is pleased at Hansens success.

Shes got a great sense of humor, sense of drama, Erickson said.

Hansen has been in Toastmasters for two years, and has competed at events both years. This is the farthest shes made it in the annual competition.

From Aug. 17-20, Hansen will be in Washington for the international competition as part of the annual Toastmasters conference. Shell be vying for the title of World Champion Public Speaker 2016.

More than 100 contestants will each give a 5- to 7-minute speech in the semi-finalist round, she said. Groups of 10 have been selected, and the winner of each group will move on to the finals with a second speech. Hansen said shell be directly competing with people from Malaysia, Africa, Canada and the United States.

If selected as a finalist, Hansens final speech will also be inspirational-themed.

Im going to talk a little bit about the rides life takes us on, and how to enjoy those, she said.

Hansen says shes younger than most other Toastmasters members she comes across, but she considers it a benefit.

I can learn way faster because theyre teaching me what theyve learned, she said.

Magic Valley Toastmasters meets at 12:10 p.m. Wednesdays at Golden Corral. Twin Falls Toastmasters, an evening group, meets 7 p.m. Mondays at Tomatos Italian Grill.

The majority (of members) simply want to either get more comfortable speaking in front of a group, or develop leadership skills, Erickson said.
TWIN FALLS  Rescuers were searching for a man Wednesday night who slipped and fell at Pillar Falls.

Two men were walking across the rocks at the falls about 8 p.m. when both slipped, said Lori Stewart, Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.

Only one of the men made it out of the water. A 22-year-old man who was wearing a black shirt and black shorts was still missing at 8:45 p.m.

The sheriff's office and the county search and rescue crew were responding.
This appeared in the Lewiston Tribune:

How many times have you heard the phrase: This time its different?

Just about the time your level of skepticism is rising, right?

Which brings us to the Idahos Republican legislative leaderships apparent attempts to help Idahos Medicaid gap population.

Those are the 78,000 adults living at or below the federal poverty line who were left out in the cold. They make too little to qualify for subsidized private health insurance under Obamacare.

And the Legislature refused to accept Obamacares offer to provide Medicaid benefits to them at little or no cost to the state. For the first three years of Medicaid expansion, the feds would pay 100 percent of the costs and no less than 90 percent thereafter.

Study after study commissioned by Gov. C.L. Butch Otter reached the same conclusion: Medicaid expansion would be cheaper than continuing to spend an estimated $38 million a year on medical bills incurred by people deemed indigent and incapable of covering their costsusually in the midst of a health care emergency.

Even more compelling is the moral argument. Its clear people in this gap population who dont get help are dying prematurely. Prominent among them was Jenny Steinke, who delayed seeking help for her chronic asthma because she couldnt afford it and ended up dying in an Idaho Falls hospital.

But whether it was a straightforward Medicaid expansion, some hybrid model that used Medicaid dollars to secure private insurance for at least some of the low-income adults or even Otters far more modest $30 million Primary Care Access Program, the GOP legislatures answer was always the same:

No.

Late in the legislative session, the House passed a modest health care plan. Frustrated with the lack of progress, the Senate instead passed a plan to seek a more robust Medicaid hybrid from the Center for Medicare-Medicaid Services.

By a party-line vote, the House GOP killed the idea.

So once again, nothing happened.

Perhaps youre among those who found hope among the embers of that debacle. If so, you cheered House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, and Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, who last week convened a legislative working group to begin sifting through its alternatives.

But theres this nagging element called the political calendar.

Whatever the working group does, it has to answer two broad questions:

Who gets coverage?

And what services will Idaho provide?

Reach agreement on that point and they still need the 2017 Legislature to pass it.

Then the state and CMS must hash out a waiver from the standard Medicaid program. Assuming that deal is worked out, then its back to the 2018 Legislature to sign off on the final arrangement.

Such a vote could come just weeks before the 2018 GOP primary election for governorOtter is retiringas well as statewide officers and legislators.

A debate about Obamacare threatens to reopen old wounds between the partys establishment and Tea Party wings.

So why would Medicaid expansionan issue that has rocked the GOP internally for yearsnow enjoy a respectful if not enthusiastic legislative response?

Heres one guess: Republicans running for election in legislative districts where Democrats are competitive are being pressed to support something.

That puts the onus on voters this fall. They could transform legislative races in communities such as Moscow, Lewiston, Boise and even southeastern Idaho into a referendum on Medicaid expansion.

Thats not a lot to hope for. But for Idahos most vulnerable adults, it may be all theyve got.
Fighters loyal to Al-Qaeda have returned to cities in southern Yemen less than a month after they left. The militants of the extremist group left the cities after they were persuaded by tribal leaders to leave rather than confront the pro-Hadi forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition, in order to save the residents from the ruins of war.

It is still unclear what led to the return of the militants who were reportedly seen patrolling on pickup trucks mounted with anti-craft guns in Jaar and Zinjibar, Ayban province, during the day before retreating to hideouts at night. Their return was noticed this week and their intentions are unknown amid the relative peace that the country has been experiencing since the Kuwait talks began.

Southern Yemen has not been occupied by the Houthis but it has been a safe haven for extremist groups trying to propagate their presence in the country. The uprising of the Houthi Movement which led to the current war has created a political and security vacuum in Yemen that facilitated the control of territories by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Meanwhile, UN special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has proposed a roadmap to end the war and told the UN Security Council in a briefing that it would pave the way for the implementation of the security arrangements specified in Security Council Resolution 2216 and the establishment of a national unity government.

The Houthis and the Hadi-led government have been engaged in continuous talks since April 21 and special envoy Ahmed admitted that they are slowly, yet constructively progressing as they ought for a sustainable and comprehensive peace deal that will generate security and stability for Yemen and its people, and represents a sign of hope for the Middle East. The parties are expected to go on break for consultations with their respective leaderships with expectations of concessions from each party, he stated.
Democratic Republic of Congos former Vice President, Jean-Pierre Bemba, was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his militiamen in Central African Republic more than a decade ago.

The verdict announced on Tuesday focused on the responsibility of a military commander for the actions of his troops, as Bemba commanded a private army of 1,500 men who went on a spree of murder, rape and pillage in the central African nation.

The judges cited instances of gang rape, and took note of the lasting physical and social harm that rape victims suffered, including stigmatization, ostracism and disease.

The ICCs prosecutors asked for a 25-year sentence arguing that Bemba knew, or should have known, that his MLC soldiers were committing crimes.

Nonetheless, Bembas lawyers said that he had no control over the MLCs campaign in CAR, during which they claim his soldiers were fully under the command of CARs then-president Ange-Felix Patasse.

Jean Pierre Bemba, who is now 53, was a businessman and scion of a prominent Congolese family before rising to the vice presidency. His trial is the first at the ICC to feature allegations of systematic sexual abuse by soldiers in a conflict.

He had already been detained for eight years before and during his trial, so he would presumably now have 10 years left in his sentence if it stands at 18 years.
The Zambian government on Tuesday ordered the closure of a printing plant belonging to The Post newspaper citing tax payment failure.

Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has ordered the closure of the newspaper demanding disputed tax arrears of about Sh 68 million ($6.1 million).

Post Newspaper general manager for finance Rowena Zulu said the money ZRA is demanding had already been paid almost in total.

According to the owner of the newspaper, Chief Mukuni, The Post is there to stay for many years to come; it is the voice of the people and it will continue to be there, no one will close it.

Despite what is currently happening, The Post shouldnt worry so much because currently, it is the voice of the people and the voice of the people cannot be suppressed; this is just a passing phase and very soon it will be an issue of the past, Mukuni said.

The Post has about 1,500 workers plus newspaper vendors and other indirect suppliers who are already anxious of their fate.

The Post however hit the streets on Wednesday although the printing plant is reported closed.

Some Zambians on social media said Post Newspaper is known for its hardline stance against corruption and other vices in public service. A general election is planned in the country for August.

Lungu who has been in power for just over a year is seeking re-election in the countrys August presidential polls.
Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai host Georgian wine festivals

Wine-lovers in China are being given a unique opportunity to discover the full range of Georgian wines at a Georgian Wine Festival being held in three parts of China this month.Master of Wine Debra Meiburg is presenting a vast selection of Georgian wines at the Meiburg Wine Media Georgian Wine Festival in Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai. Debra Meiburg is an award-winning multi-media wine journalist, wine educator, wine judge and Asias first recipient of the 'Master of Wine' title.Hong Kong will be the first area to host the Georgian Wine Festival, which will kick off tomorrow. The event will move to Macau on June 20 and Shanghai on June 22 before returning to Hong Kong for a second installment on June 24.Highlights of the Georgian Wine Festival will be as follows: Four master classes in three cities; Trade and public tasting sessions, featuring 50+ Georgian wines and 10 winemakers; Taste the full spectrum of wine styles including sparkling to still, semi-sweet to dry, traditional qvervi to modern, whites to reds; Wine master will guide guests through the past, present and future of Georgian wines, including "trending wines, highlight wineries, cuisine matches, pronunciation, comparison to popular international styles and more.Georgia is the worlds oldest wine producing country, while its unique traditional winemaking techniques and vast range of indigenous grape varieties add to its modern appeal, said Meiburg.During the festival we will cover trending wines, highlight particular wineries, cuisine matches, pronunciation and comparison to popular international styles in a uniquely Georgian festive atmosphere, she added.Last year, the Government of Georgia worked hard to diversify its wine exports, with China being one of its target markets. Figures from Georgia's National Wine Agency showed exports of Georgian wine to China had increased by 122 percent in 2015 compared to 2014.Last year Georgia exported 2,672,154 bottles of wine to China. With these figures, China was the fourth largest importer of Georgian wine in 2015.
@JeremySWallace

Carlos Beruff may have picked the perfect location on Wednesday to essentially re-launch his campaign for the U.S. Senate, which suddenly requires him to beat an incumbent who just 3 months ago was a top-tier presidential contender.

"This is like a whole new campaign," Beruff told about 30 people at a law office in Panama City on Wednesday just hours after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio announced he had changed his mind and now wants to seek re-election to the U.S. Senate.

For the last four months, the millionaire land developer from Manatee County was battling four other lesser known Republicans for the GOP nomination to replace Rubio. Already three of those four other opponents have stepped aside for Rubio.

But Beruff told the Republican audience in Bay County Wednesday that he is not budging and will remind voters of how much Rubio has skipped out on doing his job in Congress and how little real world business experience Rubio has.

"When 2.6 million people hire you to do a job, you really should go and do that job; and not go looking for another job," Beruff said of Rubio who missed 73 of 105 votes in the Senate during the six months before dropping out of the presidential race in March.

Beruff had a receptive audience in Bay County, where he's made four stops since March and has just ramped up his television advertising in the area. It's also a county where Rubio won less than 20 percent of the GOP presidential primary vote against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in March.

Larry Britt, a retired salesman who was among the group to see Beruff, said even with Rubio in the race he still likes Beruff's chances.

"This is the year of the outsider," Britt said.

While Rubio was once the outsider choice, Britt said he thinks Washington has changed him like some of the other Republicans elected over the years who vowed to change D.C. He said those who try to make politics a career end up changing to fit in on Capitol Hill. But since Beruff already has another career, it makes him different and less susceptible to falling in line in D.C.

Beruff drove home a similar theme during a 15 minute speech to the group.

"Mr. Rubio has become part of the establishment," sad Beruff, who has said he's ready to spend up to $20 million of his own money to win the Senate seat.

Attorney William G. Harrison, Jr., said he supported Rubio in 2010, but said his entering the race so late is a problem for him. He said once Rubio made clear he would not seek re-election, he and others took him at his word and started committing to other campaigns. He's told people in his office and over dinners that he's backing Beruff and questions how he can go back on his word, just because Rubio changed his mind.

"It's different for people up here in North Florida where it really matters if you keep your word," Harrison said.

He said Rubio is also going to have to overcome not spending much time in the Florida Panhandle since he was elected in 2010. He said Rubio has barely been west of Tallahassee and hasn't built ties with people.

"Nobody knows who Rubio is here," Harrison said. "Sure we've seen him on tv during the presidential campaign. But around here people know if you have a problem you call Bill Nelson's office and they will take care of it. He's a good guy, but you just don't know who he is. We don't have a connection with him."

During his speech, Beruff seized on that sentiment noting he's already visited all 67 Florida counties and has pledged visit them all again every year if he is elected.
@PatriciaMazzei

Coming to a Florida screen near you: Ads by a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC characterizing Donald Trump as a politician who mocks the disabled.

The latest online ad campaign by Priorities USA is aimed at millennials and will run in Florida and a slew of other swing states. It features a website and a spot featuring a 17-year-old who was diagnosed with a rare cancer when he was 1.

The focus of the campaign refers to the time Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, apparently made fun of a New York Times reporter with a disability.

"Throughout his career and campaign Donald Trump has repeatedly ridiculed and marginalized people who are different than him and its up to us to save America from his message of hatred and ridicule," Priorities USA's chief strategist Guy Cecil said in a statement.
@ByKristenMClark

A conservative super PAC aligned with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says it has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission accusing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Patrick Murphy of orchestrating a "straw donation scheme."

The complaint from the Senate Leadership Fund also names former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, because similar donors gave to Crist's 2010 U.S. Senate campaign as gave to Murphy's first U.S. House race in 2012.

The super PAC bases its accusation on connections that several joint donors to Crist and Murphy have in common with a friend and former classmate of Murphy's: Ibrahim Al-Rashid.

The super PAC has attacked Murphy for weeks over donations he's gotten from the wealthy Al-Rashid, who in 2014 pleaded guilty to a domestic assault charge. The revelation of that criminal case prompted Murphy, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and others -- including former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia of Miami -- to return or donate substantial contributions they'd gotten from the controversial donor.

The Senate Leadership Fund is milking that narrative further by now alleging Murphy, Crist and a dozen of their donors "appear to be part of a highly suspicious network of contributors" to the two politicians. The super PAC alleges that Al-Rashid used several relatives and friends as "straw donors" to circumvent federal campaign contribution limits in giving donations to Murphy's and Crist's campaigns.

Murphy's campaign said the allegations are "totally false."
@PatriciaMazzei

Hard feelings toward Marco Rubio remain from one of Jeb Bush's highest profile Miami supporters.

Jorge Arrizurieta, who chaired Bush's presidential campaign in Miami-Dade County, told a local radio station Thursday he won't vote for Rubio's re-election to the Senate -- even though Bush will.

"I don't think I'm the only one," Arrizurieta told hosts Roberto Rodriguez Tejera and Juan Camilo Gomez on the Spanish-language Actualidad Radio. "I feel incredibly disappointed."

Arrizurieta characterized Rubio as disloyal and ungrateful to Bush, his one-time political mentor, and said "no one will be able to convince me" that Bush's odds at winning the White House wouldn't have been greatly improved without Rubio in the presidential race. He said Bush's endorsements speaks to the former Florida governor's integrity.

Nevertheless, Arrizurieta opined Rubio has the best shot as winning the seat, given that he's the incumbent. He also said he doesn't plan on backing anyone else in the Senate contest, though he said Sarasota developer Carlos Beruff has been in touch.

A dejected-sounding Arrizurieta said he was "very saddened" by the Republican Party under presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.

"The new political order that no one understands," he said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi can't run again because of term limits, which is good for her, considering her recent run of controversies. But because this high-profile Cabinet office will be open in 2018, contested primaries are likely in both parties.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, a Democrat, is letting people know he intends to run for an office that has been in Republican hands since 2002, the year another Broward County politician, Bob Butterworth, left office.

"I'm leaning heavily toward running for attorney general," Seiler told the Times/Herald. "First and foremost, you've got to restore the public servant approach to elected office. I think the attorney general's office can be more active than it is currently, and more focused on making sure Floridians' rights are protected."

Referring to Bondi's acceptance of a $25,000 campaign donation from Donald Trump in 2013, he said no attorney general should accept campaign money from anyone who could be a target of an investigation by the agency.

Seiler, 53, is a lawyer and married father of four who was elected mayor in 2009 and re-elected in 2012 and 2015. He says the timing is right for him to run in 2018 because his youngest child will be off to college. He was a member of the Florida House from 2000 to 2008.

Under his tenure as mayor, he has cut taxes and attracted jobs. The city's skyline and world famous beach has continued to expand, at times reviving a perennial debate about overdevelopment in a city with many active homeowners associations.

Seiler's tenure has not been without controversy. Two years ago, he voted against a city same sex marriage resolution, saying marriage is not an issue regulated by the city, which he said "absolutely and unconditionally" treats all marriages equally. As a former mayor of Wilton Manors, a predominantly gay city, in the 1990s, he said he signed the county's first domestic partnership ordinance.

Seiler also drew fire from critics when a 90-year-old humanitarian was cited for feeding the homeless in violation of a city ordinance.

Both of the Legislature's designated new Republican leaders, Sen. Joe Negron and Rep. Richard Corcoran, are considered possible contenders for the A.G.'s job in 2018. Seiler said he would run as a political moderate and that an effective attorney general should not above politics.

"Partisan politics have overwhelmed our state and our country," he said.
@NewsbySmiley

Miami Commission Chairman Keon Hardemon blew his lid Thursday during a city commission meeting and walked off the dais after a senior citizen clutching a walker repeatedly tried to talk over Hardemon and then suggested he gave more deference to Haitian Americans than other citizens.

The argument exploded suddenly during a personal appearance by a property owner trying to resolve a series of issues he had with Miami's code compliance office. Following a lengthy debate, city resident Jesus Mario Bello approached one of two city hall microphones and began to chide the property owner, Guillermo de la Paz, for (in Bello's words) buying into a poor neighborhood and then complaining about conditions.

Hardemon allowed Bello to speak even though "personal appearance" items aren't public hearings, and Bello didn't necessarily have the right to inject his opinion. But after several minutes, Hardemon ran out of patience and tried to quiet down Bello.

When Bello ignored him, Hardemon slammed his gavel several times in order to silence him.

"Let me tell you something. Don't do that to me again," Bello told Hardemon.

"Listen to me," Hardemon told him. "Listen to me."

"No you listen to me," Bello said, getting agitated. "You know why? Because when the Haitians came in here...."

Bello appeared to be referring to a recent hearing on official boundaries for Little Haiti, during which a large crowd of Haitian Americans spoke at length about the importance of preserving the character of Little Haiti. But when Bello said "Haitians," Hardemon cut off his microphone, stood up, threw his hands up and scolded Bello.

"The nerve of you to bring up Haitian Americans when you were out of order. I gave you the right to speak when you didn't have a right to speak," Hardemon loudly told Bello."I gave you a right to speak and now I'm wasting my time."

That's when Bello pointed his finger at the commissioner and told him not to raise his voice.

"You have the nerve to point your finger at me and tell me not to raise my voice at you?" Hardemon asked, incredulously. "Who are you sir to tell me?!"

Then he began yelling: "I'm the chairman of this commission! The chairman of this commission!"

"I pay your salary," Bello told him.

"I don't give a f..." Hardemon said, stopping himself.

Hardemon then began to loudly explain that he was tired of people "disrespecting" the city commission, and ignoring the rules of commission hearings. He told Bello he'd insulted commissioners, and Haitian Americans. When Bello tried to apologize, Hardemon walked off the dais, prompting commissioners to call a lunch recess.

Bello declined to speak to reporters afterward. City Hall staffers said he felt ill, and looked pale after they took him to the second floor of city hall, so they called paramedics to check his health.

He was fine, they said.
@PatriciaMazzei

Ivette Gonzalez Petkovich, a Democrat challenging Hialeah state Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., gave $100 from her election campaign account to Hillary Clinton for president.

That's a no-no. And in a year of contested political races up and down the ballot, Republicans quickly filed a complaint against Gonzalez Petkovich, who is acting as her own campaign treasurer.

It wasn't just any Republican who wrote her up to the Florida Elections Commission, either: The complaint came from Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party.

Diaz told the Miami Herald that Gonzalez Petkovich "needs to come clean with the voters of District 103. She needs to explain why she wants to be their lawmaker going forward when she can't even follow the laws on the books now."

But Gonzalez Petkovich's camp dismissed the complaint as "frivolous," saying the Clinton campaign refunded the donation. Gonzalez Petkovich then sent Clinton the $100 from her personal bank account, according to Anders Croy, deputy communications director for the Florida Democratic Party's House campaign.

"This frivolous complaint is nothing more than another attempt by the Trump Party of Florida to distract from Manny Diaz's record of delivering for the big special interests instead of the people of District 103," Croy said in a statement. "Ivette is proud to stand with Secretary Clinton's historic campaign because she also believes that our country is stronger together while Manny Diaz continues to support Donald Trumps campaign of hateful and racist rhetoric that speaks to the worst of humanity."

Read the complaint.
@MichaelAuslen

In the last 24 hours, GOP leaders have thrown support behind Marco Rubio in his bid to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. But the highest-ranking Republican in Florida is not among them.

Gov. Rick Scott is instead publicly encouraging Carlos Beruff, a Bradenton developer with close ties to the governor, to challenge Rubio in the Republican primary.

"Carlos Beruff is a good friend of mine, a businessman and an outsider to politics," Scott said in a statement. "The voters of Florida deserve the opportunity to consider his candidacy alongside Senator Rubio and make their own decision."

Scott further drew a comparison to himself, saying he was a "poltical outsider" when he first ran for governor in 2010 and defeated Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary.

The statement about Beruff is not far off from the governor's talking points ahead of the presidential preference primary in March: Scott publicly supported Donald Trump in a USA Today op-ed, but he refused to say he was endorsing the then-Republican frontrunner.

Asked if he would back Beruff, Scott adviser Melissa Stone reiterated a line in Scott's statement: "Florida Republicans will pick the nominee on their own."

Still, Scott's remarks stand in stark contrast to other Florida Republicans.

The Republican Party of Florida released a statement Wednesday welcoming Rubio to the race and extolling him as a "bold leader who is focused on real solutions to the issues facing Floridians." Scott's Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera cleared the way for Rubio to run and stepped down from the primary.

And the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced Wednesday it would give "full support" to Rubio.
@PatriciaMazzei

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio lauded the Supreme Court on Thursday on its decision to keep blocking a plan by President Barack Obama to let scores of people in the country illegally remain in the U.S.

The court, still missing a ninth member after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, deadlocked 4-4 on the issue. That left standing an earlier appeals court decision prohibiting the Obama administration from implementing its Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

"This is the right decision," Rubio said in a statement. "No matter what solutions one may prefer to fix our broken immigration system, those policies must be pursued and passed into law by Congress."

But he and the other South Florida politicians -- all of whom have supported immigration reform -- also said Congress must also act.

"While the Supreme Court's decision makes clear that President Obama has acted lawlessly, it does not leave Congress off the hook either," Rubio said.

Miami's three Republican House members -- Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo -- were even more critical of lawmakers (many of them in the GOP) who have failed to address immigration issues.

"The Supreme Court has spoken, but today's decision does not resolve the issue," they said in a joint statement. "The American people expect Congress to work together to secure our borders, adhere to the rule of law, offer a humane solution to those living in the shadows, modernize our visa system, and bolster the economy. We are committed to fixing our broken immigration system once and for all."

Joining the Miamians in their position were Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, Mike Coffman of Colorado, Dan Newhouse of Washington, David Valadao of California, Jeff Denham of California, and Bob Dold of Illinois.
@PatriciaMazzei

Lost in the shuffle of Wednesday night's dramatic sit-in by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives was passage of legislation setting aside $1.1 billion to prevent the Zika virus.

That's less than the $1.9 billion President Barack Obama had requested, an amount that received bipartisan support in Florida, the state with the highest number of confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne illness.

The bill now heads to the Senate, and Florida's two senators had quite different reactions to the legislative package.

"The House Zika bill is a disaster," Democrat Bill Nelson said in a statement. "Not only does it take $500 million in health care funding away from Puerto Rico, it limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus and prevent terrible birth defects. This is not a serious solution."

Republican Marco Rubio said some money was better than nothing.

"At this point, I support getting something on Zika done," he said in a statement. "Congress has shamefully wasted too much time already, and with summer here, the price of inaction will be devastating. Although this does not fully fund the president's request, it is at least a significant improvement from what the House passed earlier this year."

All three Miami Republicans in the House voted for the legislation, which was sponsored by one of the local congressmen, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, as part of a broader budget bill.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo said the Zika funding is insufficient but a starting point.

"While this bipartisan compromise fell short, it is a step in the right direction," he said in a statement. "Importantly, it avoids a funding cliff at the end of the summer which was a major flaw in the original House-passed Zika bill I opposed. I will continue to call for as much funding as possible to ensure the residents of South Florida, and the nation, are no longer threatened by the Zika virus."
@ByKristenMClark

New internal poll results released this afternoon by a Republican super PAC show that almost two-thirds of Democrats remain undecided in that party's primary for Florida's U.S. Senate race, but incumbent Marco Rubio is -- unexpectedly -- an instant front-runner in the dwindling GOP field.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which is affiliated with Karl Rove's American Crossroads super PAC, commissioned polls in both primaries earlier this week -- before Rubio made his announcement Wednesday morning that he'd seek re-election.

The automated telephone surveys were conducted June 19-20 by Pop Polling.

Out of 530 registered Democrats surveyed, 62 percent said they were still undecided in the August primary contest, according to the polling memo. Among those who weren't, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, of Jupiter, led U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, of Orlando, 19 percent to 15 percent. Miami labor attorney and former naval officer Pam Keith had 5 percent support.

The poll of the Democratic field had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

On the Republican side, only three candidates' names were included in the survey: Rubio, Manatee County developer Carlos Beruff and Orlando businessman Todd Wilcox. (Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez Cantera and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, of Ponte Vedra Beach, were not included in the poll; although, they didn't drop out of the race until earlier today after Rubio announced his decision.)

Rubio earned 57 percent support among the 487 registered Republicans surveyed, according to the polling memo. Beruff got 5 percent support and Wilcox got 4 percent support, while 34 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

The Republican survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Although the polls were from a partisan source, the strength of Rubio's candidacy reflected in the Senate Leadership Fund's results somewhat echo what the latest Quinnipiac University poll of the race showed when it was released early this morning.

Rubio fared well in both -- but the two polls can't be compared because the Q poll didn't survey each party primary. Rather, it looked at potential head-to-head general election match-ups in November. It signaled that Republicans' best shot to win the election would be with Rubio.

The Senate Leadership Fund's poll did not survey head-to-head general election possibilities, but the leader of the super PAC expressed confidence based on both the Q poll and its own internal polling.

"These numbers confirm that Marco Rubio is the Democrats worst nightmare in their dream of putting this Florida Senate seat in Hillary Clintons pocket," said Steven Law, former chief of staff to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and president of Senate Leadership Fund. "Not only is Rubio a clear favorite in the Republican primary, but the Democrats' primary is a dogfight between two scandal-tainted politicians, the resume-puffing Patrick Murphy and the unethical hedge fund manager Alan Grayson."

Both Grayson and Murphy have said they welcome Rubio's entry into the race; they're eager to take him on and confident in their prospects.

Florida's U.S. Senate race will be a grueling fight in the months ahead, because the seat could decide which party controls the Senate in 2017. The party primaries are Aug. 30.
Its not every day that you get a chance to watch a play performed in Mandarin Chinese in Missoula.

Before they leave for a theater festival in Beijing, nine local high school students will provide that opportunity, thanks to a partnership with Missoula Childrens Theatre and China National Theatre for Children.

There is a showcase at 6 p.m. Friday of the three short performances at the MCT Center for the Performing Arts. Admission for show, which is about an hour long, is free, but there is an encouraged donation for travel expenses.

"It's a lot of fun to act in these plays, everything is so exaggerated in Chinese theater," said Chance Leupold, 16.

The students arrive in Beijing on July 4 and rehearse until their performance on July 9 and 10 at the fifth China Childrens International Theatre Festival, said Matt Loerke, MCT education director.

They are the only performers acting in their nonnative language, Loerke said.

MCT has collaborated with the Chinese theater before. In January 2015, two of the Chinese actors trained alongside MCT actors and directors in Missoula. In August 2015, MCT sent a tour team to China to produce The Princess and the Pea with 60 local Beijing students.

The students are being directed by Yang Cheng, an actor and director with the Chinese theater. Yang was one of the performers that joined MCT in January 2015.

They are acting in three Chinese Idioms, thousand-year-old tales conveying a moral lesson. The China National Theatre for Children is paying $20,000 in tailor-made costumes and props for the performers, Yang said.

Part of the challenge is learning Chinese mannerisms, Loerke said.

This trip has been a three-part effort. MCT has taught the kids to perform, the Chinese theater has paid for the trip, and the University of Montana's Confucius Institute has taught the children to speak Mandarin.

This is the first year that MCT and the China National Theatre for Children have worked with the UMs Confucius Institute, said Suhan Chen, director of the institute.

The institute organizes foreign exchange trips every summer that send Missoula students to China. This year, the student trip was changed so they could perform in Beijing, Chen said.

Having the students learn Mandarin served like an immersion program, Chen said.

This collaboration made the language and culture a part of the students' lives, Chen said.

Benjamin Blackwell, 15, said that he heard about the audition in his Mandarin class at Hellgate High School.

"There are some nerves going to a new country and on top of that performing in another language," said Quois Farnum-Clark, 17.

This October, the China National Theatre for Children will be sending 10 children performers to perform English productions at MCT.
Magical thinking.

Those were the words used by Heidi DeArment, the chief financial officer of the Missoula-based Montana and Idaho Community Development Corporation, to describe suggestions the Missoula Mercantile could be saved by tax credits and talk of different capitalization rates.

The bottom line, say supporters of a new hotel where the Merc sits, is really the bottom line. On Wednesday, nearly four hours of testimony was given to the Missoula City Council's land use planning committee, all with a similar message  there is no way to make the numbers work for a developer.

DeArment gave a presentation Wednesday to the committee, which is hearing an appeal by a Bozeman developer, HomeBase Montana, on a demolition permit application for the Merc that was denied by the citys Historic Preservation Commission. The committee heard testimony from Andy Holloran of HomeBase and his attorney, along with JP Williamson of Octagon Partners, the buildings owner.

HomeBase has the burden of proving that the HPC erred in its decision to deny the demolition permit application.

Emily Bentley, the chair of the land use committee, offered to give both HomeBase and Preserve Historic Missoula, Inc., a local advocacy group dedicated to preventing the destruction of the building, equal time. However, a lawyer for Preserve Historic Missoula informed the committee Sunday it wasnt going to give a presentation because it hadnt heard exactly what errors HomeBase believes the HPC made and that the HPC hasnt yet finished its written record of decision.

***

Alan McCormick, a Missoula lawyer representing HomeBase, began the meeting by saying that the Historic Preservation Commission erred by striking all the findings of fact made by the citys Development Services staff when they recommended that the HPC approve the permit.

Theres your error, McCormick said. You cant ignore the facts and go searching for only those which support your conclusion.

DeArment addressed the issue of new markets tax credits, which has been brought up repeatedly. Many preservation advocates have suggested that new markets tax credits could be used to save the building.

DeArment said there are no new markets tax credits or historic preservation tax credits available for an urban area in Montana.

We are in a dry spell, she said. Its been a long time since weve had tax credits available in this country. Nobody has any urban allocation of tax credits.

DeArment also said that years ago, using tax credits for hotel projects was specifically vilified by a U.S. senator, and that has made it even less likely that they would be allocated to allow HomeBase to preserve the facade and still build a hotel. She said her organization has tried many times to work with developers to rehab the building and get it leased by a tenant, but all of the proposals have turned out to be economically unfeasible.

Our number one priority in Missoula is to do this project, she said. But we could never get the tenants in place to support the development costs of the project. Many developers underestimate how much the project is going to cost or they have magical thinking around tenants who might appear or they cant get banks to work with them.

She said other developers have had a solid single tenant in place to lease a rehabbed Merc building but have found that the rent they could get wouldn't pay for the necessary upgrades.

But when you have all the numbers in place, its a losing project, she explained. Its in the red.

***

Williamson said that since his group bought the vacant building in 2010, he has looked everywhere for a tenant.

Unless you are a wealthy developer that is doing it for the fun of it and willing to put $15 million to $20 million into your passion, it doesnt work, he said. We thought we were somewhere with ALPS, we thought we were somewhere with Consumer Direct, with Whole Foods. That didnt work. (The developer who was proposing a deal with Whole Foods) came to the conclusion that they cant get Whole Foods to pay the rent to generate the revenue theyd have to pay for renovation of the building.

Williamson also disputed an April 7 presentation given by local developer Nick Kujawa to the preservation commission. Kujawa had said that if HomeBase had a different capitalization rate and used tax credits, they could actually have a $1 million profit rather than the $6 million net loss that HomeBase reported.

Its like saying I can change any number I need to make the project work, Williamson said. Thats not how development works. If we had a philanthropist going into this, we might do something different. You cant take a static pro forma like this and magically throw in a different cap rate.

Williamson said that its a fallacy to think that if Holloran used a different capitalization rate, meaning he would accept less of a return on his investment, then he might be able to save the building.

The cap rate has zero to do with the economic return on equity that the buyer is getting, Williamson said.

***

Holloran also showed the committee a letter written by Beaudette Consulting Engineers dated Jan. 8. The letter, signed by Tom Beaudette, states that the vacant, blighted building has reached its lifes end. Beaudette, who has been a vocal proponent of the idea that the Merc can be rehabilitated relatively cheaply, sheepishly told the HPC several months ago that while he signed that letter, that portion of it was written by another engineer in his office who disagrees with him.

The committee heard testimony from Craig Crowley, an engineer hired by Holloran to dispute Beaudettes claim that it would only cost as much as $350,000 to rehab the Merc, which is made of unreinforced masonry and was originally built in the late 1800s. Crowley, who works for DCI engineers in Spokane and who said he has worked on numerous rehab projects, said he estimated that it would cost more than $21 per square foot just to get the building to code. He said Beaudettes estimate would equal $3.50 per square foot, since it is a 100,000 square foot building. He explained that to make the building attractive enough to potential tenants, which means working with an architect, it would cost between $37 and $69 per square foot.

Crowley also said that he thought it would be crazy to try to reuse the outer walls of the Merc.

Its a veneer at best, and not even a waterproof veneer, he said. Its not that you cant (save) any of these buildings. Of course it can be done. It takes money though, and thats what you have to debate. My professional advice to Andy is its significant. I think you should plug $40 to $50 into your pro forma.

Because most commercial real estate space in downtown Missoula costs less than $18 per square foot to rent, Williamson said he couldn't find a tenant willing to lease the Merc. He admitted that there was never much of a problem getting tenants interested in the ground floor. However, there was never anyone willing to pay enough for the second floor space to allow Williamson to go to a bank to get a loan for rehab costs. He also said that it was difficult to find tenants that would cooperate on a timeline so that enough of the building was rented together to make it work.

And without a tenant we cant go get our very basic debt financing which would allow us to get tax credits, Holloran added. On this project, tax credits are irrelevant.

***

Gwen Jones, a member of the City Council, asked Holloran and Williamson if theyve looked at saving the portion of the building that contained the pharmacy, which is in better shape.

You can hypothetically talk about anything, Williamson replied. But theres no conceivable scenario where that happens without a tenant. You cant do it.

The City Council will hold a public hearing on HomeBases appeal at 7 p.m. in council chambers at 140 E. Pine Street on Monday, June 27. It will then hold that public hearing open for another meeting at the same time and location on Monday, July 11, to give people a break for the Fourth of July.

Emily Bentley, chairperson of the committee, said the council has no set deadline to make a decision on the appeal but she is extremely focused on not stalling and making sure its a fair process.
Josh Clark took the stand on the second day of a hearing that focused on whether he was discriminated against by current Missoula County Sheriff T.J. McDermott when the former undersheriff was put back on patrol duty.

In early 2015, Clark retired from the sheriffs department and later filed a complaint with the Montana Human Rights Bureau alleging that he was moved from his role as undersheriff back to a patrol deputy, bypassing his previous job as a captain because McDermott was retaliating against him for running against the current sheriff in the 2014 election.

Last fall, an HRB investigation found reasonable cause to believe discrimination had occurred. This weeks hearing was set after Clark and the county, which is also named in the complaint, were unable to reach a settlement.

One of key issues in the complaint focuses on what should happen to an undersheriff who leaves the position; in Clarks case because of a change in administration.

Clark said when he took the position, it was common knowledge and the practice of the department that the undersheriff retained his rank, and would return to their previous job if he left the role. Clark said without that knowledge, and if he had known he could have been moved from undersheriff to patrol, he never would have accepted the offer.

It would have been career suicide, he said.

In August 2014, Clark said he and McDermott had a meeting where he expressed that he wanted to return to the captain position. Clark said he also asked McDermott about rumors from another officer that Clark would be put back on patrol. Clark said he was told dont believe rumors.

I told him that I expected to be a captain, but to put me where he needed me, he said.

It was after that meeting that Clark decided to run against McDermott in the primary election and again in the general election as a write-in candidate, he said. Clark said a further death knell for his career with the department came during a community forum where McDermott floated the idea that Clark could be returned to patrol after the election.

In a meeting with county human resource and administration staff held after McDermott won the primary, Clark said he was told he could be sent back to patrol, and the incoming sheriff would have no obligation to put him back into a captain role.

On Wednesday, former Missoula County chief operating officer Steve Johnson, who had been in that meeting, testified that was his interpretation of Montana law. He said in his view the statutes use of the term maintaining tenure and seniority referred to a rate of pay and years of service, not rank.

In a meeting at the end of December 2014, Clark said McDermott told him he would be back on a patrol shift starting in January, and that he would be at the rank of senior deputy. Clark accused the countys human resource department, as well as the Missoula County Attorneys Office which had offered an opinion supporting the ability to move him back to patrol, of having lined up against me and backing McDermott. He said the demotion was embarrassing and humiliating.

With multiple witnesses, ending with Clark himself, Steve Carey, the attorney hired by the county, asked if there was a reason Clark could not have simply found another job in law enforcement in another department or another town.

Clark said doing so would entail moving out of Missoula, and that he didnt think the sheriffs office would provide him with a positive reference even if there was an open position.

Listening to the countys arguments, what do you think the county is going to say about me? Im pretty sure they are going to say Im the devil, he said.

***

Day two of what is scheduled to be a three-day hearing began Wednesday with Dr. Kevin Sheehan, Clarks physician. He testified that in January 2015, after Clark was reassigned from undersheriff to patrol duty he came to see the doctor, complaining of stress, lack of sleep and diarrhea. The doctor said Clark was very upset and cried during his examination, and Sheehan wrote paperwork recommending that Clark take two weeks off work.

During cross examination by Carey, Sheehan agreed that since 2010, he had been treating Clark for anxiety, insomnia and depression symptoms.

Dr. Thomas Clucas, Clarks therapist, also provided testimony on the impact Clarks reassignment had on him. Clucas first began to see him in 2004 because he had angry outbursts at his home. During the following years, the two met sporadically. The doctor said the sessions initially focused on childhood trauma and prior family issues. In 2009, Clark began to discuss the effect of a work incident in which he had responded as a coroner to a plane crash near Butte, as well as a later incident involving Clark responding to a wrong-way driver.

Clucas said there was a long break before Clark came back to see him in January 2015, following his reassignment to patrol, which Clucas said had upset and surprised Clark. He said Clark also mentioned that he felt others who had supported him had been punished by McDermott.

In March 2016, Clark came to see Clucas for the last time. Clucas said Clark had grown a beard, and said he didnt want people to be able to recognize him. The doctor said he thinks Clark should still be in treatment, but that Clark told him he didnt know if he could afford to pay for it.

He was discouraged. I think the last few sessions I saw him, and I dont know if it comes out in the notes, he was at his worst, Clucas said.

Clarks wife Traci, who testified Tuesday, said her husband had been stressed about what would happen to him after McDermott won the election, and that the reassignment and retirement made him more distant and strained his relationship with the family.

***

In the shortest testimony so far Dale Williams, an accountant hired by Clarks attorneys to determine figures on the potential amount of money he would lose out on when he made the decision to retire instead of staying with the department.

Williams said by leaving the department, Clark would lose more than $211,000 in salary, future retirement benefits and employment benefits compared to the work he had found to do since, if he had stayed with the sheriffs office up to the age of 50. That figure increased to more than $905,000 if he had worked through the age of 60.
BOZEMAN (AP)  A Bozeman man who broke into his ex-girlfriend's home, shot her to death and then texted the woman's ex-husband about the killing was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

District Judge Holly Brown sentenced Anthony Fagiano, 36, after he pleaded guilty in the March 9 death of 37-year-old Darcy Buhmann. The sentence includes life in prison plus 60 years for deliberate homicide, theft, burglary and breaking an order of protection.

During the hearing, Fagiano addressed Buhmann's family from the stand.

"I dare not face you for what I have done, I have no right. I deserve all of your wrath," he said. "If I could get her back I would, I would take her place. I am a terrible sinner."

Fagiano had asked for a 100-year sentence without parole restrictions. Buhmann's family sought the maximum sentence without parole, and her brother, Lennie, previously said Fagiano's actions warranted the death penalty.

Buhmann's ex-husband, Christopher Wood, told authorities that Fagiano had sent him a text message on March 9 informing him that Fagiano had just killed Buhmann, according to court documents. Police found a broken window at Buhmann's house, and Buhmann dead inside a closet where she was attempting to hide.

An officer found Fagiano smoking a cigarette outside the Gallatin County Law and Justice Center later that morning. Fagiano told the officer that he had just killed Buhmann and the gun he used was in a vehicle in the parking lot, according to the documents.

The couple had separated and Buhmann had filed for two restraining order against Fagiano.

Fagiano had said the killing was a crime of passion and that he had "lost it."
Taiwan's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, April 15, 2015. [Photo/IC]

New Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen is scheduled to make transit stops in Miami and Los Angeles in the United States during her nine-day overseas trip that will also take her to Panama and Paraguay. The overseas trip starting on Friday will be her first since taking office more than a month ago.

Many of her predecessors have chosen a similar itinerary, but not all of them conveyed goodwill. Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party who was the island leader from 2000 to 2008, had a shameful record of touting "Taiwan's formal independence" to foreign leaders during such visits and thus posing a grave threat to cross-Straits relations.

Whether or not Tsai will resort to the same trick during her overseas trip will be closely watched, as she is yet to offer an unequivocal answer to how she sees the 1992 Consensus, the political foundation of cross-Straits ties. The tradition of "leadership diplomacy" dates back to the 1990s, when Lee Teng-hui, then Taiwan leader, flagrantly violated the 1992 Consensus by trying to convince some "diplomatic allies" that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were two separate states. In return, he was banned from entering the US during the rest of his tenure.

In stark contrast, Kuomintang leader Ma Ying-jeou managed to make things right because of his adherence to the 1992 Consensus. During his eight-year tenure, Taiwan enjoyed the dividends of a series of fruitful exchanges with the mainland. He even attended the funeral ceremony of former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew thanks to the proper arrangements agreed by both sides of the Straits.

Given the facts, Tsai's first overseas tripand probably many more to comewill prove to be a fool's errand if she and the pro-independence DPP refrain from making their stance clear on the 1992 Consensus. The prospect of the so-called leadership diplomacy is rather dim because the island, in the face of an ongoing economic slowdown, cannot afford to play the endless game of "buying support" of some countries.

Since Tsai contacted some American political heavyweights right after assuming office, she got the green light to enter the US via two transit stops. Nevertheless, this is unlikely to change the fact that such a civil interaction is still under the framework of the China-US relationship.

The US, on its part, should not provide the "soil" for some Taiwan residents' secessionist activities, because it has made solemn promises to uphold the one-China policy. In fact, the US' awkward position in the Taiwan question has a lot to do with the wrong signals it has sent out, such as selling advanced weapons to the island and arranging high-level contacts. But it would be unwise for the US to replay the old drama, for that will certainly jeopardize China-US ties.

In addition, the way Tsai clarifies her stance, especially her administration's stance, on cross-Straits relations and the 1992 Consensus during her meeting with US officials will exert notable influence on the regional situation. So it is important that Tsai makes the right move and doesn't pursue the so-called independence through diplomatic channels.

The author is a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Beijing Union University.
Authorities have not ruled out foul play in the death of a 20-year-old prerelease escapee whose body was found in a wooded area in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County last week.

Kaitlyn Mary-Faith Grover walked away from the Womens Transitional Center in Uptown Butte on April 21. Law enforcement investigators discovered her decomposed body 25 to 30 yards off Moose Creek Road on June 12 after receiving a tip, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester said Wednesday.

The sheriff estimated Grovers body had been at the remote site for at least three weeks.

We dont really know how she ended up in the location she was, Lester said, declining to provide details on what if anything was found at the scene as well as the condition of the body.

Police believe Grover did not leave the prerelease center in Butte against her will.

The joint investigation by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation and law enforcement from Butte and Anaconda-Deer Lodge County is focusing on determining what happened after she walked away in April, Lester said.

Grover began her placement at the Womens Transitional Center in February after a 60-day treatment program at the Passages correctional facility in Billings. She was eligible for release in July, said Shaila Roeber, a case manager at the Butte Prerelease Center.

Roeber was surprised when Grover failed to return to the facility, saying I didnt see anything that would prompt her to leave.

She described Grover as a tall, skinny, quiet girl who was respectful and never caused any problems. The Washington-born woman landed a job at Arbys a week after she arrived. A spokesperson for the fast-food chain did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Many of the women residents at the Womens Transitional Center  ages 19 to 60  have sought out Roeber since they learned of Grovers demise. Some expressed sadness; others admitted getting out scares them.

It makes them realize what can happen to them, she said.

In September 2015 in Missoula County, Grover received a two-year sentence to the Montana Department of Corrections for felony criminal possession of methamphetamine. A previous two-year deferred sentence was revoked due to probation violations including using meth and marijuana, according to court documents.

In his judgment, Missoula County district Judge John W. Larson wrote I think the prospects of rehabilitating you are marginal unless you follow through on this judgment and change your life by addressing your chemical dependency and any anger issues.  Your criminal history is becoming extensive.

Four months prior to Larsons judgment Grover was sentenced in Shoshone County in Idaho to three years unsupervised probation for possession of a controlled substance, court documents state.

Roeber remembered Grover as a congenial resident who worked her own program.

I believe she got along with everyone. She talked to some people, but she kept to herself, Roeber said, noting that she wasnt always aware of Grovers regular interactions at the centers dining area or in her workplace.

When Grovers body was found, the case manager was startled.

I never thought it would happen  usually they (escapees) are found," Roeber said. Its weird to see someone you saw for three months and (then) theyre gone.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact Capt. Jerome McCarthy at 406-497-1124 or Butte-Silver Bow Crimestoppers at 406-782-7336.
7:15 pm

Mayor Walter called the regular City Council meeting to order.

Roll Call

Present were Council members Anderson, Phillips, and Hills. Haynes was absent.

Minutes of Last Meeting

A motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting was made by Anderson, 2nd by Hills. Motion approved unanimously.

Approve Agenda

A motion to approve the agenda was made by Anderson, 2nd by Phillips. Motion approved unanimously.

Financial Report

A motion to approve the financial report was made by Hills, 2nd by Anderson. Motion approved unanimously. Shoppa reported that there was nothing unusual with the bank statement she had checked before she resigned. Phillips will review the bank statement next month.

Old Business

None

New Business

Open Seat on Council

The Mayor had spoke to Neal Nelson about taking the seat but he is concerned about traveling for work. He will speak to Neal again about this but if anyone knows someone that would like to be on council please contact us.

Franchise Fee

Keith Sherman and John Carney were at the meeting to discuss the franchise fee for Interstate Power & Light that is up for renewal. We can start and stop this at any time and have any amount from 1% to 5% but if we do the local option tax has to go off. The first step is to approve the ordinance and then agree on the franchise fee and set a hearing date. This will be on next month's agenda.

Planning & Zoning

None.

Park

None.

Correspondence

None.

Citizen's Opportunity

None.

Pay Bills

A motion to pay the bills was made by Hills, 2nd by Phillips. Motion approved unanimously.

Closing Comments

Anderson wanted to know about the sign and the Mayor said that he and Shoppa are going to take care of it right after the meeting.

Adjourn

Motion by Hills.

DeWayne Walter, Mayor

Becca Shoppa, Assistant City Clerk
MUSCATINE, Iowa A Muscatine man has been charged after allegedly resisting arrest and obstructing a 911 call in Louisa County.

Richard K. Spurling, 56, was arrested Thursday and charged with domestic abuse assault, a felony; child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor; and interference with official acts, possession of drug paraphernalia, obstructing an emergency call, and criminal mischief, all simple misdemeanors.

At 1:20 a.m. Thursday, dispatchers received a 911 call for a domestic incident in progress, and two deputies responded. Spurling allegedly took the phone from the caller and threw it to the ground, interrupting the call, according to Louisa County Sheriff Brad Turner.

A child was reportedly in close proximity to the woman who was allegedly assaulted.

Spurling was not in the home when officers arrived, according to Turner.

The Muscatine County Sheriff's Office provided K9 assistance, and after arrival Turner said Spurling was located in a motor home on the edge of the rural property, and allegedly refused to come out.

He is currently in custody in the Louisa County Jail.

Emily Wenger of the Muscatine Journal
MUSCATINE, Iowa  HNI Corporation (NYSE: HNI) will host its quarterly conference call for investors to discuss second quarter fiscal 2016 results on Friday, July 22 at 11 a.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Central time, 8 a.m. Pacific time.

To participate in the call, please dial 1-877-512-9166 (toll-free). The conference ID is 30192037. Assistance is available throughout the teleconference meeting. Press *0 to request operator assistance.

A live webcast of the call will be available on HNI Corporation's website at http://www.hnicorp.com (under Investors  News Releases and Events). A replay of the webcast will be made available at the website address above and a replay of the call will be available from Friday, July 22, 1 p.m. (Central) through Friday, July 29, 2016, 10:59 p.m. (Central). To access a replay of the call, please dial 1-855-859-2056 or 1-404-537-3406  Conference ID: 30192037.

HNI Corporation plans to release its second quarter fiscal 2016 results on Thursday, July 21, 2016 after market close.

If you have any questions, please contact HNI Corporation's Investor Relations Department at investorrelations@hnicorp.com.

HNI Corporation is a NYSE traded company (ticker symbol: HNI) providing products and solutions for the home and workplace environments. HNI Corporation is a leading global office furniture manufacturer and is the nation's leading manufacturer of hearth products. The Corporation's strong brands have leading positions in their markets. More information can be found on the Corporation's website at www.hnicorp.com.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  A thunderstorm that moved through Muscatine County Wednesday brought high winds and several inches of rainfall, and Fruitland seemed to take the brunt of the wind damage.

Jim Williams, the communications director for the Eastern Iowa REC, said that crews were working to restore power to more than 20 homes Thursday afternoon after three poles were knocked over, most likely due to high winds.

Hope Logel sat on her front porch watching crews work on power lines near her home, and her yard was littered with branches and leaves that had been knocked out of trees.

Weve been without power for about 12 hours, she said.

Kayeleigh Logel said the weather has been up and down in Fruitland for most of the spring.

Its like it has mixed emotions, Hope Logel agreed.

Williams said that power outages were not expected to last too long, and he was not surprised to hear of the adverse weather conditions.

There was some wind, and trees going through power lines, which is pretty typical during summer storm season, he said.

David Cousins, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said a 66 mile per hour gust was reported at 2:55 a.m. on Wednesday at the Muscatine Municipal Airport, and rainfall was also high, with 3.5 inches one mile south of Muscatine Airport through 7 a.m., and 3.3 inches by Wapello through 6 a.m.

Although the thunderstorm did cause some damage, much of Iowa has experienced fewer storms compared to last year.

A cold front may provide some relief from the heat as it follows the storm, with temperatures Thursday and Friday mostly sunny with highs in the lower 80s.

Cousins said warm temperatures and fewer severe storms is typical of El Nino, a term that refers to a warming of the Pacific, which can affect temperatures across the United States and may have caused this winter in Iowa to be unusually mild.

Harry Hillaker, Iowas state climatologist, said that while the effects are difficult to determine, historically speaking, years following often have warmer than normal temperatures.

He also said that El Nino has dissipated, but it may still be the reason spring has brought heat and dry weather. The thunderstorm on Wednesday, he said, was needed.

This year has been pretty quiet, weve not really had any widespread severe weather, which is kind of unusual for June, but pretty typical of El Nino, Hillaker said.
Those who believe that Americans are far-removed from the threat of Zika are in for a wake-up call. Puerto Rican blood banks have seen a steady rise in the number of Zika-infected blood units collected  a clear sign of how quickly the disease is spreading in the area, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden told reporters Friday.

If current trends continue, thousands of pregnant women will get infected with Zika, said Frieden. And there could be between dozens and hundreds of children with microcephaly born [there] in the next year. Currently, Puerto Rican women give birth to about 32,000 babies a year, according to STAT.

The blood bank data reveals that 1.1 percent of donated blood was infected, meaning that approximately 2 percent of Puerto Rican adults are contracting the virus monthly  and mosquito season hasnt even reached its summer peak yet. Frieden estimated that this translates to an annual infection rate of about 25 percent for Puerto Ricos 3.5 million residents.

This news from Puerto Rico is a sure sign that Zika is slowly-but-surely prowling towards more of the United States. CDC officials said on Thursday that the number of pregnant women infected with Zika in the continental U.S. has risen to 234. Of those who have given birth, they cited six cases with abnormalities  three of which died before birth but still showed evidence of defects.

If the Zika virus does penetrate more of the country, HealthGrove found the 10 cities that would likely be most afflicted.

Using data from a recent study in the Public Library of Science, HeathGrove considered five factors that would warrant a high risk for a Zika epidemic:

- Counties with recent local Dengue and/or Chikungunya transmission

- Potential abundance of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (known to carry the virus) in January and July, classified as None, Low, Moderate, or High

- Estimated monthly average arrivals to the U.S. from countries on the CDC Zika travel advisory

- Population

HealthGrove then weighed all of these factors (in the order listed above) to calculate an overall "risk level" of a Zika epidemic in each city, scored out of 10. The city with the highest risk level had the score closest to 10.

When studying the results, HealthGrove found that the biggest risk areas in the United States are in the South and Southeast  particularly Florida and its surrounding states. These warm, humid climates are ideal for mosquitoes to thrive. They also receive many visitors from South and Central America (where many countries plagued with Zika are found) due to their relative proximity.

The risk levels were rounded to the nearest hundredth place, though their ranking reflects each city's unrounded score. In the case of a true tie, the tie goes to the city with a higher population.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
The Communications Department and MultiChoice (operating DStv) have lodged appeals at the Constitutional Court over the legal battle surrounding the roll-out of unencrypted digital terrestrial television services in South Africa.

According to a report by EWN, the pair have accused Etv of wanting government to pay for it to be able to start encrypted pay-TV services.

The move follows the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling for Etv in its case against Communications Minister Faith Muthambi over the use of unencrypted set-top boxes.

Etv said if it is unable to broadcast through an encrypted system, it wont be able to show high-quality content.

The Communications Department said its aim with distributing set-top boxes is to help poor people gain access to digital television signals, according to the report, and it does not need encryption to do that.

It said Etv wants encrypted services so it will not have to pay to give its users its own set-top boxes.

South Africa had planned for its digital migration since 2008, but missed the International Telecommunication Unions 2015 deadline for the move.

More on digital TV

Faith Muthambi takes on Blade Nzimande over digital TV

M-Net analogue subscribers will be migrated to digital
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has announced it will launch an inquiry into the subscription television broadcasting market.

The purpose of the inquiry is to, among others, define the relevant wholesale and retail markets or market segments in the subscription television market, said ICASA.

It plans to take into account the relationship, if any, and the impact from adjacent markets like free-to-air broadcasting services and new technologies.

ICASA also want to determine whether there is effective competition in those relevant markets and market segments.

The Authority has observed the failure of new market entrants to commence with licensed activities in this market and noted that only two subscription broadcasters (MultiChoice and StarTimes) operate despite several having been licensed, said ICASA.

This highlights concerns of competition in the subscription television broadcasting market which appears not to be functioning effectively.

More on DStv

DStv, Communications Department take Etv to court over digital TV

This is why DStv stopped making 4-tuner decoders
The department of communications is confident of winning its Constitutional Court appeal against encryption of set top boxes (STBs).

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruled recently that the decision by Communications Minister Faith Muthambi to drop encryption from the STBs amid a roll-out of digital terrestrial television was flawed.

The SCA ruling was a victory for free-to-air broadcaster e.tv which insists on encryption to provide high quality content on digital STBs.

However, Naspers-owned pay-TV provider MultiChoice and the department have launched a Constitutional Court appeal on the SCA ruling.

Were confident that we have a strong case, Mishack Molakeng, spokesperson for the department told Fin24.

In a response to Fin24s questions, MultiChoice said that M-Net is appealing the whole of the SCA judgment.

We are seeking leave to appeal, because these errors have far reaching implications for the process of digital migration, but equally critically for the way in which executive authority is exercised in the ICT sector, MultiChoice said in a document emailed to Fin24.

M-Net further plans to challenge e.tvs argument that encryption is needed to allow free-to-air broadcasters to obtain high-definition content.

M-Net had furnished specific evidence to demonstrate to the court that the majority of free-to-air terrestrial television broadcasters worldwide  including the BBC, ITV, and Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, and PBS, ABC, NBC and CBS in the United States  do not encrypt their signals and are able to obtain high-definition television content from international studios, said MultiChoice.

Control system

The view of the department and MultiChoice is supported by technology consultant Andrew Fraser.

The department of communications may have failed to properly consult with all players, and will have to do that, but I think the SCA erred in striking down the two regulation clauses, Fraser told Fin24.

The department proposed a control system to prevent the subsidised STBs from being sold internationally.

The control system that has been proposed by the minister is the simplest method to fix one issue: To stop taxpayer-subsidised STBs from being exported. Thats all it is meant to do, so a simple mechanism that disables the decoder completely if it doesnt receive a keep-awake signal from one of the South African broadcasters is sufficient, said Fraser.

The government will provide about five million STBs to poor households as the country migrates broadcast TV out of the key 800MHz spectrum earmarked for mobile broadband services.

MultiChoice is a dominant player in the digital pay-TV space, and the company has argued that encryption will allow e.tv to jump-start its pay-TV offering.

I read MultiChoices answering affidavit in e.tvs appeal to SCA, and I cant understand how the SCA bench dismissed their arguments. While they obviously want to keep the barriers to entry high in the pay-TV space, they are legally within their rights to do so, said Fraser.

They might be a monopoly, but were not going to fix that by introducing something that blatantly  and unfairly  favours another companys business model at the cost of the South African taxpayer, he added.

Fin24

More on TV

DStvs dominance in South Africa to be investigated

DStv, Communications Department take Etv to court over digital TV
Cabinet has welcomed the investment of a R500 million innovation centre by the United States multinational, General Electric (GE).

In a statement, Cabinet said the investment is a demonstration that South Africa and the continent are viable investment destinations.

This is the groups 10th such centre globally and its the first in Africa.

The building, located in Johannesburg, is also the new headquarters for GE Healthcare, which showcases various healthcare technologies.

This demonstrates GEs long term commitment to both the continent and to finding innovative solutions to Africas infrastructure and healthcare problems, said Cabinet.

The centre aims to enhance the career aspirations of over 100 engineers from previously disadvantaged backgrounds.

Space has also been allocated for collaborative projects and solution prototyping with Transnet partnering with GE on various rail localisation projects.

The centre further aspires to support the development of small businesses capable of supplying the local market and potentially GEs global supply chains.

Cabinet calls on all other multinationals to emulate the example set by GE, it said on Thursday.

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Former Eskom director found guilty of fraud, money laundering

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Gauteng power outages are here to stay
In 2007 on the N2 near Port Shepstone, traffic officers clocked a motorcyclist doing 295km/h  the highest recorded speed at the time.

The man was fined R100,000 after police caught up to him after he stopped his Suzuki GSX-R1100 for a cigarette break.

While a formidable speed, it falls short of a speeding incident which reportedly took place in Texas in 2003.

The motorist was caught doing 389km/h in a Koenigseggs CCR  while driving in a 120km/h zone.

The driver was arrested and his car was towed.

Speedsters in South Africa

We asked several metropolitan law enforcement agencies what the fastest speeds they had caught local motorists travelling were, and the City of Cape Town and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department replied.

The JMPD said they once clocked:

A BMW M4 going 234km/h on the N1

The City of Cape Town provided details on its top three incidents:

A driver in an Audi going 227km/h

A driver in a Mercedes going 222km/h

A biker on a Kawasaki going 221km/h

More on motoring

Controversial Drager breathalyser test coming to Cape Town

Rolls-Royce unveils first driverless car
Apple recently revealed the new version of its mobile operating system, iOS 10, at its Worldwide Developer Conference.

It showed a host of new features being added to iOS, and among them was Siri support for South Africa and Ireland.

While many of Siris features are already available to local iPhone, iPad, and iPod users, South Africa is not listed as officially supported on Apples website.

South Africa also isnt officially supported for Siri features like Sport, Twitter and Facebook integration, Restaurant information and reservations, film reviews and showtimes, and its dictionary.

A developer preview of iOS 10 is already available, and a public beta will kick off in July.

If you have an iPhone 5 and later, any iPad Air or iPad Pro, iPad 4th generation, iPad mini 2 and later, or iPod touch 6th generation, you will be able to get iOS 10 for your device.

The free upgrade to iOS 10 will roll out to all supported devices this fall (22 September  21 December).

More on iPhone and iOS

Apple iPhone 7  what to expect

The iPhones that can get iOS 10

Apple unveils iOS 10  all the awesome new features

The adapter that marks the end of the headphone jack on your iPhone

Apple iPhone 6 prices  South Africa vs The World
South African DOTA 2 players have been up in arms after locally-hosted servers were hit with outages.

Most of the complaints were pointed directly at MWEB, who are responsible for the hosting of the servers.

In a statement on its GameZone site, MWEB has now addressed these issues directly, pointing out that while they are responsible for hosting the DOTA 2 servers in South Africa, Valve is responsible for managing them.

Servers for Steam games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are hosted by MWEB GameZone but managed by Valve. The fact that we dont manage the servers for Dota 2 means that unlike the 50+ servers we host for other PC games, we have very limited control. We teamed up with Valve to provide a platform for South African PC gamers to at least play Dota 2. I want you to know that we are doing everything in our power to aid Valve in making the experience as enjoyable as possible. According to Valve, one of the servers hosting Dota 2 instances in South Africa needs a reload. We are busy with the reload process, and will hand it back to Valve to do their part of the configuration.

MWEB has said that the server issues will hopefully be fixed by this weekend.

Have you noticed issues with South African DOTA 2 servers? Let us know in the comments below and in our forums.

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Crazy deals in CNAs gaming sale
SACRAMENTO  The number of California drivers using cellphones is rising, as are deaths and injuries blamed on distracted driving, state officials said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the number of tickets issued by the California Highway Patrol has substantially declined.

At least 12.8 percent of drivers were seen using mobile devices during a survey earlier this year, the California Office of Traffic Safety reported.

Thats up from 9.2 percent last year and exceeds the previous high of 10.8 percent in 2013.

The increase isnt surprising because the number of smartphones surged from none a decade ago to more than 200 million nationwide today, said Rhonda Craft, the offices director.

They have become so much a part of our lives that we cant put them down, even when we know the danger, she said in a statement.

The number of California drivers killed or injured in crashes in which distracted driving was a factor increased each of the last three years, from 10,162 to 11,090 last year.

Yet the number of citations written by the CHP for texting or using hand-held devices dropped from nearly 168,000 in 2012 to about 91,000 last year, according to information provided to The Associated Press.

The CHP wrote 13,496 tickets for distracted driving violations during the survey period in April, during National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. But that was a 27 percent decrease from April 2015.

Our primary aim is to raise awareness and try to get voluntary compliance, said CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader.

The CHP had more than 300 educational presentations in April, while the Office of Traffic Safety had a social media campaign urging drivers to Silence the Distraction.

However, anytime an officer observes someone driving distracted they can take action and they often do, because they understand the danger, Clader said. That can include warnings as well as citations.

There has been no change in CHPs policy or emphasis in citing drivers for violations, she said, but drivers may be getting smarter in hiding their cellphones when they see police.

Our officers have to see the violation in order to do the citation, she said.

It only takes a minute of inattention before someone can get hurt or worse, Clader said. Obviously with the advent of the mobile devises and the exploding popularity of them, people think they can talk on the phone and text while theyre driving. They may get away with it a number of times, but its just a matter of time before they get in a collision.
Two days after a clash between police and protesters left eight dead in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, 30 to 40 people gathered at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Jefferson Street to spread awareness and show solidarity.

Starting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the crowd gathered with signs reading Napa supports Oaxaca teachers and Honk for education, and chanting in Spanish, Education, yes. Repression, no.

Myriam Vargas of Napa helped organize the rally. Vargas, who is from Oaxaca, said that she learned of the violence from her cousin who is a teacher there. For me it was important to spread the word because we dont know about this  I didnt hear it in the newspaper, I didnt hear of it on the television, Mexican television  and if they (the media) do say something about it, its against the teachers.

For me, its important to let the people know its not about the teachers, its about the corrupted government that are trying to repress the country, especially poor people.

Residents in the town of Nochixtlan accused police of opening fire during a confrontation involving protesters and striking teachers, killing eight people and injuring more than 100, according to media reports. Police were attempting to stop them from blocking the highway.

Carmen Rosales of Napa admitted that she hadnt heard of the violence that occurred in Oaxaca from any media outlets either. As the news trickled to families and friends in Napas Hispanic community, the word spread and people were recruited to come out in support of Oaxaca teachers, Rosales said.

This is just the beginning, Vargas said. She hopes that as the news about what happened reaches more people, theyll be able to organize again and possibly take their signs to the Mexican consulate in San Francisco.

Carmen Reyes, 23, moved from Nochixtlan to Sonoma just a few years ago. She plans on heading back to her hometown soon in order to bring food and medical supplies to residents.

Its sad to see how my hometown is in flames right now, she said.

On Sunday, my parents called me telling me that there was a confrontation, Reyes said. Her father was there, but is OK, she said. He told her that there was no way for the protesters to know that violence was going to erupt, Reyes said. The people were unarmed, she added.

Its not a movement of the teachers only anymore, Reyes said. Its a movement of the whole city, of the whole population  of every single Mexican that has experienced corruption or injustice and were just tired of it.

Although there has been conflict over education reform for years, Reyes said, nothing like this has ever happened in Nochixtlan. Nochixtlan is a little town, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
I hover expectantly over Ellen, and she looks up from her iPad, her eyes shiny. The device is a birthday present she asked my husband, Harry, and me to get for her six months earlier, and Im glad we did so that she can now distract herself with old M*A*S*H episodes. Im lucky you were my mother-in-law, I blurt. She doesnt blanch at my referring to her in the past tense; we both know that, in light of her imminent kidney failure, she wont be my mother-in-law much longer.

My children all picked wonderful life partners, she replies evenly, and smiles. Its a nice sentiment, though after nearly 30 years of being her daughter-in-law, I want to hear something more personal, a reminder of what we meant to each other that I can play over in my mind when shes gone. But its crowded in my third-floor guest room, with Harry and Jennifer, Ellens home health aide, looking on, and it feels too awkward to prompt her any further. From her perspective, this is not the time to get mired in sentimentality. Things are working out according to her plans.

Ellen is dying the way she lived: actively, with a lot of input. At 86, like so many of her contemporaries, she suffers from multiple maladies: a slow-growing leukemia called CLL; a recent mini-stroke; spinal stenosis that pains her legs and numbs her hands; recurring bouts of intestinal distress that leave her dehydrated and housebound. The ailments are awful and life-disrupting, but none of them are finishing her off. She doesnt want to acclimate herself to wheelchairs, live-in aides and other affronts to her independent self-image. What she wants is to not treat her symptoms, to voluntarily stop eating and drinking, and to die.

While her pronouncement that shes had a good run has left Harry and me sidelined with shock, our eldest son, Ted, understands. A graduating fourth-year medical student in Boston, he has often relayed horror stories about the hospital patients whose bodies are kept alive long after their occupants have experienced any pleasure in them. Hes very close to his grandmother, and for years shes been telling him how she doesnt want to die encumbered by lines and tubes, the way his late grandfather Paul did.

Ted finds Ellen an excellent palliative-care doctor near her New Jersey retirement community who consults with the two of them for hours, making sure the patient isnt suffering from a temporary, treatable depression. The doctor conference-calls with Harry and his two siblings, and they affirm that they all want what she wants. The Do Not Resuscitate and more detailed Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms are filled out and displayed prominently on her dining room table. Jennifer, who has experience in these situations, is available, and she can be at Ellens side 24/7. Everything is in place.

Then, a complication: Ellens independent living community prohibits outside aides from working there. For my mother-in-law to die in a hotel or apartment rented for the occasion is unthinkable to me. Harry and I are empty-nesters, with a third-floor suite thats quiet and private. It makes sense that she should die in the guest room above our bedroom.

Except . . . I dont embrace Ellens plan. Its not the agenda that surprises me; Ive been hearing tales of family stoicism for decades. About her father, who, loathing the prospect of old age, ignored his doctors advice and pursued his adventure travels until he fell into a Tanzanian tiger pit and had a fatal heart attack, weeks before his 70th birthday. About the serial hardships that tempered Ellens steely charactera siblings early death, the familys flight from the Nazis across Europe, the torpedoing of her cross-Atlantic convoy. Her stiff German parents threatened to cut her off if she married a man of Russian peasant stock, but she did it anyway. The message has always been clear: Ellen doesnt get mad at fate, she gets even.

What I dont understand, why I have such a powerful case of cognitive dissonance, is her timing. Her retirement-home friends always remark on how she holds court in the dining hall after meals. Neat stacks of the Economist top her end table. She goes on field trips to museums, sees movies before I do. Surely she wants to stick around to see more graduations, or at least to find out what happens with the whole Donald Trump thing.

For perspective, I talk to friends who are grappling with their own elderly parents futures. One cant get his frail mother to leave her solitary farm upstate. Another tells me that his mother saved up pills for years, vowing to use them before dementia struck, but like the heroine of Still Aliceeveryone mentions Still Aliceshe waited too long. It seems that even among those who say they want to choose the time of their own deaths, follow-through is rare. The life force is just too strong.

I suggest to Ellen that she has more good-enough years left in her, but I succeed only in irritating her. Maybe if Id been more of a complainer, she would understand, she proceeds to complain to Ted. Possibly this is true. My family of origin vents lustily and often. And when it comes to quality vs. quantity of life, the Schweichs, I joke, are like the de-limbed Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who taunts his rival by declaring that being reduced to a stump is only a flesh wound. We dont define ourselves by our physicality; I wasnt raised summiting peaks and slogging through canyons for fun, the way my husband was. I slow for shoe stores, while Ellen has never cared about possessions and, when fielding gift requests, usually asks for computer parts.

But I love that shes hungry to know about world affairs, the latest technology, elder-care reform and, most of all, her grandchildren, whose lives are intertwined with hers. I love her, and Im not ready for her to leave us, not yet.

Yet I know that loving her doesnt mean agreeing with her; it means respecting her, and her wishes. And so it is that three days before New Years, my brother-in-law, Ira, picks her up at her retirement home and delivers her to our home 20 minutes from hers. When she walks through our front door, its without trepidation.

For the first three days of her final visit, Ellen receives family members and takes occasional sips of water and bites of crackersa good idea, the doctor tells us, because hard-liners often give up. Harry reminds her that she can change her mind at any point and wed be happy, but, to no ones surprise, she doesnt.

She becomes delirious after four days, when her kidneys, deprived of the ability to flush out toxins, start to fail. The first hospice worker arrives the next afternoon to find Ellen moaning as if shes in constant pain. She needs a longer-lasting analgesic than the liquid morphine on hand, and the drugstore with the hospital-grade painkiller is closed until the next morning. Its hard to watch her suffer, but pointless to second-guess. I think of her as a bungee jumper who made a leap of faith; now that shes this far into her trajectory, there can be no going back.

Monday brings the continuous relief of a fentanyl patch, and Ellen slips into a deep coma. We stroke her arms, and I hold her hand, light as air because theres no resistance. Her stomach rises and falls with ragged, then intermittent breaths. And around dinnertime on the eighth day . . . they stop.

A week later, as Harry attends to a mound of paperwork, he finds a letter Ellen wrote to her children after Pauls death 18 years earlier. While the memory of his passing is still a fresh wound, she lays out her fear of living as a diminished person and her hope that they will give her the gift of a dignified, peaceful end.

I know that our definitions of diminished werent the same, but when she recognized it in herself, her sense of purpose was clear. Helping her reach this goal isnt necessarily the gift I would choose to give her, but its the one she wanted to receive, and thats what matters most.
The only reason I can think of why you got no irate calls regarding that ludicrous Guest Editorial by Lisa Silvestri ("The challenge of explaining Omar Mateen through his social media accounts," June 19) is that either on Father's Day many were occupied doing other things, or, people, like me, have mostly quit annoying themselves by reading the Napa Valley Register, let alone subscribing to it.

One can overlook the continual slamming of Donald Trump, and please don't pretend you cannot find a single article of any positive note to print, as you mentioned in your long-winded excuse for printing negative articles and cartoons on a daily basis regarding him ("The search for guest commentaries," June 19).

But, Lisa Silvestri's horrific column bringing up Columbine, Sandy Hook, Colorado Springs, and disregarding our most recent terror attacks such as Fort Hood, the beheading of a co-worker at the Oklahoma meat plant, and San Bernardino at the hands of jihadists is inexcusable.

The cherry on top was the conclusion to her "Blame America-" themed article was asking Americans to look inside ourselves and consider who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.

President Obama could not have created a better "Slam America" lecture himself.

Janis Seita Lucas

Napa
First, we would like to thank Abbey Silva for sharing her feedback about the city of Napas Senior Center ("Is senior center still for seniors?"June 16). We value the opinions of our residents regarding the programs and services we offer. Our staff met with Ms. Silva upon reading her letter to the Register and will be meeting with her again to discuss bringing the Widowed Persons of California group back to the Senior Center.

We would also like to take this opportunity to address Ms. Silvas concerns. Is the senior center still for seniors? Yes. Currently, 95 percent of the programs and services offered at the Senior Center are for seniors.

This year, the city of Napa will proudly be celebrating the Senior Centers 40th anniversary on Friday, July 8 from 3-6 p.m. Our city forefathers dedicated critical resources for seniors four decades ago and today staff continues to honor, support, and expand upon the vision to offer high quality senior programs and services for the entire Napa community.

The Senior Center facility has been directly managed by the city of Napa Parks and Recreation Services staff for over 20 years. The annual expenses for the city to operate the Senior Center is approximately $725,000 and the total revenue for fiscal year 2015-2016 was $63,000. Therefore, the net contribution from the citys general fund for the Senior Center is approximately $662,000 annually.

In addition, the city has also committed to spending $455,000 for facility improvements at the Senior Center in 2017. The city may also be receiving an additional grant for $381,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which would bring the total to $836,000 for Senior Center improvements in the next year.

The Senior Center offers a wide variety of programs and services directly as well as indirectly through regional partnerships. The city programs including monthly special events, field trips, free card and games groups four days a week, congregate lunch program daily, as well as art, dance, and exercise classes.

In collaboration with Napa Valley Adult Education, there are additional affordable enrichment and exercise programs at the Senior Center. The class fees average $5 per class.

The Senior Center also provides nonprofits access to the facility by using our Senior Service Provider (SSP) program. There are currently more than 40 Senior Service Providers using the facility and contributing 4,600-plus visits to the facility each month. All groups must have 70 percent of the members 55 years and older. The SSP groups are classified into three different tiers. The tiered scale for hourly room rates is based on whether the group is open to the public, charges member dues or fees, or if the group conducts any fundraising. The range can be from $0 up to $14 per hour for the largest room, which is 3,000 square feet. Most the room fees are $2.50 or $5 per hour, compared to the private rental rate of $750-$300 per day.

In addition, the city Council increased the Senior Center program budget by approximately $50,000 in 2011. This budgetary increase allowed the city to provide facility attendants during non-business hours for the Senior Service Providers, which kept the room fees affordable and ensured access for all qualifying groups.

In addition, as part of the strategic plan for the future of the Senior Center, staff has identified numerous items that will be addressed in the upcoming year. Many of these items will ensure the long-term sustainability for the senior programs and services. Some of these items include:

-- Create a formal allocation policy and criteria for facility use which will ensure senior programs will be prioritized over non-senior programs;

-- Formalize and improve the volunteer program to increase the quality of programs and customer experience at the Senior Center;

-- Identify new programs and expand existing programs, including health and wellness classes, that are in greater demand;

-- Hire additional part-time staff at the Senior Center for the front desk and help with room set-ups and provide general assistance for facility patrons;

-- Evaluate expanding Foundation for Napa Recreation scholarship program for seniors.

Katrina Gregory, Recreation Manager

City of Napa Parks and Recreation Services Department
Yoga has been shown to offer both physical and mental benefits to the body and mind.

The physical benefits of yoga are: it improves flexibility and muscle joint mobility; strengthens, tones, and builds muscle; corrects posture; increases stamina; improves digestion; increases circulation; improves breathing and creates balance.

The mental benefits of yoga are: it increases body awareness; relieves chronic stress patterns in the body; refreshes the body by relieving muscle strain; relaxes the mind and body; centers attention; sharpens concentration; and frees the spirit.

So many people in our community have so much to gain by trying yoga. Unfortunately, many cannot afford to pay for yoga classes or lack the confidence to walk into a studio and give it a try.

That's why I've launched Napa Valley Yoga in the Park. I want everyone to feel welcome. There is no fee and you don't need any experience.

Napa Valley Yoga in the Park is about bringing the community together to promote health and wellness.

The location changes every week. Sunday, June 26 we will be gathering downtown at Fuller Park from 10-11 a.m. You can follow us on Facebook: "Napa Valley Yoga in the Park" to stay up to date on future times and locations. I encourage you to wear something comfortable, bring a blanket/yoga mat, and water.

Stacy Hill-Bratlien

Napa
Thank you, Chairman (Marco Antonio Costa), for that introduction. And thank you to the National Defence Committee of the Portuguese Parliament for organizing todays conference.

Let me say what a pleasure it is to be back in Lisbon  not least because this happens to be the only NATO capital from which I can look out across the ocean with a direct line of sight toward my hometown of Boston.

For me, thats symbolic of our close transatlantic bond and of Portugals unique and long-standing contribution to that bond over many decades.

Your contribution continues today through Portugals membership of the North Atlantic Alliance and its participation in NATO operations.

Portuguese soldiers have served under the NATO flag in Afghanistan as part of the ISAF and Resolute Support missions. Last year, Portuguese sailors led NATOs Standing Maritime Group. As I speak, Portuguese F-16 pilots are deployed as part of NATOs Baltic Air Policing mission, helping to keep our borders secure and our citizens safe.

The Portuguese delegation at NATO headquarters in Brussels is playing an important role too. And I want to thank Ambassador Luis de Almeida Sampaio and his team for helping the Alliance address the challenges we face to the South, especially the maritime dimension of those challenges.

The truth is that we all need to do everything we can to understand, and respond to, the changing world we live in. That is NATOs day-to-day business. It is the objective of the upcoming Summit in Warsaw. And it is what I intend to explore here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

NATO has helped to keep the peace in Europe for almost seven decades. Our values of democracy, liberty, human rights and the rule of law have become Europes common values. Our achievements, in parallel with those of the European Union, are arguably unprecedented in history.

But there is a great deal more to do. The challenges we face  including a more assertive and unpredictable Russia, and an arc of instability across the Middle East and North Africa  are daunting. Combined with international terrorism, missile proliferation and the threat of cyber-attacks, they add up to a grave and unpredictable security environment  the most challenging situation NATO has faced since the height of the Cold War.

The Alliance, of course, is alert to these evolving challenges and we are adapting with urgency. In the first instance, we are doing everything we can to secure our collective defence. That was the impulse behind the Readiness Action Plan, agreed by our leaders at the Wales Summit two years ago as our immediate response to the new security environment.

As part of the RAP, as we call it, we have tripled the size of the NATO Response Force to more than 40,000 troops. We have established a rapid-reaction Spearhead Force within the NRF, capable of moving within 48 hours. We have created a series of small headquarters in the East of the Alliance to aid with planning, logistics and, should they be required, reinforcements. We have prepositioned more supplies and equipment. And we have cleared bureaucratic and legal hurdles so that our troops can move swiftly through Allied territory and across Allied borders.

These measures provide a solid foundation for a stronger defence and deterrence posture. But we now know that even more far-reaching measures are needed, since the challenges we face from the East and the South will be with us for a long time.

Thats why, in February, our Defence Ministers approved the idea of an enhanced forward presence in the eastern part of our Alliance. Last week, Ministers agreed that this enhanced presence should comprise, on a rotational basis, four multinational battalions in the three Baltic States and Poland. This sends a strong signal that an attack against any NATO ally will be considered an attack against all.

I expect the exact details of the deployment of those battalions  the who and the where  to be decided in Warsaw two weeks from now.

Of course, none of these measures would have been necessary were it not for Russias illegal annexation of Crimea and ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine.

A clear illustration of how dramatically things have changed is to look back at the NATO Summit held here in Lisbon in 2010  a summit attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, at which Russia agreed to cooperate with NATO on Ballistic Missile Defence. And a summit following which, in the official communique, Allies declared that in the light of common security interests, we are determined to build a lasting and inclusive peace, together with Russia, in the Euro-Atlantic Area. Four years later Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

The Alliance still believes in working with Russia to build a lasting peace in Europe. But, in truth, we are a very long way from that goal. And the reason is simple: Moscows actions represent grave violations of international law. They have undermined the post-war European security order which Russia itself helped to create  starting with the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act.

Russia has made it very clear that it wants to go back to a divided Europe based on spheres of influence and the domination of its neighbours, rather than respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all other European states.

Russia has also used tactics such as subversion and cyber attacks to probe NATOs readiness, and it has shown a reckless willingness to ramp up its nuclear rhetoric and posture. All of this is justified by a carefully crafted, but false narrative that claims NATOs objective is to weaken Russia.

In response to these escalatory and irresponsible steps, NATO has been very clear. We do not seek confrontation with Russia. We do not seek a new Cold War. And we do not seek an arms race.

The two-track strategy we have adopted is one of defence and dialogue. We will not be intimidated  nor neglect our responsibility to defend our citizens and our territory. But neither will we shut down channels of communication. We will persist in our efforts to engage Russia in meaningful dialogue  in order to communicate our resolve, explain our actions, and minimize the risk of an accident or misunderstanding leading to dangerous escalation. In this regard, I am hopeful that we will hold another meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in the next few weeks.

We will also use those channels to explain that, while partnership remains our long-term goal, there cannot be any return to business as usual until Russia comes back into compliance with international law. That means ending its occupation of Crimea, ending its direct military support for the illegal insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, and fully implementing the Minsk agreements.

When it comes to defence and deterrence, Russia looms large on NATOs agenda. But, of course, threats can come from any direction. And, as an Alliance, we must maintain an all-round, 360-degree perspective.

That includes our approach to the maritime domain, on which Portugal has been very influential.

NATOs maritime capabilities are essential. They are a key element in our ability to deter aggression, and they are integral to our ability, for example, to offer assurance measures to Allies and Partners and to develop situational understanding and awareness.

The Alliance must also maintain the ability to preserve and protect freedom of navigation  including the crucial sea lanes in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. That has been the objective, of course, behind NATOs anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, in which Portugal has played an important part.

There is still work to be done, for instance, to ensure proper resourcing of the maritime component of the NATO Spearhead force. But we are refining our presence in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and exploring a greater maritime role for NATO in the Mediterranean Sea  including in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia.

For all those reasons  and thanks in part to your countrys strong advocacy  maritime security remains high on NATOs agenda, and will receive the attention it deserves at the upcoming Summit.

That is important not just because it enhances our defence and deterrence, but because it helps us to project stability in our neighbourhood, the second major theme of the Warsaw Summit.

In 2010, even before the start of the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war, the Lisbon Summit communique described how instability or conflict beyond NATO borders can directly threaten Alliance security, including by fostering extremism, terrorism and transnational illegal activities such as trafficking in arms, narcotics and people.

Today, we know that to be truer than ever. The situation in the Middle East and North Africa is a strategic concern we cannot ignore: states at risk of failure; ungoverned spaces where terrorist groups are free to go about their bloody business; the greatest refugee and migrant crisis since the Second World War.

At the same time, we must do everything we can to bring stability to our Eastern flank  assisting partners like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova with reform and capacity building.

NATOs security depends on having a stable neighbourhood. In fact, defending our borders is as much about projecting stability beyond those borders. Theyre two sides of the same coin.

Of course, projecting stability is something NATO has been doing for many years. It began with the Partnership for Peace in the 1990s, as we helped our Central and East European neighbours reform their security sectors and transform their armed forces  enabling 12 of them (soon 13, with the entry of Montenegro) to become NATO members.

Through our experiences in Afghanistan and Kosovo we have acquired enormous expertise in fighting terrorism and stabilizing post-conflict situations. And we continue to apply that experience where we can. In particular, we are applying what weve learned from our many different Middle Eastern partnership initiatives over the years, such as our Mediterranean Dialogue programme involving Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative in which Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE participate.

Importantly, our work in this area is governed by a number of key principles. What we do is part of our all-round, 360-degree approach to security. It seeks to complement and not duplicate efforts being made by others, including international organizations like the UN and the EU. Its part of a sustainable, long-term approach  and makes efficient and appropriate use of resources. In essence, we seek to make the most of the tools at NATOs disposal while taking care not to overstretch or overreach.

We are already training Iraqi officers in Jordan and, following a request from Prime Minister Al-Abadi, we are considering whether to expand that training programme into Iraq itself, where we had a large NATO Training Mission up until 2011. . That decision will be taken at the Summit.

We are helping Tunisia on counter-terrorism, special operations training and border security. We are supporting Jordan on cyber defence and training to counter Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. We are also, for example, considering how the Alliance can provide direct support to the Coalition, including the potential use of NATO AWACS surveillance planes. And we stand ready to support the Libyan Government of National Accord with building its defence institutions, if requested.

There is also an opportunity here to support the development of our partners maritime capabilities  something Portugal has championed. Our support can enhance partners maritime interdiction operations, their counter-terrorism efforts, and their ability to provide humanitarian assistance. It would also improve our own situational awareness, for instance, in the Southern Mediterranean.

So NATO is already doing a great deal to project stability. But as we look toward the Warsaw Summit and beyond, I believe we can and we must do more. Our security  and our credibility  require it.

A third key objective of the Warsaw Summit will be to expand cooperation between NATO and the European Union. Ties between the two organizations are becoming stronger and stronger. And I expect EU leaders and the NATO Secretary-General to make a joint statement on the margins of the Summit in Warsaw calling for those bonds to be tightened further. Our common security demands greater cooperation in areas such as countering hybrid threats, cyber defence and maritime security.

The final issue I want to address today is the importance of making the necessary investments to keep our Alliance strong. If NATO is to do its job  if we are to achieve all that we know we can  then we cannot afford to be complacent. We need the right levels of funding and the right equipment.

At our last Summit in Wales, all Allies committed to halting the cuts in defence spending and gradually increasing it to 2% of GDP within a decade. Two years on, that pledge remains essential to the long-term health of our Alliance and the security it provides.

In the case of Portugal, defence spending last year was 1.33% of GDP  a 3.6% increase over 2014. That upward trend is encouraging but it is crucial that it be maintained. Those five Allies who already meet the 2% guideline are understandably vocal about others doing the same.

Nor it is not just about spending more. We have to spend better. We must ensure we have the modern equipment we need. 8.7% of Portugals defence spending last year was on major equipment. The NATO guideline is 20%.

And Allies must identify and remedy shortfalls in their capabilities. In Portugals case, for instance, I encourage you to look hard at how you can expand training for aircrews, better retain skilled pilots, develop more high-readiness forces, and ensure that forces have the necessary stores, spares and ammunition.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Back in 2010, the Lisbon Summit declaration spoke of the need for NATO to remain an essential source of stability in an uncertain and unpredictable world.

That imperative is as strong today as ever.

We face the most complex and challenging security environment since the end of the Cold War. But, together, the Alliance is responding: strengthening our collective defence and deterrence, and projecting stability in our neighbourhood.

Two weeks from now, we will take the decisions which will guide our future direction.

With Portugal at the table, I have every confidence that we will get those decisions right, and ensure that NATO remains the essential source of stability that we all need it to be.

Thank you for listening. I look forward to your questions.
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At the end of a debate on the functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey, the Assembly underlined that the latest developments pertaining to freedom of the media and of expression, erosion of the rule of law and human rights violations in relation to the anti-terrorism security operations in south-eastern Turkey constitute a threat to the functioning of democratic institutions and the countrys commitments to its obligations towards the Council of Europe.



The Assembly resolved to closely follow the situation in the country on the basis of information provided by its Monitoring Committee. Progress made on all items of the post-monitoring dialogue, including on the items discussed in the adopted resolution, will be assessed in the post-monitoring report to be presented in 2017.



The resolution, based on the post-monitoring report prepared by co-rapporteurs Ingebjrg Godskesen (Norway, EC) and Natasa Vuckovic (Serbia, SOC), regrets that peace talks to address the Kurdish issue collapsed in summer 2015, putting at stake the process of enlarging the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurdish community. As regards the attacks and terrorist actions and violence perpetrated by the PKK, Daesh or any other organisation, the committee unequivocally condemned them and said that by no means can they be tolerated.



The parliamentarians stressed Turkeys right and duty to fight terrorism, but recalled however that security operations must be carried out in line with international law, in accordance with the principle of proportionality and necessity. The right balance between security and individual liberties must be found in Turkey, they added.

Regarding the decision of the Turkish Grand National Assembly to strip the immunity of a large number of parliamentarians from prosecution, the committee expressed worry about the potential political consequences of this decision, which could damage parliamentary life and undermine the healthy political environment that Turkey needs to face todays challenges.



The adopted text expresses concern at the latest developments in the field of freedom of expression and freedom of the media. Changes in ownership of media companies serving business interests over the past years were motivated by, and have resulted in, significant political influence on the media, it reads, adding that domestic and foreign investigative journalism should be conducted on all topics, and in all regions.



As concerns the large number of blocked websites (110 000) and Twitter takedown requests, the Assembly said this was a highly disproportionate measure, which impedes the publics right to have access to, and to be provided with, information on the internet, and negatively impacts media pluralism and free expression. It urged Turkey to upgrade its legal framework in line with the European Convention on Human Rights and to repeal Articles 299 (Insulting the President of Republic) and 301 (Degrading the Turkish Nation) of the Penal Code.



The Assembly urged Turkish officials to refrain from unduly interfering in the judiciary and challenging the rule of law. It did however appreciate that all decisions of the Constitutional Court resulting from individual applications have been implemented.

Turkey has been under post-monitoring dialogue with the Assembly since 2004. In its Resolution 1925 of April 2013, the Assembly encouraged Turkey, a founding member of the Council of Europe and strategic partner for Europe, to pursue its efforts to align its legislation and practices with Council of Europe standards and fulfill the remaining post-monitoring dialogue requirements.
ETCHMIADZIN.  During his three-day visit to Armenia, Pope Francis will be staying at the Residence of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

Reverend Father Zakaria Baghumyan, Director of the Bishops Synod Department of the Mother See, told the aforementioned to NEWS.am, and gave some details on the forthcoming visit by the Bishop of Rome.

In general, the supreme pontiffs of Rome stay at hotels or elsewhere [during their visits], but starting from 2001, when [Pope] John Paul II visited [Armenia] on the 1700th anniversary of the proclamation of Christianity as a state religion [in Armenia], he likewise stayed at the [Mother See] Residence, said Fr. Baghumyan. [And] it was the wish of Pope Francis and the Catholicos of All Armenians to continue this tradition.

Etchmiadzin will be the first stop during the three-day visit by the Pope. Pilgrims and clergymen will welcome him at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, where a welcome ceremony will be held.

Subsequently, Pope Francis will head for capital city Yerevan, where he will meet with President Serzh Sargsyan.

After offering a Holy Mass and a prayer for peace the next day in Gyumri and Yerevan, the Bishop of Rome, together with Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, will offer a Holy Mass also in Etchmiadzin, on the third and final day of his visit to Armenia.

In addition, the Pope will hold a private conversation with the Catholicos of All Armenians. Also, the spiritual leaders of the two churches are expected to present gifts to each other.

The [Armenian Apostolic] Church will present to the Pope of Rome a holy communion chalice, with which we offer Divine Liturgy, informed Father Zakaria Baghumyan. These gifts are a sample of love and brotherhood between he two churches.

Photos by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am
Armenian Americans will be closely following Pope Francis historic trip to Armenia this weekend, energized by his moral leadership during the Armenian Genocide Centennial last year and hopeful that his courage will inspire our US President and Congress to end their complicity in Turkeys genocide denial, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), according to Asbarez Armenian daily newspaper of the US.

A highlight of the Pontiffs three day schedule in Armenia will be his visit to the Armenian Genocide Memorial on Saturday morning, after which he will meet a dozen descendants of the 400 Armenian orphans who were rescued in 1915 and lodged at the papal Castel Gandolfo residence near Rome.

The Popes prayers at the Armenian Genocide Memorial will echo around the world, said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. The presence of Pope Francis at the Armenian Genocide Memorial  over the strident objections of Turkeys leaders  stands as a powerful moral testament against Ankaras ongoing obstruction of justice for this crime. In bearing witness  before all the world  at this most sacred site, Pope Francis is openly challenging Turkeys efforts to erase from history its massacre and exile of millions of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other ancient Christian nations from their biblical era homelands.

Hamparian went on to share his hope that the Popes visit will inspire U.S. leaders to stop aiding and abetting Turkeys century-long campaign of Genocide denial.

President Obama, Speaker Ryan and all our Congressional leaders would do well to follow the courageous moral leadership of Pope Francis in rejecting Ankaras gag-rule and speaking honestly about Turkeys near genocidal annihilation of the Christian Armenian nation, explained Hamparian. This visit by Pope Francis to the first Christian state both reflects and reinforces the Christian worlds solidarity with the Armenian people.
BEIJING - China's reiteration of nonacceptance of and nonparticipation in the Philippines-filed arbitration over South China Sea issue has concrete basis on international law and its reason can be summarized as three "NOs," a Chinese official of foreign affairs told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The three "NOs" are: the Philippine action has no basis on international law, the international arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case, and the tribunal has no legitimacy, explained Zhou Jian, a representative for boundary and ocean affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China's stance on the South China Sea issue has won many countries' support. However, some nations for their own interests called China "despising international law" or "fearing to lose."

In response to such slander, Zhou said it is the Philippines that initiated the arbitration against international law.

First of all, what the Philippines did went against its agreement with China to solve disputes through bilateral negotiations and its commitment in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), Zhou said.

In addition, the Philippines has neglected the exclusion that territorial issues are beyond the scope of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the essence of the arbitration is over the sovereignty of some islands in the disputed waters, Zhou stressed.

China has excluded maritime delimitation and historical privileges from compulsory arbitration in a declaration in 2006 whereas the Philippines never discussed with China about the arbitration, the official said.

Moreover, an arbitration requires the consent of the two concerned parties but the Philippines went ahead against international practice, Zhou added.

"Given that the arbitration is out of a series of illegal actions, the arbitration tribunal consequently has no jurisdiction over the case and relevant issues," Zhou explained.

"The tribunal distorted UNCLOS to extend its jurisdiction and overstepped its power to judge the case. This is abuse of international law," Zhou pointed out.

"China says no to illegal actions. How can this be a violation of international law? The logic here is absurd. China is a builder and guardian of present international order."

"China's stance of nonacceptance of and nonparticipation in the arbitration not only secures its own interests but also preserves the right of other countries facing a similar situation. It is protecting the authority and completeness of the UNCLOS within its frame, said Zhou.

"This is why China's position on the South China Sea issue gained more and more countries' understanding and support," Zhou concluded.
Pope Francis will visit Armenian Genocide memorial during his trip to Armenia  the move that will potentially strain relations between the Vatican and Ankara again, Francis Rocca writes in his article in Wall Street Journal.

The author notes that the trip also comes just after a major outbreak of violence in the Caucasus region. The main issue of his trip is whether pontiff will once again describe as genocide the 195 events in the Ottoman Empire.

The pope has been highly vocal about the persecution of Christians, especially in Muslim-majority countries, and has called on Muslim leaders to denounce the actions of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. However, he recently rejected the term genocide for the plight of Christians in the Middle East in favor of the religious term martyrdom, the article reads.

According to the author, tensions between Armenia and another neighborAzerbaijanwill also hang over the visit.

Francis Rocca recalls that Pope Francis will visit Khor Virap monastery near the border with Turkey.

A border visit isnt on the schedule, but such a gesture would be in character for a pope who likes surprising people. During a visit to the Holy Land in 2014, Pope Francis made an unscheduled stop to pray at the Israeli separation barrier on the West Bank.

If Pope Francis does go to the Turkish border, it will likely prove the visual news highlight of his visit, similar to his stop at the U.S. border during his February 2016 visit to Mexico, when he prayed for migrants who had died trying to cross the Rio Grande, he says.
MOSCOW. - The meeting held in St. Petersburg disavowed all the fears that Russia is allegedly inventing a new format for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, removing the OSCE Minsk Group from the negotiation process (it was even said that Russia allegedly concentrates everything in its hands).

Official Spokesperson for the Russian MFA, Maria Zakharova, stated the aforementioned Thursday, noting that the meeting of the presidents showed that this is nothing but unjustified hearsay, or maybe unprofessional analytics.

''As you know, the meeting did take place. I'll recall the well-known fact that a similar format has been used by the sides before to discuss sensitive matters. Apparently, in this case not only the link with the OSCE Minsk Group, but also the close contact with the representatives of Troika's co-chairing states, is maintained. We spoke about this before the meeting as well. As you know, the representatives of the co-chairing states were informed [about the meeting], relevant discussions having been held in St. Petersburg.

This issue was far from receiving minor significance: we are not speaking of a post factum informing. Conversely, the issues had been prepared and the co-chairing countries were notified long before the meeting.

I'll recall that the Russian MFA published a material on its website, which was then edited in connection with the fact that announcing such summits is not the Ministry's prerogative. That statement noted that at the meeting of the Secretary of State and Deputy FM of Russia G.B. Karasin and the French Ambassador to Russia J.-M. Ripert, the upcoming event in St Petersburg  its preparation and content - were discussed among other issues,'' Zakharova noted.

In her words, in terms of the form and content, they are maintaining all the potential, which had been accumulated in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. All its progress and the work itself remains an efficient tool for moving forward.

''I think the fact that the sides publicly spoke in favor of St. Petersburg meeting, indicates the applicability of this format for them. The issue is how to make Armenia and Azerbaijan move forward. The sides themselves highly appreciated this meeting and the efforts exerted, which is the best proof that it was useful.

I read many of the statements of our American and European partners, who supported the results of the meeting, and they also highly appreciated it,'' she concluded.
OSCE Chairperson-in Office and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Igor Popov (Russian Federation) and Pierre Andrieu (France), and with Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference in Berlin today.

The Co-Chairs informed the Chairperson-in-Office about the results of the summit of the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation held in St. Petersburg on 20 June 2016 and the agreement reached there about increasing the number of staff of the Office of the Personal Representative in order to bring additional international observers into the conflict zone.

The aim of the agreed increase is to stabilize the situation in the conflict zone and to create an atmosphere conducive to fostering the peace process.

Steinmeier welcomed the recent improvements in the upholding of the ceasefire. There was agreement among the participants of the Berlin meeting that a sustainable ceasefire and a return to political negotiations remain indispensable.

Todays talks also served the goal of co-ordinating possible further steps towards achieving a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also with a view to Steinmeiers upcoming visit to the region.

In the framework of the German OSCE Chairmanship Germany is supporting the negotiation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs and will continue to work actively towards a settlement of the conflict.
YEREVAN. - On the second day of his visit to Armenia, Pope Francis will visit the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex Tsitsernakaberd, which was built in Yerevan in 1976.

The complex - located on the cognominal hill - is dedicated to the memory of 1.5 million Armenians, who died as a result of the Genocide organized by the Turkish authorities in the Ottoman Empire in the 1915s.

In 2015, the year marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Pope Francis served a mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican. In his address to the humanity he mentioned that the Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century carried out on the ground of ethnicity.

The administration of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, located on the territory of the complex, has prepared a symbolic gift for His Holiness. In the words of the institute's director, Hayk Demoyan, it will be a gold medal depicting the complex and and an engraving with Christian motifs.

The Pope is expected to share his impressions in the museum's guest book.

The Museum-Institute was established in 1995. The two-storey construction is almost entirely under the ground. Different photos and publications witnessing about the atrocities against the Armenian nation are presented there. In May 2014, Forbes magazine included the museum in the list of 9 memorial museums which must see everyone.

There is an alley not far from the museum, where the foreign dignitaries plant trees in memory of the victims of the tragic events. In 2001, Pope John Paul II, the first pontifex who visited the republic in the entire history of the Romanian Catholic church, also planted a fir tree there. Soon another fir tree planted by Pope Francis will appear in the alley.

Besides, it is supposed that during the visit to the Complex, the Pope will meet with the Genocide survivors and their successors.

''This is very symbolic and important. These people lived through horrible events, and have survived also thanks to the clergy of the Catholic church. And now they have an opportunity to meet with the head of the Catholic church,'' the Museum's Deputy Director Suren Manukyan said.
MOSCOW. - The official Spokesperson for the Russian MFA, Maria Zakharova, has urged to stop the unconscientious interpretation of the results of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders' meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. The relevant statement is available on the official Russian MFA website.

The Russian MFA considered such interpretations ''unconscientious''.

After the meeting in St. Petersburg on June 20, the Presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia confirmed in a trilateral statement the agreements reached earlier in Vienna, Maria Zakharova said at a briefing Thursday,

''For this purpose they specifically arranged to increase the number of international observers in the zone of conflict. The sides also expressed satisfaction with the ceasefire regime which has been observed on the Line of Contact recently. I am citing the statement which was published and made available on all the official websites. I would like to read out the collective request to rely on exactly the original statement, and not the unconscientious statements, which attempt to interpret the results of the meeting,'' Zakharova said.

''There is a specific statement, an official document, which has been promulgated. One should follow it, and not the permissive or distorted interpretations [made] by someone,'' she added.

Earlier, the Deputy Head of Azerbaijani presidential administration Novruz Mammadov stated that the step-by-step settlement of the conflict ''consists of returning first five and then two occupied regions, this being followed also by the status of Nagorno-Karabakh''.
Pope Francis' visit to Armenia is a serious event both in spiritual and geopolitical terms, spokesperson for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Eduard Shamrazanov, who is also the Vice President of the Armenian National Assembly (NA), told journalists after the RPA Executive Body meeting Thursday.

''Pope Francis is arriving in Armenia tomorrow. This is a serious event for the entire Christian world. It is a call of unity to all the Christian people,'' Sharmazanov stressed.

He also noted that in the subsequent RPA Executive Body meeting, Serzh Sargsyan presented the results of his visit to St. Petersburg, the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the trilateral meeting.

''This was a meeting which was aimed at continuing the Vienna arrangements. The position of the Republic of Armenian on Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged: we are exclusively for the peaceful settlement of the conflict on the basis of the three fundamental principles, which should be based on the Karabakh people's free expression of will,'' Sharmazanov noted.

In his words, the President also presented the results of his visit to Karabakh. ''The situation there is also under control, peace being maintained. As a guarantor of Artsakh's security, the Armenian President once again visited [the country] to see the situation at the frontline,'' the spokesperson said.

He also referred to the announcement of the Deputy Head of Azerbaijan's presidential administration Novruz Mammadov, stressing that his statement was the result of his ill imagination. ''Not only official Yerevan, but today also official Moscow very harshly responded to Novruz Mammadov's statement, stating that the Azerbaijani authorities are telling a lie.''

Earlier, the Deputy Head of Azerbaijani President's Administration Novruz Mammadov stated that the stage-by-stage settlement of the conflict consists of returning first five and then two occupied regions, this being followed also by the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Despite being the second-most prescribed drug, to more than 30 million Americans, antidepressants dont work for nearly a third of those who try them. Annually, more than 40,000 Americans commit suicide, about half of whom suffered from major depression  and those numbers are rising at an alarming rate. Suicide is now at the highest level in three decades, with increases in nearly every age category. Emory neurologist Charles Epstein helped refine a novel therapy  transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)  to become an FDA-approved treatment for depression.



What motivated you to work on a treatment for depression?

We had developed an improved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) coil for another purpose, and learned that teams at the Medical University of South Carolina and the National Institutes of Health were just working out a theory of how TMS might treat depression. Our new coil turned out to be ideal for that application.

What are the advantages of TMS to other treatments?

It is non-surgical and non-invasive, with very few side effects, and its been shown to work in patients who have not responded to other treatments.

How exactly does TMS work?

A magnetic pulse is delivered by a coil on the surface of the head, generating small bursts of MRI-strength magnetic energy that stimulate nerve cells in one specific area of the brain linked to mood, the left pre-frontal cortex. The stimulation seems to work by turning on parts of the brain that are underactive in depression.

How long does it take and how many treatments to you need?

Most people need daily treatments for a week to a month to get the full benefit. After that, some people need an occasional boost a few times a month.

What have been the results?

Neuronetics, the Emory partner and start-up company created for the development of NeuroStar TMS therapy, has safely administered more than 10,000 treatments with clinically significant results: among patients studied, 54 percent responded to the therapy and 33 percent found their depression in remission.

What role did you play in the innovation?

More than a quarter-century ago I built my first TMS system, discovered that it needed a lot of power and generated huge amounts of heat, and realized that a more efficient magnetic coil could make a difference. I was able to team up with Kent Davey, a friend and magnetics specialist at Georgia Tech. We had joint research support from Emory and Tech.

How was your TMS system better?

To give you a sense of the power requirement for TMS: A standard old-fashioned lightbulb uses 100 watts of electrical power, which gives a fair amount of light. TMS treatment comes in pulses, usually 10 pulses over and over. For other systems, a single pulse requires up to 5 million watts. Thats 50,000 standard light bulbs going off at once for about one ten-thousandth of a second. What we invented takes a quarter of the power and produces eight times less heat on a persons head. We no longer needed to keep air and water running around the coil to cool it.

Has TMS been accepted by the psychiatric community as an alternative treatment for depression?

The mental health community is enthusiastic. Antidepressant medicine and talk therapies do not help everyone. Something else is needed. Electroshock therapy is a very effective treatment for depression but is plagued by complexity and side effects, with memory impairment being the most frequent.

What is it like to meet a patient like Martha Rhodes, whose life has been changed by your technology?

Its fantastic! To have built something in the basement that is out there treating thousands of people, changing their lives and making them better, is amazing.

Video

Martha Rhodes - wife, mother, grandmother, former high powered advertising executive in New York City, and depression patient who became treatment resistant, attempted suicide, and eventually found TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to treat and manage her depression. Martha is an advocate for TMS therapy, speaks regularly on the topic, and has written a book about her experience 3,000 Pulses Later. On a recent visit to Emory, Rhodes got to thank Dr. Charles Epstein and speak about her book.
NEW DELHI: In a move to enhance consumers' experience, global software major Adobe on Wednesday launched major updates to its flagship Creative Cloud tools and services in India and globally.

Targeting designers, photographers and filmmakers, the updates include new features in Adobe's flagship applications, performance enhancements across Creative Cloud (CC) and exciting updates to Adobe Stock  including deeper integration within CC  and the addition of an all-new premium collection of high-quality stock content.

"Although, the industry is going through unprecedented changes driven by mobile explosion, only 16% of marketers and business leaders in Asia Pacific have the workflows in place to deal with the scale of content production," Paul Robson, President, Adobe Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

"This release delivers the magic and improved workflow that unleashes creativity and helps organisations ultimately provide superb customer experience across channels," he added.

The updates roll out will help creative people with desktop tools, mobile applications, training and a vibrant marketplace featuring services like Adobe Stock.

"Many of the advancements to our Creative Cloud portfolio have been built in our own R&D labs such as Photoshop Match Font. These powerful enhancements will deliver tremendous value for our customers in India and across the globe," Kulmeet Bawa, Managing Director (Designate), South Asia, Adobe, told reporters here.

"We anticipate that new Creative Cloud capabilities like Content-Aware Crop in Photoshop and Character Animator Preview in After Effects CC, as well as Adobe Stock's deeper integration with CC portfolio will provide a major boost to the productivity of creative workers and organisations in India," Bawa added.

The main highlight of the update roll out includes Adobe stock integration into the CC with services including over 55 million royalty-free, high-quality photos, videos, illustrations and graphics as well as the following new capabilities.

The new One-Click Workflow feature lets users select an image or video on the Adobe Stock website and place it on their creative canvas with a single click.

An expanded In-app Purchase feature delivers an industry-first, one-click license capability, directly from Photoshop.

Some other desktop app capabilities and performance enhancements include Content-Aware Crop in Photoshop, which automatically fills in the gaps when you rotate or expand a canvas beyond the original image size.

Character Animator Preview in After Effects CC and the Virtual Reality (VR) features in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, including "field of view" mode for previewing content.

The company also modified its signature CreativeSync technology that ensures a user's files, fonts, design assets and settings instantly appear  giving a 10x performance  in their mobile to desktop workflow wherever they need them.

Updates to CC desktop apps are now available for download by Creative Cloud members as part of their membership at no additional cost.

Read Also: ISRO Launches Record 20 Satellites in One Go

Apple Gets Thumbs Up For Own iWorld Stores In India
NEW DELHI: After conducting a test comparing leading web browsers, tech giant Microsoft revealed on Tuesday that its browser Microsoft Edge is the most power-efficient browser on Windows 10.

According to the company, Microsoft Edge is able to last hours longer than Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera, delivering 36-53 per cent more battery life while doing daily tasks, including watching videos on YouTube, researching vacation destinations or checking in with friends on social networks.

"We designed Microsoft Edge from the ground up to prioritise power efficiency and deliver more battery life, without any special battery saving mode or changes to the default settings," the company wrote in a blog post.

To understand the impact, Microsoft compared leading browsers across three independent dimensions.

"First, we measured their power consumption in a controlled lab environment. Second, we examined the real-world energy telemetry from millions of Windows 10 devices. Finally, we recorded time-lapse videos of each browser performing the same tasks until the battery dies," the post added.

Microsoft Edge wins out in every case, which translates to longer battery life for you, the company declared.

According to the results, Microsoft Edge consumed on an average 2,068 milliwatts of power as compared to Google Chrome's 2,819 milliwatts, Opera's (with battery saver mode enabled) 3,077 milliwatts and Firefoxe's 3,161 milliwatts.

Microsoft Edge is able to maximise the potential of your hardware to operate efficiently on daily activities, while using minimal resources when a page is not being used.

Recently, a test by the Wall Street Journal arrived at the same conclusion, declaring Microsoft Edge to be the most power-efficient browser for both general purpose browsing and streaming.

Read Also: Microsoft Showcases Saas Cloud Solutions in India

Looking At Increasing Satellite Launches to 12-18 Per Year
Prince "fought for his life" after he took an overdose, according to his friend and collaborator Judith Hill, who says she was with him in the plane which made an emergency landing just six days before his death. Hill said that Prince, who died in April, was very co-operative after he overdosed on the highly-addictive drug Percocet, which contains acetaminophen and oxycodone, while flying back to his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota only days prior to his death, reports nytimes.com. We knew it was only a matter of time; we had to get down. We didn't have anything on the plane to help him. (When we arrived at the hospital), he was awake, which was such a relief to me, because I thought he was gone, Hill said. He wasn't dreary or drowsy, or anything. He wanted to watch 'Zootopia'. He loved those films. I was going to pull it up on my phone. He said, 'No, no, no, not here. We're going to pick a special time and place to watch that.' He was very co-operative that whole night, serious about getting help, Hill added. Hill said she felt like he wanted to fight his drug addiction. He did it because he was concerned, and he wanted to do the right thing for his own body. And that's the part that breaks my heart, because he was trying. He was trying ... He told me, 'I had to fight for my life. I remember hearing your voices from afar and saying to myself, 'Follow the voices, follow the voices, get back in your body, you gotta to do this.' And he said it was the hardest thing he'd ever done, to get back into his body like that." --IANS sas/rb ( 299 Words) 2016-06-23-05:24:03 (IANS)
After Salim Khan, it's the 'forthright' and outspoken feminist Kangana Ranaut, who has now tendered an apology on Salman Khan's behalf for his much talk-about 'raped woman' analogy. Responding to a poser on the same, the actress during a recent event in Mumbai said, "As Salim uncle says its right, we all are sorry about it. It's not about an individual. We collectively feel sorry for that thought process." The 29-year-old actress said the comment was "horrible" and "insensitive", but added that fingers should not be pointed at each other. "We all agree it's a horrible thing to say and it is something which is extremely insensitive. But let's not encourage that mentality where we want to point fingers at each other or want to feel greater by running people down, by trolling them," she said. The 'Dabangg' actor's father Salim Khan and brother Arbaaz Khan and earlier come out in his defence and that the intention behind the 'rape' remark was not wrong. Actress Pooja Bedi and Subhash Ghai too came out in support of Salman. While Pooja felt that there was nothing wrong in what the actor said, Ghai claimed it was a "mistranslation" and blamed it on the actor's "poor English" and said he was "just a child." The drama began when Salman during his recent interaction with a leading webloid shared that he felt like a "raped woman," while portraying the role of a wrestler in his upcoming film ' Sultan'. "While shooting, during those six hours, there'd be so much of lifting and thrusting on the ground involved. That was tough for me because if I was lifting, I'd have to lift the same 120-kilo guy 10 times for 10 different angles. And likewise, get thrown that many times on the ground. This act is not repeated that many times in the real fights in the ring. When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman. I couldn't walk straight. I would eat and then, head right back to training. That couldn't stop," he was quoted as saying. The 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' actor's comment has since then come under fire from several women activists who have questioned his 'appalling mindset' and demanded an apology. Some have, however, termed it as a "miscommunication." (ANI)
"It's just a rumour. He's not part of the project," producer Y. Rajeev Reddy told IANS.

Directed by National Award-winning filmmaker Krish, the project also stars Hema Malini, Shriya Saran and Kabir Bedi.

The team will next head to Georgia to shoot a war sequence.

"Planning for the Georgia schedule is underway. The visas are getting processed," he said.

One of the war sequences has already been shot in Morocco.

The film, which has music by Devi Sri Prasad, is about the story of an unsung Satavahana ruler.

--IANS hp/nn/vm

( 119 Words)

2016-06-23-12:52:03 (IANS)
Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent, which is set to be held tomorrow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said India looks forward to fruitful outcome, particularly in the field of economic cooperation. "I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit & interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," Prime Minister Modi tweeted. He further stated that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region. Prime Minister Modi will leave for Tashkent tomorrow to attend the two-day SCO summit. The summit of the six-nation grouping is expected to focus on enhancing security cooperation to curb down terrorism. "PM goes to Tashkent tomorrow for the SCO summit. The SCO summit kicks off with a gala, dinner and a cultural programme. He will be meeting the host, the present Chair of the SCO, President Karimov of Uzbekistan, tomorrow. After that he will be attending the, what they call the extended session of the SCO. The following day, that is the June 24, there will be a couple of bilaterals as well and he returns to India on Friday evening, that is June 24," said MEA Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta at a press conference here. Prime Minister Modi will meet dignitaries of several nations at the summit. He is expected to seek support for India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), which has been actively blocked by China. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others will also be present at the event, at which leaders will discuss various issues including terrorism and energy cooperation. "Our engagement in these areas will intensify through this. The SCO is a major group in terms of countries that have huge potential in terms of energy. We believe, in fact there is stock of SCO energy club emerging. So we will wait and see how that develops," Mehta added. India along with Pakistan was granted membership of the SCO last July. Both the South Asian nations are expected to join fully by 2016. The SCO was founded in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. (ANI)
An integrated communication strategy incorporating key messages, tools, outreach and innovation would be critical for enhancing the awareness, visibility, ownership and behaviour change for the 'Swachh Bharat Mission' and 'Namami Gange'. Union Finance Minister, Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Finance & Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley said this while chairing the first meeting of the High Powered Committee (HPC) to strategise Communication Roadmap for Swachh Bharat and Ganga Rejuvenation here on Wednesday. For the strategy to be effective further, he said, certain key elements needed to be incorporated in the communication approach. Elaborating further, he said the content for the messages to be used needed to be linked with the target audience. "The messages for both the Missions ought to reinforce each other. For an effective outreach and impact it was critical to identify the effective mass media forums for both urban and rural areas," he added. The minister also highlighted the need to innovatively engage different institutions, both public and private, to enhance citizens' participation. It was also discussed to utilise resources of concerned stake holder ministries and converge them for effective impact. The meeting was attended by Minister of Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharti, Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Drinking Water & Sanitation Birender Singh Chaudhary, Minister of Human Resources Development Smriti Irani, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, and secretaries of the concerned ministries and departments along with senior officials. The meeting reviewed the communication strategy and activities undertaken so far by different ministries. The discussion also emphasised on using communication innovations that can bring about social and behaviour changes amongst masses. The HPC will map and monitor the communication strategy and its implementation for both Swachh Bharat Mission and Ganga Rejuvenation programme. The Terms of Reference of the High Powered Committee, include Outlining the Communication Roadmap for Swachh Bharat Mission and Ganga Rejuvenation for various type of institutions, vocations and segments of population, Media Planning for Integrated Multi-Media Campaigns - Strategy/ Design /Content creation / Implementation, Allocating Resources from Ministries for Integrated Multi-media Campaigns, Communication Innovations on Swachh Bharat Mission & Ganga Rejuvenation. (ANI)
Mumbai Police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested a Delhi resident in connection with the online leak of movie 'Udta Punjab' prior to its release. The arrest was made after it was found that Dipak Kumar was linked to illegal torrent upload of the movie. He was arrested following the questioning by the cyber cell of the police, said Mumbai Police's Cyber Police Station.. "The complainant was informed that the said movie was leaked on internet on two separate links of website of Torrent.com. On downloading the movie it was revealed that the first sensor copy was stolen and uploaded on Torrent.com by user robby007," a Mumbai Police statement said. "During the investigation, it was revealed that website allmovies.com had uploaded the said link on its website. A team visited Delhi and adjoining areas and after diligent efforts Dipak Kumar was traced. He was summoned to the cyber police station, Mumbai, and after thorough investigation, his active role was revealed. He has been arrested," it added. Expressing concern over the online leak of 'Udta Punjab', Bollywood actor Aamir Khan last week said it was big shame for the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) if a censored copy has come out on Torrent. Earlier this month, it emerged that the Abhishek Chaubey directorial- which has been in news for the makers' run-in with the censor board- was available on torrent sites for illegal download. However, soon the download links were "removed due to a copyright complaint", the websites read. Udta Punjab, the movie which stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor and Diljit Dosanjh in lead role, has been passed with A certificate and is currently running in the theaters. The Bombay High Court had on June 13 cleared the release of ' Udta Punjab', whose makers were locked in a dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). (ANI)
Defence expert C. Uday Bhaskar on Wednesday said there was 'nothing surprising' in the recent report on Pakistan's involvement in North Korea's nuclear programme, adding that much of Pyongyang's nuclear programme was enabled by Islamabad with indirect involvement of China. Speaking to ANI, Bhaskar said Pakistan has been engaged in a covert nuclear activities for some time now and cited the example of AQ Khan-network. Abdul Qadeer Khan, also known as father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was dubbed as a "serious proliferation risk" by the US in 2009. "The current report about Pakistan providing nuclear material to North Korea is not a surprise because for a long time, Pakistan has been engaged in a covert nuclear activities. That was what AQ Khan network was all about. For a long time, professionals have come to this conclusion that much of the North Korean nuclear program was enabled by Pakistan and indirectly by China," he said. Bhaskar said the latest report confirms the role being played by Pakistan in abetting nuclear proliferation. "This is a very serious challenge. It is quite extraordinary, that at one level, despite the track record of Pakistan, it is applying for membership to the NSG. Furthermore, it is being supported by China. This meeting at Seoul will have to address some of these contradictions," he said. "One can only hope that this particular assessment would be reviewed very carefully by the global community at the appropriate level," he added. According to highly placed U.S. sources, who are involved with the tracking of nuclear commerce, Pakistan is continuing to sell nuclear materials to North Korea, while at the same time urging the international community to accept its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). In making this dramatic revelation, the sources said that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as ' Monel ' and ' Inconel ' material to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions. The sources said that nuclear materials supplied to the PAEC by Chinese entities have also found their way to North Korea, with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) recently receiving a written complaint that supplies of a Chinese company, Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited, to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities. The Chinese Government hushed up the matter as it could have consequences for Beijing's bid to support Pakistan at the NSG. But this information leaked out of North Korea and came to the knowledge Of Western Governments who are members of the NSG. In another alarming revelation, informed sources said Pakistan has been giving North Korea equipment which has a direct bearing On producing nuclear weapons. Sources said the Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited manufactures Vacuum Induction Melting (VIM) furnaces which find application in refining hard metals such as uranium and plutonium, which are used in making nuclear warhead cores. Pakistan is known to have procured these items from China and has passed them along to North Korea. (ANI)
Accusing the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party of indulging in corrupt practices, Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Wednesday expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would form the next government in politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. She highlighted the BJP's splendid performance in the recently held Assam assembly to back her assertion. "I have been saying this that the people haven't forgotten the corrupt practices by the BSP and the Samajwadi Party. So, there will be a complete removal of the BSP and the Samjawadi Party. The clean sweep in Assam will be repeated in Uttar Pradesh," Bharti told the media here. Escalating her attack on Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party Government in Uttar Pradesh, Bharti said there is no safety and security for the people in Uttar Pradesh due to the deteriorating law and order situation. "The Samajwadi Party has from the very beginning enjoyed the backing of criminals and inducted them into the party fold. They have always progressed by indulging in politics of racism, but we will end them with the politics of nationalism," she added. Reacting on former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Swami Prasad Maurya's accusation that party supremo Mayawati auctions tickets, Bharti said it was nothing new, but a well-known fact. "People like Swami Prasad Maurya are leaving the party due to these corrupt practices. We will do a clean sweep of politics of corruption," she added. Maurya earlier today left the party and accused Mayawati of auctioning tickets. "Instead of selecting good candidates, who are loyal to the policies of the party, Mayawati is auctioning tickets to the highest bidder," he said. (ANI)
The cost is estimated to be Rs.2272.20 crore including cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities. The total length of the road to be developed is approximately 144 kms.

This work will be done under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase-IV on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) basis.

The project will help in expediting the improvement of infrastructure in Karnataka and in reducing the time and cost of travel for traffic, particularly heavy traffic, plying between Hubli and Hospet section.

The development of this stretch will also help in uplifting the socio-economic condition of this region in the state.

It would also increase employment potential for local labourers for project activities.

It has been estimated that a total number of 4,076 mandays are required for construction of one kilometre of highway. As such, employment potential of 5,86,600 (approx.) mandays will be generated locally during the construction period of this stretch.

The project was earlier approved on BOT (Toll). Bids were invited for the project three times and one more time with increased Viability Gap Funding (VGF).

However, no bids were received. As such, it was decided to implement the project through EPC mode.

The project has been appraised by Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) in its meeting held in March, 2016. (ANI)
The incident took place on the Bareilly highway late Wednesday night in which sub-inspector Sarvesh Yadav was shot dead and two other policemen were injured in the exchange of fire.

An official told IANS during a checking, three assailants on a bike were intercepted on a tip-off that they were on the way to a loot.

As the police team tried to stop and check them, they opened fire, killing the sub-inspector on the spot. One injured assailant was nabbed by the policemen while two managed to escape.

Condition of police constable Pramod is stated to be critical, the official added.

-- IANS md/ksk

( 134 Words)

2016-06-23-08:56:01 (IANS)
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said the famous Baba Chambliyal Shrine situated on zeroline will be developed as a symbol of peace and harmony between India and Pakistan. "Prevailing situation and relations between two neighbouring countries is known to everyone worldwide but we want that peaceful and cordial relations develop between India and Pakistan," Ms Mufti told reporters after paying obeisance at the Shrine of Daleep Singh Manhas commonly known as Baba Chambliyal. "Fights and estranged relations are known to the outer world but at the same time, good gestures and occasions like Baba Chambliyal, where people from both the sides repose faith, are not highlighted," she added. The Chief Minister, however, said through this place and by developing it as a symbol of peace, we want that peace and friendly relations must develop between India and Pakistan. "We want to develop this place and also wish that more routes get opened so that people from both the sides visit each other, friendly contacts should be developed for further strengthening the ties and peace prevails, what else," said Ms Mufti. The Chief Minister also offered 'chadar' at the shrine and prayed for peace and harmony between India and Pakistan. People on this side of the border participate in the fair at the Hindu shrine of Dalip Singh Manhas, popularly known as 'Baba Chambliyal' while the devotees in Pakistan visit village Saidanwali on the Zero Line, and organize a three-day fair and wait for 'Shakkar' and 'Sharbat' of Baba Chambliyal's 'dargah'. Earlier BSF personnel and Pak Rangers exchanged sweets and fruits as a part of pious occasion at 'no man's land' to mark the annual celebration of Baba Chambliyal. Thousands of devotees stand on both sides of the border to have a glimpse of the ritual of handing over of a 'chaddar' of flowers to the BSF officers by the Pakistani Rangers for being laid at the tomb (dargah) of Baba Chambliyal. Over 3 centuries old 'Chambliyal Mela', is being celebrated on both sides of the IB, has become highly popular since November 26, 2003, after the guns became silent on the border following ceasefire and parallel peace initiatives by both India and Pakistan. Devotees coming to this place take bath in the belief that by applying 'soil' (shakkar) and 'water' (sharbat) all skin diseases will be cured. Till 1971, Pakistanis were allowed to come to this side of the border to pay obeisance at the shrine and offer 'chaddar' but after 1971 Indo-Pak war, the practice was stopped. The shrine draws a large number of devotees from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.UNI VBH AE 1527 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-800260.Xml
An encounter ensued between militants and security forces in the woods in the frontier district of Kupwara in north Kashmir today, official sources said here. They said on a tip-off Rashitriya Rifles (RR) and Special Operation Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmir police launched a joint search operation in the woods at Dobwan Lolab in Kupwara today. However, when the troops were moving towards the particular in the dense forest, militants opened indiscriminate firing with automatic weapons. Security forces immediately retaliated ensuing a fierce encounter.Additional security forces were rushed to seal the entire forest area to prevent militants to escape.UNI BAS SW VP1606 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-800356.Xml
For the tenth time since 2008, delegates representing the Governments of Bhutan and India, along with conservation NGOs of North East region, here to discuss wildlife conservation efforts. The two-day meeting, which concluded yesterday, discussed Conservation of Biodiversity- Issues and Opportunities in the large Transboundary Landscape between India and Bhutan across the International Boundary from the river Sankosh in the west to the River Dhansiri in the east, referred to as the Transboundary Manas Conservation Area (TraMCA). In India, it includes the Manas Tiger Reserve and in Bhutan, the forested areas of south covering the Royal Manas National Park, Phipsoo Wildlife Sanctuary and Jomotshangkha Wildlife Sanctuary. The Ecosystem Services provided by TraMCA supports a total human population of over 10 million over India and Bhutan. The meeting had the delegates taking stock of the status of implementation of the work plan developed for the region and also discussing about the emerging issues specially with reference to proposed developmental activities having potential negative impact and continued anthropogenic pressure on the forest resources. The delegates expressed their concern on ongoing deforestation activities in the TraMCA landscape and expressed the need for scaled up government efforts to arrest deforestation on an urgent basis. Restoration of the denudated forest areas and their protection was also discussed as the only possibility of regaining lost habitats. Manas Tiger Reserve has already lost about 40 per cent of its forest cover to encroachments and development activities, since it was declared a Tiger Reserve in 1973. The delegation from Bhutan led by Tenzin Wangchuk, Park Manager, Royal Manas National Park, expressed concerns with current and proposed developments in the landscape and emphasised on further strengthening the collaboration of the TraMCA partners to achieve its long term goals. In the meeting, a report on joint monitoring of tigers was also released. The report presents the finding of joint monitoring of tigers in both Manas National Park, India, and Royal Manas National Park, Bhutan. The study identified 21 individual tigers in the study area that covered approx. 600 sq km of India and Bhutan Manas in TraMCA. The study also found four individual tigers that are common to Bhutan and India Manas, indicating that the connectivity is crucial in the TraMCA region to protect tiger as well as other biodiversity of the area. A previous study in the TraMCA in 2011-12 had reported 14 individual tigers.UNI SG AD SW AE 1636 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-800375.Xml
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, will meet on Saturday to clear big ticket defence deals involving a total cost of about Rs 70,000 crore, including a proposal to acquire S-400 Triumph missile systems from Russia at the cost of Rs 38,000 crore. An Acceptance of Necessity (AON) is likely to be granted to purchase six next-generation missile vessels under the 'Buy Indian' category at the cost of Rs 13000 crore, sources in the Defence Ministry told UNI. These vessels will replace the Russian origin ships, which were purchased sometime in late 80s. A proposal for deployment of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile systems on Delhi and Talwar class destroyers is likely to come up for the DAC clearance. In all six missile systems, one each for three Delhi class and one each for Talwar class is to be procured at a cost of Rs 3000 crore. The DAC nod is also expected for acquiring two underwater Special Operation Vehicles with six Support Diving Vessels, which are used by the Marcos commandos of the Indian Navy to carry out special operations under the sea surface. The total cost of the these vessels, which will be built by the Hindustan Shipyards Limited, is likely to be to the tune of Rs 2000 crore, the sources said. The Navy has also projected a requirement of five Diving Support Ships. "These small boats are expected to cost Rs 150 crore," said the sources. The issue of acquiring two Boeing 777-300 (extended range) for exclusive use by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a big push for the acquisition of artillery guns for the Indian Army is expected during the upcoming meeting of the DAC which is being held after a gap of almost three months.A decision on the issue of purchasing ultra light howitzer M-777 guns from the US through direct military sales route is also expected. The bulk production clearance for Dhanush, an upgraded version of Bofors guns developed indigenously under the transfer of technology, may also be part of the heavy agenda of DAC. The issue of acquiring M777 ultra-light howitzers under a direct government-to-government deal at a cost of over 700 million dollar has to be taken to a logical conclusion in time-bound manner, as the deadline for the expiry of 'Request for Proposal' (RFP) is near closure.The deal for purchasing two modified 777-300 (ER) aircraft was also pending for a long time.The aircraft will be part of the Palam-based Communication Squadron of IAF, which is mandated to carry out VVIP flights.UNI MK SW SB 1924 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-801007.Xml
The 'Shadow Cabinet' of former Maldivian President Mohammad Nasheed, a multi-party platform of opposition parties launched in London earlier this month, today demanded active intervention by India, including economic sanctions, to save their country from what they called "disastrous path'' taken by President Abdullah Yameen. A delegation of the 'Shadow Cabinet' led by former Foreign Minister in the Nasheed government, Ahmad Naseem, which is currently on a visit to India, sought India's support for removal of Mr Yameen's government and establishment of an interim administration in Maldives through legal means. ''That was the only way for Maldives to return to Constitutional government, for freedoms to be respected and democracy to be upheld,'' he said at interaction organised by the Observer Research Foundation(ORF) here. "If India does not intervene in Maldives, it will lose its say in the region,'' Mr Naseem said. He condemned Yameen's attempts ''to balance priorities between India and China'', saying the policy of playing one country off against another was dangerous, undesirable, untenable and unwarranted. Mr Naseem said the Maldives United Opposition supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ''region first'' policy without reservation. ''We believe that the Indian ocean was India's ocean, and it should remain that way,'' he said. At a time when the Indian Ocean was rapidly emerging as a key focus of international politics and trade, it was highly deplorable that Maldives had become a dangerous untrustworthy and falling state in the midst of it, the 'shadow foreign minister' of Maldives said. Mr Naseem and other members of the delegation said the foreign policy adopted by Mr Yameen was alienating Maldives's friends and neighbours. They also expressed strong disagreement with the actions of the President that were affecting bilateral trade between India and Maldives. The leader of the Maldives Democractic Party(MDP) and representatives of other Opposition parties also flagged their concern over what they called rising religious radicalisation of the Maldivian youth under the Yameen government.More UNI NAZ SW SB 1948 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-801051.Xml
The Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Gujarat Police today brought two of the accused of the sensational recovery of Rs 270 crore party drug making raw material (Ephedrine) from a factory here around two months ago, on transit remand from Mumbai.The mastermind of the drug racket which had stored over 1300 kg of the narcotics substance in the factory in Kanbha, Kishore Rathod, the son of former Gujarat MLA Bhavsinh Rathod, is still absconding.ATS police inspector M S Thaker said Manoj Tejram Jain (45) was nabbed from Mumbai while Jay alias Jay Mukhi (40), a native of Vadodara who lived in Mumbai, was nabbed from Gorakhpur in UP bordering Nepal. They both have been booked under section 25 A and 29 of the NDPS Act''The duo, among the six accused of the case pertaining to the recovery of the drug on April 14, was nabbed by Mumbai police and handed over to us on transit warrant. They would now be produced in court here for seeking remand,'' the inspector said.Two other accused of the case including the owner of the factory MD Steel at Vahelal in Kanbha area of Ahmedabad where the drug was kept, Narendra Kacha and one Punit Shrigi who had brought it from a drug factory of Solapur in Maharashtra, were already under arrest while Kishore and one Bharat Vadhia are still at large.It is being suspected that Kishore, once arrested in a fake currency case, has now fled abroad via Nepal.The ephedrine, seized by a joint team of ATS and Crime Branch was brought from a pharmaceutical factory at Solapur in Maharashtra for processing and converting into party drugs such as Glass, ICE and TINA.Kishore, who is the main accused in the case had taken the factory from where the drug was recovered on a rental, He had allegedly held meetings with foreign drug smugglers in Dubai. Jay had also accompanied him. The party drugs were to be smuggled to Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Poland and other countries and supplied to various parts of India. UNI ND RSA 1839 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0104-800952.Xml
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said, "France considers that India's entry into the four multilateral export control regimes (NSG, Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), The Australia Group, The Wassenaar Arrangement) will bolster international efforts on combating proliferation."

"India's participation in these bodies will help better regulate the export of sensitive goods, whether they are nuclear, chemical, biological, ballistic or conventional materials or technologies," the statement added.

The French ministry further said, "Strategic partners since 1998, France and India share common goals regarding the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. These goals were reaffirmed during the visit of the President of the French Republic to India from 24 to 26 January, 2016." (ANI)
Washington has rejected Pakistan's notion that the death of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike damaged prospects for reconciliation with the militant group. Mansour was killed in a rare U.S. drone strike in Naushki district of Balochistan on May 21. Following the death, Islamabad condemned the attack saying the US violated the commitment it made earlier at the quartet meeting that talks remain the only option for bringing an end to the lingering conflict in Afghanistan. Richard Olson, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, defending the drone strike said it was Taliban's repeated refusal to join talks with the Afghan government that the action was taken. "Taliban's repeated refusal to join talks with the Afghan government contributed to US government's decision to take action against Mullah Mansour on May 21," the Express Tribune quoted him as saying. "Some commentators have speculated that this strike represented a shift in US strategy or a weakening of our commitment towards peace process but it has not," he added. Pointing out that Mansour was an obstacle to peace, Olson said the Taliban chief posed a continued threat to U.S. nationals through his support towards operations against U.S. forces. He acknowledged that the conflict in Afghanistan cannot end through military solution and the future of the country will be decided through discussion, negotiation, and reconciliation. "We will also continue to encourage an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process in which the government in Kabul and Taliban can bring this conflict to an end," he added. Underscoring the need for persistent coordination and cooperation between Kabul and Islamabad as a crucial aspect of long-term regional stability, he said that the U.S. remains committed to serving as a constructive conduit in advancing these efforts. "There is space for the Afghan Taliban to integrate in Afghanistan's pluralistic society, with the Afghan constitution providing protections for all Afghans - regardless of their ideology," he added. Taking strong on the militant group he said, "Let me say that the Taliban are mistaken if they think they can wait for us to withdraw our support, believing that Afghan forces will become vulnerable to defeat as the international community disengages." Pakistan's permanent Ambassador at the UN, Maleeha Lodhi informed the UN Security Council that United States drone attack that killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour on the Pakistani territory was a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. "US drone attack on Pakistani territory was violation of sovereignty, territorial integrity," Radio Pakistan quoted her as saying. Taking part in a debate on Afghanistan situation, she said the drone strike has raised serious questions about whether the international community was ready to invest in war instead of peace in Kabul. Lodhi pointed out that the use of force over the last 15 years had not led to peace. On a reply to remarks by Afghanistan's UN Ambassador Mahmoud Saikal accusing Islamabad of interference in his country's internal affairs and allowing anti-Afghan terrorist groups to operate from safe havens inside the Pakistani territory, she said the comments made by the former as unjustified and untrue and gratuitous on Pakistani institutions. She asked Afghan Government not to externalize its internal problems and blame others for its own failures.(ANI)
Lt. Gen. Janjua, speaking at a seminar on 'Pakistan's case for NSA membership', yesterday said the current move by Washington to induct New Delhi into the 48-member elite group should be seen in the context of 'global power politics trends', reports the Express Tribune.

He was of the opinion that the move made by the U.S. is to contain China, prevent the resurgence of Russia and keep the Muslim world in a controlled chaos.

"So, it's [part of] a greater design," he argued.

The top Pakistani official cautioned that such implications American policies would ultimately bring Pakistan even closer to China.

While both India and Pakistan striving to make it into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, Islamabad is reportedly upset at the U.S. decision to aggressively campaign for New Delhi while ignoring Islamabad's aspirations.

Pakistan has last month formally applied for a membership of the NSG, setting the stage for a showdown with India.

Pakistan fears that the induction of India into the elite group would disturb strategic balance and trigger a new arms race in South Asia. (ANI)
Artillery fire from Turkey and air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes killed at least eight Islamic State fighters in northern Syria, military sources said today.They said Turkish army howitzers and multiple rocket launchers fired on the militants yesterday as they were preparing to strike Turkey with rockets and mortars, destroying one defensive fighting position.The coalition has stepped up air strikes against Islamic State in the area in recent weeks, in response to rocket attacks by the militants on the Turkish border town of Kilis.Kilis, just across the frontier from an Islamic State-controlled region of Syria, has been hit by rockets more than 70 times this year. More than 20 people have been killed and parts of the town reduced to rubble.REUTERS DUR VP1255 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0059-800130.Xml
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today had a crucial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit during which he was expected to raise the issue of Bejing's support for India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group whose plenary session is on in Seoul. The two leaders are understood to have discussed a wide range of bilateral, regional and international issues, but all eyes are on the outcome of the meeting regarding India's bid for membership of the 48-member club of nuclear suppliers, as China has been opposing its entry on the ground that New Delhi was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. China has also said that if exception was made in the case of India, then Pakistan's application should also be accepted. Though, Beijing had said the subject of India's entry into the NSG was not on the agenda of the Seoul plenary, reports from the Korean capital said several countries flagged the issue during the morning session.More UNI XC-NAZ SW RP1725 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-800681.Xml
Conveying this decision at his meeting with him, the Prime Minster also thanked Uzbek President Islam Karimov for support to India's membership of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Mr Modi and Mr Karimov called for more cooperation in security, with both leaders noting cooperation was growing in defence and a Memorandum of Understanding on Cyber Security had been concluded.

The two leaders recalled old historical and cultural connections and discussed ways to further expand and strengthen relations, an official statement here said. UNI SD SW 1945

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India today directly reached out to China to get its crucial support for the membership bid of the Nuclear Suppliers Group with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a "fair and objective assessment" of New Delhi's place in the 48-member cartel. Mr Modi met the Chinese President on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit here and discussed the NSG issue, asking him to contribute to build a consensus at Seoul where the plenary of the elite group was considering India's application. "During the meeting with the Chinese President, the Prime Minister raised the issue of India's membership of the NSG. In fact, the rest of the meeting was devoted to this issue," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. "Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on merit. China should contribute to build a consensus in Seoul," he added. Mr Swarup declined to go into the specifics of the talks, saying whatever he had to say, he had already said. To repeated questions, he said: "The developments in Seoul are delicate and complex and we will wait for the news to come from there." To another question, he said Mr Modi has urged President Xi that China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul. More UNI MK SW RP1814 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-800804.Xml
China today welcomed India's entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as full member as the country started the process of signing of instruments of obligations. Briefing media about the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said Mr Xi hailed India's accession to the SCO, and the Premier thanked him for his support. India will have to sign 35 instruments of obligations during the course of the year to complete the process of becoming a full-fledged member of the SCO . However, India, in the meanwhile, would be eligible for attending all the meetings of the organisation. The entry of India into the security and political grouping will give the country an opportunity to engage the member countries more effectively on security and anti-terrorism. Besides, emergence of a SCO energy club was also in the air and India will have to see how things shape up and how they could be used to its advantage. "SCO is important for us as the countries comprising it are a part of our extended neighbourhood,'' Secretary West Sujata Mehta had said in New Delhi ahead of the SCO summit. India had attended the China-led SCO as observer for the first time in 2005. The discussions for admitting new members had started in 2010 and it was in 2014 that India formally applied for its membership. The SCO at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Iran and Afghanistan have observer status while Pakistan along with India was also getting full-time membership of the organisation. There are also strong chances of Iran also becoming formal member of the SCO later.Besides Iran and Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia too enjoy the Observer status.UNI NAZ SW RP1825 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-800848.Xml
Guo You (2nd, L), chairman of China Construction Bank's board of supervisors and Eduardo Frei (1nd-R) Chile's extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to the Asia-Pacific, participate in the inauguration of China Construction Bank's Chilean branch, China's first bank in Chile, in Santiago, capital of Chile, on June 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

SANTIAGO, June 21 (Xinhua) -- China Construction Bank (CCB) has opened the first clearing bank for transactions in renminbi (RMB) in South America in Chile's capital Santiago, the CCB said on Tuesday.

The branch was inaugurated Monday night, after receiving all the needed permits from Chile's banking authorities.

More than 200 guests attended the inaugural ceremony. Guo You, president of the CCB's Supervisory Council, expressed his appreciation for the support the entity received in the South American country.

The South American branch of the CCB, one of the world's top 10 banks, will not only help boost economic and trade exchanges and financial collaboration between China and Chile, but also help the bank expand its services in Latin America, said Guo.

Initially, the branch will provide corporate banking services and actively promote cross-border RMB transactions, which will help facilitate trade, Guo said.

"The inauguration of this bank in Chile is a fundamental milestone in ties between the two countries," former Chilean President and current Senator Eduardo Frei told the opening ceremony.

While Chile-China ties have been close, Chinese investment in the country has lagged behind, said Frei. Opening a bank branch in Chile is the most important Chinese investment in the country to date, he said.

"It's going to be the first renminbi clearing bank not just for Chile, but also for South America," said Frei.

During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Chile in May 2015, the presidents of the two countries' central banks signed an agreement that paved the way for the opening of the CCB branch, recalled Frei, underscoring the importance of having a banking entity in Chile capable of carrying out direct transactions in the Chinese currency.

"The financial losses from currency exchange operations were significant, and carrying out operations directly in China's currency, the RMB, is going to particularly benefit Chile and China's small and medium-size companies," said Frei.

The CCB, said Frei, is one of the world's largest companies and by establishing itself in Chile, it is demonstrating not just the high level of ties between the two countries, but also its trust and confidence in Chile's development, and in becoming an economic platform for all of Latin America.

Luis Felipe Cespedes (2nd, L), Chile's Economy Minister, Guo You (2nd, R), chairman of China Construction Bank's board of supervisors and Eduardo Frei (C) Chiles extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to the Asia-Pacific, participate in the inauguration of China Construction Bank's Chilean branch, China's first bank in Chile, in Santiago, capital of Chile, on June 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

Chilean Economy Minister Luis Felipe Cespedes said the CCB's entry into Chile was a reflection of the country's robust business climate.

The branch, said Cespedes, "allows us to tighten and strengthen ties between the two countries, which today are strong because China is our leading trade partner and, with the establishment of the bank, we can raise the financial channels and investment in our process of integration with the world."

Rodrigo Vergara, Chile's central bank chief, stressed the importance of the 2015 monetary agreement that facilitated the use of the RMB in Chile, and allowed Chilean investors to invest in China's stock market.

Chinese ambassador to Chile Li Baorong said: "The opening of the branch is not just about a Chinese bank expanding operations abroad, but also about the deepening of substantial cooperation between the two countries, and of the confidence that Chinese financial institutions have in the future of our sister country, which is Chile."

In 2015, Chile and China celebrated the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties, while 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of their free-trade agreement.

"Over this period, bilateral trade has grown fourfold," said Li.
SANTIAGO, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The opening of the first Latin American branch of the China Construction Bank (CCB) in Chile on Monday signals greater investment and development for the region, said former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.

Frei, Chile's president from 1994-2000, told Xinhua about the impact of the new CCB branch, which will offer corporate banking services and also serve as a clearing bank for transactions in China's currency, the renminbi (RMB).

The opening of the CCB's Santiago branch "is going to represent a great flow of investment and development, because it will facilitate transactions (with China) not just in this country, but throughout Latin America," said Frei, who currently serves as a senator and as his country's ambassador to the Asia-Pacific.

"The opening of the China Construction Bank in Chile is a pivotal event in ties between the two countries, because it is going to operate with the renminbi for all of Latin America," said Frei.

The branch will "turn Chile into a platform for financial services in Latin America for both Chinese and Chilean firms, and the rest of the region," he said.

Several Chilean exporters have in the past complained of "losing a lot of money in trading, because they have to exchange foreign currencies and, in the end, the total loss can be huge," said Frei.

"The fact that, in a very competitive market, you can create a system to transact directly in renminbi is a big help, especially for small- and medium-sized companies, whose businesses will get a major boost," said the former president.

"Being able to do business in renminbi, directly from China to Chile and from Chile to China, is a very important contribution," he said.

In addition, the CCB's focus is on infrastructure, a sector that Chile needs to develop, he said.

"We want to build the Bi-Oceanic Route, border crossings, tunnels, large ports to facilitate trade with China and it is very important to finance these projects," said Frei.

To promote these projects, he said, Chile's government has proposed the creation of a Fund for Infrastructure, currently being debated in Congress, and strengthened the Public Works Ministry's Constructions Unit.

The government's 10-year, 1.25 billion-U.S.-dollar infrastructure development plan offers both national and Chinese firms opportunities for investment, said Frei, noting Chilean law allows foreign concessions of public works.

Frei said he has also "spoken with executives of the Chinese bank" about approaching Chinese companies to invest in Chile's infrastructure projects.

China is Chile's leading trade partner, Frei said. "Today almost 50 percent of our foreign trade and services are done with Asia."

That's why the CCB's presence in Chile "represents a tremendous opportunity," said Frei.

He believes courting the country's small- and medium-sized companies will be good for the bank's business, while at the same time helping to "consolidate the relationship between the two countries."

In the meantime, Chile is preparing for the Week of Chile in China in August, which will see the country tout investment opportunities in energy, food production and tourism in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing.

"That is going to help the bank begin to explore several investment opportunities," he said. Enditem
ATHENS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- China greatly values the development of the Sino-Greek relations and is willing to raise the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries to a higher level, senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Guo Jinlong said during his visit to Greece heading a CPC delegation.

Guo, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, met with Greek Prime Minister and leader of the ruling SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA Central Committee Secretary Panos Rigas and Vice President of the main opposition New Democracy Kostis Hatzidakis during his visit to Greece on June 19-22.

Guo said that ever since the establishment of the diplomatic ties, the Sino-Greek relations have registered smooth development. In recent years, there have been frequent high-level exchanges, mutual political trust has been fortified, and economic and trade cooperation has developed steadily.

He said China is willing to strengthen mutual strategic trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation, expand cultural exchange with Greece.

Guo spoke highly of the relations between the CPC and the SYRIZA and New Democracy. He said the CPC would like to maintain high-level visits and exchange governance experience with the two Greek parties, in order to contribute to the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

Tsipras said that Greece highly values its relationship with China and wishes to further strengthen the Sino-Greek relations. He said Greece is willing to deepen the cooperation with China in the fields like culture, shipping, finance, agriculture, tourism, science and technology.

Rigas and Hatzidakis said their parties are willing to enhance exchanges and dialogues at all levels with the CPC to further develop the two countries' relations.
BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government will take a series of measures to encourage private investment in the country, further unleashing business potential in the private sector.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called Wednesday on central and local government departments to take concrete steps to boost private investment, after hearing reports from a related inquiry at a State Council executive meeting he chaired.

During the meeting, Li urged the government at all levels to pay attention to problems revealed in the inquiry, especially difficulties privately-run companies meet in financing as well as excessive administrative charges.

He stressed that private investment is of critical importance for China to maintain stable economic growth, secure employment and reform its economic structure.

The nationwide fact-finding mission on a slowdown in private investment was initiated by the State Council a month ago, covering 30 provinces and regions.

A third-party evaluation was carried out by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce as well as related research institutes. More than 500 enterprises were involved and over 10,000 questionnaires on the implementation of private investment policies were handed out in the survey.

Major factors leading to a decline in private investment are found to include pressure of an economic downturn, reduction of excessive capacity, insufficient policy implementation, as well as financing difficulties facing local smaller, privately-run companies.

Li said accomplishing goals in nurturing new economic driving forces, developing a new economy and carrying out a supply-side reform among other structural ones require the development of privately-run small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China.

"Otherwise, we will not achieve the goal we set," he said.

The survey revealed that many state-level policies to boost private investment were not fully realized. For instance, the implementation of those unveiled by the State Council in November 2014 met setbacks at local levels or didn't mesh well with established practices.

Some surveyed private enterprises complained that though the central government has done a lot over the years to reduce institutional barriers in doing business and stimulating their growth, they were denied equal treatment with local state-owned enterprises (SOEs), being sometimes blocked by the threshold the local government set for access to certain projects.

Li pointed out during the meeting that properly handling the relations between the government and the market in addition to deepening reforms are vital to boost private investment.

"The government should fulfil its duties, but must not abuse its power," he said.

More measures are expected to be unveiled by the State Council to resolve the abovementioned problems of privately-run companies, such as in improving access to credit, increasing institutional support for local public-private partnership (PPP) programs, reducing administrative costs and further widening market access.

"Building up strong confidence in private investment is important to China's economic growth when it is slowing down," Li said.

During a visit on Monday to China's central bank, People's Bank of China (PBOC), the premier also noted that the financial sector should support the real economy and develop financial products encouraging startups and innovations by ordinary Chinese.

Private investment has been playing a vital role in China's economic development in recent years. It now accounts for 60 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP), 80 percent of jobs, more than half of the tax revenue as well as 67 percent of China's direct outbound investment.
BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Education on Wednesday said it had ordered local education authorities to remove all substandard running tracks at schools after children reportedly fell sick from exposure to artificial turf.

In a statement released to the press, the ministry said it had invited environmental protection and quality inspection authorities to check all newly-built synthetic racetracks at schools nationwide during the upcoming summer school break, and immediately remove substandard ones.

Construction of all synthetic racetracks are to be suspended until the bidding process and the contracts for the construction had been reviewed by authorities to ensure their quality, it said.

The development came after students in Beijing reportedly suffered from nosebleeds, dizzy spells and coughs, after running on the tracks.

Similar cases were reported in Jiangsu, Guangdong and other provinces, adding to concern over poor quality supervision of a product that affects the health of students.

China's national TV, the CCTV, earlier reported that some of the substandard racetracks were made of industrial wastes such as scrap tires and wires and cables.

Beijing's education authority has already begun investigations and at least the running tracks of one school have been removed.

In its Wednesday statement, the Ministry of Education said it will soon confer with the Ministry of Environmental Protection to push ahead with checks and removal of substandard racetracks.

It will also coordinate with relevant authorities to up requirements for installation of synthetic racetracks in schools, and strengthen supervision over racetrack manufacturers.

Education authorities and schools must give quality the top priority in the bidding process of racetrack construction projects, it said, adding that those responsible for the substandard and even "toxic" running tracks will be "severely punished with no mercy." Enditem
AMMAN, June 22 (Xinhua) -- King Abdullah II of Jordan said on Wednesday Jordan will continue to work with regional and international partners to fight extremist organizations, mainly the terrorist Islamic State (IS), the state-run Petra news agency reported.

The king made the remarks at a meeting with U.S. special presidential envoy for the global coalition to fight the IS Brett McGurk, where he stressed on the need for increased coordination among the coalition members to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist movement.

The U.S. official condemned the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of six Jordanian troops and injured 14 others at the borders between Jordan and Syria.

He said the coalition is determined to defeat the IS and the U.S. will continue to support Jordan in this regard.

Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, is one of the members of the U.S.-led international coalition to fight the IS. Enditem
JERUSALEM, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Four Palestinians who killed an Israeli couple in a West Bank shooting attack last year were handed life sentences by an Israeli military court on Wednesday, the Israeli army said.

The Samaria martial court in the West Bank delivered two life sentences and another 30 years in prison to each of the four Palestinians defendants, according to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson.

According to the indictment, the four -- Yihyah Haj Ahmed, Amjad Aliwi, Samir Kusa and Karam Rezek -- planned and carried out a shooting attack in the West Bank in October 2015 in which Eitam and Naama Henkin were shot dead while traveling with their four children.

The indictment also stated that the four are members of the Hamas militant movement.

The Henkin couple were the first Israeli casualties in the nine-month-long wave of violence which started in October. It had since claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians.

The Israelis were killed in shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks, which had dwindled in frequency in the past few months.

The Palestinians were killed either in clashes with Israeli security forces during protests, or gunned down after carrying -- or allegedly trying to carry out -- an attack against Israelis.

Israeli leaders blame the Palestinian Authority for incitement to violence over the wave of unrest, whereas the Palestinians charge it is the result of 49 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, where they wish to establish their own state.
KABUL, June 22 (Xinhua) -- An explosion rocked the diplomatic district in central Kabul Wednesday night, causing no casualties, an official said.

The blast was triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted in a park in Wazir Akbar Khan locality at 10: 30 p.m. local time, but caused no loss of life or property, a security source told Xinhua anonymously.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on his twitter account that "a mine exploded in Wazir Akbar Khan Hill, leaving no casualties. Our police arrived at the site and an investigation has been launched into the incident."

Kabul has been witnessing a number of terrorist attacks over the past couple of months.

On Monday, some 14 people, including 12 Nepalese security guards of a foreign embassy, were killed and nine others wounded after a Taliban suicide bomber struck a running bus in eastern Kabul.
GENEVA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- A senior UN official said on Wednesday that China's liberalization efforts of investment regime, driven partly by its investment administrative reform, will create opportunities for global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows.

James Zhan, director of Investment and Enterprise at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told Xinhua during an interview that Chinese investors were very active and FDI outflows in China had increased significantly over the last few years.

According to the latest annual global investment report by UNCTAD, China in 2015 was the third largest investor in the world, after the United States and Japan.

The report revealed that FDI inflows and outflows in Chinese mainland stood at 136 billion U.S. dollars and 128 billion U.S. dollars respectively. "China represents roughly 10 percent of the global FDI flows," noted Zhan.

In 2015, global FDI flows rose to 1.76 trillion U.S. dollars in 2015, hitting their highest level since pre-crisis peak in 2007.

However, UNCTAD warned that cross-border investment is expected to contract by 10 to 15 percent this year, barring another wave of cross-border mega deals and corporate reconfigurations.

Zhan predicted that "FDI flows into China will remain at a high level but won't have a drastic increase in 2016."

He added that China's FDI structure change would create potential opportunities, noting the FDI inflows in China tend to target high-tech industries, R&D areas, as well as involving automation in manufacturing.

"For outflows, I see that China will continue to be very active in acquiring firms and engaged in green field investment," he said.

Over the medium term, FDI flows are projected to resume growth in 2017 and to surpass 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars in 2018, according to UNCTAD.
TASHKENT, June 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Uzbek President Islam Karimov attend the inauguration ceremony as they watch via video link the opening of Qamchiq Tunnel, part of the Angren-Pap railway line, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

TASHKENT, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Uzbek counterpart, Islam Karimov, on Wednesday hailed the inauguration of the Qamchiq Tunnel in Uzbekistan, saying it is a major achievement of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The two leaders watched via video link the opening of the 19.2-km railway tunnel, which is part of the Angren-Pap railway line that connects Tashkent and Namangan. They also extended their congratulations.

Built by the China Railway Tunnel Group, the tunnel goes through Qurama Mountains and is the longest of its kind in Central Asia. Construction on the project began in 2013 and was completed in February this year.

"It is a major achievement of the Belt and Road Initiative that China and Uzbekistan are jointly promoting, and also a new link of friendship and cooperation connecting the peoples of both countries," Xi said.

He said that land transport connectivity is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative and a key area in China-Uzbekistan cooperation.

"China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Uzbekistan to constantly improve the connectivity of the infrastructure in the region, thus creating more favorable environment for the development of our two countries and bringing greater benefits to both peoples," he said.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by Xi in 2013, refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. It is a development initiative aimed at boosting trade and investment cooperation primarily through enhancing infrastructure connectivity.

Karimov said the inauguration of the railway tunnel is a major event in the economic and social development of Uzbekistan, which greatly benefits the Uzbek people. He expressed gratitude to China for its assistance.

Also on Wednesday, Xi offered flowers at the monument on the Independence Square in the center of Tashkent.

The Chinese president arrived in Uzbekistan for a state visit on Tuesday. It is the third and final stop of Xi's three-nation tour, which has also taken him to Serbia and Poland.
JOHANNESBURG, June 22 (Xinhua) -- South Africa is not facing an immediate attack by terrorists, but there is need for the country to strengthen its terrorism intelligence and investigate all given alerts, experts said on Wednesday.

Although there is no evidence that an imminent attack is certain, such warnings must not be taken lightly especially in a country where intelligence has always been found wanting in preventing local violence, said Nick Piper, a coordinator at the Signal Risk, a risk analysis firm.

The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria recently issued a terror alert, saying it has reliable information that ISIS was planning a terror attack in places frequented by Americans and other tourists in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

"It is not going to be an imminent attack, but that does not mean the country should relax and think it is not going to happen," Piper told Xinhua.

"Most potential attacks have been prevented by tip-offs from other governments or citizens. When such warnings come, the government should take them serious."

Piper said research has shown that some extremists have visited South Africa for ideological radicalization.

On the other hand, there have been reports that some South Africans have visited countries where extremism dominates and there is a strong possibility they are being radicalized, he said.

"The fear is that South Africa could be used as a launching ground for extremists planning attacks somewhere," added the expert.

Anneli Botha, a senior researcher on terrorism at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said the South African government needs to invest more money on intelligence to fight terrorism.

"We cannot wait until it happens. Intelligence work needs to be supported with essential resources so that the country is readily prepared to prevent the attacks," said Botha.

"Terrorists activities do not always happen in big cities where security is always heightened," she said. "Some of these activities happen in remote areas or small towns and attacks can be launched from there."

Botha noted that there are a number of reasons why extremists may decide to use South Africa as a ground to launch attacks.

"South Africa has good infrastructure, but there is lack of vigilance on terrorism, which is what terrorists want," she said, adding that corruption at some government agencies may facilitate terror activities.

"The availability of illegal weapons is also a cause for concern since this is something that might attract terrorists," added Botha.

Although there has not been any confirmed terror attacks in South Africa, the country has had several incidents of suspected terrorism.

In 2011, a suspected Al-Qaida financier allegedly planning attacks on a Jewish Center in Cape Town was arrested.

In 2015, the U.S. also warned its citizens of possible attacks.

And in May this year, South African minister of State Security David Mahlobo cautioned that the number of South Africans associating with terror groups was increasing. Enditem
JOHANNESBURG, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Forty more suspects have been arrested in connection with incidents of looting and public violence in and around Pretoria, the government said on Wednesday.

This brought to 54 the total number of people that have been arrested since violent protests broke out in the city on Monday, said government spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini.

The arrests were effected in the townships of Atteridgeville, Hercules, Mabopane, Soshanguve and Mamelodi in and around Pretoria, according to Dlamini.

The suspects have been charged with public violence, theft and possession of stolen property, she said.

The protests were sparked by the ruling African National Congress' decision to place Thoko Didiza as its mayoral candidate for Pretoria to replace current mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in the upcoming elections scheduled for August 3.

During the protests, houses were burned, buses torched and shops looted.

The attacks and looting of shops show that some of the protest actions are motivated by criminality, Dlamini said.

She said there is gradual stability in some of the previously volatile areas "as a result of the interventions by the government law enforcement agencies" while sporadic violent protests and incidents of looting continue in parts of Pretoria such as Mabopane and Soshanguve.

"The government assures the public that law enforcement agencies are responding and monitoring these development and peace and calm will return to the city," Dlamini said.

She also denied reports that enforcement officers took part in the looting.

"It is quite disturbing that pictures were posted on social media that sought to portray law enforcement officers as part of the looters. We would like to place it on the record that the law enforcement officers whose pictures have been distributed in social media were actually returning the looted goods to shop owners," she added. Enditem
UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Wednesday kicked off a meeting behind closed doors to discuss two suspected missile launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The 15-nation council began the meeting at around 15:15 EDT (1915 GMT) at UN Headquarters in New York. "The ballistic launches (by Pyongyang) are a clear and unacceptable violation of the Security Council resolutions," Francois Delattre, the French UN ambassador who holds the rotating council presidency for this month, told reporters here before the start of the meeting.

"The North Korean ballistic programme is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security."

The DPRK has not confirmed the suspected test-launch of two missiles on Wednesday morning.

The state-run KCNA news agency told Xinhua in Pyongyang over the phone that it was not aware of the missile launches and asked Xinhua to wait for official news. Enditem
RABAT, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Morocco will get a 3.55 billion U.S. dollars precautionary and liquidity line (PLL) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country's central bank announced on Wednesday.

This decision will pass before the IMF's board on July 23, said Abdelatif Jouahri, governor of Morocco's central bank, noting that Morocco meets four out of the five criteria required by the IMF for eligibility to the PLL.

The PLL is an IMF credit facility that supports actual or potential needs of the balance of payments in countries with sound economic policies.

It was designed to provide insurance or to help solve crises related to internal or external economic shocks. Enditem
LAGOS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen suspected to be militants on Wednesday kidnapped five people, including three foreigners, in Akpabuyo area of Nigeria's southeast state of Cross River.

State police chief Jimoh Ozi-Obeh, who confirmed the kidnapping to Xinhua in Calabar, the state capital, said police are working with the Nigerian Navy to ensure that the victims were released unharmed.

"Five persons were kidnapped; they include two Australians, one South African and two Nigerians," he said, noting that the driver of the vehicle they were onboard was shot dead.

The abduction happened at about 7 a.m. local time Wednesday at Edundun bridge.

Abduction is common in Nigeria. Over 300 foreigners and ransomable citizens have been seized in the Niger Delta since 2006. Almost all have been released unharmed after paying a ransom. Enditem
by Zindziwe Janse

THE HAGUE, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The terrorism threat level in Europe will probably remain high for the long term, although significant progress has been made particularly in information sharing across the continent, Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) Dick Schoof told the press on Wednesday.

"The threat level in Europe remains high and probably will also be high in the near future and maybe even in the long future," said Schoof.

The coordinator explained that though the current Dutch threat level called "substantial", which is only one level lower than the highest level called "critical" and indicates that an attack is a real danger and can actually happen, has remained unchanged for three years, actually a lot has changed since it was first announced.

"Three years ago, we were at the downside level within the bandwidth of 'substantial', and by now we have arrived at the high-risk side," he said.

The coordinator told the press that the Netherlands' new threat report, to be published in the week of July 11, will be roughly the same as the previous assessment, but even more so warning for the possibility of an attack.

"After the attacks in Paris and Brussels, we have big worries that operatives from ISIS are in Europe and are trying to get a network together again and attack somewhere in Europe. At the same time we have big worries about Al Qaeda as well, because Al Qaeda is still planning attacks in the West and also for Europe. Also, the danger of the 'one wolf' has not diminished. The targets they are headed for are as wide as you can imagine," he explained.

The Dutch head of counter terrorism noted that a lot of progress has been made in the sharing of information within Europol. Different authorities in Europe feed their information into the Schengen Information System (SIS), the Europol Information System, and the Focal Point of Foreign Fighters within Europol, and the information is also being sent out to all other countries.

For example, one of the important improvements is that the SIS, in which most of the suspected foreign fighters are put, will have a marker saying "terrorism related", which will trigger the relevant security checks and controls.

Also, the Counter Terrorism Group, headed by the Dutch Intelligence Services AIVD during the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2016, has created a platform to share a lot of information, mostly focused on terrorist fighters, among its members.

"In the so-called roadmap that the Justice and Home Affairs Council made up of justice and home affairs ministers from all the EU member states endorsed two weeks ago, one of the points was also about sharing information on law enforcement, migration, and borders, because these topics are more related than we previously thought. So we are still building a lot of relations between the systems and bringing a lot of parties together," he added.

Regarding counterterrorism measures in the Netherlands, Schoof stressed the importance of keeping the balance between preventive and repressive measures.

"If we only go to the preventive side, we will probably not be prepared when a real attack occurs, but if we only work on the repressive side, we will probably miss a lot of information about what is going on," he explained.

In January 2015, the Dutch government put out 125 million euros (about 141 million U.S. dollars) extra for preventive and repressive work within the field of counterterrorism, such as intelligence, protection services, and local street work related to counter-radicalization.

The intelligence service in the Netherlands, the police, the prosecutor's office, local authorities, immigration services, etc. have regular meetings to discuss the current threat and the state of the information.

On a local level, radicals and potential foreign terrorist fighters in the country are studied case by case, with police, intelligence, health care and education joining forces under the guidance of the local municipality to discuss developments, risks and ways of prevention or prosecution.

This specific Dutch way of de-radicalization with its local focus has proved effective thanks to the country's decentralized system, reliable local authorities and a long tradition of community police.

"But it is not a guarantee that we are going to be the most successful state in Europe trying to prevent attacks," cautioned the Coordinator.

The previous NCTV assessment published in March of this year stated that the jihadist movement in the Netherlands has hundreds of supporters and several thousands of sympathizers. Up until March 1 of this year, a total of about 240 Dutch people had traveled to Syria or Iraq, of whom 42 had been killed and 40 had returned to the Netherlands. Around 160 Dutch people were still in Syria, around 40 percent of them were female.

In the last two months, a little less people have left, roughly 4 to 6 every month, as intervening has proved to be a bit more successful.

However, the coordinator is not convinced that this drop of the past two months will become a trend, as just the month before that it went up.

The upcoming threat assessment will therefore not state that the number of foreign fighters leaving the Netherlands has dropped, Schoof told the press.

"With one or two exceptions, the 40 returnees in the Netherlands came in the early days of the foreign fighters' issue. They were really disillusioned of what they achieved or with the circumstances in Syria and Iraq," said Schoof.

On the contrary, those who are capable to leave ISIS territory these days are to be considered as high-risk and will be immediately arrested.

"All our foreign fighters that actually have left and are in Syria, have a European arrest warrant. When they travel back they will be picked up by any country which detects them," said Schoof.

The coordinator also pointed out that ISIS has shown that they use the refugee route to bring European nationals from Syria back to Europe.

"It is their modus operandi. At the same time, the current amount of refugees coming from Syria through Turkey and Greece has diminished, so therefore it is not as big a risk as it was," he said.

The Netherlands is still a possible target and the NCTV has the strong idea that there are still ISIS networks in Europe, capable of attacking, trying to regroup or organize themselves, and they could also be attacking the Netherlands.

"We are on alert. We are more aware of the fact that European nationals can be travelling on false passports from Syria as false refugees, using the transport facilities that the smugglers create through the hotspots," he said. Enditem
LAGOS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government on Wednesday commenced a three-day screening of refugees who fled to Geidam in northeast state of Yobe, from neighboring Niger Republic, following Boko Haram attack.

More than 5,000 of the refugees were registered, including 100 malnourished children, Nahuta Abubakar, a field coordinator with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told reporters in Geidam town.

Some of the refugees are taking refuge in the host community, while others are in schools and other public institutions.

The refugees were from Bosso and Diffa in Niger Republic, while others were Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Yobe and Borno states.

"We are here based on the directives to assess the refugees' exact number and forward recommendations for relief assistance to the affected persons," the NEMA official said.

"We have so far registered 5,000 people; there is the possibility that the number will rise by the time we conclude the three-day screening," Nahuta said. Enditem
SEOUL, June 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- A Local resident watches the screen broadcasting the news that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2016. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, after the fifth test-launch had failed, Yonhap news agency reported citing military authorities. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Wednesday kicked off a meeting behind closed doors to discuss the reported latest launch of two suspected missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The 15-nation council began the meeting at around 15:15 EDT (19:15 GMT) at UN Headquarters in New York.

"The ballistic launches (by Pyongyang) are a clear and unacceptable violation of the Security Council resolutions," Francois Delattre, the French UN ambassador who holds the rotating council presidency for this month, told reporters here before the start of the closed meeting. "The North Korean ballistic programme is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security."

"Confronted with a threat of proliferation we consider that weakness is not an option," he said.

"Based on all this, we favour a quick and firm reaction of the Security Council."

"We will most likely have a meeting of the Council later this afternoon," he said. "And we hope that at one point we will have a press statement on this."

The council president said that the council meeting is only closed consultations at this stage. The meeting was convened at the request of the United States and Japan, UN officials said here.

DPRK has not confirmed the suspected test-launch of two missiles on Wednesday morning.

The state-run KCNA news agency told Xinhua in Pyongyang over the phone that it was not aware of the missile launches and asked Xinhua to wait for official news.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that the DPRK launched a second missile, which was believed to be a Musudan, at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday) from Wonsan on the east coast, two hours after the DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile, which Seoul said was presumably a failure.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The South Korean military said it is not clear whether Pyongyang's second launch on Wednesday was a success or not. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing. The second missile launched on Wednesday flew about 400 km.

On June 1, the Security Council "strongly condemned" the most recent failed ballistic missile launches by the DPRK on May 31 and April 27-28.

"These repeated attempted launches are in grave violation of the DPRK's international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions," the 15-nation UN council said in a statement.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions -- resolutions 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013) and 2270 (2016) -- to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs.

The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze. Enditem
by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump hit his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton hard Wednesday in a speech broadcast nationwide, calling the latter a liar and a corrupt politician.

"She gets rich by making you poor," the brash billionaire told an audience in New York City, contending that Clinton has used her political ties to enrich herself at the expense of Americans.

In a speech that went for Clinton's jugular, Trump blasted Clinton for supporting economic policies that he said ruined the economies of myriad rural areas in the United States, in states such as New York and Pennsylvania.

He also went after the Democratic nominee for her record as Secretary of State, arguing that Clinton has spread "death" and "destruction" around the world, blaming her for allowing the rise of the Islamic State (IS), which has run rampant across the Middle East and carried out deadly attacks in the West.

Clinton may be "the most corrupt" candidate ever to seek the presidency of the United States, Trump said, going through incident after incident and listing Clinton's alleged "corrupt dealings" in a nearly one-hour speech.

The speech comes at a time when Trump is slipping behind Clinton in the polls, and as analysts say the bombastic businessman needs to start reaching out beyond his base of support and broaden his message and tap independent voters, who may well decide the election.

Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies of the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua that Trump' s speech is nothing new, and that the candidate needs to widen his message in order to close the polling gap between he and rival Clinton.

"He said she was a 'world class liar' but presented no new angles regarding that line of attack," West said.

"It is hard to see this speech moving people who weren' t persuaded by the many other speeches he has given on the same topic," he said, adding that at the moment Trump' s campaign is in turmoil, as it has little money or infrastructure for the fall campaign.

Moreover, Trump is having trouble getting independents on board. While he has galvanized the white middle class, he has had trouble reaching out beyond the Republican rank-and-file.

The real estate tycoon's "negative rate" underscores this, as the metric measures the level at which people like and dislike a candidate, and Trump's negative numbers stand at a whopping 70 percent -- the largest of any candidate in recent memory.

In other words, his supporters love him but many others strongly dislike the New York mogul. And that does not bode well in an election that may well be decided by independent voters.

"He hasn't broadened his message and figured out how to go beyond his current base," West said.

Indeed, Trump has drawn fire from Hispanics in the past by saying Mexicans are rapists, placing doubts on whether he can persuade even a small portion of this important voting bloc to vote for him in November.

The controversial candidate has also offended Muslims by saying he would ban the immigration of people from countries linked to terrorism, reiterating that message earlier this month after the horrific shooting attack in Orlando, Florida that left 49 people dead. Enditem
A Local resident watches the screen broadcasting the news that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2016. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, after the fifth test-launch had failed, Yonhap news agency reported citing military authorities.(Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Wednesday condemned Pyongyang's launch of two suspected missiles as an "irresponsible act" and an "unacceptable violation" of a ban imposed by relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

The reported launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is "in defiance of the unanimous will of the international community, (and) is a brazen and irresponsible act," Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here.

"The continued pursuit by the DPRK of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles will only undermine its security and fail to improve the lives of its citizens," Haq said.

Haq made the remarks at a daily news briefing here ahead of a closed meeting of the UN Security Council on the DPRK's latest missile launch, which was held at the request of the United States and Japan.

"We want a quick and firm reaction of the Security Council on this," said Francois Delattre, the French UN ambassador who holds the rotating council presidency for this month.

"The ballistic launches (by Pyongyang) are a clear and unacceptable violation of the Security Council resolutions," Delattre told reporters here before the start of the council meeting. "The North Korean ballistic programme is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security."

The DPRK on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10, according to state media KCNA.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that the DPRK launched a second missile, which was believed to be a Musudan, at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday) from Wonsan on the east coast, two hours after the DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile, which Seoul said was presumably a failure.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The South Korean military said it is not clear whether Pyongyang's second launch on Wednesday was a success or not. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing. The second missile launched on Wednesday flew about 400 km.

On June 1, the Security Council "strongly condemned" the most recent failed ballistic missile launches by the DPRK on May 31 and April 27-28.

"These repeated attempted launches are in grave violation of the DPRK's international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions," the 15-nation UN council said in a statement.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions -- resolutions 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013) and 2270 (2016) -- to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs.
BRASILIA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The impeachment commission of the Brazilian Senate approved on Wednesday a new timeline for the impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, which will be held at the end of August.

According to the new timeline, Rousseff will have until July 6 to provide any evidence and present her defence to the Senate, including any personal appearances.

After this, the commission's rapporteur, Senator Antonio Anastasia, will begin the second phase of the process. He will be given time to gather all the elements that may prove or not the existence of any crime. These will be presented to the impeachment commission on Aug. 4 and to the full Senate on Aug. 9.

Should the Senate accept the evidence presented by a simple majority vote, it will then carry out a full vote to impeach Rousseff or not within two weeks.

The final date of this vote will be defined by the Supreme Court, but would be set to take place between Aug. 22 and Aug. 26, according to this timeline.

A two-thirds majority (54 senators) is needed to find Rousseff guilty. This would see the suspended president formerly removed from office and unable to hold any public office for eight years.

Rousseff was suspended by the Senate on May 11 for up to 180 days, being accused of suspected fiscal irregularities. Enditem
UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday told entrepreneurs here that all businesses can and should play a role in improving the world.

Addressing the Global Compact Leaders' Summit 2016, Ban said responsible business must be part of the solution to the global challenges the world is facing, including climate change as well as sustainable development.

He urged corporate leaders and entrepreneurs to take advantage of the new markets and solutions that are emerging, to set corporate goals inspired by the sustainable development goals and to let sustainability drive innovation and investment.

He also highlighted corporate responsibility for how they do business and how they choose their staff and partners.

UN Global Compact is an international corporate sustainability initiative which provides ways for business to engage with the United Nations on issues from peace and security to women's empowerment. It now has over 13,000 signatories in 165 countries. Enditem
LJUBLJANA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The Dutch city of Nijmegen was declared the winner of the European Green Capital Award for 2018 on Wednesday night at a ceremony in Ljubljana, the current European Green Capital for 2016.

The winner was chosen by the European Commission with deputy director-general at the Director General for the Environment, Joanna Drake, at the ceremony in downtown Ljubljana, reported the Slovenian Press Agency (STA).

Drake said the decision was hard as all three finalists impressed the Commission with their work, however, the Dutch city of Nijmegen was chosen pipping its brother Dutch city of Hertogenbosch and Swedish Umea for the title.

Drake also expressed her enthusiasm about Ljubljana as the European Green Capital this year, underscoring that green cities set an example to other cities how to create a better life for their populations, and even more importantly for the future generations.

The European Commission also presented the European Green Leaf 2016 award to Galway in Ireland.

It is the Commission's initiative aimed at cities with populations of between 20,000 and 100,000 that recognises their commitment to environmental sustainability in particular on efforts that generate green growth and new jobs. Enditem
PYONGYANG, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 and the top leader Kim Jong Un watched the launch on the site, according to state media KCNA.

The ballistic missile "took off a self-propelled launching ramp and accurately landed in the targeted waters forward 400 km after flying to the maximum height of 1413.6 km along the planned flight orbit," the KCNA said.

The test-fire confirmed the flying kinetic feature of the DPRK ballistic missile with an updated system and its safety and control and the technical specifications of newly-designed rocket structure and its dynamic system, according to the state media. The test also verified heat-resistance of a warhead in its re-entry section and its flight stability.

Kim gave the order to start the missile launch after hearing a report on the plan.

Kim said that the DPRK surely has the capability to attack the Americans in the Pacific region and that the country should have the powerful offensive means to pose a threat to the enemy and to defend its people from the U.S. threats and other hostile forces.

He also stressed the need for the DPRK to increase its "preemptive nuclear attack capability in a sustained way" and to continue to develop strategic attack weapons, adding that the nuclear attack capability should be steadily bolstered to protect the country and the people from U.S. nuclear threat.

On Tuesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the DPRK launched two ballistic missiles which were suspected to be intermediate-range Musudan missiles near the Wonsan area on the eastern coast.

The first was launched at about 5:58 a.m. Seoul time (2058 GMT Tuesday), but it appeared to have failed as the missile flew in an abnormal trajectory in a distance short of what a normal ballistic missile can fly.

The DPRK test-fired a second missile at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday), which flew about 400 km. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.
CARACAS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro announced Wednesday that his country will increase its oil production to meet new quotas set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

"We must lower the costs of production to help investments and Venezuela will increase its oil production, while upgrading the technology and equipment to be used," said Maduro in a speech from the presidential palace.

However, the exact quota given by OPEC to Venezuela or the increase in oil production was not made public.

The head of state also guaranteed that PDVSA, the national oil company, would carry out this improvement with the maximum efficiency at "our refineries and our petrochemical industry."

At the same event, Eulogio del Pino, minister of Oil and Mining, said OPEC had pointed to Venezuela as having the leading strategies to balance out the price of oil barrels, which have fluctuated wildly in recent months.

"We are not tied to any dogma of reducing production. We are seeking new plans that will take us to balanced pricing, which justifies the sustainability of investments," added del Pino.

The minister also explained that some of the world's largest oil companies were keen to hear Venezuela's ideas to balance prices.

Oil prices have been on a steady decline since the middle of 2014.
CANBERRA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Two Australians are confirmed to be among a group of foreign workers who were kidnapped by local militants in Nigeria, the nation's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed on Thursday.

Nigerian police said a New Zealand national and a South African man were also part of the group which was ambushed and abducted in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after the group's driver was shot dead while transporting the workers to Australian company MacMahon's local quarry.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the government was attempting to confirm details of the attack, but said she was taking the threat "extremely seriously."

Bishop said she would be working closely with her Nigerian counterpart in the coming days to secure the safe release of all of those abducted.

"The Australian government is working to confirm details of the reported kidnapping in Nigeria of four Australians, who have been working for an Australian mining company," Bishop said in a statement on Thursday.

"The Australian government is in close contact with the Nigerian government, which is taking the matter extremely seriously."

Around 30 militants reportedly carried out the ambush near the Idundun Bridge crossing, Nigerian media reported.

No ransom has yet been received in the wake of the ambush, but the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that a dollar figure would likely to put to the Australian mining company -- or the government -- in due time.

On Thursday, a witness told the ABC the kidnapped men had been taken to a nearby boat, though local police have not confirmed that detail.

MacMahon, a Perth-based company, was contracted to local cement company Lafarge in the region. A spokesperson from MacMahon said the company would not comment on the kidnapping out of fears for the safety of its workers.
PYONGYANG, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 and the top leader Kim Jong Un watched the launch on the site, according to state media KCNA.

The ballistic missile "took off a self-propelled launching ramp and accurately landed in the targeted waters forward 400 km after flying to the maximum height of 1413.6 km along the planned flight orbit," the KCNA said.

The test-fire confirmed the flying kinetic feature of the DPRK ballistic missile with an updated system and its safety and control and the technical specifications of newly-designed rocket structure and its dynamic system, according to the state media. The test also verified heat-resistance of a warhead in its re-entry section and its flight stability.

Kim gave the order to start the missile launch after hearing a report on the plan. He was satisfied with the test results.

Kim said that the DPRK surely has the capability to attack the Americans in the Pacific region and that the country should have the powerful offensive means to pose a threat to the enemy and to defend its people from U.S. threats and other hostile forces.

He also stressed the need for the DPRK to increase its "preemptive nuclear attack capability in a sustained way" and to continue to develop strategic attack weapons, adding that the nuclear attack capability should be steadily bolstered to protect the country and the people from U.S. nuclear threat.

On Wednesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the DPRK launched two ballistic missiles which were suspected to be intermediate-range Musudan missiles near the Wonsan area on the eastern coast.

The first was launched at about 5:58 a.m. Seoul time (2058 GMT Tuesday), but it appeared to have failed as the missile flew in an abnormal trajectory in a distance short of what a normal ballistic missile can fly. The DPRK test-fired a second missile at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday), which flew about 400 km. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The first test-launch of the missile on April 15 failed as the missile exploded in mid-air several seconds after take-off. The April 28 launch also failed as those exploded in mid-air or crashed in waters. The fourth test was estimated to have exploded on its mobile launcher even before take-off, according to the South Korean military.

Seoul did not clarify whether the sixth launch was a success or not, but said that Pyongyang has made progress in the development of ballistic missile technology.

The Musudan missile, known to be capable of hitting part of the U.S. territory such as Guam and the outer reaches of Alaska, has been deployed by the DPRK since 2007.

The missile was first revealed to the public in a military parade in 2010 celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea. The April 15 launch this year was the DPRK's first known test-firing of the intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The missile is considered especially threatening as it is fired from a mobile launcher, making it hard to detect and track in times of military conflicts. It can also carry a nuclear warhead.
CANBERRA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Australia could play a vital role in whether or not Britain remains in the European Union (EU), as around 1.2 million United Kingdom citizens who live down under are eligible to vote in the landmark referendum.

More British expats - dubbed Brexpats - live in Australia than in any other country, and with the contest between choosing to remain or leave the EU tightening, the swing from Australian-based British citizens could help swing the vote.

James Cameron, from the School of Politics and International Relations at Canberra's Australian National University (ANU), said the local British expat vote would be "influential" in the final count.

"A lot of those expats would have been here longer than 15 years, but even if a quarter of those (have registered to vote) then that could still play a part in the final vote," Cameron told News Corp on Thursday.

"It will certainly be influential."

Ellie Warren, who has lived in Australia for almost five years, voted for Britain to remain in the EU as the Brexit campaign was made up of scare tactics and "fear-mongering".

"Economics is the most obvious reason, but I can't stand the 'leave' campaign, which is just fear-mongering and racist," she told News Corp.

Meanwhile other expats were concerned by the strain on the nation's welfare system under the liberal immigration policy under the EU.

"They're letting too many people into the country and letting them live on benefits straight away without working," Jackie Lamburn, who supports Brexit, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Australian politicians have also weighed in on the debate, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull saying that an exit from the EU would cause "a degree" of global economic "shock", while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said remaining in the EU would be better for Australia.

"To have a like-minded partner within the European Union would be in Australia's interest," Bishop said earlier this week.

Britons take to the polls on July 23.
MOSCOW, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to China on June 25, which experts say could better coordinate the development projects of both countries.

Sergey Sanakoev, president of the Russian-Chinese Analytical Center, told Xinhua recently that he expects to hear more about the "integration of integrations," namely the pairing of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

"This means that our countries are ready to develop transport infrastructure in the vast territory of Eurasia, which includes major energy projects, increasing investment cooperation, as well as the possible creation in Russia of new industries for future sale," Sanakoev said.

He noted that Putin's visit is politically important as regular exchanges at the highest level show a willingness to maintain solid ties.

"This visit has a symbolic character...I believe the parties will emphasize the similar positions of both countries on key international issues," Sanakoev added.

The expert suggested that besides energy cooperation, Russia should attract more Chinese companies in fields like high-tech, agriculture, tourism and the food industry, considering that production costs in Russia have becomes lower than that in China due to the devaluation of Russian currency.

Alexey Maslov, head of the Oriental Studies Department at the Russian Higher School of Economics Research, said Russia-China ties could transform into "a fundamentally new level of interaction."

"Now Russia itself offers a range of products, which it can sell in the Chinese market or produce together with China," Maslov specified.

"Russia, especially at the end of 2015 began to develop export plans focused on the Chinese market," he said.

Currently the Russian side is focused more on supplying agricultural goods to China, while more detailed negotiations are needed for more Russian products to enter the Chinese market, Maslov said.

Moreover, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have plenty of chances to interact, and there's opportunity in the development of Russia's Far East as well as in e-commerce, according to the expert.

Maslov mentioned that it is normal for Russian-Chinese cooperation to decline somehow as both countries are restructuring their economies.

"If both countries address restructuring issues competently," Maslov said, "then new channels for cooperation will immediately open."
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. trade authority ruled Wednesday that a U.S. industry is "materially injured" by imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan, which means the U.S. government will impose punitive duties on the products.

All six commissioners of the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) voted in the affirmative, saying "a U.S. industry is materially injured by reason of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan" that are allegedly subsidized and sold in the United States at less than fair value.

As a result of the commission's affirmative determinations, the U.S. Commerce Department will issue antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imports of these products from China and antidumping orders on imports of these products from Japan.

For products from China, the antidumping duty rate is 265.79 percent and the countervailing duty rate is 256.44 percent, according to the Commerce Department's final determination in May 2016.

In 2015, imports of these products from China and Japan under investigation were estimated at about 272.3 million U.S. dollars and 138.6 million dollars, respectively, according to U.S. official data.

On the same day, the U.S. Commerce Department said that imports of hydrofluorocarbon blends and single hydrofluorocarbon components from China have been sold in the United States at dumping margins of 101.82 percent and 216.37 percent in its final determination.

As the refrigerant in residential and commercial air conditioning and refrigeration applications, the United States imported the above products from China at about 165 million dollars in 2015, according to the U.S. official data.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has repeatedly urged the United States to abide by its commitment against trade protectionism and work together with China and other members of the international community to maintain a free, open and just international trade environment.
WELLINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government revealed on Thursday that it has allocated 600 million dollars or 430 million U.S. dollars on rural highway blind spots, an action to check fatal and increasing accidents on the rural roads.

Transport Minister Simon Bridges said 600 million dollar worth of measures are to be put in place over the next six years, including more side barriers, rumble strips and centerlines, on the rural roads where eighty percent of fatal crashes on New Zealand roads occur.

Overall it's hoped the funding will save the lives, or stop the serious injuries of 900 motorists over the next decade.

Accidents involving international tourists often make headlines on local media, sparking an outcry for more restrictions on foreign drivers.

"It's not aimed at the tourist drivers. Many know the numbers there, in proportion to the number of tourist drivers is not significantly higher," said the minister.

"In Waitomo, for example, we've seen some tourist incidents, and we've seen some other crashes and fatalities throughout the years, so the improvements will make a difference."

The Automobile Association has labeled the announcement a "great day" for road safety in New Zealand.

"It's great to see the government taking strong action that will greatly improve road safety on our highest risk rural State Highways," motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon was quoted by Newhub as saying.
SYDNEY, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Australian business leaders will do it tough overnight as they swap warm beds for sleeping bags and cardboard on concrete at the annual CEO Sleep Out in a bid to raise awareness and much needed funds to help tackle homelessness.

Almost 1,500 business chiefs will be sleeping outside around Australia on Thursday night, raising much needed money to not only help those already homeless, but find ways to stop the slide into homelessness of other at-risk people.

"One night of uncomfortable and disruptive sleep has a huge impact on you the next day, your alertness and mood is severely impacted. Imagine sleeping like that for weeks, months and even years," St. Vincent de Paul's Goulburn/Canberra regional chief Paul Trezise, the sleep out's organizer, said in a statement.

"This practical experience for CEOs gives them some insight into how hard it can be to hold a job, continue study or even keep a family and relationship together if you're homeless."

As of 1200 local time (AEST) on Thursday, St. Vincent de Paul had raised almost 4.8 million Australian dollars (3.61 million U.S. dollars) to provide its much needed support services. That figure is expected to double to almost 10 million Australian dollars (7.52 million U.S. dollars) in the coming days.

"The effects of trauma, a lack of quality education, an experience of family or domestic violence, or inadequate support of chronic mental illness are all common underlying facts of the people we support," Trezise said.

Just over 105,000 people in Australia are currently experiencing homelessness, with 60 percent of those under the age of 35, almost half of which are women, according to St. Vincent de Paul, sighting figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Last year the CEO Sleep Out raised just under 6.41 million Australian dollars (4.82 million U.S. dollars), providing 497,738 beds, 1,469,117 meals and 1,173,698 hands of assistance.

The annual CEO Sleep Out began in Sydney in 2006, expanding in 2010 to now host business chiefs in all major Australian cities and regional centers, including the New South Wales state port-cities of Wollongong and Newcastle.


This photo taken on Dec. 11, 2015 shows uniquely beautiful winter scenery of the Zhaoshu Island in the South China Sea. (Xinhua file photo/Zhao Yingquan)

by Salah Takieddine

BEIRUT, June 22 (Xinhua) -- China's sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea is indisputable as it complies with thousands of years' history and international law, Vice Chairman of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Dureid Yaghi asserted on Wednesday.

In an interview with Xinhua, Yaghi denounced the act of taking the South China Sea dispute to the international arbitration tribunal.

"There is a regional agreement among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to solve all disputes through peaceful means among all concerned parties," Yaghi said.

"If an ASEAN country resorts to arbitration, it is violating the basis of the agreements and international law, and violates essentially the legal sovereignty of China over the islands," the PSP official stressed.

"China called for dialogue and is refusing any dispute as it considers dialogue as the basis of the agreement among the ASEAN," Yaghi said.

As for the Philippines asking for arbitration, Yaghi said, "someone is pushing that country or another to start a conflict, knowing that the Philippines signed the ASEAN agreements."

Viewing an international arbitration to widen the regional dispute and to incite conflicts over the islands, the politician added that "some foreign countries want to use the issue on a political background to push China into a military conflict or transform this region in general into a hotbed for a military conflict."

China announced clearly that "it respects international law that guarantee free navigation and secure stability in that geographical area," he noted.

The "arbitration rule could be against China's interests but the importance is to stick to the regional agreements within ASEAN based on international law," he said.

He blamed "foreign intervention in regional affairs," calling it "the acts of colonialism or any state with colonial intentions."

"Some of the United Nations organizations and the international courts are politicised and do not have free will in their decisions," said Yaghi, a renowned lawyer.

Yaghi compared the fact of luring some countries to interfere in the South China Sea to what has "happened in the Arab region, in Iraq, Syria and Libya." "It is an issue we witness almost everywhere around the world."

Presenting the South China Sea issue to the international arena, in the lawyer's opinion, "is to harm China or keep it busy in wars or regional conflicts for economic reasons."

"There are various types of terrorism and among them is the colonial terrorism used in the South China Sea to push the area into conflict," said Yaghi, "and then the Philippines or someone else would ask the U.S. to intervene."
A Local resident watches the screen broadcasting the news that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

PYONGYANG, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 and the top leader Kim Jong Un watched the launch on the site, according to state media KCNA.

The ballistic missile "took off a self-propelled launching ramp and accurately landed in the targeted waters forward 400 km after flying to the maximum height of 1413.6 km along the planned flight orbit," the KCNA said.

The test-fire confirmed the flying kinetic feature of the DPRKballistic missile with an updated system and its safety and control and the technical specifications of newly-designed rocket structure and its dynamic system, according to the state media. The test also verified heat-resistance of a warhead in its re-entry section and its flight stability.

Kim gave the order to start the missile launch after hearing a report on the plan. He was satisfied with the test results.

Kim said that the DPRK surely has the capability to attack the Americans in the Pacific region and that the country should have the powerful offensive means to pose a threat to the enemy and to defend its people from U.S. threats and other hostile forces.

He also stressed the need for the DPRK to increase its "preemptive nuclear attack capability in a sustained way" and to continue to develop strategic attack weapons, adding that the nuclear attack capability should be steadily bolstered to protect the country and the people from U.S. nuclear threat.

On Wednesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the DPRKlaunched two ballistic missiles which were suspected to be intermediate-range Musudan missiles near the Wonsan area on the eastern coast.

The first was launched at about 5:58 a.m. Seoul time (2058 GMT Tuesday), but it appeared to have failed as the missile flew in an abnormal trajectory in a distance short of what a normal ballistic missile can fly. The DPRK test-fired a second missile at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday), which flew about 400 km. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The first test-launch of the missile on April 15 failed as the missile exploded in mid-air several seconds after take-off. The April 28 launch also failed as those exploded in mid-air or crashed in waters. The fourth test was estimated to have exploded on its mobile launcher even before take-off, according to the South Korean military.

Seoul did not clarify whether the sixth launch was a success or not, but said that Pyongyang has made progress in the development of ballistic missile technology.

The Musudan missile, known to be capable of hitting part of the U.S. territory such as Guam and the outer reaches of Alaska, has been deployed by the DPRK since 2007.

The missile was first revealed to the public in a military parade in 2010 celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea. The April 15 launch this year was the DPRK's first known test-firing of the intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The missile is considered especially threatening as it is fired from a mobile launcher, making it hard to detect and track in times of military conflicts. It can also carry a nuclear warhead.
SEOUL, June 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- A Local resident watches the screen broadcasting the news that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2016. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, after the fifth test-launch had failed, Yonhap news agency reported citing military authorities. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed "strong concerns and opposition" to Pyongyang's launch of two suspected missiles, saying that the Wednesday launch is "in violation of" all relevant council resolutions.

Alexis Lamek, the deputy permanent representative of France to the United Nations, told reporters here after a closed council meeting that all the council members "expressed the strong concern as well as their opposition against these launches." France holds the rotating council presidency for June.

The 15-nation UN council met behind closed doors here Wednesday afternoon at the request of the United States and Japan in response to the latest launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"All (the) members also considered these launches were in violation of all Security Council resolutions, and insisted on the crucial importance to work for their implementation, in particular the resolution 2270," he said.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs.

The latest one, known as the resolution 2270, was adopted in March to impose the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.

"All Security Council members expressed their commitment to a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula," following the latest DPRK launches, Lamek said.

Meanwhile, Lamek said that a press council statement will be issued "very soon" in response to Pyongyang's latest launches.

Earlier Wednesday, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here that the United Nations condemned Pyongyang's latest launches as an "irresponsible act" and an "unacceptable violation" of a ban imposed by relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

The reported DPRK launch is "in defiance of the unanimous will of the international community, (and) is a brazen and irresponsible act," Haq said at a daily news briefing here.

"The continued pursuit by the DPRK of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles will only undermine its security and fail to improve the lives of its citizens," Haq said.

The U.S. government on Wednesday condemned the latest missile launches by the DPRK as "provocative actions," while vowing to apply additional pressure on Pyongyang.

"The United States strongly condemns the provocative actions by the North Korean government that is a flagrant violation of their international obligations," Josh Earnest, spokesman of the White House, told a news briefing.

Earnest confirmed that the U.S. military detected and tracked what it believed to be two DPRK missile launches, which were determined to pose no threat to North America.

Earlier, China called on all sides to make a constructive effort to resume dialogue and ease the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

"Given the complicated and sensitive situation on the Korean Peninsula, all parties should avoid moves that escalate tension on the Peninsula and work to maintain regional peace and stability," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

The DPRK on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10, according to state media organ the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The ballistic missile "took off a self-propelled launching ramp and accurately landed in the targeted waters forward 400 km after flying to the maximum height of 1413.6 km along the planned flight orbit," the KCNA said.

The test-fire confirmed the flying kinetic feature of the DPRK ballistic missile with an updated system, according to the KCNA. The test also verified heat-resistance of a warhead in its re-entry section and its flight stability.
YANGON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar State Counselor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi left Yangon Thursday on a three-day official visit to Thailand at the invitation of Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, sources with the Foreign Ministry said.

Aung San Suu Kyi is scheduled to meet firstly with Myanmar migrant workers at Talay Thai market, the largest seafood market located in Samut Sakhon province, later on the day after her arrival, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry.

On Friday, she will deliver a speech titled " Myanmar, ASEAN and the World; The Way Forward", to Thai university students and then meet with Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Aung San Suu Kyi will also visit the temporary shelter for Myanmar displaced persons in Ratchaburi province on Saturday and concluded her trip on Saturday evening, the sources added.

Suu Kyi's trip came more than a month after Thai Prime Minister's special envoy Don Pramudwinai, who is also Foreign Minister, visited the Myanmar capital on May 8-9, during which the two countries vowed to promote bilateral relations and economic cooperation in all sectors including resolvement of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand, development of Dawei Special Economic Zone and cooperation in development of border areas.

There are 1.59 million registered Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand.
WELLINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister John Key ruled out on Thursday paying a ransom as a long-held government standing for a New Zealander abducted a day earlier by gunmen in southern Nigeria, West Africa.

Key told a press conference that there was no chance of the government paying a ransom for the release of New Zealander being held hostage in Nigeria, saying the compromise would only put a bounty on the head of any New Zealander working in a volatile region and make the situation worse.

Gunmen took at least three foreign contractors, including one New Zealander and two Australians working for an Australian mining company early Wednesday morning and killed their driver on the outskirts of Calabar.

Key said it's likely the kidnapping was random motivated rather than an act of a terrorist organization. The kidnappers are yet to contact police or making any request.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Australian high commissioner in Nigeria is at the scene while New Zealand has no diplomatic mission in the country limiting its capacity to coordinate the rescue.

The Australian mining giant MacMahon has been working with Nigerian government to resolve the situation as New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs was receiving updates on the situation.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made Nigeria an extreme risk rating because of the threat from terrorism, kidnapping and violent crime, advising its citizens against all travel in the north and against all tourist and other non-essential travel throughout the rest of the country.

Expatriate workers at oil and gas facilities were often targeted by militant groups in the northern regions of Nigeria where most of the recent kidnappings had happened.
MEXICO CITY, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Latin America on Wednesday rejoiced at the historic peace deal between the Colombian government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The peace deal, reached after three years of fraught talks in Havana, is seen as a major step towards resolving the five-decade civil war that has claimed at least 220,000 lives.

A formal accord will be signed Thursday by President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono in Havana. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Cuban President Raul Castro, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende will attend the ceremony.

"Tomorrow (Thursday) will be a great day! We are working for a Colombia at peace, a dream that is beginning to be a reality," Santos said on Twitter.

On Wednesday Brazil hailed the peace deal "a cause for celebration across the region."

"This was a fundamental step toward the end of violence and for permanent peace in Colombia, representing a victory for all Colombians and a cause for celebration across the region," Brazilian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Brazil would happily contribute to the implementation of the peace process, the statement added.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said the peace deal "will be a landmark in the history of Latin America."

"This is an initiative in which the foreign ministry has participated. However, given the importance of the role Chile has played in this process, I decided to personally assist in the ceremony after speaking with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos," Bachelet told a press conference.

Bachelet also highlighted "the importance of putting an end to a conflict that has lasted over 50 years and has had devastating effects for Colombians."

Bolivian President Evo Morales wrote on his official Twitter account: "We value the efforts of Juan Manuel Santos' government and the FARC in the definitive ceasefire agreement."

"In Latin America we should look after peace, without foreign interventions or armed conflicts," he said.

"We are celebrating that Colombia, a member country of the Andean Community, is one step away from having definitive peace," said Walker San Miguel, secretary-general of the Andean Community, a subregional trade bloc that groups Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

The accord will lay out how and where FARC rebels will demobilize and give up their arms after a final deal is reached. Santos said earlier this week the government and the rebels will complete negotiations for a final deal by July 20. The ceasefire will only begin after the final deal is signed.
HARBIN, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Police in northeast China's Heilongjiang province have captured the main suspect in 22-year-old murder case.

Jixi City Police said Thursday that the man, surnamed Zheng, was caught last Wednesday in Inner Mongolia.

Zheng is accused of fatally stabbing a man in 1994 over a personal dispute. He then fled to Tongliao City in Inner Mongolia, and assumed the identity of a Mr. Wang. Investigators were alerted to the resemblance of "Wang" to the murder suspect, and arrested Zheng at his house.

Zheng has admitted to the fact, police said.
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Bourgeoning Chinese investment in the United States has now extended beyond real estate, with more companies eyeing sectors closely related to Chinese domestic demand.

In recent years, more Chinese companies have been investing in the United States irregardless of size, industry and ownership, Shau Zhang, a partner at the Ernst & Young America, told Xinhua.

Data from the U.S. Commerce Department showed that Chinese investment was the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment in the United States in 2014.

Chinese investment in the United States not only created jobs for local economies but also contributed millions of dollars in reinvestment to the U.S. market. The Commerce Department said that U.S. affiliates of Chinese-owned firms employed over 37,000 U.S. workers and invested 449 million U.S. dollars in research and development in 2013.

Chinese investment in the United States has moved beyond real estate, although that sector still accounted for a large portion, said Zhang. More companies are investing in IT, logistics, culture, sports, and the auto industry.

The top six industry sectors in the United States favored by Chinese investors are IT services, electronics, industry machinery, communications, business services, and auto components, according to data from the consulting firm fDi Markets.

These investments were much in line with China's transformation from an export and investment driven economy toward one focusing on services and domestic demand.

Chinese companies were diversifying their investments around the globe in order to enjoy the benefits of globalization and to meet a growing demand at home to consume, Zhang said.

China's rising domestic demand has already been felt at home in the U.S.

"Chinese companies have strong interests in our fresh water treatment technology and diary projects," Katy Sinnott, vice president of Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, told Xinhua.

Wisconsin, the sister state to China's Heilongjiang province, has extensive exchanges with its Chinese counterparts in agriculture and clean technology, said Sinnott.

As China outpaced the United States to become the world's largest auto market, the auto industry has become one of the hottest areas for Chinese investment.

The greatest interests among Chinese companies looking for investment in the U.S. state of Ohio were automotive manufacturing, Kristi Tanner, senior managing director of JobsOhio, told Xinhua. These companies were big enough and were ready to expand, she said.
FUZHOU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A suspect accused of economic crimes who has been on the run for more than seven years has surrendered herself to police, local authorities said on Thursday.

Tang Dongmei, 57, was an accountant with the Arts and Crafts Import and Export Co. Ltd. in east China's Fujian Province. She was suspected of embezzlement, and fled to Australia in December, 2008.

China launched its "Sky Net" campaign in 2015, aiming to bring back 100 suspects accused of economic crimes who have fled overseas.

Tang was number 36 on the list.

With the space for graft and power abuse considerably narrowed at home after years of anti-corruption efforts, China is increasingly looking for international cooperation to apprehend suspects overseas.

A total of 30 suspects on the list have been brought back so far.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) criticized a decision by the United States to impose punitive duties on Chinese steel products on Thursday, saying the U.S. steel industry was overprotected.

"China is deeply worried about the United States's trade protectionism in the steel industry," the MOC said in a statement. "China believes that overprotection is the very reason U.S. steel products uncompetitive."

The U.S. trade authority ruled Wednesday that the U.S. industry had been "materially injured" by imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan.

As a result, the U.S. Commerce Department will levy anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of these products from China at a rate of 265.79 percent and 256.44 percent, respectively.

There were 161 ongoing trade remedy duty orders issued by the U.S. authorities on imported steel products as of the end of April, which shows excessive protection of the country's steel industry, the MOC said.

It attributed the global steel glut to slumping demand after the financial crisis, warning that growing U.S. protectionism could only increase trade friction and conflict.

The best solution is stronger cooperation and coordination, the MOC said, calling for joint efforts to tap potential demand to benefit all countries.

It urged the United States to abide by World Trade Organization rules and apply trade remedy measures discreetly.
SYDNEY, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Uber launched a maxi-cab style service with UberXL in Australia's Queensland state on Thursday, allowing parties of up to six people into one car, a service it claims is up to 30-percent cheaper than current traditional "maxi-taxis."

Uber's ride-sharing service however is outlawed in Queensland state, with regulators in May increasing fines to 2,356 Australian dollars (1,772 U.S. dollars) for Uber drivers, and up to 23,560 Australian dollars (17,718 U.S. dollars) for administrators caught.

State authorities have also launched an independent review into ride-sharing services.

"This just demonstrates their lack of respect and the disrespect of the process," Taxi Council of Queensland chief Benjamin Wash told local media.

Uber has not altered its operations in the state from the harsh penalties, but is involved in the review of ride sharing services.

"Obviously we're working with the government and their review... but at the moment it's business as usual and making sure we provide safe and affordable rides and different options for consumers," an Uber spokeswoman told local agency AAP.

Other Australian states however have taken a shine to the disruptive transport service, with both the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and New South Wales (NSW) legalising ride sharing services to increase regulatory oversight.

NSW has gone so far as to compensate taxi services who find hardship from the increased competition with Uber through 250 million Australian dollar (188.01 million U.S. dollar) package, to be paid for by government and passengers, touted as unlike anything else seen in the world.

The package, legislated in NSW parliament on Wednesday night, includes compensation for the reduction in taxi licence fees, a buy-back of hire car licences and a 142 million Australian dollars (106.79 million U.S. dollars) fund for "licensees facing hardship," paid for by a one-Australian dollar levy on passengers.

Queensland's Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said the state government welcomes innovation in transport, but "passenger safety will always remain our number one priority."

"Our transport inspectors must have the appropriate tools to ensure they can uphold current and any future regulations," Hinchliffe said.
HARPENDEN, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- People arrive at a polling station in Harpenden, Britain, on June 23, 2016. Millions of Britons will vote to stay in or leave the European Union (EU) on Thursday as polling stations across the country opened to the public in the morning. (Xinhua/Richard Washbrooke)

LONDON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Millions of Britons will vote to stay in or leave the European Union (EU) on Thursday as polling stations across the country opened to the public in the morning.

The referendum started at 7 a.m. and will end at 10 p.m. Voting will be held at schools, libraries, churches and community centers.

The ballot counting will start as soon as the polls close. A total of 382 counting areas will be set up, with 380 located in England, Wales and Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland and one in Gibraltar.

The outcome is expected to be officially declared at the Manchester Town Hall in the early hours of Friday.

Statistics from the Electoral Commission on Tuesday showed that about 46 million people are eligible to the EU referendum, a record number for a nationwide poll in Britain.

According to six main opinion polls from June 18 to 22, the "Leave" camp was tied with the "Remain" camp.

Politicians from the two sides made their final pitches on the eve of the historic poll.

British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered his final public speech on Wednesday in Birmingham, reaffirming that "we are stronger, we are better off, we are safer in a reformed European Union."

In an emotional speech he said, "our economy will be weaker if you leave and stronger if we stay. What that means is that on that ballot paper is British jobs, British families, the finance, the people in our country, the strength of our country. And that is why we will vote remain tomorrow."

Nearly 1,300 business leaders, including 51 of the FTSE 100, also signed a letter to The Times on Wednesday, backing Britain's membership in the EU. The letter said Brexit would damage the British economy and mean uncertainty for British firms, trade with Europe and jobs.

On the Leave side, in his final push on Wednesday, former London mayor Boris Johnson flew from London to northern England and made seven stops to encourage voters to vote leave and create an "Independent Day" on Thursday.

The Remain side has constantly warned about risks to the British economy and the threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs should a Brexit become reality.

Brexit embracers say the 50 million pounds a day Britain pays to Europe can instead be used to boost the British economy and support the cash strapped National Health Service. They also say the referendum is Britain' s last chance to control its borders in the wake of massive immigration from poorer EU member states.

Related:

Brexit referendum marks Britons' most important decision in decades, political experts say

LONDON, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Up to 46 million Britons will make their most important decision in decades in Thursday's referendum on the nation's membership in the EU, according to political experts.
Visitors view the models of the Long March-series carrier rockets during the 16th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo in Beijing, May 22, 2013. (Xinhua/Luo Xiaoguang)

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Long March-7, the latest rocket model of China's space program, is scheduled to perform its maiden mission over June 25-29, which would be the 230th launch mission of the Long March carrier rockets. Here is a brief overview of the series.

Long March-1

Long March-1 is a three-stage carrier rocket developed to send small payloads to low Earth orbit. On April 24, 1970, a Long March-1 rocket successfully sent the country's first satellite, the Dongfanghong-1, into space.

File photo shows Long March-1 (L), Long March-2C (R) and Long March-3 (C) at an exhibition in Beijing, Oct. 1992. (Xinhua/Lin Hui)

Long March-2

Long March-2 is a two-stage rocket, a base model of many rockets in the family.

On Nov. 26, 1975, a Long March-2 rocket successfully launched China's first recoverable satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, making China the third country with that capacity.

The Yaogan XVIII remote-sensing satellite is launched on the back of a Long March 2C carrier rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Taiyuan in north China's Shanxi Province, Oct. 29, 2013. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the Tianhui-1C mapping satellite blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province, Oct. 26, 2015. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

Long March-2 was later modified into a number of models, including Long March 2C, 2D, 2E and 2F.

Long March-2F was designed for China's manned space missions, which has sent 10 Shenzhou spacecrafts and 10 astronauts into space over the years.

The Long March-2F carrier rocket carrying China's manned Shenzhou-10 spacecraft blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province, June 11, 2013. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

A Long March-2FT1 carrier rocket loaded with Tiangong-1 unmanned space lab module blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province, Sept. 29, 2011. (Xinhua/Wang Jianmin)

Long March-3

The developement of Long March-3 was completed in 1984, by introducing a third-stage into the Long March-2 using low-temperature liquid hydrogen and oxygen as propellants.

The Long March-3 series was well received by the international market.

A Long March-3A carrier rocket carrying the 22nd satellite in the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) lifts off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China's Sichuan Province, March 30, 2016. (Xinhua/Wang Yulei)

A Long March-3B carrier rocket carrying a communication technology experimental satellite ready to blast off at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Xichang, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Sept. 12, 2015. (Xinhua/Bai Yu)

A Long March-3C carrier rocket carrying the 23rd satellite in the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) lifts off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China's Sichuan Province, June 12, 2016. It was the 229th launch of the Long March carrier rocket. (Xinhua/Yang Zhiyuan)

Long March-4

Long March-4 and its variants are mainly used to send satellites into the geostationary orbit and the solar-synchronous orbit.

Carrying China's "Ziyuan I" 02C satellite, a Long March 4B carrier rocket flies into space from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China's Shanxi Province, Dec. 22, 2011. (Xinhua/Yao Jianfeng)

A Long March-4C rocket carrying the Yaogan-27 remote sensing satellite blasts off from the launch pad at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 27, 2015. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

Long March-6

The maiden launch for Long March-6 was on Sept. 20, 2015. Fueled by liquid propellant--liquid oxygen and kerosene, the new carrier rocket is China's first carrier rocket that uses fuel free of toxicity and pollution. It will be mainly used for the launch of micro-satellites.

A new model of China's carrier rocket Long March-6 carrying 20 micro-satellites blasts off from the launch pad at 7:01 a.m. from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province, Sept. 20, 2015. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

Long March-11

China successfully launched a Long March-11 rocket on Sept. 25, 2015. The solid propellant rocket is designed for launching micro-satellites.

Long March-7

The to-be-launched Long March-7 carrier rocket is a medium-sized rocket using liquid propellant that can carry upto 13.5 tonnes to low Earth orbit. It will transport cargo for China's planned space station and is expected to become the main carrier for space launches.

A Long March-7 carrier rocket was taken to the launch pad in Wenchang, S China's Hainan Province, June 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Guoli)

Long March-5

Designed as the country's strongest carrier rocket, Long March-5 has a payload capacity of 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit, or 14 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit. It is scheduled to carry the Chang'e-5 lunar probe around 2017. Earlier reports said the Long March-5 will also make its debut later this year.
MAIMANA, Afghanistan, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A 50-member group of armed militants gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to the government in Dawlatabad district of the northern Faryab province on Wednesday, an army spokesman in the northern region Nasratullah Jamshidi said Thursday.

"A total of 50 Taliban rebels handed over their weapons to security forces in Dawlatabad district on Wednesday evening," Jamshidi told Xinhua.

All the former rebels vowed to join their communities and work for peace and stability in the country, the official added.

This is the second bunch of anti-government militants surrendering to the government in the northern region in a couple of days.

Previously more than 100 militants deserted Taliban in the neighboring Jauzjan province and handed over their weapons to security forces on Tuesday, according to local officials.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and China set up a free trade area open to other interested countries.

He made the remarks in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming state visit to China, which is scheduled for Saturday.
XINING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A former senior legislator in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region went on trial for accepting bribes on Thursday.

Li Zhi, former deputy head of the standing committee of the regional People's Congress, was tried at the Intermediate People's Court of Xining, capital city of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced an investigation into Li in March, 2015.
VANCOUVER, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Canada spends more than 400 million dollars (312 million U.S. dollars) annually on drugs prescribed to seniors even though the medicine should be avoided for older patients, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia.

The study was published Wednesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The study's authors conclude that the full cost to Canada's health-care system is closer to 2 billion dollars (1.56 U.S. dollars) when hospital visits and other repercussions of inappropriate prescriptions are factored in.

"We're wasting vast sums of money on drugs that we know pose more risks than benefits for patients over 65 years of age," said Steve Morgan, a professor from the university's school of population and public health.

"Canada urgently needs a national strategy to ensure that older patients receive only those medications that are appropriate for their health and for their age," he said.

Using prescription claims data for 2013 in all provinces except Quebec, Morgan and colleagues looked for prescriptions filled by patients aged 65 and older for medications listed as potentially inappropriate by the American Geriatrics Society.

The researchers found that 37 percent of older Canadians filled one or more prescriptions on the list in 2013. Women were more likely than men to fill such prescriptions. Sedatives were the leading contributors to both the frequency and cost of potentially inappropriate prescriptions among older Canadians.

Researchers advise that patients, families and health-care providers have more conversations about what sorts of medications an individual is taking and whether those medications are appropriate.

The researchers call for the creation of a national strategy on the appropriate use of medicines. Other countries, such as Australia, have done so and found that investing in better prescribing behavior and medication use improves patient health while significantly reducing prescription drug costs and costs elsewhere in the health-care system.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a platform for its members to carry out diverse cooperation and also a popular, attractive and authoritative international institution, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

The SCO was originally set up with rather low-key aims, which were to solve all kinds of border cooperation problems both difficult and easy, he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

Now the mechanism has been used to settle other problems and evolved into a platform for its six members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas, including political affairs as well as infrastructure construction, Putin added, noting that security and drugs have also been covered.
CARACAS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan public have united with their government in facing a potential suspension from the Organization of American States (OAS), calling for more time and dialogue.

"That's not the case now," said Venezuelan citizen German Valencia. "Honestly speaking, what would the OAS win if Venezuela gets suspended? Venezuela is going through a crisis and what we need is dialogue and solutions. The OAS plays a very important role in this. Why not allow us more time? People do not expect miracles."

The 34-member organization was gearing up to debate Venezuela's economic crisis and commitment to democratic ideals on Thursday at its headquarters in Washington.

Its decision could potentially lead to the country's suspension from the hemispheric bloc, though the United States, which has historically wielded overwhelming influence within the organization, has said it is not in favor of the move.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon met in Caracas with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to discuss the South American country's political conflict and violent protests.

The "secretary general has taken a meddlesome attitude towards us. It has not respected the Venezuelan government as it should," Caracas resident Jose Gregorio Villegas said.

The OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, who has been unusually outspoken in criticizing Maduro, advocated the idea of applying the Inter-American Democratic Charter (IDC) to Venezuela.

The IDC was created in 2001 in order to allow the OAS to strengthen and uphold democratic institutions among its members. It dictates how the OAS can react if a member government impairs human rights.

Resident Luis Blanco said that opposition forces were locked in a fierce battle with the ruling Socialist Party while campaigning for a recall referendum to unseat Maduro, but average Venezuelans back the government.

"We Venezuelans support the government ... especially in this critical situation," Blanco said.

Venezuela's Constitution allows for a recall referendum on the president, but the lengthy process cannot be completed this year, officials have said.

While Almagro advocated the idea of applying the IDC to Venezuela for allegedly breaking democratic principles, countries like Cuba condemned the proposal as running counter to the OAS' ideals.

"There are other member countries and delegates who want to seek solutions for Venezuela through dialogue," said resident Jose Gregorio Villegas, adding that "we Venezuelans can solve our problems" with the help and support of the region.

The OAS was established in April 1948 with the stated goal of strengthening peace and security of the American continent, eradicating extreme poverty, consolidating democracy and ensuring the peaceful settlement of disputes among member countries.

Political observer Jose Antonio Egido said while Thursday's OAS decision might not be a vote of confidence for Venezuela's government, it is also unlikely to be a boon for the opposition.

"That is undeniably an unexpected political victory for us and for our president Nicolas Maduro," said Egido.
by Fei Liena, Geng Xuepeng, Liu Si

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit slated on June 23-24 in Tashkent will be a highlight of Chinese President Xi Jinping's Eurasia tour, and will point out the direction of the bloc's future development.

Since the founding of the SCO 15 years ago, security collaboration and economic cooperation have served as the "two wheels" of the bloc. How to make the two wheels to run more smoothly is the main theme of this year's summit.

Against the backdrop of a changing international situation, increasing geopolitical tensions and a rise in terrorism, separatism and extremism, the summit is expected to make concrete contribution to safeguarding regional stability and advance the sustainable development goals of SCO members, SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said.

According to Andre Kazantsev, director of the Analytical Center at Russia's Moscow Institute of International Relations, the Islamic State (IS) has recruited a large number of people from this economically uneven area, and the possibility that terrorist activities will originate from Central Asian nations is on the rise.

Therefore, it is necessary for SCO members to enhance coordination to combat terrorism and safeguard regional security. Hopefully detailed security measures will be discussed and sealed at the Tashkent summit.

Furthermore, the economies of SCO member states are developing differently, yet they have all been feeling the chill of a global economic slowdown, and are in urgent need of cooperating with each other to emerge from the stagnation.

"China is an important impetus to the development of the SCO as well as the world," said Seylbek Musataev, a professor with Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. "Many SCO member states expect China to lead us out of the hot water at this summit."

As a response, China has proposed that SCO economies cooperate within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and to develop free trade areas. It has called on the the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS Development Bank to support SCO projects.

The SCO is becoming a platform linking the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasia economic alliance. Therefore, China's Belt and Road Initiative is bound to create more development opportunities for SCO members and other relevant countries.

The Chinese side has also made a five-pronged proposal for SCO development, including strengthening political mutual trust, containing security risks, gradually expanding SCO membership and improving mutual understanding among the bloc's respective peoples.

At this summit, India and Pakistan are expected to join the SCO and expanding the bloc's circle of members. The addition of the two countries illustrates the attraction of the SCO's "Shanghai Spirit" of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of shared development.
An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in south China Sea. (Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan)

COLOMBO, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The United States should stop intervention in the South China Sea issue to safeguard peace, stability and security in the region, Karunasena Hettiarachchi, SriLanka's secretary to the Ministry of Defence, said.

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Hettiarachchi said the United States should stop polarizing some ally countries to isolate China and any attempt to draw or divide between countries will undermine the peace, stability and security in the Asia Pacific region.

"The countries concerned should come to the negotiation table to discuss and listen to each other on how to solve the South China Sea disputes."

"As we all know that China is a country that loves peace so much," he noted.

The secretary said during his trip to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore weeks ago, he met defense secretaries of some countries and reached agreement with them on a wide range of issues such as cooperation opportunities and goodwill to maintain regional security.

Hettiarachchi said that he held the same view that the South China Sea issue has been hyped up by some countries outside the region.

The Philippines unilaterally initiated an arbitration from an international tribunal over the South China Sea disputes in 2013.

The Chinese government has reiterated its non-acceptance and non-participation stance in the case.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in its statement issued on June 8 that China has all along stood for peacefully settling territorial and maritime delimitation disputes through negotiations with states directly concerned on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with the International law.

On issues concerning territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, China never accepts any recourse to third party settlement, or any means of dispute settlement that is imposed on it, the statement said.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

Speaking of the current decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

The most important task in Russia-China trade now is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, noting that the two sides have taken concrete measures to improve their trade structure.
ANKARA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkish authorities have expanded the areas under curfew in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir in heightened security measures against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants, the governor's office said early Thursday.

The number of villages under curfew rose from the original 25 to the current 39 in the province's Lice, Hani, Silvan and Hazro districts, the office said on its website.

Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala told the media on Wednesday that authorities are also stepping up efforts to cut the PKK' funding such as targetting its drug trade.

Also on Thursday, Turkish fighter jets hit PKK targets in southeastern Turkey and northern, Dogan New Agency reported.

On Wednesday, airstrikes were carried out in the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakir and Hakkari, destroying 20 PKK targets, the army's General Staff said.

One soldier was killed and two others wounded on Wednesday in a PKK attack in the southeastern province of Sirnak, General Staff said.

Over 470 members of Turkish security forces and thousands of PKK members have been killed in confrontations inside Turkey and in northern Iraq since last July.

More than 40,000 people have lost their lives in clashes with the PKK since 1984, when the group first started anti-government attacks.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.
Photo taken on April 5, 2016 shows the lighthouse on Zhubi Reef of Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, south China. (Xinhua file photo)

by Mao Lei, Wu Dan

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's reiteration of nonacceptance of and nonparticipation in the Philippines-filed arbitration over South China Sea issue has concrete basis on international law and its reason can be summarized as three "NOs," a Chinese official of foreign affairs told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The three "NOs" are: the Philippine action has no basis on international law, the international arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction over the case, and the tribunal has no legitimacy, explained Zhou Jian, a representative for boundary and ocean affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China's stance on the South China Sea issue has won many countries' support. However, some nations for their own interests called China "despising international law" or "fearing to lose."

In response to such slander, Zhou said it is the Philippines that initiated the arbitration against international law.

First of all, what the Philippines did went against its agreement with China to solve disputes through bilateral negotiations and its commitment in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), Zhou said.

In addition, the Philippines has neglected the exclusion that territorial issues are beyond the scope of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the essence of the arbitration is over the sovereignty of some islands in the disputed waters, Zhou stressed.

China has excluded maritime delimitation and historical privileges from compulsory arbitration in a declaration in 2006 whereas the Philippines never discussed with China about the arbitration, the official said.

Moreover, an arbitration requires the consent of the two concerned parties but the Philippines went ahead against international practice, Zhou added.

"Given that the arbitration is out of a series of illegal actions, the arbitration tribunal consequently has no jurisdiction over the case and relevant issues," Zhou explained.

"The tribunal distorted UNCLOS to extend its jurisdiction and overstepped its power to judge the case. This is abuse of international law," Zhou pointed out.

"China says no to illegal actions. How can this be a violation of international law? The logic here is absurd. China is a builder and guardian of present international order."

"China's stance of nonacceptance of and nonparticipation in the arbitration not only secures its own interests but also preserves the right of other countries facing a similar situation. It is protecting the authority and completeness of the UNCLOS within its frame, said Zhou.

"This is why China's position on the South China Sea issue gained more and more countries' understanding and support," Zhou concluded.

Related:

Dozens of countries support China's stance on South China Sea: FM

BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of countries have expressed support for China's stance on the South China Sea dispute, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

Hua at a regular news briefing rejected reports that only eight countries back China on the issue, saying, "I knew some Western media sometimes call black white but I didn't expect they would have problems with numbers." Full Story

Spotlight: Cambodian PM says not to back arbitral tribunal's upcoming decision over South China Sea

PHNOM PENH, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Monday that the country will not support an arbitral tribunal's upcoming decision over the South China Sea issue and called on all parties concerned in the disputes to resolve their differences through bilateral negotiations.
KABUL, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Seven Taliban militants including a group commander were killed as their explosive device exploded prematurely in the eastern Afghanistan's Logar province on Thursday, Interior Ministry said in a statement released here.

"Seven Taliban militants including their commander Abdul Rauf were planting a mine on a road outside provincial capital Pul-e-Alam early Thursday to target security personnel but the device exploded prematurely killing all on the spot," the statement said.

Rauf and his team had active role in organizing attacks on security forces and planting roadside bombings in Logar province and adjoining areas, the statement said.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment on the report.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2015. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

MOSCOW, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to China on June 25, which experts say could better coordinate the development projects of both countries.

Sergey Sanakoev, president of the Russian-Chinese Analytical Center, told Xinhua recently that he expects to hear more about the "integration of integrations," namely the pairing of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

"This means that our countries are ready to develop transport infrastructure in the vast territory of Eurasia, which includes major energy projects, increasing investment cooperation, as well as the possible creation in Russia of new industries for future sale," Sanakoev said.

He noted that Putin's visit is politically important as regular exchanges at the highest level show a willingness to maintain solid ties.

"This visit has a symbolic character...I believe the parties will emphasize the similar positions of both countries on key international issues," Sanakoev added.

The expert suggested that besides energy cooperation, Russia should attract more Chinese companies in fields like high-tech, agriculture, tourism and the food industry, considering that production costs in Russia have becomes lower than that in China due to the devaluation of Russian currency.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) is welcomed by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Ufa, Russia, July 10, 2015. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

Alexey Maslov, head of the Oriental Studies Department at the Russian Higher School of Economics Research, said Russia-China ties could transform into "a fundamentally new level of interaction."

"Now Russia itself offers a range of products, which it can sell in the Chinese market or produce together with China," Maslov specified.

"Russia, especially at the end of 2015 began to develop export plans focused on the Chinese market," he said.

Currently the Russian side is focused more on supplying agricultural goods to China, while more detailed negotiations are needed for more Russian products to enter the Chinese market, Maslov said.

Moreover, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have plenty of chances to interact, and there's opportunity in the development of Russia's Far East as well as in e-commerce, according to the expert.

Maslov mentioned that it is normal for Russian-Chinese cooperation to decline somehow as both countries are restructuring their economies.

"If both countries address restructuring issues competently," Maslov said, "then new channels for cooperation will immediately open."
VIENTIANE, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The unexploded ordnance (UXOs) the United States dropped some half century ago still pose threats to Lao villages, Lao state-run daily Vientiane Times reported Thursday.

UXOs from the Indochina war still pose a threat to 70 villages in Attapeu Province even though efforts to clear UXOs are ongoing, the report said.

In the remote southern Laos' province of Attapeu, some 570 km southeast of Lao capital Vientiane by aerial distance, more than 6,100 USOs were cleared in last year. Yet a large number of bombs are still being discovered, especially in Xaysettha district where over 800 have been found.

In recent years, Attapeu Province has cleared and destroyed approximately 15,700 UXOs, the majority of which (15,200) were cluster bombs.

A survey conducted by the Field Mission of Norwegian People's Aid-UXO Survey and Clearance (NPA) in Attapeu Province over the past five years (2010-2015) has found that 70 out of the total surveyed 174 villages are still living at risk of UXOs. Throughout the technical surveys, 750 locations were found to be at risk, covering an area of 40.92 square kilometers.

What's more, Laos expects to make a submission to UNESCO for world heritage listing of the Plain of Jars in northern Xieng Khuang province, some 200 km north of Vientiane.

However, Lao officials said removing unexploded ordnance (UXO) from remaining sites will be one focus of preparations for proposing the tourist attraction be listed as a world heritage site.

From 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped over 2 million tons of ordance on Laos in 580,000 bombing missions, the equivalent of one planeload every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years.

At least 270 million cluster bomblets were dropped as part of the bombing campaign, and approximately 80 million failed to detonate.
ANKARA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- At least eight Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in northern Syria on Wednesday by Turkish artillary fire and U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, the Turkish General Staff said on Thursday.

Some IS weapons sytems, including mortar positions, were also destroyed in the operation, the General Staff said in a statement.

Turkey is set to deploy new air defense systems in its southeastern province of Kilis, as rocket attacks from IS-held regions across the border in northern Syria have killed over 21 people in the province this year.
TASHKENT, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)

TASHKENT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain said here Thursday that his country firmly supports China's principles and positions on issues concerning the South China Sea as well as Taiwan and Tibet.

He made the remarks while meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tashkent.

Xi said that Pakistan will sign a memorandum of obligations at the summit for it to join the organization, and this is a key step in the procedures for Pakistan to be granted full membership of the SCO.

China looks forward to carrying out deep cooperation with Pakistan under the framework of the SCO, Xi said.

The two leaders reviewed the friendship and strong momentum of the bilateral relations, noting that the two countries have maintained sound communication and coordination on global and regional issues, and have always supported each other on issues related to their respective core interests and major concerns.

"This year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of China-Pakistan diplomatic relations. Our two sides should take this opportunity to keep the momentum of high-level contacts and translate our friendship into greater driving forces for practical cooperation," Xi said.

The president proposed that the two countries focus on the building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), speed up the implementation of projects on transportation infrastructure and energy, and steadily carry out the CPEC-supporting projects concerning people's livelihood.

Xi also called on the two sides to deepen their cooperation in economy and trade, security, people-to-people exchanges, thus constantly enriching the meaning of their all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.

On his part, Hussain said Pakistan expects to continue its close cooperation with China in economic development, particularly in areas including the CPEC building, infrastructure, counter-terrorism and security. The country also hopes to strengthen cooperation with China on multilateral affairs within the UN and SCO, he said.

The 16th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State is scheduled to be held in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Thursday and Friday.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a platform for its members to carry out diverse cooperation and also a popular, attractive and authoritative international institution, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

The SCO was originally set up with rather low-key goals, which were to solve all kinds of border cooperation problems both difficult and easy, he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

Now the mechanism has been used to settle other problems and evolved into a platform for its six members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas, including political affairs as well as infrastructure construction, Putin added, noting that security and drugs have also been covered.

"The SCO has become a popular and attractive organization in the region. Many countries around the world have expressed willingness to join it," he said.

At this year's summit in Tashkent, Putin added, the SCO will formally implement the decision made last year at the Ufa summit on granting membership to India and Pakistan, and also discuss the participation of other countries in the SCO mechanism.

The expansion of its functions and membership has turned the SCO into an authoritative and popular organization not only in the region but also in the world at large, said the Russian president.

Noting that some countries hold different standpoints on certain issues, Putin acknowledged that their accession into the SCO is not expected to solve those issues.

But that will pave "the way for the settlement of those issues," he stressed. "We are full of expectations for that."
KATHMANDU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China remains the largest supplier of chemical fertilizers to Nepal in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the central bank of Nepal said.

The Himalayan country's import from India, traditionally its biggest supplier, has been decreasing in recent years, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).

The bank's data have shown that Nepal imported chemical fertilizers worth 120 million U.S. dollars (13 billion Nepalese rupees) during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year 2015-16, which ends in mid-July.

The country imported fertilizers worth 13.65 million U.S. dollars (1.48 billion Nepalese rupees) from India during the same period, and import from other markets stood at 5,537 U.S. dollars.

Although Indian fertilizers had a predominant presence in Nepal's fertilizer market until fiscal year 2013-14, China has emerged as the largest supplier in fiscal year 2014-15 and moved on to remain the largest supplier as of the first 10 months of the current fiscal year too, NRB said. Nepal's import of fertilizers from China has been on the rise since fiscal year 2012-13.

Nepal does not produce chemical fertilizers and imports all the required fertilizers from abroad. Beside formal import, a significant part of the country's demand for fertilizers is fulfilled by smuggling from India through porous border between the two countries.

Nepal's annual demand for fertilizers is over 700,000 tonnes. Formally imported fertilizers fulfill around 30 percent of the total fertilizer needs of the country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture Development.
By Xinhua writer Zhang Zhongkai

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua)-- The SAIC-GM automobile production floor in Shanghai might remind you of the movie "Transformers."

Giant yellow robotic arms are busy welding parts. The whole car body can be assembled by these robotic arms and human employees just sit in front of computer screens and type in instructions.

China's auto industry was quick to take up automation, but other industries are rapidly catching up. From assembling keyboards to sticking on labels, factories across China are replacing workers with robots in the ongoing government-backed, automation-driven industrial revolution.

With costs rising and profits shrinking, Chinese manufacturers have realized that they have to transition from the current labor-oriented mode to automation to survive and thrive as the population ages.

Improving quality, reducing costs, lifting productivity and ensuring sustainable growth are the eternal pursuits for manufacturers and the key is in technology. Robots can help factories achieve this, according to Gu Chunyuan, head of China business with ABB Group, a global leader in robotics.

Once the "world's factory," China is experiencing slower growth, especially in the manufacturing sector amid tepid global demand. The government rolled out an ambitious plan last year to upgrade the manufacturing sector to move upward along the global industrial chain and boost economic growth.

The application of new industrial systems, including robotics, will help improve enterprises' productivity by up to 25 percent, creating added value worth 6 trillion yuan (91.4 million U.S.dollars), according to recent research by Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The central leadership called for a "robot revolution" last year in acknowledgement of automation's vital role in raising productivity. Authorities have announced measures such as subsidies and tax incentives over the past few years to encourage industrial automation as well as development of the domestic robotics industry.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in April released a development blueprint for robotics-market growth in the next five years, which aims to have about 800,000 robots in stock by 2020 and achieve breakthroughs in high-end robots in areas such as surgery or nursing.

Since 2013, China has bought more industrial robots each year than any other country and is expected to be the world's biggest operator of industrial robots in 2018, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

There is plenty more room for market growth. China has about 36 robots for every 10,000 factory workers compared with about 478 in the Republic of Korea and 164 in the United States, according to MIT Technology Review.

China is home to about 800 companies producing or assembling robots, however, most of them only make low-end products.

We have noticed trends of low-tech utilization and development of robots in the sector, and the industry might be flushed with inefficient investment, according to Xin Guobin, deputy head with MIIT.

Chinese companies are taking action to catch up with global pioneers. Agic Capital, the Chinese-European private equity fund launched last year, bought Gimatic, an Italian supplier of robotic end-of-arm tools, in mid June. Midea, a Guangdong-based appliance maker launched a 4.5 billion euros offer this month for Kuka, a globally renowned robot producer that serves customers such as Audi, BMW and Boeing.

Enterprises should be well aware of future trends and focus on one's strength and improve competitiveness via cross-sector partnership and global resource integration, Xin suggested.
NEW DELHI, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that India is glad to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and it looks forward to fruitful outcomes from its upcoming summit in Tashkent.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations," said Modi in a statement prior to his departure to Uzbekistan capital to attend the summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he said.

"India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region," he added.

The SCO summit will be held in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent from June 23 to 24.

The SCO groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Belarus, Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan currently have observer status.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Following the launch of a new round of inspections targeting 32 state entities on Wednesday, the top anti-graft authority moved one step closer to its goal to cover all fronts in its sweeping anti-corruption campaign.

Late last year, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said it would finish inspecting all 280 government bodies or Party organizations by the end of 2017.

Inspections will hear work reports, publish contact information to the public, set up tip-off channels, and hold group or one-on-one meetings to uncover any violations of Party code of conduct or suspected graft.

The CCDI also divided the 280 government or Party organs into five categories -- provincial government bodies, central ministries and commissions, central state-owned enterprises (SOE), financial institutions and public institutions.

Now, after nine rounds, the inspection teams sent by CCDI have investigated 181 state organs since late 2012, screening local provincial government bodies, central SOEs and financial institutions.

In the new round, inspectors will go to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and the top political advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

They will also visit the Foreign Ministry; the Ministry of Public Security; the Ministry of Finance; the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development; the National Audit Office; as well as State Council organs in charge of legislative affairs and work related to Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas Chinese.

These state organs are central government agencies, which are the leading bodies and should be role models of upholding the Party line and policies, said the CCDI in a statement.

Wang Qishan, head of the CCDI, said anti-graft inspections were integral to intra-party supervision.

Wang may well say that -- since late 2012, more than half of the corruption cases investigated by the CCDI have been discovered through inspections, according to a CCDI statement in January.

The misconduct committed by Su Rong, former vice chairman of the top political advisory body; Zhu Mingguo, former head of Guangdong political advisory body; Wan Qingliang, former Guangzhou Party chief, among others, were all found through inspections, said Ning Yanling, a senior inspector.

Xin Ming, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said many achievements in the anti-graft campaign were largely attributed to inspections.

To further improve inspections, the CCDI has twice expanded its inspection teams, said Xin, noting the CCDI also adopted new inspection methods, such as re-examination, which means those that have been inspected in previous rounds may be inspected a second time.

In this sense, inspection work shows the CPC's responsibility for itself and the country, added Xin. "Comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is always in motion," he said.
GUANGZHOU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A joint law enforcement operation by the customs and police of China, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, busted a drug gang, arresting six suspects and seizing over 28 kg methamphetamine.

According to a statement issued by Guangzhou Customs on Thursday, customs officers were informed on May 26 that cargo could contain drugs.

Police with the customs discovered that the cargo contained mobile power packs bound for the Philippines from a port in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, on May 30.

A further investigation showed that the declarer of the cargo was a woman from Hubei Province who had a drug use record and had been engaged in foreign trade in Guangzhou since 2011. The woman's Nigerian boyfriend could the mastermind of the drug smuggling.

On May 30, the cargo was intercepted during declaration by customs officers and police. Among the 934 mobile power packs, 4.87 kg of methamphetamine was found.

The two suspects were caught by police on May 31. The driver in charge of the cargo was caught later, according to the statement.

After interrogation, the suspects confessed that three more batches of cargo containing drugs had been exported to Thailand and Vietnam.

The General Administration of Customs of China worked with the law enforcement departments of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

On June 2, over 8.5 kg of methamphetamine was seized and two suspects caught in Thailand. Another 15 kg of methamphetamine was seized in Vietnam on June 3 and one more suspect was nabbed in Cambodia on June 13.
UNITED NATIONS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Wednesday "strongly deplored" a terrorist attack on a Jordanian border guard post that left six security officials killed and 14 others injured.

The post attacked on Tuesday was dedicated for serving Syrian refugees who were trying to enter Jordan.

More than 50,000 Syrian refugees are stranded at the post as Jordan discovered a large number of them were members of the Islamic State terrorist group and the majority of them came from areas controlled by the terrorist movement in Syria.

The council in a statement reaffirmed grave concern over terrorism in Syria and stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists.

The council appreciated Jordan's role in the international effort to counter the Islamic State and terrorists affiliated with it and urged all states to cooperate with Jordan and other relevant authorities to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of acts of terrorism to justice.
XINING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Two fugitives were arrested 11 years after they, along with four accomplices, slaughtered more than 500 endangered Tibetan antelopes in a nature reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

A spokesperson with the provincial public security department told Xinhua that one suspect was caught in late March by Yushu Prefecture forest police and the other earlier this month, after the police "made breakthroughs" in March.

In July 2005, the six-member gang, driving two SUVs and armed with two guns and more than 2,500 bullets, sneaked into Hol Xil Nature Reserve and went on a rampage, said the spokesperson.

Three people were jailed and the others remained at large until this latest development.

This year, the police scoured Qinghai, Tibet and Gansu regions for the suspects. One suspect, identified by his surname Han, was found in Huangzhong County on March 31 and the other, surnamed Wang, in Haixi prefecture on June 12.

The pair confessed to killing the endangered animals. The investigation continues.

The number of Tibetan antelopes in Hol Xil Nature Reserve has shrunk to less than 20,000 due to rampant poaching since 1980s. Due to anti-poaching efforts, the population has grown to about 70,000 and no killings have been reported for 10 consecutive years in the reserve.
Photo taken on June 22, 2016 shows the wreckage of burned truck in Pretoria, capital ofSouth Africa. Violent protests in Pretoria went into their third day. Protesters went on a looting rampage, burned houses and torched buses. The protests were sparked by a decision by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to place Thoko Didiza as its mayoral candidate for Pretoria to replace current mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in the upcoming elections, scheduled for August 3. (Xinhua/Tian Hongyi)

PRETORIA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Protesters defied a stern government warning against violence overnight in Pretoria, with some resorting to looting overnight, police said on Wednesday.

Some foreign-owned shops were looted, houses burned down and buses torched during the violence which started on Monday, according to police.

Foreign shop owners had to flee to different places of safety.

Roads leading to several violence-stricken townships were barricaded with stones, tree branches and rocks.

The township of Mabopane was the hardest hit by acts of violence, where a heavy contingent of police force was at scene to contain the violence.

A police helicopter could be seen hovering around the township.

The protests was sparked by a decision by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to place Thoko Didiza as its mayoral candidate for Pretoria to replace current mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in the upcoming elections, scheduled for August 3.

Photo taken on June 21, 2016 shows a burnt truck in the township of Atteridgeville, Pretoria, South Africa. Protesters defied a stern government warning against violence overnight in Pretoria, with some resorting to looting overnight, police said on Wednesday. (Xinhua)

Unhappy with Didiza, protesters have vowed to intensify their protests if the ANC party does not withdraw its decision.

But the party said it would not change its decision.

As violence intensified, the government is considering to send in armed troops to restore stability.

On Tuesday, the government warned that violence, damage to property and infrastructure and infringing on others' rights and free movement including incitement of others to commit this type of offences will not be tolerated by law enforcement agencies.

"Those who make themselves guilty of such acts will face the full might of the law," government spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said in a statement.

"The destruction of property and chaos we have witnessed is highly unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue," said Dlamini.

The government calls for calm and for people to continue with their normal businesses as the government is responding adequately to the situation, said Dlamini.

"We call on people to be vigilant and avoid any violence related activities. We also call on all people not to allow themselves to be misled by a lot of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms which are intended to cause confusion and unnecessary panic," she said.

The government has increased visible policing of members of the South African Police Service.

Photo taken on June 22, 2016 shows the wreckage of burned truck in Pretoria, capital ofSouth Africa. Violent protests in Pretoria went into their third day. Protesters went on a looting rampage, burned houses and torched buses. The protests were sparked by a decision by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to place Thoko Didiza as its mayoral candidate for Pretoria to replace current mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in the upcoming elections, scheduled for August 3. (Xinhua/Tian Hongyi)

The law enforcement agencies are currently hard at work to ensure that calm returns to all areas, Dlamini said.

Criminal matters arising out of these incidents are being prioritised, she said.

The government reiterates that violence is not the answer to grievance.

"Our democracy offers many avenues for people or communities to address any grievances. We therefore call on communities to raise grievances within the confines of the law. Those who ultimately decide to exercise their right to protest are advised to do so in a peaceful and orderly manner," said the spokesperson.

Security personnel, she said, will act decisively against individuals who engage in acts of intimidation and incitement or violence, and the law enforcement agencies will not hesitate to arrest those who are found to have contravened the law.
PHNOM PENH, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prince Norodom Ranariddh, president of the royalist Funcinpec Party, said on Thursday that the party fully backs China for rejecting the arbitration from an international tribunal over the South China Sea disputes.

In 2013, the Philippines unilaterally filed compulsory arbitration against China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague with respect to the two sides' disputes in the South China Sea.

The Chinese government has reiterated its non-acceptance and non-participation stance in the case.

"We have already issued a statement supporting China's position over the South China Sea issue," Ranariddh said here during an interview with Chinese media outlets.

He said China has the rights to decline the arbitral tribunal because China has excluded maritime delimitation from the arbitration in a declaration it made in 2006 in accordance with Article 298 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has made it clear it will not accept or get involved in those proceedings.

The prince accused the Philippines of violating an agreement it signed with China on resolving their disputes through negotiations.

He also said that the Philippines had breached the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which China and ASEAN, including the Philippines, signed in 2002. The DOC clearly stated that all the disputes be resolved through negotiations and consultations by countries directly involved.

"We, the Funcipec Party, cannot support the Philippines for unilaterally filing the arbitration case," said Ranariddh who was a former professor of international laws in France.

The prince called on all parties concerned in the disputes to negotiate with each other and urged the outsiders not to interfere in the issues.

"We urge all countries directly concerned, including Vietnam and the Philippines, to negotiate with China," he said, adding that the UNCLOS and DOC are the legal base for their negotiations.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in its statement issued on June 8 that China has all along stood for peacefully settling territorial and maritime delimitation disputes through negotiations with states directly concerned on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with the international law.

On issues concerning territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, China never accepts any recourse to third party settlement, or any means of dispute settlement that is imposed on it, the statement added.
A security officer patrols a street after protests by residents at Hindi Town of Lamu County,Kenya, July 9, 2014. The residents protested about the killing of at least 29 people in two separate attacks by unknown gunmen. (Xinhua/Simbi Kusimba)

GARISSA, Kenya, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan authorities have beefed up security along the Somali border following attacks by suspected Al-Shabaab militants in the northeastern region earlier this week.

Northeastern Regional Coordinator, Mohamud Saleh, said on Wednesday that security had been heightened in major government installations, social gatherings and along the border with Somalia, following two attacks in Elwak, Mandera county and Hulugho, Garissa county respectively this week.

Kenya's intelligence reports say the Al-Shabaab Islamist group plans to carry out major attacks in Kenya during the month of Ramadan.

"Because we had enhanced our security, they (Al-Shabaab militants) were unable to penetrate some of their targets," Saleh told journalists in Garissa town.

Two Kenyan soldiers stand guard at the entrance of Moi University campus in Garissa, northeastern Kenya, April 3, 2015. Ambulances, and vehicles carrying security forces, can still be seen going in and out the university in the morning, while police have sealed off the campus with security forces patrolling on the town's major roads. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

Saleh said Al-Shabaab's major targets were social places, key government installations, police stations, police and military convoys in the northeastern region, adding the capital Nairobi was also their target.

The East African nation has previously witnessed terror attacks during the month of Ramadhan. Police have urged Kenyans to report any suspicious activities.

Saleh further disclosed the attacks had been planned by the Garissa University massacre mastermind, Mohamed Kuno, before the Al-Shabaab commander was killed in May by the Somali army in Bulo Gudud, Somalia.

He said that following the death of Kuno, the militants wanted to "prove that they have not been weekend by carrying out the attacks we saw in Elwak and Hulugho."

A security officer patrols a street after protests by residents at Hindi Town of Lamu County,Kenya, July 9, 2014. The residents protested about the killing of at least 29 people in two separate attacks by unknown gunmen. (Xinhua/Simbi Kusimba)

"We suspect they will keep on harassing us in the remaining of days of this Ramadhan period. We have however prepared ourselves for them and the remaining days are very crucial in our security surveillance," Saleh said.

On Monday, suspected Al-Shabaab militants ambushed a police vehicle in Elwak, killing five policemen. Hours after that, an ambulance hit an improvised explosive device planted along the road in Hulugho, leaving one person dead and three others wounded.

Al-Shabaab has carried out several bloody attacks in Kenya since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in 2011 to battle the militants.
YAOUNDE, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon government has launched a "broad administrative inquiry" into the conduct of the two-year war against Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, after it emerged that there was financial embezzlement and other forms of trafficking, a well placed source has told Xinhua.

According to official statistics, over 6,000 members of Cameroon's defense and security forces were mobilized for this operation that was mostly carried out in Cameroon's Far North region which borders Nigeria.

To accomplish the mission, large sums of money was disbursed by government for acquisition of military equipment, intelligence gathering, provision of basic needs and allowances for the troops as well as administrative purposes for the war.

So far, the amount of money spent on the operation has not been made public, although according to official accounts, over 2 billion CFA Francs (over 4 million U.S. dollars) was mobilized for this purpose.

In 2015 alone, humanitarian aid totalling over 1 billion CFA Francs that was handed over to President Paul Biya for the benefit of people affected by Boko Haram activities in the Far North region, raised a lot of controversy.

Local administrative authorities were accused of overestimating the number of victims whose number they placed at 1.4 million people, yet the real figure was 200,000 displaced persons.

At the same time, a dispute arose among soldiers involved in the fight against Boko Haram over failure to receive their allowances.

In addition, complaints started emerging from members of village security committees over the non-transparent distribution of their allowances for supporting defense forces in the fight against terrorism.

On more than one occasion, the president of Cameroon's National Assembly Djibril Cavaye Yeguie who comes from the country's Far North region, has been forced to clarify his allegations that there were Boko Haram "accomplices"' within the Cameroonian establishment.

His position is influenced by the fact that the Nigerian sect has managed to recruit over 3,000 Cameroonian youths to fight for it.

Since January 2015, Cameroonian forces have been carrying out operations to dismantle Boko Haram training cells in this Central African nation.

At the same time, the government and other neighbouring states of Nigeria, Chad and Niger under the Lake Chad Basin Commission as well as Benin which is a non-member, have been working together to fight Boko Haram from different fronts.

Investigations have also revealed the close connection between Boko Haram and some officials from the Far North region, who include local elected leaders. Some of those leaders are currently facing judicial processes.

The fight against Boko Haram seems to have turned into a lucrative business for some Cameroonian officials who engage in financial embezzlement, trafficking of weapons and oil, arbitrary arrests, release of suspected terrorists and abuse of power.

But these actions seem not to have escaped the attention of the country's top leadership who, only a month ago, ordered for a "broader inquiry" on the management of the war against the Nigerian terrorist group.

According to the sources, the outcome of the inquiry may claim jobs of some senior ranking Cameroonian officials.

Just like the previous "Epervier" operation that led to incarceration of several senior officials over corruption, including ex-prime minister Ephraim Inoni and ex-ministers Jean-Marie Atangana Mebara and Marafa Hamidou Yaya, it is believed the current inquiry will result into judicial prosecutions.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's meteorological authority on Thursday warned central, southwest and northwest regions of possible geological disasters.

Parts of Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang should brace for potential geological disasters from Thursday night to Friday night, as heavy rain has been forecast, according to a statement issued by the National Meteorological Center (NMC).

The NMC warned that floods and mountain torrents were highly likely in parts of Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing and Shaanxi.

The NMC suggested the public should also take precautions.
TASHKENT, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)

TASHKENT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkmenistan is ready to strengthen cooperation with China on various levels and play an active role in the construction of the Belt and Road initiated by China, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow said here Thursday.

He made the remarks during a meeting with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping prior to a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tashkent.

For his part, Xi said during their meeting that China attaches great importance to developing relations with Turkmenistan, hailing energy cooperation as an important part of bilateral strategic partnership.

"China stands ready to enhance cooperation with Turkmenistan in various areas to enrich our strategic partnership," said Xi, stressing that expanding energy cooperation will be conducive to economic and social development of both countries.

China appreciates Turkmenistan's active support for and positive role in the Belt and Road construction, applauds its measures to improve regional transport infrastructure and promote the efficiency of the logistics system, and is willing to encourage Chinese companies to actively participate in relevant cooperation, said Xi.

Xi noted that China looks to work with the Central Asian country to explore ways of starting bilateral production capacity cooperation and hold further discussion on agricultural cooperation.

He is glad to learn that Turkmenistan is going to offer Chinese language courses in primary and secondary schools, said the president, calling on both sides to increase people-to-people exchanges.

He also urged the two countries to strengthen law-enforcement and security cooperation, severely crack down on "the three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.

Echoing Xi's remarks, Berdimuhamedow said the bilateral strategic partnership enjoys firm political and social foundations.

Turkmenistan will intensify exchanges with China between the two governments, parliaments and peoples, deepen cooperation in economy, trade, energy, transport, logistics, communication, high-technology, humanities and international affairs, and continue to take an active part in the Belt and Road construction, he said.

Appreciating China's support for Turkmenistan's permanent neutrality policy, Berdimuhamedow stressed his country's commitment to adhering to the one-China policy.

The 16th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State is to be held in Tashkent on Thursday and Friday. Turkmenistan, non-member of the SCO, was invited to attend the summit as a guest.

Founded in 2001, the SCO now has China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its full members, with Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey as dialogue partners.
RIYADH, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Interior Ministry said Thursday a terrorist fugitive was shot dead resisting arrest, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The fugitive, identified as Abdul-Rahim Ali Abdul-Rahim Al-Faraj, were killed in a raid targeting a house in Awamiya, a Shiite town in the country's eastern governorate of Qatif, SPA said.

His brother, Majid Ali Abdul-Rahim Al-Faraj, also wanted by authorities, is still on the run.

Large quantities of firearms and ammunition were found in the house after the raid.

The two brothers were accused of committing a number of "terrorist crimes," including killing security troops, attacking civilians, destroying public property, and armed robberies.

The restive Awamiya is among the few districts in Saudi Arabia with a high concentration of minority Shiites in the Sunni-dominated country.

Of the 135 alleged terrorists Saudi Arabia announced to have arrested since early 2014, 17 were accused of crimes such as rioting, vandalism and attacks on security forces in Awamiya.
LONDON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Voters have been going to polling stations Thursday to cast their votes to decide whether Britain will stay in or leave the EU, as downpours hit London and southeast England.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha appeared at the polling station of the Central Methodist Hall in Westminster, London on Thursday morning and cast their votes for the EU Referendum.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn cast his ballot at Pakeman primary school in his Islington constituency. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister, and UKIP leader Nigel Farage have cast their votes at their local polling stations.

Heavy rain has resulted in floods in some polling stations, while the London fire department reported weather-related incidents, including lightning striking property, flooded homes and vehicles being trapped. The Environment Agency has also issued flood warnings across southeast England, according to local media.

A polling station in Chessington was closed because of the overnight heavy rainfall and moved to another place. Some polling stations reported queues outside.

In a polling station at Swiss Cottage Central Library, London, Nima Rashidzaden cast his vote with his daughter on Thursday. He posted a selfie on social media, voting to stay in.

"I think both sides have been using the wrong arguments and elements, talking about the economy and migrants. If we are a member of the multiple forums, we have more rights to work in another country, better trade tariffs, equal competition, and that's good for consumers. UK, over the last 30 years, has won because of its diversity, why should we lose that," he said.

Another voter Lawrence Albert said: "I voted remain because even though I'm English, I speak French and German. I lived and worked in Austria, Belgium, Switzerland. My family members all support remain as they are from across Europe. If we go out, our economy will go out. Europe needs us, and we need each other."

Stefano Bertolotto was at an entrance of a tube station in northwest London in the morning, encouraging more people to vote remain before he went to work. He was handing out leaflets, and said he tried to tell people the benefits of voting remain.

"Most people I know will vote in. Remain will make more economic sense. If you exit, you will have trade barriers of the rest of Europe, you don't have more freedom to go and study in Europe, and the pounds will go down," he said.

The ballot counting will start as soon as the polls close at 10 p.m. local time (2100 GMT). A total of 382 counting areas will be set up, with 380 located in England, Wales and Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland and one in Gibraltar.

The outcome is expected to be officially declared at the Manchester Town Hall in the early hours of Friday.

Statistics from the Electoral Commission on Tuesday showed that about 46 million people are eligible to the EU referendum, a record number for a nationwide poll in Britain.

According to six main opinion polls from June 18 to 22, the "Leave" camp was tied with the "Remain" camp.
MOGADISHU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A child was killed and six others were seriously injured in a mortar attack on Wednesday in a village in Hodan district, a neighborhood in the Somali capital Mogadishu, eye witnesses and officials have said.

Spokesman for the local government, Abdifitah Omar Halane, confirmed the incident, saying "one child was killed and six others wounded by two mortar shells in Mogadishu last evening."

Omar Farah, a local radio journalist, said his sister-in-law lost her son in the attack and she herself was among those injured.

Farah told Xinhua the incident took place near a military hospital. "There are people mostly children who were injured in the attack," he added.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Somalia's Islamist group Al-Shabaab is thought to be behind it as it frequently stages attacks in Mogadishu.
Photo taken on April 5, 2016 shows the lighthouse on Zhubi Reef of Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, south China. (Xinhua file photo)

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The involvement of the United States in the South China Sea issue has aggravated the tense situation of the Asia-Pacific region and has its hidden agenda, experts say. Following are some quotable quotes.

-- Narayanman Bijukchhe, chairman of Nepal Workers and Peasants Party:

South China Sea has been unnecessarily dragged in dispute by Western countries, primarily the U.S., to maintain the hegemonic exploitation over Asian countries.

-- Sergei Luzianin, acting director of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies from the Russian Academy of Sciences:

The launch of the tribunal is a collective effort to impose on China an alternative view on the South China Sea division. The United States is creating informal anti-Chinese coalitions or groups to dispute China's sovereignty.

-- Xulio Rios, director of the Observatory of Chinese Politics of Spain:

The intervention of the court in these disputes is part of a strategy to put pressure on China, which at the same time is inseparable from the growing U.S. involvement in the litigations.

-- Mahmoud Allam, former Egyptian Ambassador to China:

Increasing attention to the South China Sea goes in parallel with the U.S. strategy of "pivot to the Asia-Pacific," and it also serves Washington's plan of deploying an anti-missile system on the Korean Peninsula. It is simply an excuse for the United States to tighten its grip on Asia and curb China's rise.

-- William Jones, Washington Bureau Chief of U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review:

The intervention, and really the role of the United States, has become the most aggravating part (of the South China Sea issue).

-- Peter Li, associate professor at Houston Downtown University:

To the United States, China could be pulled into extended conflicts. Resources would have to be diverted to military preparations, affecting people's livelihood.

Related:

Dozens of countries support China's stance on South China Sea: FM

BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of countries have expressed support for China's stance on the South China Sea dispute, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

Hua at a regular news briefing rejected reports that only eight countries back China on the issue, saying, "I knew some Western media sometimes call black white but I didn't expect they would have problems with numbers." Full Story

Spotlight: Cambodian PM says not to back arbitral tribunal's upcoming decision over South China Sea

PHNOM PENH, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Monday that the country will not support an arbitral tribunal's upcoming decision over the South China Sea issue and called on all parties concerned in the disputes to resolve their differences through bilateral negotiations.
GAZA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior United Nations (UN) official has said that the Palestinian population in Gaza in general, and refugees in particular, have suffered enough, urging joint work to avoid potential conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

"I think it is very important that everybody joins forces in making sure we are not seeing another conflict," Bo Schack, director of Gaza operations in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

Schack urged humanitarian organizations to prepare for the worst yet explained that "it does not mean that we believe it will happen."

"We are learning from the experience, improving the situation in schools so that if there is a need, then these kinds of facilities can not only support the students and teachers today, but can also be used in the context of a conflict," he added.

The UN official said several entities have cooperated in an attempt to end the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007.

Schack said refugees need opportunities, a future, peace, and stability in order to care for their families and live a normal life.

For the past six years, Israel and the Hamas movement have engaged in three major wars which claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.

Hundreds of Palestinian homes were destroyed and damaged, and thousands of people are currently homeless due to the wars.

"There are very serious problems for everybody living in Gaza and these concerns have been outlined in reports: the quality of water, the availability of electricity on average being four to six hours a day for most families, the unemployment situation and obviously the whole issue of moving people or goods," he said.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 957,000 Palestinians, or 66 percent of the population, were forced to leave their homes in 1948, before Israel was established.

The bureau's new figure reveals that the number of UN-registered Palestinian refugees has reached over 5.5 million worldwide, or 45.1 percent of the Palestinians, with 24 percent of the refugees living in Gaza.

The refugees' struggle to return has been a key and thorny issue in the final status negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Palestinians base their assertion of the right of return on the 1948 United Nations General Assembly resolution number 194 which calls for permitting Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland and financial compensation for those not wishing to return, a resolution still unacknowledged by Israel.

Schack complained of a gap in the financial support to the organization, saying the organization is "in close contact with all our donors, including new ones, to try and make sure that this gap does not affect key activities for Palestinian refugees."

"We want to ensure that we also have enough funds to pay for temporary assistance for housing which we are providing to families whose houses are still under construction," he said. "This is a major issue and let us hope it can also be solved."

The UNRWA Gaza director said the top priority is the reconstruction of the demolished houses following the summer war of 2014, which lasted 50 days and killed over 2,200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis.

"When it comes to donor support, we have enough for about 25 percent of the number of houses needing reconstruction," he said.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao (R) shakes hands with Russia n President Vladimir Putin in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China now enjoy unprecedented mutual trust, sharing either the same or similar viewpoints on international affairs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here in an exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao.

Putin said the two countries jointly safeguard international stability and are also jointly implementing the Beijing-proposed Belt and Road Initiative that aims to build a trade network connecting Asia, Europe and Africa.

Putin said Russia and China are actively cooperating through such multilateral cooperation platforms as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS mechanism and the United Nations.

"We have maintained contact regularly, and carried out consultations on global and regional affairs. We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," Putin said.

Putin spoke highly of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York last year marking the 70th anniversary of the body's establishment.

At that time, Xi called for solving all disputes peacefully with the help of international law and made concrete measures to promote international poverty reduction, which is rare among global leaders, Putin said.

"It is these positions, instead of just geographic proximity, that unite us in international affairs," Putin stressed.

Putin voiced concern over major challenges facing today's world, saying the "coordination between Russia and China on the global stage is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs."

The interview was a special arrangement prior to Putin's China visit, which is scheduled for June 25.

Currently, Xi is on a three-nation Eurasian tour, which has taken him to Serbia, Poland and Uzbekistan, and has won more international support for China's Belt and Road Initiative.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been coping with the worst shooting incident in the country's history, which took 49 lives in a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12. He is also concerned about who is going to succeed him.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a severe test as his country is holding a referendum on Thursday to decide whether to leave or stay in the 28-member European Union.

French President Francois Hollande continues to be troubled by the migrant crisis and unemployment, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been busy finding excuses for the failure of "Abenomics" and attempting to continue to cover up the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Also in June, German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid her ninth visit to China in her capacity as the chancellor, which brought the Berlin-Beijing ties closer.

Putin said in his interview with Cai that the Russia-China ties have developed smoothly.

"Twenty years ago, we announced a new type of relations -- a strategic partnership; 15 years ago we signed the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. As a lot of work has been done since then, trust between Russia and China has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation," Putin said.

He also said the two countries have made great efforts to optimize their trade structure, diversify their trade, strengthen hi-tech cooperation, and expanded cooperation in such fields as aerospace, energy, people-to-people exchanges, diplomacy, military and infrastructure, among others.

He said the Silk Road Economic Belt proposed by Xi is very well-timed and appealing.

The Russian president said the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union have agreed to beef up cooperation with China under the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Following his upcoming visit to China, Putin is also expected to attend this year's G20 Summit scheduled to be held in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou in September.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying (Source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday applauded Russian officials' remarks on the South China Sea issue, calling it a just voice from the international community.

"Russia's position reflects the real situation in the South China Sea and the root of the issue. China appreciates that," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying at a daily press briefing.

Hua made the remarks following comments by Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov, who attributed the tense situation in the South China Sea region to the interference from outside countries.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also said at a press conference on June 10 that Russia believes intervention from an outside party will only make the already tense situation worse.

Saying some countries have intervened for their own interests, Hua said, their actions have provoked regional conflict and pushed the "militarization" of the South China Sea.

She urged relevant countries to respect efforts to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea, and play constructive roles to this end.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China are diversifying trade and exploring new areas for cooperation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

In an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao on June 17 in St. Petersburg, Putin spoke highly of bilateral interaction within broader frameworks, saying Moscow-Beijing cooperation is a world stabilizing factor.

UNPRECEDENTED MUTUAL TRUST

"We have maintained contact regularly, and carried out consultations on global and regional affairs. We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," Putin told Cai.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Speaking of the drop in the trade value between Russia and China, Putin said it is merely temporary.

The most important task in Russia-China trade is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, adding that the two sides have taken tangible actions to improve their trade structure.

Putin also noted that Russia and China have joined hands in such areas as space, aviation, ecology and nuclear energy.

Meanwhile, Russia is paying close attention to the construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan, the capital and largest city of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, Putin said.

Now under Russia-China joint construction, the 770-km track is designed for bullet trains capable of running at up to 400 km per hour. The trip from Moscow to Kazan currently takes 12 hours, but the time will be reduced to three hours and a half once the line is completed.

The project, Putin said, is probably just the beginning of massive cooperation between Russia and China in infrastructure construction.

GREAT POTENTIAL IN BELT AND ROAD

The Russian president also highlighted the alignment of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, a blueprint aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa.

He proposed that the EEU and China set up a free trade area in their first phase of cooperation under the initiative, so as to boost bilateral cooperation and world economic development at large.

The fundamental path for EEU-China cooperation and the global economic development is to gradually remove various barriers for an open and common cause, Putin said.

He also noted that all EEU members agree to beef up cooperation with China within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which also includes the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013.

"Xi's proposal is very well-timed and appealing, and the initiative holds great potential as it aims to expand China's cooperation with the world," Putin said.

Putin also pointed out that as more and more countries in the region show interest in cooperation between the EEU and China, the two sides should avoid setting up an exclusive trade bloc and help create conditions for broader Eurasian cooperation.

MECHANISM FOR DIVERSE COOPERATION

Speaking of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Putin said the organization has evolved into a platform for its members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas.

"The SCO has become a popular and attractive organization in the region. Many countries around the world have expressed willingness to join it," he said.

At the SCO summit in Tashkent on Thursday and Friday, the SCO will formally implement the decision made last year at Russia's Ufa summit to expand the membership to include India and Pakistan, and discuss the participation of other countries, according to the Russian president.

"The expansion of the SCO's functions and the increase in its member numbers, particularly the inclusion of those important countries mentioned above, have made it an authoritative and popular international organization in the region and the world at large," said Putin.

The international situation is complicated and countries hold different positions and views, but joining the SCO will create favorable conditions for seeking solutions, said Putin, adding that he has high hopes for this.

In addition, he suggested that SCO member states expand their cooperation in multiple areas and use the mechanism to address issues beyond border cooperation.

The SCO, which was originally set up to facilitate border cooperation, has expanded its reach to cover such issues as political cooperation as well as infrastructure construction, Putin said.

The organization has also begun to discuss security issues and actions against drug threats, he added.

Amid a sluggish global economic recovery, regional instability, rampant terrorist activities and environmental problems, Putin said, "coordination between Russia and China on the global stage is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs."

Related:

Putin confident in Russia-China all-round cooperation

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China. Full Story

Putin lauds SCO as attractive, authoritative int'l organization

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a platform for its members to carry out diverse cooperation and also a popular, attractive and authoritative international institution, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.
KABUL, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Up to 165 Taliban militants have given up fighting in the northern Faryab and Jauzjan provinces over the past couple of days as military crackdowns against armed oppositions in the said provinces is underway over the past couple of months.

A total of 115 armed militants, according to Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman of police in the northern region, gave up fighting and surrendered to government forces in Faryab province on Tuesday.

The former militants, according to the official, were active in Faryab and Jauzjan provinces over the past couple of years.

A day later on Wednesday, 50 more militants handed over their weapons to security forces in Dawlatabad district of Faryab province.

The surrender of more than 160 militants is taking place amid the presence of first vice president General Abdul Rashid Dostum in the northern region and commanding thousands of troops in the war against militants in Faryab and Jauzjan provinces.

General Dostum warned Taliban early this month to either give up fighting and reintegrate to their communities or face the music.

He also vowed not to ease the military pressure unless the militants hand in their weapons.

Meanwhile, Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi who claims to speak for the Taliban group in contact with media has termed the Taliban surrender in Faryab and Jauzjan provinces as a "fake drama" saying Mohammad Zahir has no relation with the Taliban.

"The government's claim of surrendering Mohammad Zahir along with more than 150 armed men to Dostum forces is merely propaganda against Taliban fighters," Qari Yusuf insisted.

Moreover, an army spokesman in the northern region Nasratullah Jamshidi in talks with Xinhua confirmed surrendering of armed militants in Faryab province, and said that keeping on military pressure has delivered.

He also noted that ceaseless military pressure would continue against anti-government militants elsewhere in the country.
SOFIA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A 150-strong tactical group of Bulgarian paratroopers was certified on Thursday to serve a one-year combat duty in the composition of the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2017, officials said.

The evaluation, which was held within the drill "Inflexible Courage" near Plovdiv, included parachute jumping, neutralization of terrorists and rescue of hostages, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

During its NRF mission, the Bulgarian unit would stand ready to perform tasks such as conducting special reconnaissance and surveillance, and carrying out counterterrorism operations, the statement said.

Launched in 2002, the NRF consists of a highly capable joint multinational force able to react in a very short time to the full range of security challenges from crisis management to collective defense.
NANJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Fifty-one people died and dozens were injured in extreme weather in east China's Jiangsu Province Thursday, local authorities confirmed.

Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 p.m., causing many houses to topple.
JAKARTA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government expects to stop importation of corn within the next two years as it attempts to extend the plantation area, a minister disclosed here on Thursday.

Indonesian Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said that he was upbeat over the success of the program, so that the country could achieve corn-self-sufficiency in 2018.

In the first six months this year, the country's corn import decreased by 47 percent to 800,000 ton on year, Minister Sulaiman said.

"Should the decline of import be able to maintained, we can reach a self sufficiency in the next 2 years," he said at Serpong town.

For this year, the government targets to extend the corn plantation area by 1 million hectares, according to him.

As part of the plantation-extension program, growers will combine the planting of corn with palm oil, Minister Sulaiman added.

Indonesia is the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil.

Indonesia's corn production reached 20 million ton last year and the country expects to rise the production to 24 million tons this year, according to agriculture ministry.

Indonesia's poultry industry requires over 8 million tons of corn per year, it has said.
FUNING, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on June 23, 2016 shows a tornado-damaged power pole in Funing County, east China's Jiangsu Province. A tornado hit Funing County Thursday afternoon. (Xinhua/Yang Ya)

NANJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Fifty-one people died and dozens were injured in extreme weather in east China's Jiangsu Province Thursday, local authorities confirmed.

Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 p.m., destroying many houses, the city government said in a press release.

It said the extreme weather was reported in several townships of Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng.

Gales of 125 km per hour battered several outer townships of Funing County, while in Sheyang, the winds reached 100 km per hour.

Many houses collapsed in the gales, with 51 deaths reported and dozens of injuries as of 8:30 p.m.

Top officials of Yancheng City are leading rescue and relief efforts in the affected villages.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Education on Thursday told students to exercise caution when applying for online loans, warning of fraud and usury.

The ministry's call came as a fast growing but not properly regulated market of online loans specifically targets students. In some cases, lenders offer false credit data and low thresholds to lure applicants into borrowing more than they can afford, and ultimately into usury traps.

Student debtors' information has a high risk of being leaked to third parties and some lenders resort to violence to deal with defaulters.

"Students should be fully aware of the risks of dubious online loans and have a sense of financial security," the ministry said.
ANKARA, June 23(Xinhua) -- Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday it was "inappropriate" for politicians to visit the Incirlik air base, local NTV reported.

"It is inappropriate for non-military delegations and politicians to visit the Incirlik air base," said Cavusoglu during a joint press conference with his Maltese counterpart in Ankara.

He added that Ankara approves visits to the Incirlik base located in Turkey's south by military and specialized delegations.

According to German media reports, Turkey refused to grant a German delegation permission to visit the military base in July, including a deputy defense minister and legislators.

The Incirlik air base is primarily used by the United States-led coalition forces to launch airstrikes against targets of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in both Iraq and Syria.

Approximately 250 German soldiers are stationed at the Incirlik air base, along with six Tornado reconnaissance jets and a refueling plane, all of which are involved in coalition air operations against IS.

Ties between Germany and Turkey have been strained following the German parliament's resolution on June 2 recognizing the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire as a "genocide."

In response to the German resolution, Ankara immediately recalled its ambassador to Berlin.
ISLAMABAD, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Thursday expressed grave concern over reports regarding the latest missile tests conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) which are "in violation" of UN Security Council Resolutions.

The DPRK on Thursday announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 and the top leader Kim Jong Un watched the launch on the site, according to state media KCNA.

"We hope that DPRK will desist from steps that are inimical to regional peace and stability," the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Pakistan has been a consistent supporter of a nuclear weapons free Korean Peninsula, as agreed by all parties.

"We believe that all countries should comply with their respective international obligations. We oppose any action which is detrimental to peace and stability in the region and militates against the prospects of reaching a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the issue within the framework of the Six Party Talks," he said in a statement.

The ballistic missile "took off a self-propelled launching ramp and accurately landed in the targeted waters forward 400 km after flying to the maximum height of 1413.6 km along the planned flight orbit," the KCNA said.
By Shristi Kafle

KATHMANDU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- In May, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of the Nepal Police booked four foreign traffickers in possession of more than two kilograms of cocaine in different parts of the capital city, prior to the arrest of two foreign women in March.

Within the first half of 2016, six foreigners have been detained in the Himalayan country for smuggling illicit drugs.

In 2014 alone, 24 foreigners were held in Nepal including 9 Indians, 2 Pakistanis, 2 Polish and 2 Georgians among others, whereas in 2015, 16 were arrested.

The busting of these trafficking rings over the past few years is evidence of how this least developed country is becoming a top destination for smugglers as a hub for their nefarious activities.

DIG Jaya Bahadur Chand, Head of the Narcotics Control Bureau which oversees anti-drug initiatives, informed Xinhua recently, "We accept that foreigners have been involved in drug trafficking via Nepal to international destinations.

But it is our responsibility if our land is being used as a transit hub. We will not allow these criminal organizations to use Nepal in this manner.

According to him, citizens from Singapore, Bolivia, South Africa, India and Pakistan are involved in drug smuggling in Nepal. These smugglers try to use Nepal for several reasons including a lack of strict security screening at the airport and a lack of strict anti-drug laws.

From the capital city, illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin are often supplied to India, China, Thailand, Europe and the U.S. from Nepal's only international airport, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

The airport doesn't have advanced technologies including the latest drug screening x-ray machines. Instead, the TIA is only equipped with outdated drug-testing machines, which can barely detect hidden drugs, officials at the anti-drug body said.

Accepting the lack of technologies, the Narcotics Control Bureau, however, asserts that airport is able to investigate the smuggling of arms and ammunitions, terrorism and other forms of crime.

"We don't have loopholes or weak security inside the airport as has been claimed. The matter is under the control of professional and dedicated team of Nepal Police," DIG Chand claimed.

A number of cases have revealed that the traffickers also use land routes for the supply of drugs to border-sharing India and China.

Senior Superintendent of Nepal Police Ganesh KC told Xinhua, "Soft drugs like hashish and marijuana are mostly transferred to Indian cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Lucknow via Nepalese townships bordering India."

Many of drug racketeers have even switched to air parcels and courier services to smuggle the drugs, to lessen the risk of arrest in the airport.

These smugglers often conceal the small consignment of drugs in shoes, sandals, books, hennas, frames, and tea and coffee packets among others wrapped in packed cartons.

According to the NCB, more than a dozen drug smuggling attempts through postal service have been recorded in the last three years.

The General Post Office located in the center of Kathmandu, which receives more than 50 parcels every day including those from overseas, accepts that it has recorded a few such cases.

Uddav Kumar Budathoki, an Officer at the Parcel Department under the General Post Office told Xinhua," The drug carriers choose air parcels these days because we have a manual checking system here. Due to the hand checks, the drug carriers have switched to concealing the items in small packages. These small consignments are usually for samples."

Currently, 8 officers are deployed in the parcel department for thorough checking of the parcels, which can weigh from 0.5 to 20 kilograms.

Authorities claim that Nepal is also preferred as a smuggling route by foreigners for illicit drug trafficking due to a lack of extradition laws. The NCB claims that due to the lack of the death penalty and cheap fines, traffickers are finding Nepal as a viable market to ship drugs.

"One of the biggest reason for the traffickers to select Nepal for transit is we don't have the death sentence. Punishment for trafficking is currently from 15 years in jail to life imprisonment and a penalty of up to Nepalese Rupees 2.5 million," DIG Jaya Bahadur Chand said.

He added that for the international traffickers who trade drugs worth billions, the punishment in Nepal is comparatively light.

To curb drug trafficking in this country, the Nepal Police has asked the Home Ministry to make necessary amendments to the existing anti-drug law.

Though the NCB has been operational since 1992 it has failed to bust the big drug rackets as it lacks enough authority from the Home Ministry to monitor drug trafficking and transportation.

"Our anti-drug wing is functional only in the exit zones of the TIA. We cannot monitor the arrival section as it is overseen by other security officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and Custom Department," the head of NCB, DIG Chand, told Xinhua.

More than 100 police officers are under the national anti-drug agency at the present and the NCB claims that it can expose drug trafficking rings in more effective way if its jurisdiction is expanded.

Currently the NCB has 7 satellite units within the country in major cities such as Biratnagar, Birgunj, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Mahendranagar and Kakarvitta. The agency also has plans to expand its reach in all 75 districts in the near future.
WENCHANG, Hainan, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's new generation carrier rocket the Long March-7 will leave no pollution as burning of its propellants produces only carbon dioxides and water, according to a project insider.

Hu Xiaojun, deputy chief designer assistant, said on Thursday the new rocket relies on liquid oxygen and kerosene as fuel, cheaper and less dangerous than the propellants used by some of the earlier rockets.

Designed for transporting cargo ships, the carrying capacity of the medium-sized rocket is 1.5 times that of previous, bigger rockets. It is due for launch between June 25 and 29 from Wenchang, a new launch location in south China's Hainan Province.

The rocket will stay on the launch pad until at least Saturday, the beginning of its five-day launch window.

Launches from the new site, which is much closer to the equator than the other three, can take advantage of the Earth's higher rotational speed to save fuel.
Eduardo Frei, Chile's extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to the Asia-Pacific, gives a speech in the inauguration of China Construction Bank's Chilean branch, China's first bank in Chile, in Santiago, capital of Chile, on June 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

SANTIAGO, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The opening of the first Latin American branch of the China Construction Bank (CCB) in Chile on Monday signals greater investment and development for the region, said former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.

Frei, Chile's president from 1994-2000, told Xinhua about the impact of the new CCB branch, which will offer corporate banking services and also serve as a clearing bank for transactions in China's currency, the renminbi (RMB).

The opening of the CCB's Santiago branch "is going to represent a great flow of investment and development, because it will facilitate transactions (with China) not just in this country, but throughout Latin America," said Frei, who currently serves as a senator and as his country's ambassador to the Asia-Pacific.

"The opening of the China Construction Bank in Chile is a pivotal event in ties between the two countries, because it is going to operate with the renminbi for all of Latin America," said Frei.

The branch will "turn Chile into a platform for financial services in Latin America for both Chinese and Chilean firms, and the rest of the region," he said.

Several Chilean exporters have in the past complained of "losing a lot of money in trading, because they have to exchange foreign currencies and, in the end, the total loss can be huge," said Frei.

"The fact that, in a very competitive market, you can create a system to transact directly in renminbi is a big help, especially for small- and medium-sized companies, whose businesses will get a major boost," said the former president.

"Being able to do business in renminbi, directly from China to Chile and from Chile to China, is a very important contribution," he said.

A secretary works at the headquarters of the Santiago branch of China Construction Bank (CCB), the first Chinese bank in Chile, in Santiago, Chile, on June 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

In addition, the CCB's focus is on infrastructure, a sector that Chile needs to develop, he said.

"We want to build the Bi-Oceanic Route, border crossings, tunnels, large ports to facilitate trade with China and it is very important to finance these projects," said Frei.

To promote these projects, he said, Chile's government has proposed the creation of a Fund for Infrastructure, currently being debated in Congress, and strengthened the Public Works Ministry's Constructions Unit.

The government's 10-year, 1.25 billion-U.S.-dollar infrastructure development plan offers both national and Chinese firms opportunities for investment, said Frei, noting Chilean law allows foreign concessions of public works.

Frei said he has also "spoken with executives of the Chinese bank" about approaching Chinese companies to invest in Chile's infrastructure projects.

China is Chile's leading trade partner, Frei said. "Today almost 50 percent of our foreign trade and services are done with Asia."

That's why the CCB's presence in Chile "represents a tremendous opportunity," said Frei.

He believes courting the country's small- and medium-sized companies will be good for the bank's business, while at the same time helping to "consolidate the relationship between the two countries."

In the meantime, Chile is preparing for the Week of Chile in China in August, which will see the country tout investment opportunities in energy, food production and tourism in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing.

"That is going to help the bank begin to explore several investment opportunities," he said.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an exclusive interview to Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

The following is a gist of the hour-long one-on-one session, which was conducted on June 17.

-- Mutual trust between Russia and China has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation.

-- Work between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin serves as an engine for the development of bilateral relations.

-- Xi himself values a lot the development of Russia-China relations. He is a very good friend and reliable partner.

-- The decline in the trade value of Russia-China trade is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates.

-- The most important task in Russia-China trade is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas.

-- The Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway project is probably just the beginning of massive cooperation between Russia and China on infrastructure construction.

-- The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi is well-timed and appealing and holds great potential.

-- All five members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) support developing cooperation with China within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative.

-- The EEU and China should set up a free trade area in the first stage of cooperation.

-- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a popular and attractive organization in the region, with many countries around the world eager to join.

-- The expansion of the SCO's functions and the increase in its member numbers have made it an authoritative and popular organization not only in the region but also in the world at large.

-- The SCO has evolved into a platform for its members to carry out cooperation in multiple areas.

-- Coordination between Russia and China is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs.

-- Xi is one of only a few national leaders who are dedicated to international poverty reduction.

-- Russia and China see each other as close allies who always listen to each other and heed each other's interests.

Related:

Putin confident in Russia-China all-round cooperation

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China. Full Story

Putin lauds SCO as attractive, authoritative int'l organization

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a platform for its members to carry out diverse cooperation and also a popular, attractive and authoritative international institution, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has been looking to encourage more foreigners to visit the Chinese capital by asking Chinese restaurants around the world to spread the word.

The city tourism association signed an agreement on Thursday with representatives of Chinese restaurant associations from Argentina, Ireland, Russia, Canada and Luxembourg to help promote travel to Beijing.

The city wants to build a network of overseas restaurants which already includes 12,000 Chinese restaurants across 20 countries.

These restaurants will offer diners maps and brochures about Beijing and are encouraged to work with local travel agencies to sell package tours to the city, according to Song Yu, head of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development.
ST.PETERSBURG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) is interviewed by President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao in St.Petersburg of Russia, June 17, 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his upcoming visit to China, elaborated his views on bilateral ties, China-Russia trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and international cooperation, among other issues.

The following is the full text of Xinhua's exclusive interview with Putin:

Cai: Honorable President Putin, it is my great pleasure to have an exclusive interview with you here in your beautiful hometown St.Petersburg, ahead of your once-again visit to China. Please allow me to express our respect to you on behalf of Xinhua News Agency.

Putin: Thanks.

Cai: Thanks to the joint efforts made by Chinese President Xi Jinping and you, the China-Russia relationship is currently at its best in history. I believe that today's interview will also be conducive to our bilateral relations. Shall we start the interview please?

Putin: Yes, please.

Cai: According to our calculation, President Xi had five meetings with you last year. And you are visiting China again very soon. The China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has been deepened thanks to the joint efforts made by President Xi and you.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, as well as 20th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination. What in your opinion are the highlights of China-Russia ties? What are their future prospects? What do you expect from this visit?

Putin: You said our bilateral relations are standing at a very high level, which is your comment on our bilateral ties. Here I want to remind Xinhua readers of two historical junctures:

Twenty years ago, we announced a new type of relations -- a strategic partnership; 15 years ago we signed the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. As a lot of work has been done since then, trust between Russia and China has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation.

Since it is a level that probably has never been reached in our relationship in the past, it is very hard for our experts to define today's common cause that binds our two countries together. In fact, it is not enough now to simply call it a strategic coordination. Therefore, we started to call it "a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination." The word "comprehensive" means that we are cooperating on almost all vital areas, and "strategic" demonstrates the prime importance we are attaching to our relationship.

You mentioned the coordination between President Xi and me. Indeed, the work between us, the work at our level, serves without doubt as an engine for the development of bilateral relations. We are currently discussing together some basic issues in our cooperative strategy. President Xi himself values a lot the development of Russia-China relations. He is a very good friend and reliable partner.

However, the smooth growth of Russia-China ties can not merely depend on our efforts. It calls for further improving the working mechanism between the governments of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. The heads of government of our two countries meet on a regular basis. More than 20 sub-commissions and intergovernmental commissions have been set up -- I believe there are 26 sub-commissions in fact. People in these commissions are working diligently and efficiently. Although the two countries are still far from being able to swiftly reach consensus on every complicated problem, we always share the common goal of pushing forward our cooperation no matter how complex the issues are. So we always find a solution.

The difficulties that the global economy is going through are widely known. They are also reflected in the coordination between the two countries. For instance, the trade volume between Russia and China has declined a bit. But we believe it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates.

Meanwhile, actions have been taken to solve the major problems. To optimize the bilateral trade structure, we have taken some substantial actions.

I may not remember correctly and may need to check up, over the past year, Russian export of mechanical and technical products to China has grown significantly, by 44 percent. This means a lot to us. We have been negotiating this with the Chinese partners for years. I want to thank our friends for making this a reality, which makes it possible for us to gradually realize our goals in the most important direction. This is our common goal, which we have consensus with. We are going forward together in the direction that we need to go.

Therefore, the most important task in bilateral relations is bringing diversities and higher quality to trade relations, particularly boosting cooperation in high-tech areas.

We are also working together in the fields of space projects and aviation, notably with a joint research on wide-body airplanes and heavy-weight helicopters. We are jointly seeking solutions to ecological problems and continue to launch giant programs in the field of energy, including nuclear energy.

Cai: Russia has a lot of strength in these sectors.

Putin: Indeed, yes. Rosatom (Russian state-owned nuclear corporation) has a remarkable orderbook. The two reactor units at Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant have been operating for eight years and have been recognized for their performance. We are building two more reactor units and I don't think we will stop there. We should expand our cooperation, not just building more nuclear power plants in China but also broaden our technological collaboration in this respect.

China is now gradually strengthening its presence in our energy market. Not only it's one of the main shareholders of the Yamal LNG plant, an important liquefied natural gas mega-project, but also China bought 10 percent of the shares of the Siberian-Ural Petrochemical and Gas Company, one of the top chemical shareholding companies in Russia. We welcome such investment by China, not only because of capital inflows but also because it helps deepen our partnership.

On the famous Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway line, we are seeing very good progress, and we are expecting a speed of up to 400 km per hour at some segments. We are closely following the work on the projects, and it may very well be only the beginning of our broad cooperation in infrastructure.

Our cooperation in culture is also of great value, including the Chinese Year and Russia Year, held alternately in our two countries, the Sino-Russian Youth Friendship Exchange Year, the Russian and Chinese Language Year, the Tourism Year, etc. Some of these were proposed by Russia while others were initiated by China. All of them have been very successful and will undoubtedly promote the mutual trust between our two peoples. The importance of these activities is no less than that of mega energy projects like the "Power of Siberia," by which I am referring to the eastern gas pipe project between Russia and China that supplies China with 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Apart from this, we have also had steady progress in cooperation on international and military affairs and on military technologies.

We usually discuss all these cooperation when President Xi and I meet. You know, my upcoming visit had packed schedules, very packed actually. So I expect to have friendly meetings with President Xi on a broad range of topics, with mutual trust, as we have always had.

Cai: Thank you. You mentioned the growth of economic and trade cooperation, and a lot of the mega cooperation projects, which are very encouraging. You have said many times that we should align the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China. China's economic sector is following this closely. So specifically what do you suggest the two countries do in this respect? How can we leverage on the alignment of these development plans to promote the economic and trade cooperation between China and Russia?

Putin: What you've raised is an interesting topic. We know that President Xi Jinping put forward the Silk Road Economic Belt. We think that Xi's proposal is very well-timed and appealing, and the initiative holds great potential as it aims to expand China's cooperation with the world. China's neighbors naturally come first in such cooperation, as the road, wherever it leads to eventually, first goes through the neighboring countries.

We are undertaking two negotiations: one is bilateral between Russia and China, and the other is between China and the EEU. Just recently, the five member countries of the EEU discussed relevant issues in Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). We all agreed to develop our cooperation with China within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative.

I have to be absolutely frank with you. Of course, we do have to take care of the interests of our producers. But we share the consensus that our fundamental approach to world economic development and our cooperation with China is to gradually eliminate the various barriers to our common cause of opening up. So I think what we can do at the first stage is to establish a free trade area.

We are realists. We are aware that it is impossible at the first stage to rule out exceptions and special cases, but we should be clear about where we want to go. Given that more and more countries in our region are enthusiastic about our cooperation, in order to achieve our aim, we shall try to create favorable conditions for what we call Eurasian cooperation, and we shall try to avoid establishing a closed economic and trade bloc. (more)
ANKARA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior Russian official said Thursday that Turkey has been invited to a meeting of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation scheduled for July 1 in Sochi, Turkish and Russian media reported.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasiliy Nebenzya said Moscow expected Turkey to attend the Sochi gathering along with Ukraine, another country with whom Russia has poor relations, according to Russian Sputnik news agency.

Although the meeting is a multilateral platform, Russia is ready to facilitate talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Nebenzya said.

Ankara has not offered any reply to Moscow's invitation until now, but Nebenzya said that attendance is expected to be finalized by next week.

"It marks the first such move after relations between the two countries soured over a downed jet last year," commented Turkish Daily News.

Relations between Ankara and Moscow have been deeply strained since a Russian Su-24 bomber jet was shot down on Nov. 25, 2015. Russia has since imposed a range of economic sanctions against Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to celebrate the Russia Day on June 12. Some interpreted the letter as an important step toward normalizing bilateral ties.

The Kremlin responded that Russia wants to restore relations with Turkey, provided that Ankara takes certain steps first.
BEIJING, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attends the plenary meeting of the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Gao Jie)

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's senior political advisors met Thursday to offer suggestions on poverty alleviation.

Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, attended the meeting.

Various authorities must contribute their wisdom to ensure all impoverished people are better off by 2020, attendees said at the meeting.

Zheng Xiaoyan, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee, proposed to improving the rural social security system, which she said is a key to fighting poverty.

"To fight poverty, we must make sure poor children receive good education," said senior political advisor Ge Jianxiong, adding the nine-year compulsory education must be well promoted in poor regions.

Senior political advisor Jiang Jianchu suggested better supervision of poverty relief funds. Others also proposed promotion of e-commerce and tourism in rural areas as a way of increasing incomes.

A major manifestation of socialist democracy, the CPPCC is a patriotic united front organization of the Chinese people and a key mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
RAMALLAH, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office said Thursday there is no meeting scheduled between Abbas and his Israeli counterpart, Reuven Rivlin, in Brussels.

The denial comes after Rivlin, when addressing the European parliament on Wednesday, said he intended to meet Abbas under the mediation of the European Union.

The Palestinian presidential spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeinah, denied that such a meeting was scheduled.

"The president's goal is to address the European parliament to talk about the Palestinian and Arab position regarding the upcoming political developments, particularly the international peace conference proposed by France and adopted by the EU," he said.

The latest round of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, brokered by the United States, lasted nine months and broke down in April 2014.
BRUSSELS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow on Thursday addressed key objectives for NATO's Warsaw Summit during his visit in Lisbon.

In a keynote speech at the Portuguese Parliament, Vershbow on Thursday outlined three key objectives of the Warsaw Summit in July: enhancing NATO's collective defense and deterrence, projecting stability beyond the Alliance's borders and expanding cooperation with the European Union.

Addressing NATO's adaptation to current security challenges, Vershbow stressed that the Alliance's maritime capabilities are essential.

"We are refining our presence in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and exploring a greater maritime role for NATO in the Mediterranean Sea, including in support of the European Union's Operation Sophia," he said.

Vershbow added the Warsaw Summit will guide the Alliance's future direction, ensuring that NATO remains "an essential source of stability in an uncertain and unpredictable world."

In his speech, Vershbow also praised Portugal's unique and long-standing contribution to the Alliance and the transatlantic bond.
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A police officer was acquitted on Monday of second-degree murder charge for his part in the events leading to death of the 25-year-old black man Freddie Gray last year in Baltimore, Maryland.

Baltimore police officer Caesar Goodson was among six officers being charged in Gray's death last year while the black young man was in police custody.


TASHKENT, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

TASHKENT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said here Thursday that his country backs China's peaceful reunification, fully understands and firmly supports China's position on the South China Sea issue, and opposes any attempt to internationalize it.

Rahmon said this when meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Xi said the two countries maintain high-level contacts and have made progress in efforts to implement the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi also advised to steadily promote cooperation between the two nations under the initiative, and suggested further cooperation in such areas as agriculture, infrastructure, emergency relief, people-to-people exchanges, anti-terrorism, drug prohibition, cybersecurity, and combating organized cross-border crimes.

The Chinese president also considered the SCO as an important contributor to regional peace and stability, and common development.

China, along with other SCO member countries, would stick to the "Shanghai Spirit" of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of shared development, in an effort to make the regional organization contribute more to the stability and development of member states, Xi added.

Rahmon spoke highly of Tajikistan's economic cooperation with China, saying major cooperation projects between the two nations are key to Tajikistan's national development and regional economic growth.

He said his country is actively involved in China's Belt and Road Initiative and seeks close cooperation with China in various fields including infrastructure, electricity, agriculture, culture and security.

Xi arrived in Uzbekistan on Tuesday for a state visit, the second in three years. He will also attend a two-day SCO summit here on Thursday and Friday.

The Central Asian country is the final stop of Xi's current three-nation tour, which has taken him to Serbia and Poland.

Founded in 2001, the SCO now has China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its full members, with Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey as dialogue partners.
by Xinhua Writer Li Laifang

TAIPEI, June 23 (Xinhua) -- One month after Taiwan's new leader Tsai Ing-wen assumed office, the island is not short of protests and disputes over policy reversals, and businessmen increasingly complain about the dawdling economy.

Tsai, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is refusing to recognize the 1992 Consensus, the political foundation for peaceful relations across the Taiwan Strait for the past eight years.

THE LADY IS FOR TURNING

On May 31, the island's education authority withdrew certain textbooks which were revised slightly in 2013. The 2013 changes included replacing the phrases "Japanese rule" with "Japanese colonial rule," and changing "Chinese takeover of Taiwan" to "recovery of sovereignty over Taiwan."

The DPP had objected to the changes at the time and abolished the revised version as soon as possible after coming to power. The move is seen as part of a push for "cultural independence."

More reversals came in the dropping all criminal charges against 126 students who occupied the executive authority building in March 2014 protesting about a cross-Strait trade deal.

"Political meddling in a legal case will undoubtedly damage the seriousness and authority of law," said Sandy Yeh, secretary general of the Chinese Police Research Association in Taiwan.

Regarding the status of the Okinotori Atoll, which Japan wants to call an "island," the authority claims that its status is "undecided," in contrast to the previous position that it is just a reef and does not entitle Japan to a 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. A Taiwanese fishing boat was seized by Japan near the atoll in April, prompting previous leader Ma Ying-jeou to dispatch vessels to protect fishermen there.

The DPP stance led to protests by hundreds of fishermen in front of the party's headquarters in downtown Taipei in late May.

Lin Chuan, head of Taiwan's new executive authority, is now considering reactivating a nuclear power plant, contradicting the DPP anti-nuclear power pledge.

Lin angered people again in early June when he said that some comfort women in Taiwan were possibly volunteers. His remarks were widely criticized, and he was forced to apologize.

SLACK ECONOMY

Taiwan's exports contracted 9.6 percent in the year ending in May, the latest contraction in a sequence of 16 straight months. Export orders fell 5.8 percent, the 14th consecutive month of contraction.

Weak exports and structural problems make even 1 percent growth unlikely this year, compared with an annual average of 2.5 percent over the past five years.

Cathay Financial Holding Co. on Tuesday halved its 2016 growth forecast for Taiwan from 1.6 percent to 0.8 percent, citing continued weakness in exports and investments. Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute on Thursday lowered its forecast from 1.42 percent to 0.9 percent.

In her inaugural address on May 20, Tsai spoke of a new "go-south" policy to access markets in ASEAN and south Asian countries like India and to reduce the island's reliance on the mainland. The policy has met with "indifference" by businesses, as shown in a survey by human resources firm 1111 Job Bank.

The survey showed 41 percent of firms did not know what the policy entailed, 41 percent either felt pessimistic or had a wait-and-see attitude. Only 18 percent supported it. Daniel Lee, vice president of 1111 Job Bank, attributed the attitudes to a lack of concrete measures on the policy. The survey also showed only 54 percent of firms with recruitment plans in Q3, the lowest percentage since 2011.

"Stability of cross-Strait relations is essential if Taiwan is to get out of economic trouble," said Lee Wo-chiang of Tamkang University in New Taipei City.

Taiwan businessmen have favorable environment on the mainland. The "go-south" policy is simply seeking from afar and neglecting what lies close at hand, said Wang Ping-sheng, head of of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland.

The mainland authorities have made it clear that only affirmation of 1992 Consensus can ensure current levels of exchange between the two sides.

Lee Wo-chiang suggested Taiwan implement the cross-Strait service trade pact earlier and accelerate talks on a commodity trade pact.

Delaying the pacts will only do harm to the island's economy, he said.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs Wu Dawei urged all parties to restart the six-party talks at an early date.

Wu made the remarks at the 26th Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) on development and peace on the Northeast Asia, regional multilateral security, major power relations and other topics.

Wu, once China's chief delegate to the six-party talks, said all parties should give up the cold war mentality and insist on the denuclearization of the peninsula, through dialogue and consultation.

The six-party talks played an important role in maintaining peace and promoting denuclearization, Wu said, adding that the September 19 2005 Joint Statement and its principles are guidance for a solution to the peninsula issue.

The six-party talks, involving China, DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan, was a multilateral mechanism aimed to solve the Korean nuclear issue. The talks began in 2003 and stalled in December 2008. The DPRK quit the talks in April 2009.

The NEACD was held in Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday. Choe Son Hui, Deputy Director General of the Department of U.S. Affairs of DPRK Foreign Ministry, Kanasugi Kenji, Director-General of the Asian and Oceania Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Kim Gunn, Director General for korean nuclear affairs of the ROK Foreign Ministry, Davydov, Ambassador-at-large of Russian Foreign Ministry and Sung Kim, Special Representative for DPRK Policy of the U.S. Department of State, attended.

Later on Thursday afternoon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying urged all parties to avoid any action that would escalate tension, in response to the DPRK missile launch on Wednesday.
BRATISLAVA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- British car maker Jaguar Land Rover will not stop planned investment in Slovakia, said the company, refuting information from media that its investment in Nitra, western Slovakia would halt due to the potential risk of a Brexit.

Company spokesperson Lisa Palmer said Thursday about the false reports, "this is speculation. Our plans to build a plant in Slovakia are going well. Jaguar Land Rover wants Britain to remain in a reformed European Union, and the results of the referendum will have no influence over the building of a factory in Slovakia."

The Slovak government said wasn't worried about the investment, either.

"It isn't true that Jaguar Land Rover would halt its investment in Slovakia. It still applies that the first car will be produced at the factory in 2018," announced Viktor Stromcek, Slovak government proxy for strategic investments.

Slovakia's fourth car plant should lead to the creation of 15,000 new jobs and an investment of 1.4 billion euros (1.59 billion U.S. dollars). The investment contract states nothing concerning the risk of Britain leaving the European Union.

Meanwhile, according to information published Thursday by Slovak daily Pravda, Jaguar Land Rover would only cancel its plans if the value of the British pound became weaker than the euro for a period of six months. The current exchange rate is 1 pound to 1.30 euros, and analysts don't expect parity even if Britain votes to leave the 28-member bloc.
A young Syrian shepperd leads his flock on June 14, 2016 as smoke billows from a farm following a reported airstrike in Sheifuniya, near the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the capital Damascus. (Xinhua/AFP)

DAMASCUS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) rebels have advanced on a main stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) in the northern province of Aleppo, near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported on Thursday.

For the first time since the SDF unleashed an offensive for the capture of the northern city of Manbej late last May, clashes are now taking place inside the city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The London-based watchdog said the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition were carrying airstrikes against IS positions in Manbej to facilitate the progress of the SDF, which is comprised of Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters and led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units.

A total of 63 SDF fighters and 458 IS militants have been killed during the battles for Manbej since May 31, said the group.

Earlier reports said that U.S. special forces were providing help to the SDF in their push for Manbej, an important outpost in one of the IS' main supply routes.
KIEV, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is counting on a total of 1 billion U.S. dollars as a third tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package compared with 1.7 billion dollars expected earlier, the country's Central Bank Governor Valeria Gontareva said here Thursday.

"The next tranche which we anticipate to receive would be worth 1 billion dollars," Gontareva told reporters during a press conference, without giving reasons for the possible reduction of the financial support.

Kiev anticipates that the IMF will decide on the disbursement of the next portion of aid during the next meeting of its executive board in July, she said.

The IMF approved a four-year 17.5-billion-dollar aid program for Ukraine in March 2015 to help the troubled country carry out reforms and boost its economic development.

Since then, Ukraine has received a total of 6.7 billion dollars from the global lender in two tranches of the aid package.

The allocation of the third tranche has been long delayed as Ukraine was slow in fulfilling the demands set by the IMF for obtaining the aid. Enditem
RABAT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- An international forum started here Thursday in preparation for a United Nations conference on climate change later this year in Morocco.

About 300 participants, including leaders, legislators, experts and representatives from the civil society were present at the two-day Global Forum of Alliances and Coalitions.

COP 22, or the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is scheduled to take place in November in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

The forum aims to establish the structure and the organization of a high-level event on climate action, planned for COP 22 in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, in order to encourage innovative voluntary initiatives.

It will also provide an opportunity for coalitions to discuss the implementation and plans for the Marrakech event, and potential cooperation, organizers say.

Participants will discuss means to strengthen voluntary initiatives to accelerate the climate trajectory by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from the original target of 2 degrees Celsius.

The UNFCCC entered into force in 1994, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The Conference of the Parties (COP) was designated as the supreme governing body of the convention. Enditem
GUANGZHOU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A court in Zhuhai City in south China's Guangdong Province sentenced four convicted drug dealers to death on Thursday, ahead of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Sunday.

Two were given a two-year reprieve, Zhuhai City's Intermediate People's Court announced.

Thirteen other members of the same gang, which sold about 5 kilograms of drugs including methamphetamine, were given life sentences or varying prison terms, the court said.

In Guangdong's Lufeng City, five drug-related criminals were executed on Thursday.

Guangdong is a hotbed of production and trade in drugs. The provincial narcotics control commission announced that from January to May, local police closed more than 6,000 drug cases and seized more than 10 tonnes of drugs, dismantling 49 drug production dens, detaining or arresting more than 10,000 suspects, according to Guo Shaobo, deputy head of the provincial public security department.

Police in Qingyuan City caught 12 drug producers and confiscated 492 kg of ketamine. Another meth lab hidden in a trash collection station in Huizhou City was raided and over 700 kg of meth seized.

In addition, Guangdong police have caught 243 foreign drug-related suspects and more than 500 from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan since 2015.

Also on Thursday in Beijing, a 22-year-old man who was caught at a Beijing railway station in Nov. 2015 after alighting a train from Guangdong was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for transporting 2 kilograms of methamphetamine.

On Wednesday in Xuzhou City in east China's Jiangsu Province, three members of a drug gang were sentenced to death. It was the biggest drug case ever seen in Xuzhou, involving more than 29 kilograms of methamphetamine and ketamine, the city's intermediate people's court said. Enditem
HARARE, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe will import 250,000 metric tons of maize from Mexico after an El-Nino induced drought this year that has left up to four million people in need of food aid, agriculture minister Joseph Made said Thursday.

He told reporters the maize from Mexico will start arriving in the country next week and that some more maize will be imported from neighboring Zambia and South Africa.

"The bulk of the maize will be coming from Mexico and Zambia. We anticipate upwards of 250,000 tons will be coming from Mexico, the balance will obviously be coming from Zambia and South Africa," he said.

The Zimbabwean government has stated that it needs to import about 700,000 metric tons of the staple maize this year to plug the food deficit caused by the drought.

The government has also launched a 1.6 billion U.S. dollars food aid appeal to alleviate hunger in the country.

Zimbabwe requires 1.8 million tons of maize for human and livestock consumption annually.

Meanwhile, the country on Thursday launched the zero hunger strategy aimed at ensuring sustainable food and nutrition security in the country.

The five-year strategy seeks to assist the country achieve Sustainable Development Goal Number Two of Zero Hunger by 2030.

Speaking at the launch, Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Justin Mupamhanga reaffirmed Zimbabwe government's commitment to ending hunger in the country.

"The government will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure people are protected from food insecurity," he said.

World Food Program country director Eddie Rowe pledged the organization's continued support to Zimbabwe to help it end hunger and malnutrition.

"We will continue to support the government in its efforts to see a Zimbabwe with zero hunger," he said. Enditem
FREETOWN, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China has promised to build a disease control center and a new office for Sierra Leone's health ministry.

Gao Fu, Deputy Director of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, disclosed this to the media during his visit to the country Tuesday shortly after a meeting with President Ernest Bai Koroma at the State House.

Gao said Chinese government has agreed to construct this facility for Sierra Leone "because of what the country went through during the Ebola crisis, and the country's readiness to improve their health care system".

He told the media he had a fruitful meeting with President Koroma, who commended the Chinese for coming to the aid of the country "when it needed help".

China was among the first countries that responded swiftly when the Ebola pandemic swept through Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.

China has offered aid worth 750 million yuan (about 113.77 million U.S. dollars) and sent thousands of medical personnel to Ebola-hit countries since early 2014. Enditem
RABAT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) condemned on Thursday the terrorist attack at the Jordanian-Syrian borders, deeming it as part of a scheme to sow chaos in the region.

Earlier on Tuesday, a booby trapped car exploded at a military post in the no man's land area between Jordan and Syria, which left six Jordanian troops killed and 14 others injured.

The terrorist attack was part of the agenda masterminded by terrorist organizations along with international and regional powers to sow chaos in the region, the ISESCO said in a statement.

The ISESCO reaffirmed its solidarity with the Kingdom of Jordan and expressed support for the measures the Kingdom takes to protect its security and integrity.

The Islamic organ also expressed its condolences and sympathy to the families of the martyrs, wishing prompt recovery to the wounded. Enditem
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Sweltering heat in parts of China over the past two days have left sweaty residents stuck at home or driven them to the pool or even bomb shelters to keep cool.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) on Thursday evening renewed a yellow alert for a heat wave in some central, southern and eastern provinces, where temperatures of between 35 and 39 degrees Celsius are predicted for Friday.

In Changsha City, capital of central China's Hunan Province, a supermarket salesman told Xinhua that this month the sales of air-conditioners are up 30 percent compared with previous years.

"At this time in past years, people tended to buy fans, but it's too hot now, they can't go without air-conditioners," he said.

With fans and air-conditioners running at full blast, the city saw its maximum power load on Wednesday up nearly 50 percent from a week ago.

The scorching heat has held back visitors to the night fairs that the city is famed for. "In the past, there was no way for us to have a break at 10 p.m.. these days there is no problem because of the heat," said a night snack shop owner at the busy Huangxing Road in downtown Changsha.

In east China's Fujian Province, the power load on Thursday surpassed last summer's record. In the provincial capital of Fuzhou, which just bid farewell to heavy rain, the high temperature caused cracks on windows. Youngsters have taken to swimming pools while the elderly have retreated into bomb shelters that are regularly opened to residents in the summer.

Traffic police in the southwestern city of Chongqing said they have received many reports of drivers with sunstroke.

A water park in the city held a competition on Thursday, when the temperature crept over 37 degrees Celsius, rewarding participants who could hold a 60 cm-long and 35 cm-wide ice cube for at least 30 seconds.

The sweltering heat in cities partly results from a phenomenon known as "urban heat island" -- higher urban temperatures due to the man-made urban surfaces such as buildings and roads, and the heat generated by human activity.

Monitoring by Hunan's land and resources department showed the temperature gap between urban areas and suburbs of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city group rose to 7 degrees Celsius last year from 3 degrees Celsius in 1994.

In the far western Xinjiang, people seem calmer towards the scorching weather. At the "Mountain of Flames" in Turpan prefecture, also known as "Fire State," the noon temperature hits 60 degrees Celsius these days.

Some peddlers are selling eggs baked on the ground, attracting many buyers. "Experiencing the heat is a bright spot of our trip to Turpan, and it's really hot!" said a tourist.

Despite the heat wave, storms have plagued much of the country. The NMC on Thursday warned parts of Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang should brace for potential geological disasters from Thursday night to Friday night, as heavy rain has been forecast. Enditem
ACCRA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Workers of state-run major power distributor, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on Thursday demonstrated against its planned privatization.

The demonstration was staged simultaneously in the capital as well as three other regions to coincide with the observance of the international public service day.

The workers were clad in red attires and armbands and headgears and held placards to express their disapproval to the privatization effort by the government.

The workers said they feared many might lose their jobs under a new management.

According to them, should the concessionary deal be allowed to go through, it would have dire consequences for the country in the near future.

But the government has defended the proposed takeover of the management of the company by a private entity under a concessionary deal following years of ECG's failure to remain solvent.

The protests come barely two weeks after President John Dramani Mahama asked Ghanaians to prepare their minds for a possible privatization of the ECG, describing the current power distribution system as inefficient.

President Mahama has said privatizing the company is the best way to ensure its smooth operation even though the trade unions of Ghana have kicked against the move, calling on the government to rescind the decision.

Thirty-three companies have already expressed interest in the concession arrangement to operate ECG for 25 years from January 2017 under the Compact II of the Millennium Development Authority.

Under the deal, government's partnership with the private sector will help the ECG collect its debts more efficiently and transform it in terms of technology and efficiency in power distribution to become a stronger company able to meet the current and future needs of Ghanaian families and businesses.

Ghana has been grappling with an energy crisis for the past six years. Enditem
The train, named "Yixinou" arrives in Madrid Abronigal railway station in Madrid, Spain, on Dec. 9, 2014. (Xinhua/Xie Haining)

MADRID, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Yixinou train, which runs between Madrid and the Chinese city of Yiwu, is an "opportunity" for Spain's wine sector, according to Ines Menendez de Luarca, Director of Food and Gastronomy of the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX).

"We believe it can be a very interesting opportunity in terms of logistics, exporting wine to Yiwu and from there to distribute it throughout the country," Menendez de Luarca told Xinhua in an interview.

The train, which makes the world's longest rail route, moving products from China to Spain and vice versa, "is a great opportunity to export our food products to China" according to Menendez de Luarca.

However, she said that despite the fact that "some companies, and wineries are already using it, the train is insufficiently known."

China leads the importation of wine in the world and Spain is its fourth largest supplier exporting overall red wine, especially Rioja, to the areas of Shanghai and Guangdong.

However, they are promoting the wine in other cities where demand is also increasing, for example, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Xiamen.

"In 2015 exports of Rioja grew by 35 percent," Menendez de Luarca said, explaining that "in the last 15 years" the country went from exporting bulk wine to bottled wine, which accounted for 92 percent of the wine exported last year.

"This is actually good for us because what Spain needs is to position their wines in higher ends models in market, so that the Chinese consumer pays more for our wines that are of a very high quality," Menendez de Luarca said.

This would be one of the challenges for the Spanish wine sector according to Menendez de Luarca, who also pointed out the challenge needed to address the logistics in order to promote the product in other cities and reach the final consumer.
KATHMANDU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Nepal on Thursday decided to bar Nepali nationals from going to war-torn countries among others for employment, a government spokesman said.

A meeting of the Nepalese Council of Ministers made a decision to bar its nationals from going to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, Minister for Information and Communications Sherdhan Rai told media.

The Nepalese government's decision has come two days after 13 Nepali nationals working with the Canadian Embassy were killed in a suicide bomb in the Afghan Capital Kabul. Seven Nepali nationals were also injured in the barbaric terrorist attack which was taken responsibility by Taliban insurgents.

Earlier in 2011, Nepal partially lifted the ban on its nationals from working in Afghanistan saying that workers would be allowed to work for selected employers including the United Nations, the NATO and Western diplomatic missions.

Monday's tragic incident in Afghanistan is said to be the biggest tragedy surrounding Nepali migrant workers since the killing of 12 Nepali migrant workers in Iraq in 2004.

At least 1,213 Nepali nationals have acquired work permit from the Nepalese government to work in Afghanistan in the first 10 months. Media reports suggest that approximately 20,000 Nepali nationals are currently working in various places of Afghanistan. Enditem
YANCHENG, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on June 23, 2016 shows damaged buildings and vehicles in Funing County, east China's Jiangsu Province. Death toll from extreme weather in east China's Jiangsu Province has climbed to 78, the ministry of civil affairs said. Nearly 500 people were injured, 200 critically. Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 p.m., destroying many houses, the city government said in an earlier press release. (Xinhua/Yan Xiao)

NANJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- At least 78 people died and 500 were injured in one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit east China's Jiangsu Province in decades Thursday.

Downpours, hailstorms and the worst tornado since 1966 battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 p.m., destroying homes and trapping hundreds of villagers in the rubble.

More deaths are feared, as search and rescue continued into Friday.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said 200 people were injured critically.

Extreme weather was reported in several townships in Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng.

Gales of 125 km per hour battered several outer townships of Funing County, while in Sheyang, the winds reached 100 km per hour.

Many houses collapsed in the gales. Villages were leveled. Trees and utility poles were uprooted, and motor vehicles were blown away.

A 40,000-square-meter workshop of a joint venture solar energy company also toppled.

Some areas reported blackouts and communication disruptions.

"I tried at least 20 times to call my grandmother at home, and fortunately, she was safe," said Zang Shoucheng, a news reporter in Nanjing, the provincial capital.

"Grandma said she was on her way to the cropland [when the tornado hit], but the gales were so strong she had to lie down on her belly to avoid being swept away," said Zang.

Xie Litian, 62, felt it was like "the end of the world".

"I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows," said Xie, from Donggou township of Funing County. "I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away."

As he ran downstairs, the roof collapsed. "I crouched in a corner of the ground floor for at least 20 minutes, afraid to move."

When the gales subsided and Xie escaped, all the other houses in the neighborhood were gone.

Xie said he saw utility poles uprooted and his tractors were blown away. "I was drowned in my own sorrow, until I heard moans for help from a neighbor buried in the debris of her home."

Xie helped the woman out and took her to a hospital 10 km away on his motorbike. "The road was blocked with rubble and fallen trees. Halfway to the hospital, I met my nephew driving a truck. Together, we put the women into his truck and drove on."

Xie said at least three villagers he knew were dead. "This is the worst day I've ever faced," he said.

As hundreds of people struggled to survive in the ruins, many strangers lent a helping hand.

Citizens in Yancheng put up postings at "Wechat" to offer help ranging from free chauffeur services and free use of cranes to medical assistance.

Xiang Shanfeng, 31, was helping assemble a pump in the worst-hit township of Funing County when Xinhua reporter called him on the phone. "It's urgent to drain the flood water, lest the relocation sites might be drowned. It's ditch dark and everybody needs a torch: the more the better."

Shortly after the disaster, Xiang, a crane driver and native of Funing County, posted his phone number at Wechat and offered to join rescue work with his crane. He helped pull dozens of people out of the rubble over the past seven hours. "The losses were astonishing."

A State Council work group headed by deputy minister of civil affairs Dou Yupei is en route to Yancheng. The ministry has dispatched relief materials, including more than 1,000 tents and 2,000 folding beds, to the affected areas.

Meteorological records showed Jiangsu Province reported 1,070 tornadoes in the 50 years from 1956 to 2005, averaging 21.4 a year. Most of the tornadoes happened in June, July and August.

A similar disaster hit Yancheng City in March 1966.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China's debt has been rising rapidly, but risks are controllable, officials said on Thursday.

China's total debt ratio is at a medium level among the world's major economies, said Sun Xuegong, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission's (NDRC) department of finance, at a briefing.

The leverage ratio of China's non-financial sectors and total debt ratio remain between 200 percent and 300 percent, Sun said citing the Bank for International Settlements and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"It is a fact that China's debt load has been expanding relatively fast in recent years, and the leverage ratio of non-financial companies is particularly high," said Sun, describing the phenomenon as "growing pains" caused by the country's specific development stage.

While acknowledging the high debt level has had a bad effect on businesses and the financial sector, raising companies' financial cost and the risks of debt default, Sun said the risks are generally controllable, but future risk cannot be neglected.

At the briefing, an official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) disclosed China's government debt levels.

By the end of 2015, government debt stood at 26.66 trillion yuan (about 4 trillion U.S. dollars), accounting for 39.4 percent of GDP, said Wang Kebing, deputy head of the MOF budget department, at the briefing.

When outstanding debt of local government finance platforms is included, the ratio reached 41.5 percent of GDP, Wang said.

This is lower than the 60-percent warning line set by the European Union and much lower than major developed economies and emerging economies, Wang said.

This means, on the whole, there is still some room for the Chinese government to borrow, Wang added.

On bad loans, Sun said, given the ample provision and sound balance sheets of commercial banks, corporate debt risks will not to shake the stability of the financial system, the banking system in particular. Enditem
TASHKENT, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

TASHKENT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China is looking forward to enhancing cooperation with its neighbor India under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Chinese President Xi Jinping said here Thursday.

Xi made the remarks while meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this year's SCO summit scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Tashkent.

China-India strategic partnership is rapidly growing in the direction set by both leaders, said Xi. He recalled the important consensus he had reached with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on bilateral ties when the latter was paying a visit to China last month.

China will work with India to master the general course for the development of ties, he added.

Xi said that the two countries have much more common interests than differences, and the two sides should enhance pragmatic cooperation in areas such as trade, railway, industrial parks, energy and electricity, information technology, energy conservation and environment protection.

He also extended his congratulations to Modi over India's upcoming signing of a memorandum of obligation to join the SCO, a key step for India to obtain membership of the organization.

Founded in 2001, the SCO now has China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its full members, with Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers.

The Chinese president welcomed Modi's scheduled attendance at this year's G20 summit in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, adding that he is looking forward to participating in this year's BRICS summit in India in October.

Modi, for his part, hailed the sound development of India-China relations over recent years based on traditional friendship.

India is ready to join hands with China to strengthen cooperation in various fields, intensify bilateral coordination and communication over regional and international issues, and properly handle existing problems between the two countries, said Modi.

Xi arrived in Tashkent on Tuesday for a state visit to Uzbekistan and the SCO summit.

Uzbekistan is the third and final stop of Xi's three-nation tour, which has taken him to Serbia and Poland.
BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out rescue efforts and the prioritization of life-saving measures, after at least 78 people were confirmed killed in one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit east China's Jiangsu Province in decades Thursday.

Downpours, hailstorms and the worst tornado since 1966 battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 p.m., destroying homes and trapping hundreds of villagers in the rubble.

More deaths are feared, as search and rescue continued into Friday. About 500 people were injured, of which 200 were in critical conditions, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Xi, who is in Uzbekistan for a state visit and to attend a two-day SCO summit, ordered the State Council to dispatch a working group to Jiangsu to oversee relief work.

Authorities must make their utmost efforts to reduce casualties and facilitate resettlement of those affected by the extreme weather, he said.

They must also strengthen meteorological monitoring and geological disaster assessment.
SOFIA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- An official from east China's Anhui Province on Thursday called for more cooperation between China and Bulgaria under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Li Guoying, deputy secretary of Communist Party of China Anhui Provincial Committee, said at the opening ceremony of a business forum that Bulgaria has always been an important partner of China and the two countries have great potential in bilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

He also believed there was a huge room for strengthening relations between Anhui Province and Bulgaria in areas such as trade, agriculture and tourism.

Stamen Yanev, Executive Director of InvestBulgaria Agency, who also attended the forum, said Bulgaria wants to be a bridge between China and Europe, and to accomplish more and more projects under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China is Bulgaria's second largest export market outside the European Union, and there is a potential for Bulgaria to attract Chinese investment, because China is the 39th largest foreign investor in Bulgaria, Yanev said.

Vasil Gelev, executive director of the Association for the Promotion of Agricultural Cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European Countries, added that China is a strategic partner of Bulgaria, and Chinese investment in all areas of the Bulgarian economy are of great importance for the Balkan country.

A total of 20 companies from Anhui Province and more than 50 representatives from Bulgarian companies and municipalities attended the business forum on Thursday.

During the one-day event, two cooperation agreements were signed, including between Anhui International Chamber of Commerce and Bulgarian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Chinese automaker JAC Motors and the Bulgarian company Sintis Technology.

In July 2014, Bulgarian Ministry of Economy and Energy and the Development and Reform Commission of Anhui Province signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Economic Cooperation, with the aim to enable businesses and organizations from Bulgaria and Anhui Province to strengthen investment and trade cooperation.
JERUSALEM, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for refusing to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Brussels on Thursday.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) had shown his true face in Brussels," a statement sent from the prime minister's office read on Thursday.

"Those who refuse to meet the president and the prime minister for direct negotiations, and those who spread blood libel in the European parliament, are lying when they say their hands are outstretched for peace," the statement read.

Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned down an invitation to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, as the two are currently in Brussels.

The offer was delivered to Abbas by the European Parliament President Martin Schultz, who urged Rivlin several weeks ago to meet with Abbas.

A senior Israeli official told the Ha'aretz daily that Schultz announced Abbas' decline to Rivlin on Thursday, on the last day of latter's visit to the Belgian capital.

The Israeli president spoke in front of the European Parliament on Wednesday. In his speech, he accused the Palestinian Authority of its ineffectiveness to rule the Palestinians and blamed the failure of the peace talks on them.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ended abruptly without results in April 2014, with both sides blaming each other for the talks' failure.

There is growing international pressure to restart the peace process, after nine months of ongoing violence which claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians.

One of the initiatives currently discussed is the French peace initiative, which seeks to hold an international peace conference later this year that aims to resume negotiations between Israeli and the Palestinians.

While the Palestinians support the bid, Israel rejects it, saying the international forum is not the way to reach peace but rather direct negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had stated the forum would allow Palestinians to "avoid" direct talks and set preconditions for negotiations.

Instead, Israeli officials made statements recently alluding to a possible process to be set in motion by regional Arab states, led by Egypt, in accordance with the 2002 Saudi peace initiative.

The 2002 initiative offers full normalization of ties between Israel and Arab states in the region in exchange for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

With that, an upcoming report by the Middle East Quartet (a forum including the U.S., EU, United Nations and Russia), set to be released soon, is expected to draw harsh criticism on Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, and its Jewish settlements.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip territories, home to more than five million Palestinians, during the 1967 Mideast War. The international community views the Jewish settlements in these lands as illegal.

Israeli leaders charge the ongoing wave of violence is the result of the Palestinian Authority's incitement to violence, whereas the Palestinians charge it is the result of the 49 years of Israeli occupation on lands on which they wish to establish a Palestinian state. Enditem
NICOSIA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- There has been "encouraging progress" on the issues under discussion in the negotiations aiming to reunify Cyprus, the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities reported separately on Thursday.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who is leader of the Greek community, and Mustafa Akinci, leader of the Turkish community, made their statements to reporters after yet another meeting in the framework of their intensified negotiations.

"I must say that there has been encouraging, important progress on the issue of internal cooperation between the federal government and the constituent states," said Anastasiades at his office after a four-hour meeting.

Anastasiades and Akinci are trying to reunify Cyprus under a federal system. The eastern Mediterranean island has been partitioned since 1974 after Turkey occupied its northern part, reacting to a coup engineered by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

"There is progress on the four chapters under discussion," said Akinci upon returning to the Turkish Cypriot part of the capital Nicosia.

The two leaders are currently engaged in discussing the powers of a central federal government and those of the Greek and Turkish constituent states.

One of the thorniest issues is the legal status of "international" treaties signed between a breakaway state in the occupied part of Cyprus and Turkey, the only country to recognize it.

Anastasiades said they aimed to ascertain which of these so-called treaties contradict Cyprus's position as a member of the European Union.

"We are on a good track," said Anastasiades.

The leaders agreed to meet a total of six times in July.

Anastasiades said they could not arrange more meetings as there were several religious holidays and also events to commemorate Turkey's military action that led to the partial occupation of Cyprus in July, 1974. Enditem
VIERNHEIM, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on June 23, 2016 shows the outside view of the cinema complex where an armed man opened fire in Viernheim, Germany. An armed man entered a cinema in the southwest German town of Viernheim Thursday, then fired in the air and launched a tear gas attack, leaving at least 25 people injured, according to local TV reports. The attacker died and the motive of the attack is not known yet, said the reports. (Xinhua/Luo Huanhuan)

FRANKFURT, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A gunman has been shot dead by the police on Thursday in a southwestern German town after he launched an attack in a cinema.

A spokesman with the police called Hochstaedter told Xinhua that the incident occurred at around 2:30 in the afternoon local time.

According to Hochstaedter, people found a person with a weapon going into the cinema and called the police who came to the cinema and shot the armed man dead.

Hochstaedter clarified that nobody in the cinema got hurt. Hochstaedter declined to tell more details about the identity of the armed man.

A man working at the cinema said a gunman pointed his gun at him and his colleagues.

He asked whether the gunman wanted money and the gunman said no. Then the gunman asked him to go upstairs and stay in a room where he witnessed what happened through cameras.

He said he heard the gunman fired maybe five to six shots.

It was an automatic gun and there were about 40 people in the cinema, he said, adding he thought it was not a terrorist attack.

"He spoke very good German and didn't look like a terrorist,"he said, "Maybe there was a mental problem with him."

"Of course I was scared when he pointed a gun at me. Now I am good," he said.

The local prosecution office is going to disclose more details about the incident on Friday.

Previously, local media reports said at least 25 people were hurt in the attack.
A man watches a TV news showing file footage of a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) missile launch at a railway station in Seoul on April 28, 2016. AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JE

UNITED NATIONS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

These repeated launches are "in grave violation" of the DPRK's international obligations under relevant UN Security Council resolutions, said a press statement released by the 15-nation council.

Earlier Thursday, the DPRK announced that it has successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10, according to state media organ the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"The members of the Security Council deplore all DPRK ballistic missile activities, noting that such activities contribute to the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension," said the statement.

Photo provided by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 24, 2016 shows top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un recently guiding on the spot the underwater test-fire of submarine ballistic missile.(Xinhua/KCNA)

The Security Council also expressed serious concern that the DPRK conducted this series of further ballistic missile launches "in flagrant disregard of the repeated statements of the Security Council."

The council reiterated that the DPRK shall "refrain from further actions, including nuclear tests, in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions," the statement added.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs.

The latest one, known as the resolution 2270, was adopted in March to impose the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.
Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, speaks in an interview with Xinhua in New York, the United States on May 31, 2016. (Xinhua/Qin Lang)

by Xinhua writers Shang Yang, Zhou Xiaozheng, Li Changxiang

NEW YORK, June 22 (Xinhua) -- China's ruling communist party has transformed an underdeveloped country into an economic powerhouse in less than four decades, displaying an impressive level of adaptability and competence, a famed U.S. expert on China has said.

The Chinese leaders "are all extremely well prepared for their jobs," and the Communist Party of China (CPC) "has shown itself to be adaptable," Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR), told Xinhua in a recent interview.

One of the few well-recognized "China hands" in the United States, Orlins has been engaged in the promotion of U.S.-China relations since the late 1970s. He pays seven or eight visits to the country each year as the NCUSCR president, a position he has held since 2005.

"I consider myself unbelievably fortunate to have witnessed the growth of China," he said in his Manhattan office.

Recalling his first visit to Beijing in October 1979 as a U.S. State Department staffer, Orlins said that he didn't see a single car on his way from the airport to the hotel, and that the road had only one lane in each direction mostly occupied by ox carts and bicycles.

Today's Beijing is a totally different city, a sharp contrast to Orlins' hometown New York City, which "basically looks the same as it looked when I was born."

"I also went to places where there was no running water, no electricity, and children didn't wear shoes and were in tattered clothes," said Orlins. "And now I go to those same places, they have highrises and air-conditioning. Even the kids are bigger, because they're eating right and living right."

With this economic miracle taking place right after the catastrophic Culture Revolution, it indicates that "the Chinese Communist Party learns from its mistakes and is able to change policy enough to create growth," commented the expert, who was also a former banker, investor and lawyer.

"The communist parties in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not show adaptability, so they were unable to create an economy that was thriving," he added.

The CPC also has a "remarkable" organizational system that helps select the most competent persons and train them well to govern the country, according to Orlins.

"I cannot recall in the last 30 years meeting with a senior Chinese official who wasn't extremely competent," he said. "They know what needs to be done ... and as an American sitting there they always lay out to me a very clear plan for what needs to be done."

That's because all these officials have been trained well in different parts of the government -- in both rural and urban areas, economic and social matters, central government ministries and local provinces, he noted.

In Orlins' view, the CPC, which will celebrate its 95th founding anniversary on July 1, also faces problems and challenges, such as corruption and vested interests opposing reform.

The ongoing anti-corruption campaign is something that "absolutely needed to be done," and the "economic imperative" for China is to continue to push forward the reform.

"The old model for growth is not going to work anymore, the leadership understands that and is clear what needs to be done," said Orlins. "Sometimes the reforms are going to stifle growth in the very short term, but in the mid and long term, you are going to see greater growth."

Despite the lower growth rates caused by a painful economic transition, China also sees positive changes that could be "a real source of growth." For instance, the regulatory environment for small, tiny businesses has improved enormously; consumption has increased, particularly in travel and leisure; and companies like Alibaba and Tencent are growing at a rate of 30 percent or more.

"So I always look at China in the context of a rather long time," said Orlin. "Forty years working with China, you have to be an optimist."
HAVANA, June 23, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (L) shakes hands with Timoleon Jimenez (R), the top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), next to Cuban President Raul Castro, in the signing ceremony of a historic ceasefire agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC, in Havana, capital of Cuba, on June 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Str)

HAVANA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Colombian government and FARC guerrilla group on Thursday signed a historic ceasefire deal, bringing the country's half-century civil war closer to a definitive end.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and top FARC commander Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez presided over the signing ceremony in Havana, Cuba, which was attended by world dignitaries, including Latin American heads of state and the secretary general of the United Nations (UN).

"Today is a historic day for Colombia after more than 50 years of deaths and confrontations," said Santos. "This represents the end of the FARC as an armed group."

The agreement sets up mechanisms for the FARC to disarm and its transition to a political party or movement, although the disarmament process will not begin until a definitive peace treaty is signed.

"I don't agree, and never will, with their political and economic vision for the country, but what we are acknowledging today is the possibility of disagreeing and looking at opposing view points without the need for violent confrontation," Santos said.

"As head of state, I will defend their right to ... continue their political struggle via legal means," he said, adding "that is the essence of the democracy that we are welcoming" today.

Jimenez, the head of the FARC, stressed the agreement was not a capitulation of the group's demands, but a negotiated settlement.

The agreement, he said, "is not the surrender of the insurgency, but a product of serious dialogue between two forces in conflict for over half a century, with neither able to defeat the other."

Cuban President Raul Castro hailed the agreement as a victory for Colombia, and said it reinforced the concept of Latin America as a place of peace.

The agreement follows nearly four years of peace negotiations in Havana, which hosted the talks, and commits the Colombian government and rebels to set aside fighting and adopt peaceful, democratic means of resolving their disputes.

The head of the Colombian government delegation to the talks, Humberto de la Calle, signed on behalf of the government, while his FARC counterpart, Ivan Marquez, signed on behalf of the rebel group.

The agreement was also signed by the representatives of Cuba and Norway, Rodolfo Benitez and Dag Nylander, whose countries' served as guarantors of the peace talks, and the presidents of Venezuela and Chile, Nicolas Maduro and Michelle Bachelet, whose countries assisted the talks as accompanying nations.

Benitez and Nylander presented the details of the agreement prior to the signing, including the creation of a tripartite mechanism to monitor its application, composed of the government, FARC and an international group in which the UN and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will play a key role.

As part of the disarmament process, which is to take no longer than 180 days, the rebels are to hand over their weapons to the UN, which all sides agreed will use them to build three monuments.

"Disarming is a technical, traceable and verifiable process," Cuba's Benitez said.

In his speech, Santos noted successive Colombian governments have over the past 30 years tried but failed to reach a peace agreement with the FARC.

Following up on that remark, Colombia's Caracol news network interviewed Henry Acosta, a negotiator in previous peace efforts, most notably for the administration of hardline former president Alvaro Uribe.

Asked why the attempt at brokering peace succeeded, Acosta said, "the big difference is that the only thing president Uribe wanted was the FARC's surrender."

In contrast, said Acosta, "President Santos clearly said 'this is a negotiating process,' ... that's why the correct term (for this agreement) is not surrendering arms, but laying down arms."

During the ceremony, Santos presented Timochenko with a pen made out of a large caliber bullet, the kind state forces used against the rebels, inscribed with the words: "Bullets wrote our past. Education, our future."

Meanwhile, in Bogota, residents marked the ceasefire and end to hostilities in colorful ways, including placing a funeral wreath at central Bolivar Square to symbolize the end of the conflict, with a banner that read "Goodbye to the war."

Newspaper headlines also announced "The Final Day of the War."

According to Latin American news network Telesur, Latin America's longest-running civil war claimed 220,000 deaths up to 2012, left 25,000 missing and displaced 5.7 million people.
Chang'an Automobile's driverless cars run on No. 107 National Highway, April 16, 2016. Two driverless cars produced by Chang'an Automobile in China started a 2,000-km test drive from Chongqing to China's capital Beijing on April 12 and arrived in Beijing on Saturday. Chang'an is aiming to put driverless cars into commercial use in 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Most people approve of driverless cars programmed to sacrifice their passengers to save others, but they will prefer not to buy such "utilitarian" vehicles themselves, a new survey revealed Thursday.

Driverless cars have the potential to benefit the world by eliminating up to 90 percent of traffic accidents, but not all crashes will be avoided, and some crash scenarios will require them to make difficult ethical decisions, said the survey published in the U.S. journal Science.

"There are barriers to their wide adoption," study co-author Azim Shariff, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, told reporters at a teleconference. "A number of those are technological barriers, but there are also psychological ones."

To investigate these psychological barriers, Shariff and colleagues conducted six online surveys of U.S. residents between June and November 2015, asking participants questions about how they would want their driverless cars to behave.

The researchers found that people generally take a utilitarian approach to safety ethics: They would prefer autonomous vehicles to minimize casualties in situations of extreme danger.

That would mean that, for example, having a car with one rider swerve off the road and crash to avoid a crowd of 10 pedestrians.

At the same time, the survey's respondents said that they would be much less likely to use a vehicle programmed that way.

Essentially, people want driverless cars that are as pedestrian-friendly as possible, except for the vehicles they would be riding in.

"To maximize safety, people want to live a world in which everybody owns driverless cars that minimize casualties," said study co-author Iyad Rahwan, an associate professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. "But they want their own car to protect them at all costs."

That would result in what the researchers called a "social dilemma," in which people could end up making conditions less safe for everyone by acting in their own self-interest.

"If everybody does that, then we would end up in a tragedy ... whereby the cars will not minimize casualties," Rahwan added.

People were also strongly opposed to the idea of the government regulating driverless cars to ensure they would be programmed with utilitarian principles.

In the survey, respondents said they were only one-third as likely to purchase a vehicle regulated this way, as opposed to an unregulated vehicle, which could presumably be programmed in any fashion.

"For the time being, there seems to be no easy way to design algorithms that would reconcile moral values and personal self-interest," the researchers wrote in their paper. "But public opinion and social pressure may very well shift as this conversation progresses."
BRASILIA, June 24, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Paulo Bernardo Silva (C) is guarded by officers to the plane of the Federal Police after being arrested in Brasilia, Brazil, on June 23, 2016. Paulo Bernardo Silva, a former Brazilian minister from Brazil's suspended President Dilma Rousseff's Workers' Party (PT), was arrested Thursday in a police operation as part of the investigation into the Petrobras corruption ring, official sources said. (Xinhua/Dida Sampaio/AGENCIA ESTADO)

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A former Brazilian minister from Brazil's suspended President Dilma Rousseff's Workers' Party (PT) was arrested Thursday in a police operation as part of the investigation into the Petrobras corruption ring, official sources said.

Paulo Bernardo Silva was the Minister of Planning under the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Minister of Communications for Rousseff, and a former treasurer of PT.

He is facing charges of having received over 7 million reais (2.1 million U.S. dollars) between 2010 and 2015 from the Petrobras corruption ring, with these funds being credited to a law firm which never existed.

Bernardo Silva was arrested at his home in Brasilia, while another home he owns in the southern city of Curitiba was searched.

He is married to Gleisi Hoffman, a PT senator and Rousseff's former chief of staff, who is one of the foremost defenders of the suspended president.

Other people were arrested Thursday including Carlos Gabas, Rousseff's former minister of civil aviation, and Leonardo Attuch, the editor of Brasil 247, a news platform with links to PT.

This focus on PT also saw police search the party's headquarters in Sao Paulo for eight hours on Thursday morning.

Police officers seized and took away a computer, documents and a number of files from the building, as part of a joint operation with the Secretariat of Federal Revenue.

According to a press release from Operation Car Wash investigators, the raid was part of a search into bribes paid for the allocation of information service contracts worth 30 million U.S. dollars between 2010 and 2015.

Rui Falcao, the president of PT, issued a press release saying that "the Workers' Party condemns the unnecessary search and seizure made at our national headquarters in Sao Paulo. Following a series of facts and accusations against politicians and businesspeople...an operation is being carried out to try once again to criminalize PT."

The PT, founded by Lula in 1980, is currently undergoing the most critical time in its history, with Rousseff being suspended in May, pending an impeachment trial. Enditem
Zhang Xiaochen (R), Founding Partner of New Development Ventures, gives exclusive interview to Xinhuanet in Beijing, capital of China, on June 17, 2016. (Source: Xinhuanet)

By Tian Shaohui

BEIJING, June 19 (Xinhuanet) -- As the Belt and Road Initiative is being pushed forward, county economy would also enjoy great opportunities of development, said an expert on Friday.

Zhang Xiaochen, Founding Partner of New Development Ventures, said this at the meeting of Global New Development and Cooperation Forum in Beijing.

For one thing, the land and labor forces of counties cost less than those in first and second tiers cities, as well as foreign countries, which are great advantages for developing industrial parks and plants.

"These advantages have laid foundations for attracting foreign enterprises and companies, especially the financial corporations, to invest in Chinese counties and implement new programs," said Zhang.

Therefore, plenty of provincial regions in China have made their development blueprints based on the Belt and Road Initiative, Zhang believed, adding that counties could become pioneers in carrying out these blueprints.

The guidelines of these blueprints inject impetus into these counties with infrastructure, logistics, and transportation support combined, perfecting the whole production chain.

For another, the Belt and Road Initiative offers great chance to promote the development of county enterprises.

Counties in China, particularly those in its west regions, boast advantages in production capacity including equipment, technology and natural resources, said Zhang, pointing out that the international cooperation in production capacity is a sure route to follow for these counties. For example, counties of southeast Asian countries are in urgent need of equipment, technology and capital, when promoting their industrialization and urbanization.

Therefore, as more county enterprises go global, they would bring their advantageous production capability to those foreign countries, he said, thus a win-win cooperation in production capacity.

And there is no doubt that the Chinese government should provide more support, both finance and policy, for these counties, said Zhang.

Zhang, and other experts at the meeting, also held that low-carbon energy enterprises in counties should also join the "Go Global" plans, packaged with other construction companies.

So that, the infrastructure constructions would be more environmental and the clean energy technology and products would also be promoted on the global arena, the expert added.

The Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by China in 2013 as a trade and infrastructure network. It will connect Asia with Europe and Africa through the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Lawyer on $100,000 bail for alleged sex acts

The charges are alleged to have occurred at the victims workplace in June 2015. It is alleged that the victim, a 25-year-old attorney was doing her in-service at the office where the attorney practised. Then the incident is alleged to have occurred.

A report was made to the St Clair police and officers led by Insp Elie and WPC Thomas carried out enquiries.

The 27-year-old attorney surrendered to officers of the St Clair Police Station early yesterday and was subsequently charged with the two offences. The matter was adjourned to August 5.
Dead mans relatives awarded $600K

Bissoo an employee of Jugmohan General Contractors, was the father of two girls: Ambika and Amita.

He was in the process of operating a hydraulic crane and loading several lengths of panel from the bridge, which was being dismantled, onto the tray of a truck, when the bridge suddenly collapsed causing him to be pinned between the lever controls and the side of the bridge.

Eight other workers and three trucks came down when the bridge collapsed and one of the trucks was partially submerged in the Caroni River.

Bissoos wife Ena sued the State contending that the Ministry of Works and Transport was negligent in that they did not maintain a safe work environment or ensure that the requisite safety measures were complied with in the dismantling of the bridge.

Judgment was entered on liability against the State and High Court Master Patricia Sobion- Awai assessed damages in the sum of over $600,0000 to Bissoos estate.

Bissoos wife was represented by a team of attorneys from the Freedom Law Chambers including Anand Ramlogan SC, Kent Samlal and Cheryl Ann Peters, while Roshan Ramcharitar and Brent James represented the State.
Man charged with larceny by trick

The charge as read out in court is that Abraham committed larceny by trick and fleeced Fitzpatrick Jones, 75, of North Manzanilla, of $27,000 from the bank account of the pensioner. Jones had reportedly last checked his account on March 10 and all of his savings were intact.

Jones subsequently made a report to Sangre Grande police and officers requested surveillance footage from the bank which investigators received recently. Abraham was yesterday granted bail with a surety for $50,000. He is expected to re-appear on June 28.
UWI lecturer Dave Chadee dies

Sankat praised the academic work of Chadee and fondly recalled his interactions with the lecturer. Sankat said Chadees passing was unexpected, as just a few days ago, he spoke with Chadee who appeared to be in good health. The word that we got from Mount Hope is (death by) cardiac arrest. This was all very sudden and very shocking.

He was admitted yesterday (Tuesday).

He went in there with a very serious condition...I think first of all it was shocking, unexpected, because he communicated with me up to lunch time yesterday (Tuesday) so when I received news of his passing, I did so with disbelief...he appeared to be in great health. I had a long conversation with him on Friday and we had some nice words on that day, Prof Sankat said.

The university principal said he knew Chadee since he joined the campus. He came in at a very mature age...I think he would have been in his early 60s. But he appeared in great health. He really moved very quickly up through the ranks of university from a senior lecturer to professor and what was also very striking is that his work on mosquitoes and the prevention of diseases like Dengue and Zika, more recently, made him very well recognized in the community, in the region, in the world. He was well known over for the quality and depth of his research in this area.

Sankat said Chadee, about five years ago, received one of the universitys highest accolades - the Vice Chancellors Award for Excellence - for his research. And when we celebrated our 50th anniversary at the St Augustine campus, he was featured as one of the leading scholars at that time but not only that, he has continued to be even more prolific. For all his great achievements in academia, Sankat remembered Chadee as a humble soul from Tableland who truly cared for his community. His shoes will be difficult to fill, very difficult to fill. And may his soul rest in peace, Sankat said.
Clampdown on foreigners

The Joint Select Committee on Local Authorities, Service Commissions and Statutory Authorities heard of a practice which sees non-nationals use local addresses to gain access to treatment, as Minister of Labour Jennifer Baptiste-Primus warned that already stretched resources should not be further taxed.

Charity begins at home, the minister said near the end of yesterdays committee hearing. Earlier, Senate Vice-President Nigel De Freitas asked SWRHA officials  who administer the largest regional health authority  whether foreigners access treatment and whether this impacts on the States ability to supply drugs.

SWRHA CEO Anil Gosine said foreigners cannot be turned away at emergency departments.

They also access other services. A lot of non-nationals would give local addresses but we are trying to clamp down because in some areas, for example in cancer treatment, those drugs are very expensive, said Gosine. Medical director of the San Fernando General Hospital Dr Anand Chatoorgoon said even in non-emergency cases, foreigners see private doctors and are able to access treatment through referrals.

Baptiste-Primus said an influx of Venezuelans was well known and asked what role is played by the Medical Board in relation to policies of access to treatment.
There is child abuse in legal system

She used her speech in Tuesdays Senate debate on the Family and Children Division Bill 2016 to lament several cases where underage children were abused by the insensitivity of the criminal justice system. The autistic child suffered seizure after seizure for several hours, Chote said, until a female attorney simply picked him up and walked out of the station with him.

Chote lamented the case of a boy aged 12 or 13 who used an expletive at home to the chagrin of a relative who used his/her links at St Anns Psychiatric Hospital to have the child committed until a hospital employee revealed it all to a magistrate who ordered the childs release. In her third example, Chote related that an impoverished young boy who hoped his love for a pretty girl was mutual had threw pebbles at her window to try to attract her attention, only for her wealthy father to get him locked up on a charge of throwing stones.

The boy got three years at YTC (Youth Training Centre), Chote lamented. I have seen children brutalised by a system of justice. Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge, also an attorney, urged that the State supply more child psychologists to help families and children, rather than attorneys to process them. With all the lawyers we have, they dont end up in the criminal justice system to help anybody but go to where the money is. He pointed out patterns of social breakdown, leading to youth delinquency. Saying hed only found one graduate of a prestige school incarcerated at Golden Grove Prison, Sturge suggested that the experience of being dubbed a failure at the level of the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SE A) Exam leaves hurts childrens self-esteem and can create within them a sense of alienation. Further, the State schools lack the religious underpinning of denominational schools. Sturge added to all of this the fact of a single-parent home whose mother must work long hours such as at a fast food outlet where she is abused by clients resulting her being in no mood to handle her child upon reaching home. Meanwhile the community leader is idolised, said Sturge, saying how gang leaders can end up as role models for unwitting youths.

Differing from the earlier stance of his Opposition colleague Rodger Samuel, Sturge made a strong plea for an end to corporal punishment, remarking, Violence begets violence. He said court is the last place a child should be, even as he lamented that TT - along with the United States and Israel - has the worlds lowest age of criminal liability at age eight, a historical hangover from1400s Great Britain.

Sturge called for every primary school to have a child psychologist, to detect at-risk minors early on while they can still be helped.

He suggested a delay in the filtration of pupils from the current age 11 - when the SE A Exam is written - to age 16 years old. A child feeling alienated at age 11 is not a good thing, he remarked.

He also lamented that pupils leave school at age 16 years old and have nothing to do.

Sturge called for an end to the jailing of men for not paying maintenance money, deeming it an illogical act.

Any man who had the money to pay would do so, to avert the hell-hole that is jail, he reasoned.

Sturge called for the closure of St Michaels Boys Home, citing the death of inmate Brandon Hargreaves. He shared insights of once being told by a school principal that hed end up a street beggar upon the principal would spit, a clearly incorrect prophesy.
PM lashes Opposition

Today we go Parliament and they (Opposition) make an announcement up front that they are not supporting anything the government brings. But why are you surprised by that? That is exactly what we expect to happen from the Opposition. But we have to govern this country and will govern on what votes the PNM has in Parliament because the Opposition has no intention of doing anything, he charged .

He accused the Opposition of taking a position while in government and not agreeing to that said position when it is in Opposition .

He made reference to specifically to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Strategic Services Agency (SSA) and the Bail Act, the latter which he said former prime minister and current Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is now demanding a meeting with him .

Sometimes you know, you have to control yourself in trying to respond to them because they know that you know, and you know that they know, what they are asking you...what the answer is, but they try to provoke us into making unseemly statements. Speaking directly to the Bail Act, Rowley noted that it comes to an end in August and explained that he had gone to Parliament seeking to extend the law for another two years .

All of a sudden they have a problem and will not support it unless we negotiate with them. I am putting you on notice, we have nothing to negotiate with those people. Rowley added, If you could see your country washed in blood, gunman all over the place and you want to play politics with it thats a matter for you. If they think that will make their political career...try something else. Saying the country has not improved in the area of crime fighting, Rowley further said that people are about to give up hope as they feel criminals have the upper hand. The frequency of violent crime is unacceptable and you can hold the government responsible for that because the government is responsible for your safety and security, he said. Rowley said government is not responsible for going out there and making full use of the resources available in the crime fighting effort .
Govt, UNC to meet on Bail Bill

At a PNM public meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said Government will not play politics with crime and will not negotiate with the Opposition on such a burning national issue.

Crime is not something we negotiate, Robinson-Regis declared as she supported Rowleys position.

She further stated that the welfare of the population is not something Government is prepared to negotiate with either.

The Bill requires a three-fifths majority for passage in the House and Senate. This equates to 25 and 19 votes, in the House and Senate, respectively. Government has 23 seats in the House to the Oppositions 18, which means at least two Opposition MPs must support the Bill for passage. In the Senate, Government has 15 senators and needs the remaining four votes to come from either the Oppositions six senators or the Independents nine.

Robinson-Regis said while Government would like the Opposition to support the Bill, todays meeting is simply an opportunity for both sides to have a discussion. She explained that if the Bill is not passed, the old system where bail is given at the discretion of a magistrate or judge, comes back into play. Robinson- Regis said Government has been in regular communication with the Opposition about reaching consensus to pass the Bill.

Asked if the Opposition had agreed to the meeting, Robinson- Regis said she was advised that the Opposition was supposed to caucus yesterday. She added that when the caucus is over, Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh would contact her about the Oppositions decision.

Debate on the Bill collapsed in the House on June 17 when Government and Opposition argued about consultation.

Last Friday, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the Opposition remains willing to meet with the Government and she was not worried about the Opposition being blamed if the Bill is not passed before Parliament goes into fixed recess next month.
Senators: Help struggling families

Independent Senator Paul Richards hailed all Senators for creating a red-letter day for the Upper House as shown by their commonality of purpose to all act in the best interests of the nations youngsters.

However he warned that the bill is required because the society has missed the boat regarding prevention of youngsters getting into trouble in the first place. It means we know we are failing.

What are we doing about it, he asked as he urged more resources be given to help at-risk youngsters. If the State doesnt intervene, then in a decades time, Parliament will have to again approve 50 more judges/masters for this new court on top of the 50 being approved yesterday (Monday), he said. Regarding earlier complaints about a lack of data on youth delinquency, Richards countered that there is a huge amount of research done, now collecting dust at the nations universities. He spoke of the research work of sociologist Prof Selwyn Ryan and criminologist Prof Ramesh Deosaran. They are not being accessed, Richards bemoaned.

He said the brilliant minds of TT can solve the problem of youth delinquency. We need to change the approach, he said. Laws are important but a correction of the education system is something else. He urged the provision of more child psychologists for TTs youngsters. On the heels of an earlier speaker saying TTs age of criminal liability is eight, Richards said such a child cannot be tried in court on the same basis as an adult.

A childs prefrontal cortex has not developed, he said. An underdeveloped moral reasoning and abstract thought means a child might not clearly distinguish between images seen on a video game and real life. Opposition Senator Rodger Samuel bemoaned societal breakdown and family-break-ups.

A godless society is a lawless society, he lamented.

Samuel, a pastor, said marriages are now an endangered species.

While attention focuses on single parents and divorced parents, Samuel highlighted the pain of persons who remain trapped in broken marriages rather than face the agony of divorce courts. He also highlighted a strange phenomena of couples who lived together in a common-law bond for 15 years, yet upon formally getting married, found themselves divorced a year later.

People are no longer tolerant of each other, he surmised. Samuel said that even the best laws may be no substitute for remedying social/family travails.

A court cannot determine that. It is not a legal issue. Family woes must be remedied not from a legal standpoint, he said, but from a social and spiritual aspect. The law doesnt help because law cant change a mans innermost self.

All it can do is restrict him. He lamented the scenario of a pregnant schoolgirl who leaves school to have the baby, and later returns with the child only to be surrounded by her admiring friends who themselves each decide that theyd like to have one too. We have to find solutions, he urged.

Samuel lamented a case of a teenager - aged 15 to 19 years old - having six babies, according to 2001 statistics from the Central Statistical Office (CSO). Those figures also show six teenaged girls each having four babies, 44 girls having three babies and 404 teens each having two children. Fifteen percent of babies are born to teenage mothers, he lamented. So weve got to go back to the issue of the family.
Garcia on leaked nude photos Law must deal with the hackers

It was revealed last week by several young women that personal photos of them have appeared on the internet without their permission.

Many of these women are past and present students of The University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

When asked whether the ministry has had any intervention on the matter, Garcia said he had no information on the issue, and had not met with the principal or any other member of the Campus.

All I know is what I read in the newspapers, he said.

Garcia was speaking with members of the media yesterday at the St Augustine Secondary Schools 2016 graduation ceremony held at the schools auditorium.

It must be a point of concern. I have been reading some of the statements made by some of those affected persons and the agony they are now experiencing, I feel sorry for them. But, as life goes, there are mistakes that are made and Im sure that those persons are ready to move on with their lives.

I am hoping that the law takes it course.

Only yesterday (Tuesday) one person was jailed because he caused a bomb scare in Trincity Mall.

In the school system, there has been a person calling schools saying that there is a bomb on the premises.

That person has been dealt with.

So too, I am hoping, perpetrators of those actions would also be dealt with, Garcia said.

Touching on the issue of problem students who were suspended from their schools because of violence and indiscipline, Garcia said the rehabilitation the ministry embarked on was a success.
EMA Board appointment cancelled...again

Contacted by Newsday yesterday, Planning Minister Camille Robinson- Regis said the latest cancellation was due to a Cabinet committee meeting being scheduled at the same time. No date has been given for when the board will be sworn in.

Earlier this month, President Anthony Carmona denied contributing to the delay in the appointment of a new board.

Contrary to some media reports, President Carmona has neither refused nor delayed the signing of the Instruments of Revocation and Instruments of Appointment for members of the Board of Directors of the EMA, Presidents House said on June 14.

His Excellency has also not refused or delayed the signing of the Instruments of Appointment for members of the Board of Directors of the TRHA (Tobago Regional Health Authority.

All of these instruments were promptly signed off and sealed by His Excellency the President, upon receipt thereof from the Cabinet. Instruments were signed since June 7, Presidents House said.
PM visits Invictus drill ship

A statement issued by the Office of the Prime Minister said the Invictus is currently engaged in an offshore drilling campaign on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago and BHP Billiton. The days activities began with Dr Rowley being greeted at the Piarco International Airport by Vincent Pereira, BHP Billiton Country Manager for Trinidad and Tobago and Derek Cardno, Vice President of Drilling and Completions, BHP Billiton.

The contingent was received and following a safety briefing, departed Piarco via helicopter for the hour and a half trip to Invictus.

Upon landing on the drill ship, Rowley and BHP Billiton officials were greeted by on-board officials and outfitted with all required safety gear. The Prime Minister has previously expressed optimism that the offshore drilling campaign could lead to the discovery of new hydrocarbon reserves.

Following last months bilateral discussions with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Rowley indicated agreement was reached for TT to access natural gas from the offshore Dragon Field in Venezuela. He also indicated progress was made with respect to monetising natural gas reserves in the Loran-Manatee field which straddles the TT-Venezuela maritime boundary.
What you need to know about the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday in Ames

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Bloody Bangladesh: Hindus, Christians, and secular minorities being slaughtered by Islamist militants, often with machetes

A teenager suspected of being a radical Islamist was shot dead just a few days after he allegedly attacked a Hindu man with a machete.

19-year-old Golam Faizullah Fahim had been brought in by police for questioning. They were traveling to a farm in search of Fahims possible associates when a gunfight broke out and the young man was killed.

Fahim isnt the first, nor will he likely be the last. In fact, theres been a growing trend in Bangladesh of radical Islamic extremists attacking innocent people  usually with machetes.

According to Tribune, nearly 50 people have been slaughtered over the course of the past three years in a wave of gruesome murders targeting Hindus, Christians, Sufi Muslims, secular activists and foreigners, with most blamed on or claimed by Islamist militants. The Islamic State has reportedly taken responsibility for many of the attacks. Of course, the Regressive Left will likely refute this claim since Islam is a religion of peace and none of its followers could ever be responsible for such heinous actions. Right?

Tribune goes on to say, Six suspected Islamist militants have now been shot dead since Bangladesh launched a nationwide crackdown on local jihadist groups in the wake of a spike in murders of secular activists and religious minorities.

Theres so much evidence backing up the fact that the rise of radical Islam comes with a violent, deadly side effect. Whats happening in Bangladesh is happening all over the world, and these kinds of terror attacks are only going to become more and more common if this issue isnt addressed head-on.

And radical Islam isnt just an American issue. It is a severe, violent problem all over the globe, and its only going to grow stronger and deadlier if we dont start addressing it for what it truly is: religious extremism.

Sources:

Tribune

The Quint

Evil.news

Submit a correction >>
If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, calls for Texas secession will explode

Its hard to imagine anyone wanting Hillary Clinton to be elected President of the United States, but the anti-Clinton sentiment is especially strong in the Lone Star State.

For many years now, the Texas Nationalist Movement has been fighting for a full-blown secession from the United States. But with a troublesome election year in the wings, and with many calling for Britain to leave the European Union (EU), conversations about Texas reverting to its old moniker as the Republic of Texas have been receiving more and more consideration.

Daniel Miller, the current president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, finds the Brexit (a play on the words Britain and exit) movement inspiring. In an interview with The Guardian, Miller stated that when it comes to Texas secession, Brexit only helps our case because there is a concrete first world example of a modern democracy having a legitimate and public debate where the people of a country, not the political class, get to vote on how they govern themselves and that will resonate not just through Europe but here as well.

If Hillary Clinton is elected, then what better time for Texas to abandon the sinking ship that is the United States? Her values completely clash with not only the United States Constitution (which is an entirely different argument), but with the values and ideals of the average Texan. Clintons big government mindset is flawed and just plain awful. If you thought Texans were toying with the idea of secession before, just wait until theyre living under a Hillary-run country.

While seceding from the United States would be no easy task, the conversation alone is an important one to have. It sends a message to the federal government that Texans are unhappy with the current state of affairs. If Britain leaves the European Union, it could inspire Texas to follow suit, and then who knows which states may continue on the same path.

Were living in times of revolution, folks. And thats very exciting no matter how you look at it.

Sources:

The Guardian

The Telegraph

Submit a correction >>
The Clinton Foundation has scored about $50 MILLION in donations from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait

For someone who rambles incessantly about the rights of women, Hillary Clinton sure does love to accept hefty donations from countries that violently oppresses members of her gender.

It has been reported by The Daily Caller that the Clinton Foundation has received between $16 million and $40 million in donations from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait  the three countries that Clinton herself demonized in a speech following the Orlando nightclub massacre.

In the speech, she stated, For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations.

Well, Hillary, if you have such an issue with the way they do things in those countries, why are you so quick to accept tens of millions of dollars from their leaders? Because cold, hard cash is more important to you than integrity, it seems.

This woman is as crooked as they get. She truly lives up to the Crooked Hillary nickname every single day of her life. One day shes accepting copious amounts of money from the governments of Muslim countries that imprison and murder gay people, and the next shes criticizing their policies. Its shady, gross, and in a strange way, even disloyal. Its everything you dont want in a commander-in-chief, and we should be hoping and praying that she doesnt become the next one.

So which is it, Hillary? Are you going to come out an openly denounce the manner in which women and homosexuals of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait are treated, or are you going to continue to wallow in the money the men from those countries continue to give you?

I think we already know the answer to that

Sources:

The Daily Caller

FoxNews.com

Clinton.news

Submit a correction >>
Why Obamas commitment to the TPP strengthens Monsanto and Big Pharma

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a trade pact currently being negotiated upon outside of the law. With nothing more than the aim to ban GMO labeling, to allow Monsantos grip on the agricultural industry continue to strengthen, increase GMO prevalence and continue to keep the cost of pharmaceuticals sky-high.

In an article, Natural News editor, Mike Adams the Health Ranger says, Details of the TPP are so secret that even members of Congress are not allowed to review them or disclose them. What we know about the TPP has only come from leaks, as the full text of the entire agreement is being kept not only from Congress but also the American people. Yet over 600 corporate CEOs  including CEOs of companies that have been repeatedly found guilty of felony crimes in America  have been allowed to influence the details of the TPP agreements. Some of these participants originate from major corporations which include the likes of Monsanto and Walmart, as well as a number of Big Pharma executives who have also taken on a role in the development of the partnership.

Countries currently on board with the TPP include the USA, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the exact language of the TPP has been kept quite secret, several leaks on what it will contain have been reported. For example, countries who sign onto the TPP will be required to drop any and all current bans on GMOs. Crops that are GMOs must be allowed to be grown in those countries, and they must also ban all efforts to label GMO products. This means consumers will have no way to exercise their right to freedom of choice. Why allow the free market to make its choice when you can strong-arm entire countries into consuming your GMO food?

The TPP will also give Big Pharma companies special monopoly rights on their drugs, eliminating generic competition and raising costs. Resistance against GMOs will also be redefined as anti-free trade practices that will likely result in economic sanctions against those countries who wish to ban GMOs. It would also ban Fair Use of copyrighted material, and the subsequent banning of individuals from the internet if they were to engage in Fair Use  and effectively silence alternative media. And of course, this is just a short list. Make no mistake, the TPP is an extremely dangerous pact.

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

Citizen.org

GMO.news

Science.NaturalNews.com

Submit a correction >>
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Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

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With eruptions of ice and water vapor, and an ocean covered by an ice shell, Saturns moon Enceladus is one of the most fascinating in the Solar System, especially as interpretations of data provided by the Cassini spacecraft have been contradictory until now. An international team including researchers from the Laboratoire de Planetologie Geodynamique de Nantes (CNRS/Universite de Nantes/Universite dAngers), Charles University in Prague, and the Royal Observatory of Belgium1 recently proposed a new model that reconciles different data sets and shows that the ice shell at Enceladuss south pole may be only a few kilometers thick. This suggests that there is a strong heat source in the interior of Enceladus, an additional factor supporting the possible emergence of life in its ocean. The study has just been published online on the website of Geophysical Research Letters.

Initial interpretations of data from Cassini flybys of Enceladus estimated that the thickness of its ice shell ranged from 30 to 40 km at the south pole to 60 km at the equator. These models were unable to settle the question of whether or not its ocean extended beneath the entire ice shell. However, the discovery in 2015 of an oscillation in Enceladuss rotation known as a libration, which is linked to tidal effects, suggests that it has a global ocean and a much thinner ice shell than predicted, with a mean thickness of around 20 km. Nonetheless, this thickness appeared to be inconsistent with other gravity and topography data.

 LPG-CNRS-U. Nantes/U. Charles, Prague. Image showing the thickness of Enceladuss ice shell, which reaches 35 kilometers in the cratered equatorial regions (shown in yellow) and less than 5 kilometers in the active south polar region (shown in blue).

Geophysical Research Letters  Enceladuss internal ocean and ice shell constrained from Cassini gravity, shape, and libration data

In order to reconcile the different constraints, the researchers propose a new model in which the top two hundred meters of the ice shell acts like an elastic shell. According to this study, Enceladus is made up successively of a rocky core with a radius of 185 km, and an internal ocean approximately 45 km deep, isolated from the surface by an ice shell with a mean thickness of around 20 km, except at the south pole where it is thought to be less than 5 km thick. In this model, the ocean beneath the ice makes up 40% of the total volume of the moon, while its salt content is estimated to be similar to that of Earths oceans.

All this implies a new energy budget for Enceladus. Since a thinner ice shell retains less heat, the tidal effects caused by Saturn on the large fractures in the ice at the south pole are no longer enough to explain the strong heat flow affecting this region. The model therefore reinforces the idea that there is strong heat production in Enceladuss deep interior that may power the hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Since complex organic molecules, whose precise composition remains unknown, have been detected in Enceladuss jets, these conditions appear to be favorable to the emergence of life. The relative thinness of the ice shell at the south pole could also allow a future space exploration mission to gather data, in particular using radar, which would be far more reliable and easy to obtain than with the 40 km thick ice shell initially calculated. It looks as if Enceladus still has many secrets in store.

Abstract

The intense plume activity at the South Pole of Enceladus together with the recent detection of libration hints at an internal water ocean underneath the outer ice shell. However, the interpretation of gravity, shape, and libration data leads to contradicting results regarding the depth of ocean/ice interface and the total volume of the ocean. Here we develop an interior structure model consisting of a rocky core, an internal ocean, and an ice shell, which satisfies simultaneously the gravity, shape, and libration data. We show that the data can be reconciled by considering isostatic compensation including the effect of a few hundred meter thick elastic lithosphere. Our model predicts that the core radius is 180185 km, the ocean density is at least 1030 kg/m3, and the ice shell is 1822 km thick on average. The ice thicknesses are reduced at poles decreasing to less than 5 km in the south polar region.

SOURCES  Geophysical Research Letters, CRNS
Israel recently announced plans to build an underground wall along its 37-mile border with Gaza to thwart Hamas sophisticated underground network of tunnels and bunkers. Hamas, which said Gazans are gearing up for the next war, used tunnels to smuggle weapons, supplies and fighters to attack Israel during the 50-day conflict that began July 8, 2014.

The Ministry of Defense refused to comment on details or timelines for the new plan, but the Israeli military did lift the gag order on the project as the country prepares to mark the anniversary.

Construction of the concrete barrier will cost $570 million and stretch dozens of miles below and above ground, according to the Israeli Ynet news website. The underground wall will replace a wire fence in place since 2005, when Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Israels new wall will reach tens of meters underground.

The Israeli army has also spent more than $330 million in the past two years on developing an underground sonar detection system as a defense against the tunnel threat, security analyst Yossi Melman wrote last month in the Israeli newspaper Maariv.

While technological progress has remained confidential, Israel has made minor headway in locating tunnels using traditional intelligence methods. The Israeli daily Haaretz recently reported that Bassam Mahmoud Baraka, a senior Hamas member, had defected to Israel and potentially shared details about Gazas intricate tunnel network, the second such case to lead Israel to locate tunnels.

Several years ago Egypt began constructing a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip as it attempts to cut smuggling tunnels. The wall is about 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and extends 18 meters below the surface.

Hamas charges an annual $2,500 for the right to operate a tunnel from Gaza to Egypt.

Construction of the barrier was damaging dozens of smuggling tunnels as deep as 30 meters, causing them to collapse on a nearly daily basis and killing operators, especially tunnels near the Rafah border terminal. They added that most of the 1,500 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt remained unaffected.

Donald Trump is planning to force Mexico to pay for a border wall by targeting billions of dollars in remittances sent by immigrants living in the U.S.

Trump plans to cut off a portion of the funds sent to Mexico through money transfers known as remittances. His plan would also bar non-Americans from wiring money outside of the U.S. unless they can provide documentation establishing their legal status in the country.

Trump said he would withdraw the threat if Mexico makes a one-time payment to finance the wall.

Its an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year, the memo reads.

SOURCES- USA Today, BBC News, Wikipedia
An global charity group, Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF, has disclosed that about 200 refugees fleeing Boko Haram militants have died of hunger in Bama, Borno State.

He said that about 30 people died every day due to hunger or illness. During those few hours, the MSF medical team discovered a health crisis, referring 16 severely malnourished children at immediate risk of death to the MSF in-patient therapeutic feeding center in Maiduguri.

MSF said "a catastrophic humanitarian emergency is now unfolding" at the camp, adding that around a fifth of 800 children who underwent medical screening were acutely malnourished and that nearly 500 children had died.

"This is the first time MSF has been able to access Bama but we already know the needs of the people there are beyond critical", said MSF head of mission in Nigeria Ghada Hatim.

Bama, about 35 miles from the major city of Maiduguri, has been largely cut off from supplies. Even farmers were reported to have not done any cultivation in the past 18 months.

The Nigeria Army continued its onslaught in its attempt to decimate Boko Haram as they cleared the terrorists from in Buhari, Matari and Kaidiri villages.

The Islamist group's seven-year rebellion has left 20,000 people dead and more than two million displaced.

A multinational force has begun operations against Boko Haram along the border between Niger and Nigeria.

This March 7 photo shows Hamsatu, 25, and Fatima, 3, at the Dalori Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The humanitarian organization estimates 24,000 people, including 15,000 children, are sheltered in a camp on a hospital complex.

The team counted 1,233 cemetery graves outside the camp, all of which had been dug during the past year.

Sixty-one young children and babies were said to be "critically malnourished".

The vigilante said 376 people had been buried in the last three months and those still alive were like "walking corpses".

"The fight against the menace of Boko Haram terrorists is a collective responsibility that requires positive contribution from all citizenry".

The displaced now live in camps managed by the Nigerian military and the country's own aid agencies.
The man was transported to St. Peter's hospital.

Deputies searched the property and found the bodies of two men and a woman who had been fatally shot inside a travel trailer, Pearsall said. "We don't know if this was a drug deal, but drugs were present".

Pearsall didn't have any further details on the motive for the shooting or if any suspects were in custody.

He said detectives were not yet calling it a drug-related crime, but noted "this is a known area for some narcotics being sold".

Officers searched the property and found three people dead in a travel trailer behind the main residence. The three people found dead in the trailer near Lacey, Washington were a 31-year-old woman, a 28-year-old Olympia man and a 34-year-old Elma man.

A man called 911 just after 5 a.m. Wednesday saying he was shot and three friends were dead.

The shooting happened just blocks from River Ridge High School, Meadow Elementary School and Washington Land Yacht Harbor RV Park.

Dispatchers received a 911 call around 5:15am Wednesday from a man stating he had been shot and his friends were dead, according to Chief Dave Pearsall with the Thurston County Sheriff's Office.

Pearsall could not immediately say if the caller was a victim or a potential person of interest in the case. "He knew something was wrong", said the woman, who asked not to be named.

Jan Phipps, who lives across the street, said she heard several gunshots around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Investigators are at the hospital interviewing the man injured in the shooting. "That little bit of innocence that I had left is not there right now".
Also, Boeing Co. said Tuesday it signed an agreement with Iran Air "expressing the airline's intent" to buy its aircraft, marking the first major deal with an American company in the Islamic Republic following its landmark nuclear deal.

The statement of Boeing's states that the talks that led to the memorandum of understanding were held under the proper and legal authorizations from government of U.S., following an aim that Iran had met its commitments under the last summer nuclear accord.

June 19-Iran has reached an agreement with Boeing for purchase of 100 aircrafts, said Ali Abedzadeh, head of the country's Civil Aviation Organization.

According to a report on ABC News, "It's unclear how much the agreement with Iran Air would be worth, though an Iranian official earlier suggested the total Boeing sale to the Islamic Republic could be valued at $25 billion".

Iran has, for years, been struggling to maintain its aging commercial passenger aircraft fleet.

Boeing confirmed Tuesday it has reached a tentative deal to sell airplanes to Iran. Analysts predicted the deal would ultimately be completed in part because of the importance of the Iran nuclear deal to President Obama's foreign policy legacy.

"If Boeing were to be denied, Iran would simply buy more planes from Airbus". We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.

Iran Air, the country's biggest carrier, now serves 27 domestic and 29 worldwide routes, needs the upgraded aircraft as it rolls out a 10-year plan aimed at moving from survival mode to expansion. The carrier will obtain the planes through a lease-purchase agreement, pending clearance from the United States and Iran. Between the two, this deal would modernize much of the airline's fleet, desperately needed after decades of sanctions left numerous planes in risky condition.

The Italian metals industry concern signed $6.2 billion in deals to supply machinery and install steel and aluminum plants in Iran.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had said a week back that members of the NSG "remain divided" on the issue of non-NPT countries joining it and called for "full discussions".

Hua said that China has made it clear that NSG meetings have never put the accession of any specific non-NPT countries on their agenda.

China officially maintains that there should be consensus about admitting all members.

Top government sources said: "India sees this as a procedural block by China". India's application for NSG membership and its potential consequences will inevitably touch a raw nerve in Pakistan, its traditional rival in the region.

Sushma Swaraj said that South Block is on a diplomatic mission to garner support, and the minister herself has been dialling the numbers of her counterparts in at least 23 countries, some of whom have doubts and questions. "But we will not oppose entry of any nation to the NSG". "India has strong credentials to become a member of the NSG". "I have great satisfaction in saying that whatever commitments and undertakings we gave prior to receiving the (NSG) waiver in 2008, we have kept", Ms. Swaraj said. "The US is also one of those who made the rule that non-NPT countries should not join the NSG, and the relevant rule is based on the principle of the NPT being a cornerstone of the NSG".

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday hinted at a consensus building in India's favour and the hope that the NSG membership may finally come its way.

"We envisaged growth in FDI and Skill India programmes through various foreign visits, and have moved ahead with various nations in nuclear agreements", Swaraj said. She said because of the sustained efforts, India has received Dollars 55 billion (Rs 3.69 lakh crore) in foreign direct investment in the last two years.

All Nuclear Weapons State members of the NSG as well as de facto Nuclear Weapons States outside it have behaved irresponsibly both in failing to live up to the NPT's disarmament obligations and in promoting proliferation one way or the other. "This is not a new topic of discussion that we've had privately with the members". "Measures that can boost mutual trust could be established among China, India and Pakistan, the three nuclear powers in Asia".

"China is not opposing membership of India in NSG, it is only talking of criteria and procedure", said Swaraj.

Beijing's stance might make a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the margins of t he Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent on June 23 awkward. Its supply of nuclear technologies to enhance India's deterrence capability is to put China in check, it said.

India also "meets the last requirement and was admitted to membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) early this month", it said.
Angry Democrats chanted "No bill, no break!" and waved pieces of paper containing the names of gun victims.

With the C-Span cameras turned off during the recess, the public broadcaster responsible for covering congressional sessions enacted a creative workaround, broadcasting live video from social media applications Periscope and Facebook, filmed by two lawmakers.

Nevada Republicans looked at the sit-in as little more than political antics from the Democrats. On one hand, he could have chosen to wait out the Democrats, not reconvening the chamber until the members left the floor.

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas approached the Democrats and yelled, "Radical Islam!"

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has called the Democrats' sit-in a stunt and a gimmick. "The Senate has already defeated the measure they're calling for".

Spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the House "is focused on eliminating terrorists, not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that". Referring to Republicans, he said, "They can run, but they're not going to be able to hide from these issues". Democrats - yelling "no bill, no break" - vowed to stay in the House chamber until Republicans yielded to their demands to hold votes on bills to strengthen background checks and prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns in the wake of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida. "The House is adjourned".

"It is late", House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said at 3:36 a.m., just after leaving the floor.

The Democratic sit-in over gun control last night nearly fell into a broadcasting black hole until tech savvy representatives took out their smartphones and began broadcasting on Periscope. We came here to work.

"We made some progress".

"There is a stain on the soul of America, and we must heal it, and it begins tonight", freshman Democrat Brendan Boyle said. "The fight is an ongoing fight".

John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters Wednesday that he is "optimistic" that he and Collins will be able to work out a deal on a gun measure that would unify the Senate, with a vote still possible this week. Both of the guns Mateen used in the killings - an AR-15-style rifle and Glock handgun - were purchased legally. And Rep. Scott Peters got a back rub.

The rapid turn of events of Zika ignited another round of the partisanship that has dogged the measure from the start and raised questions about whether lawmakers will manage to pass anything on Zika in the short time left before exiting Washington in mid-July for the political conventions. Let's put aside the historic nature of the Democratic sit-in, or the visceral anger and lack of decorum that was visible on the floor of the House, or even the clear sense of anger and frustration bubbling up within the Democratic Party over Congress's total dysfunction and complete inability to address even a single serious national challenge.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., said Republicans "want to take the high road in this" and blasted the Democrats move.

If you didn't follow Matt's coverage of the House Democrats' sit in to force a vote on gun control legislation, you may want to read this first.

Unlike senators, representatives are not permitted to filibuster.

Before dawn, Lewis said the push for gun-control bills will resume when the House reconvenes. "We have waited. We've been patient". We have been too quiet for too long ...

As the protest continued, lawmakers briefly sang "We Shall Not Be Moved".

The Democrats said they are also demanding a vote on expanded background checks.

GOP leaders said the rules were based on the notion that images from the House floor "might be taken to carry the imprimatur of the House". The customary prayer and Pledge of Allegiance went ahead, but Poe was forced to recess the House when dozens of Democrats refused to leave the well.

Among those protesting on the House floor was Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq War veteran who lost both her legs in combat. Republicans occupied the floor, delivering speech after speech after Pelosi, then the House speaker, sent lawmakers bolting to their August recess. He was joined by Connecticut Sen.
A Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy who was rushed to the hospital after being shot in Harvey has died, according to sheriff's spokesman Col. John Fortunato.

Fortunato said the shooting happened in the suburban area of Harvey after Michel stopped the suspect, who was walking along busy Manhattan Boulevard around 12:20 p.m.

Normand said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux, pulled a revolver and fired a total of three shots into Michel's back during the confrontation.

A news conference is set for 10 p.m., where the Sheriff's Office will provide an update on the investigation. The suspect in the shooting, Jarvis Hardy, has been indicted on eight counts, including attempted murder of a federal officer. It wasn't immediately cleared how the suspect was injured.

Michel worked as a reserve deputy for the department starting in 2007 and became a full-time deputy in February of 2013, the office said. His identity has not been released.

Sheriff Newell Normand was out of town at the time of the shooting.

"He was a great guy, well-liked", Taffaro said. "It was quite obvious at the hospital with all of the officers who were there". "Deputy Michel pulled up and told the individual to move on".

He was assigned to the Street Crimes unit.

Police are hunting for a suspect after a Louisiana deputy was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon.

JPSO later confirmed the deputy had died.

It was the year's second shooting of a Jefferson Parish officer.
Waukesha is only 17 miles from the lake but just outside the Great Lakes watershed.

It was nothing short of a legal wall erected on the borders of the Great Lakes basin, outlawing any bid to transport water from inside the boundary to the outside.

Before the eight states approved the new pact, Waukesha agreed to recycle all of the water it draws from Lake Michigan and return it to a river that flows into the lake.

"There's been a substantial amount of discussion and questions raised about the issue of enforceability".

"There are a lot of emotions and politics surrounding this issue, but voting yes in co-operation with our Great Lakes neighbours is the best way to conserve one of our greatest natural resources", said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

"It's frustrating. A lot of time, effort and money has gone into making our Great Lakes handsome and preserving the water quality, and this is what can happen in a blink of an eye", said Mitch Twolan, mayor of Huron-Kinloss, Ont.

This approval also shows that the compact works. Votes of approval rang quietly through the air. Mayor Reilly went on to say, "No community can thrive without meeting that basic need for drinking water, and there has been no higher priority for me, for the Common Council, and for the Water Utility Commission and staff". He said he felt jubilant, despite the last minute amendments. So we'll probably get a couple requests for audits.

"This is something where I hope people take the time to look at the facts", Snyder said.

Because the Waukesha diversion application is the first since the Compact was adopted, it is a critical test of the Compact's effectiveness and serves as a precedent for subsequent diversion proposals.

"I have never had concerns about that because I've always had faith in the way the Compact was negotiated many years ago, the terms of the Compact that I think should be able to diminish some of those concerns about precedence". It's the kind of project banned by the compact, save one loophole. "They can't just start using Lake Michigan water tomorrow", McKay said. Ullrich says the binational coalition of mayors oppose Waukesha's diversion.

The Chicago-based Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, which represents mayors and other officials from 121 USA and Canadian units of government, including Toledo, said it was "extremely disappointed".

Christy Meyer joined the chorus of concerns expressed by conservation groups.

The endorsement came with conditions, including the requirement that Waukesha reduce the volume of water it would withdraw from 10.1 million gallons a day to 8.2 million gallons and a day. "So we're going to convene and try to figure that all out", Meyer said.

MI compact council delegate Grant Trigger lingered a moment as he wheeled his briefcase in the direction of home. He acknowledges many residents of his state did not support Waukesha's request, yet Trigger stands firmly behind his vote.

"I think all of our stakeholders appreciate that MI treated them respectfully; we listened to them; we evaluated all the criteria". They said, however, they need to review details of the final decision.

Waukesha will now move through the Wisconsin DNR's permitting process.

The drinking water of Waukesha, Wisconsin, is contaminated.
Youth marijuana use remains relatively unchanged since 2009, according to a bi-annual Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment survey released Monday.

A photo from the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey shared here. But Colorado's constitution doesn't ban public use, either, leading to a confusing patchwork of local policies on weed clubs.

Dr. Sean Lenoue, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado and opponent of marijuana legalization, pointed to what he considered the study's most disturbing finding: Between 2013 and 2015, the number of teens who said that marijuana was risky fell from 54% to 48%, suggesting that its use was becoming more socially acceptable. In 2015, about 38.6 percent of US high school students had ever tried marijuana, and about 21.7 reported using it in the last 30 days, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The survey represents a holding trend, as a report from 2014 showed that teen marijuana use had slightly decreased since legalization.

The state voted to legalise the drug for users 21 and over in 2012, and the first retail stores opened previous year. Already, four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use, 25 states have legalized comprehensive medical cannabis programs and 16 additional states have legalized nonpsychoactive cannabis oil (CBD oil) for medical purposes.

The research shows teen marijuana use dropped 10 percent between 2002 and 2013 and teens suffering from marijuana dependency or having trouble at school and in relationships plummeted by 24 percent over this period.

In promoting limited legalization, Tvert and his fellow boosters predicted such a trajectory.

The explanation for the flat levels of teenage use of marijuana is that, for teenagers, pot is easily acquired.

Eliminating the burdensome requirement of some DEA field offices that marijuana be kept in bolted safes-a requirement not possible in many research and clinical settings-and codifies current DEA regulations that allow marijuana to be stored in securely locked, substantially constructed cabinets.

"The medical community agrees that we need more research to learn about marijuana's potential health benefits, but our federal laws today are standing in the way of that inquiry", Schatz said in a statement. "So there's an artificially inflated underground market due to those localities". In Pueblo County, clubs are allowed, but till the date there are none.

Yet, while about half of the states in the US, including Maryland, have approved the use of marijuana as a form of medicine to treat chronic pain, epilepsy and other conditions, there is little if any scientific evidence of what medical cannabis can be used to treat successfully.

He's hopeful this message is starting to get through, despite the efforts of groups such as Project SAM. "Previously, it was proponents of these initiatives and other advocates who were making the case that adult sales wouldn't increase teen use". "Teenagers who are going to experiment can experiment now in all the states in the union".
After negotiations with the United States and the plane's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, an agreement was reached enabling the Israel Air Force (IAF) to create Israeli cyber defense solutions.

"The Adir will create real deterrence and enhance our capabilities for a long-time".

Israel will install its own cyber defenses on the F-35 jets it will receive this year.

The US military has begun replacing its fighter aircraft with the F-35. "The unique combination of split-edge technology, lethality and the wonderful man-machine interface will lead the world to the fifth generation".

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman praises the F-35 stealth fighter jet at the aircraft's unveiling in Fort Worth, Texas, and stresses its crucial role in maintaining Israel's security. By the end of 2016, according to a senior IDF official, Israel will receive an additional 2 planes. "The F-35 will help Israel remain a beacon of strength and stability in the region and support a safe and secure homeland for generations to come".

"Israel is surrounded by unprecedented military threats", Liberman says, "including missile threats".

Israel's program of record is 33 F-35A Conventional Take Off and Landing, or CTOL, aircraft, acquired through the USA government's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.

By 2020, there will be 600 F35's in existence, and Israel is expected to have 33 of them. The US Marine Corps' version went into operation service past year. The F-35, a fifth generation fighter plane, is among the most expensive military projects ever executed - so expensive that it's development costs are being split by the US and eight other countries.
A small plane with two sick USA workers aboard left Antarctica on Wednesday in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said. They arrived at a clinic in Southern Chile after enduring two long flights. The sun will not rise again on the South Pole until September.

Two sick workers were evacuated from a remote U.S. research station near the South Pole on June 22, 2016 in a risky rescue mission carried out in the dead of Antarctica's winter.

The Twin Otter, operated by the Canadian company Kenn Borek Air, is specially created to operate in extremely cold temperatures. The foundation said they needed medical attention that could not be provided on the remote continent, but citing medical privacy, would not identify the sick workers or their conditions.

The National Science Foundation, which runs the South Pole center, put out an urgent call for help last week because they were unable to provide the necessary medical care.

After making a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers were flown to the southernmost Chilean city of Punta Arenas, the National Science Foundation said in a statement published on its Facebook page. Despite the treacherous journeys, researchers have been working at the station since the 1950s, and it is only one of three year-round NSF-led operations in Antarctica.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy minus 2.5C on Wednesday afternoon - which is toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 60C in the morning.

West said at least one worker and possibly two - support crew employed by logistics contractor Lockheed Martin - had to be evacuated. This mission was extremely daring, as it comes so late in the winter season, said Peter West with the National Science Foundation.

The Twin Otter's crew - a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and medical worker - arrived at the frigid research station Tuesday before resting for several hours as temperatures dropped below minus 70 degrees. It wasn't known until Wednesday whether the second ailing worker would also be evacuated.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the US now, lauded the rescue crew.

The rescue team that managed to save the pair flew in 3,000 miles round trip from the British Station Rothera to pick up workers at the US-Amundsen-Scott station.

From Rothera, the plane will fly the patients on to Chile and then to wherever treatment is to be provided, West said.

Flights are discouraged between February and October due to the extremely cold and dark conditions - the only lighting for the landing being provided by the moon and the aurora australis.

The visibility at the South Pole was reported as good ( 11 kilometers) under a almost full moon which remained continually above the horizon at an elevation of around 16 degrees.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes from batteries to hydraulics, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before take off, West said.

The rescuers used a small Twin Otter turboprop plane, West told the AFP news agency.
Pope Francis at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square, June 22, 2016.

In his remarks, Francis suggested that the refugees left dire situations in their home countries.

During his trip to Armenia, the Pope will meet descendants of those killed during the massacre when he travels to a memorial complex at Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Vatican Radio says. Pope Francis urged the more than 15,000 people present to "touch the excluded", using the Bible story of Jesus healing a man with leprosy.

When a poor person comes, he said, "we can be generous, we can be compassionate, but usually we do not touch him".

"Everything this man - who was considered impure - says and does is an expression of his faith!" the pope said. We offer money, we drop it there, but we avoid touching their hand. Like the leper, may we turn to Jesus in faith and let our lives proclaim his gifts of mercy, forgiveness and spiritual rebirth.

By touching the poor and the excluded, he explained, Christians can be "purified of hypocrisy" and share concern for their condition. "And we forget that it is the body of Christ!"

"This is what I do, but you can also do it in your homes".

The Pope let the audience in on a little secret, saying that he makes the leper's prayer of "Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean" his own every night.

"And do it, do it every evening before going to bed". And finally, Jesus asks the man to bear witness to the miracle to the priest and thus the leper becomes a missionary.

The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) has sent an Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Francis asking him to encourage lasting peace and respect for human rights in the South Caucasus.

Recently, the Vatican brought a second group of Syrian refugees to Rome to be housed by a Catholic charity.
No known Zika cases have been transmitted locally by mosquitos, local health officials confirm. "And hopefully that happens before the mosquitoes bite you", Calvo said. The two types of mosquitoes that can carry Zika - Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus - are aggressive daytime biters, Hanft said.

Zika is a mosquito-borne illness that is characterized by a fever, rash and joint pain.

Most of these conditions don't have a specific treatment or preventive medication, and none of them have a vaccine that can prevent the infection.

As of June 20, 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that all Zika cases reported in the USA were acquired as a result of travel outside the country. The larger concern for non-pregnant Zika patients is their ability to spread the disease to others.

Although dengue has been around for a while, chikungunya and Zika are relatively recent infections that seem to have come out of nowhere to spread throughout the human population.

Maryland has had several confirmed cases of Zika virus infection, and so far all of those cases have been related to travel in those areas.

"We think creams might act as an effective way to stop these viruses before they can cause disease". However, a focus on head size may provide false reassurance to doctors and families because other brain abnormalities associated with Zika infection, such as ventriculomegaly (an enlargement of brain ventricles) and intracranial calcifications (calcium deposits in the brain tissue), may occur in children with normal-sized heads. At this point the best way to prevent these diseases is to avoid mosquito bites. Although most people are familiar with the swelling and itching after a mosquito bite, researchers knew little about what was actually going on inside the body, so McKimmie and team chose to find out.

Cases of the Zika virus were confirmed in nearby Philadelphia and Montgomery County earlier this year.

To protect against being bit, health officials advise New Yorkers to wear bug repellent and cover arms and legs when outside at dawn or dusk.

Dr. Moore also said if a woman contracts the virus before becoming pregnant, it shouldn't be an issue for having children later. Mosquitoes acquire the virus by feeding on infected birds. In a statement released by the group, Rodriguez said he was "shocked" to learn of the rapid escalation of the virus in his home territory. But according to McKimmie, it can be hard for public health experts to predict which viruses will cause epidemics because there are so many different kinds.
Nebraska is facing one of the worst droughts in years. We see the effects of this drought in our everyday lives. When driving down the highway, we see our once verdant landscape replaced with yellowing and desiccated crops and plant life. This dryness provokes hardships for the economy and a
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The United Nations-sponsored Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) held Wednesday its first official cabinet meeting since it arrived in capital Tripoli late March.

Prime Minister-designate Faiez Serraj chaired the meeting in his provisional offices located in a naval base. The meeting was attended by Serrajs two deputies, Ahmed Maetig and Fathi Majbri, and 16 other cabinet members, including Defense Minister Mahdi Barghathi, Foreign Minister Mohamed Siala and Interior Minister Arif Khojja, Libya Herald reports.

The GNA was born last December in Morocco following the signing of the Libyan Political Accord supposed to end rivalries between warring factions vying for power following the fall and death of Col.Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed revolution in 2011.

The Serraj-led team tasked with solving the countrys problems was established in Tunisia until late March when it succeeded in sailing to Tripoli after months of opposition by a local self-imposed government.

The GNA has made of crashing the Islamic State group in Libya its paramount goal and has established operations-room to take on the Islamist group.

Forces loyal to the GNA since May have been waging fierce war against IS in Gaddafis hometown of Sirte where IS has set up its African base.

Military forces have made headways into Sirte despite brazen attacks from the militant fighters. Tuesday was the bloodiest for the loyal troops which lost 34 fighters.

IS fighters reportedly resorted to suicide attacks, bombing and use of snipers to fend off GNA forces march.

Sirte sits at some hundred miles away from European coasts causing fear in the west that the terrorist group, also involved in illegal migration, could smuggle fighters into Europe to perpetrate attacks.
Head of critical KBC TV channel Mehdi Benaissa has been arrested Thursday along with an official of the ministry of communication few days after appearing in court.

Benaissa was summoned last weekend to a military police station in the capital Algiers. He also appeared in court at the instruction of the state prosecutor on Monday before being released.

He has been again arrested early Thursday at dawn. Security forces also arrested an official of the Communication Ministry in charge of program recording, el Watan reports.

Authorities accuse Benaissa of recording Ki Hna Ki Nass program in an outlawed studio. Yet, press reports say that authorities are primarily irked by the content of the program, which is critical of the regime.

Benaissa reportedly argued that other channels had used the studio in the past but were never sued.

KBC TV channel and its owner El Kabar have been under tight scrutiny by authorities who froze this month the purchase of the press group by Algerian business tycoon and regime opponent, Issad Rebrab.
Photo: Enough is Enough/Facebook

The three people arrested in New Jersey at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel Tuesday with a huge hoard of weapons and ammo have told police that they were on a mission to rescue a teenage girl trapped in a Brooklyn drug den.

The trio, from Pennsylvania, were apparently pulled over for driving with a broken windshield, but their vehicle wasnt exactly inconspicuous among all of those cars lined up at the tolls  and the pro-gun decals and skull on its gas cap might have been a bit of a giveaway.

Photo: Enough is Enough/Facebook

Cops found an arsenal that included a loaded AR-15 and shotgun, five handguns, 2,000 rounds of ammunition, knives, body armor, night goggles, and a bulletproof helmet in the truck. One gun clip had Murica written on it; another said United We Stand. Another box inside the truck read, Shoot Your Local Heroin Dealer. Police also confiscated marijuana, prescription drugs, and other drug paraphernalia from the SUV.

The three people  John Cramsey, Dean Smith, and Kimberly Arendt  told cops they were headed to Brooklyn to save a 16-year-old who was being held against her will by heroin abusers. The girl was scared to death and wanted to go home to her folks, per a Facebook message Cramsey posted to Smith before they embarked on their operation. According to the Daily News, Arendt, who worked as a youth counselor, knew the teen from camp and had received a text from her asking for help. The girl apparently said she woke up Monday next to the dead body of someone who overdosed on heroin. Cramsey, the truck owner and proprietor of the gun range it advertises, is a committed anti-drug advocate who has made it his crusade to directly help out addicted kids after his 20-year-old daughter died from a heroin overdose earlier this year. Cramsey had apparently started making arrangements for the teenage girl to enter rehab after they pulled her from the drug hideaway.

Cramsey posted this on Facebook, along with some pictures, before the group reached the Holland Tunnel:

Im currently 11 miles outside of Brooklyn New York and going to a hotel to extract a 16 year old girl who went up there to Party with a few friends. One of those friends she went up there with will not be returning . This young lady from Wilkes Barre is scared and wants to come home. Last night she woke to find her friends body next to her in the same bed were her friend died of another heroin overdose. The Child named Janaee Patterson and she is from the Wilkes Barre area. A Facebook message to the Mother and the Brother with no response yet. Im bringing her out of NY today and anybody else in that hotel that wants to go home too . Lyn Baker I am with your friend Kimberly Anne Walker and we we are now 9 miles out . She accepted your friend request. I will keep you posted as soon as I got some news. Hey everybody ! Who remembers the Beastie Boys . NO .SLEEP .TILL BROOKLYN ! ENOUGH is ENOUGH ! Coming to a Town near YOU SOON !

Cops reached out to the teen, who told police that she was not being held hostage. She did, however, ask for help, and police took her into custody, according to CBS News. But the mother of the teen told the Allentown Morning Call that her daughter didnt do heroin. It was her friend, she said.

Its unclear exactly why the trio brought this arsenal on their mission. Some defenders of the crew  and there are many  said they believe they think Cramsey, as the owner of a gun shop, had just forgotten to unload the stash before setting out for Brooklyn.

All three are facing weapons-related charges and are currently being held in a New Jersey prison on $75,000 bail. All three pleaded not guilty to the charges. Attorneys for the accused tried to get their bail reduced Wednesday. Cramseys attorney argued the guns were registered and that the search wasnt justified. But the judge didnt budge.

New Jersey has tougher gun laws than Pennsylvania, and driving with a loaded gun isnt permitted. This isnt in PA, its in New Jersey, the prosecutor said in court. There are laws.
Pushing changes both camps support could overcome resistance to any one reform. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; David McNew/Getty Images

One of the main objectives left for the Bernie Sanders campaign is to promote certain reforms in the presidential nominating process, especially an end to the use of unelected and unpledged superdelegates, and a ban on closed primaries that exclude independents.

Its been widely observed, however, that this reform agenda is a bit self-serving, aimed as it is at features of the nominating process that hurt Sanderss prospects and helped Clintons. Most notably, while complaining that superdelegates and closed primaries reduce the influence of actual voters, Sanders and his supporters have been largely mute on the most anti-democratic device of them all, the use of caucuses rather than primaries.

Now that the identity of the Democratic presidential nominee is no longer in question, it should be possible for supporters of both Sanders and Clinton to consider reforms without this kind of candidacy-driven tunnel vision. Thats exactly what happened this last weekend at an executive-board meeting of the California Democratic Party:

The California Democratic Party on Sunday called for a broad overhaul of how the party nominates its presidential candidates, including the elimination of caucuses and most super-delegates. The resolution urging the Democratic National Committee to change the nominating rules for the 2020 contest has no official power, but is a symbolic statement from the largest state Democratic party in the nation. Many of the changes were sought by supporters of Bernie Sanders, but Hillary Clinton backers also endorsed the effort, resulting in the resolution being unanimously approved at the state partys executive board meeting on Sunday.

The resolution specifically called for limiting superdelegates to the membership of the DNC and then binding them to actual primary results. It also called for an upending of the traditional calendar rules that have given four states  Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina  disproportionate influence. If achieved at or after the convention (Democrats tend to defer nomination-process reforms to postelection commissions), these changes would represent the largest reforms in the process since the 1980s.

This reform effort represents what is often called logrolling in a legislative context, and it can provide powerful impetus to the achievement of big compromises when it encompasses multiple objectives of multiple interests. Partly because of Californias reputation as a trendsetter, and partly because it no longer affects the outcome of the nomination race, its entirely possible this combo platter of reforms could gain momentum as the convention approaches, to the probable horror of some governors and members of Congress and a lot of Iowans.

Indeed, another compromise is readily available on the remaining bone of contention over the nomination process between Sanders and Clinton supporters: open versus closed primaries. Virtually all Democrats favor liberal voter-registration rules. The national party could support closed primaries only in those states that adopted same-day registration and reregistration opportunities. Thus the primaries would be open only to Democrats, but it would be easy for voters to become Democrats after theyve formed the intention of participating in a Democratic contest. One of the states that provides for same-day registration right now is Iowa. Maybe it could be officially named the Iowa reform to mitigate the agony and grief of Iowans if their first-in-the-nation caucus is delegitimized.
While Steins showing unexpected strength in some polls, shes probably already peaked. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Thanks to the extreme unhappiness of Republican elites and many GOP voters with Donald Trump, most of the third-party speculation this year has been around the possibility of a movement conservative independent candidate. As that scenario has slowly faded, the Libertarians went the extra mile to make their ticket attractive to disgruntled GOPers, with two former governors running. Accordingly, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is beginning to register in the high single-digits and low-teens in trial heats against Trump and Hillary Clinton, with prospects for doing better if the GOP convention is the fiasco some observers expect. Indeed, Johnson is within shouting distance of the 15 percent poll-showing that would qualify him for general-election presidential debates, which all third-party candidates view as a breakout opportunity.

But theres a fourth candidate already out there who, like Johnson, enjoys the support of a preexisting party with a clear identity and access to the ballot in many states: Jill Stein, making her second consecutive run for president, as the presumptive Green nominee for 2016 (she will, barring a strange upset, be formally nominated at the Green convention in early August).

Stein and her party have a natural affinity with the less Democratic-minded elements of the Bernie Sanders coalition; her platform includes single-payer health care, a carbon tax, and student-loan-debt forgiveness. A recent CNN/ORC poll showed Stein winning 18 percent of the Democrats and independents who currently favor Sanders if Clinton wins the nomination. The same survey showed Stein at 7 percent overall; with Johnson at 9 percent. If these numbers actually held into the heat of the general-election campaign, 2016 could become the first presidential election with four serious candidates since 1948 when Strom Thurmonds States Rights Party and Henry Wallaces Progressives all ran credible campaigns.

While the Johnson-Weld Libertarian ticket looks to have some staying power, its not so clear Steins Greens can say the same. For one thing, shell need to expand ballot access well beyond her current list of 21 states to achieve anything like those CNN/ORC numbers. And historically, minor parties have almost always lost steam as actual voting approaches. In the high-watermark Green presidential campaign of all time, Ralph Naders famous (or infamous) 2000 run, the former consumer crusader was polling at 6 percent in October before settling in at 2.7 percent.

Speaking of Nader and 2000, the Clinton campaign is sure to use that precedent to argue that a vote for Stein is a vote for Donald Trump, and if the Clinton/Trump race is close, that could have a powerful effect. The bigger problem for Stein is that this particular moment may represent the absolute peak of her appeal to Sanders supporters, many of whom will slowly drift into the Clinton column as the Bern subsides and Sanders himself begins to warn his fans against the Green Temptation.

The Greens could also face some corrosive competition with the Libertarians for voters unhappy with the two-party choice. While many young Sanders supporters could be attracted by Johnsons support for drug legalization and a noninterventionist foreign policy, there probably arent many disgruntled Republicans who could bring themselves to associate with the Greens. Add in Johnsons early lead, superior ballot access, and the possibility of a seat at the debates, and Stein could become an afterthought.

In the end, Jill Stein will almost certainly beat her 2012 performance of 469,000 votes (0.36 percent of the total). But unless something odd happens, she wont make anyone forget Ralph Nader  or Henry Wallace.
Representative John Lewis, who initiated the sit-in, spoke to protesters outside the Capitol. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Democrats called off their gun-control sit-in Thursday afternoon  a protest that lasted more than 25 hours. Democrats had seized the House floor Wednesday, staging a sit-in that turned chaotic overnight, with lawmakers chanting over Paul Ryan and breaking into song as he attempted to resume House business, and one representative  Louie Gohmert of Texas  engaging in a shouting match with Democrats holding the podium.

Democrats held firm through Thursday morning, though the House had already adjourned for a long July 4 holiday  without any vote on gun-control legislation. Democratic lawmakers indicated that their protest was suspended but not over, and that theyd be resuming the battle once lawmakers returned to session. We must never, ever give up or give in, declared Representative John Lewis, who kicked off the sit-in Wednesday. We must come back here on July 5 more determined than ever.

Lewis, whos well-known for his leadership during the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, called the sit-in to force a vote on two gun-control measures: one that would expand background checks to those who purchase guns at gun shows and online, and another that would allow the attorney general to keep anyone on the governments no-fly list from buying a gun, barring an appeal. Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary, Lewis said as he began the sit-in. There comes a time when you have to say something, when you have to make a little noise, when you have to move your feet. Now is the time to get in the way.

He and fellow Democrats continued the sit-in all day Wednesday, but as the hour drew later, tensions rose. House Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to regain the floor around 10 p.m. EST, but he was shouted down by chants of No bill, no break! as Democrats brandished signs bearing the names of shooting victims.

BREAKING: House floor back open, Dems chanting "no bill, no break" as Paul Ryan speaks https://t.co/cfzkdPrpez https://t.co/R4xfH37agq  MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 23, 2016

Dems ALL shouting. Signs everywhere with names of gun violence victims. Ryan drowned out. I've never seen anything like this in the House.  Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) June 23, 2016

After being shut down, Ryan  who earlier called the sit-in a publicity stunt  walked off the House floor.

As he walked out, cameras and microphones in the chamber (which are controlled by the majority party) were turned off, effectively keeping C-SPAN from broadcasting the sit-in. But representatives used their phones to stream video to sites like Periscope and Facebook Live, and C-SPAN circumvented the blackout by picking up those live streams and broadcasting them instead. (This is the first time C-SPAN has ever broadcast Periscope feeds.)

C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras. Now showing a @periscopeco from @RepScottPeters. pic.twitter.com/L3JeHuSdL5  CSPAN (@cspan) June 22, 2016

Recording devices arent technically allowed on the House floor, but Democrats held on to their cell phones despite the rule. According to the Chicago Tribune, Representative Tammy Duckworth  an Iraq War veteran  removed her leg prosthetics and secreted her smartphone inside one of them so the phone wouldnt be taken away.

With official broadcasts suspended in the House, weve created a channel to follow #NoBillNoBreak on #Periscope live pic.twitter.com/1xM0QGqvzh  Periscope TV (@periscopetv) June 22, 2016

About a half-hour after Ryan walked out, House Democrats broke into the popular protest anthem We Shall Overcome.

JUST IN: House Democrats sing "We Shall Overcome" on House floor. Tune in to MSNBC for the latest. https://t.co/HOtELgWSfo  MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 23, 2016

As the night progressed, tensions flared. When noise in the chamber began to rise, one congresswoman said, I know its hard, but try to have some respect for your colleague. Minutes later, Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas confronted one of the speakers, shouting, Radical Islam killed these people.

Louie Gohmert shouting at Corrine Brown of Florida. Bill Flores trying to pull him away. This is getting ugly  Abby Livingston (@TexasTribAbby) June 23, 2016

a very red-faced Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) is yelling at Brad Sherman (D-Calif) to talk about radical islam  Karoun Demirjian (@karoun) June 23, 2016

Was physical jostling happening as Rs (Gohmer and Steve King) fought Ds over who should have podium. Even though the House isn't in session.  Karoun Demirjian (@karoun) June 23, 2016

Names of Democratic speakers continued to be announced throughout the night, and each lawmaker discussed gun control in America and vowed not to leave the chamber until Republicans agreed to vote on both measures. Many shared personal stories about constituents, friends, and family members affected by gun violence, and Representative Debbie Dingell gave an impassioned speech about being threatened at gunpoint as a child.

This gave me goosebumps, listening & watching to the power of @RepDebDingell's emotion at #NoBillNoBreak pic.twitter.com/hXAkrcCzDJ  igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 23, 2016

Michigan representative Sander Levin, who told the House he began pushing for gun control just after the Kennedy assassination, said the sit-in felt like a watershed moment. I think this may turn out to be a Selma-like moment relating to gun violence in the United States of America, he said. Gun violence in this country needs a turning point, and we Democrats are going to stay here until it happens.

Some, like Representative Stephen Lynch, said they were uncomfortable with the idea of breaking the rules, but their caused justified it. Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called himself a rule guy, and said that when Lewis first approached him with the idea of a sit-in, he hesitated. But when they shut off the cameras and they shut off the microphones, he said, well, then its time to get into some good trouble.

As Wednesday night turned into Thursday morning, lawmakers brought pillows and blankets into the chamber, and Senator Elizabeth Warren made a Dunkin Donuts run.

Sen Warren just said, "I just brought Dunkin Donuts!" House #Dems applaud loudly. #NoBillNoBreak  Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) June 23, 2016

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Capitol building to show their support for the lawmakers within.

Hundreds of people are outside of the @uscapitol at 9:30 PM. Men, women & children, standing & sharing pic.twitter.com/S37lpv2bWI  Alex Howard (@digiphile) June 23, 2016

John Lewis and a few other Dems just came outside and talked to protesters. Crowd went bananas. pic.twitter.com/sWZ2Br5mH4  Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) June 23, 2016

The House reconvened at about 3 a.m. EST not to vote on either gun-control bill, but to rule on a bill that would fund the ongoing fight against Zika. The House approved $1.1 billion to fight the virus  far less than Barack Obamas requested $1.9 billion  and Republican representatives left Capitol Hill to reassemble in July.

Democrats were understandably displeased. The Republicans are leaving town with unfinished business, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters outside the Capitol as officials closed the doors to the House. The American people should not be happy about that, and I dont think they will be happy about that, and you bet your sweet life the fight will continue.

Hoyer also suggested, after the sit-in, that Democrats, at least, would be working over their holiday break, trying to drum up support among constituents in their districts for these measures.

This post has been updated throughout.
Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP

The fact that Donald Trump is the putative nominee of the political party the Christian right has sworn fealty to helps explain why upward of a thousand self-designated leaders of The Cause showed up Tuesday in New York for a close encounter with the wiggy mogul. Their curiosity about this tabloid character turned supposed nationalist crusader, and their need for reassurance, were obvious, too.

What did not happen, according to the usually reliable Tim Alberta of National Review, was any sort of collective laying-on-of-hands from the throng. Most of the leaders had already reconciled themselves to voting for Trump. But hardly anyone new endorsed him, and the crusade atmosphere to which so many of them are accustomed in their political endeavors seemed to be lacking, despite cheerleading efforts from churchy pols like Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, and Ralph Reed.

One problem is that Trump underperformed, taking only a fraction of the questions attendees had for him and pretty much repeating past pledges to appoint anti-abortion judges and protect the religious liberty to discriminate against godless people, especially th0se abominable sodomites. Its extremely obvious that while hes willing to sign onto the Christian rights litmus tests and repeat its dog whistles, his heart isnt much into it. And his religious conservative audience is generally reciprocating. Theyll vote for him and dutifully say mean stuff about Hillary Clinton. But nobodys pretending theres any sort of conjoining of souls going on.

That could change as the general election grows near. And the lack of enthusiasm might not matter much, since an unenthusiastic vote counts just the same as one cast by a voter psyched out of her or his skull. It does make you wonder, though, who exactly is going to raise the cudgels for Trump if he gets into deep trouble. Lets say for the sake of argument that a revolt develops in Cleveland  maybe not over the identity of the Republican presidential nominee, but over the platform, or the vice-presidential nomination, or the bully-boy atmospherics (especially if violence occurs on Clevelands streets). Are these Christian soldiers going to have Trumps back? Probably not. And if they dont, who will?

The point is that, for all the talk of the passions Trump has aroused, its not that easy to identify a core of his base of support who will be there when he needs them in Cleveland or at other hot spots in the campaign. Overt racists will be loyal but arent that numerous. Jingoists may like him, but they have plenty of other leadership options. And the Christian right is at best meh. Indeed, one of the original Christian-right leaders, longtime home-schooling advocate Michael Farris, argues the conservative Evangelical surrender to Trump represents the very end of the Christian right. Many of his former comrades in the theocratic cause dont agree. But theres not much appetite for fighting about it. And a Donald Trump who doesnt inspire fights is in trouble.
A divided and shorthanded Supreme Court gives an amber light to affirmative action in college admissions. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The much-traveled case wherein Abigail Fisher (who subsequently graduated from LSU four years ago) sued to end consideration of race in admissions decisions by the University of Texas returned to the Supreme Court for a second time this term. In Fisher I, the Court (in an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy) by a 71 margin reversed district- and circuit-court judgments that the universitys consideration of race in admissions was acceptably marginal, and remanded the case for a more detailed questioning of UTs rationale and methods. It sure looked like Kennedy and a Court majority was going to be extremely hard to satisfy.

But today, in Fisher II, Kennedy wrote the opinion for a 43 majority (Justice Kagan participated in an early phase of the case as solicitor general, and thus recused herself), deciding UT had a legitimate interest in student diversity and had exhausted other methods of achieving it before resorting to the marginal use of race-conscious remedies.

In a dissent, Justice Alito expressed the surprise of many other observers at how Kennedy came out in Fisher II: Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case. Alito articulates the conservative view that its almost impossible for race-conscious remedies in this area to survive the strict-scrutiny standard set out by the Court in earlier cases (including Fisher I), and spends many words disputing Kennedys conclusion that UT met the standard or did anything other than repeat vague tributes to the value of diversity. In a separate dissent, Justice Thomas repeated his long-standing contention that any use of race in college admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause.

While this decision was a victory for the beleaguered cause of affirmative action in college admissions, it may not be particularly durable. Kennedys opinion insists that UT (and other schools) must continue to monitor closely the use of race-conscious policies in admissions to keep them as minimal as possible and continue to apply other methods for achieving diversity. In other words, it will remain a case-by-case matter, even with respect to this one schools much-litigated program. And while a 43 decision has the same value as precedent as any other SCOTUS decision, it could more easily be overturned if the Courts composition changes. Had Justice Scalia still lived, of course, its likely Fisher II would have yielded a 44 deadlock like other cases this term (e.g., U.S. v. Texas, the immigration case also decided  or undecided  today).

So the cause of affirmative action in college admissions lives on, but will probably continue to receive constitutional scrutiny for the foreseeable future  say, until Abigail Fishers children are ready to apply to college.
Photo: Gandee Vasan

Cats can be finicky little creatures, refusing at random  or so it seems  to eat the food you purchased for them. If they would bother to seek employment to purchase their own food, this would be a nonissue. But as is, its annoying when they turn up their (cute) noses at even the fanciest of feasts youve bought for them.

But there is, as it happens, some logic to their pickiness. In a study published online last week in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers found that neither smell, nor taste, nor texture makes much of a difference in terms of whether or not a cat will eat a particular food. What matters most, according to their research, is nutrition.

The researchers, who are from the U.K. and Australia, gave cats different flavors of foods over the course of several weeks, some of which seemed very cat-friendly (rabbit, fish) and one of which did not (orange!). At first, the animals went for the rabbit- and fish-flavored foods. But that changed over time. Cats initially selected food based on flavor preferences, but after learning (due to prior exposure) about the nutritional composition of the foods, cats selected foods to reach a particular target balance of protein and fat regardless of added flavors, Adrian Hewson-Hughes, who led the study, told the Discovery News site Seeker, which initially spotted this study. As the study wore on, the cats gravitated to foods with a very particular protein-to-fat ratio, even when that food was flavored a not-typically-cat-friendly orange.

More specifically, their preferred protein-to-fat ratio appeared to be something like 1 to 0.4, which means that 50 percent of their energy is derived from the fat, and 50 percent from the protein. Theyll eat treats, too, of course, for some short-term fun, but over the long haul, they seem to naturally drift toward this nutritional setup.

Just how the cats divine a foods nutritional makeup in this way, on the other hand, is a question for another study. Still, if cats are this attuned to their nutritional needs, one can only assume that they are quietly judging those of us who maybe pay a little less attention to our own.
Photo: Julia Christe

While everybody knows how babies are made, not every government has figured out how to encourage its constituency to reproduce. Indeed, some of the countries that have been the most powerful historically are now facingpopulation disasters and timebombs as their birth rates fall to perilous lows, like Spain (with a total fertility rate of 1.3 babies per woman in a lifetime) and Japan (with a 1.4 fertility rate). These are well below what demographers take to be the replacement rate to maintain a stable population of 2.1 children per woman.

This means that many populations in the West and East Asia are getting smaller (half of Japanese villages will be abandoned by 2040, by one estimation) and older. As populations gray, theres a smaller proportion of people who are actively working  and thus supporting, both through tax dollars and caretaking, the very young and very old in a given country. This can create giant economic problems that are too technical to get into here.

Then theres France.

The French, as one headline recently proclaimed, are the best baby-makers in all of Europe with an impressive 2.01 fertility rate. And this figure reveals something about the reality of how people decide to raise children. As demographerRichard Jackson, the president of the research nonprofit Global Aging Institute, tells Science of Us, theres something perhaps counterintuitive about developed countries: The more women work, the more babies are born.

You might assume the opposite: If fewerwomen worked, families would be better situated to having kids. That was true in developed countries until the 1990s, Jackson says, when womens liberation had become more fully mainstreamed. From then on, if a country didnt have the supports enabling women to both pursue work and family (like flexible labor markets in the U.S. or public child-rearing support in the Nordics), women were given the binary choice of either having kids or pursuing a career  which is why in places like South Korea, where women earn 65 percent less than men and tend to leave the labor force in their 30s, the birthrate has cratered. Its a paradoxical situation, Jackson says: The more traditionalist a culture is about gender roles, the fewer babies peoplehave.

Which brings us, as these things do, to Prussia. Back in the 19th century, that no-longer-extant Germanic state was kind of a big deal, but not as big of a deal as France. In early modern Europe, France had the largest economy and largest population, with Paris being the largest city in Europe. Because of this, Jackson says, France was the first European country to start going through whats called the demographic transition, or the shift from high mortality and high fertility (lots of dying, lots of babies) to low mortality and low fertility (less dying, fewer babies) thanks to increases in crop yields and better public health, like taking care of the water supply, better personal hygiene, and the like. Then, in 1870, Prussia decided to beef with France because Otto von Bismarck, that fly-hat-wearing, social-security-founding instigator, wanted to unify Germany (to put it simply). So he edited a correspondence to make it sound like the king of Prussia had insulted the French ambassador, sending the French people into a warlike paroxysm. Contrary to that countrys previous Napoleonic glory, France gotwrecked by a newly unified Deutschland. At the time, Jackson says, the lowered birthrate was blamed for the loss (an idea consonant with mercantilism, a once-fashionable political philosophy that contended that countrys economic virility rested on its population size). So the French took to what Jackson calls pronatal policy: Regardless of whether the left or right was in power, politicians wanted babies. In this way, baby-friendly policy has been in France way before the 1960s and 1970s, when the womens liberation movement pushed pronatal policy in places like Norway. In babies, as in fashion, the French had it down first.

Because of that long history (thanks, Otto), governmental support for families is baked into French culture like so many buttery croissants. A prime example of this is the Caisse dallocations familiales, or the Family Allowances Fund, which has been around since the 1930s. Not only is there parental leave  moms get their full salary for 16 weeks of maternity leave, and 26 weeks if its her third child  but also family allowances, where mothers of young children are essentially paid by the government, with extra money for the third kid. According to the EU, a full 2.6 percent of the French GDP went to supporting families in 2014.

A lot of this is enabled by the role of French government in public life. The state in France is an expression of what it means to be French, Jackson says, while in the U.S. the trust in the government has cratered over the past 50 years. Theres a parallel sentiment in countries once ruled by Nazis or Fascists: Asking people in Italy, France, or Germany to make babies for the fatherland is a tall order, demographer Laurent Toulemon told The Guardian. This might be most clearly seen in child care: In France, its normal for young mothers to drop their young ones off at state-sponsored (or private) day care  its thought to be part of the childs socialization, Jackson says. In this way, the number of women in the labor force can stay up (and their careers can continue on) while also raising the next generation of fashionistas, beret-makers, or whatever it is French people do. Thats what France understands, and what Mediterranean Europe and East Asia are seemingly missing: When culture and government make it possible to combine work and family, it gets way easier for women (and men) to have it all. And the babies follow.
Xiangnan Li strangled his girlfriend and stuffed her body into the trunk of a car. Photo: Courtesy of CNN

A Chinese man who strangled his girlfriend while they were college students in Iowa was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday. He stuffed her body in the back of her car, fled to China, and was on the run for months. Her parents wanted a death penalty.

Twenty-year-old Shao Tong, also Chinese, was a junior international student at Iowa State University, where she studied chemical engineering. Her boyfriend Xiangnan Li, then 23, studied business two hours away at the University of Iowa but would come to visit. In September 2014, he called Tong but she didnt realize she had picked up the phone; for 30 minutes, he listened to her complain about him to a friend. That same day, Li purchased a one-way flight to China.

Two days later, the couple checked into Room 218 at a nearby Budget Inn. On Sunday, September 7, Li strangled Tong to death in the room. He bought a suitcase and two barbells, planning to sink her body in a nearby pond, but chose to stuff her in the back of her Toyota Camry instead, wrapping a hotel towel around her head. He left the room in a hurry, leaving milk on the counter and a packed suitcase by the door, and texted one of Tongs roommates from her phone: She would be gone for a week, on a bus trip to see friends in Minnesota, while Li had flown to China for an emergency. In reality, Li flew to China Monday morning, where he would be on the run for months.

Shao Tong. Photo: Courtesy of Facebook/Tong Shao

Over a week passed, and Tongs roommate reported her missing. Weeks after the murder, on September 26, police found her body in the trunk of her Toyota Camry, parked outside an apartment complex on the outskirts of Iowa City. They found copies of Lis flight information in the backseat; in the hotel room, there were splatters and drips of various dried liquids everywhere, including behind the beds headboards.

Li was missing until May 2015, when he turned himself in to Chinese police and was charged with intentional homicide in June 2015. Tongs family waited over a year before Li appeared in Chinese court last March; before the trial, his parents reportedly begged Tongs parents for forgiveness and gave them two million yuan, or $308,000.

In court, Li pleaded guilty and called the murder irrational and impulsive but said it wasnt premeditated, insisting he was deeply in love with Tong but that she was seeing other men. He begged for a more lenient sentence than the death penalty, but Chinese officials delayed the case, saying they wouldnt release a final verdict or sentence for up to six months.

On Wednesday in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, Li was found guilty of intentional homicide and sentenced to life in Chinese prison. According to CNN, a court statement said Lis crime deserved a more lenient sentence because Li voluntarily gave himself up and has strongly expressed remorse. Under Chinese Criminal Law, his life sentence could also be reduced  to no less than 13 years in jail.

Shao Chunsheng, Tongs father, told CNN he and his wife werent satisfied  they had wanted a death sentence with reprieve, meaning Li would be executed only if he committed another crime in the next two years. But what can we do? he said. We can only accept the judgment.
Representative Dingell has spoken out about her experience before. Photo: Tom Williams/2016 CQ-Roll Call, Inc.

On Wednesday morning, Democratic lawmakers launched a sit-in to force a vote on gun-control measures, and as of early Thursday morning they show no signs of going home  Elizabeth Warren even made a Dunkin Donuts delivery. Throughout the sit-in, lawmakers have come up to the podium one by one to share stories of how gun violence has affected their friends, family, and the collective psyche of the country. One of the most powerful speeches of the night came from Michigan representative Debbie Dingell, who spoke to the chamber about her own experience with gun violence.

This gave me goosebumps, listening & watching to the power of @RepDebDingell's emotion at #NoBillNoBreak pic.twitter.com/hXAkrcCzDJ  igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 23, 2016

As so many of my colleagues have talked about, we dont focus on whats happening every day, she began. We dont focus on the daily shootings or how our young people are beginning to accept that thats just what happens. And we dont focus on who has access. She went on to describe how she was threatened at gunpoint as a child:

I lived in a house with a man that should not have had a gun. I know what its like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you are going to live. And I know what its like to hide in a closet and pray to god, Do not let anything happen to me. And we dont talk about it, we dont want to say that it happens in all kinds of households, and we still live in a society where we will let a convicted villain who was stalking somebody of domestic abuse, still own a gun.

Dingell went on to say she doesnt want to target those who are wrongfully on the governments no-fly list (one of the measures Democrats support would ban anyone on that list from purchasing a firearm). But she does want Republicans to put the bill up for a vote: How can we protect somebodys civil liberties if you wont come to the table and have the discussion?

She continued: The point of this discussion is that weve got to stop spouting talking points, and weve got to come and figure out how were going to make this nation safer. And were not going to do it until we start to change the dialogue.
Is Instagram making everyone look too similar? Photo: Darren Robb/Getty Images

Social media is the worst thing thats ever happened to the beauty industry, says celebrity makeup artist Pati Dubroff. Its a strange thing to hear from someone who just received over a thousand Likes for a picture of her client Emilia Clarkes makeup. But speaking on the phone from California, Dubroff doesnt falter.

The other day [makeup artist and YouTuber] Lisa Eldridge posted a video calling social media the best thing to ever happen to beauty. I saw that and went, Ugh!! On the one hand, social media has given a broader, bigger voice to beauty professionals. But sadly, its also given a big voice to non-professional beauty enthusiasts claiming to be professionals. All they do is their own makeup, and its extremely filtered and manipulated. Theres no lifelike quality to it! Dubroff says, her voice rising.

Whisper the words Instagram makeup in a room full of celebrity makeup artists, and its like you just shouted, Orange bronzer. The phrase was popularized when beauty expert Wayne Goss called out the Instagram eyebrow, a dramatic, faded-out eyebrow that he described as a really frightening thing. Thousands of commenters chimed in to agree. The Instagram eyebrow has since given way to Instagram contouring, highlighting, eye makeup, and lips. Although Instagram face isnt a coined phrase yet, makeup artists recognize the apps aesthetic when they see it, and most of them hate it.

Youve most likely seen Instagram faces before. They may appear in your Instagram popular feed, showing people with cartoon-smooth skin, perfectly defined flicky eyeliner, cheekbones carved like marble, and strobing so shiny it creates what one makeup artist jokingly described to me as C3PO cheek. The biggest beauty influencers on the app mostly do Instagram makeup, posting daily selfies, breakdowns of the look, and how-to videos that condense the flurry of baking, highlighting, contouring, and beat into a slick minute.

And right now, Instagram makeup is getting all of the Likes. There isnt much overlap between those the beauty industry views as its biggest influencers (celebrity, editorial, and fashion-makeup artists like Yadim, Charlotte Tilbury, Hung Vanngo, Sir John, and Pat McGrath) and the apps most popular users.

Naomi Giannopoulos has never worked with Steven Meisel or for Prada, and she isnt a household name. But her Instagram handle @Vegas_Nay has 7.8 million followers, thanks to her consistent beauty posts. Compare that with McGrath, whose account has 843,000 followers  granted, she only started it last year. A few months ago, McGrath posted a photo of model Stella Maxwell wearing dark, black-rimmed eyeliner from the Versace show, and received almost 7,000 Likes. But a video Giannopoulos posted of a bare-faced model transforming into a full-face of Instagram makeup received 635,000 Likes.

Brands are also feeling the positive effect of collaborating with Instagram makeup-centric beauty influencers. One of Becca Cosmetics most popular collaborations to date was with YouTube and Instagram makeup star Jaclyn Hill. Their first collaboration, a highlighter called Champagne Pop thats glows so much Hill said it could send signals to space, sold 25,000 units in 20 minutes, reported WWD. Their follow-up, which included a second Champagne Pop palette, sold 20,000 in 90 minutes during a preview.

Theres a feeling of it being ubiquitous, and maybe a bit pedestrian, admits makeup artist Troy Surratt, creator of Surratt Beauty. Robotic, soulless, and identical are a few of the other words that makeup artists have used to describe the look to me. In a way, theyre not wrong, at least about it being pervasive.

Instagrams beauty posters tend to look like theyre all the same woman, and that woman is Kim Kardashian. Thanks to hundreds of Get the Look tutorials, its never been easier to strobe and contour yourself into a facsimile of the star. So no wonder theres a cloning effect: If youre using the same makeup palettes and lip colors, when you follow the formula, you look the same, says celebrity makeup artist Nick Barose.

Of course, Kardashian is one of the most famous women in the world, not to mention a beauty ideal. (As Tina Fey wrote in Bossypants, she looks like she was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.) Had Instagram existed when Friends was at its peak, it would have been flooded with pictures of Rachel hair. But what makes Kim especially perfect for the app isnt just her level of celebrity: Its the fact that she prepares her face with the meticulousness of someone who knows shes going to be photographed by E! Camera crews and paparazzi all day long.

With the ubiquity of phone cameras, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, even non-celebrities can feel the pressure to look camera-ready at all times. A few weeks ago, I attended a beauty event full of Instagram beauty influencers. In person, I thought the full-on Instagram makeup beat that many of them wore seemed a little extreme for daily wear. The collective beams coming off their highlighters were Batman-signal-like in glow. But as they crowded into the photo booth and their images flashed across a giant LED screen for everyone to see, they looked flawless. Meanwhile, with my everyday, natural makeup, I looked shiny, imperfect, and amateur-like in comparison.

The trick to Instagram makeup is that its about doing a face for your online life, rather than your everyday life. In the real world, things like Instagram makeup just wont work. I dont contour too much because it makes people unrecognizable. I dont want to give them new faces. As makeup artists, we have no control over the light or what angles people are going to shoot at. Instagram is a controlled situation, a little square you can manipulate, says Barose.

Ive seen [Instagram makeup] before in real life, and its really off-putting, says Dubroff. Ive seen it at the grocery store with the girl ringing me up. I was at LACMA the other day and there was this girl in her mid-20s, but she looked like she was 40, with heavy contour that was not well-blended. My daughter who is 13 said, Oh my god, look. That looks so ugly. If youre getting an A-lister ready for an elegant event, you want the skin to look like skin. Not like you have this crazy mask. You would be melting!

A bit of makeup-artist elitism may be coming into play here. Many of the Instagram beauty influencers on the app, despite being hugely popular, havent taken the typical path to beauty-industry success. Theyve never assisted Francois Nars, worked on Diane Kendals team, or spent time backstage at Paris Fashion Week. Few have ever worked on an editorial shoot. Instagram makeup has sort of democratized beauty. Now were discovering talented people who didnt assist and have built a body of work. Its a new way to get there, explains Surratt.

Instagram beauty influencers are aware of the makeup derision, and even agree. When I asked Teni Panosian, an Instagram beauty influencer with 500,000 followers, if she wore the same makeup as that seen on her app on a daily basis, she was vehement. Oh no, no no. On my Snapchat, you might see me in, like, 20-percent-level makeup. Instagram makeup doesnt translate to daily life. If I go all out, its because Im doing a video. People like [Instagram makeup] because its eye-catching and entertaining.

Others shrug it off. Karen Sarahi Gonzalez of ILuvSarahii, an account with 880,000 followers says, Yes, I do Instagram makeup. I look so different without it. It doesnt change a persons insides. Maybe this makeup can give them more confidence. A lot of us have insecurities. If makeup can make you feel better, Im all about that.

I just dont want young girls to think this is how they have to present themselves all the time. But I know that being a makeup artist is like being an illusionist, says Dubroff.

Surratt adds, At some level, its all artifice, and as RuPaul says, its all drag. We all wake up and put on our drag for the day. To categorize it as lowbrow or highbrow, it all gets complicated.
Stanford students protesting Turners sentence at their graduation Photo: GABRIELLE LURIE/AFP/Getty Images

In March, Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of three counts of sexual assault after he was found attacking an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. In June, he was sentenced to six months in county jail, of which he will serve only three.





Now, the Santa Clara district attorneys office is taking action to prevent someone convicted of sexual assault from ever receiving a similarly lenient sentence. On Wednesday, District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced a new bill thats co-sponsored by various Northern California legislators. Bill AB2888 would make the mandatory minimum punishment for sexually assaulting an unconscious person the same as if they were to sexually assault a conscious person: three years in prison.

Rosen read from the Stanford victims powerful victim-impact statement during his announcement, then added, Weve read her letter. Now lets give her back something beyond worldwide sympathy and anger. Lets give her a legacy that will send the next Brock Turner to prison.
The Oberlin Alumni Magazine asked four of them how they got into the field, with this prompt:

"I wasnt a journalism major, but..."

Oberlin alumni journalists reflect on their roundabout routes into their field.

For a school with no journalism major, Oberlin produces more than its fair share of journalists. They work in every medium and at every level of the field, ranging from senior editors at long-standing publications to bloggers at fledgling startups.

Recognizing the great wealth of talent among its alumni, the staff of the Oberlin Review  led by editor-in-chief John Light 11 and commentary editor Monica Klein 11  organized a two-day symposium last April 7 and 8 featuring 16 alumni journalists who discussed the topic "Objectivity in the Age of New Media".

Objectivity in the Age of New Media Symposium alumni participants:

In addition to those whose words appear here, the symposium featured the following:

Melissa Fay Greene 75,

award-winning investigative journalist and author of five books, including the recent No Biking in the House Without a Helmet.

award-winning investigative journalist and author of five books, including the recent No Biking in the House Without a Helmet. Chris Jenkins 93,

staff writer on the local desk,

Washington Post

staff writer on the local desk, Washington Post Kate Julian 00, editor,

Double X and Slate

editor, Double X and Slate Lisa Abend 86,

food critic and Spain correspondent, TIME magazine

food critic and Spain correspondent, TIME magazine Emily Nussbaum 88,

TV critic, New York magazine

TV critic, New York magazine Joe Richman 87, founder and producer,

Radio Diaries

founder and producer, Radio Diaries Alex Blumberg 89, producer,

Planet Money, This American Life

producer, Planet Money, This American Life Ben Calhoun 01 , producer,

This American Life

, producer, This American Life Robert Krulwich 69, host,

Radiolab

host, Radiolab Peter Baker 88,

senior White House correspondent, New York Times

Panels were moderated by Tom Rosenstiel 78, founder of the Pew Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism; Anne Trubek 88, arts writer, author of A Skeptics Guide to Writers Houses, and, until June, associate professor at Oberlin College; and Geoff Pingree, associate professor and director of cinema studies at Oberlin and Emmy-winning documentary writer, photographer, and filmmaker.

One panelist, Aaron Zitner 84, politics editor at the Wall Street Journal, had to cancel at the last minute to cover a looming possibility that the government might shut down.

Melanie Eversley 83

I wasnt a journalism major, but I tried my best to expose myself to the craft as much as possible while at Oberlin.

I wrote and edited for the Oberlin Review. I joined the news staff of WOBC. I enrolled in the couple of journalism classes offered. I was editor of a publication called Nommo, which means "power of the word" in an African language.

But the experiences that most helped steer me toward journalism had more to do with sociology, a subject I discovered at Oberlin.

Professor of Sociology Albert McQueen 52, a dapper, pleasant man who reminded me of my dad, had a talent for boiling down an entire segment of the American experience into a two-hour lecture that put everything into historical perspective. His style made concepts easy to absorb. He sometimes paced with his hands in his pockets as he talked in a quiet, polished voice. I still remember a particularly penetrating lecture on the history of Native Americans that neatly traced their history in this country, from mistreatment by the federal government to modern-day social challenges they continue to face.

I learned from Professor McQueen that a well-told story educates people. Whether exploring the real story underneath the gun control debate or the national impact of the 1965 death of a black man in Marion, Alabama, Ive found myself trying to write the way Professor McQueen lectured, by explaining a situation in a way that easily helps people understand its place in the world.

Professor William Norris [who also taught sociology] introduced me to concepts about cities and urban sociology that not only helped drive my reporting later, but also helped me see the value in questioning why places are set up the way they are and what institutions helped them get that way. He taught me the value of peeking behind the curtain.

I remember one concept he taught that asserted that barriers in communities  railroad tracks, streets that suddenly end  are purposeful and sometimes used by city planners to separate neighborhoods. When I write about cities now, I find myself still looking at how theyre laid out and who lives where. It was interesting for me to also come across this concept while reading Gloria Naylors The Women of Brewster Place. The book trails the lives of residents of a dead-end street.

As with most things in life, it was not until I left college and joined the working world that I came to appreciate these experiences. Thank you, Oberlin.

David Schlesinger 82

I have never committed an act of journalism within Oberlins borders.

In high school in Connecticut, journalism was a great escape  I simultaneously edited both the official school paper and the subversive underground one. But when I got to Oberlin, I was seduced by the Chinese language, by the work, by my friends, and by myriad other things and so never got near the Review or anything to do with journalism.

What Oberlin gave me, however, was perfect.

It gave me a specialty.

It gave me an expertise in area studies.

It gave me a language.

It gave me tremendous opportunities to explore and write about subjects I was interested in on my own in individual readings classes.

It gave me the courage to set out on my own to live in Taiwan as a student and then in Hong Kong after graduation.

So I was a "China person" long before I was a journalist. The journalism came later, as a way to support my China habit.

After Hong Kong, I went to Harvard for graduate studies, toying with the idea of being an academic.

One day, however, in a seminar on Daoism run by Tu Wei-ming, himself a philosopher as well as a professor of philosophy, the great man stopped the discussion and in front of everyone turned to me and said:

"Do you know what your problem is?"

"No, oh great sage, enlighten me," I said  or words to that effect.

"You," he said, "You like closure."

And that was it. In a blinding moment of insight I realized he was right. I liked to explore and learn...but I also liked to move on. The life of a graduate student with completed dissertation a decade in the future was simply not for me. Maybe journalism, with its deadline every second, was more suited to my personality.

I swiftly rewrote a lengthy seminar paper Id prepared for a government course into an article I managed to sell to the Far Eastern Economic Review, and that was that. I had my "clip." I was published. Id been paid. I was a journalist.

I parlayed that clip into a job at the Hong Kong Standard newspaper, then into a vast variety of freelance gigs, most notably and profitably at Newsweek. And then I got hired by Reuters, and a quarter century later Im still here.

But crucial to that journey was the language, the specialization, and the love of independent learning I got at Oberlin.

Chana Joffe-Walt 03

When I was at Oberlin it never occurred to me that I was trying to build a path to journalism. I never wrote for the Review or worked at WOBC. (I should have  that would have made my post-Oberlin years a lot easier.) Instead I took sculpture classes and covered my sculptures with photojournalism torn out of magazines.

In my experimental photo class I did not experiment with infrared or artistic shapes. I shot endless series of portraits (drag ball, postal workers). Somehow, signing up for creative writing courses never occurred to me. Instead I went to great efforts to create an independent study where I could write personal essays. Nothing I did ever quite fit the curriculum, but I was always allowed the freedom to do it anyway.

I graduated with no practical journalism skills. But there were no journalism jobs to slot into anyway; a journalism degree would not have helped me. After graduation I got a gig teaching photography at the Center for Documentary Studies. I watched 12-year-olds learn how to record interviews and put together audio stories and realized thats what I wanted to do. I wanted a job in public radio, but there wasnt a clear path to get there. I continued to try to learn journalism in somewhat inappropriate contexts (doing stories about/with my students) and to teach myself. It turned out teaching myself was the only viable path into public radio. I had to make stories on my own and get them on the air before anyone would even give me an internship.

I now realize I was trying to learn the craft of storytelling and trying to get Oberlin to teach me. Strangely, Oberlin did. Sort of. I learned to put together a narrative in my own way  which, it turns out, is a lot of what radio journalism is about.

Sara Marcus 99

I wasnt a journalism major, nor even a creative writing major. I had always loved to write, but politically I was a partisan, too passionate about my beliefs to want anything to do with journalistic objectivity. Even if neutrality were achievable, I believed, it would only benefit the status quo.

Believing that my beloved movements suffered from nothing worse than bad PR, I decided I would write the press releases for the revolution. At Oberlin, I appointed myself press contact for any number of student demonstrations, campaigns, and demands. I compiled a handbook for other student groups wanting to do effective media work. I snickered when I saw my manufactured press-release quotes reprinted verbatim in the Lorain Morning Journal.

In the fall of my senior year, I wrote a press release about an upcoming demonstration in Georgia. Several vanloads of Obies, myself included, would be driving down to protest at the U.S. Armys notorious School of the Americas, and I thought the Oberlin Alumni Magazine should cover it.

As it turned out, the Oberlin Alumni Magazine agreed, but with a twist I hadnt counted on. "This press release is really well written," the editor told me. "We want you to cover the protest for us."

That same semester, I was doing research for my honors thesis in English and American studies, which focused on left-wing literary journalists in the 1930s. Many of these writers filed first-person reports from picket lines and protests. It sounds crazy now, but until the OAM gave me my assignment, I hadnt consciously realized how in my thesis research I was actively excavating models of politically engaged literary nonfiction.

After publishing "A Student Perspective: Crossing a Line, Taking a Stand" (OAM, March 1999), I started writing regularly for Oberlin Online News, eventually becoming the student editor for the site. But "Crossing a Line" was the first piece I ever got paid to write. I hung the pay stub over my desk until I graduated. Then I moved to Philadelphia and became a rock critic, and the winding, surprising, enjoyable road went on from there.
So I'm guessing Cersei is going to kill everyone and flounce.

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the camera just turned on i am not a model

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it's for the winter edition of Vogue lol

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lmao same

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He wants to be painted like one of your French Dornish girls tbh.

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so sultry

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How is Bran getting around without Hodor (._.)

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get off the rock

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what is this from? Reverse image searching and googling ain't helping. I keep seeing it and it looks so funny!

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Uncle Benjen's pet elk.

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I'm hoping Arya gets to make some Frey Pies this episode.

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Anyone knows what's gonna happen? I love spoilers



Also I miss Cersei with long hair

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lol this gif is amazing

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Lol irl

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lmao.. i think this is the best explanation for next week's episode

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Right-click+save. I'mma need this for Sunday night....

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thank you for this glorious gift

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Something goes wrong at Cersei's trial.

Arya kills Walder after serving Frey Pie (which is exactly what it sounds like.)

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[ Spoiler (click to open) ]

- Arya returns and kills some Frey(s).

- Benjen takes Bran and Meera to The Wall

- Bran has one more flashback about ToJ. Lyanna being Jon's mother is heavily implied.

- Tommen kills himself, apparently by jumping out of a window

- Some wildfire is unleashed and some Tyrells die. Not sure if both Loras and Margaery or just one of them.

- Septa Unella gets killed by the Mountain

- There's some gathering at Winterfell where Lyanna Mormont speaks up about trusting the Starks and being one of the only ones following them, some other Lords apologize and a "fat" one (might be Manderly) gives a speech and declares Jon the King in the North and a Stark. Sansa is supposed to be in agreement

- Dorne returns in the finale. Presumably Varys is trying to convince them to join Dany

- Jon and Littlefinger finally meet and LF claims he has some big information about Jon (the source claimed this is second hand info so it might not be accurate).



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I'm glad there's more Sansa next week, or I really wouldn't be that bothered about this episode at all. Although I do kinda hope Cersei burns Kings Landing down!

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People actually enjoy show-Sansa?

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I do. i really like sophie turner, and sansa is my fav in the books and i have tried but i can not be one of those people who keeps the books and the show separate. she might not actually be doing the best things, but i love how she's taking control and getting back some of the agency the show has taken away from her for the past five seasons

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I do. I've never read the books and frankly never want to. I rather pretend all this messed up shit isn't happening to children.

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do you ever stop

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This season has been so good. I'm sad it's ending.

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me too and after the past few seasons i never expected i'd feel that way lmao

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KING WALDER <3



pope bernie's about to get his dick sucked

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I feel for you. How will you cope during Walder's scene?

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"pope bernie"



SO I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

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Your time has come, bb

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The High Sanders is always ranting about the noble and how they're beholden to the Iron Bank.

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yaaas i'm so ready for both bernies to gtfo!

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I liked "Barefoot Contessa"

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Loras is gonna die, right? Because didn't his actor get cast in Iron Fist?

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Show!Loras was done so dirty.... One of the greatest knights in Westeros taken down by a couple of asshats with maces... WHILE he was practicing fighting. Ugh. Not to mention his hair. He shoulda been out sieging, not simpering while Margaery pulls all the weight.



I have so many feelings.

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I also dislike what they've done with Loras lol you're not alone!

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Why has nobody taken one for the team and taken out Walder Frey?

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HYPE

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hf daenerys/tyrion scenes, i really enjoyed them last season

i wonder where in westeros arya will show up & if we see more of winterfell, besides davos confronting melisandre

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I think we'll definitely have more scenes in the North.



I'm also hoping for a TOJ conclusion scene since Bran is back this ep.

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i came here to make sure someone made that joke. i leave satisfied.

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lol

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lmaoooo

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OMG!

isaac's eyebrows are amazing

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bb i made i that icon for you ;)

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They really seem to enjoy leaving Jon out of the promo and stills. Not counting last week.

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made some icons from ep.9 :)

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Ughhh I love that shot of Davos. The lighting was insanely perfect and tragic.



Beautiful icons bb!

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yaaaas i have been dying for an icon of queen lyanna

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Bless you!

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yess taking lyanna and my good ship danyara!



also fuck me why do i find jon attractive now

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I NEVER found John that attractive before this episode. He's always been a pretty boy to me which isn't really my type but something clicked in this episode man. I dunno what it is.

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i always look forward to your icons but imgbox does not seem to be working for me. can anyone help?

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taking miss badass :)

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lyanna mormont is a gem. one of the few 100% perfect things the show has done.

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i took ur sansa icons she looked amazing this episode

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u tha best

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Snagging bloody Jon :-)

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YAY JON ICONS! Thank you bb <33

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Taking a few : ) thnks!

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thank you. took johnsus's icon

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Took the Lyanna Mormont sass face icon <3

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feel sad for them but i feel like people keep burying their heads in the sand with MJ, public and family included

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I think a lot of his family members defend him because their lifestyles/careers are dependent on him. It seems like a LOT of his nieces/nephews live off his estate's money, and those who don't seem to rely on Michael's fan's support for their careers. His former sister-in-law, along w/her kids, seems to be hankering for a reality show & his nephews had a reality show where they just reminded people that he's their uncle, LMAO, kind of embarrassing.

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I think a lot of people don't want to hear about this because he's dead and they want his legacy kept alive. That totally negates what he did and what the victims are still going through. I think a lot of people are in denial because of his public image but it's not like it couldn't have happened.

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Idk why she even has public SM accounts, she doesn't seem to handle the attention well AT ALL. Every time I hear about her, she's getting into fights in her IG comments.

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PS - Star Magazine, Radar Online, Jason Alexander and the rest of you liars, Ya'll can kiss my lily white southern Louisiana ass!  Britney Spears (@britneyspears) December 2, 2010





Edited at 2016-06-22 11:53 pm (UTC) did the source have any receipts? i don't wanna be an MJ apologist but like... it was Radar Online

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lol omg go in brit

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I couldn't really figure it out. The way the SB Sheriff department worded their statement, it seemed like the source was actual legal documents related to the case BUT they said some of the photos were collected from the internet...? My legal sleuthing skillz are for shit, sry.

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that's what she is tho, she's not off base

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ia

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it's part of her suthern charm!

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is this a common thing? I have literally never heard it in my life lol

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does it matter? think there's enough evidence regardless

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http://champagnepadre.tumblr.com/post/146326164271/proven-false-lmao-i-guess-the-pictures-of-the



Idk man Idk man

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the true kween!

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this. idg why other outlets arent reporting on this

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i always wonder what it must feel like to find out someone you love committed a crime or did something heinous



I'm sure there would be telltale signs if you personally know them.

My friend's uncle worked at our school (as a class assistant or something) and would hover around me and stare at me throughout the class. I think we were like 12 and I'd complain to her and she'd feel really uncomfortable having to choose a side. He worked at our school for a while then mysteriously disappeared.

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There can't possibly always be signs, though. Like today I was reading about that woman who was murdered by her husband while scuba diving in Australia in 2003. They were on their honeymoon. Like she'd known this guy long enough to marry him and she trusted him enough to let him take her into a dangerous situation (she had JUST gotten certified and BARELY knew how to dive, and this was an advanced dive, not newbie tourist shit), and the first thing he does after they get married is turn her air off and drown her for the life insurance money.



It's terrifying because clearly people who are fucking garbage manage to fool the people closest to them all the time.

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It feels unreal, like you are disgusted and it is atrocious but you know the person and paint others like them in a bad light and wonder why you can't do the same for them. It is hard to do it to that person, especially when you've given them your trust and would never enclose them in such atrocities. But they did it, they admitted to the crime, and have been "punished" (convicted) for it; their life, the survivor's life and your life, although minimal compared to the survivors', goes on.



It is awkward, you wonder if they'll ever contact you or run into you and if they do, what exactly do you say? Do you allow the elephant in the room to exist or do you dismiss yourself and tell them you don't want anything to do with them? I mean, they've done nothing to you personally but they did exist in your world and acted as if all was well, all along they've delved into something unforgivable and vile.



It wasn't a family member or anything, it was a friend reading the newspapers about what they did and knowing the face they did it to...just doesn't not compute. But when you piece things together, the little things in order to make sense out of it, if any can be made, it goes right back to the beginning where you're thinking, is the survivor alright? How is their day to day life? Are they away from harm? etc... just writing this makes it real again, and reading back what I wrote I'm left again to think...how did I even miss this? I consider myself to be quite astute but in this case I missed it. Not a good feeling at all.

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Its awful. I couldn't say anything or stand up to it because I was afraid of being beat to death. You're like how? How can someone in my family DO something so disgusting? I was in denial for a very long time. It takes its toll and I'm left with so many scars and issues. I feel so much for Paris.

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Last month i happened to check out an old Michael Jackson post from around 2013 and I was surprised that it was such a mess.

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LMAO That's why i was in the post, i was trying to remember the u/n of the person who would always claim Michael Jackson was an adult baby.



The post was about Wade Robson but seriously a lot of regulars here who aren't trolls were basically calling him a liar. Complete opposite of what you'd expect from a post like that today.

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oh god I did the same like two weeks ago, some of the comments were truly appalling, that adult baby shit was laughable

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lmao when wade went public about mj molesting him I used to go hard in those posts and I STILL get email notification replies from delusional ass stans



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omg tough times

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sorry kid i know it's hard to accept but your dad did some disgusting shit

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It would be really difficult to admit your father was a terrible human, especially if he was nothing but loving and caring to you. I hope Paris will be able to come to terms with it in a healthy way someday.

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ia

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ia x2

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And the fact she lost him at a young age. She never had that moment of realizing her dad is a complicated human being with faults.

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Exactly. I feel terrible for the Jackson siblings. Their gonna be dealing with this for the rest of their lives

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Yea, I agree. :(

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MTE. I imagine that it will probably take her years to even come to a point where she can even think about it.

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IA totally

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Poor Paris

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I feel bad for her - I totally get she why she wouldn't want to believe it, I mean,i wouldn't if it was my parent.

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I think Michael Jackson is trash, and a pedo, and he got away with molesting kids, cuz he had money.



SADLY cuz of his bullshit his poor children have to suffer, and they've been through enough. This is a shitty situation all the way around, and it's easy to believe Michael was disgusting, cuz well........



I'm sure the money to pay people to shut up probably ran out by now, the guy has been dead for almost 10 years. Who knows.



But fuck the Jacko apologists too.



I hope there is more proof and more receipts.









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He's worth more dead than alive. Supposedly he was millions in debt before he died but now, per google anyway, he's the highest earning dead celebrity ($115m in 2015).

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DAYUM.



Hmm I wonder if his assets stopped paying the "STFU Money" who knows.



Like, I wish he wasn't gross. I REALLY DO. I wish he didn't do that nasty shit he did.



I also wish that the parents KNOWING he was accused of this, didn't pimp their kids out. it's so sick.



Edited at 2016-06-23 12:03 am (UTC)

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the report got me so fucking angry, he knew exactly what he was doing, iirc NAMBLA recommends those books specifically because you can't get into legal trouble with them because they're ~art :/

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*PUKES* all over.

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idg how he'd use the books tbh. what role do they play??? plz explain??? i was very sheltered as a child ok plz don't come for me ontd!!!

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it's been 7 years already?

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eh, she's his child. of course she's gonna defend him.

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I realise how difficult it must be and I do feel for her



but Michael Jackson was trash and I yearn for the day people finally stop defending the sicko

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I totally believe the accusations but I'm honestly not bothered if his children do not, so long as they don't start lashing out at his victims.

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By posting stuff like this they're publicly insinuating that the victims are liars and supporting people who harass MJ's victims so I wouldn't really call it harmless..

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Here's his speech from earlier today



https://price.house.gov/press-releases/price-supports-prohibiting-suspected-terrorists-from-buying-guns/



I called and thanked him. Please do the same if your representative is participating! And urge them to support gun control and the equality act that will amend civil rights act of 1964 to include sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. It was introduced in 2015 and they won't bring it to the floor for a vote.



https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3185



Edited at 2016-06-23 12:31 am (UTC) I'm glad my representative took partHere's his speech from earlier todayI called and thanked him. Please do the same if your representative is participating! And urge them to support gun control and the equality act that will amend civil rights act of 1964 to include sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. It was introduced in 2015 and they won't bring it to the floor for a vote.

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Love David Price! He used to be my rep and has always been consistent

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I know for once I could actually be proud of something a Georgia congressmen did.

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i stand with the sit-in

enough is enough with the bullshit

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The @HouseGOP may run from a vote for common-sense gun measures, but they cant hide. #NoBillNoBreak pic.twitter.com/TMnjPmJClS  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 22, 2016





Edited at 2016-06-23 12:38 am (UTC) Yaass John Lewis is the man. And they're wearing rainbow ribbons too, bless. Let's hope this queen is Hillary's VP pick!

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Yasss werk house democratic sit in





I'm with ha, etc

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Someone explain this to me: didn't they just have a vote and the republicans voted no? Is another vote gonna have a different outcome?

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That was in the Senate. These are members of the House of Representatives.

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ok, got it! but do they have the numbers to make the bill pass? or is it gonna be a repeat of last time?

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whats the difference?



/not american

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It's not every day I'm impressed by even a handful of politicians, but today, I am. At least some are actually actively trying.

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Yes, between this and the filibuster I'm glad to know some people in congress are looking out for us.

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ditto, and im sure many of the dems on the floor today feel the same way. they spent 8 years with their balls in their hands and now theyre finally showing backbone.

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mte

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same

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I agree

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cannot believe this is how politics works over there. feeling sorry that these democrats are having to resort to this to be heard

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the no fly list is flawed, but i so appreciate the initiative dems are finally showing. i've been watching throughout the day and it was awesome hearing my rep stand up and speak and represent my interests in the face of gop obstruction.



and FUCK paul ryan



Edited at 2016-06-23 12:34 am (UTC)

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mte on all counts tbh!

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amen

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i hope paul ryan gets fucking scabies

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I hope we hear that he had an affair with Stacey Dash

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I concur re: Paul Ryan.



(I agree with your other statements, but seriously, fuck that guy)

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It's so frustrating when these people who are suppose to be our representives vote no for what the population overwhelmingly wants



Someone on Twitter responded to every congressmen/women who said their "thoughts and prayers" were with victims of Orlando with how much money they took from the NRA it was glorious.

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Do you actually have to speak to someone if you call? I get anxiety about that shit.

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Someone for my representative's office answered, but if you text to that number and then call, there's a prompt telling you exactly what to say.



You can go, "My name is so and so and I'm a constituent of this representative. I live in City and Zip Code and I am calling to support the sit-in and also to thank my representative for taking part."

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I tried calling, but chickened out. I really get freaked talking to strangers on the phone. I get sweaty scheduling an appointment as a new patient for fuck's sake lol

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reps have email addys.

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I was anxious about calling in, but I got Boxer's VM and left the template message. First time I've ever called my senator. I called the # they had posted on the dias. When it said something about reaching the United States of... I started panicking a little thinking, "Now they'll be watching me." Silliness. 

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Sad that Chris felt the need to qualify his comment.

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can you imagine if he hadn't? smh it's depressing how many people will still go up in arms about what he said.

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marvel is popular with so many different people though. even qualifying won't be enough b/c people know he's saying, "we need gun control."

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sad in the sense that he shouldn't have to?

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omg I had no idea Capuano was his uncle

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Good

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as much as i dont like the kardashians. it is touching how kim continues to tweet about this topic because she has one of the largest followings a celebrity could.

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i feel like she's one of the few celebrities who always says something when terrible things happen.

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i'm glad they're actually putting in effort for once but the terrorist watch list bill is trash. it's not the (capitol) hill to die on.

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symbolically it is. ryan isnt bringing a vote to the floor anyway.

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they could've done the same thing with an expanded background check bill

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John Lewis staging a sit-in Nashville in the 1960s v John Lewis staging a sit-in in Washington in 2016 pic.twitter.com/w2EoTG7fWj  georgia (@normanisreyes) June 22, 2016

So baller:

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king

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i am overwhelmed with love for this man

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oh wow

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what a boss

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Nice

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Amazing

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i need a biopic on this man ASAP

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it's not entirely about him, but he shows up in Selma! the actor they got to play him looks so much like him, it's quite uncanny.

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I love him! We need more politicians like him.

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seeing it gives me chills.

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One of the few bright lights we have in Georgia politics.

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Bless this man.





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omg, love this

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he's like, "tell me resistance never works. try me."

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wow I hope he sees this

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Heroes of our time

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he legit looks evil behind the eyes

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Patrick Bateman realness

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The eating at rose ceremonies was so OTT 

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He's weirdly cute. Smh

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this dude might as well be CEO of a red flag manufacturer because he throws up so many red flags

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Idk... His dating profile suggests otherwise...

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chad is sooooooooo hot



he is physically perfect. And tbh I like his personality too lol...

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Seek help.

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Lollll

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I only liked him on the show because he brought the lulz. Altho this intv with kimmel made me like him a little more, I still think there's something off with him. Can't believe they are bringing someone who threatened other cast members back for the paradise show, lol.

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I agree, I love him. He's hot af.

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I did enjoy how often he was eating. I had no idea those rose ceremonies had food until this season.

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tbh i'd still fuck him because i don't love myself

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going through a 6 month dry spell don't judge me

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I literally said the same thing to my friends

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His lack of cheek bones alarms me.

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None of you love yourself enough. He is so fucking ugly and crazy. He is seriously unhinged. Also most of the guys on the bachelor are so basic and look like they were cut out of the same cutouts

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lmao, especially true with foot-faced Jordan and Chase... they look exactly the same wtf

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Omg i CANNOT tell them apart. I always think it's jordan and then she calls him by another name and i get all ??? Isn't his name jordan? It wasn't until someone pointed it out in a viewing post that i realized there were two separate people lol

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the only thing i could think of when he was walking back towards the house whistling was the producer setup because UnReal



nothing good comes from a guy named chad



Edited at 2016-06-23 03:54 pm (UTC)

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Chad is such...Chad name.

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Eh, I find him attractive. Or maybe it's his openness to trolling that gets to me.



Jordan, OTOH, is a full on dog. He was doing the most yesterday to discredit reports of him having an active dating profile (Raya, that's exclusive to people in entertainment/business)

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Really? Where did you find the scoop at? I believe you because he's disgusting I'm just curious to read it myself

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http://realitysteve.com/2016/06/14/the-bachelorette-jojo-spoilers-grant-jordan-exs-speak-out/4/ this is an interesting read about Jordan

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I love his honesty.

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I like the swimmer guy what's his face.





Jordan is going to be the next Bachelor it's so transparent.

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You think?

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Only in his dreams. He's so obviously full of shit

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isn't wells the fan favourite?

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maybe on ONTD lol

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[ SPOILER ] I heard he won and purposed to Jojo SPOILER

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that's too long I need more Margot X Alana now

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lmao

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Hannibal is the first show that I was obsessed with in years, maybe I've still got my rose colored glasses on but every season was just fantastic from beginning to end...UGH. I do hope it comes back but honestly if it didn't I wouldn't be that bummed, despite the fact that I would totally give Bryan Fuller the benefit of the doubt I think it would be hard to keep up that level of quality.



And not that I need a sexy Hannibal (spare your comments on how he was never sexy, I mostly know that) but Mads is getting old looking lmao.

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He still owes us a Pushing Daisies revival

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mte

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yep

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The show's 10th anniversary is coming up, I see it happening then. And perfect timing too as both Lee and Anna's shows are likely cancelled by then.



But whatever happened to that PD Bway musical he was working on?

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>But whatever happened to that PD Bway musical he was working on?



We were also supposed to get a comic if I recall

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Can we at least have Lee as Buffalo Bill?!

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as much as i love hannibal, it feels like that story has ended. Pushing Daisies on the other hand....forever pressed about the way they ended the series.

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i liked the show a lot, even if it got messy and the long ~artistic ambient shots in S3 bored me, but would be fine with what we got being the end. penny dreadful on the other hand tho ...

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season 3 bored me to death tbh, it started to take itself too seriously

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...it's a psychological drama

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lets not even mention the final season of penny dreadful. i cannot get over the fact they knew it was the last one and went with the story lines they did.

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Sad to say the finale completely ruined the show for me. I waited so long to see the Red Dragon story line and not only did it fall completely flat, but the last few episodes were pure Hannigram fanfiction. And that's coming from someone who really enjoyed their ~relationship. I feel like everything was a total betrayal of Will's character. idk idk. I think I took it extra hard because it was "my show" and then...



Maybe time will heal all wounds.



Edited at 2016-06-23 07:28 pm (UTC)

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you have the right of a wrong opinion! :X



i would have agreed if Will of S3 was the same Will of S1 but because there was something called character development in a different alternative universe where he had the bad luck of being friends with Dr. Lecter, who did everything to destroy the Will we knew, then I can't agree at all.

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Speaking as a huge fan of Francis Dolarhyde and also as someone who doesn't really care about Will as much as most people, I hated S3 because I found Armitage totally underwhelming. I was looking forward to it, to seeing the ~Red Dragon~, and it disappointed me hardcore. When Chilton is outacting Dolarhyde in ~THE~ big scene, you've got a problem. And btw I liked the Hannibal/Bedelia stuff, weird as it was. But Armitage/Dolarhyde soured S3 for me beyond redemption.

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These are mte. I was so excited for Red Dragon, but dang, it fell completely flat, like you said. No better way to describe it. By the end of S3 I was so disappointed...



I'm sure I'll watch any revivals they do, but it was all downhill after an incredible first season.

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OMG, same, so much. I absolutely loved the show at first, but the third season and the finale ruined the show for me and now I'm just a bitter former fan. I love Will Graham as a character and I think the ending definitely ruins him- my Will Graham is the one who in S1, when he thought he was going crazy, still reached out to a killer who broke into his home- the Will Graham in S3 I didn't even recognize anymore and the ending was pure Hannigram fanfic. And Red Dragon, I've been waiting since the show's inception to see their take and they had great actors for the roles, but it was such a rushed and half hearted mess- the scenes/lines they lifted straight from Red Dragon didn't jive with where the characters and show was in S3, so it felt like I was watching two different shows, one was the Hannigram stuff, and the other Red Dragon and it didn't work for me. Molly was wasted and didn't get to kill the Dragon and we didn't get to see a slow breakdown of their marriage, The Dragon was just a pawn between Will and Hannibal and it didn't work for me, Chilton instead of Freddie in the flaming wheelchair, after all the 3 season buildup to it being Freddie just felt like a last minute change and didn't quite work (Will didn't care enough about Chilton to hate him and want to set him up).



It's been so long since the show ended and I still have rants in me, we'll see if time heals this wound.

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It wasn't pure Hannigram fiction because they didn't get to bang or do anything even remotely physical except for the embrace at the end. Fuller should've gone all out with them... he had nothing to lose at that point, lmao. Most of the fandom are Hannigram shippers anyway. Like, if you gonna make your Hannibal Lecter a lovesick fool at least do it properly.

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I didn't even finish season 3 because the beginning didn't pull me in and then I read spoilers of the later episodes and just couldn't bring myself to watch that messy fanfic. I'm such a ~hannigram~ hater lol, it was like everything I hate in a show I used to really love.

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I dunno, I wasn't into hannigram in the first two seasons, but the fanfic that was the third season kinda sold it for me ^^" I even got a bit obsessed with fanfiction... So for me the ending was pretty great, and many people on the internet also seem to have liked it.

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keeping those fans dangling on i see..

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I wish he wouldn't give me hope.

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i can wait



let it happen (but only with the female cast members pls and ty)

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I can believe it's been over a year since this was cancelled. I miss it so much

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i think i would check first ep or 2 if it's any good, then maybe binge watch it later for zeller & price moments or how bedelia is holdin up. the main characters lost my interest entirely

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By the response in every twitter and news, I said yes.

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There's still a very enthusiastic online fandom for it

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I'm honestly not sure it'll do much better online or on a different network. :/ If it takes 2 years to come back people might have moved on. It doesn't really have a "mainstream" cult fandom vibe like Arrested Development or Firefly or whatever.

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I would, but honestly only if they brought back Chilton and most of the other supporting characters. I loved Will Graham for the first two seasons, but I didn't like how his character arc ended. I still think the show has a lot of promise, and even at its worst was better than most of the stuff on TV, but I didn't love the ending of season 3.

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let it die!

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that's nice but when can we start hoping for Star Trek casting announcements?

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I'm guessing he's still swamped with American Gods. Collider just did this interview with Bryan, saying around SDCC time to expect announcements - http://collider.com/new-star-trek-series-details/ I'm guessing he's still swamped with American Gods.

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Ooooh I hope so!



And omg I somehow forgot about American Gods, even though I've been seeing pics all over twitter. Of course he's busy with that. Good point.

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ugh mte

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That's what I'm here for

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I mean he just got done casting American Gods like last week. Fuller is slow as shit. My best friend sent me a text that he cast Gillian Anderson all excited and my response was "He's still casting that?"

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I'm excited for the potential for a new season and I appreciate the cast and crews dedication to get another season going. I just hope I'll still have the same interest level if/when it finally happens.

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He is the best showrunner with the most mortality rate.

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S3 was a pretentious mess but I can't seem to part with this show. :( I just really, really want another season. I need Mads, Hugh, Gillian, Caroline... all of them.

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Yes, it was a complete pretentious mess, but I still loved it.

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Oil executives are rightly wondering whether their business faces long-term threats from alternative energy sources. But for many years to come, the world will still need large volumes of oil and gas. The same can be said for plastics, a ubiquitous material used in all facets of modern economic life. There may be alternatives that displace plastic here and there, but for the time being, plastics arent going anywhere, despite efforts to replace them with fully biodegradable, non-oil materials.

One crucial ingredient is used in the manufacturing of plastics: naphtha. Naphtha is a product that comes from oil condensate  a light hydrocarbon liquid thats most commonly found alongside natural gas. Demand for this liquid  and naphtha  is rising in Asia, and the nearest producers are turning their attention to this demand.

Australia is especially well placed to supply condensate to Asian splitters  the refining facilities that turn condensate into naphtha and other oil products. The country has several huge LNG projects, such as Woodsides Angel field, Chevrons Gorgon field, and Inpexs Ichtys field. Angel has a capacity of 43,500 barrels of condensate daily. Inchtys will yield around 100,000 barrels of condensate daily when full-scale production begins early next year, and Gorgon can supply some 20,000 barrels per day.

The combined condensate production from these three fields alone  assuming it will all be exported  would be enough to fully satisfy the needs of two new splitters currently under construction in South Korea and Taiwan. This puts Australia in a very comfortable position as a potential condensate exporter to Asia. Related: Get Ready For $80 Oil

But its not the only player in this field. Iran and Qatar are major competitors in the gas and condensate area, but they are adopting a different approach. Qatar recently said it will be reducing its condensate exports by a third starting next January, and will build its own splitter. Naphtha prices paid by Asian importers are unattractively low for Qatari producers, hence the decision to absorb a greater part of the country condensate production locally.

Iran is also betting on local refining. A tender will soon be announced for the funding and construction of the Seraf refining complex, which will process a total of 480,000 barrels of condensate daily. Companies from Japan and South Korea are the most likely investors and, in four years time, buyers of the refinerys output.

Asian petrochemical producers need naphtha, and they need condensate to make it. According to Reuters, Australia is better placed than either Qatar or Iran to benefit from developments in the Asian petrochemical market.

The current naphtha deficit is being dealt with by building new splitters rather than by ramping up direct naphtha purchases. This is good news for Australian condensate exporters, and potentially bad news for those betting on naphtha exports: the commodity is in excess globally, and the new splitters in Asia will keep refining and export margins down.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Venezuelas sliding oil output may be tumbling at a rate faster than initially anticipated and production could soon reach a 27-year low.

As mentioned by Argus Media on 22 June 2016, representatives for the western and eastern divisions at state-run PDVSA in May estimated a 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) dip in production. However they recently revised their estimates to an output decline of 300,000 bpd. Therefore, daily production could fall below 1.9 million bpd for the first time since 1989, and around a 40 percent drop from 1998 prior to the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution led by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela reported to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries crude production of 2.370 million bpd in May 2016, compared with 2.515 million bpd in the first quarter of this year. Argus estimates the current figure at the lower rate of around 2.1 million bpd.

PDVSA officials, the Venezuelan energy ministry and private sector oil executives believe the plummeting production arises due to a series of factors outside of PDSAs control, including the low price of crude as well as an overreliance on a deteriorated power grid. The energy ministry further blames a three-year drought that has depleted the vital Guri hydropower reservoir. Yet blackouts and electricity rationing continues to occur despite heavy rainfall filling the reservoir.



Related: Get Ready For $80 Oil

The steep decline in production is seen at most oil sites barring the extra-heavy Orinoco belt, where PDVSA has long targeted significant growth. But that area is vulnerable due to infrastructural breakdowns transporting product along with difficulties in importing light crude for blending.

Meanwhile, a new Barclays report cited by FuelFix on 21 June claimed Venezuelan oil output could nosedive by as much as 500,000 bpd to 1.7 million bpd. The British bank study noted the persistence of rolling blackouts that cut production by 120,000 bpd in May. Barclays further believes political and economic instability will sway Chinawhich has invested billions of dollars in Venezuelaaway from providing additional aid.

By Erwin Cifuentes for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.

Madison police cant catch a break. When theyre not being accused of being closeted or overt racists, the chief is terrifying a city official by showing up to a city meeting armed. Hes the police chief. Being armed is part of his job description.

That didnt stop the alderman, though, from saying that he didnt feel safe because Chief Mike Koval was sitting behind him at a meeting with a gun. Yes, thats how bad things have gotten in Madison.

But where the critics really lose me is when they start trashing the police for using lawful force  especially non-lethal force designed to prevent out-of-control situations from escalating to lethal force. The critics lose me completely when they seem to argue that police should not take actions to protect themselves or the community from potentially dangerous people.

Currently, theres an uproar in Madison over a citizen video in which police officers restrained a woman who had allegedly threatened people, and the officers themselves, in a mall. The CEO of the Urban League of Madison referred to the police restraint of the woman as savage, excessive and "barbarism."

The chief, who met with the 18-year-old womans family, said the officers have received death threats. A protest ignited calling for the officers arrest, as well as the womans release, and demanding the police keep their hands off black women. State Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) called for a review and also said the police were "brutal." The woman has met with a lawyer, news reports say.

To restrain the woman, the officer punched her with a closed fist, struck her with his knee several times and tased her, in addition to putting a spit hood on her. Those actions are all listed in standard use-of-force training guidelines for police officers, by the way. As for a spit hood, officers use those to protect themselves from what could be dangerous bodily fluids of suspects. I thought people upset about police shootings were advocating that officers turn to tasers to prevent more lethal action, but now officers are being trashed for using them.

According to police (and, yes, their side would have to be proven in a court of law if the woman is charged  yes, a court of law, not the court of YouTube), the woman in question allegedly:

Pointed a knife at a Taco Bell employee (I asked the Madison police spokesman for a description of the knife; he said, " The report refers to it as an approximately 4-inch butterfly/stiletto knife. ")

") Made threats against the Taco Bell employee

Made threats to kill mall security officers

Spit in an officer's eye

Scratched and kicked officers, injuring them

Threatened to bite officers

Was agitated, non-compliant and out of control

Use of force is never a pretty sight. Thats the bottom line. Its hard to watch. Citizenrys ability to capture misleading snippets of use-of-force incidents on cell phone video (out of context from what led up to them and unanchored from training guidelines, for example) can inflame people against any and all use of force. Its good that the incident will now be reviewed. All use-of-force incidents should be subject to review because the cops dont always get it right, and reviews are how training improves. However, if you review standard use-of-force continuums, its hard to see how this one will fall outside them, though time will tell, I suppose.

For example, the National Institute of Justice outlines how officers should progressively use force to restrain out-of-control people that have threatened other people or officers. It starts with their mere presence. Sometimes that defuses the situation. That didnt work here. It escalates to verbalization, in which officers calmly ask for compliance. It then escalates to louder verbalization. After that, officers are allowed to use bodily force to "gain control of a situation."

The recommended soft technique includes using "grabs, holds and joint locks" to restrain individuals. This can graduate to a "hard technique" whereby officers are told to "use punches and kicks" to restrain the individual. The bottom line: The law doesnt just allow, it mandates that officers restore social order when citizens are violating it in a way that threatens other people. Thats their job.

Officers then can graduate to less-lethal methods, such as using a taser (or pepper spray, a baton or projectile).

Finally, and notably this did not happen in the mall arrest, they can use lethal weapons to gain control of a situation if the suspect poses a serious threat to the officer or another individual (as occurs in police shootings).

Here you have two officers who appear, based on what we know at this point, to have followed national use-of-force guidelines to a T, stopping short of lethal force. You could argue that the non-lethal methods they employed prevented the situation from escalating to the point where the woman herself could have been seriously harmed or killed, as well as the officers or the public.

Indeed, a major collaborative study in Dane County on police use of force in 2016 outlined an almost identical use-of-force continuum as a way to prevent officers from using deadly force unless absolutely necessary. The continuum came from the Wisconsin Department of Justices training. It is called, "The Control Process: Disturbance Resolution model." And, yes, it also suggests and allows for "hard techniques"  such as punches and kicks  to retain control, as well as tasing.

Perhaps the Madison critics need training in use-of-force continuums. Perhaps they are saying its the national and state standards that are "barbaric," because you can hardly blame individual officers for following their training. However, the critics fail to outline what they, then, think police should do when they encounter armed, out-of-control, threatening, non-compliant people. Should they walk away? Should they do nothing? What if the person then harms someone else, themselves or the cop? Its ridiculous to argue that police should never be able to use use-of-force beyond verbal command because it looks unsightly on YouTube.

According to one study on taser use by police, "Data reveals that these devices are beneficial for controlling noncompliant suspects while preventing serious injuries, and rarely has their use resulted in death." The study contains a similar description of the use-of-force continuum.

The Madison chief pointed out that the incident was 15 minutes long (the cell phone video just captured the tail end). He told the Wisconsin State Journal, "At the end of the day when called to deal with a behavior ... it is our obligation to restore order. That's what we do. When you ... spit in the eye of a police officer, that's a felony. When you resist arrest and you cause soft tissue injury to any officer, that's a felony."

Yes, sometimes police do violate their training and guidelines  which is bad  and this incident has not yet been fully investigated (because it just happened). But the critics of the Madison mall arrest have not provided any evidence that this restraint did not conform.

In other words, they are, for all practical purposes, calling for a society in which people can threaten other people and officers with impunity, and officers cannot use non-verbal tactics to force compliance when people simply refuse to obey their commands. Guess what? That would endanger cops AND the community (not to mention the suspects).

In other words, they are arguing for anarchy and a pliant, ineffective police force that must throw up its hands and give up in the face of law breaking. In other words, they want the police to forgo their mission to protect the community, upending the power imbalance in which police have authority over the citizenry when it comes to upholding the rule of law. In other words, its the rule of law under attack, not just in Madison (but certainly in Madison), but also throughout the country. That has consequence. There are some who believe that homicide spikes are related.

Maybe the message should be dont bring weapons into malls. Dont threaten people. Dont spit at police officers. Dont scratch or kick police officers. If a police officer tries to arrest you because you are completely out of control, comply. If you dont think the arrest is fair, comply  and make your arguments in court.

To be sure, Madison has racial issues. Racial disparities in arrests should certainly be studied; however, I would not start with the premise that the disparities have occurred because police harbor inherent prejudice as a group (any more than any group harbors inherent prejudice, although every group has some individuals who may). There are many factors that can lead to arrest disparities, including root causes such as family breakdown, economic distress and disparities in victimization.

The Madison City Council wants to spend about $400,000 to study the police department, and one city leader said Wednesday the mall arrest proves the need for the expenditure, which has been hotly criticized by the chief  who has had his own moments of intemperate commentary, such as when he warned city officials they were being watched on his blog, which he said was hyperbole.

How does using lawful tactics prove the need to study a department, though? In the other hotly debated incident, the shooting death of Tony Robinson by a Madison police officer, the states first black district attorney was the one who found the shooting to be by lawful force.

The cops must wonder at some point whether Madison even wants a police force (but I assume they know that the quiet majority does). They must wonder at some point whether being a cop in Madison is worth it. I remember when we, as a society, believed that safety workers (cops, firefighters) were heroic public servants.

Remember after Sept. 11, when they were praised for running into the Twin Towers as everyone else was running out? I miss that attitude. Thats not to say all cops get it right. Its to say that, as a group, we should not assume they do not absent concrete, properly contextualized evidence that they have not.

As the Wisconsin State Journal noted, "Madison police have worked hard to diversify their ranks while partnering with troubled neighborhoods."

We certainly shouldnt argue that cops should be arrested for trying to protect themselves and the community by using non-lethal measures to restrain someone who is completely out of control and allegedly threatening other people.
Brunch, a restaurant specializing in everyones favorite morning meal, is slated to open on Saturday, June 25 at 800 N. Plankinton Ave. on the first floor of the Cawker Building.

And, in our opinion, theres really no reason why you shouldnt be excited.

The space features a breezy layout with bright yellow walls and Mediterranean blue accents.

Theres a pull-tab machine near the bar and fun themed alarm clocks displayed above the windows on the western wall.

A hot sauce station will allow guests mouth-numbing choices to enhance the breakfast and brunch dishes.

Pair that with '80s music and a poster of Ron Swansons "Breakfast of Champions," and youve got a recipe for a Sunday Funday that (starting this weekend) has the distinct potential to happen just about any day of the week.

If thats not quite enough for you, theres the fact that Downtown really needed a good breakfast spot.

As owner Morgan Sampson notes, "Were completely surrounded by condos and corporate buildings and people who have nowhere to go if they want to get breakfast at 8 in the morning."

Sampson, who notes that shes always dreamed of opening a bakery or restaurant, says shes had her eyes on the space for a while, but really wanted to come up with a concept that would stick.

"I knew wed have to do something that there was a need for, and that turned out to be breakfast," she says. "Going out to brunch has always been one of my favorite things to do. Its a tradition in Milwaukee, and this is a place where you can go and have a really, really good meal."

To ensure the food was up to her standards, Sampson sought out Joe Glisch, a chef with experience at a variety of restaurants including Sanford, Alinea (Chicago) and, more recently, Spin and Ale Asylum Riverhouse.

"I remember going home from a pairing dinner at Spin and remarking to my husband that I really loved (Glisch's) food," she notes. "And when I know this concept was going to happen, I tracked him down."

Glisch says that the decision to join the team at Brunch was a no-brainer. "Its just not being done," he says. "There are so many places around the area to get a burger, but nowhere to get breakfast."

Menu

The menu  which offers a variety of creative takes on classics like benedicts, biscuits and gravy, omelettes, pancakes and crepes  also includes lunch options, such as a brunch burger with a half-pound prime beef patty, caramelized onions, bacon, a fried egg and truffle cheese ($14), along with a grilled romaine and beef salad ($12) and a chicken and waffle sandwich ($12).

"Were focusing all of our energy on one thing and doing it really well," Glisch goes on. "I come from fine dining, where its all about using the best ingredients you can. And well be applying those same standards to the idea of breakfast."

Glisch points to a dish called "Optimus Prime & Eggs," a variation on steak and eggs that features a pound of Niman Ranch prime rib.

"Its kind of my ode to Wisconsin supper clubs," he says. "And it was one of my favorite dishes growing up."

Other items include a starter called "R2-Brie-2" showcasing brie en croute with chorizo and watercress, topped with a fried egg ($13).

On the sweeter side, Glisch recommends the Rumchata French toast featuring Rumchata-soaked brioche, port poached pears, salted caramel, walnuts and Purple Door ice cream ($13).

The menu is also built for just about anyone, with options like vegan hash with roasted potatoes, quinoa, kale, watercress, red peppers, avocado, sauteed onion and rosemary ($11), along with a variety of vegetarian options. Gluten-free eaters will also find a number of dishes, including omelettes and breakfast tacos with slow roasted pork, pickled onions and eggs ($10).

On the beverage side, there will be Valentine coffee, including French press service. Brunch also features a well-curated craft beer list, featuring Brenner Brewing Company Bacon Bomb, Ballast Point Grapefruit Scupin, Tallgrass Brewing Companys Buffalo Sweat and Surleys Coffee Bender. And, in a twist on tradition, customers can add a Bloody Mary chaser to any beer for just $4.

Brunch drinks include wine spritzer, sangria and a few classic cocktails, along with bottle service mimosas ($25), the Bro-mosa with champagne, orange juice and vodka ($9) and the Brunch Bloody Mary featuring a secret mix borne of a competition between staffers ($8).

Once open, the restaurant will also offer a variety of grab-and-go items, including doughnuts, pastries and yogurt parfaits.

In the next few weeks, the restaurant will also provide sidewalk patio seating for about 24 people at 10 tables surrounding the restaurant.

Starting on Saturday, June 25, Brunch will be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Lately, Ive been writing about a lot of famous Milwaukee buildings. Everyone knows City Hall and St. Josaphat and The Pabst Theater  important structures, one and all.

That work got me thinking about how looking at the citys big landmarks has also opened my eyes to its little landmarks. More than ever, on my daily commute (a route which has at least six legs on the average day), I notice storefronts and houses and schools and other structures and if you do, too, then you know that we all have our little favorites.

The illustrated list that follows are some of my favorite "little" places in Milwaukee (Ive easily got another 10 in the hopper), in no particular order.

You will likely recognize some of them, maybe others wont seem as familiar, but youll certainly see why they never fail to catch my eye regardless of the countless times Ive seen them.

Share your favorites using the Talkback feature at the bottom and if possible, add a link to a photo.

The Wile Building, 1211 W. Vliet St.





The Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory calls this gorgeous two-story storefront, "Probably the best preserved example in Milwaukee of the use of stock terra cotta tiles with Art Deco motifs to decorate a small store." Built in 1922, the structure long housed a furniture store and appears to be vacant at the moment. The cream-colored terra cotta  designed Hugo V. Miller and added in 1928  is highly ornate, with yellow and rust-colored highlights, and "Wile Bldg." written is grey script. Alas, I have been unable to determine the architect responsible.

Former Dean Jensen Gallery, 759 N. Water St.



Like the Wile Building, the former home of the Dean Jensen Gallery wears a stunning cream-colored terra cotta facade, but this one  built in 1913  has green highlights and a more geometric design. As is also the case with the Wile Building, I havent been able to find the name of the architect for this great building that is part of a row of historic storefronts on Water, between Mason and Wells, that I recall was threatened in the 1980s. There had been talk of demolishing the entire block and after some hue and cry, of demolishing all but the facades and building a parking structure behind them. Hopefully, whoever suggested that was subsequently run out of town.

The Interlude, 3937 W. Vliet St.





According to "Sherman Park: A Legacy of Diversity in Milwaukee," by author Paul Geenen, The Interlude opened across from the southeast corner of Washington Park in 1981 as, "a gathering place for Sherman Park residents and their kids. Kids enjoyed playing the arcade games and eating nachos while parents drank beer with their friends and discussed community issues." This striking copper domed and spired German Renaissance Revival was built in 1907 to house August Haberers corner saloon.

John Barth House, 1331 N. Astor St.





Currently home to the Petawa Residence, student housing and cultural center for Christian women, this German Renaissance Revival mansion was built in 1895 as a home for John Barth, a Milwaukee luggage manufacturer. His family built a cottage that stood at 1315 N. Van Buren for years (it had been moved there from Milwaukee Street and Wisconsin Avenue), and was for a time considered the oldest house in the city. This much less modest abode has spires that recall The Interlude, a Belgian gable on the north elevation and matching stepped dormers.

Chipotle, 600 E. Ogden St.





Because it has long since become a part of a complex of buildings that share a single address, Ive had trouble finding out much about this building that fronted Jackson Street (now the driveway into the East Pointe shopping center). Best I can tell, it was erected in 1878, and over the years has been home to Mother Heisers restaurant, The Ogden Cafe, John Ernst Cafe (which bought the buildings in 1938) and most recently, Chipotle. I love the elaborate and varied decorations executed in cream city brick.

West Allis Historical Society, 8405 W. National Ave.





This wouldnt be complete without a school, would it? I always enjoy driving past Herman P. Schnetzkys former Garfield (and Greenfield) School, which is now home to the West Allis Historical Society. Its got its old bell tower and the great Romanesque details that can be seen on Schnetzkys MPS buildings (Fifth Street, Maryland Avenue, the now razed Walnut Street School). Best of all, you can go inside, where the classrooms, stairwells and hallway are wonderfully preserved.

Hummel-Uihlein Building, 2673 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.





This is one I owe to one of my kids, who saw it from the car one day and said, "look at the flames on that building." Of course, I did a double take, thinking the place was on fire. Thats because architect Charles Kirchhoff, Jr., decorated this 1889 structure with unusual candle-like flame decoration  painted red, of course. The building is currently vacant and owned by the city. The Common Council has given it historic status.

St. Pauls Episcopal Church gate, 914 E. Knapp St.





Ive written about the Tiffany windows in this Edward Townsend Mix masterwork on the lower East Side. But, I love the wrought iron gates in the basement, that may or may not be the work of Cyril Colnik (Im still trying to determine that). They appear to be in something of a weird location, though its possible that they were moved there at some point for "storage." The church has undergone many changes and expansions over the years, so perhaps its more likely that while the these intertwined curlicues look oddly sited now, their location once made perfect sense. Though they are quite heavy, the gates looping design creates an airy feel that gives these weighty gates a feeling of lightness.

Dr. George Washington Carver Academy mosaic, 1900 N. 1st St.





Though Ive come to appreciate the school buildings built immediately post-war, Im less a fan of buildings like these erected in the late 50s and later. Theyre boxy, devoid of detail and their facades often lack character. Thats why its a joy to stroll up to the main entrance at Carver Academy and see this variegated tile mosaic that not only adds a dash of color and youthful energy to a drab building, but also celebrates the diversity that exists in the city.

First German Methodist Church, 1037 W. Juneau Ave.





Someone told me that this boarded-up church along the east side of I-43 is for sale for $350,000. I've long thought it would make a great concert venue. Any investors out there? Built in 1872 in the Victorian Gothic style, the former First German Methodist Church  in a historic study on the Pabst Brewery historic district  was called, "one of Milwaukee's best examples of simplified Gothic." Pabst bought it and before it was shuttered it served as the company's training center. At some point between it's utility as a church and as a training center it was home to the Forst-Keller Restaurant, run by Michael and Fritz Baumann, who boasted that it was "The old home of the famous 'Gemuetlichkeit'."
Back in January, I posted an illustrated collection of some of the "little landmarks" I enjoy most in Milwaukee. That list led to requests for more. So, by popular demand, here are more of my favorite "little" places in Milwaukee (I've easily got another 10 in the hopper), in no particular order.

You will likely recognize some of them, maybe others won't seem as familiar, but you'll certainly see why they never fail to catch my eye regardless of the countless times I've seen them.

Share your favorites using the Talkback feature at the bottom and if possible, add a link to a photo.

Hoyt Park Suspension Bridge, Wauwatosa





The land for the park, along the Menomonee River, was acquired from 1926 to 1936 and the stone suspension bridge over the river was erected in 1930. The arches of concrete with a stone veneer and the planked walkway give the span an almost medieval feel.

Magikist sign, 1844 W. Fond du Lac Ave.





Magikist has been in Milwaukee cleaning carpets, rugs, flooring and upholstery since 1944. Im not sure when this sign went up, but its a real gem, especially when illuminated. There was an even more spectacular one along the freeway in Chicago, but thats been down for a while now.

Guadalupe Head Start Center, 239 W. Washington St.





The oldest parts of Milwaukee have little neoclassical buildings that look a lot like this one on the corner of 3rd and Washington Streets in the shadow of the clock tower in Walkers Point. More than a century ago, some neighborhood libraries and schools had a similar aspect. This one, however, which is now home to the Guadalupe Head Start Center, was built in 1899 to the designs of Herman Esser to serve as the Wisconsin Telephone Companys First Branch Telephone Exchange. Esser designed a 1906 addition and Brust & Brust did some alterations in 1945 when the Catholic Archdiocese, which then owned the building, converted it into a mission for the growing Mexican community.

County Parks office, 9480 W. Watertown Plank Rd.





Most of the old Milwaukee County Home for Dependent Children buildings are gone now, including the old schoolhouse, which Id have love to seen, but the administration building still stands. Designed by Walter Holbrook  who designed a number of public schools, including Trowbridge and Mound Street in Bay View  the building, constructed in 1898 by contractor Erdmann Schulz, is now the Milwaukee County Parks HQ. It's stately and attractive on the outside, but step into the lobby to see a fabulous staircase and some fine woodwork.

Frederick Koenig House, 1731 N. 32nd St.





(PHOTO: Google)

This lovely Queen Anne home was, according to a few sources, built in 1880-81 in what is now called Walnut Hill. But in his "Heritage Guidebook," Russell Zimmermann notes that the earliest parts of the home  which he believes to be an amalgam of three  was more likely built in the Victorian eclectic style as early as the 1850s but fully remodeled later in the Classic Resurgence style by architect F. W. Andree. It is one of the earliest homes along the Lisbon Plank Road, and, Zimmermann says, the home was on a "four-acre gentleman's farm" and was moved to its current site when 32nd Street was platted through the farm in 1896. Sitting on what appears to be a double or triple lot, the home has been lovingly restored and is a neighborhood gem, with its tower and ornate decoration. (Google photo)

Holy Rosary, 2011 N. Oakland Ave.





Built in 1885 and designed by Milwaukee architect Edward Townsend Mix, Holy Rosary Church, now part of the Three Holy Women Parish, is a mix of styles: Queen Anne, Romanesque and Stick Style. Mix took a basic church shape and topped it with a stunning exposed timberwork tower and a welcoming porch. Its undergone numerous renovations in the past quarter century and it is a real Cream City brick treasure.

Door hinges, Golda Meir/Fourth Street School, 1515 N. Martin Luther King Dr. & Fifth Street School, 2770 N. 5th St.





Theres no denying the overall beauty of the former District 6/Fourth Street School, long since renamed in honor of its most famous alumna, Golda Meir. The 1889 Henry Koch building is a Romanesque Milwaukee landmark. What I love about it is that many old details still remain. Some are more obvious than others, but look closely and youll find little touches everywhere, like these cast iron door hinges (above) that survive. Similar hinges (below) can be found in the now-closed 5th Street (aka District 13/Isaac Coggs) School, built in 1888 to the designs of Herman P. Schnetzky. Unfortunately, these have been painted.


Rep. Mark Veasey, convener of today's press conference

(Image by Marta Steele) Details DMCA



In a small press room on the fourth floor of the Cannon House building, an oversized crowd heard Revs. Jesse Jackson and Lennox Yearwood, joined by members of the newly formed (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Congressional-Briefing-Apr-by-Marta-Steele-Bipartisan_Congressional-Committees_Corruption_Democracy-160422-490.html ) Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, and others, including Terri O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). The subject was the insidious disappearance of voting rights, including the relevant legislation, and what we can do to reverse it.

Barbara Arnwine moderated the event with energetic enthusiasm. This former executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, now presides over the Transformative Justice Coalition, which she recently founded.

Convened by Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX-33), the press conference commemorated the third anniversary of the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision that dismantled key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Its purpose was to "answer . . . the call to protect and restore the right to vote for every U.S. citizen," [by] "demanding immediate action on voting rights legislation," including Rep. Hank Johnson's (D-GA-4) VOTE Act (H.R. 5131), Sen. Jim Sensenbrenner's (R-WI-5) Bipartisan Voting Rights Amendment Act (H.R. 885), and Rep. Terri Sewell's (D-AL-7) Voters' Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 2867 / S. 1659), none of which has reached the House floor for discussion.



The press conference coincidentally convened the morning after the congressional sit-in, led by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA-5), whose goal is to force a vote on legislation aimed at regulating the sale of firearms through background checks. Several of the Representatives present today had participated in the sit-in.

Press conference speakers referred to the sit-in as yet another form of suppression of large percentage of the people's will, according to polls taken across all political persuasions.

Acknowledging attendees who had flown in from as far away as New York, Chicago, and Mexico, Veasey first discussed the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which prohibited poll tax, and quickly turned to its nemesis, the voter ID requirement which, even where advertised as free, inevitably costs both money and time, making the most disadvantaged citizens of this country struggle and often fail to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY-13), reminiscing about the racism of times before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts had been passed in the mid-1960s, noted that such times have returned, with last night's sit-in the latest reminder. Saluting Rev. Jesse Jackson, he said he was glad that we've begun to fight again.

Rep. Phil Roe (D-TN-1) told attendees that his father, a civil rights attorney, had helped to author the text of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He reminisced about prior decades in which bipartisan legislation was the norm rather than an aberration; we must be even more vigilant to be sure that the rights of all are valued and honored rather than continuously blocked.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, next to speak to a resounding welcome, took listeners through a history of the voting rights movement from 1880 to 1940, stressing that Jim Crow was worse than slavery, because in the latter case slave owners protected their workers from the lynchings that followed with the onset of the Jim Crow era.

In 2013, he said, the South complained about the "excessive government oversight" entailed by sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. With the demolition of these sections, Election 2016 will represent the first time racist states' repressive innovations since Shelby v. Holder (2013) will be enforced.

More leadership is needed to protect the rights of all to vote. Jackson challenged his listeners with the idea of a Slavery Day, to commemorate this crime against humanity. "Our vote must matter!" he said.

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL-7) agreed, with the chant "No vote, no voice!" noting the importance of honoring the foot soldiers of the never-ending struggle for voters' rights.

Reviewing criteria for the preclearance requirement, formerly the heart of the VRA, she recalled that the act had been reauthorized by Republicans Ford, Reagan, and Bush and expressed how shameful the partisan behavior of today's GOP is by comparison. Where millions of Americans lack voter ID, many because they can't afford the time or money, "it is unacceptable for us to sit back in silence."

She expressed amazement that the demand to vote coming from 180 unanimous Democrats in the House was being ignored.

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Pakistani Children pose with American and Pakistani flags

(Image by USAID Pakistan) Details DMCA



A respected daily newspaper in Pakistan has criticized the Nawaz Sharif government of handling the issue of Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) waiver for India, pointing to "civil-military divide", increasing dysfunction in the Foreign Office, and 'belated' effort to seek the group's membership.

This was being done, Dawn newspaper wrote, even as the Pakistani state itself was "warning of an arms race with India and is increasingly reliant on the relationship with China in the international arena." The implications for Pakistan's national security are "far more dangerous", the daily warned, and lamented: "The NSG race does not portend well for Pakistan."

The voice of English daily is heard with respect across Pakistan and beyond not merely because it was founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, hailed as Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) and Baba-i-Qaum (Father of the Nation) but also because it is known as a sedate voice in a country known for its extremes with the military, styling itself as the permanent establishment, calls the shots on India, US and nuclear policies to the dismay of civilian leaders.

Writing on June 21, 2016, under the heading, "Pakistan's strategy vis-a-vis NSG", Dawn put the spot light on the flipside of the Pakistani campaign and dubbed it as haphazard efforts.

India's push for the NSG membership with the United States' backing was "not universally popular", as per think tanks of the US, and among some countries, who had been "arm-twisted" into toeing the American line but "few of those reservations will likely translate into any country championing Pakistan's inclusion in the NSG," the daily said rather bluntly.

It draws satisfaction, nevertheless, that the Chinese-led opposition to India's entry has offered "an opportunity to reset the rules of the NSG cartel in a way that keeps the door open to eventual Pakistani inclusion -- or keep both India and Pakistan out."

This line of reasoning confirms the widespread assumption that China's whole effort is to ensure blocking of India. The "me-too" membership application by Pakistan is meant to ensure that both India and Pakistan are kept out.

"Perhaps the security establishment (Army) here is confident that Chinese assent will be withheld," the edit said in an obvious reference to the fact that NSG works on the basis of consensus.

The newspaper surmises that "Pakistan, which argues that Indian membership without a similar entry pass to Pakistan would exacerbate military nuclear competition between the two countries, appears to be one of the two basic reasons why China has withheld its support thus far for India's membership.

"The other (reason for Chinese action) is the China-India relationship, or rivalry, and how that connects with the US's relationship with the two countries: growing alignment and cooperation with India; intensifying rivalry with China," it said.

Wondering if Pakistan has got its strategy right, Dawn points to "belated attempt by Pakistan to rally some semblance of international support for a criteria-based entry to the NSG rather than the India-specific one the US has pushed and a section of the NSG has been willing to comply with."

The newspaper argued that "China's blocking effort could have been bolstered by separate efforts on Pakistan's part to lobby potentially sympathetic countries in the NSG.

"Yet, those efforts have only been apparent in recent days, after the extraordinary meeting at GHQ attended by the three joint custodians of the Foreign Office.

Furthering its oft-repeated criticism of the government, the Dawn newspaper said: "It is possible to lament the civil-military divide in the country. It is also possible to condemn the increasing dysfunction in the Foreign Office and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's bizarre insistence on not appointing a full-time foreign minister."

It said: "Contrast the Indian and American diplomatic push, however, with the seemingly haphazard efforts of Pakistan."

No surprise, the combined Opposition in the National Assembly (Pakistan's Parliament) are using "foreign policy failures" to mount a scathing attack on the Sharif government. And their latest taunt heard on June 21 was that "We don't even have friends in Washington any more", and that the Americans are "willing to forgo their commitments to us at the drop of a hat".

Rama Rao Malladi Social Media Pages:

Rama Rao Malladi is New Delhi based senior journalist and distinguished commentator on South Asian and Central Asian issues. He is a regular contributor to several publications in and outside India. His articles are featured in News Blaze.Rama (more...)



The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.





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We the People

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"What to do? What to do?"

If you listen closely, you can hear the Clinton campaign fretting all the way from New York.

"We bought a ton of votes . We put our people in control . We framed the narrative . We limited debate . We manipulated databases . We disappeared progressive voters . Just in case, we rigged the system with superdelegates . Ah, but this is the general election we're talking about. Swing votes. Independents. Folks on the fence. It's an entirely different bowl of chili. It will require an entirely different kind of seasoning."

Now that they appear to have wrapped up the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and her handlers will have to figure out how to triangulate her documented, unquestionable and unequivocal support for endless war, corporate-friendly economic policies, union-busting trade deals and increased domestic surveillance, all wrapped up, to put it delicately, in a penchant to mislead . In short order, they'll have to figure out how to lie, deceive, dissemble, fudge and otherwise avoid the truth -- at least until after the general election.

It won't be easy.

Put yourself in Hillary's shoes. You are a true believer in corporate power and the reign of the ruling elites . You've spent your entire adult life trying to join their privileged ranks. You worship money and privilege and the accumulation of both at the expense of anyone or anything. Your only principle is protect the status quo. Your only policy is self-enrichment .

Once in the White House, you have every intention of enacting more of the same corporate-driven policies that were enacted by Barack Obama. But, like Obama, you can't tell the rabble that. You can't admit you work for corporate America. You won't get elected.

Instead, you have to fool them, tell them what they want to hear, that you're with them, that you're in their corner, you've got their back, you're their champion. Tell them you believe in their agenda. Tell them you feel their pain. Tell them . . . whatever.

You don't actually have to do anything. Legislate. Sponsor bills. Pass laws. Fight to make life a little better for working people. You just have to say you will. Like Obama, you have to practice to deceive without appearing to practice anything at all. Once in power, checkmate. Political expediencies and 'if you knew what we knew" and all the rest .

It will be a bit of a trick for Hillary. She can't afford to throw off the pretense and admit the obvious.

"I know, I know. Policy measures that benefit the ruling elites don't create jobs . They don't help the economy. They don't boost consumer confidence. In fact, research shows they have the exact opposite effect . But . . . these are my closest friends and associates we're talking about. These are the people I hang with, go to dinner with, have drinks with, play power politics with -- the people with whom I am most comfortable and who, I am confident, are most comfortable with me. We believe in each other . . . and besides, they back-PAC'ed a sh*t-load of money into my campaign coffers and, well, naturally, they expect results . . ."

You get the picture.

Slight aside: I wonder what former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is having for dinner tonight? This is known as a rhetorical question. It does not require an answer. That's because, when she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton gave the green light to the Honduran military to remove the democratically elected leader from power . The US government's response to Zelaya's attempt to challenge the authority of the Honduran elites is a perfect illustration of Hillary's belief that the rabble should under no circumstances have control over their own resources -- you know, what otherwise might be called democracy. Rhetorically speaking, who cares whether an exiled reformer eats or not? But asking the question reminds us that the position being advocated by Hillary Clinton in Honduras right now is the same position advocated by her hero and noted war criminal, Henry the K, in 1973, when he declared that the issues affecting Chile were "too important" to allow Chilean voters to "decide for themselves ."

(Here a less sensitive writer would draw attention to the current president and his deceitful kabuki on the Flint water crisis as further proof of the US government's anti-democratic, pro-corporate bent, but doing so might appear indiscrete. And, as John Kiriacou and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden can tell you, when criticizing the US gov't, one surely needs to be discrete.)

Second aside: ever wonder which candidate for the US presidency is favored by military contractors? These are the folks who manufacture a whole horror show full of serious killing devices and who then sell them to brutal dictatorships, like the one in Honduras, who in turn unleash them on their own civilian populations . These are the same folks who contribute huge sums of money to presidential campaigns in order to ensure that their market continues to be profitable. This is not a rhetorical question. It has an answer. And the answer is Hillary Clinton . It's not even close.

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Reprinted from WSWS

Whatever the result of today's referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union, it marks a watershed in political life in Britain and throughout the continent.

The referendum was called by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to placate the Eurosceptic wing of his own party and stop the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from gaining further ground at Tory expense. His disastrous political miscalculation threatens instead to split the Conservatives in two, hasten the demise of the EU and precipitate a major economic crisis globally.

Economically, the real issues being fought out are over whether the British bourgeoisie is best served by remaining part of the Single European Market or, in the words of the Leave advocates, repositioning itself "out of Europe and into the world" in order to better exploit opportunities in China, India and the Commonwealth countries.

Both sides -- Remain, led by Cameron and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Leave, led by Tory Boris Johnson and UKIP leader Nigel Farage -- shroud their real concerns in lies about defending jobs and vital social services and ensuring prosperity.

In reality, the EU defended by Remain is an instrument for imposing savage austerity, as has been so cruelly demonstrated in Greece. But Leave wants only to free big business and the City of London from what little remains of labour legislation and match the benchmark set by the conditions facing workers in the Far East. Whichever faction wins, the offensive against the working class will resume with a vengeance on June 24.

Never before has there been such a concerted intervention of leading figures from the Armed Forces and the security services MI5 and MI6 into political life. Both sides proclaim their commitment to NATO and its ongoing offensive against Russia and China. The Remain camp argues that British membership of the EU and the EU in general strengthen NATO, while the Leave camp maintains that British membership ties the UK to plans, pushed above all by Germany, to create a European Army, which will undermine NATO and raise the spectre of Germany establishing its unchallenged hegemony over the continent.

To conceal these political realities of class war, trade war and military war, and to sow divisions within the working class, the referendum has increasingly focused on whipping up nationalism and xenophobia.

The many social problems resulting from the savage austerity measures imposed by the ruling elite and its parties are blamed again and again on migrants. Again, Remain and Leave differ only as to whether anti-migrant measures require the EU's "Fortress Europe" -- guarded by razor wire fences, gun boats and concentration camps -- or whether the UK must "take back control" of its borders and end the free movement of European labor into Britain.

The toxic stew this has created -- such that UKIP's campaign material is redolent of Nazi propaganda -- pollutes social and political life and strengthens the forces of the far right.

Last Thursday's murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a fascist is a grave warning to workers and youth of the implications of this descent into nationalist reaction. It marks a new stage in the class struggle in the UK that will take on ever more brutal forms.

Cox's killing was not the action of a disturbed loner, but a political assassination. It was prepared over decades by the incessant scapegoating of immigrants, the whipping up of nationalism and the paralyzing of the working class by the Labour and trade union bureaucracy, which has allowed social reaction to deepen without an effective challenge from below. However, all those who claim that the filthy propaganda of the referendum campaign played no part in triggering this outburst of deadly violence are lying to cover up their own political responsibility.

A particularly criminal role has been played by the pseudo-left groups--whether they are aligned with the pro-EU agenda of Remain or have allowed the Tory right and UKIP to posture as "friends" of the worker by backing the anti-EU camp.

This applies above all to the organizers of the Left Leave campaign, such as the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party. Their insistence that political principle must be subordinated to the hope of the referendum splitting the Tories and hastening the coming to power of a Labour government is used to legitimise a political alliance with the most reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie.

There is nothing accidental in this. When George Galloway, the former Labour MP, declared on a platform with Farage, "Left, right, left right, forward march to victory on the 23rd of June," he gave voice to a political tendency that is emerging not just in the UK, but internationally -- a realignment of ostensibly left figures with right and far-right tendencies on the basis of nationalism.

In Ukraine, this took the form of an alliance with Svoboda and similar fascistic groups in the so-called "Euromaidan" coup engineered by Washington in 2014. In Greece, it was an electoral alliance between Syriza and the Independent Greeks. In the UK, sections of the pseudo-left, together with some Stalinist-led trade unions, insist that Boris Johnson and Farage, with their "millions of voters," must be entrusted with the task of bringing down Cameron. Their stated or unstated goal is for national protectionist measures to be applied by a Labour government, including ending the free movement of European labor.
Reprinted from Other Words

The GOP candidate's brouhaha with a Mexican-American judge exposes him as a manic threat to anyone he dislikes.





This year's freakish presidential election has now devolved into an ethnic brouhaha between two foreigners: A Mexican and a German.

The "Mexican" is Gonzalo Curiel, a U.S. federal judge who was born, raised, and educated in Indiana. The "German" is Donald Drumpf -- also known as Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

Drumpf has two fraud cases against him in Judge Curiel's court, leading the GOP standard bearer to become unhinged over the idea that a "foreigner" would be allowed to pass judgment on an upstanding American citizen like him.

"He's a Mexican," The Donald has complained about the jurist -- who happens to be a full-blooded American citizen.

By Drumpf's standards, though, not even he himself can claim pure-blooded Americano heritage -- only Native Americans can claim that, and even they immigrated from afar centuries ago. In fact, The Donald's grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, immigrated to the United States from Kallstadt, Germany about 120 years ago -- and Anglicized his name from Drumpf to Trump.

Still, the GOP's racist and nativist flag bearer insists that an American with Mexican genes should be disqualified from overseeing the fraud suits against Trump University. The judge would inherently be biased, Trump claims, against the candidate who's promised to "build a wall" between the United States and Mexico.

So, does his screwy claim that one's background trumps one's commitment to fairness also mean that a Muslim judge should be disqualified from any trial of Trump's wrongdoings, since he's promised to ban all Muslim immigrants from entering the United States?

"Absolutely," says the GOP's presidential wannabe.

Finally, it's time to say the obvious: Donald is not just plainspoken, nor is he merely trying to get media coverage. He's deranged and openly racist, and a manic threat to anyone he dislikes -- which is everyone not named Trump -- or Drumpf.
Today, June 22, 2016, the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, ordered all cameras and sound turned off in the House of Representatives. THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED. The C-Span network depends on feed from the House of Representatives in order to broadcast the House activities to the nation - all of us. This is exactly the same tactic used by Hitler to limit or control the flow of information to the public.



After the Democratic Party members attempted to force the House leadership to bring up two bills on gun legislation in that body without success, at 11:25 a.m. they began a sit-in in the House. The Republican leader then took the unconscionable action of calling the "House" in recess and turning off all cameras so that the C-Span network could not feed what was happening to its viewers. C-Span then managed to get a feed from a provider called "Periscope" which had a single camera in that body. Thereafter Facebook began providing an even broader scope of the proceedings taking place only by the Democrats.



So in fact the House is NOT completely in recess. It is only in recess for the Republicans, but there is nothing unusual about that. The Republicans spend most of their time in recess anyway. The Democrats in that body are NOT in recess, and many of the senators are there with them in solidarity.





We can thank the media for bringing to the American people such congressional leaders as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for conduct such as this.


Tuesday night, antisemites on Twitter attacked me in a particularly visceral and disgusting way, and I want you to know about it.

I believe that each of us who shows up for love and justice should be able to come as we are, fully owning our ancestors, our multiple identities, and our personal choices. I've been involved in Jewish social action for a long time, chiefly in my role as president of The Shalom Center, led by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a beloved and inspiring teacher in the prophetic spirit, rebuking injustice and directing attention to the moral grandeur of which human beings are capable. A foundational principle in our work--and in all the interfaith work we engage--is respect for heritage and willingness to renew tradition so that it speaks directly to the present.

So when I stand up for justice, I show up as myself: a first-generation American Jew of Eastern European heritage who takes very seriously the exhortation from Amos 5:24 to "But let justice well up as waters, And righteousness as a mighty stream." When Dr. Martin Luther King quoted that passage in his 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech, he acknowledged a shared point of connection, evoking a primary text for both Jewish and Christian human rights advocates, a ground to stand together. In my own small way, I have discovered that showing up as myself often opens the possibility of connection with people from other faith traditions--Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, practitioners of indigenous traditions and more--who also draw strength from the teachings and traditions they have inherited.

This week, I participated in a national action sponsored by the Jewish organization Bend The Arc. They created a toolkit to guide thousands of participants in posting photos to social media on June 21st, the yahrtzeit--anniversary--of the 1964 murders in Mississippi of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights workers whose deaths were punishment for registering Black voters. Each image was to include a downloadable flyer saying "Jews Reject Trump" and a lit memorial candle. Each was to be branded with a hashtag speaking with the voice of history: #WeveSeenThisBefore. For Jews in my generation, whose own families include the disappeared, the exterminated, the survivors, the fear that hashtag evokes--the image of Germans electing Hitler, in essence authorizing the Holocaust at the ballot-box--is intense. Search that hashtag on Twitter to scroll through a very long and impressive array of photos, some depicting one or two individuals, some capturing large public gatherings.

As my husband and I staged our photo, a tiny niggle of unease chafed, a familiar pebble in my shoe. I imagine most American Jews have a collection of stories like those I've filed into a corner of my mind I don't often visit. Slurs delivered with casual ease ("I jewed him down on the price," "she's one of the chosen people"). Sincere questions grounded in stunning ignorance put by colleagues on the left ("Why has antisemitism persisted so long?" one activist said to me. "There must be a material basis for it.") I'll stop there but, believe me, there's much, much more. So posting my photo as a Jew who opposes Trump's hate and supports racial justice felt a little risky, but my desire to do it was much stronger than any hesitation. Our picture appeared on Twitter with this message: "To honor slain civil rights heroes & reject @realDonaldTrump we joined Jews & allies to say #WeveSeenThisBefore."

When I checked later that night, I found that the action was growing, that people were retweeting our post along with many, many others. But there were some things in my feed I couldn't comprehend. People had added my name to lists of detested Jews. There was an image of a lamp. I gazed at it for a long time, not understanding. The next tweet contained an image of a bar of soap. As I stared at it, the meaning came to me. My stomach lurched violently. The Nazis had made lampshades of concentration camp victims' skin. They had collected the fat from exterminated human beings and made it into soap. Tuesday night, these deranged and evil people, affronted by the temerity of a Jew to speak out against hate, had wished the same fate on me.

Donald Trump didn't invent the vicious racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and triumphalist worship of white supremacy that his statements have unleashed. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, "In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible." Trump is guilty, and should be made accountable for, his spewings and their impact. And we are responsible to ensure that is done.

I blocked the offending Twitter accounts and sent out tweets that Bend the Arc suggested: "To the white supremacist fans of @realDonaldTrump sending me anti-Semitic vitriol: your hate will not silence me. #weveseenthisbefore." "For calling out @realDonaldTrump's racial hatred I was targeted by his white supremacist supporters, proving the point. #weveseenthisbefore." I complained to Twitter and received the response "we could not determine a clear violation of the Twitter Rules." And now I ask: If Trump is elected President, who will feel safe? Only those whose sense of value is conditioned on the hatred he has authorized.

The nausea I felt when I understood the meaning of that bar of soap still tugs at the pit of stomach. I will think of it every time I see the remarkably disturbing face of Donald Trump. I hope you, like me, will do everything you can to ensure we never see it in the White House.

Solomon Burke, "None of Us Are Free."

None of us are free.

None of us are free.

None of us are free, one of us are chained.

None of us are free.
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Johnson's proroguing of Parliament: The British ruling class declares war on democratic rights Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue Parliament is an historic attack on democratic rights and an attempt to force through a Brexit agenda that will have devastating consequences for the jobs and living standards of the working class. Friday, August 30, 2019Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue Parliament is an historic attack on democratic rights and an attempt to force through a Brexit agenda that will have devastating consequences for the jobs and living standards of the working class.

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Royal Marines seize Iranian tanker under orders from US Britain's seizure of an Iranian supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil is an act of piracy and a major escalation in tensions that threaten to spiral out of control. It was carried out at the behest of the United States as part of the campaign of military provocations and economic sabotage against Tehran. Saturday, July 6, 2019Britain's seizure of an Iranian supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil is an act of piracy and a major escalation in tensions that threaten to spiral out of control. It was carried out at the behest of the United States as part of the campaign of military provocations and economic sabotage against Tehran.

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The defence of Assange and Manning is the spearhead of the struggle against imperialism It is the task of the International Committee, one that we are determined to carry out, to mobilize this immense social force. We will provide workers and young people with a socialist perspective on which to secure freedom for Assange and Manning, as the spearhead of the fight against war, state repression and the malignant growth of social inequality. Thursday, May 9, 2019It is the task of the International Committee, one that we are determined to carry out, to mobilize this immense social force. We will provide workers and young people with a socialist perspective on which to secure freedom for Assange and Manning, as the spearhead of the fight against war, state repression and the malignant growth of social inequality.

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Campaign to force out Mugabe escalates in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe's war veterans' association is staging a march today through the capital, Harare, demanding the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. Tens of thousands are expected to take part after all 10 of the country's provincial Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) branches passed motions of no confidence in Mugabe. Sunday, November 19, 2017Zimbabwe's war veterans' association is staging a march today through the capital, Harare, demanding the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. Tens of thousands are expected to take part after all 10 of the country's provincial Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) branches passed motions of no confidence in Mugabe.

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What the coup against Jeremy Corbyn reveals about the Labour Party Labour MPs are well paid representatives of the capitalist class, often with direct relations to the security services of the UK and the United States. For example Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who recently declared that Corbyn had made the Labour Party "unsafe for Jews," was exposed by WikiLeaks as a "strictly protect" US informant. Monday, July 18, 2016Labour MPs are well paid representatives of the capitalist class, often with direct relations to the security services of the UK and the United States. For example Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who recently declared that Corbyn had made the Labour Party "unsafe for Jews," was exposed by WikiLeaks as a "strictly protect" US informant.

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The Brexit referendum: A turning point in European politics The Brexit referendum is a product of the deepening antagonisms produced by the drive of the rival imperialist powers to dominate the world's markets and strategic resources. It is this conflict that has fatally undermined all efforts to unify the continent economically and politically on the basis of capitalism. Thursday, June 23, 2016The Brexit referendum is a product of the deepening antagonisms produced by the drive of the rival imperialist powers to dominate the world's markets and strategic resources. It is this conflict that has fatally undermined all efforts to unify the continent economically and politically on the basis of capitalism.

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The New York Times pronounces on destabilization of the Middle East In alliance with a new imperialist partner, Saudi Arabia has pledged a massive $3 billion to pay for weapons being supplied by the government of French President Francois Hollande to the Lebanese army in order to target Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Syria. What is taking place in the Middle East is naked imperialist power politics, yesterday's enemies can become today's allies and vice-versa. Tuesday, January 7, 2014In alliance with a new imperialist partner, Saudi Arabia has pledged a massive $3 billion to pay for weapons being supplied by the government of French President Francois Hollande to the Lebanese army in order to target Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Syria. What is taking place in the Middle East is naked imperialist power politics, yesterday's enemies can become today's allies and vice-versa.

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Washington ships arms to Al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria The United States is to officially begin arms shipments to Syria, after months of doing so through third parties, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Obama administration cited unsubstantiated US and French claims that pro-Assad forces have used chemical weapons such as sarin on 10 separate occasions to claim that a "red line" has been crossed justifying an open policy of arming the opposition. Sunday, June 30, 2013The United States is to officially begin arms shipments to Syria, after months of doing so through third parties, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Obama administration cited unsubstantiated US and French claims that pro-Assad forces have used chemical weapons such as sarin on 10 separate occasions to claim that a "red line" has been crossed justifying an open policy of arming the opposition.

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US threatens Iran, Hezbollah for backing Syria There is no popular support in the US for war against Syria, and a great deal to lose if things go wrong for the ruling class. That is why, to date, the Obama administration has preferred to proceed through local intermediaries--the FSA and its regional backers, Turkey and Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saturday, June 8, 2013There is no popular support in the US for war against Syria, and a great deal to lose if things go wrong for the ruling class. That is why, to date, the Obama administration has preferred to proceed through local intermediaries--the FSA and its regional backers, Turkey and Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

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US and allies step up war preparations against Syria, Lebanon, Iran The Israeli media has been discussing the advisability of establishing a new buffer zone on the Syrian side of the 43-mile cease-fire line established in 1973, following an attack on an Israeli military vehicle that had crossed the line in the disputed Golan Heights. To do so would require a full-scale invasion. Sunday, May 26, 2013The Israeli media has been discussing the advisability of establishing a new buffer zone on the Syrian side of the 43-mile cease-fire line established in 1973, following an attack on an Israeli military vehicle that had crossed the line in the disputed Golan Heights. To do so would require a full-scale invasion.

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UK Prime Minister Cameron stokes fires of war against North Korea Once again the UK is providing the lies necessary to justify military aggression by US imperialism, as Washington pursues plans to secure its global dominance against its rivals. The parallels with the claims made by the Labour government of Tony Blair in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 are all too obvious. Cameron's filthy rhetoric should be treated with the contempt it deserves. Sunday, April 7, 2013Once again the UK is providing the lies necessary to justify military aggression by US imperialism, as Washington pursues plans to secure its global dominance against its rivals. The parallels with the claims made by the Labour government of Tony Blair in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 are all too obvious. Cameron's filthy rhetoric should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

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Imperialist lawlessness and the witch-hunt against Julian Assange Assange has said, with every justification, that he fears for his life. Everyone but the willfully blind knows that Assange is the victim of a witch-hunt, yet this has not stopped the nominally liberal media from continuing to back extradition and denounce Assange. Saturday, August 18, 2012Assange has said, with every justification, that he fears for his life. Everyone but the willfully blind knows that Assange is the victim of a witch-hunt, yet this has not stopped the nominally liberal media from continuing to back extradition and denounce Assange.

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US military lobbies for war with Syria Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters on Thursday that the Obama administration's continued pursuing of diplomatic solutions in Syria has put military planners in the Pentagon in a strategic bind. He declared that, with a clear instruction for regime change, "I can build you a plan, and I know how many divisions, I know how many air wings ... it takes." Sunday, June 10, 2012Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters on Thursday that the Obama administration's continued pursuing of diplomatic solutions in Syria has put military planners in the Pentagon in a strategic bind. He declared that, with a clear instruction for regime change, "I can build you a plan, and I know how many divisions, I know how many air wings ... it takes."

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Obama endorses Netanyahu as "man of peace" Just hours ahead of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu, during a visit to Finland, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that "if Iranians gain nuclear capability, we will see a crazy nuclear arms race in the whole Middle East with consequences I don't even want to think about." This, he said, "is the biggest threat to the Gulf countries, it's the biggest threat to the Middle East." Thursday, July 8, 2010Just hours ahead of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu, during a visit to Finland, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that "if Iranians gain nuclear capability, we will see a crazy nuclear arms race in the whole Middle East with consequences I don't even want to think about." This, he said, "is the biggest threat to the Gulf countries, it's the biggest threat to the Middle East."
by Sen. Doug Whitsett

According to our constitutions, each American citizen possesses the unconditional, guaranteed right to own, keep and bear firearms.

The Second Amendment to the Unites States Constitution reads: A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Shall not be infringed has clear meaning. It means no government shall encroach upon, interfere with, violate, disobey or disregarded the constitutionally guaranteed right of a citizen to own and bear firearms.

Article I, Section 27 of the Oregon Constitution is even more specific: The people shall have the right to bear arms for the defense of themselves, and the State..

Both of these declarations, of our constitutional rights, are explicit and unambiguous. They are also prescient.

Virtually every mass shooting in the United States, during the past 25 years, has occurred in a gun-free zone. Whether in a school, a government building, a military base or a night club, those areas were each gun free, because politicians passed laws infringing on their constituents constitutional right to carry a firearm to defend themselves in those zones.

When confronted with determined killers possessing firearms, those laws have consistently resulted in killing zones rather than safe zones. No one can rationally deny that these deranged killers have sought out gun-free zones for their carnage. The history speaks for itself.

Moreover, every despotic regime in modern history was initiated by first disarming its people. The common pretext is to create a safer society. Once the people have succumbed to the ruse, they are helpless to defend their freedom.

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the religiously motivated terrorist attack in Orlando, pundits and politicians are once again attempting to convince our citizens that they must disarm in order to be safe from such attacks. We should never forget the folks in that nightclub were totally vulnerable only because they allowed themselves to be disarmed.

The American Lexicographer Noah Webster observed: There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Also, the British statesman Edmund Burke wrote The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.

So too, Ben Franklin reflected: They that give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Those statements remain as true today as they were when made during the 1780s. No citizen can ever be free without the means to defend themselves and their families. To give up that means of defense against the aggressive acts of others, or of government tyrants, under any pretense, represents an open invitation to subjugation and tyranny.

Unfortunately, too many among our state and national political leaders mean to be our masters. From their votes and statements yesterday, our president, our governor and both of Oregons U.S. Senators appear to believe that in order to be safe from terrorism, we must give up certain of our rights to defend ourselves against extremists and religious fanatics. They do not appear to comprehend that disarming the vulnerable only makes it safer for terrorists.

Our response to any effort to disarm us today should be no different than the answers of our nations founders.

Never!

Senator Doug Whitsett is the Republican state senator representing Senate District 28  Klamath Falls
The Supreme Court has ordered the Attorney Generals Department to make an in-camera presentation to the Court, the agreement between Government of Ghana and the United States of America Government warranting the resettlement of two ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees.



The SCs orders follow an interlocutory application by plaintiffs for Government of Ghana to produce the agreement which brought the two men, Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, into the country.



The A-Gs Department, which was represented in Court Wednesday by Acting Solicitor General, Helen Ziwu, informed the court that there was no formal or written agreement between Ghana and the US before the two ex-Al Qaeda militants were accepted into the country.



According to her, there was however a diplomatic exchange of notes with no legal backing ahead of the two being flown into Ghana.



Not satisfied with the explanation, the apex court granted the application and ordered the A-Gs Department to produce the agreement in camera at the next sitting, which is slated for July 6, 2016.



The A-Gs Department was forced to make an appearance in court Wednesday after the nine panel of judges threatened to rule on the case if the Department fails to be present again.



The Court had on Tuesday descended heavily on the A-Gs Department for failing once again to appear before it to defend the writ filed against the state on the resettlement of the two ex-Guantanamo detainees in the country.



To this end, Mr. Justice William Atuguba, president of the five-member panel of Judges, declared that the court would proceed to hear the case despite the delay tactics employed by the AGs department.



He said that, he did not understand why Mr. Sylvester Williams, Chief State Attorney and the representative of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice who was in court at the last adjourned date, failed to appear yesterday without assigning any reasons for his absence.



He, therefore, told Mrs. Dorothy Afriyie-Ansah, a Chief State Attorney who played the Devils Advocate that the court would go ahead to hear the case regardless of the inaction of the State prosecutors, and adjourned the case to today (Wednesday).



In view of the importance of the issue involved, the court has reluctantly adjourned the case to tomorrow (Wednesday) for the Attorney-General Department, to put its house in order.



In default, the court will proceed: You are here so you are at our service, Justice Atuguba told Mrs. Afriyie-Ansah who made fruitless attempts to save her colleague, Mr. Sylvester Williams.



A panel member, Mrs Justice Sophia Akuffo who did not take kindly to the conduct of the AGs Department said I will continue to comment on the shabby manner you are representing the people of Ghana.



The only Ministry that is mentioned in the 1992 Constitution, is that of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney-General, and the sooner the matter is laid to rest in one way or the other, the better.



The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear a motion filed by Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, counsel for the two plaintiffs, Mrs. Margaret Banful and Henry Nana Boakye, asking the court to order the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice together with the Minister of the Interior to produce the Diplomatic Agreement signed between the two countries.



According to the lawyer, his clients (plaintiffs) thought the unilateral decision of President John Dramani Mahama to have accepted these two former terrorists, into the country without recourse to Parliament was unconstitutional and a breach of Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution



The AGs Department has filed its statement of case in opposition to the writ filed by Mrs. Margaret Banful and Henry Nana Boakye, calling for the deportation of the Gitmo 2 from Ghana since their continuous stay threatened national security.



Before Justice Atuguba could adjourn the case to today, Nana Baffuor Awuah drew the courts attention to the conduct of the AGs Department which had culminated in the delay in hearing the case.



The court action by the two Ghanaians came at a time when there was a high public uproar over President Mahamas decision to host the two former terror suspects.



Many Ghanaians say they pose a threat to national security, a claim both governments (Ghana and the United States) have denied.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana with additional files from Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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GLENS FALLS  Glens Falls National Bank and Trust Co. has hired Andrew Wise as senior vice president of administration.

Wise will focus on project management for major companywide initiatives, as well as strategic planning.

He joins the bank with more than 26 years of operational and information technology management experience. Wise earned his bachelors degree from Boston Universitys School of Management. He is a licensed New York state insurance broker and a resident of Saratoga Springs.

Active in his community, Wise serves as a board member for the Wesley Community and is a member of the Saratoga Springs Lions Club.
Two weeks ago, a bunch of seniors at Corinth High School played hooky by heading off to Sacandaga Lake for the day. The principal, Brian Testani, tracked some of them down and ordered them back to school. He also told them theyd have to serve an in-school suspension, and if they failed to show up for that, they wouldnt be allowed to participate in commencement ceremonies.

It sounds like Mr. Testani is willing to risk unpopularity for doing his job, part of which is teaching teens that rule-breaking has consequences.

I skipped high school once with a few friends in Saranac Lake. Caught, we got hauled before Mr. Fitch, who smoked a pipe and had a trick of looking stern and amused at the same time. He told us our punishment  I think it was in-school suspension  and bid us good day.

But what if he had jumped up from his desk and shouted, High five dudes!?

That would have been weird, and not only because no one talked that way in 1974.

The Corinth parents who complained to the school board about Mr. Testani are playing the wrong role. Its the teens who are supposed to be complaining about the mean, unfair principal. The parents are supposed to be listening patiently, smiling lovingly and shrugging maddeningly.

Trouble started before the skip day, when, reportedly, the teens told their parents what they intended to do, and the parents went along. Things got even more askew after the teens got caught and the parents showed up at a school board meeting, talking about due process and the teens right to have a lawyer present when being questioned by school officials.

A lawyer? That is an idea we should not be putting in the heads of our teenagers, not unless we want them talking about their right to remain silent next time we ask where they went with the car last night.

Another parent said it was routine and common practice for parents to give the school false excuses when actually going on vacation and so on. But parents get to make those choices, within reason. Kids dont.

Parents and school officials are in roughly the same position in relation to the teens theyre responsible for, and they should be backing each other up. Its challenging enough to get our kids to the threshold of adulthood alive, healthy and somewhat educated, without having to fight each other along the way.

Soon enough, seniors will be in college, or in a job, where they will be deciding for themselves whether to show up. If they decide, Nah, not today, no one will be tracking them down.

But the consequences of that decision in the adult world can be a lot worse than in-school suspension.
Editor:

I am writing in support of Mike Derrick for Congress. Heres why.

Mike is a West Point graduate, retired Army colonel with 28 years of service to his country, leader, combat veteran, teacher, considerably experienced, happily married father of four, and  unlike his opponent, Elise Stefanik  a North Country native, born and raised in nearby Peru, where he presently resides. He has roots here.

Elise Stefanik is an aspiring Republican career politician who supports such powerful corporate interests as the Koch Brothers machine, Wall Street hedge funds, and the fossil fuel conglomerates. She has voted against the Clean Power Plan that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the Adirondacks, and against implementation of financial reforms that were enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Mike is acutely aware of the growing threat of global climate change, particularly as it relates to the North Countrys environment, wild open spaces, abundant forests and natural beauty, all of which are at the heart not only of our economy, but our way of life. Mike is an advocate of equal pay for equal work, paid family leave, and equality for women. As a combat veteran, Mike is committed to our countrys national security, and is a strong advocate of veterans rights. Improving veterans access to care, refining the quality of care, and protecting the VA from budget cuts are at the top of Mikes priorities. I could go on.

In a nutshell, Mike Derrick is the real deal. While Elise Stefanik has spent her entire career in Washington pushing her partisan agenda, Mike has spent his life serving our country in the U.S. Army. He is now looking to extend that commitment of service to his neighbors. Lets give him the opportunity to do that.

Joseph Mercurio, Saranac Lake
The problem is not because Ghana is not producing enough raw cashews but the plants are facing stiff competition from bulk cashew exporters who offer cashew farmers better price than the local processing plants.

"However, the local firms face competition from bulk exporters, who sell the cashews on to foreign processors at a higher price than is competitive for most domestic processors, who face higher operating costs for power, transport and labour," according to AsokoInsight, which offers data on Sub-Sahara African companies.

"As a result, over the course of the past decade, domestic processors have turned to importing nuts from neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire, in come cases - as with Mim Cashew - relying on imports for as much as half of their total inputs," according to AsokoInsight.

In March 2016, trade minister Dr. Ekow spio Garbrah restricted the exportation of cashews in a move to protect the local plants from collapsing, a sweeping directive.

Of the 12 cashew processing plants in Ghana, only two are in operation, and are reportedly operating below capacity due to scarcity of the nuts.

As much as 95% of Ghanas total production of cashew nuts estimated at 68,000MT is exported in its raw form to overseas for processing, Spio Garbrah said.

This means that the industry is operating at just 5% of its installed processing capacity of 65,890MT, according to the directive.

The largest cashew processor in the Brong-Ahafo Region, KONA Agro Processing Limited, shut down its operations due to financial difficulties.

The company, which employed 250 workers, many of whom were, used to process about 1,500 metric tons of raw cashew annually for export.

The company's Director, Mr. Kwabena Taylor, said his outfit needed US$1.5 million to get back into business.

Government is planning on establishing a Cashew Management Board to license, supervise and monitor all activities in the cashew value chain.
Banking and Finance Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr. Laud Mensah says the move will not have a major effect on the countrys economy.

Britain does not have the economic links it used to have on Ghana, in practical business terms, maybe because it was shielded by the EU. So unless we are talking about direct negotiations with the British government as an independent country, I dont see much changing. On the other hand, should the British Pound Sterling drop any further, that will have immediate positive effects on our foreign exchange situation in Ghana. British imports will be cheaper as well.

BBC business journalist, Russell Padmore, believes that almost all trade negotiations done with the EU that involves Britain, will have to be renegotiated.

This includes aspects of the Economic Partnership Agreement that has to do with Ghana and the UK.

Should Britain vote Brexit, it could have diverse consequences for African countries and Ghana. For example, Britain will not be bound by all agreements made under EU, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what Britain, on its own , will want to do.

Russell, speaking on BBC-Joy FM two- way business discussion program, added that the current challenges with the British Pound may inure to the benefit of Ghana, as the two countries will be free to trade.
"The company hopes the intervention of will help bring an end to the unchecked ransacking of the mine's ore body and vandalism of critical mime infrastructure," the mining giant said in a statement.

The statement added that a ruling would be expected soon after the Tribunal is constituted, which is anticipated later this year.

According to the statement, AGA was continuing to seek engagement with the government at a local and national level, but these talks have failed to yield any meaningful sustained intervention by the authorities.

The mining giant said the "inexplicable" lack of support from government to flush out the galamsey operators "has embolden" them to "intensify their activities in increasingly dangerous condiotions."

In addition, the statement said the actions of the galamseyers are "causing significant damage to the general environment, jeopardising the mine's future viability and compromising the rights of the community and investors alike."

AGA said it's hopeful the commencement of the of ICSID proceedings and Request for Provisional Measures will expedite the reinstatement of law and order at the mine.
His comment follows the auditor general's report which indicted the cashier for not accounting for the used money.

He recounted, "there was cash that was supposed to have been bound, however, the cashier failed to put them at the bank.

He said the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) were invited to investigate the issue but has so far failed to yield any result.

As a result of that, the Economic and Organized Crime unit was invited to investigate this issue he said.

"This issue has been going on for quite a long time. We have made several follow ups with the Economic and Organized Crime unit so that we could get the outcome of the report which has not been forthcoming, he added.
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Teachers of the St. Johns 1&2 have stayed out of the classroom for over two weeks after they were assaulted by thugs in the school.

A class five pupil of the school was punished by her teacher for misconduct. But she is reported to have rather snubbed the teacher and walked out of the class. She only came back twenty minutes later, with thugs to the school and that was when the attacks on the teacher and the pupils begun.

The Greater Accra regional branch of the Association later cautioned its members to stay away from the school until stakeholders addressed the matter. The police started investigations which led to the arrest of the leader of the thugs.

In a statement signed by the Greater Accra Regional Secretary of GNAT Le Roy Levi Me Nara he said since the authorities concerned have so far responded positively to our call and are still showing positive signs of meeting the rest of the demands that have not yet been met they deem it fit to ask the teachers to return to the classroom.

Currently there are police officers stationed at the school to protect both teachers and students. The Association finally request that the various stakeholders do not renege on their efforts to bring the culprits to book and also do all the other things that will make the School environments safe for teachers to discharge their professional duties in peace.

Find below the full statement

Press Release

It has become necessary once again for us at the Greater Accra GNAT; to update the public through the media; on the latest with regard to the assault on our colleagues at the St Johns 1&2 Primary School at the Accra New Town area on the 7th of June 2016.

Since the incident occurred we made several appeals to all the relevant authorities concerned to ensure that:

The culprits who assaulted the teachers of St Johns 1&2 Primary School be arrested and brought to justice

The teachers who were burgled in the process of the assault; of their phones, laptops, money and any other personal effects; be compensated.

The teachers of St Johns 1&2 Primary School (especially those that have indicated that they would not be comfortable to remain there) be transferred from that school to other suitable locations to protect them from reprisal attacks and also restore their sense of personal dignity and safety; for them to be able to exact their authority over the children they teach in executing their professional duties;

There be an arrangement to counsel the victims to restore them to their right frame of mind for them to continue to discharge their professional duties as teachers

Security be beefed up at the St Johns 1&2 Primary School and indeed all schools within the Greater Accra Region by way of walling the schools and providing day and night guards/watchmen.

A mechanism be developed to sensitize communities that host schools to peacefully co-exist with the teachers and resolve their differences through laid down procedures.

The Police have confirmed to us that they have arrested the leader of the culprits who assaulted the teachers of the St Johns 1&2 Primary School and efforts being made to get the rest arrested and brought to book.

While the Mayor of Accra; Honourable Alfred Okoh Vandapuje, has made good his promise to donate cash sums to every teacher and refund the lost cash in two fold; the MP of the Ayawaso Central Honourable Henry Quartey has also given to every member of staff a new Phone and a halve piece of cloth while the specific victims were given a laptop each in addition.

There are up to five armed police that are guarding the St Johns 1&2 Primary School since Monday and the Accra Mayor has indicated that no harm will befall any of the teachers while on their way to school or returning home; and we want to take him for his word.

We also have information that the Metro Director of Education is making the necessary arrangements to transfer the teachers who wish to be transferred to safe locations where they can discharge their duties with peace of mind

The directorate has also deployed guidance and counseling officers to provide the necessary counseling for the affected teachers and children on a daily basis for a reasonable period of time.

Perhaps what remains to be done include:

to ensure that the rest of the culprits are arrested and all of them prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to others so that teachers are not attacked in the future

Reasonable steps are taken to ensure that all schools within the Accra Metropolis and indeed the Greater Accra, are safe and secure for teaching and learning without fear of future attacks

The transfer of the teachers to locations that they can be happier and psyched up to continue to discharge their duties the way it is expected of them.

A conscious effort to interface with the community to promote peaceful coexistence between teachers and community members to prevent future attacks on teachers

We will therefore continue to monitor the situation and do all that is necessary and legal; in the pursuit of justice for our teachers and prevent future attacks on teachers.

We call on the Police and all the relevant authorities not to renege on their particular roles that they need to play in ensuring that the rest of the culprits are arrested and adequately punished; and do all the other things that will make the School environments safe for teachers to discharge their professional duties in peace.

We would equally call on all and sundry to continue to cooperate with teachers so that we can provide the quality education that we all desire, for the Ghanaian child.

As we express our profound gratitude to the Accra Mayor, the Member of Parliament for Ayawaso Central, the Police and the Metro and Regional Directors of Education in particular; and all other personalities and authorities including the media and our sister unions for their total support in meeting most of our demands; we would continue to solicit your diverse support in ensuring that the incidence of teacher assault is totally eradicated and our school environments made safe and conducive for teaching and learning.

In view of the aforesaid we are asking our teachers of the St Johns 1&2 Primary School to return to work while waiting for the Metro Director of Education to effect the transfer of those teachers who wish to be transferred.

We on our part do hereby charge all teachers to unite and continue to contribute their quota as is expected of them in our resolve to promote quality education delivery in Ghana; as the GNAT continues to play its critical role as it has done over the years to improve upon the provision of educational services to children in Ghana.

Thanks to everyone.

GNAT: WE LIVE TO TEACH!!!

Signed
The National Pensions Regulatory Authority puts the total amount of money in the Temporary Pensions fund account of the Bank of Ghana at GHC 2.9 billion. This represents an increase of 300% over 2012s GHC756.9 million.

READ MORE:Ghana Pensions Act Low number of Informal sector pension contributors alarming

An anonymous senior executive at the NPRA who spoke to Graphic Business said the Bank of Ghana has been unable to transfer the funds to respective trustees of companies because the trustees are not certified. The NPRA has therefore not been able to issue the order for transfer.

Though the funds are safe, some of the Fund Managers are complaining about effects the delays are having on their business.

Mr. Emmanuel Alex Asiedu, Managing Director, STANLIB Ghana Limited, one of the fund managers said the continuous payment of pension funds into the TPFA, where they are mostly invested in treasury bills, deprives the capital market of the needed cash to grow.

"To be honest, we would have wanted all the funds to be released but looking at it now, I would want to see it from the point of the glass being half full than half empty. I think the regulator has done its bit by encouraging companies to get schemes but since that has not happened, the authority obviously cannot transfer the funds," he explained.
When I came to Tema this morning, we were walking to these grounds and I learnt a new song. They were playing Mahama Paper. Its my first time of hearing it. But I was trying to wonder what the Mahama Paper was about and I remembered that one of the times during the ECOWAS summit, my page thirteen was missing. And so I was asking where my paper is. Im sure that is what he used to sing the song. But I want to thank Shatta very much, he said.
According to Professor Robert Andoh, dredging could not be counted on as a preventative measure to the floods because of the nature of Accras drains.

[In Accra] we have a lot of exposed surfaces. The more exposed surfaces you have, the more erosion you will get which will wash sediments into the drainsPart of the issue is that we need to address and prevent the erosion of sediments into the drains in the first place.

"The dredging is like band-aid...Are we going to be dredging every year?; he quizzed.

As such, Professor Andoh is proposing the covering up of open drains such as the Odaw to prevent silt from getting into the drain in the first place. He also recommended that the solution to the floods should start from the upstream and has called for the conscious control of water flowing into rivers in the city but take their sources from far away.

We are causing erosion of the surfaces so go to the source and address the problems rather than putting on band-aid and you still have the festering sore.

The Accra Metropolitan Assemblys was banking on dredging works in the Odaw drain and Korle Lagoon to save the city this year.

At a memorial service to commemorate the first anniversary of the June 3 disaster, the mayor of Accra, Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, announced that 45 percent of work had been done by way of dredging major drains in the city.
According to him, the total supply will be around 1473MW while demand is around 1708 MW.

So we have 220MW deficit so ECG is shedding load of about 200MW today. So any shortage in fuel or plant maintenance or any other shock to the supply system means that we may have to shed load. It may not be as worse as 2015 but there is still some impact we are feeling, Dr. Ackah told Accra-based television network, TV3.

Ghana has a deal with N-Gas to receive a 120 million standard cubic feet (mmscf) of gas daily.

Several talks have been held between Ghana and the supplier on how the country can pay its long-standing debt.
Addressing the media, the Eastern regional chairman of the Public Utility Workers Union and Senior Staff Association, Abraham Lincon, said the workers will be forced to resign en masse if government fails to listen to their pleas.

President John Dramani Mahama had earlier justified the need for government to secure a private investor in the management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

He said [People may argue that] Electricity is so important that it must be monopolized by the state, why are you allowing private sector in but we have had this system for years, and its not working. If its not working, we fix it.

You fix a situation by taking risks. It is a risk we took when we deregulated telecommunications. If you are not ready to take risks then the world is not ready to make progress.

Some private businesses have already tended in a bid for a Public- Private Partnership deal with the Electricity Company of Ghana, according to the Millennium Development Authority.

Under the deal, government is supposed to go for one of several options of a Public- Private Partnership that will help the ECG collects its debts more efficiently.

And government has opted for a concessional partnership which will see a partner that will have exclusive rights to operate, maintain and invest in the ECG for a number of years.

However, the Public Utilities Workers Union have continued to mount pressure against the privatisation of the power distributor.
I dont use Fords. I dont like American cars. I use Japanese cars. Toyota is my car.

The issue of a Ford Expedition, I have never been under the illusion that gift was a gift to the State and it has never been used for my personal comfort, he said.

President Mahama was speaking during a breakfast meeting with the clergy at the Flagstaff House.

He said he is aware that some Ghanaians have petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), over the matter, and he will respond to it soon.

It is matter for the Commission on Human Rights. I hear there is a petition there and appropriately, we will respond to it.

President John Mahama, speaking on the matter for the first time on Wednesday, rubbished corruption allegations against him, saying such claims are baseless.

Baseless accusations wont win you the Presidency. Ghanaians are discerning and I believe come November 7, they will make their decision, President Mahama told a gathering at Ashaiman during his Accounting to the People tour of the Greater Accra region.

Background

Some sections of Ghanaians have expressed anger over reports that President Mahama was given a brand new Ford Expedition in 2012 by a Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe who won the bid to construct the $650,000 Ghana Embassy Wall in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou.

Many anti-corruption campaigners have slammed the president for what they describe as his disregard for the guidelines on conflict of interest in accepting the vehicle gift.
According to ECG the barracks has more meters than estimated. In addition they were using power for free.

Usually at police barracks, we put credit meters there where we capture the consumption and later bill the accountant general for payment on behalf of the police officers, but in this case they have actually bypassed the meters, which means their consumptions are not being captured so we are going to investigate it and see if the meter was there before the police occupied the facility or otherwise Mr. Kwabena Authur Forson said.

He said they will invite all the culprits for investigations after which they will be arraigned for a special ECG court.

As it is now, we will serve them with notices to come to our office for further investigations after which we will process them for a special ECG court which sits only on Saturdays

Five other houses in Tema were also disconnected for a similar offence. But most of the residents denied knowledge of any illegal connection.
 The West African deep-water offshore is very prolific. And we believe so because there is an abundance of rich oil-prone source rocks right from the Avian, to the Cinemanian and other geological areas along the West African coast and especially Ghana.

He charged all oil and gas companies present at the Deep Offshore West African Congress to begin looking at Ghana for further exploration works.

READ MORE:Oil and Gas in Ghana Cabinet approves Gas master plan

Mr. Aryeetey cited the major success of earlier exploration companies in the country like Tullow Ghana, Cosmos Energy, Anadako and ENI.

The Deep Offshore West Africa Conference 2016, brought together high-powered players in the Oil and Gas exploration in Africa and the world to assess further potential in oil and gas exploration in West Africa, as well as share knowledge in discoveries and operations.

Mr. Aryeetey also revealed that the Petroleum Ministry will soon open be accepting bids for oil blocks after the new Petroleum Exploration bill in parliament is passed.
The Deputy Eastern Regional Secretary of the NDC, Francis Annor Dompreh told Accra-based Citi FM that indeed, the man has actually written to the National Executives and copied the regional and the constituency executives. The man has not resigned as a sitting MP, he has only withdrawn his candidature for the upcoming 2016 election based on personal reasons.

The party will officially open nomination for primaries in the area and for those who are interested to pick their forms and contest. If your nominee has indicated to you that he can no longer contest, you need to fill that vacancy so we need to have a candidate for the 2016 election. So the party will officially on Thursday open nominations, he added.
All the various parties are in your communities so desist from openly showing that you belong to one side, because you serve and lead all of them.

As humans, when you go to the booth on Election Day, nobody can tell you who to vote for; that is your choice and nobody can stop you from voting for your preferred candidate. What I urge you, however, is that dont go showing support for any of them for your people to know where you belong, he stated.

He was however quick to add that chiefs could go ahead and appreciate government for infrastructural projects undertaken in their area.

...If government does something for you and you want to express your appreciation, that is not against the law, and there is nothing wrong with that. But showing support for any of the candidates and political parties is not allowed by our tradition so be careful as chiefs.
The IEA has insulted us despite concerns we raised on some of the issues. They have grown horns and keep disrespecting us. It is like a master-servant relationship and this is why we have reviewed our relationship with them, Asiedu Nketia, also known as General Mosquito, told Kumasi based Ultimate FM.

The NDC has severed its relationship with the IEA, forcefully accusing it of being in bed with the opposition New Patriotic Party.

The party has therefore refused to partake in any programme of the IEA relating to this year's election.

General Mosquito said the IEA organised an anti-corruption programme where it empaneled anti-government speakers who subjected government to various forms of bashing.

He explained that attempts to correct some of the misinformation were ignored by the institute.

"The Principal speakers the IEA called to the forum were all anti NDC elements and when I tried making a contribution, the microphone was literally snatched from me, he said.

In a strongly worded statement Tuesday, NDC cautioned all party structures not to partake in any debate to be organized by IEA ahead of the November polls.

All Party Structures (especially the Youth and Womens wings), are to take note and comply accordingly, the statement added.

The ruling NDC had raised its misgivings from the start about the approach being adopted by the IEA for this years presidential debate.

The IEA had indicated that it was considering holding a separate debate for the presidential candidates of the two major political parties; NDC and NPP.
Nana Akufo-Addo made the commitment whilst touring the Ajumako/Enyan/Essiam, Mfantseman and Abura/Asebu/Kwamankese constituencies in the Central Region on Saturday, June 18, day 3 of his 5-day tour of the region.

According to him, the setting up of these factories across the country will, not only, commence the rapid industrialization of Ghanas economy, but also, will result in the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs needed by the masses of unemployed Ghanaian youth.

But, a statement signed by the Director of Communication of the PPP, Paa Kow Ackon, said Nana Addo has failed to indicate how he intends to create jobs with his 1 District, 1 Factory policy.

It is another election year and Nana Akufo-Addo is at what he knows best; promising heaven, when indeed his own disposition and track-record do not in any way measure up to the grandiose dream of offering nationwide factories as President, the PPP said.

No one seems to be asking Nana Akufo-Addo how he intends creating these jobs. Perhaps like his carbon copy tactics where he has virtually usurped every Nduom idea like the Separation of the Attorney Generals Department from the Ministry of Justice and election of MMDCEs, Akufo-Addo is waiting to hear Dr Nduoms take on job creation, and presto, he will make it his own, the statement added.
He took to Instagram today, June 23, 2016 writing, "The reasons why Nigerians are the most religious people in the world are not far fetched. Africans go through religious indoctrination from cradle to the grave. Africans are not allowed by family, society and the state to think, reason or live outside the religious box. In Africa religion is by force not by choice. Religion is by compulsion and not according to ones conscience. Nigerians are brought up to believe that there is NO alternative to religion. When in fact there is. So in Africa, it is either you are religious or you are nobody-you are not a human being, you are nothing. There is too much social and political pressure on Africans to be religious and to remain religious. The social, political and sometimes economic price of leaving religion, renouncing religion or criticizing religion is so high.
Freeze who took sides with Aisha Buhari after the President's wife called the embattled governor a 'mad dog' for accusing her of fraud, called Fayose a desperado who is playing 'embarrassing' politics.

He took to Instagram yesterday, June 22, 2016 writing, "Dear Gov Fayose, this desperado, way of playing politics has become way too embarrassing. During the presidential campaign, I stumbled upon a headline that read "Fayoses Aggressive Method Of Governance Embarrassing Our Family, Says Brother" and I was disturbed, but I treated it as a solitary incident. Then, you took a swipe at the president, claiming he was too old to rule Nigeria, further stating that your 74-year-old mother, allegedly wears diapers, and that Buhari is likely to be using diapers and therefore is unfit to rule Nigeria.

ALSO READ: Freeze hits back at fan who said his watches are fake

This was a blow to my intelligence as American presidential candidate Donald trump is 70, while his counterpart Hilary Clinton is 68 years old, both within president Buhari's age range of 73years, with neither of them wearing diapers. The Irish president, Michael Daniel Higgins, is even older than all of them at 75years and is as fit as a fiddle. Now this last attempt at smearing the name of Mrs Buhari and claiming Zenith bank funded your campaign is a little scary! Bros is everything ok? Because this, in my opinion, has gone too far, and is making you look like you ought to pursue a career in comedy. ~FRZ."
The top blogger

The Linda Ikeji story looked false from a mile away because if it was true what about pop star Davido who loves flossing and flaunting his expensive cars and watches regularly on social media. Something didn't add up in the story and it's good that Linda Ikeji has come out to deny the reports. As the Linda Ikeji story turns out to be untrue it still points a spotlight on celebrities and taxes though.

ALSO READ: Messi testifies in tax fraud trial

No one is saying celebrities shouldn't show off what they have but you better be paying your taxes before sharing photos of your new Range Rover jeep. One day the time will come when you have to give to Caesar what you have been showing off on Instagram.

Nigeria is an extremely materialistic society where it is normal for even an average Nigerian to show off his latest car, latest house or expensive watch. Even in churches, a lot of testimonies are about money and wealth. The only index for progress in Nigeria is the amount of money you have in your bank account and nothing else. So with this mindset, celebrities want to show how far they have come in life and prove to themselves that they are keeping up with the Jones.

ALSO READ: FIRS shuts down 10 companies for tax default

This has been the prevailing narrative for years now but with the Government looking for funds to run the country tax is now being focused on, and when the government looks around they see our celebrities showing off. Of course they will be first in line.

In America the IRS pick up celebrities who dont pay their taxes for fun. For the IRS jailing celebrities who are tax defaulters helps let everyone know that no one is above the law. Hundreds of American defaulters have been locked behind bars for not paying their taxes.

In Nigeria the only celebrities attached to a tax evasion story was Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde. In April, 2016 it was reported that the star actress had not filed her personal income tax return papers. On April 12, 2016 she exclusively told Pulse that the story was a lie. That is not correct at all, we will send out a press release very soon. We are working with the government to find out who released that article she said via her reps.
He wrote, "What can we say unto The Lord? All we have to say is"THANK YOU LORD". 10 yrs ago, (June 23,2006), we got engaged. Just like a kid play, like a twinkle of an eye, it is already a DECADE ! Biggest appreciation to The Almighty. Omolara, I'm happy we are both alive to see today, your perseverance and patience paid off. Thank you. Love you so much sweets."
Qudus Onikekus latest creation, features on stage six dancers and one actress, all of varied backgrounds and identities (Nigeria, Gabon, Morocco, Algeria, Madagascar & France). The sold out show ended Berlin on June 20, after which the whole cast and crew left for Lagos on June 21, to get ready for the much awaited Lagos premiere, never has Qudus, a world renowned dancer and choreographer, premiered his international works in Nigeria, through the active support of Goethe Institut, Bank Of Industry, Institut Fracais and the German Embassy, this is made possible, not just in Lagos but equally in Abuja.
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
According to Punch, Edobor was admitted at the hospital in April 2016, but was unable to receive medical attention due to the strike which began on Monday, June 20, 2016.

She reportedly got an infection since there was no medical personnel to treat her wounds. She died on Tuesday, June 21, 2016.

Her elder brother, Mr. Sunday Ogbewe, gave an account of what led to her death.

He said, She had a fire accident and she was admitted here (UBTH). When the strike started, there was no doctor; so, she contracted an infection.

Its very painful. I have been crying. She is gone. When it happened, I even called some doctors to attend to her. But they said no. They (doctors) should have human feeling.

Dr. Owen Omorogbe, who is the president of the Association of Resident Doctors, UBTH chapter however regretted the situation.

He explained that the strike was a difficult decision, meant to address the issue of delayed salaries of doctors.

Omorogbe said, Most of the works in this hospital (UBTH) and in most teaching hospitals are done by resident doctors. So, when we withdraw our services, we expect that it will have a toll on the populace.

It is a painful decision that was informed by several means of dialogue and advocacy. We are well aware of the pain it has brought to the people of Edo State.

We appeal to them to understand that what we are trying to do is to seek a definite solution to all these perennial problems.
The protest was held on Wednesday, June 22, 2016, at the Nigeria Union of Journalists secretariat, Oke Ilewo, Abeokuta.

According to the association, there has been a 150 per cent increase in the charges. It rose from a sum of N500 to N2,000.

In a bid to drive their point home, the protesters held placards with the inscriptions, Dont kill private schools with multiple levies, dues and charges, The economic downturn affects us and the parents too, Do not destroy our educational system by destroying private schools, Do not kill private schools with levies.

Alhaji Rilwan Hassan, who is the president of the association, said there has been a discrimination between private and public schools in Ogun.

He explained that some efforts have been earlier made by the group, all to no avail.

Stating the motive behind the protest, Hassan said, We want the government to reverse its decision on fees for BECE, FSLC, signage, tenement rate, renewal fee and multiple taxes.

We are assisting the government to employ workers in our schools and a lot of us are on loans. It is social service we are rendering.
Oraekwuotu said the company was committed to promoting arbitration in Africa because of its inherent benefits. He added that the company was also promoting the use of local arbitrators as a way of building local capacity in the field.

In all the countries where we have operations on the West African coast, whenever any dispute arises between us and our broad spectrum of partners, as is it is wont to happen in a business environment, it is our policy to engage local arbitrators in the respective countries to help achieve a resolution agreeable to all parties, he said.

The panel discussion was centered on the need to institute arbitration processes and judicial policies to encourage investors to choose arbitration instead of litigations.

The president of the International Court of Arbitration, Mr. Alexis Mourre, described the First Africa Regional Arbitration Conference of the International Chamber of Commerce as the most successful of all such conferences on five continents, especially considering the level of participation.

Mr. Mourre called for more diversity in the global community of arbitrators, adding that over 70 percent of all arbitrators were of Western Europe or North American origins.

The President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Mr. Augustine Alegeh (SAN), who also spoke at the conference, said arbitration could help Nigeria to decongest the courts as many cases ought not to go to litigation if arbitration was given its due recognition. He expressed confidence that the conference would help expand the frontiers of knowledge on arbitration in Africa.

The Chairperson of the Planning Committee of the conference, Mrs. Dorothy Udeme Ufot (SAN), expressed gratitude to Globacom and other sponsors of the event, saying their support would help boost the profile of Nigeria in the global community of arbitrators.

Addressing delegates at the Gala Night held later, Executive Director, Legal Services, Globacom, Mrs. Gladys Talabi, said the company was delighted to sponsor the conference as part of its contribution to growing expertise in arbitration on the African continent.
According to a Facebook user, Agbanyo Atsu Bernard, Emmanuel, a school teacher, brutally slaughtered his own wife with a machete before escaping the scene.

This is what Bernard wrote on his Facebook page:

"How could you Emma? Fighting a woman and butchering her won't make you a man but evil. God have mercy on himanity.

Wherever you are, remember you can run but you can't hide. And God be with you. I never knew you could do this. A teacher to butcher his wife?"
The suspects, Johnson Igadu, 25, Daniel Poku, 25, and Sterling Longlife, 26, who were paraded by the NSCDC at the Command headquarters in Ikeja, said their leader identified only as Soji, who is still at large, had concluded the arrangements with the soldiers who assured them that they would be covered.

The vandals, it was gathered, were, on May 21, 2016, engaged by Soji to convey 10 barrels of fuel in a boat from 7th Avenue, FESTAC Town, to a place called Ghana village, telling them that he had settled the military men monitoring the waterways in the area.

The gang had allegedly scaled through with the fuel at two checkpoints manned by soldiers before luck ran out on them.

Igadu, an indigene of Delta State, said he could not tell why the operation went wrong as his friend, Poku, had allegedly spoken with a soldier on the phone who assured them of safety.

I came to Lagos two months ago. Soji called us to bring 10 barrels of fuel from a creek on 7th Avenue, FESTAC Town. We went there to carry the fuel to Ghana village. We knew there were soldiers in the area, but he said he had already paid them and that we should not be afraid.

He sent Pokus number to one of the soldiers to call us when it was safe to get the fuel. The soldier called Poku and said we should come to carry the fuel. That was why we got the confidence to move.

We carried the fuel around 12.30am and left in their presence. We passed the first two checkpoints. The soldiers there checked the fuel and told us to go.

When we got to the third checkpoint, we heard gunshots. We fled the boat and escaped through the waterways. We ran to a man and begged him to allow us pass the night at his house.

But he alerted the vigilantes around the area who handed us over to the police. The police handed us over to the army and we were later transferred to the NSCDC.

Poku, also an indigene of Delta State, said he had declined to embark on the deal but Soji persuaded him.

"I am a businessman. I came to Lagos to hustle. I later met Soji. He engaged the three of us to carry the fuel to Ghana village and promised to give us N10,000 each. I told him soldiers were around the area and he said he had settled them.

The soldiers at the checkpoints knew we were carrying fuel but they did not stop us. It was at the third checkpoint that some of them started shooting. Maybe Soji didnt settle those soldiers.

However, the Public Relations Officer of the 81 Division, Lt.-Col. Kingsley Samuel, refuted the allegations of the suspects, saying they could have mistaken the officers of other forces for soldiers.

That is an allegation from suspects; it is spurious. Can they identify the soldiers? The Nigerian Army, the Air Force and the Navy wear the same camouflage. There is uniformity in the camouflage, so you cant tell who is a soldier, an air force officer or a naval officer.
According to the Daily Post, the suspects promised to double the money for the woman using a chemical.

Pedro Awili, the state commandant of the NSCDC, said that the men first approached the woman telling her that they needed N100,000 to buy the chemical.

Following this, it was reported that they returned to collect a N500,000 balance for the job. It was at this point that the woman reported them to security operatives who arrested them.

Awili said, This led to the arrest of the two men who gave fake names and states of origin to the woman, the Commandant added, noting that the two men confessed to the crime and pleaded for leniency.

They claimed to be doing it for the first time,
Punch reports that according to the agency, about 98 people sustained varying degrees of injuries emanating from accidents on the same road, which is clearly a cause of concern for the nation.

The statistics were obtained from cases reported by either the FRSC, the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE), the Ogun State Police Command, as well as other agencies.

However, records obtained from the Ogun State TRACE indicate that 91 crashes occurred on the Ogun State end of the expressway in six months, which saw 44 people dead while 149 persons were injured.

The Zonal Commanding Officer, FRSC, Zone 2, Nseobong Akpabio, attributed the accidents to reckless driving, adding that some failed portions on the expressway also contributed to the accidents.

Indiscipline is the major cause of most of the accidents. For instance, between the Ogunmakin and Ogere end of the expressway, drivers speed because construction work had just been concluded and the road is smooth.

The same is applicable between the Mowe and Sagamu end of the road. There are also failed portions in some parts. If any vehicle runs into some of the bad portions at full speed, it would veer off the road and the vehicle would end up in the bush.

We wrote a report on the various failed portions on the expressway and that informed the ongoing construction works which will cover several kilometres."

On his part, the Public Relations Officer, TRACE, Babatunde Akinbiyi, said efforts taken by the agency to reduce road accidents included public enlightenment and training of arrested drivers.

From the data we have, 10 people died in each month of January, April and June, while there were three deaths in February, six in March and five in May, making a total of 44 deaths.
The court presided over by Justice Kabiru Auta, ruled that Abdulrahaman who is also known as Daddy, be hanged for murdering Bello on June 5, 2014, during a robbery attack at the victim's house in the Nassarawa GRA area of the city.

The convict was found guilty on the charge of culpable homicide which is punishable with death, after the prosecution proved that he was the one who stabbed Bello in the heart with a kitchen knife during the attack.

The prosecution led by Barrister M.M. Sulaiman of the State Ministry of Justice and assisted by the Nominal Complainant Counsel, J.I. Macaulay of Kehinde Olaitan Chamber, called seven witnesses and tendered several exhibits, which included the knife used by him to stab Bello and the Blackberry handset of the deceased, inside which Abdulrahamn inserted his own SIM card, which made the court to indict him as part of circumstantial evidence.

Making his last plea for the accused, his defence counsel from the Legal Aid Council, Barrister Adama, urged the court to temper justice with mercy because of his aged mother, wife and children, but Justice Auta would have none of that, saying that the accused deserved no mercy having committed a capital offence by murdering a bread winner like himself.

Justice Auta remarked that the accused showed no remorse throughout the trial and returned a verdict of hanging by the neck for the accused until pronounced dead.
The workers, under the auspices of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), downed tools in compliance with the June 21 directive from its national secretariat.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that JOHESU had directed its members to embark on a seven-day warning strike after its meeting with the Federal Government ended in a deadlock.

A visit to the hospital by NAN Correspondent showed that nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, physiotherapists and other workers were not seen at their duty posts within the hospital.

They also demanded for the payment of arrears of specialist allowances to qualified hospitals-based health professionals with effect from January 1, 2010.

Other demands include immediate and full payment of arrears of the skipping of CONHESS 10 which had remained outstanding since 2010.

The chairman of JOHESU at the hospital, Mr Eke Uzondu, said that his members had complied with the strike which began at 12.00 a.m., on Wednesday.

``It is only a seven-day warning strike which is not meant to totally paralyse activities at the hospital.

``There are patients in the wards and we will see how we can manage them until the government responds to our demands,`` Uzondu said.

In his comments, the hospital acting Medical Director, Dr Richard Adebayo, said that the management was still negotiating with the workers to seek their understanding on the strike.

``We are engaging them to see how we can provide skeletal services while the strike is on.

``We sympathise with them in their struggle, because they still have to clamour for their needs.
You will recall that the lawmakers summoned the AGF after its plenary on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, to come and shed more light on the forgery charges levelled against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.

Senator Dino Melaye moved the motion for Malami to be summoned to the Red chambers.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) also said it will conduct an investigation into the alleged case of forgery against the two leaders of the Senate.

The Coalition Against Political Victimization also accused the Federal Government of victimising the Senate President.

Reports say Saraki and Ekweremadu will appear before an Abuja High Court on June 27, 2016 to face charges of forgery.
The Secretary to the State Government, Mr Taiwo Adeoluwa, made the clarification at separate meetings with Heads of Local Government Administration (HOLGA) and the leadership of the National Union of Local Government Employers (NULGE) in Abeokuta.

He insisted that the money was solely committed to the payment of arrears of salaries and co-operative deductions of all categories of the states workforce.

He blamed the development on communication gap between government and the local government administrators.

Adeoluwa said that the anti-graft agencies, particularly the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), which monitored the disbursement across the country, gave the state a clean bill of health after the exercise.

``What was due to local government councils from the total package we got was N9.1 billion with which we promptly cleared arrears of salaries, cooperative deductions of primary school teachers and local government staff.

``We are clear in our mind that not a dime from the money was used for anything else other than local government administration.

``We used the bailout fund wholly to discharge the obligations we got if for," he said.

Adeoluwa explained that the confusion arose because the total amount of money outstanding to local government workers was more than other categories of workers.

``As such, what they got was below what went to their colleagues," he said.

He said that the meeting was convened at the instance of Gov. Ibikunle Amosun who challenged local government authorities to leverage on their individual strength to boost their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

Adeoluwa said that the governor charged the councils to make use of their comparative advantage to improve their IGR rather than depend on the federal allocation.

The State President of NULGE, Ayuba Olatunji, commended the government for the clarification, saying that such interface was long overdue.
According to the group, nearly 200 refugees who fled Boko Haram attacks, have died of starvation and dehydration in Bama, Borno state in the past month.

The Head of Doctors Without Borders Mission in Nigeria, Ghada Hatim said: "Bama is largely closed off. We have been told that people there, including children, have starved to death. One in five of the 15,000 children are suffering severe acute malnutrition. We see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors," Hatim told the MSF.

The MSF team also said it counted 1,233 cemetery graves located near the camp which had been dug in the past year, disclosing that of those graves, 480 were for children.

Meanwhile, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have said that the figures provided by the MSF were exaggerated.

Speaking with Pulse.ng, the Press Officer at the NEMA Headquarters in Abuja, Ezekiel Manzo said: "These people came from liberated towns surrounding Bama while others were rescued by the military from the Boko Haram insurgents. Most of them were not eating while they were with the terrorists because the military have succeeded in blocking their access to food.

"The number the group said is not true, it was exaggerated, this is because some of the IDPs are in hospitals receiving medical attention. Even the number of graves too," he said.
Mrs Ambode said this while delivering the keynote address at an event in Surulere, Lagos state, organized by the Rose of Sharon Foundation, to mark the 2016 International Widows Day.

She spoke on the topic: Widows Economic Empowerment and Political Participation: A call to Action.

She said a widow without empowerment, would be unstable and incapable of taking decisions on important issues affecting her and the children.

According to her, "Economic empowerment means everything to the widow Empowerment helps the widow to stabilize in the midst of the storm; to gain her voice in the crowd; to swim against the tide and to take a firm decision when the odds are clearly against her."

She adviced them to take advantage of the skill acquisition programme of the state government which teaches many vocational skills in various centres across the state.

"At those centres, there is free training on decoration and event planning, fashion, tie and dye, soap-making, pomade-making, hair-dressing, catering and many more. The overall objective is to make widows financially independent and to become employers of labour," she added.

Speaking further, she advised the widows to make themselves socially relevant by engaging in active politics.

She also said "Bad as it may be for a woman to have lost her beloved spouse, that should not be the end of her own life too. In most cases, children are there to look after. Therefore, wowen, specifically widows should play active politics."

Mrs Bolanle Ambode also condemned the trend of domestic violence which has continued to plague the state and the country.
In a recent statement by the Acting Director Army Public Relations, Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman the army sees the allegation as a campaign of calumny and distraction by faceless criminal gang of economic saboteurs that hide under the aegis of Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF).

"The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to another campaign of calumny and distraction by faceless criminal gang of economic saboteurs that hide under the aegis of Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF) alleging that some officers of the Nigerian Army approached them for support to overthrow our duly elected present democratic government," the statement read.

ALSO READ: Alleged coup plot to overthrow President exposed

Continuing, Col Usman said, "This is baseless and most unfortunate allegation that existed in the warped minds of the originators of such weighty allegation. The Nigerian Army wish to state that this is not true and hereby distanced itself from this weighty allegation.

"We also see this speculation as a dangerous distraction to our effort in fighting insurgency and other criminal elements in the country. The Nigerian Army would like to send a strong and an unequivocal warning to those speculating a coup by the Nigerian Army (NA) against the Government to desist forthwith. We would like state in clear terms that we are a product of democracy and a focused professional institution and would have nothing to do with such abomination and heinous crime.

"We wish to state further that the NA is the greatest beneficiary of democracy and therefore cannot ever contemplate any anti-democratic misadventure, certainly not under the command of the present Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Rather, we see this type of dangerous speculation as a declaration of war to destabilise the present government by these unscrupulous elements. The Nigerian Army is investigating those behind the dangerous insinuation in order to unravel the real motive behind it.

"We would like to reiterate our unalloyed loyalty to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and defence of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We would also like to reaffirm our unconditional support and obedience to civil authority," he said.
In a statement issued in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said a new date would soon be announced for the event.

Shehu dismissed the assertion that the event was cancelled, saying that the schedule was put up ``hurriedly on his return to ensure that all interests are accommodated.

``This arose from the clash of schedules. You know the President spent the first fourteen days of the fast out of the country.

``The schedule was put up hurriedly on his return to ensure that all interests are accommodated.

``It turned out that the date fixed for the parliament could not be sustained due to prior commitments some of the invitees had. We are expecting that a new date will be appointed.
Punch reports that the IYCW President, Udengs Eradiri said One of the most salient issues that if not addressed will lead to more crisis is the issue of the oil blocs.

President Buhari was one time Petroleum Minister and Head of State in this country. Let us go and do an assessment of that time. The time when criminally they shared our oil blocs was under his watch either as Petroleum Minister or as Head of State. It is in one of those times.

Oil blocs were shared to one group. Look at it, either the person (owner of oil bloc) was a former military president or relative of the military president or an in-law to a military president.

Eradiri also said And that is one of the biggest issues that if not addressed, there will be more Niger Delta Avengers, you will see groups and groups that will spring up until the issue is addressed.

The group leader said the issue of militancy will not stop in the troubled region of Niger Delta unless the oil blocs are allocated equitably.
Fayoses aide said Falana is only deceiving the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Governor Ayodele Fayoses matter because of his ambition to contest the Ekiti State Governorship election in 2018,thinking that he can achieve what he used the EFCC to achieve against Governor Fayose in 2006 ten years after.

Even though this comment coming from Femi Falana ought to have been ignored like we have always done because his hypocrisy has become so legendary that he should no longer be taken seriously by sane minds, it was shameful that Falana, a Senior Associate Nigeria (SAN) could say that EFCC can freeze Nigerians bank accounts and obtain a court order later even when Section 34 of the EFCC Act provided that a court order must be obtained (ex-parte) and made available to the bank manager before a bank account can be frozen.

He also cited Section 34 of the EFCC Act, saying the anti-graft agency cannot freeze anybodys bank account without a court order.

The Governors spokesman said This position was also expressed by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, yesterday when he ordered the EFCC to pay N12.5 million damages to the son of former Governor Murtala Nyako, Senator Abdulaziz Nyako for unlawful freezing of his account and illegal detention.

It is, therefore, strange that a SAN could tell Nigerians that EFCC can carry out an action first and obtain court order to justify the action later.

If I may ask, was Falana called to the Bar before he attended Law School and passed his Call-To-Bar Exams? Was Falanas LLB Certificate given to him before he got admission to the University? Was Falanas BL Certificate issued to him before he attended the Law School? Was Falanas Birth Certificate issued before he was born? Was Falanas Marriage Certificate issued before he got married? Has Falana ever traveled to UK or USA and obtained Visa later? Can I, Lere Olayinka, because I can now quote some laws begin to practice as a lawyer and go to University to study law later?

He added that Obviously, opinions of lawyers like Femi Falana are better left in the trash cans and Nigerians should begin to thank God that he was not made the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

It is also important to tell Falana to seek the face of the Lord for forgiveness of his sins against Ekiti and Governor Fayose in particular, because it appears God deliberately frustrated his bid to be appointed Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice because of what he would have used the position for.

For instance, over ten Ekiti indigenes were murdered during the APC government of Dr Kayode Fayemi, Falana kept silent. He also kept silent when the future of Ekiti State was being mortgaged to frivolous loans and deductions from workers salary were not being remitted. It also made no meaning to Falana that democratically elected local government chairmen and councillors were sacked and council election was not conducted throughout the four years of APC government in Ekiti State.

Instead of hiding under human rights activism to perpetrate evil against Ekiti and its people as he has always done, Falana should be bold enough to declare his governorship ambition, which is not hidden and lets see how far he can go this time around.

Like we have maintained, this is 2016 and 2006 that Falana and his criminal collaborators used EFCC to remove governors, Governor Fayoses impeachment was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court, Olayinka said.

Governor Ayo Fayoses Zenith bank account was blocked by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday, June 20, 2016.
The House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness; Aids, Loans and Debt Management; IDPs and North East Development to jointly investigate the alleged diversion of donor funds meant for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the north east.The resolution of the House was sequel to a motion on matters of urgent public importance sponsored by Hon Ali Isa during plenary on Thursday, June 23, 2016.Moving the motion on the floor of the House, the lawmaker noted that a number of international communities and donor organizations have publicly declared monetary support for the rehabilitation of IDPs in the north east.Both the Federal Government, local donor groups as well as wealthy individuals have committed funds for the same purposes.Worried that despite all the , a large number of these IDPs are , very deplorable and unhygienic conditions without any rehabilitation in sight.There are series of allegations of diversion of the donated funds meant for the well being and welfare of IDPs," Isa said.He noted that some civil society groups and non governmental organizations claiming to be working for the interest of the IDPs are doing contrary.Similarly, Johnson Agbonayima described the situation IDPs as "disheartening and a disgrace to the nation." He said corruption must be stopped in the country so that the north east can be rebuilt.The Motion was adopted by the House after it was put to a voice vote by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.
The state's Finance Commissioner, Mr Akan Okon, said this in Uyo on Wednesday when FIRS acting State Coordinator in Akwa Ibom, Mr Innocent Ohagwu, paid him a courtesy visit.

The commissioner said there was need for exchange of relevant information on how to capture every individual and organisation required by law to remit taxes to government.

He added that the state government had taken steps to put in place a robust tax compliance mechanism, stressing that it was also necessary to fashion out ways of securing public confidence in government to allow for voluntary compliance in tax payment.

He said that the administration of Gov. Udom Emmanuel was determined to utilise the money accruing to the state in the provision of tangible infrastructure.

He called on relevant authorities like FIRS to enforce relevant tax laws to guard against tax evasion and avoidance so as to make funds available for sustainable development.

Earlier, the FIRS Coordinator, Mr Innocent Ohagwu, had said that the visit was to solicit the cooperation of the Akwa Ibom Government in the attempt to increase revenue generation from the state.

Ohagwu said such collaboration was necessary in view of the present economic situation in the country, which had taken toll on finances of state and federal governments.

He called for constructive partnership that would yield mutual benefits for both parties, especially in the achievement of revenue targets.
The Commander, Forward Operating Base of the Navy in Badagry, Capt. Simon Dogo, told journalists in Lagos that the seizure was made after the vandals abandoned the boat on sighting a naval team and fled.

``My patrol teams went on patrol at Pashe creek when they saw perpetrators trying to load the petroleum products in a boat for transfer to Benin Republic.

``The perpetrators, on sighting the naval team, jumped into water and fled. We intercepted the boat and we discovered that 90 of over 200 of the jerry cans had been filled with petrol,'' he said.

Dogo said that the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Adm. Ibok Ibas had zero tolerance for economic sabotage and the navy was carrying out his directives in that direction.
The source said Adalumo, 90, is the father of an hotelier in Ikole Ekiti, Oluwole Adalumo.According to her, a man alighted from a car parked in front of the house and approached the nonagenarian in his sitting room on the pretext that his hotelier son sent him to the old man.

``When the supposed visitor came out of the house with the old man, two other men from the car dragged Baba into their car and drove away before people could suspect their mission.``We raised alarm to prevent the abduction of Baba but they got away and we were unable to trace the vehicle, she narrated.

Also, Mr Festus Kolade, a youth in the area, said that the matter was immediately reported at the Police station and a search for the abducted old man was initiated.

Kolade, who claimed to be a family member of the victim, said that the abductors were yet to make any contact with the family.

Relatives and friends of the victim were seen in groups in front of his house at Oke-Ijebu on Thursday morning discussing the incident and wondered what would have prompted the hoodlums to abduct the nonagenarian.

A police officer at Divisional Police Station in Ikole, who does not want his name published, confirmed the incident and said investigation into the matter had commenced.
Col. Sani Usman, the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, said in a statement on Thursday that the army had begun investigation into the allegation as well as the group, Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF), that made it.

``The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to another campaign of calumny and distraction by faceless criminal gang of economic saboteurs that hide under the aegis of Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF) alleging that some officers of the Nigerian Army approached them for support to overthrow our duly elected present democratic government.

``This is baseless and most unfortunate allegation that existed in the warped minds of the originators of such weighty allegation.

''The Nigerian Army wishes to state that this is not true and hereby distances itself from this weighty allegation,'' Usman said.

``We also see this speculation as a dangerous distraction to our effort in fighting insurgency and other criminal elements in the country.

``The Nigerian Army is investigating those behind the dangerous insinuation in order to unravel the real motive behind it,'' Usman said.

He said: ``The Nigerian Army will like to send a strong and an unequivocal warning to those speculating a coup by the Nigerian Army against the government to desist forthwith.

''We will like to state in clear terms that we are a product of democracy and a focused professional institution and will have nothing to do with such abomination and heinous crime.

He said ``the army is the greatest beneficiary of democracy and therefore cannot ever contemplate any anti-democratic misadventure, certainly not under the command of the present Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen.

``Rather, we see this type of dangerous speculation as a declaration of war to destabilise the present government by these unscrupulous elements.''

Usman reiterated the Nigerian Army's loyalty to the civil administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

``We will like to reiterate our unalloyed loyalty to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and defense of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

''We will also like to reaffirm our unconditional support and obedience to civil authority.

``We wish to further assure Nigerians and, indeed, all peace loving people that the Nigerian Army and indeed its personnel will never be involved in such terrible misadventure.
Okowa made the remarks when he received the President of Women Arise for Change Initiative, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin, who paid him a courtesy visit in Asaba.

He said that the Child Rights Act was domesticated in Delta in 2009 and that as a state, the Act would be diligently implemented.

He added that ``we intend to implement the Act diligently, if anybody is involved in the abuse of women and children, the person must stop, because we will take such issue up and the person will be prosecuted.

``We must do what we can to safeguard the future of our children because it appears that many families have forgotten their roles right from the family level; it seems that values are lost.

``As you carry on with your social advocacy, a lot needs to be done for families to play their roles of bringing up well trained children.''

The governor, however, lamented situations where children grow up without feeling pains or not afraid of inflicting pains on others.

He cautioned against any form of violence on children, women and less privileged in the society, adding that parents should ensure proper upbringing of their children and wards.

He assured that government would take up any issue that concerned gender based violence and child abuse.

He commended Okei-Odumakin for her organisations intervention to reduce violence against children, women and the less privileged in the society.

Earlier, Okei-Odumakin, who did a presentation on gender-based violence in the country, called on the governor to establish centres to handle such cases in the state.
Mrs Ngozi Ikenga, the Chairperson of the group, Abuja chapter, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Ikenga noted that some women were unaware of their rights or where to seek redress when their rights were infringed.``We sensitise men to proper treatment of women, which is with respect and not as punching bags; because when the home is peaceful the society will be at peace, she said.

According to her, FIDA goes to schools in the six area councils of the FCT to sensitise men on women and childs right act.``FIDA is concerned with the welfare of women and children especially the indigent women in the society.``We are mainly concerned with those who cannot access justice on their own because of financial constraints, Ikenga said.

She said FIDA shared over 100 copies of Child Rights Act to the Junior Secondary School in Wuse Zone 1 during the childrens day celebration.

Besides, Ikenga said FIDA sensitises people at the grassroots on zero tolerance to violence.``We do pro-bono cases for women and children and push for bills at the National Assembly that would enhance the achievement of our vision.
Col. Sani Usman, the Acting Director Army Public Relations, who made this known in a statement in Maiduguri, said that the incident took place on Wednesday.

``Troops of 7 Division recovered and successfully detonated Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by suspected Boko Haram terrorists that came in a tricycle in Gomari, Maiduguri, on Wednesday in conjunction with Nigeria Police Explosive Ordinance Device team.

``The development has necessitated the call for more vigilance and security consciousness on the part of everyone, especially the residents of Maiduguri and its environs.

``The fight against the menace of Boko Haram terrorists is a collective responsibility that requires positive contribution from all citizenry.

People should please be wary of suspicious persons or objects and report same to the nearest security agency or post,'' he said.

Usman said that troops of the Nigerian Army had also arrested two suspected Boko Haram terrorists after a clearance operation in some enclaves located in Buhari, Matari and Kaidiri villages in Damasak in Borno.

He said a joint patrol team of Sector 1 of 27 Task Force Brigade and Army Headquarters Strike Group on Thursday cleared Boko Haram terrorists enclaves in Buhari, Matari and Kaidiri villages located some kilometers to Damasak, Borno.

``Unfortunately, the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists at Kaidiri on sighting the patrol team chickened out and withdrew in disarray into Niger Republic with gunshot wounds.

The troops pursued them and got two Boko Haram terrorists,'' he said.
This is contained in a statement jointly signed by the Chairman, Pastor Benjamin Akanmu and Secretary, Rev. Segun Babatunde, which was issued to newsmen in Ibadan on Wednesday.

It urged the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) to look at its demands and see how they could be met by government, urging the union to suggest ways the revenue base of the state could be increased.

``We appeal to our labour leaders in the state to listen to the words of wisdom to allow for mutual dialogue with government that we all put in place through our votes.

``We should be able to allow peace to reign in the state so that our children who are the future leaders will not be made to suffer for too long before the right thing is done.

``Yes, agitation of rights should involve dialogue and not degenerate to this position that both parties had taken. We are making a passionate plea to labour to resolve this matter, it said.

The Christian body in the state called on government to create enabling environment to dialogue with labour and not use their authority to throw both the water and baby away.

It appealed to government to look into the agitations of the labour and facilitate dialogue with them to resolve the issue at once.

``Both parties should understand that the current situation is worrisome and the effect is on the economy of the state.

``We have continued to pray at every available opportunity for normalcy to return between the labour unions and government in the state.

``It is time for all of us to return to God on our knees, the statement said.

NAN reports that the labour unions in the state had, in conjunction with the national headquarters of NLC, on June 6 declared an indefinite strike in the state.

Mr Solomon Adelegan, the unions National Vice-Chairman, had announced the strike directive after a congress held at the labour secretariat in Ibadan.

Adelegan said that the strike would continue until government withdrew all trumped-up charges levelled against some labour leaders and paid the six months outstanding salaries of workers and pensions.

The union also demanded proper and adequate funding of the education sector, payment of living wages and other incentive for educational workers.

It also said the government should rescind its decision to sell-off public schools.

NAN reports that a peace parley initiated by the Oyo State House of Assembly between the labour leadership and government on June 15 was inconclusive

Mr Waheed Olojede, NLC Chairman in the state had on June 16 told newsmen that government could not meet the terms of agreement with the labour leadership, therefore the strike would continue.

Olojede said that the government did not meet their request on the payment of outstanding salaries.

He disclosed that government had agreed to put on hold the proposed education policy for the setting up of a 14-man committee to be saddled with the responsibility of ratifying the recommendations.

However, Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo had appealed to the labour unions in the state to return to the negotiation table in the interest of peace and development.
This is contained in a message signed by the President of NLC, Mr Ayuba Wabba, to commemorate Public Service Day on June 23.

Wabba said the public service availed the country the opportunity to re-state effective and genuine ways of tackling inequality, want, deprivation and misery in Africa.

``It is to consciously and consistently implement state-driven public services delivery programmes and not to privatise them.

``According to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the state still remains the driver of the commanding heights of the economy, and the provider of jobs and services.

``Congress holds the strong view that aggressive privatisation should not be an excuse for failing to stem Illicit Financial Flows(IFF) from Nigeria in particular and Africa in general.

``The case for serious, aggressive, brave and sustainable inward looking cannot be more urgent now that the country is confronted by near-unprecedented economic challenges.''

The message said the performance of basic and fundamental state duties such as payment of salaries and pension as when due was under real threat.

In it, Wabba held that 16 months after African Union-Economic Commission for Africas (AU-ECA) report on Illicit-Financial Flows from Africa, no action had been taken by the Africa Heads of State.

``Congress is not in doubt that these lost revenues would boost and complement finances necessary for achieving the roll-out of social services that could considerably alter the quality of life of the citizenry.

``We are not amused that government has chosen to increase Value Added Tax and pump price of petroleum products rather than commit same zeal and attention to dealing with criminalities and their perpetrators.

It stated that devaluing the Naira and other such policies that will punish the poor and exacerbate the hardship and miseries of indigent households.

``On the commemoration of Public Service Day 2016, we congratulate workers, especially the public sector workers to whom this day is dedicated.

``This is for their commitment, devotion and sacrifice and without whom there would be no public service or programmes'', said the message.
Obasanjo said that the local council structure had been bastardised, battered and encroached upon by states, contrary to the objectives of creating the third-tier of government in 1976.

"I wish I could help, but I am helpless," the former president said when receiving the leadership of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) who paid him a courtesy visit in Abeokuta on Wednesday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NULGE leadership was led by the National President, Mr Ibraheem Khaleel.

He described the neglect to which the councils had been subjected by states as unprecedented, wondering whether states could allow the Federal Government to do the same to them.

"I begin to wonder if they (states) can allow what they are doing to the local governments to be done to them.

``There is no exception to this bastardisation and encroachment by states.

`` Even though both are supposed to be separate tiers of government with each having its roles and functions, that is not the case anymore.

``As it is, I can only help you to shout and talk to the world. I do not have any executive or legislative power. I am crippled.

``But we shall continue to talk until those who are reasonable among them change this attitude," Obasanjo said.

``As a major player in the 1976 local government reform, we are aware that the mission was to make the councils independent.

`` But the situation has changed and the states have rendered the local governments impotent.

``As things are now, the governors cannot not do anything, that is why we decided to come to you to use your experience and not to allow the local government system go into extinction, Khaleel said.
In a statement issued by its spokesman, Ibrahim Musa, Shiites said the decision is also a campaign of silencing the opposition.

"This campaign is trying to legalize suppression through either verdicts or some decrees. This is also the line Bahraini regime has toed recently in order to silence the opposition so that the regime could stake claim to might and the authority over the masses and that people have to submit to this absolute power," the statement said.

The group said the decision will take the country nowhere except towards more sedition and violence.

The regime has not managed to silence the people for so long. How this ill-advised move will do anything other than escalate the situation remains to be seen."

"Revocation of citizenship in the circumstance is not just a harsher step, but even more irrational. It is a very traditional, old-fashioned way of ruling, of deciding who is a citizen and who is not. Citizenship is a birth right of every human being and every citizen of any state has all the rights eligible to any citizen of that state. If the Bahraini state simply decides who they delete as citizen, it would have cancelled the citizenship of all the Shia community and kick them out in order to just have very obedient citizens. This is a very irrational move and it is not politically wise and it is going to escalate the situation within and incur more criticisms outside Bahrain."

"The Al-Khalifah regime should be reminded that who has been on the scene for 50 years, is the father of the demand for freedom, the father of the demand for change and the demand which inspired Bahrain into active civil society and political peaceful activism. But many of the Western countries, we believe, will try to be either ignoring what is happening or giving very lip-service not real criticism, while any aggression against a citizen by that kind of measure should be opposed internationally and should take all the legal international measure against it," the statement added.
The United Kingdom chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has praised the former police boss for changing the image of the Nigerian Police Force.

The APC UK Press Secretary, Adenike Lucas, in a statement, said APC UK congratulates Mr Solomon Arase, 18th indigenous Inspector General of Police for changing the image of the Nigerian Police force.

No doubt, In his fourteen month tenure, Mr Arase made a lasting and distinguished contribution to policing across Nigeria.

He will be remembered for his professional leadership and for his contribution to the safety and security of our country during the violent 2015 elections.

His drive, non-partial judgements and dedication to serve the country made a difference to preventing crime and should be commended by all.

APC UK wishes him well in his future endeavours and congratulates the new IGP, Mr Idris Ibrahim on his promotion.

The new Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotum Idris took over from Solomon Arase, who attained the retirement age of 60 on June 21, 2016.
The angry protesters allegedly chased away the Vice-chancellor, Prof. Olusola Oyewole, out of his office.

According to Punch, the protest began on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, and has continued since then. The workers have promised not to relent in their effort until their terms are met.

Their demands include upgrading of staff with additional qualifications, appointment of substantive directors to all non-academic teaching staff units and provision of working tools, among others, Punch reports.

The protesters, who were seen holding on to various forms of charms, carried on with their agitation as songs from Afro Beat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, played in the background.

Ishaq Odunjo, the Non-Academic Staff Union chairman of the university chapter, told the workers that their requests are being considered.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported that Adamu made the disclosure in Enugu on Wednesday when the management of the institution paid a courtesy visit to Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State.

He said that the whole idea was to provide an opportunity for Nigerians wherever they might be to acquire education, irrespective of distance, age and location.

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According to him, this can be done online once there is Internet connection.

He explained that the whole idea behind this is to help our fellow brothers and sisters living across West Africa.

Some of them are traders and merchants and they control the economy of their host countries but do not have access to education.

The vice chancellor said that the institution had grown in leaps and bounds since inception, adding that it knew neither religion nor social status.

He added that we have about 150,000 students in different fields of study and Entrepreneurship Studies, with 32,000 students."

The second largest department is Conflict Resolution and Security Studies with 30,000 students.

Adamu said that the institution was making aggressive efforts to boost literacy rate in the country and part of the effort is what is called`Prisoners Empowerment Programme where we provide free education to inmates."

He then appealed to the Enugu State Government to assist the university with facilities such as computer sets, vehicle and land so that it could expand.

Responding, Gov. Ugwuanyi commended the delegation for the visit, saying it offered the state the opportunity to share opinions on how to achieve quality education for all.

The governor said that residents of the state had benefitted from the programmes of the institution with the location of one of the study centres in the state.

We shall consider your requests, subject to availability of funds, he said.
Speaking at the swearing-in of the NYSC Batch A 2016 (Stream II) at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Eziama Obaire, Okorocha added that building unity and peace remained the core objectives of the NYSC since its establishment in 1973.

The governor, represented by his deputy, Prince Eze Madumere, congratulated the corps members for scaling through academic hurdles and urged them to make friends with people from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, saying they are all brothers irrespective of their mothers tongues.

Okorocha advised them to exhibit high-level dedication, commitment and diligence in the outlined activities at the camp, saying the Nigerian spirit is resilient, enterprising and patriotic.

He urged the Corps members to take skill acquisition programme seriously, noting that the programme was designed to make them entrepreneurs and self-reliant. He promised his administrations preparedness to continue its support for the scheme, warning against destructive vices.

The Imo State NYSC Coordinator, Mr Isaac Fasanu, hailed Okorocha for building befitting orientation camp for the Corps members.
The House is also to investigate the concession of the Graphic User Interface (GUI) value added services to InViewTech Ltd. of United Kingdom.

The resolution was sequel to a motion by Rep. Chris Azubogu (PDP-Anambra).

The house also resolved to ascertain whether the aggregation of the equipment which cost billions of naira to procure over 20 million ``Set-up Boxes were capable of meeting the digitisation deadline.

Moving the motion, Azubogu said that for the second time, Nigeria failed to meet the deadline for Digital Switch-Over (DSO) from analogue transmission to digital terrestrial transmission.

He said that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the regulator of broadcasting in Nigeria, was saddled with the responsibility to comply with the policy of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which Nigeria is a member.

He claimed that in spite of the NBC being advised by the digitisation team to issue one ``Signal Distribution Licence in a strong and reliable technical company, it went ahead and issued three independent licences.

According to the legislator, as a result of this, there was confusion in the market.

He expressed worry that the failure to consider telecommunications companies that have the needed critical infrastructure like Fibreoptic Network as key stakeholders in the process of issuance of DSO, should be looked into.

He said that the situation made the proposed solution to look inefficient and wasteful, considering the number of satellite dishes scattered in Jos, where the pilot scheme was launched by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

He maintained that the government paid billions of naira to private companies to import set-up boxes and Graphic User Interface (GUI) for over 20 million viewers in Nigeria but were wasted.

According to him, the harvested bandwidth frequency spectrum freed up in the process of digitalization, was sold to MTN without recourse to due process thereby increasing the chances of creating a monopoly in the broadcast industry.

He expressed concern that with the June 27, 2017 date for the switch-over being just 12 months from now, Nigeria would be required to procure over 20 million units of new boxes from China.
Nigerians have taking to Twitter to lash out their opinion on the issue. While some believe it is just another witch hunt captained by the APC led administration, Some made memes about the senator and his common sense, others say it is a one of the results of the recent state of the Nigerian economy.
"The toxic bridesmaid can appear in many forms," admits psychiatrist Sarah Glick, wedding planner at Brilliant Event Planning in New York City, "but its time for her to step down when her actions are overshadowing your wedding and shes sucking the fun out of the planning process for you."

So if it's time to kiss that bridesmaid goodbye, here's an expert advice to help you do it as painlessly as possible.

1.) Ask yourself what the real issue is.

According to Irene S. Levine, Ph.D., psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and producer of 'The Friendship Blog', "It's likely something was brewing with your would-be bridesmaid long before she even joined your wedding party. My suspicion is that bad feelings arose during the lead-up to the wedding, not before." So before you dismiss your bridesmaid, Levine suggests, "do a reality check and speak to someone close to youperhaps your fiance or your parent, to make sure you are making a reasonable decision."

If your confidante agrees you're acting in yourand your bridesmaid'sbest interest, then proceed. But if your bickering can be solved, Levine says, it's better to address the real issue. "Asking a friend to step down should only be a last resort," she explains, "because it is likely to damage or destroy the friendship. Hopefully, you can find ways to get her to change her behavior so that it doesn't interfere with or undermine your special day."

2.) Plan a face-to-face conversation.

This conversation might not be pleasant, so you could be tempted to shoot off a quick text explaining your decision to dismiss her as a bridesmaid. But don't. "Assuming you want to remain friends with this person, this conversation should be handled face-to-facenot over the phone or via text," says Glick, who recommends starting the conversation with statements that focus on how you feel instead of words that accuse her of bad behavior.

"Explain that you thought long and hard before making this difficult decision, and that doing this is difficult for you too," she suggests. "Be specific and clear in letting your friend know what responsibilities she neglectedalthough you needn't present an exhaustive list of grievances."

If you're worried you'll panic and fail when faced with your friend, Levine suggests writing yourself a script you can practice before you go live. Then "arrange to have this conversation in a semi-private place when you both are as relaxed as possibleperhaps a booth in a coffee shopand never in the heat of anger," she says, with a specific time frame set up in advance so that this uncomfortable chat won't go on and on and on. "Set aside a specific window of time for the discussion rather than leaving it open-ended," says Levine.

3.) Offer her an alternative role.

Once you've calmly explained why you feel it's best for your friend not continue on as a bridesmaids, "let your friend knows that you feel that it would be best if she played a different role in the wedding," says Glick. For example, you know the real issue behind her bad behavior is that she's strapped for cash, a role without an accompanying outfit "will let her be involved without feeling financially overwhelmed," Glick says. Or, if it's time she's truly short on, "a simpler rolelike a reading at the ceremonymight be better."

Be ready for her to decline the offer. Warns Levine, "especially if she lacks insight, she may either get very angry or disappointed. The best outcome would be if she breathed a sigh of relief and admitted she had felt ambivalent about taking on the role or had changed her mindbut after a traumatic event like this, the friendship could be altered dramatically." On top of feeling embarrassed over being dismissed, your former bridesmaids "may feel guilty about letting you down," says Levine. "It's likely that neither of you will ever feel the same closeness and intimacy you once did."

4. Move quickly with your Plan B.

The good news is it's no longer expected for the bride and groom to have an even number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. "Brides sometimes get hung up on having an equal number of bridesmaids to groomsmen," says Chandra Keel, owner of Chandra Keel Events in Phoenix. "If firing your bridesmaid has thrown off your equal count, don't worry." But if your plan is to ask another friend to step up to the plate, do so as soon as possible so that you give that friend the time she'll need to get up to speed and ready to stand by your side.

It's also smart to alert your remaining 'maids to the situation as soon as possible. "You wouldn't want them to contact the fired bridesmaid and about the wedding and be unaware of what happened," points out Keel. "That would only cause further hurt feelings and embarrassment to the fired bridesmaid." Glick suggests being to-the-point when you make your announcement. "Say something like, 'Monica and I are really great friends, but we decided it would be best for her to do a reading at the ceremony instead, so going forward, the total number of bridesmaids for planning purposes is five,'" she says.
Pablo Longueira, who was a presidential candidate in Chile's 2013 election, is accused by prosecutors of receiving close to $1 million from specialty mining company SQM from 2009 to 2013, then hiding the donations through falsified receipts in contravention of Chilean law. He also is accused of accepting bribes while working on a 2010 law that regulates mining concessions.

It also comes the day after Chile's public prosecutor said it was investigating a former high-level cabinet official in leftist President Michelle Bachelet's government for bribery and tax offenses.

Longueira has maintained his innocence.

"I understand the charges and I don't agree with them," he said during a brief appearance before a judge.

The current scandal caused Longueira to resign in March from the UDI party, which was founded by right-wing allies of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
With the police already stretched under a state of emergency imposed following Islamist militant attacks in November, more than 2,000 police will be deployed around the capital's Place de la Bastille square to control the march.

After violence and vandalism of properties on the fringes of protests in recent weeks, workers removed glass panes from bus stops and erected steel barriers along the route, while the Bastille underground station will be closed.

The protests against a bill that would loosen stringent laws protecting workers' rights pit President Francois Hollande's unpopular government against the hardline CGT which is fighting for its place as France's most powerful union.

In a months-long stand-off, neither side wants to cave in and lose face.

CGT leader Philippe Martinez accused Prime Minister Manuel Valls of pinning the blame for the escalating disorder on his group. He condemned the rioters but said the government had inflamed passions as unions sought a deal on the labour reforms.

"Every time we try to calm things down the prime minister throws fuel on the flames again."

Thursday's march begins at 14:00 p.m. (1200 GMT).

Protests in past weeks have been marred by hundreds of mostly masked youths engaging in running battles with police, hurling paving stones, smashing shopfronts and plastering anti-capitalist slogans on buildings. Police have said some CGT members were in involved in the violence.

The violent confrontations prompted the government to ban Thursday's march. It was the first time in more than five decades that a government banned a union march in a country where the right to protest is keenly guarded, in particular by the political left.

However, confronted by a backlash within its own traditional support base, the Socialist government backed down and allowed the march.

The unions want the government to shelve the bill that would make hiring and firing easier and devolve collective bargaining to company level.

The CGT and other allied unions argue that will lead to a fall in standards of labour protection. The government argues it is crucial to tackling a jobless rate stuck at 10 percent.
The Spokeswoman of the UN Mission in South Sudan, Ariane Quentier, said in Juba that in spite of the various measures put in place to mitigate the scale of sexual violence in the country, nothing would be achieved unless victims were free to speak out and report to relevant authorities.

She said ``we shall not be able to address sexual violence unless people who have been victimised speak out and report it.

``Several UN reports on the South Sudan civil war have accused both former warring parties the government troops (SPLA) and the rebels (SPLA-IO) of raping women, girls and abducting children.''

Ariane said that all parties, including SPLA, SPLA-IO and other local militia groups affiliated to both parties committed sexual violence during conflict.

She added that most cases were committed in the northern states of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile, which had been hit hard by the brutal conflict.

``Accountability is important. It's why we (UN) and other independent organisations are documenting human rights violations," she said.

Ariane added that the world body was currently involved in documenting witnesses and had conducted workshops across the country to highlight sexual violence effects.

Naweza Muderhwa, the UNMISS Women Protection Officer, disclosed that more than 32,000 people have been victimised since conflict broke out in December 2013.

She added that such violence had been used as weapon of war to destabilise communities.
De Mistura said he had accompanied U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to St Petersburg, where they had "quite a comprehensive and long meeting" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that mostly focused on Syria.

The last round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition broke up at the end of April as government forces, backed by Russia, escalated their assault on rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo.

A "cessation of hostilities" that had brought peace to much of Syria for two months largely broke down, and the war has resumed in many areas.

De Mistura told reporters he was aiming for a July date for a new round of talks to meet an August deadline for a deal, but first he wanted the United States and Russia to make a "critical mass" of progress on a deal for political transition in Syria.

Despite the suspension of negotiations on a political transition - involving, crucially, the future of President Bashar al-Assad - officials have continued "technical" talks on some of the questions that need to be solved in any political deal.

De Mistura's team has held technical talks in Moscow and Cairo and plans more in Riyadh and Damascus, and he said so far they had been very useful.

"They are under the radar, calm and quiet and discreet but they have been providing us with quite a lot of substantive points that can be, will be useful, when the (next round of) intra-Syrian talks take place," he said.

De Mistura's humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the U.N. was still asking the government for permission to get into two besieged zones, Arbin and Zamalka in Rural Damascus. He hoped to reach the towns next week.

Egeland also warned that four towns covered by a single local peace deal - Zabadani, Foua, Kefraya and Madaya - had not had food deliveries since April. The humanitarian situation was in danger of sliding back to conditions at the start of the year, when people in Madaya were starving to death.
Judge Barry Williams handed down the verdict in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Goodson, 46, was the driver of a police transport van in which Gray broke his neck in April 2015. His death triggered rioting and protests in the majority black city.

Goodson had also faced three counts of manslaughter, and single counts of reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

Goodson, who is also black, faced the most serious charges among the six officers charged in Gray's death, making his the marquee case for prosecutors. They failed to secure a conviction in two earlier trials of officers.

"This court is satisfied the state has failed to show" evidence of the crimes, Williams said.

Prosecutors contended Goodson gave Gray a "rough ride," failed to ensure his safety and should have called a medic.

"That is an inflammatory term ... that when uttered is not to be taken lightly," said Williams.

Goodson's defense team argued that Gray caused his own injuries by falling inside the transport van. Goodson also lacked the training to recognize that Gray was hurt, they said.

Goodson waived a jury trial, leaving it to Williams to decide his fate.

Gray's death spawned protests, rioting and arson in the majority African-American city of 620,000 people and stoked a debate on U.S. police treatment of people of color.

Gray, 25, was arrested after fleeing police officers in a high-crime area. He was bundled into Goodson's van shackled and not secured with a seat belt inside the van, a violation of police procedure.
Finding Peace of Mind: Discover These Five Places in Europe to Unwind
BEATTY  The weather for the last weekend of October may or may not be chillier than normal, but it is certain to be chili weather for Beatty Days this weekend. The annual event runs Oct. 28-30 at Cottonwood Park.
The Pahrump Regional Planning Commission gave the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel a waiver that allows a caretakers residence on churchs property.

The Pahrump Regional Planning Commission gave the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel a waiver that allows a caretakers residence on churchs property.

The 5-acre parcel located on Manse Road in Pahrump is in a general commercial zoning district, however an active commercial business does not currently exist on the property. Nye County code allows for a caretakers residence on a commercial lot only for an active commercial business.

The subject property was rezoned from open use to general commercial use in 2005, according to the documents. At the time, the property owner had proposed construction of an 11,000- square foot church, a 35,000-square-foot school, and church and school office buildings.

The property owner however didnt construct the buildings, but placed two RVs on the site. A manufactured home is also being constructed on the property. Under Nye County code, RVs are allowed for temporary seasonal use only on residential lots. The code has no provisions for RVs on a commercial lot.

The building under construction has not been submitted to the Nye County Planning Department for approval and does not have a building permit from the Nye County Building and Safety Department, according to the documents.

We are entertaining ideas for how to use that property as a church counsel and as soon as we make a decision, everything out there, is temporary. Theres no structure out there that we cant move off of there. When we turn it into a business, everything will be moved, a church representative said at the RPC meeting.

Church representatives also said they are in the planning stages of proposing to the church counsel a project that could be voted on within the next three months and could be running within next six months.

In the meantime, church representatives said they had lost money over recent years, as the property had been vandalized by the homeless. A caretaker helps to watch the property, church representatives said.

As soon as the manufactured home on the property is completed, church representatives said RVs will be gone.

We just need them out there, a church representative said. Weve lost way too much money on this project to start to date.

Waivers require a vote from a majority of the RPC. Commission members Joel Oscarson and Gregory Hafen II were the only two who voted against it.

I think that (in) a year, you guys are not even going to be close to having anything ready to go to have a business there, Oscarson said.

The owners of an adjacent property, Mike and Stacie Nicosia, said they were concerned about random RVs on the property.

Codes, zoning, rules and regulations are put into place for a reason. I am concerned with their disregard for them. The rest of the community has to follow protocol. Why should this owner/applicant be allowed to proceed without regard to it? It is our concern that this is the beginning of something else they are trying to push through, that will have a greater effect on zoning issues, they said in a letter to the RPC.

Under the waiver, Church of the Foursquare Gospel will need to have an active commercial business within two years.
April 14

1. Kyle Reed Rocha, 20, 1926 Esplanade Ave., Davenport, was arrested on warrant at the Scott County Courthouse, Davenport, and was arrested on suspicion of assault in an incident from March in the 2500 block of Magnolia Drive.

April 25

2. Diamonte Eugene Thomas, 18, 2130 W. Glaspell St., Davenport, was arrested on warrant at the Scott County Courthouse, Davenport, and in an incident from March in the 2700 block of Crow Creek Road was arrested on suspicion of violation of financial liability, reckless driving, failure to have valid license, and criminal mischief.

April 26

3. In an incident from August, Dylan Michael Mlekush, 18, 610 15th St., No. 2, was arrested in the 3700 block of Oakwood Drive on suspicion of possession of stolen property including clothing, electronics, and jewelry, all valued at $3,510.

May 2

4. Faith Louise Wood, 18, 6920 Mill Pond Drive, Urbandale, was arrested on warrant at the Scott County Courthouse, Davenport, for an incident from March in the 2900 block of Devils Glen Road in which she was arrested on suspicion of forgery and second-degree theft.

May 4

5. Brandon Robert Carr, 23, 1330 W. 3rd St., Davenport, was arrested on warrant at the Scott County Courthouse, Davenport, in connection with an incident from April in the 1100 block of Devils Glen Road. He was arrested on suspicion of speeding, reckless driving, driving while license is revoked, failure to obey traffic device, failure to yield to emergency vehicle and violation of financial liability.

May 6

6. Alvaro Hernandez-Salinas, 41, 3815 Bridge Ave., Apt. A, Davenport, was arrested at Azteca #3, 2400 Spruce Hills Drive, on suspicion of public intoxication.

May 8

7. Property damage to a city-owned manhole cover was reported in the 1200 block of Golden Valley Drive.

May 10

8. A Ford F350 collided with a Ford F150 at Grant and 17th streets, resulting in $6,500 damage.

May 11

9. Joseph David Losasso, 24, 1959 E. 48th Court, Davenport, was arrested in the 2900 block of Middle Road on suspicion of public intoxication, second offense, criminal mischief, theft and trespassing.

May 12

10. A Honda Accord collided with a Ford F350 at 14th and Grant streets, resulting in $4,000 damage.

11. Theft of drugs was reported at Bettendorf Health Care, 2730 Crow Creek Road.

12. A Honda Civic struck a pedestrian near 18th Street and Spruce Hills Drive.

May 13

13. A Chevrolet Impala collided with a Ford Focus at 18th and Grant streets, resulting in $8,000 in damage.

14. Peggy Sue Hill-Kane, 51, 619 19th Avenue N., Clinton, was arrested at the Isle of Capri, 1777 Isle Parkway, on suspicion of trespassing.

15. A Saturn Vue collided with a Toyota Camry at Middle Road and 23rd Street, resulting in $1,000 in damage.

May 14

16. Theft of $584 cash was reported at Bettendorf Health Care, 2730 Crow Creek Road.

17. Attempted burglary and criminal mischief was reported at Devils Glen Park, 1101 Devils Glen Road.

May 15

18. Johnnie Lee Price Jr., 63, Twin Bridges, 221 15th St., No. 21, was arrested at the same address on suspicion of violation of a no contact order.

May 17

19. A hit-and-run accident was reported in the 3100 block of Sunburst Drive.

20. A Chevrolet Cruze collided with a Toyota Avalon in the parking lot of Bettendorf Middle School, 2030 Middle Road, resulting in $1,400 in damage.

21. A Mercury Sable collided with a Toyota Camry at 20th and Grant streets, resulting in $5,000 in damage.

May 18

22. A Ford Thunderbird and a Toyota Tacoma collided in the parking lot of Paul Norton School, 4485 Greenbrier Drive, resulting in $1,600 in damage.

May 19

23. A juvenile was arrested at Middle and Forest Grove roads on suspicion of curfew violation and failure to possess valid license.

May 20

24. A hit-and-run accident was reported in the 2700 block of Central Avenue.

25. A Chevrolet Tahoe was involved in a single-vehicle accident in the 600 block of Grant Street, resulting in $1,700 in damage.

May 21

26. A Chrysler LHS collided with a Chevrolet Traverse at McDonalds, 836 Middle Road, resulting in $350 in damage.

May 22

27. Theft of motorcycle accessories, valued at $350, was reported in the 700 block of Jones Street.

May 23

28. Attempted fraud was reported in the 700 block of Chateau Knoll.

29. A hit-and-run accident was reported on eastbound Interstate 74, mile marker 4.2.

30. Alexander Christian Sartain, 35, 3111 Maplewood Drive, was arrested in the 2600 block of Greenway Drive on suspicion of public intoxication, second offense.

May 25

31. Assault with display of a weapon was reported on eastbound Interstate 74, mile marker 4.7.

32. A Honda Odyssey collided with a Chevrolet Traverse at Bettendorf City Hall, 1609 State St., resulting in $1,100 in damage.

May 26

33. Theft of jewelry and electronics, valued at $2,278.99, was reported in the 5600 block of North Avenue.

34. A Volkswagon Jetta collided with a Cadillac XTS at Falcon and 53rd avenues, resulting in $550 in damage.

May 28

35. Darren Carpenter, 31, 7780 W. 87th Drive, Unit G, Arvada, Colorado, was arrested in the 2900 block of Devils Glen Road on suspicion of providing false identification.

May 29

36. William Joseph Erklin, 45, 114 W. 6th Street, Davenport, was arrested at QC Auto, 3760 State St., on suspicion of trespassing and fifth-degree theft from a motor vehicle.

37. Theft of a wallet and its contents was reported in the 200 block of 15th Street.

 Compiled by Patty Martin
An Indianola, Iowa, couple have pleaded not guilty to charges that they sexually abused two girls, 6 and 7, when they were staying in Davenport.

Scott County prosecutors this week formally filed six counts of second-degree sex abuse against April Mae Lincoln, 28, and Christopher James Myers, 31. The charges are a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Both were scheduled to be arraigned Thursday. Lincoln waived her right to a preliminary hearing and filed a written plea of not guilty through her attorney, Derek Jones, on Wednesday. She will be back in court July 8 for a pretrial conference.

Myers filed a written plea of not guilty through his attorney, Harlan Giese, on May 31. He will be back in court July 15.

Lincoln and Myers remained in the Scott County Jail on Thursday on cash-only bonds of $210,000 and $160,000, respectively.

According to the arrest affidavits filed by Davenport Police Department, on March 17, the Indianola Police Department received a complaint claiming sexual abuse.

The couple repeatedly sexually abused the girls, ages 6 and 7, while they were staying at 109 S. Howell St. in Davenport, according to the arrest affidavits. The couple sexually abused the two girls at the same time, according to the arrest affidavits. The two then told the girls not to tell anyone about what was happening.

According to Scott County District Court electronic records, the abuse began taking place in 2013.
A Davenport man was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison after admitting that he robbed several people that he met through a mobile dating app.

Darvoughn Jones, 21, pleaded guilty in May to three counts of first-degree theft and one count of assault while participating in a felony.

In exchange for his plea, Scott County prosecutors dismissed additional charges of first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary.

On Wednesday, District Court Judge Mark Cleve sentenced Jones to up to 10 years in prison on the theft charges and up to five years in prison on the assault charge.

The sentences on the theft charge will run at the same time. Those sentences will run back-to-back with the assault charge, for a total of 15 years.

Jones has 30 days to file a notice of appeal.

Davenport Police say the robberies took place on May 9, May 13 and May 22, 2015.

Police say Jones met several victims through a mobile app that people utilize to meet and have consensual sex.

Once they met up, Jones pulled a handgun on the victims and robbed them, according to police.

Jones was arrested in early December. At the time, he was serving a four year prison sentence in Illinois on a residential burglary conviction out of Cook County.
Cindy Brown and her family are "living out of a suitcase" these days since their Davenport house burned down Sunday afternoon.

"We're trying to figure out our next move," Brown said Wednesday.

She wore shorts and a T-shirt with her hair tied back as she sat on a friend's front stoop, explaining that her "Barbie dream home" of eight years, an 1861 Victorian, was destroyed in minutes.

The fire at 641 E. Locust St. rendered Brown, her husband Mark, her 16-year-old son Chandler and her 14-year-old daughter Skye all homeless. She said the stress is really affecting her daughter, who is going to be a sophomore at Davenport Central High School and is a member of the school's dance team.

"I need to give my daughter a place to put her head down at night," Brown said. "She's really not doing well."

Friends set up a Go Fund Me account on Monday, and Ashley Furniture in Davenport has donated two beds, which is "wonderful," she said.

The Go Fund Me account states the family lost "everything" in the fire.

Davenport Fire Marshal Mike Hayman said Wednesday an exact cause has not yet been determined, but it most likely was an electrical issue.

Cindy, Mark and Skye Brown were all coming back from visiting a sick relative in Michigan when firefighters were alerted to the structure about 2:30 p.m. Chandler, who will be a junior at Central, was the only one at home.

He was in his bedroom when he smelled smoke, Cindy Brown said. He called his parents as he was trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from.

First, he checked his computer and then the air conditioning unit in his second-floor bedroom window. He opened his door to a hallway filling up with black smoke, so he pushed out the air conditioning unit and jumped, Brown said.

"In the midst of devastation, there was God watching my son," she said. "Who gets just one tiny scratch jumping out a window?"

She was told that neighbors who had spotted the fire and called 911 helped her son up off the ground.

Cindy Brown was 30 minutes away when she got her son's call. She also called 911.

"The dispatcher worked her butt off to get me in touch with somebody so I could see if my son was OK," she said.

She arrived as firefighters tackled the blaze.

"I asked a family friend to take my son away," she said. "When we got there, his room was in flames. I thought that's my son's room. He was in it 30 minutes prior."

When she was reunited with her son, she said she could not let him go.

"I patted him all over," she said. "I patted his head, his back. I'm doing all these things to make sure he was OK."

The family's macaw and at least one cat perished. Another cat ran out of the house and is missing, but firefighters were able to rescue the Browns' chihuahua.

"I can't believe the little dog survived," she said. "He's 5 pounds."

Brown said she is one class away from graduating with a bachelor's degree in nursing from St. Ambrose University, Davenport. Her husband is a tool and die maker at Deere & Co.

They bought the Locust Street house in 2008. Brown said they did some renovations to the historic structure.

She also said they did not have insurance on the home because no one would insure them at the time they purchased it.

"We put everything we had into that house," she said.
MAQUOKETA, Iowa  Maquoketa City Council members are seeking a new 3rd Ward council member.

Alderman Eric Pape resigned unexpectedly Monday night at the end of the council meeting. Pape said that was his last council meeting but he would attend a Street Committee meeting next week. His resignation is effective July 1.

Pape said he is moving out of the city.

"Things change, and I am moving out of the city limits," Pape said during the meeting. "It was a quick decision."

After the session, Pape said he had not planned to move out of the city when he ran for office last November.

Pape has served on the council for seven years. The new member would serve out the 3 years remaining on Pape's term.

"It's nice to see the evolution of the city," Pape said. "When I started, the fire site was the big issue. Now we're seeing the redesign of the downtown."

Council members have 40 days to make an appointment.

Applications are available at City Hall. The person appointed must live in the 3rd Ward. If residents object to the appointment, a special election can be called.
MAQUOKETA, Iowa  The Maquoketa Betterment Corp. is seeking funding for major renovations at the historic Decker Hotel and Restaurant.

Chuck Current, organization president, said the group needs a "sizable investment" of $1.9 million for the facility. The organization purchased the hotel in 2015 at an estimated cost of $170,000 from a private owner to keep the hotel viable in downtown Maquoketa. The hotel was built in 1875. There are 17 rooms, a restaurant and a downstairs bar.

"We need the investment to turn around the business. The Decker is not going to close. Neither is the bar," Current said Monday. "In June, we had our first break-even month."

Current said occupancy was at 2 percent earlier this year and now is at about 28 percent. He said there will be two sold-out nights next month.

"We need to rewire, redo plumbing. That kind of thing," Current said. "It will be public-private fundraising."

Current said officials are seeking grants, but many have a cash match.

"We are using social media to help us build the fund. We need match money," Current said. "The mortgage is workable. We can cash-flow that. We've already purchased new linens, added WiFi, repaired the kitchen and bought a new oven."

Current, who also is a Maquoketa City Council member, said the Main Street road construction has been "hard" on business. He said that when March hit and the roadwork began, sales numbers plummeted. Current said officials are looking forward to Aug. 15, when paving is expected to be completed in front of the hotel.

"We are not closed and won't be closing," Current said. "Maquoketa betterment owns the hotel and will for a long time."
Overly stressed at work, Rachel Deisenroth recently quit her job at the Quad-City International Airport.

The 21-year-old Rock Islander takes medication for her anxiety, but she's "sick of being on pills for everything."

Curious about the potential benefits of medical marijuana, she attended the Quad-Cities Medical Cannabis Expo Wednesday in Rock Island.

Nature's Treatment of Illinois, a licensed cannabis retail shop in Milan, hosted the first-ever event of its kind here, which drew about 200 people to The Stern Center.

During the four-hour open house, Deisenroth and other prospective patients met with stakeholders in Illinois' medical marijuana market and inquired about the state's pilot program.

Medical Cannabis Outreach, a Chicago-based consultant group represented at the expo, unveiled its plans to bring a mobile clinic to the Quad-Cities next month to help potential patients with the application process.

"It's not an easy process," Kirsten Velasco, a patient advocate with the organization, said. "So, we try and simplify it for people."

Specifically, the group, which will include a doctor from Chicago, will reserve a hotel suite here July 30 and help qualified Illinois residents apply for patient cards.

Devon Gamboe, who manages Nature's Treatment of Illinois, said he's noticed pushback so far from Quad-City health-care providers.

"There's too much pressure from medical companies around here that say, 'if you're using medical marijuana, you're a bad person,'" he said.

Deisenroth said she experienced just that with her primary physician.

"I brought it up to my doctor, but he dismissed it before I could even get three words out," she said, adding her therapist advised her to investigate the alternative treatment method.

As of June 1, 7,000 patients, including 52 under the age of 18, have been approved by the Illinois Department of Public Health to buy marijuana.

The Legislature last month approved the addition of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and terminal illnesses with a diagnosis of six months or less to the list of 39 qualifying diseases and conditions.

Representatives from Green Thumb Industries, or GTI, which opened the state's first grow house in Rock Island County, also were on site for the expo. The 45,000-square-foot warehouse is off Andalusia Road, about seven miles from the dispensary.
The White House is desperate to close Guantanamo Bay -- no matter the cost. But the Obama administration can no longer keep the American people in the dark on the threat these terrorists pose to the U.S. and our allies. This month, it was reported 12 former Guantanamo detainees were implicated in attacks that killed half a dozen Americans. The deaths of our citizens at the hands of these released detainees underscores the inherent danger in the Administrations efforts to transfer these hardened terrorists and close Gitmo for good.

Since 2009, the administration has released 160 detainees. So far this year, the administration has transferred at least 27 detainees to foreign countries through undisclosed agreements. Another 24 detainees have been cleared for transfer in the next few months. We are sending terrorists to foreign countries, some of which have little to no experience with confining and monitoring hardened terrorists. This increases the risk that these individuals may re-engage in terrorism against the United States and our allies.

According to the director of National Intelligence, roughly 30 percent of the terrorists released from Guantanamo are known or suspected to have re-joined the fight against Americans. This view and statistic is widely shared by the intelligence community yet the administration remains committed to a less than transparent transfer and release system. When detainees are transferred from Gitmo to the custody of a foreign country, Congress and the American people often do not know the details of any agreement among the Administration and the foreign governments where a detainee will be transferred. Currently, any information about these agreements is classified.

For these reasons, I introduced amendments to the annual defense bill to increase transparency and accountability by requiring the administration to provide the American people with the details surrounding any agreement associated with the transfer of a Gitmo detainee to a foreign country as well as reduce foreign aid for nations who lose track of terrorists formerly held at Gitmo. Earlier this year, following the transfer of two terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Ghana, I led a group of senators in urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to cut foreign aid to Ghana if the country is unable to hold and monitor the two detainees and ensure they do not re-engage in terrorism against the United States.

I have worked to block the transfer of Gitmo detainees since 2009 when I authored language to block the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense from acting on a 2009 presidential memorandum to relocate detainees to Thomson Correctional Center in our state.

Real accountability in these processes is crucial. While Gitmo remains the safest and most secure place on the planet to lock up enemy combatants, any country that accepts Gitmo transferees and loses control of these terrorists should face severe consequences. These steps are critical to keeping released detainees away from terror hotspots and keeping Americans safe, but they alone are not enough. We need to keep dangerous terrorists locked up safely and securely in Gitmo so were not ever putting American lives at risk again.
Illinois state officials excel at passing the buck. And taxpayers within Moline-Coal Valley School District almost paid twice for Illinois's patchwork corporate welfare.

The script was nothing new: Elliott Aviation threatened in 2013 to forego an expansion in Moline for greener grass somewhere with lower taxes. Then-Gov. Pat Quinn, under fire from Quad-Cities business leaders and lawmakers, backed a special property tax break to keep Elliott happy. The General Assembly approved the hand-out and everyone patted themselves on the back for 50 new jobs.

The glee, however, wasn't found in Moline-Coal Valley schools, an institution suddenly faced with $150,000 in lost revenue thanks to the gifts hefted on Elliott.

It took a 6-1 state Supreme Court decision, rendered Friday, to undo Springfield's folly.

Elliott is the fixed base operator at Quad-City International Airport. And the justices, in the decision, noted that Elliott is just one of several FBOs throughout the state. The company didn't benefit from industry targeted legislation. Elliott's hand-out was carved especially for the firm and only under the threat of taking its cash elsewhere.

Property taxes in Illinois are competitively high. No argument there. Some estimates place Illinois second behind only New Jersey. But property taxes fund local services, schools and communities. Those taxing districts are saddled with compounding, draconian mandates issued by the state and the state alone. They are grappling with state pension law that hasn't worked in decades. They are held hostage by powerful unions interested only in maintaining the status quo.

Every state edict has a support network of politically connected, campaign-funding lobbyists, lawyers and advocacy organizations.

These are hard, politically risky issues. Political courage isn't Springfield's strong suit. Instead, state officials take the easy route, tweaking, bending and twisting pre-existing rules to dodge the real issues.

That's the story of Elliott's tax break. It was just another unfunded mandate foisted upon Moline-Coal Valley School District.

Businesses are constantly bullying states into competition with one another. Increasingly, state and local taxpayers throughout the country are footing the bill for state-sponsored charity toward for-profit business. At the federal level, special carve-outs costs government $180 billion every year, says the Government Accountability Office. That number has skyrocketed since 1988. At the state level, special deals are the primary lure used by economic development agencies. Low-tax, regulatory bereft locales benefit, while governments interested in education, environment and infrastructure lose out. That's their prerogative.

Lawyers for Moline-Coal Valley School District hit it on the head: More workers means more students. Someone has to pay for it. It probably won't be Illinois, which can't even pass a budget and where some districts are worried their doors will stay shut come the fall term.

Illinois isn't a pro-business environment. And profit, of course, is Elliott's primary concern.

But Elliott's threat is just another example of Illinois's structure problems that lawmakers and governors have dodged for decades. Corporate welfare is no substitute for structural reform. And yet, the best Springfield can do is half-baked patch jobs.
CEDAR RAPIDS  A Republican running for the U.S. House in Iowas 2nd District is challenging the incumbent to a series of 24 forums.

Our 24-county forum series will be a way to curb the influence of money in politics and let our constituents hear directly from the candidates who want to represent them, Christopher Peters said in a debate invitation to Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, who is running for a sixth term.

Peters wished Loebsack the best of luck and promised to run a clean race.

I know thats how you've conducted your campaigns before, and I admire it, Peters said.

Iowans, according to Peters, a Coralville surgeon, are increasingly concerned with the influence of money in politics.

You also know that incumbent candidates have enormous fundraising power, which threatens to drown out the voices of grassroots challengers, he said in the debate invitation.

Loebsack hadnt seen the invitation Thursday morning but said its too early to think about debates.

Were four months out from the election, Loebsack said. Well take it into consideration. Im happy to debate, but its pretty far off to be thinking about that today.
CEDAR RAPIDS  Calling Democrats protest on the U.S. House floor a publicity stunt was demeaning, according to Rep. Dave Loebsack, who participated in the unprecedented 24-hour sit-in that ended Thursday morning.

House Speaker Paul Ryan was way off base to characterize the sit-in as a political stunt and a fundraiser, the Iowa City Democrat said.

This was anything but a political stunt, Loebsack said. It was serious business, business the American people want us to attend to.

Besides, he said, the takeaway shouldnt be the act itself and what happened over the last 24 hours, as much as the hope that what was said and what was done will have some effect in the larger society. The American people are demanding we take action."

Loebsack and other members of the Democratic minority conducted the sit-in to pressure Ryan and Republicans to hold votes on gun-control measures.

All we want is a vote, he said. I think we have to have expanded background checks, and I think the no-fly, no-buy legislation makes a lot of sense.

So for more than 24 hours, Democrats sat in the House well to call attention to their demand for a vote on those bills. Loebsack said he had meetings to attend, so he wasnt there for the entire sit-in.

Although Democratic groups, including Monica Vernons 1st Congressional District campaign, sent out fundraising appeals referencing the sit-in, Loebsack denied it was done to raise campaign cash.

That I havent even thought about, he said. Thats something entirely different than what we are talking about here. We want action on these bills.

He hopes sit-ins wont become standard practice in the House.

I hope we have regular order, that we bring bills to the floor that should be brought to the floor, especially bills like these that have such overwhelming support, he said.

The House is adjourned for its annual Fourth of July recess and will return to session July 5.
STURGIS | Black Hills Federal Credit Union celebrated the opening of its new, full-service Member Service Center in Sturgis with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday.

More than 100 city leaders, community members, and BHFCU employees and members gathered at the branch, located on the corner of Junction Avenue and Lazelle Street, for the ceremony.

BHFCU is dedicated to improving the lives of our members in the Sturgis Community with the personal, business and agricultural services they need, while enriching the citys thriving business sector, said Roger Heacock, BHFCU president and CEO. Were happy so many of our members and business partners decided to join us in celebrating another major milestone in BHFCUs 75 years of service.

BHFCU President and CEO Roger Heacock, board members and credit union management joined Sturgis community leaders for the grand opening celebration. The location opened and began serving the community earlier this month.

Black Hills Federal Credit Union has been serving the Black Hills and South Dakota for 75 years and is dedicated to providing its members with convenient world-class services and financial products.
Rapid City fire officials are investigating the cause of an early-morning grass fire that briefly evacuated some Star Village area homes Wednesday.

There were no injuries or properties damaged in the 1:30 a.m. fire in the 1200 block of East Boulevard. The fire burned in grass and among trees as wind gusts hit nearly 40 mph, pushing flames uphill toward the homes.

Rapid City firefighters credited city police with quickly asking residents to leave the area. Crews stopped the advancing fire and residents were allowed to return around 2 a.m.

Firefighters returned to the burn area later Wednesday to cool hot spots. Fire department spokesman Lt. Jim Bussell said the fire and current hot, dry conditions underscore the need for residents to actively take precautions around their homes, especially with fireworks going on sale next week.
STURGIS | One person was killed and two others injured in a one-vehicle crash Wednesday night near Sturgis, authorities said.

The driver, a 32-year-old man, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a Thursday news release from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. One passenger suffered serious, but not life-threatening injuries, while the third man suffered minor injuries, officials said.

The names of the men were not being released, pending notification of family members.

The crash occurred at 7:10 p.m. Wednesday near mile marker 26 on Interstate 90, three miles west of Sturgis. A 2002 Ford 250 pickup was eastbound on Interstate 90 when the driver lost control, according to the release.

Authorities said the vehicle went into the south ditch and rolled several times. All three occupants, who were not wearing seat belts, were ejected.

The South Dakota Highway Patrol is investigating the crash. The Lawrence County Sheriffs Office also responded.
STURGIS | The Meade County Commission isn't giving up on Buffalo Chip as an incorporated town.

Commissioners voted Wednesday to appeal Fourth Circuit Judge Jerome Eckrich's decision in the Buffalo Chip case.

Eckrich ruled a month ago that procedures followed by the Meade County Commission in granting the Buffalo Chips petition to become a municipality were in violation of state law.

He also ruled that the census survey and map submitted by the Buffalo Chip Campground were not legal, and that people who voted in the referendum to approve the town did not technically live at addresses where they registered to vote.

The city of Sturgis, area landowners and the South Dakota Municipal League filed the court appeal soon after Meade County voted to allow the Chip's incorporation vote.

Commissioner Bob Bertolotto said he voted against the Buffalo Chip's incorporation petition and would like to see the legal fight end.

"In my opinion, it's Buffalo Chip's prerogative if they want to pursue it, they should go ahead and do so," he said.

Initially, commissioners said they would spend up to $25,000 to defend their decision on furthering Buffalo Chip's desire to become a municipality.

To date about $12,000 has been spent. But in moving forward with the appeal, Buffalo Chip attorney Kent Hagg said the county would not need to spend any additional money.

"All those things will be covered 100 percent by my client," Hagg said.

The county's attorney is Jack Heib of Aberdeen. He was hired after the Meade County state's attorney told commissioners they would have a conflict arguing the case.

Commissioner-elect Doreen Creed, who takes office in January, questioned if Heib's loyalties would lie with the county or the Buffalo Chip.

County deputy state's attorney Ken Chleborad told commissioners that Heib will still represent the commission.

"He takes his marching orders from you. He does not take his marching orders from the Buffalo Chip Campground or Mr. Hagg," he said.
PIERRE | The new Board of Internal Control for state government met for its second time Tuesday as its members began putting steps in place for more transparency regarding grants and contracts.

The new processes will focus first on federal grants that pass through state government and in many cases go next to grant sub-recipients or contractors.

The state law approved earlier this year at the request of Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Lt. Gov. Matt Michels creating the board includes a requirement that grant agreements be publicly posted on state websites starting July 1.

Colin Keeler, director for financial systems and operations in the state Bureau of Finance and Management, is overseeing the grant-posting portion of the transparency project.

Keeler said the mechanism is in place at state governments transparency website, open.sd.gov. He said posting many contracts started in 2010. So far there are 513 grant-services contracts and 57 grant agreements posted as part of the new requirement, he said.

Keeler said he believes that any protected information that can be redacted from public view under existing state-records law can continue to be blocked on the documents that are posted, such as identifying data numbers.

The Board of Internal Controls chairman is Jason Dilges, commissioner for the Bureau of Finance and Management. Dilges said he would rather see redacted documents be posted than for agencies to withhold documents altogether.

I think weve got a really great start on this, Dilges said. He said theyll monitor how the work progresses.

Dilges acknowledged that posting grant agreements and grant-services contracts might seem like a daunting task for smaller boards and commissions, but he suggested they work with their agencies and departments. He promised cooperation.

Keith Senger said the challenge now is ensuring compliance on federal grants regarding pass-through entities and sub-recipients. Senger is director for accounting analysis and financial reporting in BFM.

Senger said state government likely has widespread noncompliance with 2013 federal grant requirements. The problem we have is we dont have any central guidance, he said.

Were all going to learn together, Senger continued. In time the new approach that will be taken for federal-grant compliance within state government will migrate to state grants too, he said.

State agencies have been taking their own approaches, according to Senger. He said the internal-control project is trying to bring together best practices within state government. Different levels of government and different entities had different requirements, he said.

That led to the uniform grant requirements distributed in December 2013 by the federal government. He said the federal document isnt thin and isnt simple to follow. There are different requirements for sub-recipients than for contractors who supply sub-recipients.

Its very complicated, and its not very straight-forward, Senger said.

A key step so far was creation of a uniform grant guidance work group from state agency personnel. The plan is to come up with standard controls and some standard forms, he said.

Senger didnt identify the specific entity but said a sub-recipient wont return state officials phone calls after failing to properly use a federal grant that passed through state government. Now state government is on the hook, he said.

He said the work group members suggested developing a watch list or prohibition list.

Lt. Gov. Michels supported the high-risk lists development. I would encourage that, Michels said. He also favored development of sanctions that could be placed within grant agreements.

Senger said he takes some comfort in that many state grant agreements are pay for performance. But others are up-front arrangements that create a danger for state if they dont comply, Senger said.

There will be a lot of research done in that case, Senger said.

Michels suggested requiring a certificate of good standing from the South Dakota secretary of state for grant recipients.

I think it gives us a little bit of a taste for whats to come, Dilges said about Sengers presentation.

Senger said there are about three dozen people participating in the work group. He said the meetings are conducted by teleconference and are open. They are progressing through nine immediate topics of attention, he said, and will present recommendations to the board. He said those nine are a small part of the requirements.

The boards creation came in the wake of the financial wrongdoing and the deaths of a family of six people at Platte in connection with Mid-Central Educational Cooperatives pass-through grant for the federally funded GEAR UP program.

Three people currently are charged in state court in connection with an ongoing state investigation, and a state financial audit is continuing.

The grants management was awarded by the state Department of Education to Mid Central, which in turn contracted for GEAR UP services. The program was intended to help lower-income students and their parents understand what was needed for further education after high school graduation.

Mid-Centrals board has voted to disband the cooperative in the coming year and GEAR UP management was moved to the state Board of Regents. The program now runs from Black Hills State University.
Stockholm Arbitration dismisses Lithuanias 1.4 bln claim against Gazprom

MOSCOW, June 22 (RAPSI)  The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has dismissed a claim lodged by Lithuania seeking about EUR 1.4 billion in compensation from Russias Gazprom for allegedly unfair gas prices, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday citing Lithuanias Energy Minister Rokas Masiulis.

The Stockholm arbitration has not detected violations by the Russian company, the agency quoted Masiulis as having said.

In October 2012, Lithuania filed a EUR 1.4 billion claim against Gazprom with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

The Lithuanian Energy Ministry claimed that Gazprom agreed to supply natural gas to Lithuania at fair prices based on a price formula stipulated in a gas supply and privatization contract signed by Lietuvos Dujos and Gazprom in 2004.

However, gas prices increased considerably between 2004 and 2012, as the formula for the prices were allegedly changed in violation of the privatization contract.

Gazprom was opposed to these claims.
Russian Supreme Court upholds sentence for Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami members

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI)  Russias Supreme Courts Military Collegium on Thursday upheld the sentence handed down to five members of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami organization banned in Russia, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

On February 4, circuit session of the Moscow Regional Military Court sentenced five members of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami branch to prison terms ranging from 5.5 to 17 years. The court found them guilty of creating and participation in the extremist and terrorist organizations and preparing to seizure or retention of power.

According to investigators, in 2013, residents of the Chelyabinsk Region, Salavat Khabirov, Alfred Shaimov, Rinat Shamsutdinov, Orifdzhan Mirov and Radik Kabirov, organized a branch of the terrorist organization. Counterintelligence agents stopped their activity in October 2014.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Islamic Liberation), founded in Jerusalem in 1953, is banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries. Russia's Supreme Court banned the group from operating on the territory of the country in 2003, describing it as a terrorist organization.

Hizb ut-Tahrir members are regularly arrested by the police across Russia, mainly in big cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. Also, there are many supporters in Crimea, which rejoined Russia last spring.
Russias hydropower giants ex-chairman pleads not guilty to embezzlement

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI)  Former Management Board Chairman of Russias hydropower giant RusHydro Yevgeny Dod has pleaded not guilty to 73.2 million rubles ($1.2 million) embezzlement, RAPSI reported from the Basmanny District Court of Moscow on Thursday.

However, Dod has expressed his willingness to reimburse the company for damage.

Earlier, another defendant in the case, Chief Accountant of RusHydro Dmitry Finkel also pleaded not guilty.

According to investigation, Dod and Finkel have committed embezzlement from RusHydro on a large scale.

Official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin earlier said that upon approval of the companys financial report, the defendants drafted an order On special bonus payments to the RusHydro Management Board members for 2013 which was signed by Dod. Under this order, Dod charged to himself a bonus amounted to 353.21 million rubles ($5.5 million) and thus illegally overrated the bonus by no less than 73.2 million rubles.
British company challenges Lumenpro brand registration in Russia

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI)  UK Worldwide Business Network Limited has lodged a claim with the Russias Intellectual Property Court (IPC) seeking to declare unlawful the registration of Lumenpro trademark in the name of a Russian businessperson, according the court records made available on Thursday show.

The applicant asks the court to rule the decision the Russian patent agency Rospatent took on 16 March, which dismissed a petition of the UK company challenging that Alexander Shutov, a private entrepreneur, was granted legal protection of the trademark in question.

The court is to examine the British companys application on July 13.

According to the applicant, the contested trademark is confusingly similar to the trademarks of lighting devices registered in the name of the UK firm. Shutov, in turn, insists that the trademarks have nothing in common as concerns their general design or components.

Rospatent has dismissed the complaint of the British company challenging the registration of the brand ruling that the compared trademarks create different general visual impression with no common associations and therefore bear no resemblance.
Analogic Corp. to pay over $14 mln to resolve U.S. bribery probes linked to Russia

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI)  Massachusetts-based technology company Analogic Corporation will pay a total of $14 million to resolve probes into whether its subsidiary BK Medical ApS violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), according to U.S. Department of Justice.

An ultrasound equipment manufacturer BK Medical ApS entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. authorities in order to stop investigation into its activities in Russia and five other countries.

BK Medical admitted that it followed directions from a Russian distributor and made improper payments to third parties. The company had no business with said parties and, according to admissions of the BK Medical, ultimately some of the money went to doctors employed by Russian state-owned entities. According to press-release, the distributor requested that BK Medical issue invoices that falsely inflated the sales price on the equipment. After the distributor overpaid the inflated costs, BK Medical was to transfer excessive funds to third parties. Such practices involved numerous violations of the U.S. legislation, including the violation of FCPA.

Although a scheme in Russia was said to be the most extensive, BK Medical admittedly engaged in similar schemes in other countries. The company will pay the criminal penalty and will cooperate with authorities on the ongoing investigation. Also, the company agreed to fire the officers and employees responsible for engagement in corrupt practices.
AniMeals is in dire straits and must raise $60,000 by the end of June in order to continue helping cats, kittens and pet owners, its executive director said.

"I'm the eternal optimist, and I was hoping that the donations would start coming in," said executive director Karyn Moltzen. "I've put out some letters and some publications that didn't pull in what I had hoped."

AniMeals operates a no-kill adoption shelter for cats and kittens as well as a food bank, and it is fully funded by donors.

Wednesday, Moltzen said the situation at AniMeals has grown critical.

However, a vice president at Charity Navigator said a review of the organization's 990 tax form raises concerns. For one, AniMeals outsources its payroll to a company also owned by Moltzen.

"This is not how typical charities operate," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president for marketing and chief financial officer for Charity Navigator. "There are definitely red flags that should be of concern."

***

At AniMeals, Moltzen said the nonprofit is laying off seven people altogether, and it has already streamlined its procedures and restructured where possible to save money.

"We are working at a bare bones right now," Moltzen said.

The nonprofit supports 53 shelters and rescues across the state, and Moltzen said closing is not an option.

"The ripple effect would be catastrophic for the entire state," Moltzen said.

The shelter has 48 adult cats and some 50 kittens coming in from foster, she said.

Last year, AniMeals helped 90 families in crisis and 23 that could not afford veterinary bills, Moltzen said. She said it picked up 13 critically injured animals from the streets and supports 63 homebound disabled families.

Across the country, donations to nonprofits are on the decline and have been since the economic downturn in 2008, Moltzen said. So she said the situation at AniMeals has been brewing.

"We've managed to keep our head above water all this time, but we now find ourselves in a situation where, you know, we have to hope that the community gets behind us," Moltzen said.

She believes it will, given Missoulians support some 1,300 nonprofits in all: "People in this town are so awesome."

Moltzen couldn't break down the proportion of funds that support services outside Missoula versus local programs, but she said feeding animals in other places is important to AniMeals.

"Starvation is an ugly way to die no matter where you live," Moltzen said.

***

Miniutti, with Charity Navigator, said an analyst found troubling issues in AniMeals' 990 tax form. Based in New Jersey, Charity Navigator has an aim to "guide intelligent giving" and "advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace."

For one, she said the board has included Moltzen's husband and both parents, yet board members must remain independent.

"It's hard to imagine a situation where your relatives are providing proper oversight of you," Miniutti said.

Moltzen said her parents are no longer on the board because of their age, but her husband still serves.

The way the organization reports compensation is problematic as well, Miniutti said. According to Schedule L of the 990, some $188,179 appears to go to Moltzen as the head of Work Force, a staffing agency, although Moltzen said she has received none of that money herself.

Rather, Moltzen said all the money Work Force receives from AniMeals goes to pay other nonprofit employees; she herself takes a salary from Work Force, which she declined to disclose, but she said it does not come from AniMeals funds.

Moltzen also said it's easier to route staffing through Work Force because AniMeals doesn't have to carry worker's compensation. In short, she said the arrangement simplifies finances for AniMeals.

"It just made it really easy for AniMeals to just write one check," Moltzen said.

***

If AniMeals had to close, Missoula County Animal Control and the Humane Society of Western Montana would help.

Supervisor Jeff Darrah said Animal Control is full but could probably make room for another 10 to 15 cats.

"That's the problem when you have other shelters and you kind of rely on each other," Darrah said. "If one goes down, the workload goes onto the ones that are still in existence."

Emily Adamson, development director at the Humane Society, said the three organizations all help pets, but they have different missions. For instance, Animal Control enforces laws, and AniMeals has a far reach with its food bank and offers much support for cats and kittens.

"Each one of our organizations offers something different to the public," said Adamson, who noted its own support for dogs. "And we are a growing community, and we are a community of pet lovers."

She said it would be unfortunate if AniMeals had to close its doors. The Humane Society has individual spaces for 60 cats, although not all are vacant, and sometimes pairs of cats can share a space, as can sets of kittens.

"Obviously, we would do anything that we possibly could to help them in this scenario," Adamson said.

She said she knows other organizations that support animals in the area would step up as well, as would the Humane Society's foster families. Adamson also noted the Humane Society remains fiscally strong and able to support dogs, cats and other pets.

***

At AniMeals, Moltzen said the organization's books are open to anyone who wants to examine them, and she disputed any characterization of the nonprofit's operation as raising red flags.

"I'm not applying for a grant here," she said. "I am honest, and I am above board, and nothing I do is illegal or immoral. That's not who I am."

She said financial difficulties sneaked up on the organization, but she believes the community of pet lovers will come through in the emergency.

"Thank you to the community for getting behind us," Moltzen said. "We deeply appreciate all the goodwill and support that we've received in the past, and we're hoping that we will continue to get those things during this very difficult time."
BILLINGS - A judge sentenced a former nurse to prison for using his position of power and trust to commit sexual assault.

Todd Edward Kinzel, 47, appeared Tuesday before Yellowstone County District Court Judge Russell Fagg for sentencing on one count of sexual assault. A second count of sexual assault was dropped due to statutory limitations.

Kinzel was sentenced to five years incarceration with the Montana Department of Corrections followed by a 15-year suspended sentence.

Fagg designated Kinzel a level-one sex offender and ordered him to register as a sexual offender and to complete sexual offender treatment.

Kinzel, a licensed nurse, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in March, when he admitted to forcing a 13-year-old girl to remove her pants and underwear during a "breast exam" before touching her against her will. At sentencing, he also admitted to abusing a second girl, a crime he was charged with, but not convicted, due to the statute of limitations on the crime.

Michael Sullivan, director of South Central Treatment Associates in Billings, testified at the hearing. Sullivan performed Kinszel's psycho-sexual evaluation and said Kinzel had a low risk of re-offending. He said Kinzel did not display interest in either violent sexual fantasies or pedophilia. He did display a sexual interest in adolescent females, something Sullivan said was considered non-deviant in most Western cultures.

Sullivan noted Kinzel's eagerness to get treatment after he had "struggled with sexual obsessions" for a long time.

The victim of the crime that Kinzel was not convicted of also spoke at the hearing. The now-24-year-old woman told the court her father had been absent in her life, and Kinzel had in many ways filled that role.

"I hope your sick, twisted fantasy about me ... satisfied you," the woman said. "Because it has come to an end."

The woman asked the court to send Kinzel to prison for the damage he had done to her ability to trust men and the prison of depression and anxiety she lived in after he abused her.

Yellowstone Chief Deputy County Attorney Juli Pierce recommended the 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended. She said sentencing hearings often don't focus enough on the impact caused to the victim of a crime.

"I believe all these women are very strong women, but their lives will never be the same," Pierce said. "The defendant was the adult. He took advantage of these girls at a young age, when they looked up to him."

Kinzel apologized to his victims when given a chance to speak. He said he wished he'd gone to treatment earlier and said "once again I want to express my remorse."

The victim Kinzel was convicted of abusing said there was no excuse for what he had done to her.

"My life needs to be acknowledged," she said in her victim impact statement to the court.

Fagg said he recognized Kinzel had lost his professional career as well as many of his personal relationships.

"Your life has changed forever," Fagg said. "And your victims' lives have changed forever."

Even acknowledging mitigating factors, including Kinzel's lack of criminal history, willingness to undergo treatment and acknowledgement of what he had done, Fagg said the prosecution's recommendation was the right one.

Kinzel was employed with Billings Clinic at the time of the assaults, but was never involved in direct patient care. His nursing license is set to expire at the end of 2016, though a representative from the Montana Board of Nursing was present at the hearing and said the board planned to discuss Kinzel's license at its July meeting.

Officers arrested Kinzel in 2015 when the girl reported to someone at her high school that he had abused her in 2009.

The girl told officers that when she was 13, Kinzel had touched her after asking her to remove her pants and underwear.

Kinzel wrote an apology letter before being arrested, which officers found on his work computer. In it, Kinzel admitted abusing one of the girls.

"(The exam) was simply an excuse to have you take off your bra and pull down your pants," Kinzel wrote to the girl. "Stethoscopes do work on top of shirts too, not just under them."
BILLINGS  A Busby man and a Lame Deer woman suspected of beating and setting on fire a Crow Agency woman in an April 17 attack that has drawn criticism of law enforcement appeared on criminal charges in federal court Wednesday.

Dimarzio Swade Sanchez, 18, and Angelica Jo Whiteman, 23, each are charged with assault with intent to commit murder and aiding and abetting.

Both Sanchez and Whiteman waived a preliminary hearing during an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby in Billings. The U.S. Attorney's Office filed a criminal complaint June 20.

The case will be presented to a grand jury for indictment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Suek asked that Sanchez and Whiteman remain in custody.

Ostby ordered the pair to remain in jail pending detention hearing requests.

Ostby also appointed Assistant Federal Defender Gillian Gosch to represent Sanchez and Billings attorney Vern Woodward to represent Whiteman.

Woodward and Assistant Federal Defender David Merchant, who represented Sanchez during the hearing, said Sanchez and Whiteman had no jobs or income or bills and lived with their mothers.

Woodward and Merchant declined to comment on the case.

***

Although the victim is identified in court records by the initials R.R., family members have previously identified the woman as Roylynn Rides Horse, 28, daughter of Ernestine Pretty Weasel and Roy Rides Horse and stepdaughter of Jerry Pretty Weasel.

About a dozen relatives attended the brief court appearances on Wednesday afternoon.

Roylynn Rides Horse is being treated for injuries at the University of Utah Burn Center in Salt Lake City.

The FBI said in charging records that the victim suffered third degree burns over 45 percent of her body and severe frostbite on her legs.

Sanchez, Whiteman and four others left Rides Horse in a field where she was beaten, strangled and burned and where she remained for 14 hours until she was discovered and given emergency medical treatment, court records said.

Until Wednesdays charges, the U.S. Attorneys Office, FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs had released little information on the attack, drawing criticism from tribal members and leaders and state legislators.

The BIA referred all press inquiries to the FBI. The FBI said it could not release any information due to a strict set of rules governing the disclosure of information at various phases of a criminal investigation. The agency also denied pressuring families to stay silent about crimes.

On June 16, about 100 Crow Tribal members marched at Crow Agency to raise awareness about the attack.

***

Charging documents state the assault happened near Castle Rock Road, about a third of a mile north of Highway 212 between Crow Agency and Busby on the Crow Reservation.

Rides Horse was at the Kirby Saloon in Kirby with her boyfriend when, witnesses told investigators, the couple got into an argument, court records said. Rides Horse asked Whiteman for a ride home to Crow Agency.

Rides Horse and Whiteman got into a car driven by Sanchez. There were four other people, identified as F.S., L.S., J.T. and S.F., also in the vehicle.

Information about what happened next came from interviews with F.S., J.T. and S.F., court records state.

During the drive, Whiteman and Rides Horse began to argue. Whiteman, who was in the front passenger seat, jumped into the back seat and began beating Rides Horse.

Whiteman then told Sanchez to turn the vehicle around so she could beat Rides Horse, court records said.

Sanchez turned the car around and drove to Castle Rock Road, where they stopped. Whiteman dragged Rides Horse from the car and attempted to strangle her to death, court records state. Rides Horse lost consciousness.

Whiteman allegedly got back into the car and started crying, believing she had killed Rides Horse.

Sanchez told Whiteman that Rides Horse still was alive and took her back to where Rides Horse was lying unconscious in a field.

"Sanchez made the statement, 'I'm only going to show you this once,' referring to showing Whiteman how to strangle someone to death, and then Sanchez strangled R.R. with a bandana," court records state.

Sanchez then ordered F.S. to get a gas can from the trunk. F.S. complied and gave the can to Sanchez, court records state.

Rides Horse was then doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Sanchez and Whiteman were the only two people near Rides Horse when she was doused with gasoline and set on fire, court records state.

The witnesses "could not or would not tell investigators who doused R.R. with gasoline and who set R.R. on fire, but it was either Sanchez or Whiteman or both," court records said.

Sanchez, Whiteman and the four other people then left the area.
BILLINGS - During her sentencing hearing Wednesday, Lindsay April Haugen said the prosecution's recommended prison sentence of 65 years was "overwhelming" but that she deserved it.

Haugen acknowledged she knew it was wrong to strangle Robert Glenn Mast to death on Sept. 15 inside a car at the Heights Walmart.

"I feel like I deserve whatever I get," Haugen said. "Because I cant bring Robbie back.

Haugen pleaded guilty to the deliberate homicide of Mast, 25, in April. According to court documents, Haugen killed Mast by putting her arm around his neck to choke him before holding his mouth and nose shut for as long as 20 minutes. She and Mast had eaten pizza and drank wine in the parking lot that night before she said Mast asked her to kill him.

Yellowstone County District Judge Gregory Todd ordered Haugen to serve 60 years with the Montana State Women's Prison.

Mast's step-mother, Mindy Pendleton, testified during the hearing.

Pendleton had raised Mast since he was a 2-year-old, she said. She described him as a "traveler" who had spent his life working seasonal jobs, going state-to-state and indulging in adventures. He was different from the rest of the family, made different choices, but a good man, Pendleton said.

"His life mattered. It mattered. It mattered to all of us," Pendleton said. "He was loved, and he loved well."

Mast had a girlfriend he planned to return to in Minnesota, Pendleton said. He did not love Haugen, but he trusted her, and that was what killed him, Pendleton said.

Mast was from Florida and would return to his family during the holidays, in part for the climate, Pendleton said.

"He was not a transient whose life didnt have meaning," Pendleton said. "It did. If this proceeding were held in Flordia, this courtroom would be filled with those who loved him."

Haugen robbed Mast's family of him, Pendleton said. She told the court she would never again hear her son say he loved her, just as his brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews would never again hear the stories that used to bring them joy, Pendleton said.

For that, Pendleton said she and her family wanted Haugen to spend the rest of her life in prison.

"We will represent Robbie and his life. We will fight to have you stay incarcerated," Pendleton said, promising to attend every one of Haugen's future parole hearings.

Mast had a documented history of suicidal idealization, but friends and family said he would seek help when he had bouts of depression. They did not believe he actually wanted to die.

Haugen said it was a request Mast had made of her more than once.

When Haugen testified, she apologized to Pendleton. Haugen described Mast as the love of her life, after knowing him only 28 days. That was why she "chose to take his life," she said.

At the end of her testimony at the hearing, she requested 25 to 30 years of her sentence to be suspended so she could try to be a productive member of society again after she had served a good portion of her sentence.

Just as Haugen did not dispute strangling Mast, no one disputed Haugen's documented past trauma.

Todd called her an "intelligent person with a horrendous background of abuse."

Haugen's crime did not happen "in a vacuum," Public Defender Gregory Paskell said.

Paskell argued Haugen was predisposed to be submissive to Mast's request for her to kill him, because of the abuse men had subjected her to.

Licensed clinical professional counselor Lisa Matovich-Brooke was brought in to testify about Haugen's mental health. She said Haugen had grown up with an abusive father, was beaten by a group of "skin heads" when she was a young woman and had nearly died when her ex-fiance threw her against a bathtub and strangled her until she passed out. He raped her, broke her hand, broke her nose and, when she tried to leave, threw her keys onto a roof, Matovich-Brooke said.

Haugen testified when she was with her fiance he wouldn't let her walk into their home. She had to crawl over the threshold and was only allowed to speak to him on her knees.

When Haugen, a sergeant with the National Guard at the time, reported the abuse to her commanding officer, her commander kept Haugen in the barracks for her protection. Even then, she tried to stay in contact with the man who had beat her, Matovich-Brooke said.

Haugen served in the military for 10 years, volunteering to fight in Kuwait as a gunner on a Black Hawk helicopter. Haugen's life was a jumble of counter-intuitive choices, Matovich-Brooke said.

Battered women will do anything to prove how much they love the men they are with, Matovich-Brooke said.

"She said it was like she was floating above the car and didnt feel like she was really committing the crime, Matovich-Brooke said about Haugen's description of killing Mast.

Matovich-Brooke said the disassociation Haugen displayed in the attack is consistent with PTSD and battered woman syndrome. Haugen did what she did to prove how much she loved Mast, Matovich-Brooke said.

Todd said he did not see a connection between Haugen's past abuse and what she did to Mast. He said "niceness" triggering violence did not make sense.

"Haugen strangles him and plugs his nose and mouth for 20 minutes," Todd said. Mast fights the strangulation and foams at the mouth. She gets in and drives eight blocks away before attempting to get help, Todd said.

"Everything I have here points to Robbie Mast as not an abuser, not someone that would trigger a fatal reaction," Todd said.

In Montana, deliberate homicide typically carries a sentence of up to 100 years in prison.

The Yellowstone County Attorney's Chief of Criminal Operations Christopher Morris and Senior Deputy County Attorney Julie Patten said the 65-year sentence they recommended took into consideration all mitigating factors of Haugen's life.
NorthWestern Energy is warning Bitterroot Valley customers about a scam involving collection of overdue utility bills.

The scam artists were able to recently convince at least one Hamilton area business to pay about $1,000, said NorthWestern spokesman Butch Larcombe.

Variations of the collection scam have been making the rounds across Montana and the nation over the last few years. The scam artists demand immediate payment and threaten to cut utility service if they dont get it.

They tell customers to purchase prepaid debit cards or electronic money orders and then provide them with the number, which allows them to take the money.

The scammers often use spoofing technology, which makes it appear the call is coming from NorthWestern Energy.

Larcombe said the energy company would never ask someone to make a payment in that fashion.

If someone has a bill thats overdue, they would have received stuff in the mail, he said. It would have been more formal.

The scammers appear to be targeting businesses like restaurants, which have times of the day that are busier than others.

They might do a good lunch business, Larcombe said. They will call in morning to create some sense of urgency.

Hamilton Police Lt. Steve Snavely said their office has received two calls in two days about the power company scam.

The police are still investigating the incident where a business actually lost money.

We urge everyone to be cautious, Snavely said. Unfortunately, we get scam calls everyday now. People should never give out personal information or bank account numbers.

Snavely said people can always call the police about potential telephone scams.

Were always here to take questions and look into something to see if its a scam, he said.

NorthWestern customers can also call that company at 888-467-2669. The company is asking anyone receiving that type of call to capture the phone number and report it to the utility.
Guwahati, June 22 : Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday inaugurated and dedicated a camp to the service of the pilgrims of Ambubachi Mela near Kamakhya Railway Station in Guwahati.

The temporary dwelling camp set up for the pilgrims who have come from all over the country.

Inaugurating the camp, Sonowal said that through Ambubachi mela which is the biggest religious congregation his government has got an opportunity to serve the pilgrims and extend the hospitality of Assam.

Sonowal also said that his government is doing everything possible for the lakhs of pilgrims who have assembled here from all across the country and abroad to realise spiritual bliss.

Sonowal said that this congregation would serve a big push towards 'world peace' and welfare of humanity.

The Assam CM also stated that government is taking all possible measures to make available all facilities to the pilgrims.

Sonowal also flagged off one hundred buses pressed in service for the pilgrims. He also released a guide book 'mbubachi Mela-2016 Management Plan.'

Health and Family Welfare Minister, Finance, Education etc. Himanta Biswa Sharma while speaking on the occasion said that every year Goddess Kamakhya gives the State an opportunity to serve the devotees in a better way.

Sarma assured that from the next year preparation will be undertaken in a vigorously way to observe Ambubachi Mela in a befitting manner and the government would start preparation well ahead of time.

The Assam Health Minister also shared governmentas intention to develop Majuli and Barpeta as the important sites of tourist attractions which will symbolise unity in the midst of diversity.

Earlier, Kamrup (Metropolitan) Deputy Commissioner Dr. M. Angamuthu gave welcome address. Chief Secretary V.K. Pipersenia, NF Railway General Manager H.K. Jaggi, Additional Chief Secretaries and a host of other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

*(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)*
Guwahati, June 22 : Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday directed the DCs and SPs to take all possible measures to protect the rhinos.

At a high level meeting with DCs and SPs of Jorhat, Golaghat and Nagaon districts and senior forest officials in Kaziranga late evening yesterday, Chief Minister Sonowal asked them to leave no stone unturned to protect the

rhinos from falling prey in the hands of poachers.

'To save rhinos from extinction you have to take it up as a mission to protect them from poachers. To save the pride of Assam we will extend all possible support to you to stop it from extinction, Sonowal said.

'Whatever measures need to be undertaken will be adopted for protecting the rhinos and Kaziranga National Park - the World Heritage site. We will take advice from international experts on protection of rhinos, Sonowal

said.

'Anyone linked to the poaching of rhinos in Kaziranga National Park will not be spared,'A the Assam CM said.

The Assam CM appealed to the people living on the fringes of the park to remain alert against rhino poachers and urged them to also identify poachers and those having links with them.

Sonowal also appealed to the journalists to help the Government in its efforts to stop the killing of rhino once and for all.

Poachers killed ten rhinos in the state this year so far.

In past 15 days poachers killed two rhinos in Kaziranga National Park.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Kathmandu, Nepal: Changba Tamang of Nuwakot district, who was one of the seven Nepalese injured in Monday's Kabul suicide bomb attack, breathed his last on Wednesday.

With death of Changba, the number of death toll has reached 13.

Among the seven injured Nepali security guards, Changba and Man Bahadur Thapa of Chitwan district were severely injured in the accident.

The government had planned to airlift Changba and Thapa to New Delhi of India for better treatment.

It is said that Changba breathed his last after the mortal remains of 12 Nepalese was airlifted to home on Wednesday afternoon.

Seriously injured Thapa has been admitted at the Kabul based hospital. Five injured have already been airlifted to Delhi.
Kathmandu, Nepal: the mortal remains of the 12 Nepalese, who were killed in suicide bomb attack in Kabul on Monday, have been handed over to their families.

Nepal Airlines chartered plane airlifted the mortal remains. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa were present at Tribhuvan International Airport when the plane landed with the bodies from Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Following the death of their colleagues more 24 Nepalese, who also used to guard the Canadian Embassy in Kabul, along with the deceased, also returned home in the same plane.
Dawn - 18 June 2016

In Pakistan, anger has greeted the killing of Afghan Taliban head, Mullah Mansour, by an American drone on Pakistani territory. When senior US officials visited army chief Gen Raheel Sharif at the Rawalpindi GHQ, he expressed strong displeasure at the violation of Pakistanas air space and demanded that Tehreek-i-Taliban head, Mullah Fazlullah, together with other TTP militants, be targeted by drones. Linked to Al Qaeda, TTP has a history of savage atrocities committed against the people of Pakistan, its children, and armed forces. This demand was duly applauded across the country.

Whether Fazlullah will be droned if he is ever spotted remains to be seen. But the generalas demand raises troubling issues. To call for killing Fazlullah while mourning the loss of Mansour is inconsistent. Fazlullah is to Pakistan what Mansour was to Afghanistan. Their respective organisations a the TTP and the Taliban a are not identical but they share ethnic ties and a common mindset.

Similarities outweigh differences. Both Taliban groups oppose democracy, are religiously inspired, and believe that Islamic rule must be forcibly imposed. Both attack civilian targets, frequently use suicide bombers, and decapitate captured opponents. While the Taliban claim that they are fighting American occupation, the TTP alleges that the Pakistan Army is an American pawn a a ridiculous allegation.

Gen Sharif rightly raised the issue of violation of Pakistanas sovereignty. But this vexing matter needs careful consideration. In political science jargon, sovereignty means the exercise of effective control over some polity by some supreme authority. By this definition, drone overflights and missile attacks on the territory of a sovereign state do indeed violate international law.

But, were Pakistan to bring the issue before the International Court of Justice, it may have a difficult time. It would have to prove that it wields authority truly a rather than just formally a over large swathes of its designated territory. But the fact that the Afghan Taliban have freely used Pakistani territory to attack targets across the border for nearly 15 years, and that its leaders were/are ensconced in Quetta and Peshawar, could gravely weaken Pakistanas case.

Mansouras killing is the result of Americaas new-found conviction that the Taliban will not negotiate peace, and that Pakistan is unwilling to rope them in. A US-based Pakistani commentator, Moeed Yusuf, notes that after years of ambivalence Americans have finally concluded that Pakistan is uninterested in having an elected government in Kabul.

Earlier, Americaas perception had been that of two Pakistans a one which the US could woo with inducements such as F-16s, and another which it could scold away from supporting the Taliban. But rightly or wrongly, America now sees only one Pakistan a that which is part of the problem but not the solution. Yusuf notes that, after desperately seeking to negotiate with its opponents, aKabul is focused solely on the battlefielda .

To be on the wrong side of the United States is not necessarily a bad thing. One can seriously differ with its creation of a faith-based response against the Soviet invasion in 1979, its unconditional support for Israel against Palestinians, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the toppling of Qadhafias government in 2011.

But Pakistan should definitely be alarmed that, save for China, it stands alone and friendless in its neighbourhood and is viewed with suspicion in much of the world. Iran, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are all Muslim countries with which Pakistan a a country conceived on the basis of Islam a could have expected to enjoy good relations with.

A misconceived foreign policy has led to the very opposite: Pakistani and Afghan troops are exchanging artillery fire today while India is busy with construction projects inside Afghanistan and earning the gratitude of ordinary Afghans. Hence the bitter remark: India gives us dams but Pakistan gives us only the Taliban.

What explains Pakistanas soft corner for the Taliban? The answer is a no-brainer. Through the decades, Pakistanas foreign policy has single-mindedly sought to counter India on every front irrespective of the terrible damage it may do to itself. In the early 1990s, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg was explicit about building astrategic deptha inside Afghanistan with Taliban help. Pakistan has yet to plausibly renounce this earlier goal.

Another victim of tunnel vision is the Pak-Iran relationship, now frigid. Even President Rouhanias visit in March to Islamabad did little to change things. Indiaas development of Iranas Chabahar port, a consequence of Pakistanas refusal to grant overland transit permission to India, feeds into the encirclement syndrome. Few in Pakistan care to remember Iranas support to Pakistan during the 1965 and 1971 wars, or wonder how we lost an ally.

Neighbours frequently have disputes over land and water, or perhaps over markets and global influence. Many disputes are unsolvable but mature leaders learn to manage conflicts, agree on trade terms, make compromises, and keep communication channels open. This is how politics works.

That politics is practised today by the United States, China, and India. Within this triangle of geopolitical players, each jockeys for economic and military power. All have oversized militaries but their rivalries are not played out as zero-sum games. Even Saudi Arabia plays pragmatically. Its highest civilian award went to Narendra Modi, and it has a de facto alliance with Israel.

Rather than dig an ideological hole so deep that escape becomes impossible, Pakistan too must deal with India pragmatically and politically. A sane and civilised relationship is surely possible without Pakistan dropping the insistence that Kashmir needs a solution.

If Pak-India relations could be recalibrated, Pakistan could repair its poor relations with all its neighbours. With Afghanistan this has special urgency. Pakistan and Afghanistan have suffered enormously from militants who seek to impose their brutal ideology, and who deliberately target innocents. Pakistan has lost more brave soldiers and officers during its war against terror than in all wars against India.

Fazlullah must go, whether by drone or otherwise. But what we want for ourselves, we must also want for those across the Durand Line. For this, the successors of Mullah Mansour a however many are yet to come a will also have to go.

The writer teaches physics in Islamabad and Lahore.
[Pictures of the event posted here are by Mukul Dube]

PRESS RELEASE

First Praful Bidwai Memorial Award Goes to Peopleas Archive of Rural India (PARI)

New Delhi, June 23: The first Praful Bidwai Memorial Award has gone to the Peopleas Archive of Rural India (PARI), which was set up in 2014 by noted Mumbai-based journalist and commentator, Palagummi Sainath.

According to the award citation, PARI is being recognised for recording and documenting rural India in all its diversity: aBold in conceptualisation and innovative in methodology, it uses the tools of digital communication, the practice of data storage, and the principles of good journalism to capture the layered realities of a region that is home to over 800 million people speaking in an estimated 700 languages.a

The Award was set up to commemorate the life and work of one of Indiaas most outstanding journalists as well as accomplished author, committed activist and public intellectual, so that his legacy would inspire others. Bidwai was an extremely successful columnist, whose articles on a range of subjects appeared regularly in newspapers and journals in India and globally for over two decades. He was also an internationally recognized and awarded author, a much valued Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, and his last book, aThe Phoenix Momenta, which was published posthumously in November 2014, was a magisterial look at the role of Left parties in India. A compilation of his selected writings on nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament has just been brought out by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), India, of which he was a founding member.

The award ceremony was held at Constitution Club, New Delhi, on June 23, 2016, which marked his first death anniversary. Five representatives of the PARI team received the award from Meera Ganorkar, Bidwaias sister. Professor Romila Thapar chaired the event, during which the editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, as well as P.Sainath, spoke about the crisis of journalism in contemporary India and how it could be addressed.

The informally constituted Praful Bidwai Memorial Committee, set up by his friends shortly after his death last year, is anchoring this annual event.

o o o

SEE ALSO the 2016 Praful Bidwai Memorial Award Citation presented to PARI
It's a prickly feeling at the bottom of your stomach.

While volunteering as a doctor In Laos, John (Rossif Sutherland) has witnessed something terrible. As soon as he can, he comes to the U.S. Embassy for help. But, as our exclusive clip from River suggests, help is not forthcoming and the tension will only thicken.

The official synopsis gets right to the point:

In the south of Laos, an American volunteer doctor becomes a fugitive after he intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman. When the assailant's body is pulled from the Mekong River, things quickly spiral out of control.

Jamie M. Dagg wrote and directed. You can watch our exclusive clip below, and below that the offical trailer. River will open in select theaters and On Demand on Friday, June 24.
The director of this film, the famed artist and writer Shunji Iwai, started his career doing television films before shaking the entire landscape of Japan with films like Love Letter and Swallowtail Butterfly, and he somewhat goes back to the episodic nature of that medium with his 3-hour film, the strangely titled A Bride for Rip Van Winkle, which could've been divided in a miniseries of three chapters and could've had the same effect on the viewer, as we've become attached and we follow the misadventures of our protagonist, who is confronted by her own shortcomings as well as the unknowable forces of 'the other', who is the one that she is initially sheltering from through her shyness.

But even if the main trait that comes to mind when we see the main character, Nanami Minagawa (played sweetly and stupendly by Haru Kuroki), is the way that she seems to avoid any instance of direct communication, either by speaking very softly, apologizing for everything, and being awkward, she is completely different in the world of the social networks. Sheltering under a seudonym, she starts to post status updates on the things that she lives and even criticizes her husband-to-be as she is soon to be married with a guy she met on an online dating service. So, essentially, she needs the mask of anonimity to be truly who she wants to be, or at least that's what we assume.

So, the thing is that she is about to get married, and Japanese weddings are weird, if I am to believe the films that I've seen so far, and the one put together here is spectacular, so Nanami feels guilty of have divorced parents and practically no relatives that she can invite to the ceremony. Due to the pathriarcal nature of the society in Japan, she feels obliged to contact a man that can come up with a bunch of people that pretend to be relatives, a service that is somewhat expensive but still highly succesful. But that seems to be the only thing that works, as Nanami breaks down to the suggestion of his mother-in-law that she shouldn't work as a teacher, like she's done since she graduated; or the fact that her husband seems apathic and can't seem to muster much sentiment for the whole relation.

In a way, what we see for the next two and a half hours of film is the series of awful events that deconstruct the identity of this woman who is just barely understanding how to function in a social manner, and even at the length, that could be discouraging to some, this breezes through with entertaining yet fully emotional scenes, as it doesn't maintain still for too long and it continually throws new situations that Nanami must confront. This is, more than anything, an honest critique of the predominating point of view that permeates every construct of society in Japan (and the world) regarding the role of women, how they should act and what they should do with their lives. The final act is revealing through its symbolism and how it relates to this narrative of both female empowerment and self-acceptance.

This film could be easily compared with Shunji Iwai's earlier masterpiece All About Lily Chou-Chou, as they both have an aural and visual concordance, and they use a similar visual approach. They also both connect their plots to internet communities and how they connect people that are afar, but their anonimity betrays them. In a way, this demonstrates more than anything that Iwai might be the director that has contributed more to our perception of what the internet is and how it works with real people. This time he tackles social networks and how they relate to the identity of ourselves and those around us. And it's perfectly tuned, wonderfully performed and tonally consistent. One of the best films of the year.

A Bride For Rip Van Winkle screens at the NYAFF June 24th.
Una Lorenzen's documentary Yarn opens in New York this weekend at IFC Center and continues to roll out across the States all Summer.

Meet the artists who are redefining the tradition of knit and crochet, bringing yarn out of the house and into the world. Reinventing our relationship with this colorful tradition, YARN weaves together wool graffiti artists, circus performers, and structural designers into a visually-striking look at the women who are making a creative stance while building one of modern art's hottest trends.

Lorenzen's film follows four international women artists who use the knitting art form to share their individual messages and ideals. Apart from their straight up awesome skills with hooks and yarn each artist has taken a art form once woefully considered something their mothers and grandmothers did to pass the time and have taken it to the World in breathtaking ways.

The film first introduces Tinna Thorudottir Thorvaldar from Iceland who uses her artwork to share political messages. Then we meet Olek, a Polish knitter who moved from Poland to New York to find her voice. We meet up with Tilde Bjorfors of Swedish circus company Cirkus Cikor in Denmark. Bjorforsis uses knitting on a massive scale in their latest production. To round out the quartet we meet Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam, the Japanese artist based out of Nova Scotia, Canada, who makes large structures which children can play in.

The stories are inter spliced with the narration 'Where it Begins' from Barbara Kingslover that gives the whole production this really earthy feel, like you can dig your hands into it and breath it in. Very compelling words from the American author.

Every artist has a statement and every artist has different ways by which to make it. Not only do these women make tremendous, wonderful and beautiful creations with hook and yarn but these creations all have messages attached to them. There are varying degrees by which they are open about their messages. Larenzen's film respectfully allows each artist to express themselves as they see fit.

Artists like Olek and Tinna create pieces with sociological and political messages and those are messages that are not delivered quietly. Horiuchi MacAdam's art form is meant to inspire children to explore and play so there is an openness from her as well. Bjorfors is largely silent throughout the film though and allows her art and the circus performers to speak for her.

Yarn is equally meditative and evocative, a mix of contemplative and exploitative imagery from these amazing artists from around the World. Those curious to see how an art form has been taken from the living room, once thought of as reserved only for presents from your grandmother, and brought out into the open to create conversations and envoke thought and feelings, will be rewarded with dazzling creations and artistry.
Say what you want about Ben Wheatley's divisive film, but having Portishead's cover of the Abba song S.O.S. on its soundtrack was a stroke of brilliance. The first song Portishead has recorded in over seven years, its inclusion and use in the film was quite a shock. Also, all parties involved agreed that the song would be used for the film's soundtrack only, and not become a separate release. Uploaded versions on networks like YouTube were vigilantly hunted and taken down.That changed yesterday, as those same parties agreed to release the song in memory of British Member of Parliament Jo Cox, who was murdered last week while campaigning. Today, there is a referendum in the United Kingdom about whether they should remain part of the European Union or step out, the so-called "Brexit". Jo Cox was in the "Remain" camp, and she was assaulted, stabbed and finally shot by someone with a history of extreme right-wing and white supremacy views.Both the video and the music are a very sober and somber take on Abba's song, and this being Portishead, it's right up their alley. As you can now legally see and hear for yourself.
It was somewhat startling to me when I lived in Europe several decades ago that the catchy, upbeat tune "Bobby Brown" would be played regularly on radio. Sure, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it, but, given that the song is about a rapist who is emasculated while echoing the American Dream, it seemed a little provocative for mid-afternoon tunes.

There's a certain masochistic challenge to being a Frank Zappa fan, to take everything in right from his Freak Out days through to the symphonic complexity of The Yellow Shark. His art shifted from "Louie Louie"-based three chord garage rock to noodling guitar solos to minstrel-like shows to Varesian orchestral pieces, all somehow maintaining the unique character of the man.

It was once described to me that in the history of architecture there's a relatively linear line and then there's Gaudi, a genius who had few if any that followed him. You can go to Barcelona and marvel at the exquisite curvature and madcap design, but even the most avant garde design seems a far echo from what Gaudi accomplished.

Zappa fits this place in the rock pantheon - sure, there's loads of progressive metal bands that likely borrow a lick or two, and even a big pop hit like "Hey Ya" by OutKast borrows some of its polyrhythmicity from Frank, but generally the fact is this: there was rock and roll before Zappa, and rock and roll after him. While he was here, however, there was no one like him.

Political, puerile, precocious, Zappa's works for the most part demand a level of attention not common for pop music, and for other tunes a level of ignoring what otherwise would be considered racist, sexist, or simply tasteless lyrics. The key, as he often claimed, was to understand it all as a facet of a whole, a master work where the three-chord on the downbeat crunch was as relevant as the 17/8 spasmodic flourish. It's all just Zappa.

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words tries admirably to present this vast array of contrapuntal contradictions by using decades of interview footage by Zappa as its basis. Early on, we're reminded that Zappa saw interviews as yet another performance, providing often inaccurate or shifting views on given subjects.

Key elements of his passions, from his introduction to Varese's Ionization on up, will be old hat to old fans of the man, but as a primer of his diverse output, it's a supremely inviting way into his work like no other. The enormity of his output (over 100 records) makes it daunting for many people, and it's fair to say the likes of "Bobby Brown" or "Valley Girl" aside, he wasn't particularly known as a singles artists.

As a man who pricked the bubbles of Beatlemania and hippiedom in the 60s, through to his scathing attacks on Nixon, the moral majority and televangelists, through to his passionate advocacy against the PMRC rating of records, Thorsten Schutte's assemblage does a fine job of allowing Frank Zappa's own words to do the heavy lifting in contextualizing all these disparate elements.

Yes, there's some stellar concert footage interspersed, but while there are a few rare nuggets, a lot of it is readily available elsewhere. So the real pleasure in Schutte's film is how deftly he manages to provide both chronological and thematic consistency throughout, making sense of his work in a way few people have ever tried in so succinct a fashion.

I was reminded of The Kids Are Alright, a powerhouse documentary on The Who that also used a smattering of archive footage to provide an overview of a band's career. Schutte manages to include elements both expected and surprising, allowing jaded fan and neophyte alike a window into Zappa's world.

To truly tell Zappa's story would require a mini-series length, and a Scorsese-style examination with provocative interviews would be probably too much to hope for in the near term. Yet as his music slips away from popular consciousness, as his siren calls about the rise of fascism in both the left and the right, there may be opportunity for new fans to explore the myriad facets of Zappa's music and performances. By giving us Zappa in his own words, Schutte has done a service to the man's legacy and provided a highly entertaining film at the same time. Eat that, naysayers.

Review originally published during the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016. The film opens in select theaters on Friday, June 24 via Sony Pictures Classics. It will roll out to other theaters in the following weeks.
Outside a prominent courthouse, in a shot all its own, the Confederate flag comes down, and the United States flag goes up. There is a smattering of cheers. The scene is Jones Country, Mississippi in the 1860s. I n real life, in 2016, this scene has play ed out in the same region, amid much festering conflict and passion, within the past year .

Free State of Jones presents itself as a racially charged U.S. history lesson, which it absolutely is, wearing some stark connecti ons to the here and now on its sleeves. The film is imperfect, yes, and sometimes a bit of a sledgehammer. But then again, so is U.S. history.

It is the Civil War. ( With Captain America nowhere in sight). We open on a squadron of worse-for-the-wear Confederate troops, already shellshocked and glassy eyed. We don't know them, and we never will, but it's clear they've already seen certain hell.

They march across the hillside, weapons in hand, as the camera rises to reveal the waiting Union opposition, just over the way . It's an audience gasp moment, as we've already been efficiently sold on the humanity of these marching zombies, whatever their alligence . The order is given, and canon fire begins annihilating walls of these men. Again, "Fire!!" Again, death.

Directed with impressive visual precision by Gary Ross ( The Hunger Games , Seabiscuit ), Free State is a large, grandstanding movie star vehicle for Mat t hew McConaughey in the classic Hollywood sense. Seeing how the film operates so earnestly in its reverence to its subject and commitment to its own sense of history, Free State of Jones plays like the kind of film Warner Brothers might've made in the 1940s. (Update: After typing this, I've come to find out that sure enough, Van Heflin starred in a name-changing fictionalized version of this story called Tap Roots in 1948. It was for Universal International). As a fan of that type of vintage filmmaking, viewing Ross' film thusly opens it up to being not only a refreshing change of pace at the movies, but the key to a greater appreciation of it.

Immediate and pulling no punches, Free State of Jones instantly enters the pantheon of great Civil War films, despite its flaws. As the story of Newton Knight, a Confederate deserter turned anti-slavery revolt leader, the film functions well as a convincing look into the past while repeatedly reminding us that the unjust struggles of African-American s continue to this day.

While the true motivations of the historical Newton Knight remain historically controversial, this film is content to present him as a bold man with answers and expertise . Reflecting the true story, McConaughey's Knight gives many a rousing call to action, none more so than his four-point declaration of the "free state" of his hometown, Jones County, Mississippi. In the free state of Jones, all are equal and economic exploitation of the lower classes is forbidden. Even women and sometimes children are put to work alongside the men. This is a man of contemporary social justice Biblical faith (but good with guns) who's only implied character flaw is his murky love life. A result of taking up with a freed slave named Rachel, played by the talented Gugu-Mbatha-Raw, is a mixed race linage in America's Deep South. His great-grandson was a white man deemed one-eighth black - enough to brand him a criminal for marrying a white woman 85 years after the Civil War.

Flash-forward s nippets of Knight's grown great-grandson's trial are occasionally peppered throughout Free State of Jones . While the attempted question of linage and possible "sins of the father" and " sins of the state" are appreciated, the interjections ultimately don't work. They prove more interesting than effective, an unconventional device with little footing in an otherwise ultra-conventional film.

Yet, knowing your history is always a plus. When it comes to explaining the greater context of what's going on, Free State of Jones has it both ways. On one hand, the movie refuses to contextualize certain things, even while repeatedly underlining the message that being black in the post Civil War south was a case of one damn thing after another: Broken post-Slavery promises gives way to "apprenticeship", which is merely Slavery Part II. No sooner is that turned over than the Klan rides in. An exhaustion in absorbing it kicks in, and you realize that it should.

Yet, in terms of contextualize or lack thereof, we are told, for example, in the earlier wartime scenes that Vicksburg has fallen, but if you don't already know the significance of that battle in the war, you're that much more in the dark. For that reason, Free State of Jones ' brightest future might be in high school classrooms, serving as a welcome supplement to formal history lessons.

Mat t hew McConaughey is once again terrific in this film, taking and holding the screen with the exact performance he's being asked to deliver. His Newton Knight is McConaughey circa Southern Reconstruction, albeit with a stringy beard and greasy hair. In his more harrowed moments, he looks downright Frankenstein-like. Yet in this current sensitives-driven age of "hashtag-problematic", his part in Free State of Jones will never get around the criticism that he's another crusading white do-gooder in a Hollywood film running to the rescue of black folk. The film itself, however, is careful not to depict African-Americans as helpless and foolish. Mbatha-Raw's character goes beyond the role of supported love interest (her lot in Concussion ) to become an educator to the downtrodden. Mahershala Ali is impactful as the freed slave Moses (an apt name he's chosen for himself) who works for social reform in his community.

Gary Ross has made quite the accomplished film, one part hornet's nest, one part comfort food. It shows difficult truths while simultaneously propping up broadly agreeable social messages. Vulnerable characters tend to suffer badly , and dogs don't fare too well, either. But h istory buffs as well as #BlackLivesMatter activists shouldn't miss Free State of Jones , as it will, one way or another, further a vital conversation about race in the U.S., and beyond.
As children, we are often taught that, when someone is in trouble, we should try to help, or if someone is being bullied, we should intervene. But sometimes, there can be unforeseen consequences that would endanger ourselves.

Jamie M. Dagg's first feature film, River, takes this endangerment to the extreme in a taut and exciting, if somewhat narratively sparse thriller. The first North American film to be shot in Laos, it uses its location to great advantage as it follows one man's desperate run from the authorities.

John Lake (Rossif Sutherland) is an American doctor working at an NGO clinic in Vientiane. With stress taking its toll, he goes on holiday to the south, where he can sit in the sun and drink to his heart's content. At a bar one night, two Australian tourists are chatting up and plying local girls with drinks. John tells the men that maybe they should lay off. On his way home, he finds one of the men on the beach, and one of the girls unconscious near him in a state of undress. Leaping to her defense, John gets into a physical altercation that ends up with the Australian dead, and John on the run.

Dagg gives just enough information at the beginning to set up the story, and wastes no time to bring us to why we are here: the chase. While there are obligatory shots of the landscape to give a sense of place, Dagg and cinematographer Adam Marsden keep the shots in tight to John and his immediate surroundings as much as possible. Shooting almost entirely outdoors and in the natural light adds to the realism, which adds to the fear and tension. We are both alongside John, but also slightly outside, watching (and possibly judging) his actions.

Everything happens so fast that John has to think on his feet; while telling the authorities the truth might be the right course of action, it's hard to deny or blame John for his fear. He makes some smart decisions, some bad ones, and has both good and bad luck. The chase is definitely the best part of the film; Dagg makes every shot count, and the editing is crisp and tight against the shaking camera. I felt a bit nauseous once or twice, but that was part of the engagement, and added to the tension.

It is to Sutherland's credit that he is able to make John believable in a very short space of time. We only have a few minutes to get to know him, and Sutherland gives us enough that we are, if not necessarily in agreement with him, sympathetic to his plight and concerned for his safety (up to a point).

I wouldn't say that John is necessarily standing in as the 'everyman' for the audience, but this is to the story's benefit. He doesn't look down on the people of Laos, especially as he is helping them, but he is intelligent enough to know that his privilege will get him so far, though not far enough to avoid jail if he is caught. Sutherland does some great physical performing, showing how John gets weaker as the story and his escape progress, but somehow finding the strength because he has little choice. And John might be a privileged westerner, but he isn't a snob, and he is a man with a conscious: self-preservation might take over for a while, but he knows that he cannot let others take the fall for his actions.

This is where River is not a typical chase thriller, and where more explanation and a deeper exploration in the story was necessary. The is about a white man in an Asian country; the consequences if he is caught are worse than if this happened in his home country. I suspect that, like many in the audience, I know very little about Laos. Why would it be more dangerous if he was caught there than, say, Thailand, or another Asian country? Are we just supposed to assume (or believe that John is assuming) a terrible fate out of ignorance of the justice system? Obviously, anyone in that position, where circumstantial evidence would pin more crimes on John than he committed, would be afraid.

But the lack of exposition on the subject made it seem like Laos was chosen at random, which I doubt it was. If this is the white man in danger in the foreign country, it should have significance, particularly considering how little most people probably know about Laos. There was a missed opportunity here to make a stronger statement about the behaviour of westerners in Asian countries, debates about human rights and the political and justice systems. It's touched on briefly, but too briefly; a bit more development would have added interesting layers to the story.

As a man-on-the-run film, River is excellent, stripping down to the core of this narrative with aggressive and engaging shots and a great central performance; it runs through it's first 60 minutes like a fire running to a powder keg. More engagement with its location outside of the physical would have given it's story greater depth and power.

[Full Disclosure: ScreenAnarchy founder and editor Todd Brown is an executive producer of this film. He was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.]

Review originally published during the Toronto Film Festival in September 2015. The film open in select theaters on Friday, June 24, via Well Go USA.
Today, it seems Americans cannot escape the politics of identity. From Caitlyn Jenner to the wage gap to even Rachel Dolezal's complicated and troubling relationship to the hashtag #BLACKLIVESMATTER, each week seems to bring some new story asking Americans: "Who are you?"



It's curious then, that this same identity crisis isn't happening in the world of film. Yes, along the festival circuit there have been glimpses of hope in heralded films like Dope, DOPE, and let's not forget #DOPE. (God, isn't Dope just wonderful? And so diverse too!) There has even been a blockbuster that seemed to examine its own identity and that of its audience in the stunning Sapphic fantasia, Mad Max: Fury Road.

But for the most part, Hollywood has seemingly ignored the cultural conversation in favor of drinking beers in the basement and waxing poetic about the good ol' days --flipping through comic books and playing with old dinosaur toys. Meanwhile, letting cinema is letting his over-achieving little sister, Television, get her hands dirty in the muddy waters of liberal arts self-discovery and cultural critique (this year's Emmy nominations are veritable smorgasbord of talent of color).



That's why Benson Lee's new film Seoul Searching "gave me so much life", as we Queens (speaking of identity) say of the truly revelatory. After months of ingesting works that, while fun and enjoyable, left me feeling empty; Seoul Searching served me the five course meal my body almost couldn't take. I guffawed with abandon, shivered through tears, and let out a guttural "YAAASSS!" that could rival my Bitmoji's. It wasn't until the lights came up on me and I led the standing ovation that I realized that this was the first film about Korean-Americans I'd ever seen on the big screen.



The film, based on Lee's own life, transports us to "Seoul, Korea 1986", the last year of a government funded summer camp for the children of Korea's post-war emigrants. The country doesn't just want the kids to leave the camp knowing who they are, but they also want them to have a grasp on the much more unknowable: "What it is to be Korean".



Being teen-agers many haven't even started to figure out the first question. Most, in fact, come to camp essentially as stock 80s archetypes: the valley girl, the bully, the rebel. Our entry into this world that's so vibrant it would make John Hughes eat his shorts is Sid, a classic American punk. Sid may not know who he is, other than a fan of that more vicious Sid, but he does say he knows what it means to be Korean: "Being Korean means being punished for not knowing what it means to be Korean". And with a readjustment of his archetypal leather jacket the theme of the film begins to crystallize.



In a world that wasn't ready for them (and still isn't...this is only the 3rd major American film in over 20 years about the Asian-American experience. The other two are 1992's Joy Luck Club and 2002's Better Luck Tomorrow) the sons and daughters of Korea had to either hide behind their culture and face abuse, erasure, and ostracization. Or they had to adopt the identities of the dominant culture as a shield against forces both without and within. To be a minority in a foreign land is a no-win game, as is being a stranger in a familiar one.



The pressure on this film to be everything and more for the Korean-American community is huge. At my screening, a line stretched no less than a quarter mile down the street. There is a palpable thirst for this type of representation that is not being quenched. Pressure of this magnitude would undo a filmmaker of less panache than Lee, yet that which could have been the film's biggest downfall (the need to give due diligence to every facet of the first gen Korean experience to an ensemble cast from around the world) elevates the film to heights few teen comedies have reached for me. In many ways, it reminded me of Spike Lee's criminally underrated Get On The Bus, which showcased the cultural diversity of the black American male.



Every character in this film is so densely drawn you leave the theatre feeling as though you've spent a whole summer at camp, too. There's Grace, the seductive preacher's daughter who's learned all her tricks from Madge, played with tender focus by Jessika Van (there's a scene with Grace involving a bottle of Johnny Walker that's so delicious, I am now placing it in the canon of great scenes from coming of age teen comedies).

There's the unabashed military school racist Mike Song played by the frightening Albert Kong who is just as comfortable calling his fellow campers "chinks" as he is calling them "porch monkies" and "nigger lovers" for styling themselves after Run DMC. And the crowd-pleasing Korean-Mexian lothario Sergio played with endless effervescence by Korean-Spanish YouTube star Estaban Ahn.



Seeing the diversity and complexity of a community so ghettoized by the mainstream media is radical enough but it's how Lee handles the psychic pain the community had to overcome after the Korean War that is the true game changer. Because at the end of the day isn't that what identity is all about? Recognition of a community's collective trauma. That's what it means to be Korean; and that's why while marveling Shirley Kurata's stunning costumes or the dancing to the film's dope soundtrack you won't be able to stop thinking about Rosalina Leigh's Kris. Rosalina, a Canadian actress in her film debut after being discovered on Facebook, gives a career sealing performance in a scene that proves to be the heart of Seoul Searching.



Traveling to Korea at the behest of her white adoptive parents, Kris feels that maybe if she sits with her birth mother she will find some clue that can lead her to the path of knowing who she is. Kris, sitting across from her birth mother who doesn't speak a word of English, begins to describe to her mother the pain of imagining who you are and who you could've been a thousand miles away as her mother shivers with an understanding that needs no translator. It's a breathtaking scene.



In a time when it is becoming apparent that the sickness of white supremacy and interracial discord is flaring up, in both dark and light spots around the world, it is imperative that Seoul Searching and films like it be seen. And not just on VOD or on Netflix. PUT THIS ON THE BIG SCREEN. Seoul Searching is the medicine the world needs right now. That way when we are asked: "Who are you?" We will be one step from being able to say: "Sid" "Sergio" "Grace" "Kris"...

Review originally published during the Asian Film Festival of Dallas in July 2015. The film opens in select theaters on Friday, June 24.
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 Stressing harms of drunk driving, SCOTUS upholds warrantless breath tests (but not warrantless blood tests) incident to arrest | Main | "For aficionados of pointless formalism, todays decision is a wonder, the veritable ne plus ultra of the genre." 

June 23, 2016

California legislators introduce bill seeking to mandate that any future Brock Turners face three-year minimum prison terms

As reported in this Reuters piece, headlined "California lawmakers move to change sentencing law following Stanford case," the common legislative reaction by policy-makers to concerns about an unduly lenient sentence is in progress in the wake of the high-profile sexual assault sentencing of Brock Turner. Here are the basics:

Seizing on a nationwide furor over the six-month jail term handed to a former Stanford University swimmer following his conviction for sexual assault on an unconscious woman, California lawmakers on Monday introduced legislation to close a loophole that allowed the sentence. The bill, known as AB 2888, marks the latest response to the sentence given to 20-year-old Brock Turner by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky in June, which was widely condemned as too lenient. Prosecutors had asked that Turner be given six years in state prison. "Like many people across the nation, I was deeply disturbed by the sentence in the Brock Turner case," Assemblyman Bill Dodd, one of two California state legislators who introduced the bill, said in a written statement. "Our bill will help ensure that such lax sentencing doesn't happen again." Turner was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person in the January 2015 attack. Under California law, those charges are not considered rape because they did not involve penile penetration. According to the lawmakers, current California law calls for a mandatory prison term in cases of rape or sexual assault where force is used, but not when the victim is unconscious or severely intoxicated and thus unable to resist. The new legislation, which was introduced in the state assembly on Monday, would eliminate this discretion of a judge to sentence defendants convicted of such crimes to probation, said Ben Golombek, a spokesman for Assemblyman Evan Low, a co-author of the bill. Golombek said that the effect of the proposed new law, which must still be approved by both houses of the legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, is that Turner would have faced a minimum of three years behind bars.

Prior related posts:

June 23, 2016 at 01:03 PM | Permalink

Comments

No surprise here.

Posted by: Michael R. Levine | Jun 23, 2016 6:24:37 PM

Not an unexpected reaction. At the end of the day, "law" is a conversation between judges and legislators (with lawyers having input on the judicial side of the conversation and the public having input on the legislative side of the conversation). On sentencing issues, this conversation creates a "rubber band" approach to sentencing discretion. When there are a handful of cases in which the minimum sentence appears to be too harsh to the public and judges, the legislature responds by increasing discretion. When there are a handful of cases in which judges appear to have abused their discretion by imposing rather minimal punishment, the legislature responds by reducing the sentencing options available to prevent such sentences in the future.

Posted by: tmm | Jun 24, 2016 10:35:21 AM

California has one of the weirdest sentencing schemes I've ever seen. I tried to understand it myself and eventually had to contact a California criminal defense attorney to explain what the hell just happened. Essentially, there is a triad of punishments (3, 6, and 9, iirc), but the Judge has the option to impose less than a year and probation. This bill would eliminate that.

Even on object sexual penetration/rape cases that have significant mitigating factors, I don't think three years is unreasonable. While I deplore a lot of the knee-jerk reactions (particularly the calls to remove the Judge) and I don't like that public outrage only goes in one direction, this is a reasonable proposal.

Posted by: Erik M | Jun 24, 2016 9:09:16 PM

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 Another ACCA win for federal defendants in Mathis | Main | California legislators introduce bill seeking to mandate that any future Brock Turners face three-year minimum prison terms 

June 23, 2016

Stressing harms of drunk driving, SCOTUS upholds warrantless breath tests (but not warrantless blood tests) incident to arrest

The Supreme Court handed down its last big Fourth Amendment decision of this Term, and Birchfield v. North Dakota, No. 141468 (S. Ct. June 23, 2016) (available here), is a nuanced ruling that I am glad to see makes much of the scourage of drunk driving. Here is the start of the Birchfield opinion for the Court authored by Justice Alito, as well as two key summary paragraphs from deep into the opinion:

Drunk drivers take a grisly toll on the Nations roads, claiming thousands of lives, injuring many more victims, and inflicting billions of dollars in property damage every year. To fight this problem, all States have laws that prohibit motorists from driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) that exceeds a specified level. But determining whether a drivers BAC is over the legal limit requires a test, and many drivers stopped on suspicion of drunk driving would not submit to testing if given the option. So every State also has long had what are termed implied consent laws. These laws impose penalties on motorists who refuse to undergo testing when there is sufficient reason to believe they are violating the States drunk-driving laws. In the past, the typical penalty for noncompliance was suspension or revocation of the motorists license. The cases now before us involve laws that go beyond that and make it a crime for a motorist to refuse to be tested after being lawfully arrested for driving while impaired. The question presented is whether such laws violate the Fourth Amendments prohibition against unreasonable searches.... Having assessed the effect of BAC tests on privacy interests and the need for such tests, we conclude that the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving. The impact of breath tests on privacy is slight, and the need for BAC testing is great. We reach a different conclusion with respect to blood tests. Blood tests are significantly more intrusive, and their reasonableness must be judged in light of the availability of the less invasive alternative of a breath test. Respondents have offered no satisfactory justification for demanding the more intrusive alternative without a warrant.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Kagan joined Justice Alito's opinion for the Court. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsburg, filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Justice Thomas also filed his own opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

June 23, 2016 at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Comments

Sometimes I cannot figure out which amendment the court seems intent on destroying the most: the first or the fourth. Alito's opinion is so ludicrous from start to finish I don't even know where to being to criticize it. "The impact of breath tests on privacy is slight..." says the man who is in no danger of ever having his breath tested for anything other than malice.

Posted by: Daniel | Jun 23, 2016 1:10:08 PM

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Getting anything built in the Mission District is very challenging! For evidence of that, here's a fun example from last year, or the story of some more recent but long-delayed movement on the 380-unit project near 16th Street BART (dubbed, charmingly, the "Monster on Mission.")

And yet, here comes the latest attempt, news of which is brought to us by the Business Times: A five-story, 50-unit residential building proposed for 235 Valencia, which is between Duboce and 14th. DDG is the developer, a firm working in San Francisco, Florida, and New York. Here, they're responsible for a slew of condo developments in Hayes Valley, and a preliminary application of theirs for the Mission spot was just filed.

That would require the demolition of an existing, extremely vacant industrial building that measures 9,000 square feet. It dates to 1924 and last housed a Volvo dealership, but at one point was a "motorcycle dealership by Loren 'Hap' Jones, publisher of the Motorcycle Blue Book and a prominent figure in West Coast motorcycle history." That smells, ever so faintly, like a historic resource, and will likely be considered as such during environmental impact review.

The proposed development, for which there are no renderings yet publicly available, would be 31,848 square feet. Naturally the big issue in the neighborhood will be the number of affordable housing units: That isn't finalized, DDG tells the Business Times, but at minimum, if they're on site at least, there would be 12 or 13 to make up the percentage, 25, now mandated thanks to the passage of Prop C this month. Still, don't be surprised if this earns some new nickname like the Villain on Valencia or something.

Related: Huge 16th And Mission Project Moves Forward, Again






It looks like full steam ahead for the rad, unique, 39-story residential tower by acclaimed Chicago architect Jeanne Gang that's been proposed for 160 Folsom Street, one of the final pieces of land up for grabs in the Transbay district. Two years in, the tower  which Gang describes as featuring "migrating bays" that create a spiral effect on its facades  was the source of some hemming and hawing over the last year. The approval process for it was delayed when some nearby residents at the Infinity towers tried to quash an effort by the developer to add 100 feet to the tower height  something that was going to be beneficial both architecturally and economically, but which may impede some views for the upper-story residents of that earlier built complex. That extra height was ultimately approved by the Board of Supervisors this spring, and as the Chron's John King reports this week, the project's design just won the approval of the citys Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, which as he explains is "the relatively obscure commission that oversees the redevelopment of land in the Transbay district that once was covered by freeway ramps."

Now all that remains is a final vote by the Board of Supervisors this summer to approve the sale of the land to Tishman Speyer, the developer.

The design review process involved some tweaks in particular to the smaller buildings sharing the block with the tower, townhouses and an eight-story wing, much of which will contain below-market-rate housing and which will most impact the pedestrian-level view of the development.

As you can see below, the buildings create a three-color streetscape, the largest being copper colored, and King gives his approval saying, "If the lower portions of the block are visually distinctive, that will make them look stronger as independent pieces of the neighborhood thats starting to take shape around them."





Also working in this project's favor is the fact that of the total 391 units, 141 will be below-market-rate, with 64 of those designated for middle-income buyers. The affordable units will, at the behest of Planning, be distributed throughout the tower up to the 26th floor.

Below, a rendering of the eventual skyline as seen from the Bay Bridge, with 160 Folsom there a block off of the Embarcadero, behind Gap headquarters.



Rendering via Studio Gang

Previously: Gorgeous Residential High-Rise Project Designed By Jeanne Gang Threatened By Art Agnos, Waterfront NIMBYs
Building fiber internet is an infrastructure headache  expensive, time-consuming  and so San Francisco web devotees continue to pine for the fast stuff with no clear delivery date in sight. But one provider is getting a bit of a speed boost.

It was in March that Supervisor Farrell called for the city's budget analyst to determine how expensive and feasible a municipal fiber-optic cable network might be, and that would certainly be a very good option. However, now with a new company  Webpass, a gigabit broadband provider  under its umbrella, Google Fiber, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., seems a likelier bet.

Google Fiber announced in February that it would be coming to San Francisco, at least in part, serving those limited areas where existing city fiber connections exist. Now the company has grown that network with a little acquisition play. Consumerist writes that Webpass is already based in San Francisco (it's 13 years old), and it's offerings and baseline infrastructure in fiberoptic service are here, in Oakland, and in San Diego, where Google has also indicated it would like to expand. Mostly Webpass has served businesses, and it does have smaller markets in Boston, Chicago, and Miami.

"By joining forces, we can accelerate the deployment of superfast internet connections for customers across the US," Webpass President Charles Barr wrote to the company's blog. "Webpass will remain focused on rapid deployment of high-speed internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, primarily using point-to-point wireless."

The deal with Webpass is for an undisclosed sum and will likely close this summer following regulatory approval, CNet estimates.

Previously: Lighting-Fast Gigabit Internet Coming To SF Real Slow

Google Fiber Is Coming To San Francisco
Scroll to the bottom of this post for updates.

Hit-and-run drivers claimed the lives of two cyclists in San Francisco yesterday, following collisions in Golden Gate Park and SoMa on Wednesday evening.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the first collision occurred at 6:01 p.m., when a man in his early 20s driving a white Honda Fit fatally struck a cyclist near John F. Kennedy Dr. and 30th Avenue in Golden Gate Park.

Though police did not provide any details on the victim, saying they were "unknown" in an email sent Thursday morning, according to ABC 7 the cyclist was female.

ABC 7 reports that "Paramedics worked frantically to save the woman's life as she lay in the road in Golden Gate Park, her twisted bicycle lay nearby." CBS 5 reports that the victim was rushed to the hospital, but did not survive.

Witnesses told ABC 7 that two men were in the Honda Fit driven by the suspect, who was "going 50 or 60 miles an hour and passing other cars."

"They clearly went into the opposite direction traffic," a witness said, "and went far enough over to run right into that lady head on."

KRON 4 reports that the Fit was discovered, abandoned, near the scene of the collision. ABC 7 reports that the car had dealer plates, and had not been reported as stolen.

The second collision occurred at 8:24 Wednesday evening, at 7th and Howard Streets in SoMa. Though police said in an initial email that the cyclist struck in this case was male, they sent out an update saying that details on the victim were, as with the previous case, "unknown."

KRON 4 reports that the driver in this case "ran a red light and hit the cyclist, and then sped away."

The cyclist was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Police confirm that the suspect, a 32-year-old man driving a BMW X-3 with California plates, was arrested at the scene. According to Reddit user "maurin14," he or she "chased [the suspect] down with another pedestrian and demanded he sit and wait for the police, he obliged. Definitely not sober." An SFPD spokesperson could not confirm this account of the incident.

That spokesperson was also unable to provide the suspect's name and booking information as of publication time. However, we should expect more details on the collisions this morning, as according to a press release sent by the SFMTA, at 10 a.m. today "Mayor Ed Lee, SFPD and SFMTA will hold a media availability to discuss the most recent details about last nights fatal bike collisions and the citys ongoing Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities," they say.

Lee will be joined by SFPD Commander Robert OSullivan and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin at the press event, which will be held at the SFMTA Headquarters at 1 South Van Ness Avenue.

Update: Additional information has become available following this morning's press conference. Hoodline reports that in the case of the Golden Gate Park hit and run, the 2016 Honda Fit turns out to have been stolen after all. The abandoned car was reported by a passerby who noticed it was extensively damaged and called police. The suspect (or suspects) in that fatal crash is still at large, and police ask that any witnesses call (415) 575-4444. The victim, whose identity has not been released, was a woman in her late 40s.

In the case of the SoMa hit and run, police confirmed that the driver ran a red light and fled the scene after striking the cyclist. SFPD Commander Robert O'Sullivan said charges in that fatal crash will include felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter. At this time, O'Sullivan said that neither drugs nor alcohol appeared to be a factor.
The city of San Francisco will be going to court to make sure that homeowners renting units on HomeAway, a short-term rental listing company that also owns Airbnb competitor VRBO, are paying their dues: 14 percent hotel taxes, the likes of which Airbnb began collecting in SF in 2014, and business license registration fees, which the City Treasure has indicated are necessary for short-term rental hosts. So far, efforts have been rebuffed to check up on the rental platform's hosts to verify their compliance. Treasurer Cisneros twice issued a subpoena demanding that HomeAway identify its hosts here and their rental histories, first last October and again this April and neither to any effect. The latest development in the push: City Attorney Dennis Herrera is getting in on it, petitioning San Francisco Superior Court to compel the company to comply with that subpoena.

HomeAway operates out of Austin, Texas and in November of last year was purchased by Travel website Expedia for $3.9 billion. That deal reported by the Wall Street Journal and others appeared as a bid to compete with Airbnb.

"This action is fundamentally about fairness: businesses that follow the law shouldnt have to compete against law-breakers, said Herrera by way of a press release. That principle applies equally to short-term rental hosts who dont collect taxes, and to the online platforms determined to shield them."

Our job is to enforce the citys tax laws, Cisneros added in the release Businesses in San Francisco cant ignore our laws. The transient occupancy tax is due whenever a visitor pays to stay in our city. We want everyone who hosts (visitors) to understand that the tax applies.

HomeAway, the Chronicle reminds us, sued San Francisco in 2014, basically alleging that they were just a classifieds service and that the real beef was with Airbnb. That case was dismissed. Also, somewhat damningly, HomeAway co-founder Carl Shepherd, who has left the company added to the paper that "the vast majority of HomeAways listings break San Francisco law because they are not residents primary residences, making them illegal.

As he puts it, "All you have to do is say you live there 270 days a year. You do have to lie and you do have to obfuscate. But the city is at a distinct disadvantage because they cant catch this.

Related: Like It Did For Uber Drivers, Treasurer's Office Orders Airbnb Hosts To Get Business Licenses
President Barack Obama has a Very Silicon Valley Friday planned, with both a Stanford entrepreneurship summit and a Mark Zuckerberg confab on his agenda. But though he doesn't have any SF events planned, POTUS will still make ripples in San Francisco as soon as tonight, as his plans to stay in a SoMa hotel will close streets and snarl traffic.

According to the White House, Obama is scheduled to arrive at Santa Clara County's Moffett Field at 6 this evening. His motorcade will then head up the freeway to SF, disrupting traffic as it travels.

The president will be staying (as he usually does) at the Intercontinental Hotel at 888 Howard Street, ABC 7 reports. Barricades have already been erected in front of the hotel, and as of this afternoon Fifth Street will be closed between Mission and Folsom and Howard will be closed between Fourth to Fifth streets.

Expect further traffic challenges Friday, when Obama will head to Palo Alto to attend Stanford's Global Entrepreneurship Summit. While he's down there, the president will also meet with Zuck to "do a Facebook Live chat and also a Google Portal conversation," ABC 7 reports.

By mid-day Friday, however, San Francisco's presidential traffic troubles will be over, with the streets closed for his visit expected to reopen by around noon. Until then, though, drivers are warned that South of Market traffic will be even worse than usual, especially for those on Mission or Sixth Streets. According to officials, drivers should expect significant delays, and if possible they should avoid the area entirely.


With Pride upon us, San Francisco offers even more opportunities than usual to celebrate all that is fabulous in the city by the Bay. However, with the massacre at an Orlando gay club still very present in everyone's minds, the Chronicle reports that bar owners and club goers are talking about what measures the LGBTQ community can take to keep itself safe.

It would be irresponsible of us not to take what happened in Orlando into consideration and not do anything about it, the general manager of QBar, Cip Cipriano, told the paper. Theres a contract between you and the people who come to your venue  they expect you to be responsible enough to take those precautions so everyone has that safe space they need.

And so QBar, like many other places in the Castro and all over the city, is taking another look at security ahead of the expected onslaught of out-of-town visitors and general Pride revelers. Officials have already announced, for example, that the Civic Center Pride celebration will force all attendees through metal detectors. Such measures, however, may not be practical (or even necessarily wanted) for all bars and clubs.

Thats exactly what terror wants you to do, to not go out and be terrified, Heklina (of Trannyshack fame) told the paper. You have to embrace life. You cant let it change how you look at things.

Anecdotally, via social media, we're hearing that just as these new security measures are being implemented in the Castro, the line outside Beaux for their Wednesday night party stretched 45 minutes or more as patrons were each patted down and wanded with a metal detector. So if you're headed out this weekend, brace yourselves for that kind of delay.

The most important defense against any sort of hate or terrorist attack is of course the eyes and ears of bar patrons themselves  and as Lookout owner Larry Bennett told ABC 7 last week, "People are a lot more observant." He added, though, "In our case, we will check bags of anyone coming into our bar." Shawn Vergara, owner of Castro bars Brewcade and Blackbird, tells SFist that his door security people have begun bag searches this week as well.

While SFPD recently announced that it will increase its planned police presence in the Castro during Pride, some activists have noted that police actually alienate LGBTQ people of color.

Whatever security in the Castro ends up looking like over Pride  cops in bars or no  Pride attendees can take some comfort knowing that the topic is very much on the forefront of everyone's minds.

Related: Gay It Up: Your Official SFist Guide To Pride Week 2016 Is Here

Black Lives Matter Member Says Increased Pride Security Alienates LGBT People Of Color
Would you travel halfway around the world to take a photo in front of the Facebook sign? No? How about the Android mascot? Well, according to The Mercury News, a lot of people are doing these things.

"What you're seeing are people on a pilgrimage," Stanford communications professor Fred Turner told the paper. "We now see pilgrimages to firms that in ways both good and bad are colonizing our everyday lives. Folks are looking for a physical place behind the kind of dematerialized experience that they have online."

The corporate headquarters of Facebook isn't the only draw, with Google, Apple, and Tesla all attracting visitors  even if they're never allowed inside any actual buildings.

"We are all the way from India," one tourist in front of the Facebook sign, Pavi Rajkumar, told the paper. Meanwhile, Daniel Rezende, from Brazil, explained his motivation in trekking to the Google campus. "We use Google every day, every hour, so we wanted to visit it."

Eiji Matsumoto, in town from Tokyo, was on a multi-site trip  with plans to see the offices of Oracle, HP, Google, Tesla, Intel, eBay, Yahoo, and Apple. "Everything is huge, just huge," he told Mercury News. "One company is like one city in Japan."

While many tourists may be self-guided and unofficial, ABC 7 reports that it's not for a lack of paid opportunities. Those looking to plunk down $300 to $1,300 can get inside some tech companies  though you might only be taken to a gift shop ($15 for a Google t-shirt).

Anyway, just getting a picture in front of a company logo might be enough for some. Canadian Vicky Hsu seemed content to just check out Facebook's big thumbs-up sign in person. "It's pretty cool," she observed, "eh?"

Related: San Francisco Is The 10th Most Instagrammed Place In The World
Photo Courtesy Jeramey Jannene, Flickr CC

By now weve all taken notice of Walkers Points renaissance. Everything from an e-commerce startup to a celebrity trainer-owned gym has claimed a slice of land in the once forgotten industrial district. But its the areas booming foodie scene that has undoubtedly drawn the most attention to the neighborhood.

Walk the Point, a recently launched bar and restaurant tour, is giving people the opportunity to see these innovative and prominent eateries in a unique way.

Theyre taking the Walkers part very literally.

We were just excited about all of these great restaurants and food purveyors in the area, says Ben Taylor, cofounder of Walk the Point. There are a lot of places sourcing locally, and a lot of family-owned businesses opening up. We wanted to get a little bit of the focus out of the Third Ward and East Side, and onto Walkers Point.

Taylor has lived and worked in the neighborhood for three years, and has seen the rapid growth of the area first hand. The idea for the walking tour came from a friend who drew comparisons to Asheville, North Carolina and a walking tour there called Eating Asheville. From there, Taylor brought the idea to his now business partner, Anders Rahm, who also has a depth of experience working in the Walkers Point restaurant industry.

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The tour gives people an opportunity to experience an overview of Walkers Point restaurant scene at an affordable price, with the added draw that there are currently no other walking tours of local restaurants in Milwaukee.

Seven restaurants, bars and food makers are currently participating, including All Purpose, Crazy Water, Meraki, Ashleys Que, Drink Wisconsinbly, Clockshadow Creamery and Indulgence Chocolatiers. Taylor hopes to have more area businesses involved in the near future.

There are six stops on the tour, but we want as many people on board as possible so that we can vary the tour on a daily basis, says Taylor.

Tours run Tuesday through Friday from 4-6 p.m. During this two-hour stretch participants are guided through six different restaurants for about 15 minutes each. There is either food or drink served at every stop, with at least four stops serving a food and drink pairing.

Currently, there are only 12 tour spots available per day. The smaller group size helps the guides and restaurant owners, who frequently come out and interact with the groups, to engage with the tour takers and give them behind the scenes information.

Everyone on the tour gets a personal touch, and the restaurant owners get to sell their business face to face to 10 or 12 people at a time, Taylor says.

Taylor says he would be open to spinning this idea off into other parts of the city eventually, but is focusing on Walkers Point for now.

Walkers Point hasnt always been the nicest part of town, he says. But in the three years since Ive been here Ive seen how quickly its changed over, and its just going to continue to go that way. In another two or three years it will be just as popular as any other part of town.

Tours cost $60, and can be purchased here.
ONAWA, Iowa | The Missouri River may be important to Iowans in many ways, but the most effective way to push for river management issues beneficial to the entire state is to have one, unified voice, Gov. Terry Branstad said.

Speaking Wednesday at the State Interagency Missouri River Authority, or SIMRA, meeting at the Onawa Community Center, Branstad said the organization has been vital in identifying and advocating for Iowa's needs, something groups to which the state belonged in the past failed to do.

"I think it makes a lot of sense for the agencies in Iowa to speak in one voice for issues dealing with the Missouri River," Branstad said. "We want to make sure the Missouri River continues to be an important asset for our state and the nation, for that matter."

SIMRA, made up of representatives of several state agencies including natural resources, transportation, agriculture, economic development, utilities and emergency management, meets twice a year to update Iowans on issues affecting river management.

The group was established by the Iowa Legislature in 2002 to promote policy for Missouri River uses and interests in the state. During the flood of 2011 and its aftermath, SIMRA focused on recovery. Now, Branstad said, it's time to focus on river management practices to reduce flood risk and potential property damage in case of another flood.

"Five years later we can reflect on the response and recovery effort and look ahead," he said.

Agencies updated the group on river-related work, such as new statewide flood plain mapping expected to be finished in two or three years and ongoing work to restore productivity to crop land damaged by the flood.

Branstad took questions from the audience, and was asked about a variety of issues: silt removal from old oxbows, highways still at risk if the river floods again, increased emphasis on tourism possibilities and possible changes to the Missouri River's master manual, which dictates how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates the river's reservoir system.

The governor said all those issues are important to the state. Some can be easily addressed, others will take more time and work with other state and federal agencies.

"We want to make sure we have a balanced approach by all these needs," Branstad said.
LITTLE ROCK, Iowa | Three suspects have been charged in a rash of vandalism throughout Lyon County last weekend.

Jordan Groen, 18 of Little Rock, and Dylan Van Gorp, 18, of George, Iowa, were arrested and charged with third degree criminal mischief, an aggravated misdemeanor. A juvenile male was also charged with third degree criminal mischief and cited into juvenile court.

The Lyon County Sheriff's Office in a press release said the three spray painted a lion statue at Central Lyon High School, a street in Rock Rapids, the George Swimming Pool and a parking sign at the Salem Reformed Church in Little Rock.

The vandalism occurred between the night of June 17 and the morning of June 18.

Damage was estimated at $700, the release said.
STORM LAKE, Iowa | A Storm Lake man originally charged with trespassing Monday now faces charges charges of burglary and sexual abuse, police say.

A release issued by the Storm Lake Police Department said John Dehler, 23, entered a home in the 800 block of Oneida Street in Storm Lake while intoxicated on Sunday.

He was forced out of the home by those present and was later located by police, the release said. He was arrested Sunday and charged with criminal trespass and public intoxication, both simple misdemeanors.

The next day, the reporting party contacted the police department and said Dehler sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl who was at the home when he trespassed.

After additional interviews with the victim and further investigation, police questioned Dehler, who had been released and arrested him and charged him with felony burglary and sexual abuse.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Fridays intense storms canceled the Camp Goodwill session in South Sioux City for the week.

Winds in excess of 60 miles per hour ripped through the camp, knocking down limbs throughout the camp. Camp coordinator Dawn Habhab said branches blocked the driveways and damaged gates, bleachers and the picnic shelter.

The winds also scattered canoes throughout the property, but those have since been recovered, Habhab said.

We just had a lot of branches and trees down, she said. Nothing major and absolutely no one was hurt.

As a result of the damage, Habhab said this weeks Camp Goodwill session  Dream it, Do it, Challenge!  was canceled to allow staff to clean up the grounds.

The children who signed up for the session were allowed to pick any one of the remaining four weeks. Habhab said all 65 who had signed up have chosen new sessions. She said she did not anticipate any logistical issues from additional children joining the other groups.

A Camp Goodwill group was not in session when the storm hit Friday night, but Habhab said the camp was rented out that night. Those overnight guests were able to get out Saturday.

She said enough progress has been made on cleanup efforts that next weeks session will continue as planned.
SIOUX CITY | Caroline Camposano Donaway of Sioux City died on June 21, 2016, at home with her family around her.

Memorial services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Immaculate Conception Church in Morningside. The body is to be cremated. Arrangements are under the direction of Morningside Chapel, Christy-Smith Funeral Home.

She was born in Sioux City, on Dec. 29, 1950, first daughter of the late Manual and Joan Camposano of Sioux City. When she was six months old, she and her family moved to Chile as her father had business interests there. Spanish was her first language. She was truly bi-lingual. Later they moved to Lima, Peru, where they lived for several years. Her sister, Elizabeth was born in Sioux City, Patricia in New Jersey and Joanie in Lima, Peru.

While living in South America, Caroline learned and loved the art and sport of show horse jumping. She made her first jump at eight years of age and continued to ride until her death. Her love for all animals was great.

Her family returned to Sioux City in 1965. Caroline was enrolled at East High School and graduated in 1969. She spent a year at the College of St. Catherine's in St. Paul, Minn. She came back to Sioux City for the summer and worked at Walgreen's where she met her future husband, Richard Donaway.

They were married on Jan. 20, 1973, at Immaculate Conception Church in Sioux City. They moved to Racine, Wis., where her husband managed a Walgreen's store. They returned to Sioux City that summer and had lived here ever since. As time permitted, she and her husband would return to Chile for visits with her extended family. In November 1984, we had our one and only child, a daughter, Erin. My mom was the most amazing and giving person to be friends with. In 2008, Erin had her only son and Caroline's only grandson, Connor, they had been inseparable since day one and until her last breath. Caroline spoke to him only in Spanish, he always answered in English.

Caroline earned her bachelor's degree from Briar Cliff College majoring in Spanish and French and a year later started to teach Spanish at East High School. She and her students took many trips to Mexico and Spain. In 1980, she was made a head teacher and started the English as a Second Language Program in the Sioux City Public Schools. Named director, Migrant Education Program, Caroline spent several weeks in Guadalajara, Mexico, observing social service programs.

She held a master educator license, ESL Endorsement K-12, REACH National certification, National Multicultural Institute trainer, and Institute of Cultural Affairs trainer. She belonged to several organizations including SHIP, board of directors, Sioux City Community Committee, Mary Treglia board of directors, Child Welfare Community Collaboration Team, Iowa Cultural and Language Conference, Delta Kappa Gamma, Tesol, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. She received Lifetime Achievement Award, Siouxland Unidad Latina, Human Rights Day Award, State of Iowa Governors Volunteer award, Woman of Excellence Award, and Human Rights Award along with the Jefferson Medallion. She also served as a member of Junior League, Catholic Charities, Police Gang Task Force, and as a Spanish court interpreter. While teaching, she was able to fly to Florida on a tanker from the 185th Refueling Wing as a guest of the Air Force as she had a few students qualify to join the Air Guard.

She retired in 2009 after 34 years with the Sioux City School District. Caroline then started teaching at Morningside College instructing master's level certification in ESL. She was then asked to teach Spanish again at the South Sioux Community High School where she was employed at the time of her death after a two-year fight with ovarian cancer.

She is survived by her husband of 43 years, Dick; their daughter, Erin; a grandson, Connor; three sisters, Elizabeth and George Skaff of Tuscon, Ariz., Patricia Milligan widow of Samuel Milligan of Rogers, Ark., and Joanie and Michael Russell of Tucson; seven nieces; five grandnephews; four grandnieces; her cousin, Marc and Marsha LaDue of Sioux City; and Marc's mother, Sabina of Stuttgart, Germany. In Chile she had 34 first cousins.

She would give of herself and expect nothing in return. See you later.

Contributions may be made in her memory.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man is facing charges after his vehicle struck two parked cars and rolled over Wednesday night in the 2600 block of Court Street.

The incident occurred around 7:30 p.m.

Sgt. Todd Sassman with the Sioux City Police Department said 33-year-old Jeffrey William Divis, of Sioux City, was driving a 2001 Dodge Stratus north in the 2600 block of Court Street when he struck two parked cars and his vehicle rolled over.

Divis was uninjured in the crash. Police found Divis did not have insurance and was driving with a revoked license.

Divis was charged with driving while revoked, no insurance and failure to maintain control of a motor vehicle.

He is being held in the Woodbury County Jail on $1,500 bond. His next court date is July 1.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Bikers, walkers and runners can now make a full loop around South Sioux City, thanks to the newest addition to the city's trail system.

The recently completed "Missing Link Trail" is a 1.1-mile stretch connecting the city's All America Trail and Crystal Cove Trail along U.S. Highway 77, establishing a 10-mile trail loop around the city.

This new portion of trail begins near the Burger King at 21st Street and runs along the west side of the bypass to 29th Street, where it crosses over to the east side of the bypass and continues to connect with the trail in Crystal Cove Park.

Gene Maffit, South Sioux City's parks and recreation director, said planning for the Missing Link Trail began as early as 2008. The $654,000 trail segment was 20 percent funded by the city, with federal funds covering the remainder of the cost.

Construction began in mid-October of 2015 and concluded this spring. Maffit said the community has been behind the project throughout.

"We get huge support when we put a trail in, no matter where it goes," Maffit said. "This is the one that, I think, everyone has really been looking for."

The city will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for the trail at 10:45 a.m. Friday at 2501 Cornhusker Drive.

Bob DeSmidt, president of the Siouxland Trails Foundation, said this specific portion of trail plays an important role in boosting the trail's appeal.

"Trail users love to do loops as opposed to going out-and-back on the same route," he said.

DeSmidt said another important feature of the trail includes bicycle-accessible push buttons at the crossing that allow cyclists to press them without dismounting.

"That's a very busy road," DeSmidt said. "Prior to this trail, you either had to get off a bicycle to push a button, or a lot of these streets the lights are triggered by the weight of a car and won't trigger from a bike. It was a big hindrance."

DeSmidt said South Sioux City remains a proactive community when it comes to constructing trails. He said the community was the first in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota to be designated as a bicycle-friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists. It remains the only one in the tri-state metro area to date.

With this trail done, Maffit said the parks and recreation department isn't planning on slowing down. Maffit said the city has two more trails planned to continue connecting its area schools to the trail system, as well as other ideas in the works.
WASHINGTON -- Months before the 1940 Republican convention nominated Wendell Willkie, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt's waspish daughter, said that Willkie's support sprang "from the grass roots of a thousand country clubs." There actually was a Republican establishment in 1940, when GOP elites created a nominee ex nihilo.

According to Charles Peters' book "Five Days in Philadelphia," three months before the convention, Willkie registered zero percent in polls measuring public sentiment about potential Republican nominees. This was not surprising: He was a businessman -- president of Commonwealth & Southern Corp., the nation's largest electric utility holding company -- who had given substantial support to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Willkie had never sought public office and had not registered as a Republican until late 1939 or early 1940.

And he was not an isolationist regarding European events. Eighty percent of Americans were more or less isolationist, as were the three strongest Republican candidates -- Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, Michigan Sen. Arthur Vandenberg and New York prosecutor Thomas Dewey, just 38 but favored by 60 percent in early 1940 polls. Herbert Hoover hoped a deadlocked convention would turn to him.

The Republicans' "Eastern establishment," however, was interventionist to the extent of favoring aid to Britain. The adjective "Eastern" was superfluous: Two-thirds of Americans lived east of the Mississippi (California's population was under 7 million) and the South was solidly Democratic.

The Republican establishment had power and the will to exercise it. As the convention drew near, "Willkie Clubs" suddenly sprouted like dandelions, but not spontaneously. Their growth was fertilized by Oren Root, a lawyer with the Manhattan law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardner & Reed, whose clients included the J.P. Morgan banking empire. Root began seeking support for Willkie with a mailing to Princeton's class of 1924 and Yale's class of 1925. Another close Willkie adviser was Thomas Lamont, chairman of the board of J.P. Morgan & Co. Root's uncle Elihu had been a U.S. senator and Theodore Roosevelt's secretary of war. By opposing his friend TR's bid to defeat President William Howard Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination, Elihu Root helped to rescue the country from having both parties devoted to progressivism.

One of the few politicians among Willkie's early backers was Sam Pryor, Republican national committeeman, whom the candidate met at the Greenwich Country Club, naturally. Willkie's top adviser was Russell Davenport, managing editor of Henry Luce's Fortune magazine, which together with Time and Life made Luce, an ardent interventionist, a mass media power unlike anyone before or since. The April issue of Fortune was almost entirely devoted to praise of Willkie. Look magazine, second only to Life in importance, chimed in, as did Reader's Digest, which had the nation's largest magazine circulation.

On April 9, Dewey won a second of the few primaries -- and Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, with Belgium, Holland and France soon to follow. Willkie said he would vote for FDR over a Republican opposed to aiding Britain and France.

Willkie, "the barefoot boy from Wall Street," cultivated an Indiana aura, but had become a Manhattan fixture, and by 1937 his criticism of the New Deal had Fortune applauding his "presidential stature," and the letters column of the New York Herald Tribune, the Republican establishment's house organ, concurred. In May, The Atlantic Monthly carried a Willkie essay, in June it was the Saturday Evening Post's turn. In July, Time featured a celebratory cover story on him. Madison Avenue titans of advertising -- Bruce Barton of BBDO and John Young of Young and Rubicam -- joined the effort. Root would have a meeting for Willkie, "under the clock at the Biltmore," followed by another at the University Club or Century Club. Between May 8 and June 21, Willkie's support rose from 3 percent to 29 percent.

Willkie also was lucky: In May, the Taft man in charge of tickets had a stroke and was replaced by a Willkie man who would pack the gallery with raucous Willkie supporters, including a Yale law student named Gerald Ford. The Herald Tribune endorsed Willkie in its first front-page editorial and tens of thousands of pro-Willkie telegrams inundated delegates in one day. Delegates heard from their hometown bankers, who had heard pro-Willkie instructions from New York bankers. He won on the sixth ballot.

Willkie's nomination neutralized much Republican opposition to FDR's war preparations and was crucial to the narrow congressional approval of conscription. Willkie lost the election, but the coming war would be won. Time was, party establishments had their uses.
A majority of Woodbury County board members took the right step in opposing an idea proposed by Supervisor Jackie Smith to study an increase in the minimum wage for the county.

In our view, the county level isn't the right level of government for this discussion. We do not believe value exists for the state as a whole in having a patchwork of county minimum-wage levels. In fact, a higher minimum wage could put Woodbury County employers at an economic disadvantage.

At the June 7 board meeting, Smith proposed creation of an advisory committee to study whether Woodbury County should raise the minimum wage above the $7.25 state rate.

One week later, Supervisors Jeremy Taylor, Matthew Ung and Mark Monson said they did not support Smith's committee proposal, effectively ending dialogue on the issue. Supervisor Larry Clausen said he supported creation of the committee, but wasn't certain if he would actually vote to increase the minimum wage in Woodbury County.

"I don't know if the county is a proper place to do it ... I've got mixed feelings," Clausen told The Journal.

We aren't necessarily advocating for it, but the place for a minimum-wage debate is the Statehouse in Des Moines.

If the Woodbury County board as an entity wishes or members of the board as individuals wish to make a recommendation to the Legislature about the minimum wage for the entire state of Iowa, fine.

But we see no good reason for supervisors to pursue something different for only this county.
The case of the Coke caper

SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City teen was arrested after he stole a Coca-Cola delivery truck while the driver was inside making a delivery.

Eliot Stowe, 18, took the $15,000 truck that was parked outside 410 Pierce St., and proceeded to drive to a construction site in Dakota Dunes. Stowe began giving away $1,000 in merchandise from the vehicle, court documents said.

Stowe then reentered Sioux City in the vehicle and fled on foot when Sioux City police attempted to stop him.

Upon arrest, he was found with prescription pills that were not in his name.

Stowe has been charged with first degree theft, possession of drugs, reckless driving, failure to obey a traffic sign, driving without a license and eluding arrest.

He is being held at the Woodbury County Jail with bail set at $21,900.

Pot and punches

SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa | Three Spirit Lake residents face felony drug charges and another was charged with misdemeanors in connection to a disturbance Friday night.

The Spirit Lake Police Department in a release said Cody Hoffman, 27, Kristi Bradley, 29 and Blake Hoffman, 24, were arrested and charged with multiple drug violations, including felony possession of a controlled substance and failure to affix a drug tax stamp.

Police responded to a disturbance at a residence in the 800 block of Ithaca Avenue at 5:10 a.m. Friday morning. Officers noticed the smell of marijuana coming from the residence, the release said. A search warrant turned up marijuana and several items of paraphernalia.

Also arrested was 50-year-old Steven Hoffman, of Spirit Lake. He was charged with misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia.
Running a company successfully is a challenge no matter where you are located, but in some business-friendly cities and states entrepreneurs have a relatively easier time.

Small Business Friendly States and Cities

According to a new study by Thumbtack, San Antonio and Nashville are the friendliest cities to small businesses.

Among the states, Texas and Utah are the top favorites. Connecticut and Illinois, on the other hand, fare poorly as they are deemed the least friendly states for doing business. Syracuse and Oxnard are the worst ranked cities.

Participants said the most important factor impacting their success and ability to start, grow and sustain a thriving business is regulation thats straightforward and easy to follow.

Key Drivers of Business Friendliness

Professionals who found their governments to be small business-friendly were most likely to rate them positively on tax regulations, licensing requirements and labor and hiring rules. Thats because these factors have consistently ranked among the top concerns for businesses since 2012.

In this years survey, the influence of these factors depended on the level of government.

Perceptions of licensing friendliness were more critical for city rankings because local authorities are often more responsible for permits, licensing and other forms to run a business.

Skilled professionals on Thumbtack report that when government regulations complicate obtaining licenses and permits, hiring employees, and paying taxes, it is harder to start and grow a business, Lucas Puente, economist at Thumbtack told Small Biz Trends.

The highest-rated governments make regulations easy to comply with and enforce them consistently. They also invest in helpful training programs and government websites. These insights provide a roadmap for policy makers to create environments that foster entrepreneurship and innovation-outcomes critical for continued economic growth.

About the Survey and Thumbtack

Thumbtack is an online platform dedicated to connecting local small businesses with customers. Those businesses range from plumbers and house painters to therapists and more. Businesses are able to compete for customers interested in their services via the use of a bidding system.

The annual Thumbtack Small Business Friendliness Survey has been conducted since 2012. For this years study, Thumbtack surveyed more than 12,000 U.S. small business owners who collectively graded 35 states and 78 cities on the government policies that impact their businesses.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the survey, Thumbtack also released a special report highlighting the top policy concerns for skilled professionals with in-depth case studies of five cities from five different regions: Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis and San Francisco.

Photo via Thumbtack

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There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to
Hoping to repeat the success of Wilton Drive, city officials have put out a call for a consultant to help spur the redevelopment of Oakland Park Boulevard and Andrews Avenue.

To do that, the city has decided to convert and change the land use of Andrews Avenue and Oakland Park Boulevard to a transit orientated corridor, as it did with Dixie Highway. A consultant would help with the application process and work to get approvals from the county, state and South Florida Regional Planning Council. The city commission would also have to approve the change.

This is the first step in that process. It makes the property desirable for redevelopmenteconomic revitalization, said City Manager Leigh Ann Henderson. The goal is to get higher density mixed-use projects, similar to Wilton Station, which has retail and residential units, built on the two streets. The people living there can also be the patrons of the businesses, Henderson said.

In October, the city released its land-use study for Oakland Park and Wilton Drive. Pedestrian, landscaping, bike lane improvements and the addition of medians are some of the improvements Keith & Associates, the engineering firm that performed the land-use study, suggested. Complete Streets, a system where pedestrians, bicyclists, cars and buses share the road, could also be implemented. When the commission discussed the study, some residents who live in the western portion of the city demanded more be done to improve their area.

Sal Torre, president of the Westside Association of Wilton Manors, was one of those who spoke out. Now, he said hes glad to see the city moving forward. I think we did do a little [to get them to take action]. Absolutely. We kept asking questions. Theyre doing the right things they need to do to one day have Oakland Park Boulevard and Andrews Avenue blossom and be the thriving commercial areas they should be.

City staff also tried to get a business improvement district established for Andrews Avenue, like the one for Wilton Drive. City staff said most property owners rejected the idea. If it had been approved by property owners, additional taxes would have been levied and the money would have been used to make improvements to the street and/or help market the area.

The deadline to submit proposals for the land use bids was June 21. An evaluation committee will review all the submitted proposals and city staff will present its choice to the city commission for approval on July 12 or a later meeting.

Matching grant program

As the city makes an effort to try and attract new businesses and development, a matching grant program is already in place to make immediate improvements.

Business owners on either Andrews Avenue or Oakland Park Boulevard can apply for matching funds  up to $500. The money can be used to improve the facades of their storefronts, including painting and lighting, as well as adding signage or undertaking projects that fall under the citys green building code  including items that improve energy efficiency.

To apply, visit WiltonManors.com or call 954-390-2180.
Once upon a time in a land of great promise and wise statesmen, the sale of military style assault weapons was banned from its eastern shores, through the great plains, over mountain ranges, and all the way to its western frontier.

The leaders of this great empire ruled that the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms known as assault weapons, along with ammunition magazines defined as large capacity, had no place or purpose amongst its cities, schools, churches, or anywhere throughout the civilian population.

If only we, as a nation, had such great leaders who stopped the sale of these deadly weapons, a weapon whose only purpose is to assault, rapidly firing a barrage of bullets and killing everything and everyone in its path. These weapons are not for hunting, sport or personal safety. They are for assaulting and killing. What if the gunman had been able to purchase only a rifle or a handgun? Perhaps 40 or so people would have made it out alive that tragic night. Instead, we allow weapons of such quick and deadly force to be legally sold to basically anyone, even a possible terrorist suspect or someone listed on the FBIs No-Fly List. Does this make any logical sense at all? It is unbelievable that someone prevented from getting on a plane can walk into a gun shop and purchase a deadly military assault rifle.

Why cant we be more like the fictional land mentioned above, a country where citizens are protected, where leaders keep deadly weapons out of the hands of lunatics and murderers. Well, we were that great, wise land once upon a time. Back in 1994 our government had the wisdom to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which banned assault weapons and the high-capacity ammunition magazines that the shooter so easily purchased and used to murder 48 people. Unfortunately for all those who lost their lives in Orlando and other shootings around the country, that ban was allowed to expire in 2004 by the United States Congress. Their negligence and failure to renew the 1994 legislation in 2004, and every time thereafter should have them all facing charges of accessory to murder. Their inaction has knowingly assisted the gunman and others to commit multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

The ban on assault weapons had the backing of four Presidents and both parties in Congress. Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan all firmly supported President Clinton when he signed this bipartisan legislation into law. Then came the 10-year expiration clause in 2004, when our leaders negligently let the ban expire rather than having the backbone to renew the law and take a stand against the National Rifle Association. The results of their negligence are all too clear.

As I worked through the raw emotions of the week, I had a hard time with the various Love will Conquer All mantras making headlines. I wanted to hate the religious fanatics who preach hatred and intolerance from their pulpits that help create these psychopaths of the world.

I wanted revenge for such tragic deaths, so many innocent young lives lost and families changed forever. I wanted to curse all those bigots whispering amongst themselves that the victims deserved what happened. Love was definitely NOT what I was feeling.

Thankfully I decided to watch the Tony Awards that Sunday evening, the night of the fatal shooting. The words of Lin-Manual Miranda, the writer and creator of the hit Broadway play Hamilton, kept playing over in my mind and got me through a week of very raw emotions. His words came in the form of a sonnet, addressing the love of his wife as well as the shooting massacre in Orlando. Here are a few lines that say so much:

When senseless acts of tragedy remind us

That nothing here is promised, not one day.

This show is proof that history remembers.

We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;

We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer;

And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.

From the tragedy in Orlando over a week ago, to the Stonewall Festival celebrated here in Wilton Manors this past weekend, I begin a new week leaving all my negative emotions behind as I, and hopefully all of Wilton Manors and beyond, embrace the last line of Mirandas sonnet, Now fill the world with music, love, and PRIDE!

Life is, and always will be, just better here!
Overall, Part One crimes were down in Wilton Manors in 2015.

Thats according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement [FDLE]. Part One crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft.

The total number of Part One crimes, which is reported to FDLE by the Wilton Manors Police Department [WMPD], dropped from 353 in 2014 to 277 in 2015, but the rape and murder rate increased  from 0 to 1 murder and 2 to 4 rapes. The only murder in the city was Henry Vidal, a popular local bartender who was found dead in his home by a co-worker on May 29, 2015. Chief Paul O'Connell said no suspect has been charged yet in the murder.

O'Connell credits the drop in crime, in particular, larceny, to the community being more cautious and vigilant, including locking car doors to deter would be criminals just looking for crimes of opportunity. This is a partnership. The communitys doing a great job. Weve been reminding them [to take precautions]. I think theyve been doing that.

As for the increase in rape and murder, O'Connell said, Were just like a lot of other cities. Our violent crimes went up. I dont want to minimize them, but theyre so small they did not adversely impact our overall crime rate.

Along with the new annual statistics, comes a new way of tracking Part One crimes on a more frequent basis.

At the June 14 commission meeting, the WMPD unveiled its new crime tracking program  RAIDS [Regional Analysis and Information Sharing], an online crime mapping system.

RAIDS is a convenient way that empowers community members to better understand crime trends and bring awareness to crimes in the area. As always, remember to know your neighbor, know your neighborhood and if you see something, that doesnt look quite right, say something, wrote the WMPD in a press release.

O'Connell said that a SET [Special Enforcement Team] would be in place in two months. Once active, Our SET team can respond to [certain crime trends highlighted by RAIDS] accordingly.

A vehicle theft on Andrews Avenue. A home robbery on Northeast 21 Court. A pick pocketing on Wilton Drive  real crimes tracked by RAIDS  all of it can be viewed on a computer or smart phone. The program shows the location, date and type of reported crimes being committed. Users can also submit anonymous tips  directly to Crime Stoppers  and narrow or expand their search criteria to a certain date range, going all the way back to 2015, view one particular type of crime or view all different types of crime.

We dont report every single crime but we do report Part One, said Alberto Carrillo, the police departments criminal investigations analyst. Carrillo said he would be entering information on a weekly basis.

Visit WiltonManors.com/maps to view the RAIDS program online or download it for the iPhone or Android. Visit fdle.state.fl.us to view the entire FDLE report.
Over 230 million people in Africa do not get enough to eat. Farmers make up over 70% of the African population and they are struggling to grow enough food.

Together with low productivity, increasing population and the effects of climate change, most of their staple crops are threatened by virulent new strains of old diseases: banana bacterial wilt, bean root rot, cassava mosaic virus, potato late blight, rice blast and wheat rust.

African farmers are desperate for ways to fight these diseases, and biotechnology offers them just that. Africa needs a new generation of crops that are disease resistant, drought resistant, highly productive and nutritious. In Uganda, for example, over 13 million people consume bananas and plantains as their main food. An estimated 75 percent of farmers grow the crop, yet banana bacterial wilt causes an average yield loss of 71.4 percent a year. Traditional breeding techniques are too slow and too expensive. Ugandan scientists are now turning to biotechnology to confront the crisis.

Biotechnology allows scientists to take genes from one variety of a species and transfer them into another variety of the same species, vastly speeding up the same process that farmers have been using since the birth of agriculture. In fact, many studies have demonstrated the benefits of genetic modification technology  particularly its potential to increase food security in developing regions. For example, of the 15.4 million farmerswho planted GM crops in 2010, over 90 percent were resource-poor farmers in Burkina Faso, Egypt and South Africa.

Apart from the science, other issues are clearly involved in the debate. Many of the countries most affected by famine have been influenced by pressure groups to set up complicated and obstructive regulations for the use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Export of produce to Europe is hampered by tight EU restrictions on GM food. And the agricultural multinationals are not interested in developing crops specifically for cultivation in poor countries. About 85 percent of all transgenic crops planted globally are soya bean, maize and cotton varieties.

However, African countries do not have the luxury to enter into the GMO debate. African farmers need help, and that can best come from new varieties bred with the assistance of simple biotechnology in their own countries by their own scientists, as well as GMOs introduced with care and caution from developed countries.

As long as the safety precautions and good international practices are observed, a GMO will not cause any harm to the environment, food chain or the consumers, despite what the European press might say. And that cannot happen too soon.

Australia, Asia, Latin America and the United States have introduced modern biotechnology into their agricultural research and development policy frameworks. It is time for tropical Africa, especially the sub-Saharan belt, to upgrade its crop-breeding systems to include genetic engineering. GM crops are an unavoidable and absolutely necessity to the African food system. They are also safe.
Rodrigo Balduino, Liana David, and Carolina Balduino founded Brasilias Clandestino Cafe e Musica in August 2014, but their plans for the cafe had been brewing for years. David and Carolina Balduino were partners at a restaurant here in Brazils capital city, but had begun taking coffee courses at Isabela Raposeiras Coffee Lab in Sao Paulo, with eyes to shifting gears towards coffee. Rodrigo Balduino, Carolina Balduinos brother, had been living in Barcelona at the time, where he was thinking about creating a clandestine music event. When Rodrigo moved back to Brazil, the three Balduinos realized they could combine their visions. So began the idea of Clandestino Cafe e Musica.

The three were inspired by Clarice Lispectors tale Felicidade Clandestina, which translates to undercover happiness, and were able to quickly agree that the name of the cafe would be based on this sentiment. The style of the cafe evokes faraway Nordic coffee bars: very clean, sober, yet beautiful. The trio chose to place their coffee bar against a wall, so that it is in full view of the customers. David and Rodrigo Balduino explain that when they opened, they felt that Brasilia did not have many customers who were well-informed about coffee, so they wanted to show them what a specialty coffee bar looks like first and foremost. And the cafes location could not be better. It is situated right in front of the Olhos DAgua Park, a beautiful green haven in the middle of Brasilias North Wing.

Brazils Cerrado vegetation, typical of the midwest region, is preserved in the park, and one can still find remains of the areas early rural life, such as fig, mango, and banana trees. David and Rodrigo Balduino later tell me that the 413 North (the block where Clandestino is located) is fast becoming a gastronomical hub, with many quality restaurants opening in the wake of Clandestino. Many customers stop in after they have had lunch nearby, eager for a good espresso. Students, too, from the University of Brasilia stop in, as the campus is just a few minutes away.

Music plays a fundamental role at Clandestino. Rodrigo Balduino curates the soundtrack played in the coffee bar, and thoughtfully produces the music events Clandestino is famous for. The instrumental jazz night, held every last Sunday of the month, is a hit among Brasilienses. David and Rodrigo Balduino tell me that the shop gets particularly busy during the evenings and weekends they feature live music alongside their coffee.

Carolina Balduino brings her culinary background to the short menu that holds sweet and savory treats, updating the offerings monthly in order to accommodate seasonal shifts. One of the most popular items is the Tapioca, which is manioc flour in the form of a pancake, filled with queijo coalho (a fermented cheese very typical in the northeast of Brazil) and cane molasses. Tapioca pairs flawlessly with filtered coffee and makes for a filling and delicious gluten-free breakfast. A sweeter selection is the Nougat Glace, a French sweet made of dried fruits, which comes paired with an espresso served in a tiny shot glass.

Clandestino is a multi-roaster coffee bar. When I visited, 4 Beans Coffee Company, Isso e Cafe, and Pereira Villela were available as pour-over coffees (Hario V60), as well as AeroPress and French press. These were all prepared by the barista at the table, in front of the client. The espresso, which comes in a glass demitasse with a piece of slate used as a saucer, varies depending on the roaster they are working with. Baristas are extensively trained and can practice up to four months before they start extracting espressos on the shops La Marzocco FB80. Newly converted customers can also find coffee tools available for sale there, and David or Rodrigo Balduino are on hand to help with instructions to brew at home.

David and Rodrigo Balduino enthusiastically tell me that lately, the shop hasnt been able to keep up with the demand for whole-bean coffee. Customers sometimes call in advance asking them to hold newly arrived coffees so that they can come later to pick it up. The owners predict that Brasilia will soon have a seasoned specialty coffee market, similar to Curitiba. They value the recent opening of other craft coffee shops in the area and assure me that the owners are all friends. Due to the fact that the city is located far from most Brazilian roasteries, the cafes in the region all, from time to time, face logistical issues with roasted coffee delivery. They are used to leaning on this network of friendly cafes when supplies are short, calling each other up and borrowing coffee, until the next lot arrives.

Clandestino is the place to go to get a break from Brasilias politics, sip an espresso, and take in the beauty of the parkall to the sound of music as perfectly considered as the coffee and the setting.

Juliana Ganan is a Brazilian coffee professional and journalist. Read more Juliana Ganan on Sprudge. Photos courtesy of Tatiana Medeiros and Joao Vicente.
TRIPOLI (Sputnik)  The Libyan Armed Forces plan to defeat terrorists in the eastern city of Benghazi in the next few hours, army spokesman Col. Ahmed Mismari told Sputnik on Thursday.

"We have entered the last hours before the fight for Benghazi ends," Mismari said.

He stressed that 18 soldiers died during the military operation.
The initial development that set off the 2008 panic, Scott explained, was the run on the money market funds.

"The Fed didnt lend directly to the funds because they couldnt, but they lent to the banks to lend to the funds."

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the crisis such lending was characterized as "bailing out Wall Street," Scott added.

"When the White House and Treasury [Department] get together and talk about what they are going to do [about Brexit] they have to take into account those powers have been restricted."

University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business Professor Maurice Levi told Sputnik that Brexit is unlikely.
The ban, which admittedly has very little chance of coming into force, would apply to both class time and breaks.

The controversial announcement came after a PhD thesis documented that Arabic-speaking pupils at two schools with many bilingual children used their native tongue to insult students and teachers who could not understand what was said.

"If you live in Denmark, you should speak Danish," the Danish People's Party spokesman Martin Henriksen told Danish Radio. "We're going after Arabic because that's where the problem lies," Henriksen said.
Sweden is no doubt one of the countries that are closest to eliminating money altogether, as the use of cash is decreasing steadily year by year. New technology and new payment solutions are spurring further development. In 15 years, cash will become completely obsolete, the Swedish National Bank predicted earlier this year.

At present, cash represents only two percent of the Swedish economy, compared to ten percent in the Eurozone and nearly eight percent in the United States. At the same time only 20 percent of all customer payments are done with cash, whereas in the rest of the world, the figure hovers at 75 percent.

However, many elderly Swedes show little optimism in embracing a cashless society. The National Pensioners' Organization (PRO) has been a long-standing critic of the "far too rapid" development and has recently handed over a petition with nearly 140,000 signatures, requesting that cash remain in use. According to the PRO, fewer and fewer bank branches handle cash, which creates major problems.
According to the state government's directive, three months of an inmate's sentences will be pardoned if they practice yoga regularly and pass an exam, jail authorities announced on the occasion of International Yoga Day. The yoga exam consists of written and practical parts, conducted by the Patanjali Yoga Centre in May and October.

The scheme was introduced in January, and since then regular yoga training sessions have been held in the prison. A total of 191 inmates, including 167 males and 24 females, appeared for the yoga exam in May. Of them, 177 prisoners, 153 men and 24 women, have passed the tests and earned an early release.

International Yoga Day is celebrated on June 21 since it was instituted by the UN in 2015.
India's Defense Minister, Manohar Parrikar, today urged the country's armed forces to establish stronger military partnerships with friendly foreign countries, especially, in South East Asia by conducting more joint military exercises involving more than one wing of the armed forces.

Parrikar said, "by virtue of our dominant, geographical location, India is poised for a predominant role in the volatile region around us. Hence, there is a requirement to exploit this advantage by developing joint capabilities."

Sources in the Defense Ministry say that this new found ambition to forge stronger military partnerships with South East Asian countries should not be seen as a confrontational move with China's claim on the South China Ssea but as a covert tactic to export defense equipment to friendly nations of the region.
According to Debkafile, Kims untranslated comments were a little more colorful, claiming that Pyongyang now has the "+clear ability" to "totally and realistically attack American bastards[in the] operational zone of the Pacific Ocean."

The United Nations has condemned North Koreas actions, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon describing the latest tests as a "brazen and irresponsible act."

"All expressed a strong concern as well as their opposition [to] these launches," Alexis Lamek, Deputy UN Ambassador of France, told reporters.

Speaking to Radio Sputnik, Markus Schiller, founder of tech consultantcy ST Analytics, echoed the commonly accepted belief of observing that North Koreas pursuit of a ballistic missile is aimed at sending a message to the Pentagon.

"They want to show the US that they can actually hurt them, and thats the only reason for this missile. They will not need it to fight a war against South Korea," he says.

Pyongyang is believed to be in possession of 30 Musudan missiles.
The Type 093 will likely replace Chinas aging Type 091s, originally commissioned in 1974.

Beijings renewed focus on its navy is said to be due to increased tensions in the South China Sea. The United States and its Pacific allies have expressed opposition to Chinas construction of artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, claiming it's part of an attempt to establish an air defense zone.

Beijing maintains that is has every right to build within its own territory and that the island will be used primarily for humanitarian purposes.

The Pentagon has been upgrading its own submarine fleet, currently building Virginia-class attack sub USS South Dakota.
KHABAROVSK (Sputnik)  Russia plans to launch three new priority development areas (PDA) in the country's Far East, Russian Far East Development Minister Alexander Galushka said Thursday.

"On June 30, the governmental subcommittee on investment projects in the Far East will examine establishment of three new PDAs in the Far East," Galushka said.
British voters will decide in a referendum later in the day on whether their country should stay in or leave the European Union.

Brexit supporters argue that EU membership has eroded the countrys independence to legislate, direct its economy and control its borders. Opponents warn that leaving the European Union could deeply harm UK economy.
The Russian government is preparing changes to the law on the special economic zone in Crimea. The Crimean SEZ will include the entire coastal line of the peninsula and will be extended on to Russias territorial waters (22.2 km).

The status of a special economic zone presumes taxation preferences and state subsidies for residents.

"The new norm will apply for all participants of the Crimean special economic zone. They will be able to run business in Russias territorial waters," a representative of the Ministry of Economic Development said.
LONDO (Sputnik)  UK nationals are set to vote later on Thursday in a referendum on the country's membership in the European Union, after Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the 27 other EU member states agreed in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.

"I think Britain should have a free trade agreement with Russia. With the current administration, it is not possible. Cameron, whatever the result is, will not be allowed to stay prime minister. If it's Boris Johnson who is next, he is very outward-looking, so we can have closer relations with Russia," Atkinson said.
ALMATY (Sputnik)  Nazarbayev said the focus for Russian-Kazakh cooperation would be, among other spheres, on processing agricultural products, adding that Kazakhstan could also partially displace Russian imports of South American meat.

"Some 6,000 joint [Russian-Kazakh] ventures have been developed since [the Eurasian Economic Union] EAEU and now we have projects worth $25 billion in total to implement. But if we do not count oil and gas-related projects, there are some $6-7 billion left for engineering, processing, small and medium-sized enterprises, services," he told Rossiya-24 television.

According to the Kazakh president, the transport and logistics sector is also one of the the aspects of the countries' bilateral cooperation.
TASHKENT (Sputnik)  Ulyukayev answered in the affirmative when asked at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent whether other foreign investors have expressed interest in Rosnefts privatization.

Up to 19.5 percent of the companys shares are expected to be sold in the second half of 2016, with the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo serving as an investment consultant and US law firm White&Case as a legal consultant.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  The senior Gazprom official further explained that the firm is deliberating boosting supplies by either branching out the Nord Stream pipeline or with existing infrastructure.

The Nord Stream 2 project aims to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas a year to the European Union across the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing Ukraine. The gas pipeline project plans to use the original Nord Stream pipeline for 86-percent of the route before branching off.

"From 8 to 12 billion cubic meters of gas," Medvedev replied, when asked to estimate the volume of increased gas supplies to the UK.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Earlier, Polish officials said Poland is unlikely to extend the long-term contracts it currently has with Moscow.

"We will extend it on the same conditions," Alexander Medvedev told reporters, adding that the annual transit volume would stand at 30 billion cubic meters.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Poland is not interested in blocking the Nord Stream 2 pipeline construction, as Warsaw has already requested annual gas deliveries in the amount of 11 billion cubic meters under the project, Ties Tiessen, a member of Germany's Wintershall board, said Thursday.

"Poland has requested 11 billion cubic meters of gas [through Nord Stream 2] it is interested to receive. So why should this project, which would give Poland gas it is interested in, be blocked by it?" Tiessen said, answering a question on Poland's stance regarding the pipeline project.

Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has already postponed proceeding of the application for an approval to establish the Nord Stream 2 AG joint venture for the project two times.
"European policymakers have a decision to make, and it is a decision that needs to be taken quickly. That is, they must determine whether they care who owns, runs, and manages the capital markets intermediaries that we depend on. We are about to tip over into American dominance and if this trend continues, we risk a very near future in which Europes capital markets are almost entirely dependent on firms domiciled elsewhere," Jes Staley, chief executive of Barclays, was quoted as saying by Politico.

The numbers verifies Staleys concerns. According to research firm Coalition, in the first three months of 2016, US banks accounted for 57 percent of all investment banking revenues in Europe. Four years ago, European banks were the leaders.

The bank lobby says that Basel III would only aggravate the problems of European banks. According to the new regulations, many banks will not be able to lend. Furthermore, it insists that Basel III would "favor US banks that benefit from a strong position in their home market and more lenient regulators," the article read.

"In fact, the EU banking sector hates the new rules so much that it has taken to calling them 'Basel IV'  an allusion to seemingly endless rounds of punitive post-crisis regulatory measures," according to the article.

"Im not the biggest fan of Basel IV. The new rules that are coming in, I think, will impinge on what we do," Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
PERM (Sputnik)  Russian oil giant LUKoil plans to resume refining of Iranian oil at the company's ISAB refinery located at the Italian island of Sicily to replace Russian Urals brand oil, President of LUKoil Vagit Alekperov said Thursday.

"Today, we want to return it [Iran's oil] there [to the ISAB], because at the moment Urals is more expensive than Iranian oil. Today, we are placing it at other refineries very effectively," Alekperov told reporters.

He added that oil from Iran was the best option for the ISAB, because it was designed for 70 percent of heavy oil from Iran and 30 percent of light oil from Libya.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, Xi and Rahmon arrived in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent to participate in the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

"Trade between the states reached over $200 million in the first three months of 2016. Besides that, [the sides] expressed confidence that joint efforts could increase this amount to $3 billion by 2020," the statement reads.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, member of Germany's Wintershall board Ties Tiessen said that Poland was not interested in blocking the Nord Stream 2 pipeline construction, as Warsaw had already requested annual gas deliveries in the amount of 11 billion cubic meters under the project.

"The Ministry of Energy denies that Poland allegedly made a request for gas delivery through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Poland strongly against the construction of the pipeline Nord Stream 2," the ministry said in a statement published on the website.

Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has already postponed proceeding of the application for an approval to establish the Nord Stream 2 AG joint venture for the project two times.
CHISINAU (Sputnik)  Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, opening the chapter of World War II, called the Great Patriotic War, which ended on May 9, 1945, with the Nazis surrender. This day is marked as the Day of Memory and Grief in Russia and some former Soviet countries.

"Not only Russia marks this sorrowful date but also other [Commonwealth of Independent States] CIS countries, as well as the anti-Hitler coalition states. Hundreds of thousands of families suffered from fascism during the Great Patriotic War," Mukhametshin said.
Overall, Russia has delivered more than 62,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Ukraines southeast since August 2014. Kiev considers these humanitarian aid deliveries to be illegal.

According to UN data, more than 9,300 people have been killed and more than 21,500 have been injured since the beginning of the internal conflict in Ukraine. Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
In January 2013, Cameron announced in his program speech that the United Kingdom might hold a referendum on its potential divorce from the European Union at the end of this decade in the event his Conservative Party wins the 2015 general election.

The election took place on May 7, 2015. The Conservatives took 36.9 percent of the vote, compared with 30.4 percent won by the Labor Party, and secured an absolute majority in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament. Conservative leader David Cameron formed a one-party government.

On May 28, 2015, the UK government motioned a bill on a referendum on the issue of the United Kingdoms pullout from the European Union. The question was worded as follows: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" The vote was to be held "no later than December 31, 2017."

In June 2015, the House of Commons approved the bill.

On November 10, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron launched an official campaign to alter the terms of the United Kingdoms EU membership. In his letter to the European Council, he spelled out Londons demands.

The demands were split into four groups.

The first group comprised demands to cut migration flows from the European Union to the United Kingdom. It included a four-year suspension of social allowances to migrants, a six-month ban on unemployment allowances to migrants from the European Union and tighter deportation rules for migrants who commit offenses.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to the MSF Twitter account, the Argos crew rescued those traveling on five rubber boats early on Thursday.

UPDATE: After rescuing those traveling on 9 (NINE!!!) rubber boats, the #Argos has over 1000 #people on board. pic.twitter.com/HbC2bqCJch  MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) 23  2016 .

According to the organization, a few of its rescue boats in the area, and many rubber boats nearby the Argos ship will keep conducting rescue operations "until there is no space on board."
According to the first scenario, Britain cooperates with the EU within the framework of the European Economic Area, a model used by Norway. In this case, 15 years later the countrys GDP will be 3.8 percent lower with an annual loss of around 3,000 euros for each family.

The second model envisages bilateral trade agreements, like the ones the EU has with Canada. Under this scenario by 2023 British GDP will be 6.2 percent lower and individual households will lose 5,595 euros a year.

The third model envisions trade relations in line with WTO regulations. This is the most capital-consuming model, which is currently being used by Russia, Brazil and several other countries.

In this event the British GDP will drop by 7.5 percent, with each British family losing 6,766 euros each year.

Brexit will also result in the loss of 46.8 billion euros worth of taxes and around 600,000 jobs.

In another downside, resigning trade agreements with 27 EU countries may take a whole decade.

Recession? Possible. Catastrophe? No

According to the International Monetary Fund, Brexit would push the British economy into a technical recession with a negative impact on EU and global economy.

IMF analysts believe that by staying in the EU Britain will have good chances for an economic rebound with mid-term GDP growth estimated at around 2.2 percent.

Big Business and financiers vote for EU

British Big Business and the financial sector are firmly against Brexit for fear of losing access to the EU market of 500 million people.

The British Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, warned that Brexit will deal a crippling blow to the national auto industry which exports up to 80 percent of manufactured vehicles, 57 percent of which to the EU countries.

Financiers fear that by opting out London would lose its status of a global financial center and that major banks like HSBC, Citi and Deutsche bank would want to transfer part of their operations and staff to the Continent and Asia.



Capital flight

As expectations of Britains possible exit from the EU increased, financial market players sold a record 84.5 billion euros worth of assets in March and April alone. According to Standard and Poors, Brexit could seriously undermine the status of the British pound as a global reserve currency which, in turn, would reflect on the countrys credit rating.



Brexit scare

Amid the general sense of insecurity, US billionaire George Soros predicted that in the event of Brexit the pound would tumble by a staggering 20 percent, more than it did during the Black Wednesday of 1992 when a 15-percent drop in the British currency earned Soros a huge fortune.

The stock market will also suffer with Deutsche Bank experts expecting a 15-percent drop and warning that some blue chip stocks could drop by 26 percent.



Brexit: pros

What the proponents of Brexit lack in economic argumentation, they try to make up for by political and social motives.

The Vote Leave camp which includes, among others, Londons ex-Mayor Boris Johnson, complain about European bureaucracy driving up the cost of goods and services in Britain.

Besides, Britain is paying 455 million euros a week to stay in the EU instead of putting this money to better use at home. In 2015 Britain contributed 23 billion euros to the EU budget in exchange for a meager 5.7 billion in farm and social program subsidies.

The supporters of Brexit insist that Britain would be able to sign more beneficial trade deals with non-EU countries and that in the long-term the countrys non-participation in the EU would bring better economic rewards.

Our projections [about the possible downsides of Brexit] are significantly less pessimistic than analysis produced by some other bodies. This is particularly true in comparison with the work of HM Treasury, the gloomy results of which rest on a number of questionable assumptions, Oxford Economics experts wrote in an analysis released on Thursday.


LONDON (Sputnik)  Tory, Labour and Scottish National Party (SNP) leaders supported Britain's membership in the economic bloc.

British nationals are voting in the referendum to determine whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union or not. Polling stations across the United Kingdom stay open from 7:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. local time. There is no threshold for turnout, and there will be no exit polls.

The referendum was scheduled after Cameron and the leaders of the 27 other EU member states agreed in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.
Despite the center's good track record, some claim that the base at the Ecka airport located in Serbia's northeast will in fact be a Russian military installation. Glamoclija dismissed these accusations as nonsense.

"I repeat the humanitarian center is in no way a Russian military base," he said. Those who think otherwise are welcome to see for themselves. "We opened our doors to everyone, including foreigners, the UNHRC, the UNDP. The doors are open. There are no checkpoints. They are saying that the base in Vojvodina is a military facility, but it's just empty talk."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He also said that a Brexit vote would be a really good news for him, as the British people would speak up against the system that was "basically failing" and was "complacent and remote."

"Our campaign has been about optimism and self-reliance. This is an absolute turning point in the story of our country because I think if we go on with being enmeshed in the EU it will continue to erode our democracy," he told The Telegraph newspaper.

Johnson stressed that the referendum outcome was more important for him than his political career.
The newspaper reported that 12 percent of people changed their minds in the last hours before the vote began.

On Thursday, the British public are voting on a referendum on whether their country should stay in or leave the European Union. The referendum was scheduled after UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the 27 EU member states agreed in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Further escalation of tensions between NATO and Russia should be prevented, the German Federal Foreign Office's coordinator for intersocietal cooperation with Russia, Asia and the Eastern Partnership countries said Thursday.

"It cannot go on like this any longer. We need a stop sign while it is still not too late," Gernot Erler told Passauer Neue Zeitung.

He defended German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who earlier in June blamed NATO member states for saber rattling, provoking much criticism from German politicians, including those from the ruling Christian Democratic Union.
The MSF rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea was launched in the aftermath of the April 19, 2015 tragedy, when a vessel used by smugglers capsized off the Libyan coast, killing an estimated 700 migrants. The Bourbon Argos has been conducting search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean since May that year.

Since 2015, Europe has faced a massive influx of migrants and refugees, with the latest data by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicating that over 214,00 migrants arrived in Europe so far in 2016. A total of 2,856 migrants are estimated to have been killed or gone missing in attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
MADRID (Sputnik)  British nationals are voting in the referendum to determine whether or not the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. Polling stations across the country stay open from 7:00 a.m. (06:00 GMT) through 10:00 p.m. (21:00 GMT) local time. There is no threshold for turnout, and there will be no exit polls.

Spain's Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has labeled possible Brexit the worst news for all Europeans, including Spaniards. Almost all Spanish parties and politicians have supported the idea of the United Kingdom maintaining EU membership.

According to a survey by the Ipsos Mori for the Evening Standard newspaper, 52 percent of UK nationals are voting for the country to remain within the European Union. A Populus poll put the number of Remain supporters at 55 percent.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  In addition to the murder count, Mair, 52, has also been charged with grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offense and possession of an offensive weapon, The Telegraph reported.

The trial has been scheduled for November 14 while the next hearing will take place on September 19, and the plea hearing on October 4.

Cox, 41, a Labour lawmaker and pro-Remain campaigner, was shot and stabbed outside Birstall Library last Thursday as she held a regular meeting with her constituents in West Yorkshire. Along with Cox, a 77-year-old man who tried to help her sustained injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.
Ankara canceled a visit that was made by Germany's State Secretary for Defense, Ralf Braukiepe, and other government officials.

The visit, which was planned in July, was said to be to the Incirlik Air Base. However, German officials have been forbidden from visiting the area.

Last year, Germany sent surveillance jets to the base to assist the coalition in the battle against the terror group Daesh. Germany has 250 soldiers and six Tornado reconnaissance jets as well as a refueling plane stationed at the base in Ankara.
Media reports suggested that there is a hostage situation in the theater.

An elite police unit from Frankfurt were on the way to the scene.

Local hospitals have launched an emergency response plan in preparation for admitting injured people

#Viernheim: No reports of bullet wounds among those injured, no more killings reported pic.twitter.com/riB2G8qNF9  I.E.N. (@GoldenKrant) 23  2016 .

Darmstadt police confirmed to Sputnik that no one was harmed in the hostage crisis in a cinema located in the Western German town of Viernheim.

"The shooter is dead and no one is injured," a spokesman for the police service said.

Earlier local media reported that from 20 to 50 people have been wounded in an attack on a cinema in the southwestern German town of Viernheim.
Over 2,000 police officers have been mobilized to ensure security at the event in central Paris. As many as 85 have been reportedly arrested ahead of the event.

In recent months, France has been hit by nationwide protests and sporadic strikes over a controversial labor reform bill. Among the reforms proposed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls government are highly unpopular attempts to increase daily working hours and simplify firing procedures.
The endeavor, formally known as Rail Baltia, is meant to link Finland, the three Baltic States and Poland with a railway that uses standard, 1,435 mm track gauge, as opposed to the 1,520 mm broad gauge common in the Baltics.

If built, the North Atlantic Alliance will use the new routes to deploy its military equipment to the Baltic region faster. The bloc is currently working on measures that deal with the free movement of NATO forces across Europe.

"Estonia does not make a secret of the fact that the party most interested in the project is NATO," the Vzglyad newspaper asserted.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Earlier in June, the Ukrainian national oil and gas company Naftogaz proposed to the Russian energy giant Gazprom that they sign additions to their gas supplies contract covering deliveries over the next three quarters, stating that Gazprom could become a Ukrainian supplier once its prices had become lower than those offered by its European partners.

"We have not received any proposals at a ministry level," Yanovsky told reporters.

Previously, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak ruled out any amendments to the existing contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz.
"We as a party have always advocated for the self-determination of peoples, and we demand respect for the will of the inhabitants in Crimea, which they expressed during a referendum," the politician stated.

Crimea seceded from Ukraine and became part of Russia in March 2014, following a referendum in which 96 percent voted in favor of the move. The Crimean referendum has not been recognized by the Ukrainian government and its Western allies.

According to Romeo, the EU government does not respect the will of the people and new political realities.

"This does not mean that we are opposed to Europe, but we must take into account the new realities by the construction of a new Europe. And Russia must be a part of this new Europe. It is foolish and absurd to shield oneself from Russia amid sanctions or anything else. Europe is somehow acting wrong," the politician stressed.
The police are examining the explosive belt and grenades as it is yet unclear whether they are geniune.

Earlier in the day, Darmstadt police spokesman said that the gunman had no Islamist background.
But there is another reason why Tony is keen for the UK to remain a member of the EU  and it's down to bricks and mortar.

"I've had a property on the market in Brixton for months now. Someone made me an offer the day before the government announced the referendum in February  and then the day after David Cameron called the vote, they withdrew the offer. It's made the housing market jittery."

Tony, the son of a docker, whose mother still lives on Old Kent Road, told him that "she's voting out". "My mother reckons that the day after the referendum all the immigrants are just going to leave. She's in her 90s now; I think she's missed the point of the campaign."

Not far from Bermondsey, David, a biologist in London Bridge told Sputnik that the UK "should stay in."

"Europe is so much bigger than 500 million people living together in peace. I think we should do our best to sort our problems ourselves, not just walk away."

"We should do our best to sort our problems ourselves, not just walk away." #Bremain #EUref #Brexit pic.twitter.com/2IUvPqfJaP  Sputnik UK (@SputnikNewsUK) 23 June 2016

James, a student living in Tower Hill told Sputnik he supports the Remain campaign.

"I think the UK economy would be so much better if we stay in the EU rather than leave."

"I think the UK economy would be so much better if we stay in the EU rather than leave" #iVoted #EUref #Europe pic.twitter.com/qLgNU1tbNf  Sputnik UK (@SputnikNewsUK) 23 June 2016

And opinions didn't shift much when Sputnik asked people on the streets of north west London where they stood, including Judi Alleyne, a retired homeowner from Willesden, who is firmly in the Remain camp.

"Remaining in the EU is as important for future generations as it is for us now. I'm an immigrant. I came to the UK from the West Indies in the 1960s, why would I deny others from doing the same?

"There is no difference between us  we are all the same and people should remember that."
LONDON (Sputnik)  No exit polls are expected at this referendum, therefore the world will get the idea of the vote's outcome only as the results appear throughout the night. Final result will be announced Friday morning.

Just over half of the British support staying withing the European Union, a YouGov poll of 5,000 people revealed.

The poll results, released just after voting on EU membership ended in the United Kingdom, showed that 52 percent of Brits were in favor or remaining part of the European Union, while 48 percent supported Brexit (leaving the EU).
"Weve seen, under the Obama regime, the perfection of these soft-power coups," Ives tells Loud & Clear host Brian Becker. "This one is slightly more refined and it may be years before we know the full story, but we can kind of see the markers of the US hand."

With as many as 175 government deputies in the new Brazilian government accused of corruption, the coup is already making a dramatic impact in the country.

"Recent polls show that over 67% of Brazilians have a negative evaluation of the government," Ives says. "People are taking to the streets. Things are still unclear about how they will unfold."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The government of Colombia announced on Wednesday that a deal had been reached on a ceasefire with FARC.

"This is a political mission, there is a display of quotas, unarmed personnel who will carry out tasks of observation and verification of the ceasefire," Menendez said.

The Colombian government and FARC have been engaged in peace talks since November 2012 and have reached a number of important agreements including on landmine removal, land reform, transitional justice and an end to illegal drug trafficking.
UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik)  The UN Security Council (UNSC) has condemned the terrorist attack in Jordan that killed six soldiers and security personnel and injured 14 others earlier this week.

"The members of the Security Council strongly deplored the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack on a Jordan Armed Forces Border Guard post near the Syrian and Iraqi borders with Jordan, on 21 June 2016, which resulted in 6 soldiers and security personnel killed and 14 injured," the Security Council said in a Thursday statement.

The Jordanian Armed Forces said at least six guards had died and 14 were wounded in a car bomb attack near a refugee camp hosting Syrians at the Rukban border post on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) forces, supported by the US-led coalition against Daesh, are getting ready to seize the Syrian city of Manbij controlled by the terrorists, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release on Thursday.

"Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) elements have consolidated their position around Manbij in anticipation of the next phase of operations to secure the city," CENTCOM stated.

Since the beginning of Manbij offensive on May 31, the US coalition has conducted 233 airstrikes in support of the operation, according to the release.
TEHRAN (Sputnik)  On Monday, the countrys Ministry of Intelligence and Security said in a statement that radical Islamists were planning a major terrorist attack in Tehran and other regions of Iran.

Two members of the terrorist cell operating in a city were detained as a result of an ambush. Security forces traced the suspected. One of the terrorists was killed, another surrendered to the authorities, the source said, adding that the results of the corresponding investigation will be disclosed soon.
He further said, I think the United States wanted to work more with the Free Syrian Army to empower moderate Sunni Arab groups from the start, but in practice the YPG has been the most successful fighting force against Daesh.

The analyst spoke about the Free Syrian Army and how it has been a huge disappointment fighting the terrorists.

The US really wanted the FSA to be a moderate secular alternative to Assad and the Islamic State [Daesh] but some people say that the FSA doesnt even really exist. It is so fractured, decentralized and prone to defection to other groups often to Islamic groups that we really cant count on them, Abrams said.

Talking about the conflict between FSA and the YPG, Abrams said that, It actually mirrors the much broader conflict out of Washington, which is; what is the best way to fight Islamic State [Daesh]? Abrams said.

The analyst further said that within the past few weeks there have been all sorts of additional pressure on Obama by the US State Department to put more pressure on Assad.

That would be consistent with the FSA but not the YPG and so far it seems like Obama is holding out in rejecting the recommendation of the State Department including John Kerrys regime change in Syria, Abrams said.

He further spoke about why Daesh was able to thrive in the first place. According to him it is because of the weak opposition and undetermined forces.

Daesh is the biggest threat in Iraq and Syria and the infighting between groups that are fighting Daesh is very unwelcome, the analyst said.

Both groups are supported by the United States, but they have different goals. The FSA is seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the YPG, which has been very successful in fighting Daesh wants to establish control over the areas in the north of the country.

Both groups accuse each other of conspiring with its enemies. The Free Syrian Armys politburo chief noted that without a quick political solution, tensions would escalate between the two.

The FSA has recently hit YPG positions with a TOW missile. In return, the YPG said that it has no intentions to start conflict with the Free Syrian Army, but stressed that: If they want a war, they will certainly lose it.
The New Zealand-Australia mission claims to have trained over 7,000 Iraqi troops since 2015.

Earlier, New Zealand pledged to send up to 40 servicemen to take part in US-led coalition missions, and deploy a C-130 Hercules to Iraq. Wellington has vowed to allocate $1 million in stabilizing funding to Baghdad.

Poland, for its part, agreed to boost its presence in the Middle East, sending 60 trainers and advisers to Iraq and four F-16s to Kuwait for reconnaissance missions over Iraq and Syria. Polish national Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said Monday the jets will be accompanied by support group of 150 servicemen.

Expanding the resources dedicated to the fight allows us to further accelerate the campaign, Carter said in praising the decision by the Polish government.

Not all are as supportive as Carter to Warsaws announcement. The countrys ex-Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said that the step could make the country a target for terrorists in the run-up to the NATO summit in July.

"[The decision] is the worst possible, because it is made ahead of the NATO summit and World Youth Day, large-scale events attracting many people from the outside. It also attracts the attention of terrorist groups, as the security services admit," he said, quoted by RMF.

The US-led coalition consists of over 60 nations and has been launching airstrikes on Daesh positions since 2014.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The victim was identified as a 39-year-old civilian lorry driver, Halil Ibrahim Sevimli, who was driving by the military base at the time of the blast, Anadolu news agency said, citing a military source. Those injured were hospitalized.

The Turkish military commenced an operation to bust the attackers.

Violence in Turkey escalated in mid-2015, when the Turkish government launched a military campaign against the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, in the country's southeast.
The US, Japanese and South Korean military detected two launches of presumably medium-range ballistic missiles from North Koreas eastern coast on Wednesday.

Early on Thursday, North Korea reported that the test-firing, attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was successful.
TSKHINVALI (Sputnik)  The 58th Army was once part of Soviet Union's Red Army and subsequently became a component of the Russian Ground Forces. During the 2008 conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, the 58th Army crossed the border with Georgia and engaged in combat against Georgian forces, most notably in Tskhinvali.

"Since the beginning of the full implementation of the Treaty on Alliance and Integration of March 18, 2015, the process of arms and equipment modernization of the Republic of South Ossetia will be launched to reach the level of the Russian Defense Ministry's 58th Army," Tibilov said in an interview.

The agreement, of which Tibilov was speaking, is the cooperation treaty, under which South Osetia is due to receive some $145 million from Russia in the first three years. Under the treaty, Russia is responsible for formally managing border control of South Ossetia, as well as for its economy and military areas.
In August 2015, Paris and Moscow formally terminated the 1.2-billion-euro (some $1.3 billion at current exchange rates) deal on the construction and delivery of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers. Shortly after, French President Francois Hollande confirmed that a deal had been reached with Egypt on the delivery of the two Mistrals to the Arab country.

France handed over to Egypt the first Mistral-class helicopter carrier on June 2. The second ship is set to be transferred in September this year.
The 60 man strong Norwegian force will be temporarily deployed in Jordan, only to be moved to Syria at a later juncture. The forces, which will undergo Norwegian training, are scheduled to become part of the New Syria Army (NSyA), also known by its Arabic name: Jaish Suriya al-Jadid. The group was founded in November 2015 and reportedly consists of "several hundred" Sunni Syrians. NSyA claim to stand apart from other insurgents in that they officially only fight against Daesh, but not the Assad government.

Previously, the job that Norwegian troops will do was carried out by US Special Forces with little success. Over 500 million dollars were allocated for the training of Syrian rebels in Jordan. In the end, only around a hundred "moderate" rebels were trained, the majority of which later switched sides and joined the struggle against the Syrian regime. Now, there are growing concerns that Norway's rebel training may set the country on a collision course with Russia.

"Norway is one of very few NATO countries that have a common border with Russia. To end up in direct confrontation with Russia in Syria will have very different consequences for Norway than it would for, say, Denmark or the UK, Middle East researcher Cecilie Helltveit pointed out.

Finally, Norway's decision to send troops to Syria without permission was slammed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Such a decision represents a gross and unacceptable interference in the affairs of the state, and is a shameless violation of sovereignty, security and stability," a statement from the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
The Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) under the chairmanship of Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar will have a decisive discussion on projects greater than 15 billion dollars on Saturday. High on the agenda is the procurement of Russia made S-400 air defense systems and armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) including some indigenously made guns.

Sources from the Ministry of Defense have said that India wants to fast track these critical purchases as some of the projects have been long pending. Russia formally offered its S-400 surface to air defense missile system to India in April this year. The DAC has not met in the last three months but, in May, Parrikar hinted in Parliament that the procurement would be completed soon.

"The five firing units of S-400 LRSAM system are planned for induction in the Indian Air Force between 2017-2022."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He added that the Alliance must maintain its maritime ability to protect freedom of navigation in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

"NATOs maritime capabilities are essential There is still work to be done But we are refining our presence in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and exploring a greater maritime role for NATO in the Mediterranean Sea  including in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia," Vershbow said, while addressing the Portuguese parliament.

NATO has been increasing its military presence in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea since the outbreak of the conflict in southeastern Ukraine in April 2014, in response to what it considers to be Russia's aggressive foreign policy. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the Ukraine-related accusations leveled at it, warning that increased NATO activities near the country's borders could undermine regional and global stability.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, South Korean media reported that Pyongyang carried out a successful launch of the medium long-range strategic ballistic missile named Hwasong-10.

"We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater," Kim was quoted as saying by North's KCNA news agency.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US military has produced an animated demonstration for a brawny robotic exoskeleton under development, dubbed the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS), according to a recent article in Science magazine.

"Exoskeletons or other types of technologies and materials theyre not ready for prime time today, but were looking at them and I think within ten years things like that are going to be very, very possible on the battlefield," Milley said.

In ancient mythology, Talos was the name of a giant, living bronze statue that protected Crete from pirates by patrolling the island.
STRASBOURG (Sputnik)  Rouquet said that Russia plays a crucial role in the settlement of several issues, including Georgia, Transnistria, Karabakh and the fight against terrorism, and called to invite Russia back to PACE in 2017 before it left forever.

"We hope that after [legislative] Duma elections, the Russian parliament will submit its credentials. And hopefully we will approve them, and all the Council of Europe member states will be represented here," Kox said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Georgia has been riven by violent clashes, civil disturbances and the secession of two regions that have become independent autonomous republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in the quarter century following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

"The United States commended the progress made by Georgia in furthering its reform agenda," the statement said.

The SPCs Democracy and Governance Working Group met on June 21 in Tbilisi to review progress on goals set at its November 2015 meeting in Washington, DC, the statement noted.
"My favorite one was the Panama papers. Ha! Finally we have proof that Putin is stealing money and hiding it abroad', [although] Putin's name doesn't appear anywhere in the papers [but] today we have the theory that obviously it's Putin behind the leak of the Panama papers," Armstrong observed. "There is no limit to this ridiculousness."

"What are the current stories now?" he asked. "Oh yes, Russia hacks into the DNC (Democratic National Committee) computer. No, it's some guy in a basement in Romania, just like the last guy who hacked into Hillary Clinton's stuff."

"Nobody's going to come out and say Oh Gee, I guess we're just plain lying about Russians in Syria, invasion in Ukraine and the coming collapse of Russia What they're going to say is that'Putin has somehow cleverly got into people's minds, we need more money.'"

Another motive, Armstrong suggests, is US determination to expand NATO, in an attempt to get "better control of things."

"Somewhere," he asserted, "along the line, [the US] realized that expanding NATO  when all NATO membership meant was that you blew up Libya, or you joined in to celebrate the third decade of a losing war in Afghanistan  wasn't going to pull in new members. So it's trying to revive the old Russian threat."

A so-called 2017 Intelligence Authorization Bill was passed by the US Senate Intelligence Committee in May, and awaits Senate approval. Armstrong predicts that the bill will most likely be approved, but noted that the idea of a "big enemy" is not really selling. He cited a recent Pew poll showing that no more than 1/3 of EU nationals consider Russia to be a threat to anything.
Giraldi noted that no serious US intelligence or security professionals had suggested there is a need for any such political oversight body.

He pointed out that the initiative appeared to be entirely political in origin and that the motivation for it was an effort to make members of Congress look as if they were being more vigilant in protecting US national security.

"I was surprised that anyone thought this worth doing until I realized it was emanating from Congress, which inevitably explains everything," Giraldi maintained.

Along with spies and covert killings, the committee would also investigate the funding of front groups or cover organizations for Russian operations, "covert broadcasting, media manipulation" and secret funding, reports on Wednesday said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Beijing should set a mechanism of bilateral governmental cooperation to better address the issues of mutual interest.

"Mr. [President] Xi Jinping devotes much of his personal attention to the development of Russia-China relations. He is a very good friend and a reliable partner. Nonetheless, our efforts alone would have been insufficient for the successful development of ties between Russia and China. Naturally, this called for the establishment of a mechanism to ensure cooperation between the governments of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China," Putin said in an interview with the Chinese Xinhua news agency.

According to the Russian president, the relations between Russian and China are currently "at a very high level," and joint work provides for further positive momentum.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The pan-Eurasian Shanghai Cooperation Organizations (SCO) continued expansion would facilitate the resolution of complex global issues, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Chinese Xinhua.

"The international environment is complicated and multifaceted, and issues are not resolved by the mere fact that countries with different approaches to and views on various international challenges join our Organization. However, as we expect, their accession does create conditions for the issues to be resolved," Putin told the Xinhua news service on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

According to Putin, the SCO has become "highly demanded and attractive" in the region, and many countries have expressed willingness to join it.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia failed to produce a stable and peaceful region just like it did not resolve ethnic and religious grievances that fueled local wars. True, no armed hostilities are taking place in what used to be a multinational state, but those wounds and new tensions that US-led Operation Noble Anvil created are simmering.

Yet 51 State Department diplomats involved in shaping Washington's strategy on Syria recently urged the Obama administration to add a military component to their diplomatic pressure on al-Assad. In other words, they want the White House to send cruise missiles and drop bombs on Damascus-led forces.

The State Department "dissenters" called it "the judicious use of stand-off and air weapons" that is meant to serve as the base of "a more militarily assertive US role in Syria." This way, the memo said, the US-led diplomatic process will become "more focused and hardnose."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia-China collaboration on the global arena is a key contributing factor to stability in world affairs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said ahead of his visit to China on June 25.

"Today, the very fact that China and Russia collaborate in international affairs contributes to the stability of world affairs," Putin told the Xinhua news agency on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

"We are in constant contact and we consult on global and regional issues. Since we consider each other close allies, naturally, we always listen to our partners and take into account each others interests," Putin added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A Russian delegation will take part in the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said Thursday.

"From July 1 to 5, our parliament delegation will work at an OSCE PA sessionthe delegation will be headed by Nikolai Kovalev," Sergei Naryshkin told reporters.

On July 1, 2015, Finland refused to give travel visas for several Russian parliamentarians, who were invited to take part in a session of the OSCE PA. Speaker of the Russian parliament's lower chamber Sergei Naryshkin, blacklisted by the European Union over accusations of involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, was among those whose visa was denied. In protest, the Russian delegation refused to participate in the parliamentary session.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe cannot be an observer at Russia's upcoming elections to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, after depriving the Russian PACE delegation of its rights, Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin said Thursday.

"With its undemocratic decisionto limit the Russian parliament delegation's rights, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe made impossible its own participation as observers at the Russian parliamentary elections," Naryshkin told reporters.
LONDON (Sputnik)  The Leave campaign has all chances to win a referendum on Britain's EU membership, with a "revolution" in opinion taking place across the country, Janice Atkinson, British independent member of the European Parliament, told Sputnik.

"I have not been campaigning, but I was in one town yesterday where 95 percent were supporting Leave. Then I was in another town, very middle-class, and around 75 percent there were for leaving too. So there is quiet a revolution going on in the country. I think Leave will win," Atkinson said.

She added that a low turnout at the referendum would also mean the victory of the Leave campaign.
Moreover, the Russian-German Foreign Trade Chamber conducted a survey among 800 German companies. It revealed that over 80 percent of the companies considered the sanctions ineffective and 60 percent have been negatively affected by them. Trade turnover between Russia and Germany has dropped to 50 billion, from 80 billion in 2012.

"Sanctions are a political deadlock. We need dialogue. It would serve the interests of Germany and the entire EU, and especially it will be good for the Russian economy," head of the Chamber, Rainer Zele wrote in a statement on the official website.

At the same time, those opposing the sanctions are in the minority so far.

"The strength of the European Union is in the ability of its members to express solidarity," political analyst and associate professor at the St. Petersburg State University, Tatyana Romanova told RT.

"Europe will try to be united, especially in the face of such challenges as the migrant crisis and terrorist threat," she added.

"Saying that there is a division within the EU would be wrong. There is no division, but there is a discussion going on. And the reasons for this is clear," Dmitry Travin, a professor of economics at the European University in St. Petersburg, said.

He noted that on the one hand sanctions have not managed to force Russia to change its policy, including on Crimea. Thus, sanctions should be extended.

"On the other hand, Russia is stable, and people support the policy of the government. This proves that sanctions arent working and should be lifted," Travin pointed out.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia expects Turkeys and Ukraines foreign ministers to take part in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) meeting on July 1 in Sochi and is open to bilateral talks with the Turkish diplomat, Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Nebenzya said Thursday.

"We have invited all ministers and are waiting for everyone, including Turkey and Ukraine, but there is still no answer. I think it would be clear [who will take part in the meeting] this week or early next week at the latest," Nebenzya told RIA Novosti.

The diplomat explained that the formats multilateral platform precludes bilateral meetings, but voiced readiness to hold talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
BEIJING (Sputnik)  On Thursday, voters across the United Kingdom are taking part in a historic referendum to decide whether or not the country should withdraw from the European Union. The referendum was scheduled after UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the 27 EU member states agreed in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc.

"We have been following the referendum with great attention. We respect the choice of UK people. The Chinese side has always supported the EU integration processes and wants to see a unified, strong and stable Europe that would play an important role on the international arena," Hua Chunying said at a briefing, commenting on the UK referendum.

According to the latest poll conducted by Ipsos MORI, 52 percent of the UK nationals are in favor of remaining within the European bloc, while 48 percent are against such a scenario.
If US authorities decide to restrict the movement of Russian diplomats in the United States, Moscow will be forced to take similar measures regarding American diplomats.

"If Washington really decides to violate existing agreements, we will 'mirror' the move. We will impose similar restrictions on American diplomats in Russia," Zakharova said.

Zakharova emphasized that "this is not our choice, we are not the initiators of the next step toward deterioration of bilateral relations."

She added that Russian diplomats in the US have become objects of provacations by US intelligence services.

On Monday, a BuzzFeed news outlet report cited a US intelligence community source saying the proposed intelligence bill in Congress calls for a revival of the Cold War-era group to counter Russian spies and Russian-sponsored assassinations in the United States.

US Air Defense System in Europe

Moscow believes that the US and Russia can find a mutually acceptable solution on the US air defense systems in Europe, Zakharova said. "Otherwise we will be forced to introduce appropriate response measures."

The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman said that Moscow needs guarantees from the US that the air defense systems in Europe are not directed against Russia.

"Guarantees that the air defense system is not directed against Russia is the only possible way to resolve the issue. If the US really seeks to minimize missile threats Washington is speaking about, such an agreemetnt with Russia cannot undermine US ability to defend itself and its allies and partners from these threats."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Wednesday, a group of Italian lawmakers from the M5S suggested holding a parliamentary vote on the anti-Russia sanctions before July 31, ahead of the EU summit that is due to decide on the matter following the recent unanimous decision by the EU ambassadors to extend the measures until January 2017.

"We believe it would be a great message that would resound very strongly, making a great impact on public opinion If Italians could say today what they think about the sanctions on Russia, the vast majority of them would vote in favor of abolishing these sanctions," the M5S members of Chamber of Deputies Foreign Affairs Committee said in a collective response.

Last week, a Pew Research Center poll revealed that 52 percent of Italians are unhappy with the European Union's policy toward Russia.
The Russian leader and the flamboyant billionaire agree that international terrorism is the key global challenge everyone, including the North Atlantic Alliance, should focus on. Instead, the alliance appears to be primarily concerned with Moscow.

"We must create a modern collective security system beyond blocs and with all countries on an equal footing," Putin said in his address to the State Duma on Wednesday, reaffirming Russia's readiness for dialogue. "For now though  we see no positive response."

"On the contrary, NATO is stepping up its aggressive rhetoric and aggressive actions close to our borders," he observed. The bloc's muscle flexing has forced Russia to improve its defense capabilities at a time when nations could cast aside "old ideological differences," stop playing "geopolitical games" and join "forces to fight international terrorism."
"What we should not do now is to inflame the situation with loud saber-rattling and war cries. Anyone who thinks that symbolic tank parades on the Eastern border of the alliance create more security is mistaken," Steinmeier stressed.

Steinmeier's statements provoked criticism among his colleagues in political circles and in the media. Frankfurter Allgemeine journalist Berthold Kohler called his statement a "gift to Putin."

In Erler's opinion, however, the stormy reaction to Steinmeier's words only means that the diplomat said the right thing that corresponds to reality.

"The fact that the reaction was so violent only proves that he touched on a sore place," the German politician stressed.

Last Tuesday, NATO announced its readiness to deploy additional forces in the Baltic States and Poland. The declared aim of the maneuver is to "protect its Eastern European allies from the so-called Russian aggression."
Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing, scheduled on June 25, aims to strengthen economic ties between Russia and China and facilitate the development of the countries' Eurasian projects.

In his interview with Xinhua, recorded on June 17 on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin emphasized:

"It turns out that to say we [Russia and China] have strategic cooperation is not enough anymore. This is why we have started talking about a comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Cuba remains the most trustworthy Russian partner in Latin American and Caribbean States, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, said Thursday.

"Cuba remains our most reliable and trustworthy partner in Latin America and the Caribbean Basin I would love to stress one more time, that we are fully satisfied with the level of our countries' multidimensional cooperation, which completely reflects a strategic nature of Russia-Cuban relations," Naryshkin said at a meeting with Cuban parliamentary president Esteban Lazo Hernandez.
BRUSSELS (Sputnik)  Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Thursday he regretted that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet with him in Brussels.

"I was glad to welcome the initiative of EU leaders to organize a meeting between me and President Abbas who is also in Brussels today. I was very upset to know that he refused to hold a meeting," Rivlin told journalists.

He said that Israel and Palestine could communicate directly and find a way to build confidence.
Aslani, 68, voted Out, because he is nostalgic for a time when Britain was better-off and independent.

"I voted Out. I think Britain still can have its independence back. Because now we are still being controlled by the EU and Brussels. Britain used to feel good on its own before," he said.

"There are a lot of intelligent people here. All those with brains come here. And business-wise, all the business world now is in English. So we will be better-off. Hopefully, I am right," he added.

Interestingly, Aslani himself is not of British origin.

"It was important for me to vote today, though I am not British myself, but I've lived in this country since the 1960s, and they have looked after me very well."

Tired of Government's Lies

Two other voters, a young lady in her 20s, who preferred to remain unnamed, and Dominique, 68, both said they felt tired of the government's lies in the referendum campaigns.

"I voted to remain. I am just very tired of all these lies around," the lady, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

"I voted Out. I wanted to vote Remain initially, but when I heard [David] Cameron telling all this rubbish, I changed my mind. He made such a silly campaign," Dominique said.

We Want to Build 'Bridges, Not Walls'

Two female voters said they voted In for peace and out of the desire not to be in the camp of right-wing fanatics.

"I voted Remain. Because I am Greek, my family is Greek. I want everyone just to try to resolve the situation together. All my friends have voted, most of them voted to stay in. Those few who voted Out, honestly, are racists and uneducated. My family also voted. My dad is hesitating, which is weird, because my mother is Greek," Sophia, 21, said.

Fiona, 40, said that she voted "In" as she wanted the countries in the region to cooperate, not to build walls, but argued that both campaigns were horrible.

"I voted to remain, because it's important for me to be part of it [the EU]. I want to build bridges, and not walls. But both campaigns were horrible, they was so much mud-slinging. It was very important for me to come here today and vote. I think it would be insanity to leave."

Still Undecided After Vote

Some voters admitted they had doubts even after casting their ballots.

"I voted to stay In, unwillingly. Because I have certain reservations, but the only reason for me to vote Remain is that the people who are for leaving are so awful right-wing racists, that I did not want to be on their side. But in my heart of hearts, I have doubts. I think big businesses like the free movement of labour. But I have concerns of workers rights in this context," Suzanne, 58, said.

Suzanne suggested that the decision could have been made by the elected government rather than by people.

However, asked whether she trusts her government enough to let it make such a decision, she said: "No, not at all."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The majority of Syrian ministers will retain key positions in the Arab republics new cabinet, a source close to the process told Sputnik on Thursday.

"The heads of the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of Defense will retain their posts, as well as the Awqaf Minister," the source said, referring to the Muslim practice of religious endowment.

Syrian President Bashar Assad tasked Electricity Minister Imad Mohammad Deeb Khamis with forming the new government on Wednesday.
BRUSSELS (Sputnik)  On Tuesday, the committee of EU member states approved the extension of the sanctions, but the European Council is the body that has to make a formal decision. Earlier this week, media reports emerged claiming that the process was being delayed over the need to coordinate it with French, Swedish and UK parliaments.

"France notified yesterday that the procedure of consideration of this issue in the parliament is over, the limitations have been lifted," the source said.

Sweden has also lifted the restrictions, the source said.
At the moment, the SDF, comprising Kurdish (People's Protection Units or YPG) and Arab fighters, appears to be better positioned to go through with the offensive. If so, a liberated Raqqa will most likely become part of Rojava, or Western Kurdistan, an autonomous region made up of several self-governing cantons.

"The Syrian Democratic Forces and the People's Protection Units will be clearly hailed as heroes once the bulk of Daesh forces are pushed out of the city. They will also become Washington's proxies in the country," the Vzglyad newspaper asserted.

This will not endear the Kurds to Damascus. If Raqqa adopts a federal system, "relations between Syrian Kurdistan and the government will deteriorate" to the point when tensions could lead to clashes between the YPG and the SAA, the daily noted.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The ongoing UK Brexit referendum is the only opportunity that the United Kingdom will have to leave the European Union in a generation, UK Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove said Thursday.

"This is D-Day. It's democracy day. It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate a vote of confidence in our country and its ingenuity, its generosity, its tolerance and its potentialIf we do not vote to leave tomorrow, then we won't get the chance to escape the EU for another generation and possibly in our lifetime," Gove said during his final Leave campaign appearance in Dorset, as quoted by the Daily Mail newspaper.
The United States prevents Russia and the European Union from rapprochement, using Turkey and Ukraine as a counterforce, French author and specialist in geopolitics Alexandre del Valle said.

"I believe that Washington is interested in a strong Europe, especially if it had closer ties with Russia. This is why [the conflict in] Ukraine and Turkeys involvement in European affairs are tools the US is using to divide Europe and prevent it from dialogue with Russia," the analyst told RIA Novosti.

According to del Valle, the US is pursuing the goal to "destabilize Europe and make it a weak geopolitical actor."
Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Taskhent on Thursday.

First bilateral meeting of the day. PM @narendramodi holds talks with President Xi of China pic.twitter.com/2SOCEtGLBX  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) 23  2016 .

The agenda of the meeting was dominated by Indias bid for the NSG as Modi asked for Chinese support during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Prime Minister Modi met President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tashkent today. President Xi welcomed Indias accession to the SCO and said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for Chinas support to Indias membership in the SCO, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
Pillar quotes Robert Danin, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, who noted in his latest article for Foreign Affairs magazine that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Russian President Putin "clearly enjoy a better relationship with each other than either does with US President Barack Obama."

Curiously enough, while Washington demonstrates its belligerent stance toward Crimea's reunification with Russia and Moscow's backing Syrian legitimate leader Bashar al-Assad, Tel Aviv has adopted a pragmatic approach to the matters.

Pillar refers to the fact that Israel abstained from the US-led effort to isolate Russia at the UN over the Crimean issue, thus distancing itself from Washington's policy in Ukraine.

Furthermore, in contrast to Washington, the Netanyahu government is not actually interested in ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: "Israel enjoyed many years of quiet on the Golan front with the Assads in power, which is something it cannot expect with almost any possible alternative outcome of the war," the CIA veteran emphasizes.
Juncker said Wednesday in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Turkey will receive a visa-free regime with the EU only if it fulfills all 72 required conditions of the deal.

"If Erdogan would seriously try to get out of the agreement on refugees, then it will be his job to explain the Turks why they cannot to travel to Europe without a visa," Juncker told the newspaper.

In response, Erdogan criticized Juncker's statement, saying that he doesn't have any idea about Turkey and its residents. He also stated that in contrast to Europe Ankara really cares about the fate of the refugees and keeps its promises.
"I'm confident we are going to have a remain vote, I think people understand the EU isn't perfect but the benefits that come with the EU far outweigh the risks if we were to leave the EU. It's a pragmatic view. I haven't met anyone in the campaign who loves the EU but they do realize that access to that market place, the common standards, the trading opportunities, those things outweigh all their irritations with the EU, Mundell said.

The minister added that the European Union still requires significant reforms in order to make it not the bureaucratic monster it has been in the past but something that supports businesses across the UK.

British nationals are voting in a referendum to determine whether or not the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. Polling stations across the United Kingdom are open from 7:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. local time.

The United Kingdom nationals will most likely vote Remain in a Brexit referendum taking place on Thursday, but reforms in the European Union are necessary, UK Government Minister and Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell told Sputnik on Thursday.

"I'm confident we are going to have a remain vote, I think people understand the EU isn't perfect but the benefits that come with the EU far outweigh the risks if we were to leave the EU. It's a pragmatic view. I haven't met anyone in the campaign who loves the EU but they do realize that access to that market place, the common standards, the trading opportunities, those things outweigh all their irritations with the EU, Mundell said.

The minister added that the European Union still requires significant reforms in order to make it not the bureaucratic monster it has been in the past but something that supports businesses across the UK.

British nationals are voting in a referendum to determine whether or not the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. Polling stations across the United Kingdom are open from 7:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. local time.
However, the expert stresses, China would be integrated into the Washington-led world order on condition that it will give up any attempts to dominate Asia.

Meanwhile, China is expected to take part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises in Hawaii  the world's largest maritime exercise held by the US Navy  that will bring together almost 27 nations.

On Monday Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson confirmed that China's invitation to RIMPAC is still open.

"The invitation is still there for the Chinese to participate in RIMPAC and these are the sorts of things that sort of bring us all together in positive, constructive ways," Admiral Richardson told journalists on June 21, as quoted by Military.com.

Richardson added that he was looking forward to meeting his Chinese counterpart, commander of the People's Liberation Army Navy Wu Shengli, in person.

"These personal relationships are extremely important, particularly if something should happen and we need to talk to each other on short notice, de-escalation we keep things on an even keel," the Admiral emphasized.
We will ask the people. We would ask if we should continue talks with the EU, or finish them. If the people say  to continue, we will continue, Turkish Anadolu news agency reported Erdogan as saying.

Meanwhile, Carnegie Europe fund researcher, Marc Pierini, told AFP that, If the referendum is held in the present context, the answer will be no, thus it will calm down the current populist trends.

According to recent polls, less than half of Turkey's population support the country's accession to the EU, reports AFP.
MADRID (Sputnik)  She said that current EU policy was wrong, as lobbyists' economic interests defined it.

"The European Union needs to ensure that the human rights and diplomacy are prevailing in its international policy. Diplomacy has to prevail over sanctions," Sol Sanchez told RIA Novosti in an interview.

This week, the European Union Representatives Committee (COREPER) agreed to prolong anti-Russia sanctions for six months until January 2017. However, EU Council still has to make a formal decision on the matter.
VIENNA (Sputnik)  According to the press service, earlier in the day, Steinmeier met Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, Pierre Andrieu of France, and Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the personal representative of the chairperson-in-office on the conflict, in Berlin.

"Steinmeier welcomed the recent improvements in the upholding of the ceasefire. There was agreement among the participants of the Berlin meeting that a sustainable ceasefire and a return to political negotiations remain indispensable. Todays talks also served the goal of co-ordinating possible further steps towards achieving a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also with a view to Steinmeiers upcoming visit to the region," the statement read.

The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population, escalated on April 2. Baku and Yerevan have accused each other of provoking hostilities that led to multiple deaths on both sides. The parties agreed on a ceasefire on April 5.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  NATO is ready for dialogue with Moscow where possible, including by holding another round of Russia-NATO Council, he said.

"Not only are we not preparing for war [with Russia], we are getting ready for dialogue where it is possible. For example, we are ready for the next Russia-NATO Council," Pszczel said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 broadcaster.
Besides, the sides agreed on measures that should be taken against criminal organizations that threaten the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and mechanisms for the deal's verification.

FARC is one of the worlds oldest Marxist insurgencies, formed in 1964 when it launched a war to overthrow the government of Colombia and install a revolutionary regime.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will participate in the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit of Heads of State and Government held on July 15-16 in Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar, the press service of the Russian government said Thursday.

"The heads of state and government will review the forums performance over the past 20 years, discuss the build-up of practical cooperation within ASEM, including with the aim of strengthening region-to-region ties, and also look at the prospects of improving this multilateral instrument," the statement read.

The summit will reportedly conclude with the adoption of the Ulaanbaatar Declaration and the statements by Mongolia as the country hosting the 11th ASEM Summit.
A no-fly zone or protected corridor for refugee assistance and protected border settlements might make sense, Schneider suggested, but would need to be carefully worked out with Russia, Turkey as well as EU and US NATO allies.

A draft of the memo, signed by 51 diplomats, was obtained by The New York Times from a State Department official on Thursday.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters last week that the United States remains committed to pursuing a political solution in Syria.

Russia recognizes Assad as the legitimate authority in Syria, and has repeatedly stated the Syrian people should be free to choose their leadership without outside intervention. The United States and some of its allies have been supporting elements of the opposition, which is often tied to Daesh, and have urged Assad to resign.
"I propose discussing the SCO's development as well, but we also have a number of bilateral issues, we have colleagues from the Economic Development Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. Today, we may talk about a broad scope of cooperation issues," Putin said at the start of his meeting with the Chinese president.

Russia attaches great importance to multilateral relations, he added, stressing that a number of documents are set to be signed at the SCO summit, with the signing SCO membership commitment memorandums set to be a major event.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US authorities "designated Kanyama for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, the targeting of women, children, or any civilians through the commission of acts of violence, abduction, or forced displacement," the release stated.

In 2013-2014, Kanyama served as the primary commander of a police operation Likofi set up to combat criminal delinquency in Kinshasa. However, instead of enforcing law, the operation resulted in dozens of deaths, according to the Treasury.
Some of the characters on the Leave side would be the main front runners for those top jobs and I think that would worry a lot of Scots.

The former deputy minister said that despite a rise in support for Brexit in recent weeks reflected in polls, which revealed growing concerns over immigration, he believed more voters would be considering the economic impact more closely.

I think about two weeks ago you could see the whole immigration debate gathering a real head of steam and support, in England especially, much more than the case in Scotland. The whole debate about the economic arguments of staying in have now transcended that and I am hopefully we get the right result to remain in.
All eyes are on the UK referendum result, with the European migrant crisis and worries about the integrity of the Eurozone single currency area dominating the debate.. Right across Europe, there is growing antipathy towards the Brussels-led machine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing fierce opposition after  effectively  declaring Europe's doors open to refugees, precipitating the biggest mass movement of migrant into Europe since the Second World War.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande is being battered by a rise in the popularity of the right-wing Front National, led by Marine le Pen, as he also struggles to deal with kickstarting the French economy by loosening the heavily codified French labor laws.

Blue-on-Blue

Cameron's Conservatives have been split over Britain's membership of the European Union ever since the signing of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, which created the institutions of the EU as we know it today. So bitter was the acrimony within the party that former Prime Minister John Major  who signed the treaty  lost the 1997 election over the issue and kept the blue-bannered Conservatives out of power for 13 years.

Thank you everyone who voted to keep Britain stronger, safer & better off in Europe  and thousands of @StrongerIn campaigners around the UK  David Cameron (@David_Cameron) 23  2016 .

In an effort to win the 2015 election, Cameron promised an In-Out referendum on the issue by the end of 2017.
A joint team of Russian divers and Pacific Fleet sailors have discovered the submarine in 104 meters of water, Alexander Kirilin, a senior member of the Russian Military Historical Society, said in an interview with RIA.

Kirilin added that, according to wartime records, the sub is the USS Herring, which was sunk by Japanese artillery on June 1, 1944 with all 83 hands on board, but not before it sent four Japanese ships to the ocean bottom.

We have already passed this information to the Americans, he added.
The author does not challenge the official position of the West saying that in the case of reunification with Crimea "Russia violated international law," but noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin was guided by historical facts and strategic logic.

The newspaper reminded that Crimea was Russian territory ever since the reign of Catherine the Great and received another status only as a result of a "historic mistake" of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

In addition, NATO's expansion to the East raised security concerns in the Kremlin and made Russian authorities believe that the Black Sea Fleet might become a part of NATO under the new Kiev government, the newspaper noted.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday congratulated the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency with the 75th Anniversary of the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo), from which it had originated.

For us, the Soviet Information Bureau  and then [its successors] the APN [Novosti Press Agency], the Rossiya Segodnya international news agency  have been a unique source of information on Russia. For diplomats, it is very important to have such an asset in the form of a truthful, factual, well-presented information about their country," Lavrov told Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.

The Soviet Information Bureau was created on June 24, 1941, just two days after the start of the Great Patriotic War, and was intended as a tool of anti-fascist propaganda and a source of news on the course of the unfolding events in countries supporting the Soviet Union.
At present, road transport accounts for one third of Sweden's net carbon dioxide emissions, whereas heavy freight traffic has been particularly identified as one of the major pollutants. The tests will run until 2018 and are expected to provide knowledge of how electric roads work in practice, and whether the technology is viable. This experiment is part of the Swedish government's efforts to target its goal of reaching a fossil fuel-free vehicle fleet by 2030.

According to the Swedish Transport Agency, electric roads have the potential to achieve zero carbon dioxide emissions and contribute to developing smart and environmentally friendly means of transportation using the current road network.

"If we were to supply the entire route from Borlange to Gavle port with equipment and electric trucks, this would ensure the potential to completely reduce carbon dioxide emissions from heavy goods traffic. We are looking forward to using the data from this demonstration project to evaluate further investment," Anders Bylund, business manager at Siemens, said, citing a huge interest from the Swedish industry.

In addition to E16, Siemens is planning to take another demonstration route in use. The plan will be completed on a public road adjacent to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, where Siemens is currently working together with Volvo Trucks and local actors in a demonstration project for the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD).
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US authorities have accused the MEC of illegal sharing of technical data with their foreign employee from China.

"Under the terms of the Consent Agreement, MEC will pay a civil penalty of $100,000," the State Department noted.

At present, the United States maintains an arms embargo with China.
"We have a rising body count on our hands," Herrera said of the millions of US gun deaths every year. "This is not a partisan issue, this is one that affects every community in our country."

According to recent polling data, approximately 90 percent of US citizens support more extensive background checks for gun owners. The favorability of gun control measures spiked following the deadly June 12 terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, when 49 people were killed by a gunman who pledged allegiance to Daesh.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
But given that the US military is using classified data, the NGA says it could take more time to complete an analogous tech.

The NGA is also mulling over equipping drones with the new technology to create VR imagery of locations. Earlier, the agency worked with Googles augmented reality technology, to similar effect. But due to technical flaws, distorted and unusable imagery was produced.

When you put augmented reality on your face, it typically makes everything one-to-one, NGA deputy director Sue Gordon told NextGov. Were still learning how the human perceives that different view.

Those complications, according to Robert Stone of the College of Engineering Studies and Physical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, argue that recreating the real world in VR is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. Subsequently, VR tech's use by the military is questionable.

"I'm a great believer that we're never going to get what the pundits call 'full immersion' until somebody actually invents the Star Trek holodeck, Stone told Sputnik. That sounds quite naff, but it's the case, as people have to don these crazily cumbersome devices  and it's not just headsets, it's gloves and hand controllers too."
Opponents of the bill, including national security expert Marcy Wheeler, dont believe that the increased surveillance measures could have prevented the Orlando shooting. Wheeler posted online that, "The reason why the ECTR change would not have prevented the Orlando shootingis that, at least according to FBI Director Jim Comeythe FBI already obtained Omar Mateens ECTRs. So it is false to say that this is a real response"

The bill reportedly was first proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell (R-KY) on Monday, the same day Republicans in the Senate voted as a bloc to reject four gun control measures submitted in response to the shooting.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted that she was, "Ashamed & disgusted that the Senate works for the NRA & not the majority of Americans who support basic solutions to stop gun violence."
John Ashe served as President of the UN General Assembly between September 2013 and September 2014. The position in which he served allowed him to allegedly perform official actions for businesspeople from China and Antigua and Barbuda.

In October 2015, Ashe, a former UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda, and several other individuals, were charged in a $1.3-million bribery scheme. Ashe pleaded not guilty.
Established in 2011, Boston-based Fight for the Future, alongside other legacy internet privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has worked to ensure freedom of expression and creativity on the web. Their newest venture, called Decide the Future, aims to raise the awareness of internet users, and encourage them to prevent the implementation of a controversial bill proposed by US Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

The Internet is integrated into every part of our liveswhat we allow to happen with our data will shape the future of our society, the website states. We're now on the brink of making big decisions about the kinds of power governments and monopolies have to use this data against our own interests. We have to draw the line in the sand now.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Over 100 Democrats began a sit-in on the House floor shortly before noon on Wednesday, demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan put two pieces of gun legislation to a vote.

Republican lawmakers voted in favor of adjourning the session shortly after midnight in an effort to put an end to the 16-hour long sit-in. The next session of the House is scheduled for July 4.

The decision failed to bring an immediate halt to the protest.
"We all have a sort of melody to our speech  that's called 'prosody'  and having a stroke can change that, so an accent can accidentally sound foreign. Because someone's [intonation is] going up and down, they might sound a bit Swedish, or it just changes the way the accent sounds," Dr Stone told Sputnik.

Dr Stone explained that around half of those suffering from foreign accent syndrome, do so as a result of brain disease, but around the same number have what's known as "functional foreign accent syndrome." In that situation, someone might have  for example  some kind of injury to their face, which triggers it off, making their speech sound different.

Foreign Accent Syndrome is a psychological disorder in which people suddenly start speaking their native language with a foreign accent.  Matter Of Fact (@MatterOfFacta) June 16, 2016

Stone said: "Because someone's voice sounds different to them, they feel that it changes their identity, which in turn leads to a situation where they have a different accent.

"They're not doing it on purpose, but it kind of evolves from there and gets stuck like that, and they can't speak like they used to."

There have been a number of high profile cases of foreign accent syndrome. For example, Sarah Colwill from Plymouth, England, who developed a "Chinese" accent.

Widespread attention has prompted some people to accuse sufferers of "putting it on" or that it's "all in the mind." Dr Stone explained that this attitude is misguided:

"They're complex conditions, which are genuinely experienced, and they're not people making stuff up."

As for Lisa Alamia, she has only recently decided to go public about her condition, but is slowly getting used to her new voice. Many sufferers of foreign accent syndrome can recover their normal speech, but for some it persists for longer, for others it can stay that way for the rest of their lives.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Goodson, who drove the police van the day 25-year old Gray was arrested, was found not guilty of second-degree murder, Baltimores WBFF-TV reported.

In April 2015, 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray died from spinal cord injuries he sustained in police custody.

His death triggered a wave of mass protests in Baltimore against police brutality and racism.
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"Todays decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring rationality to our immigration system," Obama stated. "Todays situation underscores the degree to which the court is not able to function the way it is supposed to."

The White House does not plan to take any additional executive actions on immigration, Obama said.

"On the specifics of immigration, I dont anticipate that there are additional executive actions that we can take," Obama stated, commenting on a Supreme Court ruling earlier in the day, which blocks part of his immigration plan.

In November 2014, Obama issued an executive order protecting millions of undocumented immigrants from being deported from the United States, and providing them with the opportunity to obtain employment permits.

Twenty-six US states filed a joint lawsuit in Texas to block the program, claiming the move exceeds the authority given to the president under the US constitution. In February, the ruling by a judge in Texas ordered the US federal government to halt the programs rollout while the case is decided.
Radical Islam killed the people, Republican Gohmert began yelling, pointing to photos of the victims of the Orlando massacre.

The protest comes after 49 people were killed and 53 injured in a mass shooting. The shooter declared his support for Daesh as he was killing people at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando. The shooter undergone a background check and obtained his weapons legally, and would not have been affected by the proposals the Democrats have set forth.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) criticized the Democrats for their protest, calling it a publicity stunt and a show to raise funds, as well as declaring "we're not going to take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process.

"We are not going to let stunts like this stop us from carrying out the people's business," Ryan said at his weekly news briefing. "Why do I call this a stunt? Because it is one. Let's all be honest here.

"They are not trying to get this done through regular order. They're staging protests; they're trying to get on TV; they are sending fundraising solicitations."

"If this is not a political stunt, they why are they trying to raise money off of it?" Ryan asked.

The House is now out of session until July 5, and many lawmakers have vowed to continue the protest after the break.

When we come back in July, we will start all over again, Lewis said on Thursday morning.

We made some progress. We crossed one bridge, but we have other bridges to cross, he added.
The bill would enable US citizens and individuals with permanent residence status who are on the no-fly list to appeal to the US government for redress.

In addition, US law enforcement would be informed for a period of five years of firearm purchases by anyone who is placed on the governments watch list.
Walker made assurances that budgetary details will be eventually be made available, but added that "right now is probably not the time to do that."

US Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) reiterated Walkers security argument.

"Its not secrecy, its classification to keep it from our enemies; I dont want our enemies to reverse engineer," he told Defense News, adding, "you dont want to give the stealth bomber technologies to the very people youre trying to use it against."

One of the chief advocates for revealing the bomber programs cost estimates is Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who has pointed out that the national security argument appears to be a smokescreen, given that details that have been previously revealed.

"The Air Force has already told our enemies what each plane costs, what it looks like, and who is making its most important components," he said in a statement. "All of this would seem to be more useful information for a foreign intelligence agency than the overall contract value."
Last week, a two-year-old child was snatched from the edge of one of the parks man-made pools, his body found the next day. The incident has left many questioning why the park had not installed signs with warnings about the large reptiles. Following the attack, the park installed warning signs throughout the property.

"You'll never be able to get them all," Florida trapper Ron Ziemba, who spent five years working with the park, told Reuters. "There are just so many canals, so many waterways. The gators travel a lot."

Ziemba explained that encounters are inevitable, as humans enter into alligator habitats.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Merrill Lynch is the New York-based wealth management and investment division of Bank of America.

"The rules concerning the safety of customer cash and securities are fundamental protections for investors and impose lines that simply can never be crossed," said SEC Enforcement Division chief Andrew Ceresney. "Merrill Lynch violated these rules, including during the heart of the financial crisis, and the significant relief imposed today reflects the severity of its failures."

The SEC explained that from 2009 to 2015, Merrill Lynch mishandled customer funds that should have been deposited in a reserve account.
The number of respondents, who said an impending attack was very likely, stands 24 percent and represents the highest percentage since March 2003.

The poll also found that the overall number of people who said they felt an attack is imminent has increased more than 10 percent from November 2015, after the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people and injured 368 more.
Scottish eye-care company Optical Express surveyed over one thousand UK citizens online to find out how they see a swatch of a teal-type color.

Sixty-four percent chose green, while thirty-two percent said the swatch was blue, the company said.

But the results were different when the swatch in question was placed between two distinctly blue swatches. The same group of people voted again, and this time ninety percent said the swatch was green.
ALMATY (Kazakhstan) (Sputnik)  The Kazakhstans president said that the CIS states agreed to reduce bureaucracy in the organization and noted that it was necessary to discuss one or two crucial issues in a year.

"Our military departments are meeting, exchanging their experience and information, we are doing the common work on security in our territories, and therefore the CIS can develop, become a more clear organization as a platform for dialogue, exchange of views between its member states," Nazarbayev told Rossiya-24 television.

Air defense was one of the most important areas of cooperation for the CIS states, he added.
Turkey is the biggest NATO member country in the region. Now, Moscow sees Ankaras actions in the Black Sea as a threat to its national interest.

Turkeys goal is to provoke a conflict between Russia and NATO, French geopolitical analyst and author Alexandre del Valle said.

"As a NATO member Turkey would do everything possible to provoke a war with Russia. This is why it shot down a Russian jet last year. The goal was to prompt NATO to deepen the tensions with Moscow, in the name of trans-Atlantic solidarity," the expert told RIA Novosti.
After last years Cyber Guard, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Kevin E. Lunday said that the ability to train constantly in a PTE will be critically important.

"[For] some of the teams, this is the first time theyve ever done anything like this," he said. What these teams really need  is to have a persistent training environment that we can do this kind of exercise in a closed, simulated network with a live opposing force. We need to be able to do that all the time, day after day after day, in order to be really ready for this, rather than just once or a few times a year."

Cyber Command finalized an exercise last Friday called Cyber Guard, which asked 800 representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense (DoD), FBI and corporate organizations to simulate a response to a major attack on US civilian internet infrastructure.
Mother Of Art ($2.70) was the fastest of the two division winners in the New York Sire Stakes for three-year-old filly pacers at Buffalo Raceway on Wednesday night (June 22) as she went gate-to-wire in 1:53.4 to beat stablemate Dime A Dance by three-quarters of a length.

The winning time just missed tying the track record for three-year-old filly pacers of 1:53.3, set in 2015 by Mosquito Blue Chip.

In the other division, American Ivy (Andy Miller) got a perfect pocket trip and roared past Angels Rockn Pink to register the 1:56 victory over the fast track.

Mother Of Art protected the inside post position at the start in the second division and set sail from the rail with splits of :28, :57 and 1:26. While Dime A Dance (Kakaley) made a mild threat late in the lane, it wasn't nearly enough as Mother Of Art comfortably prevailed. Time On My Hands (Jim Morrill Jr.) took the show position.

"She felt real good off the car," driver Mark MacDonald said of Mother Of Art. "She was good throughout the mile and had plenty left in the end."

The victory was the second in seven attempts in 2016 for Mother Of Art (Art Major-Mommy Robin Q). The Ron Burke trainee upped her seasonal winnings to $68,287 and lifetime earnings to $151,543.

The first division may have been won at the start as American Ivy, who started from the six post, showed early gate speed and was able to drop in second behind the pacesetting Angels Rockn Pink.

"I intended on leaving with her," Miller said in hopes of getting the lead with American Ivy. While they didn't get there, it all worked out perfectly. "I was content in following Angels Rockn Pink and she [American Ivy] performed well in the passing lane," Miller stated.

With fractions of :28.4, :58 and 1:28.1, those fractions seemed reasonable enough for Angels Rockn Pink to go gate-to-wire. American Ivy went into the passing lane and dropped a :27.3 final panel on the field to spring the $14.60 upset. Angels Rockn Pink (Mark MacDonald) held on for second while Encore Deo (Matt Kakaley) finished in third.

Owned by Joe P Racing LLC and trained by Julie Miller, American Ivy (American Ideal-Haunted) has now won twice in seven starts this season, moving her 2016 earnings to $81,800 and lifetime bankroll to $170,290. Both of her victories have come in Sire Stakes competition, with the first coming on May 23 at Monticello Raceway.

In the $15,000 Excelsior A Series race, Rolling Going Gone covered the mile in 1:59 and returned $2.30 with Morrill Jr. in the sulky.

The Excelsior B Series saw Wine Snob (Kakaley) use a 1:57.3 time in score the popular $2.30 win while in the second division, Stirling Electra (Morrill Jr.) posted a 1:58 clocking and returned $2.90 to her backers.

In the $10,000 Open Pace for the filly and mares, Who Says That (Drew Monti) rallied on the far outside and posted the $16.00 decision in a lifetime-best of 1:55.

Morrill Jr. finished the evening with four wins while Kakaley had a double.

(With files from Buffalo Raceway)
Researchers from the University of Guelphs Department of Population Medicine (Ontario Veterinary College) are looking to recruit Standardbred race facilities and sport/competition facilities (all breeds) within the Wellington region for a study to determine the contact patterns between horses and people.

More particularly, the study is looking to determine the contact patterns (who comes in contact with who) between horses and people (who come into regular contact with the horses).

The study will be run by PhD student Rachael Milwid and will be under the direct supervision of Drs. Amy Greer and Terri O'Sullivan.

The study will use a small tag (smaller than a loonie) that will record contacts between horses and people (staff / trainers) that come in contact with each other, as well as the duration of the contact.

Study officials are inviting all interested parties to give their consent/ permission to enroll their horse in the study. The tag will be attached to the horses halter. They will record all contact your horse has with other individuals and horses who are also wearing the tags.

People that participate in the study will wear a tag on a lanyard (under their shirt) during work hours.

The study will last for two one-week periods. The dates of the study periods are to be determined, but will be one week in spring/summer and one week in fall / winter 2016.

Participants will be part of groundbreaking research that aims to determine the contact patterns (which individuals come in contact) between horses and humans on various facility types.

Horses and people that participate in the study will be entered in a draw to win an equine retail gift voucher valued at $600, $300 or $100 with a chance of 1 in 80 of winning.

Contact information appears below.

Dr. Amy Greer

[email protected]

519-824-4120 (Ext. 54070)

Dr. Terri OSullivan

[email protected]

519-824-4120 (Ext. 54079)

Rachael Milwid

[email protected]
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The regularly scheduled Longview City Council meeting on Thursday is canceled .

Three council members will be absent because they will be attending the Washington Cities Conference Conference as Longview representatives: Ken Botero, Mary Jane Melink and Scott Vydra. City Manager Dave Campbell also is attending.

Longview was one of five cities this year to win the Municipal Excellence Award for its Neighborhood Park Grant Program and Cloney Skate Park Revitalization. The AWC chose award recipients out of 50 entries from 31 cities.

The conference is being held Tuesday through Friday this week in Everett.
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India's cabinet on Wednesday cleared the base price for the country's largest spectrum auction to date, expected to fetch around $85 billion at the approved reserve price, address the menace of mobile phone call drops and give a push to 4G data communications.

The approval was given at a meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But a decision on spectrum usage charges, which has evoked strong opinions from stakeholders, has been deferred and the matter referred again to the telecom watchdog. "This will be the largest auction to date," union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a press briefing later. He said since the recommendations on spectrum usage charges from the Attorney General's office and the Telecom Commission came later, it was felt that the matter be referred to the watchdog once again. There was no word on when specifically the auction will be conducted.

"The appetite for India's telecom sector is very big," Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who also briefed the media, said when asked if such a large auction will evoke the kind of interest which the government is hoping for. More than 2,300 MHz of airwaves will be on the block for telecom operators in seven bands -- 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz. Based on their pan-India reserve price, the mop-up can be as much as $83 billion against $17-billion the last time.

The previous round had seen 470.75 MHz on the block. Officials said norms for the latest round of auctions will allow operators to buy spectrum at par with international holding values and end the spectrum shortage. The availability of such a large quantity of spectrum will give a fillip for Digital India, they added. It is learnt from official sources that the reserve prices of various bands, as approved by the cabinet, remain the same as that recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The telecom watchdog had recommended a pan-India reserve price of Rs 2,873 crore for 1,800 MHz, Rs 3,341 crore for 900 MHz, Rs 5,819 crore for 800 MHz, Rs 3,746 crore for 2,100 MHz, Rs 11,485 crore for 700 MHz, and Rs 817 crore each for 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands. As regards spectrum usage charge, the recommendation of the regulator was 1 per cent of revenues for 2,500 MHz and 3 per cent for all the other bands.

We are thankful to the government for making available the huge quantum of spectrum. This is the first time so much of new bands are going for auctions. Earlier, it was mostly renewal," Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators' Association of India, told IANS. "The industry now holds 2,772 MHz of spectrum and with this auction the government will make more spectrum across all bands Mathews added. The issue is regarding pricing of 700 MHz, Mathews said, adding that from the price point of view it is unaffordable to almost all the players. We don't see much appetite for that band. Bidding in 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz will be exciting, but for 2,500 MHz it will be not so exciting. As both 800 and 900 MHz are non-contiguous in nature, hence it is as it is not very exciting.

In the previous round of auctions, conducted in March, as much as Rs 109,874 crore worth of bids were received from the 115 rounds spread over 19 days. In all 470.75 MHz was put to auction against 390 MHz in November 2012 and 426 MHz in February 2014.

IANS
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Bangladesh's central bank is unlikely to extend the contract of U.S. cyber security firm FireEye to investigate the electronic theft of $81 million of its money, sources at the bank said on Wednesday, citing high costs as one of the factors. The move comes as law enforcement in Bangladesh and the United States have reported little progress in identifying the criminals more than four months after one of the biggest cyber heists to date. FireEye's Mandiant forensics division was hired by Bangladesh Bank weeks after the cyber heist in early February. It said in an interim report that hackers took control of the bank's network, stole credentials for sending messages on the SWIFT transactions system and used "sophisticated" malicious software to attack the computers the bank uses to process and authorise transactions.

Mandiant has said it needs 570 hours of more work to complete its investigations, a director on the board of Bangladesh Bank told Reuters. The bank has already paid about $280,000 to the company at an hourly rate of $400, he and other officials said on condition of anonymity. Another official familiar with the computer security systems at the bank said it did not want to extend Mandiant's contract because board members were not sure what tangible results could come from any further investigation. FireEye said in a statement that it would seek to help with the investigation even after completing its assignment for Bangladesh Bank.

"We have uncovered and provided Bangladesh Bank and the global financial community extensive data about this unprecedented financial attack and how to prepare for the future, and will continue to support law enforcement and the industry past the close of our engagement," the statement said. The bank director said Bangladesh Bank planned to seek external help in the investigation, but only after drawing up new terms of reference on the basis of its own internal investigation, a police inquiry, and a government-appointed probe. Cost was a factor in the Mandiant decision, the director said.

"Its charges are so high," the director said, adding a formal meeting of the board on Thursday was scheduled to formally end the contract. FireEye said that the $400 per hour figure cited by the Bangladesh Bank officials was not a standard rate for its services. "The pricing and duration of our investigative work is unique to every incident," the statement said.

A third bank official said the initial purpose of hiring Mandiant had been achieved: identifying and addressing lapses in the bank's computer security. At Thursday's board meeting, terms for a possible new contract for an external investigator will be finalised, the bank director said. It wasn't clear if FireEye would be invited to bid.

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

Google is quite serious about expanding its Internet reach, and has now decided to acquire gigabit internet provider Webpass. With this move, the company plans on expansion of its Fiber rollout in urban areas.

The announcement comes from Webpass President Charles Barr, who writes, "Google Fiber has entered into an agreement to acquire Webpass. Google Fiber and Webpass share a commitment to creating fast, abundant Internet connectivity in the U.S. By joining forces, we can accelerate the deployment of superfast Internet connections for customers across the U.S."

Webpass offers services across five major regions, and plans to grow its services in current operational cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston, further adding to Google Fibers growing list of operational cities.

Google's this move is expected to help with its Fiber rollout in San Francisco. AT&T is also reportedly working towards offering gigabit internet in San Francisco. "Currently, Google has plans for Fiber in select apartments and condos in San Franciso. By joining forces with Webpass, Google Fiber can take advantage of both infrastructures and expedite the rollout," points out 9To5Google.

There is no word on the financial terms, yet. Google recently revealed its next evolution in landlines, the Fiber Phone and a related subscription service at $10 per month (around Rs 660). The service will offer unlimited local and national calls as well as international rates at par with Google Voice, which works out to Rs 0.6 per minute to India for example. In many ways, Fiber Phone brings mobile phone functionality to your landline.
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By Srinivasa Prasad

Two men would have taken a very serious note of Indias launch of 20 satellites in one go on Wednesday. One: Elon Musk, the maverick Chairman of SpaceX, the California-based privately-funded space company in the US. Two: Stephane Israel, the Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, the French multinational which is a leading satellite launch services provider.

Elon Musk has been giving nightmares to Stephane Israel. By slashing the cost of launching a satellite, SpaceX, as the Space Exploration Technologies Corp is called, has been stealing customers from Arianespace.

Launching a satellite on an Arianespaces Ariane-5 rocket costs about $140 million and, after subsidies, the cost comes down to about $100 million, admits a former chief of the European company. But the cost of launching a satellite aboard a Falcon-9 rocket from SpaceX goes as low as $60 million. Better still, the average cost of the PSLV rocket of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is no more than a third of Falcon-9s.

It wont be surprising if Musk and Israel conclude that India is now beginning to do with satellite launches what it has already done in the outsourcing industry: make money with high expertise and low costs and salaries. To the already raging price war in the satellite launch business, India is slowly adding a third dimension, though it's not significant yet in the global context. As of now, the US, EU and Russia account for nearly 80 per cent of the global space market, which is worth about $300 billion.

To become a space super power, India has to overcome a major hurdle. Indias PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) can launch satellites up to a weight of only 1,800 kg. And the currently operational Mk-II version of GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) can handle payloads weighing 2,500 kg. But the GSLV Mk-III, now under development, will be capable of launching satellites weighing close to 5,000 kg.

And luckily for India, its the market for the smaller satellites, of the kind it launched on Wednesday, that is steadily growing. According to a market forecast, nearly 200 small satellites will be launched between 2014 and 2023.

Thats where India is stepping in. Isro is already in talks with some 10 global companies to clinch satellite launch deals.

Wednesdays launch takes the total number of satellites that the PSLV series has put in space in the last 22 years to 113, of which as many as 74 belonged to foreign clients, according to a statement from Isro.

This proportion shows how India has been slowly gaining groundor gaining space.

Musk has another good reason to wince at the 20-in-1 feat by the PSLV-C34 rocket. One of the 20 satellites was SkySat Gen-2 of Terra Bella, a Google company. Google has a stake in Musks SpaceX and yet has chosen the Indian launcher.

The other 19 include Indias own 725.5 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation, 12 Dove satellites of former NASA employees Planet Labs (US), two of Canada and one each of Germany and Indonesia. One satellite each was launched for Chennai's Sathyabama University and Punes College of Engineering.

Musk and Israel will need to take India seriously and watch its continuing progress in future, especially considering that two of the worlds three largest satellite operatorsLuxembourg-based SES and Paris-based Eutelsatmade it clear last year that they would do everything they could to end the duopoly of Arianespace and SpaceX.

India can also be happy that China is lagging in the commercial launch business. For one thing, Chinas Long March rocket is nearly as expensive as Ariane-5. Notorious for dumping cheap goods everywhere, ranging from mobile phones to tyres, the Chinese havent found a way yet to cut its satellite launch costs, though their space technology has otherwise proved to be dependable.

Besides, there are restrictions against American-built satellites or parts being taken to China.

Thats where India can come in and become a big player in future, if not immediately. Besides patience, the key words are technology and cost. Indian launch technology is as good as the best in the world. And India has the cost advantage.

And India canand is trying todrop the launch costs even more. One way to cut costs is to use a reusable rocket. Most of a rockets cost goes into its body, the rest accounting for expendables including fuel. One of the reasons why SpaceX is cheaper than Arianespace is that Falcon-9 uses a partially reusable launcher.

India indeed made a good beginning in this direction by successfully flight-testing the Reusable Launch Vehicle  Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) last month. The vehicle went up to a height of 65 km and successfully glided down to a predetermined landing spot over the Bay of Bengal, 450 km from Sriharikota, from where it had been launched 12 minutes and 50 seconds earlier. But it will take a while, perhaps ten years or more, before India can turn this experiment into usable technology and develop a rocket that will drop off satellites into space and come back home to be used again.

Another way to cut costs is to launch multiple satellites at the same time, which India has been doing since 1999, when a PSLV mission carried three satellites. The 20 it launched on Wednesday was a milestone for India, but Russia holds the world record of having sent 37 satellites with a single DNEPR rocket in June 2014.

The 20 satellites launched on Wednesday were put in the same orbit. What India needs to establish to the world is that it can use the same rocket to launch more than one satellite in different orbits. This report explains a little-known aspect of Wednesdays launch: during the operation, scientists conducted two complex manoeuvres on board the rocket that will help them acquire the ability to launch satellites into different orbits in future.

Space programmes take painfully long periods to develop and experiment with before becoming operational realities, and India has to wait for its time.

The author tweets via @sprasadindia
tech2 News Staff

Huawei makes and sells a rather large number of phones, selling over a 100 million last year alone. However, the bulk of those sales come from within China and Huawei wants to expand its market to Europe and beyond.

Unfortunately for Huawei, they have a reputation for simply copying iOS and Apple designs and are thus, not well-respected in Western circles. As The Verge points out, they dont have a contract with any major US carrier either.

In a bid to fix that, Huawei has hired ex-Apple designer, Abigail Brody to work on their Android-based EMUI. With the redesign, Huawei hopes to offer an OS that is closer to stock Android in design, but offering a greater deal of flexibility and customisation.

The redesign will bring back Androids app drawer and the colour palette will apparently shed its drag colour scheme in favour of something more lively, courtesy of Brody.

Brody envisions Huawei as becoming a smartphone brand and appreciated as a lifestyle-centric platform. She also hopes to help Huawei shed its image of being an iOS copycat.

EMUI aside, Huawei is also reportedly working on its own mobile OS. Theyve set up an office in Scandinavia where engineers, ex-Nokia employees among them, are working on the OS. Its not clear why exactly Huawei is working on their own OS, especially when the likes of Samsungs Tizen and even Windows Phone, with the might of Microsoft behind it, have failed to catch on.
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President Barack Obama will head to Silicon Valley on Friday to a summit aimed at connecting about 1,200 entrepreneurs from 170 countries with the biggest and brightest players in the U.S. tech sector and venture capital community. Hot-button political issues that the White House and tech sector normally grapple with, such as the use of social media by extremists, the desire by law enforcement for a way around encryption, and cyber security, will not be on the agenda.

Obama is using the summit - the seventh in a series which have reached a total of 17,000 people mainly in Muslim-majority countries around the world - to help bolster his foreign policy legacy as his time in offices draws closer to the end on Jan. 20, 2017. The idea for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit series emerged from a speech Obama made in Cairo in 2009, which he used to signal he wanted to overhaul U.S. policy on the Middle East and try to repair the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world.

When he took office, Obama worked to extract U.S. troops from long and costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Syria's civil war and the rise of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq have tested his strategy. Islamic State has used social media to attract followers. Some have become self-radicalized, including a man who killed 49 people and wounded 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando earlier this month, and a married couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California last year.

But Obama's focus on Friday will not be about using technology to counter violent extremism. Rather, it is about connecting entrepreneurs from emerging markets with each other, and with potential sources of capital, giving a lift to emerging markets and contributing to security, said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser. "We believe the United States needs to have affirmative values that we are promoting around the world, in addition to the efforts we do to counter terrorism," Rhodes told reporters.

"We wanted to discuss not just want we're against, but what we're for," Rhodes said. Obama is set to make remarks on Friday at the summit, held at Stanford University, and be part of a panel discussion with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Obama will also do an interview with Zuckerberg on Facebook Live, and then talk with four entrepreneurs from around the world via Google, Rhodes said.

Reuters
Microsoft Accelerator in India and TCS Co-Innovation Network (COIN) have announced a joint initiative to create a platform that provides a boost to the Indian startup ecosystem. Under the collaboration, an open innovation framework will be created to mentor and engage with startups to bring their innovative solutions to market. The announcement was made at Think Next Summer 2016, Microsoft Accelerators flagship forum, which brings together thought leaders in technology who are driving transformation via innovation.

The progress India has made in IT and entrepreneurship over the past four decades, has radically changed the landscape offering new entrepreneurs unmatched opportunities. As one of the contributors to the startup ecosystem in India, we felt it was a story worth telling. It has taken us 18 months to put this e-book together, said Ravi Narayan, Global Director, Microsoft Accelerator

Nagaraj Ijari, Vice President and Global Head  Hi-Tech Industry Solutions Unit, TCS commented, The partnership between the TCS Co-Innovation Network (COIN) and Microsoft Accelerator underscores our efforts to engage deeply with the startup ecosystem and underlines our commitment to provide innovative solutions to our diverse customer base. As we enter a new phase of rapid innovation and computing, companies must co-innovate and create strategic partnerships to solve challenging problems for their customers. This partnership will offer participating startups access to the expertise and client-base of both TCS and Microsoft and will create exciting new opportunities to innovate and transform the business landscape.

Access to markets and customers remains one of the biggest challenges for startups in India. The partnership will provide startups the access to the depth of Microsoft and TCS networks and relationships across customers, investors, academia and industry, creating a strong value proposition in the enterprise marketplace. Microsoft Accelerators #CoInnovate program and COIN by TCS aim to connect startups with corporates  who get access to innovative solutions for their business needs while providing greater market access for the startups.

Highlights from Think Next 2016

The 12 graduating startups from Summer 2016 cohort of Microsoft Accelerator  Altizon, Tarnea, Aureus Analytics, BabyChakra, Reverie, Strides, Locus, Admission Table, Distiman, Calm.io, Yellow Messenger and Report Bee presented themselves to an audience of more than 550 comprising corporates, investors, thought leaders, and Microsoft management who partnered to push the collaborative innovation. Altizon announced the launch of iProd, a revolutionary IoT based product to empower manufacturers to optimize Productivity & Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) along with Distiman, a mobile app that maximizes profits for mom and pop retailers through on-demand stocking

Microsoft also unveiled an ebook  Timeline of Indian Startup Ecosystem which charts the course of the industry from 1960s till date. The interesting thing about India becoming a startup nation, is that this transformation happened not too long ago, and it happened around us. We have to thank several organizations, people for their efforts and events which transpired over the last four decades. As one of the citizens of the startup ecosystem in India, we decided to take a birds eye of the developments. It took us almost 18 months to get here and the view is breathtaking, add Ravi Narayan.

Other key moments included

Think Next Talks  At his keynote address, Nandan Nilekani, Former Chairman of UIDAI spoke about An alternate view of the future: India in the age of technological disruption. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, India addressed the audience on The role of startups in Indias digital transformation journey.

Think Next Debate  Microsoft also hosted a debate on one of the most critical questions in the startup ecosystem  Revenue-first or Funding-first approach. An impressive panel of speakers from TCS, Inventus Capital, Sequoia Capital, Cipla and CORE Media debated on who needs to take the leap of faith first when it comes to B2B startups  Corporates or VCs.

Trending Tech: Bots  In this new segment, Microsoft brought together some of the coolest bots startups and experts in the country to drive conversations affecting the future of the businesses through bot solutions.

Think Next Roundtable  The second edition of All India Accelerators & Incubators Meet hosted at Think Next brought together 22 ecosystem enablers to deliberate on the state of the startup ecosystem and ways to collaborate to create a deeper impact. The participants included, NUMA, T-Hub, AIM Smart City, Target and GenNext Innovation Hub.

Market Access Programs (MAPs)  As a part of its Market Access Programs (MAPs), Microsoft presented the best-in-business solutions in Healthcare and FinTech space in closed-doors sessions to CXOs from leading corporates.

VC Speed Dating 2.0  This was another exciting addition to the event where a highly curated set of startups met a selected group of VCs including Matrix Partners, Inventus Capital, IDG Ventures India, Innoven Captial, Kalaari Capital, Unitus Seed Fund.

@Technuter.com News Service
The Florida Panthers have signed one of the leagues best available free agent defenders.

According to Pierre LeBrun on ESPN.com, the Panthers have agreed to a seven-year deal with defenseman Keith Yandle, worth an average of $6.35 million per season. Florida acquired the rights to Yandle earlier this week from the New York Rangers to exclusively negotiate with the 29-year-old.

Keith Yandle has agreed to terms with the Florida Panthers: seven years and $6.35 million average per season  Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) June 23, 2016

The contract is a very expensive and has a scary amount of term involved in it. With that said, Florida made the right move signing the deal. Yandle was the top defensemen available in free agency and once he hit the open market he was going to get crazy high offers. The contract is fair for a player of his value.

Yandle is a good, puck-moving defenseman whos a talented point producer. With the New York Rangers last season, he scored 47 points appearing in all 82 games. He can be slotted in on the top pair and isnt a liability defensively. The Panthers defense needed work this offseason, so adding Yandle is a great step into improving a weak spot for the club.

Will the Yandle deal be a good one throughout the length of the contract? No, but you cant sign top free agents without giving them serious term. Yandle was going to get seven years from somebody. The Panthers were more than happy to oblige. Its a good signing.
No compromise over independence of judiciary: CJ

Comilla, June 23 (UNB) - Chief Justice SK Sinha on Thursday asserted that there will be no compromise when it comes to the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in the country. He came up with the remarks while addressing a views-exchange meeting at Comilla Court Bar Association Auditorium. In almost all the countries of the world, there exist some problems between the administration and the judiciary. We also have some problems here, he added. The Chief Justice also noted that a huge backlog of cases has been created in the country, while the justice seekers have been suffering due to absence of witnesses during hearings. He called on the police and public prosecutors to play their due role in ensuring the presence of witnesses. Observing that the greatness of a nation is adjudged not by its financial assets, but by the rule of law, the Chief Justice said the rule of law must be established to ensure the real progress of the country.
Suu Kyi`s trip to Thailand to tackle migrant workers` plight

Myanmar Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, centre, walks past a Thai honor guard as she arrives at the Suvarnabhumi Airport on Thursday.

AP, Bangkok :When Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi last visited Thailand four years ago, it was as head of her country's opposition party to offer moral support to the huge numbers of her countrymen who work here as migrant laborers in menial jobs, often in exploitative conditions. She arrived back on Thursday as her country's elected de facto leader to tackle on an official basis the problems faced by Myanmar migrant workers the government estimates to number 1.4 million but advocates say is at least twice that.In her new position of more power and responsibility, Suu Kyi faces greater scrutiny than she did as a democracy heroine fighting military rule. The trip puts her in the spotlight as questions have arisen about her government's policies, particularly toward the oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, which critics say fall short of what they expected from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.A highlight of Suu Kyi's three-day visit is a town hall-type meeting Thursday with Myanmar migrant workers in the Thai port of Mahachai, where many work, reprising a similar meeting in 2012 that drew tens of thousands.She is expected to sign an agreement Friday with the Thai labor ministry that will slash a "work break" required after four years of labor in Thailand, from three years to 30 days. The three-year requirement means many Myanmar migrant workers would rather stay illegally in Thailand than return home to bleak job prospects for such a long period."In 2012, she gave a promise to the workers ... that she would support them, both to return to Myanmar but also to have a better life here," said Andy Hall, who advises the Migrant Workers Rights Network. "I think the workers see her visit, both as something that would result in greater protection for them, but also (as) another sign that the time is coming when they can eventually go back home to their motherland and continue their lives there."Suu Kyi was scheduled to visit a refugee camp in the western province of Ratchaburi, bordering Myanmar, but that was canceled due to poor weather, the Thai foreign ministry said.There are about 100,000 refugees from Myanmar in camps just inside the Thai border, and their eventual repatriation has been discussed for decades. But combat in Myanmar's ethnic-controlled border regions has never completely ceased, though there are hopes that with the army out of power, peace can be achieved.Suu Kyi's 2012 visit was her first trip abroad in 24 years, with much of that time spent under house arrest under Myanmar's then-military government. She was freed after a 2010 election - boycotted by her National League for Democracy party - installed a military-backed government.Her party swept last year's general election to take power in March, but she is blocked from becoming president because of a constitutional clause that bars anyone with a foreign spouse or child from holding the job. Her two sons are British, as was her late husband. Instead, her party created the post of state counsellor, putting her in charge of her amenable party colleague, President Htin Kyaw. She also is foreign minister.Suu Kyi, who won her Nobel prize for her nonviolent promotion of democracy, is being hosted by Thailand's markedly undemocratic military junta, and her trip is being tightly scripted, with no chance for the media to question to her, even at a joint media appearance Friday with Thai Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha, where organizers say a joint statement will be read.One issue overshadowing her visit - even if she isn't directly asked about it - is her government's treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority of about 1 million who generally have been deprived of citizenship under Myanmar law and are targets of discrimination and violence.Many in the country's Buddhist majority, who typically call them "Bengalis," say the Rohingya are mostly illegal immigrants and not a native ethnic group, although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.
RANGPUR: A mobile court fined two vermicelli producing factories during anti-adulteration drive conducted in Rangpur on Tuesday.
Russia faces ban from Olympic weightlifting



Weightlifting's governing body on Wednesday put Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus on notice that they face being banned from the Rio Olympics over repeat doping offences.

North Korea was among four other nations facing sanctions over the use of banned substances as the sport seeks to clean its image.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) action could not have come at a worse time for Russia whose track and field athletes have been suspended from the Rio Games in August.

The IWF executive announced this month that 20 suspicious cases had been found in retests of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics in Beijing and London.

Its executive decided at a meeting on Wednesday that countries with three or more failed tests among the suspicious cases would be banned for a year. It named Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus as the countries facing suspension.
Whos winning the Middle Easts cold war?

Robert Harvey :

A cold war is taking place in a very hot place. A key component of the sectarian competition between Shia and Sunni Islam in the Middle East is geopolitical, with Iran facing off against Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in a struggle for regional dominance.

As with the original Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, the conflict does not involve direct military confrontation between the main rivals, at least not yet. It is being fought diplomatically, ideologically, and economically - especially in the oil markets - and through proxy wars, such as the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. There are few problems in the wider Middle East that cannot be traced back to the power rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

For the moment, the Iranians seem to be riding high. Following Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's decision to agree to an international deal limiting Iran's nuclear capability to peaceful purposes, Western sanctions have been all but removed. Now that it is once again acceptable to do business with Iran, its ailing economy is set for a rebound. Meanwhile, Iran's creeping de facto annexation of parts of Iraq - astonishingly, with American acceptance - continues because no one except the so-called "Islamic State" has the stomach to stand up to it.

Iran also has an overwhelming manpower advantage, with a population of an estimated 77 million, compared to Saudi Arabia's 28 million. And while its army is far less well equipped than its rival's, it is much larger. Moreover, Iran's main Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been given a reprieve as the conflict in his country drags on without conclusion.

This has left the Saudis feeling abandoned and vulnerable. They believe that their great traditional ally, the US, betrayed them by concluding the nuclear deal with Iran. Meanwhile, they fear that the chaos in neighboring Iraq has exposed them to chronic strategic risks.

The Saudis are also recoiling under a barrage of criticism of their Wahhabi brand of Islam, which is widely blamed for incubating extremism and inspiring terrorism. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's human rights record - including the denial of elementary rights for women - is under constant scrutiny.

Against this background, the Kingdom is taking the fight to its enemies. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is the country's above-the-fray ruler, but his son, Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, currently wields much of the power.

As Minister of Defense, Mohammad has continued the Saudi policy of backing anti-Assad rebels in Syria, in concert with Turkey, while unleashing a war on pro-Iranian tribesmen in Yemen (at an enormous humanitarian cost). He has also backed, if not instigated, an increase in domestic repression, and has launched an economic offensive against Iran - the consequences of which have been seen, until recently, in plunging global oil prices.

In early May, Saudi Arabia's longstanding oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, was replaced by Khalid al-Falih, an ally of Mohammad's. The reshuffle is an indication of Mohammad's determination to use oil prices as a weapon against Iran and its ally, Russia. As the world's swing producer, with boundless reserves of cheaply extractable oil, Saudi Arabia can flood or throttle the market at will.

And for now, the Saudis are flooding the market. They are seeking to rein in Iran and Russia, both of which need higher oil prices to sustain economic growth. And they are hoping to bankrupt the US shale-oil producers that have reduced America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil. As Mohammad recently declared, the Kingdom doesn't care about oil prices; "$30 or $70 - they are all the same to us." Iran and Russia, by contrast, need a barrel of oil to be worth at least $70.

The US oil industry has proved more adaptable and resilient than expected; cheaper shale fields have opened even as old ones have closed. But the Saudi oil offensive has helped convince Iran and Russia to drag Assad, kicking and screaming, to the negotiating table.

Mohammad's new economic plan, Vision 2030, unveiled in May, is another front in the economic war, designed to show that Saudi Arabia is immune to the domestic economic pressures afflicting Iran and Russia. The plan calls for economic diversification and envisages the establishment of a huge sovereign wealth fund to cushion the impact of lower oil revenues that the ruling class has traditionally used to purchase social peace.

The Saudi strategy is not without its costs. Gulf remittances of around $10 billion a year to Egypt (itself under increasing economic pressure and a dizzying fall in tourist receipts after recent terrorist attacks) have been scaled back to around $3 billion. And funding to Lebanon has been cut almost completely.

And yet the long-term outcome of this cold war is not hard to predict. Iran and Russia can never be more than foothold powers in the Arab world. The Shia might be able to maintain influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon (through Hezbollah), but they will be unable to compete more broadly. Some 90% of Arabs are Sunni Muslims, and thus potential Saudi allies.

The Saudis can afford to be more mature, and less suspicious than they have been. The US should take steps to reassure them - while never easing up pressure to improve human rights and implement political and economic reforms.



(Robert Harvey, a former member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, is the author of Global Disorder and A Few Bloody Noses: The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution).

Courtesy: Project Syndicate
Recruitment of low quality teachers in public universities



APPOINTMENT of less qualified teachers in public universities is almost regular now mainly under political consideration despite its adverse impact on the quality education at higher level. As per a report in a national daily on Thursday Dhaka University Syndicate Committee on Recruitment approved four teachers' appointment in the Department of Printing and Publication Studies. But none of them fulfills the qualifications mentioned in the recruitment advertisement. What appears strange is that there were eligible candidates who applied against two posts. But the authorities opted for less qualified ones denying basic rules of recruitment and frustrating efforts to bring in qualified teachers in universities to produce good students.

In fact the standard of our university education has dived to almost bottom level with appointment of many poor quality teachers in various departments. A candidate's political identity now dominates over most other criteria of recruitment. Selection committee makes compromise taking political interest of vested quarters above academic interest. This type of self-defeating and degrading practice is at work in all universities and Dhaka University appears on top of it.

It is not unusual in such background that in terms of academic excellence none of our public universities is rated as having outstanding performance in the Asiatic level, least to speak about global level; although we are spending huge budgetary resources for them. Academic Rating of World Universities in August 2014 showed no university from Bangladesh could find a place in 500 best universities. Our position has rather declined from 527 to 601 between 2007 and 2012.

We are used to boost about Dhaka University as the Oxford of the East; but it can't be denied of the fact that low quality of teachers and their lower engagement in teaching and research are bringing steady setback to our higher education. Our university teachers are spending more time in politics and teaching in private universities earning huge monthly income. University authorities or University Grants Commission (UGC) as a whole are allowing such practice although it is depriving students of regular classes and hindering switching of more of their time to basic research. Such policy of the university authorities with poor grade teachers has in fact made teaching a business proposition at the cost of our quality education.

The faulty recruitment of the Department of Printing and Publication Studies is not something exceptional, but every such step is ruining the public universities and creating bigger obstacle to develop highly educated manpower at a time when demand for such manpower is steadily rising in our expanding economy and at global market. In our view recruitment of varsity teachers must give top priority to qualified candidates, political choice must have no place in it.
Extra-judicial killings on rise

95 killed in crossfire, police custody this yr, 2170 since 2004

Md Joynal Abedin Khan :Despite massive criticisms, extra-judicial killings in the name of 'gunfights', 'crossfire' and 'police firing' are on rise.Such killings at the hands of law enforcers have raised massive questions over the capability of the law enforcing agencies. Alleged extra-judicial killings on the pretext of crossfire or encounter have become the talk of the town after Golam Faizullah Fahim, who was arrested on the charge of attempted murder of a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur, was killed in an "encounter".The countrymen are worried as around 95 people died in extra-judicial killings across the country this year while the total figure was 2,170 since 2014. According to human rights body 'Odhiker', at least 95 people were victimized of extra-judicial killings in different parts of the country. Of them, 73 were killed in 'crossfires' and 'gunfights' and the rest tortured to death at custody.It showed, 18 were killed in January, 38 in February, 12 in March, 9 in April, 18 in May. According to Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), 210 people were killed in 2004, 377 in 2005, 362 in 2006, 180 in 2007, 175 in 2008, 229 in 2009, 133 in 2010, 100 in 2011, 91 in 2012, 72 in 2013, 128 in 2014 and 183 in 2015.Golam Faizullah Fahim, 18, was killed in a "shootout" four days into his capture on June 19, sparking widespread questions, condemnation and criticism. Faizullah was on a 10-day remand when police took him to Miarchar area under Madaripur Sadar Upazila to arrest his cohorts."Around 7:00am, a team of police went to Miarchar area where his accomplices used to have meetings. They suddenly shot at our van. Our men got injured and they [cops] fired back," said Madaripur Superintendent of Police Md Sarwar Hossain. On the other hand, Shariful alias Sakib alias Sharif alias Saleh alias Arif alias Hadi-1, a prime suspect in the killing of bloggers including Avijit Roy and Niladri Chattapadhyay Niloy was killed in a reported incident of crossfire at Khilgaon in the capital early Sunday, claimed the Detective Branch of police.Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) officials claimed that the deceased was a top organiser of banned Islamist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team and also the prime suspect in the killings of bloggers, especially Avijit in February 2015 and Niladri in August 2015 in Dhaka. Prof Mizanur Rahman, Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, said that the incidents have risen alarmingly in recent times. These go against the rule of law and democracy, and are in no way acceptable."Those responsible for such criminal acts must be given capital punishment to stop this practice," he said."The extrajudicial killings are increasing in the country alarmingly, exposing the sorrowful picture of the human rights," Sultana Kamal, Executive Director of ASK said recently at a programme at CIRDAP auditorium.She said, the culture of impunity promotes extrajudicial killings, and as a result, citizens lose their trust and confidence in the law enforcement agencies. Criticizing the government, Sultana Kamal said, "Extra-judicial killings in the name of 'crossfire' and 'shootout' cannot be acceptable in a civilized society. It undermines the rule of law. The country's law and order has deteriorated to such a level that the government has resorted to crossfire to check it instead of taking legal steps. Extrajudicial killings can't be the solution of any problem at all.""Frustration is growing among the people due to the absence of good governance. The government is taking the law into its own hands because of frustration," she noted.In the same programme, Supreme Court lawyer Dr Shahdin Malik said, "Fahim's death should be probed. He demanded the suspension of those law enforcers who took Fahim away from custody before his killing."
Atiur blames global money transfer system for heist

The former governor of Bangladesh's central bank has defended himself and his colleagues in the $81 million cyber heist in February.

He told New York Times in an interview that flaws in the global money transfer system - and not any misstep by him - are to blame for the brazen heist. Atiur Rahman, who resigned from his post in March after the heist, told the NYT that the loss had been a "systemic failure" and that "Bangladesh should not be blamed for something going wrong in the chain". In particular, he blamed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where the central bank had placed the money. "If you want to take $500 out of your account in the US, you'll be asked several questions,'' Atiur told NYT. "But here, millions are going, and you're not asking any questions."

The New York Fed, he added, "should have immediately called someone in Bangladesh - the governor or someone." Atiur also said that he tapped an online security firm a year ago to help the bank beef up its defences but that it could be hired only after the theft because of bureaucratic delays.

His comments go to the heart of fears in the international banking community, says the NYT.

The theft exposed weaknesses in the way the world's banks, companies and other financial institutions transfer money around the globe. SWIFT - the system they use to move that money and through which the money was transferred out of the New York Fed - has since said it has seen other such attempts to steal money from the global banking system. In the case of Bangladesh Bank, the thieves used stolen credentials to try to transfer nearly $1 billion of the central bank's money at the New York Fed to accounts around the world.

About $81 million was ultimately transferred to casinos in the Philippines, where much of it disappeared.

A spokeswoman for the New York Fed declined to comment on Aitur Rahman's remarks but told NYT that the theft had not been the result of a breach of its computer systems. Some experts have said the theft was the result of weaknesses in Bangladesh Bank itself. Local news reports have said the bank used $10 routers and no firewalls. But Atiur disputed the notion that the bank's digital security was lax.

"I made cybersecurity the top of the agenda," he told NYT, adding, "I smelt a year back that this could be a problem. It was my bad luck that this happened now." He said that the bank had tapped Mandiant, a security firm owned by FireEye Inc of the US, as an adviser before the theft, but bureaucratic tangles in Bangladesh had kept Mandiant from fully joining until after the incident. Dan Wire, a spokesman for FireEye, declined to comment.

SWIFT executives have also been frustrated that some of its users have been slow to disclose a breach in their systems and - in one case - failed to inform the consortium of an attack at all, the NYT report said. SWIFT representatives have suggested to federal officials in the US that banks that cannot maintain a basic level of digital security may have to be removed from the network, a decision that could economically marginalise certain parts of the world. A spokeswoman for SWIFT - which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - declined to comment on Atiur Rahman's remarks but told NYT : "Security weaknesses at individual customer firms have an impact on others in the wider financial system, which means that the industry as a whole has to respond by renewing and enhancing its security."

Atiur told NYT that an investigation was continuing and that there might have been negligence at Bangladesh Bank. But he said he was not responsible for any wrongdoing. "As a governor, I'm not supposed to look at each and every small thing." "Maybe someone's password was compromised," he added. "It was a departmental failure and not the fault of the governor. It was a high dosage attack, like a 15 on the Richter scale attack. Other parties could have helped or warned Bangladesh. You cannot imagine my shock."

On speculation that someone within the bank had actively helped the thieves, he said, "If there's a criminal, catch him, but don't blame anyone without reason." He had resigned after the theft for the greater good of the bank, Atiur said. But he defended his conduct after the theft. The former governor has been criticised for not reporting the theft to the government for a month. "I wanted to save the financial system and the image of the country," he said. "It could be a mistake, but it was not a crime," he told NYT, adding, "People should not expect that I'll be technically so smart that I would know from the start what happened."

To steal the money, the thieves sent transfer orders to the New York Fed using the Bangladesh Bank's credentials. The heist was well timed - it took place during Thursday night in Bangladesh, on the eve of the country's weekend. When workers there discovered the transfers on Saturday, they tried to reach the New York Fed, which was closed for its weekend. Atiur Rahman contends that the New York Fed did not do enough to verify that the orders were real. "There was a terrible lack of efficiency from the Fed," he said. "We were sending mails, faxes, but there was no one to pick that up. We need a hotline."

In May, representatives of the Fed, Bangladesh Bank and SWIFT met in Basel, Switzerland, to discuss protecting the global financial system from these types of attacks. Atiur also laid some of the blame on the Philippines, where the theft has exposed what critics say are holes in efforts to counter money laundering. "If the Fed really wants to help, it only needs to make one small phone call to the Philippines central bank governor and order it to return the money," he said. "It's the credibility of the system that's at stake." In March, the agency that tackles money laundering in the Philippines filed criminal charges against two businessmen, accusing them of breaking the country's money-laundering laws by receiving some of the money from the heist. A spokeswoman for the governor of the Filipino central bank, Amando Tetangco Jr, wrote in an email, "Charges have been filed against those who have been identified as being involved in the Bangladesh heist. We await the decision of the courts."
Bangladesh's Hindu population grew by 1 pc in a year: Report

PTI :

The number of Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh has grown by one per cent to 1.70 crore inone year constituting 10.7 per cent of the population by theend of 2015, an official report said on Thursday.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said theirlatest vital sample statistics report found the country'stotal population to be 15.89 crore by the end of 2015 with thenumber of Hindus at 1.70 crore. Previous BBS studies showed Bangladesh's Hindu populationsize was 1.55 crore in 2014 suggesting that the numbers of thecountry's largest minority community increased by 1.5 millionin one year. Hindus are the second largest population group interms of religion.

The statistics come as Hindu community leaders expressedfears that their number was decreasing gradually as a sense ofinsecurity forced many Hindus to leave the country forneighbouring India over the decades.
Cops asked to open fire in retaliation

Staff Reporter :

Police will open fire if necessary in a bid to combat mugging, burglary and extortion in the city, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia warned on Thursday.

"Police have been asked to open fire in retaliation according to the law that gives them the right to protect themselves when they will come under attack by the criminals," he told journalists after a view-exchange meeting on 'law and order and traffic management' at Gabtoli in the city. The DMP boss said, police will open fire to stop thieves, muggers, extortionists and hooligans if it is needed. "No criminals will be spared."

He said, they have taken all-out security measures alongside other law enforcement agencies in the capital, Dhaka to ensure people's Eid shopping without any problem.

"Muggers, Malam party and Ogyan party will have no chance to roam the city in free style in a bid to loot people's money and valuables," he said, adding at least 200 kidnappers have already been sent to jail for different terms by a number of mobile courts.

By returning fire, law enforcers will exercise their right as per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to protect themselves, as well as the citizens at any time.

When asked about recent so-called 'encounter', he said, police are not involved in crossfire.

"Our duty is to nab criminals and bring them to justice. But sometimes we have to retaliate if our forces come under attack when we launch raids to net criminals," the DMP Commissioner said, adding during the exchange of fire, they (police) can get killed, or the criminals.
Uphold brotherhood

Abdul Muqit Chowdhury :

Brotherhood in the Muslim Ummah is an ordained responsibility. To help one another in times of need and to stand united is a religious obligation of Muslims as brethren in Faith. Discussion on this principle and its realisation may be presented in the context of Ramzan, which imparts comprehensive training for our material and spiritual advancement.

The Holy Quran says : "If two parties among/The Believers fall into/A quarrel, make ye peace/Between them; but if/One of them transgresses/Beyond bounds against the other,/Then fight ye (all) against/The one that transgresses/Until it complies with/The command of God ;/But, if it complies, then/Make peace between them/With justice, and be fair :/For God loves those/Who are fair (and just)." (Sura Hujurat 49:9)

Allama Yusuf Ali comments: "Individual quarrels are easier to compose than group quarrels, or in the modern world, national quarrels. But the collective community of Islam should be supreme over groups and nations. It would be expected to act justly and try to compose the quarrel, for peace is better than fighting. But, if one party is determined to be the aggressor, the whole force of the community is brought to bear on it. The essential condition of course is that there should be perfect fairness and justice and respect for the highest principles; for Islam takes account of every just and legitimate interest without separating spiritual from temporal matters. The League of Nations fails because these essentials are absent."

The Holy Quran defines the relation: "The believers are but/A single Brotherhood:/So make peace and/Reconciliation between your/Two (contending) brothers;/And fear God, that ye/ May receive Mercy." (Sura Hujurat 49 : 10)

A. Yusuf Ali says: "The enforcement of the Muslim Brotherhood is the greatest social ideal of Islam. On it was based the Prophet's Sermern at his last pilgrimage, and Islam can not be completely realised until the ideal is achieved."

Hazrat Muhammad (Sm) said, "None of you can be a believer unless he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." (Bukhari Sharif) "Each of you is a mirror of his brother ; if you see something wrong in your brother, you must tell him to get rid of it." (Tirmizi Sharif) "Believers are like the parts of a building to one another--each part supporting the others".

The Ummah is now a victim of evil designs and aggressions by the age-old anti-Muslim forces. The tragedy is that, some sections of the Muslims are unfortunately engaged in acts of self-destruction and sectarian killing. Killing of musallies in the mosques are the worst examples of such heinous activities. These help the aggressive forces to become successful in their agenda. So, the leaders and all conscious Islam-loving people should come forward to cry a halt of the musalli-killing and such like activities, which are creating more division and serious conflict among the Muslims, making them vulnerable to any aggression.

Al-Quran and Sunnah ordains the responsibility on the Muslims to ensure solidarity of the Ummah and protection of the worst suffering community from outward aggression and oppression. The Holy Quran commands: "And why should ye not/Fight in the cause of God/And of those who, being weak,/Are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- Men, women and children,/Whose cry is : Our Lord!/Rescue us from this town,/Whose people are oppressors,/And raise for us from Thee/One who will protect;/And raise for us from Thee/One who will help!" (Sura Nisa 4:75)

Allama Yusuf Ali in his comment here describes the tragic condition of the Truth-loving people of Makka : "Even from the humanitarian point of view the cause of God is the cause of justice, the cause of the oppressed. In the great persecution before Mecca was won again what sorrows, threats, tortures and oppressions were suffered by those whose faith was unshaken? Muhammad's life and that of his adherents was threatened, they were mocked, assaulted, insulted and beaten ; those within the power of the enemy were put into chains and cast into prison ; others were boycotted and shut out of trade, business and social intercourse ; they could not buy the food they wanted, or perform thier religious duties. The persecution was redoubled for the believing slaves, women and children after the Hijrat. Their cry for a protector and helper from God was answered when Muhammad the chosen one brought freedom and peace to Mecca again."

This verse was revealed in the background of inhuman atrocities of the unbelievers on the new Muslims. Muhammad (Sm) was the protector and helper of the oppressed people there and he 'brought freedom and peace of Mecca again.'

The present day tragic situation is a world-wide phenomenon -- a human disaster. The Muslims are being attacked, uprooted from their homes, and are victim of mass killing. Millions and millions of people have become helpless refugees and have been seeking shelter in the West. The Ummah is easy vulnerable as it lacks in integrity and solidarity based on Islamic brotherhood, proper and farsighted leadership to defend the people and the countries with united endeavour, scientific progress and technological advancement. The tragedy is that: sectarian conflicts, enmity and killing of counterparts among the Muslims push the Ummah to a position where the Muslim community as a whole becomes easy vulnerable to outward aggression and massacre. The worst-suffering community should take pledge in the Holy Ramzan to realise the noble teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah, which will enable them to achieve Divine help as in the past. They must strengthen the bond of brotherhood standing above all conflicts of sectarian difference and enmity among the members of the Ummah. They are to fight unitedly against the aggressors and oppressors. Yes, according to the Quranic ideology, the united Ummah will not 'transgress limits.' The target is security and peace for the Muslims and thus the mankind too. The message of humanistic call does not confine itself within the Muslim community only, -- it is universal, for the mankind in general and for all creatures.

"We sent thee not, but/As a Mercy for all creatures." (Sura Ambiya 21: 107) Allama Yusuf Ali comments: "There is no question now of race or nation ..... To all men and creatures other than men who have any spiritual responsibility, the principles universally apply." Rasulullah (Sm) said, "Allah is not kind to him, who is not kind to people". (Bukhari Sharif, Muslim Sharif)

"Allah bestows His kindness and affection on them, who are kind and considerate to Allah's creatures. Show kindness to the creatures on the earth so that Allah may be kind to you." (Abu Daud Sharif, Tirmizi Sharif)

The Holy Quran and Sunnah has ordained responsibility on the Muslims to be 'kind to the creatures on the earth'. But, this is not responsibility of one community only. The pre-condition of a peaceful world is that universal humanistic outlook prevails and the followers of different religions and nations come forward to uphold the bond of fraternity and solidarity. It is true that the Muslims are pledge-bound as Islam preaches brotherhood of mankind. But, the approach remains incomplete if their counterparts do not follow the same principle. The followers of other religions should also be active in materialising the solidarity of human race and the long cherished peaceful world. There should not be any mis-conception regarding the integrity and solidarity of the Muslims and at the same time the fraternity and solidarity of mankind.
Eid shopping getting momentum

Hundreds of people throng New Market to buy their Eid items, specially saree, selwar, kamiz, punjabi, ornaments and other essentials, turning the entire area into a crowded place on Thursday.

Anisul Islam Noor :

Eid sales have started gathering momentum at different city markets and shopping malls as Eid-ul-Fitr, the greatest festivals of the Muslims, nears about 12 days.

During visits to some key markets and shopping malls, including New Market, Gausia, Bashundhara City, Elephant Road, Bailey Road, Rajdhani Market, Farmgate and Gulistan, rush of customers was witnessed in outlets dealing in garments of ladies, gents and children.

The traders said, sales have been gradually increasing since the first day of Ramzan. They, however, said the transaction on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr would pick up in the days ahead.

"Actually, the price this year is slightly higher than that of the last year and varies according to the quality. We deal in only women's collections and at our shops there are products of different price ranges. The prices of three-pieces range from Tk 800 to Tk 5,000 and those of sari from Tk 600 to Tk 9,500," Ramesh Saha, a trader of New Market, told The New Nation. Mohammad Abu Sufian, the owner of Fatema Fashion in Gawsia market, said sale has been increasing from the first day of Ramzan and this year their business seems better than that of the previous years. "It is the mid of Ramzan now; customers have just started coming for Eid shopping and it will take some more days to witness peak selling on the occasion", Abu Sufian said.

Gopal Pal, who runs a shop of sari at Gawsia market, also expressed his satisfaction that the response of customers is better than that of the last year. "Last year, we did not notice such presence of customers at the mid of Ramzan which gives us hope that we are going to have some good days ahead," he added. Shah Newaj, owner of Navil Fashion House at Bashundhara City, said Eid-related sales usually start from the first day of Ramzan but now the market to witness peak selling.

"On Friday and Saturday in Ramzan we have been witnessing a large number of customers which is a good sign for us indicating that full-fledged selling is going to start very soon," he added.

Meanwhile, footpath-based traders are also experiencing increased sales. Some hawkers of the New Market area said that their sale started to increase from the previous weeks and hopefully it will rise to a great extent after some days. One the other hand, customers' perception is different in this case. Most of the customers think that the prices of products will be higher with the nearing of the Eid; so to get the best collections buying earlier is the best strategy.

A good number of shoppers were seen searching for clothes at different outlets of the city markets.

Abir Hossain, a student of Dhaka City College, who was found shopping at New Market, said he has already completed most of his Eid shopping. To him, buying at the beginning of Ramzan gives some advantages of price. Moreover, prices of products are more or less the same as those of the normal times and above all, the market is not overcrowded.

Sumaiya Simu, a university student, who came for Eid shopping on Bailey Road said in case of Eid shopping she always prefers to buy at the first week of Ramzan for a number of reasons.

"I think new additions, uncommon and beautiful Eid collections can be found at the beginning of Ramzan. Besides, before Ramadan 10 or 15, the shops remain less crowded which gives customers the opportunity of spending extra time to assess the quality, have bargaining options and buy products at a cheaper rate than that of the last days of Ramadan," Simu said.

However, most of the Eid shoppers also claimed that prices of all kinds of products are higher this year than those of the last year.




Devote yourselves to nation's welfare

UNB, Dhaka :

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday urged her party leaders and activists to work with devotion for the welfare of the nation and thus strengthen it imbued with the ideals of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

"It's my fervent call to my party leaders and workers to wholeheartedly devote yourselves to the welfare of the country and the nation and thus strengthen this party (AL) under the leadership which we've achieved our independence," she said. Sheikh Hasina, also the chief of the ruling Awami League, said this while addressing a discussion meeting marking the 67th Founding Anniversary of Awami League held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the city.

Hasina said it was only the Awami League which has taken the country ahead through bringing economic emancipation of people. "Insha Allah, we'll bring much more economic emancipation."

She said it is also Awami League which has been working relentlessly to ensure the basic rights of the people of Bangladesh. Calling upon her party leaders and workers to work tirelessly rising above personal interests, Hasina said, "If a political leader can work with honesty, then it is his or her biggest strength through which he or she could face any disaster or calamity. With honesty, a political leader could raise his voice and I've gained such strength of honesty from Bangabandhu."

Reiterating her vow to turn Bangladesh into a mid-income country by 2021 and a prosperous developed country by 2041, Hasina said to attain these goals, each and every leader

and worker of Bangladesh Awami League would have to work with honesty imbued with the ideals of Bangabandhu. Sheikh Hasina claimed that her party has elevated Bangladesh to a dignified position in the global arena as Awami League has given everything-from achieving the dignity for mother language to the country's independence-to the nation.

"We're pledge-bound to fulfill the expectations of the country's people," she added. Taking a swipe at her archrival Khaleda Zia, she said nowadays, the BNP chief has been telling blatant lies in iftar parties. Recalling the glorious history of Awami League, Sheikh Hasina, who is the chief of the ruling party since her return from abroad in 1981, said whatever the country has achieved is only through this party. But, she alleged that many like Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Ziaur Rahman, HM Ershad and then Khaleda Zia tried to destroy this party through hatching plots.
Had the Flatlanders grown up in South Louisiana hanging with the Bluerunners but opting to forgo the native sounds  accordion, wash board  and instead picking a more laid-back roots rock approach, they would have sounded a lot like Tortue.

Longtime Lafayette musicians Danny Kimball, Phil Kaelin, Blake Castille and Lee Tedrow elevate guitar rock to the level of political and social consciousness with an ear for history. Being that the four members do have a combined 170 years of musical work, there is a recurring theme of growing old and dying and a take on the issues that can only come from maturity.

Throughout Play it Loud!!!, small hints of garage and surf rock make it a distinctive recording. Guitar-driven with lots of riffs but not overbearing and wild, Tortue is subdued despite what the title says. While there is a bit of variety  Undertow is an instrumental surf rock classic with plenty of guitar grit and squeal  the songs here stay within this roots rock range.

Tortue is a grown-up band with grown-up problems. For example, Dirty Business tells the drawbacks of using the military to support family and speaks against war. Sharecropper, inspired by Blakes father Hadley Castille, recalls Deep South history with a very Texas sounding riff, as it details the too-hard life of a sharecropper and the generational trappings from the head of the family to the children. TV Jive is a deeper run at some of the points Black Flag was trying to make with TV Party. Here Tortue flays the non-stop barrage of terribleness coming through the wall  televangelists, war, murder and the rest of it. On Ghost Voices, civil rights, life and eventual death in the South provides a serious backdrop for a catchy chorus. Just to show that its not all serious, Roadhouse borrows a line from The Rolling Stones to pine for the good old days of roadhouse bars.

Lines about ya-yas notwithstanding, these songs arent disposable guitar anthems. Instead, Play it Loud!!!  exclamation points and all  is a rootsy rock shot across a lot of bows and the product of eight hands that know what they are doing.
Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes.

What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection?

Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were.

Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property  there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection:

You get to see exactly what will happen to your money

When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor.

Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on.

A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with.

You find out about potential major repairs

Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing.

If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately.

You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on

One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home.

Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly.

You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for

While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best.

This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit.

Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home.

You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price

If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home.

You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price.

You can sell your home faster and for more money

If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are.

In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price.

Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for.

Your home will hold its value longer

As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property.

When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home.

You can make smart decisions about property investments

Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property.

If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal.

There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about.

If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage

If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing.

They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit.

You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors

If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for.

For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money.

You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition

Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building.

You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure.

Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so.

As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process.
President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war?

You voted:
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

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[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

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Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
The search for a wanted man who the Franklin County Sheriff's Office said was "dangerous" ended Thursday with his arrest.

Robert E. Hartley, 39, of Benton was arrested by Franklin County Sheriff's deputies without incident at 2:10 p.m. in West Frankfort, according to a news release from Sheriff Don Jones.

Hartley is being held in the Franklin County Jail on a warrant charging arson, burglary and felony theft. His bond is set at $275,000.

Jones said the West Frankfort Police Department have an additional two counts of armed robbery, burglary and theft, for which bond has not been set.

The Sheriff's Office released a statement earlier Thursday asking for the public's help locating Hartley, who authorities said has an extensive criminal history and was free on bond for arson and burglary, according to the release.

 The Southern
HERRIN  Herrin officials are working to ensure neglected and abandoned properties won't be a blight on their community.

Codes Administrator Robert Craig has the responsibility of trying to contact the property owner and explain why the property needs cleaned up or torn down. Since he started as codes administrator in January, Craig said roughly 12 property owners have begun repairs or demolished buildings. He thinks there are probably a dozen more that need attention.

The process of cleaning up abandoned or neglected property is straightforward, but it is time-consuming.

If it is an abandoned building, we will try to get possession of the property from the owner or a court order granting the city possession, Craig said. Codes administration will  if there is a building that is not safe or secure send notice to owner.

Craig said the city considers a property abandoned if taxes have not been paid for at least two years.

If it is an abandoned building, we will try to get possession of the property from the owner or get a court order granting the city possession.

Ive been at this since January, and for the most part, Ive been pretty successful, Craig said.

Craig said the city has some surplus property or property that has been signed over to the city because the city has had to tear a building down. Herrin does not have a lot of use for individual lots in residential neighborhoods, so the property needed to be sold.

Most recently, Herrin City Council voted to sell buildings at 111 and 113 E. Cherry St. during its June 13 meeting.

Craig called the buildings a huge safety issue. Loose bricks have fallen from the two-story buildings, and the insides have deteriorated to the point that repairing them is not feasible. Parking spaces in front of the buildings have been blocked because of falling bricks.

The reasons a property becomes neglected are varied. For example, a trailer that has been empty for six years was finally torn down this month. The person who lived in the trailer died, and determining ownership was difficult and lengthy. Another home was destroyed by a fire, and the owner had problems with the insurance company. Another property was sold and the buyer did not realize the cost of demolishing the building.

Although owners or heirs have not been found for two or three properties, the city has overseen the clean-up of others, such as lots on Stotlar, Sixth and Monroe streets.

To be honest, and we are pleased about this, the community has pitched in and done their part. Weve only torn down one building, and the other 10 or 11 have been torn down by the property owners, Craig said.

Cleaning up neglected and abandoned property saves the city money. For example, numerous properties in Herrin are mowed by the city, and the owners are billed. Craig said neighbors dont want rodents living in the weeds and tall grass, and it can become a health and safety issue. Also, abandoned or neglected buildings can increase the possibility of crime.

While Craig said there are no really accurate numbers of how abandoned or neglected property affects the value of surrounding homes in Herrin, the effect is real.

If a potential buyer drives up and sees an abandoned property, the marketability of your home decreases, if not the actual value, Craig said.
Democratic state Senate candidate Sheila Simon has a message for her Republican opponent, Paul Schimpf: Leave my dad out of the race.

Ive expected a good debate in this campaign, but I sure didnt expect to have to defend my fathers reputation, Simon said in a news release issued on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Schimpf said the comments in question had nothing to do with the late former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, and were instead a criticism of her connections to former Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, under whom she served as lieutenant governor.

Were not going to disparage the memory of the late U.S. Sen. Simon, said Schimpf spokesman Ron Deedrick. He obviously was a statesman who served the nation and the state honorably."

Simon, a law professor from Carbondale, and Schimpf, a retired Marine from Waterloo, are competing for the 58th Senate District seat that longtime Sen. Dave Luechtefeld is vacating in January at his retirement.

The comments by Schimpf that Simon has taken issue with appeared in an article published online June 14 by Southwest Illinois News, a publication that almost exclusively supports Republican candidates and is funded by Republican operatives.

Paul Simon was not mentioned by name in the article.

About midway through the article titled, Schimpf running to bring common sense to Senate it reads: What makes Schimpf the best candidate for the district? Leadership abilities versus political lineage, Schimpf said. Schimpf explained that Simon comes from a tradition of politicians who do very little to serve the state; instead, they are more likely to serve themselves. He also argued that he can be a leader for everyone, not just one party.

Simon said she sees no other way to interpret Shimpfs comment about her lineage other than to consider it an insult to her parents. She noted that the most common definition of the term lineage describes the lineal descent from ones ancestors, i.e. family.

Deedrick said he refuses to engage in a battle of semantics over use of the phrase political lineage, and called it absurd for Simon to continue to insist the comment was an intended as an insult to the late Paul Simon. Deedrick did not dispute that the accuracy of the quotes, but also said the campaign had no control over the ultimate outcome of the article.

Southwest Illinois News states in its "about us" section that the publishers believe in limited government and free market values. Funding for the publication comes, in part, from advocacy groups that share beliefs in limited government, it states.

It also notes that a print version of Southwest Illinois News is being funded by Liberty Principles PAC. That political action committee lists as its chairman and treasurer conservative Chicago radio talk-show host Dan Proft.

According to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reforms Illinois Sunshine database of political donations and expenditures, Gov. Bruce Rauner has been a top financial supporter of Liberty Principles PAC.

Proft did not respond to a request for comment from The Southern on Wednesday, but defended his chain of newspapers in a February interview with the Daily Herald, saying its not a secret they have a point of view. That's better than traditional newspaper outlets because at least these publications are upfront about their biases, he reportedly told the Daily Herald.

Simon said that while the newspapers are misleading, she stopped short of criticizing their existence. She said voters and readers should always consider the source of their information, and decide for themselves whether to trust that source.

Said Simon, Everyone, no matter what their political point of view, has a right to express that. And thats an important part of our system. When the expression turns to disparaging the reputation of my father Im going to respond.

Paul Simon died on Dec. 9, 2003. He was a member of the Illinois legislature before he was elected to the U.S. House and then Senate. He made a failed bid in 1988 for the Democratic presidential nomination. His image  including his signature bow-tie  is one of the most recognizable of political figures past and present in Illinois, and certainly Southern Illinois.

Simon lived for years in Makanda, and founded the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
Led by Henry Dyson, a group of young children stood at the front of the dining hall, enthusiastically practicing the songs theyd be singing at St. Pauls Baptist Church TEAM Tutoring end-of the year program the next day.

At the close of the rehearsal, they marched single file down the hall toward their classrooms for the last time in the 2015-16 school term.

They were surprisingly quiet for such young, exuberant kids. The few who slipped out of line were quickly and firmly called back by teachers and were led into their individual classrooms for the last segment of the day.

The Times and Democrat visited Mildred Majors class of kindergarten through second grade students. After spending more than 30 years in the public school system, Major is now retired and serves as head teacher for TEAM Tutoring.

Since it was the last day of class until the fall, the children had little work left to do, and Major had them introduce themselves to The T&D crew.

One small boy spoke his name too quietly to be heard. Major kindly but firmly had him repeat it. She easily maintained order in the room while she urged her students to attend a special breakfast for themselves and their families the upcoming Sunday morning.

St. Pauls tutorial program, which was founded 25 years ago, has affected the lives of hundreds of children since it opened. A few of them recently took time to write testimonials about their experiences that were published in a magazine created by Team Tutoring.

Happy Anniversary, TEAM Tutoring, Ariana Tinker said. She and her sister attended the program every week, receiving help with schoolwork and a loving support structure from the teachers and administrators.

The program meant so much to her that after she aged out, she returned to it to work as a mentor with other students.

There is a saying: It takes a village to raise a child, Brandace Grant said. For me, the St. Paul Baptist Church TEAM Tutorial Program has been part of that village.

The 15-year-old Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School student spent hours after school at the tutoring program working on math and reading skills, she said. The teachers helped with homework, but if the kids didnt have homework, the teachers put them to work on math problems and reading skills.

It all paid off, Brandace said, adding, I am blessed to say I made straight As this quarter."

But it wasnt all hard work. There were times we played together and did activities," she said.

Brandaces twin, Brandon, also attended the tutoring program.

Sometimes it wasnt where I wanted to be, he said. My parents and grandma said I had to go.

But now hes grown wiser and appreciates the love and care the workers gave him, Brandon said, noting that he learned to appreciate the work he was required to do.

The program has helped me to grow intellectual and responsible, he said.

Though kids are passing through the doors of the tutorial classes into another educational world, a younger group is always ready to take their places.

Some current students also gave their testimonials about TEAM Tutoring.

"I like TEAM Tutoring because we get snacks ... we play games and do work ... coming to tutoring helps you learn. Dr. Morris teachers us Spanish songs and Mr. Dyson teaches songs to help us love Jesus and other people in the church. I like Tutoring because we have computers to do work on," said RaKarie Morris, age 6.

"I like Tutoring because I like to learn. My teacher taught me to be nice and respectful to others. Mr. Dyson teaches me to be nice to others on the bus. He said not to hit on people and no fighting on the bus," 8-year-old Kimyra Davis said.

Jahslyn Davis, 5, said, "I like getting treat bags when we get ready to go home. I like doing work. The computers help me read."

"I like TEAM Tutoring because I like to write and play Bingo," said Carmello Goodwin, 6. "I like to put the red marker on the card that sounds like 'cat.' My teacher helps me to write. I play games on the computer to help me learn math."

Tutoring for Educational Achievement and More was organized in the early 1990s under the leadership of former pastor Rev. Dr. H.T. Williams and former associate pastor Rev. Eugene Keitt.

Dr. Claudia Greene and Annie Bonaparte were named administrators, and have continued to lead the program over the years.

Weve come a long way, Greene said. Weve touched the lives of so many, not just the children but parents and staff volunteers who joined us."

They see the needs of the children and meet those needs, and that gives them such a sense of satisfaction, Greene said.

If we can do just a little the school system cant do, then we all feel the benefit, she said.

Bonaparte says that just being there and listening to former students talk about what happened while they were in the classes is the most gratifying thing about working with TEAM Tutoring.

You can see what they accomplished as they moved further in school, she said.

It makes you feel good that you somehow helped them get where they are, Bonaparte said. Primarily, thats what I appreciate the most. Its something to look back on.

TEAM Tutoring brings in retired educators, professionals and lay people to instruct students academically on their specific grade levels. It also includes a support group made up of church deacons, trustees and members who act in an advisory capacity. Another component of the programming includes church and community members who provide financial and technical resources.
WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump apparently wants to institute something akin to Jim Crow discrimination against Muslims, including those who are citizens of the United States. Is this what the Republican Party wants as well?

What's your opinion about legalized religious bigotry, House Speaker Paul Ryan? How about you, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? Do Republican quislings agree with the man they have endorsed for president? They should never again speak of the hallowed traditions of the Party of Lincoln, because those ideals are being spat upon by the presumptive nominee. The GOP is now the Party of Trump.

On Sunday, "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson reminded Trump that last year he had raised the idea of "profiling" for Muslims and asked him to elaborate. Trump's response: "Well, I think profiling is something that we're going to have to start thinking about as a country. Other countries do it," he said, naming Israel, and "we have to start using common sense."

Pinning Trump down on any specific proposal is difficult because he is all over the map, often contradicting himself in the course of a single sentence. But from the rest of that interview, in the context of what he has previously said about Muslims, it is all too clear what he means.

Profiling in the law enforcement sense means singling out people with certain characteristics for extra scrutiny. After saying we need to think about doing this to Muslims, Trump immediately went into an anecdote about one of his rallies.

"People that obviously had no guns, had no weapons, had no anything, and they were being -- they were going through screening. And they were going through the same -- the same scrutiny, the absolute same scrutiny as somebody else that looked like it could have been a possible person. So, we really have to look at profiling."

By "possible person," Trump clearly meant "possible troublemaker." But who were those attendees who so obviously meant no harm? We know from polls that Trump's support base is overwhelmingly white and largely male. Trump was suggesting that those who fit that profile could have been waved through while special attention was paid to young people, women and minorities who might have come to the rally to protest.

That's not the way it works, of course. Trump has Secret Service protection, and when agents set up a magnetometer checkpoint, everybody has to go through. Trump, as usual, thinks he knows best. He seems to believe intent can be infallibly discerned from appearance.

This helps us understand his toxic ideas about profiling Muslims. Despicable acts of terrorism have been committed by groups and individuals who believe in a warped view of Islam rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, including the more than 3 million who live in the United States. In Trump's eyes, however, all Muslims are suspect.

Following the San Bernardino killings last year, committed by an apparently self-radicalized married couple, Trump called for a ban on admitting Muslims to the country. He continues to blame "people in the Muslim community" for not reporting those killers' plans, even though there is no evidence, I repeat no evidence, that anybody, Muslim or otherwise, knew of their rampage in advance.

Likewise, Trump darkly suggests that there must have been Muslims who knew about the apparent radicalization of Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, but said nothing. The truth is that while Mateen's wife has been interviewed by authorities, there is no evidence that anyone outside their household had any inkling of what Mateen was about to do.

Trump wants to put Islamic houses of worship under special surveillance. In his interview with Dickerson, he spoke admiringly of authorities in France who, by his account, are "closing down mosques."

By criticizing "Muslim communities" for not reporting the jihadists in their midst -- which is a lie, by the way -- Trump puts all Muslims under suspicion. What are the implications of this worldview? Do you have separate security lines at airports for Muslims, the way Southern gas stations used to have separate bathrooms for "colored" patrons? Do you reassign the nearly 6,000 Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to segregated units, or do you so doubt their loyalty that you just kick them out? Do you put all Muslims on a no-buy list for guns and ammunition?

The Republican Party is about to nominate for president a man who manifestly does not believe in freedom of religion. Shame on the GOP officials who meekly fall in line.
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/By Azernews/

By Gunay Camal

The St. Petersburg meeting over the Nagorno-Karabakh was more constructive from the viewpoint of approach to all issues, which demonstrated the sides' interest in resolving the conflict.

Deputy Head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, Novruz Mammadov made the remark, mentioning that the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents' most recent meeting can be considered different from the previous ones, Azertac reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought together Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia on June 20 in St Petersburg, where the sides have confirmed their readiness to seek a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The sides particularly exchanged views on such issues as reducing tension on the line of contact, ensuring a high level security and conducting a more comprehensive monitoring.

The St. Petersburg talks became the logical continuation of Vienna talks held in May, aiming to resume the negotiation process of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Mammadov further stated that Armenia's provocation on the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops in early April and the Azerbaijani armys decent response to this was in fact a message to the parties concerned  both OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and the whole world.

The message was that failure to resolve the conflict so far, its remaining unchangeable and in a certain sense its being considered frozen, is a very dangerous position. It also revealed the need to resolve the conflict, he said, adding that all these issues also had an impact on the intensification of negotiations and organization of meetings with the heads of state and officials of both countries.

Emphasizing that the meeting organized by Russia was more appropriate, the official said the negotiations at the meeting give ground to say that President Putin is more resolute to settle the conflict.

Two decades of talks mediated by the OSCE MG group have failed to produce a breakthrough, and the four-day war further undermined the hope for a peaceful resolution.

The renewed hostilities, the worst since the ceasefire deal signed in 1994, were assessed as the result of inactivity of the international community, which turned blind eye to the injustice towards Azerbaijan.

Even though both sides avoided escalation into a full-scale war, the international community and the mediator countries realized that the truce in Nagorno-Karabakh is fragile, and the conflict could easily accelerate anew.

Mammadov also hailed President Aliyev`s policy in the intensification of talks and achievement of certain agreements at such meetings. "At all his meetings the head of state underlines that the status quo cannot continue and steps must be taken to resolve the conflict," he said.

"The results of this meeting is the reaction of the world community, the co-chair countries and international organizations who approved the Azerbaijani President's stance which he voiced in his speeches at all meetings, high-level forums, conferences and summits. The head of state has always noted that sooner or later this conflict must be resolved within the norms and principles of international law, the Armenian armed forces must leave the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons must return to their native lands," Mammadov said.

Noting that in St. Petersburg the sides agreed to continue regular meetings in this format, Mammadov reminded that here too much depends on what steps the Armenian side will take.

Baku, which has suffered from Yerevan's aggressive policy for more than two decades, has repeatedly stated that the presence of the Armenian Armed Forces in the occupied territories is a major obstacle to the settlement of the conflict and threat to the regional stability.

Azerbaijan is still committed to the peaceful negotiated solution to the conflict, while Yerevan each time tried to blow the negotiation process. Such a situation was observed in 2009-2014 and in April 2016.
/By Azernews/

By Fatma Babayeva

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is on a two-day official visit to Paris within his next European tour, Iranian media reported.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, Zarif met with several French officials during the Paris visit.

In his meeting with Gerard Larcher, President of the Senate of France, Zarif told that no one can tear the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the six world powers.

Referring to an agreement between Iran and the US Boeing company, Zarif noted that the agreement will solve the problem of Iran's agreement with Airbus.

Zarif participated in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces of the French Senate, following his meeting with Larcher.

In his speech during a meeting in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces of the French Senate, Zarif stated that the Foreign Ministry will provoke Iran-France parliamentary ties, which is efficient for Tehran-Paris friendship and can strengthen the two nations' understandings of each other.

Touching upon the combat against terrorism, Zarif underlined that it requires global cooperation.

Additionally, Iranian FM attended a meeting at France's International Diplomatic Academy with participation of representatives of French media and researchers and took part in an Iftar (fast breaking feast) ceremony in the residence of Irans ambassador to Paris where some French officials and representatives from 33 Islamic states were present.

This visit is the third trip of the Iranian FM to European countries in a row. He has already made two rounds of official visits to a number of the EU countries like Poland, Sweden, Finland, Latvia in late May - early June, and Norway and Germany in mid-June.

In particular, his visits to Europe aim discussing ways to expand relations after the implementation of the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The main discussion topic is the expansion of the bilateral cooperation in the scientific, cultural, economic and political fields between Iran and EU countries.

After his European tour, Zarif will travel to Uzbek capital Tashkent in order to participate in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization June 23-24.
/By Azernews/

By Fatma Babayeva

Turkmenistan has conducted 3D seismic survey to discover new commercial flows of natural gas, particularly in the area where the countrys largest gas field Galkynysh is located. But where these additional volumes will go is yet a question at issue.

Turkmenistan currently has more gas than it can sell and is continuing to increase production, Bruce Pannier, an expert on Central Asia and energy issues and a Senior Correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty told Azernews via email on June 23.

Ideally of course, Turkmenistan would like to sell gas both to Europe via the Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP) and the Caucasus and to Pakistan and India via the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, said Pannier by stressing that if those two routes were actually opened, Turkmenistan would need an additional 60 to 65 billion cubic meters of gas annually to fill both pipelines.

Unfortunately, none of these pipelines is possible now or for the foreseeable future, he said, reminding that in the case of TCP because of Russia and Irans objections about environmental problems it will cause in the Caspian Sea, and in TAPIs case because of continued, and actually a worsening of the fighting in Afghanistan.

The expert noted that given the enormous security problems in Afghanistan that start just across the border from Turkmenistan there is practically no way TAPI pipeline can be built.

Additionally, the low price of gas makes investment in such a project risky and besides that it now appears that Iran is making progress toward finishing a pipeline connection with Pakistan that would essentially do the same thing that TAPI proposes to do  bring gas to Pakistan and possibly India, added the senior correspondent.

Pannier went on saying that in the meantime, Russia stopped buying Turkmen gas at the beginning of this year, and Iran will likely stop buying Turkmen gas sometime in the next few years as it finishes construction of its internal pipeline network and can bring gas from the south, including Pars field, to the north. Thus, producing more gas really does not help Turkmenistan right now.

And under these circumstances, Turkmenistan is only left by Chinese market.

Currently, three of the four pipelines to China are operational  Lines A, B, and C, said the expert, reminding that Lines A and B can each carry some 15 billion cubic meters of gas per annum, whilst Line C has capacity for 25 billion cubic meters per annum.

Line D will be the big one carrying 30 billion cubic meters. Nevertheless, officials in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have already said there are delays in constructing the parts of the pipeline that pass through their territories, Pannier said.

So we dont know when that line will become operational. It was scheduled to launch around 2019 but that no longer seems possible, he added.

The expert further emphasized that China could fund construction of another pipeline. However, he believes that until Line D is working, Beijing will probably not consider a fifth pipeline.

As it stands now, Turkmenistan should one day be exporting a minimum of some 65 billion cubic meters per year to China and more likely 80 to 85 billion cubic meters, someday. There have been talks of boosting Turkmen gas exports to China to more than 100 billion cubic meters per year further in the future, said the expert.

Additionally, Russia is also going to increase gas exports to the Chinese market via the construction Power of Siberia Pipeline which will have the capacity of 38 billion cubic meters, which will boost competition for Chinese gas market.

In volume terms, the gas that Russia will send to China is less than half of what China plans to eventually get from Turkmenistan, Pannier said, adding the fact that Russia and China are still negotiating about a second pipeline.

The expert stressed that in any case, China can probably use as much gas as both Russia and Turkmenistan are willing to sell. China has also been very shrewd in ensuring its diversification of energy imports.

Beijing does not want to rely too much on any single supplier. Thus, Pannier thinks that Chinese authorities would prefer to keep both Turkmenistan and Russia happy by purchasing significant quantities of gas from both.

He further added that the only competition Beijing would be interested in seeing would be in pricing. China could, and likely will, continually press one country for lower prices and then demand a similar price from the other country.

It is almost certain that China is pushing for ever lower prices for Turkmen gas, especially since China knows it will soon be Turkmenistans only gas customer. Its a very bad situation for Turkmenistan to be in. But the price China pays has never been made public and whatever talks the two countries are having now are not being reported, added Pannier.

Worse, Turkmenistan is using some of its gas exports to China to repay billions of dollars of Chinese loans to develop Turkmen gas fields and build the pipelines to bring that gas to China, the expert further highlighted, by empathizing that so not only is Turkmenistan getting less money for its gas, it will also take longer to pay off its debt to China.

Regarding Turkmenistans possible gas exports to Europe, Pannier pointed out that firstly, the countrys gas export policy is generally that Turkmenistan will build a domestic pipeline to its borders and from there anyone who wants to build a pipeline to that border can get Turkmen gas.

Turkmenistan never said it would pay for the TCP pipeline, so someone else has to do that, said Pannier.

Besides that, Turkmenistan does not wish to provoke Russia with entering its biggest market, especially since no work at all has been done on the TCP.

For Turkmenistan in order to commit to such a project it would have to first see that there was really a pipeline that is being built. Promises and signed agreements are not enough, added Pannier.

Turkmenistan would be happy to sell gas to Europe, like China can use all the gas Russia and Turkmenistan are willing to sell, said Pannier, adding that but so far, no one has been willing to invest the money and start constructing the TCP.

There are some early efforts at gas-to-liquid which could help Turkmenistan to diversify its export market in the future, said Pannier, adding that although there are many complications related to LNG.

First, not only would Turkmenistan have to build the facilities to turn gas into LNG but some other Caspian country, presumably Azerbaijan, would have to build a facility to either turn the LNG back into gas or, more likely, expand railway capacity so the LNG could be shipped that way to the Black Sea, Pannier stated by reminding that such facilities take several years and a lot of money to build.

The expert also cannot see an option of shipping LNG by rail through Russia or Iran, and China already has pipelines connecting it to Turkmenistan.
On 20 June, overdue homage was duly paid to Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov (aka Ahmed Michel) and other Azerbaijani members of the French Resistance who participated in the Maquis de Cabertat and the Third Hussars Regiment during the Second World War. Taking place in front of the Mausoleum of Cabertat, close to Montauban  50km from Toulouse  that houses the remains of the Resistance heroes, including those from Azerbaijan  the commemoration included the unveiling of a plaque in the presence of Ayaz Gojayev, Cultural Advisor, Azerbaijani Embassy in France; Valerie Rabault, MP, Tarn-et-Garonne region; Pierre Amestoy, Director of the local branch of the Office of Veterans under the Ministry of Defence; and Robert Bonhomme, representing the Sons of those Murdered in Tarn-et-Garonne and mayors and dignitaries from the surrounding cities, including Montauban, Monclar, Vaissac, Negrepelisse, Montricoux and Puygaillard. The ceremony, attended by around 150 people, was organised by the Friends of the Maquis of Cabertat Association and the French office of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS).





The ceremony began with a religious ceremony in front of the mausoleum commemorating the French Resistance members who were killed on 20 June 1944 by Nazis invading the Maquis. This was followed by a welcome address by Francis Delmas, Mayor of the City of Vaissac, and a keynote by Michel Poux, President, Friends of the Maquis de Cabertat Association. This was followed by a performance of the Azerbaijani and French National Anthems, paying utmost respect to the Brothers in Arms who fought alongside each other against Fascism.





The flag carriers, followed by the Azerbaijani and French delegations, moved to a second site, a few meters away, where the plaque in memory of all Azerbaijanis who fought within the French Resistance, including Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov, was unveiled by Ayaz Gojayev, on behalf of the Azerbaijani Embassy; Marie-Laetitia Gourdin, TEAS; and Michel Poux, Friends of the Maquis de Cabertat Association.





Marie-Laetitia Gourdin, Director, TEAS France, commented: Today, we wish to honour the Azerbaijanis who fought in the Maquis de Cabertat and the Third Hussars Regiment in the Midi-Pyrenees, Vosges and Alsace Regions, and in particular to Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov, also known as Akmed Michel, or Kharko by his Brothers in Arms. Engaged in the Red Army against the Nazis during World War II, Ahmadiyya was imprisoned in the camps in Ukraine and in France, before escaping and entering the French Resistance in Spring 1944 in the Tarn-et-Garonne Region, where he joined the Maquis de Cabertat.





After participating in the liberation of several cities in the Midi-Pyrenees Region, and meeting General de Gaulle in Toulouse in September 1944, Ahmadiyya left for Alsace, where he participated in the liberation of the cities of Mulhouse and Belfort. TEAS wanted to make sure that the name of Ahmadiyya is not forgotten, and this is why our foundation collaborated with the Friends of the Maquis de Cabertat Association in organising a joint ceremony to pay respect to those who joined forces to fight the Nazis in the name of liberty.





Mr Gojayev recalled: Since the start of the Second World War, Azerbaijan was engaged in the campaign by the former Red Army of the Soviet Union against the Nazis. The war itself did not spread to Azerbaijani territory, but Azerbaijanis felt its weight, as more than 600,000 of its citizens participated in the war, of which half were killed. Azerbaijan played an important role in the war, given its essential oil resources. Hitler had a plan to invade Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to access these reserves. Azerbaijanis fought alongside many members of the Resistance in Europe, including in the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Poland and, of course, France. Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov, also known as Akmed Michel, played a key role. He received the Legion dHonneur, one of the highest official recognitions from the French Republic for those who made a difference by their actions, and was declared National Hero of France.





The Azerbaijani and French anthems were played once again, closing a moving ceremony in the midst of the woods in which Resistance members used to hide.





The Mayor of Vaissac then welcomed all participants to share drinks and a lunch. Andre Terrassier, one of the last surviving members of the French resistance from the Maquis de Cabertat, recalled: Yes, I knew Akmed Michel; he was very brave and always smiling. The son of one another Resistance member, named Rene Chambard, was also present. He shared his loving memories of Ahmadiyyas last visit to his father in 1977. He recalled the letters they exchanged where his father called Ahmadiyya his Brother in Arms.





The story of Ahmadiyya  born near Sheki  is one of patriotism, valour, luck, and tenacity. As one of the 240,000 Soviet soldiers taken prisoner whilst launching an offensive against the Nazis near the Izyum Bridge over the Don, Ahmadiyya was transferred to many camps, eventually ending up in a camp in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, near the Polish border, for Soviet soldiers from the Soviet Republics. Refusing to join the Nazi cause after promises were made regarding the independence of Azerbaijan following a Nazi victory, he decided to escape and rejoin the Red Army. Surviving forced labour and considered to be Jewish, he underwent sadistic experiments with hydrogen cyanide, was assisted by a Turkish-speaking cleaning woman and escaped using a the ruse of a fake burial, thereafter joining the French Resistance.





Often disguised in womens clothing, he blew up those restaurants and cafes known to be frequented by Nazi officers, and sabotaged bridges and railway lines. Nicknamed Kharko, the Gestapo placed a price of DM10,000 on his head, and he joined the Maquis of Cabertat in 1944. Following the liberation of Toulouse in September 1944, he met General Charles de Gaulle, and after the liberation of the MidiPyrenees, he joined the Third Hussars Regiment, with whom he participated in the Battle of the Vosges and the liberation of Mulhouse and Belfort.





Thereafter, he was forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, following the FrancoSoviet Pact, where was tortured by the NKVD and condemned to forced labour. However, his bravery was belatedly recognised in 1966, when President General de Gaulle made his second visit to the Soviet Union. By this time, he had returned to Sheki, but General de Gaulles request to see him resulted in overnight fame. He became a National Hero of France, and received the Croix de Guerre, the Cross of Military Valour and the Medal of the French Resistance, amongst other acknowledgements. Ahmadiyya also toured the regions of France that he helped to liberate, and met many of his Resistance friends. His life was ended at the age of 74 by a car accident in Sheki.





The story of Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov has formed the basis of several books and documentaries, and it is only fitting that his memory is revered in France  his second homeland.




Most successful schools across the globe are leveraging dynamic learning - a combination of four key ingredients - in order to prepare students to enter the jobs economy of the future, a report said.



The Problem Solvers, the new paper by leading authority on innovation and creativity Charlie Leadbeater launched in the Middle East today by Pearson, finds that education in successful schools worldwide is a dynamic activity, providing a combination of four elements, which will be useful in shaping education in the Middle East going forward.



These include:



 knowledge, starting with the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, moving onto knowledge of core content and then to higher order concepts and thinking skills;



 personal growth, including helping students to find a sense of purpose and ambition, and to build their resilience and persistence;



 social skills, to teach students how to deepen relationships with others, create dialogue and collaboration, and take action together to make and do things for and with other people; and



 agency, where students learn how to turn knowledge and ideas into action, to see that they can make a difference to the world.



The dynamic educators and pedagogy featured in the paper are successfully preparing students for a volatile world driven increasingly by innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition to an exploration of these four ingredients and examples of them in-action in schools around the world, the paper includes guiding discussion questions and resources for educators interested in implementing these ingredients in their classrooms.



Karim Daoud, managing director of Pearson in the Middle East, said: As governments across the Arab world seek to have education systems better meet the needs of increasingly diversified, globally orientated economies, this report provides answers on how we can best equip our current generation of learners with the type of education they need to thrive in the future world of work  an education that embraces innovation and that is highly dynamic.



Many countries in the Middle East have made great gains in providing high quality basic education. For example, literacy rates in Gulf states have soared in recent years. Looking to how education can now be furthered through the provision of 21st Century skills, and by harnessing the power of technology, is the next priority for educators in many parts of the region.



This report sheds light on how this can be best achieved and provides practical guidance on how we can create learners who are highly creative and innovative, and who will become positive contributors and global citizens of the future, he added.



Leadbeater said: Learning becomes more powerful when it becomes more dynamic. This happens when the elements overlap, when learning becomes a social, dialogic and collaborative activity; when knowledge is tested and put to use in the cause of making something; when learning becomes a personal journey requiring resilience and determination. Great places to learn are places where these four aspects of learning overlap, interact and gain momentum from one another.



As educators around the world work to adapt education systems and classrooms many are shifting from teaching that is focused on following instructions and rote memorization, for example, to teaching that provides students with critical thinking and problem solving opportunities.



Michael Barber, chief education adviser, Pearson, said: This paper is reflective of what we hear every day from our customers - schools, universities, governments and employers across the world - that education must do more to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in the modern world.



Literacy, numeracy and core knowledge are essential but not enough. Education today must prepare young people to flourish in a society awash with intelligent technology and to enter a job market shaped by rapid technological change; yet there are urgent challenges in the world that require human solutions from future leaders. The combination of learning elements identified by Leadbeater provides a recipe that, if adopted more widely, would produce a future workforce that is highly adaptable to leading change, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has launched Erteqa a new initiative which aims to increase the level of customer services across the telecoms sector in the country.



It will adopt six major standards for the evaluation of customer service centers and several minor criteria including rating the ease and smoothness of service delivery and the customers experience with employees in terms of professionalism, efficiency and interaction.



The ratings standards will also assess the service centers facilities, prominent display of products and services, as well their innovativeness.



Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, the director general of the TRA, said: "At the TRA, we believe that the customer should be at the heart and priority of our services to achieve excellence and promote leadership."



The UAE, he stated, puts its own touch when it comes to quality and excellence.



"This unique effort makes our standards different from anywhere else in the world, as we work to always become number one in our initiatives  having learned from our wise leadership to not compromise on excellence," remarked Al Mansoori.



Saleh Al Abdooli, the CEO of Etisalat Group, said: "It is our honour to be part of the Erteqa initiative, which reflects the strategic orientation of the UAE Government to promote happiness for individuals and society."



"In response to this initiative, Etisalat will mobilize our resources and human abilities towards innovation in the various fields to promote our services to a level where we can achieve the highest customer satisfaction and happiness," he added.



Osman Sultan, the chief executive of Du, said: "We are fully committed to following the methodology set forth by the TRA, and we are proud to play our role in developing services that enhance the happiness levels of individuals and communities in our society."



"As we grow our Smart City, we have come to the realisation that telecom services play a key role in day-to-day life and we are completely dedicated to steadfastly digitising and developing smart telecommunications services throughout the UAE. We are working hand in hand with our partners in this initiative, TRA and Etisalat, for the benefit our country and its progress," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
House of Fraser, a leading premium department store from the UK, recently celebrated Ramadan at its UAE branch in Abu Dhabi's Yas Mall. The festivities included a fashion show featuring local and international designers.

With the citys VIPs and media in attendance, the show kicked off in true Middle Eastern spirit with a hint of boho, a press release said.

Showcasing the portfolio of lifestyles House of Fraser caters for, the show moved seamlessly from the latest trends in jalabiyas, abayas to eveningwear, highlighting the range of unique and stylish brands the store is home to, the press release added.

Were excited to have just celebrated our one year anniversary and to have welcomed our guests to our annual Suhoor evening. Showcasing the best of International and local Arabic designers, we continue to focus on bringing the best fashion and styling tips to our discerning customers coupled with affordability said Mario Simunovic commercial director at House of Fraser.

The 100,000 sq.ft. department store in Yas Mall features over 200 brands including Wedgewood, Mosafer luggage, Diesel, Kurt Geiger, Valencia and Just Cavalli as well as regional designers such as USH Boutique, Rivaage Boutique, Kaleidoscope, Manal al Sharhan, Salta, Bedazzled, and Orkalia. TradeArabia News Service
UAE-based Islamic financial institution Emirates Islamic today launched the Bring Happiness social media campaign, which aims to connect people in need with those who can offer their support.

The initiative was launched to coincide with Zayed Humanitarian Work Day, and honour the memory of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, the bank said.

Users who register on the Bring Happiness web app via Emirates Islamics Facebook, Instagram and Twitter platforms are granted the opportunity to submit their wishes. Members of the community in the UAE can offer to provide support to fulfil these wishes, with the bank connecting the wish maker with the fulfiller.

Jamal Bin Ghalaita, CEO of Emirates Islamic, commented: In honour of Sheikh Zayed, we proudly launch the Bring Happiness campaign and establish a solid network of support that brings together the combined resources of those who can help and providing it to those who need it the most. At Emirates Islamic, we consider it our responsibility to give back to the community and hence the bank, through its charity fund, will also select several cases to assist. We hope to inspire and work with the community to come together and bring true happiness into peoples lives.

Since its launch in 2004, the bank has played an active role in supporting the community, it said. It recently launched Emirates Islamic Charity Fund which aims to disburse more than AED 50 million in charitable contributions in 2016 under its main pillars of food, shelter, health, education and social welfare. TradeArabia News Service
The owners of National Foods Products Company (NFPC) have abandoned the sale of a majority stake in the Abu Dhabi-based firm after final round bids failed to meet their valuation, sources aware of the matter said on Wednesday.



Shareholders in NFPC, one of the largest food and dairy manufacturers in the UAE, whose brands include Milco, Lacnor and Oasis bottled water, had been aiming to raise up to $1.5 billion from the sale of up to 51 per cent of NFPC.



However, none of the final round bids which had been due by a June 9 deadline was acceptable to the board of NFPC and the planned sale was pulled, according to two UAE-based sources who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information isn't public.



NFPC couldn't be reached for comment.



Those who had expressed initial interest included US private equity giant KKR in partnership with Dubai-based investment house Fajr Capital and Saudi Arabian dairy firm Almarai, sources had said last month.



However, the KKR and Fajr team did not ultimately lodge a final bid, according to two separate sources and one of the UAE-based sources, who added Almarai expressed interest in negotiating a transaction but with a number of conditions.



Aseer Al Arabia for Industrial Investment, a Saudi firm which owns a majority stake in food producer Halwani Bros , did submit a bid, the UAE-based source added.



KKR and Fajr declined to comment. Almarai couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Aseer Al-Arabia couldn't be reached for comment.



One of the main points of contention was NFPC's plans to shift most of its production to a new facility in the Kizad industrial free zone in Abu Dhabi, with bidders concerned about the expense and disruption such a move would cause, the UAE-based source and another source said.



NFPC broke ground on the 752,000 sq m facility in February, with operations expected to start in the first quarter of 2018, local press reports stated earlier this year.



NFPC, which also has a joint venture with Danish dairy giant Arla Foods, was founded by Lebanese-born businessman Fady Antonios and the local Bin Hamoodah group.



Emirates Investment Bank was advising the sellers.-Reuters
Young Adipec, the annual youth outreach initiative by the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), has announced it is partnering with the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) as part of government efforts to cultivate the next generation of home-grown energy professionals.

The first-time cooperation between the two entities will enable Young Adipec to relay a strong and powerful message to the wider school community: The future of the UAEs energy sector depends on todays educated and informed youth, Adipec said in a statement.

Held under the patronage of Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Young Adipec is aimed at educating high school students between the ages of 14 and 17 about the wealth and diversity of career opportunities in the energy sector, encouraging them to pursue studies in the fields of science and engineering, and spreading awareness about these specialties.

Through the support of Adec, which involves raising awareness about the initiative through the Councils official communication channels, Young AdipecC plans to recruit and engage more students than ever before, with the expected participation of 450 pupils from 18 schools  4 private and 14 public  across Abu Dhabi. This marks a remarkable 26 per cent increase over the number of students who participated in the programme last year. More than 700 students from across the UAE have passed through the programme since its inception in 2013, the statement said.

Mohammed Salem Al Dhaheri, Adecs School operations executive director, lauded efforts exerted by Young Adipec, adding that students will gain a wealth of knowledge in fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Stem), as well as experience research and teamwork spirit.

Encouraging youth to innovate and create is crucial for industry development, which is exactly why this initiative is timely, said Al Dhaheri. Our aim is to engage students in as many activities as possible that will motivate them to learn and explore, all in favour of preparing a curious, well-read and equipped workforce that will help further fructify the economy.

Ali Khalifa Al Shamsi, CEO of Al Yasat Petroleum Operations Company and Adipec 2016 chairman, said: As the global energy mix evolves, so does the skillset required for those who work in the industry. Technology, research, innovation, and application are playing a central role in driving industry progress, and prospective candidates must be equipped with the ability to be agile in such a dynamic business environment in order to succeed. I am confident that with the communitys firm support  that is the support of parents, educators, and employers  we can help inspire our children today to become the energy leaders of tomorrow.

In the first phase of Young Adipec, students will have an exciting opportunity to get hands-on experience during trips to oil field sites, training centres, innovation centres, as well as workshop and manufacturing facilities belonging to leading oil and gas companies. These include the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations Ltd., (Adco), Al Mansoori Specialized Engineering, Al Mazroui Engineering, Borouge, the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), Schlumberger, Takreer, and Weatherford.

The second phase of the Young Adipec programme will be an experiential and edutainment component that will enable students to explore different aspects of the industry.

Following significant success, the Young Adipec Photo Competition is back, this time with Lights of the City as the theme. As part of the programmes efforts to raise awareness about energy consumption, students are being invited to capture on camera how human civilisation consumes energy to light up a single city.

A host of other activities taking place at the Young Adipec stand during the event will raise the bar for edutainment, with 7 Experience Zones designed to keep students fully engaged.

Four new activity streams include the Health and Safety Zone, which will give students an opportunity to learn about the importance of workplace safety through a series of hands-on sessions that look at safety regulations, equipment selection, and the available solutions for all occupational safety requirements. The new Engineering Zone will allow students to develop their problem solving, team work, and big thinking skills by inviting them to design and build a prototype of a specific project.

Meanwhile, the Virtual Reality Field Operation Simulator Game Zone by Al Mazroui Engineering will give students an opportunity to experience what it is like to work on the field through state-of-the-art simulation technology. Meanwhile, The Future Leadership Workshop will offer students a non-traditional learning platform that serves as a positive change agent, community builder, business school think-tank, and research centre all rolled into one.

The three remaining zones include The Petroleum Institute Educational Zone, where students will be invited to carry out live experiments, a Video Wall, which will display filmed diaries from the school field trips, as well as a dedicated Photo Competition Wall that will showcase the shortlisted photography entries. Students will also have an opportunity to participate in a treasure hunt that will require them to successfully complete a series of industry-related tasks.

The sponsors of Young Adipec are the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) the Arab Development Company (Ardeco), Weatherford, Al Mazroui Engineering, ExxonMobil, Partex, and Ali & Sons Oilfield Supplies & Services. -- TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed global oil market conditions and efforts to maintain its stability with US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.

In a brief statement, SPA said the two men talked about "supporting joint efforts for the stability of the energy markets and providing energy to world markets in a sustainable manner." It gave no further details.

Prince Mohammed, the son of King Salman, is on a visit to the United States aimed at restoring frayed relations with Washington and to promote an economic plan to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil revenues.

He is in New York this week, mainly for meetings with business leaders and investment bankers, after visits to Washington and the US West Coast.

Prince Mohammed is overseeing Saudi Arabia's ambitious economic plan - known as Vision 2030 - aimed at transforming the kingdom into a global investment power.

A key part of Saudi's Vision 2030 is the restructuring of its Public Investment Fund (PIF), which would become a hub for Saudi investment abroad, and a partial privatisation of its state oil giant Saudi Aramco via a stock market listing. --Reuters
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) 2015 oil export revenues slumped 46 percent to a 10-year low, the group said in a report published on Wednesday, underlining the impact on producers' income from a collapse in prices.

Oil prices at about $50 a barrel are half their level in mid-2014, pressured by oversupply. Opec's decision in November 2014 to not cut supply, hoping a drop in prices would curb supply from competitors, deepened the decline.

With income falling, the 13 members of the Opec posted a combined current account deficit of $99.60 billion in 2015, compared with a surplus of $238.10 billion in 2014.

They earned $518.2 billion from petroleum exports last year, Opec said in its Annual Statistical Bulletin, the lowest level since 2005.

"The last time Opec recorded a current account deficit was in 1998," the report said. Prices sank to $10 that year because of a global surplus.

Opecs crude oil exports rose only "slightly" last year to 23.60 million barrels per day (bpd), up 1.7 percent from 23.20 million bpd the previous year, the report said.

The Opec publication doesn't forecast 2016 income. But a report earlier this month from the US Energy Information Administration said 2016 oil export revenues will probably fall 15 percent before rising in 2017.

Opec's proven crude oil reserves rose by 0.1 per cent last year and it maintained its share of 81.2 percent of the world total, the Opec report said. --Reuters
Australia is in pole position to capture a bigger piece of the growing Asian condensate market, with producers pumping new supplies of the ultra-light oil as natural gas output soars to feed the nation's mega LNG projects.

An Australian wave of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply has helped pull Asian LNG prices down by 75 percent since 2014 LNG-AS, so selling more lucrative condensate to Asian buyers could give a lifeline to less profitable projects.

Australia's Ichthys LNG export project, for instance, operated by Japan's Inpex Corp, could produce more than 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate when it starts up next year.

"The fact that the project is liquid-rich is one of the reasons that this project is economically in good standing," an Inpex spokesman said, adding that the company has started marketing its condensate, primarily to customers in Asia.

Condensate is a light oil produced in association with natural gas, and its consumption is rising across Asia as new refineries or splitters come online to meet strong demand for it to be used to make the chemical feedstock naphtha.

Besides Inpex, Chevron Corp plans to produce 38,000 bpd of condensate once it ramps up its Gorgon LNG project on Barrow Island off the northwest coast of Western Australia.

Chevron declined to comment for this article.

The circle of condensate suppliers is small, though, and Australia has the inside track on selling to Asia, especially with some Middle East producers building their own splitters.

"The outlook is quite pessimistic (for buyers) as sweet condensate supplies are very limited," said an Asian oil buyer who declined to be named due to company policy.

Qatar, a traditional exporter to Asia, plans to divert a third of its output to its own splitter by January.

Rival producer Iran could fill some of that shortfall, and it has stepped up exports to South Korea following the lifting of sanctions against Tehran, hitting a record in June.

Quality issues with Iran's condensate, however, limit its attraction to buyers. The outlook on its supplies is also murky on delays in the start-up of its splitter projects and a ramp-up of production from its South Pars field.

Premiums for Qatari condensate loading in February hit a record, but have since fallen back on weak naphtha margins. The rise in condensate use as splitters start up from September could drive premiums higher again, traders said.

CUTTING ASIA NAPHTHA SHORTFALL

Asia's petrochemical makers are net short of naphtha, although that deficit is expected to fall as much as 5.5 percent next year to 5.2 million to 5.3 million tonnes a month, according to Premasish Das, director for Asia and Middle East downstream oil markets at energy consultancy IHS.

The drop will come as condensate splitters that were planned a few years back to capture growth in petrochemical markets come online in Asia to feed adjacent paraxylene units.

Combined condensate supplies from Ichthys and Gorgon of almost 140,000 bpd will initially meet a rise in Asian splitter capacity of 160,000 bpd in Taiwan and South Korea between late 2016 and early 2017.

Two more splitters, one in Singapore and one China, are also set to restart following unplanned outages, and at some point will add back another 190,000 bpd in condensate demand, tightening the market for the light oil.

That means Asian naphtha buyers will take up less of a current global surplus, further undermining profit margins for the light oil product.

Benchmark Singapore naphtha refinery margins NAF-SIN-CRK from refining a barrel of Brent crude, have already tumbled more than 60 percent since the beginning of the year to around $54 per tonne on June 21. --Reuters
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, may return to its role of balancing oil supply and demand after the recovery of the global market, the country's energy minister indicated in comments published on Wednesday.



"Despite the surplus in global oil production and lower prices, the focus of attention remains on countries such as Saudi Arabia which, due to its strategic importance, will be expected to balance supply and demand once market conditions recover," Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih was quoted as saying by state oil company Saudi Aramco.



"The Kingdom's oil policies are rooted in responsibility, and Saudi Arabia is seeking to maintain that balance while also giving heed to moderate prices for producers and consumers," Al-Falih said in the statement on Aramco's website. He made the comments in the United States where he is accompanying Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.



Saudi Arabia, Opec's de-facto leader, effectively abandoned its swing producer role in 2014 when it led Opec's policy shift by refusing to cut production to support oil prices and allow the market to balance itself without interference.



Oil has risen to $50 a barrel, up 85 per cent from a 12-year low reached in January as supply outages in Nigeria and Canada reduced the need to prop up prices. At its most recent meeting, in June, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) made no change to its pump-at-will output policy.



On Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle newspaper quoted Falih as saying the global supply glut "has disappeared".



"The question now is how fast you will work off the global inventory overhang," Falih told the newspaper.



"That will remain to put a cap on the rate at which oil prices recover. We just have to wait for the second half of the year and next year to see how that works out," he added, according to the newspaper.  Reuters
Turkish Airlines today launched flights to Kosice, the urban centre of Eastern Slovakia, from Istanbul.



Kosice becomes the 289th destination for the carrier, which will operate flights to the Slovakian city three times per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in both directions



Introductory trip fares are available from Istanbul to Kosice starting from $99 and from Kosice to Istanbul at $111, inclusive of taxes and fees.



Additionally, for the first six months of operation to the new destination, there is a special offer for Miles&Smiles members, with a 25 per cent reduction in the miles needed to redeem either award tickets or upgrades. - TradeArabia News Service


Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh has welcomed Ramzi Al-Aridi as the property's new Oriental pastry chef.



Chef Al-Aridis love for pastries started early in life, as it often does for esteemed chefs. He said: When I was a child I spent my free time with my mother in the kitchen doing pastries and trying out new desserts. I always looked forward to that one day of the week where my mother would allow me some time with her at the kitchen to help her. My mothers teachings and effort instigated my techniques and dedication, and shaped me into the chef I am today.



Chef Al-Aridis passion took a serious turn when he opened his own pastry shop in Lebanon. I grew up with the goal of opening my own pastry shop; to reach that goal I had to finish my studies first in order to be fully committed to my shop.



After almost 11 years of running his own pastry shop, chef Al-Aridi decided to switch things up and move to work in the hospitality industry. I had gained sufficient experience that enriched my knowledge in pastries, and then I felt like it was the right time to begin a new chapter in my life," said the chef. To begin his new journey chef Al-Aridi started working at the renowned Hotel Phoenicia Intercontinental Lebanon, starting as junior chef and then being promoted to Oriental pastry chef. After 13 years of working at the Intercontinental, chef Al-Aridi joined the Four Seasons family as an Oriental pastry chef.



Guests wishing to have a taste of the chef's Oriental pastries can stop by at the pastry corner found at Elements restaurant, which is located on the hotels ground floor. - TradeArabia News Service
U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahls decision this week to block the Interior Departments proposed hydraulic fracturing rule set the stage for a fresh battle over Washingtons authority to manage public lands in the West.

Industry representatives and state officials called the ruling a victory in their battle against the Obama administration, saying the decision showed federal officials had strayed beyond the boundaries of their authority.

But environmentalists charged Skavdahl with disregarding decades of established law, arguing the decision undermines the U.S. Bureau of Land Managements ability to meet its statutory obligations and threatens the governments ability to protect the environment. They promised an appeal.

What the judge has done here is open another front in the Sagebrush Rebellion, said Fred Cheever, co-director of the Environmental Law and Natural Resources Program at the University of Denvers Strum College of Law. What he is really doing is questioning the federal governments ownership of land in the American West.

The decision represents a win for Wyoming and three other states, which had argued the Interior Department had overstepped the bounds of its legal authority.

Congress did not give BLM the power to regulate fracking, they said. Instead, it vested that authority with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, though even in that instance the EPAs oversight was limited to a rare type of fracking.

Skavdahl agreed, writing in a 27-page decision, The BLM has attempted an end-run around the 2005 EP Act; however, regulation of an activity must be by Congressional authority, not administrative fiat.

The ruling has particular importance in Wyoming. While the majority of wells fracked in the United States are located on state and private land, roughly half the states production comes from federal land.

State officials had long maintained that the federal rules were duplicative. Wyoming became the first state to regulate fracking in 2010, and state officials argued their federal counterparts were merely creating unnecessary confusion for companies working on public land.

The court got it right, Gov. Matt Mead said in a statement. This is of particular importance not only to Wyoming, but the country. I have and I will continue to aggressively assert Wyomings authority when threatened by federal overreach.

Interior officials maintained the federal rules were out of date, having been put in place more than 30 years ago.

A department spokeswoman did not respond to a question about an appeal, saying instead, the BLMs modernized fracking requirements reflect todays industry practices and are aimed at ensuring adequate well control, preventing groundwater contamination and increasing transparency about the materials used in the fracturing process.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is already considering a challenge to the preliminary injunction Skavdahl issued in the case last year, when he delayed the rules implementation. Observers said they expected that challenge to now be consolidated with appeals to Skavdahls recent ruling.

Michael Freeman, an attorney with Earthjustice, which intervened in the case on the governments behalf, said the group intends to appeal the ruling.

But now there is potentially more at stake than just fracking. The BLM is set to finalize rules on flaring and venting, the practice of disposing excess natural gas from oil wells into the atmosphere, and industry representatives have already hinted at a coming legal challenge.

This ruling foretells an uphill battle for the BLM in its proposed methane venting and flaring rules, which are similarly aimed at expanding BLMs control over environmental factors typically controlled by Congress or the EPA, said Jeffrey Reeser, an industry lawyer and partner at the law firm Sherman & Howard.

Environmentalists said the ruling would have sweeping consequences. The Federal Land Management Policy Act, which has long governed the BLM, gives the bureau broad powers to regulate land use on the properties it manages, said Mark Squillace, a professor of environmental law at the University of Colorado. More specifically, the law directs the BLM to prevent degradation to the land, he said.

I dont understand how the judge could reach the conclusion, said Squillace, who once taught Skavdahl and is now a part of a group of law professors seeking to overturn the judges ruling.

Others went further still. The BLMs fracking rule differs from other regulations in that it concerns land managed by the government, said Cheever, the University of Denver professor.

The federal governments decisions to paint a ranger station in Yellowstone, repair a road or lease land for oil and gas development is fundamentally different from its authority to tell you to wear a seat belt or an employer pay a minimum wage, he said. One is based on ownership, one is based on regulatory authority.

Congress cannot write a statute long enough to foresee all the challenges of land ownership. That is why federal agencies are given broad power to manage the land under their authority, he said.

Industry representatives, for their part, expressed doubts over such arguments. The ruling was blocked not because the BLM lacked regulatory authority, but because Congress specifically vested the power to oversee fracking with the EPA, they said.

Indeed, the challenge filed from industry groups charged the BLM with failing to follow the administrative procedure in implementing the rule. Industry never argued the BLM lacked general regulatory authority over oil and gas operations, said Mark Barron, an attorney with BakerHostetler who represented industry groups in the case.

Opponents of the ruling have broadened the ruling bigger than it is, he said. We can both be right. BLM can have general regulatory authority. Congress doesnt have to enumerate everything that is going to come up. It has to give some discretion for managing the land. But of fracking, he added, It just means Congress has spoken to this one specific technique expressly.
Korean peace medal presentation

Republic of Korea Consul General SHIN Chae-Hyun of San Francisco will be joining Governor Matt Mead to present the Republic of Korea Ambassador for Peace Medal to Wyoming veterans at 11:30 a.m., on Thursday, June 30, at the Parkway Plaza Hotel. The public is welcome to attend.

Concert at

Mountain Plaza

Mountain Plaza Assisted Living, 4154 Talon Dr., will host violin students of Kaylah Maue at 10:30 a.m. June 25.

Free Wednesday lectures at fort

Fort Caspar Museum is pleased to announce its annual free summer lecture series for 2016. The lectures will be held on seven consecutive Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm, through July 20. Each presentation will focus on a different Impression on Wyoming, from past to present and from east to west. These free programs are funded in part by the Fort Caspar Museum Association and the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Each lecture will take place in the Multi-Use Room at Fort Caspar Museum. The programs are adult focused and will last approximately 60 minutes, including the lecture and a discussion opportunity. Most of the talks will feature a PowerPoint presentation, and if the speaker has published on a relevant topic, the lecture will conclude with a book signing.

Here are the dates, speakers, and their topics for the other six free summer lectures:

June 29, Ray Maple will delve into the complex biography Tom ODay; July 6, Tom Rea will talk about Wyoming Bone Wars; July 13, Phil Roberts will explore Wyoming Prohibition; and finally, July 20, John Farr will present Wyoming: Sheepherders State.

For more information, contact the museum at 235-8462 or check the Fort Caspar Museum website, www.fortcasparwyoming.com. Fort Caspar Museum is located at 4001 Fort Caspar Road.

Rock painting

Do you like to paint? And would like to paint on rocks? Then come join us on Saturday, July 2 at 2 p.m. for our monthly adult-level crafting program. You will be able to paint your favorite animal, flower or thing on your own special rock. Supplies and space limited. Creating opportunities for adult creativity and interaction, Craftastic Saturday is free and open to ages 18 and up, and held the first Saturday of every month. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Adult coloring club

Drop by the Natrona County Library anytime between 2 and 5 p.m. on Friday, July 1 for our Adult Coloring Club. Coloring books and pages will be available for you to turn into works of art. Colored pencils, crayons, and markers also will be provided. Just bring yourself and your friends, and enjoy the afternoon. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Meeting set to talk museum expansion

As a result of the hard-working efforts of the late Joye Kading and her volunteers over the past 16 years, the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum is a modern museum, operated by the Wyoming Military Department. The museum remains in the World War II Enlisted Service Mans Club at 3740 Jourgensen Avenue, at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport.

As a testimony to how well Joyes vision has succeeded, the museum has now outgrown its historic building. Accordingly, the Wyoming Military Department has been directed by the Governor of Wyoming and Wyoming State Legislature to perform a Level I/Level II study on the feasibility of constructing a significantly expanded Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum.

A public meeting is required, to provide members of the general public, veterans, and interested citizens, voters and taxpayers an opportunity to comment upon the concept, design, budget and approach for this expanded museum.

The public meeting will be held at the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum, 3740 Jourgensen Avenue, on Saturday, June 25, 2016. Doors will open at 11 a.m. The full expanded museum concept will be available for viewing, and design team members will be available to answer questions, at that time.

The formal public meeting will begin at noon. The meeting is scheduled to last one hour.

Refreshments will be provided by the museum, and no registration or RSVP is required.

For additional information, or for any questions, contact Douglas R. Cubbison, curator, or John Goss, director, Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum, 472-1857, douglas.cubbison@wyo.gov, john.goss@wyo.gov.

New displays at senior center

What is Zentangle? Zentangle is a fun, relaxing ,easy method of drawing that creates structured images.

Visit the Senior Center at 1831 E. 4th St. to view this fascinating display of amazing drawings by local artists. Also featured is a collection of Japanese collectibles including pottery, clothing, dishes and more.

For more information, call 265-4678.

Veteran Cigar Night

Every Wednesday from 5:30 to 7 p.m., all veterans are invited to Veteran Cigar Night at the Casper Cigar Company, 4717 W. Yellowstone Highway, sponsored by Casper Cigar Company. There is no cost to attend.

This is a time and place for our communitys combat veterans to relax and share their stories with other combat veterans while enjoying a good cigar. Veterans receive 20 percent off cigars. For more information, call Josh Cruse at 307-337-4400 or josh@caspercigar.com

Downtown walking tours

Casper Theater Company will present two downtown walking tours this summer. All tours are $25 per person and reservations are required.

The Casper Ghost Tour will begin at 8:30 p.m., on Thursdays and Fridays, July 15 through July 29. The Ghost Tour guide will provide you with information on downtown hauntings in buildings, alleys, and businesses. She will take you on a 90-minute tour through the alleys of downtown talking about strange phenomenon seen by citizens, business owners and employees of several locations in the downtown area. You will learn about some locations such as Eggingtons, Wonder Bar, Wolfords, Lou Tauberts, the Downtown Parking Garage, the two movie theaters and much more. Tickets are $25 per person and a reservation is needed by calling 267-7243.

The Sand Bar Tour will be a murder mystery walking tour. The tour guide will take you for a walk on the Sand Bar at 7:30 p.m., where you will come upon a victim of the times. There will be characters to will meet all of which had a motive. Each character will talk with you and tell you about their life on the Sand Bar, businesses, painted ladies, bootleggers, and gamblers. All will culminate at the end to find out Who Dun It? Tickets are $25 and the tour runs two weekends, Friday and Saturday, September 9-10 and 16-17. Reservations are required by calling 267-7243.

If you have any questions about either tours please call Casper Theater Company at the above number, or email us at caspertheatercompany@gmail.com Our website is www.caspertheatercompany.net
1. Why are you running?

I believe civic engagement is at the core of a strong community. I value the opportunities our nation has given us to be a part of the process in how we shape and develop our State. I am running because Wyoming needs new leaders to move this state forward. Our state needs a new vision and a more diverse economy. We need to attract new businesses, encourage entrepreneurship, and harness our great business environment. My education and work experience have provided me a strong foundation in private and public sector knowledge  knowledge that can be used to serve the citizens of the State of Wyoming to improve the economy and increase the efficiency of government. I am the only candidate for this position that can call Wyoming my home state and District 9 my home district. We need people with ties to the community like mine to fight for our constituents every single day.

2. What are the most pressing issues facing your constituents and how should they be addressed?

Our state faces numerous issues. The most pressing issue we have is the diversification of our economy. We need economic diversity in order to secure our states future. Wyoming must attract, retain, and enhance our workforce through effective policy decisions. We lose half of our potential workforce from the University of Wyoming to other states. I will fight to retain that knowledge and provide opportunities to gain experience in Wyoming. Our budget will not fix itself. This is not a bust, but rather a strategic shift for how Wyoming will conduct business from this point forward.

3. During the past session, lawmakers cut state agencies, education and social programs to address the decline in revenue. What do you see as the path forward in coming years?

Evaluation of the States mission is critical in determining a path forward. We must look at what duties and responsibilities the state is required to provide and then evaluate the programmatic impacts of discretionary spending. I feel that we can look individually at our state agencies on a programmatic level and find savings, rather than slashing budgets across the board. An across the board approach has proven ineffective and we need to work with agency directors to identify the return on the investments that the citizens of Wyoming are paying for.

4. Feel free to address philosophical perspectives you think would help voters make a good decision in your race.

As one of the youngest candidates for our State Legislature, I bring a new and fresh perspective to the issues our state is facing. We need leaders who are willing to step out of the box and try new options. I will work every day to improve government, expand our states business directory, and continue to maximize the return on investment to our education system. I believe we need to expand Medicaid to the citizens of Wyoming  I dont want our money being used for other states expansion. We need to take care of Wyomings citizens first! It takes a true leader to navigate a crisis like what we are experiencing. I will work every day to bring all of Wyomings values to the House floor. I may be elected to represent House District 09, but I will always fight for the entire State of Wyoming and our future.
The gunman killed by police after he fired into homes in a central Casper neighborhood has been identified.

The Natrona County Coroners Office says the shooter was 50-year-old Jeffrey A. Hyde.

Police say Hyde fired at officers who were responding to reports of a gunman shooting into homes near First and Fenway streets on Tuesday night.

No officers were hit. One neighbor suffered cuts from broken glass.

Police received calls at about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday reporting that a man was shooting at homes. When they arrived, officers from the Casper and Mills police departments  who were joined by Natrona County sheriffs deputies and Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers  found Hyde with a rifle on the front porch of his home.

Police have described the weapon as an assault-type rifle.

Authorities say Hyde ignored officers commands to surrender. Neighbors told the Star-Tribune they saw him retreat into a home, then reappear multiple times.

As some point, Hyde emerged again, this time with a rifle, which he used to fire multiple rounds at officers, police said. A Mills police officer returned fire and killed Hyde.

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into the incident.
A Rawlins lawyer was awarded a lifetime achievement honor recently at a convention in Jackson.

Fred Harrison is a trial lawyer with a statewide civil trial practice. He also served 10 years in the state House of Representatives, representing Carbon County.

According to the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award is given to a trial lawyer who over the course of a career, in the opinion of peers in the profession, best exemplifies the highest skills and ethical principles of the trial lawyer.

Harrison plans to move his main office to Cheyenne but continue his statewide and federal trial practice in Wyoming and maintain a presence in Rawlins as well. He recently became co-counsel to the firm Vickery & Shepherd.
When it comes to taxes, the Cowboy State bucks national trends.

Wyoming lacks a state income tax. The 2-cents-a-gallon beer tax is the lowest in the country and hasnt increased since it was introduced in 1933. The 60-cent a pack cigarette tax falls well below the national average of $1.58 and is blamed for the states higher-than-average smoking rate.

Yet as Gov. Matt Mead discussed his plan to slash $248 million from the states budget, he said he generally opposes raising taxes to shore up the states finances.

Before we look for new revenue sources, I think we ought to have clearly defined (answers to questions such as) what are appropriate expenditures at the state level? And what (are) our available current monies? the Republican said during a Tuesday news conference in his Cheyenne office. And so if we are going to say we need to tax people, I think the public has to be very confident that we are spending appropriately.

Mead also said the Legislature still hasnt created a policy to define the appropriate amount for its rainy day fund  which at $1.8 billion stands out nationally as being among the nations largest relative to the size of the states general fund. Nor have lawmakers specified when to actually spend it.

Youre on a fixed income, you get news the state is going to tax you, I would ask, What is the rainy day fund for? the governor said. So I think that discussion  whether it is wind tax or whether it is tobacco tax  I think that there are certainly some questions that need to be answered before we go down that road.

In many parts of the country, the income tax provides the majority of a states revenues. In Wyoming, 70 percent of revenues come from oil, natural gas, coal and other minerals. That makes the states revenue volatility the second highest in the nation, with windfalls and generous services during the boom times and deep cuts during busts.

If you raise taxes, you have to ask, Who is paying those? Mead said. If 70 percent of the payment comes from mineral companies and theyre already leaving the state and theyre already bankrupt, are you helping or hurting the revenue situation?

A huge hurdle

Marian Smith Orr is a longtime legislative observer and lobbyist. She thinks Wyoming will remain without an income tax.

It draws people to Wyoming and we pride ourselves in not having an income tax, she said.

Orr, who has watched the Legislature for 20 years, said she expects the state to continue reducing spending. The Legislature has a Republican supermajority and a tax proposal would face an uphill battle.

I think a lot of people forget this, or dont keep it in mind, that any bill that increases revenue has to start in the House, she said. If you look at the makeup of our House, I believe theyre much more conservative than the Senate. ... Thats a huge hurdle, a big leap.

Members of the Wyoming House face re-election every two years.

The ultraconservative Wyoming Liberty Group recently sent all state and federal candidates a request to sign a pledge that would require them to oppose any effort to increase taxes or create new ones.

The Liberty Group was founded by Susan Gore, an heiress to the Gore-Tex waterproof fabric fortune. Forbes last year named the Gore family Americas 59th wealthiest, with a combined fortune of $5.2 billion. Candidates whose positions fall in line with the Liberty Groups can benefit from Susan Gores largess. In 2014, she gave most legislative candidates whom she supported $1,000 each, for a total of $17,300 during the election cycle, according to state campaign finance data.

But the Liberty Groups pledge may not be successful, said Orr, the lobbyist in Cheyenne.

When it comes to signing pledges, our legislators are very hesitant to sign any kind of pledge, she said. Those usually dont carry much weight.

Many options

Brianna Jones, executive director of the Equality State Policy Center, a government watchdog organization, said Wyomings economy may be undergoing a structural change, as utilities move away from coal and toward renewables and natural gas.

She thinks taxes should be considered among the options for the states future.

I dont know if its realistic to think coal money is coming back, Jones said. I think its realistic to review all revenue options. I dont think its realistic to say, No taxes, no way, whatsoever. We know that we have a highly commoditiesdriven revenue stream. It behooves us.

Last month, a proposal to allow cities and towns to have the flexibility to implement a food tax was unpalatable to a legislative panel, and members opted against drafting a bill for consideration before the entire Legislature.

The American Cancer Societys Cancer Action Network, which has lobbied for a hike in the taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, blames the states low tobacco taxes for the 1.1 million estimated packs of cigarettes smoked annually by Wyoming kids under age 18.

The group says Wyoming Medicaid spends $44.8 million a year treating people for health issues related to tobacco use.

Last fall, lawmakers briefly considered but ultimately snuffed out a proposal to raise tobacco taxes to boost the Tobacco Settlement Trust Income Account, which earns money from cigarette companies as a result of a 1998 lawsuit. The account is expected to have a shortfall in two years.

Yet its unclear how the state will balance the budget in the future  if commodities prices dont improve.

Mead told the press on Tuesday that there isnt much more to cut from state agencies.

We are approaching a point that to cut much deeper you are in fact having an agency not meet its assigned mission, he said.
The Beaver Creek Fire has consumed 5,368 acres, and its only a few miles from the Cowboy State.

Another wildfire, meanwhile, has charred about 1,400 acres in Crook County. And hot, dry and windy conditions prompted the National Weather Service in Riverton to issue fire warnings for much of Natrona County, along with most of the northeastern part of the state.

The Beaver Creek fire began last Sunday and is burning about 15 miles northwest of Walden, Colorado, roughly 2 miles south of the Wyoming border.

The fire is not really moving in that direction right now, though, Aaron Voos said, who works in public affairs with the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests & Thunder Basin National Grassland.

(But) the fire has made a liar out of me a couple times already in the last few days. First it was moving north, and we thought it was continuing in that direction, and then it moved east, and then it started moving south a little bit. I would say that nothing is out of question. With this fire, it can move in any direction depending on what the winds do. Thats really what determines the direction.

For now, Voos said smoke is the only effect Wyoming should expect from the Type II wildfire. Due to the fire burning heavy timber, communities like Saratoga, Laramie and even Cheyenne will all experience smoke.

The Beaver Creek Fire is not the only blaze affecting Wyoming. Another wildfire, the Douglas Road Fire, is burning southwest of Sundance. It has consumed roughly 1,400 acres.

Its moving westward, said Jeff Garman, Crook County fire warden. We kind of got it stopped for now, but the wind is really kicking this fire up.

The blaze, which started via lightning, was about 20 percent contained around noon Thursday. Garman was hoping to increase that percentage oiver the next 24 hours. The fire has not affected any homes, but it did burn a shop.

The American Red Cross of Wyoming has opened a shelter at the Crook County Fairgrounds to provide shelter and information for evacuees.

Theres maybe about 75 homes possibly in the path, depending on which way the winds go, said Pat Kondas, community volunteer leader for the American Red Cross of Wyoming. Red Cross has opened this shelter, and well keep it open as long as they ask us to.

Meanwhile, in central Wyoming, the Natrona County Fire Department reported Thursday it had responded to four smoke investigations in the past 24 hours. Fires in Colorado, the southwest and other parts of Wyoming have brought smoke and haze to the Casper area, the department said on its Facebook page.

Given the dry and hot conditions, local fire officials advised people to take care when operating heavy machinery and throwing away cigarettes.
Paint-streaked aprons are donned. Wine is poured. Laughs are had.

Inna Rohr, owner of Hues n Booze  a mobile painting party company  stands in front of the group, instructing them on what theyll be working on for the evening.

Tonight is her business one-year anniversary and shes celebrating with wine and painting at Cafe a la CArt, downtown. The subject du jour, koi.

Koi are good luck, Rohr says. And theyre kind.

Orlando Ortiz, a friend of Rohr, dishes out Styrofoam plates  which will serve as palettes  with globs of paint on them.

Dinner, Rohr jokes.

Once everyone settles in with their wine and paint, its time to get started. Rohr demonstrates how to draw the shape of the koi.

Make sure when you get to his head, its a squared-off head, Rohr says. Now were gonna get wild with the fan brush. Woohoo!

Once the shape is drawn, its time to add the background color  bluish green for water.

We cant just use blue, Rohr says. Were fancy.

As she explains how to make a gradient with different shades of blue, several participants  unsure of what theyre doing  make faces. But Rohr is quick to make them feel better.

This is the part where we get creative and you can add your own colors, Rohr says. So far, how is it going?

Liberating, one woman says from across the room.

That reaction is what Rohr loves about teaching people how to paint.

I love seeing peoples eyes light up when they realize they actually can paint. Love seeing people get in the zone. Its so meditative, Rohr says. I can just see how they let go of their daily worries, at least for a little bit. Smiles and laughter during the class, seeing people enjoy themselves and loving their results  its priceless to me. I encourage everyone to release their creativity and just play.

Hues n Booze is one of a handful of paint and sip party options. The company will go to any location for any type of party  public events, bridal showers, birthday parties, fundraisers, family gatherings, team building events and more.

It was born of Rohrs love of art.

Im an artist and wanted to share my passion for painting with everyone, Rohr says. I love people, teaching and enjoy a great party, so I thought why not combine those? We are all so creative, if we let ourselves, and I wanted to show people that they too can experience the joys of painting and creativity in a very relaxed and personal environment where everyone is welcome.

Hues n Booze provides everything you need to paint  aprons, paint, brushes, canvas and instruction. Class is taught in a simple step-by-step manner, so anybody  from novice to pro  can finish a painting.

I thought it was going to be harder, says Michael Howell, a first time participant. But, she makes it seem easy.

As the class works on adding details to the water, laughter erupts from one side of the room.

Oh, thats beautiful, Howell jokes with his mother, Cynthia Howell.

Pamela Biletnikoff, who recently moved to Tucson from Mississippi, says that as a teacher she used to paint a lot, but considers herself more of a creative crafter than artist.

Its her first time at a paint and sip party and she loves it.

Rohr makes the rounds, asking people if they need help and providing input.

I dont know what Im doing, a student says.

Well, its working, Rohr replies.

After a few rounds and a few more times up front, demonstrating technique, the paintings are complete.

Now, its the most important part, your signature, Rohr says. Sign it, put it on ebay and make some money.

Creative Juice Art Bar

About 20 people arrive, each one grabbing their drink  wine or beer  paint and aprons, at the brightly lit studio space at Creative Juice, an eastside paint and sip studio, on a recent Thursday evening.

Tonight is a Date Night event, where couples  which could consist of friends, dates, family or anybody  work on a two-canvas painting together, each one taking a canvas. For singles, the painting is modified onto one canvas.

Leila Camus-Lamnaouar and Patrick Eschenfelder sneak a kiss while waiting in line for their paints. It may be date night for them, but Camus-Lamnaouar says the event is great for everybody.

My sister and I did this as a sister date, she says. Its fun, whether youre sisters or a double date or family. Its fun for everyone. When is wine not fun?

Dominic Valencia, a 22-year-old arts graduate from the University of Arizona, gives an overview of what they will be painting tonight  a large saguaro at sunset  with instructions on mixing colors.

Were gonna add a little orange to the yellow, Valencia says. Youll get a nice mac and cheese orange.

The class adds background color to the canvases  sunset colors for the people working on the top half and dark mountain colors for those working on the bottom.

It looks good. Youre killing it, says one woman to her date.

You just add black to the red, right? a student asks Valencia.

Yes, Valencia replies. The goal is for the darker shade on the bottom to slightly overlap the dark color on the top.

The class continues to cover the canvas with paint.

Kathy Bhatt works on her painting with her son, Kyle, 19. The two are on a mom and son date.

Its my second time and his first, Kathy says. I love it. Its nice and relaxing and its good bonding. We have a spot in our kitchen for the painting.

James and Paula Palacios, a couple who moved to Tucson a few weeks ago, came to Creative Juice after seeing a listing for it online.

We were out shopping and saw a picture of a cactus, but we didnt buy it because it was too expensive, Paula says. So, we thought wed come paint our own.

When Creative Juice opened its doors four years ago, it was the first paint and sip studio, says Chellie Krajnak, co-owner.

Krajnak, a former teacher, and her friend, Kristina Valencia, an art teacher, run the business together.

I always say shes the creative, Im the juice, Krajnak laughs.

Paintings are mostly designed by Valencia and taught by employees, and occasionally, Krajnak, in a simple, step-by-step way.

You break it down really simply, Krajnak says. Paintings are broken down so people can be successful. We use simple shapes, simple lines. We want people to have a good time and not be nervous about techniques and blending.

With so many options on the paint and sip scene, Krajnak says they have to always try new things.

The studio has recently started Cosmic Night, in which they darken the room, turn on black lights and paint with neon paints to music spun by a DJ.

It also does family classes, summer camps, team building events, fundraisers and birthday parties.

Tipsy Picassos

Most of Tipsy Picassos paint and events  pet portraits, glass painting, canvas paintings  are fundraisers for animal rescues and charities.

Jennifer Johnson, who owns the company, says the Paint Your Pet Pawtrait  you send her a photo of your pet so she can draw it, then you paint it at the party  is her most popular. It happens twice a month, but since classes have been selling out, shes thinking about making it weekly.

Tipsy Picassos, which has been in business for six months, is a mobile painting party which holds events at different venues including Sullivans, Borderlands Brewery and Gentle Bens.

Johnson says her company is growing rapidly.

We offer painting on glassware, painting on terra cotta pots and classes where people bring their dogs and use their paws as stamps, Johnson says.

No experience? No worries.

The first thing I tell people is that this is more for the fun and the experience and to not worry too much about results, Johnson says. When people dont get too nervous, they actually turn out better.

You can also book Tipsy Picassos for private parties, where you bring your own beer or wine, at the location of your choice.

Brush and Bottle

After attending a painting party in Texas with a friend, Olivia Ramirez was in love.

So, when it was time for the University of Arizona graduate to move back to Tucson after living in Texas for five years, she decided she would open her own paint and sip studio.

Brush and Bottle, a BYOB painting party studio, opened in September 2013.

Once guests sign up, they are able to bring food, beer or wine to have at the studio while they paint.

We have a liquor license. We apply for it every year and were very good at it, Ramirez says. We card. Guests are able to bring wine or beer. No hard liquor...People bring in crockpots of food, pizza. People go all out. I love it.

Public classes are held Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday nights each week. The calendar is posted on the 15th of each month online, with pictures of the planned painting for each night.

Couples paintings are a popular activity at Brush and Bottle.

Its really cute to see because a lot of times the men will come in and be like I dont know about this. She set up date night. But, when theyre leaving, theyre saying I want to do this again. 

Painting parties are not restricted to the studio. Brush and Bottle will go on location to host parties, as well.

Fun events include Cat Crawl and Survival Week at the University of Arizona.

It also hosts a quarterly event called Paint Your Pet, in which guests send a photo of their pet to Arte Bella for an artist to pre-sketch in advance. At the event, each guest will paint the sketched picture of their pet.

The paint and sip party industry is growing, Ramirez says. And, she thinks thats pretty cool, especially for the artists she employs.

For some of them this is their job, Ramirez says. They create paintings and they sell them and have their own studios. For others, they got their degree in art and do something else and work part time here, so theyre still able to use their talent and get paid for it.

arte bella painting

Jen Christiansen has always been an artist, dabbling in paint, clay and everything in between.

So it made sense that when she needed to make more money to support herself and her three children, she would start a business involving art.

In November 2011, Arte Bella Painting  a mobile painting party  was born.

It was a way for the stay-at-home mom to do a few parties a month and still raise her children, instead of having to be away all the time.

When she first started, Arte Bella was the only mobile painting party in town, which made it hard since nobody had heard about it, Christiansen says.

Now, its a different story.

When I first started it was so hard. I only got like one party a month because people had no idea, Christiansen says. Now, there are so many. Its wonderful because people can know about it. I think its great.

Arte Bella Painting offers both public painting events at local bars and restaurants, where anybody can buy a ticket, and private parties at the location of her customers choice.

Private parties are BYOB, so you have to bring your own alcohol and snacks. But, at public events, you can purchase drinks at the restaurant or bar.

Christiansen walks participants through the painting process one step at a time.

It takes about an hour and a half before they see anything, she says. I tell them its supposed to look like crap and make you want to throw it in a fire the first hour and a half. Then the last part, youre like oh my gosh. This is the best painting ever.

Thats what Christiansen loves about her business.

Its fun for me to bring out peoples realization that they can do this, Christiansen says. Seventy-three year olds come to me at a painting party saying I didnt know I could do this. Its just the coolest thing to help people realize they do have these talents. That its not just a select few that have these talents.
A Delta Airlines airplane flying from San Antonio, Texas, to Los Angeles made an emergency landing under escort by F-16s at the Tucson International Airport Wednesday afternoon after a passenger made a threat to the flight crew, officials said.

The Compass Airlines plane landed in Tucson shortly before 4 p.m. and was met by a group of law enforcement officers, including airport police, Border Patrol and the FBI. One passenger, a man, was taken off the plane.

"One suspect has been detained. This diversion was caused because there was a report of interference with the flight crew," said Jessie Butler, a Tucson Airport Authority spokeswoman.

"The aircraft has been deemed safe," said Butler, adding that 80 passengers were on board. The passengers will be taken off the plane, re-screened and re-board the plane and continue to Los Angeles, she said.

Capt. Scott Bader, of the Tucson Airport Authority Police Department, said there were no injuries in the incident. The man taken off the plane was turned over to the FBI, he said.

Video tweeted by a passenger, Ryan Healy, showed officers ordering a man off the plane. An older man sitting with the passenger also got up from his seat and told officers he was the younger man's guardian.

In a series of tweets, Healy said the man was unruly on the plane and wouldn't sit down. He said the man was apparently having "some sort of breakdown." He said other passengers tried to help the man.

Several passengers tweeted the plane was escorted into Tucson by a pair of military F-16 jets. They photographed the jets on the tarmac.

Bader said the two F-16s were sent to intercept the plane at the request of the "federal government." The planes are with the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard, stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
A Delta Airlines airplane flying from San Antonio to Los Angeles made an emergency landing under escort by F-16s at the Tucson International Airport on Wednesday afternoon after a passenger made a threat to the flight crew, officials said.

The Compass Airlines plane landed in Tucson shortly before 4 p.m. and was met by a group of law enforcement officers, including airport police, Border Patrol and the FBI. One passenger, a man, was taken off the plane.

One suspect has been detained. This diversion was caused because there was a report of interference with the flight crew, said Jessie Butler, a Tucson Airport Authority spokeswoman.

The aircraft has been deemed safe, said Butler, adding that 80 passengers were on board. The passengers were taken off the plane, re-screened and were expected to re-board the plane and continue to Los Angeles, she said.

Capt. Scott Bader of the Tucson Airport Authority Police Department said there were no injuries in the incident. The man taken off the plane was turned over to the FBI, he said.

Video tweeted by a passenger, Ryan Healy, showed officers ordering a man off the plane. An older man sitting with the passenger also got up from his seat and told officers he was the younger mans guardian.

In a series of tweets, Healy said the man was unruly on the plane and wouldnt sit down. He said the man was apparently having some sort of breakdown. He said other passengers tried to help the man.

Several passengers tweeted the plane was escorted into Tucson by a pair of military F-16 jets. They photographed the jets on the tarmac.

Bader said the two F-16s were sent to intercept the plane at the request of the federal government. The planes are with the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard, stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

He said in his 10 years at the airport this is the first time he remembers where military aircraft were sent to intercept a civilian airplane because of an in-flight incident.
State wildlife officers are seeking information on the person who killed three javelinas in the Tucson area.

The Arizona Game and Fish Departments Operation Game Thief is offering a reward of up to $750 for information leading to an arrest in connection with the illegal killings, which happened either late Friday or early Saturday.

The remains of the javelinas were found near the intersection of North Diamond Hills Lane and West Green Desert Road in the Picture Rocks area. The javelinas may have been moved to that location after they were killed, Game and Fish said in a news release.

One javelinas hind legs were bound and it was partially skinned.

We hope that someone with knowledge of this case will come forward. There are no open javelina seasons currently ongoing, so this is a clear act of criminal behavior, said acting regional supervisor Jimmy Simmons of the departments Tucson office.

Anyone with information can contact Operation Game Thief at 1-800-352-0700. Callers can remain anonymous.
Paint-streaked aprons are donned. Wine is poured. Laughs are had.

Inna Rohr, owner of Hues n Booze  a mobile painting party company  stands in front of the group, instructing them on what theyll be working on for the evening.

Tonight is her business one-year anniversary and shes celebrating with wine and painting at Cafe a la CArt, downtown. The subject du jour, koi.

Koi are good luck, Rohr says. And theyre kind.

Orlando Ortiz, a friend of Rohr, dishes out Styrofoam plates  which will serve as palettes  with globs of paint on them.

Dinner, Rohr jokes.

Once everyone settles in with their wine and paint, its time to get started. Rohr demonstrates how to draw the shape of the koi.

Make sure when you get to his head, its a squared-off head, Rohr says. Now were gonna get wild with the fan brush. Woohoo!

Once the shape is drawn, its time to add the background color  bluish green for water.

We cant just use blue, Rohr says. Were fancy.

As she explains how to make a gradient with different shades of blue, several participants  unsure of what theyre doing  make faces. But Rohr is quick to make them feel better.

This is the part where we get creative and you can add your own colors, Rohr says. So far, how is it going?

Liberating, one woman says from across the room.

That reaction is what Rohr loves about teaching people how to paint.

I love seeing peoples eyes light up when they realize they actually can paint. Love seeing people get in the zone. Its so meditative, Rohr says. I can just see how they let go of their daily worries, at least for a little bit. Smiles and laughter during the class, seeing people enjoy themselves and loving their results  its priceless to me. I encourage everyone to release their creativity and just play.

Hues n Booze is one of a handful of paint and sip party options. The company will go to any location for any type of party  public events, bridal showers, birthday parties, fundraisers, family gatherings, team building events and more.

It was born of Rohrs love of art.

Im an artist and wanted to share my passion for painting with everyone, Rohr says. I love people, teaching and enjoy a great party, so I thought why not combine those? We are all so creative, if we let ourselves, and I wanted to show people that they too can experience the joys of painting and creativity in a very relaxed and personal environment where everyone is welcome.

Hues n Booze provides everything you need to paint  aprons, paint, brushes, canvas and instruction. Class is taught in a simple step-by-step manner, so anybody  from novice to pro  can finish a painting.

I thought it was going to be harder, says Michael Howell, a first time participant. But, she makes it seem easy.

As the class works on adding details to the water, laughter erupts from one side of the room.

Oh, thats beautiful, Howell jokes with his mother, Cynthia Howell.

Pamela Biletnikoff, who recently moved to Tucson from Mississippi, says that as a teacher she used to paint a lot, but considers herself more of a creative crafter than artist.

Its her first time at a paint and sip party and she loves it.

Rohr makes the rounds, asking people if they need help and providing input.

I dont know what Im doing, a student says.

Well, its working, Rohr replies.

After a few rounds and a few more times up front, demonstrating technique, the paintings are complete.

Now, its the most important part, your signature, Rohr says. Sign it, put it on ebay and make some money.

Creative Juice Art Bar

About 20 people arrive, each one grabbing their drink  wine or beer  paint and aprons, at the brightly lit studio space at Creative Juice, an eastside paint and sip studio, on a recent Thursday evening.

Tonight is a Date Night event, where couples  which could consist of friends, dates, family or anybody  work on a two-canvas painting together, each one taking a canvas. For singles, the painting is modified onto one canvas.

Leila Camus-Lamnaouar and Patrick Eschenfelder sneak a kiss while waiting in line for their paints. It may be date night for them, but Camus-Lamnaouar says the event is great for everybody.

My sister and I did this as a sister date, she says. Its fun, whether youre sisters or a double date or family. Its fun for everyone. When is wine not fun?

Dominic Valencia, a 22-year-old arts graduate from the University of Arizona, gives an overview of what they will be painting tonight  a large saguaro at sunset  with instructions on mixing colors.

Were gonna add a little orange to the yellow, Valencia says. Youll get a nice mac and cheese orange.

The class adds background color to the canvases  sunset colors for the people working on the top half and dark mountain colors for those working on the bottom.

It looks good. Youre killing it, says one woman to her date.

You just add black to the red, right? a student asks Valencia.

Yes, Valencia replies. The goal is for the darker shade on the bottom to slightly overlap the dark color on the top.

The class continues to cover the canvas with paint.

Kathy Bhatt works on her painting with her son, Kyle, 19. The two are on a mom and son date.

Its my second time and his first, Kathy says. I love it. Its nice and relaxing and its good bonding. We have a spot in our kitchen for the painting.

James and Paula Palacios, a couple who moved to Tucson a few weeks ago, came to Creative Juice after seeing a listing for it online.

We were out shopping and saw a picture of a cactus, but we didnt buy it because it was too expensive, Paula says. So, we thought wed come paint our own.

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When Creative Juice opened its doors four years ago, it was the first paint and sip studio, says Chellie Krajnak, co-owner.

Krajnak, a former teacher, and her friend, Kristina Valencia, an art teacher, run the business together.

I always say shes the creative, Im the juice, Krajnak laughs.

Paintings are mostly designed by Valencia and taught by employees, and occasionally, Krajnak, in a simple, step-by-step way.

You break it down really simply, Krajnak says. Paintings are broken down so people can be successful. We use simple shapes, simple lines. We want people to have a good time and not be nervous about techniques and blending.

With so many options on the paint and sip scene, Krajnak says they have to always try new things.

The studio has recently started Cosmic Night, in which they darken the room, turn on black lights and paint with neon paints to music spun by a DJ.

It also does family classes, summer camps, team building events, fundraisers and birthday parties.

Tipsy Picassos

Most of Tipsy Picassos paint and events  pet portraits, glass painting, canvas paintings  are fundraisers for animal rescues and charities.

Jennifer Johnson, who owns the company, says the Paint Your Pet Pawtrait  you send her a photo of your pet so she can draw it, then you paint it at the party  is her most popular. It happens twice a month, but since classes have been selling out, shes thinking about making it weekly.

Tipsy Picassos, which has been in business for six months, is a mobile painting party which holds events at different venues including Sullivans, Borderlands Brewery and Gentle Bens.

Johnson says her company is growing rapidly.

We offer painting on glassware, painting on terra cotta pots and classes where people bring their dogs and use their paws as stamps, Johnson says.

No experience? No worries.

The first thing I tell people is that this is more for the fun and the experience and to not worry too much about results, Johnson says. When people dont get too nervous, they actually turn out better.

You can also book Tipsy Picassos for private parties, where you bring your own beer or wine, at the location of your choice.

Brush and Bottle

After attending a painting party in Texas with a friend, Olivia Ramirez was in love.

So, when it was time for the University of Arizona graduate to move back to Tucson after living in Texas for five years, she decided she would open her own paint and sip studio.

Brush and Bottle, a BYOB painting party studio, opened in September 2013.

Once guests sign up, they are able to bring food, beer or wine to have at the studio while they paint.

We have a liquor license. We apply for it every year and were very good at it, Ramirez says. We card. Guests are able to bring wine or beer. No hard liquor...People bring in crockpots of food, pizza. People go all out. I love it.

Public classes are held Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday nights each week. The calendar is posted on the 15th of each month online, with pictures of the planned painting for each night.

Couples paintings are a popular activity at Brush and Bottle.

Its really cute to see because a lot of times the men will come in and be like I dont know about this. She set up date night. But, when theyre leaving, theyre saying I want to do this again. 

Painting parties are not restricted to the studio. Brush and Bottle will go on location to host parties, as well.

Fun events include Cat Crawl and Survival Week at the University of Arizona.

It also hosts a quarterly event called Paint Your Pet, in which guests send a photo of their pet to Arte Bella for an artist to pre-sketch in advance. At the event, each guest will paint the sketched picture of their pet.

The paint and sip party industry is growing, Ramirez says. And, she thinks thats pretty cool, especially for the artists she employs.

For some of them this is their job, Ramirez says. They create paintings and they sell them and have their own studios. For others, they got their degree in art and do something else and work part time here, so theyre still able to use their talent and get paid for it.

arte bella painting

Jen Christiansen has always been an artist, dabbling in paint, clay and everything in between.

So it made sense that when she needed to make more money to support herself and her three children, she would start a business involving art.

In November 2011, Arte Bella Painting  a mobile painting party  was born.

It was a way for the stay-at-home mom to do a few parties a month and still raise her children, instead of having to be away all the time.

When she first started, Arte Bella was the only mobile painting party in town, which made it hard since nobody had heard about it, Christiansen says.

Now, its a different story.

When I first started it was so hard. I only got like one party a month because people had no idea, Christiansen says. Now, there are so many. Its wonderful because people can know about it. I think its great.

Arte Bella Painting offers both public painting events at local bars and restaurants, where anybody can buy a ticket, and private parties at the location of her customers choice.

Private parties are BYOB, so you have to bring your own alcohol and snacks. But, at public events, you can purchase drinks at the restaurant or bar.

Christiansen walks participants through the painting process one step at a time.

It takes about an hour and a half before they see anything, she says. I tell them its supposed to look like crap and make you want to throw it in a fire the first hour and a half. Then the last part, youre like oh my gosh. This is the best painting ever.

Thats what Christiansen loves about her business.

Its fun for me to bring out peoples realization that they can do this, Christiansen says. Seventy-three year olds come to me at a painting party saying I didnt know I could do this. Its just the coolest thing to help people realize they do have these talents. That its not just a select few that have these talents.
Help India!

By Amit Kumar, TwoCircles.net

Ahmedabad: It is no secret that when it comes to doing menial jobs in our society, it is almost always seen as a responsibility of the lower castes in India. This begs a question: if upper caste people who are poor are given a chance to apply for these jobs, would they consider applying or would it be beneath their social status to do so? An institute based in Gujarat tried to find out, and the result was inviting the wrath of Hindu right-wing organisations.

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An advertisement was issued more than a month back for vacancies for the posts of sweepers at The Human Development & Research Centre (HDRC), St. Xaviers College Campus, Ahmedabad. The additional clause mentioned that first preference would be given to people belonging to the general castes. They also mentioned names of the castes whose members can apply for the job, which included Brahmins, Baniya, Patels, Jains, Saiyed, Pathans, Syrian Christians and Parsis.

For the next 30 days or so, the advetrtisement remained on their notice board and the website. However, three days ago, a member of a Hindu right-wing organisation noticed it and the result was all too familiar; allies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and other Sangh Parivar affiliates like Brahmo Samaj, Police Lok Seva Raskshak Sami and some members of the Patel community began protesting since Tuesday and around 50 people entered the campus and terrorized people and tried to damage the area.

Even as the police remained mute spectators, the protesters accused Prasad Chacko of inciting communal tension and asked the Police to file an FIR under section 153A of the Indian Penal code against him. Amrish Jani, a leader of the Brahmin Community has also targeted the HDRC and ensured that charges are put against them.

Speaking with Twocircles.net, Prasad Chacko said the advertisement was a well-thought and conscious decision. It was an attempt to gauge how people would react to an advertisement like this. We wanted to see how many people from the upper castes would apply for this job and whether the argument of economic reservation holds any ground, he said. We did expect some sort of controversy, but did not expect hooliganism and threats to both the campus and me, he added. Chacko also said that this advertisement clearly stated that the upper castes would be given first preference, and it was not as if only they would be appointed. The reaction is an eye opener for people who believe that economic-based reservations can work, he added.

The most revealing outcome of this controversy however, was that not a single person from the upper castes applied for the job. So, while not one person has applied, I have still been threatened and advised to stay off campus, Chacko said.

Speaking on the issue, Jignesh Mewani, a Dalit activist and a lawyer said that this was a progressive advertisement and it should be welcomed. Narendra Modi has compared sanitation work as a spiritual exercise. Then why should the Savarnas be denied this opportunity? he asked. This advertisment shoud be emulated by the Gujarat government, but instead political and castiest interests have resulted in making it sound like an insult, he added.



Taking note of the incident, a number of social organisatons like National Alliance of Peoples Movement, Khudai Khidmatgaar and Narmada Bachao Andolan have written to the Ahmedabad Police asking them to repeal all the charges against Chacko and instead take action against RSS-sponsored lumpenism. the reaction to it (advertisment) very clearly indicates that certain elements in the society will go to any extent to maintain the caste hierarchies and the discriminations. The job of a sweeper is mostly given to the lowest castes in the society, Dalits, OBCs, those at the bottom of the caste pyramid across different religions. The discrimination against certain castes is perpetuated by various means and any attempts at trying to break that, is met with threat and intimidation by dominant castes. This is the worst feature of the caste society and instead of finding ways to challenge it; is being taken as something that has to be preserved,the signatories of the press release which includes Medha Patkar, said.

It is unfortunate to see that an advertisement to invite candidates from the general category for a sweeping job has turned into a crime and an FIR has been lodged against HDRC Director. We want to know on what basis, police has resorted to such a tactic, it only shows their own complicity in it. This also clearly implies that the Hindu social order of Caste System persists and cleaning work is to be performed in accordance with the Hindu Social Order, meaning untouchables have to do cleaning and serve. A change of faith and religion does not guarantee freedom from menial work of sweeping. The continuance of this system can in no way define social harmony and peace, the letter added.

Chacko added that the institute has agreed to issue a limited apology, against the potential hurt that such an advertisment might have caused, but it will not apologise for issuing the advertisment itself. The protesters have also demanded the removal of Chacko from the post of Director, HDRC. That decision is for the institute to decide and I would not like t comment on that, he said.

Related:

Activists express solidarity with HDRC for controversial advertisement on sanitation

Raza Academy says cleaning an insulting job, Islamic teachings say otherwise
Help India!

Lucknow : The Samajwadi Partys embrace of the party of mafia don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari is an internal matter and his displeasure over the merger is a media invention, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday.

Seeking to downplay the rift in the party over the issue, Akhilesh Yadav suggested in reply to a query that the media was responsible for the perception that there are differences in his family over the merger with Mukhtar Ansaris Quami Ekta Dal.

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The Yadav family practically controls the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The chief minister, however, evaded questions by reporters on the sacking of Secondary Education Minister Balram Yadav, who was shown the door soon after SP-Quami Ekta Dal merger was announced.

The SP sources had then told reporters that this was Akhileshs way of showing displeasure at the development as Balram Yadav had networked for the merger.

Balram Yadav, an old colleague of SP chief and Akhileshs father Mulayam Singh Yadav, has so far maintained studied silence on the matter and said that he was dedicated to the party.

He, however, choked with emotions on Wednesday, apparently unable to control his hurt at being ousted from the cabinet so unceremoniously.

Mukhtar Ansari founded the Quami Ekta Dal in 2010 along with his brothers Afzal Ansari and Sigbatullaha Ansari. The mafia don is in jail for his alleged involvement in the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Krishnanand Rai.

The Quami Ekta Dal has two legislators in the 404-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, including Mukhtar Ansari who represents Mau constituency.


Help India!

By Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch

The list of activists falling victim to efforts by Indian authorities to curb criticism is growing by the day.

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On June 17, 2016, the government announced that Sabrang Trust  a group run by activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, both well-known for their support of the victims of the 2002 mob attacks against Muslims in Gujarat  will no longer be allowed to receive funds under Indias Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA). The government has accused the couple of misusing funds allocated to help riot victims for instead dining in hotels and buying cakes and sanitary napkins. These are ludicrous and politically motivated charges arising from their tenacious efforts to hold accountable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat state at the time of the violence.

While the authorities were canceling Sabrang Trusts FCRA registration, a special court in Gujarat was convicting 24 individuals of the murder of 69 people at Ahmedabads Gulberg Society during the Gujarat riots. The judge described the killings as the darkest day.

These convictions, along with those of 150 others for their roles in the mass attacks on Muslims during the 2002 violence in Gujarat, were only possible because of the efforts of activists such as Setalvad, as well as scores of victims, witnesses, investigators, and prosecutors.

The desire to see justice done overcame previous failed efforts at accountability for attacks on religious minorities in India. Long before the Gujarat riots, Setalvad and Anand began a campaign for communal harmony after the 1992-1993 riots between Hindus and Muslims which rocked their home city of Mumbai. Most of the perpetrators have not been held accountable for this violence, nor for the mass attacks on Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.

Another civil rights group, the Lawyers Collective, led by internationally respected lawyers Indira Jaising and Anand Grover, was placed under FCRA restrictions in May. Recently, three United Nations human rights experts warned that the FCRA is increasingly being used to silence organizations involved in advocating civil, political, economic, social, environmental or cultural priorities, which may differ from those backed by the Government, and urged the government to repeal the FCRA. Other groups including Greenpeace India and Ford Foundation have also come under attack in recent months.

Successive governments in India have now used the FCRA to target activists. Instead of erecting obstacles against those that speak up for victims because they might tarnish its image, the Modi government should end the misuse of the FCRA. That would be a true sign of a rights-respecting leadership.

This column was initially published here


The twists and turns of the Donald Trump presidential campaign only continue to raise questions. In a week that can't seem to end soon enough for Trump, the billionaire real estate mogul has added another controversial name to his team, as his list of potential running mates continues to be narrowed down.

Trump's team of controversy

Ever since he announced his plan to run for the White House, Trump has been stuck dealing with negative reactions and constant backlash. From referring to illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murders," to mocking the disabled, to adding the likes of former half-term Alaska Gov.

Sarah Palin as a voice on the campaign trail, Trump has remained in the headlines, and often for all the wrong reasons. According to The Hill on June 21, Trump has decided to bring another name on board that has left many scratching their heads.

JUST IN: Michele Bachmann to advise Trump on Evangelical issues https://t.co/foKrRjOp23 pic.twitter.com/cK8NesnxKd  The Hill (@thehill) June 21, 2016

Former Minnesota House representative and Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann has agreed to join Trump's "Evangelical Executive Advisory Board," according to a statement released by the campaign on Tuesday. Trump has struggled at times to energize the religious right who still question hisfaith, and the new board will "provide advisory support to Mr.

Trump on those issues important to Evangelicals and other people of the faith in America." Bachmann will join a panel of 20 other individuals, including the far-right controversial religious figure, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Possible VP?

Bachmann ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2012, and has yet to endorse a candidate during the primary.

While it's unknown whether or not Bachmann would entertain the idea of being Trump's running mate, the current list of potential vice presidents has been narrowed down. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Tennessee Rep. Bob Corker, and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions are reportedly high on the list, with Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich still under consideration.

While news outlets are waiting on who is picked to join the ticket, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., confirmed to ABC News that his father will not officially announce his decision until the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland, Ohio.
Netflix has announced a release date for Narcos Season 2. Ten new episodes will be available on the streaming service on Friday, September 2.

Familiar faces

Returning to the series is Brazilian actor Wagner Moura as the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Also coming back are actors Boyd Holbrook as DEA agent Steve Murphy and Pedro Pascal portraying DEA agent Javier Pena. Carlos Bernard, Chris Brancato, and Doug Miro created the Netflix original show.

Recently released trailer

The Season 2 trailer does not say much about what to expect. It shows a menacing Moura gazing into the camera accompanied by three flashing dates.

December 1, 1949, the first date, is Pablos birth date, then December 2, 1993, the day Escobar dies, appears. September 2, 2016, the last date, is the day Netflix subscribers will have access to Season 2.

Based on real events

The gangster drama series centers on the infamous activities of various drug lords in South America, particularly Pablo Escobar. The plot chronicles the real-life battle by different legal, political, police and military forces against one valuable commodity, cocaine.

Season 2 spoiler

Shortly after the trailer was released, Moura appeared on Chelsea Handlers Netflix talk show and revealed the death of his character will happen in Season 2. The upcoming episodes will pick up from where the last season left off with Pablos escape from La Catedral to the shootout between the drug lord and Colombian law enforcement.

A Season 3?

With the death of the main character, one has to wonder if Narcos will continue to Season 3. Many fans speculate Netflix will change the storyline much the same way it did with American Horror Story. Most likely, the story will move to a new drug kingpin or organization.Since its debut last year, Narcos has become one of Netflix's most anticipated and popular shows.

It received two Golden Globe nominations, one for best drama series and one for best actor.

Season 1 still available

For those who have not seen the first ten episodes of Narcos, there is still time to binge watch on Netflix before Season 2 is released. With any luck, Netflix will also release another trailer before then that unveils more of what lies ahead for Pablo Escobar.
Jack Ma reiterates that Alibaba has 'zero tolerance' for fakes Updated: 2016-06-23 22:30 (chinadaily.com.cn)

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd chairman Jack Ma said that his recent comment that counterfeit goods were better than originals was taken out of context, and he reiterated that that his e-commerce platforms have "zero tolerance" for counterfeits.

" Counterfeit goods are absolutely unacceptable, and brands and their intellectual property must be protected," Ma said in an opinion piece published on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal. "Alibaba is only interested in supporting those manufacturers who innovate and invest in their own brands. We have zero tolerance for those who rip off other people's intellectual property."

Ma was responding to media reports that quoted him as saying in a speech he made at Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou that "fake products today are of better quality and better price than the real names. They are exactly the (same) factories, exactly the same raw materials but they do not use the names."

Those comments were viewed as giving legitimacy to the counterfeit industry, but Ma said in the opinion piece that his comments had been taken out of context, and "I feel compelled to set the record straight".

He said his comments were an observation that he was sharing with investors: that the dynamics between some brands and their manufacturing partners, and brands and their customers, are shifting due to economic and technological developments.

With exports declining due to weaker demand, Chinese manufacturers are resorting to the internet and setting up their own brands to woo customers, presenting a challenge to the business model of some established labels, Ma said. This has complicated efforts to root out fakes, which is why Alibaba is using real-time scanning of more than 10 million new product listings a day, he said.

"Failing to protect original designs, trademarks and technology is akin to thievery, and it is detrimental not only to innovation but also to the integrity of the marketplace," Ma said. "We do not and will never condone any act of stealing."

Ma said in January last year that the company has zero tolerance for fakes on its e-commerce markets.

Last month, Alibaba was suspended from the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, a global nonprofit that fights fakes. The suspension occurred after a number of top brands dropped out of the group, calling Alibaba their "most dangerous and damaging adversary."
Classes inspired by ancient arts offer moral teachings Updated: 2016-06-23 08:08 By Zhao Ruixue In Jinan(China Daily)

Students attend the rehearsal of a ritual dance in a class featuring ancient art at Shizhuang Junior Middle School in Shandong province. Wang Zhanbo / For China Daily

To Wang Mudi, a grade six student at a rural junior middle school, nothing beats calligraphy class every Wednesday.

"The class offers me a place to practice calligraphy with free tools and ink," she said.

"In addition, I can learn the stories of the ancient calligraphers, which helps me form the right views on life."

Wang goes to Shizhuang Junior Middle School in Houshi village, Shandong province, a place near Qufu, best known as the hometown of the renowned educator and philosopher Confucius.

Yan Xiaoli, Wang's mother, said that without the classes her daughter would be unable to practice calligraphy in their village.

"The most important thing is that my daughter grows up with a positive attitude and is optimistic about her future," Yan said.

The class Wang takes is one of the 20 the Shizhuang school arranges for students based on the six arts of ancient China - rites, music, archery, chariot riding, calligraphy and mathematics, which formed the basis of education in ancient Chinese culture.

The 20 classes include ones on social practice, dance, painting, drama, singing, computer technology and science.

"We create new courses based on the ancient arts to let our students fit in with modern society," said Zhang Lei, head master at Shizhuang school.

"We don't use horses for transport now, so we have created handicraft classes and security education classes under the ancient art of chariot riding.

"By taking these special classes, students, especially those who can't get good scores, can develop their confidence as they can choose the special classes according to their interests."

Primary and middle schools across China have been encouraged to explore new ways to cultivate students' moral character by integrating moral education into school courses.

Shandong province issued a guideline on enhancing moral education in April, encouraging primary and middle schools to explore moral elements in all of the 14 standard courses taught in schools, including Chinese, English and mathematics.

Teachers are also encouraged to play a greater role in cultivating students' morals through an appraisal system.

"The year-end appraisal for teachers will contain teachers' performance on both teaching courses and developing students' morality," said Zhang Zhiyong, deputy head of Shandong Provincial Education Department.

Jiangsu province, meanwhile, aims to develop a strong foundation of comprehensive morality-related teaching with classic courses in Confucianism, for example.

China has revised its primary and secondary school textbooks to include more about ancient poetry and traditional culture, according to the Ministry of Education's Language and Culture Press.

The aim of the revision is to enhance the textbooks' role in cultivating students' moral character, said Wang Xuming, president of the press, last week. The updated textbooks are scheduled to reach students by the autumn.

zhaoruixue@chinadaily.com.cn
Tricks won't earn Tsai overseas support Updated: 2016-06-23 08:09 By Zhu Songling(China Daily USA)

New Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen is scheduled to make transit stops in Miami and Los Angeles in the United States during her nine-day overseas trip that will also take her to Panama and Paraguay. The overseas trip starting on Friday will be her first since taking office more than a month ago.

Many of her predecessors have chosen a similar itinerary, but not all of them conveyed goodwill. Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party who was the island leader from 2000 to 2008, had a shameful record of touting "Taiwan's formal independence" to foreign leaders during such visits and thus posing a grave threat to cross-Straits relations.

Whether or not Tsai will resort to the same trick during her overseas trip will be closely watched, as she is yet to offer an unequivocal answer to how she sees the 1992 Consensus, the political foundation of cross-Straits ties. The tradition of "leadership diplomacy" dates back to the 1990s, when Lee Teng-hui, then Taiwan leader, flagrantly violated the 1992 Consensus by trying to convince some "diplomatic allies" that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were two separate states. In return, he was banned from entering the US during the rest of his tenure.

In stark contrast, Kuomintang leader Ma Ying-jeou managed to make things right because of his adherence to the 1992 Consensus. During his eight-year tenure, Taiwan enjoyed the dividends of a series of fruitful exchanges with the mainland. He even attended the funeral ceremony of former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew thanks to the proper arrangements agreed by both sides of the Straits.

Given the facts, Tsai's first overseas trip - and probably many more to come - will prove to be a fool's errand if she and the pro-independence DPP refrain from making their stance clear on the 1992 Consensus. The prospect of the so-called leadership diplomacy is rather dim because the island, in the face of an ongoing economic slowdown, cannot afford to play the endless game of "buying support" of some countries.

Since Tsai contacted some American political heavyweights right after assuming office, she got the green light to enter the US via two transit stops. Nevertheless, this is unlikely to change the fact that such a civil interaction is still under the framework of the China-US relationship.

The US, on its part, should not provide the "soil" for some Taiwan residents' secessionist activities, because it has made solemn promises to uphold the one-China policy. In fact, the US' awkward position in the Taiwan question has a lot to do with the wrong signals it has sent out, such as selling advanced weapons to the island and arranging high-level contacts. But it would be unwise for the US to replay the old drama, for that will certainly jeopardize China-US ties.

In addition, the way Tsai clarifies her stance, especially her administration's stance, on cross-Straits relations and the 1992 Consensus during her meeting with US officials will exert notable influence on the regional situation. So it is important that Tsai makes the right move and doesn't pursue the so-called independence through diplomatic channels.

The author is a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Beijing Union University.

(China Daily USA 06/23/2016 page12)
China calls for restraint after DPRK's missile launches Updated: 2016-06-23 20:22 By Wang Qingyun(chinadaily.com.cn)

China called for restraint and an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched two missiles on Wednesday.

The first of the two missiles, which are suspected Musudans, was said to have failed, but the second missile was said to have flown about 400 kilometers, the Associated Press reported.

This is the latest of a string of missile launches the DPRK has conducted this year.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated on Thursday that relevant parties should avoid taking actions that will escalate tensions in a time when the situation of the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive.

Hua said China hopes all relevant parties will work together to create favorable conditions for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

The missile launches took place the same day when the 26th Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue opened in Beijing.

The forum, which was founded in 1993, lasted two days and attracted some 90 people, including officials from all six countries of the Six-Party Talks.

China's Special Representative for the Korean Peninsula Affairs Wu Daiwei called on the forum for all relevant parties to abandon "Cold War mindset", and stick to realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and stability of the peninsula as well as solving the problem through dialogue and negotiation, according to a news release provided by the China Institute of International Studies, a co-organizer of the event.

Wu said the Cold War mindset is still dominating the development of the peninsula's situation, disrupting peace and development of not only the peninsula itself, but also the Northeast Asia.

Susan Shirk, director emeritus of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which is the other organizer of the forum, said she hopes the forum made a positive contribution to finding ways of addressing the security dilemmas in the region, but doesn't expect that the Six-Party Talks will resume any time soon.

Besides the Korean Peninsula issue, discussions on the forum also covered other topics such as China-US relations and missile deployments and missile defenses in Northeast Asia, Shirk said.
Trial date set for UK man accused of murdering Jo Cox MP Updated: 2016-06-23 20:53 By Angus McNiece in London(chinadaily.com.cn)

Wreaths are laid on the ground in commemoration of murdered member of parliament Jo Cox in London, June 23, 2016. [Photo by Jiang Shan/China Daily]

Thomas Mair, the man accused of murdering British member of parliament Jo Cox, will go on trial on November 14 and the case will be dealt with as a terrorism trial, a judge told the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court of England and Wales on Thursday.

For the second time this week Mair appeared via video link from the high-security prison at Belmarsh, east London, and only spoke to confirm his name. At a Monday hearing Mair declined to submit a bail application to the court.

During a 15-minute hearing Thursday morning, Mr Justice John Saunders said the case would be treated as a terrorism trial for "case management purposes." Mair's preliminary hearing was held at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London last Saturday, where he gave his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain" during proceedings.

Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two who became a Labour member of parliament in 2015, was stabbed and shot outside her constituency surgery in Yorkshire last Thursday, and 77-year-old Bernard Kenny suffered a stab wound to the abdomen while attempting to defend her.

Bystanders said Cox's assailant shouted the name of a right-wing anti-immigration group during the attack. Cox was a strong advocate of refugee and human rights and was active on the Remain campaign trail for Britain's referendum on its EU membership.

Mair is charged with murder, possession of an offensive weapon, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence, and grievous bodily harm.

Contact the reporter at angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
UK print media bombards readers on EU referendum day Updated: 2016-06-23 22:03 By Angus McNiece in London(chinadaily.com.cn)

British newspapers released daily editions packed with EU referendum coverage Thursday, as voters head to polls around a stormy United Kingdom to vote on whether Britain should remain in the European Union.

Having publishded editorials over the past fortnight expressing their publications' views on whether Britain would be better in or out of Europe, most broadsheets chose to focus on the narrow polls leading into the vote as well as provide analysis of the final day of campaign activities Wednesday. The majority of tabloids, meanwhile, used Thursday's papers as a final chance to convince their readers one way or the other on voting day.

On what it called the "day of reckoning," The Times lead story focused on a YouGov poll which had Remain at 51 percent and Leave at 49 percent Leave going into voting day  leaving the vote on a "knife's edge" and within the margin of error. In this poll undecided voters were forced to pick a side.

The Guardian asked readers "Who do we want to be?" following "the most bitter political campaign in living memory." The paper's lead story focused on Prime Minister David Cameron's final campaign drive Wednesday and his "last-ditch push to stay in Europe."

Next to an image of the iconic clock face of St Stephen's Tower on the Houses of Parliament, the Daily Telegraph ran the headline "The Time Has Come." The paper published a feature interview with Leave campaign leader Boris Johnson in which he called the vote a "turning point in the story of our country."

When asked if a vote to Remain would end the former London mayor's life in politics, he responded "Fine by me," explaining that "This vote is more important than my political career."

The Financial Times said banks were conducting "war games" to stress-test systems as London's financial centre braced itself ahead of the vote. The news paper said City of London workers were flocking to foreign exchange dealerships to change their pounds to dollars or euros, in scenes similar to the lines that formed outside Northern Rock branches prior to the bank's collapse in 2007.

Tabloid paper The Sun  Britain's most widely circulated print publication  continued with its vocal support of the Leave campaign, calling June 23 "Independence Day" and claiming a win for Leave would remove the UK from under the "crushing might of the Brussels machine."

Labour-leaning tabloid The Daily Mirror ran a letter from its editor imploring readers to vote to remain in the EU, saying that British finance ministers past and present "violently agree that Leave would be a disaster for prosperity." The newspaper's front page alluded to the anti-Brexit "leap into the dark" metaphor popular among Remain campaigners.

Middle-market tabloid Daily Express ran a comment piece on its front page urging readers to "vote Leave," while the Daily Mail went with a cover feature that claimed to have discredited several of the Remain camp's central arguments.

Both free sheet Metro and the "i" newspaper focused on last-minute polls that had both Remain and Leave votes neck and neck, suggesting the vote was headed for a "photo finish."

Outside the UK, the Wall Street Journal stated that global stocks, bonds and currencies were set for a "wild ride" in the event of a Leave vote, while the International New York Times ran joint front-page stories on the EU referendum: one on the latest polls showing a "dead heat" and the other explaining how the UK's potential disengagement for Europe would "drag on for years."

Polls close at 10 p.m. UK time and the result on the referendum is expected in the early hours of Friday morning.

Contact the reporter at angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Shooting in Germany injures dozens Updated: 2016-06-23 22:41 (chinadaily.com.cn)

A masked gunman opened fire in cinema complex in Western Germany, according to Xinhua.

Reuters quoting German media reported that between 20 and 50 people were wounded in the attack in Viernheim, near Frankfurt.

They say the gunman is inside the complex and surrounded by armed police. It is unclear whether he is alone or if he has taken hostages.
Ruling may 'open Pandora's box' Updated: 2016-06-24 02:34 By Zhang Yunbi(China Daily)

A senior publicity official has warned that the possible South China Sea ruling by an arbitration panel may "set a dangerous precedent and open a Pandora's box in the sea".

Jiang Jianguo, minister of the State Council Information Office, said on Thursday at a forum in Beijing that as the United States has sent aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the region, its accusation that China is militarizing the sea is "a bad joke".

Jiang was speaking as the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is thought to be near issuing its ruling on arbitration unilaterally launched by the Philippines, and Washington pressures Beijing to accept the decision.

Jiang was speaking as the Arbitral Tribunal, established under UNCLOS appendix VII, in The Hague is thought to be near issuing its ruling on arbitration unilaterally launched by the Philippines and Washington pressures Beijing to accept the decision.

The US, an outsider to the region, "gets directly engaged in South China Sea disputes", Jiang said, and its actions have "aggravated China's concerns about damage to its interests".

Jiang said some Western media have issued biased reports and distorted and ignored the facts of the South China Sea issue, such as that no country challenged China's sovereignty there before the 1970s.

"Hopefully, the truth about the South China Sea will be introduced to Africa and people in the world," Jiang told the forum delegates.

Mam Sait Ceesay, of The Standard Newspaper in Gambia, said evidence shows the islands belong to China, not the Philippines, and "a lot of misinformation" is being orchestrated by some media.

Ikenna Emewu, Beijing bureau chief of Nigeria's The Sun newspaper, said the US is not a claimant in the dispute and non-claimants should not aggravate the problems.

Many countries, including Russia, India, Cambodia, Uganda, Gambia and Algeria support China's call for peaceful negotiations rather than arbitration.

On Wednesday, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation said the country "supports the position that the sovereign states that are directly concerned should resolve their disputes through direct consultations and negotiations".

Asked about the number of countries supporting China's stance, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying noted that some Chinese online media have said it is 47, and the actual number may be higher and "is increasing every day".
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City authorities have assured local and foreign investors that they will continue to meet with them regularly to discuss obstacles impeding their business and possible solutions. Photo thanhnien.vn

HCM CITY  City authorities have assured local and foreign investors that they will continue to meet with them regularly to discuss obstacles impeding their business and possible solutions.

The citys Party Secretary inh La Thang, speaking at a meeting with British Businesses Group in Viet Nam on Tuesday, praised the BBGV for its extensive market research which had helped UK investors get a better sense of the business environment.

Kenneth Atkinson, chairman of the BBGV, asked the Government to develop more open policies on visa extensions for businesspeople, work permits and civil dispute settlements.

Many small- and medium-sized UK firms are interested in investing here, particularly in HCM City.

BBGV, which has 490 members, will continue to connect and bring more UK firms to Viet Nam.

The UK is the eighth largest investor in HCM City, with two-way trade hitting US$875 million last year, Thang said, adding that he hoped BBGV would continue to pursue more UK investment.

City authorities were also urged to improve the business environment and call for more foreign investment.

In addition to more regular meetings, local and foreign enterprises will also have more opportunities to talk directly with city leaders about business difficulties and propose solutions.  VNS
Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue chairs the first meeting of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council yesterday.  Photo vietstock.vn

HA NOI  The National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council will concentrate on dealing with the reorganisation of credit institutions and State-owned enterprises, and handling bad debts during the rest of the year.

The council, which is tasked to advise the Government on financial and monetary issues, will also focus on restructuring State budget revenues and spending, assuring public debt security, and working out schemes against dollarisation in the economy.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue made the announcements as he chaired the first meeting of the council yesterday, after the 31-member commission was established following a decision by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on June 17.

Hue is the chairman of the council, and its standing vice chairman is State Bank of Viet Nam Governor Le Minh Hung. Two other vice chairpersons are Minister of Finance inh Tien Dung, and National Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Vu Viet Ngoan.

Hue said the council will have an independent voice while consulting financial and monetary operations of the Government and the Prime Minister.

He assigned the State Bank of Viet Nam  the standing agency of the council  to regularly poll international experts, entrepreneurs and scientists to support the operations, besides holding quarterly council meetings.

Yesterday, Hue received Standard Chartered Viet Nam General Director Nirukt Sapru at the Government headquarters, asking British bank Standard Chartered to continue to assist the Vietnamese Government in working with international credit rating agencies.

He said the Government needs recommendations from the bank so that the rating agencies can have comprehensive and objective assessments about Viet Nams socio-economic situation. This is necessary for the country to improve its image in the international arena in general, and investors world in particular.

He also asked the bank to keep a close contact with the Ministry of Finance in monitoring global capital market developments, forecasting macro-economic conditions, and developing the local financial market.

Sapru suggested that Viet Nam should pay more attention to its bond issuances in international markets, because this is a premise for effective public debt management.

During a working session on public debt on Tuesday, Hue urged ministries, sectors and localities to quicken capital disbursement to ensure job generation and national economic growth.

Slow disbursement

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said the disbursement progress in public investment projects had been slow this year.

Ministries, sectors and localities had disbursed a combined total of over VN83 trillion (US$3.73 billion) worth of public investment capital this year, equivalent to some 33 per cent of the quota set by the National Assembly for 2016.

Dung attributed the situation to slow submission of capital plans by the authorities and incomplete documents guiding the assessment and approval of investment projects. Obstacles in land clearance and weak competence of contractors also led to the tardiness.

Hue asked the Ministries of Planning and Investment and Finance to promptly review the guiding documents and intensify inspection of the quality of public investment projects, to promote their roles towards socio-economic growth.

Businesses and trade

During another working session with the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday, Hue said the issuance of a list of imported products, which must follow customs procedures at Vietnamese border gates, must be under established laws while creating favourable conditions for businesses and trade.

He asked the ministry to attach importance to these issues when compiling the list of imported products which must have customs procedures conducted at Vietnamese border gates.

Careful study is needed, given the recent promulgation of Government Resolution 35/NQ-CP on support to enterprises by 2020, he said.

The possible impact, such as congestion of goods at border gates or rising business costs, must be taken into consideration, he said.

According to the Ministry of Finance, which was in charge of compiling the list, the issuance was in line with Decree No 08/2015/N-CP instructing the implementation of customs procedures following the Law on Customs, with one term stating that based on import and export in each period, the Prime Minister had decided the list of imported products with customs procedures to be conducted at border gates.

Deputy Minister of Finance o Hoang Anh Tuan said the move was aimed at tightening customs checks on products to limit consumption in the domestic market or on products with high risk of trade frauds.

The finance ministry has proposed 11 categories of products to be included in the list.

These include cigarettes, cigars, tobacco and alcohol, as well as beer, cars with less than 16 seats, motorcycles with cylinder capacity above 125cm3 and aircraft, along with yachts which were subject to special consumption tax, air conditioners with capacity of less than 90,000 BTU, cards, votive papers and imported products which enjoyed preferential import taxes.

Nguyen Ngoc Anh, deputy director of the General Department of Customs, said those products accounted for just 8.7 per cent of the total customs clearance volume, thus the impact on enterprises would not be significant.  VNS
Phan Huynh Anh Khoa, who had been selling wild animals on social media, particularly on Facebook, has caused problems for law enforcement agencies for years.  Photo nld.com.vn

HCM CITY  A 23-year-old man from HCM Citys Go Vap District on Tuesday (June 21) was sentenced to five years in prison and fined VN50 million (US$2,242) for illegal trading wildlife.

Phan Huynh Anh Khoa, who had been selling wild animals on social media, particularly on Facebook, has caused problems for law enforcement agencies for years, authorities said.

Tan Binh District authorities said that Khoa on December 3 was asked to sell nine otters, worth nearly VN32 million (US$1,435), and one black-shanked douc, worth VN6 million (US$269).

He was caught by police officers at the meeting point later that day.

Officers also found another 10 wild animals, including two green iguanas, three varanidaes, two prairie dogs, one black squirrel, one Prevosts squirrel, and one Siamese crocodile at Khoas store.

Khoa violated regulations on endangered wildlife species protection, posing a serious threat to not only bio-diversity but public health, according to authorities.

In 2014, Khoa was fined VN3 million (US$134) by HCM Citys Forest Protection Department for illegally selling wild animals.  VNS
DJ Keith Colaco from Singapore will appear along with resident DJs Cora and Hibiya Line on June 23.

CM City  The Observatory will host a three-night event featuring international and local musicians on June 23, 24 and 25.

DJ Keith Colaco from Singapore will appear along with resident DJs Cora and Hibiya Line on June 23.

The second show will feature DJ, remixer and producer Dicky Trisco from the UK, who has toured worldwide with partner DJ Pete Herbert. They have appeared annually at events like the Mareh Festival, Electric Elephant and Glastonbury.

Trisco will play disco music along with local DJ Nick Ford. Tickets are VN150,000 after 10 pm.

The June 25 show will include house, techno, hip hop, funk and groove with DJ David Lamon from Switzerland and resident DJ Hibiya Line. Entrance fee is VN100,000 after 10 pm.

The events begin at 9 pm at 5 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street in District 4. VNS
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh receives Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation Prak Sokhon in Ha Noi yesterday. Photo chinhphu.vn

HA NOI  Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation Prak Sokhon pledged to strengthen cooperation between the two foreign ministries during his talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Ha Noi yesterday.

The talks were part of the official visit of the Cambodian minister to Viet Nam from Tuesday to today, at Minhs invitation.

Host and guest expressed approval of the rapid and effective development of bilateral links in politics-diplomacy, national defence-security, economy, trade and investment. Both also approve of the effective operation of mutual cooperation mechanisms.

Deputy PM Minh asked Cambodia to provide all possible support for Vietnamese nationals living in the country, reinforcing traditional neighbourly friendship between the two countries.

He also suggested the Cambodian Foreign Ministry offer more favourable policies to Vietnamese investors in Cambodia, including granting certificates of land use and concluding negotiations on the double taxation avoidance agreement, toward lifting two-way trade to US$5 billion.

The two sides agreed to maintain close co-operation and co-ordination of viewpoints at regional and global forums, while increasing collaboration with other ASEAN member states to consolidate ASEANs solidarity, unity and central role: for the sake of peace, security, stability and cooperation in the region and the world.

On the East Sea issue, the two sides share the view that disputes should be solved by peaceful means, without using or threatening to use force. This view is in line with widely-accepted principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC). It also represents work-in-progress towards formulating a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Both sides also committed to continue working closely together, and with other members of the International Mekong River Commission, to ensure the sustainable management and use of Mekong River water resources and to promote Mekong  Lancang co-operation.

Vietnamese leaders reception

During the meeting with his guest yesterday, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked that the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Committee on Economic, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Co-operation mechanism - and the conference on cooperation and development among Vietnamese and Cambodian border provinces - be promoted.

He also asked the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation to assist in removing challenges faced by Vietnamese nationals living in the country, particularly related to their legal status. Addressing these issues would allow overseas Vietnamese to live more stable lives and to contribute to the host countrys socio-economic development and the friendship between the two countries.

The host urged increasing co-operation between the two countries in multilateral frameworks, particularly the ASEAN. He hopes Cambodia will continue to express its stance, together with other ASEAN member states, on the East Sea issue, with a view to consolidating ASEANs role in regional security as well as in the ASEAN Community.

In the meantime, President Tran ai Quang urged the two countries foreign ministries to join hands with each other in organising practical activities marking the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties (June 24, 1967) to educate younger generations about the relationship.

President Quang asked the minister to convey his invitations to King Norodom Sihamoni and leaders of the Cambodian Senate, National Assembly and Government to visit Viet Nam.

Sokhonn told Vietnamese leaders that his Viet Nam visit aims to demonstrate the Cambodian Governments resolve to step up the friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.  VNS
The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism has revoked the licence of a tourist company in Khanh Hoa Province for illegally employing Chinese nationals and other violations. Photo vietnamnet.vn

HCM CITY  The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism has revoked the licence of a tourist company in Khanh Hoa Province for illegally employing Chinese nationals and other violations.

It also called on the Khanh Hoa Province government and tourism department to continue inspecting the Silent Bay Tourism Company on illegally employing foreigners.

VNAT had begun to verify if the company was obeying the law on tourism operation and discovered several violations.

The company falsified documents when applying for permission to operate outbound tours and did not make materials as regulated or amend its documents when there was a change of legal representative.

The legal representative of an outbound tour operator should have experience in the field and the company claimed Huynh Thi Minh Thanh had worked for four years at Thanh Thanh Company, a tour operator.

VNAT officials discovered that she had never worked for the company.

Silent Bay did not change the investment certificate when Thanhs son Truong ang Vu Thuy took over from her as the legal representative.

But the main offence was employing 64 Chinese workers without permission, 19 of them as office workers and the other 45 as tour operators and customer service staff.

None of them had a work permit while only one, a person called Yang Ziming, had signed a contract with Silent Bay.  VNS
While the new online school enrollment system for the 2016 academic year is expected to help ease pressure on parents and students in Ha Noi, it also exposes obstacles. Photo caodangduochanoi.vn

HA NOI  While the new online school enrollment system for the 2016 academic year is expected to help ease pressure on parents and students in Ha Noi, it also exposes obstacles.

Nguyen Kim Chi, a Hanoian, said she had succeeded in registering her daughter at Mai ong Primary School at Hoang Mai District in just 10 minutes.

Online enrollment proves to be simple, convenient. It helps save time and hardship for parents in comparison with going to the school for registration, especially on rainy days like today, Chi told Ha Noi Moi (New Ha Noi) newspaper.

Many parents in the Ha ong, Cau Giay, ong a, Hoan Kiem districts completed registration on the designated dates  from June 16-19, according to a Viet Nam News Agency reporter.

However, some parents complained that they failed to register due to network congestion. Many had to try many times until succeeding.

Lai Phu Kien, a Hanoian, said he could not complete the registration after spending half a day on it. He blamed the fact that too many people accessed the network at the same time on the first day of online enrollment.

Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh who registered her child for first grade at Hoang Hoa Tham Primary school in Ba inh District, said although registration can be done online, parents still have to bring original documents to the schools.

Hanh said she would go to school on enrollment day - July 1 - for registration because she lives nearby.

Meanwhile, many parents are still uneasy about the change.

Nguyen Trong Thuy, who lives on the citys Thuy Khue Street, said if parents went to schools to register their kids, they would know immediately whether the registration had been accepted. But with the new system, they have to wait until all the procedures are done.

inh Thuy Duong, principal of Thanh Xuan Trung Primary School, said a lot of parents went to schools to get further information even though they got an enrollment code along with instructions.

Parents who are computer literate will have an advantage over those who arent, she added.

Some parents also fear that failure to register online would harm their childrens prospects of being accepted.

In response to parents complaints about mistakes in student information on the new system, Ngo Van Chat, head of Ha Noi Education Departments Examination Quality Management Unit, said parents should register normally in accordance with the code provided. All the mistakes will be corrected after enrollment, he said. -- VNS
National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan delivers speech during her visit to the northern mountainous province of Bac Kan yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo

BAC KAN  National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan has suggested the northern mountainous province of Bac Kan pay more heed to tourism development, as the locality boasts substantial potential.

During her tour to inspect the provinces socioeconomic development yesterday, the top legislator said Bac Kan should draw up policies to attract outside investment in tourism infrastructure.

She urged the locality to carefully select priorities in industrial development, while protecting ecology, water resources and forests in the context of limited land and human resources.

More attention should also be paid to ensuring social welfare: especially vocational training and job creation for minorities, the chief legislator noted.

The NA Chairwoman hailed Bac Kan for its performance in State budget collection and poverty reduction, despite being the only mountainous province nationwide with a population of below 500,000. She proposed the locality expand production of high-quality, competitive local products.

Ngan also noted the challenges for the province in fulfilling the target of having four communes recognised as new-style rural areas in 2016 and 22 communes recognized in 2016-20. The NA and the Government will study policies designed specifically for mountainous provinces in extremely difficult circumstances during the implementation of the new-style rural area building programme.

The NA Chairwoman Ngan also visited Cho Moi District  an example of new-style rural area building in Bac Kan Province - where she visited families and presented gifts to them.  VNS
HA NOI  It wasnt until recent food safety concerns that the market recognised a huge demand among Vietnamese customers for food of clear original, and enterprises were quick to jump in the high-potential agriculture sector that used to be dominated by household farming.

VinGroup, one of the leading enterprises in the real estate sector with the famous Vinpearl resort brand, last year opened its first VinEco store, which provides clean vegetables by both national and international standards and applies advanced farming technologies from Japan and Israel. The chain quickly expanded in big cities and the group never hid its ambition to become the driving force to change the Vietnamese mindset in doing agricultural business.

If VinEco manages to keep its product quality high and stable, this goal might not be too far off from being realised, especially when the demand for clean food has rocketed in a couple of years.

A survey by the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) in Ha Noi and HCM City shows that customers are ready to pay 30 per cent more for vegetables and pork if they have clear origins and are safe to eat.

In a traditional agricultural country like Viet Nam, however, identifying clear origins of food is difficult and sometimes impossible when basic foods - fresh vegetables, eggs, chicken, beef and pork - come from family farms producing small quantities before reaching customers on the market through local merchants.

However, this conventional method of food production and distribution caused the food safety issue to get out of hand, with many farmers  driven by benefits  abusing pesticides, preservatives, antibiotics and a number of banned chemicals to grow vegetables and beef up animals.

In addition, tonnes of smuggled food continued to flood the market every day. In 2015 alone, there were 5,000 cases of food safety violations resulting in fines, according to a report by the Government in its year-end meeting on the problem.

Business opportunities

IPSARD head Nguyen o Anh Tuan told Vietnamplus online newspaper that there have been more and more big enterprises jumping into the agricultural sector, which promises quick payback.

Real estate, construction or steel producing used to attract business in the past, he said. But now agriculture is surfacing as a potential sector because of favourable natural conditions as well as cheap labour.

In addition to VinGroup, a number of large enterprises that had never invested in agriculture before are now pouring money into the sector.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group CEO Vo Hoang Son said that the net benefit from selling cattle herds in the first quarter this year reached VN133 billion (US$5.9 million), 46 per cent higher than the net benefit of all business fields from the same period last year at VN91 billion ($4 million).

Steel manufacturing mogul Hoa Phat group last year set up a subsidiary company on breeding and animal feed with investment of about VN2.5 trillion ($111 million), an attempt to gain a slice of the animal feed market pie worth more than $6 billion.

Social security at risk?

Enterprises joining the agricultural sector, bringing along with them advanced imported farming technologies and techniques, is the unavoidable new trend, said The Pan Group Chairman Nguyen Duy Hung.

Yet the trend might cause social security problems in an agricultural nation like Viet Nam, where nearly 80 per cent of the population  some 70 million people  are farmers, Hung said.

People used to say that applying advanced technologies will mean nothing for the farmers. Enterprises used those technologies to produce food and sell it to the market, directly competing with the farmers, he said.

Hung believes that Viet Nam should start working on moving the farmers to different sectors; otherwise, labour instability is very likely to happen along with the new agricultural trend.

The Government, meanwhile, is pushing for more advanced farming techniques to be applied by farmers themselves to economically lift up rural areas.

In a conference to review the implementation of the Science and Technology Programme serving new-style rural areas in 2011-2015 held in the capital yesterday, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao uc Phat said policies and sustainable methods should be devised, especially for remote and disadvantaged areas.

These efforts will accelerate the restructuring of agricultural production and push rural economic development, Phat said.

Head of the programme, Nguyen Tuan Anh, said the project will help to form technological application models with investment from enterprises, including at least 60 per cent of the models in the form of value chains from production to consumption, thus promoting socio-economic development in new-style rural areas.

Up to 105 technologies and 85 science and technology application models in agricultural production, as well as 50 enterprise-farmer models, have been established so far, benefitting about 5,000 farmer households from nearly 100 communes across the country.  VNS
Viet Nam News

HA NOI  Search teams this morning located the exact whereabouts of a missing CASA 212 jet engine in the area near Bach Long Vi Islands in the Tonkin Gulf.

The engine is said to be on the seabed some 15 nautical miles to the south-southeast of the islands.

The nine crew members on board the missing surveillance aircraft and the planes black box remain unaccounted for.

Search teams last evening retrieved a body floating in the area where the CASA 212 reportedly went down. The corpse was brought back to land to identify whether it was the body of one of the missing crew members.

The CASA-212 disappeared from the radar on June 16 during a search operation for a Su-30MK2, which had crashed offshore near the central province of Nghe An last Tuesday.

The CASA 212 turboprop plane is believed to have crashed into the Hai Phong Sea, some 44 nautical miles from Bach Long Vi Islands.

Airbus, the maker of the CASA 212, had earlier offered technical assistance to identify the cause of the accident.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh inh Dung said the first priority currently is to urgently search for the missing crew members and then look for aircraft debris and wreckage to investigate the crash.

Admiral Phan Ngoc Minh said search efforts are on 24/7 even in unfavourable weather conditions during high tide.  VNS
HA NOI  The second phase of the Profession Oriented Higher Education (POHE) project closing ceremony was organised yesterday in Ha Noi.

The ceremony attracted the participation of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), the Ministry of Finance, representatives from different universities and educational management experts.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga said that the projects phase one had been conducted successfully since 2005. The project was implemented in eight universities with 10 profession oriented programmes in the fields of tourism and hotels, education, agriculture and forestry, construction, electronics, and information technology.

Based on the satisfactory results of phase one, the POHE project phase two was started in 2012.

The project was important in giving support for the implementation of the Law on University Education, which was about basically and comprehensively renewing education and training, he said.

Deputy minister Ga asked the project management board to review their experiences on profession oriented higher education into a training document for university lecturers to expand the projects results.

Eight universities taking part in the project should act as consultants to develop the POHE model to other universities and colleges across the country.

Bui Anh Tuan, project director, said that the project created changes in awareness for the university education community.

The MOET and leaders of eight universities taking part in the projects signed a joint statement on developing university education with profession orientation.

After four years, Tuan said, the project helped improve relationship between universities and enterprises. Five lecturer training centres were founded. National forums, conferences and three training courses shared the projects results to more than 100 universities in the country. -- VNS
WASHINGTON - In one of the most extraordinary scenes in years on the US House floor, Democrats staged a dramatic sit-in on Wednesday, demanding that the Republican-led Congress address gun violence following the Orlando nightclub massacre.

The lawmakers action, which earned praise from President Barack Obama, signaled what is likely to be a protracted election-year battle over firearms -- perennially a hot-button campaign issue in the United States.

"We have to occupy the floor of the House until there is action," said Democratic Congressman John Lewis -- a civil rights icon who marched with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s -- just before he and dozens of colleagues sat down on the carpeted floor in the well of the chamber.

The interruption came just as the House presiding officer moved to declare the body in recess.

"No bill, no break!" the lawmakers chanted after the presiding officer and staff left the chamber.

Even with lights dimmed and microphones turned off, several dozen lawmakers carried on, with the sit-in entering its fifth hour by 4:00 pm local time.

"No more Orlandos! No more Auroras! No more victims!" shouted Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her voice cracking as she addressed colleagues to loud cheers.

US lawmakers, mainly Democrats, have introduced several bills in recent years aimed at reducing gun violence, including legislation to expand background checks -- a provision that has broad support among the voting public. But none has passed Congress.

"Who has to be shot, and how many have to die before we do anything?" asked Robin Kelly, a congresswoman from Illinois.

"Its not a colleague, Gabby Giffords. Its not children in an elementary school. Its not people praying in a church," she added.

"This is embarrassing."

House Speaker Paul Ryan has refused to schedule a vote for gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting that left 49 people dead.

The chamber was scheduled to wrap up business today before going on its vacation ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

"If theres no bill to vote on, there should be no congressional break," Democrat Earl Blumenauer told the House.

The sit-in, which quickly grew to about 100 members, drew the attention of the White House.

"Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most," Obama posted on Twitter.

"This is what real leadership looks like," Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton added in her own tweet.

Give us a vote

With the C-Span cameras turned off during the recess, the public broadcaster responsible for covering congressional sessions enacted a creative workaround, broadcasting live video from social media applications Periscope and Facebook, filmed by a lawmaker on the House floor.

It was the first time C-Span aired live social media footage from the House floor -- where taking pictures and video is against the rules.

There were extraordinary scenes in the chamber.

Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, a former US Army helicopter pilot who was wounded and lost both legs in Iraq, sat with her colleagues on the carpet of the well, her prosthetics removed, her wheelchair empty beside her.

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi joined the insurgents, then led several lawmakers and gun violence survivors and relatives outside onto the Capitol steps.

"Give us a vote," she demanded of Ryan.

"A moment of silence? We want a moment of truth. We want a time of action to follow it."

Earlier this week, the US Senate voted on four gun control amendments -- two from Democrats and two from Republicans -- after Senate Democrat Chris Murphy delivered a 15-hour floor speech demanding votes on gun control.

The Senate rejected all four measures, but lawmakers crafted a bipartisan compromise bill aimed at preventing terror suspects and people on no-fly lists or FBI watchlists from buying a firearm.

The bills sponsors said Senate leaders assured them a vote on the legislation.

Murphy and more than a dozen other Democratic senators, including popular, firebrand Elizabeth Warren entered the chamber to express their solidarity.

"You cannot stand down at a moment of peril for this country," Murphy told MSNBC. AFP
China is said to have triggered a sudden impasse in the recent trade negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in New Zealand. It led to some nations, particularly those belonging to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), pushing for dismantling of the three-tier system followed in the initial round of offers for goods liberalisation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top officials at South Block are bracing for a hectic week of diplomacy, as they try to convince Beijing and some other countries to soften their opposition to India's entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
Ahead of the (SCO) Summit meeting in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent, which is set to be held on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said India looks forward to fruitful outcome, particularly in the field of economic cooperation.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit & interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

He further stated that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

Prime Minister Modi will leave for Tashkent on Thursday to attend the two-day SCO summit.

The summit of the six-nation grouping is expected to focus on enhancing security cooperation to curb down terrorism.

"PM goes to Tashkent tomorrow for the SCO summit. The SCO summit kicks off with a gala, dinner and a cultural programme. He will be meeting the host, the present Chair of the SCO, President Karimov of Uzbekistan, tomorrow. After that he will be attending the extended session of the SCO. The following day, that is on June 24, there will be a couple of bilaterals as well and he will return to India on Friday evening," said Ministry of External Affairs Secretary (West) Sujata Mehta at a press conference in New Delhi.

Prime Minister Modi will meet dignitaries of several nations at the summit. He is expected to seek support for India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, which has been actively blocked by China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others will also be present at the event, at which leaders will discuss various issues including terrorism and energy cooperation.

"Our engagement in these areas will intensify through this. The SCO is a major group in terms of countries that have huge potential in terms of energy. We believe, in fact there is stock of SCO energy club emerging. So we will wait and see how that develops," Mehta added.

India along with Pakistan was granted membership of the SCO last July. Both the South Asian nations are expected to join fully by 2016.

The SCO was founded in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
08:06 Is it over yet?: Worst televised political debate held in Pennsylvania The US has seen the worst televised debate between two politicians that has ever happened, says Sky News host Paul Murray.

03:58 Everybody knows the Russians are lying through their teeth: General Jack Keane Former US Army Vice Chief of Staff General Jack Keane says everybody knows the Russians are lying through their teeth amid their latest...

00:31 Betrayal of younger generation by climate cultists is the great scandal of our time Sky News host Rowan Dean says the betrayal of the younger generation by the climate cultists is the great scandal of our time.
WATERLOO  A teen at the center of a brief police standoff on Tuesday has been arrested on assault charges.

Jyshawn Robertson, 18, of 211 Newel St., had initially been taken to a hospital for an evaluation after threatened himself and others at his home around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. After he was released from the hospital later that day, Waterloo police arrested him on a misdemeanor assault charge in connection with the incident that sparked the standoff.

Court records allege Robertson was arguing with Shannon Hayes, and when Patrick Ellis entered the home, Robertson became aggressive toward him and hit him in the head with an empty liquor bottle.

The bottle caused cuts on Elliss forehead.

A short time later, police evacuated the house. Robertson remained inside for about 20 minutes before surrendering to officers.

Robertson was later released from jail.
WATERLOO  A second person has been arrested in connection with an August home burglary where residents were beaten by intruders.

Waterloo police arrested Michael Maurice Lonnell Carter, 25, of 412 Reed St., for first-degree burglary and interference. His bond was set at $126,000.

Authorities allege Carter brandished a folding tire iron to make it appear to be a shotgun when he and others entered 702 N. Barclay St. around 3:30 a.m. Aug. 2 after kicking in the door.

One woman was struck with the tire iron, and a man was injured when he fought with the suspects. Both residents were taken to the hospital for treatment.

Police found a cell phone that belonged to one of the intruders and found videos of Carter with the other suspects shortly before the burglary.

When police attempted to arrest Carter on Randolph Street on Tuesday morning, he ran and was detained after he fell.

Carter is the second person to be arrested in connection with the crime. Alexander Clark Austin, 22, of Waterloo, was arrested for first-degree burglary in March. He is accused of driving others to the home.
CEDAR FALLS  A place of reflection, reminiscence and remembrance.

Those are just some of the ways people have described a new detail on the University of Northern Iowa campus that commemorates the Malcolm Price Laboratory School.

The MPLS commemorative plaza was years in the making, an idea that spurred out of the Ross A. Nielsen/Alumni and Friends of Price Laboratory School board after the closure of the lab school on June 30, 2012.

We wanted to do everything we could that would in essence memorialize the Laboratory School, said Jim Kelly, who led the board when it decided to erect a plaza and oversaw the planning committee for it.

The commemorative plaza will be officially dedicated at 1 p.m. Saturday at its on-campus site behind the Nielsen Fieldhouse, at 19th and Campus streets, in Cedar Falls. It will follow the 27th annual all-class reunion picnic that begins at noon at the Fieldhouse.

Kelly said the dedication will be a simple ceremony that will include comments from UNI College of Education Interim Dean Vicki Robinson and UNI President Bill Ruud, as well as a ribbon-cutting.

The dedication is free and open to the public. Tickets are available at the doors for the alumni and friends picnic for $5.

The location is near where the Malcolm Price Laboratory School stood from 1951 until it was torn down in June 2013. The school was originally established on campus in 1883.

The stone lintel from the Campus Street school with the words Laboratory School engraved into it now makes up a piece of the plaza wall. The heading on the north side recognizes its place on the UNI campus.

The plaza also recognizes the schools important dates, including the cornerstone from the building, and is meant to commemorate its 129-year history of having an impact in the field of education in Iowa and throughout the country.

The area measures about 65 feet by 65 feet. It was designed by Ritland-Kuiper Landscape Architects, of Waterloo, and with input from UNI facilities staff. It is surrounded by new trees that will one day grow to arch over the walkways leading to the plaza.

Its total cost came to just under $250,000, according to UNI Foundation senior director of regional development Andrea Elliott. That came from more than 85 individual donors  mostly alumni and friends of the laboratory school  as well as support from the university and the RAN/AFPLS board.

It was just a wonderful example of a great project that resulted from a collaboration with a number of stakeholders, Elliott said.

Bob Stephens, who graduated from the lab school in 1963, was the lead donor on the project, and spearheaded an effort to ensure the plaza included a QR code on its wall to link it to the schools website at www.pricelabhistory.org.

Stephens said in a statement he backed the project to commemorate the extraordinary teachers of the lab school that dedicated their careers to shaping the lives of the students who were lucky enough to attend the Malcolm Price Laboratory School.

Kelly, who taught at the school for 20 years and then spent another 20 years in UNIs College of Education, said he hopes to see a phase two of the plaza project that could expand it into a courtyard with picnic tables, among other ideas.
WAVERLY  Teresa Meyer of Waverly is the official winner in the Iowa House District 63 Democratic primary.

Meyer won by 33 votes, according to official results from Bremer and Black Hawk counties. The results still need to be certified by the Iowa Secretary of States office by July 5.

Meyers opponent Eric Stromberg, also a Democrat from Waverly, congratulated her campaign. Meyer, a registered nurse, thanked Stromberg for being a worthy opponent.

Meyer, 57, also thanked supporters.

I would like to thank all of the people of House District 63 for honoring me with their vote on June 7 and helping me win the Democratic primary election, Meyer said in a statement Sunday.

I also want to thank all of those who worked tirelessly on our campaign. It was a grassroots effort, and now all we need to do is to work together for a big win in the general election, she said.

Also the partys nominee in 2014, Meyer will once again face second-term incumbent Iowa Rep. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville.

Stromberg, a substitute teacher, thanked his supporters and urged them to back Meyer in November.

He received 506 votes, or 47.1 percent, to Meyers 539 votes, or 50.2 percent. Matthew Glen Evans, who had dropped out of the race ahead of the June 7 primary, received 29 votes.

Stromberg came out slightly ahead in Bremer County, but Meyer received 78.1 percent of the vote in Black Hawk County. The district covers all of Bremer County and the northwest part of Black Hawk County.

A formatting error on election night initially showed Stromberg with a slight lead. The error was discovered the next morning during routine verification.
OSAGE  Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk has filed an appeal in Iowa District Court in response to Mitchell County Magistrate Nicholas Larsons ruling the countys revised steel wheels ordinance was unconstitutional.

The revised ordinance was challenged after Derek Zimmerman, a 14-year-old from Orchard, was issued a citation in August 2015 on Addison Avenue near Howard County.

I was incredibly surprised to read the ruling, Walk said. He had a similar case with (another person), where he pleaded guilty, paid the fine and the magistrate said it wasnt unconstitutional.

Now we have someone pleading not guilty, the magistrate fining them $20 for the state violation and saying the county ordinance is now unconstitutional.

Walk said the county was able to file the appeal because the ordinance was what was in question and not the act, of which Zimmerman was found guilty.

In 2012 the Iowa Supreme Court ruled a 2009 Mitchell County ordinance banning the use of steel wheels on paved roads to prevent damage violated the religious freedoms of the Groffdale Conference Mennonite Church, whose beliefs prohibit them from driving vehicles with rubber wheels.

Supervisors revised the ordinance in an effort to answer the constitutionality question raised by the high court.

We changed the language to reflect the language of Iowa Code, Walk said. We just increased the amount of the fine to be larger amounts.

In addition, you cant use religion as a reason because he (Derek) isnt old enough to even be a member of the church. He has to be 18 years old.

In his ruling, the Larson said Zimmerman violated the state ordinance because he did not apply for a special permit, which is allowed under state law but not in the Mitchell County ordinance.

The permit he is referencing is Iowa Code 321.443, Walk said. I do not believe it applies in this situation, but it appears it is being applied in this situation.

He is using it in a broad application.

The code states: The department and local authorities in their respective jurisdictions shall review any application for a special permit and may, with good cause being shown, issue special permits authorizing the operation upon a highway of traction engines or tractors having movable tracks with transverse corrugations upon the periphery of such movable tracks or farm tractors or other farm machinery, the operation of which upon a highway would otherwise be prohibited under this chapter.

I would be surprised if the Iowa DOT would approve the permit, Walk said.
WATERLOO  Wednesdays deluge produced a record amount of rain, according to data organized by the National Weather Service.

Waterloo picked up 2.91 inches, the fifth wettest day for the city ever during the month of June. The total also was the highest recorded for the date, June 22, according to the weather services information.

The top five rainfall amounts for June in Waterloo are:

4.35 inches  June 15, 1980.

3.95 inches  June 13, 1947.

3.22 inches  June 26, 2005.

3.07 inches  June 28, 1948.

2.91 inches  June 22, 2016.

With Wednesdays downpour, Waterloo so far this month has collected 7.37 inches of rain. The figure represents a departure from normal of 3.77 inches, according to the weather service.

A bit more than 1/2 inch of additional rain this month will push June 2016 into the top 10 wettest Junes on record in Waterloo. At the moment, June 1990 is in the No. 10 slot with 7.98 inches.

Rain is in the forecast today and Saturday.

The all-time wettest June happened in 1947. Waterloo that year soaked up 12.43 inches, according to the weather service.

The wettest day of all-time in Waterloo was Sept. 8, 1941, when 6 inches fell.

Weather records for Waterloo go back to February 1895.
CEDAR FALLS  University Avenue may look like a combat zone, but businesses along that commercial thoroughfare are alive and well.

For that reason, some are throwing a block party from 4 to 7 p.m. tonight in the Holiday Plaza shopping center parking lot across University from College Square.

The event, being held at the start of the Sturgis Falls Celebration weekend, is meant to draw attention to the businesses along the stretch of University under construction, said Jared Boomer Smith, admissions director at LaJames International College at Holiday Plaza

Smith said hes talked to a number of businesses along University.

The consensus is that business with the construction is okay for existing customers but theyre not bringing new customers. Were experiencing the same thing, Smith said. We hope this picks things up a little bit and brings some traffic in.

There will be food, games for kids and LaJames students will be doing face painting, nails and hair. Businesses will grill hot dogs and Chads Pizza will be in hand. There will be drawings for prizes and a sidewalk sale.

Smith noted one other important thing: The plaza is accessible off University via Valley Park drive and an adjacent access road.

The city is reconstructing University adjacent to Holiday Plaza, College Square and Black Hawk Village shopping centers, in the first phase of an overall reconstruction of University within Cedar Falls over two years. That first phase is anticipated to be completed this November. University is being narrowed from six lanes to four, and six of its eight signalized intersections will be replaced with roundabouts.
CEDAR FALLS  The newly paved Gateway Park was road-tested Wednesday. It passed.

Five-plus inches of rain poured down on the fresh asphalt, where crews were setting up for the Sturgis Celebration this weekend. But most of that dried up within a few hours.

If this had happened without the new asphalt, Sturgis would be stuck paying $12,000 for wood chips, said Jay Stoddard, Sturgis Falls board president. And that wouldnt have really worked anyway.

He recalled the mushy conditions of Sturgis Falls past. Those days apparently are gone.

Its doing better than I thought, Stoddard said.

The rain did disrupt preparations somewhat. Delivery of about 80 picnic tables had to be postponed when the downpour began around 7 a.m.

As of Wednesday, two 40 by 100 foot tents with 32-foot peaks stood in the park. They are the major beer tents for the weekend  one will feature craft beers and the other the Bottoms Up dispensing system, which Stoddard says is the fastest beer dispenser on the planet.

The dispenser fills through a hole in the bottom of the cups, which is sealed with a magnet. When the bartender places a cup on the dispenser, the seal is broken and beer fills the cup in a matter of seconds  the hands-free system allows servers to work larger crowds.

Stoddard expects a curiosity factor will attract many to Gateway to check out the improvements, and the board has planned accordingly.

A semi-trailer holding 277 kegs will have 40 tap handles to keep up with thirsty crowds.

Shade and party tents will provide shelter and reprieve from hot temperatures.

The carnival set up Wednesday, and many rides now dot Gateway.

Workers also erected the Gateway stage. The band Stage Write will open performances Friday at 5 p.m. at Gateway. Bands such as Hotel California and Bob Dorr & the Blue Band will grace the stage throughout the weekend.

Nearly 100 other acts and events are scheduled for the weekend, including the Bill Riley Talent Search, the Scrap Metal 34th Army band and Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Milk and Honey. A complete event schedule can be found on the Sturgis Falls website, sturgisfalls.org.

The Cedar Basin Jazz Festival, the Firefighters Dance and car show are also this weekend.

Stoddard estimates between 100,000 and 120,000 people (about three times the population of Cedar Falls) will attend the celebration.

Were still plugging away, Stoddard said. But, barring any lightning and bad weather, it has all the makings of a huge crowd.
When it comes to the chaotic, flailing, floundering Trump campaign, many senior Republicans are in a state of panic. Will this become a state of revolt?

If the next few weeks are anything like the last two, a senior GOP official told me, anything could happen at the convention. Donald Trumps response to the Orlando attack  encouraging religious bigotry and implying President Obama might be a secret jihadi  confirmed the worst Republican fear: Trump will remain Trump.

With this recognition has come the realization Trump has wasted the seven weeks since becoming the presumptive nominee  a period in which Democrats were divided and vulnerable. How did he fill the vacant air? He raised the possibility Ted Cruzs father might be implicated in the assassination of JFK; that Hillary Clinton might have been involved in the death of Vince Foster; that a federal judge, presiding over a case against Trump University, should be disqualified by his ethnicity; and American soldiers in Iraq were living large off larceny.

By the end of this string of statements, one of Trumps strongest congressional proxies, Rep. Duncan Hunter, was reduced to arguing: I think what he says and what hell do are two different things. Republicans, in essence, should be reassured by their nominees duplicity.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have been willing to criticize Trump, but not to un-endorse him. Practically, this means nothing  nothing  Trump says could forfeit their support. The presumptive nominee has already raised the prospect his opponent is a murderer and the president is a traitor. Not, evidently, sufficient provocations. Ryan and McConnell have decided in order to remain leaders they must avoid providing leadership.

But what might change things in the GOP is the political disaster that now appears in the offing. Beneath Trumps historically low approval ratings  29 percent in a recent Washington Post/ABC News survey  is an even more disturbing development. After securing the nomination, Trumps support among Republicans rose, in many polls, to the mid-80s  not spectacularly good, but an indication the GOP was rallying. In recent polls, Trumps Republican support has dropped to between 70 percent and 80 percent. Along this trend, a decisive Democratic victory might sweep away the House and Senate. If Republican politicians begin to see this dynamic in their own polling, many will suddenly rediscover their consciences and abandon Trump.

Trumps whole campaign now consists of a pathetic irony. He ran attacking the Republican establishment at every turn. Now, since he has neglected to construct his own national campaign, he is completely dependent on the establishment to provide his political ground game. First he vilifies the GOP, then complains it lacks enthusiasm for his cause.

Republican convention delegates are sophisticated enough to see what is happening. The Trump campaign claims to be lean; in most of the country, including the battleground states, it is nonexistent. Trump offers his leadership as the solution to every problem, yet presides over a campaign organization that is a squabbling, paralyzed amateur hour. Delegates know even if Trump can boost his poll numbers he cannot magically create a viable, national campaign structure.

If a revolt emerges, it will happen first in the GOP convention rules committee  which meets a week before the convention and is stacked with officials more loyal to the party than to Trump. The simplest move would be to require a supermajority to select a nominee  an approach taken by some Republican state conventions in order to avoid the choice of badly wounded candidates. The goal should be a truly open convention, which does not choose anyone Trump has already beaten.

Trumps response to his swift political decline has been to continue his primary campaign  accusing Jeb Bush of suddenly recovering the energy to plot against him. This comfortable attack makes sense, given that Trump has succeeded by appealing to a niche market that is impressed by his instinctive nativism and Kardashian-like celebrity. So far, the niche candidate has failed to make the transition to a national message. And given the adoration and enthusiasm of his crowds (one recently chanting: Build a wall and kill them all!), Trump has no emotional motivation to change direction, whatever the polls might say.

A delegate revolt would be a messy spectacle, with little hope of succeeding unless Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus eventually break with Trump. But it is now the only option consistent with Republican interests and honor.
Breakfast to be served Saturday

WATERLOO  The men of Unity Presbyterian Church, 1149 Hammond Ave, will be serving a Mens Pancake Breakfast from 7:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday.

The menu includes scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage, juice bar and coffee.

Cost is $6. Profits will be directed to the church mission projects.

Awards banquet slated for July 6

WATERLOO  The Waterloo Historic Preservation Commission will host the 2016 awards banquet July 6 at the Waterloo Boat House.

Social hour starts at 6 p.m., with the ceremony at 6:30 p.m.

Award recipients this year ar Dr. Chen and Associates, JSA-Walden block redevelopment; John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum; Robert Saul-residence; and Donna Nelson.

Reserve a place with Adrienne Miller at 291-4366 or adrienne.miller@waterloo-ia.org.

Monthly dinner set for Monday

CEDAR FALLS  The monthly dinner for retirees / former employees of Waterloo Industries will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Family Restaurant in North Cedar.

All are welcome for the food and good company. Bring any old photos. For more information, call 984-6456.

Plum Creek Art Festival planned

FREDERICKSBURG  The Plum Creek Art Festival is set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 9 at the Fredericksburg Community Center.

Admission is free, and all are welcome.

The festival is sponsored by the Plum Creek Art Council, a non-profit, all volunteer organization formed by local people interested in promoting local artists and featuring their work. The artists work in many media painting in water color and oil, glass mosaics, metal, wood, pottery, jewelry, silver, blown glass and more.
Q: I just took a vacation to Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York. All those states use John Deere equipment to mow along their interstates. Who can I contact with the state of Iowa to support John Deere this way?

A: State Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, a former member of the Iowa Transportation Commission, responds: Current state law requires competitive bidding that emphasizes lowest, responsible bid. The Iowa Senate has passed an Iowa first law that favors bids and contracts for Iowa companies, which I support and voted for.

nnn

Q: On the delinquent tax list, what do suspended taxes mean?

A: An individual may file for suspended taxes based on Iowa Code sections 427.8 and 427.9. Suspension of taxes does not eliminate the tax, it simply suspends payment of taxes due and eliminates the interest. Upon death or sale of the property, suspended taxes are due and interest will then accrue.

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Q: In the June 13 Courier on page A4 is an Associated Press article about air strikes in Syria that killed many people at a market. Shouldnt this article include the detail who was responsible for these air strikes?

A: Activists claimed the airstrikes were carried out by Russia, which launched an aerial campaign in September to shore up President Bashar Assads forces. Russia denies targeting civilians.

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Q: Why doesnt Waterloo Code Enforcement fine people for blowing grass into the street week after week?

A: The city says they do issue citations when officers are made aware of violations and have given the owner a chance to clean up their act first.

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Q: Regarding a Call the Courier June 14 about Omaha millionaires you called Warren Buffet the Sage of Omaha. I always thought his nickname was the Oracle of Omaha. Which is correct?

A: Both. Hes also been called the Wizard of Omaha. Hes too smart to be summed up in just one nickname.

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Q: In the article about Hitting the Open Road: Under the picture after Kevin Dils name it says lat. What is that supposed to mean?

A: It was just a typo, a misplaced space. It should have read Kevin Dill at instead. Our apologies.

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Q: On KWWL some announcers and reporters are wearing a small green circle item about a quarter size on their clothes. What is the meaning of it?

A: The lapel pins theyre wearing have the logo of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janerio, which will air on KWWL Aug. 5-21.

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Q: What is the difference between ISIS and ISIL?

A: They mean basically the same thing. ISIL is an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

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Q: Where could I write to Paul Ryan?

A: Write to him at 1233 Longworth HOB, Washington, D.C. 20515, or send email through the U.S. House website at https://paulryan.house.gov/contact.
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By The Associated Press Jun. 21, 2016 | 05:40 PM | FRANKFORT, KY

Kentucky's Republican governor said Tuesday he has "absolute authority" to disband any of the states' nearly 400 boards and commissions as the state's Democratic attorney general hints at possible legal action.

Gov. Matt Bevin last week abolished the board of trustees at the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Retirement Systems, only to recreate them with some new members. U of L President James Ramsey issued a statement Tuesday, saying he applauds Bevin's actions and saying he will offer his resignation once a new board is in place.

Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear has called Bevin's actions "unprecedented." He has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to discuss Bevin's decisions, potentially announcing a lawsuit against the state's highest elected officer.

Beshear and Bevin are already in court, fighting over whether Bevin has the authority to cut $18 million from college and university budgets that were approved by the state legislature.
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If youre looking to try out an online casino, there are several things that will help you make a decision. Heres what you should look for when choosing an online casino

 Are they regulated? A lot of the larger ones have licenses issued by the authorities in their respective regions, so its worth checking this first.

 Do they offer games from different software providers? Some casinos just use one software provider and limit your selection. This is fine if you like playing those types of games but you may want to check other casinos as well.

 What does their payout percentage look like? The payout rate refers to how much money you can expect to win after every bet. A high payout rate means youll be able to play more often without having to worry about losing all your money. Its also important to know the minimum and maximum bets allowed on each game. If youre going to play roulette, for example, then you probably dont want a casino with a minimum bet of less than $2.50 or even lower than that.

The players used to play the game slot online in the land based casinos in the past time. But now with time after the invention of the online casinos players play the game slot online. Online platform provide the players with the convenience in playing and even better winning. Even after keeping a good percentage of the profits, they distribute good funds to players.

 How many games do they offer? There are lots of different types of games to choose from. Roulette, blackjack and poker are some of the most popular options, but you might find slots, video pokers, video bingo and others as well. You can usually filter these games down to only show the ones that interest you best, so make sure that your list isnt too long!

 Is there a bonus offer? Many online casinos offer free bonuses as part of their welcome package  which includes new players being awarded 100% up to $10 instantly, for example. These offers are great but not everyone has access to them all the time (and some require you to deposit real money). If youd prefer to avoid paying a fee, some casinos offer no-deposit bonuses where you can get a certain amount of funds before you need to put any actual money into the account. These are usually offered alongside welcome bonuses, so make sure you read both parts of the terms and conditions carefully before signing up.

 Does it offer live dealer games? Live dealers are much preferred by many over regular virtual versions, so it pays to check this option out too. Most online casinos now offer live dealer games in addition to their regular offerings, allowing you to experience the thrill of the real thing without needing to leave home.

Now that youve got an idea of what to look for when choosing an online casino, heres some tips for making the right choice

It really comes down to personal preference. No two people are exactly alike, so everyone has an opinion on what they like and dislike about each casino. That said, here are some things to consider in order to narrow down your choices

 Popularity. Check out reviews, forums and Facebook pages to see what other people think of the casino. Also, ask around at work or friends houses who they would recommend to you. You could always take a look at the casinos website too, to see what kind of information they provide about themselves.

 Reputation. Find out what the general public thinks about the casino. Check out any customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot, Amazon and Google Play to find out more. As far as gaming goes, you can also check out the Better Business Bureau to see whether there have been any complaints against the casino.

 Security. Make sure the casino uses SSL encryption to secure its transactions, meaning that your private data stays safe during transactions. Other than that, look for security seals on the site itself and verify that theyre legitimate. You can also check out the casinos privacy policy to see how they handle confidential information.

 Payment methods. Its good to have multiple payment options available, especially if you plan to play frequently. Its also nice to find a casino that accepts cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If youre worried about safety, you can always opt for a credit card or PayPal instead.

With all those criteria in mind, heres our top picks

Betway:

Betway is a relatively new UK casino offering online gambling to residents of the United Kingdom and European Union. They offer hundreds of games across both land based and digital platforms, with plenty of top software providers like Net Entertainment, Microgaming and Yggdrasil Gaming Network. With a generous welcome offer that gives players 100% up to 100, you really cant go wrong with Betway.

Coral Casino:

Coral Casino is operated by the same company that runs the famous Caribbean casino, Grand Reef. Like many casinos, Coral Casino offers a wide variety of games, including plenty of video slots and table games. New players can benefit from a huge 100% match bonus up to 1000, while existing customers enjoy 25% cash back on deposits made within 48 hours of opening an account.

Ladbrokes Casino:

Ladbrokes Casino is owned by the same company as the famous bookmaker that started life in 1921. With more than 500 games from leading software providers such as Amaya, NetEnt and Microgaming, you wont be disappointed by the quality of the games here. New players get a 200% match bonus up to 500, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits.

Paddy Power Casino:

Paddy Power is another Irish-owned casino that operates throughout Europe. Not only does Paddy Power Casino offer traditional casino games like blackjack, roulette and slots, but it also provides a full range of sports betting, including football, tennis, boxing and horse racing. New players can receive a massive 100% match bonus up to 200, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits.

William Hill Casino:

William Hill Casino is one of the biggest names in the industry, operating in Europe, Asia and North America. Founded in 1984, this online casino has more than 400 games to choose from, including slots and table games, with a wide array of software providers like WagerLogic, Big Time Gaming and Rival.

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Jun 23, 2016 | By Tess

3D printing advancements within the medical field are a truly global phenomenon. With doctors from all over the world spearheading some life-changing surgeries with 3D printed surgical guides and even implants, and with scientists developing 3D bioprinting at an astonishing rate, there is little doubt that our medical futures will be marked and impacted by additive manufacturing technologies. This time around, our story comes out of Russia, where a team of Russian researchers from the Siberian Federal University in Krasnoyarsk have developed a new and reportedly unique method of manufacturing bones, which includes 3D printing technologies and computed tomography.

Notably, the new method of 3D printing bones will use a fully biodegradable material called polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a bio-derived and biodegradable polymer. Catherine Shishatskiy, a doctor of biological sciences at the Siberian Federal University, explains that 3D printing technologies have allowed them enormous freedoms with their designs and bone creations. Additionally, thanks to tomographic technologies, such as CT scans and MRIs for instance, the level of accuracy attainable for 3D models is unprecedented. The combination of scanning and printing technologies has undeniably opened the doors for custom designed anatomical implants, such as 3D printed bones.

Constantine Kisterskiy, another representative from the Siberian Federal University, also noted that by using the biocompatible material for the additive manufacturing of bones, effectively fusing the material together layer by layer, they have eliminated the need for certain chemical structures and adhesive compositions. The 3D printing material in question was reportedly also developed by scientists from the Krasnoyarsk region in Russia through a previous research project. According to a Russian news source, Ekaterina Shishatskaya, a doctor of medicine at the SFU, was awarded a prize for her materials research in 2010.

The Russian researchers new method of 3D printing bones out of a biodegradable and biocompatible material is currently being tested for a number of standards tests and they are hoping for their innovative method be cleared by both Russian and International standards for implantable devices.

Up until now, the majority of 3D printed bone implants have been manufactured from a strong and durable titanium alloy, which seems to have had good results in a number of complicated surgeries. And while it remains to be seen whether polymer based bone implants will become the new norm, the Russian researchers certainly seem to be into something and there is never too little room in the field of innovation.

Titanium 3D printed implant

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Alvaro wrote at 6/24/2016 2:53:23 AM:Amazing ! There's no limit to 3d printing in a near future a a multimaterial 3D printer will grow new limbs .




Jun 23, 2016 | By Alec

3D printing is often hailed as the future of manufacturing, but right now a 3D printing farm  with numerous 3D printers working in unison  is one of the only ways to 3D print batches of a reasonable size. And that has one major limitation: it requires a lot of hands-on attention to operate a farm at any decent speed. But Oregon startup Tend.ai might have a solution. They have built the first fully automated 3D printing farm, operated by a robotic arm that uses low-cost electronics to monitor all printing activities and operate the 3D printers.

Its quite a remarkable setup. As you can see in the clip below, one single robot arm easily operates ten 3D printers, pushing buttons and removing the final components from the printbeds. These are boxed and subsequently pushed down a conveyor belt. Using nothing more than a webcam, it reads each 3D printers display just like you or I would. Once registering that prints are complete, it knows what buttons to push and when to remove prints. Most remarkable is that the robot should be compatible with just about any 3D printer, without the need for significant modifications.

This is especially impressive because the robots creators have only been working on their product since February. But as Tend.ais founders Mark Silliman, Robert Kieffer and James Gentes revealed, all of them have an extensive background in robotic or software development. We're a mix. I've been involved in open source robotics for years while founding various software startups (previous was acquired in December 2015). Robert Kieffer is a developer previously at Facebook & Google with an electrical engineering background. James Gentes has a software security background from Symantec, Silliman told 3ders.org. All three of us have founded companies that were acquired. Therefore we're our own investors to date.

Together, they have been working on this remarkable robot since then. Inspiration was found in a local 3D printing farm, run by a friend who produces custom cookie cutters for Etsy. AKA she's running to her garage every 5 minutes, all day to keep the process going, Silliman explains. There must be an easier way to operate such a farm, and as it happens the Tend.ai team was working on a special software solution that provides robots with the ability to tend to any type of machine  even 3D printers.

Below: Mark Silliman.

What they came up with is impressive. In a nutshell, its an ai-based solution that reads the machines display and performs all the tasks a human would. Tend.ai never requires you to modify or network your machines, Silliman explains. Everything is preconfigured, and any smart device can be used to control and monitor the robot. Capable of being used with a wide variety of robots, webcams and grippers  depending on the situation  its a perfect situation for any machine-based production setup. In fact, the same setup visible above could easily tend to more than 30 3D printers if necessary.

As Silliman explained, the core of the Tend.ai setup relies on machine learning principles, essentially making it a self-learning contraption. It literally improves by tending thousands of customers and learning from all of them / sharing the learned data, he explains. But there were quite a few hurdles to overcome when realizing Tend.ai. Especially building a setup that can run 24/7  which is where the added value is  was difficult to build. That's why the brain of your system needs to fully understand machines and have the ability to troubleshoot. For example: If filament is left on the print bed after unloading, our system can identify this and goes into a clean mode and start removing the filament, he says.

This initial 3D printing setup is just a preview of things to come. In the near future, Tend.ai will kick off a beta program aimed at makerspaces and other production farms to start exploring the possibilities of their system. After that, theyre envisioning subscription-based services. Between machine learning, computer vision and all the varying types of machines, 3D printing and beyond, out there we have plenty to do. We'll be hiring very soon, they say. Tend wants people to experiment with robots and share their automation processes similar to how people share their designs on Thingiverse and beyond. Right now, the team is aiming for a 2018 release. When combined with a solid 3D printing interface, this could become a force to be reckoned with.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Jun 23, 2016 | By Andre

Cerebral palsy is a disorder that affects roughly 1 out of every 500 live births and is caused by abnormal development or damage to the parts of the brain that control movement, balance and posture. And while there is no cure, there are many therapy and medical based treatments that provide a mechanism to cope.

Just like every medical condition one can think of, early detection is an important factor to providing a means for growing up healthy as possible. And thanks to the work by researchers at Virginia Tech University, the Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio and 3D printing, a new tactile sensitive glove for early detection is being developed.

The glove, currently being trial-tested on adults before eventually being scaled down for children, provides tactile feedback via a combination of sensors in both the glove and EEG connections that detect brain wave irregularities in the patients brain.

After working with robotic exoskeletons for years, associate professor of mechanical engineering Pinhas Ben-Tzvi was called on to see if a force-feedback skeleton glove already developed could be modified to help with early detection of cerebral palsy in children. In short, when the glove sensors activate to produce a reaction from the patient, the brain sensors will produce important signals that will provide early warning signs to anyone afflicted with the disorder.

He recalls that when Nationwide Children's Hospital Doctor Nathalie Maitre proposed "to fit a modified version of my glove to a child in an effort to apply somatosensory stimuli to measure cortical responses for the early detection of cerebral palsy, he jumped at the opportunity. But he also began reflecting on some immediate challenges as whether it will work at all, but also a way to make it much smaller and to make it look child friendly so it doesnt scare the children who have to use it.

In its current state, the glove looks more like something a cyborg would feel comfortable wearing than a child and the research team understands changes need to be made when the move to fitting the device for children 12-36 months in age is made. As time goes on, a second phase targeted at toddlers will be implemented that compare motor movement differences via EEC readings between normally developing children and those diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Of course Ben-Tzvi is excited about the prospect of the work being done on the subject. Originally designed to assist in the rehabilitation of stroke victims, the modified variant gives new life to an already tested technology. He finishes that I think anytime your work can be modified to help identify a medical issue more quickly, the more beneficial it becomes for the patient and the more options it allows for in treatment. The fact we are taking a device made to deal with after-the-fact issues and using it to possibly help make an earlier diagnosis of an issue is very exciting.

Still early on in the development phase, the use of 3D printing for the process is important because of the quick design changes that were necessary early on, but also looking forward when children test trials begin. A 12 month old has a very different hand size than a 36 month old so having an affordable way to scale the glove to different sizes (as well as perhaps produce a version that is more durable and child-friendly) cant easily be done with other methods of production on an inevitably small research production run.

3D Printing has already made important inroads in many medical fields as well as low-cost prosthesis replacement limbs. The fact that the technology is being utilized in research for early detection of common disorders is another victory for the research teams behind the technology, 3D printing and of course the patients that it may one day help lead a better life.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Jun 23, 2016 | By Tess

Lake Placid, NY based Create Prosthetics, known primarily for its innovative and customizable 3D printed prosthetic covers, has recently been putting its expertise in prosthetics to new uses. Most recently, for instance, the company created what they are calling the first ever medical-grade 3D printed arm prosthetic, which they made for a young Haitian mother who lost her arm in the 2010 earthquake.

Create Prosthetics, which was founded by Jeff Erenstone in 2015, has been working on the design and prototyping of the prosthetic limb for the past year in their Lake Placid lab. After much hard work and dedication, the 3D printed prosthetic arm was brought to Haiti by Erenstone to be fitted onto one Danis Exulise, a 20 year old single mother who was forced to cut off her own arm after being trapped under earthquake rubble in the violent 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The 3D printed transhumeral prosthesis made by Create Prosthetics offers a number of advantages over traditionally made ones, such as being more lightweightit weighs only 2 lbs, about half as much as regular prostheticsand having a more appealing aesthetic appearance. Considering that it was created by a company that specializes in making prosthetics more visually interesting, this last benefit is no surprise. Finally, the 3D printed arm prosthetic has also been designed for optimal grasping functionalities.

As Erenstone explains of the innovative design, We have found a niche that a 3D-printed prosthetic arm fills very well. Other prosthetic arms may be more functional, but our arm is very attractive and easy to become accustomed to. If an amputee has trouble with other arms, they may want to try ours.

Accompanied by Healing Hands for Haiti, an organization focused on bringing rehabilitation medicine to the impoverished country, Erenstone traveled to Port-au-Prince with the prosthetic in early June to conduct the fitting and to assemble the prosthetic arm. This was done in partnership with the Enable Community Foundation (ECF), which itself supports the well known e-NABLE network of volunteer makers.

As one can imagine, fitting the 3D printed prosthetic arm onto Danis Exulise was an emotional affair, and even Erenstone found himself brought to tears. He explains, You have to understand how important that moment was. It means that her daughter has accepted the prosthetic as a part of her mother and not as an attachment or appliance. You wouldnt walk up and kiss a toaster.



As mentioned, Create Prosthetics is saying this is the first ever 3D printed medical-grade prosthetic arm to be made, which they achieved by following strict FDA guidelines for 3D printed medical-grade devices. With the success of their products development, they will begin selling kits for their 3D printed prosthetic arms in North America. These kits can be used for transradial (below the elbow) or transhumeral prosthetics and are designed to fit onto any prosthetist designed sockets.

In collaboration with ECF, Create Prosthetics will also continue to bring their innovative prosthetics to parts of the world where medical devices are not always accessible. Weve been working with ECF and other groups for years to get prosthetic devices to people who need them most. Its just part of being world citizens and we are honored to help. According to the company, this last trip to Haiti was its fourth official trip to a developing country. Previously, Create Prothetics also sent representatives to Nepal and India, where they brought materials and their skills to offer guidance. Within the next few months, Erenstone and his team are also reportedly planning two more trips to Haiti and Nepal.

Photos courtesy of Create Prosthetics

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Pairing wine is easy. Me + glass of wine = perfect pair.





Piperade Hosts Basque Hotel Dinner with Wine Pairings

Piperade is hosting a four-course Basque Hotel Dinner on Thursday, June 23rd featuring wines from B. Kosuge Winery, known for small productions sourced from top vineyards. According to Piperade chef-owner Gerald Hirigoyen, "Basque hotels have long been social centers that helped locals and boarders preserve their culture when in a foreign country, and a meal of familiar dishes and a good bottle of wine was another way to stay connected. This dinner is a chance for me to honor this tradition." Tickets are $100 each, including tax and gratuity. Reservations are required via viaevents@piperade.com or (415) 391-2555. 6:30pm reception; 7pm dinner. // 1015 Battery St. (North Beach), piperade.com





Get a Taste of Mendocino at Fort Mason

Think Mendocino is too far to go for good food and wine? How about if Mendocino comes to San Francisco? Sample the wares of more than 30 wineries and artisanal food producers from Mendocino at this weekend's Taste of Mendocino event, slated for Saturday, June 25th at Fort Mason's Gallery 308 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Two lucky participants will win a free round trip ticket on Surf Air, the nation's first members-only private flying club. Tickets are available online for $60 per person. // 2 Marina Blvd #308 (Marina), tasteofmendo.com





Pick Out a Park Pack to Go

On your way to the park for a little fun and sun with friends? Stop in at Brewcade for a brand new Park Pack, featuring Anchor craft beers snuggled into a stylish Brewcade tote bag with a bag of ice. Create your own custom 6-pack ($15) or 12-pack ($28) from seven of Anchor Brewing's canned beers: Meyer Lemon Lager, Mango Wheat, Go West IPA, Liberty Ale, Orange Splash Lager, Anchor California Lager, and Brotherhood Steam. Don't be surprised if you find a coozie hiding inside, or some other souvenir swag. As the summer progresses, the Park Pack beer line-up will expand to include brews from Almanac and 21st Amendment Brewery. // 2200 Market St. (Castro), brewcadesf.com





Monk's Kettle Offers Sandwich and Reality Czech

Some days call for a beer at lunch, and for those days, there is Monk's Kettle. Throughout the summer, the neighborhood tavern will be offering a "Sandwich and Reality Czech" special every Monday through Thursday, from noon to 4 p.m. Order any sandwich on the menu including the daily specialand wash it down with a 16-ounce glass of Moonlight Brewing's Reality Czech, for a mere $20. // 3141 16th St. (Mission), monkskettle.com





Beretta Kicks off 2016 Cocktail Class Series

Try your hand at mixology on Tuesday, June 28 with Beretta bar manager Cali Gold. She'll be kicking off the bar's 2016 cocktail class series with a workshop on low-proof cocktails (hello, day drinking!), featuring sherry, vermouth, and port. Students will get their own, individuals workstation and be provided with a full set of tools for creating (and drinking) three full-size cocktails. Tickets are available online for $85 per class, with classes held the last Tuesday of June, July, and August. Students with perfect attendance will be rewarded with a $100 gift card to Beretta. // 1199 Valencia St. (Mission), berettasf.com
Shark sightings, plane crashes, and more things you might have missed this week.





Great White Shark Spotted Off Coast of Santa Cruz, CBS San Francisco

A great white shark was spotted off the coast of Santa Cruz. A lifeguard saw the shark about 250 yards off Cowell Beach on Saturday. A swimmer who was in the area also saw the shark. The lifeguard couldn't verify how long the shark was, but said he could see a tail thrashing and its head breaching the water. Warning signs were posted, but authorities say the risk to swimmers is low. They say sharks are more interested in seals, sea lions and fish than people. Read more.





6 Things You Should Know About the Police Sex Scandal That Has Oakland Reeling, Mother Jones



Seven Bay Area activist organizations held a press conference in front of the Oakland Police Department's downtown headquarters on Tuesday morning, calling for the resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf in the face of a sex scandal (and others) that has claimed three acting police chiefs in less than two weeks. The groups, which included Black Lives Matter's regional chapter and an organization called the Anti Police Terror Project, called for an outside agencyAPTP's founder suggested the Department of Justiceto conduct an investigation. Community groups hold a press conference at OPD headquarters on June 21. Brandon Ellington Patterson The sex scandal, triggered by an officer's suicide, broke as the OPD was looking to end 13 years of federal monitoring, the result of past misconduct by a pack of rogue Oakland officers who called themselves the "riders." The department is also looking into claims that a married homicide detective let his mistress write his criminal reports, and incidents of racist texts exchanged between officers. After the resignation of three police chiefs in succession, Mayor Schaaf has put the department under the control of City Manager Sabrina Landreth. In an earlier press conference, Schaaf compared the department to a "frat house" with a "disgusting" and "toxic macho culture." Here are some of the highlightsor more accurately, lowlights of the ongoing OPD crisis. Read more.





Hawaii Man Owned Plane That Crashed on Bart Tracks in Hayward, SF Gate

A Hawaii man with Bay Area ties owned a plane that crashed onto BART tracks in Hayward over the weekend, killing the pilot inside, officials said. Robert E. Pursel Jr. was the registered owner of the twin-engine Piper PA23 that went down at 12:05 p.m. Sunday at Whipple Road and Railroad Avenue, according to a Federal Aviation Administration registry. Read more.





Plan to End Daylight Saving Time in California Passes Committee, CBS San Francisco

A Bay Area lawmaker's proposal to end Daylight Saving Time in California passed a State Senate committee this week. AB 385 by Assemblymember Kansen Chu (D-San Jose) would place a measure before voters that would propose dropping DST in the Golden State and remaining in Pacific Standard Time year-round. On Monday, the bill passed the Senate Energy Utilities and Communications Committee by a vote of 7-2. AB 385 now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Read more.





Bay Area Homes: Prices up, Sale down From 2015, Mercury News

The median price for single-family homes in the Bay Area jumped last month to a record $750,000, reflecting the region's red-hot demand for housing -- even as short supply drove down the number of homes sold. The new Bay Area high was up 7.1 percent from the year before and surpassed the nine-county region's previous record of $738,500, set in July 2007. In May 2015, the Bay Area median was $700,000. Read more.
For anyone who lives along the San Andreas fault, an active fault line which stretches roughly 800 miles through California from Cape Mendocino to the Mexican border passing by San Diego, Los Angeles and Big Sur on the way, you probably don't want to hear that the ground beneath you has been moving lately, but that's what a new study published in Nature Geoscience revealed this month.





A research team helmed by Samuel Howell at the University of Hawai'i was able to pick apart subtle signals that revealed a massive spatial vertical movement in California. What does that mean in layman's terms? Huge sections of California are rising and sinking around the San Andreas fault. The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that could ultimately result in a large earthquake.





Scientists found that much of the Los Angeles Basin, Orange County, San Diego County, and the Bakersfield area are sinking 2 to 3 millimeters a year, while Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, and a large portion of San Bernardino County, are rising at the same rate.















San Andreas Fault System vertical velocities. The areas in red are rising, while the areas in blue are sinking. (Nature Geoscience)





But before you start running from your office high rise, keep in mind the study isn't expected to help scientists suddenly predict the precise time and location of the next devastating quake.





As Sam Howell, a doctoral candidate in geophysics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told the Los Angeles Times, "It's pretty much impossible to say when the next one will happen."
Ignorance is not always bliss. More often than not, we don't know where the things we purchase come from. We blindly buy clothes that are affordable, stylish, and reflect the latest breaking trends, without giving much thought to how they came to be. A "fash mob" (flash mob and fashion show) of local designers, ethical fashion supporters, and models marched from Union Square into the Westfield Mall on April 24, 2016 to bring this disconnect to the forefront, demand transparency in the clothing industry, and ask the question, "Who made your clothes?"







This query is at the center of the Fashion Revolution, a grassroots campaign born from the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 24, 2013. The tragedy occurred the day after cracks were found in the building; workers had been threatened with losing one month's pay if they didn't return to work, despite the obvious risks. Tragically, 1134 people were killed and approximately 2500 injured. The minimum wage for factory workers in Bangladesh at the time was $37 a month, despite the country being the second largest clothing manufacturer in the world, after China.





Crucial questions were raised about what our spending dollars are supporting in factories on the other side of the world. At Rana Plaza, the standard work shift was 13.5 to 14 hours, workers received two days off a month, and senior tailors earned only $12.48 a week, according to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. These low wages help guarantee that we pay low prices at many fast fashion retailers.





"It's time to retrain and redirect the fashion industry towards a more compassionate and sustainable future," says Joyce Hu, creative director for Wildlife Works Apparel, the world's only carbon-neutral, fair-trade factory protecting wildlife in Kenya, and a sponsor of the San Francisco event. "Fashion Revolution is spreading a very urgent message and we are proud to be contributing to its momentum." This message also touches on the environmental impact of the estimated 80 billion items of clothing delivered out of factories annually worldwide.





Revolutions start everyday with just one person. San Francisco resident Sandy Lam vowed to not buy new clothing after watching the documentary The True Cost. "I would shop at H&M or Forever 21 because I was able to find cheap and cute bargain items," admits Lam. "Empathy and guilt are huge motivating factors for why I decided to only buy secondhand. People in Third World countries are forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions for extremely low wages. It is literally life or death for themall for the sake of satisfying the wants and demands of big, greedy corporations and consumers in the US. Because of this, I've committed to only buying clothing at secondhand stores or directly from the maker."







Another solution is to shop locally and buy from ethical clothing producers. "Much of the fashion community in the Bay Area is dedicated to sustainable innovation and ethical sourcing," states Andrea Plell, founder of Ecologique Fashion and co-producer of SF's Fashion Revolution Day. "As consumers we have the right to know the impact of our purchases and these (participating) brands are doing their part by creating relationships with their suppliers and makers, exposing their stories, carefully examining their supply chains, and becoming role models for the industry."







Lam suggests baby steps for the consumer. "Think about others, think about the planet. Every single thing you do makes an impact. Even if you can't be extreme, buying directly from the maker or strictly secondhand, trying never hurts."







Want to make a difference? Shop at these ethical retailers:





Wildlife Works







The world's first and only carbon-neutral, fair-trade factory protecting wildlife. Located on an 80,000-acre wildlife sanctuary, Wildlife Works produces apparel for ethical brands such as Threads for Thought, PUMA, Soko for Asos, LaLesso, and Raven and Lily.



Ecologique Fashion





Founded by Andrea Plell in 2008, Ecologique Fashion is a sustainable fashion consultancy and event-production company on a mission to support a paradigm shift in the industry by promoting ethical business practices.



Indigenous



Indigenous is committed to fair-trade partnerships with culturally diverse artisans. All indigenous apparel and accessories are only made of all-natural fibers such as organic cotton, organic alpaca, merino wool, and silk.



Synergy Organic Clothing





Synergy Organic Clothing creates fashion-forward clothing and yoga apparel for women. They produce sustainable and organic fair-trade clothing.



Fibershed





Fibershed is an organization, founded by Rebecca Burgess, that develops regenerative textile systems that are based on carbon farming, regional manufacturing, and public education.



Skunkfunk





Skunkfunk is a sustainable brand that was started in the 1990s in the Basque Country. They now have stores all over the world. Their products are made from certified organic GOTS cotton, natural materials, and recycled fibers. They just released a zero-waste capsule collection for Spring.



Soko





Soko is a brand that connects consumers to Nairobian artisans of handcrafted jewelry made from sustainable materials.



Callina



Callina is an ethical knitwear brand inspired by Peru. They work with knitting organizations and artisans in Arequipa. A portion of all proceeds goes back to the alpaca shepherds they procure their fibers from.



New Market Goods



New Market Goods is a fair-trade clothing brand that works responsibly with artisans in Bangladesh to develop handmade clothing for men and women.



The Tripty Project



The Tripty Project fuses traditional handicraft with modern design to create a company that has a positive impact on community, culture, and environment. All items are proudly Made in Bangladesh.



Ways of Change



Ways of Change is an ethical jewelry brand that empowers artisan refugees through skill preservation. A portion of their proceeds go to support community projects in regions where the artisans live.



Okkiino



Okkiino is an apparel brand made in San Francisco with responsibly sourced materials from Italy. They share their profits with non-profit organizations for community development and ocean preservation.



Indosole



Indosole is a footwear collection sparked in response to the 1.5 billion tires wasted each year. They work directly with artisans in Indonesia to repurpose tires into the soles of their shoes.



PACT



Pact is a sweatshop-free apparel company that ethically produces (mostly) underwear with organic cotton.


Social Security and Medicare are distinct programs serving older and disabled Americans, but they have an important commonality: Social Security handles enrollment for Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) and Part B (medical insurance).



In this role, the Social Security Administration (SSA) works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to inform older Americans about their Medicare sign-up options, process their applications and collect premiums.

Managing Medicare enrollment

For most people, Medicare eligibility starts at age 65. If you're receiving Social Security retirement benefits at that time, SSA will send you a "Welcome to Medicare" package at the start of your initial enrollment period, which begins three months before the month you turn 65. For example, if your 65th birthday is July 15, 2023, this period begins April 1.

On your 65th birthday, you'll automatically be enrolled in parts A and B. You have the right to opt out of Part B, but you might incur a penalty, in the form of permanently higher premiums, if you sign up for it later.

If you have not yet filed for Social Security benefits, you will need to apply for Medicare yourself. You can do so any time during the initial enrollment period, which lasts seven months (so, for that July 15 birthday, the sign-up window runs from April 1 through Oct. 31). If you do not enroll during that period, you could face those late fees if you do so later.

You'll find comprehensive enrollment information in SSA's Medicare publication and links to application forms on the Social Security website.

Paying Medicare premiums

If you are drawing Social Security benefits, your Medicare Part B premiums are deducted from your monthly payments. If you're not getting benefits, you'll receive bills from CMS. (Almost all Medicare beneficiaries pay no premiums for Part A because they worked, and paid Medicare taxes, long enough to qualify for the program.)

The standard Part B premium paid by most Medicare enrollees is $170.10 a month in 2022 and will drop to $164.90 a month in 2023. The rate rises with the beneficiary's income, going up in steps for individuals with incomes greater than $91,000 ($97,000 in 2023) and married couples who file taxes jointly and have a combined income of more than $182,000 ($194,000 in 2023).

Social Security determines whether you will pay a higher premium based on income information it receives from the IRS.

Keep in mind
The Antwerp-born diamantaire Raoul Beck launched today in Geneva (Switzerland) the jewellery brand Hauthentic, whose jewels reveal the individual history of their own central diamond. The traceability of diamonds, so far guaranteed by the Kimberley Process for rough diamonds only, is thus extended to the cut diamonds set in jewellery.

Traceability. The Becks document all steps and stops travelled by each of their diamonds. From the rough gemstone in its country of origin, through the craftsmen who cut and polished it, and until its setting into jewellery, this distinctive journey is accurately recounted in the Diamond Passport. This booklet identifies the rough stone out of which that diamond was cut, with its picture and rough weight, its origin and the Kimberley Process certificate of origin under which it was exported. The Diamond Passport is thus the most comprehensive document in the world designating the origin and traceability of diamond jewellery. Produced exclusively by Hauthentic and edited individually for each jewellery item, it therefore complements the diamond certificate.

History.  Rather than mere luxury jewellery or high jewellery, it is the unique story of their own diamond that our customers are looking for before everything else,  says Raoul Beck, who offers only rare high-quality diamonds, of course both natural and untreated.

Craftsmanship. The Hauthentic jewellery collection consists of luxury jewellery items that are all hand set, thereby valuing traditional craftsmanship. For each engagement ring or other diamond ring, earrings or diamond pendant, the customer selects a diamond of his choice on the online jewellery store www.hauthentic.com (soon available in English and other languages). Hauthentic also creates unique pieces of custom made high jewellery, handmade by goldsmiths using traditional craft techniques.

About. Raoul Beck is a member of the Antwerp Diamond Bourse. He is from the fifth generation of a diamantaire family active in the diamond industry since 1860. He is the grandson of Israel Beck, who was cofounder and president of the Antwerpsche Diamantkring, which was founded in Antwerp in 1929 to become the first bourse for rough diamonds worldwide.

The brand Hauthentic is owned by the company Yazam Sarl, located Place du Molard 7, 1204 Geneva, Switzerland.

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Many South Dakota farmers expect below-average yields this year

Dry fields in the southeastern part of South Dakota and wet fields in spring in northeastern South Dakota could mean lower crop yields.
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SANTIAGO, Chile  A small plane with two sick U.S. workers arrived safely in Chile late Wednesday after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said.

After making a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers were flown to the southernmost Chilean city of Punta Arenas, the National Science Foundation said in a statement published on its Facebook page.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles roundtrip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. They arrived back at Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the foundation, which runs the U.S. station. Then the two workers boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas.

From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott, the National Science Foundation said, adding that its not disclosing the location of that facility.

The National Science Foundation has not identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees (minus 2.5 Celsius) Wednesday afternoon. Thats toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 75 (minus 60 Celsius) in the morning.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the station for the winter.

Normally planes dont go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole till the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew.

The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring, Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, according to West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees (minus 75 degrees Celsius), he said.

The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard, said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. If you are complacent it will bite you.

Things can change very quickly down there with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. The station has a doctor, a physicians assistant and is connected to doctors in the U.S. for consults, West said. But sometimes workers need medical care that cant be provided at the South Pole.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the stations doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.

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Borenstein reported out of Washington, D. C.

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Online:

National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov

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Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein
PHOENIX  A state lawmaker has been indicted on felony fraud and other charges linked to lying on an application for food stamps, Arizona Department of Economic Security officials announced Wednesday,

The charges of fraud, theft and unlawful use of food stamps against Rep. Cecilia Velasquez were announced by DES Director Tim Jeffries.

The indictment issued by the state grand jury was unsealed Monday but issued last month. Velasquez is set to appear in court July 5.

The 42-year-old Litchfield Park Democrat, who uses Ceci as a nickname, didnt immediately return calls to her cellphone seeking comment. Its not known if she has a lawyer who can speak on her behalf about the charges.

But on her Twitter account, Velasquez said: I have done nothing wrong! This is a political witch hunt. Im confident that justice WILL prevail once all the facts are known!

The DES inspector general launched an investigation in December 2014 after receiving a tip to a fraud hotline. Officials say Velasquez falsely claimed she had two dependents, gave a false address and allowed two other people to use her food stamp benefit card.

Jeffries praised the work of the inspector general, the attorney generals office and the grand jurors who issued the indictment

The Arizona Department of Economic Security is vigilantly committed to protecting the public trust and taxpayer funds, safeguarding precious resources for the poor and disadvantaged, ensuring justice for all and defending the rule of law, Jeffries said in a statement.

The indictment alleges that Velasquez fraudulently obtained $1,726 in food stamp benefits from Nov. 1, 2013 through Jan. 31, 2015.

Velasquez is a serving her first term in the Arizona House of Representatives. Her biography says she is a mother of five and runs a group that helps the families of people in prison. Shes also worked as a paralegal and worked for the state for 12 years in social services.



This story has been corrected to show Velasquez spells her nickname as Ceci, not Cici.
LOS ANGELES  Cooler, more humid weather gave at least some temporary help Wednesday to crews battling dangerous wildfires in Southern California, while other blazes across the West were on the move.

Improved weather in the aftermath of a severe heat wave allowed firefighters to make progress against two fires in the steep San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Some evacuations below in the foothill city of Duarte were lifted.

A fleet of helicopters and air tankers and other resources are helping fight the fires totaling about 7 square miles.

Despite fears that stronger winds could make the fire resurgent and challenges of tough terrain, containment was expanded from 10 to 15 percent by Wednesday evening.

Theyre starting to make good progress, but theres a lot of line to put in, and its in a real inaccessible area, incident commander Mike Wakoski said. Its very hard for the firefighters to engage the fire safely, but they are out there doing so.

No homes have been lost, though flames have come close at times. More than 850 homes were ordered evacuated earlier this week, and 534 were cleared for residents return Wednesday.

Near the Mexican border, two residences and 11 outbuildings burned in a wildfire about 40 miles southeast of San Diego. A thousand structures were threatened by the blaze, which grew to just over 10 square miles and was only partially contained.

Falling temperatures, rising humidity and cloud cover has helped, said Capt. Kendal Bortisser of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But firefighters still must deal with rough terrain and vegetation that has not burned in decades, he said.

Weather also helped on the rugged coast west of Santa Barbara. Fog moved into the area scorched by a blaze that began more than a week ago, and most mandatory evacuations were called off. With the more than 12-square-mile fire almost fully surrounded, firefighters shifted focus to battling hot spots within containment lines.

Elsewhere in the West, a forest fire near the Colorado-Wyoming line exploded in size and forced campers to evacuate.

A shift in the wind turned a blaze burning slowly in a heavily wooded area with no permanent residents into a fast-moving threat, growing from 1 square mile to about 5. Trees killed by a beetle infestation were fueling the flames 140 miles north of Denver and 2 miles from Wyoming.

No more than 100 campers and people staying in cabins fled, Routt National Forest spokesman Aaron Voos said. More firefighters were expected, but getting more help was difficult because of the other Western blazes.

Resources are kind of hard to come by right now, Voos said.

In southwest Utah, a fire forced evacuations of at least 185 homes in the town of Pine Valley, about 35 miles north of the city of St. George.

The U.S. Forest Service said Wednesday that the blaze has torched more than a square mile and additional evacuations could come. The firefight was hindered by a drone flying near the blaze, which Gov. Gary Herbert called completely unacceptable.

In eastern Arizona, firefighters expected to keep a wildfire spanning some 67 square miles from moving any closer to a rural town. The flames threatening the community of Cedar Creek made no significant movement in the last 24 hours thanks to sparse vegetation.

More than 15,000 people in nearby mountain communities have been told to prepare to evacuate.

In central New Mexico, more evacuees were expected to return home as firefighters inch closer to snuffing out a massive wildfire that ignited last week. The nearly 28-square-mile blaze in the mountains south of Albuquerque is more than halfway contained after destroying at least two dozen homes.

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Associated Press reporter Donna Bryson in Denver and Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this story.
HOUSTON  As famous observation decks go, the Sky Lobby some 60 floors up in downtown Houstons Chase Tower is a bit less than ideal: Parking is a hassle, the view is limited, and there are no concessions, souvenirs or interactive whatnots to give visitors a sense of what theyre really looking at.

On the other hand, its free. And pretty cool.

When the clouds roll in and drop an unexpected shower on the city center, theres nothing quite like being in them . or above them. No surprise, then, that there were cries of dismay Tuesday when the towers management company abruptly announced the lobby would be immediately closed to everyone other than tenants and their guests.

The Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/28PbW67 ) reports though never officially designed as a public observation platform, the lobby on the 60th floor of the 75-story building  the tallest in the city was widely touted as a must-see tourist attraction in the city.

After careful consideration, ownership and management of the JPMorgan Chase Tower (also known as 600 Travis) have made the difficult decision to restrict access to the buildings 60th floor sky lobby strictly to building tenants and their authorized visitors, the Hines management firm said in a prepared statement. Our primary focus is to provide a quality experience for our tenants and their employees who were often inconvenienced by the extra non-business-related traffic in the building.

The floors above 60 require separate elevator access. Years ago, when word got out that the transfer point was open for public viewing, the lobby became a popular attraction for tourists and Houston residents. Workers in neighboring buildings sometimes used it for a few minutes of solitude and inspiration. No doubt it would have become a popular lunch spot had it not been for an emphatic no-food policy. Even so, the visitors kept coming. Some romantic sorts used it as a backdrop for proposals of marriage.

When the Sky Lobby was closed for refurbishment in 2013, no one imagined that it would one day go the way of other observation points around town that had shut down, including Williams Tower near the Galleria, the Wells Fargo Plaza, and the former Skyline Bar & Grill in the Hilton Americas-Houston. If there was widespread displeasure because of the public coming to visit the lobby, not all of those who work there were aware of it.

Stephen T. Harris, director of communications for Locke Lord LLP, an international law firm that maintains an office in the building, said he first heard about the closure on Tuesday when the announcement was made.

Thats all I know about it, Harris said, adding that his law firm had no role in the decision.

Its a huge asset, I think, for this property, he said. Its a beautiful view, both for people from Houston and for folks from out of town.

Harris said he didnt recall anyone make complaints about visitors.

You see people in the lobby all the time, he said. Its always a busy lobby. I think everyone at some point should be able to see the view from the 60th floor.

The tenant who paid for naming rights, JP Morgan Chase and Co., likewise insisted it did not lobby to close the lobby. The banks Houston spokesman, Greg Hassell, said he had taken his teenage daughter to the Sky Lobby just weeks back to check out the view.

Im glad we both got to see the view one last time at least, Hassell said.

Other tenants said the decision was understandable because the public visitors could be a nuisance. Frank Tsuru, president and CEO of M3 Midstream, said the high-traffic times of the year resulted in crammed elevators and some unhappy workers. People on the higher floors complained more than others, he said.

Theres people pretty stressed out about it, Tsuru said.

Immigration lawyer Sang Shin said the visitors did not bother him, and he enjoyed taking clients up to the lobby a few times a month to see a nice view of the lay of the land.

He especially remembers going up after the Memorial Day flood last year and seeing parts of Texas 288 and Memorial Parkway under water. Sometimes he got requests from friends to go see the citys lights at night stretching across the area, which he still hopes to do even if the area is closed to the public.

I hope theyll open it again, Shin said.

Also disappointed was Mario Zimmermann, who along with five colleagues craned his neck upward toward the top of the Chase Tower, where they had just gathered outside as downtown grew empty.

This is bad news, said Zimmermann, who works in the energy corridor in west Houston. Very bad news.

The 51-year-old oil and gas engineer moved to Houston for a temporary stay eight weeks ago, and in that span he has brought more than a dozen co-workers and friends from his homeland of Germany to view the city from on high.

When he arrived at Chase Tower on Tuesday with another group, he immediately saw the sign announcing: Sky Lobby Closed to the Public. Disappointed, Zimmermann said the Sky Lobby offered a perspective that cannot be replaced.

If I go to a city, the first thing I try to do is go upstairs to get an overview, he said.

The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has touted the Sky Lobby in the past as a Houston must-see, didnt have a comment on the decision.

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Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Houston Chronicle
SANTA FE  City government officials and supporters of the Santa Fe Canyon Preserve are at odds over water flows into the preserve, a 525-acre wetland paradise on the citys east side.

The Nature Conservancy, owner of the preserve that dates from 2002, maintains the city is violating the terms of its own Living River ordinance by cutting off Santa Fe River water that previously flowed into the preserve, feeding its beaver ponds and supporting other wildlife such as water birds and northern leopard frogs.

I thought we had a partnership to retain some little area of native bosque for people to enjoy with the associated wildlife, said Bob Findling, the conservancys director of conservation projects. He said the city has also dumped dirt and arranged rocks to keep water out.

He acknowledged Wednesday that he cut a city lock on a water gate that showed up a couple of months ago, which had been set to make the gate block water coming down from city reservoirs from going into the preserve.

But Findling said he cut the lock only after the city failed to respond to a call and the conservancy presumed it had been placed by some unauthorized third party.

The city maintains its following the Living River law, noting the conservancy has no water rights. An assistant city attorney said in a May 12 letter to Findling that the citys agreement with the Nature Conservancy allows the city to control the gate and suggested the conservancy was interfering with the citys court-ordered requirement to deliver water to the downstream Acequia Madre and Acequia Cerro Gordo.

The letter also noted that someone had breached an earthen berm to divert river flows. If agents of the Nature Conservancy are responsible for this illegal diversion of water, I would request that they cease and desist such actions, said the letter from Assistant City Attorney Marcos Martinez.

City spokesman Matt Ross said, The city is confident it is in full compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the Santa Fe Living River ordinance and intends to continue abiding by that ordinance and providing a beautiful corridor throughout the entire city.

But Findling said a section of the Living River procedures calls for flows in the upper reaches of the river that include the preserve. If the city doesnt want the preserve to be there, they can make it go away, he said. It would be a slow process, but it be would inevitable. He said only nominal flow is needed to refresh ponds.

Part of the debate seems to be about defining what, exactly, constitutes the Santa Fe River when trying to provide flows to make it a living river.

The preserve is along the rivers original canyon route. The citys actions at the flow gate push all the water into what Findling says is an alternate relief channel along Canyon Road built after a 1904 flood. Findling said it is a ditch along a road with little or no recreational value, and it has no wildlife value.  How does that adhere to the spirit of the Living River ordinance?

The matter is scheduled to come before the City Council tonight in a closed executive session. Richard Ellenberg, who lives next to the preserve, has objected to the closed session, saying it doesnt meet any exceptions to New Mexicos Open Meetings Act, which does allow closed meetings on acquisition or disposal of water rights. He said the Living River law was written to specifically avoid any connection with city water rights.

Wednesday, the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government also raised concerns. Susan Boe, executive director of the nonprofit, noted that the state Court of Appeals has reaffirmed that the Open Meetings Act should be construed broadly and its exceptions narrowly. In other words, public bodies should refrain from shoehorning facts into any of the narrow OMA exceptions.

City Attorney Kelley Brennan, in a written response to Ellenberg, said an open meetings exception for discussion of litigation does not apply only when a public body is sued or threatened with litigation but also applies when the public body consults with its attorney about a lawsuit the public body has initiated or is considering initiating.

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Speaking in 2013, a few weeks after children were slaughtered in their classrooms in Newtown, Conn., and just after President Barack Obamas second inauguration, National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre laid out the frightening challenge that Obamas presidency posed to gun owners.

He wants to put every private, personal transaction under the thumb of the federal government, and he wants to keep all those names in a massive federal registry, LaPierre said. There are only two reasons for that federal list of gun owners  to tax them or take them.

Just seven months away from the end of his second term, Obama still has not proposed, much less implemented, a federal gun registry. But LaPierre is in the gun business, not the honesty business. A diabolical slippery slope that begins with criminal background checks and snowballs from there into gun registration, confiscation and, finally, totalitarian tyranny is one of LaPierres favorite tropes. And in honor of the election calendar, the dangerous peaks of Mount Obama are rapidly transforming into the slippery slopes of Mount Hillary.

LaPierre shares space on his chosen declivity with others, such as Jesse Benton, a former campaign manager for Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. In 2013, Benton lamented Obamas thinly veiled national gun registration scheme hidden under the guise of background checks to ensure federal government minders gain every bureaucratic tool they need for full-scale confiscation.

Keep in mind that there are about 125 million households in the U.S. and perhaps almost three times as many guns. Now imagine, or try to, the futile mechanics and implausible politics of mass confiscation.

LaPierre relies on his formidable imagination to summon pictures of a gun-registration dystopia. Yet he neednt. A real-world example exists  in a remote, godforsaken Pacific atoll where every glint of human spirit is crushed.

The natives call it Hawaii.

Basically every functioning, non-antique firearm in Hawaii is required to be registered with local police. The registration requires the names of the manufacturer and importer, model, type of action, caliber or gauge, serial number and the source from which the firearm was obtained, including the name and address of the prior owner.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:

All registration data that would identify the individual registering the firearm by name or address are confidential and shall not be disclosed to anyone, except if required by a law enforcement agency for the lawful performance of its duties or as may be required by order of a court.

In other words, the information is confidential until, maybe, its not.

Awaiting Hawaii Gov. David Iges, D, signature are two bills passed by the legislature that would further strengthen the states gun laws. One adds harassment by stalking and sexual assault to the list of offenses that disqualify one from gun possession, based on research linking domestic violence and gun violence.

The other authorizes county police departments to enroll firearms applicants and individuals who are registering their firearms into a criminal record monitoring service used to alert police when an owner of a firearm is arrested for a criminal offense anywhere in the country.

Presuming the second bill becomes law (Ige has a few weeks yet to act), Hawaii gun owners will have their names added to a federal data base in addition to their state data base.

Heres a bold prediction: If the bill is signed, life in Hawaii will go on pretty much as it has.

Indeed, life will go on in a slightly safer, healthier fashion than it does elsewhere in the U.S. In 2015 Hawaii had the fewest gun deaths per capita of the 50 states.

Is gun registration the cause of Hawaiis safer society? Gun violence is too complex to depend on a single factor. But there is an encouraging correlation between stronger gun laws and lower rates of gun death.

And unlike other states with relatively strong laws, such as California and New York, Hawaii is far removed from neighbors with slipshod laws written by NRA lobbyists. Its easy to run guns from Arizona to California, or from Florida to New York.

Its a lot less easy to send them to Hawaii.

As the Orlando shootings inspire a renewed, and painfully familiar, debate over gun laws, Americans will no doubt be treated to much rhetoric about the slippery slope that sends rudimentary regulation skidding perilously down into totalitarianism.

Unless Hawaii is your idea of hell on Earth, you can very safely ignore the hysteria.

Francis Wilkinson writes on politics and domestic policy for Bloomberg View.
If youre considered too dangerous to board a commercial aircraft in America, you shouldnt be able to purchase a firearm.

Most Americans would agree with that, especially with the Orlando, Fla., terrorist massacre fresh in their minds  86 percent, according to a YouGov/Huffington Post poll taken last week.

The U.S. Senate failed to pass any of the four partisan gun control bills it considered on Monday, but New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, has teamed up with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, to swiftly pull together a bipartisan bill that would deny potential terrorists from legally purchasing firearms.

Its time to start putting progress in front of politics, Heinrich said Tuesday when the bill was introduced. I think were all heartsick at the kind of terrible Groundhog Day feeling we have as weve seen shooting after shooting in this country.  If you are on the no-fly list, you really shouldnt be buying a gun. I say that as a gun owner myself.

In addition to targeting those on the no-fly list, the legislation would flag potential gun buyers who are on a secondary security screening list that triggers extra scrutiny when they try to board an airliner. Those two lists contain about 110,000 names. Its a much smaller number than those targeted in the Democrats failed bill, which would have prohibited about 1 million people on the governments terror watch list from buying guns.

Under the Collins-Heinrich bill, people denied a gun purchase could appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals and recover attorney fees if they prevailed.

The measure already has support from senators of both parties. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative South Carolina Republican, longtime supporter of the National Rifle Association and owner of an AR-15, said he supports the bill because it makes sense. Collins says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, has promised a floor vote as soon as next week. Other supporters are Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Tim Kaine of Virginia.

New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall is still considering the legislation.

This common-sense compromise is a good step toward potentially disrupting the plans of those who would harm this country and its citizens. Heinrich and Collins have done the country a service. Now the rest of Congress should get on board.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Jerry Pacheco has spent most of his professional career stumping for southern New Mexicos industrial hub of Santa Teresa: attracting new companies, advocating for state investment and linking U.S. and Mexican businesses.

Pacheco has done this for years, even when Santa Teresa couldnt get much love in New Mexico and had to fend off West Texas competitors.

Now the payoff for all that hard work is coming. More than a dozen new businesses have located in Santa Teresa in the past two years; the states exports to Mexico have more than doubled over the same period, and there are more deals in the pipeline. But something has been missing from the picture: homegrown New Mexico companies outside the border region.

Pacheco  who serves as president of Santa Teresas Border Industrial Association and senior business recruiter of the states marketing and recruiting agency, New Mexico Partnership  has just come off a three-month campaign that took him to Albuquerque and Gallup, Clovis and Carlsbad, Santa Fe, Espanola, Rio Rancho, Roswell and Hobbs in hopes of getting more New Mexico businesses in on the border action.

The idea, he says, is that even small businesses could supply the suppliers: provide goods and services to the midsize companies in Santa Teresa that serve the huge corporations operating maquiladora assembly plants in Mexico.

The whole objective is to bring the benefit of what is happening at the border to the rest of the state, he told me recently at an event in which Gov. Susana Martinez was announcing the location of another business to Santa Teresa. We are trying to develop a local supply base with New Mexico companies that are not directly on the border.

Albuquerque has to be one of the big prospective bases, Pacheco told me. Dallas is probably supporting our industry base more than Albuquerque.

Jami Grindatto, chief executive of the Sandoval Economic Alliance, met with Pacheco during his tour.

Grindatto told me in an email that the alliances focus on manufacturing sectors that export their products including aerospace fabrication and parts repair, metal fabrication, such as machining parts and metal refining, and electronic manufacturers could marry well with cross-border commerce.

Those sectors could plug into the maquiladora industry supply chain directly or export their products internationally, he said.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Albuquerque Economic Development told me that group is working to help identify companies in the Albuquerque metro area that may be a great fit as suppliers or vendors for the work happening in Santa Teresa.

A few Albuquerque-based engineering and construction firms do work for the border industrial base, but thats about it, Pacheco said.

Got metalworkers?

Nowhere is the interest more acute than in the states oil and potash patch. Hobbs-based companies hit hard by plummeting commodities prices reacted warmly to Pachecos pitch during a recent visit.

As it turns out, some suppliers to the oil services industry may be well-suited to supply the Santa Teresa companies that supply Mexicos maquilas. Two Lea County businesses are now in talks with Santa Teresa companies, says Steve Vierck, president of the Economic Development Corp. of Lea County.

Vierck explained the potential this way: I think it can be a very lucrative diversification and retention and expansion strategy for us. Some firms are at risk at staying in business. Most have already laid off people. We think this is a good path to keeping more of those operations in business and helping them pick up additional contracts that would allow them to hire back their skilled workers.

Room to grow

New Mexico broke the billion-dollar mark in trade with our southern neighbor for the first time in 2014, when the states exports to Mexico nearly doubled to $1.55 billion. Exports grew again in 2015, to $1.68 billion.

But 26 other states did more business with our southern neighbor than we did.

The three other border states ranked in the top four, along with Michigan. Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Georgia and Alabama all notched bigger export numbers. New Mexico barely topped Connecticut, which logged $1.3 billion in exports to Mexico last year.

All that is to say that New Mexico has plenty of room to grow, as long as Mexicos maquila industry continues to expand  its been growing at a double-digit clip for nearly two years now.

The Border Industrial Association surveyed its 110 members to find out what they need. The answer: Everything from fabricated metal, lubricants, packaging materials, labels, pallets, maintenance services, quality control services to toilet paper.

The challenge for New Mexico companies will be to prove they have the know-how, volume capacity, quality and competitive pricing to win deals that could give Albuquerque, Hobbs and other parts of the state more stake in the border economy.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Lauren Villagran in Las Cruces at lvillagran@abqjournal.com. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
SANTA FE  The Santa Fe Farmers Market was absolved of any wrongdoing in a case of a self-professed Freedom Farmer who was kicked off the markets board of directors in 2014 because of conduct derogatory to the best interest of the corporation.

In a lawsuit, Sean Siefkin claimed he was improperly voted off the board and subjected to a lifetime ban in retaliation for his advocacy in support of having only local goods being sold at the market, issues of fairness involving assigned vendor spots, and matters of governance.

But former board members who testified at the two-day trial this week said Siefkin was removed because he was rude, at times acted intimidating and threatening to market officials, and disrupted commerce at the popular market that draws crowds to the Railyard district on Tuesday and Saturday mornings.

The evidence supports a determination that the manner in which plaintiff conducted himself was unacceptable, Santa Fe District Court Judge Sarah Singleton said in announcing her decision Wednesday.

Singleton had heard from several former board members named as defendants in the case, including Serafina Lombardi, who was board secretary when Siefkin was kicked off the board in July 2014, subsequently suspended for a year and then banned for life.

Lombardi said she was inspired to run for the board of directors partly because of conversations she had with Siefkin, whom she described as passionate and intense when it came to issues impacting the market.

But he crossed the line by throwing temper tantrums, swearing and using his middle finger at board meetings and on the floor of the market. We finally said, this is not OK, she said during her testimony on Tuesday. Enough is enough. We had to protect the markets interests, not Seans personal campaign.

Singleton said that when Siefkin signed up to sell produce at the market he agreed to abide by the markets rules and regulations and that the Santa Fe Farmers Market Corporation bylaws provided that vendors may be removed by the board for any reason.

While Siefkins attorney argued that the creation of an executive committee to run the market and a grievance committee to handle complaints was not provided for in the bylaws, Singleton ruled that there was no provision in the bylaws that would prevent the formation of such committees.

Though Siefkin wasnt invited to defend himself before the grievance committee, that panel and the executive committee recommended to the board of directors that Siefkin be removed from the board.
The lawsuit filed by the family of Mary Hawkes has revealed new details about the night APD officer Jeremy Dear shot and killed the 19-year-old woman.

Officer Sonny Molina was the first officer to encounter Hawkes in the predawn hours of April 21, 2014. Hawkes was driving a pickup truck with the window rolled down, and Molina said he became suspicious when Hawkes said hi to him and drove away from the intersection of Pennsylvania and Chico NE around 3 a.m.

He ran the trucks license plates through a police database, which showed the truck was stolen. He tried searching for her in the area and found the vehicle she was driving abandoned. He called for backup and Dear, officer Tanner Tixier and a field investigator responded.

Molina searched the truck and found a cellphone opened to Hawkes Facebook profile, which he used to identify her as a suspect for receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle. The vehicles owner later told police investigators that Hawkes was seeing his roommate.

Two hours later, around 5 a.m., Molina again spotted Hawkes. This time he was following another suspicious vehicle from a distance and watched it turn at Zuni and Virginia. He drove up to the intersection just as the car was pulling away and saw Hawkes walking on the sidewalk.

I said, Mary, stop,  he said during a recent deposition. And she turned around and said, No, and thats when she took off running.

Hawkes ran into a nearby trailer park. Uniformed and tactical officers were called. Dear and Tixier came from a Dunkin Donuts, and a K-9 officer also arrived and started announcing over a loudspeaker for Hawkes to turn herself in.

About 40 minutes later, officers saw Hawkes scale a wall at the trailer park and run east across Wyoming near Zuni. Dear gave chase. He said he was running at her when she turned and pointed a gun, and he opened fire.

Dear has said his lapel camera came unplugged and didnt record the shooting. He immediately started talking about how his camera was unplugged to officers on the scene and also to Molina when they were instructed to sit in a police car.

Police Chief Gorden Eden arrived at the scene later that morning, and when he checked on Dears well-being, Dear told the chief his camera was unplugged and didnt record the shooting.

I said, Im here to make sure youre OK. Dont say anything else to me. And that was the end of the conversation, Eden said in a deposition.

Mary Hawkes was one of many children raised by Maryalice and Danny Hawkes. She was one of 30-plus children who have been through the familys home, Maryalice Hawkes said.

Danny Hawkes is a retired police officer and judge, and the Hawkes family includes numerous law enforcement officers. Her foster brother was an Albuquerque police officer at the time of the shooting.

The Hawkes familys lawsuit, which was filed in state District Court and is seeking damages for Mary Hawkes death, was critical of the police investigation.

It pointed out several inconsistencies in officers statements. For example, one officer said he was in his patrol car when the shooting happened, but lapel camera footage showed he actually was about 30 feet away from Hawkes and Dear when shots were fired.

The lawsuit also said there was no DNA evidence, fingerprints or blood on the firearm that police said Hawkes was holding at the time she was shot.
SANTA FE  New Mexico is suing its upstream neighbor, contending Colorado was too lax in its oversight of groundwater contaminated by decades of mining and should be held responsible for the fallout of last years Gold King Mine spill.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court this week by Attorney General Hector Balderas and outside attorneys hired by the state Environment Department, seeks reimbursement for all costs  including stigma damages  connected to the mine spill, in which more than 3 million gallons of toxic waste was spewed into a tributary of the Animas River and flowed into New Mexico.

The Gold King Mine release is the result of two decades of disastrous environmental decision-making by Colorado, for which New Mexico and its citizens are now paying the price, Balderas said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn described the lawsuit as a last resort, saying his agencys attempts to negotiate a deal with Colorado officials have been unsuccessful.

We cant continue to wait, Flynn told the Journal . At some point, we have an obligation with the citizens were serving to move forward.

Specifically, the lawsuit alleges a Colorado department signed off on a plan to block the tunnels of a closed mine in the same network as the Gold King Mine with concrete plugs  or bulkheads  to try to block acidic wastewater from escaping, the lawsuit alleges.

The plan essentially turned the mine into an enormous wastewater storage facility and Colorado environment officials were aware of the possible risk of a blowout, the suit claims.

Its going to be very difficult for Colorado to explain why they ignored these warnings, Flynn said.

The August 2015 mine spill happened when a crew hired by the federal Environmental Protection Agency accidentally breached a containment wall, releasing a yellow-orange plume of waste out of the Gold King Mine, north of Silverton, Colo.

The discharge eventually carried more than 888,000 pounds of heavy metals  such as lead, arsenic, copper and mercury  into New Mexico. It forced municipal and community water systems and irrigation ditches in San Juan County to stop drawing water from the Animas and San Juan rivers for more than a week after the spill and raised concerns about lasting damage to blue-ribbon trout waters.

In the 10-plus months since the Gold King Mine spill, state and tribal governments have been keeping a close eye on contaminant levels in the rivers, due largely to the threat of contamination after rainstorms or heavy runoffs that can churn up sediments in the water.

In addition to the lawsuit against Colorado, New Mexico has also filed a lawsuit in federal court against the EPA and the owners of the Gold King Mine that seeks more than $136 million in damages. That amount would include money to pay for economic losses the state attributes to the mine spill, specifically in the tourism, recreation and agriculture sectors.

New Mexico is no stranger to lawsuits with its neighbors. The state has also been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with Texas that hinges on whether groundwater pumping in southern New Mexico is draining the Rio Grande and depriving downriver water users in the Lone Star State from their rightful share.

That lawsuit also was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, as is typically the case when one state sues another.

In the Wednesday interview, Flynn acknowledged interstate lawsuits are typically not resolved quickly and said theres a good likelihood the case could still be pending when Gov. Susana Martinezs second term expires at the end of 2018.

Anytime you go to court, theres some risk, Flynn said, adding that New Mexico officials are still open to negotiating with Colorado and hopeful the case might be resolved out of court.

Both mine spill lawsuits are being driven by Attorney General Balderas, a Democrat, working with the administration of Martinez, a two-term Republican.

This weeks lawsuit claims Colorados actions have prejudiced New Mexicos economy, finances and natural resources, and have injured the health, comfort, safety and property of New Mexicos citizens.

Although New Mexico officials have taken a hard-line approach to the Gold King Mine spill fallout, some Colorado officials have said their testing shows no risk to human health from the contaminants.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper even drank water from the Animas River just days after the spill  after adding an iodine tablet to purify the water  in an attempt to downplay environmental concerns.

If that shows that Durango is open for business, Im happy to help, Hickenlooper said, according to the Durango Herald.
New Mexicos four congressional Democrats were among those participating in dramatic sit-in on the U.S. House floor Wednesday and into this morning, as they called for votes on bills to curb terrorists access to guns.

Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Ben Ray Lujan, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, were among 168 Democrats (out of a total of 188 in the House) who joined the sit-in. Both took turns speaking from the House floor, as well.

During her speech, Lujan Grisham evoked the name of Lilly Garcia, a four-year-old who was killed in a road rage shooting in Albuquerque last year.

Like all of you here , its personal to me, she said. Just last October, a 4-year-old, Lilly Garcia, was shot in her car seat on a highway by gun violence that makes absolutely no sense and has no place in our communities.

In the last 11 years, 2,000 people who are suspects on the FBI terrorist list have purchased guns. 2,000!, Lujan Grisham added. I want a chance to go home and tell my community that I voted on a bill to demand that my and your fundamental right to be safe in our homes and our communities gets done.

Among the bills Democrats called for a vote on was one introduced by Sens. Martin Heinrich and Susan Collins, a Maine, Republican, on Tuesday. Heinrich and Udall were among Democratic senators who walked over the House chamber to express solidarity with their colleagues in the lower chamber.

The delegations lone Republican, Rep. Steve Pearce, expressed disapproval of the tactic on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

Democrats still staging sit-in on House floor on gun control  why we not talking about combating terrorism?, Pearce tweeted.

The stunning and unruly scene was broadcast live to the world from Democrats cell phones, feeds picked up by C-SPAN after Republicans shut down the networks cameras.

The sit-in was well into its 10th hour, with Democrats camped out on the floor stopping legislative business in the House, when Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan stepped to the podium to gavel the House into session and hold votes on routine business. Angry Democrats chanted No bill, no break! and waved pieces of paper with the names of gun victims, continuing their protest in the well of the House even as lawmakers voted on a previously scheduled and unrelated measure to overturn a veto by President Barack Obama.

Ryan attempted to ignore the outbursts and announce the business of the day, pounding down his gavel over shouting. Shame! Shame! Shame! Democrats yelled, but Ryan left the lectern and the voting continued. Then Democrats began singing We Shall Overcome, still holding up the names of gun victims.

Ryan dismissed the protest as nothing more than a publicity stunt, and in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, made clear there would be no vote.

Were not going to take away a citizens constitutional rights without due process, he said.

Ryan adjourned the House at about 3:15 until after the July 4th holiday, but Democrats remained on the floor. Some were still on the floor protesting as of 6:45 a.m. MDT this morning.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LLANO, Texas  Authorities say a South Texas man drowned while trying to rescue his 13-year-old daughter from the Llano (LAH-noh) River as they were fishing.

The Llano County Sheriffs Office says bystanders and some city workers saved the girl during the accident Wednesday afternoon near Badu Park. A Llano city statement identified the man who died as 52-year-old Brian Holmberg of Victoria.

Officials believe the teen got caught in the rivers swift current, then her father tried to help her. He was located in the water and transported to a hospital, where the father was pronounced dead.

Llano is 65 miles northwest of Austin.
FARMINGTON  Police have identified the UPS employee stabbed this morning in Farmington as 25-year-old Colton Kennedy.

Farmington police officers were dispatched at 10:17 a.m. to the Royal Mobile Home Park, 725 W. Animas St. in Farmington, after receiving reports of the stabbing, according to police spokeswoman Georgette Allen.

Police learned Kennedy was stabbed repeatedly outside a residence while delivering packages, according to Allen.

Allen said Kennedy was transported to San Juan Regional Medical Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Hospital spokeswoman Laura Werbner said Kennedy was released by this afternoon.

Allen said detectives continued to investigate the stabbing this afternoon.

No motive has been established, and the weapon has not been recovered, according to Allen.

A UPS spokesman said in a statement that the company was working with police on their investigation into the attack.

Our concern right now is with the health and recovery of our driver, the spokesman said.

The suspect was described as a 5-foot-10-inch Native American male with a thin build and light facial hair on his chin, according to Allen. He was last seen wearing a black shirt and blue jeans.

Anyone with information on the suspects whereabouts can contact the San Juan County Communications Authority at 505-334-6622.



2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)

Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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CHEYENNE, Wyo.  A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a Colorado man to three years of supervised probation on a felony conviction of operating an unregistered airplane in a case stemming from the police seizure of over $250,000 cash from a Wyoming hotel room two years ago.

Scott Michael Lewis, 27, of Englewood, Colorado had pleaded guilty in April. In sentencing him, U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne followed a federal prosecutors recommendation to dismiss a second charge alleging conspiracy to operate an unregistered aircraft.

Friends and family told Johnson that Lewis is working on an undergraduate degree in finance at the University of Colorado in Denver. Lewis also has been working at a hotel and has professional job prospects upon graduation, they said.

Lewis told Johnson that hes sorry for what happened and would make certain he wouldnt ever appear again before a criminal court.

In sentencing Lewis to probation, Johnson imposed a lengthy list of conditions including that he not file any flight plans. The judge said he was impressed with the support that Lewis inspired from the others.

Frankly, I think you are well on your way to rescuing yourself, Johnson told Lewis.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in Wyoming charged Lewis and co-defendant Gilbert Wayne Wiles Jr. of Denver in January. The charges came nearly two years after authorities in Cody seized a Cessna airplane and the cash.

Wiles pleaded guilty in April to aiding and abetting the operation of an unregistered airplane. He faces between one and three years of probation at his sentencing, set for Friday.

According to court records, a worker at Yellowstone Regional Airport alerted police that that the men appeared suspicious after they landed there on Feb. 27, 2014. The worker told police the pilot didnt radio the airport before landing and sunshades were lowered over the windows even though the plane was about to be stored in a hangar.

A police officer testified earlier this year at a suppression hearing that a drug dog alerted to the plane but no drugs were found. The officer said he interpreted the dogs actions to mean the plane had been used for transporting drugs in the past. Prosecutors say officers found the cash in a hotel room the men had rented in Cody.

As part of Lewis sentence, Johnson forfeited the Cessna to the federal government. Johnson said there had been little discussion at sentencing of the crime.

It was an ongoing activity, he said. And it was an activity that certainly was no good.
BALTIMORE  It was supposed to be an open-and-shut case: The 25-year-old black man was healthy before his arrest and arrived at the nearby station dying from a broken neck.

But a judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors failed to prove any crime was committed by Officer Caesar Goodson, who drove the van where Freddie Gray suffered his fatal injury during a six-stop, 45-minute odyssey after he tried to outrun a police patrol.

After three trials and no convictions, its increasingly clear that the evidence against six Baltimore police officers in charged in Grays death is too weak to sustain the hopes of citizens desperate for reform.

Police union president Gene Ryan called on States Attorney Marilyn Mosby on Thursday to reconsider her malicious prosecution, since hes certain the remaining officers also will be acquitted.

Grays death became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, fueling outrage nationwide over the treatment of black people by the criminal justice system. But it hasnt fit quite so neatly into the narrative of white authorities imposing unfair justice on minorities.

In this case, not only the victim but the defendant, judge, top prosecutor and mayor are African-American. At the time of Grays death, so was the police chief.

Many activists focused their criticism on the system as a whole.

Today is a reminder that there is a set of laws, policies and police union contracts across the country that will protect any form of police behavior, Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson said.

Grays death was a career-ender for Baltimores police chief, and the new commissioner, Kevin Davis, has been vocal about imposing changes. All patrol officers will soon wear body cameras, and software will ensure no policeman can say he hasnt read and understood department rules. Police vans will be outfitted with cameras to record prisoners being transported.

Maryland lawmakers also amended the Law Enforcement Officers Bill Of Rights for the first time in decades; among other things, they reduced from 10 to 5 days the period when officers charged with a crime can refuse to participate in an investigation.

Prosecutors had slim evidence that Goodson intended to harm Gray, in part because no witnesses or cameras could show what happened inside the van, and Goodson wouldnt talk to investigators.

The changes in Annapolis still dont require officers to give statements, and departments still cant fire them for refusing. This hardly satisfies people who see unfair policing as one of Baltimores biggest problems.

They want tangible and measurable improvements, and the kind of culture change they think will come when police officers are jailed.

It seemed to be a defining moment for the city when Mosby announced the charges last year, sounding righteously outraged as she described how six officers caused the death that triggered riots so destructive that the National Guard was called in to help stop them.

She seemed crestfallen Thursday after Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams acquitted Goodson of murder, manslaughter and all other charges. The same judge acquitted Officer Edward Nero after an earlier non-jury trial, and presided over a hung jury in the mistrial of Officer William Porter.

Goodson was the officer who faced the most serious charges. But after prosecutors and detectives openly traded accusations of misconduct, sabotage and dirty dealings, his trial failed to produce clear evidence of intent to harm, the judge said.

Prosecutors said Goodson was criminally negligent when he failed to buckle the shackled and handcuffed prisoner into a seat belt, leaving him vulnerable to injury inside the vans metal compartment; and chose not to call for medical help or take Gray to the hospital.

The state has failed to meet its burden to show that the actions of the defendant rose above mere civil negligence, the judge said.

Warren Brown, a Baltimore attorney who observed much of the trial, said the states case amounted to this was a tragedy and so therefore someone should be held responsible, but thats just not the way it works.

Billy Murphy, the Gray family attorney, held a news conference to address the ruling Thursday evening. He said putting cameras in courtrooms to make trials like this one more transparent should be at the top of the list of criminal justice reforms, so the public can make up its own mind about the merits and weaknesses of the case. He added that the family is frustrated by the result, but continues to support the efforts of Mosby, whom he called one of the most courageous prosecutors in the United States.

They hope for justice, he said, whatever that is, and they know justice doesnt have guilty or not guilty attached to it.

But Baltimores NAACP president, Tessa Hill-Aston, says the problems go much deeper than the state presenting a weak case.

Rules and the court play it one way, but in the street we see it as criminal, she said, and we see that our loved ones are dead, she said.

The Peoples Power Assembly, which has organized demonstrations outside each trial, announced a new campaign Thursday to hold quarterly citizen assemblies where people can discuss their experiences with police, and called for more resources for inner-city communities.

Tawanda Jones, who leads a weekly protest over the death of her own brother during his arrest, tearfully said that We need to dismantle this corrupt system.

Angel Selah, wearing a symbolic noose around her neck, demanded that someone be held accountable for Grays death. I feel like it is a modern day lynching, she said.

But U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement who sought to restore order after the riots, said Baltimores future does not rest on the outcomes of the trials surrounding Mr. Freddie Grays death  Baltimores future rests on every one of us.

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Judges ruling is posted here: http://www.baltimorecitycourt.org/highlighted-case/case-no-115141032-state-v-caesar-goodson

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Associated Press contributors include Brian Witte in Baltimore and Matthew Barakat in McLean, Virginia.

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This story has corrected the capitalization of DeRay Mckessons first name.
LOS LUNAS  The Los Lunas Village Council tonight will consider authorizing $5 billion in industrial revenue bonds  the first of a possible six totaling $30 billion  for the benefit of a data storage company, Greater Kudu, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.

Los Lunas Mayor Charles Griego said the company would provide between 30 and 50 high-paying jobs per phase and hopefully will be creating a lot of spin-off businesses.

Greater Kudu, a subsidiary of a larger, undisclosed company, is considering constructing and equipping a data storage facility in one of two locations: Los Lunas or another site outside the state. Data storage is like cloud storage, a huge network of computers storing digital information.

Griego said he did not know the identity of Greater Kudus parent company, and that the information would not be disclosed before the council vote. He acknowledged the IRB proposal contained lot of zeroes and relatively limited information about the companies in question, but said that if the IRBs are authorized and Los Lunas is chosen for the plant, there is no liability to the village.
DES MOINES, Iowa  One of the six men long identified in an iconic World War II photograph showing the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima was actually not in the image, the Marine Corps announced Thursday after conducting an investigation prompted by the claims of two amateur historians.

The Marines formed a review panel earlier this year after the two history buffs studied a number of photos shot during two flag-raisings atop Mount Suribachi during an intense battle between American and Japanese forces in 1945. They claimed the identifications made by the Marines of the six men in the famous photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal included mistakes, and after the review, the Marine Corps agreed.

Our history is important to us, and we have a responsibility to ensure its right, Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement.

A panel found that Private First Class Harold Schultz, of Detroit, was in the photo and that Navy Pharmacists Mate 2nd Class John Bradley wasnt. Bradley had participated in an earlier flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, and his role took on a central role after his son, James Bradley, wrote a best-selling book about the flag raisers, Flags of Our Fathers, which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

James Bradley declined to comment Thursday when reached by phone. However, he told the AP in May that the Marines decision to investigate the matter led him to believe his father confused the first and second raisings of the flag.

My father raised a flag on Iwo Jima, Bradley said. The Marines told him way after the fact, Heres a picture of you raising the flag. He had a memory of him raising a flag, and the two events came together.

Random House, the publisher of Flags of Our Fathers, released a statement Thursday noting that James Bradley had already concluded his father wasnt in the famed photo. It said he was working on a new afterward to his book, which will be included with the digital editions soon and with later print editions.

The Marines began a review after being contacted by researchers working on a Smithsonian Channel documentary spurred by amateur historians Eric Krelle, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Stephen Foley, of Wexford, Ireland, whose questions about the photo were first reported by the Omaha World-Herald in 2014.

More than 6,500 U.S. servicemen died in the battle at Iwo Jima, a tiny island 660 miles south of Tokyo that was deemed vital to the U.S. war effort because Japanese fighter planes based there were intercepting American bomber planes. The invasion began on Feb. 19, 1945, with about 70,000 Marines battling 18,000 Japanese soldiers for 36 days.

Besides those killed, about 20,000 Americans were wounded. Only about 200 Japanese soldiers were captured, with the others killed in the fighting.

Krelle and Foley compared a number of images shot of an earlier flag-raising and the raising of a second, larger flag captured by Rosenthal. They found discrepancies between what the men were wearing, their weapons and equipment they had, prompting Krelle and Foley to argue that some of the Marines had been misidentified and that Bradley participated in the first flag-raising but not the second effort that made for the famous image.

The Marines now agree that Schultz, who died in 1995 at age 70, helped raise the flag, along with Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley and Michael Strank.

The Marine Corps earlier had mistakenly identified a figure in the photo as Sousley who actually was Schultz. Another figure who had been identified as Bradley was Sousley, leaving Bradley out of the picture.

Block, Sousley and Strank died at Iwo Jima before the photo was distributed in the U.S.

Neller said its important to set the record straight but that the photo was never about the individuals shown in the image.

Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps  what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesnt change, Neller said.

Matthew Morgan, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who helped produce the Smithsonian Channel documentary that will air July 3, said hes thankful people can finally learn of Schultzs role on Mount Suribachi. Schultz, who was wounded at Iwo Jima, moved to Los Angeles and worked for the post office after the war, apparently never mentioning his part in the flag-raising.

The men most worthy of honor are those who dont seek it, and Harold epitomizes that, Morgan said.

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Follow Scott McFetridge on Twitter at https://twitter.com/smcfetridge
Detectives are looking for three men after a man was stabbed to death in front of his three children in a Walgreens parking lot Wednesday night.

Police have not identified the victim, but the dead mans mother said he is 33-year-old Alonzo Dale.

Katherine Jim said her son, a Navajo man, had lived in Albuquerque for almost all of his life and had four children, ages 4 to 11. The three youngest were with him when he was stabbed in the chest near the intersection of Central and San Mateo around 9:30 p.m.

Dale was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where he died.

Officer Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said Thursday that officers are looking for three men who were seen fighting with the victim.

He said one man  a light-skinned Hispanic man in his late 20s wearing a white polo shirt, around 5 feet 5 inches tall and 140 pounds  started the fight, and then two other men arrived and joined in. One of them stabbed Dale in the upper torso area.

Then, Tixier said, the three men shook hands and walked away.

Tixier said the suspect who stabbed Dale is a Native American or Hispanic male, 5 feet 8 inches tall and around 180 pounds. He was wearing dark denim shorts and no shirt and had a backpack. The third man in the fight was a Hispanic man in his mid-50s and around 150 pounds. He was not wearing a shirt and was wearing dark and light blue plaid shorts.

Tixier said all three suspects had short fade-style haircuts.

He said a fourth man pulled into the parking lot in a white car, possibly a Lexus, intervened briefly, and then left.

Detectives believe that local merchants in the area may know who these subjects are, Tixier said.

Henry Varela, the spokesman for the state Children, Youth and Families Department, said Dales three children are in the departments custody on a 48-hour hold. He said they are investigating before returning the children to their family.

Jim said she has been in shock since her sons girlfriend called her late Wednesday asking if shes seen him. She said she was in bed but got up right away and headed into town.

I had a feeling, and I knew I needed to go to Albuquerque, she said. As I was driving down Central I saw the crime tape and everything. Thats where I knew that something had happened.

Jim said shes planning the funeral and trying to get more information about her grandchildren. She said Dale was an artist and a loving father who would bend over backward for his children.

Im just more worried about my grandkids, she said. They said they told CYFD and the officers their dad was dead. For them to know that so young is so hard.

Journal staff writer Nicole Perez contributed to this report.

Help police

Detectives ask anyone with information to call APD at 242-COPS or Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  The Latest on Supreme Courts immigration ruling and the effects in New Mexico. (all times local):

2:30 p.m.

The nations only Latina governor says President Barack Obama never had the authority to issue an executive order to protect immigrants living in the country illegally.

The office for New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said the executive order, which the Supreme Court blocked on Thursday, was a reckless decision and underscored the lack of leadership in Washington.

Martinez spokesman Mike Lonergan says the president did nothing for years and then tried waving around a magic pen to give defacto citizenship to millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.

Martinez did not directly mention the Supreme Court ruling blocking Obamas immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

She has urged Congress to pass immigration reform.

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2 p.m.

Immigrant advocates in New Mexico are denouncing Thursdays Supreme Court ruling blocking President Barack Obamas immigration plan.

New Mexico Immigrant Law Center legal director Eva Eitzen says the decision halted common sense policies and urged the Obama Administration to seek a rehearing.

Bertha Campos, an Albuquerque business owner who could have sought temporary relief from deportation, says despite the ruling advocates will continue to organizing against deportations.

But University of New Mexico graduate student Alejandro Mendiaz-Rivera says he was fearful for some of his immigrant family members who are losing protections.

The high courts tie vote effectively kills Obamas plan to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

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11:30 a.m.

A college in western New Mexico says it will continue to recruit immigrant students living in the country illegally despite Thursdays Supreme Court ruling.

Western New Mexico University spokesman Abe Villarreal says the school will remain an open, accepting university to all students who want to attend the college.

The school in Silver City has drawn national attention for openly recruiting immigrant students living in the country illegally known as DREAMers. The university touts on its website that such students are welcome to attend and has targeted students living in Arizona and Texas.

Villarreal says the ruling doesnt affect the schools efforts.

A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obamas immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.
PHOENIX  The top Democrat in the Arizona House of Representatives on Thursday called on a fellow Democrat to step down after her indictment on food stamp fraud charges.

Minority Leader Rep. Eric Meyer said that he had spoken with Rep. Cecilia Velasquez and urged her to resign.

This is just an accusation of wrongdoing and we need to let the process work itself out through the court, Meyer said. But this is a distraction for her and she needs to get it resolved, and I think thats the best thing for her to do.

The Arizona Department of Economic Security announced Wednesday that Velasquez had been indicted by a state grand jury on felony fraud and two other charges. Officials say she falsely claimed two dependents, listed the wrong address and let others use her benefit card.

Velasquez hasnt returned repeated calls and text messages seeking comment, but said on her Twitter account that she had done nothing wrong.

This is a political witch hunt, she tweeted. Im confident that justice WILL prevail once all the facts are known!

The DES inspector general launched an investigation in December 2014 after receiving a tip to a fraud hotline. The indictment alleges that Velasquez fraudulently obtained $1,726 in food stamp benefits between Nov. 1, 2013 and Jan. 31, 2015.

Velasquez is a serving her first term in the Arizona House of Representatives and took office in January 2015. Her biography says she is a mother of five and runs a group that helps the families of people in prison. Shes also worked as a paralegal and for the state for 12 years in social services. The Department of Economic Security oversees many state social services programs and was working Thursday to try to determine if she was a former employee.

If convicted of a felony, Velasquez would automatically be ineligible to hold office because she would lose her voting rights. She is running for re-election.

Meyer said that when he spoke to Velasquez Wednesday night she was still working to find a lawyer and said she could not discuss the charges.

She has to be convicted, not just charged, to lose her right to office, Meyer said. I dont how this will play out in the courts  Im not a lawyer  but sometimes the charges are reduced to misdemeanors and if thats the case she can continue to run and to serve. 
SANTA FE  New Mexicos congressional delegation and a high-ranking U.S. Department of Agriculture official are asking the federal agencys Office of Inspector General to investigate allegations that state Human Services Department workers falsified food assistance applications.

Kevin Concannon, the USDAs undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said in a letter that the allegations represent potential criminal activities that are outside his authority to prosecute.

The separate letters from Concannon and all five members of the delegation  four Democrats and one Republican  were sent last week.

A union representing HSD employees who administer the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program complained in April to the USDA that there was a statewide policy of adding false asset information to case files.

That could cause applicants to not be eligible for expedited food aid, and the state would not appear to be handling the cases too slowly when information was reported to the USDA.

In federal court hearings in May and June, former and current HSD workers testified they were told to inflate the assets that applicants reported.

Concannon said in his letter to Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong that the allegations if demonstrated to be true, could represent fraudulent criminal activity on the part of state agency staff.

A spokesman for the HSD said the department finds the allegations very troubling, which is why we immediately launched an investigation and asked the USDA to assist us long before this letter was written.

In fact, our inspector general continues to work with the USDA Office of Inspector General, Kyler Nerison said Thursday in a statement.

A report on the HSDs own investigation into the allegations is expected to be submitted next week to a federal court that is weighing whether to put New Mexicos SNAP program under a court-appointed overseer.

In late May, USDA told the HSD that a review had turned up severe compliance issues with the administration of SNAP that could have meant the department had incorrectly issued millions of dollars in benefits. The HSD countered that it was prohibited by court orders from taking some federally required actions.

The possible overpayments were not mentioned in the letters from the delegation and Concannon requesting the investigation.

Concannon said at a recent congressional hearing that he believes New Mexico is probably the most fouled-up SNAP system in the United States right now.

The delegation in its letter also cited complaints from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that the HSD has failed provide adequate, timely training or clear policy directives to staff, and has not resolved computer problems.

If the practice of purposely delaying applications did occur, it could have hurt some of the most vulnerable families that urgently need assistance, the members of Congress wrote. If any HSD actions have caused eligible families to go hungry, they need to be identified and rectified immediately, and those responsible need to be held accountable, they said.

HSDs Nerison said the agencys priority is ensuring that New Mexicans who need assistance get the help they need.
LOS LUNAS  The county fire chief  in trouble last month over photos with bikini-clad women  is now facing criminal charges after making an improper traffic stop on Interstate 25 earlier this month.

Valencia County Fire Chief Steven Gonzales is facing charges of false imprisonment, a fourth-degree felony and impersonation of a police officer, a misdemeanor, according to the criminal complaint filed in Magistrate Court earlier this week.

The charges stem from a June 4 incident in which Gonzales stopped a northbound silver Camry just south of the Los Lunas I-25 exit. The chief radioed the dispatch center, requesting an officer be sent to his location, but the driver left the scene before police arrived.

Los Lunas Police Chief Naithan Gurule said Sgt. John Valdez conducted the investigation into the incident, speaking with both Gonzales and the man he stopped.

After he interviewed both of them, we consulted with the District Attorneys Office and filed charges, Gurule said.

The police chief said Gonzales was not arrested and a court date for his arraignment will be set, where he will enter a formal plea on the charges.

Gonzales did not respond to messages seeking comment. He has been on paid administrative leave since June 7.

County Manager Danny Monette said Gurule filed a complaint with the county, which led to Gonzales being put on leave during the internal investigation.

Those charges are expected to have no bearing on the countys own investigation into the incident, Monette said.

In the criminal complaint, Gonzales told Valdez he felt he did nothing wrong, that he was acting in the best interest of the public.

 I mean honestly this guy was being a jerk, Gonzales said, according to the criminal complaint in which he said the driver cut off two semi trucks and almost hit the chief when he changed lanes.

The driver told Valdez he said he didnt know why he was stopped and that he didnt know that the fire department could stop you.

The driver said he got out of his vehicle to see why he was being stopped.

He said the firefighter told him he needed to wait for police to arrive but a short time later was told to leave.

Last month, Gonzales and two other officials were involved in the flap over photos with bikini-clad women at a convention in Indiana.

The countys top three fire service administrators issued public apologies and received suspensions without pay after the photos, which showed the men in official county polo shirts smiling and tugging at the womens clothing with their mouths.

They kept their jobs.
A former controller who embezzled $8.7 million from the Pepsi bottling company where he worked and then spent six years as a fugitive on the Appalachian Trail has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

James T. Hammes, 54, a former resident of Lexington, Ken., agreed Wednesday to pay nearly $7.7 million in restitution, including $6.7 million to his former employer, G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, and $1 million to Cincinnati Insurance Company, according to a news release.

While working as controller at the soda bottler, he made off with about $8.7 million between 1998 and February 2009 by setting up fictitious vendor accounts and manipulating the monthly accounting reports. Hammes allegedly used a miscellaneous account where he could charge off fraudulent checks and manipulated the legitimate accounts to offset the amounts in the miscellaneous account.

Hammes then used the stolen money for investing and trading, which in turn generated 1099 forms for the Internal Revenue Service. He sent estimated tax payments to the IRS amounting to at least $2.7 million with the help of the funds he stole from the Pepsi bottler. Nevertheless, he still managed to miss filing his tax returns for several years.

When his company and FBI agents questioned Hammes in February 2009 about the suspicious checks he had generated, he ran away to the Appalachian Trail, where he spent most of six years hiking and living under someone elses name. He also used the nickname Bismarck, according to Reuters. During that time, the authorities filed federal criminal charges against him. A fellow hiker saw his story on TV and tipped off law enforcement. Hammes was arrested in May 2015 at an inn where he was staying in Virginia.

U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott sentenced him to 96 months in prison on Wednesday.

Hammes embezzled a lot of money over a long period of time, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Benjamin C. Glassman said in a statement. As the district court recognized, his scheme was sophisticated; he abused the trust that his employer had placed in him; and sheer greed motivated him. Hammes followed up his crime by coldly abandoning his family without explanation or warning and running from the law for six years under someone else's name. But no one can run from justice forever, and today his lies were punished. Hammes more than earned every minute of the term of imprisonment that the district court imposed today.
(Bloomberg) Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John A. Koskinen committed an impeachable offense by giving false testimony to Congress about his agencys preservation of e-mails, a conservative lawyer told the House Judiciary Committee.

Nonetheless, it would be a mistake for House Republicans to move forward with a drive to impeach Koskinen unless the Senate is also on board, said Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who has written extensively on impeachment. Although the judiciary panel has conducted two hearings related to a possible impeachment of Koskinen, neither House nor Senate leaders have said they support it.

If it succeeded, it would be the first impeachment of an appointed executive-branch official in 140 years.

Koskinen, who took office in December 2013, was almost immediately mired in the agencys response to a scandal that predated his tenure; IRS officials acknowledged that they had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups that sought tax-exempt status beginning in 2010. He didnt attend Wednesdays hearing, but he has said the allegations against himthat he misled Congress and failed to ensure that the agency preserved all relevant e-mailsare meritless.

Partisan Exchanges

Every time I testified, I testified truthfully on what I knew, Koskinen told reporters last month.

During the hearing, which was marked by partisan exchanges from both Republicans and Democrats, legal scholars disagreed on whether Koskinens conduct would constitute grounds for impeachment under constitutional language that specifies treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

In my opinion, I think gross negligence doesnt qualify, said Michael Gerhardt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina Law School. In his view, impeachable conduct would have to involve bad intent, he said.

Elbow Room

Yet other witnesses, including Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said the standard is broader. It doesnt have to be an indictable offense, he said. The constitutions framers also discussed citing maladministration as grounds for impeachment, he said. This is a standard that has room at the elbows, he said.

Despite pending congressional subpoenas for all communications sent or received by Lois Lerner, in March 2014, IRS employees in West Virginia magnetically erased 422 backup tapes, which eliminated as many as 24,000 of her e-mails. Subsequent investigations by the Justice Department and the Treasury Departments inspector general found that the destruction was accidental.

Regardless, Koskinen testified to Congress in June 2014 that since the start of this investigation, every e-mail has been preserved. Nothing has been destroyed. He has said since that his testimony reflected his understanding at the time.

Republican Case

Representative Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, filed an impeachment resolution against Koskinen last year. He and other Republicans say Koskinen failed to make sure the IRS produced a full record of e-mails sent and received by Lerner, the agencys former director of exempt organizations. Chaffetz and others also accuse him of misleading Congress about a hard-drive crash that lost some of Lerners e-mails, as well as the subsequent destruction of the backup tapes.

A series of federal investigations into the IRS scandal faulted the agency for ineptness, but cleared it of criminal wrongdoing. In January 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had found no evidence of bias that would warrant criminal charges. The Justice Department in October ended its own probe, which found substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia, but resulted in no charges.

Pressing Matters

Democrats on the judiciary panel ridiculed Wednesdays hearing. Representative Hank Johnson, of Georgia, likened it to a dog chasing its tail. There are certainly more pressing matters demanding our attention, said Representative Jerry Nadler of New York.

Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who also serves on the judiciary committee, was visibly irritatedand cast the impeachment drive in terms of asserting congressional authority to counter overreach by the executive branch. Its very frustrating, he said. Heaven forbid we get rid of somebody who lied to Congress, he said later.

Last week, the oversight panel voted to censure Koskinen over similar claims. The 23-15 party line vote also recommended that his pension should be forfeited. Congressional censures of administration officials are rare, and generally would have no practical consequences. Neither the censure vote nor the impeachment resolution filed by Chaffetz and other Republicans has been promised a vote on the House floor.

McCarthy, the former prosecutor whose 2014 book, Faithless Execution, argued for the impeachment of President Barack Obama, said that by making impeachments rare, Congress is greenlighting misconduct. At the same time, he also said that any impeachment effort is doomed if it lacks widespread political support.

If you dont have public consensus that the official should be removed, the official wont be removed, McCarthy said.
(Bloomberg) UBS Group AG has ended a legal fight with the Internal Revenue Service, agreeing to hand over records on an American clients account in Singapore as U.S. authorities seek to move beyond Switzerland in their fight against offshore tax evasion.

The case involves information that the IRS sought on the account from 2001 to 2011 for Ching-Ye Hsiaw, a U.S. citizen living in China. On Feb. 23, the agency filed a petition asking a federal judge in Miami to force UBS, the largest Swiss bank, to produce account records on Hsiaw. The IRS said it needed the records to determine Hsiaws income tax liabilities from 2006 to 2011.

After reaching an agreement, the bank handed over records on May 31 and June 10, the Justice Department said Tuesday in a court filing dismissing the petition.

The Department of Justice and the IRS are committed to making sure that offshore tax evasion is detected and dealt with appropriately, Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Departments Tax Division said Wednesday in a statement. One critical component of that effort is making sure that the IRS has all of the information it needs to audit taxpayers with offshore assets.

The U.S. has focused largely on Switzerland since 2008 as it has fought offshore tax evasion. More than 80 Swiss banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG, have agreed to pay a total of about $5 billion in penalties and fines. The question is where the IRS and the Justice Department will turn next as they sift through a trove of data gathered from Swiss banks and from more than 50,000 U.S. taxpayers who disclosed their accounts to avoid prosecution.

UBS confirms that it complied with the summons based on client consent in accordance with Singapore law, Marsha Askins, a UBS spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Bank Secrecy

IRS agents served a summons on UBS in 2013 for the records. Hsiaw had $990,351 in his UBS account in Switzerland in 2001, and closed that the next year, transferring $194,356 to his Singapore account in 2002, according to the IRS petition. The bank said it couldnt produce the information because Singapores bank-secrecy laws prevent disclosure without permission from Hsiaw, which he hadnt provided, according to a court filing.

Singapores laws and regulations dont prohibit sharing of information for investigations into possible tax offenses, and banking information could be disclosed through clients consent or Singapore mutual legal assistance, according to the city states central bank.

Even if Singapores bank secrecy laws, as UBS contends, precludes disclosure of the summoned bank records relating or pertaining to Hsiaws Singapore account(s), international comity requires that the records be disclosed, IRS revenue agent James Oertel said in the Feb. 23 petition.

The case is U.S. v. UBS, 16-mc-20653, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).
MEC has unveiled its installation at Cannes Lions Innovation. The visual art piece, which unlocks the data behind game-changing creativity, has been created and built in partnership with digital creative studio Holition.

The installation, The DNA of Creativity, is presented in a mirror lined chamber that projects an LED video wall display into a seemingly endless space. This digital artwork uses an entirely bespoke hardware and software solution to generate a users individual creative profile in real-time, by drawing on the rich and varied archive of Cannes winners. The DNA of Creativity is thus both a tribute to the creative history of Cannes Lions and a glimpse into each individuals creative future.

The DNA of Creativity represents MECs capability to take vast amounts of data, uncover real-time insights and turn them into intuitive, forward thinking visualisations.

Stephan Bruneau, Global Chief Analytics and Insight Officer at MEC, said, In todays always on environment, data is everywhere. But without careful curation and interpretation it is useless. At MEC, we aim to make data accessible and meaningful by taking it out of the computer and turning it into more intuitive and interactive visual representations. We have partnered with Holition to create something truly special for Cannes, using technology and data to determine and visualise creativity.

Jonathan Chippindale, CEO at Holition, added here, With MEC we were inspired by the vast Cannes archive and the structure of the DNA double helix. This naturally led us to see how we could craft an algorithm to simplify the data into an immersive visualization which could define a persons creative DNA.
Liaison officers keep communication flowing in Swift Response

As exercise Swift Response 16 began phase II, with C-130J Super Hercules aircraft flying overhead and Soldiers operating on the ground, air mobility liaison officers kept effective communications flowing between both elements to ensure a successful exercise.



AMLOs, assigned to U.S. Air Forces in Europe and the 621st Mobility Support Operations Squadron, spoke both Air Force and Army terminology simultaneously. They worked to keep Army warfighters on the ground, Air Force aircrews and contingency response forces communicating effectively and on the same page.



The exercise allows me to interface in a new realm of Army lingo, learning all the acronyms and how they talk and work, then I switch over to the Air Force and translate it into Air Force terminology and vice versa, said Maj. Aaron Cook, a 621st Mobility Support Operation Squadron AMLO to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment/Joint Multinational Training Center.



AMLOs are Air Force officers trained to advise Army and Marine units on the optimum, safe use of air mobility assets. They conduct landing zone and drop zone operations, integrate with command and control, and provide advice on air mobility capabilities.



On the ground, having an AMLO who was familiar with the area benefited the contingency response forces as they set up an aerial port and started receiving aircraft in support of the 82nd Airborne Division.



I know the region and the airstrip, Cook said. I know how to get out here and who to contact at the tower. Ive been working with the AMLOs in the 82nd (AD) to be that middleman to relay information from Soldiers on the ground to the (contingency response) forces.



Col. Rhett Champagne, the 821st Contingency Response Group commander, said that AMLOs work with the Army day in and day out.



Because of this, they can see some of the frustrations that they may have from an Air Force perspective, Champagne said. Its all about perspective, and to have an Airman be able to take the Army perspective and translate it to Air Force is invaluable.



The exercise also provided an opportunity for AMLO leadership to see how the officers operate in the field.



Its an opportunity to validate the doctrine, policy, guidance and to take a good look at how weve equipped them to operate successfully in a deployed environment, said Lt. Col. Brian Broekemeier, the AMLO functional area manager. The AMLOs did great during (Swift Response 16). The exercise helped them learn how the warfighter thinks and also gave them firsthand knowledge of how (contingency response) forces work so that they can apply it for future real world ops.
B-52s conclude Europe mission after supporting exercises, airshows

After flying numerous sorties, multiple airshows and missions with NATO allies, two B-52H Stratofortresses headed home June 23 to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.



The bombers were deployed to Royal Air Force Fairford, along with about 250 personnel, from Air Force Global Strike Command in June to support multinational exercises Baltic Operations 16 and Saber Strike 16.



We had several goals for Baltops and Saber Strike; Id most definitely say we achieved all of them, said Col. Kieran Denehan, the 5th Expeditionary Operations Groups commander. Training was the first goal for all of us here. We were able to successfully integrate with our allies over here in the Baltic region. The chance to train, fly and integrate with them has been an extremely valuable experience.



During their time at RAF Fairford, the aircrew flew 25 sorties in Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, France, Germany and Italy. Five of those sorties included participation in airshows around Europe, such as in Paris and Berlin.



When you think of the full contingence of missions that we had to do during Baltops and Saber Strike, the B-52 is one of the perfect platforms because of the variety of different exercises it can do, Denehan said. We can fulfill so many different roles that we fit into multiple aspects of these exercises.



In addition to the aircraft, Airmen also demonstrated the same versatility in their work. To fly a single sortie it takes hundreds of people. Denehan attributed the teamwork from each unit for the seamless execution of every mission.



The overall performance of the 5th Expeditionary Operations Group has been nothing short of outstanding, Denehan said. The operations tempo was high, the airfield was constantly adapting, yet every Airman executed their role exceptionally and professionally. This is my last deployment as a commander, and I can just drop the mic and walk away because it was so fantastic.



With the exercises over, Airmen packed their bags and headed back to their home stations, grateful for the opportunity to showcase the strategic bomber to NATO partners for a third year in a row.



The B-52 is a great sign of Americas presence for assuring allies and deterring potential enemies, the commander said. It was an honor to be invited to participate in this exercise, and we thank our allies for having us.
After flying numerous sorties, multiple airshows and missions with NATO allies, two B-52H Stratofortresses headed home to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, June 23.

The bombers were deployed to Royal Air Force Fairford, United Kingdom, along with approximately 250 personnel from Air Force Global Strike Command for the month of June in support of multinational exercises BALTOPS 16 and Saber Strike 16.

We had several goals for BALTOPS and Saber Strike, Id most definitely say we achieved all of them, said Col. Kieran Denehan, 5th Expeditionary Operations Groups commander. Training was the first goal for all of us here. We were able to successfully integrate with our allies over here in the Baltic region. The chance to train, fly and integrate with them has been an extremely valuable experience.

During their time at Fairford, the aircrew flew 25 sorties throughout countries such as Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, France, Germany and Italy. Five of those sorties included participation in airshows around Europe, such as in Paris and Berlin.

When you think of the full contingence of missions that we had to do during BALTOPS and Saber Strike, the B-52 is one of the perfect platforms because of the variety of different exercises it can do, Denehan said. We can fulfill so many different roles that we fit into multiple aspects of these exercises.

In addition to the aircraft, Airmen also demonstrated the same versatility in their work. To fly a single sortie it takes hundreds of people. Denehan attributes the teamwork from each unit for the seamless execution of every mission.

The overall performance of the 5th Expeditionary Operations Group has been nothing short of outstanding, Denehan said. The operations tempo was high, the airfield was constantly adapting, yet every Airman executed their role exceptionally and professionally. This is my last deployment as a commander and I can just drop the mic and walk away because it was so fantastic.

Now that the exercises are over, Airmen are packing their bags and heading back to their home stations, grateful to have had the opportunity to showcase our strategic bomber to our NATO partners for a third year in a row.

The B-52 is a great sign of Americas presence for assuring allies and deterring potential enemies, the commander said. It was an honor to be invited to participate in this exercise, and we thank our allies for having us.
Air Force announces KC-46A candidate bases

Air Force officials announced fives bases as candidates for the next round of active duty-led KC-46A Pegasus basing on June 23.



The bases include Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; Fairchild AFB, Washington; Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota; Travis AFB, California; and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.



The KC-46As are expected to begin arriving at the second active duty-led global mobility wing in fiscal year 2020.



The KC-46A Pegasus aerial tanker remains one of our top acquisition priorities, said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. It is absolutely essential that we replace our aging tanker fleet so we have the aircraft necessary to maintain the nations global reach for years to come.



Air Mobility Command will soon conduct detailed, on-the-ground site surveys of each candidate base in approved assessment areas. They will assess each location against operational requirements, potential impacts to existing missions, housing, infrastructure and manpower.



Additionally, AMC will develop cost estimates to bed down the KC-46A for each candidate base. Once the site surveys are completed, the results will be briefed to Air Force leadership who will select preferred and reasonable alternatives for the operating location. The Air Force plans to announce the second active duty-led KC-46A preferred alternative by the end of 2016.



"Bringing the KC-46A online is a critical first step in recapitalizing a tanker fleet that has been at the heart of global response for more than five decades," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. "This great new aircraft will achieve better mission-capable rates, suffer less maintenance downtime, and improve the U.S. military's ability to respond rapidly to humanitarian crises and contingency operations around the world.



The Air Force also stressed the importance of its strategic basing process in creating deliberate, repeatable and standardized decisions.



In this process, the Air Force uses criteria-based analysis and military judgment, said Jennifer Miller, the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations. We look forward to the next phase of the process when the preferred alternative is announced and our candidate base communities have an opportunity to participate by providing input for the environmental analysis.



The KC-46A will provide improved capability, including boom and drogue refueling on the same sortie, worldwide navigation and communication, airlift capability on the entire main deck floor, receiver air refueling, improved force protection and survivability, and multipoint air refueling capability.
Living with mental illness has been a harrowing ordeal for Safiatu Kondeh. The 34-year-old, who lives in Kabala, northern Sierra Leone, with her mother and two children, has had to endure conditions almost worse than the disease.
Former Union Minister and Senior Congress leader from Mumbai, Gurudas Kamat has the tendency to blackmail high command by tendering his resignation. Kamat had never intended to join any other party or form his own outfit unlike many other former colleagues. His resignation was more an expression of unhappiness over his being sidelined in Mumbai, allegedly by Sanjay Nirupam.



His plan seems to have been linked to the Mumbai municipal corporation election which are due next year: He needed to flex his muscles in advance to ensure that his followers get their share of tickets. And his tantrum paid him as he is a strong Congress leader.

Kamat had resigned earlier this month over his reported unhappiness with the functioning of the local party unit in Mumbai but said he had decided to quit politics owing to personal reasons.

Kamat finds himself isolated at a time when Congress party is heading for overhaul after its dismal performance in the assembly polls. By announcing his decision to resign, Kamat was trying to impose pressure on the Congress party so that he could have better say in running the party affairs ahead of BMC election to be held in 2017.

A former Mumbai Congress president for two terms, Kamat, 61, has deep knowledge of the city politics and his absence could have proved detrimental for the party which is hoping to capture the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in next years critical elections.

Kamat was upset with Sanjay Nirupams elevation as Mumbai Congress Chief as internal strife was hurting the partys growth in the city. Often there were reports about clashes between Kamat and Nirupam camps. Further, Nirupams close proximity to Rahul Gandhi had hurt Kamat, latter having distanced himself from Rahuls recent trip to Deonar dumping ground. He was eyeing the Rajya Sabha seat but Congress party nominated P. Chidambaram from Maharashtra, a senior leader on the condition of anonymity had said earlier.

A five-time member of the Lok Sabha, a former Union minister and a strong organizational man, Kamats resignation was seen as one of the senior-most exits from the party.

I will continue to serve under the leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi with the same charge of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu as informed to me late last night. I will be meeting the people of states in my charge starting tomorrow Friday, June 24, 2016, onwards, he said.

Kamat said he had resigned from the party because he wanted to do social service minus any party tag, but his decision changed after a meeting with the party president Sonia Gandhi. He will now continue as the partys general secretary.

During the last fortnight a large number of senior party leaders tried to convince me to rethink the decision. My meeting with the party president Smt. Sonia Gandhi helped me to make up my mind that Congress party is the best platform to serve the people of this country, he said.

He added that he was informed by the party leadership on Wednesday night that he would continue to hold charge as early as possible of the states and Union territories assigned to him.

Kamat has a history of giving up posts. He did it in the 1980s as Maharashtra youth Congress president. Then again a few years ago in 2011, as union minister when he was given a less important portfolio of drinking water and sanitation. He had rather expected a cabinet rank.
Indrani Mukerjeas former husband Sanjeev Khanna, arrested in connection with Sheena Bora murder case, on Thursday approached the Bombay High Court and sought a copy of a confessional statement of Mukerjeas former driver Shyamvar Rai.



Rai, the first accused to be arrested in the case in August 2015, was made an approver in the case and a prosecution witness recently and has also been granted a pardon.

Khanna sought the copy of Rais statement recorded under section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) before a magistrate.

Earlier, Khanna had approached the high court after the sessions court dismissed his application on the same. Thereafter, he approached the Bombay High Court.

The court has posted Khannas application for hearing on Friday as the prosecuting agency CBI was not prepared to argue the petition.

Last year, Rai had recorded his confessional statement before the magistrate under the provisions of section 164, which unlike the police statement, is admissible in the trial.

Apart from Khanna and Rai, key accused Indrani and her husband and former media baron Peter Mukerjea are also in custody for their involvement in the alleged murder of Sheena Bora.

Indrani Mukerjea, her former husband Sanjeev Khanna, and Rai had allegedly strangled Sheena, 24, Indranis daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012.

Sheenas body was found in a forest in Raigad. The crime, which came to light in August last year, is allegedly linked to certain financial dealings.

According to the prosecution, Sheena was murdered on 24 April 2012, but the crime came to light after the arrest of Rai in another case.

The trio was arrested in August last year, while Peter Mukerjea was arrested in November. According to CBI, Peter was part of the murder conspiracy.

While Peter and Khanna are lodged in Arthur Road prison, Indrani, 43, is in Byculla womens jail in Mumbai.
WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016  Just days after the Federal Aviation Administration released regulations governing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a House subcommittee heard about the agricultural possibilities of the devices more commonly known as drones.

Witnesses told the panel that farm stakeholders have long been pushing for regulations that would allow for UAV use in a wide variety of applications ranging from crop scouting to damage appraisal.

There is a certainty that UAV operations are here to stay in the United State, and agriculture can benefit, Robert Blair, vice president of Agriculture at Measure, a drone solutions company, told the lawmakers. However, there is still work that needs to be done.

Blair said regulations should be tweaked to allow operations beyond an operators line of sight, and he said there is a need for guidance on how drones can be used to spray crops. He also said the technology will only be used to its fullest capacity when internet infrastructure and connectivity is improved.

In the FAA regulations announced on Tuesday, operations must be completed within line of sight of the operator, and no rules were announced governing potential application or delivery services. Online companies like Amazon have discussed the desire to be able to deliver online orders more quickly using drones.

When asked about what could be on the horizon with the technology, potential applications got even broader. Blair mentioned the possibility of mounted lasers that could deliver pinpointed weed control and disease management. Larry Faleide, president of Satshot, a company that uses satellite imagery in agri-business, said more fiber optic connections and faster internet could help provide instantaneous access to farm data being collected by drones.

A USDA Farm Service Agency contractor also called for additional funding for FSAs National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP). The program provides geospatial data for a wide range of government functions and would cost $30 million for full coverage of the lower 48 states, Tim Crago, the vice president of North West Geomatics, a contracting company for NAIP, told the lawmakers.

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But privacy remains a lingering issue with drone use, and FAA didnt really address the matter in the new regulations, instead deferring to state and local privacy laws. The only suggestion witnesses could offer was that a drone user should try to be a good neighbor.

Since privacy matters and even the potential uses of the technology are still literally up in the air, Blair said stakeholders and other drone users would appreciate the help of Congress and federal regulators with making sure drone use can be maximized.

We need to work harder to getting the word out (about) what this technology can do, he said.

#30

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2016 - A landmark Senate agreement on national disclosure standards for genetically engineered foods would allow companies to disclose GMO ingredients through digital codes rather than on-package language or symbols. The agreement, reached between Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, also would use a narrow definition of genetic engineering that would exempt the newest biotech methods such as gene editing from the national disclosure standards. Both the definition and the option for digital codes rather than on-package labeling represent major victories for farm interests, biotech developers and food companies that have long resisted mandatory GMO labeling out of fear that it would stigmatize the technology. The legislation, which will need 60 votes to pass the Senate, would nullify Vermonts first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law, which takes effect July 1, and would bar any other state from enacting labeling requirements that differ from the federal standards. Under the legislation, most food companies would have the option of disclosing GMO ingredients through either a digital, smartphone code, the industrys preference, or through an on-package symbol or language that the Agriculture Department would approve. The code would be accompanied by: Scan here for more food information. Small companies would have the option of putting a phone number or website URL on labels instead of the digital code. The Vermont law requires products with biotech ingredients to be labeled as produced or partially produced with genetic engineering. Such text would be optional under the Roberts-Stabenow deal. The definition of genetic engineering, or bioengineering, would be restricted to traits that were developed through recombinant DNA techniques, which involve transferring a gene from one organism to another, and couldn't "be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature. The language is intended to ensure that techniques such as RNA interference and gene editing would be exempt, according to sources. Roberts said the disclosure system would protect biotech products from being denigrated by opponents. We saved agricultural biotechnology, said Roberts. Stabenow called the bill a win for consumers and families. For the first time ever, consumers will have a national, mandatory label for food products that contain genetically modified ingredients. USDA issued a statement applauding the agreement. It is our hope that their colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives recognize the difficulty of their work, and the importance of creating a path forward. The most impressive outcome of their agreement is that this measure encompasses over 24,000 more products than the Vermont law, which should assure people that this measure can be transparent without sending the wrong message about the safety of their food options. The agreement is the result of months of on-and-off negotiations that followed the failure of a committee-passed bill to pass the Senate in March when a motion to advance the measure failed, 48-49, well short of the 60-vote majority needed. The big question now, besides whether there will be enough Democratic support for the agreement, is when the Senate and House will act on it. The Senate is unlikely to vote on the legislation until next month because it is tied up with pending appropriations bills, aides said. Both chambers are out of session after the middle of July for the national party conventions and the annual August recess. The House, which is on break until July 5, must approve the legislation since it differs dramatically from the bill that chamber passed last July. Other key aspects of the agreement: -The standards would become mandatory after USDAs Agricultural Marketing Service finalizes a rule laying out the disclosure requirements, including the optional on-package text and symbol. AMS would have two years to write the rule. -USDA would be required to survey the availability of scanning devices and the internet and provide additional disclosure options if officials determine that shoppers would not have sufficient access to the bioengineering disclosure through electronic or digital methods. -Food manufacturers defined as very small would be exempt from the disclosure requirement entirely. AMS would define the thresholds for small and very small businesses. The Food and Drug Administration sets those thresholds at $10 million and $1 million for nutrition labeling. Restaurants also would be exempt. -Meat and dairy products wouldnt be considered GMOs just because the animals were fed GMO feed, and products such as pizza where meat is the lead ingredient also would be exempt even if there is a minor biotech ingredient such as high fructose corn syrup. Animals such as salmon that are genetically engineered would fall under the disclosure requirements. -USDA would have no authority to require recalls of products that dont comply with the labeling requirements, and there would be no federal penalties for violations. States, however, could impose fines for violations of the standards under state consumer protection rules. The bill also includes a provision sought by the organic industry that could help broaden support for the legislation: Products that are certified organic by USDA could be labeled as non-GMO. The Organic Trade Association applauded the bill, saying it would for the first time require mandatory GMO labeling nationwide. This legislation includes provisions that are excellent for organic farmers and food makers  and for the millions of consumers who choose organic every day  because they recognize, unequivocally, that USDA Certified Organic products qualify for non-GMO claims in the market place, OTA said. The relatively tight definition of bioengineering that is in the labeling bill would not affect other federal regulations for biotechnology. Following stories about GMO? Sign up for an Agri-Pulse four-week free trial subscription to stay on top of this and other ag, rural policy and energy news.

The House voted 275-150 last July to approve its Safe and Affordable Food Labeling Act (HR 1599), which, in addition to preempting state biotech labeling requirements, would set up a process for labeling foods as non-GMO, a provision left out of the Senate agreement. Some 45 Democrats voted for the bill, while 12 Republicans opposed it. The Senate agreement also omits a provision of the House bill that would require FDA to define the use of the word natural on food labels but would leave it to the agency whether to allow genetically engineered ingredients. Stabenow was long the key to the deal because of the 60-vote requirement for moving legislation in the Senate. She has long supported preempting state labeling laws but insisted that there be some kind of mandatory disclosure requirement. Roberts negotiating leverage was limited because of the looming Vermont law and the decision by major food companies to begin complying with it. In the end, however, he cut a deal that largely met their priorities. To read the bill, click here. #30
June 22, 2016

CAIRO  A new crisis has erupted following a draft law proposed in the parliament this month that would give President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the right to temporarily form a new Supreme Press Council until the issuance of a law regulating the media and press. A draft of the latter was presented by the Supreme Press Council to the Cabinet 10 months ago, but it is still being reviewed by the State Council before being sent to parliament.

The controversial draft law was submitted June 12 by member of parliament Mustafa Bakri, a member of the Committee on Culture and Information and himself a journalist, after collecting the signature of 324 legislators  more than half the 595-member parliament. This proposal would change Article 68 of Law 96 of 1996 on the organization of the press, giving Sisi the authority to form the Supreme Press Council anew and give it full authority for it to be able to make journalistic changes. This comes after the terms of many board chairmen of journalistic institutions ended in January; the terms of the editors of the national newspapers also terminate at the end of this month.

Bakri's proposed draft was approved by the Committee on Culture and Information on June 14.

The authority to appoint the chairmen of boards for journalistic institutions and editors of state-owned newspapers is now held by the Supreme Press Council. This previously had fallen under the jurisdiction of the Shura Council, but it was dissolved after President Mohammed Morsi was dismissed in early July 2013.

Former interim President Adly Mansour issued a decree around the end of December 2013 to amend some provisions in Law 96 of 1996 on the organization of the press. The decree read, The Supreme Press Council shall perform its duties during the current transitional period until the Constitution is adopted, the parliament is elected and the necessary legislation regarding the regulation of the press is issued.

Article 212 of the Constitution stipulates, The National Press and Media Association is independent, manages state-owned press and media institutions, and undertakes the development of them and their assets, and ensures their development, independence, neutrality and their adherence to sensible professional, administrative and economic standards. This association is scheduled to be formed according to a unified law to regulate the press and the media, which has not yet been issued.

Essam al-Islambouli, a constitutional expert, said that Bakri's draft law conflicts with Article 224 of the Constitution. Islambouli said that Bakri's proposal, if passed, would disable the unified law to regulate the press and the media  even though the press community, led by the Supreme Press Council, proposed the press and media law following what was set forth in the Constitution.

Islambouli told Al-Monitor that the draft law was a conspiracy and an attempt by some members of parliament to change the board chairmen and editors of some of the national newspapers that adopt an approach critical of the current regime; Islambouli said this is contrary to law because it is aimed at targeting certain people, without naming anyone.

But parliament member Tamer Abdel Qader, who is on the Committee on Culture and Information, said, The draft law gives Sisi the right to form the Supreme Press Council, since the last councils term has ended, in accordance with resolution No. 76 of 2013.

Resolution No. 76 of 2013 stipulates that the Supreme Press Council shall perform its duties during the current transitional period until the Constitution is adopted, the necessary legislation regarding the regulation of the press is issued and the parliament is elected  only once  and until the terms of chairmen of board for national journalistic institutions and editors of newspapers end, and suitable replacements are appointed for no more than two years.

Qader told Al-Monitor that the draft law came in time to avoid what he called the current legal impasse after the Supreme Press Councils term ended; he indicated that this could trigger what he called stalemate and chaos in national newspapers, especially since the unified law has not yet been approved by the State Council and will probably be delayed.

He said that in his view, the draft law does not conflict with the Constitution because the Supreme Press Council lost its authority as soon as the parliament convened. Qader did not agree with Islambouli's suggestion that the law was targeting specific people.

In a session held June 15, the Supreme Press Council rejected Bakri's draft law, saying it was in conflict with Article 224 of the Constitution, and thus the council will continue to perform its duties until a unified law to regulate the press and the media is issued.

In a step that further escalated the situation, the Supreme Press Council ordered editors of national newspapers to continue to do their jobs pending the issuance of press legislation and the formation of the National Press and Media Association. The council also criticized the governments middling stance on the Cabinet approving the unified law a few weeks ago but having referred it to the State Council before presenting it to the parliament for enactment.

Islambouli said he believed the Supreme Press Councils move was important since it blocks some parliamentarians attempt to derail the issuance of a unified law as a prelude to the National Press and Media Association, which is to appoint the chairmen of national newspapers.

Qader objected to the councils move, describing it as illegal, saying that the decision was taken by a party that does not have the authority to take it and in favor of undeserving people. He added that the parliament is due to vote on the draft law by the end of June, since it is currently preoccupied with discussing the budget.

Salah Eissa, the secretary-general of the Supreme Press Council, told Al-Monitor, We demand that President Sisi, as head of the state and the executive authority, confront this unconstitutional and illegal draft law that the parliament is considering. We demand that he use his constitutional [veto] authority to object to this law, should the parliament approve it.

Eissa objected to Qaders statements, saying, His words indicate that he has not read the Constitution. We will continue with our work until the press and media legislation, which the State Council is currently reviewing, is issued, adding, We will not escalate things further, because this is a matter of dispute over an unconstitutional draft law.

Islambouli said he believes that if the draft law proposed by the members of parliament is passed and Article 68 of Law 96 of 1996 is changed, the Supreme Press Council would challenge the law before the State Council, which would block the law's execution should the State Council find that the law contradicts the unified law. Islambouli said that to do so, the council would need to wait on the constitutional courts decision on the draft laws constitutionality.
June 22, 2016

TEHRAN, Iran  With the country only a year away from its next presidential vote, Iranian political factions are combing their ranks for the strongest possible candidates.

In the previous presidential election, in 2013, the Reformists had only one candidate: Mohammad Reza Aref. At that time, successful candidate Hassan Rouhani was also described by some news outlets and analysts as Reformist to repeated criticism from Aref, who reiterated, I dont describe Rouhani as Reformist. He was right. Rouhanis base has always been different from that of Arefs.

Rouhani is a prominent member of the conservative Combatant Clergy Association, which was founded two years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Today, the association is a highly influential group within the conservative camp and plays a decisive role in the shaping of coalitions with other conservative factions ahead of every election.

Throughout the past decades, Rouhani has been a protege of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative who is now seen as a moderate pillar of the Islamic Revolution. Indeed, Rafsanjanis political trajectory can be greatly helpful in understanding Rouhanis thinking. The incumbent Iranian president is a progressive-minded politician who has held sensitive positions throughout his career over the past 37 years.

Following Mohammad Khatamis victory in the 1997 presidential election, public sentiments were strongly in favor of politicians presented as leftist or Reformist. As such, in the 2000 parliamentary vote, Rafsanjani barely got elected, and later withdrew, while Rouhani lost his five-term seat. At that time, Rouhani was seen as a conservative in an election that resulted in a landslide victory for Reformists, much like this year's parliamentary race, in which even moderates on Principlist tickets were all defeated.

Of note, neither Rafsanjani nor Rouhani had a good relationship with the radical left back then. In fact, a large number of radical leftist figures harshly criticized Rafsanjani and his associates. In particular, radical leftist journalist Akbar Ganji published a controversial book in which he heaped scorn on Rafsanjani. These attacks played a role in Rafsanjanis defeat by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election. Despite all this, Rafsanjani enjoyed good ties with moderate Reformists and Khatami.

Reformists have repeatedly expressed regret about having acted against Rafsanjani in the past. Reformist magazine Andisheh Pouya opined in an editorial, What the Reformists did against Rafsanjani wasnt a decision based on prudence, and it was more like taking revenge.  Maybe, if they hadnt used their social capital on confronting him, he wouldnt have lost the 2005 presidential election.

How Rouhani is different from other conservatives

The conservative camp is divided between moderates and hard-liners. Hard-liners do not believe there is any way to engage with Reformists, who are seen as anti-revolutionary. In contrast, traditional conservatives  known as moderates  such as Rafsanjani and Rouhani do not rule anyone out and believe it is possible to work with every political faction in the country. Take, for example, Rouhanis constructive cooperation on the nuclear file with Khatami, the Reformist president from 1997 to 2005, as chief nuclear negotiator in the capacity of secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

After the 2005 presidential vote, which ushered Ahmadinejad into power, the hard-liners sought to take over the conservative camp. They were successful, largely due to leading moderates such as Rafsanjani and Ali Akbar Nategh-Nuri being unwilling to play active roles. Hence, moderates gradually distanced themselves from the conservative camp so far that they were no longer referred to as conservative at all, although some moderates have maintained their positions within the conservative camp.

Meanwhile, moderate leaders such as Rafsanjani and Nategh-Nuri sought to enhance the moderate camp and continued their activities on their own.

In the 2013 presidential election, Rouhani ran under the banner of moderation. The conservative camp had three main candidates: pragmatist Ali Akbar Velayati, conservative Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and hard-liner Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel. The three had reached an agreement among themselves to withdraw in favor of the one who could attract the highest number of votes. However, neither of them ended up keeping the pledge. The conservative vote was further split as former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili ran separately as the candidate of hard-liners close to Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, the spiritual leader of the hard-line Endurance Front.

Meanwhile, Reformist figures asked Aref to withdraw in favor of Rouhani as they thought this was the only chance to keep Reformism alive. Rouhani had good relationships with all sides  including the conservatives  and had far better prospects of winning votes than Aref. This mindset appears intact among Reformists as Iran heads for its next presidential vote. Indeed, prominent Reformist political analyst Mohamamd Atrianfar has said that Rouhani will be the sole candidate for the Reformists in the 2017 election, a statement that has been repeated by other Reformist figures.

Meanwhile, only one year out from the next presidential poll, the conservatives appear to have used all their cards and at present dont have a new face to rally behind in the contest.

Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam, the spokesman of the Combatant Clergy Association, recently announced that the group would back Rouhani in 2017. I should state that if we find no better choice, we would start talks with Rouhani, Mesbahi Moghadam told Khabar Online, a news outlet seen as being close to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. Meanwhile, conservative lawmaker Mohammad Reza Mir Taj Al-Dini told Entekhab News, The conservatives wont invest in the candidates of the 2013 election. Moussa Ghorbani, a former conservative parliamentarian, said, If Rouhani succeeds in realizing his promises, especially on the economy, it is possible that the conservatives will come to support him.

As conservative analyst Naser Imani has pointed out, If Rouhani wins public approval before the election, the conservatives wont unveil their best candidate for the election. However, Imani added, Conservatives prefer Rouhani to Ahmadinejad, and we wont commit wrongdoing again.

In this vein, Hossein Kanani Moghaddam, political director of the conservative Resistance Party, told Al-Monitor, Rouhani has been conservative, and his slogans have not been against the conservatives policies. He added, We havent reached a conclusion on what to do in the next presidential election, but if Rouhani persuades us that his second term would be in the interest of the country, we would support him. He should make the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] work and implement the resistance economy in order to attract our attention.
June 22, 2016

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and breakdown of the Iraqi state, ethno-sectarian partition has become a popular political mantra. The assumption is that a federal state based on three autonomous regions  Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab and Kurd  is the most realistic way to stabilize Iraq and keep its borders intact. This claim has revived alongside the devastation and communal distrust created by the Islamic State (IS) and the territorial, demographic and political changes resulting from the campaign to counter IS.

The problem is that a tripartite Iraq has little bearing to realities on the ground, particularly in a post-IS context. Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab and Kurdish communities may be religiously and ethnically distinct and concentrated in particular regions, but they have also been dispersed across territories since the IS onslaught and are deeply fragmented. Internal boundaries and the uneven distribution of resources remain disputed between and within groups, creating additional challenges to reordering borders along clear ethno-sectarian fault lines. Instead of three self-sustaining regions, Iraq has become an amalgam of hyper-localized entities seeking self-rule and self-protection, while remaining dependent on Baghdad and prone to proxy conflicts.

A deeper look at Iraqs three main communities reveals the complexities of reordering internal boundaries along ethno-sectarian lines. The Kurds may have gained extensive territories in the anti-IS campaign; however, their de facto borders have been drawn in blood and not through negotiation. Key Sunni Arab groups that largely populate the disputed areas, as well as Yazidis and Assyrians, regard these territories as their own, and demand some form of autonomy. Some seek integration into the Kurdistan Region while others want to remain tied to Baghdad. None want to see strong regions emerge alongside their own borders.

Among the Kurds, divisions run deep over claims to territories and their resources. Although the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has gained de facto control over parts of Kirkuk and its oil fields and considers these territories an essential part of the Kurdistan Region, the Kirkuk governor, a Kurd from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), is calling for an autonomous region that may or may not be tied to the KRG. In the disputed area of Sinjar, the potential for conflict has emerged between Massoud Barzanis Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that are present in the area, including the Peoples Protection Units and some Yazidi forces. Underpinning these tensions are disagreements over KRG political priorities. While the KDP presses for an immediate referendum for Kurdish independence, other groups such as the PUK and Gorran focus on institution-building and greater decentralization within the region.

A single Sunni Arab region is even less likely to come to fruition. Iraqs Sunni Arab community, which has profound grievances against the Baghdad government, is deeply fragmented and without a common leader or political agenda. Except for former Ninevah Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi, who seeks a distinct Sunni Arab entity in Ninevah, most other Sunni Arab groups demand different forms of self-rule within existing or newly created provinces to reflect post-IS realities. These demands affirm their ongoing distrust of Baghdad, as well as fear of retaliation by Shiite, Kurdish and other Sunni Arab tribal groups in IS-liberated territories. Intracommunal distrust coexists with Sunni Arabs sense of Iraqi nationalism and their commitment to Iraqs territorial integrity.

Nor do Shiite Arab communities seek their own Shiite region. To be sure, Iraqs southern provinces continue to challenge Baghdads authority. People living in Basra insist on greater control of their oil resources and revenues and want privileges similar to what the KRG has enjoyed in Iraq since 2003. The Shiite religious establishment, or marja'iyya, also protects Shiite communities and has important sway over southern Iraq, reinforcing a distinct sense of Shiite identity and regionalism.

Still, Shiite Arabs, who comprise about 60% of Iraqs population, are deeply fragmented. The political chaos in Baghdad is largely driven by competing Shiite power centers tied to local religious and political leaders, some of whom are influenced by Iran and others driven by Iraqi nationalism. The marjaiyya also continues to play an important role in bridging sectarian divisions at the societal level in an effort to overcome Sunni-Shiite Arab fractures.

The hyperfragmentation of the Iraqi state and society leads to fundamentally different challenges to stabilization than does a tripartite end-state. Competing groups are not only seeking greater self-rule, but are engaging with regional actors, namely Turkey, Iran and the Gulf states, to advance their political agendas and economic interests  while they also remain legally and financially dependent on Baghdad. These dynamics are reinforcing fragmentation, further hindering reconciliation and encouraging proxy conflicts and regional tensions.

Under these conditions, stabilization efforts should focus on strengthening state institutions and determining how the various component parts can live together. They should prioritize territorial federalism and decentralization, particularly by enhancing local institutions and the capabilities of provincial and regional administrations. This effort may also require creating new provinces and districts to reflect territorial and demographic shifts and the deep distrust that has emerged within communities. At a minimum, it will demand new revenue-sharing, development and security arrangements that empower local leaders in coordination with Baghdad, and which encourage the necessary deal-making across communities.
June 23, 2016

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  On June 18, Fatah and Hamas announced the failure of the Palestinian reconciliation talks between them. These talks were hosted by Doha on June 14 and were aimed at implementing the terms of the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement signed between the two movements on April 23, 2014.

These terms included forming a Palestinian consensus government tasked with preparing for the Palestinian presidential and legislative elections within six months as of the formation of the government, activating the role of the Palestine Liberation Organization within five weeks as of the signature of the Beach Refugee Camp Agreement and ending the political detention policy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to this agreement, President Mahmoud Abbas must call for convening the Palestinian Legislative Council, inactivated as a result of the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Ever since the signature of this agreement, major differences have arisen between Fatah and Hamas on several important issues within the scope of the reconciliation. Hamas did not hand over management of Gaza Strip border crossings and the consensus government did not disburse the salaries of Hamas-hired civil servants after Hamas advent to power in Gaza in 2007. Therefore, neither party executed the rest of the terms.

The talks in Doha on Feb. 7-8 came as an extension of other meetings, which brought together the Palestinian rivals under the auspices of Qatar. A positive atmosphere prevailed during these meetings that ended with an agreement between Hamas and Fatah to hold further meetings, in an effort to reach an understanding to resolve all outstanding problems between them.

Amin Maqboul, the secretary-general of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, slammed Hamas, calling it intransigent. He told Al-Monitor, The last meeting in Doha failed because Hamas does not want to implement what has been agreed upon in all previous understandings.

He said, Hamas wants to resolve the issue of the civil servants it had hired after taking control of Gaza in 2007 by placing them on the Palestinian Authority civil servants payroll. At the same time, Hamas seeks to remain in power in Gaza and to keep managing the border crossings. It refused to adopt the PLO political program regarding the national unity government, although this had been agreed upon in advance.

Maqboul confirmed that Fatah proposed to look into the civil servants issue if Hamas waives power over the Gaza Strip and hands over the crossings. He said, Hamas refused our proposal and asked us to take steps that meet its interests before relinquishing power in Gaza and handing over the crossings, including activating the [Palestinian] Legislative Council and settling the Hamas-hired civil servants issue.

It should be noted that Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.

A senior Hamas leader told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The meetings in Doha failed as a result of the withdrawal of the Fatah delegation from the reconciliation sessions and Fatahs unwillingness to continue the talks.

He added, We felt that Fatah has renounced its decision to solve pending problems  in particular the problem of Hamas-hired civil servants and the reactivation of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas refused to accept the agreement that was signed between the Palestinian factions in Cairo in 2011.

On Maqbouls accusations of Hamas refusing to adopt the PLO political program of forming a national unity government, he said, This political program recognizes the Quartet's conditions, imposing on Palestine to recognize the State of Israel, which Hamas categorically refuses.

The International Quartet Committee was established in Madrid in 2002 and played a mediating role in the peace process in the Middle East. The Quartet seeks to establish a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. The Quartet is composed of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

According to the Quartet agreement, Israel shall respect the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders and freeze settlement activities in the occupied territories, while the Palestinian side must prosecute the resistance movement and prevent terrorism in cooperation with Israel. However, the Quartet committees plan has yet to be implemented.

The Hamas leader also accused Fatah of trying to exclude Hamas from the political scene and implement the US-Israeli agenda that aims to push Hamas to recognize Israel.

He added, If the talks between Hamas and Fatah had succeeded, a meeting was supposed to be held between President Mahmoud Abbas  who arrived in Doha on June 16  and Khaled Meshaal  the head of Hamas political bureau  who lives in Doha. But after the failure of these talks, Abbas refused to meet with Meshaal.

Political analyst Talal Okal did not expect the Qatari reconciliation efforts to bear fruit. He told Al-Monitor, There is no national will to end the division. Hamas and Fatah are not putting the national interests first and are focusing on partisan narrow interests, which hinders the reconciliation.

He explained that external pressures prevented the completion of reconciliation, and said, Reconciliation may be achieved if external pressures are lifted, such as the Israeli pressure on President Abbas not to reconcile with Hamas since it does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Okal said, Egypt is the most capable of settling the reconciliation issue, not only because of its geographical connection with the Palestinian territories, but also because it is the sponsor accepted by both Hamas and Fatah  which is not the case for Qatar that does not have strong ties with Fatah.

The aforementioned senior Hamas leader held that Egypt contributed significantly to the failure of Qatars efforts to end the Palestinian division, by pushing Fatah not to pass or approve any agreement under Qatars auspices.

Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabeh had revealed June 12 that Azzam al-Ahmad, the head of the Fatah delegation on reconciliation talks, secretly visited Cairo and met with Egyptian officials to discuss the reconciliation, before heading to Doha to meet with the Hamas delegation at the recent talks.

Maqboul noted that Egypt and Qatar are working on the Palestinian reconciliation issue without any coordination and by exerting separate efforts that do not include any joint arrangements.

Egypt is the main sponsor of the Palestinian reconciliation and is capable of dealing with this issue since it had sponsored the Cairo Agreement in 2009, Maqboul said.

For his part, political analyst Hassan Abdo told Al-Monitor, The Palestinian reconciliation efforts in Doha were bound to fail. I saw no reason why these talks should have succeeded. No new factors and variables emerged and this is why the reconciliation failed.

He added, Everyone was expecting the failure of these talks. Egypts opinion may not be neglected. Cairo believes that the Qatari role in the reconciliation issue is contrary to the Egyptian efforts. There is no coordination of reconciliation efforts whatsoever between Egypt and Qatar. Before heading to Doha, Fatah and Hamas did not demonstrate any flexibility toward their previous positions on their outstanding issues.

In light of these complexities marring the Palestinian reconciliation, it seems that ending the Palestinian division is no longer just a matter of internal Palestinian will, but is rather subject to the compatibility of the positions of Fatah and Hamas regional allies, namely Egypt and Qatar. This seems to be far-fetched in light of the deteriorating relations between these two countries.
June 23, 2016

Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was right when he said a week after the massacre in Orlando that Israel profiles Muslims as a counterterrorism tool.

I recently had the opportunity to personally experience the selection process between Jewish and Arab citizens. On my way back late at night from a Ramadan visit to Ramallah, my taxi was stopped for a routine inspection at an Israeli checkpoint. I had often passed through the checkpoint in my own car, was greeted by the guard and waved on. This time, a quick glance at the drivers face and a peek at his identity card were enough to send us to the lane reserved for special inspections. The ID card was blue, just like mine: Israeli-issued.

But alas, the name, Abed, gave the driver away. So did his address, an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem. It would seem that the security guards had not heard the prime ministers announcement earlier this month that the city is united. While waiting for the examination to end, after putting our things through an x-ray machine, we were joined by a woman and two young men who appeared to be her sons. They were on their way back to the town of Ramle, in the very center of Israel.

What are you getting so upset about? one of the young men asked me. This is nothing. You should come here in the midday hours and see the line straggling through here.

A guard who overheard the conversation shrugged and said, What can we do? with just a hint of apology. Those are our instructions.

Yisrael Katz, the minister of transportation and intelligence, doesnt think theres any reason to apologize for Jews screening other human beings on grounds of their racial background. He is even proud of it. The Shin Bet security agency acts according to assessments of certain communities, the minister told members of the foreign press in response to Trumps remarks. Anyone who thinks that you can ignore the need to locate and prevent threats for the benefit of the entire population, including the Arab one, is simply wrong.

Does screening really serve the fight against terror, or do the humiliation and discrimination sow hatred and alienation that generate fury and violence? Can Israel, as Trump said, serve as a success story of the racial screening model, or is the conservative millionaire perhaps like a doctor who prescribes medication that worsens the condition of his patient?

One answer can be found in the report of the Or Commission that investigated the October 2000 clashes between Israeli security forces and Arab Israeli citizens, in which 13 demonstrators were killed by police fire. Humiliation during a security check, which has nothing to do with real needs, as well as an offensive attitude in the contacts of Arab citizens with run-of-the-mill Israelis, warned the commission headed by former Supreme Court Justice Theodore Or, risk residues of burning affront that will not be easily erased.

Another answer came from Bernard Harcourt, a law professor at the University of Chicago, in a 2006 paper on the issue of racial profiling. He wrote that he had not found any empirical proof that its usefulness outweighs its contribution to terror attacks.

David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor considered one of the worlds leading authorities on racial screening, holds that the use of racial profiling cannot contribute to maintaining public order, reducing crime and drug dealing or preventing terror attacks. According to Harris, racial and ethnic affiliation are very weak indicators for predicting a persons behavior and threat level. Among other data, Harris cites statistics according to which the use of racial profiling in the war on drugs and crime in the United States, where the targets are mostly black and Hispanic citizens, did not contribute to a drop in drug offenses, but rather to the social alienation of members of these minority groups. According to Harris, the same is true of the profiling at airports, where the targets are Arabs and Muslims.

These findings are described in a 2007 petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), demanding that authorities cease using the Arab nationality as a criterion for airport security checks. The petition describes how Arab airport passengers face stereotyping that results in rigorous screening that is very different from the regular security checks that Jewish passengers undergo. The ACRI demanded that the intensity of security screening be determined for all citizens, both Jews and Arabs, according to equal and germane criteria.

A third answer on the profiling issue is indicated in the 2012 decision by the Supreme Court to offer the state a time extension to change its profiling procedures. The justices wrote, We doubt the use of threat profiles based on inclusive and generalized characteristics and on the passengers affiliation with a certain population group as a sole characteristic is legitimate.  Indeed, even though no one has an acquired right to be exempt from an airport security check, he has the right to an equally applied check based on equal and uniform criteria.

In the ruling handed down in March 2015 (no less than eight years after the petition was first filed), the Supreme Court determined that due to improvements introduced into the inspection process as a result of the court deliberations, the petition should be withdrawn without a ruling on the fundamental issue of differentiation between citizens during the security check process.

The ACRI confirms that in recent years, certain changes have been made in the security procedures at Ben Gurion Airport, but Arab passengers still face humiliating treatment, damage to baggage and delays that result in them missing their flights. The report also found that portraying Arab citizens as people who can be detained and body-searched and whose bags can be rifled through at any time and under any circumstances contributes to animosity toward Arab citizens and even encourages acts of violence and racism against them by Jews.

If the state treats all its Arab citizens as suspects, and if it is allowed to treat them in a racist manner, what's to stop the rank and file from labeling them, excluding them and abusing them, all in the name of security?
June 22, 2016

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey  Syrian journalist Mudur Al Saad was always saying, We live in danger at Sanliurfa. Recently he was attacked by two unidentified men wearing masks. He was beaten with iron bars and seriously injured. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

This wasnt the first attack against Syrian journalists within the past year. On Oct. 30, police acted on a tip and went to a house in Sanliurfas Ataturk neighborhood. They found two beheaded young men. Police were mystified until the identities and profession of the victims were discovered. They were Ibrahim Abdulkadir, editor of Arabic-language Al Watan newspaper, and its reporter Firaz Hamadi. The Sanliurfa-based newspaper was printed for Syrian opposition supporters. Friends said the two journalists had been receiving threats from Islamic State (IS). A short time later, IS claimed responsibility.

On Dec. 27, journalist Naji Jerf was murdered, this time in Gaziantep. Jerf, who had been threatened by IS, was shot and killed on the street. Jerf, renowned for his documentaries against IS, was the editor of the journal Hentah. He was killed with a silenced gun when he was out to buy food for this children and wife. Three suspects were detained.

Four months later, Syrian journalist Muhammad Zahir Al Sherkay was targeted in Gaziantep. The correspondent for Aleppo Today was shot by masked men and badly wounded. He died in the hospital.

Clues pointed to IS, and a short time later IS claimed responsibility.

On June 13, Ahmed Abdulkadir, the brother of the Al Watan editor who had been beheaded, was attacked by two men on a motorcycle. Abdulkadir, who had taken over as editor of the paper, is hospitalized. IS also took credit credit for this attack.

Saad, who works as a volunteer correspondent for Shrekat News Center in Sanliurfa, said he also has been getting threats. He said he doesnt leave his house unless he has to. Saad says he is being targeted because he is close to the Free Syrian Army. Those who are attacking me could be Daesh [IS], the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] or the Syrian regime. Nobody knows. I still get threats. I work from home and will continue to do so. After the attack I told the police what happened. They gave me a phone number and said I should call them if something happens. They said they will attach a guard to me if I go someplace. I am afraid of everyone, he told Al-Monitor.

Ibrahim Ay, president of the Gaziantep Journalists Association, said Syrian journalists are killed because of their connections to various organizations. Ay said journalists are not being provided adequate protection.

Syrian journalists are attacked because they know about the tangled relationships of the Syrian organizations and the true causes of the crisis in that country. They are executed by various organizations so as not to reveal the realities they know. Last month, two persons working as journalists were attacked in our city. Earlier a Syrian journalist was shot and killed in the street. Of course there cannot be a guard attached to each journalist but journalists can be better protected by providing the appropriate legal safeguards, he told Al-Monitor. He thinks attacks can be prevented only when security is assured in the city and the region.

According to Kemal Kapakli, the president of the Journalists Association of Sanliurfa, the large numbers of unregistered Syrians in the city provide fertile ground for such crimes. Noting that journalists are carefully selected as target, Kapakli told Al-Monitor: There are more than 100,000 Syrians in Urfa, most of them unregistered. We are in a city full of people who come and go on their own free will. We dont know who they are. We dont know the full reasons for the killing of two of our colleagues. But at the end of the day, the murders of two journalists who had taken refuge in Turkey expose the security flaws of our country and show that people living in this city, whether Syrians or Turks, are not safe. Most likely these are people who were close to the Syrian regime and had taken refuge in Turkey. You cannot ignore the number of Syrians in our city. They launch newspapers to provide news for their compatriots. We dont see any ideological slants in their publications either against ISIS or the Syrian regime. Some say the murders could be linked to their past activities in Syria.

Nobody knows who is a journalist. They dont declare their profession when they register. We learn about their journalism career after they are killed. We remain worried about more such attacks against journalists in Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, he added. For Kapakli, attacks will end only when the border is secured and all Syrians in the city are registered.

Journals and newspapers published by Syrian journalists in Sanliurfa and Gaziantep are not produced through formal arrangements. They are edited in private offices, printed at local print shops and distributed by hand where Syrians congregate.
June 23, 2016

Cilem Dogan has been in the news in Turkey since turning herself in after murdering her husband last July. Led away by police in handcuffs, the young woman gave two thumbs up to reporters and shouted, Why should women always die! In a country where the murder of women has skyrocketed in recent years, Dogans gesture became a singular act of defiance and inspired others to speak out. In March, another woman who turned herself in, after stabbing her husband to death, shouted a similar message: Why should only men kill! He would have killed me if I hadnt killed him.

When discussing domestic violence, equating men and women who kill is to misunderstand the issue. Male killers often say they acted out of anger because their wife wanted a divorce, refused to have sex or failed to serve them dinner. In other words, the women met their deaths for defying the social roles they are expected to follow. In these cases, the murders committed are individual acts.

The same cannot be said of women who kill as a result of domestic violence. In their case, resorting to a gun or a knife is usually a last, desperate measure after repeated requests for help from the police, the courts and other authorities prove to be futile in breaking the pattern of violence they face. Hence, such murders are not simply a matter of an individual decision, but also involve authorities actions, or inaction, in failing to protect women who are being battered.

Many Turkish women behind bars for killing their husbands have hefty files full of official domestic violence complaints, including protective orders. Dogans story is no different.

According to Dogan, her husband, a drug abuser, tried to bully her into prostitution a month after they got married a few years ago in the southern city of Adana. After refusing, she was locked up at home for three days without food or water. Her mother managed to get her out, but she soon thereafter learned that she was pregnant, so she agreed to return to her husband. The battering never stopped.

Dogan said she lost count of how many times she sought help from the police. The number of protection orders was ultimately revealed to stand at nine.

The last straw came in July, when Dogan's husband beat her when she refused to follow him to the resort town of Antalya to engage in prostitution. She said she managed to grab his gun, which he had left on the bed, and shot him multiple times.

In Turkey, men often receive reduced sentences when they claim to have killed to protect their honor, but when a woman kills, coercion into prostitution or sexual violence are rarely taken into account as mitigating circumstances.

The court that tried Dogan similarly dismissed her argument on the grounds that she had no criminal record of actual prostitution. Moreover, the prosecutor argued that the murder could not be considered an act of self-defense because Dogan had continued to live with her husband and did not resort to such means of protection as changing her identity and having plastic surgery to change her appearance.

On June 8, Dogan was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder. The sentence was then reduced to 15 years in jail for unjust provocation and the defendants good conduct before the court. The defense appealed the ruling, and on June 20 Dogan was released on bail pending the appeals court's decision.

Dogans lawyers argue that their client should be acquitted. In remarks to Al-Monitor, her attorney Cemre Topal insisted that the persistent domestic violence Dogan suffered and the attempts to force her into prostitution constitute sufficient grounds to classify her action as self-defense.

Cilem Dogan had lodged countless complaints with the police and prosecutors. She committed the murder to stop an unjust attack against herself, Topal said. The courts, she added, tend to accept self-defense as an argument mostly for male defendants. We want it to be accepted for women too.

How does the rest of the world deal with this problem? In the study Battered Woman Syndrome in Criminal Law, Ozgur Kucuktasdemir of Ankaras Baskent University notes that courts in common law countries often accept evidence of battered woman syndrome as a ground to decrease or dismiss criminal liability for women who kill abusive partners. Battered woman syndrome is a term encompassing the severe psychological trauma caused by continued domestic abuse that leads women to perceive themselves as helpless and see the murder of their abuser as the only way to protect themselves against further violence.

According to Kucuktasdemir, two articles of the Turkish penal code make the syndrome applicable in Turkish criminal law. It could serve as a guiding concept for Turkish judicial organs in making better judgments vis-a-vis women, who are often victims of violence in our society, he said.

Women's rights activists have rallied behind Dogan, calling for her acquittal and insisting that self-defense is a legitimate right. Every hearing during her trial was accompanied by demonstrations; letters of support flooded in to Dogan while she was in jail. A petition campaign calling for her acquittal has gathered more than 130,000 signatures. The T-shirt Dogan happened to be wearing on the day of her arrest has become a symbol in the struggle for womens rights. According to Dogans lawyers, the T-shirt  which reads, Dear past, thanks for all the lessons. Dear future, I am ready will be put on display at the Womens Library in Adana.

Dogan's case and those of other women who kill their husbands in similar circumstances raise the question of whether they would have killed if they had received effective protection from authorities after seeking help against their abusers. I never wanted this to happen, but I had no other option, Dogan said, in her closing statement at trial.

Will authorities get the message that efficient protection would stop abused women from killing?
June 22, 2016

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has rejected criticism over recent changes at the Foreign Ministry and the impact the changes could have on Irans regional policies.

Regarding the replacement of Hossein Amir-Abollahian, who had been the deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs since 2011, Zarif said, Decisions based on changes of senior positions at the Foreign Ministry were made before [March] and are based on the foreign programs and priorities of the country. He called the replacement completely natural.

Some conservative media were critical of the replacement and speculated that new Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari had previously been implicitly critical of Irans policy in Syria and that the change was made to ease tensions between Iran and Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. Zarif denied these accusations. There is not a bigger insult to the Islamic Republic than to claim that the change of an official is because of this or that person, he said, adding, Until now no one in the region or outside of it has dared to make such a request of Iran, and they never will.

Criticism of the change is due to partisan politics, according to Zarif, who said he hopes that crossing the red lines with such criticism does not become normal. To his conservative critics, Zarif added, The resistance axis is stronger than for it to be tied to one specific individual and those who present such analysis, willingly or unwillingly, rather than strengthening the resistance are weakening the resistance. The resistance is a term Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and other allied forces use to denote their opposition to hegemony of the United States and its allies in the region.

Zarif also attacked his conservative critics, asking how people who put forward the the harshest revolutionary slogans" then "print false notions that they only imagine about the methods of appointments in the Islamic Republic.

Zarif is currently in France to meet with French officials, including President Francois Hollande. During a speech to the French Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Zarif said the rate of removing sanctions on the country post-nuclear deal has been slow due to the existing psychological environment. Zarif said there are still banking problems when it comes to implementing contracts between Iran and France.

In an indirect reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps criticism of the comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers, Zarif said French companies and banks "should not be worried about the campaign rhetoric of a candidate in America, because no one can tear up the nuclear deal" or renegotiate the deal. While the GOP candidate has made a number of comments about the nuclear deal, he has generally thought it a bad deal for the United States and has promised to renegotiate it.

Zarif also reiterated previous statements that the conflicts in the Middle East do not have a military solution and that Iran is ready for any type of cooperation.

Zarif and the Iranian delegation will next travel to Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
June 23, 2016

Ramallah is extremely angry with Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog. He sold distorted information to the Israeli public only to save his skin and political future in the party, a Palestinian official in the Muqata told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

On June 19, Israeli TV Channel 10 reported that close to the March 2015 elections, Herzog and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reached a secret paper of understandings to the effect that if Herzog were elected prime minister, he would turn over all of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

The report stated that in the setting of the negotiations conducted between Herzogs envoy, former Labor Minister Ephraim Sneh, and a senior Palestinian official acting on behalf of Abbas, Herzog agreed that on the issue of Jerusalem  by far the biggest stumbling block in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  Israel would withdraw from all the Arab neighborhoods in the city, and East Jerusalem would become the Palestinian states capital. The Western Wall area, however, would remain under Israeli sovereignty. In addition, Herzog reportedly agreed to the return of refugees to the Palestinian state, to provide monetary reparations to the refugees and to withdraw from the Jordan Valley, except for a token Israeli presence.

After the broadcast, Herzogs office confirmed the details and provided an explanation for why a candidate for the premiership had conducted secret talks with the Palestinians and even agreed to far-reaching concessions without informing his constituents. I made efforts whose objective was to reach understandings that would pre-empt the wave of terror whose outburst I predicted, Herzog responded.

There was neither an agreement nor understandings and certainly nothing that binds the parties, the Palestinian official told Al-Monitor June 22. It was only nonbinding talks concerning ideas on how to promote a diplomatic solution between the parties and how both sides view the resolution of the conflict.

According to the Palestinian official, Abbas had green-lighted the talks with Sneh, just as he green-lighted anything that could advance a diplomatic agreement with Israel. The official said that Herzog had approached Abbas office a few weeks before the Israeli elections. Mahmoud Abbas felt uncomfortable about it, so he tasked one of his aides to pursue this. No one took it seriously, he said.

The Palestinian official leveled harsh criticism at Herzog. Selling illusions never serves anyone. He [Herzog] is trying to sell the Israeli public that an agreement had been reached in order to quell his voters anger for being willing to join Netanyahus government. If there was an agreement, why didnt he come out with it before the elections so that the Israeli public could choose between peace and the continuation of the occupation? Take my word for it, there was no agreement. General ideas and casual talks. Thats all it was.

Al-Monitor asked how a diplomatic agreement to establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital could hurt Abbas, to which the Palestinian official replied, [Following the report], the Palestinian people think that Mahmoud Abbas is dealing with nonsense, clinching deals with unauthorized people. The refugee issue, too, is something very complex that needs to be addressed with discretion. Every such report portrays our president as an irresponsible person, as someone banging his head against the wall.

Abbas isnt the only one sustaining damage from the publication of the paper of understandings. Whether accurate or distorted for Herzogs own political needs, such a report could potentially enshrine a framework agreement that would be hard to amend or blur in the future when the parties actually engage in official and earnest negotiations.

The Palestinian public now perceives these ideas to be the agreed-upon guidelines for a diplomatic solution  a full withdrawal from the territories and making East Jerusalem, save the Western Wall area, the future capital of the Palestinian state. A Palestinian leader, be it Abbas or his successor, will find it hard to explain in the future, when genuine negotiations do take place, how he can accept anything less.

Back in 2008, Ehud Olmert, as a sitting prime minister, conducted negotiations with Abbas. The understandings that were reached back then were far more serious than the noncommittal talks Sneh held with a senior official, as the television report put it. Those talks lasted for nearly two years, and the details of the agreement leaked when Olmert was under the police investigations that would ultimately force him to step down.

The Israeli public has the idea that Olmert gave everything to the Palestinians, who, in turn, rejected that offer as well. An investigative report by Raviv Drucker that aired in November 2015 suggests that the only reason Abbas hemmed and hawed in his response was his understanding of Olmerts dire political situation. Yet the damage had been done.

Olmert, for his own political sake, depicted Abbas as a peace rejectionist, thus causing the Israeli public to see the Palestinian president as a perpetual naysayer. Herzog, by contrast, did not portray Abbas as a rejectionist, but he, too, for his own political gain, sold an illusion, depicting casual talks as an agreement of understanding that could cause harm if earnest and binding negotiations do eventually take place.
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Ronald Loyd Whitworth Sr., left, is charged with promoting prison contraband after authorities say he tried to get a blade to his son, Ronald Loyd Whitworth Jr., right.

(Shelby County Jail)

A Hoover man is under arrest and accused of trying to smuggle a blade to his son - an ex-cop convicted for child sex - who is in the Shelby County Jail.

Ronald Loyd Whitworth Sr., 65, is charged with promoting prison contraband. He was arrested on June 11.

According to court records, he tried to provide his son, 43-year-old Ronald Loyd Whitworth Jr., an 8 1/2-inch Milwaukee Sawzall blade, which the warrant states "may be useful for escape."

The potential weapon was discovered when the father delivered boxes of legal information to the jail for delivery to his son. "Secreted within those boxes was the blade,'' said Shelby County sheriff's Maj. Ken Burchfield.

The incident happened June 11, two days before the younger Whitworth went to trial on 2008 charges of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

Ronald Loyd Whitworth Jr., a former police officer in Vestavia Hills and Anniston, was booked in to the Shelby County Jail March 29, 2015 on an arrest warrant from March 2010 involving an indictment filed that year charging him with possession of child pornography and production of child pornography. At that time, he also faced two other indictments from 2008 in Shelby County that accused him of rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, as well as child endangerment, and the two drug charges.

He had fled Alabama to avoid prosecution in 2008 but was later caught and convicted in the federal case. He pleaded guilty in September 2009 to transporting a child for sexual activity and was sentenced in January 2010 to 20 years in federal prison.

In March of 2015, requested action to resolve his outstanding state charges in Alabama and that's when he was brought back to the Shelby County Jail. Though he pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect to the charges,

Shelby County District Attorney Jill Lee said the younger Whitworth was convicted June 16, in a jury trial, first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, sexual abuse of a child Less than 12, and endangering the welfare of a child. He will be sentenced next month.

The other charges, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of pornography and producing pornography have not yet gone to trial.

Just six months ago, his brother, 37-year-old Wesley Adam Whitworth, was arrested in Hoover on two counts of second-degree assault, felon in possession of a firearm and second-degree receiving stolen property. Officers were dispatched on a report of a suspicious man, and authorities said Wesley Whitworth then fled into a nearby wooded area. He fought with officers before being subdued, and two officers were taken to the hospital for treatment.

Wesley Whitworth had previously been convicted of assault in 2008 when he became enraged with a bicyclist and deliberately ran over the man. Then, in 2012, he barricaded himself inside a Pelham townhome and crawled through to the attic of another townhome while trying to avoid arrest on an indecent exposure warrant.
A Louisiana police officer was killed after getting shot in the back three times, ABC News reported.

Deputy David F. Michel Jr., 50, was stopping a pedestrian in Harvey, Louisiana at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday when the suspect started fighting with the officer. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office the suspect pulled out a gun during the confrontation and fired at the officer three times.

The suspect fled on foot. He was later caught Wednesday afternoon.

Michel died shortly after arriving at the hospital. No information about what caused the pedestrian stop or the fight was released.
Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore today asked the court that is to hear the judicial ethics charges leveled against him to hold oral arguments on his motion to dismiss the case.

And Moore wants the oral arguments to be held before all nine judges on the Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ), instead of the motion being decided by just the chief judge of that panel.

Meanwhile a federal judge on Thursday set new deadlines for hearing a request by the Judicial Inquiry Commission to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Moore seeking to have the state's judicial prosecution process ruled unconstitutional.

Moore on Tuesday filed a motion to dismiss the ethics charges brought to the Court of the Judiciary by the state's Judicial Inquiry Commission. If found guilty of the charges, related to an order issued to probate judges earlier this year that some say was in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide. Moore could be permanently removed as chief justice.

"The Chief Justice (Moore) believes that the court would benefit from oral argument," Moore's motion for a hearing states. "By answering questions and engaging in dialogue with the Court, the parties could help facilitate 'the prompt disposition of the proceedings,'" the motion states.

"At a minimum, oral argument would assist the Court in deepening its understanding of the case, and narrowing the issues for trial," Moore's motion states.

Moore argues that Michael Joiner, chief judge of the Court of the Judiciary can't decide a dispositive motion without the participation of all nine members of that court.

"The authority of the Chief Judge to decide 'preliminary motions' was removed from the COJ rules in 2010," according to Moore's motion. "If the Chief Judge may no longer decide preliminary motions without the participation of the rest of the Court, then surely he also lacks the authority to decide on his own a dispositive motion like the Motion to Dismiss."

In his Tuesday motion to dismiss and response to the JIC judicial ethics charges, Moore stated that he didn't defy the U.S. Supreme Court in his Jan. 16 order. He also argues that the JIC lacked jurisdiction to issue the charges because they all deal with a legal interpretation beyond its authority.

The Court of the Judiciary has not yet set a trial date.

Meanwhile, a federal judge on Thursday also delayed a hearing until August on the JIC and Attorney General's Office motions to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by Moore.

Liberty Counsel, the group that represents Moore, in late May filed the federal lawsuit against the JIC, asking among other things that the law that automatically suspends a judge when charged by JIC be declared unconstitutional. The group last week also filed a similar suit on behalf of Alabama Associate Justice Tom Parker, who also has been under investigation by JIC for public comments he has made about same-sex marriage.

U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Albritton, III had set a hearing for oral arguments on the motion to dismiss the lawsuit against JIC for June 27. Moore's attorneys requested a 2-week continuance - to July 11 - but the judge moved the hearing to Aug. 4.

Albritton also has given Moore until July 11 to file a response showing why he should not grant the JIC and AG's requests to dismiss the lawsuit.

The judge said the request should include any response the Moore wants to make to a December 17, 2015 opinion provided to the court in private (in camera) and "any state law rule or precedent which establishes what the make-up of the Supreme Court of Alabama would be which would ultimately review any decision by the Court of the Judiciary in Chief Justice Moore's case."

Updated at 8 a.m. June 24, 2016 to clarify that Moore's attorney had sought only a two-week continuance in the federal lawsuit hearing
A Meridianville daycare center under investigation following allegations of child abuse by its workers has surrendered its license, effectively shutting its doors permanently.

Barry Spear, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Human Resources, on Thursday confirmed that the owner of KiddieLand Child Care Center and Preschool surrendered the license. The move ended DHR's investigation into the actions of employees accused of being physically and verbally abusive to the children in their care.

A Madison County Sheriff's Office investigation remains active.

The allegations against the daycare came to light after a former employee, Amy Boyett, posted several short videos to her Facebook page on Friday. The videos depict rough treatment of the children, which Boyett claimed was common practice at the facility.

She spent several months secretly recording what she saw. The videos, which Boyett has since taken down from Facebook, are now part of the evidence being looked at by law enforcement.

The criminal investigation began on Monday, according to the Sheriff's Office. By Wednesday, the signage was gone from the daycare, its doors were locked and no one answered the phone.

The DHR website lists a Brandi Tatum as the director of the daycare.
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Scott Dutton, left, is charged with murder in the July 21, 2016, shooting death of 27-year-old Josh McLemore in Decatur. (Morgan County Jail/Facebook)

A Decatur business owner charged with murder in a Tuesday night shooting started the fight that led to gunfire, according to what witnesses told police.

Court documents filed Thursday indicate that Scott Doyle Dutton, the 33-year-old owner of Downtown Dawgs, started an argument with victim Joshua Ashley McLemore before punching McLemore in the face. The men were at Dutton's home at 606 8th St. SW.

Dutton then pulled a gun and fired a shot at McLemore's feet. Raising the gun, he then allegedly shot McLemore in the stomach.

McLemore, 27, of Hartselle was unarmed when he was shot, the documents say. He was airlifted to Huntsville Hospital, where he later died of his wounds.

The victim, who leaves behind a wife and 3-year-old son, was a U.S. Army veteran, according to his obituary. He was a welder for Hubbard & Drake.

An account has been set up to help his family at People's Bank of North Alabama. Donations can be made to the Josh McLemore Memorial Fund.

Tuesday's shooting is not the first time Dutton is accused of pulling a gun on someone. The Decatur Daily reports that he was stabbed several times in the head in 2012 during a fight across the street from his business, located on Moulton Street downtown.

The stabbing occurred after Dutton brandished a weapon at the man, the newspaper reports. Dutton was in the process of pulling a second gun from his pocket when the man got his pocketknife out and stabbed him.

No charges were filed against either man in that case.

Dutton is being held without bond in the Morgan County Jail.
An Athens woman was arrested Wednesday on allegations that she had sex with a 14-year-old boy.

Bailee Elise White, 25, is charged with second-degree rape. She was booked into and released from the Limestone County Jail on $15,000 bond.

The Limestone County Sheriff's Office reports that it received a complaint that stated White had sex with the boy two years ago at the home of his family, who knew White. She was arrested following an investigation into the claims.

No additional information was released.
GQ magazine's "Love Song of Robert Bentley, Alabama's Horndog Governor" is more sad country song than ballad of devotion.

The article, published yesterday by GQ political correspondent Jason Zengerle, recounts the now familiar but no less salacious story of the divorced governor and his communications director turned chief political adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason, a married mother of three. Rumors about the pair's relationship swirled after Dianne, Bentley's wife of 50 years, filed for divorce in August 2015 and reached a fever pitch after Spencer Collier, former head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, went public with allegations of a physical relationship between Bentley and Mason, followed by the release of an audio tape in which the governor talks about kissing and touching the breasts of his adviser.

The Alabama House is currently holding committee hearings on impeaching the governor and both he and Mason are reportedly under criminal investigation. While the outcome of both inquiries remain to be seen, the GQ article - most of which relies on unnamed sources - contained several new allegations and accusations regarding the governor's extramarital relationship.

Here are 13 revelations from GQ's article:

The red-rose emoji

According to the GQ article, one of the things that first tipped off Dianne Bentley that something was off in her marriage were texts containing a red-rose emoji . The messages were so unexpected and out of character for the former dermatologist that Dianne Bentley became convinced they were for someone else. The same phone that received the red-rose emoji texts was used to record the governor's intimate conversation with Mason as the Bentleys were at their Gulf Shores beach house.

The notebook

Dianne Bentley apparently kept a diary, or as the story referred to it "a notebook," of items that concerned her about her marriage. Among those was an incident in which she reached for her husband's hand after Sunday services at First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa - the same church Rebekah Mason and her husband, Jon, attended - only to be rebuffed.

The call

While we've heard much of the call between Bentley and Mason the GQ article said it started with a "Am I too late, baby? " followed by "I'll be able to talk to you just for a few minutes." As AL.com previously reported, the governor called Mason just minutes after his wife exited the house, leaving her phone on record.

Financial difficulties?

GQ's article alleges one of Gov. Bentley's sons first approached the governor about hiring Mason after it was said she and her husband were "struggling to make ends meet." Mason, a former television news anchor, was hired in his press office and before long Jon Mason joined her as a state employee, serving as director of SERVE Alabama.

2013

Mason began to move closer to the governor's inner circle in 2013 when she thought Bentley's other advisers weren't doing a good job. She pushed him to be more aggressive as he readied for his campaign for reelection, allegedly telling him "you're the governor. People love you."

That dang emoji again

After Dianne Bentley heard the recording, she confronted the governor who denied a romantic relationship. That part of the story has been reported before but not that she decided to tell her family about her Mason and the beach house tape after she received another red-rose emoji, this time with the name "Rebekah" written at the bottom.

The Bentley sons confront Mason's family

After Dianne Bentley contacted Paul, the couple's eldest son, he and his brothers confronted their father, another fact that's been reported. What hasn't been previously known is the allegation that Paul and his younger brother Matthew went to Haleyville to talk to Mason's parents about the situation. They reportedly called their daughter who was confronted by the Bentley boys. Paul Bentley confronted Mason a second time in a parking lot, GQ reported.

A public relationship?

Much has been written about Collier's claims that he confronted the governor about his relationship with Mason. The GQ story, however, claims that once talk of the pair's relationship became more widespread they became less circumspect. At times, Bentley would allegedly rest his hand on Mason's thigh and she would wipe food from his face. The governor was also found several times sitting in his own personal truck at a secluded pond outside of town, apparently waiting on Mason.

Inauguration drama

AL.com previously reported Dianne Bentley almost did not attend the governor's second inauguration due to conflicts in her marriage. The GQ article maintains Bentley's aides hatched a plan to have Bentley's 90-year-old brother, Robert, a pastor, hold the Bible upon which the governor was sworn in. It was somewhere around this time that Bentley promised his wife Mason would not be part of the governor's staff, prompting Dianne Bentley's return to the governor's mansion in Montgomery.

Bentley's sons and the inauguration

Dianne Bentley wasn't the only one with concerns about the inauguration. The governor planned for his family to walk together down the steps of the capitol to their seats but his children balked. They agreed to attend the inauguration but only if they could be seated before his entrance. Mason, her husband and three children ended up being seated directly in front of the Bentley children and grandchildren.

A job switch angers everyone

Mason wasn't named to Bentley's staff for his second term; instead she was named his chief political adviser and paid through his campaign funds. This enraged the Bentleys, who feared Mason could later claim she was sexually harassed and file a costly civil suit. The family urged Dianne Bentley to file for divorce so she could secure her half of the couple's assets.

Homewrecker letter?

One little tidbit- according to the GQ story, Collier once ordered investigators to dust for fingerprints on an anonymous letter sent to Mason. The letter called Mason a "homewrecker."

Are Bentley and Mason still in contact?

That's the question many people are asking and one the GQ article doesn't answer, only to say "Montgomery is aflame with rumors that she still advises her old boss via text and phone calls."
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Members of the Alabama Legislature's House and Senate budget committees hear a presentation today from Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar at the last in a series of hearings on Medicaid. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

( )

Alabama lawmakers finished a series of hearings on Medicaid today to collect information about funding and the outlook for an ambitious reform plan that has been underway more than three years.

Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar told members of the House and Senate budget committees that Gov. Robert Bentley is reviewing potential service cuts because state funding for next fiscal year is $85 million less than Medicaid's request.

Azar said she expects the governor will allocate some one-time money for Medicaid but not enough to fully close the gap.

Azar said one of the first cuts might be reduced payments to doctors.

She said that could happen as early as August.

Azar and other officials have said previously that reduced payments could cause some doctors to stop seeing Medicaid patients.

Earlier this year, the Legislature postponed the start date for a sweeping reform of Medicaid.

Beginning Oct. 1, Medicaid was to serve patients through regional care organizations, non-profit corporations made up of hospitals, doctors and other investors.

Lawmakers had passed a bill in 2013 to start the transformation.

The RCOs would receive a capitation payment, a fixed amount for each Medicaid recipient they enroll, to coordinate their care and pay doctors for covered services.

That would depart from the current system of Medicaid paying for every doctor visit and procedure.

Medicaid serves about 1 million people in Alabama. The RCOs would handle care for about two-thirds of those. Nursing home care, pharmacy, dental care and substance abuse services would not be provided by RCOs.

In February, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved a waiver to allow the change to RCOs, which is intended to slow the growth in costs and improve patient outcomes.

The waiver called for Alabama to receive $748 million from the federal government over five years to make the transition.

But that's on hold, with the implementation date for the RCOs delayed indefinitely.

Eleven RCOs in the state's five regions have organized, obtained probationary certification from Medicaid and were gearing up to be ready for Oct. 1.

Executives with the RCOs spoke at today's hearing and urged lawmakers to find a stable source of funding to proceed with the change to managed care.

Anna Velasco, executive director of Alabama Care Plan, one of the RCOs, said the organizations have invested heavily with money and time to get ready to be up and running.

Alabama Care Plan includes UAB Health System, St. Vincent's Health System and Triton Health Systems, and will contract with VIVA Health.

Velasco said the risk RCOs will assume by being responsible for taking care of patients on a fixed amount of money is a powerful incentive.

"They have an incentive to deliver the right care at the right time in the right setting," Velasco said.

The managed care concept is expected to place more emphasis on prevention, such as cancer screenings and prenatal care, innovations, such as telemedicine, and management of chronic conditions.

Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, chairman of the Senate's General Fund committee, said the hearings have built a record for lawmakers to review as they weigh important decisions about the future of Medicaid and RCOs.

Today's final meeting was the seventh, and Azar has made detailed presentations at each.

Azar's presentations can be found here.
A Dothan man arrested on Wednesday is accused of sexually abusing a child.

Abel Salazar Hernandez, 36, of East Saunders Road, is charged with sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old, according to Dothan police. His bond was set at $100,000.

He is set to make his first court appearance on Friday.

Police declined to release additional details due to the sensitive nature of the crime. Hernandez's arrest warrant wasn't immediately available for release.
A Marengo County preacher is accused of sexually abusing an underage girl.

Gregory Lucy, 59, of Dixons Mills, was arrested on Friday and charged with five counts of sexual abuse first degree and attempted rape first degree, court records show. The arrest came after a grand jury indictment on June 14.

The alleged sexual contact occurred between January and March 2016, according to the indictments.

Lucy is a bishop at El Shaddai AOH Church.

Authorities haven't said whether the victim is a member of Lucy's congregation.

Lucy graduated from Marengo High School and attended Bishop State Community College in Mobile. He also has degrees from International Bible Institute in Plymouth, Fla., Concordia College in Selma and the University of West Alabama.

Lucy's arraignment is set for July 26.
If you purchased a Kindle book from April 1, 2010 to May 21, 2012, you may have an Amazon credit in your account.

As part of an antitrust settlement, Apple eBooks is providing the credit for those who purchased Kindle books from Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin or MacMillan. The settlement is related to a 2012 case where the Department of Justice accused Apple and the publishers of conspiring to raise the price of e-books.

The amount of your credit depends on how many books you bought and from which publisher but generally, customers received $6.93 in credit for every New York Times bestseller purchased and $1.57 in credits for other e-books.

Those qualifying for the credit should get an email from Amazon but you can also check here. The credits can be used on any Amazon purchase and will automatically show up as a gift card at checkout.

In all, Apple is funding more than $400 million in credits.

The credits expire June 24, 2017.
Vernon Madison 1985 and recent

Vernon Madison was 34 when he was charged with capital murder. He is shown at left in a Mobile Press Register file photo from April 1985. Now 65, Madison is scheduled for execution on May 12, 2016, but he is requesting a stay and a resentencing based on two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. (Alabama Department of Corrections)

An appellate court will hear arguments over whether strokes have left a 65-year-old Alabama inmate mentally incompetent to be executed.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hold a hearing Thursday in the case of inmate Vernon Madison. The appellate court in May stayed Madison's execution just seven hours before he was scheduled to receive a lethal injection.

Madison was convicted in the 1985 killing of Mobile police Officer Julius Schulte. Prosecutors said Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his police car.

Lawyers for Madison argue that stroke-induced dementia have left Madison incompetent. Attorneys for the state say while his health has deteriorated, Madison still has an understanding of the crime he committed and the punishment he faces.
U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to listen to the voices of the state's laid-off coal workers, who detailed their struggles in finding jobs for a video released Wednesday by the congressman's office, in an effort to get the EPA to rethink its push to enforce carbon control regulations.

Palmer, a sharp critic of the EPA, said the agency is using "overregulation" not rooted in science in an attempt to transition the country away from coal-based power.

The video features some of the 1,500 Alabama coal miners who have been laid off over the last year. Palmer suggested that trend would continue if the standards hold up in court.

"Think about the families you're affecting. Think about all the jobs you're closing down," Renea Aldridge of Woodstock says in the video. "I keep thinking the coal industry will never be the same again."

Andrew Brady, of McDonald Chapel, said it's not an easy transition to find other work.

"I do have a good skill set, but my skill set is underground and that doesn't translate to above ground," he said.

Further regulations, as part of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, are being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court. Aside from curbing carbon pollution, the proposal includes retraining coal workers.

But Palmer is skeptical that the plan would achieve those goals, adding that they would have harmful economic consequences.

"If fully implemented the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations will have negligible, if any, positive impact on the environment, but they will have a substantial and detrimental impact to the economy and jobs," he said in a statement.. "Moreover these regulations are resulting in higher household energy costs that are especially hard on low-income families and senior citizen households. The EPA should do what I have done - take an opportunity to meet these coal miners and hear their stories about how regulations have impacted their lives and livelihood. The EPA would learn that these are real people with families, not statistics that don't matter."

The congressman said current EPA regulations cause higher energy costs, leading nearly one in four low-income households to go without health care. He added 34 percent of such households cut down or didn't fill prescriptions, 24 percent went without food at least once a day and 19 percent became ill because they couldn't heat their homes.

"The EPA may view these coal miners and their families as collateral damage in the pursuit of their agenda, but we cannot sit back and accept this," he said. "We must stand up for the victims of the EPA's overreaching and scientifically questionable policies."
State authorities are giving north Alabama residents the all-clear after a scary few weeks in which an EPA health advisory raised questions about whether the tap water in some areas was safe to drink.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley issued a statement Thursday that the last Alabama drinking water system affected by the health advisory had tested below the new threshold for a pair of long-lasting, man-made chemical contaminants that build up in human bodies over time and could eventually lead to health problems.

Bentley said the latest test results from the West Morgan East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority showed all samples taken were within the new guidelines for concentrations of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).

"Safe drinking water is vital for all Alabama residents and I appreciate the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Alabama Department of Public Health for their continued effort to conduct a sampling of the blended water to alleviate any concerns surrounding the safety of the water in north Alabama," Bentley said in a news release. "I am happy to see a resolution to the water concerns that have plagued this community."

The EPA published its final health advisory on May 19 for PFOS and PFOA, stating that lifetime exposure to these chemicals in drinking water could lead to negative health effects, even at low concentration levels. Possible health effects include developmental problems, and certain types of cancer. Pregnant women and breast-feeding infants were considered to be more susceptible to negative health effects.

At that time eight Alabama water systems had test results showing concentrations higher than the new advisory threshold of 70 parts per trillion. Six of those systems were able to quickly switch to a different water source to get under the new threshold.

However, it took the West Morgan East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority (WMELWSA) and the West Lawrence Water Co-op -- which gets much of its drinking water from WMELWSA -- several weeks to reduce the concentrations of chemicals in their water.

In the meantime, general manager Don Sims recommended WMELSA customers not drink or cook with their tap water, causing a stir in the community. Bentley and other state officials called the do-not-drink recommendation an overreaction.

The water authority later agreed to purchase excess clean water from neighboring Decatur Utilities to blend with its own water to dilute the contaminants to concentrations of less than 70 ppt. That measure is expected to be a stop-gap until a more permanent filtration system can be installed.

According to the news release, the WMELWSA water will be tested every two weeks by ADEM to ensure it stays below the threshold.
Greenetrack 2010 Mark Almond.JPG

Washington Booker of Birmingham holds a sign towards passing traffic outside Greenetrack in Eutaw, Ala., Thur. July 1, 2010. (The Birmingham News/ Mark Almond)

( )

A judge has ordered the state to return seized electronic gambling machines to Greenetrack after finding that the machines comply with state law.

Circuit Judge Houston L. Brown on Wednesday gave the state 30 days to give the casino back the 825 gambling machines seized in a 2010 raid.

Brown found that the machines complied with a 2003 constitutional amendment authorizing bingo through "electronic marking machine" in Greene County.

Greenetrack CEO Luther "Nat" Winn praised the decision and said he hoped that the state attorney general would respect the decision.

While the decision was a victory for Greenetrack, the Alabama Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the electronic gambling machines are illegal under state law.
mac mccutcheon

State Rep. Mac McCutcheon (AL.com file photo)

The picture is perhaps becoming clearer on who will be elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in wake of Mike Hubbard's ouster.

State Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, announced on Wednesday afternoon his candidacy for the position. McCutcheon is chair of the powerful House Rules Committee. His north Alabama district is near Huntsville.

McCutcheon's announcement comes after the acting Speaker, Victor Gaston, as well as Rep. Bill Poole of Tuscaloosa - also considered a leading candidate - withdrew their names for consideration.

McCutcheon's full statement:

"After a great deal of prayer and encouragement from many of my colleagues, I am officially announcing my candidacy for the position of Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives. These are trying times for our state and for the members of the House and we must focus on rebuilding the public trust in our government. I am committed to working with all of my colleagues in the House to promote an atmosphere that is honest, transparent and cooperative. My goal is to lead a legislative process that will promote the interests of all Alabamians so that we can restore honor and integrity to our government."

Other confirmed candidates for Speaker include Rep. Phil Williams, R-Huntsville, and Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham. Other legislators have said they are considering pursuing the position.

The House will vote to elect a Speaker before the 2017 legislative session. It's also possible such a vote could take place if Gov. Robert Bentley calls a special session later this year.
HARVEY, La. -- What started as a pedestrian stop in Harvey's Pebble Walk neighborhood ended in the fatal shooting of a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputy Wednesday afternoon, a JPSO spokesman said.

David F. Michel Jr. was repeatedly shot while on duty by the suspect near the intersection of Manhattan Boulevard and Ascot Road, JPSO spokesman Col. John Fortunato said.

The man was identified as Jerman Neveaux. Police said he had a .38-caliber revolver in his possession when he was apprehended.

Many people in nearby offices saw deputies swarm the area and Pebble Walk in search of the gunman as the Sheriff's Office's helicopter circled overheard. Authorities eventually caught the suspect during the manhunt. Fortunato said witness accounts indicate the suspect acted alone.

Michel was driving a department-assigned black Dodge Charger when he stopped the suspect, who was walking near Manhattan and Ascot, authorities said. It is not clear why Michel initiated the stop. Michel's vehicle was parked in the entrance to the parking lot of a strip mall in the 2400 block of Manhattan Boulevard.

JPSO cited witnesses who described seeing a scuffle erupt between Michel and the male suspect . At some point in their interaction, the suspect withdrew a gun from his waistband and repeatedly shot the deputy around 12:21 p.m. The suspect shot Michel three times in his back, the Jefferson Parish corner said . He then fled into Pebble Walk, Fortunato said.

"The suspect fired several shots, including when the officer was down," Fortunato said.

Minutes later, Michel, 50, was rushed to University Medical Center in New Orleans by ambulance. New Orleans Police Department spokesman Aaron Looney said NOPD aided JPSO in clearing the route by managing traffic for the deputy, who arrived at 12:45 p.m. Michel died from his injuries less than an hour later.

Victoria Le, whose office is in the Manhattan Boulevard strip mall adjacent to the shooting, said neither she nor her co-workers overheard the gunshots. She said they witnessed the rush of Sheriff's Office vehicles and sirens as deputies responded to help Michel. Some vehicles even sped through their parking lot, she said.

A swift reaction followed Michel's fatal shooting as law enforcement and the deputy's loved ones rushed to the hospital. Among those present was a sobbing woman related to Michel, said Rose Harper.

"It makes me want to cry," Harper said while leaving the emergency room.

Michel become a reserve deputy at JPSO in 2007 before a promotion to full-time deputy in 2014, JPSO said. Chief Deputy Craig Taffaro said he spoke with the deputy's father after the shooting, telling Taffaro that "as difficult as this is," his son was "doing what he loved to do."

Reporters Michelle Hunter, Jonathan Bullington and Emily Lane contributed to this report.
More than $200m spent on promoting fear and hatred of Muslims in US by various groups between 2008 and 2013.

More than $200m was spent towards promoting fear and hatred of Muslims in the United States by various organisations between 2008 and 2013, according to a fresh joint report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the University of California, Berkeley.

Released on Monday, the report identifies 74 groups, including feminist, Christian, Zionist and prominent news organisations, which either funded or fostered Islamophobia.

It is an entire industry of itself. There are people making millions of dollars per year from promoting Islamophobia. They often present themselves as experts on Islamic affairs when they are not, Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a spokesman for CAIR, told Al Jazeera.

They have fuelled an environment of distrust among the American public by claiming that Muslims do not belong to the American community and that they could never be loyal citizens.

Ruiz said that Islamophobia has posed two main dangers: a rise in hate crimes and anti-Islamic legislation.

For example, in the last year alone in Florida, there has been a 500 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims. Mosques have been vandalised and there have been a number of bomb threats towards Islamic groups.

And Floridas government is even trying to ban school books from making any references to Islam in history.

Since 2013, the country has seen a rise in the number of bills or amendments  about 81  designed to vilify Islamic religious practices, 80 of which were introduced to state legislatures by Republicans, the report notes.

READ MORE: US anti-Islamic bills create environment of fear

It cited Florida Senator Alan Hayes as once distributing literature that said: Our religious, political, and peaceful way of life is under attack by Islam and Sharia Law. Save my generation from this ideology that is invading our country and masquerading as a religion. Its sedition: They are determined to overthrow our State and our Country.

Meira Neggaz, the executive director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)  a US-based think-tank, told Al Jazeera a poll published in March showed that one out of every five American Muslims had experienced discrimination on a regular basis, while more than half of them had faced some discrimination.

The other faith group you would think would suffer from some discrimination are Jews. They do, but far lower  only about 5 percent, she said.

She also noted that the rise in anti-Islamic sentiment was more tied to political rhetoric than terrorist events.

2008 and 2012  the years of election campaigns  saw spikes in Islamophobia that had nothing to do with terror. And we are now seeing similar trends in this election cycle.

It is part of a broader backlash against minorities. Lawmakers who are legislating against Muslims are also against other minority groups.

At least 32 states have introduced and debated anti-sharia or anti-foreign law bills. And, according to our research, 80 percent of legislators who sponsor this type of legislation also sponsor bills restricting the rights of other minorities and vulnerable groups.

Neggaz emphasised that Islamophobia is a threat to US democracy and affects all of the countrys residents.

Religious discrimination is illegal. There has to be legal procedures that can address that.
After more than a decade of conflict, the violence in Thailands deep south takes a toll on peoples mental wellbeing.

Narathiwat, Thailand  Cholathee Charoenchol, a 51-year-old teacher at Tanjung primary school in Thailands southern Narathiwat province, waited patiently in his cafeteria on January 23, 2013. It was lunchtime, and the young pupils were slowly trickling in from class.

Between 30 to 40 children, including his six-year-old daughter, had already made their way to their tables when masked gunmen burst through the cafeteria doors. One of them walked up to Cholathee and shot him in the head at point-blank range.

Amid the ensuing screams, the gunmen fled, and the schoolchildren sprinted from the school grounds. Nearly every one of the schools 290 children heard the gunshots; many were left severely traumatised.

In 2004, the simmering sectarian tensions in Thailands deep south  an area making up the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and four districts of neighbouring Songkhla  erupted into violence.

The majority of the Muslim, ethnic Malay population of Thailands deep south have long-held strained relations with the rest of their overwhelmingly Buddhist countrymen. More than 6,000 people have been killed over the past decade.

With the conflict now entering its 12th year, this latest round of ethnic and religious violence is forcing more than a million people to live out their lives under the spectre of car bombs, assassinations, heavy military presence and death.

READ MORE: Teachers targeted in Thai conflict

With over a decade of low-intensity but unceasing violence, psychologists say it is no longer the dead but the living who really concern them, with their invisible scars of trauma growing with every passing year, threatening the mental wellbeing of an entire generation.

In Pattani now, they are no longer shocked. If theres a bomb, people will just say, OK, there was a bomb. How many dead? How many injured? Thats it, says Dr Pechdau Tohmeena, director of the Regional Mental Health Centre in the Southern Provinces branch of Thailand.

For Dr Tohmeena, the desensitised facade to violence in the deep south is a typical, and completely acceptable, reaction to a setting of prolonged violence.

Twelve years is a long time, and the general population have modified themselves just in order to stay [sane] in this situation, she explains.

Trauma and depression

The focus for the mental health workers in the deep south has been on finding, documenting and helping the ever-expanding group of people most acutely affected by traumatic events, such as witnesses to violence, as well as those made orphans, widows as well as the physically disabled.

In the first decade of the conflict, an estimated 3,000 women were widowed, while 5,686 children were made orphans, according to the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

Addressing the stresses, anxieties and general mental conditions brought on by these tragedies is of the utmost priority, says Dr Tohmeena.

Off a major road just a few miles outside Pattani, 47-year-old Wan Chai pulls himself slowly from his bed and on to his wheelchair. In 2005, while out driving his car, he suddenly found himself under a hail of gunfire. He survived, but one of the bullets entered the right side of his chest and smashed into his spinal cord, forcing him to face a paraplegic future.

Soon after, his marriage fell apart and his wife moved away, taking their daughter with her. Wan was devastated.

I always dream of seeing my daughter again, he says.

In Pictures: Thailands embattled schools

Nasruddin, a coordinator at the Pattani Medical Health Centre, explains Wans situation at the time: He was very depressed afterwards  He was actually suicidal for a time.

With no work and no family, a high prevalence of depression among the newly physically disabled is very common, expalins Nasruddin. For many, they dont know what they are going through, so they suffer without any help, he adds.

The stigma and general lack of understanding of mental health is, for Dr Tohmeena and others, a major obstacle facing psychiatric health workers in the deep south.

There is still a stigma [attached] to mental health, says Dr Hartinee, a psychologist at Bacho hospital in Narathiwat district.

People think it is OK to cry only for a funeral; but we have to show them that after seeing a deadly attack or having a friend killed, it is totally normal to have trouble sleeping, to cry a lot, not be hungry or have nightmares, Dr Hartinee explains. Then they can come see us.

The stigma of mental health

Thailand is a country without a history of seeking out psychological treatment, says Dr Tohmeena. Typically, a mental health problem is translated as craziness, she says. But the doctor is keen to point out, however, that a lot of ground has been made over the past 12 years.

Originally, we were very under-prepared, she says. In 2004, there was only one psychiatrist posted to cover Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.

In response to the dearth in personnel, Dr Tohmeena was relocated from Bangkok to her native Pattani by the director general of the Department of Mental Health in late 2004.

I was tasked with building the first mental health office in the deep south, she says. Within four years, we had 74 trained psychologists posted around the region.

Even with the extra help, most psychiatric centres are still understaffed, forcing those involved into more resourceful methods of work.

Dr Hartinee considers her department one of the best examples of success despite limited manpower. She highlights efforts in training a network of people throughout their different community groups.

We have security people, religious leaders, village elders, health volunteers and teachers. We tell them how to behave and what to look for in someone who may be suffering, she says.

In turn, she explains, this network can then further spread a general awareness and understanding of mental health, while providing Dr Hartinees team some insight into where to go and whom to help.

Today, mental-health workers highlight their outreach programmes, mobile clinics, and network building as major reasons why they have some 70 percent coverage, according to Dr Tohmeenas estimates.

For Dr Tohmeena, Dr Hartinee and their colleagues, to succeed in better helping these at risk groups, while changing the general understanding of mental health, would be to make significant inroads into mitigating a potential mental health disaster.

According to the Violence Related Mental Health Surveillance (VMS) database, which records mental health issues resulting from the ongoing violence, some 11,772 adults have exhibited mental-health issues since 2008, while nearly 1,200 children have been affected since 2010.

These numbers are actually thought to be conservative by Dr Tohmeena, who makes the point that the data excludes those who never make their plight known, as well as those unrecorded for any reason.

You can imagine [the numbers] are much higher, she adds.

Additionally, Dr Tohmeena notes that only 10 percent of the children orphaned are included in the VMS database, and thus, are not screened by mental health officers. She worries that PTSD  post traumatic stress disorder  which she already thinks is severely underreported in general, is even worse for children.

Long-term effects

A little over three years after Cholathees death, Dr Hartinee returned to Tanjung school. She was part of the response team who came immediately after the murder to help screen every pupil from the school. In the first month, some 90 pupils were identified as suffering from some mental-health issues, but today, all is well, she says.

Dr Hartinee greets students from the doorway of the Grade 6 classroom. After a nod from the teacher, she steps in and asks the class with a smile: Who remembers what happened in the cafeteria three years ago?

What follows is a peculiarly open dialogue between Dr Hartinee and the class of 11-year-olds about the murder of Cholathee.

Who was in the cafeteria? she asks as a few hands are raised. Who ran to the field? A few hands drop. Who jumped into the pond? Laughter while a few children raise their hands. Eventually, one boy is pointed out as having actually been splattered with blood during the attack.

And how do you feel about it today? asks Dr Hartinee.

Im fine, responds the boy. But Im afraid of blood.
Thinking about England and its future beyond the Brexit vote.

Why take a journey into the British mind when facts about the British are mainly facts about the English? Or so asks the liberal British scholar Julian Baggini in his book Welcome to Everytown, A Journey into the English Mind.

After all, England has dominated Britain for centuries. It accounts for 85 percent of its population and an even higher share of its wealth. It is England that has been at the forefront of defining Britains relations with Europe and the world.

But what do the English think of England and Englishness? And how do they see their future in Britain and Europe?





It seems in these times of uncertainty  with the empire gone and relations with Europe shaky  many in the country are eager to restore a stronger sense of nationhood.

But, for the English, nationalism can seem a taboo sentiment  the entitlement of the historically subjugated, not the historically powerful.

As a result, when English nationalism is given voice, it is typically by far-right xenophobes.

Internal conflict

This internal conflict may feed what Kate Fox, the social anthropologist and author of Watching the English, calls the hypocrisy thats infecting almost all of our behaviour  and even the ideals we most prize, such as modesty, courtesy and fair play.

READ MORE: Brexit  Making Britain great again?

It is not a deliberate, cynical, calculated attempt to deceive others, but rather an unconscious, collective self-deception, she argues. And at the heart of it all lies a social dis-ease  a shorthand term for the chronic social inhibitions that often typify the English.

In these times of uncertainty - with the empire gone and relations with Europe shaky - many in the country are eager to restore a stronger sense of nationhood. by

This all sounds pretty harsh to me, but apparently the alternative is worse, she argues: When we drop the hypocritical pretence, we tend to become incoherently aggressive, rather than calmly assertive.

On a more philosophical level, however, Baggini considers that English culture is predominantly conservative, communitarian and working-class.

He warns: Unless we recognise the fact that England is not liberal, we will be going against the grain of popular thinking.

Yes, England is a country of laws that treats its citizens equally, but for the English, rights and privileges are derived from membership and commitment to English society, and are not equally applicable to all, irrespective of family history or current behaviour.

Making of the English mind

What, then, goes into the making of the English mind that produces the kind of thinking and behaviour the English are renowned for?

Lets set aside the tired arguments about the island, unpredictable weather and the Anglican Church.

What makes the English a little different from the Welsh or the Irish, or the Scots, argues Baggini, is their self-assurance about their own historic greatness.

It tends to give us a certain arrogance that stands in the way of truly opening up to the countries we visit.

And, he adds, Our imperial past has not made us more open to foreign cultures, it has actually made us even narrower in our outlook because we expect the whole world to revolve around us.

Fox goes further to say that English modesty rules often act as a counterbalance to our natural arrogance, just as our courtesy rules protect us from our own aggressive tendencies.

Centuries of Empire

These are important observations. Because as British writer and journalist Jeremy Paxman concluded in his 2012 BBC series, Empire: If we really want to understand who we are, its time we stopped pretending the empire was nothing to do with us.

READ MORE: Brexit in context

A dozen years earlier, Paxman wrote The English, a Portrait of a People, about what it meant to be English, after empire, the disarray in the United Kingdom, the plunge into Europe and the uncontrollability or globalisation.

He notes that the English havent had a clear and positive sense of themselves since World War II and its immediate aftermath.

Indeed, the English have been trying to come to terms with the end of their 300-year empire in less than three decades.

Theyve also been struggling with some existential questions about their national identity and the future of their country in a rapidly changing world.

Curiously, the English made no big deal of a national anthem or national song and many dont even remember their national day. The American Fourth of July and French 14 Juillet are celebrated with much more fanfare than the obscure St George on April 23.

The discussion over Brexit has already transformed England regardless of its results. by

Reviving nationalism

In his book, England: An Elegy, the Conservative British philosopher Roger Scruton laments about Englands fortune and future at a time when Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism are flourishing and English nationalism is disapproved of, when the customs and the institutions of the English are being dismantled, either from outside by the European Union, or from inside by the political elite, and when the rising English generation has little or no knowledge of the history, culture or religion of the place where it was born.

I read these lines of the book cover and remember how with every passing day, the English reveal how they are just like any other people; like European and other nations, the disenfranchised and disillusioned look for the nationalist ethos in times of crisis and uncertainty.

This means recalling the good old days, whether true or imagined; awakening ancient hatreds, and warning against the barbarians at the gates. And of course, demonising the European Union.

In this spirit, the conservative publication This England warned: The whole thing is a racket where well end up being a colony of Germany. We won the war, but theyll win the peace.

The former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, echoed this apocalyptic vision recently with his claim that the EU shared Hitlers objective of subjugating Europe to one authority, albeit using different methods.

The discussion over Brexit has already transformed England regardless of its results. England, like the rest of Europe, will remain divided between those who want to make their nations great together, and those who want to go it alone.

The rest of us must unite against the scourge of radical nationalism in Europe, hoping for more English humour and less hypocrisy.

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. Follow him on Facebook.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
You dont have to be Muslim to be the target of Islamophobia.

Islamophobia has become an established term in the English language. Your automatic spell-checker will not mark it with a red line underneath in the text. For some of us, this is part of the test of the lexical naturalness of this concept and its meaning in society.

A greater degree of naturalisation will come when your automatic spell-checker ceases to underline in red derivatives of Islamophobia, such as Islamophobic, Islamophobe or Islamophobisation. The software on my computer is out-of-date, so maybe I am lagging behind.

The term has also entered Arabic and is used without definition or explanation in the language. This is another test of naturalness, but now across cultures.





Islamophobia refers to stereotypical and negative attitudes by non-Muslims towards Islam, Muslims and what is popularly known as Islamic culture.

As a phenomenon, Islamophobia is a rough and ready attitude with little tolerance for complexity and diversity. In its totalising form, it admits no rough edges. In fact, one does not have to be Muslim to be subject to Islamophobic attitudes.

Islamophobic slurs

After the London attacks in July 2005, Sikh men were subjected to Islamophobic slurs, even attacks, because they were thought to be Muslim.

READ MORE: After Islamophobia comes the criminalisation of Arabic

In the public imagination, certain items of attire, such as the turban, are assumed by some to be an expression of Muslim-ness. The beard is developing similar meanings, especially when ones complexion is thought to be a sign of the same.

It is true that Islamophobia has been on the rise since 9/11, but its date of birth precedes this criminal event. by

To counter Islamophobic attitudes, two of my University of Cambridge colleagues, a Christian and a Muslim, started an outreach programme of public engagement to explain as neutrally as possible what Islam stood for.

The main part of this programme consisted of school visits in and around London. In one primary school in South London they showed a set of pictures to ten-year-olds.

One picture showed a group of men from different ethnic backgrounds. In the middle stood the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with his black cloak, white hair and beard and a medium-size cross hanging down from his neck.

The pupils were asked to identify who was Muslim in the picture. To the surprise of my colleagues, every pupil circled the Archbishops figure as Muslim.

When they were asked why they thought he was Muslim, they all pointed to his beard and long black cloak. When later directed to the cross the pupils were surprised by how signs of Muslim-ness had overridden signs of being Christian in their response.

Stereotypical view of Muslims

While this misrecognition does not speak of Islamophobia, it does point to, possibly, a stereotypical view of the Muslim man as one who wears a beard and long, loose-hanging clothes.

It is possible that signs of difference like these led to Sikhs being misrecognised as Muslims and, as a result, subjected to Islamophobic slurs in London.

It is true that Islamophobia has been on the rise since 9/11, but its date of birth precedes this criminal event.

I remember how, in the 1990s, I accompanied the head of what was the Palestinian delegation (ambassador) in London on a visit to what was, by all accounts, a friendly church meeting.

READ MORE: Speaking Arabic while flying

In fact, I knew a good number of the church leaders who supported the Palestinian cause in different ways, including divesting from all companies that supported the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

The ambassador, an urbane man, was well-known for being a good and effective public speaker. At the end of the presentation, he fielded a number of questions, which I thought he answered eloquently.

Then a member of the audience put his hand up and gave a mini speech in which he tried to rebut the ambassadors argument, ending up with the accusation that the ambassadors anti-Israeli stance was a reflection of his Muslim faith.

Islamophobic anatomy

The ambassador responded by telling the questioner that he was against Israeli policy for lots of reasons, but none of them had anything to do with Islam. The questioner was not prepared to have any of it. He ranted for a while and sat down.

The ambassador then told him he was in fact a Christian of the Roman Catholic faith and that he was happy and honoured to be speaking in a non-Catholic church. It is at this point that the questioners Islamophobic premise really came to the fore.

Addressing the ambassador, he said: You dont have to be Muslim for your head to be filled with Islamic poison.

Keeping his composure, the ambassador rounded on him, telling him that he did not need a lecture on Islam and Christianity from someone like him: Let me remind you that Jesus Christ was not born in London or New York. He was a Palestinian, and in comparison with you I am a prehistoric Christian. Christianity belonged to my ancestors before it belonged to yours.

The Islamophobic anatomy of this encounter is easy to dissect. Palestine is an Islamic cause. If you stand up for this cause and you are of brown colour you must be Muslim, either literally in terms of faith or metaphorically through ailment or infection by this same faith.

So, you dont have to be Muslim to be the target of Islamophobia. In this respect, Palestine provides a litmus test of how Islamophobia works. If you are for it, you are Muslim. If you are for it and you are not Muslim, then Muslim blood must run through your veins. Either way, you are damned by the Islamophobes.

Yasir Suleiman is acting president of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The UN cannot in good conscience highlight the blood on Bashar al-Assads hands while willingly shaking them.

Last week, the Syria Campaign, a global advocacy group pressing for a peaceful and democratic future for the country, published a report accusing the United Nations of being in serious breach of the humanitarian principles of impartiality, independence and neutrality.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons spokesman has dismissed the report, but the UN would be wise to heed its findings, which are backed by more than 50 humanitarian, human rights and civil society groups in Syria.

The findings are based partly on interviews with current and former UN officials. Roger Hearn, former head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Damascus, said: There has been a systematic failure in the UN-led response. Rather than basing its response on need, it has developed into a billion-dollar response programme that is largely controlled by the regime and its proxies.





The findings are supported by statistics and reports from UN agencies, such as the World Food Programme and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Sieges as a weapon of war

By choosing to prioritise cooperation with the Syrian government at all costs, the UN has given Damascus an effective veto over aid deliveries to areas outside of government control, enabling its use of sieges as a weapon of war, the Syria Campaign said. This has contributed to the deaths of thousands of civilians.

The UN cannot credibly refute claims of its subservience to the Syrian regime, because it has made no secret of the extent to which it seeks and relies on the regimes consent to perform its duties.

ALSO READ: The death of the Syria peace process

A March report by OCHA said that UN agencies were simply not willing to jeopardise their operations in Syria by taking a tougher stance with the government. Prophetically, OCHA said that this will surely be scrutinised unfavourably at a later point.

As of the end of May 452,700 Syrians were besieged by the regime, representing more than three-quarters of the total number under siege. by

Most recently, UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura has backtracked on airdropping humanitarian aid.

In May, he said the UN would use airdrops if access to areas besieged by the regime did not improve by June 1. This was in line with an agreement earlier that month by more than 20 countries at a meeting co-chaired by Russia and the United States.

Most importantly, De Mistura did not rule out overriding regime objections.

Airdrops

He reiterated his position on June 3, but six days later said: We need government permission. That is obvious.

Except that it is not obvious at all. As of last month, the World Food Programme had made 35 airdrops to the town of Deir Az-Zor, which is besieged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), without seeking the groups consent.

The UN would gawk at the idea of doing so, so why does it readily accept seeking the permission of the regime, which is by far the largest besieger of Syrians?

According to the UN itself, as of the end of May 452,700 Syrians were besieged by the regime, representing more than three-quarters of the total number under siege.

It is perverse for the UN to seek the regimes permission to alleviate sieges that have long been one of its primary weapons of war.

This only strengthens that weapon in the absence of sanctions for non-compliance, because as the Syria Campaign says  citing World Food Programme statistics  the UN has allowed the Syrian government to direct aid from Damascus almost exclusively into its territories.

ALSO READ: Can the world provide Syrians with aid from above?

It is even more perverse to still expect regime cooperation given its track record. According to the UN itself, almost 90 percent of its requests for aid deliveries in 2015 were either ignored or denied.

Such inaction is simply unacceptable for a UN member state and signatory of the UN charter, Stephen OBrien, the under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, told the Security Council in January 2016.

One UN official said that the requests were already censored at the agency level, meaning that the number was kept low so as not to annoy the authorities.

Yet as of this month, De Mistura says the regimes promises should be taken at face value. It is farcical to rely on Damascus permission for airdrops to circumvent its non-compliance regarding land deliveries.

The risk of UN aircraft being shot down is cited as a reason for needing consent. However, it is inconceivable that the regime and its ally Russia would risk the international outrage, and military and political repercussions, of shooting down UN aircraft delivering humanitarian aid because the regime is refusing land access.

UN kowtowing goes beyond the issue of humanitarian aid. by

Chemical weapons

UN kowtowing goes beyond the issue of humanitarian aid. In 2013, it shamefully accepted the regimes demand that for investigators to be allowed into Syria to probe the use of chemical weapons, blame could not be assigned  not a demand that would be made by an innocent party.

The scope was thus limited to whether chemical weapons had been used, not who used them. With this lack of accountability, the presence of UN investigators has not prevented more chemical attacks.

Another example of the UNs subservience is its continued refusal to address the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the peace process. This may look impartial on the surface, but it has only served to keep him in power.

ALSO READ: Where next for Russia in Syria?

This is not simply a result of being hamstrung by opposing sides. In December 2015, Ban said: It is unacceptable that the whole Syrian crisis and the solution to the crisis have to be dependent on the fate of one man.

What is unacceptable is the attempt to sweep Assads central role in the conflict under the carpet, particularly when the UN itself has documented his regimes war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination, and when senior UN officials (including Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, head of the commission investigating war crimes in Syria, and former human rights chief Navi Pillay) have highlighted the regimes primary culpability.

The UN cannot in good conscience highlight the blood on Assads hands while willingly shaking them, and expect that this will bring peace or relief to the Syrian people.

Sharif Nashashibi is an award-winning journalist and analyst on Arab affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Gunmen kill local driver and abduct seven men working for Australian mining giant Macmahon near Calabar.

Gunmen in southern Nigeria have killed a local driver and kidnapped two Nigerians, three Australians, a New Zealander and a South African working for an Australian mining company, officials said.

The abduction happened in the Akpabuyo district near the capital of Cross River state, Calabar, at about 7am on Wednesday, Nigerian police said on Thursday.

Those taken were believed to be workers with Australian mining and engineering giant Macmahon, which was contracted to cement company LafargeHolcim in the state, police commissioner Jimoh Ozi-Obeh told reporters.

The police is currently working with the Nigerian Navy to ensure that the victims are released unharmed, he added.

READ MORE: Nearly 200 refugees die of starvation in Nigeria camp

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said they are working with Nigerian authorities to free their citizens.

We are working with the authorities, local authorities, at the highest levels, Turnbull told reporters in Geelong, Australia.

We dont know at this stage the identity of the kidnappers and families in Australia are notified, of course.

It is a very serious kidnapping, a very serious criminal assault, one person was killed and seven people have been kidnapped.

READ MORE: Five Poles abducted as pirates storm ship off Nigeria

Irene Ugbo, a spokeswoman for Cross River state police, said no ransom demand had been received.

One witness to the abduction, who asked not to be identified, said the kidnappers took the men to a waiting boat.

LafargeHolcim spokeswoman Viola Graham-Douglas said the company was informed of the incident by Macmahon, which was working with the security agencies to resolve the situation.

Macmahon has an $18m a year contract with the United Cement Company of Nigeria Ltd (UniCem) for quarrying operations at UniCems cement manufacturing plant at Mfamosing, near Calabar.

UniCem is a joint venture between Franco-Swiss conglomerate LafargeHolcim and Flour Mills of Nigeria, according to the Australian firms website.

Kidnapping for ransom has been a long-standing problem in southern Nigeria, particularly in the oil-producing delta region, where criminal gangs target wealthy Nigerians and expatriate workers.

Most are usually released after the payment of a ransom.
Millions of Britons voting in historic EU referendum that will shape British-EU ties for generations.

Millions of Britons are voting to decide whether the UK will remain a part of the European Union in a referendum that has divided the nation.

A record 46.5 million voters have signed up to weigh in on Thursdays referendum, which asks one, single question: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

The divisive referendum has sparked the greatest emergency in the EUs 60-year history.

The vote pits the Remain campaign, backed by British Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, against the Leave camp, led by the former London mayor, Conservative MP Boris Johnson.

Polling stations opened at 7am (06:00 GMT) and will close 10pm (21:00 GMT) local time.

PM Cameron and his wife Samantha cast their ballots early on Thursday at Londons Westminster Central Hall.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, voted Remain at a polling station in Glasgow.

I did so with head and heart because being in [the] EU is best for Scotland, she tweeted.

Rainstorms were expected to dampen turnout in London and other parts of southern England.

There are no official exit polls because polling experts say the lack of recent comparable votes in the UK could make the results less reliable.

Results from polling will, however, be released shortly after the ballots close.

Too close to call

A Populus poll, the final opinion poll carried out online ahead of the historic vote, gave the Remain campaign a 10-point lead over Leave. Populus said the survey of 4,700 people was carried out on Tuesday and up to midnight Wednesday night.

But on the eve of the historic vote, two polls  both conducted over the internet  put the Leave camp ahead by 1 or 2 percent.

Standing outside a fish-packing plant a day before the referendum, Leave camp leader Boris Johnson argued it was time to take back control of the UKs industries.

You take back control and I think it will be a big, big moment for democracy in this country and around Europe, said Johnson.

Brexit Q&A: All you need to know

Desperate to inject some pro-Europe passion late in the day on Wednesday, the prime minister and his allies made appeals to older voters, urging them to think of their children rather than their own nostalgic views of their country.

Think of one word that brings it all into one, which is together, because frankly if we want a bigger economy and more jobs were better if we do it together, said Cameron.

If we want to fight climate change, were better if we do it together. If we want to win against the terrorists and keep our country safe, were better if we do it together.

The Remain camp has said a British exit would be hugely destabilising in terms of security and the economy.

Supporters of the Leave campaign argue that a Brexit would be for the best; much of its campaign focused on tighter border controls and freedom from EU regulations on immigration and the economy.

Divisive, vile campaign

There is also concern about the divisive impact of the campaign, in particular the pro-Brexit camps focus on immigration.

The Mirror newspaper, which supports a Remain vote, has described it as the most divisive, vile and unpleasant political campaign in living memory.

One of the most contentious posters of the campaign was one published by the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP), showing a long queue of refugees under the headline Breaking Point.

The murder of Jo Cox, a passionate pro-European who had campaigned for Syrian refugees, brought only a temporary respite in the campaign.

Following her killing a week ago, the pound soared as several polls showed gains for the Remain camp, and it has kept its strength since. In early trading on Asian markets Thursday morning, Sterling reached its highest level of 2016.

If we destroy the European Union, which for all its faults has nevertheless delivered a tremendous amount of cohesion within our continent, I think the consequences of that are fairly unpredictable. So for that reason, I dont think thats something we should wish for, Conservative MP and Remain campaigner Dominic Grieve told Al Jazeera.

Out is out

EU leaders have warned there will be no turning back from a vote to quit the 28-member bloc.

Out is out, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels, dismissing any chances of a post-vote renegotiation of Britains EU membership terms.

French President Francois Hollande has said an exit by the UK would be irreversible.

The referendum has raised concerns across Europe that a British withdrawal could trigger a domino effect of exit votes and threaten the integrity of the bloc, already under severe strain from Eurozone and migration crises.

Even if it stays, the status quo will not be an option.

Whatever the result is going to be, we must take a long hard look at the future of the union. We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the UK referendum, EU President Donald Tusk warned this week.

Tusk has previously said that a British leave vote could lead to the destruction of not only the EU but also of Western political civilisation.

The EU was created after the Second World War as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. The movement for unity was led by France and Germany.

Q&A: All you need to know about the EU Referendum

EU referendum: Has UK politics ever been so ugly?

Heres why Brexit matters to GCC countries

Is the European Union still attractive?

Brexit and the spectre of Europes ugly nationalism

The UK, EU and Brexit: Who wins and who loses?

Brexit: UKIPs unethical anti-immigration poster

Brexit and Boris Johnson: A perfect political pairing?

Beyond the Brexit debate

Jo Cox killing: Has politics in the UK become too divisive and toxic?

Brexit: Making Britain great again?

Is Brexit driven by the fear of migrants?
A first voter survey suggests that a majority of British voters have opted to remain in the EU, YouGov poll projects.

Polls have closed across the United Kingdom after Britons voted on whether to quit the 28-nation European Union in a bitterly contested referendum that polarised the nation.

An early survey is suggesting voters have chosen to remain in the bloc.

The survey by pollster YouGov showed Remain ahead by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. Unlike a classic exit poll, it was based on online responses by a pre-selected sample of people rather than a survey of voters as they left polling stations.

Results are due to be announced by most of the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0000 GMT and 0300 on Friday.

The divisive referendum sparked the greatest emergency in the EUs 60-year history.

The vote pitted the Remain campaign, backed by British Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, against the Leave camp, led by the former London mayor, Conservative MP Boris Johnson.

Brexit Q&A: All you need to know

The Remain camp predicts economic doom if Britain leaves the EU while the Leave campaign warns of the perils of uncontrolled immigration unless Britain strikes out on its own.

Out is out

EU leaders warned there would be no turning back from a vote to quit the 28-member bloc.

Out is out, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels, dismissing any chances of a post-vote re-negotiation of Britains EU membership terms.

The referendum has raised concerns across Europe that a British withdrawal could trigger a domino effect of exit votes and threaten the integrity of the bloc, already under severe strain from Eurozone and migration crises.

Even if it stays, the status quo will not be an option.

Whatever the result is going to be, we must take a long hard look at the future of the union. We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the UK referendum, EU President Donald Tusk warned this week.

Tusk has previously said that a British leave vote could lead to the destruction of not only the EU but also of Western political civilisation.

The EU was created after the Second World War as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. The movement for unity was led by France and Germany.

Q&A: All you need to know about the EU Referendum

EU referendum: Has UK politics ever been so ugly?

Heres why Brexit matters to GCC countries

Is the European Union still attractive?

Brexit and the spectre of Europes ugly nationalism

The UK, EU and Brexit: Who wins and who loses?

Brexit: UKIPs unethical anti-immigration poster

Brexit and Boris Johnson: A perfect political pairing?

Beyond the Brexit debate

Jo Cox killing: Has politics in the UK become too divisive and toxic?

Brexit: Making Britain great again?

Is Brexit driven by the fear of migrants?
Rival sides in Britains referendum on European Union membership have made final appeals hours before the crucial vote.

Outlining his vision of a future with Britain retaining its position in the 28-nation bloc, Prime Minister David Cameron bristled at the notion that the country would be headed in the wrong direction if the Remain side prevailed in Thursdays vote.

We are not shackled to a corpse, Cameron told the BBC. You can see the European economys recovery. Its the largest single market in the world.

Watch: Brexit: Britain at the crossroads

Pushing for a British exit, or Brexit, the most notable figure on the Leave side, former London mayor Boris Johnson, mugged for the cameras at the Billingsgate Fish Market in East London and pretended to kiss a fish  a not-so-subtle reminder that this is an island nation that takes great pride in its independence and self-assurance.

Its time to break away from the failing and dysfunctional EU system, Johnson said. Its time to have a totally new relationship with our friends and partners across the Channel.

A day earlier, Johnson, a member of Conservative Party, clashed with London Mayor Sadiq Khan in a passionate debate at Wembley Arena.

The debate on Tuesday evening was a final opportunity for the two camps to win over voters, with polls showing an extremely tight race hours before a vote that will shape the future of Europe.

Brexit: Is the European Union still attractive?

Panellists locked horns over immigration, as the pro-EU London Mayor tore into his predecessor Boris Johnson, a key campaigner on the Leave side.

How much does the UK really pay the EU each week? One of the most disputed campaign issues is the Leave camps claim that the UK pays 350m  thats about $440m  to the European Union each week. It says that money would be better spent on things such as Britains squeezed universal healthcare system, the NHS. So, does the UK actually send millions to Brussels each week? Well its a grey area that needs a lot more context. The EU is funded by contributions from member states. Each week, Britains contribution is about $440m. But, and heres where it gets tricky, a fair chunk of that money gets returned. Theres an instant rebate that shaves about $135m off. A further $115m is given back to spend on EU projects in Britain. Its used for things such as farming subsidies and stimulus programmes in poorer areas. But the Leave campaign points out that the way that money is spent is largely decided by the EU, not Britain. Whats left is a contribution of about $250m a week  almost half the original figure. And the EU also gives about $40m to the UKs private sector each week, to fund things such as university research.  Barbara Serra

Youre telling lies and youre scaring people, Khan declared as he brandished a Leave leaflet warning that Turkey could join the EU.

Johnson threw the criticism back at Khan, saying the pro-EU side had run a Project Fear by warning that leaving the 28-member bloc would damage Britains economy.

The Conservative MP promised Britain an independence day on Thursday if it voted to leave, bringing sections of the audience to their feet in prolonged applause.

The prospect of Britain becoming the first state to defect from the EU in the blocs 60-year history has raised fears of a domino-effect collapse of the European project.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker flatly rejected suggestions that Britain might be able to negotiate better terms with the EU if it votes to leave. Out is out, he said.

Very hostile

As the audience filed into the 12,500-seat Wembley Arena, which often hosts global music stars, they were serenaded by pro-Remain demonstrators singing All You Need is Love.

Organisers Avaaz said the serenade was an attempt to counter the fear and division of the campaign.

But the two sides remained deeply opposed and the audience split among equally vocal Remain and Leave crowds.

Brexit Q&A: All you need to know

As the debate concluded, the Daily Mail newspaper announced that it was endorsing Brexit.





Lies. Greedy elites. Or a great future outside a broken, dying Europe, read its front page. If you believe in Britain vote Leave.

Two newspapers, the Daily Express and The Sun, carried front-page stories reporting that Queen Elizabeth II was challenging guests to give her three good reasons why Britain should stay in the EU.

Earlier this year, Buckingham Palace issued a rare complaint over a previous article by The Sun that claimed the queen favoured Brexit, a challenge to the monarchs long-held position of political neutrality.

The Times, which has backed Britain remaining in the EU, published a warning from hundreds of business leaders, including Virgin boss Richard Branson and US media mogul Michael Bloomberg, warning that Brexit could cause an economic shock.

Deeply uncertain

The outcome looked deeply uncertain, as a poll by Survation gave Remain 45 percent and Leave 44 percent, with 11 percent undecided.





Six major bookmakers showed the odds heavily pointing to a Remain vote, with the likelihood of Britain staying in put at around 80 percent. The latest surveys were mostly conducted after the brutal murder of Jo Cox, a 41-year-old Labour politician who campaigned to remain in the EU, who was shot and stabbed in her northern English constituency on Thursday.

Her alleged killer, 52-year-old Thomas Mair, gave his name as Death to traitors, freedom for Britain at his first appearance in court after being charged with her murder.

In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Coxs widower Brendan said she had been worried the debate may have been whipping up hatred.
Democrats say they will go back to their home districts to try to build support for legislation after a day of protest.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives on Thursday ended a day-long sit-in at the chamber to protest against the lack of action on gun control measures, Representative Steny Hoyer said.

Democratic members had taken over the House on Wednesday, sitting on the floor while chanting and singing, and stayed all night to push for gun control legislation after the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, even though Republicans adjourned the House and went home for a holiday break.

Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, told Reuters news agency politicians would now go back to their home districts to try to build support for legislation.

READ MORE: Gun control in the US is not a fantasy

Dramatic tactics by legislators are rare in the US Capitol and the protest underlined how sensitive the gun control issue has become after the June 12 massacre in which a US-born gunman killed 49 people.

The House Democrats were seeking votes on legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases, as well as measures to curb the sale of weapons to people on government watch lists.

Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, who dismissed the protest as a publicity stunt, refused to allow votes on two bills demanded by Democrats: one expanding background checks to include sales at gun shows and on the internet, and another that prevents people on the governments no-fly list or FBI watchlists from buying a gun.

Congress has not passed major gun control legislation since 1994, with gun rights defenders saying such measures infringe the constitutional right to bear arms.
Thousands of diaspora Eritreans march in support of UN report that accuses government of crime against humanity.

Thousands of Eritreans have rallied in Geneva against alleged human rights abuses committed by their government back home, expressing support for a new UN commission report that accuses the regime of crimes against humanity since 1991.

It is so important that we are here to show support to the Commission of Inquirys report when so much energy has been spent by the Eritrean regime and their supporters to discredit the findings of the report, Vanessa Berhe, who participated in the protest, told Al Jazeera.

I can confidently say that today marked a very important milestone in the Eritrean opposition movement in the diaspora by Feruz Kaissey, Activist

I can confidently say that today marked a very important milestone in the Eritrean opposition movement in the diaspora, Feruz Kaissey, a Stop Slavery in Eritrea campaigner, said.

Organisers claimed more than 10,000 people from all across Europe marched in front of the UN human rights office. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the numbers.

More than 10,000 justice-seeking Eritreans and their allies calling for an end to impunity and crimes against humanity in Eritrea flooded Geneva today, said Daniel Rezene Mekonnen, an Eritrean human rights defender.

Determined Eritreans

Selam Kidane, one of the organisers of Thursdays protests, came from the UK to demand justice.

We sincerely hope that the world will see how bad things are in Eritrea and how determined Eritreans are to ensure accountability, he said.

Everyday Eritrea: Resilience in the face of repression

The UN report, which calls for Eritrean leaders to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has angered pro-regime people.

On Tuesday, thousands of pro-government Eritreans rallied in front of the UN Human Rights office based in the Swiss city, saying the report was partial and full of lies.



UN: Eritrea government commits crime against humanity

People are expecting for the Eritrean President [Isaias Afwerki] and his close aides to be prosecuted at the ICC or in any other regional or national tribunal, Mekonnen said.

Hundreds of Eritrean refugees and dissidents also protested in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, against the government in authoritarian East African state.

Protests were held outside the headquarters of the African Union as well refugee camps across Ethiopia, which has no diplomatic relations with neighbouring Eritrea.

The protesters in Addis Ababa carried banners calling for the indictment of Eritreas president. They staged a mock execution and carried a coffin draped in Eritreas flag.

Everyone in Eritrea is very desperate at the moment due to the dire conditions at home, said Bashir Isaac Abdulla, an organiser of the demonstration. Many of them want to escape from the country by any means, and that is why we are witnessing a massive migration of the youth.

In its report released on June 8, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights said that the Eritrean government was guilty of committing crimes against humanity since independence a quarter-century ago with up to 400,000 people enslaved.

In Pictures: Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia

The crimes committed include imprisonment, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings, and rape and murder, said the report.

The forced labour of military conscripts is also a major problem in the country, the UN said.

About 5,000 Eritreans risk their lives each month to flee the nation where forcible army conscription can last decades.

Eritrean refugees are one of the largest groups trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. The UN report says 47,025 Eritreans applied for asylum in Europe in 2015.

The country ranks below North Korea as the worst in the world for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders.

This year I also saw many new arrivals at the demonstration, refugees who have survived the boat ride over the Mediterranean, Berhe, the activist, said.

This was all for them. For the victims of the Eritrean regime. Once again, I felt hope, she said.
Israel stands accused of using water as a weapon as some West Bank homes have gone without water for a week.

Salfit, occupied West Bank  Salfit sits atop an underground wealth of water, but the citys residents are forbidden from accessing it  and they are now in crisis, as Israels national water company, Mekorot, has reduced water supply to the northern West Bank.

Since the start of the month, residents of Salfit have been receiving between 30 and 40 percent of their normal water allowance, said Saleh Afaneh, the head of the local water and wastewater department.

On the first day of Ramadan, the water stopped for 24 hours, with no notice, Afaneh told Al Jazeera. Since then, it has been coming in at less than half the capacity. Weve done everything we can to try and make residents comfortable, but this is a crisis.

He hasnt slept in two days, the citys mayor, Shaher Eshtieh, cut in. Weve never seen anything like this; we are in full crisis mode, working around the clock to help our people, but we are doing this on our own  Weve continuously reached out to the Palestinian government, the prime minister even, but theyve been no help, and the Israelis are denying there is a problem.

A Palestinian Authority spokesperson did not immediately respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment.

READ MORE: Israel  Water as a tool to dominate Palestinians

Water shortages and cuts have also been reported throughout the northern Jenin and Nablus districts of the West Bank, although Israels Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, the Israeli body in charge of the occupied West Bank, denied water had been cut or reduced at all.

In a statement, COGAT said the shortages in the Jenin area were reported due to a broken water pipe that had since been repaired. COGAT also stated that a pipe had burst in Salfit, although local water officials said they had no knowledge of this.

Water is running under our ground while our taps run dry ... The people are getting angry. They won't continue to accept this. by Shaher Eshtieh, Salfit mayor

The Israeli water company Mekorot, meanwhile, said that owing to shortages in the water supply, it had made a broad reduction of the supply to all residents in the area, referring to both Israeli settlements and Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank.

Camilla Corradin, the advocacy task force coordinator for the Emergency, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (EWASH) group, told Al Jazeera that Israel is using water as a weapon.

EWASH believes that Israel has managed to achieve a water surplus, thanks to its advanced water and wastewater technology and its control over Palestinian water resources, Corradin said.

There are little excuses left not to give Palestinians back their water rights, so that Palestinian towns and villages will no longer be left without the most basic of rights  water  in hot summer months.

While the city of Salfit goes through water shortages every summer, Eshtieh said he had never experienced such a dire crisis. Its an emergency situation; even right now our municipality building has no water, he added.

Some residents said they had gone more than a week at a time without water in their homes since the start of this month. Sweat dripped down the face of Marwan Marayta, a resident of Salfit, as he walked home in the beating sun near the city centre.

For the past three days, my house has had a bit of water, just enough for drinking and cooking  not cleaning or anything  but before that, we were without any water at all for more than a week, he said. It would be hard to live without water under normal circumstances, but during Ramadan we are all fasting and its so hot, this is miserable.

Some residents have taken to buying water from trucks that come through the city, but the price of private water has skyrocketed since the start of the crisis.

The trucks will fill up one water tank for between 75 and 150 shekels ($19-$25), but many of us cant afford that, Marayta said. I filled one of mine up with a private truck once, but I havent been able to pay for it yet.

Each house has between four and eight tanks on the roof to supply water. With the average monthly wage in the West Bank at around $600 a month, the costs of supplying a home with private water are out of reach for most residents.

Eshtieh accused the private water trucks of extortion, and outlawed them in Salfit for the time being.

What used to cost residents nine shekels ($2) to fill a tank normally is now 100 shekels from a truck? No, I wont have that in my city. I told the police force not to allow these water trucks in. Those kind of prices are not fair. Its not right, the mayor said.

Jameel Shaheed, a dairy farmer in Salfit, said he would have to shut down within weeks if the water crisis was not solved. If there is no water, there is no milk from my cows, Shaheed said. Before I was using my trucks to deliver milk around the city, but now I am using them to bring water back and forth.

Salfit gets most of its water from the mountain aquifer, the most significant of the three aquifers that supply water to Palestinians and Israelis. The vast majority of the mountain aquifer is within the West Bank, but under the Oslo Accords, only 17 percent of the aquifers water goes to Palestinians, while more than 71 percent goes to Israelis in Israel and its illegal settlements.

Even during normal consumption periods, Palestinians receive an average of 73 litres per capita per day, well below the World Health Organization minimum standard of 100 litres, and much lower than the 240-300 litres Israelis and Israeli settlers receive.

While Palestinians could theoretically build their own wells to access the plentiful groundwater, Israel rarely grants permission, Eshtieh said. In Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control, COGAT documented that on average, 99 percent of all requests to build wells are approved  but it did not differentiate between Palestinian requests and Israeli settler requests. Around 70 percent of Area C falls within the boundaries of illegal Israeli settlement councils.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between 2011 and 2014, only 1.4 percent of building permit requests from Palestinians in Area C were approved by COGAT  including wells, homes, sheds and other structures.

Salfit is one of the most water-rich lands in the West Bank, but look at us  we cant access it, Eshtieh said. Water is running under our ground while our taps run dry  The people are getting angry. They wont continue to accept this.
Residents of Dhiban clash with paramilitary units, demanding employment and better economic conditions in the region.

Protesters have clashed with police and paramilitary units at a demonstration in a town south of Amman, demanding jobs and better economic conditions for their region.

Residents and tens of protesters in the town of Dhiban, 70km south of the capital, had erected a tent in the towns main square, which they used as headquarters while they negotiated with police and government officials.

Police took down the tent overnight on Wednesday and dispersed the protesters by force.

Witnesses quoted by the local media accused the government of using force against them as they protested against their economic conditions peacefully.

Poverty and unemployment

Unemployment in Jordan is about 28 percent, according to World Bank figures.

The district of Dhiban is home to about 50,000 people and is one of the poorest regions in Jordan. The majority of its residents rely on government agencies and the military for employment.

The main demands of the residents of Dhiban are economic development and to have investment in the region in order to create jobs for people to support their families, Jamal Mohamad, a resident of Dhiban, told Al Jazeera.

We have no political demands other than improving our dire conditions, he said.

A statement by the paramilitary police, the Gendarmerie, said three of its troops were wounded by gunshots fired from the direction of the protesters.

It described the protesters as outlaws and said it was conducting its duty to arrest several law breakers when its members were shot.

The statement said the police had arrested 22 protesters.

Dhiban was the centre of the so-called Arab uprising in Jordan in 2011 when it ignited wider protests in the country, mainly over poor economic conditions.

It was the first Jordanian city to hold public demonstrations against the governments economic policies.

Many Jordanians in the region say the main reason for the governments alleged poor economic planning is corruption and lack of commitment to improve the economic conditions for the middle class.

Jordan is a country of about seven million people with a total GDP of $35bn, according to the World Bank. The average yearly income is about $5,000, which makes the country one of the poorest in the region.

Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ali_reports
The Israeli PM to meet Kerry and Mogherini to fight pressure over settlement growth on occupied Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to fly to Rome for three days of intense diplomacy as the the Middle East Quartet is expected to use strong language against his settlements policy in a forthcoming report.

Netanyahu will fly to the capital of Italy on Sunday to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Unions foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini.

The Middle East Quartet, a mediation group made up of the US, EU, UN and Russia, is expected to use unusually tough language in criticising Israels expansion of settlements on occupied land that the Palestinians seek for an independent state.

It is unclear whether the wording may be softened before the report is issued, probably next week, although its publication has already been delayed several times.

Israels water cuts: West Bank in full crisis mode

As it stands, the language is strong and Israel isnt going to like it, said one diplomat briefed on the content. But its also not saying that much that hasnt been said before  that settlements are a serious obstacle to peace.

On Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appealed to the EU for help to end Israels occupation of Palestinian territories and support for a lasting peace agreement.

You are our friends, help us, Abbas told EU politicians in Brussels. Israel has turned our country into an open-air prison.

Why is international law not being applied in the case of Israel? he said to applause.

Defence agreement

Netanyahu is expected to talk to Kerry about a series of other issues, including how to conclude drawn-out negotiations with Washington on a new 10-year defence agreement.

There is also the looming issue of a peace conference organised by the French that is supposed to convene in the autumn, although it may no longer take place in Paris.

Israeli officials oppose the initiative, seeing it as sidestepping the need for Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate directly. They argue that it provides the Palestinians with a chance to internationalise the conflict rather than dealing with it on the ground.

Palestinian family resists eviction: I will not leave

Israelis are also concerned that the conference may end up fixing a timeframe for an agreement on ending Israels 49-year-old occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

If that does not emerge from the French plan, it remains possible that a resolution along similar lines could be presented to the United Nations Security Council before the end of the year.

Netanyahu is expected to discuss the issue with UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday in Jerusalem.
Peacekeepers reprimanded over lack of responsiveness during deadly attack on refugee camp in Malakal in February.

The United Nations has said that it will send peacekeepers home over a lack of responsiveness during a bloody attack on a UN-run camp in South Sudan in February.

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous acknowledged on Wednesday that an investigation had found inadequacies in peacekeepers response when gunmen in military uniforms stormed the camp in the northeastern town of Malakal on February 17 and 18, firing on civilians and setting shelters ablaze.

The attack on the camp, where about 48,000 people were sheltering, left at least 40 dead and 123 wounded.

Nearly 20,000 people lost their homes after they were torched by the attackers based on the occupants tribal affiliation.

There was a lack of responsiveness by some, a lack of understanding of the rules of engagement by some, said Ladsous, who refused to single out any individuals.

INSIDE STORY: Is South Sudan finally on its way to peace?

I will not name names but there will be repatriations of units and of individual officers.

At the time of the attack, the peacekeeping force was made up of contingents from Ethiopia, India and Rwanda.

I can assure you that there will be a follow-up as there has been in other theatres of operation, Ladsous said.

Initial findings of an internal UN investigation found that there was confusion with respect to command and control and a lack of coordination among the various civilian and uniformed peacekeepers during the attack.

A UN military official in Malakal told Al Jazeera that Ethiopian peacekeepers had abandoned their posts during the attack.

The same official said that the peacekeeping contingent from Rawanda had asked, in writing, for permission to fire their weapons as the base came under attack, even though peacekeepers are licensed to use force to protect civilians.





Attackers entered in the backyard of a UN base and proceeded to shoot and kill civilians and to systematically burn down large parts of the camp, as peacekeepers responded slowly and ineffectively, said Matt Wells, a senior adviser on peacekeeping at the Center for Civilians in Conflict.

The medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders said the UN had failed in its duty to safeguard the people at the site and could have averted many fatalities.

Many of those who sought shelter at the UN site in Malakal arrived shortly after Sudans civil war began in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar, who he had sacked earlier that year, of plotting a coup.

Civil war broke out when soldiers from Kiirs Dinka ethnic group disarmed and targeted troops of Machars Nuer ethnic group. Machar and commanders loyal to him fled, and tens of thousands of people died in the civil war that followed.

A peace agreement signed in August collapsed and fighting continues in many parts of the country, despite both leaders joining a unity government two months ago.

The attack in Malakal threatens to deepen the conflict further. Leaders of the Shilluk ethnic group, the third largest tribe in the country who hail from Malakal, say that if they are not given their land back, fighting could ensue.
Syrian Democratic Forces enter the ISIL stronghold backed by US-led air strikes in the northern Syrian city.

Kurdish and Arab fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have entered a key northern city of Manbij, an ISIL stronghold, the forces and monitoring group have said.

SDF was advancing slowly to the centre of Manbij on Thursday after entering the city backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Nasser Haj Mansour, an adviser to the SDF, said the forces moved into the city on Wednesday from its northern edge, close to its grain silos which are still controlled by ISIL.

Fierce street fighting between buildings erupted as they entered the city, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the chief of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said progress was likely to be slow as SDF forces were facing booby-traps planted by the jihadists to try to prevent the loss of the city.

INSIDE STORY: Is there still a political way out of Syrias crisis?

Abdel Rahman said tens of thousands of civilians were trapped inside the city, though some 8,000 had been able to flee since the start of the SDF offensive on Manbij on May 31.

There were fears that ISIL would use civilians as human shields inside the city, which had a population of about 120,000 before the start of Syrias civil war in 2011.

The SDF managed to encircle the city on June 10 but its advance slowed as ISIL fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.

A major breakthrough

The advance marked a major breakthrough in the battle for Manbij, once a key link on the supply route between the Turkish border and ISILs de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

ISIL has held the city since 2014, the year ISIL seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its caliphate.

Formed in October 2015, the 25,000-strong SDF is dominated by the powerful Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) but includes an Arab contingent that has been steadily growing to around 5,000 fighters.

As well as air support, coalition countries have provided ground advisers to the SDF, including about 200 US special forces.

The Manbij assault has coincided with another offensive launched by Syrian regime forces against ISIL in its stronghold province of Raqqa.

Backed by Russian warplanes, government forces re-entered the province this month as part of an offensive to retake Tabqa, another key town on the ISIL supply route to the Turkish border.

But after advancing to within 7km of Tabqa airbase, they were driven back late on Monday in an ISIL counter-attack that killed 40 loyalists.

Three Russian soldiers supporting regime troops in the area were seriously wounded on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine, the Observatory said. They were recovered by Russian forces.

Syrias conflict began five years ago with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.
Thousands of Syrian refugees are cut off from humanitarian assistance after border attack, aid workers say.

Amman  Tens of thousands of Syrians refugees, trapped at the border with Jordan, are left without water, food or medical care as humanitarian agencies have been denied access to the border area, aid workers say.

Around 60,000 people are currently without food, water or healthcare. They have nothing, said Hala Shamlawi, spokesperson at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The border closure came as a response to a cross-border attack that killed six guards and injured 14. The attack took place near the informal settlement at Ruqban on the northeast Jordanian border with Syria. The area, located behind a raised sand barrier or berm that marks the border, was declared a closed military zone immediately after the attack.

The northern border is Syrians only route into Jordan.

On Thursday, Amnesty International said Jordans response to the deadly car bomb attack on its border should not entail closing the border and denying humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing armed conflict.

Mohammed al-Momeni, the Jordanian governments spokesperson, said his country would not establish any new Syrian refugee camps, and would not expand existing ones.

For the past year, the settlement at Ruqban has been growing exponentially as fleeing Syrians, desperate for an opportunity to be among the few hundred that have been allowed into the country daily, mass at Jordans strictly controlled border.

There's nothing there, it's a desert area, devoid of all water and basic services. The people there ... have nothing. by Hala Shamlawi, ICRC spokesperson

Those who managed to escape the berm, and settled at Azraq refugee camp, say the place is ruled by gangs and criminals who exploit the desperation of vulnerable people.

The situation at the border is really tough, said one refugee who recently left the border for Azraq camp, and preferred to remain anonymous. Many refugees report living in fear of violence, riots and exploitation, which frequently denied them access to aid.

Jordan does not recognise the settlement to be within its territory  though this interpretation has been disputed by Human Rights Watch, which said the settlements were in desert areas just inside Jordans border with Syria.

A day before the bombing, refugees were forced to cross over the berm to access aid, before returning to their tents on the other side.

Theres nothing there, its a desert area, devoid of all water and basic services, said Shamlawi. People there have been dependent on humanitarian service since they got to the berm.

OPINION: The end of the refugee camp?

Jordans Border Guard say that Daesh [ISIL, also known as ISIS] operatives move among those seeking help. Its this threat thats necessitated tight border controls, and officials have taken the bombing as grim proof of the spectre of terrorism posed by the camp.

Jordanian officials also say the security breach demonstrates that this small country has taken its fair share of refugees, that it can no longer offer sanctuary and support at the same scale, and that the international community must intervene.

Jordan has borne a heavy burden that no country in the world has experienced in relation to the waves of refugees, Nasser Judeh, foreign secretary, said after the attack. The world must shoulder its responsibilities and respect Jordans decisions, especially the ones related to its security.

There are currently some 650,000 Syrian refugees registered by the UN in Jordan, although the Jordanian government gives higher estimates. Earlier this year, Jordan secured pledges of $1.7bn in international donations to support the refugees on its territory.





International NGOs, including ICRC and the World Food Programme, are currently in negotiations with Jordanian border troops over access to the border area. Though some aid agencies have evacuated, ICRC remains at Ruweishid, where aid operations to refugees stranded at the border is based.

We are in dialogue with other organisations and will continue talks with the government over the coming days to find out what is workable, Shamlawi said.

Owing to the highly sensitive nature of negotiations, most aid workers stressed that it was impossible to draw clear conclusions about what will happen in the coming days.

Tuesdays attack is a worst-case scenario in a context that humanitarian workers have long been describing as a disaster. The structural nature of the place is very difficult, and its more so in Ramadan, Shamlawi said. Frustration is widespread among the people, because they have spent months there.

According to aid workers, some refugees are returning to Syria after losing hope that humanitarian aid will be resumed. Where they will go is unclear as many fled Daesh-held territory.

It will affect the refugees issue here in Jordan, one Syrian refugee, a mother and teacher who preferred not to be named, told Al Jazeera. She is now living in Azraq camp, glad to have escaped when she did. She looks back on times spent at Ruqban camp with a shudder.

Its already a disaster on the border, she said. How will it be after that attack?
           2005     ..        
Dan Kimerling, head of API banking for Silicon Valley Bank, is nothing if not blunt.

"The biggest problem banks have is that they're run by bankers, not software engineers," he said to a room full of bankers at American Banker's Digital Banking 2016 conference in New Orleans on Wednesday. "Banking will eventually become a software business, because all they do is move bits. They call it money, but it's just bits."

No one in the ballroom batted an eye. (These were digital bankers, after all.)

Opens APIs: A Banker's Guide Application programming interfaces allow software programs to talk to each other. They are a potential solution to the current industry standoff over sharing of bank customer data with aggregation sites; in the long term, they could transform how banking is done, making customer relationships less sticky but opening up new revenue models for financial institutions. This paper lays out the basic issues surrounding APIs. May 18

Bank technology Silicon Valley Bank Hires API Startup Team to Expand Digital Banking Standard Treasury team joined SVB Financial's information technology team this week to help it expand the bank's digital banking platform. August 6

Bank technology Wells Fargo's Bid to Vanquish Screen Scraping The archaic practice of using customers' online banking credentials to copy and paste their account information into other programs has been under fire. With a new API, Wells Fargo hopes to bring this practice to an end. June 7

Fourteen years after Jeff Bezos famously put out a memo to all of Amazon's software development teams, ordering them to create application programming interfaces for every program, some bankers say their industry ought to do the same. And it's not just the ones in Silicon Valley.

"It has to be part of the DNA of everything we build," Chris Thompson, chief architect at Orrstown Bank of Shippensburg, Pa., said at the Wednesday panel discussion. "APIs can't be a bolt-on or an add-on after the fact."

Twice, Thompson used a modified version of a famous tech industry rallying cry: "data wants to be free."

"It's already floating around," he said. In many community banks, critical functions and business processes are handled with stale copies of data in flat files.

"An API can make that staleness go away," he said. "Especially in certain risk scenarios, more timely access to data can create a compelling business case."

Silicon Valley Bank was one of the first banks to offer APIs to its commercial clients, which include some of the largest tech companies in the world.

"Our customers demand API accessibility and real-time interoperability," said Kimerling, who joined the bank last year when it acquired his startup, Standard Treasury. "Customers don't understand why they can't interact with anyone over API. We recognize how much an open architecture helps in our own business." Such architecture helped the bank forge a partnership this year with hypercool payment processing company Stripe, and similar partnerships are expected.

For community banks, Thompson said, the oligopoly of core financial technology vendors gets in the way of fully exploring an API strategy.

"It's an ecosystem of products where we have a little bit of flexibility to customize, but not to radically alter the platform capabilities," he said.

Banks can mitigate the problem by presenting a united front to the vendors, he said.

"Finding like-minded bankers who are willing to think about what the right solutions are and then ganging up on Jack Henry, Fiserv and FIS to alter features is effective," Thompson said. "If you come with 50 other financial institutions and say, 'We all want this, can we all support this?' we can force a little bit of change."

Kimerling suggested that community banks should make their core systems open-source. "It's galling that these three companies are holding back so much innovation," he said. "Red Hat gives away their software and people pay Red Hat for service and support functions. So why isn't there a business that does this in the core banking space?"

The sharing and mining of customers' data raises clear security and privacy issues, but panelists argued they could be easily overcome.

"There's been a debate around whose data is it," Kimerling said. "I think that's a bit of a canard. It is the customer's data. We can acknowledge that for what it is. But when you look at other companies like Google, gmail is your email, but Google sniffs the digital exhaust and monetizes that digital exhaust. In banking, by trusting us with their data, customers give us some right to monetize the digital exhaust. I've been surprised by how the banking business has not followed Google's lead by mining the data and monetizing it with ads or something."

Thompson said Orrstown Bank has been working on data monetization. "You can look at the commercial entities in our system, the money they have, who the guarantors and co-signers are on those loans," he said. "You can look at that and map a social graph of where the money is and the centers of influence in communities and use that as a prospect list. Our customers trusted us. They've taken out a line of credit with us. But we can leverage that data without getting creepy."

Financial institutions feel more obliged to not be creepy than tech companies, Kimerling said. "The way I look at it, Google has an amazing amount of data. In fact, my gmail account is way more valuable and important to me than my bank account. Why aren't we way more aggressive about monetizing data?"

Nicole Sturgill, analyst at CEB TowerGroup, said the problem is that consumers distrust financial institutions. ("A reasonable distrust," Kimerling quickly added.)

"We know that as an industry, banks are going to get blamed a whole lot faster than Google if they are seen to be using a customer's data in a way that consumer doesn't like," Sturgill said.

The best use case for APIs in banking, in her view, it to figure out what to do with internal data.

Banks, she said, "don't even know how to use it internally well to serve customers better, to offer products and services that are customized for them, to minimize risk."

Kimerling brought up the debate over screen scraping (a practice to which banks increasingly object, citing security and practicality issues). "The problem is that banks don't allow open access to their data," he said. "If banks allowed their customers open access to their data, you wouldn't need scrapers, you wouldn't need aggregators. And as customers want to do more things with their own data, banks need to invest in their own data infrastructure or collaborate with third parties."

Thompson agreed. "Customers are going to share their data whether you enable it or not," he said. "They could do it in a comfortable way that you understand and support."

Editor at Large Penny Crosman welcomes feedback at penny.crosman@sourcemedia.com.


First United Bank in Durant, Okla., has agreed to buy American Bank of Texas in Sherman.

The $3 billion-asset First United did not disclose how much it will pay for the $2.3 billion-asset American Bank. The deal is expected to close later this year.

American Bank "is a strong, successful bank and has been a treasured partner in the communities it has served," Greg Massey, First United's chief executive, said in a press release Tuesday. "We are committed to continuing this legacy and will remain a pillar in the communities we serve."

American Bank is owned by Dorothy and Lacy Harber.

First United was advised by D.A. Davidson and McAfee & Taft.
Community bankers are unexpectedly caught up in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposal to rein in payday lending, with some saying the plan would jeopardize their ability to provide cash-strapped customers with small-dollar loans.

Roughly 75% of community banks currently offer small-dollar loans to customers, though many do not actively advertise them. Such loans typically make up less than 3% of a community bank's overall loan portfolio, according to the Independent Community Bankers of America.

On its face, the CFPB's plan could make offering such loans a compliance headache at the very least. But bankers said they plan to offer them regardless because their customers need them.

"We will find a way to offer the loans," says H. McCall Wilson, president and CEO of the $425 million-asset Bank of Fayette County in Piperton, Tenn. "This sounds tacky, but we're the answer to a prayer when these consumers need someone to help them."

Thomas Richards, president and chief executive of the $63 million-asset Owingsville Banking Co. in Kentucky, agreed.

"We will continue to make these loans," he said.

Community bankers are lumped in with payday and installment lenders in trying to figure out how to provide small-dollar loans that fit within the CFPB's complex, 1,341-page proposal.

The CFPB's plan would cover short-term payday loans, auto title loans, deposit advance products, certain (but not all) installment loans and open-end lines of credit. (Overdraft services on deposit accounts are excluded from the proposal.)

Under the plan, all lenders have the option to determine if a borrower has the ability to repay a loan, with fees and finance charges, and still meet basic living expenses. For many community bankers, however, the income verification and record keeping requirements are too stringent to be workable.

Lenders that offer short-term loans of up to $500 with terms of less than 45 days can choose an alternative, principal payoff option. But lenders would be barred from taking an auto title as collateral  another potential deal-killer for community bankers.

"We try to get a piece of collateral, even if it's a 1992 Corolla," Richards said. "We'll take anything over being unsecured."

For longer-term loans, typically a sweet spot for community banks, lenders have two alternatives if they do not verify a borrower's ability to repay. They can meet the parameters of the National Credit Union Administration's "payday alternative loans" program, where the interest rate is capped at 28% and the application fee is $20 or less.

A third option would be to offer loans with an all-in cost of 36% or less, excluding a "reasonable" origination fee. The loan's term cannot exceed two years and the lender's projected default rate cannot exceed 5%, or the lender would have to refund the origination fees.

Joe Gormley, an assistant vice president and regulatory counsel for the ICBA, said "the totality" of the restrictions will mean most community bankers are "going to get out" of small-dollar loans.

"The bankers we've talked to don't see a way to serve the market with these restrictions," Gormley said. "It would be a real shame if community banks are forced to stop making these types of loans."

The CFPB is soliciting public comment on its proposal through Sept. 14.

Joe Rodriguez, of counsel at Morrison & Foerster and a former Southeast regional counsel at the CFPB, said he thinks banks, credit unions and fintech firms will structure loans under the NCUA credit union model because of the potential to charge annual percentage rates above 100%, which would make the loans profitable.

"This is where many institutions will operate if they are extending short-term credit, because there is flexibility in structuring the loans, and in certain cases, the APR can be over 100%," Rodriguez said. "Many more borrowers would be able to qualify than under the 36% APR option the rule otherwise allows, and they'd get better terms than from a payday operation. So from the CFPB's perspective an APR of 100% is better than 400%."

Richards at Owingsville Banking is considering the credit union option, also known as PALs. He is also weighing extending all of the bank's short-term loans to a longer term of at least a year. Since 2013, Owingsville has made 1,563 small-dollar loans. The average loan was for $2,825 over 19 months, with an interest rate of 12%. The bank's chargeoff rate was a paltry 0.9%.

Richards argues that bankers overseen by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should be exempt from the CFPB's plan.

"The name of the regulation is payday lending, so why in the world are they dragging banks and credit unions into it?" Richards asked. "Banks and credit unions are not taking advantage of their own customers. They should apply the plan to nonbank entities that are making these abusive loans."

The CFPB designed its proposal, in part, to reduce loan rollovers that trap consumers into debt. (A CFPB study found that 80% of payday loans are rolled over or renewed, and nearly 80% of borrowers do not pay down principal when they roll over a loan.) The plan also aims to restrict lenders from directly withdrawing payments from borrowers' bank accounts, which can lead to repeat fees.

But there are other restrictions, such as giving consumers written notice before attempting to debit a checking account to collect payment, that bankers object to because they would increase costs.

Not every small-dollar loan is profitable. Wilson at Bank of Fayette County recalled lending $220 in 2014 to a customer who needed to get her teeth fixed. She paid the loan back in four months. The bank earned $7 plus a $50 fee, even though processing costs were $100.

"I agree it's an incredibly expensive product," Wilson said. "A small-dollar loan should be simple, easy to make, easy to understand and tailored to the borrower. It shouldn't require 1,500 pages of regulations."


Hi, my name is AR-15. Some of you know me, but many more of you know of me -- through the media. But you may not know the real me.

Im that cool, sleek-looking black gun youve seen profiled by the press. They put me in newspapers and on TV, showing my picture as if its a mug shot, even though Ive never committed a crime. Oh, bad people have at times used (and abused) me to do bad things, but not really that often; as even The New York Times admitted in 2014, firearms such as me -- which that paper and others call assault weapons -- are only used in two percent of gun crimes (most are perpetrated with handguns).

And thats another thing. For a long time I didnt mind the misnomer; it massaged my ego and made me feel like the big man on the block when I was called an assault weapon. But Mr. Duke convinced me that pride goeth before a fall, as the Good Book says. He pointed out that the term assault weapon was popularized by anti-gun zealot Josh Sugarmann, whose goal was to besmirch my reputation and get me banned. In fact, Sugarmann, not at all a sweet man, actually once said, Assault weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -- anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

And its true, especially in my case. The public knows my appearance well; people have seen my cousin and dead ringer, M-16, fired machine-gun style in war movies for decades. But, alas, I, AR-15 -- the weapon available to the public -- can only be fired semi-automatic. This means that every time you pull my trigger, one shot, and only one shot, is released.

So even if we accept the term assault weapon, thats not me. To qualify, a gun must be capable of fully automatic fire (machine-gun style), and no such weapons are readily available to the public. So unlike cousin M-16, who originally had a select-fire feature allowing him to be shot in various ways, Im just a one-trick pony.

Despite this, Ive become a media whipping boy. Even when those rare crimes are committed in which a gun of my class is used, but which dont involve me personally  such as the horrific Orlando incident, where Muslim terrorist Omar Mateen used a Sig Sauer MCX  my face is front and center. In fact, thats what finally inspired me to speak out, articles such as this outrageous one from Daily News writer Gersh Kuntzman. Reporting on how he tried me at a Philly gun range, he actually wrote:

The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don't know what you're doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions -- loud like a bomb -- gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

None of the above is true; I know because I was there. Oh, in my younger and more impetuous days, I wouldve gotten a thrill out of being portrayed as such a macho guy. But the Truth will set you free (something the propagandizing Mr. Kuntzman should ponder).

And the truth is that I never bruised Mr. Kuntzman. One thing I can rightly puff up my chest over is that I have very little recoil because Im high-tech -- my mechanism is designed to absorb much of the energy of the blast. And you dont have to take my word for it. Mr. Duke had the opportunity years ago to fire me on multiple occasions, and he says that I have by far the least kick of any firearm he ever used. And if you dont believe him, trust your own eyes. Below is a video of a seven-year-old girl trying me for the first time (forward to 2:55 if you want to see just the actual firing).

Did the little lass say Ow! or register discomfort in any way? Did she rub her shoulder? A 12-gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot could have knocked that little tyke on her kiester, but me? Also know that Kuntzman fired me only three times before bowing out, grousing that I was a dangerous weapon. And that fact, my friends, comes from Frank Stelmach, who was quoted by Kuntzman and who owns the gun range the journalist visited. You see, Mr. Duke actually called Stelmach, and one of the first things the man said to Duke -- as he complained of how Kuntzman misrepresented his words and the experience at the range -- was It would be nice if journalists would write what you actually say!

And by the by, Stelmach said that Kuntzman never mentioned anything about his shoulder or expressed that he was experiencing any kind of discomfort. Stelmach also called the notion that an ultra-low-recoil weapon such as me could bruise a grown mans shoulder nonsense.

As for my explosions being loud like a bomb, well, I can belt out a song, but not like some other firearms. And no wonder. I fire the .223 cartridge, a small-caliber round the same diameter as a .22 (yes, .22s are those cute little rounds you put in your Marlin as a kid). Of course, my round is a lot more powerful than a .22 (in your face, Marlin!), but just take a look at these killing power rankings of rifle rounds. Its hard to admit, but my small .223 has the second least power of the 41 cartridges listed. In fact, when a lady friend of Mr. Dukes tried me years ago, she remarked that, owing to my almost non-existent recoil, I was like a toy. Its quite emasculating.

Of course, then there are my magazines; for the Kuntzmans of the world, no, those arent things you read that usually contain liberal propaganda. Theyre objects loaded with cartridges that, assuming theyre removable, you then insert into firearms. Its true that high-capacity magazines are available for me. But criminals would always get them on the black market; moreover, with just a bit of effort, any guns removable magazine can be modified to hold a large number of rounds. So why am I singled out?

The answer is simple: my looks -- and others prejudices. Take a gander at me below:

Am I not a sharp-looking guy? Black is beautiful!

But its also seen as menacing, especially by liberals in the media. Face it, since Im functionally no different from other legal firearms -- semi-automatic just as most guns sold in America are -- I can only conclude that Im profiled as dangerous because of my sleek military-like appearance and my color. If I looked like those much more powerful hunting rifles, would you really be troubling over me?

As Mr. Duke likes to put it, this is standard liberal style over substance. Never sparing my ego, he points out that assuming Im a machine gun because I look like cousin M-16 is akin to putting a Porsche body on a Yugo chassis and expecting to go 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds. Of course, my self-image will survive, but being misunderstood, mischaracterized and discriminated against is a bit depressing.

Its enough to make me want to shoot myself.

This piece was written by AR and edited by Selwyn Duke for grammar, punctuation and style

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

To contact the author, email the above and write Att: AR
Throughout the world, the fundamental problem we face is the hyper-centralization of sovereignty. In America, the vast majority of problems in government would begin at once to heal naturally if the limitless credit card of the federal government, the dimwitted bullying of federal courts and bureaucracies, and the myopia of national media were not consumed by the cesspool on the Potomac.

When Governor Perry began his campaign for the nomination in 2012, he had the best theme of any candidate since Reagan: make what happens in Washington the least important thing in the lives of ordinary Americans. That is the solution to our most pressing political problems: decentralize sovereignty back, where it was always supposed to be, with the states.

More and more conservatives ought to ask themselves what the federal government is doing that could better be done by others

Any currency  banknotes backed by gold, for example  would be better than the Monopoly money issued by that farcical creature, the Federal Reserve System.

The federal government does not protect our borders or keep out terrorists or wage war to win or protect our intellectual property or do anything but engage in destructive and malicious meddling with the American states and the American people. It is the tool of angry ideologues and the milk cow for the true plutocrats, the lobbying and government mafia.

The second part of that decentralization of sovereignty is, of course, to take as much sovereignty as can be possibly transferred and then give that back to individuals or to families or to small communities of like-minded folks who just want to be left alone. There are a few things we really need from state governments but even states are largely now bottomless pits of over-funded programs doing nothing anyone really wants.

Even those few things of value that government does today could be privatized or devolved to local governments, which are truly responsive to the voters and whose foul-ups would cause people to move across city lines and cause property values to plummet  creating a marketplace that works even when politicians did not.

It is a stunning and grim fact that in this presidential election year of profoundly disaffected voters, the most important issue, the radical decentralization of sovereignty, hardly registers a blip in the rhetoric of the candidates and federal politicians, and candidates talk as if problems not "solved" by Washington cannot be solved at all.

What is true in America is true everywhere. The decentralization of sovereignty in Europe has been profoundly liberating  just ask the Irish, the Croats, the Bosnians, the Slovaks, the Montenegrins, the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians...and so on.

The horror that is the European Union is held together now by invested national politicians, greedy pseudo-capitalists, and vast barracks of bureaucrats. These groups always howl at the imagined dangers of decentralization of power because the only value that they have is the calculated and murky manipulation of centralized power producing tawdry bribes and substitutes for the real blessing of liberty. The EU has degraded into a grinning goblin of that worst horror of internationalism, the United Nations, the enemy of truth and freedom everywhere.

Less noticed but no less important than the grave danger of hyper-centralization of sovereignty is the vital benefit of decentralizing sovereignty around the globe. Most of Africa and Asia consists of large nations that are really empires. Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, China, Nigeria, and Indonesia, among others, are empires that have many different languages, many different tribal groups, and many different regionally located religious minorities.

What would happen if America strongly supported the decentralization of sovereignty in the Iranian empire, whose Persian population is scarcely half the population? What if America supported the independence of the Azeris, the Baluchs, the Kurds, the Turkmens, the Lurs, and other oppressed subject nationalities trapped within that empire?

What if we supported the creation of small nations carved out of that evil empire as safe havens for the Yazidis, Mandeans, Zoroastrians, Baha'i, and others who simply want to live in peace in the place they have always called home?

Why doesn't anyone in Washington advocate this? Why doesn't the left, that pretended champion of minorities, call for this dissolution into natural parts of the Iranian empire? The left loves to rant about "capitalism," the real problem is rather "capitolism," the complete inability to conceive of any solution which does not come from the elites within the ruling city of a huge land.

No politicians, no punditry class, no bureaucratic legions, no power-peddlers with deep pockets  no one who "counts," in other words  supports the decentralization of sovereignty. It helps only that least important, most forgotten part of any governmental system: the governed.
Congress has passed a $576 billion Defense Appropriations bill for 2016 with a wide and bipartisan majority: 282-138, according to Defense News. The Obama administration takes issue with various parts of the bill, including presenting a six-page memo specifically calling for the elimination of Congresss allocation of $635 million for Israel.

The money for Israel includes $268.7 million in R&D for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs; $72 million for the procurement of Iron Dome; $150 million for the procurement of Davids Sling; $120 million for procurement of Arrow III; and $42.7 million for U.S.-Israel anti-tunnel cooperation.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the administration opposed the funding increase for Israel because it would consume a growing share of a shrinking U.S. Missile Defense Agencys budget Additional support for Israel means fewer resources that are available for critical U.S. programs at a time when the missile threat from North Korea, in particular, is increasing.

Heres a thought for Adm. Kirby and the administration: Man up.

Fund U.S. missile defense programs  and the rest of the U.S. defense budget -- at levels appropriate to the threat America faces without shortchanging an ally facing broad, increasing and unremitting threats.

How did we get here?

Thirty years ago, Israel was invited to join President Reagans missile defense program by LTG James Abrahamson, the first director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO). It was a serious philosophical leap for the IDF, which had until that time understood the only response to rockets and missiles to be offensive -- hence escalatory. If Hizballah fired one at Israel; Israel fired two in return until the international community sought a ceasefire. Uzi Rubin, former director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO), explained in inFOCUS Quarterly:

The IDF high command was generally skeptical about the strategic value of active defense, and doubted Israels defense industries ability to master the required technologies. This skepticism was mirrored by the media and elaborated on by civilian military analysts. Only shock and dismay from missiles and rockets hitting Israels undefended population centers in 1991 (the Gulf War) and 2006 (the Second Lebanon War), coupled with Iron Domes successful defense on the Gaza front brought a change of heart

U.S.-Israel collaboration  through the Arrow I and II and upcoming Arrow III programs and the Green Pine radar, Davids Sling, and Iron Dome -- took Israels response to the burgeoning missile threats from Hizb'allah, Hamas, and Iran off the hair trigger. The Israeli government didnt have to escalate at the first rocket, but could calculate its response and tell its public, We can defend you, we are defending you, and we will continue to do so. [In 2014, Iron Dome had a 90% success rate -- 4,594 rockets and mortars were fired at Israeli targets, 735 were determined to threaten populated areas and all but 70 of those were intercepted.]

It was and remains a brilliant collaboration, from which the U.S. has benefitted. Even in 2013, at a moment of U.S.-Israel political tension, Vice President Biden used the AIPAC Policy Conference to promote U.S.-Israel security cooperation, emphasizing American support for Israels missile defense program as coin of the realm. Four points have been repeatedly emphasized by American administrations -- Democrat and Republican:

Israel makes excellent use of the money and accounts for it in a well-established manner -- unlike, say, much larger appropriations for Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The American defense establishment wants, needs and appreciates Israeli missile defense capabilities and innovation. Money spent in cooperation with Israel on missile defense greatly expands the reach of American R&D dollars.

By law, nearly 75 percent of the money must be spent in the U.S. So the U.S. not only reaps the benefits of cutting edge Israeli R&D, but U.S. defense contractors benefit from their association with Israeli companies as well.

Congress has mandated that Israels Qualitative Military Edge (QME) -- its military advantage over conventionally armed adversaries  must be maintained, including through financing of necessary weapons.

Adm. Kirbys complaint about the expense is part of a familiar dance during the Obama years. Beginning in 2009, the Obama administration shortchanged money for Israels missile defense programs. Congress would complain and put the money in, and the president would sign the bill with Israels money in it. Defense News noted in 2012:

The Obama administrations recently released budget request details a cut in funding to the Israeli Cooperative, as the jointly developed Arrow and Davids Sling programs are known, from $106.1 million in fiscal 2012 to $99.9 million in fiscal 2013. And since Congress more than doubled the administrations request last year to $235.7 million, President Obamas budget would more than halve the cooperatives funding. Moreover, this marks the third consecutive year (emphasis added) that the administration has requested less funding and it will not be the last, according to its own budget projections.

And, indeed, the 2013 request (for 2014 spending) was $96 million, to which Congress added $174 million. The 2014 request (for 2015 spending) added $96.8 million for the Israeli Cooperative. At that point, The Jewish Policy Center noted, Although the bipartisan effort in Congress keeps the money at a relatively even level, this is a terrible way for the Obama Administration to do business.

Which is a second thought for the administration: missile defenses are, as the name implies, defensive measures. Absent an enemy with offensive plans and capabilities, the threat recedes. So if you get Hizballah, Hamas, and Iran -- for starters -- to forego their offensive missile programs and offer a peace with Israel that ensures that the Jewish State will be a legitimate, permanent part of the region, Israels missile defense appropriation would not need to be nearly as high. Make North Korea forego its missile program, Adm. Kirby, and you wont have to worry about fewer resources being available for American programs either.

Short of that unlikely scenario, Israel -- and the U.S. -- will need cooperative missile defense programs for the foreseeable future. And Israel, it appears, will need Congress to ensure that the money is there.
This week, Paul J. Manafort became the unquestioned senior staffer on the Donald Trump presidential campaign. With the dismissal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Manafort now maintains complete control of Trump's drive to the White House.

The last time Manafort had such a prominent role, he was answering directly to the infamous Saudi royal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. For several years, Manafort was a loyal lobbyist not only to Bandar, but to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as their most influential foreign agent in America.

A report detailing Manafort's lobbying for the Saudis first resurfaced in the Daily Beast. However, government documents recently made public now offer more insight into his dealings with the House of Saud, in which he received hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to lobby U.S. lawmakers on behalf of the Wahhabi kingdom.

An issue of primary concern for Riyadh, for which Manafort was paid generous sums, was to eliminate support in Washington, D.C. for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel's capital.

Manafort and his employees traversed the Capitol, making Saudi Arabia's case to American lawmakers as Riyadh's American foreign agents.

Manafort and his staff also lobbied legislators on the status of "Jerusalem in general," according to the newly released documents from the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act office.

The official Saudi position was at the time, and remains to this day, that Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state and that Israel has no claim over the holy city. The government of Saudi Arabia officially, does not recognize the existence or the sovereignty of the State of Israel.

These documents also reveal that Paul Manafort reported directly to Prince Bandar, who at the time was the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In a 125-page disclosure released by the Foreign Agents Registration office detailing Manafort's Saudi lobbying activities, Bandar is mentioned as his point of contact on five separate forms.

Document: Foreign Agents Registration Act office

Manafort's efforts for Riyadh through Bandar contributed to a 1986 foreign arms sale that was at the time the largest in American history (at $2 billion). The United States would send to Saudi Arabia  in a move that was widely protested by both the U.S. Congress and the American people  five AWACS aircraft and eight additional jets.

Bandar, who for decades served as Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States, has been accused of providing family funds to the tune of six-figure support to one of the 9/11 hijackers. Additionally, a flight certificate belonging to alleged al-Qaeda member and 9/11 accomplice Ghassan al-Sharbi, a current Guantanamo detainee, was found inside the Saudi embassy in Washington while Bandar was its ambassador. Another Guantanamo detainee, Zacarias Moussaoui, alleged that Bandar was a donor to al-Qaeda. In his testimony, Moussaoui claimed he discussed plans to shoot down Air Force One with an unnamed staffer in the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

Following the terror attacks, Bandar reportedly utilized his diplomatic connections with American officials  acquired through his decades-long stay in Washington coupled with his influential persona  to quash an investigation into Saudi Arabia's alleged state-support for the deadliest terror attacks in American history, according to reports.

The classified 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report deal heavily with Saudi Arabia state involvement in the attacks, according to former Florida senator Bob Graham, who has led the effort to declassify the rest of the report. Specifically, the Commission Report alleged that the hijackers received backing from members of the Saudi royal family.

Paul Manafort was not a mere foreign agent among a handful of groups and individuals. In fact, he was once considered the most prominent lobbyist for the Saudi kingdom. According to a list compiled by the Wall Street Journal in the newspaper's September 6, 1985 issue, Manafort was ranked the most influential lobbyist for Riyadh.

At the time of Manafort's tenure as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi state was (and it continues to be) one of the world's foremost violators of the basic human rights of its citizens. Riyadh continues to sponsor, export, and promulgate totalitarian Islamic tenets worldwide and to utilize a team of Western lobbyists as foreign agents in the Washington, D.C. area to accomplish its goals.

In creating a successful lobbying enterprise, Manafort leveraged his prior appointed positions in the Reagan administration to get rich by offering his services and connections to foreign nations.

In Agents of Influence, author Pat Choate explains how Manafort's firm leveraged its White House power to obtain big checks in exchange for promoting the interests of foreign nations.

"They used their White House connections to go after high-paying clients. In the process, the firm has become one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations," Choate writes, adding that the lobbying group managed to sign on 20 foreign nations during the 1980s.

These concerns were also relayed in testimony presented during a 1992 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations hearing. Moreover, The Center for Public Integrity documented that these foreign agreements would regularly secure six- and seven-figure deals for one of his lobbying outfits.

In addition to his work for Saudi Arabia, Manafort conducted business on behalf of Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych, an Angolan guerrilla group, and Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the Philippines under martial law, according to reports. Moreover, his firm accepted a large sum to lobby for Mohamed Siad Barre, a Somali military junta leader who ruled the country for over two-decades. Another dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, whose reign in Zaire lasted decades, paid Manafort's firm $1 million to represent his interests, according to the February 1992 edition of Spy Magazine, which declared that his firm had achieved the highest "Blood-On-The-Hands Rating" of all the lobbying companies in the country.

After a period of quiet, The Trump campaign manager resurfaced, reportedly admitting to French authorities that he took kickbacks from a prominent Lebanese arms dealer in order to use that money for Edouard Balladur's 1995 campaign for president of France, according to AFP. Abdul Rahman el-Assir, the arms dealer who acted as a middleman to illegally secure military submarines for the Pakistani Navy, directed the arms sales revenues directly Manafort, as part of a back-room deal with the warlord, the report stated.

Jordan Schachtel is a fellow at the Haym Salomon Center and earned his master's degree in statecraft and national security affairs from the Institute of World Politics.
At first, she was this: The First Woman.

Neither she nor her supporters admit that Hillary was initially running solely because she is the First Woman. Instead, she was running on her supposed wealth of experience and competence, her selfless, lifelong public service, but those reasons dont hold up particularly well under close scrutiny.

She accomplished nothing of note as Secretary of State -- no important treaties, no high-profile peace agreements, no ground-breaking negotiated settlements, nothing. Theres not one single world hotspot or American adversarial relationship that is unequivocally better today as a direct result of her actions as Secretary.

Our relations with Israel -- our best friend in the region? Weaker, strained, tenuous.

The so-called Russian reset? A joke. Putin acts with impunity, taking liberties (literally as well as figuratively) as he pleases.

China?

North Korea?

Syria?

Libya?

Iran?

Mexico?

All worse. Nuclear weapons abound, trade imbalances/currency manipulations run wild, illegal immigration/drug running remains unchecked, dictators butcher their own populations without pause, and to cite the oft-used but completely accurate phrase du jour, Our friends no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us.

No, its not all her fault. Not by a long shot. Obamas overall weakness and apparent lack of caring or concern (some say outright intention) about seeing the U.S. slip into also-ran status as a player/influencer on the world stage has much to do with our current position.

However, if that slippage was contrary to her deeply-held convictions, then her high-profile experience, reputation and personal persuasive skills would certainly have come to the fore and been a major factor in not allowing it to happen. While its very tempting to say she simply wanted to check the Served as Important Cabinet Member box on her resume, rather than actually do anything important or memorable, its even scarier to think she actively wanted markedly different results but wasnt able to bring them about.

According to all the polls, shes a very untrustworthy individual, a supremely negative character trait, because of four major reasons:

1) Her e-mail server situation appears to be close to out of control. Fortunately for her, the specifics and technical legalities of it seem far too arcane for the average casually-attentive voter to be concerned with. A recent poll of Democratic voters found 71% would vote for Hillary even if she were indicted. Trying to compare her e-mail situation to that of General Petraeus (Who?) or any other past administration official is an exercise in futility for the eternally communications-challenged Republican opposition, who wouldnt be able to formulate a cogent, pithy, impactful statement explaining Why it really matters if their political lives depended on it. Which, to a great extent, they do.

Her private e-mail server, the legal negligence she showed in maintaining it, the 100s -- if not 1000s -- of classified communications that went through that unsecured server (regardless of any marking at the time), everything has long since passed the threshold of technically illegal, actionable behavior. Were now deep into the realm of the FBI essentially trying to find a certifiably un-Photoshopped picture of her standing over the body holding the dripping knife, knowing full well that Obamas Justice Department will derisively dismiss with contempt and inaction anything less. This is the best example of the direct impact of a complicit liberally-biased media so far in this campaign. The liberal media walk a very fine line: they report on her e-mail doings just enough to be able to say to their critics, See? Were covering it, but not anywhere near doggedly enough to actually have any tangible influence on the Great Unwashed. There is no pressure on the mainstream news organizations to press the matter. No one in the mainstream of liberal political thought wants to discover what the so-called truth may be, quite unlike if the situation and parties were reversed.

2) Her trustworthiness also takes a hit on the Benghazi Libya terror attack on September 11, 2012 that killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. This is either a major or minor hit to Ms. Clinton, depending on the extent of awareness of the incident on the part of the voter. In another stark example of over-the-top liberal media bias that works to her favor, the predominant theme of the coverage after her Congressional Benghazi hearings some months back was Clinton emerges from 11 hours of Benghazi hearings unscathed.

Which, of course, was the exact factual opposite of what transpired at those hearings. The exact opposite. During the course of the hearings, Clinton admitted that before Susan Rice went out on her now infamous Five-Sunday-Show Lying Tour (where the fairy tale of the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim internet video was first put forth), she (Clinton) had told both Egypt and her daughter Chelsea the night before Rice appeared on TV that the attack was unquestionably a preplanned terror attack. That was brand new information, gleaned at the hearing, and it proved Clinton had willingly lied to protect a political narrative.

The liberal media never reported this finding from those hearings. Clintons supporters continue to believe to this day that the hearings accomplished nothing, that they were all for show. Its as if the Tigers beat the Red Sox in the actual game 4-2, but the TV reported that the Sox won and everyone simply accepted it. Still, her character has suffered a bit, if only because she is on videotape telling the victims families that they died from a violent reaction to an anti-Muslim video. Some voters have heard the deeper story and doubt about Clintons character remains an issue to that small slice of the electorate.

3) Influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation while also serving as secretary of state? Cutting deals and passing favors to foreign entities in exchange for donations to their pure-as-the-driven-snow charitable Foundation? There are about 20 layers of plausible deniability and unpinnable implication between any supposed wrongdoing and the Clintons. It just doesnt smell good to anyone paying attention, but thats a self-defining statement. Any voters at the edges who might negatively impact her candidacy are not paying close attention. This ones an amorphous dead end. You know its there, she knows you know its there and she smiles, because she knows itll never happen.

4) Finally, theres the Womens Issues issue. Any woman who accuses a man of sexual assault deserves to be believed. Except, of course, any woman who accuses Bill Clinton, because thats old news, different, and came from the well-known Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Her behavior as Enabler-in-Chief during the 90s was one of the most remarkable performances in service to an overriding political agenda ever witnessed in American history. Forgetting for just the briefest of moments the quaint notion in the American justice system of a presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, is the liberal mainstream media so far in the tank for Ms. Clinton that they wont even mention the rank hypocrisy of her outlandish current position in light of her past actions? The answer is yes.

So what exactly, besides her Democratic femaleness, is her candidacy based on? Hard to say. She has no real, tangible accomplishments to point to, either as secretary of state or NY senator. There are no Clinton Acts. There are no Clinton Accords. She has no military service, no heroism under fire, no great business and/or managerial accomplishments, no outright high-level expertise in any technical or economic or social or scientific field. Shes never started a business or run anything or managed a great number of people or made difficult, fast-paced life-or-death decisions. She gives every impression of being situationally dishonest, opportunistic, loyal only to her self-advancement.

But in spite of that, over the last few months she has been carefully crafting and refining a new rationale for her candidacy, one that her sycophants enthusiastically endorse, an approach that has real potential to appeal to Undecideds and Crossovers.

Hillarys New Campaign Rationale: Im not Trump.

That alone could make her the odds-on favorite to win.
Just when you thought nobody could top the Obama administrations penchant for denial about Islamic terrorism, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) folks did just that.

Despite Muslim gunman Omar Mateens stated motive in a 911 call that he murdered dozens of people at a homosexual Orlando nightclub in the name of Allah, Islam, and the Islamic State, Black Lives Matter posted this:

Despite the medias framing of this as a terrorist attack, we are very clear that this terror is completely homegrown, born from the anti-Black white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia of the conservative right and of those who would use religious extremism as a weapon to gain power for the few and take power from the rest.

By religious extremism, they mean Christians and Jews who oppose the Obama administrations bizarre agenda, such as the order to school districts to open the girls restrooms and locker rooms to boys. Also, Christians and Jews who oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Also, the entire capitalist economy that produced the technology that allows the BLM folks to spew their unbridled contempt for America on their website.

Those who seek to profit from our deaths hope we will forget who our real enemy is, and blame Muslim communities instead, BLM states in an homage to the 49 killed in the June 12 massacre.

But we will never forget We will fight for you. We will not allow a false narrative of Islamic terrorism to be dictated by white supremacists and corporate media. We know it was bullets and bigotry that killed you.

If youre wondering whos behind all those BLM folks at Trump and anti-police rallies bearing signs and abusing attendees, a visit to the BLM site and a Herstory essay by Alicia Garza leave no doubt:

I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was post-humously [sic] placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed.

Below that is another essay, The Theft of Black Queer Womens Work, lamenting that others have borrowed the Black Lives Matter term for their own purposes.

Well, no matter. Lets conclude with BLMs main theme for the week:

The enemy is now and has always been the four threats of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and militarism. These forces and not Islam create terrorism.

Sounds like the opening line for a speaker coming to a campus near you.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.
As a longtime resident of Connecticut, I have been patient and respectful while my representatives in Congress have railed against gun violence and called for new and sweeping restrictions on gun ownership. The Newtown, Connecticut incident was tragic and, politics aside, recognition of the tragedy was appropriate and necessary.

But now they have gone too far. Senator Chris Murphy has been focused on expanding gun control to the exclusion of everything else. He led a filibuster in the Senate to highlight his position  fair enough. But after the gun control proposals were voted down, Murphy accused Republicans of sell[ing] weapons to ISIS. Connecticuts other senator, Richard Blumenthal, has been a less visible but equally engaged activist for increased gun restrictions. Congressman Jim Himes and other Connecticut representatives walked out of a moment of silence for Orlando in the House of Representatives, saying that silence mocks the victims.

To these legislators, the Orlando incident was little more than an opportunity to revive the memory of Newtown and once again advance their gun control agenda.

These people need to understand some basic truths:

1. Citizens have a natural right to own a gun. This is an unalienable right  by virtue of our right to life, liberty, and property  to defend family, self, and possessions.

2. The right to keep and bear arms is not granted to citizens by virtue of the Second Amendment. It is not bestowed upon us by government or by our elected representatives. Rather, it is a fundamental citizen right, and therefore one that government is morally obliged to protect for all citizens.

3. The Second Amendment exists to protect citizens from precisely the gun rights abuses we are seeing from government today. It exists to prevent our representatives from interfering with our fundamental human right to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms, and all else that gun ownership entails (such as access to ammunition and indemnification of gun manufacturers).

4. When I need to defend my family and possessions, the police will surely be far away. Our town police force is capable and competent, and the department is certified to high standards, but the town is sprawling, the force is modest, and response times are long. My representatives in government will be even farther away in the event of trouble.

There are some cynical but plausible views of the motives of representatives such as Murphy, Himes, and Blumenthal. They consistently ignore the crucial underlying motivations for these incidents and focus instead exclusively on the instruments. They refuse to acknowledge that gun control creates needless victims and that gun-free zones are soft targets ruthlessly exploited by motivated assailants. But they are not unaware of these points. Murphy was eventually forced to admit the inadequacy of his proposals.

On the facts alone, its clear that their motivations are predominantly political, if not entirely so, and consequently they forfeit any presumption of sincerity of their beliefs, even while they shamelessly call on our compassion for victims of shootings as leverage for their agenda. Worse, because they conceal and fail to address the root causes of these incidents, they virtually ensure more of them.

It is a situation quite sad enough for Connecticut, and me, to be embarrassed by its representatives in Congress.
On Wednesday, June 22, 2016, the Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor to force a vote on the gun control measures that failed in the Senate. In a throwback to the kumbaya past of many House members, such as John Lewis, Democrats see gun control in the wake of the Orlando terrorist attack as worthy of some good ol' agitatin' in violation of House rules. As Lewis stated, "now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more."

When have these old hippies ever been silent or, for that matter, as Nancy Pelosi claims, silenced? Their modus operandi is and always has been to make noise  as loud and as often as they can. With the Democrat-Media Complex in their back pocket, they have never been silenced, nor have they been forced into silence by quisling Republicans. Anyone who falls for this just isn't paying attention.

Make no mistake about it, though: Obama, Hillary, and the entire Democrat-Media Complex see this as a winning issue for 2016  one they intend to turn into a movement, akin to the 2012 race, when income inequality was the defining issue and Occupy Wall Street the movement. Rep. Butterfield (D-N.C.) put it this way: "Write this date down  June 22. It's the beginning of a movement. This is just the beginning."

I recall a similar call to action directed toward Occupy Wall Street by Obama and Van Jones, only they had a year head start before the 2012 election. Now they have only six months. I think Democrats originally thought #BlackLivesMatter would be their go-to movement for 2016  and the machinery has been whirring along at a grand clip. But the murder of gays in Orlando, with a gun, warranted a change in plans. After all, it appeals to a wider swath of potential constituents than just black lives. Just change the shirts and signs, and presto! New movement, same agitators.

Speaking of agitators, famed civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told NBC, "Sometimes you are moved by history." It's clear that the history that moves the Democrats is the history of the '60s  when they were actually on the wrong side. The war they forced to an end resulted in the deaths of millions in Cambodia and the displacement of millions of Vietnamese and cast America as a paper tiger (a reputation she found hard to shake and, sadly, continues to live up to). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 they claim was theirs wasn't. The drug and free love environment they embraced left America a cultural shell of its former self: hippy/yuppy parents gave birth to generations of children with record numbers of learning disabilities and behavioral and addiction issues; high divorce rates and blended families with offspring from multiple couplings gave rise to generations riddled with low self-esteem and depression; rampant fatherlessness left voids filled by increased drug abuse, criminal activity, out-of-wedlock births, and promiscuity; and the obliteration of gender differences by the feminist movement pushed men to the side, marginalizing their role in families and communities. Free love destroyed marriage and gave us gender confusion instead. The list is endless.

Compare that to the history that moved the Tea Party  that of the Founding, where people fought for an idea that created a nation that has been at the forefront not only of freedom, but of innovation and prosperity and has opened its doors to countless immigrants seeking a better life.

But suppose the Tea Party Caucus had staged a sit-in when Nancy Pelosi was devising the 2000-plus-page Obamacare bill! Can you imagine if Republicans tried to block that bill by occupying the House floor and staying put until their demands were met? Actually, yes, we can: the Tea Party and the GOP would have been pilloried in the press as radical activists, out of control, standing in the way of letting House leadership "get the job done." They would have been accused of putting partisan politics ahead of the country, mocked for their principles and devotion to the constitution  especially their throwback to the original 1773 tea party in Boston  and accused of racism.

But wait, there's more! When Democrats bring legislative business to a grinding halt, it is an acceptable as well as a laudable form of pushback against Republican leadership. But when conservatives dig in their heels on the budget, they are obstructionists shutting down the government, prohibiting vets from visiting memorial sites, indigent government employees from collecting wages, and the public from receiving vital government services.

The double standards are dizzying.

Whereas Democrat commentary about this sit-in  and the cause for it  is hyperbolic, Republican reaction is, once again, tepid and, in the case of Paul Ryan, kind of insipid.

First a sampling from House Democrats  but only a few, lest my brain explodes:

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.): We're not going to watch any more people in this country get slaughtered and do nothing!

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas): Break the shackles!

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.): Every day that we don't commit to a vote, the blood is on the leadership of this House.

And from our speaker, who correctly characterizes the sit-in as a publicity stunt: "This isn't trying to come up with a solution to a problem. This is trying to get attention." Duh! A better response, and one it wouldn't hurt to disseminate, is that of Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), which can be paraphrased as The sit-in at Woolworth's in the '60s was for civil rights. This sit-in by the Democrats is to strip Americans of their constitutional rights  and, I would add, making them more vulnerable to terrorists and criminals.

As for some of the media optics, when I Googled "Democrats sit-in," the first article that appeared is this one from NBC. The article refers to Orlando several times but only as the "worst mass shooting" in America or just "the shooting spree." There is no mention of terrorism or a terrorist. It also commented that "[i]t is unusual for members to disrupt the functioning of the House to this degree." Actually, it is a violation of House rules.

Wouldn't it be nice to see all of these Democrats get this exercised about the massacre in Orlando and level their complaints and anger against the real perpetrators of the crime, not a gun control law that wouldn't have made a difference?

This entire P.R. stunt disgusts me  especially the streaming video uploaded after the House went into recess and official video was cut, the selfies, and the "selfless" acts of senators bringing in food and drink. The only thing I'd like to see  because I think it would be hysterical  is how all of these old hippies get up off the floor. It's kind of a metaphor for their tiresome unconstitutional gun control proposals.

In any case, Loretta Lynch said "love and compassion" are the best responses to terrorism, so shouldn't the Democrats be having a love-in with Republicans rather than an angry sit-in? Let me try to visualize it. On second thought, never mind.
The Democratic Party is collaborating with a foreign billionaire who has repeatedly violated our laws by illegally contributing to elections here, in a project to achieve its progressive agenda by altering the electorate, according to an authentic-looking document leaked by a hacker of the DNC computers who uses the name Guccifer 2.0. Can you say, Sinister global cabal?

Lachlan Markay of the Free Beacon highlights this revelation from the DNC hack:

A Swiss billionaire and seven-figure Clinton Foundation donor is pouring millions of dollars into a nonprofit voter registration and turnout operation and appears to have shared information about the project with the Democratic Party, a leaked document reveals. Hansjorg Wyss is accelerating a $100 million registration and get-out-the-vote plan in order to more quickly impact elections and the U.S. policy landscape, according to a document detailing the proposed work by his charitable group, the Wyss Foundation.

On the surface, voter registration drives are supposedly nonpartisan and a public service, hence qualifying for charitable tax-deductible (i.e., taxpayer-subsidized) status. But in practice, mobilizing those who are apathetic enough to require external stimulus to register and vote usually means helping Democrats, who depend on poorly informed people voting on the basis of emotion and casual impressions based on the simplistic propaganda coming their way. And, in fact, the leaked memorandum entitled Wyss Foundation Democracy Strategy Discussion Memo, acknowledges as much.

Unmarried women, youth, and people of color  low-income populations who tend to be reliably progressive on economic and womens inequality issuesdo not participate equally in the democratic process. They are not registered, dont turnout, and drop-off in non-presidential years. Since elected officials respond more to their voting constituents, policies are more conservative than the preferences of the young, unmarried, of-color majority. If low-income people voted at the same rate as high-income people, it would be easier to achieve the Foundations policy goals and it would ensure that the victories lasted beyond the foundation.

The memo acknowledges the partisan (this memo was shared with the Democrats only) political motivation for its charitable activity:

1. In the short-term, highly-targeted (but relatively expensive) strategies could be used to increased registration  and ultimately participation  by the emerging progressive majority, closing the voting gap faster and substantially advancing the Foundations policy agenda by: Creating a surge of registration in tipping-point geographies to accelerate change;

Engaging the new majority in the political system around the Foundations issue-agenda, through political engagement in a limited set of states important to our issue work and through targeted communications work to reach key demographics about the importance of voting.

The memo foresees eventually relying on government funding to gin up participation by casually engaged or unengaged potential voters after a tipping point is reached through its relatively expensive privately funded efforts.

We believe these efforts will alter the electorate.

But this will take time and money, so the memo outlines where its funds can best be applied and seeks other private funds in conjunction with the DNCs efforts. Given the high cost, this would have to be done in partnership with other funders.

A hundred million bucks! But when you think about it, pretty cheap to gain control of the political sytstem of the United States of America.

Markay reports:

The Wyss Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation, meaning it cannot finance explicitly political projects. But the group sees opportunities to shift the electorate in ways that advance its policy agenda under a nonpartisan banner. The foundation did not respond to questions about its funding plan and why its strategy memo ended up in the hands of the Democratic National Committee. It was one of a number of internal documents released by a hacker who claims to have breached the DNC computer network. Wyss, a Swiss citizen, has donated to numerous federal and state political campaigns despite legal bans on political contributions by foreign nationals. While the law provides exceptions for lawful permanent residents, Wyss revealed in 2014 that he does not have a U.S. green card. In addition to political campaigns, Wyss has generously supported the Clinton Foundation. The foundations website states the Wyss Charitable Endowment has given it between $1 million and $5 million. Wyss now-defunct HJW Foundation previously employed Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who received $87,083 from the group in 2013 for consulting services. Podesta is the founder and former chairman of the Clinton-friendly Center for American Progress. Wyss is a CAP board member and has donated more than $1 million to the group since 2011. The Wyss Foundation is also a member of the Democracy Alliance, a leading left-wing donor club that is financing efforts similar to the foundations work on registration and turnout operations.

Other members of the Democracy Alliance include George Soros, Peter Lewis, and Herb and Marion Sandler, whose World Savings issued lots of mortgages that defaulted in the 2008 meltdown, but because it was sold to Wachovia Bank (which subsequently failed owing to the vast liabilities it had acquired from the Sandlers) with remarkably good timing, the Sandlers emerged with billions of dollars of wealth.

All of these billionaires are committed to this same sort of fundamental transformation, mobilizing and manipulating casual and uninformed voters to support their agenda.

And now we know they are part of an international plot.

Dont expect the mainstream media to get too interested in this, though, because it might interfere with the Democrats agenda to gain control and work for the little people, just as Hillary has done with her Wall Street pals.
Not one to cry, I bawled when I read this article about a trio of "gun nuts" arrested outside the Holland Tunnel early on June 22. I don't know why, but I have tremendous difficulty dealing with stories about drug overdoses in young people. I could barely watch the movies Traffic and Trainspotting. Lives thrown away  often tremendously talented people who make a bad decision one day, sometimes riddled with addiction, that almost always starts with pot and general "partying." Flawed young people, yes, but rarely rotten apples.

When you lose a child to a disease or an accident, it's excruciating. We might curse at G-d and ask "why," but we usually know they are random events, mostly beyond our control. Not so with your run-of-the-mill drug overdose. As caring humans, we always feel as though there must have been something we could have done  even when we don't know the families. A drug overdose is like a suicide in that respect. Personally, it tears me up inside.

On one of my trips back to the Bay Area, I got off the plane to news that two students my son knew had overdosed. One was at a party at college  everyone thought he'd fallen asleep. Not so. The other hiked up one of the surrounding hills, took some drugs, and hung himself. Good kids. Talented kids. Good families. Good Lord.

It is a sadness unique to itself.

As parents, we love those little lives we bring into the world with every ounce of our being. We protect and nurture them. We want the best for them. It's a cliche, but a parent never gets over losing a child. When they are lost to drugs, the void left behind is cavernous, the regrets haunting.

With today's heroin epidemic, anyone who crusades against drugs is a real-life Avenger to me. This leads me to "vigilante" numero uno: John Cramsey. The ultimate do-gooder for all the right reasons.

According to this article, he lost his 20-year old daughter in February to a heroin overdose and administers an anti-heroin Facebook group called "Enough is Enough." He helps addicts and pressures authorities to do more to punish dealers. To top that off, he funds their rehab out of his own pocket, according to the mother of Kimberly Arendt, the young lady arrested along with Cramsey  a recovering addict herself.

Apparently, the 16-year-old they were going to extract from a drug den woke up to find her friend dead from an overdose in the bed next to her. This probably freaked her out to the point of reaching out to Kimberly for help. I have little doubt she wanted out even though she denied this when questioned by the police. That's not unusual  she probably didn't want to admit to cops that she was involved with heroin, a death, and drug dealers, let alone reveal the location of their den.

OK, so maybe they shouldn't have gone all vigilante and stuff. But we also know that the police can and will only do so much  they need warrants and probable cause. They often arrive after the fact. If she was scared and denied needing help, there's little they could do.

Early reports omitted the fact that one decal on the car read, "Shoot your local heroin dealer." Amen, brother. Who would object to that?

I hope someone does some crowdfunding to raise money  if they need it  for their defense.

And in their defense, these guys are heroes but have been treated, at least by the media, like potential terrorists. They were labeled "vigilantes," which really is a misnomer. They aren't seeking revenge while doing good deeds. They are operating from the deepest reaches of their heart to prevent others from having to endure the gut-wrenching lessons they had to endure.

There is a thesaurus's worth of words to describe John Cramsey, Dean Smith, and Kimberly Arendt: heroes, saviors, good Samaritans, champions, warriors, guardian angels, protectors, rescuers. Not "vigilante" or "gun nut."
Hey, about to be college grads, especially those with journalism, art history, or gender studies degrees! Do you need a job? Of course you do!

Well, do I have a job for you!

Senator and wannabe U.S. president Bernie Sanders (a Socialist who masquerades as an independent but plays with Democrats when necessary) is looking for interns to staff his Washington and local Vermont senatorial offices.

Interns are an integral part of our Senate operation and contribute greatly to the senator's work on behalf of Vermont and the nation. Senate interns have the unique privilege of gaining an insider's perspective on the legislative and representative process. Our Washington and Burlington offices offer paid full- and part-time internships tailored for recent graduates and current students at the undergraduate or graduate level.

And while housing is not provided, there is a salary, unlike many internships.

How much are interns paid?

Interns are paid $12 per hour.

Wh-a-a-a-t? Wait a minute! Isn't Socialist Bernie a leader in the $15-an-hour minimum wage? Twelve dollars an hour might be an adequate wage in relatively low-cost Vermont, but not in our nation's capital where fat-cat government workers and high taxes drive up the costs of housing and other necessities.

However, as Natalie Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon pointed out:

Still, Sanders is the only presidential candidate among the initial sixteen contenders who pays interns. Clinton relies on free labor for her campaign internships, though she established a paid fellowship last year after The Guardian reported she had brought on experienced organizers as unpaid interns.

Wh-a-a-a-t? Wait another minute! The poverty pimps who get rich on "other people's money," as the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it, by constantly waging class warfare against evil "millionaires and billionaires" don't practice what they preach? Not that you expected them to, of course. You did? Sucker!

Leaving the White House "dead broke," Hillary Rodham Clinton immediately bought a large house in a one-percent enclave in New York State so she could successfully run for Senate. In between her government service, she charged a minimum of $225,000 per speech in exchange for government favors absolutely riveting presentations.

And Bernie Sanders's wife negotiated a comfortable $200,000 severance package for herself as she ran a college into the debt ground.

But being a government intern has other unpaid benefits. Just ask Monica Lewinsky. She's still paying for them.

Just remember, money isn't everything. To repeat Sanders' description:
A Media Research Center analysis of gun stories following the Orlando shootings shows that the three broadcast networks ran anti-gun stories over pro-gun rights stories at an 8-1 ratio.

They're not even trying to hide their bias  or their partisanship.

Washington Times:

The study found a huge disparity in the airtime devoted to advancing more gun control versus arguments in favor of gun rights., he continued, noting that the time spent in favor of more gun control was 65 minutes, compared to eight minutes spent on Second Amendment rights and other pro-gun issues. CBS was the most stridently anti-gun rights network. By a whopping 10 to 1 ratio, CBS devoted more time to arguing in favor of gun control (30 minutes, 40 seconds) to time that supported gun rights (2 minutes, 56 seconds), Mr. Dickens noted. NBC followed with nine times as much airtime for anti-gun rights arguments, with ABC in third place with a 4 to 1 ratio. When it came to spokesmen, viewers were far more likely to hear from gun control advocates like liberal Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than Second Amendment defenders like GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump or Republican Senator James Inhofe, Mr. Dickens stated. Anti-gun spokesmen were aired three times as frequently as pro-gun ones (57 to 19), while 27 spokesmen were neutral.

We already knew that the press has gone all in to defeat Donald Trump. But on this vital issue, you would think that the media would make a bigger effort to give the appearance of fairness. While the Fairness Doctrine is no longer in play, broadcasters still have a responsibility  especially on important issues  to give roughly equal time to both sides.

And as far as partisanship, how can they possibly claim their coverage does not aid the Democrats' electoral chances? If this is the case, they should pay for the airtime used to trash Republicans on the gun control issue, just like any other partisan organization.

But for that to happen, you would need a non-partisan Federal Elections Commission as well as a neutral Federal Communications Commission. Both of those "independent" commissions are fully in the tank for the Democratic administration and, by extension, the Democratic Party.

You might have noticed the extremely favorable coverage given to the Democrats' House sit-in, as reporters and commentators gush about how it is reminiscent of the civil rights movement. We can expect that to continue until the gun control amendments die a well deserved death.
It made barely a ripple in the national last week when initially reported, but seven state workers in Delaware were indicted for Food Stamp fraud totaling nearly a million dollars, with five arrested and two others at large. An official statement from the Delaware state government reported on June 14:

Attorney General Matt Denn announced today the arrests and indictments of seven former state of Delaware employees for theft of federal money. All seven were employed by the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), and were responsible for issuing Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, and three previous arrests were also related to the same investigation. Two of the defendants were indicted and arrested last week, two others were indicted and remain at large, one was indicted and arrested previously and still faces charges, and two have already been convicted and sentenced.

The fraud was preposterously easy for the public servants, whose work involved handing out free money to members of the public who may or may not qualify (Food Stamp fraud is rampant). It is all too easy to understand the temptation that free money dispensers face.

 investigators learned of fictitious and unauthorized EBT accounts created by Division of Social Services case workers responsible for case creation and maintenance, with each of the fraudulently created cases issued varying amounts of food benefits in the form of EBT cards. The investigation revealed that the fraudulent EBT cards were delivered to State Service Centers in New Castle and Kent County, and intercepted by the suspects working at those locations. Once intercepted, the cards were personally used or sold at a discount.

Fortunately, an audit was conducted and discovered something fishy going on. Esteban Perra of Delawareonline reports:

The first case of suspected fraud was discovered in December 2014 by a supervisor within the Division of Social Services who could not find the required documentation to support a benefits case during her case reviews. DHSSs Audit and Recovery Management Services unit and the Division of Social Services began an internal investigation immediately, said Jill Fredel, a DHSS spokeswoman. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees and funds all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in Delaware and nationwide, was notified in January 2015 about the investigation and provided assistance and guidance throughout the process, Fredel said. The Audit and Recovery Management Services unit found that seven employees created more than 100 fictitious SNAP cases to procure electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards that could be used to purchase food.

The cards were delivered to service centers, where they were picked up by the fraudsters, who either used them or sold them at a discount.

Kudos to the auditor who was checking the paperwork documentation for pursuing the case, and to the law enforcement personnel who followed up. Id like to think audits would catch all fraud, but frankly, a little better preparation  generating the required paperwork  might have spared the miscreants any legal trouble. Certainly a lot of non-public servant recipients get away with fraud.

The accused are:

Indicted and arrested last week were: Detrich Simmons-Heath, 54, of Chestertown, Maryland  charged with Theft over $100,000, Forgery First Degree, Falsifying Business Records, and Official Misconduct. Released on $6,000 unsecured bond.

Kamilah Laws, 39, of Wilmington  charged with Theft over $50,000, Forgery First Degree, Falsifying Business Records, and Official Misconduct. Released on $5,000 unsecured bond. Indicted last week and still at large are: Jo Ellen Edwards, 61, of Felton  charged with Theft over $100,000, Forgery First Degree, Falsifying Business Records, and Official Misconduct.

Shirlene Davis, 29, of Newark  charged with Theft over $100,000, Forgery First Degree, Falsifying Business Records, and Official Misconduct. Previously indicted, charges pending: Nicole Stevens, 43, of Dover, was arrested in November 2015 on charges of Theft over $1,500, Official Misconduct, Forgery First Degree, Falsifying Business Records, and four counts of Unlawful Use of a Payment Card for stealing $8,092. Previously convicted and sentenced: Allison Rivera, 49, of Dover, pled guilty to Theft over $1,500, Unlawful Use of a Payment Card, and Falsifying Business Records, and was sentenced in April 2016 to two years of Level II probation, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $27,751.58.

Angelette Brown, 45, of Camden, pled guilty to Theft over $1,500, Unlawful Use of a Payment Card, and Official Misconduct and was sentenced to April 2016 to two years of Level II probation, ordered to do 240 hours of community service, and forced to repay the $15,957 she took. The five who have been arrested are pictured in a graphic from Fox News:

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman, 100percentfedup
My hometown of Udumalpet is located in the state of Tamil Nadu, deep in the south of India. The town experiences pleasant tropical weather throughout the year. Because of this, it is famously called poor mans Ooty. (Ooty is a hill station in Southern India known for its cool climatic conditions.)

The town is located in Palghat Pass and experiences an annual average wind speed of 18-22 kmph (11-13.6 mph). This provides the opportunity for power generation using windmills. In 2005, there was an exponential rise in the number of windmills in this region, as more wind projects were sanctioned by the government.

It is critical to remember that these wind projects were created not to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but to use the high wind velocity to generate electricity and help the state of Tamil Nadu, which was under a severe energy crisis.

The windmills were seen as a boon for the local people and economy, as they would contribute more electricity to the energy-starved district and state. Unfortunately, pitfalls soon surfaced.

In the past decade, according to local residents perception, rainfall has diminished, and residents blame the windmills. Although no official statistics exist to confirm or refute the perception, and no scientific study explains how the windmills could change rainfall, its not impossible. Reduction of wind flow through Palghat Pass could be connected (as turbines converted wind energy to electrical energy), which suggests the need for study.

A more concrete problem is the efficiency  or rather inefficiency  of these windmills in generating power. Not only wind, but also rain gets channeled through the Palghat Pass, and when rain comes, it disrupts windmill operation, destabilizing the electricity grid.

In August 2014, power generation there almost came to a complete stall because of the rains. On some of the worst days, only 2 MW was generated from 5,300 windmills, each of which needs about half an acre of land, with the complete wind farm occupying more than 2,650 acres previously used for agriculture.

Incidents such as these worsen the power generation season for the windmills, which is already very short  five months between June and October every year. This raises serious questions over their productivity, installation, and operating costs.

Grid connectivity is not streamlined, so problems arise due to inconsistent supply from the windmills. Local industries blame them for disruptions in power supply, eventually resulting in damage to expensive equipment.

While one can argue in favor of the little electricity these windmills produce, it remains to be seen how much loss has been incurred from their use of farm land, installation, and connectivity costs  and, of course, the costs of frequent disruptions from rain.

The locals, though, are seldom impressed by the little power these windmills generate. They view them as a burden and prefer the reliable thermal and nuclear power in the state.

Reflecting this sentiment, and to meet growing energy demand, the Indian government recently approved installation of a 1,600-MW coal-based thermal power plant in Tamil Nadu at an estimated initial cost of $8.4 billion. Unlike the windmills, projects like these will bring respite to factory owners and small industrial entrepreneurs who have been heavily impacted in the past decade because of energy deficiency.

The landscape in Udumalpet is dominated by windmills, the darlings of environmentalists around the world, but its agricultural fields, homes, and businesses depend on affordable and abundant thermal power.

Vijay Jayaraj, M.S., Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England, is a research associate for developing countries for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, lives in Udumalpet, India.
For quite some time, CTIA, one of the predominant authorities in the mobile world, has hosted an annual trade show called Super Mobility in the U.S. The show has traditionally been laser-focused on U.S. technology and the firms that produce it. Though CTIA would have no issue hosting foreign technological advancements and the people behind them at its event, that often did not happen in quite the right numbers to call the show anything but American in theme, standing in sharp contrast to the globally-focused Mobile World Congress that GSMA host each year in Spain. The two are looking to fix that though as they have announced they will be joining forces to create a brand new trade show. The new show will replace Super Mobility and be called GSMA Mobile World Congress Americas, in partnership with CTIA. This years Super Mobility, taking place in Las Vegas, will be the last.

While GSMA will continue to host its Mobile World Congress events in Barcelona and Shanghai, they stated that, working together with CTIA, they hope to attract a more global crowd to a show in the States and compete with the likes of CES. Calling the spirit of the event truly global, the pair says they expect to see somewhere in the area of 30,000 visitors and 1,000 industry insiders showing off their latest and greatest at the very first show. AT&T CEO Glenn Lurie spoke highly of the new event, saying that the mobile industry at large, along with mobile consumers, will be the real winner in this arrangement.

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While CTIAs annual event in the U.S. is meeting its end to make way for the new event, no such announcement was made about CTIAs annual U.S. events, held twice a year. Its likely safe to assume that these events will continue for the foreseeable future, though CTIA will be devoting considerable resources to co-hosting the new U.S. flavor of MWC. The event is set to kick off for the first time in September of 2017, in sunny San Francisco, California. GSMA will be doing most of the legwork and managing things, while CTIA will be helping to provide resources to make it all happen.
Apple is one of the primary contenders in the closed ecosystem, offering a slew of nifty features for people using a combination of the Mac and iPhone. These include the ability to send and receive SMS/iMessage from Mac, activating iPhones WiFi hotspot, checking its battery level and sharing files between the two devices, among others. But Google has been working on its homegrown ecosystem based on Chrome and Android. Considering the fact some of the features work across different platforms, including Windows and Mac, and sometimes the iPhone as well, Google can give Apple a run for its money with its Chrome/Android combo.

The center-point of integration is a Google account across all the devices and enabling Google Now, which is one of their core features. The Android/Chrome combination works great when paired with various Google products and services like Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Now reminders. Using Google Maps on the computer, users can quickly send location and direction details to their Android device without having to type again. A notification appears on the lock screen as the data is sent from Chrome to Android. Another useful feature is synchronization of tabs across all devices running the Chrome browser, regardless of the device used. The Recent Tabs option in Chrome menu shows the tabs opened in each device nicely sorted out. This feature is particularly useful when switching devices while needing to continue browsing the same set of pages.

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One of the hallmark features of the Android/Chrome combination is the ability to control the computer remotely with the help of Chrome Remote Desktop app. To use this feature, the user has to install the Chrome Remote Desktop app from the Google Play Store, as well as the Chrome Remote Desktop extension on their computer. Following this, they can fully access and control the computer, and perform any function without limitation remotely. This feature works on both Windows and Macs. Any Google user can also find the current location of their phone from Chrome just by typing find my phone in the Google search bar, making it easier to locate their phone. Another very useful and productive feature is the ability to set reminders from Chrome on any computer, to be notified on your phone at the specified time. This works just by typing the desired reminder in the Google search bar, and Google Now opens up with the dialog box confirming the details of the reminder. Google Now reminders can also be configured to notify the user of a reminder at a particular location.
Google signals the expansion of its Fiber network with its newest acquisition, Webpass, an internet service provider offering gigabit connection in five major US markets. This deal, when approved by the regulatory board, serves as the first acquisition for the broadband unit since Alphabet was formed. This purchase also hints at Google getting serious about competing in the wireless broadband market. Webpass president Charles Barr confirmed the deal in a blog post, also mentioning that Google Fiber will provide the boost necessary to Webpass for further growth with the expertise of Google Fiber, and Webpass will continue serving its customers across all regions.

Webpass was founded in 2003, and mainly offers high-speed ethernet-based gigabit internet connections to businesses, in five major US markets, namely the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, and Miami. Webpass also provides residential connections to apartments in limited areas for buildings built after 1995. According to the company, Webpass has over 20,000 customers. The deal should be completed by late summer, but might get delayed due to approvals from the regulatory board.

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This acquisition is particularly important to Google, as it serves a multitude of purposes, first being the expansion plans for Google Fiber in the Bay Area. Google is not too keen on building its own networks and instead wants to rely on existing connections to provide high-speed data to more consumers. The residential accessibility of Webpass also makes it an attractive deal for Google as it competes against major players like Comcast and Time Warner Cable who often sign multi-year contracts with apartments. Furthermore, Webpass gives Google Fiber access to the two new markets of Miami and Boston, further accelerating the growth of the unit. Webpass also specializes in wireless broadband networks, which has always been a better choice to Google in comparison to cable internet.

Google had also announced the launch of Fiber Phone (new kind of a land line essentially) early in 2016, which accompanies the Internet and TV Services already provided by Google. Google Fiber was categorized into Other Bets in 2015 when Alphabet was formed. According to reports, of the $448 million in revenue from Other Bets in Alphabet, approximately $100 million came from Google Fiber.
While there are tons of great Android apps out there in the Google Play Store, many of the more popular options are already installed on most peoples Android devices. This includes Google Maps, which is easily one of the most-used Android apps by practically anyone and everyone. While apps like Lyft and Uber are great and help us get from A-to-B, theyre not available everywhere, and one of the few options that gives people an idea of where theyre going no matter where in the world you might be. While general mapping and navigation is what a lot of people use Google Maps for, its also used by many as a way of looking up businesses, such as places to eat or the nearest coffee shop. This is getting a little easier from here on out.

As Google explains in their Asia Pacific Blog, Japanese Google Maps users are getting a simplified view of exactly what business does what. Now, users in Japan will be able to survey the map nearby a dropped pin or where they might be there and then and see descriptions of what a business actually is right from the map. Previously, a user would have to click on a listing for Lawson to see that this is a longstanding chain of convenience stores in Japan. Now however, Google will be listing over a thousand different business types under their names right on the map view, which should not only speed things up for users, but make it easier to explore the area around them. After all, its quicker to see what a business or place is right away, than having to look at reviews or worse, Google the name to find out what it might be.

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Right now, this is rolling out to Japanese Google Maps users, but the blog post detailed the change to coming to more languages than just Japanese. These include Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. Just when these other languages will see this new feature go live is anyones guess, but it shouldnt be too far away given that its already up and working in Japan, and the fact that Google is no stranger to translating content from one language to another.
Android TV is one of those platforms which although is slow in doing so, does see a number of improvements coming through over time. As a result, Android TV is now significantly better and more feature-rich than it ever has been and certainly more than at the point of launch. However, there has been many noticeable (and largely unexplained) features which continued to be missing from the platform. In particular, one feature which is directly relevant to the Android TV Netflix app.

It is likely to be the case that many Android TV users make use of Netflix as one of their main video content streaming service providers. After all, Netflix is one of the largest streaming companies around and generally speaking, the app is one of the best adapted apps to work with the Android TV platform. However, in spite of its popularity and general Android TV compatibility, the Netflix app has remained unable to make use of Android TVs universal search feature. Which largely means finding Netflix content meant entering the app and searching through the actual app. Instead of being able to fire up the Google search functionality from the homescreen and find Netflix content easier, quicker and without having to open the app.

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That now seems to be changing though as the Android Team has announced this morning via social media that universal search has arrived for Netflix on Android TV. As this was confirmed by social media, at the moment the details are a little limited and it is currently unclear whether this is rolling out as an update to the Netflix app or otherwise. Not to mention, it is unclear whether users should expect to be able to use the feature today, later in the week or when. However, it does seem to be the case that universal search for Netflix on Android TV is finally coming. Which will be to the relief or many Android TV device owners who have been asking for this feature to be included for quite some time. Either way, if you do own an Android TV device, you should expect to see the universal search compatibility for Netflix arriving soon enough.
Motorola as a company is in an interesting position at the moment. In the grand scheme of things, it was not that long ago that Motorola was picked up by Lenovo. However, the purchase came on the back of Motorola building up a brand which many in the Android world consider to be a close to stock brand. While Motorola devices like the Moto X range did not come with the most bleeding-edge of specs, they were solidly built, came with (generally speaking) very good specs and a software experience which was as close as possible to what you might find on a Nexus device.

However, when Lenovo picked up Motorola, the questions began to emerge on what direction Motorola would take under Lenovo. Would they be the same, offer the same level of product and user experience or would they start to adopt Lenovo traits, services and user experiences? A question which has largely remained in the background while the latest Motorola devices and hardware have come through. However, HelloMotoHK, who is known for providing what is often correct Motorola leaks is now suggesting some changes will certainly be taking place for the Moto brand, in China at least.

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According to HelloMotoHK, the recently unveiled Moto Z range of devices (which are generally thought to be the replacement of the Moto X range) will not come with the same software experience in China as in the rest of the world. Instead, it is claimed that in China, the Moto Z will come with a One Lenovo UI in place. It is believed the Lenovo UI will come with some common Chinese elements like the absence of an app launcher, among other fairly obvious visual and user tweaks. Of course, at the moment none of this has been confirmed and there are no indications that Lenovo plans a similar UI switch in countries outside of China, with HelloMotoHK specifically noting that the Moto Z in other countries will come with the pure Moto experience. However, it does at least highlight Lenovo might have a vision for Motorola which is somewhat different from the Motorola of recent times.
T-Mobile has long been known as the best carrier for unique deals. After unveiling a deal for foreigners in the U.S to get good service for cheap without having to resort to a smaller carrier or an unnecessary and expensive postpaid plan, T-Mobile has decided to flip the script and unveil another UnCarrier-only deal, this time for its American customers heading to Europe. Billed as one of the worlds most popular vacation destinations, its no surprise that people flocking to parts of Europe from the U.S. would want to use their smartphones to share their travels with friends at home. Until today, this would require a local SIM and an unlocked phone, or involve very high roaming fees. Today, T-Mobile unveiled a deal that allows customers to use their network abroad almost as if theyre at home, with the bonus of completely unlimited high-speed data.

The deal will begin on July 1 and run all the way through August 31. Customers on any Simple Choice plan with the UnCarrier will find that theyre able to use their phones throughout most of Europe in much the same way as they do at home, so long as their device supports the right bands for coverage where they are. Even if their plan at home includes limited data at 4G LTE speeds, theyll have full access to the highest mobile broadband speeds possible in their destination no matter how much data they use up. Texting is free with the deal, and calls are 20 cents per minute.

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The fine print does specify a few caveats, of course. For starters, tethering is strictly forbidden so those who do want to carry their computers about will not be able to share the connection from their phone, even if their plan at home includes tethering. T-Mobile also reserves the right to cut a customers connection for the same kinds of unreasonable use that would get them cut off at home, along with excessive roaming. Since the entire deal centers around roaming, the implication is that there is a hidden cap or threshold of some sort that will earn a customer the UnCarriers ire, but no such thing is specifically mentioned. As an added bonus, T-Mobiles own customers, as well as customers of AT&T and Verizon, will get 1 hour of free in-flight Wi-Fi on certain airlines en route to Europe, and Belize is being added to Simple Global, eliminating roaming charges for customers heading there.
Unicode has been the default standard for representation and handling of text. Emoji, as a text-based representation of emotions, have been a part of Unicode ever since 2010 from the release of version 6 onwards. The Unicode Consortium announced the launch of Unicode 9.0 on June 21st, updated with six new scripts of different languages, 19 symbols for the new 4K TV standards, and a host of new emoji characters, keeping up with the latest developments.

With version 9.0, Unicode launched 72 new emoji characters, the most popular of them being the rolling on the floor laughing, face palm, fingers crossed, drooling face, lying face, nauseated and shrug. This update might spell the end for typing out ROFL and also compete with the popularity of the Picard facepalm reaction. Other highlights to the emoji include representation of a pregnant woman, and taking selfies. New animals like the fox, gorilla, and owl have also been added in the new update. A host of new characters for foods has been included, like the Kiwifruit, croissant, baguette, and others. The six new scripts added to Unicode were Osage, Nepal Bhasa, Fulani, the Bravanese dialect of Swahili, the Warsh orthography for Arabic, and Tangut, an ancient Chinese language, as mentioned in the Unicode blog. The complete list of new emoji is also available on the Unicode blog.

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One notable emoji that did not make it to the new version was the Rifle emoji, which was voted out due to Apple going against the support of violent characters in the Unicode standard, with Microsoft supporting Apples stance in the matter, although late stage removal ensured a place for both the characters in the Unicode list. In comparison, last years 8.0 update brought racial diversification to the table, with the ability to modify skin tones for various emoji. While the Unicode consortium has the final say in which emoji is included, they are not responsible for the emoji designs. It leads to different designs, and artwork for the same character across various platforms. Unicode 9.0 and the standard new emoji will be supported across all platforms, with support in Microsoft Windows arriving with the anniversary update. Google is planning to include the new characters as part of the Android N roll out. There is no word about when Apple is going to add support for it yet. Unicode 10.0 is also already in the works, with talks of including chopsticks, a fortune cookie, and a takeout box emoji.
Abdul Rahman Haroun: refugee, migrant, African, brave, desperate, criminal and free

Abdul Rahman Haroun, 40, left his native Sudan in 2004. On August 4 2015, Mr Haroun walked through the 31-mile long Channel Tunnel and claimed asylum. The Express says there is outrage as migrant is freed. It laments the border shambles that allows Haroun to be a free man. Reading that you might suppose that Mr Haroun escaped any legal censure for his actions.

Not so.

The Independents headline is at odds with the Express. It turns Mr Haroun from migrant to refugee. The Indy sums up: Refugee Abdul Rahman Haroun given nine-month prison sentence for walking through Channel Tunnel to reach UK He was prosecuted under Victorian legislation  the Malicious Damage Act 1861  for obstructing an engine or a carriage using a railway.

The Express quotes an MP who says Haroun received only a slap on the wrist. The MP says Haroun should have been deported automatically. The Express says Haroun benefitted from a soft touch justice system. Haroun has been rewarded [for his criminality] with leave to remain and taxpayer handouts.

The Mail says Haroun is free to work and live here if he has a wife and child under 18 he can bring them to Britain.

Mr Haroun is free. That much is true. But only because from the time of his arrest until January this year Mr Haroun was a prisoner at HMP Elmley in Kent. In December 2015, the African migrant (Telegraph) was granted permission to remain in the UK as a refugee.

In January, he was bailed. At Canterbury Crown Court Mr Haroun, who braved speeding trains (New York Times) pleaded guilty.

The Daily Star sees no bravery. It states: Migrant who walked through Chunnel free to live here  despite guilty plea. The paper adds: The news comes after truck drivers told of their fears of another summer of migrant mayhem in Calais, France.

The final word is with the judge, Adele Williams, who acknowledged Haroun had travelled from Sudan in a state of desperation' (Sky News). She added: The reason why the courts of the United Kingdom take such a serious view of this criminality is that those who enter in this way seek to evade the authorities, who can, therefore, have no check upon who is entering the country. In the world in which we live of international crime and terrorism that is a very serious matter.

So was the bigger crime in letting a man wander through the Channel Tunnel undetected?

PS  Mr Haroun plans to appeal his conviction.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, June 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Reviews, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
(ANSA) - Rome, June 22 - Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi on Wednesday reiterated her opposition to the capital's bid to host the 2024 Olympics.

"It's not really a priority for the people of Rome," she told Euronews in her first interview as mayor.

"They seem to me to be more like construction Olympics than sporting Olympics...the economic and historic data tells us all the cities that have hosted them have indebted themselves to the hilt".

Raggi cited the 1976 Montreal Olympics, whose initial budget estimate was overrun by 796%.

"With debt of 13 billion euros, Rome can't afford to take on further debt to build more cathedrals in the desert," Raggi said.

"I am in favor of sport, but let's begin with city sporting facilities," she went on.

"Rome has over 160 of them and they are falling to pieces, and no one ever cared to maintain or renovate them".

The fledgling mayor also said Rome needs policies to reconnect its impoverished, crime-ridden outlying districts to its more affluent center.


World Jewish Congress says Michelin Guide ignores Israel Nothing dedicated to its gastronomy or restaurants

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JUNE 23 - World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald Lauder has written a letter to Michelin Guide editor-in-chief Juliane Caspar protesting the Guide's claims that Israel doesn't generate enough "gastronomic interest" and that there wouldn't be enough "potential readers" to merit its own restaurant guide, as reported on Thursday by the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA).



In the letter, written May 18, Lauder said, "Israel draws over 3 million tourists per year, who together contribute $11 billion to the Israeli economy. This includes the $2 billion spent in Israel's robust industry of 4,000 restaurants".



Currently Israel doesn't have any Michelin Guides dedicated to its restaurants and isn't listed on the Michelin global website, which provides information for travel and restaurants in Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and even Syria, in the midst of a civil war.



In a previous letter, Lauder speculated that there could be political reasons behind the decision to exclude Israel.



(ANSAmed).




Serbia: Italian footwear manufacturer arrives in Sabac

(ANSAmed) - BELGRADE, 23 JUNE - Italian company Skandia, specializing in manufacturing waterproof winter footwear, informed the city administration of Sabac that they were planning to start production in this town in September. As the city administration said the investors would first rent a production plant in which 200 people would work, while they were planning construction of their own plant in the following year and hire 200 more workers. (ANSAmed).




Migrants: first group of refugees from Turkey reach Spain

(ANSAmed) - MADRID, JUNE 23 - Spain has taken in its first group of Syrian refugees transferred from Turkey under the European Union's planned relocation programme. Ten people, including five men, two women, and three minors, arrived at Madrid Barajas airport overnight, the interior ministry said in a statement. Four were transferred to Tarragona in the Catalonia region, and another six to Navarre.



Up to now, Spain has taken in 134 refugees from countries of first arrival: 40 from Italy, 84 from Greece and 10 from Turkey.



Another 418 should arrive soon from Greece, Lebanon and Turkey, the interior ministry said. (ANSAmed).




ROME - More than 4,000 migrants were saved in some 40 rescue operations in the Sicilian Channel Thursday, the Italian Coast Guard said. The body of a woman was found on one of the dinghies.



The Italian Navy - which confirmed a fresh and intense migrant flow is ongoing from the Libyan coast - said it rescued 1,800 men, women and children off 31 different inflatables. The remaining asylum seekers were rescued by EUNAVFOR MED ships, Italy's Coast Guard, and four vessels manned by humanitarian groups: the Bourbon Argos chartered by Doctors Without Borders, the Sea Watch 2 belonging to the NGO of the same name founded by three German business partners to rescue asylum seekers at sea, the Topaz Responder, a ship run by the Malta-based humanitarian group Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), and the Acquarius, manned by SOS Mediterranee.


BRUSSELS - "The Palestinian people are on your side in the fight against terrorism and extremism which we condemn: but in order to conquer terrorism there must be an end to the Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian State. The beginning of the solution to the problem of terrorism is in the birth of Palestine," said Palestinian National Authority (PNA) leader Mahmoud Abbas speaking, among applause, at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels.



Mahmoud Abbas then asked for "reviving the tripartite commission, composed of Palestine, Israel, and the USA against incitement to hate". "I also ask that you of the EU participate, given that Europe is a very important partner to all the parties in question".



"I and my Arab brothers support the French peace efforts: Hollande told me that he is determined to organise a successful conference by the end of the year. From this important Parliament I appeal to the Israeli people, to its government and its parties: our hand is outstretched for peace. Do you also have the same willingness and are you ready to recognise the historic injustices that you have committed against my people?".
NAPLES - Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Thursday that some progress was being made on the security front in the Middle East, particularly in Libya, thanks in part to Italian efforts.



"We have slow progress, but we have it in Libya, also to Italy's merit," he said. "The situation in Syria remains highly dangerous, because the attempted ceasefire is increasingly hanging in the balance." He also said that a process of dialogue had been started in Yemen and some advances were being made against terrorism in Iraq, Yemen but also Syria and Libya.



"We have solved the problems. But we have had very gradual progress," he said.



He said Italy was focusing efforts in the Mediterranean on controlling crises, war and terrorism. "For investors, the fact that these situations are being brought gradually under control is absolutely decisive and in fact the U.S. presidency in the last two years has started again to concentrate a lot on the management of this area," he said.
New Rome mayor Raggi in first official ceremonies Assassinated magistrate memorial, Ardeatine Caves, and more

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 23 - Newly elected Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi on Thursday placed a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Victor Emmanuel Monument in the first of a series of official ceremonies marking the day she is to be sworn in.



Among them was a speech to commemorate magistrate Mario Amato, who was assassinated on June 23, 1980, by far-right terrorists from the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR).



"This is my first public speech as mayor and I am honored to dedicate it to the memory of one of the most eminent magistrates who committed themselves to the battle against terrorism," Raggi said.



"The State must always stand with those who search for the truth... Today and every day, we are Mario Amato".



Raggi also made a stop at Porta San Paolo in the 3rd-century Aurelian Walls in Rome's southern Ostiense district, where Italian soldiers and civilians tried to stop Nazi German forces from entering and seizing the city in September 1943.



There were 570 casualties.



The young new mayor was met by representatives from the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI), who fought in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II.



"Be careful because Fascism is a very ugly beast," said one elderly ANPI representative.



"We lived through it and we had a cursed youth, but we defended ourselves and we made it. We lost 80,000 comrades, men and women both. I hope to see you again and I wish you all the best".



Raggi also visited the Ardeatine Caves memorial where Nazi troops slaughtered 335 civilians in reprisal for a Resistance action in 1944.



"I commit to reaping this important heritage on behalf of our beloved city and our dear country," Raggi said.



There will be no official handover from Special Commissioner Francesco Paolo Tronca, who has been running the city since ex-mayor Ignazio Marino stepped down amid an expenses scandal in October last year. Raggi is expected to enter her new office with a view over the Imperial Forums by about 18:00.



After that, she may request a hearing with Pope Francis that could take place on June 29, the feast day of Rome's patron saints, Peter and Paul.



Protocol also calls for new mayors to request a meeting with the president of the republic, in this case Sergio Mattarella.



The first Raggi city council is to meet in the first week of July - possibly the 7th - to elect a Speaker, who is likely to be Marcello De Vito from Raggi's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).



Meanwhile the M5S majority is at work on choosing chairpersons for the various city commissions.



The M5S caucus leader in city council is expected to be Paolo Ferrara, who has served in the same role in the Ostia city council in the past. (ANSAmed).




Emirates flagship double-decker A380s will operate on the route, currently the worlds longest, from 30 October. The airline has been flying the route since March 1, in addition to three daily A380s flying from Auckland to Dubai and beyond via Australia, and a daily Boeing 777-300ER from Christchurch.

Operating eastbound as flight EK448, the service will depart Dubai at 10:05am and arrive in Auckland the following day at 11:10am (local time). Westbound, flight EK449 will depart Auckland each night at 9:15pm, arriving in Dubai the following morning at 5:35am (local time) connecting with Emirates 39 European destinations, as well as other destinations in West Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This flight also connects in both directions with 10 A380 destinations, providing passengers the opportunity to fly all the way from Auckland to Europe on Emirates flagship aircraft.

The very first flight from Dubai to Auckland and return at the beginning of March was operated by an A380 to especially commemorate the start of the non-stop route, but the flights have since been flown by the Boeing 777-200LR.
Air Serbia, in which Etihad Airways has a 49 per cent stake, launched its five-times-a-week scheduled flights between its Belgrade hub and New York JFK International Airport, marking a return of direct air links between Serbia and the USA after a 24-year absence. The route is being operated with an Airbus A330-200 aircraft.
Etihad Airways treasury team collected the Top Treasury Team Award for overall excellence. The team also picked up the awards for Best Financing Solution and Best Cash Management Solution.

Etihad Airways Treasury Department was recognised for its innovative transformation and centralisation programmes that have made an outstanding contribution to the airline.

James Hogan, Etihad Aviation Group president and chief executive officer, said: Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Etihad Airways. These latest awards are a testimony to the talent in our finance team. Our strategy is clear and finance is a core enabler of that strategy  a business model that focuses on organic growth and minority investments in airlines around the world. Our equity partner strategy is creating a total which is greater than the sum of its parts, a grouping working together to improve revenues, reduce costs and uncover exciting new business synergies.

James Rigney, Etihad Aviation Group chief financial officer, said: The performance of our treasury team this last year has been remarkable. These highly coveted awards, especially the team of the year award, are very well deserved. The success they have had is a catalyst for Etihad Aviation Groups plans for further growth and investment.

Angela Berry, Co-founder and Group Publisher at the Treasury Today Group, said: The Adam Smith Awards are the ultimate industry benchmark for achievement in corporate treasury, Etihad Airways is to be congratulated for sweeping so many of this years awards.
The service will operate three times a week on Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays on a Boeing 777-200 and will boost the airports passenger number. This is the first time ever that Kuwait Airways will have a footprint in Ireland.



Andrew Murphy, chief commercial officer, Shannon Group said; Kuwait Airways operates scheduled international services throughout the Middle East, to the Indian subcontinent, Europe, Southeast Asia and North America, from its main base at Kuwait International Airport. Securing this transit operation opens up the possibility of further developments with the airline. We will be working closely with them to explore further opportunities.



Philip Saunders, chief commercial officer, Kuwait Airways said: We are delighted to be working with Shannon Airport on this initiative. The entire airport community have responded quickly and pro-actively to our requirements allowing this change in the service to be implemented seamlessly. We are looking forward to being able to offer the time-saving US Preclearance service at the earliest opportunity and to a successful partnership with Shannon Airport.
Darwazeh was appointed a representative of the Government Shareholdings Management Company in RJs Board of Directors as of June 19, 2016, replacing Suleiman Hafez, who chaired the RJ board of directors since November 2014.

RJs president/CEO Captain Suleiman Obeidat was appointed a representative of the Government Shareholdings Management Company in RJs Board of Directors occupying the vacant seat.

The Board of Directors is comprised of nine members; five of them represent the Government Shareholdings Management Company that owns 60.2% of the RJ capital which amounts to 146.4 million dinars/shares.

Darwazeh is currently the CEO and Chairman of Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC. Between 2003 and 2006, he was the Minister of Health, Jordan.

He is also the chairman of the Board of the Queen Rania Foundation, which focuses primarily on providing youth with learning opportunities and equipping them with the necessary tools for success such as ICT in education and online learning opportunities.

Darwazeh occupies the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), and is a board member of the Central Bank of Jordan.

He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Babson College in the USA, and the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he also co-founded the Samih Darwazah Center for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship

Darwazeh also founded the Health Care Accreditation Council in Amman, a not-for-profit organization that accredits healthcare providers and works across the region to improve standards in healthcare.
The transatlantic flight of the the solar airplane of Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, covered a distance of 6'765 km (4'203 miles) powered only by the sun, confirming Solar Impulses vision that clean technologies and renewable energy can achieve the impossible.





At the controls of Si2, Bertrand Piccard touched down at the Seville Airport at 7:38am local time (UTC+2), after a historic flight of three days and three nights that took off from New York on 20 June at 2:30am local time (UTC-4)  at a maximum altitude of 8'534m (28,000 feet) and average speed of 95.10 km/h (59 mph)  completing the first ever electric, solar and emission-free transatlantic flight while breaking several world records (pending FAI approval). Those include distance and altitude in the electric airplane category as well as distance along a pre-declared performance in the solar airplane category.



For centuries, the Atlantic Ocean has been a playground for explorers with diverse means of transportation  sail and steamboats, airplanes, airships, balloons and even windsurfs. Half a millennium ago, Christopher Columbus set off into the unknown from Andalusia, discovering The Americas. Last century, Charles Lindbergh accomplished the first solo transatlantic flight with his prototype aircraft The Spirit of St. Louis, paving the way for the development of commercial aviation. Today, Solar Impulse accomplished that same crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, but with no fuel, paving the way for the future of clean technologies and energy efficiency.



The Atlantic has always revealed the transitions between the old and the new worlds. But while theses worlds used to be geographical continents, today they are states of mind. The old world is the world of inefficient polluting devices, depleting the Earths resources. The new world is the world of modern clean technologies that can halve our global energy consumption, save natural resources and improve our quality of life. With this transatlantic flight our aim is to inspire the adoption of clean technologies everywhere, said Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse Initiator and Chairman who flew the zero-fuel aircraft over the Atlantic.



Last year, Andre Borschberg accomplished a pioneering first by flying Si2 five days and nights over the Pacific from Japan to Hawaii, thereby proving that it is theoretically feasible to fly perpetually. Today, Bertrand Piccard completed the crossing of the Atlantic  a rite of passage symbolically confirming the maturity and usability of clean technologies, with the clear intention of inspiring people and nations to adopt them everywhere in their daily lives. More than an aviation first, Solar Impulses transatlantic flight is a first in the history of renewable energy.



Solar Impulse is a demonstration of energy efficiency and smart energy management, similar to a flying smart grid. Just imagine your energy reserves increasing during flight and available day after day! emphasised Andre Borschberg, CEO, Co-Founder and Pilot Initially the aviation industry told us it was impossible to build such an airplane, but we believed we could do it thanks to all our partners technologies. Last year we showed that it could fly almost perpetually, and now we confirmed it with the transatlantic flight, proving again that change is possible when we have the right mindset and are not afraid to push back our own limits.



Bertrand Piccard initiated Solar Impulse with the vision of having an airplane capable of flying night and day without using any fuel. To translate this vision into reality, he brought together the partners to fund this adventure and joined forces with Andre Borschberg who pulled together the team that designed and constructed Si2. In addition to being an aeronautical first, the Solar Impulse project was conceived as a now widely recognized platform to raise public awareness and encourage political actions in favor of clean technologies.To take the ambition a step further, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg announced, on the third day of the transatlantic flight, the intention of creating the International Committee of Clean Technologies.



The landing in Spain was welcomed by the Eagle Patrol of the Spanish Air Force. The mission will now continue onward to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where the adventure started in March 2015. By flying around the world with no fuel, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg are demonstrating that today exploration and pioneering are no longer about conquering new territories, but about exploring new ways to have a better quality of life on Earth. Solar Impulses technologies can already be used on the ground, and have the potential to change individual habits, societies and markets in an unprecedented way.



Flight report: Leg 15  John F. Kennedy International Airport, (NY) to Seville International Airport



Pilot: Bertrand Piccard, Initiator, Chairman, and pilot of Solar Impulse

Take-off: 2:30am local time New York, NY on 20 June 2016 (6:30am UTC on 20 June 2016)

Landing: 7:38am local time Seville, Spain on 23 June 2016 (5:38am UTC on 23 June 2016)

Flight time: 71 hours and 8 minutes

Maximum altitude: 28,000 feet (8,534 m)

Average speed: 59 mph (95.10 km/h)

Flight distance covered: 6,765 km (4,203 miles)


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YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Government has proposed to the Parliament to convene an extraordinary session on June 27 at 12:00.

Deputy Chief of Staff/Minister of the Government Artur Sargsyan said the agenda will include drafts on amendments of Legal Acts, Electoral Code, and Laws on Reproductive health and rights.
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs that on June 23 the USD exchange rate was 476.32 AMD which is an increase of 0.34 drams compared to the previous day.

Armenpress reports that the Euro increased by 4.95 drams forming 542.24 drams. British pound rose by 8.74 drams forming 707.34 drams, Russian ruble didnt change and remained 7.44 drams on June 23.

The prices for precious metals are as follows: the price for silver per gram is 263.4 AMD, gold-19,369.97 AMD, and platinum-15,007.76 AMD.
The Guardia Civil has arrested an antiques collector in the town of Bullas and impounded an enormous cache: 4,000 archaeological artifacts, some dating to the Bronze Age; 5,000 rare coins; 150 relics, included a supposed piece of the True Cross once certified by the Vatican; 40 paintings; and 30 manuscripts, including a late medieval Book of Psalms.
All the latest Ashbourne news. Ashbourne is an historic market town in Derbyshire. Situated on the southern edge of the Peak District, it is known as the 'Gateway to Dovedale' and the 'Gateway to the Peak District'. Ashbourne is famous for the annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match, which has been played since at least 1667, although its origins may date back centuries earlier. Ashbourne became a Fairtrade town in March 2005. The popular Tissington Trail, which follows the route of the former Ashbourne to Buxton railway, starts on the edge of town. Keep up to date with the latest news from the town by signing up for our newsletter.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The referendum vote in Britain today, whether to stay or leave the European Union, interests Asia purely from the economic point of view, that is, if there will be consequences that will improve or worsen relations and trade. However, most voices, some even quite authoritative, are backing "remain" because it proposes greater stability.



In China, following the praxis of Beijing's foreign policy, the referendum is seen as an element of domestic policy and the Chinese government will not comment officially. But today, the Global Times, which is linked to the official Party paper the People's Daily, published a vigorous article supporting reasons for the UK to stay. " If the UK votes to leave, it will become an Atlantic orphan and lose its special relationship with the EU. In this circumstance, its special relationship with the US will become more notable, but it may mean less to the US. "Leaving the EU - it adds - will cost the UK a chance to exert its influence."



The "special relationship" with the EU is also important for Beijing, since it has chosen London as a European center for its trade in yuan.



The concern of Asian investors is mainly about what the period of uncertainty that would follow a Brexit[Britains exit from the EU] will bring. They fear that investment in Britain will fall in value.



Asian multinationals that have so far chosen their European base in London, they worry that a Brexit would create obstacles to the movement of their goods in the common market. Japan's Hitachi, for example, is already thinking about how to reduce its presence in Britain.



But there is one who thinks that the exit from the EU will help many more qualified Asians to enter the United Kingdom, doing without the European immigration rules. The wealthy financier Jim Mellon, a supporter of Brexit, argues that "Asians who want to study and work [in Britain] will find this much easier because those are the talented people we want ... what we want are skilled workers, not the unskilled workers from Romania and Bulgaria whose only skills are in cleaning the streets or making coffee.
by Jin Yan

A young woman talks about her experience. Born in a Christian family, she had no friends who shared her religious values. Seen as a stranger by society, when she moved to the big city, things got worse, with God and her mother on one side, and propaganda and difficulties of everyday life on the other. A prayer group helped her along the way. Now she is involved in pastoral youth outreach in her diocese. Her story appeared in Tripod, the quarterly magazine of the Diocese of Hong Kong.

Beijing (AsiaNews)  I was born in the 1980s into a Christian family. The family was Christian because my mother comes from a Catholic family of several generations, and she brought the religion to my father's family. So I was raised in a quite religious atmosphere. We went to Mass every Sunday, and on Saturday nights we had Bible study in the family. But due to the former years of persecution and to the atheistic propaganda, at that time religious faith, especially Christianity, was still discriminated against by most people in society. When I was a little girl and went to Church with my mother, our neighbors were perplexed, or they would ask sarcastically: Still going to Church, heh? Is there a salary in it for you?

Thus, my parents passed on to me their Catholic faith and the habit of going to Church, but I had to grow up alone in a society full of anti-religious influences. At that time, there were only two or three Christian families in the whole town, which was the centre of the county. I had no Christian friends of my age with whom I could talk about faith, and no teacher to guide me in this area. Everyone around me had a negative attitude toward religious faith, regarding it as superstition.

In middle school the course named Ideology and Politics appeared in the curriculum, and my mind began to be invaded by communism and atheism. I was divided between two worlds: the world of my family with its Christian faith, and the world of school with its propaganda and exams. Deep in my heart I believed that my parents had a reason for their faith. But from time to time, doubts arose in my mind. Without the courage to challenge either side, I had to continue my inner struggle, alone.

When I was in trouble I called to the God of my parents. The rest of the time I buried myself in my lessons and textbooks, including the books on political propaganda. In this way, I could pass the college-entrance examination and change my fate by entering a good university. The Catholic faith was like a seed buried deep in my heart by my parents, and it was waiting for the right day to sprout out.

Later I was lucky enough to succeed in the exam, and I enrolled in a university for language studies. With much more free time on campus, and also with the support of my parents, I began to search for better ways of living out my faith. However, I was still divided between two worlds: faith and life. Faith was still what my parents had given me, but the place to practise it had moved to a city Church. My parents were not with me. I was still alone in life, but more completely this time: I had to be independent.

At this moment, I had the strong feeling that I needed friends of my age, who were also Christians so that we could share our faith together. God really took care of my needs. In the city of my university, I found a prayer group in which I met several good friends. We gathered every weekend, went to Mass together, prayed together, and always ended with a simple but joyful meal. Moreover, in my hometown, the diocese organized a summer camp and a winter camp for college students every year, where I could meet many Christian students of my diocese.

We worshipped God together, shared our experiences together, and learned a lot about our faith and the Church. Although during this period, God was still the God of my mother, just like for Jacob in Gn. 28, who knew God as the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac. Only when He keeps me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, and makes everything in my life go smoothly, shall He be My God. Otherwise I'd easily get angry with Him and be full of complaints against Him.

However, those prayer activities and the community life both in the prayer group and in the student camps kept me in close contact with the Lord. I was led, even unconsciously, to know more about Him and to get closer to Him. Eventually He became my God.

In 2008 I graduated from university with a Masters degree in English Language and Literature. As my university was well-known, I could easily have found a job in that big city, become its resident and settle down as most of my classmates did. But just before graduation, I suddenly got tired of city life, for it seemed that I could see right through the futurejob, residence (hukou), family, apartment, and car. But I did not want to spend the rest of my life struggling for those things.

I wanted to look for greater meaning in life, and try to live this out. Therefore, after a short period of consideration, I came back to my home diocese, and under the gaze of many puzzled eyes, I went to the pastoral center to start my ministry with the Churchworking for the formation of the lay-faithful of the diocese, as a lay person.

At that time the pastoral center was newly started. There were very few workers and very few resources. My first task was to organize the office, so as to ensure the smooth implementation of the formation programs. The second task was to accompany the youth groups. Due to the lack of co-workers, I felt quite frustrated in the beginning, but the good Lord never abandoned me. His powerful hand was always with me.

A good tutor in the area at that time gave me a lot of help, especially in terms of spirituality. Together with the benefit of the formation lessons, I finally got a true understanding of my faith and of the God that I believe in. I eventually felt His great and unconditional love for me all through my life.

One day, I saw in the elder son of Luke 15 the image of myself. Although I never left the Fathers house, I had never understood His merciful heart. For under a pious appearance, I had a cold and selfish heart, which was far away from Him. I knew that it was due to the lack of a religious education in my childhood. But it was also due to my experience of struggling alone in my early years. When I got to know this, I finally became the younger son---who could kneel down to experience the merciful love of the Lord.

My experience of growing up as a whole person prepared me for my second taskto accompany the youth. When I looked at them I saw my early selflost and struggling to keep up the family faith in a hostile environment! I wanted very much to help them, so that they would no longer need to struggle alone! In fact it is not an easy job. This era has undergone rapid development. New technologies are changing the world every dayand with it, the mind of the people, especially the youth. They are more active than us who were born in the 1980s; their life is easier, but they live with less care about history, and society and its future.

Therefore, I need to know their thoughts, their lives, and listen to them. In this way I can explore together with them, under the spirit of the Gospel, how to live as Christians in this age. For example, whether to join the communist party has puzzled a lot of Christian students. It is in fact a contest between faith and worldly expectations. It is one of the greatest challenges in our pastoral work. We need to accompany the youth, and guide them patiently, in order to help them walk through this dilemma.

Another example was during the period when almost the whole nation was stirred up to boycott everything Japanese. How should we Christians discern this matter, and act? This problem also demanded that we help the youth to find a proper answer.

Of course, as you sow, so shall you reap. Each year there are students who graduate and leave the students association, and settle down in different cities. Most of them, even when they get married and establish their families, are still active Christians, involved both in the Church and in society. When I see this, my heart is filled with joy, although I understand that it is God who gives the increase. This makes me feel that I have found the greater meaning in life that I looked for in the beginning. Not only have I myself been born into a new life, but I have also found a career that deserves my lifelong commitment. Thanks be to God!
Every year, 4,500 Vietnamese women die from cancer. Over a ten-year period, the rate jumped by 69 per cent. Lack of preventive measures and financial means as well as social stigma deter people from seeking treatment. A group of Catholic nuns, medical practitioners and Buddhist volunteers organised a seminar to raise awareness about the problem, and allay fears about the pain.

Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agencies)  A group of Catholic nuns, together with some Buddhist nuns and volunteers, have joined forces to help Vietnamese women prevent breast cancer and cope with the social stigma associated with it. In ten years, breast cancer increased 69 per cent.

The group held its first seminar to raise awareness last month in Hue, a city in central Vietnam. Titled Communication of Cancers and Breast Cancer, the workshop was organised together with Community Capacity Development, a local NGO.

Some 40 Catholic sisters, Buddhist nuns and female volunteers attended the event. Sister Mary Nguyen Thi Van, a Saint Paul de Chartres nun, was one of them. She was also a special keynote speaker.

A breast cancer survivor herself, she once found it hard to share her experience. Diagnosed in 2006, she was reluctant to tell other people because breast cancer is considered a bad omen among women.

At first I did not dare to tell other nuns about my disease, although I had a burning pain in my chest and was extremely afraid to get hospital treatment and die of the cancer, Sister Mary said.

After receiving encouragement from her superior, she was diagnosed and her left breast was removed at the hospital, where she spent five months recovering.

The nun, who is now healthy, urged participants to be brave and face the risk of breast cancer by getting medical treatment right away rather than hide it.

In recent years, cancer has been growing at an alarming rate in Vietnam. From 2000 to 2011, the rate jumped by 69 per cent. This is largely due to the lack of screenings, and patients waiting until the disease is in its late stages. This points to the need for education.

In addition, heavy pesticide use and food contamination facilitate the growth cancer cells. And very often women cannot afford the cost of care.

"The workshop is aimed at enhancing understanding of cancers, especially breast cancer, among Catholic and Buddhist nuns and volunteers, who will then pass on to other people the information about cancer suffering, prevention and treatment at early stages," said Dr Pham Thi Kim Ngan, the community group's director and founder.

During the workshop, Dr Nguyen Dinh Tung, president of the Hue Breast Cancer Society, said that women in their 40s run a greater risks of developing breast cancer, which is one of the most common cancers facing women in Vietnam, with 12,000 new cases each year and 4,500 deaths.

Sister Mary said the Group plans to include cancer prevention as well as HIV/AIDS training in marriage preparation classes.
Amman (AsiaNews) - The memory of a childhood "peaceful and without any major problems", spent in the family with the ordinary difficulties of every day, turned upside down by the fall of a regime that could maintain "stability", even if by using force. The violence of war, chaos and, most recently, the rise of Daesh [Arabic acronym for the Islamic State] have disrupted their lives by forcing them to flee their own land. And seek refuge abroad, waiting to see what direction the future will take. This is the testimony entrusted to AsiaNews by two 20 year old Iraqis, who fled one from Kirkuk, the second from Mosul, two years ago following the advance of the jihadi militias. The girls are now living in Amman, Jordan, along with other refugees, thanks to hospitality projects fielded by the Church and by the local Caritas. They both confess that it is their heart's "deepest desire" to be able to meet Pope Francis one day so they can ask him to "never stop praying for us, Iraqi Christians".



Hadeel Akko is a young woman, native of Iraqi Kirkuk, who left Iraq after living years of violence and terror that progressivley escalated with the advance of the Islamic State in the summer of 2014. Maryam Zaitona was born and raised in Mosul, in the Nineveh Plains, in what is now the jihadist stronghold in Iraq.



In recent days Hadeel and Maryam, together with 16 other Iraqi refugees (pictured) entrusted to the care of Don Mario Corniole, a fidei donum priest on mission from Italy, a chasuble they made sewn with scraps of small materials in the tailoring workshop started in the Jordanian capital . A gift "made by Iraqi girls" for Pope Francis, which he will hopefully wear in a forthcoming celebrations; their desire is to see him "live" in Krakow, in late July.



Before the dream of rebuilding their lives, having abandoned everything, these girls shared dream is just to meet the Pope, hug him, ask him to continue to pray for their country. Perhaps even in Krakow for the World Youth Day, even if the visa problems make this possibility difficult. AsiaNews wanted to meet them to hear their story, of suffering, but also their hopes and wishes for the future.



"My life was stable in Kirkuk, in a small house" surrounded by love "my father George, my mother Najwa, my brothers David and Aydin" Hadeel said. We lived "in peace", she adds, sharing the local Church and Sacred Heart Cathedral. "I was part of the church choir, I never wanted to abandon it [...] and I went to school to learn, and one day put my learning at the service of Iraq." "I remember a beautiful, full life - adds Maryam, more demure in words but not in the feelings that she holds for her country - and all the people who lived in peace and harmony, no problems".



Hadeel says she misses her "studies, the church and the choir. But most of all the love and peace "that we once breathed in an Iraq that was once tolerant "and that now "no longer exists". For Maryam the greatest suffering is to "not being able to attend my parish" and she also misses "the time spent with my former friends and my family." In the past "relations between Christians and Muslims were very good", but "everything has changed" with the extremist drift that culminated in the arrival of Daesh. Now Christians generally no longer trust their Muslim neighbors as they once did.

"Before 2003 - echos Hadeel - relations between Christians and Muslims were stable thanks to the presence of a strong, authoritarian government, who exercised the rule of law without distinction". With the American invasion and the fall of Saddam "the state and the law" collapsed creating "a situation of chaos; the militias have taken control of the streets "and the Christian community began to suffer violence and attacks, which involved" private homes and places of worship ".



However, despite the difficulties and sufferings the faith remained and is a "very important element of everyday life." Christ faced the cross for us, says Hadeel, he has forgiven our sins, and this is a sign of the greatness of his love. "No trouble, no trouble can undermine this faith, because this faith in Jesus is able to do miracles." A thought shared by Maryam, who in Jesus has found the strength "to face all of lifes circumstances". "Right now my life is neither good nor bad - continues the young woman from Mosul  but one central point remains: the Church which is always a great support for us and it has always stayed by our side. The support provided by the Church and its representatives is "crucial" for Hadeel because it "makes us part of the Christian life [...] and it is always a source of new opportunities, such as sewing course" that she took part in, in Amman recent weeks.



Both have contributed to the realization of the chasuble for Pope Francis, whom they hope to be able to meet in the near future. "I love him very much," confesses the young woman Kirkuk and "I would ask him to bless me and to teach me how to live in humility and love as he does. And I would ask him not to forget us [Iraqi refugees], to pray for us, we who are his sons and daughters. " "I - intervenes Maryam - I would like to tell him that we all love him and I would ask him to pray for us, which we so badly need."



The two girls' last thoughts are for Iraq, their land of origin, which, perhaps, they have left for good. "I think it would be very difficult for us to go back to our homeland - concludes Hadeel - because there is nothing for us. I'm afraid to go back; despite everything I want to look with hope to the future, to complete my studies and build me one day. " "I am sad - says the young woman from Mosul - because I miss my land. I hope that, one day, people can live together again without problems, loving each other reciprocally because love is the ath of peace. (DS)
Yangon (AsiaNews) - More violence in Kachin State, northern Myanmar, once again with the military pitted against the civilian population. The Burmese army are reported to have shot dead a young man of 19, Gum Seng Aung. The attack took place on June 20, at 9.40 pm, near the Thida army post in the urban area of Myitkyina, the state capital.



According to local sources, Gum Seng Aung was a freshman at the IT University. Some Burmese Army soldiers guarding the Bala Min Htin bridge - crossing the Irrawaddy River and connecting to Myitkyina Waimaw - shot him dead.



The soldiers who fired are Nan Hee Dan Khin and Maung Maung, members of Battalion 727, assigned to the transportation and logistics of the Northern Division.



Witnesses said that the mode and the number of injuries, combined with the story of the two soldiers, would suggest the intentional murder of the 19 year old student. Some Kachin personalities, speaking on condition of anonymity say the crime committed by his superiors is being covered up.



The soldiers report that Gum Seng Aung would be part of a group that attacked civilians, accompanied at that time by a some soldiers they had asked for help to return to their homes. The young man reportedly died during a melee with the military, he was shot and killed.



However, some sources who arrived at the scene report that there were no signs of a struggle between the young and the soldiers and their uniforms were immaculate. The body of the young man showed signs of bullets from both sides, at shoulder height. In addition, witnesses deny there was a group of people responsible for the attack; on the contrary, the young man was alone or in the company of two friends who fled for fear of military retaliation.



Kachin activists have opened a Facebook page (pictured),demanding "justice" for the killing of the young Gum Seng Aung. The funeral scheduled for today will be attended by hundreds of friends and fellow students, who attended the same faculty as the 19 year old. He leaves behind his parents and a younger brother.

In a country of about 135 ethnic groups, peaceful coexistence has always been a struggle, especially with previous military governments being dominated by ethnic Burmese. In the past, the ruling military junta used an iron fist against the groups least amenable to central control, like ethnic Kachin, who live along the border with China in the north, and more recently, ethnic Kokang in Shan state, where the former president imposed a state of emergency.

In Kachin State, fighting between the Myanmar military and Kachin forces resumed in June 2011 after 17 years of relative calm. Since then, a battle between the Tatmadaw and Kachin has caused dozens of victims and almost 200,000 displaced people. The bishops of the area have launched and appeal for peace in the region, hoping for a lasting solution to the conflict.
Vatican Press Office Fr Federico Lombardi dispels all doubts and suspicions among Chinese Catholics with respect to Mgr Daqins volte face vis-a-vis the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Vatican Press Office Fr Federico Lombardi today released a statement concerning Bishop Ma Daqin.

Pope Francis follows with "particular care and concern" the "personal and ecclesial life of Msgr. Ma Daqin, like that of all Chinese Catholics" and prays for them every day, the statement said.

With respect to the Bishop of Shanghais recent retraction, Any speculation with regard to a presumed role of the Holy See is inappropriate."

After four years under house arrest for resigning from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), Mgr Thaddeus Ma Daqin wrote a post on his blog on 12 June in which he recanted his views, praising the association that controls the Church for its " irreplaceable role in the latters development in China.

In view of the dismay this volte face provoked, many Chinese Catholics responded with some sympathy towards the bishop and the pain he must be enduring. For them, either he did not write the article or if he did, it was under duress.

Several priests and some bishops wonder whether the Vatican prompted this change as a way to facilitate a dialogue with the Chinese government. They especially wanted to know whether Benedict XVIs Letter to Chinese Catholics was still valid since it said that the CPCA was "incompatible with Catholic doctrine".

In order to clarify the Vatican's position, Fr Lombardi issued a statement. Here it is:

In response to requests for information from various journalists, I am able to say the following:

1) With regard to the recent declarations attributed to Msgr. Taddeo Ma Daqin, auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, these have come to the attention of the Holy See through his blog and via press agencies. No direct information is currently available.

2) Any speculation with regard to a presumed role of the Holy See is inappropriate.

3) The personal and ecclesial life of Msgr. Ma Daqin, like that of all Chinese Catholics, is followed with particular care and concern by the Holy Father, who remembers them daily in prayer.
by Melani Manel Perera

Paanama is a Buddhist village in south-eastern Sri Lanka. In 2011, the government decided that certain lands belonged to residents, a decision overturned by a district court. For months, villagers have camped out in protest. This week, they marched and broke a coconut in a Buddhist ritual.

Paanama (AsiaNews)  Authorities have sent residents in Paanama, a village on Sri Lankas southeastern coast, expropriation orders, requiring them to vacate their land before 30 June.

The latter responded to the injunction last Tuesday by marching in the streets. When they reached Paththni Amma, a Buddhist temple, they broke a coconut as an offering in an age-old ritual.

"With this action, we invoke the divine blessing, that God may return us our lands that the government has forcibly expropriated, some residents told AsiaNews.

The National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) in collaboration with the Praja Abhilasi Network and the People's Alliance for Right to Lands (PARL) organised the protest to show their support for local residents organised in the Paanama Pattuwa Protection Organisation.

How can they do this to us? How can we tolerate such a decision? said Punchirala Somasiri, who heads the local group.

The controversy began in 2011 when the Sri Lankan government decided that the land in question belonged to locals. The legitimate owners were told that they would get back their property by January 2015; however, the Lahugala Division overturned the earlier decision in February 2015 and March 2016.

As the authorities set out to hold the land, locals decided to take it by force. Since then, they have camped out in the roads and refused to give in to the demands of the court.

Tuesdays protest has had an impact nation-wide with support coming from all parts. some 500 protesters travelled to the village from Jaffna, Mannar, Baticaloa, Trincomalee, Ampara, Monaragala, Galle, Matara, Kalutara, Colombo, Gampaha, Kurunegala and Polonnaruwa in a show of solidarity.

Initially, residents did not have the courage to organise a protest campaign, said NAFSO national coordinator Herman Kumara, but now they are motivated, full of energy, thanks to the support they got from all over Sri Lanka.

Four other villages have joined us, he added. Before people were divided, but then they realised the importance of being united in the struggle."

Venerable Chandrarathana Thero, who led the march, said, "Our struggle is to get back our land. It is a struggle that has lasted a long time and we shall not give up when we are so close to the goal."
The Best Boat Shoes For Men 2016

Finally, Stylish Boat Shoes That Dont Scream "Im On A Boat"

Warm, summer days evoke idyllic seaside scenes, cold drinks and good company. And, whether you're island-hopping in the Mediterranean or just a landlubber who likes a chilled beer by the beach, you need a pair of boat shoes this summer.

Synonymous with casual (and practical) summer style, you don't have to know your port and starboard to rock the boat shoe. Yes, they might still be shaking off the poshboy stereotype but they have evolved into a reliable everyday shoe that is smart enough for everything but summer weddings.

RELATED: 15 Summer Essentials Under 50

For styling we'd recommend baring your ankles (while you can) and pairing them with a tailored chino short, some Bermudas or, if the British weather doesn't give up, some rolled up jeans or trousers.

Below are our pick of the best boat shoes you can buy this year.

Clarks Karlock Lane

Clarks

A simple blue navy number with classic styling but a contemporary sole. Comfort is at the core here, making these perfect for a holiday with lots of sightseeing. Or after-work drinks that you suspect will go on longer than planned.

45 at Amazon. Buy them here

Sperry Topsider Gold Cup Authentic Original

One of the absolute classics. Sperry is the brand that brought boat shoes to the masses. Made with top quality lambskin leather the understated luxury is combined with a memory foam footbed, giving it added comfort, these will last and last.

155 at Sperry. Buy them here

RELATED: The swimming trunks to be seen in this summer

River Island White Tumbled Boat Shoe

River Island

A bolder option in white, but this particular boat shoe is great for monochrome outfits. A great alternative to this summer's ubiquitous white sneakers.

45 at River Island. Buy them here

Sebago Endeavor

Another classic brand, Sebago just celebrated its 70th anniversary. This brown leather offering is your smarter version to pair with chinos or shorts. Created from a whole piece of leather, the moccasin construction allows for a perfect fit around the shape of your foot.

From 83.28 at Amazon. Buy them here

Aldo 4-eyelet Boat Shoe

Aldo

A contemporary, sporty take on the boat shoe here. With more structure and a vulcanised sole, this has more versatility than it might seen at first glance and lends itself more to street style afficionados.

From 40.36 at Amazon. Buy them here

Next Perforated Boat Shoe

This classically styled boat shoe adds a bit of interest with its perforated leather. It retains the moccasin styling but that contrast leather lacing is another eye-catching feature when you're peacocking at the beach bar.

45 at Next. Buy them here

New Look Nubuck Boat Shoes

Tan is a summer failsafe that will go with most neutral outfits. These affordable boat shoes from New Look are real leather and the white contrast soles beneath will pop in the sunshine.

34 at New Look. Buy them here

Swims Boat Loafer

A truly waterproof boat shoe made by a company that specialises in sea-faring clothing and footwear. The modern design comes with practical features such as a moulded silicon ankle detail and nylon ventilation grills allowing for welcome breathability in the heat.

From 79.99 at Amazon. Buy them here

Lacoste L.Andsailing boat shoe

A modern interpretation of the boat shoe with a sleek design. It has a lightweight and breathable sole with mesh canvas-effect uppers. One for the normcores.

From 59 at Amazon. Buy them here

Oi Black Boat Shoe

Luxury leather uppers and a sporty looking sole combine for a very stylish contemporary boat shoe. A great choice to pair with jeans or joggers.

Approx 103 at Shoe the Bear. Buy them here

Poste Duro Boat Shoes

Poste have combined traditional leather uppers with a contemporary platform sole for a more fashion focus styling. Date-appropriate, whether that's a day at the beach or al fresco dining.

99.99 at Amazon. Buy them here
Lawyers will be kept very busy in the event of Brexit but the long term outlook for the legal profession could be painful, according to an American academic.With the result of the UKs leave/remain referendum on EU membership due early Friday morning (UK time) the impact if voters opt to leave is likely to mean months or years of renegotiations of contracts and changes to legislation.According to Anu Bradford, law and international organization professor at Columbia University, there could be two years of work in readiness for the UK to leave."A lot of the contracts that would no longer happen under UK law  that would be a big part of what needs to be renegotiated," Bradford told CNBC.com "Lawyers would be very involved in the transition stage."Following the good times though, Bradford sees pain for the legal profession. Her outlook is that tighter trade deals with the EU could mean that businesses choose to relocate to countries still in the bloc, with law firms suffering as a result.Her colleague, Professor John Coffee says that cross-border deals and IPOs are also likely to be impacted, further reducing revenue for law firms in the UK.Meanwhile, a letter from some senior law firm partners, published in The Times, says that the British public should vote to remain in the EU or risk damage to business and jobs.The ten law firm leaders behind the letter include Linklaters  senior partner Robert Elliot and John Davies, partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.International law firm Stephenson Harwood has posted record financial results with revenue up 9 per cent in 2016 compared to 2015. The firm posted revenue of AU$308 million with profit per equity partner up 1.4 per cent to AU$1.51 million. The firm said that all of its offices had a good year.Professional services firm PwC, which has been expanding its legal services capablities, has announced that up to 200 of its staff will work from the new Parramatta City Campus at Western Sydney University.Teams including deals and infrastructure will work from the new high-rise building, strengthening the firms presence in Western Sydney. The new location will also allow more flexible working for PwC staff who are currently based at Barangaroo.There will also be a stronger partnership with the university, especially the School of Business, with the two signing a Memorandum of Understanding which will see students working alongside PwC staff and undertaking research projects.
The NSW Bar Council has cautioned ICAC barrister Geoffrey Watson QC after the council found him to have engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct when he made statements in a newspaper about the bloody Liberal Party.



It stems from a complaint lodged almost two years ago by former NSW resources minister Chris Hartcher, about an AFR article by Geoffrey Winstock.



The article refers to an ICAC inquiry known as Operation Credo, before the findings had been made public. Watson had breached a rule prohibiting barristers from taking step towards having the media publish material about their current cases.



I have done all these cases involving the Labor Party, the police associations ... boy, they are hard. But I have never known anybody to kick and scratch more than the bloody Liberal Party, Watson was quoted as saying.



The article said that Watson had been known to enter the ICAC press room on a hearing day and say Gee, isnt this fun! Watson told the bar he didnt recall making the statement but didnt deny that he could have.



And if I said the proceedings were fun, it was likely to have been an ironic remark because I did not regard the proceedings as fun at all  I regarded each day as a kind of poorly paid living hell, his letter to the bar in response said.



There had been no substantial complaints against Watson in over 30 years so the Bar Council considered a caution to be appropriate.



The caution means that Watson, who has been the public face of the commission in a series of high-profile hearings, has fended off the possibility of a more serious penalty and can continue to practise. According to a report by The Australian, the ruling said Watson had persuaded the Bar to drop a proposal to take the charges to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.



Watson told the council that he believed he was speaking in circumstances where I understood what I said would not be published. But the council considered this response to be unreasonable. Whilst the barrister advised he informed Mr Winestock that a ground rule was that he would not comment on Oeration Credo, he clearly did make such a comment, the ruling said. [He] does nto deny that he made the comments, he says that he was responding to a matter in which his integrity was challenged.



The barrister did not advise that he had informed Mr Winestock that any comments were to not be reported, the ruling said.



The Bar Council is of the view that a reasonable person would consider that comments made to a journalist, who had informed the person that an article about him was going to be written, would likely result in the publication of those comments. It says while the conduct constitutes unsatisfactory professional conduct  it falls well short of (the more serious charge of) professional misconduct in its quality.


The United Kingdom leaving the EU would impact its trade of goods and services, both with the EU and with the rest of the world, including Australia. In regard to the EU, Brexit would impact the free movement under which goods circulate without any barriers within the EU Single Market. The United Kingdom could join the European Economic Area (EEA) on its exit, remaining a part of the Single Market (as Norway has), with the result that the United Kingdom would be subject to EU law and regulation without any influence upon its drafting. Alternatively, the United Kingdom could include in its withdrawal a bilateral arrangement with the EU similar to the one the EU has with Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU or EEA, but enjoys tariff-free access to the EU Single Market. This would result in the United Kingdom benefiting from any EU-wide trade agreement with Australia whilst not being party to the negotiations.

U.S. President Barack Obama recently commented that the United Kingdom would be back of the line when negotiating trade agreements with the United States. Conversely, at a recent event that K&L Gates hosted in London, Austrade remarked that they would be the first to knock on the door of the United Kingdom in the event of an exit. This is a recognition of the importance of the United Kingdom as a trading partner to Australia and the desire to find a pragmatic solution.

London is of course a global financial hub and much of the regulation of financial services in the United Kingdom is governed by EU law. A Brexit would mean that financial institutions with operations crossing UK and EU borders would become subject to a new regulatory regime.

An important element of the EU financial services regime is passporting, whereby the exercise of the right by a firm authorised under an applicable EU financial services directive enables it to carry on activities in another EEA member state on the basis of its home state authorisation. A Brexit would result in the passporting regimes ceasing to apply, unless replicated. This scenario would in all likelihood have a significant impact upon Australian financial institutions with operations in the United Kingdom and particularly those who use these operations as an EU base.

A Brexit could also lead to uncertainty further down the line in various other areas, such as intellectual property, employment, taxation and dispute resolution (amongst others). This would particularly be the case where the United Kingdom is a party to a unified legislation. Australian businesses with operations in the United Kingdom and the wider EU should be prepared to review the impact of Brexit on their existing arrangements.
Regulating overfishing could protect Pacific coral reefs from strangulation by seaweed, according to new findings by a University of Queensland scientist.

Pacific reefs are more vulnerable to increases in seaweed than we used to think, said Professor Peter Mumby from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and UQs School of Biological Sciences.

Seaweeds tend to bloom when too many herbivorous fish are fished heavily or when agricultural fertilizers pollute rivers that run into the sea.

The problems are then compounded by climate change which damages corals making it easier for seaweeds to get a foothold.

While historically seaweeds have been scarce on Pacific reefs compared to the Caribbean, we are finding that corals are pretty unprepared to cope with some of the more insidious weeds once they get a foothold.

Professor Mumby said evidence was mounting from the Great Barrier Reef, Palau in Micronesia, and Moorea in French Polynesia that corals avoided settling on reefs with even modest amounts of seaweed.

Its important for everyone that reefs dont switch from corals to seaweeds, he said.

The ability of reefs to provide fisheries will at least halve if we lose the fabulous towers and hiding places created by corals.

Professor Mumby said protecting herbivores was a practical step towards...
Hello everyone,



I am Australian (55) and my partner (55) is French - we have been in a relationship for 4 1/2 years and he has now decided to move to Australia.

Does anyone knows if our age is going to be an issue in getting a partner visa ?

We lived together for 3 years in Paris and have been living apart for 1 1/2 year. Could this also be an issue ?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of State for Environment believes that the ban is counter-productive to technological progress in the industry.

Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar expressed displeasure over the Supreme Courts move to ban the registration of vehicles above 2,000cc in Delhi-NCR, at the inauguration of the new Force Motors engine plant at Chakan, Pune on June 22. He indicated that the automotive segment is losing out on cars equipped with latest technologies and which are less polluting due to the restriction.

This is not the right way (to curb air pollution). Its unfortunate, he said, referring to the diesel ban. "It is not right that latest vehicles, which are less polluting, will be banned and old vehicles, which are more polluting, will ply on the road.

Moreover, he came out strongly against the judiciary for ordering the ban. Policy and execution is the job of the executive. Legality of any decision is the job of the judiciary. Legislatures job is to legislate and these are the few organs, which are created by the constitution and they must work independently. We must respect each other and we must work independently that is the real need of the hour, he said.

In a bid to tackle the rising levels of pollution in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court had imposed a ban on the sale of diesel cars and SUVs with engine capacities over 2,000cc, starting mid-December until its expiry on March 31, 2016. However, since then, the apex court has extended the ban thrice, and the same is now in place until the next hearing.

Talking about the governments decision to leapfrog to BS-VI emission standards by April 1, 2020, the minister said that he appreciated the efforts by some automakers in working towards introducing BS-VI compliant cars to adhere to the deadline. Very happy that once the government notified early migration to 2020, carmakers have started producing BS-VI compliant vehicles, he said, while pointing out that Toyota has started working on BS-VI compliant engines at its plant in Bengaluru.
Now in its 30th year, the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study is a big thing in the United States of America because automakers have a tendency to cling to its results for marketing reasons. I understand that and I agree with it. To the uninitiated, Im much obliged to tell you the study examines problems experienced by vehicle owners during the first 90 days of ownership.To be more specific, the initial quality of a vehicle is determined by the peeps at J.D. Power by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with a lower score reflecting higher quality. Got it? Great stuff!This is, the industry average is 105 points, while the Big Three in Detroit achieve a combined average of 103 problems recorded per 100 vehicles. Kia, which is the headliner of the J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Initial Quality Study, boasts 83. Second and third go to Porsche (84) and Hyundai (92), the sister brand of the winning automaker. Toyota comes in fourth (93), BMW settles for fifth (94), and Chevrolet made it to fifth (95).So, which automakers are the worst performers? From worst to less worse, the list starts with smart (216 problems) and continues with Fiat (174), Volvo (152), Land Rover (132), MINI (127) and Mazda (127). In their respective segments, the best of the lot are General Motors (Buick Cascada, Chevrolet Equinox, Chevrolet Silverado HD and LD, Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Terrain), Toyota (Lexus CT and GS, Scion tC, Toyota Camry, Corolla, and Highlander), Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Accent and Azera, Kia Soul and Sportage), as well as the almighty Volkswagen Group (Audi Q3 and TT, Porsche Macan and 911).Manufacturers are currently making some of the highest quality products weve ever seen, declared Renee Stephens, the vice president of U.S. automotive quality at J.D. Power and Associates. Tracking our data over the past several years, it has become clear that automakers are listening to the customer, identifying pain points and are focused on continuous improvement. Even as they add more content, including advanced technologies that have had a reputation for causing problems, overall quality continues to improve, added Mr. Stephens.Check out the charts & graphs below to find out more about this year's J.D. Power U.S. Initial Quality Study.
After the Germans deployed an almost naked Panamera in traffic (we brought you the spotting yesterday), the time has now come for the four-door to "leak" online in fully bare metal.So, ladies and gentlemen drivers, you're looking at the 2017 Porsche Panamera Turbo S. While it's only normal for Porsche to kickstart the adventure with the range-topping (at least so far) Turbo S, the Panamera's case specifically required such a move.It all has to do with theand even more importantly, with the way it looks when caught on camera. Since the first incarnation of the model wasn't the prettiest model in the Porsche stable, many expected its successor to deliver a serious shift of attitude.To our eyes, the second generation partially retains the opinion-splitting look of the first, but a fully gifted Turbo S makes that unnoticeable. And we can't end this part of the story without mentioning that the Panamera 's looks only seem less than an A+ until you park one next to a second-gen CLS or and A7 and notice none of these machines look as stunning as they could. The Maserati Quattroporte and Jaguar's aging XJ are quite good at visually charming the beholder, though.Nevertheless, the leaked images above also show us theof the machine. While Porsche has kept the 911-esque five-instrument layout and most of the dash has gone digital, the centrally-positioned rev counter keeps the analog tradition.We also get an image of the (individual). The obvious change here comes from the center console, which mixes a respectably-sized infotainment display with the new capacitive controls we showed you in the early spyshots.However, the big question has to do with the comfort this area of the car provides. The first generation left certain things to be desired in terms of access and room, which is one of the reasons for which Porsche delivered the Panamera Exclusive afterthought, offering an elongated wheelbase. Here's to hoping the new model gets it right from the very beginning.The. This is another area revealed here, as we get to see the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 replacing Porsche 's TT 4.8-liter vee-eight.While we don't have the specs for the Turbo S yet, we can tell you that, when the Turbo badge is used, the powerplant delivers 550 hp and 567 lb-ft (769 Nm) of twist. The change has brought a 30 percent jump in efficiency, but we'll have to wait for the official data to arrive before going further into the motivation matter.What we don't see here, though, is the new eight-speed dual-clutch tranny. ZF has now delivered theand we have a feeling we'll have plenty of details to discuss here.We wonder how many other new Panamera-related goodies we'll receive until the vehicle's official unveiling, which is set for June 28.
Photo courtesy of VW.

Volkswagen will begin equipping its gasoline-powered models with particulate filters starting in June of 2017 to reduce emissions by as much as 90%, the automaker has announced.

At that time, Volkswagen will equip new TSI and TFSI engines with the filters. The initiative will begin with the 1.4L TSI engine in the new Tiguan and Audi A5. As many as 7 million Volkswagen vehicles could be equipped with this technology each year by 2022.

The announcement came at the annual shareholder meeting with the unveiling of Together: Strategy 2025 blueprint for the next decade. Matthias Muller, CEO of Volkswagen AG, also reiterated the company's shift toward electrification and said 2016 will be "a year of transition" as it deals with the fallout of its diesel emissions scandal. Senior management will be "paying very close attention to our costs," Muller said.

Volkswagen plans to roll out more than 30 fully electric models by 2025, which he expects will account for a third of annual sales. The company also plans to introduce fully autonomous vehicles developed in-house by "the beginning of the next decade."

In other news, the company gained approval from the Federal Transport Authority, a German regulator, to recall an additional 1 million diesel vehicles to fix the emissions systems. It brings the number of recalled vehicles in Germany to 3.7 million.
Two polar station workers in need of medical care were successfully evacuated from the Amundsen-Scott station as the South Pole on Wednesday, according to the National Science Foundation. CBC reported that the Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air flew the two workers from Amundsen-Scott to Rothera, on the Antarctic Peninsula, a distance of some 1500 miles. The patients will be further transported to Punta Arenas, Chile, where they will receive additional medical care, according to NSF.

Borek used a DeHavilland Twin Otter for the extraction and to provide backup and search and rescue, it flew two of the aircraft from its Calgary base last week to Rothera, where the primary aircraft staged, refueled and awaited a suitable weather window. The flight takes about 10 hours and is very near the Otters maximum range. The NSF did not release the names of the patients.
Solar Impulse 2 landed in Seville, Spain, early Thursday, completing a 3160-NM trip across the Atlantic from New York in 71 hours. While the Solar Impulse team had initially hoped the trans-Atlantic crossing would land in Paris in honor of Charles Lindberghs 1927 flight, a stormy weather forecast resulted in choosing Spain as an alternate. Still, the flight beat the teams 90-hour estimated time as pilot Bertrand Piccard departed Kennedy Airport on Monday and tweeted photos from over the ocean, including one of a pod of whales.

Everybody has tried to cross the Atlantic, with sailboats, steamboats, airships, aeroplanes, even rowing boats and kitesurfs. Today, its a solar-powered aeroplane for the first time ever, flying electric with no fuel and no pollution, Piccard told the crowd that greeted him in Seville, as reported by the BBC. Piccard and Andre Borschberg have been flying the single-seat airplane around the world in shifts, starting in Abu Dhabi in March 2015. It will take two more legs to fly back to their starting point. Meanwhile, the team has submitted the results of the last flight to the Fdration Aronautique Internationale, which will ratify them as world records for distance and duration flown by a solar-powered airplane.
23 June 2016 10:20 (UTC+04:00)

Armenias Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian is being himself, passing off the stage-by-stage settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a package plan, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, wrote on his Facebook page June 22.

Nalbandian said in an interview with Armenian media that no agreement was reached on the conflicts settlement during the meeting in St. Petersburg June 20.

Nalbandian is in his usual style. He immediately passed off the stage-by-stage settlement as a package plan, said the top official. I wonder will he be ashamed in front of other participants of the meeting for his lie? As for my participation in the meeting, wasnt it he sitting right in front of me? Mr. Minister, one can lie, but this is too much.

Earlier, Mammadov said that an agreement on the stage-by-stage settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was reached in St. Petersburg meeting.

During that meeting, the priority was given to the stage-by-stage settlement of the conflict. Thats to say, from now on, it is necessary to act step by step in the settlement process: first, the liberation of Azerbaijans five districts, then two more districts and determining the corridor and afterwards, determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, said the top official.

The parties in principle, reached agreements in this regard, added Mammadov.

Such an agreement has been reached for the present, said the top official.

Mammadov didnt rule out that as before, Armenia can take provocative steps and refuse from fulfilling its promise.

Presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan adopted a joint statement following the meeting in St. Petersburg June 20.

Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents confirmed the agreements reached during the Vienna meeting held May 16 on stabilizing the situation in the zone of conflict and creating an atmosphere to push forward the peace process, said the message on the website of Kremlin.

For this purpose, the sides agreed to increase the number of international observers in the zone of conflict.

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23 June 2016 10:41 (UTC+04:00)

114 Senior Course members and delegates, representing 31 countries, from NATO Defence College in Rome pay an academic visit to the Republic of Azerbaijan on 22 June 2016.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced that it is the third visit of the said Course to the country.

The main objective of the NATO Defence College is to improve the ways of strategic thinking of military-political issues and prepare high ranking officers and officials to serve and work in important positions of NATO. Prior their visit to Azerbaijan, the course students have been to Macedonia, Denmark, Norway, Latvia and Ukraine, the Ministry added.

Within the framework of the visit Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Security Service and ADA University high ranking officials are going to give presentations to NATO Defence College delegation on various issues covering defence and security field. The visit will last until 24th of June, the Defense Ministry said.

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23 June 2016 12:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Camal

The St. Petersburg meeting over the Nagorno-Karabakh was more constructive from the viewpoint of approach to all issues, which demonstrated the sides' interest in resolving the conflict.

Deputy Head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, Novruz Mammadov made the remark, mentioning that the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents' most recent meeting can be considered different from the previous ones, Azertac reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought together Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia on June 20 in St Petersburg, where the sides have confirmed their readiness to seek a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The sides particularly exchanged views on such issues as reducing tension on the line of contact, ensuring a high level security and conducting a more comprehensive monitoring.

The St. Petersburg talks became the logical continuation of Vienna talks held in May, aiming to resume the negotiation process of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Mammadov further stated that Armenia's provocation on the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops in early April and the Azerbaijani armys decent response to this was in fact a message to the parties concerned  both OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and the whole world.

The message was that failure to resolve the conflict so far, its remaining unchangeable and in a certain sense its being considered frozen, is a very dangerous position. It also revealed the need to resolve the conflict, he said, adding that all these issues also had an impact on the intensification of negotiations and organization of meetings with the heads of state and officials of both countries.

Emphasizing that the meeting organized by Russia was more appropriate, the official said the negotiations at the meeting give ground to say that President Putin is more resolute to settle the conflict.

Two decades of talks mediated by the OSCE MG group have failed to produce a breakthrough, and the four-day war further undermined the hope for a peaceful resolution.

The renewed hostilities, the worst since the ceasefire deal signed in 1994, were assessed as the result of inactivity of the international community, which turned blind eye to the injustice towards Azerbaijan.

Even though both sides avoided escalation into a full-scale war, the international community and the mediator countries realized that the truce in Nagorno-Karabakh is fragile, and the conflict could easily accelerate anew.

Mammadov also hailed President Aliyev`s policy in the intensification of talks and achievement of certain agreements at such meetings. "At all his meetings the head of state underlines that the status quo cannot continue and steps must be taken to resolve the conflict," he said.

"The results of this meeting is the reaction of the world community, the co-chair countries and international organizations who approved the Azerbaijani President's stance which he voiced in his speeches at all meetings, high-level forums, conferences and summits. The head of state has always noted that sooner or later this conflict must be resolved within the norms and principles of international law, the Armenian armed forces must leave the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons must return to their native lands," Mammadov said.

Noting that in St. Petersburg the sides agreed to continue regular meetings in this format, Mammadov reminded that here too much depends on what steps the Armenian side will take.

Baku, which has suffered from Yerevan's aggressive policy for more than two decades, has repeatedly stated that the presence of the Armenian Armed Forces in the occupied territories is a major obstacle to the settlement of the conflict and threat to the regional stability.

Azerbaijan is still committed to the peaceful negotiated solution to the conflict, while Yerevan each time tried to blow the negotiation process. Such a situation was observed in 2009-2014 and in April 2016.

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23 June 2016 16:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A conference dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the State Committee for Work with Religious Associations was held in Baku on June 21.

At the event entitled State Committee on work with religious structures of Azerbaijan - 15: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow the participants noted that Azerbaijan increased the number of registered religious communities. Over the years, the number of existing religious communities increased from 376 to 649.

Mubariz Gurbanli, the chairman of the State Committee, said that issues of religion and state relations are governed by the Constitution and the Law "On freedom of religion".

"Azerbaijan is a multi-religious and multi-ethnic state. Along with Muslim mosques, Christian churches and national religious community are functioning here," Gurbanli said.

He noted that the representatives of different faiths and religions live in harmony with each other in Azerbaijan. The government makes everything possible to restore the historical and religious monuments and the construction of new mosques, synagogues and churches.

If in the Soviet period only 17 mosques functioned in our country, now their number has reached 2,100. During the years of independence, Azerbaijan has constructed and repaired thousands of mosques. This process continues till today, he said.

Gurbanli noted that Azerbaijan restores not only mosques, but also historical churches and synagogues. A lot of new places of worship are building in the country. Today, the State Committee has 15 departments in the field and nine in Baku.

MP Siyavush Novruzov, in turn, expressed confidence that an atmosphere of mutual understanding and stability have been established in Azerbaijan in the sphere of religion.

"Every event held here is a demonstration of tolerance, he said. We are witnessing the work of the State Committee, which are trying to convey the governments policy and the correct interpretation of religious events taking place in the world to the public."

Archbishop of Baku Russian Orthodox Church Alexander Ischein expressed confidence that the state committee occupies a special place in society because they regulate relations in the sphere of state and religion.



"This is very important in our lives, because often there are all sorts of pseudo-religious movements that tend to destabilize society. This process was experienced in the country during the formation of the Azerbaijani state. Unfortunately, there were a lot of movements of this kind," he said.

The meeting adopted an appeal to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, which says that in order to regulate the country's relations between state and religion, the State Committee operates with the State Adviser on International Affairs, the issues of multiculturalism and religion, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the relevant committee of the Parliament, law enforcement agencies, relevant state agencies, the CMO and other religious denominations and implements a set of measures in this direction.

On the same day, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on awarding a number of employees of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations for fruitful activity in the sphere of regulating relations between state and religion in the country.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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23 June 2016 13:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

An event dedicated to the 98th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces was held at Nizami Cinema in Baku.

June 26 sees the Day of the Armed Forces, one of the most grandiose and significant holidays in Azerbaijan.

The event titled "April battles and the path to victory" was organized by the Nasimi district organization of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party and its Youth Association, Trend Life reported.

Addressing the ceremony, Chairman of the Nasimi district organization of the party, MP Malahat Ibrahimgizi, and Policy Council's member of the party, Chairman of the Youth Union of New Azerbaijan Party Seymur Orucov stressed the role of national leader Heydar Aliyev and President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev in strengthening of the armed forces as well as the logistics of the military units.

The Azerbaijani Armed forces which is equipped with modern military machinery have become the strongest army in the region.

The April clashes on the frontline proved once again that the whole nation supports the wise and far-sighted policy of the Azerbaijani president on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and welcomed the country's Armed Forces who carry out the sacred mission to liberate the country from the Armenian occupiers.

On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.

Following a decree signed by President Heydar Aliyev on May 22, 1998, June 26 was announced a national holiday - the Day of the Armed Forces - and it has been celebrated in Azerbaijan since then.

The decree signed by Heydar Aliyev was a step of tremendous importance towards restoring the historical truth.

Today, the armed forces are modernized, reconstructed, equipped with newest and strong weaponry through the country's increasing revenues.

While increasing military expenses, Azerbaijan also purchased new weapons and ammunitions from countries of close cooperation in military-technical field.

Azerbaijan pays special attention to professional training of the personnel adapted to NATO standards. For this purposes, Azerbaijani servicemen often participate at international military exercises.

The Azerbaijani Armed Forces collaborate with NATO under the Partnership for Peace Program from the 1994 and have military cooperation with a number of foreign states.

Every year within the Individual Partnership Program between NATO and Azerbaijan over 1,000 officers of the National Army take part in various educational and training events.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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23 June 2016 16:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Baku hosted a one-day international conference "Mobility Partnership in Azerbaijan", serving as a support for the expansion of cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan and their joint activities as the partners.

The conference organized by the European Commission and the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan on June 23, was attended by Head of the EU delegation to Baku Malena Mard, Deputy Head of Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev and representatives of EU diplomatic missions accredited in Azerbaijan.

Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev, addressing the event, stated that the EU will issue Azerbaijan a mandate to start negotiations on a new agreement on strategic partnership this October.



He reminded that a draft agreement on the strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan was presented at the EU summit in Riga in 2015, adding that the signing of this agreement will further enhance the level of cooperation between the two sides.

The diplomat further noted that in the second half of 2016, it is planned to hold meetings of the subcommittees on Azerbaijan in the EU. We also plan to continue negotiations on the agreement with the EU in the field of aviation, said Mammad-Guliyev.

Project Coordinator of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) Violeta Wagner, in turn, said that Azerbaijan is an important partner of the EU, and the official structures of the country are interested in cooperation with the EU in the field of mobility.

Speaking at the event, Malena Mard expressed confidence that this conference reinforces the idea put forward by Federica Mogherini, high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy, highlighted during her last visit to Baku.

The European Union and Azerbaijan have confirmed once again their willingness to move forward in many areas of cooperation, working together as partners and looking to develop relations to their full potential, Mogherini said during that visit.

The EU ambassador expressed her trust that MOBILAZE project is an example of deep and mutually beneficial cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union.

The Joint Declaration on a Mobility Partnership (MP) between Azerbaijan and the EU and its participating Member States was signed in December 2013. The success and positive achievements of the MP are determined mainly by the full commitment of all parties involved and initiatives/projects funded and implemented under the MP.

The parties are currently working on an agreement on strategic partnership, and it will be continued within the EU structures, Mard further said.

"We expect that in the early autumn will be a series of meetings at the subcommittee level, during which we will have the opportunity to discuss Azerbaijan-EU cooperation issues. The first meeting at the subcommittee level, will begin in early September. It will be a very intense autumn between the EU and Azerbaijan. We hope that all the meetings at the level of sub-committees will take place in autumn," Mard emphasized.

Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of the partnership and cooperation agreement which was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999.

The new agreement envisages bringing Azerbaijan's legislation and procedures closer to the most important international and trade standards of the EU. This process is meant to improve the access of Azerbaijani products to the EU markets.

Mard further added that the EU and Azerbaijan are ready to start negotiations on the signing of an agreement on a common aviation area.

"This agreement will benefit both Azerbaijan and the EU in terms of increased competition in the aviation sector. Recently Azerbaijan has signed an agreement on Open Skies with the U.S. The EU looks forward to the start of negotiations on the agreement," the ambassador said.

The Open Skies agreement is aimed at liberalizing the air transport market between the parties and will simplify the process of organizing flights between the EU and Azerbaijan and will promote the growth of the number of commercial flights.

The deal provides for the elimination of state interference in business decisions on routes and pricing of the airlines, which allows operators to provide more accessible and efficient services for passenger and cargo services.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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23 June 2016 14:36 (UTC+04:00)

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink is on a visit to Azerbaijan, the U.S. embassy in Baku told Trend on June 23.

Brink will hold a number of high-level meetings during which it is expected to discuss the possibilities of intensifying the Azerbaijan-US bilateral cooperation.

The visit will end June 24.

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23 June 2016 16:02 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev received the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Bridget Brink, in Baku on June 23, Azertac reported.



Stressing the successful development of Azerbaijan-U.S. relations, the president recalled his recent visit to the U.S. and participation in the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.



President Aliyev said that the adherence to strengthening the partnership relations between Azerbaijan and the U.S. was again reaffirmed as part of his visit to the U.S., where very fruitful and important discussions were held with U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.



President Aliyev expressed gratitude to President Barack Obama for the letter addressed to the participants of the 23rd International Caspian Oil and Gas Conference held in Baku and for the positive words in the letter, reflecting the true essence of friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries.



Recalling Brinks visit to Azerbaijan in 2015, President Aliyev stressed its significance in terms of the positive dynamics in the development of Azerbaijan-U.S. relations.



President Aliyev said that the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the U.S. covers very broad areas of the agenda, noting that Azerbaijan and the US jointly cooperate in such areas as security, energy and regional development.



Stressing very good current relations between Azerbaijan and the U.S., the president expressed confidence that Brinks visit to Azerbaijan will contribute to the successful development of Azerbaijan-U.S. relations.



Brink, in her turn, expressed gratification with her another visit to Azerbaijan as part of the regional tour. Brink stressed that the visit is aimed at further strengthening of partnership relations in all spheres between the two countries.



While speaking about President Aliyevs successful visit to Washington and the conducted meetings, Brink also recalled her last year's visit to Azerbaijan.



Brink said that she would make every effort to further improve the sustainable cooperation between Azerbaijan and the U.S.. She also congratulated President Aliyev on the successful completion of the F1 Grand Prix of Europe in Baku.

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23 June 2016 17:43 (UTC+04:00)

The U.S. intends to strengthen the mechanism of dialogue with Azerbaijan on strategic partnership, said Bridget Brink, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

She made the remarks during a meeting with Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Baku on June 23.

Bridget Brink is on a visit to Azerbaijan and is holding meetings with the countrys officials to discuss the prospects for the bilateral cooperation.

During the meeting with Mammadyarov, Brink pointed out that her country attaches special importance to the development of cooperation with Azerbaijan, the countrys Foreign Ministry reported.

The U.S. supports the measures taken in Azerbaijan on economic diversification, development of the non-oil sector, as well as the regional transportation infrastructures, she added.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the US-Azerbaijani cooperation in the energy sphere, fighting terrorism, relations in regional security, as well as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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23 June 2016 15:05 (UTC+04:00)

The 3rd annual meeting of International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Task Force of Public Procurement Contract Audit has kicked off in Baku, Azertac reported.

The event participants include representatives of supreme audit institutions of Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, China, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Zambia.

Chairman of the Chamber of Accounts Vugar Gulmammadov, adressing the event, hailed the importance of the meeting for the Chamber of Accounts of Azerbaijan.

He emphasized that the Chamber of Accounts was regularly submitting recommendations to the government and parliament in order to eliminate gaps and contradictions in normative and methodical documents in legislation regulating procurement, strengthen state control over procurement procedures, improve control mechanisms and increase transparency in this area.

Head of Department in the Supreme Audit Institution of the Russian Federation (the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation) Natalia Bocharova highlighted the activities of the second meeting of INTOSAI which was held in Russia in 2014.

The meeting also heard a report entitled "Public procurement: the role and importance of the Chamber of Accounts" from employee of the Chamber of Accounts of the Republic of Azerbaijan Nazar Nasibov, as well as reports on pilot projects for the audit of procurement contracts in INTOSAI member countries from representatives of supreme audit institutions of Portugal and Zambia.

The Task Force aims to develop universally accepted common approaches and procedures of procurement contract audit and is based on the potential of Supreme Audit Institutions which have diverse experience in that field.

Among the tasks which the Task Force endeavors to accomplish are the analysis of international practices and methodological baseline underpinning procurement audit, the development of international procurement contract audit standards on its basis, aids and guides on procurement contract audit for speafi sectors and spheres, the creation of a cohesive training base.

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23 June 2016 17:33 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan and Russia will sign a bilateral agreement on the Green Card System, said Elkhan Guliyev, Executive Director of the Compulsory Insurance Bureau (ISB).

Last week, Russia approved its readiness to sign a bilateral agreement. The talks on application of policies in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan lasted for more than 6 months. The issue has been decided, he said.

He underlined that the policies will not be valid on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The issue will get actuality after the release of the Armenian-occupied territories, he said.

Commenting on the issue of increase in compulsory insurance tariffs, he said that Azerbaijan experiences no need in the increase. The unprofitability rates of Azerbaijan are considerably lower as compared to the figures of the other countries, where the rate amounts to 98-99 percent, he said.

He stated that the profitability of the compulsory insurance may be increased by means of tackling an issue of commission payments, which is the main problem that face companies engaged in the sphere of compulsory insurance.

The Financial Markets Supervisory Board is currently engaged in dealing with the issue. The operations of the Supervisory board are expected to increase the profitability rates, he added.

The Green Card is an international system of motor vehicle liability insurance which functions since 1951. The system was introduced in Azerbaijan in 2016.

The main objective of the system is settlement of claims of persons injured as a result of road accidents involving foreign registered vehicles, and facilitation of the movement of vehicles across international borders by the use of an internationally acceptable insurance document. The Green Card system currently comprises 47 countries.

ISB performs a function of a national insurance bureau of the international Green Card system in Azerbaijan.

As much as 16 companies are the members of ISB with 13 being eligible for the sale of compulsory insurance policy. The main objective of the Bureau is protection of interests of insured persons and third parties who suffer damages and losses, as well as for the purpose of stabilization and development of the system of compulsory insurance and fulfillment of duties prescribed by the law.

--

Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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23 June 2016 13:26 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan, rich with delicious culinary traditions, will host the first International Dolma Festival on July 1.



Dolma is a traditional meal in the Land of Fire that no Azerbaijani can imagine living without. Dolma is one of the most popular and widespread dishes of Azerbaijan. It is the number one guest of all feasts along with rich flavored Plov.

The festival will be organized by the Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Ministry, National Culinary Center, Absheron District Executive Power and the Azerbaijani National Culinary Association.

Some 300 kinds of dolma will be exhibited at the festival. Besides the Turkic-speaking countries, guests from around the world will take part in the international festival.

This stuffed meal is widely prepared in kitchens across the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia.



However, in Azerbaijan dolma is iconic, you can meet it at every table not only during the traditional holiday, but also on ordinary days. The name of this delicious dish came from the process of its creation, and means to stuff.

The most common type of dish in Azerbaijan, dolma has about 50 species in the country.

The word "dolma" originated from the Azerbaijani verb "doldurmag", which means to stuff. Yarpaq dolmasi (stuffed grape leaves), Badimjan dolmasi (stuffed eggplant) and Kelem dolmasi (stuffed cabbage leaves) are kinds of this ancient national dish.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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23 June 2016 12:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Fatma Babayeva

Anyone who would like to know about the future of oil and gas field has to visit Baku.

The statement was made by Bernard Looney, Chief Executive Director of BPs Upstream Division, at the event held within the framework of the two-day visit of heads of international investment funds to Baku to analyze the portfolio and strategy in upstream section of BP.

When we wanted to tell investors about our future activities, we decided to invite them to Azerbaijan, Looney said.

President of Azerbaijans state energy company SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev, addressing the event, spoke about the victories of Azerbaijans energy strategy, which was founded by national leader Heydar Aliyev and successfully continued under the leadership of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, as well as, about the role of BP in the implementation of this strategy and highly appreciated the cooperation with this company.

BPs Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gordon Birrell noted that representatives of the international investment funds including Capital Research International, Capital World, UBS Asset Management, Fidelity Research and JP Morgan Asset, as well as, the well-known analysts on stock markets of oil and gas got familiar with BPs successful investment experience in Azerbaijan during their visit to Baku.

They were provided with the information on further investment opportunities, Birnell added.

BPs office was opened in Baku in 1992. Since then, the company participated in a series of the upstream project in Azerbaijan.

BP Azerbaijan is an operator of Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields, where the Azeri Light oil is being produced.

The company also operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline which passes through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to transport Caspian oil to the Mediterranean coast.

With a 25.5% share, BP is the operator of the Shah Deniz gas field as well, which production was commissioned in 2006. Stage 2 development of this gas condensate field is a giant project expected to open up Azerbaijan as a major gas supplier to the European market through a Southern Gas Corridor pipeline network.

Recently, the company signed a PSA agreement with SOCAR to explore and develop Shafag-Asiman structure in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

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23 June 2016 17:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Fatma Babayeva

Azerbaijans gas exports increased by 0.9 percent to 8.1 billion cubic meters in 2015 compared to year a before, reported OPEC in its annual statistical bulletin released on June 22.

The proven gas reserves of the country are estimated by the organization to amount to 1.2 trillion cubic meters. Its gas production was 19.3 billion cubic meters in 2015, which is 3.9 percent increase compared to 2014.

In the meantime, Azerbaijans crude oil production fell by 0.8 percent to 786,700 barrels a day in 2015 compared to 2014, according to the bulletin.

Its proven crude oil reserves amounts to 7 billion barrels, and the number of its active oil rigs is 17, reads the report.

Azerbaijans refinery capacity in 2015 was 399,000 barrels a day, whilst its refinery throughput plunged by 4.4 percent to 125,900 barrels a day compared to year before. Azerbaijans petroleum products also experienced a decrease by 2.5 percent in 2015  125,300 barrels a day.

Global data

OPEC highlighted in its report that global oil demand averaged 93.0 million barrels a day in 2015, which is 1.7 percent more compared to year before, with the largest increases taking place in Asia Pacific, particularly India and China, North America, Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Total OECD oil demand grew soundly during 2015 (by 1 percent to 46.18 million barrels), while it declined in Latin America for the first time since 2003, stated the bulletin.

In the meantime, OPEC oil demand remained robust during 2015 in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

Distillates and gasoline account for around 56 percent of total world oil demand and were on increasing trends, while residual fuel oil requirements declined for another year, read the bulletin, adding that gasoline dominated 2015 oil demand growth in Asia Pacific and North America, while distillates appeared robust in Western and Eastern Europe.

In 2015, world crude oil production increased by 1.75 million barrels a day, or 2.4 percent compared to 2014, stated the report by stressing that the U.S. had the biggest yearly increase in this regard among non-OPEC countries (by 0.72 million barrels a day or 8.3 percent).

Meanwhile, OPECs crude oil production averaged 32.32 million barrels a day during 2015, increasing by 0.93 million barrels a day or 3.0 percent, over 2014, the first surge in production after two years of decline. The organizations crude oil exports stood at 23.6 million barrels a day in 2015, up slightly from 23.2m b/d in 2014.

In 2015, the top three crude oil producing countries were Saudi Arabia (10.19 million barrels a day), Russia (10.11 million barrels a day) and the United States (9.43 million barrels a day). Saudi Arabia displaced Russia from first place for the first time since 2005.

North America imported 2.8 million barrels a day of crude oil from OPECs member countries, which is 10.6 percent less than during 2014. Additionally, the U.S. was the largest consumer of oil, according to the cartel. Its oil demand in 2015 amounted to 19.4 million barrels a day, which is 2.5 percent decrease since 2014.

The OPECs bulletin highlights that total world proven crude oil reserves stood at 1,493 billion barrels in 2015, increasing slightly by 0.1 percent from the previous years level of 1,490 billion barrels. The largest additions came from Angola, Venezuela and IR Iran, while declines were seen in Norway, the UK and Colombia.

In the meantime, world refinery capacity expanded by 0.8 million barrels crude per day to stand at 96.6 barrels crude per day during 2015, mainly supported by additions in the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions. In the Middle East, expansions came largely from OPEC member states, while in the Asia Pacific region growth came predominantly from India and China. Refinery capacity in the OECD region continued to decline despite small gains seen in the United States.

Regarding the global gas demand, OPEC estimated an increase by 1.9 percent to 3.49 trillion cubic meters, while OECD countries demand for gas stood at 1.63 trillion cubic meters, which is 1.6 percent more compared to the figures in 2014.

The U.S. was the biggest consumer and producer of natural gas as well, according to the bulletin. Its gas demand equaled to 777.95 billion cubic meters, which is 2.9 percent increase compared to 2014, whist the amount of the traded gas that is produced totaled 768.83 billion cubic meters, which is 5.3 percent increase compared to year before.

Second largest producer of gas was Russia with 637.39 billion cubic meters (0.9 percent less compared to 2014). Russia is followed by Iran (226.67 billion cubic meters) and Qatar (178.47 billion cubic meters) in the list.

Nevertheless, Russia accounts for the largest holder of the worlds total gas reserves (49.54 trillion cubic meters). The list continues with Iran (33.5 trillion cubic meters), Qatar (24,299 trillion cubic meters) and the U.S. (11.01 trillion cubic meters  same with the figure in 2014).

Overall, OPEC lowered its estimates for the global proven gas reserves by 0.3 percent to 201.967 trillion cubic meters in 2015.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
23 June 2016 14:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Fatma Babayeva

Turkmenistan has discovered new commercial flows of natural gas as a result of lately conducted 3D seismic survey, particularly in the area where the countrys largest gas field Galkynysh is located. But where these additional volumes will go is yet a question at issue.

Turkmenistan currently has more gas than it can sell and is continuing to increase production, Bruce Pannier, an expert on Central Asia and energy issues and a Senior Correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty told Azernews via email on June 23.

Ideally of course, Turkmenistan would like to sell gas both to Europe via the Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP) and the Caucasus and to Pakistan and India via the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, said Pannier by stressing that if those two routes were actually opened, Turkmenistan would need an additional 60 to 65 billion cubic meters of gas annually to fill both pipelines.

Unfortunately, none of these pipelines is possible now or for the foreseeable future, he said, reminding that in the case of TCP because of Russia and Irans objections about environmental problems it will cause in the Caspian Sea, and in TAPIs case because of continued, and actually a worsening of the fighting in Afghanistan.

The expert noted that given the enormous security problems in Afghanistan that start just across the border from Turkmenistan there is practically no way TAPI pipeline can be built.

Additionally, the low price of gas makes investment in such a project risky and besides that it now appears that Iran is making progress toward finishing a pipeline connection with Pakistan that would essentially do the same thing that TAPI proposes to do  bring gas to Pakistan and possibly India, added the senior correspondent.

Pannier went on saying that in the meantime, Russia stopped buying Turkmen gas at the beginning of this year, and Iran will likely stop buying Turkmen gas sometime in the next few years as it finishes construction of its internal pipeline network and can bring gas from the south, including Pars field, to the north. Thus, producing more gas really does not help Turkmenistan right now.

And under these circumstances, Turkmenistan is only left by Chinese market.

Currently, three of the four pipelines to China are operational  Lines A, B, and C, said the expert, reminding that Lines A and B can each carry some 15 billion cubic meters of gas per annum, whilst Line C has capacity for 25 billion cubic meters per annum.

Line D will be the big one carrying 30 billion cubic meters. Nevertheless, officials in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have already said there are delays in constructing the parts of the pipeline that pass through their territories, Pannier said.

So we dont know when that line will become operational. It was scheduled to launch around 2019 but that no longer seems possible, he added.

The expert further emphasized that China could fund construction of another pipeline. However, he believes that until Line D is working, Beijing will probably not consider a fifth pipeline.

As it stands now, Turkmenistan should one day be exporting a minimum of some 65 billion cubic meters per year to China and more likely 80 to 85 billion cubic meters, someday. There have been talks of boosting Turkmen gas exports to China to more than 100 billion cubic meters per year further in the future, said the expert.

Additionally, Russia is also going to increase gas exports to the Chinese market via the construction Power of Siberia Pipeline which will have the capacity of 38 billion cubic meters that will boost competition for Chinese gas market.

In volume terms, the gas that Russia will send to China is less than half of what China plans to eventually get from Turkmenistan, Pannier said, adding the fact that Russia and China are still negotiating about a second pipeline.

The expert stressed that in any case, China can probably use as much gas as both Russia and Turkmenistan are willing to sell. China has also been very shrewd in ensuring its diversification of energy imports.

Beijing does not want to rely too much on any single supplier. Thus, Pannier thinks that Chinese authorities would prefer to keep both Turkmenistan and Russia happy by purchasing significant quantities of gas from both.

He further added that the only competition Beijing would be interested in seeing would be in pricing. China could, and likely will, continually press one country for lower prices and then demand a similar price from the other country.

It is almost certain that China is pushing for ever lower prices for Turkmen gas, especially since China knows it will soon be Turkmenistans only gas customer. Its a very bad situation for Turkmenistan to be in. But the price China pays has never been made public and whatever talks the two countries are having now are not being reported, added Pannier.

Worse, Turkmenistan is using some of its gas exports to China to repay billions of dollars of Chinese loans to develop Turkmen gas fields and build the pipelines to bring that gas to China, the expert further highlighted, by empathizing that so not only is Turkmenistan getting less money for its gas, it will also take longer to pay off its debt to China.

Regarding Turkmenistans possible gas exports to Europe, Pannier pointed out that firstly, the countrys gas export policy is generally that Turkmenistan will build a domestic pipeline to its borders and from there anyone who wants to build a pipeline to that border can get Turkmen gas.

Turkmenistan never said it would pay for the TCP pipeline, so someone else has to do that, said Pannier.

Besides that, Turkmenistan does not wish to provoke Russia with entering its biggest market, especially since no work at all has been done on the TCP.

For Turkmenistan in order to commit to such a project it would have to first see that there was really a pipeline that is being built. Promises and signed agreements are not enough, added Pannier.

Turkmenistan would be happy to sell gas to Europe, like China can use all the gas Russia and Turkmenistan are willing to sell, said Pannier, adding that but so far, no one has been willing to invest the money and start constructing the TCP.

There are some early efforts at gas-to-liquid which could help Turkmenistan to diversify its export market in the future, said Pannier, adding that although there are many complications related to LNG.

First, not only would Turkmenistan have to build the facilities to turn gas into LNG but some other Caspian country, presumably Azerbaijan, would have to build a facility to either turn the LNG back into gas or, more likely, expand railway capacity so the LNG could be shipped that way to the Black Sea, Pannier stated by reminding that such facilities take several years and a lot of money to build.

The expert also cannot see an option of shipping LNG by rail through Russia or Iran, and China already has pipelines connecting it to Turkmenistan.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

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Patisserie Valerie (PV) is to open its 119th outlet at the Frenchgate Shopping Centre, Doncaster as it continues a rapid expansion.

PV is taking a 1,900sq ft 50-cover unit, which will be open for business in July 2016.

Paul May, CEO at PV, said: Were excited to open our first cafe in Doncaster and continue to grow our presence in the Yorkshire area. Frenchgate provides an excellent location for us and we hope the people of Doncaster enjoy the new store.

The news follows a recently announced raft of new openings for PV; it has opened sites in Belfast, Basildon and Chippenham in the last month alone, with store numbers currently standing at 118 outlets. The company has a target to open 20 new outlets per annum.

PV is part of Patisserie Holdings plc, which currently operates under five differentiated brands  Patisserie Valerie, Druckers - which currently has 29 outlets as well as Vienna Patisserie, Philpotts, Baker & Spice and Flour Power City Bakery.

Chief executive Paul May told British Baker in May that Costa had 2,000 UK sites which showed there was lots of opportunity for his company to grow.

Last month PV launched the #MyValerieGateau competition, which will see the public design the companys next gateau.
Iain Burnett the Highland Chocolatier is celebrating after winning a hat-trick at the International Chocolate Awards for two of its truffles.

The grand jury in the British National Competition of the International Chocolate Awards awarded gold to the companys milk chocolate Velvet Truffle  Classic in the milk chocolate truffle category and to its Velvet Truffle Caramel and Liquorice in the white chocolate truffle category.

An additional award was given to the Velvet Truffle Caramel and Liquorice Velvet for getting an exceptional number of points from the judging panel.

Both Velvet Truffles will now compete alongside entries from across the world to win the accolade of the best in the world.

Other top winners in the competition included Akessons Organic in London, Winchester Cocoa Company, Pump Street Bakery Chocolate in Suffolk, Matthieu de Gottal Chocolatier in Nailsworth, Fifth Dimension Chocolates in London, and Chococo in Dorset.

Iain Burnett, the Highland Chocolatier, said: Many years of work has gone into the Velvet Truffles so its fantastic that such a pure ganache  just rare cocoa and a very particular fresh cream without additives  is recognised.

Based at Grandtully in Perthshire, Iain Burnett has become Scotlands most awarded chocolatier.




UPDATE: On Saturday June 25, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that the two bodies they had found earlier in the week were Ace and Rebecca Kimberly. They have ended their search and rescue mission. Florida Fish and Wildlife will now take over the investigation.

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The Coast Guard continues its search for a missing family last seen aboard a 29-foot sailboat near Engelwood.



Report of mast found turned out to be false; was crab pot, fishing gear

Second body found; no identities released yet



Search launched Tuesday

Additional debris found early Thursday; search ongoing

Sailboat mast found offshore Fort Myers; Coast Guard to investigate



Father and his 3 teen children missing on sailboat in Gulf of Mexico



Coast Guard found debris field about 30 miles off Sanibel Island



Coast Guard officials said Ace Kimberly, 45, his sons, 13-year-old Roger, 15-year-old Donny and 17-year-old daughter Rebecca were last heard from Sunday morning.

A search began Tuesday and a debris field was located about 30 miles off Sanibel Island.

According to the Coast Guard, the second body was recovered shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, four miles southeast of location of first body. A sailboat mast was also found 101 miles offshore Fort Myers. The Coast Guard is en route to investigate.

During a news conference Thursday, Coast Guard Captain Greg Case said some additional items have been found in the debris zone.

Case said a yellow kayak was recovered early Thursday, in addition to a bucket found containing birth certificates, a GPS, wallets, a cell phone, cigarettes, a pool noodle and a tool box.





A yellow kayak matching the description of the one known to be with the missing Kimberly family on their sailboat was recovered by Coast Guard officials early Thursday morning.



Case said the items were found just after 8 a.m. about six miles west of where the body was found Wednesday.



A Coast Guard helicopter and plane reported seeing a possible flare for a few seconds around 3 a.m. in the search area. Crews are continuing to use a combination of planes and helicopters and boats today as the weather continues to be favorable.



"This is still an active search," said Case, Commander of Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg. "Although it is a dire situation. We will continue to use all available resources."



The sailboat was pulling two kayaks officials said. The first kayak was recovered Wednesday.

Boater knew family



Matt Baker said he's been living on a boat in Sarasota bay since February and met the Kimberly family.

"We're wondering if anybody is left alive out there," he said.



Baker said the teens were well-behaved.



"I see kids today from school and they've got everything they need and these kids have no running water. They've got to come to shore to go use facilities and eat and everything and no complaints, good attitudes and that has a lot to be said for their dad teaching them right, he said.

The family anchored in an area of Sarasota bay where transient boaters can stay for free. Baker said the Kimberly family was always helpful.

"I didn't have my mast up. So, Ace come right out and he said, 'I'll help you get it up.' So, the kids come out and I figured they were going to watch. They all piled on the boat and get up there and they're doing this and he's telling them to do this and he says, 'you know better than that, I taught you better than that.' And they helped me get the mast up in the rain, he said. It's sad."

Seach began Tuesday



On Tuesday, Coast Guard officials in St. Petersburg received a report from a concerned family member of the missing sailors stating the family left Sarasota at 7 a.m. Sunday en route to Fort Myers to repair the sailboat.

Later Sunday, Kimberly called his brother and stated the sailboat was in a storm, in 6-foot seas and that he was attempting to survive with his children offshore of Englewood.

The Coast Guard launched searches by air and boat from Fort Myers on Tuesday to find the sailboat.

Case says Kimberly's brother alerted the agency on Tuesday.



The Coast Guard asks mariners to keep a sharp lookout and contact Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg at (727) 824-7506 with any information.
The River Oaks, a 19-story high-rise under construction on Westheimer, has listed a $13 million penthouse, possibly the most expensive and largest penthouse unit ever listed for sale in Houston.

A 1960s-era high-rise apartment building on Westheimer near River Oaks is being renovated into the upscale condo tower to open in 2017. About half of the 79 units have been sold, including one of the three penthouses, according to the developer, New York-based Arel Capital.
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Texans are often hailed as some of the nation's friendliest folks  they will hold the door open for you, invite you to their barbecue and spin you around a dance floor  but they aren't afraid to challenge anyone who sullies the things they love most.

RELATED: The 26 types of people you are destined to meet on Tinder in Texas

This week Reddit user @ImJustABagofHammers asked the Texas subreddit, an online community where all things Lone Star State are discussed, to chime in on ways to "Piss of /r/Texas in one sentence." The submissions were certainly cringe-worthy.

Take the simple, yet infuriating example from, @tehramz: "Whataburger sucks."

RELATED: 30 things you should never say to a San Antonian

Whataburger, the burger mecca for Texas, is one of many things residents of the Lone Star State will not stand for being bashed publicly.

RELATED: Major faux pas to avoid in San Antonio

In addition to the Reddit submissions, we've come up with a few more ways to upset a Texan in one sentence. Click through the gallery above to see them all.

Use them as a cautionary tale of what not to tell a Texan, or test your luck.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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SOUTHEAST TEXAS TALES

Beaumont had never seen anything like it.

When the 22-foot-high Spanish-style doors opened for business, the first-comers beheld a Mediterranean masterpiece.

Fifty years ago, mayor Jack Moore cut the ribbon for the grand opening of Blum's Furniture Store on the corner of 11th and Fannin streets across from Gateway Shopping Center.

The store had been the talk of the town for months. On the day of its opening, The Enterprise devoted eight full pages to it.

Owner Morris Blum worked with Port Arthur architects Moore and Stanbury to make his period-concept store a reality. The result was a 40,000-square foot Greco-Roman style building, complete with an eight-foot fountain imported from Italy.

As soon as passersby saw the building's exterior taking shape, they knew it was going to be something special.

Like a Roman coliseum, the building had 13 columns with 11 arches surrounding the front. The facade was white-stuccoed brick with Grecian dentil molding outlining the roof. The windows were 21 feet high, tinted a beautiful bronze to prevent sun damage to the furniture inside.

The most spectacular element was the door. It was 22 feet high - two stories - with an antique gold finish, geometric molding and huge, yard-long bronze pulls.

The Mediterranean style was red hot in 1966, and Morris' wife, Ann, helped design the lavish interior in that manner.

The first customers who entered on June 10 were greeted by a new showcase style not previously seen in Beaumont.

Rather than lined up by type, the furniture was displayed in mock rooms so people might envision how the pieces would look in their own homes. All the walls were moveable so the displays could be changed.

To get to the main salon, customers navigated a terrazzo marble floor, past the magnificent fountain. One of the first displays was an exact replica of an ensemble featured in the current issue of House Beautiful.

The displays all sat on plush, deep gold carpet. The rest of the color scheme was black and white. The display lighting - recessed and flood lights - was outshone by three large imported crystal chandeliers.

Adding to the luxury was a seven-foot wide open riser staircase that led to the mezzanine. It was made of concrete and steel, but the treads were covered in the same plush gold carpeting. The heavy rails were Honduran mahogany.

The stairway had a landing halfway up, then turned to the right for a dramatic effect. From there customers could look down on the main salon and see out to 11th Street. Or they could rest on the landing for a moment on one of the gossip chairs upholstered in red velvet.

The mezzanine had more displays and a home decorating department, where customers could choose their own fabrics for carpets, curtains and furniture coverings.

With Ann Blum's hand in the design, the ladies' lounge was over the top. A haven for weary shoppers, the lounge offered a placed to rest on gold-leafed, gold velvet-upholstered furniture. They could freshen their makeup and fix their hair sitting at a large, solid pine dressing table with matching mirror. The floor was covered in a thick red carpet that coordinated with the red cut velvet wallpaper. It was lit with hanging globe pendants.

Elegant, enchanting, glamorous, spectacular, sumptuous - all those words were used to describe Blum's Furniture Store.

Morris Blum was justifiably proud of his accomplishment, saying that furniture representatives from all over told him that there was no better store in the entire country. Mayor Moore agreed that it was a step forward for Beaumont.

A few years later Blum opened a similar store in Houston, and he and his wife relocated there. In 1972 Zale's purchased the store on 11th Street but retained the Blum's name. Today American Office occupies the building.

Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly feature that revisits regional history.
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Update, 6/24/16: The beach advisory issued for McFaddin Beach was lifted Friday morning, according the Jefferson County Judge's Office.

The water is currently at safe levels, according to a release from the county.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, anything over 104 colony levels of Enterococcus bacteria is considered unsafe.

Original story: Following a report this week of flesh-eating bacteria in Galveston, 12 Galveston County beaches and Jefferson County's McFaddin Beach on Thursday were issued beach advisories cautioning swimmers to stay out of the water.

McFaddin Beach will stay under the advisory until bacteria levels drop below a federally regulated threshold, Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick's office said on Thursday.

The water is contaminated with more Enterococcus bacteria than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems safe. Officials recommend no one swim at the beaches listed in the advisory.

Those that do risk gastrointestinal illnesses that could cause vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain or fever.

Lamar University's biology department is monitoring the bacteria levels to determine when the advisory can be lifted, said Fred Jackson, Branick's assistant.

Contaminated samples at the beach were collected Wednesday, according to Jackson.

The contamination is created by constant flooding, said Don Rao, county engineering director.

Of the 12 Galveston County beaches on notice, most of the advisories are along the Seawall. At the Bolivar Peninsula, there are advisories at Retilon Road and Helen Boulevard, but none at Crystal Beach. Health district officials in Galveston County collect water samples weekly to check bacteria levels at 52 different sites on the island, Bolivar Peninsula and the Texas City Dike. A beach under advisory doesn't mean that the site is closed, but it is "simply to inform the public of the elevated bacteria level so people can make an informed choice about swimming in the affected waters," the Galveston County Health District said on its Beach Watch Program website.

The sites under advisory all have orange, diamond-shaped signs that currently warn beach-goers of high levels of bacteria in the water.

Health officials said that people with open wounds and weakened immune systems are the most vulnerable. Still, authorities urge everyone to be cautious when you see water advisory warnings on the beach.

Earlier this week, a Houston man's leg was amputated after he contracted flesh-eating bacteria from swimming at a Galveston County beach.

Jefferson County's Don Rao said the excess bacteria is a result of spring floods up and down the Gulf Coast.

The Sabine, Neches, Trinity and Brazos rivers have "all kinds of stuff in it," Rao said.

"Because of all the flooding that's occurred, all the animal waste and everything that's coming down through the rivers is coming onshore to the beaches," he said.

County officials concede that even without the bacteria, McFaddin is not much of beach these days.

It's more muddy than sandy. The old beach road is washed out, only accessible with a high-standing vehicle like an ATV.

The county is applying for a federal grant to pay for putting more sand on the beach to help restore McFaddin, Jackson said.

"If you go down the Sabine Pass you can take a look," Jackson laughed. "It's not much for swimming."

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Beaumont ISD is offering up to $8,250 in hiring incentives for 100 teaching positions at "hard-to-fill" campuses and in certain stretched subject areas, including secondary science and math.

Faced with the difficulty of recruiting teachers against higher-paying districts, the district is offering $3,500 to first-year teachers and $5,500 to experienced teachers in high-need areas, said Nakisha Myles Burns, special assistant to the superintendent.

Besides science and math, the district's critical shortages are in foreign languages and bilingual and special education, Burns said.

Of the district's 25 elementary, middle and high school campuses, 14 have been designated as "hard to fill," meaning at least 80 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunch and teaching vacancies have gone unfilled for more than 30 days.

These include Central and Ozen high schools, three middle schools and eight elementaries, Burns said.

The incentive could partly address the challenge of working in these schools, said Greg Sholl, president of the Beaumont Teachers Association.

Teachers hired in needed subject areas at hard-to-fill campuses would be eligible for one full incentive and half the second.

The number of teachers the district needs to hire is subject to change, Burns said. Current teachers have until 45 days before school starts to decide if they will return, so "there could be 100 to 150 more retirements and resignations before that 45-day mark," Sholl said.

Retired teachers also can earn the incentives if they are rehired in high-need positions. Their salaries will depend on their number of years worked, and the district will pay their contributions to the Teacher Retirement System like any other employees.

June White, President of the Beaumont Association of Retired Teachers, is skeptical that many will be interested. "Most teachers have worked long and hard and they're enjoying their retirement," White said. "If the right thing came along, maybe they would, but I think a lot of them like the volunteer status better because you can more or less pick what you do."

The incentives are part of making Beaumont "a district of choice" for teachers, said Robert Calvert, BISD's Chief Operations Officer.

A 2014 reduction in force made necessary by budget shortfalls is "one of many" reasons the district is short in these areas, he said.

Sholl cited relatively low salaries as another reason the district struggles to attract teachers.

Although Beaumont's starting teacher salary is among the highest in the region, teachers can earn substantially more in districts closer to Houston.

"If someone's coming out of school thinking, where do I want to start, they can go 80 miles west and make about $10,000 a year more. That makes it tough for BISD to recruit," Sholl said.

Danny Lovett, Executive Director of the Region 5 Education Service Center, said that potential secondary math and science teachers are especially hard to come by, because they have other opportunities that schools can't match.

"That's the difficulty in getting those teachers. They're highly competitive fields where the same skillset can make a lot more money or have a lot more upward mobility."

Beaumont's four shortage areas are the same across the region and state, he said.

Beaumont's strategy is not unique - more than 50 Texas districts offer signing bonuses to new hires in high-need subjects and schools, and more than 400 pay stipends in critical shortage areas, according to the 2015-16 Texas Association of School Boards Teacher Salary Survey.

Port Arthur ISD is offering both this summer. All new hires receive signing bonuses of $2,500 to $3,000, depending on grade level. Teachers in the same critical shortage areas as BISD will receive additional stipends of $1,840 to $3,312.

BISD also is offering incentives for current teachers who apply to transfer to one of the high-need positions or who refer people for them. Each new hire earns the referring teacher $600.

If not enough teachers are available when school starts in August, Lovett said, the district can consider dual credit options with colleges or online learning or in some cases not offer certain courses.

"If all else fails, you put in as good a substitute as you can and you have to send a letter home to the parents saying their children are not being taught by a certified teacher," he said. "When you have no other choice, you find the best option you have."

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Hospitals across the nation face a myriad of financial challenges, including underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid and new reimbursement cuts.

These financial challenges, combined with other issues such as declining patient volumes, have caused more than 60 rural hospitals to close over the past five years.

Below are 12 hospitals closures reported so far this year.

1. North Georgia Medical Center in Ellijay closed June 6. A nearby hospital owned by Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare plans to reopen the facility's emergency department.

2. Saddleback Memorial  San Clemente (Calif.) hospital closed May 30. The primary reason for the closure was dwindling patient volumes. On many days, there were less than 10 inpatients at the 73-bed hospital.

3. Dallas-based Forest Park Medical Center's campus in Fort Worth, Texas, closed May 24. Arlington-based Texas Health Resources purchased the hospital and plans to reopen it.

4.McNairy Regional Hospital in Selmer, Tenn., part of Knoxville, Tenn.-based Tennova Healthcare, closed May 18. The hospital's admissions had dropped nearly 70 percent between 2010 and 2015, and ER visits had also plummeted.

5. Colusa (Calif.) Regional Medical Center closed April 22. Hospital officials said they expected the 48-bed hospital's closure to affect about 200 workers.

6. St. Joseph's Hospital in Philadelphia closed March 11. North Philadelphia Health System closed the 146-bed hospital as it consolidated operations.

7. SoutheastHEALTH in Cape Girardeau, Mo., closed Southeast Health Center of Reynolds County and its related clinics March 11. Before it closed, fewer than two beds on average were filled at the hospital each day.

8. Williamsburg Regional Hospital in Kingstree, S.C., shut down in February after severe flooding last October rendered the majority of the hospital unusable. A temporary replacement hospital will open in October.

9. Sayre (Okla.) Memorial Hospital abruptly closed Feb. 1. Officials said the closure was due to a number of factors, including Oklahoma's decision not to expand Medicaid.

10. Cleveland Clinic's 108-year-old Lakewood (Ohio) Hospital closed Feb. 5. The system has plans to replace the facility with a family healthcare clinic.

11. St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare closed 126-bed Parkland Health Center  Weber Road in Farmington, Mo., Jan. 19. Most clinical services were relocated to another Parkland Health hospital in Farmington.

12. St. Mary's Hospital in Streator, Ill., closed Jan. 4. The facility is now an urgent care center owned and operated by Peoria, Ill.-based OSF Healthcare System.

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Erlanger Health System has struck a deal with Catoosa County for the county to pay about 60 percent of what it originally owed for a loan the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based system made to Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Ogelthorpe, Ga.

In 2011, Erlanger and Hutcheson entered into a management agreement, and Erlanger made the loan to the financially troubled hospital. Catoosa and Walker County officials guaranteed the loan, promising each county would pay Erlanger $10 million if Hutcheson didn't have the funds to repay the loan. Hutcheson Medical Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2014. Without enough cash flow to support itself, the hospital closed Dec. 4. However, after securing a buyer, the facility was able to reopen just three weeks later under a new name.

After the hospital was sold, Erlanger filed a lawsuit claiming Catoosa County officials were cooperating with Erlanger to pay back the money, but Walker County officials were not.

On Tuesday, the Catoosa County Commission voted to accept a settlement agreement, under which the county will pay Erlanger $6.2 million. County Attorney Chad Young told the Times Free Press that Erlanger wants payment by the end of June, which marks the end of the system's fiscal year.

Although Erlanger has reached an agreement with Catoosa County, the system is still involved in a legal dispute with Walker County over the loan. Earlier this year, Erlanger rejected a $1.3 million offer from Walker County.

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The proportion of uninsured adults who were discharged from hospitals in Michigan has decreased dramatically since the state expanded Medicaid in 2014, meaning the amount of uncompensated healthcare services provided has also declined, according to Reuters.

Previously studies have confirmed that many people who gained healthcare coverage under Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured, according to the report.

To analyze the change in uncompensated care before and after Medicaid expansion in Michigan, researchers analyzed data on young adults discharged from 130 Michigan hospitals pre- and post-expansion, according to the report.

"What we found is that the overwhelming majority of hospitals experienced a decrease in the proportion of uninsured patients and an increase in Medicaid covered patients," said Matthew Davis, MD, deputy director of Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health System and lead author of the study.

The proportion of discharged young adults on Medicaid increased from 23 percent in 2012 to 24 percent in 2013 to 30 percent in 2014. Researchers were surprised at the widespread impact of Medicaid expansion on hospitals across the state, Dr. Davis told Reuters.

"This impact wasnt limited to urban areas or population centers, or safety net hospitals," he said, according to the report.
Here are eight recent news updates on key health IT companies.

1. Together with 16 healthcare organizations, including health systems, academic medical centers, ambulatory radiology providers and imaging technology companies, IBM has formed a Watson Health medical imaging collaborative that seeks to boost use of cognitive imaging for cancer, diabetes, eye health, brain disease and heart disease care.

2. Sasha TerMaat, a director at Epic, was elected chairperson of the Electronic Health Record Association.

3. LinkedIn compiled a list of the 40 companies that best attract and keep top talent in the U.S., and McKesson was the only health IT company to make the cut.

4. McKesson is exploring the possibility of selling its IT unit, and three people familiar with the matter told Reuters the company has discussed merging its IT unit with Change Healthcare.

5. In efforts to improve the quality of search results for medical symptoms, Google partnered with HarvardMedicalSchool and Mayo Clinic to refine search results, introducing a feature called "symptom search."

6. Cape Girardeau, Mo.-based Saint Francis Healthcare System is almost ready to launch its Epic EHR, scheduled to go live on July 1.

7. In a world of self-driving cars, IBM helped develop Olli, a self-driving shuttle bus.

8. Cerner isn't just an IT vendor: The company is operating and staffing a health clinic for the International Union of Operating Engineers' Kansas City chapter.

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Boston Children's Hospital was ranked No. 1 on U.S. News & World Report's children's hospitals Honor Roll for 2016-17. The hospital is joined by 10 other hospitals, all of which received high scores in at least three specialties. Assisting in these hospitals' missions are the EHRs underlying their work.

Here are the core clinical EHRs each of this year's Honor Roll pediatric hospitals use, listed by national rank.

1. Boston Children's Hospital: Cerner

2. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Epic Systems

3. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center: Epic Systems

4. Texas Children's Hospital (Houston): Epic Systems

5. Seattle Children's Hospital: Cerner

6. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago: Epic Systems

7. Children's Hospital Los Angeles: Cerner

7. Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC: Cerner

9. Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora): Epic Systems

10. Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford (Palo Alto, Calif.): Epic Systems

10. Nationwide Children's Hospital (Columbus): Epic Systems

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A recent article published by JAMA found pharmaceutical industry-sponsored meals valued at less than $20 were associated with higher rates of prescribing certain brand name medications. But is it fair to call this bribery and call it a day?

Before assuming physicians are readily selling out their patients for the price of a sandwich, consider the following points raised in a recent Bloomberg View report.

1. The study's design doesn't account for reverse causation. In other words, it's possible that pharmaceutical reps were treating physicians who already prescribed more of their drugs. Those physicians would be more interested in attending industry-sponsored events regarding that medication.

2. The study doesn't define a "right" rate at which physicians prescribe the specified drugs. According to Bloomberg, we should question the assumption that physicians who did not accept industry-sponsored meals prescribed the "right" amount of the drugs, and that "any deviation from this prescribing behavior represents an unjustified bias," according to the report. It is reasonable to argue physicians who took the time to meet with pharmaceutical sales reps for lunch learned important information about new drugs that could benefit their patients, and that they would not have otherwise learned if they declined the offer.

3. The study does not identify the mechanism of action. While the association between industry-sponsored meals and higher rates of prescribing certain drugs may exist, the study doesn't say precisely what accounts for the increased prescriptions. Importantly, the notion that a straight bribe is driving more prescriptions does not seem to be a likely explanation of the behavior. According to the report, it seems implausible that physicians, some of whom may make $400,000 a year, would think to themselves: "Sure, this brand-name prescription is probably completely unnecessary, but if I stop prescribing it, who will buy my next ham on rye?"

4. The compulsion to reciprocate probably does exist, however. Despite the low value of industry-sponsored meals  the average cost of a meal in the study ranged from $12 to $18  gifting physicians anything could trigger the human instinct to reciprocate by increasing prescriptions for a certain drug, according to the report.

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About 1,300 nurses at Kaiser Permanente's Los Angeles Medical Center who are members of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United are set to begin a four-day strike Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The nurses contend that the staffing levels at Los Angeles Medical Center are inadequate, allegedly harming patient care and preventing meal breaks, and they are seeking a contract to improve staffing levels. They are also seeking a collective bargaining agreement for improved wages.

Kaiser disputes those claims and issued a statement saying, "This strike is not about quality or adequate staffing levels." Kaiser said it has made offers that will make LAMC nurses "among the highest paid nurses in Southern California." However, instead of providing a counter proposal to Kaiser's most recent offer to the union, the nurses scheduled the strike.

Nurses with the union went on a seven-day strike that began March 15. At that time, the nurses were seeking an agreement that resolved staffing issues and improved wages. Debra Grabelle, spokeswoman for the California Nurses Association, told the Los Angeles Times that conditions or wages haven't improved since the last walkout.

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Talks between Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital and the union that represents 3,300 nurses there are at a standstill, according to an editorial in The Boston Globe.

On June 13, the Massachusetts Nurses Association voted to authorize a one-day strike. A walkout is now more likely, after the latest negotiation session fizzled, according to the report.

A strike is tentatively set to begin at 7 a.m. June 27 and would include nurses at the main hospital campus in the Longwood area of Boston, along with Brigham facilities in Foxborough, Newton, Jamaica Plain and Chestnut Hill.

If a strike takes place as planned, Brigham, owned by Boston-based Partners HealthCare, said it will cancel many appointments and elective procedures, according to The Boston Globe. Brigham said on its website that it has also already contracted with an outside agency to supply roughly 700 replacement nurses, who would work alongside nonunion Brigham nurses. The contracted nurses would be at Brigham for five days, meaning the hospital's staff nurses would return to the hospital at 7 a.m. July 2.

The hospital said the main points of disagreement in the bargaining sessions are wage increases, health insurance benefits and time off.

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Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital and its nurses union have agreed to another round of contract negotiations to try to avoid a looming strike, The Boston Globe reports.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents 3,300 nurses at Brigham, is slated to meet with hospital officials Friday.

If a deal is not reached, nurses plan to stage a one-day strike, beginning at 7 a.m. June 27. The strike would include nurses at the main hospital campus in the Longwood area of Boston, along with Brigham facilities in Foxborough, Newton, Jamaica Plain and Chestnut Hill.

But both sides hope another round of contract negotiations will be productive.

"We're hoping this means the hospital is ready to make progress so that we can move forward," Joe Markman, a spokesman for the MNA, said, according to The Boston Globe.

Ron Walls, MD, Brigham's COO, is also optimistic, according to the report, saying that hospital officials are committed to talking all day Friday and through the weekend, if necessary, to try to avoid a walkout. "We're very hopeful we can reach a settlement," he added.

However, if a strike does occur, Brigham, owned by Boston-based Partners HealthCare, said it will cancel many appointments and elective procedures, according to The Boston Globe. Brigham said on its website that it has also already contracted with an outside agency to supply roughly 700 replacement nurses, who would work alongside nonunion Brigham nurses. The contracted nurses would be at Brigham for five days, meaning the hospital's staff nurses would return to the hospital at 7 a.m. July 2.

Although the hospital would operate at 60 percent of capacity during a strike, it would still have the means to accommodate the usual number of births, officials said, according to the report.

Negotiations between the union and Brigham have been ongoing for the past nine months. And on June 13, the MNA voted to authorize a one-day strike. The Boston Globe reports that both sides spent more than 10 hours talking last Friday, and met again on Monday. However, those talks Monday were ultimately unsuccessful.

The hospital said the main points of disagreement in the bargaining sessions are wage increases, health insurance benefits and time off.

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Striking nurses at Allina Health are questioning the organization's spending, including the Minneapolis-based system's $108 million investment in medical data company Health Catalyst, according to a Star Tribune report.

The nurses argue that the investment in Health Catalyst is corporate waste that will come at the expense of workers, according to the report. But Allina officials told the Star Tribune Health that Catalyst is receiving money that the health system previously spent in-house to analyze data and reduce waste in care.

Penny Wheeler, MD, president and CEO of Allina, also noted to the publication that Health Catalyst does not play a role in setting nurse staffing. She said Allina wants to discuss a plan with the union that would involve using a separate computer "acuity" system to set nurse staffing levels based on patients' medical and psychological needs.

Roughly 4,800 nurses, represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association, began a weeklong strike Sunday at five Minnesota facilities  Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis, Unity Hospital in Fridley, United Hospital in St. Paul, Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis.

The nurses are striking primarily because Allina wants to eliminate union-backed health insurance and move the workers to plans that other health system employees receive. Allina anticipates saving $10 million a year in savings from the switch.

According to the report, representatives from the MNA leaders also have asked Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson to audit Allina.

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A federal appeals court in Atlanta heard arguments Tuesday in a case challenging a Florida law that prohibits physicians from asking and recording information about their patients' gun ownership. If the law is upheld, the decision could influence whether Georgia would adopt similar measures, according to a WABE report.

The law in discussion is the Privacy of Firearm Owners Act, passed by Florida lawmakers in 2011.

"There're a couple of different constitutional rights that are sort of all bouncing around in the same case," said Sonja West, an associate professor of constitutional law at the University of Georgia in Athens. "There's a Second Amendment right, which patients claim about their right to gun ownership without facing intrusive questions or possibly having their ownership be recorded in some kind of document that could potentially make its way out of the doctor's office."

On the other side of the debate, termed "docs versus glocks," many medical professionals contend they have a right to speak to their patients about guns and gun safety. The American Medical Association encourages such questioning, along with other preventive care questions on sexual behavior, alcohol, drug use and domestic violence.

"Behind the closed doors of an exam room, physicians routinely ask patients personal questions to facilitate preventive care  questions about their sexual behavior, alcohol and drug use, domestic violence and other sensitive issues," Andrew Gurman, MD, president of the AMA, said in a statement. "Our role in preventing gun violence includes asking patients: Do you have guns at home? Are they kept locked separately from ammunition? Are they accessible to anyone else, especially children and individuals with mental health issues?

"These three questions can prompt a reasonable discussion, supported by evidence-based medicine and professional guidelines, which can help patients safeguard themselves and their families. Patients who receive physician counseling on firearm safety are more likely to adopt one or more safe gun-storage practices."
Anthony Jerome Clark Jr., who evaded police for more than two weeks after walking away from the secured psychological unit of Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical Center, has been arrested and charged in the fatal shooting June 11 of 13-year-old DiAndre Barnes, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Police first arrested Mr. Clark, 25, and charged him with burglary, armed robbery, handgun violations and several other crimes related to two incidents that occurred May 26. According to the report, Mr. Clark robbed a man at gunpoint at a gas station and fled to a home in Reservoir Hill, Md. There, he slit his wrists with box cutters and told police they would "have to kill" him. Officers used a Taser on him and apprehended him. The next day, they brought Mr. Clark to a secure psychological unit at UMMC for treatment.

Officers said they told hospital staff to notify them when Mr. Clark would be discharged so they could come back to arrest him. However, although he was never discharged, Mr. Clark "walked away from the hospital on his own," according to Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith. On June 11, police were called to the 900 block of Pennsylvania Ave. in Baltimore, where they found two individuals had been shot, including Mr. Barnes. The other victim, who survived, is believed to be the intended target. Witnesses later identified Mr. Clark as the shooter.

The next night, officers spotted Mr. Clark and chased after him. Mr. Clark fired at them and eventually surrendered and was rearrested.

Karen Lancaster, a spokeswoman for UMMC, said she was limited in what she could disclose to the media because of patient privacy laws, according to the report.

Mr. Clark now faces first-degree murder charges in Mr. Barnes' death and attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of the other man, as well as the shooting at police officers, according to the report.

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MVP Health Insurance Co. has filed suit against Vermont's Green Mountain Care Board, alleging the board overstepped its power when it denied the insurance company's premium rate increase, according to VTDigger.

Under Vermont law, the Green Mountain Care Board is in charge of controlling the rate of growth in healthcare costs. Since 2011, the board has regulated hospital budgets and the prices payers charge their members.

In September, MVP Health Insurance filed documents requesting to increase premiums by an average of 26.9 percent for about 1,200 customers through Agriservices, a farming association that pays MVP to administer a health plan. In November, after finding a mathematical error, MVP asked to raise prices an average of 27.4 percent, according to the report.

Green Mountain Care Board's actuaries reviewed the insurer's request and suggested the board approve an average increase of 25.9 percent.

In a suit that has made its way to the Vermont Supreme Court, MVP Health Insurance claims the board denied its rate increase because it was mad at the insurer for submitting its original price increase late in the year. The company has asked the state's high court to overturn the denial.

Green Mountain Care Board claims it denied the increase because the requested price hike would be "unfair, unjust and inequitable to the plan members," according to the report.

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If UnitedHealthcare and Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare do not reach an agreement by the end of June, some 150,000 patients could find their physicians out of network, 90.1 WABE reported.

A three-year contract between the two companies ends June 30, but negotiations are in deadlock. If a new contract is not inked, five out of Piedmont's six hospitals and hundreds of physicians will no long be in network with UnitedHealthcare starting July 1.

Ronnie Brownsworth, MD, CEO of Piedmont Clinic, notified patients last week that the system will stop accepting UnitedHealthcare commercial plans July 1 if the stalemate continues, according to WABE. Affected patients will need to seek other providers or pay more out of pocket to continue care with their physicians.

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Two former pharmacists were sentenced to federal prison this week for distributing tainted drugs in 2011 to patients at several hospitals in the Birmingham, Ala., region. Nine of the patients who received the tainted drugs developed bloodstream infections and died, AL.com reports.

The pharmacists distributed the intravenous drug Total Parenteral Nutrition, a liquid nutrition administered to patients who cannot or should not eat. According to federal authorities, the amino acid used to compound the TPN was contaminated with the bacteria Serratia marcescens, a type of Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae, after it was prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions.

The pharmacists distributed the tainted drug to patients between March 5 and March 15, 2011. All total, 19 hospital patients developed S. marcescens bloodstream infections and nine died.

According to U.S. Department of Justice statement released Tuesday, the two pharmacists  David Allen and Timothy Rogers  pleaded guilty to misdemeanor violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Mr. Allen was sentenced to 12 months in prison and Mr. Rogers was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Following their imprisonment, both defendants are also sentenced to one year of supervised release and a $5,000 fine, according to the report.

"Producing unsafe and contaminated drugs poses a serious threat to the U.S. public health and cannot be tolerated," FDA Office of Criminal Investigations Director George Karavetsos told AL.com. "The FDA remains fully committed to aggressively pursuing those who place unsuspecting American consumers at risk by distributing adulterated drugs."

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Here are eight things for spinal surgeons to know for June 23, 2016.

Top 10% of orthopedic surgeons make $693k+ annually

The top 10 percent of orthopedic surgeons make $693,271 annually, while the bottom 10 percent of orthopedic surgeons make $262,774 annually. Additionally, the top 10 percent of orthopedic surgeons make $333 hourly, while the bottom 10 percent of orthopedic surgeons make $126 hourly.

Global spine biologics market to reach $1.74B by 2020; MIS driving growth

The global spine biologics market is expected to hit $1.74 billion by 2020, according to a Technavio report. The growing popularity of minimally invasive spine surgery is increasing demand for spine biologics. Robot-assisted surgeries will also likely spur market growth.

Predictive model pinpoints complication risks after spinal cord compression surgery

Canada-based Toronto Western Hospital researchers studied the risk of complications following spine surgery for cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Researchers determined the greatest risk factors were diabetes and ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.

Spineology launches new expandable interbody fusion system

Spineology released its Elite Expandable Interbody Fusion System. The design aims to minimize neural retraction and potentially restore anatomical alignment of the spine. Mark Grubb, MD, of St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland, implanted the first Elite Expandable Interbody System.

74% of PCPs, ER physicians say their practice fails to address & prevent burnout

An InCrowd survey found many physicians feel their practice or facility is not doing enough to address and prevent burnout. Fifty-seven percent of PCPs and ER physicians reported personally experiencing burnout. Thirty-seven percent said their work frustrated them a few times each week, or even daily.

NYU Lutheran welcomes neurosurgeons Drs. Erich Anderer and David Gordon

Erich Anderer, MD, and David Gordon, MD, joined New York City-based NYU Lutheran Medical Center. Dr. Anderer is now NYU Lutheran's chief of neurosurgery, and Dr. Gordon joined NYU Lutheran as a senior member of the neurosurgery team.

FDA clears Spinal Elements' line of expandable interbody devices

The FDA approved Carlsbad, Calif.-based Spinal Elements' expandable interbody fusion devices. The clearance encompasses expandable interbody devices for posterior, anterior and lateral access to the lumbar spine. Spinal Elements makes the devices with PEEK and include the company's Ti-Bond porous titanium coating at the endplate contacting surfaces. Clinical procedures with these expandable devices will occur later in 2016.

Dr. Scott Ellison performs 1st cervical disc replacement in Murrells Inlet, SC region

T. Scott Ellison, MD, of Murrells Inlet, S.C.-based Tidelands Health, performed the region's first cervical disc replacement. He performed the procedure at Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital in Murrells Inlet earlier this month.
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A Leave vote in tomorrow's referendum would "almost certainly make us financially worse off" and could cut the UK's GDP by up to 8% - equivalent to 5,760 for every household in the country - a group of respected economic think tanks has warned.

In a joint statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and the Centre for Economic Performance said "almost all those who have looked seriously" at the consequences of Brexit agreed it would be highly likely to harm the UK's living standards.

Withdrawing from the EU was likely to result in prolonged uncertainty, reduced access to the single market and lower overseas investment, which would together lead to lower wages, more expensive goods in the shops, more unemployment and a combination of higher borrowing, reduced public spending or rising state borrowing, they said.

"In our lifetimes we have never seen such a degree of unanimity among economists on a major policy issue," they added.

"The precise effect, in terms of a numerical percentage, is of course uncertain. But that we would be financially worse off outside the EU than in it is almost certainly true."

The economy was likely to be between 1% and 3% smaller by 2020 if Britain votes to Leave than if Remain wins," the think tanks said. And by 2030, GDP would be between 2% and 8% lower - between 1,440 and 5,760 for every UK household.

The warning came as billionaire financier George Soros said it was "wishful thinking" for voters to believe that a Brexit would not hit them in the pocket, while former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said a Remain vote was "the only rational economic choice".
Bombardier is relying on C Series orders to pick up

Bombardier has finally secured a long-awaited $1bn bailout from the Quebec Government.

The regional government in Quebec, where Bombardier is based, has plough $1bn (670m) into the C Series programme in return for a 49.5% equity share.

It had been delayed, as discussions dragged on. It's understood the first payment will be made June 30 and the second on Sept. 1.

And talks are still under way for a further cash bailout from Canada's federal government.

It's been reeling from huge delays in its C Series passenger jets, of which the wings and fuselage are built in Belfast.

Bombardier employs around 5,000 staff here.

It secured a deal in April to sell 75 of the CS100 jets to Delta Airlines, with the potential for a further 50 orders. However, it revealed in February that the company was cutting 1,080 jobs in Belfast over the next two years.

Earlier this month, IAG boss Willie Walsh told the Belfast Telegraph he was having discussions with Bombardier boss Alain Bellemere about buying a number of the planes.

At the International Air Transport Association AGM in Dublin, he said other orders, including deals with Delta Airlines and Lufthansa subsidiary SWISS, were also encouraging.

This week, Belfast City Airport boss Brian Ambrose said the CSeries passenger jets could open up a direct route from the city to the east coast of America and the Middle East.

The narrow-body passenger planes are fuel-efficient and potentially give small airports greater reach across the world.
Sir Philip Green is to offer 1,000 BHS workers jobs at his Arcadia group, a week after being grilled by MPs over the department store chain's collapse. The workers are currently employed at Arcadia concessions, such as Dorothy Perkins and Wallis, within BHS outlet

There are four BHS stores in greater Belfast, employing about 200 people.

A spokesman for the company said it did not know if employees in Northern Ireland would be included in the offer.

He added: "This relates to the Arcadia concession staff working within BHS, so at present it's not clear who else it may include."

It is understood the Topshop billionaire has also instructed his lieutenants to assist some of the 10,000 remaining BHS workers find new jobs.

During a parliamentary hearing last week, Sir Philip apologised to the staff of the collapsed retailer and admitted that he sold the business to the "wrong guy", adding that he will "sort" the firm's pension scheme, which has a 571m black hole.

Sir Philip has come in for criticism for taking around 400m in dividends out of BHS during his 15-year ownership and for selling the firm to former bankrupt Dominic Chappell for 1 in 2015.

On Tuesday, MPs from the Business and Pension Select Committees wrote to his wife, Lady Tina Green, to demand answers over the "complex web" of businesses owned by the family in the wake of the BHS administration scandal.

The 163-store chain is in the process of being wound down by administrator Duff & Phelps.

Its Northern Ireland stores are located in Belfast's Castle Place, Holywood Exchange in the east of the city, the Abbey Centre in Newtownabbey and in Lisburn's Bow Street Mall.

Eamonn Murphy of Murphy Surveyors said the concentration of stores in the Belfast area was likely to mean at least one would be selected for closure.

But he added that the large property at Castle Place in the city centre could be sold on for redevelopment.
Schools have been advised to avoid gender terms when referring to pupils.

A leading girls' schools association has issued advice to a Belfast school to not use the terms "girls, young women or young ladies" when addressing pupils - in certain circumstances.

The Girls' Schools Association (GSA) advised that "pupils" or "students" would be appropriate terms for addressing those in the classroom "particularly when transgender pupils are present" to be more inclusive.

The association represents the heads of many of the top performing day and boarding schools in the UK independent schools sector.

It issued its advice as part of its 'Summer Briefing for Heads' in which it shares expert advice, legal guidelines and good practice on a wide range of issues.

Caroline Jordan, president of the Girls Schools Association (GSA), said that, in some circumstances, staff should use gender-neutral language.

The advice also recommends creating unisex lavatories.

The Sunday Times reported that Mrs Jordan had advised that "In assemblies instead of saying 'Girls, go to lessons', staff should consider saying 'Pupils, go to lessons'.

It was also reported some single-sex schools have already adopted more neutral language in situations such as assemblies and others are considering doing so, Mrs Jordan said.

It's been welcomed as a move towards more gender neutral environments.

Following recent widespread press coverage, the GSA issued a further statement.

It said: "Although some of the coverage oversimplifies what is a complex pastoral issue, we are pleased to see that the fact that our schools enable all pupils to learn in an accepting, comfortable environment has attracted attention.

"The crux of the matter is that schools have a duty of care to all pupils, including those who decide to transition. Language is one part of this complex pastoral issue and GSA schools, which have a long history of excellence in pastoral care, are at the forefront of showing best practice in including transgender pupils.

"For the avoidance of doubt, we believe that using certain terminology  such as pupils or students rather than girls  is appropriate in certain circumstances, and particularly when transgender pupils are present. It is up to individual schools to interpret and apply this advice when appropriate."

Victoria College in Belfast has been issued with the advice. It is the only Northern Ireland school which is a member of the association.

It told the BBC's Stephen Nolan show it had no commented to make on if the advice will be followed.

The Belfast Telegraph also contacted the school. It said no one was available to respond.

The GSA is not suggesting schools stop using the words girls or boys altogether but should consider different terms in certain circumstances.

Jay Stewart, of Gendered Intelligence, told The Sunday Times: Young people want to feel they belong in their school environment and they are not made to feel other or weirdos or freaks.
The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union - sending shockwaves and uncertainty throughout the financial and political worlds leaving the Remain campaign in a state of incredulity and Prime Minister David Cameron resigning.

Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said another independence referendum was "highly likely".

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She said: "it was "democratically unacceptable" that Scotland faced the prospect of being taken out of the EU against its will and her government would begin preparing legislation to enable another independence vote.

The SNP leader said her priority was to reassure the people of Scotland about their immediate future and she would explore all options to secure Scotland's place in the European Union.

She added: "Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will forever remain friends."

Responding, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State said Scotland had voted to be a part of the UK and that would remain the case.

DUP leader Arlene Foster said the test for a Northern Ireland border poll had not been met.

"Our Nation is safe," she said.

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Photo credit should read: David Young/PA Wire PA Chelsea pensioners at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital, London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Boris Johnson and his wife Marina arrive to cast their votes at Hanover Primary School in north London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Isabel Infantes/PA Wire PA Jenny Watson, the Chief Counting Officer for the EU Referendum, announces that polling has closed and the national count has commenced at Manchester Town Hall. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Peter Byrne/PA Wire PA A ballot box is carried into the Royal Horticultural Halls in London as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire PA A counter waits for ballot boxes to arrive at the Lindley Hall, Royal Horticultural Halls, London, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire PA Tellers wait for ballot papers at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Counters empty ballot box at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan Counting continues at Titanic Exhibition Centre as SDLP's Alban Maginness and Clare Hanna discuss progress Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan Counting continues at Titanic Exhibition Centre Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan 23rd June 2016 Former Justice Minister David Forde Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan 23rd June 2016 Christopher Stalford chats with Dianne Dodds Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan Counting continues at Titanic Exhibition Centre and Nigel Dodds chats with colleagues Press Eye - Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union Northern Ireland- Titanic Count Centre - Belfast. Photograph by Declan Roughan Counting continues at Titanic Exhibition Centre and Alastair Mc Donnell keep a close with on proceedings A counter tallies ballot papers at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Counters tally ballot papers at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 23, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Bundles of ballot papers at the counting centre in Manchester Central after Thursday's EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Danny Lawson/PA Wire PA How the vote stands at 5:30am. See story POLITICS EU. PA UKIP Leader Nigel Farage speaking in London where he appeared to claim victory for the Leave campaign in the EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire PA Leave supporters at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, after polls closed in the EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Remain supporters at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, after polls closed in the EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Supporters of leaving the EU celebrate at a party hosted by Leave.EU in central London as they watch results come in from around the country after Thursday's EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire PA Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Rob Stothard/PA Wire PA TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 24: People read special edition of the Sankei newspaper reporting the results of the UK vote on June 24, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan. The result from the historic EU referendum has now been declared and the United Kingdom has voted to LEAVE the European Union. (Photo by Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images) Getty Images TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 24: Pedestrians walk past an electronic stock board displaying the exchange rate of the yen against the US dollar outside a securities firm on June 24, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan. Process of the vote counting is underway and the majority of British people have voted to leave the European Union (Photo by Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images) Getty Images TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 24: A man watches an electronic board displaying price of the Nikkei stock average outside of a securities firm on June 24, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan. Process of the vote counting is underway and the majority of British people have voted to leave the European Union (Photo by Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images) Getty Images TV OUT. ALL BROADCAST WEBSITES OUT. No cropping permitted. Picture must be credited to Sky News. We are advised that videograbs should not be used more than 48 hours after the time of original transmission, without the consent of the copyright holder. Video grab taken from Sky News of Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who said "some market and economic volatility can be expected" in the wake of the Brexit vote, adding that the Bank was well prepared. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU Bank. Photo credit should read: Sky News/PA Wire PA Exchange rates displayed at a currency exchange in London after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire PA File photo dated 28/03/10 of British Airways aircraft at Heathrow Airport, as its owner, IAG, has issued a profit warning following the UK's decision to leave the EU. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday June 24, 2016. The company's share price tanked 19% to 425.6p in trading on Friday morning. See PA story POLITICS EU IAG. Photo credit should read: Steve Parsons/PA Wire PA How the pound has fallen. See story POLITICS EU PA A statue of Winston Churchill is silhouetted by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in central London on June 24, 2016. Britain has voted to break out of the European Union, striking a thunderous blow against the bloc and spreading panic through world markets Friday as sterling collapsed to a 31-year low. / AFP / Niklas HALLE'N AFP/Getty Images A police officer enters the door of 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister, as UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed victory for the Leave campaign in the EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Journalists outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister, as UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed victory for the Leave campaign in the EU referendum. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Members of the press photograph Prime Minister David Cameron as he speaks outside 10 Downing Street, London, where he announced his resignation after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Lauren Hurley/PA Wire PA ALTERNATE CROP Prime Minister David Cameron walks out of 10 Downing Street, London, with wife Samantha where he announced his resignation after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 24: Prime Minister David Cameron speaks outside Downing Street on June 24, 2016 in London, England. The results from the historic EU referendum has now been declared and the United Kingdom has voted to LEAVE the European Union. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images Prime Minister David Cameron speaks outside 10 Downing Street, London, where he announced his resignation after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Samantha Cameron watches her husband David announce his resignation as Prime Minister outside 10 Downing Street, London, after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Prime Minister David Cameron walks into 10 Downing Street, London, with wife Samantha after he announced his resignation after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Police break up a crowd blocking Boris Johnson's car from leaving his street in north London, after David Cameron announced he will quit as Prime Minister by October following a humiliating defeat in the referendum which ended with a vote for Britain to leave the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Ryan Wilkinson/PA Wire PA Former London Mayor, and "Vote Leave" campaigner Boris Johnson leaves his home in London on June 24, 2016 after Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU). Britain voted to break away from the European Union on June 24, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing a thunderous blow to the 60-year-old bloc that sent world markets plunging. / AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLISJUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 24: Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, walks towards the Houses of Parliament on June 24, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. The result from the historic EU referendum has now been declared and the United Kingdom has voted to LEAVE the European Union. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images) Getty Images Ukip leader Nigel Farage greets his supporters on College Green in Westminster, London, after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire PA Boris Johnson and Michael Gove (right) hold a press conference at Brexit HQ in Westminster, London, after David Cameron has announced he will quit as Prime Minister by October following a humiliating defeat in the referendum which ended with a vote for Britain to leave the European Union. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire PA Presumptive Republican nominee for US president Donald Trumpwaves with his daughter Ivanka Trump on June 24, 2016 in Ayr, Scotland. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Getty Images US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, with his daughter Ivanka and son Eric (left) at his revamped Trump Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. Trump will cut the ribbon at the resort he purchased two years ago which has undergone a 200 million refurbishment. See PA story POLITICS Trump. Photo credit should read: Jane Barlow/PA Wire PA TV OUT. ALL BROADCAST WEBSITES OUT. No cropping permitted. Picture must be credited to Sky News. We are advised that videograbs should not be used more than 48 hours after the time of original transmission, without the consent of the copyright holder. Video grab taken from Sky News of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a press conference at Bute House in Edinburgh, where she confirmed that the Scottish Government will draw up legislation to allow a second independence referendum to be held. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU Scotland. Photo credit should read: Sky News/PA Wire PA Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 24th June 2016 First Minister Arlene Foster is pictured on a phone call at 11.20am today speaking with Prime Minister David Cameron in her office at Stormont Castle, Belfast this morning after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Photo by Press Eye Alan Lewis- PhotopressBelfast.co.uk 24-6-2016 Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster speaking at Stormont Castle this afternoon on the Brexit vote in the European Union Referendum on membership of the EU. Photopress Belfast Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny speaks during a press conference in Dublin, after Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum which has thrown Westminster politics into disarray and sent the pound tumbling on the world markets. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 24, 2016. See PA story POLITICS EU Ireland. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire PA Alan Lewis- PhotopressBelfast.co.uk 24-6-2016 Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness with Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein Ministers speaking at Stormont Castle this afternoon on the Brexit vote in the European Union Referendum on membership of the EU. Photopress Belfast PACEMAKER BELFAST 24/06/2016 Democratic imperative for border poll Adams Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD speaking at Stormont Castle today along with First Minister Martin McGuinness and other Executive Ministers said: There is an onus on the British government to respect the democratic wishes of the people of the north. The Taoiseach has to think nationally in a real sense. The Irish government needs an all-island, all-Ireland view. The referendum result will have very profound effects for all of us on this island. There are real worries it will have an adverse impact on the two economies on this island. This will have serious consequences for jobs and investment and for families and communities. UK London 24 June 2016 -- A group of young school students from Oxford protest opposite the Parliament against the fact that as 16 and 17 years old they weren't allowed to vote in the referendum. The posters read 'Where was my vote' and 'Please Sir can we have a voice? Let 16/17 yr olds vote' The day after the EU Referendum in which the majority of Britain decided to leave the EU, sees Leave and Stay supporters out in the streets of London -- Picture by Michael Debets/Atlas Photo Archive Michael Debets/Atlas Photo Archi / Facebook

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Whatsapp A general view of Manchester Town Hall, the setting for the national count in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, before the counting of votes. Pic: Peter Byrne/PA Wire

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While the UK voted in favour of Leave, the majority of Northern Ireland votes opted for Remain.

The result has sent shockwaves through financial markets and the political sphere with Prime Minister David Cameron announcing his decision to resign.

Boris Johnson has paid tribute to David Cameron as "one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age" following the Prime Minister's decision to step down after the Brexit vote.

The former London mayor, standard bearer for the Vote Leave campaign, said Mr Cameron was a "brave and principled man" who had given "superb leadership".

Giving his reaction to the Leave camp's victory, Mr Johnson insisted that the Brexit vote "does not mean that the United Kingdom will be in any way less united" or "less European".

In a speech at Vote Leave's headquarters in London, he said: "I believe the British people have spoken up for democracy in Britain and across Europe and I think we can be very proud of the result."

Pressure is also mounting on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Sky is reporting that the Parliamentary Labour Party is sounding out support for a leadership challenge.

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>>How did your constituency vote - from Foyle to East Belfast<<

Mr Cameron said he accepted the decision of the electorate, which voted by 52% to 48% to quit the EU.

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AFP/Getty Images Nigel Farage speaks to journalists at the Leave.EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London on June 23 2016 AFP/Getty Images Leave.EU supporters wave Union flags and cheer as the results come in at the Leave.EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London early in the morning of June 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Remain supporters at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, after polls closed in the EU referendum. PA Leave supporters at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, after polls closed in the EU referendum. PA Caroline Wilson of Belfast City Council speaking with DUP MLA for Belfast South Christopher Stalford at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast, after polls closed in the EU referendum. PA Counting continues at Titanic Exhibition Centre as SDLP's Alban Maginness and Clare Hanna discuss progress Titanic Count Centre - Belfast former Justice Minister David Forde Counting at Titanic Exhibition Centre Counting at Titanic Exhibition Centre as local politicians keep a close watch on progress Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign gather to wait for the result of the EU referendum at a results party at the Royal Festival Hall in London on June 23, 2016. AFP/Getty Images SUNDERLAND, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 24: Leave campaigners celebrate as they win the vote in Sunderland during the North East region European Union referendum count on June 24, 2016 in Sunderland, United Kingdom. Getty Images The first box of votes is opened at Titanic Belfast The first Ballot Boxes are opened in the Foyle Arena in Derry-Londonderry last night shortly after the polls closed in the Brexit referendum. Picture Martin McKeown. Inpresspics.com. 23.06.16 SDLP Party Leader Colm Eastwood and Remain campaigner arrives at the count centre in the Foyle Arena in Derry-Londonderry. Picture Martin McKeown. Inpresspics.com. 23.06.16 Boris Johnson and his wife Marina leave after casting their votes at Hanover Primary School in north London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. PA A man accompanied by his dog laughs as he exits a polling station after voting in the EU referendum on June 23, 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Getty Images A dog is tied to railings outside a polling station waiting for its owner to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has gone to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Getty Images REDCAR, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: A man walks his dog from a polling station in a Youth Community Centre as voters head to the polls to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Redcar, United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is going to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Getty Images REDCAR, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: A dog plays on the grass next to a polling station sign attached to railings in Redcar as voters head to the polls to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Redcar, United Kingdom. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Getty Images SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: A dog is tied to railings outside a polling station waiting for its owner to cast their vote on the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has gone to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Getty Images A woman waits with her dog outside a polling station in Little Milton on June 23, 2016. Millions of Britons began voting today in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. / AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNISADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images GLASGOW, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: Duke, an eight week old Labrador Collie sits in a basket with his owner's EU referendum polling card outside Notre Dame Primary School polling station on June 23, 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland. The United Kingdom has gone to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Getty Images Father Peter Burn of Clonard Monastery leaving Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions polling station in West Belfast as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 23rd May 2016 First Minister Arlene Foster pictured at the polling station at Brookeborough Primary School Picture by Andrew Paton/Press Eye.com WESTERHAM, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP and Vote Leave campaigner, poses for photographs after registering his vote in the UK's EU referendum, at his local polling station Cudham Church of England Primary School on June 23, 2016 in Westerham, England. The United Kingdom has gone to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images) Getty Images WESTERHAM, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 23: Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP and Vote Leave campaigner, talks to the media outside his local polling station, Cudham Church of England Primary School, after registering his vote in the EU referendum on June 23, 2016 in Westerham, England. The United Kingdom has gone to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is too close to call. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images) Getty Images People queuing outside a polling station in Battersea, London, this morning, as voters go the polls in the EU referendum. Rebecca Soni/PA Wire PA A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox. Cox, 41, died after being shot and stabbed in the street outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds. Danny Lawson/PA Wire PA Chelsea pensioners are reflected in a puddle of rain water as they leave after being ushered into a polling station to cast their ballot papers at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, west London on June 23, 2016, as Britain holds a referendum to vote on whether to remain in, or to leave the European Union (EU). / AFP PHOTO / LEON NEALLEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images A Chelsea pensioner uses a smartphone to photgraph the media as he arrives at a poling station to cast his ballot paper at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, west London on June 23, 2016, as Britain holds a referendum to vote on whether to remain in, or to leave the European Union (EU). / AFP PHOTO / LEON NEALLEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Chelsea pensioners are ushered into a polling station to cast their ballot papers at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, west London on June 23, 2016, as Britain holds a referendum to vote on whether to remain in, or to leave the European Union (EU). Millions of Britons began voting Thursday in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. / AFP PHOTO / LEON NEALLEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave after casting their votes in the EU referendum, at a polling station in London on June 23, 2016. Millions of Britons began voting Thursday in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. / AFP PHOTO / LEON NEALLEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with Labour Party activists as he leaves his home to cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington on June 23, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) Getty Images GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JUNE 23: SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon casts her vote in the EU referendum at Broomhouse Community Hall on June 23, 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland. Voters across the country are beginning to cast their votes in the referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union or remain. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Getty Images Millions of Britons began voting today in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. / AFP PHOTO / Robert PerryROBERT PERRY/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JUNE 23: SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon casts her vote in the EU referendum with her husband Peter Murrel at Broomhouse Community Hall on June 23, 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland. Voters across the country are beginning to cast their votes in the referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union or remain. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Getty Images Daisy Treasure, one, outside a polling station in Newbury Park, near Ilford in Essex, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. Ella Pickover/PA Wire PA A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Birstall library, West Yorkshire, near where Labour MP Jo Cox was attacked and killed outside her constituency surgery. Danny Lawson/PA Wire PA A police officer stands outside a polling station being used in the EU referendum at Birstall library, West Yorkshire, near where Labour MP Jo Cox was attacked and killed outside her constituency surgery. Danny Lawson/PA Wire PA Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves after casting his vote at a polling station in Islington, London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire PA Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon, poses for photographers as leaves after voting at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow, on June 23, 2016, as Britain holds a referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union (EU). / AFP PHOTO / Robert PerryROBERT PERRY/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Nuns leave after casting their votes at a polling station in London, on June 23, 2016, as Britain holds a referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union (EU). Millions of Britons began voting Thursday in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. / AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLISJUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images GIBRALTAR - JUNE 23: Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and his wife Justine vote in the EU Referendum at a polling station on June 23, 2016 in Gibraltar, Gibraltar. The United Kingdom and its dependant territories are going to the polls today to decide whether or not the the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is expected to be very close. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Getty Images GIBRALTAR - JUNE 23: Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and his wife Justine depart after voting in the EU Referendum at a polling station on June 23, 2016 in Gibraltar, Gibraltar. The United Kingdom and its dependant territories are going to the polls today to decide whether or not the the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union. After a hard fought campaign from both REMAIN and LEAVE the vote is expected to be very close. A result on the referendum is expected on Friday morning. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Getty Images Prime Minister David Cameron and wife Samantha arrive to cast their votes at a polling station in Westminster, London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. Anthony Devlin/PA Wire PA Poll clerk Lana Kernan setting out the Polling Station sign at the Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions polling station in west Belfast, as voters go to the polls in the EU referendum. Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Prime Minister David Cameron and wife Samantha arrive to cast their votes at a polling station in Westminster, London, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. Anthony Devlin/PA Wire PA Father Peter Burn of Clonard Monastery entering Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions polling station in West Belfast as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave.Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA The Polling Station sign at the Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions polling station in west Belfast, as voters go the the polls in the EU referendum. Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Polling stations open across Northern Ireland as voting begins in the UK's referendum on remaining in the European Union. Voters cast their vote at Moneyrea Primary School polling station in Co. Down. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye / Facebook

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Whatsapp Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall.

He said he would leave it to his successor to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which kicks off the two-year process of negotiating a new trade relationship with the UK's former partners.

"The country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction," said Mr Cameron. "I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I don't think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination."

A clearly emotional Mr Cameron said he stood by his assertion that the UK could "find a way" to survive outside the EU.

"Now the decision has been made to leave we need to find the best way and I will do everything I can to help," he said.

Minutes after the PM's statement, Bank of England governor Mark Carney announced he was making 250 billion available to support markets, as he pledged that the Bank "will not hesitate to take additional measures as required as markets adjust and the UK economy moves forward".

His announcement will trigger a battle for the Conservative leadership - and the keys to Number 10 - likely to feature Brexit standard-bearer Boris Johnson taking on figures such as Home Secretary Theresa May, who took a low profile in the referendum campaign.

Boris heckled

An angry crowd labelled Boris Johnson a "twat" and "scum" as he emerged from his London home following the Leave campaign's historic victory in the EU referendum.

The prominent Brexiteer was heckled on his way to the Vote Leave headquarters.

Mr Johnson said nothing to the dozens of journalists waiting outside his home when he finally left, flanked by several police officers who escorted him to a waiting car.

One member of the public was heard to shout "twat" before a short time later Mr Johnson's car was trapped by a crowd of around 40 cyclists and onlookers blocking a junction.

His vehicle was halted for around five minutes and police officers, who had been guarding his home, were nowhere to be seen.

The crowd taunted him with shouts of "where are you going, Boris?" and "scum!" and hurled other profanities as his car was trapped in front of a green light, unable to move.

One man yelled: "The pound is down, what do you say about that? Is it going to be all right, Boris? Is the UK going to be all right, Boris? Are we going to be all right, mate? Come on, man up."

Although the crowds had Mr Johnson's car stuck in the road, they did not appear to approach it.

Officers eventually arrived at the junction around 200 metres from his house, where they had been controlling a media scrum and crowds of onlookers.

There were cries of "shame" as the car, with tinted windows, was eventually freed and moved off.

Mr Johnson eventually arrived at Leave headquarters on the Embankment at around 10am but swept in through a back entrance, avoiding dozens of press reporters, photographers and video journalists who had been braced to expect his arrival at the front of the building.

Shock

The Prime Minister's decision to step down is "truly shocking" and a "sad day for the country", ministers have said.

David Cameron's Cabinet colleagues said they had hoped he would stay on to steer Britain through its renegotiations with the EU.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers said: "It's truly shocking news, I think it's deeply saddening.

"As I was just saying only a few minutes ago, I would very much have preferred David Cameron to be steering this country through the next few years.

"I entirely respect his decision but I think it is a sad day for the country that he has decided to stand down."

Her sentiments were echoed by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who said the PM believed he was doing the "honourable thing" after the referendum vote.

He told the Today programme: "Well of course it is extremely sad news. I would have preferred him to have stayed on and to have helped make this decision work, but it's his decision.

"I think he feels it is the honourable thing to do, the decent thing to do - he lost the argument in the referendum campaign."

Asked who he thought might replace the PM and lead the renegotiations, he said: "That is matter now for the party to elect a new prime minister to be in place for the autumn and to take that forward.

"I think it is a bit too early to start speculating about that, and there is plenty to do now to help make this decision work, to stabilise our economy, to reassure our allies and to continue the programme we were all elected on last year."

n Brussels and capitals around Europe, political leaders and officials went into emergency meetings to plan a response to the UK's seismic decisions, which sent shockwaves around the world.

European Council president Donald Tusk said there was "no way of predicting all the political consequences of this event, especially for the UK" and called for calm.

"It is a historic moment but for sure not a moment for hysterical reactions," he said.

Mr Cameron said he had summoned the Cabinet to meet on Monday, the day before he goes to Brussels for a summit where he will "explain the decision the British people have taken and my own decision" to leaders of the remaining 27 member states.

Announcing his resignation after six years as PM - and just 13 months after securing an absolute majority for the first time - was "not a decision I have taken lightly", said Mr Cameron.

But he added: "I do believe it is in the national interest to have a period of stability and then the new leadership required.

"There is no need for a precise timetable today, but in my view we should aim to have a new prime minister in place by the start of the Conservative Party conference in October."

He went on: "The negotiation with the European Union will need to begin under a new prime minister and I think it is right that this new prime minister takes the decision about when to trigger Article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the EU."

Remain supporters had to respect the people's decision and "help to make it work", said the PM

Independence day

Ukip leader Nigel Farage declared that June 23 should "go down in history as our independence day", while Vote Leave's chair, the Labour MP Gisela Stuart, said it was "our opportunity to take back control of a whole area of democratic decisions".

Sterling suffered one of its biggest plunges in the overnight markets, hitting lows last seen in 1985 and losing more than 10% against the US dollar, as traders responded with panic to the prospect of the UK quitting the European Union after 43 years.

As polling stations closed at 10pm on Thursday with polls still predicting a Remain victory, 84 pro-Leave Tories - including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove - handed over a letter to Mr Cameron urging him to stay on as leader whatever the result of the referendum.

But as Leave built an increasingly unassailable lead as the night wore on, with victories in the Tory English shires, Labour strongholds in the north, Wales and midlands, others in his party raised questions about Mr Cameron's future.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage pulls out of an eve of poll EU referendum debate due to family reasons

Nigel Farage has pulled out of Channel 4's live EU referendum debate.

A spokesman for the Ukip leader said he would not be taking part because of "family reasons".

The leading Leave campaigner was due to take part in the TV debate on the eve of the referendum along with dozens of other campaigners from each side.

A spokesman for the broadcaster said Mr Farage pulled out around 2pm and the line up has since been reshuffled.

Ukip had offered their MEP Steven Woolfe to take the place of Mr Farage but the offer was declined, the party said.

The debate, hosted by Jeremy Paxman, will feature Labour's pro-EU campaign leader Alan Johnson and former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond for the Remain camp and businessman Theo Paphitis and Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg MP for Leave.

Earlier on Wednesday Nigel Farage refused to apologise for his controversial "breaking point" immigration poster, despite suggestions by his party that he had.

The Ukip leader was quizzed over the poster, which depicts a snaking line of hundreds of immigrants arriving in Europe, after Ukip politician Diane Jones suggested he regretted it.

Speaking in central London, Mr Farage said: "I apologise for the timing and I apologise for the fact that it was able to be used by those who wish us harm.

"But I can't apologise for the truth. And after all, this was a photograph your newspaper carried, this was a photograph that all newspapers carried, it is an example of what is wrong inside the European Union."

He said the decision by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to welcome so many migrants into Europe has "created divisions between countries".

He made his comments following his final speech on the campaign trail urging people to vote Leave in Thursday's referendum.

Speaking to press from all over the world and Vote Leave supporters in Westminster, Mr Farage said: "Let's stop pretending what this European project is - they have an anthem, they are building an army, they have already got their own police force, and of course they have got a flag.

"At the end of the day tomorrow when people vote they have to make a decision - which flag is their's?
Police officers at Workmans Avenue junction of the Springfield road , a parades commission determination has ruled that the Whiterock Parade will not pass through the gates for the first time this coming weekend. Picture - Kevin Scott / Presseye

DUP leader Arlene Foster has issued a stinging criticism of a Parades Commission ruling to bar the annual Whiterock parade from passing through the Workman Avenue peaceline gates in west Belfast.

This Saturday will be the first time the entire parade has been stopped from passing through the gates.

In recent years a number of participants have been allowed through the gates, while the remainder of the parade took a different route through the site of the former Mackies factory.

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Mrs Foster met with representatives of LOL No. 9 District Belfast - the Whiterock parade organisers - on Thursday.

Speaking afterwards, she said she is sympathetic with their concerns.

"I am of the view that the Parades Commission have been unjustified and completely misguided in not permitting some of the Orangemen from proceeding through the Workman Avenue gates," she said.

"I am particularly concerned about the justification offered by the Parades Commission to refuse access through the gates at Workman Avenue.

"In the determination the Commission claims that what they describe as recent developments in public policy as outlined in the Fresh Start Agreement mean that the gates cannot be opened without cross-community support.

Expand Close DUP leader Arlene Foster has criticised the Parades Commission over its ruling that the Whiterock parade may not pass through the Workman Avenue peaceline gates in west Belfast. / Facebook

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Whatsapp DUP leader Arlene Foster has criticised the Parades Commission over its ruling that the Whiterock parade may not pass through the Workman Avenue peaceline gates in west Belfast.

"This is not the case. A further reference to a committee report from the former OFMDFM committee of the Assembly is bizarre in that committees of the Assembly do not set public policy."

The DUP leader said she intends to write to the Parades Commission over the matter.

Earlier this week a spokesperson for the Parades Commission said it has received complaints about the conduct of the parade and related protest last year.

"In reaching its decision, the Commission is mindful of the persistent breaches of determinations particularly in relation to colour parties, flags and emblems. The Commission has also received complaints about conduct of the parade and related protest last year.

"This decision reflects perceptions of paramilitary influences at the interface and is consistent with the approach by statutory agencies in relation to putting victims and survivors needs at the centre of decision making.

"The opening of permanently closed gates of the peace wall without cross community consultation is not in keeping with current policy recommendations. No dialogue about the parade has recently taken place.

"The impacts are escalating tensions at the Springfield Road interface each summer, with community life disturbed over many hours and an extremely high risk of public disorder."

She added: "the Commission continues to urge all parties to engage in dialogue about all aspects of the parade."

However despite criticising the ruling, Mrs Foster has appealed to those taking part in the parade on Saturday to respect it.

"I would appeal to all those involved on the parade on Saturday to recognise the fact that while we may not agree with the determination it is currently the Parades Commission who determine these matters until such times as the law is changed," she said.
The family of a teenager who was killed by a drink-driver in Belfast have urged Justice Minister Claire Sugden to introduce tougher sentences for death by dangerous driving.

There was outrage earlier this year after David Lee Stewart was handed a three-and-a-half year prison term for mowing down and killing Enda Dolan (18).

Stewart, from Gray's Park Avenue in the south of the city, had drugs in system and drove with the teenager on the roof of his van for about 800 yards before he stopped.

His passenger, 21-year-old William Ross Casement, who was drinking with Stewart in the hours leading up to the collision, got out of the van when Mr Dolan's body fell off the roof.

However, after looking at the fatally injured teenager, he got back in the van, which Stewart drove off in before crashing further up the road. The pair were then arrested.

Enda's parents, Peter and Niamh, and sister Dervla (17), yesterday met the Justice Minister and called for the minimum term for defendants convicted of death by dangerous driving to be increased from 14 to 20 years.

Mr Dolan slammed the legal process as "archaic" and said it favoured criminals.

The Killyclogher family lobbied for longer sentences for dangerous driving as well as changes to how victims' families are treated by the legal system.

Earlier this month, Ms Sugden announced a major review of sentencing for Northern Ireland that will look at the legislative framework for certain categories of crime, the setting of tariffs for murder, the arrangements for unduly lenient sentences and the effectiveness of the current sentencing guidelines mechanism, the aim being to enhance public confidence, consistency and transparency.

Mr Dolan described his lengthy meeting with the Justice Minister as "positive".

"She took on board some of the comments we had to make," he said. "We talked about unduly lenient sentences, the definition of 'unduly lenient' and timeframe of 28 days that it takes for a case to be referred to the Court of Appeal. We also talked about referable cases, because the law states that only a small number can be referred to the Court of Appeal. We would like that extended as well. We explained that our own experience of the legal system was that it was drawn-out and quite archaic in its thinking.

"I felt it needed to be looked at with a fresh approach and with a modern slant on the whole process of what happens after a crime is committed, right the way through to the trial and any proposed sentencing.

"It's important a modern viewpoint is taken into consideration and we try to do away with the archaic ceremony associated with the courts and rulings.

"I think generally that it does not favour the victim, as such. It favours the defendant at all times."

Mr Dolan said that the injustice the family endured on the day of Stewart's sentencing and the horrific death Enda suffered had only added to the pain of losing their eldest son.

But he praised the public for inundating them with messages of support.

"We have got letters from many families in similar position," he explained. "Given that it's so important now, I think it's best that we strike and get the law changed.

"It would be great to have it in his name, but our first case is to change the law.

"All we are doing is standing up for something we believe in. It won't bring Enda back, but it will help another family, as there will be another death by dangerous driving.

"We hope we can make it a lengthy sentence and a deterrent for people in the future."

A crash barrier removed from the spot where Mr Dolan was killed was later replaced.
Judgment has been reserved in a major new legal battle over Northern Ireland's abortion laws.

Attorney General John Larkin QC and Stormont's Department of Justice are both appealing a landmark High Court verdict that the near-blanket ban on terminations is incompatible with human rights legislation.

But following four days of arguments the Lord Chief Justice confirmed a ruling on the challenge will have to wait until September at the earliest.

Sir Declan Morgan said: "We will want to reflect on this and we will not give this decision before the beginning of next term."

Unlike other parts of the UK, terminations are only legal within Northern Ireland to protect the woman's life or if there is a risk of serious damage to her well-being.

Last year a High Court judge ruled the failure to provide exceptions to the near-blanket ban for cases of fatal foetal abnormalities (FFAs) and victims of rape or incest breaches private and family life entitlements under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

In a case brought by the Commission Mr Justice Horner also made a formal declaration that the legislation is incompatible with the UK's obligations under the Human Rights Act.

The Commission is also mounting a cross-appeal in a bid to have the regime further declared in breach of Articles 3 and 14 of the ECHR prohibiting degrading treatment and discrimination.

Legal action began after the Department launched a public consultation on amending the criminal law.

That process concluded with a recommendation for new legislation dealing with cases of FFA.

But with no proposed changes covering pregnancies resulting from sexual crime, the Commission insisted the consultation does not go far enough.

It was also seeking to have terminations legalised in cases of rape or serious foetal malformation.

During the legal battle arguments were also made on behalf of Sarah Ewart - a woman from Northern Ireland who went to England for an abortion after learning her unborn baby had no chance of survival.

The court heard claims that the current near-blanket ban is inhuman and discriminatory.

Nathalie Lieven QC, for the Commission, insisted Mrs Ewart is a victim and argued that the court needs to step in to protect those in her position or teenage victims of family rape.

She also claimed there was hypocrisy in the case because the vast majority of women who find themselves in similar situations travel to the UK to have abortions.

"This isn't about protecting the foetuses," she contended.

"Get real... the foetuses are being aborted."

But responding on Thursday in the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General argued that only those who carry out rapes leading to pregnancies should face the consequences.

Mr Larkin concluded: "Yes, we must punish and investigate and imprison those who commit that appalling crime, but we shouldn't take it out on the child where the law doesn't require us to, nor does the Convention."
Stormont officials have been asked to begin work on legislation to introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

But Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir, who has initiated the exercise, admitted he has some way to go to gain the support of other Assembly parties.

The Assembly has rejected the proposal five times, although the most recent debate saw a knife-edge majority in favour of the legislative change.

The province remains the only region of the United Kingdom without legal provision for same-sex marriages.

Campaigners nonetheless claimed a major step forward even though the last Assembly vote was torpedoed by the DUP use of Assembly rules.

In the most recent debate, a total of 53 MLAs voted for a first joint Sinn Fein/SDLP motion asking the Executive to initiate legislation, with 52 against.

But the motion was then blocked by the DUP using the 'petition of concern' mechanism, which means a motion must secure a majority of both unionists and nationalists.

Now, in a written Assembly answer, Sinn Fein Minister O Muilleoir revealed he has asked officials to begin work on legislation which he believes could be passed during the current Assembly term.

The Finance Minister, whose department has responsibility for the registration of marriages, said he wanted his officials to "do the groundwork now" so that his department is "able to move swiftly towards introduction".

In response to a question from Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson, the South Belfast MLA said he has also asked his officials to initiate discussions with other departments.

Mr O Muilleoir said he hoped the Assembly would legislate on the matter as soon as possible but also acknowledged he has "a little way to go" in securing sufficient support to get the measure through.

Demands have been increasing for a future 'free vote' on the issue and there have also been suggestions a private member's Bill could be introduced.

New Justice Minister Claire Sugden also reaffirmed her support for same-sex marriage this week and said that she hoped to discuss the issue with other Executive Ministers in the near future.

In its election manifesto for the new Assembly, however, the DUP said it had "stood by its commitment to family values and marriage and will continue to do so".
Father Peter Burn of Clonard Monastery leaves Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions polling station in West Belfast as voters head to the polls across the UK

The count process in the EU referendum has begun in Northern Ireland.

The verification of ballot papers started in eight regional count centres shortly after polls closed at 10pm.

There will be a count for each of the 18 parliamentary constituencies, with those separate outcomes added together for an overall Northern Ireland result.

The main result is expected to be announced at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast at around 4am.

There was a low key atmosphere at the centre as the verification got under way, in marked contrast to the bustling and crowded scenes at May's Stormont Assembly election count.

Earlier, First Minister Arlene Foster expressed hope of a high turn-out.

Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and Alliance Party campaigned for a Remain vote in the referendum campaign while the DUP, Traditional Unionist Voice and Ukip were among those advocating a Brexit.

The future of the Irish border was a key issue in the campaign, with claim and counter claim on whether a UK exit would see a return to security and customs checkpoints.

Lee Reynolds from the Northern Ireland Vote Leave campaign said he was feeling "good" but was reluctant to predict the outcome.

He said: "I don't think you should count votes until they are counted."

Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said on Twitter: "Secretary of State Theresa Villiers and Nigel Farage conceding early that #leave campaign has lost. If so I'll warmly welcome that."
US vice-president Joe Biden has paid tribute to the loyalty of his family in Ireland after visiting his ancestral home and meeting his long-lost cousins.

Mr Biden walked the streets of Ballina, Co Mayo, to see where his great-great-great grandfather lived during Ireland's famine before emigrating to the US.

The visit, part of a six-day trip to trace his roots before leaving office, ran several hours behind schedule as he shook hands and kissed some of the thousands of well-wishers on the streets.

After lunch with Taoiseach Enda Kenny and relatives from the Biden and Blewitt families, Mr Biden gave a glowing report of the reconnection with his ancestry.

"By the way, the Bidens are moving back - I didn't know I had such a good looking family here," he said. "I've enjoyed my day, my whole family... we have had a wonderful, wonderful time."

Mr Biden's great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt and great-great-grandfather Owen Finnegan left Ireland in the famine.

The connection with Co Mayo has been traced back to the late 1700s.

Surrounded by US and Irish relatives and arm-in-arm with some, Mr Biden recalled his mother Jean Finnegan's words.

"She would say: 'Remember Joey, you are defined by your courage, you are redeemed by your loyalty'. This is loyalty, man," he said.
Eavis became Elvis in a day of musical tributes at Glastonbury Festival.

Dairy farmer and festival founder Michael Eavis welcomed festival-goers ahead of the first day of music with a rousing Elvis Presley karaoke set.

In what has become an annual tradition, Mr Eavis took to the stage at Croissant Neuf, this year choosing The King's classic Can't Help Falling In Love, followed by Frank Sinatra's My Way.

Earlier on Thursday, thousands of voices rang out across Worthy Farm as campers joined in song to pay tribute to murdered MP Jo Cox.

The event had originally been scheduled for Wednesday, which would have been Jo Cox's 42nd birthday, but was pushed back after many were delayed arriving at the site due to heavy traffic.

Singer Billy Bragg led attendees in a solemn version of We Shall Overcome as people spilled around the sides of the packed Park Stage to celebrate her life.

He was joined on stage by Emily Eavis, carrying her newborn baby, and more than a hundred women from the crowd who wore sashes in the purple, white and green of the Suffragettes.

A minute's silence was then held for the Labour MP, who was killed on June 16.

The crowd joined in a march to The Sisterhood, the first women-only venue at the festival, which was officially opened in Ms Cox's memory.

With the tribute event falling on the day of the EU referendum, Bragg told the crowd: "It's a terrible irony that we are gathered together today on perhaps the most decisive day in the modern history of our country.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever your politics are, tomorrow morning we will have to begin the process of healing in this country.

"We, all of us, must try to live up to the words of Jo Cox, who said whatever the divisions between us, we have much more in common than the things that divide us.

"Tomorrow we must live by those words."

The late David Bowie's life was also celebrated at the unofficial Glastonbowie, a singalong event which attracted thousands of fans - many dressed as the music legend himself.

In front of the Pyramid Stage, which is decorated with an Aladdin Sane lightening bolt in tribute to the late singer, fans gathered to sing Bowie's hits including Starman, Ziggy Stardust and Suffragette City.

Organizer Miz said: "I started it a week after he passed away, and it was just to basically deal with my own sorrow. I've been a Bowie fan since I was a teenager myself and when he passed away it just felt like music died.

"I just thought I had to do something to bring some kind of joy to people. For people to keep singing Bowie songs and remembering him."

With the music festival due to kick off at 11am on Friday, festival-goers got their first taste of the big-name acts as Rat Boy performed a secret gig at William's Green.
Sir Michael Wilshaw said he was saddened disadvantaged pupils are let down

The education system's failure to address underachievement in poor children is an "appalling injustice", the Ofsted chief inspector has warned.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said it saddened him that disadvantaged pupils are let down and that schooling is still "mediocre", during a speech at Wellington College, Berkshire, as part of the Festival of Education.

He said that while the lot of disadvantaged children in primary schools had improved, the attainment gap between children on free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers in secondary education had not changed in a decade.

"Despite all the good intentions, the fine words and some imaginative initiatives, we are not making a real difference.

"The needle has barely moved," he said.

Sir Michael told the audience that in 2005 the attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM pupils in secondary schools was 28%. The figure has not changed in 10 years.

He said: "Our failure to improve significantly the educational chances of the poor disfigures our school system. It scars our other achievements. It stands as a reproach to us all."

The Ofsted chief said the "irony" of speaking at one of the country's top independent schools about the challenges poor pupils face was not lost on him.

"I wonder how many people realise just how badly the poorest pupils have been let down in some of the wealthiest parts of the country?" Sir Michael asked.

He described the attainment gap between pupils in secondary schools as an "appalling injustice" and an "inexcusable waste of potential".

"The attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM secondary school children in West Berkshire is 31 percentage points. In Kent it's 34. In Surrey it's 36. In Buckinghamshire it's 39. And, in Reading, it's a whopping 40 percentage points - all far in excess of the national gap of 28," he said.

Sir Michael, who is coming to the end of his tenure as chief inspector, blamed the attainment gap on the "crossfire" between left and right wing politics; those who have argued that children don't need "structure" in school; a failure to develop a curriculum pathway into apprenticeships; poor teaching; and an inability to deliver strong leadership where necessary.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Every child, no matter their background, deserves a world-class education. Thanks to our reforms there are 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools since 2010.

"But we know there is more we can do. The pupil premium - worth 2.5bn this year - helps disadvantaged pupils reach their potential and we have overhauled the national curriculum so all pupils have access to the world-class education they deserve.

"In our recent white paper we set out plans to tackle areas of under performance - to ensure no child is disadvantaged just because of where they live. Furthermore, we are ensuring that all schools have the resources they need through the introduction of a new National Funding Formula that, for the first time, will make sure funding is genuinely matched to need."
The UK population is more than 65 million for the first time

The UK population is more than 65 million for the first time

The population of the UK has passed 65 million for the first time after rising by more than half a million in a year, official figures have revealed.

Natural growth - more births than deaths - of 171,800 and net international migration of 335,600 helped push the number of people living in the country to an estimated 65.1 million as of the middle of 2015.

This was a jump over the year of 513,000, or 0.8%, while the figures mean the population has increased by around 4.7 million in 10 years.

The Office for National Statistics said the rise over the 12 months to mid-2015 was similar to the average annual increase seen in the last decade.

Population change due to natural change is at its lowest level since the year to mid-2006, the ONS said.

Its report said: "The number of births has decreased on last year's figure and is below the average for the period, while there was an increase in the number of deaths since last year, partly attributed to flu outbreaks in early 2015."

Meanwhile, an increase in immigration (up 53,700) and a smaller decrease in emigration (down 22,300) both contributed to the increase in net international migration compared to that seen in the year to mid-2014.

International migration inflow is at its highest since the year to mid-2007, the ONS said, while outflow is at its lowest since comparable records began in 2002.

The figures indicate that migration accounted for just under two-thirds (65%) of the annual change.

In addition to the direct impact on the size of the population, current and past international migration also has indirect effects on the size of the population as it changes the numbers of births and deaths in the UK, the ONS report said.

An increase of 5,800 people in the armed forces and prison populations also contributed to the growth.

The figures were released hours after the polls opened in the EU referendum and come after a campaign which has been dominated by debate over immigration.

Simon Ross, chief executive of charity Population Matters, said: "The UK population is growing faster than even the concerning trend of recent years.

"Near-record net migration and an excess of births over deaths, to which migration also contributes, are combining to keep the UK near the top of the European population growth league table."

Alp Mehmet, vice chairman of campaign group Migration Watch UK, said: "These figures confirm that our population is growing by around half a million annually - the equivalent of a city the size of Liverpool every year.

"As the population grows beyond our capability to provide for it, pressure on housing, schooling, healthcare and transport will become ever more critical. This is unacceptable to the majority of the public who wish to see net migration reduced."

England saw the biggest jump in population, with a rise of 469,700, or 0.86%, to 54,786,300.

The population of Scotland increased by 25,400 (0.47%) to 5,373,000; Wales rose by 7,100 (0.23%) to 3,099,100; and Northern Ireland was up by 11,100 (0.60%) to 1,851,600.

The older population continues to grow, with more than 11.6 million people - 17.8% of residents - aged 65 and over, and 1.5 million (2.3%) aged 85 and over.

Since mid-2005, the UK population aged 65 and over and aged 85 and over have increased by 21% and 31% respectively.

Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott said: " The only way to get back control over our borders is to Vote Leave today.

"In the last 10 years, as many people as live in Birmingham have moved here from another EU country.

"That puts a huge strain on our NHS and our schools.

'If we Vote Leave, we can take back control and introduce a new Australian-style points-based immigration system."
A masked man has been shot dead after entering a cinema in south-west Germany with a weapon and taking several hostages.

No one else was injured in the incident in which the armed man entered the Kinopolis movie theatre in the early afternoon in the town of Viernheim and apparently fired a gun.

Police shot the suspect dead about three hours later, Hesse interior minister Peter Beuth said.

"We believe that there were no injured people, and that the people who were in the cinema with the perpetrator could be freed uninjured," he said.

A police spokeswoman at the scene, Christiane Kompus, told The Associated Press that she had no information on the assailant's identity and motives.

She said the man had been holding several hostages, but did not have a precise number.

Mr Beuth said it was not clear whether the weapon was real. He told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden that the man was masked and that apparently four shots were fired.

Mr Beuth said the man had given a confused impression, news agency dpa reported.

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker's identity.

Officers "successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding," Ms Kobus said. "There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague."

Police said that the deployment lasted about three hours. There were no other injuries, Ms Kobus said.

Another police spokesman, Bernd Hochstaedter, said "there are no indications at present of an Islamist background".

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker's identity.

The Kinopolis, a multiplex theatre, is located in a shopping centre in Viernheim, which is near the city of Mannheim. The incident happened on a hot summer afternoon and the cinema appears to have been relatively empty at the time.

AP
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has been burnishing his Brexit credentials. David has argued that the EU has been unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a trade agreement with Canada for more than seven years, the same for China, and has singularly failed to finalise the TTIP trade deal with North America.

Of course, the 28 member states of the EU struggle to agree a trade deal, because they all have their own vested interests to satisfy and any one of them can veto the trade agreement.

There are three observations that can be made about this state of affairs.

Firstly, if the UK left the EU, then instead of having to get agreement among the 28 members of the EU for a trade deal with Canada, China or North America, the UK would be negotiating one-on-one, which would be far, far quicker and easier. I doubt whether it would even take two years to negotiate a trade agreement between the UK and each of these.

Secondly, Canada is a fellow member of the Commonwealth and it would be far easier for the UK to negotiate a trade deal with other Commonwealth countries than for the EU to do so.

Thirdly, Canada and the UK share the same head of state. Of course it would be far easier for the UK to negotiate a trade deal with Canada and with all the other Commonwealth countries that share the same head of state with us.

Moreover, if the UK leaves the EU, then we could choose to impose trade barriers on agricultural products to protect our British farmers from unfair competition; at least our farmers could lobby their own MPs to that effect.

Furthermore, if the UK left the EU, then the almost-10bn per annum that we save can be invested primarily on our armed forces to substantially increase their numbers, to develop leading technologies that support our manufacturing base and to project British influence around the globe.

If the EU is such a great financial and economic success  as argued by the Remain campaign  then why didnt the EU economy recover before that of the USA and the UK?

BERNARD J MULHOLLAND

Belfast
Activists from the right-wing Hindu Sena group burn an Islamic State flag in New Delhi, Aug. 15, 2015.

Updated at 11:24 a.m. ET on 2016-06-24

An outfit claiming to be Islamic States cyber division has released a list of more than 4,000 people, including 285 Indians, being targeted for hits by the Middle East-based extremist group.

A link to the list that contains names and addresses of 4,681 people from countries including the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and India, and was posted on the website of United Cyber Caliphate (UCC) sometime this week. The exact date when the list was uploaded could not be confirmed.

SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based website that monitors messages posted by IS and other militant groups online, reported Tuesday that the UCC had posted a kill list detailing names and addresses of 4,681 people in those five countries and elsewhere.

SITE referred to UCC as a pro-Islamic State hacking group and said the information on the list was gathered from a publicly accessible source, of civilians in those countries.

O individual wolves out there in the world, kill the Cross wherever you find it. For there war on Islam and mujahideen (sic). Kill them strongly kill them hardly #Kill them. Revenge for Muslims. #World get ready for the second round, said a message, accompanied by a link to the hit list, on the website.

The link to the list could not be accessed in India via the UCC website, but the site was visible to internet users there.

The message asked Muslims in different countries to take up the battle on behalf of IS, which reportedly is losing ground in its strongholds of Syria and Iraq. It did not give reasons for why it picked those people.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing IS-related cases in India, has not officially commented on the alleged list.

We are not aware of the kill list. But the possibility of lone wolves acting cannot be refuted. Agencies are keeping a close watch on such suspects to avert any attack,'' a senior NIA officer told the Indian website Daily News & Analysis.

Act of desperation

Security analysts are raising doubts about the hit-lists veracity, but one suggested it was a sign of ISs growing desperation.

This is an act of desperation since the IS are now losing field in their stronghold regions. Their frustration is visible. They have failed in South Asia. This is part of their propaganda to get and sustain recruitment and support from across countries, retired Maj. Gen. Afsir Karim, an expert of terrorism and internal conflict, told BenarNews.

This is probably the groups last-ditch effort to garner support and is intended as a morale booster for its supporters, he added. Nonetheless, all countries, including India, have to be more cautious.

A.S. Dulat, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Indias external intelligence agency, doubted the substance of the threat, but agreed that security agencies should not take the warning lightly.

Such a message does not have much meaning. It is a vague warning without any substance. However, one has to take cognizance of such warnings and agencies need to tread with caution, Dulat told BenarNews.

BJP blamed for ignoring threat

Meanwhile, right-wing activists accused the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads Indias ruling coalition, of ignoring rising Islamic terrorism in India.

Amit Aryan, a member of Shiv Sena, a Maharashtra-based right-wing political party, challenged New Delhis claim that IS was not a threat to India, saying there was enough evidence to suggest the terror group was gradually widening its footprint in the country.

There is already a standing order of IS for a major attack in India before 2019-20. There is already an online membership campaign for IS running across India. There is adequate evidence to suggest that the IS is gaining ground in India, Aryan told BenarNews.

Several representations have been made to the central and state governments, but they have chosen to remain silent, he said.

IS cannot grow in India

Although IS has openly goaded Muslims in India to wage war against cow-worshipping Hindus and has named India as an enemy country in its propaganda, India has consistently dismissed the possibility of IS gaining any significant support in the country  which has the second largest Muslim population in the world, next to Indonesias.

Along with the alertness of the security, the Muslims in India are against the IS. They cannot grow in India as Muslims wont allow them, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said last month, according to Indo-Asian News Service.

Minister for State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, one of BJPs most prominent Muslim leaders, told news agency ANI recently: India is a land of peace and prosperity and there is no place here for those who support terrorism. Patriotism is filled in every Muslim in the country. Be it videos or threats, its not going to make much difference.

Naqvis remark came after a video, featuring Indian IS recruits urging fellow Muslims to declare war on Hindus, and which was apparently produced by the terror group, surfaced on Twitter last month.

According to Indian intelligence agencies, at least 23 Indians have left for Iraq and Syria to fight alongside IS. Of them, six have died in battle.

Since IS formed in 2014, security agencies have arrested about 30 Indian Muslims for allegedly working directly for IS or showing sympathy toward the group. At least 150 more are under surveillance for suspected leanings toward IS.

Shiv Senas Aryan said it was high time New Delhi paid heed to the evidence of an IS threat and sprang into action.

The country would have to pay a heavy price if these warnings and activities continue to be ignored, he said.

An earlier version reported incorrectly that the IS hit-list may have been the first of its kind.
The Indonesian Navy released this undated photo of one of its ships approaching a Chinese fishing boat in waters around the Natuna islands.

After years of neutrality, Indonesia appears to be getting drawn into a conflict over Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea following repeated clashes with Chinese fishermen near the Natuna islands off Borneo island.

On Wednesday, Indonesias military announced it would maintain a hardline stance to control the nations exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the waters around the Natuna islands.

We have deployed five ships and one aircraft patrol to monitor the Natuna area to prevent such illegal trespassing from happening again, Indonesian military chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said in a press release issued in Jakarta.

We will seize anyone who illegally enters our territory. If we do not do capture those people, then it means we are sleeping, he added.

Last week, Indonesian navy ships fired warning shots as they chased 12 foreign fishing boats from waters near the Indonesian island chain, northwest of southern Borneo, which are claimed by both Indonesia and China.

In the third such incident since March, a Chinese-flagged boat was captured and its seven-member crew detained, leading China to lodge a protest, according to news reports.

A Chinese foreign ministry statement issued shortly thereafter said that China and Indonesia have overlapping claims for maritime rights and interests in the area, implying the existence of a dispute, Agence France-Presse reported.

Gatot said Wednesday that the military would follow Indonesian law in taking action against any Chinese-flagged or ships from other nations captured in Indonesias EEZ.

Of course an investigation will be conducted. Whether the captured ships will be sunk, we will decide after a trial is held, he said.

A naval presence was necessary to maintain national sovereignty, Rear Adm. Achmad Taufiqoerrochman, the commander of the navys Western Fleet, said separately.

Incidents involving Chinese ships

Meanwhile, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said that her ministry planned to strengthen security in Indonesias territorial waters.

Since the beginning of the year, 57 foreign fishing boats have been caught by the navy and other Indonesian forces trespassing in Natuna waters, according to the ministry.

In March, a Chinese Coast Guard ship reportedly attempted to intervene when an Indonesian task force tried to capture a vessel poaching in those waters. After the incident the government summoned the Chinese ambassador in Jakarta to lodge a complaint.

A similar incident occurred on May 27, when the Navy captured a Chinese fishing boat and its eight crew members who allegedly did not have permission to fish in those waters.

On Friday, after radio communications, signal flags, and an announcement over loudspeakers and warning shots had failed, the task force captured one of 12 foreign vessels violating Indonesias EEZ, reports said.

The Chinese fishing boat carried a crew of seven. A Chinese Coast Guard ship that was escorting the fishing boats repeatedly asked over the radio for the boat to be released, according to the ministry.

We often catch Vietnamese boats, but they obey us. There is no resistance. We suspect that this was supported by the Chinese government, Rear Adm. Achmad said.

Claim challenged

The admiral denied a report from China that the task force had fired at the fishing boat, injuring a crew member.

We just fired warning shots because the ship would not stop, he said.

Taufiqoerrochman said he was waiting for the results of an arbitration hearing before a United Nations tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, over a Philippine challenge of Chinas occupation of islands in the South China Sea.

The court is expected to rule on the case on July 7.

China claims much of the South China Sea in territorial disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesia is not a party to these territorial disputes.

EEZ encroachment

However, Indonesian officials are becoming more and more angry over Chinese fishing boats venturing into waters of its EEZ.

According to Minister Susi, 30 foreign trawlers will be sunk next month to prove Indonesias commitment to upholding the law. Indonesia has destroyed 176 foreign fishing boats captured between October 2014 and April 2016, according to the maritime ministry. Many of the boats were seized in Natuna waters.

Hikmahanto Juwana, a law expert at the University of Indonesia, agreed with the governments move to beef up security around the exclusive economic zone.

Indonesia should work with China related to the definition of the 9-dash line in the South China Sea, he told BenarNews, referring to an imaginary line that China uses to claim its territorial waters in the sea.

Another analyst, Melda Kamil said the government should take a firmer stand in declaring its EEZ claim to China. She also called for a united front involving the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

We cannot handle China by ourselves, we should stand together, Melda told BenarNews.
Razali Ismail, shown here in his role as UN special envoy to Myanmar, will lead SUHAKAM, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, Dec. 15, 2005.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) should be able to function under eight new commissioners despite its budget being reduced, a minister in charge of human rights said Thursday.

I dont see it as a problem, Paul Low, a minister in the Prime Ministers Department, told BenarNews. The purpose of the budget cut is in line with our current financial state as a nation and does not only affect SUHAKAM.

Until this week, the eight-member body had been without commissioners since the terms of the last commission expired on April 25. Since then, reports had indicated that its funding could run out in October after the government moved to slash SUHAKAMs operating budget by half.

The commission is tasked, among other things, with opening inquiries into complaints about alleged human rights violations in Malaysia, where rights advocacy groups have accused the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak of undermining free speech by arresting and charging some of its critics with sedition.

During these lean budgetary times, the government expects the commission to dip into its 4.5 million ringgit- (U.S. $1.1 million-) reserve, Low said.

The government hopes SUHAKAM will exercise some financial discipline in times of austerity like this, he said. [T]his is the sort of thing reserves are for, for times when we have to tighten our belt.

Members of new panel

The new commissioners, who were appointed by the government on Tuesday, are headlined by veteran diplomat Razali Ismail, its new chairman.

Razali previously served as president of the United Nations General Assembly and as chairman of its Security Council. He also served as the U.N. Secretary Generals special envoy to Myanmar, playing a role in the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

Two commissioners, Aishah Bidin, dean of the law faculty at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Francis Johen Adam, honorary secretary of the Society for Disabled Sarawak, were reappointed to the commission.

Rounding out the membership list are retired Malaysia Court of Appeal judge Mah Weng Kwai, Borneo Development Corp. (Sabah) Director Godfrey Gregory Joitol, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia senior lecturer Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Salleh, veteran human rights activist and trainer Jerald Joseph and Lok Yim Pheng, secretary general of the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP).

Low praised the skill sets of the new team, pointing out that Razilis background with the U.N. would benefit the commission because many human rights issues have an international dimension. Adding an NGO leader, Joseph, who heads Pusat Komas, will empower NGOs and allow their voices to be heard.

I hope the new commissioners understand that they dont need more power. They are a commission, they advise the government, but the government might see things differently, he said.

SUHAKAM was established by parliament under the Human Rights Commission of Act 1999 and held its first meeting on April 24, 2000. Apart from inquiries into rights cases, the commission says it promotes awareness of and education about human rights; advises and assists the government in formulating laws and procedures, as well as negotiating international treaties in that area.

Extensive and excellent experience

Former SUHAKAM Chairman Hasmy Agam whose term ended in April, praised the new members, saying they would be able to carry out the commissions mandate.

The new lineup has extensive and excellent experience with admirable characters, he said.

Before their dismissal in April, previous members had voiced concern that the commission needed more funding from the government to get through the year.

Hasmy said the commissions budget had been cut from nearly 11 million ringgit (U.S. $2.75 million) in 2015 to 5.5 million ringgits ($1.378 million) this year.

At the time, Low said SUHAKAM might have to confine its operation within the Klang Valley (Kuala Lumpur and Selangor) because of the cuts.

Eric Paulsen, who heads Lawyers for Liberty, one of Malaysias leading human rights groups, said he looked forward to working with the new commissioners, but hoped that they would emulate their predecessors and work independently.

In order for that to happen, at a very minimum, SUHAKAM's budget should be restored to the original amount, Paulsen told BenarNews.

Haireez Azeem Azizi and Fahirul N. Ramli contributed to this report.
Philippine soldiers display an Islamic State flag that they captured while overrunning a militant camp in Butig, a town in the southern Philippine province of Lanao del Sur.

In a new Islamic State propaganda video, Malaysian and Indonesian fighters declare their support for an IS leader in the southern Philippines and urge IS supporters in their home countries who have been unable to travel to Syria to go to the Philippines instead.

The two men and a Filipino also carry out what appears to be the beheading of three prisoners who kneel in front of them, hands bound, in orange jumpsuits. If real, they would mark the first filmed beheadings by Indonesian and Malaysian members of the so-called Islamic State.

The 21-minute video, viewed by BenarNews, combines footage apparently shot in the Middle East and a Southeast Asian country. It was recently uploaded to social media, possibly last week, Reuters reported, citing a military intelligence official in the Philippines.

The three executioners take turns addressing followers in their own countries. One of the three is Mohd Rafi Udin, a member of Kumpulan Mujahiddin Malaysia (KMM) who went to Syria in 2014, according to the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times.

People in Bukit Aman, you will not be safe. We will slaughter you  when we return. Our friends back home will hunt you down, he says, warning members of the Royal Malaysia Police that they will be targeted in attacks.

He urges IS supporters at home to use any means to kill non-Muslims and non-believers wherever you meet them.

One step closer

The video also names Abdullah al-Filipini  also known as Isnilon Totoni Hapilon  as the leader of ISs Southeast Asian wing Khatibah Nusantara.

Isnilon is a former deputy leader of Abu Sayyaf Group based in the southern Philippines island of Basilan, whose followers pledged allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015.

Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute of Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), called the video significant.

[F]or the first time, Indonesians and Malaysians are indicating that they accept an emir from the Philippines (Isnilon Hapilon, ex-Abu Sayyaf), bringing us one step closer to the declaration of a Southeast Asian province (wilayat) of IS, she told BenarNews.

Rohan Gunaratna, director of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said counter-terrorism forces in Malaysia had so far disrupted nine attempted IS-directed or inspired attacks in the country.

With IS plans to declare a wilayat in the southern Philippines, the Malaysian government will have to work very closely with their foreign counterparts to assist the Philippines to fight the threat, Gunaratna, who is also a BenarNews columnist, said Thursday.

The threat to Southeast Asia and beyond will grow dramatically unless the Manila government neutralizes the IS nucleus in Mindanao, as Southeast Asian and other nationalities will travel to the Philippines when it is difficult to travel to Syria and Iraq, he said.

Ready

About 1,000 Southeast Asians had joined IS in Iraq and Syria by the end of 2015, according to the U.S. State Department.

IS claimed an attack in downtown Jakarta in January 2016 that left eight people dead, including the four attackers.

More attacks are likely in the region, security officials said, with IS aiming to prove its potency as its so-called caliphate is beaten back in Iraq and Syria by the governments of those countries and international forces.

We are preparing for potential attacks within six months by two sources, Khatibah Nusantara in the Philippines, and central IS, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the head of the Malaysian polices counter-terrorist special branch, told the New Straits Times, commenting on the new video.

Targeted attacks will likely be carried out the minute the pledge of allegiance to IS from these groups outside Syria is accepted and the areas they operate in are declared theirs, he added.

Malaysian Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said his forces had kept IS threats at bay thus far.

Malaysian police are ready at the very highest level for any eventual attacks by IS, he told BenarNews.

Philippine military officials, meanwhile, dismissed the threats, according to Reuters.

People should not be bothered by this, the news agency quoted Philippine military spokesman Restituto Padilla as saying. Authorities are working on this. They can be identified, and they can be hunted down.
A memorandum of understanding on migrant labor, which Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi will sign with the Thai government later this week, will make it easier for Myanmar migrants to work legally in Thailand, according to a copy of the documents provisions obtained by BenarNews.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars de facto leader, will begin an official three-day visit to neighboring Thailand on Thursday, during which she will meet with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha the following day to discuss issues related to refugee repatriation and bilateral relations, especially labor and development cooperation.

The two will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Labor Cooperation Agreement on Employment of Workers and Agreement on Border Crossing, according to Thailands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The agreement reduces the current work-break period from three years to one month so that migrant workers will not have to return to Myanmar after working four years in Thailand, and then spend three years in their home country before they can return to work in Thailand, where they earn higher wages.

Another provision specifies that Thailand will issue a certificate of identity for migrant workers at designated nationality verification centers in Myanmar to allow unimpeded travel within Thailand and between the country and Myanmar.

The Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN), an organization for migrant workers from Myanmar who live and work mainly in Thailand, opposes the issuance of the certificates, arguing the process will be costly and prone to corruption.

After officials from Myanmar and Thailand met in February, Thailand began reissuing temporary pink cards to undocumented migrant workers and to those whose passports and work visas were about to expire, the Myanmar Times reported. They extended the validity of the cards for two years with a possible two-year renewal, giving migrants more time to obtain permanent legal documents from Myanmar.

The MOU also says the two countries will improve protections provided to Myanmar migrant workers entering Thailand legally, and will create a committee to finalize processes on the issuance of documents for migrant workers, migration costs, and measures to prevent exploitation.

The agreement also calls for the establishment of entry and departure centers to educate Myanmar migrant workers on Thailands customs, culture, and laws, and for migrant coordination centers to assist abused workers according to Thai law and procedures.

Myanmar puts the number of migrant workers living in Thailand at 4 million with only half legally registered to work there, while Thailands Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare puts the number at more than 1.4 million, with most from the Karen, Mon, and Shan ethnic minority groups.

Many migrant workers are at risk in Thailand of being trafficked as sex workers or for hard labor on fishing boats. Granting the largely undocumented Myanmar workforce in Thailand permanent status has been the subject of negotiations between the two countries.

Seafood industry workers

Aung San Suu Kyi, who also holds the title of foreign minister and minister of the Presidents Office, will begin her three-day state visit in the Thai capital Bangkok.

She will then go to the heavily Myanmar-populated Mahachai district of central Thailands Samut Sakhon province outside Bangkok to address about 3,000 migrant laborers who work in the seafood industry.

Thirteen Thailand-based activist groups for workers have arranged for the migrant laborers to attend the meeting and ask Aung San Suu Kyi questions. About 500 people will be permitted inside the hall where she will speak, while the rest will watch her on large screens outside.

Many workers in Mahachai, one of Thailands main seafood distribution centers, are taking off work to hear Aung San Suu Kyis address and tell her that they want to be able to renew their passports in Thailand rather than have to travel back home to do so.

The workers say that the combined trip and renewal fee are costly, and that some have lost their jobs in Mahachai waiting for their documents to be processed in Myanmar.

In the meantime, local Thai authorities have cancelled Aung San Suu Kyis visit on Saturday to the Tham Hin refugee camp in Ratchaburi province, west of Bangkok, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported, citing sources close to the camp administration who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of issues concerning the camp.

No reason was given for the cancellation of the camp visit, the report said.

More than 6,000 Myanmar refugees live at the camp, which is the second-smallest of nine refugee camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border, it said.
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First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices


For Immediate Release, June 22, 2016 Contact: Amaroq Weiss, (707) 779-9613, aweiss@biologicaldiversity.org State Evidence Suggests New Wolf May Be in California's Lassen County SAN FRANCISCO New evidence released by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggests there may be a wolf in Lassen County. The information  not yet conclusive  includes photos from four trail cameras between August and May and a hair sample from one of the sites. While DNA test results were inconclusive as to whether the animal is a wolf, dog or wolf-dog hybrid, the fact the animal persisted through the winter in this remote location leads agency officials to believe the animal is likely a wolf. The animal is not wearing a radio-collar, so its movements will be detectable only by trail camera, tracks, scat and sightings. Photo courtesy California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Were crossing our fingers that another wolf has arrived in California as part of the ongoing recovery of wolves across the West, said Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer with the Center for Biological Diversity. Wolves continue to prove what scientists have said all along  that California has great habitat for wolves. The first wolf in nearly a century to enter California was OR-7, a radio-collared wolf from Oregon that dispersed from the Imnaha pack in northeastern Oregon and entered California in late 2011. OR-7 ranged across seven northeastern counties in California before returning to southwestern Oregon, where he found a mate and has now had litters of pups for three consecutive years. Then, in August 2015, Californias first known wolf family was confirmed from trail camera images captured in Siskiyou County. Named the Shasta pack, the all-black wolf family was comprised of two adults and five pups. And in December 2015, wolf OR-25, also originally from the Imnaha pack, crossed the border into California for three weeks before returning to Oregon, and has made several more forays into the Golden State since that time. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife also reported this month that scat samples from the two adults and four pups of the Shasta pack collected last October have been DNA-tested, and the results indicate that both the breeding male and female adults are related to wolves from Oregons Imnaha pack. Of the four pups whose scat was tested, one is female and the other three are males Gray wolves (Canis lupus) are native to California but were driven to extinction in the state by the mid-1920s. After OR-7 dispersed from Oregon into California, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies petitioned the state to fully protect wolves under Californias state endangered species act. In June 2014 the California Fish and Game Commission voted in favor of the petition, making it illegal to intentionally kill any wolves that enter the state. In 2012 the California Department of Fish and Wildlife convened a citizen stakeholder group to help the agency develop a state wolf plan for California, and then circulated a draft version of the plan for public comment in early 2016. The agency anticipates releasing the final version of the plan sometime this year. With the potential confirmation of another wolf in California, were glad that that these magnificent animals are fully protected under state and federal law because each new wolf we gain is critical for the species to be able to recover here, said Weiss. We drove this species to extinction here and we are extremely fortunate to get a second chance to see these ecologically essential and beautiful animals return. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
If ever there was a title for a talk that didn't live up to its name it was this one at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity by Glenn Cole, John Boiler and Matt Jarvis of 72andSunny, the LA-headquartered creative agency that has offices in New York and Amsterdam...

And all the better for it.

72andSunny's Jarvis, Cole and Boiler.

Agency owners perpetually struggle with pitching, margins, cost of sales and differentiation. Despite the fact that they may be based in Sydney, London, Dublin, New York or South Africa, the things that test agencies are strikingly similar. And thats what resonated in this talk. Despite the fact that they are one of the most successful agencies in the world, they still struggle like the rest.

So what did they talk about?

In many ways, nothing unique or revolutionary but rather a blueprint for how founders must imprint their personal values and style into the very essence of their organisation. Rather than merely reacting to the vagaries of the market, or worse the whims of their clients, they clearly and openly share their blueprint for how they do it. Granted its not for everyone. But in the immortal words of Public Enemy, If you dont stand for something, you fall for anything. And we all know where that ends up. A death spiral of pitching and lowest fee wins.

Their talk was broken into three key components:

1. Mindset

In true Californian style, they are rabidly optimistic. But there is method in their madness. They bring partners and clients together and start with a best intentions model; lets presume everyone has the best intentions to create something really special. This sense of shared optimism and purpose sets the framework to create something genuinely different. Their view is that even with the most conservative of clients, if the agency brings a relentless optimism it can only be infectious.

How many times have agencies despaired at the lack of appetite for original thinking from our clients? But, maybe its time they asked themselves a more pressing question; are we doing enough to create the conditions and tone that helps our clients be part of an exciting journey into the unknown?

2. Space

Are agencies creating the right working environments to foster innovative thinking? Open-plan offices, cellular offices, and silo-ing of creatives and client service into separate areas are potential blockers to creativity. Despite the fact that the way of working has changed radically in the last few years, where the work has stayed almost the same.

3. Timing

A hot topic for the presenters was the notion of the myth of perfection. Always waiting for the right project, the right client or the right team. To use their surfing analogy, you surf the wave you're on. If you dont get the big TV budgets, dont wait to create the stand-out TV ad. If you dont have a risk-taking client, either minimise the risk for them or search for another client that has nothing to lose. If the client has no money, fund it yourself and agree to payment based on results. Nothing proves your commitment to an idea more than putting your own money into it.

Ultimately, dont wait for the perfect conditions, start now with the conditions and clients you already have at your disposal.

In summary, like all simple ideas, their talk was easy to understand but difficult to implement.

We need to remember that the stars we see at Cannes and other events arent smarter or more ambitious or even more creative than the rest of us. Maybe theyve just taken the time to work out what they believe in. And have then followed it relentlessly.

They reminded me of when I first started out in this business; wide-eyed, excited, scared, confused but absolutely thrilled. These guys still have that twelve years later after founding 72andSunny. Maybe thats the real secret to their success.

Written in collaboration with Stephen Quinn, founder and managing director of Atomic, a creative agency based in Dublin and London.
In the South African rural setting, 52% of all sexually active young people aged between 15 and 24 report having never used condoms with their most recent partners in the last year.

In the adolescent population aged 10-19, there are 320,000 young people infected with HIV in South Africa.

Adolescent girls most susceptible

The good news is that youth HIV/Aids incidence rates have declined and prevalence is stabilising. However controlling incidence in young girls is a high priority.

Nearly a third of all new HIV infections in South Africa occur in 15-24 year olds with adolescent girls being up to eight times more likely to be infected with HIV that their male counterparts.

According to HSRC statistics, black African females aged 20-34 have a HIV prevalence rate of 31,6% and that almost a quarter of all new infections occur.

In all other age groups, mortality due to Aids is decreasing , however in the adolescent population the mortality has doubled, with 120,000 adolescents dying from Aids in 2013.

Due to the severe vulnerability of adolescent girls to HIV infection, Dr Marnie Vujovic, paediatric and adolescent psychosocial programme manager of Right to Care says, We need to focus on a well-targeted package of interventions that can address some of the most pressing challenges we face. Worrying levels of sexual coercion, age disparate relations and violence, high rates of teen pregnancy. A coordinated response is needed which strengthens the support systems available to young women at various contact points such as family, school and healthcare facility, and which offers education around issues such as sexuality and HIV risk.

Specific programmes

Only a quarter of young women (15-24) can correctly name ways of preventing HIV transmission and reject major misconceptions. Helping young women build skills to increase personal and social competence, and providing them with health knowledge that is age appropriate and which promotes healthy decision-making is an important component of Right to Cares adolescent programme.

The organisation has developed a 20-session support group tool that addresses issues such as contraception, teen pregnancy, gender relations, self-esteem, HIV and treatment adherence. This provides facilitators of the healthcare facility, community and school-based support groups with a means of addressing key health issues in an age appropriate manner.

Stigma

The National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB (2012-2016) states as one of five key objectives as: the need to reduce self-reported stigma related to HIV by at least 50%.

Over 10,000 people of 15 years and older were interviewed in the SANAC HIV Stigma Survey Results study which found that while external stigma has decreased in South Africa, levels of internal stigma are still high. Over 40% of the study participants experienced internalised stigma with women and young people aged 15-24 years reporting the highest levels. Internalised stigma is the negative beliefs a young person holds that result in guilt, shame and silence.

Vujovic explains, Adolescents find different ways of coping, including keeping their status secret beyond the immediate family. The extent to which teenagers do this suggests that stigma is still a significant factor in determining how young people deal with HIV infection. However some adolescents confront the reality of infection by educating their peers and through activism, and speaking out against stigma at public gatherings.

Youth and immortality

The belief that it cant happen to me is an example of an immature brain structure that gives rise to feelings of invincibility. However adolescents can develop new skills and behaviours. The resource that Right to Care has developed for use in adolescent support groups is an example of how a psycho-educational tool can help young people to evaluate their decision making.

Challenges

Challenges include encouraging healthcare providers and educators to work with young people in a way that is sensitive to their needs, and which does not reflect their own personal values and attitudes regarding adolescent sexuality.

Other challenges include difficulties experienced in getting groups started and ensuring sustainability. For example there are issues around space, accessibility and the transport costs involved in regular attendance. In response to this, Right to Care has put together a trouble-shooting guide that provides guidance on how to overcome some of these issues.
ABIDJAN - Swiss company Nestle will offer on-the-job training for 300,000 African youths to offset high unemployment that poses "severe economic and social challenges" for the continent, the company announced on Tuesday.

"We're going to create more than 3,000 internships and apprenticeships in African countries by the end of 2018," said chief executive officer Paul Bulcke during an economic conference in Ivory Coast's capital.

"During the same period, we will offer qualified work experience to more than 300,000 youths."

About 1.2 billion people live in Africa, of which 70 percent are aged 30 or less.

Bulcke was speaking at a Nestle global forum in the Ivorian city of Abidjan on "creating shared values", the first conference of its kind in Africa organised by Nestle.

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Ivory Coast prime minister Daniel Kablan Duncan were also in attendance.

The training will include advice on career schemes and interview techniques as well as CV help.

Nestle said it will advertise the training on its websites, at jobs fair and in schools and universities.

While economic growth in Africa "has stayed strong for a decade (around 5 percent), it has not led to a development of productive capacities or structural transformation of the economy, two crucial elements to create productive jobs and lay the groundwork for poverty reduction," Duncan said during his opening address.

The private sector will be instrumental in laying the foundation for powerful economic growth for African communities, especially by sharing responsibility with government, Duncan said.

Nestle, the world's largest food company and a major consumer of Ivory Coast cocoa, has previously faced criticism from pressure groups for profiting from child labour.

Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, has struggled to prevent children working in the cocoa sector, long an accepted practice in the countryside.

The industry, which accounts for 15 percent of GDP and more than 50 percent of export receipts as well as two thirds of jobs, is absolutely vital to the country's economic welfare, according to the World Bank.

In 2011, the Ivorian government launched a scheme to get children off the plantations and into school as much to improve the country's image overseas as about protecting its young people.
The investors include IFC, the IFC African, Latin American and Caribbean Fund (ALAC) and the IFC Catalyst Fund, two funds managed by IFC Asset Management Company, Ascension Investment Management and Sanlam.

Addressing power capacity and climate change

The deal, which is subject to shareholder approval, provides equity funding for the Lekela Power platform, a joint venture with the global pan-emerging market private equity firm, Actis. The funding package will help the platform meet its goal of constructing over 1,300MW of badly needed new power capacity in Africa by 2018, while addressing the challenge of climate change.

Eddie O'Connor

Speaking at the signing of the transaction at The African Energy Forum in London, Mainstream Renewable Power CEO Eddie OConnor says, Developing Africas power infrastructure, giving millions of people access to power and enabling the continents economic growth is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Renewable energy is the quickest and most cost-effective solution to achieve this and Mainstream is dedicated to being the leading vehicle in delivering this on the ground.

Deal to fund more renewables projects

Renewable energy has enormous potential as a clean, reliable, and affordable power source for Africa and we are delighted to help connect Mainstream with solar and wind investment opportunities across the continent through this partnership, says Bertrand de la Borde, head of Africa infrastructure at IFC, a member of The World Bank Group.

The deal will allow Lekela to continue to build its pipeline of wind and solar projects in Africa. The platform plans to build four more wind farms in South Africa, two wind farms and a solar plant in Egypt, as well as wind farms in Senegal and Ghana. Also, in addition to the jobs created through the construction spend, Lekela invests resources in social endeavours that enhance the quality of life of the communities close to its projects.

Mainstream and Lekela are helping to fulfil the objectives of a series of key international initiatives, including the Obama Administrations Power Africa, which aims to add 30,000MW of cleaner power generation through government and private partnerships, and the UNs Sustainable Energy for All, which seeks to achieve universal access to power by 2030. Energy poverty has been recognised as one of the key challenges for Africa, with an estimated two thirds of people in sub-Saharan Africa having no regular access to electricity.
Poultry imports are at their highest level in South Africa's history with the flood of cheap chicken imports now accounting for 9.6% of SACU's trade deficit. This is weakening the Rand and negatively impacting the local poultry industry, especially small and emerging farmers.

Kevin Lovell and Marthinus Stander

Speaking at the 110th Avi Africa Conference in Kempton Park, Kevin Lovell, CEO of the South African Poultry Association, said in 2015, poultry imports accounted for a massive R4,6-billion in an industry that is among the most unprotected in the world, with applied average tariff protection equating to barely a few percent a year.

Negative direct and indirect effects if imports

The fact is that there is no need to import poultry at all. Poultry imports do not have to be part of the trade deficit, said. Among other wide-ranging negative direct and indirect effects on the South African economy, imports make the Rand weaker, while offering no benefit to the consumer. The more imports go up, the more South Africa suffers.

According to Lovell, the volume of bone-in portions that landed in South Africa in March this year was more than that produced by South Africas biggest poultry producer. This poses a significant threat not only to local companies and their employees but to other agricultural sectors as well.

All other adjacent industries are under threat too as we use 90% of soya grown locally and are second only to the consumer as the biggest user of maize, he says. More than 130,000 jobs depend on this industry, which progressively go by the wayside as imports grow. It is in the national interest to grow the industry as imports dont use any of these grains, and take jobs rather than create them, with about 1,000 jobs lost for every 10,000 tons imported.

Over the last five years, the local poultry industry has grown by just 1,7% while imports have grown by 140% once population growth is discounted, he adds. While South Africans are eating more chicken, most of this growth in consumption comes from imports.

Tariffs

As a low-margin producer and one of the most unprotected poultry industries in the world, the application by SAPA for the reintroduction of the standard Most Favoured Nation tariff of 37% on poultry from the EU is to make them pay the same that everyone else pays, says Lovell, adding that Canada applies a tariff of 160%, while the EUs is the equivalent of around 140%.

The average tariff on imports last year averaged a bit more than 5%, while in 2013, this was as low as 2,5%. This low level of tariff protection is simply because the EU is excluded, and all we ask is that the EU is treated the same way as all other countries. South Africa is currently the EUs biggest dumping ground for their waste, and imports keep going up as none of our applications have limited trade, he says.

The import community is protecting its turf. Importers are not small; collectively they are bigger than our biggest producer. South Africa is one of the top 10 importers of chicken in the world as our sophisticated banking, logistics, distribution and retail sectors make it easy for foreigners to trade with us as it is relatively risk-free.

Local producers are able to fill the gap

Lovell believes it is imperative that imports be stopped, saying local producers are more than able to fill the gap with efficiency levels and feed-to-food conversion ratios among the top tier in the world.

It will take around three months to ramp up production by between 10% and 15%, with full replacement of the import volume achieved within the following 12 months, he says. This will promote enterprise development and provide stimulus to the growth of emerging farmers as we want imports to be replaced by poultry produced by small, black producers.

Marthinus Stander, Chairperson of SAPAs Broiler Organisation, says that an important distinction must be made between imports and dumping, as the imported leg quarters are the by-products of consumption patterns of the US and EU whose consumers prefer the breast meat.

This hurts local producers the most as South Africans prefer chicken on the bone so that part of the chicken should be what we sell most effectively to our consumers - and at a profit, says Stander. Even as these foreign producers export incredible volumes of bone-in imports, they also protect their industries in the US and the EU using phytosanitary measures to restrict our access to those markets, so we cannot sell our breast meat there while they are free to dump here. We say send your whole birds here and lets compete fairly.
A partnership formed by the Mnquma Local Municipality and five Eastern Cape tertiary institutions to keep poverty at bay has seen more than 120 young people receiving training in farming, crop production, piggery, poultry, livestock and business management.

The municipality serving the Butterworth area says the beneficiaries of this partnership have since progressed to starting their own small, medium and micro-sized enterprises using the skills acquired through the programme. The programme is aimed at assisting communities through providing skills, education and identifying research areas.

Mnquma spokesman Loyiso Mpalantshane said that in 2014 the municipality had forged a partnership with the University of Fort Hare, NMMU, Walter Sisulu University, King Hintsa Training College and Fort Cox College of Agriculture. Yesterday, a launch was held in Butterworth where the venture was sealed through the signing of a memorandum of understanding by Mnquma and the five institutions.

Mnquma mayor Baba Ganjana said the municipality had realised that to develop and grow its economy it needed to partner with the institutions. "These institutions have the capability to conduct research, formulate plans and implement them, hence we decided to work hand-in-hand with them," he said.

"This is an investment in our young people because we expect them to get the training and apply those skills in developing the municipality."

Dr Ntombovuyo Wayi of Fort Hare said the institutions' role was to facilitate capacity building, provide training and conduct research.

Source: Herald
Anura Vineyards, a wine farm situated in the Cape Winelands, has revealed modern interiors for its new events venue. Having already created the contemporary space for the wine farm's restaurant and brewery, Wagon Trail, Inhouse Brand Architects was commissioned to design the new building's interiors.

Inhouse was directed by the client to connect the style of the existing restaurant with that of the events space.

Creative director, Aidan Hart, and senior designer, Brenda Hart (both of whom had previously headed the Wagon Trail project), opted for neutral colours to contrast the venues high ceilings already clad by the client in solid Oregon pine. Light-colour porcelain tiles were selected for the flooring, along with a weathered-plaster paint finish, to complement the warm wooden hues and establish a distinctly modern space that hints at a conventional farmhouse. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows frame the outdoor vistas, further strengthening the contemporary feel while incorporating the best use of natural light.

The choice of lighting was a challenge because it needed to suit a variety of different events. Steering away from the traditional, Inhouse commissioned local industrial designer, Ryan Matchett, to create a series of modish, steel pendant feature lights. These are suspended over the entire venue, providing well-balanced light throughout.

The bathrooms encompass the modern-rustic aesthetic that is already evident in the space. Brass pendant lights and taps, as well as angled mirrors, produce a countrified look-and-feel. This is juxtaposed with black mosaic-wall tiles, which contribute to a more contemporary appearance. Wood tiling in the bathrooms was used, offering practicality and warmth.

Coopers Bar

Adjoined to the main venue is the Coopers Bar. Inspired by the craft of barrel-making, as the name suggests, the interior conveys a sense of the wine farms heritage. Representing a coopers yard, dozens of refurbished barrels hang from the ceiling and pay tribute to this unique craft.

To reinforce the concept, wooden panels imitating deconstructed wine barrels were used to clad the bar, while metal hoop lights were suspended overhead. A solid piece of Oregon pine forms the bar counter, accompanied by bar stools fashioned from steel and wood. Wood is the central element of the design, casing practically everything in the room. Rusted metal sheets cover the back of the bar, adding to the rustic feel.

In addition to this, old piping was repurposed as leg stands for the high tables that occupy the space. A notable design feature includes black, high-gloss porcelain tiling which has been laid alongside porcelain wooden tiles in a herringbone pattern. By mixing these opposing materials, Inhouse was able to produce an uber-chic yet relaxed environment.
Woolworths has won the Best Marketing Campaign linked to Loyalty at the 2016 International Loyalty Magazine Awards ceremony, which took place in London earlier this week.

The Best Loyalty Programme Marketing Campaign of the Year was awarded for Woolworths WRewards 'Are you with us' campaign, which featured Grammy award-winning musician, record producer and philanthropist, Pharrell Williams. The campaign, which focused on recognising and rewarding customers for their loyalty, enticed customers to join Woolworths' sustainability journey and 'make sustainability cool' for the next generation of South Africans. The campaign raised R400,000 for the Red Cross Childrens Hospital, and established the 'R100 Million for Education' drive, together with MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet. This campaign was conceptualised and delivered by Woolworths' internal creative agency, demonstrating the creative talent inherent in the business.

And the Best Loyalty Programme

Further to this, the MySchool, MyVillage, MyPlanet programme won Best Loyalty Programme of the Year for the Middle East and Africa for the MyPlanet Rhino campaign, which, to date, has raised over R5m for rhino conservation in South Africa. The programme also averaged approximately R200,000 per month in fundraising.

Accepting both awards on the night, Pieter Twine, Woolworths GM of MySchool and loyalty, said: Woolworths and MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet are honoured to win these two prestigious international awards. The Loyalty Magazine Awards recognise the EMEA regions top corporate loyalty programmes and for Woolworths and our customers to be recognised for contributing positively to the society within which we operate is an incredibly proud moment for the business. We would also like to extend a word of thanks to our customers for their support of the programmes, which enabled us to achieve the results we did in the past year.
The benefits of having access to the internet has long been documented, particularly for those living in the developing world or in emerging markets. This endless source of information has the power to improve virtually every aspect of a person's life.

However, the very fact that youre able to read this piece wherever and whenever you choose makes it near impossible to quantify the impact that having no internet access has on someone. The good news is that the internets reach is being extended every day, thanks to a number of initiatives by stakeholders in both private and public sectors the world over.

In fact, a recent Pew Research Center study on smartphone ownership and internet usage in emerging markets reveals that in 2015, a median of 54% among 21 emerging and developing countries reported using the internet at least occasionally. Unfortunately, even when compared to emerging market counterparts like Brazil, China and Russia, South Africa is doing rather poorly  with less than half of South Africans having reliable access to the internet.

African internet usage

The exorbitant costs associated with developing a fixed line infrastructure sufficient enough to meet the demands of the populace was met with a massive influx of wireless technology. Mobile data usage has grown at an extraordinary rate as a result, but its costs are still prohibitive to many whom spend a majority of their income on food, household goods and transport. The solution for many internet provision organisations is Wi-Fi, a fast and affordable alternative to mobile internet.

As a key player in the Wi-Fi provision game, Im regularly asked, Why can we not have free Wi-Fi like they do in London? My explanation is a simple one: Economy, location and geography. Its important to understand that the UK has a population of 64 million and a GDP of $2.8 trillion (R35.9 trillion), meaning a GDP per capita of $41k (R640K). By contrast, South Africa has a population of 56 million and a GDP of $0.8 trillion (R12.5 trillion), giving us a GDP per capita of $13k (R203K). That means that if we were to compare apples to apples, the UK is four times as likely to be able to fund, or at the very least subsidise, internet-based services.

Geographically, we also have a number of obstacles stacked against us. Our population is spread over 1,242 square kilometres and the UKs is over 242 square kilometres. And guess what, they are more urbanised than us, with 33% of their population in the top 10 cities. We have around 13% of our population residing in our top 10 cities. Then consider that the UK, although this works for much of the developed world, is nestled between other developed economies  the US and Eurasia in the UKs case. We found ourselves at the very tip of Africa. That means, to connect to the world, South Africas infrastructure has to span some 12,000 km.

Its our geographical misalignment with the rest of the developed world that translates into increased costs, for the provider as well as the customer. No matter who you are, provision of internet services will always cost more in South Africa. Take the mobile network operators (MNO), at a purchasing price parity perspective, the three items above mean that they will always be more expensive than their developed economy counterparts. I do have a problem with the considerably larger profit margins of local mobile network operators, as compared to MNOs in comparative developed markets. On one hand, its great for them that theyve been able to leverage more profit from the services they deliver. On the other, I can only imagine what opportunities cheaper MNO services would facilitate for South Africa.

Dont get me wrong, philanthropy is not the solution. Without profitability, scalability goes out of the window. A ROI, therefore, is crucial to the development of internet provision, but the value earned needs to be only slightly higher than the cost invested if were to truly see internet access for all. The key is keeping it affordable, which is where Wi-Fi really shines.

At the end of the day, if you want free Wi-Fi, youre going to get what you pay for. Data is still a very real cost, even in the UK, but they can afford to give it away for free due to having more cash on hand and cheaper input costs. Wi-Fi cannot be free in emerging economies because it will very quickly put those providers in the red. There is of course business in the provision of Wi-Fi, but the value proposition for the consumer will be Wi-Fi at volume, as it will be the primary connectivity for a vast part of the population. For the higher LSM market the value proposition would be the ease of use and quality of a paid for service versus a free service.

In the first world, the advent of Wi-Fi came about when there was already a significant backhaul and infrastructure established, with significant fixed line internet access as a result. Wi-Fi was seen as an additive service, an indulgence. In emerging markets, it will serve as the only point of access for many. The value proposition is a reliable and convenient service for the paying consumer at affordable rates, many of whom would otherwise have no access at all.
On Thursday, 23 June 2016, Biz Takeouts Marketing and Media Radio show host Warren Harding ( @bizwazza ) looked at 21C business solutions, a training and education company who will be piloting an eight week short course at Vega School in Cape Town from 2 July to 20 August 2016.

We chatted to Wendy van Schalkwyk, CEO and founder of MI-Ashanti International. The company's vision is to play an active social and economic role in the local and global market to reduce the failure rate of start-up entrepreneurs and enable a higher percentage of start-up entrepreneurship success. The short course is aimed at anyone, and will equip you to develop your business concepts.

It is also aimed at existing entrepreneurs who need to get the right training and leadership tools to succeed. A SAQA certificate will be issued to those who complete the course successfully. Van Schalkwyk is an entrepreneur, business consultant and has an international masters in business with Business School Netherlands.

We speak to Wendy about:

 What is the course all about?  We look at start up failure rates and biggest reasons for failure.

 We look at some advice for new business starters.

 We discuss why the course is not to be missed.  We end the show by looking at future courses and plans for the company.

All this and so much more covered in the podcast this week.

Check out the course details.

Episode 178: Short course - Building and maintaining a sustainable business.







Date: 23 June 2016 Length: 17:14min File size: 16.1MB Host: Warren Harding



The news roundup from Bizcommunity:

If you are interested in getting interviewed on Biz Takeouts, or want to suggest a show topic, email Warren Harding (@bizwazza) on moc.ytinummoczib@stuoekatzib.

Bizcommunity.com's Biz Takeouts Marketing & Media Show takes South Africa's biggest online marketing, media and ad industry platform to the airwaves and gives relevant, useful and interesting insights into all aspects of marketing in SA, Africa and beyond. Each week, the show features the movers and the shakers of the industry, current media trends, upcoming events and brand activities.

For more:
African law students are changing the way we access data by leading efforts to disseminate Africa's mining legal frameworks through the African Mining Legislation Atlas (AMLA) project.

Founding members

Naomi Kakundu is from the small town of Ndola in the copper belt province of Zambia. In 2014, she was a second-year law student at the University of Cape Town faculty of law, considering whether to take an elective course in mineral law.

In Scotland, Abdoul Karim Kabele-Camara from Conakry, Guinea, was working on his PhD at the University of Dundee, specialising in mining infrastructure development and regulation in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Mozambique, Deisy Ribeiro had begun her first year as a law student and became interested in mineral law after hearing about her countrys natural resource discoveries and the lack of local professionals to meet the needs of companies investing in Mozambique.

The three joined 11 other students two years ago to become part of Africas next generation of leaders in the mining sector, through their role as founding members of the legal research team of AMLA project.

Multi-stakeholder programme

The project gathers, organises, and disseminates laws and builds capacity across the African continent via three main channels:

An online platform, providing a free, easily accessible one-stop resource for Africa's mining legal framework;

Production of a guiding template, an annotated document outlining legislative solutions to assist in the preparation or revision of African mining laws; and

Capacity building through training (on-ground and remotely) of African law students in the use of the platform and overall mining law issues.

Initiated by the World Bank Group in 2013, the AMLA project is a multi-stakeholder programme that works in close partnership with the African Legal Support Facility, the African Union Commission, several African universities and other global private and public institutions.

Intensive training

Currently, the project has trained 44 African law students20 women and 24 menfrom 17 countries. Students represent all four regions of the continent and speak French, Portuguese, Arabic and English.

Starting with an intensive 10-day training, pre-selected students attend sessions on a diverse range of topics impacting the mining sector, from fiscal regimes, licensing and local content to community development, environmental protection and health and safety. Students are introduced to the AMLA platform that is populated with the primary mining codes, regulations and related legislation of all African countries.

The best students from each year's training are invited to join the legal research team responsible for populating and updating the AMLA platform. Each student is assigned to analyse a minimum of two countries mining legislation against a common taxonomy of topics, to encourage comparative analysis, and gives each member the mission to also gather related legislation.

Members of the team rely on each other to answer questions of legislative interpretation and formatting, engaging with one another weekly and often daily via the World Bank Groups Communication for Development (C4D) online platform. A group of experts in the field are also present on the C4D platform, to guide the students in their research assignments when needed.

Applying the knowledge learned

Today, Kakundu, Ribeiro and Kabele-Camara are all applying the knowledge they gained through AMLA training as legal professionals in the mining sector.

Kakundu serves as a reviewer of the legal research teams research results and is preparing to begin postgraduate studies in tax law with a focus on mining tax.

Kabele-Camara serves as a reviewer and project coordinator for the AMLA project at the African legal support facility.

Ribeiro graduated with distinction from her legal studies, has published and lectured on criminalising the illegal sale of precious stones, and now works as a junior legal researcher at a Mozambican law firm, focused on legal services in oil, gas, mining, energy and infrastructure projects.

Incredible resource

The work of the team not only provides the world with an incredible resource but it also prepares the next generation of African leaders to develop mining frameworks that foster sustainable development in our countries, say Kabele-Camara.

The AMLA project continues to train law students in the use of the platform and mining law in general, and is preparing for its third annual training with 33 African law students in December 2016.
Food Network commissions series three of the popular 'Siba's Table' on Food Network DStv Channel 175

Following the huge global success of the first two series of Sibas Table, Food Network has now green lit a third series. Starring Siba Mtongana, Sibas Table s3 (10x30) builds on the popular format of Sibas Table and Sibas Table s2 with Mtongana bringing her culinary flair and on-screen charisma to viewers across the region. Produced by North Pacific, Sibas Table was the company's first international production to air in the US. The show will debut later on in the year.

In Sibas Table s3, Siba once again creates and serves an irresistible range of dishes for friends and family. Each episode will recreate a chapter of her Cape Town life, as she draws on influences from both her childhood and unique experiences as a food editor. The series will also feature vibrant local artisan producers and showcase the local, cutting edge restaurant scene.

Mtongana says she is thrilled and cant wait for filming to start. This is great news for me, but more so for my beloved country, South Africa, as Cape Town is home to South Africas most vibrant food scene and reflects the rich cultural diversity of our rainbow nation.

Phillip Luff, MD Scripps UK & EMEA, says Sibas Table exceeded all expectations. Internationally, the series proved to be one of our most successful shows and we cant wait to bring the third series of Sibas Table to all our food lovers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Siba Mtongana is a passionate and dynamic food enthusiast who brings style and charisma to South Africas television food scene. She is a multi-award winning Freelance Food Writer, Celebrity TV Chef and Food Judge with an authentic love for her people and the continent of Africa. Siba won a SAFTA in 2013 for best lifestyle and variety show with her previous show, Cooking with Siba, and has over nine years experience in the food and media industry.

Mtonganas recently released cookbook, My Table, has become an instant hit. My Table has made history as the best-selling cookbook ever to have been stocked by retail giant, Woolworths SA. Thus far it has sold over 33% more copies than any other cookbooks Woolworths SA has ever carried.

Sibas Table debuted in September 2013 airing in over 90 countries across Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia. Sibas Table is now airing in over 128 countries, including the US where the franchise is broadcast to 60 million homes on The Cooking Channel.

For further information contact:

Jacques Verster at Mortimer Harvey

Tel: +27 (0) 11 996 2833

Cell: +27 (0) 83 276 9009

Email: moc.yevrahremitrom@seuqcaj




A woman's place is in the home. Her "job" is to marry and to raise children. This thinking still prevails in most parts of the world - and it is one of the major reasons that only about 30% of women in sub-Saharan Africa are working in research and development.

Professor Amivi Kafui Tete-Benissan (left) teaches cell biology and biochemistry at the University of Lome, in the capital of Togo. Stephan Gladieu/World Bank/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

The good news is that several African countries are creating an environment that allows women to pursue their passion for scientific research and development. These initiatives offer valuable insights into how more women can be drawn into science and work their way up the ladder to become leaders in science, technology, mathematics and engineering. This process involves many parts of a society: governments, educational systems, universities, civil society organisations, women themselves and, crucially, men.

From scholarships and science fairs, to policy changes and high-profile appointments, these countries  Morocco, Egypt, Angola, Nigeria and Mauritius  are leading the way to create room for women scientists.

Social and cultural barriers

To understand whats currently holding women back from becoming scientists, we examined the Gender, Institutions and Development Database thats been established by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments Development Centre to find some answers.

For starters, girls simply arent receiving as much formal education as boys. Girls all over the continent are far less likely to complete primary school than boys are. This is one of the major failings of the Millennium Development Goals, which aimed to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

One of the problems is that girls education is often not considered important. Social and cultural norms dictate that women should fulfil the traditional roles of wife and mother rather than concentrate on school work and further education. A 2013 study found that families very rarely encourage their daughters interest in science. Most African women who decide to study science after school cite personal interest as their major motivation. Only 1% of the studys respondents said their parents had been their major motivator in this regard.

Even when girls do make it to university to study science, they struggle to remain in their field after graduation or to become science leaders. In Morocco, for instance, the number of women graduating from science programmes is high. But only 25% of teaching staff in the countrys universities are women and women deans are rare in the sciences. Only about 32% of Angolas active researchers are women and research projects headed by women are almost non-existent.

Shining examples

There are a few African countries that are working actively to buck these trends. Egypt has long been a trendsetter, starting with Queen Nefertari thousands of years ago. She was hailed for her intellect and was highly educated.

Today, Egyptian women are well represented in universities science departments and faculties. This has long been the case. In lead author Professor Bassionis family, for instance, her mother headed the National Heart Institutes department of anaesthesia for more than 20 years; today Professor Bassioni is head of the facultys chemistry division. Her current boss and the previous dean of the faculty of engineering are also women.

Morocco is another country with a rich tradition of women as academic leaders. One of the worlds oldest continually operating universities, Al Qarawiyyine in Fez, was founded by a woman named Fatima al-Fihri in 859. Today, analysing the governments own statistics shows that 56% of all Moroccos first-year science, technology, engineering and maths students are women. The figure is as high as 74% in medical studies. Almost half of the PhDs defended each year belong to women. More work needs to be done in retaining these women as working scientists, but the numbers are a positive start.

Nigeria has approached the issue of women in science from a number of angles. Both the federal and state governments have established scholarship schemes specifically for women who want to study scientific subjects at university. The country offers special science secondary schools, and provides scholarships to these specifically for women students.

Mauritius has taken its quest to draw women into science to the nations highest office: the country is led by a world renowned woman scientist, Her Eminence Professor Ameenah Gurib-Fakim.

Angolas National Development Plan 2012-2017 specifically addresses the issue of women in science. Policymakers, working with the Ministry of Family and Promotion of Women, have set up programmes to motivate womens interest in areas like medicine and science. Examples include the annual Scientific Week of Women, and science and technology career fairs at public schools. The ministry has set up a small grant fellowship programme to help girls from poor families with exceptional grades to enrol for science degrees.

To build on these countries excellent work, weve established a programme that we hope will further drive a paradigm shift in the continents attitudes. We are a group of African scientists who all hold leadership positions in our respective countries and want to share our lessons with others. One of our major aims is to lift the veil on what can sometimes be considered a mysterious world  that of the sciences  and to offer women the support they need to juggle societal expectations, their family commitments and fulfilling careers as scientists.

Identifying barriers and taboos

We built the African Women in Leadership Life (or African WILL) group during the April 2016 meeting of the Africa Science Leadership Programme in South Africa.

The scientists who founded African WILL want to share their lessons with others.

We believe that African societies perceptions will only shift if the whole family is included in the process of developing women. This cannot be something that girls or women pursue in isolation. To this end, our group has begun identifying barriers and taboos that should be overcome to empower women in leadership roles. Were planning basic programmes geared towards family planning, maternal health services and girls education at community centres in Angola, Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco and Nigeria. These are aimed at entire families: boys, girls, men and women. It is crucial that mothers, fathers and extended families understand how much everybody benefits when women are educated and empowered.

On the flip side of this, African WILL plans to offer workshops, lectures and seminars that help women who are already at university or in careers to balance the demands of work, education, personal progress and family.


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Absa Retail Bank recently redesigned their Absa MegaU product and launched a new campaign aimed at generation Z and founded on the various meanings of the word 'free'.

On a practical level, Absa MegaU offers a bank account to the youth (ages 0-19yrs) and no longer charges a monthly service fee. It now also includes access to a free movie ticket or 75MB of data each month if the account holders maintain a minimum balance of R200 in their account; perform two transactions using their MegaU card for purchases; or purchase data or airtime using their MegaU account. On a deeper level, the campaign tries to connect to the values and experiences that young people care about.

According to Yolande Steward, marketing GM of Absa Retail Bank, research was conducted in focus groups aimed at young people aged 15 and older across the income spectrum and who didnt necessarily have a bank account with Absa. What emerged from these focus groups was that young people have a passion for self-expression, they like creativity and also care about their communities. Parents of those younger than 15 were also asked whether they would be open to opening a bank account for their child if its offering includes no monthly fee, as well as access to free movie tickets and data.

Absa briefed their agency, The Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg), on their findings. All this research helped the agency to come up with relevant ideas; thus they created the TV ad around slam poetry which is very linked to self-expression, explains Stewart.

The Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg) discusses the ad

The concept took shape when we began to question what the word "free" really meant. The word "free" gets used synonymously with promotions, vouchers, gifts, t-shirts, buy two get the cheapest one "free" and so on. So essentially the word "free" is in a way being held hostage, being used against its intended purpose. This gave us a rich territory where we could realign the word "free" to its true intended purpose. We also knew that our audience are some of the most skeptical consumers, so this territory gave us a perfect opportunity to develop an idea that leveraged this skepticism and use it to form a positive perception of the product and ultimately the brand. We wanted the youth to feel and believe that Absa was the bank that had set free free, explains Cameron Fraser, copywriter at The Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg).

According to Fraser, the elements that made the campaign relevant to the youth market were the voice-over recorded by well-known local music artist, Kwesta; a young, diverse and fashionably clad cast; youthful slang interpretations of the word free; and finally the director, Leigh Ogilvie. Leigh was chosen because of her talent in capturing exactly what youthful means and bringing it to life visually, explains Fraser.

Were very excited by the campaign and the positive response weve received thus far. This is a long-term proposition for us. As we evolve this proposition, wed like to see more young people being educated and becoming comfortable with managing their finances, says Steward.

Depending on what we add to the whole youth proposition; well see how the campaign changes over time. A lot of our work is about the consumer and the insights, so we will run more focus groups and keep touching base with how young people feel and what they want in relation to financial education, concludes Steward.
With the country's unemployment rate having jumped from 24.5% to 26.7% in the first quarter of 2016 alone, there's never been a better time to nurture the youth's entrepreneurial spirit. Here's how two design students have already started their entrepreneurial journeys.

Imagine finishing your studies with all the book learning and motivation to enter the job market, only to be turned down again and again as you simply dont have the experience required. Its a harsh reality currently experienced by 8.9 million South Africans. They want to work and are able to work, but simply cant find employment  especially by the ever-growing youth sector of the population.

 Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.

One way to pre-empt this situation altogether is to start your own business  but thats easier said than done, especially while still studying. Easier said than done doesnt mean impossible though, as proved by Sabelo Sibisi and Tayla Kohler. Both are third-year BA graphic design students at the Design School of Southern Africa (DSSA), which is a brand of The Independent Institute of Education (The IIE).

Individually, each has endeavoured to secure their future by starting their own small businesses while studying, based on their passions.

Sibisi has had an artistic ability from a young age and so took it upon himself to make a career out of art, with design the most suitable venture for his artistic abilities. He now operates the trendy street-conscious apparel brand, STRU, targeted at the youth and based on the colloquialism for Its true commonly used in Soweto. As the term is well understood by the market, it made it easy for them to relate. The message behind the brand is to stay STRU (true) to yourself and your word. The people were immediately able to relate to the message, and therefore associate themselves with it, he explains.

Kohler turned her hobby of custom-making tapers, ear gauges, pendants, miniatures, figurines and interesting necklaces from non-toxic polymer clay thats baked in an oven into a sustainable enterprise. Once baked, she uses water-based sealant to protect the piece and ensure that colours dont leach from the clay itself over time. She has also always been interested in art, going so far as to say, It feels like paint runs through my veins, as graphic design is a design form thats ever-changing and reinventing itself, like a phoenix rising from the ashes and being reborn with each new development in technology and opportunities."

Entrepreneurial wildfire

Sibisi says the amount of talent amongst the youth of South Africa accompanied by the unemployment rate gives the initial spark for youth to initiate their business endeavours and take it upon themselves to start and grow their own initiatives. He explains that the idea of starting your own business is a way of thinking thats spreading amongst the minds of the youth like wild fire. That said, note that studying and running a successful business simultaneously comes with a lot of sacrifices, such as less time for social gatherings and a need for increased stamina and creativity in your marketing abilities.

 Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.  Ryno Fourie.

Kohler adds that its really difficult to start something, especially when you have nothing, because everything costs money. The key then is to believe in your idea so much that your passion and drive can help sell your idea to others and through this you will soon find support. She adds that people want to help, but they also want to know that youre serious about what you want to do.

Luckily my market is South African students and youth, explains Kohler. As its difficult to approach people and show them your wares, because they hate to be harassed, she simply got creative and started wearing the jewellery shed made to the DSSA campus every day. It definitely got noticed and was a great conversation starter, she says, adding that budding entrepreneurs have to think of unique ways to market themselves and always be keen to discuss their business with people who approach them, because you never know what opportunities may arise.

Kohler says if you have an idea, nows the time in South Africa and the world to run with it and take it further. Dont think that all great inventions and ideas happened in the past and that you shouldn't try. Make history, right now.

Its all the inspiration you need to fire up your entrepreneurial passion. Go forth and succeed! Follow the Design School of Southern Africa (DSSA) on Twitter for more.
Orange announced today, 23 June 2016, that, together with its subsidiary Orange Cote d'Ivoire, it has completed the acquisition of 100% of the mobile operator Airtel in Burkina Faso.

Since the signature of an agreement with Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV (Airtel) in January 2016, Orange has obtained all the official approbations necessary to complete this transaction.

Airtel is the 2nd largest mobile operator in Burkina Faso, with close to 4.6 million customers (on the basis of active customers within a 30-day period). On the mobile financial services market, Airtel is the uncontested leader and is already interoperable with Orange Money in neighbouring countries, allowing international transfers to be made. Airtel is also positioned as the countrys leading internet provider thanks to its extensive 3.75G network, which has been rolled out in over 100 towns.

With 18 million inhabitants and a relatively high mobile penetration rate for the region (80% of the population), Burkina Faso becomes the 20th country in Africa and the Middle East to join the Orange group.

Oranges investments in the coming years will enable customers in Burkina Faso to take advantage of the Orange groups expertise and momentum in terms of innovation and development of the digital ecosystem, thus responding to a strong expectation from customers in Burkina Faso.

This acquisition in one of the countries with the strongest growth rates in the Economic Community of West African States (5.8% annual growth of GDP) strengthens Oranges presence in Africa by confirming is proactive strategy in the African market.

Bruno Mettling, deputy chief executive officer of the Orange group and chairman and CEO of Orange MEA (Middle East and Africa), stated: We are pleased to announce that the acquisition of the mobile operator Airtel in Burkina Faso has been finalised. This new acquisition will further strengthen the Groups positions on the African continent.
With scores of SA businesses and multinationals looking to expand across Africa, SA-based marketing agencies are positioning themselves to pitch their clients to a vast African audience. But they need to be aware of unique African approaches to business, says pan-African marketing agency, Media Revolution.

Dharmesh Nagar

Dharmesh Nagar, strategy director at Media Revolution, part of the global Starcom MediaVest Group, has been taking clients into pan-African markets and working with a range of pan-African clients since 2007. Some of his experiences have been eye-openers: strategies launched with zero market stats available; or media targeting in countries where circulation figures dont exist.

You have to think on your feet to succeed in some of these environments, he notes.

It comes as quite a surprise for many marketing agencies seeking coverage in African publications, that some journalists appear to expect payment for writing an article, Nagar says. You see it quite a lot in Nigeria, Malawi and Mozambique, especially among more junior journalists.

They arent blatant about it, but they will ask for money for breakfast or lunch. This could be anywhere from $50 to $200. I understand that once you pay, your article makes the news.

Nagars agency does not go this route, however. We have invested heavily over the years in developing credible, well-written content. We have also built relationships with the editors. So usually, when we have news to submit, we dont work through the journalists but through the editors, and our news is usually published verbatim.

Another hurdle to overcome is a dearth of media research and tracking tools in many African countries.

Media Revolution is a full-service marketing, communications, media buying and event management firm. However, when our international clients want to run campaigns in the rest of Africa, we have to be upfront with them and explain that getting credible circulation figures and tracking campaign reach is a problem in much of Africa.

What we can do is gather paper cuttings and flighting reports. We also find it works well to target international media which deliver African coverage, because this is far easier to track than local media, he says.

When marketing into Africa, it is also crucial to remember that many African business environments are characterised by a uniquely African corporate culture. The buddy system prevails, and you have to have the right connections to get ahead. Also, if your client is well connected and respected in a country, their news is more likely to get published than if they are not.

Nagar sees his biggest African marketing success to date as the establishment of a credible market presence for Zimbabwes Savanna Tobacco.

Despite the fact that the tobacco industry is up against negative sentiment, and that Savanna itself competes with a global tobacco giant, the company has achieved significant market share and growth, and is getting a well-deserved reputation as a world-class player, he notes.
Julia Marip, the WLB General Secretary told KIC News that ongoing fighting between the Burma Army and ethnic armed groups in Kachin State and Shan State are a serious concern for the 21st Century Panglong Conference, which is also known as the Union Peace Conference.

She said: We were worried about the establishment of genuine peace in the peace process during the last governments administration because of the increase in offensives by the [Burmese] military. Now this military issue still exists in the new governments administration so we are worried and we feel suspicious, even if the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference is to be held. Thats why we are telling them [the military] to stop their offensives before this conference starts.

During a meeting with the Joint Monitoring Committee (Union-level) (JMC-U) in Naypyidaw on 27 April, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that the new government plans to hold the 21st Century Panglong Conference in August or September and will try to include all ethnic armed organisations (EIOs) in the conference.

While the all-inclusive conference has been welcomed ongoing conflict between the Burma Army and EAOs that have not yet signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) is worrying many in the political community, who have called for a halt to all fighting.

The WLB statement also said that the ongoing military conflicts had resulted in human rights violations and an increase in internally displaced people (IDPs). It also called for government action to ensure that justice is achieved and for the international community to continue providing humanitarian assistance to people displaced by war.

The WLB was founded on 9 December 1999 by 13 womens organisations to promote womens participation in: democracy, human rights, the peace process and improving womens lives.

Reported by SPhan Shaung for KIC News

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
The ceremony, funded by UNICEF Fundraising for Children, was held yesterday [June 22], at Basic Education High School No. 6, Moulmein (also known as Mawlamyine) Capital.

The UNICEF group provided the Mon state government with 73,000 Mon language textbooks, 80,000 exercise books, 5,000 fairy tales books, as well as grammar and teacher guide books.

The Mon text books that are funded and offered by UNICEF will now be handed to the state education department. We will work toward respective schools receiving the textbooks and the teachers can use them effectively, said U Min Min Oo, Mon State Chief Minister.

Chief Minister added that the current government has given priority to education and will work toward providing educational opportunities to children living in remote and conflict areas, who are coming from poor families as well as children with disabilities.

In attendance at the ceremony, were Mon State Chief Minister U Min Min Oo and government officials, Dr. Min Nwe Soe, chairman of Mon Textbook Curriculum Committee, representatives of UNICEF (Mawlamyine) and representatives from Mon State Education Department and civil society organizations.

We worked on this curriculum based on past experiences and did the best to develop the teaching curriculum. We received help from a committee that wanted to assist us and had curriculum development experience. We implemented this project with support from donors and with the countrys copyright, said Dr. Min Nwe Soe.

Dr. Min Nwe Soe continued that the curriculum development committee faced many difficulties while working on the curriculum, but believed the committee did the best it could for schools in Mon communities across Mon and Karen states and Tenasserim Division. The current committee is ready to assist future committees in need of help for developing textbooks.

The Mon State Hluttaw enacted in April, 2014, that starting from the 2014-15 academic year, Mon language could be taught during class time. However, the current government has only provided this class as an after school class.

The teaching of Mon language was granted use at state schools in 1946 even before the country gained independence from Britain. In 1958, the Mon Affair Association led the publication of Mon textbooks for use at schools. However, after the military took power in 1962, the Mon language programs in state schools were ceased.

After Mon State was founded in 1974, under the Burma Socialist Programme Party, a new curriculum for [Mon] textbooks for kindergarten and Grade 1 was published. However, no one led the teaching of Mon textbooks at government schools.
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Things To Know About Chinas Yulin Dog Meat Festival Pulse oi-Syeda Farah

There are many weird things that are taking the world by a storm. Be it the Internet challenges or the weirdest festivals that people are celebrating around the world.

We are witnessing the most bizarre festivals and trends nowadays. Be it a Penis Festival in Japan or a Dog meat festival, you can only get to know about the most fetish and disgusting rituals that are followed by many.

In this article, we are here to share info on some of the things that you need to know about China's Yulin dog meat festival.

This is one horrific meat-eating festival that is gaining its popularity for all the unwanted reasons.

Though there are numerous petitions that have been taken out to stop this disgusting dog-meat-eating festival, yet there people are still continuing to follow this barbaric festival.

Reading through this article you'll realise how inhuman mankind is towards the four-legged innocent creatures who have no idea of the fetish these people possess.

It's a disgrace indeed to see animals being slaughtered at large in the name of Meat festivals!

Why Celebrate This Festival?

People in China believe that eating a dog's meat will keep them healthy and protect them against summer heat. This is one of the weirdest theories that one could ever think of and kill the poor animals for such an illogical thought.

Image Courtesy

Is It Even Legal?

There is no animal welfare rule in China, which makes it easy for the people to consume any animal out there. The government has turned a blind eye to the truckloads of dogs that are arriving in Yulin.

How Many Dogs Are Killed Due To This Madness?

An estimated 10-20 million dogs are killed for their meat each year, in China. In this bizarre festival, there would be at least 10,000 dogs that would be feasted on.

Image Courtesy

Is It Only The Dogs That Are Eaten?

Well, apart from dogs' meat, you can get to taste even cat meat, which is relished along with gallons of beer. However, their main focus is on dogs' meat.

Image Courtesy

Where Are The Dogs Got From?

Few reports suggest that they are farmed, which is totally untrue. Generally, these dogs are robbed, sedated, poisoned and are put into small cages along with many other dogs and are taken to Yulin for this festival.

Image Courtesy

Are Dogs Boiled Alive?

Well, yes, this is one of the merciless, heartless practice that they follow to get the meat ready for the heartless people out there. They have inefficient slaughter techniques, which makes this as an easy option to be used instead.

With all these disgusting practices that happen in this festival, we wish people back out and protest to completely ban this unwanted ritual of eating the poor, innocent animals!
BCL employees this week called for the resignation of the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water resource Kitso Mokaila over a continuing spate of fatal and near fatal accidents at the Selibe Phikwe mine.

The aggrieved employees who also called for the sacking of the BCL Director Daniel Mahupela following an accident that left one employee in a critical condition on Monday this week.The employees aired their grievances and concerns over their welfare and safety at a meeting address by MP for Selibe Phikwe West, Dithapelo Keorapetse this week. About two weeks ago four employees perished in a fatal accident at the mine putting the companys safety standards under scrutiny.

When four miners perished in the recent accident, we saw their corpses but we were never received counseling for trauma, said a BCL employee who preferred anonymity. To this day, we have never been given an explanation as to what claimed the lives of the deceased.





In addition, veteran BCL employee Leonard Kebonang who has been working for the mine for 24 years opined that safety was virtually non-existent at the decades old coal mine. Safety is compromised, they are not cautious about our lives, there are more concerned of the production, said Kebonang who is currently working at the BCL smelter.

The minister (Mokaila) has not set a foot here, not even once since the accident, one of the employees alleged at the meeting. The miner further alleged that employees injured at the mine are not paid accordingly, adding that the same cage, which claimed the lives of the four people in the fatal accident, has not been fixed yet.

For his part, Keorapetse said he recently presented the issue at parliament but the minister concerned seemed puzzle and in dark on the matter. However, he agreed with some of the miners sentiments that time was up for the companys management as the mine started facing problems since they took over.




SRIHARIKOTA (PTI): ISRO on Wednesday said it is looking at increasing the number of satellite launches to 12-18 per year while underscoring the need for streamlining its robust PSLV series by adding on a new vehicle assembly building.



"We need to streamline the PSLV series and we are trying to get into more number of launches per year by increasing the capacity within in the country," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman A S Kiran Kumar said.



"We are working towards some mechanism where industry-ISRO partnership will enable us to increase the number of launches per year to almost 12-18 per year in the coming years," he said.



Kumar was talking to reporters after India successfully launched 20 satellites, including its earth observation Cartosat-2 series, on board Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C34 from the Sriharikota spaceport on Wednesday.



On developing a three-stage PSLV, he said, "Not exactly...



One of the things we will be constantly addressing is how to reduce the cost of accessing space and these studies are addressing on what methods to reduce cost of launching satellite and that will be our continuous endeavour."



Noting that PSLV was a versatile launch vehicle which can do different jobs and put satellites in different orbits, he said streamlining of this operation with improved capabilities is on.



To a question on another launch station, he said what ISRO is looking at is trying to increase launches and remove bottlenecks if any. "Today one of the efforts towards that end is a second vehicle assembly building, which is getting ready and which will help increase the number of launches."



He said, "Our effort is to continuously assess the situation and take corrective action at an appropriate time to improve our launch frequency."



Kumar said work is on to launch the South East Asian satellite (previously SAARC and now SEA as Pakistan has backed out) by the December to March time frame.



He said the next launch would be PSLV C-35 which would have Scatsat, the primary satellite with scatterometer enabling ocean wind vector information, weather monitoring and forecast activity.



"Prior to that we are looking also at the possibility of air breathing experiment (which is also part of the overall Reusable Launch Vehicle activity)."



Kumar said the GSAT-18 launch is now slated for September instead of July 12 as a satellite that was to be launched had problems.



ISRO would also look at whether it could overcome limitations in the performance of GSLV Mark 2 and 3 and if it could build some features in this regard, he said.



Kumar said India has 35 satellites, including 13 communication, 13 earth observation and 7 navigational. Two other satellites are for space science and these are Mars Orbiter Mission and Astrosat.



"Our assessment is we need to double this number for meeting various requirements of the country and towards that our work will be progressing," he said.



Earlier, Kumar congratulated his team for the successful launch of the 20 satellites 'in a record time' and said, "PSLV C-34 has done its job."



"We have the current generation of earth observation satellite of Cartosat 2 series," he said, adding ISRO has done a 'wonderful job'.




Swayam's flight model. A COEP photo

PUNE (PTI): It was a euphoric moment for students of the College of Engineering in Pune as the academic satellite developed by them -"Swayam" - was on Wednesday successfully placed in orbit along with 19 others.



The cube shaped satellite weighs less than 1,000 grams and aims to ensure point to point communication even in remote places.



The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) early on Wednesday morning launched record 20 satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota. It included two academic satellites developed by students of Sathyabama University (Sathyabamasat) in Chennai and College of Engineering, Pune (Swayam).



"This is a very emotional and amazing moment for us as over 170 students burnt midnight oil while working on the project for last eight years, and today the institute has taken a giant leap into space," said Dr P B Ahuja, Director of COEP, who was at the spaceport along with the project team at the launch.



"It happened due to sheer hard work and determination of students and faculty," he added.



In Pune, around 800 students, alumni and faculty gathered at the 162-year-old premier institute's auditorium to witness the 'live' streaming of the launch. They cheered in exuberance the moment the launch took place and congratulated one another.



Talking about 'Swayam', Ahuja said the project had started in 2008 with students from various streams coming together and working on it.



"The cube shaped satellite, which is smallest in the passenger list of 20, weighs less than 1,000 grams and hence, is termed as PICO satellite and it aims to ensure point to point communication even in remote places," Ahuja said.



He said the unique feature of the satellite is that it has a passive system and does not draw any electrical power for stabilising and orientation towards the earth magnetic field.



"The team has devised an ingenious passive stabilisation system which employs a pair of hysteresis rods and a magnet to stabilise the satellite, thus eliminating the need to use bulky and power hungry magnetorquers," he said, adding the feature was appreciated by ISRO.



He further said within moments of launch, 'Swayam' was separated at 515.3 km in orbit.


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This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA  Youll see their fearsome faces just moments before 20 paddles slice through the calm waters of Minnedosa Lake in unison on Sept. 17 as the dragonboats take over Manitobas Valley Paradise.

The lake will be the host site for the Westman Dragonboat Associations festival, a location that wasnt decided upon by fate. The communitys reputation as being home to the best rowing and paddling venue in the province is well established, having previously hosted the water events for the Manitoba Summer Games and the Commonwealth Games.

While Minnedosa is home to an active kayak club and a growing number of wakeboarders, this will be the first time that dragonboats will race competitively on the lake. A few local teams, such as the Brandon Blaze and the Waves of Hope squads, practise here regularly, and that contributed to the notion of hosting a festival.

Submitted Colourful dragonboats will be the order of the day as Minnedosa hosts the Westman Dragonboat Associations festival this September.

Organizers have arranged to extend the campground season for an additional week to accommodate paddlers coming out for the event and are hopeful to see 20 teams. They have already been encouraged to see interest from teams across the province and beyond.

But its not just an event for seasoned pros.

The great thing about dragonboat is that anybody can do it, says festival co-chair Karen May. In Vancouver, there are teams of all abilities, including one squad for the blind. You just need to be willing to try it out.

Twenty paddlers are needed for a team; experienced steerspersons will be provided. The early bird registration deadlines for teams is July 15.

Proceeds from the festival are being donated to the Minnedosa Beach Enhancement committee to improve the amenities for children at the site as well as to local palliative care initiatives focused on care for people near the end of their life.

For more information, or to register, call 204-841-1802 e-mail MinnedosaDragonboatFestival@hotmail.com. More detailed event information has been posted to social media at Minnedosa Dragonboat Festival on Facebook.

Submitted And their off! Festival organizers are hoping for 20 teams of various levels of competition, from all over the province and beyond.

The Minnedosa & District Recreation Commission will also participating in the event and will host a free outdoor movie on the beach at the conclusion of the day of racing.

 Submitted
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Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup is hosting their ninth annual All Breeds Junior Event from July 29 to July 31 at the Beautiful Plains Complex in Neepawa.

The weekend will include cattle competitions and show, educational workshops, the opportunity to meet junior livestock producers and the selection for the Canadian Western Agribition Judging Team.

Interested young people up to the age of 25 as of Jan 1, 2016 are eligible to register, to show all breeds of cattle (purebred and commercial). Entries close July 10.

The Roundups goal is to prepare young entrepreneurs in the livestock industry, through this exciting showcase of youth, cattle and friendly competition. This event will educate, encourage, stimulate and unite participants in the business of agriculture and the beef industry.

It encompasses a variety of competitions and events to match all interests and skill levels of participants. Some of the events include team grooming, individual and team judging, team marketing, showmanship, marketing, sales talk, art, photography and scrapbooking, as well as cattle classes of all breeds.

The big cattle show finale is Sunday, July 31, at 1 p.m. and everyone is welcome.

The platinum sponsor for the 2016 Roundup is Enns Brothers Equipment.

Check out their Facebook page Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup.

 Submitted
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HIGH LEVEL, Alta.  Up to 140 people have been forced from their homes due to flooding in an indigenous community in northwestern Alberta.

Chief Joe Pastion of the Dene Tha First Nation says a state of emergency has been declared.

He says 120 to 140 people are being housed in the school in Chateh, one of three reserves that make up the First Nation.

Flooding is shown on the Dene Tha' First Nation in northern Alberta in this recent handout photo. Up to 140 people have been forced from their homes due to flooding on a First Nation in northwestern Alberta. Chief Joe Pastion of the Dene Tha' First Nation says the community has declared a state of emergency. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Dene Tha' First Nation *MANDATORY CREDIT*

Pastion says several days of heavy rain have caused Sousa Creek to overflow.

Theres about 20 to 30 houses flooded, not submerged. The approach to the homes, the roads, are washed out. You cant drive in for your safety, and the majority of those houses the power is out due to hazards. Our members will be losing a lot of their contents in their houses, Pastion said Thursday.

The chief said the First Nation is assessing the damage and determining what repairs need to be done.

Im grateful for the help we can get  we need to make sure what we ask for is essential.

Chateh has about 1,200 people and is about 90 kilometres west of High Level and 800 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

The rain has stopped but the forecast for next three days is for more rain, Pastion said. Thats not good.

The chief said the community has had experience with disasters. A fire in 2012 in Meander River forced 200 people out and destroyed dozens of homes.
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TORONTO  The work-life balance in European countries seems the stuff of dreams to many Canadians.

France has a 35-hour work week and recently gave employees the right to disconnect from email after they leave the office.

Sweden, meanwhile, offers workers a minimum five weeks paid vacation time.

Linda Duxbury poses for a photo as she tends to her garden at her home in Ottawa, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The work-life balance in European countries seems the stuff of dreams to many Canadians. France has a 35-hour work week and recently gave employees the right to disconnect from email after they leave the office. "Balance is not going to be an optional discussion point pretty soon," said Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

And many Scandinavian companies have implemented a system of flexible hours and working from home as management encourages employees to craft schedules that fit their personal needs.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau managed to sneak a day off during a recent work trip abroad to celebrate his wedding anniversary, that kind of flexibility isnt afforded to most working Canadians despite work-life balance being a hot topic for years.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has found that average the Canadian works 1,704 hours annually, more than in Germany and Australia although less than those apparently tireless workers in the United States.

But as younger generations in Canada move into the workforce and demand more scheduling flexibility and clearer divisions between the office and home, companies will have to do more than just talk the talk and actually implement concrete policies to attract and keep talented workers, says one researcher whos studied the issue here for more than 20 years.

Balance is not going to be an optional discussion point pretty soon, said Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton Universitys Sprott School of Business.

To keep younger talent, youre going to have to deliver on it.

Employees crave a supportive work culture that enables a work-life balance, said Lidia Pawlikowski, a senior consultant of health and wellness at Morneau Shepell, a human resources consulting company founded by the father of Canadas current finance minister, Bill Morneau.

Workers want to take guilt-free lunch breaks, squeeze a workout into their day and not remain glued to their smartphones after hours, she said.

They seek work arrangements that allow them to get their work done, said Pawlikowski, but offer adequate time off and flexibility to care for any children or ailing elderly relatives in their lives.

That type of workplace culture is often discussed but rarely achieved, said Duxbury, who has co-authored two national surveys on work-life balance and is working on a third.

All of the indicators are going the wrong way, she said.

Her 2012 study surveyed more than 25,000 full-time Canadian employees and discovered that employees perception of work flexibility and management support remained relatively unchanged since her 2001 findings. In 2012, 27 per cent of respondents said they believed they had high flexibility, while 45 per cent acknowledged high managerial support.

But she says the data for her latest study, expected to be released in several months, is likely to show those numbers have dropped.

Many firms have no problem talking about balance, but are still too focused on evaluating employee productivity through hours worked, in-office presence and how tethered they are to their smartphones outside the office, she said.

Some companies are also imitating Silicon Valley firms and offering perks like catered meals and dry-cleaning services  but those types of initiatives actually erode work-life balance, Duxbury said.

Their aim is to help people work more, not less, added Gerry Ledford, a senior research scientist at the University of South Carolinas Center for Effective Organizations, referring to those kinds of in-office perks.

Employers offer them so that their employees never need to leave the workplace and can work as close to 24/7 as theyre willing, he said.

In the future, Duxbury said, companies that are failing to implement true work-life balance strategies will find themselves struggling to attract and retain talented workers.

Younger Canadians entering the labour force fear the type of workplace culture their parents endured and are demanding more flexibility from employers, she said. Theyll also be more likely to grapple with the double whammy of not only raising children, but caring for their aging parents as the baby boomer demographic grows older.

And before long, Canada will be dealing with a shortage of workers, she said. By 2020, for example, there wont be enough qualified people to fill more than 218,000 new information and communication technology jobs in Canada, according to the Information and Communications Technology Council.

I think thats when balance is finally going to start, Duxbury said. Theyre going to start taking this issue seriously.



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TORONTO  Six protesters supporting the remote Grassy Narrows First Nation were arrested by Toronto police Thursday after they dumped a mysterious liquid outside the front doors of the Ontario legislature.

The protesters were charged with mischief after they unloaded four barrels with skull and crossbones warnings and the words mercury kills at the legislature in the morning.

The six members of FreeGrassy.net, wearing protective white coveralls and surgical masks, spilled one of the barrels, dumping a thick grey substance that oozed out over the broad front driveway.

Security officials blocked the legislatures main doors and cleared the vast south lawn of tourists while hazardous materials crews tried to determine what the substance was.

By late afternoon, legislative security staff said officials concluded the substance was determined not to be harmful, but did not say exactly what it was.

Protest spokesman Syed Hussan refused to identify the chemical spill on the legislatures doorstep.

It definitely looks a lot like mercury, but I cant tell you, said Hussan. If this was in Grassy Narrows, the government would take 40 years to identify it and clean it up.

Grassy Narrows, which is near the Manitoba border and north of Kenora, has suffered from mercury poisoning since the Dryden Chemical Co. dumped 9,000 kilograms of it into the Wabigoon and English River systems during the 1960s.

The government closed the local fishery that formed the basis of the Grassy Narrows economy in the 1970s, but some residents ignored the order to stop eating the fish.

The mercury contamination is blamed for many illnesses and some deaths in the community.

Hussan said the protesters wanted people in downtown Toronto to feel the worry that Grassy Narrows residents have lived with for decades.

Were absolutely trying to bring a slight amount of the fear that the people of Grassy Narrows face every day into this community to show the injustice, and to say that just like this (spill) will be cleaned, we want the river system to be cleaned, too, he said.

Its not about a stunt.

Legislative security staff had called in Toronto police and firefighters to help deal with the protest and try to determine exactly what was dumped, but authorities did not immediately treat it as a highly toxic substance that would require evacuations.

The response to the spilled substance at Queens Park included the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive Team as well as a Hazardous Materials Team.

A group of Grassy Narrows teens were ejected from the legislature three weeks ago for wearing T-shirts that said water is sacred. Wearing T-shirts with slogans is considered a protest, which is not allowed inside the legislature.

Two Ontario cabinet ministers are scheduled to visit Grassy Narrows on Monday to talk with community leaders about various reports on the mercury contamination and find out what should be done to clean it up.

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A City of Brandon resolution that calls on the Association of Manitoba Municipalities to lobby the province to protect banks against losses due to fraud involving benefit cheques such as income assistance will be reviewed by the associations board of directors.

Coun. Lonnie Patterson (South Centre) helped craft the resolution.

She said for some people living in poverty, who dont have a bank account, it is difficult to get a financial institution to cash a provincial cheque. That forces some people to use other businesses which charge higher fees.

The resolution asks the province to provide protection to banks against fraud.

Patterson said there is similar programs in Alberta and British Columbia.

The resolution was one of three to be designated a Category 3. The other two were the controversial Metis-status hunting resolution brought forward by the RM of Pipestone and a Stretcher service resolution brought forward by Carberry.

Carberrys resolution asked AMM to lobby the province to support and develop a rural stretcher services that would handle low-priority transfers on a 24-hour, seven-day basis.

Eight resolutions were designated Category 1 and will be debated at the AMM Convention in November.

Two Borders Municipality put forth a resolution to lobby the province to fund projects to remove flood-related debris in impacted waterways. Two Borders was devastated by the recent flooding.

The Municipality of Oakland-Wawanesa asked the province to amend The Municipal Act for a more comprehensive process for addressing continuous code of conduct breaches by a council member. The municipality has undergone a number of challenges through the amalgamation process, requiring the Department of Indigenous and Municipal Relations to intervene.

 The Brandon Sun
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This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite multiple phone calls and emails to Statistics Canada, the residents of an entire 24-unit apartment complex have still not received their census forms.

Sheila Powell, a resident of the apartments at 1120 19th St., is upset with the lack of response, and what she says seems to be bald-faced lies just to get her off the phone.

Its just so frustrating that nobody cares, and nobody wants to do anything  they just want to pass the buck, Powell said.

When her calls werent getting anywhere, Powell reached out to Conservative Brandon-Souris MP Larry Maguire.

She stressed that Maguires office has been very helpful, calling and sending emails to census officials on her behalf  but to no avail.

In a response via email, Powell said she was told Statistics Canada would send the forms in May.

When it didnt come, a subsequent email stated it would come by June 10. They are still waiting.

She decided to call the province, although she was promptly told that they had nothing to do with the census.

I just want to lodge a complaint. I thought (the province) might be interested, seeing how this is how (they) get (their) money, Powell said, referring to her conversation with the provincial finance department. Some of the citizens of Manitoba never got the census, so were not being counted  How many others were missed?

Maguires office confirmed they received Powells complaint and relayed the information to Statistics Canada.

They followed up again this week, and were told Statistics Canada would ensure the building gets the forms.

Nadine Lacroix, media relations manager with Statistics Canada, responded to The Brandon Suns inquiry via email.

She stated their records show 1120 19th St. is listed as Brandon Community Options and is considered a collective dwelling and not an apartment building.

It appears the records are incorrect, as the owner of the apartment complex, Trevor Powell, said the building is not associated with Brandon Community Options  and to his knowledge, never has been. Its a regular apartment building with 24 suites.

Some of the other tenants have actually phoned trying to get a census and I dont think any of them ever did. It seems odd, he said.

According to Statistics Canada, to reduce the burden on Canadians, the agency works with staff in collective establishments such as hospitals, retirement homes, shelters, etc. to collect as much information as possible from the administrative records of institutions and residences.

The information in these records is accurate and reliable. If the information required is not available in the administrative records, Statistics Canada interviews residents to collect their census information, Lacroix stated.

Sheila received a phone call from Statistics Canada this week, saying the apartments census was complete, after a representative went to the office on site and received information.

The problem is, theres no office on site, and Sheilas brother owns the place.

No one has approached him about the census  at all, she said.

It just bothers me in our democratic society, were supposed to all be counted. Its a way of evening out the money process from the federal government to each province. So if you dont get it and cant be counted  even if Im just one person  youre not counted, and I dont think its right because the census is supposed to go out to all Canadian citizens.

The Brandon Sun pointed out the incorrect information about the apartment address to Statistics Canada. Spokesperson Lacroix said they will follow up with their field operations staff.

Statistics Canada conducts a census every five years. This years census was sent out to Canadians in May. A large ad campaign was launched to remind people that filling out the census is the law.

May 10 was the official census day  the deadline for people to fill out their questionnaire. However, it appears an extension has been given for those who have not responded, or have not received a census.

We have already received 13 million census questionnaires, Lacroix stated via email.

Our field staff is now following up with dwellings who have not responded. There are several reasons why this happens e.g., vacant, move, out of the country, didnt see the questionnaire, etc.

Statistics Canada has approximately 20,000 enumerators following up collection and will continue for a few more weeks.

Statistics Canada is aiming for a minimum response rate 98 per cent for all communities.

 jaustin@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @jillianaustin
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This article was published 17/06/2016 (2322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Crown attorney has asked that a man who burst into a First Nation gaming centre with a gun and fired a shot toward an employee receive six years in prison.

Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup pointed to a number of on-reserve gaming centre robberies in recent years and the need for a sentence that would deter other potential robbers.

Gaming centres have large amounts of cash and little security, he said.

They might as well have a red and white bulls-eye painted on them, Lonstrup said in Brandon provincial court.

Sentencing began on Thursday for William Eagle, 22, whod previously pleaded guilty to robbery with a firearm and disguise with intent to commit crime.

Lonstrup described how Eagle and two other suspects entered the gaming centre at the Canupawakpa Dakota First Nation shortly after midnight on June 17, 2014.

In court, Lonstrup played a video that showed Eagle following the two other suspects into the VLT room while holding a shotgun which he then pointed at the unarmed security guard.

In response, the guard put up his hands and fled out of another door and down a hallway. Eagle followed, all the while pointing the gun at the guard, then fired a shot toward the retreating man.

Eagle had told the guard not to move, or hed be shot. The guard later shared what hed thought at that moment.

He heard the discharge  the first thing that went through his head was that he knew he was working and supporting his family. He didnt know who would do that if he was gone, Lonstrup said.

However, Eagle intentionally shot toward the floor near the guard, which is backed up by the fact that wadding and pellets were found on the carpet.

A woman had also fled out through the door prior to the guard.

Meanwhile, Lonstrup said, the two other suspects  one armed with a knife  went to the cashier office where they grabbed $2,480 cash, cigarettes and an envelope.

The cash and envelope were hidden in a spot known only to employees, highlighting the fact that Eagle was a former gaming centre employee with inside knowledge.

All three suspects had worn disguises, and blue rubber medical gloves to presumably avoid leaving fingerprints. But in the end, it was the gloves that led to the arrest of Eagle and a co-accused.

A person doing yard work found the discarded gloves months later, and the DNA of Eagle and another suspect were lifted from them.

Eagle has sent 316 days in remand, and Lonstrup agreed that 474 days credit (1.5 to one) could be deducted from the six years in prison he proposed.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison asked that the minimum four-year sentence be imposed, minus remand time, for his client, who has no prior criminal record.

Judge John Combs has reserved his decision and plans to deliver it next Thursday.

Cassidy Eagle is charged with robbery with a firearm, wearing a disguise to commit crime and carrying a weapon for a dangerous purpose. He has a court date on Friday.

 ihitchen@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @IanHitchen
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CFB SHILO  After three years as commanding officer of the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, Lt.-Col. Stewart Taylor passed the reins to a new leader during a ceremony at CFB Shilo on Wednesday.

Family members, soldiers and senior officers attended the parade designating Lt.-Col. Stephen Haire as the new CO of the Canadian militarys oldest regiment.

Haire comes to Shilo from his most recent position as the chief of staff with the Canadian Forces College in Toronto and said he is most looking forward to working with soldiers again.

Bruce Bumstead/The Brandon Sun Lt.-Col. Stephen Haire, right, signs the command papers with reviewing officer Brig.-Gen. Trevor Cadieu, middle, and outgoing commander Lt.-Col. Stewart Taylor during Wednesdays change of command ceremony for the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery at CFB Shilo.

We had some soldiers, but nothing to this magnitude, Haire said of the roughly 500 1RCHA troops he will be in charge of for the next two years.

The new CO has a broad background and has served as an artillery officer at CFB Petawawa in Ontario and CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick. Haire has also gone on operational tours in Bosnia, Haiti and Afghanistan, and he said those experiences will help inform how he runs the regiment.

Afghanistan taught us so much about how to move and survive on the battlefield  so well make sure that those lessons are incorporated into our training as we move forward, he said.

Haire is taking over while 1RCHA is in the high readiness phase of the armys managed readiness cycle  which translates into a lot of artillery training exercises and administration work.

Our job is to wait and, when theres a mission, be ready to go, he said. The year after that, we have to support the other people who are going out the door on operations.

Haire is originally from Mount Pearl, N.L., and this tour is his second time in Manitoba.

Bruce Bumstead/Brandon Sun Haire walks past the reviewing stand during Wednesdays change of command ceremony for 1RCHA at CFB Shilo.

My first time here was on an exercise in May of 2004 and woke up in the field to about eight inches of snow  so I know the weather in Manitoba can be a little bit different, he said.

During his parade address, Taylor lauded the 1RCHA for its accomplishments during his tenure  including a deployment to Afghanistan and disaster relief missions in various locations across Canada.

It has been a tremendous honour and privileged to have soldiered with you  youve taught me so much that Ive become a better version of myself, Taylor said. CFB Shilo has a real sense of community and camaraderie  one which brings out the true spirit of the slogan Friendly Manitoba.

The change of command ceremony followed all the usual rhythms until the outgoing CO stood for his final regimental salute and The Royal Canadian Artillery Band broke into an instrumental version of rapper Flo Ridas song My House.

Taylor is moving on to a position with the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff Group in Ottawa.

Bruce Bumstead/Brandon Sun Taylor leads his troops during Wednesdays ceremony.

 ewasney@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @evawasney
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Trican Well Service abruptly suspended operations at its Brandon shop on Wednesday, forcing roughly 40 employees to look for work elsewhere.

The international oil services company opened its Brandon location in January 2012 and moved into its current 23,000-square-foot building on Limestone Road in September 2013.

Rob Cox, Tricans vice-president, Canadian region, broke the news to the employees at

8 a.m. on Wednesday, and the shop shuttered its doors later in the day.

Id have to ask what the value in giving more notice is. When you tell somebody Two weeks from now youre not going to have a job, where is the focus? he said.

Cox wouldnt say when the decision to close the Brandon shop was made.

Weve been trying to justify keeping the base open for some time, and we finally made the decision to close it down, he said.

Some of the employees are being offered transfers to other Trican bases and some are being laid off. However, its unclear how many employees will be transferred.

The closure is due to faltering oil prices and a drop in demand for the pumping services that Trican specializes in, according to Cox. The goal is to reopen the Brandon location down the road.

We anticipate being able to start up operations there again in two to three years as oil prices come back and client spending increases, Cox said. But its far enough off in the future that we couldnt stay open for the time being.

The company recently closed three other bases in Alberta.

 ewasney@brandonsun.com, with files from Charles Tweed

 Twitter: @evawasney
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OTTAWA  The Senate says that seven expense claims totalling $16,995 which came up during Sen. Mike Duffys criminal trial werent eligible under the upper chambers spending rules. Here are the details of the seven claims the Senate wants Duffy to repay:

1) Duffy paid $505.18 between November 2011 and March 2012 for a mobile data plan for a temporary worker in his office, Diane Scharf. The money came out of a consulting contract Duffy signed with a former acquaintance. Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt wrote in his ruling that the spending didnt add any new net cost to the Senate because the money had already been allocated under the consulting contract. He said Scharfs BlackBerry was a job-related expense and was an appropriate expenditure.

2) Duffy paid $8 for photos of his son and daughter, but testified at trial that billing the cost to the Senate was unintentional. The money came out of a consulting contract Duffy signed with a former acquaintance.

3) Duffy paid $500 to a volunteer intern in his office, Ashley Cain, who did about 72 hours of work over a six-week period in 2010. Duffy testified that he believed it was within Senate rules to pay volunteers, and the money was an honorarium for her work. The money came out of a consulting contract Duffy signed with a former acquaintance. Vaillancourt said there was no criminal intent when Cain was paid a modest stipend and amounted to an honest mistake on the part of Sen. Duffy.

4) Duffy paid $300 to Jacqueline Lambert for makeup work as part of a 2010 appearance with then-prime minister Stephen Harper as part of the G8/G20 meeting. It was a last-second request when Harpers office neglected to organize makeup necessary for a television appearance. The money came out of a consulting contract Duffy signed with a former acquaintance. In his ruling, Vaillancourt said the debate over whether the claim was appropriate was best dealt in a non-criminal environment.

5) Duffy paid $10,000 to his one-time personal trainer, Mike Croskery, as part of what he said was research to create a health promotion and fitness program tailored for seniors. The money came out of a consulting contract Duffy signed with a former acquaintance. Vaillancourt said Croskery was a consultant to Duffy, not a personal trainer, but that it would have been preferable to have a formal contract laying out the new relationship between the two.

6) Duffy paid Nils Ling $2,500 for a speech delivered at the 75th anniversary for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Duffy, who was on the Senates agriculture committee at the time of the speech, called it a foundational speech, which Vaillancourt said made it an appropriate expense for Senate resources. Duffy was paid $10,000 to deliver the speech; Vaillancourt said Senate funds shouldnt be used for personal gain, but that Duffy didnt have any criminal intent when he paid for the speech.

7) Duffy charged the Senate $3,142.48 for travel to Ottawa for a speech to the Building Owners and Managers Association of Ottawa. He was paid a $10,000 speakers fee. Vaillancourt said the speech was a personal matter for Duffy, but wasnt convinced the expenses contained any criminality. He also said Duffy conducted enough Senate business during the trip to warrant reimbursement.
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MONTREAL  After months of negotiations, Bombardier Inc. has reached a definitive agreement with the Quebec government on a US$1-billion investment in the CSeries passenger jet program.

The two sides have been working out details of the agreement since the plan was originally announced in October.

The Montreal-based company (TSX:BBD.B) is slated to receive the money in two instalments of US$500 million, the first June 30 and the second Sept. 1.

Bombardier's CSeries commercial jet takes off on its first flight in Montreal on Sept. 16, 2013. Bombardier Inc. and the Quebec government have reached a definitive agreement for the province to invest US$1 billion towards the CSeries passenger jet program.The two sides have been working out details of the agreement since the plan was originally announced in October. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Once the Quebec governments investment is complete, it will own 49.5 per cent of a new limited partnership with all the assets, liabilities and obligations of the CSeries aircraft program, including larger versions of the plane beyond the CS100 and CS300 should they be developed.

Bombardier CEO Alain Bellemare said the investment demonstrates the provincial governments confidence in the companys largest aircraft.

Their investment will accelerate the momentum weve created, strengthen customer confidence in the aircraft and provide Bombardier with the financial flexibility needed to compete and win, he said in a statement.

Premier Philippe Couillard has said Quebecs intervention in the CSeries was key to securing orders from Air Canada and Delta Air Lines.

Air Canada said Thursday that it continues to work on finalizing a contract with the manufacturer for up to 75 CSeries planes after the Senate passed amendments giving it more flexibility on conducting heavy maintenance work in Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario.

An Air Canada executive threatened in testimony before a Senate committee to walk away from its CSeries order and not create so-called centres of excellence in Manitoba and Quebec if it wasnt given relief from obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the federal government is continuing to negotiate potential financial support for Bombardier, which is seeking $1 billion from Ottawa.

We believe that long-term (the aerospace sector) is one of the more innovative places in the economy, so in that regard, having a leading company like Bombardier is important and were engaging with them to think about how we can ensure that the sector remains successful, he told reporters after speaking in Toronto to the Economic Club of Canada.

Morneau wouldnt discuss stumbling blocks, but Ottawa has reportedly pushed Bombardier to change its voting structure, something the founding family that controls the company through multiple voting shares insists it has no intention of doing.

The CSeries aircraft is two years behind schedule and has incurred about US$2 billion in cost overruns. The first plane is slated to be handed over to Swiss Airlines next week and enter into service July 15.

Quebec Transport Minister Jacques Daoust said the partnership with Bombardier will ensure the employment of up to 2,500 workers along with preserving the CSeries headquarters, assembly, manufacturing and research activities in Quebec for at least 20 years.

So this is a win-win relationship that will benefit all Quebecers and the entire aviation sector, he said in a news release.

The new entity will be headed by Fred Cromer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. The board will contain three Bombardier nominees  former Quebec premier Daniel Johnson, who will be chairman, Bellemare and chief financial officer John Di Bert. Quebec will nominate two members.

Under the revised deal, Quebec will receive warrants to purchase up to 100 million Bombardier Class B shares, or about 4.26 per cent of its total outstanding shares. Thats half as many at the same price of $2.21 per share that was outlined in the preliminary deal.

Dominique Anglade, Quebecs economy, science and innovation minister, said the new deal removes a price cap that allows the government to obtain fair market value when it eventually sells the shares.

(It) allows us to obtain the real price when the governments shares are eventually sold in five or seven years or whenever, she told reporters.

Bombardier is still able to buy out Quebecs investment, although details were not disclosed.

Moodys Investors Service upgraded Bombardiers outlook to stable, saying it has enough cash to manage through 2018.

Bombardier has made important progress over the last six months, it said in a report, adding that any federal would help extend the companys reserve fund.
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BOWMANVILLE, Ont.  An Ontario zoo that recently came under fire after animal cruelty charges were laid against its owner says it will close its doors this fall.

The Bowmanville Zoo  famous for providing animals for Hollywood movies  says attendance is down catastrophically and that there simply isnt enough money to run the facility east of Toronto.

Zoo spokesman Angus Carroll blamed the drop in attendance on allegations by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that led to the charges against owner Michael Hackenberger after video surfaced that appeared to show him hitting a tiger named Uno with a whip during a training session.

Jonas the Bengal tiger is shown in an undated photo from the Bowmanville Zoo, released on June 18, 2010. An Ontario zoo that recently came under fire after animal cruelty charges were laid against its owner says it will close its doors this fall. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Bowmanville Zoo

We feel this is a tragic example of being tried in the public court before being tried in the real court, an emotional Carroll told reporters at the zoo on Thursday.

PETA released the footage in December after sending a member undercover to work at the zoo. The organization released the footage publicly, and the story made headlines worldwide.

The untrue allegations made by PETA in regards to a tiger incident have created a climate in which the zoo can no longer operate, Carroll wrote in a statement. People are staying away because they believe PETAs allegations.

In April, the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals charged Hackenberger with four counts of causing an animal distress and one of failing to comply with the prescribed standards of animal care, all under the authority of the provincial OSPCA Act.

Hackenberger has denied the allegations and is expected to fight the charges. Carroll said the zoo, which was established in 1919 and claims to be the oldest private zoo in North America, supports Hackenberger and believes he is innocent.

Meanwhile, PETA is celebrating news of the zoos demise.

Its closing around a hundred years too late for the hundreds of animals that suffered there, said PETA spokeswoman Brittany Peet.

Any time a zoo closes its doors is time for celebration. None of these people should be in the animal business. Its time for them all to find other jobs and find better homes for these animals.

PETA previously told The Canadian Press the organization began looking into Hackenberger after he was seen on live television in Toronto last summer angrily cursing an unco-operative baboon that resisted riding a miniature horse.

The zoo said it is hopeful it can place all of the animals elsewhere, but expects the process to take up to a year.

It isnt a one-day affair to close down a zoo and dozens of employees will lose their jobs, Carroll said.

Many of the Bowmanville Zoos animals appeared in a variety of Hollywood movies. One of the zoos tigers, Jonas, is famous for his part in the movie adaptation of Life of Pi. And many of its animals, including tigers, can be rented out for events or private encounters, according to the zoos website.

Hackenberger is to make his next court appearance later this summer.

He faces a maximum fine of $60,000, two years in jail and a lifetime ban from owning animals if convicted.
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CALGARY  Canadas oil producers have once again lowered their long-term production estimates as low oil prices take a toll on oilsands growth.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says it now estimates Canada will produce 4.9 million barrels per day by 2030  a 28 per cent increase from last years production of 3.8 million barrels per day, but down 400,000 barrels a day from last years forecast.

Its the third year in a row that CAPP has revised its outlook downward.

CAPP  the oil and gas industrys main lobby group  says Alberta oilsands are the biggest cause of the lowered outlook even as they continue to drive Canadas production growth.

The association expects oilsands production to total 3.7 million barrels per day by 2030, up 68 per cent from 2015.

Thats 300,000 barrels lower than last years 2030 oilsands forecast, and 1.5 million barrels lower than what it predicted in 2013.

Since 2013, the oilsands have seen a number of high-profile projects shelved as companies cut back spending on high-cost projects.

CAPP estimates that since its peak in 2014, capital spending in Canadas oil and gas industry has dropped $50 billion with an expected $31 billion in spending this year.

Employee ranks have dropped along with the lower spending, with direct and indirect job losses down 110,000 from the 550,000 peak in 2014, CAPP estimates.

Despite the reduced growth and spending, CAPP chief executive Tim McMillan says Canadas energy industry still needs more pipelines since the infrastructure is already running near full capacity.

He said the CAPP forecast shows the need for more capacity as the oilsands are set to continue to grow, and is optimistic that the necessary pipelines will be approved.

We have seen a substantial growth in our pipeline capacity over the last decade and theres an expectation that we will continue to see that growth keeping up, said McMillan.

He said the National Energy Boards approval of the proposed near-tripling of capacity of the TransMountain pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby, B.C., shows progress continues to be made.

Having the NEB now approve Kinder Morgan I think is a very important step forward, probably one of the most important in that decision-making process. So I think theres reason to be hopeful at this point, said McMillan.

The pipeline debate has become highly polarized in recent years, with opposition on a number of fronts from environmental groups, First Nations communities and landowners.

Greenpeace campaigner Keith Stewart said in an email that the government should encourage a transition to green energy, rather than an expanded oilsands.

I can understand why oil companies want Canadians to believe our energy future is tied to what they are selling, but our governments should acknowledge that there is no market for this additional high carbon oil in a world that is acting on climate change, said Stewart.



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OTTAWA  A group of female human rights activists from Mexico is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to show his true feminist credentials and challenge their countrys president on its human rights record.

Trudeau is scheduled to host Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a state visit next week before the North American leaders summit, which will also include U.S. President Barack Obama.

The so-called three amigos will focus on strengthening continental economic co-operation and will likely issue a statement that reinforces their shared commitment to fight climate change.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laughs as he speaks with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a session on carbon pricing at the United Nations climate change summit in Le Bourget, France on November 30, 2015. A group of female human rights activists from Mexico is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to show his true feminist credentials and challenge their country's president on its human rights record.Trudeau will host Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a state visit next week before the North American leaders' summit that will also include U.S. President Barack Obama. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

But four formidable Mexican women  all members of the Nobel Womens Initiative  are calling on Trudeau to push Pena Nieto publicly on the carnage and violence that has gripped Mexico since the start of its war on drug cartels a decade ago, especially its effect on women.

The internationally recognized activists, representing torture victims, missing people and other victims of abuse by their countrys security services, were in Ottawa this week for talks with the government with the assistance of Amnesty International.

In a letter to Trudeau, Amnesty asks him to place human rights issues at the forefront of his discussion with his Mexican counterpart, citing the disappearances of 27,000 Mexicans since the country embarked on its bloody war against drug cartels in 2006.

Trudeau and Pena Nieto struck up an easy friendship when they met last fall at a pair of international summits in Turkey and the Philippines  their photos were jointly splashed across the front page of a Manila newspaper that declared them APEC hotties.

This is the propaganda campaign of Mexico. Its fabulous. Theyre really very, very good. I dont know who could be a friend of Pena Nieto, said Marta Sanchez, the co-ordinator of an organization thats trying to bring justice to the families of 120,000 migrant workers who disappeared between 2006 and 2015.

Trudeau can affect change in Mexico, she said, by not letting (Pena Nieto) get away with it, saying, Hey, I know whats going on down there and Im concerned.'

Sanchez and her three colleagues point to numerous reports by organizations such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others. They also cite a March 2015 report by the UN special rapporteur on torture.

Juan Mendez wrote that torture of detained people in Mexico was widespread and occurred in a context of impunity, the aim usually being to inflict punishment or to extract confessions or information. He blamed police, all jurisdictions of the armed forces as well as some doctors, defence lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

Brenda Rangel is the co-founder of an organization that searches for the loved ones of disappeared Mexicans who have gone missing in the last decade, including her brother ,who hasnt been seen since 2009.

Since then, she said shes been threatened with death, vivisection and having her eyes burned with a welding torch.

This is something that the government doesnt like, Rangel said through a translator. They dont like people who are trying to make the truth visible or who, in their eyes, would throw dirt in Mexicos beautiful face.

The UN report linked the increase in violence to the escalation in the war on drug traffickers that former Mexican president Felipe Calderon began in 2006. Since then, annual complaints of torture and ill-treatment by authorities topped 2,100 in 2012, after an average of about 320 a year before 2007.

The UN report also expressed particular concern about sexual violence against female detainees, including forced nudity and repeated rape by multiple individuals.

When Trudeau and Obama meet their Mexican counterpart next week, they need to open their eyes and not trust what Pena Nieto says about the rights situation in Mexico, said Claudia Medina, the founder of Mexicos Breaking the Silence campaign, which highlights violence against women by her countrys security forces.

Medina became an activist after her 36-hour arrest in 2012, when she was subjected to electric shocks, strangulation and sexual torture to force her to confess to organized crime links. Charges against her were dropped earlier this year.

Pilar Aresse, of Mexicos Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre, said Mexican activists need to go beyond their countrys borders to find justice, because it cant be found at home.

Our own lives may be at risk and we do not trust our Mexican authorities.

Alex Neve, head of Amnesty International Canada, said he wants Trudeau to raise human rights issues with Pena Nieto during their bilateral meetings, and in talks with Obama, so they arent pushed to the side.

They need to be right at the heart of the exchanges that happen between our two governments, including at his (Trudeaus) level.

Neve also called on the federal government to lift its visa on Mexican travellers, calling it a barrier to Mexicans seeking sanctuary from abusive situations.

Sources have told The Canadian Press that the government, which has already committed to lifting the visa requirement, intends to announce its plans for keeping that promise when Pena Nieto is in town next week.

Canadian officials are pushing to have the plans linked to the implementation of a new electronic travel authorization system that was supposed to have been in place by March of this year but has been delayed.

They have concerns about the changes resulting in a spike in asylum claims; among the options being negotiated with the Mexicans is the ability to re-impose the visa requirement if the number of claims gets too high.
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TORONTO  For Canadians serving time in American prisons, the odds of being allowed to transfer to Canada are akin to winning a lottery, even with a Liberal government that has promised to do more for those detained abroad.

Extensive data obtained by The Canadian Press from several sources  including Global Affairs Canada, Correctional Service Canada, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Dept. of Justice  show most Canadians incarcerated south of the border are held in state facilities.

In all, 964 Canadians were imprisoned in the U.S. as of May 18, 2016  by far the biggest proportion of Canadians held in foreign prisons. Of those, 420 were held in state facilities and 394 in federal facilities.

However, states, which are generally responsible for prosecuting violent crime, are notoriously reluctant to let them transfer to serve out their sentences in Canada, the data show.

Under the International Transfer of Offenders Act, prisoner transfers from the U.S. to Canada require both state and federal approval. Between 1978 when the deal was negotiated and 2014, U.S. federal authorities allowed 1,256 Canadians to return to Canada.

The states, however, allowed just 161 Canadians to transfer. Florida, for example, which holds the most Canadians among states, allowed just four of them to leave between 2000 and 2010.

Theres a great skepticism on the part of the states that sending someone who has offended against their state laws to a foreign country to serve their sentence is a good idea, says Sylvia Royce, the former head of the prisoner transfer program in the U.S. and now a lawyer in Washington, D.C.

Theyre just not in that mindset.

Many Americans see the Canadian system as too soft, given that U.S. criminal justice tends to fall on the far right side of the spectrum compared to countries such as Canada, where sentences are so much more relaxed and humane, Royce said.

Overall, the U.S. turns down more than half of Canadian transfer requests. In the past decade, American authorities approved 803 transfer applications  759 federal and 44 state. They denied 867 applications  639 federal and 228 state.

Other data show Ottawa approved 253 transfers from Canadian offenders over the past five years only to have 17 of those denied by American authorities. However, the proportion of state denials is likely much higher given that applications may not get as far as receiving Canadas OK without prior state-side approval.

Among states, Florida holds the most Canadians, 97, in its federal and state prisons, while Texas at 90 and Pennsylvania at 85 round out the top three. Global Affairs Canada refused to break out the numbers by state and federal prisons, citing unspecified privacy concerns.

One such case is that of William (Russ) Davies, of Richmond Hill, Ont., who was sentenced to life in Daytona Beach, Fla., for a 1986 murder when he was 18 years old. Canada has previously agreed to take him back. Florida, without giving reasons, has consistently refused to let him go.

Davies, now 48, has a new application in process  he filed it two years ago  but theres been no indication this one will be successful.

In an interview, Joseph Daou, the head of Canadas transfer program, said Canada has to respect American jurisdiction when it comes to transfers.

These decisions are discretionary, Daou says. Its on a case-by-case scenario.

Nevertheless, Daou said the system was working very well.

Rachel Smith, who runs the private International Transfer Services in Laguna, Calif., said states often look to see how Canada will deal with an offender before making a transfer decision.

I think theyre stickier because they just want people to serve their sentence, Smith said. Theyre just opposed to people transferring.
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OTTAWA  The interminable spectre of the Mike Duffy spending scandal reared its ugly head yet again Thursday as the Senate found itself once more locked in a battle with the controversial senator over dubious expenses.

This time, however, the expenses in question were from claims well-canvassed during Duffys criminal trial, which ended earlier this year in his sensational acquittal on 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.

In that acquittal, Ontario Court Judge Charles Vaillancourt excoriated the Senate for spending rules that lacked clarity and oversight, allowing senators to claim expenses for anything related to what they deemed Senate business.

The Senate committee that polices spending has asked Duffy to repay seven of his claims totalling $16,955, despite last Aprils court decision.

It marks the first time since late March that a senator has been asked to reimburse questionable spending  an order Duffy is fighting and could soon be entitled to take up with a special arbitrator, former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie.

The arbitration process was originally set up to handle disputes arising from a federal audit of Senate spending  a review that missed Duffy initially, because he was under RCMP investigation and facing criminal charges.

Duffy has been subject to an audit once before on Senate orders, by auditing firm Deloitte. That 2013 audit looked only at his housing expenses and ended with a Senate committee ordering Duffy to repay $90,000, which he did after then-prime minister Stephen Harpers chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave him the cash in order to take away a potential political headache for the Conservative government.

Some senators on the committee tasked with oversight of Senate spending wanted auditor general Michael Ferguson to come back and review more of Duffys spending, but the majority of committee members opted against rekindling the controversy.

But details that emerged during Duffys criminal trial led Senate administrators to take another look at his spending, with the head of Senate finance alerting the Senates internal economy committee to the questionable claims.

In a June 8 letter, the clerk of the Senates internal economy committee cited new information that had surfaced in the public domain as the reason for the Senate taking another look at the eligibility of seven expense claims, which range from $10,000 for a personal trainer to $8 for personal photos.

The letter gave Duffy 10 days to provide observations or information that could establish the eligibility of the expenses  Senate lingo for requiring Duffy to prove the spending was legitimate.

Duffys lawyer Donald Bayne says his client has been fully exonerated on the seven expenses in question, calling the Senates persistence a further compounding of injustice upon injustice (that) should be stopped.

In acquitting Duffy, Vaillancourt said the senators actions werent criminal, even if they raised eyebrows. The Crown later said it would not appeal the verdict.

That judgment, in addition to finding Sen. Duffy not guilty of any criminal misconduct, makes definitive findings of fact in relation to each of the 7 expense times, factual findings by a court of law that cannot be attacked collaterally, Bayne wrote in his response.

The investigation dented Duffys reputation and the Senates decision to suspend him without pay for two years delivered him a net loss of $155,867, Bayne continued. Seeking $8 for personal photos now is unseemly in the extreme and smacks of petty vindictiveness, he added.

A letter from Duffys office accused the committee of refusing to accept the courts judgment and describes the Senates actions as a collateral attack on Vaillancourt.

In a statement, the heads of the internal economy committee said Senate finance officials went over Vaillancourts ruling and felt some of the claims identified were ineligible. The statement said the Senate will review Duffys submission before deciding whether he should pay.

If the Senate adninistration decides the expenses werent allowed under spending rules, Duffy could opt for an arbitration hearing with Binnie. Beyond that, its possible the Senate could take Duffy to court to recoup any funds it feels he should pay, as it is doing with seven former senators named in the auditor generals report.
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OTTAWA  The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal from an Alberta man who was convicted of sexual assault after police ordered him to swab his own genitals for evidence of the victims DNA.

Ali Hassan Saeed was arrested and charged in 2011 after a complaint from a 15-year-old.

While he was in custody, police had him swab his penis for DNA and matched it to the victim.

The trial judge ruled the request an illegal search, but said the results were admissible because the police did not act in bad faith and society has a high interest in seeing justice in cases of sexual assault.

Saeed was convicted of sexual assault causing bodily harm and unlawful touching for a sexual purpose and the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.

The Supreme Court in its judgment, said the evidence was properly admitted, leaving the verdict intact.

Writing for the majority, Justice Michael Moldaver said the power of search upon arrest has a long pedigree and is an invaluable investigative tool.

He said the swab did constitute a significant intrusion against the privacy rights of the accused, but the police acted properly.

I conclude that the police had reasonable grounds to conduct the swab and that in carrying it out, they took reasonable steps to respect Mr. Saeeds privacy, he wrote.

Saeeds charter rights were not breached, he concluded.

Justice Andromache Karakatsanis said she believed Saeeds rights were breached, but that the evidence was admissible, nonetheless.

On balance, I conclude that the trial judge was justified in concluding that the admission of the evidence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute, she wrote.

Justice Rosalie Abella, writing in dissent, said she would have excluded the evidence and ordered a new trial.
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Highlights from the news file for Thursday, June 23:

BRITAINS HISTORIC EU VOTE: The polls closed Thursday in Britains historic referendum and a leading supporter of the campaign to leave the European Union said it looked like his side has lost the vote, though other leaders on both sides cautioned that it was far too early to say who had won. U.K. Independent Party leader Nigel Farage told Sky news it looks like remain will edge it in the referendum on whether to stay in the 28-nation bloc. Votes will be counted through the night, with results expected early Friday. The pound strengthened throughout the day Thursday on speculation that remain would win, and it strengthened further after polls closed.

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Officials secure the main entrance into Manchester Town Hall, the setting for the national referendum count following voting on the UK membership of the European Union, before the counting of votes commences in Manchester, England, Thursday June 23, 2016. Britain holds a referendum Thursday on whether it remains a member of the 28-nation European Union or votes to leave the euro bloc. (Peter Byrne / PA via AP) UNITED KINGDOM OUT - NO SALES - NO ARCHIVES

TRUDEAU ASKED TO CHALLENGE MEXICAN PREZ ON HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD: A group of Mexican female human rights activists is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to show his true feminist credentials and challenge their countrys president on its human rights record. Trudeau will host Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a state visit next week before the North American leaders summit that will also include U.S. President Barack Obama. Four Mexican women who are members of the Nobel Womens Initiative are calling on Trudeau to push Pena Nieto publicly on the carnage and violence that has gripped Mexico since the start of its war on drug cartels a decade ago, especially its effect on women.

____

U.S. PRISON SYSTEM LOATHE TO GIVE UP CANADIAN INMATES: For Canadians serving time in American prisons, the odds of being allowed to transfer to Canada. Data obtained by The Canadian Press from several sources  including the Canadian and U.S. governments show most Canadians incarcerated south of the border are held in state facilities. In all, 964 Canadians were imprisoned in the U.S. as of May 18, 2016 and 420 of those were held in state facilities and 394 in federal facilities. However, the data suggests that states are reluctant.

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CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN VADER TRIAL: The lawyer for a man accused of killing an elderly Alberta couple says the Crown hasnt proven that Lyle and Marie McCann were even murdered. In his closing arguments in an Edmonton court this morning, Brian Beresh told court the prosecution didnt prove the most basic elements of its case against Travis Vader. The McCanns burned-out motorhome was found shortly after they disappeared in July, 2010, but their bodies have never been found.

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DUFFY ASKED TO REPAY MORE SENATE EXPENSES: Sen. Mike Duffy is being asked to repay $16,955 in what a Senate committee considers ineligible expenses, despite the controversial senator having been acquitted earlier this year on 31 charges related to his spending claims. It marks the first time since late March that a senator has been asked to repay questionable spending  an order Duffy is entitled to take up with a special arbitrator, former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie. The arbitration process was originally set up to handle disputes arising from a federal audit of Senate spending  a review that missed Duffy initially, because he was under RCMP investigation and facing criminal charges.

____

CIVIL SERVANTS DEBATED USING HEAD SCARF IN REFUGEE AD: Concerns raised by Canadians over the Liberal governments plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees included whether the program should be advertised with a photo of a woman in a head scarf. Participants in a series of focus groups run late last year told the civil servants that this might create negative associations. But the photo was used in the end and still appears online as part of the continued government push to support the settlement of Syrian refugees.

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TORNADO IN CHINA KILLS 78: A powerful tornado and hailstorm struck the outskirts of the eastern Chinese city of Yancheng killing at least 78 people. Nearly 500 people were injured, 200 of them critically, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Roads were blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris. Heavy rain and the possibility of further hailstorms and more tornadoes complicated rescue efforts.

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CANADIAN PLANE PICKS UP ANTARCTIC WORKERS: Two people who fell ill while working at the U.S. research station at the South Pole have been whisked out by Canadian-owned Twin Otter turboprop planes that made the daring rescue flight in Antarcticas harsh winter. The National Science Foundation said the two workers arrived safely in southern Chile after a long trip from the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. The Twin Otter planes are owned by Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air.

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LED ZEPPELIN DIDNT STEAL RIFF: A U.S. court has ruled that Led Zeppelin did not steal a riff from an obscure 1960s instrumental tune to use for the introduction of its classic rock anthem Stairway to Heaven. Thursdays ruling from a Los Angeles court put to bed a debate that music fans have hashed out for decades. It didnt find its way to court until two years ago, when the trustee for the late Randy Craig Wolfe filed a copyright lawsuit. The trust claimed that Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page lifted a passage that Wolfe, better known as Randy California, wrote for Taurus, a short work he recorded with his band Spirit in 1968.

____
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WINNIPEG  Winnipeg police have issued a public plea to a mother who they believe has abducted her two children.

Det. Sgt. Shaunna Neufeld spoke at a news briefing Thursday and asked Sandra Giesbrecht to get in touch with her.

Montana Giesbrecht, who is 11, and Josh Giesbrecht, who is 9, were last seen at 6 p.m. Monday evening in Winnipeg.

Montana Giesbrecht, 11, (left) and her brother Josh Giesbrecht, 9 are shown in Winnipeg Police Service handout photos. Winnipeg police have issued a public plea to a mother who they believe has abducted her two children. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Winnipeg Police Service MANDATORY CREDIT

Police issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant for Giesbrecht on Wednesday.

Neufeld declined to say whether police have had any contact with Giesbrecht since the children disappeared.

Neufeld says investigators believe the children are safe and that Giesbrecht loves them.

I want to help you. Im a mother too, Sandra, of three children, and I know the unconditional love that you have for your children, Neufeld said during the briefing.

I know in your heart you want to do the right thing and resolve things quickly. Right now, things arent good and there is a need to create some answers and move forward and resolve this.

Neufeld added anyone who may have been in contact with Giesbrecht or her children, or has supported them, in the past few days should come forward with information to help investigators.

She also encouraged Giesbrecht to contact her lawyer.

An Amber Alert has not been issued for the children.

Police have said that the vehicle used to pick up the children on Monday is believed to be a small white four-door vehicle. They added Thursday that it was like a Toyota Echo or similar with black trim.

Earlier this week, police said the decision not to issue an Amber Alert was because the description of the vehicle was too vague.

Neufeld said Thursday that the decision against issuing an alert was that the criteria was not met.

Im confident that the children are fine at this point and Im confident the mother is going to do the right thing, Neufeld said.

Neufeld said it has not been an easy time for the rest of the family.

Our heart goes out to the father. These arent easy situations to deal with. This is a family whos experiencing some problems and we as a service want to help create those answers, Neufeld said.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For an agency that is supposed to be dedicated to providing the most up-to-date and accurate information about Canadians, we find it odd that Statistics Canada cuts corners in counting citizens during census years as a normal practice.

A story in todays Sun recounts the tribulations of Brandon resident Sheila Powell, who for the last several weeks has been attempting to find out why she and the other residents of her 19th Street 24-unit apartment building have been seemingly overlooked by federal bureaucrats overseeing the 2016 Census.

Its a strange tale, to be sure.

Powell initially appealed to Statistics Canada by phone, and was left without any answers. She then appealed to Brandon-Souris Conservative MP Larry Maguires office for help, and the politicians staff dutifully followed up with StatsCan.

After Maguires office inquired by email when the forms were to come out, Statistics Canada responded saying they would be sent in May. The original reference date for filling out the census forms was May 10, and yet that date came and went, and still no forms arrived in Powells mail.

A subsequent email from StatsCan later suggested that she should expect them by June 10. That date, too, came and went, and still nothing in the mail. And just this week, Maguires office was told the forms were sure to come.

Yet Powell is still waiting for the forms.

She wasnt the only one to call, either. Several other residents in the building also tried contacting Statistics Canada to sort out why they werent receiving census papers. After all, every household in Canada is legally required to do its civic duty and fill out the forms.

When the Sun contacted the department to find out what was behind the apparent delay, we were told that Powells apartment block was considered a collective dwelling and not an apartment building, under Brandon Community Options.

And as we found out, that isnt true. It has never been a collective dwelling, and has never been under Brandon Community Options.

At the same time, we were also told that Statistics Canada routinely works with staff in collective establishments such as hospitals, retirement homes, shelters and so forth, using administrative records of institutions and residences to get the needed information. In doing so, they essentially bypass individuals, preventing them from filling out forms.

Postmedia recently reported that 53,000 older people living in retirement homes in Ontario have not been burdened with a 2016 census by Statistics Canada, a fact that has angered many seniors who called in to the Ottawa Citizen to complain.

While the practice of going to administrative offices may be more efficient, certainly, we wonder at the quality of information that can be gathered in this manner. For this particular census year, one in four Canadians was sent at random a long form survey to complete, while the rest were to receive a short form. Is there a potential for a segment of the population to be misrepresented if they live in seniors homes?

Additionally, Powells building is just an ordinary apartment building, not a retirement home.

To add insult to injury, this week she received a phone call from a Statistics Canada representative who stated that the apartments census was complete, after someone went to the office on site and got the information. That, it seems, was an out-and-out lie, as Powells brother owns the building, and according to her, has never been approached by a census official. Nor is there any on-site office at the building.

There have been other instances of census documents being sent to non-existent addresses or to people who no longer reside in neighbourhood homes. Its a normal happenstance for governments to have to update this information periodically, and a census year provides a perfect time to do so.

In these cases, however, it should be relatively easy to correct factual errors. Why then did it take calls from the Sun before the department understood it had made an error?

We wrote yesterday that change, in life, is inevitable. But when it comes to federal bureaucracy, perhaps some things never change.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/06/2016 (2316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG  When logic and fact do not support your argument, use fear. Its an approach thats worked in elections and is being used to fight Bill 7, which would return secret-ballot voting for union certification to Manitoba.

Last week, Kevin Rebeck of the Manitoba Federation of Labour stated the current process is in place in several jurisdictions across the country and is designed to prevent employers from interfering in the process through coercion or intimidation. By several jurisdictions, he is referring to four of the 10 provinces, including Manitoba. Rightfully omitted from Rebecks claim is any assertion the current process is designed to prevent organized labour from using coercion or intimidation.

Rebeck added, Our new government is clearly signalling a new era of labour relations  one of imbalance, where the scales are tipped against workers being able to exercise their free and democratic right to join a union. Thats not democracy.

What is democracy, then? If the secret ballot  long upheld as a fundamental pillar of a free and democratic society  is out, perhaps a rethink of democratic elections is in order.

Imagine for the next provincial election, instead of marking a ballot in a private booth, we assemble in our nearest community centres to elect our MLAs with a show of hands. Alternatively, we could have representatives of one political party show up at your house with a voting card and watch as you mark your choice.

I recall my entry into union membership. I had just joined the federal public service. During my first week, two gentlemen arrived at my cubicle one morning with a card that I was told to sign. I asked whether I had any options. Yes, I was told: sign now or sign before lunch.

According to Statistics Canada, over the last 30 years, the trend in Canada has been one of declining union density, to 28.8 per cent in 2014 from 37.6 per cent in 1981. This trend is being driven by employees themselves, who are moving beyond old-style labour relations that marked much of the 20th century.

Statistics Canada data for 2015 show of the 555,500 employees in Manitoba, 35.8 per cent (or 197,400) were members of a union; in 2010, 37.5 per cent (or 194,400) of Manitobas 517,800 employees belonged to a union. Union density remains highest in Manitobas public sector, wherein 78.4 per cent of all employees are represented by a union, as compared to 17.6 per cent in the private sector.

For a sizable and growing majority of Manitoba workers, the path to prosperity does not begin at a union hall. It is this fact that lay at the heart of organized labour opposition to secret-ballot certification.

Organized labour has long contended the current automatic certification system prevents employer intimidation and coercion. It offers, as proof of supposed employer malfeasance, statistics indicating a decline in certification success once secret ballots are introduced. Studies in Canada suggest the drop in certifications following the use of anonymous voting ranges from nine per cent to 19 per cent.

I offer an alternative theory: union certifications drop when secret-ballot voting is introduced because workers are afforded the best and rightful way to express their true desire, free of fear, intimidation and reprisal by any side.

Bill 7 seeks to restore a balance in Manitoba that was upset by Bill 44 more than 16 years ago. Rebeck contends automatic certification has created a balance, marked by a long period of relative labour peace in Manitoba.

While it is true Manitoba has experienced fewer work stoppages and days lost to strikes or lockouts in recent years, to attribute cause and effect to automatic certification is a tricky proposition. Each work stoppage in Manitoba since 2011 has involved unionized workplaces under provincial jurisdiction. How can we say higher union density creates labour harmony when every instance of disharmony involved unions and employers?

The time has come for Manitoba employees to once again have the right  free of intimidation or fear of reprisal from anyone  to make a clear choice between yes and no, rather than sign now or before lunch.

 Loren Remillard is the incoming president and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. His column was also published in the Winnipeg Free Press.
As far as Ireland fans were concerned, Lille was the centre of the world last night.

And its been quite the rollercoaster as the festivities of last night gave way to the sore heads of this morning.
Ireland fans returning from the Euro2016 tournament in France are facing severe flight disruption today.

Another strike by French Air Traffic Control workers is taking place, the 11th in recent weeks.

Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel six flights while Ryanair has cancelled 56.

Robin Kiely from Ryanair is calling on Europe to intervene, to prevent this from happening again.

"Fifty-six flights (affected) today, as a result of yet another French air traiffic controllers' strike," he said.

"These include six Dublin flights from Madrid, Basle and Carcassonne.

"It's ridiculous at this stage. It's the 11th strike in as many weeks, and we're calling on Europe to finally take action to prevent even more passengers from having their holiday plans and flights disturbed this summer."
Stormont's First Minister has expressed hope of a high turn-out in the North as voters continued to cast their ballots in the EU referendum.

Arlene Foster, a Brexit campaigner, said it was important that those on both sides of the debate made their voices heard.

"I understand there has been a good turn-out in some of the areas where previously there hasn't been so far - so that's good to hear," she said.

The Democratic Unionist leader added: "Everyone has the opportunity to cast their vote today and I hope they take that opportunity, regardless of what that might be, because this is a huge opportunity for all the citizens of the United Kingdom to make their voices heard in terms of the European Union."

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, a Remain advocate, also encouraged people to get out and vote.

"Come out and vote, if you haven't voted there is still time, vote to remain - it's not in Ireland's interests to do anything else," he said.

Polling stations opened at 7am and will close at 10pm. The count will begin shortly after the 600-plus stations close.

There will be a count for each of the region's 18 parliamentary constituencies, with those separate outcomes added together for an overall Northern Ireland result.

Counting will be conducted in eight centres across the region, with the main result expected to be announced at the Belfast count at about 4am.

Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and Alliance Party campaigned for a Remain vote in the referendum campaign while the DUP, Traditional Unionist Voice and Ukip were among those advocating a Brexit.

The future of the Irish border was a key issue in the campaign, with claim and counter claim on whether a UK exit would see a return to security and customs checkpoints.
A judge has suspended a six-month prison sentence for two Moldovan men charged with cigarette smuggling on condition that they leave the country within 24 hours.

They were brought before Dublin Circuit Court yesterday on charges relating to the seizure of 30,800 cigarettes at Dublin airport last Saturday.
Drug mule Melissa Reid has arrived back on home soil in the UK after spending nearly three years in jail in Peru.

The 22-year-old Scot arrived at Glasgow Airport at 9.44pm yesterday after completing the last leg of her journey to the UK from Lima.

Reid, from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire in Scotland, was caught in August 2013 with 23-year-old Michaella McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, trying to smuggle cocaine worth 1.5m in food bags from Peru to Spain.

Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid during their trial.

The pair - nicknamed the "Peru Two" - were jailed for six years and eight months after admitting the offence.

McCollum (23) was released on parole in March and remains in Peru. She will appear in court again for a 'repatriation' hearing which will decide when she will be allowed home to Dungannon.

But a judge last month ordered Reid to be expelled from the South American country under an early release scheme for deporting first-time drug offenders.

Reid, who is understood to have travelled to Scotland on a flight from Amsterdam, was accompanied by her father Billy.

She did not appear before waiting media at the international arrivals area. It is understood she accepted an airside transfer.

Around 24 hours earlier, Reid smiled as she arrived at Lima Airport on Tuesday evening with her father and British Embassy staff, before being whisked through security by Peruvian officials overseeing her deportation.

Janeth Sanchez, a spokeswoman for Peru's prison service, said that the Scot had "served her time in prison according to the law and can now go to her country, free, to the streets".

A Scottish Prison Service spokeswoman said it is not involved with Reid's case.

McCollum was freed in March under new legislation but was required to remain on parole in Peru for an undisclosed period of time.

The two women had initially claimed they were forced into carrying the drugs - around 11kg of cocaine - but then pleaded guilty to the charges.

McCollum and Reid faced the prospect of a maximum 15-year prison term but struck a behind-closed-doors plea bargain to secure the shorter sentence.

Around nine in 10 of the 1,809 foreigners in Peru's prisons are either sentenced or awaiting trials for drug trafficking.

Reid's father has previously said the impact of his daughter's crime on his family had been ''horrendous'', and spoke in a video warning of the consequences of drug offences abroad.

A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said: "We continue to provide assistance to Melissa Reid and remain in contact with her family and local authorities."

It is understood Reid, who has served about a third of her sentence, will not have a criminal record in the UK as a result of her conviction in Peru.

McCollum spoke about her conviction and life since in a recent RTE interview.
A number of legal experts have said there is no constitutional barrier to allowing equal access to Catholic schools if children are not baptised.

The Taoiseach has said there could be legal challenges to changing admissions policies.

However research by charity Equate, which is campaigning for an end to the "baptism rule" in Catholic schools, found this may not be the case.

Equate said the opinion from three constitutional experts said that there is no constitutional barrier to amending the Equal Status Act removing the baptism barrier.

The advice was drafted by Dr David Kenny of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Conor O'Mahony of University College Cork and Dr Eoin Daly of NUI Galway.

Labour's education spokesperson Joan Burton said religious values were a matter for individual schools, but entry should not be based on it.

"We have practice on the ground in Ireland which can be quite good but in others cases, there have been cases of discrimination and we want to take that out of the law," she said.

Ms Burton told Newstalk Breakfast today that she will present a Private Members Bill in the Dail next week seeking an amendment to the Equal Status Act to allow equal access to Catholic schools, irrespective of religion and whether or not a child is baptised.
Update - 5.45pm: Officers "successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding," Ms Kobus said.

"There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague."

Police said that the deployment lasted about three hours. There were no other injuries, Ms Kobus said.

Another police spokesman, Bernd Hochstaedter, said "there are no indications at present of an Islamist background".

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker's identity.

The Kinopolis, a multiplex theatre, is located in a shopping centre in Viernheim, which is near the city of Mannheim. The incident happened on a hot summer afternoon and the cinema appears to have been relatively empty at the time.

Update - 4.55pm: Hesse's interior minister, Peter Beuth, has told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden that the man was masked and that apparently four shots were fired.

Mr Beuth said the man had given a confused impression, news agency dpa reported.

Local police say no one was harmed by the suspect at the Kinopolis cinema, though local media reported that up to 50 people had been injured by tear gas.

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker's identity.

Update - 4.35pm: Police spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said authorities were told early on Thursday afternoon that an armed man had entered the Kinopolis movie theatre in the town of Viernheim and that shots had apparently been fired.

Hesse's interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it was not clear whether the weapon was real.

Hochstaedter said that the police deployment lasted around three hours.

He said: "We believe that there were no injured people, and that the people who were in the cinema with the perpetrator could be freed uninjured."

Update - 4.25pm: Police say no one has been injured by a gunman at German cinema.

Update - 4.10pm: A man who launched a gun attack in a cinema complex in Viernheim, Germany, has been shot dead, local media has reported, quoting the Interior Ministry.

Update - 4.05pm: A man has been arrested after at least 20 people were injured after a gun attack in a cinema complex in Viernheim, Germany, local media has reported.

BREAKING: Reports: German officials say suspect in cinema incident is dead.  The Associated Press (@AP) June 23, 2016

Earlier: There has been a shooting at a German cinema.

German media have reported that a gunman has fired a shot at a movie theater in southwestern Germany.

Reports say that several people have been injured and a gunman has barricaded himself inside.

The venue in the western town of Viernheim has been surrounded by police.

Police there have confirmed that there is a "threat situation" at the Kinopolis movie theater and it "probably involves a weapon".

+++ EIL +++ 20 bis 50 Verletzte durch Reizgas. Bewaffneter verschanzt sich in Kino. https://t.co/1k2oKp9SWo pic.twitter.com/ZF4NJ1MM1Q  BILD (@BILD) June 23, 2016

Police spokeswoman Christiane Kobus told the Associated Press that she was unable to give any more details.
A judge has acquitted a police van driver of all charges in the death of black detainee Freddie Gray.

The 25-year-old's broken neck on the way to the police station set off Baltimore's worst riots in decades.

Six officers were charged in Gray's death, but only Officer Caesar Goodson was accused of murder.

Gray was fatally injured after officers bound his hands and feet and Goodson left him unprotected by a seat belt that prosecutors say would have kept him from slamming into the van's metal walls.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams delivered his verdict after hearing five days of evidence in the non-jury trial. He also found Goodson not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment.

Williams ruled that the state failed to show that Goodson knew he had cause harm to Gray by leaving him unbuckled, or that Goodson was aware that Gray was injured and intentionally failed to call a medic.

"The state failed to prove the defendant knew or should have known that Mr Gray needed medical care," the judge said.

"Unlike in a shooting or a stabbing, or a car accident, this injury manifests itself internally," judge Williams said, citing conflicting evidence from medical experts.

He continued: "If the doctors weren't clear, how would a person without medical training know?"

The judge also said the state failed to prove that Goodson gave Gray a "rough ride".

"The state had a duty to show the defendant corruptly failed in his duty, not just that he made a mistake," the judge said.

Protests and rioting after Gray's death on April 19, 2015, set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard. The unrest forced the city's mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse.

Prosecutors said Goodson was criminally negligent when he failed to buckle Gray into a seatbelt or call for medical aid after Gray indicated that he wanted to go to a hospital. But Goodson would not talk to investigators or take the stand at trial, leaving the state with slim evidence of intent to harm.

The acquittal of Goodson, 46, is perhaps the most significant blow to State Attorney Marilyn Mosby's efforts to hold police accountable for Gray's death.

Last month, the same judge acquitted Officer Edward Nero of misdemeanor charges, and in December, he declared a mistrial after a jury failed to agree on manslaughter and other charges against Officer William Porter.

Porter faces a retrial in September, and three other officers have yet to be tried.

Gray was arrested on April 12 after running from an officer on bike patrol outside a public housing project not far from the Western District station house. A neighbour's video showed him handcuffed behind his back and hoisted into Goodson's van.

The van made a total of six stops that day, and Gray was unresponsive on arrival at the station house 45 minutes later. Prosecutors said Goodson was there throughout and checked on Gray during the third and fourth stops, so he should have known Gray was in distress. They said his failure to call a medic amounts to murder.

A prosecution expert testified that Gray could not possibly have broken his own neck. Prosecutors said the injury happened somewhere between the second and fourth stops, when Goodson and Porter lifted Gray off the floor.

Porter said in evidence that Gray was lethargic, but could breathe and speak, and did not seem injured. Prosecutors countered that the initial injury became critical as the trip continued.

Second-degree "depraved heart" murder, which carries up to 30 years in jail, would mean that Goodson was so negligent in his inaction that he cast aside any consideration for Gray's life.

During opening statements, prosecutors for the first time accused Goodson of giving Gray a "rough ride", intentionally leaving him unbuckled "to bounce him around in the back of the van".

But by closing arguments, they all but abandoned the theory, saying Goodson's failure to belt Gray in under the circumstances was sufficient to prove the intent necessary for a murder conviction.

"Officer Goodson never calls a medic, he never takes Freddie Gray to the hospital," said Deputy State's Attorney Jan Bledsoe. "He has breached his duty, and because of that breach Freddie Gray's life was shortened."

Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow said the failure to belt him in would still be a crime, although a difficult one to prosecute.

Goodson's lawyer Matthew Fraling fiercely rejected the allegations, telling the judge that Goodson was a "gentle" officer who did not buckle him in because Gray was exhibiting "violent and erratic" behaviour, citing witness evidence that he was making the wagon shake back and forth by kicking and flailing inside.

Fraling also said Gray said yes when Porter asked if he wanted to go to a hospital only because Gray hoped to avoid jail.

"They have failed to cobble together any type of case with reasonable inferences, let alone evidence," he said. "The mere fact that harm resulted doesn't mean the Officer Goodson's conduct is the cause of that harm."

Goodson's acquittal may impact the remaining cases. Officer Garrett Miller and Lieutenant Brian Rice are scheduled to stand trial in July on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office; Rice also faces a manslaughter charge.

All the officers but Goodson have filed defamation lawsuits against Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Major Sam Cogen of the sheriff's office, who signed the charging documents.

The officers claim the criminal charges amounted to false and damaging information.
A north African illegal immigrant who carried out a terrifying ten-day campaign of sex attacks has been jailed for eight years.

Algerian Mehdi Midani, 28, preyed on eight lone women aged between 20 and 30, including four molested in the space of four hours in October.

He stalked them from busy areas near Tube stations to quiet residential areas and then violently assaulted them on their own doorsteps, including one attacked in her hallway, Inner London Crown Court heard.

After he was jailed on Thursday police revealed that Midani, who took a cocktail of cocaine and hard liquor before he struck, may have been on his way to commit another attack when he was arrested following a public appeal.

His sordid campaign forced police to increase patrols in the Brixton and Clapham areas of London, as fears mounted over where he might strike next.

Judge Nicholas Madge also ordered that he serve an extended period of two years on licence after being released, saying that he was "dangerous".

The Algerian stood cross-armed with an emotionless expression on his face, listening via an Arabic interpreter, as the judge told him he had brought "terror" to his victims.

Judge Madge said: "I have no doubt, having viewed extensive CCTV footage of you and your victims, that you hung around in the Brixton and Clapham North area with the sole purpose of picking out young women, stalking them until they reached their homes and then sexually assaulting them.

"At times, you waited while the young woman went into a shop and then continued your pursuit when she emerged. You followed women, for up to 20 minutes, from crowded areas with many people to quiet and secluded residential streets."

He added: "The experience of this court is that sexual attacks on women by strangers in the street are rare. In that sense, London is a relatively safe city.

"However, courts will do all they can to keep it that way and to protect women by imposing long sentences upon anyone who attacks women, especially at night."

He added that a report on the attacker had shown "a sense of entitlement over women and a desire to seek sexual gratification", saying: "You are more concerned about your own future than the women you attacked."

The court heard that the UK Border Agency had no record of Midani entering Britain, and he would be deported after serving his sentence.

Midani's attacks spanned a period between October 22 and 31, with four taking place in Brixton between 7.30pm and 11.30pm on October 28, the court heard.

Most were grabbed roughly from behind as they put the keys in the door to go into their homes.

The Algerian, of no fixed abode, was arrested in Brixton on November 2 after a member of the public recognised him from CCTV released to the media, called 999 and followed him until officers arrived.

Outside court, senior investigating officer Detective Inspector Keith Braithwaite said Midani "could well have been" on his way to commit another attack at the time.

Because he was arrested in the street, Police still don't know where he was living apart from that it was somewhere in the north of the capital.

Midani refused to talk to police and did not give evidence at his trial. He was picked out of an identity parade and also left DNA evidence, the court heard.

He claimed in a pre-sentence report he had been high on a cocktail of whisky, vodka and cocaine when he carried out the offences, having travelled to Brixton from north London to buy drugs.

Police also linked Midani with two more sexual assaults and two more incidents of indecent exposure, meaning four additional potential victims, but did not have enough evidence to prosecute him.

Det Insp Braithwaite said: "Clearly this man is a danger to the public and today's sentence reflects how seriously the Metropolitan Police and the judiciary take such matters.

"During a period of 10 days Midani caused fear within the local community by his horrific and callous crimes."

Midani was convicted in April of six counts of sexual assault and one common assault. He admitted a seventh charge of sexual assault.

On Thursday he was given sentences of between four and 42 months for the eight counts, which Judge Madge allowed to run consecutively to reach his final sentence.
Oscar Pistorius has said he thinks his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, who he shot dead, would want him to have a chance to redeem himself.

The athlete - who will be sentenced for Reeva's murder next month - has done an interview which will be shown on ITV at 9pm tomorrow night.
A retired scientist who murdered his elderly partner in a row over a duvet has been jailed for life in England, police said.

Edgar Fairhurst, 74, will serve a minimum of 20 years in jail after being convicted of murdering Marjorie Elphick, 83.

Ms Elphick's body was discovered at the home she shared with Fairhurst in Riverside Close, Bideford, Devon on December 30 last year.

They had been together for around 40 years and during an argument Fairhurst attacked his partner with a hammer inflicting fatal injuries.

Fairhurst had admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility but denied murder.

He was convicted by a jury following a four-day trial at Exeter Crown Court and jailed for life by the judge, Mr Justice Teare.

Detective Inspector Sharon Donald, who led the investigation, said: "Marjorie Elphick was an independent, active lady that was dearly loved by her son, niece, relatives and friends.

"In the early hours of December 30 Marjorie was subjected to an unprovoked, violent and sustained attack in her own bed; the perpetrator being her partner of 40 years Edgar Fairhurst.

"Tragically, Marjorie's injuries proved fatal and she died at the scene.

"Today justice has been served. I would like to thank the local officers and investigation team for their commitment and professionalism during this case, and reiterate my deepest condolences to Marjorie's family and loved ones for their tragic loss."

In a statement released by Devon and Cornwall Police, the victim's family said: "Marjorie Elphick was a kind and vivacious woman.

"We have been devastated by her loss as she was not only a vibrant member of her community, and valued by her many friends, but was someone who meant a great deal to the four generations of our small family.

"Although she was 83, she was a healthy, active person with the promise of many more full years in front of her.

"This life has been cruelly cut short, and it will be very difficult for our family to envisage life without her."
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have pushed into the outskirts of the Islamic State group's stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria.

They were advancing slowly to the centre of town, an adviser to the predominantly Kurdish force and a monitoring group said.

The town lies along the only IS supply line between the Turkish border and the extremist group's self-styled capital, Raqqa. If Manbij is captured, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for IS in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the border town of Tal Abyad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting was taking place between IS fighters and the SDF on the south-western edge of Manbij.

Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the monitoring group which relies on a network of activists in Syria, said the SDF seized two squares on the western side of the city, then advanced toward a third square with air support from the US-led coalition.

An adviser to the SDF, Nasser Haj Mansour, said troops had moved into the town from its northern edge on Wednesday, close to grain silos, prompting clashes with IS militants. He confirmed that other troops entered Manbij from the west.

Journalist Mustafa Bali, who accompanied the SDF fighters on the front line on Wednesday, said it was only a matter of time before the silos are taken. They are separated from the city by a main highway, he said, estimating that the SDF are about 1.8 miles from the city centre and only one mile from the main city hospital.

"There are intense clashes on all the city's edges," Mr Bali said.

Abdurrahman said IS still controls the silos.

The US Central Command said in a statement on Thursday that the fighters of the Syrian Arab Coalition, which is part of the SDF, "have consolidated their position around Manbij in anticipation of the next phase of operations".

The US has embedded 300 Special Forces troops with the SDF. France has also confirmed it is providing training to the SDF.

The observatory said around 63 SDF fighters and 458 IS militants, including field operators and foreign fighters, have died in fighting in the Manbij campaign, which began on May 31.

Thousands of civilians have fled the town and surrounding areas, though some are beginning to return to their villages as they are cleared of IS fighters, according to the US central command.

The international coalition has since conducted more than 233 airstrikes in the vicinity of the town, according to the command.

The Islamic State's news agency Aamaq said the group's militants repelled an SDF advance from the town's north, adding that a suicide attack against the retreating forces killed many fighters.

Mr Mansour, the SDF adviser, said suicide bombings are no obstacle to advancing on Manbij.

"The tactic and their moves have become known and ineffective, particularly when there is always air support," he said.

Also on Thursday, at least eight civilians were killed in Syria's Aleppo when air strikes and mortar shells struck different neighbourhoods in opposite sides of the divided city, anti-government activists and Syrian state media reported.

In past months, Aleppo has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting and bombardment, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides of the contested city. Partial ceasefires have failed to hold in the city that has been divided between rebel and government areas since 2012.

In Geneva, the UN's special adviser to Syria said he aimed to resume peace talks between the government and the opposition in July, though he stressed a return to talks would require the cooperation of Russia and the US, which back opposing sides in the war.

The last round of talks ended with the opposition walking out in April, citing the Syrian government's civilian siege tactics and its unwillingness to negotiate the release of political prisoners. Violence had escalating sharply around the country, as well, spelling the end of a partial ceasefire that came into effect in late February.

Staffan de Mistura said there was "substantial improvement" to humanitarian access to besieged areas in June, but indicated prospects of a truce remain distant.

"Looking at the cessation of hostilities in Idlib, Aleppo and other places, we are not getting good news," he said, calling on Russia and the US to help in bringing parties back to the negotiating table.

Humanitarian aid adviser Jan Egeland said officials were "very concerned" about the situation in the towns of Zabadani, Madaya, Foua, and Kafraya. The towns, two besieged by the pro-government forces and two besieged by rebels, have not received aid since April.

Pro-government forces have not allowed baby milk to civilians in Madaya in five months, according to local media activist Abdel Wahhab Ahmad. "We're facing a severe crisis," he said.

Mr Ahmad and other activists also reported that pro-government forces were burning farmland around Madaya and Zabadani.
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Imagine being able to consolidate your social-networking profiles and contacts on one online platform, making it easier to find and connect with other people. It would cut the time spent searching on individual sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, or looking up phone numbers. Rollercoaster Digital founders Andrew Snell and Chris Shackleton are off to the US this week. Credit:Graham Tidy That's the idea behind Rollercoaster Digital's latest product, Jaja. It was simple ideas like this, which make modern life easier, that landed the Canberra-based tech company an invite to the 2016 global entrepreneurship summit in Silicon Valley, where they will be addressed by US President Barack Obama.

Founder and co-chief executive Christopher Shackleton said the invitation was "awesome". "It's a real honour to be going to something of this nature." Out of thousands of applicants, Rollercoaster is one of nine Australian companies that will attend the event this week, where they will meet other entrepreneurs and investors and have the chance to collaborate with businesses from across the world. "The whole premise of our company is about connecting people, places and devices together, so this is a really good opportunity to meet others around the world," Mr Shackleton said. His company looks for ways to make everyday life and business operations more straightforward and efficient, by using existing technology. "I think our experience in different fields makes us unique. We think outside the box. I think we're not afraid to take on pretty full-on challenges and dive in head first."
Canberra grandmother Carol Taloni was in her 60s when she sought bereavement counselling from SIDS and Kids ACT to finally come to terms with the loss of her stillborn son.

His death in 1965, when Carol was eight months' pregnant, was never discussed. She never got to hold her baby. She never got to see him. His funeral was held while she was still in hospital in Sydney. The only link she had to him was the bill for the funeral.

Weston grandmother Carol Taloni received help from SIDS and Kids ACT decades after the stillbirth of her son. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Everyone just expected her to get on with it and, at the age of 25, she didn't feel mature or strong enough to question any of it.

"Nobody was interested in talking about it. That's my recollection now," she said.
"If you search for a cause to fit a narrative, eventually you'll convince yourself that you've stumbled onto something, as most of the cowardly excrement have. "Those excrement who have weighed into this  I'd like to mention their names, but as nobody reads or listens to them because they're on second-tier media outlets. I won't bother. But if you spray excrement with perfume or put aftershave on a piece of excrement, at the end of the day, it's still a piece of excrement." Newman's Footy Show co-host, James Brayshaw, who was involved in the Triple M segment, said "you are entitled to your opinion, Sam". "I don't agree with, certainly, that last bit. "Some of the language used in that 30-second segment was off the pace, and for that reason, it was absolutely appropriate that we apologise.

"Offence was taken and I can understand why." Keep digging, Sam Credit:Darrian Traynor Rebecca Maddern, Newman's female co-host, defended McGuire's reputation, but condemned his comments. "I do agree in part with Sam on this, that the men involved are all good men. I know how they feel about violence against women, and it's exactly how I feel. "These men made a mistake. They have acknowledged they made a mistake. They have apologised for that mistake, and that apology has been accepted. So we're at a point now where all we can do is move forward. We need to move forward in a positive way."

"I think in the media, we have to be reminded that we are in a very privileged position. We have a voice. That voice is listened to by many people, and people absorb what we say. And in turn, because of that, we have a power to change the conversation and shape the public perception about certain issues," she said. Newman was reacting to the week-long controversy that has surrounded Pies president Eddie McGuire, after he told a radio audience he wanted to see her drown. McGuire has apologised several times and been censured by his club and the AFL. Some big-name Twitter users, including fellow Channel Nine star Lisa Wilkison, were quick to react to Newman's outburst.

It comes as Newman conceded he was "probably not fair dinkum" about running for lord mayor of Melbourne, just hours after reports of the possible candidacy emerged. He told 3AW's Neil Mitchell that he planned to be "figurehead" if elected. "We would be delegating, delegating. We'd get someone else to run the joint," Newman said.

The former Geelong player believes one of the key issues for Melbourne is its homeless people. "I have been asked a couple of times  would you shove and move on the homeless people  the unfortunate people. That always seems to be the main thing," he said. "This is by no means  trying to pick up people that are less fortunate than ourselves and bundle them out of here. This is just an attempt to pacify or appease both sides of the equation, that's all." Mitchell also asked Newman about comments on the Eddie McGuire controversy. Newman said he understood why some women were offended by the but "if you have to tell us we have to tick a box to say were against women's violence, or violence against females, if you have to ask people that, that it is ridiculous".
Do you remember the dark days of December 2013 when Qantas boss Alan Joyce was desperately trying to convince Tony Abbott's government that the airline needed a taxpayer bailout?

Well, you're not the only one for whom this dark chapter is ancient history.

Qantas has regained altitude after that multi billion dollar loss in 2014. And with nothing but record profits as far as the eye can see, Joyce has new challenges to address.

So there he was on Thursday dealing with the company's new problem - having to pay tax now that it is profitable again.
Mining service companies are facing further credit rating downgrades if they are unable to shake off their slide in earnings or cannot reduce the risks faced in refinancing their borrowings, according to ratings agency Standard & Poors.

The companies are finding it difficult to stabilise earnings as their clients - mining companies - put pressure on suppliers to cut costs and charges amid the ongoing weak commodity prices.

Weak commodity prices continue to drag on earnings of mining service companies. Credit:Erin Jonasson

"Although Australian mining services companies have streamlined their operations and become more efficient, their customers in the broader mining industry are wrestling with persistent commodity price weakness," the ratings group's global ratings credit analyst May Zhong said.

"Because of the tough industry conditions, we don't expect a strong earnings recovery for mining services companies until activity in the broader mining industry picks up sustainably."
The most recent Neilsen report on advertising purchasing shows that the Commonwealth government advertising department has become the biggest advertiser in the country with a 45 per cent increase for the month of May.

"I thought they were supposed to stop," says Louise.

Harvey Norman has been pushed into second place and others with real things to sell plainly think elections are death and a long slow one at that. In the month of May Wesfarmers dropped 32 per cent, Woolworths 24 per cent and Telstra 20 per cent. State governments seem to have got the same message. NSW is down by 26 per cent, Queensland down 21 per cent and the Victoria government doesn't even make the top 25.

And when it comes to the election campaign advertising I thought I had seen it all but as I was leafing through a local paper midweek my eye caught the headline 'Going to the Snow? Vote before you go!', it was from the Electoral Commission.
The senior foreign-exchange trader at Allied Irish Banks in Dublin will be glued to his screens through dawn as UK voters decide whether to stay in the European Union. It promises to be a record-setting evening, whether in terms of trading volatility or in gallons of coffee consumed.

Enda Homan is going to pull an all-nighter - and he can hardly wait.

"It is a unique opportunity for traders, probably not seen since 1992 Black Wednesday," he said, referring to the September day when the UK government withdrew the pound from a European exchange-rate system. Sustenance will probably consist of Chinese noodles from the local deli, and "I will also make sure that there is plenty of freshly brewed coffee to get us through the quiet bits while awaiting the results."

It's going to be a long busy night in London's Canary Wharf financial and business district. Credit:bloomberg

Across Europe, traders and their employers are making preparations for a big night. JPMorgan Chase has booked hotel rooms near its Canary Wharf offices, while Barclays is bringing in sleeping bags and sending some employees home early so they can be fresh later on. Other banks are offering bunk beds, sushi and pizza. Everybody has coffee on the menu.

"All the trading desks are in war-preparation mode," said Frederic Ponzo, managing partner at GreySpark Partners, a financial consulting firm, in London. "Volatility is expected to spike up potentially more than during the Swiss unpeg event and volumes to potentially overwhelm them and their systems." Trading was frenzied and orders delayed last year when the Swiss National Bank suddenly removed its cap on the franc.

With polls showing a tight contest, traders will be poised to push the buy or sell buttons as early results become known in the wee hours of Friday morning - early afternoon AEST time. Because foreign exchange is the only major market that trades 24 hours a day, they won't be able to afford to miss a second: Aite Group says profits or losses could reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a market subject to wild disruptions.
The aggressive discounting of groceries will ease in the next 12 months, according to Metcash group chief Ian Morrice, pulling back prices from the current "unsustainable" levels.

The listed wholesaler's full-year results this week revealed price deflation ran at 2.2 per cent in the year to April 30, an acceleration Mr Morrice said all the grocery retailers, including the majors, were grappling with.

"Promotions continue to be a big feature of the marketplace, it's one of the things we focus on as do our competitors," he said.

"But I think we will see a moderation in deflation over the next 12 months."
A downgrade of Britain's AAA credit rating by Standard and Poor's (S&P) could come quickly after a vote in favour of leaving the European Union, S&P chief sovereign ratings officer Moritz Kraemer told German daily Bild.

"If Great Britain decides for a Brexit in the EU referendum on Thursday, then the AAA credit rating would come due and would be downgraded within a short period of time," Bild quoted Kraemer as saying in a summary of an article to be published on Thursday.

Kraemer repeated that the political situation in Britain would become less predictable and rational, partly because there was no real post-Brexit plan, Bild reported.

Kraemer said in April that a leave vote would likely lead to a downgrade of Britain's rating, given the country's deep political, financial and trading ties in Europe.
It's no secret that Zed Seselja is a devout Catholic and a prominent member of the socially conservative wing of the Liberal Party. So when the ACT Liberal senator appeared at an election debate on Tuesday hosted by the Australian Christian Lobby and declared the protest-free zone around Civic's abortion clinic to be an intrusion on freedom of speech and religion, the first reaction of Canberrans was probably: "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

The Barr government's decision in 2015 to legislate for the imposition of a "privacy zone" around the Dr Marie clinic in the ACT Health building was politically and legally charged. Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury, the bill's sponsor, said women going to and from the clinic were being verbally harassed and even photographed or videoed by right-to-life protesters. The creation of buffer zones, he said, would ensure the right of these women to privacy.

The ACT Right to Life Association has always denied any intimidation was taking place. It said its members were merely maintaining "peaceful vigils" to remind passers-by of the wickedness and immorality of terminating pregnancies. The bill's framers saw it rather differently, however, setting down relatively harsh penalties for breaching the buffer zone. Anyone charged with importuning or intimidating a woman within the zone is liable to be fined up to $3750. Those publishing images or videos of people entering or leaving the clinic face fines of up to $7500 or six months' imprisonment.

When the first person charged and fined for breaching the "protected area" said earlier this year that he would challenge the infringement notice, police withdrew it, citing "ambiguities" about the boundaries of what comprised the zone. The government responded promptly by extending the zone to include surrounding streets, alleyways, footpaths and outdoor areas.
At a girlfriend's wedding I recently attended, the bride told guests about the bemused response from other girlfriends when she told them she was finally getting hitched: "Why bother? Only gay men want to get married."

The master of ceremonies, a gay man, laughed as loudly as the rest of us.

So divisive has the possibility of same-sex marriage been for the Coalition that it dreamt up a plebiscite as a means of deferring and deflecting responsibility of a decision.

The Orlando massacre gives us pause for thought.
Chips Moman, a producer and songwriter who helped define the Memphis sound in soul music in the 1960s helped to resuscitate Elvis Presley's career, has died in LaGrange, Georgia. He was 79.

Moman was a session guitarist at the renowned Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles in the late 1950s when he teamed up with the founders of Stax Records in Memphis, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton. At Gold Star, he had paid close attention to the engineers and producers as they worked, and at Stax, he applied his newly learned lessons, producing Carla Thomas's Top 10 hit Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes) in 1960 and William Bell's You Don't Miss Your Water in 1961.

After a dispute with Stax, Moman created American Sound Studio with settlement money from a lawsuit against his former employers and assembled a dynamic house band, known informally as the Memphis Boys.

Between 1965 and 1971, the studio accounted for more than 120 records on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, beginning with the Gentrys' Keep On Dancing.

Artists who recorded at American Sound included the Box Tops (The Letter and Cry Like a Baby), Neil Diamond (Sweet Caroline), B.J.Thomas (Hooked on a Feeling), Joe Tex (I Gotcha), Dusty Springfield (Son of a Preacher Man) and Wilson Pickett (I'm in Love and I'm a Midnight Mover).
James Nicholson was the last of the old-school crime reporters and at the height of his Fleet Street fame became celebrated  on account of his black cape  as the "Prince of Darkness".

Lined with scarlet silk, the cape became his signature garment, and marked Nicholson out at many of the notorious cases and trials of the post-war era. At one point  especially if he thought he was likely to be photographed  he dressed from head to toe in black, and wore tinted glasses. Even his favourite tipple, a half pint of Guinness, was black, as was his gallows humour.

Fleet Street crime reporter James Nicholson.

There are multiple versions of how Nicholson got his Prince of Darkness nickname, one crediting BBC reporter Keith Graves during the Spaghetti House siege in Knightsbridge in 1975. Nicholson himself thought the famous black cape originated when he was covering a story about witches on the Isle of Man and he wore one for effect. By the time of another 1975 siege when a fugitive IRA gang was holed up at Balcombe Street in Marylebone, he joked "I've been at every siege since Troy", and the label stuck.

Uniquely Nicholson could claim to have been the only reporter to have had his photograph on the front of every daily and evening newspaper in the country. It happened at the end of the "Black Panther" murder trial at Oxford in 1976. When some of the exhibits were produced  masks, clothing, cartridges and a sawn-off shotgun  press photographers urged detectives to find someone to model them.
What is the shelf-life of a political crisis? Obviously, it depends on the circumstances.

The 2009 OzCar scandal was so disastrous for Malcolm Turnbull it seemed terminal. Remember that one? As opposition leader, Turnbull relied on a forged email concocted by Treasury official Godwin Grech to falsely accuse Labor of offering favourable treatment to donors.

The boat eventually moved on, Turnbull recovered, and six years later he became Prime Minister.

Or there was the time March 2013, when Frankston MP Geoff Shaw resigned from the Victorian parliamentary Liberal Party, raising doubts as to whether the Coalition had the numbers in parliament needed to govern.
1. Brexit

After a wild and stormy night  including epic cracking lightning  Britons awoke to atrocious weather and Londoners to delays on most tube lines. In some areas there was flash flooding and EU referendum polling booths had to be relocated.

The wet weather is said to favour the Vote Leave camp because if you're a Brexiteer, this is day you've been waiting for since you were born and you are so motivated to be out you will vote no matter what. Our Europe correspondent Nick Miller reports.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha arrive to vote in the EU referendum. Credit:Alastair Grant/AP

But, really, it's all still educated guessing at the moment. Some polls suggest Remain will just sneak home; others say Leave will win. My tip? Stay with us here at our live blog and we'll bring you all the developments, including what time we're likely to learn the result.
More than seven in 10 Coalition supporters think Australian incomes are fairly dealt out and fewer than half want people working weekends to earn more, suggesting the wealthiest are often oblivious to the struggles of the less-advantaged, an expert says.

An analysis of the YourVote survey of 143,000 Fairfax Media readers also found more women than men are concerned about income disparity, while professionals were more likely than labourers to believe income distribution is fair.

Despite the views of Coalition supporters, two-thirds of the broader population believed income was not fairly dispersed  which may explain why equity issues such as Medicare and access to the National Broadband Network have gained traction during the election campaign.
Outgoing Brisbane MP Teresa Gambaro went against departmental advice when she selected a new electorate office that was considered too expensive, poorly positioned and had insufficient disability access and visitor parking, documents released under Freedom of Information legislation have revealed.

The documents also revealed Ms Gambaro's office was involved in direct negotiations with a Liberal National Party donor, the site's developer, to use taxpayer funds to rent out the property.

They also showed Ms Gambaro acted against a departmental recommendation to instead choose another identified property in the same suburb.

The revelation cast doubt on Ms Gambaro's earlier insistence the decision to move into the Newstead office was a matter for federal government bureaucrats.
"All the kids are learning different languages," Jolie revealed. "I asked them what languages they wanted to learn and Shi is learning Khmai, which is a Cambodian language, Pax is focusing on Vietnamese, Mad has taken to German and Russian, Z is speaking French, Vivienne really wanted to learn Arabic, and Knox is learning sign language.

The actor and humanitarian confirmed just that when she opened up to BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour recently about her half a dozen kids' love of languages and culture.

With parents like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox were never going to be your average children.

"I suppose that just means you don't know who your children are until they show you who they are and they are just becoming whoever they want to be.

"None of my kids want to be actors," Jolie said. Credit:Getty

"It's been a dream, they are interested in other cultures," she added, when it was put to her by the interviewer how handy they will be when travelling the world."

But the Maleficent star, 41, who is married to fellow actor Pitt, 52, said they will not be following in their Hollywood footsteps.

"None of my kids want to be actors," she revealed. "They are actually very interested in being musicians. I think they like the process of film from the outside. Mad is interested in editing. They are all vert young. Pax loves music and DJing."
The gun law reforms enacted after the Port Arthur massacre 20 years ago did not only bring about an uninterrupted hiatus on mass shootings in Australia, but precipitated a decline in all intentional deaths, including those that did not involve firearms.

Research published in the prestigious American journal JAMA demonstrates fears that gun suicides would merely be replaced by other methods have proved misguided, with an initial spike in suicide deaths immediately following the buyback followed by a steady downward trend.

The rate of homicide deaths, which were already in decline, declined further.

University of Sydney Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, who was the lead author of the paper, said while there had been 13 mass killings - defined as five or more victims - between 1979 and 1996, there had been none since.
Former soldiers fought back tears as they disclosed the horrific sexual and physical abuse allegedly inflicted upon them as army apprentices.

A senior army officer dismissed serious sexual assaults as "pranks" and victims were threatened with violence if they reported abuse, a royal commission has heard.

WARNING: This story contains graphic content that may upset some readers

The third day of a public inquiry into alleged child sexual abuse within the Australian Defence Force heard that teenage recruits were repeatedly raped and beaten at the Army Apprentices School in Balcombe, Victoria.

The report follows an investigation of Defence spending by the National Audit Office. Credit:Phil Carrick

David Sparreboom, who joined the school as a 16-year-old in 1970, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse a group of senior apprentices held him down and inserted a broom handle into his rectum, leaving him bleeding for a week.

When he raised the issue with a senior officer, he told the commission his complaint was dismissed.

"I said something like, 'People are getting broomsticks up the bum. I don't know what I can do about it'.
Alex Ali had just been shot and lay bleeding in the gutter in Sydney's south-west yet managed to pull a wad of $50 notes out of the pocket near his bloodied wound.

As ambulances rounded the corner to his location on George St in Yagoona, a witness claims he saw Mr Ali offload the lucrative bundle to Mahmoud Sanoussi, who was on the phone to triple 0.

Mahmoud Sanoussi, a friend of Mohammed Hamzy, leaves the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday.

"Someone's just been f--king shot with a f--king weapon," Mr Sanoussi told the 000 call operator on October 8, 2012.

"What's the name of this f--king street? GeorgesGeorges St."
Four police officers who were charged with lying about the shooting death of mentally ill man Adam Salter in 2009 have been acquitted of all charges in the NSW District Court.

The officers - Sergeant Sheree Bissett, 52, Sergeant Emily Metcalfe, 37, Senior Constable Leah Wilson, 41, and Constable Aaron Abela, 33 - were overcome with emotion in the dock as Judge Gregory Woods proclaimed them not guilty of perjury.

After hearing three weeks of testimony, Judge Woods found the Crown's case - that each officer had given false evidence to the 2012 Police Integrity Commission inquiry into Mr Salter's death - had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

At the centre of each of the officers' accounts was the claim that Constable Abela had tried to restrain Mr Salter when he was shot in the back and killed by Sergeant Bissett in his father's Lakemba home on the morning of November 18, 2009.
Taxpayers face handing political parties millions more dollars in public funding for election campaigns after a parliamentary committee recommended that a "dollar per vote" system used at last year's state poll be retained.

The system saw the model used to fund political parties switch from them having about 75 per cent of their election costs reimbursed by taxpayers to earning up to $4 per vote in the lower house and $3 in the upper house.

NSW Premier Mike Baird in Sydney after winning the 2015 election. Credit:Andrew Meares

It was criticised as "full public funding by stealth" as it meant parties would be able to claim more than $18 million back in public funding - should they spend that amount - while still being able to raise money via private donations.

Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney Anne Twomey also noted at the time that it meant parties would receive even more taxpayer funding over time as the population naturally grows.
Two men have been charged over the death of a woman whose bruised and bloodied body was found on a beach on the NSW North Coast four years ago.

Lynette Daley, 33, died from severe blood loss after she was allegedly raped on Ten Mile Beach, north of Iluka, during an Australia Day camping trip in 2011.

Ms Daley had been camping at the beach with two men - Adrian Attwater, 42, who claimed to be her boyfriend, and Paul Maris, 46.

An autopsy found Ms Daley died from blood loss from horrific internal and external injuries after a violent sex act was performed on her.
A Gold Coast prostitute who spent three months on the run after she fled a police car has been jailed for trafficking drugs to pay her mortgage.

Renee Elizabeth Tarbuck, 34, who pleaded guilty in Brisbane's Supreme Court on Thursday to trafficking methamphetamine and other dangerous drugs, fed her own addiction and paid off her debt by running a "well-organised" dealing business between 2012 and 2013.

Rachel Greenway was awarded more than $450,000 in the Queensland District Court. Credit:Harrison Saragossi

Tarbuck was taken into custody last year on trafficking charges but escaped from a police vehicle and took off in her own car.

She dodged authorities for three months before being caught.
Power has been restored to the 4122 Energex Gold Coast customers who were without power on Thursday morning.

An Energex spokesman said a damaged connection between the overhead network and underground network at Molendinar had set off the alarm at the substation just before 9am.

Residents on parts of the Gold Coast woke to no power on Thursday. Credit:Jessica Shapiro

All power was restored to homes by 10.30am.

EARLIER
Shots have been fired into a Gold Coast home, triggering a police investigation.

A Mermaid Waters resident heard what he thought were two gunshots ring out and called police just before 1am.

Police are investigating after shots were fired overnight. Credit:Michel O'Sullivan

When they arrived at a home in Peninsula Court, officers found what appeared to be gunshot damage to the front window and guttering.

But fortunately no one was home at the time.
Queensland drivers are being urged to slow down in suburban streets as part of the state's annual school holiday road safety blitz.

Queensland Police's mid-year campaign, dubbed Cold Snap, begins on Friday, as most schools break, and will run to July 15.

Last year, 12 people died on the state's roads in the June-July holidays. Credit:iStock

In the corresponding fortnight last year, 12 people died on the state's roads while some 700 people were injured.

Assistant Commissioner Mike Keating said police would target speeding on all roads but indicated most injuries happened on suburban streets.
South-east Queensland's new $30 million interstate rail freight centre begins to unload trains in January 2017, courtesy of a $9.6 million state government grant in Thursday's Scenic Rim Regional Council budget.

That grant allows the much talked-about Bromelton interstate rail freight rail depot to begin unloading rail freight near Beaudesert.

The Scenic Rim's mayor says many people use the area as a "dormitory state and commute". Credit:Matthew Cranston

The Scenic Rim Regional Council  and successive Queensland governments  hope the rail freight hub on 15,000 hectares will be a new lease of life for the "dormitory" Scenic Rim region.

The first freight train arrives at Bromelton from Melbourne on January 17 at 3.19am. The freight site saves the costs of unloading at Acacia Ridge for rural Queensland.
Seven properties related to a Queensland horse charity have been raided in an investigation into alleged misuse of donations.

State Crime Command's Stock and Rural Crime Investigation Squad (SARCIS) executed search warrants at seven Save a Horse Australia Horse Rescue and Sanctuary properties on Tuesday, June 14.

The charity has been under investigation since last year. Credit:James Pitman/Amanda Vella's S.A.H.A Horse Rescue and Sanctuary/Facebook

The charity's four horse sanctuaries at Tarampa, Minden, Buccan and Caligraba were raided, as well as properties at Beaudesert, Inala and Greenbank.

Allegations of misuse of donations received by the charity from members of the public have been investigated since 2015.
Two Queensland brothers have flown home but remain in hospital four days after they were seriously injured in a deadly Vanuatu bus crash.

Three locals, including a pregnant woman, were killed when a tour bus carrying travellers from a P&O cruise collided with a commuter bus in the capital Port Vila on Monday afternoon.

The aftermath of the bus crash in Vanuatu.

Police had been waiting for the tour bus driver to be released from hospital to charge him with reckless driving causing death.

Vanuatu police acting assistant commissioner Songi George Andrews told Fairfax Media the driver of the tour bus had allegedly swerved to the wrong side of the road pretending to hit some people on the side of the road before colliding with the other bus.
A Queensland teenager is due to face court for attempted murder after he was arrested over a stabbing on the bayside south of Brisbane more than nine months ago.

The 19-year-old allegedly tried to break into the Wellington Point home of a 63-year-old man last September, but stabbed him multiple times in the chest and thigh when he was disturbed in an attack police described as "frenzied".

A teenager allegedly told a 63-year-old man "I could kill you if I wanted to" during a stabbing at Wellington Point. Credit:Georgia Matts

He allegedly told his victim: "I could kill you if I wanted to."

The man was arrested on Thursday and charged with one count each of attempted murder, acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm or transmit serious disease, unlawful wounding and trespassing.
An American woman whose body was left outside a hospital in county Victoria was charged with importing guns about six months before her death.

Tamara Turner, 49, was found dead outside Mildura Base Hospital on the morning of June 6.

Tamara Turner was found dead outside the Mildura hospital on June 6. Credit:Facebook

Police have said she had injuries consistent with an assault, while her son has said he was told by authorities she had been shot in the thigh, and the bullet pierced an artery.

Ms Turner's partner, Steven Samaras, was arrested in Preston the following day and has been questioned by homicide detectives.
A man has been remanded in custody after being charged with murdering 47-year-old Keith Foggin.



The 45-year-old man from Darley, in Bacchus Marsh, was arrested and charged on Thursday morning.



He appeared on Thursday night before an out-of-session court hearing and was remanded in custody to face Melbourne Magistrate's Court on Friday morning.



Keith Foggin was last seen at a Millbank Street address in Bacchus Marsh about 10.30am on September 24.
Rug up, Melbourne, today's going to be very cold.



The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting the coldest day of the year so far with hail, thunder, rain and wind throughout Friday as well as flurries of snow in elevated outer areas.



Hail is expected in the metropolitan area from about 2.30pm with the temperature expected to struggle to top 10 degrees.

Senior forecaster Scott Williams said the afternoon was going to be "the most unstable time".

"Any shower this afternoon could produce hail, it's such a cold, unstable air mass," he said.

"It's a very cold day. Stay rugged up and in a warm environment."



Mount Macedon, Kinglake and the Dandenongs look set to get blanketed in white as snow is forecast down to 500 metres.
WARNING: This story contains graphic content which may upset some readers

A man who repeatedly raped his own daughter, forced her to wear bondage and pimped her out to six other men has been jailed for more than 22 years.

The father, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, pleaded guilty to 61 offences committed between 2013 and 2015 when the girl was aged between 11 and 13.

The graphic details of the 42-year-old's offending were revealed in the West Australian District Court on Thursday.

It included giving the girl a stupefying drug, watching as others raped her and recording her while she was naked and in bondage.
NBN Co has taken a Perth hills council to a state tribunal in a bid to build a wireless tower 500 metres from a primary school, despite heavy community opposition and claims the company is bullying residents.

The telco giant wants to push forward with plans to build a 50 metre tower on an unused block in Pickering Brook next door to houses and on an adjoining road to Pickering Brook Primary School.

The Shire of Kalamunda is in a legal battle with NBN Co over the position of a proposed 50 metre tower. Credit:Rob Homer

The tower - which would be the equivalent height to a 15-storey high-rise building - would service hundreds of residents, with the area due to have NBN rolled out by early 2017.

Resident Justin Mercy, who lives two doors down from the proposed site, said the situation had become like a scene from the movie, The Castle, claiming NBN Co was "bullying" the community.
London: "VOTE LEAVE TODAY" and "Don't take a leap into the dark...vote REMAIN today," two of Britain's leading newspapers urged as Britons began voting in the EU Referendum.

Remain campaigners have been urging Britons to do the "positive and patriotic" thing and vote to stay on June 23 but London tabloid The Daily Express told its readers "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU," set against the backdrop of the union jack.

The Daily Mirror took a more foreboding approach and ran on its front page a swirling black hole and the text "For your family...for your children...for your passion...for your pay packet...for jobs and the NHS...don't take a leap into the dark...vote REMAIN today."
Brooklyn man Ali Chaouk was on Thursday charged with the murder of Mohammed Haddara. The Age is republishing this story, which was originally published on October 23, 2010, for context on the history of the Haddara and Chaouk families. We understand there has been no recent conflict between the families. The Age is in no way suggesting Ali Chaouk is guilty of the murder of Mohammed Haddara.

News of the murder of notorious Melbourne crime patriarch Machhour Chaouk ricocheted through his native village in Lebanon almost as quickly as the gunshot that killed him.

"Everyone had the same fear," says Ahmad Chaouk, "that the war would break out here." Credit:Jason Koutsoukis

Perched high among the rocky peaks of Mount Lebanon, the Chaouk clan of Bqarsouna were shaken by rumours that Machhour's killer was a member of the rival Haddara family.

Not just another Lebanese family who had established themselves in Australia, the Haddara family's roots go back to Zouk Haddara, a village across the mountain ridge that adjoins Bqarsouna.
Mexico: Mexico and the United Nations have announced the results of a new study that estimates opium poppies were planted on about 61,000 acres in 2015.

The study, released on Wednesday, is the first of its kind in the country, so authorities can't compare the results with past years to determine whether opium growing has expanded.

A soldier stands on a poppy field, during eradication supervised by the Mexican Army on the outskirts of Morelia, Mexico. Credit:AP/File

The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico, Antonio Mazzitelli, said a second part of the study will try to estimate what the crop yield is in Mexico.

Mr Mazzitelli said production is concentrated in nine states along Mexico's Pacific coast, including Guerrero, Sinaloa and Nayarit.
New York: The leader of a polygamous breakaway sect of the Mormon Church has gone on the run less than two weeks after he was released from jail and confined to a home in Salt Lake City pending a trial on fraud and money laundering charges, officials said.

Lyle Jeffs, 56, the de facto leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was discovered to be missing on Sunday, said Sandra Yi Barker, an FBI spokeswoman in Salt Lake City.

Lyle Jeffs in a booking file photo from February this year released by the Davis County jail. Credit:AP

Barker said that the FBI had received several tips since Jeffs' disappearance and that he was possibly seeking shelter in communities of the sect outside Utah, including those in Canada or Mexico. She warned that he was considered "armed and dangerous."
I have never visited my fathers birthplace in Kosice, Czechoslovakia. In fact, I find that part of the world quite confusing. I couldnt tell you the difference between a Czech and a Slav or what area the Czech Republic occupies.

My father, who passed away in 1999, was an incredibly complex man who survived Holocaust death camps and then returned to an Eastern Europe where his family  mother, father, two brothers and a sister  were but a memory. He made a few European pit stops in Vienna and Paris before deciding to raise a family in America.

I often think that his will to live after losing so many close to him is a miracle. His loss is unfathomable, more than anyone should bear in a lifetime, much less at the tender age of 16 when we in America are mostly worried about college, sex, and our future prospects.

He wore his pain stoically. Most people did not know the baggage he carried in his heart. But those close to him saw the immeasurable pain and damage the war inflicted. He was a man who always thought doom was around the corner, that any silver lining was about to be eclipsed by a dark cloud.

It is Fathers Day as I write this and a glance at my Facebook feed shows countless pictures of fathers and pithy tributes. It is hard to sum up a huge relationship  one that has so many layers and ups and downs  in a short tribute. But many try to do this and it makes us feel good that, even though our fathers are long gone, we can at least honor their memory on this Hallmark holiday.

Ive been thinking a lot about my father lately, more than 17 years after he suddenly dropped dead while on vacation in Florida. He died at the age of 73, tanned, with his mind still crystal clear and his love for my mother still fierce.

At the time, it all seemed so tragic  an unexpected bursting of an artery, a relatively young man felled just as he was beginning to enjoy being a new grandfather, a big hole opened up in my mothers heart for the loss of her beloved.

I went through the normal stages of grieving. But because my third child was born just three weeks after dads sudden death, the focus shifted quickly. My child-related insomnia was exacerbated by the shock of losing a parent, the first death of someone close to me. My heart ached. I wore his clothing for a few months to feel close. I attended daily prayer groups to say the Jewish prayer for the dead. Life marched on and there were young kids, a newly fragile mother and a growing business to distract me from thinking too much about my dad and his painful life.

But last month I visited his brother, my only living relative of his generation, and the memories and the aches came flooding back. My uncle regaled me one weekend with stories about how he and my father eluded the Nazis in the mid-1940s, how they were able to procure false Christian identity documents for 9,000 other Jews, and how my father protected his young love  my mother  during the war.

It occurred to me that while my father must have suffered deeply in his teenage years because of the loss of his family, his life after that was filled with much joy. His love affair with my mother, which started when they were both tweens in 1937, stayed strong for the 51 years of marriage they enjoyed. My father saw his two sons grow up in New York, go to prestigious colleges, and find success in their chosen professions. He even got to see the promised land: two of his grandchildren, Jonah and Tess, were the apple of his eye in those few years he got to enjoy them at the end of his life.

Fathers Day does force us to think of our dads and the impact they had on our lives. I was blessed to be raised by a man who was always there when I needed him; I never questioned where he would be when the chips were down. We all have our quibbles with each of our parents  they should have done this more, they shouldnt have done that, whatever.

But now, as a father of three wonderful children who are each entering their adult years too rapidly for me to ponder, I have a greater appreciation for my fathers sturdiness and devotion to family.

In this week after Fathers Day, I think of the famous phrase: Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

Heres to all dads like mine, who never stopped showing up. Thats all we can ask.
The American Gothic premiere introduces us to the privileged Hawthorne family. But not all is as it seems. This family is full of secrets and one of them is likely the infamous Silver Bells serial killer! So who is it?

Meet The Family

American Gothics Arrangement in Grey and Black begins with Tessa Ross and her husband Brady Ross going to meet the rest of the Hawthorne family for a pre-interview because Tessas sister Alison Hawthorne-Price is running for mayor. The top of a tunnel falls down right as they leave it.

Back at the Hawthornes house, the matriarch Madeline takes down a photo despite her husband Mitchell saying the person in the photo is still a part of their family. Then the rest of their family shows up to the house. Its all super uncomfortable. Its clear how out of touch they are. Cams son Jack even says super morbid stuff about doing autopsies.

American Gothic Interview: Gabriel Bateman Discusses His Twisted Role >>>

Alisons campaign manager decides they need to stick to campaign headquarters because the house is just way too extravagant. She also asks about Jack. Alisons brother Cam and his wife Sophie met in art school and had Jack. Theyre getting a divorce because Cams clean but Sophies not. Tessa and Brady, meanwhile, are hooking up in the pantry.

What Happened to Mitchell?

Alison gets a call and finds out about the tunnel that collapsed. Back at the crime scene, a police officer finds a belt in a piece of the fallen tunnel. Brady, whos a cop, goes in to work on the tunnel case. He also calls Alison about the belt. They think its a Silver Bells murder weapon. The Silver Bells killer would strangle his victims and leave a silver dinner bell, but the case went cold.

This could be a real career maker and Alison immediately jumps on it. Unfortunately, while shes giving her press conference, Mitchell collapses. The whole gamily gathers in the hospital. Alison thinks that her press conference caused the heart attack or that Mitchell was worried his concrete company caused the collapse.

The family discusses calling the other son Garrett, but hes completely ditched the family for some reason. And they have more problems: Sophie shows up wanting to give her relationship with Cam another shot, but he says no. Meanwhile, Tessa takes matters into her own hands and leaves a message for Garrett. Just then, the family finds out Mitchells okay. Alison assures him that the collapse wasnt his fault.

Cam And Tessa Do Some Investigative Work

Cam and Tessa go back to the house and Tessa sees Cam digging around the shed. She assumes hes looking for drugs hes hidden. He admits it, so Tessa says shell help Cam find them and throw them out. While they search, though, Tessa comes across a box of silver bells. Oh no! Someone in the family is the infamous Silver Bells killer!

Of course, they assume that the silver bells belonged to the houses previous owner before they find one of Cams cartoons in the box. Next they assume that Mitchell was just really into trying to crack the case. So they decide to talk to their mom in the morning.

Soon, theyre seeing silver bells everywhere. Even the shower head looks like a silver bell! Meanwhile, Jacks just getting creepier and creepier. He draws a picture of someone having a heart attack and someone getting strangled like the silver bells deaths. How did he know about the silver bells deaths? There was info on Mitchells iPad. Tessa also does some research of her own online.

American Gothic Interview: Juliet Rylance on the Driven and Ambitious Alison >>>

Garrett Comes Home

Suddenly the doorbell rings. Its the neighbor looking for her cat Caramel. As the neighbor walks away, though, Tessa sees a strange man in the driveway. Its her brother Garret, who she didnt recognize. They all drive to the hospital together and Garretts super cagey. But he gets a surprisingly warm welcome from Madeline. Alisons more suspicious, but he gets to meet Alisons daughters Harper and Violet. Of course, Mitchell codes right when Garrett goes up to him.

Back at home, Alison asks Garrett what he whispered to their dad before the alarm went off and Mitchell went into a coma. He said he was glad to see him and he loved him. The cat lady comes back with flyers while the siblings discuss where Garrett should sleep. He wants to sleep in the shed, which Cam and Tessa are not happy about. Madeline comes back and says he can have his old room back.

So Garrett goes back and looks at all his old stuff. Jack comes up to him and calls him weird but its okay because hes weird too. Madeline comes in and says, You said youd never come back. I did, he replies. But why did he leave? Is it because hes a notorious serial killer?

Bradys also been busy working on the case. He tells Tessa that they found some DNA on the belt. If they find a match, they have a suspect. Tessa asks about serial killers. A lot are creepy and antisocial, but there are some that are real family men. So basically it could be anyone.

Meanwhile, Garrett acts creepier and creepier. He goes outside and sharpens a huge knife on a rock and then shaves his giant beard with it in the kitchen.

Cam and Tessa continue to do some research. The silver bells killings ended 14 years ago, right when Garrett left home. Very suspicious. Tessa remembers how sweet Garrett was back then, but hes real creepy.

Alison Finds out About the Bells

Cam and Tessa ultimately show Alison the bells. She thinks its some prank or that her opponent planted them to ruin the campaign. They show her that their newspaper was in the box. Cam and Tessa think it was their dad or Garrett. Alison says they should just ignore it until after the election. This could ruin them all. While Alisons talking cam notices his stash.

EP Corinne Brinkerhoff Previews the Compelling, Satisfying Story of American Gothic >>>

Jack May Not Be The Killer But He Will Be One at Some Point

Cams about to take the drugs when he hears Caramel. And its not good. Jack was experimenting on the cat and cut its tail off. Okay. So Jacks not old enough to be on the list of suspects. But come on, this kid has classic serial killer traits.

What Are Mitchell And Madeline Hiding?

Later, Cam tells Tessa hes going to visit their parents, but he goes to see Sophie instead. After she checks on Jack, Tessa runs into Garrett. She finally asks why he left for so long. I dont know, he says. But if it werent for your I might never have come back here. When Tessa asks, Were not so bad are we? he says. Youre not. Alison also talks to her daughters. They tell her that Garrett was mean to Mitchell at the hospital. He didnt say he missed and loved him. Instead he said, Im gonna tell them it was you.

Back at the hospital, Mitchell tells Madeline they need to tell the truth. She tells him to just rest. Then she kills him!

American Gothic airs on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. on CBS

(Image courtesy of CBS)
latest news

October 3, 2022

Dee Gambit

Hundreds  if not thousands  of new and returning TV shows and movies are released every month  your options of what to watch are endless. Variety, they say is ...
Research News

Brightest entrepreneurs shine at business expo

Representatives from Abcombi Biosciences receive the $20,000 grand prize. From left: Bill Rancic, keynote speaker; Charles Jones, Abcombi Biosciences; Marie Beitelshee, Abcombi Biosciences; Scott Stenclik, president and CEO, Superior Group - Bright Title Sponsor; and Norma Nowak, executive director, CBLS. Photo: Nancy J. Parisi

By JULIE MOLENDA

If you have enough passion, belief and drive, who am I to tell someone it cant come true. 

Some of Western New Yorks brightest entrepreneurs took center stage last week, pitching their business ideas to a room full of academics, venture capitalists and local business leaders as part of this years Bright Buffalo Niagara Entrepreneur Expo.

At stake were two cash prizes totaling $25,000, as well as a chance to make an impression on potential mentors, collaborators and investors.

The expo, held June 15 at the Hotel @ The Lafayette, was sponsored by UBs Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences (CBLS).

The program kicked off with an investor luncheon featuring guest speakers Howard Zemsky, president and CEO of Empire State Development and commissioner of the New York State Department of Economic Development, and Ashok Subramanian, CEO and co-founder of Liazon Corp.

Attendees then heard opening remarks from Norma Nowak, CBLS executive director.

Although previous Bright Buffalo expos have featured pitch competitions, this is the first in which cash prizes have been awarded. Representatives of 26 startups delivered fast-and-furious 90-second live pitches, with six finalists delivering five-minute pitches.

Attendees voted, by smartphone, to award Painless 1099, which allows freelancers to automatically set aside money for their income taxes, the $5,000 Peoples Choice Award, sponsored by Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP.

A panel of six renowned investors from Buffalo and Canada awarded the $20,000 grand prize to finalist Abcombi Biosciences, a UB spinoff company founded by UB grad Charles Jones. In addition to the prize money, the company, which is developing a new vaccine for pneumococcal disease, received an automatic pass into the 43North semifinals and a one-on-one mentoring session with expo keynote speaker Bill Rancic.

Rancic, a bestselling author and winner of the first season of The Apprentice, shared with attendees everything from his first entrepreneurial experience  running a pancake breakfast out of his grandmothers kitchen  to his subsequent business activities to address how entrepreneurs can use challenging times to their advantage.

Rancic told his audience that he will never tell an entrepreneur he or she cant be successful. If you have enough passion, belief and drive, who am I to tell someone it cant come true, he said. You never want to look back and regret that you didnt try to make your dream come true.

In addition to the live pitches, entrepreneurs had the opportunity to network and showcase their companies at an Entrepreneur Tradeshow.

Also during the expo, Jack McGowan, project manager at Insyte Consulting and director of the Western New York Venture Association, received Brights first ever Bright Partner of the Year Award for his years of dedication supporting entrepreneurism.

In addition to CBLS, expo sponsors included 43North, Buffalo Business First, Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Colligan Law LLP, FreedMaxick CPAs, InfoTech WNY, Insyte Consulting, Invest Buffalo Niagara, Katz Americas, Key Private Bank, Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP, National Grid, Phillips Lytle LLP, RSM, Road to the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Upstate Venture Connect, Western New York Incubator Network, Western New York Venture Association, Superior Group, Launch NY, Immco Diagnostics, Print2Web, Stephen Garvin, Sandhill Investment Management and Upstate Venture Association of New York.
Research News

Geologists make their own lava to prep for explosive experiments

By CHARLOTTE HSU

Previous studies have used a coffee cup-sized amount of lava. They did it at a small scale. Were doing it bigger because there are a lot of questions about whether well see the same results when experiments are scaled up. 

Scientists in UBs Center for GeoHazards Studies have started making their own lava to prepare for explosive experiments planned for later this summer.

The purpose of this work?

To study what happens when they expose their molten rock to water.

Lava-water interactions are common in nature but poorly understood. They drive the formation of volcanic maar craters, such as Hunts Hole in New Mexico or Lake Nyos in Cameroon. They also can greatly enhance the explosive potential of ice-covered volcanoes such as Icelands Eyjafjallajokull, whose 2010 eruption unleashed an ash cloud that grounded air traffic across much of Europe for nearly a week.

UBs lava-making operation  one of the largest in the world  will provide a rare, close-up view of the interplay between molten rock and water. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, will yield insight on why the two substances sometimes generate huge explosions when they come together, and sometimes cause no damage at all.

As geologists, we want to understand the conditions that generate explosions  how much water do you need? How much time? says project lead Ingo Sonder, a research scientist in UBs Center for GeoHazards Studies.

The findings could help scientists better gauge the danger that volcanoes near ice, lakes, oceans and underground water sources pose to surrounding communities.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Victoria Falls and Hwange residents who require blood for transfusion are resorting to crossing over into Zambia to purchase the precious liquid at a cost of US$50 compared to US$120 and US$140 at local government and private hospitals per pint respectively.This came to light when the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health toured the National Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) headquarters in Harare this Wednesday morning to get an appreciation of the processes involved in the collection, testing and storage of blood.Chairperson of the committee, Dr Ruth Labode sais while the committee appreciates the costs involved in packaging blood for transfusion, it is disturbing to note that Zimbabweans are going to buy blood in neighbouring countries like Zambia because of the exorbitant prices locally.Laboratory Services Director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Douglas Mangwanya explained that the government is equally concerned with the price of blood and the recent injection of funds into the NBSZ is part of measures to reduce the cost of the precious liquid.The cost of blood is pegged at US$42 in Malawi and US$50 in Zambia, while a pint now pegged at US$120 from US$135 in all local government hospitals.Local private institutions charge US$140 for a pint.Blood for pregnant mothers however remains free.
Federal authorities investigating Bob Menendez, reports and adviser say

The investigation by New York prosecutors is reportedly connected to the 2017 trial in which the senior U.S. Senator was acquitted.
Voters will be heading to polling stations across the Burnham-On-Sea area today to cast their votes in the EU referendum.

Polls are open from 7am-10pm today for the historic election.

Final appeals have been made to residents across the Burnham-On-Sea area from both sides of the EU referendum debate.

Local representatives from the Remain and Leave camps made a last attempt to sway voters.

Burnham-On-Seas MP, James Heappey, and former MP Tessa Munt are campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU, while Helen Hims, Burnhams former UKIP parliamentary candidate and the leader of the local Leave campaign, is pushing for voters to back the move to leave the EU.

Former MP Tessa Munt said: Im voting to remain in the EU on Thursday for many reasons. All my adult life Ive been in the EU. I think Britains done alright over the last 40+ years, and we are still uniquely British  weve not lost our identity. Id like my children and my grandchildren to enjoy their rights to study, travel, live, marry, own property, work and eventually retire in any one of 28 countries in the EU, just as my generation has.

The UK enjoys the huge benefits of doing business with 27 other countries in Europes borderless market place. We have so much more clout negotiating as part of the EU team for 500million people than we would for only 65million UK customers and traders.

We enjoy the advantage of the EUs constant push towards safer, cleaner and healthier working and living conditions. Burnham knows about this first-hand  rising EU water quality standards are forcing our water companies to treat sewage and clean up our rivers so our beaches are safer. The EU has also given us paid holidays, rights for part-time workers, a limit to our weekly working hours, parental leave, health and safety laws and protection from discrimination.

We pay to be part of the EU, but in this part of Somerset, we get so much more back from the insurance policy that is the EU. In the area I represented as your MP, we paid 16,810,000 a year to be in the EU, but EU support for farmers alone topped 17,829,000 a year, besides the funding which comes to support the environment, research, wildlife, science, education, arts, heritage, nature, tourism and dozens of other Somerset projects. Almost all of that 18m is spent on buying from local businesses. Whatever happens on Thursday, big businesses will survive  they can take the heat  but imagine the impact of taking 18million away from small and medium-sized businesses in our one-fifth of Somerset.

Weve had 70+ years of peace and security in Europe after centuries of bloodshed. The British-inspired EU Arrest Warrant and Europol bring criminals back to face justice in British courts, and as part of the EU, we implemented sanctions against an aggressor like Russia.

Remaining a member of the EU means we have a voice for the future, a seat at the negotiation table and a chance to make changes for the good of the UK. We must continue to push for improvements, but being IN means we always have the option to leave at a later date. If we vote to leave the EU this week, thats final. Theres no way back.

I certainly dont think the EU is perfect and would have pushed hard for more changes than those David Cameron negotiated earlier this year. Amongst other things, Id have insisted that EU business and votes take place in either Brussels or Strasbourg  I dont mind which  but I deeply resent the waste of taxpayers money moving between both several times a year. Ive weighed up what I think is important for my family, my neighbours, my area and my country and I believe were better off, stronger and safer working with our partners in the EU.

Burnhams MP James Heappey told Burnham-On-Sea.com: Thursdays vote matters a lot. It will shape the direction of our country for decades to come and the choice is not straightforward.

There will be arguments made that this is all about sovereignty. Vote to leave and we get our country back. Beyond that well make something up as we go along and itll all be fine.

But it isnt as simple as that. The world has changed since we joined the EU  the age of the nation state replaced by the age of globalisation and interconnection. People might wish it could be like it was in the good old days, but theyre gone.

Now our strength comes through our influence. And our influence comes from being a part of things. From being on the pitch playing the game rather than carping from the sidelines.

So beware the siren call of sovereignty and worry about the economic abyss that awaits if we leave on Friday. I wont go so far as to say that disaster is guaranteed as the referendum campaign has already had far too much hyperbole. The truth is that we just dont know what our economic plan would be should we leave.

For me, thats too risky. And I reject wholly the suggestion that five or ten years of pain is alright if we get our country back in the end. Tell that to the young person just starting their career, or the person saving for a mortgage. Tell it to the small business that is trying to grow or the person trying to plan for their retirement.

The stock exchange and currency markets have recovered this week because they are betting on a remain vote. Make no mistake, if they thought the opposite outcome was coming, the pound would rapidly lose value and the stock market would lose billions. If we actually left, people suggest it would be worse than Black Wednesday.

Who cares? Its just bankers losing money. Nope. Its our pension funds, its our ISAs, its our companies ability to invest and create new jobs, its the cost of importing things like petrol and its recession.

To me, thats just too big a risk to take. So Im voting to remain and expecting that after the battering weve given the EU here and with French and German General Elections to come in the next eighteen months; Im expecting that theyll finally see the writing on the wall and accept the need for more change.

Finally, no matter what the result, please lets learn from last week that the great thing about our democracy is that we have the right to disagree with one and another. Nobody who votes to remain is a traitor, nobody who wants to vote to leave doesnt care for our country. We will all be voting for what we think is best for the United Kingdom. We must respect that and respect the result too.

Burnhams Helen Hims, who is leading the local Vote Leave campaign, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: Many people are being increasingly confused by the countless arguments being flung back and forth. Its time to narrow our decision down to the fundamental issue of: who runs our country?'

Im pro-European and pro-World, but anti-EU. To me this referendum is all about self-governance.

One of the most precious things we possess is the ability to control our destiny through the ballot box; electing and removing those who govern us.

The EU commission might do some things we like, and our elected politicians might do some things we dislike, but if thats the basis on which we vote to stay, we might as well accept tyranny.

Voting In on 23rd June doesnt mean no change, it means surrendering everything weve ever known to a foreign, unelected, undemocratic government which will ultimately have the final say over every aspect of our lives  no further ballot boxes required!

As the oldest, most stable and most successful country in Europe, the UK has a duty to remind the European Union, barely 50 years old, that government is the servant and not the master of the people.

The EU model is outdated and failing, the Euro currency doesnt work, its borderless regime is breaking up, the migrant crisis is overwhelming and European solidarity is coming to an end.

It should be clear the future of Europe lies not with an integrated German-led federal union, but with closely-co-operating independent sovereign nations, seen as normal everywhere else in the world  except the EU.

This referendum is our chance. We can see the direction in which the EU is going, and we know that no re-negotiation can alter it from within. As the EU shrivels economically, and yet continues its relentless march toward full statehood, we have one last opportunity to stand amicably aside and negotiate a better relationship based on free-trade and self-governance: Vote Leave.
FIVE PRESIDENTS

My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford

Clint Hill (with Lisa McCubbin)

Simon & Schuster

449 pages; Rs 799



Clint Hill is the US Secret Service agent who leapt on to the moving open-topped limousine to wedge himself between his charge, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and the bullets that killed President John K Kennedy on that fateful morning in Dallas in November, 1963.
Four Ghana sailors who were stranded on a grounded cargo ship barely two nautical miles off Mumbai for a whopping 66 months have been finally rescued and have flown home.

The four seamen survived without electricity and on little food, water and medicines aboard the ship, Magnum V, which got grounded near the tiny Butcher Island off Mumbai.

They flew home on Wednesday night, an official said on Thursday.

Abakah Francis, 60, Issah Sawudu, 49, Idriss Mohammed, 48, and Mohammad Mustapha, 38, shared one mobile phone to maintain basic communication with officials of the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) and the ship's head office in Sierra Leone.

The four were not paid salaries during most of the period they were stranded by the ship's owners.

The sailors have now filed a case to sell off the vessel to recover their accumulated dues of around $237,000 since January 2012.

Ironically, the stranded vessel was visible to tourists bound for the Elephanta Island or Raigad and others. But authorities took no action to rescue them.

After a long ordeal in which they were helped by NUSI and honorary services of maritime lawyer Abhishek Khare, Justice S J Kathawalla of the Bombay High Court allowed them to be rescued on Wednesday afternoon.

"The NUSI arranged for their airfare and other formalities. They were taken on a waiting launch to Mumbai and driven straight to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport to catch to flight late last night (sic)," NUSI's International Transport Federation Inspector Lius Gomes told IANS.

In the intervening period, Gomes said they lived on doles given by Mumbai Police, fisherfolk, the NUSI and sparse rations provided by the ship owners. This was barely sufficient for them to survive.

"However, being tough like all seafarers, they survived for 66 months without contracting any major diseases or illness," Gomes said.

Recounting their ordeal, Gomes said that around June 2011 their vessel, owned by a Sierra Leone-based shipping company, developed a major snag and was grounded while sailing to Sri Lanka.

Initially, there were 19 crewmen, of which 15 left over the next few months and these four were left behind to man the grounded vessel.

Last month, Justice Kathawalla ordered the vessel to be seized. However, monsoon winds and waves pushed the ship one nautical mile closer to the shoreline and it was stuck in shallow waters, making it difficult to sail out.

"We have initiated the proceedings for the sale of the ship as scrap, the proceeds of which will go to pay the outstanding salaries and dues of the four Ghanaian seamen," Gomes said.
A day after stepped down as editor-in-chief of the ABP (Anand Bazaar Patrika) Group, MD and CEO Dipankar Das Purkayastha addressed employees at the annual MD review at the group's Mumbai office.

Purkayastha, while addressing the employees, said that the company had a good year in FY16, registering 10% revenue growth, despite the West Bengal government's decision not to advertise with the ABP Group's publications and channels.



He mentioned that the government owes the group close to Rs 20 crore, a matter which is under judicial process currently.
Weve done well at so far. If I may put it bluntly: We are in our comfort zone. Past performance is an indicator of this. Barring 2015, when we were down to 13 metals (includes a Grand Prix), in most years, weve hovered in the 25 to 30 metals bracket. So, this year will not be unique in that sense.
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Car makers can look forward to increasing sales of factory fitted in the national capital region (NCR). The trigger will be a ban on retrofitting of CNG kits by the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi.
Ciaz, the first successful sedan and premium car experiment of Maruti Suzuki, has touched a milestone of 100,000 units in the domestic market. It has also been giving a competition to Honda City, the most-selling sedan in the above four-metre segment, by overtaking it in two of the first five months this calendar year.
General Motors India, which had announced a planned closure of its Halol facility near Vadodara in Gujarat about a year ago, today informed that it would extend production at the site till March 2017.

The company also added that it continues to review future options for the site, which would now produce the uprgraded Tavera. The plant as such produces 120-130 cars per day at the moment.
InMobi, the Bengaluru-based mobile advertising firm has been slapped with a fine of $950,000 (about Rs 6 crore) by the US Federal Trade Commission after it deceptively tracked the locations of hundreds of millions of consumers  including children  without their knowledge or consent to serve them geo-targeted advertising.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) said it would increase its yearly investment from the current Rs 14,000-15,000 crore to about Rs 20,000 crore over the next five to seven years.
Moving the battle from the streets to court rooms, Indias largest taxi service aggregator, Ola, has become party to a case in which rival Uber is challenging the Karnataka governments new rules for regulating players such as it and .
Top officials of Diageo-owned are facing an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for transfer of Rs 4,000 crore by the company in 2007 to its overseas arm in British Virgin Island, a tax haven.



The company, then owned by UB group chairman Vijay Mallya, informed its shareholders that ED had summoned one of its senior officials in May to provide a statement and tender evidence in connection with its investigation. The companys officer duly responded to the summons and the company has also provided additional information, as requested by the ED, and is cooperating fully with the authorities, the company said.



Summoning of official was follow-up to a letter dated October 29, 2015 by ED in which was asked to give information and documents regarding USLs present and former joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries abroad, including USL Holdings Ltd (BVI) and its subsidiaries. The company has responded to the ED and provided the information, the company said.



British liquor giant Diageo took over United Spirits in 2012 in a $2.1-billion transaction. The proceeds of the sale were not used by Mallya to repay banks, which were running from pillar-to-post to get back their loans worth Rs 9,100 crore to Mallya-owned airline. Mallya is reportedly in London.


Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman has admitted his links with the terrorists involved in the 1999 and 2002 American Centre blast incident in Kolkata, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Rehman had provided safe shelter in Cuttack to a Pakistani terrorist involved in . The said terrorist belonged to Pak-based Harkat-ul-Mujadhideen group that hijacked the Delhi-bound Indian Airlines Flight IC 184 from Kathamandu to Kandahar, said an official of the Special Task Force of Crime Branch of Odisha Police.

The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.

"As one of the terrorists involved in the hijack was close to Rehman, he brought him to Cuttack and kept him in a secret location," the officer said quoting the AQIS operative, who is being interrogated by the STF.

Though Rehman, who has been brought on a 10-day remand by Odisha Police, initially refused to admit his links with terror outfits, he opened up as soon as evidence collected by NIA and IB were placed before him, the officer said.

He added that police had been probing into the truth behind Rehman's statements.

"We have been locating the places where Rehman actually sheltered the Pakistani terrorist," the officer said, adding that the operative's brother was also one of the accused persons in the 2002 American Centre blast.

Though Rehman's brother got acquitted in the case, police said that now his younger brother (Rehman) had revealed that one of the terrorists was brought to Cuttack where he got safe shelter.

"We will verify both statements before coming to any conclusion," the officer said adding the STF have been investigating into the Odisha link of Rehman.

The operative, who was running a Madrassa at Tangi near Cuttack, was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi Police and Odisha Police on December 16, 2015. He was brought from Delhi to the state on remand.

As a cleric, Rehman was addressing a number of 'Jalsa' functions both in Odisha and Jharkhand, where he allegedly delivered provocative speeches.

Sources said Rehman will be questioned about his links in Odisha and the source of the funds he received to run the Madrassa.

He was booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
News Corp-owned personal finance advisory platform .com on Thursday announced it had partnered Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance for #BounceBack  an initiative to create awareness around the need for critical illness insurance in India.
Emphasising on deepening and strengthening cultural ties between India and UK, is launching a 50,000 (Rs 50 lakh approximately) cultural innovation fund to promote cultural exchange between the two countries. Under this, five projects will be selected for seed funding of 10,000 each by the end of July 2016. This is a first of its kind fund being introduced only for India by the British Council.
A case was registered in Kanpur and Lucknow courts on Thursday against Bollywood actor for his recent statement that "he felt like a raped woman" while shooting for his forthcoming flick "Sultan" slated to release on Eid next month.

Social activist Rafat Jamaal, in a petition filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Lucknow has asked for legal action against the actor for the statement which showed "disrespect to rape victims" and also "revived the ugly memories of such heinous crimes".

The CJM has asked the petitioner by the end of the day to prove why and how is the matter tenable to the court in Lucknow. In a related development, a lawyer Manoj Kumar Dixit has filed a petition in the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) IIIrd's court in Kanpur seeking action against the actor.

"Freedom of expression in the country does not allow sentiments to be hurt in this manner" the lawyer said while explaining the reason behind filing the case.

The court has ordered the testimony of the petitioner be recorded on July 14.

had irked his fans and people across the country by a statement, given in response to a question by a reporter on how he felt doing the strenuous shooting of Sultan, where he plays a wrestler.

Khan responded by saying that "he felt like a raped woman...he could barely stand straight after the shoot."

The statement invited sharp rebuke on social media and his father, writer Salim Khan soon apologised on behalf of his son and admitted that the statement was in bad taste.
Thursdays special session of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) plenary in Seoul concluded without a decision on Indias membership application. It was decided to continue discussions on Friday, although reports indicated at least six countries, including China, opposed NSG membership to countries that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India is not a signatory to the NPT.
Thursdays special session of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) plenary in Seoul concluded without a decision on Indias membership application. It was decided to continue discussions on Friday, although reports indicated at least six countries, including China, opposed to countries that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India is not a signatory to the NPT.


North Central Railway is planning on a war footing to make the 'Mission speed' a grand success by improving various aspects of the rail journey.

"For making the Mission Speed a grand success in NCR, we are concentrating on various aspects like rail track, trains, security etc. Keeping this mind, Delhi-Mathura and part of Mathura-Alwar rail tracks and other passenger amenities are being looked into," A K Saxena, GM North Central Railway (NCR) told reporters here today.

He examined the passenger facilities at Bahej Station falling on Mathura-Alwar section of NCR.

While instructions were given to provide adequate passenger facilities at Bahej station, it was decided to approach local authorities for construction of approach roads.

"A major part of the approach road for Bahej station has already been constructed by Railways," Saxena said.

He also instructed his junior officials to find out the solution for water logging in underpass area.

"Since most of the people including farmers are using these underpasses, we have to overcome the problem of water logging in such areas," he said.

"The connectivity between Bhainsa and Baad stations would be shifted in such a way that on one side it would facilitate speedy loading of petroleum products of IOC in goods trains and on the other hand, the movement of fast trains would be free from any hindrance," he added.

Meanwhile, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Agra, Prabhash Kumar said considering the influx of pilgrims to the city, passenger amenities at Mathura Junction will be further upgraded.
As India makes a strong bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday and is understood to have sought China's support for it, seen as very crucial to take forward the process.

The outcome of the meeting between Modi and Xi in Tashkent will determine proceedings at the two-day plenary meeting of the atomic trading club which began in Seoul today, sources said.

Though some other countries like Turkey, New Zealand and South Africa have reservations over India's membership to the 48-nation grouping, India feels their opposition will fizzle out once China takes a favourable position towards New Delhi.

China's position on India's bid is very crucial, sources said.

Modi arrived here today on a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistan's case for membership.

Giving clear indication of its opposition to India's bid, China yesterday had underlined the differences within NSG members, saying "parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue".

While making some right noises of playing "constructive" role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China maintained that the matter was not on the agenda of the plenary. Here too, Beijing clubbed the two sub-continental neighbours despite the marked difference in their nuclear non-proliferation track record.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG began today in the South Korean capital during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is likely to be deliberated upon.

While the US and France have issued statements ahead of the plenary strongly supporting India's case and asking members to back New Delhi, China has been unrelenting in its opposition harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Roughly 20 countries are backing India's case fully but given that the decisions in NSG are taken by consensus, India faces an uphill task.

India is seeking membership of NSG to enable it to trade in and export nuclear technology.
Delhi High Court has declined to grant bail to an accused facing murder trial in a 2012 shootout here that claimed the lives of liquor baron and his younger brother Hardeep, saying there are "serious allegations" against him.

Justice P S Teji also turned down the plea for relief on medical grounds by Chaddha's manager Narender Ahlawat, saying he "can get the medical treatment in judicial custody as opined by the medical board of AIIMS and there is no requirement to release him on bail to get medical treatment outside".

"It is not the stage to comment on the merits of the case inasmuch as the prosecution witnesses are still under examination and it has not been completed so far. No comment on the aspect whether there was any role of the petitioner in the alleged incident or not can be made at this stage.

"He has been charge sheeted for hatching a criminal conspiracy and committing the murder apart from committing other offences. There are serious allegations against him and there is apprehension of influencing prosecution witnesses," the court observed.

Ahlawat, who was on interim bail since April 2013 which was extended from time to time, has sought release from jail on the ground that he was "not required for the purpose of investigation as the charge sheet has been filed and charges have been framed against him".

This was opposed by the police which said he "was one of the managers of and was part of the conspiracy".

Earlier, the court had denied bail to sacked Uttarakhand minorities panel chief Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, following which the trial court on April 5 had cancelled his interim bail and sent him back to Tihar Jail. The Supreme court had also refused to hear Namdhari's bail application.

Namdhari, the alleged main conspirator in the case, was on interim bail since November 27 last on medical grounds. Now all the 20 accused are in judicial custody.

Ponty and Hardeep, who were allegedly involved in a property dispute, were killed in a shootout at a Chhattarpur farmhouse here on November 17, 2012. Subsequently, Namdhari was arrested on November 23, 2012. Later, the remaining accused were apprehended.

The trial court had in July last year framed charges under section 302 (murder) read with section 149 (offence committed by member of unlawful assembly) of the IPC against all the 20 accused, including Namdhari and his Personal Security Officer (PSO) Sachin Tyagi.

On January 28, 2014, the trial court had dropped murder charges against all the accused and added the charge of culpable homicide not amounting murder under section 304 of IPC against Namdhari and his PSO.

On May 15 last year, on the police's plea, Delhi High Court had overturned the trial court's decision and directed framing of murder charges against all the 20 accused. The apex court had also upheld the high court's decision.

Ponty and Hardeep were also charge sheeted in the case. However, the trial against them had abated as they were killed in the shootout.

The court had ordered framing of criminal conspiracy, common intention and those under the Arms Act against all the accused for trying to take over the disputed farmhouse from the possession of Hardeep.

Delhi Police had filed two charge sheets in the case and levelled murder charges against all the accused. The first charge sheet had named Ponty as an accused as he had reached the place of the incident with Namdhari and others as part of a "well-hatched conspiracy" to take possession of the south Delhi farm house.

The supplementary charge sheet had accused Hardeep in the case, saying the probe had shown Ponty was killed by the shot fired at him by his brother.
Union Public Service Commission will be conducting the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), Assistant Commandants (AC) Examination 2016 all over India, this Sunday, on June 26, 2016. The written examination is conducted for recruitment of AC (Group A) in the CAPF for the Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
India, the world's biggest producer, has contracted to import 20,000 bales from Pakistan for shipment this month after Indian prices jumped because of limited supply, industry officials told Reuters.

The move is a role reversal from earlier this year, when Pakistan was buying from India after its output had been hit by bad weather.

"Around 20,000 bales have been imported from Pakistan. Landed cost of imported is lower than local prices," Dhiren Sheth, president of the Cotton Association of India (CAI), told Reuters.

Indian cotton prices have risen by 28% since the start of 2015/16 season on Oct. 1 to 40,800 rupees per 356 kg candy (77.4 cents per lb) as two years of drought took its toll on output.

Pakistani supplies are available at about 70 cents per lb on a free-on-board basis, said one Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.

"Supplies are dwindling in both countries. The sharp rally in Indian prices is making imports viable from Pakistan, but it has limited quantity for exports," the dealer said.

India has so far imported about 1.2 million bales in 2015/16 and needs another 400,000 bales before the new crop starts arriving from the end of September, Sheth said.

The country has exported about 6.5 million bales of cotton this season, with Pakistan accounting for nearly 2 million bales.

Indian buying has been pushing up prices in Pakistan, said Shahzad Ali Khan, chairman of Pakistan Cotton Ginner's Association.

The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has urged the Pakistan government to restrict cotton exports to India in an attempt to provide raw material for domestic textiles production.

Indian industry officials, including Sheth of the CAI, said that Pakistan should not restrict exports since it imported cotton when it was in need.

Global cotton prices could rally sharply in the coming months as stocks become further depleted in key producing countries, one Karachi-based dealer said.
Indias apparel exports are likely to rise about 20 per cent this financial year, following a number of measures taken by the government to encourage investment and raise foreign shipments.
Two power distribution companies in Andhra Pradesh will sign a tripartite agreement with the state government and the Union Power Ministry for implementing the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) here on Friday.

Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will attend the event.

AP was the first state to evince interest to join UDAY, when it was announced in November last year to pull the heavily debt-ridden power discoms out of the red.

However, it could not move ahead because the state finance department did not clear the proposal all these months.

After a change of guard at the finance department last month, things started moving and the plan was finally approved by the chief minister on Thursday, under which discoms' debts amounting to Rs 8,892 crore out of the total Rs 14,720 crore would be absorbed by the state government.

AP will now become the 13th state in the country to join UDAY.

The power minister will hold a high-level meeting with the chief minister and the state government officials tomorrow to discuss the performance of the power sector in Andhra Pradesh.

Goyal will discuss a five-point programme that includes 24x7 power supply to all sectors, 100% household electrification, enhancement of power generation capacity and reduction in transmission and distribution losses.

Promotion of new and renewable energy, including development of solar energy parks to generate 4000 MW, and energy efficiency activities will also be discussed, according to Chief Executive Officer of State Energy Conservation Mission A Chandrasekhar Reddy.

"The Centre is also keen to study the latest initiative of the state government in launching Andhra Pradesh State Energy Efficiency Development Corporation, a first-of-its-kind entity exclusively for implementing energy efficiency programmes," Reddy said in a release.
State-owned on Thursday said it has raised Rs 1,000 crore through bonds that comply with Basel-III norms for capital adequacy.

"The bank has raised Rs 1,000 crore by issue of Basel-III compliant additional Tier-I bonds," it said in a regulatory filing, adding that they have been rated AA (-) by Brickwork and A+ by Crisil and bear a coupon rate of 11.50%.

The Basel-III Capital Regulations require to improve and strengthen their capital planning processes as there are concerns about potential stresses on asset quality and consequential impact on the performance/profitability of . The norms are aimed at assessing the level of capital needed to support business strategies over the medium-term.

In India, Basel-III Capital Regulations are being implemented since April 1, 2013 in a phased manner. The transitional period for full implementation of Basel-III Capital Regulations in India is extended up to March 31, 2019.

shares closed 0.78% up at Rs 96.30 on BSE.
The report, however, said NBFCs will benefit more from the Rs 70,000 crore recapitalisation of state-owned banks, which will increase their ...
Heralding a new era of DRDO-Academia Partnership, Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Jadavpur University (JU), Kolkata to establish the Jagadish Chandra Bose Centre for Advanced Technology (JCBCAT). .

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Secretary, Department of the Defence R&D and Director General, DRDO Dr. S Christopher laid the foundation of the Advanced Technology Research Centre at the university campus in Kolkata. Dr. Christopher in his address called for focused Research & Development at the centre and urged for continued cooperation to achieve success in long term. Novelty in production needs to be designed keeping in mind constraints of time, cost and space", he said. .

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The Vice Chancellor of JU, Prof. Suranjan Das welcomed the DG, DRDO and said it is a matter of great honour for the university to be associated with DRDO. He assured the DG that JCBCAT would be a centre of excellence and assist in nation-building. .

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The Chief Controller R&D (Technology Management) of DRDO, Shri MH Rahman in his address said that JCBCAT would equip itself with advanced and unique research facilities and Multi-University collaboration for quality research outcome which would involve the best researchers. .

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Research contributions made to DRDO by Jadavpur University and existing research potential in the university led to establishing this centre of excellence. The MoU will facilitate DRDO and the Jadavpur University to pursue collaborative advanced research. The JCBCAT will primarily undertake research in areas of secure systems and cognitive technologies, directed energy, unmanned and robotics technologies and other futuristic technologies. .

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The Centre will strengthen DRDOs relationship with Jadavpur University and with other academic research institutions in the region. DRDO scientists and engineers will get the opportunity to work with the faculty and scholars of the university towards addressing scientific problems and finding innovative solutions. DRDO will support and facilitate advanced research and utilize the outcome in developing futuristic defence systems. The researchers will also have the opportunity to work on real problems in the advanced areas of Defence technologies. The concerted research efforts at this centre will lead to realization of indigenous technologies in critical areas and enhance self-reliance. .

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NAo/NM/RAJ
PM meets President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of the SCO Meeting in Tashkent

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tashkent today. President Xi welcomed Indias accession to the SCO and said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for Chinas support to Indias membership of the SCO. Prime Minister Modi then spoke of the NSG Plenary Meeting in Seoul which is to discuss Indias membership of the NSG. The Prime Minister urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application and judge it on its own merit. He said China should contribute to the emerging consensus in Seoul. .

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The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee met thirteen Scholars of IITs, IISc-Bangalore and IISERs attending In-Residence Programme at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (June 23, 2016). This is the first such In-Residence Programme for scholars from IITs, IISc and IISERs. Similar programmes exist for writers, artists, grass root innovators, NIT students and inspired teachers. .

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Speaking on the occasion, the President called upon the students to contribute to the nation, work hard to make India great and address the challenges that our country confronts. Describing them as persons with high level of talent, expertise and skill, the President asked the young scholars to repay society for the investments made in them through research, development and innovation. He asked them to make themselves unique and different from all others. He described youth as the leaders of the new generation and said they should demonstrate the indomitable spirit of youth to bring about change in the country. He reminded that a large number of young men and women made major contributions to Indias independence struggle. .

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The President said the purpose of the In-Residence programmes was to democratise the Rashtrapati Bhavan and open it out to the people.

The people of India have every right to know about the Rashtrapati Bhavan and to be part of its life as well as enjoy its ambience. The President described the products of Indias higher education institutions as people who are welcomed all over the world. He urged them to always remain fresh, energetic and creative. .

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Secretary to the President, Smt. Omita Paul said engineers, scientists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals of India add to the growing pool of talent of India every year. And yet, there are many more that are raring to join them. The youth today are ambitious. They are willing to go the distance to fulfill their dreams. It is a sign of an aspirational India - of a nation that is finding its rightful place in the comity of nations. .

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A meeting of Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) consisting of representatives of Government of India, Government of Assam and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Progressive) was held here today. The observance of Agreed Ground Rules for Suspension of Operations was reviewed. .

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After discussions, it was agreed to extend Suspension of Operations for a period of six months upto December 31, 2016. .

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The Union Home Secretary Shri Rajiv Mehrishi will chair a review meeting with the Secretaries of the Central Ministries on key development issues of the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected states, here tomorrow. The Chief Secretaries of 7 LWE affected states i.e. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana and Maharashtra will also attend the meeting. The Union Home Minister will take the review meeting on a later date. .

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The Ministries/Departments participating in the meeting include Department of Telecom, M/o Road Transport & Highways, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Department of School Education & Literacy, Department of Financial Services, Department of Posts, Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. .

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The Ministry of Home Affairs has adopted a multi pronged strategy which inter alia includes security related interventions, development measures, ensuring rights and entitlement of local communities etc. Special projects such as construction of roads, installation of mobile towers and construction of Fortified Police Stations etc. have been sanctioned by the Government of India. The development works are implemented through the states and relate to various schemes/programmes of the development ministries of the Government of India. .

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A planned visit by Myanmar's State Counselor to a Myanmar refugee camp in western Thailand, earlier scheduled for Saturday, has been cancelled, said a Thai government official on Thursday.

Suu Kyi, who is also the country's foreign minister, currently visiting Thailand, has been informed of the Thai government's decision to call off her planned trip to Tham Hin refugee camp, which has provided "temporary" shelter for more than 6,000 Myanmar refugees since the past few decades, according to the government official.

The cancellation of the planned trip to Tham Hin refugee camp for Suu Kyi, was notified to her staff on Wednesday, said the official attached to the provincial administration which looks after the refugee camp in cooperation with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Xinhua news agency reported.

No reason for the abrupt cancellation of Suu Kyi's planned visit to the refugee camp was cited.

Besides a meeting with Thai Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha, Suu Kyi earlier planned to visit a Myanmar community in Samut Sakorn province, about 30 km southwest of Bangkok, and Tham Hin refugee camp in Ratchaburi province.

More than 105,000 Myanmar nationals have taken "temporary" refuge provided in several western and northwestern provinces along the Thai-Myanmar border.
As United Kingdom votes in the key referendum on whether or not Britain must be a part of the European Union, polls indicate a contest too close to call.
At a limestone North London temple under the image of the Hindu god Krishna, a British Asian minister is striving to persuade ethnic minorities to support leaving the European Union with a message of 'fair' immigration and stronger ties to the Commonwealth.

Despite polls showing Black and Asian Britons are more pro-EU than the rest of the population, prominent campaigner Priti Patel has led the charge to win over the fastest-growing section of the electorate ahead of Thursday's referendum.

Leave campaigners have used worries about migration from the EU to tell millions of voters whose families hail from former British colonies that a could make it easier for people to come to Britain from places where their family roots lie.

Whilst there is free movement for EU citizens, some British Asians are particularly unhappy at visa rules that apply to non-EU migrants, making it difficult to bring over relatives for social functions or staff for restaurants.

"This is about having an immigration policy that brings fairness back and takes discrimination off our Commonwealth countries and off communities like the Indian community, the Pakistani community," Patel told Reuters, as a dozen praying women in colourful traditional dress chanted at the temple.

There is no official definition of an ethnic minority but 14% of people in England and Wales identified themselves as non-white in the 2011 census, and nearly 20% said they were not white British, a sizeable group that could sway the outcome of a vote which polls show is too close to call.

But the murder of British lawmaker Jo Cox, who had backed refugee causes, has raised concerns about the tone of the debate on immigration and could make some minority voters think twice about backing the campaign, experts and voters said.

A poster bearing the message: "Breaking Point: The EU has failed us all" against a drop of a long line of refugees, unveiled by the leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, also damaged support among minorities.

At the East London Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Europe, one voter said she had been leaning "70%" towards backing Brexit until Cox's murder, which helped tip her in favour of continued membership.

"It made me think that if she is someone who is saying that we should stay in, someone of her character then that's the right decision to go with," said 33-year-old Zinia Khan, who works in the voluntary sector.

"You've got people like Nigel Farage with that poster and then you're thinking: What are they going to change?

How are they going to make things more difficult for people from black and ethnic minorities... and you feel safer if you're in."

Farage, who apologised for any offence caused but not for the content of the poster, has repeatedly denied accusations that UKIP is racist. "It was the truth," he said on Wednesday.

"Not Enough Information"

Black and Asian voters tend to back the pro-EU opposition Labour Party, and the little available polling data and previous voting habits suggest the Brexit campaign has faced a difficult battle to win over minority support.

Whilst polls show Britons evenly split on the eve of the vote, four surveys which provided a breakdown by ethnicity showed that half or more of minorities want to remain in the EU compared to between a quarter and a third who back Brexit.

Only around 20% back Brexit according to the most recent nationwide findings from the British Election Study (BES) conducted between April 14 and May 4, similar to the 28% who supported an exit in a May 2015 Survation poll.

A YouGov poll taken this month in London, the most diverse part of Britain, showed 52% of non-white Londoners backed EU membership, compared to 46% of white respondents.

Maria Sobolewska, a specialist in ethnic minority public opinion at Manchester University, said while many

minorities backed tougher rules on immigration, they did not trust some of the leading campaign figures such as Farage.

"They don't like the messengers," she told Reuters.

"They do have to worry about what it means to hand these people a win and whether it would lead to more isolationist policies but they certainly think: these people are not friendly to minorities."

While many minority voters share concerns felt by some white Britons about the impact of immigration on the National Health Service (NHS) and housing, polling shows they are less worried about the cultural impact.

"What we know in election studies is that the main difference on issue preferences, which are very similar - jobs, the economy, the NHS - is that immigration ranks lower," said Sunder Katwala, director of non-partisan think-tank British Future, which focuses on migration and identity.

Demographic factors could also help explain higher support for EU membership among ethnic minority communities which the Brexit campaign could find difficult to overcome.

Britain's black and ethnic minorities are younger on average than the white British population, with younger voters among the most pro-EU regardless of background.

There are also distinct differences between Britain's ethnic communities, many of whom hail from disparate Commonwealth nations in Africa and Asia, according to both the British Election Study and the Survation poll.

Only 42% of Bangladeshi Britons want to stay in the EU compared with 63% of those from a black African background and 65% of Chinese voters, according to BES.

British Indians, the country's biggest ethnic minority group numbering some 1.4 million people, are marginally more pro-European than the wider population but half said they would either back Brexit or had yet to make up their minds.

"I think the Asian community is divided in the sense that they haven't got enough information," said Conservative Councillor Manji Kara, outside the Shri Vallabh Nidhi Mandir temple near Wembley Stadium during Patel's visit.

A supporter of Brexit, he said his scientist son wanted to stay in the EU and that many others in the Asian community were leaning to remaining in the EU without all the facts.

"Quite a few of the people think they should vote for 'In' without actually realising what's in it for them if they stay in or what are the benefits of getting out," Kara said.
Britons voted on whether to quit the European Union in a bitterly-contested referendum on Thursday that polarised the nation and could change the face of Europe.
Carmakers recalled around 175,000 vehicles across two continents on Thursday. In the US, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV's Maserati unit recalled over 13,000 vehicles because of a faulty "park" mode; in China, Jaguar Land Rover began recalling more than 11,000 vehicles due to faulty crankshaft sensors; while in Malaysia, Honda Motor Co Ltd recalled nearly 150,000 to replace front passenger air bag inflators, as part of a global recall involving potentially deadly air bags from supplier Takata Corp.
Colombia's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla force have agreed on a definitive ceasefire, taking one of the last steps towards ending Latin America's longest civil war.

The announcement heralds an end to a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the jungles of the major cocaine-producing country.

"We have successfully reached an agreement for a definitive bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities," the two sides said in a joint statement yesterday.

FARC commander Carlos Lozada tweeted: "On Thursday, June 23, we will announce the last day of the war."

The deal resolves one of the final points in peace talks between the government and the FARC, the country's biggest rebel group.

The deal is to be formally announced Thursday at a ceremony with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez.

The statement said that foreign leaders and officials, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, would attend.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said this week that he hopes to seal a full peace deal by July 20.

"Tomorrow will be a great day!" he wrote on Twitter. "We are working for a Colombia at peace, a dream that is starting to become a reality," he added.

The Colombian conflict started as a rural uprising in the 1960s.

It has drawn in various leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades.

The violence has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced, according to official figures.

Human rights groups say that atrocities have been committed on all sides. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.

The accord covers "the laying-down of arms, security guarantees and the fight against the criminal organisations" accused of fuelling the conflict, the statement said.

"This means the end of the longest and most bloody conflict in the western hemisphere and a new opportunity to bet on democracy," said Angelika Rettberg, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of the Andes.

The means of implementation of a final peace deal remain to be settled.

Santos's government wants a referendum to put the seal of popular approval on the peace.

Peace talks have been underway in Havana since 2012. They got a boost when the FARC declared a unilateral ceasefire a year ago.

The Marxist guerrilla group then agreed to remove child soldiers from its ranks.

Provisional accords have been signed on compensating victims and fighting the drug trade that fuels the conflict.
If Britain wakes up on Friday morning to the news that it has voted itself out of the European Union, about the only thing that everyone is sure to agree on is that the nation will face a protracted political and legal mess.
Former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio announced, on Thursday, he will run for re-election to the Senate from Florida, reversing his retirement plans under pressure from GOP leaders determined to hang onto his seat.

"In politics, admitting you've changed your mind is not something most people like to do. But here it goes," Rubio said in a statement. "I have decided to seek re-election to the United States Senate."

The 45-year-old first-term senator had repeatedly described his frustration with the slow-moving Senate, and had been expected to enter the private sector and prepare for another presidential run in 2020.

But he'd been rethinking his plans, particularly following the massacre in Orlando and confronting a pressure campaign led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

With Republicans at risk of losing their slim Senate majority in November's elections, GOP leaders were concerned that the Republican candidates who'd emerged for Rubio's seat were not up to the task of winning in a large, expensive state like Florida amid the political turmoil created by Donald Trump's candidacy.

Trump himself had gotten into the act, tweeting his encouragement to Rubio, whom he dubbed "Little Marco" during the presidential race, to run for re-election.

"Control of the Senate may very well come down to the race in Florida," Rubio said, on Thursday, adding that the outcome also could determine the makeup of the Supreme Court and critical fiscal and economic policies. "The stakes for our nation could not be higher."

Rubio also said that "No matter who is elected president, there is reason for worry." After criticising Democrat Hillary Clinton, Rubio went on to describe his disagreements with Trump, saying that "some of his statements, especially about women and minorities, I find not just offencive but unacceptable."

"If he is elected, we will need senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if necessary, stand up to him. I've proven a willingness to do both." The announcement comes just days ahead of Friday's filing deadline for Rubio's seat.

Republican leaders welcomed the news. "While Marco is already in a strong position to win, Democrats are currently locked in a bruising primary that will produce a weak nominee and cost millions of dollars," said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain has reportedly thanked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for Beijing's unequivocal support for Islamabad's admission to the 48- member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Stating that both India and Pakistan should be included in the NSG at the same time similar to their inclusion in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), President Hussain was quoted by Pakistan state media, as saying that Beijing's stance was based on the policy of non-discrimination.

Both sides also expressed a resolve to maintain a close collaboration for the region's security and prosperity and to jointly fight against terrorism and separatism.

Presidents Hussain and Xi expressed these views during a delegation-level meeting in Tashkent on the sidelines of 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

The Pakistani President said both Islamabad and Beijing held a unanimity of views on regional peace, prosperity and stability and mentioned that the former was supportive of the 'One China policy'.

He also reiterated that Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and also made a mention of the ongoing successful Zarb-e-Azb military operation.

Both nations also agreed not to compromise on the execution of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying the project guarantees prosperity for the region.

To ensure the timely completion of the CPEC, both leaders also agreed on closer collaboration.

Hussain added that both countries enjoy a unique level of friendship and expressed the hope that the Sino-Pak friendship would touch new heights in the future.
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday offered a heartfelt tribute to murdered British MP Jo Cox, hailing the "remarkable life" of a woman who volunteered on his campaign in 2008.

"Jo knew that our politics, at its best, still works  that, if we recognise our humanity in each other, we can advance the social justice, human dignity and peace that we seek in the world," Obama said in a tribute published on Facebook.

While Obama never met Cox, who would have been 42 on Wednesday, he explained that she had come to America to volunteer on his first White House campaign.

"She gave her time and passion to a country that was not her own because she believed in an idea that transcends borders and cultures  the power of people to bring about change, from the grassroots up," he said.

Obama's comments came on the eve of Britain's vote on whether to stay in the European Union.

The murder of Cox, who was campaigning for Britain to remain in the bloc and was a major advocate for refugee rights, shook the referendum campaign and sent shock waves around the world.

"Today, we stand united  British, Americans and people around the world  to affirm that the hate and violence that took her from us are ultimately no match for the love and compassion that she spread in her life," Obama said.

On Friday, Obama called Cox's husband Brendan to express his condolences over her death, which took place in broad daylight on Thursday in her constituency in northern England.
A cash reward of Rs 10 million has been announced by Pakistan's Sindh government for information leading to the safe recovery of the abducted son of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court or arrest of culprits.

Chief minister of the southern Sindh province Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced the reward after a high-level meeting of officials from the police, paramilitary rangers and government here yesterday.

"I am announcing Rs 10 million reward for the persons who give information of the place where Ovais (Sajjad) Shah (son of Sindh Chief Justice) has been kept or give clues for his recovery or arrest of the culprits," Shah said.

The move came hours after Amjad Sabri, one of Pakistan's finest Sufi Qawwals best known for his soul-stirring renditions of mystic poetry, was killed by Taliban militants who shot him in the head in a targeted terror attack here.

It appears to be a pre-planned conspiracy to create unrest and insecurity in Karachi at a time when markets and shopping areas are packed late into the night due to the coming Eid festival, he said.

"I would not let this conspiracy succeed and the conspirators and terrorists would be crushed with iron hands," Shah said in a statement.

Ovais, himself an advocate and the son of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court, was abducted by armed men from outside a popular shopping mart in the posh Clifton area on June 20.

He was pleading around 90 cases, including one where he was hired by 700 sacked employees of the Karachi Port Trust to fight their case. Ovais's kidnapping comes just weeks after sons of two high profile politicians returned home after spending years in captivity.

The paramilitary rangers have also announced a reward for any information leading to the arrest of the people involved in the kidnapping of Ovais and his recovery.

The provincial government of Sindh, rangers and police have come under criticism and pressure following the killing of Sabri with opposition leaders, civil right bodies and the media questioning the effectiveness of the clean-up operation launched in Karachi since October, 2013.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday, left for Tashkent where he will attend the SCO Summit and meet some world leaders like the Chinese President with whom the NSG issue will figure prominently in the talks.

In the two-day summit, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

Prior to his departure, the Prime Minister said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO Summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he had said.

"A short visit to the heart of Asia. PM @narendramodi departs for Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit," tweeted External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Modi had said that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

The Prime Minister will also have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday on the sidelines of the Summit during which he is expected to seek China's support for India's bid for NSG membership, which Beijing is opposed to.

Coinciding with the SCO Summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had yesterday said, "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations."

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign more than 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
The UN Security Council has held closed-door consultations about the latest missile launch by North Korea, which Pyongyang claims poses a direct threat to US military bases in the Pacific.

The meeting of the 15-member council was called after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un earlier yesterday hailed the successful test of a powerful new medium-range Musudan missile, calling it a "great event" that significantly bolsters the North's pre-emptive nuclear attack capability, the official KCNA news agency reported.
The war of words between Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton today reached a new high with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee calling her a "world-class liar" while she hit back describing him as "self-proclaimed king of death" for his rhetoric, economic policies.

It all began from New York where Trump attacked Clinton as a "world-class liar" who had "perfected the of personal profit and theft" and lacked the judgment to be America's first woman commander-in-chief.

"Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency," he said in a speech.

In the speech, which was fully focused on his Democratic rival for the November elections, Trump alleged that the book, "Clinton Cash" by Peter Schweizer, documents how Bill (Clinton) and Hillary used the State Department "to enrich their family in America and at America's expense."



"Hillary Clinton gave China millions of jobs, and our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich," Trump told his cheering supporters in New York.

"She gets rich making you poor," he said amidst applause.

"Most people know she's a world-class liar. Just look at her pathetic e-mail server statements or her phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack, and the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers. This was a total and self-serving lie," he said.

"Hillary Clinton has perfected the of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favours for oppressive regimes, and many others and really many, many others in exchange for cash. Pure and simple, folks. Pure and simple," he alleged.

"Then when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests and in less than two years, secret speeches that she does not want to reveal under any circumstances to the public.

"I wonder why? Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs and foreign governments in the years since 2001. They totally own her and that will never ever change, including if she ever became president, God help us," Trump alleged.

Within a few hours, Clinton, who is leading in polls, responded strongly at another election rally in Raleigh city in North Carolina.

Clinton slammed Trump describing him as "self-proclaimed king of death" for his rhetoric, economic policies that would take the country back to recession.

She alleged that Trump represents the interest of the rich and wealthy. She warned that the country would not only experience another round of recession, but the common man and the middle class would have to suffer under a Trump presidency.

"Trump offers no real solutions to economic. I am here today to offer an alternative," Clinton said to her supporters in North Carolina, which is one of the few States where Trump is leading by a slim margin in latest opinion polls.

"We need to make sure our economy works for everyone," Clinton said, challenging the economic policies of the billionaire from New York.

In her appearance in Raleigh, which of late has seen influx of large number of Indian Americans because of relocation of various IT companies and scientific research institutions, Clinton appeared unperturbed by Trump's latest accusation.
In a bid to enhance alumni involvement with the institute, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is planning to open up a new faculty position for alumni with no academic background. Known as 'Professor of Practice', it will be a full-time faculty position for a minimum of three to five years.

"We have bagged the Board of Governors' (BoG) approval for opening up a position called Professor of Practice. This type of faculty position is for those alumni who don't have traditional academic background but have rich industry experience and want to give 3-5 years of their life for full-time teaching," Ashish Nanda, director, IIM-A said while briefing media here on Thursday.
edged higher in late trades on Thursday after European shares extended gains after voting started in a historic referendum whether Britain should remain as the member of the European or not.
are likely to open flat mirroring mixed cues among the global peers. Participants will patiently wait for Brexit poll due today which will decide Britians future in, or out, of the European Union.
continue to remain subdued as the Brexit referendum begins which will decide Britians future in, or out, of the European Union.
was trading higher by 4% to Rs 552, extending its Wednesdays 6% rally on the BSE, after the company announced that it has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for generic version of Glycopyrrolate tablets.
The diktat to focus on core operations and the surging strain on their balance sheets may compel public sector-sponsored to reduce or sell their stakes in the business, believe experts.These include fund houses like Union KBC, BOI Axa MF, IDBI MF, Baroda Pioneer MF, Principal MF and Canara Robeco. Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Bank of India and IDBI Bank posted net losses of anywhere between Rs 1,736 crore and Rs 5,367 crore in the quarter ended March 2016.In 2014, the finance ministry had asked public-sector banks to review their exposure to non-core operations such as and insurance. The move was aimed at conserving capital when stricter Basel-III norms were to be implemented.Given that the balance sheets of banks are under strain, it may make sense for some of them to sell stakes in non-core businesses, said Manoj Nagpal, chief executive officer, Outlook Asia Capital. He added the banks were unlikely to receive a good price for their business because of their small asset base.Except State Bank of India, all other public sector bank-sponsored figure low in the pecking order of assets under management, with a kitty of less than Rs 10,000 crore.Public sector bank-backed fund houses, however, indicate it is business as usual. There is no evidence to show there is pressure on public sector banks to divest. Most stake sales or exits have happened in the private sector. Mutual funds are an asset-light business and maintaining a net worth of Rs 50-100 crore will not be onerous for public sector banks, said G Pradeepkumar, chief executive officer, Union KBC MF, whose foreign partner KBC recently exited the joint venture.There is no discussion on any stake divestment. Bank of India and AXA Investment Managers are committed to building the business and we continue to receive the banks support, said Sandeep Dasgupta, chief executive officer, BOI AXA Investment Managers.Bank of Baroda has plans to significantly ramp up its third-party distribution and the asset management company will be a natural beneficiary, said Antony Heredia, chief executive officer, Baroda Pioneer MF.Canara Robeco MF, IDBI MF and Principal MF did not respond to questionnaires sent to them.According to Value Research, Baroda Pioneer, Principal MF and BOI AXA launched just one debt fund each since the beginning of 2015.Canara Robeco and Union KBC hit the market with one equity closed-end fund each, while IDBI MF has not come out with a single new scheme in the same period.According to Nagpal, since most public sector banks own both mutual funds and insurance companies, any stake sale is likely to occur in the latter first because of its capital-intensive nature.Recently, Bank of India reportedly sold an 18 per cent stake in its life insurance venture Star Union Dai-Ichi Life Insurance to Japan's largest life insurer Dai-Ichi. New insurance norms allow foreign partners to raise their stakes to 49 per cent.The stake sale has no bearing on the business.In fact, we have received approval from both shareholders to infuse additional capital in the business for 2016-17, Dasgupta said.

One of the other perennial criticisms facing bank-sponsored AMCs is that they have not been able to use their branches and personnel for distributing MF products due to the propensity towards traditional products. Pradeepkumar admits that PSU Banks have historically not had a dedicated sales force for distribution of third party products but insists that banks have started creating a dedicated vertical for this purpose in the last few years. "Given their reach especially in smaller towns, PSU Banks can be the catalyst for the next wave of growth in the industry," he said.
After consolidating in the previous two sessions gained momentum in late trades after voting commenced in the UK in a historic referendum whether it should remain as a member of the 28-nation European Union or not. The rally was led by strong cues from Europe while gains in the Indian rupee also aided sentiment.
The (AAP), which has been facing criticism from political opponents in Delhi over its style of functioning and fondness for advertisements, has now sought professional help for image building and media management.

The Delhi government has appointed public relations (PR) firm Perfect Relations as its "media consultant".

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's media advisor, Arunodya Prakash, confirmed the same to ANI.

Perfect Relations was established and co-founded in 1992 in Delhi by image consultants and media commentators Dilip Cherian and Bobby Kewalramani.

The cost of hiring the consultant will be met from within the Rs 200 crore allocations for the department in the 2016-17 budget.

This includes money already spent and to be spent on advertisements this fiscal.

There has, however, been no official confirmation in this regard from the PR agency.

The AAP government had last year set aside Rs 526 crore for information and publicity in the 2015-16 budget, drawing severe criticism from both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress.

Earlier, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had assailed the AAP government, saying the government is using advertising funds to manipulate the media.

"While 'friendly' media is being given advertisements, media houses which are critical of the AAP government are being denied ad revenue," Jailtey had said in an interview.

Last year, 'Shabdarth' an internal ad release agency was set up by the Delhi Government to take over the process of releasing advertisements through private agencies.
A FIR has been lodged against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Sangam Vihar, Dinesh Mohaniya, after locals alleged that he and his supporters roughed them up and misbehaved with women in his office when they went to complain about irregular water supply.

The case has been registered under Section 506 (criminal intimidation), Section 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code at the Neb Sarai Police Station.

"Today, when we went to Dinesh Mohaniya's office, he refused to identify me. I must tell that I go to him daily because of water issues. The most important part is that he doesn't even sign or puts a stamp on our complaints. After that, he pushed me and other women and even abused us. We want that an FIR should be registered against him and he should be arrested," said the complainant.

"When he abused and pushed us, we also did the same. Are we here to be beaten up? There is a severe water issue here. We went there only to ask for water and not for money," he added.

She said that everyone is equal before everyone and, therefore, legal action should be taken against the AAP MLA.

Meanwhile, Mohania, who is also the vice-chairman of Delhi Jal Board, rubbished the allegations, saying they are all baseless.

Some residents of Sangam Vihar in South Delhi had yesterday visited Mohaniya's office-cum-residence to complain about irregular water supply.

They alleged that their complaints were met with abuses by the MLA and his supporters.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met with the bereaved families of soldiers killed in recent clashes with Pakistani troops in Torkham and Goshta district in eastern Nangarhar province.

Hailing the sacrifices made by the soldiers, Ghani said the courage and sacrifices of country's sons have strengthened national unity among Afghans and that a fundamental mechanism will be created for a long-term support of victims' families,

Ghani's Media Office in a statement today said, reports Tolo News.

He also handed a number of gifts to the families of the victims.

The clashes between Afghan and Pakistani soldiers last week took place after Pakistani border police tried to erect installations near the Torkham Gate.

The clash has left a number of casualties on both sides.

Three Afghan border police, two Afghan children and a high ranking Pakistani general were killed during the crisis.

In addition, 21 Afghan soldiers were also wounded.
In a veiled reference to the recent killing of Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan, the Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to United Nations Mahmoud Saikal voiced concern over Pakistan emerging as a safe haven for terrorists.

"The fact that terrorist leaders had been found and killed in safe havens in Pakistan was proof that it had violated the sovereignty of other nations," Khaama Press quoted Saikal, as saying before the UN Security Council.

Saikal also called for urgent implementation of Security Council resolutions 1373 (2001) and 2255 (2015).

Kabul have long been criticizing Islamabad for allowing the Afghan militant groups including the Taliban and Haqqani terrorist network to use its soil as safe havens and carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

The Afghan officials say that the leadership councils of the

Taliban and Haqqani terrorist network are based in Quetta and Peshawar cities of Pakistan.

He also informed the Security Council regarding the provocative actions at the Torkham border.

"Make no mistake, the proud Government and people of Afghanistan have not, do not and will not surrender to intimidation, violence and aggression. Our history is testimony to this," he said.

Talking about the peace talks which was scheduled to take place with the Taliban group on April, Saikal said the Taliban instead on April 12 responded with a spring offensive, during which it suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.

Saikal also informed the council that Islamic State and Al-Qaida continued to position themselves to remerge in Afghanistan,

while other regional terrorist networks with links to Central Asian republics, Chechnya and China were highly active.

"Tehrik-i-Taliban remained a long-term threat. Most of those terrorist groups enjoyed support from within the State structure of Pakistan, he said, adding that it was imperative for the international community to establish objective criteria to identify and confront State sponsorship of terrorism," he added.
The Anantnag by-polls culminated with brisk voting on Wednesday evening, after a muted start. The final count stood at around 34 percent with women voters registering a predominant presence. The by-polls were significant since Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was a candidate and fighting the election in a constituency earlier represented by her deceased father and former chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Even though the voting this time was less than that registered during the Assembly election, experts are of the view that the peaceful and transparent manner in which the process was conducted comes across as a referendum for the coalition government that Mehbooba is heading.

A larger voter turnout in the rural areas as compared to the urban segments indicates the aspiration fro democracy and development at the grassroots feel experts.

Separatists and terrorist groups had called for a complete boycott of the polls. A notable rise in terrorist initiated violence in South Kashmir districts during the build up to the By-polls with specific targeting of police personnel is seen to be pressure tactics by anti- forces to scuttle the election. However, barring an incident of stone pelting in old Anantnag town the polls went off peacefully.

"The separatists made stringent demand of boycott but on D-day they were nowhere to be seen. This clearly reflects their tenuous position on ground. It seems that that, in actuality, they want a government in place," says Dr. Simrit Kahlon, an academician and analyst deeply interested in Jammu and Kashmir.

Credit goes to the security forces and the state administration who oversaw a smooth election despite the high political stakes involved.

Apart from Mehbooba Mufti, the popular faces in the fray include Iftikhar Hussain Misgar of the Conference and Hilal Ahmad Shah of the Congress.

All eyes are now on the election result which will be announced on June 25.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju today said, to deal with steep rise in airfares, capping would not be the answer as it would also push the floor prices at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi.

On capping airfares, "We did analysis which showed that 1.7 percent of the tickets sold were of high cost. So, the last minute high price of ticket is matter of concern". But we should not land up in a situation that pushes price of over 90 percent of passengers for benefit of 1.7 percent, said Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, Union Minister, Ministry of Civil Aviation, while inaugurating '9th International Conference on Indian Civil Aviation and Tourism,' organized by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

While addressing the summit, Rajiv Nayan Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation said, "The civil aviation policy is just the beginning. We wish to stay ahead of the growth curve and if we fall behind the growth curve, for example as it happened in case of urban development in the country, there will be aviation chaos in skies, airports. All that we must do in order to ensure that we stay ahead of the growth curve."

There are couples of areas which require immediate attention like how to reduce the cost of leasing? If the cost leasing remains high either because of capital or any other procedural requirement, the regional connectivity may find difficulty in taking off so we are committed to exploring ways to reduce the cost of leasing, added Choubey.

The Civil Aviation Ministry would look at the possibility of utilizing certain unused airports for the purpose of parking aircraft and use aerodromes for plane-breaking or dismantling of old aircraft. There are around 400 unused airports and airstrips across the country, said Choubey.

He said, in the last four to five months, we interacted with the aircraft manufactures from all over the world where they could clearly see the scope of hundreds of small planes coming to the country in next three to five years.

To sell aircraft in India, sell an eco-system and should have elements which are excellent aircraft and fuel efficient. Secondly, it should also have maintenance facilities which should be created in country or maybe tie up with MRO's in the country and make sure that the maintenance happens in the country.

Third, they must also come with the training infrastructure for the cabin crew and for cooperate groups. They must tie up again with several institutes which are already here or set up their own. Last, they must bring very attractive leasing packages, said Choubey.

Ajay Singh, Chairman and MD, Spicejet Limited, Aviation India will grow only if we are able to constantly work to reduce the cost of aviation in India. We have to bring down the cost or fares and stimulate this market with low fares. The 20 percent growth we have seen today in the consequence of the reduction in fares from last year to this year and that must continue if you want to see sector growing.

Rana Kapoor, MD and CEO, YES BANK, said, "It is indeed a great honor and privilege to be recognized for our contribution to promoting tourism. The award is a true recognition of Yes Bank's decade-long relentless focus on providing innovative solutions to key sunrise sectors of the economy, like Tourism and Hospitality, which go beyond the traditional realm of banking and help unlock the enormous potential of the sector."

"The Award will surely strengthen Yes Bank's endeavor in championing significant policy changes at various forums, aimed at the holistic development of the sector and unleash the sectors' untapped potential," Kapoor added.

At the programme Airbus was given the award for being the best global aviation company in aviation, Pawan Hans for promoting remote & regional connectivity, best airport for GMR Dial, SafeExpress, the best air cargo logistics, the best banker promoting tourism, Yes Bank, the best luxury jet charter, Club One Air, Frankfin, the best air-hostess training institute and Swift Turnaround in a airline company, Spicejet.
In a significant development, intense deliberations were held in Washington D C on Wednesday concerning the entry of Sikhs entry into the US Army.

The US Congressmen, as part of the American Sikh Congressional Caucus met representatives from the Sikh community, including the retired Indian Army officer, seeking to get a one time solution for US Sikhs to get religious accommodation in order to serve the American Army.

The round table briefing saw the participation of Major General Richard Cripwell, Defense Attache, UK Embassy, Washington. Inderjit Singh Boparai, retired Air Commander in the Indian Air Force (IAF). Apart from them, other officials discussed the integration of Sikhs in the British Armed Forces and how the changes were required in US law to allow Sikhs to serve in the US Army.

Jaspreet Kaur, Attorney, United Sikhs, Kirnbir S Grewal, US Army (ret) also presented briefing to Congressmen. The disc primarily focused on the religious accommodation process and the experience of Sikhs in foreign militaries in various countries including India and UK.

It's pertinent to mention that Sikhs wishing to join the US military has to go through a long, arduous, and individualized process of receiving a religious accommodation in order to serve in US Army while maintaining their articles of faith.

Recently in some of the individual cases the US Army has issued a special waiver allowing a Sikh officer to keep a beard, uncut hair and wear a turban while on duty but this is not adopted as general policy.

Major General Richard revealed that British Army has a long relationship with Sikh since 1805.

He proudly said that Sikhs are the more bravery people on the earth and the British Army has been providing them the religious accommodation since the inception of the Sikhs in the British Army.

Inderjit Singh Boparai, retired Air Commander in the Indian Air Force who has served the Indian army shared his experiences with the Congressmen.

"I served Indian Air Force from 1964 to 1996 and was part of the jointly exercise with the US Air force, Air forces of France , British and Russia where we never faced any issue with my beard, hair while using all the safety guards needed to fly the Air force planes," he said. He retired as a Director, Safety of Indian Air Force (IAF).

Kirnbir S Grewal, US Army (ret.) discussed his service in the US Army while maintaining his Sikh articles of faith from 1977-1984. He was awarded best soldier by the US Army. He also said while serving and flying he has never faced any issue with gas mask, helmet or any other gadget while bearing beard and hair.

Kaur expressed her views about Iknoor Singh who is now serving the US army. She revealed that Iknoor won a court battle against the US Army over its grooming standards that had prohibited him from growing a beard and wearing a turban.

She also cited the example of Sikh officer Capt. Simratpal Sing who recently joined the US Army and is allowed to keep a beard, uncut hair and wear a turban while on duty. She also explained that the Sikhs had been serving the UK and even US Army since War 1.

"But since 1980s, observant Sikhs have faced difficulty in serving due to a discontinuation of exemptions to uniform standards which previously allowed Sikhs to maintain their religiously-mandated beards and turbans while in uniform," she added.

Congressman Johan Geramandi, Co Chairman of American Sikh Congressional Caucus (ASCC) said that Sikhs will be able to serve the US military and important deliberations abiding by their tradition and required amendments in the law in the US will be initiated. He said the bravery of the Sikhs and their Army traditions are recorded in the history.

Harpreet Singh, one of the friends of Sikh Caucus congratulated the American Sikh Congressional Caucus for holding briefing for the US Sikhs to get religious accommodation in order to serve US military as he welcomed these important deliberations.

Dr. Pritpal Singh, Co-ordinator American Sikh Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee (AGPC) also applauded the efforts by the Caucus for holding such an important discussion which will pave way for the Sikhs' entry into the US Army.
Only strong, viable and visible Afghan-India relations can help improve India's relations with Pakistan, according to former Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon.

Launching the book "Afghanistan-Pakistan-India: A paradigm shift", authored by Afghanistan's Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali, at Observer Research Foundation on Wednesday, Mr.Menon said he did not agree with the view in Kabul that India prefers normalisation of relations with Pakistan over its relations with Afghanistan.

He said he also did not agree with the view in Kabul that India's sensitivity to Pakistan's concerns is affecting it playing a much bigger role in Afghanistan. "I am not so sure. It is much more complex," Menon said.

He said India-Afghan ties are based on much stronger logic that it has survived all twists and turns in the last 60-plus years.

Menon said the "strange spectacle of" U.S., China and Pakistan negotiating with Taliban into taking part in government is unlikely to solve the problem and bring stability to Afghanistan and the region as Taliban has no respect for democratic principles or modern government systems.

"We have seen foreign interventions earlier too. This too cannot end any different," Menon remarked.

He said until there is a meaningful change in Pakistan's policy on terror and using it as a state policy, the situation is very difficult to improve.

Saying it is possible to make the optimism expressed in the book real, of cooperation and connectivity between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Menon said "we have broken down the world into pieces", reminiscing his younger days when traders from Kabul used to go door to door, selling their products and his own drive through the region.

Menon noted that the author, Shaida Abdali, is himself a participant in the history-in-making, being the executive assistant to former president Hamid Karzai, then deputy Security Advisor and now Ambassador.

Ambassador Abdali said his book is based on inputs from sources from all the countries, besides his own experiences in the processes. He said if the three countries bring about a paradigm shift in their policies, he is sure they can build themselves a bright future for the region.

He said for India, Afghanistan is a strategic priority as terrorism is a big threat to Afghanistan as well as India.

Saying that the Chabahar deal is a message to Pakistan, Abdali said connectivity through India-Pakistan-Afghanistan can bring about wonders to the region.

Vikram Sood, former head of RA&W and Advisor ORF, said the book is full of hope to solve "the tricky situation" in the region. He said after spending more 60 billion dollars in the last 16 years, the United States will not leave Afghanistan without results.

Former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Vivek Katju, who was in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban government, said India had never imposed its agenda on Afghanistan and it was only interested in the development of the people and the country.
The India-China financial dialogue due to be held in Beijing between Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been deferred till next month.

The meet has been deferred as Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das could not attend the meeting.

Jaitley will today embark on a five-day visit to China, where he will attend the first annual meeting of the board of governors of the 100-billion US dollar Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Seven rounds of financial dialogues have been held between the two nations but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.

The financial dialogue enables the two neighbouring nations to make an annual review and discuss a wide range of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

The idea of having a financial dialogue was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.
Former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid on Thursday asserted that India deserve to be a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

"I am sincerely hoping that we will become a full member of the NSG. We deserve it. But I am not quite sure that it is going to happen this time because China has given very clear indications that there are issues which it wants to resolve," Khurshid told ANI.

He also said that it is the duty of the NDA-led Centre to go and negotiate with China, and if they can't, they should tell the country.

"I wish we would have been told by the government what the issues are, and if they think they are confidential, they should have at least said there are impediments and it will take some time. We cannot go and negotiate. It is the government who has to negotiate and if they can't, they should tell the country," he added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent in an attempt to win Beijing's support for India's membership to the NSG.

He will be meeting President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting that is currently on in Tashkent.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar yesterday left for Seoul to make a last minute push for New Delhi's entry into the elite group.

This came days after Jaishankar made a two-day trip to China on June 16 and 17 to discuss the matter with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping, which began its plenary session in Seoul on Monday.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier insisted that China is not blocking India's entry to the NSG, but is talking about the criteria and procedures.

However, Beijing said that its stance does not target any particular country, but applies to all non-NPT countries.
The plenary session of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) began here on Thursday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held parleys with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent to make a last minute push for New Delhi's entry into the 48-member elite group.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar is presently in Seoul to lobby for India's entry into the elite group.

Sources told ANI the NSG members will be meeting for a special session in Seoul tonight and India's membership bid is likely to come up for discussion.

Sources also said that the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President is crucial in Tashkent because the decision taken there will be informed to the Indian team in Seoul.

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping, which began its plenary session in Seoul on Monday.

China has maintained that more talks were needed to build a consensus on which countries can join the 48-nation NSG following the United States' push to include India in the elite group.

The countries, who oppose India's membership, argue that its inclusion in the group would further undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and also infuriate New Delhi's rival Pakistan.

Islamabad, which enjoys the backing of its close ally China, has also responded to India's membership bid and asked for its admission as well.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said that the government's "active and successful foreign policy" has blocked India's entry into the NSG, adding that New Delhi would not be able to join the group alone.

He also said that he had recently approached many countries, including Russia, Mexico, South Korea and New Zealand, to gain their support on Islamabad's viewpoint that there should be a criteria-based approach while deciding about inclusion of any country into the NSG.
The Sri Lankan government has rejected allegations that the Sri Lankan Army used cluster bombs during the final phases of the war and questioned the authenticity of the report published in the media.

Co-Cabinet Spokesperson and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne at a cabinet briefing at the Government Information Department on Wednesday questioned the veracity of the "photographic evidence" published in The Guardian newspaper on Monday.

Senaratne said those pictures are unverified and questioned how they can prove that they are from the Army or the LTTE.

"Does it have the Sri Lanka Army stamp on it?" Colombo Page quoted Senaratne as saying.

He also questioned the timing of publishing of photographs saying "why the photographs were published now, coinciding with the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Rights Council."

He asked why it took six years after the war when the demining was completed to produce the 'photographic evidence", which is reportedly provided to The Guardian by a former employee of the UK-based demining group Halo Trust.

Deputy Minister, Karunaratne Paranavithana pointed out it was unethical for de-miners to reveal details of their work and added the published pictures don't say they are from Sri Lanka.

The Guardian report said the images that appear to confirm the use of cluster bombs in the end stages of the civil war have been uncovered and suggested that the armed forces may have deployed the munition against civilians.
Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the murder of NDMC official M M Khan, the Lieutenant Governor's office has clarified its stand and said everyone understands that the claims of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are frivolous, and therefore, the attempt to draw political mileage from this tragedy is sad.

The clarification comes just days after Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung's office sent Delhi hotelier Ramesh Kakkar's petition against Khan to the NDMC asking for "action as per law" following reports that the official was allegedly murdered for refusing to take bribe from him.

The statement issued by the Lieutenant Governor's office said the Delhi Police arrested seven people within 24 hours, adding full recovery was made and further investigations are on.

"Further, on receipt of a proposal from the Hon'ble Chief Minister, the Lt. Governor promptly approved a compensation of Rs 1 crore to the family of the deceased officer," the statement said.

The L-G office said, "A letter from M/s Prominent Hotels Limited was submitted by Maheish Girri, MP, East Delhi, to Hon'ble Lt. Governor on 10.05.2016, stating that in any dispute between the Licensee and the Licensor, arbitration would rest before Lt. Governor of Delhi under Clause 54 of the License Deed dated 16 July 1982."

This letter was forwarded to Chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council vide U.O. No. RN/16/A-3212 dated 11.05.2016 for necessary action as per the law.

"Subsequently, an arbitration petition dated 12.05.2016 was also submitted by the same Licensee in this Secretariat. This was also forwarded to Chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council, for being legally examined and to intimate action taken/position in the matter," the statement said.

"It needs to be mentioned that the matter had been duly processed on file in this Secretariat on 16.5.2016, prior to the tragic death of Mr Khan, and the letter dated 17.05.2016 was issued in the normal course, without the knowledge of the tragic death," it added.

In response to the above, vide two letters dated 19.05.2016 and 03.06.2016 Joint Director (Estates), New Delhi Municipal Council, stated that the License Deed had been cancelled and the cancellation was upheld by the Apex Court and thus attained finality; as such, the arbitration clause did not survive and the said reference had been filed by New Delhi Municipal Council.

The position was duly noted in this Secretariat and vide letter dated 22.06.2016 of this Secretariat, Chairman, New Delhi Municipal Council was directed to ensure effective and expeditious action in the matter in pursuance of Hon'ble Supreme Court order as also take all consequential action as per law.

The matter was therefore dealt strictly as per rules and procedure. This indeed is the established procedure that is followed when such representations are received.

The NDMC official was shot dead outside his house in Jamia Nagar by two motorcycle-borne assailants on May 16.
No consensus on India's induction into the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) emerged at the 48-member plenary meeting by another tea break (10.30 p.m) here on Thursday.

Highly placed sources told ANI that China is not the sole opponent to India's member ship to the NSG, but Brazil, Austria, Ireland, Turkey and New Zealand too have opposed India's entry, citing it's not being a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

Mexico, however, backed India's membership.

Sources further said the meet also did not discuss the induction of Pakistan into the elite group.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tashkent and urged China to make a fair and objectives assessment of New Delhi's application to the NSG and to judge it on its own merit.

Briefing the media about the meeting, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Prime Minister Modi had asked China to contribute to the emerging consensus in the ongoing NSG plenary meeting in Seoul.

"In fact the rest of the meeting was devoted to this issue. Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," Swarup said.

"He (Prime Minister) said China should contribute to the emerging consensus in Seoul," Swarup quoted Prime Minister Modi as saying," he added.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar on Wednesday left for Seoul to make a last minute push for New Delhi's entry into the elite group.

According to sources, this move is being seen as a final push on India's part to make its case. Jaishankar, who is not a part of the negotiations in the NSG's inner circle, will reportedly lobby for India's bid.

This comes days after Jaishankar made a two-day trip to China on June 16 and 17 to discuss the matter with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping, which began its plenary session in Seoul on Monday.
Nationalist politicians are criticizing the government for pushing an official change of terminology used to refer to a Muslim minority in Rakhine State.

The government has asked to refer to the Rakhine Muslim minority as 'the Muslim community from Rakhine State' rather than using controversial terms "Bengali" or " Rohingya"

The Arakan National Party (ANP) said in a statement that they totally reject any other term besides "Bengalis" to refer to the mostly stateless minority which self-identifies as "Rohingya", reports Myanmar Times.

ANP's Secretary U Tun Aung Kyaw stating that addressing them as 'Muslim community from Rakhine State' makes it sounds as if they have always lived in the state and Rakhine is their place of origin, added it will create more opportunities for them to attain citizenship as it is like accepting they are Myanmar nationals.

The National Prosperity Party, also released a statement urging the government to reconsider the official terms, saying the change could cause the international community to "mistake the origins of the Bengalis".

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has asked several visiting dignitaries to refrain from using controversial terms "Rohingya" or "Bengali", including most recently the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee.

The Ministry of Information also instructed state media on June 16 to use "Muslims in Rakhine State" instead of "Rohingya" or "Bengali", and also said it should be "Buddhists of Rakhine State" instead of ethnic Rakhine or Arakan.

The previous administration, which stripped over 660,000 Muslims in the state of their "white card" IDs and the right to vote, officially used the term "Bengali", implying the community had migrated from neighbouring Bangladesh.

Muhammad Salim, the patron of the National Development and Peace Party, a Muslim political group, welcomed the government's change in terminology, calling it a step forward.
Former Indian Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon has said that outside powers seem to be equating with the legitimate government of Afghanistan with insurgent groups like the Taliban, which is creating more instability in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, and it is Afghanistan and the region as a whole that pay the price of that intervention.

"We are today witness a very strange spectacle with the U.S., China and Pakistan negotiating to bring the Taliban into an Afghan government without any democratic test of their support or confirmation that they are willing to abide by the Bonn Agreement redlines for shaking violence, accepting the Constitution and cutting the ties with the Al-Qaeda for instance.

"In the fact, outside powers seem to be equating with the legitimate government of Afghanistan with insurgent groups like the Taliban. Now it seems unlikely, to me at least, that this can end any differently from previous foreign interventions in that proud and independent nation. In other words, it is creating more instability in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere. And, once again, it is Afghanistan and the region as a whole that pays the price of that intervention,' said Menon.

The former NSA was speaking at the launch of book, 'Afghanistan-Pakistan-India: A Paradigm Shift', authored by Afghanistan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali here on Wednesday.

Menon further said, "We are today at the other critical moment, where the issues are the same but the choice between radicals and extremists on the one hand, who claimed to represent tradition, don't necessarily and, on the other hand, modernisers, democrats and others who want to change. And thirdly, the space this opens up for outsiders to interfere."

"The breeding ground for terrorism in Pakistan and west of Afghanistan is actually growing. You can see everyday happening around us and terrorism still remains an instrument of state policy. Until these changes, it is hard to see meaningful progress in the lives of Afghan people and that should be really the test of our Afghan policy, whether it is Indian Afghan policy or Pakistani or anyone else's," he added.

Shedding some light on Abdali's book, Menon said this is indeed a very important book, which is essential for anyone with the interest in foreign and security policy in subcontinent, and who wishes to know not just how we have come to this point but also what we might do about it, what should be we doing for the future, because the book itself make a very valuable practical suggestions for how we can move towards more cooperative future.

It makes a very strong plea for much more rational government policies in the region, particularly between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, he added.

"I frankly knew of no one that a qualified to do this than Ambassador Abdali, who is uniquely qualified to describe both - how we have got here and what we should be doing about it, because served as an special assistant to President Karzai 2001-08. He was then the deputy NSA in Afghanistan from 2009-12; and since 2012, he has been here as an Ambassador. So, he is being a witness, actually a participant, in the making of history in our sub," he said, adding that the book really is an insider's view, the view of an Afghan patriot on these issues.

"The book is valuable because it lays it out very clearly how we have come to this point. As the book reminds us, since the 19th century internal Afghan politics have not remained internal," he added.

The other part of the book, he said, is particularly useful for its detailed treatment of the India-Afghan relationship. "He does mention that Afghanistan has consistently sought a greater Indian political, economic and military role in Afghanistan. And he seems to think that it is due to Indian sensitivity to Pakistani concerns that India didn't play a bigger role," said Menon, adding, "I am not so sure frankly. My own experience suggests it is little more complex, but that something that may be the panel could discuss."

"He (Abdali) also hints at a core Afghan concern when he says, 'On any given day, New Delhi would opt for normalisation of relations with Pakistan over a greater role in Afghanistan'," said Menon, adding, "I am again not so sure. In the first place given our history, promises of normalisation from Pakistan are unlikely to be particularly credible in India. Besides, Pakistan will only like to be inclined to normalise relations with India if there are strong, viable and visible India-Afghan ties."

"And most important, the India-Afghan ties have a logic of their own, which is why they survived in every twist and turn in India-Pakistan relations and in the internal dynamics of Afghanistan right through 60-plus years, if you look at it," he added.

Saying that the book is also very useful as reminder why we should encourage scholarship within the region by scholars from our countries that bring a unique and insider's point of view for to policy debates which are normally framed faraway and then we carry them on here, he added, "For instance, I personally think, that in Indian study what we might have done differently, what more we might have done in Afghanistan would be useful as we prepare for the next phase of evolution of the situation in Afghanistan and of relations between India, Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Finally, he said, some of you might ask how you can speak at this time, as Ambassador Abdali does, of a new paradigm, of a cooperative, connected region, particularly between these three countries.

"Given our recent experience, my own answer to that it is fairly simple: what is manmade can be undone by man. And certainly, the state our relationship today is manmade, but more than that from my generation, now speaks an old man, his vision is not purely hypothetical. We have seen it in our own lifetimes with our own eyes. During my childhood in Delhi, the kabuliwal who brought dry fruits, the Chinaman who brought shark's skin, silk and double-horse bosky to our doorstep was a common feature," he added.

Recalling that until 1969, it was possible to drive, and I know this having done it, from India through Pakistan, through Afghanistan, Iran into Turkey and onwards, Menon said, "The extended G.T. (Grand Trunk) Road that Ambassador Abdali's book speaks of was the reality stretching all the way back to the Mauryan Uttarapatha, which extended through Afghanistan to the Persian Royal Roads, which went all the way up to the Mediterranean. And connectivity was therefore a reality which many of us can remember in living memory actually and if you think of it we have broken the world down into small pieces, frankly, within our lifetimes."

"Visas to travel were the exception before 1984, before we in India imposed visas on everybody else and then faced it ourselves. And our present insecurities have really made the world much colder, broken and much more forbidding place. And this book reminds us of what it could be and our own better selves of what we were," he added.

'Afghanistan Pakistan India: A Paradigm Shift' is published by Pentagon Press.
Dubbing the recent report on Pakistan's involvement in North Korea's nuclear programme as 'very serious', the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday said it proves yet again that the Islamabad has not been a 'responsible nuclear state'.

"Pakistan has always shown that on nuclear issues it cannot be looked at as a responsible nuclear state. Questions have always been raised on the proliferation of nuclear technology out of Pakistan. If reports are coming out that they are working with such a rogue state, then this is very serious," BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli told ANI.

According to highly placed U.S. sources, who are involved with the tracking of nuclear commerce, Pakistan is continuing to sell nuclear materials to North Korea, while at the same time urging the international community to accept its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

In making this dramatic revelation, the sources said that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as ' Monel ' and ' Inconel ' material to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions.

The sources said that nuclear materials supplied to the PAEC by Chinese entities have also found their way to North Korea, with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) recently receiving a written complaint that supplies of a Chinese company, Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited, to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities.

The Chinese Government hushed up the matter as it could have consequences for Beijing's bid to support Pakistan at the NSG. But this information leaked out of North Korea and came to the knowledge Of Western Governments who are members of the NSG.

In another alarming revelation, informed sources said Pakistan has been giving North Korea equipment which has a direct bearing On producing nuclear weapons. Sources said the Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited manufactures Vacuum Induction Melting (VIM) furnaces which find application in refining hard metals such as uranium and plutonium, which are used in making nuclear warhead cores. Pakistan is known to have procured these items from China and has passed them along to North Korea.
Pakistan's paramilitary Rangers have announced strict indiscriminate action against all terrorists and militant wings involved following the attack on Qawwal Amjad Sabri and the abduction of Sindh High Court Chief Justice's son.

In a high-level meeting at the Rangers Headquarters in Karachi, the recent law and order situation in the city was reviewed yesterday, reports the Express Tribune.

Director General Rangers Major-General Bilal Akbar and other senior commanders has decided to undertake comprehensive investigations into the recent incidents of terrorism and target killings in the region, said Sindh Rangers spokesperson said in a statement.

The statement added that during the meeting, it was resolved that strict and indiscriminate action will be taken against terrorist and militant wings (of political parties) involved in the incidents.

Awais Ali Shah, son of the Sindh High Court Chief Justice was abducted on Tuesday from outside a super market in the Defence Housing Authority area of the city by four armed gunmen.

Renowned qawwal Sabri was shot dead yesterday, after unknown assailants fired at his vehicle in the city's Liaquatabad area.
Pakistan's prominent Shia Noha Khawan Farhan Ali Waris has claimed that hours after the famed qawwal Amjad Sabri was killed in a gun attack, he escaped an assassination attempt in Karachi.

Waris said his car was surrounded by unknown assailants near the Teen Hatti area of the metropolis.

"They were about to open fire but my guard opened fire upon them, forcing them to flee," Dawn quoted him as saying.

"I was not in the car but the manner in which they surrounded the vehicle makes me think that they thought I was inside," he added.

Waris informed that he was provided a security guard by the Jafaria Disaster Cell following the murder of Sabri.

Meanwhile, police official from the area's police station said that the area has been searched and no evidence has been found that Waris's car was shot at.

Renowned qawwal Sabri was shot dead yesterday, after unknown assailants fired at his vehicle in the city's Liaquatabad area.

Sabri, 45, and an associate were travelling in a car in Liaquatabad No. 10 area, when unidentified gunmen open fired at their vehicle.

He later succumbed to his injuries in Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Pakistan in recent months has witnessed series of shooting, suicide attacks, kidnapping of high profile personalities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, arrived in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent on Thursday afternoon.

During his two-day visit, Prime Minister Modi will hold talks with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the sidelines of the summit.

India will sign a memorandum of obligations, paving the way for it become a full-fledged SCO member of the Organisation.

The membership will provide India an opportunity to have extended cooperation with members of the group including China and Pakistan.

Secretary (West) in External Affairs Ministry, Sujata Mehta, said on Wednesday that India is keen to deepen its security related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with security and defence issues.

Prime Minister Modi's meeting with President Xi Jinping assumes significance in the backdrop of India's attempts to get the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The decision to become a member of the SCO was taken last year following Prime Minister's outreach during the BRICS summit.

India's presence in the extended neighbourhood has been raising to higher levels as it has become a major player in a wide range of areas.

Cooperation on the part of the security, energy and anti terrorism is also on the agenda.

Ahead of his visit, the Prime Minister said on twitter last night that he is looking forward to fruitful outcomes at the Summit particularly in the field of economic co-operation.

He said, India attaches great importance to its relations with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held delegation level -talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Uzbekistan.

Prime Minister Modi's meeting with the Chinese President assumes significance in the backdrop of India's attempts to get membership in the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

China had on Wednesday said that only applications of those countries that signed the atomic Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would be considered.

The Prime Minister arrived in Tashkent earlier this afternoon to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

During his two-day visit, Prime Minister Modi will also hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.

India will sign a memorandum of obligations, paving the way for it become a full-fledged SCO member of the Organisation.

The membership will provide India an opportunity to have extended cooperation with members of the group, including China and Pakistan.

Secretary (West) in External Affairs Ministry Sujata Mehta said on Wednesday that India is keen to deepen its securityrelated cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with security and defence issues.

The decision to become a member of the SCO was taken last year following Prime Minister's outreach during the BRICS summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi left on a two-day visit to Uzbekistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent.

The Prime Minister will also hold multilateral talks with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the sidelines of the summit.

India will sign a memorandum of obligations, paving the way for it become a full-fledged SCO member of the Organisation.

The membership will provide India an opportunity to have extended cooperation with members of the grouping including China and Pakistan.

Secretary (West) in External Affairs Ministry, Sujata Mehta, said on Wednesday that India is keen to deepen its security related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with security and defence issues.

Prime Minister Modi is meeting with President Xi Jinping assumes significance in the backdrop of India's attempts to get the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The decision to become a member of the SCO was taken last year following Prime Minister's outreach during the BRICS summit.

India's presence in the extended neighbourhood has been raising to higher levels as it has become a major player in a wide range of areas.

Cooperation on the part of the security, energy and anti terrorism is also on the agenda.

Ahead of his visit, the Prime Minister said on twitter last night that he is looking forward to fruitful outcomes at the Summit particularly in the field of economic co-operation.

He said, India attaches great importance to its relations with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov and reportedly discussed ways to deepen bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

"A closer engagement with the gracious host of the SCO. PM @narendramodi meets President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan," tweeted Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

The meeting followed Prime Minister Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Prime Minister arrived in Tashkent this afternoon to attend the 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

During his two-day visit, Prime Minister Modi will also hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

India is expected to sign a memorandum of obligations, paving the way for it to become a full-fledged SCO member of the Organisation.

The membership will provide India an opportunity to have extended cooperation with members of the group, including China and Pakistan.

Secretary (West) in External Affairs Ministry, Sujata Mehta had said on Wednesday that India is keen to deepen its securityrelated cooperation with the SCO and its Regional AntiTerrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with security and defence issues.

The decision to become a member of the SCO was taken last year following Prime Minister's outreach during the BRICS Summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on a two-day visit to Uzbekistan today to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tashkent.

"Arrived in Uzbekistan, I am glad to visit this friendly country once again. I am looking forward to meet with leaders at the SCO Summit," tweeted the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

"I am confident, that my talks at the SCO Summit will strengthen our bilateral ties with the SCO nations," read another tweet.

Prime Minister Modi was received by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

"PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomes PM @narendramodi to Uzbekistan," PMO tweeted.

Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted, "Namaste Tashkent! PM @narendramodi arrives in Uzbekistan, is received by PM Shavkat Mirziyoev at airport."

During his stay here, Prime Minister Modi will also hold multilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the sidelines of the summit.

India will sign a memorandum of obligations, paving the way for it become a full-fledged SCO member of the Organisation.

The membership will provide India an opportunity to have extended cooperation with members of the grouping including China and Pakistan.

Prime Minister Modi's meeting with the Chinese President assumes significance in the backdrop of India's attempts to get the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The decision to become a member of the SCO was taken last year following the Prime Minister's outreach during the BRICS Summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent in an attempt to win Beijing's support for India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Prime Minister Modi will be meeting President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting that is currently on in Tashkent.

The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar yesterday left for Seoul to make a last minute push for New Delhi's entry into the elite group.

This came days after Jaishankar made a two-day trip to China on June 16 and 17 to discuss the matter with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping, which began its plenary session in Seoul on Monday.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier insisted that China is not blocking India's entry to the NSG, but is talking about the criteria and procedures.

"The NSG entry is crucial for India's energy policy. China is not blocking India's entry to the NSG. It is only talking about criteria and procedures. I am hopeful that we would be able to convince China to support our entry to the NSG," Swaraj said.

However, Beijing said that its stance does not target any particular country, but applies to all non-NPT countries.

"China maintains that the NSG will fully discuss the accession of non-NPT countries and make decisions based on consultation in a way acceptable to all. China's stance does not target any particular country, but applies to all non-NPT countries," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

Hua said China has made it clear that the NSG meetings have never put the accession of any specific non-NPT countries on their agenda.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the upcoming NSG plenary meeting in Seoul on June 23 will not cover the matter as well.

"It is worth noting that NSG meetings have never put the accession of any specific non-NPT countries on their agenda. The upcoming NSG plenary meeting in Seoul will not cover this issue either. Therefore, there is no point talking about supporting or opposing the entry of a particular non-NPT country at this moment," she said.

With India leaving no stone unturned to ensure its entry into the group, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent on Thursday in an attempt to win Beijing's support for India's membership.

Highly placed sources told ANI that the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping would be an exclusive one-on-one discussion, where the top agenda would be to seek China's support for India's membership in the NSG.

On the other hand, the United States has called on the participating governments of the NSG to support India's application for membership.

The plenary discussion on the matter will be held in Seoul tomorrow and the final meeting in which India and Pakistan's fate in the NSG would be decided will take place on Thursday.

However, the Congress Party has firmly stated that India would be able to enter the NSG only if it initiates dialogue with Pakistan and China.

"I think there is no difference in what Pakistan and China are saying. China has on this issue said that there must be a discussion whether to include those who have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).We are not going to become a member of the NSG in the upcoming meeting in Seoul and we will never become unless and until we hold talks in this regard with China and Pakistan," Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said.

He also said that there should have been some preparation in this matter and talks should have been held with China in the very beginning, adding that talks with the US were pointless as they were already on our side.

Talking about Swaraj's confidence in the matter of India being able to convince to China over the NSG bid, Aiyar said, "Sushma Swaraj is a very intelligent person. When she says procedure, she knows very well it could take forever."

China has maintained that more talks were needed to build a consensus on which countries can join the 48-nation NSG following the United States' push to include India in the elite group.

The countries, who oppose India's membership, argue that its inclusion in the group would further undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and also infuriate New Delhi's rival Pakistan.

Islamabad, which enjoys the backing of its close ally China, has also responded to India's membership bid and asked for its admission as well.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said that the government's "active and successful foreign policy" has blocked India's entry into the NSG, adding that New Delhi would not be able to join the group alone.

"We have been successful in preventing India from gaining access to the NSG and I am hopeful that whenever it happens, we will both join it together and India will not be able to join the NSG alone," the Dawn quoted Aziz as saying.

He also said that he had recently approached many countries, including Russia, Mexico, South Korea and New Zealand, to gain their support on Islamabad's viewpoint that there should be a criteria-based approach while deciding about inclusion of any country into the NSG.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tashkent and urged China to make a fair and objectives assessment of New Delhi's application to the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and to judge it on its own merit.

Briefing the media about the meeting, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that Prime Minister Modi had asked China to contribute to the emerging consensus in the ongoing Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) plenary meeting in Seoul.

"In fact the rest of the meeting was devoted to this issue. Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," Swarup said.

"He (Prime Minister)said China should contribute to the emerging consensus in Seoul," Swarup quoted Prime Minister Modi as saying," he added.

Prime Minister Modi earlier held delegation level talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Swarup also informed that during the meeting President Xi welcomed India's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and said it would strengthen it.

"Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for China's support for India's membership of the SCO," he added.

China had earlier on Wednesday again change track on India's entry into the elite club, saying only applications of those countries that signed an atomic Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will be considered.

The countries, who oppose India's membership, argue that its inclusion in the group would further undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and also infuriate New Delhi's rival Pakistan.

Islamabad, which enjoys the backing of its close ally China, has also responded to India's membership bid and asked for its admission as well.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said that the government's "active and successful foreign policy" has blocked India's entry into the NSG, adding that New Delhi would not be able to join the group alone.

He also said that he had recently approached many countries, including Russia, Mexico, South Korea and New Zealand, to gain their support on Islamabad's viewpoint that there should be a criteria-based approach while deciding about inclusion of any country into the NSG.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars will celebrate the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed with a dark and edgy presence on the famous Hillclimb. Wraith Black Badge and Ghost Black Badge will be on familiar turf, with Goodwood House in sight of the Home of Rolls-Royce.

Wraith Black Badge. Wraith Black Badge can be seen on the Supercar Run up the hill and in between Hillclimbs in the Supercar Paddock. Already the most powerful Rolls-Royce in the world at 624hp (465kw), Wraith now benefits from 70Nm more torque, tweaked air suspension and upgraded gearbox leading to more spirited driving. The car presented is finished in Black Badge Black, with the interior in Black and Mugello Red contrast leather, and the facia in aerospace-grade aluminium-threaded carbon fibre composite surfacing. Wraith Black Badge will be driven by Festival of Speed favourite, Justin Law.

Ghost Black Badge. The Rolls-Royce Course Car this year will be a Ghost Black Badge. The car is finished in Black Badge Black, with the interior in Black and Cobalto Blue contrast leather and the facia in aerospace-grade aluminium-threaded carbon fibre composite surfacing. Ghost Black Badge benefits from a power increase of 40hp (30kw) to 603hp (450kw) and torque increase of 60Nm compared to current Ghost, whilst upgrades to the 8-speed automatic transmission give Ghost Black Badge an added sense of urgency in how it delivers its power. The Rolls-Royce Course Car will be driven by a team from Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and can be seen on the course between each Hillclimb Run throughout the weekend.

Both cars were built specifically for the event and feature a Spirit of Ecstasy in high-gloss black vamp, Double R badges inverted to become silver on black and black starlight headliner. Surfaces that are traditionally chrome have turned dark, such as the front grille surround, boot lid finisher, lower air inlet finisher and exhaust pipes. The Black Badge 'Unlimited' infinity logo is embroidered on the upholstery and both cars are shod with 21" Carbon Alloy Composite Wheels.

Black Badge. Rolls-Royce Black Badge speaks to the darker, more assertive, confident and demanding aesthetic of a new breed of Rolls-Royce customer. As a truly Bespoke response to their desires, the interplay of brand and customer has had a transformative effect on the appearance and substance of Rolls-Royce Ghost and Wraith. The result is Ghost Black Badge and Wraith Black Badge.

Black Badge also brings the colour black to new levels of intensity. The multiple layers of paint and lacquer that go into creating Black Badge Black are repeatedly hand polished - the most exacting painting and polishing process ever used for a solid paint colour. The result is the deepest, darkest and most intense black ever seen on a production car surface.

In addition to Wraith Black Badge and Ghost Black Badge, an exclusive fleet of Rolls-Royce motor cars will also be evident in the Goodwood area during the Festival of Speed, with invited VIP guests being conveyed in luxury from the Company's manufacturing plant and head office on the South-Eastern corner of the Goodwood Estate to the heart of the event.

Visitors to the Goodwood Festival of Speed wishing to filter for relevant Rolls-Royce content across social media channels are encouraged to use the hashtag #BlackBadge.
The Shiv Sena on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of losing the 'Hindutva Agenda' after the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), an affiliate of the Sangh, announced plans to host a grand Iftar on July 2, saying it is 'pure hypocrisy' on the part of the saffron party.

"It is surprising that such Iftar parties are organised by the RSS, but at the same time, not surprising also, because the RSS and the BJP seem to be losing the Hindutva agenda," Shiv Sena leader Manisha Kayande told ANI.

"Even the Ram Mandir issue, on which this party rose from two MPs to 181, has now been abandoned by them and they are calling it a cultural program. This is hypocritical on the party's side," she added.

Kayande also questioned the criticism by the BJP and the RSS of the Congress when it had earlier tried to do the same.

Her comments came after the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), invited ambassadors from nearly 140 countries earlier this week to attend an international Roza Iftar party at the Parliament House Annexe on July 2.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Dinesh Mohaniya, who has been booked for allegedly 'misbehaving' with women, today alleged that it was an attempt to defame his reputation as the water mafia is frustrated because of the Delhi Government's crackdown.

Downplaying the allegations being levelled against him, the Sangam Vihar MLA told ANI that the woman complainant never visited his office.

"There is no video or photographic proof to back this allegation. It is an attempt to defame me. The water mafia is now frustrated because of our crackdown," Mohaniya said.

"She never came to my office. There is no video footage. Everyone is running the news that there is a video, but no one is ready to show any such video. I am not there in the video neither does the woman," he added.

Mohaniya said that he was ready to face a probe by the Delhi Police if indeed there is any complaint against him.

"The people have made it a news without knowing the truth. No one even took my version of the story. No one has talked to that woman. I never had a direct talk with that woman. Till now, I didn't have any communication with the police," he added.

Earlier in the day, the Congress attempted to corner the AAP on this issue and said the 'opportunist' Arvind Kejriwal-led party has completely lost the moral authority to speak about principled politics.

Congress leader P.C. Chacko said it is strange that the AAP on one hand claims of practicing clean politics while on the other hand its MLAs are being caught for nefarious activities.

"The Aam Aadmi Party is setting a very good record in Delhi. They claim that they are going to have clean politics and anti-corruption atmosphere in Delhi. But one by one, their MLAs are being caught in corruption cases," he told ANI.

An FIR has been lodged against Mohaniya, who is also the vice-chairman of Delhi Jal Board, after locals alleged that the MLA and his supporters roughed them up and misbehaved with women in his office when they went to complain about irregular water supply.

The case has been registered under Section 506 (criminal intimidation), Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code at the Neb Sarai Police Station.

"When we went to Dinesh Mohaniya's office, he refused to identify me. I visit his office everyday to bring water-related issues to his notice. The most important part is that he doesn't even sign or puts a stamp on our complaints. After that, he pushed me and other women and even abused us. We want that an FIR should be registered against him and he should be arrested," said the complainant.

"When he abused and pushed us, we also did the same. Are we here to be beaten up? There is a severe water issue here. We went there only to ask for water and not for money," she added.

The incident took place last evening.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has announced a Rs. 10 million reward for help leading to the recovery of Awais Ali Shah, the kidnapped son of the Sindh High Court Chief Justice .

Awais was abducted on Tuesday from outside a super market in the Defence Housing Authority area of the city by four armed gunmen.

Police has registered a case against "unknown suspects" for kidnapping Shah but no progress has been made in the search so far.

The motive of the kidnapping remains unclear as no ransom calls have been recieved.

"There are a few clues which may help clearing the picture further but, right now there is nothing credible to determine people and motive behind the incident. The thing which is now turning quite obvious is it's not a conventional kidnapping for ransom case," the Dawn quoted a police official as saying.

To discuss the incident and progress for the safe recovery of Shah, Karachi Corps Commander Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar met the Chief Minister at CM House.

On Tuesday, the Sindh Rangers DG had also announced a Rs. 2.5 million reward to solve the case.

Meanwhile, Sindh IG A. D. Khowaja removed SSP-South Dr Muhammad Farooq and Clifton SP on the directives of the Chief Minister for falling short of professional requirements which led to a delay in the reporting of the kidnapping.
With the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections inching nearer, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday snubbed both the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP), by saying they are confused and preoccupied political outfits that will facilitate and brighten the government formation chances of the saffron party.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told ANI that the ruling SP is ushering criminals into the party, while the BSP is losing its leaders over allegations of assembly tickets being auctioned by party president Mayawati.

"As far as the politics of Uttar Pradesh is concerned, we have seen as to how Mr. Maurya has left the BSP, and in fact, he has made certain very strong allegations against Mayawati, regarding the selling of tickets in the BSP. This confusion that is seen in the BSP and the SP is quite evident," said Patra.

"The Samajwadi Party is ushering in criminals into their party and here people are in fact leaving the BSP. This shows that there is some kind of confusion in both the parties and this points the fingers towards the BJP which will form the government in the coming elections in UP as it is singularly focused on the development of UP," he added.

BSP heavy weight Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party yesterday and accused party supremo Mayawati of auctioning tickets.

Addressing a press conference here, Maurya said it is a do or die situation for the party in 2017 when the state goes to polls.

"Instead of selecting good candidates who are loyal to the policies of the party, Mayawati is auctioning tickets to the highest bidder," he added.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday sacked senior minister Balram Yadav for engineering the merger of the political party headed by a mafia don despite his stiff opposition to the idea. However, no official reason has been given regarding his sacking from the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet.
Attempting to corner the government over Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy's remarks on Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari on Thursday said Swamy's criticism proves that the NDA government's economic policies have been a failure.

Swamy earlier said that he wants Arvind Subramanian to be sacked, as he had badmouthed India in the international arena and had also encouraged the grand old party to become rigid on their GST Bill clauses.

"Subramanian Swamy's remarks on Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian makes two things clear. He said the setbacks in the economy is because of these people. This proves that government's economic policies have been a failure. Subramanian Swamy has accepted it," Tiwari told ANI here.

"He is pointing fingers at PMO's economic advisor. He should prove it, it is a serious allegation," he added.

Further taking a dig at the government, Tiwari asked, "Who is country's Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley or Subramanian Swamy?".

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had yesterday backed Arvind Subramanian and said the government has 'full confidence' in the Chief Economic Advisor.

Jaitley, at a press briefing, said the BJP does not share Swamy's views, adding that the Chief Economic Advisor's advise to the government in economic matters have been of 'great value'.

Earlier in the day, Swamy had launched a scathing attack on Arvind in a series of tweets.

"Who said to US Cong on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US Pharmaceuticals interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF !! Sack him!!! Guess who encouraged Congi to become rigid on GST clauses ? Jaitely's economic adviser Arvind Subramanian of Washington DC," he tweeted.

Speaking to ANI here after he tweeted against Arvind, Swamy reiterated his salvo he had used against RBI Chief Raghuram Rajan, saying that the CEA was a 'green card holder' and was probably not an Indian citizen.
Bangalore-based chain of budget hotels, Treebo Group of Hotels has announced receiving the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for nine of its properties for 2016.

In its sixth year, the achievement upholds hospitality businesses that have earned great traveler reviews on TripAdvisor over the past year. Urs Regency (Bangalore), Orchard Suites (Bangalore), Natraj (Delhi), Turtle Beach Resort (Goa), Woodsvilla Suites (Jaipur), Raya Inn (Jaipur), Hummingbird (Mumbai), Archana Residency (Mumbai) and Urban Oasis (Mysore) are the proud recipients of this recognition for delivering quality customer experience under the auspices of Treebo Hotels.

"We're very proud to receive the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence in just one year of our launch. This award recognizes our efforts in consistently delivering the best service and experience at our properties for travelers," said Co-Founder of Treebo, Sidharth Gupta.

"This recognition is special to us as it is based on the reviews by our guests. Receiving such positive feedback is quite encouraging and we endeavor to constantly guarantee memorable experiences for our existing as well as future guests," added Sidharth Gupta.

"With the Certificate of Excellence, TripAdvisor honors hospitality businesses that have consistently received strong praise and ratings from travelers," said Heather Leisman, Vice President of Industry Marketing, TripAdvisor.

"This recognition helps travelers identify and book properties that regularly deliver great service. TripAdvisor is proud to play this integral role in helping travelers feel more confident in their booking decisions."

The certificate of excellence accounts for the quality, quantity and recent reviews submitted by travelers on TripAdvisor over a 12-month period. To qualify, a must maintain an overall TripAdvisor bubble rating of at least four out of five, have a minimum number of reviews and must have been listed on TripAdvisor for at least 12 months.
The roar made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the country's poor employment conditions created a ripple across the nation. Keeping in mind the current scenario of Indian economy and the state of employment across the country, 'Skill India' campaign of Prime Minister has hit the right strings.

The Industries too have realized the importance of having skilled workforce and hence there have been conscious efforts on their part to value add to the skills of their resources.

'Make in India' is another initiative which has given impetus to all Indian origin manufacturers to invest more across various domains and has generated many employment opportunities for the people.

"Unemployment still remains one of the biggest concerns for the Government, which under the leadership of PM Modi is striving hard to generate more employment. It is not an issue that can be tackled in a jiffy.

Rather, it will need a combined effort of government and industries to improve the unemployment ratio, that too over a period of time," believes Secretary General, Indian Direct Selling Association, Amit Chadha.

Talking about Direct Selling, he adds "Direct Selling is one industry that has been generating self-employment opportunities for about 20 years in the country. As there is no such restrictions and criteria to become a Direct Sellers, people from all walks of the society join Direct Selling, irrespective of gender, skill-set and age. A person aged 60 is as welcomed in Direct Selling as an 18 year old. Direct Selling embraces everyone with open arms."

"Over the last two decades, this industry has made it way to every corner and strata of the country and it is getting popular with every passing day. In 2014-15, the Industry generated close to 40 lakh self-employment opportunities in the country and we expect the number to grow in the coming days" he further stated."

At a time when businesses are not expanding as a fast pace, the employment generation in the country has also taken a hit.

In such a scenario direct selling has been one of the few industries, that has continued to make steady progress and pushing boundaries towards overall growth.

Chadha is of the view that the Direct Selling Industry has been instrumental in shaping up careers of millions of Indians, especially the unskilled ones, who could not find a place in the mainstream.

This industry transforms a common man into a leader, who later on mentors thousands of people like him, helping them to be a part of the mainstream.

"What is significant is the fact that many of the successful Direct Sellers are now helping other people to set up their businesses. Clearly, it is a people's business, where one helps the other; resulting in building the nation," Chadha further added.

The main attraction of working in this industry is the option of flexible hours people work at their own leisure and time, without being bound to strict timelines. Many working people join Direct Selling as a supplementary earning opportunity.

Direct Selling is a booming industry, a boon for an economy and employment generation towards better future. It boosts confidence of individuals and therefore leading the industry as well as the workforce involved, to a higher growth trajectory. It is an attractive option, allowing people to manage their own with minimal outlay as well as generate an income.

"The need of the hour is to give boost to an Industry like Direct Selling that has a socio-economic impact to the lives of many. Not only it generates employment, as a result, the Industry also empowers its workforce with skill, knowledge, power to express, improving interpersonal skills and above all, lead a life of a 'leader, inspiring other to replicate their success,' Chadha further asserted.

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Hindusthan National Glass & Industries fell 2.1% to Rs 77.10 at 12:30 IST on BSE after the company entered into an agreement for disinvestment of its entire investment in its wholly owned subsidiary, HNG Global GmbH.

The announcement was done during market hours today, 23 June 2016.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 11.71 points, or 0.04%, to 26,753.94.

On BSE, so far 652 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 2,087 shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 84.65 and a low of Rs 77.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 119 on 28 July 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 57.15 on 12 February 2015. The scrip had underperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 0.57% as against Sensex's 5.67% rise.

The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 17.47 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

Hindusthan National Glass & Industries said that it will receive 23 million Euro from the divestment in HNG Global GmbH. The subsidiary was sold to a large glass container manufacturing group in Europe. The buyer wants to keep its name confidential, company added. The expected date of completion of sale is 15 July 2016.

HNG Global GmbH has posted turnover of Rs 276 crore during the year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016) and contributed 12% to the total consolidated revenue of the company.

Hindusthan National Glass & Industries reported net profit of Rs 8.59 crore in Q4 March 2016 compared with net loss of Rs 77.27 crore in Q4 March 2015. Net sales rose 0.8% to Rs 571.42 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015.

Hindusthan National Glass & Industries was founded by C K Somany in 1946 following the commissioning of India's first fully automated glass manufacturing plant at Rishra (near Kolkata). At present, it is a key player in India's container glass industry with a pan India presence and its plants located at Rishra, Bahadurgarh, Rishikesh, Neemrana, Nashik and Puducherry.

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Jain Irrigation Systems surged 5.83% to Rs 70.80 at 14:27 IST on BSE on reports that a foreign brokerage has upgraded its rating on the stock to overweight from equal-weight on robust earnings growth forecast.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 188.79 points or 0.71% at 26,954.44.

On BSE, so far 10.45 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 4.67 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 71.55 and a low of Rs 69.40 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 79 on 23 July 2015. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 47 on 17 February 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 22 June 2016, advancing 4.69% compared with Sensex's 5.79% rise. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, surging 18.3% as against Sensex's 5.67% rise.

The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 91.44 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

The foreign brokerage reportedly expects a 70% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in earnings of Jain Irrigation Systems (JISL) over FY 2017-19. The brokerage reportedly stated that leverage has been a key concern for investors, but the company has now recapitalised its balance sheet with lower interest costs which is expected to boost its earnings. The foreign brokerage also cited other favorable factors for the company such as expectation of a better monsoon and an increasing central & state government thrust on micro irrigation systems (MIS) after two consecutive years of drought.

On consolidated basis, Jain Irrigation Systems' net profit fell 8.9% to Rs 89.78 crore on 1% decline in net sales to Rs 1988.99 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015.

Jain Irrigation Systems is engaged in manufacturing of micro irrigation systems, PVC pipes, HDPE pipes, plastic sheets, agro processed products, renewable energy solutions, tissue culture plants, financial services and other agricultural inputs.

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A range bound movement was witnessed as key benchmark indices languished in negative zone in mid-morning trade. At 11:20 IST, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 21.42 points or 0.08% at 26,744.23. The Nifty 50 index was down 8 points or 0.1% at 8,195.70. In overseas stock markets, most Asian stocks fell as investors remained on the edge ahead the Brexit referendum. Brexit refers to the referendum on 23 June 2016 by British voters to decide whether the country should remain a member of the European Union (EU) or leave it.

The Sensex fell 29.13 points, or 0.11% at the day's low of 26,736.52 in mid-morning trade. The index rose 47.92 points, or 0.18% at the day's high of 26,813.57 in early trade. The Nifty fell 15.50 points, or 0.19% at the day's low of 8,188.30 in morning trade. The index rose 8.65 points, or 0.11% at the day's high of 8,212.35 in early trade.

The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market was weak. On BSE, 1,357 shares fell and 780 shares rose. A total of 129 shares were unchanged. The BSE Mid-Cap index was currently down 0.15%. The BSE Small-Cap index was currently down 0.28%. The decline in both these indices was higher than the Sensex's decline in percentage terms.

In overseas stock markets, most Asian stocks fell as investors remained on the edge ahead the Brexit referendum. Brexit refers to the referendum on 23 June 2016 by British voters to decide whether the country should remain a member of the European Union or leave it. Opinion polls indicate that the vote is expected to a nail-biter. Voting will close at 10 p.m. London time. Referendum results from the first counting areas are expected around 12:30 a.m. London time on Friday, 24 June 2016. US stocks finished slightly lower yesterday, 22 June 2016, as opinion polls showed the outcome of the Brexit remained too close to call a day ahead of the vote.

If the UK votes to leave the EU, it could send British pound and euro tumbling, with ripple effects across global asset classes.

Closer home, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has assured liquidity support to ensure orderly conditions in financial markets if the Brexit poll outcome causes turbulence in global financial markets. The RBI said a statement issued yesterday, 22 June 2016, that it is maintaining a close vigil on developments, and will take all necessary steps, including liquidity support, to ensure orderly conditions in financial markets.

Banks stocks witnessed a mixed trend. Among private sector banks, HDFC Bank (up 0.46%), Yes Bank (up 0.33%) and Axis Bank (up 0.32%) edged higher. Kotak Mahindra Bank (down 0.06%), ICICI Bank (down 0.65%), Federal Bank (down 0.9%) and City Union Bank (down 1%) edged lower.

IndusInd Bank was up 0.79%. The stock turned ex-dividend today, 23 June 2016 for dividend of Rs 4.50 per share for the year ended 31 March 2016 (FY 2016).

Among state-run banks, Indian Bank (down 2.74%), Vijaya Bank (down 1.76%), Punjab & Sind Bank (down 1.56%), Bank of Maharashtra (down 1.2%), IDBI Bank (down 1.07%), Central Bank of India (down 0.76%), United Bank of India (down 0.45%), Andhra Bank (down 0.37%), Syndicate Bank (down 0.28%), UCO Bank (down 0.26%), Dena Bank (down 0.14%) and Union Bank of India (down 0.04%), edged lower. State Bank of India (up 0.21%), Canara Bank (up 0.38%), Bank of Baroda (up 0.44%), Corporation Bank (up 0.50%), Allahabad Bank (up 0.66%) and Punjab National Bank (up 1.70%), edged higher.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said yesterday, 22 June 2016, that the cleaning up of bank balance sheets and the restoration of credit growth are vital and related elements in the growth agenda. The government and the Reserve Bank of India are helping public sector banks in this difficult but critical task, Rajan said at an interactive meet between industry and trade arranged by industry body ASSOCHAM in Bangalore. The government's effort in speeding up the debt recovery process and creating a new Bankruptcy system are two important steps towards improving the resolution process, he said. Rajan also said that improving governance of public sector banks and infusing bank capital will pay large dividends in the short run. Rajan said that banks are getting into the spirit of cleanup and are pursuing reluctant promoters to take the necessary steps to rehabilitate projects. The RBI Governor said that fundamentals of the borrower not being good and the ability of the lender to collect being weak were the two sources of current distress in the banking system.

Hubtown gained 4.54% after the company reported net profit of Rs 16.39 crore in Q4 March 2016 compared with net loss of Rs 30.50 crore in Q4 March 2015. Total income from operations fell 37.39% to Rs 94.70 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. The result was announced before market hours today, 23 June 2016.

Career Point lost 0.86% after Franklin Templeton Asset Management India sold a total of 6 lakh shares of the company in bulk deals on the BSE and NSE yesterday, 22 June 2016. Franklin Templeton Asset Management India sold 5 lakh shares of Career Point at Rs 106.11 per share in a bulk deal on the BSE. It sold 1 lakh shares of the company at Rs 107 per share in a bulk deal on the NSE.

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Ten power generation stocks lost 0.68% to 2.73% at 10:29 IST on BSE, in line with subdued market sentiment.

JSW Energy (down 2.27% at Rs 77.65), Jaiprakash Power Ventures (down 1.63% at Rs 4.83), Reliance Power (down 1.56% at Rs 50.50), NHPC (down 1.43% at Rs 24.20), Tata Power Company (down 1.36% at Rs 72.65), Adani Power (down 1.18% at Rs 29.20), GMR Infrastructure (down 0.96% at Rs 12.34), Reliance Infrastructure (down 0.88% at Rs 536.25) and CESC (down 0.68% at Rs 572.55) edged lower. Torrent Power (up 0.23% at Rs 174.15) edged higher.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 14.64 points or 0.05% at 26,780.29.

The Union Cabinet yesterday, 22 June 2016, approved the extension of the timeline for taking over 50% of the outstanding debt of state-government run power distribution companies or DISCOMs by the respective state government under the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana called UDAY by one year from the earlier stipulated date of 31 March 2016. Some states were unable to join the scheme due to time constraints in completing the processes or inability to take major policy decisions such as joining UDAY due to on-going election processes. The extension of the timeline will enable states to participate in this scheme by allowing adequate time to complete the multi-stakeholder process required for joining and/or issuing bonds. In addition, Jammu & Kashmir will be able to float further bonds.

UDAY is a scheme for the operational and financial turnaround of DISCOMs, which are the weakest link in the power value chain. It provides DISCOMs with a clear roadmap and opportunity to become profitable in the next 3 years.

NTPC was down 2.73% at Rs 148.10. The company announced after market hours yesterday, 22 June 2016, that in accordance with the approval accorded by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 13 May 2015, Government of India (GOI) has offered 2.06 crore shares to the eligible employees of NTPC at discounted price of Rs 115.90 per share i.e. 5% discount to the cut off price of Rs 122 discovered through the offer for sale of shares of NTPC carried out by GOI on 23 February 2016 and 24 February 2016.

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At least eight Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in Syria by Turkish artillery fire and US-led coalition airstrikes, an official said on Thursday.

Some IS weapons systems, including mortar positions, were also destroyed in the operation, Xinhua news agency reported.

Turkey is set to deploy new air defence systems in its southeastern province of Kilis, as rocket attacks from IS held regions across the border in northern Syria have killed over 21 people in the province this year.

--IANS

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Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Thursday left Kabul for Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent to attend the 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, an official said.

During his two-day stay, the Afghanistan President on the sideline of the summit is also scheduled to meet Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov and other heads of state to exchange views on matters pertaining mutual interests and regional situation, the official added.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also attending the SCO summit, that will kick off the process for India's absorption as a member of the grouping. India is an observer at the group.

"I am confident that my talks at the SCO Summit will strengthen our bilateral ties with the SCO nations," Modi tweeted on arrival.

Afghanistan received observer status at the SCO in 2012.

--IANS

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Civil Aviation Minister Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday said a cap on airfares will not help reduce the steep rise in ticket prices.

"We did an analysis which showed that 1.7 per cent of the tickets sold were of high cost. So, the last minute high price of ticket is a matter of concern," Raju said at an industry event here.

According to Raju, a cap on airfares will push up floor prices as well and make the overall ticket costs more expensive.

"But we should not land up in a situation that pushes price of over 90 per cent of passengers for the benefit of 1.7 per cent," Raju said.

The minister was speaking at the '9th International Conference on Indian Civil Aviation and Tourism', organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

Raju observed that airlines have kept airfares at reasonable levels even during emergency situations like the Chennai floods.

"They might not be angels but they definitely are not demons. We need to work with them to find a solution," Raju said.

In April, the minister had informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a question that, as per an analysis done by his ministry, ticketing -- or charges imposed by the airlines -- were contributing just two per cent to higher fares.

"So, we realise the prices of tickets have come down in most routes, particularly where the competition is more, it has come down," he had said at that time.

"What is bothering us is where the competition is less, air fares are a bit high. We need strategies to increase capacity there. Capacities and growth in the country have been going up. So, if we stifle the growth, we will not be able to even attend to this problem," he said.

The minister also said that it was not that airlines were not responsive to government's calls. During the Chennai and Srinagar floods, as also during the Jat agitation, his ministry had issued advisories to airlines and some of them did respond.

"Capacity does get increased and things do come under control. We want to keep the baby and throw only the bathwater out. We do not want to throw the baby along with the bathwater."

--IANS

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Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday urged India and Pakistan to revive their peace process for the sake of peace in Jammu and .

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader made the appeal after joining thousands at the annual Urs at the shrine of revered Sufi saint Baba Chamliyal in Ramgarh sector near the Pakistan border.

Resuming the stalled India-Pakistan reconciliation was imperative to bring about peace in Jammu and and beyond, she said.

The Chief Minister also pitched for opening new cross-border meeting points to expand people-to-people contacts between the divided Jammu and .

"We are working with the government of India for opening the Suchetgarh-Sialkot, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur and some other roads to expand people-to-people contacts."

She added: "Suchetgarh has the potential of becoming Jammu and Kashmir's Wagah, as was envisioned by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed," her father and predecessor who died in January.

Mehbooba Mufti said in the long run Suchetgarh could become another trading point with Pakistan like Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh.

She said Suchetgarh had been taken up for development as a border tourism destination.

This would involve restoring the old Octroi Post, constructing a multi-purpose hall, developing a water body and landscaping the lawns to enhance the ambience of the place.

Every year devotees from India and Pakistan converge at the border near the sanctum sanctorum to pay their obeisance to Baba Chamliyal, revered by people in both countries.

While Pakistan Rangers offered 'Chaddar' for the shrine, the civil administration of Samba and the Border Security Force handed over 'Shakkar and Sharbat' (holy soil and water) to the Rangers.

Felicitating people on both sides of the border for exhibiting affectionate cultural bonding, the Chief Minister said Chamliyal village would be developed to promote border tourism.

Interacting with the media, she called for highlighting the cultural camaraderie between the people of India and Pakistan.

"If hostilities can become news, why can't such cultural bonhomie?" she asked, adding Chamliyal village could become a hub for India-Pakistan reconciliation.

"I hope our good intentions are reciprocated by our neighbour," she said, adding that people-to-people contacts must be encouraged to end mistrust and create a congenial atmosphere for dialogue.

The Chief Minister said that like siblings locked in endless rivalry, India and Pakistan had bickered for well over six decades.

"Transforming that rivalry into a mature, productive relationship will be difficult but the consequences of continued animosity will be much worse," she said.

And normalising relations would be a boon for business in both countries, she added.

"It may sound simplistic, but building relationships is the key to peace and economic prosperity in the subcontinent."

The Chief Minister offered Chaddar at the shrine of Baba Chamliyal.

Baba Chamliyal, after whom the village is named, lived about 320 years ago. Until 1971, Pakistanis were allowed to come to visit the shrine. That stopped after the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

Since then only a delegation of Pakistan Rangers come and offer a 'Chaddar' and carry back 'Shakkar and Sharbat' from the shrine to devotees in Pakistan.

The festival is also celebrated by devotees for three days at Saidanwali village on the Pakistani side of the zero line.

--IANS

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The BJP on Thursday challenged the Bihar government to ban ongoing meeting of the VHP here.

The Bharatiya Janata Party made its dare after few ministers including Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav threatened to take action against VHP leader Pravin Togadia if he deliver a communal or 'hate' speech during ongoing meeting of the VHP here.

"BJP challenges the state government to ban the VHP meeting," senior BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi told media here, claiming the ministers have been attacking the VHP and Togadia for self-publicity.

Earlier state Minorities Welfare Minister Abdul Ghafoor, of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, said that the VHP and Togadia have a single point agenda of creating social division and hatred.

"The VHP is closely associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too is a product of the VHP," he claimed.

In the early 2000s, when Lalu Prasad's RJD was in power in Bihar, he did not allow Togadia to enter the state.

--IANS

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Seven Taliban militants, among them a group commander, were killed as their explosive device detonated prematurely in Afghanistan's Logar province on Thursday, an official said.

"Seven Taliban militants including their commander Abdul Rauf were planting a mine on a road outside Pul-e-Alam city to target security personnel but the device exploded prematurely, killing all on the spot," Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying.

The commander and his team had an active role in organising attacks on security forces and planting roadside bombs in Logar province and adjoining areas, the official added.

--IANS

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Ballot boxes are on the way to more than 380 count venues after the EU referendum in Britain closed at 10 p.m. local time.

Millions of Britons went to about 41,000 polling stations on Thursday to cast their ballots in the EU referendum on whether their country should remain in or leave the European bloc.

As the referendum started at 7 a.m., several polling stations opened late on as overnight downpours hit London and southeast England, according to Xinhua.

Local media said two polling stations were closed by Kingston Council because of flooding, and voters were instructed to cast their ballots at alternative locations. Another polling station in Dover had power outage due to storms.

Figures from different campaigns have been seen cast their votes on Thursday.

According to the six main polls' results on Wednesday, only Opinium and TNS showed the Leave side gained more supports, while Populus, ComRes, Ipsos MORI and YouGov had more supports from the Remain side.

While NatCen Social Research's poll of polls suggested that 52 per cent would vote stay, and 48 per cent leave.

Meanwhile, sterling strengthened against the US dollar, hitting around 1.48 on Thursday. This is a rise from the 1.40 point hit on June 16, and is now not far off the 1.54 rate in May last year when the decision to have a referendum was announced.

Results will be declared throughout the night, and the final result will be officially declared at Manchester Town Hall, probably around breakfast time on Friday.

Figures from the Electoral Commission showed a record of 46.5 million people are entitled to take part in a nationwide referendum of this country.

--IANS

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A man posing as a high-ranking army officer and found clicking pictures around the Army's Eastern Command Headquarters here on Thursday was apprehended and handed over to police, a defence official said.

According to an army spokesperson, the accused Promit Mitra, sporting an army uniform with rank badges of a major general, was seen moving around and taking pictures at the Fort William premises.

Upon interrogation it was revealed that he was an imposter and was subsequently handed over to the police.

It has also been found that the name plate outside his city residence showed Mitra to be a Navy commodore while a car he was using has an 'Army' sticker.

--IANS

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An dialogue on economy and finance scheduled for June 27 has been "cancelled", an official source said.

"The meet stands cancelled," the source said.

The financial dialogue, at the secretary-level, was to be held on June 27.

The cancellation comes even as Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrived here on Thursday on a five-day visit to attend a series of meetings.

The development closely follows China's steadfast refusal to support India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, on the grounds that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Most other members of the 48-member NSG have come out in support of India, ahead of an important plenary being held in Seoul to decide on the membership of India and Pakistan.

Jaitley is scheduled to attend the first annual meeting of the Board of Governors' of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on June 25 and 26.
India and Uzbekistan on Thursday took note of their growing defence cooperation and called for enhanced security ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral talks with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov here on Thursday.

President Karimov welcomed Modi on his second visit to Uzbekistan within a year and Modi thanked Karimov for support to India's membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Modi also conveyed the government decision to extend e-tourist visa facility to Uzbekistan.

"Both leaders recalled old historical and cultural connections and discussed ways to further expand and strengthen relations. Modi conveyed decision to extend e-Tourist Visa to Uzbekistan and to organize a Festival of India and an Indian Trade Exhibition in Uzbekistan to mark 25 years of Uzbekistan's independence and 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations with India," said a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement after the talks.

"Both leaders noted cooperation was growing in defence and an MoU on Cyber Security had been concluded. They called for more cooperation in security," it added.

This was their second bilateral meeting since Modi went to Uzbekistan in July last year during his visit to the five Central Asian countries.

Modi was received at the airport by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Modi is here for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which is to kick off the process for India's absorption as a member.

--IANS

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A mother of two minor girls in Pakistan's Sindh province was axed to death by her husband on Thursday for allegedly delaying his tea.

Keeso Kolhi, aged 23, was killed by her husband, Nagji Kolhi, in Thuhi Leghari village. Tando Bago town police have arrested the accused, who confessed to having axed his wife to death.

The accused said he killed his wife in a fit of anger due to her delay in making him a cup of tea.

Sindh is home to majority of Pakistan's 3 million Hindus.

--IANS

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Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) arrested on Thursday a lawmaker from an anti-China party for having failed to declare a sum of money he received from a millionaire, who headed a media conglomerate critical of Beijing.

League of Social Democrats lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung was arrested from his house on Thursday morning by an anti-corruption agency team for accepting a sum of 250,000 Hong Kong dollars ($32,231) from one of millionaire Jimmy Lai's assistant in May 2012 and not declaring it in the Hong Kong Parliament as stipulated by law, EFE news reported.

Jimmy was then heading Next Media Limited, a media conglomerate whose publications included Apple Daily, a newspaper well-known for being highly critical of the Chinese regime.

An ICAC statement said the 60-year-old lawmaker, who was later released on bail, was charged with misconduct in public office and is set to appear before a judge on Friday.

The incident comes weeks before the beginning of lawmakers' nominations for elections to the Hong Kong legislature, slated to be held in September.

These are the first legislative elections in the former British colony since the eruption of pro-democracy and anti-China protests, termed the Umbrella Revolution, between September and December 2014 in the city.

--IANS

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Opening the door to potential new treatments for West Nile virus infection, researchers have discovered how the most severe forms of the mosquito-borne illness cause memory loss and mood disorders.

Half of patients who survive the most damaging kind of West Nile infection often go on to develop memory loss, learning difficulties, a lack of concentration and irritability. But exactly why this happens has been a mystery until now, the study said.

Researchers discovered that the virus does not kill off neurons but sparks inflammation that prunes synapses, the connections that carry messages between nerve cells.

"What we found in mice, and later confirmed in humans, is that it's not the death of cells that causes memory loss, it's the loss of nerve cell connections," said study co-author Kenneth Tyler from University of Colorado School of Medicine in the US.

"The viral infection activates microglial cells and complement pathways which are helping to fight the infection but in turn end up destroying synapses," Tyler noted.

The findings were published in the journal Nature.

The researchers found that mice infected with West Nile had a difficult time negotiating their way out of a maze that healthy mice figured out much faster.

They later discovered that the infected mice suffered significant damage to their synapses.

When the scientists examined brain tissue from humans who had died from West Nile, they found the same phenomenon.

There are currently no medications to treat or vaccines to prevent West Nile virus infection.

The best way to avoid West Nile is to wear long sleeves, use mosquito repellant and steer clear of standing water. The mosquito that carries the virus is most active at dusk and dawn.

--IANS

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Amid China's continued stalling, Prime Minister Narendra on Thursday told Chinese President Xi Jinping to judge India's application for NSG membership on its "merit".

"Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup briefed reporters here.

Probed further by reporters about India's chances to secure membership in the 48-nation bloc, he said: "This is a complex and delicate negotiation process. Whatever I had to say I have said all."

The briefing followed a meeting between Modi and Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

China has been opposing India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) -- which regulates global nuclear trade and technology -- on the grounds that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The NSG is holding a plenary in Seoul where it was expected to take up India's membership application.

--IANS

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A 22-year-old youth was arrested on Thursday for receiving a kidney through the same kidney racket that was busted in Apollo Hospital this month.

A police officer told IANS, "We have arrested Ashutosh, who received the kidney from Umesh, a resident of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh through the same touts."

Ashutosh, son of Bhule Singh, a J.E. in the Delhi Jal Board, was arrested on Thursday from his residence at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.

According to the officer, Ashutosh received the kidney through the same touts who allegedly ran the kidney racket at the city-based Indraprastha Apollo hospital.

Police had busted the kidney racket on June 2 with the arrest of two hospital employees and three suspected touts.

The police had said Shailesh Saxena, 31, and Aditya Singh, 24, both personal secretaries to two Apollo hospital doctors, were held along with suspected touts Aseem Sikdar, 37, Satya Prakash, 30, and Devashish Moulik, 30, on the charge of involvement in the kidney trade.

A case was registered against them at the Sarita Vihar police station.

The alleged mastermind T. Rajkumar was arrested from Kolkata along with three donors -- two women from Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur and a man from West Bengal's Siliguri district.

--IANS

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Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the Kochi Smart City project will be fully ready in three years.

Vijayan's party had boycotted the function when Kochi Smart City's first phase was inaugurated in February this year, after eleven years.

Then leader of opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, who was one of the high profile invitees, did not turn up. The CPI-M organised a protest meet and said that there has been a deviation from the original Kochi Smart City agreement.

However, on Thursday Vijayan, after meeting top officials of the project, which is being jointly developed by Dubai Smart City and the Kerala government, issued a statement that the project will be going forward as per the agreement.

The chief minister also said that it will be completed in three years -- the agreement that was inked with the previous Chandy government.

"When completed, there will be one lakh jobs in the Kochi Smart City and the total area earmarked for IT operations will be 67 lakh sq ft and 21 lakh sq ft for non-IT needs," said Vijayan.

In February, the first phase was opened which has an area of 6.5 lakh sq feet and several companies have started operations.

The CPI-M had ridiculed the then Chandy government that there is not a single IT company of repute that has opened.

In November 2005, the MoU of this project was inked under the then Chandy government.

And following the change in government, the framework agreement was signed in 2007 by the Achuthanandan government and it was taken forward again only in 2011 after the Chandy government assumed office.

--IANS

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The city police, probing the Narada sting controversy that allegedly caught several Trinamool Congress leaders accepting "bribes", on Thursday summoned the news portal's CEO Mathew Samuel who had conducted the expose.

In an electronic communique addressed to the official address of the portal, Mathews has been asked to appear before the economic offences wing of the city police, said an officer.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool supremo, on June 17 had ordered the comprehensive probe headed by city Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar that will go into all aspects of the sting issue, including whether there was a "conspiracy behind it" and try to find out all those who hatched it.

In pursuance of the order, the city police has constituted a special investigation team (SIT) while a case under several offences was registered on the basis of a complaint by Ratna Chatterjee - wife of city Mayor and state minister Sovan Chatterjee, who was one of the over a dozen Trinamool leaders purportedly caught in the sting.

Samuel, who has alleged a "conspiracy" to get him arrested, said he was seeking legal advice on the mater.

--IANS

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her hope for Britain to remain a part of the EU, hours before the outcome of Britain's European Union(EU) membership referendum.

Europe should discuss the result "together and in calm," said Merkel after meeting with her Austrian counterpart Christian Kern on Thursday in Berlin, Xinhua reported.

Merkel also cautioned against hectic reactions to Britain's EU referendum.

She said the result of Britain's EU referendum would be tabled during the EU summit in Brussels next week.

--IANS

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The outline of the myth below is constructed from the Telefolmin version of the myth as recorded by Robert Brumbaugh, which is largely followed by other Min groups like the Faiwolmin and Wopkaimin around Ok Tedi.

While there is no definitive account of Afek and the collective version is riven with contradictions and inconsistencies it is possible to construct a narrative of sorts.

There were no people before Afek. The world before belonged to the Utungmin or spirit people. Afek drove them into the deep forest to make way for her descendants but they remain hidden there to this day, where they are sometimes encountered by hunters.

At that point the earth is destined to turn over and flood. Based on genealogical data and oral history the epoch has currently reached just beyond the midway point.

The epoch that Afek created began about 300-400 years ago and it was not intended that it should last forever. Afek predicted that it would not last beyond 27 re-buildings of the Telefolip cult house (27 is the base of the Min counting system).

Some Min groups partition knowledge between ritual moieties, each excluded on principle from the full knowledge held by the other. Only the collective knowledge of the Min encompasses the full story.

Initiation into an Afek cult house does not produce a fully initiated man who knows the whole story. Knowledge is parcelled out rather than shared. No one person knows the full story of Afek.

Beyond the traditional context, such as trade, the myth has the ability to underwrite new types of connection as circumstances change.

So the Afek myth is still alive and well today thanks to the efforts of the 'pagans' and it still fulfils its age-old role in Min life.

The main spirit house at Telefolmin was almost lost but the 'pagans' held fast and saved it. The government then moved to protect the spirit house from Christian attacks by declaring it a national monument.

In the late 1970s its existence came under serious threat from a Christian revival movement. The Christians rampaged through villages destroying the men's spirit houses.

Anthropologist Robert Brumbaugh says the myth is the ideological device which the Min mobilise to deal with unprecedented situations arising from contact and development. It is a statement of identity and a map of relationships. It was invoked during the development of the Ok Tedi mine.

No one knows the myth in its entirety. Rather, various groups know different parts of it.

The story of Afek varies greatly from place to place and the details are often contradictory and confusing.

THE MIN ARE THE PEOPLE who live around the Ok Tedi Mine. Their creation mother is called Afek.

Afek came from the north east beyond the headwaters of the Strickland River and the Ok Om. There are some similarities between the Afek myth and the ritual systems of the people to the north east like the Oksapmin, Hewa, Duna and Huli.

Of particular interest is the concept of underground roads linking ritual centres. In this sense Afeks origins from that direction seem plausible.

She was the child of a cassowary and her gender was thought to be female. After she crossed the Sepik an old man called Mapsilagim at Telefolip who was disguised as a dog surprised her. He had avoided all the traps that she had set to keep from being followed.

He attempted to have intercourse with her but she killed him with her black palm club. She was sorry about killing him and temporarily revived him and sent him back to Telefolip.

Mapsilagim re-crossed the Sepik where it narrows to only an arms width. Afek had built a false bridge there which threw him into the water but he called the banks together and pulled himself out.

Afek then went to a cave at Wimtem, below Safoltigin, and followed an underground road west to Bultem in Wopkaiman territory. She built a shelter there and explored the area and then continued west along the underground road. She emerged at Afintembli in Atbalim territory and built a cult house there.

She continued west along the underground road and surfaced at Bongelabip in Ngalumin territory and built a cult house there. She then came back along the underground road to Bultem and built a cult house there which the Wopkaimin call Futmanam and started building a bridge at Moyansil over the Ok Tedi. Along the way she built a cult house at Imigabip in Faiwolmin territory.

She then passed under Ulapmin and went to get Mapsilagim man at Telefolip. When she got back to Telefolip she took Mapsilagim along the underground road to Bultem and they finished building the bridge at Moyansil and he crossed the Ok Tedi and went to the land of the dead.

The cave at Wimtem is the entrance to the underground road that the dead from the west follow to Bultem. In the east they find their way to the start of the road at Telefolip. The land of the dead lies west of Bultem under Mount Fubilan.

Afek then went west to the Tifalmin and killed a Tifalmin boy and brought his body back to Telefolip. She then went to Falamin territory where she killed a man who had been cutting branches from a tree near the village of Oksimin and also brought his body back to Telefolip.

She set the two bodies to cook while she went to clean the intestines in the river. While she was away the fire spread and burnt all the forest, thus creating the surrounding grasslands. She found a rat and his sister among the grass and drove the sister into the river where she became a frog.

She ate the bodies of the boy and man and then made an underground circuit of the cult centres. She took the Falamin mans heart to Bultem and shared it with the ghosts of the dead and left one of his bones at Bongelabip.

When she got back to Telefolip she rubbed the blood of both the dead boy and man on the posts of the cult house and finished building it. This is the cult house now known as the Telefol.

Afeks brother, Olmoim, came from the north east and joined her at Telefolip. He slept in a nearby house and Afek slept in the cult house. Olmoims penis grew very large and immobilised him so Afek cut it back to a proper size.

She then called on a bandicoot to create her vagina and had intercourse with a wild dog to open it. In that way she became a woman.

She then placed two marita pandanus nuts into her vagina and had intercourse with her brother. His blood was absorbed by the nuts and accounts for the colour of marita.

The brother looked after the pigs in his house and Afek stored their bones and fat in the cult house after they had been eaten. The pigs frequently misbehaved so Afek and her brother decided to try changing places.

This worked well and the pigs behaved. The next morning Afek was surprised to see her brother shining with pig fat. She was so impressed that she put him through a series of initiations and turned him into a man.

Olmoim stayed in the village while Afek went into the forest. One day he followed her. Each day she opened her legs and gave birth to various animals. Olmoim continued to spy on his sister and discovered that the animals came to her call. When the animals realised he was watching they ran away.

Afek also gave birth to taro while her brother was watching. She then turned back the Om River and built up the swampy area with sand from the river. She banished the sago that was growing in the swamps and planted the taro in its place.

Olmoim hunted the wild animals with his bow and arrows and Afek cultivated the taro.

They divided the cult house into two according to the ritual division of arrow and taro. Olmoim was put in charge of the arrow moiety and Afek retained the taro moiety for herself.

However, when Afek discovered that her brother had been spying on her and knew both the secret of the animals and taro she killed him with a spell. She placed his body on a burial platform but it did not decay so she created maggots to eat it.

Olmoim followed the underground road to the land of the dead at Bultem. When he was there he discovered an adze and brought it back to Telefolip. He traded the adze for one of his bones from the burial platform and returned to Bultem with it.

The particular type of stone adze that Olmoim brought from Bultem is called a fubi. These adzes were a major trade item that came to the Min via the river crossing at Moyansil.

The maggots that were caught in Olmoims hair when he came back from Bultem with the fubi are equated to nassa shells, which are another trade item coming from the south via Bultem and Moyansil.

The animals that Afek gave birth to are the ancestors of the Min people. Some Min people are reluctant to acknowledge animals as their ancestors but most Min elders will confirm it as a truth.

When their numbers increased Afek changed their languages and customs and sent them out to occupy their present territories.

When Afek died her skull was retained at Telefolip, her pelvis was sent to Wimtem and her other bones were distributed to the other cult houses.
Prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit here.

"Taking forward #IndiaUzbekistan coop'n. PM @narendramodi meets President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan on the sidelines of SCO Summit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted with a picture of both leaders.

India and Pakistan were expected to be granted full membership of the SCO, which also includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, at the Summit here on Friday. India has been a observer to the Eurasian bloc since 2005.

Modi began his engagements on Friday with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and thanked him for China's support for India's membership of the SCO.

On Thursday, soon after his arrival here, Modi held a bilateral meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev during the course of which the two leaders discussed ways to expand bilateral ties, including development of the Chabahar port in Iran.

Later in the night, Modi exchanged pleasantries with Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif at the Leaders Lounge at the Astana Opera here. This was the first meeting between the two leaders after 17 months.

After participating in the SCO Summit on Friday, Modi will attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police in China's Heilongjiang province have captured the main suspect in a 22-year-old murder case.

Police said on Thursday that the man, named Zheng, was caught on June 15 in Inner Mongolia, Xinhua news agency reported.

Zheng is accused of fatally stabbing a man in 1994 over a personal dispute. He then fled to Tongliao City in Inner Mongolia and and used an alias "Wang".

Investigators were alerted to the resemblance of "Wang" to the murder suspect and arrested Zheng at his house. Zheng has pleaded guilty to the charges, police said.

--IANS

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on Thursday announced the launch of medium-range missiles on Wednesday was a success and it considered this a necessary weapon to increase the country's capacity when carrying out a "pre-emptive nuclear attack".

Pyongyang launched two missiles from its eastern coast into the sea on Wednesday, the second of them appeared to function with relative success, EFE news reported.

"The test-firing was successfully conducted without having any slightest effect to the security of surrounding countries," North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA said in a statement.

The statement confirmed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was present for the test-fire of the medium long-range strategic ballistic missile named Hwasong-10.

According to KCNA, Kim considered that the missile is "needed to increase in a sustained way our preemptive nuclear attack capability and continue the study and development of diverse strategic attack weapons."

"The current test-fire marked an important occasion in further strengthening the nuclear attack capacity of our state," the statement quoted the leader as saying.

Wednesday's tests were the fifth and sixth time that test-fired Musudan missiles since April.

The first missile launched is believed to have malfunctioned, like the previous four failed attempts.

However, according to the South Korean government, the second missile covered a range of 400 km and soared to an altitude of 1,000 km. At present, experts consider the launch a relative success.

The Musudan missile poses a new threat to the region as it is the first North Korean medium-range missile which can be fired from a mobile launcher, making it more difficult to detect.

With its potential 4,000 km range, the missile could reach US military bases in Okinawa, Japan or Guam.

US, South Korea and Japan have condemned these latest launches, while China has urged the parties for dialogue.
A lack of consensus amid strong opposition from several countries led by China thwarted India's bid for NSG membership in Seoul on Thursday night even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent to consider New Delhi's bid on its merit.

The Indian application for membership to the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group was taken up at a post-dinner special session in the South Korean capital where heads of delegation of NSG are holding a plenary, highly informed sources in Seoul told IANS.

The sources said several countries led by China opposed the idea of letting India in on the grounds that New Delhi was a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those siding with China included Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Turkey and Ireland.

Signing the NPT is one of the main requirements to be part of the elite club of nations that regulate global nuclear trade and technology.

China had earlier brought up Pakistan's NSG application that virtually stonewalled India's chances of getting into the bloc without signing the Non-proliferation Treaty.

China had been insisting that if any concession is given to India, the same should apply to Pakistan which has an alleged bad track record on non-proliferation after it was said to have sold atomic weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The sources said Pakistan's application didn't come up for the discussion.

The issue of considering applications of non-NPT countries, including India, was not on the main agenda of the NSG's closed-door plenary.

But several diplomatic sources said that Japan raised the issue in the opening session. It was later decided that the matter would be discussed at the special session convened by Chairperson Rafael Grossi of Argentina.

Argentina and South Korea along with several key member nations, including the US, Britain, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, France and Russia, have been supportive of India's NSG aspirations.

Earlier, Prime Minister Modi, who met President Xi in Tashkent on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Uzbekistan capital, urged China to judge India's application on its "merit".

"Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup briefed reporters in Tashkent.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the opposition to India's membership won't impact bilateral ties between them.

"We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the media, adding that the two countries "have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship".

Ahead of the Seoul plenary, India made hectic diplomatic efforts to secure the membership in the grouping which works on the principle of consensus and allows a new member only if all existing members agree.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar is in Seoul as part of India's diplomatic outreach to push through the NSG.

--IANS

sar/rn
Brazilian Serie A club Atletico Mineiro are considering a move to sign Peru international full-back Miguel Trauco, according to the player's agent.

"We have made a proposal to the club and they are analysing it," agent Jose Chacon told the Superesportes news portal. Trauco currently plays for Lima-based Universitario in Peru's top flight. He joined them this year from from Union Comercio, reports Xinhua.

The 23-year-old has been capped seven times for Peru and was the first choice left-back in the team's recent Copa America campaign.

He missed a spot-kick in the team's quarterfinal penalty shootout against Colombia last Friday, which Peru lost.

--IANS

ajb/vt
Six unidentified militants were gunned down by troops in two separate gun battles in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district on Thursday, a defence spokesman said.

Troops of counter-insurgency Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and special operations group (SOG) this morning launched a massive search operation in the forest area in Lolab in Kupwara district, he said.

"The operation was launched on specific information about presence of a group of heavily-armed militants in the forest area. While the troops were conducting searches, hiding militants opened fire leading to a fierce excahnge of fire. Three militants were killed and the operation is still on," the spokesman told IANS.

He said army also gunned down three more militants in another gunbattle in the forest area near Drugmulla in the same district.

"This operation is also still on," he added.

---IANS

sq/vd
The world's largest solar-powered aircraft, Solar Impulse 2, has entered Spanish airspace with the aim of landing in Seville to complete its Atlantic crossing, BBC reported on Thursday.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard will bring the craft down on Thursday morning if air traffic controllers give the all-clear.

The Swiss adventurer has made swift progress over the ocean since leaving New York on Monday.

The current flight is the 15th stage in Solar Impulse's bid to circumnavigate the globe.

Once in Seville, mission managers will plot a route to Abu Dhabi where the venture began in March, 2015.

Solar Impulse has moved rapidly around the Earth since renewing its challenge in Hawaii on April 21.

In 2015, the plane flew eight stages from Abu Dhabi to Kalaeloa, including a remarkable four-day, 21-hour leg over the western Pacific - the longest solo flight in aviation history in terms of the time it took.

But it was damage to its batteries on that stage that forced Solar Impulse to then lay up for 10 months, for repairs and to wait for optimum daylight length in the northern hemisphere to return.

Piccard shares the flying duties with his business partner, Andre Borschberg.

The former Swiss air force pilot will take charge for the next leg, across the Mediterranean.

--IANS

ksk/vm
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Gujarat Police on Thursday brought two accused from Mumbai on transit remand in a case of drugs seizure worth Rs 270 crore.

Ephedrine is the raw material for preparing a party drug. Some two months back, over 1,300 kg of the substance was seized from a factory here where they were stored.

The alleged kingpin of the racket, Kishore Rathod, is still absconding. He is the son of former Gujarat MLA, Bhavsinh Rathod.

ATS Police Inspector M.S. Thaker said Manoj Tejram Jain, 45, was picked up from Mumbai while Jay alias Jay Mukhi, 40, of Vadodara who lived in Mumbai, was arrested from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

They were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

"They were handed over to us on a transit warrant," Thaker said.

Two others linked to the case have already been arrested. It is suspected that another suspect may have fled abroad via Nepal.

The Ephedrine, seized by ATS and Crime Branch, was bought from a pharmaceutical factory at Solapur in Maharashtra to be converted into party drugs like Glass, ICE and TINA.

The party drugs were to be smuggled to Amsterdam, Poland and other places and supplied to various parts of India as well.

--IANS

desai/bim/mr
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has announced that his country will increase its oil production to meet new quotas set by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

"We must lower the costs of production to help investments and Venezuela will increase its oil production, while upgrading the technology and equipment to be used," Maduro said on Wednesday.

However, the exact quota given by to Venezuela or the increase in oil production was not disclosed.

The head of state also guaranteed that PDVSA, the national oil company, would carry out this improvement with the maximum efficiency at "our refineries and our petrochemical industry."

At the same event, Eulogio del Pino, minister of oil and mining, said had pointed to Venezuela as having the leading strategies to balance out the price of oil barrels, which have fluctuated wildly in recent months.

"We are not tied to any dogma of reducing production. We are seeking new plans that will take us to balanced pricing, which justifies the sustainability of investments," added del Pino.

The minister also explained that some of the world's largest oil companies were keen to hear Venezuela's ideas to balance prices.

Oil prices have been on a steady decline since the middle of 2014.
PETER SOLO KAULGA

UNIVERSITY of Papua New Guinea students at the Waigani Campus claim to have been provoked by the university security service this morning resulting in a fight in which vehicles were burned, the Michael Somare Library stoned and some security officers injured.

The situation occurred when students were meeting in front of the UPNG clinic and Toa hall of residence. It was alleged that security officers tried to stop the meeting.

The students were meeting to discuss an official apology from the University Administration on the police shootings including meeting the medical expenses of students who were injured.

They were also seeking an immediate independent investigation into the shootings separate from the government-sanctioned inquiry. After discussing these issues, the students were hoping to return to class next week.

Police have been called into the campus and the situation is now reported to be quiet.

Meanwhile, University of Technology (Unitech) students in Lae are ready to resume classes on Monday. A student from Unitech said there is police presence on the campus but most students are ready to resume classes.
The cooperative aspect of modern science is marked in big projects such as the Ligo (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). The Ligo is totally international in scope and scale. The two operative faculties are in the US. But a gravitational wave observatory is planned in India and two such facilities are already under construction in Italy and Japan.
At a recent anti-liquor meet at Vaishali in Bihar, attendees were greeted by a poster depicting the battle of Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata, albeit with a slight change: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as Arjun and former Janata Dal-United (JD-U) president Sharad Yadav as Krishna, charioteer to Arjun in the war.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared the largest-ever auction of spectrum in the country: if all the airwaves get sold at their base price, the government will get richer by Rs 5.44 lakh crore. This is a lot of money and has led to the accusation that the government is fleecing the telecom industry to meet its revenue targets. The telecom companies have argued that the price of Rs 5.44 lakh crore is more than double the industrys 2014-15 turnover of Rs 2.54 lakh crore and that this will lead to a sizeable increase in their debt burden, currently estimated at Rs 3 lakh crore. However, almost three-fourths of this money is budgeted from the sale of 700 MHz spectrum, which telecom companies have said is prohibitively expensive. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, the three largest players in the market, have indicated that they will not buy spectrum in this band. If the rest of the spectrum gets sold, the telecom companies will need to arrange upwards of Rs 1.25 lakh crore. As they are required to pay 50 per cent of the money upfront, this could mean an additional burden of Rs 62,000 crore during the current financial year, which admittedly is not insignificant, but is way short of the Rs 5.44 lakh crore being cited. This, realistically, is what the government should hope to get during 2016-17. The money would be slightly more than the Rs 56,000 crore it has budgeted from spectrum sale during the year. Along with licence fees and payments of earlier auctions, the government had budgeted for almost Rs 99,000 crore from communication services this year.
Terming debt traps as "death traps", West Bengal Chief Minister Thursday called for a discussion among states on the issue.

"Three states--Kerala, West Bengal and Punjab-- are already in debt traps. These are not debt traps but death traps. This is very destructive for the federal structure," Mamata said.

The interest of debt burden was increasing every year, she told the Assembly and added that in the last five years the state government had taken loans amounting to Rs 1,13,000 crore, out of which, Rs 94,000 crore was spent to repay the debt.

"Wherefrom will I get the money for development projects? This is a serious problem," she said.

She said that all states were slowly heading towards debt traps and requested the Speaker to arrange a discussion among all states to talk about the issue.

Mamata lashed out at the Centre for slashing budgets for ICDS, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and for development of the Jangalmahal areas and said despite the cash crunch the state was implementing number of developmental projects such as Kanyasree, Sabuj Sathi and many others.
Until now in battleground Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah was seen to be doing heavy lifting by his indefatigable campaigning for the forthcoming assembly polls. But some swift moves by the ruling Samajwadi Party in recent times has meant the chessboard has a rival. The Congress is unlikely to be a major player in the elections, due by February, unless it aligns with either the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) or SP. But the BSP is having a torrid time and seems bent on predicting Shah correct that the fight for UP is primarily between the BJP and SP.
chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao on Thursday requested Government of India to transfer the entire AP Bhavan property in Delhi to Telangana, stating that the land originally belonged to the erstwhile Hyderabad state under the Nizams.
The 130-year-old Congress party has been pushed on the backfoot in the political arena by the BJP, which is just 36-year-old, Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel today said.

She was addressing the state BJP executive meeting in the neighbouring Mehsana district.

The meeting passed a political resolution criticising the Congress for straying from its core values and said it symbolised "corruption, pseudo-secularism and bad governance".

It is no more the party of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Today, Congress has become the party of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, it said.

"Our 36-year-old party has managed to put the over 100-year-old Congress on the backfoot," Patel said.

The two-day conclave of the state BJP executive, which ended today, saw party leaders from all over the state deliberating on strategy for the 2017 Assembly elections.

"The reason behind it (Congress on backfoot) is the strength of BJP workers. Strength is in being together. In the play of snakes and ladders, it is your inherent strengths and goodness that take you up the ladder of political life," Patel said.

The political resolution said 'Congress Mukt Bharat', a slogan given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was an idea to get the polity of the country rid of "nepotism, corruption, pseudo-secularism and bad governance".

It further stated that Congress has drifted far away from its core values as it was now seen standing with those who were against the culture of this country.

"It is indirectly supporting cow slaughter by saying that to eat beef is a personal choice. In the name of freedom of speech, it supported JNU students who glorified terrorists involved in Parliament attack like Afzal Guru," the Chief Minister said.

The resolution went on to criticise the state unit of Congress, saying its local leaders are running the show by merely giving statements to the media.

"Gujarat Congress is talking about giving 20 per cent quota to Economically Backward Classes. But they have not implemented this in even one state they are ruling, while we have given 10 per cent quota to EBCs in Gujarat," the resolution said.
Two persons were arrested and smuggled gold bars worth Rs 1.62 crore were seized from their possession by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.

Shaik Mohammed and Nizam were yesterday arrested for smuggling 5.33 kg of gold through the Indo-Myanmar border and bringing it to Chennai from Guwahati, an official release said.

The duo were intercepted at Egmore Railway Station here and they later confessed to the crime, it said.

DRI said the two were acting as couriers and found carrying 27 foreign-origin gold bars with markings worth Rs 1.62 crore concealed in specially made cavities of three suitcases.

The gold was seized and the two arrested under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962. They have been remanded to judicial custody, the release said.
Three hundred kilogrammes of cannabis, pegged worth Rs 20 lakh, was seized and a smuggler arrested in this connection from near Terasiya village in Bihar's Vaishali district, police said today.

Acting on a tip off, the police intercepted a pick up van and seized the cannabis that was brought from Nepal, Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said.

A man, identified as Ratan Mehta, has been arrested for possession of the consignment of contraband substance, Kumar said, adding the seized cannabis has been valued at Rs 20 lakh in international market



He said a case has been registered in this regard at Ganga Bridge police station.

Another smuggler Pradeep Rai escaped from the spot, the SP said, adding the raid was carried out at his house and two vehicles which he used for contraband smuggling have been seized.
Four days before the Democratic primary in the 24th Congressional District race, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will return to central New York to headline a rally for Eric Kingson.

Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, will appear with Kingson, D-Manlius, on Friday at the OnCenter Convention Center, 800 S. State St. in Syracuse.

Doors will open at 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Kingson is one of three Democrats vying for the party's nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. John Katko, a freshman Republican. His opponents are Colleen Deacon, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's former central New York regional director, and Steve Williams, a Syracuse-area attorney and ex-U.S. Navy prosecutor.

The primary will be held Tuesday.

Kingson said there was a discussion Tuesday about the possibility of Sanders coming to the Syracuse area for an appearance before the primary, but nothing was finalized until later in the day. That's when Sanders' campaign decided to send a staffer to Syracuse to prepare for Friday's rally.

"It feels amazing, what can I say?" Kingson said in a phone interview. "I'm very grateful."

Earlier this month, Sanders endorsed Kingson. After the endorsement was announced, Kingson's campaign received more than $30,000 in campaign contributions in a 28-hour period.

This will be Sanders' second visit to central New York in the past two months. Before New York's presidential primary in April, he held a rally at the OnCenter which drew more than 5,000 people.

Kingson is hoping to capitalize on Sanders' popularity and the grassroots movement he built during his presidential run.

Sanders was competitive in the New York presidential primary. In the 24th Congressional District, he won three of the four counties  Cayuga, Oswego and Wayne  and received 26,673 votes.

Kingson, though, finds himself in a different position. A recent Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll found him trailing Deacon, the party establishment's preferred candidate, by 42 points.

Kingson's campaign is counting on Sanders' support and a strong get-out-the-vote operation to win the primary. The rally will be a big part of that effort.

"It's an absolutely huge boost to my candidacy and I think it changes the dynamic," he said.
The relations between Najeeb Jung and Delhi's ruling AAP today hit a new low with the latter demanding the arrest of the Lt Governor over his alleged role in the murder of an NDMC official and a state assembly panel saying he would be summoned for "questioning" in five scam cases.

The Aam Aadmi Party escalated its confrontation with Jung over the recent murder of NDMC officer M M Khan, allegedly at a hotelier's bidding, after he refused to accept a bribe to extend the lease of his establishment.

"His (Jung's) role is suspicious in the case. Why had he written to NDMC seeking action against Khan? We demand that the LG be arrested and sacked from his position," AAP's Delhi Unit Convener Dileep Pandey told a press conference.

"We also demand that the Delhi police stop reporting to the LG and report to Ministry of Home Affairs," he added.

It has come to light that a day after Khan was murdered for allegedly refusing to take bribe from Delhi hotelier Ramesh Kakkar, Jung's office had purportedly sent Kakkar's petition against Khan to NDMC asking for "action as per law".

Khan, an estate officer of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), was shot dead in Jamia Nagar a day before he was scheduled to pass the final order on the lease terms of hotel 'The Connaught' which was functioning on a property of the civic body, on May 16.

Further intensifying its tirade against Jung, with whom it has been locked in confrontation over a number of issues, Rakhi Birla, the chairperson of the Petitions Committee of the state assembly, said Jung and Anti-Corruption Branch chief M K Meena will be summoned for "questioning" in connection with five cases of alleged scam during the tenure of Sheila Dikshit as Chief Minister.

Birla claimed the panel has the power to summon the LG who has to tell as to why action was not initiated on the five FIRs registered during the AAP government's earlier 49-day stint in power.

She said investigating officers of these cases will also be summoned by the nine-member committee whose all members are Aam Aadmi Party MLAs.

"At a meeting of Petitions Committee, we have decided to summon the LG, Meena and investigating officers for questioning. We will also seek legal opinion from the Standing Counsel to proceed in the matter," Birla told reporters.

She said the issue was serious as two former Union Ministers and a prominent industrialist were involved in the cases.

She alleged the Lt Government and ACB adopted an "indifferent attitude" in getting the cases probed.

The development came a day after AAP MLAs Somnath Bharti



and Rajendra Pal Gautam submitted their complaints in connection with the five cases to assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, demanding action against Jung and Meena.

Yesterday, 12 AAP MLAs had gone to the LG's official residence demanding registration of an FIR against Jung and Meena without a formal appointment. They later claimed that LG "refused" to meet them.

The LG Secretariat, however, said Jung's schedule for the day had already been prepared and that procedures had to be followed for seeking an appointment with him.

The ruling party legislators had then approached Goel and submitted their complaints to him. Goel had forwarded the complaints of the two MLAs and those received from public to the Petitions Committee of the House.

"You (LG) have been protecting Smt Dikshit in the FIRs through your inaction. Shri Meena, imposed by the Union government as ACB chief, has also colluded with you in this criminal activity.

"Kindly forward my letter to ACB with a direction that Shri Meena and yourself should be made co-accused in these four FIRs," a letter signed by Gautam had said.

The Delhi Police, meanwhile, said the murder case of Khan was being "politicised" and that investigation into it was being done without any pressure or bias.

Delhi Police's chief spokesperson Taj Hassan said, "Unfortunately this case is now being politicised. We are investigating the case without any pressure or bias. We have taken all relevant documents from NDMC. The allegations being levelled through certain section of the media are baseless."



Joint Commissioner of Police (southeastern range) R P Upadhyay said BJP MP Maheish Girri and NDMC vice chairman Karan Singh Tanwar had no role in Khan's murder.

Both Girri and Tanwar were alleged to have sought action against the slain NDMC officer Khan.

(REOPENS DEL45)



"Girri had said he had not written any letter involving Khan. Now his lie has been exposed," Chadha said.

Alleging that the accused had a "political patronage", Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia demanded that an "impartial" probe be initiated into the matter.

"The LG intervened into the matter twice in a week through NDMC. This clearly indicates that the hotelier, who is the prime accused in Khan's murder, had a political patronage. The accused cannot commit such a big crime without any political patronage.

"There should be a probe to ascertain who gave political political patronage to the accused," Sisodia said.
The government today said it will amend the existing policy for grant of air operator permit (AOP) to bring it in line with its recent decision to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment in domestic airlines.

It would also be "examining" the substantial ownership and effective control (SOEC) norms of the various countries which permit more than 49 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in their airlines, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation event here.

Under the current norms, AOP or flying licence is granted to a company only if its chairman and two-third Directors are Indian citizens and its substantial ownership and effective control is vested in Indian nationals.

"The policy relating to AOP being given, that policy will be completely aligned with the FDI Policy. So if there is something when higher FDI investment is not resulting in AOP being given, then the AOP requirement will be to that extent will be amended," Choubey said.

Foreign investors, barring overseas airlines, are now allowed to have up to 100 per cent stake in local carriers under the recently liberalised FDI norms.

Under the new set-up, 49 per cent FDI will be through the automatic route and for anything beyond, government nod will be required. At present, up to 49 per cent FDI is permitted in scheduled airlines.

However, foreign airlines, under the norms, canot invest more than 49 per cent in the domestic carriers.

The requirement of SOEC comes up at two places-- for grant of AOP to an Indian citizen and at the place where India has to grant bilateral rights, he said.

"For the purpose of granting AOP, because the FDI limit has been increased, therefore, correspondingly the AOP requirement of substantial ownership and effective control will also have to be aligned with it. That will require amendment," he said.

As far as bilateral rights are concerned, the requirement of SOEC is also a condition from International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and not of a particular government or country, he said.

"All that it means is that if you are having more than 49 per cent then there may be an issue in getting the bilateral rights for flying abroad. But if you wish to fly within the country, then there is no bar," he said.

(REOPENS DEL22)



When asked why an airline with 100 per cent investment from a foreign country will fly only domestic, Choubey replied, "India itself is a huge market. So somebody if wishes to use its domestic market they can do so."



There are also code shares, the rules regarding which have been also liberalised, Choubey said, adding, "If they wish to grow within the country and also take up the code shares, they can do so."



He said the purpose of allowing overseas investors own up to 100 per cent stake in Indian carriers is to encourage investments in domestic operations.

To a question whether domestic carriers owned 100 per cent by foreign investors will be allowed to fly international skies, Choubey said, "We are examining whether they can fly abroad. But presently, it appears that ICAO regulations are binding on signatory countries."



"We will examine what other countries who are similarly placed are going in respect of the carriers being allowed to fly abroad and then will take a call," Choubey said.

When asked how would the government ensure that foreign airlines comply with the 49 per cent FDI ceiling, he said, "As part of the approval, a very thorough due diligence will be done to ensure that directly or indirectly foreign airline ownership does not exceed 49 per cent, which is mandated.
Actor Akshay Kumar is eager to watch Sonakshi Sinha's upcoming film "Akira".

The 48-year-old actor, who has worked with Sonakshi in film like "Rowdy Rathore," "Holiday" and "Boss" praised the actress for pushing boundaries as an artist.

"All power to Sonakshi for pushing boundaries & making hero orientated directors see you for all your worth #CantWaitForThis," Akshay tweeted.

Directed by AR Murugadoss, Akira is said to be an emotional thriller set in Mumbai and Rajasthan. The film marks Murugadoss' third Hindi venture after back-to-back hits "Ghajini" and "Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty".

Sonakshi, 29, will be seen in a new avatar in the film and has undergone rigorous training to get into the skin of the character.

"Akira" is the Hindi remake of the 2011 Tamil hit "Mounaguru," and also stars Konkona Sen Sharma, Anurag Kashyap, Shatrughan Sinha.
BJP chief Amit Shah today visited Sivagiri Mutt at Varkala, a major spiritual centre of the backward Ezhava community, established by Kerala's renowned 20th century saint-social reformer Sree Narayana Guru.

Shah, accompanied by BDJS supremo Thushar Vellappally and former BJP state president V Muraleedharan, visited the hillock mutt, located about 50 km from here, after attending a set of crucial party leadership meetings in the state capital.

He offered obeisance at the maha samadhi mandapam, the final resting place of the Guru and met veteran swami Prakashananda, President of Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham Trust.

Shah later went round its sprawling campus and visited the Vaidika Mutt, a more than 100-year-old building where Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore had met the Guru.

The BJP President also offered prayers at nearby Sarada Mutt, a temple consecrated by Narayana Guru.

Later he lunched with the sanyasis and held brief discussions with them, party sources said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Mutt last year.

Established by Narayana Guru who propagated the message of "One Caste, One Religion and One God for Mankind", the Sivagiri Mutt is a major spiritual-cum-pilgrim centre of the backward Ezhava community in Kerala.
Indian analytics industry is expected to touch USD 16 billion by 2025 from the current level of USD 2 billion, a senior Nasscom official said today.

Over 600 analytical firms in India, of which approximately 400 are startups, are positioning the country as an emerging hub for analytics solutions for industries across the globe, Nasscom Vice President K S Viswanathan told reporters on the sidelines of the fourth edition of its 'Big Data and Analytics Summit 2016'.

"Growing at eight times the current levels, the analytics industry is expected to reach USD 16 billion from the current level of USD 2 billion by 2025. Indian analytics market is growing at 26 per cent CAGR.

"India is today amongst the top ten destinations for analytics and our aspiration is to be amongst the top three in the world by 2025. Nasscom is partnering with its members to build a multi-pronged approach that encompasses skill development, thought leadership, products and platforms to realise this vision," he said.

He said the rapid rise of analytics is reflected in job creation across verticals and functions with skills from analytics, business and technology.

With over 90,000 analytics professionals in India across HR, marketing, risk and security, healthcare, retail and finance verticals, the industry is witnessing the emergence of specialised roles like data architect, data strategist, data visualisation analyst and change manager, among others, he added.

BVR Mohan Reddy, former Chairman of Nasscom and Founder and Executive Chairman at Cyient, said multiple opportunities are emerging across business verticals like data, infrastructure, software and analytics.

The growth trajectory shows that India will soon emerge as big data and analytics hub of the world, he added.
Any "exception" in granting membership to the NSG will "disturb" strategic stability in South Asia, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain today told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Making a strong case for Pakistan's bid to join the 48-member NSG, Hussain said that his country had made notable efforts over the years to strengthen its export controls, command and control and nuclear safety and security.

Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan and discussed Pakistan's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"The President also said that any exception given for NSG membership could disturb strategic stability in South Asia," the statement, apparently referring to India, said.

"Both sides reiterated support to each other's core interests and expressed their intention to maintain close coordination," it said.

President Hussain said that the friendship between the two countries is time tested and based on complete mutual trust, understanding and respect. The two countries enjoyed excellent cooperation and convergence of views on regional and global issues.

He also thanked China for its support to Pakistan for becoming full member of the SCO.

Hussain said Pakistan was committed to the timely realisation of all the projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and emphasised that it would not only benefit Pakistan and China but would be a game changer for the entire region.

President Xi said Pakistan and China are "iron brothers" and both nations enjoy an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.

He expressed China's complete support to Pakistan's national security and territorial integrity.

President Xi stated that CPEC was a flagship project of the One Belt One Road Initiative and China was committed to its successful completion.

Both sides expressed satisfaction over the progress of the CPEC related projects. They appreciated the various activities being carried out to celebrate 2016 as the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China.

They also expressed satisfaction on the bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, economy, culture, people to people contacts, defence and counter-terrorism.
The Indraprastha Apollo Hospital here and a doctor have been directed by a consumer forum to jointly pay a compensation of over Rs 10 lakh to the kin of a woman for wrong treatment of a tumour in her head, leading her to undergo another surgery.

South Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, presided by Justice N K Goel, asked the hospital to pay Rs 10.5 lakh to the family members of Uttaranchal resident Chanda Devi, who died this year.

It noted that the South Delhi hospital had wrongly conducted an operation to remove the tumour from Devi's head in 2002 and, after suffering for two years, she had to undergo another surgery for the same ailment.

"We have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that it is a clear-cut case of deficiency in service on the part of Opposite Party-1 (hospital) and Opposite Party-2 (doctor who operated Devi)," the forum said, noting that "in fact the complainant (Devi) suffered a lot constantly".

"She was under treatment. The tumour was very much in the brain. Ultimately she has to undergo Gamma Knife Radio Surgery in the VIMHANS Hospital. Under these circumstances, we are of the view that interest of justice will suffice if compensation of Rs 10 lakh is awarded to the complainant...Plus litigation expense of Rs 50,000," it said.

The forum further said 80 per cent of the amount shall be paid by the hospital and the rest borne by the concerned doctor.

According to the complaint, Devi was admitted to the hospital in September 2002 as she was suffering constant headache for around nine months.

She was suggested to undergo an operation due to the tumour. However, instead of removing it, the area of the tumour was suppressed in the operation, it said.

After some time, the tumour erupted again causing her more headache. The hospital claimed there was no tumour in her brain and suggested some medicines, the complaint claimed.

It said Devi took the medicines for two years but as there was no relief, she had to be admitted to the other hospital in 2004 which confirmed the presence of the tumour and was operated upon there.

Thereafter, Devi's family members approached the state consumer commission seeking Rs 42 lakh as compensation. The state commission referred the complaint to the district forum.

The hospital and the doctor concerned have denied any deficiency on their part.
The Army today handed over large chunks of demined farmlands along the Line of Control in Rajouri district to the border dwellers.

"Army has demined lands along LoC in Noushera belt of Rajouri district and handed over the lands to their owners at a function today", a defence spokesman said.

During Operation Vijay and Operation Parakram, due to operational requirement certain mine fields were laid by the forces with the knowledge of the owners.

"Over the years, these mines and explosives had rendered the area unusable to the owners for a long time and also led to grave injuries to cattle," he said.

In Naoshera, realising the situation, the army decided to carry out an extensive demining drive of the affected areas of Mohra Kampla village as part of Operation Aman, wherein over a period of more than two months from 13 April to 15 June, a total of 86 mines and explosives were recovered and destroyed by the army, he added.
A 22-year-old youth was injured after a bullet meant for another person hit him as the attacker missed his intended target in Panchvati area of Old Nashik today, police said.

The incident occurred when the accused, identified as Sushant Wabale, allegedly opened fire from a country-made revolver to target one Rohan Shinde but missed as someone pushed him from behind, as a result of which the bullet hit Rahul Tak.

Tak, a resident of Gorewadi here, was admitted in ICU of civil hospital as he suffered a head injury.

The incident occurred near Panchavti College along the Mumbai-Agra highway, a press release stated.

According to police, one of the accused, identified as Kiran Pawar, had called Shinde at the college to settle an old dispute between them over a girl.

Police have registered offences against Wabale, Amol Patil, Rahul Kadam, Manoj Pawar and Kiran Pawar under various sections of IPC and Arms Act.

However, no arrest is made yet, stated the release.
Bahrain's crackdown on the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq was "creating a very dangerous situation" and needs closer international scrutiny, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned today.

On a one-day visit to the Netherlands to strengthen bilateral ties, Zarif was reacting to Bahrain's decision to start court proceedings to dissolve Al-Wefaq, bringing the process forward in defiance of UN and US appeals to drop it.

The Al-Wefaq bloc was the largest in Bahrain's parliament before its lawmakers resigned in protest at the crushing of 2011 protests calling for an elected government.

"We believe it's a very dangerous situation," Zarif told a press conference in The Hague when asked about the latest move, which comes in the wake of Monday's stripping of the kingdom's top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his nationality.

"It requires a great deal of attention from the international community," he said.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain said it will Sunday request bringing a hearing forward before an administrative court, which was due to meet on October 6 to consider the government's request to dissolve Al-Wefaq.

Iran had on Tuesday warned Bahrain that it was fanning armed rebellion and that it "will pay the price" after stepping up the crackdown.

Bahrain in return has repeatedly accused Iran of interfering with its affairs and inciting violence among Shiites, a claim Tehran denies.

As well as the moves against Al-Wefaq and Qassim, the crackdown has also seen a series of arrests and jailings and Al-Wefaq's political chief Sheikh Ali Salman is serving a nine-year jail term on charges of inciting violence.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain lies across the Gulf from Iran and is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.
With New York's $15 minimum wage being phased in and new overtime rules, organizations that provide aid to people with developmental disabilities say they need more support from Albany.

The #bFair2DirectCare Coalition launched the "300 Days to Better Pay" campaign earlier this month to urge state leaders to include more funding in the 2017-18 budget.

"New York needs to do a better job of investing in the dedicated and caring staff members that support people with disabilities," Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State President and CEO Susan Constantino said.

According to the coalition, organizations supporting individuals with developmental disabilities receive more than 90 percent of their funding from the government. Most of that aid  80 percent  is used to pay staff.

The groups say in order to meet the requirements of the state's new minimum wage law, more funding is needed.

The state has provided one rate increase since 2008. Over an eight-year period, the increase amounts to less than one-half of 1 percent per year.

Karen Korotzer, executive director of The Arc's Oneida-Lewis chapter, said it's a "critical issue" for these agencies.

"We are all struggling to recruit people to take on these important jobs, and the number one reason is compensation," Korotzer said.

The #bfair2DirectCare Coalition is receiving support from some state legislators and members of both parties.

Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, a Democrat, and state Sen. Joe Griffo, a Republican, both support increasing funding for the organizations.

"We recognize, and agree, that funding is an issue that needs to be addressed and resolved in a way that is mutually beneficial to the employees, the agencies and the state," Griffo, R-Rome, said.

The coalition held a press event Wednesday in Utica. More events are planned in other New York cities, including New York City, Mineola and Rochester.
A Bahraini court today sentenced 24 people for belonging to an Islamic State group cell, stripping 13 of them of their citizenship, the prosecution said.

One member was jailed for life after being convicted of forming a branch of the Sunni jihadist group and recruiting others, while the rest were each sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Only eight defendants are held by authorities while 16 others remain at large.

The cell ringleader was accused of recruiting two others into IS, and helping one of them travel to Syria to receive military training from the jihadists, public prosecutor Ahmed al-Hammadi said.

The pair were also tasked with recruiting others who joined IS abroad.

Members were judged to have fought for IS, while the cell used social media to incite members of the military and security forces to "join their terrorist group," the prosector said.

The group also "plotted suicide attacks by members in Bahrain against places of worship, like the attacks by the terrorist group in neighbouring countries," Hammadi said in an apparent reference to attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia last year.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain has a majority Shiite population which has long complained of marginalisation.

The Gulf kingdom is part of the US-led coalition that is conducting air strikes against IS in Syria.
The Baltimore police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray, a young African American, was transported before he died was acquitted today of all charges including second degree murder and manslaughter.

Caesar Goodson was the third of six officers charged over the death of the 25-year-old, which sparked riots in Maryland's largest city last year. No guilty verdicts have been handed down in the three trials.

Because the state failed to meet its burden of proof in any of the seven charges against Goodson, "the verdict on all counts is not guilty," said Judge Barry Williams, who presided over the case.

Gray was arrested April 12, 2015 after fleeing at the sight of police, and suffered a broken spine while being transported in the back of a Baltimore police van, unsecured and with his hands and feet bound. He died a week later.

Williams had challenged state prosecutors' charge that Goodson had deliberately given Gray a "rough ride" in the back of the van.

In delivering his verdict he said there was no evidence of excessive speed, or malicious "actions or intent" by Goodson, nor did the state show that the defendant had a specific reason to target Gray through his actions.

Baltimore officials this week appealed for calm in the city in the run up to the verdict, stressing authorities were prepared and that the National Guard was on call.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is black, said the officer would now face an administrative review and appealed for patience in allowing the process to run its course.

"I know the citizens of Baltimore will continue to respect the judicial process and the ruling of the court," she said.

Judge Williams dwelled on the dispute between medical experts over exactly when Gray's critical injury occurred, saying his injuries were internal thereby making it impossible to determine where and when they were sustained.

The judge also declined to convict Goodson for assault or reckless endangerment for failing to seatbelt Gray in the back of the van, saying Goodson assessed the danger level during the detention and determined there was an excessive security risk involved in entering the van and seatbelting Gray.

None of Officer Goodson's conduct rose to the level of criminal activity, he said.

"Simple carelessness is insufficient to establish the defendant's guilt," Williams said.

The two other officers tried in the case -- William Porter, whose trial ended in a hung jury in December, and Edward Nero, who was acquitted of all charges -- were reportedly in the court room and seen hugging and shaking hands after the verdict.

Two other officers face trial next month and the final officer in September.
The number of Hindus in Muslim- majority Bangladesh has grown by one per cent to 1.70 crore in one year constituting 10.7 per cent of the population by the end of 2015, an official report said today.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said their latest vital sample statistics report found the country's total population to be 15.89 crore by the end of 2015 with the number of Hindus at 1.70 crore.

Previous BBS studies showed Bangladesh's Hindu population size was 1.55 crore in 2014 suggesting that the numbers of the country's largest minority community increased by 1.5 million in one year. Hindus are the second largest population group in terms of religion.

The statistics come as Hindu community leaders expressed fears that their number was decreasing gradually as a sense of insecurity forced many Hindus to leave the country for neighbouring India over the decades.

According to the 1951 census, Hindus were 22 per cent of the population, in 1974 the figure came down to 14 per cent and the last 2011 census suggests the followers of faith consists only 8.4 per cent of the population.

"The BBS statistics which has been published today is actually based on a random sampling. If it represents the real picture, definitely I will be the happiest man in the country," Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council presidium member Kajal Debnath said.

A BBS official, familiar with the process said the random sampling report was prepared this year with the data collected from 12,012 areas while the previous report was prepared with data gathered from 1,500 areas.
A late goal by Premier League target Radja Nainggolan earned Belgium a last-16 berth with a 1-0 win over Sweden making superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic end his international career with a defeat.

The Roma midfielder, reportedly wanted by Chelsea, controlled a cross from Eden Hazard outside the area and powered it into the net in the 82nd minute. Belgium now take on Hungary in Toulouse on June 26.

Sweden finished third in the group and will look back with regret on a flat performance in their opener against Ireland.

Facing elimination if defeated, both teams pushed forward to attack which produced a pulsating first half hour in balmy Nice.

Chances came thick and fast. Sweden almost had a dream start three minutes in when a goalmouth half-volley by Marcus Berg, in for John Giudetti as strike partner to Ibrahimovic, was batted out by Thibaut Courtois.

Playing in unfamiliar turquoise jerseys, Belgium launched regular raids with Kevin De Bruyne through the middle and Hazard, roving from wing to wing, at the heart of the danger.

Midway through the half, a backheel from Hazard let the Man City star fire a shot straight at the Isaksson.

Another surging De Bruyne run forced a yellow card for Albin Ekdal after a last-ditch trip on the Man City star, while twice in five minutes he drilled dangerous crosses across the goalmouth.

But Sweden's defence contained Romelu Lukaku, whose double against the Republic of Ireland in Belgium's previous game resurrected their Euro 2016 campaign after the opening defeat to Italy.

At the other end, Ibrahimovic had little joy, bar the occasional half-chance snapshot or attempt at a spectacular volley.

But none came to anything on an ultimately frustrating night for the Swedish legend who announced his international retirement ater Euro 2016 on Tuesday.

It was Belgium who nearly entered the break in front, when Meurier headed an inch-perfect De Bruyne cross just wide of Andreas Isaksson's post.

As the clock ran down in the second half the temperature began rising again.

Belgium had a strong penalty claim turned when a Carrasco cross was blocked, while on the hour Isaksson dived at full length to keep out a De Bruyne drive.

With fifteen minutes to go Belgium nearly made a breakthrough when a powerful Lukaku break was foiled by Isakksson who spread his body well to the shot.

A minute later, an identical run by the Everton striker, this time with a neat finish, was ruled offside.

Time was running out on Ibrahimovic when he went close with a freekick turned away by Courtois with a quarter hour to go.

Then a header was cleared off the line by Meunier.

But there was to be no salvation for Sweden, nor one more game for Ibrahimovic.
A bill paving the way for indirect election of mayors by councillors was today passed in the Tamil Nadu assembly amidst some drama with opposition DMK seeking a division while the Speaker going for a headcount.

The bill, Tamil Nadu Municipal Corporation Laws (Amendment) Act, 2016, seeks to ensure election of mayors by councillors and not by the people as was the practice so far.

The House saw an intense debate on the bill with DMK questioning the ruling AIADMK's intention behind it, and asking as to why it made such a proposal even though AIADMK was dominating all the 12 corporations in the state.

DMK's ally Congress said the proposal was aimed at "stifling the voice of democracy."



After Speaker P Dhanapal declared the bill as passed by a voice vote, DMK sought a division.

Ruling out a division, the Speaker said he will go for a headcount of those backing and opposing it.

As he asked those supporting the bill to rise from their seats, members in the Treasury benches, led by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa promptly stood up.

Later, DMK members and their allies -- Congress and IUML -- stood up to register their opposition to the bill.

The Speaker later announced that the bill has the support of 132 members while 88 opposed it.

He said 83 DMK MLAs, four Congress MLAs and one IUML member opposed the bill. AIADMK's 132 members supported the amendment.

Earlier, DMK's M Subramanian, a former Mayor of Chennai, asked why AIADMK had proposed the bill, considering that all 12 municipal corporations in the state were dominated by the party which also had about 80 per cent representation in the local bodies.

He said it was AIADMK which had earlier changed the system of councillors electing mayors and asked why it was reverting to the old system.

Intervening, Jayalalithaa said it was usual practice for a government to go for a review of its own policy.

"DMK did the same for the (coal-bed) methane project," she said, referring to the opposition party's insistence that it had only signed an MoU for the project on Cauvery river bed but had never approved it.

Surbamaniam claimed that the provision easing the norms for moving a no-confidence motion would lead to a "short-cut" for people eyeing mayor and deputy mayor's posts and also make their removal process easier.

Congress member J G Prince said the government move amounted "to stifling the voice of democracy".

Municipal Administration and Rural Development Minister S P Velumani, who moved the bill yesterday in the House, rejected the opposition allegations and said the sole aim was to ensure better delivery of services to the people.

While tabling the bill, the government had said elections to municipal corporations were at present conducted on party basis. While the mayor was elected directly by the people, councils in certain bodies were not functioning properly "since the mayor does not enjoy the support of councillors".

"It is considered that if the mayor of a corporation enjoys the support of a majority of councillors, the councillors can function in a better manner," it had said, adding that it had thus decided to get mayors elected indirectly by the councillors from among themselves.
A British Muslim man convicted of plotting an ISIS-inspired knife attack in London was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a UK court.

NadirSyedwas arrested hours after buying a chef's knife in November 2014, days before Remembrance Sunday - held on the second Sunday of November to commemoratethe contribution of British and Commonwealth soldiers in the two World Wars.

The judge said Syed must serve at least 15 years but he may never be released.

During his trial last year, Woolwich Crown Court heard how the 22-year-old from Southall area of west London had been inspired by ISIS leaders urging attacks on Western targets, including police and soldiers.

"I am satisfied that the attack was going to take place at a time close to Armistice Day. I am also satisfied that the victim was to be someone connected to Armistice Day, such as a popper seller," Justice Saunders said.

"I have no doubt that he is dangerous. In my judgement if he was released from prison he would go and try and carry out what he failed to achieve in this case. He would set out to kill in furtherance of his beliefs," he ruled during sentencing today.

Prosecutor Max Hill had said Syed was actively searching for knives of "sufficient quality to source an attack".

The court heard howSyedhad expressed admiration for the killers of soldier Lee Rigby, who had been killed on the street of London in May 2013, and how he shared violent footage of beheadings from Syria and Iraq on social media.

The prosecution said the fatwa that inspired Nadir Syed urged followers to rise up against westerners and "rig the roads with explosives for them. Attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads."



"This fatwa, and the worldwide attacks that followed, inspired the defendant to plan his own attack in this country, emulating the attack on Lee Rigby carried out by Michael Adebolajo, who he considered to be a mujahid or Islamic fighter," Hill said.

The jury could not reach verdicts on two other men on trial - Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, and YousafSyed, 20 - who had all denied planning acts of terrorism. They were cleared at a retrial.

Syedhad also tried to travel to Syria to fight with ISIS militants but had been stopped from leaving the country in January 2014, it emerged in court.
Calcutta Business School today said it will introduce new two-year PGDM courses from the 2016-17 academic session.

Institute chairman S K Birla said the institute is ready to introduce a slew of new courses at par with international standards to cater to specific industry requirements and in tune with the 'Make in India' campaign.

Akhilesh Kumar, who has joined as the new director of Calcutta Business School, said the new courses would be on global leadership in manufacturing and operations and human resources and healthcare management.

CBS would also introduce a re-designed PGDM course with more emphasis on finance and international banking.
The Centre will soon send a reminder to Uttar Pradesh government on its communication to it seeking a detailed report on the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana village in the state.

A senior Home Ministry official said the state government is yet to responded to its letter, sent about 10 days ago, seeking a report on the allegations of migration of Hindus from the western part of the town.

It had also asked the state government to verify the allegations and send a detailed report to it as early as possible.

"Since, there is no response from the state government, we will soon send a reminder to them," the official said.

There have been allegations that Hindus from Kairana village in Shamli district were "forced" to leave their homes by people from another community.

However, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had accused BJP leaders of "lying" and being "dishonest" on the issue.

Yadav claimed that most of the people had left the village about 10 to 15 years ago while others left in search of jobs about seven or eight years ago.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said if the information is correct, Uttar Pradesh government must take proper action.

"If some people are forced to leave their native place by any individual or gang, state government must take proper action," he had said.
Thousands of people from either side of India-Pakistan border thronged the shrine of Baba Dalip Singh Manhas, popularly known as Baba Chamliyal, in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district today.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Pakistan Rangers joined the devotees on the occasion of the annual mela of the saint.

A team of Pakistan Rangers exchanged sweets with BSF personnel at Zero Line in Ramgarh sector. The Pakistani team offered Chadar at the shrine, located one-and-a-half kilometre from Zero Line.

BSF troops handed over a trolley of shakkar (holy soil) and a tanker of sharbat (holy water) from the shrine to the Pakistani team for the devotees in their country.

Every year, devotees from both sides converge at the border, near the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine, to pay obeisance to Baba Chamliyal, Shamsher Singh, a member of the shrine panel, said.

Baba Chamliyal, after whom the village is named, lived about 320 years ago and is revered by the people of all faiths because of his saintly qualities and spiritual powers.

Till 1971, Pakistani nationals were allowed to come to the Indian side of the border to pay obeisance at the shrine. However, after the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the practice was stopped. Since then, only a Pakistan Rangers delegation comes to offer chadar and, in return, carries shakkar and sharbat from the shrine for the devotees in Pakistan.

Baba Chamliyal Mela has become popular since November, 2003 following a ceasefire and parallel peace initiatives by both the countries.

While it is held for three days at the shrine complex on the Indian side, located around 50 kms from Jammu, it is held for a week in Saidanwali village of Sialkote district in Pakistan.

A popular belief on both sides is that the soil and water from the shrine cure skin diseases. As a result, it draws devotees from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana as well.

Baba Chamliyal was beheaded by those who did not like his growing influence. They dropped his body at Saidanwali village in Pakistan, around 300 metres from the border, and the head on the other side, now known as Chamliyal.

The legend has it that where his blood fell, the soil turned fertile and a well was dug at the site where his head was dropped. Later, his devotees built a tomb in his memory at the spot.

BSF and the civil administration had made elaborate arrangements, including transport and food, for the benefit of the devotees on the occasion.
The Colombian government and the FARC rebel force signed a definitive ceasefire and disarmament agreement today, one of the last steps on the path to ending their half-century conflict.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez signed the deal and shook hands smiling at a ceremony in Cuba alongside international leaders.

The deal establishes "a bilateral ceasefire and end to hostilities and the definitive laying down of arms," according to the text read out by Cuban mediator Rodolfo Benitez.

The ceasefire will come into effect after the signing of a broader peace agreement expected within weeks.

Under the agreement, the FARC must hand over its weapons to United Nations monitors within six months.

The FARC's members will gather in security zones for a demobilization process.

The agreement promises security guarantees for demobilized FARC members. The group was last estimated to have some 7,000 fighters.

The sides also agreed to government action against "criminal organizations" blamed for fueling the conflict in the major cocaine-producing country.
DEAR BRUCE: I am a 72-year-old widow with a fixed income that meets my monthly needs. I have a small amount in an IRA and even smaller amount in mutual funds. I also have long-term care insurance, and my insurance company is talking to me about an indexed annuity.

I know you have said in the past that you are not a fan of annuities. My IRA is in mutual funds, and so far, it has remained fairly stable. Is there any advantage for me to go to an indexed annuity?  B.M.

DEAR B.M.: It sounds to me like you have a good handle on your investments. I am not necessarily surprised that the broker is talking about getting an annuity, given the fact that the commission is likely to be substantially higher than some other investments he might recommend. The problem with most annuities is that your money is tied up for a good number of years. At 72, you're not old, but you're not a spring chicken, either.

Given that, you surprised me when you said your mutual funds are fairly stable. Mutual funds have dropped for good reasons. They're paying very little in returns.

By all means, investigate these annuities before you commit. Be certain to find out the particulars of what kind of penalty would be fixed to any early withdrawals. This is the one thing that sincerely made me think there might be better places to go than the annuity.

DEAR BRUCE: I was in a medical appointment with a new physician. She read from my medical chart and it was obvious she had the chart for another person. After she told me I had had a medical procedure I never had, I questioned her and she realized her mistake. She had also sent a report to my insurance company with information from this person's medical chart.

I became angry and told her to get my chart and she'd have to redo the insurance report. She told me she felt threatened by me, and I'd have to find another physician. She later sent me a letter saying I had insulted her and threatened her.

I have to find another physician to do the insurance report and I have to explain the errors to the insurance company. What would you do in a case like this?  P.J.

DEAR P.J.: I can understand your being upset because this could cause some serious mistakes on your future medical care. That having been said, I suspect that you really blew up on the doctor. While she might have been threatened at the time, she certainly should have cooled off.

I would send her a letter apologizing for my behavior, explaining that I was very upset because of the consequences that could have resulted from her error, and maybe you should start all over again. If that doesn't work, find yourself another physician.

DEAR BRUCE: We're a super senior couple (80-plus) with about $400,000 in an IRA account and $500,000 in a Schwab One account. Our investment plan for several years has been following the retirement portfolio in the No-Load Fund Investor newsletter. Schwab has suggested that we consider moving our accounts to their managed portfolio option (continuing with our conservative approach). What do you think? -- F.L.

DEAR F.L.: Given the fact that you are a super senior couple, you might want to be a little more conservative than some kid around 65 years old!

First, if investing hasn't worked out well for you, why not try this: Take the Schwab approach with a small amount of money, or even just do it hypothetically, for six months and see how their handling of your account compares to the proven value of the Investor account.

Second, at your advanced age, consider a relatively conservative investment such as moving into three or four well-established American companies that have a record of paying dividends and having a decently predictable increase in value over the years.
Pulling up CBI for divulging to the media probe details in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, the Bombay High Court today warned the agency that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against officers doing so and send them to jail.

"Your (CBI) progress report is nothing but reports. All this is already there in the public domain. How does the media come to know about the identity of witnesses in the case and where the agency is going to conduct searches. Everything is revealed to the media," the court said.

The stinging remarks against the premier probe agency came from a bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi while hearing a batch of petitions filed by the families of rationalist Dabholkar and slain communist leader and activist Govind Pansare seeking HC monitoring of both the investigations.

"You will be ruining the entire probe if you conduct yourself in this fashion. Absconding accused in the case must be getting details pertaining to the probe from the media. Hats off to CBI," the bench observed.

"All this may seem trivial now, but they are very important lacunae when the trial is conducted. Tomorrow who is going to protect the witnesses and family members who are speaking freely to media these days. Some restraint and patience are required by the family members. This cheap publicity for everything is disgusting and it affects fair investigation and trial," it said.

The court warned that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against the officer(s) concerned revealing investigation details and will put him in jail.

The bench sought to know from the Maharashtra government if it had decided to seek a CBI probe in the Pansare case as claimed by the lawyer of the family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he had no such instruction.

It also came down heavily on CID and CBI, probing the Pansare and Dabholkar cases respectively, for slow progress in the investigation.

The Pansare family had approached the state government seeking a CBI probe in the matter and yesterday the government had given its consent, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain leader, told HC.

However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde submitted that he does not have any instruction from the government on the issue.

The court then asked Shinde to find out if the government has decided to seek a CBI probe in the case, and if it has done so, then tell the court the reasons for it.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot dead on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.

CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the Dabholkar case.

"We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought



to be careful and sensitive as murder case probes need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society," the court said.

"Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views," it observed.

The bench, while adjourning the matter for six weeks, asked CBI to make all endeavour to obtain reports immediately from forensic science laboratory in Scotland where the agency has sent bullets and empty cartridges recovered from the body of another slain rationalist M M Kalburgi.

"Expedite the proceedings and try obtaining the reports immediately," it said.

The court also noted that both the agencies for a month have been dragging their feet in their probe which, it said, was very "juvenile and childish".

Public Prosecutor Shinde informed the court that CID has sought custody of the person arrested by CBI in the Dabholkar case.

To this, the court said, "Didn't you know about this person before and the organisation with which he is affiliated. It is very shameful that officers instead of investigation ask the family members who they suspect. This needs to stop."



On the next date of hearing, both the agencies will have to submit further progress reports.
A bullet-ridden body of a 40-year-old Dalit man was found today in Bhupkheri village of the district, police said.

The body was found in a field in the area, SP Rakesh Jolly said, adding an old enmity is suspected to be the reason behind murder.

A case has been registered against six persons and the body has been sent for postmortem, police said.

Enraged over the incident, some locals protested and demanded compensation for the family of the deceased.

Security has been tightened in the area to prevent any untoward incident, the SP said.
Delhi, at the 22nd spot, is the only Indian city to feature in tech giant Dell's 2016 Women Entrepreneur Cities Index (WE Cities) that looks at a city's ability to attract and foster growth of women-owned firms.

New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Stockholm and Singapore were the top five cities for high-potential women entrepreneurs, Dell said in a statement.

"WE Cities is the only global gender-specific index that looks at a city's ability to attract and foster growth in firms founded by women entrepreneurs," it added.

Cities, instead of countries, were identified in order to show the impact of local policies and programs in addition to national laws and customs, it said.

The report takes into account characteristics like capital, technology, talent, culture and markets.

Other cities in the list include Toronto, Washington DC, Sydney, Paris, Seattle, Munich, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Milan.

Johannesburg, Jakarta and Istanbul were the only cities that ranked below Delhi in the top 25 list.

"Innovation and job creation by women entrepreneurs is critical for a thriving global economy, yet our research shows some cities and countries are doing far more than others to encourage and support this important subset of the startup community," Dell senior vice president and chief marketing officer Karen Quintos said.

She added that the index provides insights to move the conversation with policymakers and city leaders from awareness to action and, in turn, to empower women entrepreneurs to have the greatest economic impact on the world.

"It's time for women to be politically engaged to ensure the right ecosystems are in place for them to scale. If politicians and entrepreneurs partner, dynamic policies can be put in place to close the circle and enhance the process from idea to enterprise," Dell entrepreneur-in-residence Elizabeth Gore said.
Johnny Depp may be in for his short-lived marriage with Amber Heard but Disney CEO Bob Iger is confident that it will not affect the actor on the professional front.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Iger didn't seem to worry himself with what's going on in Depp's private life.

Heard has filed for divorce and has also accused the actor of abuse.

"Not worried about it," Iger said in response to Depp's personal problems.

When asked if it's because the scandal will pass, Iger said, "I don't know whether it passes or not. We have Jack Sparrow."



Iger believes people are able to separate Depp and Sparrow.

The actor has been a part of many Disney blockbusters including the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and most recently he reprised his role of Mad Hatter in "Alice Through the Looking Glass"



Depp has stayed mum about his ongoing legal battle concerning his ex though his team released a statement after Heard filed for divorce.

"Given the brevity of this marriage and the most recent and tragic loss of his mother, Johnny will not respond to any of the salacious false stories, gossip, misinformation and lies about his personal life. Hopefully the dissolution of this short marriage will be resolved quickly," his representative had said.
There is a "desperate need" for India to set up proper standards for goods as high tariffs and restrictions are not enough to rein in "undesirable imports", Commerce and Industry Minister said on Thursday.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) needs to expedite the process of setting up these standards because a legitimate tool to stop such imports does not exist in the country, she said.

"BIS will have to do the catching up. Standards are being set up every where. We need standards," she said.

These remarks assumes significance amid concerns being raised by the domestic industry on rising imports of sub-standard quality products from countries like China.

Although a few sectors such as pharmaceuticals have set up high standards for themselves, other sectors have yet to follow suit, Sitharaman said.

High tariffs or putting quantitative restrictions would not be of much help to domestic industries, she added.

BIS is involved in formulation of standards, certification and registration.

"Unless we have set standards, it is not going to be possible for us to stop unwanted and undesirable imports. There is no way in which just tariff measures are going to be sufficient to stop such imports which we do not desire," she said here at the 'National Standards Conclave 2016'.

"In order to bypass such shortcomings, we are pushing more in terms of tariffs or quantitative restrictions, but that does not help," the minister said, adding, "my social media is flooded with (questions that) why can't we stop this (imports)".

Industry should come out with listed set of norms so that "we can say that we will not entertain import of any commodity" below these set standards and quality, she added.

She further said that even for domestic producers, the benchmark should be fixed for high quality products.

"The need for setting up standards cannot be overstated, you need to act on it now," she added.

Speaking at the event, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said that the importance of standards is increasing in today's global trade scenario.

There is a need to work closely with SMEs to familiarise and support them in adopting high standards in order to compete in global markets, Teaotia said adding, "we need to set up a strong ecosystem for standards for export promotion and safety of people here".

She also said that work on services standards too is in the progress and the ministry has identified  tourism, healthcare and education  for the purpose.

Quality Council of India Chairman Adil Zainulbhai also said that right ecosystem and standards needs to be created to provide high quality goods for exports and domestic market.
The annual increment of a deputy Legal Advisor in Enforcement Directorate has been ordered to be stopped for a period of three years for allegedly sexually harassing a woman employee in the agency.

The order was issued on June 21 by the Competent Disciplinary Authority (CDA) under the Ministry of Finance.

As per the complaint made by the woman in year 2012, the deputy Legal Advisor A C Singh had called her frequently to Delhi under the pretext of meetings and briefing counsels of the Supreme Court and on all such occasions he had sexually harassed her.

"The Competent Disciplinary Authority considered the report of the internal complaint committee and the advice of UPSC, representation of A C Singh and relevant records...

"It agreed with the UPSC that ends of justice would be met if the penalty of reduction to a lower stage in the time scale of pay by three stages for a period of three years is imposed upon Singh with the direction that he will not earn increments of pay during the period of such reduction", stated the order of CDA signed by Under Secretary V Sreekumar.

However, the order did not specify the exact years of suspension of Singh's increments.

The woman had initially made an oral complaint of sexual harassment against Singh with ED in July 2012. Her statement was later recorded in August that year.

Later, she filed a formal complaint in December 2012 after which the matter was referred to the internal Complaint committee of the agency.

The panel concluded in January 2014 that allegations against Singh were proved and recommended to CDA the imposition of appropriate major penalty as well as compensation of Rs 10,000 to be paid to the employee, stated the order.

The complainant had alleged that Singh started harassing her verbally after she joined the ED office in Delhi, and later when she was posted in Mumbai he called her and made lewd remarks.

According to the woman, Singh also pressurised her to withdraw her plaint and also threatened her against reporting anything.

During the inquiry against him, Singh said the concerned employee was incompetent and foisting a false case against him over her fear of losing the job, the order said.

However, the CDA said there is no merit in his representation.
In a unique punishment, annual increments of a deputy Legal Advisor in Enforcement Directorate have been ordered to be stopped for a period of three years for allegedly sexually harassing a woman employee in the agency.

The order was issued on June 21 by the Competent Disciplinary Authority (CDA) under the Ministry of Finance.

As per the complaint made by the woman in year 2012, the deputy Legal Advisor A C Singh had called her frequently to Delhi under the pretext of meetings and briefing counsels of the Supreme Court and on all such occasions he had sexually harassed her.

"The Competent Disciplinary Authority considered the report of the internal complaint committee and the advice of UPSC, representation of A C Singh and relevant records...

"It agreed with the UPSC that ends of justice would be met if the penalty of reduction to a lower stage in the time scale of pay by three stages for a period of three years is imposed upon Singh with the direction that he will not earn increments of pay during the period of such reduction", stated the order of CDA signed by Under Secretary V Sreekumar.

However, the order did not specify the exact years of suspension of Singh's increments.

The woman had initially made an oral complaint of sexual harassment against Singh with ED in July 2012. Her statement was later recorded in August that year.

Later, she filed a formal complaint in December 2012 after which the matter was referred to the internal Complaint committee of the agency.

The panel concluded in January 2014 that allegations against Singh were proved and recommended to CDA the imposition of appropriate major penalty as well as compensation of Rs 10,000 to be paid to the employee, stated the order.

The complainant had alleged that Singh started harassing her verbally after she joined the ED office in Delhi, and later when she was posted in Mumbai he called her and made lewd remarks.

According to the woman, Singh also pressurised her to withdraw her plaint and also threatened her against reporting anything.

During the inquiry against him, Singh said the concerned employee was incompetent and foisting a false case against him over her fear of losing the job, the order said.

However, the CDA said there is no merit in his representation.
An electrician from Uttar Pradesh, working at INS Parunthu at nearby Uchipuli died after reportedly falling from his bed early this morning, police said.

Ramesh Kumar (39) was rushed to a government hospital in Madurai where doctors declared him brought dead, they said.

A medical team would come to Madurai to examine his body, police said, adding the reason of his death is being probed.
Environment Minister on Thursday said his department will be proactive in providing clearances to gas exploration and production (E&P) projects.

"For production, finding or drilling of gas, whatever permission is required, today I would (give). I give you this blank cheque. If you abide by environment rules, you will get clearance without any hurdle," Javadekar said while addressing a function to launch a pilot project to run two-wheelers on CNG.

"We have no pending cases on environment clearance (for gas E&P projects). The environment department will not be a hurdle in your way, rather, it would support you," the minister said.

Lauding the efforts of the Oil Ministry for launch of the project, the minister said, "The court will open after July 15. This matter will come there. The court will acknowledge the action plan of the government to deal with pollution.

The court is also sensitive to these issues. Pollution cannot be stopped by just switching on or off. It is a process which has been started by the Modi government. I believe unnecessary sanctions will be withdrawn," Javadekar said.

The minister also informed that the final notification regarding switching over to EURO VI (emission norms) by 2020, will be issued soon.

"Since CNG is available, we thought of using it for two-wheelers as the e-rickshaw use is increasing. This indicates intention of the government to fight pollution. There are 55 lakh two wheelers (Delhi)."

Elaborating on the pilot project, Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, "Government is not giving subsidy for CNG run two-wheelers. These two-wheelers would be 40% more economical than the petrol ones. Thus, the consumers will save on fuel cost."

Implemented by Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) and one of its parent company  GAIL (India) Ltd  the pilot involves 50 CNG retrofitted two-wheelers. Of these, the first batch of 10 vehicles was flagged off by Javadekar and Pradhan at the IGL filling station at CGO Complex here.

According to the idle emission test, hydrocarbon emission from CNG retrofitted two-wheelers are 75% lesser and CO emissions are 20% lesser as compared to petrol driven similar models.

The CNG kit for two-wheelers comprises two CNG cylinders and vehicles can travel up to 120 km in a single fill.

IGL also said that as many as 92 new CNG filling stations have been set up in the region during January-May, 2016, thereby taking the number of CNG fuelling facilities of IGL to 414.
An advocate, who had approached the PMO with a complaint against the corporate major Essar over the alleged illegal tapping of phones of high-profile people and some union ministers has moved the Delhi High Court for a court-monitored SIT probe.

Advocate Suren Uppal has claimed that he has filed the petition on the basis of CDs of the recorded conversations whose genuineness also he wants to be examined.

He submitted that he had come to know of the "illegal and unlawful acts of tapping" done allegedly at the behest of the Essar from one of its employees, who has now left the company.

He alleged that from 2001 to 2006 phones of some of the prominent citizens, including ministers, top government officials and corporate houses, of our country were tapped and intercepted for deriving undue advantages.

Essar Group has denied all charges.

He said that the recorded conversations are "incriminating" and if found to be genuine, "would exhibit the unscrupulous/evil nexus between politicians, higher government officials and India's top corporate houses".

The advocate alleged that he had filed a complaint with the Prime Minister's Office on June 1 and then again on June 9 but till date neither has any action been taken nor has he received any response.

In his plea, Uppal has also sought that Albasit Khan, an ex-Essar employee who had first approached him regarding the issue and later turned hostile, should be produced before the court as he is a "material witness".

According to the advocate, Khan was an employee of the company and part of the team which was tasked with the job of phone tapping, interception and recording of calls.

The PIL sought directions to the government to provide him security till the case was finally disposed of as he apprehended threat to his life by persons with vested interests who, according to him, were also likely to destroy the evidence.
AUBURN  A 74-year-old Brutus man will spend the next two to six years in prison for possessing child pornography and trying to destroy the evidence.

Richard Scott, of 34 Hillside Lane, pleaded guilty in April to possession of a sexual performance by a child and tampering with physical evidence, both class E felonies.

According to Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann, in May 2015, Scott watched a video on his computer showing a 7-year-old girl having vaginal and anal sex with an adult male. The defendant then admitted to trying to delete the video and hiding the hard drive when he learned police were investigating him in connection with the sexual abuse of two girls.

With a walker beside him in the courtroom, Scott asked Judge Thomas Leone to show "some compassion" at his sentencing in Cayuga County criminal court Thursday, noting that he suffers from some serious medical issues.

"I'm sorry for what I did," he said. "I was completely wrong ... and I'd like to apologize to everyone I've hurt. I've lost my family, I've lost my friends, and my medical situation is not good."

Leone, though, referenced a local investigation that alleged Scott repeatedly molested two young girls who chose not to press charges.

"There is a history here," Leone said, "a very troubling history to be honest."

Scott was sentenced to one to three years in prison on each count. Both sentences will run consecutively to one another.

Also in court:

 A Syracuse woman has admitted to driving with a blood alcohol content nearly three times over the legal limit.

Jillian Petrera, of 112 Matterson Avenue, pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated DWI and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

According to Leone, the 33-year-old had a blood alcohol content of .22 percent when she struck another car in Sennett on Jan. 16. Petrera said she knew she was highly intoxicated and did not have a license at the time of the crash, which occurred around 3:30 p.m. on County Line Road at the intersection of Genesee Street Road.

She was charged with felony DWI due to a previous drunk driving conviction in Skaneateles.

Leone is expected to sentence Petrera to five years probation and six months in Cayuga County Jail, which she has already served. She will also have to pay more than $3,500 in fines.

Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 13.

 An Auburn man with a history of selling drugs was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday.

Alec Riester, of 108 South Street Apt. 208, pleaded guilty in April to third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance. He admitted to selling heroin to another person last fall.

The 26-year-old is a second felony drug offender. He was convicted of selling cocaine and heroin in 2012 and sentenced to shock probation at the time; however, he spent two years in prison for violating the terms of his probation.

Leone, Budelmann and attorney Rome Canzano all agreed that Riester suffers from a drug addiction for which he needs treatment. That is why the judge recommended Riester be transferred to the Willard Drug Treatment Campus in Seneca County, which houses male and female offenders.

"I just want to thank the court for the opportunity to get some help," Riester said.

Riester will also serve two years post-release supervision.
Mexico and the UN announced the results of a new study that estimates opium poppies were planted on about 61,000 acres last year.

The study is the first of its kind in Mexico, so authorities can't compare the results with past years to determine whether opium growing has expanded.

The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico, Antonio Mazzitelli, yesterday said a second part of the study will try to estimate what the crop yield is in Mexico.

Mazzitelli said production is concentrated in nine states along Mexico's Pacific coast, including Guerrero, Sinaloa and Nayarit.

US authorities estimate that about half of the heroin seized there came from Mexico. Most of the rest of US heroin comes from South America.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has said poppy cultivation in Mexico is on the rise, with 17,000 hectares in 2014 and an estimated potential production of 42 metric tons of heroin.
Experts today emphasised on a strong and well integrated programme in sync with the different governmental arms to deal with bio-terrorism, as diseases like Ebola and Zika could emerge as possible threats.

Lt Gen (retd) J R Bharadwaj, former Director General Armed Forces Medical Service and also a former member of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said although different arms of the government are working to deal with the threat, a lot more needs to be done.

Bharadwaj said guidelines to deal with the problem were issued by NDMA in 2007 and these were even appreciated by other nations, he said.

"There has been progress on the recommendations, but only in piecemeal," he said.

Tracing the history of bio-medical warfare, Bharadwaj said Germans had used anthrax in the First World War while the Japanese had a battery of agents like cholera, plague, chickenpox.

"There has to be a better coordination between the different arms of the government. The agents that can be used for bio-terrorism need to be defined to ensure preparedness. Of over 600 districts in India only 100 districts have Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme(IDSP) laboratories," he said.

Bharadwaj, however, added that the Ministry of Health has been taking steps to deal with the issue.

With newer threats like Ebola, Zika, W Selvamurthy, a former Distinguished Scientist at the DRDO, emphasised on setting up a central epidemiological database.

He said the database, which would include surveys done on epidemics, can help identify if there is something amiss in case of an outbreak.

Selvamuthry also emphasised on making the best use of the bio-diversity, especially in the Western ghats while coming up with medicines to deal with the issue.

Talking about the economic implications of bio-terrorism, Jesper Elsgaard, Vice-President of Bavarian Nordic, a Denmark based company said post 9/11, twelve people were killed due to anthrax.

Elsgaard also noted that over two-third of the population has still not been immunised by diseases like chicken pox.
Security experts say weaknesses in South Africa's police and intelligence agencies could make the country particularly vulnerable to an extremist attack, although they are not aware of evidence of any immediate threat at this time.

Anneli Botha, a consultant on radicalization and terrorism, said yesterday that South African resources for combating militant threats are limited and that there is a perception that such attacks would happen elsewhere, not in South Africa.

On June 4, the US Embassy warned "terrorist groups" could be planning attacks against upscale shopping malls in South Africa. The Islamic State group had called for attacks worldwide during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The South African foreign ministry downplayed the US warning, saying the information behind it was "sketchy.
Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt today praised the film policy of Jharkhand and said filmmakers have evinced interest in coming to the state.

Speaking after meeting Chief Minister Raghubar Das here, Bhatt stated that the state's film policy was excellent and would bring positive results, an official release said here.

Stating that filmmakers in large numbers would come to Jharkhand as it has become a topic of discussions in Mumbai, Bhatt added that big filmmakers have evinced interest in coming to the state.

He said his film 'Begam Jaan' faced no problem in the state with local administration assisting him immensely and if the situation continued, films by big banners would be shot in the state.

Starring Naseeruddin Shah and Vidya Balan, 'Begam Jaan' is being shot in Jharkhand. It is a Hindi remake of Bengali film 'Rajkahini' directed by Srijit Mukherjee.

As per the release, the Chief Minister told Bhatt that the state government was serious in setting up a School of Drama.

Das said Jharkhand was endowed with natural beauty and opening possibilities for film shooting in the state would lead to employment opportunities for local talent.

He said there was no dearth of talent in Jharkhand but what was required was opportunities.

Tourism would also get a boost with big banner movies, he said.

Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, suggested Bhatt to visit McCluskieganj and Patratu areas of the state, adding that both the locations are picturesque and close to the airport.
Following are the Bangalore



Summer meeting acceptances for 13th day races to held here on Saturday, June 25, 2016.

1st race: Red Divine Plate - (Div.II) - 1200 M.

2.00 P.M.

Blessed One 56 Duke of Clarence 56 Fine Barristor 56 Kings Baron 56 Tata 56 Country's Bloom 54.5 High Admiral 54.5 Midnight Sky 54.5 (total 8).

2nd race: Ich Dien Plate - 1800 M. 2.30 P.M.

Burnished Gold 60 I Told You Know 59 Amazing Skill 57.5 String of Pearls 56.5 Tree Lounge 56.5 Extremelydangerous 53.5 (total 6).

3rd race: Red Divine Plate - (Div.I) - 1200 M.

3.00 P.M.

Areca Cruise 56 Brave Minstrel 56 Buckpasser Junior 56 Skybound 56 Antananarivo 54.5 Et Voila 54.5 Zafran 54.5 Zafrina 54.5 (total 8).

4th race: Chaitanya Chakram Trophy - 1600 M.

3.30 P.M.

Captain Cook 60 Dazzling Bay 59.5 Zucchero 58 Ambitious Reward 57.5 Summer Dawn 57 Torch Bearer 56 Gabino 55.5 Flambo Yance 53.5 Sagrada 51.5 (total 9).

5th race: Juvenile Sprinters' Million - (Grade III) -



- 1200 M. 4.00 P.M.

Ashwa Raftar 57 Top Striker 56.5 Triple Crown 55 Diva 53.5 Emidio 52 Tweedle Dee 52 Daisy Duke 50.5 Fabulous Touch 50.5 Sydney Harbour 50.5 Termsandconditions 50.5 (total 10).

6th race: R.S.Nagendra Kumar Memorial Trophy - Div.I



- 1200 M. 4.30 P.M.

Akha Teej 60 Little Man 59.5 Youre Ashwashakthi 58.5 James Bond 58 Majestic Style 58 Mariko 57 Secret Prayer 56.5 Wild Wild Angels 56 Fourth Dimension 55 Native Elements 55 Beauty Is Truth 53 (total 11).

7th race: Bhishma Plate - 1400 M. 5.00 P.M.

Born Phoenix 60 Lovely Dancer 56.5 Ocean Park 56 Top Star 56 El Matador 55.5 Saffron Intense 55 Red Admiral 53.5 Rigelray 53.5 Power And Strength 53 Shobhana 53 Spiritual Act 51 (total 11).

8th Last race: R.S.Nagendra Kumar Memorial Trophy -



- (Div.II) - 1200 M. 5.30 P.M.

Possimpossible 60 Topaz 58.5 Wise Guy 58.5 Pfeiffer 57 Precious Glitter 57 Colour of Gold 56.5 Flame's Fury 56.5 Man of Law 56 Colossal Moments 55.5 Mystical Shadow 55.5 Rare and Famous 53.5 Cullinan 53 (total 12).

Races Selected For :



Jackpot : 4,5,6,7,8



1st Treble : 3,4,5



2nd Treble : 6,7,8.
Two men were hacked to death by an unidentified gang of more than four persons in a village in the district early today, police said.

Kasirajan and Rajalingam, farmers, were sleeping on the open terrace of their house at Thattaparai village when they were attacked by the gang members who escaped in a vehicle after committing the crime.

The motive behind the murder was being investigated, police said.
(G-Secs) prices ended in decidedly mixed fashion after a day of heavy trading due to alternate bouts of buying and selling even as historic Brexit referendum continued to dominate sentiment.

However, interbank call rates recovered after a brief fall on the back of some demand from borrowing banks amid tight liquidity in the banking system.

Most investors and traders preferred to remain on sidelines awaiting the outcome of Britain's referendum on its European U nion membership.

Government security of 7.59% maturing in 2029 slipped to Rs 99.3175 from Rs 99.34 on Wednesday, while its yield held steady at 7.67%.

The 7.59% government security maturing in 2026 also dropped to Rs 100.74 from Rs 100.7625, while its yield held stable at 7.48%.

Government security of 7.88% maturing in 2030 firmed up to Rs 101.1775 as against Rs 101.12, while yield held at 7.74%.

Government security of 8.27% maturing in 2020, the 7.68% government security maturing in 2023 and the 7.72% government security maturing in 2025 were also quoted higher at Rs 103.2525, Rs 100.6325 and Rs 100.4575.

The overnight call money rates settled modestly higher at 6.35% from Wednesday's closing of 6.10% after moving in a small trading range of 6.30% and 6.65% during the day.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India, under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility, purchased securities worth Rs 178.08 billion in 38-bids at one-day overnight repo auction at a fixed rate of 6.50% on Thursday evening.

It sold securities worth Rs 36.24 billion from 28-bids at the one-day reverse repo auction at a fixed rate of 6.00% on late Wednesday.
Rebutting Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung's statement that he had written a letter to him in the matter involving NDMC official M M Khan's murder, BJP MP Maheish Girri today asserted he wrote no such letter and asked the LG to make public any such purported communication.

Aam Aadmi Party has sought Girri's arrest in Khan's murder, alleging his letter to the LG in favour of the accused hotelier indicated his involvement in the crime.

"I have been saying repeatedly that I never wrote any such letter. I reiterate I did not. If the (LG's) press release makes a reference to any letter written by me, then it is for the LG office to make things clear. What has Mahesih Girri got to do? They (AAP) should speak to the LG office.

"If have written such a letter, then the LG office should make it public," he told a press conference.

He parried a volley of questions asking him why he was not taking up the issue directly with the LG.

"If needed, I will write to the LG" was his refrain.

After AAP targeted the LG as well, Jung said in a statement he had written to the NDMC in reference to a letter from Girri.

The BJP MP also dared Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to show evidence of such a letter.

"I have made it clear that if Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal or his party can show evidence, I will resign. I have no fear as I have written no letter," the East Delhi MP said.

AAP has alleged that Delhi Police is "shielding" Girri in the case of Khan's murder.

Girri said the police has made it clear there was no evidence against him.

Khan, an estate officer of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), was shot dead in Jamia Nagar a day before he was scheduled to pass the final order on the lease terms of hotel The Connaught which was functioning on a property of the civic body, on May 16.
Goa tourism department has urged the Railway Ministry to improve connectivity to the famous Dudhsagar Falls, which is a major tourist attraction in the state during monsoon.

The waterfall on Goa-Karnataka border which has featured in several films, including Rohit Shetty's Shah Rukh Khan-starrer "Chennai Express", has been inaccessible by train after the Railways imposed several restrictions at the station near it (waterfall).

In a communication to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Goa Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar yesterday requested him to intervene and request Indian Railways to operate trains from Vasco to Dudhsagar on a daily basis without "unreasonable restrictions", to enable tourists to visit and witness the glorious Dudhsagar Falls.

Parulekar said the Goa Tourism Department will coordinate and cooperate with local district administration to ensure that all safety measures are in place and that lives of tourists are not endangered in any way.

"It may be recalled that Dudhsagar waterfall was well connected by the South Central Railway. However, last year, the railway authorities banned passengers from alighting at Dudhsagar falls citing safety reasons," the minister said.

Parulekar has pointed out that with the onset of the monsoons, tourists have been expressing disappointment at not being able to visit and view the waterfall.

"Goa is promoting monsoon tourism in a big way and tourists opting for monsoon holidays in Goa wish to add Dudhsagar waterfall to the itinerary," he said.

Parulekar further pointed out that the magnificent waterfall, which cascades through the Western Ghats, is very popular and has become a must visit after the success of the Bollywood film "Chennai Express".

"It is observed that after the success of this movie, hordes of foreign and domestic tourists are desirous of visiting this place, which is indeed a site to behold, especially during the monsoon season," he said.

The minister said the state-run Goa Tourism Development Corporation can also enter into a tie-up with the South Central Railway to charter a bogie at reasonable cost.
The pact for suspension of operations with the Assam's Bodo insurgent group NDFB(P) was today extended by the government till December 31.

A meeting of Joint Monitoring Group consisting of representatives of the Centre, government of Assam and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Progressive) was held here today.

The observance of agreed ground rules for suspension of the operations was reviewed.

"After discussions, it was agreed to extend suspension of operations for a period of six months up to December 31, 2016," a Home Ministry official said.

The NDFB(P) has been under peace pactwith the government for the last few years after laying down arms to find a lasting solution to their demands.

Another faction of the group, NDFB (S), however, continues to indulge in subversive activities.
Government will consider 15 foreign investment proposals, including those of Glenmark Pharmaceutical, Sistema Shyam TeleServices, Quintillion Business Media and Morgan Stanley India Primary Dealer, for approval on July 5.

Other proposals to be considered by inter-ministerial body FIPB it its meeting on July 5 include those from Mount Kailash Shipping, Rev India Ltd and FTF Pharma.

FDI proposals of Tikona Digital Network, G4S Cash Solutions Pvt Ltd and Janalakshmi Financial Services will also be considered, according to the agenda of the FIPB meeting.

India allows FDI in most sectors through the automatic route, but in certain segments considered sensitive for the economy and security, the proposals have to be first cleared by FIPB.
The Madras High Court today dismissed a PIL seeking a direction to the Centre to effectively implement Article 6 of the 1974 India-Sri Lanka agreement which allowed Indian fishermen to fish in Sri Lankan waters, saying these are matters to be left to diplomatic channels of the two countries.

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, which dismissed the PIL as not maintainable, said that "this court has no jurisdiction to enforce a writ on the Sri Lankan government."



"Learned counsel for the petitioner did strenuously seek to contend that the said relief is not being prayed for but effectively in our opinion, that is the relief he has prayed for, though it may be couched in some other language."



"These are matters which have to be left to the diplomatic channels of the two countries. That the problem exists is not in doubt, but solution cannot be by issuing a writ of mandamus and that too indirectly affecting what the Sri Lankan government does, that being the grievance. We thus leave this issue to the wisdom of the government authorities," it said.

The matter relates to a PIL by Fisherman Care, Chennai, seeking a direction to the Centre to give effect to Article 6 in letter and spirit and delete relevant provisions of the March 23 1976 letter, which took away traditional fishing rights of Indian fishermen in the 'historic waters' between India and Sri Lanka.

Article 6 of the 1974 agreement reads "The vessels of India and Sri Lanka will enjoy in each other's water such rights as they have traditionally enjoyed therein."



The petitioner submitted that the Article permitted the traditional rights and thus in a sense, license has been given to Indian fishermen to go into Sri Lankan waters and carry out their fishing activities.

The agreement, however, was followed by exchange of letters between the two governments in New Delhi in March 1976, which prevented vessels of Indian fishermen from fishing in the "historic" waters, the territorial sea and the Exclusive Economic Zone of Sri Lanka.

Likewise, no fishing vessels or fishermen of Sri Lanka would engage in fishing in the "historic" waters, the territorial sea and the EEZ of India.

The bench referred to its August 5, 2015 order and said "once again we have to state that we cannot go beyond what we have observed in that order.
Keeping in mind safety of those travelling on two-wheelers, Uttar Pradesh government today made it compulsory for pillion riders to wear helmets.

A decision in this regard was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav here.

"The cabinet has approved a proposal to amend rule 201 of UP Motor vehicles regulation-1998, making helmets for pillion riders compulsory," an official spokesperson said.

The decision has been taken keeping in view safety of those commuting on two wheelers.

The cabinet also okayed several amendments in state's aviation policy after which 18-20 seater aircraft could be used for inter-state transport.

The carrier would be selected through tender and they would be entitled for Rs five crore for 300 hours of flight from viability gap fund (VGF) of the state.

The fare of travel would be decided by a committee of Director General, Tourism.

The selected operator would have to deploy flights on Lucknow-Varanasi, Agra-Varanasi, Lucknow-Allahabad-Gorakhpur routes daily.

In another important decision, the cabinet decided to increase aid given to minority community living below poverty line for marriage of their daughters from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000.

The aid would be given to maximum of two daughters in a family and the entire process will also be made online.

The cabinet also decided to send a letter to the Centre to include 'Aheria' caste in scheduled caste list.

The cabinet also approved channelisation and development of banks at Varuna river in Varanasi which will cost Rs 20165.85 lakh, approval of Rs 177.81 lakh for beautification and expansion of the banks of Yamuna river in Mathura-Vrindavan.
An Egyptian hijacker who's fighting his extradition accused Egypt's military-backed government of torturing and killing an Italian doctoral student, claiming he saw Giulio Regeni being interrogated in a Cairo prison.

In a surprising twist to lengthy extradition proceedings, Seif Eddin Mustafa told a Cypriot court that he hijacked the domestic EgyptAir flight in March intending to seek asylum in Italy in order to "point the finger" at the Egyptian military regime.

Mustafa said he caught a glimpse from behind a blindfold of a "foreign-looking" person in Lazogli prison during his nearly two-month detention there in December and January after being arrested for using a false Ukrainian passport.

He said he recognized Regeni from photos he came across after his release.

Regeni disappeared in Cairo on Jan. 25 and his body - which bore signs of severe torture - was found nine days later on a suburban Cairo road.

"Regeni was in reality held by security forces and was interrogated at the same prison as I was in Lazogli Cairo," Mustafa said in a lengthy statement in Arabic that he read out in court.

"Upon getting released and seeing his pictures, I connected all these facts together and I realised that the person found dead in the street was the same person I saw when I was detained," he said.

Mustafa said he committed the March 29 hijacking to "expose (Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's) fascist regime to the world." The six-hour ordeal ended peacefully on the tarmac of Cyprus' Larnaca airport where the plane was diverted after all 72 passengers and crew were released and Mustafa was arrested.

"I never wanted to take hostages or frighten anyone," Mustafa said. "It was a desperate move for freedom in Egypt that initiated my actions."



Mustafa said he had told the pilots to land in either Cyprus, Greece or Turkey so the aircraft can refuel and ultimately take him to Italy where he would seek asylum.

He also blasted Cypriot authorities for calling him "unstable" as well as for suggesting that he committed the hijacking simply to seek out his Cypriot ex-wife whom he said he "had no reason to or plan to see."



Cyprus police said Mustafa told them after his arrest that he acted because the Egyptian government hadn't allowed him to see his ex-wife and three children on Cyprus in 24 years.

Mustafa said this "purposeful misinformation" indicated that the governments of Cyprus and Egypt where in cahoots to "hide my true motives, to discredit me and to cloud the matter.
and Industries said, on Thursday, it has sold a wholly-owned subsidiary HNG Global GmbH for 23 million euros (about Rs 175 crore) to an undisclosed buyer in Europe.

The transaction is expected to be completed by July 15, the company said in a BSE filing.

"Consideration to be received the from such sale (is) 23 million euro," it said.

Last September, the company had announced that it had entered into an agreement for divestment of its investment in HNG Global GmbH.

In 2015-16, HNG Global GmbH had posted a turnover of Rs 276 crore and contributed 12% of the total consolidated revenue of the company.

On the identity of the buyer, the company said it is "a large glass container manufacturing group in Europe (but) the buyer wants to keep the name confidential".

Shares of and Industries were trading at Rs 77.10 in the afternoon trade, down 2.10% from the previous close on BSE.
The municipal corporations here have told Delhi High Court that one of the "major hurdles" in removal of illegal hoardings in the city was their reappearance due to alleged inaction by the police.

The corporations have contended before the high court that wherever immediate action was required, complaints were forwarded to Delhi Police, but "no action was forthcoming" from them.

In view of the allegations made by the corporations, a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva sought the police's response on whether there has been any inaction on its part and, if yes, to take immediate steps to find a remedy.

The corporations have been asked to file their status reports containing instances of inaction by police before the next date of hearing in August.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by retired Col. Shivraj Kumar, who contended that advertisement hoardings, banners, posters and billboards of varying sizes were being put up on residential buildings in violation of policy and the law.

In May last year, the court had ordered the corporations to remove all hoardings, billboards, unipoles and other forms of outdoor advertising which were in violation of the 2007 Outdoor Advertising Policy (OAP).

The court, thereafter in September last year, had directed the municipal corporations to remove all illegal hoardings at public and private advertisement sites in the national capital within eight weeks by uniformly applying the OAP and provide from time to time sought status reports of the progress made.

The court had also directed removal of superstructures which are left behind after the hoardings are taken off, saying they be either removed by the corporations or the occupant of the premises where they have been put up.
Six Naxals, including a couple carrying a bounty of Rs one lakh each on their head, were today arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's Bastar division, police said.

"Four lower-rung rebels were apprehended from Jagargunda police station area of Sukma district while a team of security forces was carryinga search operation in the region," a senior police official said.

They were identified identified as Madvi Kosa (25), Uika Bheema (25), Podiyam Bheema (30) and Madkam Hurra (26), he said.

In another incident, acting on a tip-off, police arrested the Naxal couple identified as Manker Anchla alias Sandeep and his wife Kunti Usendi from the forests of Gumdi village under Kanker district's Lohattar police station limits, he said.

During interrogation, the duo admitted to their involvement with the outlawed CPI (Maoist). They were active as members of Madanwada LOS (local organisation squad) in the neighbouring Rajnandgaon district, the officer added.

They were allegedly involved in several Maoist incidents, including murdering villagers, attacks on police party, triggering blast, planting land-mines, he said, adding the duo was carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh each.

Cases were pending against Sandeep at three police stations in Rajnandgaon district and therefore he was handed over to the district's police, the officer said.
IIT-Kanpur professor Sanjay Mittal has bagged the prestigious G D Birla Award for Scientific Research for 2016.

48-year-old Mittal, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, has been chosen for his contribution in the area of Mechanics, the K K Birla Foundation said in a statement.

Mittal has made significant contribution to development of finite element algorithms for high performance computing (HPS).

Mittal's most significant contribution has been in the area of Bluff Body Flows (flows past blunt bodies associated with large unsteady separation and leading to large fluid forces). He is among a very few people in India who have worked on and used Finite Element Analysis for fluid flows.

He was instrumental in establishing the HPC facility, primarily funded by DST, at IIT-Kanpur.

Mittal did his B.Tech from IIT-Kanpur in 1988 after which he got enrolled at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities for MS programme. He then received his Ph.D and worked as a research associate under Prof Tayfun E Tezduyar.

After working for two years at Army High Performance Computing Centre, he returned to India and joined IIT-Kanpur in 1994 as an Assistant Professor.

Mittal has also been awarded with Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.

G D Birla Award for Scientific Research, instituted in 1991, seeks to recognise Indian scientists aged below 50 living and working in India for their outstanding contribution to any branch of science and technology. It carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh.

The selection of the award is made by a board comprising eminent scientists.
The Financial Dialogue due to be held between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.

Jaitley is due to arrive here on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue.

But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources told.

Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das could not attend the meeting.

Till now the two countries held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.

This is the first time it was elevated to level of Finance Ministers of both countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.

It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27.

The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.

The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of differences over New Delhi's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the group's meeting in Seoul.

During his visit to China, which is the first after he took over as finance minister, Jaitley is due to address meetings of bankers and wealth fund managers and business investors meeting to scout for investments in India.

He is also due to attend the Board of Governors meeting of the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India along with 56 countries are members.
India poses the "biggest threat" to Pakistan which has forced the country to make its defence mechanism 'India-specific', a top Pakistan army official has said.

Pakistan Army spokesperson Asim Bajwa said that efforts are going on to engage India.

However, the long-standing issue of Kashmir is the cause of tensions between the two nations, he said.

During an interview with Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, he said that the country's defence mechanism was 'India-specific'.

This is "due to the fact that India posed the biggest threat to Pakistan's security", he was quoted by Geo TV as saying.

He also accused the international community of not doing enough for Pakistan.

"I would say that the international community has not done enough for us," Bajwa, the Director-General of the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), said.

Bajwa also criticised the recent American drone strike which killed former Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan. He said that it was unfortunate since Pakistan was not informed of the strike despite being an ally of the US and Mansour was part of the Afghan reconciliation process.

"Mansour entered into Pakistan from another state and then he was traced and attacked. He was a part of the reconciliation process and was required to play his role for peace," he said. "Pakistan was not informed despite being an ally. This is the issue Pakistan has been protesting," he added.

Pakistan has done a lot to combat terrorism but criticism from the West that the Pakistani army is not "doing enough" against militants is "both regretful and unjustified.
In regard to the tragedy in Orlando, Florida: While this tragedy is reprehensible, especially to the families, I fear it will lead to more anti-religion, anti-anything to do with God or The Bible. If anything, it will be restricted all the more.

Remember Germany in the '20s and '30s? The oppression at that time spawned anti-Semitism  "ah, the Jews are to blame, so let us scapegoat them."

I read an interesting piece yesterday in the news that the Democratic Party wants to put justices all liberal on the Supreme Court that will wipe out all religious freedom. As it stands now, the Marxist liberals are well on their way to doing it. Practice your faith but only in private, not out in the open or woe betides you.

Now is it not a fact that nations such as North Korea, Eastern Europe, Iraq, Syria have this same attitude? Let's not forget that only last week a 7-year-old child in California was sent home because he passed out Bible verses in the classroom, and the state police came to the parents' house and outright threatened them. It sounds like Nazi Germany or North Korea.

Within three weeks time we are celebrating (?) the Fourth of July! The fact of the matter is, it is a big fat lie.

William L. Hopkins

Auburn
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held a meeting with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov during which the two leaders called for more security cooperation to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations.

During the meeting, the two leaders recalled old historical and cultural connections and discussed ways to further expand and strengthen relations.

The Prime Minister, who is on a second visit to the country within a year, conveyed India's decision to extend e-Tourist Visa to Uzbek nationals.

He also said India will organise a 'Festival of India' and an 'Indian Trade Exhibition' in Uzbekistan to mark 25 years of Uzbekistan's independence and 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations with India.

Both leaders noted that cooperation was growing in defenceand an MoU on Cyber Security had been concluded. They called for more cooperation in security.

The Prime Minister also thanked President Karimov for support to India's membership of SCO.

The Prime Minister later attended a gala dinner hosted



for all the leaders who have gathered here for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

Besides Modi, the dinner was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain among others.
Indonesia's President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo today visited the Natuna islands in a move seen as sending a message on Indonesia's efforts to protect its sovereignty over the area in the edge of the South China Sea.

Jokowi, accompanied by top security officials, made the visit on board the KRI Imam Bonjol, a warship that fired warning shots last week at Chinese fishing vessels in the area and detained one ship and its seven crew members.

He will tour the waters around Natuna and preside over a meeting on the warship to discuss the South China Sea, a presidential office statement said.

On Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry protested last week's incident, saying the Indonesian navy had "abused its military force." It said one fisherman was injured.
Iranian authorities detained six members of an Azeri separatist group on espionage charges in the country's northwest, state-owned IRAN newspaper reported on today.

The report said the suspects gathered "classified military and economic documents" and handed them over to "enemies." It says they were members of the "Gamo" separatist group in East Azerbaijan province.

The paper didn't elaborate how the suspects obtained access to classified information.

Iran occasionally announces arrest of suspected spies without any further report on their fates.

Separatism has not been predominant among Iran's sizable ethnic Azeri community, though Azeris have been seeking schools in their language and more government investment in their area.

Many Iranian leaders are Azeri or have Azeri roots, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has final say on all state matters.

Also today, Iranian media quoted a local official in the southwestern province of Khuzestan as saying that authorities killed and detained several people suspected of sabotage and terrorism recently. The report didn't provide other details.

And on Tuesday, Iran said 10 "terrorists" were arrested in the capital, Tehran, and three border provinces. The announcement came a day after authorities said that security forces had broken up one of the "biggest terrorist plots" ever on its soil.

According to the statement, the suspects planned to carry out suicide attacks and other bombings in parts of the Iranian capital.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today began his five-day China visit by meeting Chinese bankers and wealth fund managers pitching for more investments in India.

Soon after his arrival in Beijing today, Jaitley met Bank of China Chairman Tian Guoli and addressed a closed Roundtable meeting of heads of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Institutional Investors and Banks.

The Finance Minister will tomorrow address Business Forum Invest in India in which several Chinese businessmen and heads of state-run firms were expected to take part.

On June 25, Jaitley will attend the Board Governors meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India is the second largest investor after China. The Beijing-based AIIB was officially established late last year.

The bank has authorised capital of USD 100 billion. China is the largest shareholder with 26.06 per cent voting shares. India is the second largest shareholder with 7.5 per cent followed by Russia 5.93 per cent and Germany 4.5 per cent.

In all the 57 countries joined as founding members of the bank which was expected to announce first set of loans in various countries.

On Sunday, he would take part in a seminar discussion Infrastructure and Global Economic Growth along with Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, Pierre Egide Gramegna, Minister of Finance, Luxembourg, Imad Najib Fakhoury, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Jordan, Jin Liqun, AIIB President, Chris Heathcote, CEO, Global Infrastructure Hub.

The AIIB is also hosting a seminar on Financing Green Infrastructure:The Role of the Multilateral Development Banks in whichKV Kamath, President, New Development Bank of the BRICS countries and Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the State Bank of India are due to participate.

Jaitley will meet his counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27.

Officials said India-China financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries which was due to be held on June 27 has been postponed to July.

The Postponement has been necessitated because of inability of India's Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das to travel to Beijing for the meeting.

Das was asked to stay back in Delhi in view of the voting on Brexit which is taking place today to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or not which will have implications for India.

Fresh dates for the financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries in July are being worked out.

The two countries have so for had seven rounds of financial dialogue at the level of Finance Secretaries, the last being in New Delhi in 2014.
Accusing BJP of "cheating" them on the issue of reservation, leaders of Jat organisations and Khap panchayats today said members of the community would vote against the party in next year's assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

"We have decided to shun the violent mode of protest and work for defeat of BJP in assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh as the party has cheated the Jats on reservation issue in Haryana," Choudhari Omvir Singh, founder of Vishwa Jat Manch, told reporters here.

"Jats from Haryana will tour UP and Punjab and tell the voters there that BJP has cheated the community," he said.

The gathering of Jat leaders passed five resolutions, including one which demanded the Haryana government order a judicial inquiry into the violence during the February agitation by the community.

"We demand a judicial probe into the violence allegedly by the Jats during the protests in the state by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. Jats were not involved in violence which occurrred in the state as they were busy with their rail-roko agitation," he said.

The other demands included release of "innocent" Jats arrested in Haryana and reservation to the community under OBC category as has been done in UP, Rajasthan and other states where the community has a sizeable presence.

Singh said Jat organisations from Haryana, Delhi, UP and Delhi will demonstrate peacefully at Ramlila Gorund here on September 28 to force the BJP government in Haryana to immediately stop its work of "dividing" the people in the state on caste lines.

"We are protesting against BJP because the party has not paid compensation to those killed in violence and scores of people who have been arrested have not been released," said SS Sandhu, president of Jat Arakashan Sangharsh Samiti.

"We will ask the community to vote against BJP but we will not ask for voting in favour of any particular party," Sandhu said.

At least 30 persons were killed in the violence during the Jat quota stir in Haryana in February.
The parents of a white British Muslim convert dubbed "JihadiJack", thought to be fighting in Syria with the ISIS militants, will stand trial in January accused of funding terrorism.

Jack Letts, 20, is believed to be the first white Briton fighting in Syria.

John Letts, 55, and Sally Lane, 54, appeared at the Old Bailey today charged with three counts of entering or becoming concerned in an arrangement to make money available, knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used for terrorism.

Jack's mother is charged with two further counts of attempting to provide money or property knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect it could be used for the purpose of terrorism.

The pair will appear in court for a plea hearing on November 17 before their trial commences in the New Year.

They were remanded in custody but after appearing before Justice Saunders earlier this month, they were granted the pair bail.

He had described them as "two perfectly decent people have ended up in custody because of the love of their child".

The couple's defence barrister, Di Middleton, has assured the court they would not attempt to send any more money to their son, and had not done so while on police bail.

Their bail was extended and a trial date of January 9, 2017 has been set, expected to last up to four weeks.

JackLetts, 20, is suspected of being the first white Briton to join the terror group after he left his Oxford home and travelled to Syria last year.

His parents deny providing money for suspected terrorism and have previously maintained they sent their son money to buy a new pair of glasses.
A Muslim police officer, who sued the New York Police Department over a policy limiting beards allowed for religious reasons, would face irreparable harm without protection from the courts, a judge said today as he ordered the city to reinstate the officer's pay and benefits a day after he was suspended and escorted from police headquarters.

US District Judge P Kevin Castel criticised the city repeatedly before finding it was probable Officer Masood Syed would succeed and issuing a temporary restraining order that will remain in place until a July 8 hearing.

The department says it bans beards as a safety measure so gas masks fit tightly across faces but allows beards for religious reasons up to 1 millimetre in length.

The judge, who is bearded, said 1 millimetre of hair exists when a man is unshaven for a day or two. He said it seemed the policy is enforced haphazardly.

"I am very relieved," Syed said afterward as he celebrated his 32nd birthday with a half dozen fellow officers supporting him in the Manhattan court.

Syed said two uniformed supervisors escorted him from Manhattan NYPD headquarters where he works as a law clerk to administrative judges, sometimes preparing legal documents for the police commissioner about disciplinary issues.

"It was extremely humiliating," Syed said. "I felt insulted, frankly."



Syed said he has maintained a 1-inch beard for most of his 10-year career, only occasionally drawing critical comments. He said he hoped his lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, would help over 100 police employees who find the religious exception to the department's no-beard policy insufficient because they say the length of the beard allowed is not reasonable.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order banning the NYPD from enforcing its beard policy until it provides reasonable religious accommodations. City attorney Michael Fleming said the beard ban was necessary. Besides for religious reasons, exceptions exist for undercover duties and medical conditions.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require annual fit-testing and prohibit respirators for employees with facial hair.

The judge became impatient as he questioned Fleming about the policy and the department's failure to respond to a December 2015 request by 37 police officers for an exception to the no-beard policy.

"Let's play 20 questions," Castel said at one point. "The court is troubled by the fact it cannot get an answer," he said at another.

Attorney Joshua Moskovitz, representing Syed, told Castel the department's policy violates the First Amendment and threatens Syed's job, his retirement benefits and his reputation. He said the department took Syed's shield and weapon Tuesday before he "was escorted out in front of his friends and colleagues.
In a scathing attack on arch rival DMK, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today said there was a "confusion" as to who between M Karunanidhi and M K Stalin is their party chief.

Speaking in the assembly, she said, "To give a reply here, there is a confusion on who their leader is, who is their chief? Is it Karunanidhi, who is referred to as party president or is it the Leader of Opposition (Stalin), who is sitting here?"



Jayalalithaa's remarks came as she was speaking on the ceding of Katchatheevu islet while referring to a statement of Karunanidhi which he had made a day after her speech on June 20 on the same matter.

Underlining that her question was for Karunanidhi, she said, "either DMK members, if they could, answer her or bring their chief to the House" and added that "there is confusion on who their leader is."



She said, "As a member of the House, he (Karunanidhi) could have expressed his opinion in the House. However, he is issuing a statement without coming to the Assembly. My talk is only related to his statement."



Soon DMK members were on their feet demanding that Speaker P Dhanapal offer them an opportunity to respond to the AIADMK supremo's remarks.

Amid noisy scenes, Jayalalithaa said she would wind up her reply to the motion of thanks to Governor's Address soon and added that others may speak after.

However, DMK members, led by Stalin, staged a walkout, claiming outside the House that they did not get an opportunity to voice their views.

Jayalalithaa claimed that the DMK members walked out after she said that she wanted to pose questions on Katchatheevu as they knew that they would not be able to answer.

Citing Karunanidhi's statement, she said, "Since he has said that (former prime minister) Indira Gandhi pacified (Karunanidhi) giving many rights (for fishermen), does it not mean that he agreed to giving Katchatheevu away?"



"Why did not the Tamil Nadu government file any case then (when the islet was ceded) when the then Jan Sangh leader A B Vajpayee had said that he would file a case," she asked.

Reasserting that she had filed a case in 2008 in the



Supreme Court on Katchatheevu and that the Tamil Nadu government impleaded in it in 2011 after she became Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa asked if DMK's case on the islet in the apex court in 2013 was not for political reasons and in view of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

"In the case filed by me against ceding Katchatheevu, why did not the then DMK government file a counter in the court, stating that ceding the islet was wrong?," she asked.

She said, "If it was not against truth to say that the right to fish and dry nets was incorporated in the 1974 agreement with Sri Lanka (to cede Katchatheevu) due to DMK's push when there was no such clauses in the pact."



"Will DMK president Karunanidhi answer my questions,?"she asked.

Jayalalithaa also took a jibe at the main opposition party when there was some confusion among two MLAs on who would speak on the debate on certain bills that came up for discussion, saying this showed there was "factionalism" in the party.

"I have heard of factionalism in the Opposition (DMK), but witnessed it today," she said.

She said while DMK whip R Sakkarapani had asked Tambaram MLA S R Raja to speak, Tiruvannamalai legislator and former minister E V Velu was already speaking and took a swipe at this.

To this, Deputy Leader of DMK Legislature, Durai Murugan alleged that the CM was cleverly trying to 'divert' attention from the issues being discussed and insisted that there was "no factionalism" in his party.

"We are one," he said.
Lt Governor Kiran Bedi today sought the cooperation of banks in government initiatives to make the Union Territory a prosperous place.

She held detailed discussions at Raj Nivas with managers of more than 30 scheduled banks and sought their partnership in current government programmes to realise this goal.

She elaborated the various modes through which the banks could play a significant role to supplement the government's efforts.

A Raj Nivas release said Bedi requested banks to strengthen municipalities and PWD under 'Swachh' scheme, which could be done by procuring de-silting machines,safety equipment for workers engaged in de-silting works, construction of community toilets and holding awareness campaigns.

She also said that under safety scheme, banks could also strengthen traffic police in procuring CCTVs for road safety, speed detectors and equipment for traffic police.

She also urged banks to take up skill development programmes by conducting training in computer operation and also in strengthening Industrial training institutes.

These could be taken under the Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives of the banks, which now hold around Rs 10,000 crore as deposits, the release said.

Convenor of the State Level Bankers Committee, who was also present, assured the banks' support and said a comprehensive plan would be presented at its July 4 scheduled meeting to support the initiatives of the government.
Sri Lankan Naval personnel allegedly entered Indian waters and damaged fishing equipment of a group of fishermen from here near Fifth sand dune in the Palk Strait today.

Lankan Naval personnel also detained a boat belonging to the fishermen for about an hour at the fifth sand dune, which is part of Indian sea territory, Vercode Fishermen Association President Sagayam told reporters and police here.

He alleged that they crossed the International Maritime Border Line (IMBL) and damaged fishing equipment and GPS devices of the fishermen when they were fishing near Aathupalam.

He said the Lankan navy had lined up its patrol boats near Katchateevu to prevent Indian fishermen from crossing the IMBL.

After entering Indian waters, they also threatened one Subramanian, a fisherman, by keeping a knife on his throat, he charged.

"Our fishermen have been careful as the Sri Lankan navalmen were present in full strength near Katchatheevu, but it was not fair on their part to threaten us at knife point and damage our equipment when we were fishing in our territory," he said.
The son of a late pontiff of a 300-year-old ashram in Tiruchirapallil district has moved the Madras High court bench here, seeking intervention of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Board to stop the alleged bid to take over the head post by an unqualified person.

Justices K K Sasidharan and B Gokuldass, who heard the PIL by R Ramabadhran, son of the deceased 9th pontiff of Srimad Andavan Poundarikapuram Swamy Ashramam, issued notice to the Assistant Commissioner of HR&CE to reply within two weeks.

The petitioner alleged a bid to take over the leadership of the ashram by an unqualified person, in connivance with a top police official and one V Navaneethakrishnan.

He submitted that the 9th pontiff of the ashram, with branches at Tiruneermalai and Bangalore, had executed an unregistered will in respect of its administration and also a successor for it.

He had indicated that either Anantha Narasimhachariar, who had been functioning as Sri Karyam (Chief Administrator), or his brother could be the successor. In the event of anyone else being chosen as the next pontiff, it was necessary to secure the consent of the Sri Karyam.

However, three disciples had proclaimed themselves to be members of the administrative committee and announced that one Paravakottai Rajagopalachariar, a non-scholar, would be the next pontiff, the petitioner submitted.

Even as Sri Karyam was making arrangements to nominate a successor, the trio had illegally appointed a person, he said.

As per custom and tradition, the Srikaryam would convene the general body of the disciples and finalise the choice of the successor, he pointed out.

The petitioner prayed for a direction from the court to the Assistant Commissioner of HR&CE to protect the ashram and prevent it from being 'taken over' by Rajagopalachariar.
Maharashtra Government today announced appointment of retired Bombay High Court judge Dinkar Zoting to probe allegations of irregularities against former Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse in the purchase of land near Pune.

"The government was considering appointment of a retired HC judge in view of reports about the 'alleged irregularities' in the land transaction," a GR issued today said.

Accordingly, Zoting has been appointed, it said.

The inquiry will ascertain if the land was acquired by MIDC and whether the land was eligible to be transferred or sold as per MIDC norms, it said.

The probe will have to be completed in three months, the GR said.

While appointing retired High Court judge Dinkar Zoting for the probe, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has decided against including other accusations leveled against Khadse.

Zoting retired as a Bombay High Court judge in 2006.

Khadse, the senior-most BJP leader, had to resign earlier this month over the controversial deal wherein he had purchased three-acre plot at Bhosri, believed to be owned by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) in name of his kin for Rs 3.75 crore as against the market price of Rs 40 crore.

Three days ago, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced that a judicial committee of a retired Bombay High Court judge will probe the purchase of the MIDC land.

The 64-year-old veteran BJP leader from north Maharashtra had been facing a series of allegations including irregularities in a land deal in Pune and of getting calls allegedly from fugitive Dawood Ibrahim's residence in Karachi on his mobile phone besides the alleged bribe sought by a personal aide.

(Reopens BOM16)



Meanwhile, talking to reporters in Bhusawal, in Jalgaon district, Khadse claimed that the charges against him were "baseless".

"Whatever allegations have been levelled against me are baseless. A fortnight before I resigned, I had called for a probe into these allegations," he said.

In an apparent reference to former AAP leader Anjali Damania, he said the "woman who was going against me, was doing it so for cheap publicity".

"I had challenged her to show proof against me in any of the cases, but the woman could not submit any," the former minister claimed.

On June 2 (two days prior to Khadse's resignation), Damania had sat on a hunger strike in Mumbai demanding his ouster from Maharashtra cabinet in the wake of charges of impropriety over purchase of MIDC land.

She had also demanded a time-bound inquiry into the matter led by a retired High Court judge.

Khadse also said no prominent political party had levelled any allegations against him.
A 52-year-old man charged with the murder of British MP Jo Cox will stand trial in November, a UK court ruled today.

Thomas Mair was told by an Old Bailey court judge in London that a provisional trial date has been fixed for November 14.

Mair was arrested at the scene of Cox's street killing last week, just days ahead of the crucial referendum to decide whether UK will stay part of the European Union or leave.

The 41-year-old Labour MP was shot and stabbed to death in Birstall, West Yorkshire, near her constituency office as she was holding a regular meeting with her constituents.

Besides her murder, Mairis also charged with grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon.

He has since been described as a far-right loner with mental health issues.

He appeared today via videolink from Belmarsh Prison in south London and only spoke to confirm his name.

A plea and case management hearing is due to take place in October.

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Mair, who had denied the murder, did not take the witness stand to give evidence.

Justice Wilkie told the jury that they could draw inferences from the defendant'ssilence.

Mair was also found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to 78-year-oldBernard Kenny, who tried to stop the attack on Cox;possession of a firearm; and possession of a dagger.

During the trial, Cox's family was left in tears as her constituency caseworker, Sandra Major, described the MP's selfless response as she came under attack from Mair.

She told jurors: "He was making motions towards us with the knife and Jo was lying in the road and she shouted out 'get away, get away you two. Let him hurt me. Don't let him hurt you'."



Describing the aftermath, colleague Fazila Aswat said: "Jo was in my arms. It was probably only two or three minutes before the ambulance arrived but it felt like a lifetime."



The attack was captured on grainy CCTV and witnessed by 16 members of the public who travelled to the Old Bailey court in London to give evidence.

They described the popping noise of Mair's gun and how he threatened to stab people if they got in his way.

Afterwards, Mair walked away as if he had "not a care in the world", the court heard.

Mair was a frequent visitor to Birstall and Batley libraries in the village of Birstall, where Cox was holding her constituency meeting on the day.

An investigation of his use of library computers exposed Mair's interest in far right, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi politics in Britain and abroad.

When asked to confirm his name, the defendant, described by neighbours as a shy loner, said: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".
A 100-year-old Victorian Marine Telescope was today seized from a man who was allegedly planning to sell it off, police said here.

"The accused, identified as Mohammad Saleh, who is into real estate business, was apprehended from his house in Tolichowki area by the sleuths of Commissioner's Task Force (Central Zone Team) on credible information," said DCP B Limba Reddy.

Police also recovered stand of the telescope, dated 1915, made by W Ottway & Co Ltd Ealing, London.

"Saleh had purchased the antique Victorian Marine Telescope (100 year-old, made of brass with sight range of around 5 km) and a chess board along with its contents from his friend Riyaz. He had concealed them (the items) in his house without any valid documents in order to sell (them) to prospective customers for Rs 30 lakh to earn easy money," the DCP said.

The officer said Saleh was also planning to sell the chess board to prospective customers by passing it off as an antique piece.

He has been handed over to Golconda Police along with the seized material for further investigation.
Dropping enough hints that Samajwadi Party's doors were open for former BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today described him as "the right person in the wrong party".

"The fact that Swami Prasad Maurya was the right person in the wrong party has been amply proved," Yadav said, a day after the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly quit BSP accusing its leader Mayawati of auctioning party tickets for the 2017 Assembly election.

The Chief Minister was talking to mediapersons after a meeting of the state cabinet.

"Maurya is a strong leader. We have good relations. It is good that he left BSP," Yadav said.

Though the chief minister said that it was for Maurya to decide which party he would join, speculation is rife that he could be inducted into SP and might even get a berth in the council of ministers when it is expanded on Monday.

"Where he will go, it is up to him to take a decision," Yadav said to repeated questions on whether Maurya would join the ruling party and get a ministerial berth.

Attacking the BSP chief, Maurya had yesterday said, "Tickets are being openly auctioned by Mayawati on a large scale. She is not making the right choice of candidates. Tickets are not only on sale in the party, they are being auctioned."



The 62-year-old leader said he felt "suffocated" in the BSP and could not continue in the party any longer.

Hours after his announcement, Mayawati said he was a "habitual party-hopper" and she would have expelled him within a few days for insisting on tickets not only for him but also to his son and daughter as BSP does not promote dynastic politics.

Mayawati had said SP would be the right party for him as it encourages dynasty, giving tickets to sons and grandsons and looking at others only after no one in the family is left out.
The Delhi Medical Council (DMC) has ordered an inquiry into the case of alleged medical negligence at Fortis Hospital here even as the hospital authority has sacked five of its staffers, including two orthopaedic surgeons, in this connection.

The family of a 24-year-old youth have accused doctors at Fortis hospital Shalimarbagh of wrongly operating upon the left leg of him instead of the injured right leg.

The DMC, which has taken suo motu cognizance of the matter, will conduct an inquiry and take appropriate action, DMC Secretary Girish Tyagi said.

"A Delhi Medical Council team will visit the hospital tomorrow and go through all the documents. We will also hold conversations with the staff and doctors who were present during the surgery at the operation theatre.

"The hospital may have sacked the doctors and staffers at fault but they will join some other hospital. So we have to conduct an independent inquiry. If found at fault, their licenses will be cancelled," said Tyagi.

Ravi Rai, a resident of Ashok Vihar was taken to Fortis Hospital on Sunday after he slipped from the staircase.

Tests found that he had suffered fracture on his right foot and the doctors said that his condition required surgery, his Father Ramkaran Rai said.

Delhi police registered an FIR in connection with the matter.

"An FIR under Sections 336 (endangering life through negligence) and 338 of IPC has been registered," a senior police official said.

Doctors, however, operated upon his left leg wrongly and put multiple screws inside the left foot instead of the injured right one. It was when Ravi gained consciousness that they realised about the wrong.

Fortis issued a statement saying that "following yesterday's (Monday's) incident, we immediately set up an expert committee to enquire into the matter. Their preliminary view suggests that in the rarest of aberrations, the operating team may have disregarded and sidestepped due processes.

"We take our obligation to our patients very seriously. As this is a zero tolerance area for us, the services of erring doctors and OR personnel (five) have been dispensed forthwith," it said.

The statement added that action against some others was also being contemplated, pending inquiry.

Meanwhile, Ravi, a CA student, was yesterday shifted to Max Hospital where he is undergoing treatment.
Batting for revival of the Indo-Pak reconciliation process to bring about peace in Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said if hostilities between the two neighbours can become news, why cannot cultural bonhomie.

"I wonder if hostilities can become between the two neighbours, why can't such cultural bonhomie," she told reporters here.

Mehbooba joined thousands of devotees from the two countries at the shrine of Baba Chamliyal near the International Border (IB) in Ramgarh sector of Samba district on the occasion of the annual Mela of the mystic saint.

MP Jugal Kishore Sharma, state Industries Minister Chander Parkash Ganga and state Tourism Minister Priya Sethi accompanied the Chief Minister.

Mehbooba said given its socio-religious significance, Chamliyal could become the hub of a new movement for reconciliation in the region.

"I hope our good intentions are reciprocated by our neighbour," she said, emphasising on people-to-people contact between the two countries "to remove mistrust and create a congenial atmosphere for dialogue and reconciliation".

The PDP leader said like "siblings locked in an endless rivalry", India and Pakistan have bickered for well over six decades.

"Transforming that rivalry into a mature, productive relationship will be difficult but the consequences of continued animosity will be much worse," said Mehbooba, adding that there is always a possibility of friendship between the two countries as both the cultures share "a fondness for each other".

She said if there is any "silver lining in the grey clouds of competition", it is the fact that normalising relations would be a boon for business in both countries.

"It may sound simplistic but building relationships is the key to peace and economic prosperity in the subcontinent in the foreseeable future," she said, adding that some "measurable amount of friendship" will become unavoidable "very soon".

She said both the countries stand to gain if bilateral trade, economic and societal relations between the two improve and they are able to resolve their problems gradually.

"This can be possible if they are innovative in their thinking and break out of the stranglehold of one-sided, emotionally charged narrative of history," she said, adding to begin with there can be friendly exchanges in various fields such as art, environment, culture, youth affairs, sports, information and media.

The Chief Minister offered chadar at the shrine.

Stressing on the need to revive the Indo-Pak reconciliation process, Mehbooba said it is imperative towards bringing about peace in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond.

"We are working with the government of India for opening Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur and some other roads to encourage people-to-people contact," she said, adding that Suchetgarh has the potential of becoming "J&K's Wagah" as was envisioned by her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

She said in the long run, Suchetgarh can become a trading point like Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh with the neighbouring country, adding that the village has been taken up for development as a border tourism destination under the Swadesh Darshan project funded by the Union Tourism Ministry.

The various components of the Rs 5-crore project include restoration of old Octroi Post, construction of a multi-purpose hall, development of waterbody and landscaping of lawns to enhance the ambience of the place, she added.
Seeking China's support for India's membership of NSG, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application which is before the plenary of the 48-nation grouping that is currently meeting in Seoul.

Meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Modi said India's case should be judged on its own merits and China should contribute to an emerging consensus in the Seoul meeting, according to External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

The meeting, which lasted for nearly 50-minutes, comes in the backdrop of stiff Chinese opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector, including trade and export of nuclear technology.

However, when asked about China's response, Swarup refused to comment, saying, "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this."



Swarup also stated that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.

Asked if India talked about the need to delink India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, "...You have heard what Prime Minister told Xi Jingping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul."



While making some right noises of playing "constructive" role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistan's case for NSG membership.

Hussain told Xi that any "exception" in granting membership to the NSG will "disturb" strategic stability in South Asia.

"President Xi welcomed India's accession to the SCO and



said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for China's support to India's membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation," Swarup said.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in July last year when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India, Pakistan and Iran.

SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.

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Meanwhile, China's official Xinhua agency in its report did not make any mention whether Prime Minister Modi or President Xi discussed the issue of India's NSG bid.

However, it quoted Xi as saying that India and China have much more common interests than differences, and the two sides should enhance pragmatic cooperation in areas such as trade, railway, industrial parks, energy and electricity, information technology, energy conservation and environment protection.

Xi said China is looking forward to enhancing cooperation with India under the framework of the SCO.

He said that China-India strategic partnership is rapidly growing in the direction set by both leaders.

He recalled the important consensus he had reached with President Pranab Mukherjee on bilateral ties when the latter was paying a visit to China last month.

"China will work with India to master the general course for the development of ties," Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

He also extended his congratulations to Modi over India's upcoming signing of a memorandum of obligation to join the SCO, a key step for India to obtain membership of the organisation.

The Chinese president said China welcomes Prime Minister Modi to attend the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in September. He was also looking forward to visit India in October to attend the BRICS Leaders Meeting.
has "no thoughts" of resuming six-party talks on its nuclear programme, a top Pyongyang official said today in Beijing, despite the repeated urgings of its closest ally China.

The North quit the now-stalled negotiations aimed at curbing its nuclear weapons programme in 2009, and soon afterwards carried out its second atomic test. The talks are hosted by China, and include South Korea, the United States, Russia, and Japan.

Beijing, the North's main diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, wants to revive negotiations, although Washington, Seoul and Tokyo all insist Pyongyang - which carried out two missile launches earlier this week - must first take some tangible steps towards denuclearisation.

Choe Son-Hui, deputy director-general of the North American affairs bureau in Pyongyang's foreign ministry, said in Beijing: "For now, we have no thoughts about taking part in talks to discuss the DPRK's denuclearisation."

She was in the Chinese capital for an annual security forum, which includes representatives from each of the six parties.

"Under these circumstances where the US hostile policy is still there, DPRK is not in a position to talk about denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," she told reporters in English outside the country's embassy, using its official name.

Ties between China and the North have become strained in recent years as Pyongyang has pressed ahead with internationally-condemned nuclear tests, and with Kim Jong-Un yet to visit Beijing three years after inheriting power.

After a string of failures in recent months, successfully tested two powerful Musudan medium-range missiles yesterday, one of which flew 400 kilometres (250 miles) into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Existing United Nations measures prohibit from using ballistic missile technology.

After Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket launch on February 7, the UN Security Council adopted its most punishing sanctions yet against North Korea.

Any further measures would require the support of veto-wielding permanent council member China, which has shied away from additional action in favour of calls for resuming the six-party talks.

"We are not at all disappointed by the Chinese," Choe said, denying that Pyongyang felt a lack of support from its neighbour.

"China is doing what she has to do, and we are doing what we have to do.
Pitching for building on NDA's Kerala Assembly election performance to strengthen the alliance for 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP President Amit Shah today asked leaders to woo dalits and other marginalised sections and focus on converting the votes into more seats.

Shah was speaking at the NDA steering committee meeting here to review its performance in the May 16 elections in which NDA bagged 15 per cent vote share and BJP made its maiden entry in the state Assembly, party sources said.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of NDA partners in the state including Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) President Thushar Vellappally, Janadhipathya Rashtriya Sabha (JRS)chief C K Janu and Kerala Congress (Thomas) leader P C Thomas.

After reviewing the election results and the post-election scenario, Shah suggested formulation of a special action plan to achieve maximum results in Parliament elections in the state, they said.

In the closed-door meeting, he asked leaders to woo minorities, Dalits and other marginalised sections of the society and ensure their support in the coming days,they said.

Expressing happiness over bagging 15 per cent votes in the election, he also said the number of seats should also be increased according to the total vote share, the sources said.

Shah also attended a BJP state committee meeting held later.

BJP had fought the May 16 elections mainly in alliance with BDJS, a political party launched by Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an outfit of backward Ezhava community.

The party scripted history with its nominee and senior leader O Rajagopal winning the Nemom seat to help the lotus bloom in the Assembly for the first time in the state, dominated by the bipolar politics of Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-led LDF.

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In the BJP state committee meeting, Shah said the time was apt for the party to come to power in the state and urged party workers to toil hard to realise the goal. Listing out various achievements of BJP-led NDA government in the last two years, he said the country had clocked 'remarkable' growth in all spheres under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party sources said.

Referring to attacks on BJP workers allegedly by CPI(M) activists across the state, Shah said the prime minister and the national leadership were pained over their sufferings and offered all support to the partymen to overcome this, they said.

BJP national General Secretary Ram Lal, National Secretary H Raja, state President Kummanom Rajasekharan, veteran leader and lone party MLA in the state assembly O Rajagopal were among those who participated in the meeting.
Nepal's 33 agitating political parties today submitted a five-point agenda to the government and asked it to create an environment in which all parties could take ownership of the new Constitution.

The meeting between the two sides failed to take any concrete decision regarding the ongoing political crisis.

However, a negotiator from the protesting bloc, Nepal Samata Party Secretary Bikram Kunwar, said the talks were positive and the protesters were hopeful that the government would soon fulfill their demands.

Madhesi parties and various ethnic groups have launched agitation for the past several months demanding re-demarcation of the provincial boundary and more rights and representatives for the Madhesis and other ethnic minority groups.

Kunwar said the agitators urged the government to create an environment in which all parties could take ownership of the new Constitution.

The alliance submitted a five-point memorandum to the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli-led team. It demanded that the government form a powerful commission to address various problems facing underprivileged, peasants, labourers, unemployed and landless people among others.

Deputy Prime Minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar said the government would try to address the protesters' concerns through talks.

Besides Gachhadar another Deputy Prime Minister Bhim Rawal, Home Affairs Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet and Minister for Law and Justice Agni Prasad Kharel were also present during the meeting.

Former Prime Minister and senior leader of CPN-UML Madhav Kumar Nepal and general secretary of the party Ishwor Pokharel also attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, the main opposition party Nepali Congress (NC) obstructed the Parliament meeting today.

The party had decided to obstruct the House proceedings protesting the government's inefficiency and failure to address the concerns of the earthquake victims.

Addressing the meeting, NC leader Prakash Sharan Mahat said that the government had failed to distribute relief to the earthquake victims and expedite reconstruction works.

He said that his party would not let the House proceed with its business unless the government addressed the concerns of the quake victims.

The Parliament session was adjourned until tomorrow.
Nigerian police and navy patrol boats intensified efforts today to find a group of construction workers including three Australians, two Nigerians, a New Zealander and a South African kidnapped in an ambush that killed their driver, police said.

They were seized yesterday by gunmen who held up their convoy that was under a police escort near Calabar, the capital of southeastern Cross River state, said police Commissioner Jimoh Ozi-Obeh.

Another Australian escaped, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

"A very intense search is on, with more patrol and surveillance teams dispatched to the rescue," Ozi-Obeh told The Associated Press.

Nigerian newspapers quoted witnesses saying the hostages were forced onto a boat, meaning they could be anywhere in a maze of estuaries and mangrove swamps that dominate the state's geography.

All were on assignment for Australian mining contractor Macmahon Holdings, the company confirmed yesterday.

Kidnapping for ransom is common in Nigeria but generally involves no fatalities. Hostages are returned unharmed once money exchanges hands, though a German construction worker was killed in southwestern Nigeria late last year by gunmen who kidnapped a second German. He was later released.

Ozi-Obeh identified the foreigners kidnapped as Australians Jack Countentz, Mark Gabberdy and Peter Zoutenbier, New Zealander Jamal Khan and South African Wayne Smith.

New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key said on state TV yesterday that his government would not pay any ransom because it would potentially put a bounty on the head of any citizen.

He said there has been no contact yet between the kidnappers and the government or the New Zealander's family.
Claiming that there were no differences between the principals of the Left and the Congress, CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra today said they both would continue to fight together on bigger issues like communalism and price rise.

Talking to journalists at the Left Front party office here at Alimuddin Street this afternoon, Mishra said, "There are no differences on the principals between the Congress and the Left. In our fight for issues like communalism and price rise Congress will be there."



Mishra further stated that both the parties would continue to fight together on a common agenda and the "jot" (alliance) would have to face the test during their fight.

Earlier, stating that over nine party activists have so far died in pre and post poll violence "organised by Trinamool Congress", Mishra said "the ruling party has started a fascist way of attacking Left workers all around the state".

"They (TMC) have changed their way of assaulting our party workers. This time (after winning this year's Assembly elections), they have a more planned and shrewd way of attacks on our partymen... The idea is clear. This is aimimg to eliminate the oppositions so that in the panchayat and other elections they may not cause much impact," Mishra said.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Thursday, dismissed speculation that he was unhappy with SP embracing gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's party, saying there is "no displeasure" and it is an internal matter of the Samajwadi Party.

"Merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with SP is an internal matter of Samajwadi Party," Yadav told reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet here.

"There is no displeasure. This is all media creation," he said replying to queries on the issue.

He also evaded questions on sacking of cabinet minister Balram Yadav for apparently facilitating the merger.

"It's all internal matter of the party," was his refrain.

"The merger has been decided by the party, and what the party will decide will be acceptable to all," he said when quizzed further.

The merger was announced by SP spokesman and senior Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav, who is brother of Akhilesh's father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Hours later, Akhilesh sacked Balram from the Cabinet. Though no official reason was cited for the removal, SP leaders said the chief minister was "unhappy" with the minister for facilitating the controversial merger.

The Chief Minister's comments came against the backdrop of opposition training their guns at the ruling party following the merger, especially over law and order issue, ahead of next year's Assembly polls.

QED merged with SP on June 21. The ruling party is hoping that it will help it tap the muslim vote bank in eastern Uttar Pradesh especially in Ghazipur, Mau and Varanasi.

QED was founded in 2010 by Mukhtar, along with his brothers Afzal Ansari and Sigbatullaha Ansari. The mafia don is in jail for his alleged involvement in the murder of former BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.

The merger of QED with SP has given fresh ammunition to the opposition parties to target Samajwadi Party.

"Samajwadi Party is trying all means to get back to power in the next elections. This shows its sheer desperation," BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.

In a similar refrain, Congress spokesman DP Singh said the merger shows "growing frustration" within the ruling party which is trying all "means to retain power by hook or by crook".
General Secretary of Odisha Association for Blind has been arrested by the anti-corruption vigilance wing for alleged misappropriation of around Rs 56.3 lakh allotted by the Centre.

Bihari Nayak was arrested by Vigilance officers of Bhubaneswar division yesterday on charge of misappropriation of Rs 56,30,629 during the period from 2009-10 to 2013-14 by alleged falsification of the records of account, a statement from the Vigilance Directorate said today.

The case was registered against Nayak and two others on the allegation of misappropriation of the amount from "Inclusive Education of Disabled at Secondary Stage" (IEDSS) fund allotted by the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, it said.

The fund had been allotted through School and Mass Education and Women and Child Development Departments of Odisha government, it said.

Nayak had moved the Orissa High Court for grant of bail. The High Court had rejected his bail application on April 27, 2016.
A well-known distillery in Bihar, facing closure following complete ban on liquor in the state, has shifted to production of ethanol which would be supplied to major oil companies.

Sati Organics Private Limited, Gopalganj, started ethanol production yesterday with the same set of 250 employees who would have been rendered unemployed after prohibition.

"We started production of ethanol from yesterday by upgrading our production pattern," its Director Ramashankar Prasad said in a statement here today.

The ethanol would be supplied to leading oil companies like Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Prasad said.

He said that initially the company would produce 12 lakh litres of ethanol, although the distillery's capacity is much higher.

Ethanol is produced from sugarcane molasses and is utilised in the chemical industry as well as bio-fuel in vehicles.

The Nitish Kumar-led government enforced a complete ban on liquor since April 5. The order prohibits production of spirit but there is no curb on ethanol which is blended with petrol.
A worker was killed and two others were injured in an explosion at a pharmaceutical company unit in the district, police said today.

The mishap occurred last evening in Hetero Drugs unit located at Nakkapalli mandal in the district when the workers were engaged in cutting of empty chemical plastic drums at its scrap yard, police sub-inspector L Ramakrishna said.

Some left over chemical solvent in the drums caught fire and caused explosion due to friction generated from the tools while the drums were being cut, he said.

The deceased worker was identified as - S Appa Rao (35). The injured workers were admitted to a corporate hospital in the city and were reported to be out of danger, he said.

A case has been registered and investigation is on into the incident, the SI added.
Norwegian software company Opera Software ASA today said it has launched a faster version of its Opera Mini browser which also supports 13 Indian languages.

The new version comes with built-in ad-block setting which enables the browser to provide up to 72 per cent faster web surfing, the company's Director of International Product Marketing Kiran Dhillon told reporters here.

The ad-block feature blocks unwanted advertisements that pop up when a browser is opened, thereby consuming less Internet data and making browsing faster, she claimed.

"Ad-block can enhance mobile performance and make browsing faster. This new, faster version of 'Opera Mini' also comes with new updates such as support for 13 Indian languages, as we feel the next billion users will come from non-English background... It is specifically for Indian market where Internet speed is much slower than global average," Dhillon said.

Opera also uses "compression technology" to enhance browsing speed by compressing a web page to 10 per cent of its size, Dhillon said.

"We have a separate server called 'Thor' which is based in Iceland where the web page is compressed without any data loss," she said.

Dhillon said with only 10 per cent in India using English as a preferred language, Opera has been made available in 13 languages.

The web browser, with 350 million users world-wide, has nearly 50 million users in India, making it an important market for the company, she said.

The company is betting big on India where nearly 84 per cent use mobile phones to access Internet, Dhillon added.
China today sought to de-link it's opposition to India's membership of NSG from Sino-Indian ties saying that it does not concern the bilateral relationship.

China-India bilateral relations have maintained "sound momentum" and the issue of India's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tashkent.

"President Xi is going to meet Prime Minister Modi in Tashkent. We believe that series of exchanges of visits will deepen our strategic consensus, strategic mutual trust and future development of bilateral relationship," Hua told media briefing here.

On the state of bilateral ties, she said, "we have repeatedly made positive comments on development ties between India and China. Both are emerging markets that are acquiring more and more significant role in the affairs," she said.

The bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum of growth, thanks to the mutual visits of the leaders by the two countries, she said.

"We have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship. Recently President of India Pranab Mukherjee also paid a successful visit to China," she said.

On whether India, China differences over India's admission into the NSG would effect relations, Hua said, "On the NSG issue, we have been expounding on our position on this issue. We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group."



"We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India," she said.

Xi and Modi are due to meet on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Tashkent today where he was expected to seek China's support for India's membership in the NSG. China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Both India and Pakistan, which have applied for NSG membership, have not signed the NPT. While India's case is pushed by the US, China is backing Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as the NSG kicked off a key meeting in Seoul today, China's official media continued its tirade against India's bid for membership in the grouping with an article defending China's opposition and attempting to equate Indian and Pakistan nuclear programmes.
Flagstaff will not have a City Council primary this August.

Victor Varela voluntarily withdrew from the race for Council on Wednesday after the county recorder confirmed his petition signatures came up short of the minimum.

With only six candidates left on the ballot for three seats, all six will advance directly to the November general election.

I did come up short, Varela said. I just wanted someone in authority to verify that.

Earlier in the week, a group funded by BizPAC, the political action arm of the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce, had checked the signatures of council candidates and told Varela he was 195 short of the 771 minimum.

After hearing from the Recorder, Varela said he could not ethically continue to run, even if a court had ruled in his favor.

I learned a huge lesson through this, he said.

He didnt know that the City Clerk did not verify signatures or that candidates could verify the signatures that they collect by going to the Coconino County Recorders Office.

The group doing the checking was led by local political activist Rob Wilson. According to Arizona case law, the city of Flagstaff Clerk is not allowed to verify the signatures of candidates running for city offices. The city cant even send the signatures to the Coconino County Recorder for verification.

The same process is followed by all cities, towns, counties in Arizona and even the state, unless a city charter, like Prescotts, states otherwise. There is a separate validation process for initiative, referendum and recall petitions.

Wilson said he learned of the rule while investigating candidates in the 2014 election, but by the time he had researched each candidate it was past the 10-day limit for challenging any signatures. So he repeated his efforts this year with a group of 12 volunteers.

BizPAC helped foot the $650 copying fee for the petition signatures and the voter rolls from the Coconino County Recorders Office. BizPAC also reported the results in a press release. Chamber Government Affairs Director and BizPAC Chair Stuart McDaniel confirmed the information.

It was purely an academic exercise to show that there is a problem with the system, Wilson said. We went into this with no preconceived ideas.

When one candidate didnt have enough signatures, the group had to report it, he said.

McDaniel, who volunteered to help count and verify signatures, said he was chosen to file the challenge in court because he was a city resident and Wilson is not.

Varela said he will definitely run in the next Council election.
About 100 clerics in Pakistan have issued a decree seeking a government ban on Ramadan programmes of various TV channels, terming them against Shariah.

Signed by clerics from Barelvi school of thought and Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, the decreesays as most part of the Ramazan transmission is against Shariah (Islamic law), therefore watching the programmes is haram (illegitimate).

"Inviting unauthentic people and non-scholars to speak on religious and Islamic jurisprudence issues is haram, while hosting of the programmes by semi-nude actresses is also haram," the decree said.

The decree demands the government directs the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to stop the Ramadan transmission.

The decree hasalso urged clerics to refrain from attending such programmes, saying Shariah requirements are ignored in their proceedings.

Criticising the mixed gatherings in these programmes, the decree said that comparing such congregations to Hajj and Tawaf of the Kaaba was like desecrating Islamic symbols and sacrilegious.

It also argues that participants of Sehri transmissions usually missed their early morning prayers or at least failed to offer it in congregation.
Japanese tech major Panasonic is betting big on segments like government and manufacturing to boost revenues from its rugged PC range Toughbook to Rs 100 crore by March 2018.

The company, which claims to have a 60 per cent share of the rugged PC market in India, said it expects a major chunk of the business to come from the government sector.

"We have seen a 30 per cent growth, which is faster than the 20 per cent growth seen in the market. We see strong demand in new areas like police, fire service, pharma, oil and gas," Panasonic Senior GM and National Business Head Gunjan Sachdev told reporters here.

Panasonic is poised to keep up the strong pace of growth it has been witnessing in the segment in the past few years and touch Rs 100 crore by March 2018, he added.

Sachdev said about 40 per cent of the revenues currently come from the government sector, while the remaining is from the private players.

This, he said, would be reversed in the next few years with the government accounting for a larger share given the strong demand being created under initiatives like Digital India.

Panasonic's competitors globally in the segment include Dell, HP and Getac, among others.

"In India, the rugged PC market is still small, about Rs 110 crore. This is expected to grow to Rs 165-170 crore in the next few years. We also expect to increase our share of the market from 60 to 65 per cent by then," Sachdev said.

Apart from India, Panasonic is also betting on markets like China to contribute to the growth of its Toughbook range.

The company's rugged PCs are manufactured at its facilities in Japan and Taiwan. It has no immediate plans of making the Toughbooks in India as of now.

Panasonic today launched a fully rugged, 2-in-1 laptop that detaches to become a 10.1-inch tablet, priced at about Rs 2.25 lakh. It features Intel Core processor, 8GB RAM and 128GB memory (upgradeable to 256GB or 512GB).
Right wing Hindu activist Samir Gaikwad, held in connection with the murder of veteran Communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare, today urged the Bombay High Court to grant him bail saying there was no evidence to link him with the crime.

Gaikwad's bail application came up before Justice C V Bhadang who adjourned the matter to July 11 with the mutual consent of the accused and the prosecution.

Gaikwad, a member of the right wing group 'Sanatan Sanstha', contended in the petition that there was no evidence to connect him with Pansare's murder.

He sought bail on the ground that his liberty was being encroached upon in the absence of evidence.

However, Special Public Prosecutor Harshad Nimbalkar opposed Gaikwad's bail, saying there was evidence to link him with the murder and that he would marshal evidence before the trial court.

A sessions court in Kolhapur has twice earlier rejected Gaikwad's bail plea.

Aggrieved, he moved the High Court with a fresh bail plea.

Gaikwad is the only suspect arrested by Kolhapur police in connection with this case. He was arrested on September 16 last year from his residence in Sangli.

Pansare and his wife were shot by unidentified persons in Kolhapur during their morning walk on February 16 last year. While his wife survived, the CPI leader died in a Mumbai hospital four days later.
At least 51 people were killed and dozens injured today by a powerful tornado as extreme weather wrecked havoc in east China's Jiangsu province, officials said.

Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 pm, destroying many houses, the city government said in a statement.

It said the extreme weather was reported in several townships of Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng.

Gales of 125 km per hour battered several outer townships of Funing County, while in Sheyang, the winds reached 100 km per hour.

Many houses collapsed in the gales, with 51 deaths and dozens of injuries reported.

Top officials of Yancheng City are leading rescue and relief efforts in the affected villages.

Yesterday the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) said 42 people were killed and 25 missing in China's 10 provincial-level regions in heavy rains in the last five days.

More than 460,000 people were relocated and 321,000 are in urgent need of emergency relief after continuous rainfall in the 10 regions in southern part of China including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Sichuan, since June 18, the ministry said.

About 6,800 houses collapsed and many crops were destroyed, leading to an economic loss of 9.67 billion yuan (USD 1.46 billion), it said.

A river in Poyang County, Jiangxi, breached its banks Monday evening and more than 500 police have been despatched to mend a 100-metre breach in the river defences.

The MCA also launched an emergency mechanism to obtain data via China's remote sensing satellites and monitor the situation.

The ministry will also use drones and high-definition satellite pictures to monitor and analyse damage to residences, roads and farmland, state-run Xinhua agency reported.
President Pranab Mukherjeee today asked young scholars from esteemed educational institutes to repay the society for the investments made in them through research, development and innovation.

Addressing 13 scholars of IITs, IISc-Bangalore and IISERs at a first-of-its-kind 'In-Residence' programme at Rashtrapati Bhavan here, he called upon the students to contribute to the nation, work hard to make India great and address the challenges that the country confronts.

"This is the first such 'In-Residence' programme for scholars from IITs, IISc and IISERs. Similar programmes exist for writers, artists, grassroot innovators, NIT students and inspirational teachers," a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement said.

"Describing them as persons with high level of talent, expertise and skill, the President asked the young scholars to repay society for the investments made in them through research, development and innovation. He asked them to make themselves unique from all others," it said.

Mukherjee described youth as leaders of the new generation and said they should demonstrate the indomitable spirit to bring about change in the country.

"He reminded that a large number of young men and women made major contributions to India's independence struggle. The President said the purpose of the In-Residence programmes was to democratise the Rashtrapati Bhavan and open it for the people," the statement said.

The President said people of India have the right to know about the Rashtrapati Bhavan and to be part of its life as well as enjoy its ambience.

"The President described the products of India's higher education institutions as people who are welcomed all over the world. He urged them to always remain fresh, energetic and creative," it added.
Hundreds of Bahraini protesters kept up their rally today outside the home of a Shiite cleric, a day after they chanted a promise to "give our soul and blood as a sacrifice" to protect him following the government's move that revoked his citizenship this week.

The demonstration in support of Sheikh Isa Qassim shows the unrest gripping the tiny island of Bahrain, sparked by an intense government's crackdown on opposition groups and dissent, on a level unseen since its 2011 Arab Spring protest.

But while the protests five years ago saw the island's Shiite majority and others rise up to demand more political freedom from its Sunni rulers, this crackdown has seen a growing level of sectarianism.

A top general in Iran has threatened the "destruction of the bloodthirsty regime" in Manama while anti-Shiite messages have spread around social media.

"The country now has been divided and you have to say the government bears a lot of responsibility," said Brian Dooley, the director of the Washington-based group Human Rights First.

"The targeting of the theological side of things, I think, is particularly worrying."



The government in Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, crushed the Arab Spring protests with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since then, the island has seen low-level unrest, protests and attacks on police.

On Tuesday, authorities stripped Sheikh Isa of his citizenship, accusing him of creating an extremist sectarian atmosphere and forming groups that "follow foreign religious ideologies and political entities," an apparent reference to Shiite-majority Iran. His supporters and activists deny the allegations.

His case is the latest in a string of incidents since Bahrain's Defense Force announced in April it was "ready to deal firmly and with determination with these sedition groups and their heads" after a gasoline bomb killed a police officer.
Cochin International Airport (CIAL), the first greenfield airportin the country, has achieved a record profit during the last fiscal.

The company recorded an income of Rs 524.54 crore and profit share of 25 per cent in 2015-16, it said.

Profit after deducting tax amount stood at Rs 175.22 crore in 2015-16. It was Rs 144.58 crore in the previous fiscal.

The company informed this after its director board meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram.

CIAL is the first greenfield airport in the country built with public-private partnership.

Ever since commercial operations started on June 10, 1999 with international flight to Dammam, CIAL has grown rapidly becoming the fourth largest international airport in India in terms of international passenger traffic in just four years.

CIAL recorded a cumulative annual growth rate of nearly 20 per cent in the initial eight years and thereafter at 12 per cent with annual passenger traffic touching 7.7 million in 2015-16.

The airport handles more than 1,100 aircraft movements per week.

Over 18 international carriersoffer direct flights to the Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia and direct connectivity to the UK, Europe, the United States, Far East and the Pacific region.
The Rolling Stones' touring exhibition of rare and unseen artefacts is heading to New York later this year.

The veteran band helped to collect dozens of items from their past, including instruments, letters, posters, stage set designs, personal diaries, and audio and video tracks and launched Exhibitionism at London's Saatchi Gallery in April, reported Billboard magazine.

The band's items will now travel across the ocean for a new show at the West Village's Industria Superstudio in November.

"We've been thinking about this for quite a long time but we wanted it to be just right and on a large scale," Mick Jagger said in a statement.

"It's not going to be like walking into a museum. It's going to be an event, an experience. It's about a sense of the Rolling Stones - it's something we want people to go away talking about it."



Other highlights from the exhibit include a complete history of the Stones' iconic, John Pasche-created "lips" logo, a video and movie gallery that screens portions of widely-bootlegged documentary Cocksucker Blues and 3D concert footage and tons of memorabilia and ephemera from the band's personal archives that were housed in a London warehouse, much of it untouched over the past half-century.
The alleged attempt to murder Punjab Shiv Sena youth wing president Amit Arora on February 3 was orchestrated by him to get "security and publicity", police today said and arrested the leader and his two accomplices.

During investigations conducted by Prabodh Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, it was established that it was a "fake case", Ludhiana Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said.

"The attack was staged to get police security and publicity only," he told reporters here.

Amit Arora, his security guard Om Prakash and another person Money were today arrested in this case and booked under various sections of IPC for allegedly staging the entire incident.

In his complaint lodged here on February 3, the Shiv Sena leader had stated that he had stopped his car near a vend in Basti Jodhewal Chowk and was having soup while sitting in the vehicle.

His gunman and his accomplice were also sitting in the car when suddenly two unidentified bike-borne persons appeared on the scene and fired at him and escaped, he had said.

Arora had suffered a bullet injury on neck and was operated upon at CMC Hospital.

"The entire incident was a self staged drama to get more security, a security vehicle from the police and some publicity," Aulakh stated.
Fire responders received notice of the fire at 10:15 p.m. as it was spreading uphill toward residences on Calle Contenta. Flagstaff Police Department officers began evacuation of threatened apartments while firefighters attacked the head of the fire, stopping its forward progress. The fire was held to one quarter acre and three fire units remained on scene to contain and mop up the fire.
Textiles and apparel players today said the Rs 6,000-crore package to the sector would help boost exports and create more jobs as government has removed serious "irritants" that were pulling back the industry.

The industry players, however, expressed deep concerns over exclusion of home textiles from the package, saying it is equally labour intensive sector.

The Union Cabinet yesterday approved a Rs 6,000 crore package for textiles and apparel sector with an aim to create one crore new jobs in next three years and attract investments of USD 11 billion while eyeing USD 30 billion in exports.

"We welcome the cabinet approval for a special package for labour intensive apparel sector envisaging higher growth in export of apparel products and job creation over the next three years," Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) Chairman R K Dalmia said in a statement here.

He, however, expressed deep concern over home textile sector being ignored for consideration in the special package, which is equally labour intensive industry at par with apparel sector.

Texprocil said the fabric and home textile industry are ignored in the special package in spite of several representations and justifying presentations made by the industry body.

Dalmia appealed to the government to consider treating all the 'cut and sew' products (including home textiles and made-ups) for granting benefits under the special package for employment generation and promotion of export, at par with apparel products.

The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) President Rahul Mehta the government has removed some of the serious irritants that had been pulling back the country's garment industry for a long time.

"The announcements have unshackled our garment industry and the results will be evident not only by way of additional employment generation but also additional exports," he said.

Mehta said inclusion of state-level taxes in the computation of duty drawback will address a long standing demand of the industry and will provide a major relief to the exporting segment.

The government bearing the whole PF burden of the industry and making PF optional for employees earning less than Rs 15,000 per month - will help the industry as well as workers.

Increasing the overtime cap is another measure that will benefit both employers and employees.

Referring to the provision introduced for fixed time employment, Mehta pointed out that this is another suggestion that the industry has been making for a long time, and the provision will help in seasonal adjustments in the workforce required by the units.
Junior doctors at the state-run SSKM Hospital sat on an 'indefinite strike' demanding proper security arrangements for them following the alleged assault on one of their colleagues by relatives of a child patient admitted there.

Four members of the family of the patient were arrested on the charge of involvement in assaulting junior doctor Abhishek Singh last night for alleged negligence in the child's treatment, a senior Kolkata Police officer said today.

The incident took place last night when relatives of a child patient from Basirhat's Golaghata in North 24 Parganas district, admitted at SSKM's Emergeny ward, allegedly beat up the junior doctor complaining delay in treatment, the police officer said.

His fellow junior doctors at the SSKM Hospital caught hold of four of the 30-odd members of the patient's party, took them to the Bhowanipore Police Station and lodged a complaint, following which an FIR was registered, he said.

Senior doctors of the SSKM management, DC (South) Murli Dhar along with Officer-in-Charge and other officers of Bhowanipore Police Station reached the hospital at around 2.30 AM after the junior doctors started their strike.

The junior doctors gheraoed the visiting team of senior hospital physicians and it went on till the arrests were made this morning, Dhar said.

They later submitted a deputation to the Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research and the SSKM Director demanding proper security for the doctors at the hospital and vowed to continue their strike till their demands are met, junior doctor Sujan Ghosh said.

A large team of police personnel has been posted at the SSKM hospital and the condition of the child patient is stated to be stable, police said.

Meanwhile, three persons have been booked for allegedly



beating up the woman doctor in Sion hospital last night, police said today.

The doctor was allegedly slapped and beaten up by the relatives of a four-month-old girl, who was admitted in the hospital for treatment of pneumonia, they said.

The patient's mother and her other relatives alleged that the doctor was not providing proper medical treatment to the child, a police official said.

After the incident, the doctors present in the hospital gathered and protested in the premises, he said.

Later, the hospital administration called the police and the patient's mother was taken into custody, he said.

The woman doctor also complained to the hospital administration about the incident, he said.

The Sion police today registered an offence against the patient's mother and her two relatives under IPC section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), the official said.

According to the data of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's medical department, the present strength of security personnel in KEM hospital is 210 and there is an additional requirement of 306 guards.

The current strength of security staff in Sion hospital is 180 and there is an additional requirement of 206.

In the Nair hospital, which is also run by the BMC, presently 97 security personnel are deployed and there is an additional need of 133.

The Maharashtra government has already promised to deploy 500 security personnel from Maharashtra State Security Corporation in the hospitals by April 1.

The Medical Education Minister yesterday said that by April-end, 1,130 guards will be recruited in government hospitals to prevent attacks.

He also said that Rs 33 crore has been sanctioned for the recruitment of guards.
BJP MP Subramanian Swamy today appeared to target Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, which prompted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to call it an "unfair and false" attack on a disciplined civil servant.

"I think there a property deal case pending against him (Das) for assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations," Swamy tweeted today.

It was in reply to his twitter handle followers who had sought blacklisting of RBI Deputy Governor Urjit Patel and Das from RBI Governorship as well as sending Das back to his parent cadre Tamil Nadu.

Shortly thereafter, Jaitley, who is in China, tweeted, "An unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the Finance Ministry."



Jaitley had yesterday led a strong defence of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian after Swamy had attacked him, and rued how far politicians can go to attack those in government whose discipline and constraints of office restrain them from responding.

The Minister is in China to attend the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Board of Governor's meeting.
The Telangana government wants the Centre to transfer to it the entire land currently in possession of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi, saying the estate belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today wrote a letter to the Union Home Ministry seeking transfer of the land and expressed readiness to compensate Andhra Pradesh.

"Therefore, while bringing these facts to your kind notice in a historical perspective, it is requested that the entire land presently in possession of AP Bhavan be transferred to the Government of Telangana, as it belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad," Rao said in the letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The land on which the AP Bhavan and Telangana Bhavan are situated originally belonged to the erstwhile government of Nizam (before Independence), he said.

"The government of India later took over Hyderabad House and land in extents of 7.56 acres in Pataudi House and 1.21 acres in Nursing Institute was allotted to the then government of Andhra Pradesh in lieu of this property.

"Therefore, these properties belonged to the then state of Hyderabad under the rule of VI Nizam, which remained a separate state even after the independence of India. It was eventually included in the Union in 1948," he said.

The Andhra state did not exist then as it was carved out of erstwhile Madras state only in 1953, whereas the state of Hyderabad continued to exist as such from 1948 until November, 1956, he contended.

AP came into existence in 1956 with the merger of Andhra state and the Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad state.

The Andhra Pradesh government (post-bifurcation) may be allotted some other land in the national capital and the Telangana government is ready to compensate the neighbouring state as the buildings at the site were built with the common resources of Andhra Pradesh, he added.

State Bhavans in New Delhi, all government properties, serve as guest houses of sorts for politicians and officials visiting the national capital.
Three persons were arrested here for allegedly provoking people to oppose a campaign against open defecation in their localities.

They were arrested yesterday on the charges of disrupting peace, Tehsildar of Handia Alka Ekka said today.

During an inspection Ekka found that Amarsingh Nagraj of Mangrul village, Ramvilas Gaadri of Nayapura and Manohar Rajaram of Cheerakhan, were allegedly misguiding people and provoking them against the campaign 'Operation Mallayuddh' launched by the district administration. Following this she informed police.

The district administration has set a deadline of June 25 to declare Handia as Open Defecation Free. As part of the drive, Ekka is touring the villages to encourage people to use toilets and explain its benefits.
A two kg tiffin bomb, planted by Maoists to apparently harm security personnel, has been recovered from an insurgency-hit pocket of Chhattisgarh's Dhamtari district, police said today.

The Improvised Explosive Device (IED), weighing about 2 kg, was unearthed by a team of district force from a dirt track in the dense forest under Borai Police Station limits last evening, Dhamtari Additional Superintendent of Police Ashok Pipre said.

Acting on a tip-off, the security personnel launched the operation to trace the bomb in the region, located around 150 kms from the state capital.

They spotted the IED placed in a steel tiffin hidden underground between Katti and Saiguda villages, the ASP said.

The explosive was defused by the bomb disposal squad after it was brought to the police station, he said.

The bomb was meant to harm the security personnel during their operations in the region, he said.
Japanese auto major Toyota Corporation inaugurated its Rs 1,100 crore diesel engine manufacturing plant here on Thursday.

The plant will manufacture powerful and high performance Global Diesel (GD) engine, the company said.

The new facility is set up by Toyota Industries Engine India (TIEI), a joint venture between Kirloskar Systems (KSL) and Toyota Industries Corporation - Japan (TICO).

"The introduction of GD series engines not only equips superior technology but also meets the new fuel efficiency policies mandate in the country," Vice Chairman Vikram S Kirloskar said in a statement.

The facility is the first GD engine plant of Toyota in India and third globally, after Japan and Thailand.

The company realises diesel engine technology will remain an integral part of every automaker with strict fuel efficiency norms being implemented in India, therefore this engine project will strengthen the company's diesel business in the country, he added.

Spread across 22 acres, the plant has a capacity to produce BS 4 compliant 1.08 lakh engines per annum with an additional provision to upgrade to BS 5 and 6 with minimum investment and lead time in the future.

TIEI Deputy Managing Director T R Parasuraman said the company is strongly focused towards the 'Make in India' initiative and believes that this new engine project will add to achieve global manufacturing standards in the country.

The new plant will manufacture two types of diesel engine - 1GD-FTV 2.8 litre and 2GD-FTV - 2.4 litre.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Anant G Geete said the government is equally concerned about increasing pollution and will work to address issues faced by the auto industry, which is one of the biggest contributors to India's GDP.

"In this regard we will take a comprehensive view about the current diesel ban on vehicles above 2,000cc, both on the development and environment front along with its impact on the investment climate," he added.

The Indian automotive market is the fifth largest in the world with 40% of the cars sold being diesel-driven.
Presumptive presidential Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has alleged that her Republican rival Donald Trump launched a personal attack against her because he has no answers on the substance of the facts against him.

"Look, I know Donald Trump hates it when anyone points out how hollow his sales pitch really is," Clinton told her supporters at an election rally in this key city of North Carolina, hours after Trump called her a "world class liar".

"I guess my speech yesterday must have gotten under his skin because right away he lashed out on Twitter with outlandish lies and conspiracy theories, and he did the same in his speech today," she said.

"Now think about it. He's going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance. In fact, he doubled down on being the 'King of Debt'. So all he can do is try to distract us. That's even why he's attacking my faith," she said as a day earlier, Trump had questioned her religion.

"Of course attacking a philanthropic foundation that saves and improves lives around the world," she said referring to Trump's allegations against the Clinton Foundation.

"It's no surprise he doesn't understand these things. The Clinton Foundation helps poor people around the world get access to life-saving AIDS medicine. Donald Trump uses poor people around the world to produce his line of suits and ties," she alleged.

"We can't let Donald Trump bankrupt America the way he bankrupted his casinos. We need to write a new chapter in the American Dream - and it can't be Chapter 11," she said.

"Economists left, right, and center all agree Donald Trump will drive America back into recession. Just this week, one of Senator John McCain's former economic advisors said Trump's policies would wipe out, wipe out three-and-a-half million jobs. His tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy would add more than $30 trillion to our national debt over the next 20 years," she said.

"That is just astonishing and it's no wonder that the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the leading firms that analyses the top threats to the global economy, now ranks a Trump Presidency at 3, right behind problems in China and volatility in the commodities markets," said the former Secretary of State.

Clinton alleged Trump has no real ideas for making college more affordable or addressing the student debt crisis.

"He has no credible plan for rebuilding our infrastructure, apart from his wall. He has no real strategy for creating jobs, just a string of empty promises," she said.

"Maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone whose most famous words are, 'You're fired'. Well, here's what I want you to know: I do have a jobs program. And as president, I'm going to make sure you hear, 'You're hired'," Clinton said.
The two-day International Yoga Conference organised by the Ministry of AYUSH concluded today with a valedictory session chaired by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Mahajan gave away certificates to the first yoga institute to be accredited by the government. A delegation of 25 yoga professionals from Japan who were recently accredited under a scheme launched by the ministry, too, were honoured at the event.

Minister for AYUSH Shripad Yesso Naik enumerated the achivement of his ministry in propogating the ancient practice of yoga.

"More people are opting for yoga as a career, positive efforts have been made to introduce yoga training in the military and para-military forces and a separate central sector scheme for yoga training for police personnel has been developed.

"The new recruits of civil services will now perform yoga as part of their training programme...To inculcate the habit at a young age, NCERT has prepared syllabi on yoga for Class VI to VIII and IX to X and circulated to all the state governments and school boards," Naik said.

The two-day conference was inaugurated by Vice President Hamid Ansari yesterday and was attended by representatives from nearly 35 countries.
The financial markets in the UK are bracing for a feared "freeze" in the event of 'Brexit' or Britain's exit from the 28-nation European Union in today's historic referendum.

Bankers fear that a "Leave" vote could lead to the most volatile markets in decades, especially in currency markets but also in bonds, derivatives and equities.

Senior executive at all major banks, including Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are expected to be on an overnight vigil in their London offices to monitor the developments.

A vote in favour of the UK withdrawing from the 28-nation economic bloc could mean that the pound sterling's exchange rate would fall "perhaps sharply", the Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) recently said.

The bank remains on high alert to intervene if markets freeze, according to The Times.

Banks based in the City of London, the financial hub of the British capital, including UBS, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, have written to clients telling them to prepare for disruption tomorrow once the EU referendum result is declared.

UBS analysts warned that 350 billion pounds could be wiped off the value of leading companies as the FTSE 100 goes into free fall.

HSBC told clients, "This is an important event which will most likely impact financial markets through increased price volatility or lower market liquidity. Given our previous experience of events with significant market impact, we are writing to our clients to alert you to the risk of disruption to services as a consequence".

The banks are believed to have issued the client notes because they fear a re-run of the panic in January, 2015, when the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly abandoned its currency peg with the Euro.

In only 20 minutes, the Swiss franc appreciated by 28 per cent and banks found themselves unable to cope.

The financial world has been in favour of a "Remain" vote to ensure the UK retains as much of its access to the single market as possible.

Meanwhile, the pound rose on polling day itself though trading remained weak. European stock markets were also mostly higher today morning, although there were no big moves.

Investors and traders are expecting moves in currency markets after 10 pm when polls close and some privately commissioned exit polls by hedge funds start pouring in.

The Bank of England has emphasised that it is ready to ensure markets function after a Brexit vote.
A group of eight middle and high school students accompanied by four adults braved a trip on bicycles on the Arizona Trail from Snowbowl to the Grand Canyon earlier this month.

The purpose of the program is that we want the future of the Arizona Trail to be ensured, said Sabrina Carlson, the Northern Arizona Youth Outreach and Education Coordinator for the Arizona Trail Association. One of the best ways to ensure that is to connect with youth.

This summers trip was the second bike trip the group organized after leading five students on the ride last summer, Carlson said. This years group included four returning riders from last years trip, which Carlson said gave adult leaders a chance to watch the students grow from year to year.

Its a lot of fun to see the kids who came on the trip last year and see how much they had grown, Carlson said. The kids go through these transformative moments on the ride and they walk away with so much confidence.

Carlson was one of three adult chaperones biking with the group. They also had one adult van driver accompanying them on the ride.

The students participating ranged in age from 13 to 17 and came from cities across Arizona, including Flagstaff, Payson and Mesa.

The bike ride is about 85 miles long and took the group about five days of biking and camping to finish the journey.

Carlson said students ranged in mountain biking experience from beginners to season riders, giving the group a diverse history of experience and interests.

She said the group participated in some impromptu service learning near the canyon, where the trail needed maintenance work due to logs and sticks in the way.

Everyone hopped off their bikes and started moving sticks and logs, she said. There were a lot of downed trees on the trail for the last day of the ride.

Alana Minkler, an incoming senior at Northland Preparatory, completed the trip for the second time this year after beginning mountain biking last summer.

It was amazing, Minkler said. I feel like I accomplished so much during the ride.

Minkler said after the rush of finals week, spending a few days biking and living outdoors was a good change of pace.

After just getting out of school, its fun to go all out at the beginning of summer and do something that seems hardcore, she said.

Minkler said last years group had some hardships along the way, including a more difficult course and a lot of mud on the second leg of the ride.

This year we changed the course and we had good weather, she said. It was really fun, having fun made the ride easier in my mind.

Minklers friend went on the ride with her, but ended up twisting an ankle part of the way through, in what Carlson said was the groups first injury.

Despite her friends injury, Minkler said the ride gave her and her friend an opportunity to make friends of different ages and from other schools that she would not meet otherwise.

I learned about how much I appreciate spending quality time outside with people who I wouldnt usually have a chance to spend time with, she said.

Minkler said the moment when the group reached the Grand Canyon and were able to see how far they biked was a highlight of the trip for her.

When we finally reached the South Rim after all of our experience and our struggles, it was breathtaking, she said.

Minkler said the trip gave her a chance to clear her head after the fast pace of the school year.

After the trip it really cleared my mind, she said. I left feeling really focused and feeling like I had really accomplished a lot.

The final day of the trip the group hiked on the Bright Angel Trail in the canyon before boarding the bus and heading back to Flagstaff.
With the UK's fate in the European Union (EU) on a knife-edge, millions of Britons began voting on Thursday in the historic referendum that will decide whether the country will stay in or leave the 28-nation bloc after an acrimonious campaign.

Both sides of the campaign have appealed to a record number of registered voters  more than 46 million  including 1.2 million British Indians, for a big turnout as Prime Minister David Cameron made his final appeal to "get out there and vote Remain" and reject the "untruths" of the camp in favour of 'Brexit' or Britain's exit from the EU.

The Prime Minister voted with wife Samantha at a polling booth in Westminster, just yards from his Downing Street office from where he will keep a keen eye on the results.

"It is a fact that our economy will be weaker if we leave and stronger if we stay," Cameron told supporters in Birmingham on Wednesday as he travelled up and down the country to make a final push for votes.

As part of his closing speech, he invoked Britain's popular war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying, "The greatest privilege of my life is to stand in my office two yards away from where Winston Churchill made that decision to fight on against Hitler in 1940. He didn't want to be alone, he wanted to be with the Poles and the French and the others fighting for European freedom and democracy."

On the opposing side, former London mayor Boris Johnson, heading the final drive for the Vote Leave campaign, insisted his side was "on the verge of victory" and that today could mark the UK's "independence day".

The last poll tracker of 'The Daily Telegraph' and and a YouGov poll for 'The Times' both showed remain at 51% and leave at 49%, reflecting the neck-and-neck nature of the campaign throughout the four-month period since Cameron announced the date of the referendum in February.

A victory for remain therefore is within the margin of error, as two further polls from Opinium and TNS also forecast leave on 51% and remain on 49%.

Last night another poll, by ComRes, gave Remain an eight-point lead with 54% compared to 46% for Leave.

The referendum ballot paper asks the question, "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

Voters have the option to mark a cross next to either "Remain a member of the European Union" or "Leave the European Union" and whichever side gets more than half of all votes cast will win.

Edinburgh Council in Scotland reported that nearly a fifth of the city's 345,000 voters have already submitted postal votes in the EU referendum, with more than 82% of the city's postal voters returning their ballot paper by last evening.
The United Nations will send back home those peacekeeping troops found responsible for "lack of responsiveness" during a deadly attack on a UN base in South Sudan where 48,000 civilians had sought refuge, the world body's top peacekeeping official has said.

"We take it very seriously the fact that the Board of Inquiry points to an inadequate response by some of our people on the ground (in Malakal); there was a lack of responsiveness from some and lack of understanding about the rules of engagement," Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous told reporters yesterday after what he described as "very extensive" closed-door consultations with the UN Security Council.

Ladsous did not name the troops' countries but sources said Ethiopian, Rwandan, Indian and Bangladeshi units were deployed in Malakal at the time of the incident.

He said he has already spoken with the Permanent Representatives to the UN of the countries concerned.

"That time to call names has not come. I have talked to the Permanent Representatives of the country concerned and there will be follow up as there has been. I will not name names at this point but certainly there will be repatriation, in some cases of a unit and in other cases of individual officers," he said.

Ladsous along with Atul Khare, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, and Stephen O'Brien, Under- Secretary-General for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed the 15-member Council on that state of what are now known as 'Protection of Civilian' (PoC) sites that have been up and running in for the past two years in South Sudan.

The UN peacekeeping chief stated that "there was no question that at the time, we made the right decision to take in these people - many of them would be dead now if we had not done that. But then, no one expected the crisis (in South Sudan) to continue for such a long time and that we would still have these huge numbers in our protection sites."



The briefing came after the release of a note to correspondents, in which the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that a special investigation and a UN Headquarters board of inquiry were convened to review the circumstances of the violence that erupted in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) PoC site in Malakal from February 17 to 18, in which at least 30 internally displaced persons were killed, 123 others were wounded, and a significant portion of the camp was destroyed.

According to the note, the preliminary report of the board mentions, among others, that a number of issues contributed to the incident.

On the UNMISS response, there was confusion with respect to command and control and rules of engagement, and a lack of coordination among the various civilian and uniformed peacekeepers in Malakal at the time of the crisis, the note said.

(REOPENS FGN 60)



Further to the note, the board also mentioned that there were unrealistic expectations as to the level of protection that UNMISS could feasibly provide to the 48,000 internally displaced persons in Malakal at the time of the incident.

Ladosus said that even though the two reports on the "very very grave" incident at Malakal are not quite complete and are now being reviewed by legal experts, the officials took it very seriously that the documents "found that while some of our people on the ground responded very well, some did not. So we are following up on this."



Asked what kinds of actions the UN would take in the wake of the probe's finding, Ladsous said: "Well there is much to do. Clearly we still have to do a better job in training and it's a process. People we trained last year have since rotated (out of the Mission) so we have to make sure new incoming people get training as soon as they arrive in mission."



"It's also about explaining in depth and making sure that everyone, from the top to the bottom, has a thorough understanding of the rules of engagement and what they should do...This sort of training has to be undertaken on a very regular basis so that nobody slips through the net," he said.

In its latest update, UNMISS estimates the number of civilians seeking safety in six PoC sites located on its bases is 158,727, including 95,126 in Bentiu, 32,719 in Malakal, 27,959 in Juba UN House, 2,004 in Bor, 700 in Melut and 219 in Wau.
Set up with an aim to focus on rural developmental issues and provide a forum to villagers to air their concerns, Dhimsa FM radio station situated at Chhapar village of Umri Panchayat in Odisha's Koraput district is something unique.

Established by SOVA, a voluntary organisation, the FM station was inaugurated by Unicef's deputy representative (programmes) to India, Henriette Ahrens in presence of Koraput district Collector, Jaya Kumar V on Tuesday.

"The idea behind setting up the station was to focus on rural development issues related to food sovereignty, organic farming, women's health, children's problem and to disseminate information on various government schemes," said Sanjit Patnaik, Secretary of SOVA.

The FM station also aims to provide a platform to the rural residents for airing their concern and to promote local artists, he said.

The station with one studio to record programmes and one 50-watt FM transmitter with coverage radius of 12 km on air broadcasts programmes from 6 to 9 am, 10 am to 12 noon, 2pm to 5 pm and 6 to 9 pm in night. The programme divided into ten categories ranges from health, education, cultural, interview of villagers, phone-in among others.

As many as 62 villages of Koraput and Lamataput blocks situated at a radius of about 12 km from Chappar tune into Dhimsa radio, partaking in a repertoire of quality community-based programmes, including folk songs and theatre.

"It provides a wonderful platform to air problems



relating to women's health, child marriage, sanitation and other developmental issues. Prior to the inauguration of the station, we have prepared over 700 programmes on various subjects," said Sachida Mohanty, a radio station programmer who works full-time for Dhimsa Radio.

"As the programmes are prepared by the community in local dialects, it also provides a platform for the local artists," he added.

At least 12 reporters have been appointed by the station who extensively travel in rural areas, conduct interviews and present the problems of villagers. Also, a listener club has been formed in each of the 62 villages and they have been supplied by a radio.

"In places like Koraput we need more of such FM radio stations as the administration has limited resources to reach the people residing in remote and inaccessible areas. Through FM radio, which is also available in mobile phones, we can broadcast programmes based on various welfare-schemes of the government meant for rural areas," the collector said.

During the visit of Union home minister Rajnath Singh to Koraput in February, the district administration had urged him to open FM radio stationa at Maoist-hit Narayanpatna and Bandhugaon blocks of the district.

"When a right message reaches the people in rural areas, there are very little chances of them being misguided by the rebels," the collector said.
Uttar Pradesh Police today issued an "alert" to maintain law and order in the wake of the release of riot-themed film 'Shorgul' tomorrow.

"We have issued an alert keeping in mind the movie's release tomorrow. Directives have been issued to ensure deployment of adequate force at cinema halls to maintain law and order," Additional Director General (ADG), Law and Order Daljeet Singh Chowdhury said.

Putting aside rumours about the screening of the movie being banned as reported by the media, he said "No...There is no ban anywhere".

'Shorgul' has been shot in the backdrop of Muzaffarnagar communal riots in Uttar Pradesh.

The movie, featuring Jimmy Shergill and Ashutosh Rana in lead roles, is based on friendship between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl that snowballs into a political issue leading to unrest and chaos in society.

The movie touches upon grave subjects that have transpired in the recent past such as the Muzaffarnagar, Godhra and Babri Masjid riots apart from making references to bureaucratic misdoings, mind games and controversial master strokes of some high profile dignitaries.

A PIL was filed earlier this month by a VHP leader against the film but was dismissed by an Allahabad High Court bench in Lucknow.
US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters advanced today into the Islamic State jihadist group's bastion of Manbij in northern Syria, sparking fierce street fighting as they push to take the city.

Backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq, fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance entered Manbij from the south, a monitoring group said.

The advance marked a major breakthrough in the battle for Manbij, once a key link on the supply route between the Turkish border and IS's de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.

The loss of the city would deal another blow to IS following a string of recent battlefield defeats, including the taking by Iraqi forces earlier this month of the centre of the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

On the humanitarian front, the United Nations said it would begin flying desperately needed aid from Damascus to the northeastern city of Qamishli, which has been inaccessible by road for more than two years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said SDF forces were able to break through IS defences in Manbij a few hours after taking control of a village on the city's southwestern outskirts.

"Fierce street fighting between buildings" erupted as they entered the city, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a broad network of sources inside Syria to monitor the conflict.

An SDF commander at the front told AFP that IS fighters were using car bombs and other explosives to try to slow the assault.

"Our forces, in coordination with the coalition, are determined to advance inside the city and eliminate all Daesh fighters," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Abdel Rahman said tens of thousands of civilians were trapped inside the city, though some 8,000 had been able to flee since the start of the SDF offensive on Manbij on May 31.

He said six civilians including a child were killed today by a mine as they tried to flee the city, which had a population of about 120,000 before the start of Syria's civil war in 2011.

The SDF managed to encircle the city on June 10 but its advance slowed as IS fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.
Seeking a vote on strict gun control laws in the wake of America's deadliest mass shooting last week that killed 49 people in Orlando, Democratic Congressmen resorted to an unprecedented sit-in inside the well of the US House of Representatives.

The leadership of the Republican party, which holds a majority in the House, refused to budge and instead shut off the television cameras used for live coverage.

The Democratic Congressmen used their own smartphones to live telecast -- through Facebook and other social media sites -- the proceedings inside the House along with their sit-in demonstrations in the House well.

Images from inside the well of the House reflected a chaotic situation rarely seen.

One television commentator described this like an anarchy and lawlessness as the rare sit-in inside the House crossed midnight even after the lights were switched off.

"Enough is enough," said Indian American Congressman Ami Bera, as he joined his fellow Democratic lawmakers in the protest, which was led by legendary Congressman John Lewis known for his civil disobedience movement.

"Republicans denied us a vote, we sat on the Floor. We sat on the Floor, with John Larson presiding. When they turned off the House cameras, we livestreamed from our phones," said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in her remarks on the House floor late last night.

"Because of you, they cannot - they can try to shut down the Floor, but because of you, they cannot shut out the voices of the victims and the will of the American people. And now, as you hold up the names of people who have been victims of violence," she said.

Democratic lawmakers were demanding that Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives bring up a vote on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation before the House recesses.

Refusing to budge under pressure, Ryan described this as a publicity stunt by Democrats.

"This is nothing more than a publicity stunt. That's point number one. Point number two is this bill was already defeated in the United States Senate. Number three, we're not going to take away a citizen's due process rights," Ryan said.

"We're not going to take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process. That was already defeated in the Senate. And this is not the way to try and bring up legislation," he told CNN in an interview.

Ryan defended his decision to shut off the cameras and lights arguing that these are as per the House rules.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer demanded that Republicans hold a vote on legislation on gun violence.

"After the unspeakable slaughter of 49 innocent people in Orlando earlier this month, it is unconscionable that House Republicans would continue to block a vote even on commonsense safeguards, including expanding background checks and preventing dangerous firearms from being sold to terror suspects," Hoyer said.

"This is an issue that ought to transcend party - it's about saving lives and keeping our communities safe," he said.
US military leaders are weighing whether to request additional coalition troops to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq, but no decisions have been made, a military official said today.

"We're constantly looking to see if we're right-sized," said British Army Major General Doug Chalmers, adding that troop levels and additional capabilities formed part of an "ongoing dialogue."



The comments from Chalmers, who is deputy commander for support in the US-led coalition against the IS group in Iraq and Syria, followed a Washington Post story saying generals want to ask President Barack Obama for additional troops and equipment to help consolidate gains against the jihadists.

Chalmers declined to provide specifics but said additional capabilities could come in the form of logistics, equipment, air support and surveillance.

When asked how many additional troops might be requested, he said: "I can guarantee you, it's not (in) the thousands."



The Post said Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, who heads coalition forces in Iraq, is among a group of military leaders, administration officials and lawmakers who are fed up with "arbitrary" limits on troop numbers.

The last reinforcement of US troops in Iraq came in April, when Pentagon chief Ashton Carter announced the total number of troops would be augmented by 217, bringing the official tally up to 4,087.

The actual number, however, is higher because the Pentagon doesn't count certain categories of troops.

Obama has been reluctant to deploy additional forces to Iraq -- as well as to neighboring Syria -- to combat the IS group because he came to power on the promise of ending the war in Iraq and is wary of a gradual re-escalation.

Iraqi security forces have made significant gains against the IS group, and are in the process of clearing any remaining IS fighters from Fallujah.

Most US troops in Iraq serve in an advisory role with Iraqi partners, though some special operations forces have helped carry out anti-IS raids.

The American presence in Iraq is a sensitive one for the Iraqis too, especially among Shiite militias wary of US forces.
British telecom major Vodafone is likely to take a call on the timeline of initial public offer of its Indian arm after conclusion of the impending spectrum auction.

"Timelines (on Vodafone India IPO) will be most probably decided after spectrum auction this fiscal in India is over," a source privy to the Vodafone IPO plan told PTI.

When contacted, a Vodafone spokesperson said, "We have started IPO preparations, which includes conversations with banks, but no final decision has yet been taken as to whether or not we will IPO."



Kotak Investment Banking, Bank of America, HSBC Holdings, Deutsche Bank AG and ICICI Securities for working on the IPO of Vodafone India-- the second largest telecom operator in India.

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved mega-spectrum auction plan in which airwaves worth Rs 5.66 lakh crore for mobile services will be put for auction. However, the timeline for auction was not finalised as Cabinet has asked telecom ministry to seek view of telecom regulator on issue of annual spectrum charges.

As per industry sources, the auction has been planned to start in September but the same has not been confirmed officially.

While the Cabinet has not lowered spectrum base price as demanded by industry, it has relaxed equity lock-in period from 3 years to one year.
has taken a hit as it has declined 18% to 22.9 million tonnes so far in the current 2016-17 marketing year (April-March), following lower arrival of grains in the market despite forecast of a higher output and the purchase process has almost ended.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains, had procured 28 million tonnes of wheat in the 2015-16 marketing year but Bulk of the procurement is done during April-June.

Procurement has fallen mainly due to lower arrival of wheat this year at about 25.6 million tonnes as against over 31 million tonnes last year, a senior official said.

However, the official said there would not be any shortage of wheat in the country as FCI has about 31 mt of wheat in the stock as against the buffer norm of 27.5 million tonnes as on July 1.

In view of the lower procurement, the government has reduced the quantity of wheat to be sold under Open Market Sale Scheme in 2016-17 against 10 mt last year.

According to Agriculture Ministry's third advance estimate, India's production has risen to 94.05 mt in the 2015-16 crop year (July-June), from 86.53 mt in the previous year.

The government has decided to further extend 25% import duty on wheat to curb inward shipments. Private traders have so far imported 5 lakh tonnes of wheat from Australia and France.
Will India's current account deficit dive?

Brexit or no Brexit, India is better prepared for any turmoil this time than it was 3 years ago

Brexit or no Brexit, India is better prepared for any turmoil this time than it was 3 years ago

Its been three years since the taper tantrum of 2013 stressed Indias current account deficit (CAD) and sent the rupee in a free-fall against the US dollar. Weve come a long way since then. Lets first take a look at the breakdown of the current account deficit. The current account broadly measures a countrys position in external trade. It is the total of net merchandise (or exports minus imports) and invisibles (trade of items you cant see like software exports). When the total of invisibles and merchandise is negative, it results ...

Anupam Gupta
Indian analytics industry is expected to touch $16 billion by 2025 from the current level of $2 billion, a senior Nasscom official said on Thursday.

Over 600 analytical firms in India, of which approximately 400 are startups, are positioning the country as an emerging hub for analytics solutions for industries across the globe, Nasscom Vice President K S Viswanathan told reporters on the sidelines of the fourth edition of its 'Big Data and Analytics Summit 2016'.

"Growing at eight times the current levels, the analytics industry is expected to reach $16 billion from the current level of $2 billion by 2025. Indian analytics market is growing at 26 per cent CAGR.

"India is today amongst the top ten destinations for analytics and our aspiration is to be amongst the top three in the world by 2025. Nasscom is partnering with its members to build a multi-pronged approach that encompasses skill development, thought leadership, products and platforms to realise this vision," he said.

He said the rapid rise of analytics is reflected in job creation across verticals and functions with skills from analytics, business and technology.

With over 90,000 analytics professionals in India across HR, marketing, risk and security, healthcare, retail and finance verticals, the industry is witnessing the emergence of specialised roles like data architect, data strategist, data visualisation analyst and change manager, among others, he added.

BVR Mohan Reddy, former Chairman of Nasscom and Founder and Executive Chairman at Cyient, said multiple opportunities are emerging across business verticals like data, infrastructure, software and analytics.

The growth trajectory shows that India will soon emerge as big data and analytics hub of the world, he added.
RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday hit back at his critics saying he will be around a lot in India even after leaving the central bank and should not be written off as yet.

"I feel like in the last few days I have read a lot of my obituaries and I'm still here. I'm still here for two-and-half months in this job. After that I'm going to still be around somewhere in the world, probably a lot in India, so don't write me off," Rajan told journalists.

ALSO READ: Raghuram Rajan and Nikesh Arora: A tale of two exits

During the question-and-answer session he further said, "the only thing I will say is that... I read these obituaries in the papers, I am still alive. I will leave this office in September, but I certainly will be coming in and out of the country on numerous occasions."

"I will be reading and writing and I will be speaking at fora like this," he said an interactive meeting organised by business chamber Assocham.

Rajan also rejected chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian's proposal that RBI should infuse its surplus funds to capitalise ailing public sector banks. He said it was a non-transparent idea that can create conflicts of interest.

Rajan, who last weekend surprised everyone by making public his no to a second term, said RBI should continue paying as much dividend as possible to the government, which in turn should be recapitalising the public sector banks.

The Economic Survey has suggested the RBI capitalise public sector banks. This seems a non-transparent way of proceeding, getting the banking regulator once again into the business of owning banks, with attendant conflicts of interest, Rajan said.

He said rather than doing this, RBI should pay as much dividend as possible to the, which over the past two years has run into billions of dollars . The RBI had transferred a whopping Rs 65,896 crore to the Government in 2014-15.
After seeking removal of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan for not being "mentally fully Indian", the BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has trained his guns on the Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian.

A day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley came out in strong defence of CEA, Swamy took to Twitter to launch a series of attacks against current Chief Economic Advisor.

If an Indian?, held patriotic, can advise a foreign nation where he works, to twist India's arm, is to be forgiven, then I suspend my demand - Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 23, 2016



Targetting Subramanian for his alleged anti-India stand while he was an IMF economist in Washington, Swamy tweeted yesterday, "Who said to US Cong on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US Pharmaceuticals interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF !! Sack him!!!"

The attack comes amid wider speculation over the possible contenders for the post of next RBI governor, as the incumbent Raghuram Rajan has decided not to seek a second term after his tenure expires in September. The Chief Economic Advisor is seen as among the contenders.



Subramanian was appointed CEA by the BJP government in October 2014 after his predecessor Raghuram Rajan moved to the RBI as Governor in September 2013.
The "extra push" given to the textiles industry through an incentive package will help create more jobs and push exports, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

"It is a sector where India has gained a lot of advantage ... It has a great potential for job creation," the minister said.

This "extra push" was given to the sector due to various global developments, she said.

The Union Cabinet yesterday approved a Rs 6,000 crore package for textiles and apparel sector with an aim to create one crore new jobs in three years and attract investments of $11 billion while eyeing $30 billion in exports.

Textiles exports contribute significantly to the country's total exports at about $17 billion in 2014-15. The sector is witnessing huge competition from small countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, which have access to developed markets at lower tariffs.

When asked about the impact of Brexit (possible exit of Britain from European Union) on India, Sitharaman said that the government is "watching the situation".

"We will be observing the developments. It is too early for me to comment (on its impact)," she added.

Talking about the stalled India-EU free trade agreement, the minister said India is waiting for the dates to resume the talks.

"We are waiting for the dates. It is my doubt that if because they are waiting for the outcome of Brexit, they have not yet given the dates as yet. The moment they give the dates, we will be keenly wanting to continue the talks to reach the conclusion at the earliest," she added.

Launched in June 2007, the negotiations for the proposed agreement have witnessed many hurdles with both sides having major differences on crucial issues like intellectual property rights, duty cut in automobile and spirits, and liberal visa regime.

The pact is aimed at reducing or significantly eliminating tariffs on goods, facilitating trade in services and boosting investments between the two sides.

When asked about Apple Inc's proposal to open single brand retail stores in the country after announcement of the tweaked FDI policy in the sector, Sitharaman said: "We have announced the policy. We will wait to hear from them".

The ministry has stated that it will give exemption to foreign firms such as Apple Inc coming with state-of-the-art technology from the mandatory local sourcing norms in the single-brand retail sector for up to three years.
With the telecom regulator issuing guidelines for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs, or VNOs) earlier this month, India is set to herald an era of no-frills telecom services. Consider them the low-cost airlines of the telecom industry. MVNOs buy airtime in bulk from existing telecom operators and sell branded SIMs to users in niche markets, which could include specific user groups - low-paying users, data-only users, roaming users (for both calls and data), non-roaming users, migrants and youth. In mature markets, they've captured as much as 10 per cent of the subscriber base. In India, Future Group, Datawind and Paytm have expressed interest in MVNO operations.

However, India may have mistimed its MVNO foray. For one, in a market where the primary telecom operators themselves are offering sub-standard voice and data services, MVNOs - who buy connections from networks, such as Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Idea, etc. - are unlikely to be able to offer any better services. In fact, they will be in no position to address subscribers' grievances about poor services, since they have no control over the physical infrastructure of the host operator.

Two, while most markets where MVNOs have been successful have four to five operators, at best, in India, most states have up to 12 operators. Besides, since they sell lower-priced voice and data packs, MVNOs will have a tough time creating a market for themselves. The average revenue per user (ARPUs) in India are already among the lowest in the world. Undercutting that will either extend MVNOs' gestation period or leave them deep in the red. As per a McKinsey & Co 2014 report titled Virtually Mobile: What drives MVNO success, "depending on the MVNO operational model and the segment of the target market, investment payback can usually be expected in four to six years".

Also, historically, carriers have refrained from entering into agreements with MVNOs fearing they may lose premium customers to them. In France, for instance, some carriers have resisted renting 3G airwaves to MVNOs. The scenario is changing, though. Telecom players may not give the same attention to their potential customer groups, because these niche markets lie beyond the traditional marketing approaches or are too costly to serve.

MVNOs have had a rough experience in India. In 2008, Virgin Mobile tied up with Tata Teleservices to launch its MVNO service targeted towards the youth. Like Tata Teleservices' core business, the venture did not do well and was merged with Tata DoCoMo last year.

Managing costs seems to be the key. MVNOs have to work on multiple fronts - for instance, decide on which services should be outsourced and which have to be managed in-house. "Winning MVNOs minimise costs by selecting the right mobile virtual network enablers to assist with key operations such as billing and administration," says the McKinsey & Co report.

Almost 80 per cent of MVNOs' costs such as wholesale airtime costs, customer acquisition and marketing expenses are variable. The success of MVNOs like Telmore (Denmark), Simyo (Germany) and TracFone (US) suggests that they can achieve commercial viability by being innovative with the cost structure. For instance, TracFone has kept acquisition costs low by relying on neighbourhood grocery stores.

As per GSMA research, MVNOs largely operate in markets where mobile penetration is over 100 per cent because operators are looking at newer ways to attract new customers. India's market penetration stands at around 75 per cent, which is different from the global scenario. But in mature markets like Delhi and Mumbai, it has crossed 100 per cent.

Striking the right partnership with carriers is crucial as MVNOs can ensure that their wholesale airtime rates are low enough to prevent the host network from reducing its own customer-facing prices. On an average, a host network takes away around 30 per cent of MVNOs' revenues for using their network.

Globally, there are over 1,000 MVNOs; the largest multinational players being Lycamobile, Lebara and Virgin Mobile. Walmart, WhatsApp, Xiaomi, Alibaba and Tesco also have MVNO services. As per GSMA Intelligence, around 9 per cent of MVNOs offer data-only services via dongles and Mi-Fis.

The international MVNO market has gone through several phases. The first dates back to the start of the millennium when players offered basic products. The next phase began in mid-2000s, when the voice market got saturated and 3G technology was taking off. By the end of the last decade, most players folded up due to over-segmentation of the markets. Players with a focus on budget prepaid segment and sub-brands of some telcos - Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile - survived. Since 2012, the market is seeing a sudden rush of players setting up MVNO operations. Why now? Till a few years ago, telecom players adopted prohibitive pricing for MVNOs, making their business models unsustainable. However, they have become flexible of late.

According to Transparency Market Research, the global MVNO market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 7.4 per cent between 2015 and 2023. In 2014, the value of this market was pegged at $39.1 billion. In developed countries, MVNOs typically capture between 10 and 40 per cent of the total market. It takes about $0.7 million to start MVNO operations. Meanwhile, this space is witnessing deals. In April, telecom and mobile payments technology provider XIUS joined hands with UK-based MVNO management consulting firm Hebitel to help companies launch MVNOs in India.

The new norms may have some takers early on and will certainly add depth to the telecom market. However, given the changes in the telecom sector currently, the scenario looks slightly hostile for MVNOs.


State-run life insurance behemoth LIC Chairman S K Roy, appointed by previous UPA government, has resigned nearly two years ahead of completion of his five-year term. Roy, who has been with LIC since 1981, took charge as chairman in June 2013.

According to sources, Roy has officially tendered his resignation and the Finance Ministry will send it to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for acceptance.

However, the exact reason for his sudden exit could not be ascertained immediately. He had made similar request some months ago but the Finance Ministry asked him to reconsider that, sources said.

After the approval from ACC, the Finance Ministry would begin search for his replacement, sources added. Roy joined Life Insurance Corporation of India in 1981.

On May 31, 2013, he assumed charge as Managing Director of LIC. Prior to his elevation, he was head of the International Operations division.


Foreign private equity investors typically set up offshore pooling vehicles for routing investments into India, which offer them twin advantages of ease of administration and single window compliance with the Indian regulatory regime. Setting up such pooling vehicles in a tax favourable jurisdiction ensures that the interposition of the pooling entity comes at no additional tax cost and provides a common treaty vehicle to foreign investors. As India revamps its international tax rules, Indian-focused offshore private equity funds face four key tax challenges in relation to such offshore pooling vehicle.

Previously, any sale or redemption of shares or units of the offshore fund was not taxable in India. Offshore funds could distribute returns to their investors without attracting Indian taxes. However, post the indirect transfer tax-related amendments, sale or redemption of shares or units of the offshore fund may be taxed in India. Now, offshore funds need to evaluate payout options for structuring tax-effective distribution to their investors.

Secondly, the governance structure of offshore funds has become critical in view of India's new residency test for foreign companies, that is, the place of effective management (POEM) test. Offshore funds are likely to qualify as companies that are not engaged in active business outside India in terms of the Central Board of Direct Tax's draft guidelines on POEM, and will need to satisfy an exhaustive criteria to demonstrate that their tax residency is overseas.

Third, the permanent establishment risk continues to dictate the offshore fund's presence in India. The safe harbour rule introduced by Finance Act, 2015 for encouraging the re-location of fund managers in India is rendered otiose by the impracticability of the conditions, which an offshore fund is required to meet before it can seek its refuge.

Fourth, the withdrawal of the capital gains tax exemption under the India-Mauritius tax treaty and its domino effect on the India-Singapore tax treaty, has left investors in search of a favourable tax jurisdiction for routing investments into. Hitherto, bulk of the private equity investments into India were routed through such jurisdictions. Moreover, with the General Anti Avoidance Rules on the anvil, instilling commercial substance in the offshore pooling vehicle will become crucial for availing tax treaty benefits.

In light of India's evolving tax law, offshore funds need to re-evaluate governance structures and payout mechanisms to protect the efficacy of the offshore pooling vehicle.

The author is Partner, Shardul Amarchand & Managaldas & Co. He was assisted by Gouri Puri, Senior Associate, Shardul Amarchand & Managaldas & Co.
The India-China Financial Dialogue due to be held in Beijing between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.

Jaitley is due to arrive in Beijing on Thursday on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue.

But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources in Beijing told PTI.

Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das could not attend the meeting.

Till now the two countries held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.

This is the first time it was elevated to level of Finance Ministers of both countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.

It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27.

The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.

The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhi's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the group's meeting in Seoul.

During his visit to China, which is the first after he took over as finance minister, Jaitley is due to address meetings of bankers and wealth fund managers and business investors meeting to scout for investments in India.

He is also due to attend the Board of Governors meeting of the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India along with 56 countries are members.


Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's five-day visit to China regarding the financial dialogue meet stands cancelled on Thursday.

ALSO READ: India-China finance dialogue cancelled



This is reportedly due to the Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das who could not be present. It is no surprise that this cancellation comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhi's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the group's meeting in Seoul. At the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for Tashkent on Thursday to attend the two-day Shanghai Co-operation Summit (SCO) with hopes to pursue India's membership in the Nuclear Supplier's group. Modi will also meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to push forward the diplomacy of NSG. ALSO READ: Why NSG membership is important for India



India vs. Pakistan?

China nearly ruled out the possibility of India's entry into the NSG on Wednesday when it restated that countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) were not on the agenda.

Days after India raised a bid to join the NSG, Pakistan too made a similar bid to join the club of countries controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology.

China is supposedly acting in the behest of its "all weather ally" Pakistan even though both the countries have not signed the NPT.



The Catch

The NSG works on a principle of consensus and a single hold-out by a country can ruin India's entry into the NSG.

Up till now, India has a firm backing by US, Britain, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland and Russia. The opponents have raised concern that admitting India will rile tensions with Pakistan.

Thus, China will be playing a crucial role in further developments regarding the NSG.


State-run telecom operator BSNL said it added the most number of subscribers in April, beating its private sector competitors for the third month in a row.

"Growth of BSNL in April 2016 is 1.32 per cent against the industry average 0.06 per cent. BSNL has given highest growth consistently in last months ie February, March and April," BSNL said in a statement.

As per latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, telecom subscriber base in April marginally grew to 105.92 crore from 105.88 crore in March.

Mobile subscriber base increased by 0.06 per cent from 103.36 crore in March to 103.42 crore in April.

Growth in mobile segment in April was led by BSNL which added 11.39 lakh subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel (9.78 lakh), Aircel (5.72 lakh), Reliance Communications (1.1 lakh), Vodafone (46,600), Quadrant (Videocon group firm - 25,012) and MTNL (11,591).

Videocon, which has sold its mobile business to Airtel, lost 14 lakh subscribers. Companies which lost subscribers in April included Tata Teleservices (3.97 lakh), Idea Cellular (3.87 lakh), Sistema (42,290) and Telenor (25,496).


Egyptian Streets

Egypts National Falcon Company for Airport Security signed an airport security agreement with British Company Restrata for Consulting and Training, announced Egypts Civil Aviation Ministry on Tuesday.

According to Al-Ahram, citing the Civil Aviation Ministry, the agreement will see the training of 7,000 personnel in airport security procedures. A second agreement hired the British firm as a security consultant on airport security.

National Falcon is a joint venture for airport security between Falcon Group International and the Egyptian government.

The agreement was announced on the same day British Airways announced it would be indefinitely suspending all flights to Sharm El-Sheikh, despite earlier indications that flights would resume this September.

Egypts airport security has been under scrutiny since the crash of a Russian airliner in October 2015 which killed all 224 people on board. Egypt hired a British consulting firm to review airport security in December 2015, and has allocated $US 32 million to the budget of airport security.

The continued suspension of flights to Egyptian cities, including by Russia, is greatly harmful to Egypts tourism industry which has been failing since the 2011 revolution. Approximately four million Egyptians work in the tourism sector, which accounts for 12.6 percent of the countrys total employment and about 12 percent of the economy.
Enterprise Ireland has today launched the International Business Womens Conference to be held in conjunction with the Rose of Tralee international Festival on Monday August 22nd in the Brandon Hotel, Tralee.

In its second year, the event gathers leaders from across the business and entrepreneurial spectrum to celebrate the business achievements and success stories of women today.



This years conference theme is The Changing Face of Success focussing on strong female role models leading by example and empowering women to fulfill their ambitions.

Senior female figures such as Eleanor McEvoy and Norah Casey from Dragons Den will share their experiences and insights on themes such as leadership, linking the digital age and entrepreneurship.



The conference is sponsored by AIB, the Department of the Diaspora and media partner Tatler, conference delegates will also hear from the Rose of Tralee, Elysha Brennan, as well as previous Roses including 2005 Rose of Tralee, Dr. Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain.



Announcing the conference, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell OConnor said, "I am delighted that the International Business Womens Conference is in its second year. This is a hugely important and inspiring event which brings together successful, inspirational female entrepreneurs. It is great to see the range and diversity of the speakers that will be attending the conference."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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The Banking and Payment Federation of Irelands mortgage approvals series shows that a total of 610m of mortgage approvals was recorded in May 2016, a 6% increase on April 2016 and a 27% increase on May 2015.



The figures indicate that the increase in approvals is predominantly driven by increases in the mover segment, up 31% month-on-month and 35% year-on-year. First-time buyer approvals declined 12% month-on-month but increased 14% year-on-year.



Furthermore, re-mortgage approvals have also continued to increase, up 11% month-on-month and 34% year-on-year.

Re-mortgage approvals now account for 7% of all approvals year-to-date, up from 5% of approvals in 2015. The average value of mortgage approval has also increased, by 5% month-on-month and 10% year-on-year, and now stands at 201,000 in May 2016.



According to Davy Stockbrokers, "With mortgage approvals at their highest levels since the series began, momentum has been regained in the mortgage market following a weak first quarter for approvals."

They added, "Elsewhere, the launch of EBSs 2% cash-back offer further demonstrates the heightened level of competition in the Irish mortgage market."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
Business World

Directing business to your site is the most important thing you can do online. Whether you direct potential customers to your home page or a specific page on your site, your landing page needs to be coherent, customer focused and commercial.

Business World supports a broad range of clients across numerous diverse sectors; retail finance, banking, FMCG, regulatory authorities and many more. We support these clients with various written content; blogs, news feed and editorials from our content creation Dublin base.

Driving people towards your landing page is fundamental to pushing your online offering, Business World have collated some tips to boost your landing page.

5 Key Landing Page Tips

The landing page is often the most important page on your website and as such should be the best that your budget / time can afford.

In a bid to help you get the best from your site Business World has compiled a list of 5 key landing page points to drive your online presence:

1. Your landing page should be the page that your blogs, social media and sales pitches lead to. It doesnt necessarily need to be your home page; many landing pages are elsewhere on a website and are specifically used for conversion.

2. Keep the landing page uncluttered and focused, what are you trying to sell? What services do you provide? Make sure whatever you are offering is front and centre.

3. Content needs to be king; there are some great content marketing companies that can help you improve your written content  Business World for example! Your written content should match the tone of your products / customers.

4. A good opening offer  every one offers free trials or consultations; what can you offer a potential client that will induce them to take on your service or buy from you? How do you go beyond your competitor?

5. Large number of leads or fewer more high quality leads  pitch your landing page at the right level of engagement. Dont ask for a stack of information in the first instance if its not necessary. A major turn off for the casual visitor is long forms to fill out. Requesting a name and an email address is usually enough if you are to include a contact box.

Think Business World, Think Content Creation Dublin

Supporting some of the biggest names in the Financial sector; Insurance, Fin-Tech, state regulators and well known High St. banks, Business World are at the forefront of content creation, content marketing and written content services across Dublin / Ireland.

We are adept at creating the content that you need, whether for a landing page, email shots, bespoke newsfeeds or any other written content that you could need.

Get in touch with John Compton today for all your content creation Dublin services
Ireland has the potential to assert itself as a World leader in manufacturing, if the necessary infrastructure investment is delivered.

This is according to Ibec, the group that represents Irish business. They will be discussing the future needs of the manufacturing industry at today's annual Ibec Manufacturing Conference, "Manufacturing for Tomorrow.

The industry will be examined by a line-up of senior leaders across the sector along with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell OConnor TD.



Ahead of the conference, Ibec claimed that 82% of manufactures are based outside the Dublin region. They have called on the Government to commit to delivering the necessary investment to bridge the infrastructure gaps that have emerged between Dublin and other parts of the country over recent years.



Furthermore, Ibec are calling on the Government to commit to spending an additional 10 billion in infrastructure projects by 2020.

Director of Ibec's Irish Manufacturers Association (IMA), Avine McNally said, "There is an intrinsic link between a productive manufacturing sector and a growing economy. With enough government support and planning, Ireland can thrive as a world leader in quality manufacturing, but we need to get the business environment right."

She added, "We must be competitive and better support cross sectoral collaboration and ensure our workforce is up to the task. We also need to significantly invest in our national infrastructure."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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London's EU expats face a nervous wait on polling day

Published on June 23, 2016

Story by Lucas TRIPOTEAU Translation by: Joseph Pearson

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Many Europeans have chosen to set up shop in London, with the view of finding a job and getting on with their lives. If the United Kingdom is about to leave the European Union, they could without doubt be the first victims of the decision. Meet the expats who are beginning to get a little hot under the collar...

London is an El Dorado for many young people. In 2014, the city's former mayor Boris Johnson, even called himself "the mayor of the sixth biggest French city on earth," thanks to the 225,000 "Frenchies" living in the British capital. [The number may be accurate, but in reality this makes London the 30th biggest French city, just between Angers and Dijon, ed.] Seeing as the job market elsewhere offers them precious few employment options, we asked young European expats  French or otherwise  how they saw their lives being in the event of a Brexit. Even if many really don't know where they will soon be calling home, everyone is worried, and fearfully awaiting the results of today's referendum.

Oceanne (22), French, works in a cafe

"I'm afraid of having to leave the United Kingdom. It's probably going to be complicated for me to get a visa. I've lived in London for nearly three years and I'm happy here. Above all, I came here to look for a job. Because I wear the veil it can difficult for me to find a job in France. Here, people are more open; there's greater freedom of expression. I don't fancy going back to France, but if the UK leaves the EU, it's not out of the question that I will have to. We'll see tonight what the results will be. It's a shame that expats that live and work here aren't allowed to vote."

Wojciech (36), Polish, works in the restaurant industry

"I came here shortly after Poland joined the Union [in 2004, ed.], so I've lived in London for nearly 11 years. I'm a little worried, because we don't really know how our rights are going to change. What visa restrictions will be put in place? Who will be allowed to stay? Will we have to earn more than 25,000 or 35,000 pounds to have the right to reside in Britain? You hear so many stupid things; nobody really knows what's going to happen. The situation is confusing enough as it is. In any case, I'd like to stay in London, and I think that the British people will vote to stay."

Yana (25), Bulgaria, freelance filmmaker

"Nobody knows exactly what's going to happen, but I suppose that I would have to leave. If Britain chooses to withdraw from the Union, I'm not even sure how to begin the procedure to obtain a visa. It's without a doubt going to be tricky. Why would they want me to stay if they're voting for immigration controls? That wouldn't make any sense. I arrived in the UK six years ago. I studied in Scotland and came to London after that. I've friends and contacts here; there's no reason why I would choose to leave. If I had to go, I think I'd head to Spain. I already lived there for a year when I was on Erasmus."

Sonia (25), Italian, working in the hotel industry

"I came to the UK ten years ago to find a job. I lived in Sheffield before I came to London. I come from the south of Italy and it's very difficult to find a stable job there nowadays. I can't imagine myself going back. I also met my boyfriend here, who's from the Ivory Coast. If the UK leaves the EU, we'll both be people who need a visa to live here, so it won't be simple. We don't yet know what we're going to have to do. So I'm a little worried as I wait for the referendum results."

Maria (29) Spanish, works in a shop

"I moved to London three months ago. The employment situation for young Spanish people is disastrous. I decided to come here to look for a job and learn English. I don't really know what will happen if Britain votes to leave the EU. Maybe there won't be a problem for people who've been here since a certain time, or for skilled labourers. But what about the others? It's a good question. I sincerely hope that the United Kingdom will stay in the EU. I think it will happen."

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This article was published by our local team at cafebabel Brussels.

---

We've officially been banned from quoting The Clash, but the question nevertheless invokes the famous song. On the 23rd of June 2016, citizens of the United Kingdom will vote on whether or not they want to remain a member state of the European Union. We've a few Babelians who have a thing or two to say about that...

Story by Lucas TRIPOTEAU

Translated from Le Brexit et les expats : la menace fantome
COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Actress and activist Kathy Najimy steps out from behind the podium Wednesday after speaking during the Women's Shelter of South Texas's 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon at the American Bank Center.

SHARE COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Attendees of the Women's Shelter of South Texas's 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon listen to Kathy Najimy's speech Wednesday. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Actress and activist Kathy Najimy speaks Wednesday during the Women's Shelter of South Texas's 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon at the American Bank Center. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Attendees of the Women's Shelter of South Texas's 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon listen to Kathy Najimy's speech Wednesday. COURTNEY SACCO/CALLER-TIMES Actress and activist Kathy Najimy speaks Wednesday during the Women's Shelter of South Texas's 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon at the American Bank Center.

By Krista M. Torralva of the Caller-Times

Kathy Najimy's favorite children's story is Sleeping Beauty.

"She's just sleeping and some stranger just rides up and without asking her, he just kisses her without her permission," Najimy said Wednesday as the guest speaker at the Women's Shelter of South Texas 5th Annual Great Expectations Speaker Series Luncheon. "And this strange man that she's never met before steals her away and she ends up marrying him with no background check."

Najimy's sarcasm drew laughs from the nearly 600 people attending the annual luncheon at the American Bank Center. Though the actress' aim was humor, she also was making a point: Society teaches girls what their roles are.

"You weren't born caring about your weight or your looks. It's not organic. It's learned," Najimy said to the Caller-Times after her speech.

Najimy said she's taught her 19-year-old daughter to realize society tries to tell women what they're worth and to combat it with self awareness.

"If you can identify what's coming at you and go, 'Oh they want me to feel like this,' it doesn't mean you won't feel like this  you probably will  but as long as you identify it, you have a really great chance to experience some go around and create your own life," Najimy said.

Najimy, also a women's rights activist, spoke about gender wage gaps and how economic factors can play a role in a domestic violence victim's decision to stay with her partner. She offered answers for the common question, "Why doesn't she just leave?"

"Well let me take me just take my low income job, my three kids and my dried up wedding bouquet and split," Najimy said sarcastically.

The Women's Shelter of South Texas served more than 2,800 clients from 12 counties in 2015, about an 8 percent increase from the year before. More than 800 of those lived in the shelter for some time.

One of those clients shared her story of escaping an abusive 4-year-long marriage in another state and seeking refuge at the local shelter. The woman, whose full name was not revealed, called the shelter before fleeing and was comforted by what they told her: We will have space for you.

"I am your legacy," the woman said to the room of donors. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much."

She smiled and hundreds of people stood in applause.

Before closing her remarks, Najimy asked the audience of mostly women to raise their glasses for a toast.

"To all of the men in this room and all of the men in our lives who vocally oppose assault and abuse, who confidently speak up and support women and who stand as examples and raise their children to be kind, caring and gentle," she said.

Twitter: @CallerKMT
SHARE Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file The Texas Department of Transportation wants to move and raise the Harbor Bridge, which links Corpus Christi's Northside with North Beach, to serve taller vessels through the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

By Kirsten Crow of the Caller-Times

Depending on final evaluations, more refinements could be coming for the design of the replacement Harbor Bridge  including the possibility of making the intersection of South Staples Street and the freeway downtown more pedestrian-friendly.

Currently, traveling from the Northside to downtown along Staples Street means driving or walking across an overpass that essentially appears as a bridge above the Interstate 37 highway below.

A proposal under consideration for the Harbor Bridge design would alter the landscape by drawing Interstate 37 up to the level of South Staples Street, creating an at-grade intersection with a traffic signal and crosswalk, transportation officials have said. It's a move that, if ultimately implemented, would represent a radical departure from the interstate's profile.

Bridge design modifications under evaluation will be showcased in an open house slated from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Coles High School and Education Center. Representatives from the Texas Department of Transportation and Flatiron/Dragados, the company designing the replacement Harbor Bridge, will be on hand to talk with residents.

Replacing the Harbor Bridge  a project estimated at $898 million  is intended to improve safety and also facilitate traffic of more modern ships by elevating the height of the bridge over the harbor. The existing Harbor Bridge was constructed in the 1950s.

Aug. 8 is the anticipated groundbreaking for the construction project, port officials said earlier this week.

The Thursday meeting won't include any formal presentations, according to a news release sent by Flatiron/Dragados.

Instead, the meeting will be held in an open house format, with visuals and display boards of the proposed design modifications, said Rickey Dailey, transportation department spokesman.

In April, it was announced that a refinement in bridge design would eliminate six stoplights that were located within two blocks of the Interstate 37 and U.S. Highway 181 interchange and create smoother traffic flow with what designers described as looped ramps.

Twitter: @CallerCrow

IF YOU GO

What: Texas Department of Transportation meeting

When: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Coles High School and Education Center, 924 Winnebago St.
Caller-Times file Nanette Walton's puppy Bufferin (left) attempts to get a taste of Anacin's (right) Whataburger milkshake on Dec. 6, 1982.

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By Allison Ehrlich of the Caller-Times

Technically the dog days of summer aren't even here yet.

The Southwest has been enduring an oppressive heat wave since last week. Wildfires are raging in eight states, roads buckled in Colorado, planes couldn't land in Arizona. At least five deaths have been reported. Needles, California, hit 125 degrees on Monday.

South Texas hasn't quite hit those numbers yet, but it's already getting hot enough to declare that only mad dogs and Englishmen venture out in the midday sun  not to mention the morning, midmorning, midafternoon or early evening sun. Add some South Texas humidity and we're already melting. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own discomfort with the summer's heat this year. Being pregnant and due in mid-July will do that to a person.

In this photo Nanette Walton's two puppies attempt to quench their thirst with a milkshake from Whataburger in December 1982. The temperature certainly wasn't summertime levels, but it was still a balmy 72 degrees. The puppy on the right, Anacin, hogs the drink while Bufferin tries to get a few licks in. Perhaps they should have Whatasized that drink order.

For the curious, the dog days of summer start around July and end in August. And the name really has nothing to do with real dogs. According to National Geographic, the phrase comes from the ancient Greeks and Romans. They noticed the hottest part of the year in the Mediterranean occurred around the time Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, appeared before dawn. Sirius forms part of the Canis Major constellation and it's colloquial name is the Dog Star.

Allison Ehrlich is the archive coordinator for the Caller-Times. Contact her at allison.ehrlich@caller.com and follow her on Twitter @CallerArchives.
Associated Press Jackelin Alfaro, 7, of Washington, hugs her aunt Gelin Alfaro, of Veracruz, Mexico, during an immigration rally at the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday. A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obama's immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation. The justices' one-sentence opinion effectively kills the plan for the duration of Obama's presidency.

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By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

It's been about a year and a half since more than 3 million undocumented parents to U.S. citizens had their hopes raised by the possibility of a lawful identity similar to their children's.

Leticia and Bernardino Gonzalez immigrated to Corpus Christi 16 years ago from Guanajuato, Mexico, and believed President Barack Obama's 2014 executive action  Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA  would come to fruition this month. It didn't, which means the couple will continue to risk being separated from their four daughters, ages 5 to 21, and grandson.

"It's really sad," their eldest child, Katia Gonzalez, said. "But we just have to keep moving forward."

Thursday's Supreme Court opinion froze more than 500,000 Texas families' opportunity to be granted temporary deportation relief and allow them to apply for renewable work permits.

Justin Tullius, managing attorney for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in Corpus Christi, said advocates for immigration reform will continue to educate on the standing program for undocumented youth, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Recipients are given work authorization, a Social Security number and a Texas driver's license.

"(Thursday's gridlock) makes it more important to (educate youth about DACA)," Tullius said. "The more people apply, the stronger that program becomes and the stronger the call is for the new administration to go forward with (DAPA) ... because DACA recipients are teachers, nurses and valedictorians."

U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, issued a statement Thursday on the Supreme Court announcement.

"The president's job is not to create laws  that is the role of Congress," Farenthold writes in the release. "President Obama overstepped his bounds when he attempted to implement executive actions with his DAPA program, essentially granting amnesty on illegal immigration, and I'm glad the Supreme Court reaffirmed today that the power to legislate belongs to the legislative branch."

Twitter: @CallerBetty
Brandon Sansom

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By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times

Nearly 11 years after a 19-year-old man was shot and killed in Aransas Pass, police have arrested a suspect.

On Nov. 16, 2005, Aransas Pass police responded to a burglary at a house in the 200 block of N. Eighth Street. When they arrived, they saw an open door and found Gilbert Roland Samora, 19, lying on the floor.

Though the Texas Rangers were called in to investigate, the case remained unsolved. On the 10th anniversary of Samora's death, Aransas Pass Police Capt. Kyle Rhodes decided to revisit the case.

"All of our cold cases, we work on from time to time. It's not uncommon," Rhodes said. "Sometimes you're doing an investigation, and then technology improves and you get more information."

Rhodes spoke to Samora's mother in November, revisited the case and brought it to the San Patricio County District Attorney's office. Rhodes said they decided it was worth taking to a grand jury.

Brandon Sansom, 30, was indicted on suspicion of Samora's homicide. On June 8, Sansom was taken into custody by Ingleside police after he was stopped for a traffic violation. Officers checked his information and saw the homicide warrant, Rhodes said.

Sansom was arrested on suspicion of murder and manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance. He is at San Patricio County Jail with bail set at $280,000.

Police are declining to release details about what links Sansom to the killing. The Caller-Times has filed a legal request with the police department seeking more information.

Twitter: @Caller_Jules
Contributed photo Noemi Villarreal

SHARE Lance Taylor

By Krista M. Torralva of the Caller-Times

Six days before Noemi Villarreal was strangled, stuffed in a trash can and lit on fire, she made a police report against her boyfriend.

She vowed to press charges against him after she said he beat and choked her. He vowed to harm her if she did. Corpus Christi police believe he made good on his threat.

Lance Taylor, 28, was arrested Monday and remains in the Nueces County Jail on a murder charge. He is ineligible for bail because the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole issued a warrant for his arrest on June 7. On June 8, Villarreal was dead.

Taylor was out of prison on parole for drug charges and an unlawful possession of a firearm charge. He was also on probation for a 2015 misdemeanor family violence assault charge involving a different woman. Taylor had just started attending a court-ordered batterers program at the Women's Shelter about two weeks ago. His probation was extended in April to March 28.

The Caller-Times reached out to Taylor through his attorney, Fred Jimenez. Taylor declined to be interviewed, Jimenez said late Wednesday.

Villarreal told police on June 2 that Taylor hit her all over her face and body at his apartment near Holly and Weber roads in May. She said Taylor dragged her by her hair to his vehicle and drove her to an isolated place on Yorktown Boulevard. There, he would enable the child lock function so she couldn't get out and continued to beat and choke her, according to the police report. Once, she broke his window to try to get out, the report states.

Noemi Villarreal's police report, WARNING: contains graphic language by callertimes

Villarreal said Taylor wouldn't let her leave the apartment and watched her sleep and made her sit in the bathroom with the door closed while he showered, according to the police report. Taylor threatened to call fellow gang members to harm her if she reported him.

According to a 2015 police report, Taylor was arrested after a bystander reported seeing him pin a woman to the ground in the parking lot at Brewster Street Ice House.

The woman, Taylor's girlfriend at the time, told police she was "terrified" as he hit and pushed her, according to the report. The next day, the woman told a detective she did not want to pursue charges against Taylor, according to court records.

Twitter: @CallerKMT Reporter Natalia Contreras contributed to this report.
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By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times

The Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office identified human remains found Tuesday afternoon on North Padre Island as 32-year-old William H. Phillippe of Corpus Christi.

Chief Forensic Investigator Hugo Stimmler said he and his team are still determining the cause of death, making it too early to tell whether foul play was involved in Phillippe's death. It is unclear when he died, but Stimmler said the body had decomposed for a while because police only retrieved bones from the grassy field near Park Road 22 and Encantada Avenue.

Stimmler said Corpus Christi police also are still investigating the incident.

Human remains also were found in sand dunes near Nueces County Park Road in April 2015. Stimmler said those remains were sent to the University of North Texas for testing, but the results did not identify the remains. Stimmler said investigators are still working to determine the cause of death from those remains.

Twitter: @Caller_Fares
Contributed Bacteria levels are available at the Texas Beach Watch website, texasbeachwatch.com. The levels pictured were posted Monday.

SHARE CALLER-TIMES FILE A gull sits atop a sign warning of a swimming advisory for the area in 2012. The signs were installed that year on the beaches of Port Aransas and Mustang Island.

By Katie Hall, Austin American-Statesman

A Father's Day celebration in Port Aransas left a Central Texas man fighting to keep his leg after becoming infected with a flesh-eating bacteria, friends and relatives said Thursday.

On Saturday, 42-year-old Adrian Ruiz and his family spent time at the beach in Port Aransas, said Kristi Hill, a friend of the Ruiz family. That night he ran a fever and had chills; the next day, he woke up with a red rash on his leg.

Medical staff at a minor emergency center diagnosed and treated him for cellulitis. However, Ruiz was admitted Monday afternoon to the ICU at Seton Medical Center Hays with a diagnosis of an infection of Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh-eating bacteria. He is fighting to keep his leg, friends say.

"This is a very aggressive bacteria and within a few hours after being in the water he was sick and is now battling this horrible bacteria, which has caused a nasty, huge open sore wound on his right leg," his wife Lashelle said on Facebook.

Adrian Ruiz is a Hays County resident and an engineer with a real estate company, said Hill, who described Ruiz's condition as critical but added that he's conscious.

The Ruiz family is urging Port Aransas officials to inform people near the water about bacteria levels.

Scott Cross, director of Nueces County Coastal Parks including beaches in Port Aransas, said advisories are only issued when there's an elevated bacteria count. When an advisory is issued, local officials post signs along the beach letting visitors know of the risk.

"There is no (advisory) on the beach right now or any time this month," Cross said. "I know of (bacteria) being contracted by folks on back bays, but I've never heard of anyone contracting on the gulf shore."

The Galveston County Health District, in conjunction with the Texas General Land Office, monitors bacteria levels at 52 sites weekly and issues a beach water advisory when water quality standards are exceeded. The state provides information on bacteria levels on Texas beaches at its Texas Beach Watch website, texasbeachwatch.com.

Bacteria levels were listed as "medium" or between 35 and 104 colony forming units per 100 milliliters in Port Aransas Park, according to the website's last update on June 20. Advisories are issued if testing reveals bacteria counts greater than 104 colony forming units per 100 milliliters, according to the website.

Caller-Times reporter Fares Sabawi contributed to this report.
FILE PHOTO I voted stickers.

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By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times

Want to vote in November's general election? Nueces County wants to hear from you.

There will be a public hearing at 7 p.m. Monday in the county courthouse's Central Jury Room to receive input on possibly joining a countywide polling place program offered by the Texas Secretary of State.

"Think of this like early voting, but megasized," said County Clerk Kara Sands. "Instead of being required to go to your designated polling precinct, you can go to any location on election day to vote."

For more than a year, the county has been grappling with getting its 127 polling locations compatible with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of those, 27 will not be usable before November.

Law requires all precincts have a polling location, but if the county was approved for the countywide polling place program, voters could use any approved location.

Michael Bergsma, Republican Party chair, said the program has his support. As an election worker, Bergsma has seen problems arise when voters show up at the wrong polling location or see hourslong lines and the program would make voting easier and more accessible.

Jennifer Ellis, Democratic Party chair, said her party has fought for years for increased voter turnout, and the program would provide a common sense solution.

Though no vote has been taken, County Judge Loyd Neal said there is a consensus of support of the program from the county commissioners. With the public's help, they will decide on whether to apply for the program. The deadline to apply is Aug. 25.

Twitter: @Caller_Jules

IF YOU GO

What: Public hearing on countywide polling places

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Where: Central Jury Room, Nueces County Courthouse, 901 Leopard St.

Information: 361-888-0878
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Some scholars and activists are calling a proposed Mexican-American studies textbook racist and a whitewash of history. That's the objective journalistic way of reporting it. Being an editorial board affords us the privilege and duty to drop pretense and just say outright that the book is racist, a whitewash, contains errors that appear deliberately intended to advance an agenda  and the outrage we feel should be widespread and deafening, shared by any decent folk who consider themselves Texans.

The book, "Mexican American Heritage," was the only one submitted to the state after the State Board of Education decided to seek textbooks on the topic. That decision was the bone the board threw to advocates who sought in 2014 to make Mexican-American studies part of statewide curriculum. One of the participants in the textbook is former State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, a Bible thumper whose radicalism usually is mislabeled conservative and who during her time on the board once called public school a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion."

The perverse deceptions in "Mexican American Heritage" aren't subtle at all. It describes the Chicano movement of the 1960s and '70s as a group that "adopted a revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society." This slur would come as a shock to the longtime Corpus Christi residents who participated in that Chicano movement because they wanted to be equal participants in this society.

The book includes Trumpian descriptions of Mexican-Americans as uneducated, underemployed, poverty-stricken and crime-plagued, and blames illegal immigration for the bulk of it. It even simplifies Native American history into a demeaning Hollywood version of the buffalo-dependent nomadic tribes.

Suffice to say, the book is not what advocates envisioned. It appears to be a deliberate attempt to make them wish they hadn't asked for Mexican-American studies.

On that note, here in full is the David Duke-ish observation of the textbook controversy by longtime State Board of Education member David Bradley as reported by the Austin American-Statesman: "It's really kind of amusing. The left-leaning radical Hispanic activists, having pounded the table for special treatment, get approval for a special course that nobody else wanted. Now they don't like their special textbook?"

It's a shame that someone with such a blatantly racist view represents 12 counties and part of a 13th and has a say in Texas public education. There is nothing left-leaning about the desire to have the history and heritage of Mexican-Americans represented in school curriculum in Texas of all places. If anything, the lack of it renders the curriculum incomplete.

Also, the idea that only a small group would want the curriculum is ludicrous. Maybe Bradley lives in a tiny world where no one is interested in Mexican-American history and heritage, but more than half of the children enrolled in Texas public schools are Hispanic and the overwhelming majority of those are of Mexican descent. They deserve to know more than the David Crockett story  and so do all of the other students. Some prominent late residents of Corpus Christi figure heavily into 20th century Texas history. If Mexican-American studies were where they belonged  readily identifiable in the general studies  there would be no need of a high school elective in the curriculum.

If the advocates who sought Mexican-American studies are to be faulted for anything, it's for not sponsoring textbook submissions from credible authors to guarantee a true, scholarly account. To their credit they are fighting adoption of what Bradley called "their special textbook," but they should go the extra step of making sure an acceptable book is submitted. Also the State Board of Education should get a shrill earful during the public comment period, which ends in September before textbooks are adopted in November.
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Word from the recent Texas Democratic convention in San Antonio is that Donald Trump is doing something far better than Hillary Clinton: uniting the often fractious Texas Democrats.

Trump, the New York real estate mogul, star of reality TV, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has infuriated Hispanics, Muslims, and a considerable number of Republicans as well.

On Friday, June 17, while the Democratic convention was underway, Trump included San Antonio as part of a Texas fundraising swing, sandwiched between fundraisers and hastily called rallies in Dallas and Houston.

His appearance in the heavily Hispanic city, a few miles from where the Democratic meeting in the Alamodome, drew about 500 mostly peaceful anti-Trump protesters outside his rally.

Trump has repeatedly charged that undocumented immigrants coming across the southern border of the United States include murderers and rapists. He has repeatedly called for deporting some 11 million undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America.

In addition, Trump charged that a federal district judge in California, Gonzalo Curiel, in whose court Trump and Trump University are on trial for bilking students, is biased against him because the judge's parents came from Mexico, and Trump wants to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Judge Curiel was born in Indiana.

Trump also drew fire in the wake of the mass murder in Orlando, Florida, at a gay night club, in the early morning of June 12. The shooter was Omar Mateen, 29, who was raised by emigrants to the U.S. from Afghanistan.

Trump's first statement on Twitter hours after the shooting boasted of his prediction about more violent attacks by Muslims.

"Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!"

That drew immediate condemnation by many critics, including the Clinton campaign and several Republicans, who said it showed how Trump would react in a crisis situation.

The critics also pointed out that while Mateen was raised by immigrants to the United States from Afghanistan, he was a U.S. citizen, born in Queens, New York  Trump's birthplace.

According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, Trump has an impressive 70 percent negative rating among voters, said to be an record for a major-party presidential nominee in American politics.

It is also a condition that helps lessen the impact for Democrats of Clinton's negative rating being almost as high, at 55 percent.

After Texas Democrats have suffered a drought of more than two decades without winning statewide offices, they're more than ready to see Texas turn back into a blue state.

Garry Mauro was among the last Democrats to hold statewide office  land commissioner for 16 years  but lost badly to then-Gov. George W. Bush for governor in 1998.

Mauro, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton since they oversaw Texas for the Democratic presidential ticket of George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in 1972, is heading up her campaign in Texas.

He warned fellow Democrats just before the state convention to be realistic about their wish that Texas could go for the Democrats this year.

Texas hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential race since Jimmy Carter's race in 1976, and despite Clinton's expressed hope recently that she might carry the state this year, that's highly unlikely, Mauro said.

"We're not a battleground state," Mauro emphasized. "You're not going to see the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton spending $100 million in Texas to make us a battleground state."

The high negatives of the two major-party candidates are helping fuel something of a boomlet for a third party that should be on ballots in every state  the socially liberal and fiscally conservative Libertarian Party.

Its presidential nominee is Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico (1995-2003).

Johnson, also the party's standard-bearer in 2012, got 0.99 percent of the vote nationally, and 1.11 percent in Texas.

This time around, he had asked the Libertarians to nominate as his running mate another former Republican governor: William Weld of Massachusetts (1991-1997). The convention delegates narrowly granted his request.

Johnson has lobbied polling operations to include him in their polls  part of an effort to achieve the 15 percent polling support needed to participate in televised presidential debates before the Nov. 8 general election.

Recent polls show Clinton anywhere from 5 to 12 percentage points ahead of Trump. A Bloomberg poll on June 14 that included Libertarian Johnson showed Clinton with 49 percent, Trump with 37, and Johnson with 9.

We'll find out if Clinton can sustain her edge, Trump can find some general election footing, and whether the Libertarian hopefuls' status as the none-of-the-above alternative to the major-party candidates help them do significantly better than in the past.

Contact McNeely at davemcneely111@gmail.com or 512/458-2963.
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Boyce "Coach" Honea

Alcohol doesn't belong in theaters

My wife and I are retired and enjoy going to a good movie. We go to Century 16 on SPID. Last week we saw a notice that Century 16 has applied for an alcohol license. There was a phone number for the local Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission office to call if you wanted to protest alcohol being sold at this theater. I called the number and was told to go online to protest. That is what I did. They asked for the reasons to protest and my response was:

1. Alcohol impairs judgment and the parking lot is crowded and children could be hit and killed.

2. The theater is near a busy freeway and there could be accidents. Lives could be lost.

3. Alcohol causes people to talk more and a movie is a quiet time. Noise ruins the movie for others.

4. Alcohol can cause some to lose their temper and that could result in fights and/or assaults. There is little to no security.

5. Alcohol has an unpleasant odor to some people and can even make some ill.

6. Alcohol drinking is an adult activity and many parents do not want their children around it.

The bottom line is that there are many places adults can go to drink alcohol. Movie theaters are not the appropriate place. If you agree please call TABC at 361-851-2531.
| BY Ricki Green |

Next Wednesday night on June 29, MADC Presents will host Ant Phillips and Rich Williams who will share their thoughts on what makes a successful creative team at The Local Taphouse in St Kilda.

After spending 13 years together at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, and both still in their first creative relationship, theyre well qualified to discuss it.
| BY Ricki Green |

Pat Baron (right), newly appointed chief creative officer at McCann Melbourne shares his thoughts on data, directly from Cannes Lions, exclusively with CB.

Theres energy to data, ninety five percent of the worlds data has been created in the last three years alone. I now have more access to information than any generation before me.

Data means different things to different people and were still learning how to best maximize all this information, how to communicate it, analyze it, when to use it and when not to. Theres an unquenchable thirst to discover its potential and unlock its secrets. The Melbourne International Film Festivals The Emotional Trailer for example was a unique visceral experience driven by data. This data was collected by human conscious reactions and sub conscious ones then condensed into a campaign. Andy Jones Creative Director at McCann Melbourne says, we got a collection of critics and film buffs to watch MIFF films prior to their release and collated their emotional reactions through an app and biometric sensors. This data gave us the script that we then fed through sensors using the human face as a display so that the audience could experience films live at the theatre. We then filmed these, to make Emotional Trailers for the actual films, so that people could see how they felt before they knew what they were about.

Most companies still use data to inform rather than experience, to smell, feel, touch and discover. Were starting to better understand that data-emotionally driven experiences can attract the kind of reactions on social media that keeps audiences coming back for more. It hits an emotional pulse.

Says Jones: We wanted to give people an insight into what the films were like, how theyd make you feel, without giving too much away. The way we thought to do so was through the one thing we all have in common: emotions. Films at MIFF make you feel things that the multiplex doesnt. They can make you think, cry, laugh, feel disgust you and so on. You dont just see a film at MIFF, you feel it.

The universe of data can answer many questions and help us understand ourselves as our lives are now documented in a way that means we have few secrets. It can also help us understand something we never had any interest in or develop a new understanding, as was the case for the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Says Jones: People that go to MIFF generally dont know a heck of a lot about the films that they could see. And theres a lot to choose from, in foreign languages, not many actors and directors are well known, so it can be a barrier to going when you dont know what the film is going to be like.

Were incredibly excited and humbled that this week in Cannes McCann Melbourne has received Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions for Creative Effectiveness and Creative Data as these categories light the way.
| BY Martin Trevaskis |

One of the ad industrys great minds, and one of the good guys, explains the Cannes Lions phenomenon perfectly

Rory Sutherland is the current Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne London and Vice Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather UK. He is a regular public speaker and writes a column for The Spectator.
Reconnecting with Pam: Her story shows racist history is still with us

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"Because of how much of the mid- and higher-ends spirits that we sell at Molly and Highball, we get access to some pretty cool stuff that we can import directly  lots of limited edition and rare spirits," said Arena.
"The WA Liberals have now wasted more than $25 million on planning for light rail, so clearly the Canberra Liberals think throwing away money is more important than good transport planning," she said.
"How is this ping-pong table contributing to the goals and targets of our aid program? Is this ping-pong table assisting in the expansion of our diplomatic footprint? . How much did the ping-pong table cost?  Are there rules around its use?" she asked.
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Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

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You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Every major player in the automotive industry wants a piece of the electric vehicle segment and officials over at Daimler are the latest ones to go after Tesla.



The German group that owns Mercedes-Benz and Smart, will reportedly roll out its own electric car brand, according to Handelsblatt, quoting people familiar with the matter.

Daimler apparently has the 2016 Paris Motor Show in its sight for the launch of the new brand, where the 3-pointed star has already announced its intention to show the world a hydrogen-powered GLC prototype. The model has been unveiled over the web and its capable to provide enough battery juice for an all-electric range of approximately 30 miles (48 km).

The German publication states that, aside from the hydrogen powered SUV, Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce an electric version as well, at the same French motoring event, a rumor backed up by a previous report published earlier this month. The zero-emissions vehicle could go on sale as early as next year, and will eventually pave the road for even more EVs from Daimler.

A final decision regarding the introduction of a brand for the upcoming e-cars is expected to be taken by Daimlers non-executive supervisory board on July 20, and if everything goes as planned, they will be built in the existing factories, something that will keep production costs down.

Note: Mercedes-Benz GLC F-Cell pictured

PHOTO GALLERY
Rolls-Royce is looking to celebrate this years Goodwood Festival of Speed by bringing a dark and edgy presence to the famous Hillclimb.



The luxury automaker will be featuring both the Wraith Black Badge as well as the Ghost Black Badge at the type of event for which they were built.

Of course, aside from the two special edition models, Rolls-Royce will also be displaying an exclusive fleet of motor cars, with VIP guests being driven in luxury from the companys plant & head office on the South-Eastern corner of the Goodwood Estate, to the very heart of the event.

According to RR, their Black Badge models speak to the darker, more assertive, confident and demanding aesthetic of a new breed of Rolls-Royce customers. These cars are also here to bring the color black to new levels of intensity with multiple layers of paint and lacquer which in the end result in the deepest, darkest and most intense black ever seen on a production car  says the British automaker.

Those visiting Goodwood this year will be able to see the Wraith Black Badge on the Supercar Run up the hill, as well as in between hill climbs in the Supercar Paddock. The Wraith is the most powerful Rolls-Royce in the world at 632 PS (624 HP) and 870 Nm (642 lb-ft) of torque. It also comes with a tweaked air suspension and an upgraded gearbox.

Inside, theres Black and Mugello Red contrast leather, plus an aerospace-grade aluminum-threaded carbon fiber composite surface on the fascia.

The Ghost Black Badge on the other hand will act as the Rolls-Royce Course Car this year, featuring Black and Cobalto Blue contrast leather on the inside. Its power has gone up by 40 HP and 60 Nm (44 lb-ft) of torque  for a total of 611 PS (603 HP).

The Ghost will be driven by a team from Rolls-Royce, while the Wraith will welcome FOS favorite Justin Law behind the wheel.

PHOTO GALLERY
After teasing their ultimate road-legal track car ahead of the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed, VUHL has finally removed the covers in preparation for the 05RRs hot date with the famous Hillclimb event.



Behind the wheel of the 385 BHP (390 PS) VUHL 05RR (on Friday) will be Manor Racing F1 reserve driver Jordan King, who will look to wow the crowds just like the previous 05 model did two years ago when Esteban Gutierrez was on board.

Theres usually a big difference between what people consider a supercar and what is a proper racing car, said King. Im really excited to drive the Vuhl 05RR because it has the perfect recipe: lightweight to the core, huge power-to-weight, and it looks incredible. Goodwood is going to be a tonne of fun.

As opposed to the regular 05 version, the 05RR comes with ultra-lightweight carbon fiber wheels, wrapped in Michelin Cup 2 tires, a revised aero package (full-width rear wing & F1-inspired diffuser strakes), full carbon fiber bodywork, aluminum-carbon monocoque, and a 2.3-liter Ecoboost engine with a 6-speed manual, good for 385 BHP (390 PS) and 500 Nm (368 lb-ft) of torque.

As VUHL will keenly point out, the 05RRs 600BHP-per-tonne ratio is greater than that of the Ferrari F12 tdi, McLaren P1 and even the Bugatti Veyron. Oh and it can also accelerate to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.7 seconds while climbing all the way to 160 mph (255 km/h).

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a Mecca for performance car aficionados and the perfect place to reveal the stunning new 05RR, added VUHL technical director Iker Echeverria. Weve upgraded this car in every area to make it faster, more engaging and more aggressive.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: hellobc.com

Visitors from the four corners of the Earth have been visiting British Columbia in vast numbers, according to the latest government statistics.

Between January to April, nearly 1.2 million foreign tourists arrived in the province, an 18 per cent increase over the same period last year.

"2016 is shaping up to be an amazing year for tourism, said Marsha Walden, chief exective officer of Destination British Columbia. Even before we hit peak summer season, we see strong hotel occupancy rates and room revenues, fueled by a huge rise in overnight visitors from Mexico, the U.S. and other key markets.

Canada's low dollar is a big draw for those coming from overseas.

Strong growth in visitors from China, South Korea and Mexico is partly attributed to increased air access and additional flights to Vancouver from those countries.

One of the fastest-growing areas is aboriginal tourism. Between 2006-2012, revenue from that sector doubled to $42 million.

In April alone, 328,006 people arrived to see the sights in B.C., a 21 per cent increase over last year's figure and the highest total on record for any April over the last 10 years.

International overnight entries from key markets jumped in April over the same month in 2015, including:

Germany, up 33.4 per cent

China, up 32.9 per cent

South Korea, up 31.9 per cent

Mexico, up 28 per cent

Australia, up 26.4 per cent

U.S., up 22.1 per cent

Japan, up 9.3 per cent

India, up 6.8 per cent

United Kingdom, up 0.7 per cent

"These double digit increases show that our province is becoming a destination of choice year-round for international travelers, said Tourism Minister Shirley Bond. The spring tourism figures provide us with a snapshot of what should shape up to be continued growth in tourism for the summer season."
Photo: The Canadian Press

Canadians generally approve of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus performance so far, but many feel the Liberals have put too much emphasis on PR and photo ops.

A recent Angus Reid poll found Trudeau has a job approval rating of 63 per cent across Canada, but 36 per cent of respondents say the government puts too much emphasis on PR and photo ops.

A quarter of Canadians feel the government has made real progress and is getting things done since taking office, while 17 per cent said they both focus on PR too much while getting things done.

Of Conservative party voters, just two per cent feel the Liberals have made real progress, while 74 per cent feel they have put too much emphasis on PR.

Despite some being unimpressed with the Liberals PR moves, 31 per cent of Canadians feel the House of Commons is working better than under Harpers government, and 36 per cent feel it functions about the same. Twenty-two per cent believe its now functioning worse.

Additionally, the poll found that many Canadians dont feel the House of Commons represents their own interests.

While 39 per cent said the House of Commons represents people like you very well or fairly well, 52 per cent said it represents them very or fairly poorly.

The poll surveyed 1,519 Canadians, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A judge has been asked to connect the dots and convict the man accused of killing a missing Alberta couple.

The Crown lacks what are normally crucial pieces of evidence such as the bodies of the victims or what may have been used to kill Lyle and Marie McCann.

But prosecutor Ashley Finlayson summed up his case Wednesday by repeatedly asking Justice Denny Thomas to "consider the totality of the evidence."

Travis Vader, 44, who is formerly of Summerland, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of the great-grandparents, who were in their late 70s when they vanished while on their way to a family camping trip in 2010.

They were last seen July 3, 2010, as they fuelled up their motorhome in their hometown of St. Albert, a bedroom community north of Edmonton, before they headed out to British Columbia.

Two days later their motorhome was found burning in the bush. The SUV they had been towing was later found hidden in some trees on a rural property.

The Crown is arguing that Vader was a desperate drug user, living in a makeshift camp, when he came across the McCanns and killed them.

The defence has suggested that there's not enough evidence to prove the couple is dead and that police should have looked at other suspects.

In his final arguments, Finlayson went through, one by one, the facts that he said lead inescapably to a finding of guilt.

He pointed out Vader visited a friend on the day the McCanns disappeared and complained he was so broke he couldn't put oil in his truck. The friend testified that Vader showed up later that afternoon with enough cash for a case of beer and an SUV that matched the description of the one the McCanns had been towing.

That same day, several calls and text messages were sent shortly after 2 p.m. from a cellphone belonging to the McCanns. The messages, romantic in nature, were sent to Vader's former girlfriend.

Finlayson reminded court of Crown witnesses who testified that DNA matching Vader's was found in the SUV, including on the steering wheel. His fingerprint was on a can of beer  the same brand that Vader had been drinking with his friend two days earlier.

A hat was also found, punctured with a bullet hole and stained with Lyle McCann's blood. DNA found on the ball cap was also matched to Vader, although court heard earlier the match was less certain.

Phone records show someone made calls, using the McCann phone, from the general area around where the motor home was found, Finlayson said.

Court was also told that police eventually found a truck  burned out and on a remote oil lease  that Vader had been driving. The keys to the SUV belonging to the McCanns were found inside.

Vader's failure to offer an explanation for any of this is damning, said Finlayson.

"Not only do we have other aspects of evidence which puts Mr. Vader in very recent possession of items belonging to the McCanns, you have no explanation provided by Mr. Vader for being in possession of those items."

Finlayson suggested that Vader "was a desperate fellow. He wanted (the McCanns's) property. He came into contact with the McCanns and there was a violent event."

Finlayson asked Thomas to return a verdict of first-degree murder because he argued the second McCann was killed to get rid of a witness.

"In order to eliminate the presence of a witness, Mr. Vader deliberately murdered the second McCann," he said.

Defence lawyer Brian Beresh was expected to offer his closing arguments Thursday.

Vader is in custody after being denied bail in May on new charges unrelated to the trial.

The Crown's original murder charge against Vader was stayed in 2014, just a few weeks before he was to be tried before a jury. The Crown said it realized Mounties hadn't disclosed all the evidence.

The charge was eventually reactivated and Vader's trial began March 8.
Photo: kamloopstrails.net

The BC Coroners Service has confirmed the identity of a woman who died following a hiking accident north of Clearwater on June 17 as Mia Norgaard Langhoff, 20, of Kolding, Den.

Langhoff was one of a party of about 20 from an outdoor adventure school in Denmark who were on a school field trip to Canada to mark the end of their course.

The group was camped at Clearwater Lake and on June 17, undertook a day hike on Huntley Col Mountain, about 88 kilometres north of Clearwater. In the afternoon, the group was ascending a steep, grassy slope that was covered with fresh snow.

Langhoff slipped on the snow, lost her balance, and slid over a steep embankment a distance of more than 30 metres. One of the instructors hiked and canoed out to summon help, a trip of about seven hours. A military search-and-rescue helicopter was dispatched from CFB Comox, but by the time it arrived, Langhoff had died at the scene.

The BC Coroners Service and RCMP continue to investigate this death.
Photo: CTV

A Burnaby landlord is facing criticism for an Asian only apartment rental ad.

The Craigslist posting for a $1,500-per-month three-bedroom apartment was found by Natalie Schulz.

Not noticing the Asian-only tag, Schulz called the number listed, only to be quizzed about her background.

The man asked me what ethnicity I was and I asked him why that was important, Schulz told CTV News. He told me they had white people before and they had been partying and doing drugs.

Looking over the ad once more, Schulz noticed the stipulation.

I told him thats really offensive. He should be ashamed of himself, Schulz said.

Yi Zhou told CTV News he posted the ad with the controversial condition on behalf of the landlord, who doesnt speak much English, to avoid a language barrier.

There was white people partying every day and doing drugs, that guy couldnt communicate with him, Zhou said. From that moment the owner said maybe just find Asian people so he can talk to them.

Zhou said he was sorry to anyone who was offended by the ad.

I realize this ad is not good, he said.

The ad in question is no longer on Craigslist, as it was rented to an Asian tenant, but several similar ones exist.

According to experts, the ad is not illegal, but acting on them is.

Whats illegal is if you deny somebody the right to rent based on their ethnicity or their race. That is illegal, said Robyn Durling of the B.C. Human Rights Clinic.

Though B.C.s human rights legislation bans tenancy discrimination, people looking for a roommate are allowed to specify who they want to live with, if theyll be sharing sleeping, bathroom or cooking space.

- With files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Contributed

The House of Commons was scheduled to sit three days this week before adjourning for the summer recess.

This allows all MPs to return to their ridings and spend the summer working locally and being in touch with their constituents.

As this was the first full spring session of the 42nd Parliament, I thought I would provide statistics as they pertain to the work Parliament has done in the last six months.

The government has introduced 23 bills. Four have gone through the House and the Senate and are awaiting Royal Assent while seven more are in the Senate. There are still 12 government bills remaining in the House when debate resumes on Sept. 19.

Ninety-nine private members bills (PMBs) have received at least first reading. Of these, only one, Bill C-210 An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (for gender), has passed through the House to the Senate while just four bills have reached second reading.

In the Senate, there are just two Senate sponsored bills and another 25 Senate PMBs, which means there are almost 150 different legislative bills proposed between the Senate and the House of Commons.

I like to mention the volume of bills being brought forward because I believe it is an important when discussing any proposed reduction of the amount of sitting time in Ottawa.

Less time in Ottawa will result in fewer bills being scrutinized and debated.

It should also be pointed out that Opposition Day debate and motions, as well as parliamentary committee review and other events such as Question Period, also consume our time in Ottawa in addition to time spent debating various bills.

It is for these reasons that I remain opposed to a shortened work week or any reduction to the amount of sitting time in the House of Commons.

Later this month, the House will reconvene to hear a speech from our special guest, U.S. President Barack Obama, before members of Parliament return to their home ridings.

For many MPs, and certainly in my case with a geographically large riding, the summer months provide an excellent opportunity to travel to all parts of Central Okanagan Similkameen Nicola to meet with citizens and groups to hear concerns and ideas first hand.

In some situations, problems may be specific and localized, but in other cases citizens often have good ideas that can be shared and even incorporated into government policy. This is part of what I consider democracy In action where citizens can directly share ideas that can be taken to Ottawa.

It is important, and appreciated, that citizens take the time to meet with their locally elected representative, and this applies to all levels of government.

Getting information and feedback from constituents is an essential part of democratic representation. On that note, I would encourage citizens to contact me directly so that I can hear your concerns and, I hope, meet you in person over these next few months.

I can be reached at [email protected] or toll free at 1-800-665-8711.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: CTV

UPDATE: 12:45 a.m.

Municipalities are starting to warn people that a looming Canada Post strike or lockout could have implications to their tax bill.

The City of Kamloops, for example, is warning people to take precautions with their property tax payments and homeowner grant applications.

Kamloops officials say the tax payment should be in the mail no later than end of day today (June 23) to ensure delivery on time.

"A Canada Post post-mark is not considered proof of on-time payment," says the city.

Most municipalities charge a 10 per cent fee for overdue bills.

ORIGINAL

A labour dispute at Canada Post could have consequences for customers starting in July.

Canada Post has warned major customers that a service disruption could occur as soon as July 2.

"We need a more flexible model," Jon Hamilton, Canada Post spokesperson, told CTV News.

"We need a model that allows us to deliver on evenings and weekends and peak times without having to pay double time, which is pricing us out of the market."

Canada Post and the union are still at the bargaining table, but remain a fair distance apart on many issues.

The union is concerned about job security and pension reform, and claim Canada Post wants to force a lockout.

"The union is currently conducting strike votes across the country, and we are getting prepared in the event that the employer does decide to lock us out," said Jennifer Savage of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

Five years ago, Canada Post employees walked off the job, only to be legislated back to work.

The future of home delivery by Canada Post is now in question, a service Canada Post would like to end.

- With files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Getty Images

The Berlin State Library is returning 384 books, magazines and other publications dating back to the 18th century to a Freemason Lodge after determining they were stolen by the Nazis in the 1930s.

Matthias Bohn, the head of the Johannis Lodge "Teutonia zur Weisheit" in Potsdam, said Thursday the books were important for the history of his organization, and contained "the stamps and traces of their previous owners."

The Potsdam lodge, which held one of the biggest Freemason's libraries in Germany, closed when Freemasonry was banned by the Nazis. It didn't reopen until 1991.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the foundation overseeing Berlin's museums and state library, said it is committed to researching the provenance of its works and returning items stolen during the Nazi era.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Two people who fell ill while working at the U.S. research station at the South Pole have been evacuated by a small plane that made the daring rescue flight in Antarctica's harsh winter.

The National Science Foundation said the two workers arrived safely late Wednesday in Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile, after a long trip from the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. They stopped for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica to be put on another plane.

"From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott," said a statement on the National Science Foundation's Facebook page.

The two were taken to a clinic in Punta Arenas, but it wasn't clear if that was the facility the foundation referred to.

The foundation, which runs Amundsen-Scott and two other centres in Antarctica, said it was not disclosing the location of the medical facility. It also did not identify the sick workers or give their conditions, citing medical privacy. They were described only as seasonal employees of Lockheed Martin, which is the prime contractor for operations and research support for the foundation's Antarctic program.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles roundtrip from Britain's Rothera station to the South Pole and returned to Rothera with the sick workers Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation. The workers were transferred to a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane for the flight to Punta Arenas.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees (minus 2.5 Celsius) Wednesday afternoon. That was toasty compared to the South Pole where it was minus 75 (minus 60 Celsius) in the morning.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the Amundsen-Scott station for the winter.

Normally planes don't go to the U.S. polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole until the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew.

"The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring," Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, West said. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees (minus 75 degrees Celsius), he said.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you."

"Things can change very quickly down there" with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

The station has a doctor and a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the U.S. for consultation, West said, but sometimes workers need medical care that can't be provided at the South Pole. There have been three emergency evacuations from Amundsen-Scott since 1999.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring during slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues also were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.
Photo: Getty Images

A powerful tornado killed 51 people and destroyed large numbers of buildings Thursday in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, state media reported.

The tornado hit a densely populated area of farms and factories near the city of Yancheng, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV, other official media and the provincial rescue service.

They said large numbers of people were injured and roads were blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris.

CCTV showed people carrying the injured to hospitals, cars and trucks flipped over on their roofs, street light poles snapped in half, and steel electricity pylons crumpled and lying on their side.

Jiangsu is a coastal province north of Shanghai. Yancheng is an ancient city with more than 8 million people.

The Jiangsu provincial fire and rescue service provided no word on casualties but said on its microblog that the storm was accompanied by hail. Crews were dispatched to secure chemicals and other potentially dangerous items at a sprawling solar panel factory in the Yancheng suburb of Funing, it said.

Photos posted online showed a wrecked three-story schoolhouse with large trees strewn on its playing field. Its windows had been blown out and its roof and upper floor torn off, along with those of numerous other buildings.

Bodies were shown lying in the open or buried in rubble. At least one hog farm was hit, its livestock covered in bricks and roofing material.

The reports said the tornado struck at about around 2:30 p.m. and hit Funing and Sheyang counties on the city's outskirts the hardest with winds of up to 125 kilometres per hour (78 mph).

Tornados occasionally strike southern China during the summer months, but rarely with the scale of death and damage caused by the one on Thursday.

This year, southern and eastern China have experienced weeks of torrential rain and storms that have caused widespread flooding and dozens of casualties.

The southern part of the country is hit every year during the May-July monsoon season, but this rainy season has been particularly wet. Water levels in some major rivers have exceeded those of 1998, when China was hit by disastrous floods that affected 180 million people, according to state media reports.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Sentencing arguments are scheduled to begin today for a southern Alberta couple found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life to their toddler son who died of bacterial meningitis four years ago.

David Stephan, 32 and Collet Stephan, 35, whose family helped start a nutritional supplements company, were convicted by a jury in April in the 2012 death of 19-month-old Ezekiel.

Justice Rodney Jerke is expected to reserve his decision until the fall.

Earlier this month the judge released the finding of facts in the case that he will use to consider the couple's fate.

"The failure of Mr. Stephan and Mrs. Stephan ... contributed significantly to the risk to Ezekiel's life," he wrote.

Court heard the couple thought the boy had croup or flu, so they treated him with hot peppers, garlic, onions and horseradish, even though a family friend who was a nurse told them she thought Ezekiel had meningitis.

The trial also heard the little boy was too stiff to sit in his car seat and had to lie on a mattress when Collet Stephan drove him from their rural home to a naturopathic clinic in Lethbridge to pick up an echinacea mixture.

The Stephans never called for medical assistance until Ezekiel stopped breathing. He later died in a Calgary hospital.

Jerke wrote he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that a prudent and ordinary person without medical training would have foreseen "that medical attention was required to maintain Ezekiel's life."

"Mr. and Mrs. Stephan did not provide Ezekiel with medical attention. This was a failure of their legal duty to provide necessaries of life. It was a marked departure from the required standard of care," he said. "It is morally blameworthy conduct.''

However, Jerke also noted in his findings there's no doubt the Stephans were "caring and attentive parents and had no intention of harming Ezekiel."

The Stephans now live in British Columbia but have remained free since their conviction.

The maximum sentence for failing to provide the necessaries of life is five years in prison.
Photo: Getty Images

Authorities say two sheriff's deputies in northeast Louisiana were shot and wounded while serving a felony warrant.

Ouachita Parish Chief Deputy Mac Mashaw said in a brief news release that the shooting happened just after 6 a.m. Thursday.

The deputies are being treated at a Monroe hospital. Their conditions are unknown.

Additional details about the shooting weren't immediately available.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

UPDATE: 3:20 p.m.

According to board chair Marieze Tarr, the board decided to make an application for $490,000 throught the Rural Education Enhancement Fund. $108,000 is deferred maintenance cost and the rest is operational cost associated with running the high school.

"The board voted in favour of the motion as we did embark on the school closure process due to financial pressures," she said. "Now that the financial pressures could be alleviated with this new fund from the government we felt that we needed to listen to the community and apply for the funding to keep the school open for as long as financially possible."

"We remain concerned about declining enrollment trends and the reduced educational opportunities for students at both secondary schools, but we have heard the community loud and clear that they are happy with education at OSS. I believe that is why it was not a unanimous vote."

ORIGINAL

The School District 53 board voted 5-2 to apply for money that could keep Osoyoos Secondary School open.

The vote came on Wednesday after school districts across the province received information related to the Rural Education Enhancement Fund, which was announced by the Ministry of Education on June 15.

The Osoyoos high school made the list of schools that could potentially stay open using the funding.

The School District 67 board has also called a special meeting on the matter for Friday, June 24, at 8 a.m. in the board room at the school board office.

The board voted earlier this year to close Trout Creek Elementary, West Bench Elementary and McNicoll Park Middle School due to low enrolment and budget concerns.

Trout Creek also made the list of schools included in last week's announcement.

 With files Oliver Daily News
Photo: CTV

A Metro Vancouver family is trying not to lose hope after their beloved golden Labrador was swept away in fast-moving creek.

Pilot, a 100-pound yellow Labrador retriever, was hiking with its owner along the Lower Falls Trail at Golden Ears Provincial Park on Sunday afternoon.

CTV reports that as the group walked down the trail toward the lake, Pilot slipped and fell into Gold Creek.

"Our dogs decided to venture down the hill and go down toward the water... Within a split second, our lab was swept away by the water," Dione Dolan told CTV Vancouver through tears.

"We're really trying to remain hopeful."

Dolan said she searched for signs of Pilot, but found nothing.

They returned the next day, but still couldn't find a sign of their beloved pet.

"We don't know how far he could have been washed."

Pilot is reportedly a strong swimmer and very friendly, and Dolan believes if he was able to get out, he would gravitate toward people.

"It's such a big area... but I can only imagine the more eyes looking for him, spotting him, any kind of sightings even would give us some hope that he survived," she said.

Dolan said her family is heartbroken over the loss, and "have to believe" that he is still alive somewhere.

"He's a family member of course. I'm a single parent, so he's our security as well. Right now I feel like my right arm's missing," she said.

"We just want to know that he's not out there injured, suffering and needing help."

The family is asking anyone who sees a dog matching Pilot's description to report the details to Dolan or on a Facebook page dedicated to the search.

"People that we don't even know are texting us, giving us encouragement, letting us know they've already been out there looking," she said.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Twitter

A major stretch of highway in northeastern B.C. from Mackenzie Junction to Chetwynd is set to reopen, one week after it was closed by severe flooding.

Transportation Minister Todd Stone advises drivers to expect single lane alternating traffic along the nearly 150-kilometre stretch of Highway 97.

He says pilot cars may be needed to lead convoys through some sections of the corridor and motorists should expect the trip to take longer than the usual 90 minutes.

Crews have been working on the route and others in the Peace region since last week when at least 100 millimetres of rain tore up roads, washed out bridges and train tracks, and damaged buildings around Chetwynd and Dawson Creek.

Stone says nearly 200 pieces of equipment have been assigned to restore the flooded routes.

Traffic is moving on Highway 2 south of Dawson Creek and Highway 29 north of Chetwynd, while single-lane travel is also possible on 21 of 40 washed out side roads.

Highway 97 was scheduled to reopen early Thursday afternoon.

"This is important for the local residents who've been cut off from their communities for several days after the unprecedented rainstorm that severely damaged whole sections of the highway and washed away a number of side roads," Stone says in a news release.

Supplies have been flown in to about 60 families living west of Chetwynd since last week's flooding cut access to their properties.
Photo: Getty Images

A long-time Coquitlam resident and known prolific offender will be spending some time behind bars.

Paul Gilles Fontaine, 49, was arrested by the Coquitlam RCMP Prolific Target Team after he was located in a stolen vehicle in the early hours of Jan. 12.

Fontaine was charged and convicted on two counts of break and enter, dangerous driving, theft under $5,000 and possession of break and enter tools for which he received a two-year sentence.

In 2014, Fontaine was the focus of a lengthy investigation into a series of night-time residential break and enters throughout the Maillardville and Burquitlam neighbourhoods in Coquitlam.

During this time, police received multiple complaints of a suspect allegedly entering homes through unlocked windows and doors during evening hours and stealing wallets, purses, electronics and in some cases, the keys to the home owner's vehicles.

Our primary responsibility is to keep track of those individuals who continue to impact our community in a negative way, said Corporal Scott Gimmer. It's about having the extensive knowledge of who's criminally active and residing in the area. Once a suspect has been identified, it's only a matter of time before they're in cuffs.
Photo: Contributed

British Columbia's Information and Privacy Commissioner wants the City of Vancouver to improve the way it handles Freedom of Information requests.

Elizabeth Denham says an audit of the city's freedom of information policies began because Vancouver processes the highest number of such requests annually in B.C.

A report released by Denham says her office has received many complaints about the city's actions.

The report reveals problems at every step of the process, from receipt of an information request, to the search for records, the timeliness of the response and the details released.

The City of Vancouver has pledged to accept and implement all 12 of Denham's recommendations and report on progress by the end of the year.

Denham says the response is encouraging and she's hopeful it will lead to a change in attitude.

"I am concerned that we found examples where the tone in communications with applicants was unhelpful, curt or perfunctory, as well as instances in which the city did not respond to an applicant's query at all," Denham says in a news release.

According to the report, the city contravened legislated response timelines for requests for records more than 16 per cent of the time and was four times more likely to miss deadlines with media applicants compared to others asking for information.

"Every member of the public has a right to request certain information from a public body," says Denham.

"There is an expectation and inherent trust that citizens will be treated fairly and openly when they exercise this legal and fundamental right."
Photo: The Canadian Press

The lawyer for a man accused of killing two great-grandparents, burning their motor home and hiding their bodies says the case against his client is just speculation.

Brian Beresh told a court in Edmonton that the Crown has failed to prove the most basic elements of its case against Travis Vader, formerly of Summerland.

In his closing arguments, Beresh says there's no evidence the St. Albert couple was even murdered.

Beresh says the Crown's chain of circumstantial evidence is good enough for vigilantes, but not the courts.

Lyle and Marie McCann disappeared on July 3, 2010.

Their bodies have never been found.
I feel the ship (Fintry Queen) should be saved and used. It is part of Kelownas heritage.

History is a teacher for all people.

Liz Gerlat
Photo: Contributed

Five people have been detained after yet another shooting in Prince George.

RCMP said a 26-year-old man was taken to hospital just after midnight with non-life-threatening injuries after an early morning shooting at a home on Gould Crescent.

"It is believed that this was a home invasion and that more than one person involved fled the area prior to police arrival," said Prince George RCMP Cpl. Craig Douglass in a news release.

Major crimes, forensic and the K-9 unit are all involved in the investigation. The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. has also been asked to help.

This is the third shooting in two weeks in the Interior city. On June 15, a man was shot dead in his driveway in the city. And on June 12, a stray bullet from a targeted shooting narrowly missed residents in another home.

"The Prince George RCMP are concerned about the recent incidents that have taken place within a relatively small area of our community," said Douglass. "These incidents have been targeted towards known individuals involved in the drug trade. Although the motives for these incidents are still under investigation, they appear to be conflicts centered around illegal activities."

He added police are working to "deter and disrupt further violence."

"These violent acts are completely intolerable and all available police assets (in Prince George) will be utilized to combat and target those involved," said Douglass. "Prince George remains a safe community for those that do not involve themselves in illegal activities. The small percentage of persons that operate or live within the drug trade put themselves at a higher risk every day."
A video of a Porsche SUV being not-so-expertly parked in a Vancouver garage blew up on YouTube Thursday, and helped police solve a hit-and-run crash.

The video, titled How to Park Your Porsche in Vancouver, shows a white Porsche Cayenne repeatedly slamming into the side of an open garage, as the driver attempts to get inside.

Having cut the corner too sharply, the driver continues to reverse and pull forward, digging the side of the pricey vehicle deeper into the garage walls.

Terrible, expensive sounding noises come from the collision throughout the almost two-minute long video.

As the SUV finally scrapes its way into garage, peeling off parts of the vehicle, the person filming says, Yeah, he got it in.

Vancouver Police have spoken to the driver, and say he was involved in a minor hit-and-run on June 16 in Vancouver.

Const. Brian Montague of the Vancouver Police Department said the 16-year-old driver does not have a drivers licence, and his mother, who owns the SUV, was out of the country.

The driver had allegedly hit a parked car earlier, which damaged the front end of the Porsche. This damage can be seen in the video, as the front passenger side tire is coming off the wheel.

Montague said if the driver had stayed at the scene of the accident he would have likely gotten a ticket for driving without a licence, and it wouldnt have been a big deal, but he has now been charged with driving without due care.

Police had a description of the vehicle last week, but the YouTube video made it much easier to find the driver.

- With files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press

Priests and anyone else in "the orbit of the church" will be forbidden from being alone with children and other vulnerable people as part of a pilot project, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Montreal said Thursday.

The goal is to create a "safety net" for everyone associated with the Catholic Church in Montreal, canon Francois Sarrazin said in an interview.

"Imagine if you are alone in a room and a child accuses you of hitting them, how will you react?" Sarrazin asked. "Whether it's true or not, you need a witness. Not being in the room alone with someone who is vulnerable is simply being prudent."

He said the policy will be introduced in a handful of churches across the city, starting in September.

For Carlo Tarini, a spokesman for an association of victims of priests, the new rules are "too little too late."

He said the policy is just a way for the church to protect itself against lawsuits stemming from child-abuse scandals that have rocked the city's diocese and the Roman Catholic Church across the globe.

The church "knows that victims have gotten help from lawyers and have been successful in court and they will push forward for compensation when such cases are made public," Tarini said.

Recently, the Clerics of St-Viateur, a Catholic religious order that ran a school for deaf children in Montreal, was sued after 150 people came forward to say they were victims of child abuse at the boarding school between 1940 and the early '80s.

Between November and February, the order, along with a Quebec government-run health institute that took over the school, reached an out-of-court settlement with the plaintiffs for $30 million  reportedly the largest sum awarded to victims of a church sex-abuse scandal in Quebec.

Sarrazin said the policy doesn't only apply to priests but to all employees of parishes and churches, volunteers and "anyone else in the orbit of the diocese."

Archbishop of Montreal Christian Lepine said in a statement he will create a new bureau in the diocese called the "Service of Responsible Pastoral Ministry," which will be tasked with rolling out the new policy.

Sarrazin said details will be made available at a later date.
Photo: rc

Photo: rc

Surrey RCMP is asking for the publics help after a suspicious incident where a woman may have been abducted.

Surrey RCMP received a report on June 22 at 10 p.m. of a disturbance between two Caucasian males in a black truck and a Caucasian female on foot in the area of 94 A Avenue and King George Boulevard.

It wasnt obvious to the witness who called police if the female got into the truck voluntarily or not, said Cpl. Scotty Schumanna.

Surrey RCMP Serious Crime Unit is leading this investigation and surveillance cameras in the area captured the truck on camera.

The truck is described as a newer model black Dodge Ram, with three cardboard boxes in the back. The truck had driving or fog" lights in operation during the time of the incident. The truck was last seen travelling northbound on King George Boulevard from 94 A Avenue.

Even though police arent certain if an offence has occurred we are treating this matter very seriously, said Schumann. Investigators would like to speak with anyone who recognizes this truck or has knowledge of the persons involved.

Anyone with more information is asked to contact the Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers, or, to remain anonymous, at 1-800-222-TIPS or solvecrime.ca.
Photo: The Canadian Press

The interminable spectre of the Mike Duffy spending scandal reared its ugly head yet again Thursday as the Senate found itself once more locked in a battle with the controversial senator over dubious expenses.

This time, however, the expenses in question were from claims well-canvassed during Duffy's criminal trial, which ended earlier this year in his sensational acquittal on 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.

In that acquittal, Ontario Court Judge Charles Vaillancourt excoriated the Senate for spending rules that lacked clarity and oversight, allowing senators to claim expenses for anything related to what they deemed Senate business.

The Senate committee that polices spending has asked Duffy to repay seven of his claims totalling $16,955, despite last April's court decision.

It marks the first time since late March that a senator has been asked to reimburse questionable spending  an order Duffy is fighting and could soon be entitled to take up with a special arbitrator, former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie.

The arbitration process was originally set up to handle disputes arising from a federal audit of Senate spending  a review that missed Duffy initially, because he was under RCMP investigation and facing criminal charges.

Duffy has been subject to an audit once before on Senate orders, by auditing firm Deloitte. That 2013 audit looked only at his housing expenses and ended with a Senate committee ordering Duffy to repay $90,000, which he did after then-prime minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave him the cash in order to take away a potential political headache for the Conservative government.

Some senators on the committee tasked with oversight of Senate spending wanted auditor general Michael Ferguson to come back and review more of Duffy's spending, but the majority of committee members opted against rekindling the controversy.

But details that emerged during Duffy's criminal trial led Senate administrators to take another look at his spending, with the head of Senate finance alerting the Senate's internal economy committee to the questionable claims.

In a June 8 letter, the clerk of the Senate's internal economy committee cited "new information" that "had surfaced in the public domain" as the reason for the Senate taking another look at the eligibility of seven expense claims, which range from $10,000 for a personal trainer to $8 for personal photos.

The letter gave Duffy 10 days to "provide observations or information that could establish the eligibility of the expenses"  Senate lingo for requiring Duffy to prove the spending was legitimate.

Duffy's lawyer Donald Bayne says his client has been "fully exonerated" on the seven expenses in question, calling the Senate's persistence "a further compounding of injustice upon injustice (that) should be stopped."

In acquitting Duffy, Vaillancourt said the senator's actions weren't criminal, even if they raised eyebrows. The Crown later said it would not appeal the verdict.

"That judgment, in addition to finding Sen. Duffy not guilty of any criminal misconduct, makes definitive findings of fact in relation to each of the 7 expense times, factual findings by a court of law that cannot be attacked collaterally," Bayne wrote in his response.

The investigation dented Duffy's reputation and the Senate's decision to suspend him without pay for two years delivered him a net loss of $155,867, Bayne continued. Seeking $8 for personal photos now is "unseemly in the extreme" and smacks of petty vindictiveness," he added.

A letter from Duffy's office accused the committee of refusing to accept the court's judgment and describes the Senates actions as a "collateral attack" on Vaillancourt.

In a statement, the heads of the internal economy committee said Senate finance officials went over Vaillancourt's ruling and felt some of the claims identified were ineligible. The statement said the Senate will review Duffy's submission before deciding whether he should pay.

If the Senate adninistration decides the expenses weren't allowed under spending rules, Duffy could opt for an arbitration hearing with Binnie. Beyond that, it's possible the Senate could take Duffy to court to recoup any funds it feels he should pay, as it is doing with seven former senators named in the auditor general's report.
Photo: Contributed

A scrawny snowpack and a forecast of warmer-than-normal conditions has officials in British Columbia urging residents to use extra caution in preventing forest fires this summer.

Eric Meyer of the BC Wildfire Service said fire conditions could become "very volatile" by the July long weekend as rains fizzle.

"It's definitely going to start drying out," Meyer said Thursday during a conference call to discuss the snow pack and fire situation across B.C.

"We're asking the public to be very cautious with any activities in the forest because it won't take much for a fire to get up and started and take off on them."

Larger-than-average wildfires have consumed six times more land than normal in British Columbia so far this year, despite the actual number of blazes being no greater than usual, he said.

Dave Campbell of the River Forecast Centre said the snow pack across the province is less than 15 per cent of its typical level for this time of year because of an unseasonably hot and dry early spring, which stretched from late March through to early May.

"As of about the middle of May things have cooled down a bit and gotten more seasonal, and we've also gotten a few wet cycles as well," Campbell said.

He linked the waning of El Nino over the past month with the return to more seasonable temperatures for this time of year.

But the anticipated transition into La Nina isn't expected to bring significantly cooler and wetter conditions until the fall, Campbell added.

As for river water levels, he said flows across the province at between a quarter and three-quarters of what is normal for this time of year.

Environment Canada is predicting a hot summer, though precipitation remains an unknown factor, Campbell said.

Valerie Cameron, a water stewardship manager with the forests ministry, described last year as "the most significant drought in recent memory."

She said the province may have to enact some measures in the Water Regulation Act if conditions deteriorate beyond 2015 levels.

"We're hoping for a better year than we had last year but we're preparing for the worst," Cameron said.
Photo: CTV

A licenced medical marijuana grow operation went up in flames Thursday in Langley, and fire crews said it may be suspicious.

The fire broke out at 10 a.m. at an industrial building at 230th Street and Fraser Highway.

The large building is used by multiple businesses, including a grow-op with a Health Canada permit.

Firefighters spent several hours fighting the blaze from the street, unable to make it into the building until later in the day.

The fire was under control by the afternoon, with firefighters still putting out hot spots.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but the RCMP is involved in the investigation.

"There was one person seen fleeing the scene when the firefighters arrived," said Assistant Fire Chief Bruce Ferguson.

No injuries have yet to be reported.

- With files from CTV Vancouver
Tuesday Night with the Library will feature "The Story of Pioneers Park" on June 28 at 7 p.m. in the Norva Price Room.

With its southwest Lincoln location, Pioneers Park has been a favorite for generations of families from Beatrice and Gage County. One of the most memorable parts of the park was the area that included elk and bison. This program will be presented by Ed Zimmer, the historic preservation planner in the Lincoln, Lancaster County Planning Department.

This presentation is one in the Find Your Park series sponsored by the Beatrice Public Library in honor of the Centennial of the National Park Service. Future programs will include the history of Beatrice city parks, Homestead National Monument of America and Nebraska state parks including Rock Creek Station.

For more information, contact the library at 402-223-3584 or www.beatricene.gov/library.
ACIP votes down use of LAIV for 2016-2017 flu season

Media Statement For Immediate Release: Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Contact: Media Relations,

(404) 639-3286

CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) today voted that live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), also known as the nasal spray flu vaccine, should not be used during the 2016-2017 flu season. ACIP continues to recommend annual flu vaccination, with either the inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) or recombinant influenza vaccine (RIV), for everyone 6 months and older.

ACIP is a panel of immunization experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This ACIP vote is based on data showing poor or relatively lower effectiveness of LAIV from 2013 through 2016.

In late May, preliminary data on the effectiveness of LAIV among children 2 years through 17 years during 2015-2016 season became available from the U.S. Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network. That data showed the estimate for LAIV VE among study participants in that age group against any flu virus was 3 percent (with a 95 percent Confidence Interval (CI) of -49 percent to 37 percent). This 3 percent estimate means no protective benefit could be measured. In comparison, IIV (flu shots) had a VE estimate of 63 percent (with a 95 percent CI of 52 percent to 72 percent) against any flu virus among children 2 years through 17 years. Other (non-CDC) studies support the conclusion that LAIV worked less well than IIV this season. The data from 2015-2016 follows two previous seasons (2013-2014 and 2014-2015) showing poor and/or lower than expected vaccine effectiveness (VE) for LAIV.

How well the flu vaccine works (or its ability to prevent flu illness) can range widely from season to season and can be affected by a number of factors, including characteristics of the person being vaccinated, the similarity between vaccine viruses and circulating viruses, and even which vaccine is used. LAIV contains live, weakened influenza viruses. Vaccines containing live viruses can cause a stronger immune response than vaccines with inactivated virus. LAIV VE data before and soon after licensure suggested it was either comparable to, or better than, IIV. The reason for the recent poor performance of LAIV is not known.

Vaccine manufacturers had projected that as many as 171 million to 176 million doses of flu vaccine, in all forms, would be available for the United States during the 2016-2017 season. The makers of LAIV had projected a supply of as many as 14 million doses of LAIV/nasal spray flu vaccine, or about 8 percent of the total projected supply. LAIV is sold as FluMist Quadrivalent and it is produced by MedImmune, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca. LAIV was initially licensed in 2003 as a trivalent (three-component) vaccine. LAIV is currently the only non-injection-based flu vaccine available on the market.

Todays ACIP vote could have implications for vaccine providers who have already placed vaccine orders. The ACIP recommendation may particularly affect pediatricians and other vaccine providers for children since data from recent seasons suggests nasal spray flu vaccine accounts for about one-third of all flu vaccines given to children. CDC will be working with manufacturers throughout the summer to ensure there is enough vaccine supply to meet the demand.

CDC conducts vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies each season to estimate flu vaccine effectiveness. Todays ACIP vote highlights the importance of measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions, which can have significant implications for public health policy. The change in the ACIP recommendation is an example of using new available data to ensure public health actions are most beneficial. Influenza is a serious disease that causes millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and thousands or tens of thousands of deaths each year. While the protection offered by flu vaccines can vary, the flu shots overall VE estimate of 49 percent suggests that millions of people were protected against flu last season.

Todays ACIP recommendation must be reviewed and approved by CDCs director before it becomes CDC policy. The final annual recommendations on the prevention and control of influenza with vaccines will be published in a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), Recommendations and Reports in late summer or early fall.

CDC has recommended an annual influenza vaccination for everyone ages 6 months and older since February 24, 2010. CDC and ACIP briefly had a preferential recommendation for nasal spray vaccine for young children (during 2014-2015); however, during the 2015-2016 season, influenza vaccination was recommended without any preference for one vaccine type or formulation over another.

###

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon
During 20112014, there were more CDC-funded HIV testing events and newly identified HIV infections during the month of June compared with the mean for all other months, with significant differences for those most affected by HIV, such as African American (black) men and men who have sex with men (MSM). Compared with the 2 weeks before and after NHTD, the highest number of newly identified HIV positive persons occurred on June 27th each year.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing is the first step in the continuum of HIV prevention, care, and treatment services, without which, gaps in HIV diagnosis cannot be addressed. National HIV testing campaigns are useful for promoting HIV testing among large numbers of persons. However, the impact of such campaigns on identification of new HIV-positive diagnoses is unclear. To assess whether National HIV Testing Day (NHTD, June 27) was effective in identifying new HIV-positive diagnoses, National HIV Prevention Program Monitoring and Evaluation (NHM&E) data for CDC-funded testing events conducted during 20112014 were analyzed. The number of HIV testing events and new HIV-positive diagnoses during June of each year were compared with those in other months by demographics and target populations. The number of HIV testing events and new HIV-positive diagnoses were also compared for each day leading up to and after NHTD in June and July of each year. New HIV-positive diagnoses peaked in June relative to other months and specifically on NHTD. During 20112014, NHTD had a substantial impact on increasing the number of persons who knew their HIV status and in diagnosing new HIV infections. NHTD also proved effective in reaching persons at high risk disproportionately affected by HIV, including African American (black) men, men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgender persons. Promoting NHTD can successfully increase the number of new HIV-positive diagnoses, including HIV infections among target populations at high risk for HIV infection.

After two decades of campaigns promoting the annual NHTD, it is important to know whether these efforts have resulted in an increase in the number of new HIV diagnoses and whether persons at highest risk for HIV infection are effectively reached. NHTD includes approximately 400 events across the United States, spanning several days. The primary goal is to promote HIV testing, an essential step in the diagnosis of HIV, linkage to antiretroviral therapy, and prevention of new infections (1,2). This goal aligns with the National HIV/AIDS Strategy focused on reducing HIV infections, optimizing health outcomes, and decreasing disparities (3). Among persons disproportionately affected, blacks account for approximately half of all newly identified HIV-positive persons, and gay, bisexual, and other MSM are more severely affected by HIV than any other group (46). In 2010, HIV testing during the week of NHTD indicated both an increase in CDC-funded HIV testing events and new HIV diagnoses compared with 2 control weeks (7).

To evaluate whether NHTD campaigns have been successful at increasing the number of persons who know their HIV status, test-level data from the NHM&E data system were extracted and analyzed for the years 20112014. Data submitted by 55 grantees in 2011, 59 in 2012, 61 in 2013, and 60 in 2014 from CDC-funded jurisdictions in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands were included. Analysis of valid HIV testing event data was conducted. A valid HIV testing event was defined as an event in which either HIV test technology or an HIV test result was reported. A single testing event included one test (i.e., a single rapid test or single conventional test) or more tests (i.e., single rapid test followed by a single conventional test) conducted to determine a persons HIV status. An HIV-positive testing event for a person who was not reported previously as testing positive for HIV was categorized as a newly identified HIV infection. The number of HIV testing events conducted during the month of June was compared with the number of HIV testing events conducted during all remaining months of the year (i.e., JanuaryMay and JulyDecember). A chi-square test was used to detect differences between the number of HIV testing events conducted in June and the average number of HIV testing events conducted during the remainder of the year. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. The differences in the number of testing events and newly identified HIV infections were analyzed by selected demographic characteristics, including age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and risk behaviors. The number of newly identified HIV-positive persons identified each day during the 2 weeks before and after June 27th were compared to determine whether there was an increase on NHTD and to examine testing trends leading up to and after NHTD.

A total of 13,051,035 CDC-funded HIV testing events were conducted during 20112014, including 3,299,690 (2011); 3,287,024 (2012); 3,343,633 (2013); and 3,120,688 (2014). The numbers of new HIV-positive test results were 17,216 (0.52%) for 2011; 16,976 (0.52%) for 2012; 17,426 (0.52%) for 2013; and 16,530 (0.53%) for 2014. The number of testing events peaked in June compared with the mean during JanuaryMay and JulyDecember for each year during 20112014, and the mean number of newly identified HIV-positive persons increased significantly during June (p<0.001) compared with JanuaryMay and JulyDecember (Figure 1). When the number of new HIV infections diagnosed each day during the 2 weeks before and after NHTD was compared with new HIV infections diagnosed on June 27, the annual national testing event identified the largest number of new HIV infections compared with any of the other days (Figure 2). New HIV infections identified on NHTD, compared with those identified on the next highest day, increased 25% in 2011, 40% in 2012, 20% in 2013, and 17% in 2014 (Figure 2). The increase in total HIV testing events and the number of newly identified HIV infections was significant for persons aged 20 years; for all sex and gender groups (male, female, and transgender); MSM and heterosexuals; and white, black and Hispanic/Latino racial/ethnic groups (Table). MSM identified as white, black, or Hispanic/Latino experienced a significant increase in testing events and newly identified HIV-positive persons in June (Table).
HIV testing of young males is important to identify undiagnosed infection and for those who test HIV-positive can serve as an entry point for HIV treatment and prevention of further HIV transmission. Opportunities exist to increase HIV testing coverage at visits to physicians offices. Interventions such as opt-out testing, standing laboratory orders for HIV testing, and electronic medical record reminders could be implemented in physicians offices to increase testing coverage.

In 2006, CDC recommended routine HIV testing of adults and adolescents; however, testing coverage in the United States has been suboptimal. Among new HIV diagnoses in 2014, 81% were in males, with the highest number reported in those aged 2029 years.

In 2014, 81% of new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection diagnoses in the United States were in males, with the highest number of cases among those aged 2029 years. Racial and ethnic minorities continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV; there are 13 new diagnoses each year per 100,000 white males, 94 per 100,000 black males, and 42 per 100,000 Hispanic males (1). Despite the recommendation by CDC for HIV testing of adults and adolescents (2), in 2014, only 36% of U.S. males aged 18 years reported ever having an HIV test (3), and in 2012, an estimated 15% of males living with HIV had undiagnosed HIV infection (4). To identify opportunities for HIV diagnosis in young males, CDC analyzed data from the 20092012 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) and U.S. Census data to estimate rates of health care use at U.S. physicians offices and HIV testing at these encounters. During 20092012, white males visited physicians offices more often (average annual rate of 1.6 visits per person) than black males (0.9 visits per person) and Hispanic males (0.8 visits per person). Overall, an HIV test was performed at 1.0% of visits made by young males to physicians offices, with higher testing rates among black males (2.7%) and Hispanic males (1.4%), compared with white males (0.7%). Although higher proportions of black and Hispanic males received HIV testing at health care visits compared with white males, this benefit is likely attenuated by a lower rate of health care visits. Interventions to routinize HIV testing at U.S physicians offices could be implemented to improve HIV testing coverage.

In 2014, 75% of males responding to the National Health Interview Survey reported having at least one visit to a health care office during the previous year (5). In 2011, among men aged 1925 years participating in the National Health Interview Survey, 63% self-reported having a usual place for health care, and 59% reported having a doctor visit in the previous year (6). Early initiation of antiretroviral therapy for persons with diagnosed HIV infection has been shown to reduce the risk for HIV transmission (7) and improve clinical outcomes (8). Persons who are found to be HIV-negative but at substantial risk for acquiring HIV infection should be offered prevention services, including preexposure prophylaxis (9) and other risk-reduction interventions.

Data from the 20092012 NAMCS* and the U.S. Census were analyzed to estimate the average annual number of visits to physicians offices per person, and the average annual percentage of visits where an HIV test was performed in HIV-negative non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic males aged 1539 years. Current HIV infection was defined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes and Reason for Visit codes consistent with HIV infection. A four-stage probability sampling design is used in NAMCS to allow generation of nationally representative weighted estimates of patient health care visits. Each selected physician was randomly assigned a 1-week data reporting period, and data collectors abstracted medical records from a systematic random sample of patient visits (10). Data collected included patients demographic characteristics, services provided, patients symptoms, physicians diagnoses, and medications prescribed. Eligible physicians included those who were engaged in office-based patient care, were principally engaged in patient care activities, were not federally employed, and were not in the specialties of anesthesiology, pathology, or radiology (10).

Response rates ranged from 39% in 2012 to 62% in 2009. Physicians who provided patient care at Community Health Centers were included in the 20092011 NAMCS. The average annual visits per person were calculated by dividing average annual number of visits during 2009-2012 by the average U.S. population during those years. The average annual percentage of visits with an HIV test was estimated by 5-year age group and by race/ethnicity, and was calculated by subtracting the average annual number of visits in which an HIV test was not performed from the average annual total number of visits and dividing by the average annual total number of visits. This methodology was used because the outcome, visits with an HIV test, had unweighted cell sizes <30 for several subgroups. Using visits in which an HIV test was not performed provided more reliable weighted estimates. All analyses used weighting to account for the complex sampling design.

During 20092012, males aged 1539 years made an average of 1.4 visits per year to physicians offices. Visits by white males (1.6 visits per person) were more frequent than visits by black males (0.9) and Hispanic males (0.8) (Table 1). Among all racial/ethnic groups, visits per person per year by males aged 1519 years, 2024 years, and 3539 years were 1.6, 1.0, and 1.8, respectively (Table 1). The number of annual visits per persons was lower for all age groups among black and Hispanic males compared with white males (Figure).

Overall, HIV testing was performed at 674,001 (1.0%) of the visits made by males aged 1539 years (Table 2). Compared with white males, for whom HIV testing was reported at 0.7% of visits, HIV testing was reported at 2.7% of visits by black males (prevalence ratio [PR] = 3.8; p<0.001) and 1.4% of visits by Hispanic males (PR = 2.0; p = 0.08). Compared with the rate found among males aged 3539 years (0.6%), HIV testing rates were higher among those aged 2024 years (1.7%) (PR = 3.0; p = 0.007) and 2529 years (1.8%) (PR = 3.1; p = 0.002) (Table 2). Along with age group 3539 years, the HIV testing rate was lowest among males aged 1519 years (0.6%) (PR = 1.0; p = 0.997).
The number of states that enacted statewide comprehensive smoke-free policies (i.e., no smoking allowed in worksites, restaurants, and bars) increased from zero in 2000 to 27 in 2015. Overall, nearly 50% of the U.S. population is protected by smoke-free laws. Although regional disparities remain, such as in the southeastern United States, substantive progress has been made adopting comprehensive smoke-free laws at the local level in some states in those areas.

In 2006, the Surgeon General reported that there is no level of risk-free exposure to secondhand smoke. The only effective way to eliminate involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke is to eliminate smoking completely in all indoor areas.

Exposure to secondhand smoke from burning tobacco products causes stroke, lung cancer, and coronary heart disease in adults (1,2). Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke are at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, middle ear disease, more severe asthma, respiratory symptoms, and slowed lung growth (1,2). Secondhand smoke exposure contributes to approximately 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and 400 deaths in infants each year (2). This report updates a previous CDC report that evaluated state smoke-free laws in effect from 20002010 (3), and estimates the proportion of the population protected by comprehensive smoke-free laws. The number of states, including the District of Columbia (DC), with comprehensive smoke-free laws (statutes that prohibit smoking in indoor areas of worksites, restaurants, and bars) increased from zero in 2000 to 26 in 2010 and 27 in 2015. The percentage of the U.S. population that is protected increased from 2.72% in 2000 to 47.8% in 2010 and 49.6% in 2015. Regional disparities remain in the proportions of state populations covered by state or local comprehensive smoke-free policies, as no state in the southeast has a state comprehensive law. In addition, nine of the 24 states that lack state comprehensive smoke-free laws also lack any local comprehensive smoke-free laws. Opportunities exist to accelerate the adoption of smoke-free laws in states that lack local comprehensive smoke-free laws, including those in the south, to protect nonsmokers from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke exposure.

CDC assessed laws that completely prohibit smoking in all indoor areas of private-sector worksites, restaurants, and bars. These three venues were selected because they are a major source of secondhand smoke exposure for nonsmoking employees and the public (13). CDC considers a smoke-free law to be comprehensive if it prohibits smoking in indoor areas of all of these three venues. Some states and communities have enacted laws with less stringent smoking restrictions (e.g., provisions restricting smoking to designated areas or to separately ventilated areas); however, these laws do not eliminate secondhand smoke exposure (1).

Data on state smoke-free policies were obtained from CDCs State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System database.* State legislation is collected quarterly from an online legal research database of state laws and is analyzed, coded, and entered into the STATE System. Data on local smoking restrictions and the percentage of the population covered were obtained from the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation (ANRF) U.S. Tobacco Control Laws Database. This database categorizes various types of U.S. municipal and county laws relating to tobacco, including smoking restrictions. Laws included in the database are identified through various means, including systematic scanning of tobacco control publications, websites, and e-mail discussion lists and through partnerships with the National Association of County and City Health Officials and the National Association of Local Boards of Health. The number of states with comprehensive smoke-free laws during 20002015 was assessed. The percentage of state populations with local comprehensive smoke-free laws and the percentage of the U.S. population that lives in a state or community with a comprehensive smoke-free law was calculated using 2007 U.S. Census data.

The number of states (including DC) with comprehensive smoke-free laws in effect increased from zero on December 31, 2000 to 26 on December 31, 2010 and 27 on December 31, 2015 (Figure). During 20112015, only North Dakota implemented a comprehensive smoke-free law. Among the 24 states that lack a comprehensive smoke-free law, five prohibit smoking in two of three venues; five prohibit smoking in one venue; eight allow smoking in ventilated or designated smoking areas; and six lack any statewide smoking restrictions (Table 1).

In some states without statewide comprehensive smoke-free laws, substantial progress has been made in adopting comprehensive smoke-free laws at the local level (Table 2). For example, although West Virginia has no statewide smoke-free law, local laws that prohibit smoking in worksites, restaurants, and bars provide protection for 60.1% of West Virginias population. Between one fourth and one third of a states population is protected through local comprehensive smoke-free laws in other states, such as Texas (36.6%), South Carolina (31.8%), Kentucky (31.4%), and Mississippi (24.2%). Overall, 49.6% of the U.S. population was protected by state or local comprehensive smoke-free laws as of December 31, 2015.

Nine of 24 states without comprehensive statewide smoke-free laws also lack any local comprehensive smoke-free laws; eight of the nine (Connecticut, Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia) have preemption statutes that prohibit adoption of local smoke-free laws (Table 2) (4). Nevada is the only one of these nine states where local comprehensive smoke-free laws are allowed, yet none have been adopted. Although local smoke-free laws are permitted in Georgia, Arkansas, and Wyoming, relatively few local comprehensive laws exist in those states.
Pakistan: Pioneer Cement sets up 12MW WHR plant

23 June 2016

Pioneer Cement Ltd (PIOC) has signed an agreement with CITIC industries for a 12MW Waste Heat Recovery System (WHR) at its plant, Chenki district, Khushab on the banks of Jhelum River in Punjab province of Pakistan.



The cost of the project is PKR1.5bn (US$14.32m) and will come on stream FY19. The plant is expected to meet about 38 per cent of the companys total electricity requirement.

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Ghana: Dangote aims to speed up expansion work

23 June 2016

Dangote Cement Ghana Ltd hopes to quickly complete its new plant being built in Takoradi and in addition to the expanded facility in Tema to increase its silo capacity beyond the current 21,000t.



Mr Etornam Komla Buami, the media relations manager of Dangote Cement Ghana said: "The demand for Dangote Cement is increasing by the day and we have no choice than to speed up our expansion works. This is a positive development for the whole of Ghana in terms of job creation and contributions to the general economic growth of the country."



He said the company, which entered into the Ghanaian market few years ago is currently has more than 700 staff with thousands of indirect employees in the industry. Mr Buami announced that by end of July the staffing strength could be increased to 1700 as one thousand more workers would be recruited.



Mr Buami told disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency that the entry of Dangote cement into the Ghanaian market had created a competition that had resulted in price stabilisation throughout the country.





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Saman Cement's MD angered by Iraq's high import duties

23 June 2016

The managing director of Saman Cement Co, in Kermanshah, West Iran, has said that Iraq's high import duties on cement has put the Iranian cement industry in crisis, reports the Tasnim News Agency.



Shahryar Geravandi, the managing director of Saman Cement Co said: "The new policy of the Iraqi government to increase import cement duties has put [Iranian] cement factories in danger, and domestic cement factories are now facing surplus product."



Geravandi added that importing to new markets would be uneconomical because of high transportation costs. He emphasised the need for the government's support for cement industries.

"The government has not yet provided these supports, and the price [of Iranian cement] at the destination is so high that cement producers cannot compete with other countries," he said.





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In the wake of the tragic terrorist attack in Orlando, Bruce and I join all Nebraskans in offering our deepest condolences to the victims and families. As a mother, my heart breaks for the loved ones of the victims. As an American, I share in a profound sense of sorrow for the loss of innocent life.

Many questions surrounding this attack remain unanswered.

What was the terrorists path to radical Islamism?

Recently, I attended a classified briefing given by FBI Director James Comey and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to learn more about the specific circumstances of this tragedy.

While there is much we still do not know about the attack in Orlando, there are a few, very important things we do know.

We know 49 people were killed, and 53 others were injured. We know their families are suffering, and we grieve with them. We know the gay community was targeted.

There is something else we know: This attack was violence against innocent people. It was an assault on the age-old Western value of social pluralism. This principle forbids doing violence to others just because we strongly disagree with them. Its a basic belief that unites Americans.

We have many disagreements in our country. We have them in the Senate. We have them at work and around the dinner table. Sometimes our words are heated. But we dont kill people who disagree with us.

We protect their right to think differently. This is a key part of our identity as Americans. The Orlando attack reminds us that we are in the middle of a global battle between two ways of life: open democracy and violent jihadism.

Our way, the American way, values pluralism. It permits dissent from dominant social and political views. It protects the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion. It defends our shared human dignity. In our society, the value of your life is not determined by your views. Here, your life has value because you exist. Thats good enough for us.

Thats not good enough for radical Islamism. Its followers do not believe these things. They impose uniformity and destroy dissent. For the radical Islamist, there is no live and let live.

Their ideology demands obedience. It allows only one way to live your life. It demands that people who think differently, live differently, or pray differently stop thinking, living, and praying how they do.

Radical Islamism does not use words to get what it wants. We observe its methods in Syria, through ISIL. There, they stone women and throw men from buildings for violating their code. This contempt for other cultures drives them to destroy historical artifacts and ancient holy sites. They exterminate entire communities for practicing a different set of religious beliefs.

And, they celebrate it.

While the extent to which the Orlando shooter was influenced by this is unclear, he clearly identified with ISILs barbaric glorification of violence. This is why we must unite to ensure ISILs lasting defeat. Their defeat on the battlefield will diminish the power of their calls to butcher, pillage, and defile.

Responding to this terror is the shared responsibility of all Americans, and not reserved only for the military or law enforcement. We can all play a role in the response.

In our day-to-day lives, we can deliver a direct challenge to radical Islamists. By living out our values of pluralism, of freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, we can stand against the forces of hatred and injustice.

Thank you for taking part in our democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.


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Columbus, GA, United States

Columbus is a charming small town in Georgia that is worth a visit. There are several places to visit in Columbus, including the Riverwalk, the Chattahoochee River, the National Infantry Museum, and the Coca-Cola Space Science Center. The Riverwalk is a beautiful walkway along the Chattahoochee River that is perfect for a relaxing stroll or a bike ride. The Chattahoochee River is a great place to go fishing, swimming, or kayaking. The National Infantry Museum is a museum dedicated to the infantry of the United States Army. It is a must-see for history buffs. The Coca-Cola Space Science Center is a museum dedicated to space science. It is perfect for kids and adults alike.

Columbus Luxury Hotels

Anchorage, AK, United States

Anchorage is a great place to visit if you're looking for an adrenaline rush. From skiing and snowboarding in the winter to rafting and fishing in the summer, Anchorage has something to offer everyone. In addition to its outdoor activities, Anchorage also has a variety of cultural and historical attractions, including the Anchorage Museum and the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.

Anchorage Luxury Hotels

Portland, OR, United States

Portland is a city that is located in the US state of Oregon and it is known for its art scene, food, and coffee. There are a lot of interesting places to visit in Portland, such as the Portland Art Museum, where you can see a variety of art from all over the world. Another place to visit is the Powell's City of Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world. If you're looking for a place to eat, Portland has no shortage of amazing restaurants, such as Pok Pok, which serves Thai cuisine, and Le Pigeon, which serves French cuisine. And, of course, no trip to Portland would be complete without trying some of the city's famous coffee, such as Stumptown Coffee Roasters.

Portland Luxury Hotels

Florence, Italy

No trip to Italy is complete without a visit to Florence. This historic city is home to some of the country's most famous attractions, including the Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, and Michelangelo's David. There's also plenty to see and do outside of the city center, including the picturesque Tuscan countryside and the vibrant university town of Arezzo.

Florence Luxury Hotels

Florence Luxury Villas

Asheville, NC, United States

Asheville is a city in western North Carolina. It is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Buncombe County. Asheville is home to the Biltmore Estate, the largest private home in the United States. The city of Asheville proper had a population of 84,236 in 2010. The city is known for its art deco architecture, mountain scenery and outdoor activities, and as the birthplace of American novelist Thomas Wolfe. It is also home to the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, the second largest craft brewery in the United States.

Asheville Luxury Hotels

Asheville Luxury Cottages

Long Beach, CA, United States

There's plenty to do in Long Beach, California without ever having to leave the city limits. If you're looking for a little adventure, head to the Aquarium of the Pacific for a glimpse of the ocean's creatures or take a walk on the boardwalk at Rainbow Harbor. If you're more of a history buff, the Queen Mary is a must-see. This retired ocean liner is now a hotel and museum with plenty of stories to tell. And no trip to Long Beach is complete without a visit to the iconic Vincent Thomas Bridge.

Long Beach Luxury Hotels

Long Beach Luxury Villas

Cincinnati, OH, United States

Cincinnati is a city located on the Ohio River in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Ohio. The city was founded in 1788 and named after the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers. Cincinnati is a major U.S. city and the metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million people. The city is well-known for its German heritage, Oktoberfest celebration, and its variety of chili dishes. Cincinnati is home to three major sports teams: the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals, MLB's Cincinnati Reds, and the NBA's Cincinnati Cavaliers. The city is also home to the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University. The city's historic neighborhoods include Over-the-Rhine, Mount Auburn, and Hyde Park. Cincinnati is a popular tourist destination and offers a variety of attractions and places to visit, including the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, the Newport Aquarium, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Cincinnati Luxury Hotels

Laughlin, NV, United States

Laughlin, Nevada is a great place to visit if you're looking for a fun and affordable vacation. There are plenty of casinos and resorts to choose from, as well as plenty of outdoor activities and attractions. Be sure to check out the local nightlife, and don't forget to take a trip down the mighty Colorado River.

Laughlin Luxury Hotels

Laughlin Luxury Resorts

Anaheim, CA, United States

Anaheim, California is home to both Disneyland and California Adventure Park. The parks are just a short walk away from each other, and make for a great day of exploration. Anaheim is also home to the Anaheim Angels and the Anaheim Ducks, so there's always a game to catch. If you're looking for something a little more low-key, Anaheim has a great shopping district and a variety of restaurants to choose from.

Anaheim Luxury Hotels

Santa Cruz, CA, United States

Santa Cruz is a great place to visit! There are so many places to see and things to do. Some of my favorite places to visit are the Boardwalk, the wharf, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. The Boardwalk is a great place to go for a walk, ride on the amusement park rides, and eat some of the delicious food. The wharf is a great place to go for a walk, eat some seafood, and listen to the street performers. The University of California, Santa Cruz is a great place to visit to learn about the history of the area and to see some of the beautiful architecture. I highly recommend visiting Santa Cruz if you are looking for a fun and interesting place to visit!.

Santa Cruz Luxury Hotels

Eugene, OR, United States

Eugene, Oregon is a great city to visit with a lot of places to see and things to do. One of the most popular attractions is the University of Oregon campus, which is home to a number of museums and a large football stadium. The city also has a vibrant arts scene, with a number of theaters and art galleries. Outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy the dozens of parks and hiking trails in the area, and there are also a number of wineries and breweries in the area.

Eugene Luxury Hotels

Branson, MO, United States

There's plenty to see and do in Branson, Missouri, from state parks and amusement parks to theaters and shopping. Here are some of the most popular places to visit: Silver Dollar City is a theme park with rides, shows, and craftsmen demonstrations. is a theme park with rides, shows, and craftsmen demonstrations. The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre puts on a variety of shows, including "The Legend of the Shepherd of the Hills" and "The Catfish Fry." puts on a variety of shows, including "The Legend of the Shepherd of the Hills" and "The Catfish Fry." Table Rock State Park has fishing, swimming, and hiking trails, as well as a nature center. has fishing, swimming, and hiking trails, as well as a nature center. The Titanic Museum features a half-sized replica of the ship, along with exhibits about the history of the Titanic. features a half-sized replica of the ship, along with exhibits about the history of the Titanic. Branson Landing is a shopping and entertainment complex on the waterfront. There's something for everyone in Branson, Missouri  come visit and see for yourself!.

Branson Luxury Hotels

Panama City Beach, FL, United States

The white sand beaches and emerald waters of Panama City Beach, Florida, are a popular tourist destination. The city is home to numerous hotels, resorts, and restaurants, as well as amusement and water parks. Visitors can also enjoy fishing, kayaking, and surfing.

Panama City Beach Luxury Hotels

Panama City Beach Luxury Resorts

Monterey, CA, United States

Monterey is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, United States. It stands at the southern end of Monterey Bay, on the Pacific coast. The city is also the home of the Naval Postgraduate School. Monterey is the largest city in the Central Coast region of California. The main attractions in Monterey are the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row, and the downtown area.

Monterey Luxury Hotels

Norfolk, VA, United States

Norfolk, Virginia is a great place to visit for its historical places and military bases. Some places to visit in Norfolk are the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk Botanical Garden, and the Norfolk Naval Station.

Norfolk Luxury Hotels

Palm Springs, CA, United States

Palm Springs is a vibrant city located in the Coachella Valley and is known for its year-round sunshine, resort atmosphere and Mid-Century Modern architecture. Top places to visit include the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, Palm Springs Art Museum, Indian Canyons and Moorten Botanical Garden. For a truly unique experience, be sure to check out the Palm Springs Modernism Show & Sale  the worlds largest vintage furniture and design event.

Palm Springs Luxury Hotels

Palm Springs Luxury Resorts

Palm Springs Luxury Villas

Rochester, NY, United States

Rochester is a city in western New York State and is the county seat of Monroe County. Rochester is known for its annual festivals, including the Rochester International Jazz Festival, the Rochester Fringe Festival, and the Holiday Folk Fair International. Places to visit in Rochester include the George Eastman Museum, the Strong National Museum of Play, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, and the Seneca Park Zoo.

Rochester Luxury Hotels

Pigeon Forge, TN, United States

Visit the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge for a unique experience. This museum is dedicated to the Titanic, one of the most infamous ships in history. Tour the ship and learn about the passengers and crew who were on board. You can even see the actual artifacts recovered from the shipwreck. If you're looking for a little more excitement, head to Dollywood. This amusement park is home to roller coasters, a water park, and plenty of other rides and attractions. Plus, the park is themed around the life and music of Dolly Parton. No trip to Pigeon Forge is complete without a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains. These mountains offer a variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, and horseback riding. Plus, the natural beauty of the area is simply breathtaking.

Pigeon Forge Luxury Hotels

Jacksonville, FL, United States

Jacksonville is less than an hour's drive from the beaches of Amelia Island and St. Augustine, and a little more than two hours from Orlando. The city has a lot to offer visitors, including a riverwalk, museums, and a vibrant arts scene. Jacksonville is also home to the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team.

Jacksonville Luxury Hotels

Minsk, Belarus

Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is a city that has something for everyone. If you're looking for a little history, Minsk has plenty of it, with churches and monuments dating back to the 12th century. If you're looking for a lively nightlife, Minsk has that, too, with plenty of bars, clubs, and restaurants. And if you're looking for a little nature, Minsk has parks and gardens to enjoy. Here are just a few of the places you can visit in Minsk: The Holy Spirit Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Minsk, is a must-visit for history buffs. The National Library of Belarus is a huge library with more than 18 million items in its collection. The Opera and Ballet Theatre is a beautiful building that hosts performances of both opera and ballet. The Victory Park is a large park with a war memorial, a children's playground, and a lake. And for a little bit of nature in the heart of the city, the Botanical Garden is a great place to relax and take a break from the hustle and bustle of Minsk.

Minsk Luxury Hotels

Jaipur, India

Jaipur is one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. It is the capital of the state of Rajasthan and is known for its palaces, forts and temples. Some of the places to visit in Jaipur include the Amber Fort, the City Palace, the Jantar Mantar Observatory and the Hawa Mahal. Jaipur is also a great place to shop for traditional Indian handicrafts.

Jaipur Luxury Hotels

Chicago, IL, United States

Chicago is a city full of culture and history. There are plenty of places to visit, such as the Willis Tower, Buckingham Fountain, and the Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to many restaurants and bars, so there is something for everyone.

Chicago Luxury Hotels

Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland is a beautiful city located on the north island of New Zealand. There are many places to visit in Auckland, including the Sky Tower, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the Auckland Domain. The beaches in Auckland are also worth visiting, especially Karekare and Piha. Auckland is a great place to visit, and I highly recommend it!.

Auckland Luxury Hotels

Auckland Luxury Villas

Amsterdam, Netherlands

If you're looking for a city that's got it all, Amsterdam should be your go-to destination. From the city's lively and vibrant nightlife to its charming and quiet neighborhoods, Amsterdam has something for everyone. Be sure to check out the Anne Frank Huis, the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh Museum, as these are some of the most popular attractions in the city. And if you're looking for a little bit of nature, be sure to take a walk or bike ride through Amsterdam's many parks.

Amsterdam Luxury Hotels

Berlin, Germany

There are so many great places to visit in Berlin that it can be hard to know where to start. From the iconic Brandenburg Gate to the fascinating Reichstag Building, there's something for everyone in this vibrant city. If you're looking for a bit of history, make sure to check out the Berlin Wall Memorial or the DDR Museum. And for those looking for a bit more fun, there's always the Alexanderplatz Christmas Market or the Zoologischer Garten. No matter what your interests, Berlin is a city you won't want to miss.

Berlin Luxury Hotels

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is a city of contrasts with its gleaming temples and skyscrapers, chaotic markets and tranquil canals. While it's a popular tourist destination, Bangkok is a city that can be enjoyed by visitors of all ages. Some of the top places to visit in Bangkok include the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, the floating markets and the Chatuchak Weekend Market.

Bangkok Luxury Hotels

Bangkok Luxury Resorts

Bangkok Luxury Villas

Bruges, Belgium

Bruges is a city in Belgium that is worth visiting. It is full of medieval charm and there are a lot of things to see and do. Some of the places to visit include the Markt, the Belfry, and the Begijnhof.

Bruges Luxury Hotels

Brussels, Belgium

Brussels is a city in Belgium that is best known for its chocolate, waffles, and beer. But there is much more to see and do in Brussels than just indulge in the local cuisine. There are a number of interesting historical landmarks to visit, such as the Grand Place and the Atomium, as well as a variety of parks and gardens. And, of course, Brussels is also a great city to explore on foot.

Brussels Luxury Hotels

Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary's capital, is a city of thermal baths and medival, baroque and art nouveau architecture. Crowded with tourists, the city is bisected by the Danube River into the hilly Buda and the more developed and flat Pest. Among the main places of interest are the neo-Gothic Parliament, the Chain Bridge linking Buda and Pest, the Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion on the Buda bank, and the State Opera House and Heroes' Square on the Pest side.

Budapest Luxury Hotels

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Home to some of the best beaches in Mexico, Playa del Carmen is a favorite tourist destination for visitors from all over the world. With its lively nightlife, gorgeous coastline and ample shopping opportunities, there's something for everyone in this tropical paradise. Don't miss the opportunity to visit some of the area's most popular attractions, such as the ancient Mayan ruins of Tulum and Coba, or the eco-friendly Turtle Beach. With its friendly people, delicious food and stunning scenery, Playa del Carmen is a place you'll never want to leave.

Playa del Carmen Luxury Hotels

Playa del Carmen Luxury Resorts

Playa del Carmen Luxury Villas

Denver, CO, United States

Denver is a great city for visitors. There are so many places to see and things to do. Some of the top places to visit include the 16th Street Mall, the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Denver Art Museum, and the Colorado State Capitol. There are also plenty of great restaurants and shops to explore. Denver is definitely a city worth visiting!.

Denver Luxury Hotels

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin is a city located in Ireland. It's a city full of culture, with plenty of places to visit. Some popular tourist spots are the Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, and the Dublin Castle. There are also plenty of pubs and restaurants to discover.

Dublin Luxury Hotels

Dusseldorf, Germany

Dusseldorf, Germany is a city with many different places to visit. The city has a mix of old and new buildings, and a variety of activities to do. The best places to visit in Dusseldorf are the Konigsallee, the Rhine Tower, and the Oktoberfest. The Konigsallee is an open-air shopping mall that has many high-end stores. The Rhine Tower is the tallest building in the city and offers great views of Dusseldorf. The Oktoberfest is a week-long festival that celebrates German culture and food.

Dusseldorf Luxury Hotels

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Edinburgh, Scotland is a beautiful city to visit. The architecture is very old and unique, and there are plenty of historical places to visit, like Edinburgh Castle. There are also plenty of parks and gardens, and lots of shops and restaurants.

Edinburgh Luxury Hotels

Rome, Italy

Rome is a city rich in history and filled with beautiful places to visit. Make sure to stop by the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon. Also be sure to visit St. Peters Basilica and the Sistine Chapel while in Rome. If youre looking for a little more nature in your trip, head to the Villa Borghese gardens or the Janiculum Hill for some wonderful views of the city. And of course, no trip to Rome is complete without a gelato!.

Rome Luxury Hotels

Rome Luxury Villas

New York, NY, United States

There are many amazing places to visit in New York State. Some of my favorites are the Niagara Falls, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Finger Lakes. If you're looking for a city break, New York City is definitely worth a visit. There's endless things to see and do, from touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to visiting world-famous museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. No matter what your interests are, you'll be able to find something to enjoy in New York State.

New York Luxury Hotels

New York Luxury Villas

London, United Kingdom

London is a city rich in history and full of amazing places to visit. Some of my favorite places are Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London. There is so much to see and do in London, you could spend weeks here and never run out of things to do. If you're looking for a city full of culture and history, London is the place for you.

London Luxury Hotels

London Luxury Cottages

Madrid, Spain

Madrid is one of the most beautiful and culturally rich cities in the world. From the Royal Palace to the Prado Museum, theres plenty to see and do in Madrid. If youre looking for a little bit of nature, Madrid has plenty of parks, like the Buen Retiro Park, to relax in. And dont forget to try some of the delicious tapas and wine while youre in town.

Madrid Luxury Hotels

Memphis, TN, United States

The birthplace of rock 'n' roll, Memphis is a city rich in history and culture. From Graceland to Beale Street, there are plenty of places to visit in Memphis. Be sure to check out Sun Studio, where rock 'n' roll was born, and the National Civil Rights Museum, which tells the story of the African-American civil rights movement. Memphis is also home to some amazing food, so be sure to try some of the city's famous barbecue and soul food.

Memphis Luxury Hotels

Miami Beach, FL, United States

There is much to explore in Miami Beach, from the famous Art Deco district to the vast beaches and crystal-clear waters. Outdoor enthusiasts will love the opportunities for fishing, kayaking, and paddleboarding, while history buffs can explore the ancient burial mounds at Miami Beach. Shoppers and foodies will find plenty to keep them busy, with vibrant neighborhoods like Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive offering unique boutiques and award-winning restaurants. And of course, no trip to Miami Beach is complete without a visit to world-famous South Beach.

Miami Beach Luxury Hotels

Miami Beach Luxury Resorts

New Orleans, LA, United States

You can't visit New Orleans without trying some of the local food. Beignets, Po' Boys, and gumbo are just a few of the must-try dishes. While you're in town, be sure to check out the French Quarter, Jackson Square, and St. Louis Cathedral. If you're looking for some nightlife, Bourbon Street is the place to be. And, of course, no trip to New Orleans is complete without a visit to Mardi Gras!.

New Orleans Luxury Hotels

Milan, Italy

Milan is a city located in the Lombardy region of Italy. It is a popular tourist destination because of its historical and artistic heritage. Some of the places you should visit while in Milan are the Duomo, La Scala, and Castello Sforzesco.

Milan Luxury Hotels

Naples, Italy

Naples is one of the most beautiful and historic cities in Italy. There are countless places to visit, such as the Royal Palace, the Museum of San Martino, and the Church of Gesu Nuovo. Naples is also home to excellent shopping and dining options. Be sure to enjoy a cup of coffee at one of the city's many cafes and take a stroll through the picturesque streets.

Naples Luxury Hotels

Paris, France

Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It's home to iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, as well as a thriving nightlife and restaurant scene. If you're looking to explore all that Paris has to offer, here are some of the top places to visit: The Eiffel Tower: This iconic landmark is a must-see in Paris. Climb to the top for stunning views of the city, or take a ride on the elevator to the bottom for a closer look at the structure. The Louvre Museum: This world-famous museum is home to some of the most famous works of art in the world, including the Mona Lisa. The Notre Dame Cathedral: This beautiful cathedral is one of the most famous landmarks in Paris. Make sure to climb to the top for some amazing views of the city. The Champs-Elysees: This famous avenue is a popular destination for shopping and dining. Be sure to wander down the street and take in all the sights and sounds. The Arc de Triomphe: This towering arch is another iconic landmark in Paris. Climb to the top for some amazing views of the city.

Paris Luxury Hotels

Paris Luxury Villas

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a city rich in history and culture. There are plenty of places to visit, including the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, and the Old Town Square. There are also plenty of restaurants and bars to enjoy, and the nightlife is vibrant. Prague is a truly unique city and a must-visit for anyone traveling to the Czech Republic.

Prague Luxury Hotels

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Located on the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana is known for its beautiful beaches and turquoise waters. This paradise is a favorite destination for travelers looking for a Caribbean getaway. Punta Cana is home to a wide variety of resorts and activities, from enjoying the sand and surf to golfing, spas, and shopping. Nature lovers can also explore the areas jungles, caves, and waterfalls.

Punta Cana Luxury Hotels

Punta Cana Luxury Resorts

Punta Cana Luxury Villas

Marbella, Spain

If you're looking for an idyllic and luxurious Spanish escape, look no further than Marbella. Located on the country's Costa del Sol, Marbella is home to stunning beaches, top-notch resorts, world-class golfing, and much more. A visit to Marbella is the perfect way to experience all that Spain has to offer.

Marbella Luxury Hotels

Marbella Luxury Villas

Marrakesh, Morocco

Marrakesh is a city in Morocco that is full of culture and history. There are several places to visit in Marrakesh, including the Palace of the Bahia, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, and the Saadian Tombs. The souks (markets) are also a must-see, where you can find everything from souvenirs to spices to traditional clothing. Be sure to enjoy a meal in one of the many restaurants or cafes in Marrakesh; the food is delicious and the atmosphere is always lively. Marrakesh is a wonderful city to explore and definitely worth a visit!.

Marrakesh Luxury Hotels

San Francisco, CA, United States

San Francisco is a popular tourist destination, and for good reason. There are plenty of things to see and do in this vibrant city. Here are some of the top places to visit: 1. Fisherman's Wharf: This neighborhood is home to a variety of shops and restaurants, as well as a popular pier where you can enjoy views of the bay. 2. The Golden Gate Bridge: This iconic bridge is a must-see for any visitor to San Francisco. 3. Alcatraz Island: This former federal prison is now a popular tourist attraction. It's a must-see for fans of history and crime dramas. 4. Chinatown: This colorful neighborhood is home to some of the best food in San Francisco. Be sure to check out the Dragon Gate entrance. 5. The Mission District: This trendy neighborhood is home to hip restaurants, bars, and art galleries.

San Francisco Luxury Hotels

Moscow, Russia

Moscow, Russia is a beautiful city with plenty of places to visit. Some of the most popular tourist attractions are the Kremlin, Red Square, and Saint Basil's Cathedral. Other great places to see include the Bolshoi Theatre, Gorky Park, and the Tretyakov Gallery. There are also many churches and other historical buildings to explore. Moscow is a lively city with a lot of culture and nightlife. There is something for everyone to enjoy in Moscow.

Moscow Luxury Hotels

Venice, Italy

Venice is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The city is built on a lagoon in northeast Italy and is known for its canals and gondolas. There are many places to visit in Venice, including the Grand Canal, St. Marks Square, and the Rialto Bridge. Venice is also home to many museums, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Venice Luxury Hotels

Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria is a city with a long and rich history. There are many places to visit in Vienna, including the Hofburg Palace, the Ringstrasse, and St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna is also home to some of the world's best shopping, including the Karntner Strasse and the Graben. Finally, no visit to Vienna is complete without experiencing the city's world-famous nightlife.

Vienna Luxury Hotels

Zurich, Switzerland

Zurich is a marvelous city located in the heart of Switzerland. It is a city that has something to offer for everyone. From amazing restaurants and beautiful architecture to exciting nightlife and gorgeous parks, Zurich has something for everyone. Some of the most popular places to visit in Zurich include the Bahnhofstrasse, which is the city's most famous shopping street, the Lindenhof, which is a beautiful park with amazing views of the city, and Grossmunster, which is a stunning Romanesque church. Zurich is also home to some of the best museums in the world, including the famed Museum of Art and the Swiss National Museum. With its mix of old-world charm and modern amenities, Zurich is a city that is definitely worth exploring.

Zurich Luxury Hotels

Acapulco, Mexico

If you're looking for a Mexican vacation spot with plenty of history and culture to explore, Acapulco is a great option. From the archeological wonders of the ancient city to the stunning coastal views, there's something for everyone in Acapulco. Plus, with its temperate climate, it's a great escape from colder winter weather.

Acapulco Luxury Hotels

Acapulco Luxury Resorts

Acapulco Luxury Villas

Nashville, TN, United States

One of the United States' most interesting places to visit is Nashville, Tennessee. There's plenty to see and do there, from the Grand Ole Opry to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Music is a big part of the city's history and culture, so be sure to catch a show while you're in town. Other popular attractions include the Ryman Auditorium, the Parthenon, and the Jack Daniel's Distillery. Nashville is also a great place to eat, with a wide variety of restaurants serving up everything from barbecue to Mexican food. So if you're looking for an exciting and diverse city to visit, be sure to add Nashville to your list.

Nashville Luxury Hotels

Nashville Luxury Villas

Atlanta, GA, United States

What's not to love about Atlanta? From the iconic Georgia Aquarium to the World of Coke, from the Fox Theatre to Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta offers a wealth of destinations for tourists. Sports fans will want to check out the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and history buffs will enjoy the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. Braves fans can take a tour of SunTrust Park, and shoppers will enjoy the many boutiques and malls in the city. There's also a great restaurant scene in Atlanta, and music lovers will want to check out the many venues offering live music. Whether you're looking for a fun family vacation spot or a place to explore on your own, Atlanta is a great choice!.

Atlanta Luxury Hotels

Miami, FL, United States

The Magic City is a top tourist destination for a reasonthere are endless things to do in Miami! From exploring the trendy neighborhoods and dazzling beaches to soaking up the Latin culture and nightlife, Miami is jam-packed with amazing places to visit. Here are a few of our favorites: 1. Wynwood Walls: This outdoor art exhibit is a must-see for any art lover. The colorful murals are awe-inspiring and definitely Instagram-worthy. 2. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens: This estate is dripping with luxury and opulence, from the grandiose architecture to the expansive gardens. It's the perfect place for a day of relaxation. 3. South Beach: This world-famous beach is a must-visit for any sun-seeker. The crystal-clear water and soft sand make for the perfect day-long beach getaway. 4. Little Havana: Experience Cuban culture at its best in Little Havana. From delicious food to lively music and dance, there's something for everyone in this vibrant district. 5. Art Deco District: This district is home to Miami's most iconic architecture. Take a stroll down the charming streets and admire the colorful buildings that make Miami so unique.

Miami Luxury Hotels

Miami Luxury Villas

Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is a must-see destination in Japan. There are endless places to explore in this city - temples, shrines, gardens, and more. The Shinjuku district is a great place to start, with its neon-lit streets and myriad shops and restaurants. For a taste of traditional Japan, visit the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa or the Imperial Palace. Nature lovers will enjoy the Hamarikyu Gardens or the Hama-rikyu Teien Garden. And for a unique experience, take a trip to Mount Fuji.

Tokyo Luxury Hotels

Tokyo Luxury Villas

Buenos Aires, Argentina

There are plenty of places to visit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some popular tourist destinations include the obelisk, the Casa Rosada, and the Puerto Madero district. Every barrio (neighborhood) has its own unique culture and flavor. San Telmo, La Boca, and Palermo are some of the most popular barrios. There are also many parks and plazas, such as Plaza de Mayo and Plaza de la Republica, that are worth checking out.

Buenos Aires Luxury Hotels

Hamburg, Germany

One of the most popular tourist destinations in Germany is Hamburg. From the lively and colorful harbor district to the grandiose City Hall, there is plenty to see and do in Hamburg. Some of the other popular places to visit include the Reeperbahn district with its pubs and nightlife, the Planten un Blomen botanical gardens, and the architecturally stunning Rathausmarkt square.

Hamburg Luxury Hotels

Lisbon, Portugal

The capital of Portugal, Lisbon is a city of fascinating contrasts. From its coastal location, visitors can enjoy stunning ocean views, while its hilly, narrow streets are home to a maze of charming traditional homes and lively nightlife. A city of 7 hills, Lisbon is a bustling metropolis with something for everyone. Here are some of the top places to visit: The Belem Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of Lisbons most iconic landmarks. This 16th-century fortress and lighthouse is a must-see for visitors. The Alfama district, with its winding streets and tile-roofed homes, is the oldest district in Lisbon. This is the perfect place to get lost and explore the citys history. The Lisbon Zoo is a great place to enjoy a day out with the family, with over 2,000 animals from around the world. The Christ the King statue, located atop a hill in the suburb of Almada, offers impressive views of Lisbon and the river Tagus. The Lisbon Oceanarium, located in the Parque das Nacoes district, is home to more than 12,000 marine creatures and is one of the largest aquariums in Europe.

Lisbon Luxury Hotels

Lisbon Luxury Villas

Malaga, Spain

Malaga is an attractive seaside city in southern Spain with a long history. There are many places to visit in Malaga, including the Gibralfaro Castle, the Alcazaba fortress, and the Malaga Cathedral. Malaga is also home to a variety of museums, including the Picasso Museum. The city is well known for its beaches, and there are many delightful places to relax and enjoy the sun and the sea.

Malaga Luxury Hotels

Malaga Luxury Villas

Munich, Germany

When planning a vacation to Munich, Germany, be sure to include these top places to visit: The Marienplatz is a must-see square in the city center, featuring a beautiful Glockenspiel show and the Old and New Town Halls. The Englisher Garten, Europes largest city park, is a great place for a relaxing stroll or a picnic. OlympiaPark is home to the famous 1972 Olympic Stadium as well as a huge amusement park. The Frauenkirche is a stunning church in the old town with a Glockenspiel of its own. Beer lovers will want to visit the Hofbrauhaus, the worlds most famous beer hall. For a bit of history and culture, check out the LudwigMaximilians-University and the Deutsches Museum. There is so much to see and do in Munich  these are just a few highlights!.

Munich Luxury Hotels

Granada, Spain

Granada is a city in southern Spain that is known for its Moorish architecture and history. The city is home to the Alhambra, a palace and fortress that was constructed in the late 1300s. Visitors can also enjoy the citys many churches, including the Cathedral of Granada. Granada is also a convenient base for exploring the other cities and towns in Andalusia.

Granada Luxury Hotels

Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest is a city full of history and culture. There are many places to visit, such as the Palace of Parliament, which is the world's largest civilian building. Other places to visit include the old city center, which is full of charming streets and buildings, and the Botanical Garden, which is the largest botanical garden in Romania.

Bucharest Luxury Hotels

Bologna, Italy

Bologna, Italy is a beautiful city with plenty of places to visit. Some popular tourist destinations include the Piazza Maggiore, the Tower of Asinelli, and the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. There are also plenty of museums and churches to explore, and the city is full of charming restaurants and cafes. Bologna is an excellent destination for a vacation, and there is something for everyone to enjoy in this amazing city.

Bologna Luxury Hotels

Porto, Portugal

Porto is a port city in Portugal that is well known for its wine. It's also a city with a long and rich history. There are many places to visit in Porto, including the old city center, the Dom Luis I Bridge, and the Clerigos Tower. Porto is also home to the famous Port wine caves, which are a must-visit for wine lovers.

Porto Luxury Hotels

Cologne, Germany

Cologne, located on the Rhine River in western Germany, is a city well worth visiting. The city has a long and rich history, dating back to the time of the Roman Empire. Some of the city's most popular tourist attractions include the Cologne Cathedral, Hohenzollern Bridge, and the RheinEnergieStadion. Additionally, Cologne is home to a wide variety of museums, shops, and restaurants. In fact, the city has been ranked as one of the best places to live in Germany. So, if you're looking for a great European city to visit, be sure to add Cologne to your list.

Cologne Luxury Hotels

Istanbul, Turkey

If you're looking for an exotic and affordable vacation destination, look no further than Istanbul, Turkey. Filled with historical places to visit and bargains to be found, Istanbul offers something for everyone. Be sure to visit the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, and the Blue Mosque while you're there. Don't forget to bargain for the best prices when shopping in the bazaars, and enjoy some delicious Turkish cuisine while you're at it. Istanbul is sure to leave you with a lasting impression.

Istanbul Luxury Hotels

Istanbul Luxury Villas

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai is a fascinating and exotic city that offers visitors a mix of traditional Middle Eastern culture and modern, cosmopolitan life. There are plenty of places to visit in Dubai, from the towering skyscrapers of Downtown Dubai to the luxury shopping malls and luxurious hotels of the Palm Jumeirah. Don't miss a chance to experience an Arabian night out on an epic dhow cruise, or take a trip out into the Arabian Desert to see the stunning sand dunes.

Dubai Luxury Hotels

Dubai Luxury Resorts

Dubai Luxury Villas

Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp is a city located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital of the province of Antwerp and has a population of over half a million people. Antwerp is a popular tourist destination due to its many historical buildings, museums, and art galleries. Some of the most popular places to visit in Antwerp are the Cathedral of Our Lady, the City Hall, the Rubenshuis, and the Antwerp Zoo.

Antwerp Luxury Hotels

Lyon, France

Lyon is a beautiful city in the south of France that is full of culture and places to visit. Some of the most popular places to visit in Lyon are the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, the Place Bellecour, and the Vieux Lyon. The Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere is a beautiful cathedral that is a must-see when visiting Lyon. The Place Bellecour is a large square in the heart of Lyon that is full of restaurants and cafes. The Vieux Lyon is a district in Lyon that is full of old buildings and is a great place to wander around and take in the sights.

Lyon Luxury Hotels

Athens, Greece

If you find yourself in Athens, there are definitely some spots you won't want to miss. The Acropolis, Parthenon, and Olympic Stadium are all essential stops, but there are plenty of others, too. If you're looking for a bit of history, the National Archaeological Museum is a must-see, while nature lovers will enjoy a visit to the botanical gardens. If you're looking to relax, take a walk along the beach in Glyfada or head to the Plaka district for a charming and picturesque setting. No matter what you're interested in, Athens has something for you.

Athens Luxury Hotels

Athens Luxury Villas

Helsinki, Finland

While in Helsinki, make sure to visit these popular tourist destinations: The Senate Square and Lutheran Cathedral The Sibelius Monument Ateneum Art Museum Market Square Helsinki Zoo.

Helsinki Luxury Hotels

Vilnius, Lithuania

The capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, is a picturesque city with a rich history. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is full of charming churches, narrow streets, and pretty squares. There are also lots of museums and other places of interest to visit, including the Hill of Crosses, Gediminas Tower, and the Presidential Palace. Vilnius is a great city to explore on foot, and there are plenty of cafes, restaurants, and bars to enjoy in the evening.

Vilnius Luxury Hotels

Reykjavik, Iceland

A city of remote beauty, Reykjavik is teeming with interesting places to visit. One of the worlds most northern capitals, Reykjavik offers stunning landscapes and a wealth of cultural experiences. From the iconic Hallgrimskirkja church to the popular Golden Circle tour, theres plenty to see and do in Reykjavik. Be sure to check out the citys lively nightlife scene, too  you wont be disappointed!.

Reykjavik Luxury Hotels

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Some of the most popular places to visit in Glasgow include the Gallery of Modern Art, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Riverside Museum, and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. There are also many wonderful parks and gardens to explore, including the Botanic Gardens and Glasgow Green. For those interested in history and architecture, there are many fascinating old buildings to see, such as the Glasgow Cathedral and the University of Glasgow. And for those looking for a lively nightlife, Glasgow has no shortage of pubs, clubs, and restaurants.

Glasgow Luxury Hotels

Los Angeles, CA, United States

As the birthplace of Hollywood and home to some of the world's most recognisable landmarks, there's no shortage of places to visit in Los Angeles. Start by exploring the city's iconic neighbourhoods like Beverly Hills and Hollywood, then venture out to attractions like the Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach and Disneyland. And don't forget to savour the city's world-famous cultural scene, with its abundance of museums, theatres and restaurants.

Los Angeles Luxury Hotels

Los Angeles Luxury Villas

San Diego, CA, United States

San Diego is a city located in California and is a major tourist destination. One of the main reasons people visit the city is for its many beaches. Coronado Beach, Mission Beach, and Pacific Beach are some of the most popular and are all within close proximity to the city center. Other attractions in San Diego include the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld San Diego, and the USS Midway Museum. Restaurants, bars, and shopping can be found throughout the city, and world-renowned museums, like the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, are also located in San Diego.

San Diego Luxury Hotels

San Diego Luxury Resorts

San Diego Luxury Villas

Washington, DC, United States

Washington, D.C. is a city full of history and places to visit. Some popular places to visit are the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the Smithsonian. D.C. is also home to a number of monuments and memorials, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. There are also a number of museums in D.C., like the American History Museum and the National Air and Space Museum.

Washington Luxury Hotels

Cancun, Mexico

Cancun is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico. Aside from its beautiful beaches, there are plenty of places to visit and things to do in Cancun. Some of the most popular attractions include the ancient ruins of Chichen Itza, the eco-park Xcaret, and the nightclubs and bars in the resort district.

Cancun Luxury Hotels

Cancun Luxury Resorts

Cancun Luxury Villas

Virginia Beach, VA, United States

Virginia Beach is one of the top tourist destinations on the East Coast. From the Virginia Beach Boardwalk to the miles of sandy beaches, there's something for everyone to enjoy. There are also plenty of restaurants, shops, and other attractions to keep visitors busy. Some of the most popular places to visit in Virginia Beach include: The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center : This aquarium is home to more than 20,000 animals, including sharks, dolphins, and rays. : This aquarium is home to more than 20,000 animals, including sharks, dolphins, and rays. The Virginia Beach Boardwalk: This 3.5-mile boardwalk is one of the most popular attractions in Virginia Beach. It features a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and amusements. This 3.5-mile boardwalk is one of the most popular attractions in Virginia Beach. It features a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and amusements. First Landing State Park: This park offers miles of hiking and biking trails, as well as a beachfront area for swimming and sunbathing. This park offers miles of hiking and biking trails, as well as a beachfront area for swimming and sunbathing. Cape Henry Lighthouse: This lighthouse is one of the oldest in the country and offers stunning views of the Chesapeake Bay. There are plenty of other things to do in Virginia Beach, including dolphin and whale watching tours, kayaking, and golfing. Whether you're looking for a fun family vacation or a romantic getaway, Virginia Beach is sure to please.

Virginia Beach Luxury Hotels

Virginia Beach Luxury Resorts

Beijing, China

If you're looking for an amazing cultural experience, be sure to add Beijing, China to your travel bucket list! With beautiful temples, charming hutongs (traditional alleyways), and a lively food scene, there's something for everyone in this bustling city. Plus, Beijing is home to some of the most iconic attractions in China, like the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. So if you're looking for an unforgettable East Asian adventure, be sure to add Beijing to your list!.

Beijing Luxury Hotels

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul is a metropolitan city that is home to over 10 million people. It is a city full of culture, history, and a vibrant nightlife. There are plenty of places to visit in Seoul, including the Gyeongbokgung Palace, Changdeokgung Palace, and N Seoul Tower. The Jeongdongne district is a must-see for anyone interested in art and culture, and the Itaewon district is a great place to go for a night on the town.

Seoul Luxury Hotels

South Lake Tahoe, CA, United States

Known for its dramatic lake and mountain scenery, South Lake Tahoe offers visitors plenty of places to visit and things to do. Some of the most popular attractions include floating down the river on a tube, hiking the trails in the summer and skiing or snowboarding the slopes in the winter. The city also has a variety of restaurants and nightlife options, as well as casinos for those looking to try their luck.

South Lake Tahoe Luxury Hotels

South Lake Tahoe Luxury Resorts

Daytona Beach, FL, United States

Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. It is approximately 40 miles northeast of Orlando, and 85 miles southeast of Jacksonville. The city is known as "The World's Most Famous Beach." Daytona Beach is a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida. The Daytona Beach area is a popular tourist destination. It is well known for its beaches, sports events, and motorsports. Daytona Beach was the birthplace of NASCAR and home to its first track, Daytona International Speedway. Dayton Beach also features a large number of tourist-oriented businesses, such as motels, restaurants, and bars.

Daytona Beach Luxury Hotels

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The coastline of Rio de Janeiro is breathtaking, and the views from Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf Mountain are unforgettable. Rio's world-famous beaches are the perfect place to relax and enjoy the sun and the surf. The city's rich culture and history can be experienced in its many museums and in the lively nightlife. Rio is also a great place to shop for souvenirs.

Rio de Janeiro Luxury Hotels

Rio de Janeiro Luxury Villas

Jaco, Costa Rica

Jaco is a town on the Central Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It's about an hour drive from San Jose and is a popular spot for surfers, sunbathers, and tourists. There are a number of beaches in the area, as well as restaurants, bars, and hotels. If you're looking for a place to relax and enjoy the Costa Rican sun and beaches, Jaco is a great option.

Jaco Luxury Hotels

Oslo, Norway

Oslo, Norway is a city with plenty of places to visit. You can find the peace and tranquility of nature parks and green spaces, experience the city's vibrant nightlife, or take in the historical and cultural sights. Here are a few of the top places to visit in Oslo: The Royal Palace: Oslo's Royal Palace is the official residence of Norway's king and queen. The palace is open to the public year-round, and offers a glimpse into the lives of the royal family. Oslo's Royal Palace is the official residence of Norway's king and queen. The palace is open to the public year-round, and offers a glimpse into the lives of the royal family. Vigeland Park: Considered one of Oslo's most popular tourist destinations, Vigeland Park is home to over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The park is a great place to spend a sunny day outdoors. Considered one of Oslo's most popular tourist destinations, Vigeland Park is home to over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The park is a great place to spend a sunny day outdoors. The Maritime Museum: This museum is home to a variety of exhibits on Norway's maritime history. Visitors can explore everything from Viking ships to modern submarines. This museum is home to a variety of exhibits on Norway's maritime history. Visitors can explore everything from Viking ships to modern submarines. The National Gallery: The National Gallery is Norway's largest art museum, and home to a vast collection of paintings and sculptures from the country's most famous artists. The National Gallery is Norway's largest art museum, and home to a vast collection of paintings and sculptures from the country's most famous artists. Aker Brygge: Aker Brygge is a popular waterfront district in Oslo, home to a variety of bars, restaurants, and shops. The area is a great place to people watch and enjoy the view of the Oslo Fjord.

Oslo Luxury Hotels

Lima, Peru

If you're looking for a city that's bursting with culture and flavor, Lima, Peru is the place for you! This vibrant destination is home to some of the most amazing places to visit in all of South America. From ancient ruins to lush rainforests, there's something for everyone in Lima. Here are just a few of the must-see attractions in this amazing city: The Larco Museum is one of Lima's top tourist destinations. This incredible museum is home to one of the largest collections of pre-Columbian art in the world. The Historic Center of Lima is a must-see for any history lover. This vibrant area is home to some of the oldest architecture in Lima, including the iconic San Francisco Monastery. If you're looking for a little bit of jungle in the city, head to the Parque de la Reserva. This lush park is home to beautiful gardens, a zoo, and even a butterfly farm! No trip to Lima would be complete without a visit to Machu Picchu. This ancient Inca citadel is one of the most iconic sites in all of South America.

Lima Luxury Hotels

Ankara, Turkey

Ankara is the cultural and political center of Turkey. The city is home to many museums, including the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, and is a popular destination for tourists. The Citadel, the Ataturk Mausoleum, and the War of Independence Museum are all popular tourist destinations in Ankara. The city is also home to a vibrant nightlife and is a popular destination for students.

Ankara Luxury Hotels

Birmingham, United Kingdom

There are plenty of great places to visit in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Some of the most popular places to go include the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and the Black Country Living Museum. These places are all great for tourists, as they offer a variety of attractions, including beautiful gardens, interesting art, and a recreation of an old-fashioned town. Additionally, there are plenty of other great places to visit in Birmingham, such as the Jewellery Quarter and the German Christmas Market.

Birmingham Luxury Hotels

York, United Kingdom

With a rich history that spans back over 1,000 years, York is a must-visit destination in the United Kingdom. Explore the city's medieval architecture and narrow cobblestone streets, or enjoy a leisurely walk along the River Ouse. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of cultural experiences, such as the York Minster cathedral, the Jorvik Viking Centre, and the National Railway Museum. There are also plenty of shops and restaurants to enjoy in York.

York Luxury Hotels

Inverness, United Kingdom

Inverness, Scotland is a must-see destination on any traveler's list. Filled with rolling green hills, historical sites, and plenty of outdoor activities, there's something for everyone in this charming town. Start by exploring the city center, which is home to a variety of shops and restaurants. Make sure to check out the Inverness Castle, which offers commanding views of the area, and the Inverness Cathedral, a beautiful example of medieval architecture. Outside of the city center, there are plenty of other attractions to explore. The Loch Ness Monster is said to make its home in the loch here, and visitors can take boat tours to hunt for the mythical creature. If you're looking for a more active adventure, take a hike in the hills or go fishing on the loch. No matter what you choose to do, Inverness is a beautiful and welcoming town that is sure to charm you.

Inverness Luxury Hotels

Marseille, France

The Vieux Port (Old Harbor) is the oldest port in France. It is a beautiful place to visit with its sailboats, restaurants, and cafes. The Notre Dame de la Garde Basilica is also worth a visit. It offers stunning views of the city. If you're looking for a more lively atmosphere, head to the La Canebiere. It's a wide avenue with plenty of shops and restaurants.

Marseille Luxury Hotels

Marseille Luxury Villas

Honolulu, HI, United States

Honolulu is a city located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, United States. It is the most populous city in the state of Hawaii and the county seat of the City and County of Honolulu. Honolulu is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is one of the most famous beaches in the world and is located in Honolulu. Other places to visit in Honolulu include Diamond Head, the USS Arizona Memorial, and Hanauma Bay.

Honolulu Luxury Hotels

Honolulu Luxury Resorts

Honolulu Luxury Villas

Bar Harbor, ME, United States

Famous for lobster and stunning ocean views, Bar Harbor is a popular destination in Maine. There are plenty of things to do in the town and its surroundings, including hiking, biking, whale watching, and exploring Acadia National Park.

Bar Harbor Luxury Hotels

Colorado Springs, CO, United States

There are many places to visit in Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods is a popular park with beautiful rock formations. Pike's Peak is a 14,115 foot mountain that offers great views and outdoor activities. The Broadmoor is a world-renowned resort with lovely gardens and a championship golf course. Royal Gorge Bridge is the world's highest suspension bridge and a popular tourist spot.

Colorado Springs Luxury Hotels

Fort Myers Beach, FL, United States

Just an hours drive from the Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach is a popular tourist spot, especially in the winter when the snowbirds migrate down. The seven-mile-long beach is known for its white sand and clear water and is a popular spot for swimming, sunbathing, fishing, and kayaking. There are also a number of restaurants and bars in the area, as well as a few stores.

Fort Myers Beach Luxury Hotels

Biloxi, MS, United States

There are plenty of places to explore in Biloxi, Mississippi  from the citys iconic Beaches to the picturesque Bay Saint Louis. Venture into the citys downtown area to check out the many shops and restaurants, or take a walk along the shoreline. No matter what you choose to do, youre sure to have a great time in Biloxi.

Biloxi Luxury Hotels

Palermo, Italy

If you're looking for a city with a rich and diverse history, Palermo is the place for you. This coastal city in Italy is teeming with medieval architecture, churches, and cathedrals. Be sure to check out the Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house in Europe, and the Palazzo dei Normanni, the seat of the Sicilian government. Don't miss out on the city's vibrant nightlife and vast array of restaurants that serve up some of the best food in the country.

Palermo Luxury Hotels

Palermo Luxury Villas

Manila, Philippines

The capital of the Philippines, Manila is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant culture. There are plenty of places to visit in Manila, including the walled city of Intramuros, the Rizal Park, and the Manila Bay. The city is also home to a large number of churches, including the Manila Cathedral and the San Agustin Church. Manila is a great city to explore on foot, and there are plenty of restaurants and shops to enjoy.

Manila Luxury Hotels

Zermatt, Switzerland

Zermatt is an alpine village in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It is famous for its ski resort, mountaineering and hiking trails. The views of the Matterhorn from Zermatt are iconic. The village is car-free, making it a cyclists' and pedestrians' paradise. There are many places to visit in Zermatt, including the village's beautiful churches, impressive museums, and great restaurants.

Zermatt Luxury Hotels

Basel, Switzerland

Basel is a city located in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel has a population of about 176,000 and is the third most populous city in Switzerland. Basel has many interesting places to visit, including the Basel Munster, the Basel Rathaus (town hall), the Basel Zoo, and the Munsterhof, the old town square. Basel also has a number of art museums, including the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Fondation Beyeler, and the Schaulager. Basel is a great city to visit, and I highly recommend it!.

Basel Luxury Hotels

Copenhagen, Denmark

There are a number of places to visit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Some of the most popular tourist destinations include Tivoli Gardens, Nyhavn, and the Rosenborg Castle Gardens. Tivoli Gardens is a beautiful amusement park that has something for everyone. It is perfect for a day of fun with family or friends. Nyhavn is a charming canal district that is popular for its brightly colored houses and lively atmosphere. Visitors can enjoy a relaxing cruise down the canal or take a seat in one of the many cafes and restaurants. The Rosenborg Castle Gardens are home to a majestic castle as well as beautifully landscaped gardens. There is plenty to see and do in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Copenhagen Luxury Hotels

Steamboat Springs, CO, United States

Steamboat Springs is located in northwestern Colorado. The town is named for the steamboats that traveled up the Yampa River in the 1800s. Today, the town is a popular tourist destination, known for its skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and rafting.

Steamboat Springs Luxury Hotels

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates and is home to many tourist attractions. Some popular places to visit in Abu Dhabi include the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the Ferrari World Theme Park, and the Yas Island Waterpark. There are also a number of museums and shopping malls in Abu Dhabi, making it a great destination for those looking for a mix of culture and leisure.

Abu Dhabi Luxury Hotels

Abu Dhabi Luxury Resorts

Abu Dhabi Luxury Villas

Bogota, Colombia

There's a lot to see and do in Bogota. Some of the top places to visit include the historical La Candelaria district, the cobblestone streets of Plaza de Bolivar, the Monserrate mountain, the Bogota Botanical Garden, and the Gold Museum. La Candelaria is home to many brightly-colored colonial buildings, churches, and plazas. Plaza de Bolivar is the center of Bogota and is surrounded by important landmarks like the Presidential Palace and the National Capitol. The Monserrate mountain is a popular tourist destination due to its stunning views of Bogota. The Bogota Botanical Garden is the largest in Colombia and features a wide variety of plants and trees. The Gold Museum is home to the largest collection of Pre-Columbian gold artifacts in the world.

Bogota Luxury Hotels

Cebu, Philippines

Due to its location and its rich history, there are plenty of places to visit in Cebu. Some of the most popular tourist destinations include the Cebu Taoist Temple, the Fort San Pedro, the Yap-San Diego Ancestral House, and the Magellan's Cross.

Cebu Luxury Hotels

Cebu Luxury Resorts

Lagos, Portugal

Lagos is a small town in Portugal with a population of around 22,000. It's located in the Algarve region and is a popular tourist destination. Some of the places to visit in Lagos are the beaches, the old town, and the Marina. The beaches are beautiful and there are a lot of them to choose from. The old town is a maze of narrow streets and alleyways with lots of shops and restaurants. The Marina is a great place to walk around and watch the boats.

Lagos Luxury Hotels

Medellin, Colombia

Some places to visit in Medellin, Colombia are: the Botanical Garden, the Ethnographic Museum, the Jardin Botanico, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Park of Lights, and the San Pedro Claver Church.

Medellin Luxury Hotels

Genoa, Italy

While there are many places to visit in Genoa, one of the must-sees is the city's cathedral. Dedicated to San Lorenzo, the church features an intricate Gothic facade and a Renaissance interior. If you're looking for a place to take in some stunning views, head to the Genoa Aquarium, which is located on the promenade stretching along the city's harbor.

Genoa Luxury Hotels

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Vietnam. Its a bridge town thats best explored on foot. The narrow streets are a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese architecture. There are tailors, artisans, and lantern shops galore. The food is also some of the best in Vietnam. Be sure to try the local specialties, like Cao Lau and White Rose dumplings.

Hoi An Luxury Hotels

Hoi An Luxury Resorts

Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku, Azerbaijan is a city with a lot of culture and history. There are a lot of places to visit, like the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower. There are also a lot of great restaurants, like the Flame Club, which has a great atmosphere and delicious food.

Baku Luxury Hotels

San Luis Obispo, CA, United States

San Luis Obispo is a city located in the central coast of California. It's known for its natural beauty, relaxed vibe, and abundance of things to do. Some of the top places to visit in San Luis Obispo include the Madonna Inn, Hearst Castle, and the Paso Robles wine country. The city is also home to a variety of beaches, parks, and other attractions. In addition, San Luis Obispo is a great place to live, with plenty of restaurants, shops, and other amenities.

San Luis Obispo Luxury Hotels

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo is the largest city and commercial capital of Sri Lanka. The city is located on the west coast of the island and is the administrative, commercial, and industrial center of Sri Lanka. Colombo is also the center of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, with numerous Buddhist temples. There are a number of places to visit in Colombo, including the Galle Face Green, the Dutch fort, the Pettah Bazaar, and the Sri Lankan National Museum.

Colombo Luxury Hotels

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The city of Yogyakarta in Indonesia is home to some of the most stunning temples and historical landmarks in the country. The city is also a great place to enjoy traditional Javanese culture and cuisine. Some of the must-see places in Yogyakarta include the Borobudur Temple, the Prambanan Temple, and the Sultan's Palace.

Yogyakarta Luxury Hotels

Cefalu, Italy

Looking for a beautiful and historic place to visit in Italy? Look no further than Cefalu. This town is teeming with history and stunning architecture, and its location on the coast makes it the perfect place to relax and take in the stunning scenery. Don't miss the Duomo di Cefalu, a 12th century Norman church that is definitely worth a visit, or the Palazzo dei Normanni, a former royal palace.

Cefalu Luxury Hotels

San Jose, CA, United States

San Jose, California, is home to a variety of tourist destinations. Some popular places to visit include the Winchester Mystery House, the Tech Museum of Innovation, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. There are also a number of lovely parks, such as Kelley Park and Plaza de Cesar Chavez, that are well worth a visit. San Jose is also home to a number of great restaurants, so be sure to check out the local cuisine. Whatever your interests, San Jose has something to offer visitors.

San Jose Luxury Hotels

Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is one of the most popular destinations for tourists in China. There are many places to visit in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, Victoria Peak, and the Temple Street Night Market. Hong Kong is also a great place to shop, with many high-end malls and markets.

Hong Kong Luxury Hotels

Hong Kong Luxury Resorts

Orlando, FL, United States

Orlando is a city in the central region of Florida, in the United States. The city is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the metropolitan area also known as Greater Orlando. Orlando is well known for its theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, and SeaWorld Orlando. Other tourist destinations in Orlando include the Holy Land Experience, the Orlando Science Center, and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. Orlando is also home to the University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the United States.

Orlando Luxury Hotels

Orlando Luxury Resorts

Orlando Luxury Villas

Philadelphia, PA, United States

If youre looking for a place thats rich in history and culture, Philadelphia is the place for you. The city is home to numerous iconic landmarks, including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Theres also a great variety of museums and other attractions to explore, such as the Philadelphia Zoo and the Please Touch Museum. And, of course, Philly is the birthplace of Americas favorite sandwich, the cheesesteak. So why not visit Americas most historic city and see for yourself what all the fuss is about?.

Philadelphia Luxury Hotels

Nice, France

France is known for its many beautiful places to visit, and Nice is no exception. With its stunning coastline and mild climate, Nice is a popular tourist destination. Some of the most popular places to visit in Nice include the Promenade des Anglais, the Castle Hill, and the Old Town. There is also a wide variety of shops and restaurants to enjoy in Nice. If you're looking for a beautiful and relaxing place to visit in France, Nice is definitely worth considering.

Nice Luxury Hotels

Nice Luxury Villas

Singapore, Singapore

Singapore is a popular tourist destination, brimming with cultural and natural attractions. From award-winning restaurants to serene gardens and pristine beaches, there is much to explore in this diverse city-state. Here are some of the top places to visit in Singapore: 1. Marina Bay: This iconic waterfront district is home to stunning architecture, world-class landmarks, and a vibrant nightlife. 2. Gardens by the Bay: These stunning gardens feature a mix of plants from around the world, as well as towering sculptures and a biodome. 3. Chinatown: This lively district is home to traditional Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as vibrant street markets. 4. Little India: This neighborhood is known for its vibrant culture and colorful temples. 5. Sentosa Island: This resort island is home to sandy beaches, lush rainforests, and a variety of entertainment options.

Singapore Luxury Hotels

Singapore Luxury Resorts

Nottingham, United Kingdom

Nottingham is a city in the East Midlands of England. It is one of the United Kingdom's major cities, with a population of over 321,000. The city is home to two universities, Queen's Medical Centre, and seven football grounds. Nottingham is known for its lace-making and bicycle manufacturing. The city has a rich history, dating back to the Bronze Age. There are plenty of places to visit in Nottingham, including the Nottingham Castle, the Sherwood Forest, and the National Ice Centre. The city also has a lively nightlife, with a variety of pubs and bars.

Nottingham Luxury Hotels

Cannes, France

Cannes is a city located in the south of France. Some of the places to visit in Cannes are the Palais des Festivals et des Congres, the Boulevard de la Croisette, and Le Suquet.

Cannes Luxury Hotels

Cannes Luxury Villas

Park City, UT, United States

Park City, Utah, offers visitors a wealth of places to visit and things to do. Main Street, with its charming shops and restaurants, is a must-see. The Park City Museum tells the town's fascinating history, and the Park City Utah Temple is a beautiful sight. For outdoor enthusiasts, there's plenty of skiing and snowboarding in the winter and hiking and mountain biking in the summer. And don't forget to visit the Olympic Park, where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held.

Park City Luxury Hotels

Park City Luxury Resorts

Port Angeles, WA, United States

If you're looking for a quaint, small town to visit in the US, Port Angeles is worth a stop. Located in the state of Washington, it's right on the Pacific coast with stunning views of the Olympic Mountains. There's plenty of things to do in the area, from hiking and fishing to whale watching and enjoying the local restaurants and breweries.

Port Angeles Luxury Hotels

Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States

If you're looking for a fun-filled Florida getaway, look no further than Fort Lauderdale! With its miles of pristine beaches, world-famous shopping and vibrant nightlife, there's something for everyone in this seaside city. Here are some of the top places to visit in Fort Lauderdale:  Las Olas Boulevard: This popular shopping and dining district is home to some of Fort Lauderdale's most upscale boutiques and restaurants.  The Beach: With its wide, sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, Fort Lauderdale's beach is a major draw for visitors.  The Everglades: Just a short drive from Fort Lauderdale, the Everglades are home to an abundance of wildlife, including alligators, bald eagles and manatees.  The Broward Center for the Performing Arts: This world-class performing arts center is home to a variety of theater, dance and music performances. So what are you waiting for? Book your trip to Fort Lauderdale today!.

Fort Lauderdale Luxury Hotels

Fort Lauderdale Luxury Resorts

Myrtle Beach, SC, United States

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is a popular tourist destination. There are plenty of places to visit in the area, including amusement parks, beaches, and golf courses. Myrtle Beach also has a lively nightlife, with plenty of bars and restaurants.

Myrtle Beach Luxury Hotels

Myrtle Beach Luxury Resorts

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg is one of the most visited places in Austria. It is a city rich in history and culture. There are many places to visit, such as the Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Mirabell Palace, and the Salzburg Cathedral. There are also many hiking trails and parks to enjoy.

Salzburg Luxury Hotels

Pattaya, Thailand

Pattaya is an amazing city with plenty of places to visit and things to do. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Thailand, Pattaya offers something for everyone. There are lovely beaches, interesting temples, great shopping, and exciting nightlife. With its moderate climate and affordable prices, it's no wonder Pattaya is a favorite destination for tourists from all over the world.

Pattaya Luxury Hotels

Pattaya Luxury Resorts

Pattaya Luxury Villas

Dallas, TX, United States

Dallas is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the ninth most populous city in the United States and the third most populous city in the state of Texas. Dallas is also the main city of the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. The city's prominence arose from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, and its position as a major transportation hub for the South. Dallas is home to the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League and the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, and transportation. The city is home to the world's largest airline hub and the third largest cargo airport in the United States.

Dallas Luxury Hotels

Kolkata, India

Kolkata, also known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. The city is located on the east bank of the Hooghly River. It is the second most populous city in India, after Mumbai, and the third most populous metropolitan area in India, after Mumbai and Delhi. The city is notable for its colonial architecture, art and culture, and for its overwhelming poverty. Kolkata is home to the Indian Museum, the Calcutta Stock Exchange, the National Library of India, and the Indian Statistical Institute.

Kolkata Luxury Hotels

San Antonio, TX, United States

San Antonio is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Texas. There are plenty of places to visit in this city, from the well-known River Walk to the exquisite Spanish missions. If you're looking for a fun place to spend the day, you can't go wrong with San Antonio.

San Antonio Luxury Hotels

Seattle, WA, United States

There are many wonderful places to visit in Seattle, Washington. Some of the most popular attractions include Pike Place Market, the Seattle Space Needle, and the Museum of Pop Culture. There are also many parks and gardens, such as Volunteer Park and Seattle Chinese Garden, as well as plenty of restaurants and shops. Located on the other side of the world, Western Australia is a great place to visit for those looking for something different. Some of the most popular attractions include Rottnest Island, the Margaret River region, and Monkey Mia. There are also plenty of beautiful parks and gardens, such as Kings Park and Botanic Garden, as well as restaurants and shops.

Seattle Luxury Hotels

Liverpool, United Kingdom

Liverpool is a city located in North West England and is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom. The city is known for its football teams Liverpool and Everton, The Beatles, and its maritime history. Liverpool is a popular tourist destination and is home to various tourist attractions including Mersey Ferry, Liverpool Cathedral, and Albert Dock.

Liverpool Luxury Hotels

Malmo, Sweden

Malmo is Sweden's third largest city with a population of over 310,000. It is located in the province of Scania on the country's southern tip. Malmo is a vibrant city with a strong arts and cultural scene. There are plenty of places to visit in Malmo, including the Malmo Castle, the Botanical Gardens, and the Turning Torso skyscraper. Malmo is also home to a large shopping district and a lively nightlife.

Malmo Luxury Hotels

Gothenburg, Sweden

Goteborg, Sweden's second largest city, is a major port on the country's west coast. It's a popular tourist destination, known for its lively nightlife, beautiful architecture and delicious seafood. Some of the city's highlights include the Liseberg amusement park, the Botanical Garden, and the charming old town district. Goteborg is also home to a large number of museums, including the Volvo Museum, the Maritime Museum and the Universeum science center.

Gothenburg Luxury Hotels

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana is the capital city of Slovenia and is a city full of culture and history. There are many places to visit in Ljubljana, such as the castle, the old town, and the cathedral. The city is also home to many museums, art galleries, and parks. Ljubljana is a great city to explore on foot, and there are many restaurants and cafes to enjoy.

Ljubljana Luxury Hotels

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Australia is a vast country with plenty of stunning places to visit, but Sydney is undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist destinations on the continent. From the iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge to the beautiful beaches and lush national parks, there's something for everyone in this lively city. There's also a thriving food and nightlife scene, so you'll never run out of things to do in Sydney.

Sydney Luxury Hotels

Sydney Luxury Villas

Melbourne, VIC, Australia

There's a lot to love about Melbourne  its lively arts and culture scene, its parks and gardens, its diverse range of restaurants and cafes, and its stunning architecture. Here are some of the best places to visit in Melbourne: - Federation Square: This iconic square is a great place to people-watch and take in the city's impressive architecture. It's also home to a number of museums and galleries, including the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Gallery of Victoria. - Queen Victoria Market: This vibrant market is a must-visit for foodies and shoppers alike. It's the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere, and offers a vast array of fresh produce, meat, seafood, and souvenirs. - Melbourne Cricket Ground: If you're a sports fan, be sure to check out the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is the largest cricket stadium in the world. It's also home to the Australian Football League, and has hosted a number of major sporting events, including the Commonwealth Games and the Rugby Union World Cup. - Royal Botanic Gardens: These beautiful gardens are a great place to relax and take in some of Melbourne's natural beauty. They're home to a number of different gardens, including the Australian Garden, the Sculpture Garden, and the Japanese Garden.

Melbourne Luxury Hotels

Melbourne Luxury Villas

Vancouver, BC, Canada

The top places to visit in Vancouver are Stanley Park, Granville Island, Gastown, and Chinatown. These are all must-see attractions that offer an array of activities, scenery, and history. Stanley Park is a world-famous urban park that features greenery, beaches, gardens, and a stunning view of the North Shore Mountains. Granville Island is a vibrant neighbourhood with unique shops, restaurants, and art galleries. Gastown is the city's oldest neighbourhood and is home to charming cobblestone streets and funky boutiques. Chinatown is one of the largest and most vibrant Chinatowns in North America and offers delicious food, interesting history, and vibrant culture.

Vancouver Luxury Hotels

Toronto, ON, Canada

From the CN Tower and Hockey Hall of Fame to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Distillery District, there are plenty of amazing places to visit in Toronto, Canada. With something for everyone, Toronto is a great city to explore. So what are you waiting for? Start planning your trip today!.

Toronto Luxury Hotels

Montreal, QC, Canada

Montreal is a vibrant city with something for everyone. There are plenty of places to visit, including the Notre Dame Basilica, the Olympic Stadium, and Mount Royal. The city is also home to a lively arts and culture scene, with theatres, art galleries, and music venues. Montreal is a great place to visit year-round, with festivals and events happening throughout the year.

Montreal Luxury Hotels

Seville, Spain

Seville is one of the most visited places in Spain for a plethora of reasons: its stunning architecture, tapas bars, flamenco and great weather. The Giralda Tower is a must-see when in Seville as is the Plaza de Espana. Andalusian culture is heavily present in the city and is best experienced by wandering the narrow streets and alleyways, popping into a lively tapas bar for a drink and some snacks or enjoying a flamenco show.

Seville Luxury Hotels

Seville Luxury Villas

Ocean City, MD, United States

Ocean City is a seaside resort town in Worcester County, Maryland, on the Atlantic coast. It is well known for its long promenade, its fishing, and its crab cuisine. There are plenty of places to visit in Ocean City, including the boardwalk, amusement rides, shopping, and restaurants. You can also visit the Assateague Island National Seashore, which is home to wild horses, or head to the nearby town of Berlin for more shopping and dining options.

Ocean City Luxury Hotels

Cambridge, MA, United States

If you're looking for a quintessential New England town to visit, Cambridge, Massachusetts is the place for you. With its elaborate architecture and Colonial history, Cambridge is a lively town with plenty of things to see and do - perfect for a weekend getaway. Some of the places you won't want to miss include the Harvard University campus, the charming and lively shops and restaurants in Harvard Square, and the leafy paths of the Cambridge Common.

Cambridge Luxury Hotels

Laguna Beach, CA, United States

Laguna Beach, California is a place known for its stunningly beautiful coastline, excellent restaurants, and art galleries. But there's more to Laguna Beach than meets the eye. Here are some of the best places to visit in Laguna Beach: Crystal Cove State Park: This state park is known for its coves, tidepools, and bluffs. It's a great place to go hiking, swimming, and snorkeling. Heisler Park: This park is a great place for a walk or a picnic. It's also home to some of the best views of the Pacific Coast. Downtown Laguna Beach: This charming downtown area is home to art galleries, boutique shops, and excellent restaurants. Aliso Beach: This beach is known for its excellent surfing and swimming conditions. It's also a great place to take a walk or enjoy a picnic.

Laguna Beach Luxury Hotels

Hot Springs, AR, United States

In downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas, you'll find historic buildings, antique shops, and art galleries. For nature lovers, there are also plenty of places to visit, including the Garland County Arboretum, Ouachita National Forest, and Hot Springs National Park. Spa enthusiasts can enjoy a relaxing day in one of the area's hot springs. And no trip to Hot Springs is complete without a visit to the world-famous Bathhouse Row.

Hot Springs Luxury Hotels

Sedona, AZ, United States

There are many places to visit in Sedona, Arizona. Among the most popular are the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, and Boynton Canyon. The town's unique red-rock formations and ancient ruins offer plenty of photo opportunities. Visitors can also enjoy hiking, biking, and horseback riding. Sedona is a great place to relax and take in the natural beauty of the Southwest.

Sedona Luxury Hotels

Sedona Luxury Resorts

Boulder, CO, United States

Boulder, Colorado is a breathtaking city nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The city is home to stunning views, ample outdoor recreation, and a lively arts scene. Outdoor enthusiasts will love exploring the city's many trails, parks, and open spaces. History buffs will enjoy checking out the city's museums and historic sites. Culture seekers will appreciate the city's many theaters, art galleries, and restaurants. No matter what your interests, you'll find something to love in Boulder.

Boulder Luxury Hotels

Key West, FL, United States

Key West is a small island off the coast of Florida that is filled with history, charm, and fun places to visit. Its lush tropical setting and the laid-back vibe of the island make it a popular destination for those looking for a relaxing getaway. There are plenty of places to explore in Key West, from the charming historic district to the crystal-clear waters of the Florida Keys. Here are some of the top places to visit in Key West: -The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum: This iconic museum is dedicated to the life and work of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway, who lived in Key West for over 20 years. -Duval Street: This lively street is the heart of Key West's nightlife and is home to many bars and restaurants. -The Southernmost Point: This landmark is located at the end of Duval Street and is the southernmost point in the continental United States. -The Key West Lighthouse: This picturesque lighthouse is a popular spot for tourists and offers stunning views of the island. -The African American Heritage House: This museum is dedicated to the history and culture of African Americans in Key West. -The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory: This attraction is home to over 2,000 butterflies and a variety of other tropical plants and animals.

Key West Luxury Hotels

Key West Luxury Resorts

Key West Luxury Cottages

Key West Luxury Villas

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden is a city with many places to visit. One place is the Vasa Museum, which is home to a ship that sunk in 1628 and was raised from the ocean floor 333 years later. The ship is preserved and on display in the museum. Another place to visit is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Swedish monarch. The palace is open for tours, and visitors can see the royal apartments, the throne room, and the Hall of State.

Stockholm Luxury Hotels

Destin, FL, United States

Looking for a place to visit in Florida? Look no further than Destin! This city is home to beautiful beaches, wonderful restaurants, and plenty of places to shop. No matter what you're looking for, you can find it in Destin. Be sure to check out the Destin Harbor and the fishing pier for amazing views and plenty of things to do. If you're looking for a place to relax, head to the beach and enjoy the sun and sand. There's something for everyone in Destin, so be sure to visit this amazing city!.

Destin Luxury Hotels

Destin Luxury Resorts

Ashland, OR, United States

There are many places to visit in Ashland, Oregon. Some of the most popular places are the Shakespeare Festival, Lithia Park, and Mt. Ashland. The Shakespeare Festival is a great place to see some of the best plays in the world. Lithia Park is a beautiful park with a river running through it. Mt. Ashland is a great place to go skiing in the winter.

Ashland Luxury Hotels

Seaside, OR, United States

One of the most beautiful places on the Oregon Coast is Seaside. With its wide, sandy beach and majestic promenade, Seaside is a popular tourist destination. There are plenty of places to eat and shop, and the Seaside Aquarium is a must-see. Visitors can also enjoy fishing, whale watching, or just taking a leisurely stroll along the beach.

Seaside Luxury Hotels

Newport, RI, United States

Newport is a picturesque town located in southern Rhode Island that is home to some of the most visited tourist destinations in the United States. The city is known for its miles of beaches and historic mansions that line the coast. Some popular places to visit in Newport include the Cliff Walk, the Breakers Mansion, the Museum of Yachting, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Newport Luxury Hotels

Siena, Italy

Siena, Italy is a popular tourist destination, thanks to its well-preserved medieval city center. The city is famous for its art, food, and wine. Siena is located in the heart of Tuscany, making it the perfect base for exploring this beautiful region of Italy. Don't miss the Duomo (cathedral), the Piazza del Campo, and the Torre del Mangia.

Siena Luxury Hotels

Reno, NV, United States

Home to the University of Nevada, Reno and a wide variety of cultural and natural attractions, Reno is a great place to visit. Some of the top places to see in Reno include the Nevada Museum of Art, the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center, and the Reno Events Center. Outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy hiking and skiing at Lake Tahoe and biking and kayaking on the Truckee River. In addition, Reno is home to a diverse array of restaurants and nightlife venues.

Reno Luxury Hotels

Atlantic City, NJ, United States

Atlantic City is a popular East Coast tourist destination, known for its boardwalks, beaches and casinos. There are plenty of places to visit in Atlantic City, from the Boardwalk Hall and the Absecon Lighthouse to the Atlantic City Aquarium and Lucy the Elephant. For a more thrilling experience, head to one of the city's casinos, where you can try your hand at blackjack, slots, roulette and more. Atlantic City also offers a wide variety of restaurants, from seafood spots to pizza places, so you're sure to find something to your taste. And if you're looking for some nightlife action, the city has you covered there too. Atlantic City is definitely a place worth visiting!.

Atlantic City Luxury Hotels

Atlantic City Luxury Resorts

Lake George, NY, United States

Looking for a place to visit in upstate New York? Look no further than the stunning Lake George. This picturesque locale is located in the heart of the Adirondacks and is known for its pristine beauty and terrific recreational opportunities. Visitors can enjoy hiking, biking, boating, fishing, and skiing, among other activities. Don't miss the chance to take in the spectacular views from the summit of Prospect Mountain or from the water's edge.

Lake George Luxury Hotels

Buffalo, NY, United States

If you're looking for a city that has it all, Buffalo is the place to be. From its vibrant downtown district to its abundance of parks and nature preserves, there's something for everyone in Buffalo. Here are some of the top places to visit in Buffalo: 1. The Buffalo Zoo - One of the top zoos in the country, the Buffalo Zoo is a must-visit for animal lovers of all ages. 2. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery - Buffalo's answer to the Louvre, the Albright-Knox is home to some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. 3. The Buffalo-Niagara Heritage Village - This living history museum offers a glimpse into what life was like in Buffalo in the 1800s. 4. The Buffalo River - Take a walk or bike ride along the Buffalo River, one of the city's most picturesque areas. 5. Delaware Park - This large park is home to a variety of attractions, including a zoo, a golf course, and a nature preserve.

Buffalo Luxury Hotels

Rochester, MN, United States

Rochester, Minnesota is a city with plenty of places to visit. There's the Mayo Clinic, the Apache Mall, and several other shopping areas, as well as a variety of restaurants. There are also a few parks and golf courses. For those who love the outdoors, Rochester is also close to several state parks and the Mississippi River.

Rochester Luxury Hotels

Duluth, MN, United States

If you're looking for an amazing place to visit, Duluth, Minnesota should definitely be at the top of your list. This city is home to some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States, and there are plenty of things to do here that will keep you entertained for days on end. Some of the most popular places to visit in Duluth include the Aerial Lift Bridge, the Glensheen Mansion, and Chester Creek Park. Additionally, there are a number of excellent restaurants and shopping areas in the city, so be sure to explore everything that Duluth has to offer.

Duluth Luxury Hotels

Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and a city full of culture and history. There are many places to visit in Maputo, such as the Jose Eduardo dos Santos Museum, the Maputo Cathedral, and the Rua da Independencia. Maputo is also home to the Maputo Bay, which offers beautiful beaches and great seafood.

Maputo Luxury Hotels

Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona, located on the northeast coast of Spain, is a renowned tourist destination and one of the most popular cities in the world. There are plenty of places to visit in Barcelona, such as the Gothic Quarter, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Parc Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and more. The city is also home to a lively nightlife and some of the best restaurants in the country.

Barcelona Luxury Hotels

Barcelona Luxury Villas

Split, Croatia

Split is a city on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. It is the second-largest city in Croatia and the largest city in Dalmatia. It has a population of over 200,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area, which includes the City of Split and the surrounding towns, has a population of over 330,000. Split is a popular tourist destination and is the home of the Diocletian's Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other popular tourist destinations include the Riva, the Peristyle, the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, and Sustipan.

Split Luxury Hotels

Split Luxury Villas

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik is a city on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, a seaport and the administrative center of Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Dubrovnik is nicknamed "The Pearl of the Adriatic".

Dubrovnik Luxury Hotels

Dubrovnik Luxury Villas

Byron Bay, NSW, Australia

Byron Bay is a magical place. It's no wonder that it's one of the most popular destinations in Australia. The town is set in a beautiful location, surrounded by rolling green hills and the bright blue ocean. There's plenty to do in Byron Bay, whether you're looking for a relaxing beach holiday or an adventure-filled trip. Some of the top places to visit in Byron Bay include the iconic lighthouse, the stunning beaches, and the lush rainforest. There's also a great nightlife and plenty of restaurants and cafes to enjoy. If you're looking for an amazing Australian getaway, be sure to add Byron Bay to your list!.

Byron Bay Luxury Hotels

Wellington, New Zealand

If you're looking for a little slice of heaven on earth, look no further than Wellington, New Zealand. With its gorgeous landscape and plethora of activities, there's something for everyone here. Whether you're a nature lover or a city slicker, Wellington has something special to offer. Top Wellington attractions include the Zealandia eco-sanctuary, the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens, and the sprawling Te Papa museum. For those who love getting out into the great outdoors, there are plenty of hiking and biking trails, as well as lovely seaside towns and villages to explore. And of course, no trip to Wellington would be complete without trying some of the delicious local cuisine  be sure to sample a traditional Maori hangi feast! So what are you waiting for? Book your flight to Wellington today and start planning your perfect holiday!.

Wellington Luxury Hotels

Saint Louis, MO, United States

If you're looking for a fun place to visit with a rich history and plenty of things to see and do, look no further than Saint Louis, Missouri. This vibrant city is home to a variety of interesting attractions, including the Gateway Arch, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. There's also no shortage of restaurants and shopping options in Saint Louis. So, whether you're looking for a place to explore new cultures and cuisines or you're just looking for a place to have some fun, Saint Louis is a great option.

Saint Louis Luxury Hotels

Bloomington, IN, United States

The city of Bloomington, Indiana is home to a variety of attractions and places to visit. The Indiana University campus is a popular destination, as is the city's historic downtown district. Monroe County Courthouse
If there is a need to get from point A to point B, the shortest distance between the two is typically the one most traveled and most desired. Google Maps tends to think so too, but does tend to offer up some unique alternate routes. Sometimes I find myself asking Google Maps out loud "Why would you ask me to drive 30 min out of my way?" Perhaps you have done the same. Which is why you and I should be asking the North Carolina legislature why they want to waste our time and money suggesting slower alternate routes of transportation. Unlike Google simply suggesting other routes, not only are legislatures subsidizing slower routes, they are even preventing quicker routes from existing.North Carolinians' taxes are subsidizing "light rail" - billion-dollar alternate routes in Charlotte Durham and Chapel Hill . These subsidies came into existence just as the legislature has begun charging ride-sharing companies such as Uber $5,000 annual fees just to be in existence The contrast is striking: legislators on the one hand force taxpayers to subsidize wildly expensive and inefficient light rail lines while simultaneously imposing charges on wildly popular, affordable and efficient transportation alternatives developed by free market entrepreneurs.Last year the North Carolina legislature quietly pushed through a bill that codified practices already implemented by the ride sharing industry. Yes, it is exactly as it sounds: North Carolina's legislators decided to pass laws mandating the same things the private free market sector was already doing. In addition to these unneeded regulations, was a stipulation that any ride sharing company wanting to operate in North Carolina will now have to pay an arbitrary $5,000 annual fee. The reason for the fee was never mentioned, but its obvious it was to keep out competition.Standing alone, this law severely limits innovation and creativity for new ride sharing opportunities. It slows if not prevents start up competition entering the market that would otherwise challenge the status quo of UBER or LYFT. Should these two companies ever become just another taxi service via government regulation, which looks to be more and more the case, consumers deserve opportunity for startups to fill the void. Adding a $5,000 price tag to start a business from scratch eliminates many potential opportunities.When the ride sharing restrictions are coupled with the state's insistence on spending billions of dollars on slower, less efficient, more centralized sources of transportation, it is evident lobbying, cronyism, and corruption are involved.I recently came across a quote on Twitter that said,Well North Carolina is heading there, but ironically it is via slow, outdated, and indirect light rail systems.Just last week an article out of Charlotte highlighted how consumers are choosing ride sharing over light rail due to speed, affordability, and convenience. It should come as no surprise a service offering value from not having to walk dangerous routes, wait in the rain, figure out connectors, or even find where the stops are is outperforming a behemoth billion dollar state project that offers none of that.Charlotte's light rail service chief executive John Lewis actually advises riders to use UBER as a way to bring people to the light rail stop to wait for the train, then after riding the light rail to the next train stop to hop back onto an UBER to get where they wanted to go all along. This could only come from government, an institution that asked individuals to send physical letters as a faster solution to the internet.The sad part about this story is women and families in low-income neighborhoods or on the outskirts of town could benefit directly from the very ride sharing opportunities the government penalizes. These are the same people allegedly helped by light rail, but in reality are shoved out through gentrification. Wherever light rail stations go up, families who depend upon affordable rental homes near their work or schools are displaced further and further away due to the rising cost of real estate.Light rail is used to benefit politicians and well-connected developers and construction companies by using billions of taxpayer dollars on feel-good projects. These "businesses" and "jobs" "created" by light rail would more than likely have been created elsewhere if left to the voluntary choices of consumers and producers.If light rail was capable of providing a valuable service for commuters at an affordable price, private sector entrepreneurs would invest in the projects. The fact that light rail relies so heavily on taxpayer subsidies tells us that society values light rail services far less than the actual costs of providing the services. Jobs and other scarce resources wasted building light rail projects should and could have been utilized elsewhere by productive businesses and entrepreneurs who provide higher value for their customers than light rail does.If our state is serious about transportation, they wouldn't spend tax dollars on billion dollar projects benefiting only the rich; they would eliminate barriers to affordable and direct transportation North Carolinians are already choosing in spite of government.But then again... I guess politicians would be out of a job if that happened.
State audit had chided dental regulators for lax oversight of anesthesia protocols



William Potter, spokesman for the North Carolina Dental Society, speaks on behalf of a bill clarifying rules on dental sedation at a July 14 meeting of the Senate Health Care Committee. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

RALEIGH A bill instructing dentists to ignore some new state rules on sedation raised red flags in committee with Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, though supporters of the the bill said the problem was a lack of clarity in the rules. The measure wound up passing the Senate and the House without opposition.House Bill 1145, "Disapprove Dental Examiner's Rule," would allow revisions to clarify the rules governing the use of sedation during dental procedures. The bill, which had passed the House on June 8 by a 115-0 vote, passed the Senate June 15, 48-0. It now awaits the signature of Gov. Pat McCrory.Rep. Bert Jones, R-Rockingham, a dentist and the bill's primary sponsor, told a June 14 meeting of the Senate Health Care Committee.Even so, McKissick expressed his objections to the committee.McKissick said.McKissick said.That fatality was one of two that figured into a March 2015 audit by the Office of State Auditor that criticized the Dental Board's oversight on administration and safety procedures related to anesthesia.Jones said.He agreed with McKissick that "it is certainly important" dental practitioners have the training, skills, and equipment to manage sedation techniques safely, and to be able to identify and manage any emergency that might occur.he said, and they encourage the use of minimal sedation whenever possible. But some of the rules are unclear.said Sen. Jim Davis, R-Macon. He said the rules updates are being pursued partly in response to the death that McKissick referenced.William Potter, representing the North Carolina Dental Society, told committee members that the bill under consideration was produced in a conference with him, Dental Board Chief Operating Officer Bobby White, and the head of the legislative drafting office.after objections to the original rules were raised, Potter said. Most of the issues under contention involve the administration of nitrous oxide.White told Carolina Journal during an interview on Wednesday.White said."It's been a very safe and effective means of practice for a lot of dentists, and "such a valuable treatment modality for people who are anxious" by enabling them to overcome their fears, and to seek dental care they might otherwise avoid, White said.Prior to the two deaths two years ago related to dental sedation, no dental patients had died as a result of sedation, White said.he said.The committeeWhite said.As in other medical professions, there's a continuum of sedation in dentistry.On the lowest end of the scale a patient might take a Valium pill prior to coming to the dentist's office, and might receive nitrous oxide while at the office. That isfrom that, White said.With minimal sedation the patient is more relaxed.White said.General sedation isWhite said."We looked at all of these rules across the continuum, and published the rules we thought would be most efficacious," he said.But the Dental Board received 10 objections when the regulations were passed by the Rules Review Commission. Those were primarily from those who practice on the lowest and safest end of the spectrum.White said.He does not anticipate any revisions being approved this year.after which rules would be published for public comment prior to a vote, White said.
From the John Locke Foundation:RALEIGH - North Carolina policymakers should boost entrepreneurship and economic growth by focusing their next round of tax reform on capital gains. That's the recommendation in a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight report Lawmakers could end taxation of capital gains in one step or in phases.said report author Dr. Roy Cordato, JLF Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar.Complete repeal of state capital gains taxes would return about $500 million to N.C. taxpayers in 2017, according to the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston.Cordato said.In the case of the corporate tax, state lawmakers agreed in 2013 to two initial rate cuts for 2014 and 2015. Lawmakers also pledged to reduce rates again if budget revenues met certain targets, or "triggers." The triggers allowed the corporate rate to fall from a high of 6.9 percent to as low as 3 percent.Cordato applies the same concept to capital gains. His phase-in plan would allow taxpayers to exclude a certain percentage of capital gains from taxation, with that percentage gradually increasing over time.The 25 percent exclusion would return $125 million to taxpayers in 2017, while the 50 percent exclusion would return about $250 million, according to the Beacon Hill Institute analysis. Those same dollar figures represent the cost to North Carolina's treasury.Cordato explained.That makes the revenue estimateCordato said.North Carolina could make up for lost revenue by eliminating special industry subsidies and targeted business tax credit programs, Cordato said.he said.Cordato devotes much of the report to explaining how the existing state tax system leads to double taxation of capital gains.Any tax on income used for investment purposes reduces both the amount of the investment, called the principal, and the entire income stream from that investment, Cordato explained. "A separate tax on capital gains serves as a form of double taxation."As an example, Cordato looks at a taxpayer who chooses whether to spend $100 of his income on a fancy dinner or to invest the same $100 in a stock, with the expectation of a 10 percent gain in one year.he said.If the taxpayer is also forced to pay a 10 percent tax on his investment income, the picture changes, Cordato said. "An additional layer of taxation on his capital gain reduces that gain from $9 to $8.10," he said.Cordato added.Other governments recognize this problem, Cordato said.North Carolina has an opportunity to continue down a road paved by historic 2013 state tax reform legislation, Cordato said.
See the entire speech to North Carolina Liberals /Socialists below. You may wish to fast forward through the long winded Jim Hunt introduction speech:

Should Americans be thankful for North Carolinians setting precedent in taking a stand for their state's right to manage the safety of their public facilities, where separation of the sexes remains, or should they follow Bruce Springsteen's lead and boycott the state as bigots since they will not allow grown Transgender men to use the same bathrooms /locker rooms as pre-pubescent girls? North Carolina is right to control the separation of the sexes as a matter of decorum and safety. North Carolina is a bigoted state to not require that children of opposite sexes share the same public facilities with adults of the opposite sex, although misidentified - the Transgender. I generally prefer the natural environs of the vacant, although rather public, large tree. 236 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



poll#95 What should be the priority of the Federal Government after the "Pulse" massacre: Should we turn our attention toward destroying, earadicating ISIS as Candidate Trump suggests, or, as Democrats' President Obama suggests, broaden our efforts to effect stricter Gun Control laws to limit "Gun Violence?" 88.24% After many years of trying to degrade and contain the murderous ISIS, we should make it the nation's policy to destroy ISIS immediately. 3.68% Gun Violence in America can be eliminated by limiting access to guns for all American citizens. 8.09% I don't care either way; I just live here. 136 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!



Standing behind the podium at a staged campaign stop in Raleigh, North Carolina , June 22, 2016, Hillary B. Clinton promised to 'return North Carolina back to the days of Democrat Control, after this recent detour (McCrory administration and Republican legislature)', when North Carolina suffered its first deficit budget - a three billion dollar big red hole.She continued by slamming businesses and Wall Street on one hand, while during this same week, Hillary Clinton will hold /attend three fund raisers by wealthy Wall Street millionaires /billionaires and super rich Hollywood Producers. Considering Hillary's chronic struggle with everyday truths, and her factual reality as a pathological liar from a long term perspective , this is just her Socialist face to a liberal North Carolina cheering mob, and nothing more.As she continued speaking, as a pattern socialist, Ms. Hillary B. Clinton spoke to one Liberals' pathetic understanding of real World situations to another, using Socialist buzz words, buzz phrases, and then continued to play to the Liberal simple perceptive constructs of real World truths by emphasising that she had no real understanding of House Bill 2 , by pandering to the "LGBT Community" at the expense of any semblance of common sense, which Hillary has more than demonstrated that she has none - remember the facetious 'wiping a server, like with a rag' comment.Hillary droned on about: free college (debt free was the code word here), free community college , free health care, free child care, free food, free housing ... free, well free everything. With over 19 trillion dollars in national debt, 11 trillion accrued under Obama, an administration that Hillary B. promises to emulate ( so that she may not be indicted by Hussein Obama's corrupt Justice Dept. on a multitude of current felony investigations by the FBI), Hillary never mentioned how we would pay for more free stuff for Liberals ... those that would vote for her, and others like her.Never, during the entirety of her speech on: unfunded free stuff for Democrat voters, the racism /bigotry of Whites /Patriots, etc., did she discuss the keeping of communities safe, or our nation defended from Radical Islam. It was a speech for liberal Democrats /Socialists. It was not a speech for an American patriot.
In light of continued developments, primarily since 2008, there exists in these United States a Legal System which operates on a proved Two Tiered approach to justice rendered, which primarily benefits Democratic Elites and Woke Ideological Virtue Signalers, representing their co-dependent wards, to the expressed exclusion of normal hardworking American citizens: What is your suggestion in remedying this widespread injustice and, if not corrected, its existential outcome for our Constitutional Republic?

Complete overhaul of the Department of Justice and their enforcers - the FBI - to reflect a far more honest justice system to keep patriots remaining calm.

Disband the FBI, and request that congress investigate all unethical and non patriotic practices to partially right the wrongs of a distrusted and politically weaponized "Department of Justice."
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NOTE: the lower the rating value, the more liberal the Senator. "100" is the highest attainable conservative rating score. Full listings can be viewed here.

New GOP-backed gun control bill might actually pass the Senate

by Claire Landsbaum - June 21, 2016

The Senate has many so-called "moderate Republicans" like the ones who support more gun controls. One must assume they haven't read the Constitution they swore an oath to protect and preserve. On the other side of the political ledger there is one (and only one) "moderate Democrat;" Joe Manchin of WV - as can be seen here in their respective ACU ratings:As you can see; Ayotte, Kirk, Collins and Donnelly, lead the Democrat Wing of the Republican Party. Unlike Democrats, Republicans are all over the proverbial map in terms of their liberal tendencies; whereas Democrats are much more consistently liberal and they are especially united in their desire to gut the 2nd Amendment and disarm law-abiding Americans. For them, "gun control" means "more control" and in the brave new world of the emerging liberal paradise, they will control every aspect of everything, including you. They're almost there already but they need to take your guns before they can achieve their final goal.When lawmakers rejected four partisan gun-control measures on Tuesday, Senator Chris Murphy, who led a 15-hour filibuster to force a vote on the measures in the first place, called the Senate's failure to agree on legislation proof of the NRA's "vice-like grip." But a new bipartisan effort, spearheaded by GOP Senator Susan Collins, is reportedly gaining traction, and a hand full of Republicans have expressed their support for the proposal despite the NRA's vocal objections.Collins' bill, which is more restrictive than those proposed by Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chris Murphy and more sweeping than either proposed by Republican Senators John Cornyn and Charles Grassley, would allow the attorney general to ban sales of guns to people who appear either on the government's no-fly list or on a "selectee" list, members of which require additional screening at airports.Federal authorities would be notified if anyone on either list going back five years purchased a gun, and the FBI would then put that individual under surveillance - the measure would've assured authorities were at least alerted to the fact that the Orlando gunman had purchased a weapon. In an appeal to Republicans, it would also give people who are wrongfully put on the list a chance to appeal the attorney general's ruling."If you are too dangerous to fly on an airplane, you're too dangerous to buy a gun," Collins said Tuesday as she revealed the terms of the bill. "Surely the terrorists attacks in San Bernardino and in Orlando that took so many lives are a call for compromise," she added.Although many remain skeptical, her measure - which could come up for a vote as early as Thursday - is gaining traction among some Republicans. Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire all co-sponsored the bill, and sponsors reportedly estimate that at least seven more are behind it. Senator David Purdue of Georgia said he was "hopeful" he'd be able to support the bill, and the bill's co-sponsors are reportedly trying to convince Senator Marco Rubio to joint the cause. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to schedule a vote for the measure, and one lawmaker said McConnell will "not be dictated to" by the NRA.The NRA, however, was not swayed. "No one wants terrorists to have legal or illegal access to firearms," Chris Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, said Tuesday. "Unfortunately, Senator Collins and others are focusing their efforts on unconstitutional proposals that would not have prevented the Orlando terrorist attack."
Instacart and its on-demand groceries have arrived in three more neighborhoods on Chicagos South Side.

The San Francisco-based company began operating in Bronzeville (60653), Back of the Yards (60609) and South Shore (60649) on Wednesday. Previously, the only South Side zip codes Instacart operated in were 60615 and 60637, in and around Hyde Park.

Dave Osborne, Instacart's general manager for the region, said the expansion was prompted by a new Whole Foods Market that opened Wednesday at 5118 S. Lake Park Ave. in Hyde Park. The company is also hiring 100 area shoppers, or contractors who pick up groceries and deliver them to consumers. Osborne said shoppers typically live in the areas where they deliver.

He said the company typically plans expansions when a geographic area has a few grocery stores to choose from.

We want to be able to provide a wide variety of store choices to our customers, he said. For our operating model to work, they do have to be relatively close to a store," to keep drive times reasonable for the shoppers.

All of Instacart's South Side customers can order from Whole Foods and Binny's Beverage Depot. Customers in Hyde Park, Bronzeville and Back of the Yards can also order from Mariano's, Jewel-Osco and Costco. Two-hour delivery typically costs $5.99.

With another Whole Foods under construction in Englewood, Osborne said, the company has been in talks with the grocery chain about beginning delivery service in that neighborhood, but there are no plans yet. That store is expected to open in September.

In areas of the city with few or no grocery stores, Osborne said the company hopes to make groceries available for residents who might not be able to travel to the stores.

In May, Amazon expanded its same-day delivery service to Prime members on the citys South Side after a Bloomberg Businessweek report that showed service gaps in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.

We think theres big potential to cover the entire Chicagoland area over time, Osborne said. As we become more efficient and as we partner with more and more retailers, that enables us to cover more and more of the city.

Osborne said the company hopes to launch a pilot program this fall that would allow Chicagoans to use federal assistance to purchase groceries through Instacart, which he said is currently banned by regulations.

It is a nationwide issue for us, he said.

mgraham@tribpub.com

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OfficeLuv, a Chicago-based startup that helps office spaces manage services like cleaning and supplies, has appointed a new CEO and is ramping up staffing.



CEO Kimberly Miller was most recently a vice president of sales for Chicago-based Kapow. OfficeLuv also recently hired Lauren Polkow, a former head of product development for restaurants for Grubhub, to be its head of product.

OfficeLuv offers a web platform that helps clients hire cleaners, reorder supplies like toilet paper or dish soap via automation, or arrange a day concierge who might perform a range of duties like emptying the dishwasher or making coffee. The company, founded by Chris Hartman and Kathryn Saluke in April 2015, recently expanded to Milwaukee.



OfficeLuv was founded inside Roniin, which begins startups, incubates them and spins them off. Miller had been an advisor for Roniin and OfficeLuv, and moved into the CEO role last week.



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Hartman said that since the company began, hes been focused on growing the business and its customer base. The company raised $4 million in funding over the last year. Next, he said, is finding other ways to sell additional products and services to existing customers.

Miller said she plans to continue to hire rapidly.

The company employs 70 in Chicago and Milwaukee, mostly cleaners or other field employees who perform work in clients offices. Miller said the company plans to top 100 employees in the next two months. OfficeLuv has 200 clients, most of which are in Chicago.

Miller noted many companies assign office managers higher-skilled tasks, and more companies are working in coworking spaces and other shared workspaces. Those spaces all need people to keep communal spaces tidy and well-stocked.

"The industry itself is really a sleeping giant; there's so much for us to do as far as disruption is concerned," she said.

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Twitter @megancgraham
As its F-15 and F/A-18 lines production could draw to a close by the 2020s, Boeing faces a future where its role as a prime military fighter jet manufacturer is uncertain.

But as it celebrates its centennial, Boeing is committed to remaining a major player in the business, even as it looks to invest in other areas, including unmanned systems, satellites and space travel, Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg said in an interview.

"We expect to be a prime in the fighter jet business for the long run," he said. "This is not a business we're getting out of at all."

Boeing has deals pending with Kuwait, which wants to buy 28 Super Hornets, and Qatar, which has ordered 36 F-15s. Muilenburg said he was confident those sales, which combined could reach $7 billion, would be approved by the U.S. government. That would then allow the company to maintain a healthy production line as it courts Canada and other countries for additional sales.

Canada is a partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, but its new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has indicated that the government may want to look for other options. The country currently has a fleet of F/A-18s that Boeing maintains.

Lockheed Martin's F-35 has a single engine, and some have said they're concerned that if it fails over the vast expanse of the country there is no back up.

"We have very close relationships with our Canadian customers," Muilenburg said. "The Hornet fleet that they operate today has been very successful for them. They've shown that in the kind of operations that they have, especially harsh environments, polar environments there's a real benefit to having a two-engine aircraft."

Richard Aboulafia, a defense analyst with the Teal Group, said Boeing is "under competitive pressure" in the combat aircraft business. "But there are opportunities out there. It seems premature to give up hope."

Last year, Boeing, which had teamed up with Lockheed Martin, lost the $80 billion contract to build the new Air Force bomber to Northrop Grumman. Now, Boeing is intensely focused on building a new trainer aircraft for the Air Force, Muilenburg said, and developing the technologies that would be used in a sixth-generation fighter jet, one that would follow the F-35 many years in the future.

It also recently signed a multi-billion-dollar deal to sell commercial airplanes to Iran in what would become the biggest sale of U.S. goods to Iran since the easing of economic sanctions last year.

The company turns 100 this summer, and Muilenburg said it is looking toward the next 100 years, to "a future where a combination of efficient air travel and efficient space travel can be offered to customers around the world."

That would involve space tourism, he said, noting the habitats that Bigelow Aerospace are developing.

"As you begin to create more destinations that will naturally create a stronger economic pipeline for space," he said. "And just as we have been the leader of commercial air travel for the first century, as we look to the second century of aviation, I would expect Boeing to be the leader in both air and space travel."

Along with SpaceX, Boeing has a NASA contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. The first unmanned flight is scheduled for late 2017; with the first crew set to fly in early 2018.

Boeing has begun training NASA's astronauts on simulators. And the company is also one of the prime contractors on the massive Space Launch System that NASA is developing. It is expected to launch for the first time in 2018.

Muilenburg said he envisioned a day when space could become a self-sustaining economy that is not just propped up by NASA.

Now the company is looking at building hypersonic aircraft, which would travel at Mach 5 - or five times the speed of sound. Brian Tillotson, a senior technical fellow at Boeing, said it could be used to get passengers to a station in what's known as low Earth orbit, or even super-fast transcontinental flight: "An hour and a half anywhere in the world."

But Aboulafia was skeptical of what he called, "techno-utopianism."

"Civil space - that's risky," he said. "Techno-utopianism can get you in an awful lot of trouble in this industry."
Costco has been planning its big credit card changeover for months, but it hasn't gone smoothly for all customers.

On Monday, Costco officially dropped its longtime exclusive partnership with American Express and began accepting only Visa cards, including a new, co-branded Costco Anywhere card issued by Citigroup.

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Customers who previously had Costco's co-branded American Express card were supposed to receive their new Visa cards in the mail automatically. But since Monday, dozens have posted complaints to the wholesale club's Facebook page complaining about problems with the switch-over.

(Costco / Facebook)

Several said the new credit cards never arrived while their Costco American Express cards were canceled on schedule, and they had trouble getting help from Citi customer service.

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Some customers complained about long hold times. Other complaints concerned improper balances and new cards not working.

A New York Costco shopper got a letter from Citi dated the Friday before the official changeover saying he'd be receiving the new card soon. After Monday came and went with no credit card, he's reconsidering his membership, he said in an email.

Although Visa is now the only credit card accepted at Costco, members can use other forms of payment or Visa cards other than the Costco Anywhere card, but only the co-branded card gives shoppers cash-back perks that are slightly higher than those that were offered with Costco's American Express cards.

On Monday, Costco spokeswoman Bev Akada said that while a small percentage of customers hadn't received cards, the vast majority arrived on schedule.

More than 11 million cards already have been issued to existing Costco members, said Citi spokeswoman Jennifer Bombardier in an email. Those Costco members flooded Citi's phone lines with more than 1.5 million calls in the days after the switch, she said.

"Due to the tremendous response, some customers experienced delays reaching customer service; however, call volumes are starting to return to normal, and we are working diligently to meet the needs of our customers," she said.

Citi also lets customers activate cards online and is in the process of resending credit cards to people whose addresses had changed, she said. Existing members who should have received a Costco Anywhere Visa but still haven't can contact Citi to make sure their address is correct and request a new card.

"We sincerely apologize to those who have been inconvenienced and we are absolutely committed to serving our existing and new cardmembers," she said.

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Jason Montrie, president and interim CEO of Land of Lincoln Health in Chicago is photographed in the company offices Oct. 22, 2015. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Start-up insurer Land of Lincoln Health sued the federal government Thursday, saying it is owed more than $70 million under the Affordable Care Act.

Land of Lincoln said in the lawsuit the U.S. failed to live up to obligations to pay the Chicago-based insurer money owed under a federal health care program known as "risk corridors." The temporary program was designed to limit the risk of providing coverage to scores of people who previously were uninsured or underinsured and stabilize premiums to consumers.

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The government's broken promise has left the nonprofit insurer in severe financial distress, said Jason Montrie, president and interim CEO. Land of Lincoln lost $90.8 million last year and another $7.1 million in the first three months of 2016.

"Every insurer went in understanding that the first few years would have a lot of volatility," Montrie said. "When one of the primary mechanisms designed to help stabilize the market is removed, it creates a lot of damage."

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The pain has been felt across the insurance industry. Many other insurers also suffered major shortfalls in risk-corridor payments. Some startups, which like Land of Lincoln were created under the health care law, were unable to deal with the deficit and went out of business.

But only a few have taken legal action against the government. Land of Lincoln's suit follows similar ones filed earlier this year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Highmark in Pittsburgh and Health Republic Insurance of Oregon, one of the shuttered health plans. All of the suits are pending in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.

The suits highlight the struggles of the early years of the health law, which has become known as Obamacare. Several insurers are having a hard time making money in the state insurance exchanges created under Obamacare. The law also has generated a lot of legal controversy, including a constitutional challenge to the tax credits provided to Americans to defray the cost of insurance.

Land of Lincoln was one of 23 nonprofit health plans set up under Obamacare to provide an alternative to traditional insurers and foster competition in the state marketplaces. But a dozen of the startups have failed, which could cost the government up to $1.2 billion.

Land of Lincoln, which received $160 million in federal loans, was the only nonprofit among the eight insurers participating in the Illinois exchange last year, enrolling about 10 percent of the members on the exchange. The company has about 52,000 members, including about 10,000 who are covered by small-group policies.

In its complaint, Land of Lincoln said the health care law included financial protections, such as risk-corridor payments, to ease the transition to a new individual market that prohibits insurers from using medical history, gender and health status to set rates or deny coverage.

Land of Lincoln said the premiums it set for its policies were lower than they would have been in the absence of the government's promise of risk-corridor subsidies.

Insurers that did well on their new Obamacare business would pay into the risk-corridor program, and those that experienced losses would be eligible for government subsidies. The government had signaled that payments would be made even if inflows weren't sufficient. In April 2014, the government changed course and said the program would be "budget neutral," meaning it would only pay out what it collected.

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It turned out that the amount owed was far greater than the sum collected. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last fall that insurers would receive only 12.6 percent of the $2.87 billion they claimed under the risk-corridor program in 2014, the first year of operation. The government has since informed insurers that it doesn't plan to make payments in full for 2015, Land of Lincoln said.

Montrie said Lincoln is owed about $4 million from 2014 and $68 million from last year. The suit alleges that the federal government violated the health law and breached its contractual obligations.

A Health and Human Services spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment.

Without the risk-corridor payments, Land of Lincoln has had to make some tough decisions to limit the growth of its business. It stopped selling new group policies last fall and plans to completely exit that line of business later this year.

The company has filed rate plans for the 2017 Illinois ACA exchange, but Montrie declined to comment on the rate filings.

"It is regrettable that decisions beyond our control have put Land of Lincoln at significant financial disadvantage," Montrie said. "We are hopeful this lawsuit will allow us to continue our mission to provide high-quality, affordable care to the consumers of Illinois."

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1. Eat out, rock out

Rachael Ray brings her Feedback Festival to the Lincoln Park Zoo, with a bevy of musical acts, food and drinks. Taking the stage are musicians Grace Potter and Lee Fields & The Expressions, while food includes pulled pork sliders from Lillie Q's chef Charlie McKenna, Green City Market charred corn on the cob, chilled dan dan noodles and Pilsen-style hot dogs. Wash it all down with wine and beer. Tickets $50-$70; VIP $300. 6-11 p.m. on Saturday, June 25 at Lincoln Park Zoo, 2001 N. Clark St., www.feedbackchicago.com

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2. Sample local brews

Local beer, and lots of it. (Lenny Gilmore / RedEye 2014)

Swing by Logan Square's Crown Liquors for a taste of eight city breweries (Pipeworks, Revolution, Off Color, Piece, Half Acre, Ale Syndicate, Aquanaut, and Arcade). Each will pour three beers, including rare and limited releases. For $30, attendees get 10 5-ounce pours. 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, June 25 at Crown Liquors, 2821 N. Milwaukee Ave., www.eventbrite.com

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3. Learn the art of the croissant

Learn how to make these bad boys at Read It & Eat. (Francesca Cristini / EyeEm / Getty Images/EyeEm)

Join pastry chef Kelly Dull at culinary bookstore Read It & Eat for a hands-on baking class, where you'll learn all you need to know about France's most famous buttery, flaky pastry. Start with the secrets to perfectly laminated dough, then adapt the plain recipe for pain au chocolat and ham and cheese croissants. $70. 1-3:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 25 at Read It & Eat, 2142 N. Halsted St., www.readitandeatstore.com

4. Start the day with free cold brew

This truck is harboring free cold brew on Sunday.

Before heading out for Sunday brunch, swing by the Big Shoulders Coffee truck for a free cup of cold brew coffee. The truck will also be selling its usual coffee and espresso offerings, along with pastries if you need a pre-brunch nibble. (What, is that weird?) 10:30 a.m.-noon on Sunday, June 26 at the Big Shoulders Coffee truck, Fullerton Avenue at Lake Michigan, www.bigshoulderscoffee.com

5. Learn about European spirits and cocktails

Cocktails wait behind the doors of Bohemian House. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

At a cocktail class hosted by Bohemian House, you'll step behind the bar and get familiar with Central European spirits like plum brandy and Becherovka, an herbal liqueur. Beverage director Danny Bautista will guide attendees through crafting their own drinks, like the Czech Mate (Slivovitz plum brandy, Becherovka and fruit juices) and the Chartreuse Smash, made with green Chartreuse and Becherovka. $15. 2:30-3:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 26 at Bohemian House, 11 W. Illinois St., www.bohochicago.com

jbhernandez@tribpub.com

Twitter @joeybear85






Goddess and Grocer's rainbow cake tastes even better when it's eaten for a good cause. (Victoria Kent)

Pride Month wraps up next week, with Sunday's Pride Parade marking the last major event. The city's food and dining scene will join forces to celebrate, as well as continue to commemorate those affected by the tragedy in Orlando. Here's where to head for charity events and Pride-themed food and drink specials, including rainbow-hued doughnuts, cocktails and poutine.

360 Chicago Observation Deck: How about a cocktail with a view from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Center? 360 Chicago offers rainbow-colored drinks for $12 each at the Architect's Corner Cafe and Bar throughout June. 875 N. Michigan Ave., 888-875-8439, www.360chicago.com

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Dive Bar: The seafood restaurant in Lakeview offers curbside views of the Pride Parade from its sidewalk patio. Enjoy a special brunch buffet (with mimosas, of course). $50 per person. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, June 26 at 3445 N. Halsted St., 773-770-4681, www.chicagodivebar.com

Goddess and Grocer; Goddess and the Baker: Buy a slice of the brand's signature six-layer rainbow cake between now and June 26 and $1 will go to a GoFundMe page set up to assist victims of the Orlando tragedy. Buy a whole cake and $10 will be donated. Multiple locations, www.goddessandthebaker.com, www.goddessandgrocer.com

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Baker & Nosh: The Uptown bakery is giving out free La Colombe drip coffee to paradegoers in search of a caffeine fix. 9 to 11 a.m. at 1303 Wilson Ave., 773-989-7393, www.bakerandnosh.com

Equinox: Two locations of the fitness club are partnering with Wellness Grub, a local juice company, to sell six colorful juices until the end of Pride Month. Twenty percent of sales go to support local LGBTQ charities. Equinox Lincoln Park, 1750 N. Clark St.; Equinox Gold Coast, 900 N. Michigan Ave., www.equinox.com

Links Taproom: The beer bar in Wicker Park honors the victims of the Orlando shooting, and everyone else affected, by donating all sales on Sunday, June 26 to LGBTQ charities. 1559 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-360-7692, www.linkstaproom.com

Riva Restaurant on Navy Pier: The crab house on Navy Pier offers a special rainbow cocktail for $10. $1 of every drink purchased will be donated to the OneOrlando Fund to help support victims of the Pulse tragedy. 700 E. Grand Ave., 312-644-7482, www.rivanavypier.com

Firecakes Donuts: Now through June 26, $1 from each limited-edition Pride doughnut (vanilla-iced with a rainbow strip of glaze) sold will be donated to Center on Halsted, a Chicago center that helps support the LGBT community. 68 W. Hubbard St., 312-329-6500; 2453 N. Clark St., 773-666-5277, www.firecakesdonuts.com

Q-Tine: The late-night barbecue and poutine restaurant offers rainbow poutine for $11 per dish from June 24 through June 26. $2 from each sale will benefit Center on Halsted. 2339 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-227-5100, www.q-tine.com






Embeya, which opened in 2012 with one of the prettiest dining rooms in the city, closed recently. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Embeya, the ambitious Asian-inspired restaurant on Randolph Street in the West Loop, which recently lost a lawsuit with its namesake founding chef, has closed as of last weekend.

"Two days notice to staff," said a direct message from the Embeya Twitter account, in response to a request for comment from a Tribune reporter. "Lawsuit ruined us," the direct message said.

Opening chef Thai Dang won more than $102,500 in May for lost wages, according to Crains, after saying he was not paid his agreed upon salary. The restaurant was christened with Dangs childhood nickname, which means little one in Vietnamese.

A direct message sent from the Embeya Twitter account in response to a question about the restaurant's closing. (Chicago Tribune)

Michael Sheerin took over as executive chef after Dang left. I didnt know this was coming, Sheerin said Thursday afteroon. I found out the Wednesday before.

The last dinner was Saturday; we did a private-party event for a family wedding, he added. Im sorry, too. Honestly, right now Im looking for work. (He closed his Packed: Dumplings Reimagined in May.)



Mike did a tremendous job; he was unbelievable," said co-owner Attila Gyulai. "Im going to miss the employees tremendously; we had amazing, amazing employees. And Im going to miss the food.

It came to a point that we just could not do it any more, Gyulai added. Both my wife and I have aging parents with health issues, and two babies under 2 years old. It was too much to do. As you know, a restaurant is way more than a full-time job, and there just werent enough hours in the day to fulfill our obligations.

We were a nice cuisine, and thats always a bit more difficult with a big space. But we did quite well. It came down to family.

Thai Dang, left, the founding chef at Embeya, and partner Attila Gyulai, shown in 2012. Dang left the restaurant in 2015. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Embeya was one of the most interesting restaurants to open in 2012, featuring chef Thai Dangs very personal take on Vietnamese flavors. Almost nothing on his menu was traditional Vietnamese as Chicagoans understood it, and he happily featured such acquired tastes as durian fruit  which tastes good but smells like bad cheese  among his desserts.

It's not clear whether enough Chicagoans understood Dangs cooking, which might have led to the very public breakup between Dang and Gyulai.



When Mike Sheerin came on board, he increased the breadth of the menu, incorporating Thai, Chinese and other flavors, though you would never describe his food as traditional. The Tribune awarded Embeya two stars under both Dang and Sheerin.

Dang and his wife, Danielle Dang, are opening HaiSous in Pilsen. When reached for comment on Embeya, they referred the Tribune to their lawyer.

On their new restaurant? Opening in the fall, wrote Danielle Dang via Facebook Messenger.

This report has been updated to reflect that, while the Twitter direct message response came from the Embeya account, Embeya co-owner Attila Gyulai said later, "Those are not my comments."



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lchu@tribpub.com

Twitter @louisachu






The Wellington meatloaf is covered in duxelles, wrapped in a puff pastry and served with a bordelaise sauce. (Nick Kindelsperger/Chicago Tribune)

A ghostly silence hung over the dining room on each of my four visits to Saint Lou's Assembly. Employees attempted to busy themselves with nothing to do, as neat rows of blue-backed booths sat empty. This is not good for a newly opened restaurant, and downright puzzling coming from an esteemed group like 16" on Center, which also runs Dusek's and The Promontory.

Saint Lou's arrived with no warning in late March as a "meat and three" concept. Inspired by casual Southern eateries, the restaurant offered a daily selection of meaty entrees, along with an array of sides. Though new to Chicago, the concept sounded both novel and straightforward: grab a tray, pick a meaty main dish, and choose three different side dishes.

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They nailed the decor. In fact, the designers might have done too good of a job, because the dining room looks eerily like it's been around since the mid-20th century. Besides the bright yellow sign out front, everything inside is brown, from the rust-colored tile floors to the sandy-hued brick walls and the dark wood panels. While there are a few cheeky touches, like a case full of bowling trophies, the restaurant feels like you walked onto a set from "Mad Men"  albeit when Don Draper was slumming it.

Except, you're actually going to spend like Draper snatched the expense account card to wine and dine clients. Though it nods to humble Southern fare, most of the dishes are ambitious and expensive. Sure, there's meatloaf, but it's $18 Wellington meatloaf that includes a layer of duxelles wrapped in puff pastry, and comes with a side of blood red bordelaise sauce. Though an interesting idea, the meatloaf itself is soft and textureless.

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Soft actually describes a lot of food at Saint Lou's. A confit porchetta special lacked any crispy skin, which is usually the best part. The noodles in the mac and cheese collapse when touched with a fork.

The prime rib sandwich is topped with giardineria and served with a beef jus. (Nick Kindelsperger/Chicago Tribune)

Instead of embracing the humble nature of the concept, they tried at every turn to transcend it. That certainly explains why Saint Lou's shows off with rosy red prime rib, instead of going with a cheaper roast beef. But why use prime rib as the meat for a play on an Italian beef sandwich? At $16, it costs three times as much one from Al's Italian Beef with about half the meat.

The vegetables hold up much better. Fresh and bright green dishes like bok choy with ginger and well-seasoned ratatouille make for the most satisfying bites. Your best bet is to avoid the meats altogether, and load up on a plate of five side dishes for $12.

Except you can't anymore. As of three days ago, Saint Lou's has ditched the cafeteria setup, and now has a full menu with appetizers. (Because of the menu change, what was to have been a review turned out to be more of a first look.)

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Good news, I thought. That's what a great restaurant group does; if things don't work, it changes them.

Though it's called prime rib on the new menu, the rib-eye cut was grilled individually. (Nick Kindelsperger/Chicago Tribune)

Then the plate of prime rib hit the table looking like a bargain steak from Applebee's. Thin and flabby, with enormous pockets of unrendered fat and distinct crosshatch grill marks, this was a sad gray sliver of rib-eye masquerading as slow-roasted prime rib. Yet, somehow it cost $32. So-called Nashville hot chicken was nothing more than fried chicken tossed in a vinegary Franks-like hot sauce.

The best dish currently is this dish of grilled octopus and chorizo. (Nick Kindelsperger/Chicago Tribune)

The one highlight was a grilled octopus and chorizo dish drizzled with salsa verde. The smoky char on the octopus played off the fresh green sauce, with pops of fatty chorizo adding a complex spice profile. It was also a dish as far removed from the meat and three theme as humanly possible.

Obviously, the kitchen has top-quality ingredients and talented cooks, but they are stumbling through a concept that needlessly limits them. A creative restaurant concept is no match for well-grilled octopus.

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Saint Lou's Assembly, 664 W. Lake St., 312-600-0600, www.saintlouschicago.com.

This story has been updated to correct the names of the restaurants managed by 16" on Center.

nkindelsperger@tribpub.com

Twitter @nickdk
Luxury fashion brand Versace is under fire for ads featuring models Karlie Kloss and Gigi Hadid in Chicago that some say promote teenage motherhood and slavery symbolism.

Versace posted a short video called "Chicago is my Beat" online this week as part of its fall/winter 2016 campaign that intermixes shots of posing models with performances by African-American dancers. Photographer Bruce Weber told The New York Times he "wanted these pictures to mean something to the city," but some of the images have been blasted on social media.

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"When slavery wasn't enough so you put a chain on the African baby," read one meme posted on Instagram with a Versace shot of an African-American girl in a stroller with a chain across her lap. Some critics also said the images of Kloss and Hadid, who are both in their early 20s, toting young children around the city suggest the models gave birth as teenagers.

A Versace spokeswoman did not comment to the Tribune about the controversy but said the campaign was the fashion brand's first in Chicago. Weber told the Times he was inspired by a February story in The New Yorker about the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Catholic Church on the South Side.

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"I had read a story in The New Yorker about a pastor called Father Mike, who is pretty controversial, and it caught my imagination. I went to hear him speak before we started shooting, and he was talking about politics and the need to restore old neighborhoods, and it made me think I wanted these pictures to mean something to the city," Weber told the Times. A Weber representative did not return a Tribune request for comment.

Pfleger told the Tribune that Weber attended a church service in the spring and plans to return next month to explore the church's efforts to quell violence. Pfleger said Wednesday morning he had not seen the Versace campaign and added with a chuckle, "Versace has not called me to do anything."

A Versace representative says its campaign features Joffrey Ballet dancer Fabrice Calmels and performers from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Chicago Multicultural Dance Center and The Future Kingz.

Weber told the Times he met a group of hip-hop dancers on the street with their manager and asked them if they wanted to be part of the campaign. At the end of the shoot, company executive Donatella Versace gave them suits and shoes, Weber said.

"The clothes weren't the payment, they were a present. We paid them, too. For the next men's show we are going to bring a lot of them to Milan," Versace told the Times. "They were important because they speak a different language from me  literally, but also generationally, and fashion needs that. Otherwise we will all be left behind, I think."

Frennie Deloria, manager of The Future Kingz, said Weber spotted her troupe while they practiced for a show outside the Aragon Ballroom. She said the crew was ecstatic to work on the campaign. Deloria said her dancers approached Versace after the shoot for a picture and she gave them Versace shoes, but no suits.

Deloria said her group, which is based in the Northwest suburbs, was paid for its time but there are no set plans for future Versace work. Deloria and reps for Hubbard Street and the Chicago Multicultural Dance Center declined to comment on the campaign controversy.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
In its accidentally serious fashion, "Tickled" illuminates a specific, disturbing niche in the realm of fetishism. At the same time, it falls squarely in the mainstream of a lot of contemporary documentaries. Its tone is that of blithe snark, cut with ever-increasing doses of dread. It's unthinkable without docu-essay forerunners such as Michael Moore's "Roger & Me," and Ira Glass' "This American Life." It's worth seeing, because it achieves what it sets out to achieve: It begins as a lark, gets curiouser and curiouser, and then turns into a detective thriller. I don't love or even like a lot of the filmmakers' tactics, but they're effective.

The filmmakers are David Farrier and Dylan Reeve. A popular TV personality and journalist in Auckland, New Zealand, Farrier was rolling around online one day when he came upon videos featuring the sport of "competitive endurance tickling." These generally feature one young man held down, or shackled, by one, two or three other men who then go to town on the participant, until the laughter become mirthless but continues, until the session ends. Farrier figured this popular subgenre of tickle-torture videos was worth exploring further.

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"Tickled" is what happened next. Farrier discovered that the apparent generator of the videos, "Jane O'Brien Media," was one of 300 domain names owned by a company registered in Germany. His request for information was met by homophobic slurs and vague threats to cease and desist, even before his investigative work began.

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Farrier and Reeve venture into Los Angeles, where many of the videos are shot. The person behind this online empire, we learn, pays young men and teenagers good money and puts them up in an LA hotel in exchange for their participation, and any objections to the videos being made public are met with blackmail and various other threats.

Farrier and Reeve travel also to Muskegon, Mich., and eventually to New York, where Mr. Big (I'm being coy about the details; the film leaks them, craftily, all in good time) is alive and well and pursuing his interests. "Tickled" combines somewhat queasy-making hidden-camera footage and "gotcha" interviews with a genuine, clear-eyed curiosity and doggedness. The film's driven by Farrier's sincere desire to confront a corrupt and hugely depressing bully. The movie, more stridently, implicates LA and America itself  both its online self and its real self  as a breeding ground for fetishists craving anonymity as well as an endless source of bitter laughter. "Tickled" tries to have it all ways, making fun and making serious, investigating a potential series of crimes but in a sort-of-kidding/sort-of-not way. I found much of it physically uncomfortable to watch, which doesn't mean it's good, or bad; it simply means one person's fetish is another's source of squirm.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune Newspapers critic.

mjphillips@tribpub.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

"Tickled"  3 stars

MPAA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes

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Opens: Friday at Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.; www.musicboxtheatre.com

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP)
Move over, Barack Obama. There would be a new "Chicago President," if "Late Night" host Seth Meyers had his way.

Meyers suggested a new NBC show called "Chicago President" that would star Donald Trump as the commander-in-chief. The offer is on the condition the Republican presidential candidate drops out of the race.

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Meyers, 42, said Trump can play the president "without any of the real world consequences" in this 13-episode fictional series based in Chicago. On Wednesday's "Late Night" episode, the comedian also imagined Megan Fox playing Trump's first wife, Bradley Cooper portraying the younger version of Trump, Harrison Ford as Hillary Clinton and Bill Cosby as Obama.

This is not the first time Meyers imagined Trump in a fictional setting. During his commencement speech to Northwestern University graduates on Friday, the "Late Night" host said, "My favorite inspirational quote came from Donald Trump, who said to the graduates of Trump University, 'If you want your money back, you're going to have to sue me, you losers.'"

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"Late Night" airs 11:35 p.m. weeknights on NBC.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP)
Fed up with Republican inaction on gun control, House Democrats, including nearly three dozen from California, shut down business as usual Wednesday with an old-fashioned, if highly unusual, sit-in that forced live television coverage of the chamber off the air and sent GOP leaders scrambling for cover.

The scene, including chants of No bill, no break! was like nothing that has occurred in Congress in recent years, more reminiscent of the civil rights battles of the 1960s than todays often predictably scripted debates.

UPDATE: House Democrats end protest as Senate considers vote on gun legislation 

As of Thursday morning, Democratic lawmakers were still delivering protest speeches, despite a late-night maneuver by Republicans to formally adjourn until after the July 4 holiday. It remained unclear how long Democrats would continue the sit-in.

Following the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting  and others in San Bernardino and Newtown, Conn.  along with the Senates failure to advance gun ownership restrictions earlier in the week, Democrats said theyd had enough.

It began Wednesday, when shortly after the House gaveled in for a routine day of legislating, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) strode into the chamber, stood at a lectern and called on his colleagues to join him. Within moments, about two dozen lawmakers gathered around him as he spoke.

Rise up, Democrats. Rise up, Americans. This cannot stand. We will occupy this floor. We will no longer be denied a right to vote.  Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) before House Democrats staged a sit-in

Then many sat, legs crossed, on the chambers blue-carpeted floor. By midafternoon, scores more had arrived to show their support, vowing to stay until they received a vote on gun-control legislation.

I wondered, what would bring this body to take action? thundered Lewis, who as a young man marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. What is right, what is just for the people of this country?  They have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence. What has this body done? Nothing. Not one thing.

745650034356551680

Republicans, who control the House majority, declared the proceedings out of order and quickly called a recess, which automatically turned off the cameras that usually provide live coverage to C-SPAN.

But it hardly mattered. Lawmakers took to social media, tweeting and updating their status from the floor. San Diego Democratic Rep. Scott Peters posted live Periscope video that C-SPAN eventually began broadcasting.

So why not turn on the House cameras? Peters tweeted. What is @PaulRyanPress afraid of?

https://twitter.com/RepCardenas/status/745654612095602688

As the sit-in entered its sixth hour, lawmakers got more emotional. Members of the Florida delegation were brought to tears. San Bernardino Rep. Pete Aguilars voice broke as he spoke.

Mr. Speaker, where the hell are you? Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) yelled when it was his turn to speak. Your chair is empty. I dont believe your heart is empty."

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who had spent the morning rolling out the latest flank of his Better Way agenda  ideas for replacing President Obamas healthcare law  called the protest nothing more than a publicity stunt."

"This is not a way to try to bring up legislation, he said on CNN, adding that GOP lawmakers do not support the Democratic-backed legislation because it would put at risk Americans constitutional right to purchase guns.

After 1 a.m., after more than 13 hours, House Republicans returned to the chamber and began attempting to end the sit-in by wrapping up legislation so they could vote to leave. The session adjourned shortly after 3 a.m.

The House won't meet again until after the July 4 holiday, but a handful of House Democrats pressed on overnight and Pelosi said they would be back Thursday morning.

"I just don't think we end it now. We have just a few more hours before daybreak," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said, vowing to stay. Reps. Eric Swalwell (Dublin) and Norma Torres (Pomona) said they would stay as well.

Protests in Congress can take different forms, such as the filibuster in the Senate and procedural votes in the House. During the 2008 summer recess, House Republicans held a similar protest against Democrats refusal to vote on GOP energy bills they believed would lower skyrocketing gas prices. During the 1995 federal government shutdown, Democrats refused to leave until services were restored after Republicans recessed.

House GOP officials noted that Democrats, when they controlled the House in 2008, also shut off the cameras.

Its worth noting that when House Democrats were in the majority, they not only shut off the cameras, they actually shut off the lights, said a House GOP leadership aide who did not want to be identified.

https://twitter.com/LacyClayMO1/status/745657681206095872

Democrats face long odds of passing new gun restrictions with both the House and Senate controlled by Republicans, and the National Rifle Assn. opposed to most of the bills that have been proposed.

Earlier this week, the Senate rejected four proposals to restrict gun purchases  including one that would have prevented terrorism suspects such as Orlando shooter Omar Mateen from buying guns, and another that would require background checks for almost all gun sales.

Despite a 15-hour filibuster led by Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.), votes fell largely along party lines.

A compromise bipartisan proposal introduced by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and backed by leading Democrats has not been scheduled for a vote.

https://twitter.com/RepJudyChu/status/745643655822778368

Polls show most Americans favor new gun restrictions, but opinions become more divided along party lines with Republicans largely believing gun laws are adequate.

Wednesdays sit-in began around 11:30 a.m. Shortly after noon, the Republican presiding officer gaveled the chamber back into session and proceeded with the morning prayer, but the protest continued and another recess was called.

Several senators, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, walked across the Capitol to join their peers in the House, as lawmakers took turns in the chamber sharing personal stories from their own lives, and their congressional districts, of those lost to gun violence.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the Democratic leader, led supporters and activists to the steps of the Capitol for a press conference. She admitted Democrats are fighting an uphill battle in trying to pass legislation, but assured the crowd there is bipartisan support for this legislation.

"People are tired of moments of silence," Pelosi told reporters, saying a "spark" has happened with the Orlando shooting and lawmakers are determined and emboldened. "It's not going to go away until we get reasonable legislation."

Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) talked about the death of his son, who was shot and killed in 1999. Rush described feeling helpless after his son died.

I never will forget the primal scream of my sons mother, Rush said on the Capitol steps.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) said she, too, remembered the primal screams of family members at a firehouse after the Sandy Hook shootings in Newtown.

Make no mistake, said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Were putting you on notice. Were not going away.

Gun-control advocates praised the House Democrats for forcing attention on the issue.

As Dr. King used to say, 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,' said Lucy McBath, faith and outreach leader for Everytown for Gun Safety and the mother of a teenager slain by gun violence. We are seeing the arc bend before our very eyes  Americans demand that we do more to disarm hate."

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Jill Ornitz in Washington and Christine Mai-Duc in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

For more on California politics, follow @lisamascaro and @sarahdwire on Twitter.

ALSO:

Senate votes down proposal to bar gun sales to terrorism suspects

Why one lifelong hunter is leading the charge for stricter gun control

Updates on California politics

Live coverage from the campaign trail

UPDATES:

June 23, 6:08 a.m.: This article was updated with details about Democrats continuing the sit-in despite the adjournment.

June 23, 12:38 a.m.: This article was updated to say the House adjourned.

10:58 p.m: This article was updated with the status of the sit-in.

7:42 p.m.: This article was updated after the GOP lawmakers returned and began holding unrelated votes.

5:44 p.m.: This article was updated after GOP leaders met to strategize about how to end the sit-in.

3:27 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

1:43 p.m. This article was updated with additional background and reaction.

This article was originally published at 10:11 a.m.
George Lucas, left, with wife, Ariel Capital Management's Mellody Hobson, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013 where they donated $25 million to After-School Matters. (Patrick Pyszka / City of Chicago)

Most everyone in America has heard the saying that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. But there's something even worse:

Allowing the mind of the mayor of Chicago to remain trapped in the vise-like grip of George "Star Wars" Lucas.

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That's a mind assault of a chief executive of a major American city by a Hollywood mogul. It's a mindnapping. And we can't have that.

So Lucas, this is your last warning: Release the mind of Mayor Rahm Emanuel now.

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You've had it for some time, hoping he'd help you put your Lucas Museum on Chicago's lakefront that nobody wants but you and Rahm.

Chicago is flirting with bankruptcy because the last mayor  whose mind wasn't worth kidnapping  spent all the money. His mind was found in a bucket off a Chinatown alley, but nobody even noticed.

But Rahm is the mayor now, and unlike the previous occupant, Rahm's mind was nimble, until George Lucas snatched it.

Most of you know the sad history: Rahm's mind, first trapped and then turned completely servile to Hollywood big shots, has been forced to devote itself to this ridiculous lakefront museum Lucas and his wife, financier Mellody Hobson, want to plop on Chicago's beautiful lakefront.

But Chicago doesn't need a Lucas Museum on the lakefront. It doesn't really need a Lucas Museum at all. It doesn't matter what it would contain. And whether it would create a few dozen janitor jobs or sales associates hawking Chewbacca Peanut Butter, and a few minority set-aside contracts to buy off the politicians.

The point is that Lucas and Hobson have insisted they want it on the lakefront.

Still, it's not their lakefront. It's Chicago's lakefront. So go, Lucas. Go, Hobson. Break your terrible hold on the Rahmian brain. He needs his mind, Mr. Lucas.

In Chicago, the gangs rule the streets in some neighborhoods and homicides and shootings continue. The bodies hitting the ground. The cops have gone fetal. The teachers want more money or they'll strike, but the money tree has withered. There is lead in the water at the schools. Taxes are going up, taxpayers are angry, and the mayor's nemesis, Cook County Board President Toni Taxwinkle, flexes her political muscles and waits to pounce.

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Rahm thought he could curry favor with Lucas by putting the Lucas Museum in a parking lot south of Soldier Field. But that didn't work. And now there's talk about putting the Lucas Museum at the McCormick Place Lakeside Center  that hulking ugly structure just east of Lake Shore Drive at the Stevenson Expressway.

The parking lot configuration would give Lucas what amounts to a 99-year lease, plus options to add another couple of hundred years; 297 years of the lakefront in George Lucas' control. That's idiotic. He won't live that long. He's not Yoda.

And putting it on the McCormick Place Lakeside Center idea is just as lousy. If anything, that part of McCormick Place should be torn down.

Rahm could put three gigantic Xs on it and have it scrubbed from sight, returned to grass and shoreline and the water of the big lake.

Why?

Because it's the lakefront. It belongs to the people. Hollywood moguls and political footmen have plenty of money to join country clubs, or fly to the South of France to watch movies. But the lakefront is the country club of the people. It's the place where they go to relax, to let their kids run without worrying they'll get shot, where they can sit and read or just look up at the sky.

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They should be able to enjoy their lakefront without begging favors from anybody or having to bow to the grand monument of the Lucas family.

There's nothing "Chicago" about the Lucas Museum, except that Mrs. Lucas played the race card to make people feel guilty and drop their opposition to it. There's an awful lot of Chicago in using the race card, but how would that fit in a museum of narrative art?

If Rahm really wants a "Chicago" museum on the lakefront, he should demand that a real "Chicago" museum such as, say, the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture be put on the lakefront. Lithuanians are Chicago too, though an oft-ignored and forgotten tribe. But I don't think Rahm would put the Balzekas Museum on the lakefront. He wouldn't kneel before the Lithuanians. What's in it for him?

Yet he has gone on bended knee to Lucas and Hobson to ask how he might serve them. And that is just pathetic. Chicago mayors don't bend their knees for anybody except, perhaps, an Outfit boss or a president. But Rahm bends his knee to Hollywood, because his mind has been trapped, as in one of those Jedi mind tricks.

Hollywood Mogul: "You want to help me with my museum?"

Random Chicago Mayor: "Yeah, I wanna help you with your museum."

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Mogul: "You want to go home and rethink your life and then build my museum."

Random Mayor: "I wanna go home and rethink my life and build your museum."

You have the power, Lucas. Let the mayor's mind go free. If it was really yours, it will return to you. If it doesn't, it was never your mind to hold.

Let it go, George. Let it go.

Listen to "The Chicago Way" with John Kass and Jeff Carlin  radio free Chicago in podcast form, at www.chicagotribune.com/kasspodcast.

jskass@tribpub.com

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Twitter @John_Kass
A proposal to convert the Metra Electric District Line into a rapid-transit line with more frequent stops to serve the South Side and suburbs has drawn the interest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has asked the head of the Regional Transportation Authority to facilitate discussion on the issue, RTA officials said.

During the transit agency's monthly board meeting Thursday, Chairman Kirk Dillard told a representative of a coalition of South Side and south suburban groups that Emanuel had reached out to him about the rapid-transit idea last month, and that talks had begun.

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Dillard said he spoke with Metra Chairman Martin Oberman about the proposal Wednesday.

"The RTA is working with the CTA and Metra," Dillard said after the meeting. "We need to get a handle obviously on the finances, as well as ridership numbers historically in that area. We're in the preliminary fact-finding stages."

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Linda Thisted of the Coalition for a Modern Metra Electric, said after she spoke at the meeting that this was the first she had heard of the mayor's interest. "That's really good news," she said, smiling.

A representative for Emanuel was not immediately available for comment. The mayor's interest doesn't necessarily mean anything will happen  Thisted acknowledged that the proposal would cost hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when transit agencies are already strapped for capital funding.

But an expansion of service on the Metra Electric could be far less expensive than a parallel expansion of the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line south from 95th Street to 130th Street, which could cost more than $2 billion and is being studied by the CTA.

The coalition of South Side and south suburban groups, which includes the Active Transportation Alliance and the Matteson Business Association, wants more trains along the line, which runs from downtown to Hyde Park and University Park, with branches to Blue Island and South Chicago. The group also wants Metra to be able to offer low-cost fare transfers with CTA and Pace using the Ventra card.

The Metra Electric already makes frequent rush-hour stops at stations between downtown and Hyde Park, but runs less often along this stretch and other areas at other times of day. It also offers the most weekday and weekend service of all Metra lines.

The Metra Electric coalition said converting the line to rapid transit with trains running every 10 to 15 minutes would create more opportunities for Southland residents to commute to downtown and North Side jobs, as well as help local businesses.

The group also wants a train to run from McCormick Place to O'Hare International Airport.

The Metra Electric rapid-transit idea is not new  community activists had proposed it as the Gray Line in 1996 and the Gold Line in 2009.

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The proposal has many obstacles, primarily the shortage of funding for transit expansion and the difficulty of using Ventra with Metra's distance-based fares.

The coalition brought the proposal to Metra last month. Metra had previously begun a study with the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District examining capacity along the Metra Electric District Line, including whether it has the electrical power to support more trains and what changes would be needed in the track and power system. That study, which should answer some of the questions about the coalition's proposal, is expected to be done in early 2017, Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said .

Metra has $11.7 billion in capital needs over the next 10 years. The Metra Electric line requires the largest operating subsidy of all Metra lines  it collects about $46 million from the Metra Electric line but it costs $110 million to operate, Gillis said.

A Metra Electric expansion would benefit the city's African-American community, where Emanuel has been working to rebuild trust after his handling of the Laquan McDonald police shooting controversy drove his approval ratings, particularly among black voters, to record lows. Last month, the CTA announced improvements to bus routes and Green Line service on the South Side.

The idea of converting a commuter rail line to a rapid-transit line is being pursued by Toronto Mayor John Tory as part of expansion to transit in Chicago's sister city.

mwisniewski@tribpub.com

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Jaylene Bermeo, 6, gives a thumbs-up from her bed at Stroger Hospital, where she is being treated for a gunshot wound suffered while she played with friends in Palmer Square. (Hospital photo)

A 6-year-old girl shot in the back two weeks ago has been released from Stroger Hospital after being readmitted less than two days after being sent home, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday evening.

Jaylene Bermeo was released Wednesday evening, said Alexandra Normington, a spokeswoman for Cook County's Health and Hospitals System, in an email.

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"This evening Jaylene Bermeo was released; she is home with her family and doing well," Normington said in an email.

Chicago Fire Department officials said she was taken to the hospital in critical condition after experiencing difficulty breathing last Thursday. Jaylene had suffered a collapsed lung when she was shot June 6.

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Jaylene was drawing with chalk on the front sidewalk outside her aunt's house in the 2100 block of North Bingham Street with her two sisters and three cousins when a car drove up and she was hit by gunfire, prosecutors said last week.

A bullet tore through Jaylene's back, puncturing her lung before lodging near her heart, where it still remained as of last week, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the Northwest Side home where the shooting took place has been a focus of Spanish Cobras gang activity.

Several members of the Spanish Cobras were outside the home at the time of the shooting, said prosecutors, who described the shooting as the result of a "war" between the Cobras and the Maniac Latin Disciples.

A 17-year-old suspect in the shooting was ordered held in custody two weeks ago.

WGN-TV contributed.
Containers of water sit as independent contractors hired by Chicago Public Schools test the drinking fountain water for lead levels June 16, 2016, in the Avalon Park neighborhood. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

Water from four drinking fountains at an Uptown area elementary school showed high levels of toxic lead, according to test results disclosed by Chicago Public Schools on Wednesday.

A summary of CPS water tests at Courtenay Elementary showed two fountains on the school's second floor had high lead levels. One of those fountains had water with lead levels between 13 and 110 parts per billion. Another second-floor fountain had levels between roughly 3 and 32 parts per billion.

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At the same time, a fountain on the school's third floor showed test results ranging from roughly 4 to more than 19 parts per billion. A fourth fountain in the school's boiler room had water with lead levels as high as more than 51 parts per billion.

But the district initially gave parents the wrong information about those results Wednesday.

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In Spanish and English letters to parents initially posted on a district website, CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and city public health commissioner Dr. Julie Morita wrote the tests showed elevated lead levels at two school sinks and two water fountains.

"The safety of your children is our highest priority, and we are doing everything in our power to address this situation in a quick and thorough manner," the officials' letter said.

District spokeswoman Emily Bittner said officials would revise the letters to make clear the high lead levels were detected in four water fountains. Water samples were collected from the school June 2, according to CPS.

The district's latest disclosures come as water test results from 98 schools showed 30 buildings had at least one water fixture that showed lead levels above 15 parts per billion.

Experts agree there is no safe level of exposure to lead. Bottled water, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, can have lead levels no higher than 5 parts per billion.

CPS officials spoke extensively about the district's water testing protocols during Wednesday's meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, while a teachers union official exhorted the district to solve the problem.

District officials say the school system is still developing long-term strategies to address the problem. Claypool told community members this week that the district would "spend whatever it takes to remove any devices or piping that might pose a lead hazard risk."

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Claypool did not say where that money will come from, however. The district faces huge, chronic budget deficits and still has not worked out a new labor deal with the Chicago Teachers Union.

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CPS is awaiting test results from dozens of buildings and will conclude a series of public meetings on its lead testing program this week:

 4 p.m. Thursday: Hyde Park Academy High School, 6220 S. Stony Island Ave

 6 p.m. Thursday: Corliss High School, 821 E. 103rd St.

 4 p.m. Friday: Simeon High School, 8147 S. Vincennes Ave.

jjperez@tribpub.com

Twitter @PerezJr
Former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds speaks to members of the media at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse after receiving a six month jail term on May 10, 2018, for failing to file tax returns for four years. Reynolds fought the misdemeanor tax charges against him until the eve of his sentencing hearing. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

After two months behind bars for a bond violation in a tax case, former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds was ordered released on electronic monitoring Thursday while he awaits trial.

Reynolds, 64, has been locked up at the Kankakee County Jail since April 20, when the federal judge overseeing his case ruled he had twice violated his bond while traveling in Africa.

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On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez approved an agreement between Reynolds and federal prosecutors that will allow the twice-convicted former lawmaker to live in a Monee home while awaiting trial. Reynolds must wear an electronic monitoring device and will be subject to a 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew under the deal.

Unlike previous court appearances where he has railed against prosecutors and judge, Reynolds had little to say during Thursday's brief hearing. Dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, he laughed when Valdez suggested that completing the paperwork for his release was a better use of his time than raising any new issues.

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Former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds leaves the Metropolitan Correctional Center on June 23, 2016, after two months behind bars for a bond violation in a tax case. Reynolds was released on electronic monitoring. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

"Of course, your honor," Reynolds said. He was scheduled to be released on a recognizance bond Thursday afternoon after he was processed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop.

Reynolds was indicted last summer on four counts of failing to file a federal income tax return. He was jailed in April after U.S. District Judge John Darrah said he had "broken (his) word" on two occasions  when he traveled from South Africa to Zambia without the court's permission and again when he returned to the U.S. two weeks after he'd told court officials he would be back.

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Last month, Reynolds wrote the first of a series of letters to Darrah complaining that since he was taken to the Kankakee lockup  which houses federal prisoners because of overcrowding at the MCC  he has been hospitalized for chest pains and high blood pressure, placed in protective custody because of potential threats from gang members and barred from preparing his defense because of his lockdown.

He also has a pending motion asking Darrah to step down from the case, claiming a possible conflict of interest because Darrah was appointed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton, who a year later commuted Reynolds' sentence for a federal fraud conviction.

His trial is currently set for September.

Reynolds was convicted in 1995 on charges of criminal sexual abuse, child pornography and obstruction of justice for having sex with a 16-year-old former campaign intern. While serving a state prison sentence for sexual abuse in 1997, Reynolds was convicted again  in federal court on 15 fraud counts related to illegally raising campaign cash and defrauding banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison, but in 2001, Clinton commuted Reynolds' sentence with two years left to serve.

jmeisner@tribpub.com

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With a member of his security team nearby, Mayor Rahm Emanuel leaves a 6th-floor City Hall office after appearing for a deposition June 22, 2016 for a lawsuit filed by Chicago police officers. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was questioned by attorneys Wednesday afternoon about how four Chicago police officers who volunteered on his campaign came to work as his full-time personal security team.

Four other officers have sued the city over being transferred from their posts on the security team.

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According to a transcript of the mayor's sworn deposition released Thursday, Emanuel mostly testified that he could not remember the details of the logistics of his 2011 campaign.

"My focus on my campaign was about the campaign I was running," he said when questioned about the volunteers who drove him around the city during the campaign. "I was not focused on volunteers throughout the campaign at any level."

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When asked the title of one of his closest campaign workers and his current assistant, Emanuel said he didn't know.

When asked if the drivers who shuttled him around the city to events were volunteers, Emanuel said, "I have no idea."

And when asked if he hired the drivers who ushered him around the city, Emanuel responded: "I can't remember."

Twelve times, Emanuel told attorneys he had "no idea." Another 12 times he answered "I can't recall" or with a variation of that.

Emanuel was questioned about his campaign and the volunteers because the four officers have sued the city alleging they were removed from their security posts for political reasons and replaced by four other officers. Political hiring is a violation of the Shakman decree, a series of court decisions and agreements that limited the power of some city agencies to hire, fire and regulate the conduct of public employees.

It's rare for a sitting mayor to be compelled to testify; the deposition was the first time Emanuel has testified.

Emanuel didn't have to appear in court, though. Instead, he sat for about 30 minutes in the legal offices on the sixth floor of City Hall answering questions under oath.

The deposition was not recorded on video.

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While the mayor's testimony offered few answers on how his 22-member security team was assembled, it was a small window into how Emanuel operates and maneuvers.

"Did you know if any of the volunteers that you had working as drivers on the campaign were police officers," asked attorney Ed Fox, who represents the officers.

"I can't recall," Emanuel answered.

"At some point after the election, did you learn that the CPD would be providing you with what I'll call a transition security team?" Fox asked.

"I don't remember," Emanuel replied.

Later, Fox asked Emanuel if he remembered going to a Chicago Bulls game with his then-campaign aide Michael Faulman.

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When Emanuel said he didn't, Fox offered to show him photos from that night.

"I can say that the guy dressed as Benny the Bull is not Mike Faulman," Emanuel testified. "He's not on the security detail."

The four officers, who had worked as bodyguards for Mayor Richard M. Daley when he was in office, allege that they lost close to $3 million in salary and benefits when they were transferred to new positions. The officers are seeking financial compensation.

For three days, officers, administrators and members of Emanuel's team have testified in court about how the four officers went from volunteering to security specialists and replacing the veteran officers. The new officers took time off from their jobs to drive Emanuel as he visited various neighborhoods during the campaign.

Once he was elected, several of them were selected to work as his paid bodyguards between his election and his inauguration.

After Emanuel took office, the security team was reorganized and several of the officers were given jobs on his security team.

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The roles came with a pay raise and special training.

During the deposition, Emanuel said he wasn't involved with hiring the officers and didn't give any member of his team the authority to do so either. Instead, he trusted Terry Hillard, then the interim police superintendent, with the task.

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"I told Terry Hillard, this is your job, not mine," Emanuel told attorneys. "I got a whole transition I got to worry about.  The only thing I said to him was, make it smaller than my predecessor and make it diverse, but you make the call."

Emanuel said he was instead focused on the challenges facing the city.

"I don't mean to do this, but my focus on my campaign was about the campaign I was running for the public not about those type of issues ... so that the people knew where I stood as it relates to a full school day, full school year, that we were going to have universal full-day kindergarten, what we're going to do as it relates to our pensions," he testified.

A decision on the lawsuit is expected by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber next week.

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When questioned by a reporter before the deposition, Emanuel refused to answer. After he ducked into the offices, a barricade manned by an armed Chicago police officer was set up to keep a reporter and photographer distant. Emanuel did not respond to questions as he left the deposition.

The Tribune's Jason Meisner contributed.

lbowean@tribpub.com
Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk's re-election campaign on Thursday slammed Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth for seeking a pretrial settlement conference in a civil lawsuit stemming from her time heading the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

But the settlement conference, scheduled for Friday in Downstate Union County, was "initiated by the judge" and not Duckworth, said a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who is representing the congresswoman in the case.

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"He strongly encouraged it," Madigan spokeswoman Maura Possley said of the trial judge in the case, Mark Boie. Judges in civil matters routinely set conferences in front of other judges in hopes a settlement can be reached before it goes to trial.

Duckworth, a two-term congresswoman, is scheduled to face a civil trial in August for alleged workplace retaliation involving two workers at the Anna Veterans Home. Duckworth has said she wanted the truth to come out but has declined discussing specifics because of the pending litigation.

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But Kirk's campaign on Thursday issued a news release headlined "Duckworth seeks trial settlement" and said "her effort to seek a settlement would allow her to avoid having to testify at her own trial."

Duckworth campaign spokesman Matt McGrath said the GOP campaign attacks show Kirk "has no idea what he's talking about."

"You would think a U.S. senator who is also an attorney would have more knowledge of, and respect for, civil procedure," McGrath said.

Kirk's campaign has made the trial a centerpiece of its early campaign attacks against Duckworth. Kirk himself has gone so far as to accuse Duckworth of hiring "goombahs" at the agency at the request of imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who made her the agency director after she lost a 2006 bid for Congress. Kirk also questioned whether Duckworth would testify in the case.

The back-and-forth came as records showed Kirk had bought about $230,000 in broadcast time and another $35,520 in cable TV in Chicago for ads aimed at promoting his independence from Republicans in Washington, including presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The ad notes that prior to his 2012 stroke, Kirk had been labeled independent and bipartisan. "After facing death, Kirk returned even more committed to serve Illinois," a female narrator says.

The spot also touts Kirk's support for a vote on President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, which the GOP Senate majority has blocked. "And Mark Kirk bucked his party to say Donald Trump is not fit to be commander in chief," the narrator says.

The ad also calls Kirk "a leader on protecting a woman's right to choose," which may explain why the ad is airing only in Chicago and not in the rest of the state, where Republicans tend to hold more conservative social views on abortion and other issues.

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The ad does not mention Duckworth. McGrath, her spokesman, said Kirk is using the ad to portray himself "as a liberal Democrat in Chicago while apparently hoping no one else across the state notices."

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Twitter @rap30
House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, behind him, talk to the news media after meeting with Gov. Bruce Rauner on the last day of the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield on Tuesday, May 31, 2016. (Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune)

Illinois lawmakers will return to Springfield on Wednesday, nearly a month since they departed the Capitol after ending the spring session without agreement on a budget for state government.

Democratic Senate President John Cullerton informed his members on Thursday that they'd been summoned back to the statehouse, shortly after Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner made comments suggesting Democrats were prepared to send him a short-term spending plan for state agencies that would be tied to helping Chicago Public Schools dig out of its financial hole.

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Rauner said it's "not fair" for suburban and Downstate taxpayers to foot the bill for CPS' financial problems. Asked if he would sign a stopgap funding bill that included a CPS bailout, Rauner replied, "absolutely no."

"What we've been told from the other side is that they're willing to work out with us the stopgap budget, that we're close," Rauner said Thursday after speaking at a business banquet in downtown Chicago. "But what they've also made crystal clear is that Chicago's public schools need a bailout, want a bailout, and they're going to hold up everything in these budgets, in these negotiations, for Chicago Public Schools to get a bailout. That's not fair."

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The House also will be in session, a spokesman for Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan confirmed.

Rauner has spent the past few weeks pushing for a two-part solution to the budget impasse that is now in its eleventh month. The governor wants a six-month spending plan to keep government operations, state universities and social services afloat through the November election. He also wants a one-year funding bill for elementary and secondary public schools that would ensure that no school district receives less state aid than it was given last year.

Democrats who control the General Assembly, many of whom hail from districts in Chicago, want to funnel more money to CPS. They made that clear last month when both the House and Senate passed competing bills that would send hundreds of millions of dollars to Chicago schools. The two chambers couldn't agree on an approach, and they left town June 1 without sending anything to Rauner.

At the time, Madigan said the House would remain in "continuous session" and vowed to bring his members back every Wednesday. But he's canceled those session days each of the past three weeks.

For his part, Rauner, got behind the idea of a short-term budget deal  first floated by Cullerton and initially knocked down by Republican legislative leaders  on the final day of session. He's spent the past three weeks calling on lawmakers to go back to Springfield to pass his bills. But Democrats are holding out, in part because they don't think Rauner's bills do enough to help CPS.

On Thursday, Rauner said negotiations on the stopgap portion of his plan are "very, very close."

"Any differences are very minor. And the push that they have  they're always pushing to spend more  but their recommendations on spending more on certain human services or (college tuition) grants, I'm a (college tuition) grant advocate  that we're very close and that could get finalized."

Asked if Rauner's assessment of the situation was correct, Cullerton spokesman John Patterson would not answer the question directly.

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"The Senate President's goal all along has been for the state to provide the resources needed for schools across Illinois to open on time and provide a quality education to their students," Patterson said in a statement.

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Twitter @kimgeiger
State Department staffers wrestled for weeks in December 2010 over a serious technical problem that affected emails from then-Secretary Hillary Clinton's home email server, causing them to temporarily disable security features on the government's own systems, according to emails released Wednesday.

The emails were released under court order Wednesday to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over access to public records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's service as the nation's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013.

The emails, reviewed by The Associated Press, show that State Department technical staff disabled software on their systems intended to block phishing emails that could deliver dangerous viruses. They were trying urgently to resolve delivery problems with emails sent from Clinton's private server.

"This should trump all other activities," a senior technical official, Ken LaVolpe, told IT employees in a Dec. 17, 2010, email. Another senior State Department official, Thomas W. Lawrence, wrote days later in an email that deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin personally was asking for an update about the repairs. Abedin and Clinton, who both used Clinton's private server, had complained that emails each sent to State Department employees were not being reliably received.

After technical staffers turned off some security features, Lawrence cautioned in an email, "We view this as a Band-Aid and fear it's not 100 percent fully effective."

The AP initially reported Wednesday that the emails described security features being turned off on Clinton's own private server, but State Department spokesman John Kirby clarified hours later that the emails described "a series of troubleshooting measures to the department's system  not Secretary Clinton'ssystem  to attempt to remedy the problem."

The emails were released under court order Wednesday to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over access to public records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's service as the nation's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013.

Clinton has repeatedly denied there is any evidence her private email server ever was breached. Her campaign did not immediately provide comment Wednesday.

Days after the technical crisis, on Jan. 9, 2011, an IT worker was forced to shut down Clinton's server because he believed "someone was trying to hack us." Later that day, he wrote, "We were attacked again so I shut (the server) down for a few min." It was one of several occasions when email access toClinton's BlackBerry smartphone was disrupted because her private server was down, according to the documents.

The AP reported last year that in the early morning hours of Aug. 3, 2011, Clinton received infected emails, disguised as speeding tickets from New York. The emails instructed recipients to print the attached tickets. Opening an attachment would have allowed hackers to take over control of a victim's computer.

In a blistering audit released last month, the State Department's inspector general concluded that Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup broke federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. Her aides twice brushed aside concerns, in one case telling technical staff "the matter was not to be discussed further," the report said.

The State Department has released more than 52,000 pages of Clinton's work-related emails, including some that have since been classified. Clinton has withheld thousands of additional emails, saying they were personal. The emails released Wednesday were not made available until after the inspector general's office published its report, and Judicial Watch asked a federal judge to force the State Department to turn them over.

The case is one of about three dozen lawsuits over access to records related to Clinton's time as secretary, including one filed by the AP. As part of its ongoing suit, lawyers from Judicial Watch on Wednesday questioned Bryan Pagliano, a former IT staffer for Clinton who helped set up the server, under oath. According to the group, Pagliano repeatedly responded to questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as he did last year before a congressional committee.

The FBI is also investigating whether Clinton's use of the private email server imperiled government secrets. It has recently interviewed Clinton's top aides, including former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Abedin.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a speech Wednesday that Clinton's email server "was easily hacked by foreign governments." Trump cited no new evidence that hackers had successfully breached Clinton's server, but he said unspecified enemies of the United States were in possession of all her emails.

"So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States. This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency," Trump said. "We can't hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies."

WASHINGTON  Associated Press
When Elizabeth "Betty" Butler became a professor in the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration in 1959, she was already an astute observer of the role of race in health and social service delivery.

The longtime Hyde Park resident had received her master's degree from the school in the mid-1940s, at a time when few African-Americans were enrolled in the school, and was the first African-American hospital social worker in Chicago in the late 1940s, according to university officials and former colleagues.

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Butler channeled those experiences and others into her teaching role, working with students to help them respond to discrimination they found in the classroom or workplace.

"In her teaching of master's-level social work students, she was on the cutting edge of understanding social determinants of health and the social service strategies to ameliorate poor health outcomes," said Jeanne C. Marsh, a former dean of the School of Social Service Administration. The two met when Marsh joined the school's faculty and Butler was a senior faculty member.

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"I remember when African-American students would complain about how little their classmates knew about their culture and how much time they spent educating them, Betty would say, 'You must remember that we, all of us, are both students and teachers,' " Marsh added.

Butler, 97, who retired in 1983, died May 27 of natural causes at her Hyde Park home, family said. The School of Social Service Administration Alumni Association had established The Elizabeth Butler Award in 1990 to recognize a recent graduate who has shown exceptional promise in the field of social work.

"She kept files on many of her former students, following their careers and clipping newspaper articles about them and the organizations where they worked," said her niece, Linda Broadus.

She was born Elizabeth Mitcham in Beloit, Wis., and her father gave her the middle name Peace because he was enthusiastic about the end of World War I. She grew up in Marion and Terre Haute, Ind., in a family of ministers, who encouraged her to pursue a career in social work.

Her father wanted all of his children to go to college and took a check for $400 for a matured insurance policy to help make it happen. According to her niece, sometimes Butler's parents had to choose between eating and keeping their children in school. They chose school.

"Betty was a pivotal influence in my life," said her brother, William Mitcham. "During my rambunctious youth, she taught me essential lessons, like understanding the ambiguity of life, how sometimes things aren't always as they seem, that people can disappoint, and that leaders aren't always the real heroes."

Butler, a bookworm as a child, graduated magna cum laude from Howard University in 1941 and received a certificate in social work from the school two years later. In 1946, she received her master's degree from the University of Chicago.

"She enrolled (there) during a time when relatively few blacks were admitted, and even those admitted were denied most of the educational and social supports needed to successfully navigate and complete graduate study," said former colleague Waldo E. Johnson, an associate professor in the School of Social Service Administration. "Betty prevailed and excelled."

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Butler served as a staff social worker at Provident Hospital in Chicago from 1945 to 1947, and Cook County Hospital in 1947 and 1948, before becoming a case worker and field work instructor in the Department of Social Service of the University of Chicago Clinics and Hospitals.

According to family, some of the early challenges she faced in her career were physicians refusing to send her referrals, other hospital staff members interfering with her work, and on one occasion, a clerical staff person placing a sealed container of human waste in her office.

"Just trying to do her job, she came up against a lot," Broadus said.

In 1956, she married Roy Butler, a pioneer tenor saxophone and clarinet player who arrived on the Chicago jazz scene in 1922. The two had met at a function at The Church of the Good Shepherd, which she had joined in 1948. Her husband, 19 years her senior, died in 1997.

From 1959 to 1967, Butler was a field work assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration, where she was responsible for teaching field practicum to students assigned to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She became a field work associate professor in 1967, serving in that capacity for a dozen years, before becoming a lecturer and field liaison responsible for the school's Field Instruction Unit.

A member of numerous boards and committees during her time at the school, Butler also served on the University of Chicago Women's Board after retiring, from 1986 through 1994.

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"She taught me about the importance of serving others and how not to be so absolute in my beliefs that I stop being open-minded," Mitcham said.

In addition to her brother, Butler is survived by numerous nephews and nieces.

Services were held.

Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.
Muslims pray at the American Muslim Community Center on Monday, June 13, 2016, in Longwood, Fla., after the mass-shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub. (Phelan M. Ebenhack, AP)

In addition to his consistent blurring of the bright line between people of the Muslim faith and terrorists who cloak their destructive actions in terms of Islamist extremism, Donald Trump recently suggested that Muslims aren't doing their part to prevent tragedies like the nightclub massacre in Orlando.

"We have to form a partnership with our Muslim communities," Trump said during a speech at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. "We have Muslim communities in this country that are great (but) ... they have to work with us, they have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. And they know it. And they have to do it and they have to do it forthwith."

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Blechhhh. This is just lazy thinking.

And it's not even new thinking  in the years since illegal-immigration hysteria has been on the rise, Hispanics have been cornered by people angry about illegal immigration with accusations that they, personally, have failed to address the problem.

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I have been asked: "Isn't it in your own best interest to report illegals in your community to the feds? Why don't you do it?"

Um, what, do I have a special immigration-status detector?

I'm supposed to just definitively know which of the brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people in my community are here visiting on tourist visas, which of them have overstayed those visas, which ones were smuggled in across the Mexican border, which are permanent legal residents and which are naturalized citizens.

Of course not. But the idea that I should know other Hispanics' personal business  in this case, their legal status  stems from the assumptions made by people who believe the country is overrun by "illegals." Mainly that most Hispanics are residing in the country illegally, that we all know everyone else and their status.

And, therefore, I should be a good citizen and go to the immigration police to get the unlawfully present ne'er-do-wells removed.

By this ridiculous logic, should Muslims deputize themselves? Make it their business to single out the quiet, weird, shy or nervous-seeming people who worship in their mosques, live in their neighborhoods or frequent their local halal grocery stores and go to the police with ... what, exactly? Misgivings? Suspicions? Heebie-jeebies?

In a March episode of the Latino political podcast "In the Thick," independent journalist Wajahat Ali addressed this issue of others' expectations of Muslims.

"It's troubling that (to politicians calling on Muslims to 'cooperate') the only utility and worth of the American Muslim community is to 'quote-unquote' provide information. It's the securitization of 4 million people," Ali said. "That's what I always joke about. ... You always expect me to fight ISIS, like what do you want my mom to do? Like, make really spicy chicken tandoori, poison it and send a batch to ISIS? The entire utility and worth of American Muslims who have been in this country for 500 years (shouldn't be) 'What are you doing to help law enforcement and national security and fight ISIS?' And I'm like, 'Dude, I don't know. I don't have specialized knowledge of law enforcement and I don't know how to fight ISIS, I don't know these people.'"

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Ali continued: "That's the troubling aspect of it, the fact that there is the 'good' Muslim and the 'bad' Muslim. The good Muslim is he who is appointed the moderate, safe Muslim who's helping law enforcement and anyone who's seen as suspect is automatically a bad Muslim. ... It's so reductive and it handicaps the full breadth and diversity and utility and worth and narratives of American Muslims and American Islam that, I think, is ultimately very damaging to how this country views its 4 million American Muslim citizens."

If you don't understand why Hispanics or Muslims or any other group would feel insulted by insinuations that we should police our own communities, think of it this way:

Why don't politicians hold the families and church or school communities of white perpetrators of mass violence accountable for not having brought them to the attention of law enforcement before their acts?

When white Americans do something horrible  injure or kill their own children, rape or murder fellow community members  why isn't there a knee-jerk reaction against those people's friends, families and neighbors as somehow complicit in the crime?

Simple: Because it's wrong. Casting blame on those who surround a perpetrator might feel good, but it's ineffective, wrongheaded and plainly un-American.

Washington Post Writers Group

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Esther J. Cepeda is a syndicated columnist.

estherjcepeda@washpost.com

Twitter @estherjcepeda
Conservatives who are understandably appalled by the prospect of a Donald Trump nomination  and therefore understandably intrigued by the notion of a revolt among the delegates  should be careful what they wish for. Dumping Trump at next month's Republican convention could cause far more permanent damage to the GOP than sticking with him. That outcome should be avoided at all costs.

Trump has legitimately won the GOP presidential nomination. He played by the rules, beat out 16 other candidates and surpassed the required 1,237-delegate limit. If disgruntled Republicans want to question voters' rationale in supporting Trump, they have that right. But to deny, ignore or spin away the fact that he won the nomination fair and square, and deserves to be the nominee, is beyond comprehension.

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Party rules are crystal clear about voting for the nominee on the first ballot. The winner of a particular primary or caucus receives the largest number of bound delegates at the convention. Trump, having won 40 of these contests, has accomplished this impressive goal. While some senior Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, have suggested delegates should follow their conscience at the convention, this approach defeats the spirit of the entire process. It's not illegal, but it's morally wrong.

Such a move would smell of sour grapes on the part of the GOP establishment, which would be seen as having changed the rules to remove the undesirable figure who won the nomination. Yes, it's their party and they can do as they please. At the same time, such a move would be perceived as undemocratic, underhanded and incredibly devious by many party members and potential voters.

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Senior officials such as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus would have to explain to the nearly 14 million people who supported Trump that their votes don't count. I strongly doubt any political spin doctor would eagerly raise his or her hand to take up this near-impossible task.

Dumping Trump would set a horrendous precedent for the GOP. If the party opts to take the nomination from Trump, it could easily do the same thing to future candidates that the party establishment and grass-roots members had issues with. It would also defeat the purpose of running in the Republican presidential primaries, because the party could simply change the result at the very end. That's hardly the public image a major political party should want or pursue.

And if it were to happen, widespread media coverage of a delegate revolt would be devastating for the GOP. Hordes of TV cameras, microphones and handheld devices will be focused on this convention. If the nomination were taken from Trump, he would scream bloody murder to every reporter in sight. His supporters would erupt in justifiable anger, and God knows what else would happen. It would be a public relations nightmare for the party, and every second of this pandemonium would be permanently recorded somewhere by someone.

A delegate revolt would badly splinter the conservative movement. Many party members could abandon the Once-Good Ship Republican after the dust had settled. They could refuse to support the GOP's preferred candidate and park their votes with other parties. This would likely include principled individuals who dislike Trump but would be furious at the party's decision to arbitrarily remove the nomination from the most popular (albeit controversial) candidate.

Finally, but far from least, a delegate revolt against Trump would all but ensure that Hillary Clinton became the next president. Is this something that Republicans wish to see play out?

For the record, I dislike Trump as much as his fiercest critics. He has made many offensive comments on the campaign trail, acted like a bully as well as a petulant child, and doesn't adhere to the cherished values and principles of modern conservatism. He's a detriment to the GOP, and right-thinking individuals fully know this.

But while some Republicans would relish the opportunity to revolt against Trump's candidacy, they would end up destroying their own party in the process. That's far too high a price to pay. Like it or not, we're stuck with The Donald.

Washington Post

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Michael Taube, a Troy Media syndicated columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
Every 10 years in Illinois, the majority political party redraws legislative maps behind closed doors and quickly votes to approve their new maps before the public has time to examine them.

Communities of color are told that this system should remain in place, because the elected officials who draw these maps in back rooms are working to protect our interests, and the maps they draw are the best we can expect.

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We deserve better. We need to change the mapmaking process and make all of the legislative districts  national, state, county and municipality  more reflective of the designated communities represented and the people who reside in the communities. The proposed Independent Map Amendment will bring that needed change to the General Assembly.

The status quo should not be supported just because the people in power in Springfield are happy with the way things are going. Our current system of redistricting gives undue power to elected officials, helping to assure their re-election. This unfair practice often results in communities of color, such as Englewood, to name one, busted into five pieces  each assigned to a different Illinois House district. It is reminiscent of the adage, "too many cooks spoil the broth."

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The map-drawing process is so important to communities of color that the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund issued a report with guidelines for how best to create independent redistricting commissions.

The NAACP report states that independent commissions should: include language that protects voting rights of all voters; require the creation of districts where people of color can combine with other groups to elect candidates of their choice; establish a process to yield a diverse commission; and include all perspectives of the community in the planning stage. The Independent Map Amendment adheres to all of these tenets.

The proposed amendment would also add protections for the voting rights of all voters consistent with current national and state civil rights legislation  the first such voting rights amendment to be added to our state constitution. With this amendment, only the voters would be capable of rescinding these protections.

When the voters in California created a similar system, the entrenched powers also said an independent commission would harm voters. They were wrong. The California Redistricting Citizens Commission's 2011 maps made more districts capable of electing more diverse representation  a 50 percent increase in the number of more diverse districts. Legislative districts in California are also now more compact, competitive and fair (a federal requirement that is too often ignored and/or unsuccessfully challenged).

Even President Barack Obama has advocated independent redistricting and made it a focus of his State of the Union address in January. A few weeks later, he traveled to Springfield and again called for a fair system for drawing political maps. He cited California as an example of an independent redistricting commission that "works perfectly well."

The NAACP Chicago Southside Branch supports fairness, transparency and strong protections for voting rights  for all. We stand with President Obama and support a proven system for independent redistricting that also includes community diversity protections.

Rose E. Joshua is president of the NAACP Chicago Southside Branch.
President Barack Obama speaks on the Orlando shooting at the Treasury Department after convening with his National Security Council on June 14, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Jim Lo Scalzo, Getty Images)

Donald Trump is very clear on the subject: If President Barack Obama doesn't use the words "radical Islamic terrorism" to discuss the brutal killings in Orlando, "he should immediately resign in disgrace!"

Most Republicans seem to agree that it's essential to link Islam to the tactics and goals of extremists and terrorists. Nebraska's Republican Sen. Benjamin Sasse (no fan of Trump) to Obama: "You're wrong. Telling the truth about violent Islam is a prerequisite to a strategy." South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that Obama "shows a total disconnect from the problems we face in confronting/defeating radical Islam." GOP strategist Ed Rogers wrote that the president's refusal to refer to "radical Islam" was "a remarkable display of arrogance and tone-deaf rhetoric."

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Hillary Clinton has decided to do an end run around the issue. "Radical jihadist, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either, but that's not the point." For her, the challenge is to go after the perpetrators of hateful crimes without tarring an entire religion  or being distracted by a rhetorical sideshow.

Let's say Trump and his allies are right  that it's important to label the religious underpinnings of those who seek to kill innocents; that when a killer calls on religion to justify his actions, let's identify that religion for all to see.

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But can we really stop with Islam?

Take Robert Dear, the deranged man who in November took a semiautomatic rifle into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. He killed three and wounded nine. His motivation? To be "a warrior for the babies."

Dear is not just an extremist: He is a "Christian extremist." He called his anti-abortion activism "God's work." He dreamed that "(w)hen he died and went to heaven, he would be met by all the aborted fetuses at the gates of heaven and they would thank him ..." He sprinkled his confession to the police with Bible phrases.

To understand Dear, don't we have to understand the Christian teachings this Christian extremist believed he was upholding?

Or take Ammon Bundy, the leader of the armed antigovernment militants who earlier this year occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Bundy, a Mormon adherent, said he was acting on instructions from God: "The Lord was not pleased with what was happening to the Hammonds," a father-son team whose convictions Bundy was trying to avenge. One of Bundy's fellow Mormon militants took the name "Captain Moroni"  a celebrated figure from "The Book of Mormon" who fought for the liberty of his people against a corrupt king. "And it came to pass that Moroni was angry with the government, because of their indifference concerning the freedom of their country ('The Book of Mormon,' Alma 59:13)."

Leaders of the Church of Latter-day Saints felt obliged to issue a statement distancing themselves from the actions of Bundy and his fellow militants, saying they were "deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest they are doing so based on scriptural principles." Of course, this did nothing to deter Bundy and his followers.

So to understand Bundy we should of course identify him as a "Mormon extremist" or a "Mormon terrorist," take your pick. The same for his father, Cliven Bundy, well-known for his own highly publicized standoff in Nevada over federal grazing fees. The father also relied on the Lord: "If the standoff with the Bundys was wrong, would the Lord have been with us?" He said, "The Lord told me ... if (the local sheriff doesn't) take away these arms from federal agents, we the people will have to face these arms in a civil war." His Lord directed his conduct. So, is Cliven Bundy a Mormon extremist?

Going back in time: David Koresh, the messianic preacher of the Branch Davidians whose antigovernment standoff in 1993 led to the deaths of 84 people? Another Christian extremist (or perhaps more precisely, if you think it helpful, "Seventh-day Adventist extremist"). And in 1992, Randy Weaver and his family held off federal officials at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in another celebrated act of "Christian extremism," leading to more deaths.

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Nor are Christians (and Muslims) the only ones who take to violence to carry out what they believe are religious dictates. Meir Kahane, the New York rabbi who helped spur an ultranationalist Jewish militant movement and was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture explosives? He was certainly a "a Jewish extremist." In 1990 he was assassinated in a New York hotel by an Arab gunman whom, naturally, we should call an "Islamic terrorist." More recently, what about the Israeli settlers who kidnapped an innocent 16-year-old Muslim boy, beat him with a crowbar and burnt his body to avenge earlier killings? Also "Jewish terrorists," clearly.

Religion and religious feelings are among the strongest motivators in human experience. They have motivated martyrs, revolutions, crusades and, yes, terrorists across many centuries and millennia. But for most of us, the line between legitimate faith and the deranged behavior of the disturbed is clear.

So, are the more than 6 million Mormons in the United States responsible for the Bundys? Are the Jews of America and Israel responsible for Kahane or the reprehensible actions of the settlers? Who should be made to feel responsible for the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge? Churchgoing Christians who would not recognize the version of Christianity claimed by these deranged extremists?

If you think it's helpful to call killers motivated by perverted definitions of Islam "Islamic terrorists"  then let's be consistent and call out the Jews, the Christians, the Mormons whose faiths also have been twisted by a few.

Anything less would be an exercise in political correctness  wouldn't it?

Nelson W. Cunningham worked in the Clinton White House, and previously for Joseph Biden and John Kerry. He is an international consultant in Washington, D.C., and if you must know, a Christian.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, shown in May, have stoked the fear of attacks in the U.S. by Muslim extremists. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

After a Muslim-American claiming allegiance to the Islamic State killed 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub using a legally purchased assault-style rifle, many dismissed the issue of gun control and said concern should focus on the "fact" that America is under direct attack by Muslim extremists.

"They're coming," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre warned on Fox News. "These terrorists are coming."

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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump went so far as to suggest profiling Muslims in America: "We really have to look at profiling. We have to look at it seriously."

If you care to dabble in facts, there are two key problems with what LaPierre and Trump, and a slew of pundits and Twitter alarmists, are saying.

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1) Despite the Orlando attack and the deadly terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in December, there is no evidence to support the claim that the "terrorists are coming."

2) In the context of mass shootings, if you look at data stretching to 1982, the appropriate people to profile would be white men who have legally purchased firearms.

Those statements will make some people angry. I understand that and, frankly, I understand the fear that has gripped many if not most Americans since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. I felt that fear in the wake of the Orlando attack, and the San Bernardino attack as well.

But fear rarely leads to logical conclusions. Facts, on the other hand, do. Islamic State-inspired attacks here and around the world are accomplishing what they're meant to accomplish  they terrorize us, grab our attention, over-amplify the actual size and power of the enemy, and lead us to rash decisions.

A 2015 report called "Muslim-American Involvement with Violent Extremism" by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University found this:

"Five plots engaged in violence in the United States in 2015, killed 19 people and (raised) the total since 9/11 to 69 fatalities. Over the same period, more than 220,000 Americans were murdered."

The author of that report, Charles Kurzman, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor who specializes in Middle East and Islamic studies, told me that since the middle of last year, the number of arrests and incidents involving Muslim-Americans linked to violent extremism "has declined markedly."

He also said that in America there has been "a decreasing rate of success in recruitment by the self-proclaimed Islamic State over the past year."

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"The broader context is we have an unfortunately violent society," Kurzman said. "We kill one another at a rate that is not matched by any other developed nation. Of those, very few are politically, ideologically or religiously motivated. Even with horrible incidents like the killings in Orlando or San Bernardino, those add up to less than 1 percent of all murders each year in the United States. And yet they attract a disproportionate amount of fear and are stoked by political grandstanding, and are supported by billions of dollars worth of government programs intended to negate this particular threat, even though it constitutes a small portion of the overall threat to public safety in our country."

A database on mass shootings assembled by Mother Jones magazine shows 81 mass shootings in America since Aug. 20, 1982. (Up until 2013, a shooting in a public place with four or more victims was defined as a mass shooting by the FBI. In 2013, a federal mandate changed that definition to three or more victims. The data follow those definitions.)

Only four of those mass shootings  Orlando, San Bernardino, the attack on a military recruitment center in Tennessee, and the Fort Hood massacre in 2009  have been attributed to Muslim extremism. And none of the attacks was found to be directly coordinated by Islamic terror groups.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been 418 people killed in mass shootings. The total killed by white men is 185. The total killed by Muslim extremists is 81.

Of the 81 mass shootings that have occurred since 1982, 47 were committed by white men, and all but nine of those shootings involved legally purchased firearms.

We have ample reason to be concerned about the deadly messages groups like the Islamic State are spreading, and it's imperative that our intelligence agencies, law enforcement and fellow citizens remain vigilant.

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But when it comes to mass killings in this country  with the notable exception of the 9/11 attacks, a murderous event on a scale that has yet to be even remotely replicated  Muslim people are not the primary culprits.

And the number of Americans being killed each year by guns  thousands upon thousands  dwarfs any tally of Muslim terrorism committed on American soil.

That's not opinion, it's fact.

"The shocking violence in Orlando and before that in San Bernardino seems to have hidden the overall trend that this has become less of a threat now than it was a year ago," Kurzman said. "And then it was a very small threat compared to other forms of violence. Mass shootings are a small portion of overall killings in the U.S., and ideological extremism is a small portion of mass killings, so we're talking about fractions of fractions."

And our vitriolic and fearful reactions when these attacks do occur feed right into the plans of groups like the Islamic State.

"Our obsessive interest in this small category of murder, they're using that interest against us," Kurzman said.

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"It really is a bizarre synergy where they have found a way to take a handful of troubled individuals and make them appear as though they are a massive coordinated threat to the existence of the United States," he said. "And we're doing their work for them by treating them as far more widespread, far more deadly than they've actually been. They're hoping to eliminate what they call 'the gray zone.' The gray zone is tolerance and coexistence. They're hoping, and this is their open strategy, to shrink that gray zone so that Muslims will have to choose sides and either become part of the enemy, in their view, or join their movement."

It's easy to be afraid. It's easy to give credence to the loudest among us who shout that the end is near and encourage the demonization of an entire group of "other" people.

But if you're like Donald Trump, a white man who claims to own a legally purchased firearm, be careful taking that easy path. The facts might reveal that your group is the one we should actually fear.

rhuppke@tribpub.com
Dear Tom,

What information do you have about a hurricane in Florida in 1928?

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 Milo Berkowitz, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Dear Milo,

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The Okeechobee Hurricane (also known as the San Felipe Segundo Hurricane) of Sept. 9-21, 1928, was a category 5 hurricane that killed an estimated 4,079 people, including at least 2,500 in the United States. During its course, it affected mainly Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Florida. The hurricane is associated with the death of 2,400 people, probably more, on Lake Okeechobee in Florida. Hurricane winds pushed water from the lake to the south across the shallow rim of the lake, where it attained a height of 10 to 15 feet, and then to the north after passage of the eye. The human toll was probably underestimated because most of the deaths were to migrant workers.
Take pride in America: I was calling about Memorial Day. I was a World War II soldier. There are very few of us left. I heard people talking about how U.S. soldiers were mistreated in Japanese prison camps. President Obama flew over to Japan recently and talked about the terrors of war. The Japanese leader said he would never go to Pearl Harbor and lay a wreath for all the damage they did because it was war. It was a sneaky surprise attack that killed American soldiers. It puzzles me when I remember how the Japanese said they would take us over economically. Now everywhere you look, you see all the foreigners coming to this country driving Japanese cars. Our economy is going down, but all the other countries such as Korea are doing great at our expense. If people come to this country, they should try to be American citizens and build up this country. If not, they should stay where they are at. If people would buy American cars, they would put Americans back to work.

Not doing their job: I really wonder when the voters of this state and even our country will stop voting along party lines and wake up. This state cannot pass its budget, and yet people continually vote Democrat. I'm not saying Republicans are any better, but Democrats are running Illinois. It is a joke what's going on. These guys are not doing their job. They should be kicked out of office.

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Unreasonable release: Just think of all the murderers and potential murderers running loose in Chicago. It must be 1,000-plus. All the while, our politicians want to release prisoners early, but look at all the security that they demand for themselves.

Out of control: This is about the city of Chicago with all the shootings that are going on. I understand there were 400 shootings in May alone and 68 deaths. Mayor Emanuel is not doing his job. He should not be the mayor anymore. I have so much respect for the police and the fire department. I think their hands are tied. If they slap someone, they are slapped back. Chicago is out of control. This mayor has to go. He can't keep blaming others for his incompetence.

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Unjust justice: I love the way our prosecutors work, especially in Kane County. A week ago, the sixth and final Florida resident was given 18 months of probation for having 700 counterfeit credit and debit cards. That's justice for you. Just give him 18 months of probation, and he will likely be back in Florida the next day.

Wondering about Ryan: What's up with Paul Ryan? Why is he keeping his endorsement of Donald Trump so low-key? He just sent out a little tweet. It's because he doesn't want what's coming behind that support. Come on and be a man. Don't be afraid to support who you want to support. I'm supporting Bernie Sanders. I'm not afraid. I think Ryan is being force-fed.

Think before serving drinks: I'm curious about all these concerts and summer fests where they sell alcohol. Do they know how dangerous it is for people who are not responsible and who do not have designated drivers? Shouldn't there be a limit on how much alcohol should be served to one person? Why do these events have to sell alcohol in order for people to have a good time?

Respect for elders: Something about Hispanic culture you rarely find in America today is respect for the elderly. Our nursing homes are full of lonely, often neglected seniors. Hispanics usually keep their elders at home and idolize them.

Let off easy: Here's another example of our Kane County prosecutor's useless position as well as a typical situation of police officers getting caught and let off easy. This previous officer who stole $6,000 from the Explorer post was given a misdemeanor sentence and conditional discharge. Typical deal. Why don't they ever prosecute and put someone away, especially if they are a cop? They're sworn to uphold the law and should be held to a higher standard.

Roused about rally: I would really like to know where the police are in this country. I was watching the San Jose violence at a Donald Trump rally. All these Mexicans waving their Mexican flags and beating up Trump supporters. Where are the police, and why is this tolerated? I don't understand why people don't think this is wrong.

What would Lincoln say: Mexican immigrants claim California as their own. Didn't President Lincoln say a nation divided cannot stand? In Chicago, African-Americans are being murdered by the thousands. Another Lincoln success story going to pot 150 years later.

UFOs in hiding: I want to comment on the Speak Out about bringing on the UFOs. The reason the UFOs have gone into hiding is because they know the Republicans would go to war with them like they want to go to war with everyone else.

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Report telephone scams: For people who think they are being scammed by the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS will never contact you by phone. Simply hang up on them and report it. The IRS will never call you.

Remembering Ali: Muhammad Ali touched my heart as he touched the hearts of millions of others around the world. He was larger than life. He was a Muslim, and that's what a Muslim is supposed to look like and act like. The terrorists you see out there killing people are not Muslims. They are terrorists who have an evil agenda. I'm glad that Muhammad Ali showed us what a real Muslim should be like.

Rallies ruined by thugs: Thugs at Donald Trump rallies shout that he is a racist and he hates Hispanics. Not true. Trump thinks we should have a wall on our southern border like a lot of other Americans do. I just saw a picture of the wall in Mexico that keeps out their southern neighbors. Do you see any of these thugs calling the Mexicans racists? They throw eggs on Trump supporters and ruin police cars. The American people are smart and know who the haters are.

People will remember to vote: This is in response to the Speak Out saying don't forget to vote. I don't think people will forget. We're stuck in Chicago. In Chicago, we have Madigan who made a lifelong political career that shouldn't be and has a daughter following right behind him. That's like Hillary Clinton following behind President Obama. People keep doing the same thing over and over. No matter who we want, the city of Chicago and other villages all want sanctions for the people who are stealing from us and breaking our laws. Aurora is getting larger with all these illegal immigrants.

Waited too long: The trouble now with stopping illegal immigration after allowing it for over 50 years is we will have hate-filled enemies the size of the Mideast attacking America with terrorism.

Wage increase justified: Why do minimum wage workers demand $15 an hour? It's because they cannot keep up with the cost of living. An apartment that cost $30 a month in 1959 costs $1,000 a month today. The only change in the apartment is about 15 coats of off-white paint on the walls.

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Look at their records: I cannot understand why some people call in about comments made by Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Their records speak for themselves. The Obama administration took over in 2008 amid a heavy real estate crash. The administration kept the banks from going under. We remember what caused the Depression in 1929. The unemployment rate when President Bush was in office was 12 percent. The unemployment rate now is 5 percent. Trump says that Obama is the worst we've ever had, but look at the records.

Editor's note

Speak Out is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, please tell us. Call us at 312-222-2460 or email couriernews@tribpub.com. Please include "speak out" in the subject line.
Two Disney subsidiaries have sued three Chinese companies for infringement of intellectual property rights and unfair competition.

Disney Enterprises Inc. and Pixar, holders of the copyrights of animated comedies "Cars" and "Cars 2" as well as the character images, sued G-Point in Beijing, PPTV in Shanghai and Bluemtv in Xiamen of east China's Fujian Province, after they found images and posters of the animated movie "The Autobots" resembling those of "Cars" and "Cars 2".

"The Autobots," screened last July, was produced by Bluemtv, released by G-Point and shown on the website of PPTV.

The case was heard in Shanghai Pudong New District People's Court on Tuesday.

At the court, attorneys for the plaintiffs said that images of the main characters in "The Autobots" -- "K1" and "K2" -- plagiarized the characters "Lightening McQueen" and "Francesco Bernoulli" in "Cars" and "Cars 2".

They also said the Chinese name of the movie bore a high resemblance to the Disney and Pixar movies.

The plaintiffs asked for immediate stop to the infringement, and compensation of 4 million yuan (607,000 U.S. dollars) to cover the economic losses and the lawsuit expense.

Lawyers for the defendants replied that images of "K1" and "K2" were created independently, based on the appearance of real automobiles. They also argued they had emphasized that "The Autobots" was a domestic movie, so consumers would not be confused by the name. In addition, the film was not successful and filmmakers did not profit.

A verdict of the case will be announced later.
The sluice gates of the Three Gorges Dam. [Photo/Xinhua]

Brookfield Asset Management Inc, Canada's biggest alternative asset manager, and China Three Gorges Corp are among companies weighing offers for Duke Energy Corp's Latin American power plants, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Chinese government-owned electricity generator State Power Investment Corp is also considering bidding for the assets. The sale could fetch more than $2 billion, according to the sources.

Duke Energy, the second-largest US utility owner by market value, said in February it's considering the sale of about 4,400 megawatts of generating capacity in Central and South America. Half the assets are in Brazil, where drought and an economic downturn hurt Duke Energy's results last year, with the remainder in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. Hydroelectric plants make up about two-thirds of the portfolio, according to the February statement.

Weak economic conditions in South America are driving Duke Energy and its competitors to consider asset disposals. US power generator AES Corp agreed this month to sell a utility in the country to CPFL Energia SA for $464 million.

"We have said that we are working with interested parties now, and that process continues," Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy said on Tuesday, declining to comment further.

A representative for Brookfield declined to comment. China Three Gorges and State Power Investment didn't immediately respond to faxed questions seeking comment.

NextEra Energy Inc is the largest US utility owner with market value of $57.3 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Duke Energy is second, at $56.5 billion.

China has sought to cut pollution and spur investment in non-fossil fuels in the world's second-largest economy. The country last year was the world's biggest investor in clean energy with $110.5 billion, almost double the US investment, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Companies from China have announced at least $5.1 billion of overseas alternative energy acquisitions in the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. State Power Investment bought Australian renewable energy developer Pacific Hydro Pty in January, gaining assets in Australia, Brazil and Chile.

China Three Gorges agreed this month to buy control of German wind farm operator WindMW GmbH from Blackstone Group LP. The deal values WindMW at about 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion), including debt, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

Brookfield has also been active in the energy market in South America. It is currently leading a consortium that aims to acquire an 81 percent stake in a natural gas pipeline network in Brazil from state-run oil company Petrobras valued at roughly $6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Brookfield also agreed to buy a majority stake in Colombia power generation company Isagen SA for roughly $2 billion through one of its subsidiaries earlier this year.
Visitor view models of high-speed train at the exhibition "Modern Railways 2016" in Beijing, capital of China, June 20, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The open tender for the construction of the Singapore-Malaysia high-speed railway will be started next year, Malaysia's Minister of Transport Liow Tiong Lai has revealed to a Chinese business newspaper China Business Journal.

Several countries including China, Japan, South Korea and some located in Eastern Europe have expressed interest in the bid for the 375-km-long high-speed railway connecting Singapore and Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur.

"Malaysia welcomes China to bid for the project, because China has the most advanced technologies and we believe China could fuse the best technics of diverse countries. I have confidence in China's high-speed trail technic," Liow told the China Business Journal on Monday.

The Singapore Straits Times said in an April report that China and Japan were tipped as favorites for the high-speed rail bid. "The real big fight will be between the railway firms from China and Japan," the report said.

According to the report, Malaysia, which bears the majority share of the construction cost, is in favor of a Chinese firm because China's promise of easy funding for its trains and technology makes it less expensive than Japan's offer.

Some media also reported Singapore is leaning towards a Japanese firm because it possesses abundant experience of train signaling systems.

Hu Yishan, a researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University said safety and cost are the two essential aspects that are being considered.

"The shinkansen has been running for years in Japan. It's easy to believe that Japan's high-speed rail system is safe due to its mature technology." But China's high-speed technology overtakes Japan when its advantages of high efficiency and low cost are considered. It's hard for Malaysia to make the decision," said Hu.
Apple Inc's loss in a Chinese patent dispute may spell more legal trouble ahead as fast-rising local rivals get bolder in taking on the world's largest technology company.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Office ruled last week that some Apple devices violate the design patents of little-known Chinese smartphone vendor Shenzhen Baili. While the iPhone maker appealed to keep its best-selling gadgets on the market, it could face a rising tide of lawsuits and a threat to its sales if the ruling creates a precedent, according to Counterpoint Research.

The ruling is the latest headache for Apple in China, where it already faces aggressive rivals and a slowing economy in its biggest market outside the US. The nation's patent and intellectual property courts have already ruled against the company over the name of iconic products such as the iPhone.

Baili is just one of scores of smartphone brands trying to cash in on the country's mobile boom. Legitimate lawsuits are on the rise as Chinese companies build up their intellectual property through research and development, said James Yan, Beijing-based research director at Counterpoint. Apple should sell about two to 3 million units of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in each of the second and third quarters in China, about 30 percent of overall sales, Counterpoint estimates.

"Chinese makers have been building their own IP pools over the past years and are able to somehow fight against industry giants," he said. "Apple isn't willing to publicly lose an IP case in China and the best option for them is to offer settlement fees."

Xiaomi Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd are among those that have bulked up their patent portfolios, through deals with foreign companies, acquisitions or intense research. Beijing-based Xiaomi alone applied for more than 3,700 patents in 2015 and this month struck a deal for nearly 1,500 patents with Microsoft Corp. In May, Huawei filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co in the US and China.

Apple representatives in China didn't respond to Bloomberg's multiple e-mails seeking comment. Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, last week said the company had appealed the ruling and its products are available for sale in China.

The defeat is striking also because Apple aggressively defends its technology patents, most notably in a series of lawsuits across four continents against arch-foe Samsung.

In 2012, Apple paid $60 million to Proview International Holdings Ltd to settle a dispute over the right to the iPad name. In 2013, GPNE Corp, a Hawaii-based company, filed a lawsuit in a Shenzhen court against Apple for violating its data transmission-related patent rights. The court has yet to make a ruling.

Apple has made efforts to remain on good terms with the Chinese government, including a visit by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook in May that coincided with a $1-billion investment in the country's biggest ride-hailing service, Didi Chuxing Technology Co. In 2013, Cook apologized after state media accused Apple of shoddy customer service and inadequate warranties.

Apple should have caught the potential patent violation before it reached the courts, said Benjamin Bai, the head of Allen & Overy's IP practice.

"They should've found the patent and dealt with itthis should never be a surprise," said Bai. But "there are a lot more things Apple can do to get out of this mess. You pay license fees and settle this mess. The second is to appeal and in the meantime try to invalidate the patent."

Time is on Apple's side. The case could take as long as four years, said Ted Chwu, an intellectual property specialist at Bird and Bird. This would render the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models obsolete by the time a final decision emerges. But the larger danger may come from elsewhere: Apple could face stronger cases and bigger potential damages as its rivals grow savvier on the nuances of IP litigation.

"It's all part of the process whereby Chinese companies, patentees and litigants get more experienced in how to use the various forms of IP enforcements properly," Chwu said.
Then renminbi closed nearly flat against the US dollar on Wednesday despite the Chinese central bank easing the reference rate by the most in three weeks ahead of the Brexit referendum.

The yuan closed at 6.5807 per US dollar as of 4:30pm in Shanghai yesterday, slightly weaker than Tuesdays 6.5799 but strengthened from the central parity rate of 6.5935.

The Peoples Bank of China yesterday tuned down the reference rate by 279 basis points, the largest daily drop since the end of May.

Analysts said the weaker central parity rate reflected market uncertainties ahead of the Brexit referendum on whether Britain stay in or leave the European Union. The weaker rate also showed the PBOC aims to let the market play a greater role in the yuans exchange rate.

The market is generally volatile as the referendum draws near to decide whether Britain will stay in the European Union, said Yin Dan, an analyst at CITIC Futures. "China's central bank has also on various occasions voiced support for yuan (RMB) internationalization and exchange rate reforms."

The 2015 annual report the PBOC released on Tuesday showed plans to allow foreign companies to issue RMB-denominated shares onshore and to unify the currencys onshore and offshore exchange rates.

The steps will see further opening up of capital accounts and improve how exchange rates are formed, the PBOC said.
Chinese ownership should benefit Germany's Kuka, the German firm's robotics chief said, as the company and its shareholders mull a 4.5 billion-euro (US$5.1 billion) offer from home appliances maker Midea.

Kuka already sells 25 to 30 percent of its robots in China, Stefan Lampa said yesterday, adding it was essential to have research and development centers there for the local market, as the German robotics firm has had for the past year-and-a-half.

China, whose government has made the automation of manufacturing a top priority, is the world's biggest industrial robot market, although growth in robot demand there slowed to 17 percent last year from 56 percent a year earlier.

"China is a super-important market in robotics. Having an owner that comes from that market most probably will be beneficial for us or for whoever has a Chinese owner," Lampa told Reuters in an interview.

Kukas chief executive Till Reuter has welcomed Mideas bid, the largest yet by a Chinese buyer for a German company, but has yet to make an official recommendation to shareholders.

Meanwhile, Kukas supervisory board has given him a free hand in negotiating with Midea, sources told Reuters on Tuesday, over potential points of contention such as guarantees to protect jobs and intellectual property.

Robots are increasingly being used in factories and also for tasks such as personal care or surgery. Kuka's robotics sales last year totaled 910 million euros, and Lampa said Chinese growth was in a different league to other markets.

Kuka is expanding into electronics and other sectors but still makes the lions share of its revenues in automotive.

"The speed of deployment is completely different. Here we talk about installing 100 robots in a factory in a year, there we talk about 1,000," he said at the Automatica robotics fair.
A 33-year-old worker at a logistics company's packaging shop in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, made headlines when he shared his calculations about number patterns with mathematics PhD candidates at Zhejiang University recently.

Yu Jianchun shares his calculations at Zhejiang University in June. [Photo/China Daily]

The worker, Yu Jianchun, is from mountainous Xinxian county in Henan province. He graduated from a technology training school in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Although he had little higher education and was a migrant worker after graduation, Yu maintains his interest in mathematics and spends almost all of his spare time studying it.

Over time, he developed an interest in Carmichael numbers, a kind of pseudo-prime numbers that occur as positive integers about 255 times per 100 million. Yu came up with five formulas that Cai Tianxin, a math professor at Zhejiang University, found inspiring.

"I made my discoveries through intuition," Yu said. "I would write down what I thought when inspirations struck about the Carmichael. I have hard work and make a hard living, but I insist on my studies."

Yu was a migrant worker in many places, and everywhere he went, he would visit the math professors at the local university, hoping to get confirmation of his formulas.

Yu said he spent eight years developing the Carmichael formulas. He has reached out to academics through emails. Cai was the first to respond.

Cai found a formula proposed by Yu to be a more efficient way of identifying Carmichael numbers and invited him to share his thinking at the university with faculty members and doctoral and postdoctoral students in a class on June 13.

Six professors and advanced students in Zhejiang University's math department listened to Yu's lecture. Some of the experts considered Yu's idea to be a "novelty", while some said "his results have a certain depth".

Cai decided to include Yu's formula with his latest work in English, and he gave Yu a book to help the logistics worker in further study.
If you think parents are spending too much on their childrens education, then this should surprise you. Some students are willing to pay as much as 100,000 yuan ($15,190) to consultants just for advice on which college they should select.

Many students in Beijing, along with their parents, are rushing to consultants for help on picking the university based on their gaokao results, which will be out on June 23, two days after which the application process starts, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Monday.

However, the service is not cheap as these institutes are charging anything from several thousands yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.

On the official website of an institute called Yingding Education, the fee is divided into three categories. "Service provided by professional consultants and by a team of experts on college application will be respectively charged 4,980 yuan and 19,800 yuan. Consulting with president Wang Haitao in person will cost 98,000 yuan."

An institute located near Renmin University of China bills consulting services by hours. A one-to-one service is priced at 500 yuan per hour.

Despite the high price, the consultants do not guarantee that colleges will accept the applicants and the fee is non-refundable.

However, the price has not deterred students and their parents from seeking the help of consultants. Thirty percent of them will seek the help of consultants, according to a survey reported by Legal Evening Post on June 14.

A staff member surnamed Pan at an institute called Shengdaxin Education said many parents registered for consultation service as early as the start of their childrens senior year in high school. And even though the institute charges 28,800 yuan per student, the dean is completely booked.

One parent of this year's gaokao candidate said they just follow the trend, adding that seeking consultants help brings them peace of mind.

The main reason students and parents flock to consultants is that the college application is as important as taking the exam itself.

It's even harder for those candidates who score high marks to make the decision. If they apply for a top university but lose out to other candidates then they risk settling for a second-tier university with their excellent result going to waste.

This is why 70 percent of the students who score above the minimum requirement of key universities will choose professional help of consultancies, according to Beijing Youth Daily.

As to the question whether consultancy really helps, a spokesman of a public school told Beijing Youth Daily that it might help those candidates who do have a clear future plan but don't know how to crack the application process.

But for those who do not have a well-defined goal, consultants' suggestions will not be of much help, he said.
A circuit court under the Supreme People's Court (SPC) has been assigned to conduct a retrial of rape and murder case in which a man was found guilty and executed two decades ago.

The Second SPC Circuit Court in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, will rehear the case of Nie Shubin, the SPC said in a statement Wednesday. A review found that evidence presented in the original trial was insufficient to identify Nie as the perpetrator beyond all doubt.

President of the Shenyang court Hu Yunteng will be the chief justice in the retrial.

Nie, from Hebei Province, was convicted and executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a woman. In 2005, another man confessed to the crime.

In December 2014, the SPC, following an application from Hebei Higher People's Court, assigned the higher court of Shandong Province to review the case.

The review panel concluded that the evidence was questionable and suggested the case be reheard.

The SPC statement noted that decisions and rulings of its circuit courts are deemed to be those made by the SPC itself.
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The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) publicized a regulation that defined prosecutors' responsibilities when supervising compulsory medical care, including the institutionalization of people with mental health issues.

According to the regulation, made public Wednesday, prosecutors should demand reassessment of committed patients if there is any doubt about their assessment.

Prosecution agencies, if they find patients do not meet certain criteria or a court's judgement is in question, should demand a review of the decision, the regulation said.

The review should be completed within 20 work days by a procuratorate of the same level as the court that made the decision.

Moreover, it stipulated that procuratorate must supervise medical care provided to subjects and the discharge process.

Prosecutors are also required to demand correction in cases where subjects are denied visits or correspondence with relatives or legal representatives, or denied regular evaluations, among other irregularities.
China's brand-new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Province has warmly welcomed visitors to watch the spectacular launch of a Long March-7 carrier rocket scheduled for June 25, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

China's brand-new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Province is ready for the launch of a Long March-7 carrier rocket scheduled for June 25, 2016. [Photo/Southern Metropolis Daily]

Long March-7, one of China's new generation carrier rockets, arrived at Wenchang on Saturday afternoon. The rocket will transport cargo for China's planned space station and is expected to become a main carrier for missions.

The center was established during 2009 in Wenchang city of southern island province Hainan and is China's newest rocket launch facility following the Xichang center in Sichuan Province, Taiyuan center in Shanxi Province and Jiuquan center in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The upcoming launch will be the first time the Wenchang center will be in official use.

The city's office in charge of affairs at the facility has suggested the eight best viewing points, which together are capable of handling 37,800 visitors. Half of the recommended sites are on beaches close to hotels.

A staff member at Hilton Hotel said all rooms have been reserved in the run-up to the launch. A resort in Longtan Township, which claims to have the shortest linear distance to the launch site at about 2.8 kilometers, is also fully booked. The resort offered tickets for viewing the launch at prices ranging from 288 yuan ($48) to 388 yuan per visitor.

Other viewing sites include a park west of Qinglan Bridge, Aerospace Science Center and beaches in Longtan Township.

The city also promised to release traffic updates and enforce traffic controls for the convenience of spectators on launch day.
Two fugitives were arrested 11 years after they, along with four accomplices, slaughtered more than 500 endangered Tibetan antelopes in a nature reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

A spokesperson with the provincial public security department told Xinhua that one suspect was caught in late March by Yushu Prefecture forest police and the other earlier this month, after the police "made breakthroughs" in March.

In July 2005, the six-member gang, driving two SUVs and armed with two guns and more than 2,500 bullets, sneaked into Hol Xil Nature Reserve and went on a rampage, said the spokesperson.

Three people were jailed and the others remained at large until this latest development.

This year, the police scoured Qinghai, Tibet and Gansu regions for the suspects. One suspect, identified by his surname Han, was found in Huangzhong County on March 31 and the other, surnamed Wang, in Haixi prefecture on June 12.

The pair confessed to killing the endangered animals. The investigation continues.

The number of Tibetan antelopes in Hol Xil Nature Reserve has shrunk to less than 20,000 due to rampant poaching since 1980s. Due to anti-poaching efforts, the population has grown to about 70,000 and no killings have been reported for 10 consecutive years in the reserve.
A female panda called Xingya gave birth to the first pigeon pair this year on Thursday in southwest China's Sichuan Province. [Weibo photo]

A female panda called Xingya gave birth to the first pigeon pair this year on Thursday in southwest China's Sichuan Province, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding said on Thursday.

The new borns came hot on the heels of this year's first twin cubs, also born at the base, on Monday.

Xingya gave birth to a male cub weighing 170 grams at 1:17 p.m. and a female cub weighing 161 grams at 1:30 p.m.

Having given birth to twins in 2013, Xingya appeared to be at more ease in handling her new-born cubs this time. She managed to hold two cubs after they were born one after another.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's summer tour of Eastern Europe and Central Asia now culminates in his attendance at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tashkent.

Among the plethora of international organizations which have tried to make sense of the international melting pot which followed the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union, the SCO has proved one of the most durable. Originally founded in 1996 (under the name "the Shanghai Five") in the hope of ensuring that the changed situation in Central Asia would not lead to dissension between Russia and China, the SCO has expanded its scope to become a major multilateral regional forum with a focus on mutual security. Uzbekistan was not originally a member, being one of the few countries in the region which borders neither Russia nor China, but was clearly an appropriate participant in discussions pertaining to the region, and thus joined the organization in 2001.

Since then, there have been no more accessions, but the prestige of the organization has been demonstrated by the number of adjoining countries who have applied for observer status. Now the SCO is on the verge of a very significant expansion, with India and Pakistan about to become full members  both countries are sending high-level delegations to the summit (Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and are expected to sign the SCO "Memorandum of Obligations" in Tashkent, the last step towards full membership.

This will of course be quite a challenge to China, as Pakistan is a long-term ally of China, whereas India and China have encountered a few problems in their bilateral relationship. Nonetheless the general aim of keeping the peace within the region and basing that on solid, mutually beneficial economic cooperation remains the mainstay of Chinese economic and diplomatic policy, particularly in the context of China's "Belt and Road" policy, which involves all countries in the region.

In this respect, China places a great deal of reliance on Uzbekistan's support to push forward the SCO's economic and security cooperation. So far this year, the two countries have been working tightly together. Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov visited China in March, and his counterpart Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tashkent on a preparatory visit in May. Uzbekistan is seen as an essential partner for China within the organization.

At last year's summit in Ufa in Russia, China took the opportunity to blow the trumpet for the "Belt and Road" program, offering large-scale funding from the US$ 40 billion "Silk Road Fund" established in 2014 for projects in the Central Asian region, and appealing to the member states to uphold the "Shanghai Spirit for common development." Now that arrangements for the funding of projects under the "Belt and Road" program are that much further advanced, China hopes for increased engagement from SCO partners in the program. After all, this is not a region where funding for infrastructural projects is easy to find.

And the prospect of Chinese funding helps to concentrate minds on the coordination of infrastructure projects. At last year's summit, President Xi promised to work towards a massive expansion of the region's road and rail infrastructure. Also, Beijing has already invested billions of dollars in the natural gas pipeline network connecting Central Asian producers to China. Russia, the other major SCO partner, accepts that China is the economic locomotive of the region, and that China's active participation will remain fundamental to achieving the collective aims of SCO partners.

There is also the security element of the SCO up for discussion in Tashkent. Last year, the member states agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said that "ensuring the security of the member countries' territory and external borders remains one of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's priority areas of work." China is not particularly worried about the security of her land borders, but is keen to ensure the support of her SCO partners for the general principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and is thus prepared to give full support to her neighbours' concerns.

Last year in Ufa, an agreement was signed on border defence, and China supports the efforts of the organization to draw up a new treaty on fighting extremism. The struggle against Islamist terrorism, with the continuing deleterious influence of the "Islamic State" organization far beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq, presents a constant threat against which SCO partners are keen to coordinate their efforts.

China will thus underline once more her commitment to the joint aims of the SCO, both economic and political. President Xi will be careful to stress that all partners are cooperating on an equal basis, but everyone is aware that China is the only nation with the economic clout to make things happen.

Tim Collard is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/timcollard.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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The European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) on Wednesday formally awarded Cambodia as the World Best Tourist Destination for 2016, citing the country's cultural richness, natural beauty and safety.

Professor Anton Caragea, president of the Bucharest-headquartered ECTT, presented the illustrious award to Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen at a ceremony here.

Some 30 countries joined the competition for the award this year, according to a ECTT report. Cambodia was named the best destination thanks to its rich cultural and historical legacy and outstanding natural beauty as well as good safety.

"I'm confident that through this award, more tourists will visit Cambodia," Hun Sen said. "Cambodia was previously famous for war and conflict, but now it is renowned for its cultural and eco-tourism."

He said the Southeast Asian country welcomed some 4.8 million foreign tourists in 2015, earning gross revenue of more than 3 billion U.S. dollars.

Professor Anton Caragea said the award was also bestowed in recognition of Cambodia's efforts in protecting and preserving the country's historical and civilization patrimony and in fostering tourism and culture.

"This title must be regarded as a challenge to conquer new barriers, as we are expecting Cambodia's future contribution for the development of the world's culture and tourism," he said.

Cambodia is well-known for two cultural sites in the UNESCO's World Heritage List. One is the 12th century Angkor Archeological Park and the other is the 11th century Preah Vihear Temple.

Besides, the nation has many interesting eco-tourism sites, including a 450-km pristine coastline stretching across four provinces in the country's southwestern part.
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A baby born at a private maternity hospital in Beijing. More and more well-off Chinese are turning to privately owned hospitals for their high-end conditions and services. (Wang Yuyi/For China Daily)

Asian countries, particularly Japan and Thailand, have become popular destinations for medical tourism for their cost-effectiveness and well-matched tourism as well as medical resources, said market experts.

One of Thailand's major attractions is infertility treatment centers where tourists can receive in vitro fertilization treatment, or ovulation induction and assisted insemination.

There are about 100 such centers in Thailand, many of which are based in Bangkok where tourists can relax in resorts and visit the treatment centers only when needed.

The cost of such treatments, including a one-month stay, ranges between $7,000 and $30,000, which is about one-third of what it might cost in some developed countries, said Zhang Fangyue, a customer service officer with Wuhan-based De Bao Overseas Health Tourism.

Li Hailun, 34, from Wuhan said she had tried IVF at domestic hospitals but that did not help her conceive. She thinks that may be because she tends to be "nervous" and "pressured" amid friends, family members and relatives.

The latter, she said, often ask her about the treatment's effectiveness. This does not help her to rest and relax enough.

"The domestic hospital I went to actually has a great team, and advanced technologies, and I do trust the doctors and nurses there. However, one problem was that my relatives often asked me about the results, and that put a lot of pressure on me," said Li.

So, Li and her husband decided to shift to a foreign destination that is not too far from home. They went to Bangkok in December 2015, and Li is now expecting - her baby is due in October.

"Thailand is a good choice. Fortunately, I could rest in a beautiful resort in Bangkok. I felt more like a tourist than a patient receiving treatments. Only, my husband is with me so we can just relax.

He cooks for me, and that was perhaps the longest quality time we have had together after getting married," said Li.

The trip cost the couple about 150,000 yuan ($22,800), almost three times that of their previous attempts in their hometown, but they said it was worth the money.

"For a mother-to-be, perhaps the most important thing is to relax and to rest well, and Thailand's treatment center and environment can offer these," said Li.

Japan is a destination in Asia that combines hot spring therapy and medical treatment which are particularly appealing to elderly patients.

Hu Xinyu, a 78-year-old retiree in Shanghai, was diagnosed with a tumor in her left lung, and was prescribed radiation treatment. After her grandson Liu Dong did some research, the family decided to go to Japan for treatment.

"We consulted some relatives who work in hospitals and medical research centers, and they told us that proton treatment and heavy ion treatment may help my grandmother the best.

"We could have done it in a hospital in Shanghai, but my grandmother said she wished to appreciate Sakura (cherry blossoms) in March and visit some hotsprings in Japan because many of her friends had done so already. So, Japan was a natural choice for a medical tour," said Liu.

Thus, the grandmother and the grandson went to Tokyo in March for treatment, and visited some hot-springs, avenues and parks famous for Sakura. Hu visited the treatment center when needed on certain days, and Liu took her to her favorite restaurants, parks, shopping malls and hotsprings on other days.

The two-month tour cost the family about 6 million yen ($56,400) including some 4.2 million yen for treatment and health checks.

"The result of the treatment is quite good. My grandmother is quite happy that she isn't suffering from much pain. She feels she can still enjoy life - a sentiment that's quite positive for her recovery. We can't say we've seen the last of her tumor, but at least we tried our best to minimize its impact on our lives," said Liu.

Note: Names of the patients and their family members discussed in the story have been changed to protect their identity and privacy.
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At least 26 people have been confirmed killed in a series of violence which broke out early this week in central Nigeria's Benue State, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Three local districts have so far been affected by the attacks suspected to be a perpetration of local herdsmen in the state, said Michael Oguwche, a traditional chief in Anyii, one of the three attacked villages.

According to the local chief, the gunmen had first attacked Vase Village on Monday, before moving to the two other villages to wreak havoc late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

He said the sequence of the attacks on Vase Village, Uzzar Village and his village showed that they were coordinated.

More than 30 people sustained various degrees of injuries from the attacks, he added.

Local police have confirmed the attacks, saying riot policemen were deployed to put the situation under control.

Investigation was underway to ascertain the cause of the attacks, said local police.
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Kenyan authorities have beefed up security along the Somali border following attacks by suspected Al-Shabaab militants in the northeastern region earlier this week.

Northeastern Regional Coordinator, Mohamud Saleh, said on Wednesday that security had been heightened in major government installations, social gatherings and along the border with Somalia, following two attacks in Elwak, Mandera county and Hulugho, Garissa county respectively this week.

Kenya's intelligence reports say the Al-Shabaab Islamist group plans to carry out major attacks in Kenya during the month of Ramadan.

"Because we had enhanced our security, they (Al-Shabaab militants) were unable to penetrate some of their targets," Saleh told journalists in Garissa town.

Saleh said Al-Shabaab's major targets were social places, key government installations, police stations, police and military convoys in the northeastern region, adding the capital Nairobi was also their target.

The East African nation has previously witnessed terror attacks during the month of Ramadhan. Police have urged Kenyans to report any suspicious activities.

Saleh further disclosed the attacks had been planned by the Garissa University massacre mastermind, Mohamed Kuno, before the Al-Shabaab commander was killed in May by the Somali army in Bulo Gudud, Somalia.

He said that following the death of Kuno, the militants wanted to "prove that they have not been weekend by carrying out the attacks we saw in Elwak and Hulugho."

"We suspect they will keep on harassing us in the remaining of days of this Ramadhan period. We have however prepared ourselves for them and the remaining days are very crucial in our security surveillance," Saleh said.

On Monday, suspected Al-Shabaab militants ambushed a police vehicle in Elwak, killing five policemen. Hours after that, an ambulance hit an improvised explosive device planted along the road in Hulugho, leaving one person dead and three others wounded.

Al-Shabaab has carried out several bloody attacks in Kenya since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in 2011 to battle the militants.
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The European Union (EU) agreed on Wednesday to establish a reinforced EU border agency, which will be up and running starting this summer, to ensure a strong and shared management of external borders.

According to a Commission press release, the establishment of the European Border and Coast Guard system will build on the work of the current EU border agency, Frontex.

The new system will create an agency made up of Frontex and authorities from EU member states' responsible for border management, who will continue to exercise the day-to-day management of the external borders.

According to the Commission, the limitations of Frontex have hindered its ability to effectively address and remedy the situation created by the refugee crisis. For example, it is not able to purchase its own resources, hasn't got its own operational staff, relies on member state contributions, is unable to carry out its own return or border management operations without the prior request of a member state, and it does not have an explicit mandate to conduct search and rescue operations.

"We need to strengthen Frontex significantly and develop it into a fully operational European Border and Coast Guard system," said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The hope is that with the measure to strengthen the external borders, Europe can once again "get back to the normal functioning of the Schengen area and the lifting of temporary internal border controls by the end of the year," said the commission.

Media reports said the scheme must still be endorsed by the full European Parliament, although this should be a formality.

According to the Commission, between January and November 2015, an estimated 1.5 million people crossed the EU external borders illegally, an all-time peak.
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The number of sexual violence victims in South Sudan in the aftermath of the more than two years of civil war has reached 32,000 excluding death-related cases, the UN said on Wednesday.

The spokesman for the UN Mission in South Sudan, Ariane Quentier, said that despite measures put in place to mitigate the scale of sexual violence in the country, nothing will be achieved unless victims are free to speak out and report about it to relevant authorities.

"We shall not be able to address sexual violence unless people who have been victimised speak out and report it," Ariane told journalists in Juba.

Several UN reports on the South Sudan civil war have accused both former warring parties -- the government troops (SPLA) and the rebels (SPLA-IO) -- of raping women, girls and abducting children.

"Some 32,000 have been victimised since conflict broke out in December 2013 and it has been used as a weapon of war to destabilise communities," said Naweza Muderhwa, the UNMISS Women Protection Officer.

Ariane said: "all parties including SPLA, SPLA-IO and other local militia groups affiliated to both parties committed sexual violence during conflict."

Ariane said sexual violence was still a "new notion" in South Sudan despite officials trying to create awareness on it.

She added most cases were committed in the northern states of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile, which had been hit hard by the brutal conflict.

"Accountability is important. It's why we (UN) and other independent organizations are documenting human rights violations," she said.

Ariane added they were currently involved in documenting witnesses and had conducted workshops across the country to highlight sexual violence effects.

South Sudan is recovering from the aftermath of the civil war, which was ended by the formation of a transitional unity government by the former warring parties in April.
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China and Uzbekistan agreed on Wednesday to deepen their fight against terrorism amid rising concerns over extremists in Central and Western Asia.

The joint decision was reached during President Xi Jinping's state visit to Uzbekistan.

The two countries have reached consensus on jointly combating the "three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism", combating cross-border organized crime, and jointly maintaining regional peace and stability, Xi said after talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Xi also said the two nations pledged to deepen energy cooperation and ensure the safety of the China-Central Asia gasoline pipelines  which are vital for China's energy security.

Xi began his state visit to Uzbekistan  his second since 2013  on Tuesday. He will also attend the 16th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council of Heads of State on Thursday and Friday in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.

China and Uzbekistan share concerns about terrorism, with extremists in the two countries sometimes conspiring together. Uzbekistan is also a key point for terrorists wanting to penetrate China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Karimov said at a news briefing that Uzbekistan firmly supports China's fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism.

Describing China as "a great neighbor" with huge advantages in its economy, innovation and talent, he called for ties with Beijing to be enhanced.

Ahead of Xi's visit, China's Ministry of Public Security signed two agreements with Uzbekistan's Ministry of Internal Affairs on jointly fighting drug-trafficking and organized crime, and protecting the safety of cross-border pipelines.

Huang Ming, vice-minister of public security, said last week that global terrorist activities are increasing and terrorist attacks remain frequent, which makes cooperation between China and Uzbekistan on combating terrorism "a must".

The two countries should strengthen information exchanges, improve law-enforcement cooperation, and jointly fight terrorism, extremism and separatism, he said.

In recent years, the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization has signed and implemented a number of agreements, including the Shanghai Convention on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism.

It has also held regular joint counterterrorism drills, with Uzbekistan hosting the SCO's anti-terrorism headquarters.

Tim Collard, a former official at the British embassy in China, wrote in a column on China.org.cn, "In the political sphere, Uzbekistan has become one of China's most reliable supporters on global security issues, quite apart from the two nations' cooperation in the SCO forum."
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Britons are edging closer to voting in favor of remaining in the European Union in Thursday's referendum, a result that would please many of the UK's closest allies.

Photo taken on Jan. 29, 2016 shows the UK and EU flags outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. [Photo/Xinhua]

An opinion poll carried out before the referendum by The Daily Telegraph  a consistent supporter of leaving the EU  showed that of those who say they will definitely vote, the Remain campaign is leading with 53 percent, against 46 percent for the Leave campaign.

The Remain campaign is headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, while the Leave campaign is headed by former London mayor Boris Johnson and Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove.

Many other polls in recent days have shown the Remain camp easing ahead, although many commentators in Britain are saying the result is still too close to call.

UK betting company Ladbrokes said that based on the bets being placed, it is forecasting a 78 percent chance of remaining, with only a 22 percent chance of leaving.

Ladbrokes correctly forecast the result of last year's general election, which saw a surprise clear majority for Cameron's Conservative Party, despite opinion polls having predicted either a loss or a hung parliament, with no single party in power.

Much hangs on this vote. In China, Juwai.com, an international property portal, said a survey showed 51 percent of the 411 respondents said they had temporarily put on hold property transactions in the UK pending the outcome. Only 25 percent said they intended completing deals before the vote.

"The overall picture here is one of uncertainty," the site's UK head Bernie Morris said.

JLL, a global real estate services company, said its survey of 100 companies showed a similar trend, with 45 percent of investors questioned saying they would adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

Many of Britain's allies, including China, would be expected to welcome a decision to stay in the EU.

Chinese official pronouncements have been cautious. President Xi Jinping reportedly indicated to Cameron during a state visit to the UK in October that China would prefer Britain to remain in the EU. This was later backed up by a Foreign Ministry statement.

During Xi's visit, deals worth 40 billion pounds ($58.73 billion) were announced with Chinese companies.

US President Barack Obama says he would prefer the UK to remain in the EU, as would major European players such as France and Germany.

Li Ka-shing, one of the richest men in Asia, told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday he was urging Britons to vote to remain, because a decision to leave would cause "great damage to the country and the EU".

He said a vote to leave would not be the end of the world, but as a major investor in the UK, he would continue to maintain his business interests in the country, as well as Europe in general.

Bloomberg reported earlier remarks by Li, in which he said he did not believe Britain would vote to leave, but if it did, he would consider reducing his investment there.

Li has a fortune of $28.6 billion, according to both Forbes and the Bloomberg Billionaires List, making him the third-richest man in Asia.

Many Chinese companies operating in the UK see the country as a bridgehead into Europe, a function that would suffer in the event of a vote to leave the EU.

This view is supported by Yao Lin, deputy director of a research center supervised by China's Ministry of Commerce.

Yao warned in a paper that many Chinese companies investing in Britain as a way into the EU single market would see the "bridgehead curtailed'' in the event of a vote to leave.
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Forty more suspects have been arrested in connection with incidents of looting and public violence in and around Pretoria, the government said on Wednesday.

This brought to 54 the total number of people that have been arrested since violent protests broke out in the city on Monday, said government spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini.

The arrests were effected in the townships of Atteridgeville, Hercules, Mabopane, Soshanguve and Mamelodi in and around Pretoria, according to Dlamini.

The suspects have been charged with public violence, theft and possession of stolen property, she said.

The protests were sparked by the ruling African National Congress' decision to place Thoko Didiza as its mayoral candidate for Pretoria to replace current mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in the upcoming elections scheduled for August 3.

During the protests, houses were burned, buses torched and shops looted.

The attacks and looting of shops show that some of the protest actions are motivated by criminality, Dlamini said.

She said there is gradual stability in some of the previously volatile areas "as a result of the interventions by the government law enforcement agencies" while sporadic violent protests and incidents of looting continue in parts of Pretoria such as Mabopane and Soshanguve.

"The government assures the public that law enforcement agencies are responding and monitoring these development and peace and calm will return to the city," Dlamini said.

She also denied reports that enforcement officers took part in the looting.

"It is quite disturbing that pictures were posted on social media that sought to portray law enforcement officers as part of the looters. We would like to place it on the record that the law enforcement officers whose pictures have been distributed in social media were actually returning the looted goods to shop owners," she added.
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The UN Security Council on Wednesday kicked off a meeting behind closed doors to discuss the reported latest launch of two suspected missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The 15-nation council began the meeting at around 15:15 EDT (19:15 GMT) at UN Headquarters in New York.

"The ballistic launches (by Pyongyang) are a clear and unacceptable violation of the Security Council resolutions," Francois Delattre, the French UN ambassador who holds the rotating council presidency for this month, told reporters here before the start of the closed meeting. "The North Korean ballistic programme is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security."

"Confronted with a threat of proliferation we consider that weakness is not an option," he said.

"Based on all this, we favour a quick and firm reaction of the Security Council."

"We will most likely have a meeting of the Council later this afternoon," he said. "And we hope that at one point we will have a press statement on this."

The council president said that the council meeting is only closed consultations at this stage. The meeting was convened at the request of the United States and Japan, UN officials said here.

DPRK has not confirmed the suspected test-launch of two missiles on Wednesday morning.

The state-run KCNA news agency told Xinhua in Pyongyang over the phone that it was not aware of the missile launches and asked Xinhua to wait for official news.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that the DPRK launched a second missile, which was believed to be a Musudan, at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday) from Wonsan on the east coast, two hours after the DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile, which Seoul said was presumably a failure.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The South Korean military said it is not clear whether Pyongyang's second launch on Wednesday was a success or not. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing. The second missile launched on Wednesday flew about 400 km.

On June 1, the Security Council "strongly condemned" the most recent failed ballistic missile launches by the DPRK on May 31 and April 27-28.

"These repeated attempted launches are in grave violation of the DPRK's international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions," the 15-nation UN council said in a statement.

The Security Council has adopted five resolutions -- resolutions 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013) and 2270 (2016) -- to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs.

The latest one adopted in March imposes the most severe sanctions yet on the country, including an export ban and asset freeze.
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The impeachment commission of the Brazilian Senate approved on Wednesday a new timeline for the impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, which will be held at the end of August.

According to the new timeline, Rousseff will have until July 6 to provide any evidence and present her defence to the Senate, including any personal appearances.

After this, the commission's rapporteur, Senator Antonio Anastasia, will begin the second phase of the process. He will be given time to gather all the elements that may prove or not the existence of any crime. These will be presented to the impeachment commission on Aug. 4 and to the full Senate on Aug. 9.

Should the Senate accept the evidence presented by a simple majority vote, it will then carry out a full vote to impeach Rousseff or not within two weeks.

The final date of this vote will be defined by the Supreme Court, but would be set to take place between Aug. 22 and Aug. 26, according to this timeline.

A two-thirds majority (54 senators) is needed to find Rousseff guilty. This would see the suspended president formerly removed from office and unable to hold any public office for eight years.

Rousseff was suspended by the Senate on May 11 for up to 180 days, being accused of suspected fiscal irregularities.
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A total of 115 Taliban rebels surrendered to the government in Afghanistan's northern province of Jawzjan on Wednesday, the provincial police chief said.

"Some 2,000 security force members launched a cleanup operation early Wednesday morning in Jawzjan province and Dasht-e-Laili of neighboring Faryab province. In the wake of the operation, some 115 Taliban fighters laid down arms and surrendered to the security forces," General Rahmatullah Turkistani told Xinhua.

Afghan First Vice President General Abdul Rahshid Dostum is currently commanding thousands of security force members in the region to clear his hometown Jawzjan and surrounding areas from militants.

The former militants brought over 100 rounds of high-powered firearms and guns when they surrendered to Dostum's forces, the police official noted.

Several militant local commanders, including Mohammad Mohalim alias Zarqawi, who served as a Taliban shadow district governor for Shirin Tagab district of Faryab were among the surrendered men, he said.

He added that there is possibility more Taliban members could also surrender in the couple of days.

Taliban militants fighting the government have not made any comments yet.

Since mid-2010, more than 10,000 Taliban militants have laid down arms and joined the peace and reconciliation process, according to officials. But the claim has been rejected by the armed group.
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China greatly values the development of the Sino-Greek relations and is willing to raise the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries to a higher level, senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Guo Jinlong said during his visit to Greece heading a CPC delegation.

Guo, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, met with Greek Prime Minister and leader of the ruling SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA Central Committee Secretary Panos Rigas and Vice President of the main opposition New Democracy Kostis Hatzidakis during his visit to Greece on June 19-22.

Guo said that ever since the establishment of the diplomatic ties, the Sino-Greek relations have registered smooth development. In recent years, there have been frequent high-level exchanges, mutual political trust has been fortified, and economic and trade cooperation has developed steadily.

He said China is willing to strengthen mutual strategic trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation, expand cultural exchange with Greece.

Guo spoke highly of the relations between the CPC and the SYRIZA and New Democracy. He said the CPC would like to maintain high-level visits and exchange governance experience with the two Greek parties, in order to contribute to the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

Tsipras said that Greece highly values its relationship with China and wishes to further strengthen the Sino-Greek relations. He said Greece is willing to deepen the cooperation with China in the fields like culture, shipping, finance, agriculture, tourism, science and technology.

Rigas and Hatzidakis said their parties are willing to enhance exchanges and dialogues at all levels with the CPC to further develop the two countries' relations.
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Nigeria's secret police has arrested the former chief of army staff, Major-General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd), a security source said Wednesday.

Ihejirika was picked on Tuesday night from his residence in Abuja by the Department of State Security (DSS) operatives.

The former army boss' arrest is believed to be in connection with the ongoing 2.1 billion U.S. dollars arms deal probe involving the former national security adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki.

An Australian negotiator, Stephen Davis had in 2015, alleged that the former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu-Sheriff and Ihejirika were the sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgents.

But the former army chief had described Davis' allegations against him as frivolous and unfounded.

He had said the claim by the Australian was meant to divert the attention of the country and its security agencies.
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The Sudanese army on Wednesday announced its commitment to a cease-fire recently declared by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at South Kordofan and Blue Nile States.

On June 17, al-Bashir declared a comprehensive four-month cease-fire at South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas, starting Saturday, June 18.

Sudanese army spokesman Ahmed Khalifa Al-Shami reiterated in a statement the army's commitment to the cease-fire, but noted that the army maintains its right to respond to any aggression.

The cease-fire came as a goodwill gesture from the government is to give the armed groups a chance to join the peace process and a renewed call by the president for all the political forces and armed movements to join the national dialogue.

Earlier, Sudan's Higher Coordination Committee of the National Dialogue (7+7 mechanism) set Aug. 6 for the meeting of the general assembly of the national dialogue conference to approve its final recommendations.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector, which is fighting the Sudanese government at South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas, refuses to join the national dialogue conference which has been convened in Khartoum since October last year.

The SPLM has also refused to sign a road-map proposed by the African Union to achieve a lasting peace in the two regions.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan said on Wednesday Jordan will continue to work with regional and international partners to fight extremist organizations, mainly the terrorist Islamic State (IS), the state-run Petra news agency reported.

The king made the remarks at a meeting with U.S. special presidential envoy for the global coalition to fight the IS Brett McGurk, where he stressed on the need for increased coordination among the coalition members to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist movement.

The U.S. official condemned the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of six Jordanian troops and injured 14 others at the borders between Jordan and Syria.

He said the coalition is determined to defeat the IS and the U.S. will continue to support Jordan in this regard.

Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, is one of the members of the U.S.-led international coalition to fight the IS.
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Two-thirds of Republican voters believe that their party leaders do not want GOP's presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump to get elected, a new survey said on Wednesday.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, 66 percent of likely Republican voters are convinced that the majority of top GOP leaders do not want Trump to win the White House, with only 20 percent saying otherwise.

In addition, almost two in three GOP voters say the continued criticism against Trump by party leaders is bad for the party.

The survey came at a time when Trump was bogged down in controversies which had caused further distance between him and GOP leadership.

Early this month, Trump raised eyebrows among the GOP leaders after he repeatedly accused U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist overseeing a civil fraud suit in California involving Trump University, of being unfit for the case because he was of "Mexican heritage."

Trump implied that Curiel, the Hispanic-American judge, was biased against him because of Trump's proclamation that he would build a wall along the border between America and Mexico to halt illegal immigration.

Later, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan doubled down on his criticism of Trump, calling Trump's comments on Curiel because of the judge's ethnic background "textbook" racism.

After the nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida on June 12, Trump revived his call for a ban on foreign Muslims entering the United States and said the federal government should consider racial profiling of Muslims in America.

Trump also implied that U.S. President Barack Obama may have sympathized with the radicalized gunman of the Orlando carnage, a claim flatly denounced by both Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress.

As the Trump campaign is heading towards the general election, the rift between the New York billionaire developer and GOP leaders appears to be growing.

After the latest Federal Election Commission filings showed early this week that the Trump campaign currently had only 1.3 million U.S. dollars on hand, compared with Hillary Clinton's 42 million dollars, Senate Majority Leader on Tuesday reportedly refuse to answer questions about the Trump campaign.

According to the U.S. daily Politico, McConnel had refused to talk about Trump for two straight weeks.

Meanwhile, Politico quoted an aide in House Speaker Ryan's political operation as saying that Ryan had no fundraisers planned on behalf of Trump.

According to Politico, Ryan had since last October raised more than 30 million dollars for the GOP, the majority of which was focused on supporting congressional Republicans for re-election.
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The Toronto Police Service has opened a gender-neutral washroom at its downtown headquarters that will be open to any person regardless of their gender identity, Toronto police said Wednesday.

Signage pointing to the new gender-neutral washroom is seen on the second floor at Toronto police headquarters at 40 College Street, which opened Wednesday to the public, June 22, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Located on the second floor at 40 College Street in Toronto, the new facility is available starting June 22 to coincide with Toronto Police Service's annual Pride reception.

Marked with a sign displaying all gender symbols, the washroom can be used by people of any gender expression and identity from Toronto police and members of the public.

"It's on the second floor because we want it to be accessible to community members," said Staff Sergeant Shane Branton, who played a key role in getting the project off the ground. "It's for our internal and external members and we want to show that we have a safe and inclusive space for everyone."

Constable Danielle Bottineau, Toronto police's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) liaison officer, said the launch of the public washroom is a step in the right direction.

"Historically, we have not had the best of relationships with that community. We are still working on mending bridges not only with the gay community, but, specifically, the trans community where they still don't have all the same human rights as the majority of us do in society," said Bottineau.

"We want to show we are an inclusive Service and we are welcoming regardless of your gender identity and gender expression."

At Toronto police's annual Pride reception later Wednesday afternoon, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders is expected to apologize for the 1981 bathhouse raids, which saw 160 officers arrest 286 men, an event that helped galvanize Toronto's LGBT community, but also left a rift between the community and police.

"This new initiative gives us an opportunity of understanding the importance of the issues of today. It's also symbolic of how we, as a Service, has progressed when you look back 35 years with the bath house raids," said Saunders.

"Today, we have so much more of an understanding and appreciation of the LGBTQ community and we are continuously working harder to strengthen the relationship. That's the right thing to do."

It's not the first institution in Toronto to include a gender-neutral washroom. The Royal Ontario Museum opened several late last year, and the Toronto District School Board is rolling out similar washrooms in schools across the city.
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Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain said Thursday that his country firmly supports China's principles and positions on issues concerning the South China Sea as well as Taiwan and Tibet.

He made the remarks while meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent.
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A 50-member group of armed militants gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to the government in Dawlatabad district of the northern Faryab province on Wednesday, an army spokesman in the northern region Nasratullah Jamshidi said Thursday.

"A total of 50 Taliban rebels handed over their weapons to security forces in Dawlatabad district on Wednesday evening," Jamshidi told Xinhua.

All the former rebels vowed to join their communities and work for peace and stability in the country, the official added.

This is the second bunch of anti-government militants surrendering to the government in the northern region in a couple of days.

Previously more than 100 militants deserted Taliban in the neighboring Jauzjan province and handed over their weapons to security forces on Tuesday, according to local officials.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that India is glad to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and it looks forward to fruitful outcomes from its upcoming summit in Tashkent.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations," said Modi in a statement prior to his departure to Uzbekistan capital to attend the summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he said.

"India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region," he added.

The SCO summit will be held in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent from June 23 to 24.

The SCO groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Belarus, Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan currently have observer status.
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Okinawa marked on Thursday the 71st anniversary of the end of a fierce World War II ground battle in 1945 that claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people, amid heightened tensions over the existence of U.S. military bases in the island prefecture.

A memorial ceremony was held around noon Thursday at the Peace Memorial Park in the Mabuni district of Itoman, the site of the last major fighting of the Battle of Okinawa, with some 4,700 people attending, including relatives of war victims as well as government officials.

In his remarks at the ceremony, Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, referring to the heinous crime of a former U.S. Marine and base worker who raped and murdered a 20-year-old local woman in April, demanded a sharp reduction of U.S. bases in Okinawa.

"The incident was extremely cruel and inhumane. People in Okinawa are upset and angry. Over the years, U.S. military men in Okinawa have repeatedly caused incidents," said Onaga.

"Is freedom, equality, human rights and democracy guaranteed under the Constitution equally guaranteed for the people of Okinawa who have no choice but to live their lives sandwiched between the Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the SOFA?" asked the governor.

Onaga also called on the central government to drastically review the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which gives the U.S. servicemen and civilian workers in Japan privileged status.

Under the SOFA, U.S. forces' personnel can be granted a great deal of legal autonomy and while the Japanese court system has jurisdiction over most crimes committed by U.S. service members, if the accused was "acting in official duty," or if the victim was another American, the U.S. justice system is used instead of Japan's.

The governor also required the central government to revoke the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma base within the southwestern prefecture, saying the move was "intolerable."

Abe, for his part, said at the ceremony that Japan and the United States are negotiating changes to the way the SOFA is applied, and claimed the government would continue to take a "whole of country" approach to reduce the burden Okinawa has shouldered to host the U.S. military.

While his speech was refuted by some of the attendants at the ceremony as "lying," Abe claimed to the media afterwards that the U.S. military presence in Japan was "indispensable to peace and security in Japan."

The Battle of Okinawa began in the spring of 1945, when U.S. forces landed on the island. Overall, more than 200,000 people were killed in the three-month battle, including civilians and Japanese and U.S. troops. Okinawa held a memorial ceremony on June 23 every year since then marking closure of the battle.

This year's anniversary came amid heightened tensions over the presence of U.S. bases rekindled by the rape and murder of a 20-year-old local woman by a U.S. military base worker who is also a former Marine.

Tens of thousands of people rallied Sunday in Naha, protesting against the incident and demanding removal of the U.S. military bases from the island.

Okinawa hosts some 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan while accounting for less than 1 percent of the country's total land mass. Criminal cases involving U.S. military men repeatedly happened in Okinawa. In March, a U.S. Navy sailor was arrested after raping a woman in a hotel in Naha City, the capital of Okinawa.
The second batch of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) earmarked for pilot reform is likely to be unveiled in the near future, insiders told Beijing Business Today.

It comes two weeks after the restructuring meeting of China Minmetals Corp and China Metallurgical Group Corp was held in Beijing, a key step taken towards one of the largest mergers in China's metals sector.

Xiao Yaqing, the head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said at the meeting that after the merger, the new company would be included in the SOEs reform pilot.

In February, Zhang Xiwu, deputy head of the country's state assets supervisor, also revealed China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd and China Reform Holdings Corp Ltd would become pilot enterprises.

Several State-run companies, including China Southern Power Grid, China First Heavy Industries and China Grain reserves Corp, also reshuffled their senior management.

Taking these signs into consideration, some insiders predict the second batch of SOEs for pilot reforms is likely to be rolled out in the near term.

In July of 2014, the country announced the first batch, which included six big State-owned enterprises that would pilot reforms in ownership, management and supervision.

The market has paid attention to the SOEs pilot reform, said Li Jin, chief researcher of Research Institute of Chinese Enterprises.

He says in the future, the country will be more aggressive in SOEs reform, covering more industries and enterprises. State-run companies should create innovative atmospheres which allow mistakes at a manageable level, to speed up the SOEs reform, he added.
Real economy to be supported with reasonably sufficient liquidity, stable exchange rates

China will strengthen the financial sector's role in supporting the real economy by providing reasonably sufficient liquidity and achieving stable exchange rates for the renminbi, according to Premier Li Keqiang.

Li made the vow on Monday during a visit to the headquarters of the People's Bank of China  the central bank  and to China Construction Bank in Beijing.

Amid a volatile international financial market, China's financial reforms have been progressing smoothly to mitigate risks and keep renminbi exchange rates stable, effectively supporting domestic economic growth, Li said.

However, some regions and industries in the real economy are facing growth difficulties, "and prudent monetary policies must better coordinate with proactive fiscal policies for flexibility and accuracy in financing," Li said.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the central bank, said prudent monetary policies have provided reasonably sufficient liquidity to prop up the real economy.

Guo Tianyong, head of the China Banking Research Center at Central University of Finance and Economics, said, "The destination for loans is consistent with China's macroeconomic and industrial policies. But banks should further enhance accuracy in lending to targeted business sectors to better serve the real economy."

Li said the financial sector must also support the new economy, which features in integration with the internet, innovative enterprises and smart manufacturing. He called on financial institutions to back small and medium-sized enterprises and private businesses at lower cost.

"Commercial banks should support the development of the real economy by financing major infrastructure projects, SMEs and innovation-driven companies," he told China Construction Bank employees.

As of Monday, the bank had 2.8 trillion yuan ($427 billion) in loans for infrastructure projects, including new loans of 110 billion yuan in this field for the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 86 percent.

Li called on banks to continuously finance companies purchasing agricultural produce and to back agricultural manufacturing as a way to increase farmers' income.

The international market has questioned if China intentionally manipulated the renminbi's depreciation after the exchange rate to the US dollar fell by 2 percent following a reform on Aug 11 last year.

Li said the exchange rates for the renminbi should be kept at a reasonably stable level instead of fluctuating unilaterally.

Wu Qing, deputy director of banking research at the State Council's Development Research Center, said Chinese banks have limited measures to support the real economy, as they are under pressure from the regulatory authority and other government departments.

"Traditional means such as collateral loans cannot satisfy the financial demands of SMEs, which are pinning their hopes on financial innovation," Wu said.

"But most financial institutions lack the ability to innovate, partly due to regulatory restrictions and a widespread copycat culture. There is a gap between the desire and the reality to serve the real economy."

But Wu said there is still hope for better-regulated internet finance companies after an industrywide cleanup.

Jiang Xueqing contributed to this story.
TIANJIN - China's northern port city of Tianjin is getting ready for the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2016, also known as the Summer Davos Forum, between June 26 and 28.

"We have basically completed the facilities for the meeting in the Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center. We are now adding the final touches," said Zhang Jun, a local official in charge of the preparations, on Tuesday.

Organizers have devoted a prominent space inside the venue demonstrating China's traditional arts. This area will feature artists performing a Chinese string instrument called Guqin, tea art and traditional New Year paintings, as part of Tianjin's display of fine art and folklore. Also on display next to tradition and culture will be a Tai-chi robot.

There are also organized tours around Tianjin's industrial zones during the meeting to let participants see first-hand how the city's businesses are using the latest technology.

Established by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Summer Davos this year is expected to attract more than 1,700 participants from over 90 countries, under the theme "the fourth industrial revolution and its transformational impact."

Premier Li Keqiang will address the opening ceremony, the 10th such event in China, alternatively held in Tianjin and northeastern port city of Dalian.

"We have great support from Tianjin," said Jean-Loup Denereaz, head of general services and event operations for the WEF.
Children take part in a running contest organized by McDonald's Corp in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

McDonald's Corp has received more than half a dozen bids for its planned sale of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong stores, including offers from Beijing Tourism Group, Sanpower Group and China National Chemical Corporation in a deal worth about $3 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

McDonald's is offering a 20-year master franchise agreement to buyers as part of the deal, but has placed restrictions that have discouraged some private equity firms from participating in the process, the people added.

Still, some global buyout firms including Bain Capital, TPG Capital and Carlyle Group have entered the auction with a view to team up with some of the Chinese strategic bidders, they added.

Other bidders who were preparing to place first-round bids ahead of Monday's deadline include Beijing Capital Agribusiness Group and GreenTree Hospitality, the people said. It was not immediately clear if the last two suitors proceeded with the bids.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's has hired Morgan Stanley to run the sale of about 2,800 restaurants in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and South Korea. The sale in South Korea is being run separately and it was not known if the same parties have expressed interest in the South Korean sale, the people added.

The mainland and Hong Kong business had about $200 million in earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization, and could be sold for about 15-16 times its core earnings, taking the deal value to about $3 billion, one of the people said.

ChemChina and Sanpower officials were not available to comment immediately, while Beijing Tourism Group said it did not know about the matter.
Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Zhu Min intends to leave the IMF when his term expires in late July, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday.

Zhu was the first Chinese national serving in the post of deputy managing director. He was appointed to a five-year term in July 2011. Before that, he served as special adviser to the IMF managing director from 2010 to 2011.

"(Zhu) Min has performed a key role in the fund's management team, providing immense support to me and our management colleagues," Lagarde said in an IMF news release.

"His down-to-earth style, wonderful sense of humor, and warm personality served to reinforce his formidable intellect and passion for economics, and enabled him to provide strong leadership across a large range of issues."

While the IMF said the process is underway to identify a candidate to succeed Zhu, Caixin magazine reported in late May that China plans to nominate 52-year-old Zhang Tao, a central bank veteran with deep experience at multilateral development banks, to succeed Zhu at the IMF.

The Caixin story came just days after Zhang was appointed deputy governor of China's central bank.

Traditionally, Europeans serve as IMF managing director while Americans serve as first deputy managing director.

In December, China succeeded in having its currency, the renminbi, included in the IMF Special Drawing Rights basket, which also includes the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.

In the same month, the US Congress finally approved the 2010 IMF voting share and governance reform. It means that China, now the world's second-largest economy, jumped from sixth to third place in voting share, trailing only the US and Japan.

In the IMF news release, Zhu was also credited with spearheading the IMF's work on jobs and growth in the wake of the global financial crisis when employment issues moved into focus due to the lackluster recovery.

He oversaw the IMF's activities concerning fragile states, small states and low-income countries, and supported the expansion of its outreach and publications in this area.

Zhu has provided leadership in the IMF's work on statistics, standards and codes, as well as strengthening its Financial Sector Assessment Program and efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. He made important contributions to the IMF's risk management framework and helped reshape the IMF's annual meetings, held jointly with the World Bank, according to the IMF news release.
Photo taken on Jan 29, 2016 shows the UK and EU flags outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. [Photo/Xinhua]

Mainland stocks had their greatest gain for the week while Hong Kong's equities extended gains to a fourth day as traders perceived increasing odds of Britain staying in the European Union.

The Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.9 percent by the close, led by energy companies. Technology and small-company shares also rallied, sending the ChiNext index to its highest level in two weeks. The Hang Seng Index climbed 0.6 percent. HSBC Holdings Plc paced gains for lenders. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd, which received about one-fifth of its revenue from the United Kingdom last year, jumped the most in almost a month.

Stocks added to gains in the afternoon even as opinion polls and financial markets were at odds about the likely outcome over Brexit. While an index of betting flows compiled by Oddschecker shows the odds of leaving have fallen to 26 percent from 43 percent since June 14, polls found the race is too close to call. Asian nations, such as China, with slowing growth, high reliance on exports to the EU and exposure to capital flight, are most at risk, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. As the world braces for the outcome of Thursday's vote, Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's richest man, stepped up his calls for Britons to vote in favor of staying.

"The United Kingdom referendum is just around the corner and the result is still highly uncertain," said Liu Xuezhi, an analyst at Bank of Communications Co in Shanghai.

In the mainland trading, the ChiNext jumped 2.5 percent. The Shenzhen Composite Index advanced 1.7 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed at the highest level since June 10, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index increased 0.7 percent. Turnover picked up in Hong Kong, with trading volumes in the benchmark rising 13 percent from the 30-day average.
The headquarters of the People's Bank of China in Beijing. [Photo by Shi Yan/China Daily] Program would allow qualified, good quality international groups to list in the mainland

Chinese regulators are studying whether to allow international companies to float their shares on the mainland's stock market, the People's Bank of China said in its annual report, a move that generated a mixed response from the market and experts on Wednesday.

In its 2015 report, published on its website the previous day, the monetary authority said it would consider launching the Chinese Depositary Receipt scheme as part of the effort to push liberalization of the country's capital market.

The CDR program will allow "qualified and good quality" overseas companies to float Chinese depositary receipts representing their shares in the mainland's stock market and will enable domestic investors to trade stocks of foreign companies.

While the central banks reference to the CDR scheme could signal the regulator's intention to further liberalize the domestic capital market, analysts said that the statement was unlikely to have a substantial impact on the market because the regulator's deliberations could still be at a very early stage.

The discussion, however, sparked fears among investors concerned that a potential increase in the supply of shares from overseas firms, under the scheme, could depress the already weak A-share market. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has tumbled 18 percent since the start of the year.

Guo Yanhong, a strategist at Founder Securities Co Ltd, said there was no need to read too much into the central bank's words, as the scheme had long been part of China's efforts to liberalize its capital account.

"It would be hard to understand the regulator's logic if it decided to launch the CDR scheme before many other key reforms, such as the registration-based new share sale mechanism," Guo said.

The launch of a CDR scheme has in fact been discussed by the central bank for many years and Governor Zhou Xiaochuan mentioned it as early as 2002.

There was also discussion a few years ago about launching an international board in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, to allow foreign companies to list shares in the A-share market.

But last year's stock market rout prompted China's regulators to focus on maintaining financial market order and stability rather than pushing bold financial reforms.

The securities regulator has delayed the launch of the registration-based IPO scheme as well as the strategic emerging industries board in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which will accommodate the return of overseas-listed Chinese companies and serve as a financing channel for the domestic innovative firms.
Jewelry in the form of a colorful peacock is displayed in a store in East China's Zhejiang province, Oct 21, 2014.[Photo/VCG]

For the first five months this year, China's jewelry industry has experienced its first distinct decline in a decade, with many leading jewelry retailers suffering falling revenues and profits.

The largest Hong Kong-listed jeweler, Chow Tai Fook Jewelry Group, one of the largest listed jewelry chains by market capitalization worldwide, cut 4,600 staff last year. It had a 46 percent plunge in its annual profit year-on-year, according to its earnings report for the financial year ended March 31. This year, Chow Tai Fook plans to close seven to eight jewelry stores in Hong Kong, but it doesn't plan large-scale layoffs for the time being.

The retailer saw the jewelry sales in the Chinese mainland, where it runs 2,057 jewelry stores as of March, decline 21.3 percent compared with a year earlier, as a result of weak consumption, changing consumer buying habits, and fierce competition, particularly the strong shift to e-commerce spending.

"The jewelry industry entered a period with skimpy profits due to lack of spending in the retail market, the homogenization of products and price competition," Chow Tai Fook said in its annual report. For the past two years, its share price also suffered steep decline. Its market cap slumped by $HK90 billion ($11.6 billion), a fall of 70 percent from its 2014 high.

On Wednesday, shares of Chow Tai Fook fell in early trading but rose again to close at its opening price of $HK5.21 per share. The Hang Seng Index rose 0.61 percent on Wednesday.

Shanghai-listed Lao Feng Xiang Co Ltd, one of the mainland's oldest jewelry brands, saw its first-quarter revenues dip to 11.35 billion yuan ($1.75 billion), falling 5.71 percent from the previous year. Its profit dropped nearly 17 percent.

Shenzhen-listed Zhejiang Ming Jewelry Co Ltd saw its first-quarter revenues plunge 36.7 percent, and its profit slump 62.2 percent year-on-year. It cited the high costs of rent, salaries and the sluggish market as the reasons.
GENEVA - A senior UN official said on Wednesday that China's liberalization efforts of investment regime, driven partly by its investment administrative reform, will create opportunities for global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows.

James Zhan, director of Investment and Enterprise at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told Xinhua during an interview that Chinese investors were very active and FDI outflows in China had increased significantly over the last few years.

According to the latest annual global investment report by UNCTAD, China in 2015 was the third largest investor in the world, after the United States and Japan.

The report revealed that FDI inflows and outflows in Chinese mainland stood at $136 billion and $128 billion respectively. "China represents roughly 10 percent of the global FDI flows," noted Zhan.

In 2015, global FDI flows rose to $1.76 trillion in 2015, hitting their highest level since pre-crisis peak in 2007.

However, UNCTAD warned that cross-border investment is expected to contract by 10 to 15 percent this year, barring another wave of cross-border mega deals and corporate reconfigurations.

Zhan predicted that "FDI flows into China will remain at a high level but won't have a drastic increase in 2016."

He added that China's FDI structure change would create potential opportunities, noting the FDI inflows in China tend to target high-tech industries, R&D areas, as well as involving automation in manufacturing.

"For outflows, I see that China will continue to be very active in acquiring firms and engaged in green field investment," he said.

Over the medium term, FDI flows are projected to resume growth in 2017 and to surpass $1.8 trillion in 2018, according to UNCTAD.
Fuyao Group boss says firm has long aimed at smart production

Industry 4.0 can only be successful when an enterprise has a solid manufacturing capacity, said Cao Dewang, chairman of Fuyao Group, the largest automotive glass supplier in China.

"Industry 4.0 is quite a popular concept at the moment. But my concern is that manufacturers may face the risk of failure if they don't have a strong manufacturing capacity. China's manufacturing industry is still not very advanced," said Cao.

The vision of Industry 4.0 is for "cyber-physical production systems" in which smart embedded devices work together wirelessly directly or through the internet of things. It is seen as the Fourth Industrial Revolution following the first three driven by steam engine, electricity and the personal computer.

Fuyao has adopted a slogan of "Make Industry 4.0 Take Root in Fuyao". The reason that Fuyao is ready for Industry 4.0 is because it has more than 20 years of developing strong manufacturing competence under a vision on intelligent production, according to Cao.

"I first came to the realization that intelligence is the future when one of my engineers reminded me that software would one day be more valuable than human power in 1988 when I first bought equipment from overseas," said Cao. "I have been aiming at a smart production process ever since."

Founded in Fuzhou in the eastern part of China in 1987, Fuyao Group (Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co Ltd) now has a 65 percent share of the domestic market. The company has manufacturing bases in nine countries, including the United States, Russia, and Germany.

Cao was named as manufacturing pioneer in China by Forbes magazine in 2015. It was the first on the 14-member list, followed by Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of Gree Electric Appliances Inc, Liang Wengen, chairman of Sany Group, and Zhang Ruimin, chairman of Haier Group.

Fuyao's information technology and automation system have taken the lead among its counterparts in the world, according to Forbes.

It has formulated a sophisticated data system in purchasing, logistics, services and other value-added production links.

Fuyao's average use of robots is more than 200 robots per 10,000 workers. The level is 300 in Japan and 100 in the US in automotive glass manufacturers, according to Cao.

"The key to success for Industry 4.0 is to design a system that suits the enterprise' production process. If you don't know the details in production like the back of your hand, how can you design the system that works the best?" said Cao.

Other factors for the success of Industry 4.0 include large production capacity, good management, the employees' quality, and high demand for the product. The demand for high value added automotive glass that is more environment-friendly, energy saving, intelligent and integrated is rising fast.

Fuyao is moving up along the value chain by developing intelligent glass of sound proof rate of 90 percent, heat insulating, low energy consumption and auto light adjustment.

It is also developing a windshield that can function as a dash board.

Fuyao realized revenue of 13.6 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in 2015, a 5 percent increase from the same period in 2014. Its net profit stood at 2.6 billion yuan in 2015, up 17 percent from the end of 2014.
WASHINGTON - Bourgeoning Chinese investment in the United States has now extended beyond real estate, with more companies eyeing sectors closely related to Chinese domestic demand.

In recent years, more Chinese companies have been investing in the United States irregardless of size, industry and ownership, Shau Zhang, a partner at the Ernst & Young America, told Xinhua.

Data from the US Commerce Department showed that Chinese investment was the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment in the United States in 2014.

Chinese investment in the United States not only created jobs for local economies but also contributed millions of dollars in reinvestment to the US market. The Commerce Department said that U.S. affiliates of Chinese-owned firms employed over 37,000 US workers and invested 449 million US dollars in research and development in 2013.

Chinese investment in the United States has moved beyond real estate, although that sector still accounted for a large portion, said Zhang. More companies are investing in IT, logistics, culture, sports, and the auto industry.

The top six industry sectors in the United States favored by Chinese investors are IT services, electronics, industry machinery, communications, business services, and auto components, according to data from the consulting firm fDi Markets.

These investments were much in line with China's transformation from an export and investment driven economy toward one focusing on services and domestic demand.

Chinese companies were diversifying their investments around the globe in order to enjoy the benefits of globalization and to meet a growing demand at home to consume, Zhang said.

China's rising domestic demand has already been felt at home in the US.

"Chinese companies have strong interests in our fresh water treatment technology and diary projects," Katy Sinnott, vice president of Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, told Xinhua.

Wisconsin, the sister state to China's Heilongjiang province, has extensive exchanges with its Chinese counterparts in agriculture and clean technology, said Sinnott.

As China outpaced the United States to become the world's largest auto market, the auto industry has become one of the hottest areas for Chinese investment.

The greatest interests among Chinese companies looking for investment in the U.S. state of Ohio were automotive manufacturing, Kristi Tanner, senior managing director of JobsOhio, told Xinhua. These companies were big enough and were ready to expand, she said.
BEIJING - China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) criticized a decision by the United States to impose punitive duties on Chinese steel products on Thursday, saying the US steel industry was overprotected.

"China is deeply worried about the United States's trade protectionism in the steel industry," the MOC said in a statement. "China believes that overprotection is the very reason US steel products uncompetitive."

The US trade authority ruled Wednesday that the US industry had been "materially injured" by imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan.

As a result, the US Commerce Department will levy anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of these products from China at a rate of 265.79 percent and 256.44 percent, respectively.

There were 161 ongoing trade remedy duty orders issued by the US authorities on imported steel products as of the end of April, which shows excessive protection of the country's steel industry, the MOC said.

It attributed the global steel glut to slumping demand after the financial crisis, warning that growing US protectionism could only increase trade friction and conflict.

The best solution is stronger cooperation and coordination, the MOC said, calling for joint efforts to tap potential demand to benefit all countries.

It urged the United States to abide by World Trade Organization rules and apply trade remedy measures discreetly.
KATHMANDU - China remains the largest supplier of chemical fertilizers to Nepal in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the central bank of Nepal said.

The Himalayan country's import from India, traditionally its biggest supplier, has been decreasing in recent years, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).

The bank's data have shown that Nepal imported chemical fertilizers worth $120 million during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year 2015-16, which ends in mid-July.

Although Indian fertilizers had a predominant presence in Nepal's fertilizer market until fiscal year 2013-14, China has emerged as the largest supplier in fiscal year 2014-15 and moved on to remain the largest supplier as of the first 10 months of the current fiscal year too, NRB said. Nepal's import of fertilizers from China has been on the rise since fiscal year 2012-13.

Nepal does not produce chemical fertilizers and imports all the required fertilizers from abroad. Beside formal import, a significant part of the country's demand for fertilizers is fulfilled by smuggling from India through porous border between the two countries.

Nepal's annual demand for fertilizers is over 700,000 tons. Formally imported fertilizers fulfill around 30 percent of the total fertilizer needs of the country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture Development.
A jogger runs on the Bund after a rain with the skyline of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings in Shanghai. [Photo/IC]

China's debt situation has been exaggerated by some international institutions and its debt default risk is under control and will not pose systemic threats, senior government officials said on Thursday.

"Debt risks in China have been overrated by some international institutions," said Ruan Jianhong, deputy head of the Financial Survey and Statistics Department at the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

The Bank for International Settlements said China's overall debt was as high as 254.8 percent of GDP at the end of last year. But Ruan said the bank has included some factors that should not have been taken into account, thus increasing its estimate.

Whatever method is used, China's total debt load is still lower than that of some major world economies, Ruan said.

Wang Kebing, deputy head of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance, said the government still has room to raise debt levels. This would help the private sector to lower its leverage, which has become the major driving force for debt piling up in recent years.

Wang said the government, whose leverage is estimated to be about 39.4 percent of GDP, will continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and increase leverage in stages.

Sun Xuegong, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the National Development and Reform Commission, said China will help enterprises with short-term financial difficulties to conduct debt restructuring.

But this would not include "zombie enterprises" that waste resources.

"The market will decide which enterprises should be shut down," Sun said.

Responding to concerns over default risks facing the banking system, Wang Shengbang, a senior official at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said the country's banking system remains sound.

In the past three years, banks have written off 2 trillion yuan ($304 billion) in bad loans, the equivalent of 1.75 percent of bank lending, Wang said, adding that if no measures are taken, nonperforming loans will accumulate to 4 percent of total bank lending.

Sun said China's debt defaults will not pose a systemic risk as long as economic growth remains within a reasonable range.

Cai Fang, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the country should step up supply-side structural reform, which will help to improve productivity and generate growth.

Cai was speaking at a forum held by the National School of Development at Peking University.

Xin Zhiming contributed to this story.
A man looks at brochures about auto touring at a recent outbound tourism fair in Beijing. The fair attracted more than 400 companies engaged in various travel services from 70 countries. [Photo provided to China Daily]

With more than a decade of driving experience, I was fairly confident and thought it should be easy and enjoyable when my son suggested we drive during our two-week vacation in France and Spain. It was easy, apart from the less than 300 kilometers from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Spanish seaside city Barcelona.

The roads are pretty good, compared with my driving experiences in China including the zigzagging, cliff-side roads in the Yanshan Mountains north of Beijing that lead to the grasslands in Fengning in Hebei province.

What really made me nervous was that, from the rear mirrors, I could see cars were following me so closely, and this gave me huge pressure.

To play it safe, I deliberately drove below the speed limit while on the downhill roads. Now and then, I pulled over if there was a parking ramp to give way to the cars behind me. I did not want to block the lane of others, and more importantly, it was a way to ease the pressure I was under.

When we arrived in Barcelona, I wondered how other Chinese drivers fare on the same route.

As more and more Chinese nationals travel abroad, vacation driving has gained in popularity.

According to a survey by online travel service platform Mafengwo in 2014, about 30 percent of outbound travelers chose to drive themselves or had plans to do so in the future.

Car-rental spending by outbound travelers through online booking amounted to 13.13 billion yuan ($2 billion) in 2015. Given that Chinese nationals made more than 120 million overseas trips last year, car rentals could be a big market.

However, we need to know more about traffic, roads, laws, driving habits, and even the car itself before we take these exotic road trips.

While in a strange driving environment, a few minutes of briefing or a brochure, about the vehicles, local traffic rules and road conditions, would be of tremendous help to the drivers. In my case, I would not have had to seek assistance when picking up the car at Bordeaux airport if I had such a briefing. After inserting the key and pressing the start button, the car did not respond, and this made me, as an experienced driver, feel quite embarrassed.

The car I rented was similar with the French brand model I drive back home in China. That's partly the reason I booked it, but there was slight difference in how to start the engine. It actually turned out to be simple: Foot on the brake pedal and press the start button.

In my case, details really mattered.

Besides providing advice and education, if necessary, when a Chinese traveler books a car, rental companies may also find it helpful to understand know more about the wants, needs and idosyncracies of a Chinese driver.

According to a report by Huizuche, a Chinese car-rental service platform, Chinese travelers have a special preference for SUVs and large vehicles, and show less interest in compact cars, because they want space to store big suitcases, and sufficient supplies of food and drink.

The top five car models are Grand Cherokee, RAV4, Focus, Versa and Corolla, according to the report.

Chinese travelers, particularly affluent younger people, are now likely to travel further afield and spend more. This is a trend that service providers cannot afford to ignore.

In addition to the traditional favorite destinations such as the United States and Canada, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian nations, European countries including France, Spain, the United Kingdom and Italy are gaining favor among Chinese travelers for driving vacations.

In fact, the two countries I traveled toFrance and Spainwere among the top 10 destinations in the Huizuche report.
A salesman demonstrates an iPhone 6 during its launch in Beijing in October 2014. [Song Jiaru/For China Daily]

Apple Inc's loss in a Chinese patent dispute may spell more legal trouble ahead as fast-rising local rivals get bolder in taking on the world's largest technology company.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Office ruled last week that some Apple devices violate the design patents of little-known Chinese smartphone vendor Shenzhen Baili. While the iPhone maker appealed to keep its best-selling gadgets on the market, it could face a rising tide of lawsuits and a threat to its sales if the ruling creates a precedent, according to Counterpoint Research.

The ruling is the latest headache for Apple in China, where it already faces aggressive rivals and a slowing economy in its biggest market outside the US. The nation's patent and intellectual property courts have already ruled against the company over the name of iconic products such as the iPhone.

Baili is just one of scores of smartphone brands trying to cash in on the country's mobile boom. Legitimate lawsuits are on the rise as Chinese companies build up their intellectual property through research and development, said James Yan, Beijing-based research director at Counterpoint. Apple should sell about two to 3 million units of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in each of the second and third quarters in China, about 30 percent of overall sales, Counterpoint estimates.

"Chinese makers have been building their own IP pools over the past years and are able to somehow fight against industry giants," he said. "Apple isn't willing to publicly lose an IP case in China and the best option for them is to offer settlement fees."

Xiaomi Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd are among those that have bulked up their patent portfolios, through deals with foreign companies, acquisitions or intense research. Beijing-based Xiaomi alone applied for more than 3,700 patents in 2015 and this month struck a deal for nearly 1,500 patents with Microsoft Corp. In May, Huawei filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co in the US and China.

Apple representatives in China didn't respond to Bloomberg's multiple e-mails seeking comment. Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, last week said the company had appealed the ruling and its products are available for sale in China.

The defeat is striking also because Apple aggressively defends its technology patents, most notably in a series of lawsuits across four continents against arch-foe Samsung.
Supercell Oy CEO Ilkka Paananen (left) and Martin Lau, president of Tencent Holdings Ltd, pose while meeting with the media in Helsinki, Finland. [Photo/Agencies]

Tencent Holdings Ltd's investment in Finnish mobile gaming company Supercell Oy will accelerate the globalization of the company, experts said.

The Tencent-led consortium said on Tuesday it will pay $8.6 billion to acquire up to 84 percent of Supercell.

Charlie Dai, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc, said the deal fits quite well with Tencent's global strategy as the Shenzhen-based company seeks to grow its mobile success beyond China.

"Tencent will not only have a gaming company with good global brand-name awareness but also popular games that generate good revenue globally," Dai said.

Currently, most of Tencent's gaming fans are located in Southeast Asian countries.

Supercell, developer of the hit title Clash of Clans, has topped the list of research firm App Annie's Top 52 publishers for 2014 and 2015.

Junde Yu, Asia Pacific managing director at App Annie, said Tencent is already monetizing its mobile games from overseas users. Last year, it derived more than half of its $15 billion revenue from gaming.

But some analysts worry whether the acquisition, one of the largest by Chinese companies, can live up to the deal value, given that many gaming developers have faded into mediocrity after making a global hit.

Xue Yongfeng, an analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys International, however, disagreed. "Supercell has already established itself as a company with consistent innovation. All of its four mobile games are phenomenal and enjoy wide popularity," Xu said.

Meng Jing contributed to this story.
Baidu's driverless car on display at the 2nd World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang province, Dec 14, 2015 [Photo/VCG]

Chinese technology companies Baidu Inc and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd were listed as two of the world's 50 smartest companies on Tuesday by a US tech magazine.

MIT Technology Review announced its annual ranking of the "50 Smartest Companies 2016", which identified 50 enterprises that are believed by the news outlet's editors to be "smart" in the way that best combines innovative technology with effective business models to create new opportunities.

Apart from Baidu and Huawei, Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are also on in the list. Didi Chuxing, a four-year-old ride-hailing app that's beating Uber in the domestic market, has also joined the group among the other world's tech behemoths and ambitious startups.

Engineers watch videos on their smartphones during a test journey from Chongqing in southwestern China to Beijing in April. The car used was an autonomous sedan developed by Chang'an Automobile Group. [Photo/China Daily]

Being one of China's major internet search engines, Baidu is developing autonomous cars, backed by a big research and engineering team in Silicon Valley and the company plans to employ more than 100 autonomous-car researchers and engineers in California by year's end, said the magazine.

Another Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei "is now the world's third-largest smartphone vendor thanks to strong sales in both premium and entry-level devices," said the magazine.

CEO of Consumer Business Group of Chinese tech company Huawei, Richard Yu, addresses the audience to launch the Huawei P9 smartphone during a press conference at Battersea Evolution in London on April 6, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

According to market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC), the number of smartphones Huawei shipped in the first quarter of 2016 reached 27.5 million units.

Last year, three Chinese companies: Xiaomi Corp, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd were nominated on the list, with the smartphone manufacturer ranking second.

According to the website of the magazine, some of this year's stars are large companies, like Amazon and Alphabet that are using digital technologies to redefine industries. Others are wrestling with technological changes: companies like Microsoft, Bosch, Toyota, and Intel. Also on the list are ambitious startups like 23andMe, a pioneer in consumer-accessible DNA testing and 24M, a re-inventor of battery technology.
Police in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, have detained 133 suspects after busting a criminal gang that they said stole the personal data of local residents.

Lu Feng, director of the general office of the Guangdong provincial Department of Public Security, said the special police operation earlier this month, involving 560 officers, raided 21 secret dens across the city starting in the early morning of June 12.

"Police also seized 35 mobile phones, 19 computers, 10 sales devices and other criminal tools, plus plenty of personal data during the operation," Lu told a news conference on Wednesday.

The gang seriously compromised people's privacy by selling the personal data, he said.

The Guangzhou operation is just one part of a special campaign launched to fight the theft of personal data in the province between June 12 and 17, according to Lu.

During the campaign, police across the province detained 379 people suspected of infringing personal data.

Meanwhile, police busted 78 criminal gangs that they said stole and resold the personal data in the province. Many identity cards, bank cards, mobile phones, computers and other criminal tools and stolen personal data were seized, Lu said.

Some of the criminal gangs organized telephone fraud and kidnapping, and illegally demanded payment of debts from some creditors, in addition to other crimes.

Lu hinted that more special operations will be launched in the coming months.

According to an annual report on the development of new media issued on Tuesday, stealing information and online telephone fraud account for 90 percent of the mainland's online crimes.

The stolen information was frequently used in other frauds, on gambling or pornography sites, or in other online crimes, according to the report.

The report was published by the Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Social Science Academic Press (China) on Tuesday.
A man stands on the roof of his home, which is steeped in water in the ancient town of Liye in Longshan county, Hunan province, on Tuesday. China Daily

Storm dangers are not over, forecasters warn; southern China swelters under scorching sun

Scorching temperatures in South China are expected to continue into the end of this month as the national forecaster warned of more rainstorms in the river basin areas of the Huaihe River in coming days.

The rainstorms have given way to lingering heat waves in parts of Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces in the past two days, and the hot days and warm nights are expected to continue until the end of the month, according to the National Meteorological Center.

"The area will be in the firm grip of a belt of atmospheric high pressure in the coming days, which means the heat will linger there in the foreseeable future," He Lifu, chief forecaster with the center, said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

High temperatures in South China, expected to be about 35 to 39 degrees, could even extend to the beginning of next month, unless a typhoon comes and interrupts, He said.

Meanwhile, in North China the heat is expected to disperse starting from Thursday after the arrival of a cold front, he said.

Zhang Jianzhong, deputy chief of the meteorological service office of the center, said the lingering heat could raise the level of energy consumption in South China and increase risks of heatstroke.

The national forecaster said that the basin area of the Huaihe River could experience two sweeping rainstorms starting from Thursday, which could trigger flash floods and landslides in Henan and Anhui provinces.

The strongest rainstorms are expected to occur on Thursday and Sunday, with some areas expected to receive precipitation of about 250 millimeters during the period.

"It is vital for people in those areas to keep close tabs on the weather alerts and react in time to the early warnings by authorities," Zhang said.

It is still difficult to forecast whether Yangtze River areas will experience similar flooding to that of 1998, forecaster He said.

"The patterns of El Nino and the subtropical ridge are all similar to that of 1998. But it is still too early to know whether we can expect a similar lingering rainfall," he said.

In 1998, the basin areas of the Yangtze River experienced more than 70 days of torrential rainfall. Those storms eventually triggered a major flood that left at least 1,800 people dead, with more than 100 million people affected.

Floods triggered by heavy rain left 22 people dead and 15 others missing in South China since Saturday, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.


The buildup of ice on the wings and control surfaces of an aircraft flying through freezing rain has long been a major safety concern because it can lead to a crash. Now the phenomenon is getting a new look with a Chinese study published on Tuesday that helps explain why icing occurs.

The well-known culprit in ice formation-supercooled large water drops, or SLDs, with a diameter greater than 1,000 micronscan cause trouble with aircraft control or result in ice-clogged engines.

Safety officials are so concerned about SLDs that the US Federal Aviation Administration enacted new rules in November 2014 requiring that aircraft be able to handle such conditions safely.

Yet, despite the known dangers, significant knowledge gaps have remained.

Now, a research team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University has published the results of an investigation that pointed to a different icing mechanism at work than had been identified previously.

Led by Professor Liu Hong, the team worked in a closed-circuit wind tunnel with an SLD generator and a high-speed visualization system to study abnormal ice buildup on aircraft.

"The thermodynamic effect during the supercooled large droplet impact process has not received sufficient attention," Liu said. "We set out to fill certain knowledge gaps."

The paper was published in the journal Physics of Fluids in the US.

"The most critical significance of our model is that it reflects the heat transfer quantity generated from the thermodynamics of impact," Liu said. "Nowadays, understanding the mechanism of SLD icing has become a significant goal for researchers concerned with air travel safety. So that is our goal in building and testing the most robust model to date."

Test conditions for Liu's Shanghai Icing Wind Tunnel experiments reproduced the meteorological conditions that might be encountered in flight, as well as realistic variable droplet velocities and temperatures.

By reproducing the impingement phenomenon in the lab, researchers observed rapid freezing characteristics in droplets that had diameters of 400, 800 and 1,300 microns.

The results may be used to more closely characterize meteorological conditions to help pilots manage flights safely when they encounter freezing rain and SLD-forming conditions, they said.

"Our results indicate that the droplet size is a critical factor influencing the supercooled heat exchange and effective heat transfer duration," Liu said.



By Xinhua in Washington
Why would anyone want to pay 1.5 million yuan ($228,000) for a hallway in Beijing?

Lianjia real estate company recently listed a shabby 10-square-meter hallway on its website, touting its location in the school district of Beijing First Experimental Primary School of Qianmen Branch, a key primary school.

The real estate agent described it as "a hallway".

"You will not able to build a room to stay, but you can enroll in the First Experimental Primary School of Qianmen Branch."

The online record showed that 54 customers had seen the "house".

Beijing Morning Post reported on the high-priced hallway. After that, it was apparently no longer for sale on the website.

The housing agent in the same school district, Chen Guanglei, said he had no information about the listing.

He said that the cheapest house that would allow a student to enroll at the school is for sale at 3.8 million yuan, he said.

It is not the first time that high housing prices in school districts have caught the attention of media and the public.

In March, China Central Television reported that a 13-square-meter apartment was listed for 4.8 million yuan.

Chu Zhaohui, senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said the high housing prices reflect the unfair allocation of education resources.

"The insanely high housing prices in certain school districts reflect the unfair allocation of educational resources in China's big cities. Parents' desire to get the best education for their children forces them to buy a house near good schools so they can get them admitted there," he said.

Pang Jun, 31, had just returned from a house-hunting trip and bought an apartment without good schools nearby.

"I wanted to buy an apartment in a good school district. But then I found that with only 2 million yuan it is almost impossible," he said, adding that the agent showed him some apartments in good school districts that were within his budget, but "those apartments are not in good condition".

"I may be able to save some money in the future and buy a house in the school district. But now I am helpless," Pang said.






Shenzhen plans to build five or six more international schools by 2020 in an effort to meet the demand of a growing foreign population.

The move is also in line with its efforts to build an international, modern and innovative city.

According to official statistics, more than 26,000 foreigners from 127 countries and regions were living in Shenzhen as permanent residents in 2015, growing 7.2 percent from a year earlier. Japanese were the biggest foreign group, followed by South Korea, the United States, India and Canada.

Fan Kun, deputy director of the Shenzhen Education Bureau, said educational internationalization is an important part of the city's education development.

"By learning from advanced international educational concepts and introducing high-quality international educational resources, Shenzhen will strive to enhance its educational internationalization level and increase its influence and competitiveness globally," Fan said.

There are seven international schools for foreigners currently operating in Shenzhen. At least 10 high schools in the city offer an international curriculum. As more Hong Kong people work and live in Shenzhen, the city has also opened two schools for Hong Kong students and nine schools with Hong Kong classes.

Ziver Olmez, senior business development manager of Harrow International Management Services, an international education organization that manages Harrow International Schools around the world, said that compared with the country's other first-tier cities, the number of international schools in Shenzhen is still small.

"There are big potentials to explore. In the coming years, more foreigners are expected to come and work in Shenzhen, and we are seeing more Hong Kong people going there as well. Therefore, I am quite positive about the prospects of the city's educational internationalization development," he said.

Harrow, which operates in Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai, is planning to set up a new campus in Shenzhen in the near future, he added.

Dale Cox, head of Shekou International School in Shenzhen, which has been running in the city for 27 years, pointed out that hiring quality teachers has been a "great challenge".

"It's very difficult to do and it's very expensive to do. And it's getting harder and harder to do because there are more and more schools competing for those teachers," he said, adding that 60 percent or more of the budget of most international schools is spent on personnel.

Some parents, however, are not so thrilled about sending their children for an international education.

"There is no absolute way to say that international education is 100 percent better," said Wan Zhichun, mother of a 6-year-old boy.

"Children should first be cultivated to have a Chinese identity. That is more important than speaking fluent English or being admitted to a famed foreign university," Wan said.

"International education needs to be combined more with Chinese traditional culture, so that children can truly become Chinese talents with a global perspective," she said.

ally@chinadailyhk.com
Around 9.4 million Chinese students took the gaokao, China's college entrance examination, in early June. Despite the fact that young people have more choices nowadays than in the past, the test continues to be regarded as a crucial, life-changing event.

It's not unusual to find students who have studied 12 or 14 hours a day on most days and for most of their lives to prepare for university studies.

That's why local authorities and parents have done everything possible to make sure the test goes smoothly.

One measure taken lately is traffic control and noise abatement around examination venues to create a peaceful environment so that test takers are not distracted.

Such measures spread the gaokao pressure to the whole society, critics say. Although some are willing to cooperate "for the sake of the students' future", many have argued that such measures are overprotective and place an unnecessary burden on society.

FOR TRAFFIC CONTROL

I have escorted my students to take the gaokao every year, and I can say that those students were all under great pressure. The education system decides that their college choices will be determined by this specific exam. Many are smart and brilliant students but may lose their battle for small reasons.

Zhou Chen, teacher from Taizhou, Jiangsu province

Traffic control and other temporary measures don't last a very long time. I think it's not a big deal. As a matter of fact, I take this sacrifice as a sign of special caring for students by society. I myself was also taken care of when I took my gaokao back in 2005. I can still remember how strangers told me to relax and don't get nervous on my way to the examination venue. I am more than happy to pass the care from strangers to other students. Despite many saying that the gaokao is no longer as important as it was, I still think it is an important chance for students from poverty-stricken areas to change their destiny.

Li Mengyue, civil servant from Wuhan, Hubei province

AGAINST TRAFFIC CONTROL

The first and the most important lesson students should learn before graduation is to respect other people's interests instead of only focusing on their own. Yes, the gaokao is very important to students and may be the only chance for them. But for those who don't take the gaokao, it means an annual inconvenience. Many people may not get the traffic control information in time. This means that they could be trapped on their way to an important meeting or could miss an important phone call.

Zhang Hui, advertising company employee in Shanghai

Many parents and students are too sensitive to the gaokao. It seems like one's destiny is decided by a bus passing around the exam venue. When I took my exam, my parents were in another city and I took a bus to take the exam. Many of my friends were the same. And I didn't hear some sad story about failing an exam because a driver honked his horn outside the window. One's destiny rests on one's self, not on society. If many parents think it is reasonable to disturb other people's lives for the gaokao, I believe more parents would think it's reasonable to do so for every exam. It would be a chaos for the whole society.

Wang Pengfei, insurance company employee in Beijing

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
A trinity system for freshmen recruitment, first adopted by the South University of Science and Technology of China, has attracted hundreds of senior high school students to independent tests across the country.

At the Shenzhen-based university alone, a total of 11,774 senior high school students were given a chance to take the independent recruitment examination on June 15, which was held simultaneously in 22 provincial regions across the country.

The trinity system combines candidates' performance in high school evaluation tests with an independent recruitment test by the university and the national college entrance exam, or gaokao.

"As the national college entrance exam will no longer be the only assessment in recruiting freshmen, we are able to include more students with special skills and help them develop an interest in specific majors," said Ma Dongmei, a teacher at the university.

Performance on the gaokao, will account for 60 percent in the trinity recruitment system, with high school grades making up 10 percent and independent test scores accounting for the remaining 30 percent.

Since the country introduced the independent recruitment system in 2003, 90 universities have adopted it, allowing higher education authorities to pick excellent students in accordance with their interests.

"The system helped the university recruit freshmen who have a clear idea of their future majors and remain dedicated to them," Ma said.

It also increased the number of students who register online, showing that the trinity system "has become a comprehensive evaluation model in higher education reform", Ma said.

The university has been using the recruitment model for five years. According to Ma, 68 percent of last year's graduates continued their studies at internationally noted institutions. Sixty percent of this year's graduates received offers from well-known universities such as Oxford and Columbia.

"I like the test, which is quite different from the gaokao. I hope it will help me be recruited in a more open and innovation-driven university," said Li Liangqiu, a senior high school student from Guangzhou, Guangdong province.
Students attend the rehearsal of a ritual dance in a class featuring ancient art at Shizhuang Junior Middle School in Shandong province. Wang Zhanbo / For China Daily

To Wang Mudi, a grade six student at a rural junior middle school, nothing beats calligraphy class every Wednesday.

"The class offers me a place to practice calligraphy with free tools and ink," she said.

"In addition, I can learn the stories of the ancient calligraphers, which helps me form the right views on life."

Wang goes to Shizhuang Junior Middle School in Houshi village, Shandong province, a place near Qufu, best known as the hometown of the renowned educator and philosopher Confucius.

Yan Xiaoli, Wang's mother, said that without the classes her daughter would be unable to practice calligraphy in their village.

"The most important thing is that my daughter grows up with a positive attitude and is optimistic about her future," Yan said.

The class Wang takes is one of the 20 the Shizhuang school arranges for students based on the six arts of ancient China - rites, music, archery, chariot riding, calligraphy and mathematics, which formed the basis of education in ancient Chinese culture.

The 20 classes include ones on social practice, dance, painting, drama, singing, computer technology and science.

"We create new courses based on the ancient arts to let our students fit in with modern society," said Zhang Lei, head master at Shizhuang school.

"We don't use horses for transport now, so we have created handicraft classes and security education classes under the ancient art of chariot riding.

"By taking these special classes, students, especially those who can't get good scores, can develop their confidence as they can choose the special classes according to their interests."

Primary and middle schools across China have been encouraged to explore new ways to cultivate students' moral character by integrating moral education into school courses.

Shandong province issued a guideline on enhancing moral education in April, encouraging primary and middle schools to explore moral elements in all of the 14 standard courses taught in schools, including Chinese, English and mathematics.

Teachers are also encouraged to play a greater role in cultivating students' morals through an appraisal system.

"The year-end appraisal for teachers will contain teachers' performance on both teaching courses and developing students' morality," said Zhang Zhiyong, deputy head of Shandong Provincial Education Department.

Jiangsu province, meanwhile, aims to develop a strong foundation of comprehensive morality-related teaching with classic courses in Confucianism, for example.

China has revised its primary and secondary school textbooks to include more about ancient poetry and traditional culture, according to the Ministry of Education's Language and Culture Press.

The aim of the revision is to enhance the textbooks' role in cultivating students' moral character, said Wang Xuming, president of the press, last week. The updated textbooks are scheduled to reach students by the autumn.

zhaoruixue@chinadaily.com.cn
BEIJING - China's senior political advisors met Wednesday to discuss poverty alleviation.

Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, attended the meeting.

Vice Premier Wang Yang delivered a report, in which he stressed the need for precise, accurate data on those below the poverty line.

Authorities should design accurate, targeted measures to ensure food, clothing, basic education, housing and medical care for the poor, Wang said.

An appraisal and inspection mechanism should established to make sure that local governments implement the central policies in this regard.

He also said the environment in the poverty-hit areas should be protected as local authorities strive to develop these areas.

Political advisors also discussed various issues concerning poverty relief in panel discussions. Yu, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attended the panels.

The central authority should take "extraordinary measures" and use the full strength of the Party and society to fight poverty, political advisors proposed.

They also put forward suggestions on preferential policies for residents of border areas, increased poverty relief funds, improved health facilities and the selection and promotion system for officials in poverty-hit regions.
BEIJING - Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Wednesday called for more to be done to increase the scientific literacy of Chinese people.

During a nationwide teleconference, Liu said scientific literacy and public services had increased over the past five years.

During the 13th Five-year Plan (2016-2020), projects to elevate scientific literacy should focus on school students, professional farmers, urban workers, officials and public servants, Liu added.

Liu advised various activities could help popularize science, and said local governments and related departments must pay closer attention to scientific literacy.

Official statistics showed that 6.2 percent of Chinese people were scientifically literate in 2015, increasing by almost 90 percent from 2010. The country has a total of 155 science museums.
Beijing No 4 Intermediate People's Court issued a guideline on Thursday to clarify the procedures for filing an appeal, in a move to reduce misunderstandings among residents.

The judicial document calls on judges to explain the legal process to litigants so that they understand their rights and responsibilities.

Chinese courts have been required to accept appeals without hesitation and reply to litigants in a timely manner under a guideline that was forwarded by the Supreme People's Court and has been effective since May 2015.

Under the guideline, which aims to remove unnecessary barriers to access, an appeal should be received once it is registered instead of waiting until a preliminary review of the merits of the case has been completed.

However, confusion among residents over why their appeals had not been filed and what materials should be provided if their case was refused lead the intermediate people's court to make the new specific guideline, it said.

Judges in the court have been asked to help litigants understand the case filing process orally or in writing, and must ensure that this explanation has been understood.

"The move is both to ensure litigants' rights and improve judges' work efficiency," said Shi Donghong, chief judge of the case filing department of the court.

It will prevent residents coming to the court repeatedly and unnecessarily, Shi said.

The new guideline, made up of 17 articles, was piloted last year, with case filing explanations issued more than 10,000 times, according to the court's statistics.

Litigants in 75 cases withdrew their appeals last year after judges explained the case filing process, while from January to May this year, litigants in more than 30 cases have indicated an unwillingness to appeal following an oral or written explanation.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
FUZHOU - A suspect accused of economic crimes who has been on the run for more than seven years has surrendered herself to police, local authorities said on Thursday.

Tang Dongmei, 57, was an accountant with the Arts and Crafts Import and Export Co Ltd in East China's Fujian province. She was suspected of embezzlement, and fled to Australia in December, 2008.

China launched its "Sky Net" campaign in 2015, aiming to bring back 100 suspects accused of economic crimes who have fled overseas.

Tang was number 36 on the list.

With the space for graft and power abuse considerably narrowed at home after years of anti-corruption efforts, China is increasingly looking for international cooperation to apprehend suspects overseas.

A total of 30 suspects on the list have been brought back so far.
A man suspected of killing six people has been found dead in a river at Qianhu village in Haicheng city of Anshan, Northeast China's Liaoning province, the publicity office of Anshan city government said Thursday afternoon on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service in China.

Earlier, Anshan Public Security Bureau had posted a 100,000 yuan ($15,210) reward for information leading to the arrest of the fugitive.

The suspect is 48-year-old Wang Haijun, who is accused of killing his brother-in-law, surnamed Du, as well as Du's wife, three children and unmarried younger sister in Hada village, Haicheng city of Anshan on Tuesday night.

The victims were stabbed and bludgeoned to death, according to a report in Liaoshen Evening News. Five were killed at Du's home, but his second daughter is believed to have been picked up from school by the suspect before being killed later.

Initial reports suggest that the multiple homicide may have been the result of a family dispute.

The bodies of the victims were discovered on Wednesday morning, according to Liaoshen Evening News.

It is said Wang was jobless and debt-ridden due to gambling and opium smoking. He allegedly borrowed money from Du, who made a living raising geese and was not rich.

Local authorities refused to release further details as the case is still under investigation.
XINING - The trial of a former senior legislator in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region accused of accepting bribes began Thursday.

Li Zhi, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of the regional People's Congress, was tried at the Intermediate People's Court of Xining, capital city of Northwest China's Qinghai province.

He stands accused of taking advantage of his positions to offer assistance to others in construction projects, land development, and promotions, requesting and accepting bribes totaling more than 13.19 million yuan (about $2 million), between 1996 and 2013.

The prosecutors produced evidence in court, which was examined by Li and his defense attorney. Li pleaded guilty and showed repentance in court.

More than 100 people, including reporters and members of the public, were in court.

The sentence will be announced on a later date.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced an investigation into Li in March 2015.
Anti-narcotics operations conducted in recent months have revealed a number of novel ways that drug smugglers use to try and avoid detection.

Some hid drugs in their bodies, while others used wine or broad bean sauce to conceal the illicit substances.

Police in the Baiyun district of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, recently broke up a drug trafficking gang that had hidden 282 kg of narcotics inside an industrial air compressor and metalworking machine.

Police said the machines looked normal upon first inspection, but the drugs were later revealed through an X-ray scan. Four members of the gang have been detained.

Meanwhile, police in Sheyang, Liaoning province, discovered 16.53 kg of methamphetamine that had been separated into 23 separate packages and hidden inside thick broad bean sauce. The drugs had been sent from Guangzhou to Shenyang using a logistics company.

On May 28, Guangzhou customs stopped a Ugandan man who had hidden drugs inside his body. The man confessed to swallowing 23 compressed capsules of drugs before he boarded his flight in Uganda. He said he could earn $4,000 by acting as a drug mule.

In the 11 days before the Ugandan's detention, an additional eight African drug mules had been stopped by Guangzhou customs.

They were carrying a combined total of 3.9kg of heroin and 4.4kg of cocaine. One of the men, from Nigeria, was said to have hidden ten packages of drugs up his rectum, each described as being the thickness of a baby's arm.

International drugs smugglers have not been confined to using their bodies as a hiding place, however.

On Nov 30, customs staff at Shanghai Pudong Airport scanned five pieces of luggage belonging to a pair of Chinese passengers. Two of the suitcases were found to contain 32 bottles of wine, inside of which was hidden 28.2 kg of cocaine.

The passengers were a couple who did business in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They said a Chinese man had paid them 3,200 yuan ($486) to bring the wine to China. They were detained for further investigation.
The world congress of the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics (ISBEE) will be held in China from July 13 through 16, convening more than 300 the world's top experts from more than 30 countries.

The congress themed "Ethics, Innovation and Well-Being in Business and the Economy" will facilitate the international society to better understand China's efforts in business ethics and promote the country's researches in the field, according to Lu Xiaohe, executive director of the Business Ethics Research Center under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Distinguished experts, including Wang Zhan, president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Wan Junren, president of the China Association of Ethics and professor at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, Georg Kell, former executive director of United Nations Global Compact, the world's largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative, and Lynn Sharpe Paine, senior associate dean from Harvard Business School, will give keynote speeches at the congress hosted by ISBEE in Shanghai.

The ISBEE, founded in 1989, is the first worldwide professional association dedicated to the research of business, economics and ethics, and is the most influential in the field. The congress, which has been held every four years since 1996, is dubbed "the Olympics of business ethics".
Nearly 500 injured as extreme weather conditions hit city in Jiangsu province

Downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City at 2:30 pm Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

Seventy-eight people were killed and nearly 500 injured in disasters caused by extreme weather conditions, including a tornado, in Jiangsu province on Thursday.

Buildings collapsed as thunder, lightning, rainstorms, hailstorms and the tornado struck counties and villages in the city of Yancheng at about 2:30 pm.By 11 pm, among the 500 injured, about 200 were in critical condition, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang instructed authorities to make every effort to rescue the injured and do everything possible to minimize casualties. They also called for proper handling of the aftermath, as well as intensified meteorological monitoring and geological disaster assessment.

A State Council work group headed by Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei rushed to Yancheng. The ministry has sent relief materials, including more than 1,000 tents and 2,000 folding beds, to the affected areas.

Extreme weather conditions were reported in several townships in Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng.

Gales of 125 kilometers per hour battered several outer townships in Funing county, while in Sheyang, the winds reached 100 km per hour.
Members observe silence for those dead in the tornado at a session of provincial political advisors in Jiangsu, which began at 9 am Friday morning. [Photo from web]

Related: Xi orders all-out rescue efforts in wake of deadly extreme weather

NANJING -- Death toll of the tornado and hailstorms in East China's Jiangsu province has climbed to 98, local rescue headquarters said on Friday.



About 800 people were injured, it said.



Intense downpours, hailstorms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng City close to the eastern coast of China at 2:30 pm on Thursday, destroying buildings, trees, vehicles and electricity poles.



Search for the people through the debris has been completed, said Zhou Xiang, head of the Jiangsu provincial fire corps on Friday.



Cleaning efforts are underway.



More than 1,300 police officers have been called in to assist with the rescue efforts and providing help to the displaced residents.



Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out rescue efforts and the prioritization of life-saving measures.



The city has activated its highest response system following the extreme weather.

Tornados occasionally hit eastern and southern China during the summer, but rarely with the scale of damage like this one in Yancheng. A similar disaster hit the city in March 1966.

Previous report follows:

Villagers survey the rubble of a collapsed house after a tornado struck Funing in Jiangsu province on Thursday. Provided to China Daily

Nearly 500 injured as extreme weather hits Jiangsu province

Seventy-eight people were killed and nearly 500 injured in disasters caused by extreme weather conditions, including a tornado, in Jiangsu province on Thursday.

Buildings collapsed as thunder, lightning, rainstorms, hailstorms and the tornado struck counties and villages in the city of Yancheng at about 2:30 pm.

By 11 pm, among the 500 injured, about 200 were in critical condition, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang instructed authorities to make every effort to rescue the injured and do everything possible to minimize casualties.

They also called for proper handling of the aftermath, as well as intensified meteorological monitoring and geological disaster assessment.

A State Council work group headed by Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei rushed to Yancheng. The ministry has sent relief materials, including more than 1,000 tents and 2,000 folding beds, to the affected areas.

Extreme weather conditions were reported in several townships in Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng.

Gales of 125 kilometers per hour battered several outer townships in Funing county, while in Sheyang, the winds reached 100 km per hour.

Some regions reported blackouts and interruptions to communications.
Fujian Normal University graduates form a "band" for their underwater graduation photos shot at a swimming pool in Fuzhou, capital city of East China's Fujian province, June 19, 2016. The graduates spent over two months to prepare for their final pictures as it's not easy to pose below the surface in 4.5 meter deep water, according to graduate Liang Yedan. But Liang believes the photos will be his best graduation present. [Photo/CFP]
A visitor views a cultural creative product from the Liaoning Provincial Museum at the Hubei Provincial Museum in Hubei, June 22, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] A joint exhibition titled "Make the cultural relics come alive", which collects more than 500 kinds of cultural creative products from more than 40 comprehensive museums, some theme museums and memorial halls nationwide, is underway at the Hubei Provincial Museum. The exhibition, sponsored by the Chinese Museums Association, will run through to July 5.
Ancient Joss papermaking in Baishui village By Yang Fan ( chinadaily.com.cn ) Updated: 2016-06-22

Huang Guichun uses a screen-like tool to shake and stir until a layer of paper pulp is left. [Photo/xinhuanet.com]

The ancient village Baishui at the foot of Ao Mountain in Guizhou province owes much of its success to one of China's four great inventions  papermaking.

When Cai Lun figured out a new papermaking technique using bark and hemp some 1,800 years ago, during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), China's papermaking industry began to thrive.

Ancient papermaking has all but been replaced with modern technology, yet remarkably, the village's thousand year history of the traditional craft has stood the test of time. For its 1,600 residents, mostly of the Dong ethnic group, making paper from traditional means is as much a way of life as it is a means of making ends meet.

Many villagers make paper or produce paper crafts as a sideline business to their general occupation during the slack season, says Huang Zhiwen, the village's secretary.

The paper produced there is used for burning during traditional festivals. Known as Longao Fire Paper (or more commonly as Joss paper) it is tough, white, soft and thin. Though more environmentally-friendly methods of worshipping the ancestors have been gaining popularity, burning the paper remains a common sight in Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei and Guangdong provinces.

Long'ao Fire Paper is made from locally-grown bamboo and requires at least 55 days and 72 procedures until it is ready to be sold. Yet despite the lengthy production process, villagers are able to make a steady living from it.

I can still make about 20 yuan ($3.04) every day, pretty enough for me to buy cigarette and alcohol, said 82-year-old Huang Yusheng, who has made paper for most of his life. Huang still finds time and energy to help people tidy bundles of paper.

An ancient Buddhist temple atop Ao Mountain, popularized in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) has provided a much-needed demand for Joss paper for centuries. The temple gained notoriety after a monk supposedly cured the then-emperor of disease. Since then, people from surrounding regions flock to the temple and stock up on Baishui-made paper before making the climb up to the temple to pray in front of the Buddha.

The allure of a modern life and the chance to make a better living is too much for some. Many villagers have left for Chinas metropolitan cities, leaving the villages age old papermaking industry short-staffed.

However, for Huang Guanchun, home is something you simply cant put a price on. I also tried to make a life in big cities, but after half a month I still thought hometown is the best and came back, Huang said cheerfully. The 55-year-old has been engaging in papermaking for more than 40 years, after learning the technology from his father when he was 14. Nowadays, he makes about 500,000 pieces of paper each year, which earns him anywhere between 50,000 and 60,000 yuan ($329,270 to 395,124).

To preserve the tradition and revive its economy, the local government has been working to build Longao Fire Paper into a unique cultural brand in recent years. Villagers have also been encouraged to develop agricultural tourism by growing lotus plants and developing the fish farming industry.

The efforts seem to have paid off. Approximately 570,000 visitors came to the village in 2015, ensuring the traditions remain a central part of the local economy.
Britons will vote in a referendum on Thursday to determine whether the United Kingdom will remain in or leave the 28-member European Union. The referendum has raised the concerns of the international community because the outcome will have a huge impact on the world economy and international relations.

The latest polls show the "Leave" (or Brexit) camp was tied with the "Remain" camp. According to an ORB poll for the Daily Telegraph two days before the referendum, the number of voters in the "Remain" camp had increased, with support for the UK remaining in the EU being 53 percent while that for leaving the bloc was 46 percent. The newspaper said that last week the "Leave" camp (49 percent) held a one-point lead over the "Remain" camp (48 percent) among the decided voters.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Thursday's referendum was likely to be very close. On Tuesday afternoon, Cameron delivered a speech outside 10 Downing Street, appealing to people to vote to remain in the EU while emphasizing that the UK economy would be stronger if it stayed in the bloc and weaken if it left. He also said that leaving the EU would make it more difficult to keep the country safe.
A girl receives her father's encouragement before she takes the independent college recruitment exams on Feb 19, 2011, in Beijing.

MANY UNIVERSITIES have been complaining since March about the rising cost of using data from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, or CNKI.net, a digital platform of knowledge resources. Some lawyers suspect CNKI.net is abusing its "monopoly" in academic papers' collection and could be violating the Anti-Monopoly Law. China Youth Daily commented on Wednesday:

Despite claiming to be just a "carrier of digital papers", CNKI.net has become an indispensable aid for researchers to complete their theses or dissertations. A media survey found that, in 2014 the website charged Yunnan University 700,000 yuan ($106,236), instead of the original 400,000 yuan, for quotations. In 2013, Capital Normal University paid CNKI.net 1.5 million yuan, which rose to 1.8 million yuan in 2014 and 2.16 million yuan in 2015.

The website has been raising its rates by 10 percent or more every year, and it does not negotiate the rates. Increasing the prices in such a way is contrary to the original intention of establishing HowNetto share and disseminate academic achievements.

As an academic database, CNKI.net should be operating at low profit, because the data it shares with researchers and scholars are not its property; it is just a transport hub of knowledge. Also, it should pay royalties to the authors for sharing and disseminating their works. And only the intervention of higher authorities can ensure it does.
Zhao Zhihao from Beijing Polytechnic, the biggest vocational school in the Chinese capital, is learning basic lathe and turning work at the institute. Wang Zhuangfei / For China Daily

FOR THE FIRST TIME, 20 farmers have been admitted to Yangling Vocational and Technical College in Northwest China's Shaanxi province to receive full-time education over the next three years. China Youth Daily commented on Wednesday:

Yangling Vocational and Technical College should be praised for enrolling the farmers for professional training and further education. But as a vocational college, it was designed to do so in the first place. After all, its mission is to recruit technical and agricultural talents, and offer training courses to workers and farmers.

It took so long to fulfill its responsibility, to some extent, because of the underrated role and poor quality of vocational education in the country. Indeed, most teenagers prefer to enroll in universities to seek higher education rather than the vocational colleges.

White-collar workers seem to get all the respect and high salaries while blue-collar workers, including farmers and construction workers, remain underpaid. No wonder college graduates, even those from agricultural universities, are more eager to start their careers in office buildings rather than the field.

But things are quite different in countries like Australia, where one has to have certain qualifications to become a technical worker or professional farmer, which ensures that blue-collar workers get the respect and salaries they deservesometimes their incomes are higher than white-collar workers.

Of course, market forces have enabled some housekeepers and babysitters in China, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, to earn more than they used to. Also, the number of college graduates who choose to work as street vendors or farmers has been rising. But more should be done to encourage young job seekers to find the job that suits them best rather than running after some seemingly glamorous professions.
Applicants for the national-level civil servant exam wait outside the test site at Nanjing Forestry University in Jiangsu province in this Nov 24, 2013 file photo. [Photo/IC]

REPORTS SHOW that among civil servants, the percentage of leaders or officials at administrative levels is distortedly high. A comment in China Youth Daily calls for deeper reform to change that:

There is a contradiction in China's bureaucratic system: Governments are being enlarged every year and new offices are filled with new employees, yet civil servants keep complaining about shortage of staff.

The reason for that is now clear: The majority of civil servants are administrative-level leaders who only issue orders.

A good example is the bureau of technology in a province in which 61 of the 82 employees are administrative-level officials. That means only 21 staff members actually work while almost three-fourths of them just issue orders.

A more common phenomenon is that, many cities have almost a dozen vice-mayors.

It is the redundant officials that have lowered the efficiency of the governments. Besides, such officials enjoy the welfare and perks at taxpayers' cost, whose cumulative amount comprises a high percentage of the annual national budget, making it impossible to provide sufficient social welfare for ordinary citizens. The redundant officials have made work and life increasingly difficult for the civil servants who do the actual work.

According to recent data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China has a total of 7.16 million civil servants. It can be concluded from the report that only a small percentage of them are non-leader civil servants at the bottom level.

These bottom-level civil servants are doing most of the job yet they get the lowest salaries in the bureaucracy. One such example is Hong Sheng, deputy chief of a small town in East China's Anhui province, who reportedly used car-hailing apps to ferry commuters to work because his salary was not enough to cover his child's medical expenses.

It is time the higher authorities got rid of the redundant officials to raise the administrative efficiency and lower the costs.
Fishing boats anchor at the Tanmen port in Qionghai city, South China's Hainan province, May 16, 2016. China banned fishing from May 16 to Aug 1 in the South China Sea, a measure taken for the 18th consecutive year. [Photo/Xinhua]

In the latest violence against Chinese fishermen, the Indonesian navy detained one Chinese fishing boat in China's traditional fishing grounds near Natuna Islands in the South China Sea and fired at another Chinese fishing boat, injuring one of its crew members. Responding to the strong protest from China's Foreign Ministry against the June 17 incident, Indonesia argued that its navy had acted to "maintain its maritime sovereignty".

The Natuna Islands are in the waters outside China's nine-dash line. But the 200-mile exclusive economic zone claimed by Indonesia overlaps with a 50,000-square-kilometer area within the nine-dash line, which Chinese fishermen have been using for ages.

Under the "maritime power" strategy, the Indonesian government has used heavy-handed measures against "illegal fishing activities" in the South China Sea.

Beijing does face provocations from several parties in the South China Sea, and any forcible reaction to Jakarta may push Indonesia closer to such countries as the Philippines and cause it to become a new card for the United States to play in the power game with China. But for the sake of its sovereignty and national interests, China will not go on making unprincipled concessions.

China does not want its historical opportunity for peaceful development to be easily ruined, but that would not be at the cost of losing its territory.

China has to deal with fishing disputes with Indonesia in a low-key manner before Jakarta takes measures that could intensify the disputes. However, China will respond resolutely if the South China Sea issue is used as a chip to pressure it to change its stance. Maintaining friendly bilateral ties is in the interest of not only China, but also Indonesia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R,front) and his wife Peng Liyuan are greeted by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoev (L,front) and Governor of Bukhara Province Muhiddin Esanov upon their arrival at Bukhara International Airport, Uzbekistan, June 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Enlarged SCO, stronger moral voice

Some observers have read an aggressive political, even military role into an expanded Shanghai Cooperation Organization as both India and Pakistan are likely to be made full members at the 16th SCO summit in Tashkent on June 23-24. A few have even fantasized the SCO as a counterbalance to NATO. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

The SCO's founding members have made it clear that the twin principles of openness and transparency will continue to drive both its ethos and action.

But the SCO's role cannot be isolated from the tumultuous international context. The US' invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and its interference in Syria have destabilized large regions. Its role in the South China Sea has been unwise. And its egging of NATO into assuming an anti-Russia position can only be described as reckless. So by incorporating South Asia, the SCO will gather more mass, and thus more traction, in making its moral voice and friendly advice heard.

Regarding the risk of India-Pakistan rivalry affecting the SCO, it is true relations between the two countries have not been smooth, but both have vowed to respect the SCO's principles and culture.

Beijing and Islamabad have been drawn even closer thanks to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and Pakistan is bound to emulate both China and the ethos of the SCO in leveraging its unique geographical position to strengthen its economy and fight terrorism. Also, the SCO will provide Islamabad with another platform to further develop its already improving ties with Moscow.

For India, the SCO will provide equally palpable benefits. India has some border disputes with Chinamostly a legacy of its colonial historyand the SCO will offer it a good opportunity to engage with China, which is more than willing to partner it in its economic development. As a full member of the SCO, India will also ponder whether to join a futile and self-defeating coalition of sorts being formed by a third country against China or to join hands with China in ameliorating the lives of its huge population.

China and Russia are now two of the most important poles in the new economic and political world order. A multipolar world will be a safer and more prosperous world than a unipolar one, and the strengthened moral voice of an expanded SCO will be mutually beneficial for its current and new members, and for the international community.

Aamir Khan, based in Pakistan, is a visiting professor at Beijing Dublin International College at Beijing University of Technology.

India, Pakistan have roles to play in SCO

There are concerns over the negative implications of making India and Pakistan full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization given their contentious bilateral equations. Indeed, there is some truth in these insinuations, especially because the SCO works by consensus, with all members having veto powers.

But despite the 25 years of hiccups of the not-so-robust South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, India and Pakistan have cooperated on various issues in the association, from creating a South Asian Free Trade Area in 2006 to launching a South Asian university in 2009. SAARC was also the first (in 1987) to adopt a Regional Convention for Suppression of Terrorism, which was upgraded through an "Additional Protocol" in 2003.

Moreover, the existing six members of the SCO have taken cognizance of the two South Asian countries' track record as observers in the organization since 2006. Besides, the rigorous process of their induction, which started in July last year, will continue for at least one more year and further familiarize them with the SCO's robust substance and style.

The bilateral equations of India and Pakistan will benefit from the positive energy of the SCO but will the SCO gain anything by having them as full members? Yes, because India and Pakistan both are major victims of terrorism, which remains the most enduring focus of the SCO ever since its inception in 2001.

In fact, Tashkent that is hosting the SCO summit also houses the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure and the induction of India and Pakistan (and potentially Iran) will strengthen the organization's remit to fight terrorism. India has been working since 1996 to evolve a "Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism" and RATS could provide it with an ideal platform to build a shared understanding with Eurasian countries, with Russia and China in the lead.

President Xi Jinping's three-nation tour has generated further excitement about China's Belt and Road Initiative, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which could prompt India to explore comprehensive partnerships with the initiative and some of its own similar initiatives. More important, the SCO will enable India to balance its growing closeness to the US by strengthening its engagements with Russia and China.

But Pakistan will benefit much more by its stronger integration into the Belt and Road Initiative, which will expedite the building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, give it greater recognition as being critical to Afghanistan's stabilization and, most of all, help it return to the hyphenated relationship and parity with India.

Swaran Singh is professor of diplomacy and disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
In the light of unstable economic situation in the world, it is getting more and more important for the countries to unite and stand up to the ongoing issues. In 2013 China came up with the initiative One Belt, One Road, an economic framework called to connect more than 60 countries in the worlds three major continents  Asia, Africa and Europe and aimed to seek new business opportunities for the countries involved, improve the economic situation in the member countries, benefit from the mutual trade and foster cultural and educational exchanges. In the mentioned initiative, Central and Eastern Europe presents a crucial part, as a quarter of countries along the Belt and Road route are located there.

During five days, from June 17 to 22, under the program One Belt, One Road, the Chinas president Xi Jinping paid visits to Poland, Serbia and Uzbekistan.

Each visit was unique in their nature and fruitful for both parts. I personally believe these visits will be foremost beneficial to Serbia, Poland and Uzbekistan, and then China. China is able to help with investments in these countries. At the same time, the regions present a very attractive business environment due to their location. For instance, Serbia boasts a key point location along the One Belt, One Road route; it will play a big role in promoting the proposed projects along the route. Due to some political tensions between Serbia and Europe (as Serbia is still not an EU member), the resources of the country were not fully exploited. I think, with its new role in One Belt, One Road program, Serbia will be able to get better financially, as over 20 documents were signed by both parts. It is expected to strengthen cooperation in infrastructure, industry and agriculture. Moreover, it is the first visit of Chinas leader to Serbia in thirty years.

Xi Jinpings visit to Poland was also of great importance. Poland is Chinas largest trade partner in the Central and Eastern Europe region. Above all, last year Poland joined Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The recent visit of president Xi Jinping opened new perspectives for Polish food and agricultural products export. Also, with Poland being the largest economy in Central and Eastern Europe and with its unique position in the heart of the European continent, it for sure presents a very business-friendly environment. Poland boasts ecologically clean products and high-quality food, and their export for sure will meet the needs of Chinese people.

The last in a row visit was paid to Uzbekistan, a region, geographically and economically important for One Belt, One Road initiative. Moreover, Xi Jinping will attend the Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to be held in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, from June 23 to 24. Chinas influence in Uzbekistan has been growing in recent years. Since Uzbekistan is one of the crucial points along the One Belt, One Road route, Beijing has invested a lot into the transportation system of Uzbekistan. In addition, China has been expanding its presence in the energy sector of Uzbekistans economy, for example, uranium or chemical industry. So far, China is the largest investor in Uzbekistan.

During a five day visit, Xi Jinping made a big effort in establishing a mutual dialogue between the member countries of One Belt, One Road initiative in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. I believe, the program will largely benefit its participants and improve the business climate and financial situation in these countries.

Anastasia Sukhoretskaya is a senior blogger with China daily and intern journalist with International Talent magazine.




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UNITED NATIONS -- The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed "strong concerns and opposition" to Pyongyang's launch of two suspected missiles, saying that the Wednesday launch is "in violation of" all relevant council resolutions.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, after the fifth test-launch had failed, Yonhap news agency reported citing military authorities.

It has yet to be known whether the DPRK's sixth test-launch of the missile, which is known to be capable of hitting part of the U.S. territory such as Guam and the outer reaches of Alaska, was successful.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan chairs a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Turkey, June 20, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

ISTANBUL - Turkey may go to a referendum over whether to continue the accession talks with the European Union (EU), President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Addressing the graduation ceremony of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation University in Istanbul, Erdogan slammed the European countries for failing to meet their obligations under the EU-Turkey deal seeking to stem the illegal flow of migrants to Europe.

"You are not keeping your promises," he said. "EU does not accept Turkey's membership as the majority of our citizens are Muslims."

Under the deal with Turkey that went into force on March 20, EU agreed on more aid, a visa-free travel for Turks and expedited accession talks in exchange for Ankara's help in controlling the flow of migrants.

"Turkish citizens are not eager for visa-free travel and it is the EU who is after Turkey over fears on what would happen if Syrian refugees arrive at their borders," Erdogan said.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave after voting in the EU referendum, at a polling station in central London, Britain June 23, 2016. [Photo by Jiang Shan/chinadaily.com.cn]

Britons started voting in a referendum to decide whether the UK continues its membership of the 28-member European Union, to which it has belonged for 43 years.

Polls opened at 7 am local and will close at 10 pm, with over 12,000 polling stations in schools, libraries and other public buildings being used. Locked voting boxes will be transported to 382 regional counting centres after the poll closes, with each centre declaring individually from about midnight onwards, according to state broadcaster the BBC.

The campaign has been highly acrimonious, with the Remain camp headed by Prime Minister David Cameron and the Vote Leave group headed by former London mayor Boris Johnson, Justice Secretary Michael Gove, and former cabinet minister Chris Grayling; a separate group called Get Britain Out is headed by maverick politician Nigel Farage.

One Remain campaigner, Jo Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two and a Labour member of parliament, was stabbed and shot to death on the street of her constituency in Birstall, West Yorkshire last week.

Police are investigating whether her killer had a political motive.

According to government statistics, a record 46.5 million people have registered to vote, with over 600,000 new electors registering in the weeks running up to todays vote.

Commentators have been predicting a high turnout of over 70 percent  unlike many other European countries, voting is not mandatory in the UK. The biggest turnout in modern times was 83.9 per cent in 1950, although in recent years the figure has been between 60 and 70 percent.

Analysts say weather conditions can play a major part  last night south east England was hit by severe thunderstorms and torrential rain, with over 300 emergency calls made to the London Fire Brigade last night as residents reported lightning strikes, flooding, and blocked roads.

Strict media rules apply in the period when the polling booths are open, with no campaigning and no speeches or statements by political leaders.

According to the BBC, the first results will emerge just after midnight, with a final result due around 7.00 am on Friday. The official announcement, which is legally binding, will come at 10 a.m in the northern city of Manchester.

To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
A photo shot and tweeted from the floor of the House by US House Rep David Cicilline shows Democratic members of the US House of Representatives, including Rep John Lewis (right) staging a sit-in on the House floor "to demand action on common sense gun legislation" on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, June 22, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Rebellious Democrats shut down the House's legislative work on Wednesday, staging a sit-in on the House floor and refusing to leave until they secured a vote on gun control measures before lawmakers' weeklong break.

Exasperated Republicans were forced to recess while cutting off cameras that showed the protest. But in an unprecedented step, C-SPAN used live video feeds from one lawmaker's Periscope account and another's Facebook page to transmit words and images from the House chamber.

More than 200 Democrats led by Georgia Rep John Lewis demanded a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists in the aftermath of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people in a gay nightclub.

"No bill, no break," shouted Democrats, who demanded that Speaker Paul Ryan keep the House in session through its planned break next week to vote on gun legislation.

Democrats accused Republicans of political cowardice by failing to schedule a vote.

"Are they more afraid than the children at Sandy Hook?" asked Rep Mike Thompson, referring to the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 elementary school children, in Newtown, Connecticut. "What is so scary about having a vote?"

Lewis, a veteran civil rights leader, asked what Congress has done, then answered his own question: "Nothing. We have turned a deaf ear to the blood of innocents. We are blind to a crisis. Where is our courage?"

Rep Frank Pallone called Republicans "cowards."

Ryan dismissed the protest as "nothing more than a publicity stunt." In an interview with CNN, the Speaker said the House will not vote on a "bill that takes away a person's due process."

Republicans emerging from a closed-door meeting said they would hold votes on other legislation, but not the gun votes demanded by the Democrats.

"We are going to go about our business starting tonight," said Republican Rep Ann Wagner. Democrats were certain to challenge any move.
State Councilor Yang Jiechi and his EU counterpart Federica Mogherini vow to deepen the bilateral relationship at press conference of the sixth round of high-level strategic dialogue held in Brussels on June 10, 2016. [Photo by Fu Jing/chinadaily.com.cn]

Brussels announced it was updating its strategy in dealing with Beijing, a partner which it says is rapidly increasing its international influence and should be more closely engaged.

The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European Commission issued a Joint Communication on Wednesday entitled "Elements for a new EU strategy on China", which maps out the European Union's relationship with China for the next five years.

The EU should pursue an ambitious agenda of co-operation with China. "China's needs are as great as ours and failure to cooperate also brings adverse consequences for China," the paper was cited as saying.

Brussels announced the changes prior to the forthcoming summit in Beijing in the first half of July and European Commission said the elements in the paper can be used to prepare the summit.

The European Commission's last Communication on China was adopted a decade ago in 2006. Brussels says the EU and China have both undergone considerable changes since then and China has a stronger presence in all regions of the world, economically and politically.

"This new reality calls for a fresh EU narrative that recognize the need to deal with these new developments. The EU's new strategy therefore sets out to promote EU interests and underline EU values in its relationship with China for the next five years," the paper was cited as saying.

Federica Mogherini, the High Representative and Vice-President of European Commission said: "The European Union and China already cooperate on so much...and the Joint Communication that we have adopted today will, I am sure, enable our relationship to fulfill its clear potential."

She said China and the EU have worked together on the global and political issues of the times, such as Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, migration and climate change.

"But we can and must do more to connect the European Union and China. Our citizens, industries, and organizations can all benefit from a closer, improved, and better-defined EU-China relationship based on shared responsibility," she added.

The Joint Communication identifies major opportunities for the EU's relationship with China, in particular the aim of creating jobs and growth in Europe as well as vigorously promoting a greater opening up of the Chinese market to European business, thus contributing to the first priority of President Jean-Claude Juncker's Commission.

According to the paper, broader ambitions such as a deep and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement can be considered once an ambitious investment agreement between the two sides has been concluded and reforms that level the playing field for domestic and foreign companies have been implemented.

The Joint Communication also highlights opportunities for closer cooperation and partnership between the EU and China in the fields of foreign and security policy.

"Building on the positive experience of the Iran nuclear talks, the European Union and China should work more closely together in order to resolve international conflicts and foreign policy priorities both bilaterally and in multilateral contexts such as the UN system and in the G20," the official position paper said.

To contact the reporter: fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
The UN Global Compact on Wednesday unveiled a multi-year strategy to drive business awareness and activity that supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) by 2030.

Key elements of the new Making Global Goals Local Business strategy include an annual Leaders Summit, the SDG Pioneers program, Local Network SDG Action Plans, UN-business partnerships, and impact reporting. The announcement was made at the 2016 UN Global Compact Leaders Summit, a two-day gathering of more than 1,000 leaders from business, finance, civil society, labor, academia, the UN and government.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the UN Global Compact is uniquely prepared and positioned to lead business in the SDG era.

"Achieving the SDGs will require unprecedented cooperation, radical innovation and extraordinary leadership. And it will require us each to be a pioneer, forging ahead into new territory," Ban said. "That means taking personal and corporate responsibility for how we do business and who we choose as our staff and partners. It means taking stock of our decisions as consumers and investors. It means raising our voices and taking a stand when it matters. The United Nations Global Compact is the forum to make all this happen."

This year's Leaders Summit marks the first official business forum since the launch of the SDGs, ushering in a new era and expectation for business to contribute to global goals. While the SDGs provide a blueprint for creating a sustainable world by 2030, they also point the way to the business activities and markets of the future. Through the Leaders Summit, the UN Global Compact aims to jump-start the responsible business practices, breakthrough innovation and transformative partnerships that will be needed to achieve the SDGs.

Lise Kingo, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, said the Leaders Summit is the first step on a long-term journey to engage business on the 2030 Agenda. "The expectations on business in the new SDG era are immense, but at the same time the opportunities are enormous," said Kingo. "We need to invent, develop and launch countless new ideas and solutions within a very short time."

On Wednesday, the UN Global Compact announced 10Local SDG Pioneers, including Xiaohui Liang, Chief Researcher of China National Textile & Apparel Council, from China. They are selected from more than 600 nominees in 100 countries.

"We need pioneering corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who can build the sustainable societies of tomorrow. Each of the 2016 Local SDG Pioneers exemplifies how business can be a force for good in addressing the challenges we face as a global society," Kingo said.
Many CEOs believe that the UN Sustainable Development Goals will be achieved through participation from the private sector, and most think that the goals are an opportunity for companies to rethink sustainability, a new survey finds.

The survey of more than 1,000 CEOs finds that they believe the UN sustainability goals give their companies a "framework to restructure sustainability efforts" and nearly 80 percent of respondents think they can contribute to these global goals through their companies' core businesses.

Almost all the CEO respondents believe that they have a personal responsibility to make sure their companies plays a core role in society and that doing so helps them differentiate themselves among competitors in the industry.

The survey was conducted by consulting firm Accenture in partnership with the UN Global Compact, a UN initiative that works with businesses to adopt sustainable policies and promote corporate social responsibility. It works with more than 13,000 corporate participants and stakeholders in 170 countries.

The survey was released on Thursday in conjunction with the 2016 UN Global Compact Leaders Summit held in New York City.

"The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals gives companies a clear and universal road map to make global goals, local business," said Lise Kingo, executive director of the UN Global Compact, in a statement about the study.

"CEOs are accepting a mandate for radical action, and see a window of opportunity for transformation. At the UN Global Compact, we will engage businesses globally with governments and civil society on the SDGs, aiming to unleash the full potential of the private sector to reshape the global economy and deliver the world we want by 2030," she said.

Peter Lacy, managing director of Accenture Strategy, said that CEOs feel the need to reshape business models to support a responsible and sustainable global economy, and that digital technologies allow companies to innovate in order to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The study found this year's results to be very different from when respondents participated in a 2013 survey, when "respondents expressed a sense of frustrated ambition in their efforts to become more sustainable," the report said. Business leaders today are making progress on embedding sustainability into their businesses.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said their company can quantify the business value of their sustainability initiatives, up from 38 percent in 2013, the survey found.

Companies with revenue of $1 billion and above showed the most commitment to sustainability with 76 percent of them engaging with investors on its value to their businesses, according to the report.

Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN, said on Wednesday that governments and the private sector "must align their investments and infrastructure decisions with sustainable development goals." He said that they must also work together on the goal of limiting global temperature rises.

"Achieving the SDGs (sustainable development goals) will require unprecedented cooperation and extraordinary leadership, and it will require us each to be a pioneer, forging ahead into new territories," he said.

"That means taking personal and corporate responsibility for how we do business and who we choose as our staff and partners. It means taking stock of our decisions as consumers and investors. It also means the raising our voices and taking a stand when it matters."

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com
File photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [Photo/Xinhua]

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an interview ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

All members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) agree to beef up cooperation with China within a Silk Road cooperation framework proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Vladimir Putin.

The Silk Road Economic Belt is a "very well-timed and appealing" initiative that has "great potential," Putin commented.

In a recent EEU meeting in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, all the five members -- Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia -- expressed support for carrying out cooperation with China within the Belt framework, Putin recalled.

In the first phase of cooperation, the two sides can set up a free trade area, he proposed, noting that the fundamental path of world economic development and EEU-China cooperation is to promote openness.

Meanwhile, with more and more countries in the region interested in joining the ranks, "we shall try to avoid establishing a closed economic and trade bloc," he added.
The SCO Summit meeting kicks off on Thursday, with the most important meeting between Indian Prime Minster Modi, Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping is widely seen as a final push to for India to win support to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

"There will be a meeting of the Prime Minister with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. There will be some other bilateral meetings also. During the meeting there will be full review of bilateral agenda," Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Tashkent on Thursday to attend the SCO Summit. During the summit, India along with Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The organization deals with security and defense and during the summit the leaders of the member states will explore ways to deepen security cooperation and intelligence sharing. India has shown its interest in strengthening its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure.

Modi's meeting with the Chinese President will be crucial as he is likely to seek China's support for India's membership in the NSG.
Wreaths are laid on the ground in commemoration of murdered member of parliament Jo Cox in London, June 23, 2016. [Photo by Jiang Shan/China Daily]

Thomas Mair, the man accused of murdering British member of parliament Jo Cox, will go on trial on November 14 and the case will be dealt with as a terrorism trial, a judge told the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court of England and Wales on Thursday.

For the second time this week Mair appeared via video link from the high-security prison at Belmarsh, east London, and only spoke to confirm his name. At a Monday hearing Mair declined to submit a bail application to the court.

During a 15-minute hearing Thursday morning, Mr Justice John Saunders said the case would be treated as a terrorism trial for "case management purposes." Mair's preliminary hearing was held at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London last Saturday, where he gave his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain" during proceedings.

Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two who became a Labour member of parliament in 2015, was stabbed and shot outside her constituency surgery in Yorkshire last Thursday, and 77-year-old Bernard Kenny suffered a stab wound to the abdomen while attempting to defend her.

Bystanders said Cox's assailant shouted the name of a right-wing anti-immigration group during the attack. Cox was a strong advocate of refugee and human rights and was active on the Remain campaign trail for Britain's referendum on its EU membership.

Mair is charged with murder, possession of an offensive weapon, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence, and grievous bodily harm.

Contact the reporter at angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
City workers walk past the Bank of England in the City of London, Britain, March 29, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Foreign exchange traders throughout Europe planned to stay up all night on Thursday into Friday to keep an eye on results from the UK's in/out referendum because they saw the outcome as something that could have a tremendous impact on sterling.

Traders said they would create strategies on whether to buy or sell sterling as indications from exit polls came in throughout the night.

Shortly before the polls closed sterling rose to its highest point against the US dollar this year, hitting $1.4992. Analysts said that was a sure sign the markets were anticipating a win for the Remain camp.

Richard Falkenhall, senior currency strategist at the Sweden-based bank SEB, said he would take a few hours of sleep on Thursday afternoon before returning to his desk at 9 pm Central European Time. He was ready to work throughout the night monitoring results of the vote.

At about midnight Central European Time, Falkenhall's team planned to host a client call to update the bank's customers on possible currency movements. The bank will have colleagues in Stockholm, London, New York and Singapore cooperating in executing trades.

Falkenhall said such all-nighters are rare. The last time he personally worked through the night in similar circumstances was when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008.

Because sterling has appreciated considerably in recent days, the expectation of the UK remaining within the EU has already been priced into the value of the pound, he said. Therefore, Falkenhall said sterling is not expected to move dramatically if the UK votes to remain in the bloc.

But, if Britain votes to leave, he predicts sterling could fall in value by as much as 10 percent. If that happens, trading volatilities will grow significantly.

"If we get signs of Britain potentially voting out, we would expect much more trading activities," he said.

Falkenhall added that the bank is prepared to call in as many staff as is needed throughout the night.
On June 20, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the grand welcoming ceremony hosted by Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace during a state visit to Poland.

The two leaders have agreed to upgrade the China-Poland ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, while witnessing the signing of cooperation deals on information connectivity, infrastructure construction, and productivity.Both heads of state had attended the opening ceremony of the Silk Road International Forum and China-Poland Regional Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum, as well as an arrival (in Warsaw) ceremony of the first CHINA RAILWAY Express freight train.Xi also met with Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and legislators of Polish parliament. Xi's trip marked a milestone for bilateral relations.

The upgraded partnership conforms with the times, providing a new impetus for both sides to deepen cooperation in all fields and to usher in genuine benefits for the two nations.

The visit served as a breakthrough in the promoting a closer synergy of the Belt and Road construction strategies of both nations, offering a new paradigm of cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. The visit has expanded pragmatic cooperation under the framework of the "16+1 Cooperation," setting new examples for stronger ties between China and Central and East European countries.

By Xu Xiujun, deputy director of International Politics and Economics Department, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting, Chi Ying
China, Uzbekistan working together to build community of common interests

President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that China and Uzbekistan are working together to ensure the success of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Speaking to the Uzbek parliament, Xi said that the trade volume between China and the countries along the Belt and Road routes has reached $1 trillion, one-quarter of China's total foreign trade volume.

Chinese companies have invested more than $14 billion in the countries along the Belt and Road route, creating more than 60,000 job opportunities, Xi said.

Xi put forward the proposals to create a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in 2013, with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network along the ancient Silk Road trade routes to connect Asia with Europe and Africa.

On Wednesday, Xi also attended a ceremony to mark the trial operation of the longest railway tunnel in Central Asia.

The Qamchiq Tunnel, which is 19.2 kilometers long, is part of the 169-km Angren-Pap railway linking Tashkent with Uzbekistan's eastern city Namangan. It was constructed by the China Railway Tunnel Group.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov said that the Qamchiq Tunnel is an important infrastructure project that has much significance for his country.

Mentioning that Xi's hometown Xi'an is a city that flourished in olden times because of the ancient Silk Road, Karimov spoke highly of the Chinese president's dedication to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Jointly building the Belt and Road is a highlight and priority in China-Uzbekistan cooperation, Xi wrote in a signed article published in the leading Uzbek newspaper Narodnoye Slove on Tuesday, ahead of his state visit to the country.

"China appreciates that Uzbekistan was one of the first countries to express interest in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and has joined it as a founding member," Xi also wrote in the article.

On Tuesday, Xi visited Bukhara in central-southern Uzbekistan, a city-museum with a history of more than 2,500 years, which he called a "shining pearl on the ancient Silk Road". Located along the route of the ancient Silk Road, the city has long served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture and religion.

Chinese Ambassador to Uzbekistan Sun Lijie said on the eve of Xi's visit that Uzbekistan has been a famous stop on the Silk Road since ancient times, and the Qamchiq Tunnel will become a link for the whole of Central Asia, which is a major partner of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
On June 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a two-day state visit to Uzbekistan upon invitation and attends the 16th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit Meeting in Tashkent On June 23 and 24. Xi also visited the historical cultural city Bukhara known as the "living fossil on the Silk Road", accompanied by the Uzbek Prime Minister Mirziyaev.

On June 22, Uzbek president Karimov held a grand welcome ceremony for President Xi.

The two presidents held formal talks and decided to upgrade China-Uzbekistan relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership, while witnessing the signing of many cooperation documents on diplomacy and economy.

Uzbekistan is the third and last stop of Xi's Europe-Asia tour which has taken him to Serbia and Poland. And the themes again feature in high-level reception, upgrading bilateral ties, and expanding pragmatic cooperation.

2000 years ago, the ancient Silk Road linked the Uzbek people with Chinese people.

In this new historical moment, the joint construction of Belt and Road also becomes a highlight and mainline in China-Uzbekistan cooperation.

The bilateral tie is stepping into a rapid development golden era.

Xi's visit has improved the level of bilateral ties and promoted the docking of the Belt and Road Initiative, injecting new impetus to the all-round cooperation between China and Uzbekistan.

The blueprint has already drawn, and the sail is ready to set out.

It is believed that Xi's visit opened a new chapter of China-Uzbekistan friendship and the two countries would march onto a broader and smoother way of joint development and prosper.

By Xu Xiujun, deputy director of International Politics and Economics Department, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting, Chi Ying
China and Turkmenistan should expand energy cooperation, which is an important part of the bilateral strategic partnership that could benefit the economy of both sides, President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

Xi made the remarks while meeting with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow in Tashkent at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

China appreciates Turkmenistan's support and participation in the Belt and Road Initiatives, and welcomes the country's measures of improving its infrastructure and boosting the efficiency of logistics transportation, Xi said.

Chinese companies have proactively participated to the public interest activities and benefited local people while they do business in Turkmenistan, he said.

The Chinese president said that he was glad to see that Turkmenistan will provide Chinese language courses in primary and middle schools.

The two countries should fight against the three forces of extremists, terrorists and separatists through enhancing law enforcement cooperation, he said.

Berdimuhamedow reiterated the country's support toward the "One-China" policy, and he said that Turkmenistan would like to participate in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiatives.

The two countries should enhance cooperation in areas including energy, traffic and high technology, he said.

China is Turkmenistan' largest trade partner, and the two-way trade volume reached $7 billion last year.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, June 23, 2016. [Photo by Rao Aimin/Xinhua]

Common interests weigh much more heavily than any concrete disputes between China and India, President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

The two countries should enhance pragmatic cooperation in various sectors including trade, railways, industrial parks, energy and power, information technology and environmental protection, Xi said.

The Chinese president made the remarks while meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the founding of the SCO.

Xi congratulated Modi on India's progress in applying to join the SCO as a member state. India will sign a memorandum of understanding over its obligations to become a member state of the SCO, as will Pakistan.

Xi welcomed Modi to come to China to attend the G20 summit to be held in Hangzhou in September. He also said that he will travel to India in October to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit.

Modi thanked China for supporting his country's application to the SCO. He said that India would like to enhance practical cooperation with China and boost communication in regional and international affairs.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
Presi dent Xi Jinping meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on June 23, 2016. [Photo by Li Tao/Xinhua]

The upcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China is "of special significance" in light of the two countries' joint efforts to boost mutual political and strategic trust, President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

China would like to stress the idea of being friendly for generations with Russia, a notion mentioned in the treaties signed by the two countries, Xi said.

Putin's state visit to China starts Saturday.

Xi made the remarks while meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

China would like to connect the country's Belt and Road Initiatives with Russia's construction of a Europe-Asia economic coalition, Xi said, adding that the two countries will strengthen coordination on global and regional affairs.

The SCO member states should support each other and settle any disputes through dialogue and negotiation, Xi said.

The Chinese president also called for joint efforts on security between SCO members, including Russia, and improving the mechanisms of the war against drugs.
This is the third in a series of posts in response to emails and comments asking us to explain how Western companies can better negotiate with Chinese companies.

In part one, Negotiating With Chinese Companies: Be The Rabbit, we talked about using the Zen technique of being the rabbit, which in Western terms translates mostly into just being patient, hanging back and letting the Chinese side start negotiating with itself. In part two, Negotiating With Chinese Companies: Walk and Dont Look Back, we talked about how Western companies must 1) convey a willingness to walk away from the deal and 2) actually be willing to walk away from the deal. In this third part, we again emphasize the need to be patient, this time when facing the death by a thousand cuts negotiating tactic.

Chinese companies, both SOEs and privately held, are in a mad dash to purchase foreign technologies on the cheap. And when I say technologies, I mean just about every technology possible: health care, internet, Internet of Things, computer hardware, software, manufacturing. It is truly endless. I feel like I am in the middle of a gold rush. A severely flawed gold rush.

What are the flaws?

The biggest flaw is that the default option for these Chinese companies is usually to try to get the technology for literally nothing or next to nothing. And far too often, the foreign company goes along with this.

Let me explain.

The media covers the massive China tech deals. Deals like Midea Groups $5 billion bid for Germanys robotics specialist Kuka AG. Those are not the deals my firm is seeing. Not at all. The deals we are seeing involve  at least half the time  second and third tier technologies held by foreign companies on an economic precipice. The China company swoops in and offers a lot of money for the technology. The foreign company then retains my law firms China transactional lawyers and we then explain why what looks like such a good deal is actually a terrible deal. Our foreign company client then tells us that if it doesnt make this deal it may have to downsize or even shut down. Some of these companies are quite large and quite well known, but their ability to secure additional funding is marginal.

And then over the next few months the two sides negotiate and during that time the Western side reveals  either intentionally or unintentionally, its desperation to get the deal done. And during that time, the Chinese side constantly and unremittingly seeks to exploit that desperation, using the following tactics.

Death by a thousand cuts. The Chinese company starts out saying it will pay $20 million for the technology, as though that is the extent of the deal. Then it drafts some vaguely worded MOU that mentions $20 million in passing, but is nothing like a straight up deal and when analyzed either makes no sense, is clearly not achievable under Chinese law, or will almost certainly lead to the Western company never getting paid. When the Western company complains about this, the response of the Chinese company is usually to go silent for a few weeks and then suggest modifying the nonsensical/unworkable MOU.

Our advice is to seize that moment by presenting a carefully drafted and realistic Chinese and English language contract that actually reflects the parties earlier discussions. The Chinese company usually will wait a few weeks and then respond with a reasonable number of objections to the contract. The foreign company and the Chinese company negotiate on these issues and reach resolution. The foreign company quite naturally then assumes the negotiation process is complete and expects the next steps will be to execute and then implement the contract.

Instead, the Chinese company puts forth a brand new set of contract objections. The parties again negotiate and again reach resolution. The foreign company again assumes the next steps will be to execute and implement the contract. But the Chinese company returns yet again with a new list of contract objections, including objections to some of the matters already decided on in the previous rounds of negotiation.

If the Chinese side has been forced to concede on important matters, this death by a thousand cuts tactic will likely continue until the Chinese side gets most of what it wanted from the beginning.

In negotiating the initial objections from the Chinese side, the foreign side will usually have made concessions that weakened its position, all as part of the normal negotiating give and take and all done on the assumption that both sides would be making concessions to consummate the deal. However, when the Chinese company comes back with new demands, it has already extracted concessions from the foreign side and it is now seeking additional concessions.

The Chinese company engages in this tactic to wear down the foreign company to get it to concede on important points to get the deal done. The Chinese negotiators are often quite clever at mixing important issues together with trivial issues and hiding important changes with seemingly minor changes in wording. Fatigue and changing negotiation staff from the foreign side can allow these matters to slip through at the very end of the negotiation process.

In the last year or so, we are seeing a new tactic, where the Chinese company will send back a revised contract in badly written English, and without any redlining that would allow us to quickly see the changes made. This new tactic has become quite common and it is an ideal way for the Chinese side to throw yet another cog into the negotiations, especially since Chinese is usually the official language of the contract and especially since their written English is almost never clear enough to understand everything and virtually never clear enough so we can use it in a real contract. When this happens, our typical response is to say, no. If you dont have the time or the ability to put it into two languages, send us just the Chinese and send us a redline version showing all your changes. We are not going to charge our clients lawyer rates trying to parse out what you have given us.

You can usually avoid the death by a thousand cuts tactic by being firm with the Chinese side. One good counter-tactic is to make clear (preferably in writing and in Chinese) that your Chinese counter-party has only one chance to comment so it should make sure to include all comments and objections in its first communication. The Chinese side typically ignores this rule and will still come up with additional comments even after having been told that they will be ignored. The way to deal with this is to live up to your own commitment by telling the Chinese side to take it or leave it.

More to come.
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) Tencent has bought a $8.6 billion stake in 'Clash of the Clans' maker Supercell.

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Tencent Holdings Ltd. has acquired a majority stake in Finnish gaming company Supercell worth $8.6 billion.



Tencent, the biggest gaming company in China, bought the stake from SoftBank Group Corp. The Japanese company is currently looking to cut its debt volume. Supercell is best known for its Clash of Clans title.



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The deal involved an 84 percent stake in Supercell. According to the agreement, the Finnish gaming company is valued close to $10.2 billion. It is the biggest foreign acquisition so far for Tencent. The Hong Kong-listed company has made several investments in the gaming sector. These investments include Epic Games, Glu Mobile and Riot Games.



Tencent bought Riot Games stake for $231 million, while for Epic Games, it paid $330 million.



The arrangement will help Tencent to solidify its position in international markets. Martin Lau, President of Tencent, said, "We are very bullish on online gaming. We would like to get exposure to this market."



Supercell, on the other hand, will gain access to the user base of Tencent. Ilkka Paananen, Supercell's chief executive, stated that "One of the big things that drives us is trying to reach as many players as possible."



Tencent is reported to have about 300 million users.



Supercell is one of the frontrunners in the mobile gaming sector. The company focuses on niche gaming titles. Its games have a wide following globally, including in the US, Europe, and Asia.



In 2015, the company posted a 36 percent increase in its sales, while its EBIT jumped 65 percent from previous year to 848 million euros ($959 million).



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(Photo : Feng Li/Getty Images) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) shake hands at the Ziguangge Pavilion in the Zhongnanhai leaders' compound in Beijing on September 5, 2012. Donald Trump is accusing Clinton of helping China in exchange for money.

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Donald Trump gave a speech on Wednesday, attacking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and accusing her of helping China in exchange for money, adding that the country has made the former Secretary of State rich.



In the speech, Trump called Clinton the most corrupt person ever to seek presidency in the United States, claiming that she was corrupt during her time as the First Lady and when she served as the Secretary of State and Senator from New York.



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As for his accusations about Clinton helping the Chinese government build its economy, the real estate mogul shared, "Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich."



He added that Clinton supported her husband's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he dubbed as disastrous, and supported the entrance of China into the World Trade organization. He noted that they the U.S. has since lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs due to the two agreements that Clinton signed and supported.



Trump did not further elaborate on the matter of Clinton supporting China, but he did quote a statement from a book called Clinton Cash, published by conservative writer Peter Schweizer.



The book by the Brietbart news editor detailes the instances when former President Bill Clinton was given money by foreign business groups to give speeches - sometimes in China - while Hillary was Secretary of State. Bill Clinton once gave a speech to a business conference called the Huatuo CEO Forum in 2011 and was paid $550,000.



Trump also accused Hillary of running the Senate Department like a "personal hedge fund."



Trump continued, "Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests - in less than two years - secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public."



Trump also blamed Hillary for causing the trade deficit between China and the United States.



Aside from attacking Hillary, Trump tried courting the supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, saying that he supports cutting taxes. He said that he is asking Sanders supporters to vote for him, so "together we can fix the system for all Americans."



A recently released poll shows that 22 percent of the Sanders sympathizers are planning to vote for Trump in the November general election.



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TagsUnited States presidential elections 2016, china, Hillary Clinton, Chinese Economy, donald trump, World Trade Organization, Bill Clinton, paid speeches
(Photo : ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images) The Long March-2F rocket carrying China's manned Shenzhou-10 spacecraft blasts off from launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 11, 2013 in Jiuquan, Gansu Province of China. China's latest manned spacecraft blasted off on a 15-day mission to dock with a space lab.

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China's space program will receive a major boost as the nation's leading space agency intends to develop a family of robots that will be tasked to handle its unmanned and manned space exploration efforts.



According to Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration, the Central government is formulating a long-term plan for the development of robots that will be sent to space to carry out specialized tasks, China Daily reported.



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"They will consist of Mars rovers, asteroid explorers, robotic arms and service robots that can help maintain and repair an in-orbit space station, space laboratories and satellites," Tian said at the sidelines of the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space, held in Beijing.



The space administration and Harbin Institute of Technology are hosting the three-day event, which is attended by representatives from more than 10 countries, including the United States, Germany and Japan.



"More efforts will be made to develop advanced robots with higher automation to meet the needs of our deep-space exploration programs," Tian said, as he emphasized China's efforts to continuously upgrade its space program.



He revealed that China's version of the Mars rover will be home-made, as it will be based on tested, domestically developed technologies and utilize the experience obtained from the country's Yutu lunar rover.



Based on the space agency's timetable, the goal is to send an unmanned probe to orbit and successfully land on Mars by 2020.



Since the 1960s, China's space program has launched more than 40 space probes to Mars.



Currently, there are only two rovers that have been beaming signals directly from the Red planet's surface back to Earth.



There are NASA's Mars Exploration Mission rover Opportunity and its Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity.



Professor Liu Hong, a senior robotics expert at Harbin Institute of Technology, noted that space missions involve a very high amount of risk especially for astronauts, as they operate in a vacuum and under extreme temperature changes and high radiation.



"Such operations are suitable for robots to carry out," Liu explained. "Robotic arms are an ideal combination of human intelligence and robotic capability, and these will be one of our research focuses."



With China now recognized as a world leader in robotic arms research, it will not take long for its space program to achieve its goal of finally landing the nation's first space probe on Mars.



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(Photo : Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) A photo showing a kidney ready for organ transplant. China is accused by three authors of killing prisoners for multiple organ transplants.

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A new report has been released claiming that China is killing their prisoners in order to get their organs for organ-transplant operations.



According to the new report, a team of researcher that includes two prominent Canadian human rights activists have found out that there are numerous organ transplants in the country that have not been officially acknowledged by Chinese hospitals, leading to the question of where these organs are coming from. China's elite and foreigners are said to be paying a lot of money in order to receive new kidneys and livers.



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Three of the activists have been identified as David Matas, David Kilgour and Ethan Gutmann. They have been publishing evidence for the past decade that China is using Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and Christians as their source for human tissue extraction.



However, in the new research, they claim that prisoners are the source of human organs.



The Globe and Mail reported that 146 hospitals made a combined 7,785 organ transplants last year. However, the team of the researchers claims that Chinese surgeons are actually transplanting around 60,000 to 100,000 organs.



One of the hospitals named in the research is the Oriental Organ Transplant Center at the Tianjin First Center Hospital, which is said to be doing more than 6,000 transplants annually.



The latest research by the authors is a 798-page document that will be presented to the U.S. Congress this Thursday.



Kilgour said in a statement, "What we're trying to do is get the government, the party state in Beijing, to stop killing their own people for their organs. An industrial-scale crime against humanity is going on in China."



China has defended the country and its people from the accusations saying that the research is groundless. China did acknowledge using prisoner organs in the past but contested that the practice stopped last year.



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Tagstransplant, organ transplant, china, Chinese prisoners, human rights activists, Research, authors, U.S. Congress
(Photo : Reuters) Circle uses the digital currency bitcoin to manage worldwide money transfers.

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Circle Internet Financial Ltd. has announced that it has already raised raised $60 million in new funding from China-based investors. The company also unveiled a dedicated domestic subsidiary, Circle China.



Major Chinese investors that help Circle include IDG Capital Partners, Baidu, CICC Alpha, EverBright Investments, WangXiang, and CreditEase, and Breyer Capital and General Catalyst Partners are participating in the deal as well.



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In addition, former IBM Corp. chief executive Sam Palmisano and Glenn Hutchins, the co-founder of venture investment company Silver Lake, have made personal investments in Circle.



The Boston company Circle was founded in 2013 and uses the digital currency bitcoin to manage worldwide money transfers that can be accompanied by emojis or GIFs. It allows United States and the United Kingdom users to send money free of charge from a computer or smartphone to people anywhere in the world.



Circles system converts U.S. dollars or British pounds into computer-generated bitcoins, and transfers the money electronically to a recipients e-mail address or phone number. The receiver can get paid in dollars, pounds, or bitcoins.



In addition, Circle will also launch a branch in China that will be an independent company with local investors and targeti the Chinese money transfer market. Circle China will compete against Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alipay.



Once Circle gets approval from financial institutions, it may have an edge with its ability to easily convert local payments to international currencies.



In China theres already incredible domestic companies -- Tencent and Alipay," Circle founder and chief executive officer Jeremy Allaire said. "We dont have any belief that we can come in and dethrone those products, but theres an opportunity for Chinese consumers that want to share value globally with friends in other parts of the world.



Furthermore, Allaire stated that the Chinese market is ready for expansion because people in that country have been using smartphones for money transfers.



Baidus investment is the latest in a series by the search company as it tries to diversify. Its investment in Circle gives the company a stronger foothold in the payment field in China, which is dominated by Tencent Wechat and Alipay.



In 2015, Boston-based Circle has also raised $50 million in a funding round co-led by the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and IDG Capital.



Circle service is available through a browser or mobile apps both for iOS and Android.



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TagsCircle, Circle Internet Financial Ltd., Baidu, Tencent, Alipay, bitcoin, online payment, bitcoin payment, Digital Currency, IDG Capital, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., china, Circle China
(Photo : Getty Images) Authorities in Beijing had ordered Apple to stop selling the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models in the city as it bears a striking resemblance to Shenzhen Baili's 100C smartphone.



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Shenzhen Baili, the Chinese smartphone company that recently won a patent infringement claim against Apple over the iPhone 6, "barely exists," according to an investigation carried out by the Wall Street Journal.



Last week there were reports that intellectual property regulators in Beijing had banned the sales of Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models because they looked too similar to Shenzhen Baili's 100 C smartphone.



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According to authorities, Apple's two iPhone 6 models violated an exterior design patent held by Shenzhen Baili's 100C smartphone.



In spite of this, sales of Apple's iPhone 6 in Beijing were not actually halted, as Apple filed an appeal against the order and received a stay on the ruling for the duration of the appeal.



After the allegations came to light, The Wall Street Journal carried out an investigation into the Chinese smartphone company and shockingly found that Shenzhen Baili does not have a working phone, nor does it have a company office. The smartphone company has also stopped production of the 100C model and "barely exists."



The report states that former employees of Schenzhen Baili said the patent infringement claim was no more than a publicity stunt to promote the company's smartphones.



However, a lawyer representing Baili's parent company, Digione, said that they will continue to pursue their lawsuit against Apple.



"Shenzhen Baili is still operational in its necessary functions," the lawyer said. "The issue here is not whether Digione makes phones anymore, but whether the iPhone 6 infringes on this patent."



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Tagsapple, apple iphone 6, Patent, Shenzhen Baili, Shenzhen Baili 100C, 100C, Shenzhen Baili patent, Wall Street Journal
(Photo : Getty Images.) With a aim to give strong message to China, Indonesias President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna Islands on a naval warship on Thursday.

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna Islands on a naval warship on Thursday. The visit comes just few days after China stated that it has an "over-lapping claim" in the Natuna Islands.



Widodo made the visit along with his chief security minister and foreign minister. The official statement issued by the presidential palace said that president intended to conduct a cabinet meeting on the naval warship.



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However, the visit has been referenced by many Indonesian officials as the strongest message that Jakarta has given to China on the issue of Natuna Islands in recent times.



"In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told The Jakarta Post newspaper.



China on Monday said that although the Chinese government does not challenge Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, some maritime territory is subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests."



In response, Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Wednesday dismissed China's views, adding that all the maritime territory around Natuna Islands belongs to Indonesia.



Beijing claims that Indonesia's exclusive economic zone off the coast of Natuna slightly overlaps its nine-dash-line, a demarcation line that was initiated by the Taiwanese government, with the help of US government.



China and Indonesia have had numerous face offs around Natuna Islands in recent months. Only few days before, Indonesian naval officials seized a Chinese fishing boat and all the crew members for allegedly entering Indonesia's territory.



Similarly, earlier this year Indonesian navy officials captured a Chinese trawler along with all its crew members around Natuna Islands. The incident became a major diplomatic crisis after Indonesia refused to release the Chinese crew, vowing to prosecute them under Indonesian law.



China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea as its own, but its claim is challenged by several neighbors, most of whom are smaller in geographical size - with the exception of Indonesia.



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Air Force dragged veteran out of ceremony due to 'God speech,' legal group says Guest Reviewer | 23 June, 2016 by Michael Foust

FAIRFIELD, Calif. (Christian Examiner)  An Air Force veteran was dragged out of a military retirement ceremony because he wanted to mention "God" in a speech, according to a legal organization dedicated to protecting religious liberty.

The group, First Liberty Institute, sent a letter June 20 to Air Force officials, asking for an explanation and demanding an apology to the veteran, Oscar Rodriguez Jr.

Rodriquez has delivered more than 100 patriotic "flag-folding" speeches at civic and military events, and was asked by Air Force Master Sergeant Charles Roberson to speak at his retirement ceremony on April 3 at Travis Air Force Base in California. Roberson had heard the speech previously and had been moved by it, according to First Liberty.

A video from the retirement ceremony posted online shows two Airmen preparing to fold a flag, as Rodriguez rises from his seat and stands to their right. Immediately, he is approached by someone in uniform, and as he begins to speak, he is ushered out of the back of the room as he shouts the beginning of his speech. All three men may have been working on orders from Lieutenant Colonel Michael A. Sovitsky, according to First Liberty.

First Liberty said it will "pursue all available legal options" if the Air Force does not resolve the case. Rodriquez has more than 30 years of military service.

"The Air Force had no right to assault a citizen, much less a 33-year military veteran, because they didn't want him to mention 'God,'" First Liberty Institute's Mike Berry said. "Mr. Rodriguez has a constitutional right to free speech and religious expression, even on a military base. The military broke the law and abused its power. We expect the Air Force to hold those responsible accountable, and allow Mr. Rodriguez to continue honoring the flag and other veterans who have sacrificed for our country."

Rodriguez called it "one of the most humiliating experiences of my life."

"I have given more than three decades of service to the military and made many sacrifices for my country," he said. "To have the Air Force assault me and drag me out of a retirement ceremony simply because my speech included the word 'God' is something I never expected from our military."

A five-page letter from First Liberty to Air Force officials demands a written admission of wrongdoing and a written apology to Rodriguez.
BREAKING: 60% say America no longer a Christian nation 23 June, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner)  A new joint study from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution shows that less than half of Americans view their country as a Christian nation.

The non-partisan study, which examines the issues underpinning the 2016 presidential election  immigration, changing cultural practices, attitudes toward authoritarianism, and terrorism  also sheds light on American attitudes toward Islam and perceptions of discrimination against Christians.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

According to the study, fewer than half of the survey participants (41%) said they believe the U.S. is and always has been a "Christian nation." Another 42% claimed the country was at one time Christian, but isn't any longer. Taken together, 83% of Americans perceive that the faith has played some role in U.S. history.

Not surprisingly, there are vast differences of opinion on Christianity's role in American history along party lines. Democrats are much more likely to reject the role of Christianity in U.S. public life.

"Forty-four percent of Republicans say the U.S. has always been and continues to be a Christian nation, while a majority (51%) say America was once a Christian nation but is no longer. Only five percent of Republicans say the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. In contrast, four in ten (40%) Democrats believe the U.S. is currently a Christian nation, while only about one-third (36%) believe the U.S. was formerly a Christian country but is not today. More than one in five (22%) Democrats say the U.S. has never been a Christian nation," the study said.

Also not surprising is that perceptions about the role of Christianity in U.S. public life differ based on denominational affiliation. For example, white evangelical Protestants are "most apt to believe that the U.S. has lost its Christian identity, and this belief has increased significantly over the past four years."

Four years ago, the number of white evangelical Protestants who believed the country was a Christian nation was 45%, and the number who believed it was at one time a Christian nation, but is no longer, was 48%. Today, fewer (37%) believe America is a Christian nation while 59% believe it was, but is no longer in the Christian camp.

Other groups, including white mainline Protestants, black Protestants and Catholics (both Hispanic and white), who don't necessarily share evangelical's biblical eschatology and gloomy outlook about the decline of Christian culture, are generally more likely to view America as a Christian nation.

Age also plays a factor in perceptions about America's Christian history. The older the survey respondent, the more likely the individual was to label America a "Christian nation." Of those 65 and older, nearly half (49%) said they believed America was a Christian country, while another 39% said they believed it once was but is no longer. The numbers fall steadily until bottoming out in the age 18-29 category, where only 32% believe America is inherently Christian.

Importantly, the study does not define the term "Christian nation," so it isn't clear if it means that the country was founded upon Christianity and Christian principles, or was (and currently is) a nation predominately comprised of Christians.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHRISTIANS

The downward trend in the association of the Christian religion with America also pairs with increasing perceptions that Christians are now a focal point for discrimination in the U.S. Nearly half of survey respondents (49%) said they believed discrimination against Christians has become a "big problem" in the country.

And while there were few statistical differences on perceptions of discrimination by race and ethnicity, there is by social class among white Americans. The less-well-off financially a respondent was, the more likely they were to see that discrimination is a problem for Christians.

"More than six in ten (62%) white working-class Americans believe discrimination against Christians is now as big a problem as discrimination against other groups. Only 38% of white college-educated Americans agree, while 62% disagree," the study noted.

The study also broke down perceptions of discrimination by political party and by religious or denominational affiliation. As can be expected  and was illustrated in the campaigns of figures like Gov. Mike Huckabee, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio  nearly three-quarters (74%) of Republicans see a rising tide of discrimination against Christians. The figure was even higher (77%) among white evangelical Protestants, as well as among supporters of New York billionaire and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump (also 77%)  a figure easily explained by Trump's frequent talks about discrimination against Christians in the U.S. and Christian refugees abroad.

Only 34% of Democrats believe Christians suffer any discrimination in the U.S.

ISLAM AND AMERICAN VALUES

The majority of Americans are still not comfortable with the integration of large numbers of Muslims into American society because nearly six in ten (57%) believe Islamic values and teachings are incompatible with the ideals and cultural norms of American life.

Among white Americans, six in ten (61%) said they believed Islam is at odds with American life, but that number declines based on the rate of educational attainment among the respondents. According to the survey, 68% of white "working-class Americans see Islam as having an irreconcilable conflict with American values, while only 53% of college-educated whites feel the same way.

"Perspectives about Islam's compatibility with American way of life also vary significantly by party affiliation. Nearly eight in ten (79%) Republicans believe the values of Islam are at odds with the American way of life, a view shared by a majority (54%) of independents and less than half (42%) of Democrats. A majority (55%) of Democrats say Islam does not conflict with American values. More than eight in ten (83%) Trump supporters embrace the idea that Islam is opposed to American values," the study claimed.

"White Christian groups are the most likely of all major religious groups to express doubt about Islam's compatibility with American values, though non-white Christian groups also express considerable skepticism. Three-quarters (74%) of white evangelical Protestants and more than six in ten white mainline Protestants (66%) and white Catholics (63%) say the values of Islam conflict with American values and way of life, as do a majority of Hispanic Catholics (54%). Only about four in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (43%), black Protestants (43%), and members of non-Christian religions (41%) echo this sentiment."

The PRRI/Brookings Institution survey measured the attitudes of more than 2,600 American adults over the age of 18 during a two month period (April-May).
COMMENTARY: Democrats, LGBT activists' sinister plan to crack down on Christian schools Guest Columnist | 23 June, 2016 by Todd Starnes / Fox News

LA MIRADA, Calif. (Christian Examiner) -- If California Democrats have their way, Christian colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to require students attend chapel services or require them to profess a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Senate Bill 1146 would close a loophole that lawmakers say allows Christian universities to discriminate against students based on their gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.

Click here to join Todd's American Dispatch - a must-read for Conservatives!

"All students deserve to feel safe in institutions of higher education, regardless of whether they are public or private," said Senator Ricardo Lara, the author of the legislation. "California has established strong protections for the LGBTQ community and private universities should not be able to use faith as an excuse to discriminate and avoid complying with state laws."

The legislation has already passed the Senate and is expected to clear hurdles in the Assembly. Thus far, Lara has refused to compromise with the state's Christian colleges and universities.

"No university should have a license to discriminate," he said in a statement.

READ THE FULL STORY AT FOXNEWS.COM!
In Jerusalem's cramped Old City, Christians feel the squeeze 23 June, 2016 by Reuters , |

JERUSALEM (Reuters)  When hundreds of Jewish nationalists marched through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City this month, waving banners and chanting songs in what has become an annual ritual, it wasn't only Muslims watching warily. Christians were, too.

Religious tension is nothing new in a city that has been the home of three faiths for centuries. But the outlook for the Christian minority, squeezed inside the ancient walls of the Old City and caught in the midst of a months-long wave of violence involving Muslims targeting Jews, has seldom looked tougher.

While the Muslim population rises steadily, now making up 75 percent of the 38,000 residents in the city's alleys, and the Jews increasingly make their presence felt via the annual march and their settlements beyond the Jewish Quarter, the number of Christians has not risen in 50 years, hovering around 7,000.

"If a thousand Muslims leave Jerusalem, that's one thing," said Jamal Khader, head of the Latin Patriarchate Seminary near Bethlehem. "But if a thousand Christians leave, you threaten the identity of Jerusalem as a city of multiple faiths."

That concern is clear to Basil Saed, 28, the owner of a gym in the Christian Quarter. After an attempted stabbing by a Muslim in the Old City several weeks ago, Saed came face-to-face with an Israeli military policeman hunting for the suspect.

"He was trembling he was so terrified," said Saed, a prize-winning weightlifter who wears a large gold cross around his neck. "In an instant he could have shot and killed me."

To Saed, both Israel's tight security and the Muslim unrest make him uneasy, and raise questions for his community.

"If we weren't strong, we'd all be gone by now," he said.

SQUEEZED OUT

In the narrow, cobbled streets of their quarter, Christian families have been running arts and souvenir shops for generations, earning money from the steady flow of religious and other tourists who flock to sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried.

With the surge in violence that Jerusalem and surrounding areas have experienced since last October, tourism has become more erratic. Anecdotally, locals and tour guides say visitor numbers have dropped off sharply, hurting trade.

Residents like Youseph Shbeita, 35, the third generation owner of a religious icon shop near the Holy Sepulchre, are determined to hang on, seeing no option. But they can understand why younger Christians would want to leave.

"When you're in the minority, you have to go with the flow," he said, expressing a sense of responsibility for trying to preserve a Christian presence in the city where Jesus preached. "We just hope for calm, always for calm."

Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and activist who closely follows the community, said he feared it was being squeezed out by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with its tendency to focus on the Jewish and Muslim narratives.

"Since much of the epicenter of this round of violence has been in and around the Old City, it has increased their vulnerability," he said, pointing to the lack of political and social institutions for Christians to depend on.

"I think it's safe to say there are more Christian Palestinians in Chicago today than there are in Jerusalem."

Most of the Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinians. Historically, the community has played a prominent role in the opposition to Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, putting it at odds with Israel.

Inside the walls of the Old City, however, there is still a degree of mutual dependence - Muslim merchants run stores on land owned by the Christian church, and Israeli Jews stop to buy fruit or a felafel from Muslim and Christian stallkeepers.

Even so, Saed, the weightlifter, doesn't feel confident.

"For now, the Muslims and Jews are fighting each other," he said. "But when they stop they'll both look at us."

* Reporting by Jad Sleiman
In Marvel vs. DC superhero battle, only one is family-friendly, watchdog says Guest Reviewer | 23 June, 2016 by Michael Foust

LOS ANGELES (Christian Examiner)  Superhero movies remain as popular as ever among parents and children, but only one company  Marvel  is committed to making content for the entire family.

So says the Parents Television Council's Christopher Gildemeister, who argues in a new blog post that when comparing the two superhero companies  Marvel and DC  it is obvious which one does not care about catering to children.

"Marvel has done an excellent job in assuring that its most famous characters are both accessible to and acceptable for a young audience," Gildemeister, PTC's head of research operations, wrote.

"Marvel has a range of direct-to-video animation, available on DVD, which are acceptable fare for children. Similarly, its big-budget movies  while perhaps possessing action and language a bit too intense for very young children  are largely acceptable for the entire family, and are invariably rated PG-13 or even PG," he said.

By contrast, Gildemeister wrote that DC is "devoting itself almost exclusively to adult-themed content," with nearly every project being "dark, humorless, grim, and uniformly cast in shades of black or darkest grey." Even its cartoons, he added, are filled with explicit bloodshed and sexual dialogue.

Marvel is home to such characters as Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men and the Avengers (including Iron Man and Captain American), while DC is the company where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are found.

There are exceptions to the rule, Gildemeister acknowledged. Marvel gave moviegoers the very graphic and R-rated Deadpool, while DC gave families the mostly kid-friendly Supergirl. But as a general rule, he said, DC has ignored the wishes of parents and children.

The DC "adult trend" began with the dark and edgy Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, and then continued with Superman Returns and Man of Steel, all of which jettisoned the "positive, optimistic, and upbeat characters" that families expect, he wrote.

Even in the companies' two films this year  Marvel's Civil War and DC's Batman vs. Superman -- there was a major contrast, Gildemeister wrote.

"Most of all, [in Civil War] there is an actual moral dilemma at stake in the heroes' battle, one which they discuss extensively before they come to blows: should the heroes be free to battle evil without restraint as they see fit, or should they be supervised  or controlled  by a governmental bureaucracy? By contrast," he wrote, "in Batman vs. Superman, the focus is not on heroism, characterization, or moral conflict. Rather, it is on the mass devastation caused by what are essentially two super-powered terrorists battling one another, endangering countless innocents and destroying a city in the process.

"This is a far darker, more cynical reading of the traditional superhero, one in which the vigilante Batman feels compelled to attack Superman simply because he might someday pose a threat to Earth."

(Batman vs. Superman nearly received an R rating, before the studio cut out enough material to garner a PG-13.)

Additionally, Marvel produces kid-friendly DVD cartoons, while DC makes DVD cartoons that are far from appropriate for kids, he wrote. DC also recently announced the first-ever R-rated superhero cartoon -- Batman: The Killing Joke.

To make matters worse, he asserted, DC still allows the production of toys based on its movie characters  even though the films are inappropriate for those same children.

"Superheroes are Big Business in today's media marketplace," he concluded. "And there is always a market for movies that families can watch together. One can only wonder: why won't DC make superhero movies that are safe for kids?"
Vietnam slams door shut on human rights, religious freedom reforms 23 June, 2016 by Staff , |

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner)  President Barack Obama had no sooner left Vietnam when government authorities there conducted a brutal crackdown on Christians in the country, International Christian Concern has reported.

According to the international persecution monitor, less than two weeks after the U.S. delegation left the country and President Obama encouraged the government to improve its human rights record, around 30 police and government officials stormed a church on the Vietnam-China border.

ICC reported the arrest and torture of one pastor's wife and the beating and arrest of a 14-year-old boy. The church's pastor was also interrogated and police attempted to coerce the pastor into signing a statement that the church was a threat to the local community and national security. The report did not say if the authorities had gained a confession.

In the weeks prior to the raids, the United Nations issued a stinging report on Vietnam's human rights abuses, in particular against Tran Thi Hong, the wife of a Christian pastor who had been arrested and tortured on multiple occasions. Tran's husband has been in prison since 2011.

"We are concerned that the repeated arrests and the continuing detention of Ms. Tran resulted from her peaceful human rights work and exercise of her fundamental rights, which constitutes arbitrary detention," UN representatives said in a statement calling for her unconditional release June 2.

Reports of persecution in Vietnam surface from the country frequently. Catholics and Protestants both often feel the brunt of suffering, and many Protestants are also ethnic minorities, making them doubly hated by the Vietnamese (Kihn) majority.

The government is unlikely to change its policies, William Stark, ICC's regional manager for South Asia, said.

"It is appalling to see the actions by the Vietnamese government against its Christian population both before and after the president's visit. In an effort to bring forth a new chapter in US-Vietnamese relations, the president lifted the weapons embargo between the two nations in hopes of a better future. Unfortunately, the president relinquished the last major bargaining chip the United States had to use with Vietnam regarding their deplorable human rights record. These recent attacks on the church and the arrest and torture of an imprisoned pastor's wife shows the true colors of Vietnam's leadership."
Christians in Bangladesh have come together for an ecumenical prayer service to pray for peace in a country beset by extremist violence.

According to ChristianToday.com, Catholic and Protestant Christians united for the prayer services which were held in the Archdiocese of Dhaka and in the Diocese of Khulna simultaneously.

Let us pray that this will become a country of unity, peace and harmony," said Mgr Patrick D'Roazario, Archbishop of Dhaka, during the prayer service. "Let us pray that dormant humanity become aware of the violence, murders committed in secret, and the persecution. May Almighty God bless [the terrorists] so that they change their minds."

Persecution, particularly directed at Christians and secularists, as well as Hindus, who make up only 10 percent of Bangladeshs population, has been increasing. As many as 40 people have been killed over the last three years by Islamic extremists.

Although ISIS and Al-Qaeda have taken responsibility for the killings, government authorities maintain that the violence is due to local Muslim extremists.

During the prayer services, Christians leaders urged the government to do something about the violence:

"We live in fear because every day ordinary folks become victims of Islamic militants. For this reason, we urged Christian leaders to call on humanity to wake up," Fr Kamal Corraya told Asia News. "All mankind cries because no one is safe in this country."

"I feel comforted by this prayer," said another participant in the prayer services. "I hope the terrorists stop persecuting us, and that we may live in peace."

Publication date: June 23, 2016
Donald Trump met with over 1,000 evangelicals in New York City on June 21st in an exclusive get-together where he answered questions from a diverse group of Christian religious leaders.

The event was organized by non-profit groups My Faith Votes and United in Purpose and was opened by Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson and Pastor Franklin Graham who said an opening prayer before Trump got on stage.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee moderated the event and started by questioning Trump about his family. An NPR correspondent quoted Huckabee as having asked him: "People can fake it on stage, they can walk out and do the happy family moment, but you can't fake that backstage."

To this, Trump replied, "I have great children ... through God they were born intelligent, they all went to great colleges."

He added that he always advised his children not to consume drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. Trump's tip to parents was that if children could go to church, that would be "a tremendous asset."

He said that when he was a kid, going to Sunday school was "like, automatic. Today it isn't. Maybe we can get back into a position where it's automatic."

Trump, who is backed by a segment of Christians and evangelicals, is also opposed by many among the same groups for his careless remarks on a range of issues, and for his dramatic ideas including building a wall between Mexico and US, women to be punished for abortion, and ban on Muslim immigrants after a spate of terrorist attacks.

Speaking about religious freedom, Trump said: "the next president is going to be very vital ... in freeing up your religion, freeing up your thoughts.. You really don't have religious freedom."

"I think maybe that will be my greatest contribution to Christianity - and other religions - is to allow you, when you talk religious liberty, to go and speak openly, and if you like somebody or want somebody to represent you, you should have the right to do it," he added.

Some well-known leaders at the event included Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed, Greg Quinlan of the group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, and Southern Baptist Convention former president Ronnie Floyd, among many others.

Reverend E.W. Jackson tweeted a video where Trump is saying, "You can pray for your leaders, and I agree with that - pray for everyone. But what you really have to do is, you have to pray to get everybody out to vote for one specific person."

"And we can't be, again, politically correct and say we pray for all of our leaders, because all of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling evangelicals down the tubes," he said, "and it's a very, very bad thing that's happening."

During the meeting, Trump vowed to appoint antiabortion Supreme Court judges and lift the ban on political advocacy by tax-exempt charitable institutions. He did not appear to take sides on the issue of same-sex wedding lawsuits against Christians, and left them at the prerogative of judges.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced a special executive board to advise him on matters of faith and culture.

"The formation of the board represents Donald J. Trump's endorsement of those diverse issues important to Evangelicals and other Christians, and his desire to have access to the wise counsel of such leaders as needed," said Trump's official press release published on the day of his meeting with the evangelicals.

"I have such tremendous respect and admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to Evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am President," Trump said.
The Church of England will be starting a new congregation for the LGBT community this summer, which is named as True North, according to Christian Today.

The first gathering will take place in August in St. Matthew's Walsall in the Diocese of Lichfield.

A majority of the leadership in the diocese oppose same-sex marriage, but they were willing to serve the gay members so that they could be brought into the community of Christ.

"While I and many of the leadership of St Matthews hold a traditional view on human sexuality, LGBT Christians are first and foremost children of God and made in his image," said Rev. Jim Trood, vicar of St. Matthew's Walsall.

"Our intention with True North is to supplement and support LGBTI Christians to go out and serve the Lord in their own parishes and communities, knowing they are loved by God. We do not see this as a stand-alone event but one that is truly part of the body of Christ within Lichfield Diocese," said Reverend Monica Arnold, associate minister at St Matthew's, who will lead the congregation.

Next month, the Church of England will meet in York for General Synod, where 550 representatives of CofE from different parts of the world will come together to discuss the issue of homosexuality. The members will split into small groups of 20 each and have discussions on the subject.

The bishops, and other clergy members will hold talks on the issue for three straight days, but the event will be barred from media and public. The meeting is expected to unify Anglicans despite their differing views on homosexuality, by achieving a dialog rather than an agreement on their disparate perspectives.

"The difference between our societies and cultures, as well as the speed of cultural change in much of the global north, tempts us to divide as Christians: when the command of Scripture, the prayer of Jesus, the tradition of the Church and our theological understanding urges unity," said Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. "A 21st century Anglican family must have space for deep disagreement, and even mutual criticism, so long as we are faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ, together."

A 14-page booklet "Grace and Dialogue" was released for the members ahead of the meeting to brief them up on how to talk about disagreements gracefully.

The booklet contains advise on attitudes and mannerisms, including body language and facial expressions, that participants have to watch out for to not offend the opposing party.

"Open conversations with a prayer for honesty, mutual respect and for listening with love. Finish conversations with thanks for people's participation, for new insights and for mutual care despite disagreement," the guide says.

"Allow people to express themselves badly. They may say things you find offensive, and you may say things they find offensive. When this happens, use neutral language to point out when something seems inappropriate, and ask the speaker to have another go. Refuse to give up on anyone, no matter how unpleasant, opinionated or difficult you find them," it said.
Some 40 organizers and participants of the recent Korean World Mission Conference (KWMC) that took place earlier this month at Azusa Pacific University gathered at Grace Ministries International on Tuesday morning to discuss and evaluate the results of this years conference.

The organizers first expressed regret regarding the aspects of the conference where the results came up short in comparison to their expectations, and shared the challenges they faced in the process of planning for the event.

The first aspect they mentioned was the turnout at the conference. Some 2,900 in total were registered for the event, and some 3,000 attended night sessions, according to the organizers. The number fell short of their hopes for some 7,000 to attend the night sessions.

A number of challenges may have contributed to the less-than-expected turnout, they said. First, KWMC, which takes place once every four years, took place for the first time in Southern California this year, when all previous conferences had taken place at Wheaton College in Illinois. The difference in culture in the Korean community of Southern California, as well as the lack of awareness of KWMC in this region, may have hindered a wider participation in the event, organizers said.

Azusa Pacific University is located in an isolated area, and the distance that people had to travel to get to the conference with traffic may have hindered some from attending, explained Rev. Paul Gihong Han, the senior pastor of Grace Ministries International, who also led the planning process in Southern California.

Another aspect that organizers discussed was the low turnout in the English track of the conference. The difference in attendance between the Korean-speaking track and the English-speaking track was noticeable. While some 2,500 attended the main sessions of the Korean track, about 150 attended the English track sessions. Moreover, many Korean American pastors in the region were unaware of the event.

Rev. Suk-Hee Ko, the secretary-general of the conference, pointed to the date of the conference as a possible reason for the lack of attendance from the younger crowd. In an evaluation report, he wrote that the fact that the conference took place in early June may have prevented students and parents of students who were not yet in vacation from attending.

Normally, we should have formed a completely separate organizing committee for the Korean American leaders and lay members in the region, but we were unable to do that for this years conference, added Han. This is something we want to focus on for the future conferences to come.

Many of those who did attend the conference, however, seemed to have had a positive experience. Elijah Kim (14) from Cerritos Presbyterian Church and Gunwoo Kim (17) from Grace Ministries International said at the conference that they both attended because of their parents. But having come to the conference, they shared that they learned much from the variety of speakers.

Elijah Kim found a session with Brian Kim, a worship leader at Onnuri English Ministry in Seoul, particularly inspiring.

It was cool because he uses his talents for God, he said. And it showed me that you dont have to be a pastor or missionary  you can just use whatever talents you have to live for God.

Han explained that though there were particular challenges in the planning process for this years conference, he was personally extremely satisfied at the turnout, and said that the entire process was all by Gods grace.

Having the conference in a completely new venue, and having thousands of people gather  from as young as 100 days old to as old as 90 years old  there was room for an accident to have happened, but Im thankful that there were none, Han explained.

And, maybe its because they were talking to me, but there were many people who approached me and said that they were blessed through the conference and that it was a rejuvenating time, he added. Im grateful to hear that, and Im also grateful that 50 attendees have committed to become missionaries.

Dr. Timothy Park, the director of Global Connections and professor of Asian Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary, expressed hopes for future conferences.

I hope that the conference will not end at just being a conference, but that it will become a catalyst in the mission movement all over the world; one that gauges the direction of the movement and allows missionaries to more effectively strategize and share the gospel, Park said.
Hundreds of Christians met together on Wednesday evening in London's Parliament Square to pray for the EU referendum on June 23, that will decide if UK can stay in EU or not.

The event welcomed Christians from all denominations, according to Christian Today.

"It is a visible statement to the watching world that the church is alive and engaged," said Rev Patrick Allerton, associate vicar of St Dionis in Fulham. "It is about being a city on a hill and a lamp on its stand."

He said that the aim of the gathering was to pray for the "healing of our land and healing in political terms."

The Church of England had also launched a campaign in April to pray for EU referendum via social media, to urge Christians keep praying about the topic, for the common good of all.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he will vote to stay in the EU, because Britain's Christian heritage was found upon "peace and reconciliation, building bridges not barriers."

"At the heart of Britain's Christian heritage are certain glorious principles. They are what make the best of our nation. They come from Jesus's teaching, especially in the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes," he wrote in the Daily Mail.

"Peace and reconciliation exist in Western Europe today. It is the greatest cause for thankfulness that we can imagine. It is a blessing to be shared with the whole world," he continued. "I pray that we will then reunite with immense determination to be a gift to the world of today and to future generations."

Speaking at a conference "In or out: How should Christians approach the EU Referendum?" at Redcliffe Colloge in Gloucester, church planter and lecturer Jim Memory said that Christians must take the view of the gospel before making the decision.

"Today that Christian identity has been forgotten, suppressed or abandoned as Europeans have placed their hopes for the future in economic prosperity rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ," he said. "However you choose to vote in the referendum the loss of Europe's soul should spur UK Christians to prayer and action not disengagement; to commit ourselves once again to mission in Europe."
Do you remember Lady Gagas appearance at Super Bowl 50 this February? Probably not, because what was shocking about the pop artists performance was how unshocking it was.

The red pantsuit and matching sparkling eyeshadow were flashy, to be sure. But her delivery of The Star Spangled Banner was technically proficient and comparatively orthodox, right in line with the artist who, 15 months earlier, had released an album of jazz standards with Tony Bennett. As Lady Gaga sang, military jets flew overhead; a remote shot showed American forces standing at attention at a base in Afghanistan. It was US civil religion at its most familiarand most strange.

For Lady Gaga has not just been going into a gentle mid-career twilight of jazz standards. Her career arc also continues to bend toward transgressive imagery, a vociferous hunger for fame, and a quest to mother, gather, and heal her fan army of social outcasts. In October 2015, she starred in the TV series American Horror Story: Hotel in a violent (indeed, to two minor characters in the scene, fatal), blood-soaked, pornographic orgy.

In this context, Lady Gagas Super Bowl performance, superficially so unremarkable, in fact was one of the most dislocating and disturbing moments of her career. How does Lady Gagas vision of inclusion align with the realities of war symbolized by the military personnel who surrounded her? How does her vision of transgression live alongside the big business interests that funded the show?

At least since the carnivals of medieval Europe, down to the excesses of modern-day Mardi Gras in the heart of the Bible Belt South, Western culture has tolerated the occasional transgressive display as a sort of release ...

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My wife and I recently found ourselves comparing notes with friends who have children moving into the teenage years. We are anxious voyagers readying ourselves for stormy seas. Some of these discussions have pondered the best approach for the talkon sex, dating, and marriage. And this has raised a fundamental issue for us: What is the basis for the Christian teaching on sex and marriage?

Of course, there is a strong biblical basis for the importance of marriage, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 19. But as an economist, Im also interested in how to explain the biblical teaching on sex and the institution of marriage to millennials today. Economists like myself are infatuated with the study of institutions, but we mostly concern ourselves with rather stolid ones, like the ones that regulate capitalism. Yet in our creative displays, we engage more dynamic institutions such as dating and marriage.

When economists study institutions, we ask: What has caused such an arrangement to win out over others? Marriage is an institution that has arisen independently throughout the entire world in nearly every civilized era. But what natural basis is there, for example, to favor the institution of marriage over, say, cohabitation? What possible logic is there in criticizing something as appealing as extramarital sex? These are questions that teenagers want answers to. They will make sacrifices, but they need to know that the sacrifices make sense. Our rules and norms in local churches must be presented as rules and norms that will lead to our childrens flourishing.

I want to argue from the perspective of social science that the Christian teaching on sex and marriage is much more than a dated rule that ruins the ...

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Editors note: Last week, the EAUKs Daniel Webster explored why Christians must show that disagreement without division is possible in both UK and US politics. Today, he explores the two roles that Christians must play during and after closely divided votes, whether Brexit today or Trump v. Clinton in November.

Today the United Kingdom finally votes on whether to remain in the European Union (EU), or to leave it.

After a couple days of respite after the shocking murder of politician Jo Cox, campaigning resumed at a frenzied pace. Having led in the polls since the start of the campaign, the #Bremain camp slipped behind the #Brexit camp over the last couple of weeks. But the trend may have shifted direction once again in the final few days.

The tight finish suits both campaigns. It energizes activists, and it gives voters a reason to get out and vote.

Its always heartening to hear people want to talk politics. Its encouraging that churches provide space to debate vital issues, and its crucial that Christian leaders speak into the public sphere.

There is a lot of good in how British Christians have engaged throughout this campaign, and just a couple of points of concern:

Evangelicals vote

Evangelical Christians have remarkably high levels of participation: more than 4 out of 5 were certain to vote last year, according to polling by the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK). There is a similar level of engagement in this referendum, but it is matched with intense frustration at the state of the campaign.

Even before the tragic events of last week, the campaign had descended into bitter and bizarre spats. And despite pleas for a more civil tone, the early salvos after the ceasefire didnt ...

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I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
Pew finds that terrorism threatens to surpass the traditional persecutors of the global church.

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From some angles, it looks like the beginning of a hopeful trend among the steady stream of persecution headlines.

Both government and societal harassment of religion dropped worldwide in 2014, according to a Pew Research Center study released today. This is the second year in a row that researchers found such a drop.

Overall, religious restrictions were high in 34 percent of the 198 countries and self-governing territories Pew examined in 2014, down from 39 percent in 2013 and 43 percent in 2012. About half of the countries (51%) saw decreases in government restrictions, while about a third (36%) saw increases.

But the news was more mixed for Christians, which make up about 30 percent of the worlds population. Once again, Christians were the most harassed religious group, facing arrest, discrimination, and assault in 108 countries, up from 102 countries in 2013 (but falling short of the 110 countries in 2012).

Pew has measured persecution both by governmental sources and societal pressure since 2009, when it launched its landmark analysis. In 2012, religious hostilities hit record levels.

Overall, about a quarter of the worlds governments (24%) had high or very high levels of restrictions against religion in 2014, down from 28 percent in 2013 and 29 percent in 2012. (In other words, nine nations have dropped out of the high category since 2012.) Nearly half of the countries examined (46%) saw decreases in the level of government restrictions, while about a third (29%) saw increases.

That meant fewer governments interfered with worship practices, Pew stated. There also was a sizable drop in the number of countries where governments used force against religious groups that resulted in individuals ...
Churches are sanctuaries.

But what happens when the sanctuary is violated? When violence lights the sanctuary walls on fire? When the safe haven is riddled with the bullets of those broken and guilty who were welcomed within, with opened arms? How should we understand these realities?

For some, churches are sanctuaries because in them, the broken, the wounded, or even the guilty come to take refuge. In the medieval period, English common law and church canons held that a debtor or fugitive fleeing from the strong arm of the law could find a haven in the church.

For others, relatedly, sanctuary evokes the physicality of the church. In the early commonwealths of this world, the walls of the sanctuaryreverberating with the gospel of Gods forgiveness in the eternal kingdomprovided some respite. To speak of a sanctuary is to speak of the sanctuary: the building with a steeple, a pulpit, some pews, a baptismal font, and the table. Here is where the church gathers: in the sanctuary, a place set apart for the Lord.

In all these common usages, the idea of sanctuary conjures up a sense of safety, of set-apartness, of refuge, and of peace.

A Place Set Apart to the Lord

Typically, the term referred to the great Tent of Meeting and its broader precincts that the Lord instructed Moses to build in the desert: Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them (Ex. 25:8). The holy, set-apart God saved a kingdom of holy, set-apart people from among the nations to be his own treasured possession (Ex. 19:5-6), and the sanctuary was to be his holy, set-apart dwelling among them:

There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. (Exodus 29:43-45)

In many ways, the desert sanctuary was a return to Eden, which most scholars recognize today as the original sanctuary where the Lord walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). This is why it needed to be kept set apart and pure.

In that first sanctuary, the Serpent violated the holiness of Gods dwelling with impure, violent, disruptive lies to deceive the man and the woman, drawing them into rebellion, sin, and death. Rendered unholy through sin, they were exiled from the sanctuary of Gods holy presence, kept out through flame and sword (Gen. 3:22-24).

Much of the ceremonial and ritual law introduced in the Toraheven the initially bizarre legislation caught up with issues like bodily fluid, clean clothes, skin sores, and not eating creepy, crawly animalsis concerned with symbolically driving home the reality of sinful flesh, death, and the stunning mercy of the forgiving God who has given them access to himself once more.

Dependent on grace, Israel must learn to once more be holy as I am holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2), in both her ritual as well as her moral life, avoiding the idolatrous practices of her neighbors. Indeed, the moral and the ritual are two sides of the same coin.

Here we find the paradox and tension of the sanctuary of God (both as tabernacle and later as temple) in the Torah: it is the set-apart place that emphasizes both Gods nearness and his holy transcendence. It can only be approached and entered with extreme caution; under prescribed conditions; and through purification, atonement, forgiveness of sin, and the mediation of the priesthood God has given them.

To dishonor Gods sanctuary is to court wrath and judgment (Lev. 10:1-3). And yet its approachdrawing near to the God who is other, pure, holy, and perfectis precisely the sanctuarys purpose.

For this reason, the sanctuary of God is a delight and a refuge. In Psalm 84a representative temple psalmthe dwelling place of the LORD, with its courts and glories, is a place of delight: a place where even the birds find rest for themselves and the halls resound with praise because of the presence of the living God. Here Gods people find their rest.

A Place and a People Set Apart

In the New Testament, Jesus restructures the sanctuary. The eternal Son comes in the flesh to tabernacle among the people (John 1:14)he becomes God with us as the true sanctuary and temple. In him, the holy one dwells with his people. In him, they find refuge and healing.

Even further, united by faith with Jesus, Gods new, holy, set-apart people become the holy, set-apart sanctuary to the living God (1 Pet. 2:4-5). In Christ, they receive their holiness, purity, and forgiveness of sins, rendering them a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3).

This is a growing sanctuarythrough its gathering, worship, and shared, holy life, it expands its boundaries, inviting in those who are outside. Indeed, Acts 2 depicts something of the transformation, with the nascent sanctuary of the church growing as a seed from within the stump of the old temple courts. Church buildings become sanctuaries, then, because they are set-apart places where the sanctuary of Godthe churchmeets in his name.

What can we say, then, about the violation of Gods sanctuaries?

God Is in His Sanctuary

So often, when we read of an attack, a shooting, or a burning, were tempted to ask: where was God? When his house is under assault, why is he not there? And yet the first fact we must be clear on is that God is not indifferent to these attacks on his holy sanctuary.

There are many passages in the New Testament that drive this home, but none more clearly than Acts 9:4, where Jesus confronts Saul with the words, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Saul is ravaging the church, dragging believers off to jail. We might expect Jesus to say, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute my people? Instead, Jesus makes it abundantly clear here that an assault on the church is an assault on his own person.

John Calvins comments on the passage beautifully capture the heart of this verse, suggesting that by this, God will have us to be assuredly persuaded of this, that he suffereth together with us, as if the enemies of the gospel should wound us through his side.

Where is God, then, when his sanctuary is under attack? Where else but among and within his people, by the power of his Spirit? Jesus does not hold himself aloof from our sorrows, but he calls them his own and carries them along with us.

God Will Avenge and Protect It

One more truth that ought to be understood is that God will not always allow his sanctuaries to be violated, though he does allow it for a time. This also should not surprise us. If the sanctuary is built on the cornerstone that was rejected, despised, and violently cast aside (1 Pet. 2), then we should expect to suffer, as well.

The sanctuary the Lord offers in this life is not necessarily peace from troubled, outward circumstancestheres a reason Jesus blesses those who will suffer for his names sake (Matt. 5:10). He knows suffering is coming.

But God will not allow this to carry on forever. Calvin comments again on Acts 9:4: that we may hope that he will revenge our miseries, who crieth out of heaven that all that which we suffer is common to him as well as to us.

Paul, the one who experienced the Lords intervention on behalf of his church, warns that if anyone destroys Gods temple, God will destroy that person; for Gods temple is sacred, and you together are that temple (1 Cor. 3:17). He comforts the Thessalonians suffering violent persecution, saying that God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled (2 Thess. 1:6-7).

God isnt vindictive, nor ought his people to be so. But he is just. The cries of his saintsthe assaults on his sanctuaryare costly to him.

Thankfully, it is because we know this that we are urged not to pay back evil for evil, not to be overcome by evil. Instead, we can leave vengeance in the hands of the Lord, trusting him in all our sufferings (Rom. 12:17-21).

His Sanctuary Cannot Ultimately Be Overcome

Ultimately, the assaults of Gods enemies cannot overwhelm Gods sanctuary. When the holiness of his sanctuary is lived out, the violence of those who would attack and profane it does not violate that holiness. When God dwells among a people, they remain his set-apart people, no matter who sets upon them. As Jesus said, The gates of hell shall not overcome it (Matt. 16:18).

One extraordinary sign of this reality came in the forgiveness offered to the shooter by the families of the victims at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In the wake of the kind of violence and hate they experienced, struggling with forgiveness is normal, right, and understandable. It takes time, and none could have faulted those families had they kept quiet.

But what the world saw at that moment in Charleston was something of a miraculous, public sign of a deep, scandalous reality: the reality of the gospel of a holy God who does not have to be gracious, but who nonetheless wills to be so in Christ. This is mercy of the God who comes near to us, who makes a sanctuary for himself out of sinners, and who then offers the sanctuary of the gospel to others.

And so when the forgiveness of sins was offered in Christ, as it was that day, these family members were a special testimony of the Holy Spirit, declaring that the violence of the profane cannot overcome the holiness of Gods sanctuaryGods holy people.

This is the sort of mercy, holy forgiveness, and grace we see acted out on a smaller scale in sanctuaries across the world every week, as God dwells among his people. In these places, families are reconciled, the poor are fed, mercy is extended to the broken, and the gospel is preached to guilty sinners needing respite from the weight of their sins. It is this same holy life that was on display in the forgiveness offered in Charleston.

What happens when the sanctuary of God is assaulted? God reveals his life in the lives of his sanctuary people, his people who become a refuge: one that even the violence and violation of the world cannot overcome.
Bangladesh: 2,000 Christians pray for peace in nation threatened by Islamists

Around 2,000 Bangladeshi Christians from various denominations gathered to pray for "humanity to wake up" to the growing threat of Islamic terrorism in the country.

The ecumenical prayer service was held on Monday in the Archdiocese of Dhaka and in the Diocese of Khulna simultaneously.

"Let us pray that this will become a country of unity, peace and harmony," said Mgr Patrick D'Roazario, Archbishop of Dhaka, during the prayers.

"Let us pray that dormant humanity become aware of the violence, murders committed in secret, and the persecution. May Almighty God bless [the terrorists] so that they change their minds."

As many as 40 people have been killed over the last three years by Islamist extremists in Bangladesh, either members of religious minorities or secularist activists. While responsibility for the killings has been claimed by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, the government has denied that either group is active in the country, blaming home-grown extremists instead.

"We live in fear because every day ordinary folks become victims of Islamic militants. For this reason, we urged Christian leaders to call on humanity to wake up," Fr Kamal Corraya told Asia News.

"All mankind cries because no one is safe in this country."

The prayer meetings were led by a combination of Catholic and Protestant clergymen, who both led prayers and read passages from the Bible.

"There is no place for violence in the teachings of Jesus Christ," said Paul Shishi, moderator of the Protestant Church of Bangladesh.

"I feel comforted by this prayer," said one Christian. "I hope the terrorists stop persecuting us, and that we may live in peace."

Christians and Hindus make up just 10 per cent of Bangladesh's population of mainly Sunni Muslims.
Chinese Christian arrested for printing church material

A Chinese Christian was arrested after he printed religious material for his house church.

Li Hongmin was detained by government officials on June 6 in Guangzhou, according to the charity China Aid. His phone and other property were confiscated and he was accused of "illegal business operations" in the capital of China's southern Guangdong province.

As he was removed Li was told he would be allowed to go home after two hours, China Aid said. But he was not released and several hours later police officers returned to his home and told his wife Li needed his phone, tricking her into handing it over to the authorities.

Li's wife was further tricked into paying detention fees after she was told her husband would only be detained for one week.

One local Christian explained the situation to the charity: "Those police officers went back to his house and told [his wife] that her husband needed a cell phone, and that was how they obtained his phone. Then the officers came back that night to take away his things.

"They lied and said that Li would only be detained for seven days, tricking his family members into paying a fee to the detention center."

Later that evening the officers returned and occupied the house for the rest of the night. Li's wife insisted the documents printed were not offensive.

"The materials we printed were not heresies," she told China Aid. "They were not opposed to the Communist Party in any way. On the contrary, they teach people to help others, to love their fellow countrymen, their home and their country."

The arrest is part of a wider crackdown on Christians from Chinese authorities. Christians were forced to abandon prayer meetings in Handen in early June after police claimed they did not have permission.
Egypt's President is ignoring discrimination against Christians, says Mid East policy expert

The status of Coptic Christians in Egypt remains in a dismal state, and President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi has been accused of turning a blind eye towards the suffering in the ongoing Muslim-Christian tensions.

Sarah Yerkes, a visiting fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellow, writes in an article for Brookings that Christians are being discriminated against in Egypt.

There is little Christian representation in the Egyptian government and because of this, there are continuous difficulties for the country's Christian community.

"On paper, Egyptians enjoy 'absolute' freedom of religion guaranteed by the 2014 constitution. But, the constitution also decrees Islam to be the state religion, and conversion to any religion other than Islam is prohibited," she says.

"Blasphemy is also punishable with harsh penalties and several high-profile blasphemy cases have been prosecuted under the Sissi government."

Just last month, 70-year-old Christian woman was beaten and dragged through the streets of Minya naked by an angry crowd because her son was suspected of having an affair with a Muslim woman.

"The Minya event has once again demonstrated the relative impunity of the Egyptian police, who failed to respond to earlier warnings of a violent, religiously-motivated attack and took hours to appear on the scene," she says.

Yerkes adds that Sissi appears outwardly supportive of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and this is why he is often praised by international bodies and the media. Sadly, she thinks Sissi is doing little in reality to end the violence met by Coptic Christians in Egypt.

"And little progress has been made on the reconstruction of churches that were damaged in the wave of sectarian attacks in 2013, despite government promises to do so," she continues.

Yerkes admits she is in general "pessimistic" about the Sissi regime; however, she did acknowledge "there are a few signs of hope."

"President Sissi's public statements, while they may be hollow, mean something in that they make it easier for civil society and advocacy organizations to hold the Egyptian government accountable to protect religious freedom," she says.
Faith groups vital in fight against sexual violence in DRC - Tearfund

Faith groups are crucial in the fight against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Christian charity Tearfund.

Sexual violence is prolific in the DRC, particularly in the eastern region. Up to six million women have lost their lives and 1.8 million have experienced conflict-related sexual violence in the country since 1999.

Thousands of women are raped each day and live in constant threat from armed militias, the military and even the police.

Faith groups are perfectly located in the heart of communities to reach vulnerable people, and Tearfund  which works alongside local churches on the ground  is therefore launching an emergency appeal to help address conflict related sexual violence against women and girls.

"Horrific crimes, including rape, are being committed against women and girls in the DRC on a daily basis. The conflict seems to have been forgotten by the media, but the scale of the humanitarian crisis continues to grow. In addition to the six million lives lost since the beginning of the conflict in 1999, brutal violence, including the threat of rape, has forced 2.7 million people to flee their homes," said David McAllister, Tearfund's country director for DRC.

Annamaria (name changed), 48, was raped at her home in front of her husband by four men. They then killed her husband and her children ran away.

"The men who attacked me took everything, my body, my health, my husband. My children fled. They destroyed my field, my home. I felt like a refugee and I didn't know how to live," she said.

Tearfund's emergency fund will help survivors recover from trauma, rebuild livelihoods and ensure access to safe water and sanitation.

Annamaria is now part of a Community Action Group which supports survivors by helping them to report crimes and reintegrate into their communities. Many of these groups are led by faith leaders.

"Many of the affected communities are often difficult to reach," said McCallister.

"Tearfund recognises the value of local churches and faith leaders as key to addressing the root causes of the conflict. Faith groups are present even in remote, conflict-affected communities, which government and other agencies find hard to reach."

Community Action Groups work alongside other local and national organisations to enable women and children to receive the care they need.

"The Community Action Group has helped me with some training," said Annamaria. "The teaching on healing of memories has helped me to heal and deal with my emotions."

To donate to Tearfund's DRC Emergency Appeal go to www.tearfund.org/drcemergency or call +44 (0)208 977 9144.
Gun control protest: Democrats pray and sing Christian song at sit-in demanding vote

Democrats prayed and sang Christian civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" while staging a sit-in on the floor of the US House of Representatives to demand action on gun control in America.

Republicans voted early Thursday morning to adjourn the House until after the July 4 recess to try and stop the 16-hour sit-in staged by the Democrats seeking a vote on gun control measures in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre.

The sit-in, which began at 11:29am on Wednesday and involved more than 100 House Democrats, was led by veteran civil rights campaigner Rep John Lewis. They continued to give speeches after the adjournment vote.

It continued throughout the night with banners waved and chants sung, drowning out Speaker Paul Ryan. Democrats sat in the "well" and read out the names of the 49 killed in Orlando.

"Mr Speaker, give us a vote!" shouted one protester.

Lewis, 76, who was a leader in the civil rights movement and took part in sit-ins during the struggle, told the House: "We have been quiet for too long. There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time.

"How many more mothers? How many more fathers need to shed tears of grief before we do something? Give us a vote. Let us vote. We came here to do our job. We came here to work."

Republicans called a recess for the House and shut off microphones and cameras, however recordings of the protest went public.

President Barack Obama wrote on Twitter: "Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most."

Hillary Clinton tweeted: "This is what real leadership looks like".

House Speaker Paul Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement: "Democrats can continue to talk, but the reality is that they have no end-game strategy.

"The Senate has already defeated the measure they're calling for. The House is focussed on eliminating terrorists, not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that," she added.

Addressing fellow Democrats, Lewis said: "Thank you for getting in trouble  good trouble. Yes to trouble!

"I never, ever thought that one day, after sitting in here many days and many nights, that one day I would be more than lucky but very blessed... to sit down on the House floor with all you great ladies and gentlemen.

"We have a right to protest for what is right. That's all we can do. There are people hurting, there are people suffering, so we have an obligation, a mandate, to do something.

"Maybe our forefathers all came to this land in different ships," Lewis said, "but we're all in the same boat now."

The sit-in was broadcast via Periscope on the phone of Democrat Scott Peters, continuing the recording after the official cameras were turned off.
Pakistan police officer barges into church during Sunday service, assaults pastor after receiving noise complaint

Based on what turned out to be a false complaint, a police officer barged into a church in Lahore, Pakistan last Sunday, verbally abusing the Christian worshippers and beating the lead pastor when the latter asked what he was doing inside the church.

Head Constable Amir Abdullah entered the United Christian Church on Sunday morning and brutally assaulted pastor Riaz Rehmat after the police received a complaint about the alleged high noise level from the church's sound system, the Pakistan Christian Post reports.

It later turned out that the complaint was false and that the church was not misusing its loudspeaker and creating undue noise outside as alleged.

The unprovoked attack on their pastor inside their church prompted the congregation to stage a protest rally in the street.

Nasir Saeed, director of U.K.-based charity Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLASS), which helps persecuted Christians in Pakistan, denounced the "shameful" police assault.

"The police hardly care about the Christians' religious sentiments and often violate their right of religious freedom," Saeed said.

Following the Christian group's complaint, Police Superintendent Amara Athar suspended Abdullah and ordered an investigation on the incident. She also promised to investigate the man who had leveled the false noise complaint on the Christian church.

Meanwhile, a prominent member of the Pakistani Parliament criticised the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for its alleged failure to protect religious minorities.

Pakistan's People's Party Vice President and Senator Sherry Rehman denounced recent violence that targeted Christian communities, including a mob attack against a Christian ice cream vendor for selling "unclean merchandise to Muslim children," according to The Tribune Express.

"Pakistan cannot continue to tolerate continual religious persecution of its minorities. They are not second-class citizens and should not be treated as such." Rehman said.

The senator recalled the Easter Sunday bombing in Lahore where 73 Christians, mostly women and children, were killed. At least 29 of those who died were children.

He said government inaction amounts to "tacit approval" of the crimes.

Pakistan is listed at number 8 on the list of nations where Christians face the most severe persecution, based from Open Doors USA's 2015 World Watch List report.
Philippine bishops express alarm over sharp rise in police killings, condemn vigilantism as Duterte presidency looms

Catholic bishops in the Philippines condemned the sharp rise in police killings in the country days before President-elect Rodrigo Duterte takes office.

In Monday's pastoral message addressed to Philippine law enforcers, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) also called on Christians in the country to ask themselves if they have contributed to the spread of crime by their acts or by their silence, the Vatican Radio reports.

Duterte has repeatedly threatened to eradicate crime, encouraging the police and even private gun owners to arrest suspected drug pushers and other criminals and shoot them dead if they resist arrest.

In their statement, the bishops cited reports that as a result of Duterte's call for vigilantism, bodies are piling up with labels declaring their supposed crime.

Without mentioning Duterte's name, the bishops condemned such call for vigilantism, saying every Christian should turn away from such movements.

They also condemned the incoming president's offer of financial bonuses to police who kill crime suspects, saying such bounties are not morally acceptable.

Over the weekend, the Cardinal of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, issued a special prayer for public officials. It quotes St. Paul's Letter to Timothy, urging people to pray for those in office so that they may live "quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way."

The prayer is to be used at Masses up until Duterte takes office on June 30.

This weekend, the Philippine National Police reported that it has killed 11 suspected drug dealers during operations, adding to the growing list of police killings since Duterte rose to power last month on promises to wipe out crime.

Although Duterte's sole campaign promise of tackling illegal drugs and other crime within six months won him the hearts of Filipino voters, the Church and rights groups have expressed alarm over concerns that, as president, he would live up to his nickname of "the punisher."

More than 40 drug suspects have been killed since Duterte won the May 9 election. In comparison, only 39 deaths were recorded in the four months before May, a police spokesman told Reuters.

Speculation is spreading in Manila that some police officers involved in the drugs business have been "clearing the decks" before Duterte takes office by eliminating criminals who could implicate them. Duterte has also promised an iron hand to deal with law enforcers with links to drug and other crime syndicates.
Pope Francis to visit Armenian genocide memorial amid feud with Turkey

Pope Francis told Armenians that he is travelling to their country this weekend as a "pilgrim" to learn from the country's wisdom and "strengthen our communion" with their Orthodox Church.

In more than 1,700 years as an officially Christian country "you have found in the cross of Christ and in your genius the strength always to rise again even from the sufferings that were among the most terrible that history recalls," said Francis in a video message broadcast on Armenian television yesterday.

He said he both admired the Armenian people and shared in their suffering.

More than 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Though nearly a dozen EU countries formally recognise the genocide, Turkey has consistently disputed it. It accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting, but denies that the figure is as high as 1.5 million, and says that it did not amount to genocide.

The Pope will travel on Friday for three days and visit the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Saturday.

"We must not allow painful memories to take possession of our hearts. Even in the face of repeated assaults of evil, we cannot give up," he said.

In April last year, Francis called the Armenian massacre the "first genocide of the 20th Century". Turkey responded at the time by immediately recalling its ambassador to the Vatican to Ankara for consultations. He did not return for 10 months. The Turkish President warned the Pope to "not repeat this mistake".

During the television broadcast on Wednesday Pope Francis referenced the story of Noah's Ark, which is traditionally important to Armenians.

He told Armenians to be like Noah "who after the flood never tired of looking toward the heavens and kept releasing doves."

When a dove returned with an olive branch, Noah knew "that life could begin again and hope could be revived."

The Pope said he will visit "as a pilgrim in this jubilee year to draw from the ancient wisdom of your people and drink from the springs of your faith."
Washington Archbishop: 'We'd be a mess without religion'

The Catholic Archbishop of Washington DC has defended religion's role in public life as "essential" and insisted "we'd be a mess without it".

In a column for the Washington Post, Cardinal Donald Wuerl said that despite challenges, "religious faith and its moral perspective are not only still valid but essential aspects of a truly good and just society".

He argued that without religion's understanding of the value of human life, "all human life becomes vulnerable". Religion, he said, insists there is an objective reality to judge decision against.

"To speak out against racial discrimination, social injustice or threats to the dignity of human life is not to force values upon our society but rather to call it to its own legacy of long accepted, moral principles and commitment to defend basic human rights," he wrote.

"Religion and Gospel values are not optional extras in the effort to build the common good, but essential. Science and technology have brought mankind enormous progress, but science and technology by themselves will not save us.

"At the heart of the contribution of the Church to the public square and therefore public policy is the recognition that it is not by bread alone that we live."

Wuerl's defence comes after the Catholic Church in the US has been at the mercy of a series of revelations surrounding child sex abuse by clergy that have damaged its public role.

Wuerl, who has been an archbishop since 2006, has a "national reputation for zero tolerance of priests who molest minors" according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In 1988 as a priest in Pittsburgh he accepted a dinner invitation from a family who was sueing the diocese for abuse by a priest. Although his lawyers advised against it, Wuerl's attendance led to the resolution of the case and the eventual imprisonment of the priest in question.
WATCH: Pope Francis invites refugees onto Vatican podium for weekly address

Pope Francis invited a group of refugees onto the podium for his weekly address at the Vatican on Wednesday.

The Pontiff has been a champion of persuading Europe to accept more refugees and migrants fleeing from the Middle East and north Africa. As he descended from his Popemobile after arriving in St Peter's Square, he greeted a group of African men who held a sign that read: "Refugees for a future together".

The Argentine Pope then invited the men onto his podium overlooking the thousands gathered to hear his weekly general audience. They sat alongside Francis as he delivered a message that compared refugees to modern day lepers.

"How many times we meet a poor person who comes to us!" Francis said in his address. "We can even be generous and compassionate, but usually we do not touch them. We offer money, we drop it there, but we avoid touching their hand. And we forget that this is the body of Christ!"

"Jesus teaches us to not be afraid to touch the poor and the marginalised, because He is in them," he continued. "Touching the poor person can purify us from hypocrisy and make us more concerned for his situation."

The men were guests of the Catholic charity Caritas in Florence and Francis went on to say the refugees had suffered in their own country.

"Please they are our brothers. A Christian excludes no one. I ask all of you: Let everyone come," he told the crowds below.

The gesture comes after the Pope brought 12 refugees back to the Vatican when he visited the Greek island of Lesbos in April.

You can watch a video of Pope Francis' weekly address below.
WCC: Church commended for 'generous response' to refugees

In the face of a global "fear of the other", the church has been a witness of a "sensitive and generous response" to the refugee crisis, according to the Anglican moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The church must move from nostalgia to action and justice for the overlooked, said Dr Agnes Abuom, from Nairobi in Kenya, addressing the WCC's central committee in Norway.

"The witness of many in the forefront of struggles demand that we move away from the culture of conferences and statements and begin to get engaged in actions that nurture hope and alternatives," she said.

She praised the church for involving itself in the migration crisis in Europe, and overcoming the xenophobia so prevalent in society.

"There doesn't seem to be a place that is free of xenophobia and the consequential violence against minorities, migrants and refugees, many of whom are victims of war and poverty," she said.

"The images of rejection and mistreatment of millions fleeing from war and violence in recent times are still fresh in our minds. I commend the churches of Europe for their sensitive and generous response and their great witness, even if it meant facing the ire of their governments and the majority."

The church has a responsibility to actively serve the weakest in society and challenge values that glorify power, Abuom added.

"There is room in the gospel for disagreement but there is no room for disengagement," she said.

"Pilgrimage is about hope breaking into our present, motivating us to move forward, overcoming hurdles... We need to move from the nostalgia of the past, set aside our burdensome preoccupations and instruments that have outlived their purpose and venture into new and relevant areas of engagement."

One hundred and fifty members of the WCC are currently attending the weeklong conference in Trondheim under the theme of 'pilgrimage'.
Why Billy Graham's grandson Will considers his Norway visit as 'one of the great highlights of my life'

Billy Graham's grandson Will, who is also an evangelist, has helped further his family's mission to share the gospel all over the world. Over the past 10 years, Will has travelled to six continents - from India to Australia, to China and Hong Kong - just to preach the good news of the Lord.

However, it was only this year that Will had the privilege to share the gospel in Norway, and the experience was so powerful that the evangelist considers it "one of the great highlights of my life," according to Crossmap.

Will spent the past week in the city of Troms, which is the largest regional city in northern Norway. "We had a wonderful time up there. It's a gorgeous city," he gushes.

Troms was actually the first stop of five cities in seven days across the Scandinavian country. Will holds his events in local churches, where the gospel is highlighted and people are inspired to start a relationship with Jesus Christ.

"We've been working with different churches here in Norway, all around Norway, to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in these small one-night rallies that we're doing," Will shares.

"They've been going extremely well, and we're so grateful for the fruit that we've seen. We've seen a number of people give their lives to Christ and we rejoice in that, but there's a lot of work that still needs to be done here in this great country of Norway."

The other cities Will visited were Trondheim, Bergen, Haugesund and Kristiansand. As impressed as Will was with the beautiful sceneries offered by the cities, it was the people's hospitality that left a huge impression on him.

"The Norwegian people are very warm. They're extremely loving and outgoing and fun. They love to laugh. They have a great time here," Will says. "We've had a wonderful time. Even when I meet complete strangers, it's a sense of camaraderie. I greatly appreciate that."
Thomas Venning: 5 minutes with Einsteins leather jacket

A specialist from our books department introduces a pungent leather jacket worn by one of the greatest scientists in history  sold for 110,500 in London

This is an incredibly worn, rather pungent leather jacket, which belonged to Albert Einstein, says specialist Thomas Venning, introducing an item of clothing that, for the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, became an unlikely staple  and sold for 110,500 in the Christies Valuable Books and Manuscripts sale on 13 July 2016. The jacket first appears in a number of photographs of Einstein, taken at the height of his fame in the mid-1930s, Venning continues. A shot from 1935 shows the scientist wearing it upon his arrival for a holiday in the Bahamas  improbably paired, adds Venning, with a rather natty wing collar.

Open a larger version of this image Lotte Jacobi, Albert Einstein in the leather jacket  1938 The University of New Hampshire. Portrait of Albert Einstein courtesy of the University of New Hampshire

These early images were taken shortly after Einsteins application for permanent residency in the US, having fled Nazi rule in his native Germany in 1933. This jacket seems to capture Einsteins mood as he embarks on a new life in the US. Its made by Levi Strauss, and feels particularly American. Over several years, the jacket aged visibly. Einstein wore it all the time  a fact mentioned in the memoirs of fellow scientist Leopold Infeld, who worked with him at Princeton. Infeld explained that Einstein tried to keep material restrictions to a minimum. Long hair reduced the need for a barber and, he wrote, one leather jacket solved the coat problem for years.

Indeed, Einstein wore the jacket so often that, decades later, it retains his scent. Einstein was an incessant pipe-smoker and, astonishingly, 60 years after his death, his jacket still smells of smoke, comments Venning, who adds that the piece has been an electrifying temporary addition to Christies books department.

Passed on directly from Albert Einstein to the present owner, the jacket was offered alongside Einsteins pocket watch, and building blocks from his childhood. We know that Einstein played with this sort of toy, which was a forerunner of lego, and its wonderful to think of the young scientist using them as a child  already figuring things out, says Venning.

Not unlike the jacket, Einsteins watch is humble in style, although it evokes a very different period in his life. It dates to around 1900, when Einstein was still a total unknown, says Venning. A recent graduate, the 21-year-old had just published his first paper  a theory on intermolecular forces that he would later described as worthless. Einstein carried this watch with him while working as a patent clerk in Switzerland, before he came up with one of the great ideas to change the world. It is, Venning concludes, an incredibly emblematic object, from a physicist whose work with time would eventually lead to the ground-breaking Theory of Relativity.
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Three Houston men have been accused of robbing a bank earlier this month in College Station.

The heist happened about 9:30 a.m. June 16 at the Commerce National Bank in the 1200 block of East University Drive, according to the College Station Police Department.
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A man died Thursday morning in a three-vehicle crash involving an Aldine Independent School District bus in north Harris County. No students were hurt.

The wreck occurred about 7 a.m. in the 7300 block of FM 1960 near Lee Road, said Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman.

Herman said no students were aboard the bus at the time of the crash.

A pickup involved in the wreck ended up in a ditch after the collision, Herman said. The driver was flown by LifeFlight medical helicopter to Memorial Hermann-The Texas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

A woman driving a sport utility vehicle was injured in the wreck and was taken to a nearby hospital. Details of her injuries and condition were not released.

The bus driver, Herman said, was not hurt.

Herman said investigators were trying to determine what led to the crash.

The crash forced officials to block FM 1960 in both directions while crews cleared the scene.
Earlier this month, an impressive 500 friends, family members, and foodies gathered at Cafe Annie to toast Chef Robert Del Grande's 35th anniversary with the Post Oak eatery.

Back in 1981, Del Grande, then a young biochemist hailing from the University of California at Riverside, moved to Houston and accepted a summer gig as a cook in the French restaurant's kitchen. Three and half decades later, his trailblazing career includes becoming the Bayou City's first James Beard Award winner.
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In the early 1980s, Texas oil giant George Mitchell read an academic article arguing that economically extracting natural gas from shale rock just might be possible. But the revolution didn't arrive quickly.

"It took a decade and a half of conviction, investment and dogged determination," energy historian Daniel Yergin wrote in 2013. "But before Mitchell was done, he launched what has proved to be the most important innovation in energy so far this century."

Mitchell is often called the "father of fracking," but fracking had actually been common for decades before Mitchell's innovation paid off in 1997. Energy industry veteran Stephen A. Holditch says it's more accurate to say that Mitchell succeeded in "combining long horizontal wells with hydraulic fracturing," which made shale gas economically viable and laid the groundwork for later growth in the domestic natural gas industry. The same techniques would also be used for oil.

"He's the father of the shale revolution," said Holditch, a retired Texas A&M petroleum engineering professor who consulted for Mitchell's company and knew him personally.

More Information Timeline Mitchell's main accomplishments: Born in 1919 to poor Greek immigrants in Galveston, he graduated first in his Texas A&M class in 1940 Created drilling innovation that led to shale revolution, lowering energy prices as well as carbon dioxide emissions Founded and funded The Woodlands as an experiment in sustainable and accessible living Helped lead revitalization and historic preservation of Galveston's Strand Donated millions to Texas A&M, including $30 million for the ground-based Magellan telescope See More Collapse

A real estate developer as well, Mitchell is best-known in the Houston area for creating The Woodlands as a forested enclave in sync with nature. The performing arts center there bears the name of his wife, Cynthia Woods Mitchell.

After selling his oil and gas company in 2002 for $3.5 billion, Mitchell focused on philanthropic efforts. He became the largest donor to his alma mater, Texas A&M, according to state Sen. Tommy Williams. He gave more than $30 million to help build the Magellan telescope in Chile.

Holditch said Mitchell's gifts to support the study of space grew out of his long-term interest; he had wanted to become an astrophysicist, but he didn't think he could make a living in the field after graduating first in Texas A&M's class of 1940.

Mitchell's funding and vision also boosted his hometown of Galveston. Starting in the 1970s, he rehabilitated historic buildings on the Strand. He would buy dilapidated properties, restore them and resell them with covenants ensuring their preservation.

While Mitchell's long and colorful career made him a billionaire, friends and colleagues said he always stayed grounded. The billionaire was often seen casually strolling through the downtown tunnels at lunchtime, and known to meet friends at a Galveston grocery store for coffee and conversation in the deli.

"His story was quintessentially American," his family said in a statement after he died at age 94 on July 26, 2013. He left behind 10 children, 23 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

His parents came to Galveston from Greece, where his father had herded goats. Mitchell's Greek legacy included the middle name his parents gave him: Phydias.

In the New World, his father opened small cleaning and shoeshine businesses but also was a lifelong gambler.

His mother, who encouraged him to focus on education as the best way to improve his conditions, died when Mitchell was 13.

The idea for The Woodlands came after Mitchell saw the destruction of Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood following race-fueled riots in 1965, said his granddaughter, Katherine Lorenz.

"He knew he could do better. So he went to work creating a sustainable community," Lorenz told the Chronicle in 2014.

The township had its grand opening less than a decade after the riots, in 1974.

The settlement was part of a federally funded urban-planning initiative that supported about a dozen "new towns" around the country. The concept arose in England in the 1940s and hopped the pond in the 1960s.

The idea was a bit of a stretch, said Kyle Shelton, a program manager at Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. "It was an attempt to create a different kind of city, and one that is tied to a longer history of utopian ideals: If only we could design the right type of community  then everything would work perfectly."

By 1976, The Woodlands was the only such community not entering or approaching bankruptcy, East Carolina University historian Roger Briles wrote in 1998 in the academic journal Planning Perspectives. "Only The Woodlands had established economic viability."

"The biggest difference" among the towns, Shelton said, "is that The Woodlands had George Mitchell."

The township's main backer contributed land, capital and vision.

The commitment to integrate nature - the master plan left a third of the acreage as green space - was "revolutionary" at the time, Shelton said.

Mitchell brought in landscape architect Ian McHarg, who emphasized the need to preserve the natural watershed. That meant nearly half of the township's land would be protected from development.

Today, the area boasts 130 forested parks and 200 miles of trails. Mitchell's verdant vision has also been tested as the community grew from 30,000 residents in 1990 to 103,000 in 2014, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. And since The Woodlands Corp. was purchased in 1997 by new owners, clear-cutting was carried out in the area for the first time.

His original ideal of homes that would be affordable for a range of incomes also faces challenges today. Median house prices doubled in just a decade, from $195,880 to $412,482.

Mitchell's hometown of Galveston also benefited from his efforts and investment. "The Strand had other investors, but Mr. Mitchell was the most significant one, and he certainly brought the most vision," said Dwayne Jones, executive director of the Galveston Historical Foundation. "His presence, his efforts, his investment and his vision really began to transform the island into a higher-quality, greater-visibility tourist entity."

As with his business efforts, Mitchell was involved in the details. Former Galveston Mayor Jan Coggeshall told the Chronicle in 2013, "On Saturday morning he would be checking out things like the light switches."

He also gave 135 acres on Pelican Island to establish Texas A&M University at Galveston.

Mitchell's commitment to Galveston's revitalization helped the city recover from Hurricane Ike. After the 2008 storm, he spent $24 million to renovate three of his hotels on the island.

Just a year or two before Mitchell died, Jones said, he bought buildings on Hendley Row at the end of the Strand.

"He took a declining, slow area of the Strand and he has made it into a really top-notch property," Jones said. "And it's a really beautiful building."

Mitchell Historic Properties will finish that rehabilitation in the next few weeks, meaning that George Mitchell's legacy keeps growing years after his death.
The Spring ISD board of trustees has unanimously approved its fiscal year 2016-17 budget, which will include a slight salary increase for starting teachers and a 1 percent increase for all staff.

The $377 million operating budget, which includes $299.1 million in the general fund, $51.8 million in the debt service fund and $26 million in the child nutrition fund, will be supported by a proposed property tax rate of $1.47 per $100 valuation, which is the existing tax rate.

"This is a balanced budgetwhich anticipates no change in our fund balance," said Spring ISD Finance Director Ann Westbrooks.

Last year's budget was $378 million.

The budget also includes a 1 percent cost of living raise for all staff, an increase in starting teacher pay to $51,760 from $51,500 last year, funding expanded career and technical education electives, and funding for state mandated foreign language requirements that students will now have to meet in order to graduate.

The district was looking at passing a deficit budget this year, and was forced to make significant changes during several round of budget workshops.

"I am very cautious about passing deficit budgets, because they do catch up with you eventually and they do cause problems," Westbrooks said during a June workshop.

Although the district did not cut programs, it did tighten allocations in some areas and removed some one-time expenditures that occurred during the 2015-16 budget year, such as improvements to infrastructure technology, and adjusted staffing based on current staffing guidelines to align with student enrollment.

"Requests to add items to the budget that would have caused a deficit budget were taken off the table," said SISD Communications Director Karen Garrison. "This allowed the board to adopt a balanced budget."

While the budget is balanced right now, there could still be issues ahead with Exxon Mobil, which was added to the district's tax rolls in 2014, amounting to a 20 percent increase in property tax values in Spring ISD.

Exxon Mobil is the district's biggest taxpaying entity, which is litigation with the Harris County Appraisal District over the $1.04 billion value placed on its sprawling new office complex in Spring, just south of The Woodlands. The company paid nearly $40 million in 2015 taxes for the property west of Interstate 45 at the Hardy Toll Road, although it continues to dispute the amount. Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Margaret Ross told the Houston Chronicle the company had paid all of its 2015 property taxes, which included $8.8 million to Harris County, $15.3 million to the Spring Independent School District and $15.6 million to Harris County Improvement District No. 18.

Last year, Westbrooks told the board that she was careful with how she budgeted, even with the increase in property values.

This year, Westbrooks is saying much the same thing with the pending litigation between HCAD and Exxon Mobil.

As a result, Westbrooks asked the board to allow her to commit $6 million from the general fund balance.

"We have talked throughout the budget process, and actually quite a bit last year, about the pending litigation and its potential effect on the school district," she said. "By committing a portion of the fund balance for that potential refund, that is just setting those funds aside, because we know it would be a hit to the fund balance. This just shows that we are planning for it."

The final amount will be included in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the year ending on June 30, that will come to the board for approval in November.

The 2016 budget goes into effect on July 1.
As Robinson Road, the two-lane thoroughfare that cuts through the heart of the small city of Oak Ridge North, continues to channel thousands of cars through the bedroom community, city officials are looking at alternatives for improving traffic flow.

When Montgomery County residents voted down the proposed $350 million road bond last May, in addition to nixing the controversial Woodlands Parkway extension to Texas 249, they slashed an $8 million project to widen Robinson Road and realign it at Hanna Road to the east. Currently, Robinson Road cuts off at Hanna Road and motorists have to endure two stop signs before crossing the railroad tracks to continue on Robinson Road.

But the plan to realign the road met with opposition from some city residents who believed that the road's new path would cut through existing homes and a church. While city officials maintained that they were unsure of how much private property would be affected by the project, it was dropped from the second road bond that passed in November because Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack didn't want to jeopardize the bond for a controversial project.

So Oak Ridge North went back to the drawing board to look for alternative solutions to the crippling traffic.

"I think the community wants to see something done," said Oak Ridge North Mayor Jim Kuykendall. "We're still way over-capacity on that road. We still have people taking shortcuts through residential streets, which isn't safe."

The city council hired RPS Klotz Associates civil engineering firm to perform a traffic study and, in June, the firm presented five alternatives for the city council to consider. The projects range from $1-5.4 million and include adding a traffic signal at Robinson and Hanna roads, realigning Robinson Road and adding a signal and an extended left turn lane at Hanna Road, realigning Robinson, adding a signal at Hanna and widening Robinson to four lanes, as well as the two of the more expensive alternatives, adding an east/west connector road or a north/south connector road.

Kuykendall said that none of the proposed alternatives involve taking land from the church or homes.

"It's just a discussion at this point," said City Manager Vicky Rudy, who emphasized that the city council still wants some clarification from the engineers before it makes any decisions. "For everything you do, it can cause impacts in other areas  (This study is) one more step in the process. It's taking a while, but we'll get there."

The city council will discuss the alternatives again at its council meeting on Jun 27.

Robinson Road Alternatives

1. Signalize Robinson Road at Hanna Road - $1 million

1a. Alternative one plus a northbound right turn lane at Hanna - $1.5 million

2. Realign Robinson at Hanna with a signal and extended left turn lane - $2.8 million

3. Realign Robinson at Hanna with a signal and widen to four-lane undivided - $4.7 million

4. East/west connector roadway - $4.3 million

5. North/south connector roadway - $5.4 million
Nearly nine months after Montgomery County residents approved a $280 million bond to fund 54 road projects, Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack is establishing a task force to address transportation issues in his part of the county.

Precinct 3, which encompasses most of The Woodlands and South Montgomery County, was allocated $84 million for five projects, the most of any precinct. As the county's population has climbed in recent years, South County has led the pack and, consequentially, has some of the most congested roads in the county.

The purpose of the Transportation Task Force will be to bring together community leaders from South County to discuss needs and ideas, promote local projects, advocate for funding mechanisms and ensure the implementation of the South County Mobility Plan, a planning document put together by the Houston-Galveston Area Council in 2014, according to the task force's charter.

Noack has asked that one elected official and one staff member from The Woodlands Township, the City of Shenandoah, the City of Oak Ridge North and The Woodlands Road Utility District join him and his staff as members of the task force. The meetings will be held quarterly or every two months starting in August and will be open to the public.

This will be the second time that Noack has brought the various local entities in South County together for transportations issues. They joined forces to fund the South County Mobility Plan in 2013, which identified $1.6 billion in possible projects, $375 million of which were considered improvements needed by 2020.

While the various entities were able to work together for the South County Mobility Plan, there has been controversy over which projects are needed, how to prioritize them and how to fund them.

Noack plans to use the task force as an advisory board that will discuss and make recommendations on transportation projects and initiatives, but will not take formal action or implement any policies, according to the charter.

"The purpose of that committee is really more to be updated on the implementation of the South County Mobility projects that will be occurring now over the upcoming years and talk about future transportation needs," said Don Norrell, president and general manager of The Woodlands Township.

Chairman of The Woodlands Board of Directors Ed Robb will appoint either himself or another board member to serve on the task force.

At its June 16 meeting, The Woodlands Township Board of Directors briefly discussed the appointment to the task force, although Robb's absence kept them from determining who would take the position.

Woodlands Board Member Mike Bass commented that this task force will be different from the steering committee for the South County Mobility Plan because that committee involved more entities than just those in Precinct 3, had no elected officials and held meetings that were closed to the public. Bass said that Noack's task force is a step in the right direction.

"It was important to reconstitute the steering committee because we're not done with mobility in South County," Bass said. "We need this ongoing dialogue: What's next? What are the other things we need to do? What can we do funding-wise?"

Bass added that he thinks the task force should consider adding representatives from the home owners associations in the unincorporated parts of south county on the east side of Interstate 45 and from the businesses in the area that are impacted by mobility.

Board Member Gordy Bunch expressed his opinion that local officials tend to take the leader of an entity more seriously than a designee based on his experience as the appointee to the Montgomery County Road Bond Committee.

"I was the designee for the Township and (was) wholly ignored," Bunch said. "(The task force appointee) should be a leadership position."

Bass, who previously served on the Township's now-disbanded Ad Hoc Transportation Committee, recommended that any board member who is interested in the position should let Robb know, but that he himself does not want to get involved.

"The more people we get involved on this board in mobility, the better off we're going to be," Bass said. "It's a learning process."

The City of Oak Ridge North, which will also be included in the task force, has yet to appoint its designees, but City Manager Vicky Rudy said that the priorities will be to represent the mobility needs on the east side of the interstate, particularly the traffic-choked Robinson and Rayford Roads.

"They've been neglected," Rudy said. "We're happy to be involved in anything that continues to try to address this."

Noack was unavailable for comment by the time of publication.

Precinct 3 Road Bond Project List By the Numbers

$60 million: Widen Rayford Road to six lanes from railroad to Texas 99 and build overpass at rail road.

$14.6 million: Widen Woodlands Parkway by one lane in each direction from Grogan's Mill Road to I-45.

$3.8 million: Build Gosling Road bridge over Spring Creek.

$3 million: Engineering and schematics for interchange at I-45, Woodlands Parkway and Robinson Road.

$2.7 millon: Widen Lake Woodlands Drive to six lanes from east of Lake Front Circle to I-45.

Total: $84 million
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Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman says that he will continue participating in a controversial federal immigration program despite heated protest in recent weeks from activists that the program promotes distrust and fear in the immigrant community.

Hickman said he would renew the program in an interview Wednesday with the television news channel ABC 13. The sheriff's office is holding a press conference this afternoon about the matter.

"Come June 30th, we will have signed the agreement to renew for another three years," Hickman told ABC 13. "People who have committed a crime in Texas who are here illegally or are undocumented, they should be removed."

Activists had ramped up a campaign to end the county's participation in the program, commonly called 287(g). The partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement allows local law enforcement officers to help federal agents screen in local jails for immigrants in the country illegally.

Harris County is one of two law enforcement agencies in Texas and 32 in the country that have 287(g) partnerships.

While the 287(g) is not the same as ICE's Secure Communities program, which matches fingerprints of any jail inmate charged with a crime against a federal immigration database and has led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands nationally, it has also generated significant controversy.

Authorized by Congress in the late 1990s, the 287(g) program has been credited with identifying thousands of suspected immigrants in the country illegally nationwide since 2006, when it gained popularity during the presidency of George W. Bush.

The program has become more hotly debated over the years, particularly after a series of critical reports by the Government Accountability Office and the Inspector General as well as high-profile allegations of abuse or mistakes by local law enforcement agencies.

Of the 32 agencies nationwide now participating in 287(g), the only other law enforcement agency in Texas is the Carrollton Police Department.

Several local governments across the U.S. have ended their participation in the 287(g) program. In May 2015, Los Angeles County voted to terminate its contract with ICE, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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Nine members of the local community on Thursday sued Houston's public school district, alleging the district violated numerous laws and their own regulations when recently changing the names of eight schools.

"We've been arguing as parents and taxpayers for months that the vote was illegal, politically driven, and taking these historic buildings was against the law," said public relations consultant Wayne Dolcefino, who is a spokesman for the plaintiffs in the case.

The lawsuit asks the Harris County District Court to prohibit HISD's board from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on renaming the eight schools. HISD voted to change the names of these schools in May because each school was named for a Confederate leader.

READ THIS: A brief history on controversial mascots at Texas high schools

An HISD spokesman said the district had no immediate comment on the suit.

Dolcefino said the school board violated the Texas Open Meetings act and the Monument act, among other regulations. The plaintiffs on Tuesday issued a 24-hour demand to HISD, asking the board to rescind its vote to rename the schools. HISD didn't respond, he said.

Attorney Dan Goforth, who's representing the plaintiffs, said the money HISD will have to spend is the sole problem with the name changes.

"We're not saying they can't do it. We're just saying they can't do it the way they want to do it," Goforth said.

He estimated it will cost the school district at least $5 million, including at least $2 million to change student uniforms to match the new school names. HISD expects the total cost of the name changes will be no more than $2 million.

"HISD is broke," the attorney said.

Nancy Abrego, one of the plaintiffs, lost her job teaching special education in HISD in April due to school district budget cuts. She grew up in the Heights section and attended Reagan High School, one of the schools slated for a name change.

Abrego, who taught in the school district for 18 years, said renaming the schools is a waste of money.

"They need to give it to schools, so the schools and the students can have what they need, instead of teachers having to pull money out of their own pocket," Abrego said.
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The battle over a controversial landfill proposal in Waller County may not be over despite a state agency's recent rejection of the project.

Green Group Holdings, LLC, recently purchased the 723-acre parcel on which the company originally hoped to build the project, according to a news release from Citizens Against the Landfill in Hempstead. The move came despite the fact that a state agency last fall rejected the company's application to construct it and said the company's appeal filed this spring came too late.

The citizens group, which marked its five-year anniversary Saturday, took the development as a call to arms. They have fought the project, known as the Pintail landfill, based on a conviction that it would harm the area's water supply and economic future. The purchase of land was reason to believe the fight would continue, they said.

"As much as we hate to admit it, at this point we are convinced that the battle is not over," the news release said, calling for fundraising efforts to begin anew.

Still, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which rejected what it called a "deficient" project application in October, had not yet received a new application for the project, spokeswoman Andrea Morrow wrote in an email.

Green Group did appeal the state commission's October ruling, which said the company had not adequately accounted for how high the water level might get in the proposed area, but the appeal, filed in April, was not submitted "in a timely fashion," Morrow wrote.

A Waller County commissioner who opposes the landfill further declared victory against the project in February, when the county learned that Green Group would not be able to "grandfather" in the rejected application on the project. The company had argued that a transfer facility had been approved prior to the county and city putting in place ordinances.

"I am proud to say the landfill is dead," the commissioner said at the time. "D-E-A-D."

A company representative said then they would continue to explore how to move forward. The sentiment was reiterated Wednesday:

"The Pintail property has been under option to purchase for a number of years," said David Green, vice president of Green Group, in a prepared statement. "After much consideration, we have decided to exercise the option and purchase the property. We are continuing to evaluate the opportunities for the site."

The deed, involving Marengo Family Properties, LTD, and Pintail Landfill, LLC, became effective June 8. The property was sold "as is," and did not include "oil, gas and other minerals in, under and that may be produced from the property."
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The leader of a Houston area clique of MS-13 - the notorious street gang imported from El Salvadorwas convicted Thursday of murder and sentenced to 99 years in the bloody machete slaying of a 14-year-old.

Jose Granados-Guevara, 23, was found guilty by visiting state District Judge Terry Flenniken after a three-day bench trial in the Harris County courthouse.

Flenniken then sentenced him to 99 years. Granados-Guevara will be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Prosecutors convinced the judge that Granados-Guevara put together a group of gang members who took 14-year-old Jose Meraz to a wooded area west of Addicks Dam Road. The four gang members passed a single machete around as they hacked him to death.

EXPLAINED: 13 things you need to know about MS-13

"Jose Meraz did not realize that every step he took into the woods was another step toward certain death," prosecutor Greg Houlton said in closing arguments. "The evidence shows that that (Granados-Guevara) not only ordered the death, he participated in it."

Houlton said Granados-Guevara - whose gang name was "Cruel" - gave the order that Meraz had to die after he refused to kill his own cousin in a gang ritual.

Meraz, who was an eighth-grader at Thomas J. Stovall Middle School in the Aldine Independent School District, was allegedly a fledgling member of the gang.

BACKGROUND: Mystery surrounds 14-year old Aldine boy's death

Rick Gonzales, a lawyer for Granados-Guevara, argued that the gang members who testified against the 23-year-old could not be trusted to tell the truth.

"There's an issue of credibility," Gonzales said. "Because of all the lies that have been told, it is not believable testimony."

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A Houston attorney claims she suffered severe burns and pain after a Starbucks employee negligently spilled coffee in her lap. Now she's filed a lawsuit seeking more than $200,000 for past medical bills, emotional pain and money lost from missed employment due to the incident.

Katherine Mize claims that she has spent the past two years attempting to settle with the Seattle-based coffee conglomerate, but they wouldn't work with her. Unable to come to terms with the corporation, Mize filed the lawsuit June 16 in the Harris County District Court.

READ MORE: Woman alleges Taco Bell employee burned her and boyfriend with hot oil

"Neither (the employee) nor any of the Starbucks employees even attempted to assist Plaintiff while she was in evident and excruciating pain, nor did they file a report to memorialize the event," reads Mize's lawsuit. "Plaintiff was treated at the hospital for intense pain, burns and other associated symptoms. She was unable to eat, sit, walk, work or function normally for an extended period of time after the accident."

Representatives at Starbucks said they are taking the allegations seriously and are responding to Mize's claims.

"The health and safety of our customers and partners (employees) is always our top priority,"

said Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges." We are aware of the customer's claims and will be fully prepared to defend the case in court."

READ MORE: Driver's lawsuit alleges Domino's pays sub-minimum wages, shorts workers on delivery fee

The burns occurred at 8 a.m. July 13, 2014 at the 445 North Loop West Starbucks location, according to the lawsuit.

Mize's lawyer Brian Humphrey said Mize tried to settle with Starbucks before she hired him in late 2015. Humphrey said Mize was forced to file a lawsuit since state law dictates civil lawsuits must be filed within two years after the incident or it won't be heard in court.

"The Starbucks employee spilled it on her. It wasn't Katherine's carelessness that caused the burns," Humphrey said. "Katherine has several thousands of dollars in medical expenses. She wasn't able to work her job. She's lost tens of thousands of dollars because of this. Starbucks never offered to pay her medical expenses and wouldn't talk to her before she hired me."

Mize is suing on the grounds that the Starbucks employee failed to pay attention, failed to safely handle the hot beverage and failed to offer Mize help after the spill, according to the lawsuit.

Mize is seeking between $200,000 and $1 million from Starbucks over the incident.

Humphrey said in his experience, it'll take at least a year before the case is heard in Harris Count y courts, should the lawsuit go to trial.
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Two weeks before Jose Meraz's body was discovered in the woods in west Houston, MS-13 gang members met and planned his killing, a prosecutor said Friday.

The revelation was one of many presented in court during a hearing for one of three people charged in the death of the 14-year-old north Houston boy whose body was discovered in mid-September.

Reading from a probable cause complaint, Harris County Assistant District Attorney Tanisha Manning explained that a witness, an MS-13 gang member, told police that other members, including Jose Granados-Guevara, who was in court on Friday, killed Meraz with a machete.

The witness also said Meraz was a member of the gang.

The witness also told police he watched a car drive up next to Meraz and a masked man jump out and pull Meraz into the vehicle, she said. The witness, she said, told police the attacker had the same build and voice as Granados-Guevara.

Meraz wasn't seen or heard from again until Sept. 15, when his body was discovered, she said.

Other threats

Days later, Granados-Guevara called the witness, told him he'd participated in Meraz's slaying, and threatened to kill the witness or his family if he told anyone, Manning said.

Granados-Guevara, 22, was arrested Oct. 8 and charged with murder in the death of Meraz, who was an eighth-grader at the Thomas J. Stovall Middle School in the Aldine Independent School District.

The teen's body was discovered by a man walking his dogs in a wooded area west of Addicks Dam Road, more than 20 miles from where Meraz had lived and gone to school.

Granados-Guevara will remain in jail without bail, a judge ruled Friday.

On Tuesday, police also arrested William Valladares, 17.

He told investigators he had participated in the killing and that Granados-Guevara had hit Meraz with a machete several times, ultimately killing him, the prosecutor said.

Previously, Meraz's family and friends said they believed MS-13 was responsible for his death. Though he had been friends with some of the gang members, he later left the gang, they said.

"It was a criminal group he was involved with for a short time," said Sgt. Chris Sturdivant with the Houston Police Department.

"He didn't like the things he was asked to do," Sturdivant said, explaining one of the motives that police said they believe led to the teen's death.

A similar homicide

Meraz's death came a month after another killing, that of 29-year-old Senen Dominguez, on Aug. 15.

Police and prosecutors have pinned that killing on a 16-year-old MS-13 gang member, who they say stabbed him outside a bar and dumped his body in a bayou.

That teenager since has been arrested and charged with murder.

Granados-Guevara, a tall, slender man with an unruly mop of thick black hair, said little as 185th State District Court Judge Susan Brown read him his warnings.

The El Salvadoran citizen faces additional charges of aggravated assault for a shooting in June.

David Garza, his attorney, could not be reached for comment.

An attorney for Valladares was not listed on court records.

On Thursday, police announced a 14-year-old boy also had been arrested on murder charges in Meraz's death. But his arrest may not be the last, authorities said.

"We hope to make a few more arrests - at least one, if everything works out," said Sturdivant, the HPD sergeant.
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Authorities are trying to figure out the circumstances that led to a north Houston boy's death earlier this week.

A man walking his dog near the Addicks Reservoir Monday evening discovered a body in the woods, near the 1800 block of Sherwood Forest Road, police said.

Authorities with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences have since identified the body as 14-year-old Jose Meraz, an Aldine ISD student.

Meraz died from "multiple sharp force and blunt force injuries," according to the medical examiner's office.

His body was discovered in west Houston, more than 20 miles from the school he attended, Stovall Middle School.

"He was so funny, a really nice person. He was never sad," said Lizbeth Salas, 13, Meraz's classmate at Stovall last year.

This year, though, she noticed a change in her friend.

"There was something strange about him. He was so quiet," she said.

The news of his death struck his friends hard, she said.

Though police found his body Monday, many students didn't learn about it until Wednesday and Thursday.

"I found out through my friends on Facebook. One of my friends posted a photo saying she couldn't believe he was gone," the 13-year-old said. "I didn't believe it at first. It was really sad. For the past couple of days, it's been  I can't sleep, it's just  I had just seen him, and now he's gone."

A memorial service for Meraz is scheduled for Sunday morning, though friends posted on Facebook that his body would later be flown down to Honduras.

Univision reporters tracked down Meraz's parents, who had moved to Houston but were deported to Honduras more than a year ago. Meraz was living with his aunt, according to the report.

Meraz's Facebook page appears to echo some of the struggles he was facing. "My life is getting harder," he wrote on Aug. 30. "I'm alone in this world but God is with me."

Aldine ISD officials could not be reached for comment. Additional details were not available Saturday afternoon.
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A small child drowned while swimming at an apartment pool in League City, authorities said Wednesday.

About 7 p.m., League City police officers were sent to investigate reports of a possible drowning at the Jordan Cove apartments, 901 W. FM 517.

The 5-year-old child was pulled from the pool before the officers were at the scene. Police dispatchers guided the caller through CPR procedures until help arrived, police said.

The child was taken to Clear Lake Regional Medical Center and later pronounced dead.

League City police said the child's adult family members and other children were present at the time.

Foul play is not suspected in the child's death. An autopsy has been ordered, officials said.
An independent candidate in the race for Tennessee's 3rd congressional district seat put up a "Make America White Again" campaign sign off Highway 411 near Benton, according to media reports.

RELATED: 'I'm with racist!': Brutal New York Daily News cover mocks Paul Ryan for standing by Donald Trump
One of the more harrowing stories from a recent BBC documentary about college fraternities is grabbing attention for its graphic imagery.

Terrance Bennet, a former student at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., told BBC producers what had happened to him during a Tau Kappa Epsilon initiation in the fall of 2014.
Following a fatal hit-and-run, two carjackings and a collision with three vehicles, Kristie Renee Nesby offered an unusual defense to a Georgia judge, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Someone spiked her drink.

The 43-year-old Fresno, Texas, native claims that someone had tampered with her Chick-fil-A beverage on May 11 in Smyrna, Ga. Whatever substance was used, Nesby told the Cobb County judge it fueled the deadly crime spree that followed.

According to authorities, Nesby robbed a cleaning business, drove into a 71-year-old female pedestrian, stole two vehicles, fled police and attempted to steal other vehicles before police were finally able to take her down.

The 71-year-old woman later died at an area hospital.

Nesby is charged with murder, vehicular homicide, hit-and-run, multiple counts of aggravated assault, armed robbery, vehicle hijacking, reckless driving and failure to maintain a lane.

The judge denied her bond.
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The University of Texas at Austin's use of race in admissions is constitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday, ending a years-long legal battle that could have upended affirmative action programs nationwide.

Abigail Fisher, who sued the university after she was denied admission in 2008, said she was "disappointed" with the high court's 4-3 ruling.

UT considers race as a factor for roughly 25 percent of students who are not admitted under a state law that grants automatic admission to the top students of a high school's graduating class.

UNITED STATES V. TEXAS: Supreme Court deadlocks on landmark Obama immigration plan

In the ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court agreed with UT's mantra through the lengthy legal battle that race is just "a factor of a factor of a factor" in the admissions process -- and is therefore limited and constitutional.

The Supreme Court suggested Fisher may have had a better shot at getting into UT if the Top 10 percent law wasn't in place and UT used race as a factor for picking its entire student body. Fisher, a white applicant from Sugar Land whose grades did not put her at the top of her class, has claimed UT admitted minority students with lower grades than hers, violating the 14th Amendment in denying her admission.

Kennedy wrote that while UT's admissions policy is acceptable for now, the flagship Texas university will need to "engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection" to ensure the policy remains constitutionally sound.

"I deeply believe in the benefits of diversity in education," UT Austin President Greg Fenves tweeted after the ruling came down. "I'm pleased that SCOTUS has reaffirmed its importance."

Various lawmakers, politicians and advocacy groups also cheered the ruling. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, called it "a win for all Americans."

While the high court did not strike down affirmative action policies as many had feared, the ruling is tailored to UT's policies, which are fairly unique given the state's Top 10 percent law.

"Moral order has been restored in the universe, but there will be more aggrieved whites, every time they do not prevail on the merits," said Michael Olivas, the interim president of the University of Houston Downtown and a UH law professor who helped draft the state's Top 10 percent law. "She (Fisher) is convinced she was improperly denied admissions, even though whites are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of the percentage plan."

Read the full ruling below.

Shortly after the ruling, Fisher said, "I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action."

Edward Blum, president of the Project on Fair Representation, said, "Racial classifications and preferences are one of the most polarizing policies in America today. As long as universities like the Univ. of Texas continue to treat applicants differently by race and ethnicity, the social fabric that holds us together as a nation will be weakened. Today's decision is a sad step backward for the original, colorblind principles to our civil rights laws."

The Project on Fair Representation, a not-for-profit legal foundation based in Arlington, Virginia, provided counsel to Fisher in her challenge of the constitutionality of the UT admissions policy.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he was "extremely pleased" the court did not "roll back the clock on a half century of progress."

"This ruling ensures that the well-established use of affirmative action to ensure diversity on campuses can be maintained, while at the same time guaranteeing that laws providing equal opportunity for all will not be tossed aside en masse," Ellis said.
In the middle of the Democrats' U.S. House sit-in for gun control, one man approached the floor to scream a thought: "Radical Islam killed those people!"

He shouted some more and then squared off with Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democrat who represents the Orlando district where the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred. Brown held up a poster showing the 49 shooting victims. The man entered into a screaming match before the two were separated.
AUSTIN -- The Texas attorney general says parents suing to get the state to toss out student test scores lack standing and should have taken their complaints to the Texas Education Agency rather than a court.

Attorney General Ken Paxton's office filed the response in Travis County District Court Monday, denying "each and every allegation" from parents who allege in a lawsuit that the TEA ignored state law that requires standardized tests for elementary and middle schoolers be short enough for students to finish is a specific period of time.

The Texas Education Agency and the attorney general are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the parents lack standing, failed to exhaust administrative remedies and failed to state a "legally cognizable claim."

"I am shocked and saddened that the TEA refuses to recognize my right to have a judge listen to my complaint, especially when the agency broke the law and is irreversibly damaging our schools in the process," said Jennifer Rumsey, a parent and teacher who is one of four plaintiffs."They have already treated our children and our teachers with great disrespect, and the thought that I should continue to trust them to resolve my issues is insulting."

The lawsuit was born out of a parent and teacher community group "Stop STAAR 2016" which has raised more than $22,000 to fund legal action against the state. Taking aim at the new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness test, parents convinced legislators in 2015 to require the state change the tests so students can finish each exam within two or three hours, depending on their grade level.

The tests were never changed, according to the parents who say their children were given illegal tests. They argue test scores should be thrown out for grading children, evaluating teachers and measuring schools.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced this month the state would not use the test scores to grade students this year because of a host of other issues with the tests, but will retain the data which can be used to rate schools and teachers.
-- Latest from Capitol Hill:  Republicans voted early Thursday to adjourn the House until after the July 4th recess in an attempt to quash a dramatic sit-in by their Democratic colleagues seeking a vote on gun control measures in the wake of the Orlando massacre. But a small group of Democrats remained in the House chamber, carrying on an unprecedented attempt to force gun-control votes, per The Washington Post.

-- Clinton aides to dig into Castros past, by the Express-News Bill Lambrecht. Until then, the Clinton campaign and the candidate herself will take the measure of Castro and the others, weighing a host of factors including the balance they would bring to the ticket and their potential appeal to key segments of voters. Clinton also must decide the wisdom of presenting the first major party ticket lacking a white male, a test of American culture change that would come from selection of Castro or Warren.

-- A must read this morning, from The Texas Tribunes Alexa Ura: The process of compiling much-anticipated Texas abortion statistics for 2014  expected to reflect the impact of abortion restrictions passed by the 2013 legislature  followed its normal course up until February of this year, a health agency insider says.

But when staffers at the state Department of Health Services finished their work and prepared to release the data, the process stalled after the numbers were submitted to the department's legal department for final approval, the source said. Internal emails provided to The Texas Tribune show agency workers were then told the numbers were not ready to be released.

-- COMPROMISE SENATE GUN BILL could come to vote this week, per DMNs Katie Leslie. ($) As House Democrats stage a sit-in to protest congressional inaction on gun violence, Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday that hes hopeful Senate Republicans will unify and vote on a compromise gun control proposal as early as Thursday. Cornyn, the Senates No. 2 Republican, has been in talks with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, over what could be the only viable piece of firearms legislation the chamber will consider in the wake of the Orlando nightclub massacre.

-- Bathroom pass: Too many Texas schools are failing, yet our elected officials would rather discuss whos using which toilet, by Texas Monthlys Dave Mann. Perhaps the politicians will respond when they feel some public pressure. The school finance ruling was met with little popular outrage. Weve seemingly become accustomed to the notion of underfunded schools, one of those intractable problems that never get much better despite occasional reform efforts and repeated assurances from politicians that nothing is more important than education and our kids; Governor Greg Abbott campaigned on that very issue in 2014.

-- THE TEXAS OF TOMORROW: While white Texans still make up the largest racial group, the state's demographic future is in the hands of younger Texans, according to new age, race and ethnicity figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The estimates, which track population change from July 2014 to July 2015, show that older generations of Texas are more white while younger Texans are much more likely to be part of a racial or ethnic minority group, writes The Texas Tribunes Alexa Ura and Lindsay Carbonell.

>> Apprehensions of immigrant children and families are up yet again, Houston Chronicle

-- Should I stay or should I go? Financial markets and bookmakers put their money on Britain's voting to remain a part of the European Union on Thursday in a historic referendum that threatens to undermine the experiment in continental unity launched in the aftermath of World War II.

More than 46 million people were registered to vote in the referendum, which asks: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? The heated campaign saw the nation take stock of its place in the modern world and question the direction it wanted to take in the future, per the AP.

CAPITOL DAYBOOK  no meetings scheduled

SPEED READ

Texas Take: Corruption in a state where nobody knows your name, Houston Chronicle

Texas Dems says poll shows path to pick up seats, Houston Chronicle

AG: Parents have no standing in STAAR lawsuit, Houston Chronicle

Why a lot of Dems want to scuttle superdelegates and lots of Republicans wish they had them, Austin American-Statesman

Abortion pill requests spike in Zika outbreak countries, Associated Press

Pals again, Cruz endorses Rubios Senate bid, The Dallas Morning News ($)

Federal judge strikes down Obamas effort to regulate fracking, Bloomberg

Report validates wait-time allegations at Houston VA, Houston Chronicle

Grissom: Texas GOP leaders use Trump endorsements for political positioning, The Dallas Morning News ($)

Amid campaign worries, Trump to check on course in Scotland, Associated Press

Clinton tells House Dems she will compete in all 50 states, Politico

RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE

-- How Trump is planning to avoid an uprising in Cleveland, by Politicos Ken Vogel and Kyle Cheney. In a Tuesday night conference call led partly by Trumps top adviser Paul Manafort and including 200 staffers and volunteers, Trumps senior convention aides sketched out a whip operation led by a half-dozen operatives with deep convention experience. The effort will rely on a team of 150 volunteers and paid staff to keep the conventions 2,472 delegates in line, and it will utilize a database with information on many of the delegates.

>> Kaine rises to top of Clintons veep list, Politico

-- RNC fundraisers hedge on Trump  Donald Trump is relying on the Republican National Committee to help him dig out of a financial hole, but GOP fundraisers are privately encouraging major donors who are leery of Trump to steer their cash to the party instead of to his campaign, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the solicitations. The fundraisers are emphasizing to donors that they can write huge checks to the party, with only a small fraction of the cash  if any  going to the billionaire real estate mogul, according to documents and interviews with fundraisers and donors, per Politico.

-- And this from CNN: Donald Trump and his joint fundraising committee have raised at least $11 million since Tuesday morning, Republicans said Wednesday, a tremendously quick haul that comes amid concerns about his fundraising ability.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
Two years ago this month, Ralph Horner, a 54-year old maintenance employee at a Greeley, Colorado, meatpacking plant, was killed in the middle of the night. The piece of equipment he was working on caught his hair and the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him in. He was suffocated beneath a conveyor belt.

One of the journalists following Horners story was Luke Runyon, a reporter for the local public radio station. Every few months he checked in on the case, watching what happened to personal tragedy amid big-ag bureaucracy. When the company that owned the facility where Horner worked was fined only $38,500 for a missing safety guard, Runyon thought it seemed disproportionately lowespecially when he learned the company had a history of safety violations and was owned by a parent corporation that reported $650 million in profit that year.

Runyons home base is KUNC, an NPR member station in Greeley. But he is a reporter for Harvest Public Media, a collaboration focused on food, fuel, and field that is headquartered more than 600 miles away, at KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri, and has partners across the Midwest. So in January 2015, he came to Harvests investigations editor, Peggy Lowe, with a pitch: a long-term project on slaughterhouse safety.

Last week, after more than a year of research, Harvest released Dangerous Jobs, Cheap Meat, the multimedia series that grew out of that idea. Its an impressive deep dive into a often tight-lipped industry, with each of the stories framed around the voices of the people who are most affected. The package is underpinned by an analysis of federal workplace safety data, conducted with help from Investigative Reporters and Editors, that identified a system with low fines for violationsembarrassingly low, as a former federal safety official would tell Runyon. Stories in the series include Runyons report on the interplay between federal regulators and the meatpacking industry from Colorado, Lowes look at chronic pain and repetitive injuries among workers, and a piece by Grant Gerlock, a reporter for Nebraskas public broadcasting system, on attempts to improve workplace safety.

In addition, Harvests video unit, now in its second year, contributed two videos, while Denvers Rocky Mountain PBS sent a photographer to accompany Runyon. An online map made by Jim Hill, digital media manager at KUNC, uses FOIA-mined federal safety data to map a year of injuries at the countrys four largest meatpacking companies. The series has been distributed to nearly 20 radio stations; the next goal is to translate the stories to Spanish and get print copies on the ground in meatpacking towns.

The wide-ranging effort represents something of a milestone for the reporting collaboration, which was founded in 2009. This has been sort of the first time Harvest has really utilized all of its players, said Lowe.

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Its a sentiment that gets at both the logistical challenges and the editorial promise of these sorts of partnershipssomething thats always on the minds of newsroom leaders at KCUR, where Harvest is based.

We have to do reporting as a collaboration that you cannot do by yourself, said Donna Vestal, who helped launch Harvest and now serves as its supervising editor, as well as KCURs current director of content strategy. If a station can figure out a particular story and take on the weight of that story by themselves, they have no reason to have a partner.

But, Vestal believes, there are plenty of stories that do demand that sort of partnership. So its no surprise that KCUR has become a hub for not one, but two collaborative newsrooms.

After witnessing the success of Harvest and the ever-shrinking health desks of local newspapers, KCUR hired Dan Margolies, a former business reporter for the Kansas City Star, to get a health-focused hub off the ground in spring of 2014. The outcome was Heartland Health Monitor, which aims to increase the breadth and depth of reportage on health issues in Missouri and Kansas.

Though Heartland is based on the Harvest model, there are structural distinctions between the two. While Harvests central platform is radio stationsit was one of the original Local Journalism Centers launched with support from the Corporation for Public BroadcastingHeartland includes members like the Kansas Health Institute News Service. Distribution of Heartland content is not limited to partner news organizations, and Heartland, unlike Harvest, currently receives outside grant funding, much of it from the Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

The difference in topics also affects the approach. Since much of the nations food reporting comes from the coasts, Vestal said, Harvest has a niche reporting in the field of Americas breadbasket, while audiences tend to want health news that is very locally focused, presenting hurdles for wider-angle regional stories. (Heartlands Crossing to Health series, about the disparities between two counties on opposite sides of the state line, is one notable effort to overcome that hurdle.)

But there are challenges, and benefits, in common. Often, the challenges involve meeting the different agendas of different partners. Andy Marso, a KHI News Service reporter who contributes to Heartland, said that sometimes that means a little extra leg work to add a Missouri angle to the [Kansas] story. Runyon, the reporter in Greeley, noted that he might have had six or seven minutes of audio for his slaughterhouse piece, but he shaved it down to meet partner demands of four-and-a-half-minutes.

He said the trade-off is worth it, but it takes some getting used to. Its tricky, Runyon said. I feel like a good portion of my job is being a diplomat.

Making those compromises isnt only an issue for individual journalists: Member news outlets relinquish some control, and some resources, to the common effort. This is particularly the case for Harvest, which relies on partner stations to write the salary of a Harvest-focused reporter into their operating budgets.

A reporter is a pretty valuable commodity, and giving up control of a reporter can be pretty difficult, said Vestal. What is the role of a reporter who is in one newsroom but reports to an editor somewhere else?

The payoff, of course, is in projects like Harvests slaughterhouse safety series. At Heartland, Marso said he has seen benefits, too. In April, he broke a months-in-the-making story that patched together how Kansas Medicaid program had ended up tens of millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, jeopardizing the medical care of thousands of people. The sensitivity of the sourcing demanded that the project be kept fairly in-house, but Jim McLean, the KHI News Service editor, and Margolies discussed the story in advance. And when the story was ready to run, Heartlands distribution platform helped it reach a wider audience and nab an air segment on KCURs Up To Date program.

Our needs dont always coincide 100 percent, and making it work smoothly is a matter of juggling a lot of different imperatives, said Margolies, the Heartland editor. But it can be done, and I think weve proven that it can be done.

Meanwhile, having KCUR as the home base for both Harvest and Heartland has helped the networks, and also helped KCUR, journalists there say. Harvests editor, Jeremy Bernfeld, has a desk next to Margolies, and their areas of focus overlap when it comes to public health and worker safety. They cross-post each others work a few times a year, share advice on their respective expertise, and trade tips on getting the most out of the collaborations.

We can work together on, Well, whats the best strategy to make this relationship work? Have you had success talking to this person? What kind of things did they tell you they are working for so we can best hone what we are giving them? said Bernfeld.

For KCUR, Vestal said, hosting the partnerships has created opportunities to reach out to a built-in network for unrelated issues of promotion or underwriting. And it turns out that collaboration begets collaboration: Recently, KCUR launched a short-term group effort to cover the Kansas election, with partners from Harvest and Heartland. Vestal said she isnt sure yet what it will become, but hopes it will continue to grow.

Im just a believer, thats all, said Vestal.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Erica Berry is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and a reporter with the Food and Environmental Reporting Network. Reach her on Twitter @ericajberry.
After shuttering his lumber mill for nearly a month when it was surrounded by raging fires in northern Alberta, Northland Forest Products Ltd. President Howard Ewashko sees a silver lining: a pickup in business from rebuilding what was lost.

It certainly helps to have a solid market to sell into when youve gone through something like this, Ewashko said in a telephone interview. It certainly helps when you know you can make a bit of money at the end.

Thousands of buildings were destroyed and entire neighborhoods burned to the ground in Fort McMurray, the gateway to the Canadian oil sands, as wildfires ripped across an area more than seven times bigger than New York City last month. The most expensive natural disaster in Albertas history is now expected to help boost a local real-estate market that recently hit a 20-year low after scores of workers lost their jobs in the energy industry.

Its going to be kind of hustle and bustle here over the next year or two, Lynn Edwards, president of the Fort McMurray Real Estate Board, said in a phone interview from the city.

Houses were sold even during the evacuation period and offers have been coming in during the past week, Edwards said. There are fewer than 600 currently for sale, down from 830 listings in the city at the end of April, she said, adding that more accurate figures wont be available for several weeks.

Accommodation Shortage

There is a shortage of accommodations in Fort McMurray right now, Ben Dutton, chief executive officer of Fort McMurray-based construction firm Casman Group of Companies said in a telephone interview. The hotels are maxed.

The city is going to need to find temporary housing for people displaced by the fire in addition to insurance adjusters and contractors involved in the rebuild, Dutton said. There will probably be upward pressure on prices due to limited supplies as some out-of-town builders see the citys housing market as an opportunity, he said.

The fire hit at a time when a wave of foreclosures was expected in Fort McMurray because of the oil industry downturn, Dutton said. There were only 193 housing starts in 2015 and just a single start in April, compared with 2,175 single and multi-family homes that broke ground in 2007, according to a May 9 report from the Canadian Home Builders Association.

Economic Boost

Early estimates suggest that 2,400 buildings were damaged or destroyed in Fort McMurray, including 1,600 private dwellings, and rebuild efforts may provide a C$1.3 billion boost to Albertas economy in 2017, according to the Conference Board of Canada. While most of the communitys public buildings were saved from the fire, the city will need additional money to repair and rebuild roads and other infrastructure, and construction will probably remain elevated until 2018 and 2019, the Conference Board said.

We anticipate theres a lot of spending that will occur as people rebuild their lives, Russell Dauk, vice-president of land and commercial for Edmonton-based homebuilder Rohit Group of Companies, said in a telephone interview.

A slowdown in housing in Calgary and Edmonton means there will be an available supply of contractors to work in Fort McMurray, Dauk said. Rebuilding efforts are unlikely to start before August and builders are still waiting to hear how or if the construction will be coordinated, he said.

Massive Undertaking

Homeowners are already phoning for information as they assess damage with their insurers, said John Dawson, a retail manager for the Fort McMurray area at Qualico, a Winnipeg-based home builder.

I can tell you its a massive undertaking, Dawson said in a telephone interview. I have no predictions how long its going to take.

The municipality still has to decide whether to rebuild homes in the same area or move them to other serviced lots in Fort McMurray that are ready to go for new construction, said Jim Rivait, chief executive officer of Albertas chapter of the Canadian Home Builders Association.

Theres complete communities that have to be rebuilt, Rivait said. It could take a while.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Connecticut Bookmaker Gets Prison Time in Insurance Fraud Scheme

A bookmaker who pleaded guilty to charges he shot a gambler with a stun gun and tried to burn down a Middletown restaurant in an insurance fraud scheme is headed to prison.

The Hartford Courant reports 52-year-old John Barile of East Hartford was sentenced Tuesday to 71 months in federal prison. He pleaded guilty in February to charges of arson, insurance fraud, gambling and extortion.

Authorities say the East Hartford man ran an illegal sports-related bookmaking operation from 2010 to 2014. Prosecutors say he shot a gambler with a stun gun to punish him for not paying his debts.

Federal prosecutors say Barile and three others plotted to burn down a pizzeria he and a partner owned to collect an insurance payout in January 2010.

Former California Senator Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes in Workers Comp Fraud Scheme

Former California State Senator Ronald S. Calderon has agreed to plead guilty to a federal corruption charge and admits in a plea agreement that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for performing official acts as a legislator, according to an announcement by the United States Attorney for the Central District.

Calderon agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud through the deprivation of honest services to resolve a case against him that was filed in 2014. The plea agreement comes several weeks before he was set to go on trial on charges contained in a 24-count federal indictment.

The corruption investigation of former Senator Calderon began when our detectives at the California Department of Insurance discovered evidence that Michael Drobot, then owner and CEO of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, was bribing Senator Calderon, said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. Detectives from the California Department of Insurance successfully investigated the scheme whereby Drobot was paying kickbacks to physicians, chiropractors and others to send him patients on which his hospital performed back surgeries  resulting in over $500 million of workers compensation fraud.

In the plea agreement, Calderon admits accepting bribe payments from the owner of a Long Beach hospital who wanted to prevent passage of a new law that would stop the hospital CEO from continuing to reap millions of dollars in illicit profits from a separate workers compensation insurance fraud scheme and from undercover FBI agents who were posing as independent filmmakers who wanted changes to Californias Film Tax Credit program.

Michael Drobot, former owner of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, a major provider of spinal surgeries billed to the workers compensation system, admitted to bribing the former senator to influence lawmaking and ensure he could continue to defraud workers compensation insurers with his lucrative criminal scheme.

Prosecutor: Man caused 12 wrecks, put videos online

A North Carolina man will spend at least a year in prison after prosecutors said he intentionally caused 12 wrecks, filming many of them on a dashboard camera and uploading the footage to the internet.

District Attorney Todd Williams said in a news release that a jury found 27-year-old Byron Fulghum guilty of six felony counts of insurance fraud, four misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon and other charges.

Fulghum was sentenced Thursday to 12 months to 34 months in prison.

Williams says no one was seriously hurt in the 12 wrecks, which took place over three years around Asheville.

The prosecutor says Fulghums own video from his Ford Focus showed him intentionally turning his car into the bumpers of other vehicles.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
With the nation spending billions on medical and indemnity expenses for employees injured on the job, as well as patients facing illnesses or surgeries, workers compensation carriers, group health insurers and Third Party Administrators (TPAs) are looking for innovative solutions to providing better and less costly health services.

Two Thought Leadership papers  one for workers compensation payers and one for group health organizations  from PTPN, a national network for independent rehabilitation specialists, examine the role and benefits of physical therapy in both group health and workers compensation cases in the face of major changes in the American healthcare system.

As they adapt to new value-based care models, health plans and workers comp carriers require new solutions to meet their needs and those of injured workers, says Michael Weinper, PT, DPT, M.P.H., president of PTPN. These papers show how a different approach to the changes in the nations workers comp and group healthcare can not only improve the delivery of health services, but also deliver better outcomes for a wide range of patients at a lower cost.

According to The New Paradigm for Better Quality, Lower Costs papers  Leveraging the Power of PT for Workers Comp and Leveraging the Power of Ancillary Services, workers comp carriers and health plans and may be missing an important ally in their efforts to meet the goals of healthcare delivery today: providers of physical therapy services. Studies show that bringing physical therapy into an injured patients treatment early can have major benefits, including better patient outcomes, reduced use of pain medicine, improved patient satisfaction, reduced re-admissions and lower medical and indemnity costs. Key points to consider from the PTPN papers include:

While imaging often is used to diagnose patients with chronic and or acute back pain, it may not be the best first step. A 2015 study in Health Services Research Journal found that for patients who were first treated with physical therapy, costs were an average of $4,793 less than patients first sent to imaging.

A landmark 2012 study in Spine reported that prompt referral of patients from primary care physicians to physical therapy resulted in decreased use of advanced imaging, surgery, injections and prescription pain medications. Savings were an average $2,736.23 less for patients receiving early physical therapy.

The Workers Comp Research Institute reports that 65 to 85 percent of injured workers getting a pain medication are prescribed an opioid. Industry analysis of best practice data indicates that close to 90% of those injuries are more appropriately treated with over-the-counter pain medications and PT. Avoiding opioids can reduce the possibility of reliance or even addiction to the powerful drugs, a concern in the United States today.

According to the American Hospital Association, organizations should seek to develop preferred relationships with post-acute providers that have demonstrated good outcomes and are willing to collaborate on performance improvement. The PTPN papers offer steps to finding PT providers who meet these criteria as well as what to expect from a quality independent PT network. These benchmarks include innovation in care pathways and readmission risk reduction; the highest credentialing and quality standards; and outcomes measurement.

By collaborating with independent physical therapists who hold themselves to the highest standards of care, says Weinper, health plans and workers comp carriers can achieve the vision and promise of todays value-based healthcare programs.

Source: PTPN
Dallas city leaders expressed outrage in the month after a homeless Army veteran was killed by roaming dogs, bitten more than 100 times as the animals tore one of her arms to the bone and ripped away most of her thigh.

They promised to respond to Antoinette Browns death by cracking down on loose dogs found regularly in the Texas citys poorer neighborhoods. They ramped up arrests of dog owners, hired a consultant and are reviewing several proposals, including requiring an insurance policy for dangerous breeds.

The issue of loose dogs has long plagued low-income neighborhoods in some of Americas largest cities as leaders allocate more funding and attention on broader concerns such as crime, housing and sprawl. While Browns death shows how one incident can prompt a city to take action, animal-welfare groups say fixing the problem in Dallas and elsewhere requires long-term investments that many cities have not made.

Our field is starting to recognize that we cannot accomplish what we seek to accomplish, which is safe, humane communities, if all we do is respond to crises after they occur and approach the situation with a punitive mindset, said Cory Smith, a public policy analyst for The Humane Society of the United States.

The 52-year-old Brown was attacked by three pit bulls in the early hours of May 2 in a neighborhood of single-story, aging homes, some left vacant. A City Council report on the attack noted that much of a thigh was missing. Brown died in a hospital days later.

The loose dogs had run free before the mauling and in the days after. Their owners have had dogs seized in the past. Police have said they could face charges, but none had been filed by Tuesday as a criminal investigation continues.

It happened because this is south Dallas and this is the poorest part of the city and they dont care, neighbor Netra Reese told The Dallas Morning News. Now theyre talking about it. It takes someone to lose their life for them to come out and do something.

Browns death led the city to increase enforcement: Authorities since early May have arrested at least 40 people on some 160 animal-related warrants.

The outcry in Dallas follows similar ones in Detroit, Houston, San Antonio and other cities where funding for animal services often has been lacking, primarily affecting low-income areas.

Reforms in those cities included adding additional enforcement officers, collaborating with pet adoption agencies and in some cases small acts like handing out leashes to pet owners.

Houston officials since 2009 have increased animal control funding to more than $12 million, from about $5.5 million, after reports about high rates of animal euthanasia at city shelters and stories of puppies being flushed down drains to quickly dispose of them. By November, more than 90 percent of animals were leaving city shelters alive.

Greg Damianoff, director of Houstons Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control, said outreach programs must be done continuously in low-income areas because of the transient nature of the population.

The fallacy is that people in those neighborhoods dont care about their pets, he said. But the reality is they simply dont have access to a vet nor do they think they can afford it.

James Bias, president of the SPCA of Texas, added that municipalities have to craft a response specific to problem areas. For instance, rental properties often dont have the proper fencing to keep pets enclosed, so outreach efforts could include working with property owners to better secure their land, he said.

Smith said cities also should be providing free or discounted spay and neuter programs. The problem of stray dogs, she said, is the result of communities of people and animals that have gone underserved for a long time.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Disturbance, West Bagley Road: Two drivers spat on each other at high noon June 16 in the parking lot of West Valley Plaza shopping center.

One of the drivers, a 58-year-old Olmsted Township man, said he was looking for a place to park when the other driver, a 51-year-old Berea man, honked his horn at him. The younger driver believed the older driver should have given him the right-of-way.

The older driver parked and walked into a bank. When he left the bank, the younger man was waiting for him, and the two started arguing. The driver then spat on the older driver - at least that's what the older driver said. The older driver retaliated with spittle of his own.

The younger driver denied honking his horn at the older driver. He said it was the older driver who started the argument and initiated the saliva exchange.

Witnesses saw the men argue and spit but didn't know how the dispute started. Both drivers calmed down and left the plaza in different directions.

Criminal damaging, Anne Drive: Someone shot BB's at a house between 10 p.m. June 19 and 9:30 a.m. June 20. The victim and police found seven holes in the home's siding but the BB's didn't penetrate the home's insulation.

Fraud, Miles Lane: A senior citizen was scammed out of $100 June 16 by a caller saying he was from the Internal Revenue Service.

The male caller told the resident that he owed the IRS $2,700. The caller said if the man didn't pay, the IRS would take legal action.

The man said he could only pay $100. The caller ordered the man to buy a $100 iTunes card at Dollar General. The man obeyed, reconnected with the fake IRS agent and read the iTunes card number over the phone.

But the fake IRS agent wanted another $200, so the man drove to his bank to withdraw the money. The bank teller, upon hearing what happened, told the man he was likely a scam victim.

When the fake IRS agent called back, the man told him he knew about the scam and that he would hang up. The caller threatened to issue a warrant for the man's arrest.

Police told the victim that the IRS will not call and ask for money over the phone, and will communicate with citizens only by U.S. mail.

Attempted motor vehicle theft, Sprague Road: Someone tried to steal a Chevrolet Blazer between 1:30-11:45 a.m. June 17 from a driveway. The driver's window was smashed and the steering column damaged.

Marijuana possession, North Rocky River Drive: Two Berea men, 27 and 24, and an 18-year-old Berea woman were arrested at about 9:30 p.m. June 21 after police caught them smoking marijuana in their Honda CR-V sport-utility vehicle.

An officer was driving behind the Honda northbound on North Rocky River when he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle. When the SUV turned into a Sunoco gas station, the officer followed, and the odor of marijuana became "overbearing."

The officer pulled his cruiser next to the Honda, and the occupants quickly rolled up their windows. But the driver - the 24-year-old Berea man - immediately admitted to the officer that they had been smoking marijuana, and he handed over the portion not smoked.

The 18-year-old Berea woman, in the backseat, gave up a glass marijuana pipe she had hidden under a newspaper. An arrest warrant had been issued for the older Berea man, who was in the front passenger seat.

Petty theft, Hartman Street: About $10 in change was stolen late June 19 or early June 20 from an unlocked Lexus parked outside of a house. The car's spare key was also taken from the vehicle.

Police reminded the victim about "the high level of deterrence provided by locked vehicle doors."

Fraud, Aaron Street: Someone stole a credit card number and used it to buy $964 in merchandise at Target stores in Wadsworth and Medina. Both purchases were made on June 19. The victim had the card the entire time. He has since cancelled the account.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, East Bagley Road: A Cleveland man, 43, was arrested at about 3:15 a.m. June 17.

The man was driving about 10 mph eastbound on Bagley. His car slowed and almost stopped at a green light at Beech Street. The car started weaving.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.
Zydeco

The Zydeco Bistro is named after a form of black American folk music in Louisiana, typically played on guitar and accordion. Owner Johnny Schulze chose the name because he was trying to invoke the feeling of "a party on wheels." His fare blends the traditional dishes of the Creole and Cajun cultures.

(Zydeco Bistro)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Zydeco Bistro's food truck was created to be "a party on wheels," according to owner Johnny Schutze.

The truck is one of eight quarterfinalists in cleveland.com's hunt for the Best Food Truck in Greater Cleveland.

Zydeco was one of 32 trucks nominated by readers as among the best in the city.

After the first round of voting online and in-person last week, fifth-seeded Zydeco is now squaring off against the fourth seed, Slyman's truck.

Vote for which truck you want to advance to the semifinals. The poll is open until Friday at noon.

We spoke with Schutze about the truck.

Name of truck: Zydeco Bistro.

Owner: Johnny Schutze.

How long has it operated? Schutze started the build on the truck in the fall of 2010. It was finished and premiered in time for Mardi Gras the following spring.

What kind of food do you serve? Creole and cajun.

Top sellers: Jambalaya, anything with small Gulf shrimp and crab.

Prices: $5-$8.

Weekly specials: The truck offers a set menu, though there are occasional seasonal items, like soft-shelled crab.

Average number of stops you make each week? The truck makes 2-3 public stops each week. Schutze said the truck does the same events each year.

On a typical stop, how many people do you serve? The truck serves an average of 150 people at a stop.

What makes your truck unique? "Many people do not understand that Cajun and Creole cultures are different. We blend the two together. Our recipes are as close to what you would get in Louisiana," said Schutze.

What inspired you to start a food truck? "I grew up in Louisiana and I was looking for a way to showcase my heritage," said Schutze.

What inspired the name of the truck? "Zydeco is a form of black American music from Louisiana, typically played on a guitar and accordion. It's very much a party music and that is the feel we wanted to invoke with the truck," he said.

What inspired the design? "The colors of the truck are the colors of Mardi Gras and the food items depicted are typical foods of Louisiana. It says everything there is to say about who we are and what we serve," Schutze said.

Do you have a brick-and-mortar restaurant? Shulze also owns the Bourbon Street Barrel Room in Tremont.

Check out Zydeco's website and menu here, and you can also find them on Facebook and Twitter.
RNC1.jpg

A sign on the Huntington bank building at 925 Euclid Ave. welcomes delegates for the upcoming Republican National Convention starting on July 18, 2016.

(Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland 2016 Host Committee for the Republican National Convention today announced six official provider and partner designations.

The organizations named are supporting the committee, a nonprofit with no political affiliation, as it fulfills its responsibilities and ensures that Cleveland is best represented while organizing, funding and hosting the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland from July 18-21.

The organizations announced as official providers are:

Cleveland Clinic - An Official Health Care Provider

Eaton - Official Power Management Provider

Ernst & Young LLP - Official Accounting Firm

FirstEnergy Corp.- Official Energy Provider

KeyBank - Official Bank of the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee

University Hospitals / Cleveland - An Official Health Care Provider

"I want to thank our providers and partners for their sponsorship of the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee," said David Gilbert, CEO of the Host Committee. "Each organization's involvement underscores their proud support of both Cleveland as a city on the rise, as well as our country's democratic process.

"The more than 50,000 visitors who will come to Cleveland in July for the Republican National Convention will have the best experience available thanks in part to each of these sponsors. We appreciate their desire to be part of Cleveland's return to the national and world stage."

The 2016 Republican National Convention will mark the first time in 80 years that Cleveland has hosted a political convention, having last played host in 1936 to the Republican Convention.

The convention is expected to bring more than 50,000 visitors - including 15,000 credentialed media - to the city.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The changing face of America is reflected in new census estimates released Thursday showing that minority groups now make up a combined 38.4 percent of the U.S. population.

This is up from 36.1 percent in 2010 and 30.9 percent in 2000. Earlier projections from the Census Bureau predicted that minority groups totaled together will make up a majority of America by 2045.

The largest numbers of minorities are in California with 24.3 million (62 percent) and Texas with 15.6 million (57 percent).

Ohio owes population growth to minorities

Ohio, by comparison, has a small minority population of 2.3 million (20.2 percent). However, the state would be losing population if it were not for the growth of minorities.

Ohio's minority population grew by 183,674 to 2,347,477 from the census in 2010 through last year, according to the new estimates.

At the same time, the white, non-Hispanic population in Ohio fell by 106,755 people to 9,265,946. Ohio's total population is estimated at 11,613,423.

Here is a breakdown for the largest groups in Ohio:

Black population grew by 50,357 to 1,477,218.

Asian population grew by 48,027 to 244,720.

Multi-race population grew by 35,155 to 248,571.

White population declined by 59,612 to 9,604,912.

Hispanics of all races - whites, blacks and others - grew by 59,967 to 414,641.

Hispanics account for 3.6 percent of Ohioans, well below the national share of 17.6 percent.

By percent, states with the largest Hispanic populations are New Mexico (48 percent), California, (38.8 percent), Texas (38.8 percent) and Arizona (30.7 percent).

Population maps

These maps show the minority population by U.S. states and Ohio counties. Darker shades of green represent higher shares of minorities. Click on the maps for details.

Ohio's Hispanics by county

Lorain County, home to a large Puerto Rican population that dates to the recruitment of steel workers in the mid- to early 1900s, has one of the highest concentrations of Hispanics in Ohio at 9.5 percent.

Other Ohio counties with the largest share of Hispanics are in Northwest Ohio - Defiance County (9.8 percent), Sandusky County (9.8 percent) and Fulton County (8.4 percent).

Cuyahoga County is home to 69,794 Hispanics (5.6 percent), more in number than any other Ohio county.

Ohio's Asians and blacks by county

Ohio's largest Asian populations, by number, are in Franklin County (59,838), Cuyahoga County (39,005) and Hamilton County (19,968).

The growth in Asians has been especially dramatic in Franklin County, up 30 percent, or by 13,824, in the last five years.

The Asian community in Cuyahoga County grew by 16 percent, or 5,350 people from 2010 to 2015.

Cuyahoga County's black population has fallen by 4,029 to 381,052. In Franklin County, the black population grew by 30,617 to the second highest total in the state at 281,649.

These numbers for Asians and blacks exclude people who told the Census Bureau they are of multiple races. Multi-race people accounted for about 3 percent of Ohioans in 2015.

All Ohio minorities by county

For all minority groups added together, the largest concentrations by percent are in Cuyahoga County (up from 38.5 percent to 40.2 percent), Franklin County (up from 32.5 percent to 34.9 percent), and Hamilton County (up from 32.3 percent to 33.7 percent).

Most of the state, however, is not nearly as diverse.

Close to one-third of Ohio's counties - 27 out of 88 - have minority populations under 5 percent.

The share of minorities is under 10 percent in 57 of Ohio's 88 counties. As a group, the total population of these counties is down 9,656 to 3,038,465.

In the 31 Ohio counties with minority population of at least 10 percent, the total population is up by 86,575 to 8,574,958.

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner


theneondemon.jpeg

Elle Fanning is a young, but not so innocent, ingenue in "The Neon Demon."

(Amazon Studios)

REVIEW

The Neon Demon

Who: With Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves, Christine Hendricks. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

Rated: R (for disturbing violent content, bloody images, graphic nudity, a scene of aberrant sexuality and language).

Running time: 110 minutes.

When: Opens Friday.

Where: Cedar Lee Theatre, Cinemark Macedonia, other area theaters.

Grade: C

CLEVELAND, Ohio - "The Neon Demon" features cannibalism and necrophilia and rape and murder and torture and all around backstabbing and bitchiness and vast soulless emptiness.

It was heckled at Cannes and has received mostly scathing reviews - and a few glowing ones - from critics around the world.

That's not to say the new film from Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, cinema's bad-boy genius du jour, isn't entertaining. But just as in the fashion industry Refn's story of a young model ingenue critiques, there's not much there beneath the glossy, admittedly gorgeous and gory surface.

The stylish film is like a demented Vogue spread, slick and empty but so good-looking. Refn's attention to detail and artful framing is so precise, many frames look like they were torn from the pages of a magazine.

The director telegraphs where his film is headed from the beginning. Elle Fanning, as model hopeful Jessie, appears elaborately made-up and slung on a couch, blood spattered down her neck and chest -- an obvious metaphor for the vicious fashion world. Is it a snuff picture? Is she dead? Who is that man taking pictures? And why all the blood?

Refn soon enough answers. The young ingenue, recently moved to Los Angeles from Georgia, is on a macabre photo shoot. Only later do we realize the amateur photographer who came up with the sick scenario is the only decent person in the whole film.

Like generations of shiny young hopefuls before her, Jessie has moved to L.A. to make it big, while living in a creepy dump in Pasadena with a predatory landlord played by Keanu Reeves. Think "A Star Is Born" meets "All About Eve" and "The Valley of the Dolls" - except in this case, all the girls want to be models, not actresses. Their only goal is to look exquisite, no talent or skill necessary. They'll do whatever they can to stay on top of the dog-eat-dog (or is it model-eat-model?) scene.

The emptiness of beauty and shallowness of the brutal industry is a point heavy-handed Refn makes every chance he can in his scathing critique - one that is undercut by the highly stylized beauty of his cast and set. This is one good-looking film, and is made even more stylish by Cliff Martinez's fantastic retro synth-pop soundtrack.

Soon enough, young - as in underage - Jessie is discovered and signed by an agency. As her career takes off, the campy feel of the film's first half descends into full-on horror. Suffice it to say, you may wish you had eaten as little as these malnourished models when you watch.

That said, the gross-out scenes earned as much laughter as gasps during a screening - perhaps because these characters seem so cardboard, just symbols to make a point, not real flesh-and-blood. Despite its nauseating bloodshed, "The Neon Demon" elicits little real emotion, because it is obviously meant as a metaphor, not realism.

Unlike Refn's brilliant 2011 "Drive," an existential classic about a nameless driver searching for love and redemption in L.A., this Los Angeles film doesn't rise above its slick surface. But oh what a fascinating, pretty surface it is. It's hard to look away -- and perhaps that's part of the point.
I greatly sympathize with the victims and families of the recent tragedy in Orlando. We see their faces, listen to the survivors and empathize with the families who loved and still love them. But somewhere in all of this reporting, I heard the words "America has got to stop bombing other countries."



Since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, over 225,000 civilian lives have been lost "over there." We don't see the individual faces of those killed or the grief in the faces of their families. We just chalk it up to collateral damage.



Now we label the murderers of our people radical Islamics. Think about this. If you're an Iraqi or Afghanistan Islamic and the invasions began, wouldn't you be asking yourself, "They must be radical Christians because surely the teachings of Jesus are contrary to war, so why would a Christian nation go against its very principles?"



We come together after each tragedy and talk about love. Perfect love casts out fear, and yet we let fear of the others dictate our policies led by mostly old white men with a lot of medals on their chests telling us what the next fear should be. Our Native Americans, our slaves, the Japanese, the Vietnamese have, mostly, reconciled with us, and frankly that amazes me. I can only assume that they have conquered their fear of us with love. That's quite an example for us to follow that can begin with not voting for war mongers.



Portia Miles Smith,

Cleveland Heights
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio

Impaired driving, Holmden Road:

Officers responded June 9 to a report of a man firing several gunshots outside his vehicle window in the direction of the Madison Avenue Bar & Grille parking lot on Mayfield Road. His vehicle was located and the Cleveland Heights man, 40, was subsequently arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence. Officers located a gun and spent shell casings inside his vehicle and were informed by Cleveland Heights police that he was suspected of being involved in a shooting with someone in another vehicle at a bar in that city. The gun was found to be stolen out of Georgia in 2013. There were no victims or witnesses located at the Madison Avenue Bar or any signs of damage. The man was charged further with possession of a controlled substance. Charges are pending for using weapons while intoxicated, improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle and receiving stolen property.

Impaired driving, Mayfield Road:

Officers responded to a report at 12:10 a.m. June 12 of a possible drunk driver who had left United Dairy Farmers after the staff would not sell her alcohol because she appeared drunk and caused a disturbance. They tried to pull her van over but she would not stop, so they followed her to her South Belvoir Road home, where she backed into a garage, striking the rear wall. She immediately began swearing at officers and told them they couldn't arrest her because she was home. She was arrested for operating a vehicle while impaired, failure to comply, obstructing official business and driving under suspension. Reports indicate she had also defecated on herself in the van.

Criminal damage, Covington Road:

A woman reported June 10 her grandchild's mother broke a window on her home after she hit it with the end of a knife. The Cleveland woman, 20, was upset over a custody issue with the woman's son and was also said to have taken a computer tablet from her and smashed it on the ground. Officers issued her a trespass warning and told her to make other arrangements for her kids.

Theft, South Green Road:

A woman reported June 12 her iPhone was stolen from Garfield Memorial Church while she was helping with a program for refugee children. She said there were several children there attending a movie night and the church was open for visitors to roam around. She last saw the phone, valued at $750, while it was charging on a table. The phone's service provider disabled service and tried unsuccessfully to track it. There was no roster of who attended the event and there were several unknown visitors.

Theft, Warrensville Center Road:

A Cleveland woman, 22, was arrested at Walmart June 9 for the suspected theft of $495 worth of clothing. She initially gave officers incorrect information about her identity because she said she gets herself confused with her twin sister.

Lost property, Mayfield Road:

A roll of lottery tickets was reported missing from Giant Eagle June 11. It was uncertain if it had been stolen or misplaced. They had no cash value because they were not activated, but the lottery commission required a police report.

Assault, Warrensville Center Road:

A woman, 52, had her hair pulled by a teenage boy while she was in line at the customer service counter at Walmart June 11. The boy would not let go until a man, who said the boy was autistic, intervened and was able to stop him. The man and boy said they would exchange information with the woman and her fiance but they had to go to the bathroom first. They left and were not located or identified. Surveillance video showed the boy, who seemed to be agitated, walking with the man and then pushing past him and running to the woman and grabbing her hair.

Impaired driving, Wrenford Road:

A vehicle was seen driving over curbs, onto tree lawns and around fire engines, police cars and ambulances tending to a fire around 1:45 a.m. June 16. The driver finally stopped when she could no longer pass. She told officers she had "absolutely nothing to drink" and she was dyslexic because she was blonde. The South Euclid woman, 22, was subsequently arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence and driving on the tree lawn. Her breathalyzer test registered just under the legal threshold.

Theft, Argonne Road:

A resident said June 15 someone stole a factory-mounted stereo from an inoperable vehicle that she has parked in her driveway. Officers believed someone used a screwdriver to punch the lock on the front passenger door in order to make entry. The stereo was valued at $500.

Theft, South Green Road:

A man reported June 15 someone broke into a locked landscaping trailer in a gated area of his business property and stole an estimated $4,300 worth of lawn equipment. Among the items reported stolen were weed-eaters, backpack blowers, hedge trimmers and a concrete saw. A door to the trailer appeared to have been pried open to gain access. The man said he was not having any problems with any of his employees and could not think of a suspect.

Disturbance, Wrenford Road:

Officers responded to a report of a disturbance at Bexley Park June 16 between several youths. It was also reported a gun had been fired by one of those involved. A group of boys were walking along the street when they arrived. They were identified and none were found with a weapon. They said there was another group of boys in the park that were trying to fight them and one of them pulled out a gun and fired it into the air. They could not give a description of the suspect. The boys were sent on their way and the park was checked unsuccessfully for the other group of boys. Residents around the park did not report hearing a gun get fired.

Property damage, King George Boulevard:

A resident said June 5 he discovered a large crack in a front living room window and it was due to an egg being thrown at it. He said he was unsure when it happened but this was the second time his house was egged.

See more South Euclid news at Cleveland.com/south-euclid.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
BROOK PARK, Ohio -- A Cleveland Clinic doctor who recently lost a bid for the Libertarian Party's nomination for president was found dead Wednesday in a Brook Park motel, the party confirmed.

Marc A. Feldman, 56, of Beachwood was found at the America's Best Value Inn in the 14000 block of Brookpark Road. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office has not released an official cause of death.

The Cleveland Clinic issued a statement saying: "We are saddened by the sudden loss of Dr. Feldman. He was a talented physician and will be missed."

In May, Feldman lost the nomination to represent the Libertarian Party in the November presidential election. The party selected former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

Carla Howell, the party's political director, was stunned to learn of Feldman's death. She called the Feldman family home in Beachwood and spoke with a family friend who confirmed his death.

"This is absolutely horrible," she said.

Nicholas Sarwark, chair of the party's national committee, said: "We will miss his dedication as a member of the national committee and candidate for public office, but most of all, I will miss a good friend. He was a delightful, spirited, and dedicated Libertarian who inspired and won the hearts of many. Our deepest condolences to his family on their loss."

Feldman was the section head of anesthesia for the Cole Eye Institute and director of the Cole Eye Institute Operating Rooms at the Cleveland Clinic, according to the clinic's website.

A hotel employee called police at 7:17 p.m after a woman called the front desk from Feldman's room and said he was unresponsive, Brook Park police Capt. Thomas Dickel said.

Feldman was not breathing when first responders arrived minutes later. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Johnson sent out a tweet Thursday afternoon.

Saddened to hear of the passing of Liberty Champion Marc Feldman today. Wonderful sense of humor and a good guy.  Gov. Gary Johnson (@GovGaryJohnson) June 23, 2016

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Cleveland Hopkins airport

A United Airlines plane takes off from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in this photo from Jan. 22, 2015. The airport's parking lots filled Wednesday with Cavs fans using the RTA to reach the team's victory parade. (Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer)

(Marvin Fong / The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Fans who attended the Cleveland Cavalier's victory parade on Wednesday have vacated the parking lots at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, officials said.

The airport's smart parking garage and orange lots reopened just after 6 p.m. The lots filled shortly before 10 a.m. as fans flocked to the airport to take the RTA train into downtown.

The increased car traffic did not cause any flight delays, a Hopkins spokesman told cleveland.com.

The parade, which had been scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. outside Quicken Loans Arena, kicked off shortly before noon. The lots remained full until the parade and ensuing rally ended and fans made their way back to their cars.

In the interim, officials requested that travelers be dropped off at the airport due to the lack of parking.
RNC protest route

This photo was taken from along Cleveland's official protest route for the Republican National Convention, at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario avenues, which is about one-third of a mile from the arena and represents the route's closest point to the arena. A federal judge on Thursday overturned restrictions put in place to confine demonstrations during the RNC.

(Mark Naymik, cleveland.com)

U.S. District Judge James Gwin

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A federal judge on Thursday scrapped the city of Cleveland's plans for a heightened-security zone that would have encompassed most of downtown during the Republican National Convention, saying that the restrictions are burdensome to people who want to express their free-speech rights.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin's ruling comes 25 days before Republican delegates and leaders will descend upon Cleveland and forces the city to redraw the boundaries to the so-called "event zone," which would have encompassed a 3.5-square-mile area at the heart of the city.

The city indicated it would appeal the judge's order, but the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which brought the lawsuit, said the organization's attorneys are now negotiating at the judge's behest to come up with a compromise because of the short timeframe.

Gwin made his ruling orally, following a hearing. He said a written opinion would follow.

In his comments, the judge attacked several aspects of the event zone and the accompanying restrictions, which the city announced late last month:

* He said the size of the event zone, is "unduly large." It was drawn to go from from West 25th Street to Innerbelt, and from the lake south to the corridor between Orange Avenue and East 22nd Street. It all surrounded the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention will be held and will be part of an area with even more security.

* He said the parade route is unconstitutionally insufficient. It was to begin at the west end of the Lorain-Carnegie bridge, heads east toward downtown before turning right on Ontario Street, near Progressive Field, and under Interstate 90 before ending at East 9th Street.

* The judge said the times at which people can hold parades, which is only for a few hours each day of the convention and not during the hours in which the delegates are expected to be downtown, are problematic.

"And I don't mean to suggest the city can't control the time and the parade routes, but I think the restriction to this Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, at times when delegates are almost invariably not going to be present, is an insufficient opportunity for First Amendment purposes.," the judge said.

* Gwin said there are "constitutional problems with the use of the parks." Currently, protesters are limited to applying for permits to use an official "speaker's platform at Public Square," or to set up installations or "public art at two downtown parks. The city has said the RNC has reserved the other nearby parks for convention-related events.

ACLU of Ohio executive director Christine Link praised the judge's ruling. She said "the clock is ticking" before the convention -- which will take place July 18-21 -- and hopes that the city and the ACLU can come to an agreement on a new event zone. Gwin had suggested the city and ACLU negotiate to avoid further litigation.

Negotiations are being handled by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, who is known for his ability to broker settlements.

"A negotiated settlement is way better," Link said, adding that she did not think the case would be resolved on Thursday.

Cleveland spokesman Dan Ball said that city officials are evaluating their options.

It was clear that Gwin, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1997, had Wednesday's parade to celebrate the Cleveland Cavaliers' Game 7 win in the NBA finals on his mind.

Gwin asked city attorney Stewart Hastings how many people were downtown for the parade. Hastings smiled and said "1.3 million, your honor," though Cuyahoga County estimated that a million people attended.

When asked how many people would come to Cleveland for the RNC, he estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people.

Hastings differentiated the groups, though, by saying that "a celebration of happy fans is very different than the people I expect to come to Cleveland for the Republican National Convention."

The city maintained its previous assertion that the event zone it created was to ensure security for people coming downtown. Hastings said that the convention is an "ideal target for international and domestic terrorists" and that despite that, the restrictions it had sought to impose were among the least stringent of any recent political convention.

The judge seemed skeptical on how allowing a march downtown or allowing demonstrators to use several city parks poses a security concern.

"If you've got a park that's a distance from The Q, why would you want to restrict that?" the judge asked.

Gwin also questioned the inability for those who want to hold parades on other streets, such as Carnegie Avenue, and how delegates would be able to see the protesters on the bridge.

Hastings argued that the city needs routes to ensure those who need medical help can get to University Hospitals.

When pressed on why the road was shut down for the Cavs' parade, though, Hastings said that there were other side roads that were used during Wednesday's festivities.

The ACLU, in its lawsuit filed last week, represented Citizens for Trump, Organize Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, which are planning to demonstrate and march at the convention.

The city on Monday denied a request to march along a route leading toward downtown from the city's East Side. The group says the route will symbolically highlight the 50th anniversary of the race-related riots in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood. It also denied a request from Citizens for Trump to hold a rally at a city park.

ACLU of Ohio legal director Freda Levenson said at the hearing that it was administratively appealing the city's denials.

The ACLU on Thursday also sued the city of Philadelphia over protester restrictions.

Cleveland.com reporter Andrew J. Tobias contributed to this report.
MENTOR, Ohio -- Bitter Republicans clashing in a hot Midwestern city? Yes, the 1880 convention in Chicago was rough.

The surprise winner came from Mentor, where the James A. Garfield National Historic Site is expanding its usual programs in hopes of drawing conventioneers and locals alike to another Republican mecca besides the party's convention July 18-21 in Cleveland.

"We are confident that many people coming for the convention will be intrigued to learn more about President Garfield and visit his home just 25 minutes from downtown," says Todd Arrington, who manages Garfield's home for the National Park Service. "We're expecting near-record numbers of visitors this year because of events like the RNC and the National Park Service's ongoing centennial commemoration."

In May of 1880, Republicans in a steamy Chicago were torn between former President Ulysses Grant, U.S. Rep. James Blaine of Maine and U.S. Sen. John Sherman of Ohio. Rumors began about a dark horse Garfield, 49, a poor, fatherless child from the wilds of Orange Township who'd become a wide-ranging scholar, president of the future Hiram College, Civil War hero, 17-year U.S. representative, and U.S. senator-elect.

Garfield nominated Sherman with more praise for party unity than for the nominee. Over his objections, Garfield got a single vote on the second ballot and clinched the nomination on the 36th one -- still the latest ballot in Republican history.

Back home in Mentor, he pioneered the so-called Front Porch campaign, later perfected by Ohioans William McKinley and Warren Harding. The place was dubbed Lawnfield and its lawn trampled by more than 17,000 choreographed visitors from different states and blocs.

Garfield edged Democratic hopeful General Winfield Scott Hancock by fewer than one vote in 1,000, and by 214 electoral votes to 155.

Garfield reigned not quite four months before taking two bullets from Charles Guiteau, a delusional job-seeker. It took another 79 days for doctors to infect Garfield, starve him and finish him off. He and his wife, Lucretia, are entombed at the Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery.

As usual in the summertime, Lawnfield is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 8095 Mentor Ave., 440-255-8722, nps.gov/jaga. The grounds are open for free, but tours of Garfield's house cost $7 for people age 16 or older.

Here are some particular events aimed at reminding any student of today's politics about those of the 19th century. Some involve extra fees and hours as noted below.

Office tours:

Starting Sat., June 25, a new tour of the campaign office building will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the fourth Saturday of every month. The tour will be free this Saturday but cost $15 from July onward. Participants must be at least 16 years old and must call Lawnfield for reservations.

Production: At 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 9, visitors may participate in a free readers' theater production called "The 1880 Republican National Convention." They'll take on roles of delegates, reporters, Garfield and others.

Encampment: The weekend before the 2016 convention, the site will host its free, seventh annual Civil War Encampment Weekend. The event will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 15, with a Northeast Ohio Civil War Round Table. The encampment will take place Saturday and Sunday, and the grounds will stay open late on Saturday. At 6 p.m. on Saturday, an expert will discuss Lincoln's assassination. At 7:45 p.m., a campfire program will look at the life of Civil War soldiers. At 8:30 p.m., the Civil War movie "Glory" will be shown, starring Matthew Broderick and Morgan Freeman.

Documentary: At 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 18, Rob Rapley, producer and director of PBS's recent "Murder of a President," will attend and discuss a free outdoor showing of this documentary.

Author: At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 19, author Stan M. Haynes will give a free talk and sign copies for sale of his "President-Making in the Gilded Age: The Nominating Conventions of 1876-1900."

House tours: On Wednesday, July 20, Lawnfield will stay open until 9 p.m. for tours of Garfield's house.

For more about Garfield, click here.
THE FREE STATE OF JONES

Matthew McConaughey (center) and Mahershala Ali (center left) star in "The Free State of Jones."

(Murray Close/STX)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- "Free State of Jones" is movie in a tug of war with itself. Directed and co-written by Gary Ross ("Seabiscuit," "The Hunger Games"), it struggles to be two things at once: a Civil War epic and a history lesson with a moral punch. It succeeds at both, intermittently, but in the struggle it loses what it most needs: a stirring, strong, emotional foundation.

It's also too long, with a third act that strains to pack in so much history it feels like a classroom lecture that has continued way past the bell. By the end of its two hour and 19 minute running time, I just wanted to be released from school.

That's too bad, because "Free State of Jones" tells a fascinating Civil War story, one that is not widely known outside the Deep South. In Mississippi, though, the name Newton Knight still sparks indignation on one side (the side that still insists that the war was not about slavery) and admiration on the other.

Spoiler alert: There's never a question on which side Ross lands. But that's as it should be, because Newton Knight was an unusual hero who formed a ragtag "army" to fight the Confederacy from within. He's the subject of several books, and Ross has taken great pains to hew to the known facts about him while still satisfying the demands of the big Hollywood movie. (He's invented several characters, but he owns up to everything in a website - with footnotes - for fact-checkers: http://freestateofjones.info/.)

With Matthew McConaughey playing Knight, he's more than halfway to satisfying those Hollywood demands. Say what you will about his downright weird, preening commercials for Lincoln, McConaughey is a charismatic star who has proven he is also an artist (see "True Detective" or "Dallas Buyers Club"). As Knight, he shows us a man growing into his true self, a man who turns his desperation into action and leadership - and a touch of madness.

When we first see him, he is in the thick of battle, dragging a wounded soldier back to the camp "hospital" -- a scene of such carnage it makes the terrors of the battlefield look mild. He's already disillusioned when two things put the story into gear: a mere boy who is his kin is killed in action, and he learns of a new law that exempts from the army the oldest son in families that own 20 slaves; 20 more slaves exempts the second-oldest son. Meaning the plantation owners.

Concluding that - as in so many wars - poor men were fighting a rich men's war, Knight deserts. Back home, he sees the ravages visited upon his neighbors by the Confederate army, who raid their farms for supplies like conquerors. After a stand-off with the foppish lieutenant who leads the raids, Knight goes underground, joining a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps.

They quickly (too quickly, but this is a long movie) they form an alliance of the exploited. Knight becomes close to the slaves' de facto leader, Moses (Mahershala Ali), and even closer to Rachel (the fine, subtle Gugu Mbatha-Raw) a house slave at the county's biggest plantation, who brings them food, information and the occasional deserter.

Their number increases to a size Knight can call an army, and soon he is leading a war within the war. The rebellious faction, which includes women and children, captures a town. Knight declares Jones County is now the Free State of Jones and calls for help from the Union Army. The help never comes.

Ross generates excitement in the skirmishes and stand-offs as the story builds to its climax, but he then kills his own momentum by cutting away at various times to a courtroom in the 1940s, where a descendant of Knight and Rachel is on trial. Though he looks white, he is accused of being 1/8 black and has been arrested for breaking the miscegenation law by marrying a white woman.

All of this is true, but it stops the movie in its tracks, and by the third or fourth cutaway, it nearly kills it off. That's when Ross begins telling the postwar story of Reconstruction, which is in many ways worse than the war, especially for black people and the whites who supported them.

It's an important story, but the movie would have been stronger had Ross held it for another movie. Perhaps "Free State of Jones" would have worked better as a six-episode series on HBO or Netflix. There, the history lesson would not have felt quite so much like cramming for a test.

REVIEW

Free State of Jones

Who: With Matthew McConaughey, Mahershala Ali and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Directed by Gary Ross.

Rated: PG-13 R (for gruesome wartime carnage).

Running time: 139 minutes.

When: Opens Friday.

Where: Area theaters.

Grade: B-
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Abrel Smith, a police officer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, kneels down near the area where Jefferson Parish Sheriff's deputy David Michel Jr. was fatally shot on Wednesday.

(Brett Duke, nola.com)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- A sheriff's deputy attempting to stop a pedestrian on a busy street was killed Wednesday afternoon after being shot multiple times, according to news reports.

Jefferson Parish Deputy David F. Michel Jr., 50, was rushed to a nearby hospital but died of his injuries, nola.com reports.

Michel had been a member of the sheriff's department since 2007, becoming a full-time deputy in 2013.

A suspect was taken into custody after a manhunt by law-enforcement officials, but he has not been identified.

According to the Associated Press, Michel was driving on patrol when he stopped and approached the suspect near a busy commercial strip. It's unclear whey Michel stopped the suspect.

Michel and the suspect got into a struggle, and the suspect pulled a gun and shot the deputy three times in the back, a coroner tells nola.com.

Chief Deputy Craig Taffaro tells nola.com that Michel was "doing what he loved to do."

"He was a great guy, well-liked," Taffaro tells wwltv.com. "It was quite obvious at the hospital with all of the officers who were there."

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comment page.
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Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (right) is scheduled to campaign in Cincinnati on Monday with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is reportedly on the short list to become Clinton's running mate.

(AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is coming back to campaign in Ohio on Monday - this time, with potential running mate Elizabeth Warren.

Clinton and Warren, a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts, are scheduled to attend a 10:30 a.m. public event at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, according to a Clinton campaign release.

"Clinton and Warren will discuss their shared commitment to building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," the release stated.

Warren, an anti-Wall Street populist who has become a nationally known darling of progressives, is reportedly on Clinton's short list of potential vice-presidential candidates.

A Clinton campaign spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday on whether Warren would be announced as Clinton's running mate during the Cincinnati event.

The event will mark Clinton's third campaign stop in the Buckeye State in as many weeks. She previously campaigned in Cleveland last week and Columbus on Tuesday.
National Lawyers Guild RNC conference

A flyer from a March 2016 conference organized by the National Lawyers Guild, a group that's helping prepare for demonstrations surrounding July's Republican National Convention.

(Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Law enforcement investigators this week began visiting the homes of local activists in an attempt to gather intelligence for possible planned demonstrations surrounding the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Activists said they view the "door-knock" visits as intimidating. A spokeswoman for the local branch of the FBI acknowledged that "community outreach" is taking place as law enforcement officials try to make sure next month's GOP convention is a "safe and secure" event.

Jocelyn Rosnick, a leader with the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a left-leaning group planning legal support for RNC protesters, said over a dozen activists have reported visits by teams of federal and local law enforcement officials this week.

Some of the activists are involved with groups planning RNC demonstrations, while some aren't, she said. She also said that some of the people who were visited were among the 71 people who were arrested in May 2015 in the aftermath of protests that broke out following the acquittal of Michael Brelo, a then-Cleveland police officer who had been charged with voluntary manslaughter in connection with the 2013 shooting deaths of two Cleveland motorists following a police chase.

Law enforcement officials have asked about past addresses, political and social affiliations and plans for the RNC, Rosnick said.

Activists said they view the visits as chilling of free speech, and are planning a "Know Your Rights" workshop for this Friday.

"There's an implication of force behind [the visits]," said Maggie Rice, an organizer with Food Not Bombs Lake County, a left-leaning group that plans to distribute food at the RNC. "They say that they're friendly and just talking, but it still implies that there could be consequences there."

Donna Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland division of the FBI, confirmed local, state and federal law enforcement have conducted "community outreach" as part of their security planning.

"In preparation for the upcoming RNC, the FBI along with numerous federal state and local law enforcement agencies are working collaboratively with members of the community," Sullivan said. "As part of this preparation, law enforcement is conducting outreach with many individuals to ensure a safe and secure environment for the RNC."

Law enforcement is preparing for possibly significant protest activity at the upcoming GOP convention, scheduled for July 18-21. They have not shared specifics of their approach to identify any plans to disrupt the event. But Cleveland police have acknowledged their strategy includes undercover and plain-clothes operations.

In a June 8 public hearing, Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba told members of City Council's public safety committee that Cleveland police have a "very robust pre-convention intelligence team."

"We have a real, real good idea of who we think is coming here and what their objectives are," Tomba said in the June 8 hearing. "And if we can deter those objectives, that's what we're going to do."

Like past political-convention host cities, Cleveland has moved to buy a $10 million "protest insurance" policy to protect against possible lawsuits resulting from the convention.

Rice told cleveland.com an FBI agent and a plain-clothes Cleveland police officer this week visited a former Food Not Bombs member's previous home -- where another member of the group happens to now live -- as well as the former member's parents' home, in an unsuccessful attempt to speak to the person.

"None of us plan to answer our doors when the FBI comes knocking, and none of us plan to cooperate in any way," Rice said.

At past political conventions, amidst mostly peaceful protests, small groups of protesters have attempted to disrupt the events by blocking the buses transporting delegates into the convention hall. Past convention host cities likewise have taken varying approaches in anticipating and dealing with these possible disruptions.

At the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, law enforcement raided homes where protest planning was taken place, according to media reports. On the first day of the convention, organized demonstrators smashed windows and attempted to block traffic.

At the 2012 RNC in Tampa, Fla., police have acknowledged infiltrating protest groups to the extent that they were able to install officers into leadership positions. In part due to a forecasted hurricane, protest activity was relatively subdued and only a handful of arrests took place.

Mike Nelson, an attorney who is president of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP, said he received a call from an FBI agent Thursday morning. The agent this week visited the home of the parents of one of Nelson's past clients, a female student who was arrested following the May 2015 protests over the Brelo acquittal.

"These are not necessarily people who are part of any group, they were just demonstrating their displeasure at the court," Nelson said. "To me, it's not so much that [law enforcement is] trying to get information, it's they're trying to intimidate people to diminish their enthusiasm in expressing their constitutional rights to free expression."
Weekend weather GIF

Here's a quick look at the hot temperatures we can expect this weekend.

(Kelly Reardon, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Keep on celebrating, Cleveland. The nice weather expected this weekend is still on track!

Warm temperatures in the low 80s Friday and Saturday, with Sunday and Monday competitors for record high temperatures. No rain is expected until over night Sunday evening.

Here's what you get to look forward to:

Friday

High: 79 degrees

Low: 62 degrees

Rain chances: near zero

Saturday

High: 84 degrees

Low: 65 degrees

Rain chances: near zero

Sunday

High: 88 degrees

Low: 70 degrees

Rain chances: near zero until late overnight

The how: A high pressure ridge is bringing in the dry weather, which is letting things really heat up. An unstable air mass following this ridge is breaking in Sunday night, but these rain chances could be shifted more towards the overnight hours as the week progresses.

Low dew points can also be expected, which means no mugginess.

Keep checking cleveland.com/weather for twice daily weather updates for Northeast Ohio, and don't forget to submit any weather questions you may have!

Kelly Reardon is cleveland.com's meteorologist. Please follow me on Facebook and Twitter @kreardon0818.
The U.K. hospitality industry may suffer a manpower crunch in the aftermath of a Brexit, a hotelier warned Thursday.



"It's going to be very difficult for the hotel industry to employ staff that are all U.K.-based," Aron Harilela, chairman and chief executive of Hong Kong-based Harilela Hotels told CNBC's "Squawk Box".

The group owns a 85-room hotel in London staffed by 82 employees, of whom just five were not EU citizens, he said.

At around 5 percent, the U.K. employment rate was the lowest in seven years, so it's "not as if jobs are being taken away (by EU citizens). In my opinion, for my industry, it would be a disaster."
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Thursday night will see one of the most important stock market and political questions of the year - whether the U.K. will remain part of the European Union - finally answered. How will the results unfold?



Thursday 10pm BST

Polls will close around the U.K. in the referendum. While there won't be traditional exit polls from U.K. national broadcasters in the manner of a general election, the results of some alternative exit polls, including one by YouGov, may be available.

Friday 00.30 BST

Early results from around the country are expected to start arriving .While it is only the overall share of the vote gained by either Leave or Remain which really matters, these results should give a flavor of which way the country is turning. There are 382 counting areas in total, varying in size from 1,700 to 700,000 eligible voters. Sunderland, in the North of England, Wandsworth in London and Foyle in Northern Ireland are expected to be the first to report. Watch out Sunderland, with its Labour-voting, blue collar demographic,as it is expected to be a key indicator of whether the Leave campaign has swayed this demographic, according to Open Europe, the think tank.



Friday 03.00-04.00 BST



A flurry of results are expected during this period, and areas representing around 75 percent of the U.K. population should have declared by now. Key areas to watch for include Conservative Party strongholds like Cheltenham, according to Open Europe.

Friday 07.00 BST

The final results are expected to come in, with a declaration of the result made in Manchester. If U.K. voters have opted for Leave, the political fallout of the campaign, particularly the divisions exposed in the ruling Conservative Party, is expected to escalate quickly.

Friday 08.00 BST
China's internet regulator, long a thorn in the side of social media giants, has turned its focus on two ubiquitous elements of digital life: keyboard warriors and click-bait stories.

Ren Xianliang, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said late on Tuesday that the watchdog wanted to carry out a large-scale cleanup of comments sections on news sites, and make it easier to report harmful content.

Online media should make sure that their stories are not simply "click-bait," Ren said in a statement. They should also fulfill their responsibilities to society by properly controlling online comments to "allow the internet to better benefit the people", Ren added.

Beijing's latest scrutiny of online material comes on the heels of new television restrictions announced Sunday, that limited the broadcast of foreign-inspired programs in a bid to encourage the production of local content that promoted Chinese patriotism and values, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said.

According to the regulator's edict, "only independent, innovative programs with Chinese cultural genes, characteristics and style can sustain themes of the Chinese dream, core socialist values, patriotism and outstanding Chinese cultural traditions."

This week's announcement are the latest in a recent series of fresh Chinese media regulations and plans.
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Even if the United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union, Jim Cramer simply refuses to believe that it will be a momentous or terrifying event. "The coverage of the story has been laced with hyperbole for weeks, but now it has entered the realm of pure hysteria," the "Mad Money" host said. Cramer's jaw dropped to the floor by how overblown Brexit fears are when he read the op-ed by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal entitled "The Business Case for Brexit." He was stunned when he read the first sentence, when Ridley stated "In voting Thursday on whether to leave the European Union, the British people face perhaps the most momentous decision since Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century so he could marry as he pleased." It's one thing to place importance on a Brexit vote, but to compare it to the protestant reformation is absurd, according to Cramer.

British Union Flag Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As stocks fell on Wednesday, Cramer could not dismiss the notion that there is too much of everythingtoo many stores, trucking companies, airlines, banks and oil companies among many others. "Nothing can be done about it except survival of the fittest," Cramer said. For a long time the free market was able to take care of itself. Companies would merge to take out costs, and the market would respond. In the past few years, Cramer watched as the Federal government has turned violently against these deals and the repercussions are wreaking havoc on stocks. Companies are no longer automatically given higher price-to-earnings multiples based on an acquisition. "The clock is ticking. The bids should be made, but it sure doesn't look like that will happen," Cramer said.

With "Mad Money" in San Francisco this week, Cramer took the time to take the pulse of Silicon Valley with Kara Swisher. Not only is she the co-founder and executive editor of Recode, but is also the host of the "Recode Decode" podcast and co-executive producer of the Code conference. Once called "tech's most powerful snoop" by New York Magazine, Swisher broke the news last week that Salesforce.com tried to buy LinkedIn , but it couldn't compete with Microsoft 's deep pockets. Cramer spoke with Swisher, who said her ability to find out information simply comes down to a phone call. "The other day when...they (Salesforce) were making a bid for LinkedIn, [Marc Benioff]said no one called him. I had heard that they were the ones, and there was one that said sources said there was another bidder and I had heard it was him and I just called him and he said 'yeah I'll talk to you'," Swisher said.

James Park, CEO, Fitbit Scott Mlyn | CNBC
In the month of May alone, PeerStreet added more than $11 million of new capital, the company said, and has funded $75 million in real estate loan investments since its launch in October. Based on anecdotal evidence from new customers, Crosby estimates it's benefited from safe haven seekers looking to escape troubles at more popular financial technology companies.

"Individual retail investors have in large part told us they are looking for a safer place to invest," said Brett Crosby, founder of PeerStreet, a marketplace for investing in real estate-backed loans. "All of a sudden, the phone is ringing off the hook."

Some financial technology start-ups have emerged as bright spots in the industry, scoring big bucks and saving themselves from the carnage in the fintech space. Part of the strategy? They've aggressively distanced themselves from fallen star LendingClub and the markets affected by it.

Executives gather on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for Lending Club's IPO and pose for pictures December 11, 2014 in New York. Lending Club started trading on the NYSE at a high $24.75 USD per share.

"We effectively compete with Prosper and LendingClub on yield," Crosby said. "But if something goes wrong, you can foreclose on the real estate."

In May, LendingClub shares plummeted after an internal review discovered staff knowingly sold $22 million in loans in March and April that did not meet the buyer's requirements. Since then, the CEO has resigned, and the company has been subject to regulatory scrutiny.

Negative sentiment seemed to bleed quickly into other U.S. firms in the industry. Vouch reportedly folded amid the hostile funding environment, while companies such as Avant, On Deck Capital and Prosper Marketplace reportedly battled business woes.

But Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Circle, denies getting any pushback when raising funding. The company, which specializes in cross-border peer-to-peer payments, announced Thursday a $60 million strategic financing round.

Allaire was quick to dismiss the "LendingClub effect," saying, "there are mediocre start-ups in every space."

Circle, which looks similar to PayPal 's Venmo but works with blockchain technology, will focus its expansion on China and Europe. LendingClub, too, has gotten the benefit of the doubt thanks to the more enthusiastic Chinese market: Chinese billionaire Chen Tianqiao recently upped his stake, seeing LendingClub's downfall as a buying opportunity.

LendingClub did not respond to CNBC's request for comment on this story.

China has been at the forefront of mobile payments, Allaire said, as the site of the early proliferation of services like Alibaba 's Alipay. Indeed, Circle's latest round of financing comes from Chinese power players such as Baidu and IDG Capital Partners.

While Allaire said he's gotten full support from his American investors, he sees the Chinese market as an inspiration.



"[Venture capital investors] in the West are reluctant to invest in regulated industries," Allaire said. "It is a much broader burden. There's personal financial scrutiny, FBI background checks. You have to share proprietary information with the government. But if you want to compete in this market, you have to do that."
America is at a crossroads. Not only are we about to elect a new president, but a dozen states will elect governors this year. The price of oil is still a fraction of its all-time high, dealing a body blow to the states that depend on it. For the others, the painfully slow recovery from the Great Recession is showing signs of stress just as they start to get their finances back on a solid footing. That means the competition among states for business, jobs and the qualified workers to fill them is about to intensify, and this is where CNBC's annual America's Top States for Business comes in. Each year, using our tried-and-true methodology, we rank all 50 states across 10 categories that matter the most to business.

Joe Sohm | Getty Images

This year it's the 10th-annual Top States. We started studying the states at the peak of the real estate boom in 2007, when the U.S. economy seemed to be firing on all cylinders: 21 consecutive quarters of economic growth and a stock market that kept marching to new highs. Sure, there were rumblings about some frothiness in the housing market, but at the start of 2007, people were feeling pretty good. Business leaders were feeling good, too. But there was something uneven about the expansion. Companies were growing and hiring in some states more than others. And because the economy had started to encounter a few headwinds, the competition to win a new plant or woo away an existing one began picking up. But there seemed to be little rhyme or reason about who would win.

Our idea was to try to understand why companies were making the decisions they did and to see whether those decisions matched up to the data. We also hoped to spark a national conversation about competitiveness. Top States has uniquely chronicled the ups and downs of the U.S. economy at the state level and the seismic shifts in the competitive landscape over the past 10 years. Our study shows which states truly put it all together and which ones don't.

Here are key lessons we have learned over the past decade about what it takes to become America's Top State for Business, and what it may take for 2016's Top State to put it all together this year.





1. Dont put all your eggs in one basket  or one sector.

The economy of 2007 was tailor-made for Virginia, our inaugural Top State. The home of the Pentagon and all those defense contractors poised conveniently nearby, Virginia was bound to benefit from the steady growth in defense spending following 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A resurgent tech sector would not hurt either in a state that boasts of being the internet capital of the world. Plus, all those new workers would need housing, and the housing market was booming. But Virginia and the rest of the nation were about to get a rude awakening. Less than a month after we unveiled our 2007 rankings, alarms were sounding. By the time our 2008 rankings rolled around, states were staring down the barrel of a full-blown crisis. At its heart was housing  one of Virginia's strong suits. It was enough to dethrone the Old Dominion that year, because a different boom was beginning. Our 2008 Top State, Texas, was revealed from the site of a drilling rig in the Barnett Shale near Fort Worth. Domestic oil and natural gas exploration were taking off. Not only had the War on Terror convinced Americans that energy independence is vital, but high prices and improved technology made domestic drilling more cost effective. Texas, a low-cost, business-friendly state to begin with, was ideally poised to capitalize.

2. Keeping costs down matters more when the economy stalls.

With the nation mired in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, newly elected President Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress pushed through a nearly $800 billion stimulus plan, an increase in federal government spending bound to boost Virginia, which snatched the title back from Texas in 2009. But the winds were about to shift again.

The 2010 mid-term elections unleashed a Republican wave. Not only did the GOP win control of Congress, it swept state legislatures and governor races across the country. Low taxes became the centerpiece of economic development efforts in state after state, and because our study assigns weight to criteria based on how frequently states use them as selling points, the cost of doing business took on more importance than ever before. With no personal or corporate income tax and an economy big and diverse enough to withstand the Great Recession, Texas came out on top again in 2010.

3. The true Top States never stop trying.

Texas has never slipped from the top tier, a fact then-Governor Rick Perry pointed out more than once during his first bid for the White House in 2012. He had already dropped out of the race by the time Texas won its third Top State title that year. Meantime, a few small cracks were appearing in the Texas juggernaut.

For one thing, the state was becoming a victim of its own success. Despite having no income tax, the cost of doing business in the Lone Star State was rising. Wages were going up because of the rapid expansion, and so were rents and property taxes. Texans were also dealing with nagging quality of life issues that continue to this day. They include a lack of health insurance coverage, and limited protections against discrimination. Some Texans, Gov. Perry among them, cite both as positives  emblematic of the state's penchant for personal freedom. But many business leaders have raised concerns. Still, through 2015, Texas never finished lower than second place.

4. A worker shortage can keep a booming state from being a Top State.

The domestic energy push that we chronicled in Texas in 2008 began spreading like a prairie fire  into the actual prairie. North Dakota burst into our Top 5 in 2012 and climbed all the way up to third place in 2013. But in our study, an economy in hyperdrive is not enough to propel a state to the top. A severe worker shortage, schools that could not possibly keep up with the population surge, and a shortage of technology and innovation have all held the state back.

But North Dakota's fortunes did have a halo effect on its neighbor to the south, making South Dakota the dark horse winner in 2013. South Dakota is not an oil state, but the explosive growth to the north certainly rubbed off. Yet South Dakotans enjoyed low costs and friendly regulation (not to mention some amazing scenery). The state suffered from its own worker shortage, though, and that was about to become a big problem when it came to competitiveness.

5. More than ever, a great workforce matters.

Experts call it the Skills Gap. With a recovering economy, companies have jobs to fill. And with the Great Recession just barely over, millions of workers remain unemployed. Yet companies complain they can't find qualified people. So the jobs go unfilled, and workers remain jobless.

As the recovery took hold in 2014, a new battleground among the states was emerging: the battle for the best workforce. Companies increasingly were choosing locations not just based on the cost structure but on the availability of skilled employees. The rise of the worker meant the South would rise again that year. Georgia, to be specific. A big state with a thorough infrastructure and reasonably low costs, Georgia has typically done well in our study. But a severely overbuilt housing market hurt the state badly in the recession. The state lagged the nation in job growth, leading to a surplus of workers at a time when workers were in high demand. By 2015, states were actively touting their workforces to the point that for the first time, Workforce surpassed Cost of Doing Business in terms of weight in our study. It was enough to tip the balance in favor of Minnesota. It is a high-cost, high-union state, but also a high-value state, insisted Gov. Mark Dayton after we crowned his state Tops last year.

What it will take to be 2016's Top State for Business
The motivations of supporters in Britain for the country to leave the European Union are similar to those sparking the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, two economists told CNBC on Thursday, as Britons went to the polls to vote on the Brexit.

"A lot of the rhetoric you're hearing in the U.K. in favor of leaving is very similar to the rhetoric you hear from Donald Trump and his supporters," Robert Hormats, a former Goldman Sachs International vice chairman, said on "Squawk Box."

British economist Anatole Kaletsky told "Worldwide Exchange" in an earlier interview: "The general sense of angst ... it's very similar to the Trump phenomenon. Here, it's being taken out on the EU. And in America, it's being taken out on Muslims and Mexican immigrants."



"We can't totally assume Brexit is not going to win," added Hormats, who had served in the Hillary Clinton State Department as under secretary for economic growth.

"This demonstrates the intensity of the nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-immigration feeling that exists in the U.K. [and] other parts of Europe," he said.
BlackBerry shares climbed nearly 4 percent on Thursday after the smartphone maker posted earnings that broke even, topping expectations, even as revenue nosedived.

The Canadian mobile company announced an adjusted revenue of $424 million, versus expectations for $480.9 million, according to Reuters estimates. The firm was expected to post a loss of 8 cents a share.

BlackBerry also reported a $670 million net loss on a non-adjusted basis, or $1.28 per share over the past three months. Software and licensing revenue was $166 million, which put the firm just under the full-year growth rate it had hoped for.

"Our current plan calls for continued investments to expand our addressable markets and drive sustainable profitability and revenue growth. For the full fiscal year, we are on track to deliver 30 percent revenue growth in software and services," said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO of Blackberry in a release.

Chen said Thursday on CNBC's "Squawk Alley" that BlackBerry will put its investors first, even if that means drifting away from the hardware business.

"If we find that in spite of all the stuff we're working on, the market tells us that the hardware business by itself has an issue with making money and the volumes are just not there, then we will do the right thing for the shareholders and not just continuously focus on losing money," Chen said.

Chen said BlackBerry will start to license its hardware business to "other players...it could even be competitors for that matter."

BlackBerry traded near $7 per share on Thursday. So far this year, however, the firm's stock has tumbled 24 percent.

BBRY year to date
Banks and financial analysts around the world have warned investors of volatility in jittery markets as the results from the U.K. referendum come in. Many analysts have predicted double-digit percentage moves for U.K. and EU equities in case of an exit, while a significant relief rally is anticipated in case of a remain vote.

"While GBP (sterling) may come under significant pressure, the euro may be more stable. Risk currencies (Swiss francs & the yen) would benefit, but policy responses could limit the degree of strength quickly. We think Euro-area core yields and UK yields would decline substantially (roughly 10-40 bps), and potentially even more so in the US," UBS Global Research said in a research note.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the results, investors have been advised by many analysts to be cautious when trading.

"Be very very careful. Stay invested, stay diversified," William Hobbs, Head of Investment Strategy U.K. and Europe at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management told CNBC on TV. "For the most part, remember that the U.K. economy for the most part is a very small contributor to the world's economy. It is even smaller contributor to world's capital market."

Meanwhile, financial advisers in the U.K have urged investors to not follow the 'herd' since markets tend to react as traders follow each other. Tony Catt, a London-based financial adviser says a lot depends on what the results are but the bigger risk is if the U.K. votes to exit.
Micron's two main products are within the scope of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and flash memory. After a 50 percent decline in pricing in the past two years, DRAMs are finally going higher.

"It looks to me like a major turn could be unfolding, with not one but several product lines doing better," the " Mad Money " host said.

Micron jumped a monster 10 percent after it was upgraded by both Susquehanna and Nomura. And the good news is that Cramer thinks this isn't just the stock playing catch up. This could be the beginning of something good.

Now inventories have been worked off, and you could get a radical upswing in pricing.

Initially the decline in DRAM pricing occurred after consolidation in the industry was supposed to drive prices higher. However, the secular decline of PC usage impacted pricing so much that the consolidations didn't matter.

"Now inventories have been worked off, and you could get a radical upswing in pricing that would give Micron much higher earnings," Cramer said.

This would explain why Susquehanna increased its price target to $18 from $10. Cramer loved Nomura's position on the upgrade, as it recommended a barbell strategy of buying the highest growth companies such as Applied Materials , Broadcom , NVIDIA , Texas Instruments and Micron.

For investors that believe in this barbell strategy, Cramer also recommended Western Digital and NXP Semiconductors. He considered NXP to be more of a play on the internet of things, as it is linked more to the car than the PC.

"However, when Micron and Western Digital catch a bottom in pricing, that's not going to go away in 90 days. That's why I think both stocks are buys for a least another 10 percent," Cramer said.

So, while Cramer warned not to get too carried away with these trades, he does think there is something interesting happening. When two firms recommend Micron, that's worth paying attention to.
"I cannot believe how many companies out there literally exist to do nothing but make other companies competitive with Amazon," the "Mad Money" host said.

Right now the number one company that everyone fears and respects is Amazon . While it is Seattle-based, it has created a clear disruption in retail, causing many other companies to try to keep up. Everything from the connected car at Ford , to Intel and to Macy's is impacted.

That is why he decided to go down the list of technology companies changing the business, and how the innovation they bring to the table could change investor portfolios.

Every time Jim Cramer goes to CNBC's headquarters in San Francisco, he is reminded just how short-term minded Wall Street is, and how important it is to think about the long term.

The next company is Facebook , with a business model that so many fear  virtually unlimited content that Facebook doesn't even have to pay for because it's created by the customer, and advertisers want to use.

The next on Cramer's list was Alphabet , the parent of Google, but less for what it is doing now and more for what it might be working on. The buzz is all about driverless cars, and people are far more excited about this than whether search revenue is robust.

The oddest company of all, though, was Twitter . No one can stop talking about Twitter. Cramer boiled it down to two reasons: First, everyone is on it, checking what is happening. The second reason was that after LinkedIn got its monster bid from Microsoft , everyone wants to know who will bid for Twitter.

Will it be Facebook? Apple ? Microsoft? Salesforce ? Alphabet?

"They speak of Twitter as if it's some diamond in the rough that is sitting in the ground, and the only thing you need to do is get it out, polish it and make it worthwhile is to get rid of the company's current management. It might as well be the last diamond mine left to grab," Cramer said.

So while most are watching the Brexit vote on Thursday, Cramer was thinking about the future. When it comes to the winners of tech, it's Amazon. In the future, it could be Twitter but it must change ownership before it can even begin to do so, Cramer said.
Affordable Care Act supporters hold up signs outside the Supreme Court as they wait for the court's decision on Obamacare on Thursday, June 25, 2015. Bill Clark | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

A proposed new test of different ways for Medicare to pay for drugs  including linking how much the program will pay to a medication's effectiveness  is drawing fire from critics who warn it could lead to reduced access to potentially life-saving treatments, and say it would directly conflict with Obamacare rules. A group of health providers and patient advocates in a letter Wednesday wrote that there are "inherent dangers" in the proposed federal rule to use a method that compares the potential benefits to patients from a drug to its overall cost, which the group says "has no place in the modern medical system."

"We believe the use of this measurement system to devalue people will inevitably lead to the use of price controls and other barriers to access that will ration health care," said the letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, from more than two dozen patient and provider groups. Grassley's committee is holding a hearing about the new rule next Tuesday.

Ted Okon, executive director of Community Oncology Alliance, told CNBC that "people should not only be concerned, they should be alarmed" about the proposed rule. "The government is proposing, basically, an experiment on seniors' health care," said Okon said, whose group signed the letter. But unlike any clinical experiments, he argued, senior citizens involved would not be asked whether they want to participate, educated about the risks or be assured that "their care is going to be closely monitored during the experiment."

The warning by Okon and others comes as federal health officials are issuing an advisory of their own about the high cost of prescription drugs, and the strain that puts on the Medicare program. "High-cost drugs are a major driver of Medicare spending growth," said Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, during a press conference about Medicare's financial outlook on Wednesday. "For the second year in a row, we saw spending growth for prescription drugs dramatically outpace cost growth for other Medicare services," Slavitt said. He mentioned the proposal to study alternative payment models for Medicare Part B drugs during the press conference. Medicare is the federal government's health coverage program that primarily covers people ages 65 and older. Part B is the section of Medicare that covers treatment from physicians, including drug treatment administered in doctors' offices. Those drug treatments, which can include cancer medications, antibiotics, or eye-care treatments, cost Medicare about $20 billion annually. "Of course, costs are a concern," said Jonathan Wilcox, co-founder and policy director of the advocacy group Patients Rising. "But patients and their medicines are the last place we should be cutting," said Wilcox, whose group also signed the letter.

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Under the proposed rule, Medicare would study the effects of a set of "value-based pricing strategies" that would include so-called "indications-based pricing."

Such pricing "would vary the payment based on its clinical effectiveness for different indications," according to a CMS fact sheet about the proposal."The goal is to pay for what works for patients," the fact sheet said. The rule, as proposed, gives an example of how this might work, suggesting that if a new drug is introduced with indications for treating two types of cancer, Medicare would pay more for the drug when it is used for the type of cancer where clinical trials had indicated it performed "significantly better," and less when used for the type of cancer in which it had less success in clinical trials. The letter to Grassley notes that CMS proposes to use, among other resources, reports from the non-profit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), "to more closely align drug payment with outcomes for a particular clinical indication." A recent example of ICER's work was a report last year, which found that the $14,000 or more list price of new cholesterol drugs known as PCSK9 inhibitors was well above the "value-based price benchmarks of $5,404 to $7,735," meaning that the new drugs represent a "low" long-term value for patients. The letter points out that ICER, which analyzes the effectiveness and value of treatments, itself "relies on a measurement known as Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) that scores potential benefits against the overall cost of the medication." The groups that penned the letter argue that QALY "was designed in an era when health-care resources were scarce and had to be rationed," and that it has no place in today's health-care world. They also noted that "the Affordable Care Act prohibits the use of QALY." "By using ICER's research, the CMS would directly violate both the letter and the spirit of the Affordable Care Act," the letter said.

Seth Ginsberg, president of the Global Healthy Living Foundation, said that argument is the easy answer about why the proposed rule should not be implemented. "The longer, harder answer is that the methodology is flawed, so regardless of whether that methodology is allowed, it's not right," he said. "The immediate impact [of the rule] will be restricted access and limited availability [of medication], and denial of care, and worsening of disease," Ginsberg said. He added that ICER's review process "focuses on financial, and only financial [considerations] instead of the health benefits." "There are no patients involved in the process," Ginsberg said. "We're offended that patients aren't incorporated into this." "They're ignoring so many metrics and so many variables that we patients value so much," he said. "They're ignoring quality of life. They're ignoring things like productivity." Ginsberg also argued that ICER, which gets some of its funding from health insurance companies and whose advisory board has members from the insurance industry, is "an arm of the insurance industry." Sarah Emond, chief operating officer of ICER, disputed that claim. She the group's evaluation process "includes input from all of the major sectors" in health care. "We take into account the payor perspective," meaning insurers, "the same way we take into account the patient perspective and the clinician perspective," she said. Insurance companies' views, she added, do "not have more or less weight than another other piece of that coalition." Emond also said that the QALY methodology is both "unfortunately named" and a "misunderstood metric."

"It in no way disadvantages patients with illness and disabilities," she said. "It really does come down to a way for people to compare the improvements that come in patients' lives from 'Drug A' compared to 'Drug B' versus 'Surgery C.' " Emond said that QALY is just one component of ICER's analytical work. "It's not meant to be the only metric that's important when thinking about the value that drugs bring to patients," she said. She added that ICER's "entire mission is to open up the black box about how judgments are made about the prices of these drugs," which "now happen behind closed doors." "We don't set prices," she said. "We give decision makers another piece of information about what a price could be that reflects the value that the drug brings to the patient, as well as to society."
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Revolt in the House of Representatives turned raucous overnight, with protesting Democrats shouting down Speaker Paul Ryan's attempts to restore order during a gun-control protest that stretched into its 18th hour. Earlier, Republicans branded the move as a publicity stunt before summarily adjourning the chamber until after the Fourth of July.

The stunning and unruly scenes were broadcast live to the world from Democrats' cellphones, feeds which were picked up by C-SPAN after Republicans shut down the network's cameras.

Democrats took over the floor of the House at 11:25 a.m. ET Wednesday, demanding Republican leadership schedule votes on bills about universal background checks and blocking gun sales to those on no-fly lists.

At 4:30 a.m. ET Thursday, roughly a dozen remained sitting on the House floor.



We're going to sit in, sit down, stand up ... we're going to be here for a while.

A crowd of gun-control advocates also remained gathered outside the Capitol into the early morning. Democrats nearly drowned out Ryan's words with chants when the House Speaker first reconvened the session for a vote on a matter unrelated to the gun issue at around 10 p.m. ET Wednesday. Some held pictures of mass shooting victims in view of the cameras. Ryan attempted to ignore the outbursts and announce the business of the day, pounding down his gavel. "The chair appreciates that members will differ on matters of policy and will seek to express those differences," Ryan said over the loud chants. "But the chair would hope that the business of the House could be conducted in a fashion that respects positively on the dignity and decorum of this institution." Democrats  who were shown solidarity by senators dropping by for support  broke out into a rendition of "We Shall Overcome" with the words "We shall pass a bill, someday."



As Ryan left the chair, they chanted: "Shame! Shame!" More from NBC News:

These Rules Govern Protests on House Floor

Pizza, Pillows Help Fuel the House Rebellion

Sanders: 'It Doesn't Appear' I'll Be Nominee In what was essentially an attempt to cut short the protest, Republicans who control the chamber reconvened at around 2:30 a.m. ET Thursday to fresh chants of "no bill, no break." They held a number of procedural votes that allowed the House to wrap up the legislative session until July 5. While the House formally adjourned at 3:13 a.m.  and the House cameras turned off  the Democrats showed no signs of abandoning the sit-in. Rep. Barbara Lee tweet A new video stream on the Periscope app showed Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi decrying how Republicans "left in the dark of night." She praised her Democratic colleagues for "taking us to a new place" in the gun-control debate.



On the floor of the House, Pelosi read from a letter by Gabby Giffords, the former U.S. representative who survived a 2011 mass shooting, written after British lawmaker Jo Cox was gunned down on June 16. "Now is not a time for lawmakers to retreat to their ideological corners and do nothing," Pelosi read. "It's a time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the American people to make responsible changes that honor our history and our diversity, and make our country a safer place to live." Alex Moe tweet The revolt in the House comes amid Democrats' efforts to pursue gun-control legislation following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people. Rep. John Lewis, an icon on the civil rights movement, led the protest as the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak quickly climbed to the top of Twitter's trending topics. He drew the comparison between the gun-control fight and the fierce desegregation battle in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. "A little more than 50 years ago, I crossed a bridge not just one time, but it took us three times to make it all the way from Selma to Montgomery," he said during a brief press conference after adjournment, referring to the pivotal civil rights marches in Alabama that helped shift public opinion in favor of civil rights nationwide in 1965. "We have other bridges to cross."

Kim Kardashian tweet Earlier, Lewis argued the need for change in the wake of the Orlando massacre. "The question is whether we are accepting a new sense of normal," he said. "That should not be normal for people to be enjoying their lives on a Sunday morning, and the next thing they know they're blown away ... That can never be normal, and we should not allow it to be normal." Lewis was one of dozens to give impassioned speeches on the floor of the House as the sit-in stretched on. House Speaker Ryan early on dismissed the sit-in a publicity stunt, while House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told NBC News' Luke Russert that the Democrats' were engaging in "political antics." Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican representing North Dakota, also balked at the protest. "I, frankly, don't mind voting every day against a bill that would take away Second Amendment rights from folks," he said. Republican lawmakers also tried to match #NoBillNoBreak with their own hashtag  #StopTheStunt  but with less success than the Democrats. Strong words were exchanged between some Republicans and Democrats on the floor.
The Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law in 2010, was sold to the American people as the solution to our economic woes and the financial crisis that left so many Americans financially insecure. The 2,300 page bill was codified based on the premise that it would promote financial stablity, end too big to fail, and lift our nation's economy.

Nearly six years since its enactment, we should look around and ask ourselves if any of Dodd-Frank's promises have come to fruition. Is our economy more stable? Are taxpayers no longer on the hook for bailouts? And are Americans better off today than they were six years ago? The answer is a resolute no.



Fees for checking accounts have gone up, the personal savings rate has declined and the regulatory burdens stemming from Dodd-Frank are having devastating consequences on local financial institutions. Community banks and credit unions, which serve as the lifeblood of many Missouri towns, find themselves faced with regulations designed for the world's largest, most complex financial institutions.

Many of these are the only financial institutions serving their respective communities, and if the current trend continues, many of them will have to merge with bigger banks in order to spread out the compliance costs or close up shop altogether.



Many of these are the only financial institutions serving their respective communities, and if the current trend continues, many of them will have to merge with bigger banks in order to spread out the compliance costs or close up shop altogether.



Why does any of this matter? Because it makes it more difficult and more expensive for Missourians to get car loans, home loans, and small business loans, putting the American dream further out of reach for many American families.



It is crystal clear that we need a change. After years of holding hearings in the Financial Services Committee with key stakeholders and consumers, Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling recently introduced key elements of a Republican plan to reform and replace Dodd-Frank.



This plan, the Financial CHOICE Act, offers a new model for financial opportunity. It strives to provide every American with the chance to achieve financial independence, and to ensure consumers are protected from fraud and deception. The CHOICE Act also finally brings to an end the possibility of taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions, affirming that no company should hold the status of being "too big to fail."

The legislation goes a step beyond Dodd-Frank and increases penalites for fraud committed by finanical institutions, promoting not only consumer protection but also enhanced transparency and accountability.



Also included are common sense pieces of legislation that have already passed the House that will offer badly-needed relief for our neighborhood financial institutions. Among them is H.R. 766, my Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, which would bring to an end Operation Choke Point.



Operation Choke Point, designed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Department of Justice under the pretenses of rooting out fraud from the financial system has put the squeeze on legally-operating industries the government doesn't like in an attempt to choke off those industries from our country's banking system.



My colleagues in the House supported this legislation earlier this year and I am incredibly pleased to see it included in this package.



In the coming months, you'll see our Committee work hard to reform and replace Dodd-Frank, and bring to an end the negative impact it has had on consumers and our communities. The mission of the Financial CHOICE Act is not to reward the bad actors Dodd-Frank failed to address, but rather to inject sanity to the financial regulatory system, to restore the access to credit that has evaporated in the last five years, and to provide more Missourians with the opportunity to achieve financial independence.

I look forward to having further discussions with key stakeholders and consumers as we move forward and working with my colleagues in the House so that we can have a better and more stable financial system in our nation.



Commentary by Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, the vice chairman of the House Small Business Committee and a member of the House Financial Services Committee, where he serves as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance. Follow him on Twitter @RepBlainePress.
Dividends and buybacks will go up after the Federal Reserve's stress tests on Wall Street banks are completed next week, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi likely to double their dividends, experts said Thursday.



In the central bank's first portion of the stress test released Thursday, 33 banks met or exceeded regulators' required capital cushions they'd need to offset losses.

"The payout ratio is going up," Second Curve Capital CEO Tom Brown said in an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell."

Last year, banks paid out about 68 percent of their earnings in the form of dividends and stock buybacks. Now it is expected to be about 75 percent or more.

"It wouldn't surprise me over the next three years that the industry gets pretty close to 100 percent in terms of dividends and buybacks," he said.
The consequences of a British vote to leave the European Union (EU) would parallel the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, an event that triggered the global financial crisis, warned Alexander Stubb, Finland's former Prime Minister.

"There's not one economist in the world who would see a Brexit as a good thing to either the United Kingdom (U.K.), EU or global economy....I would say if Britain were to vote out, we would see far-reaching market turbulence," he told CNBC's Capital Connection on Thursday.

Stubb, also Finland's outgoing finance minister, believed the U.K. was an instrumental part of the EU despite its reputation as a "a reluctant bride" ever since it joined the European Economic Community in 1973, referring to the U.K.'s long history of separatist tendencies.

A remain vote would not only strengthen the marriage, the U.K.'s status as a former great empire can help bring more clout to a recovering Europe, he added.

"If the U.K. decides to stay, that will also give a much stronger agenda for economic reform [in Europe]. If we cut red tape and liberalize the internal market for services, goods, capital and people, then all of Europe will be better off."
Ianka Mikaelle Barbosa, 18, poses for a photograph with Sophia, 18 days old, who is her second child and was born with microcephaly, at her house in Campina Grande, Brazil February 17, 2016.

U.S. Democrats have slammed the House of Representatives for slashing the budget for research against the Zika virus, shortchanging President Barack Obama's original request of $1.9 billion.

Democrats have been pushing Republicans for months for more funding, and the Obama administration has already reprogrammed nearly $600 million that had been set aside to fight Ebola toward Zika, reported Reuters. However the Republican-led House of Representatives eventually approved a budget of some $1.1 billion.



"Once again, Republicans have put political games ahead of the health and safety of the American people, particularly pregnant women and their babies. This plan from Congressional Republicans is four months late and nearly a billion dollars short of what our public health experts have said is necessary to do everything possible to fight the Zika virus and steals funding from other health priorities," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, in a statement on Wednesday.



"The fact that the Republican plan limits needed birth control services for women in the United States and Puerto Rico as we seek to stop the spread of a sexually transmitted disease is a clear indication they don't take seriously the threat from the Zika virus or their responsibility to protect Americans."



Zika, a mosquito-borne virus, is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. Sexual transmission of Zika virus is also possible, scientists have found. Zika virus has been reported in 55 countries worldwide 42 of those had never had any outbreaks previous to 2015.



The disease is especially dangerous for pregnant women, as it is linked to several severe birth defects transferred to the fetus -including microcephaly- a condition in which a baby is born with a small head or the head stops growing after birth.



Brazil, which only allows abortion in cases of rape, or when the mother's life is in danger or the baby will not survive, had over 1,000 confirmed cases of microcephaly by April, according to the Centers for Disease Control.



Abortion requests have doubled there, as well as other countries in South America, said the BBC on Thursday, citing the New England Journal of Medicine.



Researchers from the medical journal analyzed thousands of requests received by Women on Web, an online service which delivers pills to end a pregnancy, in the five years before the Pan American Health Organization issued a Zika warning on 17 November.



It then used those numbers to determine how many abortion requests would have been expected on average between 17 November 2015 and 1 March 2016, and noted that Brazil would have expected 582 requests without the virus but actually received 1,210, an increase of 108 percent.

Similarly, Ecuador also saw an increase of 108 percent, while Venezuela saw an increase of 96 percent and Honduras an increase of 76 percent.

Meanwhile, health officials in the U.S. reported that as of June 9, three babies had been born with birth defects linked to Zika virus infections in the mothers during pregnancy, along with three cases of lost pregnancies linked to the virus.


"By joining forces, we can accelerate the deployment of super-fast Internet connections for customers across the U.S. Webpass will remain focused on rapid deployment of high speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, primarily using point to point wireless," Charles Barr, president of Webpass said in a blog post.

The deal  which is expected to close this summer for an undisclosed sum  was announced by Google Fiber in a tweet and followed up by a Webpass blog post.

Webpass is a 13-year old internet service provider focusing on businesses and residential connections. Like Google Fiber, Webpass offers speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second.

Google Fiber, the high-speed internet service owned by Alphabet , is to acquire Webpass, the companies said late on Wednesday, in a bid by the technology giant to bolster its U.S. expansion and compete with big broadband incumbents.

Webpass said it as "tens of thousands" of customers across five major markets in the U.S. It operates in cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston.

Google Fiber is present in 55 cities, including San Francisco, and the acquisition will help the company expand its presence there. And the Alphabet-owned subsidiary has also targeted a few further cities it is aiming to be present in soon.

Webpass owns its own infrastructure meaning it doesn't have to rely on phone and cable companies, something that it said has allowed it to grow quickly. Its focus is also on large residential and commercial buildings, something that is hard to for new players to get into because of the multi-year deals often signed by the larger players like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The deal will also give a boost to Google Fiber's effort to beam wireless internet to buildings. In an interview with Re/code earlier this year, Fiber's chief executive Craig Barratt said the company is experimenting with "a number of different wireless technologies". This would allow Google to deliver internet to homes where the wires can't go, giving it an edge over large incumbents. This type of technology is something that Webpass has expertise in.

Google Fiber is among Alphabet's "other bets", projects that run separately from the company's core business. Operating losses from these projects were $802 million with revenues of $166 million in the three months to March 31. Alphabet does not breakdown "other bets" results into individual businesses.
America's financial services industry has become a favorite punching bag on the campaign trail, on Capitol Hill, in the administration, and from politicians on the left and right. It seems like banks and other financial institutions have been blamed for everything from income inequality to the common cold. If we're to believe some of the rhetoric, our capital markets are little more than a system of tricks and traps. Banks and financial services providers are often, and unfairly, cast as bad actors that need to be shut down, broken up, or regulated into submission.

But the truth is that our financial services industry isn't a problem to be solved, limited, and controlledit's a key ingredient to boosting the economy. If we foster strong capital markets, we can accelerate growth, create jobs, and spur investment. We can ensure that Main Street businesses have the capital and credit they need to operate and grow. We can provide the financing consumers need to buy cars, homes, and education, while planning for their long-term financial security. Capital fuels our economic engineand that engine will continue to sputter if we cut off the supply.

Unfortunately, lawmakers and regulators have not considered growth a primary goal when regulating our capital markets. The last eight years of restrictive, punitive, and overlapping regulations have undermined our system's ability to drive a growing economy and a rising standard of living. That's one of the primary reasons we're stuck with 2 percent growth, have the lowest worker participation rate ever recorded, and have less than half the number of public companies that we did in 1996.

To get back on track, we must adopt a modern regulatory system that allows reasonable risk taking; protects consumers while preserving consumer choice; fosters diversity of institutions, products, and services; promotes capital formation; and enables innovation. With smart reforms, we can take steps to achieve that system.

However, we must reject the wrong-headed proposals being put forward by Wall Street critics. They will trap us in this anemic economy, strangle Main Street businesses, and destroy our ability to finance America's economic growth. And we must push back against the assault on our financial services industryit is far from perfect, but much of today's rhetoric is ill-informed or just plain wrong.

When politicians and others attack our capital markets, they are really attacking the very foundation on which a growing and prosperous economy is built. Let's work together to strengthen it, not tear it down.
The biggest threat to the Iron Throne could be Brexit.



HBO's hit fantasy epic "Game of Thrones" could face costly obstacles while filming its final two seasons if the U.K. leaves the European Union, according to Foreign Policy, a publication focused on covering global affairs.



"Game of Thrones" is funded, in part, by the European Regional Development Fund, a group that seeks to increase economic growth in the European Union.



If the U.K. departs the European Union, HBO could lose one of its primary filming locations  Northern Ireland. Filming could become too costly for the company and would require HBO to either relocate or find alternative funding.



"It might be up in the air for U.S. studios who want to film in the U.K.," Peter Chase, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States' Brussels office, told Foreign Policy. "There are EU programs to help fund all of this. If the U.K. is no longer part of the EU, that has the potential to go away."



"Game of Thrones" is not the only production that could be affected by Brexit. British film and television projects were granted a total of $32 million in the last seven years from organizations like Creative Europe, which, like the European Regional Development Fund, are designed to increase economic growth and jobs in the European Union.



More than 280 actors, authors and leaders of the U.K.'s creative industries published a letter in The Telegraph in May backing the campaign to remain a part of the European Union.



"Leaving Europe would be a leap into the unknown for millions of people across the U.K. who work in the creative industries, and for the millions more at home and abroad who benefit from the growth and vibrancy of Britain's cultural sector," according to the letter.



Notable signatories included Keira Knightley, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch and Helena Bonham Carter.



Read the full report from Foreign Policy.


Vote to leave supporters hold placards in London, England. Niklas Hallen'n | AFP | Getty Images

Much like a divorce, a United Kingdom split from the European Union could play out in many, unpredictable ways: There's a division of assets, renegotiation of contracts  and a decision on how forgiving the two sides want to be with each other. And just like in a lot of divorces, those who stand to gain the most may be the lawyers. London law firms are likely to have a lot of work in the event of a Brexit. "This will be a payday for British lawyers for a while," said Jonathan Macey, professor of corporate law at Yale University. "In the short term, there are going to be contracts that are renegotiated, and there's going to be an uptick in the demand for lawyers." If the U.K. votes to leave the EU on Thursday, it won't likely be resolved Friday, or a year from Friday. The details of an exit will take years to work out, Macey said.



watch now

Instead of there being one, great tie between the European Union and United Kingdom, he said a more accurate way to think of the situation is 100,000 pieces of rope that link the two. Lawyers have the onerous task of working out which of those pieces need to stay in place. "It's going to take a long time, and they may not be severed entirely, they may just be rearranged," Macey said. "I don't think anyone knows which ones, or how many." The process of cutting ties would take at least two years, said Anu Bradford, law and international organization professor at Columbia University. Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, she said, defines how a member nation exits the EU and allows two years to do so. A main task for lawyers in the interim would be examining current employment contracts, Bradford said. "A lot of the contracts that would no longer happen under U.K. law  that would be a big part of what needs to be renegotiated," Bradford said. "Lawyers would be very involved in the transition stage."

...but the good times won't last forever

The two-year transition stage would also include British Parliament negotiating what a new trade deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union would look like. She outlined two possibilities: a close relationship, like Norway's or Switzerland's with the bloc, or a more distant one like that of Ukraine. Some commentators have pointed out that EU powers such as Germany may feel that the U.K. has to be seen to pay consequences for a Brexit, or else other EU countries may decide there's no reason not to leave themselves. A diminished trade relationship would serve as a very visible negative consequence for the United Kingdom. As for the lawyers, the short-term benefits they might see by navigating the transition won't last, Bradford said, as many companies would eventually relocate when formerly loose trade restrictions tighten. As firms depart, so will jobs in the law.

"There's a negative consequence for the economic activity in the U.K. if there are companies moving away," she said. "If the financial activity is moving, I expect the legal business to follow that move." Long term, she said, legal advisory work might not need to take place within London. If there's less economic activity, lawyers that currently benefit from that economic activity stand to lose eventually, Bradford said. Law firms play a critical role in mergers. Economic activity has already dampened this year ahead of the vote. The volume of U.K. merger and acquisition deals was down 65 percent in the first half of 2016 from the same period a year earlier, according to a report from Dealogic. That compares with a global merger and acquisition decline of 27 percent. Bradford's colleague, Columbia Law professor John Coffee, said a vote to leave is likely to further depress the number of cross-border mergers and initial public offerings of stock. "Investment banks that depend on transactions are likely to see less mergers done in the U.K. and less IPOs done in the U.K.," Coffee said, adding that lawyers make a living off of such transactions. "If people find it easier to do an IPO on the Deutsche Boerse, then lawyers and investment bankers will go there." The planned $30 billion merger between the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse is one notable deal that could be affected, Coffee said, as shareholders vote to approve it next month.

Colin Scagell, partner at international law firm Mayer Brown, acknowledged a likely slowdown in capital markets but said London offices have plenty on their plates, forming back-up plans for large companies. "I expect that on Friday morning, if it is a vote to leave, our clients will say to us corporate lawyers, 'OK, let's make contingency plan,'" said Scagell, partner in the corporate finance and securities practice. "One of the first things we'd be doing is asking clients if they needed help to determine if they rely heavily on the free movement of goods and services throughout the EU." Scagell said a leave vote is just step one in figuring out what an exit would mean for London-based corporations. "If there is a Brexit vote, then there is a long period of transition for companies," he said. "Until the exit terms are settled down, we're still in a period of uncertainty." The uncertainty would last throughout the massive transitional period, he said, when big businesses and banks would watch how the U.K. actually extricates itself. Until the conditions are hashed out in Parliament, he said, lawyers are limited in what they can do. "We'll be swamped with questions. I don't think we'll have all the answers straight away, but we'll certainly be ramping up the contingency plans," Scagell said.
Ever since the crisis of 20082009, financial advisors and their clients have looked for ways to shield portfolios from potentially devastating portfolio losses. Many set their sights on liquid alternatives funds, an emerging investing category that's sold as both mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. In 2008, just $44 billion was invested in alternatives through mutual funds and ETFs, according to research firm Morningstar. At the end of 2015, however, assets had exploded to $300 billion, with close to 600 funds. "When you look at the flows and product development, it really kicked in after the financial crisis," said Josh Charlson, Morningstar's director of research for alternative strategies.

The U.S. Capitol, reflected in a fountain full of coins on the plaza Mark Wilson | Getty Images

There's good reason for the interest, said Jim Holtzman, a certified financial planner with Legend Financial Advisors. Holtzman has had stakes in managed futures, an alternative strategy that follows trends in asset classes like commodities, metals and interest-rate swaps. When the market faltered in 2008, that portion of his clients' portfolios rose 28 percent, while the stock holdings fell by more than 40 percent. "We were fortunate," Holtzman said. "That really helped our portfolios." At the time, Holtzman held the managed futures in limited partnerships because that was the only way he could access them. Since the proliferation of liquid alternative mutual funds and ETFs, he has switched to them. Once reserved for hedged funds and institutional investors, alternative strategies are now available to ordinary investors under the 40 Act structure, named after the act of Congress that established retail investment funds in 1940. Those funds must adhere to a higher level of transparency and liquidity than hedge funds or limited partnerships.

There's a tendency for advisors to flock to alts after a market decline. But that period after a decline tends to be a relatively calm period, so they get frustrated with the utility factor of alternatives. Marina Gross executive vice president with Natixis' Portfolio Research & Consulting Group

Even as their popularity grows, liquid alts are still largely the purview of financial advisors, noted Brandon Thomas, chief investment officer of Envestnet's investment management program for financial advisors. According to a Morningstar and Barron's survey of advisors from 2015, almost 66 percent said they expected to allocate more than 11 percent to alternatives; just 39 percent had said the same in 2013. Liquid alts is a broad category that includes several strategies, such as managed futures, market neutral, multicurrency, multi-asset and long/short equity. Most advisors use liquid alts as ballast during falling markets because they invest in nontraditional assets that aren't correlated with stocks or bonds. Thomas recommends that advisors use them "as an all-season allocation." Predicting when markets are likely to fall and inserting an alternative is too hard. For investors who simply want to hedge risk, Thomas recommends multi-asset funds that provide exposure to the different types of alternatives. To gain the greatest benefit from the asset classes, investment experts recommend a "meaningful" allocation of 5 percent to 10 percent; otherwise, the impact won't be felt. But some, such as Thomas of Envestnet, believe advisors should consider higher amounts, as much as 25 percent. "If you only have 5 [percent] to 10 percent, it may look like diversification, but it's not really doing much to mitigate risk," Thomas said. "But if you allocate too much, your overall portfolio tends to get away from market returns." Duncan Wilkinson, CEO of AlphaSimplex, a lineup of liquid alternative funds, believes that investors nearing retirement have the most to gain from liquid alternatives. They're the most sensitive to risk and need to protect their portfolios against the downside.

watch now

And some advisors also use liquid alts as a way to deal with the current low-interest-rate environment. "Bonds are dead money now, and stocks themselves aren't cheap," said Charles Sizemore of Sizemore Capital, a fee-based Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Dallas. Sizemore prefers long/short strategies that buy stocks that managers expect will rise in value (long), while shorting those they expect will fall. "We're essentially eliminating bonds and replacing them with something that will serve the same purpose, but also some potential return," he said. While alternatives might fare better than a mainstream stock/bond portfolio in a downturn, they've got their own drawbacks. The big one is fees. According to Morningstar, the average expense ratio of alternative funds is 1.7 percent, many times that of either equity or bond funds. "The high fees have eaten into returns, which is a concern when it's generally a lower-return environment," said Charlson of Morningstar. However, Charlson noted that compared to the fees that such strategies charge in the hedge fund structure, they're a bargain. Investors in hedge funds normally pay 2 and 20  a 2 percent fee on assets under management, plus 20 percent of profits.


Major business leaders, particularly Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, knocked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as part of a statement released by Hillary Clinton's campaign Thursday. The announcement also included a lengthy list of supporters including Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway , Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

"Trump would destroy much of what is great about America. Hillary Clinton is the strong leader we need, and it's important that Trump lose by a landslide to reject what he stands for,"Hastings said in a statement from the Clinton campaign.

Dan Akerson, who has served as a naval officer as well as CEO of General Motors , said he will vote for Clinton, despite having consistently voted for Republican candidates in the past.

"Serving as the leader of the free world requires effective leadership, sound judgment, a steady hand and most importantly, the temperament to deal with crises large and small. Donald Trump lacks each of these characteristics," Akerson said. "Hillary Clinton has the experience and judgment to serve as an effective commander in chief."

Mark Pincus, co-founder of Zynga, said Clinton has a "proven record of fighting for the American people ... [who] need an advocate, not an opportunist."

"Donald Trump has failed to put forth concrete and realistic policies to help the American people and grow the economy. Our president must care about the success of the country as a whole  not just himself," Pincus said.

Other Clinton backers took the opportunity to criticize Trump and his behavior. Erroll Davis, former chancellor of the University System of Georgia, praised Clinton's temperament and experience.

"Her ability to work with other democratic leaders stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump's continued praise of authoritarian figures and support for dangerous and erratic policies," Davis said.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson, chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises, also endorsed Clinton, saying "her decisiveness, pragmatism and calm demeanor stand in absolute contrast to Trump."

Some in the business community have backed Trump including billionaires like investor Carl Icahn, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and distressed asset investor Wilbur Ross.

A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court's immigration ruling was disappointing, and he blasted Donald Trump's proposed solutions as "fantasy."



The president said that "leaving the broken system the way it is, ... that's not a solution." Obama went on to say that propositions such as deporting millions of immigrants or "build[ing] a wall without spending tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money" are unrealistic. Trump made headlines last fall when he said he would get Mexico to build and pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"It's a fantasy that offers nothing to help the middle class and demeans our tradition of being both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants," Obama said at the White House.

Obama emphasized the consequences of the Supreme Court's ruling. The court's 4-4 split over his plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country in the U.S. from deportation and give them work permits left intact a lower-court ruling blocking the plan.



Blocked by Republican lawmakers on immigration reform, Obama issued an executive order in November 2014 aimed at protecting millions of undocumented immigrants.



"I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who have raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military and more fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way," Obama said Thursday.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Supreme Court's action was a "major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers."



Obama said Americans must decide whether they can tolerate the "hypocrisy" of the current system, which he said doesn't allow immigrants "the chance to get right with the law."

"We're going to have to decide whether we're people who accept the cruelty of ripping children from their parents' arms or whether we actually value families and keep them together for the sake of all of our communities," Obama said.

Obama called out House Republicans on their "failure so far to give a fair hearing" to his nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. In doing so, he said, Republicans have stymied his immigration plans by allowing the court to split until a ninth justice is appointed.



 Reuters contributed to this report.


Tesco , Britain's biggest retailer, on Thursday reported a second successive quarter of UK underlying sales growth, the first time it has done so in over five years, indicating the firm is making steady progress under Chief Executive Dave Lewis.

Tesco said sales at stores in its home market open over a year rose 0.3 percent in the 13 weeks to May 28, its fiscal first quarter.

That compared to analysts' forecasts of flat to up 0.5 percent and built on growth of 0.9 percent in the previous quarter - its first quarter of underlying UK sales growth for over three years.

Group like-for-like sales grew 0.9 percent.

"We are encouraged by the progress we are making," said Lewis.

"I am confident that the improvements we are making for customers are working and will create long-term value for our shareholders."
Most people who support a presidential candidate just get an "I Voted" sticker for casting a ballot. But one Tampa, Florida, resident has the potential to make thousands off her confidence in Donald Trump.

Long before Trump launched his presidential campaign to "make America great again," Julie Magill was a believer, snapping up the site www.PresidentTrump.com in 2013.

"He mentioned he might run for president, so a light bulb when off," said Magill, a realtor and air conditioning contractor, who also invests in real estate and domain names. She checked to see if the domain PresidentTrump.com was available and found it on GoDaddy for $9 per year.

In total, the 53-year-old Republican has spent an estimated $80 to register and build a page on the site, and now she's hoping to sell it for at least $100,000.

"I would love to think I could get more, but you have to be realistic," Magill said, adding she would buy a house on the Intracoastal Waterway with the money.

So far she's received 13 to 14 offers, she said. While Magill recently got a bid for $100,000 by email, she's not yet sure how serious it is. Before that, someone offered her $43,515, a "very serious" bid she ultimately decided against taking.

Magill, who plans to vote for Trump, would like to sell to his campaign. However, her numerous tweets to the family and Trump's recently fired campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, have so far gone unanswered. Trump's campaign did not respond to CNBC's emails about Magill.

She's certainly not alone in wanting to cash in on the Trump juggernaut. "Trump" ranked among the top 10 keywords registered last month for .com addresses, according to data from Verisign, a provider of domain name registry services and internet security.

Meanwhile, Trump's rival, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, has not been a trending keyword since Verisign started the series in January 2015. (Since her husband, Bill Clinton, has already served as president, many of the URLs connected to her name have no doubt been taken for years.)

"People have registered thousands and thousands of names with Trump in them," said Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, a trade publication that chronicles the industry. "I think most of them are registering them thinking that someone is going to buy them."

But most of these people will be disappointed to find that the demand for many URLs just isn't there, Allemann said, adding that Magill's domain is "one of the better ones" and "actually makes sense."

As for Magill, she wants to strike while the iron is hot and sell her domain name by the time the Republication convention rolls around next month.

But if Trump starts gaining more traction, she might hold on longer.

Until then, she closely follows what the candidate says  much like a trader anxiously tracks the market.

"It's like a rain gauge," she said. "I look at the TV today and think, 'Oh God, what's he going to say today?'"
Nobody wants to find themselves sitting in a police car. That is, of course, unless they own that police car. But believe it or not, that is a possibility for the average driver.

When police agencies upgrade to new cruisers, they don't just ditch their old ones on the side of the highway. Instead, they sell them to places like Copcarsonline, where for 24 years, Florida-based Jon Woodhouse has been refurbishing and selling former law-enforcement vehicles.

Most of Woodhouse's buyers are smaller police agencies that can't afford new cars, he said. But about a third of his inventory is sold to the general public, stripped down with no decals or lights.

People want old police cruisers for a number of reasons, Woodhouse said. Some just enjoy the idea of having one. Others like parking them in the driveway so it appears as though an officer  presumably armed  lives in the house. Even without the markings, a cop car still has a certain look, he said.

Yet a number of buyers simply want to get their hands on vehicles that are built differently than the ones found on a regular car lot. Maybe they're looking for a modified suspension, alternate rims, or Kevlar bars in the roof and doors.

Woodhouse said some of the features found in old police cruisers simply make people feel safer. For instance, even if you haven't broken the law, you've probably been in the back of a Ford Crown Victoria.

"Cabbies drive them all the time," he said.

Old cop cars are fairly affordable because many come with high mileage, and there aren't a lot of bells and whistles. On top that, there's a fairly good chance the car was once used in a high-speed chase and pit maneuvered a stolen truck into an oak tree  which is to say that police cruisers tend to get roughed up.

But resellers fix the bumps and scratches before the cars are sold. And at the end of the day, you can drive away with a decent car that was otherwise likely well maintained.

But are they a good investment? Jay Leno spoke with automotive valuation expert Donald Osborne to find out. Watch the video to see how three different police cruisers have appreciated over time.

Each week, Jay Leno shares his thoughts about hot topics in the auto industry. Tune in to "Jay Leno's Garage" Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CNBC.
Syracuse University on Tuesday announced it has selected New York Citybased SHoP Architects to design the upcoming National Veterans Resource Complex (NVRC). The school also released renderings of what the complex might look like upon completion in 2019. Photo credit: Syracuse University website.

SYRACUSE, N.Y.  Syracuse University has picked New York Citybased SHoP Architects to conceptualize and design the new National Veterans Resource Complex (NVRC).

The selection completes a six-month design competition, Syracuse said in a news release issued Tuesday.

The NVRC, which Syracuse describes as a first-of-its-kind multi-use facility, is among the most transformative initiatives in the schools campus framework plan.

Syracuse University shared a draft of the plan with the university community on Monday. The NVRC is tentatively scheduled for completion in the spring of 2019.

The NVRC will offer vocational and educational programs designed to advance the economic success of the regions and the nations veterans and military families.

The NVRC is a key pillar of the Central New York (CNY) regional economic-development councils winning proposal titled Central New York: Rising from the Ground Up.

The CNY proposal was one of three that the state selected to receive $500 million as part of Gov. Cuomos Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI).

The NVRC will serve as the enduring home of the Universitys Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), which has served more than 48,000 veterans and military families.

The NVRC will house the Syracuse University and Regional Student Veteran Resource Center; the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps; the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Vet-Success on Campus; the National Center of Excellence for Veteran Business Ownership; Veteran Business Outreach Center and Accelerator; and Syracuse Universitys Office of Veteran and Military Affairs, according to the news release.

About SHoP

SHoP Architects has a wealth of experience designing buildings in a variety of settings, the university noted.

Its founders include Kimberly Holden, Gregg Pasquarelli, Christopher Sharples, Coren Sharples and William Sharples.

SHoP spearheaded design work on the Barclays Center in Brooklyn; designed the miles-long, East River Waterfront Esplanade in Lower Manhattan; and designed of the Botswana Innovation Hub in Gaborone, Botswana, Syracuse University said.

SHoP is also a finalist among the architecture firms vying for the chance to design the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago.

Representatives from SHoP will now collaborate with Syracuse University leaders to refine the design plans to further align them with the campus frameworks architectural vision.

The school tentatively plans to build the NVRC on the western portion of the Waverly block on the Syracuse campus.

Streets that border the block include Waverly Avenue, South Crouse Avenue, Marshall Street, and University Avenue.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com


For example, if you have an extension method to remove all the vowels from a string :

C# public static class ExtensionMethods { private const string vowels = " aeiouAEIOU" ; public static string RemoveVowels( this string inp) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(inp.Length); foreach ( char c in inp) { if (!vowels.Contains(c)) sb.Append(c); } return sb.ToString(); } } Then you can call it as if it was a part of the string class:

C# string noVowels = " The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." .RemoveVowels();

And since string is a sealed class, you can't derive from it - so an extension method is the only way to do that.

But...you don't have to use an extension method - you could write it as a "normal" method.

C# public static class GeneralMethods { private const string vowels = " aeiouAEIOU" ; public static string RemoveVowels( string inp) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(inp.Length); foreach ( char c in inp) { if (!vowels.Contains(c)) sb.Append(c); } return sb.ToString(); } } But then, you have to call it as a "normal method:

C# string noVowels = GeneralMethods.RemoveVowels( " The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." );

Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...



I loaded a .csv into a datatable and now I want to be able to select a specific column to work with and then convet that column to dataframe, so I can use it with RDotNet.

this is the code that I currently have and that is not working: public void variance(REngine e, int[] x,int[] y) { var var1 = e.Evaluate( " var" ).AsFunction(); var1.Invoke(x,y).AsNumeric(); } How can I use a one dimensional array in R?



modified 24-Jun-16 16:11pm.



Hello,



I have referred about creating CLR from here

but I have slight different requirement.



I want to get updated/inserted values, edit it save to one column.

Say I have column named customer_name, when some one updates/inserts value to it, I want to get that data edit it, save it in different/same column.

I can get the col value by SqlDataReader and I can check value updated or not by IsUpdatedColumn.

But I am not getting how to insert/update back to database using CLR.



How can do it in CLR ?'







I have column 'name', whenever new duplicate names updated/inserted to the column I want rename it with name_count so that I can maintain uniqueness



I cant go for other solutions since it will take a lot of time. For a time being I have planned to do this.







There's any number of ways maintain uniqueness; including timestamps, hash codes, SQL IDENTITY / ROWVERSION columns.



I see no need to separate the function that "maintains uniqueness" from the one that inserts / updates; it should be part of the same operation.





Our app has the option to switch languages. It opens the Windows Photo Viewer to view images that it creates. One requirement is when the user changes languages to also change it in Windows Photo Viewer.



Anyone know if this can be done and how?

If it's not broken, fix it until it is







modified 23-Jun-16 4:03am.





This space for rent





When a process starts, it gets its language from the operating system. Even when your program starts a new thread, that thread gets the language from the OS instead of your program (well, there was a change in some newer version of the .Net framework for that specific scenario).

So I think it won't be possible unless the other application allows you to specify its language via a command line parameter.



With this code I keep receiving the error message saying :



" The request failed. The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. "



Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get my C# program to send emails via EWS in my Exchange environment?



Thanks







C# using System.Net; using System.Net.Mail; using Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices; using System.Security.Cryptography; using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;





C# private void emailNotifyUser () { Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService service = new Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService(Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion.Exchange2010_SP1); service.Credentials = new Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WebCredentials( " you@you.com" , " password1" , " domain.com); service.TraceEnabled = true; service.TraceFlags = Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.TraceFlags.All; service.Url = new Uri(" HTTPS: ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback += new System.Net.Security.RemoteCertificateValidationCallback(ValidateRemoteCertificate); Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.EmailMessage email = new Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.EmailMessage(service); email.ToRecipients.Add(To); email.Subject = " HelloWorld" ; email.Body = new Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MessageBody( " First email using EWS Managed API" ); email.Body.BodyType = Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.BodyType.HTML; email.Send(); }





C# private static bool ValidateRemoteCertificate( object sender, X509Certificate cert, X509Chain chain, System.Net.Security.SslPolicyErrors policyErrors) { bool result = false ; if (cert.Subject.ToUpper().Contains( " cas-server-name" )) { result = true ; } return result; }







C# An element node ' soap:Envelope' of the type Element was expected, but node ' Autodiscover' of type Element was found.







SQL Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory |fl identity ,internalurl,externalurl



Thanks for helping me to get that error and point me in the right direction!



Hi, all.



I developed an application over the last few years on a laptop with screen resolution 1600x900 and a desktop at 1920x1200. All was good. I then got a 4K monitor for my desktop, and started editing the app there. All looked good. When I went back to my laptop to do more development, the main form, when VS2015 loads the solution, gets shortened (Size.Y is smaller than it should be). I can lengthen it manually, and save. Now when I go back to the desktop all looks good still, so I do more coding, and save it. When I go back to my laptop, it's shortened again. I could do a hack to correct it at run-time, forcing the Size.Y to be the right value, but that's not nice, and doesn't fix the fact that I need to resize it in order to see the rest of the form in the VS IDE.



It's not a show-stopper, but it's very annoying! I appreciate any input anyone can offer.



Thanks.

Len





 There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you dont want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.  Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008







What you describe resembles some of my earlier experiences with WinForms , although what follows actually applies to both dimensions; I would guess the horizontal effect is present but less noticeable due to the somewhat different aspect ratio of your monitors.



I am assuming your laptop and desktop use different resolutions, probably 100% (=96dpi) for the laptop and 125% (=120dpi) or more for the 4K desktop monitor. WinForms normally does some automatic scaling when you switch resolutions. It gets controlled mainly through the AutoScaleMode property of each Form you use.



Possible values are:



Inherit , which probably is fine for forms/Dialogs with a parent, not for the main Form; I never used it.

None , it disables all scaling attempts and leaves it all up to your code (not so easy to get something acceptable);

Font , the default, mostly fine if your app is text oriented;

Dpi , may well be the preferred one if your app is image oriented.



You're out of luck when both text and images are important to you!





What I typically end up doing when it is sufficiently important, is:

- use AutoScale.Dpi on every Form (the easiest is to inherit from a FormBase or a DialogBase that sets a number of things you want (or you want to experiment with) for all your forms;

- use the Anchor property to stretch 2D containers such as ListBox, TextBox, SplitContainer...;

- most often stretch the main Form (which has StartPosition: Manual) with constructor code similar to:

<br /> InitializeComponent();<br /> Rectangle wa=SystemInformation.WorkingArea;<br /> Width=wa.Width-20;<br /> Height=wa.Height-20;<br /> or something more sophisticated if you need to support multimonitor setups, or your app remembers its Location and Size on the local machine (registry, Properties, whatever).



BTW1: I don't use SplitContainer, it seems to have anchoring bugs; I use my own.

BTW2: I dislike UserControls, they have some quirky behavior too.

BTW3: And I don't use PictureBoxes, they are pretty useless, but their scaling might be correct, I couldn't tell...





Hope this helps.





Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum



Whenever I come to (by writing code from example to see if it works) "Console.Writeline..." I want to enter all information by text into a textbox (or textblock, Windows Phone 8) without the use of console.







If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] Bastard Programmer from Hell


Currently only one gold mine is operating in Egypt  the Sukari gold mine by Centamin.

A reported team of two dozen explorers and mining specialist are pursuing plans to open in 2019 Egypt's first new deep mine for gold.

According to reports from CNN and NewsOK.com, much of the exploratory drilling is being conducted in Egypt's eastern desert, between Luxor and Hurghada.

Current technology will allow for much deeper exploration than was possible for the ancients to extract gold from ancient sites designated on pharaonic treasure maps.

Connect with Coin World:

Much of the exploratory drilling efforts are being undertaken by a Canadian firm, Alexander Nubia International.

Yousef Husseini, vice president of the Middle Eastern investment bank, EFG Hermes, is quoted as saying that the Egyptian mineral resource authority has already identified more than 120 gold deposits in the eastern desert region alone.

Currently, only one large mine, Sukari Gold Mine, is operating in the region, yielding approximately 500,000 ounces annually. The mine has been in operation since 2009 by Centamin.
Types of obituaries

The Missourian publishes two types of obituaries  family obituaries and life stories.

A family obituary is the version submitted by a funeral home or family. Please see the submission form for details on cost and deadlines. Family obituaries

A life story is a closer look at a person's life and involves a reporter contacting family and friends. Life stories are based on newsworthiness and consent of the family. Life stories.
The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
What you need to know ahead of mandatory CWD sampling in Missouri
Officers at the intersection of Fox Ridge and Hickory Hill where a standoff is underway. (Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

By Yolanda Jones, yojones@desotoappeal.com

Two days in a row, local law enforcement have been involved in police standoff situations that ended violently.

In Memphis on Tuesday, police said 23-year-old Deandre Walker shot and killed his brother, Michael Walker, 24, inside a home in Hickory Hill, and then killed himself after a three-hour standoff.

The following day on Wednesday afternoon, Quencezola Maurice Splunge was shot and killed by authorities in DeSoto County in the parking lot of Citizens Bank and Trust on Miss. 301 after he fired at police during a one-hour standoff.

While law enforcement experts said they could not comment on specific negotiation tactics used in standoffs, they offered basic safety protocols: isolation, containment and negotiation as a general concept on how officers handle standoff situations.

"Every situation is different," said Germantown Police Deputy Chief Rodney Bright. "We try to isolate and contain the problem, and the number one thing is safety for the people we are dealing with, people that are in the area, the safety of our staff. Our ultimate goal is to achieve some kind of peaceful resolution."

Edward Mamet, a retired captain with New York City Police with 40 years law enforcement experience who currently works as a consultant in police practices, agreed.

"There is no one solution that fits all," said Mamet. "The basic concept is isolate and contain, so if the person is isolated, you can contain it until you can take control of the situation."

As long as there are no hostages and no one is danger "there's nothing wrong with waiting it out," Mamet said.

Mamet retired from the force in 1998, but he said little has changed over the years with how police handle standoff negotiations.

SWAT teams and negotiation teams are used, and a perimeter is established.

Former Southaven Police Chief Tom Long said during his 30-year career he has been involved in a many standoffs, including one, years ago, that lasted for 22 hours.

"Law enforcement has to play the cards that are dealt by the suspect," said Long. "All you want is for the suspect, if the suspect will meet you 10 percent, you are willing to give the 90 percent. The suspect has to give you something and they've got to want to live. We've had them go well and negotiated them peacefully out, and we've had them go bad and have had a loss of life before."

In Wednesday's standoff in DeSoto County, two SWAT teams, one from the DeSoto County Sheriff's Department and one from Southaven Police, fired shots at the suspect, killing him after authorities said the suspect fired one shot at police.

Southaven Police Chief Steve Pirtle, who is teaching a class in Dallas this week, said he was informed of the incident in DeSoto County.

"I can't comment on this, but I will say when we are faced with a standoff, the first thing we do is containment and then we start the negotiation process," Pirtle said. "We are very successful most of the time, but there are times when people we are dealing with just are not going to either communicate or not allow us to communicate with them."

He added, "Our ultimate goal, for a successful end, is everybody goes home and nobody gets hurt," Pirtle said. "Unfortunately, sometimes that is not the result, but it is not because we don't try. We do try."
January 28, 2015  Jessica Chambers senior portrait and graduating tassel rest on the living room couch of her mother Lisa Chambers Courtland, Mississippi, home. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

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By Ron Maxey of The Commercial Appeal

Quinton Verdell Tellis, charged with capital murder in the 2014 burning death of Jessica Chambers, returned to Mississippi today, District Attorney John Champion said.

Champion said Tellis was picked up from Louisiana authorities Thursday morning and was in the DeSoto County Jail in Hernando as of about 6:15 p.m.

The return, faster than expected, comes after Tellis pleaded guilty in May to unauthorized use of a debit card in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. The card belonged to a slain Monroe, Louisiana, woman. Tellis was not charged in her death.

Champion said the first step after Tellis' return will be an arraignment, expected July 5 in Panola County.

"That'll be the only court appearance until motions are filed," Champion said. "Realistically, it will probably be the spring before it goes to trial."

Champion said the discovery documents prosecutors accumulated during a 16-month investigation, which will be turned over to defense before trial, will "fill a table."

Tellis is represented by two Jackson attorneys.

Tellis, 27, was indicted by a Panola County grand jury and charged in February. He was charged as a habitual offender because of two previous burglary convictions and a felony fleeing conviction.

He grew up in Courtland, in Panola County, with Chambers and knew her before moving to Louisiana in 2015, authorities said.

Charging him with Chambers' death ended a lengthy investigation into the grisly burning death of the 19-year-old, who died at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis hours after being found near her burned-out vehicle on a road not far from home.
May 20, 2016  Memphis Animal Services director Alexis Pugh stops to visit with a canine resident while touring the facility after a Friday afternoon press conference where Mayor Jim Strickland introduced Pugh as the new director. She will take the position next month. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

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By Ryan Poe of The Commercial Appeal

New Memphis Animal Services director Alexis Amorose Pugh says she has plans to increase the survival rate for animals in the city's shelter from 60-65 percent to 85 percent.

The Memphis Animal Shelter euthanizes animals for time and space  when animals have been held too long or when space runs low  at a higher rate than the national standard, and had for years before Pugh started two weeks ago as the new director of Memphis Animal Services.

But Pugh said Thursday in an editorial board meeting and podcast interview that over the next two to three years she will implement a three-pronged approach to reduce the rate by improving education, particularly about the importance of spay and neuter; increasing adoptions; and strengthening shelter processes, which includes holding employees accountable.

"This is not tomorrow, and that's the biggest thing I have to explain to people," she said in the podcast. "It is a huge task to make those kind of significant percentage movements. And I think people are going to be frustrated with me because they're going to want me to wave my magic wand and get it done overnight. But if I don't do it the right way, it's not going to stick and it's not going to create long-term progress."

She said Memphis can't become a literal "no-kill" shelter because of the need to put down some animals.

"Going to 100 percent is not feasible because our primary function is public safety, and unfortunately there are animals out there that pose a safety risk to our community," she said. "And I've heard people in our communities talk about the fact that there are aggressive stray dogs on the streets. We have an obligation to the citizens of Memphis not to allow those animals to be in the community, particularly those that have a bite history."

To increase the number of animals that make it out of the shelter alive, Pugh said a top priority will be to hire an animal trainer who can see and work with pets on their behavior.

The shelter currently has no guidelines for which animals are euthanized for behavioral issues, other than for animals already spoken for by animal rescue or other groups.

"Right now we don't have an expert in-house who's capable of performing that professional-level certified assessment," she said. "And that's, I think, a top priority for me because our staff is having to make decisions, and they don't necessarily have the professional expertise to do that."

Pugh said the job's challenges can be overwhelming at times.

"Everyday I think of it. I think, could this place be more than I can improve? But I think that as long as I continue to push past that  and I walk through the kennels at that moment and say, 'These guys can't afford me to wallow in self pity. I need to start focusing on what I can change right now, and what I can change next.'"
This photo provided by Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine shows Democrat members of Congress, including, front row, from left, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. Chellie Pingree via AP)

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By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

WASHINGTON  As House Democrats suspended their sit-in over gun violence Thursday, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen called the 25-hour protest "a great day for America" and denounced "crazy, looney tweets" from pro-gun "nuts."

"What a great opportunity for Democrats to come together and show unity on an issue of such importance as saving lives," the Memphis Democrat said in a fiery speech from the House floor, about 30 minutes before the sit-in ended. Democrats have vowed to restart it when the House returns from its July 4 recess.

Cohen said the gun-control measures Democrats are seeking  to expand background checks and prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns  are "low-hanging fruit," and Congress should be working to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

Yet, he said, a lot of gun owners have taken to social media to argue they need assault weapons "to defend themselves from their country."

"They're nuts," he said.

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Nashville Democrat who also participated in the sit-in, said House members should be allowed to vote on issues of concern to the public.

"Making sure that terrorists can't easily get their hands on guns is a no-brainer, and we should vote on it," Cooper said. "We should not shirk our responsibilities to the country on any of the important issues of the day."

Led by U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, Democrats began their sit-end around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, abruptly halting working on the House floor and demanding that GOP leaders allow a vote on the gun-control measures.

Republicans denounced the sit-in as a publicity stunt and, at 3 a.m. Thursday, adjourned the chamber until July 5. Democrats remained on the floor overnight, before ending the sit-in around 1 p.m. Thursday.

Lewis, a hero of the civil-rights movement who studied at Nashville's American Baptist Theological Seminary and at Fisk University, vowed Democrats would continue to press for a vote on the bills when the House reconvenes next month.

"We must never give up or give in," said Lewis, who got involved in civil rights protests while in Nashville and was arrested after a sit-in at a downtown lunch counter in 1960.

"The American people are with us, and people around the world are with us," he said.

Republicans say barring people whose names appear on a government "no-fly" list from buying a gun, as the legislation would do, would infringe on Second Amendment rights. They also point to cases in which people, including former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, have ended up on the no-fly list by mistake.

Cooper said that while the "no-fly" list is not perfect, "it has been good enough to keep airplanes from exploding over the U.S. since 9/11."

"I am exploring ways to get a better list, and I am open to all good ideas," he said. "But the legitimate problems with today's no-fly list are solvable, such as by adding due process protections. The key point is that Congress should be working on these issues, not ducking them. We should be solving the problem of identifying terrorists, not giving up."
President Barack Obama speaks about immigration in Nashville Dec. 9, 2014. (Photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

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By Joey Garrison, USA TODAY NETWORK  Tennessee

Tennessee immigrant advocates said Thursday that the country's legal system has "again failed immigrant communities" following the Supreme Court's deadlock on President Barack Obama's program to protect as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.

The 4-4 tie in the case of Texas v. the United States announced Thursday blocks Obama's orders and preserves prior ruling from lower federal courts that stopped the program shortly after Obama made the executive action in 2014.

The president's plan offered a legal reprieve to the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have lived in the United States for five years and expanded a 2012 program that gave immigrants younger than 30 who had come to the country as children a chance to apply for deportation deferral.

But the president's orders were challenged shortly after they were introduced when Texas and 25 other states, including Tennessee, led by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and Attorney General Herbert Slatery, claimed Obama lacked the authority to go around Congress.
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By Clay Bailey of The Commercial Appeal

Germantown has spent a long time looking into a Smart Growth plan  one of those concepts that brings character, walkability and other new visions to the city.

One example the suburb has leaned on is Carmel, Indiana. So, what is it about Carmel that is so special? A side trip to Indianapolis provided an opportunity to see why Germantown is so enamored with the Indy suburb as its benchmark.

Meanwhile, Germantown continues to work on its streetscape plan for particular areas, Bartlett is STILL celebrating its Sesquicentennial and County Commission Chairman Terry Roland has put colleagues on notice.

Lastly, Russell Dyer is heading into the sunrise.

Hes headed to the east part of the state, so he really cant really ride into the sunset.

OUTSIDE THE I-465 LOOP

FUTURE LOOK: I found Carmel, Indiana last weekend, and I found it to be a nice prototype for Germantowns future.

If the Memphis suburb can accomplish the Smart Growth officials have considered for years.

As you probably recall, a team of Germantown folks headed to the north side of Indianapolis several weeks ago. You see, Carmel is considered one of the best success stories for the Smart Growth approach  that mixing of uses in a walkable environment. Since the Germantown officials made the trip, I figured Id take a look a tourist view of what this Carmel plan is all about.

What makes it so interesting? What makes Carmel the benchmark for this concept?

Several characteristics struck me.

There is a clean, brick look with distinctive landscaping and open space through the civic plaza area. Fountains and a large pool act as a centerpiece of one area where the Veterans Memorial Freedom Circle (above) is located.

A small, sort of subterranean amphitheater (below) sits on the end of a grassy mall bordered by theaters  the main one being the Center of Performing Arts (at the top of the story).

Several blocks to the north is the Arts and Design District, a wonderful strip of shops, street art, landscaping and fountains. A quaint, two-lane stretch that runs the gamut of services, including restaurants, boutiques and art galleries, along with florists, real estate offices, banks, beauty shops, taverns and tattoo parlors.

But it is mixed with street art, streetscapes, bike trails and other attractions. Below is a statue of an artist painting the gateway into the business area.

Throughout the downtown area, is what seems to be the benchmark of the idea  retail and services on the first floor of buildings with residences above the businesses.

Many of these, plus the green space, are characteristics Germantown has mentioned over the years as its desire for the suburbs future look.

But one other reality struck me  Germantown has a long, long way to go to achieve the theme, atmosphere and panache of Carmel. There is some small evidence of Germantown's transition. Nice new signage at City Hall. Brick crosswalks. A specific style on some new building.

But, based on my recollection (and our archives), Germantown has considered a Smart Growth concept since at least 2006.

Maybe before that.

With it taking at least 10 years to get to the improvements made thus far, by the time (if ever) Germantown completes the idea, Smart Growth will be passe and some other concept will be the new, big thing.

GERMANTOWN SMART GROWTH NO. 2

STREETSCAPING: Along the lines of its Smart Growth plan, Germantown has studied streetscape concepts to create an identity for certain areas such as Old Germantown and the central business district. Carmel was a blueprint for that study also.

Some of the proposals emerging include seating, new light poles, plantings along with decorative pavers, street sculptures and trash bins. Yep, trash bins. And, in many such cases from places like Carmel to Fairhope, Ala. making trash cans look spiffy is a great example of improving a negative necessity.

One aspect that got a discussion was roundabouts  the traffic-slowing configurations that can be a bit confusing. That idea doesn't seem to have traction.

Ive navigated my share of the circles, but I got caught in a couple in North Indy that  along with a balky GPS  had me trapped going round-and-round.

I swear, I almost decided to try and go around as fast as possible until I eventually was flung out of the trap.

COUNTY COMMISSION CHAMBERS

ROLAND HOTEL: County Commission Chairman Terry Roland has made it pretty clear  no one leaves a June 29 meeting until the body adopts a budget.

The chairman made his position clear in a memo to commissioners this week. County government reporter Linda Moore put a nice spin on the matter, mentioning that members should remember to pack their meds for an extended stay.

Actually, the commission is under a bit of a deadline since the new fiscal year begins July 1  two days after the special called meeting next Wednesday.

Let's hope Hotel Roland is not like Hotel California.

"You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave"

BARTLETT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!: Bartlett continues its 150th birthday celebration, and later this week, reporter J.T. Mullen will take a look at some of the festivities associated with an event a century and a half in the making.

However, he was unable to find anyone who was around when the city was first incorporated -- in 1866.

Not even Mayor Keith McDonald.

And, no. I wasnt quite covering the suburbs in 1866 either.

COLLIERVILLE

BIDDING ADIEU: Russell Dyer, chief of staff for the Collierville Schools, leaves the district Friday taking a new position as director of schools for Cleveland, TN
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Maybe it was just a timing coincidence, but it should not be lost that Germantown's offer to buy two schools from Shelby County Schools became public just as the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell was backing away from trying to find an additional $3.5 million for schools.

SCS Superintendent Dorsey Hopson and the SCS school board will have to decide whether Germantown's offer to buy Germantown Elementary and Germantown Middle for $5 million is a good deal for the district and the children in those schools. Germantown needs more schools to deal with crowding and has reasonably concluded that it would be cheaper to buy the two schools rather than build new ones.

The Shelby County Commission is struggling to approve a budget for the 2016-2017 fiscal year that begins July 1. How much money to give schools, which everyone thought was settled, once again is in play. That being the case, we envision Germantown's offer possibly being a factor in the discussions. Why try to find an extra $3.5 million when SCS can pick up $5 million for selling two schools in Germantown?

Germantown's offer and how much money the County Commission eventually approves for SCS are separate issues, and should remain that way. Even if SCS sells the schools, it will not solve the long-term issue of adequately funding public education in Memphis and Shelby County.

County commissioners reached an agreement that gave education an additional $28.2 million, with $22 million allocated for Shelby County Schools and the rest going to the six municipal school districts. The county administration, which had initially agreed to find $3.5 million of that money, asked Monday that the commission stick to the administration's budget, which increased education spending to $24.7 million. That sent the budget resolution back to committee for more debate.

What should not get lost in these two issues is that a community that is putting so much emphasis on the importance of adequately educating all children  to prosper and to reduce crime and poverty  cannot reach consensus on what financial resources are needed to make that happen.

We have seen that we cannot depend on state government to fully fund its financial obligation to schools, so that leaves the situation mainly in local hands. Until we can reach consensus, SCS and county officials will continue to engage in a yearly tango over school funding.
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Clara Mae Francis

Memphis

Regarding the June 15 article Slide into summer, surely the Millington YMCA didnt consider the outcome of teaching young children an all-out frontal assault while playing laser tag.

And you didnt consider the timing or sensitivity of so many people grieving over the Orlando, Florida, tragedy.

The National Rifle Association controls sales of guns, but we can certainly strive to teach our young and old the value of life when playing games and learning rules.

It is definitely not right to teach frontal assault with look-alike weapons that kill and wound.

We can do better.
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By E.J. Dionne

WASHINGTON  Where religion is concerned, Donald Trump's bigotry is his biggest problem, but his ignorance runs a close second.

We already know Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clinton's faith into question before a group of evangelical leaders on Tuesday represented a new low, if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers almost every day.

Trump does not appear to be very religious and seems uncomfortable around the subject. In principle, this is not a problem. The Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for federal office. Over our history, presidents have varied in their attachment to religion, and there is no sure-fire way to know whether what a politician says about his or her belief in God is true.

Moreover, many deeply religious people don't talk much about their faith outside intimate circles. One of the year's best statements on the matter came from John Kasich (who is, by all accounts, very religious) when he explained why he had not invoked religion much on the campaign trail. "I'd rather have an eternal destiny," he said, "than try to cheapen the brand of God."

It's hard to imagine God worries about branding, but Kasich's unease with the way politics can devalue faith was admirable.

This is not something that bothers Trump.

Because white, conservative evangelical Christians are an important part of the GOP base and because many evangelicals have expressed qualms or outright opposition to Trump, he tried to get them onboard by hinting darkly that Clinton is an infidel.

"We don't know anything about Hillary in terms of religion," he told the evangelical leaders. "Now, she's been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there's no  there's nothing out there. There's like nothing out there. It's going to be an extension of (President) Obama but it's going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don't, and it's going to be worse."

No, we  meaning anyone who has taken the remotest interest in the topic  know quite a lot about Hillary Clinton's Methodist faith. She has spoken of it often and is a regular churchgoer. In his 2007 biography of Clinton, Carl Bernstein wrote that other than her family, "Methodism is perhaps the most important foundation of her character." Just as even George W. Bush's political adversaries freely acknowledge that faith plays a central part in his life, so have Clinton's many detractors accepted the role that faith plays in hers.

Trump might usefully check out Clinton's remarkably personal speech to the United Methodist Women Assembly in 2014 where she argued that Methodism "gave us the great gift of personal salvation but also the great obligation of social gospel."

But of course, trashing other people's faith is standard Trump practice. His willingness to deny basic rights to Muslims is well-known. In March, he said of Mitt Romney, one of his sharpest critics: "Are you sure he's a Mormon? Are we sure?" Romney's loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is as defining for him as Clinton's Methodism is for her.

And when Ben Carson looked to be a serious challenger, Trump went after the physician's allegiance to Seventh-day Adventism. "I'm Presbyterian. Boy, that's down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness," Trump said. "I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don't know about, I just don't know about."

What exactly didn't he "know" about Adventists? A presidential candidate who uses ignorance to peddle religious prejudice is condemning himself twice over  as ill-informed and a bigot.

Trump's indifference to truth, to a basic decency toward the religious convictions of his opponents, and to any seriousness about how religion should and should not be discussed in the political arena ought to terrify believers and nonbelievers alike.

But those who defend faith's role in our nation's public life should be especially alarmed. Absent anything substantive to say about his belief system, Trump lashes out at others. And lacking an affirmative vision, he plays on fears and tells evangelicals, as he did Tuesday, that our nation's leaders are "selling Christianity down the tubes."

Well. If religion is being sold out, it's Trump who is orchestrating the deal.

Contact E.J. Dionne at ejdionne@washpost.com.
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By Jennifer Rubin

In May (was it only last month?), Donald Trump's Republican competitors left the presidential primary race. GOP officials scrambled to endorse him. There was talk big donors were coming on board. Many conscientious conservatives were in a funk, disillusioned with a party (albeit only a plurality of primary voters) who could select a charlatan and a bigot. Lifelong Republicans were appalled at the elected leaders willing to carry water for a demagogue. There was widespread anxiety Trump would beat expectations in the general election just as he did in the primaries.

Six weeks later, it is a much brighter picture for #NeverTrump Republicans and the country at large. The media are critically examining his record, challenging his bigotry and inane pronouncements. When he suggested the president might be in league with Islamist terrorists, the media pounced. Trump's temper tantrum in barring the Washington Post from his campaign events underscored his frustration with a new level of scrutiny.

A short but impressive list of Republicans has declined to endorse or have un-endorsed Trump. Trump is "threatening" (huh!?) to fund his own campaign because donors have not come on board. A delegate rebellion, once a pipe dream, is now a reality. You know it is worrying to Trump if he simultaneously claims it is a Jeb Bush plot and a media hoax. Meanwhile, his own "campaign" is a joke  a skeleton of a presidential operation lacking the staff and data needed to win a national election (as opposed to a series of small primaries where true believers could carry the day).

Moreover, it turns out the vast majority of Americans do not take kindly to a racist, do not appreciate his proposal for a Muslim ban and do not approve of his response to the Orlando terrorist attack. In the primaries, "gaffes" seemed only to enhance his standing. The dumber his debate answers, the higher he went in the polls. Now, however, his outlandish comments are driving his poll numbers down. Maybe most Americans have not lost their minds, turned to political nihilism and rejected the American spirit of inclusion and fairness. It turns out that what worked in the primaries doesn't work in a general election context.

It is increasingly likely that either Trump will get dumped or he will lose by a healthy margin to Hillary Clinton. The republic, it seems, may escape a brush with authoritarian buffoonery. (All caveats apply about Clinton's FBI investigation, a severe economic downturn and other developments that could upend the race.)

Still, there is something fundamentally amiss on the right that in a mere six weeks the country has figured out Trump, whereas Republicans in nine months plainly could not see the character they were embracing. That should highlight some troubling deficiencies on the right.

First, the anti-immigration obsession that had transfixed the right wing inured many supposed gatekeepers (e.g., magazines, pundits) as well as the base to a candidate peddling a dangerous brew of nativism, protectionism and isolationism. If the "respectable" publications rant and rave about "amnesty," one can imagine why Trump's idea for a wall might have gotten traction rather than guffaws. It's no coincidence Trump's closest ally is Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., an anti-immigration zealot who found Trump the perfect spokesman for his cause. Thankfully, the general electorate, including Republicans who did not vote in the primary, take a dim view of his xenophobia. They oppose mass deportation and a Muslim ban.

Second, over the past seven years, the anti-government tirades from talk radio, from Beltway groups such as Heritage Action and even from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saturated the base, convincing them that everyone with experience "betrayed them" and only outsiders devoid of exposure to governance had the secret sauce for peace and prosperity. In the general election, by contrast, Clinton has skewered Trump's inane ideas and ridiculed his ignorance in ways the GOP field did not do consistently and zealously from the get-go.

Third, the "establishment"  the officialdom of the Republican National Committee  facilitated Trump's rise, convinced he'd run as an independent (did they not realize how cheap he is?). Refusing to condemn him, declining to press him on releasing his tax returns, maintaining an excessively large debate contingent and actively condoning his candidacy all enabled Trump to achieve a degree of legitimacy he otherwise would never have gotten. A soulless party chairman who lacked fidelity to the ideals of the party unwittingly may have handed the election to Clinton and decimated the party itself.

One, therefore, is left with an unpleasant reality: A plurality of GOP voters wanted Trump. They did not care or may have actively embraced his lunacy, bigotry and ignorance. His rotten character and abject honesty elicited shrugs. They wore his "pants on fire" fact checks like badges of honor. A significant segment of the GOP primary electorate itself lacked common sense, standards of decency, and intolerance of bigotry and cruelty. No group was worse than the evangelical "leaders" who cheered him along the way.

A Republican wag joked that the GOP needs not only a new candidate, but also a new base. There is something to that. In the 2016 postmortem, it will be worth examining the extent to which the GOP has promoted crackpots, become ghettoized in distorted right-wing media and lost track of what 21st-century America believes and looks like. That suggests conservative "leaders" need to do more leading, and less following, and the party as a whole has to expand its vision and its base. It's time to stop reveling in ignorance and celebrating lost causes.

Barry Goldwater's widow was recently quoted as saying, "Barry would be appalled by Mr. Trump's behavior  the unintelligent and unfiltered and crude communications style. And he's shallow  so, so shallow." She continued, "Barry was so true to his convictions and would never be issuing these shallow, crude, accusatory criticisms of the other party or the other person."

She's right, of course. And yet the GOP primary electorate did not see all that. It's a problem when the rest of the country has to rescue the GOP and the country from Republican voters' terrible judgment.

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for the Washington Post.
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By Josh Blackman

The New York City Commission on Human Rights recently announced that employers, landlords and other professionals are required to use a transgender person's preferred pronoun "regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission similarly determined that failing to use a person's preferred pronoun could violate federal anti-discrimination laws.

Though these mandates may seem like acts of civility, they in effect impose ideas about gender identity on speakers. Requiring people to voice beliefs that they do not hold, or even understand, is a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the freedom of speech.

In one of the rare areas of agreement in constitutional law, the Supreme Court has consistently held that requiring people to express certain ideas is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court's seminal pronouncement on the doctrine of compelled speech involved a student who practiced the Jehovah's Witness faith. He was disciplined for refusing to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the court ruled that this state action violated the First Amendment.

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," wrote Justice Robert Jackson, "it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

Students who did not agree with saluting or pledging allegiance to the flag could not be compelled to do so. It was not enough to tell someone "recite the pledge, but don't believe it." Our law does not recognize a distinction between the speech and the thought behind it.

The Supreme Court has consistently and unanimously reaffirmed Barnette. In Wooley v. Maynard, the justices found that a resident of New Hampshire could not be forced to display a license plate on his car that said "Live Free or Die." In Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, the court held that parade organizers could not be forced to allow an LGBT group to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade. These precedents demonstrate that the government cannot compel the expression of ideas that a speaker may not hold.

With respect to transgender nomenclature, critics may counter that refusing to use a person's preferred pronoun amounts to harassment and is no different from using a slur. There are at least three critical distinctions. First, derogatory slurs exist in the vernacular for a specific reason: to be derogatory. The same cannot be said for pronouns, which have existed in language since time immemorial as a benign shorthand to identify people. Imposing a mandate that millennia-old nomenclature is now harassment is a bridge too far. Furthermore, unlike laws regulating the definition of marriage, the state has never played any role in granting its imprimatur to language one way or the other. New York's unprecedented pronoun mandate is the first instance of the government dictating speech.

Second, while a non-binary view of gender may be orthodoxy in certain segments of society, a near-majority of Americans reject it as a fact of life. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll asked about which public bathroom transgender people should be allowed to use. Forty-six percent responded that they "should have to use the public bathrooms of the gender they were born as." Forty-one percent responded that they "should be allowed to use the public bathrooms of the gender they identify with." Imposing an idea on 46 percent of Americans who do not hold that belief cannot be reconciled with the marketplace of ideas guarded by our First Amendment.

Third, there is a subtle but critical line between promoting tolerance and controlling thought. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh explained that the New York law "requir[es] people to actually say words that convey a message of approval of the view that gender is a matter of self-perception rather than anatomy." As the polling suggests, reasonable minds disagree about sex and gender identity. Requiring everyone to adopt a new vernacular ends any debate.

The notion that the state can now control language is reminiscent of "Newspeak," the fictional language in the dystopian classic "1984." Taking a page from Orwell, the Big Apple actually requires speakers to use the invented gender-free pronoun "ze," a word that does not appear in five different dictionaries I checked. A future version of this regime could potentially outlaw gendered pronouns altogether, so as to accommodate gender-fluid individuals. Taken to its natural conclusion, this effort to promote tolerance is frighteningly intolerant.

Over the past two decades, popular support for same-sex marriage skyrocketed, in large measure due to the marriage equality movement's two-pronged message: We only want to love each other the way you do, and we are not imposing any of our beliefs on you. This is a remarkably effective rallying cry and convinced millions of Americans (myself included) to alter their views on this issue. New York City now throws away that carrot and wields a stick: If you do not immediately express a view of the world you disagree with, the government will impose a $125,000 fine.

This Orwellian tactic is not the way to change hearts and minds. New York should go back to the drawing board and draft up a more inclusive way of being more inclusive.

Josh Blackman is a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law, Houston and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He wrote this for the Washington Post.
Google Fiber is acquiring Internet service provider Webpass to quickly increase its urban coverage and offer customers a combination of fiber and wireless delivery of high-speed Internet.

For Google Fiber, which has typically worked with cities in planning and building a fiber network from scratch, the acquisition will give the Alphabet business a headstart in many markets, particularly in dense urban areas.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Google did not immediately comment on the acquisition.

Webpass in San Francisco owns and operates its Ethernet network, thus removing its dependence on phone and cable companies. It has operations in San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago and Boston. The company offers business connections from 10 to 1,000 Mbps and to residential customers service from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps.

Google is already working in San Francisco, where Webpass also operates, and is negotiating with property owners and managers in buildings near existing fiber infrastructure to explore connecting their residents to gigabit Internet.

Google Fiber has earlier indicated that it would like to use wireless besides fiber for the delivery of Internet services to customers. In April, it obtained approval to test Internet delivery on 3.5GHz spectrum in parts of Kansas City that could result in fast, short-range wireless connections to serve areas not reached by Google Fiber.

Webpass will help to further expand that coverage as it will remain focused on the rapid deployment of high-speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, mainly using point-to-point wireless, Webpass President Charles Barr said in a blog post Wednesday that announced the proposed acquisition.

"Google Fibers resources will enable Webpass to grow faster and reach many more customers than we could as a standalone company," Barr wrote.

"Great news! We look forward to welcoming @Webpass to the Google Fiber team once the deal has closed," Google Fiber wrote in a tweet.

The companies expect the deal to close this summer, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
It looks as though BlackBerry CEO John Chen will still be in charge long enough to launch another couple of phones -- although don't expect any new flagship models.

Chen was re-elected chairman of the board for another year on Wednesday.

He still plans to launch two new mid-range phones in the next nine months, one of them as early as July. They'll be cheaper than the Priv, BlackBerry's first Android phone, but with the same level of security, he said Thursday.

Shareholders might not have given him such strong support if they'd seen the numbers the company reported Thursday for the first quarter of its 2017 financial year.

Revenue dropped to US$400 million in the three months to May 31, down 39 percent from $658 million a year earlier.

Chen has made some dramatic cuts in BlackBerry's cost of sales, to $246 million from $348 million a year earlier, but still nowhere near enough to maintain the company's gross margin, which slipped to 39 percent from 47 percent.

That a slide is already enough to push the company deep into the red, but the company also abandoned or wrote down the value of goodwill and long-term assets to the tune of $561 million in the quarter, leaving it with a net loss of $670 million, against a net profit of $68 million a year earlier.

The asset re-evaluation was a regulatory consequence of BlackBerry's decision to break out revenue by business segment in a new way, Chen said in a conference call to discuss the results.

Service access fees brought in $106 million, while software and services accounted for $142 million.

The company is still integrating its enterprise mobility management tools and sales force with those of Good Technology, which it acquired last year.

The mobility solutions segment, including smartphones and device software licensing, raised $152 million.

While the other two segments were profitable at the operating level, mobility solutions made an operating loss of $21 million. Chen said his goal is for that segment to achieve operating profitability in a couple of quarters.

"I really, really believe we can make money out of the handset business. But to make sure we don't put too much emphasis on the hardware, we started the software business," he said.

Licensing device software brought in the princely sum of $0 in the quarter, but Chen sees it as a potential new revenue stream, and an alternative to licensing the patents underlying BlackBerry software.

The focus of that could be BlackBerry Hub, a tool for managing multiple messaging and email accounts.

It will also provide a way to continue making money from phones should BlackBerry decide to pull out of the hardware business.

Chen has no immediate plans to do that, though.

"Many customers, especially in governments around the world, are still relying on us providing a secure handset for them," he said.

Asked about the company's handset roadmap, he replied: "I'm not prepared to reveal that, I was thinking of doing that more in the July timeframe."

He reiterated his intention to deliver two new models "this fiscal year' (so before next March), adding that they would be "in the mid-range, not really high-end phones."

If BlackBerry does decide to bail out of the hardware business, it won't cost it much. It has just written down existing inventory, and no longer makes phones itself.

"We are a hardware design house. With the new manufacturing arrangement that we made, we don't carry too much of a risk to our balance sheet," Chen said.

That new arrangement is sufficiently flexible that BlackBerry can have handsets manufactured on demand in response to orders from carriers or enterprises.

While flagship phones make headlines, Chen is hoping that mid-range phones will make more money.

"The Priv is a great product but it's too expensive for enterprise," Chen said. "This is why enterprises and the carriers that supply them have been asking for a mid-range phone. That's why I think we should produce a mid-range product with our level of security."

"Let's see if we can make a run of it. If not, we already started the software part of that business and maybe that will make the transition a bit smoother."
After facing allegations that it was actively suppressing conservative views, Facebook has responded by adding an employee training class focused on political bias.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced the addition of the political bias class to the company's ongoing course on Managing Unconscious Bias during a talk she gave at the American Enterprise Institute, according to The Daily Signal.

"We have a managing bias class that all of our leaders and a lot of our employees have taken that I was part of helping to create," Sandberg said. "And we focused on racial bias, age bias, gender bias, national bias, and we're going to add in a scenario now on political bias.

"So as we think about helping people understand different points of view and being open to different points of view, we're dealing with political bias as well going forward," The Daily Signal quoted Sandberg as saying.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the political bias class.

The move comes about six weeks after allegations of political bias at Facebook surfaced in the tech blog Gizmodo.

Citing an anonymous source who reportedly used to work on Facebook's Trending Topics team, Gizmodo alleged that the company's news curators were encouraged to leave stories that might be more interesting to conservative readers off the Trending Topics list and to replace them with stories that weren't popular enough to have normally made the list.

After that report surfaced, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg an open letter asking several questions about the way Facebook places stories in Trending Topics.

Calling social networks an "an increasingly important source of news," Thune asked who makes decisions about what stories make Trending Topics and if stories have been excluded because of political reasons.

Facebook was quick to say it investigated the allegations and found no evidence of their validity.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said that even though no evidence surfaced supporting the allegations, adding a political bias class for employees is a good idea.

"The accusations have sensitized people and this is a good way of addressing them," he said. "It certainly is intended to placate critics, or at least to placate those who believe the critics. However, given how much politics is dominating people's feelings right now, handling it well is important for Facebook's business."

During the current presidential campaign in the U.S., political stories and comments are driving a lot of Facebook activity.

"Passions are running high," said Gottheil. "It can affect behavior and, to the extent that behavior is visible to users, it can affect the product."
As Microsoft hurtles towards the release of its major Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the company has introduced a tool that's supposed to help PC owners resolve problems with activating the operating system on their computers.

Microsoft has a complex system in place to ensure people are using a copy of Windows that hasn't been pirated. But that system sometimes gets too aggressive and ends up dinging people with authorized copies of Windows. The new Activation Troubleshooter is supposed to help. It should make it easier for people to reactivate their computers after changing hardware, such as swapping out their motherboard or hard drive.

Right now, it's available only to members of the Windows Insider Program's Fast ring, who got a new beta build of Windows 10 to play around with on Wednesday. Microsoft hasnt said that the tool will be available to everyone with the forthcoming Anniversary Update, but that seems likely.

Using the Activation Troubleshooter, users can associate a digital Windows 10 license with their Microsoft account. After that, they can change out hardware on their PC and re-activate Windows with the license that they associated with their account.

In a reference document, Microsoft said that there would be a limit to the number of times that users can re-activate a device using the same license, but didn't say what the limit is. A representative for Microsoft didn't respond to a request for comment by press time.

In addition, the Troubleshooter is supposed to help users who reinstall Windows 10 on their device get back to the right edition of Microsoft's new operating system. If they previously had a digital license for Windows 10 Pro (for example, though upgrading from Windows 8.1 Pro) and then installed Windows 10 Home on the same system, the Activation Troubleshooter will walk them through getting back to the Pro version.

The tool is important, since Microsoft will no longer be offering free upgrades to Windows 10 after the end of July. Users who have taken Microsoft up on the free upgrade offer (whether intentionally or not) will be authorized to keep their computers running Windows 10 for a good long while. This tool will help them handle the at times convoluted process of staying on Microsoft's good side.

It comes alongside a bunch of bug fixes and minor tweaks released to beta testers in build 14371 of Windows 10. Microsoft is slated to release the Windows 10 Anniversary Update soon, and is currently in the process of squashing bugs so that the update is ready for release.
Intel, SAP, Lyft, Spotify and VMware are among over 30 Silicon Valley companies that on Wednesday signed a pledge that they would take action to make their technology workforce "fully representative of the American people, as soon as possible."

The absence of diversity in the tech industry in Silicon Valley was highlighted about two years ago by civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, who pressed some companies to release data on their employment of Blacks, Hispanics and women. Many tech companies like Google and Intel released data but it was found that their workforce was predominantly male and white.

Under pressure from Jackson to set specific goals, some companies announced their plans for promoting inclusion. Intel, for example, made a pledge to invest US$300 million on diversity and inclusion and announced a goal to reach full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in its U.S. workforce by 2020. Google also announced a $150 million expenditure to get more women and other minorities into the tech industry.

In their letter Wednesday to U.S. President Barack Obama, ahead of a global entrepreneurship summit in Silicon Valley, the companies have committed to implement and publish company-specific goals in the areas of hiring, retaining and advancing diverse technology talent. The companies have also committed to annually publish data and progress metrics on the diversity of their technology employees across functional areas and seniority levels, and to partner to build a diverse pipeline of technology talent.

Diversity makes good business sense too, according to a report jointly published by Intel and Dalberg Global Development Advisors. Studying diversity data from nearly 170 companies, the study has found a correlation between more diverse tech work forces and higher revenue, profits, and market value. The report estimates that an additional US$470 to $570 billion in new value for the U.S. technology industry could be created through full representation of ethic and gender diversity.

Companies that are more diverse are more likely to be innovative and have a higher number of patent applications, according to the study. They are also more likely to be be able to retain talent. As importantly, diverse companies are better able to identify products and services that minorities would like to buy.

The challenge for tech companies could be their ability to hire and retain minorities in their workforce. Tech companies like Google find it difficult to recruit and retain women and minorities, wrote Laszlo Bock, Googles senior vice president for People Operations, in a blog post in 2014, after the company released inclusion data.

Women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the U.S., and Blacks and Hispanics each account for under 10 percent of U.S. college graduates and each bag fewer than 10 percent of degrees in computer science majors, he added.

Tech companies are hence trying to get involved in boosting the number of people from minority communities that get trained in skills that are relevant for the tech industry. Part of Intels investment, for example, will support scholarships for Hispanic college students who have chosen a science, technology, engineering, or math major, in partnership with the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley. Google is also focused on making computer science education accessible and available to all, besides focusing on areas such as bridging the digital divide.
Microsoft has significantly upped the tally of U.S. government gag orders slapped on demands for customer information, according to court documents filed last week.

In a revised complaint submitted to a Seattle federal court last Friday, Microsoft said that more than half of all government data demands were bound by a secrecy order that prevented the company from telling customers of its cloud-based services that authorities had asked it to hand over their information.

The original complaint -- the first round in a lawsuit Microsoft filed in April against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- had pegged the number of data demands during the past 18 months at 5,624. Of those, 2,576, or 46%, were tagged with secrecy orders that prevented Microsoft from telling customers it had been compelled to give up their information.

ALSO ON CSO: MORE ON CSO: 6 products that will protect your privacy

The monthly average of data requests accompanied by a gag order during the stretch was 143.

Microsoft's revised complaint updated those numbers to account for the past 20 months, from September 2014 to May 2016. It was unclear whether the changes reflected an increase in secrecy orders in the last two months or simply a recount, although the numbers suggested the latter.

In any case, Microsoft now claims that of the more than 6,000 data demands it's received in the last 20 months, 3,250, or 54% of the total, came with a gag order. The Redmond, Wash. company received an average of 163 data requests locked by a secrecy order each month during that span.

Microsoft's lawsuit asked the court for a judgment that would declare unconstitutional a section of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a 30-year-old law that government agencies increasingly name when forcing email, Internet and cloud storage service providers to hand over data to aid criminal investigations.

The firm hasn't objected to the ECPA as a whole, but to what it said had become the routine issuing of gag orders alongside the demands for data. The new figures are likely an attempt by Microsoft to strengthen its argument.

In both the original and revised complaints, Microsoft asked the court to strike the ECPA gag order section on the grounds that it violated both the First and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

A comparison of the two complaints by Computerworld showed that Microsoft's lawyers made numerous editing corrections in the latest, but did not change their contentions that the ECPA's secrecy clauses were unconstitutional.

The attorneys altered the complaint in at least two ways, however. They cited a second section of the ECPA as unconstitutional, and made it clearer that they believed the company's constitutional rights -- not just those of its customers -- were being violated by the government's actions.

"For the same reasons that Section 2705(b) is facially invalid, it is also unconstitutional as applied to Microsoft," the revised complaint stated.

Because of the amended complaint, the federal court hearing the case has rescheduled the briefing schedule for replies by the DOJ and Attorney General Lynch, and for rebuttals by Microsoft.

NEXT READ THIS: The CSO password management survival guide

This story, "Microsoft: Government's data gag order practices worse than first thought" was originally published by Computerworld .
Proving who pulled off a cyber attack is never easy and sometimes impossible. Thats the reality investigators face as they try to figure out who breached the network of the Democratic National Committee, which revealed last week that hackers had made off with confidential documents including research on Republican presidential opponent Donald Trump.

Russia was fingered as the likely suspect, until a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 stepped up and claimed that he acted alone. But despite what appear to be DNC documents posted by Guccifer online, some security experts remain convinced that a group of skilled Russian hackers was behind the attack - likely acting on behalf of the Russian government. Here's why they think that:

The malware

The breach began as far back as last summer and involved malware previously used by two hacking groups known as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.

Both are thought to be based in Russia and considered among the best hacking teams in the world, said Michael Buratowski, a senior vice president with Fidelis Cybersecurity, which was called in to examine the malware in the DNC attack.

Not just anyone could have pulled off the attack, he said. For instance, the malware used to breach the DNC networks is relatively rare and highly developed.

A hacker would need significant expertise to properly customize and deploy the code, something no amateur script kiddie would possess, he said.

A growing pattern

Another big reason for suspecting Russian hackers is the target itself and what was stolen -- the attackers wanted information related to political campaigns and foreign policy plans. Cybercriminals are typically more interested in financial data such as credit card numbers, noted Ben Johnson, chief security strategist for Carbon Black.

This fits with the pattern of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, whose past victims include the White House and the U.S. State Department, in addition to businesses in defense, energy and aerospace. Email systems of top U.S. officials have also been among their targets.

It seems like the attackers knew what they were after, Johnson said. They also didnt kick up a lot of dust.

Although the initial breach began last summer, the DNC became aware of it only in late April. This suggests the hackers were probably experts and had done that type of hack before.

Attribution is incredibly difficult, Johnson said. But from what weve seen, its most likely that a sophisticated group is responsible.

Russia

It's difficult to definitively link a hacker group to a government, but security firms have made a connection to Russia by examining attack patterns over a long period of time, said Mark Arena, CEO of security firm Intel 471.

For example, past attacks by Fancy Bear show consistent use of the Russian language in developing its malware. Their targets have included NATO and Eastern European governments, with a focus on stealing political and military data, as opposed to intellectual property -- more typically a target of Chinese hackers.

Targeting the DNC could obviously align with Russia's goals, as one of the U.S.'s biggest geopolitical opponents.

Russian officials have flatly denied any involvement, but that doesn't tell us much one way or the other.

The timing

A lone hacker, Guccifer 2.0, has sought to take credit for the DNC hack, claiming it was "easy, very easy," and leaking several documents to back up his claim. Some media reports say the hacker is Romanian and dislikes Russians.

Not everyone believes the claims. On Tuesday, the DNC itself said the leaked files may be part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians.

In Guccifer 2.0's first post, the hacker mocked CrowdStrike, the security firm that claimed Russians were behind the breach, and denounced unspecified "illuminati" and their conspiracies.

Together well be able to throw off the political elite, the rich clans that exploit the world! the hacker wrote in another posting.

Johnson sees the timing of Guccifer's appearance as too convenient.

Its a very timely cover-up, he said. It seems a little too staged.

Buratowski agreed. He noted that Guccifer 2.0 could be one person or multiple people belonging to a larger group. Metadata found within the leaked DNC documents included snippets of Russian.

Theres always the possibility that [Guccifer 2.0] is just a smokescreen to divert attention from the real actors,Buratowski said.
The New York Times highlights excellence in teaching at Connecticut College

Members of the Connecticut College faculty participate in a workshop through the College's Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning.

Connecticut College is setting the standards in terms of undergraduate teaching, according to an article published by The New York Times.

The article, "Teaching Professors to Become Better Teachers," explores trends in faculty development and efforts by colleges and universities to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching. At Connecticut College, faculty learn to better motivate and engage their students through the Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL).

"The best teachers are constantly working on their teaching: assessing, refining, improving," said Michael Reder 86, director of the center. "The CTL gives Connecticut Colleges faculty a forum to exchange ideas, learn new skills and evaluate their success in the classroom."

The CTL, which was founded in 1998, offers programming and workshops on everything from designing effective courses to managing classroom discussions to teaching with cutting-edge technology. On average, approximately 80 percent of the Colleges professors participate in at least one CTL-sponsored event a year.

"I dont think youre doing your job as a college professor these days if youre not involved in these kinds of activities," Associate Professor of Psychology Ruth Grahn told the Times.

Dean of the Faculty Abigail Van Slyck said that when she arrived at Connecticut College, having previously held a tenure-track position as professor in architectural history at a major research university in the Southwest, Reder invited her to attend some of his teaching workshops. While she was initially skeptical, she told the Times that through the CTL, she gained a broader understanding of what it meant to be a good teacher.

"It changed my life," she said.

June 23, 2016
I like the cross-party nature of all this. So said a woman from Shropshire in an elegant pink cardigan who was standing next to me yesterday evening at the Remain rally in Birmingham.

She was a Liberal Democrat, and if David Cameron manages to win this referendum, it will be because he has managed to build a big enough coalition with voters in other parties, including Lib Dems, Greens and Labour, to outnumber his opponents in his own party and UKIP.

No wonder the Prime Minister declared in his peroration that if he were to boil his message down to one word it would be Together.

Yes! said the Lib Dem lady, who was called Jane Thomas. Perhaps because I happened to be surrounded by a band of Lib Dem activists, I was reminded, to my surprise, of the atmosphere when the SDP was founded in early 1980s.

Here was the same conviction that if only well-meaning people are allowed to work together in a grown-up fashion, British politics can be raised above the petty rivalries and demeaning squabbles which so often inhibit progress.

This style of politics comes naturally to Cameron. He loves to present himself as the leader of the Grown-Up Party, a Tory so unencumbered by ideological baggage that he can work with modern-minded people quite regardless of what traditions they come from.

And this was indeed a cross-party event. Having come to hear Cameron, I discovered that Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown, Kathy Warwick (head of the Royal College of Midwives), Brendan Barber (former head of the TUC), Caroline Lucas, Paddy Ashdown and Tim Farron were all speaking before him.

Brown was in rousing form. The meeting was held in the open air, outside the admirable, early-20th-century buildings at Birmingham University, and his words bounced off the Great Hall and back towards Old Joe, the astonishing campanile, inspired by a tower in Siena and over 300 feet high, which commemorates Joe Chamberlain, the great Liberal Unionist.

Cameron nodded, said hear, hear and clapped as he listened to Brown; and when he himself spoke, began by saying, Wasnt that a belter of a speech from Gordon Brown, and wasnt that a belter of a speech from Tim Farron?

Both men had indeed spoken well. The fear that we may be about to leave the European Union has lent them a kind of passionate energy, and no doubt they did not wish to disgrace themselves by performing badly.

But this was still a very odd meeting, for the audience of perhaps 200 people consisted almost exclusively of Remain supporters, including a substantial contingent of MPs.

Cameron, Brown, Farron and the rest were preaching to the converted. It is possible their words flew, via television, into the homes of the undecided, and had some effect there.

But this was a typically sanitised campaign event, devised to avoid controversy rather than confront it. Hecklers can nowadays vent their anger on social media, but are given very little chance to enliven public meetings by doing so.

Even as a journalist, I found it difficult to discover when and where this meeting was happening, at least until a few hours before it took place. The general public would not have known of it at all.

Earlier in the day, in Bristol, John Major had been deployed by the Remain campaign, but without the egg-throwing hecklers whom he defied to such good effect during the 1992 general election.

The Birmingham meeting was held in the constituency of Gisela Stuart, a prominent member of the Leave campaign, which somehow made it even odder that no dissent was heard.

Yet one should acknowledge the skill and tact with which Cameron manages a coalition of this kind. His most intractable problem lies with his Labour allies, who are having difficulty bringing their voters with them.

Hence the deployment last night of Brown, Harman and Barber, and of other prominent Labour figures in the Wembley debate on Tuesday night.

Cameron kept entirely to the economy and like the other speakers, avoided talking about immigration. A strong economy is everything, he said, wagging his finger in the way that he does at moments of heightened determination.

He has deep rings under his eyes, and more and more grey hairs, but in his checked shirt with rolled up sleeves, he remains the figure who in 2005 won the Tory leadership by putting his case better than his rivals did, and by appearing to go more for his shots, while remaining a reassuringly responsible personality.

Another of my neighbours, Lee Dargue, who at the general election stood against Stuart in Edgbaston for the Lib Dems, said that in Birmingham, support for Remain wholly depends on where you go. But he had also noticed, in the last 48 hours, a shift in openness to listen to the Remain side, in place of the previous, dismissive retort, Im not interested.
Brazil. South Africa. India. All are modern countries, with growing clout worldwide. Norway. Canada. Switzerland. All are among the most progressive countries in the world. Like most other nations throughout the world  including the United States, still the greatest power on the planet  all have one thing in common. They are self-governing  thats to say, the peoples of those countries elect those who rule them.

The urge to leave the European Union is driven by many different factors, including a revolt against Britains establishment and a desire for less immigration. But at its heart is a wish to control the way in which we are governed. One can describe this as a desire for sovereignty or for independence, but that is about the sum of it.

This wish is no more or less legitimate than the desire to have the same control as we do now  or less. There is nothing more moral about wishing oneself to be governed as part of the European Union than as part of an independent Britain. There is no instrinsic reason why those who take the former view should be any more or less patriotic than those who take the latter.

If you are one of that first group and will vote Remain today, we wish you well. However, were concerned this morning largely with members of the second  those who want to Leave. If the opinion polls are right (which they may well not be) this group amounts to roughly half of all those who will vote today.

The Remain campaign has sent a twin message to you during the last few weeks. The first part of it is that leaving the EU is bad for your wealth. It is therefore something of a puzzle that the Prime Minister, who in effect leads Remain, himself threatened to back leaving several times  the latest as recently as February. In case you havent got the message, the Chancellor threatened, if Britain votes Leave today, to ensure that it is  by raising your taxes in an emergency budget. (Fortunately, its a bluff.)

The other half of the message is aimed not at your pocket but at  not to put too fine a point on it  your soul. Remain kind, it said in a final appeal this week. Remain inclusive. Remain open. Remain Remain tolerant. Remain together. In other words, dear Leave sympathiser, you are intolerant, closed and unkind if you dont support Remain.

Thanks to Remains campaign director, Will Straw, we know that this message was deliberately crafted to exploit the horrible murder of Jo Cox. As Guido Fawkes has reported, Straw told Remain campaigners during a conference call that they should respond to Coxs death  the new context that were in  by claiming only they represent a decent, tolerant Britain.

There are doubtless bad people and racists on the side of Leave, just as there are on the side of Remain. (A big tranche of Labours anti-semitic activists are presumably backing that cause today.) The Remain campaign knows that perfectly well, but is unbothered by the point.

For what it is seeking to do is to make you feel that, in preferring self-government to the European Union, you are making a choice that is somehow illegitimate, as you are if you want less migration. Because this case cannot be made directly  for the simple reason that it is self-evidently absurd  an army of straw men, no pun intended, and aunt sallies must be deployed. You are a racist: unworthy of the modern Britain represented yesterday by Alan Sugar.

If a spokesman for Leave had made an anti-immigrant gibe of the kind that Sugar did, he would have been speedily sacked. That he has survived as a spokesman for Remain, without any serious media pressure on him to quit, tells you much you need to know about the course of this campaign.

In short, Remain is trying to bully you out of doing what you want to do. Do whats in your heart, the Prime Minister told MPs sympathetic to that cause after his renegotation  the one which was meant to deliver real reform in our relationship with the EU as the foundation of a Remain vote, but which did not.

In appealing to readers who want to vote Leave, we cannot improve on what he said to people who wanted to vote Remain. Do whats in your heart today. One of the stories that we like to tell ourselves about each other is that Britain stands up to bullies. We may be about to find out whether or not it is still true.
As good as 2-year-old racing has been at Ellis Park in recent years, the best is yet to come.

That's the consensus opinion of Kentucky horsemen who are abuzz over the fact that the money is going to be better than ever at the Henderson, Kentucky thoroughbred track during its 93rd season.

Daily purses are expected to average $210,000, and that number could rise by the time the meet ends on September 5.

"There are so many choices, but I want us to be the first choice and I think right now we will be with the money we are offering," said racing secretary Dan Bork. "(The first choice) won't be Indiana Downs. It won't be Arlington. It won't be Presque Isle."

It only makes sense. With the highest purses in the region for the 30-day summer meet that begins July 2, there's no reason for top trainers and jockeys from Kentucky to establish barns at out-of-state tracks.

With an influx of cash from Instant Racing machines, a $1.35 million boost from Kentucky Downs and more money coming from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, maiden purses at Ellis will average $38,000 and allowance purses will be as high as $40,000.

With that kind of money on the table, Ellis Park owner Ron Geary no longer has to fear threats offered by Indiana Downs and Arlington in Illinois, tracks that have done damage to Kentucky's racing industry for years.

"We are competitive with them now," Bork said of Indiana Downs. "They will still get their share, but if there is a race here on July 15 and a race up there on July 14, I want (the best horses) to come to Ellis Park."

With the track reinstating a stakes race for 2-year-olds  $75,000 Ellis Park Juvenile  the spotlight will be on horse racing's future stars.

But as Bork points out, Ellis hasn't been a bad place to be for a few years now. Keen Ice, which debuted fourth at Ellis, went on to hand Triple Crown-winner American Pharoah a loss in the 2015 Travers Stakes. And Brody's Cause, another of trainer Dale Romans' champions, finished eighth at Ellis in a race last summer before winning two Grade I stakes, including April's Blue Grass at Keeneland, to secure a spot in the Kentucky Derby.

There have been others, including Ride On Curlin, which set an Ellis track record in 2013 and finished second in the 2014 Preakness. And Mo Tom, who broke his maiden at Ellis in 2015 and was eighth in the Kentucky Derby in May.

"The 2-year-olds have been really strong her the last two or three years," said Henderson-based trainer John Hancock. "But now you factor in the fact that the purses are going to be $7,000 more than your closest (track) competitors and you put back in the 2-year-old stakes, it makes this meet a gold mine."

It's why Hancock plans to hold on to a few of his top fillies, including Whole Scoop, through at least the Ellis Park Juvenile. Whole Scoop won her first race on May 10 and Hancock has been turning down offers ever since.

He's promised at least two more rides on Whole Scoop to jockey Corey Lanerie, a two-time Ellis riding champ who will return to the track full-time for the first time in three summers.

Because of the increased purse money, Lanerie is not the only top jockey making a commitment to Ellis this summer.

"That's going to make my job easier, too," said Bork. "If someone has a top horse but can't get a great rider, they might not come ... This is bringing back a big circuit in Kentucky. It's great for the industry."
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Continuing

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'

Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) clash over differing philosophies. The duo are soon forced to confront an even greater threat created by nefarious billionaire Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). (PG-13)

'the boss'

A titan of industry is sent to prison after she's caught for insider trading. When she emerges ready to rebrand herself as America's latest sweetheart, not everyone she screwed over is so quick to forgive and forget. Stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell and Peter Dinklage. (R)

'Captain America: Civil War'

Political interference in the Avengers' activities causes a rift between former allies Captain America and Iron Man. Stars Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson. (PG-13)

'central intelligence'

After he reunites with an old pal through Facebook, a mild-mannered accountant is lured into the world of international espionage. Stars Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Danielle Nicolet. (PG-13)

'the conjuring 2'

Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits. (R)

'the darkness'

A supernatural force terrorizes a couple (Kevin Bacon, Radha Mitchell) and their two children after they return home from a vacation to the Grand Canyon. (PG-13)

'finding dory'

The friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish reunites with her loved ones, and everyone learns a few things about the real meaning of family along the way. Stars the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks and Ed O'Neill. (PG)

'me before you'

A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently paralyzed man she's taking care of. Stars Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin and Janet McTeer. (PG-13)

'miracles from heaven'

A young girl suffering from a rare digestive disorder finds herself miraculously cured after surviving a terrible accident. Stars Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers and Martin Henderson (PG)

'neighbors 2: sorority rising'

After a sorority moves in next door, which is even more debaucherous than the fraternity before it, Mac and Kelly have to ask for help from their former enemy, Teddy. Stars Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and Zac Efron. (R)

'now you see me 2'

The Four Horsemen resurface and are forcibly recruited by a tech genius to pull off their most impossible heist yet. Stars Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson. (PG-13)

'ratchet and clank'

When the galaxy comes under the threat of a nefarious space captain, a mechanic and his newfound robot ally join an elite squad of combatants to save the universe. Stars the voices of James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye and Jim Ward. (PG)

'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows'

The turtles face a new challenge when Shredder escapes from custody and joins forces with Baxter Stockman, a mad scientist who plans to use a serum to take over the world. Along for the ride are Bebop and Rocksteady, two dimwitted henchmen who provide plenty of muscle. Stars Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Brian Tee and Tyler Perry. (PG-13)

'warcraft'

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces fearsome invaders  orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. Stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton and Ben Foster. (PG-13)

'x-men: apocalypse'

With the emergence of the world's first mutant, Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan. Stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence.

'zootopia'

In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a fugitive con artist fox and a rookie bunny cop must work together to uncover a conspiracy. Stars the voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman and Idris Elba. (PG)
SHARE Christopher Darnell

By Richard Gootee of the Courier and Press

Authorities arrested an Evansville man they say has been receiving marijuana in the mail.

Christopher D. Darnell, 40, was arrested Wednesday afternoon. He faces preliminary charges of dealing marijuana and possession of both narcotics and drug paraphernalia.

According to the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office affidavit against him, the United States Postal Service started investigating "suspicious mail packages" addressed to Darnell's apartment in the 700 block of Chateau Drive earlier this month.

One such package was intercepted by investigators on Wednesday, according to the affidavit. Inside, authorities reportedly found more than a pound of suspected dried marijuana, as well as a half-pound of marijuana candy-wrapped in foil and an amount of the liquefied marijuana.

Darnell was arrested during a traffic stop Wednesday afternoon. He allegedly told police he had some marijuana and cash in the apartment but declined to talk about the contents of the intercepted package, investigators wrote in an affidavit. During a subsequent search of Darnell's apartment, police reportedly found more marijuana and multiple pills of hydrocodone and Tramadol. More than $4,000 was also seized during the search, according to the affidavit.

Court record indicate that Darnell's bond was set at $2,500 cash or $25,000 surety during a probable cause hearing Thursday morning. Darnell posted bail and was released from jail later on Thursday, according to court records. He is next due in court on Tuesday.
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By Jon Webb of the Courier and Press

One person is dead and another injured after a crash near the Posey County line Wednesday night.

Posey County Sheriff Greg Oeth confirmed one person was killed in a two-vehicle wreck on Indiana 66. Another person was injured and transported to an Evansville hospital. Oeth said that as Wednesday night, that person's injuries were not considered life-threatening.

As of 11 p.m., Posey County Coroner Jay Price was still on scene, and as were investigators. Oeth said the victim wouldn't be identified until family members had been notified.

The crash was reported to dispatch just before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Officials at Posey County dispatch said the wreck occurred west of Bluegrass Road. Wednesday night, officials closed Indiana 66 at Winternheimer Road.

The crash is still under investigation, Oeth said.
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By John Bacon, USA TODAY

A Baltimore judge found a city police officer not guilty of all charges Thursday in the death of Freddie Gray, a verdict that dealt a severe blow to prosecution efforts to hold police accountable for the young black man's death while in custody last year.

Officer Jr. had faced the most serious count, second-degree depraved-heart murder, leveled against any of the six officers charged in the controversial case. Goodson, 46, was also acquitted of manslaughter, two counts of vehicular manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and official misconduct.

Gray, 25, was arrested by bicycle officers on April 12, 2015, after he caught their eye and ran. He was shackled and loaded into a van driven by Goodson but was not secured in a seat belt. Gray suffered a severe spinal injury en route to the police station and died a week later.

Gray's death set off a series of demonstrations across the nation and sometimes violent protests in the majority-black city of more than 600,000 people. Stores were burned and looted, and clashes with police left dozens injured.

Goodson, who is black, had waived his right to a jury, instead casting his lot with Judge Barry Williams in a bench trial. He is the second officer to be acquitted of all charges by Williams.

The local Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement calling on State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby to drop her "malicious prosecution" of the officers. Some experts expect Mosby to continue pursuing convictions.

"I think Marilyn Mosby is very concerned, as she should be, about her political career," Wayne Cohen, a Maryland defense lawyer and law professor at George Washington University, told USA TODAY. "She has to make some decisions on whether to fish or cut bait on this. I thing she will continue to fish."

Legal expert and longtime defense lawyer Barry Slotnick agreed.

"Community pressure is not something that should cause a (criminal) case to be brought," Slotnick told USA TODAY. "But I think they are stuck with going forward. And I dont think anybody is going to be convicted."

Prosecutors claimed Goodson, 46, intentionally gave Gray a rough ride. They said Goodson also was responsible for buckling Gray's seat belt and failed to get Gray medical attention despite his repeated requests. Goodson did not testify, but his lawyers said Gray was kicking and too volatile to buckle in  and that there was no evidence of a rough ride.

Goodson is the third officer to stand trial in the case. The trial of Officer William Porter, who also is black, ended with a hung jury and will be retried. Officer Edward Nero, who is white, was acquitted of all charges by Williams, who is black, in a bench trial last month. The other three officers, one black and two white, are scheduled to face trials later this year.

Since the days following Gray's funeral, protests in the city have been mostly calm. Protesters gathered outside the courthouse Thursday when the verdict was announced, chanting "Justice for Freddie Gray."

The activist group Color of Change said the verdict "sends a clear message to black communities that the police and larger justice system are not designed to protect us." The NAACP tweeted: "Gray's death is a tragedy not found to be a crime in court, but a wake-up call for Baltimore. Not a day of rejoice for anybody."

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued a statement asking the community for calm and patience.

"Now that the criminal case has come to an end, Officer Goodson will face an administrative review by the Police Department," she said. "We once again ask the citizens to be patient and to allow the entire process to come to a conclusion... I know that the citizens of Baltimore will continue to respect the judicial process and the ruling of the court."

In September, the city announced a $6.4 million settlement with Gray's family. Cohen said good can still come from the young man's death as the community changes focus from criminal trials to making the system better.

Cohen called Williams a "balanced, thoughtful" judge who clearly was frustrated by the prosecution's lack of evidence.

"What happened to Freddie Gray was a terrible tragedy," Cohen said. "But did it rise to the level of a criminal conviction? Clearly not. The evidence was not there. Not even close."
A man backing the 'Vote Remain' campaign walks along a street in central London, Britain, on June 22, 2016. (Photo: Hannah Mckay, EPA)

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By Jane Onyanga-Omara and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

LONDON  A final, frenzied day of campaigning tried to sway voters ahead of Thursday's referendum over whether the should remain in the , as polls show a virtual dead heat on the contentious issue.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose job may be on the line depending on the outcome, urged voters Wednesday to "please give it everything you've got in these last few hours. Go out and vote 'remain'" in the 28-nation EU.

Speaking on British radio, Cameron rejected the notion that the EU is in decline. We are not shackled to a corpse, he said. You can see the European economys recovery. Its the largest single market in the world.

Former London mayor , the prime minister's chief rival who backs a British exit from the EU, or "Brexit," crisscrossed the country by helicopter to push support for leaving.

Its time to have a totally new relationship with our friends and partners across the (English) Channel, Johnson said while touring London's Billingsgate Fish Market. Its time to speak up for democracy, and hundreds of millions of people around Europe agree with us. Its time to break away from the failing and dysfunctional EU system.

Dozens of leading British figures added their voices Wednesday to the "remain" camp, including James Bond actor Daniel Craig. He posted a photo on Instagram of him wearing a shirt that said: "No man is an island. No country by itself. Vote 'remain' on June 23."

Across Europe, concerned leaders weighed in with warnings. French President Francois Hollande said a vote to go would be "irreversible." Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said if the U.K. votes to leave, then "out was out" and there would be "no kind of renegotiation for Britain."

If the U.K. votes Thursday to sever ties with the EU, it would be the first sovereign nation to leave the bloc. Polls close 5 p.m. ET Thursday (10 p.m. local time).

Much of the debate has focused on whether Britain's economy and ability to control immigration would fare better outside the European political alliance that was formed in the wake of World War II.

As the campaigns entered their final laps, polls showed the high-stakes result could go either way.

A poll by for newspaper, out late Wednesday, showed 51% would vote to stay and 49% would vote to go. Another poll by research firm published Tuesday showed 45% of respondents supported "remain" and 44% backed "leave."

However, bookmaker Betfair said that based on bets placed, there was a 76% chance Britain would vote to stay in the EU and a 24% chance of Brexit.

The Electoral Commission said 46.5 million people have registered to vote.

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU, anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party, urged Britons to go to the polls.

"If you've never voted before because you think voting won't change anything, then tomorrow is your opportunity to make a difference," he said.
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The official word from Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's embattled reelection campaign whenever Donald Trump says something outrageous, like accepting "congrats" in the wake of the Orlando massacre or suggesting that President Obama has committed treason, or saying that a Hoosier with an IU law degree is really a "Mexican" is to say that he is "laser focused" on the Indiana economy and job creation, where he is having considerable success.

But this laser focus was briefly obscured at the Indiana Republican Convention when in his booming voice just a few second after starting, Pence urged delegates to ensure that Indiana becomes "the first state on the board to make Donald Trump the president of the United States." It was an emphatic endorsement.

He spoke these words after conservative House Speaker Paul Ryan cited Trump's "textbook racism" on the Judge Gonzalo Curiel controversy. It came after conservative Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Trump "doesn't know a lot about the issues" and had not displayed the requisite "seriousness of purpose" to be president.

The 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, warned Republicans that a President Trump could normalize racism, misogyny and bigotry in the national conscience.

Why would Pence attach his boat to what appears to be the political equivalent to the Titanic?

He sees that Trump 53 percent Indiana primary victory last month that came despite his own endorsement of Ted Cruz. Pence needs Trump voters. Having said that, it's five months from the election, and Pence is still working to secure his Republican base. Any incumbent whose reelect is 36 percent, his job approval is in the low 40th percentile and is still seeking to keep the base in place is in a world of hurt.

Pence's predicament is that he already has that angry white male vote. What he needs to defeat Democrat John Gregg are Lugar Republicans, suburban women and independents. These voters view Trump like a rat in a baby crib.

What we learned this past week is instructive. If you're a Hoosier Republican, it is unclear which factoid is the most alarming. It could be Hillary Clinton's $42 million to $1.3 million cash-on-hand advantage over Trump. There are a number of Indiana congressional campaigns with more money than Trump. It could be that Clinton has out-raised Trump in Indiana $1 million to $58,221. It could be her 100 percent dominance in swing state TV advertising. It could be the distinct dive in the polls giving Clinton a 44-38 percent lead over Trump before she has fully coalesced the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. Perhaps it is her 700 to 69 staffing advantage or that Trump has not only canned his campaign manager, but has no communications director, though he did bring on the credible Kevin Shaw Kellems of Indiana to begin surrogate management. Perhaps it's University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato's new Crystal Ball Electoral College map that gives Clinton a 347-191 advantage.

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, a resolute conservative who is a former aide to U.S. Sen. Dan Coats and Rep. Mark Souder, observed: "Beneath Trump's historically low approval ratings  29 percent in a recent Post/ABC News survey  is an even more disturbing development. After securing the nomination, Trump's support among Republicans rose, in many polls, to the mid-80s; not spectacularly good but an indication that the GOP was rallying. In recent polls, Trump's Republican support has dropped to between 70 and 80 percent."

NBC "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd mined down into what could be Trumpian ballot drag. In that ABC/Post poll, 65 percent of Republicans view Trump favorably and 34 percent unfavorably (Clinton stands at 75/25 percent with Democrats as she works to bring in the Sanders wing). "So the problem isn't just how a party sees Trump. It's how Republicans see the party itself."

Democratic pollster Fred Yang, who polled for me in 2012, says Trump's "Achilles' heel is the political arithmetic."

"One of my favorite pollster stats is Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama by the same proportion among whites that George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis by in 1988. Bush won the popular vote by eight points. Romney lost the popular vote by four points," Yang explained. "The college-educated white woman is a symptom of the broader point. It's really hard for a Republican to win white voters by more than what Romney and Bush won white voters by, 20 points, 59-39 percent. The voting-age population in 2016 will be 31 percent minority. It's hard for me to see how the math works for Trump if he doesn't win whites by 30 points, which would be really hard, or make inroads into that minority population."

The wall Trump wants to build, and the one he is really building, with more than 70 percent of Latinos aligned against him, is a wall between himself and vicory.

Gerson points to the irony of all of this. "He ran attacking the Republican 'establishment' at every turn," Gerson said. "Now, since he has neglected to construct his own national campaign, he is completely dependent on the 'establishment' to provide his political ground game."

The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com. Find him on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
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Data center News

Dell Exec Reveals Plan To Extend Hyper-Convergence OEM Deal With Startup Nutanix

Kevin McLaughlin

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A Dell executive said Wednesday that the vendor is extending its two-year old OEM agreement with hyper-convergence startup Nutanix, showing the partnership will continue despite potential friction from EMC.

"I'm thrilled to say we've reached an agreement to extend our OEM relationship," Alan Atkinson, Dell's vice president and general manager of storage, said in a keynote at Nutanix's second annual customer conference in Las Vegas. "Customers can buy with confidence."

In the first two years of the OEM agreement, Dell and Nutanix have expanded the scope of their joint sales and marketing activities from one product to seven products, showing the partnership is going strong, said Atkinson.

[Related: How Nutanix's Pairings With Lenovo, Cisco Could End Its Relationship With Dell After The EMC Merger]

Atkinson didnt indicate the length of the extension, and a Dell spokesman declined to comment further. Dell and Nutanixs current OEM agreement, signed in 2014, is set to expire in 2017.

In an interview with CRN, Nutanix Chief Marketing Officer Howard Ting said the Dell extension is a "multiyear agreement" but declined to comment further because the details have not been finalized.

Some Dell and Nutanix customers have been wary of the competitive implications of Dells acquisition of EMC, which pitches its own VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure appliance as a Nutanix killer. Partners on both sides told CRN earlier this month that they believe Dell might focus more on VxRail than Nutanix once the deal closes.

Some partners believe Nutanix's OEM agreement with Lenovo, inked last year, may diminish the significance of its Dell agreement over time. Others have pointed to Nutanix's partnership talks with Cisco Systems, first reported by CRN last month, as an additional sign that the Dell agreement may not remain as important as it once was.

Atkinson's revelation at the Nutanix conference should quell this speculation, at least for the time being, partners told CRN.

"It's very comforting to hear that the Dell/Nutanix relationship is continuing," said Daniel Holm, director of enterprise solutions at InterWorks, a Nutanix partner in Stillwater, Okla.

Jim Steinlage, president of Choice Solutions, a Nutanix partner in Overland Park, Kan., said Dell "realizes the creativity and value that Nutanix has brought -- and will continue to bring -- to their customers. They want to assure customers they can continue on their current road map."

Tim Joyce, CEO of Roundstone Solutions, a San Francisco-based Nutanix partner, sees the OEM agreement extension as a "significant move" by Dell and Nutanix.

"It speaks to the fact that Dell knows that Nutanix is what customers want to buy," Joyce said. "Customers want innovation and that's what they get from Nutanix.

As Nutanix continues to pitch itself as an enterprise cloud platform vendor, Ting said it will continue working with other vendors to get its software running on a wide range of hardware.

"To be a true platform company, over time we have to have our software running everywhere," Ting told CRN. "We're getting a lot of demand from customers to make Nutanix available on other platforms."
Security News

Dell Exec: We're Not Out Of The Security Game, Despite Sale Of Software Group

Sarah Kuranda

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With the spinoff of its Software Group earlier this week, Dell divested itself of a significant portion of its security assets. The question now is, what is to become of the rest of Dell's security portfolio, and its addition of RSA as part of its pending acquisition of EMC?

Dell said Monday that it had agreed to sell its software division to private equity firm Francisco Partners and the private equity arm of activist hedge fund Elliott Management for $2.4 billion. The division includes some of its major security lines, such as Quest Software and SonicWall.

Dell had previously filed for the initial public offering of its SecureWorks security services business and announced the March sale of its Perot Systems IT services business to Japan-based NTT for more than $3 billion.

[Related: Partners Not Worried About Dell Deal To Resell SonicWall After Private Equity Sale]

However, the divestitures don't mean Dell is out of the security game entirely. The company has maintained its client security business, part of its $35.9 billion client solutions business. That business includes Dell Data Protection and Dell Endpoint Security Suite. Those solutions include encryption, authentication and advanced threat protection.

"This does not affect us at all," Brett Hansen, executive director, Dell Data Security Solutions, said in an interview with CRN. "We see an opportunity in the marketplace to continue to build agnostic software, but with a strong sense and commitment to software sold intimately with PCs and a "better together" type story."

Dell also maintains a majority ownership stake in SecureWorks, even after the IPO, as well as an OEM agreement with network security division SonicWall.

Hansen said Dell is seeing a "steady uptake" in the number of partners selling the solutions, of which around 25 percent of sales come from the company's Endpoint Security Suite. Hansen said that Dell is working to expand those capabilities, in 2017 looking to add backup and recovery, EDR, prediction and prevention, and multi-factor authentication.

Hansen said it was still too early to discuss how security components of EMC would fit into Dell, namely RSA. However, he said "we complement each other very well," particularly around mobile device management (MDM), mobile security, two-factor authentication and EDR (most of which were also listed as capabilities Dell would be looking to expand in the coming year).

Sources had told CRN before the company's acquisition announcement by Dell that EMC had been in serious discussions to either sell or spin off RSA as an independent company, with an aim for an IPO. Last winter, RSA President Amit Yoran sent a letter to EMC staff about a meeting held with Dell CEO Michael Dell, discussing the RSA business and where that fits into the Dell ecosystem. Creating growth in security is a business that Dell clearly understands, Yoran wrote at the time.

"Michael is also aware of our transformation activities [at RSA] and very supportive. He is keen to continue learning more about RSA and come up with meaningful ways EMC, Dell and he can contribute to our success in the future," Yoran wrote in the December letter. "It's all about creating leverage and accelerating our growth."

Michael Goldstein, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based LAN Infotech, said the breadth of the RSA and EMC lines around security brings in a whole new wave of security solutions into the Dell portfolio. Goldstein said he expects some of those lines will get spun out as they are integrated in with Dell's current offerings.

"There's a whole bunch of things that have to find a place," Goldstein said.

As a partner, Goldstein said, it remains to be seen where all these pieces will fall into place and what sort of security portfolio will ultimately emerge from Dell.

"I guess we will have to see. There's a lot of movement," Goldstein said. "It's going to be an interesting month," he said.
Corner Brook, Canada, has announced a $1 Million downtown redevelopment funding project. The port city will see 11 cruise ship calls this year, and a bump to 13 in 2017, according to Nora Fever, business development manager, Corner Brook Port Corporation.

The project has a total value of over $1,000,000 with a federal contribution of over $500,000 and the city of Corner Brook investing almost $450,000 and the Downtown Business Association contributing $60,000 to support the redevelopment.

As part of the citys Urban Design Action Plan, the Downtown Revitalization Project will improve leisure destinations, corridors, islands, gateways and signage in the downtown area, helping to improve the areas aesthetics and providing a physical link between the citys two downtown business districts.

The majority of the citys cruise calls continue to come in autumn.

For tour operators, its nice for them to have the extra business in fall, said Fever. Its a nice benefit, some places will stay open (later) and its extra business for restaurants.

Photo: (L to R): City of Corner Brook Deputy Mayor Bernd Staeben; Honourable Gudie Huthchings, Member of Parliament for Long Range Mountains; City of Corner Brook Mayor Charles Pender and Mr. Scott Reid, Member of the House of Assembly for St. Georges  Humber.
Late Wednesday evening, hackers operating under the name Poodle Corp. compromised the WatchMojo.com YouTube channel and started tagging dozens of videos.

The account hijacking was quickly detected, and the company turned to YouTube for assistance.

WatchMojo is known for their Top 10 videos on a number of topics. In 2013, the brand was listed as the 50th largest channel on YouTube. On Twitter, the company said they're aware "of the hack on our YouTube channel and we're working with YouTube to fix the changes."

After the announcement was made, others encouraged Poodle Corp to delete the channel and all of its content, but the majority of comments were supportive.

The videos altered by the two people claiming responsibility look like the one posted below (click to view full size). Aside form alterations to the video title, and promotion of their Twitter account, nothing else was touched.







Having your YouTube channel compromised is bad enough, but this situation could have been much worse.

Consider for a moment that unrestricted access to a YouTube account could lead to seriously malicious acts, such as directing WatchMojo's 12 million subscribers to websites that deliver Ransomware or target personal information.

News of the hack reached XSS, as well as non-WatchMojo subscribers, thanks to 11-year-old Maize Wings  who posted a video about it two hours before WatchMoJo confirmed the incident on Twitter.



Maize Wings later discussed his thoughts on who was going to be hacked next, but some users took issue with his video's description of "I'll hack your channel."







It isn't clear how Poodle Corp was able to compromise the WatchMojo YouTube channel. In most cases, incidents like this can be tied to easily guessed passwords, passwords that are recycled, or Phishing.

XSS has reached out to WatchMojo for details, and we'll update this story should they share additional information.
Windows administrators have a problem -- passwords. Specifically, administrator passwords that lurk out there, identical across machines, just ready to be compromised. But there is finally a solution at the right price that mitigates this problem almost completely. Interested? Let's dive in.

The issue at hand is simple: Every Windows NT-based box, as far back as Windows 2000 and up to Windows 10, including all of the server releases, has a local administrator account. This account, sometimes called the "500" account after the group ID number it has within the bowels of the Windows operating system, has full control over the machine on which it is located. It does not by default have any domain privileges. (Domain administrator accounts, of course, also have by default full control over local machines that are members of the domain -- but this can generally be scoped to a more limited set of permissions if necessary.)

Once you join a machine to a domain, the local administrator account does not go away. It stays there, enabled in most cases unless you explicitly disable it or rename it or engage in other some such method of obfuscation.

Since it is a local account, however, you do not get the benefit of being able to synchronize passwords and centralize them among domain controllers. Each local administrator account password just sort of sits there. This creates an uncomfortable situation where out of a lack of other resources, most automated installations and deployments (hello Windows Deployment Services) simply put in a secure but identical password for each and every single system they touch.

It is not ideal, but you might be thinking at least the password is secure. Or maybe you actually try to keep track of multiple different local administrator passwords in a spreadsheet.

Managing these local administrator accounts has been a problem for as far back as I can remember, even back when I was part of the administrator team at a major research university in North Carolina. It has been over a decade, so I do not remember exactly how we managed the different passwords, but as I recall it was done with a massive spreadsheet and a regular password change interval for all of the local administrator accounts across the hundreds of machines in the department.
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Amuse bouche, en papillote: Diners often encounter words on a menu that they just don't recall seeing before and can't figure out.

Those words and terms that diners don't know impact how they order at restaurants. OpenTable commissioned a Harris Poll survey to find out which menu terms are confusing people when they order at restaurants, and how it affects the dining experience.

The online poll surveyed 2,035 diners, according to the Associated Press, and discovered 56 percent of diners worried about ordering a dish that had an unfamiliar word in it, thinking it could ruin their meal. Another 74 percent said they would feel like they wasted money if they didn't like the dish they ordered.

The terms that confused diners included a mix of international dishes and condiments, along with "heritage techniques" in cooking that chefs are incorporating into their style of food, the Associated Press reported.

"Chefs are reaching back, they're reaching to all corners of the globe," Caroline Potter, OpenTable's chief dining officer, told the Associated Press. "When you talk to chefs, the way they're spending their downtime, they're saying I'm going to Thailand for two weeks and I'm going to eat my way through street food and all these restaurants and come back with inspiration."

The Harris Poll also found diners said that they would be more likely to order menu items they were unfamiliar with if the menu had photos (53 percent) or explained the terminology (30 percent).

Scroll through the slideshow above to find out which 25 menu terms are confusing diners.

To read more about the survey from OpenTable, click here.
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Call them the Wood Police.

On Friday, they will be patroling Connecticuts most popular campground, looking for wood that may be infested with insects like the Asian longhorned beetle and the emerald ash borer.

The insects have destroyed trees in Massachusetts and New York, and there is concern that out-of-state campers may bring their own firewood  with the dreaded insects inside.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection conservation officers will be at Hammonasset State Park in Madison to check to see if campers are bringing in firewood from out of state without a permit that certifies the wood is safe to transport. On Fridays, hundreds of campers descend on the state beach to camp for the weekend.

If officers find a camper that does not have a permit or proof that the firewood was purchased in Connecticut, the woood will be burned it immediately, according to DEEP.

Getting the word out

More Information Emerald Ash Borer Another danger to the trees of our state is posed by the Emerald Ash Borer. As a result of the presence of this beetle throughout much of Connecticut, there are restrictions on moving untreated firewood out-of state to Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Most New England State campgrounds and National Forest and Park campgrounds prohibit out-of state firewood. In addition to firewood confiscation, violators could face steep fines. The DEEP and CAES recommend the following steps to prevent wood movement: Purchase all firewood near your camp or seasonal home destination instead of bringing it from home. Burn all wood purchased at your camp or seasonal home destination and do not carry it back home with you. DEEP is participating in a national program that seeks to heighten public awareness regarding the environmental dangers of moving firewood over long distances. This includes all wood intended to be burned including pine now that Southern Pine beetle has been discovered in Connecticut. For more information, visit the Don't Move Firewood website. RECOMMENDATIONS IF PEOPLE SUSPECT ALB INFESTATION IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD Suspected infestations of ALB should be reported to The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station at Caes.StateEntomologist@ct.gov or the Office of the State Entomologist at (203) 974-8474 or (203) 974-8485. Reports can also be submitted to the Asian Longhorned beetle New England hotline number 1-866-702-9938. HISTORY OF ASIAN LONGHORNED BEETLE The Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB) was first discovered attacking trees in the United States in New York City in 1996. ALB probably travelled to the United States inside solid wood packing material from China. The beetle has been intercepted at ports of entry and found in warehouses in various locations around the United States. For more information on the Asian Longhorned Beetle visit the following websites: Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Division of Forestry DEEP: Forestry The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station http://www.ct.gov/caes/cwp/view.asp?a=2829&q=378210 United States Department of Agriculture http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/asian_lhb/index.shtml See More Collapse

Officials say a major goal of the wood inspection is education, not necessarily punishment.

Our mission is natural resource protection and public safety through education, outreach and enforcement, and this initiative supports those values, said Col. Kyle Overturf, Director of DEEPs EnCon Police. Our officers will be assisting the park staff and Forestry Division to ensure compliance with the states firewood regulations primarily by talking to people and getting the word out to our park visitors.

DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee said in a release, Portions of Long Island, New York City, and the Worcester area of Massachusetts are federally quarantined, prohibiting the transport of untreated firewood from these regulated areas due to the presence of the Asian Longhorned Beetle, which has led to the destruction of hundreds of acres of trees.

Klee pointed out that the harmful beetles  which have not yet been detected in Connecticut spend a portion of their lifecycle as larvae inside the trunk and branches of trees.

Officials: Buy locally

Folks transporting infested firewood from one location to another may unknowingly move insect pests such as the Asian longhorned beetle, the emerald ash borer, the new southern pine beetle, or potentially an undetected new pest, said State Entomologist Dr. Kirby Stafford at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Purchasing firewood locally rather than transporting it from home is a best management practice that reduces the risk of introduction and spread.

The nearest Asian longhorned beetle infestation is within 30 miles of our border with Massachusetts. There federal and state agricultural and forestry officials continue to eradicate the infestation within a 110-square-mile quarantine zone in Worcester, Mass., and surrounding towns. This effort has resulted in the removing over 35,000 trees in Massachusetts, and since October 2008 has cost the U.S. Department of Agriculture over $146 million.

The spread of this pest is a direct result of wood transport, specifically the movement of untreated firewood, Cris Martin, DEEP Director of Forestry, said in a release. ALB is a serious pest that can kill many species of hardwood trees that are common in Connecticut. No hardwood firewood is allowed to leave these regulated areas and there is a prohibition against moving untreated firewood into the state without a permit as there is concern ALB and other insects could be introduced into Connecticut.
NORWALK  Dennis Bradbury has always lived among artists. Shes always welcomed strangers into her home, and shes always been fascinated by people who are different from her.

So, when she was evicted, along with dozens of other artists from the artist work/live spaces at an abandoned Marshall Street factory in 1999, it wasnt out of character when she purchased a home in South Norwalk and opened it to the public.

When I bought the house, my purpose was to try to keep the arts community together, Bradbury said. I knew I wanted to stay in town and I wanted to create a community ... it takes a center to sustain creativity.

Almost 16 years later, it seems Bradbury has been successful in doing just that  nearly everyone involved in the Norwalk arts scene has something to say about their respect for Bradbury, many even go so far as to call her the mother of the arts community.

Have you met Dennis yet? You have to meet Dennis, they say. Have you been to 22 Haviland Street?

And as much as shes become a fixture in the community, so has her home.

Located at 22 Haviland St., the bottom floor of the circa-1870s house serves as a gallery and meeting space by the same name. The walls and floors are painted white, empty pedestals waiting for art stand in the corner and an antique lawnmower leans against one wall. Right now, large sheets of butcher paper with Spanish sentences scrawled across them are taped to the walls. Its been about six months since Bradbury had a show in the gallery, and in the mean time the space has served a number of purposes  a meeting room for people to learn English and an informal studio for yoga and meditation, among other things.

On one gallery wall hangs a framed certificate from the Connecticut General Assembly for continuing to enrich the arts as a landmark arts location in South Norwalk in recognition of the gallerys 10th anniversary in 2013.

Through the foyer and beyond what would probably be a dining room in any other house is an open kitchen. A white sign  complete with the word Bathroom printed in navy  hangs above a narrow door, a helpful guide for guests and a reminder that this home is open to anyone. Newspaper articles and photos of the two children who grew up next door  to whom Bradbury considers herself a surrogate mother of sorts  decorate the cabinets.

Bradbury lives simply, occupying only the second floor. The sparsely decorated living area is illuminated by skylights she installed when she moved in. The light drips across the floor, painted a black and white checkered pattern with a turquoise and gold leaf border by local artist Rick Molina. Only a few pieces of practical furniture line the walls, but then again, things were never what made the house a home for Bradbury.

This home is so linked to what I do here, Bradbury said. Its a thrill every time an artist brings a new show ... seven times a year I feel completely renewed. I also got a lesson in letting go, living here, as the art sells.

Bradbury has hosted fundraisers with politicians and service organizations, Japanalia fashion shows, a Russian Caribbean Shacojazz feast, bilingual poetry readings, local middle school and high school photography exhibitions, a SoNo Design CoOp student fashion show, a slide slam progressing from 22 Haviland to another neighborhood gallery, artist demonstrations, documentary film screenings, meetings on public art and mixed income housing, reggae musicians in the kitchen, jazz on the front porch, Beethoven in the gallery, and more. She estimates shes hosted more than 140 shows and events and included more than 500 participating artists.

Though its been a several months since art last occupied the walls of the gallery, Bradbury will once again tuck the simple white open sign she painted with orange lettering behind the mailbox on the front porch and invite people from all walks of life into her home to celebrate art.

Bradburys next show will include about a dozen local artists and opens July 21. The grand opening will take place that night from 6-9 p.m., and the gallery will tentatively be open 4-7 p.m., Thursday through Sunday thereafter.

Theres not one day that goes by Im not grateful to live in this house and be able to share it with thousands of people, Bradbury said.  ... there was one time the lights went out and I was sitting on the porch with (the kids from next door) and we looked up at the stars ... and I thought, Im so lucky to be living here among these people.' It's enriched my life so much and, in a funny way, none of this would have happened if I hadnt been evicted."

KKrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
Cuba reports four new imported cases of the Zika virus

Submitted by: Juana

Havana

Health and Medicine

06 / 22 / 2016



Cuban health authorities announced that with the most recent detection of four new cases of Zika the number of people infected with that diseased climbed to 21 thus far.

The latest cases were imported from Guyana, after the four citizens traveled to that country on personal reasons during seven days.

Once the symptoms showed the persons were hospitalized in their provinces, where they were taken blood samples to be analyzed at Havanas Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Hospital, which confirmed that all cases were positive for Zika virus on June 17.

All four patients are still in hospital in good general conditions and favorable progress, the report reads and alerts the people to take all personal protection measures while traveling abroad to prevent the infection with the disease and its possible complications.
Colombian ceasefire to be signed in Cuba

The delegations of the Colombian government and the FARC-EP announced through a joint communique that they will sign this Thursday in Havana a bilateral and final ceasefire accord.

They informed the text will include disarmament and establish safety guarantees and the fight against criminal organizations that are responsible of genocide or attack the defenders of human rights, and members of social and political movements.

The signing will take place at the El Laguito hall, with the participation of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, FARC Commander Timolon Jimenez and the guarantor countries: representing Cuba, President Raul Castro, and Norway, Foreign Minister Borge Brende.

A host of world leaders have confirmed their presence at the historical event: Presidents Michelle Bachellet, from Chile, Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, Danilo Medina from the Dominican Republic, and Salvador Sanchez from El Salvador.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon along other high officials of that organization will be in Havana as well as envoys from the United States and the European Union.
Colombian Government and FARC-EP sign peace accord in Cuba

The Colombian government and the FARC-EP signed today in Havana a bilateral and definitive agreement on cease-fire and the cessation of hostilities, considered a key step to achieve peace in that nation, which has lived more than 50 years of armed conflict.

The representatives of the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), as well as the accompanying and guarantor countries signed the historic document.

The text was handed over by Cuban President Raul Castro, President of the Cuban councils of State and Ministers, to Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's president, and Timoleon Jimenez, commander of the FARC-EP.

Also attending the signing ceremony were the heads of delegations of the guarantor countries; Bam Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, and other heads of state of Latin America and personalities.

Before the signing, the guarantors of Cuba and Norway, Rodolfo Benitez and Dag Nylander, respectively, read the joint communique number 76 which also includes the agreement on the surrender of weapons, security assurances and the fight against criminal organizations responsible for killings and massacres.

The text points out that both parties express their commitment to contribute to the emergence of a new work culture towards a national consensus in which all sectors commit to an exercise of the policy of democracy and civilized debate.

According to the agreement, the United Nations will receive the entire armament of the FARC-EP, which will be destined to the construction of three monuments agreed between the national government and the guerrillas.

After nearly four years of negotiations in Havana, this step brings closer like never before the end of the armed conflict that for more than five decades Colombia has suffered, as the parties have stressed.
STORY LINK Pound Sterling GBP Forecast for Misery as 'Brexit' Aftermath brings no Relief

Pound Sterling (GBP) Exchange Rates Cool with EU Referendum Too Close to Call

President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker Warns 'Out is Out'

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The Pound has crashed across the board of late, due to the 'Leave' campaign winning a majority vote in the EU Referendum.The Pound has been a high-risk option today, owing to the looming announcement of the EU Referendum results, which are due to start coming in past 11pm tonight.The Pound Sterling (currency : GBP) gave up some ground against the other sixteen most actively traded global currencies late yesterday following the publication of last minute polls suggesting that the result of todays UK EU Membership Referendum is too close to call.The final survey from polling organisation Opinium put support for the Remain campaign at 44% versus 45% for Leave, while TNS found that Leave was leading by 43% to 41%, with a massive 16% of respondents still undecided.British politicians of all hues criss-crossed the nation yesterday attempting to sway this all-important undecided group. Meanwhile, on the other side of La Manche, President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, warned that no renegotiation of UK Prime Minster David Camerons recent deal with Brussels was possible, regardless of the outcome of todays plebiscite.Junker advised that, the British policy makers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of any renegotiation, before going on to counsel that, we have concluded a deal with the Prime Minister, he got the maximum he could receive and we gave the maximum we could give.Juncker summed up the situation by asserting that, there will be no kind of renegotiation, nor on the agreement we found in February, nor as far as any kind of treaty negotiations are concerned.He then concluded by emphatically stating that Out is out.Leading betting exchange Betfair (PPB.L) suggested that the implied percentage chance of a vote for Brexit stood at 24% as of the latter stages of yesterdays New York equities session.The percentage chance of such an outcome had been well below 20% earlier in the week. If the Leave campaign does enjoy a late surge of support which sees it win the day, then the Pound Sterling is forecast to plummet. In such a circumstance, parity will rapidly become a target for the Pound euro exchange rate GBP EUR.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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Teams and players to watch in the District 5 boys soccer playoffs

Check out the teams and players to watch and the District 5 Class 1A and 2A boys soccer playoffs open.
Lake County's latest restaurant inspections: 1 hit with 19 violations

Eight restaurants in Lake County failed to meet health and safety standards last week. One restaurant received 19 violations.
Opinion Wordle

The next day I woke to find myself in a WhatsApp group titled Quordle is Awesome!! A small group of three. There was no getting out of it now.
Presenter Michael Buerk remarked to panellist Rev Giles Fraser, the trendy Left-wing cleric, that he looked like retail tycoon Sir Philip Green

Broadcasting folk are talking about an awkward moment on Radio 4s Moral Maze.

Presenter Michael Buerk remarked to panellist Rev Giles Fraser, the trendy Left-wing cleric, that he looked like retail tycoon Sir Philip Green.

My source says: Embarrassingly, some wondered if Buerk was referring subliminally to the fact that, like Green, Fraser is, or was, Jewish. Actually Giles converted to Christianity.

Petitions are gathering signatures for ex-Liberal MP Clement Freud to be stripped of his knighthood after being accused of historic sex crimes.

His 1987 knighthood, at the age of 63, puzzled his Just a Minute colleague Nicholas Parsons, who got his OBE aged 81 and his CBE at 90.

Such was their mutual dislike that Freud demanded that Parsons make no comment on his death and stay away from his funeral.

Gentlemanly Parsons paid generous tribute on Freuds death in 2009 but didnt attend the funeral.

Apropos Freud, a source was in Mauritius in 2002 for the press opening of the grand Le Touessrok hotel. So was Sir Clement Freud and his son, Matthew, the PR promoting the place, she says.

Clement approached our table of four female journalists and said: Ladies, a case of pink champagne has been delivered to my suite and I have selected you all to share it with me in 15 minutes.

The door was open and he called out: This way, ladies.

Inside, he was standing, completely naked, with a glass of champagne in his hand. We fled shrieking into the night. A likely story!

Has never-wed movie star Diane Keaton, 70, who complains shes sexually frustrated in private life, been affected by some of the roles shes played?

In the 2013 comedy The Big Wedding, her character, Ellie, is a fan of Tantric sex and nine-hour orgasms, saying: It drives me crazy when I think about it.

Ex-Tory MP and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, 68, who has been sharing etiquette wisdom with our readers, says British dogs do not bow-wow but woof-woof.

He adds: Malaysian dogs go gong-gong and Chinese dogs wang-wang.

If he says so!

David Camerons enterprise tsar Lord Sugar, 69, attacks Labour MP and Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart, 60, over her Bavarian heritage

David Camerons enterprise tsar Lord Sugar, 69, attacks Labour MP and Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart, 60, over her Bavarian heritage, saying: I find it strange that Gisela Gschaider, a 1974 immigrant from Germany, is on the Brexit panel, telling us British what we should do.

Under attack for this on social media, Sugar has had to deny being of immigrant stock.

Grizzled movie veteran Burt Reynolds, 80, recalls fondly: Im still proud of dumping tons of horse s**t on the [scurrilous US magazine] National Enquirers huge Christmas tree at their HQ in 1985. Theyd been writing c**p about me for years, so my pilot and I loaded my helicopter with manure, flew over and watched it cascade down the tree.

More original than a lawyers letter.
One of the jibes frequently trotted out by Remainers is that those proposing to vote Out today are Little Englanders who want to pull down the shutters, and leave our fellow Europeans to their own devices.

According to this absurd line of thinking, narrow-minded outers are selfishly consigning people in the rest of the EU to, at best, an uncertain fate; at worst, to the prospect of bitter division and economic mayhem.

Even among some people intending to vote for Brexit, there is an underlying concern that however strong the arguments for leaving the EU, it is wrong to leave our European partners in the lurch.

We delude ourselves if we think Euroscepticism is a purely British phenomenon. In fact, there are European countries where it is even stronger

The normally admirable historian Antony Beevor goes so far as to suggest that if Britain pulls out and thus provokes or accelerates its disintegration, we will instantly achieve most-hated-nation status, not just in Europe but far beyond.

I believe that is almost exactly the opposite of what would happen. It is almost certainly the case that the European political elite would greet a Brexit vote with a combination of resentment and vituperation. A lot of nasty things would be said about Britain.

But in bars from Stockholm to Madrid, in homes from Athens to Helsinki, there will be widespread rejoicing among many ordinary people if we do vote to leave the EU, as I devoutly hope we shall.

Indeed, I would go further. If we care about the future of our continent, which we obviously should, the best way to defend its interests is to vote Leave, which would deliver a shock to the members of the Euro elite that just might turn their minds to sensible reform.

Let me explain. That the EU  and in particular the Eurozone  is in crisis can scarcely be disputed. The euro has brought economic sclerosis and social misery in varying degrees to the countries, with the exception of Germany, that are part of the common currency.

Mass migration has deepened public resentment and, along with the economic malaise, helps to explain the rise of far-Right and far-Left parties  Golden Dawn in Greece, the Freedom Party in Austria, AfD in Germany, the National Front in France, and several others.

We delude ourselves if we think Euroscepticism is a purely British phenomenon. In fact, there are European countries where it is even stronger. A poll by the U.S. research company Pew earlier this year found that 61 per cent of respondents in France have an unfavourable view of the EU, compared with a more modest 48 per cent in Britain.

Boris Johnson campaigning while heading up the Leave campaign

This is hardly astonishing given that France has an unemployment rate twice that of Britain, and has enjoyed far lower growth over the past four or five years. Some of this abysmal performance is attributable to the misguided economic policies of the socialist President Hollande, but much can be laid at the door of the euro.

Even in Italy, traditionally the most Europhile of countries, there is burgeoning resentment against Brussels and its edicts. On Sunday, candidates from the anti-euro Five Star Movement were elected mayors of Rome and Turin.

Note that poor Italy is an even sadder basket case than France, with an economy scarcely bigger than it was when the euro was introduced on January 1, 1999, since when British GDP has grown by more than a third. In a previous generation, the country would have devalued the lira long ago. Now it is locked into the euro at an uncompetitive rate.

Euroscepticism and loathing for Brussels are on the rise in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Finland and many other EU countries. Unsurprisingly, they reach their zenith in Greece, where, according to Pew, 71 per cent of respondents have an unfavourable view of the EU.

Reasonably enough, the Greek people blame Germany and the European Central Bank for onerous repayment conditions attached to a series of so-called rescue packages. The Greek economy has shrunk by 27 per cent, and there is near starvation in some sectors of society and a shortage of basic medicines.

Almost all this needless and shaming suffering can be blamed on the ruinous euro, a political project intended by mostly unaccountable officials to draw the countries of the Eurozone into ever closer union. In the event, it has fostered dissent, division and despair  and led to the rise of Euroscepticism.

There are a few signs that even the arrogant European elite is beginning to wake up to the enormity of its mistakes. This is what President Donald Tusk (one of five unelected EU presidents) recently said. Obsessed with the idea of total and instant integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro enthusiasm.

What an admission! Tusk, who may be slightly more enlightened than most European mandarins, is essentially conceding that an unpopular and ill-conceived policy has been foisted on the inhabitants of the EU by their high-and-mighty masters.

Now, let us for a moment make the nightmarish assumption that today the British vote to stay in the EU. This would be regarded by Brussels as nothing short of victory, and any small impulse there might be to reform the EU, or to temper the speed of integration, would immediately be set aside.

Though Britain would doubtless escape some of the worst aspects of this process, the Eurozone countries would not, and the great unifying project would trundle on. Is it not likely that the consequence would be more social unrest, greater unhappiness, and the rise of more extremist parties?

By contrast, if we vote in favour of Brexit it is possible  just possible  that the European elite will realise that it has to change at least some of its ways if the EU is not to collapse altogether under the weight of mounting Euroscepticism.

If we vote in favour of Brexit it is possible  just possible  that the European elite will realise that it has to change at least some of its ways

Moreover, it is likely that our example of leaving this dysfunctional organisation would encourage people in those countries with a strong sense of Euroscepticism where Britain is still much admired to follow suit.

Obviously, I dont include the French in this category, since they look to no one but themselves for inspiration. But it is certainly plausible that Brexit would lead countries such as Sweden (which is not in the Eurozone) to contemplate secession.

Indeed, various polls in Sweden have indicated that if Britain voted Out, the enthusiasm for doing likewise would grow markedly. According to one of them, the proportion of Swedes wishing to leave the EU would increase from 39 to 59 per cent if Britain left.

In other words, Brexit could both lead to vital reforms within the EU (though given the myopic obduracy of the Euro elite, these would not be easily accomplished) and to other countries realising there is an alternative future. The great, undemocratic EU juggernaut, which has brought such distress to so many European people, could be stopped in its tracks.

So when I go into my local polling station today, I will not be worrying about upsetting the likes of Donald Tusk and the arch-federalist Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission. I shall rejoice if they rail against Britain in the way the historian Antony Beevor fears, since I do not believe they speak for many people other than themselves.
In a campaign characterised by mendacity, especially from the Remain camp, this was the day truth finally broke out. Adding more weight to the case for leaving the EU, four great Remain lies were demolished.

Lie One: Turkey. From the start, David Cameron has hotly denied that there is any prospect of this predominantly Muslim country, with its population of 80 million, joining the EU in the foreseeable future.

As he put it on ITV's Peston's Politics: 'They applied in 1987. At the current rate of progress, they will probably get round to joining in about the year 3000.'

As voters prepared to go to the polls in a knife-edge contest, Leave supporters said David Cameron's arguments on Turkey, trade, migration and welfare had fallen apart. Pictured, the Prime Minister yesterday

Leave aside that the Prime Minister has been telling the Turks for years that he is the 'strongest possible advocate' for their admission to the EU  prompting an aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to accuse him on Tuesday of 'taking us for a ride'.

Casting shocking doubt on the PM's frankness, it now emerges that the EU is to reopen talks on Turkish accession as early as next week, when the referendum is safely out of the way.

With plans already afoot for offering visa-free UK entry to 1.5 million special passport holders, can voters be happy about the thought of pressing ahead with admitting such a huge population to the EU, giving them the right to settle in the UK?

Indeed, wouldn't a more honest Prime Minister have at least warned us that this was on the cards before asking us to vote against Brexit?

Lie Two: For months, the Remain camp's key claim has been that if we pulled out, our partners would slap punitive tariffs on British exports. Yesterday, the head of the German equivalent of the CBI laid the scare firmly to rest.

Echoing everything this paper has argued, Markus Kerber of the BDI declared: 'Imposing trade barriers, imposing protectionist measures between our two countries  or between the two political centres, the EU on the one hand and the UK on the other  would be a very, very foolish thing in the 21st century.'

Jean-Claude Juncker flatly rejected making further changes to freedom of movement rules that enable the EUs 500million citizens to come to the UK. Pictured, Mr Juncker with Mr Cameron

Does anyone seriously imagine that, in a fit of pique over British withdrawal, beleaguered Angela Merkel would turn a deaf ear to the pleas of German industry and inflict untold damage on her own people?

After all, a fifth of the cars her country produces are sold in the UK, while other EU members lean heavily on British buyers and holidaymakers. As the second richest market of the 28, we buy from our partners goods and services worth a whopping 61.7billion a year more than we sell to them.

With a figure like that on the balance sheet, it simply defies belief that the EU would start a trade war with an independent UK. Yet this hasn't stopped the Chancellor and the rest of the Remain camp insulting our intelligence by spreading such baseless scares.

Lie Three: In his radio interview yesterday, and repeatedly in the past, the Prime Minister has insisted that if we stay in the EU, we can secure further reforms. Not true, says Jean-Claude Juncker.

In an unequivocal statement, the President of the European Commission declares: 'British policymakers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of renegotiation. We have concluded a deal with the Prime Minister. He got the maximum he could receive and we gave the maximum we could give.'

He could hardly be clearer. But where does this leave Mr Cameron's assurance that he will fight to improve his pathetic deal (which hasn't even been approved by the European Parliament and may yet be blocked)?

At least Mr Juncker believes in being honest with the electorate. Which is more than can be said for some.

Lie Four: Again on the radio yesterday, as in previous interviews, Mr Cameron made much of his claim that EU migrants are deported if they haven't found work after six months.

How many times must he be told that nobody has been able to produce a shred of evidence of a single migrant being deported under this 'rule'?

But then what can we expect of a PM who seems ready to say anything that pops into his head if it suits his purpose?

He was the man, after all, who said during the Scottish referendum: 'I feel a thousand times more strongly about our United Kingdom than I do about the EU.'

Yet now, when asked about today's vote, he says: 'I feel equally passionate about this.'
Step into Millie Goggins' house, and you'd be forgiven for thinking her furniture and styling cost thousands of dollars.

In fact, the 20-year-old spent a fraction of that.

Her study cost a mere $218.The chic room is styled with on trend copper pieces, candles, a peg board, cushions and a rug  mainly sourced from retail giant Kmart.

The interior design student told Daily Mail Australia about 80 per cent of the pieces in her home come from Kmart  proving you don't need to break the bank to achieve great style.

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Soft colour palette: The interior design student said about 80 per cent of the pieces in her home were from Kmart

On trend: The interior design student favours pieces from stores like Kmart, Target, Big W and even Aldi

'Every time Kmart brings out a new range I go,' she said.

'I got the name the 'Crazy Kmart Lady' because I'm there all the time.'

The stylish student, from Orange, first fell in love with interior design when she moved in to her rental home and shares he style on her Instagram page Millie's Styling.

With the house a blank canvas to make her own, she quickly started to fill the space with a timber, white and blush colour palette.

HOW TO GET THAT STYLE: INSIDE MILLIE GOGGINS' BEDROOM Replicate the style: The incredible styling in this bedroom cost just $342 BEDROOM PIECES: Target Doona Cover - $90 Kmart Grid sheets - $40 Kmart throw rug - $12 Kmart Rocking Chair - $39 Kmart Floor Lamp - $29 Kmart Table Lamp - $20 Kmart Hexagon Mirror - $15 Kmart Bedside Tables - $35 Kmart Ladder - $25 Kmart Marble Splice Cushion - $10 Kmart White Faux Fur Cushion - $12 Kmart Vase - $15 TOTAL: $342 Advertisement

Make it yours: Ms Goggins made the bedside table her own by swapping the handles for leather straps

But while she favours Kmart, Miss Goggins said Target, Big W and even Aldi have homewares on a budget.

'I love a good DIY,' she said.

'If I see something that can be changed in another colour I'll paint it.'

For example, Miss Goggins bought a white and pale wood beside table from Kmart for $35, which she made her own by swapping the white wooden handles to leather straps.

Trend setter: Ms Goggins joked she has the nickname the 'Crazy Kmart Lady' because she goes to the store all the time

Homely feel: Her passion for interior design started when she moved in to her rental home

Feminine: She currently favours a blush, white and wooden colour palette that flows through the house

She also painted the Kmart plant stands to suit her space, and regularly swaps over artwork on her peg or clip boards.

Another tip is to get plants or bunches of flowers in the home to add colour.

Her bedroom, which is styled to the same colour scheme, cost just $342 to style, including the bedside tables, lamps and mirror.

Budget styling: Millie Goggins, 20, knows how to create incredible style in the home on a budget

New look: Keep the look fresh by swapping the artwork you have on clipboards

Touch of greenery: Indoor plants and bunches of flowers give a pop of colour to any home

Building the style: By investing in cheap pieces you are able to keep the look fresh

'I love the Kmart ladder I have beside the bed, it cost about $20,' she said.

'You can hang different outfits off there or even books, magazines or anything you like.

'I got the Dute rug from Aldi, it's really good.'

HOW TO GET THAT STYLE: INSIDE MILLIE GOGGINS' STUDY Study love: Get this look for your study at home for just $218.50 STUDY PIECES: Kmart shoe stand (two level shelf used for storage) - $19 Kmart Clip board - $3.50 Kmart marble splice cushion - $10 Kmart Marble cross - $9 Kmart canister - $5 Kmart notebook (one on peg board) - $5 Kmart pack of three notebook - $5 Kmart fur rug - $19 Kmart chair - $39 Aldi Jute rug - $49 Kmart 4 tier bamboo shelf - $35 Kmart lamp - $20 TOTAL: $218.50 Advertisement

Luxe: Miss Goggins made a mood board of the pieces she used for her study

In recent times, Kmart has seen an almost cult following with their homewares range.

Their cheap, yet on trend, pieces have renewed a passion for interior decorating that tight budgets might not otherwise have allowed, and whole Instagram accounts have been set up to share styling tips and hacks.

Even celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon, with television presenter and AFL WAG Rebecca Judd revealing her dinner bowls cost $2 each from Kmart.

Just her style: Television presenter Rebecca Judd admitted on Instagram that she is a fan of Kmart crockery

Perfect: She shared a photo of her daughter Billie using soft pink bowls from the bargain store

Bargain: The bowls retail for just $2, and Judd said she bought them in every size and colour

Judd shared a photo of her daughter Billie scooping food from one of the matte pink bowls.

'Those $2 Kmart bowls... I may have bought them in every size and colour,' she wrote to her almost half a million followers.

She then indicated she was not paid for the post, adding the hashtags: 'not sponsored,' and 'just awesome.'

Cult following: Instagram and Facebook users share photos of their Kmart styling and hacks

Make it yours: Kmart hacks are popular, as people change the pieces to suit their home

Kmart lovers share their 'hacks' and styling ideas on Instagram and Facebook.

A hack involves taking a Kmart piece and changing it to suit your own style, either my painting it or using it for something other than its intended purpose.
She's the most stylish President's wife to ever set foot in the White House and her legacy as a fashion inspiration endures two decades after her death.

So if rumours of George Clooney's presidential ambitions are true, future First Lady Amal could do worse than to model herself on Jackie Kennedy.

And she certainly seems to be doing just that, stepping out in a range of classic skirt suits and ethereal ball gowns that look as if they could have come straight from the Kennedy wardrobe.

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Human rights lawyer Amal, 38, made her most recent high profile appearance on the red carpet in Cannes, wearing a floaty yellow silk gown by Atelier Versace

Amal's Cannes dress resembled the Oleg Cassini yellow silk evening gown Jackie Kennedy wore for her first state dinner at the White House

Human rights lawyer Amal, 38, made her most recent high profile appearance on the red carpet in Cannes, wearing a floaty yellow silk gown by Atelier Versace.

The one shoulder dress was not unlike the Oleg Cassini yellow silk evening gown with an overlay of crepe chiffon worn by Jackie Kennedy at a state dinner for the Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba in 1961 - her first in the White House.

The resemblance between their outfits was certainly not a one-off coincidence.

Whether consciously or not, Amal certainly seems to take inspiration from the wife of President Kennedy for her work wear.

Amal Clooney in a Chanel skirt suit on a visit to Athens in October 2014

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy arriving at San Antonio airport during a campaign tour of Texas in 1963

For a meeting with Culture Minister Kostas Tasoulas in Athens to advise the Greek government on how to convince Britain to return the Elgin Marbles in October 2014, she wore a white Chanel suit and carried a black Prada handbag.

She could easily have been mistaken for Jackie Kennedy arriving at San Antonio airport during a campaign tour of Texas in 1963.

Last year she visited the Sri Lankan capital Colombo to campaign for the release of former president Mohamed Nasheed who was jailed in the Maldives.

Amal wore a Paule Ka coral suit and Oscar de la Renta floral slingbacks to the Global Summit to end Sexual Violence in Conflict in London in June 2014

Was Amal inspired by Jackie Kennedy who wore a Chez Ninon Two-Piece Day Dress in February 1962 for a televised tour of The White House

She wore a pink lurex-tweed skirt suit by Giambattista Valli which was very similar to what is, perhaps, Jackie Kennedy's best known outfit - the skirt suit she was wearing the day her husband was assassinated.

Many assumed it was a Chanel design, but it was in fact made by Chez Ninon, a Park Avenue salon that created many of her clothes, the pink suit was modeled off a Chanel runway design.

To appear patriotic - by buying her garments from the US rather than France - the fabric, buttons and trim for the suit came from Chanel in Paris.

Even before her wedding to George in October 2104, Amal was showcasing her future First Lady style in a powder pink dress by Paule Ka

Jackie Kennedy wore an apricot Cassini dress Jackie Kennedy while visiting the Maharaj of Mewar on a trip to India in March 1962

But it was fitted for Mrs Kennedy at Chez Ninon using Chanel's 'line for line' system, according to Justine Picardie's 2010 authorized biography of Coco Chanel.

Karl Lagerfeld later confirmed Mrs Picardie's claims, saying: 'In 1963 it was. . . a line-by-line copy. She did have real Chanels, [but] her sister ordered them. We have all the proof.'

Although it has been accused of being a Chanel 'knock-off' by many, Mrs Picardie insists that the suit was not forged.

Amal Clooney arrives at Doughty Street Chambers before a press conference in January 2014, wearing a red Dolce and Gabbana suit

Jackie Kennedy wearing a red wool suit by designer Oleg Cassini and matching beret while standing with Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Clifford Harvison, during a state visit to Canada

Jackie Kennedy wore the suit at least six times, including on a 1962 visit to London and that same year to greet the prime minister of Algeria.

Last month, Amal took her Jackie Kennedy look to new heights by wearing a vintage Balenciaga haute couture coat dress from the 1960s.

She purchased the coat from online designer vintage clothing retailer William Vintage, and wore it on her way home from a visit to Rome with George.

President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie, who is holding a bouquet of roses, just after their arrival at the airport for the fateful drive through Dallas

Amal in the Sri Lankan capital earlier this year as she campaigned for the release of the country's former president by the Maldives

Amal's pink lurex-tweed skirt suit by Giambattista Valli was very similar to what is, perhaps, Jackie Kennedy's best known outfit - the skirt suit she was wearing the day her husband was assassinated

Of course, Jackie Kennedy wore many similar coats during her time as First Lady in the '60s including an elegant cream jacket on a visit to India in 1962.

The classic piece was similar in style to the coat dress Jackie Kennedy wore to view the St Patrick's Day parade in New York in 1966.

Even before her wedding to George in October 2104, Amal was showcasing her future First Lady style.

Last month, Amal took her Jackie Kennedy look to new heights by wearing a vintage Balenciaga haute couture coat dress from the 1960s

Of course, Jackie Kennedy wore many similar coats during her time as First Lady in the '60s including an elegant cream jacket on a visit to India in 1962

She was spotted out and about in London in a powder pink, capped sleeve dress by Paule Ka with bow detailing.

The style was reminiscent of an apricot Cassini dress Jackie Kennedy wore while visiting the Maharaj of Mewar on a trip to India in March 1962.

Paule Ka is one of Amal's favourites, and she wore a coral suit by the French designer with floral Oscar de la Renta pumps to the End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London in June 2014.

Yet again she was channeling Jackie who had a similar look in a Chez Ninon Two-Piece Day Dress in February 1962 for a televised tour of The White House.

And when Amal arrived at Doughty Street Chambers for a press conference in January this year, wearing another red suit - this time by Dolce and Gabbana, it was also a nod to the first lady of style.
A heavily-pregnant mother-to-be, who filmed her unborn baby moving inside her bump, has shared the incredible footage on Instagram.

Saranlux Wunjina, who lives in the Netherlands, shared the viral video on her Instagram account where the infant's movements can clearly be seen in her stomach.

The 37-year-old private yoga teacher captured the touching moment four weeks ago at 32 weeks, captioning the video: 'Catching best moment.'

Saranlux Wunjina, who is originally from Thailand but is currently living in the Netherlands, (pictured) shared a video of her stomach visibly moving as her unborn baby kicks inside her womb

Since sharing the video, Saranlux, who is originally from Thailand, has received more than 11,000 views.

Many of those who watched the clip took the time to comment and pass on their best wishes.

A very impressed Saneea commented to say: 'Oh my God! The Universe inside of you is moving! Soooo amazing!'

In the short clip the baby can be seen moving in the 32 week pregnant mother's stomach and has amassed more than 11,000 views online

Saranlux has earned herself over 10,000 followers for her impressive prenatal yoga videos and snaps

Also in awe ziezie27_recipe added: 'O my gosh.... I saw that tiny foot..... So so so amazing.' User anirosi added: 'Haha someone is doing yoga in there!'

The mother-to-be is expecting her first child on July 13 and has been practising yoga since 2013 and throughout her pregnancy.

Saranlux has been sharing videos of her prenatal yoga on her account, which now has a 10,000 strong following.

The 37-year-old says that she receives both positive and negative comments from her followers, and even from her own mother

The mother-to-be has tweaked her daily workout to suit her changing body: 'My flexibility, strength, and balance aren't as good as they were before, but I tried to adjust my practice to feel comfortable,' she added

While her impressive videos fetch up to 49,000 views, the yoga instructor admits that not all the feedback she receives has been positive - with many questioning whether the poses could harm the baby.

She revealed to Cosmopolitan: 'I've gotten some negative comments on Instagram and Facebook  even from my mom. I can't say what is right or wrong, but I know my body and myself. It's my personal practice.'
British women's lack of body confidence has reached a 'critical level', according to a new report.

More than 10,500 female participants from 13 different countries were questioned as part of the Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report.

It found that women in the UK have one of the lowest self-esteem scores in the world, with just 20 per cent saying they liked the way they looked.

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Self-conscious: Women's lack of body confidence has reached a 'critical level', according to a new report

Coming in at last place was Japan, where just eight per cent of women said they were happy with their appearance.

At the other end of the scale, South Africa came out as the least body conscious - with more than 64 per cent of women saying they have high-body esteem.

Globally, 85 per cent of the women quizzed and 79 per cent of girls said there had been a time when they had opted out of social activities because they felt bad about their looks.

Nine out of ten women and seven out of ten girls also admitted they had stopped themselves from eating and put their health at risk in some way in a bid to achieve body 'perfection'.

Global insight: The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report is the third and most comprehensive study Dove has undertaken on the topic, building on two previous studies published in 2004 and 2010

Commenting on the findings Dr Nancy Etcoff, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, said: 'Though troubling, these results are also unsurprising, given the increasing pressures women and girls face today.

PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN WHO FEEL BODY CONFIDENT 1. South Africa: 64% 2. Russia: 45% 3. Turkey: 42% 4. India: 40% 5. China: 37% 6. Mexico: 36% 7. Germany: 34% 8. Brazil: 27% 9. US: 24% 10. Canada: 22% 11. Australia: 20% 12. UK: 20% 13. Japan: 8% Advertisement

'We need to help empower women and girls in many ways, including increasing body-confidence education, driving meaningful conversations around the pressures women and girls face, and advocating for change in how females and their appearance are talked about and portrayed in the media.'

Overall, 65 per cent of women and 65 per cent of girls cited increasing pressures from advertising and media as a reason for their discontentment.

More than half (56 per cent) also recognised social media as a driving force behind the pursuit for perfection.

Dr Susan Paxton, who was involved with the research, said that she hopes the findings will prompt a call for action.

'Women are under many pressures to conform to beauty ideals, and the report shows that social media is presenting a new challenge and adding pressure to look a certain way,' she said

The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report, which took answers from candidates aged between 10 and 64, is the third and most comprehensive study Dove has undertaken on the topic, building on two previous studies published in 2004 and 2010.

On the body confidence front, Russia, Turkey and India all fell around the 40 per cent ballpark, while China, Mexico and Germany had around a third of participants accepting their bodies.

Weighty issue: The study found that women in the UK have one of the lowest self-esteem scores in the world, with just 20 per cent saying they liked the way they looked (file photo)

The US came in behind Australia - with 24 per cent having high confidence in their looks.

Despite the alarming statistics, a new generation of women are striving to break the concept of beauty norms.

More than 70 per cent of women want the media to portray a more diverse range of physical appearance, age, race, shape and size in advertising and marketing.
He shot to fame on social media after turning the art of manipulating photos on its head by turning people's unrealistic requests into comedy pictures.

And now James Fridman, who is from the US, is at it again with his latest batch of hilariously Photoshopped images.

On his Twitter feed, @fjamie013, which has more than 45,000 followers, the designer invites people to send him their photos with the warning: 'Do not submit any personal photos that you do not want to be made public.'

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James Fridman, who is from the US and trolls social media users who ask him to transform their images to make them look 'perfect', has unveiled more hilarious edits

He then edits them - usually at the expense of the person featured - to create a satirical look at narcissistic behaviour.

A common request is for beach pictures to be 'improved' by accentuating different parts of the body but these people may have got more than they bargained for.

One woman who asked for 'super big boobs' must have been left in shock after James made them ten times bigger and photoshopped a crane into the image.

Likewise, a man who asked to be transformed into Iron Man must have been disappointed to see a bottle of iron capsules superimposed onto his body. A man who wanted to be made to look 'buffer' in a snap of him relaxing on a sofa was simply teleported to a gym floor in his manipulated image.

A man who asked to be transformed into Iron Man had a bottle of iron capsules superimposed onto his body

A man who asked for James to make him appear 'buffer' was simply teleported to a gym floor in his manipulated image

A man who asked 'can you help me fit in with my family? I'm the only redhead', must have been amused to see his entire family were given red hair

Other amusing images to be posted include one from a man who wrote: 'Hey James, I want this to be my profile pic, but I want ppl to be sure which one I am. Im in blue shirt [sic].' James responded to his request by simply superimposing the man's face and blue top onto everyone else's bodies in the snap.

In a similar style of snap, a man who asked 'can you help me fit in with my family? I'm the only redhead', must have been amused to see his entire family were given red hair.

Another man asked if James could add a 'a photo of a beautiful woman' in the seat next to him. James responded with a photo with an actual photo of Pamela Anderson on the seat next to him.

A man who asked for a photo of him laying on the grass to be turned into a crimescene received his picture back with a sign saying 'Keep off the grass'

A woman who asked for her dream to be fulfilled by being transported into space was superimposed onto the space key on a computer keyboard

A man asking for 'a photo of a beautiful woman' to be superimposed into the seat next to him received a photo with an actual photo of Pamela Anderson on the seat next to him

A man who wrote: 'Hey James, I want this to be my profile pic, but I want ppl to be sure which one I am. Im in blue shirt [sic].' James responded to his request by simply superimposing the man's face and blue top onto everyone else's bodies in the snap

A lady seen running down a train track asked for a train to be superimposed behind her - and must have been left amused to see Thomas the Tank Engine in the resulting shot

Another popular theme is mirror selfies.

A boy tweeted him with a Snapchat photo that reads 'This weed iz dank [sic]' and a request to 'giv me some abs so i can get the gurlss [sic]'.

The picture he is sent back shows a six-pack of bread rolls taped to his stomach.

Another man, who sent James a picture of himself in pink trunks asking to be cut out 'and send to Miami beach with some hot girls' perhaps was not expecting the empty bathroom picture he got back.

A woman who requested 'a tattoo of an angle with little wings' on her stomach had her picture manipulated with huge markings on her body.

Unrealistic expectations: Designer James Fridman mocks people's unrealistic body expectations by manipulating their images

In a hilarious edit, James photoshopped Beyonce and Jay-Z's faces onto this man's relatives'

Some of his pictures have a more serious tone.

When a young-looking girl sent a picture of herself requesting 'can you make me look thinner please...I'll never be thin and I want a picture I can be proud of... please', James sent her image back unchanged with the caption 'You can't be proud of something you didn't achieve. If you are healthy and happy the way you are, why change?'.

When Andrei from Russia wrote in saying: 'Lie on the beach here in Russia but I would like to lay in America' James responded with an image of him lying in a carpark outside Walmart with the message: 'Welcome to America.'

When a young-looking girl sent a picture of herself requesting 'can you make me look thinner please...I'll never be thin and I want a picture I can be proud of... please', James sent her image back unchanged with the caption 'You can't be proud of something you didn't achieve. If you are healthy and happy the way you are, why change?'

'No problem': James responds to people's requests to change their pictures with dry humour

Satire: When asked to 'make the boobies bigger' on this picture by the man, pictured above with and without breasts, he found he was the brunt of the joke in James's reply

The pictures, such as this one above of a man in trunks, mocks society's narcissism
Optical illusions and visual puzzles are hitting the web thick and fast testing brain power, reflexes and memory to the maximum.

Now a puzzle is putting film buffs to the ultimate test with a dense crowd scene in which every image references a movie.

The challenge is whether you can identify the clues and name the cinematic work that inspired it. Take the test to see how many you get right...

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This crowd scene is filled with clues but can you identify them and name all 50 films it references?

The crowded scene created by Playbuzz is set on a tarmac foreground with buildings to the left and right and a backdrop of the Hollywood sign, over which birds wheel through the sky and starships appear to be fighting each other.

A lone turret is up in flames, while a chasm appears to be opening up in the hillside while the rest of the image appears to depict chaos.

Some clues are more literal than others, for instance a man playing a violin atop a building brings to mind the famous musical starring Topol.

Fingers tightly closed around some US currency, also accurately depicts a classic US film.

In fact, the test will appeal to those with a wealth of knowledge about Hitchcock films (five clues) and famous directors Martin Scorese hits (three films) and George Lucas (two).

Three cartoons pop up, along with two classic Second World War flicks, musicals also have a place, while a Audrey Hepburn film is included along with one of Patrick Swayze's most loved works.

Ridley Scott films are also featured, with one of them providing one of the easiest visual aids.

HOW MANY DID YOU SPOT? 1 Cat On A Hot Tin Roof 2 The Towering Inferno 3 The Birds 4 Star Wars 5 Breakfast At Tiffany's 6 Fiddler On The Roof 7 The Piano 8 Ghost 9 42nd Street 10 Jamaica Inn 11 Gone With The Wind 12 The Last Picture Show 13 School of Rock 14 The Dam Busters 15 Chariots of Fire 16 Gaslight 17 Mean Streets 18 A Fistful Of Dollars 19 The Sting 20 Blazing Saddles 21 Wall-e 22 The 39 Steps 23 Dances With Wolves 24 The Graduate 25 Singing' In The Rain 26 Batman 27 Seven Brides For Seven Brothers 28 Lady And The Tramp 29 Guys And Dolls 30 Toy Story 31 The Black Dahlia 32 Clockwork Orange 33 North By Northwest 34 Gladiator 35 Blade Runner 36 Jaws 37 Shakespeare In Love 38 Bad Santa 39 The Lion King 40 American Pie 41 Top Hat 42 Happy Feet 43 Shane 44 Raging Bull 45 Taxi Driver 46 The Eagle Has Landed 47 All About Eve 48 American Graffiti 49 The Queen 50 Edward Scissorhands Advertisement

This ultimate film test is just the latest in a slew of optical illusions that are driving the internet wild.

Another brain teaser revealed how even photographs are not always what they seem.

A picture emerged this week that appears to show a beautiful scene of a lake, with mountains in the distance. But can you spot what is really going on?

The image appears to show a beautiful scene of a lake, with mountains in the distance. But can you spot what is really going on?

If you look extremely closely you'll see that the landscape doesn't include any water at all.

What appears to be a the lake is in fact a concrete wall obscuring part of the scenery, with the shrub growing on the other side.

It is one of the trickiest optical illusions on the web, that baffled many who simply couldn't spot what was really being pictured in the image.

If you look extremely closely you'll see that the scene is not, in fact, of a lake. Instead, the photograph is showing a concrete wall

Back in 2015, the infamous 'dress' divided internet users, who simply could not agree over whether it was black and blue or gold and white - with even Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift joining in on the debate.

One year later, the Adidas jacket did the same, with people saying that they saw numerous colour combinations, including blue and white, green and gold, black and brown, and green and brown.

And this week a new colour spectrum illusion emerged to frustrate the nation, proving once again that our perceptions of colour can be very different from each other.

Is this colour blue or green? When asked to name the colour above, 64 per of respondents said that it was green, with 32 per cent believing it to be blue

Optical Express surveyed the UK public with the seemingly simple task of identifying shades of blue and green, as part of a study into our perception of colour.

When asked to name the colour, 64 per of respondents said that it was green, with 32 per cent believing it to be blue.

However, when asked to name the same colour adjacent to two distinctly blue images, many changed their minds - with 90 per cent then stating that it was green.

The shade is indeed more green than blue. According to the RGB colour spectrum, the values of the colour are 0, 122 and 116.

However, when asked to name the same colour adjacent to two distinctly blue images, many changed their minds - with 90 per cent then stating that it was green

Back in 2015, the infamous 'dress' divided internet users, who simply could not agree over whether it was black and blue or gold and white - with even Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift joining in on the debate. One year later, the Adidas jacket (right) did the same

WHY DO WE SEE COLOURS DIFFERENTLY? Every single person is unique and as a result, our brains process information differently. Depending on how you interpret colours, one person might see it one way, while the very next person who looks at it might see it differently. Light enters the eye and hits the retina, which is the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. The light is converted to an electrical signal which travels along the Optic Nerve to the Visual Cortex in the brain. The brain makes its own unique interpretation of this electrical signal. It is not surprising that many respondents changed their mind when seeing the colour in contrast to the two blue shades, as we perceive an objects colour based on a comparison to its surrounding shades, not on the actual colour itself. Assessing colour vision is just one of the myriad of examinations that can be undertaken during a routine sight test. Its possible for colour blindness to go undetected depending on severity - as its impossible to see the world through another persons eyes. Conditions such as protanomaly, deuteranomaly and tritanomaly can range from inconvenient to quite dangerous - often preventing those inflicted from pursuing certain careers. If you have any concerns about your colour perception, you should seek an appointment with a registered optometrist. Stephen Hannan, Clinical Services Director at Optical Express Advertisement

People also had their brain tested by the 'perception test', that challenged quizzers to answer a series of quickfire questions.

The test began by setting out the rules: 'Answer the following questions loudly and as quickly as possible. Don't think too much and don't cheat!'

The challenge, tjhat was also created by Playbuzz, went through a series of animal pictures, asking you to name what each one is.

Internet users are being challenged to test their brain power in a new quiz - which the majority of people will fail

The quiz goes through a series of animal pictures, asking you to name what each one is

Quiz takers are required to answer the following questions loudly and as quickly as possible

The rules stated at the beginning of the quiz add: 'Don't think too much and don't cheat!'

The test surprises the quiz taker by throwing out a completely different question: 'Name one city in the USA'

The photographs feature a cute-looking cat, a guinea pic and a cow.

The test then surprises the quiz taker by throwing out a completely different question: 'Name one city in the USA.'

So what did you say?

According to the creators of the quiz, 92 per cent of people answer New York under pressure.

But if you're one of the few people that named a different city, it shows you've got a creative and innovative mind.

Riddle number one - how quickly can you answer it?

Riddle number two is 'What is the ancient invention that allows people to see through walls?'

A series of riddles posted on Bored Panda also sought to test lateral thinking as well as general knowledge.

Five conundrums included: 'What was the largest island in the world before Australia was discovered?' and 'What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?'

Riddle number three: Which room is the safest out of one full of raging fires, another with assassins with loaded guns and another with lions who haven't eaten in years?

And riddle number four asks 'What rock group has four met that don't sing?'

And the fifth riddle is 'What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?'

Riddle number one is 'What was the largest island in the world before Australia was discovered?'.

While riddle number two asks 'This ancient invention allows people to see through walls. What is it?'

A third question asks: 'Which room is the safest out of one full of raging fires, another with assassins with loaded guns and another with lions who haven't eaten in years?'.

And the fourth riddle reads: 'What rock group has four men that don't sing?'

Riddle number five is: 'What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?'.

Scroll down to read the answers and to see how many you got right.

Number 1: The answer to 'What was the largest island in the world before Australia was discovered?'

Number 2: 'What is the ancient invention that allows people to see through walls?' - a window

The answer to riddle number three, 'Which room is the safest out of one full of raging fires, another with assassins with loaded guns and another with lions who haven't eaten in years?', is the third one, as the lions died of starvation

Answer 4: The riddle 'What rock group has four men that don't sing?' has 'mount Rushmore' as the answer

The answer to 'what rock group has four men that don't sing' is a pun on the faces carved into Mount Rushmore. They are indeed a group of men in a rock group, but they definitely don't sing!

And the answer to the fifth riddle, 'What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?', is 'Your left hand'

Answer one is that the island was still there, just undiscovered, while number two is a window, number three is the third room as the lions couldn't survive without food, the fourth answer is Mount Rushmore, while the fifth riddle's answer is your left hand.

The answer to 'what rock group has four men that don't sing' is a pun on the human faces carved into Mount Rushmore. They are indeed a group of men in a rock group, but they definitely don't sing.

Sometimes the easiest-sounding brain teasers are the most difficult ones.

And one of the latest puzzle to sweep the web certainly plays by those rules.

Created by a PlayBuzz user, this colour photo depicts a grey car seat with a mysterious object hidden on it that it's up to you to find

At first, the secret object is impossible to find. However, after a more detailed search you can spot a grey iPad lying flat on the back on the seat

Created by a PlayBuzz user, this colour photo depicts a grey car seat with a mysterious object hidden on it that it's up to you to find.

At first, the secret object is impossible to find.

However, after a more detailed search you can spot a grey iPad lying flat on the back on the seat.

The iPad is well-camouflaged because it's the same colour as the seat, with similar markings.

Another brainteaser to have swept the web depicts a happy-looking holiday scene.

The latest brainteaser to have swept the web depicts a happy-looking holiday scene

A dad can be seen peacefully reading a newspaper while his two children fish beside him - one successfully managing to reel in a big one.

But within the scene, six holiday-themed words have been hidden, and the challenge is to spot them all.

Four of the six words, including 'tree' and 'boy' are relatively easy to spot.

However, the other two are slightly more difficult.

The version of the picture with rings around the words shows how many you got right - or simply failed to spot.

Within the scene, six holiday-themed words have been hidden, and the challenge is to spot them all

Year five pupils at a primary school in Glossop, Derbyshire, were left as stumped as their parents by a question which asked them to 'calculate the perimeter of these composite rectilinear shapes'.

One dad, 43, was so baffled that he turned to social media, appealing for help in solving the question.

As the Manchester Evening News reported, he wrote on Facebook: 'My sons grandma had spent a while helping him with his homework and most of it was straightforward but this one question left her stumped.

The maths puzzle was given to year five pupils at a school in Glossop, Derbyshire

'I then spent an hour or so trying to work it out but found it impossible.

'I really do think it is impossible and it is certainly not something a ten-year-old can answer.'

On social media, many have claimed that the answer is 44cm for both - but not everyone is in agreement.

Another puzzle recently swept the internet, with many trying to solve it using advanced mathematics then kicking themselves when they realised the real solution.

Antley Lamont Staten posted this brainteaser on Facebook, which has been shared more than 370,000 times.

The puzzle shows a grid of nine numbers and a sign next to it asking people to share the image when they find the error.

Yet another puzzle is sweeping the internet, this time boggling the minds of everybody with its deceptively simple answer, above

Lots of people have been trying but failing to solve what they think is a mathematical equation on the right side.

One wrote: 'It' s 4 and 5. 3 + 6=9 2+5=7 not 8 and 1+4=5 not 7. That's how I looked at it.'

However, the answer is that 'mitsake' is spelled wrong.

Theodore O'Connell II wrote: 'This is funny. Most people will pay more attention to the numbers and not the spelling of the sign.'

Pat Ireland said: 'Just shows that it's true - most of us only see the first and last letter of a word.'

Many have been trying to solve the riddle with advanced mathematics, but were probably left kicking themselves when they realised the real solution. The answer is that 'mitsake' is spelled wrong

It came after another very tricky puzzle challenged the internet to find a gherkin hidden among a whole host of burger ingredients.

The brainteaser features a solitary gherkin mixed in with beef burgers, fries and other tasty-looking garnishes.

The challenge is made even more difficult because of all the other green items featured, including salad leaves, cucumber and avocado slices.

The brainteaser features a solitary gherkin mixed in with beef burgers, fries and other tasty-looking garnishes

The visual puzzle was created by illustrator Sally-Ann Heron for food delivery service Deliveroo.

The 25-year-old said: 'I kept forgetting where it was myself, while I was drawing it. I was really hungry by the time I'd finished it.'

The gherkin is actually hidden towards the bottom left of the image, behind an onion ring and a beef burger.

It's not the only food-themed puzzle to have internet users scratching their heads in recent weeks.

The gherkin is actually hidden towards the bottom left of the image, behind an onion ring and a beef burger

In April, popular high street bakers Greggs posted a pasty puzzle that showed a lone cheese and onion bake in a pile of steak slices.

The brainteaser was inspired by the Where's Wally-style puzzles challenging people to spot animals amongst throngs of creatures that have been sweeping the net in recent months.

For those not familiar with the baker's offerings, picking out the pasty proved difficult.

This optical illusion has had pasty lovers scratching their heads - and rubbing their stomachs

The eagle-eyed spotted that the difference lies in the patterns of the pasties.

While the steak bakes feature diagonal lines, the cheese and onion bake is scored with a V-shaped design.

The lone cheese and onion bake is hidden at the bottom right corner of the puzzle.

The cheese and onion bake is tucked away in the bottom right hand corner (circled in red)

Optical illusions have also been messing with people's heads, playing with the way that the brain processes colour.

This psychedelic pattern appears to show green, blue and pink swirls - but not all is as it seems.

The blue and green spirals are actually exactly the same bright green colour, as shown by a close-up picture.

If you test it out yourself on Photoshop, you will find the colour's RBG code is R=0, G=255, B=150.

The optical illusion was created by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a Japanese professor of psychology.

Most of us think the spirals are blue and green because of the Munker Illusion. Simply put, our brains process an object's colour based on what's next to it.

It is not the only optical illusions that has been taking the internet by storm in recent weeks.

The geniuses at Playbuzz have challenged brain teaser boffs to see if they can solve four colour-based puzzles.

The second puzzle shows a list of colours, written in five different colours. The words do not correspond with the colour they are written in, for example 'green' is written in blue

But all is not what it seems and, as the creators say, 'only the keenest eyes can pass!'.

The first optical illusion shows 12 coloured squares.

Participants are asked how many different colours they can see - excluding white.

They are asked to solve the challenge in fewer than seven seconds.

The second puzzle shows a list of colours, written in five different colours.

The words do not correspond with the colour they are written in, for example 'green' is written in blue.

Participants are asked how many colours are named, and have to solve the challenge within nine seconds - which is far less straightforward than it seems.

The big reveal: Participants are asked how many colours are named, and have to solve the challenge within nine seconds

In the third puzzle, brain teaser boffs are given an image of 25 black squares, with a white space between them - and asked how many colours they can see

In the third puzzle, brain teaser boffs are given an image of 25 black squares, with a white space between them - and asked how many colours they can see.

Some challengers may see grey marks at the intersections between the squares.

However, the grey is an optical illusion and the only colours there are black and white.

Some challengers may see grey marks at the intersections between the squares

The task in the fourth and final puzzle seems simple enough - to ascertain which orange dot is bigger

The task in the fourth and final puzzle seems simple enough - to ascertain which orange dot is bigger.

At a first glance, it appears as though the dot on the right-hand-side is larger than the one on the left.

However, this brain teaser is all about perspective and in fact the dots are exactly the same size.

At a first glance, it appears as though the dot on the right-hand-side is larger than the one on the left. However, this brain teaser is all about perspective and in fact the dots are exactly the same size

This is the latest brain-teaser taking the internet by storm, inviting people to take on the challenge in fewer than five seconds

Internet users were also challenged to see if they could spot what was wrong in this sentence, above, that listed a colourful series of numbers above - in fewer than five seconds.

Reading both text and numbers at a quick pace can result in skipping bits out - which many people who failed to spot the mistake have fallen foul of here.

The numbers, which are in colour, attract the eye and the reader may automatically find themselves checking those for a mistake.

In fact, the error is hidden in the text informing you that there is a mistake to spot.

The results, circled in red, show that the mistake is the fact that the word 'the' has been written twice

Those with a keen eye for detail, and practised in the art of speed-reading, will have noticed that the word 'the' is written twice.

The puzzle is a slight detour from the current trend of Where's Wally-style quizzes.

After a spate of illustrations in which a panda was hidden amongst snowmen, Star Wars figures, elephants.

The craze was sparked by Hungarian illustrator Dudas in December 2015 with he drew a group of snowmen and sneaked in a lone panda amongst them.

Six months later the craze for puzzles shows no sign of abating,

Dudas, or Dudolf as he is known when drawing, spawned the Where's waldo-style internet puzzle craze back in December last year when he asked fans to find the panda hidden in these snowmen

The image of the panda was shared hundreds of thousands of times as it captivated internet users who eventually found him here

Dudolf followed up with a series of wide-eyed owls and challenged viewers to spot the cat hidden amongst them.

The birds are depicted in bow ties, and top hats and they're drawn looking in a variety of directions.

With their big eyes and pointy feathers it's almost impossible to locate the lone feline in the group.

Capitalizing on his new-found fame, Dudolf quickly followed up with this image of wide-eyed owls, this time challenging people to find the cat concealed among them

The key to tracking the elusive feline down proved to be the difference between the owls' beaks and the cat's Y-shaped mouth (pictured)

Reddit user Oneste stuck with the panda theme, but this time drew the fuzzy creature hiding among a group of Stormtroopers to mark the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

There amongst Imperial troops including Stormtroopers, Speeder Biker riders and Snowtroopers, is a single panda with the same black and white colouring as the other figures.

Then, in February this year to mark Oscar season, illustrator Michael Rogalski hid a golden statuette among a group of C3PO droids from the Star Wars films and drove the internet mad looking for it.

Reddit user Oneste also got in on the act by hiding another panda in among this group of Stormtroopers
Prince William playfully joked about how his wife the Duchess of Cambridge is responsible for keeping him in good shape last night as the couple attended a gala in aid of East Anglia Children's Hospices.

Kate suggested her husband was looking forward to a break from her cooking at the event, telling chefs who were putting on a five-course banquet: 'William has to put up with my cooking most of the time.'

The Duke chimed in, joking: 'It's the reason I'm so skinny.'

Scroll down for video

Prince William playfully joked about how his wife the Duchess of Cambridge is responsible for keeping him in good shape last night as the couple attended a gala in aid of East Anglia Children's Hospices

William joked that his wife's cooking is the reason he is so skinny

The pair were attending a glitzy gala dinner together in aid of East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH), of which she is patron, at opulent Houghton Hall.

A special five course meal was created and cooked by five top chefs: Galton Blackiston, Sat Bains, Claude Bosi, Tom Kerridge and Mark Edwards, who all have Michelin stars.

Galton was responsible for homemade breads and chocolates as well as the pre-dinner canapes, including avocado canneloni with crab and squid ink cracker with smoked salmon.

Sat Bains prepared the next course of scallop ceviche and elderflower with strawberry and tomato sauce vierge.

The Duchess enjoys a friendly converation with EACH Ambassador Anthony Horowitz as she attends a gala dinner in support of East Anglia's Children's Hospices

Guests were then served wild seabass a la Grenobloise prepared by Claude Bosi followed by Tom Kerridge's venison with beetroot puree.

A dessert of Norfolk raspberries and strawberries with cider and blueberry coulis was prepared by Mark Edwards.

While the pair certainly must have enjoyed the Michelin star banquet, Kate is thought to be quite the whizz in the kitchen.

In 2014, TV chef Rachel Khoo has revealed that Kate had been brushing up on her culinary skills at London's Leith's cookery school, a reputable teaching facility with alumni including Gizzi Erskine, Lorraine Pascale and Xanthe Clay.

Guests dined on seabass, venison and scallop ceviche as well as pre-dinner canapes and handmade chocolates

Speaking to Woman magazine, Rachel, who shot to fame in the BBC Two cookery show The Little Paris Kitchen, said: 'Kate was in my class. Kate was ill for a few days, so I took notes for her. She was a lovely person, but she kept herself to herself.'

Leiths School of Food and Wine is situated in West London and claims on its website to have 'an international reputation as a first class culinary institute for chefs'.

A two-week course costs around 1,600.

William and Kate applaud after a speech by novelist Anthony Horowitz

The Duchess also had a second kitchen installed in her Kensington Palace apartment, as well as at Anmer Hall.

At Kensington palace, the sleek, modern kitchen - full of restaurant-standard equipment features the finest furnishings and underfloor heating beneath a reclaimed stone floor.

The focal point of the room is said to be a dining table for at least eight people after Kate was advised by from food writer Tom Parker Bowles - her mother-in-law Camillas son - who loves a large dinner party in a kitchen.

Kate and her husband may have joked about her culinary skills but the Duchess is thought to be extremely competent in the kitchen

The Cambridges also invested in a 8,000 Wolf double-oven with (separately) five induction rings on a black ceramic hob, which boasts an eye-catching cobalt blue interior (useful for spotting burnt-on food), and ten different cooking modes which vary temperature and airflow at the touch of a button depending on whether Kate is baking a cake or cooking a roast.

Kate also reportedly owns a sausage make and prepares her own jams and chutneys as gifts.

The couple like to keep their staff at Anmer Hall to a minimum, so Kate cooks most of the family's meals from scratch.

Last night's gala saw the Duchess recycle a stunning blush pink Jenny Packham gown she wore on one of her first engagements as a member of the Royal Family, following her 2011 wedding.

Two children and almost six years later, the designer gown still fitted her like a glove.

She paired the sparkling gown that retailed at over 3,000 with a pair of nude LK Bennet heels that she also wore in 2011.

Kate accessorised with a simple silk Prada box clutch which she balanced as she enjoyed a glass of wine.
When she was hailed as 'Calvin Klein's first plus-sized model' back in 2014, her casting sparked a war of words over sizing restrictions in the modelling industry.

And two years on, model Myla Dalbesio has found herself in the spotlight once more after actress Catherine Tydesley reignited the debate when she expressed her horror at her casting.

The Pennsylvania-born 29-year-old, who has posed for Vogue and Elle, famously starred in a 2014 underwear campaign alongside supermodels Jourdan Dunn and Lara Stone.

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Myla starred in a 2014 underwear campaign for Calvin Klein, sparking a debate over the phrase 'plus size'

At the time, many people labelled her as 'plus-size' despite being a size 10 (UK 14), causing outrage - with even Myla eventually distancing herself from the term and instead calling herself 'normal-size'.

Now closer to a size 8 (12), Myla has since said: 'In the fashion industry there was no space for anyone in between a size 0 and four and the 12 plus, so the only boards that would except girls of my size is plus-size boards and thats how women my size ended up becoming part of that category.

'This whole controversy is starting a greater conversation towards more inclusive fashion.'

But on Wednesday, Coronation Street actress Catherine - who has spoken in the past of her own battles with body image - tweeted a meme with images from the campaign and the words 'Calvin Klein's first plus size model'.

While Calvin Klein never referred to Myla as such, she was reportedly signed up at Ford Models in the early noughties as plus size, before being taken on as an 'in-betweenie' at Jag Models

On Wednesday, Coronation Street actress Catherine - who has spoken in the past of her own battles with body image - tweeted a meme with images from the campaign and the words 'Calvin Klein's first plus size model'

She wrote: 'Tell me this is a joke?? PLUS size?!?! Congrats on giving another generation of girls eating disorders/ insecurities.'

It caused many to take to Twitter to express their outrage, with Lorin Paterson writing: 'Plus size does not mean what Calvin Klein think it does.'

Another tweeted: 'This Is A 'Plus Size' Mode, According To Calvin Klein. They Are Proud.'

Ange O'Neill blasted: 'This model is PLUS SIZE?????? I repeat....she is PLUS SIZE!!!!!! F*** me, Calvin Klein, you are a huge t***!'

Emma Gregory appeared to agree, writing: 'You should be ashamed @CalvinKlein! Plus size my A!' while Hannah Maguire simply wrote: 'Plus size???'

While Calvin Klein never referred to Myla as such, she was reportedly signed up at Ford Models in the early noughties as plus size, before being taken on as an 'in-betweenie' at Jag Models.

Speaking on the Today Show in 2014, Myla said: 'I think that Calvin Klein has done something that's really groundbreaking, which is they released this campaign with what some would say is a normal-size model, a size 10 (UK 14).
With summer officially kicking off this week, there is no better time to rock tropical prints. Just look at Beyonce!

The 34 year old donned multiple punchy patterns while on vacation with her family in Hawaii this week. Whether she was going for a bike ride in a Camilla wrap dress or making waves in her Cia Maritima one-piece, she looked every bit the beach babe.

Want to create your own fashion paradise without getting on a plane? FEMAIL shows you how.

Island time: While in Hawaii, Beyonce, 34, rode a bike wearing a tropical printed bathing suit and wrap dress by Camilla, and hit the beach with hubby Jay- Z, 46, in a bright floral one-piece by Cia Maritima

SHOP IT NOW

Easy breezy tops: Left: Topshop shirt, $58, topshop.com. Right: H&M shirt, Now $9.99,hm.com

Chic carryalls: Left: Gucci clutch, $890, matchesfashion.com. Right: Kate Spade bag, $198, katespade.com

Pretty bottoms: Left: Camilla shorts, Now $229, intermixonline.com. Right: Isolda skirt, $729, matchesfashion.com

Cool cover-ups: Left: BooHoo jacket, $26, boohoo.com. Right: Mikoh caftan, $148, mikoh.com

Tropical mama: Beyonce, 34, snaps some pics of hubby Jay Z and daughter Blue Ivy in a yellow cover up and tropical printed bathing suit

Tropical kicks: Left: Forever 21 sneakers, $14.90, forever21.com. Right: Dsquared sneakers, Now $240, farfetch.com

Palm print suits: Left: Zara one-piece, Now $22.99, zara.com. Right: Mara Hoffman one-piece, $240, net-a-porter.com

Kitschy jewels: Left: Gorjana earrings, $38, asos.com. Right: BaubleBar necklace, $42, baublebar.com
Earlier this month Lady Amelia Windsor had a taste of 'normal' life when she was rumored to have offered waitressed at a London gallery.

However, it seems that the 20-year-old, who is 36th in line to the throne has traded in hot dinners for a hot ticket as she joined the fash pack for a glistening event in London this evening.

Amelia, who was voted the most beautiful royal by Tatler, attended the launch of Lucia Pica's makeup collection for Chanel at Somerset House in the capital.

Lady Amelia Windsor joined esteemed members of the fashion industry this evening for the launch of Lucia Pica's makeup collection for Chanel at Somerset House

She joined models and designers such as Erin O'Connor and Henry Holland for the beauty launch on Thursday night.

The granddaughter of the Queen's cousin stepped out, appropriately so, in a black Chanel tweed jacket and could be seen clutching an ox blood quilted Chanel bag.

Amelia gave a nod to her funkier side adding a colourful beaded necklace to her ensemble this evening.

However, it is not surprising that the young royal shows such a passion for the French couture brand having already done an internship with Chanel in Paris.

The granddaughter of the Queen's cousin stepped out, appropriately so, in a black Chanel tweed jacket and could be seen clutching an ox blood quilted Chanel bag

It is not surprising that the young royal shows such a passion for the French couture brand having recently revealed that she did an internship with Chanel in Paris

But this was not Amelia's only taste of working life, with the Lady attempting a career in the service industry earlier this month.

According to the Evening Standard, the 20-year-old offered her waitressing services at the Rook & Raven gallery in Fitzrovia on Tuesday night for the launch of Sunsoul, a new natural energy drink.

The tipple is the brainchild of Sir Richard Branson's entrepreneurial children, Sam and Holly Branson, who are great friends of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Not to belie her years, Amelia gave a nod to her funkier side adding a colourful beaded necklace to her ensemble this evening

Amelia joined models Erin O'Connor and Laura Bailey for the glistening launch in London

British designer Henry Holland could also be seen enjoying the company of other style influencers

She was spotted helping her friends out by handing out canapes including tuna carpaccio at one of the events.

The bash came a week after she attended a swanky handbag launch at Kensington Palace's Orangery.

And just a few weeks ago, the Duke of Kents granddaughter joined the Queen's extended family for a celebration of Her Majesty's 90th birthday at St Paul's cathedral.

A few weeks ago, the Duke of Kents granddaughter joined the Queen's extended family for a celebration of her 90th birthday at St Paul's cathedral

Tatler magazine even dubbed the brunette 'the most beautiful member of the Royal Family'

The stylish star, who is studying at Edinburgh University, lived up to expectations in head-to-toe Chanel. She paired an elegant front-pleated dress with tweed sleeves, skyscraper shoes and a quilted yellow bag. The ensemble cost 8,000.

The young royal shot to global fame in April, when she appeared on the cover of Tatler magazine, who hailed her 'the world's most beautiful royal', and instantly became the darling of high society.

She said of her time with the fashion house: 'It was one of the best experiences Ive ever had. To see how much goes into making a fashion business is quite exciting.'

But Lady Amelia is no mere vacuous socialite in the making. On the contrary. She is vocal about her love for Latin, saying she is 'crazy' about it after studying it for A-level and is rather bookish in nature.

She's currently reading French and Italian at Edinburgh University. Indeed, a friend of hers insists that, despite appearances, she's 'quite quiet'.

Fashion-loving Amelia Windsor joined Princess Diana's niece Lady Kitty Spencer at the Christian Dior Cruise collection at Blenheim Palace on May 31

The Earl Of St Andrews with wife, Sylvana, and their children, Lord Downpatrick Edward Windsor, Lady Amelia Windsor (centre) and Lady Marina Windsor were snapped on the Buckingham Palace balcony for Trooping the Colour when they were little

Religion was an important part of the children's formative years, and both Amelia's elder siblings converted to Catholicism, ruling themselves out of the line of succession, which allowed Amelia to become 36th in line to the throne.

Amelia studied art history, French and Latin for A-level. But that Windsor love for glamour kicked in at an early age.
A new therapy has been found to keep HIV at bay months after patients stopped taking antiretroviral medications.

The treatment involves infusions of human antibodies which prompt the immune system to battle HIV infection.

It has already shown promise in protecting people against the virus.

In the new study, it was found to stave off a resurgence of HIV for up to 19 weeks in chronically infected people who had stopped taking the drugs.

HIV continues to replicate in the body even if its undetectable in the blood but a new therapy using human antibodies was found to suppress viral loads weeks after patients stopped taking antiretroviral medication

One of the key battles in treating HIV is that it continues to replicate in the body even if its undetectable in the blood after antiretroviral treatment.

This explains how the virus rapidly bounces back  and keeps growing  after a patient stops taking antiretroviral drugs.

But in the trial of the new drug - called 3BNC117 - all 13 participants saw their viral loads suppressed to very low levels for at least five weeks after their last treatment.

Scientists at Rockefeller University said nearly half of patients saw the same effect for nine weeks - three times longer than is considered normal.

None of the patients experienced acute retroviral syndrome  a powerful resurgence of the virus that makes it harder to regain control of HIV following a medication lapse, the Los Angeles Times reports.

And using antibodies against HIV could be part of a 'kick and kill' - i.e. kick the virus out of its hiding places and kill it', said study co-author Dr. Michel Nussenzweig.

Last year, a study found it was safe and well tolerated, and briefly reduced the amount of the virus in patients blood.

This time, scientists investigated the effect it had on hidden reservoirs of the virus that can lay dormant in the body and typically emerge and rebound when treatment is stopped.

Scientists say more work is needed to determine how sustainable the effects of the treatment could be.

But it is hoped an antibody therapy could one day be developed to prevent HIV and even cure it.

The study was published in the journal Nature.
Injection found to significantly reduce the time the virus was visible on skin

GEN-003 stimulates antibodies in the bloodstream to boost immune system

A new injection can treat herpes by charging up the body's immune system to fight the virus, scientists believe.

The vaccine - which would become the world's first for the Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 virus (HSV-2) - was found to reduce the activity of the infection.

Despite there being no cure for the sexually transmitted infection, symptoms can be controlled through medicine.

Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 (HSV-2), commonly known as genital herpes, affects 500 million people worldwide

Visibility of the virus on the skin around the genitals was reduced by 60 per cent as a result of the jab, researchers found.

Given over a course of three injections, the effects of the GEN-003 vaccine last for up to one year and cut the number of outbreaks in sufferers.

It works by stimulating antibodies in the bloodstream in an attempt to make the virus ineffective.

The injection recruits white blood cells which circulate around our bodies searching for any infections.

More than 500 million people suffer from the virus worldwide, and the new discovery could significantly lower the rate of transmission and outbreaks, experts say.

Current treatments for the virus include medications which are taken to treat outbreaks and to reduce the risk of sexual transmission.

In fact, the injection could become even more powerful if used in combination with existing medicines.

Dr Kenneth Fife, Professor of Medicine at Indiana University, said while several previous preventative vaccines have failed in the past, the new approach which boosts the immune system may one day lead to an effective vaccine that prevents herpes.

He said: 'GEN-003 is expected to be tested in combination with antiviral medications to potentially provide a level of relief not currently achievable.

The GEN-003 injection was found to significantly reduce the rate of viral shedding (file photo)

'GEN-003 is believed to work through a different pathway from most vaccines by recruiting T cells, which are critical to controlling chronic infections such as herpes.

'The importance of these clinical findings is that it represents a new approach to treatment, and may provide a new option for patients suffering from chronic, recurrent genital herpes.'

Researchers tested on 310 participants with a history of chronic, recurrent genital herpes.

They received three shots of one of six different vaccine doses, 21 days apart.

Over one year, participants were tested for stimulation of the immune system against the herpes virus.

They were also measured for the frequency of their virus being detectable on the skin around the genital area (viral shedding) and the number of days that herpes outbreaks (lesions) were visible.

The new injection was found to significantly reduce the rate of viral shedding and lesion frequency compared to before treatment.

Genital herpes is a chronic condition and remains in the body for ever, as it can become active at any time.

Passed on through sexual contact, the virus causes painful blisters to emerge on the genitals.

The virus recurs up to five times within the first two of being infected in most people, however outbreaks reduce over time.

Common in people aged between 20 and 24, the symptoms can be controlled using antiviral medicines.
Doctors have voted to abolish caps on lucrative locum fees claiming they are now earning less than driving instructors and personal trainers.

The Government imposed new limits this year following concerns that some hospitals were paying agency doctors 3,500 for single shift.

But the British Medical Association today voted to abolish the caps, describing them as a death knell on doctors careers and livelihoods.

They also warned that the limits were worsening the NHSs staffing crisis leading to bursting A&E departments and endemic rota gaps.

Doctors have voted to abolish caps on lucrative locum fees claiming they are now earning less than driving instructors and personal trainers

One junior doctor claimed the typical locum fees were now between just 25 and 35 an hour, less than a driving instructor and a fitness trainer respectively.

Jeremy Hunt imposed the caps in April promising to end to the days of unscrupulous companies charging up to 3,500 a shift for a doctor.

But the BMA claims that the fees are now so low that doctors are refusing to work shifts, leaving wards even more understaffed.

They also claim the limits are damaging for doctors careers as they discourage them from doing stints in other areas, gaining vital experience.

Today's vote means the powerful union will now lobby the Government to abolish the caps.

Dr Tom Mickleright, a GP trainee from Chester, said: Here are three words to strike fear into the heart of this Government, safe, staffing levels.

Rota gaps are endemic.

There is one type of doctor who can help us out here. One type of doctor who at the drop of a hat can help fill gaps for a few hours or a few months.

One type of doctor who can work across a hospital and across the country, or at least there was.

The pay caps were imposed by the Government in April after it emerged some hospitals were paying up to 3,500 for locums to cover a single shift

He said following the caps some junior doctors earn 25, whilst slightly more experienced ones are on 35.

These are less than a driving instructor and a fitness trainer respectively,' he added.

These caps are a death knell for working outside a training contract

Were already seeing worsening rota gaps, bursting A&E departments and exhausted juniors being pressurised into covering the uncoverable.

Dr Mark Porter, chair of the BMA said: Were pretty sceptical.

The Government has seen high spending on locums and assumed caps are the right response.

We know the real problem is resource cuts which have led to the need for more locums in the first place.
A mother who nearly died from an aggressive infection following cosmetic surgery has won a six-figure pay out.

Debra Dawson was left horrifically scarred for life after a tummy tuck she booked with The Hospital Group went horribly wrong.

Ms Dawson, 54, required six further emergency operations to remove necrotic flesh from her stomach which left her with an open wound that refused to close.

She was later shocked to learn she had contracted the infection from a contaminated water supply and that her surgeon was not correctly insured to work in the UK.

Following a long legal battle with the Hospital Group, it admitted primary liability and Ms Dawson was paid 150,000 in a settlement.

But she says the money has done nothing to improve her confidence and wants to warn other women of the risks of going under the knife.

Debra Dawson, 54, (left) was left horrifically scarred for life after a tummy tuck went horribly wrong (right)

She now wants to warn other women of the risks of going under the knife. She said: 'I looked better before. The scarring is horrendous. It looks like the outline of a saggy bottom on my stomach and it's ruined my life'

She said:  I just wanted a flatter tummy after having children but it has ruined my life.

I looked better before. The scarring is horrendous. It looks like the outline of a saggy bottom on my stomach. It has ruined my life.

I would strongly urge any women considering cosmetic surgery to read my story and think again.

Ms Dawson, a former PA, from Wirral, Merseyside, waited until her children were aged 18 and 22 before booking the tummy tuck.

She was single and hoped it might help improve her confidence.

Aged 46 at the time, she decided against going abroad for cheaper surgery, believing it would be safer in the UK.

Her tummy tuck was booked with The Hospital Group and took place at the Dolan Park Hospital in Birmingham, in March 2008.

Initially Ms Dawson thought the surgery had gone well.

But four days after the operation she was visited at home by a district nurse who became concerned.

Ms Dawson said: The skin around the plaster was red and sore and she wanted to take it off to look at the wound.

When she peeled it back the smell was awful, the skin looked black in patches and there was an awful thick pus.

The nurse called Ms Dawson's GP who confirmed the skin was infected and necrotic. He prescribed the antibiotics that Ms Dawson feels saved her life.

A week later she went back to her surgeon and had a now larger patch of necrotic skin removed.

'I was literally rotting away and absolutely terrified,' she said.

But the wound refused to heal and surgeons at Dolan Park performed five more procedures to remove the rotting flesh.

She was later shocked to learn she had contracted the infection from a contaminated water supply and that her surgeon was not insured to work in the UK. Following a long legal battle she was awarded 150,000

She was eventually discharged but days after returning home her stomach wound opened again - forcing her son to rush her to their nearest NHS hospital, the Countess of Chester.

There, to her horror, doctors revealed the infection had spread and her life was now at risk.

Furthermore, she would need more surgery to remove necrotic skin.

But with so little tissue left from the previous operations, she was warned her stomach would end up a mess.

She said: 'I didnt care at that point, I just wanted to live.

Eventually, weeks after the tummy tuck, her stomach wound began to heal.

But the skin had been gathered so much the scarring resembled the outline of a saggy bottom. She had also lost her belly button.

Ms Dawson required six further emergency operations to remove necrotic flesh from her stomach which left her with an open would that refused to close

Ms Dawson said: I hid in baggy clothing - it looked 100 times worse than the stomach I had before.

The stress and pain caused by her ordeal forced her to quit her job as a PA and she began legal action against The Hospital Group.

Last year it admitted liability and Ms Dawson received a 150,000 settlement.

Court papers state the Hospital Group admitted negligent failure to prevent the spread of infection within its operating theatre and elsewhere in the hospital.

However the sum she actually received was far lower, as she had to repay the benefits that she had lived on since the operation.

Mr Antonio Araco, the surgeon who operated on Ms Dawson, was struck of by the General Medical Council as he was not correctly insured to work in the UK.

Ms Dawson still suffers pain and weakness and says her confidence is too low to even consider a relationship.

She said: It has no doubt ruined my life. I know all surgery comes with a risk but I thought staying in the UK was the safer option.

Of course I regret having surgery at all, but ultimately I was let down by standards at Dolan Park Hospital and I hold The Hospital Group firmly accountable for what happened to me.'

The Hospital Group said: 'We are unable to address the allegations put to us for reasons of patient confidentiality.
HOW THE FRENCH WON WATERLOO (OR THINK THEY DID) by Stephen Clarke

HOW THE FRENCH WON WATERLOO (OR THINK THEY DID)

by Stephen Clarke

(Arrow 8.99)

Stephen Clarke has made a career out of teasing the French, whose foibles he knows well as he lives in Paris.

In his latest volume he tackles the perplexing (but widespread) French conviction that Waterloo was not, as the British are inclined to believe, a victory for Wellington but in fact a resounding triumph for Napoleon, which later history has inexplicably misreported.

As the former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin put it in his recent book about Napoleon: This defeat shines with the aura of victory.

Clarkes tone is larky, but his outrageously readable work is based on extensive research, with a wealth of enticing detail.
He recently revealed he was dating his 'best friend' Frankie Gaff.

And Made In Chelsea favourite Jamie Laing couldn't wait to talk about his new flame when he hit the star-studded MailOnline yacht party at the Cannes Lions festival on Wednesday night.

Joined by his co-stars Alex Mytton and Sam Thompson, The McVities heir revealed: 'I'm grounded. I'm in a relationship for the first time in a long time which is pretty awesome, right?

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Boys night out: Jamie Laing, 27, discussed his latest relationship with pals Sam Thompson and Alex Mytton at the MailOnline yacht party in Cannes on Wednesday night

'She's blonde. She's taller than me, I think. She's on her way. Her name's Frankie, and she's probably got her hair in a ponytail. She's lovely.'

However, DJ Alex hinted that his love life may not be going quite so swimmingly.

When asked if he was still dating on/off girlfriend Nicola Hughes, the hunk came over all coy, simply saying: 'We don't know at the minute, we just have to see how things go.'

The boys explained that they had been in the south of France for 'a few weeks' and were expecting to stay for another four as filming on a new project continued.

Hard at work: The boys explained that they had been in the south of France for 'a few weeks' and were expecting to stay for another four as filming continued

They then turned their talk to their recommended hangover cures.

Jamie said: 'I think the best hangover cure is to get up and go for a run. It sounds weird...'

However, Sam had other ideas, interrupting: 'No it's not! It's Game of Thrones and chill in bed for the day, obviously.'

Unconvinced, Jamie hit back: 'Sam's 24 going on 58, so he doesn't really know what's going on.'

And in an attempt to prove his partying credentials, Sam joked: 'I've got the best stamina out of everyone... that's a lie.'

Head over heels: Jamie recently began dating his 'best friend' Frankie Gaff

When it came to the status of Alex's relationship with Nicola Hughes, the reality star wouldn't be drawn on it, simply saying: 'I can't confirm anything.'

In a recent interview, Jamie opened up more about his relationship with Frankie.

He told BANG Showbiz: 'We kind of giggle a lot. I've known Frankie three years and I'm always that person who - it's such a cliche thing - you fancy your best mate.

'Frankie's my best mate. She's one of my best girl mates so we just hang out as buddies a lot. And that's the hard thing - if you're going out with one of your best mates and one person misbehaves or does something bad, it's double as worse because you're not only hurting your romantic partner you're also hurting your friend.'
Martha released her first cookery book in 1982 which 'changed everything'

Her brand is said to have a net worth of $300million

She once joked that she's never watched Orange Is The New Black and Martha Stewart says the real experience of being in prison is probably a lot better than the show.

During an intimate brunch with DailyMail.com at Cannes Lions on Thursday, the 74-year-old talked about making her five months behind bars back in July 2004 pass quickly.

She was sentenced for charges relating to a stock sale but this is all ancient history as she came to talk about her continually growing empire and meal-kit business called Martha & Marley Spoon.

Making the best of it: Martha Stewart revealed she spent her time in prison making a ceramic nativity scene and crab apple jam during an intimate chat with DailyMail.com at Cannes Lions on Thursday

Martha said: 'You would never want to eat in prison, let me tell you that,' she said.

'Some of the food was dated three years prior so I made crab apple jam from the trees. I also went to a ceramics class where they only let you make three figures a year.

'I managed to persuade them that the nativity scene was one piece - they fell for it. I made some giant figures and I get them out every Christmas.

'People always ask me where I got it. It's really beautiful and I worked on it day and night - and I tell them I made it in prison actually.'

She said: 'We were only allowed to make three figures a year, but I managed to persuade them the nativity scene was one piece - I bring it out every year - it has my prison number on it'

Success story: Martha, who worked as a stock broker, a model and a caterer and now lays claim to a business which is worth in excess of $300million - she sat with DailyMail.com's Commercial Editor Anne Shooter

Martha, who worked as a stock broker, a Chanel model and a caterer but now lays claim to a business which is worth in excess of $300million.

She has also just been dubbed the 'Queen of Facebook Live' - the social media brand's live video service - since she occasionally gets more views on some of her cookery videos than her Hallmark programme The Martha Stewart Show achieved in 2010.

The home goods mogul and cookbook author was excited to talk about the fast-growing meal kit business along with Marley Spoon.

Revolutionary: Martha talked about publishing her first book in 1982 - 'it changed everything for me' she said

Wow thing: Martha looked incredible in a crisp white shirt, cream jeans and fashion forward wedge sandals - accenting her look with beautiful turquoise jewellery

Subscribers will get a box shipped to their door with Stewarts recipes and all the ingredients needed to cook up the dishes at home, including pre-measured raw meat, fish, vegetables and spices.

'It is, I think, the way to cook for the future,' Martha said.

Martha & Marley Spoon kits start at $48 a week for two meals for two people and up to $140 a week for four meals for a family. Prep and cook time is less than 40 minutes, the company said.

The beautiful blonde also attended the DailyMail.com party on the yacht on Wednesday night where she watched a very sexy performance by Jason Derulo.

She said: 'He has a beautiful body' as she took selfies with him and danced the night away along with Amber Rose, Blac Chyna, Jeremy Renner and Mindy Kaling.

OMG! The playful lady shared this picture of herself as she was blown away by Jason's shirtless performance

Stunning: Martha also attended the DailyMail.com party on the yacht on Wednesday night where she watched a very sexy performance by Jason Derulo, saying 'he has a beautiful body'




She fought to be the star of a TV comedy that producers thought she was not 'attractive or funny enough' to play.

But now Mindy Kaling wants to move away from productions that she will star in, she told a conference on creativity at Cannes Lions on Thursday.

The comedienne has already set her sights on Hollywood actor Vince Vaughan after revealing that she has signed a deal with NBC Universal to produce other projects.

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Ready to take a step back: Actress Mindy Kaling revealed at Cannes Lions on Thursday that she's ready to produce dramas that she is not part of

'I have so many ideas for shows for me not to be in,' she said. 'And I've worked with so many writers between The Office and The Mindy Project that I would like to create a new show with them.

'I've also worked with many actors  like Tommy Dewey, who should have his own show.'

He played Dr Mindy Lahiri's love interest Josh Daniels, alongside actors including Ed Weeks and Chris Messina.

'I want to match writers with other actors,' she continued. 'I would even like to do dramas, I would like to produce something completely different.

Hitting the red carpet: The Mindy Project star hit the red carpet at dailymail.com's yacht party on Wednesday evening during her time at Cannes Lions

'I would like to do a comedy show with Vince Vaughan, after True Detective he's interested in doing more television. There's virtually no movie actors who will not do TV, it's just finding them.'

'There's Brian Williams, who I think is probably a great actor and I think he'd be great on camera.'

Mindy starred in both of her most famous works to date. In The Office, she played Kelly Kapoor, and the titular character in The Mindy Project.

She previously said, back in 2014, that she had the 'humiliating' experience of being turned down for the lead role of herself in a sketch show.

Leading role: Mindy revealed that she was previously turned down to play herself because she was not 'attractive or funny enough'

Mindy explained the incident by saying: 'We were not considered attractive or funny enough to play ourselves.'

Speaking to dailymail.com on Wednesday night about confidence, Mindy revealed that she finds a few drinks helps.

The brunette advised: 'Just have a drink, I've had like 11 drinks tonight and then I think confidence comes really.'

Moving away from comedy: Mindy, here on The Mindy Project with Chris Messina, said 'I want to match writers with other actors'
She always knows how to make a classy entrance.

And Michelle Mone ensured all eyes were on her as she stunned in a royal blue Bardot top and matching trousers on the MailOnline yacht at the Cannes Lions festival.

The 44-year-old lingerie entrepreneur flaunted her endless legs in the summery ensemble as she prepared to join a panel on the EU referendum on Thursday.

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Into the blue: Michelle Mone ensured all eyes were on her as she stunned in a cobalt Bardot top and matching trousers on the MailOnline yacht at the Cannes Lions festival in France on Thursday

The Glaswegian beauty, who is the mastermind behind underwear brand Ultimo, wore the deep blue ensemble with aplomb, which perfectly set off her sunkissed glow.

Her long golden tresses were styled in voluminous waves that tumbled past her shoulders and added to her youthful appearance.

Michelle, who was aboard to take part in a referendum panel alongside Rachel Johnson and Katie Hopkins among others, appeared in high spirits as she posed for the cameras.

She outlined her eyes with a flick of eyeliner and mascara, and plumped her pout with a slick of nude lipstick.

Glowing: The 44-year-old lingerie entrepreneur flaunted her endless legs to perfection in the summery ensemble as she prepared to join an EU referendum panel on Thursday

Youthful: Her long golden tresses were styled in voluminous waves that tumbled past her shoulders and she outlined her eyes with smokey eyeshadow

The mother-of-three was joined by columnist Katie, 41, who looked demure in a satin navy dress with an embellished semi-sheer bodice.

She accessorised with black flats and a smattering of jewellery and boasted a deep tan which she highlighted with a slick of coral lipstick.

The outspoken writer and Celebrity Big Brother star mingled with the sister of Boris Johnson, Rachel.

Double trouble: Katie Hopkins, 41, made an appearance with sister of Boris Johnson, Rachel

All smiles: Katie appeared overcome with mirth as she boarded the MailOnline yacht with Rachel

Chic: The outspoken journalist looked demure in a satin navy dress with an embellished semi-sheer bodice

The duo shared a laugh as they hugged and greeted each other warmly onboard the yacht.

Rachel, 50, exuded summery chic in a zingy orange dress that featured a zip-down front and flattering cap sleeves.

She added a bohemian edge with two embellished cuffs and wore her blonde hair in a blunt fringe that drew attention to her youthful features.

Pucker up! The panellists for the evening shared a kiss as they greeted each other warmly

Good pals: Katie outstretched her arms as she prepared to hug TV presenter Rachel

Katie Hopkins and Rachel Johnson would also be joining the discussion about the EU referendum alongside newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald and Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn.

Katie has revealed she wants to leave the EU, while Rachel has said she will vote Remain, going against the views of her former mayor brother Boris.

Polling stations will close at 10pm on Thursday, with counting taking place throughout the night.

The celebrity panel discussion on Brexit will no doubt be a heated one and comes after a four-month battle for votes between the Leave and Remain campaigns.

Seriously stylish: Rachel, 50, exuded summery chic in a zingy orange dress that featured a zip-down front and flattering cap sleeves

Dapper: Panellists for the EU referendum discussion Sir Trevor McDonald and Richard Littlejohn looked smart in sharp suits
Sir Trevor McDonald moderated a panel debate for MailOnline at Cannes Lions on Thursday night ahead of the EU referendum.

He was joined by MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins, acclaimed journalist Richard Littlejohn, Baroness Michelle Mone and Boris Johnson's sister Rachel.

Sir Trevor began by asking the panel whether David Cameron was right to call a referendum.

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Bold statement: Boris Johnson's sister Rachel made statements as bold as her dress on Thursday night as she joined an EU referendum discussion with MailOnline at Cannes Lions

Rachel said: 'We did need it at the time. In order to win, he thought he had to offer it. Once he won a majority, he should have taken it off the table, just like he did with other things in his manifesto.

'It's been divisive and poisonous. I went to bed the other night and I was Brex-sick.'

Michelle Mone said: 'I don't think Cameron should have called it. It was a big decision for the public as not everyone understands the logistics. I am voting to remain. I don't think we needed it.'

Richard Littlejohn said: 'It was a boil that needed to be lanced. We should have called it. I think Cameron has behaved despicably.

Can't agree: (From left) Katie Hopkins, 41, Richard Littlejohn, 62, Sir Trevor McDonald, 76, Michelle Mone, 44, and Rachel, 50, chewed the fat

The final vote: Millions of Britons began voting on Thursday in a knife-edge referendum that could change the face of the nation

'He said that if he got the reforms from Europe, I will campaign for the UK to stay in Europe but he told lies.

'He claimed to have reformed the EU and returned with nothing. This isn't an honourable campaign, they are more concerned with their own careers. Others like Boris should be proud.'

Heating up the debate, Katie said: 'We need facts. My message has been to look at the issues on our doorsteps and make a decision.

'Can you get a next day doctor's appointment? Can you get your children in one of the top three primary schools? No you can't. In four years time, there won't be any primary school places in this country.'

Chairing the debate: Veteran news presenter Sir Trevor (centre) managed to keep the peace in a fierce debate

Michelle, made the point that from a purely business specific, a case of better the devil you know is the way to go when it comes to sticking in the EU.

'People are confused,' she said. 'You have to think of it as a divorce. I've just sorting my own divorce out and it was a nightmare three years.

'You cannot have that level of risk or vote for the unknown. If immigrants disappear from the country, the economy would collapse. I agree we should control it, though.

'In 1961, we begged to join the EU and in 1969, we were allowed. If we leave, there's no going back. The vote is so important.

Brex-sick: The blonde said she felt completely 'done' with the 'leave' or 'remain' debate

Face off: Katie (left) told Rachel (right) that she thought family came first and she should be supporting her brother at all costs

'The world is not perfect but I don't like that 60% of our laws are decided by Brussels. Being together is stronger.'

Richard also entered into the topic of immigration, saying: 'I love Katie but I do feel that I am fiercely pro-immigration. But we should decide exactly who comes into the country.

'It's just so depressing when the Prime Minister can't run the country without the higher powers.'

Rachel was quizzed about her differing views with her brother Boris, who said: 'In my secret heart I long for the Brexit to win. I am deeply invested in my brother's fortunes.

Difference of opinion: Richard and Trevor weren't able to agree on everything on the night

Making enemies: MailOnline columnist Katie naturally sparked further debate with some controversial comments

'My love for Europe is greater than my love for my brother Boris. There are enormous problems in the EU, but the crisis is in Europe, not the Brexit.'

Katie added: 'I think Boris is the future Prime Minister but I would have supported my brother.'

Richard concluded: 'Well this is a democracy, we can disagree.'

Sir Trevor asked what the panel thought would become of David Cameron if he loses and Remain wins.

Michelle said: 'I think we will remain. He'll go on and serve his time. If we exit, I think he will resign.'

Rachel added: 'If 54% or less remain, he will still be in a dangerous zone. If there is a narrow win to leave, there might not be an issue to leave but I don't think it will happen.

Making big decisions: There was an equal divide of opinion across the impressive panel

Making her voice heard: Michelle discussed her take on the Scottish referendum, which she believed had divided her nation

Sick of it: Rachel said it had been the most 'divisive, poisonous and unpleasant few months of my life'

'I haven't actually discussed if Boris is convinced he has a chance of winning. And that's a swerve.'

Richard said: 'If he loses, he is gone in the morning. He can't realistically remain. They'll give him 6-9 months to stay for a dignified exit.

'Many of us who want to leave, love Europe. The problem is the EU and not Europe.'

Katie concluded: 'The rest of the country don't care who is behind the door of number 10.'

Adding: 'Power is not always safest in the hands of people who think with their hearts.'

Michelle said: 'Scotland won't be the same for many years after the independence referendum and it would be the same here.

'It splits us up and causes a divide. We need to get the flags out and be proud of where we are from.'

Glowing: The 44-year-old lingerie entrepreneur flaunted her endless legs to perfection in the summery ensemble as she prepared to join an EU referendum panel on Thursday

Youthful: Her long golden tresses were styled in voluminous waves that tumbled past her shoulders and she outlined her eyes with smokey eyeshadow

Double trouble: Katie Hopkins, 41, made an appearance with sister of Boris Johnson, Rachel

Dapper: Panellists for the EU referendum discussion Sir Trevor McDonald and Richard Littlejohn looked smart in sharp suits

All smiles: Katie appeared overcome with mirth as she boarded the MailOnline yacht with Rachel

Chic: The outspoken journalist looked demure in a satin navy dress with an embellished semi-sheer bodice

Pucker up! The panellists for the evening shared a kiss as they greeted each other warmly

Good pals: Katie outstretched her arms as she prepared to hug TV presenter Rachel

Meet the panel! The stars of the night's discussion flashed a smile as they posed ahead of the debate
Omar Mateen, 29, an American-born Muslim man, walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, June 12, and gunned down 49 people. It was probably the deadliest mass shooting in the United States and the nations worst terror attack since 9/11, authorities said.

Mateen was known to be sympathetic to the Islamic State (ISIS), and had been investigated for it. Despite this, given the USs lenient gun laws, he managed to procure two guns legally - the fact that he was employed as a security guard probably helped.

He perpetrated yet another senseless, obnoxious massacre. No words of condemnation are sufficient for such acts of terror, whether Mateen was driven by his warped fundamentalism or not. His ex-wife suggested that he was mentally ill.

A march for the victims of the Orlando shooting during the Gay Pride Parade in Syracuse, New York

It was noted by his family members that he had recently been angered by two gay men kissing in public, when he was out with his child. His father said that the massacre had nothing to do with religion.

None of this excuses Mateen - and his ilk.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the US presidency, had no hesitation in linking the tragedy to religion: he smugly tweeted that while he accepted congratulations (for being supposedly prescient about the danger from radical Islam), what Americans need to do is be smart to avoid such tragedies.

He did not suggest what kind of smartness is required from Americans: as smart bombs have largely failed, I guess what he meant was that Americans should be smart enough to elect him.

It struck me that most of Trumps core supporters are not really pro-LGBT rights, and at least a number of them are openly hostile to gays, transsexuals and lesbians. Trump has been a consistent opponent of marriage equality; that is, the right of homosexuals to marry each other.

True, unlike most of his close supporters, he once said he supported protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace, but more recently he has also expressed support for the so-called First Amendment Defence Act (FADA) which would expose LGBT people to even more discrimination.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the US presidency, had no hesitation in linking the Orlando tragedy to religion - but failed to condemn the homophobia that drove the shooter

Hence Mateen, despite being a Muslim and the son of an immigrant from war-torn Afghanistan, fitted into a long history of homophobia in the US and elsewhere - homophobia that is shared by fundamentalists of all religions, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Hindutva-Hinduism included.

Note: Mateen selected a gay nightclub as his target. When I think of this sad history of homophobia in the US, I am reminded not only of minor incidents - which happen so often that most are not even reported, such as the great American playwright, Tennessee Williams, getting beaten up by teenagers.

Many LGBT persons are assaulted in the US every year. In 2014, the FBI reported that 21 per cent of all hate crimes reported to police in 2013 were founded on real or perceived sexual orientation. Most of these are homicidal attacks, and involve one or two deaths; some are premeditated murders.

The usual pattern is that of a homosexual or transsexual person being attacked by one or more heterosexual men and stabbed, shot, strangled or bludgeoned to death, as happened to Kendall Hampton, a 26-year-old black transwoman, in 2012.

This list is horrifically long, and the perpetrators are often the kind of white supremacists who form a section of Trumps backing. For instance, on 1 July 1999, gay couple Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder were murdered by white supremacist brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams in California. There was even a case of a father beating his four-year-old son to death, in order to teach him not to be homosexual!

And there have been cases of group-attacks too. On September 22, 2000, Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia, and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, and severely injuring six others. He was motivated by hatred of homosexuals and his surname.

On July 30, 2006, six gay and gay-friendly men were attacked with knives during the San Diego Gay Pride festival. One victim was injured so severely that he had to undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery.

On March 24, 2012, several transgender and cross-dressing people were shot at and robbed in Florida by an unknown suspect; one man was fatally wounded.

There are also a number of other reports of attacks on LGBT gatherings. This, of course, is not to excuse Mateen, whose father is both right and wrong: the massacre has nothing to do with religion, but it is also true that religion - not just Islam - is used to persecute homosexuals.

On the other hand, if Trump wants us to take his concern seriously, he has to do more than blame radical Islam. He has to come out in support of LGBT rights and lifestyles. Does he have the guts to do so, or will he play it safe - and smart?
China on Tuesday maintained that members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) were still yet to see eye-to-eye on the issue of Indias entry.

While Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar has travelled to Seoul as the groups plenary concludes on Thursday and Friday, Chinas public position has largely remained unmoved.

In a statement to Mail Today on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry even said the issue of Indias entry was not on the agenda for Seoul because the NSG was yet to agree on criteria for allowing countries like India who are not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Officials hope the June 23 meeting between PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the SCO Summit in Tashkent can push the process forward

But sources said this did not mean that talks on India could not take place, or even that the agenda could not be amended before the plenary ends.

It is worth noting that the meeting is only to deliberate on the entry application of countries that are state parties to the NPT, the statement said.

As for the entry of non-NPT countries, the group has never put that on its meeting agenda. Based on what we have at hand, the agenda of this years Seoul Plenary Meeting circulated by the Chair does not include this issue either.

While acknowledging that all parties attach great importance to the entry of non-NPT countries, the statement stressed that parties are yet to see eye to eye on this issue.

At the same time, Beijing has signalled its readiness to talk about criteria for entry, saying that discussions had helped parties better understand each other.

Whether differences on criteria can be bridged at Seoul, paving the way for Indias entry, or whether the meeting will merely end with an agreement to continue talks on the issue, is still unclear.

Indian officials are hoping that a June 23 meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit at Tashkent can push the process.

China said it would be unfair to say it was blocking India's entry because the NSG was itself yet to include the issue of non-NPT countries on any agenda.

I would like to point out that the word 'block' in your question is inappropriate, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press conference.
Bollywood actor and self-proclaimed feminist Kangana Ranaut on Wednesday declared Salman Khans recent rape analogy was extremely insensitive and horrible - but quickly added that the superstar should not be castigated for his words.

We all agree that its a horrible thing to say. Something that is extremely insensitive. But lets not encourage that mentality where we want to point fingers at each other and want to feel greater by running people down by trolling them, she said.

Kangana insisted that the focus should be on making the public more sensitive to issues around rape, rather than blindly targeting Salman.

Kangana Ranaut (left) said Salman Khan (right)'s tactless comparison was an indictment on society, and that people shouldn't "point fingers at each other".

Kangana underlined that Salmans comment portrayed the mentality of a whole society, rather than just the individual who uttered it.

As a society we have to take responsibility and stand united. Its a disgrace for the whole society and not an individual. So, like what Salim uncle says is right, that we are all sorry about it. Its not about an individual. We all collectively feel sorry for that thought process, she said.

Kangana was speaking to the press at the launch of Shirish Kunders new short film, titled Kriti.

Salman has triggered a nationwide furore over the past few days after saying that the gruelling experience of shooting for his new film Sultan left him feeling like a "raped woman".

He plays a wrestler in the film, and had to shoot some real wrestling fight sequences.

When I used to walk out of that ring, it used to be actually like a raped woman walking out, were Salmans exact words.

The actor, though, immediately retracted his statement.

I dont think I should have (said that), he said, before completing his statement: It feels like the most difficult I couldnt take steps. I couldnt take steps.

Salman subsequently clarified that he was trying to put across the fact that he used to be exhausted after doing multiple takes where he had to lift co-actors who weighed over 120 kilos.

As news of the comment spread by Monday, social media was up in arms against the actor. #InsensitiveSalman started trending, although a reverse campaign, #SalmanMisquoted, was also launched by the actors fans.

Considering that Salman is a powerful star, most in Bollywood have avoided speaking against him, and it was left to his father Salim Khan to put across a sort of apology.

Undoubtedly what Salman said is wrong, the simili, example and the context. The intention was not wrong... Nevertheless I apologise on behalf of his family his fans & his friends, tweeted @luvsalimkhan.

The demand for Salmans apology, however, is growing. National Commission for Women (NCW) have demanded Salman should say sorry within a week, or else the actor would face summons.

Rape survivor's open letter to Salman

By Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi

A gang-rape survivor and Padma Shri winning social activist has written an open letter to Salman Khan, calling him a disgrace for his tactless rape comment.

While promoting his upcoming film Sultan in the press recently, Salman had told journalists he felt like a raped woman after shooting the gruelling scenes involving his role as a wrestler.

Although he retracted his statement immediately, saying, I dont think I should have (said that), the damage was done. #InsensitiveSalman started trending on social media soon after.

Salman's father Salim Khan made his discomfort clear on Twitter, while trying to excuse his son's comments

Now, Padma Shri awardee social activist Sunitha Krishnan, who has been a victim of a gang-rape in the past, has written an open letter to Salman without naming the superstar.

In the letter, she wrote: I do not wish to take the name of the person in question because I feel it would be an act of giving him too much respect. The fact that he could easily compare himself to being raped shows how badly he has trivialised rape and rape culture. The harsh truth is that good looks and some talent made him the star that he is and he takes this role very lightly. With such fame, comes responsibility.

Instead of being aware of this, he has basically compared the scars, trauma and abuse of a rape victim to his role in a movie. I keep hearing men and women making such remarks and recently too, I found a woman who made a joke along these lines. She used to say I was raped by this or I was raped by that with no thought on the repercussions of these statements.

What we need to remember is rape culture is around us and all of these trivialising remarks add to it. As far as I can say, only perverts can make such statements. He is a disgrace.
A special meeting was convened on Thursday night after the 26th plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group kicked off, to discuss urgent items. And prominent on the agenda was Indias bid for entry to the elite nuclear club.

This found voice through countries like Japan, the US, the UK, France, Hungary, Australia, Germany and Canada, in behind-the-door deliberations during the plenary.

They spent three hours deliberating in a closed room at a luxury hotel in Seoul - but the deadlock remained on Thursday as delegations from 48 member countries left around midnight.

PM Narendra Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting in Tashkent

The special meeting could not get past discussions on the technical consequences of the entry of non-NPT signatory countries to take up the India bid.

There are plans to restart dialogue on Friday morning.

According to diplomats privy to the conversations, China continued to find ways to block Indias entry, and other nations too had their share of concerns on the issue.

Ireland, Austria and New Zealand raised questions on the merits of non- NPT signatory nations, with Turkey flagging Pakistans right of membership to the NSG in future.

Brazil emphasised the need for a nondiscriminatory, criterion-based process.

However, top Indian government sources claimed that the questions of merit raised by some countries cant be compared to the Chinese opposition. And there were 32 positive interventions in favour of India during the day.

Diplomatic Officials feel confident that this apparent opposition is about trying to find ways to come to an agreement for India despite it not signing the NPT, based on its impeccable non-proliferation record.

Just two hours ahead of the special NSG meeting, all eyes were set on the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent.

India raised the NSG plenary issue in the nearly fifty-minute-long meeting along the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said: PM Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application and judge it on its merit.

The PM also said China should contribute to an emerging consensus in Seoul, according to the ministry spokesperson. China, however, remained non-committal.

At the NSG meeting, there were no clear indications that Indias membership push was on the agenda. Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se simply said: We NSG members also need to strive to forge a consensus on the membership issue, considering our needs to further strengthen this group.

He later evaded a direct question posed by Mail Today over whether New Delhis application would figure at the plenary.

The Indian delegation in Seoul, led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar despite him not being inside the consultation room, has been holding dialogue on the side.

Jaishankar met delegation members, including the Brazilians, to assuage their concerns.
Rebel Tripura Congress chief Sudip Roy Barman recently resigned to join the Trinamool Congress.

And on Thursday he said that politics is not Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhis cup of tea, as he is less concerned about regional politics taking place in states traditionally known as communist strongholds.

What I could understand after working with him so closely for significant years is that politics is not Rahul Gandhis cup of tea. He is not really bothered about the electoral loss and gain of the Congress in states like Tripura, West Bengal or Kerala, Barman told Mail Today on Thursday.

Sudip Roy Barman (right) says Rahul Gandhi is not bothered about the Congress's electoral gains and losses in states like Tripura

The ex-Tripura Congress chief said he had started writing to the party high command from the time that both the Congress and the CPI-M were holding talks to forge an electoral alliance in West Bengal.

In all three communications, he categorically pointed out how the Congress had failed to identify its true friend in the eastern parts.

I had sent three letters both to him and Congress president Sonia Gandhi seeking appointments, but they turned them deaf ears. Rahul Gandhi very well knows even if the CPI-M wins in these three states they will anyway support the Congress at the Centre. So for him it does not really matter. There is a tacit understanding which came out in the open in Bengal, Barman said.

Last year, Himanta Biswa Sarma abandoned the Congress in Assam to join the BJP, after being rejected by the Congress vice-president. The result is that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) moved a step closer to its audacious ambition of a Congress-mukt Bharat, winning the crucial Assembly elections in Assam.

Sharma also alleged that when he had warned Rahul two years ago of how badly the party was imploding, the V-P responded blithely with a series of so what? comments while playing with his dog. The same thing was repeated in 2016.

Unhappy with the response from the party high command, Roy Barman - ex-president of Tripura Congress Committee and also the leader of the Opposition in state Assembly - resigned from the Congress and joined the TMC along with five other Congress MLAs this month.

The four-time Congress legislator from Agartala, Barman became furious about the Congress high command not paying heed to crucial state issues.

We all have seen how the TMC stood by Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald controversy. But the Congress forgot everything when time came. I told the high command the CPIM was dead and gone in Bengal. If We (Congress) can fight alone it would be easier to make the communist roll into oblivion in Bengal. I also explained what implication it will have in Tripura Congress if the party joins hands with CPI-M, he said.

Barman added that the party high command never bothered to call him to Delhi, and nor did they send any envoy to address the crisis at ground zero.

Earlier, Barman was projected by the Congress as its CM candidate for the 2013 polls. He also remained in the good books of Rahul between 2012 and 2014 and fast became the key face of the party in the last red bastion.

I honestly tried to turn around the Congress in Tripura and our opinion never mattered to him (Rahul Gandhi). But the result was this. I could have easily spent the rest of my political career just being one of Rahuls yes men. And the other option was to respect and respond to the sentiment of the people in Tripura. So I decided to go for the latter, Barman said.

He lambasted the coldness of the Congress top guns towards various state issues and branded it the sole reason for the party's eroding power base in the northeast.

The BJP is now going ahead with their state-specific approach. Every state cannot have the same set of problems and solutions. It varies region to region. But the Congress is implementing a universal policy for every state. The entire political functioning of the Congress is high command-oriented. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are human beings after all, Barman said.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar wants the three services to engage more with Southeast Asian countries

The volatile situation in Southeast Asia has forced India to rethink its policy of holding joint military exercises with foreign forces.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar wants the three services to engage more with Southeast Asian countries.

Pest no-control at the BJP HQ

The BJP headquarters on Ashoka Road seems to be struggling to cope up with the pest problem. The office was shut for some time in the afternoon as the premises underwent pesticide treatment.

The functionaries had to leave their rooms and stop work till the process was complete.

'Yogi' Modi at Goels home

Delhi BJP leader Vijay Goel is known to attract attention through big billboards at his official residence, bang opposite the BJP headquarters on Ashoka Road.

The latest one shows Prime Minister Narendra Modis various yoga poses. The caption described the Prime Minister as Narendra Yogi.

Visitors to the party headquarters cannot miss the message.

No Congress iftar party this year

In order to avoid the tag of pursuing appeasement politics, the Congress has decided to drop the annual iftar parties it used to host to project a secular image.

Instead, the grand old party will distribute rations among the poor to keep up with the spirit of Ramzan.

The Congress move comes against an RSS-backed body planning Iftars for the minority community.

Gogoi's tribute to Sanjay Gandhi

While Sanjay Gandhis 36th death anniversary largely went unnoticed in the Congress circles, former three-term Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi remembered the leader.

Rich tributes to Shri Sanjay Gandhi ji on his 36th death anniversary, Gogoi tweeted.
Fraying at the edges and crumbling at the centre, the Congress would naturally seek to reassure itself that all is not lost - that the ship that once sailed majestically through the stormy seas of Indian politics may have keeled, but is yet to sink.

That does not, however, mean the reality reflects this self-deceiving perception: family-held loss-making firms, broke and on the verge of bankruptcy, are always projected as robust and profitable by their principal owners.

Responsibility

So it is with the Congress. The two principal stakeholders, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, the president and the vice-president of the party, are loath to admit that the Nehru dynasty-owned firm is in terminal decline.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi have steered the Congress onto the rocks

That would require them to take responsibility, accepting that they are to blame for the wreck of a once robust political organisation.

Sycophancy was the glue that barely held the cracks, and with sycophants running out of political capital or abandoning ship, that glue is now coming apart.

The startling performance of the Congress in the Bihar Assembly election was advertised as the party hitting the comeback trail, led by Rahul Gandhi, the dashing and youthful leader pushing the wrong side of 40.

No-one in the party bothered to point out that in Bihar it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Congress, that the real victory was that of the RJD and the JD(U). Political analysts who did point this out were either ignored or labelled as anti-Congress.

That they were right was proven by the Congresss washout in Assam.

In West Bengal, Congress strongmen held their own, no thanks to either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul. It was comical to see the high command, no longer high or in command, try and secure the loyalty of the partys West Bengal MLAs through affidavits signed on stamp papers. They must have been both amazed and amused, because it wasnt loyalty to dynasty that had won them their seats.

Meanwhile, in Karnataka, the Congress government is in a tailspin, unravelling at a speed faster than its political foes can cope with.

Any attempt to make amends will only create another group of dissenters without appeasing any of the factions.

In Punjab, where the Assembly elections are due in the near future, the Congress should have been preparing to assume office, replacing the incumbent battered and bruised Akali Dal-BJP government.

But thats not the way it is. Hobbled by intrigue and intransigent feuding leaders, the Congress in Punjab found itself being burdened with a nominee of high command who is perceived to be tainted by the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984.

How could he have been nominated as in-charge of Punjab? Whose wisdom lay behind this decision?

Evidence

That this person has since resigned from his post is neither here nor there. It is equally irrelevant that there is scant evidence to suggest that he had participated in the violence that was unleashed after Indira Gandhis assassination.

In politics, perception often outweighs reality, a fact unrecognised by the mother, the son and their unholy courtiers.

The future that stares the Congress in the face in Uttar Pradesh is no less bleak. Long ago abandoned and disowned by its traditional voters, the Congress is in search of both a face and an identity in this battlefield state.

Its a long stretch between now and polling next year, but unless a miracle happens, the Congress will come in last, again.

All this adds up to the fast disintegration of Indias only other national party. Which, in other words, means the BJPs slogan of Congress-mukt Bharat, or Congress-free India, is coming true.

Worry

That should delight the BJP and its supporters. And it should worry India. Not because a natural corollary of a declining Congress is a rising BJP (as Left-liberals tend to fret and worry about), but because the Congress is being supplanted by regional parties with parochial agendas or, worse, dangerously loony agendas.

For evidence, you have to only look at Delhi. Indias capital city increasingly resembles a Tughlaqian state run by a regime with a Gestapo mentality.

The worst Orwellian nightmares are coming true in this half-state. Whats metaphorical today will be the reality tomorrow - from arrest and interrogate to arrest and incinerate, history tells us, is not a very long journey.

Tragically, obsessed as it is with the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress cant see the disastrous consequences of its collapse.

If only the minority shareholders would boot out the principal owners and rebuild the Congress! If only!
It's going right down to the wire - and Indian diplomacy has never looked more self-assured or confident.

It is openly taking on China in a manner few states have dared to in recent times, and in doing so is laying down new terms for global politics and setting new parameters for Indian foreign policy.

India may or may not get a seat at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) this week - but the country's diplomacy will never be the same again.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese President XI Jinping during a meeting in Shaanxi Province, China

Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is in Seoul, South Korea, to attend the NSGs plenary meeting, scheduled for Thursday.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent to make one final effort to change Chinas stand on Indias entry into the NSG.

Indias entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, whose members can trade in and export nuclear technology, has emerged as the latest battleground in the growing Sino-Indian contestation.

Where the US and other supporting members have called for Indias inclusion - based on New Delhis non-proliferation track record and the US-India civil nuclear accord - China has made the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signature its central argument to scuttle Indias entry.

Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent to make one final effort to change Chinas stand on Indias entry into the NSG

Beijing is claiming that a 'compulsory' requirement for the NSG membership is that 'the NSG members must be signatories to the NPT.'

Apart from the rhetoric about the NPT, China has also encouraged Pakistan to apply for NSG membership to link New Delhis entry with that of Islamabads, knowing well that there will be few takers for Pakistans case.

After consistently refusing to entertain Indias case over the past few weeks, China has indicated that it will 'play a constructive role in the discussions on Indias NSG membership.'

Taking a swipe at America, it has argued that 'the US is one of those who made the rule that non-NPT countries should not join the Nuclear Suppliers Group.'

Pakistan, meanwhile, has already claimed that it has 'successfully' blocked Indias bid to gain membership of the NSG.

The US hit back by claiming that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have violated UN sanctions by supplying restricted items, aiding nuclear arms production in North Korea.

And it's alleged that China has tried to keep this information secret so that it doesnt jeopardise Pakistans NSG bid - all to ensure that India does not get an entry into the NSG.

Indian diplomacy can claim credit for setting the contours of great power politics today, even as it pursues the country's interests with a singular clarity.

It is a tribute to the Modi governments deft handling of foreign affairs. It has managed to energise an ossified bureaucracy adverse to risk, which hyperventilates on just hearing the term lateral entry.

Indias foreign policy bureaucracy is realising that a new form of lateral entry has forced it to shape up - and thats primarily due to Modi and his foreign policy team.

Modis style of foreign policy has been so disruptive that a new paradigm of diplomacy is being created, which will have long-term implications.

Those who criticise Modi for only bringing in a new style of Indian diplomacy and no substantive change should now recognise that stylistic changes in foreign policy have their own logic, eventually leading to a new conceptualisation.

As Indias dynamic diplomacy on the NSG issue is underscored, Modis style is already having a significant impact and will gradually end up overturning long-held shibboleths on foreign policy.

If India succeeds in getting an entry into the NSG, it will be a feather in the cap of the Modi government. If it fails due to Chinas obstinacy, it will have revealed to the world - and Indians -that China has no intention of accommodating its aspirations.

For Indias traditionally conservative foreign policy, its not a bad place to be in.

But more heartening is the fact that India is finally proactively shaping global outcomes, not merely reacting to the actions of the others.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is heading to China

Amid the ongoing controversy over the head of the RBI, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head to China today for an official five-day visit.

Jaitley will arrive in Beijing to join the First annual meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on June 25 and 26.

During his stay, the finance minister will also hold talks with Chinese investors and bankers to seek investment in infrastructure and other sectors in India.

History lessons for Prime Minister before foreign tours

The National Archive of India (NAI) is being used to the fullest by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) for historical references.

Before Narendra Modis diplomatic visits to various foreign lands, the PMO makes sure to seek its help.

The office is in constant touch with the records-keeping section of the countrys central repository, asking for important documents.

Brawl Ramzan for AAP's Khan

Supporters of AAP MLA Asim Ahmed Khan were engulfed in a scuffle with a man near Jama Masjid.

The incident took place on Tuesday night as Khan made a routine round in his Delhi constituency to see the arrangements during Ramzan.

It is alleged that the supporters had a brawl with the man responsible for the sting operation on Khan, which saw him removed from his cabinet minister post. Cops reached the spot and pacified the mob.

In the alleged audio clip which surfaced in October last year and saw Khan lose his position in charge of food, environment and supplies, he was accused of speaking with a middleman and a builder seeking a bribe.

Naidu takes dig at former PM's wife Sonia Gandhi

Union minister M Vankaiah Naidu yesterday took a dig at the Congress leadership, claiming 'Team Modi' now decides on public welfare - unlike the days when Madam decided and PM obeyed.

'The biggest change the Modi government has brought is that we have ended the situation of policy paralysis.
An international drug cartel has been found smuggling cocaine wrapped in chocolate foils through Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

The plan was foiled on Wednesday when authorities arrested four foreign nationals carrying cocaine hidden inside chocolate wrappers.

The main handler, believed to be a Nigerian national residing in the Capital, is yet to be caught.

Subterfuge: Authorities arrested four foreign nationals at Delhi's Indira Gandhi Airport, carrying cocaine hidden inside chocolate wrappers

When we opened these foils, we found light-coloured pellets inside the wrapper. These pellets were kept along with the real chocolates, informed a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) official.

On opening the foils DRI officials got suspicious, and when these pellets were sent for forensic examination it emerged that they were actually filled with cocaine.

Since April, five people have been arrested in connection with smuggling cocaine from Dubai. They were from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, and South Africa respectively.

Dubai has become a focal point for smugglers, who then deliver high-value narcotics across the world (file pic)

When these individuals were interrogated, they revealed that they were handed over chocolates at the Dubai Airport. And all of them were meant to deliver these chocolates to a person called John. Their interrogation also revealed that John, a Nigeria national, is now settled in Delhi, said the DRI official.

Records show that Dubai is now increasingly becoming a focal point for drug-runners, who then deliver high-value narcotics to Delhi.
A stamp duty hike hangover and fears that Britain will vote to abandon the European Union today have pushed lenders to slash buy-to-let rates and bump up how much they'll lend to landlords who are delaying investment.

Santander, Nationwide, Aldermore, Pepper Home Loans, Precise Mortgages and Nottingham Building Society have all dropped their buy-to-let rates or raised their maximum loan-to-values for landlords in the past few weeks in a bid to entice landlords to remortgage or invest in new properties.

Bob Young, chief executive at specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender Fleet Mortgages, said: 'Quite simply, its a lack of business that is driving down rates.

All quiet on the landlord front: Property investors are holding back amid Brexit uncertainty

A stampede to pull forward buy-to-let purchases before the stamp duty hike on 1 April has left the buy-to-let market quiet and some experts suggest the Brexit threat is also having an effect.

'Many buyers are understandably waiting on the outcome of the EU referendum vote today and this is dampening down activity in the purchase sector,' said Young. 'At the same time theres also fierce competition for remortgage business which is translating into lower rates.'

The Mortgage Works, the specialist buy-to-let arm of Nationwide confirmed it will bring down its rates across the board from tomorrow.

This includes a two-year fixed rate at 65 per cent LTV with 995 fee which is now 2.49 per cent and a 65 per cent LTV fee-free two-year deal fixed at 2.79 per cent.

For those with a 25 per cent deposit or equity, two-year fixed rates have been cut to 2.09 per cent for those paying a 2.5 per cent fee, to 2.39 per cent with a 1,995 fee, to 2.69 per cent with a 995 fee and to 2.99 per cent with no fee.

Ying Tan, of adviser The Buy to Let Business, agreed that mortgage lenders are doing all they can to tempt landlords.

He said: 'Its news to no-one that these are challenging times for buy-to-let and as a result many landlords are cautious when expanding their portfolios at present.

'The cuts to landlord tax relief set to come into play next year, the stamp duty hike for investment properties that came into effect in April and the general market uncertainty caused by the EU referendum has had a big impact on the market and lenders are obviously keen to encourage investors to take the plunge.'

CHALLENGES FACING LANDLORDS Tax relief on mortgage payments Currently landlords can claim tax relief on their mortgage interest at the rate they pay income tax. From 2017 this rate will reduce annually over a four year period to a maximum of 20 per cent - down from the maximum of 45 per cent for higher rate tax payers now Wear and tear Until April this year landlords could deduct 10 per cent of their rental income when calculating taxable profit to allow for general 'wear and tear'. Now landlords can only deduct the actual costs incurred by replacing furnishings in the tax year Stamp duty surcharge Anyone purchasing a buy-to-let property or second home after 1 April this year has to pay a 3 per cent surcharge over the standard rate of stamp duty adding tens of thousands of pounds to the cost of purchase Bank of England crackdown Prudential regulators in the Bank of England have expressed worry the buy-to-let market is overheating and are due to publish further measures to keep a lid on landlord investment fuelled by buy-to-let mortgages at the end of June. This is likely to include a cap on the rental income ratio stress test

Experienced investors

Rates vary depending on whether you use a mortgage adviser or go to a lender directly.

Brokers say the best rates on offer at the moment include a two-year discounted rate at 4.99 per cent, available up to 85 per cent LTV from Kent Reliance, a two-year fixed deal at 1.64 per cent up to 60 per cent LTV with an arrangement fee of 1,845 from Accord and a two-year tracker at 1.77 per cent up to 60 per cent LTV with an arrangement fee of 995 and 500 cashback on completion.

For existing landlords who want a two-year fixed rate, Principality Building Society offers the best deal directly at 2.80 per cent up to 75 LTV with a minimum fee of 895.

For landlords with substantial equity to put in, the society also offers a two-year fixed rate at 2.15 per cent at 60 per cent LTV with a minimum fee of 994.

...or first-timer

First-time landlords have more restricted options because of rules that came in from Europe in March this year to strengthen their consumer protection rights.

That forced a lot of buy-to-let lenders to stop lending to aspiring landlords altogether, or to ask more probing questions about their income and expenses and why they plan to become a landlord.

Virgin Money offers a two-year variable rate of 1.77 per cent which tracks the base rate at 1.27 per cent above and reverts to 4.99 per cent after the initial two year period. The lender charges a 995 fee and in order to qualify, you'll need a deposit of 40 per cent.

For those with less cash to invest, the best two-year fixed rate for first-timers is also from Virgin Money at 2.38 per cent up to 75 per cent LTV with a 1,995 fee.

Tan said: 'Rates are certainly falling but there are plenty of other hurdles facing investors, not least increased rental cover requirements from a number of lenders, so getting the right advice is key to ensuring you get the best deal.'

Lenders are struggling to keep their business levels up after a 3 per cent surcharge on all buy-to-let purchases was introduced on 1 April this year.

Those buying a second property worth 250,000 or more have been hit the worst, with stamp duty on a 250,000 buy-to-let purchase quadrupling from 2,500 to 10,000.

As a result of this change the first three months of 2016 saw a stampede of landlords rushing through purchases before the deadline and a dramatic drop in lending after it.

Buy-to-let purchase mortgages climbed steadily since 2013 but the stamp duty hike triggered a huge spike

Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed the number of buy-to-let mortgages taken out for purchase was just 4,200 in April having been 28,700 in March 2016. The number of landlords investing in April was also just half of that seen a year ago. Buy-to-let purchases fell 51 per cent from the 8,600 recorded in April 2015.

Young added: 'Its unlikely that buy-to-let activity will significantly increase over 2016, particularly given the increased level of transactions we saw pre-stamp duty deadline in February and March.

'Many landlords brought forward their purchases to make the stamp duty saving. To my mind, lenders will therefore continue to offer low rates to attract business, so this could last for some time.'

BUY-TO-LET MORTGAGE CALCULATOR Work out your monthly payments Mortgage amount:  Interest rate: % Duration: years Mortgage type: Interest only Repayment ::: Calculate ::: Monthly payment:

Simon Bayley, from Foundation Homeloans, was less sure however.

He said: 'It is hard to know what the future holds for rates bearing in mind todays voting, but this is temporary.

'The buy-to-let market is fundamentally strong and after the summer break, expectations are that volume numbers will move back to their pre-tax change levels.

'Depending on the outcome of today's referendum, funding costs could be impacted which would have an effect on rates but there's no way to predict how.'

Rates are one thing but in buy-to-let, there are almost always fees to be paid as well. These can be fixed at a flat rate - usually between 900 and up to 2,000 - or variable, charged as a percentage of the loan amount - usually 1 per cent.

Rachel Springall, of personal finance website Moneyfacts, warned: 'Landlords must work out the overall true cost of any deal they take out and keep on top of the property market to be sure that they will continue to make a profit.

'Most deals carry a product fee and this could be payable up front. Any other associated costs should also be considered before entering any arrangement, in particular the new stamp duty surcharge introduced in April.

What should landlords considering remortgage do?

There are many headwinds facing landlords at the moment. Tax-wise this comes from higher rates of stamp duty, the loss of tax relief on mortgage payments from next year and the loss of tax relief on expenses caused by wear and tear to the property.

Importantly, Prudential Regulation Authority rules coming into force next year which will force lenders to be stricter about how much rental income a landlord needs to earn in order to 'afford' the mortgage.

Young said: 'My advice is to make sure youre not going to become a mortgage prisoner in the future.

'The new Prudential Regulation Authority underwriting standards for buy-to-let lending  likely to be introduced early next year  will mean that buy-to-let borrowers using banks will not be able to borrow as much as they could in the past.


Positive sentiment toward Vietnam is gathering momentum as the relaxation on foreign ownership and its favourable demographics attract investors.

Last year, the 49 per cent cap on foreign ownership in companies was softened, meaning they in theory can now take up to 100 per cent stake in large, listed companies.

And although still classed as a frontier market alongside the likes of Argentina, Kenya and Romania, Vietnam is a likely candidate for reclassification as an emerging market, a move which is usually accompanied by a flood of foreign investment.

But despite being described by one fan as 'extremely cheap' at the same time as offering good growth prospects and a population opportunity, Vietnam remains on the edge of most investors' radars.

Land of opportunity? Vietnam has strong demographics and is opening up to the outside world

Unlike its emerging market cousins, Vietnam hasn't suffered from slowing growth. The country's GDP expanded by approximately 6.7 per cent last year, its strongest rate of acceleration in seven years.

While China's GDP grew by a comparative 6.9 per cent last year, this was its slowest pace of growth in two and a half decades.

At the same time, Vietnam's demographics look promising, with half of its 94 million population under 30 and a literacy rate of more than 90 per cent.

And its growing middle class is supportive of multinational and domestic consumer discretionary companies such as convenience stores and fast food outlets.

Tim Price of PFP Wealth Management has been championing the country's potential for a while but says the current environment 'is especially promising for investors'.

'Vietnam is now the key destination for foreign direct investment across Asia. Wage rates are less than half those in China. And Asia as a region is so much more attractive than, say, Europe  it has healthier banks, better demographics, no stultifying welfare system, and the expectation of much faster economic growth in the future.'

Another plus point noted by the investment director is that Vietnam is 'extremely cheap' - one of the reasons why it is the second biggest allocation in his fund, the VT Price Value Portfolio.

Price says almost half of Vietnamese companies are trading at less than half their price to book ratio, meaning that the price of their shares is less than the value of their assets.

On the up: Companies selling consumer goods have benefited from a growing middle class

It's not all plain sailing however. The country is still a one-party communist state and state-run companies have been slow to reform, while private companies struggle to attract domestic investment.

Emily Fletcher, co-manager of the 178.3million BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust, says she has only a 'moderate' weighting towards Vietnam.

The manager explains that while Vietnam's top down, economic picture is good, the trust is struggling to find good enough opportunities to invest at a ground level.

'For us it's a mixed picture. Economically Vietnam is interesting and is doing well in terms of exports and GDP but the question is whether you are able to access that. We have between 4 and 5 per cent in Vietnam, so we think it's interesting but it' s not our highest conviction.'

'There are a huge number of companies listed in Vietnam but many of them have a pretty small market cap and not all of them are that liquid, so in our view it pays to be selective.'

At present, Fletcher sees greater opportunities in other Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and says she that in order to up allocation to Vietnam she would like to see stronger corporate governance and greater access to management.

Better opportunities? BlackRock Frontiers favours other Asian countries like Sri Lanka (pictured)

But if you do think Vietnam represents a golden opportunity, how can you invest?

One way would be through a frontier markets fund or investment trust, such as the BlackRock offering mentioned above. Well known asset managers Barings and Franklin Templeton also both have funds in this area.

If you want to take a small investment in frontier markets, this could be a way to diversify that exposure.

However, it is worth remembering that investing in frontier markets in general can be risky and volatile as these are often fledgling economies more likely to suffer from corporate governance problems, liquidity issues and stock market crashes than developed markets.

For these reasons, experts suggest that frontier markets only make up a small part of most investor's portfolios - although they can offer access to a superior level of growth to emerging markets.

If you believe strongly in the Vietnamese story it could be worth investing in a country-specific fund or trust. VinaCapital's Vietnam Opportunity fund, a growth-orientated investment trust focusing on the domestic economy, has performed very well in recent years.

Top holdings include food and drink companies like Vinamilk and Quang Ngai Sugar, and the closed-ended fund also has 14 per cent in private equity

In three years to the end of May the trust's share price has risen by 31 per cent, compared to a drop of 20 per cent for the MSCI Emerging Market index, and 7 per cent by the MSCI Vietnam index.

At the same time, the trust's shares are trading on a discount of 17 per cent to their net asset value, which the board has struggled to keep in check.

Tim Price has a portion of his VT Price Value Portfolio allocated to domestic investment house Saigon Securities' Vietnam Value and Income Portfolio, a specialist value-orientated fund.

Saigon Securities is based in Vietnam, and Price says it has research and resources that funds based in the UK can't access

The company is set to launch a retail offering, the Vietnam Value Income and Growth fund, which Price says 'will be quite exciting for UK investors with the appetite for frontier markets'.
The Australian owner of Homebase plans to make products cheaper and will stop shutting stores as part of a 500million investment in the chain it bought from Home Retail Group earlier this year.

Wesfarmers, which owns the Bunnings DIY chain in Australia, has also appointed big-hitting names including former Asda chairman, Archie Norman to the advisory board for Homebase, which it paid 340million for in February.

The Australian firm said it was looking to keep open 18 Homebase stores previously earmarked for closure  a move that could save between 500 and 700 jobs.

Stores back: The Australian owner of Homebase said it had reversed the closure of seven Homebase stores

Home Retail had announced plans in October 2014 to shut down a quarter of the 323 Homebase stores by 2019, reducing the total to around 243 stores. But the new Australian owner is hoping to keep 260 shops open, which will then all be converted to the Bunnings brand.

Critics, however, are worried that the revamp moves will be tough as the DIY market in the UK is shrinking and rival Kingfisher, owner of B&Q, is also embarking on a turnaround plan.

A spokesman for Wesfarmers said: New management have successfully reversed the closure of seven Homebase stores, saving approximately 200 jobs.

It hopes to prevent the closure of 11 more, saving up to 500 jobs.

Five Homebase stores have closed so far this year, with around 200 employees losing their jobs.

Wesfarmers said that any employees affected by store closures had been given priority for job opportunities at other stores within a 30-mile radius.

But in a blow to customers, the Bunnings chain will cease to offer or accept points for Nectars 19 million UK loyalty card holders at the end of December. Homebase was one of Nectars key retail partners alongside Sainsburys and BP.

Aussie rebranding: Wesfarmers plans to convert all Homebase stores to is Australian Bunnings brand

Wesfarmers, which has a market valuation of almost 22billion, is the largest private sector employer in Australia with around 210,000 staff.

Homebase was originally founded by supermarket Sainsbury's as a joint venture with Belgian retailer GB-Inno-BM in 1979 as Sainsbury's Homebase.

The supermarkets group sold the business in 2000 for 969million, splitting it between buyout firm Schroder Ventures and retail group Kingfisher, which then spun if off into Home Retail Group.
BETTING BONANZA Punters yesterday gambled 25million on the outcome of the EU referendum in the busiest day for political betting in British history.

Industry experts now believe more has been bet on the referendum than the 100million riding on last years General Election.

Ladbrokes said its biggest bet on Leave yesterday was 5,000 at 4-1 while it took a 30,000 bet on Remain at 1-10.

LOST CALL Troubled phone maker Blackberry suffered a 450million loss in three months as it was forced to pay for the cost of massive restructuring.

The Canadian firm has been struggling to compete against the smartphone makers Apple and Samsung.

It is trying to move away from handsets and towards software that can be used by companies.

BUILDING BOOST Construction contracts reached 6.1billion last month, dispelling fears that the EU referendum would cause a slowdown in industry activity.

Building deals rose 8 per cent compared with May last year, according to research by construction firm Barbour ABI.

Last months figure was boosted by the commissioning of a 1.3billion offshore windfarm in the Moray Firth in Scotland.

Separate figures showed contracts for construction of offices in the UK reached 2billion in the first quarter, the highest level since 2008.

PAGE TURNER Publishing group Future has bought a magazines business for 14.2million.

The firm, which owns reviews website TechRadar and Total Film magazine, has acquired Miura Holdings  the parent company of Imagine Publishing.

Imagine has a portfolio of 19 knowledge and science magazines.

Future reported last month it had narrowed losses to 300,000 in the six months to March 31, compared with 1.3million a year earlier. Shares rose 10.8 per cent, or 0.85p to 8.75p.

SUPERFAST DEAL Broadband company CityFibre has signed a contract with a US firm to roll out superfast internet in Edinburgh.

The AIM-listed business, which lets providers use its fibre optic cables to offer their own internet services, has teamed up with voice and data services company Level 3 Communications.

In April, it reported revenues had risen 67 per cent to 6.4million in 2015, up from 3.8million a year earlier. Shares were up 1.6 per cent, or 1p to 63p.

CONTRACT DOGFIGHT British defence firm Meggitt has won a 14.2million contract to supply parts to the US Air Force.

The five-year deal will see it produce equipment used to operate the cockpit enclosure of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse have said they remain 'fully committed' to their proposed 21billion merger, despite Britain voting to leave the European Union.

In a joint statement, the exchanges said: 'The boards believe that the outcome of the referendum does not impact the compelling strategic rationale of the merger.'

Shareholders in LSE will vote on the all-share deal on July 4 while Deutsche Borse investors can tender their shares until July 12. The companies opted to wait until after the referendum to allow shareholders to digest any potential implications.

Brexit ignored: The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse have said they remain 'fully committed' to their proposed 21billion merger, despite Britain voting to leave the European Union

Joachim Faber, chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Borse and chairman of the referendum committee, said: 'The decision of the UK to leave the EU makes it ever more important to maintain and foster ties between the UK and Europe.

'We are convinced that the importance of the proposed combination of Deutsche Borse and LSE has increased even further for our customers and will provide benefits for them as well as our shareholders and other stakeholders.'

The deal has received the blessing of two shareholder advisory groups, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis.

But, ahead of the overnight Brexit vote, French business leaders called for the proposed tie-up to be scrapped.

Pierre Pringuet, president of lobby group AFEP, which speaks for more than 100 of Frances biggest companies, said the 21billion deal could trigger a mass exodus of French firms to London or Frankfurt.

If French groups leave Paris, France will lose a great deal of sovereignty to Germany and Britain for supervising its own large companies, he said.

AFEP, whose members include Air France, BNP Paribas, LOreal and Michelin, said a combination of the LSE and Deutsche Boerse could sideline Euronext, which owns the French, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese stock markets.

It is calling on European competition authorities to block the deal.

This alliance would leave Euronext as little more than a regional bourse. Large companies can list anywhere they want. Even without a sharp, sudden exodus, they could be drawn to the market offering the fastest execution and highest liquidity, he said.
While most companies in Britain will have been nervously waiting for the outcome of the EU referendum yesterday, for energy firms there is another issue looming.

This morning the watchdog is to announce the result of a two-year long investigation into the cost of gas and electricity.

It was hoped by consumer groups that this probe  which has set the industry back 80million  would pose a threat to the profits of the Big Six.

In the end, its likely to be a damp squib.

The Competition and Markets Authority found that 70 per cent of consumers were paying too much for their energy, with the average annual bill costing 1,066 despite the availability of deals of around 735 per year

When the investigation was launched by the Competition and Markets Authority in 2014, it came as former Labour leader Ed Miliband called for prices to be frozen as part of his election campaign.

The industry probe, which was launched by regulator Ofgem before being taken on by the CMA, was trumpeted as having the potential to break up the top companies dominating the market  British Gas, E.On, EDF, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE.

Rather than this radical action, the recommendations could even make things worse for bill payers.

The CMA had found that 70 per cent of consumers were paying too much for their energy, with the average annual bill costing 1,066 despite the availability of deals of around 735 per year.

In its first findings last summer, the watchdog said that overcharging had cost consumers 1.2billion. It later raised that figure to 1.7billion, and claimed overcharging had reached highs of 2.5billion.

The energy companies fiercely rejected the claims, with British Gas parent Centrica saying the calculations lacked credibility and SSE alleging the CMAs analysis contained serious errors.

It was pressure that seems to have paid off.

The watchdog is now expected to drop these figures from todays report. Instead of saying how much customers are losing every year, it is expected to highlight how much they could save. Essentially it flips the blame for energy overcharging from the energy firms to the consumers.

A second concern highlighted by the CMA in its early reports was the barriers faced by customers wishing to switch suppliers, and the reluctance of people to seek out the best deal.

Its initial suggestion to tackle the lack of shopping around was to create a database of customers who had stuck with a standard tariff  the most expensive rate  for more than three years, and allow rival companies to contact them with offers of better deals.

This idea was blasted by industry players and consumer champions alike as a spammers charter  opening the door to customers being bombarded with unwanted junk mail.

Steve Armitage, managing director of energy software company UD Group, said: This database idea goes against other things we value like privacy and security of financial information. They cant force people to switch, and a wider problem is the apathy caused by a lack of trust of these big suppliers.

It is another proposal that many now expect to be dropped. Prepayment meters have also been looked at by the CMA, who found that this method of paying for energy posed a risk that the most vulnerable customers could miss out on the best deals.

It proposed a cap on tariffs from mid-market providers such as Ovo Energy and First Utility to save customers 300m. But again the energy companies fought this, particularly the smaller names. They claimed that restrictions could see them forced to exit the market, which could serve to worsen the problem by limiting competition and driving prices up further.

Much of the CMAs work so far has also been spent undoing the work of the regulator Ofgem. Its botched attempt to clean up the energy market saw companies banned from offering any more than four types of tariffs.

The industry probe was trumpeted as having the potential to break up the top companies dominating the market  British Gas, E.On, EDF, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE

The idea was that this would make it easier to compare the different options available.

But energy firms complained it had stifled competition and the proposal has been shelved.

Steve Smith, former board member at Ofgem and current non-executive director at comparison website Flipper, praised this move as the CMAs big win from the investigation.

But he cautioned: What we need to do is make sure that we dont get Ofgems rules replaced by some more silly rules from the CMA.

Perhaps most damaging for consumers could be a suggestion that the CMA will remove the requirement for comparison websites to show all available deals on the market.

At the moment these internet sites, which households use to shop around for cheap deals list the best rates available. They are supposed to show all tariffs, regardless of whether they offer kick-backs to the website.

But now the CMA will allow the websites to agree exclusive deals with suppliers in a bid to stimulate competition. It is feared this could force smaller firms, who typically have the lowest prices, to raise their tariffs in order to pay commission to a comparison site to get to the top of the rankings  something they dont now have to do.

Armitage, who also acts as an advisor to Ofgem and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said: The timing of the CMAs report on the same day as the result of the EU Referendum is significant  Im not one to believe in coincidences.

The announcement is going to be lost in the noise about EU membership. Its not going to detail anything spectacular in terms of breaking up the Big Six.
EDFs nuclear plant at Hinkley Point could face further delays after its workers launched legal action against the company in French courts and asked for the project to be put off.

The Works Council at EDF claims the energy firm has refused to grant access to key documents and that staff have been left unable to form a clear view on Hinkley.

The plant was due to be running by 2017 but the company is now aiming for completion by 2025, and has yet to make its final decision on how to raise the 18billion needed.

Delays: The Hinkley Point plant was due to be running by 2017 but EDF is now aiming for completion by 2025

The decision was due in May, but delayed to consult the unions. Some representatives of EDF workers have asked for Hinkley to be put off for another three years  something the French energy company does not wish to do.

Their concerns echo those of senior managers at EDF, who last week wrote to the Energy and Climate Change Committee calling for Hinkley to be postponed.

In May, EDFs UK boss Vincent De Rivaz faced questions from MPs over its failure to reach a funding decision last month, as had been promised.

If EDF fails to make its decision by September, it will be called back before the select committee again in October.

Jean-Luc Magnaval, secretary of the EDF workers committee, has said that even if judges force EDF to hand over the documents in question, the unions will struggle to come to a decision by their set deadline of July 4.

EDF said it had supplied comprehensive information on the project to the unions and participated in meetings to enable representatives to reach a decision in time.
I have just had my 55th birthday and thoughts of the end of my working years are ever-present. My circumstances are different to most in that I am a disabled person (since the age of 13) and because of this have been self-employed all my working life.

Back in the 1980s I started paying into a private pension. The fund has been with several providers over the years. I need to know if I am just wasting my money making payments.

I know nothing about pensions and dont fully understand the complex paperwork they send me and to compound my concerns I have just had a hip replacement and so am unable to work for a few months and can ill afford this monthly cost.

Pension paperwork: 'There should be a phone number on the latest statement and there is no reason why you should not ring them up and ask them to explain anything that does not make sense,' says Steve Webb

Should I stop making payments and attempt to get as much of my money back as I can? There is around 28,000 in the fund.

I have just sent a pension statement request to the Department for Work and Pensions. Do the self-employed get a state pension? I have paid tax every year from age 24.

Steve Webb replies: As a self-employed person you are absolutely right to be thinking about whether or not your pension affairs are in order.

Whereas employees generally have access to a workplace pension with a contribution from their employer, you have to organise all of this for yourself.

Many of Britains four million self-employed people are in a very difficult position and generally have low levels of pension provision, so it is good that you are trying to work out what best to do.

GET YOUR STATE PENSION FORECAST NOW The Government is trialling a new online prediction tool for workers of all ages You can find the early 'beta test' version here and provide feedback. Read more here about state pension forecasts.

Self-employed people can build a state pension

To start with the state pension, self-employed people certainly can build up a state pension, provided that they have been paying Class 2 National Insurance Contributions.

The good news is that the new state pension system is in most cases more generous to the self-employed than the old system. To find out what you have built up so far you can go online and visit www.tax.service.gov.uk/checkmystatepension.

Once you have battled your way through the identity verification process, you can quickly get an estimate of your state pension.

One of the other things that the government website helpfully does is give you chance to check your National Insurance record for each year of your working life.

It is worth having a look at this to see if there are years where you paid some contributions but not enough for a full qualifying year.

DO YOU FIND PENSIONS CONFUSING? Read our series of guides - start here to find out how best to save up for retirement, or find the one most relevant to you in the box below.

Provided the deadline has not passed, you can often top up the missing contributions for a relatively modest amount of money and get a very worthwhile boost to your state pension.

How private pensions work

Turning now to your private pension, it is good that you made a start back in the 1980s and now have a pot of around 28,000.

It is disappointing to hear that the paperwork you get from the pension company does not make sense. The whole pension industry has been guilty of using complicated language when simple terms would do.

There should be a phone number on the latest statement and there is no reason why you should not ring them up and ask them to explain anything on the statement that does not make sense.

In principle, what happens with a personal pension is that the money in the fund is invested in a mix of assets such as stocks and shares, government bonds etc. To this is added the new contributions that you make and out of this is deducted a charge to run the pension.

Steve Webb: Find out how to ask the former Pensions Minister a question about your retirement savings in the box below

In general, the growth of the fund plus the value of your new contributions (including any tax relief on the contributions) should mean that most years the value of your pot will go up.

But this is not guaranteed and in years where there is a stock market crash (such as 2008) then your fund can also go down.

What are your pension options now?

It follows from this that there is no particular need for you to take the money out unless you thought that you could get a better return on it somewhere else or you urgently needed some cash.

It is also the case that some older pension contracts have very valuable guarantees built in to them which means that you would lose a lot if you simply cashed them in.

Again, this is something you should check with your provider.

If it is hard to keep the monthly contributions going right now, again the best thing to do is to ring the pension company and talk to them about your options.

In terms of your choices now, you could take independent financial advice about what to do, but if this was too expensive then you could ring the Governments free PensionWise service. They would at least be able to explain the options you have, though they wouldnt make a specific recommendation.

Obviously, none of us know how long we are going to live, but it is quite possible that you will still be around in thirty years time, so if you can manage without withdrawing your pension savings at the age of 55, and if you can keep your contributions going when you are able to work again, then this would generally be a good idea.
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The EU referendum is a once-in-a-generation battle for the future of our country.

In general elections MPs contest separate constituencies, most of which are 'safe seats' for one or other of the main parties. That means many votes end up being pointless, as individuals have no chance of swinging their local result. But this time round every single ballot will count towards the final tally.

Academics including Chris Hanretty from the University of East Anglia have analysed how Eurosceptic different parts of the country are - and used the results to produce a guide on how to interpret the early results tonight. For example, Leave should win by more than 6 percentage points in Sunderland if they are on track for victory overall

And with polls suggesting the race is too close to call, where YOU place the cross on that ballot paper could make all the difference.

Pollsters have been scratching their heads trying to work out how to judge who is ahead in the contest.

WHAT TO EXPECT AND WHEN Thursday 10pm: polls close Friday 12.30am: Sunderland declares. If If Leave wins by more than six percentage points they could be on track for victory - a slimmer margin would bode well for Remain. Soon afterwards Newcastle, where the pro-EU side is expected to do well, and Hartlepool, thought to be very Eurosceptic, will announce their results. 2am: The picture will become clearer with a big wave of around 22 authorities due to declare. Wrexham could be a key indicator of which way Wales is leaning - and who will be popping the champagne later. We could also get an official estimate for national turnout around now - meaning a 'winning post' can be calculated. 2.30am: A Ukip heartland, Castle Point in Essex, could give Brexiteers a boost. But Swansea is likely to be more significant for the overall battle. 3.30am: Approaching the halfway point in results, the declaration by the City of Lancaster is set to be a bellwether for the final result. Edinburgh and other Scottish counts will deliver overwhelming votes for Remain - and crucially signal how high turnout has been in pro-EU strongholds. 4am: This could be the moment the outcome becomes clear. Some 88 local authorities are due to announce their results. 5am: Almost all areas will have reported by now. If it is still too close to call, the margin of victory for either side will probably be tiny. A number of rural parts of the country declaring later are thought to lean towards Leave. But the outcome could also depend on whether Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has managed to win over traditional party supporters in seats such as Sefton, in Merseyside. 7am: The last few stragglers announce figures. Recounts and legal wrangling will loom if we still do not know who has won. Electoral Commission chief Jenny Watson will announce the total numbers in Manchester. And as the morning after the long night before begins, Prime Minister David Cameron will emerge from Downing Street to give his response to the verdict of the British people. Advertisement

On the face of it, just having two options - Leave or Remain - should make it simpler to take the temperature of the public.

But as the issue splits opinions across party lines, and regional variations are hard to predict, the usual techniques for putting together a representative sample do not work reliably.

For similar reasons, there will not be the kind of exit poll we usually get a general elections - like the one that accurately called the Tory victory in May last year.

But that does not mean we won't have any clue who is on top before the result is declared.

Once the Electoral Commission reveals the total turnout figure in the early hours of Friday, we will be able to calculate an effective 'winning post'.

The sides will move towards that post as the 382 local authorities - plus Northern Ireland and Gibraltar - report their figures.

The early results will also give us tantalising hints about who is set to be celebrating come 7am, when all the votes are due to have been counted.

Chris Hanretty, a reader in politics at the University of East Anglia, has done some ingenious calculations to create a guide to interpreting the slew of figures.

Hanretty has used data from a huge survey of nearly 30,000 people conducted by the British Election Study team last year to assess how Eurosceptic different parts of the country are.

He adjusted those findings to account for factors such as the overall shift in opinion polls towards Brexit over recent months, and then estimated what outcomes from individual areas would be needed in order to deliver a dead heat - 50-50 - across the country.

According to Hanretty, Leave will have to win by six percentage points in Sunderland - which prides itself on counting quickly - in order to be on track to succeed nationally.

Swindon is seen as so Eurosceptic that the Brexiteers would be expected to come out on top by 59 per cent to 41 per cent there to deliver a wider triumph.

By contrast, the London borough of Wandsworth is considered so EU friendly that Remain should only put the champagne on ice if it racks up more than 69 per cent of votes cast.

In the City of London, Remain should be looking at an even more massive margin - needing to win by around 77 per cent to 23 per cent.

Writing on his blog, Hanretty said: 'If the result in Sunderland is very close, then Remain has probably won.

'I said that we should expect Leave to be six percentage points ahead in Sunderland. Thats my best estimate of the gap in Sunderland, but its come with uncertainty.

'If, God forbid, the referendum were to be repeated 100 times, then ninety times out of one hundred Id expect the gap to be between Leave 14 percentage points ahead and Remain one percentage point ahead.

'That means its not impossible that Leave will win whilst losing in Sunderland. But it would be difficult.'

But the best indicators could prove to be towns that are regarded as too close to call.

Lancaster, which is due to declare around 3.30am, may be a bellwether.

Around half the results will be known by then - and figures from Scotland could give a good picture of how strong turnout has been among EU supporters.

Shortly afterwards, a swathe of around 88 local authorities will supply their figures, and media organisations could start looking to call the contest one way or the other.

If it is not obvious who has triumphed by this point, the margins will be nail-bitingly small.

A number of rural parts of the country declaring later are thought to lean towards Leave.

But the outcome could also depend on whether Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has managed to win over traditional party supporters in seats such as Sefton on Merseyside.

The final declarations are due at around 7am, and the chair of the Electoral Commission, Jenny Watson, should make an announcement of the national result in Manchester soon after.

If the numbers are extremely tight, the spectre of recounts and legal wrangling will loom large - potentially plunging the country into a constitutional crisis.

If the result goes for Brexit, expect to see a shattered David Cameron appear outside 10 Downing Street shortly afterwards to concede defeat.

The Prime Minister will promise to implement the wishes of the British people, but his speech will be necessarily short on detail.

Only semi-independent Greenland has quit the EU before, and that was 30 years ago when the island had a population of just 56,000.

The PM could well hold off on a dramatic announcement about his own future in the immediate aftermath of a Brexit vote - although it is almost impossible that his premiership will be able to survive the defeat for long.

He could fire the starting gun on a Tory leadership contest, which Brexit champion Boris Johnson would almost certainly win.
The long and bitter struggle for public support in the EU referendum is finally at an end - and at times it has been downright weird.

From immensely technical arguments about how many EU regulations there are covering bananas, to a dramatic intervention by the Swedish pop genius behind supergroup Abba, a serious debate has repeatedly strayed into wacky territory.

Many of these moments were provided by Boris Johnson. Once he got into his stride the former mayor brandished asparagus, drove diggers and dressed up like menacing villain Bane from Batman the Dark Knight rises.

An activist for the Vote Remain campaign dressed in a gorilla suit ahead of a visit by Boris Johnson in Winchester, as part of his tour on the Vote Leave campaign bus

Stronger In spokesman James McGrory expressed bewilderment at the alleged attack on the gorilla

At one point he talked someone out of throwing an egg at him.

The row over bananas ran for weeks after Mr Johnson suggested the EU banned them from being sold in bunches of more than three.

That prompted ridicule, with Remain activists delighting in posting photographs of themselves carrying larger bunches.

The Tory MP admitted he had the detail of the EU regulations wrong, saying they could in fact only be sold as singles or in bunches of more than.

Mr Johnson later returned to the row to claim there were in fact four different sets of regulations relating to the sale of bananas.

Remain activists mocked Mr Johnson by posting photographs of themselves on social media carrying large bunches of bananas

The Remain campaign then dispatched an activist in a gorilla suit to trail Mr Johnson on his battle-bus tour, lurking behind him in photoshoots with bunches of the fruit and placards ridiculing his claims.

It was all good-humoured fun - until the police received allegations that irritated Brexiteers had punched the gorilla in the face.

A Vote Leave source said at the time: 'We don't condone any violence at events. It was clear that Remain campaigners had attended the event to cause maximum disruption.'

The source insisted Boris was 'believed to be in a hotel at the time of any alleged incident'.

As Stronger In spokesman James McGrory tweeted: 'Who punches a teenager dressed as a gorilla in the face at a protest?'

A chicken also featured repeatedly during the campaign, having been recruited in an attempt to embarrass David Cameron over his refusal to take part in head-to-head TV debates with anyone during the campaign. Perhaps reassuringly the animal was not able to get close enough to the Prime Minister to cause too much of a fuss.

On May 12, the former London Mayor donned protective gear and waved around what appeared to be a large angle grinder on a visit to Reid Steel in Christchurch, Dorset.

He was highlighting the 350 million a week the Leave campaign was claiming could be saved if the UK votes to quit the EU.

The previous day the Tory big beast had gobbled up ice cream and brandished asparagus and pasties as he rampaged around Cornwall.

There was an unexpected endorsement for Remain on May, when the pop genius behind legendary Swedish group Abba urged Britons not to take a chance on life outside the EU.

Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus made an unexpected intervention in the EU referendum battle, saying it would make him 'emotional' if the UK decided that it did not want to stay in the union.

Bjorn Ulvaeus said it would make him 'emotional' if the UK decided that it did not want to stay in the union.

The plea, issued on the eve of the Eurovision song contest, delighted Remain campaigners who said it was a reminded that 'breaking up is hard to do'.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ahead of the contest - which Abba won with Waterloo in 1974 - Bjorn said: It would really make me sad if Britain would leave and what that would mean. Its like someone you love leaving you. Its emotional.

A pun-heavy statement from Remain said: 'The Leave campaign wants the British public to take a chance by turning our backs on the EU and risking our economic security and global influence.

Boris Johnson, right, seemed to be channelling Bane from Batman film The Dark Knight Rises as he campaigned in Dorset

'Breaking up is never easy, but despite that Vote Leave want us to walk away from the single market of 500 million people.

'That decision would damage our economy to the tune of 4,300 for each household, and threaten jobs, prices and export opportunities.

'When all is said and done, if we left the EU would not give us a better deal than they have for themselves.'

Sir Bob Geldof was seen making obscene gestures at a flotilla of Brexit-backing fishermen led by Ukip leader Nigel Farage

Mr Farage and Labour MP Kate Hoey appeared to be reenacting the 'King of the World' scene from hit film Titanic on their vessel at one stage

On May 19, Labour's Europe spokeswoman made a grovelling apology after branding a voter a 'horrible racist' on the referendum campaign trail.

Pat Glass was visiting Sawley in Derbyshire when she delivered the jibe after having a conversation with the local man.

According to the report on BBC Radio Derby, the MP said: 'The very first person I come to is a horrible racist.

'I'm never coming back to wherever this is.'

In a statement released later she apologised to the individual - who denied being racist - and admitted concerns about immigration were 'entirely valid'.

'The comments I made were inappropriate and I regret them,' Ms Glass said.

'Concerns about immigration are entirely valid and it's important that politicians engage with them.

Small Remain boats circled the Brexit trawlers during the odd stand-off

Sir Bob's behaviour during the flotilla stand-off did not seem to impress all his pro-EU allies

'I apologise to the people living in Sawley for any offence I have caused.'

Ukip leader Nigel Farage was among those condemning the remarks, saying they were 'cheap and disgraceful'.

'The Remain camp support mass migration, support EU open borders and are badly out of touch,' he added.

The episode had echoes of Gordon Brown's humiliation during the 2010 general election campaign, when he was recorded by a stray microphone describing Gilliam Duffy as a 'bigoted woman'.

The 65-year-old had challenged the then-Prime Minister on issues including immigration as he visited Rochdale.

But having seemingly finished the conversation on good terms and got into his official car, Mr Brown was heard to dismiss Ms Duffy as a 'bigoted woman'.

Shadow Europe minister Pat Glass apologised to a whole village after calling a voter 'racist'

He later went to her house to apologise and sent an e-mail to Labour activists saying he 'profoundly' regretted the comments.

On June 8, Mr Cameron was mocked for adopting a bizarre 'power stance' which some have compared to the cowboy pose popularised by John Wayne.

Wags pointed out that the Prime Minister had been posing for photographs with his legs wide apart in apparent attempt to radiate an air of authority at referendum campaign events.

Rival flotillas headed by Mr Farage and Sir Bob Geldof clashed on June 19, with the rock star facing criticism for yelling insults and making obscene gestures.

In some of the most bizarre scenes of the referendum, the Ukip leader took to the waves with dozens of fishing boats as he urged a vote to cut ties with Brussels next week.

But they were greeted by boats carrying Remain supporters including the rock star, and loud speakers blasting out the song 'In With the In Crowd'.

The fleets chased each other along the river for several hours - while at one point hoses were deployed by the trawlers to try to settle the argument.

Sir Bob seemingly infuriated some pro-EU activists on his own vessel by flicking a V sign and making other rude signs at Mr Farage's crew.

One passenger took to Twitter to make clear her displeasure, saying she was 'disgusted' at the insults against their opponents.

Bethany Pickering wrote: 'Left Bob Geldof's boat in disgust. Fishermen, the Labour Remain presence sincerely apologises.'

Geldof berated Mr Farage over a PA system as his vessel, the Sarpedon, pulled alongside the boat carrying the Ukip leader.
With scorching temperatures in Arizona, one man thought he should put the weather to good use when it comes to preparing his food.

So on one hot summer day, he decided to fry up some steaks on a pan sitting out on the street and bake cookies on the dashboard inside of his bright orange Lamborghini.

While it is not clear how hot it was on this exact day, in the video you can hear the sizzling of the steaks as he places them onto the pan and the cookies appear to be baking in the hot sun.

The Arizonan was perhaps able to attempt his cooking activities with the help of the scorching heat as a result of a mega-heatwave sweeping across parts of the Southwest.

Courtesy WhenInYourState, visit them on Facebook

With scorching temperatures in Arizona, one man thought he should put the weather to good use, utilizing the heat to fry up some steaks and bake cookies in his bright orange Lamborghini

Three steaks are pictured cooking on a baking tray on the street. The Arizonan was perhaps able to attempt his cooking activities in the hot sun as a result of a mega-heatwave sweeping across the Southwest

The heatwave ushered in the first day of summer in the broiling Southwest, where extreme temperatures were blamed for at least six deaths over the weekend.

Towns along the Arizona-California border were getting the brunt of the extreme temperatures on Monday.

In Palm Springs, the thermometer hit 121 degrees in the early afternoon on Monday. The temperature in Phoenix broke a record and hit 116 degrees.

Meanwhile on Wednesday in eastern Arizona, firefighters expected to keep a wildfire spanning some 67 square miles from moving any closer to a rural town.

In video filmed in Arizona, the man is seen cooking raw steaks on a baking pan sitting on the street

On the dashboard inside his bright orange Lambo, he baked a tray of chocolate chip cookies

The cookies appeared to be cooking in the scorching heat amid a mega-heatwave sweeping across the Southwest

The flames threatening the community of Cedar Creek made no significant movement in the last 24 hours thanks to sparse vegetation.

More than 15,000 people in nearby mountain communities have been told to prepare to evacuate.

Cooler, more humid weather gave at least some temporary help on Wednesday to crews battling dangerous wildfires in Southern California, while other blazes across the West were on the move.

Improved weather in the aftermath of a severe heat wave allowed firefighters to make progress against two fires in the steep San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Some evacuations below in the foothill city of Duarte were lifted, but the calm was not expected to last.

'We will have stronger winds, so it could push the fire,' incident commander Mike Wakoski said.

A sign indicates temperatures reached 120 degrees on Monday in Phoenix. The heatwave ushered in the first day of summer in the broiling Southwest, where extreme temperatures were blamed for at least six deaths over the weekend

Towns along the Arizona-California border were getting the brunt of the extreme temperatures earlier this week. On Wednesday, temperatures in Phoenix reached 113F and 101F in Albuquerque

Signs warning of extreme heat are placed on a trailhead on Wednesday at Piestewa Peak in Phoenix

He expected gusts of up to 25 mph in the afternoon and evening, posing additional problems for hundreds of firefighters attacking the flames.

A fleet of helicopters and air tankers and other resources are helping fight the fires totaling about seven-and-a-half square miles.

'They're starting to make good progress, but there's a lot of line to put in, and it's in a real inaccessible area,' Wakoski said.

'It's very hard for the firefighters to engage the fire safely, but they are out there doing so.'

No homes have been lost, though flames have come close at times.

More than 850 homes were ordered evacuated earlier this week, and 534 were cleared for residents' return on Wednesday.

Near the Mexican border, two residences and 11 outbuildings burned in a wildfire about 40 miles southeast of San Diego.

A thousand structures were threatened by the blaze, which grew to just over 10 square miles and was only partially contained.

Falling temperatures, rising humidity and cloud cover has helped, said Capt. Kendal Bortisser of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

A layer of haze shrouds downtown Los Angeles early Wednesday morning. For days, wildfires have raged amid spiking heat across Southern California and much of the West, driving hundreds from their homes

A Los Angeles County firefighting helicopter makes a water drop on a hill near a wildfire in Duarte, California on Tuesday

Surging wildfires on Tuesday forced new evacuations of hundreds of homes across the West, while firefighters worked to beat back a pair of huge adjacent blazes looming over suburban Los Angeles

But firefighters still must deal with rough terrain and vegetation that has not burned in decades, he said.

Weather also helped on the rugged coast west of Santa Barbara.

Fog moved into the area scorched by a blaze that began more than a week ago, and most mandatory evacuations were called off.

With the more than 12-square-mile fire almost fully surrounded, firefighters shifted focus to battling hot spots within containment lines.

Resources were moving from that blaze to those in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

Elsewhere in the West, a forest fire near the Colorado-Wyoming line exploded in size and forced campers to evacuate.

A shift in the wind turned a blaze burning slowly in a heavily wooded area with no permanent residents into a fast-moving threat, growing from one square mile to about five.

Trees killed by a beetle infestation were fueling the flames 140 miles north of Denver and two miles from Wyoming.

On Tuesday, crews continued to fight the Saddle Fire near Pine Valley, Utah (pictured above)

A firefighters douses the grass with water along a hillside on a wildfire in Azusa, California on Monday

No more than 100 campers and people staying in cabins fled, Routt National Forest spokesman Aaron Voos said.

More firefighters were expected, but getting more help was difficult because of the other Western blazes.

'Resources are kind of hard to come by right now,' Voos said.

In southwest Utah, officials evacuated about 100 people as a wildfire moved down a rocky slope toward the mountain town of Pine Valley.

The blaze was about a square mile but moving dangerously close to homes in difficult terrain, so more evacuations could come, officials said.

In central New Mexico, more evacuees were expected to return home as firefighters inch closer to snuffing out a massive wildfire that ignited last week.
A New Jersey black bear that walks upright on its two hind legs and has become a social media darling has re-emerged and has been captured on video months after its last sighting.

The bipedal bear nicknamed Pedals was spotted in the town of Oak Ridge on Monday according to resident Joey Esposito who posted a video featuring the bear, NJ.com reported Wednesday.

Pedals apparently has a permanently injured paw and is missing the other, making it difficult for it to walk comfortably on all fours, according to experts.

Last year, supporters pushed for Pedals to be moved to a sanctuary in New York state, but New Jersey officials have said they will not allow the bear to be captured and transferred to the facility

A New Jersey black bear that walks upright on its two hind legs and has become a social media darling has re-emerged and has been captured on video months after its last sighting

The bipedal bear nicknamed Pedals was spotted in the town of Oak Ridge on Monday according to resident Joey Esposito who posted a video featuring the bear

The bear appeared to be in relatively good health and was moving briskly in the video which was posted to a Facebook page, Pedals The Injured Bipedal Bear, where it has garnered nearly 130,000 views.

Prior to the latest video, the bear has not been seen for months and officials asked the public for help in locating the bear.

Lawrence Hajna, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said officials expect the bear to make it through next winter.

The bear appeared to be in relatively good health and was moving briskly in the video

Prior to the latest video, the bear has not been seen for months and officials asked the public for help in locating the bear

At the end of the video, the bear was seen going deep into a wooded area

'The bear has an indomitable spirit,' Hajna said.

Last year, supporters pushed for Pedals to be moved to a sanctuary in New York state, but New Jersey officials have said they will not allow the bear to be captured and transferred to the facility.

Hajna said at the time that the bear would do better in its natural habitat and the agency would step in if its condition deteriorated.
An 18-year-old woman has died after contracting a rare brain-eating amoeba after going whitewater rafting in North Carolina, authorities said.

Lauren Seitz, 18, of Westerville, Ohio, died of primary amebic meningoencephalitis on Sunday.

She is believed to have been exposed to the amoeba that is naturally present in warm fresh water while on the trip with her church group earlier this month.

Authorities are still investigating, but her only known underwater exposure was thought to be when her raft overturned at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.

Seitz's pastor Jim Wilson, with the Church of the Messiah United Methodist Church in Westerville, told the Charlotte Observer the trip to the rafting center was on June 8.

It was the only day that the group went swimming, he said, and the group returned home on June 11. Seitz died just over a week later.

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Lauren Seitz (pictured) died of a brain infection from a rare brain-eating amoeba after going whitewater rafting in North Carolina

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control suspects her death was caused by Naegleria fowleri, a one-celled organism that can cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis, North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services said.

The organism does not cause illness if swallowed, but can be deadly if forced up the nose. The CDC said only 10 cases or so are reported each year, nearly all of them fatal.

In a statement, the Whitewater Center said that it gets its water from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities Department and two wells located at the site, a system of concrete channels designed to imitate various classes of rapids.

The water is filtered and disinfected with chlorine as well as ultraviolent radiation sufficient to 'inactivate' the amoeba, a process the center described as 99.99 percent effective.

The center's water is not inspected by the county or state because the man-made system is not considered to be a public pool, according to Dr. Marcus Plescia, Mecklenburg County's health director.

Her only known underwater exposure was thought to be when her raft overturned at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte

The Whitewater Center says its water is filtered and disinfected with chlorine as well as ultraviolent radiation sufficient to 'inactivate' the amoeba, a process the center described as 99.99 percent effective

But the center 'is as safe as any body of water. Any time you go into a lake or pond, there are things in the water that can cause illnesses,' he said. 'We're not going to close every lake and pond.'

While it is 'frightening,' Plescia noted that the infection is very rare.

'I think people need to take this in context and realize this is a very rare infection,' he told WSOC.

The Whitewater Center's spokesman, Eric Osterhus, said in an email that it was operating normally on Wednesday and helping health investigators at the site.

Seitz had graduated with honors from Westerville South High School, where she was drum major of the school's marching band, in May, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Band members and classmates honored her with a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night. Her funeral is Saturday.

'This was an enormous loss for the band, but also to the Westerville community and family,' band director John Laswell said in a Facebook post.

'Lauren just graduated in May and was one of the most talented, humble and caring students I've ever taught.'

She was enrolled at Denison University, where she planned to study Environmental Science and had and had declared a Minor in Music, her obituary says.

'Lauren understood the overwhelming beauty and fragility of life with uncommon clarity and cared so deeply about the welfare of other people and this world we all share,' it adds.

'Her genuine kindness and encouragement will continue to inspire and comfort everyone who knew her.'
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A small plane with two sick US workers arrived safely in Chile late Wednesday after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said.

After making a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers were flown to the southernmost Chilean city of Punta Arenas, the National Science Foundation said in a statement published on its Facebook page.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles roundtrip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the US Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole.

They arrived back at Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the foundation, which runs the US station. Then the two workers boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas.

A worker from the US South Pole Amundsen-Scott station arrives at a clinic in Punta Arenas, Chile, on Wednesday

A small plane with two sick US workers arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from the remote South Pole research station, officials said

A picks up a sick worker at the US South Pole science station in this image

'From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott,' the National Science Foundation said, adding that it's not disclosing the location of that facility.

The National Science Foundation has not identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees Fahrenheit Wednesday afternoon. That's toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 75 Fahrenheit in the morning.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the station for the winter.

Normally planes don't go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole till the first day of spring in September.

One of the two Canadian-owned Twin Otter turboprop planes used to help rescue the workers is seen here

A Twin Otter aircraft on a medical evacuation flight taxis on the skyway at NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the US now, lauded the rescue crew.

'The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring,' Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, according to West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.

'The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard,' said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. 'If you are complacent it will bite you.'

'Things can change very quickly down there' with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. The station has a doctor, a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the US for consults, West said. But sometimes workers need medical care that can't be provided at the South Pole.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.

Two planes from a Canadian company were used in the daring rescue of two sick workers

The US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is seen in this file photograph
A Brooklyn woman who feared she'd be left scarred for life after a random slashing says she is finally able to look in a mirror again without being reminded of the horrific attack.

Amanda Morris was walking along Seventh Avenue to get to her job at Chelsea Whole Foods, Manhattan, on the morning of January 6, when she was stabbed.

The 24-year-old, who needed seven stitches, believes her attacker went for her face because he 'meant to scar me.'

Kari Bazemore, 41, who was allegedly off his meds for schizophrenia at the time, was arrested later that same day and charged with felony assault.

While 'relieved' her attacker was in jail, the traumatized cashier was left with a reminder of her horrifying ordeal every time she looked in the mirror.

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Amanda Morris (pictured with the injuries suffered in the attack, left, and today scar-free, right) who feared she'd be left scarred for life after a random slashing says she is finally able to look in a mirror again without being reminded of the horrific attack

Amanda Morris was walking along Seventh Avenue to get to her job at Chelsea Whole Foods, Manhattan, on the morning of January 6, when she was stabbed (she required multiple stitches in hospital after the attack)

'I didn't think I'd ever be able to go out without makeup again,' she said in an interview with DailyMail.com, adding that the scar also brought unwanted attention whenever she left the house.

'People would notice me. Some people (who had read about her story) even started crying when they saw me,' she said. I just wanted to buy groceries, I was sad.

'It was overwhelming to be recognized, to be constantly reminded. Especially when I had my stitches - I didn't want to go outside the whole time.'

The 24-year-old was terrified she would be permanently scarred but knew she'd never be able to afford any scar treatment.

But a couple of weeks after the attack, she received a message out of the blue from Dr Dhaval Bhanusali of Sadick Dermatology, New York.

The doctor had read about Morris' story in the DailyMail.com and was so moved he wanted to help.

The 24-year-old believes her attacker 'wanted to scar me and that's why he went for my face' (pictured the a week after having her stitches, left, and with them removed, right)

'It stays with you,' he told DailyMail.com. 'We have a lot of young people in the office. And when you're reading about it and looking at those pictures, you have this pit in your stomach.

'Literally, she was doing nothing wrong, she was just walking to work.

'When we have the ability to do something, you do it. My parents always installed that in me as a doctor.'

Since starting treatment on Morris, he said that he'd seen her confidence and mood improve over the past few months, as the scars - both physical and emotional - have healed.

'Amanda said she is finally able to look in the mirror and forget what happened to her,' he said. 'That was touching.

'In a weird way (scars) can define the person. It's great to be able to help these patients forget about these traumatic events and let them live their lives normally.'

Morris' ordeal began at around 6am on the morning of January 6. As she walked to work, she noticed a man walking in the same direction who began acting strangely.

'He was walking really fast at first then slowed down to walk alongside me. I started to get scared.

Morris was on her way to work on January 6 morning was attacked by a stranger at about 6am in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City

The stranger ran up to the 24-year-old who was on her way to her job at Whole Foods, and slashed her in the face

He then fled, as Morris ran into a nearby diner to seek help after the attack. Witnesses said she was bleeding and had facial injuries

'Suddenly, I thought he'd punched me. It was like, why would someone punch me? It was dark and I didn't know what was going on. But I started bleeding a lot.'

Covered in blood, she ran into the nearby 24-hour Malibu Diner on Seventh Avenue near West 24th Street for help, saying she was attacked on the sidewalk.

'I told people in the diner that somebody punched me but they said you have a big gash in your face.

'I didn't understand at first. They told me I had to go get stitches at the hospital but I didn't want to go at first - I hate hospitals. I agreed in the end but I said I wanted to go to tell my work first.'

A member of staff from the diner then helped Morris down the street to her place of work where her supervisor called 911.

'When I went in, one of my supervisors saw me and freaked out and called an ambulance,' she added.

She was taken to Bellevue Hospital where she received seven stitches and was then released.

Morris later wrote on her Facebook page that she'd had a bad 'gut feeling' about the stranger, who appeared to her to be drunk or on drugs, from the moment she spotted him.

'Today was a difficult day that I never thought I would have to go through,' she wrote. 'I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

That same day, as Morris was recovering at home, she said a police officer had knocked on her door to tell her the attacker had been arrested.

Today there is no sign of the traumatic events of January as Morris appears scar-free (pictured today)

The young woman appears almost identical to her pictures from before the attack (pictured left and right)

'It was definitely a relief,' she told us. 'A lot of people at my work had been scared to walk into work after it happened.

'I was glad I could tell them he was in jail.'

Following the random slashing, Morris, who was born in the US but raised in Canada, admitted she was 'kind of scared to go anywhere.'

'Chelsea is a pretty safe area, so if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.'

But she bravely returned to work at Whole Foods in Chelsea almost immediately after the slashing.

After a week, however, she forced to take some time off as she was being overwhelmed by the support of customers who recognized her from the high profile assault.

Morris, who has lived in New York for the past five years, said her family had been so concerned after the attack they had wanted her to move back to Canada.

'My dad was like "Oh god, you should have never moved there! You should move back"'

But the brave young woman refused to let that shocking attack affect her future.

Dr Dhaval Bhanusali of Sadick Dermatology, New York, read about Morris' story in the DailyMail.com and was so moved he wanted to help

'I want to stay here. If I leave New York, I want it to be on my own terms.'

Morris' treatment, which included cutting-edge advancements in lasers from Cutera and customized topical skincare treatments using Skinceuticals, was worth thousands of dollars but Dr Bhusauli said he felt moved to help in his profession as a doctor.

'For me, she's an inspiration. As well as for a lot of patients who have scars that they feel define them.'

'I want to say thank you to him, he's amazing,' Morris added.

'You can't change what happened. I used to say I felt unlucky, but a lot of people told me that I'd inspired them. It's a cliche but that's the truth.'

Bazemore, 41, who has 32 prior arrests, was charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon over the incident. He was also charged with attacking another woman in a similar assault last year.

He was caught when a passerby in midtown recognized him from the surveillance pictures in the press and alerted police.

Kari Bazemore, 41, who has 32 prior arrests, was charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon over the incident

Morris had run to a diner for help (pictured). At first she believed she had been punched before diners told her she had been stabbed

The attack was one of a series of similar attacks as police report that stabbings and slashings across the city have soared by 20 per cent this year.

On Monday morning this week, a subway passenger was viciously slashed across the neck inside a New York city subway station after a row broke out between two rival groups on a northbound A train.

The dispute escalated onto the 59th Street Columbus Circle platform where a 21-year-old man slashed his victim, also 21, across the neck. He was arrested soon after.

Back in January at the same subway station a 71-year-old woman was sliced in the face on the D train. She suffered a four-inch gash on her cheek and needed 30 stitches.

Damon Knowles, 21, pleaded not guilty to assault, though he told police that he attacked the grandmother because he felt threatened by her, according to court papers.

Police Commissioner William Bratton warned that knife attacks in the first three months of this year were up 20 per cent compared, with 899 through March 31, compared with 746 in 2015.

'Make no mistake about it, stabbings and slashings aren't going away,' he told reporters in April. 'It's one of the few crimes that are going up [to a] level that is of concern to us.'
Friday will be Melbourne's coldest June day in 16 years with snow expected to fall on the outskirts of the city.

The city will see a top of just 10C with temperatures dropping as low as 4C as a powerful cold front sweeps across Australia's east coast.

Parts of Melbourne will be transformed into a winter wonderland with snow forecast for the city's outskirts.

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Melbourne is set to be transformed into a winter wonderland with snow forecast for the outskirts of the city as the east coast is hit by a cold snap. Pictured is Perisher in NSW

Heavy rain caused flash flooding in parts of Melbourne on Thursday evening. Friday is expected to be the coldest June day since 1998

Areas around the Yarra Ranges and Mount Dandenong are expected to get a light dusting, according to Weatherzone.

Meteorologist Tristan Meyers said there was a 'good chance' of snow in the Yarra Ranges, particularly around Mount Donna.

'There is certainly a chance at [Mount] Dandenong but it is not going to be as heavy about 630 metres, just about that,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'I wouldn't rule it out, they will get a light dusting. Yarra Ranges will definitely see some snow, anywhere about 800 metres.'

Friday is predicted to be a wet and windy for the city as temperatures will hit a low of 4C and the weekend will not be much different

Heavy rain and strong winds uprooted trees in parts of Melbourne on Thursday

The city will see a top of just 10C on Friday with temperatures dropping as low as 4C as a powerful cold front sweeps across Australia's east coast

Mr Meyers ruled out any snowfall in Melbourne's metropolitan areas but said it would be 'pretty cold'.

Heavy rain caused flash flooding in parts of the city on Thursday evening, while gale force winds uprooted trees and brought down power lines.

Friday is predicted to be a wet and windy for the city as temperatures will hit a low of 4C and the weekend will not be much different.

Areas around the Yarra Ranges and Mount Dandenong are expected to get a light dusting, according to Weatherzone. Above is resort areas around Perisher

Mr Meyers ruled out any snowfall in Melbourne's metropolitan areas but said it would be 'pretty cold'. Above are snowmobiles covered in snow in NSW

Earlier this week, snow was a welcome sight for Australia's ski fields in New South Wales and Victoria that saw blizzard-like conditions.

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday, with Thredbo ski resort predicting around 50-60cm of snow by the end of the week.

The SES has warned that snowfalls of up to 15cm in the Central Tableland region could close the Great Western Highway between Oberon and Orange before conditions clear on Saturday.

Forecasters predicts ski resorts in NSW and Victoria can expect 20-40cm of fresh powder on Friday and snow could fall as far north as Queensland at the weekend.

The chilly weather has been brought on by two cold fronts moving over the east coast, including South Australia.

The chilly weather has been brought on by two cold fronts moving over the east coast, including South Australia

NATIONAL SEVEN-DAY FORECAST FOR CAPITAL CITIES Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Canberra Adelaide Perth Hobart Darwin Thursday Min 9C

Max 18C mostly sunny Min 10C

Max 15C windy with rain Min 13C

Max 20C

showers Min 3C

Max 11C

possible shower Min 11C

Max 15C

showers Min 10C

Max 17C

mostly sunny Min 5C

Max 12C

rain Min 20C

Max 33C

mostly sunny Friday Min 12C

Max 18C windy Min 4C

Max 10C

showers Min 15C

Max 23C

clearing shower Min 4C

Max 9C windy with showers Min 8C

Max 14C

showers easing Min 6C

Max 18C

mostly sunny Min 3C

Max 9C

possible shower Min 22C

Max 33C mostly sunny Saturday Min 8C

Max 16C mostly sunny Min 6C

Max 13C clearing shower Min 9C

Max 19C sunny Min -1C

Max 9C

frost then sunny Min 6C

Max 14C

mostly sunny Min 8C

Max 17C

showers Min 3C

Max 11C

mostly sunny Min 24

Max 33C mostly sunny Sunday Min 7C

Max 16C mostly sunny Min 4C

Max 12C

mostly sunny Min 7C

Max 19C

mostly sunny Min -3C

Max 9C

frost then sunny Min 8C

Max 13C

possible shower Min 6C

Max 18C mostly sunny Min 3C

Max 12C

late shower Min 24C

Max 33C mostly sunny Monday Min 8C

Max 15C

late shower Min 5C

Max 12C

possible shower Min 11C

Max 20C

possible shower Min 0C

Max 10C

possible shower Min 9C

Max 15C

possible shower Min 9C

Max 19C

possible shower Min 5C

Max 11C, clearing shower Min 24C

Max 33C mostly sunny Tuesday Min 8C

Max 17C possible shower Min 5C

Max 14C mostly sunny Min 8C

Max 19C sunny Min -1C

Max 12C

frost then sunny Min 9C

Max 16C

mostly sunny Min 12C

Max 19C possible shower Min 5C

Max 13C

clearing shower Min 24C Max 33C mostly sunny Wednesday Min 8C

Max 18C mostly sunny Min 7C

Max 13C

mostly sunny Min 9C Max 22C

sunny Min -2C

Max 12C

frost then sunny Min 9C

Max 15C

mostly sunny Min 10C

Max 19C possible shower Min 5C

Max 13C

late shower Min 23C

Max 33C mostly sunny

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday

Weatherzone's Kim Westcott said the 'substantial pool of very cold air' coming across originated in Antarctica and it was enough to turn rain into snow

Weatherzone's Kim Westcott said the 'substantial pool of very cold air' coming across originated in Antarctica and it was enough to turn rain into snow.

'It won't be only the resorts [in NSW] that see the snow, with parts of the southern and central ranges also likely to become snow-capped, potentially extending as far as north as the Guyra area,' she said.

'This front will bring with it very strong winds, and combined with the snow showers, visibility will be poor which will make driving conditions extremely difficult.

'These winds may also bring down branches and force road closures, so check the conditions before you go out. Winds will remain very gusty until Saturday mid-morning.'

With this cold front, a high will sit over NSW over the weekend, and with skies clearing and winds lighter temperatures are set to plummet at night

Gusty conditions will be confined to the coast during Tuesday as the front moves offshore, with the winds easing throughout Wednesday

This front will bring with it very strong winds, and combined with the snow showers, visibility will be poor which will make driving conditions extremely difficult

With this cold front, a high will sit over NSW over the weekend, and with skies clearing and winds lighter temperatures are set to plummet at night.

Ms Westcott also said a weaker front was predicted for Monday.

'Potentially bringing another round of wind, rain and snow and sleet,' she said.

'Gusty conditions will be confined to the coast during Tuesday as the front moves offshore, with the winds easing throughout Wednesday.
Kim Jong-Un has warned his rockets can hit 'American b******s' in the Pacific after overseeing North Korea's latest missile tests.

After a string of failures in recent months, North Korea tested two Musudan missiles with a range of up to 2,500 miles on Wednesday, one of which flew 250 miles into the East Sea/Sea of Japan.

Kim, who personally monitored the launch, applauded a 'great event' before insisting: 'We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre.'

Kim Jong-Un (centre) has warned his rockets can hit 'American b******s' in the Pacific after overseeing North Korea's latest missile tests

After a string of failures in recent months, North Korea tested two Musudan missiles with a range of up to 2,500 miles on Wednesday, one of which flew 250 miles into the East Sea/Sea of Japan

A Korean-language version of the same report had Kim referring to 'the American b******s.'

The test triggered emergency UN Security Council talks on curbing Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

North Korea's KCNA news agency reported that the launch significantly bolstered the North's pre-emptive nuclear attack capability.

The Musudan has a theoretical range of anywhere between 1,550 to 2,500 miles, with the upper estimate covering US military bases as far away as Guam.

KCNA said the missile had been fired at a high angle to simulate its full range, and had reached a maximum height of more than 1,400 kilometres.

The test 'marked an important occasion in further strengthening the nuclear attack capacity of our state,' Kim said.

The launch was condemned by the international community and the UN Security Council met for closed-door consultations on how best to respond.

Launch: North Korean newspapers on June 23 display stories and images about the Musudan missile tests

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un trumpeted the success of a powerful new midrange ballistic missile test that state media says propelled one of the weapons more than 870 miles

Existing United Nations measures prohibit North Korea from using ballistic missile technology

France's deputy UN ambassador Alexis Lamek, whose country holds the council presidency, told reporters after the meeting that Council members had been united in 'deep concern and opposition' to the test which was a clear violation of UN resolutions.

Existing UN measures prohibit North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

The United States, NATO, Japan and South Korea also denounced the test, with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter urging the expansion of missile defence systems in the region.

'We need to stay ahead of the threat,' Carter said.

Seoul and Washington are currently in talks about deploying the advanced US THAAD missile system in South Korea -- a move vehemently opposed by China.

Experts and government officials said the Musudan launch marked another worrying step forward for a weapons programme that ultimately aspires to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear strike on the US mainland.

The Musudan has a theoretical range of anywhere between 1,550 to 2,500 miles, with the upper estimate covering US military bases as far away as Guam

'We can't deny that (North Korea's) technological development is making progress, and the situation is alarming,' Japanese government spokesman Koichi Hagiuda told reporters.

The North has publicly displayed an ICBM, called the KN-08, which uses the same engine technology as the Musudan but has never been test-fired.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said the international community had to find a way to get Pyongyang to accept a missile test moratorium.

'If we do nothing, this ends in a successful flight test of the Musudan-based KN-08,' Lewis said.

The front and inside pages of Thursday's edition of North Korea's ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, were plastered with pictures of a clearly elated Kim Jong-Un watching the test and celebrating with military scientists.

Japan has started to examine the suspected nose cone of a North Korean rocket that washed up on a Japanese beach

The red, white and blue item, believed to be half of the nose cone designed to protect the rocket's payload, was found on a beach in western Japan last Thursday

There were also multiple photos of the missile blasting off from a mobile launcher near the eastern port of Wonsan.

The international outcry suggests North Korea could face renewed sanctions, either on a unilateral level or from the United Nations.

After Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket launch February 7, the Security Council adopted its most punishing sanctions yet against North Korea.

Any further measures would require the support of veto-wielding permanent council member China, traditionally the North's closest ally.

Responding to Wednesday's launch, China's foreign ministry had cautioned against 'any action that may escalate tension' and called for a resumed dialogue on Pyongyang's nuclear drive.

Meanwhile, Japan has started to examine the suspected nose cone of a North Korean rocket that washed up on a Japanese beach.

The red, white and blue item, believed to be half of the nose cone designed to protect the rocket's payload, was found on a beach in western Japan last Thursday and is suspected to come from a long-range, three-stage rocket fired by North Korea on February 7 that flew over Japan's southwest Okinawa island chain.

South Korean authorities recovered the other half.

'We will analyse the materials and the level of technology used,' a Japanese Ministry of Defence official said after the part was delivered by truck to the ministry.

The pockmarked 75 kg (165 lb) part, almost two metres wide and over a metre wide, lay on a blanket and blue tarpaulin in a forecourt at the ministry.
Florida wildlife officials believe they have captured and euthanized the alligator that dragged a two-year-old Nebraska boy into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said it has suspended alligator trapping activities in the area and that it is confident the alligator responsible for the attack has been removed.

Officials said in a news release on Wednesday that they have based their conclusions on expert analyses and observations by staff with extensive experience in investigating fatal alligator bites.

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Wildlife officials move an alligator into a boat on the Seven Seas Lagoon at the Disney Grand Floridian Resort and Spa on June 15. On Wednesday, Florida wildlife officials said they believe they have captured the alligator that dragged a two-year-old Lane Graves into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World

Lane pictured above. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said it has suspended alligator trapping activities in the area and that it is confident the alligator responsible for the attack has been removed

During the investigation, a total of six alligators were humanely removed from the area.

The FWC said DNA was collected from the victim and the alligators captured, however since his wounds did not contain any alligator DNA it is difficult to make an exact match.

The commission confirmed the alligator has been euthanized and Lane's family did not did not have an immediate comment on the news, according to People.

'There are no words to describe the profound sadness we feel for the family of Lane Graves,' Nick Wiley, executive director of the FWC, said in the release.

'We will continue to keep this family close to our hearts as they deal with the pain and grief of the loss of Lane.'

Officials said their conclusions also took into account the proximity to the attack site of removed alligators and witness descriptions.

An autopsy showed Graves died from drowning and traumatic injuries in the lake (pictured) near the Magic Kingdom

FWC said trappers captured three alligators in the size range believed to fit the subject animal.

Two of the animals captured were near the area of the attack, and based on past experience, the alligator responsible is usually located in close proximity to the attack site, officials said.

Authorities said an alligator pulled Lane into the water June 14, despite the frantic efforts of his father.

Police divers found Lane's body underwater the following afternoon, not far from where he was taken.

An autopsy found that he died from drowning and traumatic injuries. On Tuesday, his loved ones gathered as they laid him to rest.

At the time of the attack, the resort had 'No Swimming' signs that did not mention alligators. Disney has since installed signs by the lagoon warning guests of alligators and snakes

At the time of the attack, the resort had 'No Swimming' signs that did not mention alligators.

Disney has since installed signs by the lagoon warning guests of alligators and snakes.

The beach at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa is across a lake from the Magic Kingdom.

The FWC said alligator attacks are a very rare occurrence in Florida.
An Australian man who has been charged with selling 'cookie monster ecstasy' in the Philippines had been living there with his pregnant girlfriend before being arrested on suspicion of drug dealing.

Damian Berg was arrested in Manila on Tuesday on suspicion of selling the small blue pills to an undercover police officer at a city centre hotel.

The man, who is originally from Adelaide, is awaiting trial and could face the death penalty if convicted.

On Thursday, as his parents issued an emotional statement of support for him, Mr Berg's life in the Philippines could be laid bare.

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Damian Berg (above with his Philippine girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas) was arrested in Manila on Tuesday on suspicion of selling 'cookie monster' ecstasy pills

Posing by the pool with his pregnant girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas, he appeared in a string of social media photographs taken before the arrest.

Among them are many with Miss Zanelucas and a host of selfies that showed off his weight loss.

On Thursday, as her partner remained in custody at a Manila police station, Miss Zanelucas told Daily Mail Australia she was 'preparing food' for him.

His parents meanwhile issued an emotional statement through the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs to insist he had their full support.

'What we do know is that Damian is in custody in Manila and is being treated OK.

'It will take time before his case is heard, and until then we cant comment any more. As a family, we dearly love him and will be supporting him as much as we can,' they said.

The man from Adelaide (left) denies the charges but has remanded in custody in the Philippines while he awaits trial. He was arrested alongside Canadian Jeremy Eaton (right)

The pair are understood to be excited about the arrival of the baby. On Thursday Mr Berg's parents told him to 'hang in there' as he awaited legal help

Mr Berg had been living in Manila with his pregnant girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas (above) until his arrest on Tuesday

Mr Berg was arrested alongside a Canadian national after allegedly selling 170 of the pills to an undercover police officer (above) in a Manila hotel

Mr Berg has been living in Manila for more than a year but regularly travelled back to Australia to visit family.

He denied having any involvement with the drugs after being arrested with Canadian native Jeremy Eaton on Wednesday and was seen with his head in his hands outside the Makati City police station which police took them to.

Prosecutors allege that an undercover police over bought 170 of the pills from the men, with the drugs carrying a street value of around 255,000 pesos (about AU$7,350).

Mr Berg denies the allegation, telling the ABC he has no need to sell drugs because he has a 'good paying job'.

Geoff Berg spoke outside his family's home in South Australia on Thursday to encourage him to stay positive while awaiting further help

Mr Berg has been living in Manila for more than a year

Police have accused Mr Berg and Jeremy Eaton, a Canadian national, of selling them the blue tablets (above)

It is not clear what work the man was doing prior to his arrest.

If found guilty of drug dealing, Mr Berg could face the death penalty under a new, harsher crime crackdown introduced by the country's new leader, Rodrigo Duerte.

Duerte has a notoriously tough stance against drugs, once claiming he would kill his own son if he ever caught him taking them.

The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to the Berg family, a spokesman said.

'The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian man arrested in the Philippines, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter.
AFL Footy Show presenter Sam Newman is reportedly planning to run for the office of Lord Mayor of Melbourne using his political hero Donald Trump as inspiration.

The Channel Nine personality is a vocal supporter of the US Republican presidential candidate, and his regular outspoken comments have powerful people urging him to run as the city's top official, The Age reports.

Newman, 70, would not name the backers who are prepared to support his mayoral challenge for council elections due in October.

AFL Footy Show presenter Sam Newman is planning to run a Donald Trump-style campaign for Lord Mayor of Melbourne

He told News Corp he had been approached to run on an anti-political correctness ticket similar to that of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in the US.

Newman's regular outspoken comments on Channel Nine's The Footy Show has seen comparisons drawn with Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, and it was this that encouraged the unidentified backers to approach him.

But it is not all about making a statement as he has other policies to do with the upkeep and cleanliness of the city. He was reported as saying: 'It's about graffiti, litter and a few other things.'

If he did choose to run he would face current Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and Gary Morgan. Doyle has already served two terms in the role.

Newman has been a very vocal supporter of US Republican presidential candidate

The 70-year-old was approached to run on an anti-political correctness ticket

Newman is constantly derided for his comments on the Footy Show with regular accusations of racism and misogyny being directed at him from irate viewers.

However, he wears his politically incorrectness as a badge of honour and told News Corp political correctness was 'dogging the world as we know it'.

'We don't want to infringe on a minority of people's rights which is not in the best interests, naturally, of the majority,' he said.
Scientists who tested New Zealand banknotes for methamphetamines made the alarming discovery that every single one had traces of the drug.

The investigation collected 20 banknotes from Auckland supermarkets, cornerstores, bakeries and a takeaway bars and sent them to a methamphetamine testing laboratory.

Every note rested positive for the deadly drug, with some samples showing a 100 per cent contamination, reports TVNZ.

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Th investigation collected 20 banknotes from Auckland stores and sent them to a methamphetamine testing laboratory

By way of comparison a 2008 study found meth on four out of 50 notes from ten US cities and 42 per cent of dollar bills in Birmingham, Alabama, contained the drug.

Some of the notes also tested three times above above the health guidelines for a meth laboratory.

The guideline limit is 0.5 microgrammes per 100cm2 of wall or other surface.Some of the notes showed levels from 0.4 to 0.8 microgrammes per 100cm2.

One note recorded g 3 microgrammes of the drug  an equivalent of nearly 1.5 microgrammes/100cm2 of surface - three times the Ministry of Health guideline for a lab cleanup.

Alarmingly, every note rested positive for the deadly drug, with some some samples showing a 100 per cent contamination

Some of the notes also tested three times above above the health guidelines for a meth laboratory

It comes amid a surge of New Zealand houses recording contaminations from the deadly drug (pictured)

Massey University toxicologist Dr Nick Kim validated the results and said while they were concerning they should not be misinterpreted.

'I'd say people are justifiably concerned because of the way guidelines are commonly interpreted, or misinterpreted.'

Health effects for up to 20 times the guideline limit would only pose a risk to toddlers, Mr Kim had claimed in a previous investigation.

It comes amid a surge of New Zealand houses recording meth contamination.

Last week it was revealed meth contamination forced more than 400 New Zealand tenants from state homes in the last year, reports Stuff NZ,




A Melbourne neurosurgeon feels no anger towards a mentally-ill patient who almost killed him in a frenzied stabbing attack.

Dr Michael Wong was attacked by Kareem Al-Salami, 49, at Western General Hospital in Footscray as he arrived for work in February 2014.

Mr Al-Salami yelled 'b*****d I kill you' as he stabbed the doctor 13 times, 7 News reported.

Neurosurgeon Dr Michael Wong (pictured) speaks after the sentencing hearing of Kareem Al-Salami at the Supreme Court in Melbourne. He said he feels no anger towards the mentally-ill patient who almost killed him in a frenzied stabbing attack

Kareem Al-Salami, 49, continued to stab and slash at Dr Wong as his victim lay on the ground screaming for help. Pictured: Dr Wong's injuries following the knife attack

Mr Al-Salami (pictured as he arrived for sentencing at the Supreme Court in Melbourne) yelled 'b*****d I kill you' as he stabbed the doctor 13 times

He continued to stab and slash at Dr Wong as his victim lay on the ground screaming for help.

Mr Al-Salami also threatened patients and hospital staff who tried to stop him.

Despite the shocking attack Dr Wong feels sorry for the Iranian refugee who came to Australia seeking a new life and will now spend 25 years 'behind bars in a way' in a secure mental health facility.

'I'm really pleased that this man finally will be getting the help that he needs,' Dr Wong said.

Without the help of staff and members of the public in distracting Al-Salami and moving Dr Wong away from danger, the attack could have been fatal, Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said.

'Had Dr Wong not received immediate lifesaving surgery, it's highly likely that he would have died,' the judge said on Wednesday.

Mr Al-Salami also threatened patients and hospital staff who tried to stop him at Western General Hospital in Footscray (pictured) in February 2014

Neurosurgeon Dr Michael Wong (right) and his wife Dr Christine Wong (left) speak to the media after the sentencing hearing of Kareem Al-Salami at the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Wednesday

Dr Wong had successfully operated on Al-Salami's spine in 2012, but the paranoid schizophrenic developed beliefs that the operation had gone wrong and his neurosurgeon was conspiring with others to cover it up.

Dr Wong has fully recovered from the attack and returned to work two years ago.

'It's nothing short of a miracle that I am able to return to work as a neurosurgeon both physically and psychologically,' he said in a court statement.

Dr Wong feels neither anger nor resentment towards Al-Salami, who he says is a seriously disturbed man.

Al-Salami, formerly of Sunshine North, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of mental impairment.

But Justice Hollingworth was unable to send the 49-year-old to the secure Thomas Embling Hospital until Wednesday because there was no room.

Dr Wong was pleased Al-Salami will no longer be held in a prison or remand centre unable to properly care for a psychiatric patient.

'Finally he is able to be in the right place to get some treatment and also the duration or length of the sentence hopefully will allow him to have the treatment that he desperately needs and also keep the rest of society safe.'

Dr Wong says security improvements at public hospitals have been unsatisfactory since his attack and wants more done to protect doctors and nurses from violent or drug-affected patients.

Dr Wong feels neither anger nor resentment towards Al-Salami (pictured), who he says is a seriously disturbed man
E-cigarettes should be banned from pubs and restaurants because of the dangers of passive vaping, say doctors

E-cigarettes should be banned from pubs and restaurants because of the dangers of passive vaping, say doctors.

They want the devices outlawed from all enclosed public spaces on the grounds that they may harm anyone in the same room as the user, or vaper  especially children and pregnant women.

There is growing evidence that chemicals released by the electronic devices cause long-term harm including lung damage, heart complications, cancer and stillbirth in pregnant women.

Yesterday, at the British Medical Associations annual meeting in Belfast, doctors voted to press for a ban on e-cigarettes in enclosed public spaces including pubs, restaurants, concert halls and airports, bringing them in line with ordinary tobacco cigarettes.

The Government claimed that such a move would deter smokers from using them to quit. Up to 22,000 Britons a year now rely on electronic cigarettes to help them kick the habit and they will soon be available on the NHS.

But little is known about their long-term risks and experts are also worried they act as a gateway, encouraging youngsters to take up smoking.

Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of the BMAs public health committee and a consultant in Glasgow, said: It is a myth that there is no such thing as passive vaping. There are new potential risks, and we dont yet know the level of those risks.

The extent to which nicotine from e-cigarettes may affect people near the vaper is still unclear, he added.

It does cause, in lower doses, short-term effects, such as raised heart rate and constriction of blood vessels, said Dr Kennedy. If you have those conditions longer-term they can cause problems.

There is also a specific issue with nicotine and pregnant women  because of the constriction of the blood vessels, it reduces blood flow through to the placenta, which can cause problems for the foetus and increases the risk of stillbirth.

They are undoubtedly safer than cigarettes but that does not mean they are completely 100 per cent safe.

A review carried out by Australian researchers in April concluded that passive vaping may lead to potential adverse health concerns.

They want the devices outlawed from all enclosed public spaces on the grounds that they may harm anyone in the same room as the user, or vaper  especially children and pregnant women

The authors, from Sydney, warned that there were particular dangers for children, pregnant women and other vulnerable patients with long-term illnesses.

But Public Health England claims e-cigarettes are 95 per cent safe and they were recently approved for use on the NHS.

From next year GPs are likely to start prescribing them to smokers to help them quit.

Rosanna OConnor, director of drugs, alcohol and tobacco at Public Health England, said: Vaping is not the same as smoking. Secondhand smoke is harmful to health but there is no evidence that e-cigarette vapour carries the same harms.
A New Zealand woman should be expecting a wealth of good luck after finding a dozen double-yolk eggs in the one carton.

Wellington woman Nikki Corbishley bought the size seven Higgins Free Range eggs from her local supermarket in Porirua.

She told stuff.co.nz she thought nothing of it when she cracked the first egg and found two yolks inside.

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Nikki Corbishley, from Wellington, was shocked to discover she had purchased an entire carton of double-yolk eggs

After eating some, she racked the last six over a plate while her husband Jimmi filmed the process

Her interest was piqued the next day though, when she cracked the second eff from the carton and found another two-yolk egg and she prepared scrambled eggs for her 22-month-old son, Thomas.

Mrs Corbishley had her husband Jimmi film her cracking open the last six, to discover the entire carton had been full of double-yolk eggs.

Superstitious people believe double-yolk eggs are a sign of fertility and/or good luck. Mrs Corbishley says she'll be taking advantage of her possible incoming lucky streak.

'People keep telling me to buy a lotto ticket, and I'll definitely be buying a couple,' she told Stuff.

According to Sunny Queen Farms in Australia, double-yolk eggs are formed by younger hens who are 20-28 weeks old, whose laying cycle hasn't formed a steady pattern.

As the yolks move through the reproductive tract, they can bump in to each other and become connected by egg white, forming an egg with two yolks.

David Mogford from the Australian Egg Corporation described the find as 'winning the lottery'.

'To have a whole carton is unusual, but most hens will be about the same age in each run so it's not unheard of,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'If you're making a pavlova and you need the egg white, you might be a bit annoyed at the double-yolk, but otherwise there is no problem with the double-yolks.'

According to the British Egg Information Service, the chances of finding a double-yolk egg on average are one in 1000.

For a whole carton of double-yolk eggs, the probability is one in 1000,000,000,000,000,000  or one in a quintillion.
De Heredia was arrested in April attempting to enter UK with fake passport

A former infomercial host has pleaded not guilty almost 20 years after he 'faked his own death' while out on bail for the alleged murder of a model's boyfriend who lost his eye and thumb when a parcel bomb was sent to his home.

Roberto Saenz de Heredia, a former presenter of Foxtel Shopping Network, was extradited from the UK on Sunday after he allegedly fled Australia using a stolen passport while out on bail for the 1998 explosion.

It's alleged he sent a parcel bomb to the home of model Simone Cheung, also known as Simone Farrow, and her boyfriend Brett Boyd, 27, in Belrose in Sydney's Northern Beaches.

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Brett Boyd lost his left eye and right thumb when a parcel bomb was sent to his home. He was also left with facial scars and partial deafness (pictured after explosion)

Mr Boyd's girlfriend at the time, Simone Cheung, also known as Simone Farrow (pictured) was unharmed in the 1998 explosion

Roberto de Heredia (above in an old photograph) has pleaded not guilty for the attempted murder of Brett Boyd

De Heredia was extradited to Australia on Sunday after he was arrested using a fake passport trying to enter the UK from Spain (pictured in Surry Hills police station, inner-Sydney, on Sunday)

Mr Boyd lost his left eye and right thumb in the explosion, which also caused facial scars and partial deafness.

He took his life 10 years later.

De Heredia, then 29, was arrested three months later and was granted bail for Mr Boyd's attempted murder.

He survived a shooting while waiting for trial, and police later found his car abandoned and blood splattered  fearing he may have been murdered.

On Thursday, de Heredia was asked how he would plead to attempted murder,ABC reported.

'Not guilty, sir,' he replied.

Mr Boyd took his life in 2008, ten years after the parcel bomb was sent to his Belrose home in Sydney's Northern Beaches (Mr Boyd pictured before explosion)

Mr Boyd was also a model before he was maimed in the parcel bomb explosion at his Belrose, Northern Beaches home, Sydney

TIMELINE OF 'ATTEMPTED MURDER' June 1998: Brett Boyd loses one eye and suffers serious burns when he opens an explosive package at his house September 1998: Roberto de Heredia is arrested and charged with one count of attempted murder July 1999: While on bail, de Heredia flees the country using a stolen passport 2008: Mr Boyd commits suicide 2012: Simone Farrow, who was Boyd's girlfriend at the time of explosion, is arrested on suspicion of running an international drug ring while working as a glamour model April 2016: De Heredia is arrested in London trying to enter the UK from Spain June 2016: Former Foxtel presenter is extradited back to Australia and pleads not guilty to attempted murder Advertisement

The now 47-year-old made no application for bail.

Police began re-examining the case last year with Australian Federal Police and British authorities.

De Heredia was then arrested in April this year when he attempted to enter the UK from Spain using fraudulent documents.

He was extradited to Australia on Sunday.

'On Monday 14 September 1998, detectives arrested a 29-year-old man: the man was committed to stand trial on attempted murder, however, while on bail he allegedly left Australia on 27 July 1999 using a stolen passport,' a NSW Police spokesman said on Sunday.

'In November 2015, detectives from Northern Beaches Local Area Command re-examined the case and on Sunday 17 April 2016, a 47-year-old man was arrested with the assistance of the Australian Federal Police and British law enforcement authorities, as he tried to enter the United Kingdom using alleged fraudulent travel documents.'

Roberto de Heredia, a former Foxtel presenter who fled Australia in 1999 after being charged with attempted murder, has been extradited back to Sydney to face court. He is seen above being frisked by police on Sunday

Northern Beaches Local Area Commander Superintendent Dave Darcy commended investigators involved in resurrecting the case.

'The arrest of this man  some 18 years after the alleged offence  demonstrates the lengths my officers will go to ensure matters are appropriately investigated.

'I'd like to congratulate them on their perseverance and professionalism.

'Arrests like this powerfully demonstrate to victims of violent crime; we are determined to bring offenders before the courts irrespective of how challenging the investigation may be,' he said.

Ms Cheung/ Farrow was arrested in 2012 for running an international drug ring as she arrived back in Australia from the US.

She is currently in jail.

Ms Cheung was unharmed in the 1998 explosion.

De Heredia is accused of the attempted murder of Brett Boyd (pictured after explosion) after he lost his thumb and eye when a parcel bomb was sent to his home

De Heredia, 47, was arrested by police in London after attempting to enter the UK from Spain. He was extradited back to Australia on Sunday

Police feared de Heredia may have been murdered when he vanished in 1998. He will appear before court on Sunday after being remanded in custody at a Surry Hills police station (above)
A teenager has been caught out brazenly vandalising a Melbourne train window in broad daylight.

The long-haired boy was filmed calmly scratching letters into the window next to him on the Lilydale line in east Melbourne on Wednesday.

He was filmed by two commuters sitting opposite him, Bryan Coombes and Kerrie Mason, who accused the teenager of wasting their tax payer dollars on senseless vandalism.

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A long-haired teenager was filmed calmly scratching letters into the window of a train in Melbourne's east on Wednesday before he was confronted by an angry couple

The boy, who appeared to know he was being filmed, continued carving into the window until he took out his headphones and snapped at the couple to stop filming.

'Do you want to get that out of my f***ing face before I f***ing take it off ya,' he said.

The young vandal continued to swear until Mr Coombes interrupted and went on a tirade about how his vandalism affected other commuters.

'People gotta pay for this s**t... have a look at ya, people are over this,' Mr Coombes said.

'My money don't go towards this s**t mate. Not for this crap. It goes towards public transport, it goes towards the system, it goes towards helping everyone get on with their lives.

The boy, who appeared to know he was being filmed, continued carving into the window on the Lilydale train line in Melbourne's east until he took out his headphones and snapped at the couple to stop filming

He scratched letters into the train window before being confronted by two angry commuters sitting opposite

'We don't want to sit here and listen to some loud mouth scratching on a damn window that we've all paid for.'

The teenager defended himself saying there was 'nowhere for me to do it'.

'Do what? Mindless vandalism? Go and f***ing do it on a canvas mate. Do it on an easel.' Mr Coombes shot back.

The vandal was filmed swearing as he walked off the train after the confrontation with the couple.

They reported the incident to station staff.

The vandal was filmed swearing as he walked off the train after the confrontation with the couple

A Metro spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that the teen's behaviour was 'disgraceful and unacceptable.'

It is so disappointing to have an incident of this nature occurring as we have been working so hard to eliminate graffiti and vandalism on our trains,' the spokesperson said.

'Our security and surveillance team will be further investigating this despicable incident and will work closely with the Transit Police in an effort to bring this vandal to justice.'

'We spend more than $10 million each year on graffiti removal. This is money we could spend on upgrading the network.
A widow has died months after being kicked out of her home of more than 60 years because her life-long collection of dolls and trinkets was branded a fire risk.

Housing chiefs evicted May Appleton, 87, from her semi-detached property, which was stacked full of thousands of toys, photographs and ornaments, in March.

Last night her sons said Weaver Vale Housing Trust had 'blood on their hands' after she died in hospital overnight.

They claimed a judge had already ordered Mrs Appleton be returned to her home, in Lostock Gralam, near Northwich, Cheshire, but housing bosses had been dragging their heels over allowing the family back in.

Housing chiefs evicted May Appleton, 87, from her semi-detached property, which was stacked full of thousands of toys, photographs and ornaments, in March

Bailiffs broke down the front door to Mrs Appleton's home following a stand-off in March

Her sons said Weaver Vale Housing Trust had 'blood on their hands' after she died in hospital overnight

Her eldest son, Brian, 61, a retired greenkeeper, said: 'Weaver Vale ought to be ashamed of themselves, they have my mother's blood on their hands.

'She was 87 years old and had lived in that house for 60 years  she should never have been moved. I blame them for her death.

'They effectively signed her death warrant by forcing her out at her age. Beforehand she was old, but not unwell.

'However, the last three months took a terrible toll on her health. We're all devastated that she has gone.'

Bailiffs broke down the front door to Mrs Appleton's home following a stand-off in March.

Mrs Appleton was evicted and Weaver Vale rehoused her in a nearby Travelodge hotel

Mrs Appleton collapsed in her hotel bedroom on June 15 and was rushed to Leighton Hospital, in Crewe

Weaver Vale claimed they had spent the previous three years trying to persuade the widow, who lived in the property for 61 years, to get rid of some of her possessions.

But Mrs Appleton, who lived with her sons Brian, Mark, 51, and Paul, 49, refused.

Instead they were evicted and Weaver Vale paid for them to stay in a nearby Travelodge hotel while the courts decided whether the family could return.

Around three weeks ago, a judge handed the tenancy back to Mrs Appleton, who began collecting dolls aged five, and said she should be allowed home.

But Weaver Vale stalled the move, claiming they needed to tidy up the property and repair the electrics before that could happen.

In the meantime, Mrs Appleton, whose husband, Brian, died 16 years ago, fell ill. She collapsed in her hotel bedroom on June 15 and was rushed to Leighton Hospital, in Crewe, where medics diagnosed blood poisoning or septicaemia.

She took a turn for the worse on Tuesday and died in hospital at at 4am yesterday morning.

Mark, 51, said: 'My mother suffered weeks of heartache which could all have been avoided.

'She spent the last three months of her life in a Travelodge when she should have been at home.

'They moved her out and sent her to her death. She had a routine at home, she knew where everything was  her home and possessions were her life.

'To suddenly be ripped out and told you might never go back would have been bad enough for a younger person, but for someone of that age  she just lost the will to live.'

Mrs Appleton had previously described her collection as 61 years of memories

Mark said he and his brothers now faced an uncertain future. They plan to fight to return to the house and continue their mother's wish to eventually buy the property.

'We've no idea what's going to happen now,' he added.

'We're waiting to speak to our solicitors. My mother has the tenancy but we could be homeless by next week. The hotel is booked until June 29.

'My brothers and I lived in that house all our lives, we've been involved in our community and the local church, never drunk, never smoked and never committed any crimes, yet we are treated like the 'most wanted' in Britain.

'We've always been good citizens, yet we've been treated like scum just because we have a lot of things.'

Mrs Appleton had previously described her collection as 61 years of memories.

Each room of her home is full of hundreds of dolls, teddy bears, toys, newspapers, magazines and photographs and neatly packed plastic bags of possessions line the staircase.

On the walls hang scores of ornamental mugs and plates, while her collection also includes Star Wars and Action Man toys, autographs from Hollywood stars of the 1930s and a card sent to May's parents by the Queen Mother to thank them for looking after evacuees during the Second World War.

She said previously: 'What I've got in there is 61 years of memories. I've been happy here for 58 years, it's the last three that have been terrible. Losing my things would kill me.'

Each room of her home was crammed full of items she had collected while plastic bags of possessions lined the staircase  but a fire brigade inspection labelled it a hazard

Housing chiefs sent in bailiffs to evict May Appleton, 87, from her semi-detached property in Lostock Gralam, Cheshire, following a three-year stand-off

Steve Jennings, chief executive of Weaver Vale Housing Trust, said: 'We are extremely saddened to hear of the death of May Appleton at Leighton Hospital.

'Over the past three years we, along with concerned partners from a number of other agencies, attempted to work with Mrs Appleton and her sons to make the property safe for the family to live in following Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service determining that the house was a fire hazard.
Lennox Moles was born premature at 25 weeks and weighed only 800 grams.

Doctors at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, immediately put in a plastic bag to help him regulate his temperature to prevent hypothermia before he was taken to his incubator.

Lennox's mother, Lilly Munro, described the newborn's temporary home as an 'oven bag' and said it was a common practice for premature babies who had not developed enough to keep themselves warm.

'It is quite confronting image... He was put in a plastic oven-type bag and whisked away,' Ms Munro told Daily Mail Australia.

Lennox Moles was born premature at 25 weeks and weighed only 800 grams. He was put in a plastic bag resembling an oven bag to regulate his temperature

He spent 111 days at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne before he was brought home

Ms Munro, from Melbourne, with her newborn son who she refers to as her 'miracle baby'

'It's what they do in order to preserve [a premature baby's] temperature because they can't regulate their temperature.'

Following his birth, Lennox spent 111 days at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne before he was brought home.

Babies who are born at this stage of the pregnancy only have a 50 per cent of survival.

His brave fight and survival has Ms Munro referring to her fourth child as her 'miracle baby'.

Ms Munro said she got a 'strange feeling that something wasn't quite right' when she was 24 weeks pregnant.

She was taken to hospital and had an ultrasound where her doctor made a shocking discovery.

'My doctor looked at the screen and went, "Oh My God... your cervix is open and the baby's arm is up like Superman through the cervix. You're not going anywhere,' Ms Munro told Daily Mail Australia.

The mother-of-four (right with her fiance, Brodie Moles), 30, said she got a 'strange feeling that something wasn't quite right' when she was 24 weeks pregnant

She was taken to hospital and had an ultrasound where her doctor made a shocking discovery. Above is Ms Munro with Lennox just after he was born

After spending a week in hospital, Lennox, affectionately known as 'Lenni' to his parents, was born on February 29 after an intense seven-hour labour

Lennox spent four months fighting for his life as his parents balanced looking after three other children from previous relationships

While the young mother was at hospital, fiance Brodie Moles became their children's full-time carer instead of going to his construction job

Ms Munro and Mr Moles, had to stop working because the couple had to drive to the hospital every two hours to deliver her breast milk to make sure Lennox had the best fighting chance

The baby boy inside his incubator at the hospital. He was born with a hole in his heart and may need laser surgery because his eyes had not developed fully

After spending a week in hospital, Lennox, affectionately known as 'Lenni' to his parents, was born on February 29 after an intense seven-hour labour.

Lennox spent four months fighting for his life as his parents balanced looking after three other children from previous relationships.

He was born with a hole in his heart and may need laser surgery because his eyes had not developed fully.

Lennox, who now weighs 3.5 kilograms, also had trouble breathing and had numerous blood transfusions.

Ms Munro and her fiance, Brodie Moles, had to stop working because the couple had to drive to the hospital every two hours to deliver her breast milk to make sure Lennox had the best fighting chance as it would boost his immunity.

While the young mother was at hospital, Mr Moles became their children's full-time carer instead of going to his construction job.

On top of that, the couple did not have anywhere to stay overnight to be with Lennox because the public hospital system was 'so financially stretched'.

At home, the young mother was unable to eat, sleep and stop crying for her baby boy.

Unable to go to work, the couple also fell behind with their bills and rent.

The couple did not have anywhere to stay overnight to be with Lennox because the public hospital system was 'so financially stretched'. Pictured is Ms Munro bathing her baby boy

Ms Munro and Mr Moles with their daughter, Manny, who recently turned nine years old

Lennox, who now weighs 3.5 kilograms, also had trouble breathing and had numerous blood transfusions

Lennox (pictured with the couple), who now weighs 3.5 kilograms had trouble breathing and had numerous blood transfusions. He was born with a hole in his heart and may need laser eye surgery

At the time of Lennox's homecoming on Monday, Ms Munro said they were still $4,500 behind on rent and their electricity had been cut off.

They do not qualify for travel assistance and carer's allowance.

In order to cover these costs as well as the ongoing care of Lennox, the family have started a gofundme fundraising campaign.

The campaign has raised just over $5,000 in a month.

Ms Munro said she also hoped they were able to raise awareness about the neonatal intensive care unit at The Royal Women's Hospital, which said was 'world class'.

'These doctors are above and beyond... The nurses in here are amazing. Some of them drive from Geelong and from the country [to come to work],' she told Daily Mail Australia.
Ford Australia may have to refund its customers up to $1.75 billion after thousands of drivers claimed their cars had 'major defects' and launched a class action against the manufacturer.

The class action alleges Ford mislead its customers when it sold 22 models of Focus, Fiesta and EcoSport vehicles between 2011 and 2016 that were not of acceptable quality under Australian standards, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The claim, to be heard in the Federal Court, relates to 70,000 cars, with some drivers claiming they experienced sudden loss of power or uncontrollable 'jerking and shuddering' caused by Ford's faulty 'PowerShift transmission'.

Claimant Billie Capic claims her 2012 Ford Focus (similar model pictured) suddenly lost power a number of times since purchasing the car for $29,000 and that on one occasion it caused her to fear for her life

Claimant Billie Capic, from Victoria, submitted documents to the court stating her 2012 Ford Focus suddenly lost power a number of times since purchasing the car for $29,000 and that on one occasion it caused her to fear for her life.

Ms Capic claims to have had problems changing gears, reversing or reaching speeds above 80 kilometres. She also said the car would shake uncontrollably, change or skip gears and lurch forward without warning, the Daily Telegraph reported.

She raise the issue with Ford on four separate occasions but mechanics at the dealer told her there was no default with the car or transmission, according to court documents.

Taylor Morgan claims her Ford Focus lost power on a bustling road near Sydney Airport.

She said an NRMA service man got the car running again but it failed again only minutes later and it had to be towed to a dealership.

The claimrelates to 70,000 cars, with some drivers claiming they experienced sudden loss of power or uncontrollable 'jerking and shuddering' caused by Ford's faulty 'PowerShift transmission' (pictured)

The class action alleges Ford mislead its customers when it sold 22 models of Focus, Fiesta and EcoSport vehicles between 2011 and 2016 that were not of acceptable quality under Australian standards

The Ford EcoSport (pictured) is one of 22 models which drivers claimed had significant defaults

The cars involved in the claim allegedly shook uncontrollably, changed or skipped gears and lurched forward without warning (stock image)

'Next time it happens it could kill somebody,' she told the Daily Telegraph, adding she also experienced an intermittent clutch shudder.

Neither women have been offered a refund or replacement and the affected vehicles have not been recalled.

The class action claims the cars were not of acceptable quality when they were sold and that Ford were aware and chose to deceive its customers at the point of sale.

Car owners whose vehicles experience a 'major failure' are entitled to a refund under Australian consumer law.

A conference about class action suit will take place in Sydney's Federal Court (pictured) on June 29

The class action alleges Ford mislead its customers when it sold 22 models of Focus, Fiesta and EcoSport vehicles between 2011 and 2016 that were not of acceptable quality under Australian standards

Claimants are seeking aggravated damages and refunds, which could total up to $1.75 billion, according to the Daily Telegraph.

A spokesperson for Ford said they were unable to comment on the claims, but that they would be investigating any potential safety concerns.

'While we cant comment specifically about the ongoing litigation, Ford is committed to providing our customers with top-quality vehicles,' a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

'We are equally committed to addressing potential issues and responding quickly for our customers.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Bannister Law for comment.
Some have put 'exclusion zones' but report suggests it is a losing battle

Children are ordering takeaways to be delivered to them at school, startling research claims.

Experts are increasingly concerned about growing rates of child obesity  a problem being driven by easy access to junk food.

Nearly one in six under-16s in England today are obese  and experts warn that if the tide does not turn, todays children may be the first to die at a younger age than their parents.

The problem of junk food at schools was notably raised by Jamie Oliver in 2006.

The report published today by the Royal Society for Public Health revealed that 25 per cent of children have ordered takeaways to their school, with half of them using an app on their phone to do so

His crusade for healthier school meals was resisted in Rotherham, South Yorkshire where parents infamously started pushing takeaway meals to their children through the bars at school gates. But a decade on, it appears pupils no longer have to rely on parents for their unhealthy lunches  instead they just order them on their smartphones.

The report published today by the Royal Society for Public Health revealed that 25 per cent of children have ordered takeaways to their school, and half of those pupils used a smartphone app to make the order.

The organisation, which based its research on interviews with more than 500 school children, is calling for an outright ban on food deliveries to schools.

Separate research, published by the Daily Mail earlier this month, revealed that more than 5,000 new fast-food restaurants have opened outside schools in Britain in the last seven years  a 58 per cent rise since 2009.

Of the 55,499 fast-food businesses in Britain, 28 per cent are within five minutes of a primary or secondary school.

Some councils have already imposed exclusion zones around schools, allowing head teachers to oppose planning and licensing applications from nearby businesses. But todays report suggests schools are fighting a losing battle when children can simply order in junk food anyway.

Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the RSPH, said: Our childhood obesity rates are disappointing, and tackling this must be a priority for Government. There can be no excuses for fudging action on what is our number one public health challenge.

Pressure is mounting on the Government to announce radical action when it finally publishes its long-awaited child obesity strategy later this summer.

George Osborne announced in his Budget earlier this year that the UK will introduce a tax on sugary drinks in April 2018.

But experts also want tighter controls on TV junk food advertising and a ban on advertising unhealthy foods near schools.

Mrs Cramer added: While we welcome the Governments introduction of a sugar levy on soft drinks, it is absolutely critical that the forthcoming childhood obesity strategy builds on this positive step with a basket of hard-hitting measures, from greater controls on advertising and marketing of junk food to food reformulation.

This report gives a uniquely young persons perspective on what steps can and should be taken, and while there is no silver bullet, young people are very clear on what they think the causes of obesity are. Of the 500 children questioned for the report, 49 per cent said fast food takeaway companies were most at fault for childhood obesity.
Basic labour rights could be extended to robots. The European Parliament's legal affairs committee is considering plans to declare them 'electronic persons'.

The machines would be free to own and trade money, claim copyright on creative work and force human owners to pay into a pension in case they are damaged, the Times reported.

MEPs, led by a socialist from Luxembourg, have suggested that member states should think about a world driven by automation - one solution discussed is a guaranteed universal basic income.

Basic labour rights could be extended to robots. The European Parliament's legal affairs committee is considering plans to declare them 'electronic persons'

Robotics is expected to produce machines that are no longer just 'tools' but agents in their own right, able to teach themselves, roam around and make decisions, the committee's report states.

This could lead to a string of legal problems if robots go rogue and intentionally harm humans around them.

'From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster to the classical myth of Pygmalion, through the story of Prague's golem to the robot of Karel Capek, who coined the word, people have fantasised about the possibility of building intelligent machines,' MEPs wrote.

'Now that humankind stands on the threshold of an era when ever more sophisticated robots, bots, androids and other manifestations of artificial intelligence seem poised to unleash a new industrial revolution, which is likely to leave no stratum of society untouched, it is vitally important for the legislature to consider all its implications.'

The report says advances in robotics could bring about 'virtually unbounded prosperity' but could undermine the entire basis of the welfare state if too many people are made unemployed.

Robotics is expected to produce machines that are no longer just 'tools' but agents in their own right, able to teach themselves, roam around and make decisions, the committee's report states

It warns that within a few decades artificial intelligence could challenge humanity's 'capacity to be in charge of its own destiny and to ensure the survival of the species'.

Noel Sharkey, a professor at the University of Sheffield, said the proposals were a step toward rules in law for robotics, but humans must treat robots as inanimate and not sentient.

Mady Delvaux, the socialist MEP from Luxembourg who led the work, said that MEPs would vote on proposals within the next 12 months: 'This is a new world that we see arriving'.
Tens of thousands of housewives are among more than 100,000 people approaching retirement who are set to receive letters informing them they are not entitled to a single penny of the new 'flat rate' state pension

Tens of thousands of housewives are among more than 100,000 people approaching retirement who are set to receive letters informing them they are not entitled to a single penny of the new 'flat rate' state pension.

The Government has agreed to send the letters over concerns many Britons reaching retirement age may not realise they can't depend on receiving an income from the state.

MPs have raised concerns many people are bewildered about new rules which disqualify anyone with fewer than ten years of National Insurance contributions for any state pension at all.

Stay at home mothers and older women who took on traditional roles in the home, or took extended periods of time off work to raise children, are most likely to lose out as a result of the rules.

A single tier or flat rate scheme worth 155.65 a week was introduced in April as part of the biggest shake-up to the state pension since it was introduced more than a century ago.

This was designed to sweep away the complexities of the old system, which included the basic state pension and an earnings-related top up called the state second pension

But the Commons Work and Pensions Committee found widespread confusion over the impact of the new state pension, just weeks before its introduction, with many people left 'unprepared and confused'.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies also warned many savers expecting to receive 155.65 a week will be disappointed and suggested ministers may have misled the public by exaggerating the simplicity of the new state pension.

Its analysis suggests more than six in ten people reaching the state pension age over the next four years will receive less than the 155.65 per week headline rate.

The Government has bowed to pressure from the Work & Pensions committee and agreed to write directly to those people who do not meet the minimum ten year qualifying period for the new state pension.

It estimates around 100,000 people aged over 50 - including tens of thousands of housewives - fall into this category.

Frank Field, chairman of the committee, said: 'The committee has encountered untold confusion among people who wanted to know the value of their state pension, and who had received little or no communication from the Government.

'It looks as though the Government will begin to apply the lessons from our evidence, by writing to people who do not meet the minimum criteria for the new state pension. We very much welcome this initiative.'

MPs are also concerned that millions of people expecting to receive the flat rate pension of 155.65 a week when they retire will be in for a shock.

Anyone reaching state pension age from April 6 qualifies for the new state pension regime.

Frank Field, chairman of the committee, said: 'The committee has encountered untold confusion among people who wanted to know the value of their state pension, and who had received little or no communication from the Government'

This means all men born on or after April 6 1951 and women born on or after April 6 1953.

Those who have built up 35 years of national insurance contributions will qualify for at least 155.65.

But it will be decades before everyone retiring receives the same flat rate amount.

Until then millions of workers will receive a different pensions income.

This is a legacy of the baffling state pension system that is being phased out.

Under the new regime the second state pension is being abolished.

Higher earners who built up enough national insurance contributions could qualify for top ups worth up to 135 a week, in addition to the basic state pension.

Under the new system workers who have already built up entitlement to the state second pension will see those payments protected.

But millions of people opted out of the state second pension  including those in generous final salary work pensions
Viking enthusiast: Aiden Devlin, 21

A Viking enthusiast has been ordered to take an anger management course after he headbutted a 22-year-old man over a missing axe.

University student Aiden Devlin, 21, confronted Alexander Childs in the middle of Lampeter, West Wales, believing he had stolen the weapon.

The axe was used by Devlin and fellow members of the Trinity St David's University Viking Society in battle re-enactments.

Aberystwyth Magistrates' Court heard how he confronted Mr Childs, 22, saying: 'I'm Aidan Devlin, and I'm a member of the Viking Society. I have it on good authority that you know where Scott Jackson's axe is.'

The court heard how Devlin was furious when Mr Childs 'smirked' at his Viking declaration.

When Mr Childs tried to walk away, Devlin headbutted him.

Prosecutor Ellie Morgan said: 'Mr Childs was in a shop in the town centre when he heard someone shout his name.

'Devlin told him he was a member of the Viking Society, which carries out battle reenactments. Devlin said if he found that Mr Childs knew where the axe was he would break his nose.

'Mr Childs denied knowing anything about but Devlin grabbed him and swore at him before headbutting him to the nose.'

Devlin was later arrested at his university halls.

In a police interview Devlin admitted headbutting Mr Childs, saying he had been angry after he thought Mr Childs smirked at him.

Devlin, pictured during a battle re-enactment, accused Alexander Childs of stealing the battle axe

Janem Jones, defending, said: 'This axe was the bone of contention was from a well-respected society. This is something he will never, ever do again.

'He has sought anger management counselling to help control his temper.'

Devlin, now of Belfast, was fined 120 after admitting assault and must pay 100 compensation to Mr Childs.
One of New York's most infamous serials killers said during a recent parole board hearing that he views himself as a model inmate and is helping others behind bars with 'kindness and compassion.'

David Berkowitz, who is also known as 'Son of Sam,' appeared for his 15th parole hearing in May pleading with board as to why he should be released.

The 63-year-old pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in June of 1978 for killing six people and wounding seven others during bloody shooting attacks in New York City between 1976 and 1977.

Berkowitz eluded police for quite some time, leaving brazen letters mocking the authorities.

He was busted by police officers at his home in Yonkers on August 10, 1977. They were tipped off after his car was ticketed near the scene of his last shooting.

At the time, he confessed to all of the killings and claimed to cops that he was following the orders of a demon who was manifested in the form of a dog named Harvey that was owned by his neighbor named Sam.

David Berkowitz (above), who is also known as 'Son of Sam, said during a recent parole board hearing that he views himself as a model inmate and is helping others behind bars with 'kindness and compassion'

Berkowitz, who is also known as 'Son of Sam,' appeared for his 15th parole hearing in May pleading with board as to why he should be released. Above he is pictured during his arrest 1977

Berkowitz (above) pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in June of 1978 for killing six people and wounding seven others during a bloody rampage in New York City between 1976 and 1977

Berkowitz, who was found mentally competent, was also thought to be behind many unsolved arsons in New York City.

He received tons of coverage by the media concerning the case and had nearly reached celebrity status at the time.

Because of this, the state enacted the 'Son of Sam laws' in an effort to keep criminals from earning money from the publicity their crimes could receive.

Berkowitz, who is currently serving six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences for the horrific killings, told a parole board that he's 'really done wonderful,' according to the transcript dated May 17 that the New York Post obtained.

'I was constantly putting myself out there to help other individuals, with kindness and compassion,' he said.

'I mean, I feel that's my life's calling, all these years. My evaluations, and so forth, should show that to be true.

'I've done a lot of good and positive things, and I thank God for that.'

Berkowitz, who became eligible for parole in 2002, said that he is carrying out his 'life's calling' by being a 'caregiver' in prison.

While serving nearly three decades behind bars at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, Berkowitz has helped to operate chapel services, worked with mental heath inmates and conducted bible studies.

He was busted by police officers at his home in Yonkers on August 10, 1977. They were tipped off after his car was ticketed near the scene of his last shooting. Above he is pictured during his arrest in 1977

Berkowitz, who is currently serving six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences for the horrific killings, told a parole board that he's 'really done wonderful.' Above he is pictured in his cell at Kings County Hospital in 1977

In addition, he also graduated from Sullivan Community College with top honors before he was transferred to Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill.

'I feel I am no risk, whatsoever,' Berkowitz said, despite calling his crimes a 'terrible tragedy.'

The '.44 Caliber Killer' added: 'I continue to go forward with my life. I do a lot of good things.'

While appearing before the board, he said that he truly regrets what he did and that he is 'deeply sorry.'

'Unfortunately, it was a terrible tragedy. I regret that with all my heart. I would do anything if I could ever change that,' he said.

'It was a time that my life was out of control. I'd do anything if I could go back and change that, but it's impossible to go back into the past and fix those kinds of things.'

He explained how he has worked 'just like a caregiver' to the board while in prison.

Berkowitz (above), who became eligible for parole in 2002, said that he is carrying out his 'life's calling' by being a 'caregiver' in prison. He has helped to operate chapel services, worked with mental heath inmates and conducted bible studies

He also graduated from Sullivan Community College with top honors before he was transferred to Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill (above)

'I have a heart for helping and reaching out to inmates, offenders, who have psychiatric problems, who have a lot of depression, and things like thatso, I feel that's my calling in life,' Berkowitz said.

He stated that if they were to release him from prison, he would have a place to live with 'outstanding members of society' whom he called good friends as some are ministers.

However, the parole board questioned why Berkowitz went on a killing rampage in the first place.

'It's beyond my comprehension,' he replied. 'I look back with, like, so much disbelief. There are times that I wake up and say, I can't believe this happened.'

Berkowitz was denied parole and will appear before the board in May 2018.

According to the Post, Berkowitz's attorney Mark Heller, said: 'On every occasion I have visited David over the years the staff at the correctional facility, including the Chaplin, has gushed about what a wonderful model prisoner David has been and stated that they wish every prisoner was as compliant, helpful and appropriate as David.'
A woman accused of brutally bashing an 87-year-old great grandmother before stealing her car to go on a three-day crime spree blew a kiss for news cameras as she was led in to court.

Tammy Phillips, 33, was arrested on Tuesday evening at Kerang Train Station in northern Victoria, three days after allegedly attacking Mavis Dillon in St Albans - 270km away.

She is accused of bashing Mrs Dillon to steal her car and using it to make the three-hour drive to Kerang where allegedly attacked another elderly woman outside a supermarket three days later.

Police arrested her at Kerang Railway Station on Tuesday after finding Mrs Dillon's stolen Hyundai in its car park.

Phillips, who has not yet pleaded to the charges, blew a kiss as she was led in to Swan Hill Magistrates Court on Wednesday by police.

The woman, who is from Shepparton on the Goulburn River - more than an hour from where Mrs Dillon was attacked - was remanded in custody to appear before magistrates again in September.

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Tammy Phillips, who is accused of bashing an 87-year-old great grandmother before stealing her car, blew a kiss for cameras outside Swan Magistrate Court near Melbourne on Thursday

Police arrested the woman in Kerang on Tuesday evening three days after Mrs Dillon had her car stolen.

On Sunday the 87-year-old was attacked in a St Albans car park and at first thought the assailant was a man because it had been so violent.

She was taken to hospital for bruising to her face and also broke her arm but was discharged on Wednesday as Phillips faced court.

After the attack, it is alleged Phillips drove to the town of Kerang, some 270km away. She is accused of attacking another elderly woman on Tuesday behind IGA Supermarket, allegedly hitting her in the face with a gun before stealing her wallet.

It sparked a police man hunt in the town, with officers closing down roads in the area while they reviewed CCTV from the supermarket.

They arrested Phillips at Kerang Railway Station on Tuesday evening at around 6pm after finding Mrs Dillon's car abandoned in its car park.

Cohuna Police sergeant Andrew Rigg said the crime spree had been random.

The 33-year-old was remanded in custody until her next court appearance in September

Mavis Dillon required hospital treatment for painful bruising on her face and a broken arm after the attack

The great grandmother believed she had been attacked by a man because the bashing was so brutal

'It could have happened to anyone. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,' he told The Gannawarra Times of the second alleged victim.

'With the help of the public we were able to obtain a good description and a picture of who we were looking for.

'CRIME SPREE' TIMELINE Sunday June 19: Mavis Dillon is attacked as she gets in to her car in a St Albans Car Park at around 4.50pm Tuesday June 21, 10am: Another elderly woman is assaulted outside IGA Supermarket in Kerang, three hours away 2pm: Police find Mrs Dillon's stolen Hyundai in the Kerang Train Station car park 6pm: After a four-hour man hunt they arrested Tammy Phillips Wednesday June 22: Phillips, 33, appears at Swan Hill Magistrate Court Advertisement

'This led police to shut down Kerang for about four hours as we hunted her down, before the stolen vehicle was located at the Kerang railway station car park,' he said of finding the woman.

After learning police had arrested a woman for attacking her, Mrs Dillon told of her surprise on Thursday.

'Fancy a woman doing that to another woman, an old woman!',' she said in an interview with 7 News.

Phillips did not apply for bail at Swan Magistrates Court on Thursday and has been remanded in custody until her next court date in September.

She faces one charge of assault, three of armed robbery and one count of obtaining property by deception.

Before her arrest Mrs Dillon spoke of the attack while under the impression she had been bashed by a man.

'He just came up and just whacked me. He said nothing,' she said from her hospital bed.

Police allege Phillips attacked Mrs Dillon after approaching her to steal her Hyundai car in St Albans. Above, CCTV footage which they say shows her and the vehicle

Phillips was seen allegedly plotting to commit the carjacking on tape (above), Victoria Police say

Shortly after 10am on Tuesday, another elderly woman was attacked in the car park of IGA Supermarket in Kerang (above). Police allege Phillips attacked her, hitting her in the face with a gun to steal her wallet

The 33-year-old was arrested at Kerang train station (above) on Tuesday after police found Mrs Dillon's car abandoned there

On Wednesday police charged Phillips with the attack despite previously looking for a man and also revealed their suspicions that she was responsible for a spate of armed robberies in the area.

'Police have charged a Shepparton woman following the assault of an elderly woman during a car theft in St Albans on Sunday,' a spokesman said.

'The 87-year-old St Albans woman was allegedly assaulted and had her car stolen on St Albans Road about 4.50pm.

'A 33-year-old woman was arrested yesterday in Kerang and has been charged with three counts of armed robbery, assault and obtain property by deception.
George MacDonald Fraser is remembered for his series of novels starring Harry Flashman, a skirt-chasing rogue and officer caught up in the great military campaigns of Victorian Britain.

The acclaimed author was an unabashed patriot given to colourful views. A few years before he died in 2008, when Tony Blair's Labour government was seriously considering that the UK should join the euro, he wrote an article that was as brilliant as it was provocative  arguing that the EU was a disaster zone and closer involvement would lead only to catastrophe.

Here, we reproduce it...

Lovable rogue: George MacDonald Fraser's adventurer Harry Flashman

Suppose in 1945, with the Nazi war machine smashed and Britain rejoicing after the greatest victory in her history, we had been told: 'Of course, 50 years hence your leaders will have surrendered your sovereignty to the people you've just defeated and those you've liberated.

'In effect, they will be your masters, your lawmakers  oh, and incidentally, it will be a crime to sell in pounds and ounces . . .' The prophet would have been ridiculed, perhaps even reviled as a traitor, and probably put in a padded cell.

Well, it has happened.

Since 1973, when the country was dragooned into the Common Market by Edward Heath, successive governments, with a cynical disregard for public opinion, have squandered countless millions of treasure for the benefit of the moocher [cadging] nations of the EU, and in return our farming and fishing industries have been brought to the brink of ruin, our constitution undermined and our laws, passed by properly elected Britons, brushed aside whenever they are at odds with the directives of unelected foreign bureaucrats whose corruption is a byword, in whose appointment we had no say, but whose will is sovereign while ours goes for nothing.

Having been sold out not just tamely, but positively eagerly, we have seen despatched to the governing bodies of Europe our sorriest political failures, cast-offs and has-beens, who of course are pro-European to a man, since Europe has provided them (and in some cases, their families) from time to time with a gravy-soaked alternative to the unemployment they deserve.

We, and other European nations, have to pay for a 'Parliament' which has rather flatteringly been described as 'an unspeakable assembly . . . of self-important nonentities', and which not only performs no useful function but is a positively harmful and colossally expensive dead weight existing for nothing but the benefit of its members.

Worse still, our leaders have been criminally stupid in embracing, and enshrining in our law, the wicked and misguided twaddle of European 'human rights', submitting to the ruling of that unqualified kangaroo assembly, the European Court, and using all this farrago of Continental nonsense as an excuse for destroying the fabric of our nation.

'We have to do it because Brussels says we must.' How often have we heard this pathetic whine from a gutless government?

Is it not remarkable that Britain, with a record on human rights superior to any other nation's, Britain which has done more to spread honest law and democracy than all the European states together, Britain whose ideas and ideals have been adopted by every respectable people on earth, should be lectured on 'human rights' by the Continent which gave us the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the French Revolution and subsequent horrors of Napoleonic aggression, the police state, fascism, communism, and other benefits too numerous to mention  to say nothing of being so wicked, corrupt and feeble that within living memory it had to be rescued by Britain, America and Russia.

Brazen impudence is too mild a phrase for the effrontery of the European Court in issuing its diktats to us, and supine behaviour of all our political parties who have been so craven and witless as to accept them.

Europe is simply not fit to have any say in British affairs

I am ranting, no doubt about it. But then, I am enraged at what has been done to my country by the contemptible dross elected to Westminster in evil hours, worst of all the Heath government which gave Britain its death blow, and New Labour who have trampled on the corpse.

But not half so angry, I dare swear, as our forefathers would be if they could see the betrayal, by worthless politicians, of the country they worked so hard to build, and the surrender of the precious freedoms won by better men at Trafalgar, Waterloo, Flanders and El Alamein and in the skies above the Weald of Kent.

'Oh, emotive drum-beating!' I can hear the snoopopaths cry. 'Jingoism of the most Victorian kind, a bellow from a bygone age!' That is how they see their country's past, and are too stupid and complacent to look to its future. But even they would do well to ask themselves what Churchill and Elizabeth I would have thought of the pass to which Britain has been brought in the past half-century. It will be said that these worthies belonged to other times, and their notions are out of date. Not so.

The freedoms they believed in are eternal, and we will lose them for ever if we allow ourselves to be conned or bullied into, first, joining the ludicrous euro, and inevitably thereafter, railroaded into a European superstate, a union of European soviets controlled by people whose ways are not our ways, whose values are not our values, and whose polities have shown themselves inferior to ours at any time during the past millennium.

Consider how willingly they accept dictatorship, whether of Louis XIV or Napoleon or Hitler or Mussolini or Franco, and compare their pathetic record with ours.

Europe is simply not fit to have any say in British affairs.

Corruption is plainly endemic; the bribe, the backhander, the favour, the nepotism, the freebie at public expense  these are the air the EU breathes, and there are signs in our own political establishment that the infection is spreading, although we still, fortunately, have some way to go before our scandals reach European proportions.

The totalitarian dangers of Europeanisation are to be seen at every turn.

Since 1973, when the country was dragooned into the Common Market by Edward Heath, successive governments, with a cynical disregard for public opinion, have squandered countless millions of treasure for the benefit of the moocher [cadging] nations of the EU

It is European gospel that EU Commissioners must put Europe ahead of their national loyalties. Personally, I am conscious of no obligation to Bulgaria or Romania, to name but two, and the last thing I want is these sponger nations consuming our national wealth and, in time no doubt, imposing on us the 'democratic ideals' they learned under communism.

The great mystery is why the Eurofanatics want to see us under the sway of Brussels.

It has already cost us a fortune and done us untold damage: why should they wish to cost us more and damage us still further?

The motive of those on the European gravy-train is plain enough, but what's in it for those commercial interest spokesmen who clamour for the euro and closer integration?

Short-term profit? Perhaps; there are those quite base and stupid enough to think the loss of national sovereignty a small price to pay for lining their pockets.

They would probably be on the Right, but what attracts the Left? Being part of a glorious union of Socialist Republics?

There are some, to be sure, who have entirely different notions about independence and national honour and integrity from the rest of us.

The child of, say, Balkan immigrants may well have a different concept of what it means to be British (supposing he has any at all beyond possession of a passport) than the man or woman whose ancestors have been here for a thousand years. (And that will be denounced by liberals as an abominably racist thing to say. Which doesn't stop it being true.)

One way or another, the question whether Britain remains a free nation or becomes the vassal of a totalitarian Europe will be settled soon, and those who oppose our further integration would do well to remember, and proclaim as widely and as loudly as possible, the unashamed dishonesty that has characterised the pro- European movement from the beginning. Not since Lenin and Hitler cast their obscene spells has there been a political campaign so blatantly mendacious. In 1973, we were assured it was merely a Common Market, and that no political union was envisaged: it is now shamelessly admitted that this was untrue, that political union was the aim from the start.

The British people have shown that they want neither, and a growing number would like to see us out of Europe altogether

Whether one can trace this back to Vichy France's collaboration with Nazi Germany, and the plan drawn up by the defeated Nazi generals in 1946 for an armed and united Europe dominated and led by Germany, is a matter for conjecture; what is certain is that the past 30 years has seen the mischief moving into high gear: lie has been piled on lie, deceit on deceit, and folly on folly, and there can be no one, surely, so naive as to suppose that the underlying motives of the Euromaniacs are pure and altruistic.

It has actually been pretended that European Union has kept the peace for half a century. This is one of the silliest lies; the peace has been kept by nuclear deterrence  and the fact that Germany has been in no position to flex its military muscles.

One need cite only a few examples of the Europhiles' lack of scruples. There was the refusal to accept the original Danish 'no' vote [in a 1992 vote on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which created the EU and paved the way for the euro], with the referendum being re-run so that the Eurocrooks could get the right answer.

Also, the sorry lie that failure to join the euro could jeopardise eight million British jobs. And the disgraceful conduct of the Conservative government in bullying and blackmailing its backbench sheep at the time of Maastricht.

But the most dishonourable ploy of all has been the red herring thrown in the public's face by the European lobby implying that the sovereignty issue is irrelevant.

For sovereignty matters above all, the right to make our own laws (thrown away with the incorporation of the mad and disgusting European Convention on Human Rights into our domestic law, which has already caused disruption in our courts), the right to be independent of the unworthy, undemocratic, unprincipled, authoritarian, bureaucratic rabble of Brussels.

That, first, last, and every time, is what matters. In comparison, 'economic criteria' pale into irrelevance. We do not need the euro, the Monopoly money which begins to bear a close resemblance to French Revolutionary and Weimar currency.

Those who do want it parrot the cry that common currency will not lead to political union, but that is a falsehood wasted, for everyone knows that political union, the declared aim, would be inevitable.

The British people have shown that they want neither, and a growing number would like to see us out of Europe altogether.

It is probably the knowledge of this that has driven the scaremongering of the Europhiles to the point of desperation. My fear, and it is a growing one, is that pusillanimous, foolish and morally bankrupt politicians will complete the process begun by Heath in 1973, and Britain will become a helpless cog in the European machine, a mere province of the Holy Brussels Empire without real power or influence in the face of our traditional enemies.

Babble about being 'at the heart of Europe' is wishful thinking.

My hope, and it is a fervent but slender one, is in two stages.

First, I hope to see the British public resist the propaganda onslaught of the pro-Europeans, in which the broadcast media, led by the BBC, have shown themselves willing tools of the government, and vote a resounding 'no' in the referendum, if and when it comes.

I believe they will, in spite of Blair's patronising arrogance in suggesting that Britons can be 'educated' into compliance. My second stage, whether a referendum were 'no' or not, is less probable. I want to see the whole rotten edifice of the EU collapse in ruin, and if Britain can emerge from the wreck with her nationhood intact, then whatever temporary damage she has suffered by her ill-starred involvement will have been a small price to pay for independence.

I suppose it is just a pipe-dream, but if we must, in the mysterious future, belong to any bloc, for God's sake let it be the North American one.

However the ethnic mix of the United States may have changed, they are our people still, in language and culture and ideals.

Nothing but good come could of a reunion of the English-speaking peoples  not only Britain and American but the old Empire and Commonwealth countries, our kinsfolk, who stood by us when Europe crumpled, and who, we may hope, would be magnanimous enough to forgive and forget our betrayal of them in 1973.

Alas, it is probably too late, not only to hope for a North Atlantic Union, but to prevent Britain being sucked into Europe. The poor stewardship of the Conservatives, no less than the apostasy of the Labour Party, has left the pass wide open for sale.

While Labour stood firm, and there were enough Tory patriots to stand too, we could hope, but that hope is fading now.

How tragic, how degrading, that the marvellous thing that was Britain, the wonder of the world, should after all the travail and suffering and heroism and sacrifice and sheer bloody genius of centuries, end with the sorriest of whimpers, sold down the river by mere politicians, unworthy and third rate.
Aldi's new oversized trolleys have been slammed as 'ridiculous' and 'unsafe' after some customers revealed they struggle to manoeuvre them around the aisles.

The German-owned supermarket chain recently introduced 212-litre carts to stores across Australia, but many are unimpressed and complained the jumbo-sized trolley left them with an aching back.

Aldi was criticised for the trolleys on its Facebook page over the weekend, with one Victorian woman writing: 'it is like they are made for giants'.

Another shopper admitted she felt like a 'three-year-old pushing mummy's trolley' and one man said his pregnant wife lost control of a cart while their two young sons were sitting inside.

Aldi's new oversized trolleys (pictured left next to a Coles trolley) have been slammed as 'ridiculous' and 'unsafe'

The German-owned supermarket recently introduced the 212-litre carts to stores across Australia, but many are unimpressed and complained

'Aldi your trolleys are so unsafe,' the Perth man wrote.

'My pregnant wife was pushing a trolley of yours with our shopping and two sons in it and it went down a small ramp to go onto the road in the car park at Joondalup.

'They are so top heavy when loaded up. The potential for something to go wrong is huge'.

Another shopper, from Victoria also made a complaint on Aldi's Facebook page over the weekend after she found the new trolleys were hard to control.

'I have always been an avid supporter of your stores however I must say the new trolleys are ridiculous,' she claimed on Sunday.

'It is like they are made for giants. They are to [sic] tall and really difficult to maneuver [sic] around the store. I heard a bunch of ladies talking in the store saying they are considering shopping else where and to tell you the truth I'm considering it too.

'My suggestion, bring back the old trolleys. There was nothing wrong with them.'

An Aldi customer has claimed the new oversized trolleys at her local store have been a nightmare to handle

Aldi was criticised for the trolleys on its Facebook page over the weekend, with one Victorian woman writing: 'it is like they are made for giants'

Other shoppers also made a complaint on Aldi's Facebook page over the weekend after she found the new trolleys were hard to control

The old Aldi trolleys (pictured right) were similar in size to the current trolley Coles provide to shoppers (left)

An Aldi spokesperson had apologised to the shopper, saying: 'we'll let the team know you'd love to see the smaller sized trolleys available in our stores'.

However, the shopper told the Herald Sun when she returned to her local discount store earlier this week, the original trolleys were restored.

'They are now offering a choice which is good,' she said.

Another shopper also claimed on Facebook that she made numerous complaints at her local store about the oversized trolleys.

'I am 5'3" and I get back pain from time to time, and these trolleys exacerbate it big time. Hate them,' she said.

Aldi said the new 212-litre trolley size were designed after an 'extensive consumer research to deliver a more enjoyable shopping experience'.

A Woolworths spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia its stores provide a 'variety of different options for customers' ease of use'.

It has both 212-litre and 100-litre carts as well as smaller 40-litre 'rollers' and a 25-litre basket.

A Coles spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia it also has large 212-litre trolleys available, but provide shoppers with 'convenience' and 'kids' trolleys too.

Aldi said the 212-litre trolley size were designed after an 'extensive consumer research to deliver a more enjoyable shopping experience' (stock image)
A soldier was left red-faced after misjudging the height of a petrol station awning and crashing the truck he was driving into it.

The Australian Army soldier tried driving the four metre truck under a 3.4m roof at the Shell Station in Port Wakefield, South Australia, on Tuesday afternoon.

The station is under repair after a shipping container on the back of the truck slammed into the roof and became stuck.

A soldier watches on after misjudging the height of a petrol station and wedging a huge army mack truck under the awning

Michelle Niland was driving behind the truck with daughter when the crash happened, capturing an image of the scene on her phone.

I could see it coming and said to my daughter hes not going to make that and the next thing you know he slammed into it, Ms Niland told Daily Mail Australia.

He was going fairly fast but he was suddenly stopped in place.

The soldiers partner rushed into the station to speak with the attendant about the accident, who advised them not to reverse the truck until they sent for help.

The driver was pretty shocked and devastated so his offside sort of took control of things.

Ms Niland, who works near the station at Kiplings Bakery, said workers were still repairing the damaged roof on Thursday.

Michelle Niland said the soldier was 'shocked and devastated' after the incident at the shell petrol in Port Wakefield

The truck was in Port Wakefield for the Australian Armys biggest-scale annual training exercise

The Department of Defence told Daily Mail Australia they were investigating the incident and helping to repair the damage.

'Defence is currently investigating the cause of the accident...Defence apologises to the owners of the business and is working with Shell Service Station management to ensure the swift repair of the damage.'

The truck was in Port Wakefield for Exercise Hamel, the Armys biggest-scale annual training exercise.
Eleazar gobbled up the teeth and pizza during the night

dog trainer Keiron Butler left his teeth next to a slice of pizza

A Queensland greyhound trainer awoke to the sound of his dog eating his teeth.

Prize greyhound Eleazar bit off more than she could chew after her owner Keiron Butler left his false teeth on the kitchen table before he went to sleep.

Mr Butler, from Goodna, south-west of Brisbane, made the mistake of leaving them next to a slice of pizza last Wednesday, The Queensland Times reported.

No teeth, no worries: Prize greyhound Eleazar (left) bit off more than she could chew after her owner Keiron Butler (right) left his false teeth on the kitchen table before he went to sleep

About 3 o'clock in the morning I heard the dog - because I have two retired greyhounds that sleep inside - going crunch, crunch, crunch, Mr Butler told the publication.

He said that he thought Eleazar had gotten into the pizza and didnt realise until the following morning that she had been munching on his dentures.

I came back inside when I'd done all my work with the dogs and I found splinters of teeth all over the lounge room floor and the teeth disintegrated into 5,000 pieces, with the pizza.

For now Mr Butler is wearing a 30-year-old set of army-issue dentures that he has super-glued back together.

He said he will wear them until one of his dogs wins a race and he can buy a new pair.

When asked if he was angry at his prize greyhound he said: I can't knock the dog. All she wanted was a piece of my pizza, so I just patted her.
A brothel manager was hit across the head with a heavy lolly jar by an angry prostitute after he refused to give her more hours on the roster.

Warwick Bumstead, 39, was a general manager of Deviations brothel in Toowoomba at the time and is suing his ex-employer because of the attack.

The worker lashed out at her employer at the brothel's reception following a dispute over her working hours, The Courier Mail reports.

Warwick Bumstead, 39, pictured, is suing the owners of Deviations - a brothel in Toowoomba - after he was attacked by a prostitute armed with a lolly jar

Mr Bumstead was the general manager of the brothel, pictured, at the time of the attack in June 2013

The prostitute wanted more hours at the brothel - when he couldn't give them to her she became angry

She was asked to 'pack up her things' following the attack and was also taken to court for assault.

The incident was caught on CCTV. She was convicted and put in jail for a month.

The assault happened on June 19, 2013, now Mr Bumstead is involved in a lawsuit with the trust which owns the company.

Court documents show the business is owned by a man called Neville Welch who was in the Philippines the time of the attack.

Mr Bumstead said the attack was caught on CCTV. His attacker was jailed for a month

Neville Welch - the owner of Deviations - was in Manila, Philippines when the assault happened




A man who repeatedly raped his own daughter, forced her to wear bondage and pimped her out to six other men as part of a pedophile ring dubbed the 'Evil 8' has been jailed for more than 22 years.

The father, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to 61 offences committed between 2013 and 2015 when the girl was aged between 11 and 13.

The graphic details of the 42-year-old's offending were revealed in the West Australian District Court on Thursday.

It included giving the girl a stupefying drug, watching as others raped her and recording her while she was naked and in bondage.

A Perth father who repeatedly raped his own daughter and pimped her out to other men, including Christian pastor David Volmer (pictured), as part of a pedophile ring has been jailed for more than 22 years

In one incident, the girl was forced to wear a mask, gag and dog collar with the word 'b***h' written on it.

As she struggled with the restraint, the girl pleaded with her father, saying: 'Stop please, dad'.

The girl, now 14, was forced to shower with another man before being further abused.

The father told police he had regrets about the things he had done.

'I really want to get out of this scene,' he said. 'I'm going to be honest, it was fun while it lasted but it went way over the line.'

The father kept his head down and covered his face with his hand during proceedings.

He appeared to choke up and at times barely whispered his pleas of guilty when the charges were formally read out.

Mark Wesley Liggins (left) was sentenced to more than two years in prison, while Volmer (right) was jailed for 10 and a half years. They were both involved in the pedophile ring dubbed the 'Evil 8'

The father had originally faced more than 200 charges but 150 offences were combined into one and some others were dropped.

Prosecutor Justin Whalley said the girl, who lived with her father after her parents separated, looked to him for care and protection but was instead subjected to 'degradation of the highest order'.

He also noted the group of offenders had been colloquially described as a pedophile ring and that others in the community needed to be deterred from committing such depravity.

Judge Philip Eaton said there would be lasting and probably irreparable consequences for the girl.

He said the father treated his daughter as a sexual object and allowed strangers to do the same.

The father was jailed for 22-and-a-half years on Thursday and his earliest release date will be in December 2036.

The graphic details of the 42-year-old father's offending were revealed in the West Australian District Court on Thursday where he was sentenced to more than 22 years in jail

Photographer Benjamin Simon Clarke was previously sentenced to three years in jail for his involvement in the girl's abuse, while former pastor and father-of-two, Dawid Volmer, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in jail.

Mark Wesley Liggins was also charged as part of the intensive police investigation and was sentenced to more than two years in prison in May.

Then earlier this month Benjamin Simon Clarke was sentenced to three years of incarceration for indecently abusing and taking naked and semi-naked photographs of the teenage girl.

It was revealed during his court case that the Clarke's crimes took place after the girl's father answered an online advertisement Clarke had placed.
A farmer has ridden his horse across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and caused congestion to send a message to the city slickers about protecting the land.

Glenn Morris wore a wide-brim Akubra hat and saddled up on his steed named Hombre to ride south along Lane Eight of the bridge about 9.30am on Thursday.

The beef farmer from Inverell in north-west NSW said he rode horseback to raise awareness as state and federal governments consider new legislation to increase vegetation clearing.

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A beef farmer rode across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and caused congestion on Thursday morning to raise awareness about protecting the land

Glenn Morris wore a wide-brim Akubra hat and saddled up on Thursday morning on his steed to ride south along Lane Eight of the bridge

'We need vegetation on farms to protect healthy soils and rivers, and yet the state Government plans to allow important native vegetation to be cleared more easily,' Mr Morris said in a statement on Thursday.

Mr Morris runs the Figtree Organic Farm in Billabong, 15km east of Inverell.

Mr Morris told Daily Mail Australia he wanted to see 'vision and honesty' from politicians.

'Its time to pull together and start dealing with these issues honestly,' he said, to ensure our soil, water cycles and plants were nutrient rich.

Mr Morris (pictured) runs the Figtree Organic Farm in Billabong, 15km east of Inverell

The beef farmer from Inverell in northwest NSW said he rode horseback to raise awareness as state and federal governments consider new legislation to increase vegetation clearing

'We need vegetation on farms to protect healthy soils and rivers, and yet the state Government plans to allow important native vegetation to be cleared more easily,' Mr Morris said in a statement on Thursday

He said if we solved those issues we would see 'excellent health in people'.

'We need to establish a culture of respect for healthy soil as the basis of health,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Morris said he got 'a few toots, lots of photos and waves' while he rode across the Harbour Bridge.

'I was alongside the pedestrians as well so lots of favourable comments there.'

Most on social media came out in support of the farmer, while others laughed off the rare experience of witnessing a horse ride across the iconic bridge during peak hour.

'Glenn is motivated by ensuring that his farm practises enable the land to be passed on to future generations in a healthy state,' the farm's website says.

Most on social media came out in support of the farmer, while others laughed off the rare experience of witnessing a horse ride across the iconic bridge during peak hour
Girls at a New Zealand high school have been told to wear longer skirts because they are distracting male teachers and students.

The students at Hornsby High School in Christchurch were informed they were rolling their skirts up too high by a senior staff member after an assembly last week, The Star reported.

Following the announcement - which was made after male students left - some of the year 11 to 13 girls became upset and refused to go to classes taught by male teachers that afternoon.

Senior girls at Hornsby High School in Christchurch have been told to wear longer skirts because they are distracting male teachers and students

Other students protested by turning up to class in trousers, the paper reported.

No one from the school was available for comment when Daily Mail Australia called. Principal Robin Sutton said earlier the incident was regrettable.

'Last week a staff member made a well-intentioned statement to our senior girls after assembly on the issue of skirt length,' he told The Star.

'This generated some unintended consequences and messages.'

A senior staff member at Hornsby High School reportedly told the female pupils they were rolling up their skirts too high

The students raised their concerns with Mr Sutton, who reportedly promised the senior girls an apology.

In April, about 40 pupils were called into an assembly at Henderson High School in Auckland and told they must lower the hemlines on their skirts.

Deputy principal Cherith Telford reportedly told them it was to 'keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas and create a good work environment for male staff'.




Hartman has now started a family in Perth and has a new plum job

Convicted insider trader Oliver Curtis is pictured with wife Roxy Jacenko and their two children - Pixie, aged four, and Hunter, two

For years, Oliver Peter Curtis has lived a life many people would envy.

The 30-year-old son of a wealthy minerals executive, he married PR supremo Roxy Jacenko in 2012 in an extravagant ceremony at a swanky Sydney restaurant.

The couple have since had two children - Pixie, four, and Hunter, two - and Ms Jacenko's Sweaty Betty public relations empire has taken off.

Curtis has lived in a ritzy apartment, travelled on overseas holidays with his family and carved out a successful business career.

Things played out differently for John Hartman, Curtis' former best friend and fellow old boy of the prestigious private school Riverview College in Sydney.

Hartman has endured prison, penury and the shame of a criminal conviction in one of Australia's highest-profile white collar crimes of recent years.

Now, it appears the fortunes of the former inseparable mates and convicted insider traders have reversed.

Curtis is expected to learn on Friday whether he will be jailed or face massive fines for his insider trading conviction.

Meanwhile, Hartman, who starred as a prosecution witness at his former friend's trial, has rebuilt his life after serving his time.

In 2010, Hartman - described as 'depressed and a gambling addict' during his trial - pleaded guilty to 19 charges of insider trading and six of communicating inside information.

He swapped his lavish and part criminally-funded lifestyle for a prison cell and jail greens. While his former friend planned his A-List wedding, Hartman served hard time as the Silverwater Correctional Centre librarian.

Hartman walked out of prison in 2012, after 15 months behind bars.

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Happy family: John Hartman is pictured with his wife, Alice, and their little boy, in this family photo

Riverview College alumni: John Hartman (left) and Oliver Curtis (right) are pictured in their Year 12 yearbook

The son of a celebrity obstetrician, Hartman has long since left for Perth to start a happier life  and a young family  on the other side of the country.

Meantime, Curtis faces the prospect of being taken away from his two little kids and being locked away in a Sydney cell on Friday.

Court proceedings: Curtis's wife Roxy Jacenko appeared by his side throughout the three week trial

A jury found Curtis guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading earlier this month. Despite Curtis hiring a crack team of lawyers and pleading not guilty, the jury accepted evidence Hartman and Curtis had agreed to split the $1.4 million proceeds of insider trades and spend it on their luxury lifestyles.

New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum is poised hand down Curtiss sentence for the charge. He faces a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and a $220,000 fine.

While his former mate faces immense stress, Hartman is moving on with his life on the other side of the country  working for a top mining magnate and starting a family, a lot having changed in his life since charges were first lain.

During Hartman's sentencing appeal in 2011, the court heard Hartman, an equities analyst at Orion Asset Management during the 2007 - 2008 crimes, met the diagnostic criteria for a pathological gambling problem.

He got a 'rush' from stock trading, just as he did from laying down bets, the court was told.

Psychiatrist Dr Craig Wilson said a 'striking example' was how he would wake up through the night and check the price of shares on a computer screen - using binoculars that sat on his bedside table.

'Because he could not view the screen from the lying position, he kept binoculars with him, and viewed the screen through these throughout the night,' Dr Wilson told the court.

But friends, family and lawyers submitted to the court that he had worked hard to rehabilitate himself and received treatment for his demons.

It's not well known that after losing his job with Orion, and receiving treatment for his problems, Hartman spent two years working wage-free with a priest to help homeless people and refugees.

The Court of Criminal Appeal was told he teamed up with Father Stephen Sinn, then the parish priest at Elizabeth Bay, and essentially became his personal assistant.

Curtis and Jacenko leave court following their sentencing hearing, left. On right, a tense John Hartman is seen during one of his days of testimony amid the trial

Stockbroker Curtis and Ms Jacenko leave the court last week amid a media scrum

The couple are pictured on another day of the trial, with Ms Jacenko decked out in designer gear

Fr Sinn, who visited Hartman in prison, told the court:

'No one wants to be in prison. Having said that, John has made the best of the circumstances. ... John has learnt so much during his time at (prison); he does not take for granted the love of his family or friends; he has come to understand himself more deeply and to be in touch with his true self, his humanity.

Hartman did not make eye contact with his former best friend when he appeared at Curtis' trial

'It may seem obvious, but out there in the commercial world the humanity of young people is not nurtured. He is aware as never before that he is prone to depression and that gambling is no way to medicate.

'He is aware of the importance of relationships in his life. This growth and awareness is the foundation that he is building his life on and has given him peace with himself.'

According to The West Australian, Hartman met his future partner, Alice, six months before he was locked behind bars. The pair married after in the years following his release.

She gave birth to a smiley baby boy, George, in the past few years. A second child is apparently on the way.

Meanwhile, Hartman has landed a high-flying job with mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest.

'If someones paid their due to society, society needs to forgive them and move on,' Mr Forrest told The Daily Telegraph.

For Hartman's former schoolmate Curtis, the future will be decided on Friday. Last week, prosecutors told a sentencing hearing he should serve a custodial sentence - a jail term.

Family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances have written glowing character references, pleading with the court that he be given a penalty that doesn't include imprisonment.
McKinney has sued Bacon's lawyer Michael Artan after, she claims, he 'admitted to using her as a pawn in Bacon's vendetta against Nygard'

A model claims she has been used as a pawn in a decade-long feud between two billionaires in the Bahamas.

Bianca McKinney had once visited Peter Nygard, a Canadian clothing tycoon, at his resort in the Caribbean, and had no concerns or issues.

But last year she was approached by a lawyer who told her Nygard was suspected of holding multiple women hostage at his home, and asked for a witness statement.

McKinney complied, describing her time with Nygard.

However, she is now suing that lawyer since discovering that there were no kidnapped women, and her meeting was used to file salacious allegations against Nygard in a Los Angeles court.

And it appears that lawyer was operating on behalf of Nygard's neighbor Louis Bacon, a New York hedge fund billionaire.

Bacon, 62, and Nygard, 72, are in the midst of a feud dating back to 2004 - which started over a puddle in their shared driveway.

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Complex feud: Former model Bianca McKinney (center) claims she was duped into smearing Canadian clothing tycoon Peter Nygard (left) for a lawsuit filed against him by his nemesis neighbor Louis Bacon (right)

The feud dates back to a dispute in 2004 over their shared driveway. Bacon claimed a puddle in the land was Nygard's calculated attempt to extend the shoreline and expand the areas of his compound without consent

McKinney, who is on disability after severely injuring her back years ago, is seeking more than $25,000 damage.

This is just the latest in a series of dramatically escalating allegations between the two parties.

It all started in 2004 when Bacon claimed a pool of seawater in the land was Nygard's calculated attempt to extend the shoreline and expand the areas of his compound without consent.

In March this year, Bacon accused Nygard of hiring two hit men to kill him.

McKinney was the sole plaintiff on the lawsuit filed by Bacon's lawyer Michael Artan in 2011.

The case was thrown out after six months due to insufficient prosecution.

However, during that time McKinney's home was smeared with racist graffiti, including the words 'black b****' and 'n*****', and penis drawings.

And yet, McKinney was not aware the lawsuit existed - nor that she was the sole plaintiff - until a year later, she claims.

'This is a new low,' Michael Saltz, McKinney's lawyer, told Daily Mail Online on Wednesday after filing the complaint.

'It sounds like an implausible story and when you put all these things together it's quite remarkable the lengths people would go to.

'I'm confident that my client is a victim of a sinister plot.

'Justice needs to be done so people are not used as pawns in any disputes.'

Under Californian law, lawyers cannot file lawsuits for people who are not their clients; they cannot file lawsuits without the plaintiffs knowledge or consent.

However, once a case is filed, it is on public record.

Subsequent cases can reference that case as fact - regardless of whether it was thrown out or not - without defaming the subject.

According to McKinney's recent lawsuit, read by Daily Mail Online, Bacon's lawyer Michael Artan confessed that he had used McKinney to smear Nygard.

The documents claim McKinney had to wait a year to be seen by Artan.

Finally in March 2016 they met in his office.

'During the March 2016 meeting, Artan confessed to McKinney that he filed the Complaint naming her as a plaintiff,' the documents claim.

Artan allegedly 'admitted that there were no other female victims he was assisting, and that Artan had been working for Bacon to advance his vendetta against Nygard when he tracked her down in 2010 and filed the Complaint without her knowledge or consent in 2011.'

Since, McKinney says, she has been visited by a private investigator who was later revealed to be using a fake identity.

And she discovered Louis Bacon had ties to the KKK.

'Frankly, she was scared to death,' Saltz told Daily Mail Online.

McKinney's case has emerged just months after Bacon accused Nygard of hiring hit men, gang assaults and even fire-bombing a pastor's car.

New York hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, 62, has accused his neighbor Peter Nygard, a 72-year-old Canadian clothing tycoon, of hiring two hit men to kill him.

Bacon claims Nygard promised Livingston Bullard and Wisler Davilma payment to murder Bacon and others who were fighting against his efforts to expand his estate in the private gated Lyford Cay community in New Providence Island.

The two men's feud came to a head in 2004 when Bacon and a group of conservationists founded Save the Bays, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the natural environment of Clifton Bay.

Bacon and the group then accused Nygard of illegally dredging the sea bed, extending the island's natural shoreline, and expanding the borders of his compound without permission.

They attempted to block any further attempts by the billionaire to expand his home by buying up a large stretch of coast line and establishing a nature reserve.

Bacon and three other board members, as well as a pastor, filed papers in a Bahamian court on Wednesday that claimed Nygard organized a gang assault of one director, according to the New York Post.

They also claim Nygard paid Bullard to fire-bomb the pastor's car. Bullard admitted in a sworn statement that the tycoon gave him $20,000 for the job.

During a deposition, Bullard said Nygard also promised him and Davilma 'two houses' as payment for killing Bacon.

Davilma said they were promised an unspecified but 'huge, huge amount' payment as well.

The two men began working with Bacon and the nonprofit undercover a year ago, secretly recording audio and video of five meetings they had with Nygard during the period.

In return Bullard and Davilma were given protection and compensation for their families, sources told the Post.

A spokesman for Nygard claims the men were 'paid millions of dollars' for 'false testimony'.

Bacon's nonprofit attempted to block any further attempts by Nygard to expand his Mayan-themed mansion (pictured) by buying up a large stretch of coast line and establishing a nature reserve

Bacon (pictured with his wife Gabrielle) and three other board members, as well as a pastor, filed papers in a Bahamian court earlier this year that claimed Nygard organized a gang assault of one director

'There's also evidence that these convicted criminals offered to recant their testimony if Mr Nygard paid them a significant amount of money,' the spokesman claimed.

It is hardly the first time their feud has landed them in court.

Last year Bacon filed a $50m defamation suit claiming Nygard had waged an 'obsessive and malicious' smear campaign for years.

Bacon claimed Nygard was behind rumors about him being a white supremacist, possessing terrorist weaponry and committing arson at Nygard's home, the suit says.

He alleged that his neighbor 'harbors spite, ill will, and animus' toward him and that his 'sinister' allegations have destroyed Bacon's professional, philanthropic and personal reputations'.

In his lawsuit, Bacon accuses Nygard of doctoring a 2011 CBS report about the arrest of Wall Street mogul Rajat Gupta for inside trading.

Bacon claims Nygard deliberately superimposed his face over Gupta's, falsely alleging that he was at the center of a 'billion-dollar scam', the suit claims, according to the New York Post.

During the alleged smear campaign, Nygard also claimed Bacon was trying to hide the fact that his great-grandfather, Col. Roger B. Moore, was a member of the KKK.

Bacon claims this amounts to character assassination, and says Nygard is behind rallies and protest marches on the island which have seen him denounced as a racist.

Nygard, a self-styled playboy and eccentric owner of Nygard International, has an estimated fortune just shy of $1billion, and has resided on the island since 1987

In 2015 Bacon filed a $50m suit saying Nygard waged an 'obsessive and malicious' smear campaign for years

The two men's feud began in 2004 when Bacon and a group of conservationists founded Save the Bays, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the natural environment of Clifton Bay (pictured)

And elsewhere in the suit, Bacon claims his neighbor spread rumors that he had covered up the murder of his house manager, Dan Tuckfield, who died in his pool in May 2010.

The bitter argument came to a dramatic head in 2009 when a fire gutted Nygard's mansion.

Fire crews listed the official cause as 'unknown', but Nygard claimed it was an act of arson organised by Bacon - an allegation he strongly denies.

Nygard also alleged that Bacon installed four 'large, military-grade' speakers at the boundary between their two properties, before aiming them at his bedroom.

Bacon then blared 'ear piercing noises' toward Nygard, with one of Bacon's assistants shouting 'There, that's a message from Mr. Bacon. Don't f*** with Louis,' according to court papers.

Since the fire destroyed large parts of his home, Nygard has applied for planning permission to rebuild the lavish estate in even grander style, prompting outrage from the exclusive community.

In 2014 more than 100 people, including actor Sean Connery, filed a legal complaint against the government over efforts by Nygard to redevelop his compound.

Nygard, a self-styled playboy and eccentric owner of Nygard International, has an estimated fortune just shy of $1billion, and has resided on the island since 1987.

His famous 150,000 sq ft beachfront mansion, dubbed 'Nygard Cay', has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Visitors have included former U.S. President George Bush and actor Robert De Niro.
White Americans are no longer in the majority in many areas across the US, as the population of non-whites continues to grow, while the growth of the non-Hispanic white population is slowing.

Non-white and Hispanic Americans now outnumber non-Hispanic whites in 370 counties across 36 states and the District of Columbia - 31 more than in 2010, according to census data released Thursday.

And though that's just 12 percent of the country's 3,142 counties, together they contain one third of the US population, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Stepping up: The US's Hispanic population grew by 2.2 percent to 56.6 million; New Mexico had the largest percentage of Latinos in the country at 48 percent. Pictured: A Hispanic dancing group in New Mexico

Age gap: Those identifying as just white great by just 0.1 percent, due to immigration. Age data shows that 49 percent of those born after 2000 are Hispanic or non-white, compared to 44.5 percent of those born 1982-2000

The 31 new 'minority majority' counties include the area around Fort Worth and Austin in Texas; Charlotte in North Carolina; Savannah in Georgia; and areas of the Atlanta, Georgia and Sacramento, California suburbs.

The reasons for these shifts vary from state to state and county to county. In Texas, for example, the Hispanic population - which skews younger and has a higher birthrate than the white one - is on the increase, state demographer Lloyd Potter told the WSJ.

Meanwhile the Orlando, Florida metropolitan area has a 49.2 percent non-Hispanic white population, down from 53.6 percent in 2010, largely due to the faltering Puerto Rican economy increasing movement to the mainland.

WHITE BABIES NOW MINORITY IN AMERICA Minority babies outnumber white children born in the United States for the first time, according to census statistics released yesterday. Black, Asian and Hispanic minorities made up 50.2 per cent of babies under one-year-old last year. The change among newborns is part of a projected demographic shift moving the US from a majority-white nation to one with no dominant racial or ethnic group, based on immigration and birth trends. It is likely to play a key role in Novembers presidential election. Hillary Clintons poll numbers show a staggering amount of support from Hispanics and African-Americans, while Donald Trumps core support group is white males. The US Census Bureau statistics indicate that demographic change is percolating upward through the nations age groups. While three-quarters of Americans aged 55 and older are white, just 56 per cent of those 18 to 34 are, and only slightly more than half of minors are white, according to William Frey, a demographer form the Brookings Institution think-tank. And in 2015, 50.3 per cent of children younger than five were minorities. Among the total population, whites will cease to be the majority group by 2044, according to Census Bureau projections. The figures also show that whites accounted for less than half the population in counties that are collectively home to almost one-third of Americans. Advertisement

And for the fourth year running the death rate for American whites is higher than the birthrate, which is the other way around for Hispanic whites.

That's why the Hispanic population nationwide grew by 2.2 percent to 56.6million from 2014-2015, with New Mexico having the largest percentage of Hispanics in the country, at 48 percent.

Meanwhile the white population, including those who chose white along with another race, grew only 0.5 percent in that period, to a total of 255million.

And those who say they are white alone have increased by just 0.1 percent to 198million. The increases for the white population were due to immigration, the WSJ reported.

Immigration also contributed to the continuing increase in the Asian population, which is now the fastest-growing racial group in the US for the 15th year running.

And China continued to send more immigrants than Mexico, a distinction it earned in 2013.

America's Asian population grew by 3.4 percent to 21million, with most of that from migration. Hawaii is the nation's only majority Asian state.

The changing demographics are also showing an age divide, as each generation proves more and more racially diverse than the last.

The second fastest-growing racial group after Asians was those who claim two or more races, which grew 3.1 percent to 6.6million.

This group was also the youngest group of all racial or ethnic groups, with a median age of 20 years old.

In fact, the most diverse generation is the nation's youngest. Census figures show that of those born since 2000, nearly half - at 49 percent - belong to a race or ethnic group other than non-Hispanic white.

In contrast, 44.5 percent of millennials - those born between 1982 and 2000 - classified themselves as Hispanic or non-white.

Dragon force: The Asian-American population is the fastest-rising in the US, according to new census data, rising 3.4 percent to 21million between 2014 and 2015. Pictured: Chinese New Year celebrations in New York

The African-American population grew by 1.3 percent to 46.3million, with Mississippi holding the nation's largest percentage at 38.3 percent.

And the American-Indian and Alaska native population grew 1.5 percent to a total of 6.6million. Perhaps predictably, Alaska had the largest percentage, at 19.5 percent.

In terms of racial variety, California has the largest number of most racial and ethnic groups, with more Hispanics, whites, Asians and American Indians than any other state.

New York state has more blacks than any other state, and Hawaii the largest number of Native Hawaiians.

California had the highest population of white or white-combination residents, with 29.8million, but percentage-wise Vermont had the highest proportion, at 96.6 percent.

Native population: The the American-Indian and Alaska native population grew 1.5 percent to a total of 6.6million. Pictured: the Julyamsh Pow Wow in Idaho in 2004

And for those who claim to be only white, California once again had the largest population at 14.9million, but Maine had the largest percentage at 93.6 percent.

The oldest place in the United States is Sumter County, Florida, where the majority of the population is at least 65 years old.

Almost 55 percent of Sumter County has reached retirement age and the median age in the country is 66.6 years old.

Sumter County also contains one of the fastest-growing areas in the country: The Villages retirement community located northwest of Orlando, which had a 5.4 percent increase, raising its population to 114,000 residents.

The attraction to areas like The Villages is part of the reason for the increase in population and age, said Jason Devine, assistant division chief for Population Estimates and Projections.

'As the nation's 65-and-older population grows, other counties with retirement communities like The Villages will get closer to this threshold,' he said.

There was only one other county with a population of at least 1,000 close in age to Sumter County: Catron County, New Mexico. That county had a median age of 60.1 years.

The youngest county in the United States? Lexington County, Virginia, which had a median age of 22.4 years.
An elderly farmer who shot a NSW environment officer in the back after a bitter land clearing dispute will die in prison after being handed a minimum 24 years sentence for the murder.

Ian Turnbull used a hunting rifle to execute Glen Turner while the 51-year-old was doing a routine inspection with a colleague on public land near the wealthy farmer's Coppa Creek property, in northern New South Wales, on July 29, 2014.

The 81-year-old was found guilty of murder and detaining colleague Rob Strange for advantage in the NSW Supreme Court and was sentenced to 35 years jail, with a non parole period of 24 years, on Thursday.

Mr Turner's long term partner Alison McKenzie said she and his family finally felt justice had been served.

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Glen Turner's long time partner Alison McKenzie (pictured) was relieved to learn his killer would die in jail

Ian Turnbull was sentenced to 35 years jail for murdering NSW environment officer Glen Turner in 2014

'It's the end of a long road for us but it will never bring Glen back, so no matter what sentence he was given, it's never going to change what happened and [we're] just glad that justice has prevailed,' she told the ABC.

Justice Peter Johnson acknowledged that Turnbull would likely die before he came up for parole, making his ruling a 'de facto life sentence'.

McKenzie thanked him for not allowing the farmer to use his age as a 'licence to commit an offence'.

She said her partner was treated like a 'feral pig' in the moments before his death, while his sister Fran Pearce told reporters she thought the sentencing was a 'fair result'.

'It's very relieving, probably more than we had even hoped for. We hoped he would die in jail, to be honest, because Glen didn't get a chance to go home to his family,' Ms Pearce said.

Turnbull used a hunting rifle to execute Mr Turner (pictured) while the 51-year-old was doing a routine inspection with a colleague on public land near the wealthy farmer's Coppa Creek property

Ms McKenzie (left) said her partner was treated like a 'feral pig' in the moments before his death, while his sister Fran Pearce (right) told reporters she thought the sentencing was a 'fair result'.

Ms McKenzie smiled as she left the court after her partner's killer was sentenced to 35 years jail

Ms Pearce said the defence tried to portray Turnbull (pictured) as 'a poor, depressed, respectable farmer' when in reality he was 'a wealthy property developer who simply refused to accept that the law applied to him'

Ms Pearce said earlier that the trial was hijacked by the defence and turned into an attack on her brother's character, and a platform for the Turnbull 'dynasty' to express their grievance over native vegetation laws.

'The murderer was portrayed as the victim - a poor, depressed, respectable farmer driven to despair by the Office of Environment and Heritage,' she told reporters outside court.

'In reality, he is a wealthy property developer who simply refused to accept that the law applied to him.'

The court heard the shooting came after years of tension and legal battles over illegal clearing, with the wealthy grazier taking the government official's life after holding him at gunpoint for 20 minutes.

Justice Johnson said Turnbull built up a strong resentment, even hatred, for Mr Turner and his employer, the Office of Environment and Heritage.

Justice Johnson said Turnbull built up a strong resentment, even hatred, for Mr Turner and his employer, the Office of Environment and Heritage

During the 20 minutes Turnbull (pictured) held both officers at gunpoint, he accused Mr Turner of persecuting the Turnbull family, saying 'the only way you are going home is in a body bag'

Mr Turner was shot on a public road at Coppa Creek, near Moree in northern NSW on July 29, 2014

During the 20 minutes the farmer held both officers at gunpoint, he accused Mr Turner of persecuting the Turnbull family, saying 'the only way you are going home is in a body bag'.

He shot Mr Turner twice, ignored Robert Strange's pleas to stop, and fired the third and fatal shot as his victim made a desperate dash for safety.

Turnbull was motivated by 'retaliation and revenge' said Justice Johnson who rejected a claim that the farmer was now remorseful.

Noting Turnbull was 79 at the time of the murder, the judge said 'courts have made it clear, age is not a licence to commit an offence'.

Turnbull was escorted to a prison transport van after he was found guilty of murdering Glen Turner

Mr Turner's family attened the trial and were pictured arriving for his sentencing hearing on June 15

The fact that Mr Turner was a public official gunned down in the course of his occupation made the murder particularly serious, he added.

He set a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 32 years for the murder, but increased this to 24 and 35 after adding on a component of the term imposed for the offence relating to Mr Strange.

The judge acknowledged that the term most certainly could be considered a 'de facto life sentence' given Turnbull's age, but said the crimes warranted no less of a sentence.

Turnbull's wife Robeena appeared emotional as she left the court following her husband's sentencing.

Turnbull's wife Robeena appeared emotional as she left the court following her husband's sentencing
Mohammed Hamzy gunned down Yehya Amoud in broad daylight after he found out the man the alleged victim was with had insulted his estranged wife.

Prosecutors allege Hamzy had lured a Mercedes driver, known for legal reasons as Mr X, to the suburban Greenacre street in Sydney's south-west, and then fired off at least 11 shots to enact retribution after hearing Mr X had been calling his wife a 'gold digger' and a 'sl**' behind his back.

The NSW Supreme Court also heard Hamzy had urged a friend to pay the dead man's family $100,000 in 'blood money'.

Mr Amoud was killed in a spray of bullets as he sat in the passenger side of a Mercedes about 1.20pm on October 14, 2012.

Mohammed Hamzy gunned down Yehya Amoud (pictured) in broad daylight after he found out the man the alleged victim was with had insulted his estranged wife

Hamzy, 31, admits opening fire on the luxury car that Sunday afternoon but has pleaded not guilty to Mr Amoud's murder on the basis that he was acting in self-defence.

Defence barrister Matthew Johnston SC has told the jury his client opened fire on the luxury vehicle - which allegedly bore the distinctive numberplate 'BFL' or 'Brothers For Life' - because he saw the car's driver holding a gun and believed he was about to be shot.

Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC told Hamzy's trial during her opening address this week Hamzy approached a close friend of Mr Amoud's following the shooting.

'He said to the accused, "Mohammed, this is f***ing wrong",' Ms Cunneen told the trial.

Hamzy is said to have replied: 'I know, it was an accident. Please, go see his family and his wife... Go, you're closest to them. I know it's wrong. Pay blood money, a hundred thousand.'

Hamzy, 31, admits opening fire on the luxury car that Sunday afternoon but has pleaded not guilty to Mr Amoud's murder on the basis that he was acting in self-defence. Above is the scene

That friend, now a key prosecution witness, told the trial on Wednesday the accused man had tearfully told him that he never intended to hurt Mr Amoud.

'He was pretty upset about Yehya. He had no dispute or any intent, he didn't even know Yeyha was there,' the witness said.

Hamzy - whom the jury has heard was known to his friends as LC or 'Little Crazy' - has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Amoud, wounding Mr X with intent to murder, and wounding another alleged Brothers For Life member, Alex Ali, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Mr Ali was shot at Yagoona six days before Mr Amoud was killed, allegedly because he too had made disparaging comments about Hamzy's wife, but survived.

But Mr Johnston has told the trial Hamzy had nothing to do with that earlier shooting.

'He wasn't here. He didn't do it,' Mr Johnston said.

He said that an eyewitness to that shooting would give evidence to the effect that 'he could not see the face of the person that shot Mr Ali because the person was wearing a hoodie and it was dark'.
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These are the photos that reveal the reality for workers forced to meet severe production goals under one of North Korea's 'speed campaigns'.

Dressed in identical uniforms and working under bright red party slogans hanging from the walls, photos show workers sewing, stitching and glueing hundreds of pairs of shoes a day.

The 220 workers in this factory in Wonsan, a port city on North Korea's east coast, are required by North Korea's one party state to produce about 700 pairs of shoes a day.

Factory workers operate sewing machines at a shoe factory in Wonsan, North Korea. For the past few weeks, North Koreans across the nation have been mobilized for a 200-day 'speed campaign' ordered by dictator Kim Jong Un

Workers tend to their stations at a shoe factory in Wonsan, North Korea. Kim Jong Un launched the 200-day 'battle' to boost production as part of a five-year plan to develop North Korea's stuttering economy

The shoes are distributed to department stores and other places around the country.

The factory does not export any of its products, which officials told AP are made strictly with domestically produced materials and locally made machinery, in keeping with the government philosophy of 'self-reliance.'

The demanding production requirements are part of a 200-day 'speed campaign' launched by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un earlier this month as part of a five-year economic plan.

This is the second speed campaign his leadership has called this year. The first, which lasted 70 days, ended just before the May party congress.

Kim wants to energize the country's sputtering economy, which is suffering under international sanctions imposed due to North Korea's nuclear program.

Factory officials told AP they have not hired any extra hands to boost production, and that they don't need to resort to monetary rewards or firing threats.

The workers get their basic necessities from the government but can receive monthly bonuses if the factory sells more shoes than its government-set target.

Peer pressure is also clearly a strong part of the mix.

Kang Jong Jin, a 28-year old former soldier who attaches soles onto shoes at a factory in Wonsan, North Korea, poses for a photograph

The Wonsan factory does not export any of its products, which officials say are made strictly with domestically produced materials and locally made machinery, in keeping with the government philosophy of 'self-reliance'

Workers are divided up into sections and smaller work groups, whose collective output is posted in large bar graphs around their workplaces for all to see.

Manager Chang said that if a worker is not making the grade, he or she is paired up with a more productive partner.

He said no one wants to be labeled as lazy because, with the standing of their whole group at stake, they could end up being officially regarded as a problem to the whole factory 'family.'

He did not comment on what might happen beyond possible social ostracism.

Kang Jong Jin, a 28-year-old former soldier who attaches soles onto shoes at the Wonsan factory, told AP that normally he worked eight hours a day, from 8 in the morning until noon, and then from 2 until 6 in the evening.

Chang Sun Ho, manager of the shoe factory, stands in the foreground while behind him a poster on the left reads 'Movement of creating the Mallima Speed' and on the right, '200-day campaign, 180-days left

A North Korean man cycles under a sign which reads '200-day campaign,' in Wonsan, North Korea. The 200-day campaign is the second speed campaign the North Korean leadership has called this year
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Working inside the radioactive ruins of the worst nuclear disaster in history, Robert Maxwell takes a few simple steps to stay safe.

He doesnt lick the walls, he doesnt eat the plants and he doesnt touch The Claw.

Chernobyl, Ukraine, was the scene of a catastrophic nuclear accident in 1986 and 30 years on Mr Maxwell is the only archaeologist to have braved the ruined city in the name of research.

Discarded gas masks lay rusting in a pile around a broken globe at the long-abandoned Pripyat Elementary School

On 26 April 1986 a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl Power Plant, creating a plume of radioactive smoke that smothered the city of Pripyat and surrounding areas.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and the lingering effects of exposure have contributed to thousands of deaths from cancer since.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Mr Maxwell described the haunting scenes that met him when he arrived to research the now-deserted city.

Mr Maxwell said: In 1986 they established an exclusion zone around the power plant. Anyone who was inside was decontaminated and evacuated.

During the evacuation they told the residents that they were moving for a little while and not to bother about bringing their furniture or bringing their pets.

When they finally left the area they were told they would never be going home.

Save the efforts of workers still cleaning up the most contaminated parts of the city, Chernobyl has been untouched since.

Calendars sit on a hospital bench inside the ghost town of Pripyat. The hospital was abandoned in 1986 after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

The radiation levels remain so high within the exclusion zone that visitors are warned not to touch anything.

Mr Maxwell said: When you first get into Chernobyl they take you to a briefing building and you get told how to stay safe in the area.

They said not to touch anything, not to step on any plants or any vegetation. Dont kneel on anything and dont take anything with you.

He added: After that its up to you. Once I was inside I went to some of the areas that were considered too dangerous  they still had dangerous levels of radioactivity.

But if you understand radioactivity you can reduce the risk. As long as Im not licking the walls or picking the plants youre alright.

But there are places that you just cant go.

I did a bit of research on an object there called The Claw, which they had used to move a lot of the contaminated stuff.

That thing was so radioactive that if I had touched it I wouldve been risking my life.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from Chernobyl after the disaster. They had no idea they would never come back

Buildings inside the exclusion zone have been left to slowly decay in the 30 years since the disaster. Pictured are the ruins of Pripyat Elementary School hall

Mr Maxwells striking photos capture the instant that Pripyats residents were told to leave.

One photo shows rusting gas marks tossed on the floor of a childrens classroom, heaped in a pile around a smashed globe on the floor.

Another image shows a childs doll covered in cobwebs on a windowsill where it has sat for thirty years since it was forgotten during the hurried evacuation.

Mr Maxwell, a contemporary archaeologist, said it was the sense of immediate abandonment within the city which drew him to study the exclusion zone.

He said: Looking at places like Chernobyl and Pripyat are really indicative of the 20th century experience. And its a relatively untouched landscape.

Chernobyl is a radioactive landscape that preserves a snap shot of a particular part of the 20th century  living under Soviet rule at the height of their power.

Being there is a fascinating experience.

A desolate amusement park is slowly reclaimed by vegetation. The plants that grow through are still radioactive and visitors are warned not to step on them

The never-used Ferris Wheel in the Pripyat Amusement Park. The park was to opened in May 1986 but never opened because of the disaster

There is no official heritage listing for Chernobyl and as the clean-up continues Mr Maxwell fears the story captured by the dormant city will be dismantled and lost.

No archaeological work had been done at the city before I went there.

Ive done two trips there now and even in that time Ive seen a lot of change.

For example, the power plant has just had this big kind-of Simpsons bubble dome put over the top so the engineers can take it apart.

Engineers have spent 30 years slowly dismantling the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (pictured). The nuclear reactor above has since been covered in a giant plastic dome

The Claw (pictured) was used to dismantle the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and other radioactive areas. It is still so irradiated that, 30 years on, touching it could prove lethal

In April Mr Maxwell will travel to Kyoto, Japan, where he will present his world-first research on Chernobyl to the World Archaeological Congress.

While there he is planning to take a trip to Fukushima, where he hopes to be the first archaeologist to study the post-meltdown landscape of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Describing his willingness to venture into areas most people run away from, Mr Maxwell said: This kind of archaeology is an exciting field to be a part of.

Unlike other archaeologies, contemporary archaeology has an immediate and direct effect on living communities.

It is the footprint of our shared recent history and for that reason it is a part of me in a very real way.

Australian Robert Maxwell (pictured) is the only archaeologist to study the wreckage of Chernobyl. He said: 'As long as you're not licking the walls or picking the plants you're pretty safe'
A bikini model turned drug dealer who twisted her way out of handcuffs and wriggled out a police car window to spend three months on the run has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Renee Elizabeth Tarbuck, 34, pleaded guilty in Brisbane's Supreme Court on Thursday to trafficking methamphetamine and other dangerous drugs between 2012 and 2013.

The Gold Coast woman ran a 'well-organised business' and boasted to her clients about the quality of her products, the court heard.

Renee Elizabeth Tarbuck, 34, pleaded guilty in Brisbane's Supreme Court on Thursday to trafficking methamphetamine and other dangerous drugs between 2012 and 2013

The 34-year-old twisted her way out of handcuffs and wriggled out a police car window to spend three months on the run

Tarbuck was sentenced will spend at least 16 months behind bars with a total four year sentence.

She had been arrested at a Merrimac shopping centre in August last year after climbing out a police car window that May, the court heard during the trial.

Tarbuck had been handcuffed with her hands behind her back while officers were busy rescuing her three pedigree dogs who ran into traffic, a police brief tendered to the Supreme Court in October said, Herald Sun reported at the time.

The Gold Coast woman ran a 'well-organised business' and boasted to her clients about the quality of her products, the court heard

Tarbuck was sentenced will spend at least 16 months behind bars with a total four year sentence

She then wriggled her hands in front and climbed out the police car window, before driving off in her own car, police told the court they believed.

Tarbuck then reportedly took 'proud' selfies to her friend which showed the handcuffs still on her wrists.

The friend then gave the selfies to police, the court heard.

Tarbuck was subsequently convicted for stealing police handcuffs and escaping lawful custody, Herald Sun reported.

She had previously failed to appear before court three times, Courier Mail reported last year.

A friend who put up a $5,000 bail surety for her lost his money when she went on the run.

She had been arrested at a Merrimac shopping centre last year, three months after climbing out a police car window, the court heard during the trial
Strict new regulations will see hoverboards banned in Victoria unless they meet stringent safety standards.

The state is banning hoverboards from July 1 unless they meet new safety regulations after one fire caused by the device saw a family house in Melbourne gutted with flames.

'We've already seen one house fire in Victoria due to a non-compliant battery charger and cord sold with a hoverboard, and we don't want any more,' Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said on Thursday.

The charred remains of the hoverboard which sparked a house fire in Melbourne family where the family had a lucky escape in January

The two-wheeled self-balancing scooters will be governed by the same safety regime that applies to mains-powered appliances such as refrigerators and heaters.

That means compliant suppliers will be able to advertise they have Victorian-standard approved devices so consumers know they're buying a safe product.

A Melbourne family had a lucky escape in January when a charging hoverboard caused a house fire.

An unrecognisable lump of charred plastic and metal was all that was left of a hoverboard which destroyed a family home in Melbourne's north-west suburb of Stratham. Energy Safe Victoria later said the model did not comply with national safety standards.

The fire in January sparked a state-wide investigation into the sale of recalled hoverboards in Victoria

In April this hoverboard exploded and caught fire in a children's bedroom in Sydney

The fired caused by the hoverboard destroyed a family home in Melbourne's north-west suburb of Stratham

In Victoria the two-wheeled self-balancing scooters will be governed by the same safety regime that applies to mains-powered appliances

Compliance with Victoria's new regime post-July will ensure products meet the requirements of the consumer watchdog's current national ban.

In Sydney in April a mother has described the horrifying moment a hoverboard exploded and caught fire in her children's bedroom.

Shefa Kabah called for the product to be banned after one burst into flames while being charged in her home in Bankstown, south-west of Sydney.

Shefa Kabah called for the product to be banned after this one burst into flames in April while being charged in her home in Bankstown, Sydney

Hollywood star Russell Crowe caused a Twitter storm because he was banned from boarding a flight with his children's hoverboards

Hollywood star Russell Crowe caused a Twitter storm a week before the Melbourne fire when he lashed out at Virgin Australia because he was banned from boarding a flight with his children's hoverboards.

But after the Strathmore home was subsequently severely damaged authorities said Crowe might be 'feeling a bit stupid'.

Virgin explained at the time that hoverboards were banned in the dangerous goods section of its terms and conditions.
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Adorable footage from Perth Zoo shows a baby tree kangaroo poking its head out of its mother's pouch.

He flips his tail and pops his head in and out of his mothers' pouch while she eats a stick of broccoli, seemingly disinterested in the zookeepers cooing in the background.

Six-month-old Mian is the first tree kangaroo to be born at the zoo in 36 years. The species is hugely endangered and his birth makes him one of only 15 males in the global species management program.

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Six-month-old Mian has begun to poke his head out of his mother Kaluli's pouch for the first time, to the delight of Perth Zoo zookeepers

Adorable video footage shows Mian, who was named after a province in Papua New Guinea, popping in and out as his mother eats broccoli

Australian Fauna Keeper Kerry Pickles said the zoo used some ingenuity to reap as much information from Mian's birth as possible while trying not to disturb Kaluli, his mother.

'The joey was first confirmed in Kaluli's pouch, when it was estimated to be only four days of age. We used a small camera to ensure the least intervention to the tree kangaroo mother,' she said.

'We've learnt some invaluable information about the species.

'We were able to see when toe nails developed, when Mian's eyes opened, his first smattering of fur and when he started to poke his head out of his mother's pouch'.

The miracle birth came after the introduction of Mian's dad Huli last year.

He arrived in Perth from a Queensland Zoo last year and will now be introduced to other females in the program in the hopes of helping to repopulate the species.

Danielle Henry from Perth Zoo told Daily Mail Australia that while the tree kangaroo and the standard red kangaroo were similar in their anatomy, the two were very different on the outside.

'They are much more capable with their hands, they can climb trees,' she said.

The region in Papua New Guinea they come from, there are no monkey or primate species.

'These guys pretty much act like a monkey to an extent within the rainforest canopy - whereas our ground dwelling kangaroos definitely don't.'

Ms Henry said the tree kangaroo was an agile and durable animal that could also drop from great heights to the ground without injuring themselves.

The animals have a similar anatomy to red kangaroos, but physically act more like monkeys. They can climb trees and drop from great heights without harming themselves

The tree kangaroo is hugely endangered and Mian is one of only 15 males in the breeding program designed to save the species
A transgender man has been named PETA's 'Sexiest Vegan Next Door'.

Each year, PETA hands the crown to one man and one woman.

And this year's male winner is 34-year-old Dexter Thomas, a transgender man who grew up on a cattle ranch in Salt Lake City, Utah, before denouncing meat-eating.

The female winner is Washington, DC-based physician Chioma Ohalete.

The male winner of PETA's annual Sexiest Vegan Next Door award is 34-year-old Dexter Thomas, a transgender man who grew up on a cattle ranch in Salt Lake City, Utah, before denouncing meat-eating

Vegans do not eat any animal products. While vegetarians avoid meat, vegans also avoid substances such as eggs and butter that come from chickens and cows.

Thomas first went vegan when he was 17.

It was the same year he began campaigning for animal rights and young LGBTQ rights.

Over the years, he persuaded his parents and his brother to go vegan too.

Now a PhD student in social psychology at the University of Utah, he is an ambassador for veganism and animal protection in the state.

It hasn't been an easy journey.

Dexter dropped out of high school as he faced difficulties as a transgender man in the public school system.

Years later, he returned to get his diploma and proceed to university.

'I learned firsthand that people are capable of immense cruelty toward others who they perceive to be inferior to them,' Thomas said in a statement.

'When I started to realize that this attitude drives a transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and so on, I also realized it fuels outdated attitudes toward other animals.

'This is part of what motivated me to go vegan when I was 17.'

'Dexter's deep commitment to exposing the common roots of oppression and advocating for individuals in need  regardless of species  makes him number one on our list,' Tracy Reiman, PETA's executive vice president, said in a statement.

Dexter wins a free trip for two to Maui.

Dedicated: Dexter became vegan aged 17 and has since been a vehement campaigner for animal rights
Authorities said a Compass Airlines flight headed to Los Angeles had to make an emergency landing in Tucson after a passenger made a threat to the flight crew.

The plane landed at Tucson International Airport on Wednesday around 4.30pm and was met by a group of law enforcement officers including the FBI, U.S. Border Patrol and airport police.

Tucson Airport Authority officials said a male passenger, who was unruly on the flight and would not sit down, was taken off the plane and detained, The Arizona Daily Star reported.

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Authorities arrive to escort a man off a Compass Airlines flight on Wednesday. Authorities said the flight had to make an emergency landing in Tucson after a passenger made a threat to the flight crew

The man, right, stands up after he is ordered to come off the plane. An elderly man, left, stood up and is heard in footage saying he is the man's guardian

The plane made an emergency landing under the escort of two F-16 fighter jets following the onboard 'verbal disturbance.'

At the time, 80 passengers were aboard Flight 5720, which was operating on behalf of Delta Airlines, that originally took off from San Antonio, Texas.

Video footage taken by passenger Ryan Healy showed officers ordering the man off plane and an elderly man, who was seated next to him, standing up and telling officers he was the man's guardian.

The man was escorted off the plane while the elderly man was told to stay onboard.

Healy also documented the ordeal on Twitter through a series of tweets as the incident unfolded.

'My flight from SAT to LAX has just been diverted to TUS. @delta 99% sure it's due to a guy they want removed from the flight,' he wrote.

The man was escorted off the plan while the elderly man was told to stay onboard

Passenger Ryan Healy documented the ordeal on Twitter and described the man as 'uncooperative'

The plane made an emergency landing under the escort of two F-16 fighter jets following the onboard 'verbal disturbance'

In another tweet, he described the man as being in his mid 20s and that he was 'uncooperative,' saying he would not sit down and that authorities were trying to intervene.

He also said he believed the man was struggling with mental health issues and was having 'some sort of breakdown.'

Authorities said there were no injuries and that passengers were taken off the plane, re-screened and then allowed to re-board the plane and continue to Los Angeles.

Tucson Airport Authority Police Department Capt. Scott Bader said the F-16s were sent to intercept the plane at the request of the 'federal government,' according to The Arizona Daily Star.

Passengers were taken off the plane, re-screened and then allowed to re-board the plane and continue to Los Angeles

Authorities are pictured at the airport while passengers wait to be re-screened

Tuscon Airport wrote on Twitter following the ordeal that one suspect was detained and that the aircraft was deemed safe

The fighter jets are with the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard and are stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

He also noted that in his 10 years at the airport, this is his first time he recalls military aircraft being sent to intercept a civilian plane as a result of an in-flight incident.

On the airport's Twitter, it wrote that there was an incident on a flight that was diverted, that one suspect was detained and that the aircraft was deemed safe.
A car linked to the stabbing murder of a man in 2012 is buried in the outback, police say.

Jayson Doelz, 27, was bashed and stabbed to death on January 9, 2012. His body was located two days later in Kersbrook, in the Adelaide Hills.

New information has led police to the location of the black Ford sedan in the remote Cooper Basin and helped them identify the distinctive type of knife used to kill Mr Doelz.

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Jayson Doelz, 27, was bashed and stabbed to death on January 9, 2012, in the Adelaide Hills

Several suspects have been identified and spoken to but police are frustrated that some potential witnesses may be observing a 'code of silence'.

'It continues to be our understanding that some of those involved in Mr Doelz's death were not willing or active participants,' Detective Inspector Greg Hutchins said on Thursday.

'However, we remain frustrated by a criminal code of silence protecting the principle offenders.'

'If you're involved, or have information, now is the time to get in touch with police.'

Police have offered a $200,000 reward for information which leads to a conviction.

The body of Mr Doelz was found in a shallow ditch with injuries so bad they thought he had been hit by a car, reports Adelaide Now.

Police believe black a black Ford XR6 sedan linked to the stabbing murder is buried in the outback

They have also identified the distinctive type of knife used to kill Mr Doelz (pictured). It has a carved wooden handle and sheath, brass fittings and a 20cm curved blade

Last month police searched a home in Adelaide and since then have taken eight calls which advanced their investigation.

Insp Hutchins said a black Ford sedan used in the murder had now been identified and would be recovered in the next week to be forensically examined.

He said the type of knife used in the killing had also been identified and featured a carved wooden handle and sheath, brass fittings and a 20cm curved blade.




Riverstone Advisory, the business which disgraced banker Oliver Curtis was once an integral part of, has shut down as he awaits sentencing for insider trading.

Work under the name of the group, which was founded by his father Nick, has been halted, according to Fairfax Media, and staff have been moved to a different company, HKK Advisory.

Curtis, 30, could face up to five years jail when he is sentenced on Friday after being convicted of insider trading in connection to a $1.4million insider trading scam.

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A downcast Oliver Curtis and wife PR executive Roxy Jacenko at the Supreme Court. The company he worked for has ceased operations as he awaits sentencing on Friday

Curtis faces a maximum penalty of five years jail time after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading earlier this month

He could also face a large fine, upwards of $200,000, for the insider trading conviction.

Riverstone Advisory had less than 20 staff members with offices in Sydney and Beijing.

Former staff, including Curtis' one-time boss Kevin Hobgood-Brown, are among those believed to no longer have connections to Riverstone Advisory.

Mr Hobgood-Brown provided a glowing character reference in court for Curtis - they had worked together on mergers and acquisitions.

He said Oliver Curtis completely swept away Chinese businessmen he dealt with despite Chinese liking to see grey hair.

'Ive always had total confidence in his professionalism and his sense of propriety,' he said.

Mr Hobgood-Brown revealed that Curtis' father had mentioned the charges his son was facing 'when he originally approached me (for the job)'.

'No one knew at the time what it meant or where it was going. It was full disclosure,' he added.

'He's (Oliver) so smart, always the hardest worker. The first one in the last one out. Hes led by example throughout that time at Riverstone.'

In his written submission to the court Mr Hobgood-Brown described his working relationship with 'intense and close'.

Oliver Curtis pictured with wife Roxy Jacenko faces sentencing for insider trading on Friday

'I have never had any doubt about Oli's ethical nature,' he wrote.

'The type of conduct for which Oli has been found guilty is not at all consistent with Oli's character as I have known it over the past six year.'

However, crown prosecutors say Curtis, the husband of PR queen Roxy Jacenko, should serve jail time after he was found guilty of the insider trading charge.

David Staehli SC told the court there was 'no evidence' of remorse or contrition from the father-of-two, who he said 'cheated' his way to $1.4 million in profit with his former best friend, John Hartman.

Curtis' father pleaded for his son not to go to prison, saying years of pressure has had a 'marked psychological effect' and also led the younger Curtis to become 'more private and withdrawn'.

Resources businessman Nick Curtis AM has watched his son's NSW Supreme Court insider trading trial play out sitting alongside Oliver's wife, public relations queen Roxy Jacenko.

Nick Curtis wrote to Justice Lucy McCallum to describe the toll recent years have taken on his son as she considers his sentence.

At the same time, defence witnesses described the impact the proceedings has had on the finance worker and former private school student - who has 'lost a lot of weight' under the pressure.

Nicholas Curtis AM, the father of Oliver Curtis, was a constant observer of his son's trial and wrote in his defence

In his submission, Nick Curtis he was 'very close to his son' who had changed dramatically since he was a 'brash 22-year-old' at the time of the offence.

He argued he was "not a socialite" and was actually a 'strong family man' who cared deeply for his wife and two children.

'The (investigation and trial) have had a profound impact on his life, and have clearly marked him dearly,' he wrote.

'They do not, however, describe the man I know today. They do not define who he is.'

He reflected on how his son became vice-president of the company they worked at, Riverstone, despite the pressure.

'At the same time the ongoing stress associated with the investigation and the uncertainty regarding his future bore a toll.

'Over time Oliver has became more withdrawn and private than the man he had been prior to the investigation...

'I believe that the long term pressure of his public exposure as a possible insider trader has had a marked psychological effect on Oliver and fundamentally changed his way of engaging with the world.'

He continued: 'Since being married he has sought to maintain a low profile, albiet his wife's success in public relations has necessarily put him in the media spotlight from time to time.

'Despite the media classification he is not a "socialite" seeking out recognition at social events. Most importantly he is a strong family man..'

In the defence submission, lawyers argued the Judge should take mainstream and social media coverage of Mr Curtis into consideration.

Nicholas Curtis, page one: 'I am very close my son...(The events) have had a profound impact'

Nicholas Curtis, page two: 'He is a very strong family man with a very close relationship with his wife'

Nicholas Curtis, page three: 'I respectfully request that your Honour consider a non-custodial sentence'

The defence said: 'He has been described as a 'grub' and 'd***', and the object of vile jokes such as 'maybe we could put a camera inside Curtis' colon to see what happens in jail'.

The lawyers continued: 'Mr Curtis has not encouraged or approved of any media at all, let alone media concerning the case itself.

'This intensive and humiliating coverage has caused great shame, embarrassment and concern to Mr Curtis.

'It has had, and will continue to have, a significant impact on him and his family.'

While prosecutors seek a jail sentence, Mr Curtis's wife Ms Jacenko has also written a sentencing submission, describing Oliver as the primary carer of their two children.

A jury found Curtis guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading earlier this month.
An automatic transmission fault linked to the death of Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin has led Jeep to recall almost 50,000 cars in Australia because they can roll away in the 'park' position.

The 27-year-old US actor was killed when his 2.5 tonne Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backwards down his steep driveway and pinned him against his front gate in Los Angeles.

Jeep and Chrysler had already recalled 1.1 million of their cars when Yelchin died last week and the company is investigating whether his Jeep had the recall work done to it, Herald Sun reported.

The government's ACCC released a recall notice on Thursday through the recalls.gov.au website, warning: 'The vehicle may roll away striking and injuring the driver, passenger or bystanders.'

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Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin, 27, was killed last week outside his Los Angeles home

The 27-year-old's 2.5 tonne Jeep Grand Cherokee (stock image), which was found in neutral, rolled down his steep driveway and pinned him against his front gate

Drivers 'may inadvertently fail to engage the 'park' position before exiting the vehicle', the warning says of the automatic transmission.

'The electronic shift lever is spring loaded and always returns to the same centre position like a joystick after the desired gear is selected.'

The automatic gear stick used in the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Chrysler 300 sedan are easily mistakenly left off 'park'.

47,451 of the cars are being recalled voluntarily to 'enhance transmission warnings and transmission-shift strategy' through a software update.

2014-15 Jeep Grand Cherokee four-wheel-drives and 2012-14 Chrysler 300 sedans (stock image) with the automated gear stick are being recalled

There have been no reported 'roll away' Jeep or Chryslers in Australia, the company said according to Herald Sun.

The 2014-15 Jeep Grand Cherokee four-wheel-drives and 2012-14 Chrysler 300 sedans with the automated gear stick are being recalled.

CARS BEING RECALLED IN AUSTRALIA Jeep Grand Cherokee from 2014-15 Chrysler 300 from 2012-14 Advertisement

Owners should take their car to a Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership where the car 'will have work conducted to safe guard against the possibility that the vehicle is not properly put into the 'park' position'.

The company said on the Jeep website it takes 'all recall matters extremely seriously'.

Final post: Yelchin, who was an only child, is seen on Instagram last week

The damaged gate at Anton Yelchin's home in Los Angeles, California, is seen after the accident

Investigators said Yelchin's car had been left in neutral and rolled down the steep driveway on him - and some have suggested the flawed design in certain models of Jeep may be to blame.

Exactly what model of Cherokee Yelchin owned, as well as the circumstances leading up to his death, have not yet been established - but the nature of the flaw in the recalled model of Jeep has led to speculation.

The company told TheWrap: 'Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US extends its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Mr. Yelchin.

'The company will be conducting a thorough investigation of this tragic incident. It is premature to speculate on its cause at this time.'

Raised in Los Angeles, Yelchin attended the University of Southern California. He started acting as a child, taking his first professional role at age nine in A Man Is Mostly Water

Yelchin is seen in April at the premiere of Green Room in Hollywood. Now some are wondering if a design flaw in his Jeep led to his death
A mother who had her stillborn son's ashes turned into a beautiful locket has misplaced the sentimental piece of jewellery and is desperately trying to find it.

Single mother Jess Lee, from Rockhampton, north of Brisbane, said had no idea about stillbirths until her son was delivered 'sleeping' at 38 weeks on New Years Day 2014.

The 22-year-old was 'shattered' and in an attempt to keep Leighton close to her heart, she had his ashes turned into a heart shaped locket.

The ashes have been mixed into the silver that has been designed with two small footprints on the front, with his name and date of birth engraved on the back.

Queensland mother Jess Lee pictured wearing the locket with her son Leighton's ashes that she lost while flying her youngest son Kolton to hospital in Brisbane

A closeup of the heart shaped locket with two small footprints (left) made from Leighton's ashes, on the front, and Leighton's name and date of birth engraved on the back

'I always thought when you passed 12 weeks you were safe... now I know there is never a safe mark,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Lee said she was happy knowing her son was with her 'everywhere' she goes as she 'can't always visit him at the cemetery'.

The mother-of-three said the charm means 'everything' to her, but when her son Kolton fell ill in June and he was flown to hospital in Brisbane she misplaced it.

Ms Lee's eldest son Rohnan, pictured holding Leighton after he was born

Ms Lee said she last remembers it hanging around her neck on June 8 and thought she put it in her son's nappy bag before boarding the plane at Rockhampton airport.

But upon returning home on Tuesday, she realised it was gone and launched a desperate search to find it.

Ms Lee has contacted both hospitals where Kolton received treatment - Lady Cilento Childrens Hospital and Rockhampton - but has had no luck.

She has now turned to social media in the hopes that someone will recognise it and help Leighton find his way back to her.

'It may not be much to anyone but the charm meant everything to me. [It] would mean the world to have him back,' she said.

Ms Lee's youngest son Kolton (left) and her eldest son Rohnan (right) pictured at Leighton's grave with ballloons on the anniversary of Leighton's death

Ms Lee (left) pictured with her two sons. She is desperate to find the missing locket with her son Leighton's ashes, after he was stillborn on New Years Day in 2014
A suspect in the unsolved murder of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey has been arrested on child pornography charges.

Gary Howard Oliva, 52, was booked without bond on Friday at Boulder County Jail in Colorado.

The affidavit for his arrest alleges that he uploaded to a Google email address 20 or more images of graphic child pornography in April.

Gary Howard Oliva (left), 52 - a suspect in the unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey (right) - has been arrested on child pornography charges in Boulder, Colorado

The body of beauty queen JonBenet was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, hours after she was reported missing

Some of the photos showed a girl between the ages of four and seven, police said, according to Daily Camera.

The body of JonBenet was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, in December 1996, hours after she was reported missing.

Her parents, John and Patsy, remained the primary suspects in their daughter's death for more than a decade, and it was not until 2008 that police finally cleared them of any wrongdoing.

Described in the affidavit as homeless, Oliva allegedly accessed child pornography through an IP address traced to the 5300 block of Western Avenue, Boulder.

This address was 'very similar' to one he used when registering as a sexual offender in October 2015 with Boulder police, the affidavit stated.

Oliva registered again with the city as a sexual offender on June 1, according to the affidavit.

In 2002, during a TV interview on 48 Hours Investigates, he revealed he wrote a poem called Ode to JonBenet.

JonBenet's parent, John and Patsy (above, in 1997), would remain the primary suspects in their daughter's death for more than a decade, and it was not until 2008 that police finally cleared them of any wrongdoing

JonBenet, with her parents and her brother Burke, pose for a family Christmas picture

The CBS program reported that Oliva - said to be a paranoid schizophrenic - was a registered sex offender and may have been near the Ramsey home at the time of her death.

However, Oliva denied hurting or killing JonBenet, he said on the show.

The CBS program reported that Oliva cried while he phoned a close friend soon after JonBenet's death, saying he was in Boulder and had 'done something horrible' and had hurt a child.

He was arrested on December 12, 2000, on the University of Colorado campus on allegations that included possession of a weapon by a previous offender - namely a stun gun.

Some investigators considered this significant because they believe such a weapon was used on JonBenet.

Also, Oliva did admit to being obsessed with the Ramseys' youngest child.

'I believe she came to me after she was killed and revealed herself to me,' he said. 'I'd like to see a memorial set up for her. I haven't seen that, anywhere,' he said in the 2002 TV interview.

Oliva was formally charged at the Boulder County Jail on Tuesday with two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child and one count of sexual exploitation of a child, all class 4 felonies.

He was ordered held on $10,000 bond, and his preliminary hearing is set for July 11.

TIMELINE OF A TRAGEDY: INVESTIGATION OF JONBENET'S DEATH December 26, 1996: JonBenet Ramsey, 6, is found dead in the basement of the family's Boulder home, several hours after her mother called 911 to say the girl was missing and that she had found a ransom note. She was killed after she was strangled and suffered a fractured skull January 1, 1997: Patsy and John Ramsey appear in first TV interview to protest their innocence April 30, 1997: They undergo formal interviews at the Boulder County Justice Center May 20, 1997: Mrs Ramsey, who authorities believe could have written the ransom note, gives them a fifth handwriting sample Summer 1997: The Ramseys move from Colorado to Atlanta March 12, 1998: Boulder police ask the DA to take the case to a grand jury June, 1998: Boulder police present the results of their investigation to Hunter's prosecutorial team and outside advisers ; the Ramseys are interviewed separately over three days by investigators August 12, 1998: Authorities say the Ramsey case will go to a grand jury and the following month, it begins October 13, 1999: The grand jury disbands and the DA announces there is not enough evidence to file charges against the couple March 29, 2001: The Ramseys file an $80 million libel and defamation lawsuit against officers at the Boulder Police Department who agree to an undisclosed settlement in the case March 31, 2003: Federal judge says evidence is 'more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenet than it was with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did' December 2003: New DA confirms that DNA from a spot of blood from JonBenet's underwear has been entered into the FBI's national database - but that it's not from her family June 24, 2006: Patsy Ramsey dies in Roswell, Georgia, at age 49, from ovarian cancer August. 16, 2006: John Mark Karr, a 41-year-old American school teacher who confessed to the crime, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand - but his DNA does not match that found on the body July 9, 2008: DA makes public a letter she has written to John Ramsey explaining that new DNA tests have convinced her that no member of the Ramsey family should remain under any suspicion September 2010: Reports surface that police seek to re-interview JonBenet's brother Burke, who had been 9 at the time of her death, as they continue to investigate the death July 21, 2011: John Ramsey remarries to Jan Rousseaux, 53, a designer June 14, 2012: A. James Kolar, who worked as an investigator in the DA's Office, writes in a new book that the Ramsey family 'may have been involved at least as an accessory after the fact' October 23, 2013: Judge rules that the court will release grand jury indictment about the Ramseys October 25, 2013: Indictment is released, revealing that in 1999 it accused the Ramseys of two counts each of child abuse resulting in death in connection to the first-degree murder of JonBenet Advertisement

'Hellraiser' suspect who killed himself just months after JonBenet's murder

A private investigator who has spent two decades on the JonBenet Ramsey murder case said in May that there had been a new break in the case.

In an interview with the Today show, Ollie Gray said a local 26-year-old man named Michael Helgoth may have been involved in the six-year-old pageant queen's disturbing 1996 murder and that a taped confession may even exist.

'There are probably three or four people who should have been investigated earlier and still need to be investigated,' Gray told NBC at the time.

In an interview with the Today show in May, private investigator Ollie Gray said a local 26-year-old man named Michael Helgoth (pictured) may have been involved in the six-year-old pageant queen's disturbing 1996 murder and that a taped confession may even exist

'The latest development in this particular case as far as I'm concerned is Michael Helgoth. He was basically a hellraiser,' Gray added.

Helgoth's name reportedly came up early on in the investigation, but Boulder, Colorado investigators never got any answers because he committed suicide just months after the murder.

Gray says he has reason to believe though that Helgoth may have admitted to the murder in front of family and friends, in a taped confession.

'I don't think Mike did all of this by himself,' Gray added, inferring that Helgoth may have been murdered by a conspirator to keep his mouth shut.

Gray blames the 'totally inexperienced' Boulder police for not investigating Helgoth as a possible suspect earlier on.

'You have to look for something in order to find something, and unfortunately for this particular case you gotta totally inexperienced police agency,' he said.

Gray was originally hired by the Ramsey family to independently investigate JonBenet's murder, but has continued to work the case for free for several years.

He remains optimistic that the girl's killer will eventually be found, settling a decades-long cold case.
Oliver Peter Curtis, the convicted insider trader husband of public relations maven Roxy Jacenko, has been sentenced to two years imprisonment.

NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum said Curtis, 30, knew what he was doing was 'very wrong' - but he had used his insider trading with his former best friend to fund a 'lifestyle of conspicuous extravagance'.

Walking methodically through her decision, she told the packed courtroom - including Ms Jacenko - Curtis had not openly shown contrition, saying: 'The evidence in this case has persuaded me a sentence of imprisonment must be imposed in this case.'

Justice McCallum ordered he receive a minimum one-year jail sentence and then serve a good behaviour order for a further year.

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Oliver Curtis (right with Roxy Jacenko) was found guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading. He was sentenced on Friday at the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney

An emotional Ms Jacenko after her husband was sentence to two years prison on Friday

Justice Lucy McCallum handed down her sentencing in the NSW Supreme Court to a packed room on Friday

Both Curtis and Ms Jacenko held grim expressions on their faces as Justice McCallum handed down her verdict, but appeared to keep their emotions mostly in check.

Curtis, clearly apprehensive, constantly re-adjusted his suit jacket.

As the judge left the courtroom, the PR queen, who appeared glassy eyed, sprung up from her seat and Curtis reached down and her husband picked her up into a hug.

As uniformed court officers surrounded him, he started surrendering his jewellery to her - including a watch believed to be a Rolex - and a lawyer took a wad of $50 notes out of his wallet, handing it to Ms Jacenko.

Curtis handed his tie to his lawyer and gave Ms Jacenko three kisses before being taken away.

Ms Jacenko, who was top-to-toe in black, left the court in the middle of a media scrum, with security and journalists jostling as she tried to make her way to her car.

JUSTICE LUCY MCCALLUM'S SENTENCING REMARKS On Oliver Curtis and his failure to take responsibility for the offence: 'It is troubling that, unlike Mr Hartman, Mr Curtis has not embraced responsibility for his offending. While many people have spoken of his positive qualities in business and as a family man, he shows no sign of progression beyond the self-interested pursuit of material wealth which prompted his offending. On balance, however, I think the indications are that he is unlikely to re-offend.' On the matter of taking the Sydney banker's family into account when sentencing: 'The prospect of family separation is always gutting, especially where young children are concerned, but Mr Curtiss family is well-resourced and better placed than many to meet that event.' On damage to his professional reputation if he was jailed: 'As to loss of career, I do not think that is a consideration to be given any significant weight in the present case. It was acknowledged that Mr Curtis's father, who is evidently a successful investment banker, will "always look after him". In that circumstance, the adversity faced by Mr Curtis due to his offending is considerably less than for many people convicted of offences of dishonesty." On the media attention his insider trading case has received: 'A small number of extremely nasty remarks have been published about Mr Curtis since the verdict... I accept such remarks must have been extremely distressing to Mr Curtis. There is no evidence that Mr Curtis himself has invited media attention; he is not to be equated with his wife in this context.' On Mr Curtis's current character and business reputation: The character evidence establishes that he is now well-regarded in his field and that he is a doting husband and father... He is evidently a man of considerable resilience. As already noted, he frankly acknowledges that he will always enjoy the support of his father. His obvious affection for his family and good employment prospects are likely to promote continued rehabilitation.' On the affects of white-collar crime and its impact on the market: 'It is well established that it is wrong to regard white-collar crime as victimless. It causes loss (albeit unquantifiable) to individual traders and it causes harm to the community at large by damaging the integrity of the market as a level playing field. The offending in the present case, which saw superannuation funds competing with twenty-year-olds using inside information to pay for a skiing holiday, stands as the paradigm for scepticism as to the fair operation of the market.' Advertisement

Curtis' wife Roxy Jacenko has been a constant presence by his side throughout the trial, often arriving in designer dresses

The Sydney publicist leaves the courthouse with her mother, Doreen, after her husband was sentenced

Flanked by two bodyguards, Ms Jacenko is seen being led to her car as the media pack is behind her

Both Curtis and Ms Jacenko held grim expressions on their faces as Justice McCallum handed down her verdict

A serious-looking Curtis sits in the defendant's dock inside the St James court

Ms Jacenko looks forward inside the courthouse as hundreds packed the room to hear the sentence for Curtis

She headed back to her Double Bay office where her black four-wheel-drive headed into the underground carpark.

Curtis will now spend the next year at Silverwater Correctional Complex, in Sydney's west.

In her sentencing remarks, Justice McCallum classed the seriousness of Curtis's offence as high.

'It is generally considered that acknowledgment of wrong-doing is a necessary first step to rehabilitation,' Justice McCallum said.

'It is troubling that, unlike [his former best friend John] Hartman, Mr Curtis has not embraced responsibility for his offending. Mr Curtis has not embraced responsibility for his offending,' Justice McCallum said.

'While many people have spoken of his positive qualities in business and as a family man, he shows no sign of progression beyond the self-interested pursuit of material wealth which prompted his offending.

'On balance, however, I think the indications are that he is unlikely to re-offend.'

Justice McCallum said he had shown no contrition at least openly to the court.

'Up to the time the jury returned its verdict, Mr Curtis expressed no contrition to any degree whatsoever,' she said.

Justice McCallum acknowledged Curtis had become a father and his lifestyle had changed since he committed the crimes, aged 21 and 22.

She gets into a black Range Rover before she was driven to her Double Bay office

Ms Jacenko gets out of her car at the NSW Supreme Court on Friday for her husband's sentencing

The PR maven arrived by her husband's side and was again dressed head-to-toe in black

'The prospect of family separation is always gutting, especially where young children are concerned,' Justice McCallum said.

But she said his family was 'well-resourced and better placed than many to meet that event'.

The judge rejected the defence lawyers' argument Curtis's bail conditions - where he had to seek permission to go overseas from ASIC for several years - should be taken into consideration in the sentence.

'He has travelled overseas 24 times while on bail,' she noted.

Justice McCallum noted there had been extensive media coverage but said it was not all aimed at Curtis and he did not seek media attention.

'He is not to be equated to his wife in this context,' she said to a ripple of laughter in the public gallery.

Justice McCallum also said it was 'wrong to regard white-collar crime as victimless'.

'It causes loss, albeit unquantifiable, to individual traders and it causes harm to the community at large by damaging the integrity of the market as a level playing field.

'The offending in the present case, which saw superannuation funds competing with twenty-year-olds using inside information to pay for a skiing holiday, stands as the paradigm for scepticism as to the fair operation of the market.'

ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft welcomed the jail sentence handed down to Curtis, and said the watchdog was serious about misconduct.

'This sentence reinforces ASIC's commitment to purse complex trading cases no matter how long they take and how vigorously they're defended,' Mr Medcraft told reporters in Sydney.

During the trial, Ms Jacenko wore designer dresses and regularly posted selfies of her clothing choices for the day.

Defence lawyer Murugan Thangaraj SC argued Curtis (right with his wife) should not be locked up, but Justice Lucy McCallum was not easily persuaded

In her letter to Justice McCallum, Ms Jacenko said she feared the impact Curtis being jailed would have on their children Pixie, four, and Hunter, two

She said Curtis was the kids' 'primary carer' as she was often busy at her '24 hours, 7 days a week' job

The judge accepted nasty comments online since the verdict would have been 'extremely distressing to Mr Curtis'.

His defence lawyers had submitted he had been called a 'grub' and a 'd***' in sentencing submissions, as well as other 'vile' jokes.

WHAT WAS OLIVER CURTIS' CRIME? Oliver Curtis, pictured at Riverview College, which he attended with John Hartman A jury found Oliver Peter Curtis guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading in early June. Prosecutors told the jury Curtis and Hartman made $1.4 million in net profit through the scheme, which ran from May 2007 to June 2008. The jury heard the pair split the profits 50/50 - spending it on a lavish overseas holiday, a $3000-a-week Bondi apartment, a $60,000 Mini Cooper and $20,000 Ducati motorcycle. The court heard evidence Curtis gave Hartman a Blackberry mobile phone so the stocks analyst could send him tips via encrypted messages. Curtis then traded on the information, buying complex financial products called CFDs (contracts for difference). John Hartman served 15 months prison for insider trading offences. He was released in 2012. Advertisement

The father-of-two was found guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading earlier this month after a three-week trial where his former best friend, John Hartman, testified against him.

Before sentencing, Crown Prosecutor David Staelhi SC told the New South Wales Supreme Court Curtis had shown 'no remorse or contrition'.

Defence lawyer Murugan Thangaraj SC argued he should not be locked up, but Justice Lucy McCallum was not easily persuaded.

'If your client was charged with larceny, would we be having this debate?' she asked.

'If (your client) stole $1.4 million, would you be putting in a submission for a non-custodial sentence?'

The defence also tendered 81 pages of character references from family and friends of Curtis, arguing he shouldn't be imprisoned.

In her letter to Justice McCallum, Ms Jacenko said she feared the impact Curtis being jailed would have on their children Pixie, four, and Hunter, two.

'Pixie and Hunter adore their dad. Hes fun, tolerant, uncomplaining and loving. They screech with excitement as soon as they see him and no one else matters to them  not even me.'

She said Curtis was the kids' 'primary carer' as she was often busy at her '24 hours, 7 days a week' job.

The Sweaty Betty PR executive also revealed the family nanny is planning to leave August and they are still trying to find a replacement.

She continued: 'If Oli were to be sent to jail our children will lose the close relationship the have with their father for a period of time.

Family picture: Curtis is pictured with Ms Jacenko, their four-year-old girl Pixie and two-year-old Hunter

Society couple: Wife Jacenko has drawn headlines for her designer wear arriving at the courthouse

'Given their ages I'm worried about the effect this will have on them.

'I will need to significantly reduce the amount of hours that I work to maintain my businesses in order to take up the parental responsibilities that Oli currently has.'

John Hartman, who testified against his former best mate, told the court: 'We both agreed we'd be in a lot of s*** if this comes out'

His father, Nick, said in his submission his son was a 'brash' 22-year-old at the time of his crimes.

Mr Curtis Senior said the investigation and public exposure had a 'psychological effect' on his son.

'The (investigation and trial) have had a profound impact on his life, and have clearly marked him dearly,' he wrote.

'They do not, however, describe the man I know today. They do not define who he is.'

He revealed the 'toll' the events had taken on his son.

'Over time Oliver has became more withdrawn and private than the man he had been prior to the investigation,' he said.

Former colleagues of Curtis, his family friends, and Ms Jacenko's mother and aunt also penned glowing character references.

The three-week trial attracted huge attention - with Ms Jacenko arriving at court with her husband each day in designer brands including Dior, Gucci and YSL.

During the trial, Hartman, a fellow former Riverview College old boy, told the jury the pair had been 'swept up in this fake world'.

Hartman - who did not make eye contact with Curtis while giving evidence - said the pair had discussed getting caught.

'We both agreed we'd both be in a lot of s*** if this came out,' he said.

'It wouldn't just be one of us who would be in trouble.'

Curtis (pictured) only recently agreed the insider trading profits to the Commonwealth, the court heard last week

Ms Jacenko has regularly posted selfies of her court outfits on her huge social media accounts

Roxy's letter, page one: 'We have a close family relationship. Pixie and Hunter adore their dad'

Roxy's letter, page 2: 'Live in childcare has not been possible ... in part because of privacy concerns'

Roxy's letter, page 3: 'If Oli were to be sent to jail our children will lose the close relationship they have with their father for a period of time'
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A Sydney photographer has put together a stunning series showing how the city has changed, and how its stayed the same, over 100 years.

The series sets black and white pictures from the citys archives against present-day photos to show the evolution of Sydneys cityscape.

Composed by local photographer Katherine Griffiths, the shots feature iconic landmarks such as Martin Place, Hyde Parks Archibald Fountain and St Laurences Church.

A black and white photograph taken in 1910 shows three children walking towards the camera against the backdrop of St Laurence's Church

In the 116 years since the photo the church has barely changed, although the street looks drastically different. Parking signs have replaced gas lamps and bricks have replaced sandstone blocks

One photo stares down Valentine Street towards the spires of St Laurences Church in the distance.

The black and white photo, taken in 1910, shows three children carrying groceries towards the camera while an old trolley bus rattles past in the background.

A present day image from the same area shows the gas lamps have been replaced by parking signs and the old sandstone buildings refurbished with brick.

The Archibald Fountain in Sydney's Hyde Park was built in 1932 at the bequest of noted journalist JF Archibald. In 2013 a conservation project returned the fountain to its former glory

The Archibald Fountain in Sydneys Hyde Park was built in 1932 and in its history has been a popular spot with buskers, politicians and protestors alike.

It was named after Australian journalist JF Archibald, who funded its construction with the proceeds from his time as the editor of the influential Bulletin newspaper.

The 1973 photo shows two young children standing at the north side of fountain in front of the statue of Theseus and the Minotaur.

It is set against the sunny background of the fountain as it is today, still gleaming after it was cleaned and repaired in 2013.

In 1964 Martin Place had so much traffic that a pedestrian crossing was installed and a policeman was needed to direct the cars

Although the buildings lining the street are the same, Martin Place has changed drastically. It has been paved and has been planted with trees

In 1964 Martin Place was a bustling road that ran through the heart of the CBD from George Street to Macquarie Street.

The black and white photo shows a policeman directing traffic across the busy intersection while pedestrians stroll across the crossing.

Today Martin Place is lined with trees, has been paved over and the only traffic passing through is on foot.

A black and white photo of George Street taken in 1910 shows the art deco sandstone shops which line the street to this day

A photo from 1910 shows the two-storey art deco buildings which still line George Street to this day.

The buildings are made from the sandstone which was such a reliable and popular building material it has since become synonymous with Sydney.

Although the shops featured in the original photo are long gone, and the buildings have had a bit of a face lift, the scene remains remarkably similar.

Although the shops themselves are long gone, and the buildings have had a bit of a face lift, the scene remains remarkably similar




The first competitive battle of the sexes in the jousting world will take place this weekend.

Nicky Willis, 46, from Streatham in south London, has been dubbed Lady Nicolette of St Reatham and will take on three of the best 'knights' in the world.

The event will take place at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire and is hosted by English Heritage, which has managed to revive the sport.

Nicky Willis, 46, from Streatham in south London, has been dubbed Lady Nicolette of St Reatham and will take on three of the best 'knights' in the world

Two leading female jousters on the European circuit, including Alix van Zijl, will each join three male 'knights' to compete in the medieval sport.

Ms Willis will take the reins at Kenilworth this weekend and at Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, in August, while Ms van Zijl will ride in contests at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire, in August.

Ms Willis said: 'I have heard how much fun it is to joust at Kenilworth, and can't wait to be part of the action this year.

'Kenilworth is famed for some of the most elaborate tournaments in medieval England - as well as playing host to one of England's strongest women, Queen Elizabeth I - so it's the perfect place to sort the women from the boys.'

Emily Sewell, English Heritage head of events, said: 'Historically, the knights who took part in jousting tournaments were an elite band, the best of the best. No women were amongst that group.

'Now they are, and in order to bring our visitors the opportunity to witness some of the most accomplished knights on the circuit, it made complete sense to invite the leading female jousters to join us this summer.'

Ms Willis (left and right) will take the reins at Kenilworth this weekend and at Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, in August

The grand medieval joust competitions see the knights on horseback riding against each other, dressed in full armour and armed with a lance (file photo)

The grand medieval joust competitions see the knights on horseback riding against each other, dressed in full armour and armed with a lance.

The suit of armour which they wear can cost up to 15,000.
Japan's multi-billion-dollar pornographic industry has issued a formal apology and promised change after allegations that women have been forced to perform sex acts on film against their will.

The move comes after the arrest this month of three talent scouts accused of coercing a woman to perform in more than 100 porn films over several years.

One of those arrested was a 49-year-old executive at Tokyo-based agency Marks Japan, who was arrested on suspicion of violating the country's labour laws.

Pornography is widely available in Japan and some actresses become well known enough to appear on mainstream TV chat shows. Porn actresses wave to fans at the opening of a 2014 sex toy fair in Tokyo STOCK IMAGE

The talent agency allegedly pressed the victim, who thought she would be working as a model, to perform in adult videos by warning her she would have to pay penalties for breach of contract if she refused.

The high-profile case sparked the industry's response but campaigners said the practice was more widespread and welcomed the apology as 'the first of its kind'.

Some actresses have claimed they were forced to engage in repeated intercourse without protection and even being gang-raped during filming.

Human Rights Now, a Tokyo-based campaign group, said the number of women seeking counselling over industry abuses jumped more than 80 percent last year.

Japan's porn industry is worth billions of dollars and the industry body has said it would encourage producers to take action to improve the situation quickly STOCK IMAGE

The Intellectual Property Promotion Association, which represents Japan's adult film industry, said in it would 'encourage producers to take action to quickly improve the situation and restore the soundness of the entire industry'.

In a statement they said: 'The association deeply regrets that we had failed to take initiatives before. We are very sorry.'

Shihoko Fujiwara, a campaigner at Lighthouse, a non-profit group that helps human trafficking victims, has applauded the apology but pointed not one in five porn producers did not belong to the IPPA.

Ms Fujiwara said: 'I believe this is the first statement of the kind issued by the industry group.

'But the remaining 20 percent and some illegal porn producers need to comply with the rules, which would require the government to take action.'

Pornography is widely available in Japan, although the country's laws insist genitalia must be pixelated.
The UK population has passed the 65million mark, new official figures revealed today.

The country grew by more than a quarter of a million people last year due to high net migration and more births than deaths.

It means the UK population has gone up by nearly five million  around eight per cent  in just 10 years.

The numbers could provide a last-minute boost for the Brexit camp, which has campaigned heavily on immigration and the impact EU freedom of movement has on numbers of people arriving in the UK.

Crowded: The UK population has passed the 65million mark last year after the country grew by 513,000 in just one year

Natural growth - more births than deaths - of 171,800 and net international migration of 335,600 helped push the number of people living in the country to 65.1million as of mid-2015.

This was an increase over the year of 513,000 - the equivalent of 0.8 per cent.

Support for Vote Leave is widely thought to have gathered pace after official figures in late May put net migration at 333,000, and showed that more than half - 184,000 - came from the EU.

Figures also revealed that 77,000 EU citizens came to Britain without an offer of a job in one year.

Vote Leave seized on the results as further proof of the need to quit the EU.

The only way to get back control over our borders is to Vote Leave today, Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave said this morning.

'In the last ten years as many people as live in Birmingham have moved here from another EU country. That puts a huge strain on our NHS and our schools.

If we Vote Leave, we can take back control and introduce a new Australian-style points-based immigration system. Today is your last chance to do that: go out and Vote Leave today.

Estimates of the level of the UK population at the middle of last year have been scheduled for release today since last year.

That means they are not covered by purdah rules that say Whitehall should not release sensitive information during an election or referendum campaign.

ONS calculations of the population released in June last year put numbers in the middle of 2014 at 64,596,800, and the increase over 12 months at 491,100.

However, the estimates released today show faster growth because last year net migration  the number of people added to the population after both immigration and emigration have been taken into account - was running at 259,700.

In the 12 months to the end of June last year period covered in todays figures, net migration hit a record 336,000.

Since immigration pushes up birthrates  because immigrant women are usually of childbearing age and are likely to have more children than women born in Britain  immigration is currently thought to be responsible for around two thirds of population increase.

The ONS has said that the population may reach almost 80 million by 2039 if migration and birthrates continue at high levels.

The projection of over 79 million is nearly 10 million higher than the level which Labour ministers  who presided over the 2000s boom in Eastern European immigration  said would never be reached.

If the statistics show the predicted increase, then the UK population will have gone up by nearly five million  around eight per cent  in just 10 years (file image)

The ONS figures were released at 9.30am this morning, just two-and-a-half hours after polling stations open, at a time when there will be more than 12 hours of voting left.

They may have a major impact through reporting by broadcasters and websites during the day.

Polling days usually have no significant campaign news and broadcasters have little to report until counting begins late in the evening.

A spokesman for the BBC declined yesterday to say whether the Corporations new outlets would report the figures.

The equivalent report last June attracted heavy attention from BBC reporters, who have been paying greater attention to immigration over the past few years as the anxiety of voters has become plain.

Vote Leave campaigners have played on concerns over rapid population increase and its effect on schools, hospitals, transport, utilities and the availability of housing.

Lord Green of the Migration Watch think tank said yesterday: It is a sign of the times that our population increase is now around half a million every year. If immigration continues at current levels we can expect the population to increase by 10million over the next 20 years and then continue to go up.
A 70-year-old Australian man charged with sexually assaulting four Balinese children has had his trial postponed.

Robert Andrew Fiddel Ellis was arrested January 11 on the suspicion of molesting four young girls around the age of ten, by enticing them with shoes, toys and cash.

Photographs have emerged of the accused attending court for his trial at Denpasar District Court in Bali, Indonesia on June 23, before being escorted to a holding cell until the trial is set to recommence.

Australian man Robert Andrew Fiddel Ellis (pictured), 70, who was charged with sexually assaulting four Balinese girls aged about ten, has had his trial postponed after appearing in court on Thursday

Ellis was seen covering his face with his hand (pictured) as he sat inside a court room during his trial at Denpasar District Court in Bali, Indonesia

Attempting to hide in court, pictures of Ellis show him covering his face with his hand dressed in a white t-shirt similar to the one he was first pictured wearing in early May.

In May the first pictures of the accused were released to the public showing a hunched over Ellis on a concrete seat dressed in a t-shirt and thongs.

Authorities questioned four other children from the markets where they worked.

'[They] are not school children, but children who are working in the market,' said Bali Provincial Police Spokesman Hery Wiyanto earlier this year.

Arriving at court with a plastic bag and a stack of papers, the accused was seen handcuffed to an official wearing a orange vest (pictured). These are the second pictures to appear of Ellis since early May

According to reports made in January at the time of Ellis's arrest, the 70-year-old who was seen attending court on June 23 (pictured) was part of an international paedophile ring

'When he met them, he asked [them] to come with him and promised them something.'

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'Due to privacy obligations, we are unable to provide further information'.

However, 'the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter, to an Australian man arrested in Bali.'

Ellis was escorted to a holding cell after the trial was postponed at the Denpasar court. He was charged of the allged crime in January following a tip-off from a charity for Balinese street children

Seen for the first time in his cell at the Denpasar Prosecutor's Office in Bali (above) Ellis was pictured hunched over with sunken eyes and a long reddish beard

Upon detention in January Ellis was given a health check. It was said at the time authorities were seeking a lawyer and translator before questioning him.

Ellis was arrested in January following a tip-off from a charity for Balinese street children whose founder said they were suspicious of his frequent visits in 2011.

Charity founder Luh Putu Anggraeni said Ellis allegedly had a list of children's names and record of how much money he had spent on each in his possession.

Ellis was seen sitting on a tiled seat dressed in a white t-shirt, shorts and thongs for the first time since his arrest three months ago

The man was surrounded by belongings including a water bottle, plastic bags and a rubbish bin in the holding cell

It is claimed that he gave the children gifts to the value of around $20.

The abuse charges carry a maximum 15 years in jail if Ellis is found guilty.

Children allegedly told authorities they were brought to the man's rental home in Tabanan, Denpasar and were molested in a bath tub, The Daily Telegraph reported.

A sign in the cell read: 'Keep proper hygiene'. Ellis's distinctive strawberry-blonde beard was still in tact

It is not clear whether the man has yet received legal representation. He is accused of luring street children back to his rented home to assault them

In January Bali police information officer Sri Harmiti told The Sydney Morning Herald that they received information from people about his activity and Ellis was followed the next night.

He said: 'We followed him when he's driving his bike with two kids with him. When he arrived at his rented house, we took him.'

Dayu Gayatri from the Netherlands NGO Terre des Hommes, told the newspaper that it is believed that Ellis was part of an international paedophile ring.

Authorities claim the man kept a list of children's names and the amount of money he had spent on them in the markets

The 70-year-old is seen being escorted by Bali police at police headquarters in Denpasar earlier this year

She said it was believed a local network was providing him with access to local children.

M s Gayatri said Ellis allegedly molested two of the girls when he took them on holiday last year.

About 15 paedophiles from Australia were banned from entering Bali between January and September last year by Immigration officers.
ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States unless the terror group is wiped out, a former sex slave has warned the Senate.

Nadia Murad, 21, who was kidnapped by ISIS at 19 and forced to become a sex slave was speaking to the Senate Homeland Security Committee where she issued her chilling warning.

Murad said the United States could expect further atrocities such as the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando while the ISIS ideology continues to exist.

Nadia Murad was raped and tortured during her three months in ISIS captivity after her kidnap in 2014

She warned Congress that unless ISIS were wiped out atrocities such as the Orlando massacre would continue

According to ABC, she told senators: 'Orlando will be repeated if the world doesn't put an end [to] such terrorism. There is no sanctuary

Murad was part of the non-Muslim Yazdi community in Iraq and Syria when she was forced by the jihadis to become a sex slave.

She was testifying before the committee's chairman Senator Ron Johnson, who said ISIS had a 'poisonous ideology.

He said: 'The terrorist attack in Orlando continues the alarming trend of attacks on soft targets here in the U.S. and abroad.

'ISIS brutality towards women, homosexuals and other groups is overt, and these communities will continue to be vulnerable until ISIS is defeated.'

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will represent the Yazdi women in an effort to prosecute ISIS at the International Criminal Court.

Earlier this month, her London law firm, Doughty Street Chambers, announced the plan.

Clooney, who is married to popular Hollywood actor George Clooney said: 'We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and that thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved.

'We know that systematic rapes have taken place, and that they are still taking place," Clooney said. "And yet no one is being held to account.'

More than 400,000 Yazdis have been forced to flee their homes in Syria and Iraq since 2014 to avoid the genocide.

Murad was abducted from her village in Iraq in August 2014.

The UN believes that approximately 7,000 women and girls had been abducted and enslaved by ISIS.

Murad revealed that during her three-month captivity she was repeatedly raped and tortured.
This hilarious video shows how a feisty cat hates his owner's singing so much he lunges at her in a bold bid to get her to stop.

Marianne Kane, from Belfast but now living in New Jersey, U.S, shot the clip on her mobile as she sings 'Thank You For The Music' by Abba.

But as she hits the high notes, her cat, Sunny, instinctively leaps at her upper body in an attempt to stop her.

Not the biggest fan: Sunny the cat moves forward, then she springs at her owner in a bid to stop her singing

Defiant: The cat then gives her owner Marianne Kane a rueful look. Right, Sunny may look cute, but she certainly has a temper

Marianne Kane, from Belfast but now living in New Jersey, enjoys playing with cat Sunny - but the mood changes when she starts singing

Marianne said: 'It first happened last year. I was standing singing with my eyes closed and the next thing Sunny is hanging on my arm.

'I had to record what Sunny does every time I do.

'I guess maybe she doesn't like it.'

Marianne, who runs her own online life, wellness and fitness business, rescued Sunny while living in Saudi Arabia.

She said: 'Sunny, now two and a half years old, was found abandoned by her mother in the desert about two hours outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Family: Marianne rescued Sunny after she found her abandoned in a desert in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Sunny is described by her owner as having 'the most amusing character of any cat we've ever owned'

'My husband worked at a desert camp there and heard this feint meowing by his trailer and realised it was coming from a tiny helpless kitten.

'He waited to see if her mother would return, and when she didn't we took her in and raised her - with the help of our other cats and dog, who were all adopted from the desert.

'Sunny has the most amusing character of any cat we've ever owned. She has a ton of energy, she's extremely intelligent, talkative, and always looking for something to destroy or attack. We love her so much in spite of the fact that she has a tendency to play rough.'

Bundle of joy: Marianne and her cat Sunny when she was a kitten, she has since grown a bit of an attitude

Speaking about the video she filmed, which has racked up views after she posted it online, Marianne added: 'I was with my two other cats (Dusty and Mud) and dog (Sandy) when I filmed this as I work from home, and often try to practice my singing when I can.

'It happened out of the blue. If I happen to be sitting down while singing she will come up to my face and almost try and rub her face on mine.
Michael Frassetto, 29, was convicted Monday after inciting a walkout last year at schools in Allentown, Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania high school teacher who marched with his students in protest at the district's 'ill treatment' of minority students has been found guilty of corrupting minors.

Michael Frassetto, 29, was convicted Monday after inciting a walkout last year - leading to hundreds of students cutting short their classes and taking to the streets.

Frassetto has since left his position at the Medical Academy Charter School in Allentown.

He had been accused of rallying the pupils at three high schools and four middle schools, while he carried a bullhorn, Fox News reported.

During the protests, students also blocked the school entrances to prevent their classmates attending lessons.

They also reportedly called for the resignation of Allentown School District Superintendent Russ Mayo - as well as demanding a summer employment program and a student-elected school representative.

Frassetto was charged with 417 counts of 'corruption of youth', one for each student who attended a rally at the city's Martin Luther King Jr monument on September 28, according to the Allentown Morning Call.

However, in a bench trial, he was found guilty of only three counts of corruption - two of which occurred when he used the bullhorn outside Allen High School on September 28 and 29.

Frassetto remains unapologetic, saying students had the opportunity to exercise their first amendment right. Above, one of the marches from last September

He was ordered by the district judge to pay $100 for each count plus court costs.

Frassetto remains unapologetic, saying students had the opportunity to exercise their first amendment right.

His attorney, Gary Asteak, told the court that if it were considered criminal to give students a voice, Frassetto would 'proudly wear the badge of criminal', according to the Morning Call.

Frassetto's actions had been described as irresponsible by attorneys for the school district - namely, endangering the students by having them leave the school premises.

Some of the students involved were given school suspensions for their part in the rallies.
The pregnant girlfriend of an Australian man who could face the death penalty over drug charges in the Philippines has revealed how the pair had an argument before he spent the night at a hotel.

Just hours later, Damian Berg, 34, was led away in handcuffs after being arrested on suspicion of selling 'cookie monster ecstasy' to an undercover police officer at a Manila hotel.

His girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas has defended her partner of 10 months who was taken into custody after 170 blue ecstasy pills were allegedly found during a drug raid on Monday night.

'He's got a good job, he doesn't need to sell drugs. I should know if he was doing it. I was actually surprised,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I'm always with him. We were doing good, so why would he do this? Damian went to a hotel that night because we had an argument. If we have a fight or are in that situation he goes to a hotel.'

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Damian Berg (above with his Philippine girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas) was arrested in Manila on Tuesday on suspicion of selling 'cookie monster' ecstasy pills

Mr Berg has been living in Manila for more than a year but regularly travelled back to Australia to visit family

The couple have been living together and are expecting a baby boy who is due to arrive in November.

'We were planning on getting married until this happened,' she said.

'We had a plan and now this everyone is saying he's a drug dealer and I said what the hell. It's not true. I'm not scared, we know the truth. He is a good man. He doesn't belong there.

'I am talking to his family on Skype. As of now I am OK. I am strong, I have the support of my family.

'We have our own lawyer, he is trying to get him out. I was surprised when I learned he was with Jeremy because I don't like the guy.'

Mr Berg, who is originally from Adelaide, and Canadian man Jeremy Eaton, also 34, were arrested in Makati City after allegedly selling the small blue pills from the hotel to the Filipino officers.

The two men are awaiting trial and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Mr Berg, who moved to Makati to work as a contract administrator, has denied having any involvement with the drugs, claiming he had been framed.

'I was arrested in the lobby with nothing, no drugs on me, I'm not a drug dealer. I have no purpose selling ecstasy. I have a good paying job,' Mr Berg told reporters after his arrest, the ABC reported.

'I noticed something else near the side table, so I flushed it down the toilet, down there, and then I got rid of another bag.

'I actually texted the individual and asked... "why bring this s**t here".'

The man from Adelaide (left) denies the charges but has remanded in custody in the Philippines while he awaits trial. He was arrested alongside Canadian Jeremy Eaton (right)

On Thursday, as Mr Berg's parents issued an emotional statement of support for him, his life in the Philippines could be laid bare.

Posing by the pool with his pregnant girlfriend, he appeared in a string of social media photographs taken before the arrest.

Among them are many with Miss Zanelucas and a host of selfies that showed off his weight loss.

As her partner remained in custody at a Manila police station, Miss Zanelucas told Daily Mail Australia she was 'preparing food' for him on Thursday.

His parents meanwhile issued an emotional statement through the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs to insist he had their full support.

'What we do know is that Damian is in custody in Manila and is being treated OK.

'It will take time before his case is heard, and until then we can't comment any more. As a family, we dearly love him and will be supporting him as much as we can,' they said.

The pair are understood to be excited about the arrival of the baby. On Thursday Mr Berg's parents told him to 'hang in there' as he awaited legal help

Mr Berg had been living in Manila with his pregnant girlfriend Marvie Zanelucas (above) until his arrest

Mr Berg was arrested alongside a Canadian national after allegedly selling 170 of the pills to an undercover police officer (above) in a Manila hotel

Mr Berg has been living in Manila for more than a year but regularly travelled back to Australia to visit family.

He denied having any involvement with the drugs after being arrested with Eaton and was seen with his head in his hands outside the Makati City police station which police took them to.

Prosecutors allege that an undercover police over bought 170 of the pills from the men, with the drugs carrying a street value of around 255,000 pesos (about AU$7,350).

Mr Berg denies the allegation, telling the ABC he has no need to sell drugs because he has a 'good paying job'.

Geoff Berg spoke outside his family's home in South Australia on Thursday to encourage him to stay positive while awaiting further help

Police have accused Mr Berg and Jeremy Eaton, a Canadian national, of selling them the blue tablets (above)

It is not clear what work the man was doing prior to his arrest.

If found guilty of drug dealing, Mr Berg could face the death penalty under a new, harsher crime crackdown introduced by the country's new leader, Rodrigo Duerte.

Duerte has a notoriously tough stance against drugs, once claiming he would kill his own son if he ever caught him taking them.

The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to the Berg family, a spokesman said.

'The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian man arrested in the Philippines, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter.
A single jetsetter who is whisked around the world for free by rich strangers she meets online insists she's not a gold digger and is simply a 'luxury traveller'.

Natalie Wood, 30, from Canterbury, Kent, joined Miss Travel - an online dating site which matches 'travel-seeking singles' to go on holiday together - two years ago.

Since then, she has been on around 80 different dates - usually with successful businessmen - to far-flung countries such as Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Maldives, Australia, Kuwait and the US.

Single jetsetter Natalie Wood (left in the Maldives and right in Abu Dhabi) who is whisked around the world for free by rich strangers she meets online insists she's not a gold digger and is simply a 'luxury traveller'

The 30-year-old (pictured in the Maldives), from Canterbury, Kent, joined Miss Travel - an online dating site which matches 'travel-seeking singles' to go on holiday together - two years ago

As well as paying for her flights and accommodation, the men give Ms Wood spending money for designer goods and take her in flash cars and yachts to extravagant parties. She estimates that her dates have spent more than 60,000 to take her away.

But the beautician claims she is not just after the money and is genuinely interested in meeting a potential partner and travelling the world.

Ms Wood said: 'I absolutely love to travel, so I decided to join the site in the hopes of finding men who have the same passion as I do.

'I have been on around 80 dates with men from all around the world - and they have all been amazing.

'People sometimes call me a "gold digger" but I prefer to be called a luxury traveller, I think they're just jealous of my adventures. I like the finer things in life and this lifestyle allows me to have them.'

But she said she is 'honest' about what she is looking for. 'I am single and enjoy meeting new people and being spoilt,' she said.

'I love to tick off different countries around the world. I enjoy luxury cars, yachts, hot weather and the trips that I am going on are only getting better.

Since then, the beautician (pictured in Abu Dhabi) has been on around 80 different dates - usually with successful businessmen - and has travelled to Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Maldives, Australia and the US

As well as paying for her flights and accommodation, the men give Ms Wood (left in Kuwait and right in Miami) spending money for designer goods and take her in flash cars and yachts to extravagant parties

'Most of the men, who are usually a little older than I am, are successful business men who are tired of travelling alone and have enough funds to be able to share their trip with me.

'It's hard to put a figure on it but men have spent tens of thousands on my flights and accommodation, I think it would total in excess of 60,000, but I don't keep track of it.'

But she said she always puts her safety first.

'I insist on skyping and always ask to see their ID before we arrange to meet, but every guy I have met has been a true gentleman,' she said.

After joining Miss Travel two years ago, Ms Wood has been flown around the world to places she never dreamed of visiting.

In June, Natalie travelled to Kuwait to meet an international accountant who invited her to his home country to explore.

She added: 'His friend had a yacht with jet skis and we partied in luxurious villas all week.

Ms Wood (pictured on a yacht in Kuwait) claims she is not just after the money and is genuinely interested in meeting a potential partner and travelling the world

Ms Wood said: 'I absolutely love to travel, so I decided to join the site in the hopes of finding men who have the same passion as I do'. She is pictured in Kuwait

'I didn't spend a penny whilst I was there. He paid for everything and also gave me money to go shopping to treat myself to some designer clothes.

'Our relationship was purely platonic so I stayed in one of his apartments and he had his own.

'But I am planning on seeing him later on in the year in Canada, which of course will all be paid for.'

She said her trip to Dubai was another highlight.

'For the first half of my trip I stayed in a luxury hotel and for the second part I stayed in the guy's villa.

'I flew to Perth in Australia to me meet a different guy who owned private planes, he had a huge collection and I was able to ride in one.'

Ms Wood insists there's no pressure to have sex with the men but that she 'doesn't rule it out'.

'I always make sure I am attracted to them first and the connection has to come naturally.'

The single traveller (pictured in Australia) insists there's no pressure to have sex with the men but that she 'doesn't rule it out'

Ms Wood (right in Kuwait) is currently in Miami (left), where she has bought a one way ticket and hopes to connect with as many men online as possible in order to continue her adventures

Ms Wood is currently in Miami, where she has bought a one way ticket and hopes to connect with as many men online as possible in order to continue her adventures.

She said: 'I flew to Miami to meet a guy who is a very successful surgeon and we have had so much fun.

'We explored the city in a red convertible mustang and even went to a nudist beach which was a new experience for me.

'Unfortunately he had to fly back to London for business so I arranged to meet another guy who works in construction.

'I am flying to the Bahamas next week, I am always so eager to visit new places and never want my adventures to end.
A pair of Indiana inmates climbed through a wall of their prison cell in an escape reminiscent of the one in the 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption before being apprehended in Ohio four days later.

Police in Dayton, Ohio, caught 39-year-old Chadwick Heath and 27-year-old Michael Roberts on Tuesday.

Before their escape Friday from the jail 60 miles away in Connersville, Indiana, Roberts was being held on burglary and theft charges and Heath on drug-dealing charges.

Escapees: Chadwick Heath, left, and Michael Roberts squeezed through a 2-by-2-foot hole in the wall of their cell at the Fayette County Jail at about 11:30 p.m. Friday

Jail staff noticed the two had gone missing during a head count early on Saturday morning.

WCPO-TV reports officials suspect the inmates spent weeks carving through stone wall to break out, then stole a truck.

Heath is charged with four counts of dealing in a narcotic drug, maintaining a common nuisance and visiting a common nuisance. Roberts is charged with burglary and two counts of theft.

Heath's mother is facing charges after authorities say she assisted the pair while they were on the lam.

Accomplices: Charges have filed against Paula Potters and her son Joseph Heath, the brother of one of the escapees, according to the sheriffs department

Someone who previously employed Roberts said he noticed his truck was missing Sunday morning. Roberts previously stole from the man, he told the sheriff's department.

The truck, a 2015 white Ford F350 dual wheel utility truck, was located Sunday night in Dayton, Ohio. It wasn't damaged, and the keys were left inside.

Heath's mother and brother face criminal charges in connection with the men's escape.
Beauty pageant contestants often talk about how they want to make big changes in the world - but the newly crowned Miss Missouri is actually making it happen.

Erin O'Flaherty, 23, is the first openly gay Miss Missouri - which also makes her the first openly lesbian Miss America candidate in the pageant's 95-year history.

O'Flaherty, who was crowned Saturday, said: 'I'm on cloud nine really just to be Miss Missouri. I don't know that I intended to be the first (gay winner), but I am. So I'm very excited about it.'

Miss Missouri: On Saturday Erin O'Flaherty was crowned Miss MIssouri - becoming the first-ever openly gay winner - and the first such contender for the crown of Miss America

Winner: O'Flaherty is pictured being crowned by 2015's Miss Missouri, McKensie Garber (back), and Miss Missouri's Outstanding Teen 2016, Christina Stratton (left)

Competitors: O'Flaherty (center) is joined by runners-up (l-r) Brittany Sears (third runner-up), Audrain Jennifer Davis (first runner-up), Katie Moeller (second runner-up) and Mikaela Carson (fourth runner-up)

Confirmed: The Miss America Organization has confirmed that O'Flaherty is the first openly gay Miss America contestant in the pageant's history, although others have come out after entering

O'Flaherty, who is originally from South Carolina, came out as gay when she was 18, but said she isn't making her sexuality the center of her campaign for Miss America when she attends the competition in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on September 11.

'My focus of my year isn't going to be that I'm gay,' said O'Flaherty, who owns a clothing store in suburban St. Louis.

'It's certainly a big part of who I am, and I will be promoting it and raising awareness for the LGBT community. But also there will be many appearances that I do that have nothing to do with that.

'And so I'm hoping that I can strike a really nice balance of staying true to the values of Miss Missouri and also being able to exercise my personal views.'

Instead, she said, she will make suicide prevention her platform of interest for the competition.

A spokesperson for the Miss America Organization confirmed that 'the newly crowned Miss Missouri, Erin OFlaherty, is the first openly LGBTQ contestant to compete in the Miss America Competition.

'While past contestants have later identified as LGBTQ, we would like to honor and respect the privacy of our contestants personal lives. As always the Miss America Organization supports all women who are interested in joining the legendary competition.'

If she wins, O'Flaherty will receive a $50,000 scholarship.

On Wednesday O'Flaherty signed in for the first time to the official Miss Missouri Twitter account.

'Hey there! Erin here, officially signing in as Miss MO 2016. So excited to serve this amazing state,' she enthused, also posting a photograph of her coronation.

Although O'Flaherty is the first openly lesbian woman to make it into the running for Miss America, she's not the first to try.

Record breaker: O'Flaherty (pictured left, and also right with sister Justin) said she's 'on cloud nine' to be declared the winner in her state

Contender: O'Flaherty (pictured with Garber) believes she's the first openly gay Miss America contender, but says that she's not basing her campaign on her sexuality. Instead, she's promoting suicide awareness

Family: O'Flaherty (pictured left, and also right with sister Justin) has received great support from her family

In 2012, Mollie Thomas attempted to become the first openly gay Miss California, and in 2013 Analouisa Valencia tried to do the same for South Carolina; her platform was promoting the Special Olympics.

Neither of them won their respective competition.

And in August 2014 Patricia Yurena Rodriguez, who won the Miss Spain crown in 2008 and 2013, and came first runner-up in Miss Universe 2013, posted a photograph on Instagram of her in bed with her girlfriend, DJ Vanesa Cortes.

The photo, captioned 'Romeo and Juliet', received 10,700 likes.

The Miss America Organization was not available for comment.
Police appeal for witnesses or to anyone who

near the entrance of the store

A man tried to tackle one of the

Masked men stole more than 25,000 worth of handbags from an boutique after threatening staff with a knife and metal bar.

CCTV caught the moment a motorcycle passenger walked into the Islington shop with his helmet on.

When approached by staff, the thief pulled out a knife and a metal bar from the waistband of his trousers and brandished the bar in front of them.

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Police have released CCTV images of two men they would like to trace regarding the robbery in Islington

One of the robbers threatened staff with a knife and metal bar before heading into the back of the shop and stealing 25,000 worth of handbags from the exclusive boutique

The driver of the motorbike also entered the store and stole the handbags in the window display

He then went into the rear of the shop and took the handbags.

The driver of the motorbike also walked into the store and took handbags from the display window.

A man, who came into the shop was assaulted as he tried to tackle the driver near the store entrance.

The two robber's the left with the bags and drove off towards Charlton Place.

Police were called at around 11.50am on Thursday, January 9, to reports of a robbery at Handbag Clinic in Camden Passage.

Detectives have released CCTV footage of two men they wish to trace.

A man, who entered the store was assaulted by one of the helmet-wearing thieves

The first robber is described as a man wearing a two-tone grey top and grey tracksuit bottoms. The second suspect is described as a man wearing a dark grey helmet, blue jacket and black trousers.

Police are keen to hear from anyone who may recognise or saw the two men shown on CCTV.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact police on 101 or 020 7421 0144, quoting 2713934/16, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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These incredible photographs of a lioness killing a stork in a safari park in Kenya show why lions are the most feared hunters in the world.

Pictures show the hungry lioness stalking a flock of birds in Kenya's Maasai Mara before moving in for the kill and leaping up to grab her prey.

While some of the birds flap off in different directions in a desperate bid to escape, one was not so lucky - and ended up in the lion's jaws.

Incredible photographs show the moment a lioness killed a stork in a safari park in Kenya - demonstrating why lions are the most feared hunters in the world

Pictures show the hungry lioness stalking a flock of birds in Kenya's Maasai Mara before moving in for the kill and leaping up to grab her prey

While some of the birds flap off in different directions in a desperate bid to escape, one was not so lucky - and ended up in the lion's jaws

Jorge Alesanco, owner of safari park Cheetah Tented Camp in Maasai Mara, captured the astonishing pictures while out on the reserve.

The 46-year-old started snapping when he saw the lioness, called Zama, looking for food for her cubs and moving in on the unsuspecting storks.

He said: 'When I took the photos lioness Zama was going through a bad patch as she had a chest injury which made it difficult to hunt warthogs and antelopes and at night hyenas were a nightmare stealing her prey.

Jorge Alesanco, owner of safari park Cheetah Tented Camp in Maasai Mara, captured the astonishing pictures while out on the reserve

On the prowl: A lioness moves in for the kill as it hunts for dinner for its two cubs in the wilds of the Maasai Mara in Kenya

The 46-year-old photographer started snapping when he saw the lioness, called Zama, looking for food for her cubs and moving in on the unsuspecting storks

The lioness's cubs were too weak and were becoming skinny - but she managed to survive the rainy season by eating white storks to provide her young with milk

Taking flight: The predator could be seen leaping up in to the air and grabbing a white stork as it was trying to fly away

'Her cubs were too weak and were becoming too skinny, but she managed to survive the rainy season by eating white storks to provide her cubs with milk.

'The wildebeest great migration from Serengeti is almost here and Zama, the most amazing mother lioness, will face an easier season that will take her and her beloved cubs out of danger to become two strong young lions and a very proud mother.

'As a naturalist I felt privileged to witness such an event.'

Snarling: The deadly hunter showed why it has such a fearsome reputation, by clamping its jaws around its unsuspecting prey

In a flap: As the lion moved in for the kill the flock of storks started to panic and lumbered into the air in a desperate bid to escape
A Jewish man who was 'essential for the Nazi war effort' has been revealed as the most prolific smuggler in wartime Europe.

Michel Szkolnikoff smuggled looted art and jewellery from France, making a fortune for himself and the Nazis.

Szkolnikoff escaped the genocide and amassed a fortune worth six billion French francs in 1945 - 491million euros (377million) in today's money - and died mysteriously at the end of the war, with some conspiracy theorists believing he fled to South America.

French journalist and historian Pierre Abramovici has written a book about Szolnikoff, which explains how he managed to avoid the fate suffered by millions of other Jews and set himself up in a life of luxury.

Michel Szkolnikoff (pictured left, in Vilnius in the 1920s, and right, with his niece Olga in Brussels in 1931) ignored the Holocaust and became indispensable to the German war effort

Abramovici said: 'The Nazis needed specialists, Jews or not. Szkolnikoff's situation was complex. He was considered a Jew by the French and Aryan by the Nazis.

'He was arrested twice by the (Vichy) French and released each time by the Nazis.'

The US Embassy in Madrid pointed to Szkolnikoff as a major smuggler of works of art.

A confidential report from August 1944 said Szkolnikoff also smuggled jewellery, gold and gems from France 'on behalf of the Gestapo'.

Szolnikoff was born in 1895 in Tsarist Russia but fled after the revolution and became a German citizen, before moving on to France in the 1930s.

He changed his first name to Michel, to disguise his Jewish origins, and began trading in textiles, which he sold to Paris department stores.

Michel Szkolnikoff is pictured with his well-connected German wife, Helene Samson, and their dog Peggy. Szkolnikoff was classified as 'Aryan' and was able to evade the death camps

But he was still struggling to make a living when war broke out but was soon to make his fortune producing military uniforms for the German Army, the Navy and even the SS.

Abramovici said: 'He was a poor man before the war but then he met his mistress, a German woman named Helene Samson. She introduced him to the members of the KriegsMarine (German Navy) and then the SS.

'This man was a textile merchant without any religious, political or moral ideals. He just wanted to make money and in three years he became the richest man in France.'

German officers receive salutes as they sit in a cafe on the Champs Elysee in July 1940. During the war many French people collaborated with the occupying Germans to save their skins or feather their nests

Szkolnikoff's residence permit, allowing him to live in Monaco in 1942. He based his business empire in Monte Carlo

Abramovici said: 'Eventually he owned the main part of the luxury hotels of France and Monaco and dozens of expensive buildings in the centre of Paris around the Champs Elysees, a castle and other properties.'

He said Szolnikoff became 'essential for the Nazi war effort'.

Abramovici's book, Szkolnikoff: Hitler's Jewish Smuggler, tells how Szolnikoff's origins as a Karaite Jew enabled him to avoid being defined as Jewish and therefore avoid the concentration camps.

The author said: 'Members of a little Baltic Jewish community named Karaites were considered as non-Jewish and pure Aryan, first by the Italians then by the Nazis in 1938.'

Abramovici said: 'Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels declared 'I decide who is Jewish or not'.'

France was looted economically by the Nazis, especially Hermann Goring, who used Szolnikoff as an intermediary.

Szkolnikoff based his business empire in Monaco and invested most of his profits into property, especially hotels.

After Hitler's death and the German surrender in May 1945, prominent Nazis fled for their lives and those who had collaborated in France were hunted down.

Szolnikoff fled to Spain, ruled by fascist dictator Franco, but he apparently met his end just outside Madrid in June 1945.

His body was dumped in the countryside and an attempt had been made to burn it.

Abramovici said it was widely believed at the time that a team of Frenchmen had hunted him down and killed him during a botched abduction.

But he said there was a conspiracy theory that Szkolnikoff had faked his own death and fled to Argentina, where he supposedly had a bank account.

Szkolnikoff's body is buried in a grave at El Molar cemetery in Madrid (pictured left) but Abramovici said one theory is that he did not die but assumed the identity of his brother Gessel, seen here (right) in 1982

After the war there was a huge legal battle over Szkolnikoff's assets, which lasted for years.

But the man himself has largely faded from history.

Explaining why he wrote the book, Abramovici said: 'I wanted to describe the unknown story of the way the Nazis plundered France.
The Orlando shooter was captured on surveillance cameras during at least one hook-up with a gay man at a hotel in Florida, it has been claimed.

A source at the Ambassador Hotel revealed to TMZ that gunman Omar Mateen was seen heading to a room where a man identified only as Miguel said he was staying in December 2015, at 11pm.

The security video would bolster the claims made by the Hispanic gay man, who spoke to Univision about his alleged hook-ups with the shooter at the hotel.

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'Tryst': The Hispanic gay man, identified only as Miguel, told Univision he met Omar Mateen on Grindr before they became 'friends with benefits', meeting up 20 times at a hotel. His identity has been disguised with a mask

Gunman Omar Mateen was allegedly captured on surveillance cameras during at least one hook-up with a gay man at a hotel

'Liaisons': Miguel claims he and Mateen met up to 20 times in this Ambassador Hotel, in Orlando, Florida, last year. Security footage from the hotel apparently backs up his story

Miguel, who spoke in fluent Spanish and broken English, had his identity obscured with a prosthetic mask and the tone of his voice altered for the interview.

He said he had met Mateen on Grindr before they became 'friends with benefits', meeting up to 20 times at the hotel in Orlando.

He claimed Omar Mateen was livid after discovering he'd had sex with a Puerto Rican man who was HIV-positive and his attack on Pulse nightclub's Latin Night was an attempt at 'revenge'.

Miguel said that despite tests coming up negative, Mateen feared not enough time had passed for an accurate result, and he wanted to 'make them pay'.

He told Univision's Maria Elena Salinas: 'The thing that makes me want to tell the truth is that he didn't do it for terrorism,' adding: 'In my opinion he did it for revenge.'

Before the massacre, Miguel insists, Mateen seemed 'adorable' and 'sweet', adding that they often had oral sex and that Mateen 'loved to be cuddled... he loved to be embraced'.

Their first date, he said, was at a bar in Orlando called Parliament. 'It was like any other date,' he recounted. Every other meeting was at the Ambassador Hotel, where they met 15 to 20 times between October and December 2015.

Univision said a representative for the hotel confirmed that Omar Mateen was a familiar face, and that he had stayed there at least 63 times last year.

Miguel said the 29-year-old eventually revealed to him that he was married with one child. After an argument, he said, Mateen apologized to him and even told him his wife (pictured) knew about his gay trysts

Pulse is where Mateen could inflict the most damage against the people he felt rejected by, Miguel said

Speaking in the interview, Miguel said Mateen lashed out when he once tried to take selfies in bed, forcing him to put his phone down.

The 29-year-old eventually revealed to him that he was married with one child.

After an argument, he said Mateen apologized to him and told him that his wife knew about his gay trysts. Asked if Mateen's father knew he was gay, Miguel said he couldn't be sure but he thought so.

During their casual relationship, Miguel said Mateen spoke about Islam, describing it as 'a beautiful religion in which everyone is welcome - gays, trans, bisexuals, heteros, everyone.'

But it became clear that Mateen fostered a deep hatred for his own sexuality and for Puerto Rican gay men. 'He hated Puerto Rican gays for all the bad stuff they did,' Miguel said. 'Pulse is where he felt used, rejected.

'He was always there and he was there because he liked Latinos and he was attracted to dark skin. But sadly, from what he told me, he felt used. He felt anger, a lot of anger towards Puerto Ricans.'

Miguel said he has reported his entire story to the FBI, and is currently being interrogated by federal officers.

The FBI has apparently obtained footage from the hotel, both TMZ and Univision reported.
Islamic State members have reportedly killed four of their top leaders in a public execution witnessed by hundreds of civilians and jihadists in the centre of Mosul, Iraq.

The ISIS leaders were charged with 'high treason' at a Sharia law court in Mosul and were sentenced to death on June 22 after refusing to fight, Iraqi media reports.

The high-ranking commanders reportedly escaped the battlefront in the Shargati area in southern Mosul, where the group was engaged in heavy fighting with Kurdish and Iraqi forces, ARA News reports.

'The four fighters were hanged to death in the Muallimin square in central Mosul,' local activist Ahmed al-Muthanna told ARA News.

The executions are the latest show of force by ISIS. As its power begins to wain, the terror group is trying to warn its fighters that deserters will be punished by death.

ISIS fighters parade in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, back in 2014. The terror group is now losing its stronghold over the city (file photo).

There are reports the terror group's leader has been killed. But on Wednesday, it was reported the sprawling desert mansion belonging to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured) has been found abandoned and he is on the run

In April, it was reported the terror group had killed 21 of its military chiefs since the start of April in its Syrian stronghold, Raqqa.

Iraqi media agency Al Sumaria News also reported ISIS had killed 45 of its own fighters by locking them inside a forensic freezer after they attempted to flee during a battle in Iraq .

After their agonising deaths, the bodies of the victims were allegedly stretched out along the sides of the road to act as a warning to any other ISIS defectors.

Morale is believed to be falling as the group loses its stronghold in Mosul as the Iraqi army, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, dents its territory.

The city in northern Iraq, which was once home to about two and a half million people, has been occupied by ISIS since June 10, 2014.

ISIS is also currently waging a desperate last stand to hold the city of Fallujah and is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in lost oil revenue in the face of coalition air strikes.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Friday that Fallujah had 'returned to the embrace of the nation.

In this June 16, 2014 file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group, slogans as they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul

A member of the Iraqi counter terrorism forces inspects collapsed buildings in Fallujah's southern Shuhada neighbourhood after Iraqi government forces retook the area from the Islamic State (IS) group on June 18

Members of the Iraqi counter terrorism forces gather next to their vehicles in Fallujah's southern Shuhada neighbourhood after they hunted down holdout jihadists in Fallujah after retaking the city centre

'We promised you the liberation of Fallujah and we retook it. Our security forces control the city except for small pockets that need to be cleared within the coming hours,' Abadi said on Friday in a brief address on state TV.

On Twitter, he added: 'Fallujah has returned to the nation and Mosul is the next battle.'

Iraqi commanders say 80 percent of the city is under their control.

However, on Tuesday, the U.S.-led coalition said only a third of Fallujah has been 'cleared'.

The number of foreign fighters joining ISIS in Iraq and Syria has decreased sharply in the past year to about 200 a month from between 1,500 and 2,000.

U.S. Air Force Major General Peter Gersten said last month that the number of fighters defecting from ISIS was increasing as well, but he did not give a specific number.

On Wednesday, it was reported the sprawling desert mansion belonging to the terror group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been found abandoned amid claims he is still alive and on the run.

A picture of the compound in Manbij, Syria, was posted online by Iraqi rebel fighter Serdar Mahmud who said it featured a swimming pool and even a zoo with camels and horses.

Mahmud claimed al-Baghdadi is in Mosul, despite earlier reports that the ISIS mastermind may have been killed.
Having a few too many can often lead to regrets or memory blanks that can't be filled in.

Yet this man will have woken up the morning after the night before with a fair few bumps and bruises after he comically lost his balance while leaning against a pillar and tumbled to the ground.

Filmed from a police cruiser in Seattle, the footage shows the streets still busy at 1.05am, many no doubt beginning to navigate their way home.

Finally found a resting spot: The man, who appears to be drunk, slumps up against a pillar in Seattle

But after he took a shift to the left, the man loses his balance, and flings out an arm in hope

The reveller crashes to the ground, in front of three women who were walking past in the early hours

One man, who appears to be drunk, comes into shot from the right wearing a blue shirt and black trousers, and slumps up against a concrete pillar.

He is somewhat unsteady on his feet, and he also nods his head as if still recounting some rhythm from the club.

After a few shrugs of the shoulders the man then decides to lean against a different part of the pillar - and this was where the error was made.

Unexpected: One of the group of women was clearly startled at the sight of a man falling at her feet

A man who was standing close by then goes over to the man's aid, offering a helping hand

After shifting slightly to the left, he misjudges the size of his resting spot, and ends up taking a heavy fall to the ground, startling three women who were walking past.

Another man walks over to the grounded reveller, offering a hand to get him to his feet, but he just about manages to lift himself up.

He gives his hair a quick brush through, and offering his good Samaritan a pat on the back he makes his move to leave the scene of his embarrassment.
Police didn't immediately identify the suspect or the officer who shot him

Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now leading the inquiry into why the officer discharged his weapon

Man was shot in the head, taken to nearby hospital, pronounced dead

Suspect fled on foot then jumped into a vehicle, on duty officer fired gun

Called in assistance from on duty officer after pursuing man on foot, suspected of car burglary

A car burglary suspect was shot dead by an officer early Thursday morning in northeast Atlanta.

The suspect was trying to break into cars in the parking deck of an apartment complex on Monroe Place, according to Atlanta officers.

Police say the shooting happened early Thursday in northeast Atlanta, when an off-duty officer spotted a person acting suspiciously in the parking area.

A car burglary suspect was shot dead by an officer early Thursday morning in northeast Atlanta. The suspect attempted to flee the scene by car but was shot in the head, causing the car to wreck (pictured)

Police inspect the vehicle which was attempted as a getaway by the suspect. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has taken the lead in an inquiry into what caused the officer to fire the shots

An Atlanta Police media officer told MailOnline that just before midnight, an off duty Officer serving as a Courtesy Officer for an apartment complex near Monroe Drive was patrolling the parking area.

He then called for backup from on duty staff to help locate a vehicle break in suspect who he was actively pursuing by foot.

The suspect was able to run away from the off duty officer and jump into a vehicle when he encountered the on duty responding officer who fired his gun and struck the suspect in the head, causing him to wreck the vehicle.

The man was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta, where he was pronounced dead.

Officers from the Atlanta Police Department are working to assist and support the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and secure the scene, according to 11 Alive.

Police didn't immediately identify the suspect or the officer who shot him.

Atlanta Police confirmed that the officer has been placed on administrative leave, with pay.

The GBI, who has taken the lead in investigation, told MailOnline: 'We will be prepared to provide additional updates at a later time as we obtain more information from our investigating agents.
A girls 13th birthday party at her parents home on Friday got out of control after 200 people gatecrashed the event and tore out parts of the fence, tossed a clothesline into a neighbours yard, smashed beer bottles in the street and shattered a window.

The unexpected partygoers, aged between 13 and 21, were alerted to the party through a Facebook event and showed up to the Camden, south-west Sydney, home with alcohol and gathered in the back of the home where a DJ had set up, according to police.

The out of control guests caused thousands of damage and one teen was captured on video smashing in one of the homes windows with his head.

But the 13-year-old girl doesn't seem to be too concerned.

'lol...should we deadset have round 2? [sic]' she asked her friends on social media just days after police broke up the party, according to Channel 7.

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A girls (pictured) 13th birthday party at her parent's south-west Sydney home on Friday got out on control after 200 people gatecrashed the event and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage

The unexpected partygoers, aged between 13 and 21, smashed beer bottles in the street and one boy was captured on video smashing a window with his head

They also tore out parts of the fence (pictured) and tossed a clothesline into a neighbours yard

Police said the crowd was alerted to the party through a Facebook event and ignored the girl's parents when they asked them to leave

The 13-year-old girls parents had given her permission to have a party with 20 guests but the guest list grew out of control after she allowed her friends to become hosts on her Facebook party page and invite others, police said.

Members of the crowd have boasted about the party on social media and the boy who smashed his head into through the window has posted photos of himself will blood dripping down his head.

Her father remains upset about the destruction the hundreds of people caused and told Channel 7 that it was shocking.

The boy who smashed his head into through the window has posted photos of himself will blood dripping down his head (pictured)

Members of the crowd have boasted about the party on social media (pictured)

Neighbours called the police after they saw the mass of people swarm upon the home.

Ive never seen anything like it, they were coming from everywhere. There were car loads coming from every street possible, one neighbour told Channel 7.

Police said that when they arrived they found the girls parents trying to shut down the party but being ignored.

Her father remains upset about the destruction the hundreds of people caused and said that it was shocking

The crowd threw bottles at police officers, forcing police to call in support from surrounding Commands.

The group eventually dispersed through the streets and a nearby reserve, police said.

Officers have urged people not to promote parties on social media.
The extraordinary story of a daredevil war hero who once flew a plane through the Arc de Triomphe has come to light after the medals he was awarded by seven different countries came up for sale.

Colonel Harold Fowler was a soldier, airman and secret service agent who fought for his native Britain and his adopted country of the US in both World Wars.

He was shot down on seven separate occasions and wounded four times, while among his exploits were creeping into No Man's Land and using a sniper rifle to pick off German gunners.

The military hero also had some extraordinary adventures away from the battlefield - while celebrating the Armistice in November 1918, he apparently bet a French airman that he could fly his byplane under the arch of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Hero: Corporal Harold Fowler, pictured left during the First World War and right during the Second, fought as a sniper and as a pilot for both the US and UK

Haul: All 15 medals which were given to Fowler by seven different countries are going up for sale

In between the two wars Fowler entered two Grand National races as an amateur jockey, falling from his horse both times.

As an RAF intelligence officer, Fowler was on board a bomber during one of the first Second World War air raids in Berlin, and he later almost died when his plane crash-landed in North Africa.

He suffered a broken leg, chipped ankle and a dislocated shoulder but was still able to drag himself and the unconscious pilot from the burning wreckage.

During his life Fowler received decorations from the governments of the UK, USA, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania and the Soviet Union.

His heroics were rediscovered when a military enthusiast found his medals for sale at an antiques fair and snapped them up for a tiny sum.

They are now going up for auction next week with Morton & Eden in London, with an estimated price of 8,000.

Amateur: Fowler, left, twice rode in the Grand National but fell off his horse on each occasion

Auctioneer David Kirk said: 'This is a particularly intriguing group of medals, of much potential interest not only here in Britain but also in the United States.

'Colonel Harold Fowler's life story reads something like a Hollywood action movie. He was British born but raised in America and was recruited into the United States Secret Service reputedly by President Theodore Roosevelt himself.

'He served in the First World War as a soldier when he won the DSO and then as a young pilot, first with the Royal Flying Corps and then with the US Army Air Service.

'He successfully flew a small aircraft under the Arc de Triomphe in response to a challenge made publicly in a Parisian cafe by French pilots, who claimed that their American counterparts were not of the same calibre.

'When the room fell quiet, Fowler took on the challenge the next day and proved them all wrong.

'The story could be even better still if we knew more about his clandestine work in the US Secret Service. Nonetheless it's a fabulous real-life story.

Target: Fowler once flew a plane through the Arc de Triomphe, pictured, as part of a drunken bet

'Not only did Harold Fowler receive awards from the British and American governments, but also from Belgium, France, Italy, Romania and Russia and it is the sheer variety of medals and awards he received during his career which is quite outstanding.'

Fowler was born in Liverpool in 1886, but moved to New York with his parents as a child and studied at Columbia University, subsequently working for the New York Stock Exchange and the American ambassador to Britain.

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he successfully applied for dispensation to join the British Army and operated as a sniper before training as a pilot.

When the US joined the conflict in 1917, he joined the US Air Force, then returned to the stock exchange after the war and later becoming the First Deputy Police Commissioner of New York.

Returning to Britain during the Second World War, he fought again for the USAF and then settled back in the US, living in Long Island and Florida before he died in 1957.
A huge weightlifter has been dubbed the Iranian Hulk after astounding social media with his sheer physical size.

Sajad Gharibi, 24, from Iran, is said to weigh almost 24 and a half stone and almost all of it is muscle.

The giant man with a fierce expression has a following of over 59,000 followers on Instagram where he posts about what he does best - weightlifting.

Enormous: Sajad Gharibi, 24, poses topless on a rooftop to show off his incredible size

Persian Hulk: The young man's muscles can barely be contained inside his white vest

But his Instagram account doesnt feature the type of food and workout posts most weightlifters and workout obsessives share, instead it displays an array of gobsmacking topless photos of himself and unpretentious pictures of him going about his day to day life.

His huge frame and bulging muscles have earned him the name of Hulk or Hercules.

He can lift up to 175 kilogrammes (386 lbs), which is more than he weighs and he takes part in the powerlifting category of competitions. He has also participated in bodybuilding competitions representing his country.

Bulking up: The 24 stone beast lifts a large weight in one of the many photos on his Instagram account

Proud: The Iranian appears confident with his size and happy to show it off to his more than 50.000 followers

Wide: He can lift up to 175 kilogrammes which is reportedly more than he weighs

Competitive: Gharibi reportedly takes part in the powerlifting category of competitions

Since getting gaining a following on his social media accounts, the Persian Hercules has quickly become an internet sensation as netizens express their amazement at his impressive build.

He writes in Persian but uses English hashtags such as #strongman #strongbody #big #mucsles and #powerful.

In his free time, Gharibi also likes to take pictures with objects that look smaller when held next to him.

In one photo he sidles up to a can of Fanta orange, in another he poses with a can of Red Bull in a shop and in another he wraps his enormous arm around a normal sized friend.

Comparison: Gharibi likes to take pictures with objects that look smaller when held next to him

Unique: His Instagram account doesnt feature the type of food and workout posts most workout obsessives normally post
A school girl from Kent was left for fighting for her life after contracting a potentially deadly bug during a holiday from hell.

Emily Bridges, 10, was taken ill on a five-day family holiday to Hurghada in Egypt.

The life-threatening illness was initially misdiagnosed as a dodgy belly by a local doctor.

Emily Bridges, 10, (inset) was taken ill on a five-day family holiday to Hurghada in Egypt were she was wrongly diagnosed by a local doctor who said she had a 'dodgy belly'

Emily Bridges travelled with her family to the popular resort of Hurghada in Egypt (pictured)

But after landing back in Britain earlier this month Emily, who was still feeling ill, was rushed to St Thomass Hospital in central London.

It was here where horrified doctors found her vital organs had begun to shut down.

The youngster was diagnosed with E.coli as well as Hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a condition which causes kidneys to fail and the body to destroy red blood cells.

Emilys shocked mum Rachel, 43, said: We initially put it down to a dodgy belly while we were there.

It was only when we were home I took her to the hospital, expecting to get a prescription but a doctor told me she was very sick.

E-coli can be contracted by eating contaminated food, touching infected animals or drinking untreated water.

Emilys condition deteriorated to the point where she had to spend a week on life support.

The brave youngster is now off the critical list, and Rachel, of the Isle of Sheppey, remains optimistic about what lies ahead.

She said: It has been such a traumatic experience and a lot for a 10-year-old to deal with.

But shes strong and stubborn like me so I know shell pull through because shes a fighter.

Emily is now spending 16-hours a day on dialysis and a 12,000 a dose drug, supplied by the NHS, which she has to take weekly to stop her immune system attacking her own body.

She may also need a transplant in the future because of the severity of the damage to her kidneys.

A family friend, Jayne Russon, has now started a GoFundMe page that will help cover Rachels travel and accommodation expenses which will allow her to be with her daughter in London.

Jayne said: Ive known Rachel for more than 30 years, so wanted to help her in anyway I possibly can.
Nadir Syed plotted an ISIS-inspired Remembrance Day attack on a poppy seller

A Muslim extremist who plotted a knife attack on a poppy seller on Remembrance Day was in touch with an ISIS member in Syria, it can be disclosed.

Nadir Syed was jailed for life today after he was found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism in an attack he hoped would out-do the brutality of Lee Rigby's murder.

The 23-year-old will serve a minimum sentence of 15 years before he is eligible for parole.

Detectives believe Syed, of Hounslow, West London, planned to sever the head of his victim and hold it up for the camera.

They feared Syed was just three days from launching his attack, aimed at a poppy seller on Remembrance Day or possibly a Police Special Constable (PCSO)

It can be reported today that he was in regular contact with two friends who had joined the terrorist group and had been encouraging others to launch terrorist attacks.

Syed is said to have admired ISIS executioner Jihadi John and secured his phone with the passcode 77911 in tribute to the 7/7 and 9/11 terrorist attacks.

He was obsessed with the killing of Fusilier Rigby in Woolwich in 2013 and had an 'unnatural fascination with beheading by the use of knives,' Max Hill QC, prosecuting, said.

It can now be disclosed that Syed was close Omar Hussain, a former security guard at Morrisons supermarket in High Wycombe, who is now in Syria encouraging attacks on Western targets.

The jury in his trial was also not aware that a second friend of Syed's, Luqman Warsame, was killed in a Western air attack during fighting at the town of Kobane in Syria.

Sentencing Syed, Mr Justice Saunders said he was in 'no doubt' that he was dangerous and added: 'In my judgment if he was released from prison he would go and try and carry out what he failed to achieve in this case. He would set out to kill in furtherance of his beliefs.

'He is an intelligent man. He had thought out what he wanted to do and I saw no sign in the evidence he gave of any change of view on his part.

'On the evidence that I have at present the defendant will remain dangerous until the threat from Islamic terrorists has gone. I cannot say when that will be.

'It is clear to me that not only is a life sentence necessary, but it is essential, to protect the public from the threat that this defendant poses.'

Syed was close Omar Hussain, a former security guard at Morrisons, now thought to be fighting in Syria

CCTV footage shows Syed buying a large knife at a hardware store in Ealing, west London

MI5 had Syed and his friends under surveillance and realised that he was buying a knife and preparing what they believed was to be a suicide attack.

Syed was frustrated at being unable to leave the country to join ISIS and decided instead to launch attacks in Britain.

Detectives believe the 'tipping point' came when he was served with an anti-social behaviour order on November 6 last year which banned him from associating with a number of other radicals.

He went straight from Ealing Magistrates Court to Kitchen Ideas on Ealing Broadway to buy a knife with his friend Haseeb Hamayoon who had already bought a similar one a month earlier.

Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard's SO15 Counter-Terrorism Command, said: 'It could have gone very quickly from the moment he was in possession of the knife to committing an attack, so that's why we intervened when we did.'

It can now be disclosed that Syed had been running a dawah [proselytising] stall in Hounslow when he told a member of the public: 'Have you heard about the drummer boy, you'll be the next one, we'll take your head off like we took his head off.'

The court heard Syed had become obsessed by Remembrance Day. Pictured: An image circulated by a friend

A picture of a man with a Samurai sword was shared between Syed and his friends and a picture of these knives (right) was found on a phone of an associate

Syed was encouraged by a fatwa released by ISIS, which called for 'lone wolf' attacks in the West.

He was increasingly obsessed by Remembrance Day and was filmed with his cousin, Yousaf, stamping on a poppy in the street and saying: 'Allahu Akbar [god is great]! May the poppy go to hell!'

One senior police source said: 'He had a hatred for the country he was brought up in, a hatred for soldiers and the police, and he despised the Remembrance Day parade and related activity.'

Two juries were unable to reach a verdict on Hamayoon, 29, a former culinary student who helped Syed pick out a knife, but said he knew nothing of the plot.

Syed's cousin, Yousaf, 20, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was acquitted after a re-trial when a jury was told he was not at the kitchen shop.
Four men have been arrested for smuggling migrants across the English Channel and into Britain.

Two British men aged 65 and 49, a naturalised British citizen of Kuwaiti origin, aged 42, and a 33-year-old Egyptian man were detained following raids in Birmingham, Blackpool and Wiltshire on Tuesday.

The operation by the National Crime Agency, Britain's equivalent to the FBI, was conducted with the support of police in Lancashire, Wiltshire and West Midlands, and in co-operation with the French authorities.

Four men have been arrested for smuggling migrants across the English Channel and into Britain (file photo)

Cash, mobile phones and computers were also seized.

The 33-year-old man was arrested at a location in Erdington, Birmingham; the 42-year-old was held at an address in Blackburn; the 65-year-old was detained at an address in Calne, Wiltshire, while the 49-year-old was arrested in Marlborough, also in Wiltshire.

All four were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration.

They were interviewed by NCA investigators for two days before being bailed until September, pending further inquiries.

The op follows the report of suspicious activity involving a rigid hulled inflatable boat in Ramsgate, Kent, last September.

Detectives believe the boat had or was about to be used for the transportation of migrants illegally from either France or Belgium.

Peter Smith, branch operations manager for the NCA, said: 'The arrests are the latest stage of a complex investigation into the activities of an alleged criminal network involved in moving migrants across the English Channel using small boats.

An operation led by the National Crime Agency was executed with the help of French authorities to stop migrants being smuggled into Britain (File picture, migrants queue outside the 'New Jungle' camp in Calais)

'Our inquiries will continue and we are now analysing evidence we have recovered as part of this phase of work.'

The investigation involved officers from Project Invigor, the NCA-led UK law enforcement taskforce targeting criminal networks behind people smuggling.
Middle-class Letts and Lane, from Oxford, are due to stand trial in

Sally Lane and John Letts, the parents of a Muslim convert known as 'Jihadi Jack', arriving at the Old Bailey today

The parents of Muslim convert 'Jihadi Jack' are due to stand trial in January accused of funding terrorism by sending him money in Syria.

Organic farmer John Letts, 55, and wife Sally Lane, 54, appeared at the Old Bailey today over allegations they wired 1,700 to their 20-year-old son Jack Letts in the ISIS-held territory.

Police had allegedly warned the middle-class couple, from Oxford, they could face prosecution if they sent any money to the ISIS territory.

Their son, who fled from the UK in 2014, is believed to be the first white Briton to join ISIS and is thought to now be living in war-torn Fallujah with his Iraqi wife and their son, Muhammed.

At a preliminary hearing today, prosecutor Kathryn Selby said: 'This case involved repeated sending or attempts to send money to Ms Lane and Mr Letts's son in Raqqa in Syria which is under Daesh control.

'He is believed to be at the very least linked to terrorism.

'They were told by the police on three separate occasions that this was not permitted.'

The pair appeared at the Old Bailey today - Letts wearing a grey suit and blue shirt, Lane a flowery dress - and spoke only to confirm their names in the dock.

The couple's trial had originally been scheduled for November but was delayed until January 9 because their barristers - Di Middleton QC for Letts and Tim Moloney QC for Lane - are not available until the new year.

Listing the trial date, Mr Justice Saunders told the court: 'I'm hesitant because I think cases like this should be dealt with quickly. It's had a reasonable amount of publicity and there's public interest.

'It should be made clear that it's not because the case won't be ready, [for November] it's a matter of representation.'

The couple have appeared in court three times this month in preliminary proceedings ahead of the trial.

On June 9, they were remanded in custody by District Judge Emma Arbuthnot following a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

But, five days later, Mr Justice Saunders granted the pair conditional bail.

He said the defendants were 'devoted parents who believed their son was in mortal danger and, as many parents would, they would stop at nothing to remove him from that danger'.

He added: 'Two perfectly decent people have ended up in custody because of the love of their child.'

Police had allegedly warned the couple (left, arriving at court, and right) they could face prosecution if they sent money to the ISIS territory. Letts, an organic farmer, has appeared on Countryfile while Lane is an editor

Jack (pictured in Syria), who fled from the UK in 2014, is believed to be the first white Briton to join ISIS and is thought to be currently living in war-torn Fallujah with his Iraqi wife and their son, Muhammed

Letts, a leading organic farmer and an expert on ancient grains, has appeared on Countryfile while Lane is a books editor.

Jack has posted pictures of himself in combat clothing posing near what is believed to be the Taqba Dam in war-torn Syria.

But his parents have strongly denied their son's ties to the barbaric terrorist organisation.

Letts previously told Channel 4 News: 'If there is any evidence that he's done anything violent, if anyone can prove any of these allegations... If you can show me any of that I'll be the first to believe it and I'll be the first to report it.

'Because I don't want a son who would do that type of thing, because that is not how he was raised, and I don't think that's him. That is not the kid that I recognise.'

It is believed Jack told his parents he was going to study Arabic in Kuwait before secretly travelling to Syria.

The 20-year-old reportedly goes by the name Abu Mohammed and married an Iraqi woman with whom he has a son, Muhammed.

Letts and Lane deny three counts of entering an arrangement to make money available for terrorist purposes, while Lane denies a further two counts of attempting to transfer money knowing it might be used for terrorism.
A software designer scammed Centrelink and earned more than $100,000 by stealing the identities of dead children to get fake passports.

David Alan Knipe who went by the names of Knight, Crafter, Newman and Westrup pleaded guilty in the District Court to charges of theft and fraud committed over nine years, reported The Advertiser.

The 64-year-old from South Australia took the identity of a child who died in the early 1950's with the surname Crafter after he listed the wrong birthdate and was paid double in benefits by Centrelink.

David Alan Knipe stole the identities of dead children to create fake passports and scam the Commonwealth

After taking on the new surname the 64-year-old managed to acquire Mr Crafter's birth certificate, driver's licence and international passport and travel out of the country at least eight times.

Knipe was caught when the Department of Foreign Affairs noticed an application under the name Robertson had the same picture as Knipe and Crafter.

Prosecutors have argued Knight should face a long jail sentence for defrauding the Commonwealth.

'He has actively sought out identities. The birthdays are at a similar time to his ... the use of an identity like this shows that he was taking steps not to be detected,' Commonwealth prosecutor Anna Brebner told the court.

'He was aware somebody would not cotton on to the fact that they had their identity stolen.'

The 64-year-old pleaded guilty to theft and fraud after he managed to scam more than $100,000 from Centrelink

But Knipe's lawyer Noah Redmond said his client stole the identities of dead children rather than that of a living adult which is less serious.

'He had not used the identity of someone who was going to be chased for debts that he may incur (and) it is unlikely that the deceased's parents are going to become aware for any reason.'

Mr Redmond told the court Knipe committed these actions in hopes of getting away from his own problems including needing money and a drivers licence.

The former software developer is remanded in custody and will face sentencing in August.
Photo was taken after the bloody battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 by Rosenthal

Unsung hero: Pvt. 1st Class Harold Schultz (pictured) was one of the Marines in the iconic flag raising photo

One of the six men in the iconic 1945 photo of the flag-raising of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, has been misidentified for more than 70 years.

The immortal image of six World War II servicemen raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, was taken by Joe Rosenthal who won a Pulitzer Prize for it.

But an internal investigation by the Marine Corps into the men's identities has revealed that Pvt. 1st Class Harold Schultz was one of the Marines in the photo - and had never been publicly linked before.

It also determined that John Bradley, a Navy corpsman, was not in the photograph, despite his son James Bradley co-authoring a best-selling book about the flag raisers, Flags of our Fathers, which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

Analysts believe that Schultz knew he was in the photo and questions have now been raised about why he would want to keep his role in the historic event secret.

Charles Neimeyer, a Marine Corps historian who was on the panel that investigated the identities of the flag raisers, told USA Today: 'Why doesn't he say anything to anyone?

'That's the mystery. I think he took his secret to the grave.'

But his stepdaughter Dezreen MacDowell said she does recall him mentioning he was one of the flag-raisers over dinner one time during the early 1990s.

She told him he was a hero, but he simply replied: 'Not really. I was a Marine.'

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Iconic: U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment of the Fifth Division raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945. The photo was taken by Joe Rosenthal who won a Pulitzer Prize for the image

Mistaken identity: It also determined that John Bradley, a Navy corpsman (pictured) was not in the photograph

John Bradley's son, James Bradley co-authored a best-selling book about the flag raisers, Flags of our Fathers, which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood (movie still pictured above)

Remaking history: Flags of our Fathers movie came out in 2006 and was directed by Clint Eastwood

Schultz was not alone in his modesty regarding the events.

One of the flag raisers, Ira Hayes, initially asked to remain anonymous but President Franklin Roosevelt ordered them to be identified so they could go on a war bonds tour and raise morale.

The recent investigation, launched this year, was prompted by growing doubts over the identity of Bradley.

Two amateur historians, Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley, took it open themselves to examine the Rosenthal photo and compared it to photo and videos taken the same time, prompting a feature article in Omaha World Herald about their investigations.

But there was still some delay as Marine Corps frequently receive competing claims about the identity of people in famous war photos, according to Neimeyer.

More than a year later the Marine Corps agreed to investigate the claim.

A documentary by the Smithsonian Channel, called The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima which will air on the Smithsonian Channel on July 3, also uncovered material that contributed to the Marine Corps research.

The Marine Corps said the results of the investigation do not undermine what the photo and memorial depicting it represent.

Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes (left) and Marine Private First Class Rene Gagnon (right) point themselves out in the historic photo

Bloody battle: American Marines in Iwo Jima during World War II. American losses included 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded

Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press photographer, is shown with his camera equipment looking over Iwo Jima

This is not the first time the Marines had misidentified corpsmen in the photo. Following a 1947 investigation, it was determined that Henry Hansen had been misidentified instead of Harlon Block.

Both men had been killed in action, as had two other men identified, Franklin Sousley and Michael Stank.

Schultz, who later received a Purple Heart, had enlisted in the Marine Corps aged 17, according to Today, and after being seriously injured fighting on Iwo Jima, went on to work for the US Postal Service in Los Angeles for 30 years.

According to his stepdaughter, he was engaged to a woman after the war but she died of a brain tumor before they could wed and at aged 63 he married MacDowell's mother.

After his death, his stepdaughter only found a few items that he had kept from his Marine Corps days.

There is no clear reason as to why he would remain largely silent on his historic part in World War II.

Neimeyer told Today: 'He probably wouldn't be really happy with us revealing this now.'
Pregnant Megan Fox's marriage is back on track and she is expecting a third baby boy, the actress' father has revealed to Daily Mail Online.

Franklin Fox claims his daughter's on-again-off-again relationship with the child's father, actor Brian Austin Green, has been mended and their divorce plans have been scrapped.

Talking of their marriage, Franklin, 65, said: 'All I can say is that they are together and they are happy. Ive met Brian a ton of times now and he is a great guy.

'Megan is an amazing mom and I cant believe she is going to have three boys. Becoming a grandfather has been a wonderful experience and brought us all even closer together.'

Megan Fox's father, Franklin Fox, claims his daughter's on-again-off-again relationship with actor Brian Austin Green, has been mended. The actress looked happy on a recent Hawaiin getaway with Green

Franklin Fox also revealed that Megan, who's pregnant with her third child with Brian, is having a baby boy, though a name was not revealed

Megan and Brian started dating in 2004, having met while working together on Hope & Faith when she was 18 and he was 30.

The pair got engaged in 2006 and briefly called off their engagement in 2009, but married in Hawaii in June 2010 after rekindling their romance.

But around ten months ago, their relationship hit the skids once again as they separated and announced they were divorcing.

Franklin Fox, here with his wife, tells Daily Mail Online his daughter's on-again-off-again relationship with actor Brian Austin Green, has been mended

So it came as a surprise when the 30-year-old actress was spotted showing off a prominent baby bump at CinemaCon, Las Vegas, in April.

But according to Megan's father the couple is now happy again, have canceled their divorce and continue to spend time together

On Tuesday The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles star was snapped enjoying a day out with Brian at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, displaying a very round belly.

Brian was seen with her pushing a stroller.

Megan is already a mom to two sons: three-year-old Noah and two-year-old Bodhi with Brian; she is also a step-mother to Brian's 14-year-old son Kassius from his previous relationship with Vanessa Marcil.

For Megan's once-estranged father Franklin, he's thrilled at being back in his famous daughters life.

He spoke for the first time to reveal his pride at how Megan overcame cruel school bullies, crippling insecurities and a family divorce which left him absent from his daughters life for years.

But Franklin tells how the family are slowly putting their dark days behind them.

Speaking from his home in Rockwood, Tennessee, parole officer Franklin said: 'There were years that were very painful of all of us and that has left its mark.

Megan is already a mom to two sons: three-year-old Noah (right) and two-year-old Bodhi (left) with Brian (center); she is also a step-mother to Brian's 14-year-old son Kassius from his previous relationship with Vanessa Marcil

Megan and Brian started dating in 2004, having met while working together on Hope & Faith (Pictured above is Megan on the set of the show) when she was 18 and he was 30

'Its been far from easy for Megan and it just shows how determined, strong-willed and smart she is, to have achieved all she has, despite all she has been through.

'For a long time I wasnt really a part of Megans life and that was heartbreaking. There were the years when she told me she had been the victim of horrendous bullying and never felt good enough.

'And that tore me apart to know I was not there for her. Thankfully Megan reached out to me in recent years and today we are rebuilding our family and are incredibly close.

'I am the grandfather of her two gorgeous boys and now she has another boy on the way. I couldnt be prouder of the woman my little girl has become.'

Megan was just three years old when her family life was ripped apart when her mom, Gloria, and dad, Franklin, divorced.

For the next seven years Franklin says they managed to co-parent Megan as best they could, as all remained living in the same small town.

But when Megan turned ten, everything changed when Gloria remarried Tony Tonachio and moved her new family, including Megan and big sister Kristi, now 42, 700 miles away to Florida.

It was while in high school in Florida, Megan was the victim of cruel bullies and she also had to contend with a very strict step-father who never allowed her to have friends over, stopped her from learning to drive and forbade her from having a boyfriend.

And all the time, the one man she had relied upon to protect her, her father, was so far away she was lucky if she saw him once a year.

Megan's (pictured as a child) once-estranged father Franklin, says that he's thrilled at being back in his famous daughters life. When Megan turned ten, her mother Gloria remarried Tony Tonachio and moved her new family, including Megan and big sister Kristi, now 42, 700 miles away to Florida, leaving Franklin far behind

Franklin spoke for the first time to reveal his pride at how Megan (pictured as a teen) overcame cruel school bullies, crippling insecurities and a family divorce which left him absent from his daughters life for years

Speaking of that time, Franklin said: 'When they moved to Florida its like a part of me died.

'I loved Megan and her sister and suddenly they were not in my life anymore and I was not in theirs and that was brutal for all of us. I missed them so much and I know they missed me.'

Franklin became so removed from Megans life, he didnt even know she was getting married to actor Brian Austin Green, until one day before their wedding and had never even met her fiance.

But today he reveals the surprise text he received from his daughter on the eve of her wedding, was the catalyst to them rebuilding their relationship.

'That text changed everything,' Franklin says. 'She told me she was getting married and that she was in love and happy.

'Of course I was devastated not to be a part of her wedding and had never met Brian at that point. But more than that, I was overjoyed she had reached out to tell me at all.

'We had drifted apart for so long, but I always knew one day she would come back into my life and my heart almost burst when I read her message that the next day she was going to be a bride.'

Franklin says that from that day he has been in constant contact with his daughter,

'It's like I have my little girl back and she still calls me "daddy",' he said. 'These days we text or call each other every other day and I love being a part of her life.'

He added that he's so happy that Megan is living her 'dream life'.

He said: 'I used to have reservations about her becoming an actress, but when I go to stay in her home and see all she has achieved, I know Megan really is living her dream life.
Hillary Clinton rolled out the second phase of her plan to depress Donald Trump's appeal as a businessman this morning.

Clinton released a long list of prominent business leaders that are backing her over the billionaire real estate tycoon.

Among them, Warren Buffet, who endorsed her at an event in his home state of Nebraska in December, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, also the author of women's empowerment book Lean In, Basektball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, and the founders of Netflix, Dropbox, Tumblr, BET and Airbnb.

Hillary Clinton rolled out the second phase of her plan to depress Donald Trump's appeal as a businessman this morning. Clinton released a long list of prominent business leaders that are backing her over the real estate tycoon, including Warren Buffet, pictured

Also on the list of titans: the senior executive vice president of AT&T, the chairman of Expedia, the executive chairman of Delta Air Lines, the chairman of Choice Hotels International, the chairman of MGM, co-founders of Costco and YELP, Laura M. Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, and Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet.

Alphabet is the parent company of Google, and Forbes estimates that Schmidt has a net worth of $10.3 billion. He's no. 40 on the business magazine's list of most wealthy Americans.

By comparison, Trump's net worth is placed at $4.5 billion. He did not crack the top 100 this year within in the United States, clocking in at #113.

In endorsing Clinton, Schmidt said he has worked with her for two decades, 'and she is uniquely qualified to be President.

'She has the experience, the insight, the policies and the strength to lead our great country.'

Trump's promise to Americans is that he would 'make America great again' as president - but Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and co-founder of the video service, said in statement in support of Clinton, 'Trump would destroy much of what is great about America.'

'Hillary Clinton is the strong leader we need, and it's important that Trump lose by a landslide to reject what he stands for,' said Hastings, who is also on the board of Facebook.

Clinton made Trump's lack of foreign policy experience her first target as she turned her gaze toward the general election, and this week tried to demolish his real estate career.

Trump says he'd make better deals for America, but his own casino companies have ended up with unsustainable debt four times over the last 25 years and had to take advantage of bankruptcy laws, she said.

'Donald Trump offers no real solutions for the economic challenges we face,' she said Wednesday in Raleigh. 'He just continues to spout reckless ideas that will run up our debt and cause another economic crash.'

Clinton made Trump's lack of foreign policy experience her first target as she turned her gaze toward the general election, and this week tried to demolish his real estate career

Johnson hugs Clinton during a rally in Los Angeles, California, during her 2008 run. He endorsed Clinton the day she launched her second campaign in April of 2015

Trump's promise to Americans is that he would 'make America great again' as president - but Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and co-founder of the video service, said in statement in support of Clinton, 'Trump would destroy much of what is great about America'

Trump said in a rival speech she'd use the White House as a jumping off point to expand her own personal wealth while he'd make America 'rich again' and put people to work, namely by renegotiating the president's Pacific Rim trade pact he says will ship jobs overseas.

Mark Pincus, a co-founder of Zynga, said Thursday he's with Clinton because Trump 'has failed to put forth concrete and realistic policies to help the American people and grow the economy.'

'Our President must care about the success of the country as a whole - not just himself. Hillary Clinton has a proven record of fighting for the American people.'

In his statement former LA Lakers star Johnson said he trusts Clinton to 'effectively run every aspect of the position' as both president and the nation's commander in chief.'

'Her decisiveness, pragmatism and calm demeanor stand in absolute contrast to Trump,' he said, and 'will continue to advance this country and implement effective policies to grow the economy.'

Johnson endorsed Clinton the day she launched her campaign in April of 2015 and was celebrity supporter of hers in 2008, as well.

He appeared with her on the trail, in Iowa, that year and campaigned alongside her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in Nevada in addition to shooting an ad for the former first lady that aired in California.

He was a powerful surrogate - characterizing Barack Obama on the stump as a 'rookie' who was preaching hope instead of solutions - but he's been riding the bench in 2016 as Clinton makes her second attempt at the Oval.

Perhaps it's because he's not looking to make an enemy out of a fellow businessman.

He told TMZ this May, after the conclusion of the Republican primary, that he'd be open to working with Trump after the election 'if Hillary is the president.'

'I would just be a friend, we all have to work, together,' Johnson said, 'but Hillary's gotta be the president. That's the best choice of America.'

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, also the author of women's empowerment book Lean In, is backing Clinton, as well. They're seen here together at a gala in New York City in 2013

In an interview out this morning, President Barack Obama attempted to further diminish Trump's allure by telling Bloomberg Businessweek that the mogul is not Americas most successful businessman.

'Theres no successful businessman in America who actually thinks the most successful businessman in the country is Donald Trump,' he said. 'I know those guys, and so do you, and I guarantee you, thats not their view.'

Obama admitted that free trade policies, like the one he and Clinton helped to craft and Trump is against, 'have a tendency to create vast wealth and opportunity for a very small, highly skilled set of people and have a tendency to create a larger and larger group of folks who feel redundant in the economy.'

'And if you dont pay attention to that, then people will rightly resist. They will understandably say, I am not getting a good deal here. '

Explaining Trump's rise, the Democratic president said, 'I think that the temptation in that circumstance is to resort to nativism and nostalgia and the sense that these are things that are now out of control and I want to take control back.

'But I continue to believe that the majority of people....recognize that the world has shrunk, and that if the rules are structured properly, this gives them more opportunity, not less, to succeed.'

He compared the current battle over the direction of the economy to the fights of the 1930s and 1960s.

Decisions made back then 'were fiercely resisted by business but essentially created a social compact and a social welfare state where people said, OK, Im seeing the benefits of innovation. Im seeing the benefits of capitalism. Im seeing the benefits of trade. '

Obama said business owners and shareholders must take the initiative to pay their workers a 'decent wage.'
Aldi shoppers have been pictured struggling to manoeuvre the supermarket's new oversized trolleys which have labelled a heath hazard by customers.

The German-owned discount retailer received an angry backlash after recently introducing 212-litre shopping carts across the country.

'It is like they are made for giants,' one Victorian woman posted to Aldi's Facebook page.

Shoppers at Aldi's Marrickville store in Sydney's inner-west were pictured struggling to push the bulky carts, while other customers opted for conventional trolleys.

Shoppers vented their anger on social media after Aldi introduced 212-litre trolleys across the country. Above, a customer at Aldi's Marrickville store in Sydney's inner-west struggles to push one of the new carts

'My suggestion, bring back the old trolleys. There was nothing wrong with them,' one customer said

'It is like they are made for giants,' one woman said about Aldi's new trolleys (pictured left). Pictured right, a standard sized trolley

One Aldi shopper said she felt like a 'three-year-old pushing mummy's trolley' and one man said his pregnant wife lost control of a cart while their two young sons were sitting inside.

'Aldi your trolleys are so unsafe,' the Perth man wrote.

'My pregnant wife was pushing a trolley of yours with our shopping and two sons in it and it went down a small ramp to go onto the road in the car park at Joondalup.

'They are so top heavy when loaded up. The potential for something to go wrong is huge'.

Another shopper, from Victoria also made a complaint on Aldi's Facebook page over the weekend after she found the new trolleys were hard to control.

'They are so top heavy when loaded up. The potential for something to go wrong is huge,' one unhappy customer said. Above, a couple struggle to operate one of Aldi's new trolleys

Aldi's new oversized trolleys (pictured left next to a Coles trolley) have been slammed as 'ridiculous' and 'unsafe'

The German-owned supermarket recently introduced the 212-litre carts to stores across Australia, but many are unimpressed and complained

'I have always been an avid supporter of your stores however I must say the new trolleys are ridiculous,' she claimed on Sunday.

'It is like they are made for giants. They are to [sic] tall and really difficult to maneuver [sic] around the store. I heard a bunch of ladies talking in the store saying they are considering shopping else where and to tell you the truth I'm considering it too.

'My suggestion, bring back the old trolleys. There was nothing wrong with them.'

A stack of Aldi's new 212-litre carts at the German-owned retailer's Marrickville store. The woman pictured opts for a smaller trolley

An Aldi customer has claimed the new oversized trolleys at her local store have been a nightmare to handle

Aldi was criticised for the trolleys on its Facebook page over the weekend, with one Victorian woman writing: 'it is like they are made for giants'

Other shoppers also made a complaint on Aldi's Facebook page over the weekend after she found the new trolleys were hard to control

The old Aldi trolleys (pictured right) were similar in size to the current trolley Coles provide to shoppers (left)

An Aldi spokesperson had apologised to the shopper, saying: 'we'll let the team know you'd love to see the smaller sized trolleys available in our stores'.

However, the shopper told the Herald Sun when she returned to her local discount store earlier this week, the original trolleys were restored.

'They are now offering a choice which is good,' she said.

Another shopper also claimed on Facebook that she made numerous complaints at her local store about the oversized trolleys.

'I am 5'3" and I get back pain from time to time, and these trolleys exacerbate it big time. Hate them,' she said.

Aldi said the new 212-litre trolley size were designed after an 'extensive consumer research to deliver a more enjoyable shopping experience'.

A Woolworths spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia its stores provide a 'variety of different options for customers' ease of use'.

It has both 212-litre and 100-litre carts as well as smaller 40-litre 'rollers' and a 25-litre basket.

A Coles spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia it also has large 212-litre trolleys available, but provide shoppers with 'convenience' and 'kids' trolleys too.

One shopper claimed on Facebook that she made numerous complaints at her local store about the oversized trolleys

Aldi said the 212-litre trolley size were designed after an 'extensive consumer research to deliver a more enjoyable shopping experience'
Ricky Hand, 46, who was on trial for a series of robberies across Springfield, Ohio, threw bottles filled with his own excrement and urine at his lawyer

An Ohio man who had just been sentenced to 40 years for armed robbery stunned a courtroom by throwing feces at his lawyer.

Ricky Hand, 46, who was on trial for a series of robberies across Springfield, whipped out bottles filled with his own excrement and urine which he had hidden in his arm sling.

Just before the outburst, on Wednesday, Hand had interrupted the judge, saying: Did you just give me 40 years, sir? You just gave me 40 years? Well, guess what?'

Video footage captures the moment he hurled the waste, hitting his defense lawyer in the process - after which Hand was immediately restrained by deputies.

Later on, he admitted to hiding several bottles of his own urine and feces on his body, Clark County Sheriff's Office said.

Hand faced 30 charges of breaking and entering, safe-cracking, aggravated robbery, abduction and attempted safe-cracking, in April, according to court records, WPTV reported.

He pleaded guilty to seven of the original charges in a Clark County Common Pleas courtroom earlier this month.

As a result of his courtroom antics, Hand now faces an extra five counts of harassment with bodily substance - one for his attorney and four deputies; obstructing official business; and retaliation, WHIO reported.

He will be in Clark County Municipal Court on Thursday.

The sergeant in charge of court deputies said that patting down defendants appearing in court was not part of protocol since they are transferred there directly from their jail cells.

However, in light of what happened, the sergeant said policy could change.

Hand has previously served prison time. He pleaded guilty in a robbery case in October 2011 and was sentenced to four years in prison for the crime, according to Clark County court records.

Just before the outburst, on Wednesday, Hand (above, left) had interrupted the judge, saying: Did you just give me 40 years, sir? You just gave me 40 years? Well, guess what?'

Hand is seen throwing the urine and feces after whipping the bottles out from an arm sling - hitting his lawyer (right). As a result of his courtroom antics, Hand now faces an extra five counts of harassment with bodily substance

He was on parole for less than six months before starting another crime spree this January.

Hand is currently booked in the Clark County Jail awaiting transfer to the Ohio Department of Corrections.

This was not the first time court proceedings have interrupted in such a way.

In 2009, a man sneaked a small bag of feces into a San Diego courtroom during his robbery trial, smeared the excrement on his attorney and threw it at jurors - hitting one juror's computer case.

Weusi McGowan, 38, pleaded guilty to robbery and residential burglary in connection with the original case, and two assault charges in connection with the feces-flinging incident.
A fuming restaurant owner in Rhode Island has fired his own son from the family business, after the teenager labelled a diner 'Fatty' on the man's receipt.

Tony Ambrosio, who owns All Stars Bar & Grill in Warwick, said he was left with no choice but to sack his son after a customer, Dillon Arnold, posted a photo of the shocking check to Facebook, quickly sending it viral.

Arnold wrote alongside the bill: 'I usually don't care but this bs got me offended legit id me as 'fatty' then he wouldnt admit it.'

Inappropriate: Dillon Arnold was shocked to see that an employee at All Stars Bar & Grill had written his name as 'Fatty' on his check and confronted the boy

Dillon Arnold (left) was labelled 'Fatty' by his waiter, Tony Ambrosio (right), who is the son of the owner of the restaurant where he works. Ambrosio has since been fired

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'It was brought to my attention that one of my employee's labeled the check with the word fatty,' Mr Ambrosio told ABC 6, admitting the employee was his own son, Tony.

'He's 18 years old and had an immature moment.'

Mr Ambrosio says his employees write names on the checks to have a more personal relationship with their customers.

'(So we can be) like ''Hey, Liz would you like another round?'', so we label our checks,' he said.

'To think that my son would even put that on a check, I have never raised him like that.

'My son is just as accountable as anybody else and he will face the consequences like anybody else.'

'My son is just as accountable as anybody else and he will face the consequences like anybody else,' Mr Ambrosio said

This is the post Tony Ambrosio posted to Facebook to apologize for his actions at the restaurant

Tony Ambrosio, seen in a Facebook picture, lost his job for calling a customer 'Fatty'

Tony 'TJ' Ambrosio posted an apology to the All Stars Bar and Grill Facebook page, saying that he acted inappropriately.

What I did was immature and I acted without thinking about the consequences,' he wrote.

'I acted in a way that was rude, childish, and totally inappropriate. Due to my actions, I was terminated, rightly so.

'I would like you to know that I was not raised that way. I hope you don't judge Allstars or its employees based solely on my actions.'

Mr Ambrosio said he has sent Dillon Arnold a $50 gift voucher for the restaurant as an apology.
A rat that was handed to Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek during a prank earlier this month has now become her children's pet.

Photographer Mike Bowers announced during ABC's program Kitchen Cabinet on Thursday that Ms Plibersek had decided to keep the rat.

Ms Plibersek was with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten during a campaign visit to the Sydney Fish Markets when a mystery woman asked her to hold her pet rat as part of a prank by the comedy crew The Chaser.

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Guardian photographer Mike Bowers (second from left) announced during ABC's Kitchen Cabinet on Thursday that a rat handed to Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek during a prank is now her children's pet

Ms Plibersek was with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten during a campaign visit to the Sydney Fish Markets when a mystery woman asked her to hold her pet rat as part of a prank by the comedy crew The Chaser (pictured)

As Chas Licciardello (pictured) from The Chaser group watched on, Ms Plibersek took it in her stride, vowing to hold a Twitter competition to find the pet a name

Political journalist Annabel Crabb, the host of Kitchen Cabinet, appeared shocked at Mr Bowers' revelation.

'Isn't it funny about this campaign  it's been so tedious that in some cases  I think, the most interesting fact about this campaign is that both leaders have interacted very closely with a rat, which I've never seen before,' Ms Crabb said.

Mr Bowers said he was taking photos of Ms Plibersek and Mr Shorten at the time.

'She opened the box, got the rat out and started to play with it and then took the rat home to her children and has not given it back,' Mr Bowers laughed (pictured right)

Political journalist Annabel Crabb (centre), the host of Kitchen Cabinet, appeared shocked at Mr Bowers' revelation

'She opened the box, got the rat out and started to play with it and then took the rat home to her children and has not given it back,' he laughed.

It has now become part of her family and is a pet, he said.

The rat has yet to be named, which

Ms Plibersek was happy to hold the rat for the mystery woman when it was first handed to her before it dawned on her the woman would not be returning to collect her furry friend.

Ms Plibersek (left) was happy to hold the rat for the mystery woman when it was first handed to her before it dawned on her the woman would not be returning to collect her furry friend

'She just disappeared,' she told reporters.

As Chas Licciardello from The Chaser group watched on, Ms Plibersek took it in her stride, vowing to hold a Twitter competition to find the pet a name.

She's promised to use #electionrat as the hashtag.

Mr Shorten seemed amused and stroked the rat with an index finger.
Johnson, of Clapham, London, pleaded guilty and was jailed for three years

He was later busted for raid after targeting company office five days later

A burglar who dressed to the nines before nabbing bags of laptops from a five star hotel has been jailed.

Patrick Johnson blew a kiss to his girlfriend in the public gallery as he was told he would be locked up for three years.

The court heard how the 49-year-old had rolled up at The Langham Hotel in Soho, London, in a rented BMW as part of his ruse.

Johnson stole a projector and 8,000 worth of laptops from 500-a-night The Langham Hotel in London (pictured)

Johnson and an accomplice grabbed a projector from a meeting room before returning to steal bags filled with laptops.

Patrick Maggs, prosecuting, explained that two smartly dressed men were captured on CCTV parking near the 500-a-night hotel in April.

'They went into a meeting room and left with a projector,' Mr Maggs said.

'They returned and this time they carried out a large number of bags that looked heavy.'

The prosecutor explained the bags contained laptops and the total cost of the raid was 7,922.

Five days later the besuited burglar targeted The Interiors Group office on Balderton Street near Grosvenor Square - but his bid to steal property was unsuccessful.

The doors had been forced open and Johnson was recognised by officers viewing the CCTV footage.

He was linked to the hiring of the BMW and later confessed to both burglaries.

Southwark Crown Court heard the thief has an extensive criminal record dating back 30 years.

The 49-year-old was sentenced to three years behind bars after pleading guilty to two charges of burglary

Oliver Snodin, representing Johnson, told the court the burglar had been addicted to crack cocaine since he was 21.

'It is his substance misuse which is the cause of all his particular offending,' he said.

'He is not a man without any hope - he does have some history of work.'

The court was told Johnson had managed to stay out of trouble between 2002 and 2007, working as a housing officer, electrician and delivery driver.

Judge Stephen Robbins said: 'You are, as I am sure you recognise, your own worst enemy.

'You have got an appalling record with 29 previous convictions for 76 offences.'
of using the weapons in its Syrian airstrikes

Russia has been accused of using incendiary weapons in its air strikes on Syria after its Moscow-funded news channel broadcast footage appearing to show a Russian aircraft equipped with banned bombs.

Russia Today aired footage showing RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM bombs attached to a Su-34 fighter-ground attack aircraft, experts from Human Rights Watch have concluded.

The incendiary weapon, which is banned by an international convention, is described by witnesses as a 'fireball' because it ignites while falling and lights up the sky.

The bomb's flammable thermite content burns at 2,200C and ignites fires that are hard to put out. It is the hottest burning man-made substance and can burn human flesh down to the bone.

This grab from Moscow-funded news channel Russia Today shows bombs strapped to a fighter-ground attack aircraft

Weapons experts have analysed the footage and claim the bombs are incendiary weapons containing thermite

Russia Today reportedly removed the damning five second clip showing the incendiary weapon from YouTube after it was analysed by weapons experts.

The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons bans the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.

Protocol III of the convention prohibits the use of air-dropped incendiary weapons in areas containing concentrations of civilians.

Russia is a signatory of the convention, however Syria's government is not.

On June 21 flames were spotted after Russian army war crafts carried out bomb attacks on the Haritan town area of Aleppo, Syria

The bombs appeared to rain down like fireworks in the same way incendiary bombs light up the sky

This particular incendiary weapon, which is banned by an international convention, is described by witnesses as a 'fireball'

The Syrian air force is currently backed by warplanes from its ally, Russia, and the pair have pummeled Aleppo with air strikes as the prepare to launch a ground assault to retake the city from rebel forces.

'Fireball' bombs have been reported in civilian areas of Aleppo and recent photos show the dark night sky lit up by incendiary weapons dropped by aircrafts.

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov reportedly wrote a letter to Human Rights Watch in November in which he acknowledged the 'significant humanitarian damage' caused by incendiary weapons in Syria.

On Wednesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned Russian airstrikes in Syria.

'It is unacceptable for the sake of humanity that the Russian Federation, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, uses all kinds of weapons and ammunition against civilians just like the regime,' the statement said, Rudaw reports.

Russia Today TV manager Nadezhda Ivanova told MailOnline: 'The original video initially featured a close-up frame of a pilot. Shortly after publishing, that frame was cut out by an SMM editor out of concern for personnel safety.

'There was never any intention to censor the video. Upon reevaluation it was deemed that the frame did not pose any risks; it had since been restored and the video is up in its original cut.'

Russia is currently backing the Syrian air force and carrying out strikes on Syria

Russia Today reportedly removed the damning five second clip showing the incendiary weapon from YouTube
Eduardo Ravelo, 36, was sentenced to 17 years in a state prison for stealing $500,000 from Irene Boyansky, who he had taken care of for a decade

A Miami caretaker has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after he stole $500,000 from a blind wealthy widow to rent exotic cars and purchase luxury watches and glittering tasseled pasties.

Eduardo Ravelo, 36, had been taking care of Irene Boyansky for a decade when she lost her eyesight and he pounced on an opportunity to steal from her.

Ravelo began writing himself checks from Boyansky's bank account, spending over $90,000 renting Lamborghinis, Porches, BMWs, Audis and Land Rovers.

Another $43,000 went to upscale jewelry stores like Mayor's and Omega, while Ravelo spent thousands more on paintball equipment, electronics, furniture, eyeglasses and iTunes music.

Then there was $1,500 spent at upscale lingerie store Agent Provocateur.

Ravelo's purchase included nipple pasties, which run between $135 and $290, at the store.

They include silver and gold 'Star Pasties' and 'Azaleah Pasties', which are lined with leather and tasseled with sparkling black Swarovski crystals for a 'playful sense of movement'.

'Wear them with the Azaleah playsuit for sizzling showgirl effect,' the site reads.

Ravelo stole from Boyansky for three years, all the while mixing sleeping pills into her orange juice to keep her in a stupor, according to the Miami Herald.

The caretaker even went so far as to impersonate Boyansky on the phone, impersonating a woman's voice and pretending he was her grandson in a call to American Express.

'Will you talk to my grandson, I give you permission to speak to him. I don't feel so good,' Ravelo can be heard telling the American Express employee, throwing in a few fake coughs for good measure.

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Ravelo began writing himself checks from Boyansky's (pictured) bank account when she went blind. He spent $90,000 renting exotic cards and another $43,000 at upscale jewelry stores

Ravelo can also be heard giving an incorrect birthday and email address for Boyansky before correcting himself.

It was Boyansky who discovered she was being scammed by the very man who had been hired to take care of her.

Ravelo's spending came to light after Boyansky had her eyesight restored following surgery.

He confessed to the purchases after his arrest, but claimed he only scammed Boyansky because he was being underpaid.

Boyansky died, aged 88, of natural causes during the middle of Ravelo's trial. She did not get to see a jury convict him of money laundering, theft from the elderly and the fraudulent use of identification.

Prosecutors plan to ask Ravelo for $500,000 in restitution.

But for Boyansky's three sons and four grandchildren, the time they lost with the once energetic world traveler, who moved to the US from Algeria and could speak seven languages, was priceless.

'He not only stole her money,' said Miami-Dade prosecutor Kathryn Olson. 'But stole her time away from her family.'
Martyn Pollock, 34, founder of Frae Frozen Yoghurt was handed a 30 month driving ban after crashing his Land Rover following a booze binge

A frozen yogurt entrepreneur dubbed the Fro-yo king has been handed a 30 month driving ban for pranging his Land Rover after drinking up to eight pints.

Martyn Pollock, 34, was over three times the drink drive limit when his grey Defender collided with a number of other vehicles in Palace Gate, near Hyde Park in central London.

Pollock, who is originally from Scotland, was breathalysed following the smash and gave a reading of 121 micrograms of alcohol in 100 micrograms of breath - compared to the legal limit of 35 micrograms.

Nobody was injured in the collision shortly before 9pm on May 27, Hammersmith Magistrates Court heard.

Pollock, a trained solicitor and business entrepreneur, founded Frae Frozen Yogurt based in Islington, and co-founding investment firm Opulen Capital.

The company was made official partner of London Fashion Weekend, and has gained support from celebrities including Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Stella McCartney.

So far they have opened five stores across London.

The court heard that Pollock, educated at Glasgow University, had necked up to eight pints while out celebrating a new business venture.

He was breath-tested at the roadside after initially claiming to have had nothing to drink and taken to the police station.

Prosecutor Simon Stanyer said: He initially said he had not had anything to drink but he was breathalysed at the road side and then taken to the police station.

It is an incredibly high reading.

Mr Stanyer said Pollock already had six points on his licence for driving without insurance from January this year.

Martyn Pollock appeared at Hammersmith Magistrates Court today where he was handed a 30-month driving ban and a 12-month community order with 200 hours' unpaid work

Earlier Matthew Humphreys, representing Pollock, said: Ironically he previously worked as a lawyer.

He had been out celebrating becoming a partner in a different business venture and had drank six to eight pints.

He admits he was extremely foolish.

He is extremely fortunate that either he or anyone else was not injured.

Magistrate Nina Toller handed the businessman a 12-month community order with 200 hours unpaid work.

Pollock, of Ladbroke Grove, west London, was also disqualified from driving for 30 months and must take an extended driving test before getting back behind the wheel.
As speculation continues to swirl about who Hillary Clinton will pick to be her vice presidential running mate, Virginia senator Tim Kaine, one leading contender for the job, came out swinging against Donald Trump Thursday.

'This guy wouldn't know truth if it walked up to him on the street,' Kaine told CNN. 'You cannot trust anything he says,' he said.

His remarks came a day after Trump delivered a blistering indictment of Clinton, calling her a 'World class liar.'

Kaine also expressed solidarity with House Democrats who shut down floor proceedings and sang 'We Shall Overcome' while staging a sit-in over gun control that ultimately led Republican leaders to adjourn until after July 4th. He visited them on the House floor Wednesday. He is part of a bipartisan Senate group pushing a gun control measure.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is going after Donald Trump and backing House Democrats who are pushing for action on gun control

Kaine joined House lawmakers during their sit-in on the House floor

Kaine blasted Trump as someone who would 'roll the dice' on the economy

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who like Kaine is on Clinton's short-list to be a possible running mate, also visited.

'Being on the floor together made us feel stronger,' Kaine said in the interview. He said it 'made us feel like we were doing what our constituents want us to do and made us feel like we were inching closer to the day when we break the grip of gun manufacturers on Congress and actually embrace reasonable safety reforms.'

Warren has fashioned herself into the party's top Trump attacker, and endorsed Clinton this month.

She went after him two days ago in a new video she cut for lefty group MoveOn.org.

'I have to be honest: It's hard to talk about Donald Trump,' Warren said in the video 'Between his ignorance, racism, sexism, liesit's hard to know where to start.'

Kaine served as governor of Virginia

She continued: 'Donald Trump thinks supporting them is throwing money down the drain. I say we just throw Donald Trump down the drain, Warren slammed. Donald Trump is a fraud and a cheapskate  and hes a bully.

Kaine dodged questions about his prospects as a running mate.

'I don't want to get into that guessing game,' he said.

'If she wins Virginia, she's going to be president. I'm going to do everything I can to help her there, but that's the only role I'm playing at the moment,' he added.

A number of leading Democrats, including former Obama message guru David Axelrod, have been talking up Kaine's prospects. He hails from a swing state, was previously vetted by Obama in 2008, and could help balance Clinton's appeal in swing states while appealing to independents.

His stature appears to have grown now that Clinton leads Trump by an average of nearly 6 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average.

The case for Warren gained strength amid Clinton's endless slug-fest with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination. But Sanders acknowledged reality Wednesday when he told C-Span, '"It doesnt appear that Im going to be the nominee."

The Clinton camp may be banking that the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency will be enough to unify Democrats even with a more conventional ticket, although she continues to negotiate with Sanders over the party platform.

As a white man, Kaine wouldn't provide racial diversity or make for a historic two-woman ticket. But his Spanish is superior to that of another contender, housing secretary Julian Castro.

He also wouldn't be as antagonistic to Wall Street, as some major industry players who donate to the Demoratic Party and have been criticizing a possible Warren pick in the media.

Kaine's home state is an advantage. Clinton doesn't need any help carrying Massachusetts, and if Warren got on a winning ticket she would be replaced temporarily by a Republican in the Senate.

The latest 'crystal ball' prediction by the University of Virginia's Larry Sabado gives Clinton 347 electoral votes to 191 for Trump, when every state gets tipped one way or the other.
The identities of four Australian mining workers kidnapped by gunmen in southern Nigeria have been revealed, after their convoy of four vehicles was ambushed in an early morning attack.

Australians Peter Zoutenbier, Jack Couranz and Mark Gabbedy are missing, along with New Zealander Jamal Khan, South African Wayne Smith and Nigerian Austin Adise.

Perth mechanic Tim Croot, 24, who had army reserve training, managed to escape with a Nigerian driver in early morning light and The West Australian reported that consular officials are now assisting Mr Croot.

He phoned his parents on Wednesday night to reassure them he was OK, telling his mother Leanne Croot: 'Don't stress, mum,' The Australian reported.

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Australians Mark Gabbedy (left) and Tim Croot (right) were kidnapped in Nigeria on Wednesday. Mr Croot managed to escape with a Nigerian driver. Mr Gabbedy is still missing

Australians Jack Couranz (left) and Peter Zoutenbier (right) were also kidnapped in the ambush and remain missing

The convoy was ambushed on a roadside in the country's southeast, outside the city of Calabar in the Akpabuyo district about 5.30am on Wednesday.

The men work for West Australian mining company Macmahon Holdings which is contracted to cement company Lafarge Africa, reported the Herald Sun.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed to AAP that three Australian citizens and one resident were among the group kidnapped.

Jack Couranz is believed to be a reliability engineer, Mark Gabbedy is a project manager at Macmahon, Tim Croot is a heavy diesel mechanic and Peter Zoutenbier is a senior maintenance planner.

It is believed the group was on their way to work when they were ambushed near a bridge crossing.

The workers were being escorted by a security truck with four armed policemen when they were attacked by the gunmen, with the police reportedly unable to do anything while the attack lasted.

According to local media a group of militants ambushed the contractors before opening fire and killing the driver on the spot.

The kidnappers fled with the hostages in a waiting boat hidden under the nearby Idundu Bridge.

One of the cars believed to be involved in the ambush on Wednesday outside the city of Calabar in the Akpabuyo district

A witness told Vanguard: 'One of the expatriates hid under the vehicle and they didn't see him because it was still a bit dark,' the unnamed witness said.

'They also took one of the drivers ... then one supervisor and three white guys and it was like they had a boat by the beach already waiting for them.'

Irene Ugbo, a spokeswoman for Cross River state police, said the kidnappers had not contacted police.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said: 'The Australian Government is working to confirm details of the reported kidnapping in Nigeria of four Australians, who have been working for an Australian mining company.'

'The Australian Government is in close contact with the Nigerian Government, which is taking the matter extremely seriously.'

They were attacked on the outskirts of the city of Calabar at around 5.30am local time on Wednesday

The family of Peter Zoutenbier said they were shocked by what had happened.

Mr Zoutenbiers sister-in-law Tracy Zoutenbier said it was a 'real concern' the group of kidnappers had already killed someone.

'We just want to do everything we can to get these guys home safe to all their families,' she said.

Lafarge Africa said it had been informed of the incident by Australian contractor Macmahon Holdings.

The men, who work for Macmahon Holdings, were contractors for cement company Lafarge Africa

'Macmahon is working with the security agencies to resolve this situation,' said Viola Graham-Douglas, a spokeswoman for Lafarge Africa.

A statement from Macmahon Holdings said: 'We are working to ensure the safe return of all the men involved and are in communication with their families.'

Nigerian publication Today said police were working to ensure the victims are released unharmed.
Russia has agreed a deal to build an electronic intelligence-gathering base in Nicaragua, which will no doubt renew fears of a new Cold War.

The deal between Moscow and Managua, which will also involve the sale of 50 Russian T-72 tanks, comes as President Putin's regime ramps up the pressure on Nato in eastern Europe.

Russia said it would be deploying nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave, close to the Polish border, by 2019 and may even site them in newly annexed Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured meeting his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega, who has led the left-wing Sandinistas for more than 30 years

Putin has refused to back down after economic sanctions were imposed on Russia following the annexation of Crimea and has ramped up its military facilities around the world.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega was once the bete noire of the White House.

His Sandinista regime were targeted for a decade in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan and Ortega has remained friendly with Moscow since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Last week three Americans, working for the US Department of Homeland Security, were expelled from Nicaragua without explanation.

Washington complained about the explusion which they said was 'unwarranted and inconsistent with the positive and constructive agenda that we seek with the government of Nicaragua'.

After more than a decade out of power Ortega was re-elected in 2006 and has tried to reintroduce socialist policies.

He has also announced plans for a huge canal, to rival the Panama Canal, which would be funded by a Chinese consortium.

President Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo (right) welcomed President Putin to Nicaragua in 2014 and the relationship between Moscow and Managua remains warm

Russia and Nicaragua signed a deal last year to build a GPS base near Laguna de Najapa, on the outskirts of the capital Managua, and the Washington Free Beacon said that may be the same site they would use for the spy base.

Other reports said the base would be located on the Caribbean coast.

A US State Department official said: 'While any nation has the right to choose its international partners, we have been clear that now is not the time for business as usual with Russia.'

Costa Rica's Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez has criticised the tank sale, telling the La Prensa newspaper: 'It is a matter of concern not because of a threat to Costa Ricabut because one country in the Central American region starts an arms race.'

A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War a new arms race is under way in eastern Europe with Poland and the Baltic states having switched sides and the Kaliningrad enclave could be crucial
The Wiggles warned parents not to buy tickets from unauthorised sites

Scalpers are re-selling tickets to The Wiggles 25th Birthday show for over $450 after tickets to their show sold out within five minutes.

The Australian children's music group are launching their national tour 'Dance, Dance! The Wiggles Big Show!' in Perth on November 19 at Perth arena with the first show scheduled at 10am.

The tickets starting at $36.60 went on sale on Ticketek on Wednesday at 10am but sold out within minutes before reappearing again on Ticketmaster Resale for an inflated price.

Tickets to The Wiggles national tour 'Dance, Dance! The Wiggles Big Show!' in Perth sold out within minutes

The tickets which started at $36.60 were sold by scalpers after they sold out for over $450

Parents were left fuming after seeing the incredible jump in prices taking to social media to hit out at scalpers.

One angry father from Perth took to Facebook complaining at seeing the tickets for 10 times more than the original price.

'Wiggles tickets go on sale 10am today, premium seats for $45 each sold out by 10.05am so couldn't get any for my two and five year olds,' he said.

'They go on sale on ticketek resale website at 10.15am for $450 each!!! C'mon guys scalping tickets to a children's concertWTF you w****rs! [sic]'

Many parents also took to The Wiggle's official Facebook page to complain about the prices.

'These people disgust me! My daughter misses out because there is no way we can afford these ticket prices and there are only single seats left in the hot potato section,' said one mother.

'Please can you do something about the blatant and disgusting profiteering being undertaken by the disgraceful-excuses-for-humans who are on-selling tickets to The Wiggles at hugely inflated prices,' wrote another mother.

Parents were left fuming and took to social media to complain about the exorbitant prices

One father was left outraged after he missed out on purchasing tickets for his two children only to see scalpers sell the tickets for an inflated price within minutes

One mother addressed her message to Ticketek Australia to complain about the 'outrageous rorting'

The Wiggles have since released a statement after they received 'a number of concerned emails and messages about tickets being resold and scalped by unauthorised sellers for exorbitant prices,'

The Wiggles warned fans to avoid purchasing tickets from unauthorised platforms.

'We cannot stress this enough...Scalpers also use the platform Ticketmaster Resale but that does not make them authorised sellers,' they said.

'There is no guarantee that tickets bought on Ticketmaster Resale will be valid tickets.

'Our only advice is: simply don't do it.'

The Wiggles was inundated with complaints about the unauthorised sellers from parents
The head of Britain's biggest airline today slammed plans to build a third runway at Heathrow, saying that airport customers were being 'ripped off'.

Willie Walsh, chief executive of the firm that owns British Airways, suggested that it would be more efficient to extend one of the existing runways instead.

He also threatened to move his company's operations to an alternative airport, such as Dublin or Madrid, if Heathrow or Gatwick are allowed to hike up fees in the wake of expansion.

Criticism: BA boss Willie Walsh has spoken out against plans to build a new third runway at Heathrow

The International Airlines Group boss was speaking in London ahead of a decision by David Cameron on where to expand airport capacity in South-East England.

An independent commission recommended a third runway at Heathrow, but the Prime Minister has repeatedly delayed his final verdict to avoid creating a political row ahead of key elections.

In his speech to the travel organisation Abta yesterday, Mr Walsh said the Government should 'carefully examine' the Heathrow Hub scheme for an extension of the existing northern runway.

The proposal is not supported by the airport itself, but was created by former Concorde pilot and BA executive Jock Lowe.

It is scheduled to cost around 14.4billion, compared to 17.6billion for building a new runway from scratch.

Alternative: Mr Walsh urged the Government to consider extending one of Heathrow's runways instead

Decision: David Cameron, left, is set to issue a verdict later this year and Mr Walsh, right, warned that the cost should not be passed on to airlines

Mr Walsh pointed out that Heathrow's own plan budgets just 182million for the actual runway, with most of the money going to other upgrades such as 800million for a new car park.

'My strong belief is that you cannot trust Heathrow to deliver anything in a cost-effective manner,' he told the audience.

'Customers have been ripped off by Heathrow for years and leopards don't change their spots.'

Mr Walsh said that he has 'serious doubts' about the team behind the Heathrow Hub scheme, but urged ministers to 'look very closely at this cheaper option'.

He also criticised the suggestion that Gatwick should get a second runway instead, claiming that it would make its charges unacceptably high.

Future: This artist's impression shows how the airport could look if it gets a third runway

He said: 'We struggle to see any business case for the expansion of Gatwick and will consider our position at the airport if the Government backs expansion there, principally because the cost of that expansion when translated into airport charges would likely wipe out the profit we make.'

Mr Walsh has repeatedly warned that airport expansion should be funded by airports directly rather than passing on the costs to airlines and customers.

He told the conference yesterday: 'If there is expensive, inefficient airport expansion at Gatwick or Heathrow, then we will expand through other airports and hubs.'

Among the airports the company could target instead are Madrid and Dublin - the traditional homes of Iberia and Aer Lingus, both owned by IAG.
A terrified worker at a German cinema has revealed how he mistook a gunman for a film fan wearing a costume before he opened fire and took them hostage.

Guri Blakaj initially dismissed the masked man who stormed the Kinopolis cinema complex in Viernheim, Western Germany, at about 3pm on Thursday carrying a gun and ammunition belt.

He believed the man he saw standing 'by the popcorn stand' to be a customer wearing a costume, complete with the belt of cartridges draped across his shoulder.

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A gunman has been shot dead after opening fire inside a cinema in Western Germany

Heavily-armed police stand outside a cinema complex where an armed man has opened fire

Police surrounded the cinema complex after receiving a call at around 2.45pm

But then Blakaj, who was working the till at the time, realised it was 'something more serious'.

As his colleagues were told to lie down, Blakaj was ordered to close the doors to the cinema.

All the while, the gunman held his weapon to his head.

Blakaj, who was told to go and sit in his office after shutting the doors, said the man also shot at a colleague but didn't hit him.

'He seemed very confused, and was relatively young,' Blakaj said, adding he had asked if the man wanted money, to which he responded he didn't.

The assailant then went into one of the theatres. Blakaj, who said there were about six workers and 30 cinema-goers in the building, then heard shots fired. Other reports suggest there were about four shots fired in total.

Almir H., 16, said he was one of the hostages taken by the man in the cinema. He claimed he was locked in a toilet and said, in broken German: 'Lie down in here if you love your life.'

Police special forces later stormed the building and shot him the masked man.

Bild newspaper reported that a suicide vest and a hand grenade were found near the body of the dead man, although police have not confirmed this. Authorities have said, however, that the man was mentally disturbed and not linked with any terrorist group.

Video footage shows the moment heavily-armed police storm the cinema complex

Reports people were injured by tear gas have been dismissed by police, who say there were no other injuries.

The interior minister of the state of Hessen, Peter Beuth, announced the perpetrator's death in the state parliament in Wiesbaden.

He said: 'The police had an emergency call at 2:45pm [12:45 GMT]. The caller said there was a masked man... armed with a long gun. It is unclear whether it was a real gun.

'The caller heard four shots and said that the masked man appeared a little mentally unstable. Police special forces were called.'

Police spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said that 'there are no indications at present of an Islamist background.'

Police received a call saying there was a 'masked man... armed with a long gun'

According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside

Elite SEK police commandos were helicoptered to the scene before storming the cinema

Video footage has emerged of a large group of heavily-armed police storming the cinema. They are shown creeping up against the wall before entering the building.

The motive for the attack is unclear - whether he is a 'lone wolf' terrorist or a deranged individual.

The incident has echos of the Aurora cinema mass shooting that occurred in Colorado in 2012.

Gunman James Holmes murdered 12 people and injured 70 others when he opened fire during a midnight showing of the film The Dark Night Rises.

Holmes entered the cinema wearing tactical clothing and set off tear gas and grenades into the audience.

He was arrested minutes later in his car parked outside the cinema.

On Thursday, Elite SEK police commandos were helicoptered to the scene in Germany and ambulances have ferried the injured to local hospitals.

The Kinopolis cinema complex is located in the town of Viernheim.

The German Ministry of Interior announced the gunman had been shot dead

A gunman has opened fire at the Kinopolis cinema complex in the town of Viernheim

The gunman barricaded himself inside the cinema (stock photo)
Set high above the Dyfi Valley in mid-Wales, most of the traditional cobbled homes are being rented out by residents

Cluster of 16 cottages were built for the families of those who worked at the now disused slate quarry nearby

The entire Welsh village of Aberllefenni near Machynlleth, Wales, has hit the market for only 1.5million

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Although 1.5million might not get you much in central London, in Wales the hefty sum could buy an entire village.

That is the asking price for 16 terraced cottages in the tiny village of Aberllefenni, near Machynlleth, Wales.

The country houses were built for workers at a now disused slate mine where quarrying dates back to the 16th century.

These are some of the cottages that occupy Aberllefenni village near Machynlleth, Wales and have now hit the market for only 1.5million

The pretty properties, such as the one above, were originally built for the families of those who worked at the nearby slate quarry

The cluster of cottages are owned by the family of John Lloyd, from Inigo Jones Slate Works, which bought the quarry and houses back in the 1960s.

But the historic quarry was sold in April and now the 16 homes in the village can be bagged for 1.5m with Dafydd Hardy estate agents.

Mr Lloyd said: 'The quarry dates back hundreds of years and in the 19th century quarry properties were built around it for workers at the slate quarry which was an underground mine site.

'We bought the quarry back in the 1960s and the properties that were attached to it. The slate mine itself closed over 10 years ago but we continued to run the quarry until April when it was sold.

'The properties are traditional slate homes but we have modernised them over the years. We have continued to rent them out and there has always been good occupancy, with 15 of the 16 homes currently occupied.

'Times have changed over the years but it is still a nice community and and it is a good opportunity for an investor who could continue to rent out the properties - a better investment than having money in the bank.'

Dafydd Hardy estate agents reckons the houses and agricultural land would be an excellent investment.

The 16 homes, in the village of Aberllefenni, near Machynlleth, (as demonstrated on map) are on the market for 1.5m

The picturesque country homes sit high above the stunning Dyfi Valley which stretches across a large rural patch of mid-Wales

The dainty cobblestone cottages (pictured) line the long road that cuts right through the centre of the quiet countryside village in Wales

The nearby slate quarry - which was the reason why the cottages were built in the first place - is one of the oldest in the country

The village of Aberllefenni is surrounded by breathtaking countryside and landscapes amidst the wooded slopes of the Dyfi Forest

A spokesman said: 'This is priced realistically for a quick sale, offering an excellent investment opportunity.

'The portfolio is mainly located in the historic location of Aberllefenni, set high above the Dyfi Valley in this rural area of mid-Wales.

'The village of Aberllefenni is surrounded by beautiful countryside amidst the wooded slopes of the Dyfi Forest.'

Aberllefenni Slate Quarry - made up of three smaller quarries, Foel Grochan, Ceunant Ddu and Hen Gloddfa - is one of the oldest running in Wales.
A 'fellatio cafe' where customers receive oral sex while they drink their coffee is set to be opened in Switzerland.

The outlet, set to be up and running in Geneva by the end of the year, would see men ordering a coffee before their choosing their prostitute on an iPad.

Customers would pay more than 40 for the drink and sex act, according to the firm Facegirl, which is modelling the idea on similar establishments in Thailand.

A 'fellatio cafe' where customers receive oral sex while they drink their coffee is set to be opened in Geneva (pictured) in Switzerland

A representative from the company, calling himself Bradley Chavet, said men would order what they want and then sit at the bar.

'In five or ten minutes, it's all over,' Charvet told newspaper Le Matin.

The 'coffee' would be the most expensive in the city at 60 Swiss francs - along with a five franc surplus for the drink.

The outlet, set to be up and running in Geneva by the end of the year, would see men ordering a coffee before their choosing their prostitute on an iPad (file picture)

But the plan come under fire from some quarters, with one anti-prostitution group claiming it would only benefit the men involved in setting up the business.

According to The Local, prostitution is legal in Switzerland with sex workers required to have permits to operate.
Update: Since first publication of this article, we have been asked to make clear that Mr Gene Scorringe was found not guilty of all charges.

A Sydney osteopath accused of raping and indecently assaulting a 23-year-old female patient will need to be supervised while he massages female clients as he fights the allegations.

Gene Scorringe, 38, appeared in the Waverley Local Court on Thursday charged with having sexual intercourse without consent with the woman and twice indecently assaulting her at his Bondi Junction clinic earlier this year.

In a bail hearing defence lawyer David McCallum said Mr Scorringe, a New Zealand citizen who moved to Australia a decade ago, 'strongly denies' any sexual misconduct.

'He contends ... that all of the physical contact with the complainant was associated with legitimate osteopathic techniques he was performing,' Mr McCallum said.

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Sydney osteopath Gene Scorringe, 38, has been charged with sexually assaulting a 23-year-old female patient

In a bail hearing on Thursday, his lawyer said he 'strongly denied' the charges and said that all contact with the woman 'was associated with legitimate osteopathic techniques'

Mr Scorringe was arrested on Wednesday afternoon at his clinic in Bondi Junction, Sydney

The lawyer added the techniques were explained both prior to and during the treatments and that the complainant had 'acquiesced for a considerable period of time'.

The facts show, Mr McCallum said, that the patient returned to the clinic after the first alleged assault and declined an offer to be treated by a female therapist.

He said transcripts of phone calls between the two, which police rely on, show at the highest that Mr Scorringe acknowledged there may have been 'some inadvertent or accidental touching' during the performance of a pelvic floor release technique.

Scorringe is the sole director of his clinic, which has up to eight other staff.

He has performed up to 10,000 treatments without complaint in the past five years, Mr McCallum said.

'There are ... serious questions which have to be tried by a jury,' the lawyer argued.

Magistrate Lisa Stapleton granted bail with strict conditions, including that Scorringe can only treat female patients in the presence of a third person.

He must also surrender his passport and not contact the alleged victim.

She described the police case as somewhere between strong and weak, but 'certainly not weak'.

The case is due to return to court in August.

Mr Scorringe 'strongly denies' sexual assault claims, saying they were 'legitimate osteopathic techniques'
Adil Khan, 51, (inset) and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, (top) had been told they are to be deported from the UK for the public good after being part of a gang convicted in 2012 of a catalogue of serious sex offences against young girls. Judges Charlotte Welsh and Judge Siew Ling Yoke, a diversity and community relations judge, released their 31-page legal ruling today stating that Khan had shown a 'breathtaking lack of remorse' and in his and Rauf's case there was a 'very strong public interest in their removal.' A decade after they were jailed and following a legal battle involving multiple legal challenges and appeals up to the Court of Appeal, both have been told their challenge against deportation on human rights grounds has failed. In June, their appeal against deportation was heard before an Immigration Tribunal. Khan got a girl, 13, pregnant but denied he was the father, then met another girl, 15, and trafficked her to others - using violence when she complained. He was sentenced to eight years in 2012 and released on licence four years later. Rauf, a father-of-five, trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and ferry her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her. He was jailed for six years and released in November 2014 after serving two years and six months of his sentence. The Rochdale grooming gang's abuse was dramatised in a BBC programme called Three Girls (bottom).
A homeless Washington teenager managed to graduate high school two years early despite working 25 hours a week winning herself a full scholarship to college.

Destyni Tyree was living in the DC Central homeless shelter in Washington DC along with 243 other families when the then 14-year-old's enrolled into Roosevelt S.T.A.Y. High School.

She had been forced out of previous schools when her mother lost her job and had to hand over the keys of the family home because they were no longer able to afford the rent.

Destyni Tyree graduated from High School despite working 25 hours a week in an ice cream shop

Destyni, pictured, secured a full scholarship to college in West Virginia and will be starting in August

Destyni and her family were forced to move into a homeless shelter, pictured, when her mother lost her job

Within two years, Destyni was able to dramatically turn around her life by applying herself in school.

She was appointed captain of the school's cheerleading squad, earned a 4.0 grade point average, and was voted prom queen.

She also secured a full scholarship to Potomac State College of West University University that begins in August.

The student managed this despite working for 25 hours a week in an ice cream store.

After she was forced to move into the homeless shelter, Destyni said she suffered academically and dropped out of several schools before joining Roosevelt S.T.A.Y High School.

She told ABC: 'At first, I didnt like it (the shelter) because I was used to my own space. I had a lot of issues with classmates and teachers. It was just too much.'

She admitted she was particularly proud of being able to graduate high school and win a place in college.

She hopes it will enable her to become a school principal so she can help young people in tough situations.

'Quite frankly, Im just ready to go and live life. I know theres a better life out there for me. It gets better. If you work hard enough, if you have that drive, if you have that motivation, it gets a lot better. I just time managed. I just wake up and do what I gotta do.'
British department store Debenhams has announced it is opening a store in Melbourne.

While no date has been confirmed, the department store is expected to sign up for a 4,000-square metre space in the newly redeveloped St Collins Lane building, reported the Australian Financial Review.

The four-storey retail building opened in May after a $30 million redevelopment by its owners Lasalle Investment Management.

British department store Debenhams has announced it is opening a store in Melbourne

The department store is expected to sign up for a 4,000-square metre space in the newly redeveloped St Collins Lane building in Melbourne's city centre

According to the Sydney Morning Herald the announcement follows a franchise agreement between the department store and retail investment company Pepkor South East Asia last year, with plans to open 10 Australian stores over the long-term.

Under a separate brand agreement with Debenhams, Harris Scarfe will stock the UK retailer's Designers for Debenham's clothing range as well as handbags, cosmetics and intimate apparel in most of Harris Scarfe's stores.

Debenhams traces its history back to 1778 when William Clark established a drapers store at 44 Wigmore Street in London's West End selling expensive fabrics, bonnets, gloves and parasols.

The announcement follows a franchise agreement between the department store and retail investment company Pepkor South East Asia last year

In 1813 William Debenham invested in the firm which then became Clark & Debenham.

The first store outside London opened in Cheltenham in 1818 and it was an exact replica of the Wigmore Street store.

Sir Ian Cheshire, Debenham's chairman, told The Guardian the average shopper at the retailer is a 41-year-old woman who is interested in fashion, looking for newness and a broad choice of brands.

Debenham's new chief executive Sergio Bucher is a former executive at Amazon's fashion business in Europe.

He is part of a bid to help reinvigorate the retailer, which faced a series of poor results last year.
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A tropical fish collection, an outdoor bar with beer on tap and a customised home cinema comes with the purchase of one of Australia's most exclusive designer properties.

The six-bedroom, seven-bathroom house in Robertson in Brisbane's south will go under the hammer on Saturday, two years after the owner-builder completed the ultra-modern home.

The three-level property has ten fixed televisions, an outdoor bar with beer on tap and a home theatre fitted with a projector screen and reclining chairs.

A tropical fish collection, an outdoor bar with beer on tap and a customised home cinema (pictured) comes with the purchase of one of Australia's most exclusive designer properties in Robertson in Brisbane's south

The six-bedroom, seven-bathroom home will go under the hammer on Saturday, two years after the owner-builder completed the ultra-modern home. The ground level boasts a massive games area and a separate family room with surround sound speaker system

A 3000-litre tank holds tropical fish and coral with a 5000-litre saltwater storage system in the basement for water changeover

The three-level property has ten fixed televisions, an outdoor bar (pictured) with beer on tap and a home theatre fitted with a projector screen and reclining chairs

A 3000-litre tank holds tropical fish and coral, while a customised sound-proof cinema with acoustic timber ceiling, built-in speakers, a projector and eight single recliners are all included.

LJ Hooker estate agent Peter Florentzos told Daily Mail Australia that the property had attracted a huge amount of interest.

'We've had 168 groups through the open homes over the last four weeks and there are a few buyers who are pretty big hitters who are coming along (to the auction).'

A customised sound-proof cinema with acoustic timber ceiling, built-in speakers, a projector and eight single recliners are all included.

The entertaining area features an in-ground pool and separate heated spa with open-style pergola

'The innovative contemporary and enviro-friendly design blends ultra modern finishes such as metal, glass and chrome with contrasting materials such as rich timber,' according to real estate agents LJ Hooker

Upstairs, a massive living room is surrounded by five bedrooms, each with their own designer bathroom and walk in robe. The master bedroom has its own balcony, fireplace and 5-star bathroom

LJ Hooker estate agent Peter Florentzos told Daily Mail Australia that the property had attracted a huge amount of interest

The ground level boasts a massive games area and a separate family room with surround sound speaker system.

An outdoor area on the same floor has an integrated kitchenette, vogue bar, bathroom, ceiling fans and built-in heaters and speakers.

The entertaining area features an in-ground pool and separate heated spa with open-style pergola.

Upstairs, a massive living room is surrounded by five bedrooms, each with their own designer bathroom and walk in robe. The master bedroom has its own balcony, fireplace and 5-star bathroom.

'The innovative contemporary and enviro-friendly design blends ultra modern finishes such as metal, glass and chrome with contrasting materials such as rich timber,' according to real estate agents LJ Hooker.

A huge basement comfortably holds six cars with an adjoining lockable workshop.

Other features include 20 solar panels, a 30,000-litre underground concrete water tank, an alarm system with coded entry and nine CCTV cameras and zoned air conditioning.

The property will go up for Auction on site at 62 Janda Street, Robertson at 1.30pm on Saturday.

Other features include 20 solar panels, a 30,000-litre underground concrete water tank, an alarm system with coded entry and nine CCTV cameras and zoned air conditioning

An outdoor area on the same floor has an integrated kitchenette, vogue bar, bathroom, ceiling fans and built-in heaters and speakers

A huge basement comfortably holds six cars and has an adjoining lockable workshop
The man accused of raping and killing a a six-year-old girl in Melbourne more than 30 years ago lived just 500 metres from where her body was found in a gutter.

Gregory Keith Davies, 73, who is charged over the alleged abduction, rape and murder of Kylie Maybury, lived at his parent's home in Preston for several years - less than a minute away from where the young girl's body was discovered in 1984, according to the Herald Sun.

Kylie vanished after she and her mother visited their neighbour Lorna Simpson on Melbourne Cup Day, 1984, in Preston.

She was sent to a nearby shop to buy sugar, but didn't make it home. Her body was found early the next day.

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Gregory Davies, the man who is accused of raping and killing six-year-old Kylie Maybury (pictured) in Melbourne in 1984, lived just 500 metres from where her body was discovered

Mr Davies (pictured) was charged over the alleged abduction, rape and murder of Kylie

Kylie's mother, Julie Maybury (pictured), faced the man that allegedly raped and murdered her daughter in court earlier this month

Mr Davies fronted the Melbourne Magistrates Court earlier this month and was remanded in custody.

Kylie's mother, Julie Maybury, sat in the front row of the public gallery with relatives, supporters and detectives during the brief hearing.

She watched Mr Davies for most of the hearing and at one stage put her head in her hands and cried silently, The Age reported.

Mr Davies, who wore a cream jacket and black track pants, stayed quiet while in the dock. He replied briefly to a question from Magistrate John Hardy, the Herald Sun reported.

Police allege Mr Davies, of Waterford Park, falsely imprisoned and raped Kylie on November 6 and murdered her the following day.

Julie Maybury sat in the public gallery with relatives, supporters and detectives during the hearing

Mr Davies, 73, was remanded in custody after his appearance in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday

The court heard he needed to see a nurse while in custody, because he had a pre-existing back injury and high blood pressure.

He is due to appear in court again in September.

Detectives are still trying to locate three people who may have information that can help the case.

Police allege Mr Davies falsely imprisoned and raped Kylie on November 6, 1984, and murdered her the next day

A potential witness approached Kylie's neighbour, Lorna Simpson, while she was searching for the girl.

The woman said she saw a girl fitting Kylie's description in a white station wagon with a male driver.

Two anonymous callers also contacted police following Kylie's murder.

One called two weeks after the killing and said a white Holden Kingswood station wagon was involved in Kylie's death.

The other, who called in May 1997, nominated a person of interest.

Police have released this image of Lorna Simpson in the hope a potential witness, described as an Italian woman, may recall speaking with her and contact police
Australian university students are being given 'trigger warnings' before classes about sexual abuse and transgenderism in a bid to preserve their mental health.

At the start of lessons, lectures or subjects, academics are issuing warnings about sensitive or graphic content, giving students the opportunity to opt out if they feel confronted or uncomfortable.

University of Melbourne's Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a lecturer on gender and sexuality, told The Age she has been using trigger warnings in classes for the past 13 years of her career.

'It's like television ... you have a warning for everything from drug use to supernatural things, as a way to tell the audience that [they] may be disturbed by one of any number of topics,' she said.

Australian university students are being given 'trigger warnings' before classes with graphic or sensitive content in a big to preserve their mental health

A growing number of academics are issuing warnings before classes about sexual abuse and transgenderism - giving students the chance to opt out if they feel uncomfortable (stock images)

'These students have grown up participating in politics through Tumblr and Instagram, and I feel that expressing ideas through sound bites and policing of other language, which is rampant online, has suddenly been translated into the classroom,' Dr Rosewarne added.

According to the Herald Sun, Melbourne's LaTrobe University Student Union has made it compulsory to provide warnings before talking about 57 separate potentially discomforting issues.

Those warning issues include 'gore', 'chewing', 'slimy things' and 'food' - on the basis they may 'negatively alter (the) wellbeing' of students.

Opponents of trigger warnings in universities complain the warnings limit educational growth and stop students from being challenged by new ideas.

Matthew Lesh, a research fellow at The Institute of Public Affairs, said he was worried Australian academics were feeling pressured to juggle the job of psychologist and educator.

'Universities should be about exposing people to as many ideas as possible, even if they are challenging,' he told The Age.
A vicar has urged people to 'pledge ourselves to a better world' as he led a service in memory of Jo Cox.

People gathered in the market square in Birstall, West Yorkshire, to mark the exact time a week ago that the Batley and Spen MP was shot and stabbed to death.

Ms Cox was attacked outside the village library and tributes to her placed around a nearby statue have grown over the last seven days to form a carpet of thousands of flowers, messages and balloons.

People gathered in the market square in Birstall, West Yorkshire, to mark the exact time a week ago that the Batley and Spen MP (right) was killed

More than 100 people ringed the makeshift memorial for moments of silence, hymns and eulogies led by the vicar of St Peter's Church, the Reverend Paul Knight.

Rev Knight told the crowd, who held hands around the memorial: 'We're meeting seven days on from the tragedy that hit our community when our MP, Jo Cox, was brutally killed.

'We're meeting today to remember her, to pray for her family and to pledge ourselves to a better world.

'To pledge ourselves to unity, because that was certainly one of Jo's passions.'

Meanwhile, it emerged today that the man accused of the terror-related murder will go on trial in the autumn.

Thomas Mair, 52, is accused of shooting and stabbing the MP outside her constituency surgery.

He is charged with murder, grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon.

He appeared at the Old Bailey via video link from top security Belmarsh jail amid a list of terror-related cases to be heard by Mr Justice Saunders.

The senior judge set a provisional timetable with a trial fixed to start on November 14.

Ms Cox was attacked outside the village library and tributes to her placed around a nearby statue have grown over the last seven days to form a carpet of thousands of flowers, messages and balloons

Another hearing will take place on September 19 at the Old Bailey, with a plea hearing pencilled in on October 4.

The trial will be heard before a High Court judge and is likely to be at the Old Bailey.

Grey bearded Mair, from Birstall, whose case is being handled under the 'terrorism protocol', spoke only to confirm his name.

At a magistrates' hearing last week he gave it as 'Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.'

More than 100 people ringed the makeshift memorial for moments of silence, hymns and eulogies led by the vicar of St Peter's Church, the Reverend Paul Knight

Throughout, he sat with his head bowed, taking notes, and made no reaction as his lawyer Cairns Nelson QC discussed his case with prosecutor Mark Dawson and the judge.

The preliminary hearing coincides with referendum day and comes the day after Mrs Cox's widower Brendan and their two young children marked what would have been her 42nd birthday.

At the Commons event, they heard Prime Minister David Cameron praise Mrs Cox as 'a voice of compassion whose irrepressible spirit and boundless energy lit up the lives of all who knew her'.
Tony Blair was relentlessly mocked after he tweeted a pictured of himself smiling and holding a placard that declared: 'I voted Remain' in the EU referendum yesterday.

The former Labour Prime Minister wrote: 'I believe voting to Remain will secure Britains place as a proud, influential country with a strong economy. TB.'

Minutes later Twitter responded in typical style by publishing their own photoshopped signs of Blair and a placard with very different messages.

The former Labour Prime Minister wrote: 'I believe voting to Remain will secure Britains place as a proud, influential country with a strong economy. TB'

One user tweeted a picture of Blair with the slogan: 'Will Work for Cheese,' while another showed the divisive former PM holding up a sign advertise 'Anusol'.

Another wrote: 'Will bomb countries for votes,' another joked: 'I hate Tim Peake' while others said: 'I Rote This Sine On My Own'.

And one photo-shopped version suggested Blair was a big fan of radical left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, who continues to brand him a 'war criminal' over his decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Twitter was ablaze with EU referendum-related chatter yesterday, with Leave supporters urging fellow Brexiteers to use pens to vote rather than pencils because their cross could be rubbed out and changed, with some even claiming MI5 are involved.

Many have used the hashtag 'usepens' to encourage others to refuse to use a pencil, although it has since been hijacked by Remain campaigners who are calling them conspiracy theorists.

A poll released this week revealed that many Leave campaigners feared that the referendum was rigged against them.

Minutes later Twitter responded in typical style by publishing their own photoshopped signs of Blair and a placard with very different messages

One Twitter user photoshopped his placard to say: 'I Rote This Sine On My Own' while another showed the divisive former PM holding up a sign advertise 'Anusol'

The idea has been widely mocked, including by BBC star Professor Brian Cox who tweeted: 'I voted in pencil just in case MI5 need to change it later'.

The Electoral Commission was forced to reassure the public that using a pencil will not cost them their vote.

A spokesman added that people are more than welcome to bring their own pens if they wish.

He said: 'By tradition, pencils are available in polling booths for voters to mark their ballot papers,' a spokesperson said. 'If a voter wishes to bring their own pen and use that, it's fine.'

'In regards to security, at the count there are statutory observers to make sure that they are carried out correctly. Campaigners are also invited to observe the counts taking place.'

Tony Blair was relentlessly mocked today after he tweeted a pictured of himself smiling and holding a placard that declared: 'I voted Remain' in the EU referendum

One user tweeted a picture of Blair with the slogan: 'Will Work for Cheese' while another compared the former PM to the Republican US Presidential nominee Donald Trump

The final polls ahead of yesterday's EU referendum suggested the result was still too close to call.

An average of the last six polls by Professor John Curtice, who was the only pollster to correctly predict the outcome of last year's General Election, suggested a four-point win for Remain.

An exclusive survey for the Daily Mail and ITV News, gave the Remain camp a lead of six points, by 48 per cent to 42 per cent  but 11 per cent of electors said they were still undecided.

The final few polls of the referendum campaign suggested the result will go down to the wire, with a YouGov survey giving a Remain a two-point lead and polls by TNS and Opinium showing the reverse

'It looks like an EDL rally!' Polling station told to take down England flags as angry voters complain of bias in favour of Brexit

A polling station was told to take down England flags after voters complained they could sway people in favour of Brexit.

Pictures of Mayfield Athletic Club in Enfield, north London decked out in St George's flags emerged on Twitter yesterday, with one voter saying it 'looked like an EDL rally'.

The elections watchdog told MailOnline that although the polling station had not breached electoral law ordered, they had advised the venue to take the flags down to avoid confrontation and further concerns from voters.

Pictures of Mayfield Athletic Club (pictured) decked out in St George's flags emerged on Twitter yesterday, with one voter saying it 'looked like an EDL rally'

It also told the polling station to switch off the TV, which was showing rolling coverage and some suggested it could also be used to sway the result.

Another polling station in Harrow was also accused of bias by hanging up on Union flags. Voter Carly Minsky said it was 'pretty overt manipulation'.

Guidance published by the Electoral Commission states that polling stations 'must not wear any badges, slogans or colours that might bring your impartiality into question'.

Voters claimed that hanging flags violated these rules but others insisted a national flag could not be seen as bias.

A spokesman for Enfield Council said the cricket club had put up the flags because it was screening Euro 2016 football games.

It is not illegal to take photos inside polling stations but revealing how other people voted is a criminal offence and can carry a fine of up to 5,000.

Police question a Ukip supporter who offered voters a PEN in case their pencil markings on ballot paper were erased

This is the moment police took the name of a pro-Brexit supporter who offered voters the use of her pen in case of fraud.

Some Vote Leave have claimed that using the pencil usually found in polling stations is dangerous because their cross could be rubbed out and changed, even claiming MI5 are involved.

Jacqueline Jackson, who was outside a Winchester polling station, filmed the officer taking her details as she argued she was allowed to lend her pen to anyone entering.

She then tweeted the footage and said: 'Police came to Chichester polling station called by REMAIN side to stop me LENDING my PEN to all voters.#fraud'.

Many have used the hashtag 'usepens' to encourage others to refuse to use a pencil, although it has since been hijacked by Remain campaigners who are calling them conspiracy theorists.

Police spoke to a Ukip supporter who was offering to lend a pen to voters in case of fraud - they then took her details

Concerns: A poll released this week revealed that many Leave campaigners feared that the referendum was rigged against them - so many are bringing their own pens

#usepens: Twitter is full of messages urging people to vote with a pen after Leave campaigners said they were concerned their vote with a pencil could be rubbed out. This is one of many tweets lampooning the theory

Anxious: Many on the Leave side have spread the advice - as a poll found that many Leave supporters feared the referendum is rigged

A poll released this week revealed that many Leave campaigners fear that yesterday's referendum was rigged against them.

The idea was widely mocked, including by BBC star Professor Brian Cox who tweeted: 'I voted in pencil just in case MI5 need to change it later'.

The Electoral Commission was forced to reassure the public that using a pencil will not cost them their vote.

A spokesman added that people are more than welcome to briong their own pens if they wish.

He said: 'By tradition, pencils are available in polling booths for voters to mark their ballot papers,' a spokesperson said. 'If a voter wishes to bring their own pen and use that, it's fine.'

'In regards to security, at the count there are statutory observers to make sure that they are carried out correctly. Campaigners are also invited to observe the counts taking place.'

Joke: BBC star Professor Brian Cox tweeted: 'I voted in pencil just in case MI5 need to change it later'.
A convicted murderer who bludgeoned his mother to death with a metal rod before strangling her could face another seven years behind bars after admitting to downloading child pornography.

Wei Li, 23, who is serving a nine-year jail sentence for manslaughter, has pleaded guilty to having a collection of photographs of children under the age of 14, The Advertiser reported.

The images and videos, which were discovered on his computer, were allegedly downloaded by Li before and after the brutal murder of his 41-year-old mother Emma Mae Tien.

He is expected to face the District Court on Friday morning.

The Adelaide law student was 18 years old when he beat his mother to death before wrapping her body in bed sheets and fleeing to China in 2011.

Wei Li, 23, (pictured) who killed his mother could face more jail time after admitting to downloading child porn

The body of 41-year-old Emma Tien was discovered at the family's Burnside home after the murder in 2011

The South Australian Supreme Court heard Li claimed he acted in self-defence when his mother had 'come at him', yelling and screaming after becoming angry because he was not practising piano.

Justice Trish Kelly rejected the claim but did accept that Li's mother had subjected him to verbal, mental and physical abuse.

Li, a law student at the prestigious Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, told the court he was under immense pressure from his mother.

'If I don't get a straight A in a school report that would result in a beating,' Li said, according to the ABC.

But during his trial police argued his online activity in the days leading up to the murder indicated it was premeditated.

The court heard that Li had used his laptop to search 'where to stab with knife causing quickest death' only days before his mother's body was found on March 19, 2011, ABC News reported.

The law student was 18 years old at the time when he beat his mother to death with a metal rod

Wei Li was a student at the prestigious Prince Alfred College in Adelaide before he murdered his mother

Other search terms included how to use a knife to 'instantly' kill someone, how to 'commit suicide by biting tongue', how to avoid police detection and ways to make the potentially fatal substance arsenic.

After the killing Mr Li flew to Melbourne, then to Singapore and finally China.

Ms Tian's body was not discovered for several days until a family friend found her body wrapped in sheets on the lounge room floor of their Burnside home.

The murder is believed to have taken place between when Ms Tian was last seen alive on March 17, 2011 and when Li fled to Adelaide Airport on March 19, 2011.

The court heard he was arrested by Chinese authorities over an expired visa in 2014 and had to return to Australia or languish in custody.

Li fled to China after the murder but was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2014 and returned to Australia

Li is serving time behind bars after pleading guilty of manslaughter over the brutal death of his mother

The judge described Li as 'a narcissistic and self-involved young man' and said his description of the daily beatings was 'plainly ludicrous.'

Justice Kelly also said the aspiring lawyer failed to show remorse for his actions.

'Even taking into account cultural differences between Australian and Chinese people, your behaviour and your conduct in the days, weeks and years after killing your mother demonstrate a chilling lack of remorse or contrition,' Justice Kelly said.

Li was sentenced to nine years' jail, backdated to his 2014 arrest.

His barrister Kevin Borick QC said there could be grounds for an appeal on the basis of inconsistency between the 'scathing' sentencing remarks and the jury's verdict.
He has now been charged with contempt and making terroristic threats

extraordinary exchanges with profanity and sexually explicit terms used by both sides

When Judge Bryant Durham denied the request, he launched into a rant

An alleged prison murderer had an expletive-laden meltdown in court before the judge snapped and started yelling and cursing back at him.

Denver Allen, 31, who is accused of beating another prisoner to death, was appearing before Judge Bryant Durham Jr in Rome, Georgia, last week when the extraordinary incident took place.

The meltdown began after Allen launched an attack on court-appointed attorney James Wyatt, accusing him of failing to do his job and sexually propositioning him.

Denver Allen, 31 (left), a prison inmate accused of beating a fellow convict to death, got into an extraordinary exchange with Judge Bryant Durham Jr (right) at a pretrial hearing last week

Allen attempted to convince Judge Durham to appoint him a different lawyer, but after his request was refused he threatened to hold himself in contempt, after which proceedings deteriorated.

Despite Judge Durham's threats to sentence Allen to 20 days for every outburst, he took no notice, instead unloading a torrent of abuse, telling Judge Durham to 'go f*** yourself' and 'suck my d***'.

Judge Durham did begin yelling at Allen, which is referenced in the transcript, but managed to hold his cool until a few moments later when he shouts: 'You know, you look like a queer.'

The pair then begin trading insults about how well-endowed Allen is as the expletives arrive thick and fast, with Judge Durham apparently smiling as the confrontation spirals out of control.

Allen had been requesting to change public defender after accusing his appointed lawyer of not doing his job and sexually propositioning him, before having a meltdown when the request was refused

While Judge Durham initially tries to work through the torrent of abuse hurled at him, he eventually starts throwing insults and expletives back at him

In one of the more bizarre twists, Judge Durham tells Allen: 'You know, you look like a queer'

In one extraordinary exchange the judge even tells Allen 'I bet [the other prisoners] all love sucking your c***' before simply resorting to shouting noise at him across the courtroom.

Despite Judge Durham's repeated efforts to explain the trial process to Allen, he continues to interrupt and shout lewd sexual comments in the courtroom.

The conversation reaches its lowest point as Judge Durham appears to rise to the bait again, this time during an exchange about masturbating in the court.

As events take a turn for the bizarre, both men check with court reporters to make sure the exchange is being taken down for posterity.

According to the Rome News-Tribune, most of the people inside the court were attempting to muffle laughter throughout the 10-minute exchange, until things took a darker turn toward the end as Allen began making threats.

While local reports suggest those in the courtroom were struggling to contain their laughter throughout the exchange, things took a sinister turn toward the end as Allen began threatening the judge's family

After Allen was escorted from the courtroom, he was charged with contempt of court and making terroristic threats alongside the murder charge he is already facing

Lashing out at Judge Durham, he threatened to kill his family and children 'with a hammer' before being escorted from the courtroom.

Judge Durham also apologized to Wyatt, Allen's defense attorney, saying: 'Sorry. I'm sorry you're stuck with him.'

Following the shocking scenes, Allen was charged with contempt of court and making terroristic threats and remanded in Floyd County Jail without bond.
The State Department aide who set up Hillary Clinton's private server inside her home invoked his Fifth Amendment right 'more than 125 times' in a case involving the email system.

Pagliano wouldn't even answer questions about his resume as he gave court-ordered testimony on Wednesday in the case, brought by conservative non-profit Judicial Watch, the group said.

The lawsuit seeks to determine whether Clinton and her aides intentionally set up the system to keep their communications outside the reach of the government so they were not made public pursuant to Federal Information Act requests.

The State Department aide who set up Hillary Clinton's private server inside her home invoked his Fifth Amendment right 'more than 125 times' in a case involving the email system. Bryan Pagliano, the aide, is seen above on Capitol Hill last September

The IT professional was initially shielded from talking to the watchdog organization by the judge overseeing the case based on his immunity agreement with the Justice Department as part of its investigation into the security of Clinton's server.

The judge, Emmett G. Sullivan, required Pagliano to submit the agreement to the court and postponed the testimony until he was able to review it.

Sullivan ultimately upheld his original decision to compel testimony from Pagliano without making the immunity agreement public.

He also said the deposition could be filmed but the tape must be sealed. The transcript will be made available at a later date, however.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Politico on Wednesday after Pagliano's deposition that 'on many of the key issues, he took the Fifth.'

'He took the Fifth even on questions about his resume. They had a very narrow definition of what discovery' allowed, Fitton said.

The only question Fitton remembered Pagliano answering was about the documents pertaining to the deposition. Pagliano said he read them.

The former Clinton staffer would not say who was paying his legal bills, Fitton said.

Judicial Watch is concerned with another aspect of servergate than the FBI. The right-wing oversight group is focused on top-ranking Clinton aide Huma Abedin's special arrangement with State that allowed her to work there and in the private sector at the same time

Pagliano worked on Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and set up her basement server as she transitioned to the State Department in 2009.

He simultaneously took on an official role at State. In his disclosure forms, he did not disclose that he was being paid by Clinton to keep tabs on the server.

The FBI came to an arrangement with Pagliano that would protect him from possible prosecution if he delivered details about his secret work for Clinton.

The investigatory agency is concerned that foreign actors may have accessed classified information by hacking the former cabinet member's server.

Clinton says that never happened - and that she never sent nor received classified information through the email address attached to the server, as it would have amounted to a federal crime.

The law enforcement agency has yet to come to a final decision.

The Republican National Committee pounced on Fitton's statement that the Clinton aide pleaded the Fifth 125 times as 'another reminder of how much she has to hide and how serious the FBIs criminal investigation really is.'

'Its important to remember that this wasnt just any staffer; this was a longtime aide who obtained an unusual political appointment and was paid on the side for the sole purpose of maintaining Clintons illicit off-the-books server,' Chairman Reince Priebus said.

Priebus asserted that the arrangement was an obvious attempt to skirt government transparency laws in order to conceal her shady dealings as Secretary of State.'

Clinton put national security at risk, and should therefore be disqualified from sitting in the highest office in the land.

'Her aides stonewalling today is just a prelude to the kind of White House she would run,' the RNC chief said Wednesday.

Clinton has not yet been compelled to comply with Judicial Watch's request that answer questions on the topic. The judge state in granting discovery that she still could be, however.

Judicial Watch is concerned with another aspect of servergate than the FBI.

The right-wing oversight group is focused on top-ranking Clinton aide Huma Abedin's special arrangement with State that allowed her to work there and in the private sector at the same time.

Abedin also had an email address that was routed through Clinton's secret server.

She's scheduled to testify next week on Tuesday.
A police car has flipped onto its roof after slamming into a Jeep while responding to an emergency call.

Two New South Wales police officers were seen blaring their sirens driving down Hoxton Park road in Sydneys western suburbs, reported Seven News.

Upon making a right hand turn, a white Jeep and the police vehicle collided at an intersection flipping the police car onto its roof.

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A New South Wales police car has flipped onto its roof (pictured) after slamming into a Jeep when responding to an emergency call in Sydney's western suburbs at about 2.55pm on Thursday

A New South Wales police spokesperson said that the two officers inside the vehicle were not injured but the driver of the Jeep complained of chest pains.

The driver of the Jeep was then taken to hospital for further observation but was not in a serious condition, police say.

The Jeep had a smashed bonnet while the car remained flipped on its roof until other emergency services came to the scene.

Katie Anne was heading towards Austral and drove past the crash site and told Seven News that she saw the car had completely overturned and had nobody inside.

She said: There was also a white Jeep nearby with its front completely smashed.

Another witness of the incident told the Liverpool Champion: They had their sires on, it looked clear to go.

Katie Anne was heading towards Austral and drove past the crash site and said that she saw the car had completely overturned and had nobody inside (pictured)

I think the car must have flipped when it came into contact with the median strip.

Green Valley police crime manager Detective Inspector Ben Hopper told the newspaper that the car collided at 2.55pm on Thursday.

He said: It is really early days and the causes behind the collision are still being investigated.
Li managed to flee the country before being questioned by police

Her and Li spent the weekend at a hotel together before her disappearance

Shao was reported missing until her body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car after being strangled to death

A Chinese man who fled to his homeland after murdering his college girlfriend in Iowa will now serve a life sentence in China, authorities say.

Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said Wednesday that the U.S. State Department informed her office and Iowa City police that 24-year-old Xiangnan Li was sentenced earlier this week in the Chinese city of Wenzhou.

In March, the former University of Iowa student told a Chinese court that he killed 20-year-old Iowa State student Tong Shao in September 2014.

Iowa authorities wanted Li to be returned for trial, but the United States and China don't have an extradition treaty. The Criminal Investigation Bureau of China says Chinese citizens are subject to Chinese prosecution for any crimes they commit abroad.

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Life in prison: Xiangnan Li, 24, was sentenced earlier this week in the Chinese city of Wenzhou (pictured) for the murder of his college girlfriend, Tong Shao, 20, in Iowa in September 2014

Crime of passion: Chinese authoritiearrested Xiangnan Li (right) eight months after he murdered his 20-year-old girlfriend Tong Shao (left) in Iowa

Li fled to China following the slaying of his girlfriend, whose body was found stuffed in the trunk of her car days after she went missing.

He surrendered to police in Wenzhou on May 13, 2015, eight months after the murder, and was arrested on June 19 to face a charge of intentional homicide.

An autopsy showed that Shao had been asphyxiated, and authorities said she had been killed after a weekend with Li at a motel in Nevada, Iowa.

Shao was reported missing on September 17 in Ames, where she was an international student studying chemical engineering at Iowa State University.

Iowa authorities said they had no other choice but to prosecute Li under Chinese law.

'That's the only way we could have him prosecuted - to have the Chinese do it themselves, because they will not extradite anyone back from China,' Lyness said.

Gruesome: Li fled the U.S. in September 2014, shortly after his girlfriend went missing. Her body was later found stuffed in her car which was parked in Iowa City. She had been strangled to death

The range of punishments in China for intentional homicide includes the death penalty, life imprisonment and imprisonment over 10 years.

Iowa authorities had said Li was a person of interest in the investigation, but he fled to China before he could be questioned over her disappearance. Iowa City police officials contacted Chinese officials, and soon the Criminal Investigation Bureau of China and police in Zhejiang Province opened an investigation.

Tragic: An autopsy revealed that Shao, a chemical engineering student, died of asphyxiation and blunt force trauma

Iowa officials said a team of Chinese investigators came to Iowa in early June to join Iowa police and prosecutors in their investigation.

China's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Monday that Chinese detectives collected evidence, checked the crime scene and questioned witnesses. U.S. police handed evidence to the Chinese team, the ministry said.

Wenzhou is a city in the coastal province of Zhejiang in southeastern China.

Shao was last seen checking into a hotel room with her boyfriend on September 5, 2014. The couple had stayed their previously, and the owner recognized them.

According to police records obtained by CNN, two days earlier Tong had accidentally called Li - or 'pocket dialed' him - and he stayed on the line for 30 minutes, overhearing a conversation.

Tong was complaining about Li to a friend and said things that 'were not nice', the records noted.

The owner of the hotel told investigators Li left the hotel either on the night of September 6 or the morning of September 7, which he said was unusual, because he usually had to tell the couple to leave after the checkout time of 11am.

Li boarded a plane to China in Cedar Rapids, with a stopover in Chicago, on September 8.

He landed September 10.

Before Li left Iowa, a text from his phone was sent to one of Tong's roommates.

'This message was purportedly from (Tong) and read that Li had an emergency in China and was flying back there, that she was going to take a bus to Minnesota to visit friends, and she would return in about a week,' the police documents stated.

On September 9, Karen Yang, a friend of Li's sent him a message asking how things were going with Tong.

Justice: Since the U.S. does not have an extradition agreement with China, Chinese authorities would not send Li (center) back to face trial in the U.S. He was sentenced this week to life in prison in China

'Fine for now,' he replied.

Tong's roommate, Jean, filed a missing person report on September 18, when she couldn't contact her.

Together her roommates reached out to Tong's friends in Minnesota via social media, however they had not heard from her.

On September 26 were body was found in her car parked near a low income housing complex on the outskirts of Iowa City.

Residents had reported a foul smell, and responding officers wore Hazmat suits while inspecting the car, KCCI 8 reported at the time.

Tong was found in the trunk, where her body had been for about three weeks, and next to her was a 15-pound barbell.

An autopsy showed Tong died of asphyxiation and blunt force trauma.

A towel from the hotel had been wrapped around her head, according to police records.

Inside the car police found copies of Li's flight information.

A search of their hotel room found 'splatters and drips of various dried liquids throughout the room and behind the headboards of the beds,' the records said, concluding that 'it is possible her death may have occurred in the hotel room'.
Avni Metra, 53, has invoked EU human rights laws in last-ditch bid to remain in Britain

A notorious Albanian double killer who was granted a UK passport after sneaking into Britain wants to be released from prison so he can see his four children.

Avni Metra, 53, was arrested earlier this month after an investigation by the Mail revealed he was living in a squalid bedsit in Hertfordshire.

After entering the UK in 1998 by falsely claiming to be a Kosovan refugee, he has since pocketed thousands of pounds in benefits.

The father-of-four was sentenced to 25 years in prison by an Albanian court for murdering two brothers in 1997. He is said to have gouged out the eyes and sliced off the ears of one of his victims.

The 53-year-old has invoked European human rights laws in a last-ditch bid to remain in Britain and is claiming he would not receive a fair trial in his home country.

But he had his second bail application refused today at Westminster Magistrates' Court. His niece had offered 1000 for his release and said she was 'more than happy' for the killer to live with her and her two children in Slough.

Metra, wearing a black leather jacket over his grey shirt and light brown trousers, quietly mumbled his name to an Albanian interpreter when he was asked to confirm his identity.

He sat surly-faced in the dock with his back against the wall throughout the rest of the hearing.

Ben Seifert, on behalf of Albanian authorities, said: 'Mr Metra was convicted on February 12, 2001 of two counts of murder and also one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. He received an aggregated sentence of 25 years.'

He continued: 'On his arrival in the UK he has taken a false identity and obtained a UK passport with that false identity.'

Metra was high on an Interpol Most Wanted list when the Mail tracked him down to his bolthole in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and tipped off police to his whereabouts.

At the first hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court the next day, it emerged he was under investigation over an alleged rape.

Spotted: Ex-gang henchman Metra was snapped doing his shopping (left) and the criminal held his head while being confronted by Daily Mail reporters

But Helen Dawson, defending, said he was now settled in Britain and had a 'close bond' with his four children by his former partner, all aged under 18.

'His children are of a very young age and should he return and should he be found guilty pending a retrial, that's a substantial amount of time where he may never see his children again,' she said.

'He should be allowed that opportunity to spend time with them and also his family in this country if extradition is granted.'

She suggested he could stay with his niece, an interior designer, if granted bail.

Miss Dawson told the court: 'By all accounts it's a very stable family, a very stable unit.'

In his first hearing he accidentally cited Article 10, which relates to freedom of expression. He is now seeking to raise Article 6, the right to a fair trial, as a barrier to extradition.

Metra was refused bail today - he is fighting extradition back to Albania and left the former communist state in 1998, a year after killing two brothers

Judge Richard Inyundo said: 'I'm firmly of the view that on all the information before me there are substantial grounds to believe that if granted bail he would fail to surrender.

'He faces a 25 year sentence in Albania for an offence which is highest on the criminal calendar.

'There is also the history I have been told about of this gentleman's response to bail on far less serious matters and of course what is said about his change of identity, formally but illegally, in the UK.

'And for all those reasons bail is refused.'

Metra was remanded in custody until a case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court on July 20.
A former Detroit City councilman and Fox 2 television anchor was arrested in Harlem for alleged criminal sexual conduct involving a minor.

Charles Pugh, 44, was nabbed by officers with the NYPD and U.S. Marshals for allegedly molesting a teenage boy while he worked as a weekend morning anchor with Fox 2 in Detroit, Pix 11 reported.

Pugh did not respond to questions from a reporter from the news station as he was led out of the Fifth Precinct station house in New York's Chinatown district on Thursday morning.

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Charles Pugh, 44, was nabbed by officers with the NYPD and U.S. Marshals for allegedly molesting a teenage boy while he worked as a weekend morning anchor with Fox 2 in Detroit

Pugh did not respond to questions from a reporter from the news station as he was led out of the Fifth Precinct station house in New York's Chinatown district on Thursday morning

The former council president of Detroit City Council - at that point the second most powerful figure in Detroit politics - allegedly had 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a boy who visited the Fox 2 offices in 2003 and wanted to apply for an internship, according to a news release from the Wayne County prosecutor's office.

The boy, who was 14 when he first met Pugh, was allegedly invited to Pugh's apartment, and was contacted by Pugh via phone and text messages. The alleged sexual contact happened over a period of nine months, the prosecutor's office said. The boy never worked as an intern for Fox 2.

The recent charges - which include three counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and three third degree counts - come at the heel of another sex scandal involving Pugh and a minor.

Charles Pugh was charged with six counts of criminal sexual conduct. Three of the charges were in the first degree and could carry a life sentence

The former Detroit city councilman was previously embroiled in another sex scandal involving an underage boy

The former council president of Detroit City Council - at that point the second most powerful figure in Detroit politics - allegedly had 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a boy who visited the Fox 2 offices in 2003

In April, Pugh dropped his appeal against a 20-year-old man who accused the former councilman of grooming him for sexual acts, and of coercing him into recording an explicit video, when the alleged victim was only 17 years old.

Pugh agreed to begin paying his accuser $250,000 for his alleged role in that scandal, which resulted in the former councilman fleeing Detroit in the middle of the night for New York, where he took up work as a waiter at a soul food restaurant, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The man who inspired the American Pie character Steve Sifler has been convicted of murder.

Brian Krebs was found guilty of fatally stabbing drummer Jimmy Pagano in the neck during a bar fight in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2011.

The 42-year-old went to the same Michigan high school as the teen movie series' screen writer Adam Herz.

His antics helped create the womanizing party-animal that was played by Seann William Scott in three of the films, and has now become a cultural reference for drunken jocks.

Brian Krebs (left), the man who inspired the American Pie character Steve Sifler (played by Seann William Scott right) has been convicted of murder, five years after fatally stabbing someone in the neck

On April 17, 2011, Krebs walked into the biker-bar Fishtales and ordered $8 worth of alcohol.

But he then realized he was $2 short on the tab.

His response was, according to his lawyer Richard Castillo, to write out a check to 'The Biggest C*** Ever,' the Broward Palm Beach New Times reported.

Krebs then went home, got changed, filled his pockets with steak knives, and then burst back into Fishtales at around 3.30am.

He proceeded to shout and cause a stir, before the few regulars left in the bar intervened. Krebs responded by punching one on the shoulder.

Then Pagano told Krebs he would cover his tab if he left the bar, but Krebs responded by stabbing him in the neck.

The victim fell to the floor and is believed to have died almost instantly. Other patrons in the bar then beat Krebs until he was arrested.

Krebs (left) was found guilty of knifing Jimmy Pagano (right) in the neck during a bar fight in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2011, after he fell $2 on his $8 tab

Herz attended East Grand Rapids High School with Krebs. Stifler, meanwhile, played lacrosse at the fictional 'East Great Falls High School.'

A post on tribute page, In Honor & Remembrance of Jimmy Pagano, read: 'Thank you to Betty Rosenthal for being in court today and letting us know the verdict.

'Brian E. Krebs has been found GUILTY of 2nd degree murder for killing our beloved Jimmy Pagano on April 17th, 2011.

'Thank you to Judge Ilona Holmes for not allowing any further delays, and to the jury for making the right decision.

'Sending best wishes to Guy DiBona, Evan Abel, John Eirhart, John Rossi and Joey Weiner, the other victims who have also waited so very long for a guilty verdict on Kreb's 5 other charges of Attempted Murder with a weapon.

'FINALLY... after 5 years and 2 months... JUSTICE has been served! Jimmy, we will never forget you. You may now finally rest in peace... until we see you on the other side.

The 42-year-old went to the same Michigan high school as the teen movie series' screen writer Adam Herz. His antics helped created the womanizing party-animal that was played by Scott (left) in three of the films, and has now become a cultural reference for drunken jocks

Herz has said on occasions that he is not comfortable talking about the link between Krebs and Stifler.

However people familiar with the script have said otherwise, the New Times reported.

The screen writer says he hasn't seen Krebs since high school and insists Stifler was a compound of the traits of his fellow students.

The first film in the comedy hit the screens in 1999 and became and instant hit.

Stifler was the hard-drinking lacrosse player for the fictional East Great Falls High.

The character showed up again in American Pie 2 in 2001 and again in American Wedding in 2003.

He then returned in American Pie: Reunion in 2012 with the original cast.

The first film in the comedy hit the screens in 1999 and became and instant hit. Stifler was the hard-drinking lacrosse player for the fictional East Great Falls High. The character showed up again in American Pie 2 in 2001 and again in American Wedding in 2003

In later films, that were not as successful, his character's legacy was carried on by his fictional relatives.

In total there were eight movies in the franchise, including four spin-offs.
Democratic Representative Chaka Fattah caved to external pressure and resigned from Congress Thursday, two days after his conviction in a Philadelphia racketeering case.

A jury on Tuesday convicted Fattah on all 22 counts in a case that centered on his misuse of federal grants and nonprofit funds to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan from his 2007 run for mayor.

Fattah, who served on the powerful Appropriations Committee during 11 terms in office, said he hastened his exit out of respect for House leadership and to avoid being a distraction.

TOUGH DAY: Rep. Chaka Fattah leaves the federal courthouse in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Fattah, a veteran Democatic congressman, was convicted in a racketeering case that largely centered on various efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan related to his unsuccessful 2007 mayoral bid

'I am honored to have had the privilege to serve,' he wrote in a resignation letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The 59-year-old congressman had said earlier in the week he would leave office when he is sentenced in October, but Ryan urged him to step down immediately.

He had run for a 12th term, but lost the primary to state Rep. Dwight Evans weeks before his trial began.

Within the next 10 days Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf must call a special election, which must be held at least 60 days later.

The governor's spokesman said no decision on a date has yet been made. One option is holding the special election on Nov. 8, when the general election will be held.

The eight-year, on-again, off-again FBI investigation that followed Fattah's mayoral bid also brought down many people close to the Democratic congressman.

His son was convicted of bank fraud in a related case and sent to prison for five years. Two political consultants who let him move money through their businesses pleaded guilty and testified against the congressman. Four trusted associates, two of whom had worked on his congressional staff, were convicted with him at trial.

And Fattah's wife, Philadelphia TV anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah, left her job after the indictment described her as a participant in one of the bribery schemes. She was never charged and denied wrongdoing.

President Barack Obama (C) and first lady Michelle Obama wave as they greet Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) as they arrive on stage for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Phoenix Awards dinner in 2013

Fattah, raised by community activists in West Philadelphia, had been in Congress since 1995 after a decade in the Pennsylvania Statehouse. His U.S. House term was to end Jan. 2, two months after his Oct. 4 sentencing.

Fattah's undoing largely stemmed from his decision to join the Philadelphia mayor's race in 2007.

New campaign funding laws in the city hampered his effort, and led him to seek out the illegal $1 million loan from a wealthy friend, former Sallie Mae chairman Albert Lord.

Fattah came in fourth in the primary, as city councilman Michael Nutter won the race and eventually the mayor's seat.

Scrambling to repay the loan, Fattah routed federal grant money through a consultant and on to Lord, the jury found.

His conviction Tuesday was a 'tough day,' Fattah

In a resignation letter Thursday to Ryan, Fattah noted his successes in steering federal funds to education, housing, city infrastructure and other pressing needs.

He thanked colleagues on both sides of the aisle, along with his staff, his family and voters in his Congressional district.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said Fattah did the right thing in stepping down.
But he was able to return six weeks later, family then fled to England

Following Kristallnacht, father was sent to concentration camp, Dachau

Luckily, the connection was never made and his family survived

He was also the nephew of a

A Jewish man and one-time neighbor of Hitler has revealed what it was like to live next door to the German dictator for nine years during his rise to power.

Edgar Feuchtwanger's incredible story is made the more improbable by the fact that his uncle, Lion Feuchtwanger, was a prominent novelist and 'personal enemy' of Hitler at the time.

In a revealing interview with CNN, Feuchtwanger described his time in Nazi Germany as a child, and how despite his father's detention at a concentration camp post- Kristallnacht, his family were able to flee to the safety of England, where they remained.

Edgar Feuchtwanger (pictured) a Jewish neighbor of Hitler, has revealed what it was like to live next door to the German dictator for nine years during his rise to power

Edgar Feuchtwanger's incredible story is made the more improbable by the fact that his uncle, Lion Feuchtwanger (right) was a prominent novelist and 'personal enemy' of Hitler (left) at the time

His school teacher was '150 per cent Nazi' straight away, says Feuchtwanger, and while he did not have to enroll in Hitler Youth as a Jew, he was still expected to engage in its propaganda during class time.

He first saw Hitler on a Munich street when he was just eight years old, in 1932, a year before he would be named chancellor.

He was being taken for a walk by his nanny when Hitler came out of his front door and looked at the him 'quite benevolently.'

The 91-year-old recalled that several people shouted 'Heil Hitler'.

If the soon-to-be dictator had known he was Jewish, Feuchtwanger is sure he would not be alive now to tell the tale.

The changes that were brewing across Germany and beyond came to head in 1938 on November 9 and 10, during the Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass'.

The name refers to a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms that took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.

If the soon-to-be dictator had known he was Jewish, Feuchtwanger is sure he would not be alive now to tell the tale. Pictured: Chancellor Adolf Hitler, accompanied by Marshal Hermann Goering, inspecting honor troops lined up in front of the Chancellery on his return in triumph to Berlin, after his coup in Austria

The changes that were brewing across Germany and beyond came to head in 1938 on November 9 and 10, during the Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass'. Pictured: Pedestrians glance at the broken windows of a Jewish owned shop in Berlin after the attacks of Kristallnacht, November 1938

Following the violence, Feuchtwanger's father, a prominent publisher was taken to the Nazi's first concentration camp, Dachau (pictured)

That night, 91 Jews were murdered, tens of thousands more were arrested and thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were destroyed.

The violence was instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA and Hitler Youth.

In its aftermath, German officials announced that Kristallnacht had erupted as a spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath.

Following the violence, Feuchtwanger's father, a prominent publisher was taken to the Nazi's first concentration camp, Dachau.

While the family feared they may never see him again, he was returned after six weeks and Feuchtwanger believes the exercise was designed to scare people into leaving the country.

The family swiftly left for England and Feuchtwanger became a respected history professor.
Joseph Cook, 40, was arrested by Gwinnett County police on murder and aggravated assault charges

A man in Georgia has been arrested after he allegedly he beat his father to death with a crowbar in the family's driveway before attacking a police officer.

Joseph Allen Cook, 40, was arrested Wednesday by Gwinnett County police on murder and aggravated assault charges.

Police Cpl. Michele Pihera says the suspect was arguing with his father, 68-year-old Larry Cook, in the driveway of the family's home on Bridle Glen Drive in Buford.

That argument escalated, and the father called 911 around 6.19pm, Pihera said.

'The dispatcher could hear yelling and someone requesting police,' Pihera said.

'The phone line disconnected a few minutes later.'

Police say the younger man began beating his father with the crowbar.

A neighbor who witnessed the vicious attack then called 911 minutes later.

'The caller, a neighbor, stated that one man was beating the other man in the driveway of the home,' Pihera said.

According to WALB, the son went inside the home and told his step-mother what he had done.

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Police Cpl. Michele Pihera (above) says the suspect was arguing with his father, 68-year-old Larry Cook, in the driveway of the family's home on Bridle Glen Drive in Buford

The father called 911 around 6.19pm, Pihera said but the call was disconnected. Police say the younger man began beating his father with the crowbar in the driveway (above) and a neighbor then called 911 minutes later

Video courtesy of 11 Alive

Investigators say Larry Cook died from blunt force trauma and the crowbar used in the attack was found later at the scene.

While in police custody, Pihera says Joseph Cook assaulted an officer at police headquarters.

She suffered facial injuries and is expected to be fine.

Police say they have not received any recent calls to the home on Bridle Glen Drive, WALB reported.

Joseph Cook is expected to face additional charges for assaulting the officer.

Authorities say he is an ex-convict, but did not say what he was previously arrested for.

It's unclear if Cook has an attorney and what sparked the argument.
Democrats left the House floor Thursday afternoon, ending a sit-in that lasted 25 and a half hours in an effort to get Republicans to call votes on gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando gay club shooting.

They never did get the votes they wanted, and 12:59 p.m. Rep. John Lewis, who started the demonstration, returned to the podium to finish it up.

With Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Whip Steny Hoyer at his side, along with a number of other Congressional Democrats, he said, 'By sitting in, we're really standing up.'

The civil rights movement alum declared, 'We must never, ever get up or give in. We must keep the faith and come back here on July 5 more determined than ever before.'

It was a dramatic day on Capitol Hill as Democrats and Republicans nearly came to blows on the House floor during the extraordinary protest for a vote on gun control legislation on Wednesday night that stretched into Thursday morning.

At one point, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas approached the Democrats jabbing his finger and screaming 'Radical Islam killed those people!' He was making reference to the atrocity at the Pulse gay club in Orlando.

Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida yelled back at him. The two came within inches of each other as they shouted. Lawmakers from both parties separated the pair.

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With Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, irhgt and James Clyburn, left, at his side, along with a number of other Congressional Democrats, civil rights hero John Lewis ended the sit-in today, saying, 'By sitting in, we're really standing up'

Pelosi speaks to supporters outside the U.S. Capitol at the conclusion of the sit-in. The House officially in recess, and Republicans headed out of town for the Fourth of July holiday, Democrats put their protest on pause

Democrats and Republicans nearly came to blows on the House floor after Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (center) of Texas had approached the Democrats and yelled 'Radical Islam!'

Democrats chanted and shouted over Speaker Paul Ryan (above) as he gaveled the House into session and tried to bring order

Rebellious Democrats began an all-day sit-in on the House floor at 11:25 am on Wednesday to demand votes on firearms restrictions bills in the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which 49 people and the perpetrator dead in Orlando on June 12.

They were still sitting on the floor at 3:13 am when the House adjourned and showed no signs of leaving.

'By sitting in, we're really standing up.' - Rep. John Lewis

Previously, they shouted down Speaker Paul Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their demonstration stretched into the night.

Angry Democrats chanted 'No bill, no break!' and waved pieces of paper with the names of gun victims, continuing their protest in the well of the House even as lawmakers voted on a previously scheduled and unrelated measure to overturn a veto by President Barack Obama.

Ryan attempted to ignore the outbursts and announce the business of the day, pounding down his gavel over shouting.

'Shame! Shame! Shame!' Democrats yelled, but Ryan left the lectern and the voting continued. Then Democrats began singing 'We Shall Overcome,' still holding up the names of gun victims.

The scene presented a radical, almost shocking departure from the normal, orderly conduct of the House.

As the night stretched on Republicans signaled plans to push through a bill to deal with the Zika outbreak and then adjourn until after July 4 to shut Democrats down, a plan Democrats furiously denounced as 'cowardly'.

A bleary-eyed Gohmert appeared on Fox & Friends Thursday morning to explain his outburst overnight.

'Well, this had been going on for hours. It should have been stopped hours before. Even some of the long term Democrats have said, "Rhis is really getting out of hand, you guys need to take over and stop the chaos, this is a little scary,"' Gohmert explained.

'Our rights are worth fighting for and some of us are going to keep doing that,' the congressman continued, adding that he had stayed up all night to offer push back against what the Democrats were doing.

'I'm still up. I didn't have to get up,' Gohmert said.

The stunning and unruly scene was broadcast live to the world from Democrats' cell phones, feeds that were picked up by C-SPAN after Republicans shut down the chamber's cameras, which the cable channel utilizes for its broadcasts.

Democrats said they would stay until Republicans yielded to their demands to hold votes on bills to strengthen background checks and prevent people on the no fly list from getting guns in the wake of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida.

CONGRESSMAN CHARLES RANGEL GETS CALLED OUT FOR GUN CONTROL HYPOCRISY Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, got caught by the Daily Caller saying that 'Law-abiding citizens just shouldnt have to carry a gun.' Rangel, part of the Democrats' sit-in that has lasted through Wednesday and into Thursday morning, was called out for hypocrisy because he then said he deserved to be protected by the guns carried by the U.S. Capitol Police. 'Well, that's a little different,' he said laughing when a reporter pointed to the armed office standing nearby. 'I think we deserve  I think we need to be protected down here,' he added. Advertisement

'Are they more afraid than the children at Sandy Hook?' asked Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat from California, referring to the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 elementary school children, in Newtown, Connecticut. 'What is so scary about having a vote?'

The sit-in was led by Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and a veteran of the civil rights movement, who shamed the Republicans for turning 'deaf ears to the blood of the innocent' before asking his Democratic colleagues to join him in the well of the House chamber.

The Republicans responded with Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida sitting in as Speaker, gaveling out to let his peers head off to lunch.

After noon, Rep. Ted Poe of Texas took the gavel and noted that 'the House is currently not in a state of order due to the presence of members in the well who are not recognized.'

The customary prayer and Pledge of Allegiance went ahead, but Poe was forced to recess the House when dozens of Democrats refused to leave the well.

Triumphant? House Democrats left the chamber waving and cheering - even though they never got the votes they wanted

House Democrats, led by Rep. John Lewis (right), gathered in the well of the House chamber on Wednesday to protest the fact that no gun control measures were being voted on post the Orlando massacre

By evening, 168 House Democrats - out of 188 - and 34 Senate Democrats had joined the revolt, according to the House minority leader's office. One after another, they spoke of the need for stricter government control of firearms sales and told stories about their constituents who had been killed.

Scattered around the House floor were signs reading 'Disarm Hate.' Visitors watched from the galleries.

Congress remains gridlocked over gun control, a divide even more pronounced in a presidential election year. The sit-in had the feel of a 1960s-style protest, as some lawmakers sat on the floor, others in their seats.

Legislators also brought pillows and blankets to the House as the Democratic protest stretched past midnight.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut had a sleeping bag, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought Dunkin' Donuts for her House colleagues who were staying awake.

Other lawmakers brought snacks, and some broke the House's rules to eat on the House floor.

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, dressed in a pink suit, carried a pink-and-white striped pillow in his hand for several hours as he walked around the House chamber.

Cleaver, a Methodist minister, later was one of several peacemakers to break up the near-fist fight between Gohmert, the Republican, and Brown, a Democratic lawmaker.

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (right) of Texas approached the Democrats and yelled 'Radical Islam!' a few times. Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown (not pictured) of Florida yelled back at him and they nearly came to blows

Congressman Lewis speaks to the media after walking out of the US Capitol early this morning during the 'sit-in'

Lewis spoke to supporters of House Democrats who had gathered at the Capitol complex in solidarity

Meanwhile, several hundred protesters in favor of tougher gun laws lined up outside the Capitol in a show of solidarity with House Democrats as the sit-in continued into the early hours of Thursday.

Throughout the night, they heard from Democratic lawmakers participating in the daylong sit-in on the House floor.

As the crowd grew, they shouted 'hold the floor' and 'do your job' to lawmakers.

The demonstration outside the Capitol was organized by Everytown for Gun Safety, formally known as Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Michael Bloomberg group, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Rep.Scott Peters, of California, told Reuters that he downloaded Periscope from the House floor after it became clear that chamber cameras were not operating.

'Thanks to them, the American people got to look in on and listen to what is taking place this floor,' U.S. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina said in praise of the platform.

'The speaker (Paul Ryan) controls the cameras,' Peters said. 'We noticed that over lunch, he turned them off - allowed them to be turned off.'

Speaker Paul Ryan (left) walks off the House of Representatives chamber floor after trying unsuccessfully to break up the Democrats 'sit-in' to demand a vote on gun restrictions

John Lewis was joined by several dozen of his Democratic colleagues who sat on the floor or stood in the well. Republicans responded by first taking a lunch break and then with calling a recess

House cameras are turned off when it is not currently in formal session.

A spokesman for Twitter said that tweets from Peters' account containing the Periscope footage had been viewed over 800,000 times as of Wednesday night.

Ryan remained strong in his resolve on Wednesday that he acted appropriately in response to his Democratic colleagues' unruly behavior.

Spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement: 'The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair.'

Ryan blasted the protest in an appearance on CNN Wednesday afternoon, dismissing it as 'nothing more than a publicity stunt.'

'This isn't trying to come up with a solution to a problem,' he said.

'Our rights are worth fighting for and some of us are going to keep doing that,' said Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert after yelling 'Radical Islam!' at Democrats

Cable news channel C-SPAN, which typically uses the House cameras to broadcast live footage of Congress, broadcast Peters' Periscope and other lawmakers' feeds.

Other news networks and cable news channels, including MSNBC, FOX and CNN, also ran parts of the footage.

C-SPAN communications director Howard Mortman said it was the first time the channel broadcast a live social media feed from the House floor.

'The House controls the cameras and that means they control the camera angles, the audio, video, the whole thing,' Mortman said. 'We're using social media platforms to show what's happening.'

Periscope said in a tweet, 'With official broadcasts suspended in the House, we've created a channel to follow #NoBillNoBreak on #Periscope live.'

Peters said about five or six Democratic House members had broadcast live video during the sit-in.

Late Wednesday, lawmakers cheered their thanks during one of his feeds that aired on C-SPAN.

Eric Swalwell of California, and Beto O'Rourke, of Texas, both published live video from the House floor to Facebook.

It later emerged that Republican leaders have reportedly been attempting to shut off the Wi-Fi in an attempt to stop Democrats streaming on social media.

'Gop leaders have attempted to shut down House wifi to cut off Democrats @periscopetv feeds. It's about to get ugly in there,' wrote Jason Johnson, politics editor for The Root, on Twitter.

Top Democrats including Steny Hoyer (bottom left), the House Minority whip, joined John Lewis and other outspoken progressives in the Capitol Hill sit-in

Senators such as Al Franken (back left) showed up in the House chamber to show their support for their colleagues' demonstration

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - or DCCC for short - was raising money all night from the sit-in, calling the Republicans 'AWFUL'

Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Israel of New York was admonished for using FaceTime in the chamber, the Post reported.

The House sergeant-at-arms requested Israel move to the Democratic cloakroom to continue using the app.

Israel then appeared on CNN, via a video stream interview from his phone.

Gohmert contended on Fox & Friends that he and his Republican peers were better behaved.

'They were violating just a whole myriad of rules and it didn't matter at all,' Gohmert opined.

'And when I was getting on to the Sergeant at Arms [I said], "Hey, you enforce these rules, you can't be using your cell phones to take pictures broadcast." They said, "Yes, but when we tell you guys, you stop, we keep telling them to stop, but they won't obey the rules"' Gohmert stated.

#NoBillNoBreak became a rallying cry for gun control supporters on Twitter and quickly became the top-trending hashtag in the United States on the social media platform.

A Twitter spokesman said Thursday, an hour before the sit-in ended, that the phrase in combination with #HoldTheFloor had been tweeted 1.4 million times.

It also became a fundraising boon for Democrats with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises money specifically for House Democrats, sending out a number of pleas to supporters throughout the night.

'We're emailing you so early because we need to defeat these AWFUL Republicans  NOW,' read one email from Lewis, asking folks to chip in anything from $1 to $250.

Gohmert blasted the Democrats for using their sit-in efforts, inspired by the Orlando massacre, to raise money for the November reelection efforts.

'And then they were fundraising, they were doing fundraising calls based on the deaths of these people and we're standing up for it,' Gohmert said.'It was just so outrageous what was going on and even Democrats were saying unprecedented.'

The Texas lawmaker, who created the most memorable kerfuffle of the protest so far, also said it was great to see Lewis in action  though didn't support the cause.

A supporter of the sit-in paid $344 to deliver Domino's pizzas to John Lewis, according to Jennifer Bendery

'It was incredible to see real American folk heroes like John Lewis, who were brutalized and stood up for civil rights,' Gohmert began.

'Folks were there using the instruments to help gain civil rights to try and take away people's civil rights,' Gohmert said, pointing to the Second Amendment.

Lewis gave a barn burner of a speech to kick things off on Wednesday, with liberal congresswoman Donna Edwards, who will not return to the House next session, playing the role of opening act.

'This Congress has no right to hold moments of silence anymore and then do nothing to prevent the next tragedy,' she said.

'This is a moment of truth for Congress,' the Maryland congresswoman continued. 'We cannot have another moment of silence with action.'

Passing the baton to Lewis, who spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr., he said he had 'an executive session with myself' and decided to jump into action.

'We have lost hundreds of thousands of innocent people to gun violence,' Lewis said.

'Tiny little children, babies, students and teachers, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and son, friends and neighbors,' he continued.

NRA'S RADIO SHOW BRANDS DEMOCRATS 'CRIMINALS AND TERRORISTS' The NRA's radio show branded the actions of House Democrats taking part in a sit-in to push for a vote on gun control legislation akin to those of 'criminals and terrorists.' During Wednesday's broadcast of Cam & Company - the official mouthpiece of the NRA - host Cam Edwards said the protesters were flouting House rules. 'So, in order to push legislation that sponsors say would not have prevented the attacks in Orlando, Florida, they're also going to flout the House rules,' he said, according to Samuel-Warde.com. 'Kind of like, you know, criminals and terrorists flout the rules that we have in place right now and will continue to do so?' Advertisement

Some of the sit-in wasn't captured on camera after the House feed was cut off as C-SPAN doesn't have control of it and the House isn't technically in session

'And what has this body done?' Lewis asked. 'Mr. Speaker, not one thing.'

Lewis then boomed, 'where is our moral leadership? Where is our courage?' noting that those who work on bipartisan solutions are pushed aside.

'Reason is criticized, obstruction is praised,' he said.

He brought up Newtown and Orlando.

'What is the tipping point? Are we blind? Can we see?' he asked.

'Give us a vote. Let us vote. We came here to do our job. We came here to work,' he said.

He then began to gather his colleagues on the floor.

'So today we come to the well of the House of Representatives to dramatize the need for action. Not next month, not next year, but now, today,' he said.

'Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way,' he continued.

OUT TO LUNCH: While the Democrats sat in protest, their Republican colleagues left the House Chambers as a lunch and then a recess were called

President Obama chimed in and supported his fellow Democrats engaged in a sit-in on the House floor over trying to get gun control votes in the House

Hillary Clinton was on Capitol Hill this morning meeting with House Democrats before heading back to the campaign trail to give a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina. She tweeted her approval of the sit-in as well

Rep. John Larson, a Democrat from Connecticut, briefly took to a podium and called Lewis 'the soul of the United State Senate,' before saying, 'we will occupy this floor.'

With the cameras off, Democrats leading the protest periodically came off the floor to speak.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held a 'No Bill, No Break' press conference outside the Capitol Building on the grounds.

President Obama soon chimed in with a tweet. 'Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most,' the president wrote.

'Time and again, we've observed moments of silence for victims of terror and gun violence,' Obama said in a video released by the White House on Wednesday.

'Too often, those moments have been followed by months of silence, by inaction that is simply inexcusable.

The president said, 'If we're going to raise our kids in a safer, more loving world, we need to speak up for it.

'We need out kids to hear us speak up about the risks guns pose to our communities and against the status quo that doesn't make sense. They need to hear us say these things even when those who disagree are loud and are powerful.

'We need out kids to hear from us why tolerance and equality matter, about the times their absence has scarred our history and how greater understanding will better the future they will inherit.

'We need our kids to hear our words and also see us live our own lives with love.'

Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, took his turn at the podium as the Democrats' sit-in lasted for hours

Some Democrats sat, while others, like Rep. Rosa DeLauro (right) stood, in support of the effort to get gun control legislation passed

Democratic senators came in throughout the day to sit on the floor with their House counterparts, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and popular progressive senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who's rumored to be on Hillary Clinton's short list for vice president.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, was also spotted on the floor, another potential Clinton veep choice.

Their House colleague Rep. Xavier Becerra also took part. Becerra's name has also been floated as someone Clinton might consider as a running mate.

Clinton, who was meeting with House Democrats before the sit-in prior to giving a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, gave their demonstration a thumbs up.

'This is what leadership looks like,' Clinton tweeted.

Four hours in, embattled Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave an emotional speech on the floor.

'Speaking is difficult for me, but I haven't been silenced,' she said, choking up. 'And neither should the American people. Their representatives must vote to prevent gun violence.'

Democratic senators joining the protest included Minority Leader Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, who is refusing to end his run for president, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Murphy waged a nearly 15-hour filibuster last week to force votes in the Senate on gun legislation.

Those votes failed Monday night - but he was successful in getting them.

Thursday the Senate voted again on legislation to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and both measures failed.

One of the bills, introduced by moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine, received majority support but fell short of the 60 votes it needed to pass. The other, sponsored by Republican John Cornyn and favored by the NRA, fell flat with 31 votes.
During her speech Dingell called for Republicans to come to the table so they could finally have a discussion, saying 'enough is enough'

She has since introduced legislation to keep guns out of the hands of convicted domestic abusers and stalkers

It was the Newtown massacre that first inspired Dingell to speak up

Dingell's father was mentally ill and often had violent fights with her mother

Michigan Rep Debbie Dingell talked of hiding in the closet from her father

The C-SPAN cameras were turned off and the House was adjourned until after July 4, but the Democrats sit-in for a vote on gun control legislation raged on for 25 hours.

It was Michigan Rep Debbie Dingell who gave one of the most powerful speeches, telling the audience: 'I know what it's like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you are going to live'.

'I lived in the house with a man that should not have had access to a gun,' she continued. 'I know what it's like to hide in a closet and pray to God, "Don't let anything happen to me.'

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Michigan Rep Debbie Dingell had Congress erupting in applause during the Democrats sit-in as she shared the harrowing tale of the moment her father pointed a gun directly at her face

Dingell, who grew up with a mentally ill father, only recently began talking about her personal experience with gun violence.

It was after Newtown that she found the courage to speak up.

'I will not forget the nights of shouting. The fear. The dread that my brother, my sisters and my parents would die,' she wrote in a letter to Michigan Gov Rick Snyder last year.

'I will not forget locking ourselves in closets or hiding places, hoping we wouldn't be found.'

On the night she stared down the barrel of a gun, Dingell was trying to stop a fight between her parents. Her father pointed a gun at her mother, she stepped in between them and tried to grab it.

Dingell shared her experience with Snyder with the hopes it would inspire him to dismiss legislation that would allow concealed-weapons permits to be issued to individuals with a history of abuse.

It had already been approved by the Michigan Legislature and was supported by the National Rifle Association. But days after Dingell sent her letter, Synder vetoed the bill.

Now Dingell is hoping she can inspire action in Congress as well.

'I know what it's like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you are going to live',' she said, a backdrop of gun violence victims' pictures behind her. 'I know what it's like to hide in a closet and pray to God'

Dingell, who grew up with a mentally ill father, only recently began talking about her personal experience with gun violence, saying it was after Newtown that she found the courage to speak up and fight for gun control

Dingell has been an outspoken proponent of gun control, introducing legislation last year that would make it illegal for those who have stalked of abused dating partners to legally purchase a firearm

'We don't focus on what's happening every day, we don't focus on the daily shootings or how our young people are beginning to accept that thats just what happens,' she began in her sit-in speech.

'And we dont focus on whats happening and who has access.'

'We dont talk about it, we dont want to say that it happened, and we still live in a society where we will let a convicted felon who is stalking someone still own a gun.'

Dingell has been an outspoken proponent of gun control, introducing legislation last year that would make it illegal for those who have stalked of abused dating partners to legally purchase a firearm.

Under current law, only convicted domestic abusers who have hurt a spouse or someone they have a child with are barred from buying a gun - as are only those convicted of felony stalking.

'This is a pretty modest deal on something that's already publicly accepted as what we can do to safeguard our daughters, our sisters,' Illinois Republican Rep Robert Dold, who endorsed the bill, told Bloomberg when the legislation was first introduced.

The National Rifle Association disagreed, saying the bill took away a 'fundamental civil right' for a mere 'misdemeanor conviction'.

House Democrats, led by Rep. John Lewis (right), gathered in the well of the House chamber on Wednesday to protest the fact that no gun control measures were being voted on after the Orlando massacre

Top Democrats including Steny Hoyer (bottom left), the House Minority whip, joined Lewis and other outspoken progressives during the sit-in, which lasted 25 hours

It added that the bill 'cynically manipulates emotionally compelling issues such as "domestic violence" and "stalking" simply to cast as wide a net as possible for federal firearms prohibition'.

Dingell disagreed, citing that 76 percent of woman killed with a gun had been stalked in the previous year.

The congresswoman's traumatic childhood also eventually brought it's own personal loss when her younger sister committed suicide.

'I don't think she ever recovered,' Dingell said in a past interview. 'She was always afraid for her life, and had anxiety the rest of her life.'

Dingell pleaded with Congress to finally begin a discussion on how to keep guns out of the hands of not only domestic abusers, but people named on the FBI's Do Not Fly List.

'I do not want a terrorist to have access to a gun,' she said during her speech. 'How can we protect somebody's civil liberties if you won't come to the table and have the discussion.'

The crowd road in applause as she continued.

'The point of this discussion is that weve got to stop going to our corner, weve got to stop spouting talking points and weve got come and figure out how were going to make this nation safer.'

'How were not going to accept that violence that we see every day, how were not going to let people have access to guns that shouldnt have access to guns.'

'And were not gonna do it until we start to change the dialogue, until we come to the table and we have the discussion. So were here on this floor tonight to say enough is enough.'
Police have launched a murder inquiry following the death of a woman in a seaside Devon town.

Officers were called by a member of the public at around 12.40pm today following a disturbance outside a property in Paignton.

Police and ambulance attended the scene and found a woman in her 30s outside the property. She had sustained a number of knife wounds.

Police have arrested a 22-year-old man from Torquay after a woman in her 30s was stabbed to death today

Winner Street in Paignton was sealed off today after police launched a murder inquiry after the fatal stabbing

Officers were called by a member of the public at around 12.40pm following a disturbance outside the property

She was taken to Torbay District Hospital by ambulance where she later died.

Police have yet to formally identify the woman and are currently locating next of kin.

A 22-year-old man from Torquay has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody awaiting questioning.

Police are not currently looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.
A four-year-old girl has died after being shot in the eye at her home in North Philadelphia.

Emergency crews rushed to the Montgomery Townhomes shortly after midday to take the girl to Hahnemann Hospital.

Fox 29 Philadelphia say the girl was in an upstairs bedroom when a bullet struck her in her right eye.

Tragic: Police in Philadelphia say a the youngster was shot in the right eye inside a home and died

No chance: She was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital and pronounced dead just after 1pm

Her injuries were so severe, she passed away just after 1pm.

The girl's 25-year-old mother and her three-year-old sister were all in the home at the time of the incident and when the youngster died.

Police recovered a gun from inside the home, however there is no explanation so far on what led to the shooting.
Donald Trump's presidential campaign unveiled an incendiary new web site that catalogues Hillary Clinton's 'tapestry of deciet.'

The site, 'LyingCrookedHillary.com,' weaves together two of Trump's favorite Clinton insults, and seeks to boost online fundraising while lobbing criticism at his opponent.

While Trump has done plenty of that over the past months  including during a relentless attack speech Wednesday  the site uses other visual and digital methods.

A screaming logo meant to resemble a flashing neon sign reads, 'Stop Lying Crooked Hillary.'

'Shes at it again Spinning lies and weaving a tapestry of deceit that she hopes will cover the truth. Her despicable scandals and defenses place our country  and Americans like you  in jeopardy,' according to the site.

The Trump campaign launched it's new attack site 'LyingCrookedHillary' Thursday

Visitors are encouraged to hit 'join' or 'donate' buttons, the later of which invites those who 'don't believe her lies' to give $10, $25, or $2,700.

'Benghazi, classified emails, and her claim of being "dead broke." We can't let this liar back into the White House,' according to the solicitation. Clinton's face is completely illuminated in red on teh donation page.

The 2012 attacks on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya are the focus of the first of 10 'legendary lies,' but contributors can get updates on subsequent fibs by leaving their contact information.

Text accompanying the video declares, 'Hillary has no shame! The Benghazi attacks were a preventable tragedy disgraced further by Hillarys web of lies.'

The site's first hit on the Democrat focuses entirely on the 2012 attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya

Supporters are invited to donate or sign up to receive future information about Clinton's 'lies'

What difference does it make? The site is part of a Trump campaign effort to bloody up Clinton, who leads him by nearly 6 percent in a polling average

The Benghazi attacks left four Americans dead

'She knew within hours that the attacks in Benghazi were a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest due to a You Tube Video. But she lied anyways,' according to the text on the site. 'She stood in front of the flag-draped coffins of four Americans that died serving their country and peddled the lie that the video was to blame both to the victims families and the American public.'

The video quotes from a hearing before a special House Benghazi committee. It shows video of Clinton on Sept. 14, 2012 attributing the attack to an anti-American internet video. It then quotes from an internal State Department document containing referencing a Clinton conversation with the foreign minister of Egypt calling the attack a 'planned attack  not a protest.'

Patti Smith, the mother of slain diplomat Sean Smith, is quoted in the video as saying Clinton 'lied to me.' Family members have said Clinton told them shortly after the attack that it was done over the video.

There isn't much more to the site besides the brief text and video, although it appears more will get added later.

Clinton, in her own testimony before he committee, said fragmentary information was to blame for her sometimes conflicting statements. 'When I was speaking to the Egyptian prime minister or in the other two examples you showed, we had been told by [Al Qaeda offshoot] Ansar al-Sharia that they took credit for it. It wasnt until about 24 or more hours later, that they retracted taking credit for it,' she said.

Clinton said she referred to the video because, 'I needed to be talking about the video, because I needed to put other governments and other people on notice that we were not going to let them get away with attacking us.'

Government analysis subsequently showed there were no protests in Benghazi the day of the killings and that it was a premeditated attack.

The attack site ends with Trump's famous slogan

Clinton has dismissed 'conspiracy theories that are floating out there in some circles' about the Benghazi attacks, a reference to GOP critics who believe the administration covered up the real nature of the assault because of the looming 2012 elections.

The Trump campaign asked supporters to sign up to receive text messages about the new site. One sent to a DailyMail.com reporter Thursday said, 'Lie after lie, Crooked Hillary refuses to be honest with the American people,' and touts the 'exclusive video.' The texts are signed 'Donald.'
This is the tragic young mother-of-two whose fatal heroin overdose sparked the bungled rescue mission that ended in the arrest of three heavily armed Pennsylvania 'drug vigilantes'.

Sierra Schmitt, 20 - mom to four-year-old twin boys - was found dead in bed on Monday morning after she visited New York City to do drugs and party.

Close friend Jenea Patterson, 17, woke up next to Schmitt's body and made a panicked call to her former youth counselor, Kimberly Arendt - one of three self-styled heroin crusaders who set off to try to save her in a monster truck laden with guns.

Arendt, 29, was arrested near the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel on Tuesday along with John Cramsey, 50, and Dean Smith, 53, after cops pulled them over for a cracked windscreen and found a huge cache of firearms and ammo.

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Sierra Schmitt (left and right), 20 - mom to four-year-old twin boys - was found dead in bed next to close friend Jenea Patterson, 17, on Monday morning. Schmitt and Patterson had visited New York City to do drugs and party

Kimberly Arendt (left), John Cramsey (center) and Dean Smith (right), appearing in Hudson County Court, New Jersey, via video link following their arrest outside New York's Holland Tunnel on Tuesday, were taken into custody as they drove to New York to rescue Patterson after she called Arendt in panic

The trio - part of a group called 'Enough is Enough' that claims to save heroin-addled kids from pushers - were held on Wednesday on $75,000 cash bail after they were charged with weapons offences and possessing marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Patterson (above)) called Arendt, who is a self-declared drug vigilante with Smith and Cramsey

But in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online, Schmitt's mother Mandy Powell, 38, sprung to their defense, saying: 'These guys shouldn't be in jail - they are heroes not criminals.

'To do that for somebody else's child, I give them all the credit in the world. I just wish they could have got to my daughter in time.'

Powell had particular praise for ringleader Cramsey - a shooting range boss who lost his 20-year-old daughter Alexandria in February from an overdose of Fentanyl and heroin.

'He's right - enough is enough,' said Powell, a married rest area worker who raised Schmitt in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 'We've both lost a daughter and someone has to get on top of this.

'I'd never heard of any of them until their names came up on the news but they have my full support. I'd like to meet them and thank them for trying to make a difference.'

Schmitt and Patterson are believed to have headed to Brooklyn's BedfordStuyvesant neighborhood to meet two men for a weekend of drinking and hard partying.

It is believed that Schmitt was injected with a 'hotshot' - a strong dose of heroin that rendered her unconscious.

'As far as I know they were with two gentlemen,' said Powell, who said she was still trying to piece together the fateful events after speaking to police, the coroner, and exchanging messages with Patterson.

'Jenea told me the two guys made them shoot up,' she added. 'Sierra passed out and one of the guys apparently said: "We're not gonna have much fun with her".

Schmitt's mother Mandy Powell, 38, sprung to the trio's defense, saying they should not be in jail and said she wished they got to her daughter sooner

Powell fought back tears as she looked back over treasured family photos of Schmitt as a bubbly little girl

One photo that Powell shared showed Schmitt as a young girl, smiling as she enjoyed a day outside on a swingset

Another photo of Schmitt showed her smiling with the Easter Bunny in a Spring-themed snap taken when she was a young girl

'When she didn't wake up they told Jenea to turn her over because they didn't want to touch her themselves. They told her not to call the police until they had cleared out the room.'

After finding her friend dead Patterson is believed to have phoned Arendt in a state of panic.

Arendt and Smith hopped inside Cramsey's gaudy neon green and black Dodge SUV, complete with giant decals reading: 'We the People' and 'Shoot your local heroin dealer'.

In a Facebook message posted just before the trio were busted, Cramsey wrote: 'I'm currently 11 miles outside of Brooklyn New York and going to a hotel to extract a 16-year-old girl who went up there to Party with a few friends.

'One of those friends she went up there with will not be returning. This young lady from Wilkes Barre is scared and wants to come home.

'Last night she woke to find her friend's body next to her in the same bed where her friend died of another heroin overdose.'

NYPD sources told the New York Post that when officers eventually tracked down Patterson she told them she was fine and didn't need rescuing.

Powell says she is still trying to piece together the fateful events after speaking to police, the coroner, and exchanging messages with Patterson

Patterson's mom Cyndi Angeles, 56, declined to speak about her daughter's ordeal when she set off Wednesday to collect her from New York

Angeles was accompanied by her former partner, 58-year-old James Patterson, as she traveled to New York

Her mom Cyndi Angeles, 56, declined to speak about her daughter's ordeal when she set off Wednesday to collect her from New York, together with ex-partner James Patterson, 58.

She insisted to friends that her daughter had not taken heroin herself but said she would be made to attend counselling to steer her away from further trouble.

Patterson and Schmitt had been friends for about a year before the fateful trip to New York and Powell fears the surviving girl may be too afraid to tell the truth.

'Jenea told the police she didn't know their names but I find that hard to believe,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'There are so many different versions of the story going around but we're only interested in the truth.'

Powell fought back tears as she looked back over treasured family photos of Schmitt as a bubbly little girl, enjoying a play on a swing in one picture and meeting the Easter Bunny in another.

But Schmitt's multiple Facebook accounts paint a very different portrait - that of a troubled teenager falling in thrall to drug and gangster culture, making gun signs with her hands and smoking what appears to be marijuana.

Cramsey, 50, (left) who runs Higher Ground Tactical in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, was with Smith, 52, (right) and 29-year-old Arendt (center) when they were pulled over on their way into New York with a huge cache of weapons on Tuesday

(From left to right in their mugshots) Cramsey, Ardent and Smith are now facing a slew of gun charges

Police found this huge cache of weapons in their vehicle. The collection included rifles, ballistic vests and a camouflage helmet

Powell said her daughter went off the rails and turned to drugs and alcohol after losing custody of her twins.

'She loved them as much as any mom could. But she was too young, too immature, and she couldn't cope,' she said.

'After she lost them she started getting wild and going out. She was partying, drinking alcohol - she gave me a run for my money, that's for sure.

'She was hanging out with the wrong people and ended up going to New York more and more because of the fast-paced life.

'She started changing, she got angrier, more demanding - but she would still call me faithfully every day. She was still my loving daughter.

'Sierra never kept anything from me and about half a year ago she told me she used heroin. She had been clean for a month - and then this happened.

'She was outgoing, she loved everyone, but she was too trusting. I just need to know what happened in that room.'

The vigilantes were detained on the four-month anniversary of the day Cramsey's daughter, Alexandria 'Lexii' Cramsey (pictured), died of a heroin overdose

The gun enthusiasts were driving this vehicle, covered with logos related to Higher Ground Tactical - a gun range based in Pennsylvania that's owned by Cramsey
During the House Democrats' 25-hour sit-in, Rep. Jackie Speier came armed with a souvenir of her own shooting.

'I brought a bullet, labeled evidence." It was taken from my body. I know what it feels like to be shot,' the California congressman tweeted, along with a screenshot of her on C-SPAN, holding up the display on the House floor.

Speier was shot 37 years ago alongside her boss, Rep. Leo J. Ryan, the only House member ever to be assassinated, as their group was ambushed by followers of Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones, in Jonestown, Guyana.

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Rep. Jackie Speier brought a souvenir to the sit-in this morning - a bullet - which had been lodged in her body after she was shot five times outside of Jonestown, Guyana at the behest of a cult leader

Jackie Speier was elected to congress in 2008, but had worked on Capitol Hill as a young aide and traveled to Guyana with her boss Rep. Leo Ryan - the only House member to be assassinated

Jones and his followers had decamped from California to South America, with some ex-members detailing to Ryan rumored abuses.

The Congressman, along with Speier, who was his legislative counsel at the time, decided to travel to meet the cult leader and check out the situation on the ground.

'Back in 1978, there were not many women in high-ranking positions in Congress,' Speier told Roll Call for an article about the Jonestown incident last year.

'I felt if I didn't go, it would be a step back for women holding these high positions. I thought, "I can't not go,"' Speier said.

Speier said from conversations she had with defectors that she thought it might be dangerous.

In the middle of purchasing her first home, a condo in Arlington, Va., she added language so that the contract with be voided by her death, ensuring that her parents wouldn't be saddled with an expensive mortgage on the other side of the country from California.

When the delegation arrived in Georgetown, Guyana, they were made to wait two days to visit, having to seek permission from Jones.

Once on-site it became apparent that many of his followers wished to come home to the United States.

Jones, whose mental health was failing and who was forcing his followers to perform mock suicide drills, became distressed at the defection.

Jackie Speier, then a legislative counsel for Congressman Leo Ryan was shot five times and had to wait 22 hours for help after People's Temple founder Jim Jones ordered an ambush of her traveling party

The U.S. military was tasked with recovery bodies from the mass suicide-murder at the Jonestown, Guyana compound in 1978

After Jonestown, Jackie Speier was the star witness at an 'informal' hearing on cult worship, which took place on Capitol Hill. At the time she was still recovering from her gunshot wounds

One of his lieutenants, according to the History Channel's account, attacked the congressman with a knife.

Ryan left that situation unscathed, only to then be murdered on the tarmac as his group, including Speier, tried to board their charter planes.

'People ran into the Bush,' she recalled to Roll Call. 'I followed Ryan under the plane and hid under one of the wheels.'

The aide-turned-congresswoman, who was elected in 2008, was shot at point-blank range five times.

Of their group, five, including the congressman were died, others were left for dead and weren't rescued for another 22 hours.

Back at the compound, Jones led hundreds of his followers to their deaths in a mass murder-suicide with a death toll of 909. One third of those who died were children.

When Speier got back stateside, she had to have 10 surgeries and recovered under 24-hour protection because there were ongoing threats to her life.
Cruise captains used to joke 'watch your children, or the crocodiles will'

Move follows death of Lane Graves, two, who was killed in attack last week

Disney World has removed all jokes and references to crocodiles and alligators from its Orlando resort

Disney World have cut all alligator and crocodile jokes and characters from its Orlando resort in the wake of the fatal attack on a two-year-old boy.

It is less than two weeks since two-year-old Lane Graves died after being dragged into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World by one of the predators.

Today, Disney reopened its beaches, which now have fences and signs warning visitors of alligators in the area. But the signs are not the only change to the resort after the tragedy.

Walt Disney World has also removed all alligator and crocodile jokes from the park's scripts, as well as familiar characters such as Peter Pan's Tick Tock Croc, InsideTheMagic reports.

Disney World have cut all alligator jokes and characters from their Orlando resort in the wake of the fatal attack on a two-year-old boy

Visitors on the Jungle Cruise ride may notice that the boat captain no longer makes a crocodiles on the shore of the attraction.

One joke in particular, which has been in the ride's scripts since the early 1960s, warned parents to 'watch your children, or the crocodiles will'.

The line has been removed by Disney over concerns it was not appropriate after the fatal attack. It is unclear if it will return to the script in the future.

Guides on the Kilimanjaro Safari ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom have also removed the references to the predators from their tour through the park's wildlife.

It was less than two weeks ago that little Lane Graves died after being dragged into the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World by the predator

Today, the Magic Kingdom reopened all its beaches which now have fences and signs warning visitors of alligators in the area

Visitors say staff no longer try to scare tourists by claiming that the rickety bridge on the tour may dump them into the crocodile pit below.

Even the Tick Tock Croc float, which typically appears in the Magic Kingdom's Festival of Fantasy parade, has been temporarily removed over decency concerns.

However, the alligators inside Epcot's Living with the Land attraction, both fake and real, remain.

Over the weekend, Disney unveiled a new signs warning against alligators and snakes where Lane was dragged to his death.

On Monday, friends and family gathered at a vigil for Graves, from Nebraska, with a funeral held the following day at St. Patrick's.

The ceremony in Omaha, Nebraska, comes a week after Lane was attacked by the alligator as he paddled with his parents at the lagoon near Disney World's Grand Floridian hotel.

His father Matt tried to fight the reptile off but was left bloodied as the alligator dragged his son underwater after the attack which took place beyond 'no swimming' signs. Disney has since installed a fence and changed its signs to explicitly warn guests of alligators.

Walt Disney World has also removed all alligator and crocodile jokes from the park's scripts, such as on the Jungle Cruise ride (pictured)

Guides on the Kilimanjaro Safari ride (pictured) at Disney's Animal Kingdom have also removed the references to the predators from their tour through the park's wildlife

An autopsy showed the boy died from drowning and traumatic injuries.

The beach at the resort is across a lake from the Magic Kingdom.

It had 'no swimming' signs but no warning about alligators.

Yesterday the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said they were 'confident' they had caught the alligator that killed the young boy.

The boy's parents, who were on vacation from Nebraska when their son was dragged from the water's edge by the alligator, said they have been 'overwhelmed with the support and love' that have poured in since the tragedy captured national attention.

'Melissa and I continue to deal with the loss of our beloved boy, Lane, and are overwhelmed with the support and love we have received from family and friends in our community as well as from around the country,' father Matt Graves said in the statement issued by their church in Elkhorn, Nebraska, on Saturday.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement following the discovery of the boy's body: 'As a parent and a grandparent, my heart goes out to the Graves family during this time of devastating loss.'

On Monday, friends and family gathered at a vigil for two-year-old, from Nebraska boy, with a funeral held the following day at St. Patrick's (pictured)

Hundreds turned out for the vigil and following funeral after the boy's story touched hearts across America

Jacquee Wahler, vice president of Walt Disney World Resort, told Daily Mail Online in a statement: 'We are installing signage and temporary barriers at our resort beach locations and are working on permanent, long-term solutions at our beaches.

'We continue to evaluate processes and procedures for our entire property, and, as part of this, we are reinforcing training with our cast for reporting sightings and interactions with wildlife and are expanding our communication to guests on this topic.'

Matt Morgan, an Orlando lawyer, predicted a multi-million-dollar settlement for wrongful death.
A 16-year-old Tennessee boy has been arrested and charged with murder after allegedly shooting dead a man outside an IHOP restaurant and posting a picture of the victim to his Snapchat account.

Sebastian Vaughn, 16, was arrested yesterday and charged in the shooting death of Marlo Williams, 35, who was found dead Monday inside a car outside the IHOP on Sycamore View in Memphis.

According to reports, the teenager put up a photo of the man's body on Snapchat after the killing, along with the caption: 'I just killed a motherf----- 10 minutes ago.'

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Murder: Memphis police say Marlo Williams, 35 (pictured), was found shot dead inside a car in the parking lot of an IHOP restaurant on Monday. Police arrested a teenager in relation to the murder

Scene: Police closed off the restaurant on Monday after the body was found in a car in the parking lot

Police will not confirm whether the Snapchat photo was sent by Vaughn.

However, the father of one of the teenagers who received the photo said he and his son showed detectives the disturbing shot.

'This is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. How stupid, cold blooded, and couldn't be more damning for the killer,' the father told WMC Action News 5.

The TV station also obtained a copy of the photo, but blurred the image from view.

Vaughn has since been charged with second-degree murder and is being held in juvenile detention.

The Snapchat is said to show Williams slumped over the wheel of a Lexus with a gunshot wound to the chest, The Smoking Gun reported.

Victim: The 35-year-old Marlo Williams was found with a gunshot wound to the chest inside a Lexus

According to reports, the teenager put up a photo of the man's body on Snapchat after the killing, along with the caption: 'I just killed a motherf----- 10 minutes ago'

Police found Williams' body inside the car around 4.40 p.m. Monday in the IHOP parking lot.

Vaughn was then arrested on Wednesday.

A Memphis Police Department spokesperson said that since Vaughn is a minor 'we do not have a booking photo for release'

They also told The Smoking Gun that police will not 'release any personal information regarding victims or suspects'.
Judge decided to return her to her parents and she died 11 months later

Claimed she was so scared by Ben Butler and Jennie Gray she wet the bed

Said Ellie wanted to stay with grandparents 'for one hundred million years'

She pleaded for the courts not to return the schoolgirl to her abusive family

Emails to social workers from the aunt of murdered Ellie Butler illustrated how desperate the six-year-old was to be kept away from her mother and father and remain in the safety of her grandparents' home

Emails to social workers from the aunt of murdered Ellie Butler illustrated how desperate the six-year-old was to be kept away from her mother and father and remain in the safety of her grandparents' home.

Julie Gray, sister of Ellie's mother Jennie Gray, begged the courts to keep her niece out of her family home.

She claimed the tragic schoolgirl wanted to stay living with her grandparents 'for one hundred million years'.

The letters, seen by The Guardian, also laid bare the dreadful affect the horror of living with her cruel parents was causing Ellie, who was so terrified of moving back home after the first time her killer father Ben Butler attacked her that she wet herself.

They read: 'She [Ellie] has started asking why does she have to go to live with mummy because she does not want to.

'She wants to stay with Nana and Granddad forever and ever. She is very clear that she does not want to go to live with Ben and Jennie but she would like to visit and return to her home after.

'She has recently got into the habit of not wanting to go to sleep in case she is taken away, having nightmares about waking up somewhere else, getting in bed with mum and dad and myself when I stay over so she cannot be taken away and has also wet herself on several occasions  which I am informed is a sign of stress in a child who does not usually have this problem.'

The letters echoed the then views of Ellie's grandparents at the time, who said she told them she wanted to stay with them for 'millions and millions and millions of years' before a judge ruled that she should be handed back to her murderous father.

Butler, 36, is now starting a life sentence for murdering his daughter at their family home in Sutton, south London, just 11 months after she was eventually returned to their care.

He was also sentenced to five years to run concurrently for breaking Ellie's shoulder and failing to get her medical attention weeks before her death.

Ellie's maternal grandfather Neal Gray earlier this week said the young girl was 'petrified' of being returned to Butler and her mother Jennie Gray and said he 'fought tooth and nail' to keep her in their care.

Murderous Ben Butler sent tragic Ellie's maternal grandparents Neal (pictured left and right on ITV) and Linda a hate-filled warning letter, telling them: 'You f*** with me you f****** c***'

Mr Gray, who tried with his wife to adopt Ellie, is now demanding that a public inquiry into how and why Ellie was returned to the 'toxic' family home, where she was killed 11 months later

As they were embroiled in the bitter custody battle over the little girl, 'pure evil' Butler sent a poisonous letter to Ellie's grandparents warning them: 'You f*** with me you f****** c***'.

At the time, Mr and Mrs Gray - whose daughter Jennie is behind bars for helping cover up the murder - had care of Ellie and were determined to stop her being returned to Butler.

According to the Guardian, the letter also said: 'I will get you and find you and find out where you and your family all live.'

The note, written in June 2008, was just the tip of the iceberg in what emerged as Butler's aggressive, abusive and ultimately murderous character - a trait which Mr Gray detected almost immediately.

Mr and Mrs Gray - who died of cancer on the first day of Butler and Gray's trial - had a huge mistrust of Butler early on in his relationship with their daughter.

In February 2007, when Ellie was just seven weeks old, she was rushed to hospital with brain injuries, indicating she might have been shaken.

Five months later, an interim order was made for Ellie to stay with her grandparents - an order which enraged Butler and led to him sending the vile letter. The following year, Butler was convicted of causing the injuries.

But the real battle began in October 2009, when Butler was released from prison on bail and launched an appeal against his conviction. The following year, he successfully had the conviction quashed.

Butler and Gray then launched a public fight to have Ellie returned to their care.

Mr and Mrs Gray - who died of cancer on the first day of Butler and Gray's trial - had a huge mistrust of Butler early on in his relationship with their daughter. He is pictured with Ellie

Ellie had barely known her parents, having been taken away from her when she was still a newborn.

Her parents also seemed ambivalent at getting their daughter back. In a two-and-a-half year period when Ellie was living with her grandparents, Mr Gray said Butler visited Ellie just twice - while her mother only visited four times.

So Mr and Mrs Gray, determined to keep the little girl, used their 70,000 life savings trying to do so.

They even put in an application to adopt the little girl - a move that was blocked by a social worker, despite the backing of Sutton Council children's services.

The violent father penned the threatening letter to Neal and Linda Gray as they were embroiled in a bitter custody battle over the little girl (pictured)

But their money ran out and they were left unrepresented when, in November 2012 - more than five years after Ellie was first put into their care - was given back to Butler and Gray.

He said today: 'We tried to fight it tooth and nail but every time we protested, we were told we were trouble makers, or elderly, or not worthy of looking after children. We found it very devastating.

'It was the best years of our lives, looking after her and we thought, as special guardians, we would have her until she was 18. We treated her like our own daughter.'

The next 11 months were heartbreaking for Mr and Mrs Gray, as their watched their bright, bubbly granddaughter shrink into a scared and vulnerable little girl.

On several occasions when they saw Ellie, she was in facepaint - a method Mr Gray believes was used to cover up the bruising and scratches around her eyes and cheeks.

The most haunting occasion is when Mr Gray saw Ellie the day before she died, when he and his wife were given half-an-hour in McDonald's to see their granddaughter.

He told Radio 4's Today programme: 'She wasn't the Ellie we knew. She had bruises on her forehead, on her face, and scratches. Her she had odd shoes, odd socks and her hair was all bedraggled. Her clothes looked as though she'd been dragged backwards through a hedgerow.

Asked if Ellie resisted returning with her parents at the end of the meeting, Mr Gray said: 'No. But you could see her eyes were sunk in and there was sadness in her eyes.

'Every time we spoke to her, her mother was looking at her in a firm look and she was obviously scared.'

Mr Gray also said he had disowned his daughter over what she did to Ellie. Appearing on This Morning, he referred to Gray as 'Butler's partner'.

He said: 'She's not my daughter anymore because how can you accept any offspring as your own after they have committed such a terrible crime?

'I hate her. I hate her for everything she done. She has destroyed many lives. My wife died on the first day the court case started. I think if all the stress hadn't been brought on then my wife would still be here.'

Mr Gray is now demanding that a public inquiry into how and why Ellie was returned to the 'toxic' family home, where she was killed 11 months later.

Butler and Gray then launched a public fight to have Ellie returned to their care. Mr and Mrs Gray were determined to keep the little girl (pictured) and used their 70,000 life savings trying to do so

As Mrs Justice Hogg sanctioned the family reunion at the High Court, Mr Gray warned that she would have 'blood on her arms' - a prophetic accusation which he asked to be noted in the court records.

He added: 'I told them: 'I hope you all have a conscience, because one day you may have blood on your hands.'

'Now I want everybody to answer, because everyone failed Ellie completely and utterly.'

He called for the family court and social services to be 'brought into the 21st century' and 'work together'.

Yesterday, as Butler and Gray were jailed, Mr Gray had described their utter devastation at Ellie's death, saying: 'She was our shining light.'

In a heartbreaking joint statement written ahead of the trial, the couple described how they struggled to come to terms with the 'shock and horror' of her death.

Mr Gray is now demanding that a public inquiry into how and why Ellie was returned to the 'toxic' family home, where she was killed 11 months later. His daughter Jennie Gray (left) and Butler (right) are pictured above

The couple did not directly refer to Gray or Butler. However, they said: 'We did not realise that some people could be so wicked in life.'

They said: 'Our lives have changed so dramatically due to the impact and shock and horror of this event that we struggle every day to deal with the reality of the death of our dear granddaughter Ellie. She was our shining light.

'Ellie was a very beautiful, bubbly and intelligent little girl who always had a smile on her face and even at such a young age she was nobody's fool. She was our life and she gave so much pleasure to us and our family too, how we all miss her.'

The couple went on: 'Local people, some of whom we did not even know, came to express their sadness upon hearing of her death and we received over a hundred messages of sympathy.

'This gave us great comfort in our time of mourning. Ellie had many friends in school and the community all of whom were totally grief-stricken.

Mr Gray added: 'Ellie enjoyed doing many after school activities and her death means that we will miss out on her growing up, completing her education, maybe going to university, getting married and having her own children.

'All of this joy has been taken away from us; her grandparents.
Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis has described the horrifying moment she was attacked by a suspected burglar.

The 58-year-old, who starred alongside Tom Cruise as flight instructor Charlie Blackwood in the 1986 blockbuster, was confronted by a woman when she returned to her Henderson County, North Carolina, home.

She had driven home to the $300,000 property from a lecture on June 17 at around 9pm when she found Laurence Marie Dorn, 38, allegedly ransacking her house.

McGillis said Dorn claimed the Hollywood star had been stalking her on Twitter before the attack.

Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis (left) has described the moment she was attacked by a suspected burglar. The 58-year-old, who starred alongside Tom Cruise as flight instructor Charlie Blackwood in the 1986 blockbuster (right), was confronted by a woman when she returned to her Henderson County, North Carolina, home

She has now been charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency communication, ABC 11 reported.

McGillis then wrote a lengthy Facebook post about her ordeal.

She wrote in part: 'We have quite a few guns and lots of ammo and that's when I started to panic.

'Thinking that if they have one of them I could be shot. I ran out the front door and called 911. She ran out after me and began punching and scratching my trying to grab the phone out of my hand.

'I began screaming as loud as I could hoping someone somewhere might hear me. I still had my car keys in my hand so I set off the car alarm. That distracted her enough to throw the cell and try to deal with the keys.

'More fighting ensued. I got the cell phone back and dialed 911 again. More fighting. And she once again had the cell phone. I finally broke away, got in the truck and drove off trying to find a neighbor to call 911.

The Hollywood star (pictured in Top Gun left) had returned to the $300,000 property from a lecture on June 17 at around 9pm when she found Laurence Marie Dorn, 38, (right) allegedly ransacking her house

McGillis (pictured now) said Dorn claimed she had been stalking her on Facebook and then started to punch and kick her

'There was no one around since it was Friday night, so I chased someone in a car, kept flashing my lights and honking the horn. They finally pulled over and she made the 911 call for me.'

In a later Facebook post, she thanked friends and supporters for their well-wishes, but admitted she was still shaken up.

'I do have an alarm. I was complacent and didn't set it after living here four years and having nothing happen. My bad,' she wrote.

She also claimed that Dorn threw dog food over the kitchen floor to distract her dogs.

Dorn is from Illinois and was being on a $60,000 bond.

McGillis also starred in Witness with Harrison Ford, for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and in The Accused with Jodie Foster in 1988.
A former Playboy Playmate and 'Asia's sexiest DJ' is to be extradited to Paris to face parental kidnapping charges after a seven month stint in a Brooklyn jail.

Angie Vu, 33, has been locked up after allegedly trying to flee the U.S. with her nine-year-old daughter, who was supposed to be in the custody of her father.

Federal Judge Frederic Block said there was 'ample evidence' that Vu had knowingly violated a French family court decree that required her nine-year-old daughter to be in the care of her biological father, who has custody of the child.

A former Playboy Playmate and 'Asia's sexiest DJ' is to be extradited to Paris to face parental kidnapping charges after a seven month stint in a Brooklyn jail.

Angie Vu, 33, has been locked up after allegedly trying to flee the U.S. with her nine-year-old daughter, who was supposed to be in the custody of her father

Mother and child: Vu, 33, allegedly tried to flee the U.S. with her nine-year-old daughter Isabella, who was supposed to be in the custody of her father

The day before her hearing, Vu had appeared before the judge for oral argument, an opportunity she told the New York Daily News was 'overwhelming'.

But the judge cut her off just minutes in and advised her that her argument for custody of her daughter should be heard by French authorities.

Vietnamese Vu was jailed in November after allegedly trying to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport to China with her daughter Isabella.

Isabella's father, Richard Froger, is based in France and has custody of the girl but agreed to allow her to stay with Vu until August 29, but Vu is accused of breaking that agreement by boarding the plane.

During her time spent in jail, Vu claimed that she had been 'tortured', calling the lack of a full-length mirror 'cruel' and branding prison life 'horrible'.

'This place is so horrible, there's no sunlight ever. I have been under the harsh light 24/7 and turned pale,' Vu told the New York Daily News.

'I need a good supply of Guerlain's moisturizer in here. I miss my Versace dresses and Louboutin heels. My nails are nicely trimmed but I'm dying to have some colors on them. The torture is real.

'There's no real mirror in prison. We all buy this tiny piece of plastic, but the images are distorted. I wish there should be at least one full-length mirror in here. I haven't looked at myself for months. It's cruel.'

Locked up: Vietnamese Vu was jailed in November after allegedly trying to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport to China with Isabella

'Asia's sexiest DJ': Vu called the lack of a full-length mirror in jail 'cruel' and branded prison life 'horrible.

Vu, who has previously said she has had to repeatedly turn down the advances of lesbian inmates, said being jailed had taken a huge toll on her life.

'[I've gone] From extremely proud and confident getting naked for Playboy to shaking, sobbing in humiliation to do hundreds of strip search for contraband,' she said.

'Last year became the dark year of my life. I had abandoned my jobs, my fans and pushed away all other fabulous hungry men and all the young sexy model boys that were chasing me.

'I'm not supposed to be worried about anything. It gives me wrinkles.'

Vu said her legions of fans have sent in a huge haul of gifts, from teddy bears to flowers and even lingerie, but it has all been returned because it is contraband.

Despite her less than luxurious existence, she vowed to continue her legal fight.

'Do I feel ashamed for being here? The answer is no,' Vu said.

'I'm here for a great cause, for protecting my child. This injustice won't crash my spirit. I'm still rocking and rolling.'

Vu maintains that the Family Court in Paris made a mistake when it awarded custody of their nine-year-old daughter to her biological father.

A judge ruled she should be extradited to France to face the parental kidnapping charges, but she appealed the decision, delaying proceedings until her appeal can be heard.

No regrets: Vu hates prison life but said it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for her daughter

High-powered friends: Vu, pictured with former president Bill Clinton, said the stress of being in prison was giving her wrinkles

Vu, who has previously said she has had to repeatedly turn down the advances of lesbian inmates, said being jailed had taken a huge toll on her life

Vu, who is also a DJ and has appeared on America's Got Talent, is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn

The lawsuit she filed portrays Mr Froger as a reluctant father who played no part in his daughter's life until she was seven years old and refused to even acknowledge her until she was five.

The suit, seen by the Daily News, features emails written by Froger after the couple's fling in which he outright says: 'I never wanted to have a baby with you.'

'I still remember when I asked you if you used contraception pills!!!' Froger is alleged to have written in 2006. 'So you lied me and I don't feel guilty about nothing.'

Vu replied: 'I was sad when i read your email before but now I think its ridiculous that you think I have to use a baby to trick you.

'First, I'm not the kind of women who r ugly, stupid or uneducated that I cannot get a man.

'I thought you were a handsome kind gentleman that I had feelings for even though I didn't expect anything from you as I wrote.'

Vu, who is also a DJ and has appeared on America's Got Talent, was being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in an open dormitory with about 100 other female inmates.

She is being held without bail as she is considered a flight risk.

In February she told the Daily News that prison was not as bad as she expected, although the food was disappointing and she kept having to turn down advances from lesbian inmates.

'A lot of lesbians around here and a few blondies are hitting on me,' Vu told the paper. 'But I prefer to read my Bible for now.'
A Texas woman on trial for murder blamed her bizarre crime spree on a visit to Chick-fil-A.

Kristie Renee Nesby, 43, told a judge that someone spiked her drink at the fast food restaurant before she allegedly robbed a dry cleaner, fatally struck a woman with a car, and hijacked two other vehicles at gunpoint.

Her bond was denied, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Wednesday.

The rampage began on the morning of May 11 in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, Georgia. Officials said Nesby robbed a dry cleaning business and then drove into 71-year-old Luci James Yarborough Turner, who later died from her injuries.

Kristie Renee Nesby, 43, told a judge that someone spiked her drink at the fast food restaurant before she allegedly robbed a dry cleaner, fatally struck a woman with a car, and hijacked two other vehicles at gunpoint

After the deadly crash, Nesby allegedly stole another motorist's car, drove a short distance, and then committed another carjacking at gunpoint, police said.

Nesby then drove to Atlanta, where she crashed the stolen car and ran down the street with the gun, police said.

She was finally taken down by Atlanta police officers in front of a diner on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
A prominent New York doctor slipped his patient a powerful anesthesia to knock her out fast before masturbating on her in the emergency room, prosecutors have revealed.

David Newman, 45, of Montclair, New Jersey, has been charged with five counts of sexual abuse against four patients while working at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

The investigation into Newman began after a 29-year-old woman who was treated for shoulder pain in January told police the doctor gave her morphine and then masturbated on her.

In a civil lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court last month, prosecutors said semen found on her eye and face tested positive for Newman's DNA.

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Prominent New York doctor David Newman, 45, slipped his patient a powerful sedative to knock her out fast before he then masturbated on her in the emergency room, prosecutors have revealed

The investigation into Newman began after a 29-year-old woman who was treated for shoulder pain in January told police Newman gave her morphine and then masturbated on her

Newman claimed that the semen was ejaculation transfer, telling a detective he had masturbated in the emergency room lounge at the hospital.

'I am embarrassed because I w**ked off in the lounge, and it was possible that that the ejaculate may have gone from my hands to the woman's blanket,' he said, according to court records.

'Semen may have also transferred from my hand to my face during the time I treated her.'

The married father-of-two told police that he had administered an extra dose of morphine to the woman that wasn't recorded on her chart.

He claimed that she was thus too doped up to offer a reliable account of what happened.

'She may be mistaken about me ejaculating on her face because she was on morphine,' Newman told cops, court documents show.

But tests on the woman's urine found Propofol, a fast-acting general anesthesia, was found in her system instead.

It is the same prescription drug that killed Michael Jackson after he overdosed in June 2009.

'It was this drug, Propofol, that the defendant administered to the complainant,' prosecutor Eun-Ha Kim said during a hearing in the Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday, according to the New York Post.

Newman claimed he had given the woman an extra dose of morphine for her pain and said she could not give a reliable account of what really happened

'This drug is not a controlled substance and, because of that, the defendant had greater access to it in the ER.'

Newman has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Following his initial arrest, three other women, whose ages ranged from 18 to 21, came forward alleging they were similarly abused by Newman, authorities said.

The victims had come to the emergency room to treat a headache, a cold and a rash

Prosecutor Kim said Newman 'abused his privilege' as a physician and 'preyed upon young, vulnerable, minority women', according to the New York Daily News.

There was 'no legitimate medical reason to fondle these women's breasts,' Kim added.

Newman is the author of 'Hippocrates' Shadow: Secrets From the House of Medicine', a book that examines 'the fraying of patient-doctor relations' and advocates a 'new paradigm to rebuild the bridge between physicians and their patients'.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R Vance Jr, called the woman's abuse while under sedation by a doctor a patient's 'nightmare scenario'.

'I would like to thank these brave women for their strength in coming forward,' he added.

A hospital spokeswoman said Newman no longer works at Mount Sinai and records show his medical license was suspended in February amid a state medical board investigation.
Promising to kill bed bugs, remove stubborn marks and deep-clean mattresses, it has been nicknamed the Rolls-Royce of vacuum cleaners.

Perhaps that is appropriate, as the Kobold VK200 costs around as much as a second-hand car.

The machine has been developed by a German firm and buying one will hoover up 1,499 of your cash.

It is part of a household cleaning system that could set you back a total of 2,600.

However, the key to the VK200 is not a huge motor delivering hurricane force suction  the EU has banned high-powered vacuum cleaners to cut energy use and help the environment.

Its main selling point is five interchangeable attachments which snap on and off. These include an upholstery brush that rotates up to 4,000 times a minute and a head designed for hard floors which uses two suction channels to pick up large dirt particles and wipe away stubborn marks.

The mattress vacuum attachment vibrates dead skin, dirt particles and dust mite droppings to the mattress surface using hundreds of rubber strips, then sucks them up.

It comes with a second deep-cleaning mattress attachment. There is also a carpet freshener. The 1,499 upright vacuum cleaner, which plugs into the mains and collects the dirt in a dust bag, is part of a range that includes a small robot cleaner costing 749.

There is also a 129 hand-held cleaner and a 249 window cleaner that wets, wipes and sucks up excess water in a single stroke.

The number of specialist attachments that come with the VK200 should be no surprise as it has been developed by Vorwerk, the kitchen equipment company behind the prestige Thermomix brand. Its food processors are renowned for their precision attachments that can do everything from grind spices to mince meat, make mayonnaise and mix pizza dough. They have achieved cult status even though they can cost 925.

Vorwerk says it has adopted the same philosophy of creating specialist attachments to deliver what it claims to be the 'Rolls-Royce of vacuum cleaners'. Given that the British car brand is now owned by German firm BMW, that claim is not so odd as it might appear.

The mattress vacuum attachment vibrates dead skin, dirt particles and dust mite droppings to the mattress surface using hundreds of rubber strips, then sucks them up

The number of specialist attachments that come with the VK200 should be no surprise as it has been developed by Vorwerk, the kitchen equipment company behind the prestige Thermomix brand

The arrival of the VK200 is expected to trigger a new battlefront in the home appliance market. In recent years, British inventor Sir James Dyson, has conquered the world with his revolutionary vacuum cleaners and their digital motors.

He successfully challenged German manufacturers, such as Bosch, to become a world leader. Now Dyson faces a new German challenge, at least at the prestige end of the market. While the high price of the VK200 will inevitably limit sales, some retailers claim they are seeing a new shopping trend where people are willing to splash out on products that are built to last or have a unique design.

Dyson recently released a hair dryer, the Supersonic, costing 299.

Dr Thomas Rodemann, chief executive at Vorwerk Elektrowerke and the man behind the VK200, said: 'Good design is crucial. It has to represent our values of high performance, outstanding quality and practicality. The way people clean their homes is changing, and as technology becomes more advanced, people need appliances that save time whilst continuing to do a great job.
Clinton facing attack on truthfulness from Donald Trump who called her 'world-class liar'

Clinton has never come clean on how she decided which of the 30,000 server messages should be handed over; the rest she ordered erased

'Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible,' wrote Clinton

Message was sent when Clinton's secret server had security features disabled and Abedin had asked her to consider State.gov address

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton failed to turn over a copy of a key message involving problems caused by her use of a private homebrew email server, the State Department confirmed Thursday.

The disclosure makes it unclear what other work-related emails may have been deleted by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The email was included within messages exchanged November 13, 2010, between Clinton and one of her closest aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin.

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No official address here: Clinton's emails were sent from her BlackBerry via her private Clintonemail.com server, housed in the basement of the Clinton family home in Chappaqua, New York

Don't email her anything: Clinton sent the message refusing an official address at a time when the Clintonemail.com had security features disabled

At the time, emails sent from Clinton's BlackBerry device and routed through her private clintonemail.com server in the basement of her New York home were being blocked by the State Department's spam filter.

A suggested remedy was for Clinton to obtain a state.gov email account.

'Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible,' Clinton responded to Abedin.

Clinton never used a government account that was set up for her, instead continuing to rely on her private server until leaving office.

HOW TRUMP HIT HER ON 'LIES' Donald Trump has made Hillary Clinton's record on telling the truth the centerpiece of his campaign. In a speech in New York this week he tore into his Democratic rival as a 'world class liar' for 'taking money' from special interests 'Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar,' Trump said, in just one of the insults he threw at Clinton, who he portrayed as an on-the-take politician. Trump ran through the gamut of Clinton scandals and foibles, from her and her husband's paid speeches, the email scandal, the Benghazi attack, even Clinton's past statements about a visit to Bosnia when she was first lady. 'Just look at her pathetic email and server statements, or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total self-serving lie,' Trump said. 'Brian Williams career was destroyed for saying far less.' Advertisement

The email was not among the tens of thousands of emails Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence.

Abedin provided a copy from her own inbox after the State Department asked her to return any work-related emails.

That copy of the email was publicly cited last month in a blistering audit by the State Department's inspector general that concluded Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup violated federal standards and could have left sensitive material vulnerable to hackers.

'While this exchange was not part of the approximately 55,000 pages provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton, the exchange was included within the set of documents Ms. Abedin provided the department in response to our March 2015 request,' State Department spokesman John Kirby told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon did not immediately respond to questions Thursday about why Clinton failed to provide it to the State Department last year.

Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The email was among documents released under court order Wednesday to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over access to public records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's service as the nation's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013.

The case is one of about three dozen lawsuits over access to records related to Clinton, including one filed by the AP.

Right hand aide: It was only when Huma Abedin - to whom the message was sent - handed over her own clintonemail.com messages that the secrecy demand came to light, the State Department admitted today

Before turning over her emails to the department for review and potential public release, Clinton and her lawyers withheld thousands of additional emails she said were clearly personal, such as those involving what she described as 'planning Chelsea's wedding or my mother's funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends as well as yoga routines, family vacations.'

Clinton has never outlined in detail what criteria she and her lawyers used to determine which emails to release and which to delete, but her 2010 email with Abedin appears clearly work-related under the State Department's own criteria for agency records under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Dozens of the emails sent or received by Clinton through her private server were later determined to contain classified material.

The FBI has been investigating for months whether Clinton's use of the private email server imperiled government secrets. Agents recently interviewed several of Clinton's top aides, including Abedin.

As part of the probe, Clinton turned over the hard drive from her email server to the FBI. It had been wiped clean, and Clinton has said she did not keep copies of the emails she choose to withhold.

Hillary's secret server aide invokes Fifth Amendment ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE times as he is questioned - and won't even discuss his resume

The State Department aide who set up Hillary Clinton's private server inside her home invoked his Fifth Amendment right 'more than 125 times' in a case involving the email system.

Pagliano wouldn't even answer questions about his resume as he gave court-ordered testimony on Wednesday in the case, brought by conservative non-profit Judicial Watch, the group said.

The lawsuit seeks to determine whether Clinton and her aides intentionally set up the system to keep their communications outside the reach of the government so they were not made public pursuant to Federal Information Act requests.

The State Department aide who set up Hillary Clinton's private server inside her home invoked his Fifth Amendment right 'more than 125 times' in a case involving the email system. Bryan Pagliano, the aide, is seen above on Capitol Hill last September

The IT professional was initially shielded from talking to the watchdog organization by the judge overseeing the case based on his immunity agreement with the Justice Department as part of its investigation into the security of Clinton's server.

The judge, Emmett G. Sullivan, required Pagliano to submit the agreement to the court and postponed the testimony until he was able to review it.

Sullivan ultimately upheld his original decision to compel testimony from Pagliano without making the immunity agreement public.

He also said the deposition could be filmed but the tape must be sealed. The transcript will be made available at a later date, however.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Politico on Wednesday after Pagliano's deposition that 'on many of the key issues, he took the Fifth.'

'He took the Fifth even on questions about his resume. They had a very narrow definition of what discovery' allowed, Fitton said.

The only question Fitton remembered Pagliano answering was about the documents pertaining to the deposition. Pagliano said he read them.

The former Clinton staffer would not say who was paying his legal bills, Fitton said.

Pagliano worked on Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and set up her basement server as she transitioned to the State Department in 2009.

Clinton has not yet been compelled to comply with Judicial Watch's request that answer questions on the topic. The judge state in granting discovery that she still could be, however.

He simultaneously took on an official role at State. In his disclosure forms, he did not disclose that he was being paid by Clinton to keep tabs on the server.

The FBI came to an arrangement with Pagliano that would protect him from possible prosecution if he delivered details about his secret work for Clinton.

The investigatory agency is concerned that foreign actors may have accessed classified information by hacking the former cabinet member's server.

Clinton says that never happened - and that she never sent nor received classified information through the email address attached to the server, as it would have amounted to a federal crime.

The law enforcement agency has yet to come to a final decision.

The Republican National Committee pounced on Fitton's statement that the Clinton aide pleaded the Fifth 125 times as 'another reminder of how much she has to hide and how serious the FBIs criminal investigation really is.'

'Its important to remember that this wasnt just any staffer; this was a longtime aide who obtained an unusual political appointment and was paid on the side for the sole purpose of maintaining Clintons illicit off-the-books server,' Chairman Reince Priebus said.

Priebus asserted that the arrangement was an obvious attempt to skirt government transparency laws in order to conceal her shady dealings as Secretary of State.'

Clinton put national security at risk, and should therefore be disqualified from sitting in the highest office in the land.

'Her aides stonewalling today is just a prelude to the kind of White House she would run,' the RNC chief said Wednesday.

Judicial Watch is concerned with another aspect of servergate than the FBI.

The right-wing oversight group is focused on top-ranking Clinton aide Huma Abedin's special arrangement with State that allowed her to work there and in the private sector at the same time.

Abedin also had an email address that was routed through Clinton's secret server.

She's scheduled to testify next week on Tuesday.
Donald Trump's first direct email pitch asking for campaign donations was a success, the Republican National Committee said Thursday.

The presumptive GOP nominee raised $5 million from his online asks through the Trump Victory fund he jointly runs with the RNC and $6 million from a high dollar donor event for a total of $11 million in two days.

Trump vowed on Tuesday to match up to $2 million in contributions from his email campaign. RNC spokesman Sean Spicer told CNN that the $5 million haul did not include Trump's own money.

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Donald Trump's first direct email pitch asking for campaign donations was a success, the Republican National Committee said Thursday

Donald Trump is putting his money where his mouth is, by pledging to match all campaign contributions that come in in the next 48 hours. That means his campaign will have brought in $13 million this week at least

The billionaire businessman had largely funded his Republican presidential primary campaign with his own money, lending about $46 million over the past year.

His chief financial officer said Thursday that he had forgiven that debt, which he estimated at $50 million.

Trump 'has also said he will contribute significantly more money,' Steve Mnuchin said today to CNBC.

As a general election candidate, Trump has been raising money from donors but was falling far behind likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Fundraising reports show his campaign began June with about $1.3 million in the bank, compared to the $42 million Clinton's campaign had on hand.

He would need to raise a little less than $11 million every week to keep up.

His son Eric told CNN the fundraiser in New York raised $6 million for the joint fund and the campaign is 'going to raise a lot of money.'

Though he also claimed, as his father has, 'We don't need the kind of money that Hillary needs.'

Trump is playing down his lousy May fundraising numbers and insisting that June's report will be better.

Campaign officials said in a statement Tuesday that June marked the campaign's first full month of fundraising activity. They say that activity will be reflected in the campaign's next federal fundraising report.

They also say fundraising 'has been incredible' and insist that they 'continue to see a tremendous outpouring of support for Mr. Trump and money to the Republican Party.'

'This is the first fundraising email I have ever sent on behalf of my campaign,' Trump wrote in an email Tuesday. 'That's right. THE FIRST ONE.'

'And I'm going to help make it the most successful introductory fundraising email in modern political history by personally matching every dollar that comes in WITHIN THE NEXT 48 HOURS, up to $2 million!' the email continued.

'This means any donation you make between $1 and $2,700 (the maximum allowable contribution) will be matched, dollar-for-dollar,' Trump wrote.

Trump has also purchased ad space on Facebook to make a similar appeal. He says he wants 'to beat Crooked Hillary,' but 'I need your help to do so.'

The Republican is facing a serious fundraising disadvantage against Clinton.

Donors gave Trump's campaign about $3 million in May, even though he enjoyed presumptive nominee status for almost the entire month.

By contrast, Clinton raised $26 million.

Trump says he could have plenty of cash in the bank if he simply put more of his own funds into the campaign.

He says he spent $55 million of 'my own money' during the primary season and said he may do it again in the general election, 'but it would be nice to have some help from the party.'

He said Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus 'has been terrific' but he needs more help from other GOP leaders.

'I can just go my own route,' he said on Fox News Channel's 'Fox & Friends.'

Together, Trump and the Republican National Committee brought in about $18.6 million in May, including another loan from the candidate.

Clinton and the Democratic National Committee raised more than double that.

Asked about this Tuesday, Trump that 'I understand money better than anybody and I understand it way better than Hillary.'

'I've raised a lot of money but you also have to have some help from the party,' he said.




On his way out? David Cameron's future as Prime Minister appears to be under threat today as Britain backed a Brexit

David Cameron is on the brink today as Britain heads for Brexit.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the Prime Minister should now quit 'immediately' after the UK failed to back his Remain campaign.

Critics said today that Mr Cameron's authority had 'drained away' after he failed to persuade the country to back continued membership of the EU.

The Prime Minister is going to speak in Downing Street at around 7am this morning where he will discuss his future.

Prominent referendum opponents within his own party however, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, were among 84 Tory MPs who signed a letter backing him to stay in Number 10.

'We believe whatever the British people decide you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our policies,' they wrote.

Others, such as ex-cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson did not sign the letter but stated their support.

George Osborne's future as Chancellor is also under threat with with Leave campaigners calling for one of its leadership team to replace him.

There are calls for Michael Gove to take over from Mr Osborne to lead negotiations for Britain to cut its ties with Brussels, which is expected to last around two years.

Former defence secretary Liam Fox said that while he was increasingly confident of a victory for Leave, he did not believe the PM should quit.

'What we now need to do is to provide some calmness and reassure people and that requires us to have political stability,' he told Sky News.

'As the Prime Minister who gave us the referendum, he is best placed to see us through.

'He has said he is not going to stand again at the next general election so I think it is fair enough that he takes us through this next period.'

What next? As dawn breaks over Downing Street today there is great uncertainty about the futire of the man inside

Replacement? George Osborne's position is also said to be in jeopardy with Michael Gove being suggested as the next Chancellor

Long-standing Eurosceptic John Redwood said Tory MPs should wait to see whether the Prime Minister was ready to implement the public will expressed in the referendum.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the Prime Minister should now quit 'immediately' after the UK failed to back his Remain campaign

Mr Redwood told Sky News that Mr Cameron would have to 'build a new Government that binds together the party' in the wake of the referendum battle', adding: 'There's a lot of talent on the Leave side and he needs to harness that to bring the country together.'

The effort to show a united front comes at the end of a sometimes brutal campaign that saw deep Tory divisions over Europe lead to highly-personalised 'blue-on-blue' attacks.

Signatories to the letter included all of the Cabinet-level ministers who broke ranks to join Vote Leave: Mr Gove, Chris Grayling, John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers and Priti Patel.

Mr Duncan Smith said he was sure the party would reunite despite the bruising contest.

The former party leader, who dramatically quit as work and pensions secretary in March with a blast at Government welfare policy, said: 'Families break apart for things like this for a while and they will take chunks out of each other but they come back together.

'The Conservative Party has an instinct ultimately I sense that once the argument is over they will want to be back. We are in government, we have to get on with government whatever happens.'

Ms Patel said on Twitter: 'The Conservative Party has delivered the referendum. Now back to working with colleagues to deliver the reforms we pledged in our manifesto.'

Rival: Many had believed that Boris Johnson could launch his own leadership campaign but he has signed a letter calling for the PM to stay in his job

Former Tory leadership challenger and Brexiteer David Davis told the Press Association he does not agree with Mr Farage's call for Mr Cameron to resign.

He said: 'No I don't. There's a very simple point here. We have a major negotiation to undertake.

'I imagine the Prime Minister will appoint some people to carry out the negotiation who both believe in it and who are capable of doing it and once he has done that what we need is stability at home.

'We don't need more disruption.

'Mr Farage is the leader of Ukip, he's not anything in the Tory party and it's our decision.'

Mr Davis said he believes Mr Cameron will remain in post 'for the next few years'.

Don't go Dave! More than 80 of the Brexit Tory rebels - including Boris and Gove - write to the PM and ask him to stay on after the referendum

More than 80 Brexit rebels in David Cameron's Tory party tonight sent a letter to Downing Street urging him to stay on as PM.

With Mr Cameron's Remain campaign appearing on course for victory in the referendum, the group led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove reached out an olive branch.

The intention of the letter - made public as soon as polls closed in the referendum - is to begin the process of healing wounds in the Tory Party.

Tory MP Robert Syms revealed the letter on Twitter tonight - and even joked that none of the 84 Conservative MPs who signed up had done so in pencil - which had been circulated among Tory MPs

Some 84 Tories signed the letter to tell Mr Cameron: 'We believe whatever the British people decide you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our policies.'

As well as Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, the signatories included Cabinet-level Brexit backers Chris Grayling and John Whittingdale, but not Iain Duncan Smith, who quit as work and pensions secretary shortly before the referendum.

Tory MP Robert Syms said that two-thirds of Conservative MPs who broke with the PM to back Leave had signed the letter, but said it had not been possible to reach all of them to ask them to sign.

Long-standing Eurosceptic John Redwood said Tory MPs should wait to see whether the Prime Minister was ready to implement the public will expressed in the referendum.

Mr Redwood told Sky News that Mr Cameron would have to 'build a new Government that binds together the party' in the wake of the referendum battle', adding: 'There's a lot of talent on the Leave side and he needs to harness that to bring the country together.'

Mr Grayling said it would be an 'absolute nonsense' for Mr Cameron to lose his job given that he won an election just over a year ago promising to hold a referendum.

'It would be an absolute nonsense if David Cameron felt, having given the country that choice, if they take the decision he couldn't carry on the job,' he told Sky News.

'We are completely behind him staying, we want him to stay and that letter is a statement of commitment to his leadership.'

If Mr Cameron secures a comfortable win, he will be under less pressure to carry out an immediate 'reconciliation reshuffle' promoting leading Brexiteers.

But even before the result was known, rebel MPs claimed they were close to gathering the 50 names needed to spark a formal vote of no confidence in the Tory leader.

One MP, who signed such a letter dated today, said: 'If it's a vote to leave then the PM will have to resign immediately  there will be civil war if he tries to cling on, even for a day.

But Labour's Jonathan Ashworth said that the letter could not 'unsay' the comments of Tory MPs who have spent the last few weeks attacking the PM.

'This letter exposes the reality that David Cameron and the Conservative Party are now utterly preoccupied with leadership infighting rather than the future of the country,' said Mr Ashworth.

'What's more this letter cannot unsay what senior Tory politicians have been telling us for weeks - that the British people simply cannot trust David Cameron.

'The truth is this is a desperately weak and divided Government unable to provide the leadership the country needs.'

David Cameron, pictured with wife Samantha at the polling station today, has been urged by 84 of the party's Brexit rebels to stay on after the referendum

Mr Duncan Smith said he was sure the party would reunite despite the bruising contest.

The former party leader, who dramatically quit as work and pensions secretary in March with a blast at Government welfare policy, said he made no apologies for the tone of the campaign.

He told the BBC his suggestions Chancellor George Osborne lied to the public - by comparing him to Pinocchio - were 'a bit of fun'.

'Passions are high and I don't make any bones about it: when you are dealing with an issue as big as this - nothing matters more really at the end of the day - then it gets really tense.

'Families break apart for things like this for a while and they will take chunks out of each other but they come back together.

'The Conservative Party has an instinct ultimately I sense that once the argument is over they will want to be back. We are in government, we have to get on with government whatever happens.'

Tory MP Robert Syms tonight published a letter calling for David Cameron to stay on as Prime Minister and Tory leader after the referendum

THE NAMES IN FULL: ALL 84 TORY MPS WHO WROTE TO DAVID CAMERON ASKING HIM TO STAY ON AT NUMBER 10 Dear Prime Minister, We, who are supporters of Vote Leave and Members of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, thank you for giving the people a choice of their destiny on 23 June, 2016. We believe whatever the British people decide, you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our 2015 manifesto. Stuart Andrew Nigel Adams Lucy Allan David Amess Richard Bacon Henry Bellingham Bob Blackman Crispin Blunt Julian Brazier Conor Burns David Burrowes Maria Caulfield James Cleverly Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Chris Davies James Davies Mims Davies Philip Davies Steve Double James Duddridge George Eustice Nigel Evans Michael Fabricant Suella Fernandes Liam Fox Mark Francois Richard Fuller Marcus Fysh Nus Ghani Zac Goldsmith Michael Gove Chris Grayling Chris Green Rebecca Harris John Hayes Chris Heaton-Harris Gordon Henderson Gerald Howarth Ranil Jayawardena Andrea Jenkyns Boris Johnson Gareth Johnson Greg Knight Andrea Leadsom Edward Leigh Jack Lopresti Karen Lumley Craig Mackinlay Kit Malthouse Scott Mann Paul Maynard Jason McCartney Nigel Mills Penny Mordaunt Sheryl Murray Andrew Murrison David Nuttall Priti Patel Mike Penning Andrew Percy Stephen Phillips Will Quince Dominic Raab Jacob Rees-Mogg Paul Scully Henry Smith Royston Smith Andrew Stephenson Iain Stewart Julian Sturdy Rishi Sunak Desmond Swayne Robert Syms Derek Thomas Michael Tomlinson Anne-Marie Trevelyan Martin Vickers Theresa Villiers Charles Walker James Wharton John Whittingdale Mike Wood William Wragg Nadhim Zahawi Total: 84 Advertisement

'So where is David Cameron anyway?' Voters call out PM amid deafening silence from Remain leaders on the brink of Brexit

As the UK looked set to vote for a Brexit in the historic EU referendum, David Cameron and leaders of the Remain campaign remained conspicuously silent.

While key players in the Leave campaign spoke to supporters and broadcasters through the night, the Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn and George Osborne were nowhere to be seen.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage gave a number of television speeches and interviews, declaring Britain as being on the brink of independence shortly after 4am.

Laying low: David Cameron was seen leaving a polling station with his wife Samantha on Thursday

Questions: Voters took to Twitter to ask why the Prime Minister was missing from Remain events overnight

The Prime Minister was seen leaving a polling station with his wife Samantha early on Thursday, but he did not appear publicly at any of the Remain parties being held across the country.

Voters took to Twitter to call out the Prime Minister, asking where he was 'on such an important night in history'.

Another asked: 'Where IS Jeremy Corbyn? Where IS David Cameron. Have they both fled the country.'

Projections showed the Brexit campaign was set to prevail in the historic referendum despite massive support for Remain in London and Scotland.

Speaking out: Meanwhile Nigel Farage appeared at a number of events in support of the Leave campaign

Deafening silence: Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron and George Osborne have all failed to appear overnight

The direction of the battle started to become clear with a shock result in Sunderland which saw Leave win by 61 per cent to 39 per cent.

A surprise victory for Brexit in Swansea, where the pro-EU side had been expecting to romp home, was then followed by a series of other strong showings.

With around a quarter of the declarations in, analysts and betting markets are now forecasting that the Leave campaign will come out on top.

The Pound - which soared in value earlier after Mr Farage admitted he thought Brexit had lost - has nose-dived against US dollar by more than 10 cents.
Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, has been accused of allowing the civil service to become an 'engine for pro-EU propaganda'

Britain's top civil servant is to be hauled before MPs to explain his use of the Government machine in support of the 'Remain' campaign.

Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, has come under fire for instructing officials not to help anti-EU ministers during the referendum - and for allowing government websites to be plastered with Remain material.

Last month Iain Duncan Smith accused him of allowing the civil service to become an 'engine for pro-EU propaganda'.

Now it has emerged that the Commons public administration committee will demand Sir Jeremy  known as Sir Cover-Up for his attitude to the freedom of information  to appear before it. Bernard Jenkin, Tory Leave campaigner and chairman of the committee, said: 'We are going to hold a post-referendum inquiry and without doubt Sir Jeremy Heywood will be a key witness.

'There will be questions about purdah, the quality of advice to civil servants, the whole conduct of government during the run-up to the referendum, as well as questions about improvements that can be made to electoral machinery and the Electoral Commission.'

Brexit campaigners are angry at advice written by Sir Jeremy which banned civil servants from giving information pertaining to the EU campaign to those ministers campaigning for Leave.

They were also concerned at the mountain of scaremongering propaganda put out by government departments up to the end of May, and the way government websites have been covered in pro-Remain information. The Leave camp accuse Sir Jeremy of blocking the release of sensitive information about the impact of the EU on public services.

Tory backbenchers also claim he has ordered civil servants to refuse to answer parliamentary questions that might jeopardise David Cameron's bid to keep Britain in the EU.

There will also be questions about the Cabinet Office's decision to extend voter registration for 48 hours after the Electoral Commission website went down for 90 minutes.

Last month Iain Duncan Smith accused Sir Jeremy of allowing the civil service to become an 'engine for pro-EU propaganda'

Lord Tebbit, the pro-Brexit former Tory chairman, said: 'I think the civil service has been misused.' But he said he blamed the Prime Minister rather than Sir Jeremy, because the Cabinet Secretary had to bow to his orders.

One Tory backbencher said: 'The Cabinet Secretary only does what the Prime Minister wants him to do.'
Heavy rain turned Melbourne streets into 'swimming pools' at peak hour before snow was dumped across the east coast and wind and rain hit in a powerful cold front.

The downpour caused flash flooding on Thursday night in areas of South Melbourne on the Nepean Highway, after 6.6 millimetres fell about 5.30pm, while gale force winds uprooted trees and brought down power lines.

Snow, sleet, rain, hail and thunder are expected around Melbourne on Friday, Bureau of Meteorology warned, with a high of 10 degrees  the coldest June day in 16 years.

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Over 40cms of fresh snow has fallen on the higher reaches of Thredbo Resort in the last 24 hours

The sky has broken: A man rejoices as snow falls from the sky at Perisher on Friday morning

Time for lunch: A man shovels snow from a picnic table at Perisher where snow fell on Thursday night

A skier enjoys the soft slopes at Perisher where fresh snow has fallen

The city will be partly cloudy with an 80 per cent chance of showers, while snow will fall above 500 metres about the nearby hills.

Meteorologist Tristan Meyers ruled out any snowfall in Melbourne's metropolitan areas but said it would be 'pretty cold'.

Saturday in Melbourne is expected to have a high of 13 degrees with clearing showers. Sunday will be mostly sunny with a high of 12 degrees, according to Weatherzone.

The Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, west of Sydney, will be dusted by snow late on Friday morning or in the early afternoon.

Watch out for the tree: Skiers embracing the cold conditions at Perisher on Friday

Watch your step: People shovel snow from the steps at Perisher

The more it snowed the more children loved it at the Thredbo Resort in the Snowy Mountains of NSW

Snowball fights were the order of the day as residents enjoyed themselves at the Thredbo resort

But it wasn't all fun and games for those who needed to drive their cars through the snow

Despite the heavy snow visibility was not good in areas of the Thredbo Resort in NSW

It is expected to fall above 600 metres, according to Weatherzone.

Sydney is expected to have a windy Friday and a top of 17 degrees, followed by a sunny Saturday at 16 degrees.

Sunday will have increasing clouds and be 16 degrees.

Adelaide has also suffered heavy rain and strong winds which caused widespread damage and minor flooding.

Dude, wheres my car? A white car is camouflaged by snow at Perisher

A downpour caused flash flooding on Thursday night in areas of South Melbourne on the Nepean Highway, after 6.6 millimetres fell about 5.30pm

WEATHER FORECAST Sydney Saturday: Max 17 and windy Sunday: Max 16 and sunny Monday: Max 15 and late shower Melbourne Saturday: Max 13 and clearing shower Sunday: Max 12 and mostly sunny Monday: Max 12 and clearing shower Brisbane Saturday: Max 18 and sunny Sunday: Max 19 and mostly sunny Monday: Max 19 and rain Adelaide Saturday: Max 14 and mostly sunny Sunday: Max 13 and possible shower Monday: Max 15 and possible shower Source: Weatherzone Advertisement

'When the water rises above your boots and the cars that drive past make waves,' one Melbourne resident wrote on Instagram on Thursday evening

Snow will fall above 500 metres about the nearby hills on the outskirts of Melbourne (blue shows 500m+ and grey shows 300-500m)

Fears were also held for possible flooding at Port Adelaide early on Friday with the downpour coinciding with a high tide and storm surge.

The City of Adelaide opened Franklin St Bus Station to provide shelter to the homeless during the severe weather, providing food and hot drinks.

The State Emergency Service said it took more than 100 calls for help on Thursday as heavy rain caused problems for residents across a wide area in the Adelaide Hills and parts of the city.

Blocked drains were also responsible for some properties suffering minor flooding while wind gusts of more than 100km/h brought down a number of trees.

Craving it up: Perisher saw heavy snowfall on Thursday night

Ski fields in NSW and have experienced blizzard-like conditions- Pictured is Perisher where snow fell on Thursday night/Friday morning

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

35cm of snow has fallen across four resort areas of Perisher Valley, Blue Cow, Smiggin Holes and Guthega in NSW (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

Mt Gambier, in the state's southeast, had 50mm of rain, its wettest June day on record.

By late on Thursday a flood watch remained in place for the Adelaide Hills and a severe weather warning for Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula, the Adelaide region and the state's southeast.

The SES said it supplied more than 3000 sandbags to concerned residents and more remained available.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the showers would continue into Friday but falls would be lighter.

There was also a chance of snow on some of the higher peaks of Mt Lofty Ranges, in the mid-north and across the southern Flinders Ranges before dawn.

Saturday in the South Australian city is expected to be mostly sunny and 14 degrees. Sunday in Adelaide will have a high of 13 and possible showers.

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday, with Thredbo ski resort predicting around 50-60cm of snow by the end of the week (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

The SES has warned that snowfalls of up to 15cm in the Central Tableland region could close the Great Western Highway between Oberon and Orange before conditions clear on Saturday (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

Rain will be clearing in Brisbane on Friday with a high of 22 degrees. Saturday is forecast to be sunny and 18, while Sunday will be mostly sunny and 19 degrees.

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday, with Thredbo ski resort predicting around 50-60cm of snow by the end of the week.

The SES has warned that snowfalls of up to 15cm in the Central Tableland region could close the Great Western Highway between Oberon and Orange before conditions clear on Saturday.

Forecasters predicts ski resorts in NSW and Victoria can expect 20-40cm of fresh powder on Friday and snow could fall in Queensland at the weekend.

The chilly weather has been brought on by two cold fronts moving over the east coast, including South Australia (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

People shovel snow from a pathway while 35cm of snow fell on Thursday evening at Perisher Valley

Forecasters predicts ski resorts in NSW and Victoria can expect 20-40cm of fresh powder on Friday and snow could fall in Queensland at the weekend (pictured: Perisher on Thursday night/ Friday morning)

The chilly weather has been brought on by two cold fronts moving over the east coast, including South Australia.

Weatherzone's Kim Westcott said the 'substantial pool of very cold air' coming across originated in Antarctica and it was enough to turn rain into snow.

Ms Westcott also said a weaker front was predicted for Monday.

'Potentially bringing another round of wind, rain and snow and sleet,' she said.

'Gusty conditions will be confined to the coast during Tuesday as the front moves offshore, with the winds easing throughout Wednesday.

'West of the ranges will be settled and sunny until around Friday.'

Pictured: Perisher in NSW, where snow fell on Thursday night as a cold front sweeps across Australia's east coast

An Antarctic chill is hitting Australia, with Melbourne suffering their coldest June day in 16 years

Snow falling at the Thredbo Alpine Resort in the NSW Snowy Mountains on Wednesday

Thredbo Alpine Resort in the NSW Snowy Mountains on Wednesday, where 50-60cm snow is expected to fall by the end of the week

Melbourne is set to be transformed into a winter wonderland with snow forecast for the outskirts of the city as the east coast is hit by a cold snap. Pictured is Perisher in NSW

Pictured: the rain begins to fall in Melbourne on Thursday evening with flash flooding

Friday is predicted to be a wet and windy for the city as temperatures will hit a low of 4C and the weekend will not be much different

Heavy rain and strong winds uprooted trees in parts of Melbourne on Thursday

The city will see a top of just 10C on Friday with temperatures dropping as low as 4C as a powerful cold front sweeps across Australia's east coast

Areas around the Yarra Ranges and Mount Dandenong are expected to get a light dusting, according to Weatherzone. Above is resort areas around Perisher

Mr Meyers ruled out any snowfall in Melbourne's metropolitan areas but said it would be 'pretty cold'. Above are snowmobiles covered in snow in NSW

The chilly weather has been brought on by two cold fronts moving over the east coast, including South Australia (pictured: Thursday)

The Bureau of Meteorology says snow will fall above 800 metres in southern and central NSW on Friday

Weatherzone's Kim Westcott said the 'substantial pool of very cold air' coming across originated in Antarctica and it was enough to turn rain into snow

With this cold front, a high will sit over NSW over the weekend, and with skies clearing and winds lighter temperatures are set to plummet at night

Gusty conditions will be confined to the coast during Tuesday as the front moves offshore, with the winds easing throughout Wednesday

This front will bring with it very strong winds, and combined with the snow showers, visibility will be poor which will make driving conditions extremely difficult
Drug addicts should be prescribed heroin on the NHS, leading doctors have urged. File image

Drug addicts should be prescribed heroin on the NHS, leading doctors have urged.

They also want to be allowed to supervise users in specially designated shoot-up galleries in towns and cities where dependency is high.

The British Medical Association yesterday passed the controversial motion, claiming it would help reduce crime, prevent the spread of HIV and ensure addicts did not overdose.

It will now lobby the Government to provide heroin-assisted treatment and supervised consumption rooms, where doctors would prescribe the drug and be on hand to help.

But campaigners said the move defied belief and accused doctors of helping addicts to fuel their habits.

Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of the BMAs public health medicine committee, said: The idea is that drug users can be given the appropriate opiate in a clean and safe manner.

The doctors would prescribe the drug and it would be dispensed for them to use.

We are not talking about doctors injecting heroin into patients. We are acting as a physician  in the same way a physician would prescribe methadone, which is actually more addictive than heroin.

It is medicinal heroin, so it is clean and users do not face the risk of taking a contaminated drug, like they would if they bought it on the street. The rooms would also provide clean injecting equipment.

Addressing the BMAs annual conference in Belfast, he added: These are not places that just anybody can go to. They are for people that may lead particularly chaotic lives and otherwise inject in public places, such as homeless people.

They are for people who are already enrolled in drug treatment programmes. Its a very small number of people.

Doctors also want to be allowed to supervise users in specially designated shoot-up galleries in towns and cities where dependency is high

The consumption rooms are not needed in every town and city in the country. They are an adjunct to existing treatment.

It makes it easier for users to get off the drugs and reduces harm to the individual and society. It treats the drug addiction as a health problem, rather than a criminal problem.

UNION: END CAP ON LOCUMS' PAY Doctors have voted to abolish caps on lucrative locum fees, claiming they now only earn as much as driving instructors and personal trainers. The Government imposed limits this year following concerns that some hospitals were paying agency doctors 3,500 for a single shift. But the British Medical Association yesterday voted to abolish the caps, describing them as a death knell on doctors careers and livelihoods. The union warned the limits were worsening the NHSs staffing crisis, leading to bursting A&E departments. One junior doctor claimed typical locum fees were now between 25 and 35 an hour  a driving instructor and a fitness trainer respectively. The BMA claims some locums are now refusing to work shifts. It also argues that the limits discourage staff doctors from gaining experience in a range of areas, harming their careers. The powerful union will now lobby the Government to abolish the caps. Advertisement

Dr Kennedy, a consultant specialising in public health in Glasgow, said similar schemes in Vancouver, Canada, had proved highly successful. But drugs campaigner Mary Brett, chairman of the charity Cannabis Skunk Sense, said: They are enabling people to take heroin.

Instead of getting them off the drug, theyre just enabling them to take more and more. Would you do the same for an alcoholic? It defies belief. The right thing to do would be to get them off heroin  you could do this by abstinence or methadone. Theyre not facing up to the fact that people need to get off the drugs.

Currently heroin users are prescribed methadone on the NHS, at a steadily reduced level to help them kick the habit while reducing withdrawal symptoms.

But experts say methadone is even more addictive than heroin and results in patients staying on the drug for years without getting better.

They say it doesnt work because users miss their GP appointments to collect the drug, and when they start suffering from withdrawal symptoms they go back out on to the street to buy heroin  often stealing to pay for it. Figures from Public Health England show there are 262,000 heroin users in the UK.

n The head of the BMA clung to his post last night after facing a leadership challenge from a rival doctor.

Mark Porter, who has been chairman since 2012, had been accused of failing to stand up for junior doctors in their long-running row with the Government.
A decision by Tesco to rebrand its fresh produce and meat using fake farm names and cut prices has paid off.

Britain's biggest supermarket yesterday reported a rise in sales of the lines, helping it to turn around five years of decline.

The company said same store sales over the last three months were up 0.3 per cent on the same period last year.

Significantly, sales of fruit, vegetables and meat were up by around 5 per cent more than other stores.

Tesco rebranded its fresh produce and meat using fake farm names  such as Rosedene, Nightingale and Woodside - designed to conjure up idyllic images of the British countryside (file image)

This increase followed a cut in prices and a decision to rebrand them using seven fictitious farm names to replace existing own label brands.

The names  such as Rosedene, Nightingale and Woodside - conjure up idyllic images of the British countryside.

However, some of the products are imported from as far afield as Morocco, Spain and Chile.

The move by Tesco mirrors similar tactics employed by the likes of Aldi and Lidl, which also use invented farm names for some brands.

At the time Tesco made the change in March, the supermarket was accused of running a 'legal deception' by critics.

The National Pig Association described the ploy as misleading and the National Farmers' Union sought assurances that labels would clearly identify the country of origin.

Our new fresh food brands are performing very well, with over two-thirds of our customers having bought products from the new range. Chief executive, Dave Lewis

Despite the controversy, Tesco has reaped the rewards with a significant rise in sales.

Chief executive, Dave Lewis, said: 'Our new fresh food brands are performing very well, with over two-thirds of our customers having bought products from the new range.'

The company added: 'Volume growth in 'produce' and 'meat' is outperforming the market by circa 5 per cent.

'In the UK, the launch of our seven new exclusive fresh food brands in March has helped to meet more of our customers' shopping needs, further removing any reasons for them to shop elsewhere.

'Customers are able to save nearly 1.60 - around 17per cent - off the cost of a typical basket of ten of the most popular meat, fruit and vegetable lines by choosing to buy products from the new ranges.

'As expected, a significant number of customers have traded into the new brands.

'Two thirds of customers have now bought products from the new ranges and customer satisfaction scores of quality and taste are exceptionally high, at more than 90 per cent.

The move by Tesco mirrors similar tactics employed by the likes of Aldi and Lidl, which also use invented farm names for some brands (file image)

'Customer ratings for the quality of our fresh food offer as a whole have improved to their highest level in more than two years.'

Tesco and the other mainstream supermarkets  Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons  have been dragged into a price war that is delivering real savings in the cost of putting food on the table.

Britain's biggest supermarket said: 'The cost of a weekly shop at Tesco is now 6per cent lower than it was in September 2014.'

The company has dramatically cut back on multi-buy offers and vouchers in favour of lower shelf prices.

Mr Lewis said: 'We are encouraged by the progress we are making. By growing volumes, transforming the way we work together with our suppliers, and further optimising our store operating model we are rebuilding profitability in a sustainable way.

'I am confident that the improvements we are making for customers are working and will create long-term value for our shareholders.'

Retail analysts praised Tesco's efforts to combat the rise of the budget grocers. However, they warned many threats still remain, not least the decision by Amazon to launch a grocery home delivery service.

Senior analyst at stock brokers, Hargreaves Lansdown, Laith Khalaf, said: 'Tesco has maintained the positive momentum it picked up around the beginning of this year, with sales continuing to rise against a challenging retail backdrop.

'Sales are still being pegged back by food deflation, as supermarkets fall over themselves to cut prices in an attempt to win back market share from Aldi and Lidl.
Donald Trump has gotten far in life by touting his own accomplishments, but now he's on the hook in a court deposition for praising his own memory as 'the world's greatest.'

'You've stated, though, that you have one of the best memories in the world?' attorney Jason Forge asked Trump during the deposition  prompting an immediate display of memory loss.

'I don't know. Did I use that expression?' Trump responded.

'Could I see it?' Trump inquired, according to a newly released transcript.

'I can play a video of you reporting it,' Forge told him.

'Did I use that expression?' Trump had a brief memory failure during a sworn deposition

'Did I say I have a great memory or one of the best in the world?' Trump asked, before being told he had said he had 'one of the best in the world.'

'I don't remember saying that. As good as my memory is, I don't remember that, but I have a good memory,' Trump responded.

NBC's Katie Tur reported that Trump told her, 'I have the world's greatest memory. It's one thing everyone agrees on,' when she was reporting a story last November about Trump's disputed claims that 'thousands and thousands' of American muslims cheered on rooftops in New Jersey following the Sept. 11th attacks.

Trump called her after being questioned about his claim, and said he had seen contemporaneous reports on the Internet.

'As good as my memory is, I don't remember saying that,' Trump quipped

Trump got quizzed on his 'greatest' recollection during the memorable exchange

Trump had more than a few memory lapses during his deposition

But it may be that the attorney's memory is also imperfect. The original NBC story quotes Trump as saying he had 'the world's greatest memory,' rather than 'the best in the world'

NBC reported that Trump used the phrase 'I don't remember' 59 times during the deposition.

Attorneys routinely counsel clients who provide depositions to avoid making false statements and acknowledge if their memory has failed them.

The memorable back and forth came in the context of a class action lawsuit against Trump University. Former students allege that they paid thousands of dollars and accrued debt for real estate and other advice that proved useless after the market tanked.

Trump has rolled out signed surveys that students filled out giving good reviews of the programs when they were leaving the program.

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, who has sued Trump University, told ABC the school was a 'fraud.'

'We have a law against running an illegal unlicensed university. This never was a university,' he told ABC's 'This Week' early this month.

Trump gave depositions in the lawsuit as recently as January 2016, during the heat of the primary campaign.

According to Politico, which reported on the deposition, topics of questioning even ranged to a Trump University instructor who falsely claimed to have had dinner with Trump.

'A lot of people say they met with me and they were with me and all of that stuff. It happens all the time. I think it's hyperbole,' Trump said.

'It would be false for me to say that you and I had breakfast together this morning, right?' Forge responded.
A leading gay rights activist yesterday condemned the student movement for practising the politics of victimhood.

Peter Tatchell attacked the clampdown on free speech by the National Union of Students through its no-platform and safe space policies.

The human rights campaigner accused the NUS of dangerous, regressive politics.

During a speech to an education conference at Wellington College, in Crowthorne, Berkshire, he likened modern day campus politics to the Red Guards, a fanatical student group in 1960s China.

Peter Tatchell attacked the clampdown on free speech by the National Union of Students through its no-platform and safe space policies

This paramilitary student movement was told to eradicate the Four Olds of Chinese society  customs, culture, habits and ideas  during the Cultural Revolution. Old books and art were destroyed, museums ransacked and people perceived to have bourgeois elements were attacked, tortured and killed.

Mr Tatchells comments follow months of clashes on campuses over attempts to censor speakers or remove historical references that might be offensive to some.

The no-platform policy means people or groups on a banned list for holding racist or fascist views are not given a platform to speak on student union premises.

People believed to be sexist, transphobic or rape apologists have also been banned from speaking on the grounds that they would threaten safe spaces  environments that protect students from mental harm.

Mr Tatchell has spent decades fighting homophobia and discrimination, often enduring physical attacks for his campaign for equality.

He compared campus politics to that of the Red Guard in China (pictured in 1966) which wanted to eradicate Four Olds of Chinese society  customs, culture, habits and ideas  in the Cultural Revolution

But earlier this year, an NUS representative at Canterbury Christ Church University refused to share a platform with him because she regarded him as having been racist and transphobic. Mr Tatchell told the conference yesterday: The NUS no-platform and safe space policies dont refute offensive ideas. They simply exclude them. That doesnt solve anything.

The most effective way to defeat bad ideas is by exposing and countering them in open debate. Bad ideas are best discredited by good and better ideas.

The NUS is increasingly characterised by the politics of victimhood  the idea that being a victim of injustice automatically makes you right.

This means that a persons right to be heard and be taken seriously depends on their experience of discrimination, not on the quality of their arguments, the evidence they can marshal for their case and the longevity of their commitment to a cause.
China's Ministry of Education yesterday ordered schools across the country to destroy all substandard running tracks at schools after children claimed to become ill.

The ministry has invited inspectors to check all newly-built synthetic tracks during the upcoming school break and remove substandard ones, reports the People's Daily Online.

Cases of students suffering from nosebleeds, dizzy spells and coughs have been increasing since reports first emerged last September.

Worrying: The Beijing No 2 Experimental School has already ripped up its tracks amid concerns about safety

Fear among parents and students: A bulldozer rips through a synthetic running track and a school in Chengdu

Shocking: Several schools have reported students in China becoming ill after using toxic tracks

Concerning: The Ministry of Education has ordered all running tracks to be inspected over the summer

One school involved in the scandal, Beijing No 2 Experimental School has already ripped up its track after students fell ill.

Chinanews.com reported that the primary school was forced to remove the entire playground after talks with parents, experts and Xicheng district education bureau.

Students at the school had complained of nosebleeds, sore eyes and skin allergies.

In light of the recent findings, authorities in Cangzhou in China's Hebei province shut down nine factories and detained 'related personnel' on June 22.

CCTV reported that a number of workshops had been using recycled waste to produce materials for the track.

An investigative report by the state-run media found that dozens of companies had been using vehicle tyres along with other rubber items to create the materials, reports Sina.

Images have emerged showing some schools already demolishing their running tracks.

A private school in Chengdu dug up its track worth 500,000 yuan (51,000).

While the track at Beijing's No 2 Experimental School has completely gone.

Tragic: A bulldozer rips up a running track worth 500,000 yuan (51,000) at a private school in Chengdu

Big problem: There were similar cases across the country in provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong

According to experts, the country has no standards for the running track production industry

The Ministry of Education announced the move in a statement on June 22.

Experts have claimed that there are harmful elements in these running tracks.

Ye Ping, deputy director of Taizhou Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Institute told China Daily that these tracks could result in diseases.

He told reporters: 'The plastic tracks in China mainly consist of polyure-thane, a kind of nontoxic material.

'However, suppliers may add toxic adhesives. They give a pungent smell and may cause itching and dizziness. '

Students in Beijing have reportedly suffered from nosebleeds, dizzy spells and coughs after using the tracks.

There were similar cases across the country in provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong.

The ministry announced that the construction of all synthetic tracks are to be suspended until the contracts for the construction have been reviewed by authorities to ensure their quality.

According to the Jiangsu Environmental Protection Bureau, the country has no standards for the running track industry.

Materials used in the construction of the tracks are not put through any testing when they are produced in factories.

The ministry has vowed to increase accountability in the education sector and also with people involved in the construction process. The statement said that those who do not meet the quality standards must be severely punished.

There were similar cases of sick students across the country in provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong

A thorough investigation: The Ministry of Education announced the move in a statement on June 22
were seen crawling in mud and trekking in heavy rain as they sharpened their military abilities

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A set of striking pictures have emerged of soldiers from China displaying their will of steel in a rigorous anti-terrorist training exercise.

These soldiers are from the counter-terrorist squad at the Armed Police Corps of Suining, a city of around 1.3 million people in south-west China's Sichuan Province.

The warriors were pictured on June 22 crawling in the mud as they attended week-long training aimed to sharpen their combat capabilities.

Members of the elite police squad are given such grueling 'devil-style' drills, as billed by Chinese media, regardless of the weather and on a regular basis.

Each of these intensive training regimes lasts seven days and seven nights, according to an article on the People's Daily Online in March.

They usually include a variety of strenuous outdoor challenges, including wrestling in mud and navigating rough terrain.

The soldiers are also tasked to pass through highly dangerous areas filled with poisonous gas or land mines.

Such arduous training programmes are designed to 'enhance their overall military abilities and to build their strength of faith and will', according to the same report.

Tough training: A team of soldiers in China crawled in the mud as they attended an anti-terrorist training programme yesterday

Nothing is going to stop us! These brave soldier are from the counter-terrorist squad at the Armed Police Corps of Suining, Sichuan

Fight until the last breath: A soldier was pictured in action during the rigorous drill that would last seven days and seven nights

I've got the will of steel: The week-long training is aimed to sharpen their combat capabilities and to toughen their character

It's a muddy battle field: The elite police squad is given gruelling 'devil-style' drills, as billed by Chinese media, regardless of the weather

All for one, and one for all: They undergo a variety of strenuous challenges, including wrestling in mud and navigating rough terrain

There are no secrets to success: One soldier was pictured pushing the limits during the notorious training designed to counter terrorism

First there: The soldiers are also tasked to pass through highly dangerous areas filled with poisonous gas and landmines
by the end of the weekend

Summer has officially hit the city with temperatures set to rise to 37 degrees

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In Beijing when the heat gets a little too much to handle there's always IKEA.

Hilarious images have emerged of people taking a break from the heat by relaxing a little too much in the air conditioned home and furniture store, reports Huanqiu, affiliated with the People's Daily Online.

Summer has officially hit the city with temperatures set to rise to 37 degrees Celsius by the end of the weekend.

Free air conditioning! An elderly woman lies down in an IKEA store in Beijing, China to take refuge from the heat

Hanging out in cold IKEA: Summer has officially hit the city with temperatures set to rise to 37 degrees by the end of the weekend

A good place to chill out! A Chinese couple rest on a couch inside the air conditioned store keeping away from the rising summer heat

Don't mind if I take a nap do you? A woman rests on a couch with a pillow on her face to hide the bright lights in the store

This isn't the first time that IKEA has had flocks of people heading to their stores in Beijing.

Just last year, the company was forced to issue a nationwide ban on sleeping in the store after hundreds of people vied for a space on a comfy sofa right under the air conditioning.

Many people who are unable to afford to use their air conditioning all of the time tend to head to big stores to keep cool.

The latest pictures were taken on June 21 in China's capital.

Images show customers sleeping on the display beds with some people using the company's bedding to help them get to sleep.

Many are seen with their shoes off by the side of the beds as they drift off into the land of nod.

While others take refuge on many of the sofas in the warehouse.

Summer has hit the city with temperatures this week well into the 30s. On Sunday, the maximum temperature in the city is set to be 37 degrees.

In the coming months, the temperatures are expected to rise.

IKEA opened up their first shop in China in 1999 and the country is now home to three of the top five largest IKEA stores in the world, only beaten by one in Stockholm.

After the first shop opened in Beijing, pictures emerged of shoppers camping out on the sofas with their families, reading newspapers and eating biscuits.

The flat-pack chain was founded by 87-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 and it is now the worlds largest furniture retailer.

Take your shoes off! A woman lies on a display sofa with her shoes on taking a nap in one of the showrooms

Shopping is hard work! A woman takes a break from wandering around the store inside one of the mock rooms

Keeping away from the heat: An elderly woman takes a nap while another customer chills out and looks at their tablet

Keeping cool: An elderly woman sleeps on a couch at a furnishing store belonging to IKEA in Beijing
Two fragments of pottery could provide clues to a 400-year-old mystery of what happened to one of North America's first colonies.

The sandy outpost on Roanoke Island in North Carolina had been an attempt by explorer Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a capital in the New World for Queen Elizabeth I.

But within just a few years of founding the settlement, more than 200 men, women and children had vanished, leaving the settlement empty.

Archaeologists have discovered two shards of blue and white pottery at the site of a colony that vanished without trace on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. They believe the fragments (pictured) were part of a medicine or ointment jar that may have been used by the colonists before they disappeared

TIMELINE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR 1584  Sir Walter Raleigh's men first land on Roanoke Island and find it suitable for settlement. 1585  108 soldiers come to Roanoke to establish first colony. 1586  Colonists and Native Americans at 'war,' and colony abandoned. 1587  Second group of 117 colonists come to Roanoke 1590  Captain White returns to Roanoke to find the colony gone. 1602  Raleigh makes another attempt to locate the colony. 1921  The Story of the Lost Colony movie made on site. 1940s  Professional archaeology begins at Roanoke. 2012 - Experts identified a tantalising clue hidden in a map drawn by a man on that fateful voyage. 2013 - Researchers study the site with the help of magnetometers and GPR. 2015- Excavations at the site uncover pottery and other items that suggest Roanoke colonists once lived there. A second Bristol University excavation suggests colonists made their way south to Hatteras around 1590 and met with a Native American tribe there Advertisement

Now archaeologists have discovered pieces of what they believe could have been a medicine jar belonging to one of the members of this 'lost colony'.

The blue and white coloured pieces of pottery were found about 75 yards from an earthen mound believed to have been the site of the 16th century fort.

Experts leading the excavation say the jar may have held an ointment or medicine used to treat diseases at the time.

The spread of disease within the fledgling colony could help to explain why it vanished so soon after being established - the inhabitants may have chosen to abandon it.

There are two competing theories for the fate of those who had established the settlement.

Some believe they were killed in a raid by native Americans while others believe they simply abandoned the outpost and assimilated into native tribes.

Last year storage jars, metal hooks and gun flintlocks were found on a nearby hillside around 50 miles to the northwest known as Site X.

At the time, archaeologists said it suggested the lost colonists may have left their settlement and went 'native'.

Eric Deetz, an archaeologist with the First Colony Foundation that is part of the team excavating on Roanoke Island that found the latest pottery, described the find as 'exciting'.

He said researchers had still to confirm that it was related to the colonists but he said it was the most significant piece of pottery found in the area since the 1940s.

He said the ointment jar would have been around three inches tall and 1.5 inches in diameter.

Speaking to the Virginia Pilot, Mr Deetz said: 'That pottery had something to do with the Elizabethan presence on that island.'

The mystery of what happened to the colonial inhabitants of Roanoke Island in the 1580s has become one of the most enduring stories in American folklore.

Raleigh had sent three groups to the coast of North Carolina in 1584, 1585 and 1587.

The pottery shards (pictured) could help to piece together the story of what happened to the colonists. If they still hide traces of the medicine kept in the container it may provide clues about diseases in the settlement

Archaeologists say the pottery belonged to a small pot around three inches tall and 1.5 inches in diameter, similar to those pictured above. They would have been used to hold ointment or medicine

For more than 400 years, researchers have been attempting to uncover the fate of the 'lost colonists' who disappeared from a sandy outpost on Roanoke Island. John White returned to Roanake Island in 1590 to find the settlers had vanished after he had gone back to England to fetch more supplies (artist's impression)

A fort was built on the island in 1585 and one of the colonists John White drew pictures of the natives.

His colleague Thomas Harriot is also known to have made maps of the region, learned the local Algonquian language and documented the local wildlife.

Among the plants growing on the island was sassafras, which is thought to have been used a s cure for ailments including syphilis at the time.

The colony on Roanoke Island was one of the first English settlements to be established in North America

The fate of the colonists at Roanoke Island has been one of the most enduring mysteries of American folklore in the past 400 years. A stone commemorates the site of what was one of the first English settlements in the New World before it vanished (pictured)

Earthen mounds at the site on Roanoke Island are thought to be the remains of the fort built by the colonists (pictured)

The jar fragments (pictured) are said to the most significant pieces of pottery to have been found at the site since the 1940s

In 1587 John White returned to England for supplies and never saw his daughter Eleanor or granddaughter Virginia again.

When he returned to the colony in 1590 he found the colony had vanished, but the word 'Croatoan' - the name of a nearby island - had been carved into a tree outside the settlement.

Due to bad weather White was never able to make it to Croatoan to look for the remnants of the colony and their fate has remained a mystery.

Speaking to WTKR, Jami Lanier, cultural resources manager for the Outer Banks Group which is also involved in the excavation, said the shards of medicine jar could help to piece more of the colony's story together.

He said: 'That's the most important value is the stories they can tell and they are pieces of the puzzle that can perhaps help solve the mystery.'
Like many autistic children, Julian Brown has trouble reading emotions in people's faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder.

Now the 10-year-old San Jose boy is getting help from 'autism glass'  an experimental device that records and studies faces in real-time and alerts him to the emotions they're expressing.

The facial recognition software was developed at Stanford University and runs on Google Glass, a computerised headset with a front-facing camera and a tiny display just above the right eye.

Julian Brown has trouble reading emotions in people's faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder. Now the 10-year-old San Jose boy is getting help from 'autism glass'

HOW DOES IT WORK? Autism glass records and studies faces in real-time. It then alerts the wearer to the emotions others are expressing. The facial recognition software was developed at Stanford University and runs on Google Glass. It's made up of a computerised headset with a front-facing camera and a tiny display just above the right eye. The Stanford team hopes autism glass can provide a convenient, affordable therapy that families can do at home. If the study shows positive results, the technology could become commercially available within a couple years. Advertisement

Julian is one of about 100 autistic children participating in a Stanford study to see if 'autism glass' therapy can improve their ability to interpret facial expressions.

'There's not a machine that can read your mind, but this helps with the emotions, you know, recognizing them,' Julian said.

Julian wears the device each day for three 20-minute sessions when he interacts with family members face-to-face  talking, playing games, eating meals. The program runs on a smartphone, which records the sessions.

When the device's camera detects an emotion such as happiness or sadness, Julian sees the word 'happy' or 'sad'  or a corresponding 'emoji'  flash on the glass display.

The device also tests his ability to read facial expressions.

'The autism glass program is meant to teach children with autism how to understand what a face is telling them. And we believe that when that happens they will become more socially engaged,' said Dennis Wall, who directs the Stanford School of Medicine's Wall Lab, which is running the study.

Stanford student Catalin Voss and researcher Nick Haber developed the technology to track faces and detect emotions in a wide range of people and settings.

'We had the idea of basically creating a behavioral aide that would recognize the expressions and faces for you and then give you social cues according to those,' said Voss, who was partly inspired by a cousin who has autism.

Google provided about 35 Google Glass devices to Stanford, but otherwise hasn't been involved in the project.

The Silicon Valley tech giant stopped producing the headset last year after it failed to gain traction, but the device found new life among medical researchers.

Brain Power, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup, is also developing Google Glass-based applications to help children with autism improve their face-reading abilities and social skills.

Jena Daniels, clinical research coordinator at The Wall Lab, right, smiles for Julian Brown to try and recognise emotional expressions during a Guess the Emotion exercise

Autism advocates are excited that researchers are developing technologies to help children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

'Glass and wearable technology are the future. They're going to play a pivotal role in how we understand, manage and diagnose disorders like autism,' said Robert Ring, chief science officer at Autism Speaks.

WHAT IS AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER? Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can cause a wide range of symptoms, which are often grouped into two main categories. Firstly, problems with social interaction and communication. This includes difficulty understanding and being aware of other people's emotions and feelings and/or problems taking part in, or starting, conversations. Patterns of thought are another key area, namely restricted and repetitive patterns of thought or physical movement, such as hand tapping or twisting, and becoming upset if these set routines are disrupted. It's estimated about 1 in every 100 people in the UK has ASD. More boys are diagnosed with it than girls. There is no cure for ASD, but a range of educational and behavioural support programmes can help people with the condition. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

Currently, many autistic children learn to read facial expressions by working with therapists who use flashcards with faces expressing different emotions.

The Stanford team hopes autism glass can provide a convenient, affordable therapy that families can do at home.

'Kids with autism are not getting enough of the care that they need for as long as they need it, and we need to fix the problem,' Wall said.

Julian Brown, right, talks with his mother Kristen during a meeting with Jena Daniels, a clinical research coordinator at The Wall Lab in Stanford. If the study shows positive results, the technology could become commercially available within a couple years

If the study shows positive results, the technology could become commercially available within a couple years, Wall said.

'Anything that can help this population is very welcome and very important, but even the best technology will never be enough because we are dealing with a population with often very, very profound needs,' said Jill Escher, president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area.

The study is still in its early stages, but Wall said participating children have shown gains in their face-reading abilities and family feedback has been encouraging.

'It has helped our son who's using the Google Glasses connect with the family more,' said Kristen Brown, Julian's mother. 'I think the glasses are a positive way to encourage a kid to look someone else in the face.'

Julian also gives the device positive reviews: 'I really think it would help autistic people a lot.'
It has been the dream of science fiction fans since they first saw Captain Kirk and Spock disappear from the deck of the Enterprise, only to reappear on a planet in a haze of light.

Now scientists in Russia are on a mission to bring Star Trek-style teleportation to life as part of a multi-trillion Rouble research and development drive.

Russian investors say the plan isnt as far-fetched as it may seem, with much of the common technology used today inspired by sci-fi of decades gone by.

Teleportation has been the dream of science fiction fans for generations, since they first saw Captain Kirk and Spock disappear from the deck of the Enterprise (pictured), only to reappear on a planet in a haze of light

RUSSIA'S TELEPORTATION DRIVE The Russian government could develop the technology by 2035 as part of a $2.1 trillion (1.4 trillion) research and development drive. Investors say the plan isnt as far-fetched as it may seem, with much of the common technology used today inspired by sci-fi of decades gone by. Early research into the area has shown it is possible to teleport information over relatively large distances - but trasnporting humans is still some way off. Advertisement

According to the Telegraph, the Russian government could develop the technology by 2035 as part of a $2.1 trillion (1.4 trillion) roadmap for cybernetics.

The federal government recently announced its plans to invest more than 10 billion roubles (150 million) over the next two years into a National Technology Initiative.

Russia aims to use the project as a launch pad to develop technologies that will drive its economy in the next 20 years.

Scientists have proved teleportation is possible  at the subatomic scale at least.

In 2014, a Dutch group proved they could transfer the properties of one atom to another, 'teleporting' the information over a distance of three metres.

Investors say the plan isnt as far-fetched as it may seem, with much of the common technology used today inspired by sci-fi of decades gone by, such as the iconic Star Trek series (pictured)

Russia aims to use the project as a launch pad to develop technologies that will drive its economy in the next 20 years

While other groups have used particles of light to transfer information over distances of over 100 kilometres (62 miles).

The drive is part of a wider vision for Russia's future, with Kremlin-backed firms looking to createits own version of Elon Musk's hyperloop.

The network would link Western Russia to the Far East and the northern reaches of the enormous country, with the first section of the network linking St Petersburg to Moscow in order to transport cargo the 400 miles (640 km) from Baltic Sea terminals.

Head of St Petersburg Railway Innovation Development Centre, Anatolyi Zaitsev, said that while the project would cost the West an estimated $21 billion (14bn), Russia could achieve the technological feat with half the budget.
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A plane powered by the sun and piloted by Swiss adventurers has landed in Spain after a gruelling 71 hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Solar Impulse 2 (SI2) landed in Seville this morning just after 7.30am local time after setting off from New York early on Monday morning.

The flight is one of the longest the plane has made and completes the 15th leg of the team's epic journey, which aims to make the first ever round-the-world flight using solar energy.

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Solar Impulse 2 landed in Seville this morning (pictured) just after 7.30am local time after setting off from New York early on Monday morning, with Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard making the gruelling 71-hour flight

Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard flew this leg of the journey, while fellow pilot Andre Borschberg watched from the ground.

Following the landing, Piccard said: 'Oh-la-la, absolutely perfect,' before thanking his engineering crew for their efforts.

The aircraft has a cruising speed of around 70 kilometres an hour (43 mph), closer to the average average car than a plane. It uses more than 17,0000 solar cells built in to wings with a span bigger than that of a Boeing 747.

Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard took a selfie mid-flight in Solar Impulse 2 enroute to the airport in Seville this morning

As the solar-powered aircraft made its final descent into Seville airport it was welcomed by Spanish jet formation Patrulla Aguilla or 'Eagle patrol' (pictured)

The flight was one of the longest the plane has made and completes the 15th leg of the team's epic journey, which aims to make the first ever round-the-world flight using solar energy (pictured)

The solar-powered plane, pictured lining up with the runway at Seville, is lightweight and so feels the force of even low speed winds

The aircraft flew in to a sunny Seville airport this morning (pictured) after one of the longest and dangerous of its epic journey

SI2 set off from New York's JFK airport just after 2:30am local time (6:30 GMT), with Piccard piloting the plane on the 15th leg of its east to west journey around the world that began March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi.

An elated ground crew met Piccard on the tarmac, welcoming the Swiss pilot back to the European continent.

The Solar Impulse team took to Twitter, with a photo of the two pilots on the runway with the aircraft in the background. It read: 'Our solar heroes of the day@bertrandpiccard and @andreborschberg the oceans are behind us, we made it to @Spain.'

Addressing crowds of spectators and reporters on the runway at Seville, Mr Piccard said: 'The world of modern clean technologies, respect for the environment, innovation, pioneers  this is the world that Solar Impulse and its team would like to represent [and] promote.'

'We really hope that this flight symbolises the flight from the old world to the new world,' he added.

Pure elation: Pilot Bertrand Piccard pictured in the cockpit of Solar Impulse 2 immediately after landing in Seville this morning

An elated Piccard was met on the tarmac by ground crew - welcoming the Swiss pilot back to the European continent - as well as spectators and reporters (pictured)

Spanish air force aerobatic team Patrulla Aguila fly for the event of the arrival of the solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2

Addressing crowds of spectators and reporters on the runway at Seville, Mr Piccard (pictured) said: 'The world of modern clean technologies, respect for the environment, innovation, pioneers  this is the world that Solar Impulse and its team would like to represent [and] promote'

We want to represent the new world, the world of #cleantechs. Because the #futureisclean & it starts now!  pic.twitter.com/ZplUGD4LsS  Bertrand PICCARD (@bertrandpiccard) June 23, 2016

HOW DOES SOLAR IMPULSE WORK? Solar Impulse 2 is powered by 17,000 solar cells and on-board rechargeable lithium batteries, allowing it to fly through the night. Its wingspan is longer than a jumbo jet but its light construction keeps its weight to about as much as a car. Solar Impulse 2 relies on getting enough solar power during the day to survive the night. It is also extremely light - about the weight of a car - and as wide as a passenger jet. Both of these combined means it is extremely susceptible to the weather. In high winds it can struggle to stay aloft at the altitudes necessary to gather sunlight. Advertisement

Already the aircraft has crossed Asia, the Pacific and the United States using the sun as its only source of power.

The plane had been due to take off from New York early on Sunday but was delayed due to concerns over the weather.

Prince Albert of Monaco, a patron of the project, gave the flight the go-ahead from its mission control centre in Monaco, telling Mr Piccard: 'You are released to proceed.'

A post on the team's blog before the crossing said: 'If you consider a long flight like this over the Atlantic Ocean, you have to keep in mind that the weather needs to be predicted in advance (approximately 5 days).

'As we all know, weather is difficult to anticipate and therefore we will have to adapt to all challenges as they arise.'

Mr Piccard and his colleague, pilot Andre Borschberg, have been taking turns piloting the plane on each leg of the journey.

Both have trained to stay alert for long stretches of time by practicing meditation and hypnosis.

The Swiss team's ultimate goal is to achieve the first round-the-world solar-powered flight, part of its campaign to bolster support for clean-energy technologies.

The plane can climb to 28,000 feet (8,500 meters), but generally flies at lower altitudes at night to conserve energy.

This image was taken just before landing at San Pablo airport in Seville, southern Spain. The Aero-Club of Switzerland is responsible for validating records of the flight

While the latest flight represents an historic achievement, the project has not been without its hurdles. Last summer, the plane suffered 'irreversible damage to overheated batteries' after a flight between Nagoya and Hawaii that lasted more than 117 hours

Solar Impulse's solar panels are seen clearly in this stunning image taken during the latest leg of its flight

The solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, is pictured before landing at San Pablo airport

SI2 set off from New York's JFK airport on Monday morning as it embarked on the transatlantic leg of its record-breaking flight(pictured is SI2 flying over the Statue of Liberty)

SI2 after it had taken off into the night sky from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Monday

Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland says an emotional goodbye to wife Michelle before beginning preparations to fly from New York. Solar Impulse cruises at speeds ranging from only 34 to 62 miles per hour (55 to 100 km/h)

With a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 but an ultra-light carbon-fiber skin and overall weight of a car, the Solar Impulse cruises at speeds ranging from only 34mph to 62mph (55 to 100 km/h).

The four engines of the propeller-driven aircraft are powered exclusively by energy collected from the thousands of solar cells built into its wings.

Excess energy is stored in four batteries during daylight hours to keep the plane flying after dark.

The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and the US.

The solar powered aircraft is piloted by Swiss adventurers Bertrand Piccard (left) and Andre Borschberg (right)

Pilots Piccard (left) and Borschberg (right) made six stops as they crossed the United States, before Piccard undertook the three-day Atlantic crossing. The pair are pictured celebrating after today's successful landing in Seville

It was the 15th leg of a planned around-the-world flight which began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates

The solar-powered plane (pictured) is approaching the last few legs of its round-the-world journey, with former stages taking the two Swiss pilots across the Pacific Ocean and coast to coast of the United States

Staff members check the SI2 after its landing at Seville's San Pablo airport today

The Solar Impulse 2's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night

The solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, is pictured before landing at San Pablo airport in Seville, southern Spain

The enormous wingspan of SI2 (pictured) is larger than that of a Beoing 747 commercial jet and contains 70,000 solar cells built into the wings

The aircraft has a cruising speed of around 70 kilometres an hour (43 mph), closer to the average average car than a plane

The aircraft is built from a range of lightweight materials and high storage batteries (illustrated) to help keep the experimental aircraft in the air for long periods using just the power from sunlight

Bertrand Piccard (pictured in cockpit) is welcomed by fellow pilot Andre Borschberg at the Spanish airport

Swiss aviator of the solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2 Bertrand Piccard runs after landing at San Pablo airport in Seville this morning

The flight team of the project, Swiss aviators Andre Borschberg (left) and Bertrand Piccard (right), speak to crowds of reporters on the tarmac. Piccard was able to stretch his legs for the first time since making the gruelling transatlantic flight in the cramped cockpit

Piccard and fellow pilot and countryman Borschberg gave a press conference in Seville this morning following the successful landing

Piccard (pictured) is half of the two-man flight team for the round-the-world solar flight, which is estimated to take some 500 flight hours and cover 35,000 km

SOLAR IMPULSE 2'S ROUND THE WORLD JOURNEY The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. Piccard and Andre Borschberg have been taking turns piloting the plane on each leg of the journey. Both have trained to stay alert for long stretches of time by practicing meditation and hypnosis. Borschberg set a new endurance record for the longest non-stop solo flight last July during a 118-hour trans-Pacific crossing, over five days and five nights, from Japan to Hawaii. The solar-powered plane SI2, piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, is pictured before landing at San Pablo airport in Seville this morning A world map shows the path of the solar powered-plane so far, completing its traverse of the United States and Atlantic Ocean. The latest stage, the team's 15th, took SI2 from New York for its Atlantic crossing Advertisement

SI2 set off from New York's JFK airport just after 2:30am local time (6:30 GMT), with Piccard piloting the plane on the 15th leg of its east to west journey around the world that began March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi (pictured)
For decades they have been the secretive eyes in the sky for the military and intelligence agencies, but details of many of the world's spy satellites are about to become public knowledge.

Russia has said that is planning to make public a comprehensive database of all the satellites, spacecraft and debris it has been tracking in orbit around the planet.

But unlike official lists published by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), it has promised to include military satellites used by the United States and its allies.

The Russian Federation has said it is preparing to publish data on the locations of all operating satellites in orbit around the Earth including secret military satellties operated by the US and its allies (illustrated). These are currently not included in public databases released by the North American Aerospace Defense Command

While it might seem like an unlikely move for a country not known for its openness, details of Russia's military satellites are already public knowledge under information published by the US.

NEWEST US SPYSAT SPOTTED Just over a week ago, the world's largest rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a secret spy satellite. A live feed of the launch was cut after roughly six minutes to maintain the payload's secrecy  but it has now been spotted by amateur satellite trackers. Only three days after the launch, an Australian observer located the payload through a 'dedicated photographic survey.' The find is detailed on the blog of Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker who helped guide Paul Camilleri toward the discovery, along with fellow skygazer Ted Molczan. By their calculations, the satellite was found near longitude 104E, over the Strait of Malacca, a stretch between the Malaysian Peninsula and the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. They say it appears to be drifting westward. The satellite is one of the National Reconnaissance Office's SIGINT satellites, which are used to 'listen' for radio signals. Advertisement

According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, the Russian proposals, which they outlined at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna, are aimed at levelling the playfield.

Russia said it wanted details of all satellites to be held in a UN-run database designed for 'collecting, systemising, sharing and analysing information on objects and events in outer space'.

Their submission to the meeting is a sign of the growing tensions over exploration of outer space.

It also raises concerns at the US governments 'unilateral decision' to give its 'own companies carte blanche to exploit space mineral resources'.

Russia insisted its information sharing proposals would help to ensure the safety of the growing amount of traffic in space.

There are an estimated 1,380 operating satellites currently in orbit around the Earth, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been collating its own database.

It estimates that 149 of these are operated by the US military or have joint use.

Allies of the US are also not included in the NORAD databases but it is thought that Israel has nine military satellites in orbit, the UK has seven, France has eight and Germany has seven.

Together with the large amount of spacecraft debris and other junk orbiting the planet, the space around the Earth is becoming increasingly crowded.

The Russian proposal said that despite objections from the US that seemed to be aimed at blocking a UN-run list of satellites, the Russian government would change its policy and publish its own data.

Russia claims its telescopes and tracking systems, such as those at the Altai Optical Laser Centre in Zmeinogorsky, Siberia, (pictured), are capable to spotting far more objects orbiting the planet than are made public in databases published by the US authorities

Recently Russia's Altai Optical Laser Centre spotted the US spy satellite Lacrosse Radar Reconnaissance Satellites, imaging them in detail for the first time (pictured)

It claims that its telescopes and tracking systems are able to spot around 40 per cent more space objects than those seen in databases made public by the Americans.

IS SPACE JUNK HIDING SPYSATS? Last year a senior Russian aerospace commander sensationally claimed that some spy satellites are masquerading as space junk in Earth orbit. The official refused to comment on how many such satellites there were, and which countries were operating them. It suggests there could be more satellites than thought monitoring different countries on Earth. The claims were made by the commander of Russian Space Command, Oleg Maidanovich. He was speaking on a film called 'Space Special Forces' during a tour of Russia's main centre for aerospace intelligence in Krasnoznamensk, near Moscow. 'Very recently, specialists of the department of space intelligence centre uncovered a newly created group of space satellites... made for radio-technical reconnaissance of equipment on Russian territory,' he said. Advertisement

The Russian proposal said: 'The Russian Federation proceeds to establish a national information service, whose function shall be to provide open access to the results of monitoring objects and events in outer space.'

Russia is thought to have the second highest number of military satellites in orbit around the Earth, with around 75 being used for military or joint use. China is thought to have 35.

Most military satellites are used for communication, early warning systems to look for missile launches, intelligence gathering and navigation.

Russian diplomats are said to be frustrated by the US's attempts to regulate space traffic while refusing to disclose information on many of their own satellites.

Many space agencies are now involved in tracking the location of man-made objects in space including Nasa, the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the European Space Agency and China.

However, Igor Molotov, a research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia: 'Our network spots approximately 40 per cent more objects than you can find in open American databases.

'We have several times more telescopes than NORAD.'
Aging monkeys keep an interest in others,

People make and keep friends in different ways as they move through life, getting choosier about how they spend their time with age.

And it appears this selectiveness for friends goes further into the animal kingdom than ever realised.

New research from the German Primate Centre shows that Barbary macaques become similarly choosy about their friends as they age.

The study found that older females engaged in fewer social interactions, although other group members continued to invest in relationships with them

THE STUDY The study looked at a sample of more than 100 monkeys of different ages kept in the enclosure 'La Foret des Singes' in Rocamadour, France. To assess monkeys' curiosity to explore new things, the researchers presented them with novel objects such as animal toys and a tube containing food. While young monkeys were fascinated by the new objects, by early adulthood, the monkeys had lost interest in the novel objects. Additionally, the study looked at the monkeys' social interests, by showing them photographs of newborn monkeys, and observing their interactions with each other. Aging monkeys maintained a keen interest in other monkeys, especially when the other monkey was a socially important individual. However, older females engaged in fewer social interactions, although other group members continued to invest in relationships with them. Advertisement

The research, published in Current Biology, involved a series of experimental and behavioural studies in Barbary macaques.

Dr Laura Almeling, who led the study, said: 'An important psychological theory suggests that humans become more socially selective when they know that their remaining life time is limited, such as in old age.

'We assume that monkeys are not aware of their own limited future time.'

The researchers suggest that because monkeys are not aware that they have limited life time left, this decision to be selective about friends must be due to physiological changes.

The study looked at a sample of more than 100 monkeys of different ages kept in the enclosure 'La Foret des Singes' in Rocamadour, France.

To assess monkeys' curiosity to explore new things, the researchers presented them with novel objects such as animal toys and a tube containing food.

While young monkeys were fascinated by the new objects, by early adulthood, the monkeys had lost interest in the novel objects.

Only the tube containing food held interest for all but the oldest monkeys.

Additionally, the study looked at the monkeys' social interests, by showing them photographs of newborn monkeys, and observing their interactions with each other.

Aging monkeys maintained a keen interest in other monkeys, especially when the other monkey was a socially important individual.

However, older females engaged in fewer social interactions, although other group members continued to invest in relationships with them.

Older women also often become more selective about their social interactions, for example in the Golden Girls TV programme

Dr Almeling said: 'With increasing age, the monkeys became more selective in their social interactions.

'Interestingly, however, they were still interested in what was going on in their social world.'

'Older females continued to respond particularly strongly to hearing a scream for help from their best friend and older males still looked preferentially at pictures of the newborns,' she said, noting that Barbary macaque males use infants as status symbols.

Overall, the study suggests that, just like humans, monkeys become more selective about their social interactions as they age.

However, the reduced social behavior is not due to a general loss of interest in others.

Professor Alexandra Freund, from the University of Zurich, who also worked on the study, said: 'Changes in social behavior in monkeys and humans may occur in the absence of a limited time perspective and are most likely deeply rooted in primate evolution.'
The known universe stretches more than 46 billion light years away from us on Earth and is thought to have been expanding for more than 13.8 billion years.

But now Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity could finally allow scientists to model the vast expanse of space in its entirety for the first time.

They have created two computer models that they hope will lead the most detailed maps of our universe ever created.

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Scientists are creating the most detailed model of our universe using Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The image above shows how galaxies float on the curved fabric of space time

It is the first time that Einstein's theory, which explains how gravity arises from the curvature of space and time, has been fully applied in this way.

GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers - known as the theory of special relativity. This groundbreaking work introduced a new framework for all of physics, and proposed new concepts of space and time. He then spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in the theory, finally publishing his theory of general relativity in 1915. This determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity. At its simplest, it can be thought of as a giant rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the centre. As the ball warps the sheet, a planet bends the fabric of space-time, creating the force that we feel as gravity. Any object that comes near to the body falls towards it because of the effect. Einstein predicted that if two massive bodies came together it would create such a huge ripple in space time that it should be detectable on Earth. Advertisement

Although the German physicist first developed the theory 100 years ago, the equations needed to model the universe are so complex it has prohibited such maps from being created in the past.

But using high powered computing, researchers have been able to create models that help to account for the effects of the clumping of matter in some regions and the lack of it in others.

Dr Marco Bruni, an astrophysicist at Portsmouth University, said: 'Over the next decade we expect a deluge of new data coming from next generation galaxy surveys, which use extremely powerful telescopes and satellites to obtain high-precision measurements of cosmological parameters.

'To match this precision we need theoretical predictions that are not only equally precise, but also accurate at the same level.

'These new computer codes apply general relativity in full and aim precisely at this high level of accuracy, and in future they should become the benchmark for any work that makes simplifying assumptions.'

The researchers are constructing their models in an attempt to answer whether small-scale structures in the universe produce effects on larger distance scales.

For example black holes can send out ripples across space and time. Both found that to be the case but there were departures from previous simulations that have attempted to average the universe.

Instead the impacts change depending on the universe's lumpy nature.

The researchers, whose papers have been published on the open source website arXiv, say computer simulations employing the full power of general relativity are the key to producing more accurate results and perhaps new or deeper understanding.

The existence of black holes (artists impression illustrated) was first proposed using Einstein's general theory of relativity shortly after he published his equations in 1915. Although Einstein himself was sceptical about the existence of black holes, astronomers can see their effects on the universe around us

Professor Glenn Starkman, director of the Institute for the Science of Origins at Case Western Reserve University, said: 'No one has modelled the full complexity of the problem before.

'These papers are an important step forward, using the full machinery of general relativity to model the universe, without unwarranted assumptions of symmetry or smoothness.

'The universe doesn't make these assumptions, neither should we.'

Their approach should also provide greater accuracy phenomena such as gravitational lensing.

Dr Bruni's team found that perturbations in the universe reached a 'turnaround point' and collapsed much earlier than predicted by approximate models.

The US team found that uniformly distributed matter generates local differences in the expansion rate of an evolving universe.

This deviates from the behaviour widely predicted under approximations of space and time, called the FriedmannLemaitreRobertsonWalker metric.

Dr Eloisa Bentivegna, a senior researcher at the University of Catania in Italy, who worked with Dr Bruni, said: 'This will allow us to comprehend a larger class of observational effects that are likely to emerge as we do precision cosmology.'
More than a decade ago, a bizarre six-inch skeleton was discovered in Chiles Atacama Desert, spurring claims that extraterrestrial visitors had crash-landed on Earth.

Now, alien investigators of the internet have spotted what they say could be a living member of the same species.

Just feet away from Nasas Curiosity rover, YouTube user Paranormal Crucible claims a tiny humanoid alien can be seen spying from behind a Martian rock.

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Just feet away from Nasas Curiosity rover, Youtube user Paranormal Crucible claims a tiny humanoid alien can be seen spying from behind a Martian rock

The original image was captured by the Curiosity rovers Mastcam, revealing the rocky landscape of the red planet.

But at the bottom-center of the photo, Paranormal Crucible claims to have found something strange.

Interesting anomolie [sic] found by the rover, which looks like a little Martian, the Youtuber wrote.

I have colorized the image and added eyes to the head so its easier to see, but everything is there in the original images, whatever it is it looks humanoid, reminds me of the Atacama Alien, about the same size too, this one is around 6 inches.

The original image was captured by the Curiosity rovers Mastcam, revealing the rocky landscape of the red planet. But at the bottom-center of the photo, Paranormal Crucible claims to have found something strange

WHY WE SEE STRANGE THINGS ON MARS Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimulus. It is a form of apophenia, when people see patterns in random, unconnected data. There have been multiple occasions when people have claimed to see religious images and themes in unexpected places. On the red planet, one of the most famous is the 'face on Mars' spotted by one of the Viking orbiters in 1976. This was later proven to just be a chance alignment of shifting sand dunes. Advertisement

Commenters have speculated that the small figure is likely a Martian woman, based on the shape of its body.

On UFOSightings Daily, editor Scott C. Waring added to the claims, writing that the figure in the photo is of a Martian species that is alive, but dwindling.

This human-like figure is peering around the corner of a rock wall and I can make out its head, chest, shoulders, arm, leg, knee, and foot from this one close up photo, Waring writes.

Due to the estimated size, Paranormal Crucible says it could be the same species as the Atacama alien. In 2013, however, it was revealed that DNA tests on the tiny skeleton found in Chile confirmed that the bizarre specimen was not an alien, but a human with an interesting mutation

Paranormal Crucible says its about 6 inchesI agree. This is one of the species that once lived on Mars and is still living there now, but in lower numbers. The mysteries of Mars just keep revealing themselves one by one.

Due to the estimated size, Paranormal Crucible says it could be the same species as the Atacama alien.

In 2013, however, it was revealed that DNA tests on the tiny skeleton confirmed that the bizarre specimen found in Chile was not an alien, but a human with an interesting mutation.
Chinas new nuclear attack submarine is among the militarys most secretive platforms  and the world has just been given its first glimpse.

The Chinese navy has released a rare photo of the Type 093B Shang submarine, which can launch missiles vertically at ships and other targets overhead.

This model improves upon the capabilities of earlier nuclear attack submarines, and is expected to be quieter and faster.

Chinas new nuclear attack submarine is among the militarys most secretive platforms  and the world has just been given its first glimpse. The Chinese navy has released a rare photo of the Type 093B Shang submarine

THE NEW SUBMARINE The Type 093B SSN is a nuclear attack submarine. Its expected to be quieter and faster than earlier models, and is equipped with a vertical launch system. This makes for quicker launches, and larger size of the cells means it can support UACs or underwater robots. Advertisement

According to the Popular Science blog Eastern Arsenal, this reveal marks an extremely rare event.

Its thought that there were three Type 093B SSNs launched last year.

These were preceded by two Type 093 SSNs, which were launched 15 years ago.

Though they were intended to be stealthy, the Type 093s were equipped with noisy reactors and propulsion systems, the blog explains, and this was only worsened as they climbed to higher speeds.

In the new version, the submarine uses more advanced metallurgy and reactor resigns to reduce noise to an estimate stealthiness between the USN Los Angeles Flight I and Flight III SSNs.

Little is disclosed regarding the stealth and performance given the view of the photo, but the article points out numerous other noticeable improvements.

This includes a vertical launch system battery, which has been installed behind the conning tower.

Submarines can fire missile canisters from their torpedo tubes, which break open to launch the missile inside. In the photo, sailors can be seen loading a missile canister into the tube

A vertical system will make for faster launches, and the cells are larger and thus better suited for the launch of underwater robots or UAVS.

But, the submarine will still have cruise missiles, which are shot from a torpedo tube.

In the photo, sailors can be seen loading a missile canister into the tube.

Along with this, the 093B has a flared base, a feature thats seen similarly in modern attack submarines.

This may contain sensors, the blog explains, and installation mounts on the sides of the hull indicate there will be side-mounted active sonar to look for warships and submarines.

Recent improvements in the underwater force show China is beginning to catch up to other powers at sea, including the US and Japan.

The country is already working on another nuclear attack submarine, the Type 095, which could launch before 2020.
Astronomers have discovered a giant planet with an 'impossible' orbit.

Called K2-39b, the exoplanet first spotted by Nasa's Kepler mission has the shortest known orbital period of any planet near a subgiant star.

This orbit puts these two bodies so close together that the planet should have been destroyed by the tidal interactions  but, it's somehow managed to survive.

Called K2-39b, the exoplanet first spotted by Nasa's Kepler mission has the shortest known orbital period of any planet near a subgiant star. This orbit puts these two bodies so close together that the planet should have been destroyed by the tidal interactions

THE 'IMPOSSIBLE' PLANET K2-39b has an orbital period of just 4.6 days around a subgiant star. The researchers determined that K2-39b is 50 times more massive than Earth, and has a radius roughly eight times larger. Considering the mass of K2-39b and the closeness of the orbit, they estimate it will die in roughly 150 million years. Advertisement

K2-39b has an orbital period of just 4.6 days.

Having such a short orbit around a subgiant star is extremely rare, and the researchers say there are only a handful of cases known to be similar.

It's thought that these types of planets may be tidally destroyed as the star grows, or that the scarcity is a result of higher mass evolved subgiant stars compared to main-sequence stars.

'The reason for this is poorly understood, but may reflect differences in planet occurrence around the relatively high-mass stars that have been surveyed, or may be the result of tidal destruction of such planets,' the researchers note in the paper, published recently to the journal arXiv.

After the planet candidate was first spotted, researchers set out to confirm its status as a planet.

This was done using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (Harps) spectrograph on the ESO 3.6m telescope in La Silla Chile, along with the Nordic Optical Telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, and the Magellan II telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

The researchers determined that K2-39b is 50 times more massive than Earth, and has a radius roughly eight times larger.

Considering the mass of K2-39b and the closeness of the orbit, the researchers estimate it will die in roughly 150 million years.

K2-39b has an orbital period of just 4.6 days. Having such a short orbit around a subgiant star is extremely rare, and the researchers say there are only a handful of cases known to be similar

They also report that there may be a second planet in the system, one that is larger and further from the star.

But, this has not yet been confirmed with the available data.

'K2-39b is a bit of a 'special beast,' because such short-period planets orbiting large, evolved stars, are quite rare,' Vincent Van Eylen of the Aarhus University in Denmark, who led the study, told Phys.org.

'This planet is special mostly because of the star it orbits: Its host star is an evolved star, a subgiant several times larger than the sun. Around such stars, very few short-period planets were known, and there is speculation this may be because they cannot survive so close to such large stars.
Gone are the days when tossing a mattress in the back of a truck was the only way to get it home from the store.

The booming 'boxed bed business has taken over the mattress industry, allowing consumers to purchase their bedding online and have it shipped to their doorstep compressed inside of a box.

And a new video shows the monstrous Auto-Pac 1390HCA system using a 60-ton hydraulic press and highly consistent rolling to neatly fold your mattress to be bagged and sealed for delivery.

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A new video shows the monstrous Auto-Pac 1390HCA system using a 60-ton hydraulic press and highly consistent rolling to neatly fold a mattress to be bagged and sealed for delivery.

WHAT DOESTHE MACHINE DO? The first step of preparing a mattress for shipping is to cover it in a protective plastic wrap. Once encased, the bedding slides along on the conveyor belt and is compressed so tightly it looks more like a large quilt instead of a mattress. It then continues on its journey to the folding portion of the process. Robotic arms flip one side over, folding it completely in half and after, the mattress heads to a roller to squish it down even more. Finally it is rolled through a machine into the tightly packed cylinder that ships to your home. The entire Auto-Pac machine weighs 28,000 pounds and is 12 feet high. The process of wrapping, compressing, sealing and rolling seems to take just a few minutes to complete  and then it is ready for you to enjoy. Advertisement

This folding machine is a product of Atlanta Attachment, a Georgia-based firm, which is a global supplier of mattress machinery and sewing automation.

The Auto-Pac is designed to fold conventional mattress bagging, but specifically targets e-commerce boxed bedding with its compression technology and optional modules for turning, folding and roll packing, Hank Little, president of machinery major Atlanta Attachment Co. Inc., based in Lawrenceville, Georgia, told BedTimes Magaine.

The packaging system offers variable compression heights and has optional capability for programmable diameter settings, he said.

The unit preserves the integrity of the mattress and its cover, yielding a positive consumer experience when the bed is unpacked in the home.

The first step of preparing a mattress for shipping is to cover it in a protective plastic wrap.

Once encased, the bedding slides along on the conveyor belt and is compressed so tightly it looks more like a large quilt instead of a mattress.

It then continues on its journey to the folding portion of the process.

Robotic arms flip one side over, folding it completely in half and after, the mattress heads to a roller to squish it down even more.

Finally it is rolled through a machine into the tightly packed cylinder that ships to your home.

The booming boxed bed business has taken over the mattress industry, allowing consumers to purchase their bedding online and have it shipped to their doorstep compressed inside of a box. And a new video shows the monstrous Auto-Pac 1390HCA system using a 60-ton hydraulic press and highly consistent rolling.

The entire Auto-Pac machine weighs 28,000 pounds and is 12 feet high.

The process of wrapping, compressing, sealing and rolling seems to take just a few minutes to complete  and then it is ready for you to enjoy.

However, no matter how great a mattress is, if you are not able to sleep it is worthless.

With the growing number of fitness trackers and sleep monitors now available, we have never been more informed about what we get up to during the night.

This folding machine is a product of Atlanta Attachment, a Georgia-based firm, which is a global supplier of mattress machinery and sewing automation. The first step of preparing a mattress for shipping is to cover it in a protective plastic wrap

Once encased, the bedding slides along on the conveyor belt into the plastic and is compressed so tightly it looks more like a large quilt instead of a mattress. It then continues on its journey to the folding portion of the process

For the first time it is possible to see exactly how much you thrash around while asleep, just how often you wake up and exactly when you are dreaming.

But what can we do with all this barrage of information and how can it help us get a better night's sleep?

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates worrying about dropping off can actually make it harder to get to sleep and even may be a contributing factor in insomnia.

Robotic arms flip one side over, folding it completely in half and after, the mattress heads to a roller to squish it down even more. The entire Auto-Pac machine weighs 28,000 pounds and is 12 feet high

Finally it is rolled through a machine into the tightly packed cylinder that ships to your home. The process of wrapping, compressing, sealing and rolling seems to take just a few minutes to complete  and then it is ready for you to enjoy

So sleep trackers may actually be contributing to the sleep crisis.

Dr Guy Meadows, a sleep psychologist at the Sleep School in London, warns that unless used properly, they may exacerbate the problem.

He said: 'In chronic insomnia the main culprit can be the high level of anxiety that can keep people from going to sleep. 'Sleep trackers can cause people to become obsessive and that can increase the anxiety further.'

A recent survey by the Royal Society for Public Health revealed that the average adult in the UK sleeps for around 6.8 hours a night.

On average experts recommend people get around 7.7 hours of sleep each night in order to wake up feeling refreshed.

Our busy lives and modern technology are widely blamed for degraded the sleep we get. But according to Dr Meadows, when used correctly sleep trackers can help improve the sleep we do get and help adapt the way we kip to the way our own bodies work.

He said: 'I've got a lot of sleep tracking devices and there are pros and cons to tracking, but overwhelmingly it can have a positive effect by getting people to focus on their sleep.
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These swanky first class suites are among the best in the sky - offering comfy seats that convert into beds, meals prepared by in-flight chefs, amenity kits with designer toiletries and access to exclusive lounges.

While they're usually associated with high-flying executives and A-list celebrities, they aren't out of reach for the average traveller who wants to cross first class off their bucket list without having to pay an eye-watering ticket price.

Passengers who normally travel in economy can fly in the lap of luxury for less than 1,000 for a one-way flight.

It will be short but sweet, however - only short-haul routes are available at these prices, meaning travellers won't have a lot of time to enjoy the Champagne, caviar, grilled steaks or designer pyjamas.

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Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi to Mumbai  650

Passengers can fly in Etihad's First Apartment for three hours on its Abu Dhabi-Mumbai route, which uses the Airbus A380 aircraft

There are nine enclosed first class suites on the upper deck, each with sliding doors for privacy and a fully-flat 6ft 10in bed

Every suite has a vanity unit and full-length wardrobe, and passengers have access to a shower room and a hotel-inspired lobby

Etihads first class cabin has revolutionised luxury travel thanks to The Residence  the first-ever private suite on a commercial jet  and the First Apartment.

Passengers can fly in the latter for just 650 on the Gulf carriers Abu Dhabi-Mumbai route, which uses the Airbus A380 aircraft on the three-hour journey.

There are nine enclosed first class suites on the upper deck, each with sliding doors for privacy, a leather armchair, 24in TV screen, cabinet with chilled drinks and 6ft 10in bed.

Every suite has a vanity unit and full-length wardrobe, and passengers have access to a shower room and a hotel-inspired lobby with six seats.

Those who want to splurge can spend 3,300 to fly in The Residence, which has a private living room, bedroom and shower room for one or two guests.

To fly first class all the way from London to Mumbai, with a stop in Abu Dhabi, one would have to spend 3,000.

Singapore Airlines, Manchester to Munich  600

Singapore Airlines has first class seats available for just under 600 on the 90-minute journey from Manchester to Munich

This rendering shows a passenger relaxing on a fully-flat bed after it has been converted from an exra-wide leather seat

First class passengers can order dishes such as Nonya nasi lemak (pictured), hokkien mee soup (right), rib-eye steak or veal loin

Singapore's flag carrier has a first class cabin that is consistently ranked among the world's best, with comfortable 35in leather seats that convert into a fully-flat bed.

It can be experienced on the 90-minute flight from Manchester to Munich, which is a stopover en route to Singapore, or just under 600 this summer, according to travel website God Save the Points, which also revealed a number of other routes on offer for less than 1,000.

A first class ticket for the entire 15-hour journey from Manchester to Singapore, including the stopover, costs around 4,000.

Singapore Airlines operates Boeing 777-300R aircraft on the route, and some have been fitted with the carrier's new first class seats, which have extended curved partitions for greater privacy, mood lighting and a headrest moulded for comfort.

Emirates, Auckland to Sydney  700

Passengers in Emirates' first class suites feel like they have the entire cabin to themselves when they close the sliding privacy doors

Located on the upper deck, each suite has a seat that converts into a bed, vanity table and mirror, ambient lighting and personal mini-bar

First class passengers can freshen up in a shower room or hang out with other travellers while knocking back cocktails in the lounge

Passengers in Emirates' first class suites feel like they have the entire cabin to themselves when they close the sliding privacy doors and sip wine or Champagne while admiring the view or watching a film.

One of the most affordable first class tickets is Sydney to Auckland, which is the second leg of Emirates' long-haul journey between Dubai and New Zealand's biggest city.

Passengers can enjoy Emirates' most luxurious amenities and services on the two-and-a-half hour flight on an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet.

Located on the upper deck, each suite has a seat that converts into a bed, vanity table and mirror, ambient lighting and personal mini-bar.

First class passengers can freshen up in a shower room or hang out with other travellers while knocking back cocktails and eating canapes in the lounge.

British Airways, Doha to Bahrain  250

It's just a short hop from Doha to Bahrain, with passengers spending 30 minutes in their seat (pictured: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner)

On this short flight, passengers won't get to sample first class meals but they can spend a little bit of time fiddling with the seat's controls

The short hop between Doha to Bahrain is the first leg of British Airways' flight from Qatar's capital to London.

It seems like a steal at just 250, but passengers will spend just 30 minutes in BA's first class cabin on a Boeing 777, unless they are in first class for the entire nine-hour journey to Heathrow (that ticket costs nearly 4,000).

Travellers may not get to sample any first class meals, but they will get a little bit of time to convert the private suite's seat into a 6ft 6in bed and wrap themselves up in a white cotton duvet, or quickly slip in and out of soft cotton pyjamas for just 200 more than the price of an economy ticket.

First class passengers are granted a luggage allowance of three bags in the hold.

Korean Air, Vienna to Zurich  300

It takes a little over an hour to fly from Vienna to Zurich with Korean Air. The same journey by rail takes approximately eight hours

Korean Air's range of Kosmo Suites have seats that convert into lie-flat beds, an ottoman, plenty of storage and a pop-up reading light

First class passengers receive lounge access with their ticket (pictured: Korean Air's first class lounge in Seoul)

Private suites in Korean Air's first class cabin have the usual bells and whistles - seats that convert into lie-flat beds, an ottoman, plenty of storage, a pop-up reading light and, most importantly, an endless flow of Champagne.

It takes a little over an hour to fly from Vienna to Zurich, so passengers might end up spending more time eating, drinking and relaxing in the first class lounge.

The same journey by rail takes eight hours or more.

Swiss, Dubai to Muscat  275

Passengers might have enough time for a quick nap in Swiss International Air Line's first class cabin on the flight from Dubai to Muscat

The flight from Dubai to Oman's main hub is the second leg of a long-haul journey from Zurich, but can be booked as an individual trip

Passengers can relax in an armchair with a glass of bubbly and admire the contents of their toiletries kit, which includes pyjamas

Passengers will have 45 minutes to explore Swiss International Air Line's first class cabin on this short-haul route.

The flight from Dubai to Oman's largest airport is the second leg of a long-haul journey from Zurich, but it can be booked as an individual trip on an Airbus A330.
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New York, New York, it's a helluva town with a rich and vibrant history. And now rarely seen postcards of Victorian life in the Big Apple have been unearthed by the American Library of Congress.

Dating back to the turn of the 20th century, the collection contains colourful images of Staten Island, Central Park, early skyscrapers and even the newly-sprung Subway network.

Originally postcards, they were taken in black and white by the Detroit Publishing Company before colour was artificially added by a groundbreaking technique called Photocrom.

This innovative procedure was invented by an employee of a Swiss printing company in the 1880s.

It was a lengthy process, which involved creating multiple lithographic stone from the photograph's negative. The amount of stones were determined by the amount of colours required for the final image, sometimes over a dozen different litho stones had to be produced for a single picture.

Though it was time-consuming, Photocrom was popular because it was convincing. It was also the first step towards the development of coloured photography. And this dazzling collection captures and brings back to life, New York on the cusp of its bright future.

The Statue of Liberty stands tall and proud in a Victorian photograph from the turn of the 20th century, which had been coloured in post-production

Bowling Green and lower Broadway: The United States of America's flag flew high above buildings as New York city showed its patriotic side at the turn of the Century

On the cusp of change, New York's main streets are bustling with passersby and yellow trams in this vibrant circa 1900 picture

Fifth Avenue at 51st Street (left) and The Bowery (right): Horse and buggies still milled around New York city even though the early stages of the Subway system were up and running

The Photocrom procedure, which was used to colour this image of New York's tenement buildings that would have been black and white originally, was invented by an employee of a Swiss printing company in the 1880s

Originally a postcard, this image of a market in New York (left), like the other images in the series was taken in black and white by the Detroit Publishing Company. Pictured (right) is West Street which is packed with horses and carts

This peaceful park scene, possibly taken in Central Park, would have been artificially coloured using a groundbreaking technique called Photocrom

The Naval Arch at Madison Square Park will look almost unrecognisable to a contemporary Manhattanite in this late Victorian photograph

The process which coloured these two images of the Manhattan skyline required a lengthy process, which involved creating multiple lithographic stone from the photograph's negative. Pictured is St Pauls Church (left) and Victorian children playing (right)

City Hall (right): For every picture taken of New York the number of litho stones prepared would be determined by the amount of colours needed for the final image

Newspaper Row: While colouring black and white pictures using the Photocrom technique was time-consuming it was also very popular because it was so convincing

Open space and a skyline free of skyscrapers and bridges, this early 1900s image serves as a reminder of how much growth the Big Apple has embraced

The postcards in this series show New York at a cultural turning point as business began to boom and it became a central hub for the whole of the US. Pictured (right) a sunset scene of New York in the distance with the Statue of Liberty clearly visible

On the brink of the 20th century New York saw mass immigration and new businesses boom as it became the city we know today. Pictured (right) a view on Sixth Avenue shows the bustling of business and the new Subway and a church was the most prominent feature on the skyline (left)

South Street and Brooklyn Bridge: At this point in the late Victorian age New York's Hudson river was still a bustling sea port used for travel and the transport of imports and exports
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The seas around Monaco and other holiday hotspots for the super-rich are about to get even more crowded with the delivery of the worlds fourth longest superyacht.

Owned by one of Arsenal FCs largest shareholders, Dilbar measures 156 metres (511.8ft) and is the largest yacht in the world in terms of internal volume, with a gross tonnage of 15,917 tons.

She was custom built for 62-year-old billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose reported net worth of 9bn makes him one of the richest citizens of Russia.

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Dilbar, the world's fourth largest superyacht and the biggest in terms of volume, has been delivered to her owner after sea trials

The massive superyacht was custom built for 62-year-old billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who owns a large stake in Arsenal FC

Uzbek-born Usmanov has a net worth of more than $13bn (8.7bn), making him one of the richest citizens of Russia

Dilbar has two helipads  one on the sundeck and one on the bow  and a small sitting area and a swimming platform at the back

Dilbar was delivered to Usmanov this month after undergoing sea trials, and has been spotted in recent weeks in Gibraltar and France

Dilbar was built by Lurssen Yachts at its shipyard near Bremen, Germany over 52 months and underwent sea trial earlier this year

Uzbek-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov made his fortune through investments in metals, media, telecommunications and sport

Uzbek-born Usmanov is the worlds 73rd wealthiest person with a recent net worth of $13.4bn, according to Forbes.

The self-made billionaire made his fortune through investments in metals, media, telecommunications and sport, including a 30.04 per cent controlling stake in Arsenal FC.

Usmanov ordered Dilbar, which has room for dozens of guests and crew, to replace his other superyacht, a 377ft vessel which was previously called Dilbar and is now known as Ona.

The build cost for the new Dilbar has not been disclosed, but estimates have put it near 350million.

The superyacht has nearly 41,000 square feet of living space, a diesel-electric power plant and a cruising speed of 22.5 knots

As is the case with many new superyacht builds for the super-rich, details of Dilbars interior and amenities remain a secret

Dilbars gross tonnage has topped those of the worlds three largest superyachts  Azzam, Roman Abramovichs Eclipse and Dubai

Built over 52 months, Dilbars exterior was designed by Monaco-based Espen Oeino. Her interior was done by London's Winch Design

Dimitri Semenikhin, of Yacht Harbour, said the majority of the living space is indoors, giving Dilbar the largest interior volume of any yacht

Usmanov ordered Dilbar to replace his other superyacht, a 377ft vessel which was previously called Dilbar and is now known as Ona

The build cost for the new Dilbar (pictured in the French Riviera) has not been disclosed, but estimates have put it near 350million

WORLD'S LONGEST SUPERYACHTS Azzam - 592.5ft Eclipse - 533ft Dubai - 531.5ft Dilbar - 511ft Al Said - 508.5ft Topaz - 483ft Prince Abdulaziz - 482ft El Horriya - 478ft Sailing Yacht A - 468.5ft Yas - 462.5ft Source: Superyachts.com Advertisement

As is the case with many new superyacht builds for the super-wealthy, details of Dilbars interior and amenities remain a secret.

Her design  which offers very little outdoor space and is geared towards privacy offers very few hints.

Dilbar, built by Lurssen Yachts at its shipyard near Bremen, Germany, has two helipads  one on the sundeck and one on the bow  and a small sitting area and a swimming platform at the back.

Inside, it has nearly 41,000 square feet of living space for her guests and owner, said Dimitri Semenikhin, of Yacht Harbour.

He said: Yacht projects of this scale never fail to impress, especially when Lurssen is involved.

Dilbar is constructed in such a way that even through helicopter photo shoots, none of its features can actually be seen other than her two helipads.

Although there are some outdoor spaces on the yacht, the majority of the living space is located indoors, which has led to Dilbar having the largest interior volume of any yacht ever built.

He said the gigantic yacht has a diesel-electric power plant and a cruising speed of 22.5 knots (just under 26mph).

Images captured by photographer Julien Hubert show the massive yacht dwarfing other vessels while at port in the French Riviera last week.

Built over 52 months, Dilbars exterior was designed by Monaco-based Espen Oeino, while her interior was done by London-based Winch Design.

Dilbars gross tonnage tops Al Said's 15,850 tons and Azzam's 13,136 tons, said Semenikhin.
A loggerhead turtle was discovered on a beach in Lebanon last week after tourists hauled the animal from the water to take selfies.

The animal was swimming in water near Havana Beach in Beirut last Thursday, when according to witnesses a beach-goer pulled it out of the sea before throwing it on the sand.

A crowd then gathered around the animal to take photos, as it was trodden on and, according to a witness, allegedly beaten with a stick.

The loggerhead turtle was swimming near Havana Beach in Beirut when it was taken onto the sand for photos. It was also hit with a stick, but it is not known if any of the people in these images were responsible for this

Passers-by stare at the hapless creature

Fortunately, two passers-by noticed the defenceless animal, which is on the threatened species list, and took it to a safe area where they contacted the environmental organisation GreenArea International to arrange a rescue.

From there, animal charity Animals Lebanon was able to pick up the turtle and bring it back to their headquarters, where it is currently being rehabilitated.

But shortly after its arrival at the centre, staff discovered a threatening injury to the animal's head, where it had been hit.

It is now undergoing a course of antibiotics to prevent infection, with a view to releasing the animal into the wild once recovery is complete.

Jason Mier, executive director of Animals Lebanon, told The Dodo: 'The turtle has a very evident spot on his skull, the very top of his head, where he has been hit.

'There is a noticeable depression in the head where the bone has been damaged and sea water is able to enter the bone.

'A small amount of pressure around this area and the water seeps back out.'

The charity's vets are looking to reassess the turtle's health in 15 days once the course of antibiotics has finished.

The defenceless animal was left on the beach as tourists took pictures. A child is shown here being supported as he stands on the turtle's back

The turtle has since been rescued and is recovering with the charity Animals Lebanon

There is a noticeable depression on the turtle's head where the bone had been damaged

The incident echoes the moment a young dolphin died of suspected dehydration after being paraded around like a trophy and stroked by a crowd of sunbathers who then abandoned it on the sand last February.

The group of people huddled around the mammal taking selfies after it was found on the Argentine beach resort of Santa Teresita in north-eastern Buenos Aires Province.

Dozens of people crowded round to look at the squirming calf as they strained to touch it, and have their photos taken with it.
Aled Davies' flight home to the UK was cancelled after it was diverted

A British holidaymaker has slammed EasyJet for 'showing no empathy' after he and his party of 11 were left stranded in Montenegro for four 'extremely stressful' and 'worrying' days.

Aled Davies, along with nine friends and two children, had their flight from Tivat Airport to Manchester cancelled when the aircraft they had expected to board was diverted to Dubrovnik.

Mr Davies claims that there were no airline staff at the airport to assist the party in getting home and that they were forced to fork out more than 1,500 in taxis, phonecalls and additional accommodation during their ordeal.

Aled Davies, along with nine friends and two children had their flight from Tivat Airport to Manchester cancelled when the aircraft they had expected to board was diverted to Dubrovnik

Mr Davies from Nannerch in Flintshire, told the Daily Post that the flight on Sunday June 12 was cancelled 'without explanation' and that his party were 'shocked' that there was no one they could communicate with from the airline at Tivat airport.

'My phone bill was 490 and Gareth Williams who was also on the trip is also facing a hefty bill,' he said.

'I am a joiner and lost days of work and I have people working for me who have also lost out. There were three in the group who are in the building trade and are all self-employed who have been affected.

'It was extremely worrying and stressful. EasyJet fly millions of people all over the world, making them very much a people company, yet they show no empathy towards their passengers whatsoever,' he told the Scottish newspaper.

Following several phonecalls to EasyJet it was established that the group would need to split into two parties and land at Gatwick instead of Manchester.

Six flew to Dubrovnik where they stayed a night before boarding a flight on Wednesday June 15 while five stayed in Budva and flew the following day.

During their four days trapped overseas, the group spent more than 1,500 on taxis, phonecalls and additional hotel nights, reports the Scottish newspaper.

Not only did members of the party miss work but the two children missed days of school.

And once the two groups landed back on English soil, 800 of this total was spent on transporting the holidaymakers from Gatwick up to Manchester by taxi.

Mr Davies claims that there were no airline staff at Tivat airport (pictured) to assist the party in getting home and that they were forced to fork out more than 1,500 in taxis, phonecalls and additional accommodation

A spokesperson for EasyJet told MailOnline Travel: 'EasyJet can confirm that flight EZY1984 from Tivat to Manchester on 12 June was cancelled as a result of the aircraft scheduled to operate the flight diverting into Dubrovnik due to adverse weather conditions in Tivat.

'Whilst this cancellation was outside of EasyJet's control we would like to apologise to Mr Davies and his party for the inconvenience caused.

'The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always EasyJet's highest priority and we did all we could to assist passengers by providing hotel accommodation and refreshments as soon as possible.

'We also sent affected passengers SMS messages and provided updates on our Flight Tracker page.

'As a result of there being no flights available from Tivat to the UK the following day, passengers were advised they could make alternative travel arrangements and would be reimbursed for them.

'EasyJet will be contacting Mr Davies directly to discuss this and would like to apologise once again for the inconvenience caused.'

Earlier this week MailOnline reported that thousands of British holidaymakers faced travel chaos as airlines cancelled hundreds of flights due to strikes in France on Thursday.
A Florida man and a California woman accused in an extensive conspiracy to bring prescription pain medication to the Billings area denied federal charges this week.

During an arraignment Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Billings, Kevin Welch, 33, of Hollindale Beach, Fla., and Sheila Ayala, 31, of Long Beach, Calif., pleaded not guilty to charges in an indictment, which remains sealed.

The pair had previously been charged by a criminal complaint with conspiracy to possess oxycodone with intent to distribute. Federal officers arrested the pair on May 26 in Billings.

Prosecutors said in court records that a confidential source told officers with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and an Eastern Montana drug task force that a California group was bringing 800 to 1,200 30-mg. oxycodone pills to Billings every two weeks for distribution.

The source also gave agents about 800 oxycodone pills and 121 Dilaudid pills, with an estimated street value of $36,000, which the source had obtained from Welch, Ayala and a third person.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby ordered Welch and Ayala to remain in custody pending a detention hearing. The case will be heard by U.S. District Judge Susan Watters.
into the site and an algorithm will analyse it

Surfing review websites can be difficult these days as businesses now post fake accounts

It is now easier than ever to find a good hotel or restaurant online thanks to the popularity of review websites like Trip Advisor.

But many businesses have now wised up to this idea and are boosting their reputation online with a number of fake reviews.

So how can you find out if an account is real or not?

Well, thanks to researchers at Cornell University, there is now a website called Review Skeptic that will tell you if a report is a fake.

The academics created an algorithm that can sniff out a phony after analysing psychology and linguistics around opinion spam and they claim the results are 90 per cent accurate.

All a person has to do is copy and paste their view into the text box on the website and click on the 'Test IT' button.

Once the review has gone through the system, the website then tells you if the account is deceptive.

The user can also learn about why the algorithm came to that conclusion as various words are either colored in red to indicate deception or blue for truth.

The words also vary in size to indicate how important they were during the detection process.

In their research paper, the team created a fake review of the James Hotel in Chicago and also found a real review of the venue.

It reveals the different kind of emotion and language someone might use if they were trying to create deception.

The Review Skeptic claims to be 90 per cent accurate at determining whether a hotel or restaurant review is fake

The first review reads: 'I have stayed at many hotels traveling for both business and pleasure and I can honestly stay that The James is tops. The service at the hotel is first class.

'The rooms are modern and very comfortable. The location is perfect, within walking distance to all of the great sights and restaurants. Highly recommend to both business travellers and couples.'

The second says: 'My husband and I stayed at the James Chicago Hotel for our anniversary. This place is fantastic! We knew as soon as we arrived we made the right choice!'

In their research paper, the team created a fake review of the James Hotel in Chicago and also found a real review of the venue

After the review has gone through the system, various words are either colored in red to indicate deception or blue for truth, as well as varying in size to indicate their importance

It continues: 'The rooms are BEAUTIFUL and the staff very attentive and wonderful!! The area of the hotel is great, since I love to shop I couldnt ask for more!!

'We will definitely be back to Chicago and we will for sure be back to the James Chicago (sic).'

According to the algorithm, the second account is the fake because of the language used.
She's never been one to shy away from posting intimate details of her relationship or family life.

And Tammin Sursok gave fans an inside look at her second trip overseas with husband Sean McEwen and two-year-old daughter Phoenix, years after she visited as a teenager.

Taking to her blog Bottle and Heels on Wednesday, the 32-year-old actress shared snaps of her Italian vacation and said the first time she went: 'It was a magical, confusing and sexual time.'

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Italian travels: Taking to her blog Bottle and Heels, Tammin Sursok, 32, shared sweet snaps of her Italian vacation with husband Sean McEwen and two-year-old daughter Phoenix, and her must-see locations

The former Home And Away star developed an 'obsessive need to travel', which she said was down to her first trip overseas.

'It was to Italy and it was a time where I was stumbling through that haze of early adolescence,' she began.

'It was a magical, confusing and sexual time. I was ready to explore the world and thankfully, my parents, were willing to do it with me,' the Pretty Little Liars star added.

Motherhood: Fast forward 16 years and the actress decided to make a trip back to Roma, one of her favourite cities, with her young daughter in tow

Sixteen years later, she decided to make the trip back to Rome, one of her favourite cities, with her beau and young daughter Phoenix.

'One of my most loved areas in Rome is the Piazza Navona,' Tammin shared.

'Lined with street performers, local artists and standard tasty Italian fare, it's an area I like to tick off first to help me get into the Italian spirit.'

Foodie experience: The television personality enjoyed climbing The Spanish Steps before indulging in fine Italian fare at the Hotel Splendide

The television personality enjoyed climbing The Spanish Steps before enjoying fine Italian fare at the Hotel Splendide.

Making sure to spend quality time with her beau, her family took over parental duties so she could become Roman lovers with Sean.

'Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere has always been our most romantic piazza,' the mother-of-one shared on her blog.

In love: Tammin has never been shy of posting intimate details of her relationship to social media

After visiting the main tourist attractions, Tammin decided to go out of her comfort zone and drove north to Portovenere.

Describing it as 'absolutely enchanting', the town offers a stunning harbour, vibrant hued houses and medieval streets lined with good food.

The last stop on her Italian adventure was a place very close to her heart, Florence, where she married her partner atop Villa De La Vedetta overlooking the famous Duomo.

'It was the best day of my life and we knew we wanted to share it with that extra little person,' she wrote.

Going strong: Tammin and husband Sean appear very much in love and recently returned to Florence, where they were married
Gordon Ramsay was back to work on Wednesday, just days after announcing the devastating miscarriage of his fifth child.

The 49-year-old TV star is currently promoting his new mobile app Gordon Ramsay DASH and stopped by the AOL Studios in New York for a sit down chat.

The TV chef put on a brave face and appeared upbeat as he gave interviews, even challenging fellow celebrity chef Bobby Flay to a cook-off.

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Putting on a brave face: Gordon Ramsay was back to work on Wednesday after his wife's devastating miscarriage. He is pictured at the AOL Studios in New York

Still recovering from surgery to his Achilles tendon Gordon was pictured wearing a boot on his right leg over the top of black jeans.

He also sported a navy t-shirt and layered on a trendy leather jacket.

During his interview the professional cook revealed that he'd love to go up against Iron Chef star Flay, 51, in a cooking competition.

The father-of-four said: 'I'm competitive right, I think competition is healthy.'

'So Bobby if you're listening, move your arse' the cocky Hotel Hell star demanded.

'I'll send the plane for him, it will be judged behind the scenes with complete blind judging so no-one will be fudging it' Gordon explained.

Back to his usual tricks: The 49-year-old TV chef talked to AOL about his new app Gordon Ramsay DASH and remained upbeat, even challenging fellow chef Bobby Flay to a cook-off

'I'm competitive right, I think competition is healthy.' Gordon said before adding that he would pay for Flay to come and compete with him

'Listen, he's a great chef, there's a lot of great chefs in this country. We all keep each other on our toes,' Gordon said about the 51-year-old Iron Chef star

'I'll give him a 20 minutes head start and $100,000 and the prize money if he wins.

'Listen, he's a great chef, there's a lot of great chefs in this country. We all keep each other on our toes,

In his typical blunt manner Gordon revealed that there is no palling around between the culinary competitors.

'So all that bulls**t about being best friends and "hey, we drink every night" - no we don't.'

Just weeks after confirming his wife Tana's pregnancy, Gordon shared an official statement on June 13 revealing the 41-year-old had suffered a miscarriage.

On the mend: Still recovering from his Achilles tendon surgery, Gordon was seen hobbling on crutches

Keeping it casual: The Hotel Hell star wore a navy t-shirt over black jeans

Taking to Facebook the star thanked his fans for their support, as well as the team at London's Portland Hospital for their help during this difficult time.

He wrote: 'Hi guys, Tana and I want to thank you so much for your support over the past couple of weeks.

'We had a devastating weekend as Tana has sadly miscarried our son at five months.

'We're together healing as a family, but we want to thank everyone again for all your amazing support and well wishes.'

He added: 'Id especially like to send a big thank you to the amazing team at Portland Hospital for everything theyve done. Gx'.

The Masterchef US star had announced the news of Tana's pregnancy during an appearance on The Late Late Show last month.

This way? The TV star carried a trendy leather jacket with him

In the chat show interview, the food connoisseur paused when talking to host James Corden about his four children before breaking the news by saying, 'We have three girls and a boy... and one more on the way.

Host James jumped up to hug him and he continued: 'I'm nervous. I'm just worried, obviously I'd be happy with another girl but four girls... four weddings... four Sweet 16s... four boyfriends.'

Asked about the welfare of expectant mum Tana, Gordon said: '[She's] excited, she's doing well, she's all good thank you.'

Tana and Gordon have been married since 1996. They share their time between Los Angeles, London and Cornwall and describe their family unit as a 'team.'

They share daughters Holly, 16, Megan, 17 and Matilda, 14 as well as son Jack, 16.

'Devastating': Gordon confirmed the sad news in a Facebook post last week
She has been very vocal about having a crush on former The Bachelor star Sam Wood.

And once again, Georgia Love - who was announced as the new Bachelorette this week - cemented her admiration for the TV hunk by alluding to the fact that he has qualities of her ideal man.

He seems like a genuine, lovely guy, who also has passion and drive in both personal life and career, the 27-year-old television presenter gushed to OK! Magazine.

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'He seems like a genuine guy': New Bachelorette Georgia Love cemented her admiration for Sam Wood by alluding to the fact that he has qualities of her ideal man

Georgia is Australia's second Bachelorette, with the WIN News personality and former trapeze artist confessing that she quit her job so she can find love.

When quizzed on why she signed up to the Network Ten series, the broadcaster remarked: The opportunity came to me and I trust in the world, and thought, if this has come up, the why not?

When could you ever get an experience like this where someone can scour the country for you to help you find the perfect guy?

TV crush: He seems like a genuine, lovely guy, who also has passion and drive in both personal life and career, the 27-year-old television presenter gushed to OK! Magazine

Meanwhile, it appears Georgia has been campaigning for her role on the reality series for quite some time, after she shared an Instagram picture of herself cuddled up with Sam Wood at an event back in October.

She hashtagged the post, with the words 'team georgie' and 'bachelorette 2016' while gushing in the caption, 'Why hello Bachie Boo'.

In another post on her Facebook page, Georgia uploaded a snap of herself looking into a mirror with a friend posting a meme of Sam - who is engaged to Snezana Markoski - underneath.

'Why hello': Georgia seems to be quite a fan of the show as she excitedly posted an Instagram snap of herself cosied up with Sam at an event in October

Her own biggest support! The reporter appears to have been campaigning for her role on the reality series at the time, hash-tagging her post 'team georgie' and 'bachelorette 2016'

'Is your life a mirror? Cos I see myself in it,' the text on the image said over a picture of the TV star, with Georgia replying: 'I literally just died'.

The brunette beauty enjoyed some playful banter with her friend, who wrote: 'You can do so much better than him' but Georgia fired back: 'But look at him...look at him!!!!'

The RMIT graduate is following in the footsteps of Australia's first Bachelorette, Sam Frost, with Georgia having started filming on Monday and moving to Sydney for the gig.
He had six carefree decades to live as he pleased.

So as a first time father at 62, Jeff Goldblum had no qualms about giving up his nights out.

As he posed for Interview Magazine, the actor explained that his entire family was following the lead of one-year-old Charlie Ocean - and turning in at 8pm.

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Looking fly: Jeff Goldblum smoldered in a photoshoot for Interview Magazine this week

Talking to Fred Armisen, the Independence Day Resurgence star explained how he and his wife, 33-year-old Olympic gymnast Emilie Livingston had restructured their days since becoming parents.

'Usually I go to bed early because I have this young son, who was born on the Fourth of July this last year... and he has a very structured routine,' said Jeff, who is 63.

'We, the three of us, get in the bathtub at about 6:20, and then we usually order food in because our kitchen is being remodeled right now - really, the whole house has been benefiting from our nesting instinct.

'Usually, we go to bed at like, 8, 9 o'clock, get up when he gets up, at 6:45ish, 7 o'clock.'

Missed oppertunity: The 63-year-old actor said he rues the fact he never got to meet Prince before he died

And it certainly seems that Jeff enjoys his new role.

'He's starting to stand up and just started to say "da-da" this last week. He's very thrilling,' he added.

But Jeff feels it's never to late to start anew, he does express one intense regret - the fact he never got to meet Prince before he died.

Bonding: He revealed all three get in the bath at 6.20pm, and are all usually in bed by 8pm

The actor said he 'adored' the late musician, whom he came 'within arms reach' of once - an experience he described as 'breathtaking'.

'I never saw him play live,' he lamented. 'I only saw him on one occasion; it was at some awards banquet. I was at a table with Paul Rudd, whom I really like.

'We were chatting away. And a hush came over the room as Prince floated by our table within arm's reach. Paul Rudd and I looked at each other and were wide-eyed and speechless,' he said. 'It was breathtaking.

Structure: The Independence Day Resurgence star also spoke about his daily routine with his wife, 33-year-old Olympic gymnast Emilie Livingston, and their one-year-old son Charlie Ocean

And he lamented: 'I adored him. I wish I'd seen him live, and I never talked to him, but that happens. It's happened more than once recently where somebody dies and you go, "Oh, I didn't know they were going to die! I wish I'd done this or that",' he continued.

'But I guess there's something teachable in that: Anybody can die, everything is fleeting, and you've just got to make sure that you catch up on what you can catch up on, right?'

Goldblum reprises his role as David Levinson in the Independence Day sequel released this weekend, 20 years after the original.

He was also recently revealed to be among the cast of the upcoming Thor sequel Ragnarok, in which he will play Grandmaster, one of the oldest beings in the Marvel Universe.
Ben Affleck was 'smoking hot' as he filmed re-shoots for his prohibition era film in steamy Pasadena just north of downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The 43-year-old actor emerged from a building to puff on a cigarette on the 1920s era set as temperatures reached 90-degrees Fahrenheit.

Ben was entirely in costume as he strolled along the set in his pinstripe shirt, striped tie, and baggy beige trousers with suspenders.

Smoking hot: Ben Affleck enjoyed a smoke break between reshoots on the set of Live By Night in sweltering Pasadena, CA on Wednesday

Chilling out: The 43-year-old actor was dressed in 1920s garb as befitting his onscreen character as he continued to puff on his cigarette

It seemed the smoke was just what Ben needed to chill out.

He was seen taking in the sights of the set and crew while standing on a step.

Ben was well-prepared for another warm day and was previously seen cooling down with a refreshing ice green tea in hand, following a week of soaring temperatures.

The clean shaven actor also wore a pair of dark leather shoes, and had his hair slicked back into a dapper and slightly wavy hairstyle.

In Live By Night, Ben plays Joe Coughlin, the prodigal son of a Boston police captain who becomes a bootlegger and a rum-runner eventual gangster.

Tea time: Ben sipped what looked like a refreshingly chilled green tea earlier during the day

Throwing himself into character: The clean shaven actor donned a pair of dark leather shoes, and finished off the look with his slicked-back and slightly wavy hairstyle

The film is scheduled for release in January 2017, and also stars Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Elle Fanning, Scott Eastwood, Brendan Gleeson and Anthony Michael Hall.

Meanwhile, Ben and estranged wife Jennifer Garner announced nearly a year ago on June 30, 2015 that they were divorcing after 10 years of marriage.

He spent Father's Day with their children and have been pictured looking relaxed and happy in each other's company recently, fueling rumours of a reconciliation.

The plot thickens: In Live By Night Ben plays Joe Coughlin, the prodigal son of a Boston police captain who becomes a bootlegger and a rum-runner eventual gangster

Despite a recent family trip to Europe, however, sources told People they were not getting back together.

Their divorce is expected to be finalized this summer, according to the publication.

'She seems adamant about going through with it. She denies that she is back with Ben. She actually almost laughs when asked,' an insider told them.

Ben and 44-year-old Jennifer have a 10-year-old daughter Violet, seven-year-old daughter Seraphina and four-year-old son Sam together.

Although Ben is expected to put on the Caped Crusader costume up for a new Batman film, he's not sure when it's going to happen.

'I think they have a date for it. Although, I dont know if I would necessarily be able to make that date because I dont have a script thats ready yet,' the actor told Collider.com.

'So thats my - my timetable is Im not going to make a movie until theres a script that I think is good because Ive been on the end of the things when you make movies when you have a script thats not good yet and it doesnt pan out.'
She has built a successful career in radio on her smooth and pristine voice.

But presenter Jackie O Henderson struggled to speak clearly while co-hosting her KIIS 106.5FM breakfast show on Thursday morning.

Her co-star Kyle Sandilands - who is hosting from a studio in Los Angles - noticed the 41-year-old had a lisp and questioned her, saying: 'What's wrong with your mouth?'

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Brace face! Jackie O Henderson revealed she got braces on her KIIS 106.5FM breakfast show on Thursday morning

Jackie replied: Oh I got braces.

A shocked Kyle quipped back: Hang on a second. You just don't get braces on a whim.

OK! It wasn't on a whim. It's only two months that I have to have braces on, Jackie told the 45-year-old shock jock.

Not happy: Jackie's co-host Kyle Sandilands was left perplexed when Jackie broke the news to him

Listen to yourself': Kyle said Jackie 'O' sounded like a 14-year-old

Listen to yourself. You sound like dat [sic], Kyle continued while imitating Jackies voice.

I will get better. It's just getting use to them, the mother-of-one pleaded.

You can't broadcast like that. You should have thought about this. You sound like you're 14 years old. Kyle said.

You can't broadcast like that': Kyle told the mother-of-one she should have thought about the consequences before getting braces

Only lying! It was later revealed that Jackie was lying to her co-host

It was later revealed on the popular morning show that Jackies new braces were only a joke to play on her co-host.

But this hasn't been the only humorous antics played on the radio station in recent weeks.

Kyle and Jackie 'O' were left panic-stricken and dropping F-bombs when they discovered struggling 2DayFM rivals Rove & Sam had 'beaten' them in the ratings.

However, it was revealed the 'survey' was actually a prank by KIIS program director Derek Bargwanna - and the controversial duo are still number one

The latest ratings, released in recent weeks, showed that Kyle and Jackie are still topping the breakfast radio rankings - despite suffering a minor audience dip.

More pranks: Kyle and Jackie 'O' were left panic-stricken and dropping F-bombs when they discovered struggling 2DayFM rivals Rove & Sam had 'beaten' them in the ratings

Pranked! They later learnt it was an on-air joke

2DayFM's duo Rove McManus and Sam Frost enjoyed a small audience boost but still remained bottom among FM rivals, despite a large-scale promotional campaign.

However, as a prank, the KIIS boss instead told Kyle and Jackie that they'd suffered a cataclysmic drop - while Rove & Sam had an unexpected boost and were beating them in the ratings.

In the recorded package, Derek said: 'We've dropped 4.9 (audience share). An 11.3 to a 6.4', to which Jackie replies bluntly: 'F*****g hell.'

Making progress: In reality, 2DayFM's duo Rove McManus and Sam Frost have enjoyed a small audience boost recently, but they are still falling well behind Kyle and Jackie O in the audience figures

Derek continued: 'But Rove & Sam have gone up 3.7... so they're 6.7'

'Are you kidding me? They beat us?' asked Jackie, sounding exasperated. 'F*****g hell'... Rove & Sam have beaten us? It's like f******g crazy. Oh dear, I actually feel sick'

Back in the studio, in the aftermath of the prank, Kyle said rather directly: 'Obviously they didn't beat us because they're s**t.'




She often steals the limelight whenever she hits the red carpet.

And on Thursday, My Kitchen Rules star Zana Pali showcased her natural beauty in a makeup-free selfie shared on Instagram.

The snap comes one day after the 25-year-old lawyer flaunted her hourglass curves as she discussed the importance for women to embrace their body type.

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Fresh faced: My Kitchen Rules star Zana Pali, 25, showcased her natural beauty in a makeup-free selfie shared to Instagram on Thursday

She captioned the shot: 'There is nothing wrong being comfortable in your own skin. Beauty is about knowing and accepting who you naturally are.'

The stunning brunette added a numerous hashtags, including: #amazing, #smile, #beauty, #beautiful and #bodyimage.

Zana looked incredible in the close-up shot that highlighted her flawless complexion, full brows and almond-shaped eyes.

The TV star let her signature tresses fall effortlessly across one shoulder and sported what appeared to be a simple white tank top.

'It's important to embrace yourself': The TV star posed for a smouldering shot shared to Instagram on Tuesday, in which she discussed the importance for women to embrace their body type

The day before, the bubbly personality told her social media followers to embrace their body type and stop judging each other.

I think that whatever size or shape body you have, its important to embrace it, she explained. Start by loving yourself and then allow yourself to see the entire world with love rather than judgement.

Zana accentuating her petite frame in a sizzling Ivory and Chain dress with capped sleeves, heart-shaped bodice and a front centre slit.

She elongated her lean pins with a pair of nude Louboutin heels, while her long brunette tresses were swept to one side in loose luscious waves.

Spreading a message: Alongside the image, posted on Tuesday, the TV star told her followers to stop judging each other

Stunner: The lawyer often shares glamorous close-up shots to her Instagram account alongside inspirational quotes

Meanwhile, Zana and her husband Gianni, the high flying lawyers from Brisbane, competed on the latest series of MKR where they made it to the semi-finals round.

Despite failing to take top spot in the cooking competition, Zana thanked the judges and fellow competitors for their time on the show.

'We've loved working hard and we've learnt so much. MKR has all been about our family, our true traditional recipes,' she said.

'You cannot put money on what we have learnt and how we've improved. It's priceless. It's the best experience of our lives.'

TV stars: Zana and her husband Gianni, the high flying lawyers from Brisbane, competed on the latest series of MKR where they made it to the semi-finals round.

But looking forward to a career in TV, Zana recently said she has dreams of appearing on Dancing With The Stars - although she turned down an offer to appear on Seven's new series Cannonball.

'I don't think it is the right fit for me,' she told Courier Mail, referring to the water-based competition series that sees couples plummeting down gigantic water slides and flying through the air.

The outspoken brunette added: 'I think Dancing With The Stars would be good.'

If Zana does make her way into the dancing series, she will follow in the footsteps of fellow MKR villain Ash Pollard, whose career sky rocketed after she made it to the finals of the show last year.
She sparked rumours of a romance with Apprentice star James Hill just weeks ago.

But Amy Childs was back in the fold of her family on Wednesday night, hosting a fundraiser for the Orlando victims with cousin Harry Derbidge in Essex.

The 26-year-old former TOWIE star showed off her deep glowing tan in a white vest and matching shorts set, showcasing her long toned legs.

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Pretty in white: Amy Childs made the most of family time on Wednesday night, hosting a fundraiser for the Orlando victims with cousin Harry Derbidge in Essex

And despite the rather lacklustre British weather, the reality star looked more tanned than ever.

Accessorising with a cream clutch bag and metallic statement necklace, the flame-haired beauty completed her look with sky-high strappy sandals.

Ever the Essex girl, she went for a strong palette of bronzer and highlighter, accentuating her plump lips with nude lipstick and going for bold brows and winged eyeliner.

Legs for days: The 26-year-old former TOWIE star showed off her deep tan in a matching white vest and shorts set, showcasing her long toned legs

Glam: Accessorising with a cream clutch bag and metallic statement necklace, the flame haired beauty completed her look with sky-high strappy sandals

Ensuring she was immaculately groomed, Amy sported a matching pale manicure and pedicure.

Her cousin Harry, 22, looked quite the fashionista in a dramatic sheer shirt with a tattoo-inspired print.

Keen to impress his fans, the reality TV star teamed the top with fitted black shorts and matching trainers.

Super tanned: Ever the Essex girl, she went for a strong palette of bronzer and highlighter, accentuating her plump lips with nude lipstick and going for bold brows and eyeliner

High maintenance: Ensuring she was immaculately groomed, Amy wore a matching pale manicure and pedicure

The fundraiser at Essex's famous Sugar Hut was in collaboration with Stonewall, an LGBT equality charity, who are raising money for victims of the Orlando shooting.

Meanwhile, earlier this month Amy was spotted getting cosy with James Hill of Apprentice fame.

The boutique owner headed to dinner with the 29-year-old businessman, days after he supported Amy at her Spring/Summer 2016 Fashion Showcase.

Hostess with the mostess: The fundraiser at Essex's famous Sugarhut was in collaboration with Stonewall, the LGBT equality charity, who are raising money for victims of the Orlando shooting

And the following morning CBB star James was seen answering Amy's door as he accepted a delivery on her behalf.

However Amy's rep insisted nothing is going on between the pair, explaining that eight of Amy's close friends had stayed over to celebrate her birthday.

'James attended Amy's clothing launch last night and stayed over at her house. They're absolutely nothing more than good friends', a spokesperson said.

For a good cause: Amy and Harry who raising money for equality charity Stonewall's campaign for the victims of the Orlando shootings

Cheers! The pair enjoyed the warm evening outside before the heavens opened

Amy previously revealed she would consider freezing her eggs if she hadn't found a man to start a family with by the age of 30.

Talking on Loose Women she said: 'I think 30 for me, thats when I would definitely go ahead with it because Ive not met anyone now, I might not meet someone for another couple of years so I definitely would do it.

'Im just so unlucky in love. Im really unlucky, I meet the wrong people. Im very positive, I work seven days a week and I think the right man will come along.'

Let's party: The pair were surrounded by rainbow coloured balloons in the spirit of the event

A redhead amidst the blondes: Amy was joined by (L-R) Lauryn Goodman, Megan Rees and Lady Nadia Essex
He is best known for playing Gareth in Brit rom-com Four Weddings And A Funeral, who dies of a heart attack during the grooms toast at one of the weddings.

Thankfully, Simon Callows own wedding passed without mishap this week as he quietly tied the knot with a man half his age.

Despite once resisting the idea of gay marriage, the 67-year-old film actor and theatre star has had a radical change of heart.

Callow enjoyed a private wedding ceremony on Monday on the Greek island of Mykonos with Sebastian Fox, a 33-year-old management consultant whom he describes as glamorous and fantastic and beautiful.

It was a lively affair, ending with a jubilant Callow making his way home at the end of the night in fits of laughter.

It was a merry night in Mykonos, what can I say? he said the next day.

Speaking to me ahead of their nuptials, Callow said: I dont think we will have children  I am too old to be a father. A man in his late 60s is usually past thinking about having children.

Although his new husband is German, the pair chose Greece for their wedding venue because of Callows love of history  and politics. I just love it there. But it is also a very conscious decision to embrace a civilisation and culture, one of the very few instances where homosexuality was an actual integrated part of society, he says.

Its wonderful to make such a great commitment, such a great affirmation of love, in that almost innocent landscape. That pure world.

Telly hunk Richard Madden is currently playing Romeo in Sir Ken Branaghs production of Romeo And Juliet at the Garrick.

On Saturday night the audience, at the final curtain, was told it was Maddens 30th birthday  at which the whole theatre broke into a lusty rendition of Happy Birthday dear Romeo.

SamCam's Girl Friday blooms with her bump

Glad tidings in Downing Street, as I hear SamCams Girl Friday, Rosie Lyburn, is expecting her first child with husband Peter, a wannabe Tory MP.

Lyburns special adviser role involves giving the PMs wife fashion advice  and 28-year-old Rosie, a former model, looks stylish as she shows off her baby bump in a clinging blue and white maternity dress and tailored navy jacket.

Rosies appointment last June raised eyebrows owing to her taxpayer-funded salary of up to 52,999.
She is currently making a name for herself in Hollywood.

And Yvonne Strahovski has even more to celebrate as it has been announced the actress has landed the lead role in new suspense thriller, Hes Out There.

According to Deadline, the 33-year-old plays a mother who finds herself fighting for the lives of herself and her two daughters after getting trapped into a nightmare conceived by a psychopath.

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Nightmares do come true! Yvonne Strahovski has landed the lead role in new suspense thriller, Hes Out There

The Screen Gems movie, which will be directed by Hardcores Dennis Iliadis, will reportedly kick off production next month.

Meanwhile this is not the first time the Australian beauty has starred in a dark movie, she was previously cast in psychological drama-thriller All I See Is You and fantasy horror I, Frankenstein.

Yvonne - who hails from Werrington Downs, New South Wales - also played a serial killers girlfriend in popular American crime drama Dexter.

Dark role: According to Deadline , the 33-year-old plays a mother who finds herself fighting for the lives of herself and her two daughters after getting trapped into a nightmare conceived by a psychopath

Speaking about playing such varied roles, the starlet recently told Metro US: Theres a sense of freedom in scenes that require those kinds of heightened emotions.

In our society its not socially acceptable to act like that. Its always interesting to go there. Its always interesting to think about what you would do if you found yourself in those situations.

Its a little hard to find those roles, she added. Theres a lot of stuff out there thats bland, then you find these little gems, roles you can sink your teeth into and explore something interesting.

Yvonne moved to Hollywood as a virtual unknown eight years ago, and almost immediately landed the role of Sarah Walker on comedy-drama series Chuck.

The actress - who hails from Werrington Downs, New South Wales - also played a serial killers girlfriend in popular American crime drama Dexter

Other credits include, The Guilt Trip, alongside Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogen, and more recently Manhattan Night, which also stars Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody.

In 2014, Strahovski bagged the role of tough CIA agent Kate Morgan in 24: Live Another Day, which returned to be a ratings smash after four years off the air.

'Its very daunting when youre coming on to a show thats had such a successful life,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 'And the fact that it had been off the air for four years and we weren't really sure how it was going to be received.'
Before their ugly split, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp allegedly had one of their worst arguments over her suspicion of infidelity.

A source claimed the blowout occurred when Heard, 30, felt that Depp had been unfaithful with someone else, according to an article on Wednesday by E! News.

Heard confronted Depp and it 'was the cause of one of their biggest fights,' the insider said.

Public divorce: Johnny Depp, shown last month in Los Angeles, and estranged wife Amber Heard reportedly had one of their worst arguments following her suspicion of infidelity

'Johnny had a night out and Amber had a feeling he had been with someone. She questioned him about it and he blew up at her, got in her face yelling, chased her upstairs. Amber was scared,' the source said.

The insider said that Depp did not admit to anything, but apologized for his reaction and Heard 'ultimately forgave him'.

Heard filed for divorce last month and also obtained a domestic violence restraining order against Depp after claiming in court documents that he was physically abusive.

The actress in court filings alleged that she 'lived in fear' of her husband of 15 months. There has been no mention of infidelity in any of her divorce-related court filings.

Short marriage: Heard, shown earlier this month in West Hollywood, California, was married to Depp for 15 months

Heard filed for divorce just two days after Depp's mother Betty Sue Palmer died aged 81 following a long illness and while the actor was promoting his latest movie Alice Through The Looking Glass.

Depp's ex-wife Vanessa Paradis has defended the actor and shot down claims that he was abusive.

The Edward Scissorhands star has not directly commented on Heard's allegations, but a statement was released shortly after the divorce filing.

Happier times: Depp and Heard are shown in February 2014 in Los Angeles

'Given the brevity of this marriage and the most recent and tragic loss of his mother, Johnny will not respond to any of the salacious false stories, gossip, misinformation and lies about his personal life,' a representative told E!.

'Hopefully the dissolution of this short marriage will be resolved quickly,' the statement added.

Depp can next be seen on the big screen in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales due out on May 26, 2017.
They recently shot a spread together for Italian Vogue.

And Milla Jovovich and her daughter Ever Gabo looked to be sharing style tips as they got set to fly out of Los Angeles International Airport together on Wednesday.

The 40-year-old and her eight-year-old sported striking and almost identical sunglasses as they strode across the concourse.

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Mini-me! Milla Jovovich and her daughter Ever Gabo looked to be sharing style tips as they got set to fly out of Los Angeles International Airport together on Wednesday

Milla donned a pair of Perverse sunglasses with a marbled effect and chic retro frame style which perfectly complimented her face.

The actress also showcased her long, lean legs in blue denim bell-bottom jeans.

She teamed them with a black shirt and mustard blazer.

The Resident Evil star added a pair of red wedges as she held the hand of her eldest.

Lookalikes: The 40-year-old donned a pair of Perverse sunglasses and her eight-year-old sported striking and almost identical pair as they strode across the concourse

Ever had on a white smock top and black leggings.

Milla also has one-year-old daughter Dashiel Edan with husband Paul W.S. Anderson.

Earlier this month, famed lensman Mario Sorrenti shot Jovovich and Ever for the upcoming issue of Italian Vogue.

Stylish: The actress showcased her long, lean legs in blue denim bell-bottom jeans

Happy days: The Resident Evil star added a pair of red wedges as she held the hand of her eldest

Style: Ever had on a white smock top and black leggings

She's also showing off her comedic chops with a role in spoof reality show Barely Famous Season Two - playing herself.

Milla has also been busy filming Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - where her husband was at the helm.

The 51-year-old Englishman wrote and directed the sixth (and final) installment of the viral zombie franchise, which hits theatres in January 2017.
They welcomed their second daughter to the world in December 2011.

And as Faith Margaret Kidman Urban grows older, she is looking more and more like her mother, Nicole Kidman, every day.

Leaving her ballet class in Nashville, Tennessee recently, the five-year-old was a spitting image of her mother, complete with the same flame red hair, bright blue eyes and curls.

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Like mother, like daughter! Nicole Kidman's five-year-old Faith is a spitting image of her, complete with flame red hair and tight curls

Though a blonde these days, the Australian actress, 49, began her career sporting distinct, curly red hair.

Nicole and her husband of ten years, country star Keith Urban, have two biological children together, Faith and their eldest Sunday Rose, who is seven.

The Oscar winner also has two adopted children from her marriage to Tom Cruise, Isabella Jane who is 23 and Connor, who is 21.

Growing brood: Faith is Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's second daughter together, with their eldest Sunday Rose who is seven

Changing colours: Though a blonde these days, the Australian actress, 49, began her career sporting distinct, curly red hair

Nicole and Keith are about to celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary this weekend.

Speaking with Woman's Day, the Moulin Rouge star said their parents' long-standing marriages give them daily inspiration.

'It's been the best ten years of our lives,' she said.

'We're still very much in love and committed to each other.'

The celebrity couple admit how rare a relationship like theirs is in the world of showbiz, with Keith telling Today last month: 'I think it's about 30 in Hollywood years. I feel incredibly grateful.'

He also said the couple's two children are 'thriving'.
She is one of Australias most popular models, who certainly knows a thing or two about fashion.

And Abbey Lee looked sensational as she showed off both her style credentials and her gorgeous figure at the New York premiere of The Neon Demon, on Wednesday.

Stealing the limelight on the red carpet, the 29-year-old displayed plenty of cleavage in a striking white number which featured a gaping neckline.

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She's got some front! Model Abbey Lee showed off both her style credentials and her gorgeous figure at the New York premiere of The Neon Demon, on Wednesday

The chic ensemble - designed by Julien MacDonald - clung to her trim curves neatly, showing off her tiny waistline, but it was complete a daring centre slit and long sleeves to keep it on the modest side of things.

As ever, her make-up was on point, in particular drawing attention to her striking peepers with dramatic eyewear and rosebud lips, with a pale shade of pink.

With her ombre locks left loose in luscious waves, Abbey rounded off the stylish proceedings with a delicate silver chain necklace and diamond encrusted hoops.

Bold move: Stealing the limelight on the red carpet, the 29-year-old displayed plenty of cleavage in a striking white number which featured a gaping neckline

Fine display: The chic ensemble - designed by Julien MacDonald - clung to her trim curves neatly, showing off her tiny waistline, but it was complete a daring centre slit and long sleeves to keep it on the modest side of things

Fashionista status: With her ombre locks left loose in luscious waves, Abbey rounded off the stylish proceedings with a delicate silver chain necklace and diamond encrusted hoops

She was also joined by filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and co-star Elle Fanning, who oozed elegance in a billowing blush pink gown.

Earlier on in the day, Abbey donned yet another incredible, show-stopping outfit as headed to a Q&A session for the film at AOL Studios.

She teamed the number with a trendy coat which boasted long suede sleeves, completing her look with a pair of thigh-high boots.

The Australian beauty recently opened up about finding the inspiration for her new role in the horror film and how she expects to be scrutinised by the fashion world.

Preened to perfection: As ever, her make-up was on point, in particular drawing attention to her striking peepers with dramatic eyewear and rosebud lips, with a pale shade of pink

Not alone: She was also joined by co-star Elle Fanning, who oozed elegance in a billowing blush pink gown

Gal pals: The stars appeared to be having a good chat during the photocall

Close pals: The model also cuddled up to filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn on the red carpet

Strike a pose: The trio stopped to take a selfie during the night's proceedings

'I f***ing hope that my performance is good enough to shut them all up,' she told Dazed and Confused.

'I guess we'll see. I wanted to not only do my character justice, but for the film to do the industry justice, and I wanted it to be right.'

In the movie, the Melbourne-born starlet plays Sarah, an ageing model whose obsession with co-star Elle's innocent industry newcomer Jesse drives her to bloodletting extremes.

The movie loosely draws inspiration from the tale of Countess Bathory, a 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and mutilated the bodies young girls, bathing in their blood to maintain her youthful appearance.

Wow thing: Abbey Lee Kershaw donned yet another incredible, show-stopping outfit as headed to a Q&A session for new film The Neon Demon at AOL Studios in New York, on Wednesday

Being frank: The Australian beauty recently opened up about finding the inspiration for her new role in the horror film and how she expects to be scrutinised by the fashion world

Despite working as model since being discovered at age 16, Abbey took her career in a different direction when she quit to become an actress in 2014.

Abbey said it was still daunting to portraying her career up on the big screen.

'My ten-year modelling career all of a sudden being put up on screen for everyone to judge, it was very terrifying to take on that role,' she said.

'And to play my old life in my new life, but not me, and be judged in my performance It was very hard for me to wrap my head around.'

Last year Abbey starred alongside Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road and Gerard Butler in Gods of Egypt.

The Neon Demon is set to be released on June 24

Horror film: In the film, the Melbourne-born beauty plays Sarah, an ageing model whose obsession with Elle Fanning's innocent industry newcomer Jesse drives her to bloodletting extremes
She was dubbed the villain after she questioned celebrity chef Manu Feildel on his weight and lifestyle during an episode of My Kitchen Rules (MKR).

And Jessica Tichonczuk has once again shown her dubious side while competing for $10,000 in KIIS FM Matt & Meshels 10 Grand Jury competition.

The reality star stomped out of the jury room  where each of the six contestants plead their case for the lucrative prize  and confessed to Matt and Meshel her lifestyle brand, Lifestyle By Jessica, wasnt 'being heard'.

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Not happy: Dubbed My Kitchen Rules villain Jessica Tichonczuk stomped out of a $10,000 radio challenge and declared no one wants to hear about her lifestyle brand

Why arent you in the jury room? Why are you stomping around? Whats happened? Matt Tilley questioned the self-described healthy eater live on radio on Thursday morning.

Because I'm not being heard. This isn't about me, the brunette answered back while attempting to hold back tears.

What do you mean that you are not being heard? Matt said.

'What happened?' KIIS 101.1 FM morning show presenter Matt Tilley asked Jessica why she had left the judging room

Upset: She declared her fellow competitors didn't want to hear about her lifestyle brand, Lifestyle By Jessica

I'm not being heard. Everyone thinks I am there to boost my career. What career? Jessica quipped back at the presenters.

The reality star went onto explain she felt unappreciated by her fellow competitors who continue to ignore her brand which promoted healthy living.

Every time I speak, everybody puts their hand over their face and turns away from me, she said.

They are actively showing me through body language that they don't want to hear one word I say.

Before walking out: Jessica was seen with her fellow competitors pleading her case

Holding back: The reality star attempted to hold back tears as she explained why she had left the room

After being calmed down by the presenters, the foodie declared she would return back to the judging room to plead her case.

Days earlier, Jessica told the radio show presenters: 'The reason I want $10,000 is to build a fitness empire.'

'My brand is called Lifestyle By Jessica and its based on health, fitness, nutrition. Id also like to study personal training. I want to study to nutrition.'

Helping the community: Jessica said her lifestyle brand focused on health, fitness and nutrition

She insisted the new project would 'help Australia' lower the obesity rates.

'Im fortunate enough to have been given some really great opportunities lately, and I want to give back.

'My lifestyle brand would be helping to curb Australias obesity epidemic at the moment.

'63 per cent of us are obese or overweight; two in three adults; one in four children - Australia is in trouble,' she concluded.

According to the radio station's website, the 'jurors will deliberate for one hour a day before being locked away for 23 hours' at the Langham Hotel in Melbourne.

Partners: The health food eater starred on MKR with Marco Dillman

The winner will be announced later this week.

Meanwhile, Jessica caused outrage earlier this year when she refused to eat contestants food and insulted judge Manu on his lifestyle choices.

She continued to add fuel to the fire when she admitted she disliked fast food, revealing that it has been at least ten years since she indulged in KFC and couldn't remember the last time she ate McDonald's.

She also made headlines around Australia after saying she didn't enjoy eating chocolate.
The identity of Australia's next Bachelorette was only revealed earlier this week.

But fans of the Channel Ten show are already putting their bets on how the program will pan out when Georgia Love begins her journey to find love.

Sportsbet has already listed categories related to the likelihood of Georgia marrying her winner, the hair colour of the lucky man standing at the end, and how many kisses she will have on screen.

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What are the odds? Fans of The Bachelorette show already putting their bets on how the program will pan out when Georgia Love begins her journey to find love

According to the bookies, Georgia is most likely lock lips with one to four contestants at $1.80.

Five to nine is the next highest chance at $2.25.

Meanwhile, if none of the gentleman happen to take her fancy, zero sits at $51.00

For winning hair colour, brunette is favourite at $3.00, with blond slight outsiders at $4.00, while you can get a bald or silver fox at $7.50.

Betting time: Sportsbet has already listed categories related to the likelihood of Georgia marrying her winner, the hair colour of the lucky man standing at the end, and how many kisses she will have on screen

Smooch: According to the bookies, Georgia is most likely lock lips with one to four contestants at $1.80

Will he be blond or brunette? For winning hair colour, brunette is favourite at $3.00, with blond slight outsiders at $4.00, while you can get a bald or silver fox at $7.50

Popping the question: Fans always look forward to seeing whether a big proposal happens at the end of each Bachelor and Bachelorette series

Fans always look forward to seeing whether a big proposal happens at the end of each Bachelor and Bachelorette series.

And with the added wrinkle of it being the Bachelorette series, both Georgia and the male suitors can pop the questions.

Sportsbet have you covered for that too, and in a surprise twist, Georgia's winning bachelor proposing is at $5.00, while the Bachelorette proposing herself is a rank outsider at $21.00

Earlier this week it was announced that Georgia was the new Bachelorette star.

The RMIT graduate is following in the footsteps of Australia's first Bachelorette, Sam Frost, with Georgia having started filming on Monday and moving to Sydney for the gig.

'The clear choice': Channel Ten said Georgia her warm personality and career achievements made her an obvious choice for The Bachelorette

Based in Tasmania, the WIN News personality and former trapeze artist has revealed she quit her job so she can find love.

She told The Daily Telegraph she has never shacked up with a boyfriend and has a hard time dating being in the 'public eye' with her TV career, because people think they know her.

In a statement obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald, Channel Ten said Georgia was a 'clear choice' to be the new Bachelorette.

'Georgia's impressive accomplishments and warm personality made her the clear choice to lead the upcoming season of The Bachelorette Australia,' it read.

'The girl next door': Georgia is based in Tasmania and previously worked as a WIN News personality

It further said that the brunette 'describes herself as your girl next door but far from average,' and ready for love.

Georgia told Channel Ten: 'I want to find that one special person to share my life and all its ups and downs with.

'Going into this experience knowing I could walk away with the man of my dreams excites me so much, I can't wait for this incredible new chapter.'

New Idea magazine first reported Georgia was chosen to star in the Channel Ten reality show after a 'rigorous casting process'.

Putting things on hold: She revealed she quit her job to be on the hit dating series
She is one of the biggest names in the Australian modelling industry, who knows a thing or two about style.

But away from the glitz and the glamour, Cheyenne Tozzi nailed an off-duty chic look with aplomb as she enjoyed a quick cigarette break with Alex Perry in Sydney, on Thursday afternoon.

The 27-year-old, who is currently filming the tenth season of Australia's Next Top Model with fellow judge Alex, kept it relatively simple but cool in a ripped pair of jeans and a slouchy grey jumper.

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Keeping her cool: Cheyenne Tozzi nailed an off-duty chic look with aplomb as she enjoyed a cigarette break with Alex Perry in Sydney, on Thursday afternoon

Adding height to her frame, the model rocked off-white pointed heels and added a touch of bling to the otherwise low-key getup thanks to some reflective aviator sunglasses and hoop earrings.

Her glossy brunette tresses were worn loose in tousled waves while she allowed her natural beauty to shine through a muted palette of makeup.

Smiling at flashing photographers as she passed by, Cheyenne appeared to be in great and content spirits as she carefully crossed the road.

Style star! The 27-year-old - who is currently filming the tenth season of Australia's Next Top Model with fellow judge Alex - kept it chic in a ripped pair of jeans and a slouchy grey jumper

Preened to perfection: Her glossy brunette tresses were worn loose in tousled waves while she allowed her natural beauty to shine with muted palates of makeup

Standing tall: Adding height to her frame, the model rocked off-white pointed heels and added a touch of bling to the otherwise low-key getup with reflective aviators and hoop earrings

Meanwhile, Alex, 53, looked typically stylish in tight leather-effect trousers and a jacket worn over a black hoodie.

Moments later, Cheyenne took to her social media sites to share a snap from the day's shooting, she simply wrote in the caption, 'Coffee breaking'.

The pair are currently shooting scenes for the FOX8 series alongside new judge Megan Gale.

'I've loved working on the show in a guest capacity over the years and to now join the series as a permanent judge is both an honour and a privilege,' 40-year-old Megan said in a statement.

'I look forward to working with the girls and sharing some of my own experiences about what it takes to be a successful working model.'

Meanwhile... Alex, 53, looked typically stylish in leather-effect trousers and a jacket worn over a black hoodie

Chilled vibes: The two stars appeared to be having a good catch up as they enjoyed a quick break from filming

Whoops! At one point, Cheyenne was seen picking up her lighter from the ground

Strike a pose! Cheyenne took to her social media sites to share a snap from the day's shooting, she simply wrote in the caption, 'Coffee breaking'

Also joining the show as mentors this season are models Cheyenne Tozzi, and Stenmark twins Jordan and Zac Stenmark.

Earlier this year, Foxtels Executive Director of Television Brian Walsh told of his excitement at bringing her on board, adding: 'Its fantastic to be welcoming Megan back to Foxtel.

'Securing her expertise as a judge on Australias Next Top Model is a massive coup for the show and her presence on the panel will create a very diverse dynamic.'
He only arrived in Bali yesterday to film a new television series, but Kris Smith was quick to let his hair down on Wednesday night.

After watching the State Of Origin with retired NRL star Braith Anasta at a bar, he headed to popular nightspot Motel Mexicola before leaving with a blonde woman.

Climbing onto a motorbike, the womansat behind the 37-year-old before putting on her helmet.

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Night of partying: Kris Smith left a Bali nightclub with blonde woman while partying at the holiday hot spot on Wednesday night

Speaking with Daily Mail Australia, Kris said the woman is a friend of his and his girlfriend Madeline King, adding: 'She's a nice girl'.

He also said that while Maddy had been in the same country on a yoga retreat, she left to return to their home in Melbourne a day or two beforehand.

During his night out, the hunky model put his muscular arms on display in a tight-fitting black T-shirt, keeping cool in a pair of grey shorts.

A helping hand: Climbing onto a motorbike, the female friend sat behind the 37-year-old before putting on her helmet

Ripped: The hunky model put his muscular arms on display in a tight-fitting black T-shirt

'She's a nice girl': Kris said the woman is a friend of his and his girlfriend, Madeline King

Meanwhile, his friend was dressed in a pretty white sundress that had a red floral print on it.

'I was out with a group of friends and nothing was happening with anyone,' Kris told Daily Mail Australia.

'Maddy and myself [are] very happy.'

Flower power: Kris's friend was dressed in a pretty white sundress that had a red floral print on it

Boys' night out: Kris was also accompanied by retired NRL star Braith Anasta during the night out, and the pair had been watching the State Of Origin

Vroom, vroom: Kris and his blonde pal left the Bali spot on the modern-looking vehicle

Kris and Maddy have been dating for over three years and he previously told Daily Mail Australia an engagement isn't off the table for the couple.

Speaking at the Magic Millions races in the Gold Coast in January, Kris said: 'She's a good chick, a great girl. I'm never going to say no.'

Committed: Kris and Maddy have been dating for over three years
She made the announcement she would be leaving her position as Seven Nightly News and Sunday Night anchor in mid last year.

And following her departure from the network, Chris Bath has been able to dedicate much of her time to helping others in impoverished nations.

A Red Cross ambassador for over a decade, the 49-year-old was offered the opportunity to travel to East Timor and she jumped at it.

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Reflections: Former Seven anchor Chris Bath has reflected on her volunteer work with the Red Cross in East Timor in the latest edition of Who Magazine

She had first travelled to Timor-Leste (East Timor) in 1999 to report on the trail of destruction left by militia after the Southeast Asian nation voted for independence from Indonesia.

'The first time I was there I hadn't seen much joy at all,' Chris recalled of her first stint to the embattled country in the July edition of Who Magazine.

More than 17 years later and with the help of the Red Cross, Chris said the country had rebuilt and the people were more positive as a result.

First stint: The 49-year-old is a Red Cross ambassador and jumped at the opportunity to travel to East Timor after reporting on the 1999 crisis

Not so happy: Chris recalled to the publication that she 'hadn't seen much joy at all' in 1999

'This time to see joy on the faces of the young and old is an amazing experience,' she told the publication after her second trip.

Adding: 'It was a lesson in how to be grateful for small things.'

More recently, the former TV newsreader shared a flashback image of herself to Instagram.

Sporting a pixie cut and bright red lips, the journalist beamed at the camera in a black blazer teamed with a white button-up shirt and a red lace vest.

Changed: The mother-of-one said on her second trip to the Southeast Asia nation, she had noticed the 'joy on the faces of the young and old'

Learning adventure: The journalist said the trip to East Timor had provided her with 'a lesson in how to be grateful for small things'

'Late News, pregnancy & the controversial hair year when Roy & HG said every night #Seven dunked my head in a bucket of gel,' she simply captioned the picture of herself.

Chris departed the Seven newsroom in July last year following a career spanning 20 years.

The mother-of-one, who started her career as a cadet at Sydney radio station 2UE, replaced ABC 702 radio drive host Richard Glover for three weeks starting in April.

Speaking at the time, she said she deeply missed the thrill of working as a news anchor.

'When news breaks, the leadership spill in Canberra, when Tony Abbott was ousted, and more recently, the Brussels attacks, I find myself saying, I wish I was at work,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'I love those breaking news stories. Radio is like three hours of rolling coverage, so I know I will get that adrenaline rush.'
Two Yellowstone River oil spills have reshaped national pipeline safety laws signed Wednesday by President Barack Obama.

The PIPES Act sets pipeline law and reauthorizes the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The law addresses two of Montanas worst oil spills: the July 1, 2011, Silvertip Pipeline spill into the Yellowstone River near Laurel and the Jan. 17, 2015, oil spill into the Yellowstone River upstream from Glendive.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines carried PIPES Act in the Senate.

For the first time, pipeline companies will be required to have plans in place for dealing with oil disasters trapped beneath the ice. In January 2015, a Bridger Pipeline rupture beneath the frozen Yellowstone River dumped up to 50,400 gallons of Bakken crude into the river. Very little of the oil was recovered before the ice broke up and spring flows washed the oil downstream. The cancer-causing chemical benzene was released from the spill, contaminating the Glendive water supply.

There are some incremental improvements. There are clarifications, like the ice section and calling the Great Lakes a high-consequence area, said Rebecca Craven, of Pipeline Safety Trust, government watchdog based in Puget Sound.

Bridger Pipelines corporate parent True Oil of Wyoming had no plan for cleaning up ice beneath the frozen Yellowstone. The lack of preparedness cant necessarily be pinned on federal law, because companies are required to have plans for adverse conditions, Craven said. But new language specifically states an ice plan is required.

For the first time, PHMSA will have the ability to issue an emergency order to all pipeline companies when it observes a problem with a particular pipeline that could be dangerous for all. In the past, regulators could issue an order only to a particular violator.

That new authority is significant, Craven said. In theory, when confronted by shallow pipeline left bare by river scouring, PHMSA could order all pipelines to be buried deeper.

In both the Glendive pipeline break and the pipeline break downstream from Laurel, the pipes were found exposed and broken on the river bottom, though pipeline owners True and Exxon had both reported their pipelines to be safely buried.

Exxons Silvertip Pipeline dumped 63,000 gallons into a runoff-swollen Yellowstone, killing wildlife and fouling river banks for 70 miles. No significant amount of oil was recovered. Exxon paid a $1 million fine for the disaster.

In both of those cases, the rules currently required the operators to be aware and plan for any threats to their system, Craven said. So, If youre in a situation like a very active fluvial system like the Yellowstone, whether its ice or bedload sediment moving, those are risks to those lines.

Daines pointed to several sections of the bill that would require pipeline companies and the federal government to do more. The Government Accountability Office is required to report on the way companies manage hazardous liquid in high consequence areas, including water crossings. Pipeline age is among the things GAO is to investigate. Better monitoring during flooding is also required.

The Silvertip and Bridger pipeline breaks were the reasons behind the required report.

Montana has more than three dozen river crossings where pipelines are a concern. Many of those pipelines were re-bored to 35 feet beneath riverbeds after the Bridger Pipeline disaster.

Earlier, PHMSA was required to issue new regulations for leak detection and for automatic shutoff valves. A far away shutoff valve was partially blamed for the volume of the Silvertip oil spill.

The bill passed out of the Senate and House with strong support.

A safe, secure and efficient pipeline infrastructure is critical for energy security, creating and maintaining jobs and providing safeguards to protect the environment, Daines said in a press release last week when the bill was sent to President Obama.
Fasting requires great dedication.

And for Waleed Aly's wife, Susan Carland, going without food during daylight hours in recent weeks has been challenging.

The Monash University academic, who is a practising Muslim, is on her 18th day of Ramadan and on Thursday, she appeared to see the humour in the common practice.

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Starving: Waleed Aly's wife, Susan Carland, shared on Thursday that she is on Day 18 of Ramadan, which requires fasting during daylight hours

Laughing through it: The Monash University academic, who is a practising Muslim, posted a meme on Instagram that featured a series of greedy seagulls attempting to down large food objects

She posted a meme on Instagram that featured a series of greedy seagulls attempting to down large food objects.

It read: 'When it's time for Iftar,' which refers to the feast eaten by Muslims after sunset.

'Day 18 of Ramadan and I relate to this seagull on a profound, spiritual level. Pic via a man who always makes me laugh @arabicmadeinchina,' she captioned.

Convert: The mother-of-two converted from Christianity to Islam at age 19

Susan, who converted from Christianity to Islam at age 19, said that Ramadan is strict in her household.

She recently told Mamamia that she and Waleed do not consume anything, including water, during daylight hours in an effort to establish discipline.

'If I'm hungry, I have something to eat, if I have a headache, I have a tablet. There is no sense of delayed gratification,' the mother-of-two said.

'Theres no real inner sense of discipline, certainly not for me, I'm terribly undisciplined.

Discipline: Susan said Ramadan requires great discipline as she does not consumer anything during daylight hours for throughout the holy observation

'So Ramadan is about teaching us discipline over the most basic desires, food, drink and sex. So if you can master that, controlling those most basic of human desires for 30 days, between daylight hours, then how much easier would it be for us to master the basic desires of the negative aspects of our personality.'

Last week, she and her media personality husband Waleed attended an Iftar dinner hosted by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Kirribilli House.

'By breaking bread across religions and by bringing diverse people together, we are embodying Islam's emphasis on human diversity,' Mr. Turnbull said reciting the Quran.
He's only been out of the house less than a week, but Marco Pierre White Jnr admits he'd love to go back in to confront housemate Natalie Rowe.

The male model, 21, launched a foul-mouthed tirade against the former brothel madam, 52, on his Snapchat.

Although Natalie was in a separate part of the compound as a member of The Others while Marco Jnr was still on the show, he hasn't been impressed by her behaviour as a viewer.

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Hitting out: Marco Pierre White Jnr, pictured on Monday, has launched a scathing attack on Natalie Rowe on his Snapchat

On Wednesday's episode, Natalie was seen getting a formal warning from Big Brother after clashing with Marco Jnr's love interest Laura Carter.

Posting a Snapchat video, Marco Jnr raged: 'I would love to see Natalie leave the Big Brother house next. She f***ing annoys me.

'Id love to get back in there and f***ing get the b***h out of there.'

Despite claiming he wanted to go back into the house to confront Natalie, he later insisted he was happy to be back in the outside world.

Unpopular: Marco was fuming by Big Brother housemate Natalie Rowe

He added: 'I love all my fans. Thank you for the support while I was in the Big Brother house.

'I know I got evicted first, that doesnt bother me, Im much more happy outside.'

On Wednesday's episode, Natalie spent the night in the spare room after being warned by Big Brother over her behaviour.

After spending the night apart from her housemates, Natalie clashed again with Laura upon returning to the main house.

Raging: Marco Jnr posted a Snapchat video sharing his disdain for Natalie

As Laura attempted to speak to Natalie, the latter fumed: 'I have nothing to talk to you about. You mean nothing to me.'

Since becoming the first evictee of this year's Big Brother, Marco has had quite a dramatic few days.

He has ended his brief engagement to fashion designer Kim Melville-Smith, 36, after he publicly cheated on her by having sex with Laura on the show.

He confirmed they were no longer an item on Monday's episode of This Morning, admitted he was confused by the definition of 'hall pass' - which he had been given by Kim before entering the house.

Raunchy: Marco ended up having a passionate romance with Laura Carter in the Big Brother house

The reality star said: 'The arrangement we had I was given a hall pass for BB. I was given a free pass to do anything I wanted.... Maybe I did push it to far.

'I'm in contact with her now. We'll see how it goes. Just be friends for the moment.'
She's treated her fans to a series of sultry bikini snaps during her Ibiza getaway.

But Ashley James opted for an equally as sexy one-piece as she prepared to enjoy her final day in the sun on Thursday.

Sharing a snap of herself paddling in the sea, the 29-year-old model was a vision of beauty as she set to work topping up her tan before heading back to the stormy conditions in Britain.

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Beach babe: She's treated her fans to a series of sultry bikini snaps during her Ibiza getaway. But Ashley James opted for an equally as sexy one-piece as she prepared to enjoy her final day in the sun on Thursday

Clad in a plunging black swimsuit, Ashley showed off every inch of her phenomenal figure, flaunting her ample cleavage as she posed from the side.

Wearing her golden locks in french braids, the blonde beauty finished off her beach look with a pair of black round sunglasses.

'It's my final day so I'm already on the beach,' she informed her followers.

'Thunder thighs and sunny skies': The reality star - who recently told of her battle with body dysmorphia - then posted another snap in her hot pink bikini as she reclined on the edge of the pool

On Wednesday, the DJ - who recently told of her battle with body dysmorphia - posted another snap in a hot pink bikini as she reclined on the edge of the pool, joking that she had 'thunder thighs'.

Alongside the snap, she wrote: 'Thunder thighs and sunny skies #Ibiza #bodyconfidence.'

Sharing another picture in her skimpy two-piece, she also admitted she was struggling to find the time to show off all the swimwear she'd stocked up on for her trip, as she came to terms with the fact she'd be heading back home soon.

'Post lunch outfit change cause I own too many bikinis and I'm going home tomorrow @lipsylondon #ibiza.' she wrote on Instagram.

Perky in pink: Her Ibiza getaway has been the source of several of her sizzling bikini snaps. And Ashley James decided to treat her fans to another sultry offering with a skimpy pink two-piece on Wednesday

In another shot, the former Made In Chelsea star opted for a blue bikini that barely contained her ample assets as she commented on the lovely shrubbery outside her hotel.

And breaking with tradition, the starlet also posted a snap of herself decidedly more covered up, but still flaunted her tanned and toned pins as she reclined on the beach.

Clad in a khaki kaftan, Ashley dazzled in the snap, but admitted she had altered the image slightly to 'keep it pretty'.

Addressing her 69,000 followers she wrote: 'Bought this kaftan off one of the guys on the beach, gotta support the hustlers. I cropped my toes out to keep it pretty.'

Blue-tiful: She's beensharing a series of sizzling bikini snaps in Ibiza. And Ashley James showed off yet more of her phenomenal physique when she slipped into a skimpy blue two-piece on Wednesday

Leggy lady! In another shot, the former Made In Chelsea star kept covered up, but still flaunted her tanned and toned pins as she reclined on the beach, joking that she'd cropped out her toes

Tucking in: Ashley enjoyed a healthy sushi lunch and glass of bubbly as she revealed she was 'making the most' of her final day before planning to head to Glastonbury festival site - which is currently flooded

Ashley - who shot to fame on E4's MIC by dating the likes of Francis Boulles and Ollie Lock - has been sharing a series of snaps in which she models a selection of racy pool and beachwear.

And the radio DJ wasn't going to making an exception on Tuesday, as she headed to the beach in the flesh-flashing number, cheekily proclaiming 'another day, another bikini'.

Thanks to the bikini's plunging halter neck top, the former reality star flashed more than a hint of her ample assets, while a bolo tie embelishment also helped to catch the eye.

Teamed with a pair of tiny, low-cut bottoms, Ashley ensured bother her taut tummy was placed firmly in the spotlight, as she posed up a storm by the sea, and again by her lounger.

Another day, another bikini! Tuesday morning saw Ashley James back on the beach and in a bikini, with the former Made In Chelsea star showing off her toned and honed body in a skimpy teal two-piece

Sending temperatures soaring: Heading to one of the island's many golden beaches, the 29-year-old blogger looked to have slipped into the holiday spirit, as she showed off her slender curves in the tiny bikini

Clearly making the most of her time in the sun, the star didn't seem keen on returning home to the UK, as she captioned one snap: 'Never leaving! (sadly I am actually leaving).'

Ashley's latest sharing spree came after she uploaded a series of sunny photos to account, showing off her fantastic figure in a variety of sexy swimwear.

Sharing a number of photos of her time in sunny Ibiza with her 64,400 followers, the model clearly wasn't feeling shy.

Sun-seeking siren: Ashley James certainly wasn't shy about showing off her ample assets and washboard abs in a series of sizzling swimsuit snaps, which she uploaded to social media on Monday

In one snap from her sunny break in the Balearic Islands, she can be seen posing on the beach in a tiny, plunging black bikini, which left little to the imagination.

Featuring pink accents, the tiny two-piece allowed the blonde beauty to show off both washboard abs as well as her ample assets - thanks to her low-cut bottoms and teeny black halterneck top.

Wearing her blonde locks in french plaits, Ashley added a further quirky edge to her beach attire with a pair of hipster oval shades and a slim black choker.

Sizzling swimwear: The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, shared a series of sunny photos with her 64,400 followers, which saw the blonde beauty flaunting her fantastic figure in a variety of sexy swimwear

She captioned the beach-bound snap: 'Not bad for a Monday.'

In an earlier post, Ashley was picture in a form-fitting pink one-piece with corseted detailing accenting an extremely plunging neckline.

Featuring a high-cut leg, the Hoxton Radio DJ ensured plenty of flesh was on display, as she headed out into the sun.

Kicking back: Ashley - who shot to fame on E4's MIC by dating the likes of Francis Boulles and Ollie Lock - shared a series of snaps where she modelled a series of racy pool and beachwear

Poking fun at her own choice of pose, the bubbly star wrote: 'That classic teapot pose! I'm in love with Gecko beach resort and my @lipsylondon swimsuit #formentera #ibiza #shortandstout.'

And in another snapshot from her time on the famous Spanish isle, Ashley could be seen enjoying a relaxing cool drink pool-side in yet another eye-popping swimsuit.

Summing up her feelings about her getaway to Ibiza, she simply cpationed the idyllic poolside snap: 'Happy place  #Ibiza.'

Out on the town? It seems Ashley's been enjoying the island's famously raucous night-life as much as she has its sunny days

And it seems Ashley's been enjoying the island's famously raucous night-life as much as she has its sunny days.

Sharing another snap, this time clad in a saucy sheer lace nightie and a black halterneck top, she posed for a snapchat picture which she promptly shared on Instagram.

While Ashley is the picture of body confidence, the model and author has previously admitted to battling with body dysmorphia.

In March, the reality star revealed her former struggle with the disorder in in a heartfelt Twitter post.

Ashley shared a selfie as she explained: Just found this pic I took it to send to @Josiestweet cause I thought I looked too fat. Body dysmorphia is real.
After a fun-filled trip to New York City, Kate Hudson has returned home to sunny Los Angeles.

And the 37-year-old actress looked effortlessly stunning as she stepped out in a black-and-red patterned off-shoulder maxi dress while running errands solo in her coastal hometown.

Kate, daughter of Goldie Hawn, also proved she can still turn heads with her natural beauty as she emerged from her luxury vehicle wearing no makeup.

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Back in the City of Angels: Kate Hudson was spotted out and about in Los Angeles on Wednesday

The star looked casually cool as she stepped out with her golden locks tied into a half-ponytail, while she shielded her eyes with circular-framed shades.

As the Southern California sunshine shone brightly over the City of Angels, the actress kept her perfectly pedicured toes cool in a pair of simple flip-flops.

Clutching her phone in one hand, the mother-of-two toted a tan tasseled handbag on her shoulder.

All natural: The star showed off her natural beauty as she stepped out for her solo excursion makeup-free

Dressed to impress: The 37-year-old actress looked stunning in a black-and-red off-shoulder maxi dress

Earlier this month, Kate enjoyed a wine-fuelled night out in New York City with Bella Hadid.

Their lively antics were documented on Snapchat, as Kate shared a video showing her enjoying a large glass of wine in a Japanese restaurant.

Days before that, she was spotted taking her son Ryder, 14, on an excursion to see historically-inspired musical Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Jet-setter: Kate recently returned from a fun-filled trip to New York City with her two sons, Ryder and Bingham

Happy feet: The Almost Famous star kept her perfectly pedicured toes cool in a simple pair of flip flops

Later that night, Kate took to Instagram to share a shot of herself and Ryder posing backstage, captioning the image: 'Took my baby to see this masterpiece @hamiltonmusical tonight!

'Thank you #linmanuelmiranda and cast for being so gracious and FYI the second time was just as exciting, inspiring and emotional as the first! Till we meet again.'

Kate had Ryder with her rocker ex-husband Chris Robinson. She is also mother to four-year-old son Bingham - her child with musician former fiance Matt Bellamy.

Party! As well as going to see a musical while in NYC, Kate shared images of herself partying with Bella Hadid

Just throw in the bag: Kate complemented her simple-yet-chic ensemble with the a tan tasseled handbag

During a recent appearance on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Kate admitted she had her hands full caring for her two boys.

She said: 'Lets start with the fact that I, literally five seconds ago, was on FaceTime with [Ryder's] teacher, going like, "He did what? He did?"

'He's a great kid, I love him so much. They're your kids and you love them and then you can't stand them sometimes - it's just the truth.'

Eye love the sunshine: Kate shielded her eyes with a pair of circular-framed tinted sunglasses
She rarely puts a foot wrong when it comes to her wardrobe.

And being a veteran traveller thanks to her jet-setting career as a supermodel, Kendall Jenner proved that even a transatlantic flight can be a platform for a sartorial showcase.

Landing in Paris on Thursday morning, the 20-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star cut an immaculately stylish figure as she sauntered through arrivals in a floral jacket and high-waisted flares.

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Travel chic style: being a veteran traveller thanks to her jet-setting career as a supermodel, Kendall Jenner proved that even a transatlantic flight can be a platform for a sartorial showcase

Touching down at the city's Charles De Gaulle airport, Kendall looked as fresh faced as when she departed New York the previous evening.

Striding through airport on her own, the face of Chanel cut a swish figure thanks to her take on Spring/Summer trends - flying her seasonal colours with a white floral quilted jacket.

But never one to over-complicate a look, Kendall - the eldest of Caitlyn and Kris Jenner's two daughters - rocked a subtle yet sassy look as she teamed a pair of black flares with a crop-top.

Flashing a hint of her toned and taut tummy thanks to her high-neck vest, while her wool high-waisted flares also drew attention to her tummy, whilst also defining her long legs and pert bottom.

Immaculate: Landing in Paris on Thursday morning, the 20-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star cut an immaculately stylish figure as she sauntered through arrivals in a floral jacket and high-waisted flares

She rounded her look off with a pair of complementary stilettos, which helped to accentuate her figure further.

Accessorising with a few A-List essentials, the rising runway queen rocked a pair of mirrored aviators, whilst she also carried a lone black handbag.

Wearing her long raven locks tied back in a smart bun, Kendall kept her locks off of her face, whilst she also inadvertently showcased her naturally striking features.

Fresh and fashionable: Touching down at the city's Charles De Gaulle airport, Kendall looked as fresh faced as when she departed New York the previous evening

A Spring in her step: Striding through airport on her own, the face of Chanel cut a swish figure thanks to her take on Spring/Summer trends - flying her seasonal colours with a white floral quilted jacket

A hint of skin: Flashing a hint of her toned and taut tummy thanks to her high-neck vest, while her wool high-waisted flares also drew attention to her tummy, whilst also defining her long legs and pert bottom

Hopping in a private car, KIm Kardashian's younger sister was whiskey to one of the French capital's many luxury hotels - and. adding a silver lining to her day, she was greeted by the balmy Parisian sun.

Only the evening before Kendall had looked just as immaculate as she headed to JFK Airport in New York City on Wednesday.

She demurely pushed a door open and followed the driver tugging her large red suitcase to the car.

Natural beauty: Wearing her long raven locks tied back in a smart bun, Kendall kept her locks off of her face, whilst she also inadvertently showcased her naturally striking features

Nip it! Kendall Jenner covered up for a change as she headed to JFK Airport in NYC on Wednesday after her daring nipple overexposure the day before

Flaunting what she's got: The 20-year-old model showed off her bosom and her nipple piercing in a sheer black top on Wednesday

She won this round: Kendall went out to dinner with Hailey Baldwin and Gigi Hadid but most likely stole the spotlight away from them

She's got flare: Kim Kardashian's younger sister stepped along in flaring trousers and crop top that her quilted blazer did a fair job concealing

It seemed Kendall already got the shock reaction she seemingly craved when she stepped out with pals Hailey Baldwin and Gigi Hadid on Tuesday.

Kendall threw caution to the wind or perhaps good taste as she flaunted her bosom and nipple piercing in a totally see-through black top.

The model treated the sidewalk as her runway as she trotted along in her risque attire.

From siren to schoolmarm charm: The brunette wore her hair in a simple bun while tinted shades concealed her eyes

Wake up, no make-up: Kendall appeared to be make-up free as she left her lodgings

Kendall also wore a pair of high-waist jeans and black boots and let her shoulder-length hair flow freely.

The group had been out to dinner at The Smile in New York's SoHo neighbourhood.

In contrast, Gigi and Hailey opted for more slick city outfits with the former clad in bell-bottom jeans and a peasant-style black top and the latter opting for a black dress with frayed hemline.

Getting groped: Kendall shed that goody-two-shoes image for good after she shared a Snapchat of pal Hailey Baldwin groping her chest

Despite the shocking display, Kendall admitted she doesn't always like the way she looks in photographs.

Kim Kardashian's younger half-sister revealed on her website kendallj.com on Wednesday that she loses her confidence when she sees a bad snap of herself.

'Living in the public eye can both build and test your confidence at the same time,' Kendall said.
She hasn't been shy in flaunting her burgeoning 20-week-old baby bump on social media.

But pregnant model Laura Csortan, 39, decided to hide her pregnant belly underneath a loose-fitting black knit as she attended the TW Steel Maverick Collection watch launch on Thursday in Sydney.

Dressed in black from head-to-toe, the blonde beauty layered a cropped leather jacket over her high-necked top and slipped her slender legs into a pair of loose-fitting trousers.

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Swathing her stomach: Laura Csortan, 39, decided to hide her pregnant belly underneath a loose-fitting black top as she attended the TW Steel Maverick Collection watch launch in Sydney on Thursday

Her outfit was complete with a pair of heavy leather boots and a large wrist watch.

It comes days after Laura revealed that she had split from the father of her unborn child.

Speaking to Daily Mail about being a single mother, Laura said: 'You don't know what to expect. My theory on it is I'll just take each day as it comes. So long as it's loved beyond anything else'.

'I'm prepared for the sleepless nights and all that. I'm not kidding myself that it's going to be easy. I'm just ready for it', she went on.

Monochrome: Dressed in black from head-to-toe, the blonde beauty layered a cropped leather jacket over her high-necked top and slipped her slender legs into a pair of loose-fitting trousers

She added: 'I didn't know how [the pregnancy announcement] would be received but really wonderful and support from single mothers and women who have wanted to be single mothers and didn't know how to go about it'.

Speaking to Woman's Day earlier this year, Laura admitted that while she still speaks to her ex, whose identity remains a secret, he will not be involved in their child's life.

'He respects my decision (to have the baby), and when the baby's older I'm happy with her finding out who her father is. I'm going into this with an open mind,' she explained to the publication.

Moving forward: It comes days after Laura revealed that she had split from the father of her unborn child

Cravings! Since announcing her pregnancy, Laura has been happily documenting her life as an expectant mother on social media, having uploaded a snap of herself indulging in a jam doughnut on Tuesday

Laura does not know the sex of her baby but she is convinced she is having a little girl.

Meanwhile, her last reported romance was with Port Adelaide AFL player Chad Cornes, last year.

Before Cornes, she dated Abercrombie & Fitch model Joshua Slack for several months.

'Baby's got hot aunties!' She also flaunted her bump last Saturday when she attended the Pinky Promise charity gala

Since announcing her pregnancy, Laura has been happily documenting her life as an expectant mother on social media, having uploaded a snap of herself indulging in a jam doughnut on Tuesday.

Posing with her head thrown back as she munched upon the sugary treat, Laura wrote: 'Craaaaaavings! I've had many, from gherkins to vegemite on everything!'

'I try to listen to my body and give it what it's asking for', she went on, making sure to add an array of food-related emojis to the post.

She also flaunted her bump last Saturday when she attended the Pinky Promise charity gala.

In the photo, she is pictured standing with a group of glamorous girlfriends, two of whom are seen cradling her stomach.

'Baby's got HOT Aunty's! [sic]' she exclaimed in the caption.
Some critics say reality stars have it easy.

And Pete Wicks did very little to silence the haters as he spent a day hardly dressed while being oiled up for his 2017 calendar shoot on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old TOWIE hunk sported just a pair of skin-tight jeans and nothing else, while a helpful aide had the 'difficult' job of oiling up his toned torso.

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Check him out! Pete Wicks did very little to silence the haters as he spent a day hardly dressed while being oiled up for his 2017 calendar shoot on Wednesday

Pete, who joined the ITVBe show in series 15, looked extremely handsome for the shoot in which he scraped his long tresses into a tousled bun.

Showing off his incredibly ripped torso, the pint-sized hunk, who is dating co-star Megan McKenna, stripped off to just his jeans to make the most off his ripped six-pack and hard-earned muscles.

Atop his hard muscles was his plethora of intricate inkings which cover the near entirety of his physique, with a host of colours and details making for a unique sight.

Adding to the superstar feel of the look he paired the ensemble with mirrored sunglasses with a blue sheen on the lens.

Hunky: The 27-year-old TOWIE hunk sported just a pair of skin-tight jeans and nothing else, while a helpful aide had the 'difficult' job of oiling up his toned torso

Look away now Megan! The lucky assistant was focused on oiling up Pete's torso

Great work if you can get it! Ensuring he was camera ready, a helpful aide rubbed oil into his tanned physique to ensure he perfected the perfect sheen for his look

Cuties: Aside from handsome Pete, the cute pups were also the focus of the shoot

Ensuring he was camera ready, a helpful aide rubbed oil into his tanned physique to ensure he perfected the perfect sheen for his look.

He later posed with a holdall from inside his slick white Mercedes motor - smouldering in the process.

Peter struck up a bond with Ex On The Beach star Megan not long after she left Celebrity Big Brother in January.

Sexy: Peter struck up a bond with Ex On The Beach star Megan not long after she left Celebrity Big Brother in January

Skull-king: Pete's back tattoo featured an intricately designed skull tattoo

Tan-tastic: Pete appeared to have overdone the make-up as his face was weighed down with cosmetics

Touched up: Pete was touched up and preened at various intervals

Megan joined TOWIE back in March and she has proved to be a certifiable hit with the ITVBe audience.

It didn't take long for romance to blossom between Peter and Megan and by the time she was made a permanent castmember she was said to have been 'bowled over' by him.

After a recent holiday to Dubai, Megan was off abroad once again as she joined friends and TOWIE co-stars in Marbella earlier this month.

Texting Megan? Pete tore himself away from the shoot to play on his phone
Elise Franciskovic has survived her seventh Pressure Test to book her spot in the MasterChef Australia Top 10.

But the 28-year-old only made it by the skin of her teeth as the judges felt her charred apricot parfait with passion fruit curd 'didn't stand out from the pack' and was one of the two worst dishes.

The Queenslander left herself only 60 minutes to complete the unique challenge - which gave contestants the option to pick more time or more ingredients - with Elise deciding on the latter after only herbs and vegetables we on offer in the first round.

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Still alive: Elise Franciskovic has survived her seventh Pressure Test - by the skin of her teeth - to book her spot in the MasterChef Australia Top 10

Once the third mini-pantry was unveiled to reveal a wide variety of fruits, the dessert specialist pounced but was soon overwhelmed by the choices.

She decided to use not only rhubarb and passionfruit but added strawberries and thyme to the mix, prompting judge Matt Preston to question whether she had too many flavours.

My gut sinks, she said, adding: 'But I'm going to go with my gut instinct and keep all the elements.

I think the flavours will pop. I know I can do this. It might not look like much but its a massive flavour bomb.'

Missed the mark: The judges felt her charred apricot parfait with passion fruit curd 'didn't stand out from the pack' and was one of the two worst dishes, George Calombaris even said it reminded him of Fruit Loops

However, she started to get cold feet just before the tasting, remembering what had happened to other contestants who had gone against suggestions from judges.

I'm taking a massive risk in going against what the judges have said. My whole future in this competition, I'll definitely be walking out those doors,' she said.

'But I know these flavours. They work really well together but... if the flavours clash and the judges don't enjoy it...'

Lucky: Elise was one of the two worst dishes of the day and only survived because of Karmen's (right) mistakes

Things started badly in the tasting room when Gary wasn't sure which fruit was inside the parfait (strawberry) because there were too many flavours.

You know what it reminds me of? Fruit Loops,' George said.

'Theres confusion there, it could have been balanced out by taking away some of the strawberry and just allowing the fruit and herb do its thing.

Matt agreed and was sad the dish didn't live up to its potential.

Taking direction: Trent started over with his Pumpkin ricotta rotolo with cauliflower puree and a cauliflower pangrattato when George gave him some criticism

Diluting flavour: The 29-year-old from rural NSW was originally boiling his diced pumpkin in water until George told him it would not be good enough

'At its core, those crumbs, the thyme, the charred apricot ice-cream - just...smashing. Its the best bits about apricot jam on toast with lots of butter,' he said.

The judges all agreed it didn't stand out from the pack and was in competition with Karmen for the worst dish of the day, which would have sent her home.

Her mistake was dire considering the excellent food on offer form the other three contestants.

Unlike Elise, Trent started over with his Pumpkin ricotta rotolo with cauliflower puree and a cauliflower pangrattato when George gave him some criticism.

'Serves me right for asking a smarta**e question': Matt was wandering the kitchen and cautioned her to make sure she didn't burn the beetroot puree she was cooking up, when some of it flicked onto his finger

Top dish: Mimi's beetroot parfait with rosemary shortbread and beetroot caramel ended up winning high praise from the judges

The 29-year-old from rural NSW was originally boiling his diced pumpkin in water until George told him it would not be good enough.

It needs to be "gasp Im weak at the knees I love this food". if you add water you dilute flavour,' he said.

Trent immediately tried a different approach: I dont know what I was thinking. George has really hit home about how much I need to make sure that the flavour of everything is spot-on today.

Mimi was also complimented for her beetroot parfait with rosemary shortbread and beetroot caramel, even after a funny moment with Matt during the cook.

The judge was wandering the kitchen and cautioned her to make sure she didn't burn the beetroot puree she was cooking up, when some of it flicked onto his finger.

Serves me right for asking a smarta**e question doesnt it!' he said before licking it off.

On Sunday megastar chef Heston Blumenthal arrives for an intense week where the remaining contestants will open a different pop up restaurant every day, starting at the Melbourne Star.
He may be adored by women across the nation.

But Home And Away star Nick Westaway has revealed that he struggles when it comes to dating.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the TW Steel Maverick Collection launch event in Sydney on Thursday, the 27-year-old admitted that he is 'very much single' thanks to his profession as an actor.

'Sometimes they'll put me above them': Former Home And Away star Nick Westaway admits he is 'very much single' andstruggles to date as he attended the TW Steel Maverick Collection launch in Sydney on Thursday

'Sometimes meeting girls is hard because they know what I do,' the soap heart-throb confessed.

'Sometimes they'll put me above them when to me it is just my job', he added, explaining that he aspires to having a 'relationship that's on the same level'.

'So it's sometimes hard to have a relationship or a conversation with a girl if she thinks my ego is bigger or smaller than it should be, when their job is just as important as my job, regardless,' he concluded.

The brooding hunk faced romance rumours earlier this year when he shared a series of intimate on-screen moments with pop-star Samantha Jade on Home And Away.

Single and ready to mingle! The heart-throb explained that he aspires to having a 'relationship that's on the same level'

He also played the role of her lover in Samantha's music film clip for Always.

Samantha has since shut down dating rumours, telling AAA Weekend that the pair are 'just friends'.

In 2014, Nick enjoyed a well-documented romance with busty glamour model Shenae Gillespie, who he met on Tinder.

Steamy: The brooding hunk faced romance rumours earlier this year when he shared a series of intimate on-screen moments with pop-star Samantha Jade on Home And Away

Nick, who made his final appearance on Home And Away in April this year, was recently announced as having a role in the upcoming Dance Academy movie.

Speaking to Daily Mail about his plans for life after Home And Away, Nick was refreshingly candid, explaining that: 'I'm still not entirely sure where I want to end up with my acting career'.

'I know that I want to tell stories that I care about is the end goal, but to do that you kind of have to develop a profile where you start to get choice and you start to have a little bit of power', he went on.

'At the moment, in my position, having only one or two credits under my belt, there's not a lot of choice. You kind of just have to put yourself out there and if anything lands in your lap you grab it'.
They got married two months ago.

And Seven Year Switch stars Brad and Tallena are still very much in honeymoon mode.

The reality TV couple tried out cryotherapy for the first time on Thursday, during a date in Brisbane and they were impressed by its effect on their libidos.

Impressed: Seven Year Switch stars Brad and Tallena shared snapshots of their crynotherapy experience on Instagram on Thursday after trying out a full-body cryotherapy chamber in Morningside, Brisbane where temperatures drop to as low as -170 degrees

The newlyweds shared snapshots of their experience on Instagram after trying out a full-body cryotherapy chamber in Morningside, Brisbane where temperatures drop to as low as minus 170 degrees.

'After being in the fitness industry I'm always interested in the latest trends, this had me at 'burn 600 calories' lol,' the post read.

'But I actually didn't realise all the other benefits! Decreases fatigue, improves immunity, treatment for chronic pain (I've had 9 operations and I'm constantly in pain so I found this very interesting) and last but not least increased libido, whoot whhooo.'

Bliss: The reality stars met on Tinder in 2014 before tying the knot in April this year

They added the hash-tags: 'fit', 'fitness', 'cold', sports', health', 'wellness', 'beauty', 'spa', 'pain management', 'depression', 'hair skin nails' and 'increase metabolism'.

The couple, who met on Tinder in 2014, recently enjoyed a romantic getaway for Brad's birthday following their Bali honeymoon.

While they are happier than ever two months into their marriage, but Tallena recently shared that the journey hasn't been easy.

Soul mates: Tallena said recently that appearing on the controversial reality show had strengthened their bond

'Part of the reason that we participated in the experiment was to help other couples as well as improving our own,' she wrote on Instagram.

'Every couple has problems and we definitely don't deny ours. Our biggest downfall was our lack of communication, which was a big fault on my behalf, I would shut down and then Eventually explode.

'... We are defiantly getting better and therapy has helped a lot ... I have definitely calmed down a lot and with Brad understanding my anxiety more and more everyday we can only continue to grow stronger.'

Brad and Tallena wed in a small ceremony attended by 70 friends and family members on Queenslands Sunshine Coast in April.
They have become national sweethearts due to their hilarious sofa antics.

Yet Gogglebox favourites Sandra Martin and Sandi Channer are swapping the couch for the catwalk as they prepare to host The Curve Fashion Festival 2016 in September in Liverpool.

The hilarious duo spoke exclusively to MailOnline about their figures - with Sandra admitting that she is a proud size 26-28, yet is determined to boost her bum.

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Curvy gals: Gogglebox favourites Sandra Martin and Sandi Channer are swapping the couch for the catwalk as they prepare to host The Curve Fashion Festival 2016 in September in Liverpool

The Curve Fashion Festival, in partnership with Look Magazine is the UKs largest plus size fashion event with Sandi and Sandra leading the superstar arrivals.

As the ladies opened up about their fashion and figures,Sandra revealed she is clearly perfectly pleased with her ample curves, as she insisted that being in the spotlight has slightly changed how she sees her figure: 'Yes a bit because everyone thinks Ive lost weight but Im still the same 26-28.

'Sometimes some clothes make me look bigger or smaller and the camera adds pounds so people always think Ive changed but Im just the same. Id like a bigger bum  mines flat - Id love a bigger booty so I could do some twerking.'

Whereas statuesque Sandi is adamant being on television has not changed how she sees her figure at all: 'No, Im the same person I was in the beginning. Ive always had confidence and Im not shy' - yet she revealed she would change her stomach: 'My stomach - I really need to do bit more exercise - Im working on it. I think most women feel their stomach is a problem.'

Playing around: The hilarious duo spoke exclusively to MailOnline about their figures - with Sandra admitting that she is a proud size 26-28, yet is determined to boost her bum

Curvy in all the right places: As the ladies opened up about their fashion and figures,Sandra revealed she is clearly perfectly pleased with her ample curves, as she insisted that being in the spotlight has slightly changed how she sees her figure: 'Yes a bit because everyone thinks Ive lost weight but Im still the same 26-28'

As they head to the festival to encourage women to celebrate their curves, the confident duo gave advice to young girls.

Sandi revealed: 'Be yourself and be proud of what you got. Dont look at skinny models and think thats the only form of beauty. Be proud of what you are, dont hide behind a curtain. Come forward and shine. Happiness is the best form of beauty.'

Meanwhile Sandra kindly said: 'Be yourself  God gave you your body  enjoy it. Dont follow no one  follow your own path and enjoy it. Im very comfortable with my body and always have been  I love my look.

'I look at photos from years ago and I look good then and I look good now. Dont waste time trying to be something your not.'

In regard to celebrity style icons, Sandi insists she dances to the beat of her drum: 'No one (is my icon)  Ive got my own swag  I dont follow the crowd. People know me for my own style. I always have. I just wear what I like and I enjoy wearing all sorts of things.'

Oops: Meanwhile Sandra kindly said: 'Be yourself  God gave you your body  enjoy it. Dont follow no one  follow your own path and enjoy it. Im very comfortable with my body and always have been  I love my look'

Girls: Sandra meanwhile loves R'n'B and rap icons: 'Im very fond of Beyonce & Jay Z  I had a dream the other night that they came to my new house. And they were together and it felt so real'

Sandra meanwhile loves R'n'B and rap icons: 'Im very fond of Beyonce & Jay Z  I had a dream the other night that they came to my new house. And they were together and it felt so real.'

Aside from fashion, Sandra recently revealed she had re-united with her long-term lover Derek as she revealed: 'Yeah were back together. Hes not keen on the big white wedding  hes shy - so keep on as we are and Ill dream about a Las Vegas wedding.

'But were alright. Hes helps me round the house  hes my man. I love him, he loves me. Im used to him and hes used to me  weve been together 10 years.'

With pride in their figures, Sandra revealed she would like to eat more healthily: 'Im trying to get healthier and start cooking and eating more salad but with everything on the side.

The happy pair: While obviously proud of their figures, the girls are also thrilled to be headed to the big fashion event and looking forward to strutting their stuff on the runway

The girls: Meanwhile Sandra added: 'Yes, I love a fashion event  I like to do things for plus size women because I am one! Im passionate about promoting plus size beauty'

'Its not about getting slimmer its about getting healthy and making sure my heart isnt clogged up with fatty foods. Less fried stuff, I still have my egg and bacon every morning though!'

While obviously proud of their figures, the girls are also thrilled to be headed to the big fashion event and looking forward to strutting their stuff on the runway.

When asked about the bash, Sandi said: 'Yes I am excited  its going to be an amazing day. I am passionate about fashion  Id love to have my own fashion line. My mum was a dressmaker so Ive been around fashion all my life.

Meanwhile Sandra added: 'Yes, I love a fashion event  I like to do things for plus size women because I am one! Im passionate about promoting plus size beauty.'

For more information on The Curve Fashion Festival, visit the website

http://thecurvefashionfestival.co.uk and follow @CurveFashionFes for daily updates.
He's been enjoying the party scene in Bali recently.

But on Thursday, Braith Anasta made time for the special girls in his life.

The former Roosters NRL star enjoyed dinner with his two-year-old daughter Aleeia and his mother Kim as he shared a photo of their night on Instagram.

His number one girls: Braith Anasta enjoyed dinner with his two-year-old daughter Aleeia and his mother Kim in Bali on Thursday

'Time flies when your having fun.... Last night with my girls,' he captioned the image with the hash-tags 'happy but sad', 'love bali', 'good times' .

The doting father beamed while clad in a white T-shirt and dark shades as his precious girls posed on each side of him.

The happy family embarked on a 'quick trip' to the Indonesian Island this week for some fun in the sun and Braith, 34, has documented the trip on social media.

Daddy's girl: The former NRL star shares little Aleeia with actress Jodi Gordon

Water baby: The toddler couldn't contain her delight during a swim with her buff father

In one particular photo, little Aleeia, who Braith shares with actress Jodi Gordon, couldn't contain her delight during a swim with her buff father.

'Ive never seen her so happy in my life... She's definitely a water baby ... 4 hours later ... energiserbunny #keepingdadbusy #cantkeepup #imtired #itsallworthit,' he captioned.

Despite separating from Jodi in December, Braith maintains a close bond with their daughter and the exes are able to amicably co-parent.

Big kiss: Braith maintains a close bond with Aleeia despite having separated from Jodi in Decmber
America Ferrera showcased her 5ft1in curvaceous bikini body during her picturesque romantic holiday in Kauai on Monday.

Embracing the relaxed, aloha-style, the 32-year-old Golden Globe winner donned a green palm-patterned two piece and silver flip-flops.

The Special Correspondents actress was joined on Hawaii's most rural island by her husband Ryan Piers Williams.

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Surf's up! America Ferrera showcased her 5ft1in curvaceous bikini body during her picturesque romantic holiday in Kauai on Monday

Toweling off: Embracing the relaxed, aloha-style, the 32-year-old Golden Globe winner donned a green palm-patterned two piece and silver flip-flops

Romantic getaway: The Special Correspondents actress was joined on Hawaii's most rural island by her husband Ryan Piers Williams

The USC college sweethearts - rocking matching Quicksilver blue tops - are on vacation celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, which is officially on Monday.

To better handle the waves, America and the 35-year-old painter and filmmaker took a surfing class together.

Ferrera seemed to be in fine form, grinning triumphantly as she caught her first wave on the board.

The Honduran-American beauty kept her posture low and outstretched her arms to maintain her balance as she rode the foamy surf.

Still going strong: The USC college sweethearts - rocking matching Quicksilver blue tops - are on vacation celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, which is officially on Monday

Twinning! To better handle the waves, America and the 35-year-old painter and filmmaker took a surfing class together

Weee! Ferrera seemed to be in fine form, grinning triumphantly as she caught her first wave on the board

Impressive: The Honduran-American beauty kept her posture low and outstretched her arms to maintain her balance as she rode the foamy surf

America - who boasts 370K followers - wrote of her surfing experience: 'Hang ten. #funoutside #iwipedoutonceortwice #surfingrequiresabstrength'

'Hang ten. #funoutside #iwipedoutonceortwice #surfingrequiresabstrength,' America - who boasts 370K followers - wrote of her surfing experience.

Even when she wasn't on the beach, the Los Angeles native swam laps in the pool of her hotel to train for an upcoming triathlon.

'I know that having the perfect body doesn't fix all your problems, or make you love yourself more. To me, it's all about being comfortable in your own skin,' the Superstore star told Glamour way back in 2007.

Shaping up: Even when she wasn't on the beach, the Los Angeles native swam laps in the pool of her hotel to train for an upcoming triathlon

The Superstore star told Glamour way back in 2007: 'I know that having the perfect body doesn't fix all your problems, or make you love yourself more. To me, it's all about being comfortable in your own skin'

She continued: 'I feel like I'm a regular-size person - I'm a size 6 or 8, which is totally normal. Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me'

The Real Women Have Curves star lamented: 'I do feel like if I wanted to get in better shape, there might be a backlash of, "Why isn't she comfortable with herself anymore?"'

'I feel like I'm a regular-size person - I'm a size 6 or 8, which is totally normal. Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me. I do feel like if I wanted to get in better shape, there might be a backlash of, "Why isn't she comfortable with herself anymore?"'

Aside from surfing, Ferrera and her Texan-born beau explored the Na Pali Coast, Hanalei Bay, and the Kalalau Trail during their getaway.

Sightseeing duo: Aside from surfing, Ferrera and her Texan-born beau explored the Na Pali Coast, Hanalei Bay, and the Kalalau Trail during their getaway

His longtime muse: Two years ago, Ryan directed America in the drama X/Y, and he's currently writing his next feature, Staring at the Sun

The lovely Latina captioned a coastline couple snap at sunset: 'This is a real place that exists on earth. #breathtaken'

Two years ago, Ryan directed America in the drama X/Y, and he's currently writing his next feature, Staring at the Sun.

The Emmy winner produces and will star as Amy in the second season of Superstore, which premieres September 22 on NBC.

The sitcom - also featuring Kids in the Hall veteran Mark McKinney - is centered on employees of a megastore called Cloud 9.
She's in the midst of a nasty divorce from her husband Johnny Depp.

And the pressure appears to be getting to Amber Heard, who looked worryingly thin as she jetted back to Los Angeles on Thursday.

Her trip came as it was revealed that her ex Johnny Depp is laying low at his private island in the Bahamas. According to People magazine he is not planning on leaving until either a new court date arises, or his band's tour picks back up in July.

Low key: Amber Heard kept a low profile in a wide-brimmed, black hat and sunglasses as she was spotted walking through LAX airport on Wednesday amid nasty divorce from ex Johnny Depp

Thin: Amber looked to have slimmed down following recent stress over her split from ex Johnny as well as allegations of abuse

For her flight on Thursday, Amber teamed skinny jeans with a form-fitting, three quarter length sleeved sweater.

The Rum Diary star coupled that with a pair of skintight, black jeans, as well as a pair of stylish, heeled black boots.

She wore her fitted top tucked into the black jeans, and had her hands full with a few bags as she walked.

The all black outfit highlighted her thin frame, which is said to have gotten even slimmer due to the stress of her divorce proceedings with Johnny.

TMZ recently reported that the actress couldn't even go to a planned fitting for the Justice League because she was too skinny.

Monochromatic: Amber wore an all-black ensemble as she was spotted at the airport in Los Angles on Wednesday

Going incognito: The blonde beauty kept her head down as she walked

The Danish Girl star has reportedly lost 20 pounds due to what she has said is 'overwhelming stress.'

The actress had been on a short trip to Britain to promote her upcoming movie Justice League.

As the Magic Mike XXL star was seen arriving back in Los Angeles, it was reported that her ex was laying low in the Bahamas, with his children taking turns visiting to keep him company.

The star - who has been accused of physically and verbally abusing his estranged wife - 'has no plans to return to Los Angeles' and was most recently visited by 17-year-old daughter Lily-Rose Depp.

'He misses nothing about L.A. but his kids, and they are visiting him in the Bahamas,' the source added.

He's got her back! Amber was joined by a large, burly man who kept his arm around her as the two walked through the airport

Johnny's 14-year-old son Jack is also set to visit, along with the actor's ex Vanessa Paradis, later in the week.

The publication added: 'Having his kids around is always great for him. He has really missed his kids.'

A source said that Johnny has had his friends 'flying back and forth for visits' because he 'likes being surrounded by people and everyone is trying to cheer him up.'

His lawyer - Laura Wasser - has claimed (in court documents) that Amber is 'attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse.'

She's got his back! Johnny's daughter Lily-Rose Depp, who has since spoken out in defense of the Pirates of the Caribbean star, has visited him on his private island in the Bahamas to keep him company

'Forcing' her hand: Amber's team suggested that Johnny's team 'forced' her to 'give a statement to the LAPD to set the record straight as to the true facts'

Uncomfortable: A source has said that Johnny was 'very nervous about the court date' - that was originally planned for June 17 but was postponed - and wants to settle with Amber out of court

A source told People tht Johnny 'was very nervous about the court date,' which was originally set for Friday, June 17, but had been postponed.

The source added: 'He really didn't want to return to L.A. for court. He was very relieved that his lawyer was able to figure things out for now.'

In the meantime, Amber's legal team has claimed that the actress didn't tell police about the alleged abuse because she was keen to 'protect her privacy and Johnny's career' but has been left no choice to involve them now.

Validation: The star's restraining order against Johnny was recently extended by two months

They said in a statement: 'As the result of Amber's decision to decline giving an initial statement to the LAPD, her silence has been used against her by Johnny's team. Amber did not provide a statement to the LAPD in an attempt to protect her privacy and Johnny's career.'

'Johnny's team has forced Amber to give a statement to the LAPD to set the record straight as to the true facts, as she cannot continue to leave herself open to the vicious false and malicious allegations that have infected the media. Amber has suffered through years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Johnny.'

Johnny has denied the allegations made against him.

Slimmed down: The star has reportedly lost 20 pounds due to stress

Over it: A source for Amber's ex has said that the actor 'doesn't talk badly about Amber and just wants to move on'

A source has said that Johnny hopes to settle out of court, adding: 'He doesn't talk badly about Amber and just wants to move on.'

In July the star will return to the Untied States to continue his tour with The Hollywood Vampires, which a source has said he 'seems excited' about.
She's enjoying her annual summer jaunt to the French Riviera with friends and family.

And during another fun day in the celeb-favourite destination on Thursday, Catherine Zeta-Jones showed off her super chic holiday wardrobe.

The 46-year-old Welsh beauty looked gorgeous in a embroidered dress and her favourite wide-brimmed hat as she hit the water with husband Michael Douglas and a group of friends.

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Holiday fun: Catherine-Zeta Jones looked gorgeous in her embroidered summer dress as she held hands with husband Michael Douglas during another fun day on holiday on the French Riviera on Thursday

Catherine showed off her svelte figure in her flowing dress, which featured a pretty floral design on the trim.

The strappy number made the most of the actress' tan, while she added to the chic vibe with a pair of ankle-strap heels.

The stylish star accessorised with a wide-brimmed black hat, while adding touches of bling with statement drop earrings and glittering bracelets.,

Sitting pretty: The 46-year-old Welsh beauty looked gorgeous in a embroidered dress and her favourite wide-brimmed hat as she hit the water

So chic: Catherine showed off her svelte figure in her flowing dress, which featured a pretty floral design on the trim

A final pop of colour came from her bright red shoulder bag, which coordinated with the colourful embroidery on her dress perfectly.

Michael, 71, was looking sharp in a pink stripe polo shirt teamed with pristine white trousers, with the acting legend adding a pair of shades to keep cool in the heat.

The Hollywood couple boarded a boat after enjoying a few hours in Nice, heading back to their superyacht where they've been holidaying with friends as well as their two children - Dylan and Carys.

Stylish pair: Michael, 71, was looking sharp in a pink stripe polo shirt teamed with pristine white trousers, with the acting legend adding a pair of shades to keep cool in the heat

Careful! Catherine kept hold of her summer hat as the breeze picked up near the water

Holiday wardrobe: The stylish star accessorised with drop earring and a bright red shoulder bag for the group's trip into Nice

Catherine held hands with her husband of 16 years as they walked to the boat, before making sure her hat didn't blow away in the waterside breeze.

The actress was helped onto the boat by her gallant husband who made sure she was safely on board before letting go of her hand.

While she loves to travel and splits her time between homes in New York and the Bahamas, during a recent web chat, Catherine revealed that she found her constant flying was wreaking havoc on her beauty regime.

Ladies first: The actress was helped onto the boat by her gallant husband who made sure she was safely on board before letting go of her hand

All aboard: The Hollywood couple- who have been married for 16 years - were joined by some friends as they headed back to their superyacht

On the water: Michael and Catherine boarded first, taking their seats on the small boat

But explained she had found a solution.

She said: Im finding, just from travelling from New York and being in heated hotel rooms, my skin feels like a Walkers crisp at the moment, but Ive been using some argan oil just to saturate my skin at night, so it has some nourishment as I sleep, to start the day a little bit more hydrated.

I think happiness is the best tonic for keeping us youthful. Being happy with who you are inside radiates on the outside,' she added.

Devoted: The couple held hands as they strolled in the sunshine

Catching some rays: Catherine relaxed on board, taking the opportunity to touch up her bronzed skin

Group trip: The couple chatted to their pals as the boat set sail
She's been on Snapchat just a couple of days but Michelle Obama certainly knows how to draw in the fans.

The First Lady got a special visit from Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel on Thursday, who stopped by the White House and featured in a couple of Michelle's Snaps.

Sharing the moment on Instagram too, the 52-year-old wrote: 'All the way from Stars Hollow to the @WhiteHouse. Want to see what the First Lady is up to today Add 'MichelleObama' on Snapchat. #OyWithThePoodlesAlready'

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Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel stopped by the White House on Thursday to meet with First Lady Michelle Obama

On Snapchat Michelle addressed the camera saying: 'Hey, we're in the Map Room with -' as Alexis completed her sentence shouting 'Me!' while flashing a cheesy grin as the camera panned to her.

In another snap Michelle is pictured perched on a chair and holding a box of Pop Tarts as Alexis stands nearby.

The caption read: 'It's Rory! More coming soon...' referring to Alexis' character on GG.

In the final clip the actress excitedly shouts into the FLOTUS camera: 'I'm back at the White House!'

Special guest: The First Lady introduced the 34-year-old actress saying they were in the Map Room

It's Rory! It seems as though Alexis brought a box of Pop Tarts for the FLOTUS

The actress, who welcomed her first child with husband Vincent Kartheiser in the fall, looked lovely in a pastel pink blouse and floral print skirt.

The meeting had excited fans wondering if it signaled that Michelle will be starring in the upcoming Gilmore Girls Netflix reboot.

However, a Netflix rep soon quashed the rumours, telling ET: 'Michelle Obama is not in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life,

'It was just something fun Alexis did to support the launch of Michelle's Snapchat channel and her Let Girls Learn initiative.'

The actress, who welcomed her first child with husband Vincent Kartheiser in the fall, looked lovely in a pastel pink blouse and floral print skirt

It wouldn't have been far-fetched if the FLOTUS was planning a cameo in the show as back in the 2007 finale of the much-loved show Rory landed a job at a newspaper covering then-Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Michelle launched her Snapchat account on Tuesday and shared videos of her and British TV host James Corden together.

The Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is set to land on Netflix later this year.

It will consist of four 90 minute mini movies titled with seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.

Much loved: Alexis starred in Gilmore Girls alongside Lauren Graham from 2000 to 2007
As fans eagerly anticipate the July 1 release of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Jennifer Saunders was hitting the race track.

The British star showed she had more than just acting skills, competing in Top Gear's 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' race track challenge.

And the 57-year-old actress looked in good spirits as she got kitted up for the course.

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Life in the fast lane: Jennifer Saunders showed she had more than just acting skills, competing in Top Gear's 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' race track challenge

Sporting jeans and a blue shirt and trainers, the British actress showed no sign of competition nerves as she secured her helmet.

Going through some last minute pointers with the trainer, the mother-of-three wasted no time in getting onto the race track.

Once she hit the course in the red mini, the comedian raced along confidently, before being greeted by a TV crew having completed her lap.

Fearless: The 57-year-old actress looked in good spirits as she got kitted up for the course

Helping hand: Sporting jeans and a blue shirt and trainers, the British actress showed no sign of competition nerves as she secured her helmet

Piece of cake: Going through some last minute pointers with the trainer, the mother-of-three wasted no time in getting onto the race track

Top Gear has gone through a revamp, after original presenter Jeremy Clarkson was dropped from the show at the beginning of the year after an 'unprovoked physical attack' on a Top Gear producer.

Matt LeBlanc and Chris Evans are now co-presenting Top Gear, which returned to screens in May.

However the show has had mixed reviews, with recent shows receiving the lowest viewing figures yet, with an average of 2.4 million people tuning in compared to 2.8 million the week before.

Done! Once she hit the course in the red mini, the comedian raced along confidently, before being greeted by TV crew having completed her lap

New look: Top Gear has gone through a revamp, after original presenter Jeremy Clarkson was dropped from the show at the beginning of the year after an 'unprovoked physical attack' on a Top Gear producer

New presenters: Matt LeBlanc and Chris Evans are now co-presenting Top Gear, which returned to screens in May

Matt recently revealed he only took his recent presenting stint on Top Gear as he had no other offers on the table.

The 48-year-old actor appeared on James Corden's The Late, Late Show this week, and confessed he needed a job as TV series Episodes was coming to an end.

Speaking to James Corden, the American star said: 'Episodes was coming to an end and I needed a job. So I said: 'Why not?'.

Warming up: However the show has had mixed reviews, with recent shows receiving the lowest viewing figures yet, with an average of 2.4 million people tuning in compared to 2.8 million the week before

Oops! Matt recently revealed he only took his recent presenting stint on Top Gear as he had no other offers on the table

Actor turned presenter: 48-year-old actor Matt appeared on James Corden's The Late, Late Show this week, and confessed he needed a job as TV series Episodes was coming to an end

Meanwhile fans are waiting eagerly for the release of nineties BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.

Speaking to MailOnline exclusively with a taster of what we can expect, Jennifer - who also wrote the screenplay - said: 'Edina Monsoon kills Kate Moss. It's her worst nightmare.

'I think it's a bit crazy, what we've done. It's a jolly little romp, and it's just the ability to stick two fingers up and go, don't care!'

Indeed, the film features an outrageous storyline, which sees Jennifer's hapless fashion publicist character accidentally killing supermodel Kate while attempting to woo her as a new client.
She's been working with luxury French brand Givenchy for three years.

And for the launch of their new fragrance Live Irresistible, the top design house has enlisted their poster girl Amanda Seyfried for an ultra chic photoshoot.

The Hollywood actress was spotted shooting on the streets of Paris on Thursday, wowing in a series of glam looks.

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Sitting pretty: Amanda Seyfried looked gorgeous in a pretty pink dress as she shot a campaign for Givenchy's new fragrance Live Irresistible in Paris on Thursday

One sequence saw the 30-year-old actress styled in a gorgeous pale pink dress.

The designer frock was made up of lace ruffles and layers with a cinched in waist to make the most out of Amanda's trim figure.

A pair of nude ankle-strap heels completed the glam look, while the big screen star's blonde hair was styled into glossy loose waves.

Work it: The Hollywood actress was spotted shooting on the streets of Paris on Thursday, wowing in a series of glam looks

A pretty pink link colour and blusher completed her look, with Amanda ready for her close up as she shot scenes outside a Parisian cafe.

As the cameras rolled, Amanda broke out her best poses, sitting at an al fresco table with a menu board featuring the slogan 'Be irresistible' propped up beside her.

In between takes Amanda's flawless makeup was touched up, while she was spotted swapping her towering heels for comfy slippers for a stroll in the sunshine while she waited for the next shot to be set up.

Model strut: One sequence saw the 30-year-old actress styled in a gorgeous pale pink dress

In a dash: The designer frock was made up of lace ruffles and layers with a cinched in waist to make the most out of Amanda's trim figure

On message: As the cameras rolled, Amanda broke out her best poses, sitting at an al fresco table with a menu board featuring the slogan 'Be irresistible' propped up beside her

Ready for her close up: In between takes Amanda's flawless makeup was touched up

Amanda's second look of the day saw the stylish star change into a sharp white shirt, buttoned up to the neck and teamed with a pair of tailored black trousers.

The shirt was knotted at the waist to flash a hint of Amanda's toned stomach, while chic peep-toe heels and a shoulder bag added to the business vibe.

This time Amanda's locks were looking ultra chic, while she rocked edgy makeup with a bold lip, eye liner and a dash of bronzer.

Kicking back: Amanda was spotted swapping her towering heels for comfy slippers for a stroll in the sunshine while she waited for the next shot to be set up

Keeping cool: The Hollywood star sipped on an iced drink and added shades as she enjoyed the Paris sights

What a beauty: A pretty pink link colour and blusher completed her look, with Amanda ready for her close up as she shot scenes outside a Parisian cafe

The shoot involved the star climbing a step ladder on the Rue Du Louvre, with the stunning star completing the task with ease.

The day before, Amanda was joined on set by her boyfriend Thomas Sadoski, 39, with the couple spotted holding hands in between takes.

Amanda and Tom started dating while shooting their upcoming film The Last Word.

Look two: Amanda's second look of the day saw the stylish star change into a sharp white shirt, buttoned up to the neck and teamed with a pair of tailored black trousers

Playful: The shoot involved the star climbing a step ladder on the Rue Du Louvre, with the stunning star completing the task with ease

In the spotlight: The shirt was knotted at the waist to flash a hint of Amanda's toned stomach, while chci peep-toe heels and a shoulder bag added to the business vibe

Acting skills: Amanda pulled fun expressions for the camera in her sharp outfit

Ready for business: Amanda was dressed to work in her super chic ensemble

Star of the show: The Hollywood actress was surrounded by cameras and curious tourists during the city centre shoot

They reportedly became friends while appearing together as a couple who have a one-night stand in the off-Broadway production of The Way We Get By in 2015.

Former Newsroom actor Thomas is in the middle of a divorce from his ex-wife of eight years, casting director Kimberly Hope.

Amanda split from her ex-boyfriend, actor Justin Long, in September after they began dating in 2013.

Long day on set: The actress chatted to friends during her hectic day dashing around Paris

Up she goes! A hint of Amanda's toned stomach was on show as she climbed the ladder

Putting her to work: The actress looked cool and calm despite the balmy temperatures

Every last detail: Her blonde locks were looking flawless as was her makeup
She is said to be enjoying a 'budding romance' with a hunky personal trainer.

So it's no wonder Hilary Duff was all smiles when she stepped out in New York City on Thursday.

The 28-year-old Younger actress was dressed to impress and showed off her shapely stems in a white mini skirt and Alexandre Birman stilettos.

Leggy blonde! Hilary Duff showed off her shapely stems in Alexandre Birman heels when she stepped out in New York City on Thursday

The Lizzie McGuire star donned the short garb which included a lace-up feature along the side as she headed into a meeting.

She wore a basic white tee and added a level of high-fashion style to her ensemble with a long camel pinstripe coat.

Her Alexandre Birman heels were taupe to match the warm neutral colours of her wardrobe and cinched with two delicate bows.

Fierce fashionista! The 28-year-old Younger actress was dressed to impress in a white mini skirt and Alexandre Birman stilettos and a Jeffrey Levinson clutch

It's a cinch! The former Disney Channel star donned the short garb which included a lace-up feature along the side as she headed into a meeting

The former Disney Channel star wore her silky blonde tresses in relaxed waves for a feminine touch and center parted.

Rounding out Hilary's look was a pair of large silver hoop earrings, a glossy caramel box clutch by Jeffrey Levinson and a pale blue manicure.

The Younger star's outing comes just days after she was spotted with rumoured boyfriend Jason Walsh.

Effortlessly chic: The former Lizzie McGuire star paired the mini skirt with a long camel pinstripe coat

Final touches: The blonde beauty rounded out her look with a pair of large silver hoop earrings and glossy caramel box clutch by Jeffrey Levinson

Hilary and the personal trainer are said to be enjoying a 'budding romance' after growing close over fine dining and work outs.

'The pair have been spending a lot of time with each other in recent months,' a source told E! News on Monday. 'Both in the gym and out at various restaurants to enjoy some fine dining.'

The insider added: 'It seems this budding romance began as a friendship.'

Hilary Duff and her ex-husband, Mike Comrie tied the knot in 2010 but split in 2015 and their divorce was finalized in February. They share one child, Luca, aged four.
He has previously portrayed heroic professor Robert Langdon in 2006's The Da Vinci Code and 2009's Angels & Demons.

And Tom Hanks has once again paired with director Ron Howard to bring Dan Brown's famed symbologist to life in the first trailer for Inferno.

The 59-year-old finds himself in quite the predicament this time around, as he seems to have suffered some memory loss, but doesn't have time to sort it out as he is called upon to use his particular skills to prevent an 'extinction-level' event, all while being shot at.

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He's back! Tom Hanks has reprised his role as symbologist Robert Langdon in the dramatic first trailer for Inferno

On the run: Once again the famed professor takes advantage of his vast knowledge of art, literature, and history to uncover clues which lead him and a partner - in this case Felicity Jones - on a wild goose chase

The trailer begins with a man (Ben Foster) choosing to fall to his death as opposed to giving up information about the 'threat known as Inferno,' after he was hunted to a tall tower by a group, led by Omar Sy.

Following his death the same men seek out Professor Langdon (Tom), hoping he can help them understand the threat.

He unveils a map of Dante's Inferno - from the 14th century epic poem - but notes that the picture has been rearranged.

And so it begins: The trailer starts with Ben Foster's character choosing to fall to his death rather than reveal information about the 'threat known as Inferno'

Calling in backup: Following his death, Robert is called in as authorities hope he will be able to help solve the mystery (pictured: Omar Sy, Felicity, Tom)

A mix-up: One clue turns points to Dante's famous Inferno, though in the painting things seem to have been moved around

Much like in the previous films, interpreting the piece of art leads Langdon - and Felicity Jones, who plays Dr. Sienna Brooks from the Italian hospital that Langdon woke up in, who has since joined him on the hunt - on a wild goose chase, first heading to Florence, Italy.

There he tries to gain access to Dante's death mask, only to discover that the mask has been stolen... by him.

Though he can't remember a thing, the famed professor has been caught on tape stealing the mask from its display, adding a whole new depth to the terror he and Dr. Brooks have found themselves in.

They're off! After studying the piece from Dante's Inferno Robert realizes the pair have to head to Florence to continue investigations

What has he done? Though he has no recollection of it, videotape shows that the professor had actually stolen the prized artifact the two had traveled to Florence to see

Nervous: Felicity's Dr. Brooks is noticeably shaken as Langdon insists he doesn't recall stealing the mask, though videotape proves that he did

'I wanna know what I'm involved with,' Langdon gushes, as Dr. Brooks counters with a question of her own: 'Why was someone shooting at you?'

Of course, Langdon doesn't know, admitting: 'Everything is out of focus,' amid shots of battle scenes and people in plague masks.

Irrfan Khan stars as well, appearing as a foreboding presence in the trailer as he tells a seemingly drugged Langdon 'the people behind this will do anything to protect the truth. You have no idea what they're capable of.'

Confused: Throughout the trailer the professor can be seen suffering from spells as he reveals he is dealing with memory loss

Visions: Robert also keeps seeing images of battle scenes and plague masks

Foreboding: At one point Irrfan Khan warns a very weak-looking Robert: 'The people behind this will do anything to protect the truth. You have no idea what they're capable of'

He and the doctor then realize, to their horror, that the added letters in the Inferno painting spell out prophecy, and that someone has created a plague.

A voiceover then reveals that Inferno is 'the cure' to overpopulation, as the camera flashes past a stone embellished with a plaque reading: 'REBIRTH.'

'They're gonna wipe out half the world's population unless we find this virus,' Langdon urges as he and Dr. Brooks are seen looking desperate and on the hunt.

Out of it: Robert looks quite ill and flustered as he tries to process all of the information

In hot water: In one quick flash, someone can be seen stabbing something into Langdon's neck as he screams

A clue: Langon and Dr. Brooks realize that there are letters in the Dante painting that weren't there before

Before they're shot at by an armed stranger, Dr. Brooks questions: 'If a plague exists, do you know what governments will do to get it?'

The duo can be seen fighting the clock as a character played by Sidse Babett Knudsen warns that they only have 48 hours before disaster strikes.

As the trailer plays, 'The world's greatest mind is facing his greatest challenge,' flashes across the screen.

A warning: The letters spell out prophecy, leading the duo to believe that the Inferno is standing as a prophecy, and that someone has created a plague

Dark: Langdon continues to be tortured by images of fire, battles, and people in plague masks as he tries to get his thoughts together

Destruction: The pair only have 48 hours with which to stop the plague, otherwise they are looking at an 'extinction-level event'

Last week Tom posted to Instagram about promotions kicking off for the upcoming movie, sharing a photo of himself alongside co-star Irrfan and director Ron.

He captioned it: 'Irrfan Khan. Ron Howard. Some guy. Promoting INFERNO. Let the social media barrage begin! Hanx.'

Inferno - based on the 2013 Dan Brown novel - is due in theaters on October 28.

'Let the social media barrage begin!' Tom shared this snap alongside co-star Irrfan and director Ron Howard last week, as he joked about kicking off promotions for the film
Red Lodge Ales Brewing Co. is expanding into Billings with a hard-cider mill and pub on Montana Avenue.

Sam Hoffmann, owner of Red Lodge Ales, was on site Wednesday looking over the apple press and vats for fermenting cider. Last Chance Cider Mill and Pub will employ a staff of 10 to 12 people and open in the former United Glass building at 2203 Montana Ave.

The cider house operation joins several craft breweries and tap rooms on Montana Avenue, including Uberbrew, Carters, Angry Hanks and Thirsty Street. Hoffmann hopes to open at least the pub in September.

The 100-year-old building is being extensively renovated, with many of the improvements being made by the landlord who did not wish to be named. Hoffmann said the landlord purchased the building with the intent of restoring it. Hoffmann signed the lease on the 10,000-square-foot warehouse early this year, and renovation soon began, including stripping white paint to expose the original brick and laying a new concrete floor.

An old United Glass sign was leaning against a wall Wednesday, and Hoffmann said he hopes to use it somehow in the interior decor. Plans include adding a patio to the north side of the building, which was a loading dock.

The pub may open earlier than the production side of the hard-cider operation, Hoffmann said. The pub will be on the Montana Avenue side of the building and feature a menu put together by chef Jason Corbridge, and offer wine and Red Lodge Ales beer.

Hoffmann, who opened Red Lodge Ales in 1998, plans to make six to 12 different ciders, using recipes hes been working on for the past 10 years.

I prefer beer over cider, Hoffmann said. But I love the whole aspect of going from orchard to press.

Hoffmann has been touring orchards throughout the area and planted trees on his 27-acre place near Red Lodge. Hell also use apples grown in Fromberg by John Ross. Thats where the name of the new Billings business comes from, an irrigation ditch on the Fromberg apple orchard, which gets water from Rock Creek, is called Last Chance Ditch.
Just 24 hours before she was enjoying the sunshine in Cannes.

But as Gwyneth Paltrow hopped across the pond, she was welcomed by some torrential downpours in London on Thursday.

The Hollywood star had to dash through the rain for her talk at the China Exchange, looking a little miserable about the weather but still pulling off a super chic ensemble.

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When it rains, it pours: Gwyneth Paltrow was welcomed by some torrential downpours in London on Thursday

The 43-year-old actress had a look of determination on her face as she struggled with a huge umbrella for the short, but wet, walk from her car to the venue.

Refusing to raise a smile, the star was no doubt keen to keep her flawless ensemble looking just so, in time for her 60 minute talk about fame and business in London.

Gwyneth was dressed to impress for her evening, wowing in head-to-toe red.

Take me back to LA! The Hollywood star had to dash through the rain for her talk at the China Exchange, looking a little miserable about the weather but still pulling off a super chic ensemble

She rocked a smart tailored suit, with slim-cut trousers to accentuate her trim figure, while her chic blazer featured pretty ruffle detail on the cuffs.

A pair of towering heels in the same scarlet hue pulled the whole look together.

Her blonde locks were looking super sleek, as Gwyneth did her best to keep dry for her dash inside.

Careful! The star nearly knocked her helpful aide with her huge umbrella as she desperately tried to stay dry

Nearly there! The 43-year-old actress had a look of determination on her face as she struggled with a huge umbrella for the short, but wet, walk from her car to the venue

The actress was giving a talk at the famous debate forum, with the discussion led by Sir David Tang, followed by a 30 minute Q&A with the audience.

It's been a busy week for the Hollywood actress, who was one of the VIP guests at her pal Michael Kors' Regent Street shop opening on Wednesday.

She had hot-footed it back from Cannes for the London party, where just hours before she was giving a talk at the 2016 Cannes Lions Festival.

Looking sharp: Refusing to raise a smile, the star was no doubt keen to keep her flawless ensemble looking just so, in time for her 60 minute talk about fame and business in London

Scarlet style: She rocked a smart tailored suit, with slim-cut trousers to accentuate her trim figure, while her chic blazer featured pretty ruffle detail on the cuffs

During her stint on-stage, Gwyneth explained how she achieved the impossible - keeping love in a relationship where there's no longer romance.

The Avengers star spoke candidly about her close bond with ex-husband Chris Martin during her discussion with HardTalk's Stephen Sakur.

'My children know that we're in a loving family,' she said. 'And I adore their father even though we're not in a romantic relationship.'

The star discussed the personal sacrifices she'd made for the 'commitment' she's made to protecting their children, Apple, 12, and Moses, 10, during the divorce, which was filed in April 2015.

Finishing touch: A pair of towering heels in the same scarlet hue pulled the whole look together

Under cover: Gwyneth pulled her umbrella right down over her face to keep dry

Don't rain on my parade! The actress was giving a talk at the famous debate forum, with the discussion led by Sir David Tang, followed by a 30 minute Q&A with the audience

She continued: 'I'm very proud of us for the way that - as anyone who has been divorced knows - we have had to put aside an awful lot to stay a family for the sake of the children. Sometimes it's quite tough on a personal level.'

The couple famously announced their separation - or conscious uncoupling - in March 2014 after 10 years and she now admits that putting it on Gwyneth's website Goop was an act of damage control.

'I felt that it was a way of controlling scrutiny. It was such a difficult time in our lives and I think we thought that if we put it on our own platform, it was a way of controlling it.'

What a difference a day makes! On Wednesday Gwyneth was basking in the sunshine, giving a talk at the 2016 Cannes Lions Festival
She's the muse of her own bikini line thanks to her impossibly svelte physique.

And Kimberley Garner showed off her tanned and toned figure to perfection in a tiny printed dress as she walked her pet pooch Sasha on Thursday.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 26, was the height of irreverent summer chic in the flirty garment as she strolled along Chelsea's exclusive King's Road.

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Summer chic: Kimberley Garner showed off her tanned and toned figure to perfection in a tiny printed dress as she walked her pet pooch Sasha on Thursday

The blonde beauty showcased her slim figure in her navy dress which featured a wrap style that cinched in her tiny waist.

Adding to the coquettish summery feel, the garment had ruffles along the neckline and the hem, drawing attention to Kimberley's endless tanned limbs.

The swimwear designer kept her styling simple, opting for some dazzling white low-top Converse trainers and a nude cross-body Saint Laurent bag.

Legs for days: The former Made In Chelsea star, 26, was the height of irreverent summer chic in the flirty garment as she strolled along Chelsea's exclusive King's Road

Killer accessories: The swimwear designer kept her styling simple, opting for some dazzling white low-top Converse trainers and a nude cross-body Saint Laurent bag

A smattering of delicate gold jewellery completed the chic ensemble.

Adding to the Sloane-y feel, the daughter of a property developer wore her golden tresses in a sleek style that fell around her face.

Keeping her make-up minimal, the British beauty outlined her peepers with some subtle mascara and eyeliner

Multi-talented: She's been focusing all her efforts on her swimwear line. And Kimberley Garner proved she could model the collection just as well as design it as she worked on a shoot in Anguilla

Leggy lady! Seductively pulling up her swimsuit from the side, the blonde beauty ensured eyes would be drawn to slender curves, whilst the high cut revealed more of her tanned and toned pins

Kimberley, who starred in Made in Chelsea in 2012, was spotted showing off her lithe figure in a sizzling photoshoot of her swimwear line.

She proved she could model the collection just as well as design it as she donned one of her creations, a high-cut swimsuit with a leaf-print.

Flaunting her famously pert posterior, the 26-year-old reality starlet put on a sizzling display as she posed among the greenery of the Caribbean island. of Anguilla.
Bethenny Frankel's health scare came to a head on the Real Housewives of New York that aired the night before.

The 45-year-old reality star nearly fainted while shopping with fellow cast member Dorinda Medley and was rushed to her doctor.

It seems Bethenny was back in true form as she stepped out in New York City on Thursday wearing a MILLY T-shirt that blared the message: 'I'm not bossy, I'm the boss.'

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'I'm not bossy, I'm the boss': Bethenny Frankel stepped out in a playful MILLY T-shirt the day after she nearly fainted from fibroids on an episode of the Real Housewives of New York

The reality star smiled from behind her dark shades and flashed her biceps while lugging her belongings in one arm.

But speaking on Watch What Happens Live following the episode, Frankel said she felt 'totally embarrassed' watching herself.

'I should't feel embarrassed, people are saying ''It's so great you are talking about it'' and it was serious and I was scared and I don't have much familiarity with surgery or know anything about it.'

During Wednesday night's episode Frankel said her doctor had discovered fibroid tumors which caused the women to cancel their big trip to Mexico.

Before the episode aired, she visited Good Morning America where she revealed fibroids are what likely caused her miscarriage in 2012.

'I don't have much familiarity with surgery': Speaking on Watch What Happens Live following the episode, Frankel said she felt 'totally embarrassed' watching herself during the episode when she nearly passed out

Health scare: Frankel nearly fainted on Wednesday night's episode of the hit Bravo reality show

Humourous housewife: The 45-year-old reality star was spotted in New York City on Thursday in the cheeky T-shirt

The Skinnygirl founder underwent a myomectomy on May 20 which included a six-week recovery.

She recalled the unnerving times and stated: 'I was in the hospital for three days and it's kind of brutal, I didn't realize it.'

When asked about how she's currently feeling, Frankel smiled and said, 'I feel better, I'm happy and I'm glad it's over.'

Out of character: Speaking on Watch What Happens Live following the episode, Frankel said she felt 'totally embarrassed'

Tenacious! Coincidentally the star - who is known for her outspoken ways - showed off her confidence the next day with a graphic tee

On Thursday, she certainly appeared in good spirits teaming the casual tee with sexy skintight black leggings.

The cocktail creator added a fitted vintage denim jacket and black rain boots.

She accessorized her ensemble with a large black designer handbag, studded cuff bracelet and dark movie star shades.

Ready for anything: The cocktail creator added a fitted vintage denim jacket and black rain boots

Street chic: The Skinnygirl founder teamed the casual tee with sexy skintight black leggings

Details: The business mogul accessorized her ensemble with a large black designer handbag, studded cuff bracelet and dark movie star shades

As she visited the WWHL studios the night before she showcased her flawless physique in a red cut-out dress.

The form-fitting frock hit just below her knee and included a collared neckline.

She paired the sexy number with sparkling gold stilettos while exiting the Bravo studios with her new beau Dennis Shields.

Showstopper! Frankel showcased her flawless physique in a red cut-out dress as she visited the WWHL studios the night before

Dazzling! She paired the form-fitting frock with sparkling gold stilettos
Jamie Foxx enjoyed a night out in Miami for a good cause on Wednesday.

The actor joined pals at a charity event in aid of at-risk youth and appeared relaxed and happy after a week in which his rumored romance with Katie Holmes once again made headlines.

The Ray Oscar winner joined friend DJ Irie to co-host the gala after flying in from Las Vegas.

Who's the blonde? Jamie Foxx was photographed holding hands with a female companion in a hotel lobby in Miami Beach in Florida after co-hosting a charity fundraiser on Wednesday night

As the fun evening went on, Jamie, 48, was photographed hand in hand with the blonde woman in a plunging strapless dress in the lobby of the hotel where the fundraiser was held.

The stunner appeared to clasp his hand quite tightly in hers and focused in on what he was saying as they chatted with another couple.

Close: The actor's pal, who wore a low-cut sleeveless dress, kept a tight hold of his hand as they chatted with another gala guest

Nice to see you! The Rrelaxed Oscar winner got to meet and greet a number of beautiful women as he enjoyed a fun night out

In fact, the Hollywood star was greeted by a number of Miami Beach beauties keen to mingle with the A-lister.

Jamie worked the room, according to People, entertaining donors and schmoozing with guests.

He was 'his usual, charming, comedic, flirting, sing-songy self,' an insider told the magazine.

All for a good cause: Jamie was described by an onlooker as putting on a 'charming' and 'flirty' display as he entertained guests at the fundraiser in aid of the Irie Foundation that helps at-risk youth in south Florida

Supportive: The Hollywood star, who is set to give a concert Thursday night as part of a weekend-long series of fundraising events for the charity, went all out to promote the nonprofit founded by his pal DJ Irie

Impressed: He praised the work his friend is doing to bring free music and arts lessons to disadvantaged youngsters

Jamie arrived at the event with DJ Irie and Miami Beach socialites and supporters of the nonprofit Heather Boucher and Amanda Tamis.

Tamis, who owns a Pilate's Studio, shared a photo of the foursome riding in the backseat of a pickup truck on Instagram.

The upbeat star's night out came just days after reality star Claudia Jordan, who has claimed to be a good friend of Jamie's, said in an interview that he and Katie Holmes are 'very happy' together.

Had company: Jamie took a ride in the backseat of a pickup truck with DJ Irie and Miamia Beach socialites Heather Boucher and Amanda Tamis who helped organize the charity night

After her remarks went viral, she later walked back the comments that seemed to confirm the long-running rumors of a relationship between the former Dawson's Creek actress and the actor, who starred with her now ex-husband Tom Cruise in the film Collateral.

Claudia said she 'misspoke' during the Allegedly podcast on Monday and insisted she has no knowledge of their so-called coupling.

The persistent reports of Katie and Jamie dating and even planning to wed have refused to die down since the two were seen dancing together at a charity event in 2013, despite official denials by each of them.
Kim Kardashian did a good deed by making sure her brother Rob wasn't too lonely after Blac Chyna left town.

The 35-year-old mother-of-two was back to self-worshiping mode a day later when she posted a sexy selfie to commemorate Throwback Thursday.

Kim was seen wearing a tight black long-sleeved bodysuit that featured a V-neckline and high cut above the legs.

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Hamptons heydey: Kim Kardashian looked back a couple of years as she shared a sizzling TBT selfie that showcased her voluptuous figure in a plunging black bodysuit

The picture, which was presumably taken two years ago during the filming of her sisters' spinoff show Kourtney & Khloe Take The Hamptons, showed a voluptuous Kim obviously keen to share.

Her raven-dark hair was long and straight while her bare feet were strategically placed to better showcase her figure.

Kim had every right at the time to be proud, having dropped the weight she'd gained while pregnant with daughter North, now three.

Good sisters: The reality star visited home alone Rob Kardashian at his house with Khloe who got to sit in her brother's 'secret room' by the look of this Snapchat

Guest of honour: Blac Chyna was in Cannes attending the DailyMail.com yacht party on Wednesday where she displayed her growing pregnancy bump in a shimmery champagne gown

The reality star's flashback photo share came on the heels of her visit to Rob Kardashian's house.

Kim and Khloe dropped by to see Rob after Blac Chyna departed for Cannes for DailyMail.com's yacht party held on Wednesday.

Rob's elder sister shared a fun Snapchat of Khloe hanging out in Rob's 'secret room,' which looked pretty empty with plain white walls and beige carpet by the looks of it.

In good hands: With Chyna out of town, Kim and Khloe wanted Rob to feel less lonely

Mommy and me mermaids: Kim shared a nice look at her green and vibrant mermaid dress that she wore at North's third birthday celebration over the weekend

Another little mermaid: Proud parents Kim and Kanye looked adoringly at daughter North during the celebration on Saturday

Kris Jenner bought Rob, her only son out of six children, a $2.2 million house near her own home in Calabasas, California that he will share with his pregnant fiancee Chyna.

Rob even got his momager to decorate the place inside and out, with Kris choosing comfy bar stools and chaise lounges for relaxing by the pool.

Kim was one of the first to pay Rob a visit at his posh newly furnished abode, as seen on a recent episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Tat's nice: North got a temporary tattoo on her forearm at the family bash where cousin Penelope also celebrated her fourth

Sultry: The mother-of-two stepped out in a clingy dress during the Los Angeles heat wave on Tuesday

'Im so happy that hes just you know feeling better about himself and I know that my moms really happy. He hasnt been like this in so long its like so refreshing,' Kim said on the show.

According to Us Weekly, Rob and Chyna will wed in July.

Chyna, meanwhile, appeared to be having a blast at the Cannes bash where she hung out with best friend Amber Rose and chowed down on a delicious cheeseburger.
She's been travelling around Italy in what appears to be a never-ending holiday.

And Natasha Oakley certainly appeared to be fitting in with her stunning surrounds as she posed by the ocean in Capri on Friday.

The 25-year-old flashed a hint of cleavage from underneath a bright, floral shirt while standing in a blue and white chequered bikini.

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La Dolce Vita! Natasha Oakley flashes a hint of cleavage from underneath a floral shirt while posing in Capri on Friday

The blonde beauty had left the Ralph Lauren shirt open, having just tied up the bottom and adding a cute touch to her look.

Her cute bikini was also by Ralph Lauren, with a gingham pattern and the trademark Polo logo on the bottoms.

She was also boasting a deep tan, no doubt thanks to her lucrative career blogging about swimsuits and travelling to some of the world's most exotic locations.

Her favourite brand? A day prior, she was again dressed head-to-toe in Ralph Lauren

Travelling around: On Tuesday, the bikini blogger settled in to her next holiday destination, an island in Italys Gulf of Naples

A day prior, the Sydney-born model and blogger posed on a cliff overlooking the water dressed once more head-to-toe in Ralph Lauren.

She put her slender frame on display in a pair of vibrant floral pants which she had paired with a preppy, blue and white striped shirt with a ruffle front.

Natasha has been jet-setting across Europe for the past three weeks as she continues to chase summer.

Never-ending summer: Natasha has been jet-setting across Europe for the past three weeks as she continues to chase summer

On Tuesday, the bikini blogger settled in to her next holiday destination, an island in Italys Gulf of Naples.

The white garment hugged tightly around her slender frame and finished inches below her buttocks as a sheer panel fell past her knees.

The Bikini A Day blogger is currently spending some quality time with boyfriend Gilles Souteyrand along the Amalfi Coast.
She is one of the A-list stars speaking at this years Supanova Pop Culture Expo.

And following an appearance in Sydney, it was time for American actress Shannen Doherty to head to Perth for the next instalment of the science fiction based exhibition.

The 45-year-old - who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year - took a five hour flight from the city to Perth, on Thursday.

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Low-key arrival: Shannen Doherty arrived in Perth on Thursday evening

Dressed down in ripped denim jeans and a slouchy jumper, the starlet left the airport with her suitcases in tow.

With her dark brunette tresses left loose in luscious waves, Shannen showed off her complexion by going makeup free for the journey.

On Sunday, the actress was seen speaking about her hopes for a reunion with co-stars on hit US show Charmed, in which she also starred.

Coming through! Dressed down in ripped denim jeans and a slouchy jumper, the 45-year-old starlet cut a withdrawn figure as she left the airport with her suitcases in tow

The nineties: The actress catapulted to fame in Beverly Hills 90210, which aired from 1990-2000. Pictured with so star Jason Priestley

The raven-haired star, of Irish descent, played witch Prue Halliwell in the US hit show from 1998 to 2001.

She was seen arriving on stage, enthusiastically greeting her fans with an energetic wave, but it was hard not to notice her drawn appearance.

The LA-based star spoke of her many hit TV series and films and acting roles over the years and said her hopes for a reunion with her Charmed cast mates would offered 'closure' for fans.

It was in August last year when Shannen revealed she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

And in February this year she opened up about her health battle to Dr Oz.

Rare appearance: Shannen looked somewhat tired and drawn at a meet and greet for the Supernova event in Sydney on Sunday after revealing her battle with cancer

Beauty in black: Dressed in a woolly black jumper, jeans a biker boots, the star arrived on stage and enthusiastically greeted fans with an energetic wave

The Heathers star explained she could no longer have children because of the treatment she is undergoing. At the time she also said that she would have to undergo surgery soon.

'I'm 44 and my husband and I wanted children,' the Charmed star told Dr Oz.

She also said at the time that the mass was still in her breast and she had not had surgery yet.

Her oncologist wanted Shannen to take a medicine regimen first to see if it would shrink the tumor.

She told Dr Oz she had not decided what type of surgery she will get.

'Its between two of them and at the end of the day it will be up to my doctor and it could change the last minute,' the actress said at the time.

She's back: The Tennessee-born star enthusiastically greeted fans with an energetic wave on stage

'Im actually going to a center, just to sort of get their general opinion and then I head back to LA and instantly go in with my doctors.

'You know, Im like, "You guys make the final decision. What would you do if it was your wife? What would you do if it was your daughter?"'

Shannen's cancer was revealed when she filed a misconduct lawsuit against her business managers that she claims had failed to pay her health insurance bill.

The lapse in payment meant Shannen didn't visit her doctor even though she felt a lump in her breast.

The former Dancing With The Stars contestant has since urged women to get their health checked

The way it was: Shannen (C) is pictured with Holly Marie Combs in Charmed
He was the resident heartthrob and a firm fan favourite during his time on Home And Away from 2004 to 2008.

But nowadays actor Mark Furze looks drastically different to the clean-shaven teenager Ric Dalby he played on the Channel Seven soap.

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, the now 30-year-old shared a snap of his dramatic new look, featuring a scruffy beard and a shaved head, along with a bold nose ring.

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Transformation: Nowadays (R) actor Mark Furze looks drastically different to the clean-shaven teenager Ric Dalby he played on the Home And Away (L)

'This beard is really growing on me. No, it really is.. #beard #facialhair #beards #bearded #beardlove (sic),' the Australian star captioned the snap.

Indeed his bold facial hair was hard to miss, the dark brown beard and moustache certainly juxtaposing his silky smooth, shaved head.

During his prime time on Home And Away in the mid 2000's, Mark played one of the bad-boys-turned-good Eric 'Ric' Dalby, who charmed the girls of the bay with his classic spiky hairstyle and baby blue eyes.

New look: The Australian actor has recently been sharing an array of snaps revealing his scruffy beard and shaved head - pictured with wife Laural Barrett

Soap star: During his prime time on Home And Away in the mid 2000's, Mark played one of the bad-boys-turned-good Eric 'Ric' Dalby, who charmed the girls of the bay with his classic spiky hairstyle and blue eyes

Heartthrob: He was the resident heart throb and a firm fan favourite during his time on Home And Away from 2004 to 2008 - pictured with co-star Rhys Wakefield on the show

He later adopted the more relaxed surfie-style look with wavy locks falling just above his shoulders.

No doubt a hit with the ladies, his character romanced the likes of Cassie Turner, played by Sharni Vinson, Belle Taylor, portrayed by Jessica Tovey, and Indiana Evans' character Matilda Hunter.

In real life, Mark is happily married to brunette model Laural Barrett.

The pair tied the knot in September last year, with Laural having previously been crowned Miss Universe New Zealand back in 2007.

Mixing it up: He later adopted the more relaxed surfie-style look with wavy locks falling just above his shoulders - pictured in 2007 with co-stars Bobby Morley and Ada Nicodemou in Melbourne

Changes: Last year his look was still a bit similar to his Summer Bay style when he appeared in short film Escape From Area 51 (L), however he opted for a mullet look for his web series The Redneck Vegan (R)
She's looked nothing short of stunning on each day of her Mediterranean summer getaway.

And Catherine Zeta-Jones, 46, once again proved her fashion credentials as she enjoyed a day in Portofino, Italy, with her husband Michael Douglas, 71, on Tuesday.

The Welsh beauty looked a vision in a billowing blue maxi dress with a plunging ruche decolletage as she sauntered around the village's quaint streets hand in hand with Michael.

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Power couple: Catherine Zeta-Jones, 46, looked every inch the A-list star she enjoyed a day in Portofino, Italy, with her husband Michael Douglas, 71, on Tuesday

The destination is a firm favourite with the couple who have holidayed in the fishing village for a number of years.

The area attracts a number of celebrities who are drawn to the picturesque harbour and Catherine could not resist snapping away on her camera.

The Oscar-winning actress left her dark tresses to hang loose as she walked alongside her husband who also opted for more casual attire wearing a white polo shirt and grey trousers.

Just hours earlier they were soaking up the glamour of the French Riviera having arrived in Saint Tropez.

The love boat: The destination is a firm favourite with the couple who have holidayed in the fishing village for a number of years

But it was clear the two are as devoted as ever. Chatting happily as they soaked up the idyllic atmosphere, the couple seemed to have truly moved on from the troubles they endured in 2013.

They separated that year following a series of health problems as Douglas battled throat cancer and Catherine was treated for bipolar disorder.

The pair eventually reconciled, with Catherine telling AARP The Magazine: I think were both mellower and wiser. That comes naturally with time. We count our blessings.

From one hotspot to another: On Thursday the pair boarded their super-yacht in Nice, France

Meanwhile, on Thursday Catherine showed off her svelte figure in her flowing dress, which featured a pretty floral design on the trim, as she enjoyed a day in Nice, France.

The strappy number made the most of the actress' tan, while she added to the chic vibe with a pair of ankle-strap heels.

The stylish star accessorised with a wide-brimmed black hat, while adding touches of bling with statement drop earrings and glittering bracelets.
She may have ruled the Victoria Secrets runway on more than one occasion, but Jessica Hart is also just a regular city slicker.

The 30-year-old was seen hailing a cab in New York on Thursday afternoon, following a lunch date at East Villages finest Gemma restaurant.

But the Australian beauty ditched the glitz and the glamour for a somewhat unflattering ensemble, shrouding her gorgeous figure in flared blue trousers and a stripy T-shirt.

Stopping traffic! Jessica Hart was seen hailing a cab in New York on Thursday afternoon, following a lunch date at East Villages finest Gemma restaurant

Cutting a content figure, Jessica added plain white sneakers, a delicate gold bangle and a simple pair of stud earrings to the look.

With her blonde tresses left loose in tousled waves, the model accentuated her striking facial features with minimal traces of makeup.

She toted her belongings in a classy off-white rucksack, while a soft pink glossy manicure completed her beauty look.

Beaming: The 30-year-old appeared to be in great and content spirits during the low-key outing

Covered up! The Australian beauty ditched the glitz and the glamour for a somewhat unflattering ensemble, shrouding her gorgeous figure in flared blue trousers and a stripy T-shirt

Jessica - who has fronted campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs, Sass & Bide and Vionnet - is based in the US, where she lives with her boyfriend, Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III.

Rumours surfaced as early as 2014 that the genetically blessed couple are set to get married.

With no official word yet as to whether nuptials are impending, the pair - who have been together for five years - seem content living a relatively low-key life with each of their busy schedules.

City chic: She added plain white sneakers, a delicate gold bangle and a simple pair of stud earrings to the look

Carefree beauty: With her blonde tresses left loose in tousled waves, the model accentuated her striking facial features with minimal traces of makeup

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, the catwalk sensation took to Instagram to announce she would be fronting the latest Portmans fashion collection.

Oh heyyy there! Excited to see my Portmans team this morning, she wrote alongside a picture of herself modelling clothes from the retailer.

The Australian fashion export has been the face of the brand for several years, fronting their summer and winter campaigns.

Lovebirds: Jessica - who has fronted campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs, Sass & Bide and Vionnet - is based in the US, where she lives with her boyfriend, Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III
Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker charged with corruption

A veteran pro-democracy lawmaker was charged Thursday by Hong Kong's corruption bureau over a payment from one of the city's best-known anti-China media tycoons, in a case he described as a political move.

Leung Kwok-hung -- known locally as "Long Hair" -- is a prominent activist from the League of Social Democrats. He was arrested and charged with one count of misconduct in public office by the city's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

He is accused of receiving HK$250,000 ($32,000) "in relation to his public office" from the founder of Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai. The paper is highly critical of Beijing.

Veteran Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (L), marches with a symbolic coffin representing the death of democracy during a pro-democracy rally Tengku Bahar (AFP/File)

Leung told AFP his arrest had "political meaning" just months before the city holds parliamentary elections.

It comes as fears grow in Hong Kong that China is tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city and that the local government is increasingly influenced by Beijing.

Those concerns have been exacerbated following the recent revelations by Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee about his eight-month detention in China.

Lam is one of five city booksellers known for selling gossipy titles about Beijing politicians who have disappeared and later resurfaced in China. He claimed he was kept in a cell, blindfolded and interrogated.

- 'Political meaning' -

With his trademark ponytail and Che Guevara T-shirts, Leung has been a defiant figure in Hong Kong's legislature since winning a seat in 2004.

"Everyone in Hong Kong will understand what it means," he said of his arrest.

"I am a very well known opposition (figure) of Hong Kong, there might be some kind of political meaning," he told AFP.

"It will create a lot of political effect just before the next election."

When asked if he denied the charge, Leung said: "I'll do it in court formally".

Leung has not revealed whether he will stand in the September parliamentary vote.

Lai's spokesman Mark Simon said they had no comment.

A government statement on Thursday said Leung, 60, was charged with "wilfully and intentionally," carrying out misconduct by failing to declare the acceptance of HK$250,000 from Lai between May 2012 and June 2016.

"The case arose from a corruption complaint," the statement said.

Leung is on bail and will appear at a magistrates court Friday morning.

His activism has already landed him in jail several times.

In 2014, he spent four weeks behind bars for criminal damage and disorderly behaviour during a political protest, and in 2002, he was jailed for two weeks after protesting inside the legislative council chambers before he became a lawmaker.

A parliamentary committee decided late last year that Leung and another lawmaker did not breach political donation rules after they received payments from Lai in a separate case.

Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997 and is ruled under a "one country, two systems" deal which allows it much greater liberties than seen on the mainland.
Pakistan calls for aid for its millions of Afghan refugees

Pakistan, home for decades to millions of Afghan refugees, called for the support of the international community as it warned that without help, the flow of those fleeing Afghanistan's decades-long war to Europe could increase.

After the Soviet invasion in 1979, "five million Afghan refugees came to Pakistan," then with the support of the international community, said minister for border areas Abdul Qadir Baloch at a meeting devoted to Afghan refugees in the capital Islamabad Wednesday.

Thirty-seven years later, there are 1.5 million registered and about as many undocumented refugees, with growing insecurity in Afghanistan impeding voluntary return programmes.

There are 1.5 million registered and about as many undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan, with growing insecurity in Afghanistan impeding voluntary return programmes Aamir Qureshi (AFP/File)

Over the last decade, international support has vanished, the minister said.

Pakistan receives just $5.20 per refugee per year in international aid to provide the displaced with healthcare and education -- and that is only for those who are registered.

He denounced the meagreness of this aid compared to that provided to Turkey, which officially hosts 2.5 million refugees, including many Syrians.

However Western countries are now beginning to recognise the problem, he said, "because refugees are pouring into Europe and 30 percent of them are Afghans".

"This percentage could increase," he warned, stressing that there was a limit to Pakistani tolerance for the problem.

"The issue of Afghan displacement has been overlooked," agreed high UN commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi at the same event. "We must strengthen the support to host countries."

The refugee crisis in Europe, which is struggling to cope as millions try to reach its shores while fleeing war and poverty, "is a tragedy but also an eye opener: if you don't solve problems which appear to be far away from you, these problems will come to you," he warned.
Japan's 'waddling ducks' undergo stiletto therapy

Feminists, look away! Fashion police in Japan want to 'empower' women by persuading them to wear high heels, insisting the country's historic 'kimono culture' has led to many women having poor posture.

The Japan High Heel Association (JHA) is calling on women across the country to trade sensible shoes for a pair of stilettos, insisting that standing tall will give them 'confidence' -- and improve their gait.

"Japanese women walk like ducks," JHA managing director 'Madame' Yumiko told AFP in an interview at her plush Tokyo salon.

The Japan High Heel Association managing director "Madame" Yumiko (R) giving a lesson on high heels in Tokyo Toshifumi Kitamura (AFP)

"They waddle along, pigeon-toed, with their bottoms sticking out as if they're bursting to use the toilet. It looks ghastly," she added.

In an apparent bid to improve this situation, the all-female organisation charges thousands of dollars for etiquette lessons, including special classes where women are taught to walk correctly, and particularly in high heels.

Critics have branded the idea sexist and laughable, particularly as women are still battling against a deeply ingrained patriarchal culture that once expected them to pace three steps behind men.

Yet the "walking etiquette classes" are proving hugely popular: At JHA students pay 400,000 yen ($3,700) for a six-month course -- and so far 4,000 have taken part, while similar lessons and schools are popping up nationwide.

The 48-year-old former ballerina blames the countries sartorial heritage for the posture problem.

"Chinese or Korean ladies don't have these problems," she said. "It's a result of Japan's kimono culture and shuffling about in straw sandals. It's ingrained in the way Japanese walk."

"But very few Japanese wear a kimono all day anymore. We should know about Western culture and how to wear heels correctly," Yumiko added.

- Barefoot protest -

The shift away from traditional Japanese clothes happened gradually from around the late 19th century but it is only been since the 1980s that stilettos have become a fashion staple.

This 'call to heels' comes at a time when the West is experiencing a feminist fightback against diktats on how women should dress.

Hollywood star Julia Roberts went barefoot on the red carpet during the Cannes Film Festival in May -- an act of rebellion after organisers caused uproar by ejecting women for wearing flat shoes at the previous year's event.

Last month more than 100,000 British people petitioned parliament in the UK, calling for a change to an outdated dress code law that allowed employers to require women to wear high heels in the work place. The campaign, now backed by several politicians, was launched by a receptionist who was sent home by a firm for wearing flat shoes.

But Yumiko argues wearing heels will help "Japanese women become more confident".

She explains: "Many women are too shy to express themselves. In Japanese culture, women are not expected to stand out or put themselves first."

Her solution is for women suffocated by such strict protocols to simply "throw on a pair of heels," arguing the freedom it brings can unlock the mind.

Prominent Japanese social commentator Mitsuko Shimomura dismissed the idea as "nonsense" that most would laugh at.

She said: "There's no relationship between wearing high heels and women's power. It sounds crazy."

- 'Men need heels too' -

Heels have been in and out of vogue -- for men and women -- for centuries, with murals on ancient Egyptian tombs dating them back to around 4,000 BC.

But they still have a key role to play in modern courtship, according to JHA director Tomoko Kubota.

"If women look sexier, it will help Japanese men buck up their ideas," the 45-year-old said.

A 2014 study by scientists from France's Universite de Bretagne-Sud supports this view. The group conducted social experiments that showed men behave more positively toward high-heeled women.

In one test, they found if a woman dropped her glove on the street, men were 50 percent more likely to stop and return it to her if she was wearing heels rather than flats, while female behaviour remained unchanged regardless of shoe worn, according to results published in the journal, Archives of Sexual Behaviour.

Students from across Japan sitting JHA exams for a certificate that allows them to become high heel instructors sing from the same hymn sheet.

"We learn how to move in a kimono and how to bow correctly, but not how to walk (in heels)," said hypnotherapist Takako Watanabe, 46 after a walking lesson.

"It might help us catch a hunky guy," she adds.

Fellow JHA alumni Ayako Miyata agrees it is an important skill that few Japanese women have mastered.

"It makes you look more lady-like," said the 44-year-old, who has spent thousands amassing a stiletto collection. "They're an essential item for a modern woman to feel pride and confidence in herself."

Yumiko, whose parlour is a veritable shrine to France's King Louis XIV, lined with frilly curtains embroidered with the image of the dandy, heel-wearing monarch, gives short shrift to accusations of sexism -- she wants men to change their footwear too.

She explains: "As in the Renaissance period, men want to look taller and more stylish. Men should wear heels, so they can preen majestically like Louis XIV. I'm sure it will happen."

A woman browses high heels at a Tokyo department store Toshifumi Kitamura (AFP)
Indonesian leader Widodo visits South China Sea islands on warship

President Joko Widodo visited remote Indonesian islands on a warship Thursday in an apparent show of force after clashes with Chinese vessels and as fears grow Beijing is seeking to stake a claim in nearby waters.

Widodo led a high-level delegation including the foreign minister and armed forces chief to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, arriving at a navy base before being escorted to the warship as fighter jets buzzed overhead and military vessels performed manoeuvres off the coast.

At a meeting of ministers and security force chiefs on the warship, which last week detained a Chinese trawler and its crew in Indonesian waters, the president ordered defences around the Natunas to be stepped up.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo onboard the Imam Bonjol warship to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea

"I asked the military and the maritime security agency to better guard the seas," he said. A picture released by the government showed Widodo standing next to a gun turret on deck, flanked by the military chief and ministers.

Before the trip, Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said it was aimed at sending a "clear message" that Indonesia was "very serious in its effort to protect its sovereignty".

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost the entire strategically important South China Sea, and regional tensions are mounting due to Chinese island building and ahead of a UN-backed tribunal's ruling on a Philippine challenge to China's claims.

- 'Overlapping claims' -

Unlike some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia has long maintained it has no maritime disputes with China in the sea and has no overlapping claims to reefs or islets there.

But Beijing's claims overlap Indonesia's exclusive economic zone -- waters where a state has the right to exploit resources -- around the Natunas, and Widodo's visit came after a sharp escalation in maritime clashes between Indonesian vessels and Chinese fishing boats in the area.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying Thursday reiterated Beijing's position that China and Indonesia "have no territorial disputes" and that China does not object to Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands.

But she added that "China and Indonesia have overlapping claims over maritime rights of some part of the waters in the South China Sea".

The term "overlapping claims" was also used in a Chinese statement earlier this week. Analysts say the language indicates Beijing is taking a tougher stance by openly saying that China and Indonesia have competing maritime claims.

The growing tensions come after a senior US State Department official warned this week that China is using its fishing fleets with armed escorts to bolster maritime claims.

The latest confrontation between Beijing and Jakarta came last week when the Indonesian navy seized a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel and detained its crew for allegedly operating illegally in Natuna waters. It was the third such skirmish between vessels from the two countries in the area this year.

Beijing protested and claimed that one fisherman was injured after Indonesian vessels fired warning shots. Jakarta says none of the crew were hurt.

Widodo's visit to the islands, which are located west of Borneo, was his first as president. The Natuna waters are home to oil and gas deposits as well as fishing grounds.

Confrontations between Indonesian and Chinese vessels around the Natunas have increased since Jakarta launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (centre) salutes officers onboard the Imam Bonjol warship on a visit to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, on June 23, 2016
Syrian Armenians find refuge in ancestral homeland

When a bomb destroyed his workshop in war-ravaged Syria, silversmith Levon Keoshkerian followed other Armenians heading with a heavy heart for their ancestral home in the Caucasus.

He now lives with his elderly mother in Yerevan, where he goes every morning to the outdoor flea market to sell the silver ornaments he rescued as he fled the divided city of Aleppo.

"All my life I worked to preserve and develop the ancient craft of Armenian silversmiths," said Keoshkerian, 47, who came to the Armenian capital in 2015.

Syrian Armenian silversmith Levon Keoshkerian displays handicrafts on sale at an outdoor flea market in Yerevan Karen Minasyan (AFP)

"Now I have returned to the blessed land where the tradition was born."

His silver plates, chalices and jugs were crafted in Syria, but they are decorated with traditional Armenian motifs: birds, grapes and pomegranates.

Keoshkerian and his elderly mother are among some 18,000 members of the Syrian Armenian community who have resettled here since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011.

"For a long time we didn't want to abandon our house and flee. We kept hoping that life would go back to normal," Keoshkerian said.

"But after a bomb fell right on my workshop, we understood that we could not wait any longer."

The craftsman drove his mother through Turkey and Georgia to Armenia, braving a difficult journey after Islamist fighters in Aleppo forbade him from selling silverware embellished with pictures of animals.

"Our trip to Armenia was no safer than living under constant bombing in Aleppo," Keoshkerian recalls, citing shelling on roads, militia attacks on buses and harassment by Turkish border guards.

"But finally, my mother and I found safety here in Armenia, where we must start a new life from scratch."

- 'We need help' -

When war broke out in Syria, it was home to a small community of 60,000 to 100,000 Armenian Christians, many of whom lived in Aleppo.

Syrian Armenians were "long-established and law-abiding Syrian citizens -- wealthy merchants, craftsmen, doctors," said Firdus Zakaryan, head of an Armenian diaspora ministry commission overseeing the recent arrivals' integration.

"They preserved the Armenian language and traditions, which helped them adapt to a new life in Armenia," he said.

The Armenians are a small part of the tide of people fleeing Syria's war in one of the worst refugee crises in modern history.

Almost half of the country's population of nearly 25 million have been displaced, and four million people fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.

Home to three million people, the ex-Soviet republic of Armenia has become home to the world's third-highest refugee population per capita, according to the UN refugee agency.

But Syrian Armenians fleeing war today mourn the fact that their ancestors were themselves survivors of the Ottoman Turkish massacres during World War I -- meaning their community has suffered displacement twice in just a century.

Armenian authorities have taken measures to make it easier for Syrians of Armenian descent to seek shelter here, including a visa waiver, but the impoverished country is struggling to cope.

"The government has simplified the naturalisation process, covered their health insurance costs, allocated educational funds and even subsidised housing until at least one family member finds a job," Zakaryan said.

"But our small country can't shoulder the burden alone, we need international financial assistance."

- 'Just like our ancestors' -

The UN refugee agency is helping Armenia establish a microcredit scheme to help refugees set up businesses.

"We run courses to familiarise Syrian refugees with Armenian laws and tax regulations and provide those who plan to set up a small business with working tools and equipment," UNHCR coordinator Anahit Hayrapetian said.

In a sign the community is eager to integrate, many Syrian Armenians have opened car service stations, bakeries and tailors' shops in Yerevan and other cities, Hayrapetian said.

"Dozens of new Syrian restaurants and cafes have transformed Yerevan's culinary scene," she added.

Salbi Jabakhchuryan and her son Kaits who came from Aleppo in 2012 run one of Yerevan's most popular restaurants, located right in front of the seat of government.

While their mastery of Armenian cuisine has been key to their success, they have had to tone down some of their recipes to adapt to local tastes.

"In our two restaurants in Aleppo, we used to cook hot and spicy dishes, but Armenians prefer milder food," said Kaits, 28, pulling a freshly baked lahmajoon -- a thin, crusty bread topped with ground meat -- out of the oven.

"So, we adjusted," he shrugged.

"In Syria we lived a hundred times better than here, we were respected, but here it is safe and nobody will hurt you just because you are Armenian," his mother said.

"When we left Aleppo, we shut the doors of our house, but we kept the keys -- just as our ancestors had when they fled Turkey during the Armenian genocide in 1915."

Syrian Armenian silversmith Levon Keoshkerian displays handicrafts Karen Minasyan (AFP)
S. Korea's Park seeks injunction over Olympic ban

Disgraced South Korean swim star Park Tae-Hwan took legal steps Thursday in his dogged campaign to overturn a doping-related ban on participating in the Olympic Games in Rio.

The multiple Olympic medallist completed an 18-month drug suspension in April after testing positive for an anabolic steroid in out-of-competition controls before the 2014 Asian Games.

But he remains barred from competing in Rio de Janeiro under a Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) rule which prohibits athletes from representing South Korea for three years after the expiration of any doping ban.

South Korea's Park Tae-Hwan won the 400m freestyle gold and 200m freestyle silver at the 2008 Olympics Philippe Lopez (AFP)

Park insists the rule is unfair and has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, which is now considering his case.

On Thursday, Park's legal team sought an injunction from the Seoul Eastern District Court that would make any eventual CAS ruling binding on the KOC.

"The court action is aimed at securing the binding power of the CAS ruling," lawyer Lim Sung-Woo told journalists.

There was no immediate reaction from the KOC, which last week turned down Park's request to have the additional three-year national team suspension lifted.

Park has repeatedly begged for a chance to compete in what would be his third, and probably last, Olympics -- at one point getting down on his hands and knees during a press conference.

The 26-year-old was once the poster-boy of South Korean swimming -- courted by advertisers and idolised by fans.

He won 400m freestyle gold and 200m freestyle silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and two silver medals at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as 400m world titles in 2007 and 2011.

On his competitive return to the pool last month, he easily won the 100m, 200m, 400m and 1,500m freestyle events at the 88th Dong-A meet, which doubles as a national trial.

His positive doping test was only revealed in January last year, and was initially blamed by Park's management team on the incompetence of a doctor at the hospital where the swimmer was receiving treatment.
Huge opium production fall won't stop heroin glut: UN

Global opium production plunged almost 40 percent last year but the world remains awash with heroin, the narcotic that still kills the most people worldwide, the United Nations said Thursday.

"Heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people and this resurgence must be addressed urgently," said Yury Fedotov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in a new report.

It said that production of opium, which is processed into heroin, fell to 4,770 tonnes in 2015, a 38 percent plunge from the previous year.

Production of opium, which is processed into heroin, fell to 4,770 tonnes in 2015, down 38 percent from the previous year, but 2014 was one of the strongest years on record Jawed Tanveer (AFP/File)

However, 2014 was one of the strongest years on record and last year saw a poor harvest in Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium producer accounting for 70 percent of global output.

The report also said the sharp fall was "unlikely" to lead to "major shortages" in heroin supplies since traffickers have built up massive stockpiles in recent years.

"There's no reason to think that heroin production in Afghanistan is over," the report's lead researcher Angela Me told AFP.

"There's still a lot of heroin in the market."

- US 'epidemic' -

Globally, around five percent of adults, or 250 million people, consumed at least one drug in 2014, the UNODC said.

Of the estimated 29 million heavy users, some 17 million are addicted to opiates, which include heroin, opium and morphine.

Asia remains the world's largest market for opiates, accounting for an estimated two thirds of all users, with Myanmar being a main supplier.

Over the last two years, record opium output in Afghanistan has sparked a large increase in cheaper heroin supply to the United States.

As a result, heroin-related deaths reached the highest level in a decade, almost doubling from 5,925 in 2012 to 10,800 in 2014 in the US.

The UNODC said the US "epidemic" still showed no signs of abating.

The report also found there were signs that heroin shipments to Europe were on the rise, with a higher number of seizures recorded by customs in Italy and France.

- Shrinking cocaine market -

However, the global cocaine market appears to be "shrinking" despite top producer Colombia recently massively upping its output, the UN agency said.

Global coca cultivation fell by more than 30 percent between 1998 and 2014, due in part to national eradication efforts and alternative development programmes for farmers.

In a study released last July, the UNODC said cultivation in Colombia had risen 44 percent in 2014 to 69,000 hectares (175,000 acres) -- slightly over half of the global growth area, but still way below the peak levels reached two decades ago.

But the increase has so far not translated into more cocaine entering the global market, and consumption in both the US and Europe continues to drop, the latest report said.

The UNODC said the Colombian surge may have been linked to peace talks between the government and the FARC guerilla force.

Rebels were thought to encourage farmers to grow coca to then benefit from alternative development programmes once a deal is reached.

The rebels, who were to sign a definitive ceasefire with the government later on Thursday, have previously said they would cut all ties to the cocaine trade, currently a major source of income.

- New drugs -

Meanwhile, cannabis remains the world's most commonly used drug, with an estimated 183 million consumers.

The report said the west's growing liberal attitude toward the drug in recent years had gone hand in hand with a "worrying" increase in heavy users and those seeking treatment.

The UNODC also expressed concern over the continued proliferation of new narcotics developed from natural or synthetic substances to circumvent existing drug laws.

They are considered particularly dangerous because their health effects are hard to assess,the report said.

Popular in Europe and Asia, a total of 644 new substances have been reported since 2008, including at least 75 last year.

However, many vanish as quickly as they appear, indicating that "the market is very dynamic", Le said.

Afghanistan is the world's biggest opium producer accounting for 70 percent of global output Noorullah Shirzada (AFP/File)
Yemen govt demands rebel withdrawal before any transition

The Yemeni government said Thursday that Shiite rebels must withdraw from all territory they have seized since 2014 and hand back control of state institutions ahead of any political settlement.

The statement from the government delegation to peace talks in Kuwait is a new blow to proposals put forward by UN mediators in an effort to close the gap between the warring parties.

On Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it would not sign up to any deal on military and security issues until there was agreement on a consensus president and a national unity government to oversee the transition.

A Yemeni fighter looks at smoke rising in the distance in the Sirwah area, in Marib province on April 10, 2016 Nabil Hassan (AFP/File)

The peace roadmap put forward by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposed the formation of a unity government in tandem with the withdrawal and disarmament of the rebels, although he acknowledged major differences between the two sides on their sequencing.

The government delegation said "nothing has been agreed" in two months of negotiations in Kuwait.

"There can be no talk of any political arrangements before the (rebel) militias completely withdraw and hand over their weapons, and state institutions and agencies are restored to the legitimate government," it said.

"Any political partnership in the future must be between political parties and groups that have no militias."

Despite a 15-month-old Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the rebels and their allies remain in control of swathes of territory they have overran since 2014, including the capital Sanaa.

More than 6,400 people have been killed since the intervention began, the majority of them civilians, and there has been growing international pressure for an end to the conflict.
Iraq forces flushing IS out of last Fallujah pocket

Iraqi forces closed in on the last neighbourhood of Fallujah still held by the Islamic State group Thursday while aid groups struggled to deliver relief to desperate civilians.

A month into a major offensive against one of the jihadists' most emblematic bastions, elite forces were close to establishing full control over Fallujah.

"I can say that more than 80 percent is controlled by our forces," Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, the operation's overall commander, told AFP in Fallujah.

Iraqi forces have retaken more than 80 percent of Fallujah from the Islamic State group Haidar Mohammed Ali (afp/AFP)

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory a week ago already and recent operations have focused on flushing out pockets of resistance in northern neighbourhoods of Fallujah.

Speaking from a recently reconquered area in the north of the city, Saadi said IS fighters only retained a presence in the neighbourhood of Jolan and possibly parts of another called Al-Muallemin.

He estimated that IS only had as little as five percent of the manpower it had in those areas before Iraqi forces punched through defence lines and thrust into the city late last month.

Fallujah, which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, was the first city to fall out of government control in 2014, months before IS swept across Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland and declared its "caliphate".

In the Shorta neighbourhood, counter-terrorism service (CTS) forces had taken an IS explosives workshop, stacked with dozens of homemade rockets and bomb-making material.

Welding equipment, yellow lumps of plastic explosives stored in an pot of paint, bags full of detonators and old sacks of palm dates stuffed with powder were still strewn across the rooms.

- Bomb factory -

In the deserted streets littered with rubble and torn down wires, the silence was only disrupted by the humming of drones, mangled iron creaking in the wind and the occasional controlled detonation of a roadside bomb.

While entire blocks in southern Fallujah were levelled during the height of the offensive earlier this month, substantial areas in the north of the city appeared to have escaped with relatively minor damage.

Senior CTS officer Mohannad al-Tamimi said he hoped the city's tens of thousands of displaced residents could return soon.

"Just here, eight improvised explosive devices have just been dealt with," he told AFP, pointing to the road in front of Fallujah's main hospital.

"In the next few days or weeks, families should return, once their cases have been approved by the city council," he said.

According to the United Nations, around 85,000 people have been displaced since the start of the operation a month ago.

When families fleeing the fighting and IS rule after months of a gruelling siege that left many starving, Iraqi forces would hold the adult men to screen them for any suspected IS links.

Thousands have yet to be released from screening, an opaque process some local officials and rights groups are concerned is plagued by cases of torture and sectarian revenge against Fallujah's Sunni population.

A massive influx of civilians last week left the aid community struggling to cope and some families without any form of shelter or assistance, even as temperatures started hitting their summer highs.

- Exhausted civilians collapsing -

Aid agencies were struggling to reach the most vulnerable families, said the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the leading groups involved in the Fallujah aid effort.

"Pregnant women, children, elderly people and people with disabilities are collapsing of exhaustion with scant medical services and aid available in the camps," it said.

The NRC and the UN have asked for urgent funds to support the response to the crisis, which they have warned could yet worsen if water-borne diseases break out.

The total loss of Fallujah, which Iraqi forces say is days away, would be a significant blow to IS and further dent its claim that it is running a "caliphate".

IS has been losing ground steadily in Iraq over the past year and gradually relying more on bombing civilian targets in Baghdad or claiming spectacular attacks in the West to spread its ideology and attract more recruits.

The government said before the start of the Fallujah offensive that the percentage of Iraqi territory under jihadist control had shrunk from 40 percent two years ago to 14.

Abadi, who is under intense political pressure over proposed anti-corruption reforms, has promised that the next target would be Mosul, the country's second city and the defacto IS capital in Iraq.

Iraqi forces, including CTS elite troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, have recently revived operations to take back the town of Qayyarah, which lies around 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris river.

Fallujah afp (AFP)

Smoke rises from buildings in Fallujah as Iraqi government forces clear the streets of road-side bombs and booby-traps on June 23, 2016 Haidar Mohammed Ali (afp/AFP)
Baltimore officer acquitted over Freddie Gray death

The Baltimore policeman facing the most serious charges in the death of Freddie Gray was acquitted Thursday, in a case that sparked riots last year and fueled a national debate over how US police treat young black men.

This time the trial was for the officer who drove the van in which Gray was being taken to a police station and suffered an ultimately fatal spine injury.

Caesar Goodson was acquitted on all charges including second degree murder and manslaughter.

Baltimore Police Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. arrives for his trial in the death of Freddie Gray, at the Baltimore Circuit Court House on June 23, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland Brendan Smialowski (AFP)

Goodson was the third of six officers charged over the death of the 25-year-old, which triggered riots in Maryland's largest city last year. No guilty verdicts have been handed down in the three trials.

Because the state failed to meet its burden of proof in any of the seven charges against Goodson, "the verdict on all counts is not guilty," Judge Barry Williams, who presided over the case, told a packed court room.

Gray was arrested April 12, 2015 after fleeing at the sight of police, and suffered a broken spine while being transported in the back of a Baltimore police van, unsecured and with his hands and feet bound. He died a week later.

Williams had challenged state prosecutors' charge that Goodson had deliberately given Gray a "rough ride" in the back of the van, saying the state provided insufficent evidence of such "actions or intent" by Goodson.

Baltimore officials this week appealed for calm in the city ahead of the verdict, stressing authorities were prepared. The National Guard was on call.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the officer would now face an administrative review and appealed for patience in allowing the process to run its course.

"I know the citizens of Baltimore will continue to respect the judicial process and the ruling of the court," she said.

Baltimore's police union said state's attorney Marilyn Mosby's failure to convict anyone in the first three trials shows she over-reached with her "malicious prosecution" and urged her to drop all charges against the remaining officers.

"It is time to put this sad chapter behind us," said Lieutenant Gene Ryan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3.

Protesters were seething outside the courthouse, where several dozen people held up signs and demanded justice for Gray.

"There will be another rebellion because people are not going to stand by and stand for killer cops killing black people, brown people, poor people at will. They think that black lives don't mean a goddamn thing," said Baltimore resident Lee Patterson.

Two dozen police officers and sheriff's deputies stood on the sidewalk and street outside the court, as people held up yellow signs reading "Jobs not police killings." Police helicopters hovered over the city.

- 'No credible evidence' -

Judge Williams dwelled on the dispute between medical experts over exactly when Gray's critical injury occurred, saying his injuries were internal, thereby making it impossible to determine where and when they were sustained.

The judge also declined to convict Goodson for assault or reckless endangerment for failing to seatbelt Gray in the back of the van. He said Goodson assessed the danger level during the detention and determined there was an excessive security risk involved in entering the van and fastening Gray's seatbelt.

"Simple carelessness is insufficient to establish the defendant's guilt," Williams said.

"There has been no credible evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen."

Goodson's seven charges included second degree depraved heart murder, manslaughter by vehicle, second degree assault and reckless endangerment.

In Penn North, the low-income neighborhood where Gray's death triggered riots, looting and arson last year, the streets were calm, although protests were planned for later in the evening.

Tony Brooks was resigned to the police abuse, but still shocked at how regular it has become.

"This ain't the first time it's happened in Baltimore. It ain't gonna never stop," Brooks, who works at a city sports arena, told AFP.

"They're supposed to uphold the law and protect us, but they're killing -- and they're getting off free with it. New York, Texas, Cleveland," he said, citing recent cases of police brutality.

The two other officers tried in Gray-related cases -- William Porter, whose trial ended in a hung jury in December, and Edward Nero, who was acquitted of all charges in May -- were reportedly in the court room and seen hugging and shaking hands after the verdict.

Two other officers face trial next month and the final officer in September.

Protesters stand at the Mitchell Court House on June 23, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland Brendan Smialowski (AFP)
Defiant Bahrain speeds up moves against main opposition bloc

Bahrain began court proceedings to dissolve the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq on Thursday, bringing the process forward in defiance of UN and US appeals for it to be dropped.

The bloc was the largest in parliament before its lawmakers resigned in protest at the crushing of 2011 protests calling for an elected government and Washington has labelled the crackdown on it "alarming".

The administrative court had not been due to meet on the government's request to dissolve Al-Wefaq until October 6 but brought the session forward at the request of Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa, a judicial source said.

Bahraini Shiite cleric Ali Salman, the leader of the opposition movement Al-Wefaq, is serving a nine-year jail term for inciting violence Mohammed Al-Shaikh (AFP/File)

It set its next meeting for September 4.

But a statement by the ministry of justice said it will on Sunday request bringing the hearing forward, insisting the law of political association stipulates that a court decision in such a case should be reached "within a maximum of 30 days".

The court already suspended all of Al-Wefaq's activities on June 14, ordering its offices closed and assets frozen.

The justice ministry said the bloc provided a haven for "terrorism, radicalisation and violence" and opened the way for "foreign interference" in the kingdom's affairs.

That was an allusion to Iran, which Sunni-ruled Bahrain accuses of fomenting unrest among its Shiite majority.

Despite repeated appeals from its US ally for "reform and reconciliation", Bahrain has carried out an intensifying crackdown on leading Shiite figures.

On Monday, it stripped the kingdom's top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his nationality, prompting street protests in his home village of Diraz, west of Manama.

The interior ministry said Thursday that police summoned a number of people who participated in the Diraz protests, adding that they will be referred to prosecution.

Last month, an appeals court more than doubled a four-year prison sentence handed down against Al-Wefaq leader Ali Salman on charges of inciting violence.

Amnesty International urged Bahraini authorities to halt its "intensified crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and movement".

The London-based rights watchdog said it was "deeply concerned" by the decision to suspend Al-Wefaq.

Tiny but strategic Bahrain lies just across the Gulf from Iran and is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.
Merrill Lynch fined $415 mn for using customer funds

US securities regulators fined Bank of America's Merrill Lynch $415 million Thursday for wrongly tapping customer accounts for billions of dollars for its own trading activities.

Merrill, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of America, from 2009 through 2012 engaged in complex options trades that enabled it to "artificially" reduce its stash of cash held for customer accounts, freeing up to $5 billion for use by the bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Merrill also failed to honor the requirement that it keep customer funds in accounts that are shielded from claims by third parties should the firm collapse.

US investment bank Merrill Lynch has been fined $$!% for using customer funds Roslan Rahman (AFP/File)

Merrill kept up to $58 billion of a customer securities in a clearing account from 2009 to 2015 that was subject to a general lien, exposing that cash to potential loss, regulators said.

"The rules concerning the safety of customer cash and securities are fundamental protections for investors and impose lines that simply can never be crossed," said Andrew Ceresney, the SEC's director of enforcement.

"Merrill Lynch violated these rules, including during the heart of the financial crisis, and the significant relief imposed today reflects the severity of its failures."

Thursday's case included an admission of wrongdoing by Merrill, the SEC said. Ceresney told reporters on a conference call that the agency pushed for the admission given the gravity of the offense and the need for accountability.

The SEC also upped its penalty on Merrill because it failed to disclose the problems to regulators after it ended some of the practices, Ceresney said.

"The lack of transparency significantly increased the relief we sought," he said.

A Bank of America spokesman said the bank cooperated with the SEC in the probe.

"While no customers were harmed and no losses were incurred, our responsibility is to protect customer assets and we have dedicated significant resources to reviewing and enhancing our processes," the spokesman said.

"The issues related to our procedures and controls have been corrected."
Just a quarter of agreed AU observers in Burundi

The African Union has deployed less than a quarter of the agreed 200 military and human rights observers to Burundi, amid differences with the country over their role in tackling a festering political crisis, sources close to the AU said Thursday.

"The AU has only deployed 32 human rights observers and 15 military experts out of the 100 due for each category," one African diplomat told AFP, speaking of "persistent differences" over their rules of deployment.

"The Burundian government wants to first endorse the observers' reports before sending them on to the AU headquarters, which is something the organisation refuses," the source explained.

Demonstrators march during a rally in Bujumbura on May 14, 2016, commemorating the one-year anniversary of a failed attempt of a goverment coup

On top of that the African Union wants its observers deployed at the border with Rwanda to be armed, which Bujumbura refuses, he added.

The pan-African organisation feels that "the Burundian government has done everything to delay this mission, even if things seem to be going in the right direction," the same source said.

International efforts are growing to find an end to the turmoil in Burundi, which has seen hundreds of people killed and a quarter of a million flee the country.

The crisis began with President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term, a vote he won three months later amid an opposition boycott.

A senior Burundi official confirmed that there were problems with the deployment of the AU monitors.

The Burundi government is acting "in good faith" but "it must maintain national sovereignty," the official told AFP.

According to a second African diplomat, the observers and military experts will be unable to properly carry out the work due to the "constraints" put on them.

The matter will be discussed during a three-day visit by a team from the AU's Peace and Security Council, which arrived in Burundi on Wednesday.
Jury resumes deliberations in Led Zeppelin copyright trial

Jurors in the Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven" plagiarism trial resumed deliberations Thursday after ending their first hours of discussions without reaching a verdict.

A panel of four men and four women at a federal court in Los Angeles are being asked to determine whether the British rockers poached the opening to their signature track from long-defunct LA rock band Spirit.

Songwriting duo Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have denied plagiarizing the melancholic guitar progression of their classic 1971 song from "Taurus," an instrumental track from Spirit's debut album, written four years earlier.

Attorney Francis Malofiy, who represents the plaintiff in the Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven'' copyright infringement lawsuit, leaves the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on June 22, 2016 Robyn Beck (AFP/File)

Plant and Page were seen entering the courthouse on Thursday.

The case was brought by Michael Skidmore, the trustee and friend of Spirit guitarist Randy California, who long maintained he deserved credit for "Stairway" but drowned in 1997 having never taken legal action over the song.

The suit, which was filed by Skidmore two years ago, seeks damages and claims California deserves a songwriting credit so that he can "take his place as an author of rock's greatest song."

"Give credit where credit is due. This case has always been about credit," Skidmore's attorney Francis Malofiy said as he presented his closing arguments on Wednesday.

The lawsuit, which seeks damages, comes amid a rise in such copyright cases, with the family of Marvin Gaye last year controversially winning more than $7 million from a jury over the song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams.

The judge rejected Led Zeppelin's argument that it was too late to file a lawsuit, pointing out that the band released a remastered version of "Stairway to Heaven" in 2014.

"Stairway" is estimated to have grossed $3.4 million during the five-year period at issue in the civil trial, although Skidmore's legal team is asking for damages of up to $13.5 million.

Zeppelin opened for Spirit when the hard rockers -- Plant, Page, John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham -- made their US debut on December 26, 1968 in Denver.

But the surviving members have submitted testimony that they never had substantive interaction with Spirit or listened to 1967's "Taurus" before recording "Stairway" in December 1970 and January 1971.
UN planning to airlift aid to Syria's Qamishli

The UN said Thursday it would begin flying desperately-needed aid from Damascus to the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, which has been inaccessible by domestic roads for more than two years.

"We are just about to launch an air bridge into Qamishli from Damascus," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, told reporters.

"The reason for this is that we have run out of meaningful means to reach people over land," he said, adding that the airlift "...will bring life-saving assistance to a very large number of people."

People and security forces belonging to the Sotoro, a Christian militia based in Syria's northeast, gather at the site of a suicide bomb attack carried out on June 19, 2016 in the divided Syrian city of Qamishli Delil Souleiman (AFP/File)

Qamishli, near the Turkish border, lies in Hasakeh governorate, which can only be reached by road in Syria by driving through the governorates of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, which are dominated by the Islamic State group.

"They haven't been reached by land from within the country since early 2014," said Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) which will coordinate the operation.

She told AFP that the flights, 25 in all over the next month, each carrying 40 tonnes of aid, are expected to begin "in the next few days."

Some 1,000 tonnes of relief items -- consisting 70 percent of food -- will be flown in to a nearby airport and distributed in the town, Luescher said.

She said the aim during the first month was to feed 150,000 people.

The UN previously set up an airlift to bring aid to Qamishli in 2014, and has also delivered assistance across the border from Turkey, but the main border crossing has been closed since the beginning of the year.

- 'Starvation' -

Qamishli is far from the only part of war-ravaged Syria desperate for aid.

Jan Egeland, head of a UN-backed international humanitarian taskforce for the war-ravaged country, told reporters that aid workers were still struggling to reach all of Syria's 18 besieged areas -- most of them encircled by government forces or their allies.

Since the beginning of the year, aid has been delivered at least once to 16 of those areas, but Erbin and Zamalka in rural Damascus have gone without potentially life-saving assistance since November 2012.

"We hope to reach them next week," Egeland said, adding that the sticking point was a disagreement over how many people are inside the two areas.

The UN estimates the number is around 40,000, but "the government has so far only cleared a fraction of that for delivery," he said, stressing that "we need to be able to go to all of the people there."

Egeland also voiced alarm that fighting was hindering aid from reaching a number of areas that had previously been accessible, including Madaya, where dozens of people starved to death late last year, and which has not received aid since April.

"Starvation will start in those areas if there is no cessation of hostilities," he warned.

Syria's conflict began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.

Peace efforts have failed to end the violence, and a truce brokered by the US and Russia has all but collapsed.

UN mediator Staffan de Mistura hopes peace talks can resume in July, but has warned they cannot proceed "while hostilities are escalating and civilians are starving".

He told reporters Thursday he was travelling to New York and would take part in a UN Security Council meeting on June 29 to seek guidance on how to ensure "the best conditions" for the talks.
Niger firm fights famine with key food made locally

The refugee crisis triggered by jihadist violence in a remote corner of West Africa has brought misery for many but success for a modest Niger company working to fight famine.

The STA food transformation firm has seen it staff swell from four to more than 100 in 15 years as a rare local producer of Plumpy'nut, a peanut-based food used by relief workers worldwide.

"We were able to help save 270,000 children with severe malnutrition in 2015," Ismael Barmou, the 35-year-old head of the Societe de Transformation Alimentaire (STA) told AFP in the capital Niamey.

A woman feeds her child suffering from malnutririon with a pack of "Plumpy Nut" at the Niamey hospital Issouf Sanogo (AFP)

French-based firm Nutriset, which formulated the specialised high-protein food in the late 1990s, has exported technology to Niger among half a dozen African nations as part of a "PlumpyField" initiative to promote local production.

The impoverished, largely arid west African nation has endured repeated humanitarian crises and food shortages and currently has some 300,000 displaced people and refugees on its soil, who have escaped armed Islamic extremists in neighbouring Nigeria and Mali.

Another 50,000 people in Niger itself fled their homes earlier this month to escape a massive attack from Nigeria-based Boko Haram Islamist fighters ttack across the border, into Bosso in the southeast.

After studies in France and England, Barmou came home and in 2001 launched start-up STA to produce flour for the poorest families.

"The firm consisted of four people who ground (the flour) by hand," he recalls.

Change came when a food crisis in 2005 induced Barmou to expand business into the making of "therapeutic foodstuffs, with a company that could respond in a proactive fashion."

STA is a private firm in which Nigeriens hold two-thirds of the stock, while the remainder today belongs to Nutriset.

The firm on Niamey's industrial estate has automated its production, employing 115 permanent staff, while also taking on about 200 seasonal workers for the peanut harvest in local farms.

With an annual turnover of six billion CFA francs (9.1 million euros/$10.4 million), STA produces about 27 tonnes of paste per day in individual meal packets that are ready for use, to a total of 8,500 tonnes in 2015.

The sealed packets are delivered to UNICEF and other relief agencies which distribute Plumpy'nut to people in need, like emaciated seven-month-old Ramatou, who fixates on the red packet a nurse opens with scissors at the Creni hospital in Niamey.

Three packets a day give her "all the elements she needs to reach a normal weight and become healthy," said Creni director Mamou Aminatou.

On a daily basis, production requires six tonnes of peanuts -- already part of the local cuisine -- delivered from another STA plant, along with sugar from Brazil, palm oil from Ghana, oil of soja, milk and lactoserum (high-protein whey) from France, and stablisers.

"By producing in Niger, we considerably reduce delivery delays," said Barmou, who plans to expand STA's activities to making other food products that are less urgently needed. STA is already marketing a less rich paste intended to prevent the onset of malnutrition.

"Plumpy'nut has several advantages that meet the needs of humanitarian workers. There's no need for refrigeration and it can be eaten without preparation. It suffices to open the packet," said production manager Garba Mahamam Salissou.

Ismael Barmou, General Manager of the Societe de Transformation Alimentaire in of Niamey, holds packs of "Plumpy Nut" food, which help fight malnutrition Issouf Sanogo (AFP)

Issouf Sanogo (AFP)
US military leaders discuss extra troops in Iraq: official

US military leaders are weighing whether to request additional coalition troops to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq, but no decisions have been made, a military official said Thursday.

"We're constantly looking to see if we're right-sized," said British Army Major General Doug Chalmers, adding that troop levels and additional capabilities formed part of an "ongoing dialogue."

The comments from Chalmers, who is deputy commander for support in the US-led coalition against the IS group in Iraq and Syria, followed a Washington Post story saying generals want to ask President Barack Obama for additional troops and equipment to help consolidate gains against the jihadists.

American trainers take a break as they train Iraqi soldiers on approaching and clearing buildings north of Baghdad, on January 7, 2015 Ahmad Al-Rubaye (AFP/File)

Chalmers declined to provide specifics but said additional capabilities could come in the form of logistics, equipment, air support and surveillance.

When asked how many additional troops might be requested, he said: "I can guarantee you, it's not (in) the thousands."

The Post said Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, who heads coalition forces in Iraq, is among a group of military leaders, administration officials and lawmakers who are fed up with "arbitrary" limits on troop numbers.

The last reinforcement of US troops in Iraq came in April, when Pentagon chief Ashton Carter announced the total number of troops would be augmented by 217, bringing the official tally up to 4,087.

The actual number, however, is higher because the Pentagon doesn't count certain categories of troops.

Obama has been reluctant to deploy additional forces to Iraq -- as well as to neighboring Syria -- to combat the IS group because he came to power on the promise of ending the war in Iraq and is wary of a gradual re-escalation.

Iraqi security forces have made significant gains against the IS group, and are in the process of clearing any remaining IS fighters from Fallujah.

Most US troops in Iraq serve in an advisory role with Iraqi partners, though some special operations forces have helped carry out anti-IS raids.
Israel says Abbas reviving old 'blood libel' against Jews

Israel accused the Palestinian president of libelling the Jewish people after he charged Thursday that rabbis had called for Palestinian wells to be poisoned.

"Abu Mazen showed his true face in Brussels," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement, using a familiar Arabic name for president Mahmud Abbas.

During a speech to the European Parliament, Abbas said, in apparently unscripted Arabic remarks, that recently "a number of rabbis in Israel made a clear declaration and asked their government to poison water to kill the Palestinians".

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas poses for photographs at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23, 2016 Thierry Charlier (AFP)

He cited the accusation, without giving any source, as part of an attack against what he said was Israeli incitement against the Palestinians.

Abbas was in Brussels for talks with top EU officials trying to kick-start stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was there at the same time but a bid by European Parliament head Martin Schulz to broker a meeting between them failed "following Abbas's refusal" a spokesman for Rivlin said.

"I find it strange that president Mahmoud Abbas has refused again and again to meet with Israeli leaders," Rivlin himself said in a statement prior to flying home.

"We will not be able to build trust between us if we don't begin to speak directly."

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina denied that any encounter was ever planned.

"There was no appointment or preparation made for a meeting in Brussels between President Mahmoud Abbas and President Reuven Rivlin," he told AFP.

Netanyahu's office said the events in Brussels contradicted Abbas's declared willingness to negotiate an end to the conflict.

"The person who refuses to meet the (Israeli) state president... and disseminates a blood libel in front of the European Parliament, lies when he claims that his hand is outstretched in peace," the statement said.

The accusation that Jews were poisoning the wells of Christians gained traction in 14th century Europe as plague swept across the continent.

Another allegation from the Middle Ages, that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes, is the source of the term "blood libel".

The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported Tuesday that the well-poisoning story had resurfaced in a statement by the Palestinian foreign ministry naming a "rabbi Mlad" as authorising contamination of Palestinian water.
5,000 migrants rescued in wave of Med crossings

Some 5,000 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the Italian coastguard said, averting another potential high seas disaster.

A coastguard spokesman said it appeared many people had left the Libyan coast to attempt the perilous voyage across the sea to Europe during a spell of good weather.

"Around 5,000 people were saved in 43 rescue operations," the coastguard said in a statement.

Illegal migrants sit on the dock at the Tripoli port after 117 migrants of African origins, including six pregnant women, were rescued by two coast guard boats off the coast of Libya on June 7, 2016 Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File)

A body was found on board one of the rubber dinghies, a coastguard spokesman told AFP earlier.

"We registered a large number of voyages today, after several days of bad weather at sea had stopped people leaving Libya," the spokesman added.

Most of the migrants were on the dinghies, while three wooden boats were being used by Libyan people traffickers, the coastguard said.

The Italian navy also noted a mass movement of boats in the Mediterranean from "the first light of dawn."

Five Italian navy ships took part in the rescue operations, together with two vessels from the EU's Operation Sophia, which was set up to combat human smuggling in the Mediterranean, and another four from humanitarian organisations.

More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in overcrowded boats since 2014, according to UN figures published earlier this month.
UN Security Council 'strongly condemns' North Korea missile launches

The UN Security Council on Thursday rebuked North Korea for its latest missile tests, calling for redoubled enforcement of sanctions imposed after Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test earlier this year.

The council "strongly condemned" the back-to-back June 21 intermediate-range missile tests, characterizing them as "grave violations" of a string of resolutions dating to 2006.

"The members of the Security Council deplore all DPRK ballistic missile activities noting that such activities contribute to the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension," the Security Council said in a statement.

People walk past a television reporting the news of North Korea's latest Musudan missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on June 23, 2016 Jung Yeon-Je (AFP)

North Korea's formal name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The members of the Security Council further regretted that the DPRK is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while DPRK citizens have great unmet needs," the statement said.

In calling for redoubled enforcement of sanctions, the Security Council urged member states to report on concrete measures they have taken in that regard.

The sanctions -- the toughest yet against North Korea -- were imposed after it conducted a fourth nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket test February 7.

After a series failures in recent months, North Korea tested two intermediate range Musudan missiles on Wednesday, one of which flew 400 kilometers into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un boasted that the tests significantly bolstered the North's preemptive attack capabilities in the Pacific.
Baker resident Mona Madler knows of one woman and dog who rode out the June 11 tornado in a bathtub.

The house was left without most of its roof and debris scattered, but the woman and dog made it without serious injury.

Madler wasn't in the path of the tornado, but most in the small town saw it.

"Really, I think the lake saved us," she said. "That's what we saw. And that's what we see in the damage."

Madler is the executive director of the Southeast Montana Area Revitalization Team, an economic development group based in Baker. Since the tornado, she's been going door-to-door, hearing from residents and assisting with aid coming into the town.

She's also a board member of the Visit Southeast Montana board, which is managed by the Billings Chamber of Commerce. On Wednesday, she met with other board members, chamber employees and KULR station manager Doug Miles to talk about what's next for Baker.

Madler's revitalization team is managing a fund that was set up to help those recovering or rebuilding from the tornado. At the meeting, Billings Chamber President John Brewer presented her with a $2,500 check toward that effort. With that, Madler said the fund sits at $12,500.

As tourism and marketing organizations, those at the meeting cooked up ideas for campaigns to bring people into Baker for the summer season. Steady business would help those who live and work in the area to avoid an economic lull following the disaster.

"They need tourism more now than ever," said Dan Austin, a fellow Visit Southeast Montana board member. "Tourism is one of those sustainable industries."

One well-used area in Baker that won't be used is the lake, which was a popular spot for company picnics and family outings, Madler said. It's now closed to use until further notice while officials assess and clean the massive amounts of debris that was thrown into the water.

Things like trailers, propane tanks and structure pieces pepper the lake. They were visible in the aerial photos that Madler showed during Wednesday's meeting.

During Madler's work in the wake of the tornado, she said she also saw surprising resilience. While there were no fatalities, there were some injuries and substantial home loss. Madler said that 20 of the 35 damaged homes may need to be demolished.

Still, Madler said that some of the worse-off families displayed positive attitudes as the town came together. Madler said that she heard about one woman who was just driving through when she saw the scene and stopped to help for a few hours.

Community groups  some from other towns  showed up with food for those in the cleanup effort. The county dump deposited tons of debris for free, she said.

The basic needs of those affected by the tornado have been met, Madler said. But homeowners are just starting to work with contractors and insurance companies, and the full financial need isn't yet known.

"I think it's honestly a little too soon to know how we are going to help folks," she said.

One way to help, the group determined, would be to encourage people to visit Baker and spend money on its amenities. The downtown area and business districts were untouched by the tornado.

The group suggested a community rally in Billings to benefit Baker. Madler said that a similar event is in the works in Baker. Early on, what Baker could use are visitors.

"The immediate opportunity might be to encourage Billings people," Brewer said.

Baker is home to a Fourth of July celebration. The Fallon County Fair is held there in August. And as they say in commerce circles, "Baker is open for business."

"It's one of those events that brings everyone together," Madler said.
Crashed EgyptAir black boxes to go to France for repairs: investigators

The damaged black box flight recorders of an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month are to be sent to France for repairs, the Egyptian investigative committee said Thursday.

It said the memory units were damaged from the two recorders recovered from the seabed almost a month after the crash of the Airbus A320.

Investigators hope the recorders will reveal the cause of the May 19 crash of flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo, in which 66 people were killed.

This combination of pictures shows the flight recorder (L) from the EgyptAir plane, that crashed into the Mediterranean, after it was recovered from the bottom of the Mediterranean by search teams

"The memory units of the two flights recorders were damaged," the investigative committee said in a statement.

It said members of the panel would travel to France next week "with the electronic circuits of the two black boxes to have them repaired in laboratories of the (French air safety agency) BEA and to eliminate salt deposits".

The repaired units would be returned to Cairo for analysis in Egypt's aviation ministry laboratories, the committee said.

It also said that French forensic doctors would join their Egyptian counterparts to take part in the recovery operations of body remains at the site of the crash, in which 30 Egyptian passengers and 15 French nationals were among the dead.

The investigative committee began examining the black boxes last Saturday in the presence of representatives from France and the United States, where the engine was made.

The data on the boxes are being unloaded, before they are fully analysed in a procedure that is expected to last several weeks.

Investigators have said it is too early to determine what caused the plane to crash, although a terror attack has not been ruled out.

France's aviation safety agency has said the aircraft transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit minutes before it disappeared.

Egyptian investigators have confirmed the aircraft had made a 90-degree left turn followed by a 360-degree turn to the right before hitting the sea.
US blacklists Kinshasa police chief over violent crackdowns

The United States placed Kinshasa police chief Celestin Kanyama on its sanctions blacklist Thursday, calling him responsible for deaths, abductions and other violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The US Treasury Department tied the move to an upturn in political repression and arrest of opposition members in advance of the expiration of President Joseph Kabila's term in December.

The Treasury said Kanyama was responsible for a 2013-2014 police operation in which at least 50 young men and boys were reportedly killed and more than 30 others were forcibly "disappeared".

Police in DR Congo fire tear gas to break up a demonstration in Lubumbashi on May 13, 2016 Fiston Mahamba (AFP/File)

Likewise, it said he was responsible last year when more than 40 people were killed during anti-Kabila demonstrations in Kinshasa, at least half of them shot dead by security forces.

The sanctions, which are authorized for anyone judged "contributing to the conflict" in the DR Congo, freeze any assets Kanyama might have in US territory and forbid Americans from business dealings with him.

"Treasury's action today sends a clear message that the United States condemns the regime's violence and repressive actions, especially those of Celestin Kanyama, which threaten the future of democracy for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

In power since 2001, Kabila is widely believed to be eyeing a third term in office in contravention of the constitution which allows only two.

In a statement, the DR Congo government condemned the US sanctions move, while not commenting specifically on Kanyama's actions.
Flag raiser misidentified in iconic WWII Iwo Jima photo

More than 70 years after the end of World War II, the US Marine Corps on Thursday acknowledged a case of mistaken identity in its most iconic image from the conflict.

The classic image -- taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal -- shows six Marines erecting a US flag during a bloody battle on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in February 1945.

The men have become immortalized in Marine Corps lore, and each is featured on an enormous bronze statue based on the photograph in Arlington National Cemetery.

A visitor looks at Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" 1945 at an exhibition on April 30, 2013 in Rome Gabriel Bouys (AFP/File)

But one of the troops -- John Bradley -- was not actually helping raise the flag at the moment Rosenthal shot the image. He in fact had helped raise a different flag earlier on.

"The Marine Corps now believes Navy Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John Bradley was not in the Rosenthal image, but was involved in the initial flag raising hours before the famous photo was taken," the Marines said in a statement.

"Based upon the evidence reviewed, another Marine, Private First Class Harold Schultz, from Detroit, Michigan was the sixth man caught in the frame of what is considered the most famous war photograph."

The Marine Corps probed the history of the photo after the Smithsonian Channel, which is producing a documentary about the image, examined the identity of the flag raisers.

The network shared its findings with military leaders, prompting Marine Commandant General Robert Neller to convene a review panel to comb through all available information on the image.

"Our history is important to us, and we have a responsibility to ensure it's right," Neller said.

"Although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines it's not about the individuals and never has been. Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps -- what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesn't change."

Bradley's son, James, wrote a book about the men in the photograph called "Flags of Our Fathers" that Clint Eastwood eventually turned into a major movie of the same name.
Flint stabbing suspect subdued by police stun gun dies

FLINT, Mich. (AP)  A 46-year-old man suspected in a double stabbing in Flint, Michigan, has died after police officers used a stun gun to subdue him.

The man was confronted Wednesday afternoon after barricading himself in a home.

State police Lt. David Kaiser says "there was forced used to take him into custody ... and the officers did have to use force to get the knife out of his hand."

Police officials talk on the scene after a double stabbing on Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Flint, Mich. (Rachel Woolf /The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP) LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

WJRT-TV reports that the stun gun was used at least twice. An autopsy will be performed to determine how the man died.

A 51-year-old woman is listed in stable condition at a hospital. A 52-year-old man is in critical condition after suffering stab wounds.
US: Bahrain falls short on political, human rights reforms

WASHINGTON (AP)  Bahrain has fallen short in implementing a series of political and human rights reforms, according to the State Department, undermining efforts to stabilize the tiny island kingdom after its Sunni-ruled government crushed Arab Spring protests five years ago.

In a report sent to Congress, the department documents Bahrain's implementation of recommendations made by an independent commission after the 2011 uprisings. Bahrain is an important U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf and hosts the Navy's 5th Fleet.

The report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, cites progress in key areas but says failures in others diminishes the improvements and minimizes "popular acceptance of newly established government institutions."

The Embassy of Bahrain in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Claims of torture have been investigated and offenders have been convicted, according to the report. Families of victims of state violence have been compensated. Police and security forces have received human rights training, the report said, and mosques that were destroyed in 2011 have been rebuilt.

But key due-process protections  among them access to lawyers, assuring defendants have access to state-held evidence, and not building cases around forced confessions  "are not provided in a manner consistent with Bahrain's international obligations," according to the report.

Recommendations for the protection of freedom of expression and of the press have not been implemented, the report said.

More broadly, efforts to build trust across Bahraini society and develop an environment that will lead to a national reconciliation have stalled, according to the report.

Widespread protests in February 2011 that were led by the country's majority Shiites sought greater political rights from the Sunni monarchy. Authorities crushed the demonstrations with help from their Gulf neighbors, but low-level unrest continues. Small groups of protesters frequently take to the streets and regularly clash with riot police. Many government opponents and rights activists remain in jail.

An investigation, known as the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, into the initial uprising called for overhauls in the political system and investigations into alleged abuses by security forces.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., introduced legislation last year to prohibit the United States from selling Bahrain weapons and crowd control equipment until the State Department certifies that all of the commission's recommendations have been put into action.

State Department spokesman John Kirby on Wednesday noted that Bahrain had implemented several important parts of the commission's report. But Kirby said the recommendations that remain incomplete diminish the progress Bahrain has made.

Bahrain last week suspended the country's largest Shiite opposition group, a move that alarmed the U.S.

"We are concerned that the intensified crackdown on civil society actors will only lead to greater instability and strengthen the influence of outside actors," Kirby said.

The advocacy group Human Rights First criticized the State Department's report as inadequate and poorly researched. The group also said the report is five months overdue.

"The State Department has shirked its job in providing Congress with a frank judgment of human rights reforms in Bahrain," Human Rights First's Brian Dooley said Wednesday. "The report is largely descriptive, often repeating the Bahraini government's claims without offering a verdict on whether specific recommendations have been met."

___
Latest: Coast Guard recovers body in sailboat debris field

MIAMI (AP)  The Latest on the U.S. Coast Guard searching the Gulf of Mexico for a family and their sailboat (all times Eastern):

7:15 p.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that it has recovered one body from a debris field believed to be part of a 29-foot sailboat off Florida's southwest coast.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt., Gregory Case gestures during a news conference regarding the missing family, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. According to the Coast Guard Sector in St. Petersburg, a concerned family member stated that the missing family was last heard from Sunday morning when they left Sarasota, Fla., to sail to Fort Myers to repair the boat. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (http://goo.gl/FoWA1P) reports that officials declined to identify the body and said they would continue to search the Gulf of Mexico for three more family members.

Capt. Gregory Case says 45-year-old Ace Kimberly and his children, 13-year-old Roger, 15-year-old Donny and 17-year-old Rebecca, lived on the sailboat. They left Sarasota for Fort Myers on Sunday to have the boat repaired.

Case says Kimberly's brother alerted the agency Tuesday, saying he'd last heard from the boaters Sunday, when Ace Kimberly told him they sailing in "rough seas and thunderstorms."

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12:15 p.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard says searchers have spotted a "debris field" of items belonging to a family last seen in a 29-foot sailboat off Florida's southwest coast.

Capt. Gregory Case said Wednesday that items floating in the Gulf of Mexico include a tarp, water jugs, six life jackets and a propane tank.

He says 45-year-old Ace Kimberly and his children, 13-year-old Roger, 15-year-old Donny and 17-year-old Rebecca, live on the sailboat. They left Sarasota Sunday for Fort Myers to have the boat repaired.

Case says Kimberly's brother alerted the agency on Tuesday, saying he'd last heard from the boaters on Sunday, when Ace Kimberly told him they sailing in "rough seas and thunderstorms."

The search continues. Two kayaks being towed by the boat have not been found.
Dem congressman offers resignation after conviction

WASHINGTON (AP)  Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania offered his resignation from the House effective Oct. 3 following his conviction on charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Fattah to resign immediately.

In a statement late Wednesday, Ryan said the veteran Pennsylvania lawmaker had betrayed the trust of the House and his constituents. Ryan said he hoped Democratic leaders would join him in calling for Fattah's immediate resignation.

The congressman was convicted Tuesday in a racketeering case that largely centered on efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.

His lawyers had argued that the schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.

The 59-year-old Democrat had been in Congress since 1995. But he lost his April primary and his bid for another term.
Coast Guard: 19 rescued after Taiwanese fishing boat burns

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP)  The Coast Guard says 19 Taiwanese fishermen were rescued after their boat caught fire 900 miles southeast of Bermuda.

The Coast Guard said it received word about 2:50 a.m. Tuesday that the fishing vessel had caught fire. A cargo vessel that saw smoke on the horizon rescued 17 fishermen on board.

The vessel found the remaining two missing crewmen clinging to wreckage several hours later.

The Coast Guard says officials at the 5th District Command Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, helped coordinate the launch of an Air Force rescue crew based in Georgia, which arrived Wednesday on the cargo vessel to provide medical treatment for two burned fishermen.
State: Dry California town soon to have running water return

FRESNO, Calif. (AP)  Families in a poor farming community where hundreds of domestic wells have dried up during California's historic drought will soon have clean water again flowing into their homes, officials said Wednesday.

The state announced plans to spend $10 million to begin connecting unincorporated East Porterville in Tulare County to the water system of neighboring Porterville.

With the news, Tomas Garcia, 51, said hope is returning to his neighborhood. The well his family of four depended on for decades ran dry two years ago.

FILE - This Sept. 15, 2014 file photo, shows a 5,000-gallon water tank, which residents whose wells have run dry can draw water from, in East Porterville, Calif. State officials will share plans for connecting waterlines to hundreds of homes in the Tulare County community of East Porterville, where wells have gone dry in California's drought. (AP Photo/Scott Smith, File)

"Water should be for all, you know, not just for the rich people," said Garcia, who works at a tire shop. "We're part of the community."

East Porterville  a largely Latino community of about 7,000 people nestled against the Sierra Nevada foothills between Fresno and Bakersfield  drew broad attention two years ago when wells began drying up, forcing residents to drink bottled water and have large tanks installed next to their homes to wash and flush toilets.

Many use portable showers set up in at a church parking lot.

Officials say they plan to have up to 500 homes connected to a water line by the end of the year in the first stage of work.

Hundreds more with shallow or contaminated wells should be connected by the end of 2017, officials said, but those plans and the cost have not been finalized.

Each connection is expected to cost up to $4,000, which the state will cover, and only disadvantaged residents are eligible.

"I'm confident we're going to begin seeing in the very near future some connections and solutions to these residents who have suffered far too great for far too long," said Eric Lamoureux of the California Office of Emergency Services.

Statewide, officials said roughly 2,000 wells have run dry during California's most severe drought on record and stretching into its fifth year. Roughly 1,200 of the dry wells are in Tulare County, many clustered in East Porterville, where some are often just 30 feet deep.

California has spent nearly $16 million delivering bottled water and setting up large tanks in response to the emergency. Of that, more than $11 million was spent in Tulare County, the nation's leader in agriculture production.

Garcia, who organized a group called East Porterville for Water Justice and has two young daughters, said it is hard to believe that in the United States today families like his don't have reliable water at home. He said that will soon change.

"Everything looks pretty good," he said. "I hope by the end of the year some residents are going to be hooked up."

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2014 file photo, Kathy Findley leans over her kitchen sink inside a rental home in East Porterville, Calif., that she shares with her two daughters and five grandchildren. State officials will share plans for connecting waterlines to hundreds of homes in the Tulare County community of East Porterville, where wells have gone dry in California's drought. (AP Photo/Scott Smith, File)
Saudi police shoot dead wanted man in kingdom's restive east

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)  Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says police have shot to death a wanted man in the country's predominantly Shiite east.

An Interior Ministry statement carried early Thursday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency identified the dead man as Abdul-Rahim Ali Abdul-Rahim al-Faraj.

The ministry said the raid Wednesday in Awwamiya saw the suspects open fire first. It said the shootout wounded no civilians or security force members.

It said al-Faraj, his brother and others are wanted for killing security force members, robbery and on other charges.
Weather helps crews battling Western wildfires _ for now

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Cooler, more humid weather gave at least some temporary help Wednesday to crews battling dangerous wildfires in Southern California, while other blazes across the West were on the move.

Improved weather in the aftermath of a severe heat wave allowed firefighters to make progress against two fires in the steep San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Some evacuations below in the foothill city of Duarte were lifted.

A fleet of helicopters and air tankers and other resources are helping fight the fires totaling about 7 square miles.

A layer of haze shrouds downtown Los Angeles early Wednesday morning on June 22, 2016. For days, wildfires have raged amid spiking heat across Southern California and much of the West, driving hundreds of people from their homes. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Despite fears that stronger winds could make the fire resurgent and challenges of tough terrain, containment was expanded from 10 to 15 percent by Wednesday evening.

"They're starting to make good progress, but there's a lot of line to put in, and it's in a real inaccessible area," incident commander Mike Wakoski said. "It's very hard for the firefighters to engage the fire safely, but they are out there doing so."

No homes have been lost, though flames have come close at times. More than 850 homes were ordered evacuated earlier this week, and 534 were cleared for residents' return Wednesday.

Near the Mexican border, two residences and 11 outbuildings burned in a wildfire about 40 miles southeast of San Diego. A thousand structures were threatened by the blaze, which grew to just over 10 square miles and was only partially contained.

Falling temperatures, rising humidity and cloud cover has helped, said Capt. Kendal Bortisser of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But firefighters still must deal with rough terrain and vegetation that has not burned in decades, he said.

Weather also helped on the rugged coast west of Santa Barbara. Fog moved into the area scorched by a blaze that began more than a week ago, and most mandatory evacuations were called off. With the more than 12-square-mile fire almost fully surrounded, firefighters shifted focus to battling hot spots within containment lines.

Elsewhere in the West, a forest fire near the Colorado-Wyoming line exploded in size and forced campers to evacuate.

A shift in the wind turned a blaze burning slowly in a heavily wooded area with no permanent residents into a fast-moving threat, growing from 1 square mile to about 5. Trees killed by a beetle infestation were fueling the flames 140 miles north of Denver and 2 miles from Wyoming.

No more than 100 campers and people staying in cabins fled, Routt National Forest spokesman Aaron Voos said. More firefighters were expected, but getting more help was difficult because of the other Western blazes.

"Resources are kind of hard to come by right now," Voos said.

In southwest Utah, a fire forced evacuations of at least 185 homes in the town of Pine Valley, about 35 miles north of the city of St. George.

The U.S. Forest Service said Wednesday that the blaze has torched more than a square mile and additional evacuations could come. The firefight was hindered by a drone flying near the blaze, which Gov. Gary Herbert called "completely unacceptable."

In eastern Arizona, firefighters expected to keep a wildfire spanning some 67 square miles from moving any closer to a rural town. The flames threatening the community of Cedar Creek made no significant movement in the last 24 hours thanks to sparse vegetation.

More than 15,000 people in nearby mountain communities have been told to prepare to evacuate.

In central New Mexico, more evacuees were expected to return home as firefighters inch closer to snuffing out a massive wildfire that ignited last week. The nearly 28-square-mile blaze in the mountains south of Albuquerque is more than halfway contained after destroying at least two dozen homes.

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Associated Press reporter Donna Bryson in Denver and Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this story.

A firefighting helicopter prepares to make a water drop on a wildfire in Duarte, Calif., Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Firefighters worked to make gains against Southern California wildfires as an intense heat wave eased slightly Tuesday, but officials warned nearby communities to stay alert and obey any evacuation orders. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

A Los Angeles County firefighting helicopter makes a water drop on a hill near a wildfire in Duarte, Calif. Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Firefighters worked to make gains against Southern California wildfires as an intense heat wave eased slightly Tuesday, but officials warned nearby communities to stay alert and obey any evacuation orders. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

A firefighting helicopter makes a water drop on a hill near a wildfire in Duarte, Calif., Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Surging wildfires on Tuesday forced new evacuations of hundreds of homes across the West, while firefighters worked to beat back a pair of huge adjacent blazes looming over suburban Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Border Patrol Agent Monica Slack tries to hold a phone conversation while herding miniature donkeys in a Border patrol trailer, assisting Kim and David Fuson near Lake Morena with evacuating their 75 animals, Tuesday, June 21, 2016. The East County neighborhoods of Lake Morena and Campo received their voluntary evacuation orders Tuesday. People were ready, for the most part, and began moving their animals to neighboring ranches that offered to be evacuation centers for large animals. The Border Patrol and San Diego County Animal Services assisted with personnel and their trailers. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune via AP) NO SALES, NO ARCHIVING, TV OUT, MAGS OUT, TABLOIDS OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT

Bell Butters and his grandsons Joey and Justin Prieto, are staying at the Circlt T Ranch in Descanso, Calif. where they moved their seven horses, three cats and two dogs after being evacuated from their East County home. The East County neighborhoods of Lake Morena and Campo received their voluntary evacuation orders Tuesday, June 21, 2016. People were ready, for the most part, and began moving their animals to neighboring ranches that offered to be evacuation centers for large animals. The Border Patrol and San Diego County Animal Services assisted with personnel and their trailers. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune via AP) NO SALES, NO ARCHIVING, TV OUT, MAGS OUT, TABLOIDS OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT

Kim and David Fuson get help from SD Animal Control Services and agents from the Border Patrol with their 75 animals, including 55 miniature donkeys, when they received evacuation orders, Tuesday, June 21, 2016. The East County neighborhoods of Lake Morena and Campo received their voluntary evacuation orders due to a wildfire. People were ready, for the most part, and began moving their animals to neighboring ranches that offered to be evacuation centers for large animals. The Border Patrol and San Diego County Animal Services assisted with personnel and their trailers. (Peggy Peattie/San Diego Union-Tribune via AP) NO SALES, NO ARCHIVING, TV OUT, MAGS OUT, TABLOIDS OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT

A Los Angeles County firefighting helicopter makes a water drop on a hill near a wildfire in Duarte, Calif. Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Firefighters worked to make gains against Southern California wildfires as an intense heat wave eased slightly Tuesday, but officials warned nearby communities to stay alert and obey any evacuation orders. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
Daring flight removes 2 sick workers from South Pole station

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)  Two people who fell ill while working at the U.S. research station at the South Pole have been evacuated by a small plane that made the daring rescue flight in Antarctica's harsh winter.

The National Science Foundation said the two workers arrived safely late Wednesday in Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile, after a long trip from the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. They stopped for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica to be put on another plane.

"From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott," said a statement on the National Science Foundation's Facebook page.

CHILE OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN CHILE - A worker from the U.S. South Pole Amundsen-Scott station arrives at a clinic in Punta Arenas, Chile, on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A small plane with two sick U.S. workers arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, officials said. (AP Photo/Joel Estay)

The foundation runs Amundsen-Scott and two other centers in Antarctica. It did not identify the sick workers or give their conditions, citing medical privacy. They were described only as seasonal employees of Lockheed Martin, which is the prime contractor for operations and research support for the foundation's Antarctic program.

At Magallanes Clinic in Punta Arenas, nurse Mauricio Seron told The Associated Press that a female patient "with a gastric problem" was the sicker of the two. He said the second was a male patient who had suffered a heart attack. The woman was carried in on a stretcher and the man walked in on his own accord.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew 3,000 miles roundtrip from Britain's Rothera station to the South Pole and returned to Rothera with the sick workers Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation. The workers were transferred to a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane for the flight to Punta Arenas.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy 27.5 degrees (minus 2.5 Celsius) Wednesday afternoon. That was toasty compared to the South Pole where it was minus 75 (minus 60 Celsius) in the morning.

West confirmed that the operation, coming right after the equinox, was the darkest and coldest of all past missions to the South Pole for medical evacuation. He said that the departure of the two workers should not affect the functioning of the base.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the Amundsen-Scott station for the winter.

Normally planes don't go to the U.S. polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold. The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday  the sun will not rise at the South Pole until the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S. now, lauded the rescue crew.

"The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring," Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, West said. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees (minus 75 degrees Celsius), he said.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you."

"Things can change very quickly down there" with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

The station has a doctor and a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the U.S. for consultation, West said, but sometimes workers need medical care that can't be provided at the South Pole. There have been three emergency evacuations from Amundsen-Scott since 1999.

The 1999 flight, which was done in Antarctic spring during slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues also were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.

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Online:

National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov

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Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein reported this story from Washington, AP writer Eva Vergara reported in Santiago, and AP videographer Joel Estay reported in Punta Arenas.

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Seth Borenstein is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein .

CHILE OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN CHILE - A worker from the U.S. South Pole Amundsen-Scott station arrives at a clinic in Punta Arenas, Chile, on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A small plane with two sick U.S. workers arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from the remote South Pole research station, officials said. (AP Photo/Joel Estay)

CHILE OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN CHILE - A worker from the U.S. South Pole Amundsen-Scott station arrives at a clinic in Punta Arenas, Chile, on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A small plane with two sick U.S. workers arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from the remote South Pole research station, officials said. (AP Photo/Joel Estay)

In this photo provided by the National Science Foundation, a small plane picks up a sick worker at the U.S. South Pole science station. Once the sick patient and the crew rest, they will then fly off Antarctica for medical attention that could not be provided on the remote continent. (Robert Schwarz/NSF via AP)

This photo provided by the National Science Foundation shows a Twin Otter aircraft on a medical evacuation flight taxis on the skyway at NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The small plane with two sick workers has arrived at a British research station in Antarctica, safely finishing the first leg in a daring rescue mission from a remote U.S. South Pole station, officials said. (Robert Schwarz, National Science Foundation via AP)

CHILE OUT - NO PUBLICAR EN CHILE - Two ambulances enter the airport to pick up two workers from the U.S. South Pole Amundsen-Scott in Punta Arenas, Chile, on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A small plane with the two sick U.S. workers arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a daring rescue mission from the remote South Pole research station, officials said. (AP Photo/Joel Estay)

This photo provided by the British Antarctic Survey, shows two planes from a Canadian company were used in the daring rescue of two sick workers from the U.S. South Pole station Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Both Twin Otters flew to the British station on the edge of Antarctica, one then continued another 1,500 miles to the South Pole, where the crew picked up the two sick workers, then flew back to the British station another 1,500 miles. The second plane that didnt make the trip then flew the sick workers off Antarctica on the way to Chile. at Rothera Research Station. (British Antarctic Survey via AP)

In this photo provided by the Courtesy British Antarctic Survey, Rothera, the British Antarctic Survey station is seen from the air. A daring South Pole medical rescue is underway. An airplane left a British base in Antarctica Tuesday, June 21, 2016, for the 1,500-mile trip to evacuate a sick person from the U.S. station. Athena Dinar, spokeswoman for the British Antarctic Survey, said one of two twin otter planes began the trip Tuesday, while the other is still at the Rothera station on the Antarctic Peninsula just in case. (British Antarctic Survey via AP)
Colombian president, head of FARC rebels agree on cease-fire

HAVANA (AP)  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

At a ceremony in Havana, Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko, watched as their lead negotiators signed a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons after the signing of a final peace accord as early as next month. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a special U.S. envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile and Venezuela and other Latin American countries applauded the signing.

In the Colombian capital, Bogota, hundreds of people watched the ceremony live on a giant screen, hugging each other, signing the national anthem and waving the Colombian flag. Some cried.

Members of the LGTB community celebrate the agreement between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and Colombia's government, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

"Colombia got used to living in conflict. We don't have even the slightest memories of what it means to live in peace," Santos said. "Today a new chapter opens, one that brings back peace and gives our children the possibility of not reliving history."

A 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARC's aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012. In Santos, a U.S.-educated economist and scion of one of Colombia's richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasn't bound by its prejudices.

"The Colombian armed forces that grew enormous during the war are now called to play an important role in peace," Timochenko said. "They were our adversaries, but going forward they'll be our allies."

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Santos said this week that he hoped to deliver a peace accord in time to mark Colombia's declaration of independence from Spain on July 20. But the latest agreement went further than expected.

In addition to a framework for the cease-fire, both sides agreed on a demobilization plan that will see guerrillas concentrate in rural areas and hand over weapons that had long been the vaunted symbols of their movement's origins as a self-defense force of peasant farmers attacked by the oligarchy-controlled state.

"This is historic, a great hope for Colombia," said Jimmy Gonzalez, a 36-year-old hotel worker. "Let this end the spilling of blood that's affected us for so many years."

The deal does not mark the start of a cease-fire, which would only begin with the signing of a final peace deal. It requires the rebels to completely put down their arms at most six months after the signing of the final accord, which Santos said would take place in Colombia.

A day after the signing of the final deal, the Colombian army will reposition troops to protect FARC fighters as they move to their transition zones within five days. FARC fighters will move to 23 zones and eight camps where they will leave their arms and begin the process of moving back into civilian life. The arms will be delivered to United Nations monitors, who will use them to build three monuments to peace, according to the deal.

The accord includes security guarantees for the FARC during its planned transition to a peaceful political party. A similar attempt in the 1980s led to thousands of rebels and their sympathizers being killed by paramilitaries and corrupt soldiers.

A few relatively minor items remain to be worked out for a peace accord. The biggest is how the final deal will be ratified and given legal armor so it won't unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

Santos has also promised to let Colombians vote on accepting the final accord in a national referendum, and his government isn't taking acceptance for granted.

A peace deal won't make Colombia safer overnight.

The proliferation of cocaine fueled a conflict longer than any other in Latin America and will remain a powerful magnet for criminal gangs operating in Colombia's remote valleys and lawless jungles. Colombia is the largest supplier of cocaine to the U.S. and only a small fraction of the country's 12,000-plus homicides last year had anything to do with the conflict.

"Although hard work remains to be done, the finish line is approaching and nearer now than it has ever been," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement from Washington.

There is also the risk that the country's second rebel movement, the much-smaller but more recalcitrant National Liberation Army, could fill the void left by the FARC. That rebel group agreed to negotiations with the government earlier this year but those talks have yet to start because of Santos' insistence that it renounce kidnapping

But if FARC members honor their commitments and the fighters are successfully integrated back into society, the government could begin shifting resources away from the battlefield and toward attacking other forms of crime and the crushing poverty and inequality that it feeds on.

One wild card is the posture of critics like popular former President Alvaro Uribe, who spearheaded the military offensive against the FARC last decade. Partly because of his success beating back the FARC, Colombians almost unanimously refer to the rebels as "terrorists." Polls say most Colombians can't muster the thought of seeing rebel leaders behind atrocious war crimes walking the streets freely let alone occupying seats in a democratic congress whose legitimacy the FARC didn't even recognize until recently.

"It damages the word 'peace' to accept that those responsible for crimes against humanity like kidnapping, car-bombing, recruitment of children and rape of girls don't go to jail for a single day and can be elected to public office," Uribe said Thursday.

But regional and international leaders were unreservedly enthusiastic about the imminent end of the Colombian conflict.

"We're getting closer to the end of the armed conflict than at any time in more than five decades," said Cuban President Raul Castro, a guarantor of the talks. "The two sides' decision represents a decisive step forward. The peace process can't turn back."

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Associated Press writer Michael Weissenstein reported this story in Havana and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia. Cesar Garcia and Libardo Cardona in Bogota and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana contributed.

People celebrate the agreement between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and Colombia's government, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country closer to ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombians holding a national flag celebrate the agreement between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and Colombia's government, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country closer to ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, left, Cuba's President Raul Castro, center, and Commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, Timoleon Jimenez, applaud during a signing ceremony of a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal, in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, June 23, 2016. The deal moves Colombia closer to ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A pigeon flies over Bolivar Square in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

People celebrated celebrate the agreement between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and Colombia's government, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country closer to ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Suu Kyi tackles migrant workers' plight during Thailand trip

MAHACHAI, Thailand (AP)  In a demonstration of her popular appeal, Myanmar de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi received a rapturous welcome Thursday as she presided over a town hall-type meeting with some of the huge population of migrant workers from her homeland who eke out a living in Thailand.

Her meeting with countrymen in the Thai port town of Mahachai, where many work, reprised a similar meeting in 2012 that drew tens of thousands. The numbers this time appeared to be lower, but the level of adulation was high, as the cheering crowd had to be held back from mobbing her.

Overshadowing her visit  though not addressed by her or her Thai hosts  is her government's treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority of about 1 million who generally have been deprived of citizenship under Myanmar law and are targets of discrimination and violence.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, center, walks past a Thai honor guard as she arrives at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thursday, June 23, 2016, in Bangkok, Thailand. Suu Kyi is on an official three day visit to Thailand from June 23-25, 2016. (Narong Sangnak/Pool Photo via AP)

Suu Kyi spoke to several hundred people in a meeting hall for 20 minutes before stepping down from the stage in frustration at a faulty sound system to engage face-to-face with members of the audience, who gave her questions and comments about what she could do to help their often difficult lives.

A large crowd of several thousand waiting outside burst into cheers and song as she was leaving, after staying for the duration of her 45-minute meeting even as a heavy rain poured down on them.

When Suu Kyi last visited Thailand four years ago, it was as head of her country's opposition party to offer moral support to her countrymen who work here in menial jobs, often in exploitative conditions.

She arrived back as her country's elected leader to tackle on an official basis the problems faced by Myanmar migrant workers the government estimates to number 1.4 million but advocates say is at least twice that.

In her new position of more power and responsibility, Suu Kyi faces greater scrutiny than she did as a democracy heroine fighting military rule. The trip puts her in the spotlight as questions have arisen about her government's policies, particularly toward the Rohingya minority, which critics say fall short of what they expected from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Many in the country's Buddhist majority say the Rohingya are mostly illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and not a native ethnic group, although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Rights activists have criticized Suu Kyi for failing to ensure justice for the Rohingya, many of whom live in poor conditions in internal displacement camps after communal violence forced them from their homes.

Suu Kyi is being hosted by Thailand's military junta, and her trip is being tightly scripted, with no opportunities for the media to question her on the issue.

Thai police forced organizers to change the format of a news conference held by Rohingya activists on Thursday, allowing them to read prepared statements but not take questions. Police said the event could violate a law against instigating unrest.

Her focus, however, is on the migrant workers' situation. She is scheduled to sign two agreements to improve the migrants' working conditions and make it easier for them to work legally.

"In 2012, she gave a promise to the workers ... that she would support them, both to return to Myanmar but also to have a better life here," said Andy Hall, who advises the Migrant Workers Rights Network. "I think the workers see her visit, both as something that would result in greater protection for them, but also (as) another sign that the time is coming when they can eventually go back home to their motherland and continue their lives there."

Suu Kyi was scheduled to visit a refugee camp Saturday in the western province of Ratchaburi, bordering Myanmar, but that was canceled due to poor weather, the Thai foreign ministry said. There are about 100,000 refugees from Myanmar in camps just inside the Thai border, and their eventual repatriation has been discussed for decades. But combat in Myanmar's ethnic-controlled border regions has never completely ceased, though there are hopes that with the army out of power, peace can be achieved.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party swept last year's general election to take power in March, but she is blocked from becoming president by a clause in the constitution enacted under army rule that bars her from holding the post. As a workaround, her party created the post of state counsellor, putting her in charge of her amenable colleague, President Htin Kyaw. She also is foreign minister.

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Associated Press writers Esther Htusan in Yangon, Myanmar, and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi is greeted with flowers as she arrives at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thursday, June 23, 2016, in Bangkok, Thailand. Suu Kyi is on an official three day visit to Thailand from June 23-25, 2016. (Narong Sangnak/Pool Photo via AP)
Police probe whether drug dealing led to death of 3 people

LACEY, Wash. (AP)  Investigators are trying to determine if drug dealing played a role in a shooting that killed three people and wounded another in Washington state, authorities said.

The investigators found half a pound of methamphetamine, heroin, thousands of dollars in cash and about half a dozen firearms in a travel trailer where two men and a woman were found dead on Wednesday, Thurston County Chief Deputy Dave Pearsall said.

They don't believe any of the weapons found were involved in the shooting, Pearsall said.

This photo shows a trailer where multiple people were found dead following a shooting Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Lacey, Wash. Police have not yet determined a suspect or motive in the shooting. (AP Photo/Rachel La Corte)

"We've developed information that these folks inside this trailer, two of them lived there, and it was a place that drugs were being dealt out of," he said.

Pearsall said that they're not yet calling it a drug-related crime, but noted "this is a known area for some narcotics being sold."

A 911 call was received at 5:17 a.m. Wednesday from a 30-year-old man from Olympia who said that he had been shot, his friends were dead and that he didn't know where he was, Pearsall said.

Dispatch was able to use the caller's cellphone to find his general location  on a property on the east side of Lacey, just north of the state capital of Olympia. "We found him collapsed on the driveway," Pearsall said.

The man had a gunshot wound to the chest and was transported to the hospital, where he was in stable condition after undergoing surgery, Pearsall said.

The three people found dead in the trailer were a 31-year-old woman, a 28-year-old Olympia man and a 36-year-old Elma man, and they all appeared to have died from gunshot wounds, he said. Their names have not yet been released.

Pearsall said there was no sign of a struggle in the trailer, and that the two men were both shot in the head and the woman was shot in the back.

Investigators have talked with the man who survived the shooting, but Pearsall said he's still not coherent following surgery. He hasn't been ruled out as a suspect at this time, but he is not currently a suspect, Pearsall said.

"The suspect is still at large, we don't know who the suspect is at this time," he said, noting that the person "could be armed with the weapon that was used to kill these people."

Investigators at the scene were observed going in and out of the trailer and walking around the property. Authorities are working on search warrants to follow up on leads as they work to establish a suspect, Pearsall said.

"We're doing everything we can to follow up on some leads," he said.

Investigators work outside of a travel trailer where multiple bodies were found Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Lacey, Wash. Police have not yet determined a suspect or motive in the shooting. (AP Photo/Rachel La Corte)

Officials with the Thurston County Sheriff's Office walk in a neighborhood where a shooting left multiple people dead Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Lacey, Wash. Police have not yet determined a suspect or motive. (AP Photo/Rachel La Corte)

Thurston County sheriffs detectives investigate an early morning shooting Wednesday, June 22, 2016, near Lacey, Wash., that left three people dead and one injured, according to Thurston County authorities. A man called 911 about 5:15 a.m. and told dispatchers his friends were dead and he didnt know where he was, Thurston County Chief Deputy Dave Pearsall told KIRO-TV. (Tony Overman/The Olympian via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Thurston County sheriffs detectives investigate an early morning shooting Wednesday, June 22, 2016, near Lacey, Wash., that left three people dead and one injured, according to Thurston County authorities. A man called 911 about 5:15 a.m. and told dispatchers his friends were dead and he didnt know where he was, Thurston County Chief Deputy Dave Pearsall told KIRO-TV. (Tony Overman/The Olympian via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Thurston County sheriffs detectives investigate an early morning shooting Wednesday, June 22, 2016, near Lacey, Wash., that left three people dead and one injured, according to Thurston County authorities. A man called 911 about 5:15 a.m. and told dispatchers his friends were dead and he didnt know where he was, Thurston County Chief Deputy Dave Pearsall told KIRO-TV. (Tony Overman/The Olympian via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Western wildfires still rage, but some progress being made

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Firefighters battling fires raging through Western states are contending with weather and human interference, but some progress is being made. The following is a look at noteworthy fires Thursday:

CALIFORNIA

A wildfire broke out Thursday and exploded in size, consuming at least 50 to 60 homes as it tore through several rural communities in central California northeast of Bakersfield, authorities said.

In this photo provided by Kiowa County, Colo., Sheriff Casey Sheridan, a railroad trestle burns near the tiny town of Haswell, Colo., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. For days, wildfires have raged amid spiking heat across Southern California and much of the West, forcing many to evacuate. (Casey Sheridan/Kiowa County, Colo., Sheriffs Department via AP)

The blaze broke out near Lake Isabella in late afternoon amid heat in the 90s and single-digit humidity, climbing over at least three ridges into hillside neighborhoods, Kern County fire Capt. Tyler Townsend said.

The fire has burned nearly four square miles, and about 1,000 homes are under threat.

Some houses were already little more than embers on the ground, while others were deep in flames.

Smoky haze could be seen for miles around, and orange flames lit the evening air as planes and helicopters made drops on the blaze.

"I've never been in a wildland fire where I've seen so many homes burn," said Townsend, who has been in the area for nearly a decade. "It's one of the most devastating I've ever seen."

Elsewhere in the state, cooler weather helped crews fighting two fires that burned more than 8 square miles of chaparral and brush in the Angeles National Forest and foothill communities northeast of Los Angeles. The fires were 15 percent contained.

More than 1,300 homes were evacuated during the 4-day-old blaze, but around half of the residents have been allowed back.

No homes have burned.

Near the San Diego County border with Mexico, an 11-square-mile fire was 35 percent contained after burning five homes. A majority of evacuees were cleared to return at 6 p.m. Thursday.

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UTAH

Crews battling a lightning-caused fire in southern Utah have faced record heat, nearly inaccessible terrain and, now, drone intruders.

Drones sightings forced crews to ground firefighting aircraft on three separate days. One drone came within feet of a helicopter, fire officials said.

The fire has burned about 1 square mile near Pine Valley, north of St. George, and prompted the evacuation of 185 homes. People were allowed back to their homes Thursday.

Washington County's sheriff is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the drone operator.

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COLORADO

A forest fire near the Wyoming line threatened about 40 cabins after exploding in size to more than 8 square miles, federal fire officials said.

Shifting winds sent the fire surging Wednesday from a single square mile. Trees killed by a beetle infestation fueled the flames in and around Routt National Forest, 140 miles north of Denver and 2 miles from Wyoming.

The deadwood made it too dangerous to send in crews to battle the flames so they were attacking the fire's perimeter, fire information officer Brian Scott said.

The weather was cooler, but firefighters were keeping an eye on the sky. There was a chance of thunderstorms that could bring dangerously erratic wind and little rain.

"Then it's anybody's guess where those flames will go," Scott said.

___

ARIZONA

In eastern Arizona, firefighters managed to corral nearly half of a fire that roared through about 67 square miles of pine, juniper and brush on an Apache Indian reservation.

Crews managed to light backfires that drew a "black line" around the south end of the blaze, fire information spokeswoman Rita Baysinger said.

"They're really working their hearts out, and I think we've turned a corner," she said.

Still, more than 15,000 people in Pinetop-Lakeside, Show Low and nearby mountain communities were being told to be ready to evacuate if necessary.

Temperatures that hit 100 degrees earlier in the week were down to the mid-90s. There was a slight chance of a thunderstorm, but it wasn't expected to bring much rain, she said.

Another fire 10 miles southeast of Valle in Kaibab National Forest had slowed after burning through more than 9 square miles of brush and timber. The fire, which started nearly a month ago, was 50 percent contained.

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NEW MEXICO

Damage assessments of a wildfire that's charred 28 square miles in central New Mexico are expected to start in the coming days.

One of the focuses will be an area near the community of Chilili, where 24 homes and numerous other structures were destroyed.

Cloud cover, high humidity and some rain have lessened fire activity in recent days. The blaze was nearly 70 percent contained.

Meanwhile, crews were responding to a small mountain wildfire within the municipal watershed for Santa Fe.

A helicopter and ground crews were dispatched to the fire in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the boundary of the Pecos Wilderness. The blaze covered less than 1/10 of a square mile.

The Santa Fe watershed feeds into reservoirs that supply water to irrigation ditches and a municipal water treatment plant.

A firefighting helicopter makes a water drop over a wildfire near Bradbury, Calif. on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Cooler, more humid weather gave at least some temporary help Wednesday to crews battling dangerous wildfires in Southern California, while other blazes across the West were on the move. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

A horse grazes as a nearby mountain is engulfed in a brush fire Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Campo. Calif. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
There will be no Fourth of July fireworks for American troops in Japan this year because of restrictions imposed after a former U.S. Marine was accused of raping and murdering a woman on Okinawa.

U.S. Forces in Japan said Thursday that 'no U.S. installations in Japan will celebrate the Fourth of July holiday with fireworks displays or concerts' to demonstrate respect for Okinawan residents.

The killing of Rina Shimabukuro, whose body was found in May, triggered outrage on the southern Japanese island, where tensions frequently rise over crime linked to U.S. military bases there.

Fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July have been cancelled on U.S. military bases in Japan after American contractor and ex-Marine Kenneth Shinzato (left) was accused of raping and murdering 20-year-old Okinawa woman Rina Shimabukuro

The suspect, U.S. military contractor and former Marine, Kenneth Shinzato, is charged with abandoning the woman's body, and murder and rape charges are pending.

Maj. John Severns, deputy director of public affairs at U.S. Forces Japan, said in an email that barbecues, sporting events and other community activities are still being planned at bases in the country to share the traditions for celebrating American independence with Japanese neighbors.

The murder case has rekindled anger in Okinawa over the burden of the heavy U.S. troop presence there.

After the suspect's arrest, the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy imposed restrictions on their personnel, including prohibitions on alcohol consumption and off-base activities, though some limits by the Navy have since been eased.

Okinawa was already in the spotlight because of a contentious plan to relocate a Marine Corps air station to a less-populated part of the island. The plan developed after the 1995 rape of a girl by three American servicemen enraged Okinawans. Critics want the air station completely removed from the island.

U.S. Forces Japan said Thursday that 'no U.S. installations in Japan will celebrate the Fourth of July holiday with fireworks displays or concerts' to demonstrate respect for Okinawan residents. Some of them have staged massive protests in the midst of the investigation

'Crime and accidents have been repeated for years because of U.S. military bases occupying vast areas (of the island),' Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga said at an annual ceremony Thursday marking the end of the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest battles Japan fought against the U.S. in World War II. More than half of the 200,000 Japanese who died in the battle were Okinawans, compared to some 12,000 Americans killed.

'The prefecture residents are shocked and are feeling unsafe and enraged because of the latest crime that was so inhuman and heinous,' Onaga said, renewing demands that the Japanese and U.S. governments quickly reduce the number of American troops on the island.

Half of about 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under a bilateral security agreement are based on Okinawa.

The U.S. military says the crime rate among its ranks in Japan is lower than among the general public.
2 Floridas emerge in attitudes toward LGBT community

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)  Florida's Key West is one of the most gay-friendly places in the country. The Florida Panhandle  many locals call it the Redneck Riviera  is a different story.

The massacre of 49 people in a gay nightclub happened between these extremes, forcing many Floridians to reconsider their assumptions about the state's evolving culture.

Key West has a gay police chief, a lesbian county mayor and was the nation's first city to elect an openly gay mayor. It attracts 450,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender tourists a year. Bumper stickers reading "One Human Family" appear on all city vehicles, including police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.

Orlando Fire Dept. Lt. Davis O'Dell walks among 49 flags posted in front of Fire Station 5 to honor the victims of the Pulse massacre, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. O'Dell was one of the first to assist wounded after the shooting as his fire station is located adjacent to the Pulse nightclub. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

"It's a safe place; they know that they are free from judgment, free from hassle, free from physical violence," said Guy Ross, who heads LGBT sales at the Monroe County Tourist Development Council. "We do not tolerate gay bashing down here. It just doesn't happen."

Drive 780 miles north and west to the gleaming, white-sand beaches of the Panhandle, and you'll find "family friendly" towns that aren't known for welcoming gays.

After gay marriage became legal in Florida in 2014, the Santa Rosa County clerk stopped performing any wedding ceremonies  gay or straight  to avoid marrying same-sex couples. In Pensacola, a small LBGT community center called Equality House closed for lack of funds after less than three years.

The attack in central Florida on June 12  Latin Night at the Pulse club in Orlando  has drawn an outpouring of solidarity, but also fear, particularly among people who saw the tourist mecca as a refuge from hatred.

The shooting also created awkward moments for some of Florida's Republican and conservative Christian leaders, who tried to show compassion even as they defended positions gays and lesbians find hurtful.

"There are two Floridas," and between them there's a "patchwork," said Nadine Smith, CEO of the gay and transgender rights group Equality Florida.

Only 56 percent of the people in the nation's third-most populous state live in communities that have enacted non-discrimination protections. The state provides "no protections whatsoever," she said.

Year after year, Florida's Republican-led Legislature has rejected legislation prohibiting discrimination for reasons of sexual orientation or gender identity.

"When I drive from where I live in the Tampa Bay area to my hometown in the Panhandle, I have to weave my way through places that have full protections for me and my family and places where they're absolutely indifferent to the discrimination my community faces," Smith said.

Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi came to Orlando and was put on the spot by CNN's Anderson Cooper after she vowed to prosecute anyone who attacks the LGBT community.

Cooper asked her to respond to the many gays and lesbians who call her a hypocrite because she spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars trying to uphold the state's gay marriage ban.

In her defense, Bondi said she had an obligation to represent the will of the voters, and added that her own views are reflected by a photo of clasped, rainbow-colored hands that she posted  after the shooting  on her personal Facebook page.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who campaigned against adoptions by gays and lesbians in 2010, didn't respond directly when asked if the attack made him rethink this position. Scott instead spoke of the need for love, even with "the gays."

"These are individuals. Let's love every one of them," he said.

Down in Key West, Ross dismissed the governor's statements as "crocodile tears."

"Scott has no credibility in the LGBT community," he said.

The Florida Family Policy Council, which has campaigned against gay rights, issued a statement asking for prayers for the victim's families after the attack.

That didn't mean much for Smith.

"It's hard to accept them praying for us in tragedy when they prey on us when it comes to equality," she said. "It is very clear who needs protecting in Florida."

And just because they're praying, it doesn't mean their positions on opposing LGBT rights will change. They won't, said the council's president, John Stemberger.

Stemberger said it's "shameless" for the LGBT community to use the attack to "try to leverage a political agenda," and he doesn't think changing Florida's laws would have helped anyway.

"It wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Pulse would still have happened," he said.

A passerby takes a photo of the Pulse nightclub, scene of the recent mass shooting, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Authorities have opened the streets around the club after they had been closed for over a week. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Traffic moves along Orange Avenue after authorities opened the streets around the Pulse nightclub, scene of the recent mass shooting, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A makeshift memorial is seen at the base of the sign of the Pulse nightclub, scene of the recent mass shooting, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Authorities have opened the streets around the club after they had been closed for over a week. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Franken ready to unleash wit and wisdom on Clinton's behalf

WASHINGTON (AP)  For years, Sen. Al Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit.

The former "Saturday Night Live" comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So on entering the Senate in 2009, he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker, allowing his inner-nerd to flourish as he dove into legislation and limited his media contacts to home-state reporters.

Those days are ending. Since winning re-election in 2014, Franken has grown more comfortable with the national political spotlight. And he's ready to use it to help unite Democrats behind Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., laughs during an interview with The Associated Press in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Franken is understated about his higher profile  there has been some buzz that he could be a dark-horse vice presidential pick. "I think as the campaign progresses everyone will have a larger role. I think I will along with so many of my colleagues," Franken told The Associated Press.

But Democratic colleagues relish the idea of Franken unleashed.

"I think that he's incredibly intelligent, but I think that he does something to Donald Trump that would be very effective, which is to make a joke out of him," said Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison.

Franken acknowledges he has a special skill.

"Well, you know I was a performer, so I tend to make my events more enjoyable for the audience," he said. "I speak seriously, too, but I know how to speak to the crowd."

Franken gained fame as a comedy writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live." He later hosted a liberal radio show on Air America and wrote political books attacking conservatives, like "Lies: and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

When Franken arrived in Washington, he got advice from a Clinton aide on navigating the transition. He said he focused on being a "workhorse not a show horse" and eschewed national news outlets. "I wanted to let Minnesota media know that this wasn't about me becoming a national figure, this was about me doing work for Minnesota," he said, "and I think now they know that."

He focused on help for children, seniors, farmers and Native Americans. Among his achievements was inserting a provision in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul that forces insurers to spend up to 85 percent of premiums directly on health care.

"He really gets to the heart of a lot of issues," said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat.

Franken has embraced his life as a senator, but he admits that once in a while, he does have a pang of regret about the life he left behind.

"I really miss hanging around funny people," he said.

Franken hasn't been able to shake some of the funnyman baggage. There's one crack he would like to permanently retire. He's read so many headline variations of "It's no joke! Franken is a senator!" that he has a poster hanging in his office showcasing many of the references.

And he still gets laughs. At a breakfast for constituents, Franken told roughly 150 people gathered in an ornate hearing room about the origins of the wild rice porridge they were eating. He said it was developed by French-Canadian voyageurs, early settlers in Minnesota. But Franken questioned the authenticity of cream in the dish. "I don't know about the voyageurs," he said. "It's so hard to get a cow in your canoe."

A compact, energetic man, Franken takes seriously his role as a liberal warrior, following in the footsteps of progressive hero Paul Wellstone, who held the Senate seat before dying in a 2002 plane crash. Franken stresses his support for mental health funding, better treatment for substance addiction, tougher gun control and more support for families.

Franken was an early backer of Clinton, whom he has known for more than 20 years. They met when he worked on material for the Clintons for a Washington comedy dinner. She campaigned for him in 2008. He insists she has a "goofy sense of humor" that doesn't often emerge.

Franken is quick to play down rumors that he could be a vice presidential prospect. He stressed that to his knowledge he is not being vetted for the job.

"If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, 'Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,' I would say yes, but I'm very happy in the job that I have right now," he said.

His schedule is busy. So far this year, Franken has traveled to Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Michigan and Massachusetts for Clinton and has campaigned for at least nine Senate candidates.

Still, here's one thing Franken hasn't done for the campaign: He hasn't written funny lines for Clinton.

"I've learned not to offer jokes, 'cause you just get your heart broken," he said.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., laughs as he meets with students from the Close Up program from St. Michael-Albertville High School in St. Michael, Minn., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., arrives for a weekly breakfast with constituents from Minnesota featuring a porridge made from wild rice, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., speaks with constituents from Minnesota at a weekly breakfast on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., writes a message in a condolence book to the people of Orlando following the mass shooting that targeted an LGBT nightclub, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., reminisces about his start in politics as he stands in front of a photo of himself with fellow Minnesotan Walter Mondale who served as a senator and vice-president, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pauses during an interview with The Associated Press in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2016. For years, Franken has kept one of his most potent political weapons in check: his wit. The former Saturday Night Live comic was determined to establish himself as a serious senator after winning his Minnesota seat by a razor-thin margin. So after getting to the Senate in 2009 he embraced the low-key life of a freshman lawmaker. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Indonesian president visits Natuna in South China Sea

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo visited the Natuna islands Thursday in a move designed to send a message about the country's commitment to protecting its sovereignty in the area at the edge of the South China Sea.

Jokowi, accompanied by top security officials, toured the area on the same naval ship that fired warning shots last week at Chinese fishing boats and detained one of the vessels and its seven crew members.

He then presided over a meeting on board the ship, discussing issues including development of the remote islands, about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Jakarta, the capital.

In this photo released by the Indonesian Presidential Office, Indonesian President Joko Widodo stands on the bridge of navy warship KRI Imam Bonjol, as it sails on the waters of Natuna Islands, Indonesia, Thursday, June 23, 2016. Widodo visited the Natuna islands Thursday in a move designed to send a message about the country's commitment to protecting its sovereignty in the area at the edge of the South China Sea. (AP Photo/Agus Suparto, Indonesian Presidential Office)

Senior political and security minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the visit would "send a clear message" that Indonesia is very serious about protecting its sovereignty.

"In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China)," the Jakarta Post newspaper quoted Pandjaitan as saying. "This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly."

On Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry released a statement of protest over last Friday's shooting incident, saying the Indonesian navy had "abused its military force." It described the waters as China's traditional fishing ground.

China's expansive claims to the South China Sea do not include the Natuna islands, which are nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) from the Chinese mainland.

But China's "nine dash line," which it uses to roughly demarcate its ambitions for its maritime boundaries, overlaps with a section of Indonesia's internationally recognized exclusive economic zone extending from the Natuna islands.

The incident Friday was the third involving Chinese fishing boats in recent months. In March, Indonesia intercepted a Chinese fishing vessel off the Natuna islands. In May, an Indonesian frigate fired shots at a Chinese trawler when it refused to stop fishing, and then seized the vessel and its eight crew members.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, has taken a tough stance against illegal fishing since Jokowi took office in October 2014. It has blown up 176 foreign fishing boats caught fishing illegally in Indonesian waters since then.

On Wednesday, a senior U.S. State Department official expressed concern over Chinese coast guard ships escorting Chinese fishing vessels in areas including waters off the Natuna islands.

"I think it is a disturbing trend to see Chinese fishing vessels accompanied by coast guard vessels used in a way that appears to be an attempt to exert a claim that may not be legitimate," the U.S. official told Asian reporters in a teleconference. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

She said it pointed to an expanding use of Chinese military and paramilitary forces "that is provocative and potentially destabilizing."

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Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.
Democrats end 25-hour plus protest to demand House gun votes

WASHINGTON (AP)  House Democrats have ended their 25-hour sit-in on the chamber's floor that they've been staging to demand votes on gun control.

With just a few interruptions, Democrats commanded the House floor since 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. The protest was broadcast live to the world over social media.

There are no indications that Republicans  who control the House  have met the Democrats' demands.

This photo provided by Rep. Chillie Pingree,D-Maine, shows Democrat members of Congress, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, and Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn. as they participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. Chillie Pingree via AP)

Democrats wanted votes on bills strengthening background checks and barring firearms sales to people on the government's no-fly list.

Still, Democrats are declaring victory anyway.

One of the protest leaders, civil rights veteran and Georgia lawmaker John Lewis of Georgia, says: "We are going to win this struggle."

In this image from video provided by House Television, House Speaker Paul Ryan gavels the House into session Wednesday night, June 22, 2016, in Washington. Rebellious Democrats staged an extraordinary all-day sit-in on the House floor to demand votes on gun-control bills, shouting down Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their protest stretched into the night. The sit-in was well into its 10th hour, with Democrats camped out on the floor stopping legislative business in the House, when Ryan stepped to the podium to gavel the House into session and hold votes on routine business. Angry Democrats chanted No bill, no break! and waved pieces of paper with the names of gun victims, continuing their protest in the well of the House even as the House voted on a previously scheduled and unrelated measure to overturn an Obama veto. (House Television via AP)

In this image from video provided by House Television, House Speaker Paul Ryan stands at the podium as he brings the House into session Wednesday night, June 22, 2016, in Washington. Rebellious Democrats staged an extraordinary all-day sit-in on the House floor to demand votes on gun-control bills, shouting down Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their protest stretched into the night. The sit-in was well into its 10th hour, with Democrats camped out on the floor stopping legislative business in the House, when Ryan stepped to the podium to gavel the House into session and hold votes on routine business. Angry Democrats chanted No bill, no break! and waved pieces of paper with the names of gun victims, continuing their protest in the well of the House even as the House voted on a previously scheduled and unrelated measure to overturn an Obama veto. (House Television via AP)

In this image from video provided by Rep. Scott Peters, Rep. John Lewis., D-Ga., speaks on the House floor in Washington, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Rebellious Democrats staged an extraordinary all-day sit-in on the House floor to demand votes on gun-control bills Wednesday, shouting down Speaker Paul Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their protest stretched into the night. The stunning and unruly scene was broadcast live to the world from Democrats cell phones, feeds picked up by C-SPAN after Republicans shut down the networks cameras. At left is House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. (Rep. Scott Peters via AP)

In this frame grab taken from AP video Georgia Rep. John Lewis leads more than 200 Democrats in demanding a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists in the aftermath of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people in a gay nightclub. Rebellious Democrats shut down the House's legislative work on Wednesday, June 22, 2016, staging a sit-in on the House floor and refusing to leave until they secured a vote on gun control measures before lawmakers' weeklong break. (AP Photo)

This photo provided by Rep.Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore. shows Democrat members of Congress, including, from left, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.,participating in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. Suzanne Bonamici via AP)

This photo provided by Rep.Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore. shows Democrat members of Congress, including, from left, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Rep. Raul GriJalva, D-Ariz., participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. Suzanne Bonamici via AP)

This photo provided by Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., shows Democrat members of Congress, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., left, participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. John Yarmuth via AP)
Pope travels to Armenia after genocide flap and new tensions

VATICAN CITY (AP)  Pope Francis is making his first foray into the former Soviet Union with a weekend visit to Armenia, a year after he riled Turkey by declaring the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians genocide and amid fresh tensions with rival Azerbaijan.

The Vatican has long cheered the Armenian cause, holding up the poverty-wracked nation of 3 million mostly Orthodox Christians as a bastion of faith and martyrdom in a largely Muslim region, and the first nation that established Christianity as a state religion in 301.

During the visit starting Friday, Francis will pray at Armenia's genocide memorial, release a dove of peace near Armenia's closed western border with Turkey and pray for peace in the region during an ecumenical prayer service with the Oriental Orthodox patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II.

Pope Francis poses for photos with members of 'Giostra del Saracino' a historical group from Arezzo, Italy, at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Fabio Frustaci)

Even though Catholics represent a tiny minority, Armenians across the board seem thrilled that Francis is visiting and sided with them in terming the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians a century ago genocide.

"Everyone is looking forward to and preparing for his visit," said Roza Karapetyan, a resident of northwestern Gyumri where Francis will celebrate the only Catholic Mass of his trip. "Same with me, I am very much looking forward to his arrival and counting the days."

The trip was originally planned as a peace-building mission to Armenia and Azerbaijan but was split up amid fighting that flared this spring in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Now, Francis will only visit Armenia and will "complete" the Caucasus trip after a two-month layover in Rome, visiting Azerbaijan and Georgia Sept. 30-Oct. 2, according to the Vatican.

The tensions stem from the longstanding dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is officially part of Azerbaijan, but since a separatist war ended in 1994, has been under the control of forces that claim to be local ethnic Armenians but that Azerbaijan claims include regular Armenian military.

The sides are separated by a demilitarized buffer zone, but small clashes break out frequently. About 75 soldiers from both sides, along with several civilians, were killed in April in the worst violence since 1994.

In a video message released on the eve of his trip, Francis said Armenia's tortured history is one of admiration and pain, "admiration because you have found in the cross of Jesus and in your own ingenuity the strength to always get up, even from the sufferings that are among the most terrible that humanity has known; pain for the tragedies that your fathers have known in the flesh."

But in a hint that his three-day trip is not meant to dwell on the past, the pope also urged Armenians not to be beholden to ancient hatreds but look forward with hope.

Francis is likely to make an appeal for a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during an ecumenical prayer for peace on Saturday in Republic Square of the capital, Yerevan. The Vatican said tens of thousands of Armenians are expected in what will be the biggest crowd for Francis' visit.

Another highlight will be Francis' visit to Armenia's genocide memorial, where he will meet with descendants of some of the 400 Armenian orphans taken in by Pope Pius XI and housed at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo in the years after the massacres.

At the memorial museum, Francis will see the letter Pius' predecessor, Pope Benedict XV, wrote to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V in 1915 begging him to stop the atrocities.

In a Mass celebrated in April, 2015 in St. Peter's Basilica, Francis called the slaughter the "first genocide of the 20th century" and urged the international community to recognize it as such.

Turkey, which disputes the description, immediately responded by recalling its ambassador and accusing Francis of spreading hatred and "unfounded claims." It says the death toll has been inflated and considers those killed victims of a civil war and unrest.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, bristled when asked whether the pope would repeat the word "genocide" during the trip, suggesting that the Vatican had moved beyond the politically-loaded term while still recognizing the grave injustices done.

"Why is there this obsession of using the word 'genocide?'" Lombardi asked. "We know what happened. No one denies that there were these horrible massacres. We know it well and we recognize them."

Francis' trip comes 15 years after John Paul visited Armenia and signed a joint declaration with the head of the Apostolic Church, Karekin II, calling the slaughter genocide.

Francis and Karekin were supposed to sign a joint declaration this time around about improved ties between the Apostolic and Catholic churches. But at the last minute, the declaration was scrapped, apparently over internal divisions within the Apostolic Church where some bishops have opposed increasingly close ties with Rome.

The Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches split in a theological dispute over the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ, arising from the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon. But the Armenian church has established friendly relations with both the Vatican and other Orthodox churches.

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AP writer Avet Demourian and producer Sophiko Megrelidze contributed from Yerevan, Armenia

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Residents say al-Qaida has returned to southern Yemen cities

SANAA, Yemen (AP)  Witnesses say that al-Qaida fighters have been seen in southern Yemeni cities, nearly a month after the militants withdrew from the towns following tribal-led negotiations.

Local residents reported Thursday that al-Qaida militants were seen in the cities of Jaar and Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan province. They say that during the day fighters can be seen driving pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, but at night they retreat to hideouts.

The residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Experts say South Africa suffers intelligence gaps

JOHANNESBURG (AP)  Weaknesses in South Africa's police and intelligence agencies could make the country particularly vulnerable to an extremist attack, security experts warned. However, the analysts said they are not aware of an immediate threat.

Concern about militant threats in South Africa increased this month when the U.S. Embassy warned of information indicating "terrorist groups" were planning attacks against upscale shopping malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The Islamic State group called for attacks worldwide during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

South Africa downplayed the U.S. warning, saying the information was unreliable and that it is capable of protecting people on its soil.

South African resources for combating militant threats are limited and there is a perception that such attacks only happen elsewhere, Anneli Botha, a consultant on radicalization and terrorism, said Wednesday. South Africa is an economic hub with Western interests that has been spared devastating attacks like those elsewhere in the world.

"I'm not saying an attack is imminent," Botha told the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Southern Africa. She cautioned: "We cannot say that this will never happen to us."

For years, extremists are believed to have used South Africa as a safe haven or potential pool for recruits, including some who have sought to join the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

In 2013, a South African judge convicted Nigerian Henry Okah, arrested in Johannesburg, for bombings in Nigeria. Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a Tanzanian convicted in the United States for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, was arrested in Cape Town.

Security consultant Nick Piper said South African security shortfalls are evident in the regular armed robberies in shopping areas. Piper described security on the Gautrain, a commuter train that stops at Johannesburg's international airport, as "shoddy."

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Journalists protest ban at German nationalist party meet

BERLIN (AP)  A German journalists' association is protesting a nationalist party's decision to exclude the press from sessions at an upcoming regional congress.

The Alternative for Germany party's branch in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, says it decided to restrict access to the July 2-3 party meeting in Werl out of respect for "our delegates', members' and patrons' interest in the protection of their privacy rights." Instead, the press was offered access to two media events.

The state's press association said in an open letter Thursday that the party, which has been surging in polls, must allow for "reporting without restrictions," calling the ban a "serious attack" on the freedom of the press, the dpa news agency reported.
Attorney generals from Arizona, Mexico form partnership

PHOENIX (AP)  Law enforcement in Arizona and Mexico are planning to join efforts in stopping cross-border crimes.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Wednesday that he has signed a letter of intent with the Office of the Attorney General of Mexico to form a partnership.

Their offices have agreed to exchange information and provide training for investigating and prosecuting crimes.

Their focus will be on drugs and firearms, money laundering, human smuggling and child pornography.
Palestinian leader appeals for EU help to end occupation

BRUSSELS (AP)  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appealed Thursday to the European Union for help to end Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and support for a lasting peace agreement.

"You are our friends, help us," Abbas told EU lawmakers in Brussels. "Israel has turned our country into an open-air prison."

"Why is international law not being applied in the case of Israel?" Abbas said to applause.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, is greeted by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Abbas is on a two-day trip to Brussels to meet with EU leaders. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

He also argued that the occupation was only encouraging extremists and fomenting terrorism.

The EU has promised an "unprecedented package" of political and economic support to both sides should they reach a final agreement, amid a new European push to help end the long-running conflict.

Visiting Brussels at the same time as Abbas, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin expressed disappointment that the Palestinian leader has "refused again and again to meet with Israeli leaders, and turns again and again to support of the international community."

"We can talk directly and find a way to build confidence," Rivlin told reporters, after talks with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Rivlin's office said that the EU had offered to set up a meeting with Abbas while both men were in Brussels. But Palestinian officials said they had turned that suggestion down.

One Palestinian official said Abbas rejected the offer because Rivlin, whose position is largely ceremonial, does not speak on behalf of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal Palestinian deliberations.

Abbas' address to the European Parliament came as the international community is searching for ways to revive peace talks.

The last round of U.S.-led talks collapsed two years ago amid deep disagreements over the terms of Palestinian statehood.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip  areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war  for their future state. While the international community has backed the Palestinian position, Netanyahu refuses to accept Israel's pre-1967 lines as the basis for a future border.

With the gaps so wide and Netanyahu's government dominated by hard-liners opposed to Palestinian independence, the Palestinians say there is no point in returning to the negotiating table.
Interpol seeks public help in tracking migrant smugglers

PARIS (AP)  Interpol is asking the public to help find 10 suspected migrant smugglers, an unusual call issued Thursday that reflects just how tough it is to catch those who prey on people fleeing war or poverty.

The diverse nationalities of the 10  who include people from Romania, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan  highlights the globe-spanning nature of the criminal networks involved in people smuggling, which has soared with the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants heading to Europe, many fleeing Syria's war. The public call reflects the difficulty in tracking down people smugglers who can range from invisible bosses to boat drivers.

So far, 26 people have been arrested in the Interpol-led Operation Infra Hydra, which is seeking the arrest of 180 people wanted by 31 countries.

Rescue workers help migrants to disembark from a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea, rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Thursday's appeal by the international police organization, based in Lyon, France, came after nearly a year of investigations by two dozen countries and arrests in May that included a Moroccan suspected of selling Belgian identity cards to Syrians and some in an Albanian organized crime group who were charging migrants nearly 14,000 euros ($15,900) each to travel across the English Channel by boat.

A joint report last month by Europol and Interpol estimated that 90 percent of migrants entering the European Union have had their trips facilitated by smugglers, who earned $5 billion to $6 million in revenue last year.

Among those being sought is Mariana Crucerescu, convicted of heading a Romanian organized crime group that charged 3,000 euros ($3,400) per person to smuggle people through Hungarian and Austrian border points. Another is Afghan national Jan Abdullah, who allegedly offered full services, including "how to" guides and fake documents along with transport in the crime group he set up.

Then there is Tajeddin Aliyev, former head of passenger control at the international airport in Baku, Azerbaijan. He allegedly provided counterfeit airline tickets.

Michael O'Connell, director of operational support and analysis for Interpol, said no one nationality predominated among the criminal networks profiting from those fleeing war and poverty  and no smuggler was too small-time to go after.

Take Kolyo Georgiev Kolev, a Bulgarian suspected of illegally transporting nine Afghans from Bulgaria to Austria  two of whom were killed when the truck overturned in Hungary.

"For each of those nine individuals, there can be an absolutely harrowing personal story behind them," O'Connell said by telephone. "So whether it's one, whether it's nine, (or) the multiple hundreds of thousands we're seeing facilitated and trafficked into Europe, every single one of those people has a life and value that has to be respected."

The rights of the accused also must be respected, including privacy, limiting the information that Interpol was able to make public, O'Connell said.

Concern that good summer weather and calm seas may spur the number of illegal migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean also prompted Interpol to reach out to the public, O'Connell said.

An uptick in people smuggling from chaotic Libya is already being noticed. The high-risk Mediterranean crossing is one of the main routes to Europe, and gaining new favor with smugglers after a European Union migrant accord with Turkey and tougher policing in Greece that are making getting into Europe more difficult.

FILE - In this April 23 2016 file photo, migrants and refugees line up for a milk distribution at a makeshift camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece. More than a million refugees and other migrants, who arrived on the Greek islands in smugglers' boats from Turkey, passed through Greece to Macedonia and other countries on the western Balkan corridor since the beginning of 2015. Police in an Interpol-led operation have arrested 26 people across several countries accused of involvement in migrant-smuggling  and the international police agency wants the public's help to find suspects still at large. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel, standing-off in background. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rescue workers help to disembark migrants from a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea, rescued by members of the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rescue workers disembark migrants from a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea, rescued by members of the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)
Suspect in killing of UK lawmaker to face trial in autumn

LONDON (AP)  The man charged with murdering British lawmaker Jo Cox is expected to face trial in the autumn.

Thomas Mair, 52, appeared in the Old Bailey court Thursday via video-link from a high-security prison.

He is accused of murder and other crimes related to the death of Cox, 41, and an elderly man who was seriously injured.

The trial was tentatively set to start in mid-November ,with the next hearing in September.

Mair has not yet entered a plea.

At his first hearing, Mair gave his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain." A psychiatric report was ordered after that statement.

He confirmed his name during the video proceedings Thursday.
After German trip to air base denied, Turkey explains

ISTANBUL (AP)  Turkey's foreign minister says his country permits only military or technical teams to visit a Turkish air base central to the fight against the Islamic State group, after Germany said one of its delegations was denied a visit request.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday "we don't approve visits to Incirlik base by nonmilitary committees, especially politicians."
Egyptian claims unpaid money, abducts 2 Albanian fishermen

TIRANA, Albania (AP)  Albanian police say an Egyptian man who claims he is owed 70,000 euros ($79,000) in back pay has captured a fishing boat with two Albanian fishermen aboard.

Police said Thursday said Adel Mohamed Sallam, 30, left the Albanian port of Durres Saturday with the captain and another fisherman.

Three days later the boat owner, who says he owes no money to Sallam, lost contact with the boat. Police say they failed to find it in Albanian waters.
Son of R&B legend released from jail after eateries raided

ATLANTA (AP)  Jail records show the son of R&B legend Gladys Knight has been released from a jail near Atlanta after the restaurants named after his mother were raided.

The Clayton County jail's website says 39-year-old Shanga Hankerson was released Wednesday afternoon on charges of two counts of felony theft by taking.

Hankerson is the owner of Gladys Knight's Chicken & Waffles restaurants, which were raided Tuesday by the Georgia Department of Revenue.

All three Atlanta area locations have been closed.

Georgia Department of Revenue spokesman William Gaston says Hankerson is accused of taking a total of $650,000 in state sales and withholding taxes, which totals more than $1 million after penalties and interest.
The Latest: Coast Guard to update search for missing family

MIAMI (AP)  The Latest on the search for a Florida family last seen on a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico (all times local):

7:30 a.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard plans an update on the search for a Florida man and his three teenage children who were last seen aboard a 29-foot sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico.

This photo made available by the U.S. Coast Guard shows personal items that were recovered within a debris field off the coast of Sanibel, Fla., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The personal items are believed to belong to a father and his three teenage children who were reported missing while they were aboard a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)

The agency announced in a news release that Capt. Gregory Case will give an update on the search at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. Petersburg.

Coast Guard crews have been searching for 45-year-old Ace Kimberly and his children, 13-year-old Roger, 15-year-old Donny and 17-year-old Rebecca. They left Sarasota on Sunday morning, heading to Fort Myers to have the boat repaired.

Officials say the family was apparently living on the boat in Sarasota Bay.

Kimberly contacted his brother Sunday afternoon, saying they were sailing in "6-foot seas and thunderstorms." The brother contacted the Coast Guard Tuesday after the family didn't return from the trip.

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6:46 a.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard has recovered one body while searching a debris field believed to be part of a sailboat belonging to a Florida man and his three teenage children.

Coast Guard officials didn't identify the body found Wednesday afternoon some 33 miles off Florida's southwest coast.

Capt. Gregory Case earlier Wednesday identified the family as 45-year-old Ace Kimberly and his children, 13-year-old Roger, 15-year-old Donny and 17-year-old Rebecca. Officials say the family had been living on the sailboat for a year.

The family left Sarasota Sunday, heading to Fort Myers to have the boat repaired. Case says the last word from the family came later Sunday when Kimberly told his brother they were sailing in "6-foot seas and thunderstorms."

The search continues for the other three family members.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt., Gregory Case, right, speaks during a news conference regarding the missing family members Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. According to the Coast Guard Sector in St. Petersburg, a concerned family member stated that the missing family was last heard from Sunday morning when they left Sarasota, Fla., to sail to Fort Myers to repair the boat. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

This photo made available by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a kayak recovered within a debris field off the coast of Sanibel, Fla., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The kayak and other personal items are believed to belong to a father and his three teenage children who were reported missing while they were aboard a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
The Latest: New wave of smuggler boats includes 31 dinghies

PARIS (AP)  The Latest on Europe's response to the influx of migrants and asylum seekers (all times local):

6:55 p.m.

The Italian navy says a new wave of migrant smugglers' boats that set out from Libyan shores and needed rescuing includes 31 rubber dinghies.

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel, standing-off in background. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

The rescue operations are part of efforts that on Thursday alone saw some 4,000 migrants saved, according to the Italian coast guard.

A navy statement says five of its boats helped in the rescue of 14 of the dinghies, for a total of 1,800 men, women and children saved. Migrants aboard the other dinghies were rescued by vessels from the Italian coast guard, a European anti-smuggling naval deployment and ships operated by private aid organizations.

Authorities say Libya-based smugglers concentrated the departures of boats crowded with migrants in a single day because rough seas earlier in the week had prevented launching the unseaworthy fleet.

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6:00 p.m.

The European Union's commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, says the EU executive is ready to impose sanctions on member states refusing to accept refugees under a compulsory relocation scheme.

Speaking at a business conference near Athens, Avramopoulos blasted "populist and nationalist leaders" in European countries who have vowed not to abide by the program.

Avramopoulos, a conservative politician from Greece, said the actions by dissenting countries were undermining EU solidarity and their own societies.

He did not refer to any specific countries or the penalties that could be imposed.

Several east European member states, including Hungary and Slovakia, strongly oppose the relocation mechanism and want the EU to overhaul its plans.

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5:55 p.m.

Operators of an Austrian outdoor swimming pool have posted a sign saying "today no entry for refugees," after 13-year old girl told police that a man followed her into the women's dressing room and sexually molested her.

The daily Kronen Zeitung said that police are investigating Wednesday's reported attack at the pool in the town of Mistelbach, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Vienna. It cited the girl as saying the man had a dark complexion and fled after she screamed but gave no other details.

The newspaper carried a photo of the sign and said it was put up at the entrance of the pool Thursday.

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5:20 p.m.

The Italian coast guard says some 4,000 migrants have been rescued from smugglers' boats off Libya in one day alone.

The coast guard said it coordinated 40 separate Mediterranean rescue operations on Thursday. One operation involved a motorized rubber dinghy where, authorities say, a woman's body was found. More details weren't immediately available.

The high numbers are being attributed to a break in several days of bad weather and rough seas which had kept smugglers, largely based in Libya, from launching boats with migrants and asylum seekers, fleeing conflict and poverty for Europe's southern shores.

The coast guard says it has no immediate information about a report from some in the Eritrean community that a barge with some 400 migrants left Alexandria, Egypt, on Sunday and that its whereabouts are currently unknown.

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2:35 p.m.

Hungary and Austria say that the joint protection of the European Union's external borders is needed to solve the migration crisis and maintain passport-free travel within the bloc.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Thursday after meeting Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz that both countries also agree that refugees wanting to come to the EU should apply for asylum before they enter the 28-country alliance, because "once someone enters the EU, they stay even if they are not granted asylum."

Sziijarto said that "decisions are needed which reduce to a minimum the immigration pressure on the EU."

For his part, Kurz said that "in the future, there will be an EU without internal borders only if we protect the external borders of the EU."

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2:15 p.m.

German police say they've arrested two people on suspicion of arson some 18 months after fires broke out at three buildings earmarked to serve as accommodation for asylum seekers in Bavaria.

Police said in a brief statement Thursday that the two were suspected of setting the blazes for unspecified "economic reasons" and not out of anti-foreigner motives. Further details were to be released Friday.

At the time of the fires in December 2014 in the town of Vorra, near Nuremberg, Germany was struggling to deal with an influx of migrants and authorities had suspected anti-foreigner sentiment was behind the attack.

Nobody was in the buildings at the time and the blazes were quickly extinguished.

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12:10 p.m.

Police in an Interpol-led operation have arrested 26 people across several countries accused of involvement in migrant-smuggling  and the international police agency wants the public's help to find suspects still at large.

European police authorities say organized crime networks are playing a big role in Europe's migrant crisis, earning up to $6 billion in revenue last year by capitalizing on migrants' desperation.

Interpol said in a statement that those arrested in the 24-country operation in May include a Moroccan suspected of selling Belgian identity cards to Syrian migrants, and an Albanian group charging migrants 14,000 euros to travel across the English Channel by boat.

Interpol released appeals Thursday for help finding 11 other people from several countries accused of illegally smuggling Iraqis, Afghans and other migrants.

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Rescue workers help distribute life jackets to migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea being rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel, behind. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

Migrants aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea wait to be rescued by members of the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the rescue group SOS Mediterranee Rescuers of SOS Mediterranee, Thursday June 23, 2016. The humanitarian groups distribute life jackets to the migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea before taking them aboard the 'Aquarius' vessel. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)
Water reaches Syrian refugees after Jordan border closure

AMMAN, Jordan (AP)  Syrian refugees stranded in the desert along the border with Jordan lined up for water Thursday, two days after Jordan sealed off their two encampments in response to a deadly attack on its troops in the area.

The water was delivered to the border area by a 32-truck convoy, the first confirmed shipment since Jordan denied access to aid groups following Tuesday's cross-border suicide car bombing, said an international aid official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Cellphone photos from Ruqban, the larger of two camps, showed scores of refugees waiting to fill up plastic containers with water. Syrian children held up signs giving thanks to Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Syrian refugees gather for water at the Ruqban refugee camp in Jordan's northeast border with Syria on Thursday, June 23, 2016. They had been cut off from supplies following Jordan's closure of the area after a car bomb attack launched from Ruqban killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14 at dawn Tuesday. Two days later on Thursday, 32 water trucks drove to Ruqban and the smaller Hadalat camp with about 64,000 Syrians. (AP Photo)

The two tent camps house about 64,000 Syrians who fled a five-year-old civil war and are waiting to be admitted to Jordan. Many have been stranded in the desert for months.

Before the border closure, the refugees received food and water from Jordan-based international aid agencies. Refugees would climb over an earthen mound, or berm, that roughly delineates the border, and pick up supplies on the Jordanian side. Earlier this month, aid groups said Jordan agreed to expand the distributions on its soil, near the berm.

Such plans were frozen after Tuesday's attack killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14. There has been no claim of responsibility, but Jordan says it has evidence of a significant presence of the extremist Islamic State group in the camps.

Jordan has sealed the border area and signaled that aid groups will have to find alternatives to sending supplies from Jordan.

"It's a closed area," said government spokesman Mohammed Momani. "Yet it does not mean that international organizations cannot find different ways and means to get aid to the people there."

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Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Amman, Jordan, and Dominique Soguel in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Syrian refugees gather for water at the Rukban refugee camp in Jordan's northeast border with Syria on Thursday, June 23, 2016. They had been cut off from supplies following Jordan's closure of the area after a car bomb attack launched from Ruqban killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14 at dawn Tuesday. Two days later on Thursday, 32 water trucks drove to Ruqban and the smaller Hadalat camp with about 64,000 Syrians. (AP Photo)

In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016 photo, Syrians walk through the Ruqban refugee camp in Jordan's northeast border with Syria. Refugees stranded along the Jordanian border said that clean water is getting scarce in Ruqban after Jordan declared the area a "closed military zone" after a car bomb attack launched from Ruqban killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14 at dawn Tuesday. Some 64,000 Syrians there depend on daily deliveries of food and water by international aid agencies based in Jordan. (AP Photo/Abu Adel)
Hijacker says he saw killed Italian student in Egypt prison

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  An Egyptian hijacker who's fighting his extradition accused Egypt's military-backed government of torturing and killing an Italian doctoral student, claiming he saw Giulio Regeni being interrogated in a Cairo prison.

In a surprising twist to lengthy extradition proceedings, Seif Eddin Mustafa told a Cypriot court that he hijacked the domestic EgyptAir flight in March intending to seek asylum in Italy in order to "point the finger" at the Egyptian military regime.

Mustafa said he caught a glimpse from behind a blindfold of a "foreign-looking" person in Lazogli prison during his nearly two-month detention there in December and January after being arrested for using a false Ukrainian passport. The 59-year-old said he recognized Regeni from photos he came across after his release, insisting that he's "convinced" Egyptian security forces killed the Italian at the Cairo prison he called the "slaughterhouse."

Regeni disappeared in Cairo on Jan. 25 and his body  which bore signs of severe torture  was found nine days later on a suburban Cairo road.

"Regeni was in reality held by security forces and was interrogated at the same prison as I was in Lazogli Cairo," Mustafa said in a long statement in Arabic that he read out in court.

"Upon getting released and seeing his pictures, I connected all these facts together and I realized that the person found dead in the street was the same person I saw when I was detained," he said.

Mustafa said he committed the March 29 hijacking to "expose (Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's) fascist regime to the world." The six-hour ordeal ended peacefully on the tarmac of Cyprus' Larnaca airport where the plane was diverted after all 72 passengers and crew were released and Mustafa was arrested.

"I never wanted to take hostages or frighten anyone," Mustafa said. "It was a desperate move for freedom in Egypt that initiated my actions."

He also claimed the fact that he allowed some passengers to take photographs with him on their cell phones was at attempt to put their minds at ease and to assure them that he meant them no harm.

Mustafa said he had told the pilots to land in Cyprus, Greece or Turkey so the aircraft can refuel and ultimately take him to Italy, where he would seek asylum.

He also blasted Cypriot authorities for calling him "unstable" as well as for suggesting that he committed the hijacking simply to seek out his Cypriot ex-wife whom he said he "had no reason to or plan to see."

Cyprus police said Mustafa told them after his arrest that he acted because the Egyptian government hadn't allowed him to see his ex-wife and three children on Cyprus in 24 years.

Mustafa said this "purposeful misinformation" indicated that the governments of Cyprus and Egypt where in cahoots to "hide my true motives, to discredit me and to cloud the matter."

"I desperately wanted to attract the free western people's attention...so everyone here in the west can see and understand what is going in in Egypt where death or oppression are the fate of anyone who demands freedom, justice, democracy," he said.

Mustafa said he "knows very well" his extradition would result in torture or death. "In any case, when I land in Egypt, I shall be a 'dead man walking'," he said.

Mustafa repeatedly denounced the Egyptian government for mounting a coup against the "freely and democratically elected" Islamist President Mohammed Morsi but denied being a supporter of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Although calling himself a "pacifist" and a "liberal," Mustafa outlined at length his membership and actions with the Marxist-Leninist Democratic Front of Palestine as well as with factions opposed to Egypt's peace accord with Israel and the man who signed the agreement, assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

He said he worked for the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia and Greece while using many aliases and forged passports from numerous nations.

Mustafa said he was shot in the foot during attacks against Israeli positions in Lebanon after Israel's 1982 invasion of the country.

He also said he had received training on a large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun in the former Soviet Union and received the rank of lieutenant.
2011 effort to remove judge shows bold Trump legal tactics

NEW YORK (AP)  Five years before Donald Trump accused a federal judge of bias against him in a Trump University lawsuit, the New York billionaire tried to get another judge pulled from a case, court records show.

The attempt to remove the judge in a 2011 lawsuit over a leaky roof at Trump's Wall Street skyscraper is another example of aggressive legal tactics attorneys representing Trump's various business interests have employed over the years in courtrooms, according to a review of hundreds of lawsuits in state and federal courts across the country.

Besides fighting to have judges removed when they rule against him, Trump has also used his public stature to attack his legal opponents through the media, and in at least one case, his businesses were accused of allowing documents to be destroyed during an ongoing civil case, the records show.

In this June 18, 2016 photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Treasure Island hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Trumps recent calls for a federal judge hearing a fraud case against Trump University to step down arent the first time hes sought a judges recusal, and theyre not the only aggressive legal tactic he employs. He and his attorneys have been accused of judge-shopping, publicly bullying opponents and blocking opposing counsel from retrieving emails and other documents. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Trump's legal tactics and history of finger-pointing at judges when he doesn't get his way offer a preview of how he could react in the White House when challenged by the judiciary a government branch with a constitutional check on the presidency. The courts have historically set limits on the president's power and expected the executive branch to abide by their legal interpretations.

Trump has been widely criticized in recent weeks, even from members of his own party, since claiming that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel cannot preside fairly over the civil fraud case against the now-defunct Trump University in California. Trump justified his comments by citing his pledge to build a wall along the Mexican border and noting Curiel's Mexican heritage. Curiel was born in Indiana.

The presumptive Republican nominee has also raised the prospect that a Muslim judge may treat him unfairly in court because he has proposed a temporary ban on allowing foreign Muslims into the country.

In the 2011 case, a lawyer for Trump argued that a handful of rulings against him by New York state Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling showed that Tingling was "clearly biased or prejudiced against" them and "cannot be expected to preside over the upcoming trial in an impartial manner," according to a court filing.

Trump's lawyer also seized on a series of procedural rulings against Trump and a comment Tingling made about a voluminous Trump filing being purely for "billing."

That argument echoes one Trump lawyers made in 2009, when they called another state Supreme Court judge biased because of rulings that didn't go their way during a lawsuit between Trump and Chinese businessmen over a Manhattan real estate development. The New York Times first reported that recusal effort earlier this month.

In the Tingling case, the judge refused to step down, telling Trump's lawyers the judiciary couldn't function if judges were to cave every time one side or the other feels aggrieved, according to a transcript.

"I cannot, and I will not, allow the appearance of judge shopping," Tingling said at the time.

Tingling did not respond to a phone message left with his clerk for comment. He ordered tenant John Bostany to pay back-rent and attorneys' fees to Trump, a decision that was reversed on appeal.

Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer specific questions about Trump's legal tactics including the Tingling case. She responded to a detailed email only by saying: "Trump is brilliant."

Judges aren't the only targets of Trump's courtroom tactics.

He has used the press to publicly criticize his legal opponents. One recent example came in the Trump University case in which Curiel presides. The main defendant in the case, Tarla Makaeff, dropped out of the litigation earlier this year, citing in part "tremendous stress and anxiety" suffered because of Trump's verbal attacks on her from his "bully pulpit."

In other cases, Trump's companies have defied judges' orders.

In a long-running dispute in Florida over a casino venture, one of Trump's companies repeatedly refused to turn over documents and emails to the opposing side. The case was first reported by USA Today.

Documents and court transcripts obtained by the AP show the judge ultimately ordered both the Trump Organization and an affiliate company to allow their computers to be examined by an outside forensic firm.

"I'm not satisfied that there was due diligence in this case at all," then-Broward County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld said during a 2007 hearing, adding that the company "had not done anything in-house to stop" the deletion of emails and other records.

"How could there not be a hold place? 'Be careful, we've just filed a major lawsuit in which we're seeking billions of dollars, but routinely continue to wipe out computers,'" Streitfield told Trump's attorneys. "That doesn't work."

Streitfield told the AP last week that Trump's attorneys' actions weren't uncommon in high-stakes litigation like the casino case, which settled for an undisclosed amount in 2010. But he said he didn't accept that the company wasn't able to archive electronic documents.

"I was incredulous about that," he said.

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Day reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Sergio Bustos contributed from Miami.

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The Latest: Plan drops aid for 141 Kansas school districts

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  The Latest on the Kansas Legislature's debate on school funding (all times local):

6:05 p.m.

A spreadsheet from legislative researchers shows that nearly half of Kansas' 286 school districts would see less state aid under a Republican education funding plan.

The plan outlined Thursday would decrease the aid 141 districts had been promised for the 2016-17 school year. The changes would allow Kansas to boost aid for poor districts by $38 million.

Legislators are meeting in a special session to address a state Supreme Court ruling last month that the education funding system remains unfair to poor districts.

The Blue Valley, Olathe and Shawnee Mission districts in Johnson County together would lose more than $6.1 million for 2016-17.

The spreadsheet showed 145 districts gaining aid.

The largest district, Wichita, would gain nearly $8.3 million. Kansas City would gain $1.6 million.

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4:55 p.m.

Some Republicans in the Kansas House have a school funding plan that's an alternative to one from GOP leaders.

Republican Rep. Melissa Rooker of Fairway said Thursday that many GOP lawmakers are acting as if there's only one real plan, but she considers it flawed.

Legislators are meeting in a special session to address a recent state Supreme Court mandate to boost aid to poor school districts. Both Republican leaders' plan and the alternative proposal would increase that aid by $38 million.

The difference is in how each plan is financed.

GOP leaders' plan shuffles existing education dollars. The proposal backed by Rooker and other GOP moderates taps motor vehicle fees and uncommitted dollars in a jobs creation fund instead.

House and Senate committees approved GOP leaders' plan Thursday.

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3:55 p.m.

A Kansas House committee has approved a Republican education funding plan aimed at heading off a threat that schools will shut down and satisfying a state Supreme Court mandate.

The Appropriations Committee's voice vote Thursday sent the plan to the full House for debate Friday. Lawmakers are having a special session to address a Supreme Court ruling last month.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee approved the same plan earlier in the day.

The plan would boost aid to poor school districts by $38 million, but much of the money would come from reshuffling existing education dollars.

The Supreme Court said the state's education funding system remains unfair to poor school districts. The justices warned that schools wouldn't be able to reopen after June 30 without changes.

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2:50 p.m.

A Kansas Senate committee has approved a proposed amendment to the state constitution to limit the power of the courts in education funding cases.

The measure passed Thursday by the Judiciary Committee would bar the courts from shutting down schools in school finance lawsuits. The Legislature also would be barred from closing schools in response to a court ruling.

The committee's voice vote sets up a Senate debate Friday. Any proposed amendment would go on the ballot in November.

Legislators are having a special session to address a state Supreme Court ruling last month warning that schools might not be able to reopen after June 30 unless lawmakers change the education funding system.

Some Republicans are upset over the closure threat. But Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley called the proposed amendment "frivolous."

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1:35 p.m.

A Kansas Senate committee has approved a Republican education funding plan aimed at satisfying a state Supreme Court mandate and averting a threat that schools will shut down.

The Ways and Means Committee's 9-2 vote Thursday sent the plan to the full Senate for a debate that is expected Friday. Lawmakers are meeting in a special session to address a Supreme Court ruling last month.

The plan would boost aid to poor school districts by $38 million, but much of the money would come from reshuffling existing education dollars. The votes against the plan came from the committee's two Democrats.

The Supreme Court said the state's education funding system remains unfair to poor school districts. The justices warned that schools wouldn't be able to reopen after June 30 without changes.

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12:20 p.m.

Two big school districts in Johnson County are reluctantly supporting a school funding plan from Republican legislators for satisfying a Kansas Supreme Court mandate.

Superintendents Todd White and Jim Hinson of the Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission districts told lawmakers Thursday that they're backing the plan as a one-year solution and because of a threat that schools might not reopen after June 30.

The plan would redistribute dollars from wealthier districts like theirs to poorer ones to comply with a Supreme Court ruling last month. The court warned schools might not be able to reopen if lawmakers didn't make changes.

Wichita Superintendent John Allison said his district would not object to the plan as a last resort if lawmakers couldn't find additional dollars outside education to divert to schools.

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11:20 a.m.

An attorney representing four Kansas school districts that are suing the state over education funding says a new plan from Republican lawmakers won't satisfy the state Supreme Court.

Lawyer John Robb said the plan is flawed because it shuffles some existing education dollars to boost aid to poor school districts by $38 million.

The Legislature convened a special session Thursday to address the Supreme Court's order last month that the state's education system remains unfair to poor districts. The justices warned that schools might remain closed after June 30 without further changes.

Part of the GOP plan trims all districts' aid for general operations to help cover the additional aid for poor districts.

Robb said in an email, "The time for these shell games has passed."

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10:45 a.m.

About 150 teachers, parents and other education advocates are rallying at the Kansas Statehouse while legislators are having a special session on school funding.

The crowd Thursday chanted "Do your job!" Speakers said they want legislators to increase aid to poor school districts quickly and go home.

The state Supreme Court ruled last month that the state's education funding system remains unfair to poor districts. The justices warned that schools might not reopen after June 30 if lawmakers don't make changes.

Education groups scheduled the rally, but at times it had the flavor of a Democratic Party event, with several Democratic candidates speaking.

Kansas City, Kansas, middle school teacher Aubrey Kennedy said she attended because she wants her students to have the same opportunities as others across the state.

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9:15 a.m.

Officials from the Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, school districts say they have not signed off on Republican legislators' education funding plan.

Wichita Superintendent John Allison said Thursday that his district needs to review the details of the $38 million plan. He was at the Statehouse as lawmakers opened a special session on education funding.

Kansas City district spokesman David Smith said, "We've not signed off on anything at this point."

The chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees said the districts signed off. The Wichita and Kansas City districts are among four suing the state.

The state Supreme Court ruled last month that the education funding system remains unfair to poor school districts and warned that schools might not be able to reopen after June 30 without changes.

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8:50 a.m.

Republican legislators have unveiled the details of their $38 million plan for helping poor school districts and satisfying a recent state Supreme Court ruling on education funding.

The House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means committees introduced separate but identical versions during short meetings Thursday at the start of a special session.

The committees were having hearings on the plan immediately.

The plan helps pay for extra aid to poor school districts by diverting $24 million in existing education funds from districts' general operating funds, dollars for online courses and money set aside for student enrollment increases or other emergency needs.

Other funds for relatively poor school districts would be diverted from other parts of the state budget.

The plan also would redistribute funds from wealthier school districts to poorer ones.

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8:05 a.m.

Kansas legislators have opened a special session to address a state Supreme Court mandate on education funding and avert a threat that public schools might not reopen next month.

Lawmakers returned Thursday to the Statehouse following negotiations by key Republicans with superintendents from various districts on a $38 million plan for increasing aid to poor school districts.

With the state facing a budget crunch, they were looking at proposals to redistribute existing education dollars. They also hoped to lessen resistance from wealthy districts likely to lose aid, particularly in affluent Kansas City suburbs in Johnson County.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the state's education funding system remains unfair to poor districts and warned that schools might not reopen after June 30 if lawmakers don't make further changes by then.

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12:05 a.m.

Kansas legislators are convening a special session to address a state Supreme Court mandate on education funding and avert a threat that public schools might not reopen next month.

Lawmakers returned to the Statehouse after key Republicans negotiated with superintendents from various districts on a $38 million plan for increasing aid to poor school districts.

With the state facing a budget crunch, they were looking at proposals to redistribute existing education dollars. They also hoped to lessen resistance from wealthy districts likely to lose aid, particularly in affluent Kansas City suburbs in Johnson County.
CASPER, Wyo.  A Mills police officer shot and killed a man who had been firing a rifle into houses Tuesday night near First and Fenway streets, Casper police Chief Jim Wetzel said.

The gunman fired multiple shots at police, but no officers were hit. One neighbor was injured by broken glass.

Police did not identify the gunman, and the Natrona County Coroner's Office said it would not release his name until his family had been notified. Authorities did say he was 50 years old.

Authorities did not release a motive for the gunman's behavior. Neighbors, however, said the man had been behaving erratically over the past week.

Casper police began receiving calls at about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday reporting shots fired in the central Casper neighborhood. Several callers reported a man with a rifle was shooting at homes.

Officers from the Casper and Mills police departments, Natrona County Sheriff's Office and the Wyoming Highway Patrol responded and cordoned off the area. Wetzel said the man continued to fire through the neighborhood, shooting out all the windows in his neighbor's house. One of the neighbors was cut by the broken glass.

When officers arrived, they encountered the shooter armed with what police described as an "assault-type rifle" on the front porch of a home. The shooter had a laser sight on one of the guns, Wetzel said.

The gunman ignored officers, who told him to disarm, and he retreated back into the house, according to a statement from Wetzel that was released by the department on Wednesday morning. Authorities established a perimeter.

The man reemerged at some point and fired multiple rounds at officers, police said.

"As the subject continued to fire all kinds of rounds, a Mills police officer fired two rounds into the subject and killed the individual," Wetzel said. "Fortunately, no one got hurt other than the neighbor who was cut by the broken glass."

Lane Bailey, who lives in an apartment kitty-corner to where the shooting took place, heard gunshots and went outside to investigate. Bailey said he saw what appeared to be a man shooting into a house across the street. The man then walked back into his home.

More officers arrived and eventually shined a spotlight at the gunman's home. The man later emerged and appeared to be dancing and holding a portable speaker to his ear, Bailey said.

This process repeated itself two more times. Then between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, the gunman emerged again, this time with a rifle, Bailey said. Bailey did not hear the gunman fire at police, but he did hear officers tell the man to drop his weapon.

Bailey said he saw police fire three times at the gunman, who fell after the second shot. After the shooting stopped, police officers checked the home, and medics arrived.

Leonard Bordeaux Jr., who lives in the same apartment building as Bailey, said he was home with his 7-year-old grandson at the time of the shooting. After hearing gunshots, he told his grandson to hit the floor.

"I was making sure my grandson was taking cover," Bordeaux said. "It was kind of spooky. It was a scary night."

Bordeaux said the gunman had been "out of control" for the past week.

"I've seen him ranting and raving," he said.

He wasn't sure what the man was saying when he would yell outside his home, but he did hear him say "cuss words."

"I was thinking, man, he's losing it," Bordeaux said.

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting. Casper police will also conduct an internal investigation to determine whether department policies and procedures were followed, Wetzel said.

Several DCI agents were working the scene Wednesday morning. Yellow crime scene tape blocked off the area where the shooting took place. Yellow evidence markers had been placed in the front yard of the gunman's home. At about 11 a.m., an official from the coroner's office removed a body bag from the area and placed it in the back of a white truck.

The police chief commended the officers, troopers and deputies who responded to the incident for their conduct.

"The nature of these incidents, with the following investigations and the inherent scrutiny over actions, can be trying for everyone involved," he said in his Wednesday morning statement. "I ask for the community to please be patient and keep all involved in your thoughts and prayers during this time."

Mills Police Chief Bryon Preciado declined to release the name of the officer who shot the gunman. In a statement issued Wednesday morning, the department said the officer involved had been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

"The officer was not injured during the incident and is doing fine at this time," the department said.

The coroner's office said an autopsy for the gunman would be scheduled.
2 Louisiana deputies shot while serving a felony warrant

MONROE, La. (AP)  Authorities say two sheriff's deputies in northeast Louisiana were shot and wounded while serving a felony warrant.

Ouachita Parish Chief Deputy Mac Mashaw said in a brief news release that the shooting happened just after 6 a.m. Thursday.

The deputies are being treated at a Monroe hospital. Their conditions are unknown.

Additional details about the shooting weren't immediately available.

Thursday's shooting is the second involving deputies in Louisiana in as many days. On Wednesday, a sheriff's deputy across the state in Jefferson Parish was shot and killed by a 19-year-old suspect.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said the suspect, identified as Jerman Neveaux, flipped around as the officer was trying to search him, went chest to chest with the officer, pulled out a gun and reached over the deputy's shoulder to shoot him in the back.

Normand said during a news conference Wednesday that the suspect fired two more shots into the deputy's back at point-blank range as he fell to the ground.

A spokesman, John Fortunato, said Neveaux has been arrested on charges of first-degree murder and assault.
Macy's Terry Lundgren to step down as CEO next year

NEW YORK (AP)  Macy's longtime CEO Terry Lundgren, who spearheaded a landmark acquisition that created a powerhouse national department store chain, will step down early next year, the company announced Thursday as it struggles to reinvent itself amid online competition and changing consumer habits.

Lundgren, 64, will be replaced by Macy's President Jeff Gennette, 55, who was promoted to that role from chief merchandising officer nearly two years ago. Gennette, whom Lundgren describes as a skilled merchant and retail operator, will assume additional management responsibility during the transition.

"I am counting on leaving this company in better hands," Lundgren told The Associated Press.

FILE - In this Friday, May 20, 2011, file photo, Macy's Inc. CEO Terry Lundgren speaks during a news conference after the company's shareholders meeting in Cincinnati. Macys announced Thursday, June 23, 2016, that longtime CEO Lundgren will leave the job in early 2017. He will be replaced by Macys president Jeff Gennette. (AP Photo/David Kohl, File)

Lundgren, who has been CEO since 2003 and will remain as executive chairman, said the announcement was part of a "very orderly planned succession" and noted that he could have made the change last year, but business started to really soften.

"We wanted to make sure we had all the pieces of the puzzle in place," he said, adding that his turning 65 next year makes for good timing. "I am not going to work forever," he added.

The move is a good one for Macy's, said Stifel analyst Richard Jaffe, citing Gennette's experience at the company that operates about 870 department stores, and Lundgren's continued involvement. Shares of Macy's Inc. rose almost 2 percent, or 57 cents, to close at $33.38. Thursday. But Jaffe noted that "driving sales remains an ongoing challenge."

Lundgren has been credited for nearly doubling sales during his tenure, and led the acquisition of May Department Stores Co. in 2005. The deal involved the then-Federated Department stores buying May for $11 billion and it involved converting a slew of May's brands including Hecht's and Marshall Fields into Macy's banners. Lundgren defied naysayers who thought the acquisition would be a disaster, and soon began leading a move to tailor store merchandise to local markets. That helped create customer loyalty. And under his tenure, Macy's became one of the top six online retailers in the U.S.

But Macy's, which had been a stellar performer since the recession, has struggled with slower growth over the past year and a half. Macy's had overall sales of $27.08 billion for the year ended Jan. 30, down nearly 4 percent from the previous year. In May, it slashed its full-year profit and revenue outlook for the year after weak results in the spring and during the holiday season. In May, it reported its fifth straight decline for a key sales measure, with the declines accelerating.

Retailers overall have been feeling squeezed but department stores in particular have been hit hard as their core offering has been clothing. People are spending more of their money on home improvement as well as experiences like restaurants and travel. When they are buying clothes, they're shopping at discounters like TJ Maxx and others.

Macy's, which also operates the upscale Bloomingdale's stores, also faces an increasing threat from Amazon.com, which is expected to unseat the department store chain as the largest U.S. seller of clothing next year.

Rivals like Kohl's and J.C. Penney are looking for new growth opportunities. J.C. Penney, for example, has said it will be less reliant on apparel and is bringing back major appliances this year after abandoning that category 30 years ago.

Under Lundgren, Macy's has also been looking for opportunities, from buying upscale beauty brand Bluemercury to launching its own off-price stores called Macy's Backstage. The company began a joint venture with Chinese online giant Alibaba Group to open an online store on its shopping mall site.

Macy's also combined its merchandising organizations for online and stores to try to create a more seamless shopping experience. And has been a leader in using its stores as distribution hubs to ship goods to shoppers' homes.

But against a weakening sales picture, Macy's announced in May it was accelerating initiatives to get shoppers excited. It said it planned to look for new ways to cut expenses and use that money for more sales help at the stores and online. And it's expanding its offerings on exclusive launches, including one backed by Sir Elton John and Lady Gaga.

Gennette, who began his retail career in 1983 as an executive trainee at Macy's West in San Francisco, said he will tackle several initiatives to spur growth but declined to be specific.

"We believe in innovation. We are well on our way," he said. "We are also clear that big choices need to be made."

Lundgren said Thursday he believes his biggest achievement has been the people around him, saying he has created the "strongest, most talented team in the retail industry."

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
The high court ruled in the case of Abigail Fisher who was suing against affirmative action

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of affirmative action and social media erupted with memes against the woman who filed the lawsuit against it.

The justices' 4-3 decision was in favor of the University of Texas program that takes account of race in deciding whom to admit.

The high court ruled in the case of Abigail Fisher, a white Texan who was denied admission to the university in 2008.

She contended she was rejected while African-American applicants with lower grades and test scores were admitted.

The school said Fisher, who did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her class, would not have been admitted with or without race as a factor.

But officials did conditionally offer to allow her to transfer in as a sophomore if she maintained a 3.2 grade-point average at another public college in Texas.

Instead, she went to Louisiana State University, from which she graduated in 2012, and pursued her lawsuit.

Fisher was recruited for the suit by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences who has been remarkably successful in persuading the Supreme Court to hear cases challenging the use of race in education and politics.

Once the ruling by the Supreme Court was announced, social media caught on quickly to Fisher's failed bid.

One Twitter user referenced Beyonce's 'Lemonade' album and called the trial the 'case of Becky with the Bad Grades V. U. of Texas.'

Lavinia M'Bala, the woman who came up with the nickname that spread like wildfire on Twitter, told the New York Daily News that she posted what she thought 'what everyone is thinking.'

'I was watching CNN while scrolling through Twitter,' M'Bala told the Daily News in an email. 'It just popped into my head when I heard the news.'

The justices' 4-3 decision was in favor of the University of Texas program that takes account of race in deciding whom to admit. Above demonstrators gather outside the Supreme Court on Thursday

In the narrow victory for affirmative action, the important national decision was cemented by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He is pictured above in 2013

Another Twitter user suggested that a photo of Fisher should be 'the new Jordan face' in reference to the popular photo of Michael Jordan crying.

The hashtag, #BeckyWithTheBadGrades, also became heavily used in reference to Fisher.

'In the past 8 years, #BeckyWithTheBadGrades could have finished her bachelor's degree and started a PhD. Instead, she chose to be mad,' one user wrote on Twitter.

'You spend 5 years suing the school for curving you, and then the Supreme Court Hit you with the 'NAH' #BeckyWithTheBadGrades,' another user tweeted.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the Texas plan complied with earlier court rulings that allow colleges to consider race in pursuit of diversity on campus.

'The university has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used ... was narrowly tailored,' Kennedy wrote.

The court's three more-conservative justices dissented, and Justice Samuel Alito read portions of his 51-page dissent, more than twice as long as Kennedy's opinion, from the bench.

'This is affirmative action gone wild,' Alito said. The university 'relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions.'

In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the Constitution outlaws any use of race in higher education admissions.

With the death of Scalia in February and with Justice Elena Kagan sitting out the case because she worked on it while serving in the Justice Department, just seven justices participated in the decision.

Scalia, long opposed to affirmative action, almost certainly would have voted with his fellow conservatives.

He was criticized for suggesting at arguments in December that some black students would benefit from being at a 'slower-track school,' instead of Texas' flagship campus in Austin.

At the very least, Scalia's vote could have made the result a tie and limited the high court to issuing a one-sentence opinion upholding the lower court ruling in favor of Texas.

In that instance, the result would have been the same but without the Supreme Court endorsement offered by Kennedy Thursday.

The university considers race among many factors in admitting the last quarter of incoming freshmen classes.

The state fills most of its freshman class by guaranteeing admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class.

The Supreme Court heard Fisher's case once before and issued an inconclusive ruling in 2013 that sent it back to a lower court and set the stage for Thursday's decision.

In 2003, the justices reaffirmed the consideration of race in the quest for diversity on campus. Their decision then set a goal of doing away with such programs in 25 years.

'The most important part of this case is that the court reaffirmed what it said in 2003 which is that diversity can be a compelling interest of a university in fulfilling its educational mission,' said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In a statement, Fisher said: 'I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity.

'I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action.'

In a statement, Fisher (right) said: 'I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity'

Separate legal challenges have been filed to affirmative action plans at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.

Vanderbilt University law professor Suzanna Sherry said the outcome of the Texas case 'makes the universities' cases a lot stronger. The challengers have an uphill battle.'

Texas is unique in marrying the top-10 plan to a separate admissions review in which race is one of many factors considered.

The university's current freshman class is 22 percent Hispanic and 4.5 percent African-American. White students make up less than half the school's freshmen.

Eight states prohibit the use of race in public college admissions: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.
High court limits use of repeat offender law

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Supreme Court is making it tougher for federal prosecutors to seek longer prison terms for people convicted of repeated violent crimes.

The justices ruled 5-3 that lower courts are limited in how they can consider prior state crimes for purposes of increasing sentences under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act.

The court sided with Richard Mathis, who pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison  five more than he otherwise would have gotten  because of prior state convictions for burglary.

The Armed Career Criminal Act makes defendants eligible for longer prison terms if they have three prior convictions for crimes that are either violent felonies or serious drug offenses. The list of prior violent offenses includes burglary convictions that are punishable by more than a year in prison.

Mathis argued that Iowa burglary laws are much broader than the federal version of burglary, so the state convictions should not be used to increase his sentence. But a federal appeals court said it could look beyond the elements of the law to see whether Mathis' conduct would have been guilty of violating federal burglary law.

The Supreme Court disagreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan said courts must follow the elements-based approach and warned of the "inconsistency and arbitrariness" that would result if courts went beyond that.

In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said the ruling would "unnecessarily complicate federal sentencing law" and prevent courts from applying the law Congress enacted. He was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Justice Samuel Alito filed his own dissent, saying the majority's decision is "for aficionados of pointless formalism." He warned that under the court's rationale "burglary convictions in a great many states may be disqualified from counting as predicate offenses" under the repeat offender law.

___
Mexican government meets with radical teachers' union

MEXICO CITY (AP)  Leaders of a radical teachers union met with Mexican government representatives late Wednesday to try to defuse tensions after eight people died in clashes in the southern state of Oaxaca, but managed only to schedule another meeting for Monday.

Roadblocks on highways around the southern state of Oaxaca that have frozen commercial traffic for more than a week continued Thursday. Leaders of the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, hailed the accomplishment of bringing the government to the table after months of refusals.

But following the five-hour meeting in Mexico City, Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said in a statement that he made clear that the reforms were law that the government had to carry out. He left open the possibility of compromise on other demands that would not affect the reforms.

Protesting teachers, accompanied by a mediation commission, huddle together in discussion inside the courtyard of the Interior Ministry, as they await the start of a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The negotiations between the striking radical teachers and the government come three days after a clash between protestors and police in Oaxaca state left eight dead. Though who started shooting is disputed, journalists filmed police firing their weapons in the confrontation, which also left more than 100 injured. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Both sides agreed to meet again Monday to formalize an agenda for talks.

"We agreed to look for a path, to create the conditions to ease the circumstances that we have today in some points in these states and to do it in front of the society," said Osorio Chong.

Violence broke out Sunday in Nochixtlan when federal and state authorities moved in on a roadblocks obstructing traffic on the main highway between Oaxaca's capital and Mexico City. Who started the shooting is disputed, but civilians were killed.

The teachers have demanded the release of some of their leaders who were recently arrested, but their complaints are long-running.

Among them is the government's use of a single exam that decides whether a teacher is qualified to work or not.

"The state says: 'I am going to give you an exam and with that I am going to say whether you are good or bad. It doesn't matter whether you have 20 years of experience and you know how your community works, you have all the context," Sergio Castillo Salas, a union representative, said a day before the meeting.

Castillo said the teachers see the reforms as the latest move in a long shift toward privatizing public education and shifting more costs onto families in impoverished communities.

The roadblocks, which Castillo said were supported by many parents, were the way to get the government to pay attention.

A protesting teacher holds a flag from the CNTE teachers union, as a group of teachers and a mediation commission, pass through a security barrier outside the Interior Ministry, on their way to a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The negotiations between the striking radical teachers and the government come three days after a clash between protestors and police in Oaxaca state left eight dead. Though who started shooting is disputed, journalists filmed police firing their weapons in the confrontation, which also left more than 100 injured. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Members of a mediation commission working with protesting teachers walk past police as they enter a security perimeter surrounding the Interior Ministry, while arriving for a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The negotiations between the striking radical teachers and the government come three days after a clash between protestors and police in Oaxaca state left eight dead. Though who started shooting is disputed, journalists filmed police firing their weapons in the confrontation, which also left more than 100 injured. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A police woman, left, escorts members of a negotiation group consisting of protesting teachers and a mediation commission, as they approach the Interior Ministry for a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The negotiations between the striking radical teachers and the government come three days after a clash between protestors and police in Oaxaca state left eight dead. Though who started shooting is disputed, journalists filmed police firing their weapons in the confrontation, which also left more than 100 injured. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
The Supreme Court on Thursday placed new limits on state laws that make it a crime for motorists suspected of drunken driving to refuse alcohol tests.

The justices ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before requiring drivers to take blood alcohol tests, but not breath tests, which the court considers less intrusive.

The ruling came in three cases in which drivers challenged so-called implied consent laws in Minnesota and North Dakota as violating the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. State supreme courts had upheld the laws.

While drivers in all 50 states can have their licenses revoked for refusing drunken driving tests, the high court's ruling affects laws in 11 states that go farther in imposing criminal penalties for such refusals.

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The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police must obtain a search warrant before requiring drivers to take blood alcohol tests, but not breath tests, which the court considers less intrusive

Six justices agreed with Samuel Alito's majority opinion to require warrants for blood testing. Pictured, Justice Antonin Scalia's Bench Chair and the Bench in front of his seat draped in black after his death on February 15

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said breath tests do not implicate 'significant privacy concerns.' Unlike blood tests, breathing into a breathalyzer doesn't pierce the skin or leave a biological sample in the government's possession, he said.

Alito compared blowing into a breath test machine to using 'a straw to drink beverages,' which he called 'a common practice and one to which few object.' He noted that the high court has previously declined to require a warrant for collecting DNA samples by rubbing a swab on the inside of a person's cheek or scraping underneath a person's fingernails to find evidence of a crime.

Six justices agreed with Alito's opinion on breath tests, though Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say he would have found both tests valid without a warrant under the Constitution. Thomas called any distinction between breath and blood tests 'an arbitrary line in the sand.'

Other states that have criminalized a driver's refusal to take alcohol blood or breath tests include Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.

In all three cases before the high court, the challengers argued that warrantless searches should be allowed only in 'extraordinary circumstances.' They said routine drunk driving stops count as ordinary law enforcement functions where traditional privacy rights should apply.

State officials called the testing a legitimate condition on the privilege of using state roads. Prosecutors argued that it was too burdensome for police to obtain a warrant every time a driver refused a test because some rural areas have only one judge on call late at night or on weekends.

But during oral argument, some of the justices pointed out that even in rural states police can call a magistrate and get a warrant over the phone in just a few minutes.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a separate opinion saying she would have gone further and required search warrants for both breath and blood alcohol tests. She said said no governmental interest makes it impractical for an officer to get a warrant before measuring a driver's alcohol level.

'The Fourth Amendment prohibits such searches without a warrant, unless exigent circumstances exist in a particular case,' she said.

The states garnered support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which argued that public safety is a compelling reason that justified the laws. But civil liberties groups said states can't criminalize the assertion of a constitutional right.
2 wounded northeast Louisiana deputies in stable condition

Two northeast Louisiana sheriff's deputies were in stable condition Thursday after being shot while serving arrest warrants, and a suspect was arrested after being flushed out of a house with tear gas, the sheriff said.

Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell said it happened when the deputies went to a home in south Monroe just after 6 a.m. to serve eight warrants ranging from burglary to resisting arrest on Rickie Wade Jr., 28.

"One deputy entered the home and found Wade in a back room," Russell said. The other was outside covering a window, he said.

Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell speaks about the shooting of two officers during a press conference in his office in Monroe, La., Thursday, June 23, 2016. Authorities say the two sheriffs deputies are in stable condition after being shot Thursday morning while serving an arrest warrant. (Hannah Baldwin/The News-Star via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

"The deputy outside heard a scuffle and then a gunshot," the sheriff said. "When he entered the house, he was shot."

Russell did not identify the two officers, only saying one was 30-year veteran and the other had 25 years on the force.

Louisiana State Police and Monroe police, along with other sheriff's deputies, searched the area for the suspect.

Russell said different SWAT team members found Wade hiding in a house several blocks away. He said officers used tear gas in an attempt to flush him out. Wade then climbed into the attic and Russell said the SWAT team used more gas. Eventually, the sheriff said, Wade fell out of the attic and was taken into custody without further incident.

Russell said a .45-caliber handgun was also recovered from the home.

Wade was taken to the Ouachita Parish Jail.

Russell said one deputy was taken by helicopter to University Medical Center in Shreveport and the other is being treated at a Monroe hospital.

Thursday morning's shooting was the second involving deputies in Louisiana in as many days. On Wednesday, a sheriff's deputy across the state in Jefferson Parish was shot and killed by a 19-year-old suspect.

Emergency vehicles and first responders line Pearl Street in Richwood, La., near the scene where two Ouachita Parish Sheriff Deputies were shot and injured while while serving an arrest warrant, Thursday morning, June 23, 2016. (Hannah Baldwin/The News-Star via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT
AP Interview: Security big concern during Olympics in Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  The head of Brazil's intelligence agency in Rio de Janeiro says many countries are voicing concern about security during the Summer Olympics after recent major attacks in the United States and Europe.

As the Islamic State increases its global reach, Brazilian Intelligence Agency's regional chief Frank Oliveira told The Associated Press that information sharing between Latin America's most populous country and dozens of other nations has increased significantly in the last several months.

Oliveira said that authorities have implemented new programs ahead of the games, such as training airport employees, hotel workers and taxi drivers on how to spot and report suspicious behavior in a nation not used to being a terrorist target.

Federal policemen stand guard outside the headquarters of the Worker's Party (PT), in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, June 23, 2016. A key cabinet member in the administrations of Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff was arrested on Thursday for allegedly channeling millions of dollars in bribes for Brazil's Worker's Party. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Oliveira said Brazil tested its security systems while hosting several mega-events in the past decade, such as the 2007 Pan American Games, the 2013 Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup.

"But this is the climax of the big events," said Oliveira, speaking at the Summer Games Intelligence Center in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday afternoon.

The agency has acknowledged that the number of Brazilians who have been influenced by extremist ideology is on the rise. It specifically spotted a Twitter account last year of a French man who warned that Brazil was the Islamic State's next target.

Last month, a group created on the messaging app, Telegram, began to spread jihadi propaganda in Portuguese. Telegram's press representatives said that it did not know the group, and that often the members' identities can only be seen by the group creators.

Oliveira declined to comment on those cases or any specific threats, saying that doing so could compromise the "methods, procedures, operations and sources" of the agency.

In another case that underscores Brazil's increasing vigilance, federal police are closely watching a man who reportedly received military training in a city under the control of the Islamic State. Ibrahim Chaiboun Darwiche, of the city of Chapeco in southern Brazil, is wearing an ankle bracelet through the Summer Games and while police build a case against him.

He has been charged with breaking national security law and incitement of crime. Police found a video in which he defended the attacks against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a handwritten note with activities he practiced such as sniper shooting.

Brazil is facing problems on many fronts. Job cuts have become commonplace as Latin America's largest economy is mired in its worst recession since the 1930s, an impeachment process against suspended President Dilma Rousseff has exacerbated polarization and the Zika virus, which causes birth defects, has ravaged many families in hardscrabble northeastern states.

Oliveira said that they had received no indication that discontent during the Summer Games was going to spark massive protests like in 2013. At the time, a wave of anti-government demonstrations took many cities by surprise during the Confederations Cup.

All of those problems have added to worries about safety in Rio, which has long suffered chronic violence. Last week, members of the Australian Paralympic team were mugged at gunpoint while one of the hospitals recommended for tourists during the Olympics was attacked by armed men who freed a suspected drug trafficker who was recovering there.
Ex-minister jailed in bribe scheme to Brazil Worker's Party

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  A key Cabinet member in the administrations of Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff was arrested Thursday for allegedly channeling millions of dollars in bribes for Brazil's Worker's Party.

Federal police say former minister Paulo Bernardo was involved in a scheme at the country's Planning Ministry to overprice contracts of information technology services from 2010-2015.

The Sao Paulo and the Brasilia offices of the left-leaning party that won the last four presidential elections in Brazil were also being searched by federal police. A secretary of Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad and a former treasurer of the Worker's Party are also being sought for arrest in connection with the case.

Federal policemen stand guard outside the headquarters of the Worker's Party (PT) next to a banner blanketing a street featuring suspended Chamber of Deputies Speaker Eduardo Cunha with a message that reads in Portuguese; "Bye thief! Now how about Temer?" in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, June 23, 2016. A key cabinet member in the administrations of Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff was arrested on Thursday for allegedly channeling millions of dollars in bribes for Brazil's Worker's Party. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Bernardo was planning minister until the end of 2010, when Silva's second term ended, but was later appointed communications minister for Rousseff. He left that job at the end of 2014. Investigators said in a news conference that he personally received about $2 million during his time in office and estimated the overall cost of the scheme in $30 million.

Bernardo's lawyers are calling the arrest illegal. His wife, Gleisi Hoffmann, is currently a senator and was Rousseff's former chief of staff. Both she and Bernardo are being investigated in a separate probe of state-run oil giant Petrobras, which has engulfed many of Brazil's top politicians.

The Worker's Party issued a statement to criticize the "unnecessary" police operation. "Amid a series of accusations of corruption involving politicians and businessmen, they assembled an operation in another attempt to criminalize the Worker's Party," the statement reads, in a reference to recent accusations against members of acting President Michel Temer's inner circle.

The evidence that fed the investigation that led to Bernardo's arrest also came from the Petrobras probe.

Federal police investigator Rodrigo de Campos Costa told journalists that the former minister received the payments through a law firm. He said that the scheme with technology firm Consist Software began after a company was hired by Brazil's Planning Ministry in 2009 and curiously kept only 30 percent of its payments. "The whole contract was a fraud," Costa said.

Consist did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Pension Minister Carlos Gabas, a close friend of Rousseff's, was questioned by police in relation to the case.

The arrest is a blow for Rousseff, who is now suspended from the presidency and trying to survive an impeachment trial at the Senate for allegedly breaking fiscal laws in 2015.

Although she has not been directly implicated, corruption accusations against key members of her party have sparked protests nationwide for two years now.
Instagram to allow users to translate posts with button

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP)  Instagram is aiming to increase interaction with users across the globe through a new translation button it plans to roll out in the next month.

The photo sharing app says the button will appear on feed stories and profile bios written in languages different from the language a user's phone or tablet is set to. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, says its community "has grown faster and become more global" than it ever imagined.

Instagram lists on its website 23 languages that will initially be supported by the new feature, including French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
The sun still was high in the sky Monday when the wagons circled southeast of Jamestown in a freshly cut hayfield. Horses had to be combed and fed. Supper preparations would begin at the chuck wagon. The fire needed to be built so families could gather as the night drew to a close.

The first leg of the journey was complete. The 97 travelers had covered a lot of ground  14.5 miles, to be precise.

The annual Fort Seward Wagon Train is making its 47th trip across the prairie this week. It departed Monday morning from the fort in Jamestown, heading southeast. The travelers will go toward Montpelier before looping back up to the fort by Saturday.

People annually come from all over the world to learn about how the land was settled. This years ride includes people from 10 states and one foreign country.

Rory Boland traveled the farthest to make this years 75-mile loop across the prairie. The London-based travel writer watched westerns as a child, and even losing most of his gear and belongings on the flight to North Dakota couldnt dampen his enthusiasm.

Its absolutely amazing, he said.

Boland, who is writing about the wagon train for BBC, said most people have heard of dude ranches or tourist cattle drives, but there was something about the thought of traveling the country in a covered wagon that appealed to him.

He joined the Fort Seward group because it travels in the West, where settlers homesteaded. The fact that it is guided by volunteers made it seem really special, he said. Boland hopes to take in the small towns of the state and would love to see a thunderstorm roll across the prairie.

Mary Ann Kaiser, of Streeter, finds the family togetherness brought on by the wagon train to be one of the great benefits to participants. Shes seen belligerent teens become respectful and distant family members become close.

Kaiser has been the registrar for the ride for 15 years. The first year her family went, her daughters were 9 and 11 and befriended girls from Maine and Texas.

They made their two best friends, and they still have those two best friends at 23 and 25, she said.

Kaiser and Sharon Kluwers, the secretary for the wagon train, have seen children grow up and bring their own children, and theyve seen friends become family.

It kind of gets in the blood, Kaiser said.

This year, the youngest participant is 5 months old, and the oldest 72 years old.

Weve had up to 86 (years old) since Ive been doing registrar, Kaiser said.

Of course, some people decide to sit out the ride as age and health concerns mount. But even then, they cant stay away. Marvin and Donna Wanzek, of Jamestown, have been involved since 1970, and Don and Sharilyn Beem, of Brighton, Ill., since the 1980s. They started as participants but became longtime staff members.

They arent on the wagon train this year, but Monday night, they came by to join the fun.

You cant not go, Donna Wanzek said.

Each day, the wagon train has a list of jobs for everyone, but all participants are encouraged to go beyond their one duty.

The more you get involved, the more fun you seem to have, Kaiser said.

If they just do the one job, then they are bored, Kluwers agreed.

The wagon train board works all year to plan the trip, board president Dean Sprunk said. They try to make the trip as authentic as it can be in a world of cell phones and paved roads. Jamestown Area Ambulance assigns a medic to the train in case of problems, and pickups and trailers travel between camps.

But as much as possible, they try to do things in the manner of the pioneers. They eat out of a chuck wagon. Participants are encouraged to dress the part and get into the spirit of the Old West. Along with the necessary work, there are nightly campfires, history lessons, crafts, a prairie Olympics and attempts at churning butter or ice cream. Parts of the wagons they use are from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

An education is what Paulette Goodman and two other teachers from Lookingglass Elementary School in Oregon are hoping to get. They got a Ford Family Foundation grant and decided they should go on a wagon train and bring what they learned back to the students.

They liked how the Fort Seward Wagon Train was about history and not a commercialized experience.

The attempts at the authentic experience also attracted Jim Bottomley, of Wisconsin, and his family. They were annoyed that wagon trains in other places cater in food and make the journey more of a vacation. The Fort Seward Wagon Train sought to show participants what it really was like to move across the Plains, he said.

One day in, Bottomley was hooked. He was enjoying the education, the experience, even the clothing.

If everything goes right, well be back next year, he said.
Congo opposition candidate sentenced to 3 years in absentia

KINSHASA, Congo (AP)  Authorities in Congo have sentenced opposition presidential candidate Moise Katumbi to three years in prison in absentia.

Katumbi's supporters have decried his sentence as a political move aimed at stopping him from running in the presidential election set for November.

Mukendi wa Mulumba, one of Katumbi's lawyers, said Thursday that his client's sentence violated international law.

The sentence handed down Wednesday along with a $1 million fine relates to allegations that Katumbi falsely acquired a building.

In a separate case, authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest on charges he had hired mercenaries to protect him.
Muller, Cuevas advance to Nottingham Open semifinals

NOTTINGHAM, England (AP)  Gilles Muller of Luxembourg reached his second semifinal on grass in three weeks at the Nottingham Open on Thursday.

Muller, serving superbly, aced Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine 14 times in a 6-3, 6-4 win. He lost only three points off his first serve.

In the short grass season, he has been runner-up in the Netherlands, and a quarterfinalist at Queen's last week. He's into the Nottingham semifinals for the third time.

The eighth-seeded Muller will play second-seeded Pablo Cuevas, who was into his first ATP semifinal on grass. The Argentine came to Nottingham with two career wins on grass and has won three in a row this week.

Cuevas saved a match point and beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus only on his fifth match point to prevail 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (8).
Parents of suspected terrorist to face trial in 2017

LONDON (AP)  The parents of a British Muslim convert who is believed to have joined the Islamic State group are set to stand trial in January for terrorism-related charges.

John Letts and Sally Lane are charged with funding terrorism for allegedly sending money to their 20-year-old son Jack Letts.

Jack Letts left his home in Oxford and travelled to Syria in 2014. He has been dubbed "Jihadi Jack" by some British media.

His parents are accused of transferring payments of roughly 1,750 pounds ($2,600) in 2015 and 2016. They were released on bail.
The Latest: Sheriff asks FBI to investigate arrest video

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  The Latest on the shooting death of a Louisiana sheriff's deputy (all times local):

5:55 p.m.

The sheriff in a Louisiana parish where a deputy was shot and killed says he has asked the FBI to help investigate a video that appears to show officers hitting the man suspected in the killing.

This photo provided by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office shows Deputy David F. Michel Jr. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot Michel multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office via AP)

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told a local television station Thursday that he'd asked the FBI to do a "... joint investigation as it relates to that happenstance in that video."

The video obtained by another TV station appears to show 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux being struck by officers during his arrest.

But Normand cautioned that the video also leaves many questions "unresolved." He pointed out officers were trying to get Neveaux under control and get his gun while they thought there was a second suspect nearby.

Authorities say Neveaux shot and killed the deputy Wednesday.

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4:20 p.m.

An official says funeral arrangements have been made for a sheriff's deputy who was shot and killed.

A spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, John Fortunato, said in a news release Thursday that Detective David Michel will be laid to rest Monday.

The public is invited for a viewing from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday at Believer's Life Family Church in Harvey.

That will be followed by a memorial service and then burial.

Authorities say Michel was shot three times by 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux after Michel tried to search him Wednesday. The shooting happened in the New Orleans suburb of Harvey in the middle of the afternoon.

Neveaux is being held on four charges including first degree murder.

1 p.m.

The 52-year-old grandmother of a man accused of killing a sheriff's deputy, alleged her grandson was beaten badly during his arrest.

Yvette Neveaux says hospital staff told family members that Jerman Neveaux was being treated for broken ribs and a broken jaw.

She says he weighs only 95 pounds, calling him a "toothpick."

Col. John Fortunato, a Jefferson Parish sheriff's office spokesman, says he has no details about the injuries Neveaux sustained or how he was injured.

The grandmother says her grandson was living with her while he tried to find a job. She wanted him to try to get a job at a nearby Wal-Mart.

____

11:00 a.m.

A law enforcement spokesman says the man accused of killing a sheriff's deputy faces four charges including first degree murder.

A spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, John Fortunato, said 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux was released from a New Orleans hospital early Thursday morning and taken to jail in Jefferson parish.

He faces four charges: first degree murder, assault, battery on a police officer, and resisting arrest.

Sheriff Newell Normand said Wednesday that Neveaux shot Detective David Michel three times after Michel tried to search him.

That sparked an intense manhunt for Neveaux who was later found in a backyard. He was taken to the hospital Wednesday, suffering from an orbital fracture and cuts and scrapes to his face.

1:50 a.m.

A Louisiana sheriff says the shooting of one of his deputies was a "cold-blooded murder."

Sheriff Newell Normand told reporters late Wednesday how a suspect who was about to be searched by Detective David Michel suddenly flipped around and shot the officer.

As Michel was going down the sheriff said the shooter fired two more shots into the deputy's back.

Authorities later found and arrested 19-year-old Jerman Neveaux. He's being held on charges of first degree murder and assault.

The sheriff says Neveaux was on probation and wasn't supposed to have a gun so he shot the officer.

MonaLisa Urbina, rear, and two friends, Thuy Nguyen, front left, and Kim Pham, lay flowers at a memorial for Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy David F. Michel Jr. in Harvey, La., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of the New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriff's deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (AP Photo/Cain Burdeau)

Flowers and other items are laid at a memorial where Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy David F. Michel Jr. was shot and killed in Harvey, La., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of the New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriff's deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (AP Photo/Cain Burdeau)

A holstered police gun lies in the street on Ascot Road at the scene of the shooting. Jefferson Parish, Louisiana State Police and other law enforcement personnel work the scene of a fatal shooting that took the life of Jefferson Parish sheriff deputy David F. Michel Jr. Wednesday June 22, 2016, in New Orleans. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriffs deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (G. Andrew Boyd/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP)

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Officers respond to the shooting death of a deputy who initiated a pedestrian stop in front of a Dunkin' Donuts Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Harvey, La. The pedestrian fired on the deputy and fled the scene and is still at large. (Matthew Hinton/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Officers respond to the shooting death of a deputy who initiated a pedestrian stop in front of a Dunkin' Donuts Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Harvey, La. The pedestrian fired on the deputy and fled the scene and is still at large. (Matthew Hinton/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana State Police and other law enforcement personnel work the scene of a fatal shooting that took the life of Jefferson Parish sheriff deputy David F. Michel Jr. Wednesday June 22, 2016, in New Orleans. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriffs deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (G. Andrew Boyd/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP)
The Latest: Union Pacific touts safety of fastening system

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  The Latest on the investigation into a June 3 fiery oil train derailment in Oregon (all times local):

12:40 a.m.

A spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad says the company's rail fastening system has an outstanding safety history.

FILE - In this June 6, 2016, file aerial video image taken from a drone, crumpled oil tankers lie beside the railroad tracks after a fiery train derailment on June 3, 2016, that prompted evacuations from the tiny Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Ore. Federal investigators on Thursday, June 23, 2016, blamed Union Pacific Railroad for the derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the derailment raise questions about why the company didn't find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment. (Brent Foster via AP, file) MANDATORY CREDIT

Spokesman Justin Jacobs' statement was in response to the Federal Railroad Administration's preliminary report on a June 3 fiery oil train derailment in the town of Mosier, Oregon. The report blamed Union Pacific for not properly maintaining its tracks and missing problems with bolts that fasten the rail ties to the rails.

Jacobs says the company will replace all the lag bolts with rail spikes, which will make problems easier to detect on inspections.

He also says an upgraded braking system called for by the Federal Railroad Administration wouldn't have made a difference in the severity of the derailment.

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8:45 a.m.

The mayor in a town where an oil train derailed says she is alarmed by a preliminary report blaming Union Pacific Railroad for not properly maintaining its track.

The Federal Railroad Administration said in the report obtained Thursday by the AP that inspections should have caught weakened or broken bolts that hold the rail ties to the rails.

Mayor Arlene Burns says the report on the June 3 wreck in Mosier raises questions about why Union Pacific didn't find the problem when it inspected the tracks three days before the derailment.

Officials say Union Pacific faces potential penalties for safety violations.

The derailment released 42,000 gallons of crude oil and sparked a massive fire that burned for 14 hours.

Justin Jacobs, a spokesman for Union Pacific, did not immediately return a call Thursday.

FILE - This June 2016 file photo provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation, shows south train rail tie plates and lag bolts at the site of a fiery June 3, 2016 train derailment in Mosier, Ore. Federal investigators on Thursday, June 23, 2016, blamed Union Pacific Railroad for the derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the derailment raise questions about why the company didn't find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment. (Oregon Department of Transportation via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT

FILE--This June, 2016 file photo provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation, shows train rail lag bolts collected at the site of a fiery June 3, 2016 train derailment in Mosier, Ore. Federal investigators on Thursday, June 23, 2016, blamed Union Pacific Railroad for the derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the derailment raise questions about why the company didn't find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment. (Oregon Department of Transportation via AP, file) MANDATORY CREDIT
Supreme Court tie favors tribal court authority

WASHINGTON (AP)  A Supreme Court tie has left in place the authority of Native American courts to judge complaints against people who are not tribal members.

The justices said Thursday they deadlocked 4-4 in a closely watched dispute between the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Dollar General Corp.

The Tennessee-based company was sued in tribal court in 2005 over allegations that a store manager made sexual advances toward a 13-year-old boy placed in his store by a tribal youth employment program. Dollar General asked federal courts to block the lawsuit. The boy's family is seeking $2.5 million.

The case threatened to limit the ability of tribal courts to resolve cases in which a member makes claims about a company doing business on tribal land.

The Supreme Court ruled more than 40 years ago that nonmembers can be sued only in tribal court when they have agreed to dealings with the tribe, including through a contract, lease or other business arrangement.

Lower courts ruled that such a connection exists between Dollar General and the Mississippi Choctaws. The Obama administration and Mississippi, among six states, supported the tribe.

Mississippi Choctaw Tribal Chief Phyliss Anderson called the result a positive outcome "not only for our tribe, but for all of Indian country."
AP Interview: NATO military chief: National forces are key

BYDGOSZCZ, Poland (AP)  The upcoming NATO summit should send a message to member states that they have the responsibility to provide the first line of defense of their own countries, the alliance's top military officer said Thursday.

Gen. Petr Pavel, chairman of NATO's Military Committee, said the 28-member alliance has the "strength and the determination to cope with the challenges presented by Russia," but the first forces to respond to a crisis will always be those of the affected nation.

Members at the NATO summit July 8-9 in Warsaw will hammer out the details of the deployment of some 4,000 multinational troops in the Baltic states and in Poland in the coming months, among other measures. But those troops are not the only defense the alliance is mustering in the region, which is concerned by Russia's actions. Some observers say the number is not very high.

Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Czech General Petr Pavel is talking during an interview with The Associated Press at the Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Thursday, June 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Russia's conflict with non-NATO member Ukraine has sent a chill through countries on the alliance's eastern flank and brought more attention to military readiness.

"Defense in line with the NATO treaty starts with the countries," Pavel said. "Article 3 is talking about the need for every country to do anything the country is possible to provide for its own defense."

"If there is crisis ... it will always be the nation who is affected to act as the first," Pavel, a four-star general in the Czech Army, told The Associated Press.

NATO's multinational forces are "secondary to respond" and "will be placed to provide much shorter reaction time, but national forces will always be the first who should respond," he said.

Pavel said he would like the summit in Poland to send the message to European members that they should "demonstrate greater responsibility for their own security and defense" and address the fact that they spend much less on defense than the U.S. does. Poland is among the few NATO members to spend the expected 2 percent of its GDP on defense. Most member nations spend significantly less.

Russia may have the advantage of quick, centralized decision-making and free movement of its troops on its own territory not far from NATO borders, but NATO's ability to act swiftly and defend its members shouldn't be underestimated, Pavel said.

The alliance represents a population of almost 1 billion people and half of the world's GDP as well as a combined military that is in many aspects superior to that of Russia. Its policy has been to stay purely defensive and moderate in measures, but at the same time remain very efficient, while stepping up defense, he said.

"I believe NATO will prevail. We are 28 and if we stay 28 and we stay committed to common values and common interests I believe that there is no force" able to overcome us, Pavel said.

He spoke after an exercise that tested the alliance's ability to coordinate their use of information technology at a Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, central Poland.

Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Czech General Petr Pavel is talking during an interview with The Associated Press at the Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Thursday, June 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Participants of exercises in the field of computer systems are meeting in their break in front of the Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Thursday, June 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Czech General Petr Pavel is talking during an interview with The Associated Press at the Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Thursday, June 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Obama concedes court tie means game over on immigration plan

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama sought to reassure millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally that he has no plans to deport them, while acknowledging that the Supreme Court's deadlock Thursday marks the end of the road for his push to reform the U.S. immigration system.

Though Obama predicted an immigration overhaul is inevitable, he conceded it won't happen while he's president due to opposition from the current Congress. Working to lay the groundwork for the next president to pick up the effort, he cast the election in November as a referendum on how the country would treat its immigrants.

"We're going to have to make a decision about whether we are a people who tolerate the hypocrisy of a system where the workers who pick our fruit or make our beds never have the chance to get right with the law," Obama said. "Or whether we're going to give them a chance, just like our forebears had a chance, to take responsibility and give their kids a better future."

President Barack Obama speaks in the White House briefing room in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, on the Supreme Court decision on immigration. A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obama's immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Obama spoke at the White House in an appearance hastily arranged after a tie vote in the Supreme Court effectively killed his plans to shield millions from deportation and grant them work permits. Because the high court couldn't agree, a lower court's ruling blocking his executive actions remains in place, putting an indefinite freeze on what the White House had hoped would be the heart of the Obama's legacy on immigration.

Obama's plan aimed to temporarily remove the threat of deportation for up to four million immigrants, building on an earlier Obama plan affecting people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Though the court's move means that expanded group won't be eligible for work permits, Obama said his administration would continue prioritizing deportations only for new arrivals and those with criminal records.

"As long as you have not committed a crime, our limited immigration enforcement resources are not focused on you," he said.

Still, Obama called the outcome a "frustration" and said it was "heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here."

Obama had long said he didn't have the executive authority to expand his first deferred action program, telling activists they should focused their attention on pressure Congress, not the White House. But advocates continued to blast Obama for tightening enforcement of current laws at the border. When a leading advocate called him the "deporter in chief," Obama bristled at the label and within months had changed course.

The president used the court's deadlock as a fresh opportunity to chide Republicans for refusing to consider his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. He lamented that policies he announced two years ago "can't go forward at this stage until there is a ninth justice on the court to break the tie."

Obama said the onus would now fall on the next president. In a veiled critique of GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump and his calls for a border wall, Obama said the U.S. needn't "wall ourselves off" from those who look different.

"It is my firm belief that immigration is not something to fear," Obama said.

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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

President Barack Obama pauses while speaking in the White House briefing room in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, on the Supreme Court decision on immigration. A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obama's immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Parents wonder how to protect children who fly alone

DALLAS (AP)  The arrests this month of two men on charges of groping young girls on planes has raised questions about the safety of minors who fly alone.

Experts say that before putting children on a plane alone, parents should teach them to immediately get help if another person makes them uncomfortable. Parents should also understand that flight attendants aren't baby sitters.

There are no federal regulations, so the airlines set their own rules for minors flying alone. Most limit the youngest kids to nonstop flights to avoid the added confusion and risk of connecting to another plane. Some limit the number of solo children on any one flight.

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's office shows Chad Camp, who is accused of groping a 13-year-old girl on a flight from Dallas to Portland, Ore. The arrests in June 2016 of two men on charges of groping young girls on planes has raised questions about the safety of minors who fly alone. There are no federal regulations, so the airlines set their own rules. Most limit the youngest kids to nonstop flights to avoid the added confusion and risk of connecting to another plane. Some limit the number of solo children on any one flight. (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT

Most U.S. airlines offer to take unaccompanied children as young as 5 for an extra fee of up to $300 per round trip. The carriers promise to help kids get on and off the plane. Flight attendants know when there is an unaccompanied minor on board, but airlines don't add an extra attendant to watch children. Flight attendants still have to attend to other passengers and serve drinks and snacks during flights.

Parents put children on planes by themselves for many reasons including traveling to visit a divorced parent, to see grandparents, or to attend a summer camp.

"They don't realize how little is done for unaccompanied minors for that $300," says Summer Hull, who writes about family travel on her Mommy Points blog. "It's not like they have a nanny on board."

Last week, 26-year-old Chad Cameron Camp of Gresham, Oregon, was arrested and charged with abusive sexual contact after an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Portland, Oregon. According to an FBI agent's statement, Camp sat in a middle seat next to a 13-year-old girl even though there were empty seats nearby including the aisle seat in the same row. He declined a flight attendant's offer to move.

When a flight attendant returned later to serve snacks to passengers, she saw Camp's hand on the girl's crotch, according to the arrest complaint. The girl was crying.

Hull said the man's insistence on sitting next to the girl "was a huge red flag."

In a statement, American said it is committed to providing a safe experience for young travelers and was cooperating with law enforcement officials who are investigating the incident.

This week, Jesse Salas, 23, of Redondo Beach, California, was charged with misdemeanor assault in Seattle after allegedly groping and kissing a 16-year-old girl who had fallen asleep shortly after the Alaska Airlines plane took off from Portland. The girl was flying alone but not as a special unaccompanied-minor traveler, according to the airline.

Reports of children and teens being molested or lost when traveling alone aren't common but get lots of news coverage.

Last year, a 57-year-old man was arrested after an unaccompanied girl said the man touched her and used his foot to rub her crotch during an American Airlines flight from New York to Chicago. The man had moved to an empty seat next to the girl during the flight. A federal judge acquitted him, saying prosecutors failed to prove their case. The girl's family is suing American.

Last summer, an 11-year-old boy was lost at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, for about 30 minutes until his grandfather found him. United said that a flight attendant had asked the boy to stay on the plane after it landed and didn't notice when he left with other passengers.

Neither the government nor the airline industry track the number of unaccompanied minors, so figures are hard to find. A proposal to require the government to collect and make public the number of sexual assaults on airplanes died in Congress.

There are signs that parents are getting more nervous about letting their children fly alone.

British Airways, which flies to the U.S., stopped taking bookings for unaccompanied children in February. Spokeswoman Caroline Titmuss said demand for the service had fallen by two-thirds over the past decade and 21 percent in 2015 alone. She said she didn't know the cause of the decline, but added that only 2 percent of passengers between 5 and 11 were flying alone.

Most U.S. airlines allow children under 15 fly alone, although discount carrier Allegiant Air does not. Age restrictions and fees vary. Usually an adult must accompany the minor to the departure gate and another adult must meet the minor at the arrival gate  both adults will need photo identification and passes to go beyond security checkpoints.

Experts offer tips for parents who book children for solo travel. Hull, who is contemplating a solo flight this summer for her 6-year-old daughter to visit her grandmother, suggests that children take an aisle seat near the front of the plane to be more visible to flight attendants.

Travel writer Amy Graff says parents need to talk to their kids about what to do when somebody touches them or does anything that makes them uncomfortable.

"You have the right to scream," says the mother of three, whose two oldest, now 13 and 11, have flown by themselves.

Other suggestions:

 Even with older children who are allowed to take connecting flights, book a nonstop if available.

 Pick flights early in the day. Delays tend to build during the day, so flying in the morning will reduce the risk of the child being stranded overnight.

 When you take your child to the gate, ask who will accompany them on and off the plane and whether another passenger will sit next to them.

 Don't leave the airport until the plane takes off.

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The U.S. Department of Transportation has a guide for children flying alone: http://1.usa.gov/28SFUDk
Turkey acquits Briton accused of making 'terror propaganda'

ISTANBUL (AP)  A Turkish court on Thursday acquitted a British scholar who had been accused of "making propaganda for a terrorist organization."

Chris Stephenson, a computer science lecturer at Bilgi University, was deported from Turkey in March after being found with invitations for Kurdish New Year celebrations. He was later allowed to return to the country, where he rejoined his Turkish wife and daughter.

Stephenson was among 1,000 scholars who signed a declaration denouncing military operations against Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey. The declaration had angered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and led to legal proceedings against some.

Stephenson declared during his trial that, "Wanting peace is not a crime."

He also called for the release and acquittal of two journalists and another academic who were arrested this week after showing solidarity with a pro-Kurdish publication, Ozgur Gundem, which has been subjected to multiple investigations and lawsuits.

On Monday, a Turkish court placed Reporters Without Borders' Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu, journalist Ahmet Nesin and academic Sebnem Korur Fincanci in pretrial arrest over charges of disseminating "terrorist propaganda."

The three had participated in a solidarity campaign that involved acting as chief editor for a day for the pro-Kurdish publication.
A special use permit to demolish a vacant office building and former grocery store for 21 more bank parking spaces downtown was approved by the Bismarck Planning and Zoning Commission Wednesday despite city planning staff's recommendation to deny the request.

City planning staff objected to the demolition and parking lot at 411 N. Fourth St. for the American Bank Center on the grounds that a parking lot there would be incompatible with nearby land uses, character and zoning.

Staff noted that the bank benefited from $318,529 in Renaissance Zone property tax breaks for two of its other nearby buildings -- 320 N. Fourth St. and 401 N. Fourth St. as Renaissance Zone.

"It would not make sense to provide tax incentives to a business in the downtown area and then allow the same business to tear down a building to create a surface parking lot, especially when parking ramps are available within a few blocks of this property," said Kim Lee, managing planner for the Bismarck Community Development Department, in her memo.

Lee described the former Red Owl building built in 1951 as in average condition, but Planning Commissioner Brian Bitner,said he toured it and disagreed. He said the challenges of upgrading it would be viable considering mold, asbestos and deterioration.

Jonus Elston, Bismarck Region President of American Bank Center, reminded planning commissioners that the bank had invested $8 million in downtown Bismarck and the nearest parking ramp was three blocks away, an inconvenience for both bank customers and employees in poor weather.

Before the decision, the North Dakota WatchDog Network, a group that monitors government spending, voiced opposition that the city could infringe on property ownership rights of the bank in a phone interview.

The 9,100 square-foot building is valued at $459,000.

Granny flats

Planning and zoning commissioners also cleared up the city code on accessory housing units or "granny flats." Daniel Nairn, a city planner said the city now has an ordinance that allows single family homeowners to create a separate living space on their parcel for relatives to live or to rent out to others. These are often known as "granny flats," a place for a senior relative or a grown child to live, but they could be made available to rent out. This follows Mayor Mike Seminary's effort to create a denser space within city borders to discourage urban sprawl. Seminary also serves on the planning commission.

Nairn said city ordinance previously had no classification for accessory housing units.

"This would allow an additional living unit inside the house or access on the same property," said Nairn. Under the plan, the property owner must live on the property to qualify.

A public hearing for this special use permit and all neighbors affected by an accessory building would be notified of the hearing if they lived within 300 feet of the affected parcel, Nairn said.

The accessory homes could be near the home, but not in the front yard. These accessory homes must be bigger than 300 feet, but no bigger than the existing single family home and must meet city setback codes, Nairn said. The "granny flat" can not measure higher than the single family home it accompanies.

The accessory living buildings must include a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom space for bathing and toilet uses and must have adequate utility and sewage hookups according to city ordinance.
Second body found as searchers seek missing family in Gulf

MIAMI (AP)  A second body was recovered Thursday as crews continued searching the Gulf of Mexico for a family missing off of southwest Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard reported.

Cape Coral Fire and Rescue found the body Thursday morning, about 4 miles from where searchers found another body Wednesday, a Coast Guard news release said.

Authorities have not released the identity of either body.

This photo made available by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a kayak recovered within a debris field off the coast of Sanibel, Fla., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The kayak and other personal items are believed to belong to a father and his three teenage children who were reported missing while they were aboard a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)

Also on Thursday searchers found a sailboat mast.

U.S. Coast Guard crews had spotted what appeared to be a white flare early Thursday morning.

"Again we continue to hold out hope," Capt. Gregory Case said in a news conference Thursday. "It's an active search and rescue mission."

But officials said the outlook appeared "dire."

Case said rescue crews found a bucket with items that belonged to Ace Kimberly, 45, and children, Roger, 13, Donny, 15 and Rebecca, 17. It contained birth certificates, a GPS, wallet, cellphone and cigarettes, Case said. The bucket was found about 5  miles away from where the body was found Wednesday afternoon. Searchers also found a tool box and a pool noodle.

The father and children had been living on the boat in Sarasota Bay. They went missing Sunday while traveling to Fort Myers, about 77 miles south of Sarasota, to fix their boat, Case said.

Kimberly contacted his brother that afternoon, saying they were caught up in "6-foot waves and thunderstorms," Case said. The brother reported them missing Tuesday and the Coast Guard immediately launched search crews by air and sea.

On Wednesday, two kayaks were found but only one was identified as belonging to the missing family, the Coast Guard said. During a search on Thursday morning, another kayak was found that belonged to the Kimberly family.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt., Gregory Case, right, speaks during a news conference regarding the missing family members Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. According to the Coast Guard Sector in St. Petersburg, a concerned family member stated that the missing family was last heard from Sunday morning when they left Sarasota, Fla., to sail to Fort Myers to repair the boat. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

This photo made available by the U.S. Coast Guard shows personal items that were recovered within a debris field off the coast of Sanibel, Fla., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The personal items are believed to belong to a father and his three teenage children who were reported missing while they were aboard a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
Puerto Rico median age reaches historic 40 years amid crisis

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  The median age of Puerto Rico's population has reached its highest level in the island's history at 40 years old and now tops that of the U.S. mainland by more than two years, officials said Thursday.

The U.S. territory is experiencing a flight of young professionals amid a decades-long economic crisis, which government officials say is further aggravated by the island's shrinking and aging population. Puerto Rico is struggling to restructure $70 billion in public debt as it faces challenges including a shriveling tax base.

The U.S. Census Bureau said Puerto Rico's median age had reached 40 compared to 37.8 for the U.S. mainland.
Chief: W. Virginia officer shoots, wounds car theft suspect

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (AP)  West Virginia State Police are investigating after an officer shot and wounded a suspect while investigating a report of a stolen car.

A statement from state police says the Fairmont officer fired at 48-year-old Stephen Anthony Haller when he drove the vehicle in an aggressive and threatening manner toward police.

Fairmont Police Chief Steve Shine told the Times West Virginian (http://bit.ly/28ZKO13) that officers were called Wednesday evening to investigate a report of a stolen car in a restaurant parking lot and found the vehicle with two people inside.

Police said Haller was taken into custody and treated at a hospital. Police also took his passenger, 40-year-old Laciana Roush, into custody.

Officials said both will face charges in connection with the stolen vehicle.

The officer was not identified.

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US sanctions Congo police chief, prompting sharp rebuke

KINSHASA, Congo (AP)  Congo's government is denouncing the U.S. government's sanctioning of a top police official who activists say is linked to dozens of deaths.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced Thursday it is adding Celestin Kanyama to its Specially Designated Nationals List.

Congo's embassy in Washington called the move "an infringement on our sovereignty."

Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, a diplomatic adviser to Congo's President Joseph Kabila, warned the decision would undermine relations and "embolden those who seek to divide our nation."

Kanyama is the police chief in Congo's capital, Kinshasa. The Treasury statement says that "under his leadership, police forces engaged in the targeting of civilian protestors through acts of violence."
Florida Keys delays residents' vote on GMO mosquitoes

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP)  Florida Keys officials have delayed a referendum on releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of a disease-carrying species.

Federal regulators still have to approve the proposal by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District and the biotech firm Oxitec.

The non-binding Monroe County vote had been scheduled Aug. 30. The district's five-member board decided Wednesday to postpone it until November.

The Citizen reports (http://bit.ly/28QhBnK ) that the board also voted 3-2 against a proposal to rescind its authorization of the referendum. Commissioners Phil Goodman and Tom McDonald argued the vote sets a precedent that would force the board to hold referendums on the use of other mosquito control innovations.

Oxitec releases male mosquitoes that mate with wild females but pass on genes that keep their offspring from surviving to adulthood.

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AP leadership changes: Phillips, Daniszewski get new posts

NEW YORK (AP)  The Associated Press announced key changes to its news leadership Thursday, naming Ian Phillips as its vice president for international news and his predecessor, John Daniszewski, as editor at large for standards.

Phillips, currently AP's Middle East news director, will be responsible for all of the organization's editors, reporters, photographers and video journalists outside the United States. Phillips has led efforts to coordinate coverage across all news formats in his previous regional posts and will take charge of expanding that approach to all of AP's international operations this year.

Coordination across formats  including text, video and photos  is already employed by AP journalists in places including Russia and regional hubs in London, Cairo, Mexico City and Bangkok. Phillips, who headed AP's first all-formats region in eastern and central Europe, will work to expand it in a push to speed and simplify decision-making by news leaders in the field.

Ian Phillips poses for a photo in Prague, Czech Republic, on Tuesday, June 21, 2016. The Associated Press named Phillips as its vice president for international news on Thursday, June 23. (Monika Berdnardova/Centrum FotoSkoda via AP)

"Ian is a passionate champion of this collaborative approach, quick to share and celebrate the successes it has brought us already," Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor and senior vice president said in a note to the staff announcing the changes.

Phillips will take over from Daniszewski, a veteran of overseas reporting who has led AP's international text news coverage for more than a decade. In his new role, Daniszewski will be in charge of addressing the many questions on ethics and standards involved in daily news coverage in the U.S. and around the world, as well as working on special reporting projects.

Both Phillips and Daniszewski will be based in AP's New York headquarters, assuming their new positions on July 1.

Phillips, who is British, joined the AP in 1994 in Argentina, where he had previously worked for Reuters and The Buenos Aires Herald. After reporting from Latin America, he worked for the news cooperative in Paris, London and New York. In 2004, he returned to London as deputy editor for Europe and Africa, before being named head of the Prague-based hub for coverage of eastern and central Europe.

He has directed coverage of the Middle East for the past three years, part of a team that launched Middle East Extra, a premium video service. Phillips, who speaks Spanish, French and German in addition to English, is currently part of the 2016 Sulzberger Leadership Program at Columbia University.

Daniszewski rejoined the AP in 2006 from the Los Angeles Times after spending 20 years as a reporter and editor in more than 70 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. His leadership of AP's international news coverage included a ramping up of enterprise reporting and the launch of an international investigations team.
Autopsy: Oklahoma inmate's death a homicide; no charges yet

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)  Prosecutors were awaiting the results of a state agency's investigation Thursday before deciding whether to file charges in the case of an Oklahoma inmate who was restrained by jail staff and died of strangulation.

An autopsy determined Darius Robinson, 41, died from asphyxiation caused by "manual compression of the neck" in April while he was held at Caddo County Jail about 60 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma. The medical examiner classified Robinson's death as a homicide.

"No charges have been filed at this point," Caddo County District Attorney Justin Hicks told The Associated Press in an emailed statement. "The case is under investigation by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation."

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma said in the report last week that Robinson died from asphyxiation caused by manual compression of the neck in April 2016, while he was held at Caddo County Jail

The probe is still ongoing with no certain deadline for completion, OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.

The state agency had been waiting to put the autopsy ruling in its report, said Brown, adding, "I don't think it will be that much longer to get it pulled together." She also said that depends on how busy investigators are with other cases.

Medical examiner spokeswoman Amy Elliott said a summary of events surrounding Robinson's death in the autopsy report was informed by an account provided by the Caddo County Sheriff's Office.

According to that account, Robinson became violent and agitated and charged at jailers, who used pepper spray and placed him in a neck hold to subdue him. Robinson became unresponsive while handcuffed on the floor, the sheriff's office told the medical examiner.

Caddo County undersheriff Spencer Davis said Thursday that the sheriff's office was referring all requests for comment to OSBI, which is declining further comment before the report is released.

Davis did not provide a copy of the sheriff's office incident report when initially requested, saying the "very basic report" was submitted to the district attorney and OSBI, and that they would decide whether to release it to the media.

The district attorney's office and OSBI did not immediately reply Thursday to a request for that incident report. Elliott said the medical examiner's office was not authorized to release the sheriff's office's incident report.
FBI: Utah militia leader planned to bomb US-owned cabin

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  A Utah militia group leader with ties to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has been arrested and charged with attempting to blow up a rural, federally-owned cabin in Arizona, federal authorities said Thursday.

An FBI agent said in charging documents that William Keebler, 57, was planning to retaliate against the federal government that he felt was harassing people and imposing overreaching grazing restrictions on ranchers.

Keebler is a the leader of citizen militia group called the Patriots Defense Force in Stockton, Utah, about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City, according to the charging documents.

Authorities say undercover FBI employees followed Keebler as he planned to set off an explosive outside a U.S. Bureau of Land Management cabin in the northern Arizona area of Mt. Trumbull.

Keebler traveled to the Arizona cabin Tuesday night with militia members and undercover FBI employees. An inactive explosive was placed against the door and Keebler was handed a remote detonation device and pushed it several times, according to the FBI.

The FBI arrested Keebler in Utah on Wednesday morning. He faces one count of attempting to damage federal property with an explosive. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, according to U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch.

Keebler wore camouflage clothes and had his hands shackled in front of him during a brief hearing to inform him of the charges Thursday. His lawyer declined to comment.

His friend Pete Olson said outside the courtroom he'd been to meetings of Keebler's militia, but never heard any talk of violence.

"This militia group is kind of like grown up Boy Scouts," he said. Keebler is something of a survivalist with his own farm who often carries a gun, but Olson said he's never known him to be around explosives.

"That's not the Bill I like and I know, but I know that people get pushed beyond their limits sometimes," he said.

According to the FBI, Keebler was at Cliven Bundy's Nevada ranch during a 2014 armed standoff with federal officials who were rounding up Bundy's cattle over unpaid grazing fees.

He was also an associate of Arizona rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, who served as a spokesman for Bundy's son, Ammon Bundy, and other ranchers involved in an armed standoff at an Oregon wildlife refuge earlier this year.

The FBI says Finicum accompanied Keebler last October when scouting out the BLM facility in Arizona. Finicum was shot and killed by authorities during a Jan. 26 traffic stop that led to Bundy's arrest.

After Finicum's death, Keebler and members of his militia group discussed repercussions against a government they said was harassing people and imposing overreaching restrictions on ranchers, according to the FBI.

The militia group scouted out a BLM office in downtown Salt Lake City but abandoned the idea because it was near a shopping mall and homeless population, making it highly visible. Instead, they settled on the BLM cabin in Mt. Trumbull.

It's unclear what the cabin is used for.
Former Defense Department employee pleads guilty to bribery

SAN DIEGO (AP)  A retired government contracting supervisor pleaded guilty to bribery Thursday, admitting he accepted more than $300,000 from a Malaysian businessman nicknamed "Fat Leonard" whom prosecutors say bilked the armed forces out of more than $34 million in one of the Navy's worst corruption cases.

Paul Simpkins, 62, who worked for the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery in federal court in San Diego. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9. The bribery charge carries a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

Simpkins, of Haymarket, Virginia, admitted to accepting the money, travel, and the services of prostitutes in exchange for helping Singapore-based businessman Leonard Francis and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, land multi-million dollar contracts servicing Navy ships in Asia.

Prosecutors say Simpkins worked to suspend at least one of Francis' competitors, prevented staff from reviewing the company's invoices, and overruled a lieutenant who recommended against extending one of the company's contracts because of high prices. Simpkins has agreed to pay back the Navy $450,000, according to his plea agreement. His lawyer, John Lemon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Simpkins is among 14 people charged so far in the scandal centered on the gregarious Francis, nicknamed "Fat Leonard" because of his large girth. All but three have pleaded guilty.

Known for lavish dinners and parties attended by U.S. Navy officers for decades, Francis pleaded guilty to bribery charges last year and is awaiting sentencing.

Investigators say Francis' dealings with Simpkins started as early as 2005 when Simpkins served as a supervisory contract official in Singapore. At the time the Navy was looking at awarding long, potentially extendable contracts for providing food and supplies to ships off Thailand and the Philippines.

Simpkins helped Francis land one contract in Thailand worth more than $7 million, according to the prosecution. The two met at a hotel in Singapore on multiple occasions to discuss the scheme, according to court documents.

Simpkins had Francis wire the money to an account in Japan belonging to Simpkins' wife, who is Japanese, to hide the bribes, according to federal investigators. Simpkins also used fictitious email accounts, including one in the name of his mistress, and would cover up the bribes by calling them real estate investments when writing to Francis.

In January 2007, Simpkins issued orders for officials in Hong Kong to stop using meters to measure the flows of liquid waste removed from Navy ships, which would have provided proof of Francis' company overcharging for its services, according to court documents.

In May 2007, Simpkins wrote to Francis in an email that he wanted to accept a job at the U.S. Department of Justice but that he would continue to be a "friend" and of use to him since Pentagon lawyers worked there, according to court documents. Simpkins later returned to working for the Department of Defense in its small business programs office. Investigators said the two continued their mutually beneficial relationship through September 2012.

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Obama heads to West Coast for business summit, fundraising

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Barack Obama is heading to the West Coast for a three-day trip that includes face time with Facebook's billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg and raising campaign cash for Democratic candidates.

Obama speaks Friday at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, a conference for aspiring entrepreneurs in San Jose, California. The White House says entrepreneurs from more than 140 countries will attend, including a contingent from Cuba. They'll attend sessions aimed at helping them advance their businesses.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes says promoting entrepreneurship fosters collaboration around the world. He says the more the U.S. helps emerging economies, the more they become markets for American goods.

Obama also participates in a panel with Zuckerberg that's airing on Facebook Live.
Victims advocate groups are the latest among state organizations to line up in opposition to a victims rights constitutional measure being bankrolled by an out-of-state businessman.

A few dozen activists along with states attorneys and defense lawyers groups gathered Thursday at the Radisson hotel in Bismarck to speak out on the Marsys Law for North Dakota measure. Those gathered called it a broad unfunded mandate that could divert resources away from existing programs and services to victims.

The Marsys Law measure would change the state constitution to place victims rights on the same level as the accused, rather than just in statute.

North Dakota Victim Assistance Association President Darla Juma said voters shouldnt accept a measure pushed by a California businessman but instead work with the Legislature to develop solutions.

Juma said Marsys Law could clog the court system with minor offenses.

Marsys Law puts a $5 check case on the same legal footing as a rape or murder case, Juma said.

Juma said when the measure was first announced in December she thought it sounded like a good idea but she changed her mind after reviewing the measure further and discussing it with supporters.

Marsys Law conflicts with some of our current victim rights laws that are working very well and will require crime victims to testify in court more often, Juma said.

Janelle Moos, executive director of the Council on Abused Women's Services North Dakota, agreed. She said the state already has a set of 18 rights for victims and witnesses in statute, including the right to be notified of the status of an investigation and be informed of services available.

Victims have multifaceted needs, and a one-size-fits-all approach doesnt work, Moos said of Marsys Law.

Moos said the measure does create an opportunity to begin a discussion on potential legislative improvements to state programs for the next session.

Renee Stromme, executive director of the North Dakota Women's Network, echoed much of Juma and Moos statements.

Amending the constitution is a serious matter, Stromme said. This is especially true when an amendment deals with such critical issues as violent crime justice for our people.

Kathleen Wrigley, chairwoman of Marsys Law for North Dakota, called out opponents from the various groups in a statement prior to Thursdays press conference.

Today, a few prosecutors and victims advocates are showing their callous disregard for equal rights for crime victims in North Dakota. Instead, these groups are endorsing the complacency of the status quo where crime victims in North Dakota are outright ignored by the criminal justice system making them to feel victimized all over again, Wrigley said. These prosecutors and victim advocates are telling voters today that offenders rights are more important than those they victimize.

The Marsys Law for North Dakota measure contains provisions allowing for notification of hearings in the judicial process and notification if the accused person escapes custody. It also calls for taking victims and their familys welfare into consideration when setting bail for the criminals.

Henry Nicholas, a California businessman and main proponent of Marsys Law, has provided more than $1 million for pushing the measure in North Dakota.

Nicholas efforts to pass Marsys Law came following the death of Marsalee Marsy Nicholas, who was stalked and killed by her ex-boyfriend in California in 1983. So far, the law has passed in California and Illinois.
Lewis, who shed blood for civil rights, leads Dems on guns

WASHINGTON (AP)  Rep. John Lewis, who shed blood in Selma for civil rights, sat shoulder to shoulder with fellow Democrats on the House floor as the leader of an extraordinary protest demanding votes on gun control.

Instead of grainy black-and-white photos, color selfies with colleagues went out on social media and Periscope transmitted live video images around the world. Instead of Alabama State Troopers, the Democratic minority spoke out. And after more than 25 hour of speeches, shouts and disruptions by dozens of Democrats, the sit-in ended Thursday with words from Lewis, his colleagues packed closed around him.

Speaking in alternately hushed and booming tones, Lewis told them that the fight over gun control is not over despite the Democrats' failure to even get a vote from the Republican-led House.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, accompanied by fellow House Democrats, from left, House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn of S.C. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and others, speaks on Capitol,Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after House Democrats ended their sit-in protest. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

"It is a struggle, but we are going to win this struggle," the Georgia congressman said forcefully, vowing to return to the fight next month when Congress returns.

It was a long way from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

In 1965, Lewis crossed that bridge with Martin Luther King, Jr., and was beaten and gassed by police. The violent images stirred outrage that helped President Lyndon Johnson push the Voting Rights Act through Congress.

Words and sounds echoed across decades to today's protest, a '60s-style sit-in on the carpeted House chamber. This one was driven by the Orlando shooting this month that killed 49 in a gay nightclub, and other shootings.

The Democrats sang the civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome," while Republicans tried to outmaneuver them with dead-of-night votes on the floor. Lewis and a handful of other House Democrats planned the protest over the last several days, recognizing that it had to be dramatic.

"Thank you for getting in trouble! Good trouble," Lewis, 76, told his colleagues Wednesday evening, giving one of several rousing speeches as lawmakers settled in for the night. He applauded their efforts to "protest what is right."

"We have turned a deaf ear to the blood of innocents," he said of gun violence. "We are blind to a crisis. Where is our courage?"

Republicans, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., decried the protest as a publicity stunt, arguing that the legislation would infringe on the constitutional right to bear arms.

Ryan waved copies of Democratic fundraising appeals based on the protest. Some said "Stand with John Lewis."

"If this is not a political stunt, they why are they trying to raise money off of it?" he asked on Thursday.

Democrats recalled Lewis's historic walk as they vowed to keep pressing the issue.

"I think this may be a Selma-like moment relating to gun violence in the United States of America," said Michigan Rep. Sander Levin.

Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who was once arrested along with Lewis and other Democrats at a protest over immigration, said people understand the role Lewis played in the civil rights movement, and that he won.

"I think there's a feeling when John Lewis takes on a cause that he isn't going to give up until we win," she said.

Introducing Lewis for that final speech Thursday, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn spoke emotionally about his friend of almost six decades. He said of anyone who would call his protest a political stunt: "They don't know John Lewis."

Lewis was first elected to his Atlanta-based district in 1986. Overall, his tenure has been less marked by leadership on legislation and more as an inspirational member of the Democratic caucus. He's not as spry as he was in the 1960s. When he needed to get up from the House floor from time to time, several colleagues had to help.

But he's embraced the times. His office tweeted lines from his speeches throughout the protest, including the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak. According to Twitter, that hashtag and #HoldTheFloor have been tweeted more than 1.4 million times.

In a tweet Thursday morning, Lewis said "I still feel young at heart."

The response has been diverse  from Myrlie Evers, widow of slain civil rights activist Medger Evers, who sent out a blog post supporting Lewis, to reality television star Kim Kardashian West, who tweeted a photo of the congressman in solidarity with the House Democrats.

President Barack Obama weighed in on Twitter as well.

"Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most," he said.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MCJalonick

From left, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, accompanied by, from left, House Assistant Minority Leader Rep. James Clyburn of S.C., Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., sing "We Shall Overcome" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after House Democrats ended their sit-in protest. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left, accompanied by Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., center, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., gestures as he speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after House Democrats ended their sit in protest on the House floor. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Louisiana mourns lost officer as 2 more officers wounded

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A 19-year-old suspect accused of killing a Louisiana sheriff's deputy faces four charges including first-degree murder Thursday, as a state reeling from that slaying learned that two more deputies were wounded in a separate incident.

The first shooting happened Wednesday when authorities say Jerman Neveaux shot a sheriff's deputy, David F. Michel Jr., three times in a New Orleans suburb in broad daylight and then escaped into the surrounding neighborhood before being captured.

The second happened Thursday in northeast Louisiana when two deputies were wounded trying to serve warrants.

Abrel Smith, a police officer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, kneels down in prayer Thursday, June 23, 2016, at a memorial near where Jefferson Parish Sheriffs deputy David Michel Jr. was fatally shot in Harvey, La. Deputy Michel was killed during a pedestrian stop near the intersection of Manhattan Blvd. and Ascot Road on Wednesday. (Brett Duke/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; USA TODAY OUT; THE BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE OUT; THE NEW ORLEANS ADVOCATE OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

Neveaux faces four charges: first-degree murder, assault, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said Neveaux shot Michel after Michel tried to search him. The sheriff said Neveaux was on probation and didn't want to go to jail if Michel found the weapon he was carrying.

"So he killed the deputy," Normand said. "What do you say about that?"

The conduct of the officers who apprehended Neveaux after an intense search has also come under scrutiny after a video shown on WVUE-TV appears to show officers hitting him.

Normand said Wednesday night that his office was investigating the video and then on Thursday said he'd asked the FBI to do a joint investigation.

"I've communicated with the FBI today and asked them to join with us in a joint investigation as it relates to that happenstance in that video," Normand told WWL-TV. He also said they have been trying to contact the person who shot the video.

But Normand cautioned that the video leaves many questions "unresolved." He pointed out that officers were trying to get Neveaux under control and get his gun while they thought there was a second suspect nearby. He said it was still unknown whether Neveaux was struck by Michel and said Neveaux jumped a number of fences trying to elude police.

Neveaux's grandmother accused authorities on Thursday of beating up her grandson during his arrest. Yvette Neveaux said hospital staff told family members Jerman Neveaux was being treated for broken ribs and a broken jaw.

"They beat him so bad," she said in a telephone interview. "They broke his ribs. They broke his jaw."

"He ain't but 95 pounds. He's a toothpick," she said.

Col. John Fortunato, a Jefferson Parish sheriff's office spokesman, said he had no details about how Neveaux was injured.

The sheriff said Neveaux was taken to the hospital Wednesday, suffering from a fractured eye socket and cuts and scrapes to his face. Fortunato Thursday was checking to see if Neveaux was still at the hospital or had been taken to jail.

The sheriff described the deadly incident Wednesday: Michel noticed Neveaux walking behind another person who appeared nervous. Michel approached Neveaux and placed him against the police vehicle to search him. But Neveaux flipped around, "went chest to chest" with the officer, drew a gun, reached over Michel's shoulder and shot him in the back. The sheriff said Neveaux fired twice more as Michel fell to the ground.

That sparked an intense manhunt.

Neighborhood resident Geralisha Henderson said she went to her back door Wednesday to make sure it was locked after police combing her street said they were searching for a suspect, and she saw what appeared to be a young man hiding in the back of the yard. Frightened, she went to the street and waved for a police officer to come. When she peeked outside the back door again, she said the suspect saw her and asked to be let in.

"He was telling me 'Open the door, let me in,'" she said. "He looked scared."

She said she didn't see a gun. At that point, several officers rushed up and detained him. Henderson's mother, Alicia, said an officer later came back and told her the man was the suspect they were looking for.

The sheriff said Neveaux was arrested in New Orleans in February for contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty in June to possession of stolen property  the stolen gun  and was placed on probation.

The slain deputy leaves behind a wife, who authorities said also works for the sheriff's department. The sheriff's office spokesman said the officer's wife was sitting at a local restaurant on the street where the shooting occurred when she saw police vehicles speeding down the street. Worried, she called her husband.

"She reached out to him and obviously he didn't answer his phone," Fortunato said.

Well-wishers and the officer's parents gathered Thursday at a makeshift memorial that sprang up where Michel was shot, with people leaving flowers or balloons and stopping to pray.

Neveaux's grandmother said her grandson was living with her while trying to find a job. She had suggested a nearby Wal-Mart.

She described her grandson as quiet and said he grew up in New Orleans, except for three years in Texas where his mother lives.

She said her grandson was a slow learner and suffered from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, caused by lead poisoning.

At the opposite end of the state, two sheriff's deputies were shot and wounded Thursday while serving eight warrants on Rickie Wade Jr., said Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell.

Russell said one deputy entered the home and found Wade in a back room, while the other deputy remained outside covering a window. The deputy outside heard a scuffle and then a gunshot. When he entered the house, the sheriff said he was shot.

Wade was found several blocks away in another house and arrested.

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Associated Press reporters Bill Fuller in New Orleans and Kevin McGill contributed to this report.

This undated photo provided by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office shows Jerman Neveaux, who was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and assault. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand late Wednesday, June 22, 2016, said the suspect, Neveaux, admitted shooting Officer Detective David F. Michel Jr. (Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

This photo provided by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office shows Deputy David F. Michel Jr. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot Michel multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office via AP)

MonaLisa Urbina, rear, and two friends, Thuy Nguyen, front left, and Kim Pham, lay flowers at a memorial for Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy David F. Michel Jr. in Harvey, La., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of the New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriff's deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (AP Photo/Cain Burdeau)

Flowers and other items are laid at a memorial where Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy David F. Michel Jr. was shot and killed in Harvey, La., Wednesday, June 22, 2016. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of the New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriff's deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (AP Photo/Cain Burdeau)

A holstered police gun lies in the street on Ascot Road at the scene of the shooting. Jefferson Parish, Louisiana State Police and other law enforcement personnel work the scene of a fatal shooting that took the life of Jefferson Parish sheriff deputy David F. Michel Jr. Wednesday June 22, 2016, in New Orleans. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriffs deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (G. Andrew Boyd/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP)

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Officers respond to the shooting death of a deputy who initiated a pedestrian stop in front of a Dunkin' Donuts Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Harvey, La. The pedestrian fired on the deputy and fled the scene and is still at large. (Matthew Hinton/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Officers respond to the shooting death of a deputy who initiated a pedestrian stop in front of a Dunkin' Donuts Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in Harvey, La. The pedestrian fired on the deputy and fled the scene and is still at large. (Matthew Hinton/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana State Police and other law enforcement personnel work the scene of a fatal shooting that took the life of Jefferson Parish sheriff deputy David F. Michel Jr. Wednesday June 22, 2016, in New Orleans. A pedestrian walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb in the middle of the afternoon shot the sheriffs deputy multiple times, killing him, after being stopped by the officer Wednesday, an official said. (G. Andrew Boyd/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune via AP)

Ouachita Parish Sheriff Jay Russell speaks about the shooting of two officers during a press conference in his office in Monroe, La., Thursday, June 23, 2016. Authorities say the two sheriffs deputies are in stable condition after being shot Thursday morning while serving an arrest warrant. (Hannah Baldwin/The News-Star via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

Emergency vehicles and first responders line Pearl Street in Richwood, La., near the scene where two Ouachita Parish Sheriff Deputies were shot and injured while while serving an arrest warrant, Thursday morning, June 23, 2016. (Hannah Baldwin/The News-Star via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

This photo provided by the Ouachita Parish Sheriffs Office shows Rickie Wade Jr., 28. Two northeast Louisiana sheriffs deputies were in stable condition Thursday, June 23, 2016, after being shot, by Wade, while serving arrest warrants. Wade was arrested after being flushed out of a house with tear gas, the sheriff said. (Ouachita Parish Sheriffs Office via AP)
Authorities: Yuengling settles Clean Water Act violations

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP)  The country's oldest brewery has installed an $8 million wastewater pretreatment system and will pay a $2.8 million fine to settle allegations that it sent pollutants to a municipal wastewater treatment plant.

D.G. Yuengling & Son agreed to the penalty to settle allegations that it violated the Clean Water Act numerous times between 2008 and 2015, according to a consent decree filed by federal authorities on Thursday. Companies are required to obtain and comply with permit limits on discharges of industrial waste that goes to public treatment facilities, the Environmental Protection Agency said. That means companies often have to pretreat their wastewater.

"Yuengling is responsible for serious violations of its Clean Water Act pretreatment discharge limits, posing a potential risk to the Schuylkill River, which provides drinking water to 1.5 million people," said EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin. "This history of violations and failure to fully respond to orders from the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority and EPA to correct the problems resulted in this enforcement action."

In a complaint filed concurrently with the settlement, authorities alleged that the Pottsville-based company violated pretreatment permit requirements, including discharge limits for pollutants, at least 141 times in that time period.

The company said the agreement strengthened Yuengling's environmental protocols. The brewery wastewater isn't toxic, but the organic materials can upset the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority's treatment process, according to company officials.
Israel grants first refugee status to Sudanese asylum seeker

JERUSALEM (AP)  Israel has granted refugee status to a Sudanese asylum seeker from Darfur for the first time.

Population and Immigration Authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad says Darfur-born Mutasim Ali is the first national of Sudan  an enemy state of Israel  to gain temporary residency according to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.

Ali says regime forces burned down his family's village in Darfur. He fled Sudan after he was arrested and tortured for activism, and crossed Egypt before slipping across the Israeli border in 2009.

Ali applied for refugee status in 2012 and endured 14 months in a desert detention facility in Israel before winning release in the Supreme Court.

About 40,000 Sudanese and Eritreans migrants are in Israel, Haddad said Thursday.
Coroner: Ex-UN official died when barbell fell on his neck

NEW YORK (AP)  A former president of the U.N. General Assembly awaiting trial in a bribery scandal died in a weightlifting accident when a barbell he was lifting from a bench dropped on his neck, an autopsy revealed Thursday.

John Ashe was declared dead late Wednesday afternoon by a paramedic who responded to his Dobbs Ferry home.

Dr. Kunjlata Ashar, Westchester County's medical examiner, said the cause of death  traumatic asphyxia  was determined during an autopsy, though she did not perform the procedure herself and did not have additional details. It was deemed an accident based on a combination of information from the autopsy and an investigation by the Dobbs Ferry Police Department, officials said.

In this Oct. 26, 2015 photo, John Ashe, a former president of the United Nations General Assembly facing tax charges in a bribery case, leaves federal court in New York. Ashe died on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He was 61. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The police department said in a statement that the death appears accidental, but provided little information otherwise.

Ashe, the former United Nations ambassador from the twin-island Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, was arrested last fall and had pleaded not guilty to tax charges related to a bribery scandal. His attorney said he was planning to go to trial.

In a statement Wednesday, current U.N. General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft described Ashe as a "hard-working and popular member of the diplomatic corps in New York and at the United Nations" before he faced the unproven allegations. He had said Ashe died of a heart attack.

Prosecutors said a billionaire Chinese businessman and others had funneled over $1 million to Ashe while he served as president of the 193-nation assembly from September 2013 to September 2014. The billionaire Chinese real estate maven, two diplomats and a humanitarian organization officer were among others charged in the case.

Ashe's attorney, Jeremy Schneider, called his client's death "a tragic loss for his family and the community."

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Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Miami, Anika Kentish from St. John's Antigua, Tom McElroy in New York and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
The newscasters who have made the most cameos in movies

Television newscasters are increasingly playing themselves in movies like "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" and in TV dramas like "House of Cards." Not everyone in TV news has gotten into the business of movie cameos; CBS and ABC have largely eschewed such appearances. So the likes of Tom Brokaw, David Muir, Scott Pelley and Diane Sawyer have no listed credits. But many others have become regulars. Here's a look at some of the biggest names in television news who have amassed filmographies of their own:

 Wolf Blitzer: "House of Cards," ''The Brink," ''Alpha House," ''Skyfall," ''The Campaign," ''Murphy Brown."

 Rick Chambers, Los Angeles's KTLA: "Seduced," ''The People v O.J. Simpson," ''Steve Jobs," ''Family Guy," ''Nightcrawler," ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," ''The Purge: Anarchy," ''Alien Abduction," ''The Dictator," ''The Mentalist," ''Torchwood," ''Eagle Eye." Katie Couric: "Zoolander 2," ''Shark Tale," ''Austin Powers in Goldmember," ''Murphy Brown."

FILE - In this April 29, 2016 file photo, CNN's Soledad O'Brien attends the We Are Family Foundation 2016 Gala in New York. O'Brien, has appeared in several films, including, Zoolander 2, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Batman v Superman. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

 Sean Hannity: "Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?" ''House of Cards," ''The Siege."

 Lester Holt: "House of Cards," ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," ''Warehouse 13," ''30 Rock," ''U.S. Marshals," ''Chicago Hope," ''Primal Fear," ''Miracle on 34th Street," ''The Fugitive."

 Pat Kiernan, New York's NY1: "Ghostbusters," ''Money Monster," ''Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," ''Daredevil," ''Billions," ''The Strain," ''Annie," ''Nurse Jackie," ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2," ''Non-Stop," ''Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit," ''Iron Man 3," ''Golden Boy," ''30 Rock," ''The Avengers," ''4:44 Last Day on Earth," ''Night at the Museum."

 Larry King: "The People v O.J. Simpson," ''Gravity Falls," ''The Remake," ''1600 Penn," ''The Power of Few," ''Shrek Forever After," ''30 Rock," ''Swing Vote," ''Bee Movie," ''Shrek the Third," ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent," ''Mr. 3000," ''The Stepford Wives," ''Shrek 2," ''Arliss," ''The Practice," ''America's Sweethearts," ''The Contender," ''The Kid," ''Enemy of the State," ''Bulworth," ''Primary Colors," ''The Jackal," ''Contact," ''Open Season," ''The Simpsons," ''The Long Kiss Goodnight," ''Dave," ''The Exorcist III," ''Crazy People," ''Ghostbusters."

 Rachel Maddow: "The Jim Gaffigan Show," ''Alpha House," ''House of Cards," ''30 Rock," ''Ides of March."

 Chris Matthews: "House of Cards," ''The Campaign," ''Ides of March," ''The Event," ''State of Play," ''Swing Vote," ''30 Rock," ''Man of the Year," ''The West Wing," ''Dave."
Ex-Texas cop who threw teen to ground will not be charged

McKINNEY, Texas (AP)  A former suburban Dallas police officer who resigned after video showed him forcing a bikini-clad black 15-year-old girl to the ground will not be charged in the matter, police said Thursday.

A Collin County grand jury decided not to indict former McKinney officer Eric Casebolt, who pushed the girl to the ground following a June 2015 party at a community pool that drew a crowd of predominantly black teenagers.

McKinney police released a statement confirming the jury's decision Thursday. It was not clear just what charge against Casebolt the jury was considering.

Officials said in the statement that the investigation into the police response was turned over to the Texas Rangers, who then forwarded their report to the Collin County district attorney's office for review by the jury.

Police commanders plan to hold a community meeting Monday to discuss the investigation with residents.

Cellphone videos taken by people at the pool showed Casebolt, who is white, running after black teens and ordering them to the ground, then forcing the teen girl, Dajerria Becton, onto her stomach and placing his knees on her back. At one point, he drew his firearm after two young black men charged forward in apparent protest of the girl's treatment but holstered the weapon when two other officers intervened.

Police said officers were responding to reports that teens unauthorized to use the pool were jumping a fence to gain entry. Residents of the middle-class neighborhood had said teens attending an end-of-school party at the pool and adjacent park were acting unruly.

Local and national civil rights groups days later held a protest in front of the McKinney Police Department, asking that prosecutors charge the former police corporal for his actions. Police Chief Greg Conley had called his actions "indefensible," and Casebolt subsequently resigned.

Casebolt's attorney, Tom Mills, told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday that, "We're glad that the system worked in his favor in this case."

Mills did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

Another lawyer for Casebolt, Jane Bishkin, said in the days after the pool party that Casebolt was not targeting minorities when he wrestled Becton to the ground. She said Casebolt at the time was fraught with emotion after responding earlier to two suicide calls.

An attorney for Becton's family did not respond to a call for comment. However, Heath Harris, an attorney for Adrian Martin, an 18-year-old who was arrested during the incident but later had his charges dropped, said the grand jury decision left him "shocked."

"I thought the video clearly spoke for itself, and I think the McKinney Police Department's response spoke for itself," Harris said, adding that he's upset a trial jury will not make the ultimate decision on whether or not a crime was committed.

The family said at the time that stress was not an adequate defense for Casebolt's actions.

Toby Shook, a former Dallas County prosecutor who now is a criminal defense attorney, said the grand jury's decision was not surprising. Shook was not involved in the case.
A Virginia school board must allow a transgender teen to use the boys restroom while the court considers the legal issues of his case, a federal district judge ruled Thursday.

US District Court Judge Robert G. Doumar's order directs the Gloucester County School board to let Gavin Grimm use the bathroom that corresponds to his gender identity when he returns for his senior year of high school this fall.

Grimm said Thursday that he's elated to be able to attend his last year of high school with his 'full rights restored.'

US District Court Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled Thursday that the Gloucester County School Board must allow Gavin Grimm to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity while the case is being litigated in court (August 2015 photo)

'After nearly two years of humiliation and intense struggle, equality has finally prevailed,' Grimm said in a statement. 'Now hopefully other transgender people will not have to face this type of discrimination.'

The order comes after the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that the school board's policy barring Grimm from using the boys restroom violated Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in schools.

The appeals court said Doumar, the judge who previously rejected Grimm's discrimination claim, ignored a US Department of Education rule that transgender students in public schools must be allowed to use restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The court reinstated Grimm's Title IX claim and sent it back to the federal court for further consideration.

The school board has said it plans to ask the US Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision, arguing that it imperils the privacy rights of all students. The appeals court recently rejected a bid by the school board to stay its ruling until the high court hears the case, allowing the case to proceed at the federal level.

'After nearly two years of humiliation and intense struggle, equality has finally prevailed,' Grimm said in a statement. 'Now hopefully other transgender people will not have to face this type of discrimination'

The school board has said it plans to ask the US Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision, arguing that it imperils the privacy rights of all students

Josh Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who's representing Grimm, said it was clear after the 4th Circuit's ruling that Grimm 'would ultimately prevail in court.'

'This preliminary injunction makes sure that Gavin's legal victory has a real impact on his life while he is still at school,' Block said in a statement.

An attorney for the school board didn't immediately return a message left at his office Thursday.
After Capitol all-nighter, Democrats push on for gun control

WASHINGTON (AP)  Exhausted but exuberant, House Democrats vowed to fight on for gun control Thursday as they ended their high-drama House floor sit-in with songs, prayers and defiant predictions of success. Republicans offered a dose of political reality, denying House Democratic demands and holding a Senate vote designed to show a bipartisan gun compromise can't pass.

"They're staging protests. They're trying to get on TV. They're sending out fundraising solicitations," House Speaker Paul Ryan complained in an angry denunciation of the Democrats' 25-hour occupation of the Capitol chamber. "If this is not a political stunt, then why are they trying to raise money off of this, off of a tragedy?"

Ryan said the House would not be giving in to Democrats' calls for votes on legislation expanding background checks for gun buyers and keeping people on the no-fly list from getting guns in the wake of the Orlando shooting. And in the Senate, GOP leaders scheduled a vote on a bipartisan compromise by moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, but only to show the "no-fly" legislation does not command the 60 votes needed to pass.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after House Democrats ended their sit in protest on the House floor. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A visibly deflated Collins suggested Senate leaders were intentionally draining support from her bill by allowing a GOP alternative to also come to a vote.

"Let us not miss an opportunity to get something done," she pleaded on the Senate floor prior to the 52-46 vote. But Republican leaders, unmoved, were ready to move on.

"I think we need to be engaged in something more constructive that would have actually stopped shooters like the Orlando shooter," said the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas.

Yet while they may have lost the legislative battles at hand, Democrats on both sides of the Capitol were congratulating themselves on a remarkable success in gaining attention for their demands for action to curb the widespread availability of firearms, first by a 15-hour Senate filibuster last week and then with their extraordinary occupation of the House floor.

That latest effort broke up around midday Thursday after going through the night, even after Ryan moved up the Fourth of July recess and gaveled a chaotic House out of session in the early morning hours. Democrats chanted, "Shame! Shame!" and "No bill, no break."

On Thursday Democrats streamed onto the steps of the East Front of the Capitol, where cheering crowds welcomed them with cries of "We're with you!" under humid skies. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who helped lead the sit-in, urged the crowd not to give up and to vote in the fall elections.

"We're going to win," Lewis declared. "The fight is not over. This is just one step."

Lewis' voice was firm as he evoked phrases from the civil rights movement, but the 76-year-old also showed his age and the hours of protest as members around him called "Help him up" as he stood on a makeshift podium to speak.

For hours on the floor of the House, Lewis had led members in delivering speeches that mixed victory declarations with promises not to back down in their drive to curb firearm violence. Placards with photos of gun victims were prominently displayed. As night wore into morning some members rested with pillows and blankets, sustaining themselves with snacks sent over by allied Democrats in the Senate.

The public could see it all, because even after Republicans shut off the cameras in the House chamber, Democrats began recording the action on their cellphones, and C-SPAN and other networks carried the feeds. It was not the first time the minority in the House commandeered the floor, but was the first time social media allowed the world to see it, giving Democrats a public relations success and a megaphone.

Democrats said public opinion is with them and will shift votes on the issue over time. The National Rifle Association disputed that. In an interview, Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, said of Collins' bill: "What the vote today showed was she doesn't have 60 votes, and the reason she doesn't have 60 is because it's an unconstitutional approach" lacking an effective appeal process for people denied guns.

Pressure has built on Capitol Hill following the shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando this month that killed 49 people and injured 53 others. The assailant also died. The attack followed other violent incidents over the past years including the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

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Associated Press writers Richard Lardner, Matthew Daly, Mary Clare Jalonick, Sarah Taylor and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

In this image from video provided by Rep. Scott Peters, Rep. John Lewis., D-Ga., speaks on the House floor in Washington, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Rebellious Democrats staged an extraordinary all-day sit-in on the House floor to demand votes on gun-control bills Wednesday, shouting down Speaker Paul Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their protest stretched into the night. The stunning and unruly scene was broadcast live to the world from Democrats cell phones, feeds picked up by C-SPAN after Republicans shut down the networks cameras. At left is House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. (Rep. Scott Peters via AP)

From left, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., sing "We Shall Overcome" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after House Democrats ended their sit-in protest. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2016, after a procedural vote on gun legislation. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
New England cottontail making a comeback in the region

DOVER, N.H. (AP)  From their enclosures at zoos in New York and Rhode Island, the New England cottontail offers a cute distraction for visitors.

But for scientists working to restore the rabbit in the wild, these captive bunnies represent a whole lot more. They are part of a plan to eventually release up to 500 of the rabbits a year into the overgrown farms and brushy fields of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and possibly Maine.

The goal is to increase New Hampshire's population to 1,000 and Rhode Island's to 500 by 2030.

In this Tuesday, June 21, 2016 photo, a male New England cottontail rabbit sits in a pen at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, in Providence, R.I. In an ambitious restoration project, following 50 years of decline in the population of the species due to reduced habitat, federal and state authorities are raising the rabbits in captivity to release scores of tiny bunnies this summer into areas where thickets and brush have returned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

So far, about 140 kits have been bred in captivity and released into the wild. New Hampshire has released 36 rabbits since 2013 and the rest have been released in Rhode Island. A Maine release is pending state approval.

"In New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island, populations are so low and, in Rhode Island's case, they can't even find the New England cottontail on an annual basis," said Heidi Holman, a wildlife diversity biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department who heads the group overseeing reintroduction.

"We knew it would be essential to have a source of rabbit to reintroduce or augment existing populations as the habitat is created," she said, of efforts since 2009 to restore about 1,000 acres of young forests and thickets in New Hampshire that are favored by the rabbits for food and shelter.

Wildlife agencies are increasingly turning to reintroduction programs to stabilize or bolster dwindling populations of endangered species. Among the success stories have been the California condor, the red wolf in the Southwest and the Karner blue butterfly in Ohio, New York and New Hampshire, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The rabbit reintroduction is a first for the region and has largely been welcomed, though some people have complained about wasting money to help rabbits since they seem commonplace. That is a misconception that comes from confusing the New England cottontail with the more common eastern cottontail, which is not native to the region. Both have brown fur but most eastern cottontail have a white dot on their foreheads.

Since 1960, the New England cottontail has seen its numbers drop significantly due to a loss of habitat mostly from the building of roads, shopping centers and housing developments. There are only five populations of the rabbits remaining over a range that stretches from southern Maine to New York. All are separated from each other.

When Lou Perrotti, the director of conservation programs for the Rogers William Zoo, responsible for breeding the rabbits, launched the cottontail program at the Providence zoo in 2011, he didn't know what to expect. Nobody had tried this before.

"Rabbits are a fight or flight critter. They stress out really easily. I was thinking, my God, they might not even do well," he said. "They aren't going to breed. They aren't going to give birth. We found just the opposite."

The zoo released its rabbits to Patience Island in Narragansett Bay and other sites in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The population on the island has now doubled to more than 120, allowing rabbits to be relocated to a state nature reserve.

The reintroduction scheme, which includes a captive breeding program started last year at the Queens Zoo in New York, hasn't been without its challenges. In New Hampshire, a dozen rabbits introduced on a privately owned site are no longer there. The small size of the site probably made the rabbits more vulnerable to predators like coyotes and foxes, Holman said.

But at the much larger Bellamy Wildlife Management Area in New Hampshire, the rabbits are doing just fine. Two dozen were released and they have now spread to another location on the 420-acre site that was logged to allow for the growth of shrubs and young trees.

The success here and in Rhode Island was enough to prompt the federal government to rule last year that listing the rabbit as an endangered species was not warranted.

"Everything living here is offspring so they have naturally colonized a new patch of habitat," Holman said as he looked out on the site that was once home to towering white pine trees. "It is exciting to know there were rabbits, enough that they would disperse and look for new habitat on the landscape."

In this Tuesday, June 21, 2016 photo, a male New England cottontail rabbit sits in a pen at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, in Providence, R.I. In an ambitious restoration project, following 50 years of decline in the population of the species due to reduced habitat, federal and state authorities are raising the rabbits in captivity to release scores of tiny bunnies this summer into areas where thickets and brush have returned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Judge: Let jury decide if Russian man's laptop was altered

SEATTLE (AP)  A federal judge on Thursday said he will not throw out evidence collected from the laptop owned by a Russian man accused of hacking into U.S. businesses to steal credit card information, but he said the man's lawyers can take their argument to the jury and let them decide.

Lawyers for Roman Seleznev, the son of a member of the Russian Parliament, had asked the judge to suppress everything collected from the laptop because the U.S. Secret Service agents who arrested Seleznev accessed the machine before securing a warrant.

John Henry Browne also claimed that the agents tampered with the laptop while it was stored in an evidence vault -- a claim the agents denied during several hearings on the issue.

Federal prosecutors called an expert who testified that the laptop was not touched by anyone until after the warrant was secured. The expert said the activity that shows up on the laptop's activity log was normal system maintenance, not malicious tampering.

Federal prosecutors call Seleznev a leader in the marketplace for stolen credit cards. They claim he hacked into the computer systems of American restaurants and businesses and stole about 2 million credit card numbers that he later sold on a private website. Seleznev made millions from his illegal operations and was living an extravagant lifestyle before his arrest, authorities said.

He was indicted on 40 charges ranging from fraud to identity theft.

In his oral ruling, Jones said the delay in getting a warrant was understandable since Seleznev was arrested in the Maldives and then brought to Guam before landing in Seattle.

Jones also said the competing expert opinions on the laptop tampering issue should be decided by the jury.

When the position of dueling experts serve as the basis of a challenge, Jones said, the challenge goes to the weight of the evidence, not whether it should be considered at trial.

Seleznev's trial is set for Aug. 15.

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Workplace 'cake culture' fuelling obesity and poor dental health, experts warn

"Cake culture" in the workplace is fuelling the obesity epidemic and contributing to poor dental health, a dental leader will warn.

Workers should bring fruit platters into the office instead of doughnuts, cookies and biscuits, the d ean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons will say.

Professor Nigel Hunt will call for employers to stop offering such snacks in meetings.

The report comes ahead of the Government's childhood obesity strategy which is expected to be published in the summer

In a speech to the Faculty of Dental Surgery's annual dinner, Prof Hunt will say: "Managers want to reward staff for their efforts, colleagues want to celebrate special occasions, and workers want to bring back a gift from their holidays. But for many people the workplace is now the primary site of their sugar intake and is contributing to the current obesity epidemic and poor oral health.

"It is particularly dangerous that this is lying around the office all day for as we know, sugar has a particularly negative effect if it's eaten outside of meal time."

He will add: "Cake culture also poses difficulties for those who are trying their hardest to lose weight or become healthier - how many of us have begun such diets only to cave in to the temptation of the doughnuts, cookies or the triple chocolate biscuits?"

"I'm not saying we need to ban such treats. But we do need a change in culture.

"When people are going out to the shops and buying cake and sweets they should at least consider buying smaller quantities and making them available only with lunch meals.

"Ideally office workers should consider other alternatives altogether like fruit platters, nuts, or cheese.
Commuters hit by floods chaos in race to cast EU referendum votes

Commuters hit by polling day travel chaos caused by flooding and torrential rain were caught in a race to cast their EU referendum votes.

One Twitter user, Daniel, aired his disappointment at train operator Thameslink, writing: "@TLRailUK thanks I won't be voting today... Stuck on the train #Thameslink."

As time ran out for those hoping to make it to their local polling station, travellers became increasingly anxious the delays would affect people's ability to cast their votes.

People make their way along a flooded path as they arrive to vote at the polling station in East Hanningfield, Essex

Alan Buxton said on Twitter: "Stuck on met line. Looking touch and go if I'll make it in time to vote."

Neil Matthews said: "Looks like weather-related train delays will prevent my wife from voting. Cross."

Some demanded that voting booths should remain open, with Charlie Joe suggesting on Twitter: "Voting should be extended for all the Londoners held up in ridiculous train delays today who will miss their chance to vote."

Another user, H V Espanioli DC said: "A voting area must be opened for those on the train platforms unable to get to the polls by 10pm."

But the Electoral Commission confirmed there is "no provision" in law to keep polling stations open later.

Conservative MP Greg Clark tweeted: "Terrible disruption still on @Se_Railway but if you're in the queue at your polling station at 10 o'clock tonight you can still vote #Remain."

Others who struggled to get home from work arrived just in time to cast their votes.

Nazlin Bhimani said on Twitter: "Just made it to the polling station closes. Travel chaos in West London on @MetLine means a lot of people will not have been able to vote."

Tyler said on Twitter: "Pleaded with presiding officer for ten extra minutes on account of relative stuck on a southern rail train. Sadly no vote. #euref #flooding."

Delyth Louise said on Twitter: "@TLRailUK 3 hrs to get home...triple the normal time and I've missed my chance to vote in the biggest day in British history in my lifetime."

A spokesman for Network Rail said that it had deployed 1,200 engineers to deal with the severe weather but advised commuters to check routes before travelling on Friday morning.

Cars make their way through flood water near to the Queen's head pub in Dogmersfield, Hampshire

A car is stranded on Queenstown Road, Battersea, London, in standing water after heavy overnight rain

A car is driven through a flooded road during heavy rain in Hunts Cross, Liverpool
Man jailed for Remembrance Day terror plot

An Islamic State-inspired jihadist has been jailed for life for plotting to carry out a Lee Rigby-style beheading around Remembrance Sunday.

Nadir Syed, 23, had targeted a poppy seller before his arrest shortly before Armistice Day in November 2014.

He had sourced a large, sharp kitchen knife after listening to a speech by IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, which also urged extremists to target France.

Nadir Syed was found guilty of plotting a terror attack around Remembrance Day (Metropolitan Police/PA)

Following a trial at Woolwich Crown Court last year, Syed, from Hounslow, west London, was found guilty of planning a terrorist attack.

Sentencing him at the Old Bailey to a minimum of 15 years, Mr Justice Saunders said: "I am satisfied like the killers of Fusilier Rigby, Nadir Syed followed the precept of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

"In my judgment if he was released from prison he would go and try to carry out what he failed to achieve in this case - he would set out to kill in furtherance of his beliefs."

He added: "The defendant will remain dangerous until the threat from Islamic terrorists has gone."

Until he is safe to return to the community, he will stay behind bars, the judge said.

Syed's cousin Yousaf Syed, 20, of High Wycombe, Bucks; and Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, from Hayes, west London, were acquitted of planning terrorist acts following a retrial.

The court heard the Syeds had tried to travel to Syria via Turkey in January 2014, but Nadir was stopped from boarding a plane because he was on bail for a public order offence, while Yousaf went no further than Turkey.

Stuck in Britain, the IS fatwa to inspire supporters to attack the military and police in Western countries gave Nadir the justification for an attack on home soil.

He appeared before magistrates for a public order offence on November 6, and after being handed an Asbo, he walked out of court, watched by undercover police teams.

Officers arrested all three men that day - just three days before Remembrance Sunday and the potential bloodshed.

Mr Justice Saunders said: "I am satisfied that the act of terrorism that the defendant intended to commit was to attack a person in the street and decapitate him or her.

"That intention guided the choice of knife. It needed to be large and extremely sharp to cut off someone's head.

"There was no particular victim intended but I am satisfied that the attack was going to take place at a time close to Armistice Day.

"I am also satisfied that the victim was to be someone connected to Armistice Day, such as a poppy seller."

The judge praised the authorities and the "vigilance they have shown which prevented the possible death of an innocent person".

Mr Justice Saunders added: "The public owes a debt of gratitude to those working for law enforcement who managed to foil this attack.

"If they had not done their job so well, an innocent member of the public would probably have been butchered on the streets of this country."

He described images Syed exchanged with other extremists online as "sickening".

They included "glorifying" photos of severed heads, hostages about to be decapitated and pictures of Fusilier Rigby's killers celebrating.

"There was IS propaganda material... there were celebrations of the events of 9/11, there was abuse of those Muslims who sought to prevent the death of hostages," Mr Justice Saunders added.

Syed, who sat in the dock wearing a grey prayer cap and with a full beard, did not react as the sentence was passed.

Mark Summers QC said in mitigation that the plot was "embryonic" and "may never have come to fruition".

"This is about the least complex and sophisticated knife plot one could conceive of," he added.

Syed was raised in the UK along with his three younger siblings before spending two years in Pakistan from the age of 16 to 18.
England captain Wayne Rooney bats away EU vote questions

Wayne Rooney may be trying to keep his team in Europe - but refused to say whether he voted in the EU referendum.

The England captain said the players at the Euro 2016 tournament in France had been given the chance to vote.

Manchester United star Rooney said his own views on the issue were "private" and added "whatever happens will happen".

England captain Wayne Rooney during a press conference at Les Fontaines, Chantilly

Former Manchester United players David Beckham and Rio Ferdinand, along with ex-Liverpool and England star John Barnes, have all spoken out in recent days about their support for the Remain campaign.

Rooney said the current squad had been able to take part in the referendum, adding: "The option has been there for the players. I don't know which ones have or which ones haven't, but they have certainly had the option.

"In terms of myself, I like to keep it private."

Asked if he had voted, Rooney added: "I don't really want to speak about it. I like to keep it private. Whatever happens will happen."

England made the last 16 of the tournament by coming second in the group stage, behind Wales.

The Three Lions will play Iceland on Monday.

Rooney's comments, in the latest England press conference, were swiftly mocked on social media.

Twitter user @Kennaz2 said: "Not one of them is any good at crosses, so 23 wasted ballet papers then."

The Welsh camp refused to be drawn on the referendum issue, with the team's manager and star player insisting they were concentrating on Saturday's last-16 match against Northern Ireland.

Manager Chris Coleman said: "Honestly, I haven't thought about it. I'm in my own little bubble here. Thinking about the team. I couldn't say one thing or another, I'm only thinking football, sorry."
Ofsted chief says 'systemic failure' to help poor pupils 'appalling injustice'

The education system's failure to address underachievement in poor children is an "appalling injustice", the Ofsted chief inspector has warned.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said it saddened him that disadvantaged pupils are let down and that schooling is still "mediocre", during a speech at Wellington College, Berkshire, as part of the Festival of Education.

He said that while the lot of disadvantaged children in primary schools had improved, the attainment gap between children on free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers in secondary education had not changed in a decade.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said he was saddened disadvantaged pupils are let down

"Despite all the good intentions, the fine words and some imaginative initiatives, we are not making a real difference.

"The needle has barely moved," he said.

Sir Michael told the audience that in 2005 the attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM pupils in secondary schools was 28%. The figure has not changed in 10 years.

He said: "Our failure to improve significantly the educational chances of the poor disfigures our school system. It scars our other achievements. It stands as a reproach to us all."

The Ofsted chief said the "irony" of speaking at one of the country's top independent schools about the challenges poor pupils face was not lost on him.

"I wonder how many people realise just how badly the poorest pupils have been let down in some of the wealthiest parts of the country?" Sir Michael asked.

He described the attainment gap between pupils in secondary schools as an "appalling injustice" and an "inexcusable waste of potential".

"The attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM secondary school children in West Berkshire is 31 percentage points. In Kent it's 34. In Surrey it's 36. In Buckinghamshire it's 39. And, in Reading, it's a whopping 40 percentage points - all far in excess of the national gap of 28," he said.

Sir Michael, who is coming to the end of his tenure as chief inspector, blamed the attainment gap on the "crossfire" between left and right wing politics; those who have argued that children don't need "structure" in school; a failure to develop a curriculum pathway into apprenticeships; poor teaching; and an inability to deliver strong leadership where necessary.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Every child, no matter their background, deserves a world-class education. Thanks to our reforms there are 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools since 2010.

"But we know there is more we can do. The pupil premium - worth 2.5bn this year - helps disadvantaged pupils reach their potential and we have overhauled the national curriculum so all pupils have access to the world-class education they deserve.
Nicola Sturgeon hopeful of high turnout as polls close in Scotland

Polls have closed and the counting has begun across Scotland to decide whether the UK remains part of the European Union.

Polling stations the length and breadth of Scotland shut their doors on the hour, 15 hours after opening at 7am on Thursday morning.

Counts are being held in all 32 Scottish local authority areas.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon casts her vote in the EU referendum

The vote is the second referendum for Scots in as many years.

In 2014 voters north of the border opted by 55% to 45% to remain part of the UK after a referendum on independence.

Scots voters are expected to have backed remaining part of the European Union, but the picture across the UK is less clear, prompting suggestions the current ballot could itself trigger a second vote on Scottish independence.

Earlier, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said she was hopeful of a large turnout in Scotland as she cast her vote.

Accompanied by husband and SNP chief executive Peter Murrell at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow, Scotland's First Minister greeted voters at the polling station and posed for pictures.

She said: ''I'm feeling really optimistic and have just voted with my head and my heart.

''From what I could see on social media the weather is very patchy across the UK.

''I saw reports of people turning up to vote in pouring rain, but it's blue skies and sunshine in Glasgow - as always - so it's perfect voting weather.''

Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly warned that vote could be revisited if Scotland is ''dragged'' out of Europe against its wishes, if the UK as a whole opts for Brexit.

And she has said that Scotland could have a "big impact on the final vote", with Scots voters also potentially able to keep the UK in the European Union.

She has however already revealed that Scottish Government officials have been working on contingency plans for what could happen if the overall result is to leave the EU.

Ms Sturgeon and the leaders of the four other parties at Holyrood - Ruth Davidson of the Conservatives, Labour's Kezia Dugdale, Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie and Patrick Harvie from the Scottish Greens - have all been campaigning for a Remain victory.

But Ukip's Scottish leader David Coburn MEP has said he believes a majority of Scots could vote to quit the EU.

''Everyone is saying they are voting to Leave, and I find very few people who say they are voting Remain,'' he said while campaigning in Edinburgh this week.
China, Hong Kong rise on easing Brexit fears, cautious Fed tone on rates

SHANGHAI, June 22 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong shares rose on Wednesday morning, as more investors bet Britain will vote to stay in the European Union this week, while Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's cautious tone on future rate hikes also soothe market sentiment.

China's blue-chip CSI300 index and the Shanghai Composite Index both climbed 0.5 percent, to 3,121.66 points and 2,891.39 points, respectively.

In Hong Kong, both the Hang Seng index and the Hong Kong China Enterprises Index added 0.4 percent.

Risk appetite in global markets was helped by opinion polls in recent days that showed rising momentum for the "Remain" camp ahead of Thursday's British referendum on its EU membership.

"The chance of Brexit is getting smaller," said Yang Hai, strategist at Kaiyuan Securities.

"Even if it happens, I'm sure central banks around the world would act to stem a possible market chaos, and the impact on China could be limited."

Meanwhile, Yang shrugged off news that China's central bank will allow qualified foreign firms to issue stocks on the mainland, saying such a plan could take a long time, as many domestic companies are still waiting in a long queue for a listing.

But Shenzhen's start-up board ChiNext outperformed, after the People's Bank of China said on Tuesday that a stock connection between Shenzhen and Hong Kong will come "at an appropriate time".

The remarks rekindle hopes that the cross-border scheme will be announced on July 1, which is the anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to mainland China in 1997.

Most sectors in both China and Hong Kong rose.

Chinese home appliance maker Midea, which is bidding for control of German industrial robot maker Kuka , rose slightly, after news that Kuka's supervisory board has given CEO Till Reuter a free hand for the takeover negotiations.

Hong Kong's index heavyweight Tencent Holdings Ltd jumped 2.1 percent, after China's biggest gaming group said it would buy a majority stake in 'Clash of Clans' mobile game maker Supercell to expand its interest overseas.
Airport planned for Israel-Jordan border clouds neighbourly ties

By Dan Williams and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

JERUSALEM/AMMAN, June 22 (Reuters) - A new airport planned by Israel near its border with Jordan is clouding the usually businesslike relationship the two neighbours have built since making peace in 1994.

Due to open next April, Ilan & Asaf Ramon Airport at Timna, in Israel's desert south, will be 10 km (6 miles) from Jordan's King Hussein International Airport. They will serve Eilat and Aqaba, the adjacent Israeli and Jordanian resort cities on the Red Sea.

Citing worry the proximity could spell dangerous disruptions to its air corridors, Amman last year complained to the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Israel said Ramon would abide by ICAO regulations and pose no safety risk. The ICAO later said Israel and Jordan were addressing the matter directly "as one would expect from two countries with a peace treaty and a wide scope of cooperation in many fields".

Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz played down the dispute with Jordan, one of two Arab states with full ties with Israel.

"There is no confrontation," he told Reuters in an interview. "There have been discussions (and) it was agreed that we will hold a professional-level meeting. The (Ramon) airport will open, and there will be coordination of air traffic."

Jordan sounds less upbeat, however.

"We do not want to stand in the way of Israeli projects, but we have our concerns regarding our own airport, and there is also the matter of keeping the spirit of our peace agreement," said a Jordanian official who declined to be identified.

The official was referring to a proposal, discussed in conjunction with the treaty, of building a joint Israeli-Jordanian airport.

Katz said such a facility was an "option" that had gone unexercised. Opened in 1972, King Hussein underwent expansions after the 1994 peace accord to meet what the airport's website said was the rising demand of air traffic. Katz said Israel was therefore free to open Ramon on its side of the border.

TOURISM

Jordan's concern, he suggested, was over the prospective loss of tourists to Israel. Ramon will have a 3.6-km (2.2-mile) runway able to accommodate the largest airliners while King Hussein's runway length is a more limiting 3.1 km (1.9 miles).

King Hussein currently handles around four to six takeoffs and landings a day. Israel is planning for 10 times that capacity at Ramon.

"The thing is, this (Ramon) is a big international airport, representing a mass of tourists, which is seen as possibly competing with them in tourism and such things," Katz said.

"We will propose to them that large planes that can't land there (King Hussein) will land here. I have no problem with people going to Aqaba from there (Ramon). They can cross at Arava crossing," he said, referring to an overland border terminal north of Eilat, a 15-km (9-mile) drive from Ramon.

Peace with Israel was never popular among ordinary Jordanians, many of whom are Palestinian, and Amman officials sometimes lament what they see as the sluggish dividends from economic cooperation with their richer neighbour.

One Jordanian official based in the Aqaba area accused Israel of building Ramon airport to "market Petra" - the nearby archaeological wonder in Jordan - for excursions by tourists who would spend the bulk of their vacation in Eilat.

"We are protecting our national tourism industry from any invasion and from selling it illegally," said the official, who also requested anonymity.

"Now we have imposed on those coming from the (Arava) crossing to either pay sixty dinars ($85) for a one-day (visa) or spend two nights in the kingdom," with the fee refunded, the official said.

Eilat is currently served by a small municipal airport whose planned demolition will free up real estate within view of the beach.
FARGO -- Several injured workers told a legislative committee that the North Dakota workers compensation program routinely fails to respond to their questions and accused the agency of falsifying information in their claim files.

The allegations -- disputed by the agencys head -- came during public comments at a hearing Wednesday, June 22, when the North Dakota Legislatures Workers Compensation Review Committee met to listen to suggestions for reforming the system from workers whose claims no longer are pending.

One of those workers, Tammy Kivley of Fargo, who suffers from a disabling knee injury, mentioned in her testimony that she was frustrated by a lack of responsiveness by claims staff of Workforce Safety & Insurance, North Dakotas workers compensation program.

Its like I was just ignored, said Kivley, whose reform suggestions included a better program for retraining injured workers who cant return to their former jobs.

That comment prompted similar complaints from two injured workers who were attending the meeting.

Troy Loberg, who lives near Chaffee and suffered a crushed shoulder while working on a rail car in the oil patch, said his claims adjuster was supposed to contact him monthly and failed to do so over two years.

He said he has repeatedly been required to submit to psychiatric examinations, with the last two agreeing that he cannot return to work. He said he also has been hounded by private investigators hired by WSI surveilling his activities.

I still get harassed by your guys, Loberg said, referring to WSI employees or contractors. You falsify records.

In responding to legislators questions, Loberg disputed statements by Tim Wahlin, who is WSIs chief of injury services, that claims adjusters log all of workers calls and try to respond within 24 hours.

They dont return calls, Loberg said. That is false, false. They keep you in the dark. No compassion from these people.

Another injured worker, Brad Bachmeier of Fargo, who has been unable to return to work as a mechanic, said his repeated calls went unanswered.

No phone calls, no follow-ups for years, Bachmeier said. It saddens me to see how WSI treats people. They get doctors to say things that didnt happen.

Bachmeier also accused workers comp claims staff of falsifying documents in his file, including creating documents to make it appear that he had received a service he said he didnt receive.

If youd like to see documentation, Ive got eight books, Bachmeier said, holding out his hand to suggest a tall stack.

Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck, vice chairman of the committee, said WSI officials were unable to respond to the allegations raised by Loberg and Bachmeier. They could only comment if the workers had signed forms authorizing release of information about their claims, he said.

Bryan Klipfel, WSIs director, told legislators that he disagreed with comments claiming his staff was not responsive, and said complaints must be viewed within the context of the more than 21,000 claims each year.

I disagree with that statement, he said. We work very hard, and said lawmakers would have to examine files and look at both sides to reach a fair conclusion.

In an interview, Klipfel said claims staff very closely follow procedures intended to ensure prompt follow-up to workers questions or complaints.

As for allegations that claims staff sometimes falsified documents, he said: Thats a credibility, trust issue. Our claims adjusters do a very good job.

Sen. George Sinner, D-Fargo, said hes heard other workers complain of the non-responsiveness of workers compensation claims staff.
Ex-BNP Paribas head of spot currency trading sues bank

By Anjuli Davies

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - A former head of spot currency trading at BNP Paribas is claiming the French bank dismissed him for whistle blowing, according to a court filing released on Wednesday.

Bob de Groot is scheduled to appear at the Central London Employment Tribunal on July 5.

BNP Paribas declined to comment.

Groot was suspended by BNP Paribas in 2014 as part of a global investigation into possible currency market manipulation. He did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment via LinkedIn.

A growing number of former bank staff are going to employment tribunals in London with unfair dismissal lawsuits in the wake of a crackdown on the banking industry after the financial crisis.
Brazil probe likely to hamper Eletrobras asset sales

By Luciano Costa

SAO PAULO, June 22 (Reuters) - Several graft and bribes probes into Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA could delay asset sale plans at Brazil's state-controlled power holding company, analysts and lawyers said on Wednesday, underscoring mounting caution among potential buyers.

The course of federal and internal probes into accusations that government and company officials received bribes or help facilitate contracts and funnel part of the proceeds into ruling coalition parties could deter potential bidders from targeting assets involved in the investigations, lawyers said.

In addition, poor corporate governance standards at the company, known as Eletrobras, and some of the subsidiaries that have been put up for sale remain a concern among interested parties, they said.

The asset sale plan is seen as key to help rebalance the finances of Eletrobras after the ruling Workers Party, which governed Brazil over the past 13 years, forced the company to enter money-losing segments and overspend in others.

"A potential investor evaluating these assets has no way to know if the probes are nearing an end," said Pedro Seraphim, a lawyer at TozziniFreire Advogados. "The question is 'have we found rock bottom?'"

Following the suspension of President Dilma Rousseff last month, the interim government of Vice President Michel Temer is trying to downsize Eletrobras.

Mines and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho wants Eletrobras to sell seven power distribution companies and minority stakes in generation and transmission units. Eletrobras has stakes in 49 electricity generation projects and in 87 power transmission companies, besides the ownership of seven regional power distributors.

Some of the most coveted assets are indeed the ones under investigation, such as stakes in the Belo Monte, Jirau, Santo Antonio and Teles Pires dams.

Eletrobras' delay in unveiling findings of its internal investigation and publishing financial data led the New York Stock Exchange to began a delisting of its American depositary receipts.

'RULED OUT'

Temer's administration is already trying to clean up the company.

Newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo reported that Chief Executive Officer Jose da Costa Neto could be replaced by Wilson Ferreira Jr., the outgoing CEO of private-sector power utility CPFL Energia SA.

Still, more needs to be done to reinstill investor confidence in Eletrobras, industry executives said.

A top executive at a large, foreign-owned power company operating in Brazil told Reuters under condition of anonymity that the pursuit or acquisition of any Eletrobras asset under investigation has already been ruled out.

Cassio Cavalli, a lawyer at Sao Paulo-based law firm Veirano Advogados, said the investigations are taking too long. Since Brazil's anti-corruption legislation is relatively new, it still remains difficult for investors to access corruption-related risks.

"No one wants to buy a Trojan Horse," Cavalli said. "Investors want to pay a fair value for an asset, and avoid exposure to potential problems."

An additional hurdle refers to rates of return on some projects.

Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, a former Eletrobras CEO, said the company accepted to participate in projects where those rates were inadequate, only to enable them to go ahead.
CEO of British Airways' owner warns UK over Heathrow expansion cost

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - The chief executive of airlines group IAG warned the government on Wednesday to keep down the cost of building any new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick or British Airways would opt to expand elsewhere.

"If there is expensive, inefficient airport expansion at Gatwick or Heathrow, then we will expand through other airports and hubs," Willie Walsh said in a speech.

Transport minister Patrick McLoughlin said in February that a government decision on building new capacity, at either Britain's main airport Heathrow or its second airport Gatwick, could come before the end of July, after Britain's vote on whether to stay in the EU or not on Thursday.

Heathrow, where British Airways is the largest airline and which operates at full capacity, has been campaigning for 25 years to be given the green light to build a third runway, but political wrangling due to objections from local residents and environmentalists continues to delay any expansion.

Walsh said the government should consider changes to Heathrow's 18 billion pound ($26 billion) expansion plan because the cost could lead to high charges for passengers, damaging the airport's ability to provide strong UK flight connections.

"In our view, any new runway development should be phased in to keep costs down. There is no need to build all the facilities at once," he said.

He also urged the government to consider a cheaper option to extend one of the current runways at Heathrow, known as the Heathrow Hub option.
OSCE urges Ukraine and separatists to investigate ceasefire violations

BERLIN, June 22 (Reuters) - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, monitoring a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, has called on Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists to do more to investigate violations of the agreement.

Alexander Hug, deputy director of the OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine, told Reuters that both sides often failed to investigate and take action on ceasefire violations, such as the discovery of unauthorised weapons, the downing of drones and attacks on OSCE personnel.

"Both sides are equally guilty, and increase the feeling that ... there is no political cost for non-compliance," Hug said in an interview on Tuesday.

Hug said the ceasefire had resulted in the withdrawal of many weapons from the region and far fewer deaths than a year ago, but the process remained unpredictable and flawed.

The number of ceasefire violations had dropped in recent days, Hug said, but he warned that the situation was "very unstable" and unpredictable.

"It is now time - rather than trying to find new ways to regulate the conflict - that those remedies that have been agreed should be implemented in full," he said.

Only then, he said, would it become clear which side was "undertaking actual, real measures to stop the fighting".

European Union officials agreed on Tuesday to extend until the end of January a host of energy, financial and defence sanctions imposed on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

EU politicians including German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are urging a softer stance towards Russia, a key trade partner and energy provider.
Anti-Semitic assaults rise in United States to 56 incidents: report

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES, June 22 (Reuters) - Anti-Semitic assaults rose dramatically in the United States last year to 56, and the overall number of hateful incidents targeting Jews increased by 3 percent, the Anti-Defamation League said in a report on Wednesday.

Colleges in particular have become a place where Jews are particularly exposed to harassment, with anti-Semitic incidents at university campuses accounting for 10 percent of occurrences nationwide, the league said.

"We are disturbed that violent anti-Semitic incidents are rising," Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

The 56 anti-Semitic assaults nationwide in 2015 represented an increase of more than 50 percent from the year before, according to the ADL.

The group said it was not clear what may have led to the spike.

Overall, the ADL report said, the United States had 941 anti-Semitic incidents in 2015, which aside from assaults included harassment, threats and vandalism.

The figures, which the group said may not include incidents that were not reported by victims, are based on reports collected by the ADL at its regional offices and data from law enforcement agencies.

Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses has concerned many in the Jewish community, and it has occurred as on-campus activists have led heated anti-Israel protests and calls to boycott and divest from the Middle East country in a movement they call anti-Zionism.

The University of California's regents declared in March that they would not tolerate anti-Semitism on campus but rejected a proposal to equate anti-Zionism with religious bigotry, as they tried to defuse tensions between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students.

Attacks on Jews have long accounted for a significant share of hate crimes in the United States.

The FBI, in its latest hate crime statistics released in November, said that in 2014 more than 56 percent of the anti-religious hate crimes in the United States that year were motivated by anti-Jewish bias.
U.S. SEC accuses U.K. man of hacking, fraudulent trades

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, June 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued a U.K. man it said hacked into online brokerage accounts of several U.S. investors, placed unauthorized stock trades, and within minutes made profitable trades in the same stocks in his own account.

A federal judge issued an emergency order freezing assets belonging to the defendant, Idris Dayo Mustapha, the SEC said on Wednesday, shortly after filing its civil lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

It was unclear whether Mustapha had a lawyer. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to court papers, Mustapha caused the hijacked accounts to buy more than $5 million of mostly little-known stocks in April and May, and coordinated his trading to sell the stocks at about the same time.

The SEC said Mustapha, 30, generated at least $68,000 of profit, while costing his unwitting victims about $289,000.

It said five victims held accounts with a broker in New Jersey, while four had accounts at foreign brokerage firms.

Mustapha was charged with securities fraud. The SEC is seeking to recoup ill-gotten gains and impose civil fines.

"We will swiftly track down hackers who prey on investors as we allege Mustapha did, no matter where they are operating from and no matter how sophisticated their technology," Robert Cohen, co-chief of the SEC enforcement division's market abuse unit, said in a statement.
VW will not help UAW union organize Tennessee plant -HR chief

HANOVER, Germany, June 22 (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG will not assist the United Auto Workers' efforts to organize its plant in Tennessee and reaffirmed its resistance to the union's demands that it start talks over wages for a small fraction of the factory's workforce, its human resources chief said.

"If the UAW wants to organize the American auto workers at our plant in Chattanooga it has to do so by itself, like the IG Metall does it in Germany," Volkswagen human resources chief Karlheinz Blessing said on Wednesday. "The VW management board or the IG Metall cannot handle this for the UAW."

Late last year, a majority of the maintenance, or skilled trades, workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to be represented by the UAW. The vote marked a rare victory for the union in the U.S. South, where it has fought many unsuccessful battles to organize nonunionized auto plants.

But the full plant, which has about 1,500 hourly workers, rejected UAW representation in a vote the union narrowly lost in February 2014.

The UAW worked closely with the German union IG Metall in fostering a good relationship with VW before that vote. IG Metall has much more power within VW than the UAW has at any major automaker.

Blessing, speaking at VW's annual shareholder meeting in Hanover, Germany, stood by the carmaker's refusal to bargain with about 140 skilled trades workers representing a fraction of the hourly workforce.

"We don't want to establish some kind of a branch union in Chattanooga and, with it, a split of the workforce," Blessing said.
Four murders and a bloody battle for land rights in Thailand

By Alisa Tang

BANGKOK, June 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Supot Kalasong was driving home one afternoon in April when he heard a bang and assumed he had blown his newly-patched tyre.

Then he heard more bangs and realised gunfire was piercing his pickup truck door, hitting him six times on his right leg and twice on his right arm.

He was lucky, suffering only minor wounds. Since 2010, four people have been killed in Klong Sai Pattana, a small community in southern Surat Thani province, that has been locked in a bloody battle for the right to use government land.

"It is the worst case for land rights defenders - each place has people who are killed, but it's never this bad. And the state is never able to catch the perpetrator and prosecute them," said human rights lawyer Sor.Rattanamanee Polkla, of the Community Resource Centre Foundation.

A court had granted the government legal ownership of the land after a lawsuit over a palm oil company's expired concession. Villagers, who have occupied the land for at least eight years, say they helped the state win its case.

Now, however, the villagers face eviction as officials seek to redistribute the land in a convoluted dispute showing what little power small-scale farmers wield over land, as well as the bloodshed they suffer in defending land rights.

"The villagers sacrificed their blood, bodies and souls - with people losing their lives - to get this land back," said Pongtip Samranjit, director of Local Action Links, a Thai non-profit focusing on farmers' and peasants' rights.

The community blames the violence on mafia linked to the plantations. Over the years, three men were arrested but subsequently released on bail. One of the three was charged with murder but was acquitted in March.

Nobody has yet been convicted for the murders, Songsak Raksaksakul, deputy director of the Justice Ministry's Department of Special Investigation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Meanwhile, the government agency overseeing land redistribution for farmers is preparing to ask the ruling junta to use article 44 of the interim constitution - dubbed the "dictator's law" by the media - to drive the villagers off the 160-hectare plot.

The villagers and rights activists say they worked closely with the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) on the case against the company accused of occupying the area illegally.

But despite the court victory in 2014, the ALRO now says the villagers themselves are illegal occupants and must also leave.

"The ALRO is stabbing them in the back and going back on the deal with the villagers," Pongtip said.

The ALRO says the villagers had been allowed to stay on the land until the legal issues were resolved. But now that the court has ruled, ALRO Secretary General Sunsern Aggutamanus says the villagers must go so the land can be distributed fairly.

"They like to tell the media that they have chased the company out, but the fact is that a court ordered them out. They say they chased the bad people out, and now they should get the land," Sunsern said.

"I said no, that's not how it works. You have to register to be considered, along with other villagers. There are no privileges for these people ... If we can reclaim the land, then we will distribute it, but we have to do it fairly."

LANDLESS FARMERS

Agriculture accounts for a tenth of Thailand's economy, with half the country's land used for farming, and more than a third of its workers employed as farmers.

Yet about a quarter of Thailand's 5.9 million farming households do not own land. Many are tenant farmers, mired in debt.

The ALRO, set up in 1975 to acquire land for farmers, has allocated about 5.6 million hectares to nearly 2.2 million people.

Sunsern says the ALRO has another 640,000 hectares it has been unable to distribute because of land conflicts, such as in Klong Sai Pattana.

Frustrated with the snail's pace of reforms, landless farmers from across Thailand banded together in 2008 to form the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT) to fight for a community land title, whereby they would collectively manage and use the ALRO allocated plot.

SPFT members moved into Klong Sai Pattana and worked with the government to become part of a pilot project to secure a community land title.

But first, the government had to oust the palm oil company whose concession had expired and was accused of trespass.

In a 2009 letter to the Surat Thani governor, the ALRO said a committee under the prime minister's office allowed the villagers to temporarily live on the land in Klong Sai Pattana "while the problem is being resolved".

According to Sunsern, the 2014 court verdict against the palm oil company was that resolution.

"The government said they could stay temporarily, until the court decision," he said.

An ALRO list shows nearly 20,000 people have registered for land allocations in Surat Thani province alone, and Sunsern says they all have equal right to vie for Klong Sai Pattana.

PILOT PROJECT FOR COMMUNITY TITLES

Further complicating this dispute is a pilot project for community land titles, which included Klong Sai Pattana.

In 2010, Thailand's cabinet passed a law on the issuance of community land titles, which legally allows collective community management and use of state-owned land for their livelihoods.

Villagers and activists say they worked closely with the governments of former prime ministers Abhisit Vejjajiva and Yingluck Shinawatra, and Klong Sai Pattana was slated for the pilot project, but it never got the community land title.

Over the course of Klong Sai Pattana's struggle since 2008, the ruling government changed hands from one party to another, and finally to the military junta after a 2012 coup.

"The government is like this. When the government changes, they don't respect the old memorandums of understanding signed by the previous governments," said Pongtip of Local Action Links.

The committee in the prime minister's office overseeing the Klong Sai Pattana dispute was scheduled to visit the community this month to resolve the issue, but officials declined to be interviewed for this story.

In Klong Sai Pattana, villagers are coming to terms with the possibility of eviction if the ALRO succeeds in getting them kicked off the land.

Despite being shot, Supot, 41, does not see himself moving.

"I can't change my way of life anymore. I've always been a farmer, even my parents were farmers ... and I don't have the knowledge to do anything else," Supot said in an interview at the National Human Rights Commission in northern Bangkok.
Brazil budget crisis slows supercomputer from studying Zika

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (Reuters) - Scientists will have to do without an ally in the race to combat the Zika virus.

A supercomputer named Santos Dumont has been partially switched off in Rio de Janeiro due to government spending cuts. It was meant to be genetically mapping the Zika virus.

"It seems nonsensical, at a moment like this when everyone is talking about the Zika virus," Antonio Tadeu, head of a government group responsible for high performance processing, told Reuters.

"The financial problems have meant Santos Dumont is running below capacity since last month," he added.

In the midst of Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, funds to Santos Dumont's home at the National Laboratory of Computer Science have been cut by 20 percent, according to the Ministry for Science and Technology.

This has meant the supercomputer is working at 30 percent capacity to save energy costs and 75 projects it was meant to be processing are on hold, including the Zika mapping.

The supercomputer, which was bought from France's Atos/Bull , is 1 million times faster than an average laptop and costs about 500,000 reais ($148,104) to run per month.

The Ministry for Science and Technology said it is negotiating extra funds to restore Santos Dumont to full power.
U.N. to send peacekeepers home over reaction to S.Sudan violence

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Reuters) - United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Wednesday troops would be sent home from a U.N. mission in South Sudan due to their response to deadly violence at a compound.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that an inquiry found that confusion over command and control and rules of engagement marred the response by peacekeepers to fighting in February at a U.N. compound in Malakal where nearly 50,000 civilians were sheltering.

During the two-day incident at least 30 civilians were killed and 123 people wounded. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres accused the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as UNMISS, on Tuesday of taking up to 16 hours to act.

"I will not name names at this point. But certainly there will be repatriation - in some cases a unit, in other cases of individual officers," Ladsous told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on the incident.

Ladsous said he had already spoken with the U.N. ambassadors of the relevant troop contributing countries.

A U.N. special investigation into the circumstances leading to the violence found that the immediate trigger for the fighting - which pitted Shilluk and Nuer people against Dinka and Darfuri people - was an attempt by two South Sudanese soldiers to smuggle ammunition into the U.N. compound.

The report, seen by Reuters, found that some armed elements in South Sudanese (SPLA) army uniforms took part in the destruction of Nuer and Shilluk accommodations in the compound.
WILLISTON -- City leaders in Williston are trying to figure out how to respond to a judges ruling on man camps that may have some unintended consequences.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland ruled this week that Williston cannot enforce its ordinance on temporary housing until further notice -- a victory for man-camp operators that challenged the citys ban on worker housing, which would have become effective July 1.

But if that ordinance is nullified, Williston man camps are now operating without permits, said city attorney Jordon Evert. All Williston temporary housing permits officially expired Dec. 31, and the ordinance rendered invalid by the judge is what allowed them to continue operating through July 1.

At this point, they dont have a permit, and theres no authorizing ordinance to allow them to continue to operate, Evert said.

Mayor Howard Klug said while he believes the city would be within its rights to close the unpermitted camps, he doesnt plan to take that action.

Yes, the city probably could do that, but no, were not going to, Klug said.

The Williston City Commission voted 3-2 last November on the temporary housing ordinance that included a July 1 sunset date for man camps in and around city limits.

Target Logistics and Lodging Solution, which own and operate more than 1,000 worker housing beds north of Williston, challenged the matter in federal court. Halliburton, which also owns a camp in Williston, joined as a party to the lawsuit.

In granting a preliminary injunction, Hovland ruled that the man-camp operators are likely to prevail in their argument that Williston officials did not properly enact that ordinance.

The camp operators argue the city needed a 4-1 supermajority to approve the ordinance because 20 percent of the businesses affected submitted protests.

Evert plans to take the matter before the City Commission on Tuesday to get direction on how to proceed.

We need to go back and look and see what we need to do to get it right, Klug said.
Juma Kalume Musunye's six grandchildren beat her until she fell to the ground crying, and then doused her in petrol, claiming she had used witchcraft to paralyse their mother's hands.

'They wanted to kill me,' said the 65-year-old widow who lives on Kenya's coast, where the Mijikenda people traditionally blame witches for illness and misfortune.

'My son told them I had bewitched his wife.'

Hearing her screams, Musunye's neighbours rushed out and rescued her.

'I am really bitter,' she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of International Widows' Day on Thursday.

'I am old, my health is not good and my children do not care about me.'

Growing desires for land along Kenya's Indian Ocean coastline are allegedly causing a rise in 'witch' burnings (file photo)

Sadaka Muruu, 100, who owns 12 acres of sought-after land in coastal Kilifi county, claimed she was told by her grandchildren that they would burn her alive after investors asked about purchasing it

Musunye was speaking by phone from Kaya Godoma, a centre set up in 2008 to care for elderly people ousted by their relatives.

Millions of widows across Africa are left destitute after being evicted from their homes and are too poor or uneducated to seek legal redress, campaigners say.

Musunye is one of 19 elderly people branded as witches who have found refuge at Kaya Godoma, some 30 km (20 miles) inland from the popular tourist town of Kilifi, with its palm-fringed sandy beaches.

Her seven sons and their families continue to live on her late husband's land, which she described as 'very big'.

Killings of elderly people for witchcraft in Kilifi County are on the rise, according to local media, with 104 such murders reported to the police in 2014.

Under the guise of culture, widows are often mistreated by relatives who want their property, experts say. Hunger for land is growing in Kenya, a country whose 45 million strong population is predicted to double by 2045.

'You will see people making up stories that someone is a witch,' said Josephine Mongare, chairwoman of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA).

'They will go out there and do mob justice on her ... because her right to that property extinguishes upon her death.'

They will go out there and do mob justice on her ... because her right to that property extinguishes upon her death.

Traditionally, women in Kenya could not own land, which was passed down from father to son, leaving widows without a male heir vulnerable to eviction.

'If you don't have a boy child, you haven't given birth,' Mongare said. 'You'll find relatives now coalescing around the property and wanting to get rid of you.'

One percent of land in Kenya belongs to women, with five percent jointly owned by spouses, 2006 government data shows.

Most of the 300,000 court cases FIDA has pursued since 1985 on behalf of poor women involve land and property rights.

Kenya's 1981 Succession Act grants widows the right to live on their late husbands' property until they die, provided they don't remarry, after which it passes on to their children.

This right is often violated, driving poor widows into the slums where they struggle to feed and educate their children, further entrenching poverty.

Killings of elderly people for witchcraft in Kilifi County are on the rise, according to local media, with 104 such murders reported to the police in 2014

Some widows' children even end up selling sex on the street, said Margaret Gero, a member of the Luo community who runs a widow support group in Kajimbo, some 30 km from Lake Victoria in western Kenya.

While Kenya's progressive 2010 constitution recognises that men and women have equal rights to own property, parliament has not enacted laws to spell out how these rights can be realised.

Courts continue to recognise customary laws as long as they are not 'inconsistent' with the constitution - an ambiguity which often leads to contradictory rulings.

Another traditional belief that has fuelled the abuse of widows is the Luo custom of widow cleansing, where a widow is forced to have sex with one of her late husband's brothers as a purification ritual, before being inherited as his wife.

'The Luo community believe that when the woman is not (cleansed and) inherited, the spirits of the dead might come back and haunt the community,' said Gero, a 48-year-old retired health worker who campaigns against the practice.

A cleansing ceremony with a Diviner in a rural village hut is pictured. Traditional Medicine and Witchcraft are very intertwined in Akamba, or Kamba, culture in Kenya (file photo)

Witchcraft (also called witchery or spellcraft) broadly means the practice of, and belief in, magical skills and abilities that are able to be exercised individually, by designated social groups, or by persons with the necessary esoteric secret knowledge (file photo)

Wife inheritance was designed to ensure that the wife - and her late husband's land - remained in the family.

But it has fuelled the spread of HIV in the Luo-dominated counties on the shores of Lake Victoria, which have Kenya's highest HIV prevalence rates, up to four times the national average of six percent, government data shows.

Gero blames the practice for her own family's misfortunes. She set up the widows' group to help others avoid the same fate.

When her polygamous father died in 1997, leaving behind five daughters, his wife was inherited and contracted HIV.

Gero's uncles destroyed their home, pushing her youngest sister, Rose, to run away and get married at the age of 15.

She and her child are also HIV positive.

Several members of Gero's widows' group have chased away men who were trying to inherit them and their land.

'I am homeless, but I don't want their children to be homeless,' she said.
"We were waiting for our deaths" - Kenyan widows saved by tribal elders

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI, June 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan widow Rodah Nafula Wekesa clutched her children as her late husband's brother tried to hack his way into their mud-walled home with a machete, angered by her refusal to give up her land.

Wekesa had been disinherited by her in-laws from Kenya's Luo community after rejecting their demands that she have sex with a stranger - a traditional cleansing rite for widows.

She refused, knowing that she was HIV positive.

"The children wanted to cry but I said there was no need," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the western town of Ahero.

"If it had become time for us to die, that was the time and we were waiting for our deaths."

Kenyan law grants widows the right to live on their late husbands' property until they die, but poor women are often evicted by land-hungry relatives, who use culture to justify their actions.

Harmful cleansing rituals, such as having sex with a stranger and cleaning the dead husband's corpse then drinking the water used to wash the body, have fuelled the spread of diseases like HIV and Ebola in Africa, according to the Loomba Foundation which campaigns for widows' rights.

Rather than exacerbating family tensions through the courts, which are often expensive and slow, campaigners are working with traditional elders to protect widows.

The Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN) has trained almost 40 elders in western Kenya, who have resolved community disputes since pre-colonial times, to mediate in widows' inheritance disputes.

The initiative has resettled almost 400 widows on their late husbands' land since 2009.

"People are misinterpreting culture. We want to take it back to what it used to be," said programme manager Onyango Ondeng ahead of International Widows' Day on Thursday.

Other rights groups, working with Kenya's Meru and Kalenjin communities in the highlands north of Nairobi, have developed similar projects.

"Inheritance does not have to be sexual," said Ondeng. "We brought in the elders (and) they have explained to the community that inheritance encompasses taking care of his brother's wife economically and letting her access land."

The elders have encouraged families to adopt safer rituals, such as getting a male relative to hang his coat in the widow's home to symbolise her inheritance by the family.

Wekesa's in-laws have now accepted her and she lives peacefully near Lake Victoria, rearing chickens and ducks.
Australia's Telstra buys into mining technology sector

SYDNEY, June 23 (Reuters) - Australia's No. 1 telecommunications firm Telstra Corp Ltd has bought a mining technology company for an undisclosed sum, looking to tap the resource sector's appetite for cost-cutting in the face of slumping commodity prices.

Markets for everything from oil to iron ore have collapsed from record highs a few years ago due to swelling supply and a slowing economy in major consumer China, prompting mining companies to adopt new technologies which automate processes and boost production.

The decision by Australia's seventh-largest company to invest in resources automation will likely spur new interest in the sector, while offering miners new ways to save money.

Telstra in a statement on Thursday said it had bought resources-focused wireless technology company CBO Telecommunications Pty Ltd and hired the former chief automation researcher at mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd, Eric Nettleton, as the basis of a new mining technology unit.

A Telstra spokesman declined to give the value of the purchase.

"This downturn has created a once in a lifetime shift, where miners are looking to technology innovation," Telstra's head of global industries David Keenan said in the statement.

The company also hired a former head of technology and innovation at South Africa-listed Anglo American Platinum Ltd , Jeannette McGill.
Britain votes on EU membership after tight and bitter campaign

By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Britons will decide the future of their country and Europe on Thursday in a vote on European Union membership after a bitter campaign that appeared to divide the nation down the middle.

Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum under pressure from his ruling Conservative Party and an increasingly powerful anti-EU party, hoping to put to rest decades of debate over Britain's place in Europe and its ties with Brussels.

Most opinion polls put the "Leave" and "Remain" camps neck-and-neck at the end of a campaign that was dominated by immigration and the economy and shaken by the murder of a pro-EU MP, though late on Wednesday two showed a swing to "Remain".

The "Leave" campaign says Britain's economy would benefit from a Brexit, or British exit. Cameron says it would cause financial chaos.

Traders, investors and companies are preparing for volatility on financial markets whatever the outcome of a vote that both reflects, and has fuelled, an anti-establishment mood also seen in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

Much will depend on turnout, with younger Britons seen as more supportive of the European Union than their elders but less likely to vote.

"Go out and vote remain for a bigger, better Britain inside a reformed European Union," Cameron told "Remain" campaigners on Wednesday.

His main rival, former London mayor Boris Johnson, whose decision to support "Leave" galvanised its campaign, told voters this was the "last chance to sort this out".

Sterling rose to its highest so far this year against the U.S. dollar late on Wednesday after one poll pointed to a clear lead for "Remain" and betting markets priced in an 80 percent chance Britain would not leave.

Polling stations for 382 local counting areas will open at 0600 GMT and close at 2100, with most of the results expected between around 0100 and 0300 on June 24.

On Wednesday, campaigners from both sides tried to win over the estimated 10 percent of the 46.5 million electorate who polls suggest had still not decided how to vote.

The "In" campaign took aim at their rivals by saying a Brexit would hurt the economy, security and the country's status. The "Out" campaign said high levels of immigration could not be controlled inside the EU and it was time to bring powers back from Brussels to London.

"If we don't vote to leave tomorrow we will remain locked in the back of the car, driven in an uncertain direction, frankly, to a place we don't want to go and perhaps by a driver who doesn't speak the very best of English," said Johnson, a leading candidate to replace Cameron as prime minister.

FOREIGN LEADERS

The murder of lawmaker Jo Cox last week as she prepared to offer advice to those who elected her in northern England, prompted a pause in the campaign and soul-searching about its tone. Her husband said she had been concerned about the coarsening of political dialogue.

The man charged with her murder, asked his name in a London court, responded: "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain". A court official referred him to a psychiatrist.

Opinion polls have depicted a deeply divided nation, with big differences between older and younger voters, and between pro-EU London and Scotland and eurosceptic Middle England.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, the focus on immigration to Britain, which has increased significantly in recent years, could worsen divisions in a country where the gap between rich and poor has also been widening.

If Britain chooses to leave, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has suggested Scotland may call a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom.

Even with a vote to stay, Cameron could struggle to repair the rifts in his party and hold on to his job.

Foreign leaders, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have called on Britain to remain in the European Union, a message supported by global financial organisations, many company bosses and central bankers.

International banks have warned that the value of the pound could fall dramatically if Britain votes to leave the EU and traders expect markets to be more volatile than at any time since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The "Out" campaign says a fall in the value of the pound would boost exports and has found support among some financial specialists and small businesses. It has urged voters to ignore what it calls the "establishment" which it says has the most to lose from Brexit.

The EU has struggled with migrant and economic crisis and a Brexit vote would boost opposition to it within other member states.

"Stay with us," European Council President Donald Tusk said in Lisbon on Monday, addressing British voters.

"Without you, not only Europe, but the whole Western community will become weaker. Together, we will be able to cope with increasingly difficult challenges of the future."
London copper buoyed near 2-week top ahead of UK vote

MELBOURNE, June 23 (Reuters) - London copper floated near its highest in more than two weeks on Thursday on a softer dollar, but gains were capped as Britain geared up to vote on whether to leave the European Union.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose by 0.5 percent to $4,723 a tonne by 0052 GMT, a 0.6 percent gain from the previous session when prices hit the highest at $4,733.50 a tonne since June 6.

* Shanghai Futures Exchange copper rose by 0.9 percent to 36,200 yuan ($5,506) a tonne.

* The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday the U.S. economy was "overall in good shape," with growth set to regain momentum despite an overvalued dollar, but it warned that too many Americans were dropping out of the workforce or living in poverty.

* U.S. home resales rose in May to a more than nine-year high amid low mortgage rates, pointing to sustained housing market strength that should keep the economy on solid ground.

* Sentiment at Asia's biggest companies climbed to its highest in a year in the second quarter of 2016, helped by signs that China's economy was slowly steadying, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed.

* British Prime Minister David Cameron and his eurosceptic opponents made final pitches for wavering voters on Wednesday on the eve of a defining referendum on European Union membership with the outcome still too close to call.

* For the top stories in metals and other news, click or

MARKETS NEWS

* Global markets traded cautiously on Wednesday, a day before the United Kingdom votes on whether to stay in the EU, with Wall Street stocks easing lower and sterling inching up.

DATA/EVENTS

Britain holds referendum on membership in European Union

0700 France Markit manufacturing flash PMI Jun

0700 France Markit services flash PMI Jun

0730 Germany Markit manufacturing flash PMI Jun

0730 Germany Markit services flash PMI Jun

0800 Euro zone Markit manufacturing flash PMI Jun

0800 Euro zone Markit services flash PMI Jun

1230 U.S. Weekly jobless claims

1230 U.S. National activity index May

1345 U.S. Markit manufacturing flash PMI Jun

1400 U.S. New home sales May

1400 U.S. Leading index May

PRICES

Three month LME copper

Most active ShFE copper

Three month LME aluminium

Most active ShFE aluminium

Three month LME zinc

Most active ShFE zinc

Three month LME lead

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Three month LME nickel

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Three month LME tin

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Tata patriarch's aviation ambitions a step closer as India opens up

By Aditi Shah and Tommy Wilkes

NEW DELHI, June 23 (Reuters) - Officially at least, Ratan Tata, patriarch of one of India's wealthiest business families, retired in late 2012. In reality, he has been a driving force behind Tata's bet on airlines and a rare public campaign to open up the booming aviation sector.

The $100 billion Tata group conglomerate is a major beneficiary of the decision last week to open up aviation in India, making it easier for start-ups to fly overseas sooner.

The decision is no panacea for Tata, whose airlines - Vistara and AirAsia India - have had a slow start in a competitive market dominated by IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, and Etihad-backed Jet Airways, both of which opposed the rule change.

But it marks a victory for 78-year-old Ratan Tata, and ends more than two years of airlines lobbying, of Twitter rows and of frequent public statements from the usually circumspect steel-to-salt group.

"This was a David-and-Goliath kind of situation," said a source close to Tata group. "There was huge lobbying from the other side."

Ultimately, sources familiar with the talks said, it was Ratan Tata, a trained pilot, who was key to sealing the deal, capitalising on his clout.

In a message earlier this year, he called for "a new open market economy" and said airlines lobbying against a rule change was "reminiscent of protectionist and monopolistic pressures by vested interests' entities who seem to fear competition."

A spokesman for Tata Sons, which promotes the group, denied Ratan Tata was directly involved, saying he had "nothing to do with operations or management of either of the airlines" after his retirement, and that views he expressed were personal.

TURBULENT BEGINNINGS

Not that either of Tata's two airline ventures - a low-cost carrier owned with Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd and Vistara, a full-service carrier run with Singapore Airlines - is yet ready to fly overseas. Both have had turbulent starts.

Vistara initially focused on domestic business travellers, but had to reconfigure its aircraft after a year, to replace pricier seats with cheaper ones.

AirAsia underwent a management shake-up earlier this year.

Vistara's share of India's passenger air market is rising but is still just 2.5 percent after nearly 18 months in business. AirAsia's share after two years has stagnated at about 2 percent, government data showed, compared with IndiGo, which has a 39 percent share, and Jet Airways with 19 percent.

But flying overseas is critical. It means higher profits and margins than in India's cut-throat market dominated by low-cost carriers, and Vistara and AirAsia now aim to boost their fleet sizes within a year.

A Tata Sons spokeswoman said making profit can take several years and the group had a "clear road map": "Aviation is a long gestation business sector."

The new rules water down a requirement known as 5/20, which barred domestic airlines from flying overseas before being in operation for five years and having 20 aircraft.

Now they can fly overseas as long as they deploy 20 aircraft or 20 percent of total capacity in India, whichever is higher. Tata Sons and the two airlines said they would prefer the rules to be abolished altogether.

TATA'S RE-ENTRY

Tata group, a business empire stretching from Jaguar Land Rover and steel mills in Britain to salt pans and India's cheapest car, has a long history in aviation.

J. R. D. Tata, the group chairman before Ratan Tata, became India's first qualified pilot in 1929, and set up an airline that was later nationalised as state carrier Air India.

Under Ratan Tata, the group sought to snap up Air India in a privatisation process, later aborted.

Instead, even as current chairman Cyrus Mistry has sought to wind up some of Tata group's more ambitious projects, Ratan Tata pulled the group back in with two joint ventures. For his critics, the intervention was too little, too late.

In 2013, a year after India liberalised foreign direct investment in aviation, Tata returned, first with AirAsia and then Vistara.

"India's market has only just started and it could provide growth for global aviation for the next 10 or 15 years," said Kapil Kaul, New Delhi-based chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) consultancy.

India is the world's fastest-growing aviation market, clocking more than 20 percent growth last year, and CAPA expects domestic passenger travel to grow to 500 million by 2035 from 70 million in 2015.

Tata group is moving to capitalise on the win.

Vistara, which has 11 aircraft, had an original plan to scale up to 20 by June, 2018, but could speed that up.

"We do not rule out accelerating the deliveries or procuring more aircraft from leasing firms, manufacturers or, for that matter, from our parent Singapore Airlines also," Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh said in response to a query.

Yeoh said the company was reviewing its international plans.
Wanted man killed after Saudi raid on Shi'ite village - state media

DUBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - A wanted man has been killed in Saudi Arabia's oil-producing Eastern province after an exchange of gunfire while police were searching his home, state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.

The search in the village of Awamiya came amid rising anger in neighbouring Bahrain after authorities stripped the spiritual leader of the kingdom's majority Shi'ite Muslims of his citizenship over alleged links to Iran and accusations he was fomenting sectarian tensions.

Saudi state news agency SPA said security forces came under heavy fire when they raided the home of Abdul-Rahim al-Faraj and his brother, Majed, who was also wanted by security forces, in Awamiya on Wednesday evening.

"Security forces were later informed that a person who was fatally wounded by a gun shot had arrived at Mudar clinic and his identity check showed it was the wanted man Abdul-Rahim al-Faraj," SPA reported, quoting an interior ministry spokesman.

The agency said the two brothers had been wanted for firing on security forces in attacks that killed several, of being involved in armed robberies, and that weapons had been found in the house.

Awamiya is also the home town of prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution in January prompted angry protests in the area against the ruling Al Saud dynasty and led to Saudi Arabia cutting off relations with Iran.

Bahrain's decision to revoke the citizenship of Ayatollah Isa Qassim followed a decision to shut down the main Shi'ite opposition group in Bahrain, measures that have fuelled discontent in the island kingdom, near the Eastern province where most of Saudi Arabia's minority Shi'ites live.

In February, Saudi security forces killed Ali Mahmoud Ali Abdullah, a Bahraini national, who was wanted for taking part in "terrorist crimes", according to the ministry.
Indonesian president sails to South China Sea islands in message to Beijing

By Kanupriya Kapoor

JAKARTA, June 23 (Reuters) - Indonesia's president visited the Natuna Islands aboard a warship on Thursday, making a bold move to assert sovereignty over the area in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters.

President Joko Widodo's visit along with his chief security minister and foreign minister was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue.

A presidential palace statement said Widodo intended to hold a cabinet meeting aboard the warship.

"In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Beijing said on Monday that while China does not dispute Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests".

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Wednesday rejected China's stance, saying the waters around Natuna are in Indonesian territory.

There have been a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in the area but both sides have denied that the matter is a territorial or diplomatic dispute.

Widodo's visit to the remote island chain, which lies over 340 kilometres (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Kalimantan - Indonesia's portion of Borneo island - was also aimed at promoting infrastructure development in Indonesia's border areas.

"We want to show that Indonesia is a big country and we have to show this physically," Widodo said in a statement, referring to those infrastructure ambitions.
Iran condensate exports set to fall to 5-month low in July -sources

By Florence Tan and Osamu Tsukimori

SINGAPORE/TOKYO, June 23 (Reuters) - Iran's condensate exports in July are expected to fall to the lowest in five months as major buyer South Korea scales back purchases of the ultra-light oil, trade sources said on Thursday.

Robust demand for condensate, from South Korea in particular, helped drive a recovery of Iranian oil exports to a 4-1/2-year high in June, although the volume is expected to dip in July.

Loadings of Iranian condensate in June rose to about 408,000 barrels per day, the highest volume since sanctions on Iranian oil exports were lifted in January.

For July, Iranian condensate exports are expected to fall by 38 percent to about 252,000 barrels per day (bpd), the sources said citing loading data, as Asian refiners replace the ultra-light oil with cheaper naphtha.

The volume destined for South Korea in July is expected to fall by nearly two-thirds to 84,000 bpd from a record high in the previous month, as key buyer SK Energy switched to process cheaper naphtha, they said.

SK Energy declined to comment.

Condensate is processed at splitters to produce mainly naphtha, a petrochemical feedstock.

Benchmark Singapore naphtha refinery margins from refining a barrel of Brent crude have already tumbled more than 60 percent since the beginning of the year to around $53 per tonne on June 22.

Still, the start-up of new and existing splitters in Asia and the Middle East is expected to drive demand for Iranian condensate later in third quarter.

"There could be a rebound (in condensate prices) in September because naphtha cracks are showing some signs of a rebound," a trader with a North Asian firm said.

South Korea's Hyundai Chemical will also need to buy more condensate from September onwards for its new splitter, which could come into operation in October, he said.

The petrochemical joint venture between Hyundai Oilbank Co and Lotte Chemical has already purchased Qatari condensate and is in talks with the National Iranian Oil Company for long-term supplies.

A planned restart of Singapore's Jurong Aromatics complex and the commissioning of Qatar's new splitter could tighten Qatari condensate supplies and drive demand for Iranian oil, traders said.
(OFFICIAL)-Payments app Circle raises $60 mln in China expansion

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S.-based payments app Circle has raised $60 million from Chinese investors and launched a company in China, as it seeks to expand in the world's second-largest economy.

The latest funding comes from existing investor and Beijing-based tech investment fund IDG Capital Partners, as well as Chinese firms including Baidu, CICC Alpha and China Everbright Limited, Circle's co-founder Jeremy Allaire said.

"We're not aiming to compete with the domestic market as that would be a suicide mission given the strength of local players like Alipay and WeChat, but we can connect Chinese consumers with the euro zone and dollar markets," Allaire told Reuters by phone.

Circle's China unit operates as a separate locally incorporated company and has not yet launched a product, pending a deal with a local banking partner and a legal licence to operate, Allaire said.

Circle allows the sending of payments to countries where it hasn't yet launched, with the payment transferred into bitcoin, then settled within minutes via the blockchain network that validates bitcoin transactions. At the other end, the bitcoin is transferred back into the currency of that particular country.

Circle's aim in China is to connect consumers there with this new global means of making small or 'social' payments to peers in other countries.

China has in the past shown wariness towards to the bitcoin virtual currency whose usage underpins some of Circle's transfer of payments, blocking banks from trading the currency in December 2013 on concerns it was being used for money laundering.

In January this year, the People's Bank of China said it wanted to launch its own digital currencies to cut the costs of circulating traditional paper money and boost policymakers' control of money supply.

Circle, which launched in the United States at the end of last year and counts Barclays and Goldman Sachs among its backers, allows cross-currency transfers of pounds and dollars at rates that it says are better than other money transfer services.
Concerns about a possible repeat of a 2011 landslide in western North Dakota led state utility regulators to approve a route change Wednesday for the $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline project.

Construction is underway in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois on the 1,168-mile pipeline, which will move Bakken crude to a hub in Patoka, Ill., with a capacity of up to 570,000 barrels per day.

North Dakotas portion of the pipeline will snake about 350 miles across seven counties and account for $1.4 billion of the cost.

After approving more than a dozen route changes last month, the North Dakota Public Service Commission on Wednesday voted 2-0 to allow another reroute to avoid what chairwoman Julie Fedorchak called a geographically unstable area where a landslide was discovered in May 2011 near the Little Missouri River in Dunn County.

In that incident, the side of a butte caved in and slid downward, exposing both a Bridger Pipeline company line constructed the previous winter and an older pipeline running parallel farther up the hill. Dakota Gasification Co., which owned the older pipeline, blamed the landslide on Bridgers slipshod construction practices, PSC documents show.

The site was regraded with fill material, but concerns about future instability led engineers hired by Dakota Access to recommend installing the pipeline through the area using deep trenching or horizontal directional drilling.

The supplemental order approved Wednesday requires the company to drill horizontally to minimize the potential for erosion and landslides, Fedorchak said.

Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, also was granted its request to expand the tree-clearing width from 50 feet to 85 feet at 152 locations along the pipeline route to provide a safer workspace.

Commissioner Brian Kalk noted the 85-foot width was already specified in landowner easements, and such reroutes and tweaks arent uncommon on projects of this size. But with heightened awareness about the Dakota Access project, he said it was appropriate to put them on the PSCs regular agenda.

Fedorchak said it illustrates the ongoing conversation between PSC staff and the company.

Theres a lot of interaction on a daily basis, and we will be closely monitoring the construction and completion of this line, which is a vital line to the oil industry, she said.

Commissioner Randy Christmann abstained from voting because the pipeline route crosses a relatives property.
Idaho prosecutor denies Syrian refugees gang-raped girl

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho, June 22 (Reuters) - An Idaho prosecutor said on Wednesday that internet outlets devoted to carrying anti-Muslim sentiments were to blame for fomenting widely spread, false rumors that three Syrian refugee boys had gang-raped a young girl at knife-point.

"There was no gang rape, there were no Syrians involved and there was no knife. None of it is true," Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said of the reports, which originated on blogs and social media postings and have since gone viral.

He told Reuters those reports stemmed from an incident on June 2 in which three boys - aged 7, 10 and 14 - were accused of assaulting a 5-year-old girl in an apartment house laundry room in the southern Idaho city of Twin Falls.

An investigation by Twin Falls police found one of the boys sexually assaulted the girl and the two others were involved in the crime but did not touch the child, Loebs said.

Two boys were charged in the case, which an Idaho court has been sealed because they are minors, and were being held in a juvenile detention facility, the prosecutor said.

Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury, accused by anti-Muslim groups of a cover-up, said publicly that one of the boys was from Sudan, the other from Iraq. He added they had been in the United States for less than two years, but their immigration status was not immediately known.

Anti-Muslim agitators and those opposed to resettlement of refugees from the Syrian civil war nevertheless seized on the incident to buttress their arguments for shutting down a refugee center in Twin Falls to prevent entry by displaced Syrians.

"They are not compatible with our culture. They hate us. They don't want to be Americans," Vicky Davis, a local citizen opposed to the refugee center, said during a City Council meeting on Monday night.

The controversy flared as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, escalated his anti-Muslim rhetoric after last week's deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida by a gunman pledging his allegiance to Islamic State militants.

Trump has called for a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants and heavier government scrutiny of mosques.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Idaho sexual assault should be fully investigated but added the case had become a lightning rod for anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee sentiments.
In Turkey's tussle with the EU, Erdogan thinks he holds the cards

By Nick Tattersall and Paul Taylor

ISTANBUL/BRUSSELS, June 22 (Reuters) - Britain's Brexit campaign and the rise of Europe's populist right have further dented Turkish hopes of ever joining the EU, leaving President Tayyip Erdogan largely indifferent to its criticism and weakening an anchor of Turkish reform.

While neither side has any interest in ending Turkey's decade-long accession process, their relations are increasingly transactional, driven by mutual need in areas such as migration, trade and security, rather than by convergence towards European Union norms on democracy and basic rights.

Warnings from populist leaders around Europe of creeping Islamisation and from campaigners for a British exit from the EU of dire consequences if Turkey, a Muslim nation of 78 million, ever joins, have led Turkish leaders to complain increasingly openly about what they see as European Islamophobia.

"Europe, you don't want us because the majority of our population are Muslim ... We knew it but we tried to show our sincerity," Erdogan said at a graduation ceremony in Istanbul on Wednesday, the eve of Britain's "Brexit" vote, quipping that Turkey too could hold such a referendum.

"We will go and ask the public whether we should continue negotiations with the EU," he said.

Turkey has so far lived up to its side of a landmark deal with Brussels to stop illegal migration to Europe via its shores, in return for financial aid, the promise of visa-free travel to much of the bloc and accelerated talks on membership.

But it has alarmed EU leaders by pressing ahead with a crackdown on Erdogan's opponents, including moves to prosecute pro-Kurdish opposition politicians on terrorism charges, the detention of journalists and academics, and changes in the judiciary seen by critics as a purge of dissident judges.

"The EU-Turkey deal (on migration) is holding and there's no reason to fear it won't hold, despite the public bluster," a senior EU source told Reuters, pointing out that the numbers of illegal migrants crossing from Turkey had dropped sharply.

"But there are grounds to be quite worried about Turkey's overall direction of travel," the source said, pointing to the plans to remove hundreds of judges and to the recent lifting of immunity for members of parliament, a step towards the prosecution of opposition deputies.

Turkey has so far refused to back down on a key sticking point in the bid to secure visa-free travel to Europe's 26-nation Schengen area, namely EU demands that it change sweeping anti-terrorism laws used against intellectuals, Kurdish sympathisers and Erdogan's critics.

That risks further antagonizing a sceptical European Parliament, the EU's most vocal institution on human rights and freedom, which has to approve visa liberalisation.

Turkey says the anti-terror laws are crucial when an insurgency by militants in its largely Kurdish southeast is at its most violent since the 1990s, and when it faces a growing threat from Islamic State fighters from neighbouring Syria.

"A change of attitude is out of the question," Yasin Aktay, deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party, told Reuters.

But officials on both sides are hoping for a compromise.

Some EU leaders, notably Donald Tusk, the former Polish premier who chairs EU summits and was involved in negotiating the migrant deal with Erdogan, argue that Turkey should not get all the credit for the decline in migrant arrivals.

Tightening borders and sealing off Greece from the rest of Europe had delivered a drop before the deal with Ankara was signed, an EU official said, suggesting Turkey was not in as strong a negotiating position as it might think.

"We feel that we have the leverage. We are not solely in the hands of Turkey," the official said.

Brussels aides also note that Ankara's ties with Russia, the United States, Syria, Iran and Israel are all strained, hence it needs better relations with the EU.

DOMESTIC PRIORITIES

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said last month Erdogan should "think twice" before refusing to change the anti-terrorism laws and warned he would "have to explain to the Turkish people why he is responsible for them not getting the right to travel freely in Europe".

The combative Turkish leader, well used to demonising the EU to his loyal supporters, is seeking popular backing to change the constitution and boost his powers. He is counting on the support of nationalists more interested in seeing him take a hard line on Kurdish militants than kowtow to Brussels.

"Fundamentally, Erdogan may have calculated that as much as visa freedom would be a positive development, it is not enough of a benefit for him to be seen to be soft on terror," said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of Istanbul-based think tank EDAM.

Such political calculation will increasingly lie at the heart of Turkey's dealings with the EU, Ulgen said, predicting Ankara would cooperate with Brussels only in areas where it saw a clear strategic interest.

"For all practical purposes the accession dynamic is dead ... In a way it has become inconsequential as far as Erdogan is concerned," said Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and a former diplomat in Turkey's EU delegation.

"It will be a piecemeal effort to concoct areas of common interest and build structures of cooperation as the need arises ... That has been the case for refugees, that will be the case for economic integration, possibly for cooperation on counter-terrorism, and areas like that."

Turkey will take a modest step forward in the accession process on June 30 when it opens a new chapter of negotiations with the EU on budget policy.

EU officials say the European Commission will adopt a draft negotiating mandate in October or November to widen a 20-year customs union with Ankara, a bigger potential prize which they believe reformist parts of the government are determined to secure and which they hope will give Brussels extra leverage.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek, seen as one of few reformers in a new government dominated by allies of Erdogan, told Reuters last week that such a deal to extend the union to cover services, agriculture and public procurement could make Turkey the bloc's third largest trade partner.

But he said Turkey's influence in the Middle East, its role as an energy hub and its importance as an intelligence partner meant relations with Europe were not a one-way street.

"Europe needs Turkey if it wants to have a stronger say in international affairs in this geography, if it wants energy supply security, if it wants even overall security," he said.
Rio Tinto's cleared the decks, now time to change iron ore tack: Russell

By Clyde Russell

LAUNCESTON, Australia, June 23 (Reuters) - - The beautiful thing about cleaning out the executive ranks is that it gives a company an opportunity to press the reset button on strategies and positions.

Rio Tinto should seize the moment and come up with a forecast for Chinese steel output that is more realistic.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques, who takes over from Sam Walsh as chief executive at the start of July, has already moved to put his stamp on the world's second-largest mining company.

Rio announced on Tuesday that the head of its iron ore division, Andrew Harding, would leave the company on July 1 as part of a restructuring.

Harding's job of running Rio's main profit contributor will be taken by Chris Salisbury, the current acting chief of copper and coal.

Iron ore accounts for some 90 percent of Rio's profit, making it by far the miner's most important division.

Harding would have been a candidate to replace Walsh as chief executive, so his departure can be viewed as giving Jacques a clear path at running Rio without a potential rival sitting in a key position.

It would appear that Jacques wishes to start his tenure with a clean slate, and all eyes will now be on how he uses the opportunity, given he will only get it once.

While the market has focused largely on how Jacques may expand Rio's copper portfolio, given his background in running that division, what he does with iron ore will be more crucial for the company's fortunes, especially given the close correlation between the share price and Asian spot iron ore <_.IO62-CNISI>. For graphic, see: (http://tmsnrt.rs/28P4Aux)

The outgoing management of Walsh and Harding had already flagged that Rio would hold off investing in expanding its iron ore capacity further, given the market was at saturation point.

But neither Walsh or Harding ever publicly retreated from the company's forecast that Chinese steel output would rise to 1 billion tonnes a year, despite ever-mounting evidence that production has already peaked.

RIO NEEDS NEW IRON ORE FOCUS

China's steel output hit a record 823 million tonnes in 2014, dropped to 803.8 million last year, and is on track to fall further this year.

Steel production in the first five months of the year was 329.95 million tonnes, down 1.4 percent from the same period in 2015, according to China's statistics bureau.

This is despite record production in March as steel mills responded to a surge in prices. Output in May was just short of the March record but market expectations are that steel mills will ease back in the second half of the year in order to prevent a glut from driving prices lower.

Certainly, the authorities in Beijing have made it clear that they expect the industry to reduce excess capacity in the next few years and moderate production.

In this scenario it's hard to see how Rio's forecast of 1 billion tonnes of Chinese output can be realised.

If this were to come true, it implies that Chinese steel output would have to rise to levels 20 percent above the record of 2014.

For this steel to be used domestically, China's economic growth would have to accelerate back above 10 percent a year and return to being driven by infrastructure and building construction, rather than follow the stated policy of having economic expansion led by consumption and services.

The other possibility is that China does reach 1 billion tonnes of steel output a year at the expense of production in other countries.

Such a scenario would benefit the major seaborne iron ore suppliers like Rio, its Anglo-Australian rival BHP Billiton and Brazil's Vale, but it also seems unlikely to come to fruition.

Countries with domestic steel industries are already moving to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, a trend that is likely to strengthen, especially if China did increase output and try to boost shipments of its surplus steel surplus.

Given that virtually nobody outside of Rio believes the 1 billion-tonne-a-year China steel forecast, and that Rio itself has declined to present any substantive research showing how it reached this vast number, it would seem to be no-brainer for Jacques and Salisbury to start afresh.

A more realistic forecast would allow Rio to develop a strategy for its vital iron ore assets that goes beyond the current laser-like focus on costs.

While the reduction in costs has been more than impressive, the market view is that the limits of cost-cutting are close to being reached, and a clearer picture of what's next for Rio in iron ore would be welcome.

Disclosure: At the time of publication Clyde Russell owned shares in BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto as an investor in a fund.
Romania - Factors to watch on June 23

Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Thursday.

DEBT TENDER

Romanian debt managers tender 1 billion lei ($250.85 million) worth of one-year treasury bills.

MONEY SUPPLY

Romania's central bank to release May M3 money supply data.

CEE MARKETS

Emerging European assets mostly made mild gains on Wednesday, buoyed by subsiding bookmakers' probabilities of a British exit from the European Union that would be likely to drive cash out of risky assets and towards safe havens.

PARLIAMENT

Romanian lawmakers approved a bill on Wednesday that no longer considers hiring family members a conflict of interest. The justice minister criticised the decision.

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

For emerging markets economic events, click on

For an index of all diaries, click on
JAC Motors considers electric car production in Bulgaria

SOFIA, June 23 (Reuters) - Chinese automaker JAC Motors is exploring opportunities to start making electric cars in Bulgaria, the Balkan country's economy ministry said.

"JAC Motors looks at Bulgaria as an entry point to the European markets for the electric-powered cars and buses it is manufacturing," the ministry said in a statement.

The Black Sea state, the European Union's poorest member, is hungry for new, sustainable foreign investment after a real estate bubble burst during the financial crisis in 2009.

During a meeting with Bulgarian senior state officials, JAC Motors' representatives said the company - based in Hefei city in the central Chinese province of Anhui - could in future consider establishing assembling operations in Bulgaria using locally manufactured components.
Slovakia - Factors To Watch on June 23

BRATISLAVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Slovak financial markets on Thursday. ALL TIMES GMT (Slovak Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA======================== Real-time economic data releases.................. Summary of economic data and forecasts......... Recently released economic data................ Previous stories on Slovak data.......... **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/1C/events-overview =========================NEWS=============================== HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION: Ferrovial said via subsidiaries Cintra Infraestructuras and Ferrovial Agroman it has achieved financial closure of highways D4 and R7 in Slovakia. Story: Related stories: =================PRESS DIGEST=============================== JAGUAR LAND ROVER: Jaguar Land Rover, Britain's biggest carmaker, will go ahead with its plans to build a plant in Slovakia even if Britain votes on Thursday to leave the European Union, Slovakia's deputy transport minister said. http://spravy.pravda.sk/ekonomika/clanok/396950-stromcek-investicia-jaguaru-pokracuje-podla-harmonogramu/ Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy. For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX Main currency report TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets News editor of the day: Jason Hovet on +420 224 190 476 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com
By Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Britons voted on whether to quit the European Union in a bitterly-contested referendum on Thursday that polarised the nation and could change the face of Europe.

Financial markets, on edge for weeks over the uncertain outcome, rose on the strength of late polls that showed a swing towards staying in, but the bulk of recent polls have suggested the outcome was too close to call.

If Britain becomes the first state to exit the EU, the so-called Brexit would be the biggest blow to the 28-nation bloc since its foundation. The EU would be stripped of its second-biggest economy and one of its two main military powers, and could face calls for similar votes by anti-EU politicians in other countries.

If it votes to stay, Britain has been promised a special status exempting it from further political integration but European leaders will still have to address a sharp rise in euroscepticism across the continent.

A Brexit vote would also deal a potentially fatal blow to the career of Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum and campaigned for the country to stay in, against a Leave camp led by rivals from within his own Conservative party.

After four months of campaigning, polling stations opened at 0600 GMT and were due to close at 2100, with results expected to be announced by the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0100 and 0300 on Friday.

The Leave campaign says Britain would recover full sovereignty and the economy would benefit from a Brexit. It focused its campaign on warnings that Britain would be unable to control immigration levels as long as it was an EU member.

Remain says a Brexit would cause financial chaos, impoverish the nation and diminish its influence on world affairs, emphasising the economic benefits of membership and the risks posed by leaving.

The campaign was suspended for three days after the killing of pro-EU member of parliament Jo Cox a week ago, which prompted soul-searching about the vicious tone of the debate.

An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard newspaper found support for Remain on 52 percent and Leave on 48 percent. A Populus poll put Remain 10 points ahead on 55 percent. Both were conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday.

CAMERON'S FATE

Cameron called the vote under pressure from the rebellious anti-EU wing of his Conservative Party and the surging UK Independence Party (UKIP), hoping to end decades of debate over Britain's ties with Europe.

Unless Remain wins by a wide margin, Cameron could struggle to repair the rifts in his party and hold on to his job. He has said he would stay in office but in the event of a vote to leave he is likely to face calls to resign.

The Evening Standard newspaper, citing party sources including ministers, reported that some senior Conservatives from both sides of the divide planned to swiftly back Cameron to stay in office, regardless of the outcome.

"The markets are jittery already. Nobody wants the added uncertainty of a resignation," the newspaper quoted an unnamed minister as saying.

Cameron voted early and said on Twitter: "Today's the day you can vote for a stronger future - with Britain leading, not leave, Europe. #VoteRemain"

His main rival, fellow Conservative former London mayor Boris Johnson, who is the favourite with bookmakers to succeed Cameron, tweeted: "Now is the time to believe in this country and #VoteLeave. Let's make today our Independence Day."

If Britons choose to leave, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has suggested Scotland, where sentiment towards the EU is much more positive, may hold another a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom. Scots voted against independence in a plebiscite in 2014.

Traders, investors and companies were braced for volatility on financial markets whatever the outcome of a vote that both reflected, and has fuelled, an anti-establishment mood also seen in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

After the Ipsos MORI poll was released, sterling broke above $1.49 for the first time since 2015, although it later fell back and was at $1.48 at 1500 GMT. It had fallen almost to $1.40 last week when polls showed a surge towards Leave.

The likelihood of a Remain vote implied by Betfair betting odds stood at 86 percent, the firm said.

If Britain votes to leave, finance leaders from the Group of Seven leading economies will issue a statement stressing their readiness to take all necessary steps to calm markets, government officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Britain's AAA credit rating could swiftly be downgraded by Standard & Poor's if the Brexit camp prevails, S&P chief sovereign ratings officer Moritz Kraemer told German daily newspaper Bild.

OBAMA V TRUMP

Britain is deeply divided on EU membership, with older voters favouring exit and younger voters wanting to stay. London and Scotland favour staying in, while much of middle England wants out.

The killing of Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, stabbed and shot on a street in her electoral district in northern England, cast a pall over the final days of campaigning.

The man charged with her murder told a London court on Saturday when asked his name: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain". He is due to go on trial in November.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, the focus on immigration to Britain, which has increased dramatically in recent years, could worsen frictions in a country where the gap between rich and poor has also been widening.

The nation's divisions were reflected in newspaper front pages. "Independence Day" was the front page headline of the Sun tabloid, Britain's biggest-selling newspaper, while the Daily Mirror warned "Don't take a leap into the dark".

The issue also dominated news bulletins far beyond Britain. In China, the Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, warned Britain would lose its influence globally if voters backed Brexit.

Foreign leaders, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have called on Britain to remain in the EU, a message supported by global financial organisations, many company bosses and central bankers.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has voiced support for a Brexit.

"I don't think anybody should listen to me because I haven't really focused on it very much, but my inclination would be to get out," he told Fox Business on Wednesday. "You know, just go it alone. It's a mess," he said of the EU.

International banks have warned that the value of the pound could fall dramatically if Britain votes to leave and traders expect markets to be more volatile than at any time since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The "Out" campaign says a fall in the value of the pound would boost exports and has found support among some financial specialists and small businesses. It has urged voters to ignore what it calls the "establishment" which it says has the most to lose from Brexit.
Coalition air strikes, Turkish army kill 8 Islamic State militants - sources

ANKARA, June 23 (Reuters) - Artillery fire from Turkey and air strikes by U.S.-led coalition warplanes killed at least eight Islamic State fighters in northern Syria, military sources said on Thursday.

They said Turkish army howitzers and multiple rocket launchers fired on the militants on Wednesday as they were preparing to strike Turkey with rockets and mortars, destroying one defensive fighting position.

The coalition has stepped up air strikes against Islamic State in the area in recent weeks, in response to rocket attacks by the militants on the Turkish border town of Kilis.
Chief of Malaysia's anti-graft panel to step down

KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 (Reuters) - The head of Malaysia's anti-graft body will step down on August 1, the agency said on Thursday, more than two years before the scheduled end of a term that included an investigation of Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The revelations of the investigation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal last year, have shaken investors in Southeast Asia's third-biggest economy and dented confidence in Najib's ruling coalition.

Abu Kassim Mohamed, the chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), asked for his contract to be terminated earlier than expected, the agency said in a statement.

"There was no pressure from any parties towards the decision made by Abu Kassim to shorten his contract," it said, dismissing speculation in domestic media that pressure from the prime minister's office might have prompted the resignation.

The prime minister's office did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters seeking comment.

Under Abu Kassim, who took on his role in the beginning of 2010, the anti-graft body began investigations into allegations of graft and financial mismanagement at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the transfer of 2.6 billion ringgit ($647.09 million) to Najib's bank accounts.

Malaysia's attorney-general cleared Najib of any criminal offences or corruption in January. Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said he did not take any money for personal gain.

Abu Kassim's contract was to have run until Dec 4, 2018, the antigraft body said, adding that the request to cut short his tenure followed an offer to be a visiting expert at the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Austria.

"The request was made after I got the opportunity to improve Malaysia and MACC's name and international standing," Abu Kassim told reporters, adding that he would stay in the civil service until mandatory retirement in 2020.

A second vacancy is coming up as his deputy, Shukri Abdull, will retire on Oct. 3, Abu Kassim added, in a video of the news conference released by the agency.

Najib was widely criticised last year after the government replaced Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail, who had led investigations into 1MDB, with Mohamed Apandi Ali. It cited Patail's failing health for the change ahead of his retirement.
RBS receives bids for Greek shipping business - sources

By Jonathan Saul, Sophie Sassard and Andrew MacAskill

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - The Royal Bank of Scotland has received bids for its Greek ship finance business, banking and financial sources familiar with the matter said, following a leap in bad shipping debts at the lender over the past few months.

They told Reuters that the operation was worth about $3 billion although sources in the shipping business said that problems with lending to the industry, much of which is in a deep downturn, would affect the value of what could be recouped via a sale.

Credit Suisse and China Merchants were among the suitors bidding, the sources said.

RBS and Credit Suisse declined to comment, while China Merchants did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The British bank, which was rescued with a 46 billion-pound government bailout during the financial crisis, had previously been a top lender to the global shipping industry and its Greek office played a pivotal role. The business also includes a banking licence as well as about 40 staff, the sources said.

"RBS has held preliminary discussions with a number of interested parties," one source said. "The big difference here is they are not selling a portfolio of loans but a business, with staff in it able to do the debt collection stuff."

RBS, which is 73-percent state-owned, is in the midst of a restructuring aimed at returning the bank to profit after eight straight years of losses. In July 2015, Reuters reported it was winding down its Greek operation and putting its shipping loans portfolio up for sale.

While the oil tanker trade has picked up, the container and dry bulk shipping industries are struggling with a glut of ships, a faltering global economy and weaker consumer demand.

One shipping industry source said part of the RBS portfolio included non-performing loans due to the worsening conditions in some sectors.

"RBS has tried to put this sale together for some time. In the past two quarters, conditions in shipping have got worse and that has had some effect on the portfolio," the source said. "That will mean that there will have to be some price-adjustment for whatever is on offer."

Other sources said the loans could carry a 30 percent discount in order to attract interest, adding that some buyers may be interested only in parts of the business.

"It depends on the level of interest and also how quick a sale they want," a ship finance source said.

The bank's total shipping exposure reached 7.1 billion pounds ($10.4 billion) in the first quarter of this year, down from 7.5 billion pounds at the end of last year.

Non-performing loans to the industry - those on which repayments are significantly in arrears - increased to 827 million pounds in the first quarter of this year from 434 million at the end of 2015, RBS said in its quarterly results.

Reuters reported earlier this week that the European Central Bank has launched a review of banks' lending to the shipping sector. This has raised concerns among lenders that they may be required to set aside more capital and make higher loss provisions against loans to the industry.

CHINESE INTEREST

China Merchants, one of the country's biggest conglomerates, has been looking for cheap shipping and commodities-related assets in Europe, hoping to take advantage of the market downturn.

In March sources told Reuters that China Merchants had made an informal bid to buy London's Baltic Exchange, which has been at the heart of global shipping for centuries.

Greece agreed in April to sell a 67 percent stake in Piraeus port to Chinese shipping giant COSCO for 368.5 million euros ($416 million).

"For a Chinese bank, buying RBS's Greek business is an inroad into Europe. For others like Credit Suisse, RBS will have to offer something more as Credit Suisse is already a big player now in Greece," another ship finance source said.
North Dakota utility regulators gave a Florida company their blessing Wednesday to build a $153 million wind farm near the capital city.

The 100-megawatt Oliver III Wind Energy Center will sit about 13 miles northwest of Bismarck and will consist of up to 48 turbines on more than 14,000 acres of land in Morton and Oliver counties, with all but one turbine in Morton County.

The Public Service Commission voted 3-0 Wednesday to grant a site permit for developer Oliver Wind III, a NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary based in Juno Beach, Fla.

Commissioner Randy Christmann said when he first saw plans for the project and how close it was to housing developments and prime development property, I thought this was going to be a riot.

But he and other commissioners commended the Morton County Commission for how it addressed setbacks and other concerns, saying, I think theyve done a fantastic job.

Only one property owner raised concerns about the project during a public hearing in Mandan, leading to the relocation of one turbine site, they said.

The project comes amid a boom in wind energy development as the states oil industry struggles with low crude prices. Last week, the PSC approved the 87-turbine, $250 million Brady Wind Energy Center I in Stark County, and the panel is considering a permit for the second phase of that project with 72 turbines in Hettinger County.

The state currently has 1,174 wind turbines in operation with a total generating capacity of 2,134 megawatts, according to PSC data. Permits have been issued for an additional 1,962 megawatts, including the Brady I and Oliver III projects, with more than 460 megawatts currently under construction.

Commissioner chairwoman Julie Fedorchak urged counties to make sure ordinances are in place for wind facilities before developers approach them with projects. Under Morton Countys standards, the Oliver III turbines will be set back at least 1,400 feet from occupied homes and 679 feet from the property lines of non-participating landowners.

Commissioner Brian Kalk said the Federal Aviation Administration raised concerns that the turbines, with a hub height of up to 262 feet, could create line-of-sight radar issues with the Bismarck Airport. The company agreed to work with the FAA if additional radar systems are needed, he said.

Electricity generated by the turbines will be purchased by MinnKota Power Cooperative to supply its customers in North Dakota and Minnesota.

The PSC also approved an $11.4 million, 230-kilovolt transmission line to support the wind farm.
Egypt to auction 4G licences if local operators don't bite

By Ehab Farouk

CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - Egypt said on Thursday it will offer fourth-generation mobile licences in an international auction if they are not taken up by carriers already operating in the country.

The sale of 4G licences is part of a long-awaited plan to reform Egyptian telecoms and the regulator has approached the three companies currently offering mobile services - Orange Egypt, Vodafone Egypt, and Etisalat about buying them.

Egypt's government will finalise technical negotiations with telecoms groups over the licences next week and start financial negotiations the week after, Communications and Information Technology Minister Yasser al-Kadi told Reuters.

"If any of the companies say they don't want the 4G licence we will offer it in an international auction," he said.

The reforms will enable landline monopoly Telecom Egypt to enter the mobile phone market directly, while allowing the mobile operators to offer fixed line services, ending Telecom Egypt's domination of the sector.

Telecom Egypt will not be required to sell its stake in Vodafone Egypt but will eventually dispose of it when it gets a good offer, telecommunication sources told Reuters.

The state-owned company owns a 45 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt but hopes to offer mobile phone services itself following the introduction of high-speed 4G technology.

Telecom Egypt said earlier this week it was studying the terms in detail ahead of applying for the 4G licence.

Egypt said in 2014 when it laid out the 4G plan that Telecom Egypt would be allowed to offer mobile services if it paid 2.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($282 million) and sold its Vodafone stake within a year of offering the services.

The government says a unified licence will put all four telecoms companies on an equal footing and end a monopoly, it also hopes to collect a total of 22.3 billion Egyptian pounds from licence fees, which will be collected in a lump sum and not over instalments, Kadi said.
TABLE-Croatia May jobless figure falls to 14.4 pct

ZAGREB, June 23 (Reuters) - Croatia's unemployment rate fell to 14.4 percent in May from 15.9 percent in April, the State Statistics Bureau said on Thursday. Following are details compiled from the Statistics Office and Employment Bureau data. UNEMPLOYMENT MAY APR MAY 2015 Total unemployed 232,327 254,591 275,381 Unemployment rate (pct) 14.4 15.9 17.1 NOTES - The number of jobless fell 8.7 percent in May on a monthly basis and 15.6 percent year-on-year. According to the Employment Bureau figure, which is updated daily, a total of 220,561 people were unemployed on June 23. (Reporting by Igor Ilic, editing by Larry King)
Suspected murderer of British lawmaker Jo Cox to face trial in November

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - The man accused of murdering British member of parliament Jo Cox in her electoral district in northern England last week was told on Thursday he will go on trial in November.

Thomas Mair, 52, is accused of shooting and stabbing Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, in the street as she arrived for a meeting with residents in the town of Birstall. A 77-year-old man who came to her aid was also stabbed.

The murder of the pro-European Union lawmaker horrified politicians and the public and overshadowed the last days of campaigning ahead of Thursday's referendum on whether Britain should remain in the bloc.

Charged with murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and possession of a gun and a knife, Mair appeared at London's Old Bailey criminal court via videolink from prison for a brief hearing on Thursday where he spoke only to confirm his name.

At an earlier court hearing, Mair had said his name was "death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

He was remanded in custody is next due in court on Sept. 19.
WHO to launch emergency yellow fever vaccination in Angola and Congo

KINSHASA June 23 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that it will launch emergency yellow fever vaccination campaigns along the border between Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Congolese capital Kinshasa next month.
Indonesia president visits islands on warship, makes point to China

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fergus Jensen

JAKARTA, June 23 (Reuters) - Indonesia's president held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands on Thursday, asserting sovereignty over waters in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its "over-lapping claim" on nearby waters.

President Joko Widodo's visit to the remote island chain along with his chief security minister, foreign minister, and military chief was described by Indonesian officials as the strongest message that has been given to China over the issue.

During the cabinet meeting onboard the Indonesian navy corvette, Widodo called on the military to step up patrols in the wake of a series of face-offs between Indonesian and Chinese vessels in area.

"The capabilities of the military...in securing our seas should be improved, whether it's technology or general preparedness," Widodo said, according to a presidential palace statement.

Officials told reporters the cabinet also discussed matters of sovereignty and development. Indonesia has established a special economic zone in the gas-rich waters around Natuna Islands, which lie over 340 kilometres (212 miles) off the northwest tip of Borneo island.

Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, who also accompanied Widodo, posted online photos of the president aboard the warship and of a written message he left for the crew, saying "Defend Indonesia".

The president's visit to a body of water that Indonesia calls the Natuna Sea reflected the government's strong stance over the issue, Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said.

"In the course of our history, we've never been this stern (with China). This is also to demonstrate that the president is not taking the issue lightly," he told The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Both sides have denied that the matter represents a territorial or diplomatic dispute.

But, Beijing officials repeated on Thursday that while China does not dispute Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, "some waters of the South China Sea" were subject to "overlapping claims on maritime rights and interests".

"We hope that Indonesia can meet us halfway, objectively recognise the relevant dispute and appropriately resolve the relevant fishing issue to jointly maintain the overall picture of the development of bilateral relations and regional peace and stability," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
Myanmar migrant plight in spotlight as Suu Kyi visits Thailand

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Juarawee Kittisilpa

MAHACHAI, Thailand, June 23 (Reuters) - Hundreds of migrants from Myanmar gave Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi a thunderous welcome to neighbouring Thailand on Thursday on her first visit since her National League for Democracy swept to election victory in November.

Thailand is home to between two and three million migrant workers from Myanmar, many of whom perform back-breaking jobs most Thais are unwilling to do. Her visit has prompted renewed calls for better protection of migrant workers, many of whom are undocumented and whom rights groups say are vulnerable to abuse.

"We hope she will pressure the Thai government to have sympathy for us," said Ma Kout Shwe, a steel-factory worker from Myanmar.

Suu Kyi and Thai junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha will on Friday sign a memorandum of understanding to help Myanmar migrants work legally in Thailand, according to a Thai government document distributed before the visit.

Many of those gathered at the Talay Thai market in Mahachai, a fishing port just west of Bangkok, wore t-shirts bearing the words: "We love Aung San Suu Kyi."

Many migrants in Mahachai work on fishing boats or in seafood processing plants. The industry's reputation has been tarnished by instances of human trafficking, forced labour and violence.

Thursday's visit is Suu Kyi's second official trip abroad since the NLD government took office on March 30.

She is making the three-day visit in her official capacity as state counsellor, a position created for her, and as foreign minister. It will mark the first meeting between the democracy icon and members of the Thai military government that seized power in a bloodless May 2014 coup.

The junta has been jittery over Suu Kyi's visit. A press conference in Bangkok on the plight of Myanmar's 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya minority ended abruptly on Thursday after the Thai authorities put pressure on the human rights groups that organised it.
WHO to launch emergency yellow fever vaccination in Angola, Congo

By Aaron Ross

KINSHASA, June 23 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that it will launch emergency yellow fever vaccination campaigns along the border between Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Congolese capital Kinshasa next month.

The worst yellow fever outbreak in decades has killed about 345 people in Angola, while Congo declared an epidemic in Kinshasa and two other provinces on Monday after reporting 67 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 other suspected cases.

In a statement, WHO said that the campaign would target areas within 75-100 km (45-60 miles) of the border where there are high levels of movement and trade in order to create an "immune buffer" and prevent the disease spreading further.

WHO said that the campaign would begin in July. There is currently almost no vaccine left in Congo and a new stock of more than 1 million doses may take weeks to arrive.

The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunise people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but experts warn this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas.

The mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people with poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed, owing to pour drainage.

The government and international health organisations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4.

But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a few doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa's central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighbouring Congo Republic.

To cope with the shortage, WHO has recommended using a fifth of the standard dose of yellow fever vaccine, which would not give lifelong protection to those who receive it but might at least contain the outbreak.

However, a WHO spokeswoman said such a move would not be appropriate for the current emergency plan on the border.

"Due to the logistical challenges involved in rural areas, dose fractioning would not be proposed in this area. WHO would recommend using full doses," Sarah Cumberland said.
Leasing company AWAS revealed as buyer of 15 Airbus jets

PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - Irish leasing company AWAS has been disclosed as the purchaser of 15 current-generation A320-family jets from Airbus.

The European planemaker said on Thursday the Dublin-based lessor had placed an order for 12 A320ceo and three A321ceo aircraft, with a combined catalogue value of $1.5 billion.

Two industry sources said the deal had already appeared in the planemaker's monthly order data in May, when the name of the buyer remained undisclosed.

Airbus declined to comment.

The purchase, under new AWAS chief executive David Siegel, appears to mark a change of emphasis at the leasing firm, which has generally been cautious in recent years about buying directly from manufacturers, citing long waiting times for jets.

It has tended instead to buy from other lessors or through sale-and-leaseback deals with airlines.

Last month, however, AWAS cancelled a direct order for two A350-900 aircraft, according to Airbus data.
Belarus may revive potash cooperation with Uralkali

MINSK/MUMBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - The Republic of Belarus said it might cooperate with Uralkali, the first sign the two sides might work together since the Russian potash producer broke off an alliance in 2013 and triggered a drop in global prices.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's comments on Thursday sent shares of rival potash companies higher as previous co-operation between the world's two biggest miners of the crop nutrient helped manage supplies and underpin prices.

Potash Corp of Saskatchewan and Mosaic Co gained 6 percent in New York, while Germany's K&S AG added 5 percent in Frankfurt.

Uralkali is the world's biggest potash producer, while state-controlled Belaruskali ranks second.

"New Uralkali shareholders are coming to me every month saying: 'Accept us,'" Lukashenko said at an event in Minsk, Belarus' capital. "We are not against it. Let's unite, on our conditions.

"Let's resume work and agree how much we will produce."

Lukashenko did not disclose his conditions. The previous joint venture was based in Minsk, which was then a crucial condition for Belarus and the main concern for Uralkali.

Uralkali declined to comment. Its major shareholder, Uralchem, was not available for comment.

The collapse of Uralkali's joint venture with Belaruskali caused competition to intensify and drive down prices, which have not fully recovered.

Talk of cooperation among major players comes after Germany's K&S AG said this week it would carefully manage output of its new Canadian mine, Scotiabank analyst Ben Isaacson said.

"We think there could not be a better signal for investors to revive optimism," he said.

Lukashenko also said Minsk signed a potash supply contract with India on Wednesday. Belaruskali's Belarussian Potash Co trading arm later said, however, that it was still finalizing the deal, which it expects to sign this month.

"I think it's a wonderful contract, taking into account the current prices," Lukashenko said, without disclosing prices or volumes.

A major Indian customer, who requested anonymity, said both sides were close to signing the deal.

In 2015, Uralkali was the first major producer to sign a one-year contract with India to supply 800,000 tonnes of potash at $332 per tonne.

India and China, the world's biggest fertilizer consumers, usually sign contracts earlier in the year. This year, deals were delayed by high stocks held by farmers.
Brazil police arrest former Planning Minister Bernardo

SAO PAULO, June 23 (Reuters) - Brazil police on Thursday arrested former Minister Paulo Bernardo and raided Workers Party offices in a spinoff of a massive corruption probe targeting the country's main parties and some of its most powerful executives.

Investigators said Bernardo, who was planning minister and communications minister during Workers Party administrations from 2005 to 2014, received more than 7 million reais ($2.08 million) in kickbacks. The Workers Party also benefited from the scheme, police said at a news conference.

Police searched 40 places in five different states and sought to arrest 10 other people with Thursday's operation, dubbed "Brazil Cost," an outgrowth of the two-year "Operation Car Wash" probe centered around kickbacks via state-run oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

The alleged kickbacks to those arrested stemmed from an overcharged contract for technical assistance at the Planning Ministry, investigators said. The suspects face charges including corruption, money laundering and criminal association.

Operation Brazil Cost came out of Sao Paulo instead of Curitiba, where most of the recent anti-graft crusade has originated under the jurisdiction of federal Judge Sergio Moro. The move to a different state showed the fight spreading as police and prosecutors learn from Curitiba's successful methods, investigators said.

"Today it was proven that investigations will continue no matter where they are," prosecutor Andrey Mendonca said.

The raids included the house of Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, Bernardo's wife and another longtime senior official from the Workers Party. Police also detained former Social Security Minister Carlos Gabas for questioning.

Bernardo and Hoffmann were indicted in March on charges of corruption for their suspected involvement in an illegal campaign finance scheme. They have denied any wrongdoing.

Because of Operation Car Wash, some of Brazil's most powerful executives and politicians face charges or are in jail for taking kickbacks in public works and funneling part of the money to fund campaigns.
In a case brought by two North Dakota men and a Minnesota man, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Thursday to limit penalties for refusing a blood alcohol test. Though the decision will force the state to change how it polices DUIs, law enforcement said it will not hinder their ability to prosecute drunken drivers.

The case, Birchfield v. North Dakota, pitted the scourge of drunken driving against a person's Fourth Amendment right to refuse a warrantless search.

The court decided that refusing to take a blood test during a drunken-driving arrest cannot be a crime, but refusing a breath test can. In effect, the court struck down a state law criminalizing refusal of a blood test.

The difference is that blood tests are more invasive than breath tests, the court held. A breath test is part of a normal search of a person during an arrested. A blood test, on the other hand, involves extracting part of a person's body, and the sample contains additional biological information.

"There must be a limit to the consequences to which motorists may be deemed to have consented by virtue of a decision to drive on public roads," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Kagan.

In their arguments before the court, lawyers for the alleged drunken drivers argued that a person had a right to refuse a blood or breath test without the threat of jail time. Lawyers for the state argued that a person implicitly agrees to a chemical test when driving on a public road.

The decision will affect North Dakota, Minnesota and 11 other states with laws criminalizing refusal of a blood test. It does not restrict law enforcement's ability to impose civil penalties, such as license suspensions, for the same action.

We knew this was coming," state court administrator Sally Holewa said. "We weren't sure the extent."

In early May, Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle convened seven judges to develop a plan for each district, Holewa said. The idea is to have an on-call judge, who can respond to emergency warrant requests. At the judicial conference in Grand Forks last week, judges demonstrated how they use email and e-signatures to sign warrants electronically.

The group aims to present a plan to the North Dakota Supreme Court within two weeks, Holewa said.

State Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he is also committed to applying the court's decision.

"We will ensure that law enforcement comply with the requirements," Stenehjem said in an interview. "I think it will make it much more likely that jurisdictions rely on the breath tests instead of the blood tests."

On the local level, Bismarck Police Chief Dan Donlin said the decision will not affect his officers' ability to arrest drunken drivers.

"The way majority of the time, were taking a breath test. We try to avoid the blood test unless its the only option," Donlin said.

While the decision may seem like a victory for the alleged drunken drivers, their attorneys are disappointed the court distinguished between blood and breath tests.

"Theyve created a new rule that dilutes the Fourth Amendment," said Dan Herbel, who represents Danny Birchfield. The decision could become a precedent for other warrantless searches, Herbel said.

Tom Murtha IV, the Dickinson attorney representing plaintiff Steven Michael Beylund, argued that breath tests are more intrusive than the court conceded.

"Being told  Blow into this machine and make sure you keep blowing until I tell you to stop and I'm satisfied that you've given me the evidence that I'm going to use to convict you  that seems very unfair that law enforcement should be allowed to do that to someone without a warrant," said Murtha.

Murtha also noted that the decision leaves a number of questions unanswered: Should police need a search warrant for a urine test? If an officer threatens a criminal penalty for a blood test, can this evidence be used in a civil case?

The North Dakota law criminalizing refusal dates to 2013, when the state stiffened drunken-driving laws, adding mandatory minimums and longer sentences for repeat offenders.

"I wanted to challenge [the law] the moment it passed," Herbel said. "Whats so perverse about criminalizing refusal, is that youre saying a group of legislators in North Dakota can sit down and criminalize a constitutional right."
Bahrain summons senior Shi'ite clerics for questioning-lawyer

DUBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - Bahraini authorities on Thursday summoned five Shi'ite Muslim scholars for questioning, activists said, in what appeared another step in a crackdown on dissent by the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

The clerics were called to a police station west of the capital Manama as an administrative court began hearing a justice ministry petition to dissolve the main opposition Shi'ite Muslim group al-Wefaq following a court order last week.

The court adjourned the hearing until September 4 to give al-Wefaq time to prepare its defence, the group's lawyer Abdallah al-Shamlawi said on his Twitter account.

An interior ministry spokesman was checking the report.

The Bahraini government says it is acting against people and groups it accuses of fomenting sectarian tensions and of being linked to non-Arab Iran.

Activists said the clerics, including Sheikh Fadel al-Zaki, head of the Council of Shi'ite scholars which was dissolved by the government more than two years ago, were ordered to appear at the Budaya police station in Manama.

The reason for the summons was not immediately clear. But Bahrainis suggested it might be linked to speeches made at the home of Ayatollah Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of Bahrain's Shi'ites after authorities stripped him of his citizenship.

Bahrain overcame mass pro-democracy protests mainly by Shi'ites in 2011 with support from Saudi Arabia. But political tensions continued to bubble under the surface, aggravated by financial difficulties due to the drop in oil revenues.

Separately, a Bahraini court on Thursday sentenced 24 people to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life in prison for setting up an Islamic State cell in Bahrain, local media reported. The court also ordered 13 of them stripped of their citizenship. The Arabic-language al-Ayyam newspaper said the citizenship of the other 11 had been revoked earlier.

The move against Qassim and previous measures including the arrest of prominent rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab and the closure of al-Wefaq have drawn strong rebukes from the United States and the United Nations.

Thousands took to the streets outside Qassim's house in the village of Diraz, west of the capital Manama, within hours of his loss of nationality, and more demonstrations are expected later in the week, especially after Muslim weekly prayers on Friday.
Germany take comfort from defensive solidity at Euros - Hummels

June 23 (Reuters) - Germany can take comfort from their defensive solidity at Euro 2016 even if their strike force has yet to catch fire at the other end, centre back Mats Hummels said.

Germany, who topped Group C with seven points, beat Ukraine 2-0 in their first game before being held to a goalless draw against Poland.

They beat Northern Ireland 1-0 in their final group game on Tuesday to set up a last-16 clash against Slovakia on Sunday, having not conceded a goal in the tournament.

Germany's goals against Ukraine came from central defender Shkodran Mustafi and holding midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, with striker Mario Gomez scoring the only goal against Northern Ireland.

"We are where we wanted to be -- it was what we had to manage," Hummels told reporters in France.

"We only scored three goals, if you want to put it like that, but we didn't concede one, so that's a good basis for the rounds to come.
Yemen's Houthis kill seven in search for pro-government fighter -residents

CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - Residents of a village in central Yemen said Iran-allied Houthi fighters shot dead seven farmers on Thursday while searching for the leader of a pro-government militia.

Peace talks in Kuwait between Yemen's government and the Houthis to end a civil war have dragged on for two months with few concrete results. A truce that began on April 10 has dampened fighting, but skirmishes continue almost daily.

Residents of the village of Nadara in Ibb province said the Houthis could not find the militia commander but blew up his house and killed seven men working in the fields.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen's war in March 2015 on behalf of the internationally backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The conflict has killed at least 6,400 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

The Houthis said the attack was a raid on a "terrorist cell" and that eight al-Qaeda fighters had been killed in the operation, according to the Houthi-run state news agency Saba.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the war to seize a vast swath of the country, winning new recruits and enriching themselves from oil smuggling.

There have been reports of al Qaeda militants joining pro-government and tribal fighters in battles against the Houthis in central Yemen.

However, the Houthis also routinely characterize the militia forces opposed to them as al Qaeda militants and accuse the Saudi-led coalition of abetting AQAP's expansion, something the alliance denies.

The alliance members fear the Houthi movement is a proxy for their arch-rivals in Tehran - something the Houthis deny - and have launched thousands of air strikes in a bid to defeat them.

United Nations Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Tuesday told the U.N. Security Council he would present a roadmap in the coming days to advance the stalled process.
Germany must decide on Heckler & Koch exports to Saudi Arabia-court

FRANKFURT, June 23 (Reuters) - A German court ruled on Thursday that the government must decide whether to approve a request by Heckler & Koch to export gun parts to Saudi Arabia.

Heckler & Koch filed a complaint last year against the German government because it had been waiting for more than two years for approval to export parts needed to manufacture its G36 assault rifle in Saudi Arabia.

Frankfurt's Administrative Court said the government must now make that decision.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government approved the controversial but lucrative licensing deal for Heckler & Koch that allows Saudi Arabia to produce the G36 itself in 2008.
Suu Kyi visit to Thailand spotlights Myanmar migrant plight

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Patpicha Tanakasempipat

MAHACHAI, Thailand, June 23 (Reuters) - Hundreds of migrants from Myanmar on Thursday gave Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi a thunderous welcome on her first visit to neighbouring Thailand since her National League for Democracy swept to election victory in November.

Thailand is home to between two million and three million migrant workers from Myanmar, many of whom do back-breaking jobs most Thais are unwilling to do. Suu Kyi's visit has prompted renewed calls for better protection for the workers, who are vulnerable to abuse, rights groups say.

"We hope she will pressure the Thai government to have sympathy for us," said Ma Kout Shwe, a Myanmar steel-factory worker in the crowd at the Talay Thai market in Mahachai, a fishing port just west of Bangkok, the capital.

Suu Kyi and Thai junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha will sign a pact on Friday to help Myanmar migrants work legally in Thailand, according to a Thai government document distributed before the visit. Many of the workers are undocumented.

Their enthusiasm undimmed by the rain, the crowd chanted "Mother Suu" after Suu Kyi, dressed in a traditional blue dress, met workers and responded to questions.

In Mahachai, migrants man the fishing boats and work in seafood processing plants. Thailand is one of the world's top seafood suppliers, but the industry's reputation has been tarnished by instances of human trafficking and forced labour.

The three-day visit to Thailand is Suu Kyi's second official trip abroad since the NLD government took office on March 30.

It will see the first meeting of the democracy icon and members of the Thai military government that seized power in a bloodless May 2014 coup.

She is visiting in her official capacity as state counsellor, a position created for her, and as foreign minister.

The Thai junta has been jittery over the visit. A press conference in Bangkok on the plight of Myanmar's 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya minority ended abruptly on Thursday after the Thai authorities put pressure on the human rights groups that organised it.
U.S.-backed Syrian forces clash with Islamic State on outskirts of Manbij

AMMAN, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Syrian forces were fighting through Islamic State defenses on the edge of Manbij city, a militant stronghold near the Turkish border, a senior military official with the American-led coalition fighting the group said on Thursday.

The forces encountered improvised explosive devices and rocket positions, the official said, as they tried to cut off an area that provides the militants with their main access route to the outside world.

"So there is still a civilian population, there are Daesh in defensive areas and the Syrian Democratic Forces are moving closer to them," said British Army Major General Doug Chalmers, deputy commander for strategy and sustainment with the U.S.-led coalition, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State. He was speaking with reporters in Washington via video link.

The comments come after the British-based Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that U.S. backed forces fought Islamic State militants inside the city of Manbij for the first time since they laid siege to the militant stronghold near the Turkish border.

The monitor said heavy clashes were taking place in western districts of Manbij after the fighters swept into the city near the Kutab roundabout, almost 2 km (1.2 miles) from the city centre.

"The reporting I've had puts them on the edge and the outskirts for some areas which I describe as the outer (part) of the city rather than city proper," Chalmers said.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the campaign late last month with the backing of U.S. special forces to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

If successful it could pave the way for an assault on their Syrian capital Raqqa.
UN refugee chief urges Pakistanis not to label Afghan refugees "terrorists"

By Asad Hashim

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee chief on Thursday urged Pakistanis not to blame Afghan refugees for terrorism in their country, amid growing public calls for their deportation and worsening relations between the two neighbours.

Warning that the roughly 2.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan risked becoming a "forgotten" crisis, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on the international community to invest more funds to help them.

"My appeal is that, not only to the authorities but also to the local population: refugees as you know are not terrorists," Grandi said during a visit to a repatriation centre outside the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar.

Pakistani officials have recently hinted at the possibility of deporting Afghan refugees, amid tense relations with Kabul.

A decision to renew their legal status by June 30 has not yet been announced, although past deadlines have been extended at the last minute.

The number of Afghans voluntarily returning home is down sharply this year as violence worsens in Afghanistan, where the government and its U.S. allies are fighting a stubborn Taliban insurgency.

So far, about 6,000 Afghans have chosen to return home from Pakistan in 2016, compared with 58,211 voluntary repatriations last year, according to the UNHCR.

At the repatriation centre, refugees wiped the sweat from their faces as they waited in sweltering heat for their cases to be processed, a necessary step before they can set off on the journey home.

Many Afghan refugees say they are being pressured to go back by the authorities, amid worsening diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A recent border spat between the two at the nearby Torkham crossing left four dead and thousands stranded.

"I grew up here, but right now, the situation is not good," said Manzoor Hamdard, 30, one of about 50 people at the centre. His family fled Afghanistan 35 years ago.

"We are poor people, and the police come and take money from us," added Hamdard, who will move with his family of 15 to their native Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan.

"We've run out of energy to deal with this."

Huma Zafar, a community leader in an Afghan refugee tribal council, added: "Whatever the relations are, good or bad, refugees should not be affected by it."

TOLERANCE AT ITS LIMIT?

On Monday, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's foreign policy chief, told a Pakistani television channel that Afghan refugee camps had become "safe havens for terrorists".

On Wednesday, Pakistani federal minister Abdul Qadir Baloch warned that Pakistan was not willing to host Afghan refugees indefinitely.

"In view of the security and socioeconomic impact, the tolerance level of the host communities has reached its threshold and cannot be overstretched," he said, adding, however, that Pakistan would not use force to evict refugees.

Pakistan has the second-largest refugee population in the world, with more than 1.5 million registered and about a million unregistered refugees from Afghanistan, most of whom fled the Soviet invasion in 1979.

UNHCR chief Grandi said he had made the case for extending the June 30 deadline to the government in talks during his two-day visit to Pakistan.

He also stressed the need for the international community to fund efforts to support Afghan refugees.
SE Asian Islamic State unit being formed in southern Philippines - officials

By Randy Fabi and Manuel Mogato

JAKARTA/MANILA, June 23 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian militants who claim to be fighting for Islamic State in the Middle East have said they have chosen one of the most wanted men in the Philippines to head a regional faction of the ultra-radical group, security officials said on Thursday.

The claim was made in a video that was recently posted on social media, possibly last week, a military intelligence official in the Philippines told Reuters.

The video is significant, experts say, because it shows that Islamic State supporters are now being asked to stay home and unify under one umbrella group to launch attacks in Southeast Asia, instead of being drawn to the fight in the Middle East.

Authorities in the region have been on heightened alert since Islamic State claimed an attack in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in January in which eight people were killed, including four of the attackers.

In the 20-minute video seen by Reuters, young men and some children in military fatigues are shown carrying and training with weapons, and holding Islamic State flags. A section of the video showed some of these men engaging in gunbattles in jungles but it was not clear where and with whom.

The video also showed three men apparently being executed, but it was not clear where and who they were.

The authenticity of the video and when it was taken could not be independently verified.

In the video, a man authorities in Malaysia have identified as Mohd Rafi Udin, a Malaysian militant currently in Syria, says in Malay: "If you cannot go to (Syria), join up and go to the Philippines."

In the video, Udin also urges Muslims to unite under the leadership of Abu Abdullah, a Philippine militant leader who pledged allegiance to Islamic State in January.

Abu Abdullah, also known as Isnilon Hapilon, is a leader of the Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf. He is on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the kidnapping of 17 Filipinos and three Americans in 2001 and carries a bounty of $5 million.

The video was released to mark Islamic State's acceptance of allegiances from jihadists in the Philippines, the first formal recognition of a Southeast Asian group, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, chief of Malaysia's police counter-terrorism unit.

"This video is not just propaganda, but is a serious threat. We are definitely expecting more attacks in this region," Pitchay told Reuters.

Hapilon is known to be based in the interior hills of the island of Basilan in the Mindanao region of the southern Philippines. In April, at least 18 Philippine soldiers were killed and 53 wounded in an attack on his followers on the island.

KIDNAP GANG

For decades, Abu Sayyaf has been known for extortion, kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, and is one of the most brutal Muslim rebel factions in the south of the largely Christian Philippines.

The group has posted videos on social media sites this year pledging allegiance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The latest video appears aimed at recognising Hapilon as the Southeast Asian leader of the group, anti-terrorism experts said.

"I think this is a very significant video," said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based security expert. "This acknowledges support from Indonesia and Malaysia."

"It suggests there will be more efforts to get people to actually go to Mindanao to launch operations from there."

The Jakarta attacks in January were claimed by Islamic State. But the attack did not bear the hallmarks of other spectacular strikes by the radical group - the militants lacked sophisticated weaponry and were amateurish in the execution.

Some security officials fear a more organised and better trained militant group could launch far deadlier attacks in the region.

But Philippine military officials dismissed these concerns, saying the video was just propaganda and should be ignored.

"People should not be bothered by this," said Philippine military spokesman Restituto Padilla "Authorities are working on this. They can be identified, and they can be hunted down."
Court orders Germany to decide on gun exports to Saudi Arabia

By Alexander Hubner and Gernot Heller

FRANKFURT, June 23 (Reuters) - A German court on Thursday ordered the government to decide whether to allow gunmaker Heckler & Koch to export parts to Saudi Arabia, handing a partial victory to the arms manufacturer.

Heckler & Koch, one of the world's best-known gunmakers, filed a complaint last year against the government for delaying its decision on licensing the export of parts needed to manufacture its G36 assault rifle in Saudi Arabia. The firm applied for a permit more than two years ago.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government in 2008 approved the lucrative licensing deal that allows Saudi Arabia to produce the G36, despite concerns about human rights abuses in the Gulf kingdom.

The government changed its approach on arms exports two years ago following a storm of media criticism, and in January Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Germany might look harder still at its arms exports to Saudi Arabia, after a wave of executions there.

Saudi Arabia executed 47 people in a single day in January, including a prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric and dozens of members of the Sunni militant group al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia has defended its human rights record by saying its legal system is based on Islam, its judiciary is independent and it does not use torture.

Frankfurt's Administrative Court ruled on Thursday that the Federal Office for Export Control must now decide one way or another on the Heckler & Koch case.

"It may well be that it winds up being a negative decision," Judge Rainald Gerster told the court, saying it was not the job of the court to make a political decision.

The company welcomed the court ruling. "That's what we finally wanted to achieve," said Uwe Brueggemann, the lawyer representing Heckler & Koch in the lawsuit.

But the victory could turn out to be a Pyrrhic one.

The Economy Ministry said in a statement it had taken note of the ruling and would make a decision. It noted that Gabriel remained critical of exports to Saudi Arabia and had spoken out against an approval of the licence in February.

An economy ministry source said Gabriel, head of the Social Democrats, welcomed the ruling because it gave him the opportunity to make a decision, which had previously been blocked by his Christian Democrat coalition partners.

Despite Gabriel's pledge in 2014 to take a more cautious approach on licensing arms exports, German exports of military equipment rose to around 7.5 billion euros ($8.54 billion) in 2015, he said in February.

In the first six months of 2015, Germany permitted the export of arms worth over 178 million euros to Saudi Arabia, according to a report by the economy ministry in October 2015.

Heckler & Koch's G36 is standard issue for many armies around the globe and its HK416 assault rifle is said to have been used to kill Osama bin Laden.
Legal snag delays Egypt ergot decree, U.S. shipment rejected

By Maha El Dahan and Eric Knecht

ABU DHABI/CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - An Egyptian decree to allow a small amount of ergot in wheat shipments, aimed at resolving a long-running dispute over the country's import requirements, has been held up by a legal snag.

Egyptian quarantine authorities' refusal to let in a single grain of wheat infected with ergot, a common fungus, has wreaked havoc on the world's largest wheat buyer's tenders for months and is at odds with a more commonly accepted international standard of up to 0.05 percent.

This higher level is endorsed by the ministry of supplies and state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC).

The months'-long gridlock -- which saw several shipments of wheat turned away at ports, sharply lower participation at GASC tenders, and higher wheat prices -- was thought to be finally nearing a resolution when Prime Minister Sherif Ismail intervened on Tuesday and said the country would adhere to the common 0.05 level.

A ministerial decree putting the conflict to rest was expected on Wednesday, but never materialised.

Egypt's Agriculture Ministry told Reuters the decree was delayed because of a months-old judicial order from the prosecutor general that bans all ergot from entering the country.

The order followed the rejection of a French wheat shipment belonging to trading firm Bunge late last year. The firm subsequently filed a lawsuit, still in court, contesting the decision.

"The prosecutor needs to remove that order first before a decree can be issued," Agriculture Ministry spokesman Eid Hawash said.

REJECTED CARGO

The latest twist in the ergot issue comes as a 33,000-tonne shipment of U.S. wheat awaits its fate in the port of Alexandria and just weeks before GASC is expected to re-enter international markets.

The U.S. cargo, which belongs to the trading firm Venus, had tested for a 0.006 percent level of ergot, well below the international standard of 0.05 percent, and was rejected on June 12, documents from Egypt's ministries of health and agriculture seen by Reuters show.

Venus has appealed the decision, but was expecting this week's ministerial decree to ultimately free the cargo from quarantine.

"We are now told that this order by the prosecutor has blocked the decree," a source at Venus said, adding that the legal snag was expected to be resolved and pave the way for the decree to be issued on Sunday.

Traders meanwhile said that if the ergot issue remained unresolved, it would translate into higher prices at the next GASC tender.

"This will cost Egypt in terms of it spending precious dollars on overpriced wheat at a time when its economy is in critical condition," said one Cairo-based trader.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report issued this month said that Egypt will face $860 million in extra costs and lost export opportunities this year because of "unorthodox agricultural measures," including its zero-tolerance policy on ergot.
U.N. to clarify Syria talks outlook on June 29

GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - The prospects for a new round of Syria peace talks should be clearer after the U.N. Security Council discusses options on June 29, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters on Thursday.

De Mistura said he had accompanied U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to St Petersburg, where they had "quite a comprehensive and long meeting" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that mostly focused on Syria.

The last round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition broke up at the end of April as government forces, backed by Russia, escalated their assault on rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo.

A "cessation of hostilities" that had brought peace to much of Syria for two months largely broke down, and the war has resumed in many areas.

De Mistura told reporters he was aiming for a July date for a new round of talks to meet an August deadline for a deal, but first he wanted the United States and Russia to make a "critical mass" of progress on a deal for political transition in Syria.

Despite the suspension of negotiations on a political transition - involving, crucially, the future of President Bashar al-Assad - officials have continued "technical" talks on some of the questions that need to be solved in any political deal.

De Mistura's team has held technical talks in Moscow and Cairo and plans more in Riyadh and Damascus, and he said so far they had been very useful.

"They are under the radar, calm and quiet and discreet but they have been providing us with quite a lot of substantive points that can be, will be useful, when the (next round of) intra-Syrian talks take place," he said.

De Mistura's humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the U.N. was still asking the government for permission to get into two besieged zones, Arbin and Zamalka in Rural Damascus. He hoped to reach the towns next week.

Egeland also warned that four towns covered by a single local peace deal - Zabadani, Foua, Kefraya and Madaya - had not had food deliveries since April. The humanitarian situation was in danger of sliding back to conditions at the start of the year, when people in Madaya were starving to death.
Dior to appoint Valentino's Maria Chiuri as creative head- sources

By Astrid Wendlandt

PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - Christian Dior is set to announce after its couture show in early July that Maria Grazia Chiuri is joining the French fashion house from Italy's Valentino, two people familiar with the matter said.

Chiuri will be taking on one of the most important jobs at Dior. She will also be the first woman creative director in the company's 70-year history, following in the footsteps of celebrity designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferre and John Galliano.

"I understand that it will be announced after the (July) couture show," one of the sources said.

Dior was not immediately available for comment.

Chiuri will join Dior at a difficult time. The brand's fashion sales growth has dropped in the past year and a half, going from double-digit to flat sales growth in the first quarter of this year.

Dior has attributed its poor results to the luxury market slowdown but some fashion industry experts have suggested it might be facing some desirability issues.

Dior is the parent company of LVMH, the luxury industry's biggest luxury group. It generates around 5 billion euros in annual sales, of which more than three fifths come from perfume and cosmetics. It has been struggling to find a replacement for Belgian designer Raf Simons who left unexpectedly in October.

Chiuri has worked wonders at Valentino together with her design partner Pierpaolo Piccioli, acting as the brand's joint-creative director since Valentino Garavani, who hired them himself, announced his retirement in 2007.

The pair won several prizes and helped to turn Valentino into one of the luxury industry's most profitable luxury brands and one of the strongest in terms of sales growth.

Under their creative leadership, Valentino has become known for its light, graceful and highly romantic designs, applauded by fashion editors. Dior, which has been producing relatively modern styles, would benefit from a return to more romantic, fairytale-like aesthetics, some fashion critics have said, when asked about Chiuri on an unattributable basis.
Bosnia fails to attract bidders in auction of state-owned insurer

SARAJEVO, June 23 (Reuters) - The public auction of Bosnia's 45.5 percent stake in the country's top insurer, Sarajevo Osiguranje, failed to attract any bidders on Thursday, the Sarajevo Stock Exchange (SASE) said.

Bosnia's autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation offered its stake in the company in the hope of raising at least 27.4 million Bosnian marka ($15.6 million) as part of a privatisation plan to help to plug its budget deficit.

"The auction failed. There was no bidder. The government will now decide if it will repeat the auction at a later stage," a spokeswoman for the SASE told Reuters.

The auction of 2.1 million shares was due to be carried out via the SASE with a starting price of 12.99 marka per share. The asking price was based on the company's book value, which is higher than its present market value.

Shares of Sarajevo Osiguranje, which operates 14 branch offices across Bosnia, traded at 8.77 marka, down 2.5 percent from Wednesday's close. It has a market capitalisation of close to 41.8 million marka.

The insurer has a 15 percent market share in the Federation and 10 percent market share nationwide. The remaining shares in the company are held by investment funds and the local branch of Austrian lender Raiffeisen Bank International.
Turkey says inappropriate for lawmakers to visit air base, in row with Germany

ANKARA, June 23 (Reuters) - Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday it would be inappropriate for politicians to visit an air base used by German and other Western forces in his country, drawing an angry response from Berlin in a mounting row between the NATO states.

Mevlut Cavusoglu's words came a day after Germany's defence ministry said Turkey was blocking plans by a senior German defence official and lawmakers to visit the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey.

Cavusoglu did not give his reasons - but one German lawmaker said Turkey's stance was meant as a response to the German parliament's decision this month to declare the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a genocide, a label Turkey rejects.

The dispute comes at an awkward time for German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is counting on Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan to push on with an agreement with the European Union to stem the flow of refugees through Turkey into Europe.

Cavusoglu told reporters that military and technical delegations were free to visit the Incirlik air base, but Ankara did not believe it was appropriate for politicians to go.

German lawmakers urged their government to protest against his statement and raise the issue at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Florian Hahn, a member of Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union party, said Germany should consider moving its six Tornado reconnaissance jets from the base, used in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

"It's a scandal," Tobias Lindner, a Green party member, told Reuters, saying Germany should cancel plans to spend 60 million euros ($68 million) on new housing and military facilities at the base if Turkey did not reverse course.

Juergen Hardt, spokesman for the parliamentary caucus of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, said the decision was "unacceptable" and German officials needed to have access to their troops overseas.
Kuwait bans people convicted of insulting emir from contesting elections

KUWAIT, June 23 (Reuters) - Kuwait has amended its electoral law to bar anyone convicted of insulting the emir from standing in national elections, closely-watched contests in a Gulf state with an outspoken assembly routinely critical of the government.

The state news agency KUNA said late on Wednesday parliament had approved an amendment stipulating that "a citizen convicted of offending God, the Prophets, or the Emir through a final court ruling shall not be allowed to contest the elections".

The measure will affect some prominent opposition politicians, including former MP Musallam al-Barrak, who is serving a two-year prison sentence over a 2012 speech in which he addressed the emir by saying: "...we will not let you, your Highness, practise autocratic rule."

Kuwaiti courts have also sentenced a number of other people to various prison terms on charges of insulting the emir or for blasphemy.

Kuwait allows more free speech than some of its neighbours, but the constitution says the emir is "immune and inviolable". Insulting him carries a penalty of up to five years in jail.

Kuwait, a Western-allied oil exporter, avoided serious unrest during the 2011 Arab uprisings when some rulers in the region were overthrown. But citizens held large street protests in 2012 over changes to the electoral law which demonstrators said disadvantaged the opposition.
Colombian president, FARC commander to sign ceasefire accord

By Sarah Marsh

HAVANA, June 23 (Reuters) - Colombia's president and the FARC rebels' top commander will sign a historic ceasefire deal in Havana on Thursday that brings them close to ending the last major leftist insurgency in Latin America after more than five decades of war.

The accord, capping three years of talks, paves the way for a final peace deal to end a conflict born in the 1960s out of frustration with deep socio-economic inequalities and that outlived other major uprisings in the Americas.

"On my way to Havana to silence for ever the guns," said President Juan Manuel Santos on his Twitter feed before the ceremony, which is due to be attended by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was one of many 20th century Latin American guerilla movements inspired by Marxist ideology and the success of the 1959 Cuban revolution. It began as a peasant revolt before exploding into a cocaine-fueled war that killed at least 220,000 and displaced millions.

Most others were either quashed by right-wing military governments or convinced to lay down their arms and join conventional politics by the 1990s, while the FARC went on to wage the Western Hemisphere's longest running war.

Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, are set to sign the ceasefire accord in a televised ceremony at 1200 EDT (1600 GMT).

The two sides will complete negotiations for a final deal by July 20, the president said this week.

Santos has staked his legacy on an agreement with the FARC and said it would add as much as two percentage points annually to economic growth in the South American country rich in commodities like oil, coal, gold and coffee.

The two sides have already agreed on most items on the talks agenda in Cuba, including thorny issues such as land reform and participation by former rebels in Colombia's political life.

The ceasefire, which includes terms for the FARC's demobilization, laying down of arms, and security for former fighters, does not begin until the final deal is signed.

The remaining point on the agenda is the terms for overall implementation of a peace accord and how a national referendum on the deal will be organized.

"This accord is a big breakthrough, but much remains to be done," said Adam Isacson of the Washington-based Latin America think tank WOLA. The FARC must work to convince it own ranks of the deal while Santos must convince the Colombian people at large, he said.

The signing ceremony on Thursday will be presided by Cuban President Raul Castro and Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, representing countries that mediated the talks.

Also attending are Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. Special Envoy Bernie Aronson, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

"WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS?"

Santos has promised the final accord will be put to the Colombian people in a plebiscite.

He must win over those skeptical of FARC promises to rejoin civil society, including supporters of hard-line former President Alvaro Uribe who claims a deal will grant guerrillas impunity for war crimes.

Uribe launched a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency campaign in 2002 that helped bring FARC numbers down from 17,000 in its heyday to the 7,000 combatants the government estimates it has today.

Others warn that even after peace with the FARC, formidable challenges remain. The smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) only recently said it will start talks, while gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups have taken over drug trafficking routes across the country.

"If FARC members become targets, the peace could collapse," said Tom Long, International Relations lecturer at Reading University. "If some reconstitute themselves as criminal bands, the peace could be meaningless in many parts of Colombia."
Offensives against Islamic State could displace 2.3 mln Iraqis -U.N.

By Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD, June 23 (Reuters) - Upcoming military offensives in Iraq against Islamic State, including an assault on the northern city of Mosul, could displace at least 2.3 million people, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday.

The prediction of such a vast humanitarian emergency creates additional complications for the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies, who have announced plans for offensives to drive Islamic State fighters this year from most of their Iraqi territory.

More than 3.4 million people across Iraq have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes, according to the United Nations. In the past month, 85,000 people fled Falluja, an hour's drive from Baghdad, amid a military campaign that has recaptured large parts of the city from the jihadists.

Most of the displaced are from Iraq's minority Sunni community, raising concerns among officials that U.S.-backed military gains against Islamic State will not bring stability to Iraq more than 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

Islamic State fighters swept through much of northern and western Iraq two years ago and declared a caliphate to rule over territory there and in neighbouring Syria.

The jihadists have lost ground in recent weeks to a number of enemies on several fronts in both countries, with the main battles still looming for the caliphate's two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters in an interview that at least 430,000 more people could be displaced this year in Anbar, Iraq's sprawling desert province stretching west from Falluja to the Syrian border.

Government forces have retaken several cities in Anbar from Islamic State in the past six months and are still pressing up the Euphrates river valley towards the border town of Qaim.

Grande said another 830,000 people would be displaced along "the Mosul corridor", stretching more than 100 km (60 miles) from northern Salahuddin province towards the Islamic State stronghold.

In Mosul itself, by far the largest city under the militants' control, the worst case scenario could see one million people displaced, said Grande.

"We're literally talking in just a few months about doubling the number of families who are displaced in the country," she said. "We're trying to pre-position supplies and develop contingencies for all of those areas and we're doing so with 30 percent of the appeal that we've asked for."
Embattled Saudi builder Mojil to keep operating -CEO

By Reem Shamseddine

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia, June 23 (Reuters) - Embattled Saudi Arabian builder Mohammad Al Mojil Group (MMG) will continue operating despite the resignation of its board after three people involved with the company were found guilty of fraud, its acting CEO said on Thursday.

Indebted MMG's plight comes against the backdrop of wider turmoil in the Saudi construction industry, which is struggling in the face of reduced government spending in response to low oil prices.

But CEO Nauman Sohail said the business outlook for the company is improving and the board resignations do not threaten its existence.

"We are more comfortable now as compared to what we used to be in 2014/15," he told Reuters, adding that MMG is establishing new business units such as scaffolding services and expects its equipment rental operation to start generating profit by July or August.

MMG's shares have not traded on the Saudi bourse since July 2012, when the CMA suspended the stock over losses incurred as the company overextended itself trying to take advantage of a construction boom in the kingdom.

Since then the company, the workforce of which has tumbled to 3,000 from 25,000, has been trying to rebuild, partly by seeking payment of hundreds of millions of riyals it says it is owed for completed work.

Sohail said MMG had made a net profit of about 10 million riyals in the first quarter, aided by debt recovery. He does not expect a profit for the second quarter but said a profit is likely in the third quarter.

The board resignations announced by MMG on Monday came after the Capital Market Authority (CMA) sentenced three people involved with the business, including founder Mohammad Al-Mojil and his son Adel Al-Mojil, the company's chairman, to between three and five years in prison.

The three were found guilty of manipulation and fraud relating to the family-controlled company's initial public share offering in 2008. MMG said on Monday that the decision was based on "fundamentally flawed" evidence.

The CMA also ordered payment of 1.6 billion riyals ($427 million) in damages.

Sohail said he now expects the CMA to appoint a temporary committee to oversee MMG, which would call a general assembly of shareholders to appoint a new board.

He did not say when this might happen and a CMA official, contacted by telephone, said the regulator could not provide immediate comment.
Boat migrant rescues surge as calm seas return to Mediterranean

By Darrin Zamit Lupi

ABOARD THE TOPAZ RESPONDER, June 23 (Reuters) - Ships manned by humanitarian organisations, the Italian navy and coast guard helped rescue about 4,500 boat migrants on Thursday as calm seas returned to the Mediterranean, prompting a surge in departures from North Africa.

Rescue operations were continuing, an Italian coast guard spokesman said. The corpse of a woman was taken from a large rubber boat, and the migrants were collected from a total of about 40 different vessels, he said.

The Topaz Responder, a ship run by the Malta-based humanitarian group Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), said earlier in the day that around two dozen migrant boats had been spotted in the sea about 20 nautical miles from the Libyan port city of Sabratha.

Libya's navy intercepted about 1,000 migrants on board eight rubber boats off Sabratha on Thursday morning, spokesman Ayoub Qassem said. He said the migrants were from Arab as well as sub-Saharan African countries.

"The mass movement is probably the result of week-long, unfavourable weather conditions" that have come to an end, MOAS said on Twitter.

The Topaz Responder picked up 382 sub-Saharan African migrants from three different large rubber boats. The Bourbon Argos, a ship run by humanitarian group Doctors without Borders, plucked 1,139 migrants from 10 boats, and two other humanitarian vessels picked up 156 more.

The Italian navy said it had rescued 515 from two dinghies, German humanitarian group Sea-Watch said it had 100 on board, and the Italian coast guard, which coordinates rescue operations, said it had deployed several boats.

An agreement between Turkey and the EU to stop migrant departures for the Greek islands has reduced boat arrivals by 98 percent during the first five months of the year from the same period of 2015, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

But arrivals in Italy continue at about the same clip as last year, and the deadly central Mediterranean route has already claimed 2,438 lives, IOM said.

Italy has been on the front line of Europe's worst immigration crisis since World War Two and now in its third year. More than 320,000 boat migrants came to Italy from North Africa in 2014-15.

As of Wednesday, 56,328 boat migrants had been brought to Italy in 2016, a 5.5 percent decrease on the same period of last year, according to the Interior Ministry.
European shares rise ahead of Britain's EU referendum result

By Danilo Masoni

MILAN, June 23 (Reuters) - European shares rose for the fifth day running on Thursday, assisted by firmer banks and miners and expectations that Britain would vote to stay in the European Union.

The pan-European STOXX 600 and FTSEurofirst 300 indexes rose 1.5 and 1.3 percent respectively, both ending at their highest point in about two weeks.

The gains follow a sell-off in the previous week when concerns over a possible Brexit mounted, depressing them to their lowest level since February and pushing investors towards safe haven assets like gold and the German bund.

"For weeks, market participants have been speculating about what might the outcome of the Brexit vote will be. While the results are not due in until the early hours of Friday, it looks like the bookies and the markets have made up their minds," Gai Capital analyst Fawad Razaqzada said.

Voting in Britain's referendum on EU membership will end at 2100 GMT, with the final result expected by 0600 GMT Friday.

A series of last-minute opinion polls carried out before the vote started and bookmaker odds have all pointed to a rise in support for the "Remain" camp, propping up risky assets like equities and sending the sterling to a 2016 high.

Razaqzada said a victory of the "Remain" camp could still help stocks and the pound extend the gains although some of that potential had already been priced in.

Banks rose 2.7 percent, making the best five-day winning streak since 2011, helped by prospects of a defeat of the "Leave" camp in the UK vote.

Spanish lender Santander, which has a meaningful UK exposure, rose 4.3 percent, while Italian banks outperformed as expectations the UK will remain in the EU pushed Italian government bond yields down sharply. Italian banks are particularly exposed to sovereign debt.
Kenya, Ethiopia plan oil products pipeline

NAIROBI, June 23 (Reuters) - Kenya and Ethiopia aim to finalise plans by the end of 2016 for a refined oil products pipeline to be built from Kenya's north coast to the Ethiopian capital, the two said on Thursday.

Kenya has been seeking to develop a new port on its north coast at Lamu, part of a plan to build an economic corridor with transport and other links to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda. But the projects, drawn up years ago, have been slow.

This year, the Lamu project suffered a setback when Uganda picked a route through Tanzania to export oil it aims to produce from new discoveries, instead of linking up with fields in Kenya and piping oil to Lamu. Kenya says it will now proceed alone.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta discussed expanding economic ties during talks with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn during his visit to Nairobi.

In a joint communique, the two leaders "committed to finalise an agreement on the development and operation of a product oil pipeline from Lamu Port to Addis Ababa by the end of 2016." It did not give further details.

Ethiopia, with a bigger population but smaller economy than Kenya, is land-locked but has been building a new railway, highway and other links to Djibouti and the international port there as part of its plans to develop new industries.

Ethiopia has one of Africa's fastest expanding economies, outpacing Kenya's growth rate of about 6 percent a year.

Among other agreements outlined in the communique, the two nations agreed to establish a Joint Railway Commission, without giving details.
Volkswagen AG will pay more than $10billion to settle claims by nearly 500,000 owners stemming from its US diesel emissions cheating scandal and fund efforts to offset pollution, three sources briefed on the agreement said on Thursday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, due to court-imposed gag rules, a source said that owners will receive an average of $5,000 in compensation along with the estimated value of the vehicles as of September 2015, before the scandal erupted. Owners would also receive the compensation if they choose to have the vehicles repaired, assuming US regulators approve a fix at a later date.

As part of the settlements, Volkswagen will to help boost zero emissions vehicles and introduce a program to offset excess diesel pollution from the offending vehicles.

Volkswagen AG will pay more than $10billion to settle claims by nearly 500,000 owners stemming from its US diesel emissions cheating scandal and fund efforts to offset pollution, three sources briefed on the agreement said on Thursday (stock)

The settlement is valued at $10.3billion in documents outlining some of the complex settlements, the source added.

Another source said that figure does not include part of the environmental costs, which will raise the overall settlement total. The source would not disclose the overall total.

Volkswagen and the US Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment.

In September, VW disclosed that it had used sophisticated software to evade emissions requirements in nearly 11million vehicles worldwide. It also misled the EPA, which had started asking questions in 2014. The company's chief executive officer, Martin Winterkorn, resigned in the wake of the scandal.

Complex Settlement

Reuters reported last week the initial VW settlement would not include civil penalties under the US Clean Air Act or address about 80,000 larger 3.0 liter Audi, Porsche and VW vehicles that emitted less pollution than 2.0 liter vehicles. A deal covering the 3.0 liter vehicles may still be months away.

The settlement also does not address lawsuits filed by U.S. states or investors or a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

In April, US District Judge Charles Breyer said the settlement will also include an offer to repair polluting vehicles if regulators approve it.

Regulators will not immediately approve fixes for the 2.0 liter vehicles - and may not approve fixes for all three generations of the polluting 2009-2015 vehicles, the sources told Reuters.

The settlement is complex, requiring owners to fill out detailed worksheets about their vehicle to calculate the buyback value.

Reuters reported in April that owners may have two years before having to decide whether to sell back vehicles.

In September, VW disclosed that it had used sophisticated software to evade emissions requirements in nearly 11million vehicles worldwide (stock)

German Probe

The EPA, California Air Resources Board, US Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and lawyers representing owners have been working for weeks to hammer out the final agreements.

VW is not expected to be allowed to resell or export repurchased vehicles, unless they convince regulators that they can be fixed, sources said.

Former owners of the polluting vehicles will also be eligible for compensation - although less than current owners, sources said.

In April, Volkswagen said it would set aside 16.2billion euros ($18.2billion) and slash its dividend to cover the costs from the scandal known as Dieselgate - including nearly 8 billion euros to cover buying back and fixing polluting vehicles.

EPA initially said VW's emissions cheating affected 482,000 2.0 liter vehicles produced by VW, but the agency said last week the actual figure is 499,000 - since the original figure did not include some 2012 Passat diesels.
U.S. diplomat's talks in Venezuela 'good,' 'constructive' - State Department

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The talks held by a top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela, which included meetings with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition figures and civil society activists, were good and constructive, a State Department spokesman said on Thursday.
U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea missile launches

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, June 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned North Korea's most recent ballistic missile launches as a grave violation of an international ban and called on the 193 U.N. member states to enforce toughened sanctions on the Asian state.

North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, launched what appeared to be an intermediate-range missile on Wednesday to a high altitude in the direction of Japan before it plunged into the sea about two hours after a similar test failed.

"The members of the Security Council deplore all DPRK ballistic missile activities noting that such activities contribute to the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and increase tension," the 15-member body said.

"The members of the Security Council further regretted that the DPRK is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while DPRK citizens have great unmet needs," it said.

After supervising the missile launches, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said his country now has the capability to attack U.S. interests in the Pacific, official media reported.

The U.N. Security Council met on Wednesday evening to discuss the missile launches. The statement issued on Thursday is almost identical to a condemenation by the council on June 1 over several previous ballistic missile tests by Pyongyang.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power signaled that the United States would seek "to identify individual, entities who may be responsible for this repeated series of tests" and could be sanctioned by the Security Council.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006. In March, the Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.

Power said that since the new sanctions were imposed in March North Korea had carried out 10 ballistic missile tests.
Trump's vote-winning strategy - attack Muslims

By Mohamad Bazzi

June 23 (Reuters) - Donald Trump prides himself on not backing down from any fight or controversial position. Hours after the Orlando nightclub mass shooting on June 12, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee doubled down on his plan to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States. He also renewed his call for U.S. law enforcement agencies to use greater racial profiling, especially of Muslim Americans.

"I think profiling is something that we're going to have to start thinking about as a country," Trump said in a June 19 interview on the CBS news program "Face the Nation." He later added, "I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to start using common sense It's not the worst thing to do."

In December, Trump shocked the world when he called for the ban on all Muslim travelers entering the United States - until American leaders "can figure out what the hell is going on." Throughout the campaign, Trump has advocated increased surveillance of Muslim American communities and mosques. He also said he would consider registering Muslim Americans in a database, or requiring Muslims to carry special identification cards.

Trump is persisting with his attack on Muslims because it has proven be his strongest issue, according to exit polls in many Republican primaries. In the pivotal March 15 contests, exit polls of voters in the five states that held elections revealed a remarkable fact: two-thirds of Republican voters support Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigrants and tourists. In some states that held early primary elections - South Carolina and Missouri - nearly 75 percent of Republican voters support the ban.

Since he became the presumptive Republican nominee last month, there's been much discussion of how Trump would adjust his views to appeal to a broader American public in the general election. But even if other Republican leaders denounce his views, don't expect Trump to curtail his attacks on Islam or his overt Islamophobia - he has little incentive to do so, as long as it wins him votes.

The polling shows that while Trump is fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, he did not create this phenomenon. He's a demagogue who is taking advantage of deep-seated fears of Muslims among Americans, especially Republican voters. Trump is winning votes because he is willing to go further than any other candidate in tarnishing all Muslims.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper in March, Trump declared flatly: "I think Islam hates us." When Cooper asked him whether the religion is at war with the West, Trump added, "There's a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There's an unbelievable hatred of us."

One day after his CNN interview, the moderator of a Republican presidential debate asked Trump to clarify his comments: "Did you mean all 1.6 billion Muslims?"

"I mean a lot of them," Trump responded, eliciting cheers from the crowd. "And I will stick with exactly what I said to Anderson Cooper."

Given several chances by his interviewers to distinguish between Islamic militants and the majority of the world's Muslims, Trump refused to make that distinction and instead continued to tarnish an entire religion.

Similarly, Trump has not wavered from his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, saying it would not apply to American citizens and would be a "temporary measure" in response to the threat of attacks from jihadist groups like Islamic State. He invoked one of America's darkest periods: President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision during World War Two to classify more than 100,000 Japanese, German and Italian immigrants as "enemy aliens." That decision paved the way for the internment of tens of thousands of noncitizens and U.S. citizens of Japanese descent.

Trump's proposal and rhetoric are part of a growing undercurrent of Islamophobia that is making life difficult for the estimated three million Muslims in the United States. Hate crimes against Muslim Americans have surged since the November terrorist attacks in Paris and the December massacre in San Bernardino, California, which were both claimed by Islamic State.

In 2015, civil rights groups recorded nearly 80 bias incidents at mosques throughout the United States. It was the highest number logged since two organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, began tracking such cases in 2009. In a report released this week, the groups noted a four-fold increase in bias incidents - which include vandalism, harassment, property damage and intimidation - from 2014, when 20 cases were recorded nationwide. By contrast, the groups tracked 17 incidents at U.S. mosques in both November and December 2015 - the highest single-month totals ever recorded.

The stereotypes and xenophobia perpetuated by Trump and other demagogues have more subtle effects than outright violence. They shape a social climate in which many Muslims and Arabs are treated as potential terrorists. Four days after the Paris attacks in November, a community meeting over plans for a new mosque in the state of Virginia turned into a frightening example of the anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping parts of America. Samer Shalaby, an engineer and mosque trustee who was trying to explain the building plans, was heckled and shouted down by audience members.

"Nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this county," one man shouted while pointing his finger at Shalaby, as others in the audience cheered. "I will do everything in my power to make sure that this does not happen," the heckler, who identified himself as a former U.S. Marine, continued. "Because you are terrorists. Every one of you are terrorists. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think."

One U.S. poll released in September found that more than half of Americans - and 83 percent of Republicans - believe that Muslims should be barred from seeking the presidency. Another poll in November found that 56 percent of Americans view Islam as at "odds with American values and way of life."

One irony is that many Muslims around the world want to foster a better relationship with the United States and the West. In a long-term Gallup poll, conducted from 2006 to 2010, residents of 39 majority-Muslim countries were asked whether they supported greater interaction with the West. A majority of people in 38 of the countries surveyed (all except Afghanistan) viewed closer relationships as a benefit, rather than a harm.

But this research carries little weight with many Republicans in the United States, especially Trump's supporters. In January, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Republicans want politicians to express "blunt talk" about Islam, even if such discussion includes blanket criticism of the faith.
Ex-UN General Assembly president died in weight-lifting accident

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) - The death of John Ashe, a former United Nations General Assembly president accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking bribes, was an accident caused by neck trauma he suffered while lifting a barbell, a medical examiner concluded on Thursday.

Ashe, 61, died on Wednesday afternoon due to "traumatic asphyxia," an official with the Westchester County Office of the Medical Examiner said, contradicting reports that he died of a heart attack. Ashe was on a bench while lifting the barbell.

The medical examiner's conclusion came a day after police responded to a medical emergency call at Ashe's residence in Dobbs Ferry, New York, where he was pronounced dead.

The death of Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014, marked a surprising turn in the U.S. corruption case.

Ashe was arrested in October and accused of taking $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen. Seven people have been charged to date, three of whom have pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors said Ashe received more than $500,000 in bribes from billionaire Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng to seek U.N. support of a United Nations-sponsored conference center in Macau that Ng's company would develop.

Prosecutors said Ashe also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the United Nations and Antigua.

At the time of his death, Ashe had only been charged with tax fraud, to which he had pleaded not guilty, amid questions about whether diplomatic immunity might preclude any bribery charges.

But at a May 9 hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Richenthal said prosecutors were planning to seek a new indictment in the case against Ashe.

The case remains pending against Ng and his assistant, Jeff Yin, who prosecutors say helped bribe Ashe. Both have pleaded not guilty.
U.S. spurns AstraZeneca's nasal spray flu vaccine as ineffective

By Ben Hirschler and Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have advised doctors not to use AstraZeneca's FluMist in the upcoming flu season based on three years of U.S. data showing that the nasal spray vaccine is not effective at preventing influenza.

The decision, announced late Wednesday, was based on a review by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - a panel of experts that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - showing the vaccine did not offer adequate protection.

As a result of the move, the CDC said it will be working with manufacturers throughout the summer to ensure there is enough alternative vaccine supply.

AstraZeneca said it would take an $80 million writedown on stocks of its FluMist Quadrivalent vaccine as a result of the decision. The loss of the vaccine may be a problem for some pediatric practices that have already ordered supplies for the upcoming flu season.

FluMist is currently the only licensed flu vaccine that does not require a shot, making it a favored choice by parents of young children.

In the past year, among children aged 2 to 17, FluMist was only 3 percent effective, meaning it offered "no protective benefit," the CDC said. That compared with conventional flu shots, which were 63 percent effective against any flu virus among children in this age group.

"Unfortunately, and for inexplicable reasons scientifically, the nasal spray vaccine has performed very, very poorly," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who attended the advisory meeting.

"ACIP decided it could not in good conscience recommend the use of this vaccine until the problem had been resolved and new data had been presented," Schaffner said.

AstraZeneca said the CDC data contrasted with its own studies as well as preliminary independent findings by public health authorities in other countries suggesting the vaccine was 46 to 58 percent effective overall against flu strains during the 2015-2016 season.

Schaffner said differences in the performance of the vaccine seen in the United States and other countries were puzzling. He said it may have something to do with the H1N1 component of the vaccine - the strain of flu that cased a pandemic in 2009 - or it may be related to the fact that U.S. children are more likely to be vaccinated for flu than children in Europe and elsewhere.

Since 2010, the United States has recommended annual flu shots for everyone aged 6 months and older. Young children and older adults are at the greatest risk for serious complications of flu, which kills between 3,000 and 50,000 people each year.

AstraZeneca said U.S. sales of FluMist in 2015 totaled $206 million, or just under 1 percent of group revenue.

The CDC said FluMist made up about 8 percent of the total projected supply of 176 million doses of flu vaccine for the upcoming flu season, and it comprised a third of all flu vaccine given to children aged 2 to 17.

Schaffner said it was not clear whether practices that had ordered FluMist would get rebates, and many would have to 'hustle" to find vaccine. "There will be turmoil, confusion and grumpiness generally," he said.

The British drugmaker said it was working with the CDC to better understand its data and to make sure U.S. patients can receive the vaccine in future flu seasons.

In other countries, distribution and use of the vaccine "are progressing as planned," the company said in a statement.

Despite the setback, AstraZeneca said it maintained its 2016 financial outlook of a low-to-mid single digit decline in revenue and core earnings, at constant exchange rates.

Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said the U.S. vaccine problem would likely drag down consensus earnings forecasts for the current year by around 2 percent and there was a 1-2 percent risk to future forecasts, if the issue was not resolved.

Shares in AstraZeneca gained 0.3 percent while the European drugs sector rose 0.4 percent.
Big U.S. banks have enough capital to withstand severe stress -Fed

By Lisa Lambert and David Henry

June 23 (Reuters) - All 33 U.S. banks that underwent regulatory stress tests this year were able to withstand severe economic and market conditions while staying above minimum required capital levels, the U.S. Federal Reserve said on Thursday.

Overall, big banks would suffer $385 billion in loan losses over a period of nine quarters under the most severe scenario, the Fed said. A key capital ratio measuring Tier 1 common equity as a portion of risk-weighted assets would drop to a low of 8.4 percent, in aggregate - well above the minimum set by regulators.

However, the results released on Thursday - part of a test known as "DFAST" - only offer a glance of big banks' capital pictures under stress. On June 29, the Fed will release results of a more comprehensive test, known as "CCAR," which will include whether or not banks can buy back as much stock and pay out as many dividends as they had planned.

"DFAST is sort of like a dress rehearsal for the CCAR," said Ernie Patrikis, a partner at the White & Case law firm and a former bank regulatory official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

DFAST, short for the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Test, is part of the sweeping financial reform law passed in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. It relies on standardized assumptions about capital levels and distributions for the tested banks, allowing for a consistent view across the industry.

The Fed does not pass or fail banks in this stage of testing, but they can fail "CCAR," which is short for Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review. That test evaluates banks' individually tailored plans for surviving a crisis.

Regulators view both rounds as tools to ensure banks have enough money to stand on their own in a future financial crisis and not turn to the federal government for billions of dollars in bailouts.

Of the 33 banks that took part in DFAST, Huntington Bancshares Inc produced the lowest minimum Tier 1 common equity ratio, of 5 percent, under a severely adverse scenario. Morgan Stanley produced the weakest Tier 1 leverage ratio - another measure of capital strength relative to assets - of 4.9 percent, under that scenario.

Banks that look marginal in DFAST may well have submitted capital plans that include the issuance of securities that would dramatically affect their capital scores. And, banks with strong numbers can still fail CCAR because the Fed judged the quality of their capital planning faulty.

Citigroup Inc, for example, has had surprising results for both reasons. In last year's DFAST scores, Citigroup looked like it was at risk of failing when one measure of its capital came up barely above that minimum. But, unknown to investors, Citigroup's capital plan included steps that significantly improved its measure of strength.

In 2014, Citigroup's numbers were good, but the Fed rejected its plan after concluding that the bank could not track its risk of loss across its global operations.

Banks have until Saturday to resubmit their capital plans to the Fed, in order to pass muster in CCAR.

Thirteen banks have failed CCAR since the Fed began disclosing results with the 2012 test, according to research firm Trepp. That is about three each year. Last year, two failed on qualitative reasons. Four more were required to make specific remedies as part of conditional approvals of their plans.

About two-thirds of the banks will likely be allowed to increase their dividends, analysts at Trepp predicted in an analysis carried out before the stress test results were released. But the percentage approved for dividends has been ticking down from 72 percent in 2013 to 67 percent in 2014, and 61 percent in 2015.

"Banks generally are doing pretty well on earnings, so there is capacity to increase their dividends," said Matt Anderson, managing director at Trepp.

As the Fed crunched numbers to determine whether banks would have enough capital to withstand different hypothetical scenarios, the banks themselves also run their own stress tests. Many banks typically release their own results later on Thursday.
U.S. court says Virginia transgender student can use boys' bathroom

June 23 (Reuters) - A federal court ordered a Virginia school district on Thursday to let a transgender student use the same bathrooms as other boys in a case that may be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case of Gavin Grimm, a high school student in Virginia's Gloucester County, has been closely watched in the national bathroom wars between transgender rights activists and social conservatives.

A U.S. district court in Norfolk, Virginia, ordered the Gloucester County School Board to allow Grimm to use the boys' restrooms in his high school.

The court had initially dismissed Grimm's claim of sexual discrimination and request for a court order. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in Grimm's favor in April and reinstated his suit in the lower court.

"I am elated to hear that I'll be able to attend my senior year of high school with my full rights restored," Grimm said in a statement.

The ruling was the first by an appeals court finding protections for transgender students under the 1972 Title IX Act, which bars sex-based discrimination by schools receiving federal funding.

Grimm filed suit after being barred from using the boys' bathrooms. He was born a female but identifies as a male.

The school board said this month that it would ask the Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling.
Colombia's Ecopetrol offers 20 blocks in auction launch

BOGOTA, June 23 (Reuters) - Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol offered 20 oil and gas blocks for auction on Thursday, part of a company plan to cut back amid low global crude prices.

One-hundred and thirty-eight companies from 21 countries, some of which already operate in the Andean country, attended the auction launch, Ecopetrol said in a statement.

"The fields are close to logistical facilities, which adds extra attraction for small and medium sized gas and oil companies," the company said.

The blocks will be sold in an electronic auction on Sept. 30.
Tears of joy as rebels sign ceasefire with Colombian government

By Marc Frank and Carlos Vargas

HAVANA/BOGOTA, June 23 (Reuters) - Colombia's government and leftist FARC rebels signed a historic ceasefire deal on Thursday that brought them tantalizingly close to ending the longest running conflict in the Americas.

The accord, capping three years of peace talks in Cuba, sparked celebrations and tears of happiness among some in the Colombian capital. It sets the stage for a final deal to end a guerrilla war born in the 1960s out of frustration with deep socio-economic inequalities that outlived all other major uprisings in Latin America.

"May this be the last day of the war," said bearded FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, his voice choked, after shaking hands with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at a ceremony in Havana.

Santos, 64, is half-way through his second term and has staked his legacy on peace in the face of opposition from sectors of the country who think the FARC should be crushed militarily.

"This means nothing more and nothing less than the end of the FARC as an armed group," Santos said, adding that the final peace deal would be signed in Colombia. "The children and youth of our country have never known a single day without the violence of the conflict. Neither have the adults."

In Colombia, even before Santos spoke, church bells pealed at noon to mark the start of the signing. Crowds in Bogota, the capital, gathered around giant TV screens set up in the streets, dancing, cheering and clapping as the ceremony unfolded.

One placard read, "we've finished the war, now let's build peace."

About 1,000 people gathered in the Plaza Bolivar, the city's main square, to celebrate despite rain. Some waved flags and balloons, others hugged and wiped their eyes.

"I'm 76 and have lived this war all my life - I never thought the time would come when these characters would sign peace. I'm so happy - I can die in peace," said Graciela Pataquiva, a retired teacher, crying as she spoke.

Santos' government says a final deal, which he said will be ready by July 20, would add one percentage point annually to economic growth in Colombia, which over the past two decades has turned itself around from a failing state to an emerging market darling.

Thursday's agreement went further than many had hoped, with the FARC committing to putting a final accord to the Colombian people in a plebiscite, a promise made by Santos that had been a key sticking point.

Not everybody supports the peace process, and Santos will have to work hard to convince opponents to back it in a referendum.

Former President Alvaro Uribe, the leading critic of the talks, said the agreement was "a surrender to terrorism" by Santos.

Under the agreement read out by mediators Norway and Cuba, the rebels will lay down their arms within 180 days of a final accord and demobilize into 23 temporary zones and eight camps. The ceasefire will only kick in when the final deal is agreed, although the two sides effectively stopped attacks almost a year ago and violence is already at historic lows.

During their transition to democratic politics, the FARC's weapons will be handed over to the United Nations, which will begin a mission to verify the ceasefire.

The government will guarantee the safety of ex-rebels and their political allies, who have historically been targets for right-wing paramilitary groups, the accord said. Special protection units, comprised of both ex-rebels and security forces, will guard FARC politicians and other community leaders.

Under accords already struck in Cuba, perpetrators of the worst crimes in the war will face "transitional justice" aimed more at finding out the historical truth than meting out harsh punishments.

"This is an extraordinary achievement. But there are serious challenges ahead related to security, implementation and guarantees of no repetition," said Roddy Brett, director of peace and conflict studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

"WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS?"

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was one of many 20th century Latin American guerilla movements inspired by Marxist ideology and the success of the 1959 Cuban revolution. Its conflict began an as a peasant revolt before exploding into a war that killed at least 220,000 and displaced millions.

Across the region, other rebellions were either crushed by right-wing military governments or convinced to lay down their arms and join conventional politics by the 1990s. But funded by its involvement in the cocaine industry, the FARC grew to a 17,000 strong force operating across vast swaths of territory. Kidnappings for ransom also helped bankroll the rebel group.

That began to change in 2002, when Uribe launched a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency campaign that killed many FARC leaders and reduced it to an estimated 7,000 fighters.

Even after peace with the FARC, formidable obstacles will remain. The smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) only recently said it would start talks, while gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups have taken over drug trafficking routes, filling the vacuum left by rebels, some say.

"It's great to end the war with the FARC, but we've got to be serious, we finish with the FARC but what about all the others?" said Jhon Duarte, a 26-year old mechanic, echoing the concerns of many Colombians.

Despite the challenges and the opposition from some quarters to letting FARC rebels re-enter society after years of kidnapping and attacks across the country, the mood on Thursday was buoyant.

"This is a beacon of hope, our children will be able to enjoy what we could not - a childhood of peace and a life in peace," said Adriana Beltran, a 25-year-old housewife in Bogota.
Three dead, two injured in Cyprus resort 'gangland' shootout

ATHENS, June 23 (Reuters) - Three people were killed and two injured during a shootout in Cyprus's tourist resort of Ayia Napa on Thursday, police said, in an incident possibly related to local crime gangs.

Police declined to speculate on what was behind the killing, but a terror motive appeared to be ruled out.

State radio reported that four people were killed in the shootout, including a local businessman.

Serious crime is rare in Cyprus, which attracts more than 2 million, mainly western European tourists each year. But there are sporadic incidents of gangland violence.
Morocco arrests 10 suspected Islamist militants, including Algerian

RABAT, June 23 (Reuters) - Morocco said on Thursday that it had dismantled a suspected militant cell inspired by the radical group Islamic State and that it had arrested 10 men who were planning attacks in the North African kingdom.

The interior ministry said in a statement that the cell was operating in the eastern city of Oujda, and the town of Tendrara in the same region bordering Algeria. This was the latest in a series of radical Islamist groups that Morocco has said it has broken up.

It said 10 members of the group were meeting in a safe house and planning to rob a mall in the city of Oujda to fund their attacks across the kingdom.

The group includes an Algerian national living in Morocco illegally, according to the statement carried by state news agency MAP said.

Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, has actively tracked suspected militants since Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014-15.

Hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states like Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts have said.

Nearby Libya has become a major draw for jihadists from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as Islamic State has taken advantage of the security chaos there to build a base, operate training camps and take over the city of Sirte.

The Moroccan government has said it believes that 1,500 Moroccan nationals are fighting with militant factions in Syria and Iraq. About 220 have returned home and been jailed, and 286 have been killed in battle.
Displacement in Colombia will persist despite ceasefire, UN says

By Anastasia Moloney

BOGOTA, June 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thousands of Colombians will be forced to flee their homes each year, despite a ceasefire accord signed on Thursday between the government and rebels, due to violence by other armed groups, the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

Colombia's government and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed an agreement to end hostilities with a definitive bilateral ceasefire, bringing them close to ending Latin America's longest-running insurgency.

The half century of war has killed more than 200,000 people.

But powerful organized crime involved in drug-trafficking, illegal mining and extortion rackets will keep displacing Colombians, Martin Gottwald, acting head of the UNHCR office in Colombia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"The news of the bilateral ceasefire is very important. But at the same time we have to be cautious as this is only the beginning of the peace process and not the end," Gottwald said.

"Displacement in Colombia, it won't go away with the bilateral ceasefire," he said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, signed the historic accord in Havana, where talks began in late 2012.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro attended the ceremony along with other dignitaries.

The accord lays out how some 7,000 rebels will demobilize and lay down their weapons over the coming months. A final agreement is expected to be signed in Colombia in July.

Santos and the FARC agreed the final accord would be put to the Colombian people to approve.

The decades of fighting among government troops, leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups have uprooted 6.9 million Colombians, a figure ranking Colombia first in the world followed by Syria and Iraq, according to the UNHCR.

Nearly four years of peace talks and a unilateral ceasefire declared by the FARC last summer have led to a decline in the number of Colombians displaced.

But government figures show 113,700 people were freshly displaced last year, many forced from their homes by organized crime groups.

"It is likely that displacement figures for 2016 will be close to those of 2015, due to ongoing violence in various parts of the country, particularly in border areas and at the Pacific Coast," Gottwald said.

Ending forced displacement hinges on making sure organized criminal gangs, known as BACRIM, do not take over territory once controlled by the rebels, Gottwald said.

Colombia's presidential advisor for human rights, Paula Gaviria, has said violence by BACRIM causes more people to flee their homes than that by FARC rebels.

In March and April alone, the UNHCR reported that more than 6,000 Colombians fled to escape clashes between armed groups fighting over territory in the western province of Choco, an area rich in gold and silver.

Afro-Colombian and indigenous groups are particularly at risk as their ancestral lands are often located in resource-rich areas, Gottwald said.

Experts say there is no shortage of criminal groups, with more than 3,000 members, who could fill the vacuum of power.

The rise of new criminal gangs, including Colombia's powerful Urabenos, stems partly from a failure of the demobilization of paramilitary groups.

A 2003 peace accord led to more than 35,000 paramilitary fighters handing in their weapons, but many remained armed and formed new criminal groups.
The second half of 2008 was a turbulent year for the USA. It was reeling under a severe economic crisis - the worst since the Great Depression. Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" was increasingly resonating across states. George W Bush was being called the lame-duck president. But before the Congress dissolved to pave way for a new one, India and the US created history.

The game changer

The 123 agreement, or the India-US agreement for civil nuclear agreement was given a green signal by American lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate. This after India managed to pull a diplomatic coup by winning a special waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

The 48-member elite nuclear group controlling fuel exports and nuclear technology came into existence as a reaction to India's nuclear tests of 1974 that took the world by storm.

The nuclear agreement and NSG waiver happened though after endless hours of suspense, multi-pronged diplomacy by Indians and Americans alike, and nail-biting negotiations at the special NSG plenary in Vienna .

Ghosts of 2008

As India hopes for a full membership of the NSG, the memories of 2008 have returned to haunt. And this time, the diplomatic Chinese chequers is much harder to win.

If earlier it was about a special waiver to a non-Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory state, this time it is about granting insider access to a nation that can, in the future, create stumbling blocks for aspirants, like arch-rival Pakistan - the all-weather friend of China.

New Delhi, though, has publicly assured it would not be an obstacle to anyone who deserves entry on merit. Beijing now finds New Delhi much closer to US and Japan.

With just a few hours to go to the Seoul meeting, Beijing has signalled that India's membership is not even on the agenda of the plenary meet.

Narendra Modi with Xi Jinping. (Reuters)

A statement issued by the Chinese foreign ministry on June 21 read, "Deliberation on the entry of specific countries is on the agenda of the Seoul Plenary Meeting. However, it is worth noting that the meeting is only to deliberate on the entry application of countries that are state parties to the NPT. As for the entry of non-NPT countries, the group has never put that on its meeting agenda."

This came after Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in her annual press conference had expressed hope that there would be a consensus and India could sail through this June. What complicates the situation is the public stance of the Chinese this time, unlike in 2008, when they were more discreet.

A top retired diplomat privy to the rounds of conversations during India's 2008 NSG waiver push, recalled that Beijing would always stress on "Sino-Indo cooperation on peaceful nuclear use" in meetings. And would add the need "to be careful of nuclear proliferation". Outside of the meeting rooms, Chinese diplomats would bat behind prop nations like Turkey, Ireland, Austria, New Zealand to make life difficult for India. They did not want to be isolated on the multilateral forum and be painted the villain.

Mass diplomatic mobilisation

Eight years back, India and the US embarked upon one of the most heavy-duty diplomatic lobbying ever seen in recent times to open up nuclear commerce for the once pariah New Delhi through the nuclear accord and the NSG waiver.

The Indian ambassador to the United States, Ronen Sen held meetings with a wide cross section of American society - Latinos, black caucus, even white evangelicals, top CEOs, business honchos. Weekend after weekend was spent in constituencies of 246 lawmakers - who understood the strength of zip codes.

The Indian diaspora, including American citizens, was leveraged to score diplomatic points.

At one point with just 14 days to go for a 90-day procedure, a call had to be made to Dr Prabhu Reddy, the personal physician of Harry Reid - then house majority chairman - to help fix a date for the vote on passage of the 123 agreement.

Shyam Saran, PM Manmohan Singh's special envoy on nuclear issues went back and forth to atleast 40 countries to get them on board. The then foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon travelled to Beijing twice in the last few days to woo the Chinese. On every possible occasion - bilateral to multi-lateral - support was sought from Beijing. The Chinese never came out in the open and said no.

The American aggression

But much heavy lifting was done by the Americans themselves. Andrew Small in his book The China Pakistan Axis captures the backroom power play:

"In the closing stages, it appeared that there were two countries blocking the deal - Ireland and Austria. Ireland's consent was finally secured in a phone call between George W Bush and Taoiseach Brian Cowen."

And the then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had to break from her landmark visit to Libya to place a call to the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who managed to track Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik down in Brussels. Plassnik finally instructed her negotiator in Vienna to agree the book recalls.

But China was the toughest cookie and its low-profile negotiators in Vienna were giving sleepless nights to Indian bureaucrats as they struggled with complicated draft negotiations in closed rooms.

Andrew Small writes:

"With the diplomacy in Vienna in danger of unraveling, the focus switched back to the channel between Washington and Beijing. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao had been avoiding calls from the Indian prime minister, but were now on the spot. They blinked. Rice reached Yang Jeichi, the Chinese foreign minister, to urge China not to block the deal."

Ultimately, it was a call from George Bush to Hu Jintao that led the way for a reluctant Chinese assent. This go-ahead was slipped to the Indian interlocutors over the breakfast table in an inconspicuous note by a junior Chinese diplomat on the final day.

Modi's diplomatic litmus test

As bureaucrats once again huddle up behind closed doors in Seoul this Friday (June 24), India's topmost diplomat S Jaishankar will be leading the charge. He had held long discussions with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the state visit of President Pranab Mukherjee in late May.

President Mukherjee had subtly spoken about wanting to work with China to ensure India has a predictable international environment for nuclear trade and to boost clean energy. He hoped President Xi Jinping would give his "personal attention" to India's expectation. Jaishankar returned to Beijing within a few weeks on a hushed trip to woo the Chinese.

Later, Sushma Swaraj explained, "Foreign Secretary told the Chinese the question of procedures and criterion was already addressed when India was granted the waiver in 2008. We asked the Chinese to judge us on the basis of credentials."

Making a case for India's bid on the NSG table will be Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself along the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meet in Tashkent - as he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping just hours before the plenary commences.

In the last two years, Modi has travelled across the world, with nuclear energy high on the agenda in most countries. He even did a whirlwind tour of five nations in six days in early June, adding Mexico and Switzerland to the itinerary to assuage their concerns on the NSG issue.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley will also be leveraging Indian markets and trade ties on a China visit this week. Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj has been in touch with at least 23 counterparts, herself answering questions raised by some.

In the last one week, Narendra Modi has spoken to Russian President Valdimir Putin as well as Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK over the phone. The US, along with UK and France has continued to call out to NSG members to take up India's membership issue at the plenary meet despite contrary signals from China.

The external push

But will Barack Obama himself dial numbers like George W Bush? Will Putin, who recently said he has been in discussions with the Chinese over matters that need to be resolved, be able to pull his weight?

If members want, this time it should be easier to come on board as no procedural document needs to be negotiated. India's separation of nuclear facilities has been done. It has been meeting all international safeguards and its nuclear non proliferation record speaks for itself.

Narendra Modi with Barack Obama. (Reuters)

Even without a membership, the NSG waiver allows fuel and technology access to India. The waiver had lifted an over three-decade, US-led world embargo on civil nuclear trade with India. But, if in the near future, NSG amends guidelines, India will not be inside the room to resist changes that might be against its interests.

For instance, in 2011, the NSG adopted amendments that in a way nullified the "clean" waiver given to India in 2008 on transfer of sensitive nuclear technology. "There is a difference in sitting outside and inside the room," Sushma Swaraj had stressed.

The Pakistan paradox

The implicit understanding is that China has hyphenated the entry bid of India and Pakistan that could make other members nervous given Islamabad's proliferation history. And New Delhi might have to pay the cost by bids of both countries being held up for now.

A senior diplomat on conditions of anonymity explains, "Pakistan's value as a proxy against India still outweighs the challenges and threats of terrorism they face from the AfPak region."

As Andrew Small writes:

"The balancing role that Pakistan plays in Beijing's India policy goes well beyond forcing India to keep a large number of its troops and military assets focused on its western frontier, though that undoubtedly helps. It also ensures that India is kept off balance, distracted, absorbing diplomatic, political and strategic energies that could otherwise be directed towards China. It puts a constant question mark over India's aspiration to transcend its own neighbourhood."

Playing to win

For now, South Block is cautious in its optimism. NSG membership will complete a historic circle.

Ironically Modi's own party, the BJP had opposed the nuclear agreement in 2008, and had called then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee's assurance to the NSG of maintaining India's moratorium on nuclear tests as limiting the country's nuclear sovereignty.

Since coming to power, Narendra Modi has taken bold initiatives to bring nuclear commerce to the centre stage of Indian diplomacy, focussing on nuclear energy as the crucial alternate to fossil fuels. But if the membership does not come through, a consolation could be the assurance of a special plenary in days ahead to discuss India's application.

For Beijing to change its public stance, it would require a price to go through with the loss of face that Indians and Americans could hail as victory.
In the West dominated world order, the Eurasian bloc is trying to establish "balance of power" through the expansion of regional organisations like Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS, etc. This June 23-24, the SCO annual meeting is going to be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

This is a very important meeting from the Indian perspective, because for the first time, New Delhi will be closely partnering with the Central Asian countries in this crucial regional bloc.

Along with India, Pakistan is also going to be member of this prestigious organisation. It will be the second time after SAARC that both India and Pakistan will become members of any international regional organisation.

Nearly two decades ago, SCO was initiated with five countries - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - also called the "Shanghai-5". In 2001, when Uzbekistan joined this group, it was rechristened the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

The primary objective behind the establishment of the Shanghai-5 was to "peacefully resolve the boundary dispute, which existed among China and the five countries and; to ensure stability along the borders".

Once the borders were worked out more or less along the agreed upon lines, in 2001, the member countries adopted the "Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism".

SCO member and observer countries. [Source Kazinform]

India has been an observer country at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping, which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

However, in 2015-16, the expected inclusion of India and Pakistan is likely to change the geopolitical and geoeconomic equation of this organisation, as well as strategically impact the region too. This significant change would hopefully bolster regional and global stability and prosperity.

India and Central Asian countries have historical relations going back to centuries. We have shared culture, tradition and religion. Our values and thoughts are similar. Moreover, India's soft power is playing a much bigger role.

However, due to contemporary geopolitical compulsions, India and Central Asian countries are not as connected as they used to be. This year, India is going be a permanent member of SCO, a position which is bundled with a lot of hope and mutual expectations.

Rapidly growing India is one of the largest energy consuming countries in the world. The Central Asian countries have abundant natural and energy resources, particularly gas. So, once the SCO membership is under the belt, the gateway to Central Asia's humongous energy field will open up for India.

Narendra Modi meets Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of SCO summit in Tashkent. [ANI]

New Delhi is expected to get greater access to major gas and oil exploration projects in this region and the membership in SCO would create new opportunities for India to reconnect with Eurasian members after a century of disruption.

And it shares security concerns with the region, especially those related to combating terrorism and containing threats posed by outfits such as the ISIS and the Taliban. Regional security against terrorism, extremism and separatism is high priority agenda for the SCO.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing these threats. New Delhi is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

In the upcoming summit, the focus area will be strengthening of regional connectivity and it is evident that all other member countries have endorsed China's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR), a key policy to connect trading partners along the ancient Silk Route. However, India has not yet given its consent to be a part of OBOR.

One of India's major concerns has been the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) The proposed corridor will link Kashgar in Xinjiang, China, to the Gwadar port. Being in the SCO, India would not be able to stay out of China's proposed connectivity and infrastructural projects. India needs to devise a plan which neither hampers the functioning of the grouping nor snub its apprehensions vis-a-vis OBOR and the CPEC.

Rising above all concerns, this is really a great opportunity for New Delhi to re-engage with the "Eastern World" at a time when it is enjoying a fair-weather friendship with the "Western World".

Partnering with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation will be the continuation of the "Connect Central Asia" policy, and the initial phase of "Look North" approach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's sustained diplomatic parleys, at a time when he is balancing both the eastern and the western blocs at once.
Editor's note: Distinguished Young Women contestants each year submit diary entries to AL.com/Press-Register throughout the competition. The best entry of the day is printed online. One overall winner will be chosen for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the newspaper. Today's winner is Kennedy Ho of Oregon.

June 12, 2016 | 1:04 am: "Can't sleep. Can't find the light switch. There's a two-hour time difference."

Kennedy Ho of Oregon

That was the first time in weeks that I had complete alone time. I had just arrived in Mobile. The weeks leading up to my arrival consisted of study groups for my final high school finals, my actual graduation ceremony, and celebrating the successes of me and all of my peers. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement. That was the only time I had taken since all of the craziness of finishing senior year to regroup and in the wee hours of the morning, even when I could not sleep, that is all I could scribble into my journal. As I look back on what I wrote I can't help but smile. Since my first jet lag night I have learned so much.

I have learned that grits are best drowned in a slab of butter with a dash of salt. I have learned that sweet tea is paired perfectly with any food item. I have learned that Mardi Gras was born in Mobile, not Louisiana! I have learned that it IS possible to live without your phone. I have learned that sometimes the most distinguished girls you know are the most competitive food challenge competitors. I have learned that Camp Grace's ropes course will immediately test your trust in the people around you. I have learned that we all have a light that shines in us but that we are even brighter when we allow that light to shine together. I have learned that it is almost impossible to keep 51 girls completely silent (we are just always too excited to see each other!). I have learned to realize how important it is to surround yourself with friends who push and challenge you to be your best self. I have also learned that Southern hospitality is a real thing and so is humidity.

On my first night here in Mobile, I was alone. I did not have my family, my roommate was not in yet, and my host family was fast asleep while I was still wide awake thanks to the time difference. So there I was in the dark, scribbling in my journal something I would later read and find so significant. I was searching for a light in the room when I was all alone when instead of should have been focusing on the fact that I had a light in me and looking forward to the fact that I would meet 50 other ladies who had a special light in them as well. And together, we were brighter.

Thank you DYW class of 2016 for raising my standard for a friend. Thank you Mobile for knowing how to welcome an Oregonian and making me feel like royalty while away from home.
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June 23, 2016

Former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering Testified in Favor of Iran Deal While Taking Money From Boeing

The Daily Beast, an internet magazine covering current events, has disclosed that Thomas Pickering, an influential State Department official in both Democrat and Republican administrations, failed to sufficiently disclose his paid relationship with Boeing corporation while serving as a prominent advocate for the Iran deal. Pickering testified before Congress in favor of the deal, lobbied behind the scenes and published widely in the media. His testimony carried weight due to his standing in the foreign policy establishment. His resume includes serving as UN ambassador and ambassador to Israel, Russia and India. Pickering was a paid lobbyist for the Boeing corporation for many years. According to news reports, Boeing is in the process of finalizing a 25 billion dollar deal to provide Iran with commercial airliners.

According to the Daily Beast,

Pickering confirmed via emailfrom his Boeing corporate email addressthat he was on staff at the company from 2001 to 2006 and has been a paid consultant for them ever since.

When queried as to whether he had disclosed his association with Boeing before providing testimony, PIckering did not respond. According to the Daily Beast, Neil Gordonan investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog organizationindicated that this may represent a conflict of interest. Gordon recalled similar prior situations, where media outlets often presented influential commentators promoting certain policies as independent when they werent.

The Daily Beast has found no evidence that Pickering mentioned his paid relationship with Boeing in the disclosure forms he provided to a Congressional committee prior to his providing testimony. Boeing also isnt mentioned in his bio that the White House kept on file.

The article notes,

Besides testifying before Congress, Pickering also signed a letter on July 7, 2015, to congressional leadership, along with other former diplomats, urging them to support the nuclear agreement. That letter didnt disclose his connection to Boeing, and it drew broad media coverage, including from the Huffington Post, Politico, and the AP. None of those reports noted his work for Boeing. The White House also cited the letter in its publication The Iran Nuclear Deal: What You Need to Know About the JCPOA.? Boeing is not mentioned anywhere in that document

The Daily Beast expose has been picked up by the Washington Examiner, the Tower, the Jewish Press and other sources critical of the Iran deal.

In July 2015, Pickering's argument in favor of the Iran deal appeared in the Tablet, an important news magazine for the Jewish community. The articles biographical information on Pickering only noted his service as a diplomat.

Pickering was also a signatory to a "Letter to the President from over 100 former American Ambassadors on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Irans Nuclear Program." One can only wonder if other signators, which reads as a who's-who of the foreign policy establishment, are quietly profiting from the deal.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with an individual, who is viewed as a disinterested expert and whose words carry considerable weight, offering testimony to Congress that favors a policy or agreement with life-and-death ramifications for the future. But there is a big problem when that same individual fails to disclose a personal financial stake in that policy or agreement.

So far, none of the mainstream media has picked up this story. Not the New York Times, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, BBC, CNN or Fox. Since the Daily Beast story is less than 24 hours old, further monitoring is in order to see what sort of coverage the story gets.

Such exposures reinforce the importance of alternative news outlets, distinct from the mainstream media, that do their own investigative reporting unfettered by political agendas. Unfortunately in a polarized political environment such fresh journalism can be difficult to find.

Posted by SS at June 23, 2016 01:08 PM

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As the alcohol industry in Central Virginia continues to grow, inevitable changes also are happening.

In Albemarle County, a series of roundtable discussions were hosted as part of its farm winery, brewery and distillery events zoning text amendment process.

According to the project description, the proposed scope of the zoning text amendment is to strengthen the requisite relationship between activities and events at these sites and their agricultural nature, and to clarify how and to what extent activities and events are usual and customary at farm wineries, breweries and distilleries.

Were always concerned about these things, but the countys perspective on this is at least reasonable, said Jeff Sanders, president of the Monticello Wine Trail and owner of Glass House Winery. Were not opposed to them looking into it; we understand the issue.

The roundtables were the beginning of the process to get input from Albemarle farm wineries, cideries, breweries and distilleries, as well as from residents and property owners. They will host a work session with the Planning Commission in June and a public hearing later in the summer.

The Monticello Wine Trail, were trying to promote quality winemaking, said Sanders. Its not inconsistent with our mission to limit the ability to do certain things to wineries that are doing [those things].

Sanders said the winery industry in the area is continuing to grow as the Charlottesville area becomes even more of a winery destination. Most of the wineries are busier every year than the year before, he said, and even with new wineries coming in, it doesnt dilute other wineries business.

We definitely see this tide lifting all boats, or vice versa, so we want everyone to be good in terms of quality wine, good operations, all those sorts of things, he said. If thats true, then we will all do better because of it, because more people will come here.

Virginia went from having 40 craft breweries in 2011 to 124 in 2015. Much of that growth was the result of state legislation that passed in 2012, allowing breweries to sell full pints of beer without a restaurant onsite.

Duke Fox, the vice president of sales at Starr Hill Brewery, said this allowed many of the smaller breweries just starting out to essentially pay for their development through beer sales.

It was a key driver in terms of the exploding of craft breweries over the last three to four years, he said.

He said the change was not as beneficial to Starr Hill as it was to other craft brewers in more densely populated areas, but Starr Hill still gained more ways to build its brand.

We had the opportunity to directly interact with customers, sample beer on site, be able to talk to them about the brewery  all the things that the wine industry has been able to do for years, we were able to take advantage of that just like everyone else, he said.

With larger craft breweries opening shop in Virginia, such as Stone Brewing, Deschutes Brewery and Green Flash Brewing Co., Fox said even more attention will be on the states smaller craft breweries.

Theres going to be more and more people looking at Virginia as a leader of the craft beer world, and thats going to drive more traffic, he said.

This year in the city, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery from Richmond and the new Random Row Brewing Company are opening. Fox said he doesnt see anything thats going to slow people down from opening more breweries.

The question is, for those guys, how do you seem interesting beyond those four walls? he said. If youre in a brewery tasting room, or even a brewpub, youre able to control the environment. But that doesnt necessarily mean thats going to translate to selling beer in mass distribution.

Virginia Distillery Company is launching a new tour program in June that includes an interactive museum and video experience.

The idea really came about after Gareth and I went to Kentucky and did a tour of all the bourbon trail there, said Maggie Moore, chief experience officer of Virginia Distillery Company. We wanted to do something similar as far as an educational interactive experience for people who come and visit us.

Guests will be able to learn about the history of whiskey, coming from Scotland over to Virginia, and then have a behind-the-scenes look at the process and production facility. Tours will end with a tasting of Virginia Highland Malt Whisky, as well as a cocktail sampling in the Visitors Center.

Obviously, unlike the wineries and the breweries in the area, were limited by the amount we can serve, so we were looking for a way we could keep people on site and get them to really know and connect with the brand, she said.

Gareth Moore, CEO and chairman of Virginia Distillery Company, said they have to be able to share and sample the product to get customers excited.

One of the things weve really been working on is trying to provide a similar experience to what youre able to do at breweries and wineries, he said. I think with the new rules from the recent legislation, being able to expand is the very first step and it shows that the state is recognizing that theres a growing industry within the state, and that theyre willing to partner with distilleries to help grow the industry in the state.

Beginning July 1, distilleries will be allowed to serve 3 ounces per person, per day, up from 2 ounces. No single sample can exceed one-half ounce, unless served as a mixed beverage, in which case a single sample may contain up to one and one-half ounces.

Moore said he thinks the key is recognizing that there are certain limitations about being in a controlled state and thats not something he believes is going to change anytime soon.

Its really figuring out how within that structure that were able to grow as an industry in the state and I think really looking at Virginia ABC as our partners in that rather than our regulators, he said. As we do better, they do better and I think both of us recognize that thats going to lead to great results for both sides and ultimately the people in the state.

Last spring, Denver Riggleman and his wife, Christine, owners of Silverback Distillery, worked with other distilleries and former ABC Chief Operating Office Curtis Coleburn to help draft bills that Riggleman said will help distilleries have a level playing field with beer, wine and cider in the state.

The other bill, which was SB 714  that one was huge, which wouldve given us parity with beer, wine and cider in the commonwealth, Riggleman said. Thats where the beer lobbies really had an issue, because theyre worried about us as competition.

Im not taking about craft beer; Im talking about beer manufactures and distributors, the big boys, he said.

Senate Bill 714 did not pass, but it would have allowed any distiller licensee to operate a private distillery store, set its own pricing and keep all the profits for products sold on-premises. Currently, distillery store sales and profits are deposited with ABC.

Riggleman said that hes going to keep pushing for the parity bill and samples totaling 4.5 ounces, which was what the bill initially proposed.

Actually, I think it should be unlimited, he said. I think people can make their own decisions. Were very responsible, and if beer, wine and cider can determine if somebodys publicly drunk I think a distillery could, too. But we have to take it one step at a time.

Silverback Distillery opened to the public in 2014, and Riggleman said it had almost $1 million in gross sales in their first year.
Dozens of Dalhousie researchers in the natural sciences and engineering fields have secured millions in new research dollars from one of Canada's top federal funding agencies.



The Honourable Scott Brison (left), president of the Treasury Board of Canada, was on campus Thursday morning to announce the latest round of funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).



Brisons announcement pertained to researchers from Dal and five other Nova Scotia universities. It was made on behalf of the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, minister of science, who was in Hamilton, Ont. to make a simultaneous national announcement.



More than 70 established and emerging researchers at Dalhousie  studying everything from the role of the brain's networks in modulating pain to hydraulic frackings impact on earthquake activity  will receive a total of $10.1 million in new funding, distributed in annual portions over the next three to five years.



The funding includes Discovery Grants and Research Tools and Instruments Grants for faculty ($8.2 million), various scholarships and fellowships for graduate and post-doctoral students ($1.84 million), and a Discovery Accelerator Supplement ($120,000).



We want to congratulate all of the universities and all of the researchers who will be able to use these funds to take their research to a different level, said Brison, who was introduced by Halifax Member of Parliament Andy Fillmore.

Global reach, local impact



Brison, a Dal alumnus and long-time MP for Nova Scotias Kings-Hants riding, said the new funding  part of a national NSERC investment of more than $465 million supporting more than 4,000 individual awards  will help position Canadian scientists as global leaders on research and development.



A lot of the research that is being conducted by our researchers and scientists has the potential to really move the needle for the world. So thank you for your work, he said at the event, held in the atrium of the Steele Ocean Sciences Building.

Dal President Richard Florizone, master of ceremonies for Thursdays event, thanked Brison and the federal government for the new wave of support for science and engineering researchers at Dal.



Dalhousie and indeed all Nova Scotian universities are trying to do the same thing, which is to meld the global and the local  to develop the best research by global standards that also makes a difference in the lives of our communities and the lives of Canadians, he said.



Dr. Florizone noted how NSERC awards play a crucial role in shaping the research landscape in Canada for scientists such as Dals Christopher Algar (left), one of the 53 recipients of a Discovery Grant at Dal this year.



Dr. Algar, an assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography, will receive $110,000 over five years to further his research on how nitrogen from land-based fertilizers impacts marine environments and fish populations when it makes its way into the coastal ocean.



I hope to understand how susceptible our coastal waters, our bays, our estuaries are to the input of this excess nitrogen, said Dr. Algar. And the hope is that we can use this knowledge to make informed decisions . . . maybe about where the best or ideal location for an aquaculture farming operation may be.



Understanding our atmosphere



Attendees also heard from Melanie Hammer (right), a doctoral student in Atmospheric Science who will receive a $63,000 scholarship over three years to advance her research on the interaction between atmospheric particles, climate and human health.



Hammers research, conducted with Randall Martin's Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, uses satellite and meteorological data from NASA and other organizations to learn about the absorption or scattering of solar radiation by atmospheric particles (or aerosols).



This work is important because it improves scientific understanding of how particulate absorption affects climate warming and atmospheric climate change, said Hammer, noting that the research could help with the development and implementation of policies to improve air quality.





Following the formal speaking portion of Thursdays event, Brison and others walked to the Sir James Dunn Building where Hammer spoke more about her research and presented a visualization of particulate data  ranging from fossil fuel emissions to sand and sea salt  on a spherical projector.



Exposure to aerosols is actually one of the leading causes of premature mortality, globally, she said. So its very important to understand the processes behind these particles.
GULFPORT, Mississippi -- Gulfport murder suspect Juwan R. Johnson has been captured in Florida, according to Gulfport police.

Sgt. Damon McDaniel said that Gulfport investigators received a call around 1:30 a.m. Thursday informing them Johnson had been located and taken into custody in Leesburg, Fla. The Leesburg Police Department later confirmed Johnson's arrest.

"It is a relief that Johnson is in custody," said Gulfport police chief Leonard Papania. "We can move forward in assuring justice. Last night, the North Gulfport community clearly stated that we, as a city, are going to take on violent crime. Together, we are going to aggressively go after those few that are causing these crimes."

On June 8, around 11:30 a.m., Gulfport police responded to a report of a shooting in the area of 34th Avenue and Ganges Street. Officers arriving on the scene found Stanton Saunders suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Stanton was transported to an area hospital, where he later died.

Investigation revealed Saunders had been in a fight with a suspect -- later identified as the 18-year-old Johnson -- in the area of Kentucky Avenue south of Martin L. King Jr. Boulevard.

During the fight, Johnson reportedly pulled a handgun and shot Saunders multiple times as Saunders attempted to flee. Saunders ultimately collapsed on 34th Avenue.

Based on the evidence collected, Gulfport police obtained a warrant for Johnson's arrest on a charge of murder and entered his information into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

Johnson is being held in the Lake County, Fla., jail pending extradition to Gulfport.
RAYMOND, Mississippi -- Two capital murder suspects dug through a brick wall early Thursday morning to escape from the Hinds County Detention Center.

"The guy knocked a hole in the wall and got out," Sheriff Victor Mason told WAPT-TV.

Mason said that Gerome Montreal Moore, 19, and Malcolm Jamal Landfair, 29, were last seen during a 4 a.m. Thursday headcount. They were discovered missing shortly afterward.

"They must have done it after the first check. We had one person working in that block at that time," Mason said.

A cellphone was found in a field near the jail, Mason said. The sheriff said he believes someone helped with the escape by picking the men up.

"We have good leads on them right now, so hopefully they'll be apprehended soon," he said.

Moore escaped from a jail in downtown Jackson in April 2015. He and two other inmates set a fire to break a window and then climbed down using bedsheets. Moore was captured nearby and was convicted for the escape May 17. Hinds County Circuit Judge Jeff Weill on Tuesday sentenced him to 5 years in prison on the charge.

"I don't know what's going on with him or the jail or why he's able to get out," Moore's lawyer, Aafram Sellers, told The Clarion-Ledger Thursday morning. He said he hadn't been contacted by his client.

Four prisoners, including a murder suspect, escaped from the same jail last year. The facility has a history of problems with staffing and physical conditions, which led to a U.S. Justice Department investigation. A settlement between federal officials and the county in that matter was announced Thursday.

Moore is accused of shooting and killing a woman named Carolyn Temple during an attempted robbery in January 2015 outside her boyfriend's home in Jackson's Belhaven neighborhood. Moore's murder trial is set for Aug. 8. He is also indicted for an unrelated carjacking and for arson in connection with the jail fire.

Landfair is indicted on charges that he killed Christopher Catchings outside a Jackson apartment complex in May 2015. He's also charged with robbery and being a felon in possession of a deadly weapon as part of the same incident. Landfair's trial is set for July 5.
Donovan Scruggs along with residents.jpg

City Planner, Donovan Scruggs (wearing blazer), stands around table discussing proposed conceptual plans to Market Street with residents and business owner, Barry Johnson. (Tyler Carter/Gulflive.com)

PASCAGOULA, Miss. - A tense environment existed at a Wednesday evening meeting to discuss conceptual plans potentially coming to Market Street, with many residents arguing that the area does not need restructuring.

Outside contractors from Orion Planning and Design Group opened Wednesday's meeting at the Aaron Jones Family Interactive Center by presenting ideas related to the lack of health and vitality Market Street possesses. They also cited the number of people who have migrated away from Pascagoula during the time period from 2000 to 2010, and what yearly assessments yielded in relation to the city of Pascagoula's strong and weak points.

Following those statistics, conceptual plans for Market Street were unveiled to the public and while they are only considered to be proposals at this point, residents and business owners were less than thrilled. Homeowner Jason Keenum was among those who were displeased with the plans and what they meant for the city.

"We have already met with the city on this and I cannot tell you how many times clients or people have come back with their suggestions for Market Street and when they come back with the revised plans, nothing has changed," Keenum said.

Elements of the plan involve additional sidewalks, manicured medians, roundabouts, and reorganized parking. While many residents do not like the idea of roundabouts, research compiled by the Mississippi Gulf Coast Metropolitan Planning Organization shows that Market Street as currently constructed is dangerous. Studies compiled from 2013-2015 show an uptick in crashes that took place on Market Street. In 2013, there were 188 crashes, in 2014 there were 196, and in 2015, the number spiked to 248.

Conceptual plans were placed onto five tables where citizens and business owners could look over the plans, write suggestions onto the layouts, and speak with a representative from Orion and City Planner Donovan Scruggs as to what they would like to see done to Market Street. Residents and business owners in attendance did not like the way the meeting was organized because it was not in question and answer format.

"This doesn't make sense," Keenum said. "This breaking us off into groups at each table does not make much sense. We should be able to ask our question and voice our concerns and receive direct answers. This sounds like we are just kicking the can down the road."

Business owner Barry Johnson said his issue with the conceptual designs for Market Street is that they have implications for his business, New York Pizza, and if his concerns are not heard, he will be forced to move on.

"For one thing, they will be closing the front entrance to my restaurant," Johnson said. "I have a business on Market Street and according to the conceptual plans, my business will now be on a side street called Polk. I also have a drive-up window so if they close that front entrance, there is no way for them to drive up to the window to turn around. Plus, the proposed roundabout is on the corner where my business is located and it appears that those cars are going to be passing within mere feet of the building, where people are sitting, eating. I'm all for beautifying this place and making it look great, but I do not see how reducing traffic flow is going to increase any business, while restricting access to my business."

According to Keenum and other residents in attendance, they do not feel as if the city council is listening to their suggestions. However, Pascagoula Mayor Jim Blevins begs to differ.

"What we want out people to understand is that if we continue to leave Market Street the way that it is, it will continue to deteriorate and go downhill," Blevins said. "The only option we see is making some change if we want to improve the opportunity of bringing new businesses into Pascagoula along that important business corridor. This is a very tough decision to make, we recognize that ... but at some point, we do have to decide on a design or either putting it back the same."

"What we can tell our residents and business owners with a high level of certainty is that if we do nothing to Market Street, we should not expect anything to improve," said Blevins.
Bengaluru: RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on June 23 said China should be seen as an "inspiration" rather than "competition" and hoped that India could reach where that country is in the next 10 to 15 years.

"I think we should see China as inspiration, rather than as a competition...as inspiration we should see what a country can do in three decades if it is focused and has very strong faith on what it needs to do," he said during ASSOCHAM industry and trade interactive meet here.

The Reserve Bank of India chief was responding to a question on when would India catch up with China.

"I often see people try to put down China, of course China has its problems...but in three decades it has reached seven and half thousand dollars per capita income that is worth reaching about," he said.

Stating that he would be the last one to say "we need to follow what they followed", the RBI Governor said, "We can't, because they already followed it. They are already there and that path is no longer free. There is somebody occupying that path."

"We can certainly take inspiration from the fact that it is possible. Since we are at a stage where they were in late 1990's or early 2000's, we can hope that in next 10 to 15 years we would be there where they are.

"I don't speculate on whether we will catch up and when, but certainly we can," he added.
So far, medical devices in India have been regulated as drugs, but companies have been clamoring for separate rules over the years as the industry has grown to roughly $5 billion.

Mumbai: India said it is revising its drugs law to make it easier for companies to do business while ensuring the safety and efficacy of medicines, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's latest move to encourage industry.

Until last year, India was trying to tweak its archaic Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940, and an amendment bill was introduced in the upper house of parliament in 2013. But that has now been withdrawn, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.

Ministers decided the current law cannot effectively regulate areas such as biological drugs, stem cells and regenerative medicines, medical devices, and clinical trials, the statement said.

Draft guidelines to regulate the medical devices industry have already been prepared after consultations with stakeholders, and these will be "notified shortly."

So far, medical devices in India have been regulated as drugs, but companies have been clamoring for separate rules over the years as the industry has grown to roughly $5 billion.

With Modi championing a "Make in India" campaign, the government statement said the medical products sector is "poised for exponential growth in the near future" and "has the potential to become an international hub."

A draft of the revised drugs law is expected to be ready in two months, top drug controller G.N. Singh told Reuters last week. "We thought it was better to revise the law than to put more bandages on it."

Singh, who heads the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation, said the revision would also aim to improve regulatory standards to bring the drugs industry into line with global norms.

The move follows regulatory warnings and bans in recent years on Indian drug factories for failing manufacturing standards. More than 40 of the factories are under a U.S. ban, including many owned by some of India's largest drugmakers.

The $15 billion drugs industry, seen as a reliable supplier of cheap generics to the world so far, is now battling its slowest pace of growth in the critical U.S. market.

Singh said the health ministry has been in touch with the U.S. and EU regulators and would ask them for suggestions on the new law. "We want to know what their expectations are in terms of compliance."

He also said the revised law would seek to improve enforcement of rules, and take a fresh look at penalties and punishment for companies violating manufacturing and clinical trial guidelines.

The Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, which represents more than 900 small- and mid-sized drugmakers, has sought softer penalties and lesser punishment for violators, citing lagging growth, in a letter sent to the health ministry last week, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
LUCEDALE, Mississippi -- It took a team effort, but the result was a happy ending for a Lucedale woman and her two-month old puppy.

It was around 8 a.m. Wednesday when Maridee Mallette, adoption coordinator for the Jackson County Animal Shelter, got a "frantic" call from Missy Dubuisson of Wild At Heart Rescue saying a puppy had become stuck in a pipe in Lucedale.

The puppy's owner, Julianna Branch, had been desperately trying to get help, but had little success up to that point. The puppy had become stuck in the pipe Tuesday night and been there overnight into Wednesday morning.

Knowing Mallette's tireless work in helping domestic animals, Dubuisson reached out. Mallette had just pulled into the shelter in Gautier, but immediately took to the phone, calling anyone she could think of in the Lucedale area who could help.

"The owner couldn't get it out," Mallette said Thursday. "She had tried, but the puppy just slipped further down into the pipe."

Mallette also received a call from Anna Sepulveda of Forever Home 4 Dogs Rescue in Pascagoula. An initial call to the police department resulted in nothing other than an officer saying the puppy was "probably dead," but Sepulveda suggested Mallette call Police Chief Barry Lambert directly.

Dirty, tired and "a little smelly," a two-month-old puppy is reunited with his owner, Julianna Branch of Lucedale, after being rescued from a sewer pipe Wednesday.

Lambert immediately responded, sending both the city's Animal Control officer, Dustin Knight, and members of the Lucedale Water Department to assist.

"The first thing we had to do was look at the spot where the dog fell in," Knight said. "We could still hear him, so we knew he was alive."

Mallette said Lucedale Mayor Doug Lee instructed city workers to do what was necessary to rescue pup.

The Water Company brought in special equipment which allowed them to lower a camera into the pipe to determine the puppy's location. Once that was done, the process of digging him out began.

"We had to dig a hole in the road to get to the pipe," Knight said. "Then we had to cut on each side of the pipe to get him out."

Ultimately, Tim Holland of the Water Department was able to reach in and pull the tiny dog out -- tired, scared and dirty, but otherwise unharmed.

"He was a little smelly," Knight said, laughing.

Afterwards, the Water Department crew went about the business of repairing the damage caused by the rescue.

After being reunited with Branch, the puppy received a much-needed bath, food and water and then a well-deserved nap.

Attempts to reach Branch Thursday were unsuccessful.
New Delhi: Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) chairman S K Roy, appointed by the previous UPA government, has resigned nearly two years ahead of completion of his five-year term.

Mr Roy, who has been with the state-run life insurance behemoth since 1981, took charge as chairman in June 2013.

According to sources, Mr Roy has officially tendered his resignation and the finance ministry will send it to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for acceptance.

However, the exact reason for his sudden exit could not be ascertained immediately.

He had made a similar request some months ago but the finance ministry asked him to reconsider that, sources said.

After the approval from ACC, the finance ministry would begin search for his replacement, sources added.

Mr Roy joined Life Insurance Corporation of India in 1981.

On May 31, 2013, he assumed charge as managing director of LIC. Prior to his elevation, he was head of the international operations division.
The accused, identified as Deepak Kumar, has been arrested by the Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police.

A Delhi resident was arrested in Mumbai today in connection with the illegal uploading of Bollywood movie Udta Punjab ahead of its official release last week.

The accused, identified as Deepak Kumar, was summoned to the office of the Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police here today where he was arrested, a senior officer said.

The investigators have found that the original Censor Board copy was "stolen" and subsequently uploaded on a website, the officer said. The officer had earlier said that Kumar was held from Delhi but later clarified that he was summoned after a team of local police visited Delhi to make some preliminary inquiry and to trace the owner of a website in connection with the leak of the drug-themed film.

Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, the movie starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt and Diljit Dosanjh, was released on June 17 after a legal battle by its makers against the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) which had suggested multiple cuts to clear the film.

A complaint of illegal uploading of the film on the internet was lodged with cyber police on June 15 by Satyajit Mukherjee, Deputy General Manager (legal) of Phantom Films Pvt Ltd, makers of the film. Mukherjee had also alleged that the film was uploaded on two separate links of website Torrent.com, police said.

When the movie was downloaded, it was realised that the original Censor copy was "stolen" and subsequently uploaded on the website by user robby007, the officer said.

After Kumar arrived at the cyber cell office, he was quizzed thoroughly before being placed under arrest in the evening, police said, adding the movie was uploaded allegedly through website allmovies.in.

According to the officer, police prima facie found that Kumar was actively involved in online leakage of the movie. He was booked under relevant sections of IT Act as well as under Copyright Act.
Mumbai: The reports about Salman Khan and Deepika Padukone coming together has been going on for nearly two years now.

Somehow the two come close to working together and then drift apart each time and then there is talk of casting them together. The last two times, it was Deepika who said no to Kick and Sultan.

Apparently, Salman Khan has taken the snub to heart. He refuses to give Deepika the time of the day.

A source in the know says, Since her return from the shooting of her Hollywood film XXX from LA, Deepika has been trying to get an appointment to meet Salman at his residence in Bandra (Mumbai). But so far all her attempts to meet him have been foiled.

This is not the first time when Salman Khan has been pissed off with a leading lady for being less than enthusiastic about working with him. After doing several films together, Priyanka Chopra had once turned down a role opposite Salman.

Priyanka never got to work with him again. One hopes Deepika gets a more favourable response to her olive branch.
Although he doesnt spell out Salman Khans name in his tweet, it is hard not to suspect the actor.

Controversy's favourite child Salman Khan has been receiving a lot of flack for his raped woman comment during a Sultan promotional event. The insensitive comment has unearthed several ghastly stories from the actors past that have suddenly been flooding several social media sites.

We all know that Salman had a bad boy past, but a few incidents narrated by Bollywood insiders, have revealed a grotesque side of the actor.

Sachin Kalbag, Resident Editor of a leading daily, put out a series of tweets describing how a famous actor now in the news behaved badly with a lady film critique. He narrates an incident where the actor urinated in front of the journalist, to take revenge for her bad review on his film. Although he doesnt spell out Salman Khans name in his tweet, it is hard not to suspect the actor.

(1/n) More than a decade ago, an independent, national award-winning film critic had gone to interview a famous actor now in the news...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(2/n) The film critic had panned a few films in which the said actor had a lead role or was one of the male leads. He held a grudge...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(3/n) But since a new movie was releasing, he had to give interviews. Unfortunately, it was with this critic. He had to avenge, though...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(4/n) So first he made her wait for several hours in the hot sun and then asked her to sit on a set prop (a 'khatiya'). She sat. Waited...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(5/n) Finally, he emerged. He told her, "Wait, I have to pee." He then went to a tree 5 ft away, unzipped his and peed in front of her...  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(6/6) That was the actor's "revenge" on a female film critic and reporter who had the "audacity" to not like his movies.  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

(Addendum) The said film reporter and critic, rightly, walked off. Her editor supported her decision.  Sachin Kalbag (@SachinKalbag) June 22, 2016

An excerpt from author and journalist Mayank Shekhars blog on Salman Khan, is also doing the rounds online. It reveals a disturbing encounter that a female journalist had with the Bollywood hero.

Id just heard about how filmstar Salman Khan had insisted he drop a journalist back home after a long interview. It wasnt too late in the evening. She didnt particularly fancy a chivalrous ride. But he wouldnt take no for an answer. Hes a bit of a brat like that.She gave up. They drove together. She found the spot where she needed to be dropped. He insisted on driving her right up to her buildings gate, asked her to specifically point out the floor she stayed in. Now I know where you live, he told her. Sweetly. The interview I just gave you? Dont publish it. By all accounts the piece never saw the colour of print. - Mayank Shekhar

Several fans expressed their outrage over the actors remark. Many have even stood up to question the Bollywood film industrys sudden silence on the same. Kangana Ranaut and Nawazuddin Siddiqui recently voiced their outrage over the actors comments and apologised on behalf of the film industry.
"The reduction of the lifetime deferral to a five-year deferral has not resulted in any increase in HIV positive blood donations," Health Canada said in a statement. (Photo: weirdscholarship.net)

Ottawa: Canada on Monday loosened requirements for gay men who want to donate blood, reducing the compulsory period of sexual abstinence from five years to one year.

Health Canada said it made the change after blood operators Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec asked for the reduction and presented data showing that the new policy would not affect the safety of the blood supply.

The new rule will take effect August 15.

The five-year waiting period to donate blood was imposed in 2013 and prior to that, gay men were not allowed to donate.

"The reduction of the lifetime deferral to a five-year deferral has not resulted in any increase in HIV positive blood donations," Health Canada said in a statement.

Other countries with a one-year deferral period for men who have sex with men include Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Scotland and the United States.

Health Minister Jane Philpott was quoted by broadcaster CBC as saying Justin Trudeau's Liberal government had an "incredible desire" to reduce the waiting period even further.

She noted that the latest policy "is not a radical change" from the previous rule and many gay men would still be banned from donating blood.

"That being said, I would rather see Canada take a step in the right direction than stand still," Philpott said.
Enjoyment of everyday activities increases after retirement, a study from Australia has found.

The heightened level of enjoyment lasts at least a year after a retiree stops working full time, researchers report in the journal Age and Ageing. There is conflicting evidence about changes in enjoyment and happiness when people retire, coauthor Tim Olds of the University of South Australia told Reuters Health by email.

On the one hand, people may lose social connections and their sense of purpose in life when they retire, he said. On the other hand, retirement offers a chance to do the things you've always wanted to do.

We found that you're likely to be happier when you retire, he told Reuters Health in an email. Thats not because retirees spend more time doing things they like and less time doing things they don't like, Olds noted.

Rather, it could be that retirees get more pleasure from even mundane daily activities because they have more autonomy and time-flexibility, Olds said. The 124 study participants all intended to retire within three to six months. The group was roughly half men and half women, with an average age of 62.

At the start of the study and again three, six and 12 months afterward, Olds and his colleagues asked participants to recall their activities in the last 24 hours. They grouped activities into eight categories: physical activity, social, self-care, sleep, screen time, quiet time, transport, work and chores.

Participants also completed surveys about their health, wellbeing, sleep quality and loneliness. Compared to pre-retirement levels, average enjoyment ratings were significantly higher throughout the study.

Changes were partly due to shifts towards more enjoyable activities . . . but were mainly due to retirees getting more enjoyment out of doing the same activities post-retirement, the authors found. Overall, enjoyment ratings were associated with wellbeing and better sleep quality.

Physical activity and social activity had the highest enjoyment ratings while work and chores had the lowest, according to the report. Still, participants who continued to work part-time after retirement reported that their enjoyment of it increased substantially, the authors noted.

People have a different experience when working after retirement, said Kenneth Shultz, a social gerontologist and professor of psychology at California State University in San Bernardino.

You dont have to deal with the pressure of a career job, and people tend to not be emotionally invested in it, said Shultz, who was not part of the study. For those on the edge of retirement, however, work appears to be an unpleasurable drag, according to Olds and colleagues.

During those last few months before retirement, they write, enjoyment decreased when the trip to work began, was momentarily elevated during work breaks, and rose again at the end of the working day. The study participants, they conclude, were . . . working for the eternal weekend of retirement.
The python that was found in front of the Banjara Hills police station on Wednesday (Photo: DC)

Hyderabad: Snakes being rescued in the city has become a daily affair. On Wednesday night a six-feet-long python was found in front of the Banjara Hills traffic police station which was rescued. On Thursday, four cobras were rescued from different parts of the city.

At Indira Park a snake was spotted inside a car recently, while a rat snake was found at a house in Shahalibanda, and a python was seen crawling along the road near a gated community in KPHB. Nearly half of the snakes rescued are venomous cobras, followed by non-poisonous rat snakes.

Till May this year, nearly 1,007 snakes were rescued in the city, of which 457 were cobras. Last year 3,500 snakes were rescued and once again half of them were cobras. Not surprisingly, the Osmania General Hospital gets 60-90 snake-bite cases every month and the figure increases during monsoon.

Four venomous snake species are found in Hyderabad  cobra, common krait, Russel's viper and the rare saw-scaled viper. In Telangana, snakes can only be rescued by Forest officials or by volunteers of Friends of Snakes Society.

Mr Avinash Visvanathan, general secretary of FoSS, said, While one might think that the population of snakes has increased in the city, there is no study to establish that. It might be also due to fragmentation and destruction of snake habitats, resulting in frequent snake-human conflicts.

Dr Shrirang Abkari, consultant physician for a private hospital said, If bitten by a snake one should rush to a hospital.Swelling, redness, bleeding, breathing problems and paralysis are some of the symptoms of a bite by a venomous snake. Sometimes people tie a cloth really hard around the bite area or try to suck out the poison, which should not be done. The affected organ should be kept immobile.
In 2014, over a 26-day period, she spoiled formations at seven different national parks.

A woman was recently banned from all the national parks and federally administered land after she posted evidence of defacing rock formations with graffiti all over social media.

Casey Nocket, 23 was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and will also be paying fine for her crime. The fine will be decided at a hearing to be held in December.

As she travelled across US, she used to draw art on rock features and post pictures of the same on social media.

In 2014, over a period of 26 days, she spoiled formations at seven different national parks. She drew and painted on them with markers and acrylic paints and posted pictures of her work with her social media handle 'Creepytings.'

The defendant's defacement of multiple rock formations showed a lack of respect for the law and our shared national treasures. The National Park Service has worked hard to restore the rock formations to their natural state, completing clean-up efforts in five of the seven national parks, told acting U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert to the Los Angeles Times.

They expect to complete clean-up efforts at Death Valley and at Crater Lake national parks as weather permits, he added.

(Photo: Youtube/ Screen grab)

Among the parks she visited were Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Zion National Park in Utah and Crater Lake National Park in Oregon and Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks in California.

But her work posted on Instagram provoked outrage on social media and was later she was arrested.

The damaged caused was difficult to remove as chemical stripping and sandblasting can lead to irreplaceable damage to natural features.

In fact at Crater Lake and Death Valley, the graffiti is yet to be fully removed nearly two years later.

On Wednesday she appeared at the court in Fresno, California where she pleaded guilty for damaging formations at seven national parks.

Prosecutor Phillip Talbert said in a statement, The defendant's defacement of multiple rock formations showed a lack of respect for the law and our shared national treasures. The National Park Service has worked hard to restore the rock formations to their natural state, completing clean-up efforts in five of the seven parks, reports The Daily Mail.

(Photo: Youtube/ Screen grab)

Her Instagram account has been deleted. In one of her post she also wrote, It's art, not vandalism. I am an artist.

The case also provoked a White House petition demanding she be prosecuted with more than 10,000 people signing the document.

After she admitted to causing damage, Charles Cuvelier, chief of law enforcement for the National Park Service said, This case illustrates the important role that the public can play in identifying and sharing evidence of illegal behavior in parks. It is clear that the public cares deeply for the special places that the National Park Service represents, and the resolution of this case sends a message to those who would consider such inappropriate behavior going forward.

(Photo: Youtube/ Screen grab)
People in Sathyamoorthy Nagar took to the streets following the murder of advocate T. Ravi, on Wednesday. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: It was business-as-usual at a Tasmac liquor shop on Sathyamoorthy Nagar Main Road at Vyasarpadi soon after a 45-year-old Dalit advocate was hacked to death by a four-member gang in full public view when he was riding home on Wednesday morning. There was tension as the kin staged a road roko demanding immediate arrest of the accused. The police pacified them that action would be taken.

The advocate T. Ravi, (45), a resident of Arumuga Pillai street, off New Magazine Road, Vyasarpadi, was intercepted by the gang that came in two bikes on Sathyamoorthy Nagar Main Road around 10 am. Realising the danger, Ravi ran for his life leaving behind his scooter. However, the gang pinned him down near Ambedkar statue, hacked him, and fled the scene.

We heard that Ravi was in a fight. We rushed to the street only to find him dead lying in a pool of blood. Some of his fingers were gathered a few feet away from where he had collapsed, Kamal, a nephew of the deceased, told DC.

This is not the first incident, and it is the fourth incident of violence. Nothing was done to prevent it, he said. Shopkeepers on New Magazine Road downed shutters fearing violence as the crowd in support of Ravi began swelling.

As police rushed to the scene, the kith and kin took to the streets and blocked traffic on Sathyamoorthy Nagar Main Road. The protesters charged that the police did not do much to avert the murder.

Ravi, who was initially associated with CPI, joined Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, and later Puratchi Bharatham, before he went on to float Jananayaga Puratchi Munnani (Democratic Revolutionary Front), and is a heavyweight in the locality. Police said Ravi's approach had its effects on elders of SM Nagar and they would turn only to him when fledglings indulged in offences.

Last year, Ravi stormed Vyasarpadi police station and assaulted a Youth Brigade member Dinesh, and was booked for the same. He was also booked for criminal trespass into a property at Madhavaram in his clients favour.
Kozhikode: The Medical College police has slapped cases against two Malayali nursing students who allegedly ragged Malappuram native K.P. Aswathi, 19, at Al Qamar College of Nursing, Kalaburagi, in Karnataka. According to the police, sections of attempt to murder, SC/ST atrocities Act and ragging Act were registered against third-year nursing students, Lakshmi and Aathira.

The case details have been sent to Kalaburagi station which would re-register it there, said Inspector E. Jaleel.

Aswathi was admitted to Medical College Hospital here on June 2 with her internal organs seriously damaged. According to Aswathi, she was forced to drink bathroom cleaner by the seniors. MCH additional superintendent Dr K.C. Soman said that the acid content of the lotion had made the two parts of oesophagus inseparable and an endoscopic surgery was needed. At present, her body is not fit for surgery. She is being tube-fed, he said.

Meanwhile, State Human Rights Commission member P. Mohana Das visited Aswathi on Wednesday. He said that action would be taken to expedite the probe. The SHRC will contact our Karnataka counterpart for booking the culprits, he said. But the college authorities denied the reports of ragging and said that Aswathi had attempted suicide on May 9. Aswathi and her relatives have rejected their claim.

KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran sent a fax message to the Karnataka Chief Minister and Home Minister demanding an impartial probe. BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan has sought steps to continue her nursing education in Kerala.
rainbow flag art

((File photo))

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

With the politics out of the way, a new

Quinnipiac University

poll turns to cultural issues this Thursday morning - including one reverberating in Pennsylvania's General Assembly.

Not quite half of state voters support transgender bathroom rights (49 percent) compared to 43 percent who oppose it. But state voters oppose the government (53-39 percent) telling schools what to do, the poll found.

"The issue of transgender people and the use of public bathrooms finds voters split on exactly what should be done," Quinny pollster Peter Brown said.

The poll's findings were included in a survey of voters in three, key swing states this election cycle. Quinnipiac also sampled the opinions of voters in Ohio and Florida on the same issues.

Legislation that would ban LGBT-based discrimination in housing, public accommodation and employment is now pending before the state Senate.

On Wednesday, The Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee, chaired by Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York, voted 7-4 to approve legislation that would amend the state's Human Relations Act to include sexual orientation, gender identity/expression to the list of prohibited forms of discrimination for housing and employment.

The panel shot down a proposed amendment by Sen. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, to amend the bill to provide for anti-discrimination exemptions for religious organizations as well as impose some restrictions on public accommodations such as locker rooms and restrooms.

Advocates saw that as an attempt to include language in the bill echoing North Carolina's controversial "bathroom bill law.

Meanwhile, a majority of Pennsylvanians (52 percent) are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that they or someone they know will contract the Zika virus.

Forty-three percent of respondents said the government is doing enough to protect Americans from Zika, compared to 36 percent who do not.

And while more than half (54 percent) of Pennsylvania voters say the U.S. Olympic team should compete in Brazil, more than a quarter (27 percent) say the athletes should be kept home because of the Zika virus.



"Pennsylvanians are clearly concerned about contracting the Zika virus. But when it comes to our Olympic athletes, they say go for the gold, risk or not," Quinny pollster Tim Malloy noted.

The Quinnipiac poll of 950 Pennsylvania voters was conducted from June 8 to June 19, with a margin of error of 3.2 percent.

And now you're up to date. See you all back here in a bit.
Vadodara: A top official of city-based Parul University has been arrested after a nursing student accused him of raping her, police said on Thursday.

The woman rector of a girls' hostel has also been arrested for allegedly abetting the crime.

Jayesh Patel, the founder and former president of Parul University who was accused of raping the student a few days back and evading arrest since then, was arrested by the rural police last night when he was coming to the city from Anand in his car, they said.

"We had been searching for him since last many days. Based on a tip-off, 66-year-old Patel was nabbed by rural police at Asodar cross roads near Anand at around 11 pm on Tuesday. He has been brought here for further questioning," Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vadodara rural police, SL Bhatt said.

"After his medical check-up, we will produce him before a court to seek his remand," Bhatt said.

Patel is the founder of Parul University, a private varsity located at Limdi village under Waghodia taluka in the district.

After the rape complaint was filed on June 18, Mr Patel went underground. He was subsequently expelled from the post of president of the university by its authorities.

Later, he was also expelled from BJP, which he had joined in 2014, party spokesman Bharat Pandya said.

In the FIR, the 21-year-old girl, who is studying in a local nursing institute affiliated to the varsity, also accused the girls' hostel woman rector Bhavnaben Patel of abetting the crime.

The complainant said in the FIR that she was allegedly raped by Jayesh Patel at his house located near the girls' hostel, after Bhavnaben took her there during the intervening night of June 16 and June 17.

The victim also alleged that Patel threatened to rusticate her from the institute and spoil her career by failing her in exams if she revealed it to anyone, police said.

"Since Bhavnaben was also involved in the crime, we arrested her on June 19 and took her remand," Bhatt said.

A case was lodged at Waghodia police station against them under sections 376 (rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 114 (abetting the crime), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, police said.
After reports of terrorist still taking hiding in the area, search operations were conducted in Pathankot. (Photo: PTI)

Pathankot: A day after a parliamentary panel claimed some "terrorists were still hiding" in villages close to the "vulnerable" Pathankot airbase, Punjab Police on Thursday carried out a massive door-to-door search in at least 28 villages near Pathankot.

"We conducted a search operation in 28 villages starting at 5 am for five hours. We asked people whether they have seen any person or suspect who is not from their village. They said they have not seen anyone," Pathankot Senior Superintendents of Police Rakesh Kaushal said.

Led by the Mr Kaushal, a total of 300 policemen including 2 SP-rank officers conducted search operation in villages such as Dhira, Tajpur, Akalgarh and Chonga near Pathankot airforce base.

The search team also comprised highly trained and specially equipped Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) commandoes.

The police also inspected security outside the Pathankot airforce base and found that everything was safe. "Everything is safe there," said Mr Kaushal, adding that the airforce was also secured by its own Garud commandos.

Search operations were also carried in areas inhabited by 'Gujjars', officials said.

"We found nothing suspicious," said the official. He, however, said security has been intensified in the border district which had witnessed a terror attack at the airforce base in January.

Yesterday in Jammu, Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Home Affairs P Bhattacharya had said, "After going back from Pathankot, we made our suggestions to the government and said that there can be further attack on Pathankot. We were told by the villagers that some terrorists were still hiding in the villages there."

"Do you know that a few days ago, government asked the CRPF, BSF and the Army to guard the air force station because some terrorists are hiding there," said Bhattacharya.

Notably, early this month, shoot-at-sight orders were issued at airforce station in Pathankot and security was stepped up following intelligence inputs.

Meanwhile, a meeting was held between officials of Army, BSF, Air Force and Punjab police to review security arrangements here, the Pathankot SSP said.
Bhubaneswar: Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman has admitted his links with the terrorists involved in the 1999 Kandahar plane hijack and 2002 American Centre blast incident in Kolkata, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Rehman had provided safe shelter in Cuttack to a Pakistani terrorist involved in Kandahar plane hijack. The said terrorist belonged to Pak-based Harkat-ul-Mujadhideen group that hijacked the Delhi-bound Air India flight IC-184 from Kathamandu to Kandahar, said an official of the Special Task Force of Crime Branch of Odisha Police. The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.

"As one of the terrorists involved in the hijack was close to Rehman, he brought him to Cuttack and kept him in a secret location," the officer said quoting the AQIS operative, who is being interrogated by the STF.

Though Rehman, who has been brought on a 10-day remand by Odisha Police, initially refused to admit his links with terror outfits, he opened up as soon as evidence collected by NIA and IB were placed before him, the officer said. He added that police had been probing into the truth behind Rehman's statements.

"We have been locating the places where Rehman actually sheltered the Pakistani terrorist," the officer said, adding that the operative's brother was also one of the accused persons in the 2002 American Centre blast.

Though Rehman's brother got acquitted in the case, police said that now his younger brother (Rehman) had revealed that one of the terrorists was brought to Cuttack where he got safe shelter.

"We will verify both statements before coming to any conclusion," the officer said adding the STF have been investigating into the Odisha link of Rehman.

The operative, who was running a Madrassa at Tangi near Cuttack, was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi Police and Odisha Police on December 16, 2015. He was brought from Delhi to the state on remand.

As a cleric, Rehman was addressing a number of 'Jalsa' functions both in Odisha and Jharkhand, where he allegedly delivered provocative speeches. Sources said Rehman will be questioned about his links in Odisha and the source of the funds he received to run the Madrassa. He was booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
I will award the bounty from my own pocket to those who could provide clues to ascertain whereabouts of Mr Gandhi, who is currently on a foreign tour, Bijendra Singh Sisodia said. (Photo: PTI)

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh BJP spokesman Bijendra Singh Sisodia on Thursday sparked a fresh debate by announcing a reward of Rs 1 lakh to those who could provide whereabouts of AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on a holiday abroad.

I will award the bounty from my own pocket to those who can provide clues to ascertain whereabouts of Mr Gandhi, who is currently on a foreign tour, Sisodia said in a press release issued in Bhopal.

Read: Rahul Gandhi trolled on Twitter for 'visit to abroad' tweet

Raising questions on Mr Gandhis penchant for going on foreign tours unannounced, Sisodia recalled the Congress heir-apparent had visited South-East Asian countries a few months ago on an introspection mission, as was described by the Congress then.

The Congress had also announced Rahul Gandhi had gone on a foreign tour to 'recharge' himself, he added.

Read: Modi wishes long, healthy life to Rahul Gandhi on his birthday

Now, the nation wants to know from the Congress where Mr Gandhi is headed this time, and how he recharges himself during his foreign tours, the BJP leader's press release said.
The CBI has registered a case against nine senior Income Tax officials including principal commissioner income tax, Delhi S.K. Mittal and three private persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices.

Chennai: Sleuths from the CBI on Wednesday raided premises belonging to three senior income tax officers working in Chennai in various capacities as part of their national wide operation against nine I-T officials.

Official sources identified the Chennai officers who were under CBI scanner as T.H. Vijayalakshmi, commissioner of income tax (audit), S. Murali Mohan, additional commissioner of income tax (corporate range II) and Aroon Prasad, deputy commissioner of income tax (exceptions).

The CBI has registered a case against nine senior Income Tax officials including principal commissioner income tax, Delhi S.K. Mittal and three private persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices. The sleuths carried out searches at 17 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Khammam.

The agency has also registered case against income tax officials Mittal, additional commissioner (exemption) Bengaluru T.N. Prakash, additional commissioner Mumbai S Pandian, commissioner (DR) ITAT Mumbai G. Lakshmi Baraprasad, additional director general Ghaziabad Vikram Gaur and additional director (investigation) Mumbai Rajendra Kumar, official sources said.

A chartered accountant, Sanjay Bhandari from Chennai and his sons Shreyansh and Divyang are also named as accused in the case, the sources said. It is alleged that these officials were availing favours including stay, conveyance and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons and helping him in the cases of his clients as quid pro quo.

It may be recalled that CBI, anti-corruption branch, Chennai in January 2015 had caught Sallong Yaden, the then joint commissioner, Income-Tax, Range-VI, Nungambakkam, Chennai while he was accepting a bribe amount of `8 lakh from a chartered accountant Shreyans Bhandari, to give a favorable report on an I-T search at the office of a private company.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday reiterated that her government will continue to oppose foreign direct investment in various sectors, including pharmaceutical and agriculture, as it will "kill the Indian brands".

"I am not against people getting jobs, but it (FDI) will kill our Indian brands," Mamata said.

"TMC MPs will discuss the matter in Parliament. But 100 per cent FDI be it in pharmaceutical, agricultural or manufacturing sectors will have an adverse impact on Indian brands. We have to look after the Indian brands. We need to do the branding of our own products," she told the state assembly.

Trinamool Congress has been consistently opposing FDI in many areas and often outlined reasons for it at different fora. It was on the issue of allowing FDI that TMC had walked out of UPA-II government in 2012.

Banerjee said there were certain issues on which the Center should take a call after talking to all political parties.

Citing the instance of the pharma sector, she said, "Allowing FDI in it will lead to increase in prices of medicines including life saving ones."

"It will increase medicine prices and no one will be able to buy them. If you allow 100 per cent FDI, the merit and talent of our country will not come up," she said.

The BJP-led NDA government has relaxed FDI norms in a host of sectors including civil aviation, single-brand retail, defence and pharma by permitting more investments under automatic route.

The other sectors in which FDI norms have been relaxed include e-commerce in food products, broadcasting carriage services, private security agencies and animal husbandry.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday sought to know from Maharashtra government if it has decided to seek a CBI probe in the Govind Pansare murder case as claimed by the lawyer of family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he has no such instruction so far.

The high court also came down heavily on the CID and the CBI, probing the Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder cases respectively, for slow progress.

The Pansare family had approached the Maharashtra government seeking CBI probe in the matter and on Wednesday the state government consented, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain communist leader, informed HC bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi. However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told the court that he does not have any instruction from the government regarding this.

To this, the HC directed Shinde to find out if the government has taken a decision to refer the probe to CBI, and if it has done so, then tell the court the reasons behind it.

The bench, which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking monitoring by HC in both the murder probes, later adjourned the matter for six weeks.

"Now that the CBI has arrested someone in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Pansare's family also wants CBI to probe their case and the state government is also promptly saying OK let it go, let it be off my shoulder one headache gone," the HC said.

Notably, the CBI had recently arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawde from Navi Mumbai in connection with the murder of anti-superstition crusader Dabholkar.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. The CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.

The CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the murder. The high court, after perusing the reports submitted by both CBI and CID with regard to the progress of probe in both the murder cases, said it was not completely satisfied with the pace of investigations.

"We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder cases need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society. Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views," the high court observed.
Amaravati: The Guntur police are making elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of Krishna Pushkaralu to serve the devotees and to avoid untoward incidents.

The police are planning to install watchtowers in Pushkar ghats and establish a master control room at Tadepalli for round-the-clock monitoring of Pushkaralu. Special vans would be arranged to shift the devotees to the ghats, help centres will be started and CCTV cameras will be used in all ghats.

The Kanakdurga ghat, Dhyana Buddha ghat, old Amaravati ghat and Seethanagaram ghat are the main ghats for the Krishna Pushkaralu. The four ghats are easily reachable from Guntur and Vijayawada having good road and rail connectivity. During the 2004 Krishna Pushakaralu, there were nine Puskhar ghats in Seethanagaram but now the officials are merging all the nine ghats into one big ghat for the convenience of the public.

The police proposed watchtowers in the Seethanagaram ghat to monitor the devotees and helping them during emergency situations. As the residence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is situated very near to the Karakatta from Seethana-garam ghat, the police department felt watchtowers would be useful to identify anti-social elements and for tightening the CMs security.

A higher official said that a watchtower would be established at 40-feet height and can cover 0.5 km of distance. Eight help centres will be started at Seethanagaram and adjacent places to serve the devotees and vehicles would be arranged to shift the senior citizens to the ghats.

Six parking places and same number of checkposts were proposed. The police department found that the devotees will visit 22 famous temples during 12 days of Pushkaralu, so are planning to provide strict security at these temples. The police department is planning to take services of the volunteers to serve the devotees at the ghats and to control the traffic.

The Guntur police led by urban SP Sarvasreshth Tripathi consulted the colleges to get services of 1,000 students as volunteers during Krishna Pushkaralu. The government has given approval for the proposal.
New Delhi: India is committed to security and economic prosperity of Afghanistan and will stand like a "rock" with it, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday said.

"We want to convey this to the people of Afghanistan through Osmani Sahab (Afghanistan Minister) that India will stand like a rock with them. We are committed to your economic prosperity and security," she said.

Swaraj made the remarks at an event organised by the Water Resources Ministry to felicitate its personnel and workers who successfully completed the construction of India-Afghan Friendship Dam in Herat province.

Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti and Afghanistan's Energy and Water Minister Engineer Ali Ahmad Osmani also attended the event.

Swaraj noted the dam was built in "very difficult and hostile" conditions by WAPCOS Ltd, a public sector undertaking under the Water Resources Ministry, even as Indian nationals were attacked in Afghanistan. She likened the "valour and determination" shown by the personnel working on the project to that of soldiers guarding country.

Referring to the recent bomb blast in Afghanistan in which two Indians were killed, Swaraj said the Indian Consulate, rest houses and Indian nationals were attacked 16 times and 24 Indians have so far been killed in such attacks.

"This is not an ordinary dam, attacks keep taking place on our consulate there, blasts occur, amid such a situation, if an organisation like WAPCOS says it will construct the dam, it reflects the determination and valour which our soldiers show. Several Afghan security forces personnel too were killed, but they were determined," she said.

Lauding the tradition of Chishti Sufism, she said it came to India from where the dam has been built in Afghanistan.

The Minister said the dam, funded entirely by the central government, will contribute heavily to the economic growth of Afghanistan.

Bharti described the dam "as an example of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts aimed at pushing development agenda at international-level too".

"Before Modiji became Prime Minister, there used to be politics of division. But he made a pitch for development. Internationally too, he is pushing the agenda of development. This dam is example of that," she said.

The dam was built keeping in mind the needs of local people. It will help irrigate swathes in Afghanistan and generate electricity, she said.

Osmani said his country received a lot of funds over the past 15 years from international donors but India's cooperation was "very effective" and hoped other countries will follow India's model.

He lauded India for supporting development activities in Afghanistan and constructing the dam at a time when "some countries are supporting terrorism" in his country.

"Surely, the history and the people Afghanistan will remember these two types of actions. This time terrorists and their supporters were disappointed. We proved that friendship succeeded and terrorists failed. The completion of the dam shows terrorists cannot stop our development," he said.

Special Secretary in Water Resources Ministry Amarjit Singh, WAPCOS CMD R K Gupta and other government officials, Sufi saints from Afghanistan were also in attendance at the event.

PM Modi and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani had on June 4 jointly inaugurated the Rs.1775-crore dam.

The multipurpose project, constructed on Chist-e-Sharif river in Heart province of Afghanistan, is expected to irrigate 75,000 hectares of land and generate 42 mega watt power, besides ensuring water supply and other benefits to local people.

Funded by Indian government, the project work was completed in over 10 years by 1,500 Indian and Afghan engineers and other professionals.
Indian intelligence agencies have taken note of the Arab Spring activist's tweet and are in touch with Iyad El-Baghdadi to get more information. (Photo: Facebook)

New Delhi: In what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, some Indians have reportedly contacted a pro-democracy Arab Spring activist named Iyad El-Baghdadi to ask him how they could join the Islamic State (IS).

According to a report in Indian Express, the name confusion springs from the fact that the real ISIS leaders name is quite similar - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Read: Pro-ISIS group releases kill list, 285 Indian nationals named

In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Iyad, a Palestine-born UAE citizen who has been living in Norway under asylum, asked how he could get in touch with Indian authorities to report these people.

If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to? Iyad tweeted.

Indian intelligence agencies have taken note of the tweet and are in touch with Iyad El-Baghdadi to get more information. We have taken cognizance of it and are trying to get more information and verify the same, a senior intelligence officer was quoted as saying.

The Mumbai Police Twitter handle also thanked El-Baghdadi and promised to look into the matter.

Read: 39 Indians kidnapped in Iraq by ISIS are alive: Sushma Swaraj

According to the report, action can be taken against those who emailed Baghdadi only after the contents of the emails are known, as well as whether the accused actually intended to join Islamic State in Iraq or Syria. In essence, it has to be established that the emails are not pranks.

Intelligence agencies however said that a similar message was sent out by Iyad a month and half ago. At that time, he seemed to have some issue understanding the languages he had received messages in. But the probe did not lead anywhere.

But this is not even the second time the Arab Spring activist has faced trouble because of his name. In December 2015, Iyad had claimed that Twitter suspended his account @iyad_elbaghdadi. While Twitter had refrained from commenting on the issue, Iyad had accused it of racism.
In the bay area there has been a growing anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, persons of color tendency gaining steam. The presence of this tendency has expressed itself in many ways ranging from a table at the local anarchist book fair, to the whirl wind of destruction released on the buildings and sites of colonial domination in the city of Oakland during the anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, to more clandestine attacks on institutions of gentrification. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding this formation revolves around decolonization. In an attempt to push the discourse into uncharted territory (where novel ideas and actions are born) I will offer more nuanced theoretical tendencies to compliment the already existing push for decolonization: notions of hybrid identities in contrast to racial binaries such as People of Color vs. white people, the notion of the diasporas as it relates the struggle for decolonization. Here the reader will find not a straightforward proposal for the trajectory of any fictitious movement but questions and thoughts that will discomfort and dislodge the common sense consensus that constructs hegemony within this milieu as well as outside of it.

Decolonization and the hybridized Diaspora

There have been major developments since the colonial era that require us to reorient (no pun intended) decolonizing strategies for the post modern Empire. One such development is the severity and scope of the environmental crises, this marks the end of the crises of modernity between nature and society, nature has become completely subsumed by society. The hazards of the environmental crises (exposure to toxic chemicals, pollution, drought, famine) are still distributed hierarchically along the same lines established during the colonial era, yet the complete synthesization of the environment into society also globalizes the struggle for decolonization in an unprecedented way.

The scope of the environmental crises leaves no new frontier, no outside to the systems of domination; indigenous communities are finding it physically impossible to go about their lives untouched by the tentacles of the empire. Along with this development the flows of capital are ever more fluid making national borders less relevant and thus the migration of peoples to seek better lives to escape the ravages of capitalism are increasing dramatically from the global south to the global north. From 1990-2010 there has been an 85% increase for those migrants born in the global South but currently reside in the global North.

These two developments present those concerned with decolonization a few interesting questions: What is the role of the Diaspora and their hybridized identities in the struggle for decolonization? In exploring this question we must briefly understand the mechanisms that held the colonialism of the past together. Frantz Fannonwho is no stranger to the discourse on decolonizationsuccinctly sums up the colonial order when he says:

The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police stations. In the colonies it is the policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression.  It is obvious here that the agents of government speak the language of pure force.

This world cut in two is an order that is maintained by pure force on the one hand, the prison industrial complex, war, the FBI, police and border patrols, who dedicate themselves to the violent maintenance between the citizen and the alien, the criminal and the public, the colonized and the colonizer. Yet on the other hand at the dawn of the post modern era we have the biopolitcal construction of identity itself. By this Im referring to Foucaults observation that during the Classical Age the two separated poles between the scientific understandings of species and populations regeneration becoming the object of political attention, and the project of not only controlling the production of the species but also to manipulate them for the production of docile bodies. These two poles, as Foucault observes merged into one totalizing force known as biopower. It is here that Im interested in, not the violent force that maintains the imperial order, but the ways in which this order is produced and reproduced bio politically through identity itself. The role of the production of identities is analyzed by Negri and Hardt when they say:

Reality always presents proliferating multiplicities. ..it is not that reality presents this facile binary structure but that colonialism, as an abstract machine that produces identities and alterties, imposes binary divisions on the colonial world. Colonialism homogenizes real social difference.

The authors point out that the colonists attempt to naturalize and essentialize the racial binary imposed on reality by polarizing two opposing identities, ex. White vs. people of color, men vs. women, heterosexual vs. homo sexual, old vs. young, etc. and subsuming both identities through representation, participation, or annihilation. This polarization also constructs the grounds and terms in which the war for liberation is fought, and more importantly who is allowed to fight. By erasing real social difference the potential weapons and warriors who could swarm our enemies are reduced to a one on one linear battlefield where we are out gunned and out flanked most of the time. At the juncture where hegemony must produce states of exception for bodies that do not fit the racial binary like Mullatos (one black and one white parent) and Mestizos (used in Spanish colonies to indicate one Eurpoean born parent and either African or Native, or all three), the fragile fictitious logic of the colonial order is exposed.

Homi Bhabha points out the unique position of hybridized identities in the Diaspora in The Location of Culture when commenting on the existential state of migrants, he states: we find ourselves in the moment of transit where space and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion. For Bhabha the state of transit that Diasporas find themselves in are the sites where the shuttling between seemingly opposed states presents the opportunity to disrupt and deny binary patterning. Although the assertion that the binaries of the colonial order are ungrounded does not burn police stations to the ground, or open prison doors, Fannon is actually correct in posing that only violence will bring about decolonization, yet a reversal of the colonial logic must take place in order to permanently disrupt the binaries in race, class and gender relations; so as to stop the biopolitical reproduction of these hierarchal categories.

Much like the struggle of the proletariat toward the abolition of capital, which requires the abolition of the conditions that produce the proletariat itself; for those who are seeking decolonization we must articulate the abolition of the conditions that produce racial binaries and race as a category itself. The failure to do so, as we have seen in other Nationalist struggles for decolonization or liberation which maintain strict racial binaries, results in the reproduction of white hegemonic institutionality with which former colonizers use as a representation of the universality of the colonial order, and extend their reach of power by now being able to broker with the representatives of the liberated nation, ex. ANC (African National Congress) in South Africa, INC(Indian National Congress) in India, NRA (National Revolutionary Army) in China, etc. This dynamic of organizing under the banner of the nation or people exists as living evidence of the inability of struggles for decolonization to shed the colonial construct of the nation and continue to adhere to the colonizers notions of fixed borders and the sovereignty of the state.

We must reach beyond the fictitious nation and race in the political objectives of decolonization. This new era presents itself with unique opportunities to deterritorialize (Deluze and Guattari) the struggle for decolonization, in other words, the struggle for liberation no longer needs a fixed geography or fixed identities, just as capitalist relations are everywhere, so too is the Diaspora. Imagine the total internationalization of local issues and the localization of international issues ex. Police repression and murders, right wing and fascist political movements, widespread austerity, environmental destruction, etc. The moment for Anarchist politics particularly for the Diaspora is of the utmost relevance in its deceleration of a borderless anti-nationalist abolition of the sovereign state as well as capital, and the end to all hierarchical relations.

For the Diaspora these anarchist political objectives mean a total decolonization of political, economic, socio-cultural, and psychological arenas. Yet if we risk reproducing racial binaries by using race as an ....

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/decolonization-and-the-hybridized-diaspora/
Jats from Haryana will tour UP and Punjab and tell the voters there that BJP has cheated the community, a prominent Jat leader said. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Accusing BJP of "cheating" them on the issue of reservation, leaders of Jat organisations and Khap panchayats on Thursday said members of the community would vote against the party in next year's assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

"We have decided to shun the violent mode of protest and work for defeat of BJP in assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh as the party has cheated the Jats on reservation issue in Haryana," Choudhari Omvir Singh, founder of Vishwa Jat Manch, told reporters in Delhi.

Read: Jat quota stir sees lukewarm response amid tight security

"Jats from Haryana will tour UP and Punjab and tell the voters there that BJP has cheated the community," he said.

The gathering of Jat leaders passed five resolutions, including one which demanded the Haryana government order a judicial inquiry into the violence during the February agitation by the community.

"We demand a judicial probe into the violence allegedly by the Jats during the protests in the state by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. Jats were not involved in violence which occurrred in the state as they were busy with their rail-roko agitation," he said.

The other demands included release of "innocent" Jats arrested in Haryana and reservation to the community under OBC category as has been done in UP, Rajasthan and other states where the community has a sizeable presence.

Singh said Jat organisations from Haryana, Delhi, UP and Delhi will demonstrate peacefully at Ramlila Gorund in Delhi on September 28 to force the BJP government in Haryana to immediately stop its work of "dividing" the people in the state on caste lines.

"We are protesting against BJP because the party has not paid compensation to those killed in violence and scores of people who have been arrested have not been released," said SS Sandhu, president of Jat Arakashan Sangharsh Samiti.

"We will ask the community to vote against BJP but we will not ask for voting in favour of any particular party," Sandhu said.

At least 30 persons were killed in the violence during the Jat quota stir in Haryana in February.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Moditonight said he looked forward to fruitful outcomes at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit for which he will be travelling to Tashkent on Thursday.

"I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit & interact with leaders of SCO nations," he tweeted.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he added.

The SCO Summit will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full fledged member along with Pakistan.

Modi said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

The Prime Minister will also have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit during which he is expected to seek China's support for India's bid for NSG membership, which Beijing is opposed to.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Tashkent where he will attend the SCO Summit and meet some world leaders like the Chinese President with whom the NSG issue will figure prominently in the talks.

In the two-day summit, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

Prior to his departure, the Prime Minister said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO Summit.

"India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he had said.

"A short visit to the heart of Asia. PM @narendramodi departs for Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit," tweeted External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Modi had said that India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

The Prime Minister will also have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday on the sidelines of the Summit during which he is expected to seek China's support for India's bid for NSG membership, which Beijing is opposed to.

Coinciding with the SCO Summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins today in Seoul during which India's application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta had on Wednesday said, "The process of India's accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations."

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign more than 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
Seoul, South Korea: No consensus on India's induction into the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) emerged at the 48-member plenary meeting by another tea break (10.30 p.m) here on Thursday.

Highly placed sources told ANI that China is not the sole opponent to India's member ship to the NSG, but Brazil, Austria, Ireland, Turkey and New Zealand too have opposed India's entry, citing it's not being a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

Mexico, however, backed India's membership.

ead: NSG plenary begins today, Modi to meet Xi Jinping in last-ditch effort

Sources further said the meet also did not discuss the induction of Pakistan into the elite group.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tashkent and urged China to make a fair and objectives assessment of New Delhi's application to the NSG and to judge it on its own merit.

Briefing the media about the meeting, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Prime Minister Modi had asked China to contribute to the emerging consensus in the ongoing NSG plenary meeting in Seoul.

"In fact the rest of the meeting was devoted to this issue. Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India's application and judge it on its own merit," Swarup said.

Read: After tough talk, China says objection to India's NSG bid not to affect ties

"He (Prime Minister) said China should contribute to the emerging consensus in Seoul," Swarup quoted Prime Minister Modi as saying," he added.

Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar on Wednesday left for Seoul to make a last minute push for New Delhi's entry into the elite group.

According to sources, this move is being seen as a final push on India's part to make its case. Jaishankar, who is not a part of the negotiations in the NSG's inner circle, will reportedly lobby for India's bid.

This comes days after Jaishankar made a two-day trip to China on June 16 and 17 to discuss the matter with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

Read: Any NSG exception to disturb regional stability: Pakistan

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping, which began its plenary session in Seoul on Monday.

However, the support of China holds importance in view that it is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and holds a 'veto' which, if it chooses to use, will spoil India's efforts.
New Delhi: MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on Thursday that PM Narendra Modi has urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias entry into NSG.

Modi landed in Tashkent on Thursday and met Chinese Premier Xi Jingping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. He discussed the issue of India's bid for NSG membership with the Chinese Premier.

Meanwhile, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on Thursday discussed Indias bid for entry on Day 1 of its 48-nation Seoul meet. The matter is likely to be brought up again tonight at the NSG's plenary.

Although admission of members like India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session.

Thereafter, it was agreed to consider a number of unscheduled items including India's application at a special session after dinner, informed sources said.

It was not immediately clear whether the discussion on India's membership, which is strongly opposed by China, and few other countries will come up informally or in a more formal way.

Read: After tough talk, China says objection to India's NSG bid not to affect ties

Earlier, China had said that India's bid is not on the agenda at the Seoul meet of the NSG.

But China on Thursday sought to de-link its opposition to India's membership of NSG from Sino-Indian ties saying that it does not concern the bilateral relationship.

China-India bilateral relations have maintained "sound momentum" and the issue of India's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

But a key financial dialogue between the two countries set to be attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Beijing on June 27 was postponed to July on Thursday.

Read: NSG plenary begins today, Modi to meet Xi Jinping in last-ditch effort

China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Both India and Pakistan have not signed the NPT, and Chinas contention is that if India is admitted to the NSG, so must Pakistan.

Other countries opposing India's bid include Turkey, South Africa and New Zealand. However, 20 countries including the United States, France, Switzerland and Mexico have unequivocally supported India.

"We believe, and this has been US policy for some time, that India is ready for membership and the United States calls on participating governments to support India's application at the plenary session of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

India has been reaching out to NSG member countries seeking support to its membership. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar , who was closely monitoring the goings-on during the officials' level meet of the 48-nation grouping which started on Monday, is in the South Korean capital to lobby with members to boost India's prospects of getting membership.

India is seeking membership of NSG to enable it to trade in and export nuclear technology.

The access to the NSG, which regulates the global trade of nuclear technology, is expected to open up the international market for energy-starved India, which has an ambitious energy generation programme. India is looking at 63,000 MW energy requirement through nuclear programme by 2030.

The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology. Membership of the grouping will help India significantly expand its atomic energy sector.
Vijayawada: A majority of the tribal farmers from Rayagada district have migrated to Amaravati in search of work.

They have come from Rayagada and surrounding areas where they used to engage themselves in collecting non-timber forest produce like honey and herbs, apart from the cultivation of pineapples, jackfruits and berries. But, due to the administrative lethargy and unusual downfall in the sales, they have come to Amaravati, where large construction activity has been initiated.

The Dongria Kondhas, a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG), residing in Muniguda, Bissamcuttack and Kalyansinghpur blocks of Rayagada district, are known for their entrepreneurial qualities and also in constant search for new legible earnings.

Now almost 70 per cent of these tribals have migrated to Amaravati in search of work. The Rayagada passenger, which has introduced those workers to Amaravati, in fact has shown them a new life, with promising earnings.

In the last six months, more than 50,000 construction workers, along with their families have reached the city of Vijayawada, in search of work in Amaravati, Shubhendu Pradhan, a group leader of construction workers from Bissamcuttack block said.

A majority of women family members are enga-ged in supplementary works at the construction places, while their men are engaged in the building construction works, according to Pradhan. These tribals have a specialty of encouraging inter-community marriages.

When asked as to why they have chosen Amaravati, one Ashok Pandoi said that they had no other alternative. We are not getting right price for our produce, as we dont have direct market linkage, he added. In fact, these tribals carry their produce to Chatikona and Muniguda railway stations to sell it to agents and middlemen from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra at throwaway rates. In that way, we came to know about the large scale construction activity taking place in Amaravati.

The Rayagada passenger, during its 18 hours journey to Vijayawada, used to carry more than 1,200 construction workers on an average per day, a majority of whom are tribals and some of them are non-tribals from Sompeta, Saluru, and Neelakanthapuram areas of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts.

Sharing his views on these migration workers, Economics Professor Dr L.S.N. Prasad analysed this migration has reintroduced the concept of building new economies.
Beijing: China on Thursday sought to de-link its opposition to India's membership of NSG from Sino-Indian ties saying that it does not concern the bilateral relationship.

China-India bilateral relations have maintained "sound momentum" and the issue of India's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tashkent.

Read: Narendra Modi leaves for Tashkent to attend SCO Summit

"President Xi is going to meet Prime Minister Modi in Tashkent. We believe that series of exchanges of visits will deepen our strategic consensus, strategic mutual trust and future development of bilateral relationship," Hua told media briefing here.

On the state of bilateral ties, she said, "We have repeatedly made positive comments on development ties between India and China. Both are emerging markets that are acquiring more and more significant role in the international affairs," she said.

The bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum of growth, thanks to the mutual visits of the leaders by the two countries, she said.

"We have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship. Recently President of India Pranab Mukherjee also paid a successful visit to China," she said.

Read: Will play 'constructive role' in India's NSG bid: China

On whether India, China differences over India's admission into the NSG would effect relations, Hua said, "On the NSG issue, we have been expounding on our position on this issue. We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group".

"We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India," she said.

Xi and Modi are due to meet on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Tashkent today where he was expected to seek Chinas support for India's membership in the NSG.

Read: As China talks tough, US asks NSG members to support India's bid

China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Both India and Pakistan, which have applied for NSG membership, have not signed the NPT. While India's case is pushed by the US, China is backing Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as the NSG kicked off key meeting in Seoul today, China's official media continued its tirade against India's bid for membership in the grouping with an article defending China's opposition and attempting to equate Indian and Pakistan nuclear programmes.
Mumbai: Right wing Hindu activist Samir Gaikwad, held in connection with the murder of veteran Communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare, on Thursday urged the Bombay High Court to grant him bail saying there was no evidence to link him with the crime.

Gaikwad's bail application came up before Justice C V Bhadang who adjourned the matter to July 11 with the mutual consent of the accused and the prosecution.

Gaikwad, a member of the right wing group 'Sanatan Sanstha', contended in the petition that there was no evidence to connect him with Pansare's murder. He sought bail on the ground that his liberty was being encroached upon in the absence of evidence.

However, Special Public Prosecutor Harshad Nimbalkar opposed Gaikwad's bail, saying there was evidence to link him with the murder and that he would marshal evidence before the trial court. A sessions court in Kolhapur has twice earlier rejectedGaikwad's bail plea.

Aggrieved, he moved the High Court with a fresh bail plea. Gaikwad is the only suspect arrested by Kolhapur police in connection with this case. He was arrested on September 16 last year from his residence in Sangli.

Pansare and his wife were shot by unidentified persons in Kolhapur during their morning walk on February 16 last year. While his wife survived, the CPI leader died in a Mumbai hospital four days later.
Mumbai: Wreaking fear is pro-ISIS groups hackneyed technique to reinstate their clout. Toeing on a similar line, in a shocking revelation, as many as 285 Indian nationals have been named in a list of 4000 odd targets put forth by the pro-ISIS group. This isnt the first time when a terror group has propounded such a list.

According to a report, the target list has been produced by pro-IS United Cyber Caliphate and released on Telegram, the terror outfits private channel. The list has names and personal details of individuals to be killed. The data has been collated from open sources available online. The entire list has been presented in an excel sheet format with names and addresses of as many as 4681 people from across the world. Not only Indians, but also people hailing from US, Britain, Canada and France have been named.

Though the approach undertaken by the group seems to be unsophisticated, its allegiance with IS creates potential of having direct effect on the real world, according to analysts. On the other hand, the Jihadi intelligence agencies have belittled the threat posed by the list. The tactic behind the list seems to be in tandem with ISISs philosophy, which calls for individuals who cant make it to Syria and Iraq for Jihad to act in their countries, to kill people averse of Islam.

An imagery with words like O individual wolves out there in the world. Kill the cross wherever you find it and kill them strongly...kill the hardly has been produced by the group along with the list. Besides hashtags like - Very important kill list and kill them immediately were also flashed in the aforementioned propaganda image.

The development comes in the wake of recent Orlando attack wherein 49 people were killed in a gay club by an inane gunman Omar Mateen. His allegiance to the ISIS group has further bolstered their process of dissemination of ideas which are essentially anti-non-Muslims. Last week, the UCC had released a similar target list with around 8000 names in it.

Though Indias national Investigative agency isnt aware of the kill list, the counter-terror organization is keeping a close watch on suspects to avoid any such attacks.

Recently, the dreaded terror group ISIS has launched a new propaganda video that showed off a large group of Kalashnikov-wielding jihadists allegedly from India fighting against the Syrian forces in the Homs province.
New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh will be celebrating the golden jublee of its overseas wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, in the United Kingdom on July 31, according to media reports.

The event will be attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Joint Secretary Dattatreya Hosable, and international celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Richard Banson and Sir David Attenborough will also be present.

The group has collaborated with Dicaprio, a vegan, to power their anti-beef movement. Although the Sangh's main drive against the ban is purely religious, DiCaprio is more concerned about the environment, animal rights and climate change.

The Oscar-winning actor has made headlines several times in the recent past for raising awareness about climate change. DiCaprio has also produced a Netflix documentary about the animal agriculture industry's practices called Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret.

Environmental activists believe that eating less meat is an important step towards combating climatic change.

According to experts, greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector account to an alarming 14.5 per cent towards the global total, and beef and dairy are the most emissions-intensive products- responsible for 65 per cent of the total GHG's emitted from livestock.

Branson, also a vegan, echoes DiCaprio's concerns. "For the last few months, I have given up what was previously one of my favourite foods: beef. Eating less red meat can be healthier, better for the environment and  surprisingly to me  really easy to do so," the business magnate wrote in 2014.

Bhagwat will also reportedly hold an inter-faith dialogue with the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, meet with Cambridge and Oxford dons, and address a gathering of 10,000 NRIs.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bridge to the Sun is a 1961 film, directed by Etienne Perier, starring Carroll Baker , James Shigeta , James Yagi, Tetsuro Tamba, and Sean Garrison . It is based on the 1957 autobiography Bridge To The Sun by Gwen Terasaki , which detailed events in Gwen's life and marriage. [1]

Plot [ edit ]

Gwen Harold, an American woman from Tennessee, meets Hidenari Terisaki (called Terry by his friends and family), the secretary to the Japanese Ambassador, while attending a reception at the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C. with her Aunt Peggy and friend Bill. They share a moment while Terry is showing her the antique Japanese artworks on display in the Embassy, and after some reluctance, she agrees to allow him to call on her.

They begin dating, even though Terry occasionally has fits of anti-western sentiment, and quickly fall in love. After asking her to marry him, she agrees, much to the chagrin of Aunt Peggy (who was raised in the Jim Crow South ), who sees the relationship as unnatural, especially when there are "nice clean young men" available. The Japanese Ambassador also calls on Gwen and attempts to dissuade her from accepting, claiming it would hurt Terry's career by giving him an American bias, and states that even though the two countries are friendly, anything could happen between foreign countries. He seems to hint at possible aggression in the future, even though it is only 1935 and the Japanese have not yet resumed conflicts with China , keeping the countries of Gwen and Terry at an uneasy peace. They eventually marry despite the obstacles and, when Terry is recalled, travel to Japan by ship.

Almost immediately after disembarking and arriving in Tokyo , Terry begins to treat Gwen much differently, expecting her to behave according to the male-centric beliefs of contemporary Japan, such as being silent among men, always entering doors after the men, and virtually bending to every whim of Terry and her male relatives. They continually fight and make up, mostly because of Gwen's outspokenness among men and Terry's strict adherence to the local customs.

After having a fight one night over a general saying that Terry should be proud he may have a son to die for the Emperor , and Gwen speaking out about his distasteful comment, they make up and she reveals that she was so offended by the comment because she is pregnant. The baby daughter is named Mako.

By November 1941 Terry has been reassigned to the Embassy in America. They have Thanksgiving dinner in Washington with Aunt Peggy, as war embroils the world around them and America is one of the few powers of the world still at peace. Terry speaks on the phone with his friend Haro. He mentions that Mako, now about 5 years old, has an apparent illness involving too many antibodies in her blood. He also mentions a possible upcoming invasion of Thailand by the Imperial Japanese Army .

Sensing that it may be the last chance for peace between America and the Empire of Japan, Terry attempts to go over the heads of his superiors and have a cable sent directly to President Roosevelt , alerting him to cable the Emperor to seek to preserve the peace. However, the Emperor is rapidly becoming the leader of Japan in name only, because of a power struggle with the army leaders. Terry's effort is in vain as December 7th comes and war is declared shortly after the Japanese attack .

Terry calls Gwen after hearing of the attack and tells her to leave Washington for Tennessee with Mako, but the FBI enter and force her to hang up the phone. She decides to accompany Terry back to Japan, as he is due to be deported in an Ambassador exchange, and there is nearly a riot as she leaves with the other Japanese families, because of anti-Japanese fervor sweeping the nation in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Philippines , and other European and American held colonies and bases in the Pacific and Asia.

In Japan, a similar nationalist, anti-American hatred, is shown among the citizens. Terry, however, is less enthusiastic about the war, and attempts to be a mediator for peace, which is dangerous due to sentiment and secret police. Gwen is briefly accosted by a group of soldiers, who try and force her to walk on an American flag. She refuses and an air raid begins, causing panic in the streets as bombs begin to destroy the area. She sees a crying child and remembering her daughter, runs to the smoldering school to rescue Mako, who says that children had hit her and called her an American.

Later, Terry reveals that he is under suspicion for being disloyal, because he has an American wife, does not belonging to any patriotic clubs, and speaks out against the war. Soldiers enter and search the house, and while they don't arrest him, it is clear that he and his family are going to have a rough time as long as they stay in Tokyo. They agree to stay at a friend's empty house outside of the city.

As they leave Tokyo, they run into Terry's cousin, Ishi, who has been one of the few people who has been kind to Gwen. Now a soldier, he informs them that he is captain in a Kamikaze squadron, and will soon "die for a descendent of the sun-god". While taking a train, Gwen sees captured American soldiers , possibly on a death march. They arrive at their new home and meet the young girl who lives there. Terry reveals that he is going back to Tokyo, and didn't tell her earlier because she would not have gone to stay without him. He offers to arrange her passage back to America, but she refuses, wanting to be close to her husband.

As the war continues, food shortages and widespread damage make it clear that things are going against Japan. As the years go on, Terry visits less and less, and Mako grows not knowing any other existence besides one of perpetual war. Terry returns after months and they enjoy a night's sleep together. They awaken to a visit from a military police officer, who is looking for Terry. As the war continues to turn against them, they begin to suspect disloyalty from anyone critical of the government. Gwen manages to convince them that she has not seen Terry, and they leave. Terry reveals that he has brought a radio, and an American news station announces the end of the Battle of Iwo Jima , which will be used as a base to launch bombers against mainland Japan. Later on, the surrender of Nazi Germany , Japan's main ally, is also announced, and it is clear that the invasion of Japan is coming soon.

Terry and Gwen have a fight one night because he gave away the last of their food. Gwen goes to the village to get her hair done to please her husband and on her way home she allows Mako to play in the village but then a squadron of American bombers and fighters attack. The couple rush to find her, and amid the devastation of the village, they find Mako, alive and unhurt. Her close friend, however, has been hit and died instantly. At the burial, Gwen comments on Mako's jaded reaction, showing no tears or emotion for her friend, because of Japanese customs, as well as growing up during a war.

One night Gwen visits Terry's old friend Hara, who has some power within the party, pleading for him to keep her husband safe. He introduces her to Tokyo Rose , a radio propaganda announcer who tries to hurt the moral of enemy armies listening to her broadcasts. They agree to help Terry, but only if Gwen makes an anti-American speech on the radio, recognizing the propaganda value of an actual American denouncing her country. Gwen refuses, and learns that Ishi has been fatally injured and is in the hospital. She visits, and realizing he is dying asks why he sent his wife away at this time. He reveals that it is tradition that he not want his loved ones to see him die. She returns home in time to see Terry, who had been hiding in the hills to avoid arrest, return.

The next day, the entire village arrives at their house, being the only one with a radio, for the Emperor's radio address. The Emperor has never spoken in public before, so they realize he must have major news, possibly surrender. As the village listens to the Emperor's voice for the first time, the speech starts:

 We are fully aware of the inner-most feelings of all of you, however, have resolved to pave the way for peace for all generations to come. By enduring the unendurable, and suffering what is insufferable, let the entire nation unite as one family, from generation to generation, and cultivate the ways of rectitude and nobility of spirit. 

With the war over, Terry asks Gwen to return to her home of Johnson City, Tennessee, to put Mako in an American school while she is young and can lose her prejudices against America, to "become a bridge between the two nations". At that time Gwen vehemently refuses to leave him. Later on, she finds Terry, who has been overworked, malnourished, and ill for many months, standing over his parents graves. She recalls a speech he once gave her about visiting the graves of ancestors at times of marriage, birth and death. She also recalls the conversation with Ishi at the hospital before his death when he said he didn't want his wife to see him die. She speaks to Terry's doctor and learns that he has at most, months to live, and was trying to send his family away because, like his cousin, he didn't want them to see him die.

Days later, after Gwen agrees to his final wish to leave for America, Terry sees her and Mako off at the dock. They kiss and embrace for the last time, and Gwen reassures him that they'll be expecting him soon, knowing she will never see him again. She holds her composure until he is out of sight, then breaks down and begins crying.

As the ship departs, Terry walks down the dock, keeping pace with it until he can go no farther. The film ends with Gwen and Terry lovingly meeting each other's gaze for a final time.

Cast [ edit ]

Carroll Baker as Gwen Terasaki

as Gwen Terasaki James Shigeta as Hidenari Terasaki

as Hidenari Terasaki James Yagi as Hara

as Hara Tetsuro Tamba as Jiro

as Jiro Sean Garrison as Fred Tyson

as Fred Tyson Ruth Masters as Aunt Peggy

Nori Elisabeth as Hermann

Emi Florence Hirsch as Mako Terasaki, at different ages

Hiroshi Tomono as Ishi

Historical Accuracy [ edit ]

The memoir narrates the life of Gwen Harold (an American from Tennessee (19061990)), who in 1931 married Hidenari "Terry" Terasaki (b.1900), a Japanese diplomat. He was First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed , was one of the staff who helped translate the Japanese declaration of war and delivered it (late) to the U.S. government and (Mrs. Terasaki wrote in her memoirs) earlier sent secret messages to Japanese pacifists seeking to avert war. The couple and their daughter Mariko were like all Axis diplomats interned in 1942 and repatriated via neutral Angola later that year. Terasaki held various posts in the Japanese Foreign Affairs department up to 1945 when he became an advisor to the Emperor , and was the official liaison between the Palace and General Douglas MacArthur , the Supreme Allied Commander .

Mariko and her mother left Japan in 1949 so Mariko could attend college in Tennessee. Terry died in 1951 in Japan; he was 50 years old.

During the scene in which the Japanese Ambassador to America tries to persuade Gwen to call off the marriage, he seems to hint at a possible conflict between the two countries. It is unlikely that he was aware of any definitive war aims, however, as being 1935, Japan was still at peace with China. Soon after, they would declare war and, in protest to their actions, the United States would issue an oil embargo against Japan, escalating the disagreement between the two and paving the way for war.

The speech that Hirohito gives on the radio at the end of the film is a part of the actual recording of the speech that was played to announce plans of surrender. Terry's translation for Gwen, however, is actually only bits and pieces of the much longer speech, even though it sounds as though he is translating it word for word.

See also [ edit ]
Swamy kept up his criticism of Subrmanian saying he will suspend the demand for his sacking if the government considers him patriotic despite his attempts in the past of trying to twist India's arm. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Unfazed by the government and BJP distancing themselves from his remarks, Subramanian Swamy on Thursday continued his attack on Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subrmananian while dismissing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's counsel for restraint.

"Let him say what he wants. I have nothing to do with what Jaitley says. I can talk to the party President or the prime minister," he told reporters who asked him about Jaitley's disapproval of his attack on a technocrat in the government who cannot respond.

Read: After Rajan exit, Swamy wants Arvind Subramanian to be sacked

Earlier in the morning, Swamy kept up his criticism of Subrmanian saying he will "suspend" the demand for his sacking if the government considers him patriotic despite his attempts in the past of trying to twist India's arm.

"If an Indian, held patriotic, can advise a foreign nation where he works, to twist India's arm, is to be forgiven, then I suspend my demand. AS (Arvind Subramanian) to US Cong: "US initiatives by discriminating against India companies and exporters will exert pressure on India to open up" AS 13/3/13!," Swamy tweeted today.

Read: Is Modi handing over Finance Ministry to Subramanian Swamy: Congress

Swamy on Wednesday caused a flutter when he sought Subramanian's sacking for allegedly taking anti-India stance when he was an IMF economist in Washington prior to joining the Finance Ministry.

Read: Finance Ministry officials defend Arvind Subramanian's appointment

Jaitley had debunked Swamy's call for sacking Subramanian saying "Government has full confidence in CEA. His advice to government from time to time has been of great value".

Read: Arun Jaitley snubs Swamy, backs CEA Arvind Subramanian

Subramanian was appointed CEA by the BJP government in October 2014 after his predecessor Raghuram Rajan moved to the RBI as Governor in September 2013.
Taj Mahal and Manikarnika Ghat(Uttar Pradesh), Vaishno Devi (Jammu and Kashmir), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Maharashtra), Ajmer Sharif (Rajasthan), Golden Temple (Punjab), Meenakshi temple and Kamakshi Temple (Tamil Nadu) and Jagannathpuri (Odisha) are the 10 places identified by the government. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Taj Mahal and Vaishno Devi are among the 10 iconic places with higher footfalls identified by the Centre that will undergo cleaning on par with international standards for which foreign experts are to be involved.

Top government officials while giving details of this initiative also said that World Bank will provide technical assistance.

The Centre is also in the process of drafting standard operating procedures (SOP) to ensure cleanliness at 10 popular sanctuaries and tigers reserves, they said.

"We have taken an initiative at 10 iconic places. The idea is to ensure cleanliness of international excellence- level here. We have invited international experts for helping us and World Bank will provide technical assistance for the same," Parmeswaran Iyer, Secretary (Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation), told reporters.

Taj Mahal and Manikarnika Ghat(Uttar Pradesh), Vaishno Devi (Jammu and Kashmir), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Maharashtra), Ajmer Sharif (Rajasthan), Golden Temple (Punjab), Meenakshi temple and Kamakshi Temple (Tamil Nadu) and Jagannathpuri (Odisha) are the 10 places identified by the government.

Iyer said the government plans to do bench-marking to ascertain what will be the standard of cleanliness both inside and outside these places.

He said the ministry will organise a two-day workshop next month, when consultations will be held with the experts, who, he said, will help chalk out a roadmap to implement the "site-specific" programme, fix indicators of international standards and decide on timeframe and financial resources.

Iyer, who was accompanied by Environment and Forest Ministry Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha during the briefing, stressed that the initiative will require participation of corporate houses, both private and public, and people to succeed.

Jha said that the Environment Ministry is working on SOPs to take forward cleanliness around national park/sanctuaries/ tiger reserves "a step forward" and identified 10 such locations with higher footfall being the main focus initially.

Among these locations include sanctuaries such as Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary (Andhra Pradesh), Gir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park (Gujarat) and Flamingo Sanctuary (Maharashtra).

Besides these, the government has identified Kanha (Madhya Pradesh), Tadoba-Andhari (Maharashtra), Nagarhole (Karnataka), Periyar (Kerala), Sariska (Rajasthan), Mudumalai (Tamil Nadu) and Jim Corbett (Uttarakhand) tiger reserves.

Talking to reporters on 'Swachh Bharat Mission', the officials maintained that the implementation of the flagship programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "very much on track" as they noted "remarkable" progress has been made over the past 18 months.

"We are in the process of drawing up standard operating procedures. The National Tiger Conservation Authority notification already emphasises on maintenance of cleanliness around tiger reserves. We want to take it a step forward. To start with, we have identified 10 sanctuaries. Other places will be included after the SOP is ready," Jha said.
The land on which the AP Bhavan and Telangana Bhavan are situated originally belonged to the erstwhile government of Nizam (before Independence), says Telangana CM KCR. (Photo: Videograb)

Hyderabad: The Telangana government wants the Centre to transfer to it the entire land currently in possession of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi, saying the estate belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday wrote a letter to the Union Home Ministry seeking transfer of the land and expressed readiness to compensate Andhra Pradesh.

"Therefore, while bringing these facts to your kind notice in a historical perspective, it is requested that the entire land presently in possession of AP Bhavan be transferred to the Government of Telangana, as it belonged to the erstwhile state of Hyderabad," Rao said in the letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The land on which the AP Bhavan and Telangana Bhavan are situated originally belonged to the erstwhile government of Nizam (before Independence), he said.

"The government of India later took over Hyderabad House and land in extents of 7.56 acres in Pataudi House and 1.21 acres in Nursing Institute was allotted to the then government of Andhra Pradesh in lieu of this property.

"Therefore, these properties belonged to the then state of Hyderabad under the rule of VI Nizam, which remained a separate state even after the independence of India. It was eventually included in the Union in 1948," he said.

The Andhra state did not exist then as it was carved out of erstwhile Madras state only in 1953, whereas the state of Hyderabad continued to exist as such from 1948 until November, 1956, he contended.

AP came into existence in 1956 with the merger of Andhra state and the Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad state. The Andhra Pradesh government (post-bifurcation) may be allotted some other land in the national capital and the Telangana government is ready to compensate the neighbouring state as the buildings at the site were built with the common resources of Andhra Pradesh, he added. State Bhavans in New Delhi, all government properties, serve as guest houses of sorts for politicians and officials visiting the national capital.
"Merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with SP is an internal matter of Samajwadi Party," Akhilesh Yadav told reporters. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday dismissed speculation that he was unhappy with Samajwadi Party (SP) embracing gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's party, saying there is "no displeasure" and it is an internal matter of the Samajwadi Party.

"Merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with SP is an internal matter of Samajwadi Party," Yadav told reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet in Lucknow.

Read: Akhilesh opposes, father Mulayam backs SP merger with Quami Ekta Dal?

"There is no displeasure. This is all media creation," he said replying to queries on the issue.

He also evaded questions on sacking of cabinet minister Balram Yadav for apparently facilitating the merger. "It's all internal matter of the party," was his refrain.

"The merger has been decided by the party, and what the party will decide will be acceptable to all," he said when quizzed further.

The merger was announced by SP spokesman and senior Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav, who is brother of Akhilesh's father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Hours later, Akhilesh sacked Balram from the Cabinet.

Though no official reason was cited for the removal, SP leaders said the chief minister was "unhappy" with the minister for facilitating the controversial merger.

Read: Former BSP leader Maurya right person in wrong party: Akhilesh Yadav

The Chief Minister's comments came against the backdrop of opposition training their guns at the ruling party following the merger, especially over law and order issue, ahead of next year's Assembly polls.

QED merged with SP on June 21. The ruling party is hoping that it will help it tap the Muslim vote bank in eastern Uttar Pradesh especially in Ghazipur, Mau and Varanasi.

QED was founded in 2010 by Mukhtar, along with his brothers Afzal Ansari and Sigbatullaha Ansari. The mafia don is in jail for his alleged involvement in the murder of former BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.

The merger of QED with SP has given fresh ammunition to the opposition parties to target Samajwadi Party.

"Samajwadi Party is trying all means to get back to power in the next elections. This shows its sheer desperation," BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.

In a similar refrain, Congress spokesman DP Singh said the merger shows "growing frustration" within the ruling party which is trying all "means to retain power by hook or by crook".
India is keen to become a member of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as it seeks to significantly expand its nuclear power generation and also enter the export market in near future. The entry into the elite group purely depends on the approval of all members.

In a bid to gain assurance from member countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hurriedly included visits to Switzerland and Mexico during his tour to the US last month to obtain support for India's membership at the NSG plenary in Seoul on June 23-24.

Read: As Modi comes calling, Mexico backs India's bid to join NSG

NSG was formed in the aftermath of Indias 1974 nuclear test with the aim of ensuring non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology. The group frames and implements agreed rules for exporting nuclear equipments, with a view to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.

The 48 members of the NSG include the five nuclear weapon states  United Sttaes, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. The other 43 are signatories to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India is not a signatory to the NPT which it believes is discriminatory.

Read: NSG applications of Pak, India should be considered together: Pakistan

Countries like Australia initially opposed India's entry but later changed their stance. While United States, Mexico and Switzerland are the latest to voice support, Indiamay face resistance from one country  China. Until China accepts Indias entry, there is no hope of membership.

Read: China opposes India's entry into NSG, wants Pakistan too

As Indias membership to the NSG will give it an upper hand to block Pakistan from its membership, China is all out to play its power game. It is pushing to include Pakistan, pointing out that India is a non-signatory to the NPT and cannot become a member.

However, India's contention is that its nuclear technologies are indigenously developed and it has a clean non proliferation record unlike Pakistan. Chinas non-proliferation record too is tainted with allegations that it has helped Pakistan on the sly.

With depleting fossil fuels, India has been looking to scale up its nuclear power production which is possible only after India becomes a part of NSG. Even if India can buy power plants from the global market courtesy the NSG waiver in 2008, there are still many types of technologies India can be denied as it is outside the NSG.

India's NSG membership will help the country gain access to broad range of technology ranging from medicine to building nuclear power plants from other NSG members which are essentially a traders cartel.

Read: Countries resisting India's bid to join NSG soften stand

India is not in a position to immediately sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and gain access to technologies considering its unstable and unpredictable neighbourhood. It is also unlikely to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that puts curbs on any further nuclear tests.

With access to latest technology, India can commercialize the production of nuclear power equipment. This, in turn will boost innovation and high tech manufacturing in India and can be leveraged for economic and strategic benefits  to perfectly complement India's Make in India programme.

Once India get access to advanced nuclear technologies, it can start building updated versions of its own fast breeder reactor and sell it to neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Bangladesh is seeking to buy Russian reactors for power generation.

Having the ability to offer its own nuclear power plants to the world means will become a chest-thumping moment for India at the same time give a big boost to the Make in India programme.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting in Tashkent on Thursday on the sidelines of SCO Summit. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The plea of India that China consider Indias membership bid on its own merits is a clear indication that India wants China to delink New Delhi's membership bid from that of Islamabad, something that the Chinese have not been willing to do so far.

Observers feel that there is very little chance of China relenting despite the Modi-Xi meeting, but add that if PM Modi manages to convince China, it would be a major diplomatic coup for India.

The final outcome and Chinas decision will be known will be known only on Friday, the last day of the NSG plenary session.

Ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup, when asked about Chinas response at the Modi-Xi meeting, refused to comment, saying, You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this. Mr Swarup did say that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.
New Delhi: In a last-ditch effort to press China to give its consent to Indias NSG entry application, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias bid.

At their crucial 50-minute bilateral meeting in the Uzbek city of Tashkent, Mr Modi, while asking that China contribute to the emerging consensus in favour of India's admission to the NSG at Seoul, said that China should judge Indias case on its own merits. There was no official word on the Chinese reaction. But Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, in his separate meeting with the Chinese President, opposed Indias entry, saying any exception in granting membership to the NSG will disturb strategic stability in South Asia. He reportedly made a case for Pakistan to join the 48-member NSG. Perhaps in an indication of things to come, President Xi Jinping told his Pakistani counterpart that Pakistan and China are iron brothers and that both nations enjoy an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.
The government has failed to generate a single MW of additional power in the last two years. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Congress leader and leader of opposition in Legislative Council, Mr. Shabbir Ali has strongly condemned the hike in RTC fares and power tariff by the TRS government. Speaking to media, he accused Chief Minister of mishandling both RTC and Energy Departments.

Instead of taking measures to improve the functioning of RTC during last two years, the TRS government pushed the corporation into a crisis and now it is threatening to close it down. The government has failed to generate a single MW of additional power in the last two years. But it has cleared hike in power tariff. Congress will launch a mass agitation against the proposed hikes, he said.

Meanwhile, TS TD president L. Ramana criticised the TRS government on agreeing to hike RTC bus fares which he said would burden the poor.

While the CM is claiming that the state is rich, why is he putting burden on the poor and middleclass by hiking power tariff and RTC fares? It will be additional burden on the middleclass which is suffering with rise in price of essential commodities, he said.
The local people pelted stones at the police and the fire brigade and in this commotion, the truck driver and his helper managed to escape. (Representational image)

Lucknow: A truck laden with carcasses of 35 cows in Mathura district led to violence and arson on Wednesday night. The truck carrying the carcasses was set ablaze by the angry mob and the Delhi-Agra highway was jammed for several hours.

According to reports reaching here, the truck was parked near a tea stall near Chaumuha on the highway when some people noticed a foul smell emanating from it. On closer inspection, they saw traces of blood and removed the plastic cover to find the carcasses. Some of the cows were still alive and the angry mob took them out and set the truck on fire.

The local people pelted stones at the police and the fire brigade and in this commotion, the truck driver and his helper managed to escape. After negotiation with senior officials and assurances of strict action in the matter, the local people lifted the blockade.

Additional forces have been deployed in the area as a precautionary measure and further investigation is on. SDM Chatta, Vishwa Bhusan Mishra said that the police were trying to locate the owner and the destination of the truck.
Kochi: Former chief minister Oommen Chandy on Tuesday appeared before the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate Court and deposed in the defamation case filed by him against solar scam-accused Saritha S. Nair. Chief Judicial Magistrate S. Aji Kumar took the statement of Mr Chandy and adjourned the case for one month. Mr Chandy spent 20 minutes at the court deposing against Saritha.

Former minister K. Babu, Hibi Eden MLA and former mayor Tony Chammany accompanied him to the court. He had filed a defamation case against two news channels and Saritha for broadcasting a 'fake' letter alleging that Mr Chandy had sex with her at his official residence.

The channels and Saritha were trying to antagonise the complainant and trying to project him before the general public as an unworthy individual, he argued. Such acts of the accused amount to the offence of defamation.

On April 3, Saritha and others released a truncated letter stating that she was raped by the complainant in his official residence, Cliff House, Thiruvananthapuram. Common sense fails to comprehend as to how such an incident can occur in the Cliff House, where the complainant is residing with his family and several security guards, he said.
Speculation is rife that Maurya could be inducted into SP and might even get a berth in the council of ministers when it is expanded on Monday. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: Dropping enough hints that Samajwadi Party's doors were open for former BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday described him as "the right person in the wrong party".

"The fact that Swami Prasad Maurya was the right person in the wrong party has been amply proved," Yadav said, a day after the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly quit BSP accusing its leader Mayawati of auctioning party tickets for the 2017 Assembly election. The Chief Minister was talking to media persons after a meeting of the state cabinet.

"Maurya is a strong leader. We have good relations. It is good that he left BSP," Yadav said.

Though the chief minister said that it was for Maurya to decide which party he would join, speculation is rife that he could be inducted into SP and might even get a berth in the council of ministers when it is expanded on Monday.

"Where he will go, it is up to him to take a decision," Yadav said to repeated questions on whether Maurya would join the ruling party and get a ministerial berth.

Attacking the BSP chief, Maurya had on Wednesday said, "Tickets are being openly auctioned by Mayawati on a large scale. She is not making the right choice of candidates. Tickets are not only on sale in the party, they are being auctioned."

The 62-year-old leader said he felt "suffocated" in the BSP and could not continue in the party any longer. Hours after his announcement, Mayawati said he was a "habitual party-hopper" and she would have expelled him within a few days for insisting on tickets not only for him but also to his son and daughter as BSP does not promote dynastic politics.

Mayawati had said SP would be the right party for him as it encourages dynasty, giving tickets to sons and grandsons and looking at others only after no one in the family is left out.
Chennai: Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin on Wednesday led the party's first walk out from the Assembly alleging that Speaker P. Dhanapal was not allowing him to speak in the legislature.

When Stalin raised a particular point during his speech on the motion of thanks to Governor for his address, Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam said the incident was being probed by the Election Commission and so it should not be discussed in the Assembly.

The Speaker also accepted it and expunged Stalin's remarks on the issue and did not allow him to raise the point. Protesting the Speaker's decision, DMK members walked out of the House.

Commenting on the walk out, the Speaker said DMK members had walked out in a planned manner after Stalin had completed his speech.

The Leader of Opposition was given sufficient time to speak in the Assembly, but at the end of the day, they had walked out alleging that Stalin had not been allowed to speak.

Speaking outside the Assembly, Stalin said he raised the issue of seizure of `570 crores from a container at Tirupur during the Assembly election campaign.

His party walked out after he was not allowed to speak on the subject. He also said he had raised the issue at the end of his speech since he was aware that the ruling party would not allow him to speak on the subject.

He also said the ruling party was allowing even party MLA K. Pandiarajan to intervene during Stalin's speech. It was a stormy day right from the beginning with aggressive DMK members opposing every move of the ruling party, standing up and raising their voice and rushing to the Speaker's podium.

The DMK members objected to the intervention of ministers who rose up to reply to Stalins allegations. Whenever, the ministers interrupted Stalins speech, DMK members protested vociferously shouting at the ministers to sit down. Deputy Opposition leader K. Duraimurugan complained that Stalin was being interrupted deliberately.

However, Leader of the House O. Panneerselvam recalled that when AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa attended the Assembly alone on July 31 2006 when all her party members were suspended, she was interrupted during her speech many times by state ministers.

The Speaker also said Jayalalithaa was interrupted 65 times by DMK ministers during her speech. He said it was unfair for DMK to expect that no one should intervene during Stalin's speech.

After the Speaker's explanation, DMK members were asked to sit by their leaders. However, DMK members turned furious when AIADMK member K. Pandiarajan was permitted by Speaker to intervene during Stalin's speech.

Replying to protests and shouting by DMK members, the Speaker said it was his privilege to allow any member to speak and recalled that MLAs V. Sivapunniyam (CPI), Govindasamy (CPI-M) and Peter Alphonse (Congress) were allowed to intervene during Jayalalithaa's speech in 2006. However, the DMK members were not pacified by the Speaker's explanation.
New Delhi: Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday took a dig at the Congress leadership, claiming now "Team Modi decides" on public welfare unlike the days when "Madam decided and PM obeyed".

"The biggest change Modi government has brought is that we have ended the situation of policy paralysis. Today the PM presides and Team Modi decides on public welfare unlike the days when Madam decided and PM obeyed," Naidu was quoted as saying in a statement by his party.

He was addressing a 'Vikas Parv' programme organised by the BJP in east Delhi to celebrate two years of Narendra Modi government's rule and its "achievements".

"At the behest of Congress, Modi was denied US visa 9 times but now the same American people are hailing Narendra Modi as an an icon," Naidu claimed.

Union Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said today the world is "eager to invest" in the country that has emerged as the "top" hub for investors.

A large number of BJP leaders including state president Satish Upadhyay, MPs Maheish Girri and Manoj Tiwari, and Delhi in-charge Shyam Jaju were also present.
Shimla: Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday denounced the Modi government's decision to allow 100 per cent FDI in defence sector by easing norms, saying the Prime Minister was working under pressure from the US and his party would oppose it in Parliament.

"The Congress government had allowed FDI in defence with a pre-condition that it would be for state-of-the-art-technology but the present government has eased the conditions. The Prime Minister is working under pressure from the United States.This is not in the country's interest and Congress would oppose it in Parliament," he said.

"The Reserve Bank of India would issue a notification under FEMA on easing FDI norms which would be ratified by Parliament and Congress would oppose it at that stage," he said.

Sharma questioned "on what basis BJP was celebrating its two years in office when over the last two years, FDI saw a decline, exports gone down, industrial production fell and the government miserably failed to generate employment".

He accused the Modi government of unleashing a "political vendetta" against Congress, trying to destabilise Congress' governments in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and toppling the party-led government in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to accomplish its agenda of a 'Congress-free India'".

"The NDA government is totally insensitive towards the agriculture sector. Farmers are committing suicides, but instead of visiting the affected villages, the Modi government is busy celebrating its achievements, which are nowhere visible on the ground," he said.

Asked about his party's stand on GST, Sharma said, "Such issues should be resolved with the consent of all parties and not by vote."

Replying to another query, he said he was not in run for post of the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh.
Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das has warned all those involved in the religious conversion of tribals that the state will take strong action against such activities and, if need be, a strong law will be put in place. While 22 out of 24 districts in Jharkhand are declared affected by Left-wing extremism, Mr Das, in an interview to Manish Anand, claimed that Maoists have mostly been tamed and only goons are now engaged in extortion.

Jharkhand has been known for political instability and corruption epitomised by former CM Madhu Koda. How challenging is it for you to change this negative perception?

It was precisely for such a reason that Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon people in the run-up to the Assembly elections for poorn bahumat, sampurn vikas (full mandate, all round development). Jharkhand as a state was created along with Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, but political instability in the state allowed middlemen to indulge in loot of the state exchequer. He (Mr Koda) was a tribal person, but was exploited by the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal. In the process, the state got a bad name. But in the last 17 months, the perception has changed for the better and middlemen have been eliminated. The state government has established a strong rapport with the people.

Jharkhand presents a paradox that the state is rich in minerals and mines, yet people are poor. What is being done so that these benefits reach the people?

The neglect of people of state in the last 68 years is the reason behind the paradox. Jharkhand has coal mines, but the state faced darkness. There was a lack of thought in proper utilisation of resources. We should exploit natural resources only to the extent we need. Jharkhand is a single-crop state. But there is a potential to grow three crops. And the potential could be realised if we could hold rainwater for which we are building dhoaba, check dams, ponds and micro-irrigation facilities. We have built one lakh dhoaba on farmland with machines and will build five lakh under MGNREGA. We are reviving 75,000 ponds. We are also giving two cows each to women in the state to help them improve their incomes.

Labour reforms and improving the ease of doing business are identified steps to attract investments. How is Jharkhand placed on such measures?

The World Bank has recognised Jharkhand as the top state in India for labour reforms. The Central government has also ranked us third on reforms for improving the ease of doing business. We have set up a single-window interface for industry. We have a policy of no inspection of factories for five years. We have put in place time-bound approval of industrial proposals for which we have designated key officials.

Religious conversions of tribals has been a contentious issue and much debated in Parliament. There have been allegations that the tribals are lured by benefits, like free education and healthcare for conversions in Jharkhand.

Seva Bharat ka sanskar hai (service is in the nature of India). But in lieu of service no one has the right to convert anyone. Even the Constitution does not allow conversions by allurement. I want to caution those who are still engaging in such activities to stop doing so, else the administration will take strict action against them. If there is a need, the state government may pass a strong anti-conversion law too.

Jharkhand has 22 out of its 24 districts affected by LWE? How is the state geared to deal with the Maoist violence?

Why did the issue of Maoist violence crop up in Jharkhand earlier? It was because the administration was not solving the problems faced by the people and the vacuum was filled by those who believed in violence. I am happy to share that of late no major Maoist violence has been reported from the state. We brought in a surrender policy and misguided youths responded very positively. Development should benefit people and we are working on this philosophy, which is paying good results. Now they have almost been eliminated. The administration has reached the villages and begun solving the problems faced by people. Now we see goons and criminals who claim to be Maoists indulging in extortions in a few pockets of the state. We are determined to finish them off soon.

What mechanism do you have to take the administration to the villages, and eliminate middlemen, for which Jharkhand had been infamous?

We have a programme called Yojna Banao Abhiyan (campaign to make schemes). The people in gram panchayats meet and decide what schemes they want for development of their villages. The funds allocated to gram panchayat are displayed prominently, and people know how much money (Rs 80 lakhs to Rs 1 crore) they have at their disposal. We are imparting managerial skills to gram sabhas with about 35 volunteers at their disposal.

The idea is that people in the villages need not go to officials for their work, but get services at their doorstep. The surveys are conducted to identify beneficiaries and their names displayed to institutionalise transparency in the functioning of local bodies. We also have a helpline number, 181, which solves the grievances of people on a real-time basis and is much applauded by all.

Ranchi is in the list of Smart Cities. How geared is the state for such an ambitious scheme?

We are ready for the Smart City programme and have already allocated 600 hectares of land for the purpose in Dhurwa, Ranchi. We have also earmarked 200 acres of land in Patratu for the film city, where the likes of Mahesh Bhatt and Anupam Kher have already shot their films. We are also going to host a global investor meet early next year, for which we will host roadshows abroad. We have also approved a metro project for Ranchi. We have a land bank at disposal, besides earmarking 200 acres for the IT sector. We can allocate land to a potential investor in one weeks time.

Jharkhand also has primitive tribes. What is being done for their welfare?

We are soon going to reserve two per cent of government jobs for the primitive tribes who mostly reside on hilltops in the Santhal region of the state. We have constituted a primitive tribal development authority. We are providing free rice and pensions to the three-lakh primitive tribe population. They are extremely poor. We are going to raise two battalions which will be drawn from the primitive tribes.
PSLV-C34 lifts off successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Wednesday. (Photo: DC)

SRIHARIKOTA: Scripting history, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Wednesday launched a record number of 20 satellites - including its earth observation series and two designed by college students - in a single mission through its most-trusted PSLV-C34 rocket from the spaceport here.

Known for its low-cost space programmes and efficiency in launching satellites, this is the first time Isro is launching such a record number of satellites in a single mission, surpassing its earlier record of 2008 when it launched 10 satellites, mostly commercial ones, in a single mission.

Isro's workhorse rocket PSLV-C34, which weighs 320 tonnes, took off from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, 110 km from Chennai, exactly at 9.26 am and sixteen minutes later it launched the most important Cartosat-2, its earth observation satellite series followed by 19 others, including one from an American company owned by internet giant Google, amid rapturous cheers from scientists here. The entire mission of launching 20 satellites was completed in flat 20 minutes.

Declaring the mission "successful", Isro chief A S Kiran Kumar congratulated his huge team of men and women for executing the launch in a "record time".

The PSLV C-34 has done its job. We have the current generation of earth observation satellite of Cartosat 2 series," Mr Kumar told those present at the Space Centre with a chuckle.

"This is yet another milestone achieved by Isro. Of the 20 satellites that were launched, 17 are from other countries," he said.

Those 17 play loads are commercial, earning much-needed revenue for the Isro, which has been launching satellites of different countries from here, earning a revenue of USD 100 million so far.

Of the 17 commercial satellites, 12 are earth imaging "Dove satellites" of the US, another American satellite of Google, two from Canada, and one each from Germany and Indonesia.

Two academic satellites - Sathyabamasat designed by students of the Sathyabama University and Swayam of the students of College of Engineering, Pune - were also placed along with the Cartosat-2 series satellite that will provide enhanced satellite data for remote sensing services, urban and rural development, coastal land use, disaster monitoring, roads and communication networking.

With Wednesday's successful launch, the total number of satellites launched by India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV is 113, of which 39 are Indian and the remaining 74 from abroad.

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Xiaomi has finally launched its much-anticipated electric folding bike Quicycle at an event in China on Thursday. The smart bike has been priced at RMB 2,999 that amounts to approximately Rs 30,000.

Featuring a carbon fibre body, the Qicycle houses a horde of sensors but weighs only 7 kilogrammes, which is really impressive for a bicycle. The fact that the bike can be folded is an amazing facet for consumers looking to save space while carrying their bikes during vacation or to work seamlessly.

Xiaomi has long announced that it is much more than a smartphone manufacturer and the introduction of this bike further bolsters their position as a consumer oriented technology company. Apart from smartphones, the company has given consumers a slew of other products from wearables to smart water purifiers, drones and many more.

Moving on to the salient features of this bike, the Qicycle is backed by a 250W 36V electric motor and it uses several smart features including Torque Measurement Method (TMM) to determine and aid the riders pedal power.

The electric bike uses a Panasonic 18,650mAh battery which is enough to travel up to 45km. An integrated battery management system (BMS) gives further power to the rechargeable battery and offers enhanced protection to it. Other than that, there are numerous other features integrated for monitoring, keeping track of other vital information, including numerous health related information.

The company also explained that the Qicycle can be peddled utilising Shimano Gear shifters after the battery dies. Considering that scarcity of bikes like these, the Qicycle can surely become a huge attraction, especially for the youth.

Xiaomi has not yet revealed if the bike will be retailed outside China yet.

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Some of the escaped Kidnapped girls of the government secondary school Chibok, arrive for a meeting with Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, in Maiduguri, Nigeria. (Photo: AP)

Lagos, Nigeria: Nigeria's Bring Back Our Girls movement demanded that the government provide news of the only one of 219 kidnapped schoolgirls to escape the clutches of the Boko Haram extremist group.

In a statement on Wednesday marking the 800th day of the mass abduction that outraged the world, the group also asked what the government is doing to try to rescue the other girls.

Hunters found Amina Ali Nkeki on May 17, wandering on the fringes of Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold with her 4-month-old baby and the father of the child, a Boko Haram fighter who she said helped her escape.

Ali was flown to Abuja two days after her escape for a televised meeting at which President Muhammadu Buhari promised her the best care and rehabilitation.

But the Bring Back Our Girls movement complained that no one has been allowed to see her, not even Chibok community leaders. It said Ali has said some of the girls have died but most are alive, providing evidence they could be rescued.

"It is now more than one month since Ms. Ali was rescued and her avowed restoration process by the federal government as pledged by the president began. Having given a reasonable length of time, our movement has a number of concerns regarding Amina Ali as well as the rest of our Chibok girls still in the terrorist enclave," said the statement, signed by the movement's founders Aisha Yesufu and Oby Ezekwesili.

Nigeria's military has freed thousands of Boko Haram captives this year, but none of the girls kidnapped from a remote boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014.

Bring Back Our Girls also demanded the government prosecute the father of Ali's child, Mohammed Hayyatu, for abduction and rape.

"We are extremely disappointed with the evident lull in rescue actions and lack of any progress report," the movement said.
The South African former Paralympian athlete, who is awaiting a jail sentence for murdering Steenkamp in 2013, told British broadcaster ITV that he did not kill his partner intentionally. (Photo: AFP)

Johannesburg: Convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius has said he believes his late girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than be sent back to prison for killing her.

The South African former Paralympian athlete, who is awaiting a jail sentence for murdering Steenkamp in 2013, told British broadcaster ITV that he did not kill his partner intentionally.

"I don't want to go back to jail. I don't want to have to waste my life sitting there," he said in footage released ahead of his first television interview, which will be screened on Friday.

"If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate," he said.

"I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life."

In a case that drew worldwide attention, Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

He was found guilty of murder in March, after spending a year behind bars on his earlier conviction of the lesser crime of culpable homicide, the equivalent of manslaughter.

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that Pistorius was guilty of murder -- irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a high-calibre pistol he kept under his bed.

"Reeva was a fantastic person, but if (people believe) that I took her life intentionally, which has not been found, then it's a very sad thing," Pistorius said.

In the interview, he relived the night of the killing, saying "I did take Reeva's life and I have to live with that.

"I can smell the blood. I can feel the warmness of it on my hands.

"I understand the pain people feel, that loved her and miss her. I feel that same pain. I feel that same hate for myself.

"I look back and I think, I always think -- how did this possibly happen?"

Last week, Pistorius was criticised by prosecution lawyers for apparently being too ill and depressed to face cross-examination at his sentencing hearing yet able to give the TV interview.

His sentence will be handed down by Pretoria High Court on July 6.
To add to the misery, these sailors were not paid their salaries during the period in which they were stranded in Mumbai, an official said. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

Accra, Ghana: Four Ghanian sailors who were stranded on an isolated cargo ship near Mumbai have finally been rescued and have returned home.

With little food, no medicines and proper electricity, these sailors had to struggle with five years of enforced captivity.

Identified as Mustapha Mohammad, Issah Sawudu, Iddriss Mohammad and Abakah Francis, the sailors flew home on Wednesday night.

To add to the misery, these sailors were not paid their salaries during the period in which they were stranded in Mumbai, an official said.

The incident came to light when their boat got grounded on Juhu Beach in Mumbai, following which their boat was seized by the Coast Guard and they were arrested. Few months later, police officials closed the probe and the men were forgotten, stranded in a place they knew nothing about.

Our owner kept promising that he would pay us and repatriate us, but he did nothing. Our agent in Ghana also forgot about us, Mustapha was quoted as saying.

As days passed, the sailors fell short of daily supplies, including food and water. However, local fishermen would at times drop off some food and water for them.

Few months later, the sailors somehow managed to contact the National Union of Seafarers of India and file a case in the Bombay High Court. The case got stretched for 12 long months and finally on Monday the court issued a directive stating that the sailors be allowed to return home.
The billionaire Republican candidate for president, who has denounced Clinton's US $42 million war chest as "blood money," sharpened his attacks on the polarising Democratic nominee after disastrous headlines have fuelled speculation that his controversial campaign is unravelling.

New York: Donald Trump went on a blistering offensive against Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, calling her disqualified to run for president and savaging her record on trade, foreign policy, human rights and immigration.

The billionaire Republican candidate for president, who has denounced Clinton's US $42 million war chest as "blood money," sharpened his attacks on the polarising Democratic nominee after disastrous headlines have fuelled speculation that his controversial campaign is unravelling.

"Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency," he said in a speech at Trump SoHo, his five-star hotel in Manhattan to shouts of "Trump, Trump, Trump" from supporters. He said the stakes in the November general election could not be higher, presenting himself as an innovative thinker who could get things done and protect voters from an economic and political system rigged against them by career politicians, Clinton included.

Trump attacked Clinton as a "world-class liar" who had "perfected the politics of personal profit and theft" and lacked the judgment to be America's first woman commander-in-chief. "She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund -- doing favours for repressive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash," he alleged of her tenure as America's top diplomat.

He alleged that her "disgraceful" foreign policy had cost America "thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars" in reference to her support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"In just four years, secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilise the entire Middle East," he added, calling the Islamic State extremist group a threat because of her decisions. On economics, he assaulted her support for trade deals, saying they had wrought "total devastation" for working Americans and cost the country nearly a third of its manufacturing jobs.

America's trade deficit with China had soared by 40 percent while she was secretary of state, he said: "Hillary Clinton gave China millions of jobs and in exchange Hillary Clinton got rich."

Trump claimed that Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had made $153 million in speeches to lobbyists, foreign governments and CEOs since 2001 and castigated her for refusing to release the transcripts of her closed-door speeches to Wall Street. He also claimed that her family's Clinton Foundation had taken millions from countries in the Middle East that abuse women and members of the LGBT community.
First lady Michelle Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Michelle Obama joined the popular messaging app Snapchat on Tuesday to promote her upcoming trip to Liberia, Morocco and Spain to encourage education for girls.

Her Snapchat account "MichelleObama" will be used to give "young people a fun way to follow her trip" with her teen daughters Malia and Sasha to promote girls' education, one of her signature issues as the first lady of the United States, the White House said. She begins her trip at the end of June.

Obama's first Snapchat post on Tuesday was a selfie with caption: "Oh hey! Look who just joined @Snapchat. Add: MichelleObama."

Obama already has 4.6 million followers on Twitter and 5 million followers on Instagram.

Snapchat, a mobile app where posts disappear within 24 hours, has more than 100 million active users, most under the age of 25.
Puerto Rico: In a shocking claim over the mystery behind the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, a Puerto Rican man claimed that he was Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen's gay lover and that the nightclub massacre was 'not' related to terrorism, but in fact it was a 'revenge.'

Identified as Miguel, the man claimed that he was in two-month relationship with Mateen last year. After meeting up on a dating website, they both fixed a date and were soon 'friends with benefits'

He also claimed that Mateen's wife knew that he was gay and was dating men.

Family members wait for word from police after arriving down the street from a shooting involving multiple fatalities at Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando. (Photo: AP)

Describing 'revenge' as the reason behind the gay nightclub massacre, Miguel said that Mateen had recently discovered that a man he had engaged in a threesome with was HIV positive, following which he developed a hatred against gays.

Although the HIV tests turned out to be negative, Mateen feared that he might contract the disease and that very little time had passed for the test results to be accurate.

Miguel also revealed that he and Mateen often engaged in oral sex and that the slain gunman liked to be cuddled and embraced.

Mateen opened fire inside a crowded Pulse nightclub in Florida early June 12, killing 49 people in the worst mass shooting in American history before dying in a gunfight with the police.
Salman kept Ban waiting for 45 minutes before arriving with his advisers and security detail. (Photo: AP)

United Nations: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday met Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince, who remarked that he was not angry with the UN chief for briefly blacklisting a Saudi-led coalition for killing children in Yemen.

Mohammed bin Salman is in New York this week, mainly for meetings with business leaders, after a visit to Washington and the US West Coast.

Earlier this month the Saudis threatened the United Nations with retaliation, including massive funding cuts for Palestinian aid and other programs, if it did not remove the Saudi-led Yemen coalition from a list of countries that maim and kill children during armed conflicts, UN officials said.

Ban then withdrew the Saudis from the list pending a review of cases the UN had analysed, though he publicly criticized the Saudi pressure on him.

On his way into the meeting, Salman was asked if he was still angry with Ban over the blacklisting.

"I'm not angry," he said.

Salman, who is also the kingdom's defence minister, did not answer questions when he left the meeting. It was not clear what was said, though one diplomatic source said without any detail that the meeting "went well."

Salman kept Ban waiting for 45 minutes before arriving with his advisers and security detail. Also scheduled to attend the meeting was Leila Zerrougui, the UN special representative on children and armed conflict who originally decided to blacklist the Saudi-led coalition.

Zerrougui had vehemently opposed Ban's decision to remove the Saudis from the blacklist, despite Saudi threats that the United Nations could face a fatwa declaring it anti-Muslim, UN diplomatic sources said.

A fatwa is a legal opinion used in Sharia, or Islamic law. In Saudi Arabia fatwas can only be issued by the group of top, government-appointed clerics and are sometimes commissioned by the ruling family to back up its political positions.

The Saudis have denied pressuring Ban, though they said the UN report was inaccurate.

The UN report on children and armed conflict said the coalition, which began an air campaign in March 2015 to defeat Iran-allied Houthi rebels, was responsible for killing 510 children and wounding 667, or 60 percent of such deaths and injuries in the conflict last year.

The coalition's removal from the blacklist prompted angry reactions from human rights groups, which said that Ban, in the final year of his second term, risked harming his legacy as UN chief.
Tashkent: Any exception in granting membership to the NSG will disturb strategic stability in South Asia, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain on Thursday told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Making a strong case for Pakistan's bid to join the 48-member NSG, Hussain said that his country had made notable efforts over the years to strengthen its export controls, command and control and nuclear safety and security.

Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan and discussed Pakistan's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"The President also said that any exception given for NSG membership could disturb strategic stability in South Asia," the statement, apparently referring to India, said.

"Both sides reiterated support to each other's core interests and expressed their intention to maintain close coordination," it said.

President Hussain said that the friendship between the two countries is time tested and based on complete mutual trust, understanding and respect. The two countries enjoyed excellent cooperation and convergence of views on regional and global issues. He also thanked China for its support to Pakistan for becoming full member of the SCO.

Hussain said Pakistan was committed to the timely realisation of all the projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and emphasised that it would not only benefit Pakistan and China but would be a game changer for the entire region.

President Xi said Pakistan and China are "iron brothers" and both nations enjoy an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership. He expressed China's complete support to Pakistan's national security and territorial integrity. President Xi stated that CPEC was a flagship project of the One Belt One Road Initiative and China was committed to its successful completion.

Both sides expressed satisfaction over the progress of the CPEC related projects. They appreciated the various activities being carried out to celebrate 2016 as the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China.

They also expressed satisfaction on the bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, economy, culture, people to people contacts, defence and counter-terrorism.
Jakarta: President Joko Widodo visited remote Indonesian islands on a warship Thursday in an apparent show of force after clashes with Chinese vessels and as fears grow Beijing is seeking to stake a claim in nearby waters.

Widodo led a high-level delegation including the foreign minister and armed forces chief to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, arriving at a navy base before being escorted to the warship as fighter jets buzzed overhead and military vessels performed manoeuvres off the coast.

At a meeting of ministers and security force chiefs on the warship, which last week detained a Chinese trawler and its crew in Indonesian waters, the president ordered defences around the Natunas to be stepped up.

"I asked the military and the maritime security agency to better guard the seas," he said. A picture released by the government showed Widodo standing next to a gun turret on deck, flanked by the military chief and ministers.

Before the trip, Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said it was aimed at sending a "clear message" that Indonesia was "very serious in its effort to protect its sovereignty".

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost the entire strategically important South China Sea, and regional tensions are mounting due to Chinese island building and ahead of a UN-backed tribunal's ruling on a Philippine challenge to China's claims.

Unlike some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia has long maintained it has no maritime disputes with China in the sea and has no overlapping claims to reefs or islets there.

But Beijing's claims overlap Indonesia's exclusive economic zone waters where a state has the right to exploit resources around the Natunas, and Widodo's visit came after a sharp escalation in maritime clashes between Indonesian vessels and Chinese fishing boats in the area.

Overlapping claims

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying Thursday reiterated Beijing's position that China and Indonesia "have no territorial disputes" and that China does not object to Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands.

But she added that "China and Indonesia have overlapping claims over maritime rights of some part of the waters in the South China Sea".

The term "overlapping claims" was also used in a Chinese statement earlier this week. Analysts say the language indicates Beijing is taking a tougher stance by openly saying that China and Indonesia have competing maritime claims.

The growing tensions come after a senior US State Department official warned this week that China is using its fishing fleets with armed escorts to bolster maritime claims.

The latest confrontation between Beijing and Jakarta came last week when the Indonesian navy seized a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel and detained its crew for allegedly operating illegally in Natuna waters. It was the third such skirmish between vessels from the two countries in the area this year.

Beijing protested and claimed that one fisherman was injured after Indonesian vessels fired warning shots. Jakarta says none of the crew were hurt.

Widodo's visit to the islands, which are located west of Borneo, was his first as president. The Natuna waters are home to oil and gas deposits as well as fishing grounds. Confrontations between Indonesian and Chinese vessels around the Natunas have increased since Jakarta launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014.
Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

Tashkent: Seeking China's support for India's membership of NSG, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application which is before the plenary of the 48-nation grouping that is currently meeting in Seoul.

Meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Modi said India's case should be judged on its own merits and China should contribute to an emerging consensus in the Seoul meeting, according to External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Read: What does it mean for India to be part of NSG?

The meeting, which lasted for nearly 50-minutes, comes in the backdrop of stiff Chinese opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector, including trade and export of nuclear technology.

However, when asked about China's response, Swarup refused to comment, saying, "You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comment on this."

Swarup also stated that most of the time of the Modi-Xi meeting was devoted to the NSG issue.

Asked if India talked about the need to de-link India and Pakistan's NSG membership bids, he said, "...You have heard what Prime Minister told Xi Jingping that China must make a fair and objective assessment of India's application on its own merits and China should join the emerging consensus in Seoul."

While making some right noises of playing "constructive" role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China has been unrelenting in its opposition, harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing India's case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistan's case for NSG membership.

Hussain told Xi that any "exception" in granting membership to the NSG will "disturb" strategic stability in South Asia.

"President Xi welcomed India's accession to the SCO and said it would strengthen it. Prime Minister Modi thanked President Xi for China's support to India's membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation," Swarup said.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

India's entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in July last year when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India, Pakistan and Iran.

SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.
It was not immediately clear that whether the discussion on Indias membership, which is strongly opposed by China, and few other countries will come up informally or in a more formal way.

Seoul: Indias bid for NSG membership will come up on late Thursday night at a special post-dinner meeting of the 48-nation groupings plenary, whose two-day deliberations began here on Thursday.

Although admission of members like India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session.

Thereafter, it was agreed to consider a number of unscheduled items including Indias application at a special session after dinner, informed sources said.

It was not immediately clear that whether the discussion on Indias membership, which is strongly opposed by China, and few other countries will come up informally or in a more formal way.

Indian diplomats, led by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, are here to lobby, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of India's membership. The Indian team includes Amandeep Gill, head of 'Disarmament and International Security' division in the External Affairs Ministry.
British MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death last Thursday as she was on her way to meet local residents in her constituency in Birstall in northern England. (Photo: AP)

London: The alleged murderer of British lawmaker Jo Cox, whose shock killing cast a cloud over the final week of Brexit campaigning, will be tried in November under anti-terrorism legislation, a judge ruled Thursday.

Thomas Mair, 52, made a brief appearance via video link at London's Old Bailey central criminal court, and spoke from prison only to confirm his name, as Britain voted in a referendum that could make it the first country to leave the European Union.

Mair is charged with murder and possession of a firearm and the case is being heard under the "terrorism protocol". At his first court hearing on Saturday, Mair had said his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Cox was shot and stabbed to death last Thursday as she was on her way to meet local residents in her constituency in Birstall in northern England.

The brutal street killing of Cox, a pro-EU lawmaker who had defended immigration and refugee rights, shocked the nation and led to a three-day suspension in campaigning ahead of the EU referendum.

Judge John Saunders set a provisional trial date for November 14, with a plea hearing set for October 4. Mair will next appear before the court on September 19.
Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, casts her vote in Glasgow, Scotland, as voters head to the polls across the United Kingdom in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. (Photo: AP)

Glasgow: In sunny Glasgow, many voters said they wanted Britain to stay in the European Union Thursday but were well aware that an overall Brexit result could lead to Scottish independence.

"Being in the EU is an advantage for Scotland. It would be silly to leave," said Gemma Rosaria, a 24-year-old office worker, arriving to vote in the EU referendum in the Broomhouse area of east Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city.

"I don't want a Brexit but if there's a Brexit that could be an advantage for Scotland because we can have a new referendum," said Rosaria, adding that she had voted for independence in 2014.

Scotland's independence bid, led by the Scottish National Party (SNP), was thwarted in that vote, which unionists won by 55 percent to 45 percent.

The pro-EU SNP, which dominates Scottish politics, still wants independence but says it will only call for another referendum if a clear majority of Scots back it after a Brexit vote.

"If we were to leave the EU, I'd prefer to break from the UK," said Michael Renfrew, an economics student with a ginger beard and beach shoes.

"The decision-making and the power would become far too centralised in London," the 23-year-old said.

Amanda Walker, a 42-year-old teacher, added: "Better stay with what we got." Pointing to her ginger-haired daughter, who was in a school uniform, she added: "This vote is important for her".

In the car park outside, David Turner, a local SNP councillor, was trying to win over any undecided voters.

"In Scotland, there will be a large 'Remain' vote," the 49-year-old said, as he handed out leaflets.

English-led Brexit not fair

Polls have shown Scots are far more favourable to the EU than fellow Britons, who are heavily divided. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Scotland's expected massive vote for staying in the EU could hold the balance on a national level.

"I think it's really important to keep Scotland and the UK in the EU because there's lots of jobs and trade and investment that depends on our place in the single market," Sturgeon said, casting her vote.

"The polls see this on a knife edge across the UK which makes it really important to go out and vote today if you want to make sure that our place in the European Union is protected and we don't allow Tory divisions to drag us out of Europe," she added.

The campaign has pitched Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the "Remain" camp, against fellow Conservatives on the "Leave" side, including popular ex-London mayor Boris Johnson.

Several people were concerned that Britain leaving the EU would strengthen the centralisation of power in London.

Vincent Mellon, an assistant physiotherapist speaking in central Glasgow, said England and Scotland were "supposed to be equal parties".

"If only England voted out, that would not be fair," he said, adding: "People that are leading the 'Out' campaign have no interest in Scotland".

But Alex Blackshire did not want to hear talk about another independence referendum. "There's been so much division during the last campaign. I don't want it to happen again," the 25-year-old executive said.

Even in Glasgow, there were a few exceptions to the pro-EU mood. Taxi driver James Ballantine, 44, said he would be voting to leave the European Union.

"There are too many migrants from Europe. People come here and get jobs, benefits," he said, at the wheel of his cab.

"We need to take back control of our country."
UPDATED

State K-12 leaders busily trying to transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act are beginning to worry that the U.S. Department of Education is bent on trying to enforce the previous version of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act, Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers said in an interview Thursday.

The department, though, says that the two laws include many of the same requirements when it comes to test quality and equity. More on that below.

Minnich said states are trying to move toward testing and accountability systems that embrace the flexibilities of ESSA, which gives states much more leeway in both areas. They should be given some room to make those moves.

Theres definitely some concern about enforcement of the old law as we move towards the new law, said Minnich, who also said the department has listened carefully to states concerns over its proposed ESSA regulations. I dont see a way to transition to a new system if you are worried about enforcement of the old system.

States, he said, are trying to be good actors and think through new systems. We gotta have better systems, and the only way to do that is to leave the old system behind, he explained.

As Exhibits A and B, Minnich pointed to Kentucky and Illinois, each of which have been warned they might lose a portion of their federal funding because of what the department sees as problems with testing quality and equal access. (More on just what those are below).

The department, however, has a different view.

Both laws contain the same requirement that states administer an annual assessment to all students in specific grades and subjects, Takirra Winfield, an Education Department spokeswoman said in a statement. Those states were cited, she said, for problems with requirements that are consistent across both laws.

And, Winfield said, ESSA has a lot of potential to help states design and implement a broader, more well-rounded vision of educational excellence and accountability. The department, she said, wants to help states move forward on that.

So whats the deal with the specific states that Minnich mentioned, Kentucky and Illinois?

Kentucky has had conditions placed on its funding for disadvantaged and special education students because its science test, aligned to its revamped science standards, doesnt include levels for basic proficient and advanced, as required under NCLB. The department has essentially told Kentucky to add those levels in, or go back to its old test.*

(This gets into the weeds, but ESSA also makes it clear that states are supposed to differentiate school performance on state tests. Specifically, the new law says states need to come up with achievement standards for math, science, and reading, including at least three performance levels for each of those subjects. The departments proposed accountability regulations also call for states to come up with at least three levels of performance overall for each school.)

Kentucky is in the process of switching to yet another, deeper science test, so differentiating performance levels at this point doesnt seem to make much sense, a Kentucky department spokeswoman told the Louisville Courier-Journal . And going back to the states old test isnt a great option, either, since its aligned to totally different standards, she added.

Meanwhile, this year, Illinois, which is also getting ready to try a new assessment system, is on high risk status , because the state let its districts choose from a menu of high school tests, in part because of budgetary constraints.

Thats not okay under NCLB, which requires every kid in a state in the same grade to take the same test. ESSA, though, allows for some leeway there, toodistricts can offer a nationally recognized high school test to their students instead of the state exam. The Land of Lincoln apparently noted that to the department. But the administration explained that the new requirement doesnt go into effect until after the 2016-17 school year. And, even at that point, there are certain strings attached, the department says. Check out Illinois letter from the department here .

*Clarification: We initially said Kentucky was placed on high risk status. But the department has simply placed conditions on their federal money. The post has been updated to reflect that distinction, as well as to reflect that ESSA itself, and not just the proposed accountability regulations from the department, call for three levels of performance on state tests.
London: The parents of a white British Muslim convert dubbed "Jihadi Jack", thought to be fighting in Syria with the ISIS militants, will stand trial in January accused of funding terrorism.

Jack Letts, 20, is believed to be the first white Briton fighting in Syria. John Letts, 55, and Sally Lane, 54, appeared at the Old Bailey today charged with three counts of entering or becoming concerned in an arrangement to make money available, knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used for terrorism.

Jack's mother is charged with two further counts of attempting to provide money or property knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect it could be used for the purpose of terrorism.

The pair will appear in court for a plea hearing on November 17 before their trial commences in the New Year. They were remanded in custody but after appearing before Justice Saunders earlier this month, they were granted the pair bail. He had described them as "two perfectly decent people have ended up in custody because of the love of their child".

The couple's defence barrister, Di Middleton, has assured the court they would not attempt to send any more money to their son, and had not done so while on police bail.

Their bail was extended and a trial date of January 9, 2017 has been set, expected to last up to four weeks. Jack Letts, 20, is suspected of being the first white Briton to join the terror group after he left his Oxford home and travelled to Syria last year.

His parents deny providing money for suspected terrorism and have previously maintained they sent their son money to buy a new pair of glasses.
The Darmstaedter Echo newspaper said 20 to 50 people had been injured. However, according to AP, police said they believe that no one was injured in the incident. (Photo: AP)

Berlin: A masked man with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in a cinema complex in the small western German town of Viernheim , near Frankfurt .

German media reported on Thursday that he had injured between 20 and 50 people and barricaded himself inside.

The gunman has been shot dead by the police, according to Reuters.

Bild daily and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that elite police were at the scene. According to the newspaper, the man entered the Kinopolis complex at about 3 pm, and fired four shots.

The Darmstaedter Echo said 20 to 50 people had been injured. Bild claimed that the police had sealed off the area and it was tear gas that had caused the injuries.

However, according to AP, police said they believe that no one was injured in the incident.

Police spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said authorities were told early Thursday afternoon that an armed man had entered the Kinopolis movie theater in the town of Viernheim and that shots apparently had been fired.

Hesse 's interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it wasn't clear whether the weapon was real.

Hochstaedter said that the police deployment lasted around three hours.

The motive of the gunman was so far unclear, Frankfurter Allgemeine reported, saying that several scenarios were being considered including a botched robbery, as well as a political or an ideological cause.
Flags fly outside Europe House, the European Parliament's British offices, in central London, with European flag and Britain's Union flag. (Photo: AP)

London: Millions of Britons began voting on Thursday in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history.

A record 46.5 million voters have registered to decide on Britain's future in the 28-nation European Union, which was born out of a determination to forge lasting peace in the continent after the carnage of two world wars.

The once-in-a-generation referendum asks: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

Each voter must draw a cross by one of two options:

- "Remain a member of the European Union"

- "Leave the European Union"

As voters in a rain-swept London headed to polling stations, world financial markets were in suspense over the result.

With no exit polls under way, the result is unlikely to begin emerging before about 0300 GMT Friday.

On the eve of the historic referendum, two polls -- both conducted over the Internet -- put the "Leave" camp ahead by one or two percentage points, well within the margin of error.

In one telephone poll, however, "Remain" took a notable lead of 48 percent, ahead of "Leave" on 42 percent with the rest undecided, according a survey by ComRes for the Daily Mail and ITV News.

Read: Britain votes on EU membership after tight and bitter campaign

Financial institutions are reinforcing teams to cope with the prospect of frantic trading through the day and the world's leading central banks say they are ready to react to any eventuality.

'Independence Day'

The often acrimonious, deeply-emotional campaign has exposed a gulf among Britons on membership of Europe.

The Thursday editions of British newspapers captured the drama of voting day. "Independence day" was the headline of the pro-Brexit Sun, while The Times called it a "Day of reckoning".

Leading Brexit backer Boris Johnson, a former London mayor who is widely touted as a future prime minister, insisted the "Leave" campaign was on the brink of victory.

"I do think that we are on the verge, possibly, of an extraordinary event in the history of our country and indeed in the whole of Europe," Johnson said in eastern England in a final scramble for support on Wednesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who has staked his political legacy on the referendum, implored people to vote to stay in the bloc at a final rally in Birmingham on the eve of voting.

"Winston Churchill didn't give up on European democracy... and we shouldn't walk away," he said.

"Our economy will suffer if we leave," he warned.

'Out is out'

"If you jump out of the aeroplane, you cannot clamber back through the cockpit hatch. That is why anyone in any doubt should vote remain tomorrow."

EU leaders warned Britons that there would be no turning back from a vote to quit.

"Out is out," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels on Wednesday, dismissing any talk of a post-vote renegotiation of Britain's membership terms.

French President Francois Hollande warned an exit would be "irreversible".

A British withdrawal from the EU would trigger a lengthy exit negotiation, leading to the loss of unfettered access to its partners in the EU's single market and forcing the country to strike its own trade accords across the world.

In Europe, the referendum has raised concerns of a domino effect of exit votes that would imperil the integrity of the bloc, already buffeted by the eurozone and migration crises.

Though many voters fret over the financial consequences of a Brexit, others relish the prospect of taking back power from Brussels and reining in high levels of immigration.

The referendum battle had paused for three days to honour the brutal murder of Jo Cox, a pro-"Remain" British lawmaker and mother of two who was stabbed, shot and left bleeding to death on the pavement a week ahead of the vote.

"Jo's killing was political. It was an act of terror," her husband Brendan Cox told around 5,000 people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square on Wednesday on what would have been her 42nd birthday.

Thomas Mair, 52, has been charged with Cox's murder.

On his first appearance in court on Saturday, he gave his name as "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

A psychiatric report was requested.

EU leaders will open a two-day summit in Brussels on Tuesday to deal with the result and decide how to cope with the risk of similar referendums on the continent that could threaten the bloc's integrity.
The IS forces dealt an embarrassing setback to the Syrian army near the militants' self-styled capital of Raqqa with a swift counteroffensive that rolled back incremental gains by troops loyal to President Bashar Assad. (Representational Image)

Beirut: Even as internationally backed forces chip away at Islamic State-held territory in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the militants have demonstrated a stubborn resilience this week in the face of recent losses.

The IS forces dealt an embarrassing setback to the Syrian army near the militants' self-styled capital of Raqqa with a swift counteroffensive that rolled back incremental gains by troops loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Pockets of extremist fighters north and west of Fallujah continued to hold off elite Iraqi special forces Wednesday, preventing them from making significant advances one month after the government launched its campaign to retake the city west of Baghdad.

And in the battle for the Libyan city of Sirte, pro-government forces besieging the IS stronghold were stunned by renewed clashes there, with 36 people killed, a hospital spokesman said.

Just two weeks ago, the Islamic State had suffered setbacks in all three countries in the region where the Sunni militant group captured large tracts of territory in Iraq and Syria two years ago.

Seesaw battles raged in Syria's Raqqa province, with IS fighters retaking areas from government forces Tuesday. Two days earlier, the Syrian troops briefly seized an IS-held oilfield in Thawra and threatened to retake the Tabqa air base, which would have opened a direct line for troops to the city of Raqqa.

The government began its highly publicized campaign to retake Raqqa on June 2.

On Sunday, the troops advanced to within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of the Tabqa base, which is about 28 miles (45 kilometers) from Raqqa and holds strategic and symbolic value for the government. It was the last position held by government forces in Raqqa province before the militants overran it in August 2014, killing scores of detained Syrian soldiers in a massacre documented on IS video.

The commander of an elite, pro-government militia known as the Desert Hawks explained the government's rapid withdrawal from large parts of Raqqa province.

"It is vital to understand that (IS) adopted new tactics to fight the Desert Hawks in this area," said retired Gen. Mohamad Jaber.

Writing on his Facebook page Tuesday, he said the militants were sending explosives-packed vehicles at the pro-government line, and he predicted the battle for Tabqa would be "harsh and mighty."

Activists gave conflicting casualty counts for civilians killed in airstrikes on the city of Raqqa, with death tolls ranging from 18 to 32. Differing casualty figures are common in reporting from Syria's civil war, now in its sixth year.

The activists said the Syrian air force, backed by warplanes from its ally, Russia, had pummeled the Islamic State extremists after government losses earlier this week.

The U.S.-led coalition also has been bombing Raqqa. Col. Christopher Garver, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, told The Associated Press that four airstrikes were carried out Tuesday near Raqqa. They targeted an IS tactical unit, a finance center, a headquarters and an oil facility, Garver said. He had no reports on casualties.

The activist group known as Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said at least one of the airstrikes targeted a neighborhood popular among "foreign fighters" - militants who have traveled to Syria to fight with the IS group.

In northern Syria, U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces encircled IS militants in the town of Manbij, a vital position that connects the Turkish border to Raqqa.

As the Iraqi military offensive to retake Fallujah entered its second month Wednesday, clashes continued to try to dislodge IS militants from besieged neighborhoods.

Iraqi special forces pushed into the center of the city last week and retook a government compound and the central hospital. Officials said they are still working to secure the territory.

At the central hospital, Corp. Ahmad Ahmad warned that only parts of the first floor were fully cleared of homemade bombs because teams specializing in defusing the explosives are in short supply and have been mostly deployed to help troops on the front lines.

Ahmad said his forces had not preformed house-to-house searches in surrounding buildings, including the Khalifa Mosque along Fallujah's main highway.

"Right now, we are focusing on clearing the roads," he said, adding that the painstaking process of searching buildings would require more troops and risk greater casualties.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Friday that Fallujah had "returned to the embrace of the nation," and that remaining IS pockets would be "cleaned out within hours." Clashes have persisted, however, with militants holed up in dense residential neighborhoods along the city's northern edge.

On Tuesday, the U.S.-led coalition said only a third of Fallujah has been "cleared," and other parts remain contested. Iraqi commanders say 80 percent of the city is under their control.

Fallujah is one of the last IS stronghold in Iraq. At the height of its power, the group held nearly a third of the country, but a string of territorial losses has left only pockets of territory in Iraq's north and west under IS control. The second- largest city of Mosul is the group's last remaining urban holdout.

In Libya's coastal city of Sirte, fierce fighting with IS militants killed 36 militiamen aligned with the U.N.-brokered government. The militias, mainly from the western town of Misrata, have been battling since May to try to take full control of Sirte, the last bastion of the Islamic State group in the North African country.

After a rapid advance into the city, the militias were slowed by a series of IS suicide bombings.

Along with the 36 militiamen killed, mostly in direct gun battles, about 140 were wounded, said Misrata hospital spokesman Abdel-Aziz Essa.

IS fighters reportedly have hunkered down at their headquarters in the sprawling Ouagadougou convention center built by the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Sirte was Gadhafi's birthplace and the place where he fled during the 2011 civil war, when Libyan rebels backed by NATO warplanes forced him out of the capital of Tripoli.
According to the 1951 census, Hindus were 22 per cent of the population, in 1974 the figure came down to 14 per cent and the last 2011 census suggests the followers of faith consists only 8.4 per cent of the population. (Photo: Representational Image)

Dhaka: The number of Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh has grown by one per cent to 1.70 crore in one year constituting 10.7 per cent of the population by the end of 2015, an official report said.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said their latest vital sample statistics report found the country's total population to be 15.89 crore by the end of 2015 with the number of Hindus at 1.70 crore.

Previous BBS studies showed Bangladesh's Hindu population size was 1.55 crore in 2014 suggesting that the numbers of the country's largest minority community increased by 1.5 million in one year. Hindus are the second largest population group in terms of religion.

The statistics come as Hindu community leaders expressed fears that their number was decreasing gradually as a sense of insecurity forced many Hindus to leave the country for neighbouring India over the decades.

According to the 1951 census, Hindus were 22 per cent of the population, in 1974 the figure came down to 14 per cent and the last 2011 census suggests the followers of faith consists only 8.4 per cent of the population.

"The BBS statistics which has been published today is actually based on a random sampling. If it represents the real picture, definitely I will be the happiest man in the country," Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council presidium member Kajal Debnath said.

A BBS official, familiar with the process said the random sampling report was prepared this year with the data collected from 12,012 areas while the previous report was prepared with data gathered from 1,500 areas.
Islamabad: India poses the "biggest threat" to Pakistan which has forced the country to make its defence mechanism 'India-specific', a top Pakistan army official has said.

Pakistan Army spokesperson Asim Bajwa said that efforts are going on to engage India. However, the long-standing issue of Kashmir is the cause of tensions between the two nations, he said.

During an interview with Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, he said that the country's defence mechanism was 'India-specific'.

"This is due to the fact that India posed the biggest threat to Pakistan's security", he was quoted by Geo TV as saying. He also accused the international community of not doing enough for Pakistan.

"I would say that the international community has not done enough for us," Bajwa, the Director-General of the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), said.

Bajwa also criticised the recent American drone strike which killed former Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan. He said that it was unfortunate since Pakistan was not informed of the strike despite being an ally of the US and Mansour was part of the Afghan reconciliation process.

"Mansour entered into Pakistan from another state and then he was traced and attacked. He was a part of the reconciliation process and was required to play his role for peace," he said. "Pakistan was not informed despite being an ally. This is the issue Pakistan has been protesting," he added.

Pakistan has done a lot to combat terrorism but criticism from the West that the Pakistani army is not "doing enough" against militants is "both regretful and unjustified."
Afghan refugees enter Afghan territory after leaving Iran at the Islam Qala border crossing in Kohsan, Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: Pakistan, home for decades to millions of Afghan refugees, called for the support of the international community as it warned that without help, the flow of those fleeing Afghanistan's decades-long war to Europe could increase.

After the Soviet invasion in 1979, "five million Afghan refugees came to Pakistan," then with the support of the international community, said minister for border areas Abdul Qadir Baloch at a meeting devoted to Afghan refugees in the capital Islamabad Wednesday.

Thirty-seven years later, there are 1.5 million registered and about as many undocumented refugees, with growing insecurity in Afghanistan impeding voluntary return programmes.

Over the last decade, international support has vanished, the minister said.

Pakistan receives just $5.20 per refugee per year in international aid to provide the displaced with healthcare and education -- and that is only for those who are registered.

He denounced the meagreness of this aid compared to that provided to Turkey, which officially hosts 2.5 million refugees, including many Syrians.

However Western countries are now beginning to recognise the problem, he said, "because refugees are pouring into Europe and 30 percent of them are Afghans".

"This percentage could increase," he warned, stressing that there was a limit to Pakistani tolerance for the problem.

"The issue of Afghan displacement has been overlooked," agreed high UN commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi at the same event. "We must strengthen the support to host countries."

The refugee crisis in Europe, which is struggling to cope as millions try to reach its shores while fleeing war and poverty, "is a tragedy but also an eye opener: if you don't solve problems which appear to be far away from you, these problems will come to you," he warned.

Afghan refugees living mainly in camps in the poorest rural areas of Pakistan exist in administrative uncertainty because of the short duration of residence permits issued by the Pakistani authorities, who regularly threaten to deport them.
The decree has urged clerics to refrain from attending such programmes, saying Shariah requirements are ignored in their proceedings. (Photo: AP)

Lahore: About 100 clerics in Pakistan have issued a decree seeking a government ban on Ramadan programmes of various TV channels, terming them against Shariah.

Signed by clerics from Barelvi school of thought and Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, the decree says as most part of the Ramadan transmission is against Shariah (Islamic law), therefore watching the programmes is haram (illegitimate).

Read: In a first, Mideast hub Dubai eases liquor rules for Ramadan

"Inviting unauthentic people and non-scholars to speak on religious and Islamic jurisprudence issues is haram, while hosting of the programmes by semi-nude actresses is also haram," the decree said.

The decree demands the government directs the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to stop the Ramadan transmission.

Read: Gambia bans music and dancing during Ramadan

The decree has also urged clerics to refrain from attending such programmes, saying Shariah requirements are ignored in their proceedings.

Criticising the mixed gatherings in these programmes, the decree said that comparing such congregations to Hajj and Tawaf of the Kaaba was like desecrating Islamic symbols and sacrilegious.

It also argues that participants of Sehri transmissions usually missed their early morning prayers or at least failed to offer it in congregation.
The trail of dissatisfaction that has followed the restructuring of the Siddaramaiah Cabinet in Karnataka should be a matter of worry to the chief minister. With less than two years to go for the next Assembly elections, Siddaramaiah embarked on a major surgery to his Cabinet, dropping 14 ministers and inducting 13 new faces, in an effort to shore up its image and performance. In the face of stiff bargaining within the party, the chief minister was able to convince the party high command to endorse his preferences almost entirely. But angry reactions from some of his senior colleagues post reshuffle indicate that all is not well within the party.



Lack of efficiency, old age and corruption charges were supposedly a few reasons for dropping some of the ministers, while a mixture of youth, experience and administrative capability of the new aspirants were to guide their selections. But the formula seems to have gone awry somewhere. While the dropping of Baburao Chinchansur, Qamarul Islam, Kimmane Ratnakar, Ambareesh and Shamanur Shivashankarappa  who were among the worst performers in the last three years  was on expected lines, the exit of Srinivasa Prasad and Dinesh Gundu Rao, who were doing reasonably well, was indeed perplex-ing. The retention of Mahadevappa, Mahadeva Prasad and H Anjaneya, who were seen as laggards facing corruption charges, solely because of their proximity to the chief minister shows that the high command failed to do due diligence before putting its stamp on Siddaramaiahs wish list. But as far as new inductees are concerned, the selection of veterans like Kagodu Thimmappa, Ramesh Kumar and Basavaraj Rayareddy along with a number of new faces, is to be welcomed.



It is obvious that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, aware of the fact that Karnataka is the last big state where the party is still in power, has reposed complete faith in Siddaramaiahs leadership. The people of the state fervently hope that with a new team in place, the government will shed its lethargy and increase the pace of development. A newcomer like Priyank Kharge, who has been given charge of tourism and IT & BT, has an opportunity to prove his worth and challenge his fathers detractors who have threatened to finish him politically after getting the boot from the Cabinet. Siddaramaiah himself needs to take the guidance of seniors on scores of issues, including the appointment of a new Lokayukta and KPSC chairperson.




Claiming that government of India had a weak argument to defend its case in Kashmir, independent legislator Engineer Rashid Wednesday said it was running away from talks and has given forces a free hand to control the state.





If Pakistan, America and Russia can talk to Al-Qaida and Taliban, why cant government of India talk to people like Burhan Wani (Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander)?



I challenge the BJP government to discuss every angle and aspect of Kashmir issue in the Assembly.



since New Delhi has a very weak argument to defend its case in Kashmir, it runs away from talks and has given police and army a free hand to kill and control the state, the irrepressible legislator from north Kashmir said in the Legislative Assembly.



Castigating the government or detaining hardline Hurriyat leader Masrat Alam, he said, We strongly believe J&K is a political issue and we dont want a communal solution. But it is New Delhi that is forcing us to think on communal lines, as we are facing discrimination at all levels. May government explain why Masrat Alam is being slapped with a series of PSAs and why Khan Soporis (separatist leader) residential house is not being freed from police control?



While in Jammu you (government) released 22 criminals who had damaged state property within hours in Kashmir you have been arresting relatives of militants in every part of state. Ironically, state government kept criminal silence when BJP MLA Ravinder Raina used words like Er Rashid hay Pakistani or hum Pakistaniyon ko kaat kay rakh dengay (Er Rashid is a Pakistani and we will kill Pakistanis), Rashid alleged.



In his furious speech he revealed, I would never have contested elections had I not been subjected to third degree torture by police in 2006 and forced to sell my property to pay bribe to get released.



Rashid reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir was not integral part of India.Even if I am hanged I will still say Jammu and Kashmir is neither Indias integral part nor Pakistans jugular vein either.



Even if you send me to jail, debar me from contesting elections, or hang me, it will not force me to change my stand, he said in the House.
Washington

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. tried to quell fears from House lawmakers Thursday that proposed accountability rules dealing with struggling students and schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act go beyond what the law allows.

King also rebutted accusations from members of the House education committee that separate proposals to regulate spending under ESSA from the U.S. Department of Education would improperly force districts to radically upend how they distribute resources and teachers.

The departments draft accountability rules were released last month. Notable aspects include the requirement for a single, summative rating for schools, which has also triggered some opposition, and the lack of any prescribed or suggested weights for indicators in states ESSA accountability plans.

States must take meaningful action to improve schools under ESSA, but they also possess significant flexibility in how they do so, King said.

Several lawmakers were unconvinced. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the committee chairman, said he saw troubling signs that the department was not abiding by ESSA. He zeroed in on his concern that the proposed rules would affect the total number of schools subject to some sort of turnaround strategy, telling King, It looks like theres an attempt here to increase the number of schools identified for intervention.

While King said it was not the departments intent to jack up the number of schools needing turnarounds through regulations, he stressed that if initial interventions in schools were not successful under ESSA, further actions would be necessary and those interventions would have to intensify in some way. ESSA allows districts and state lots of leeway in deciding what those turnaround strategies look like. But they must focus on certain schools, such as high schools that fail to graduate more than two-thirds of their students and the lowest-performing 5 percent of Title I schools (those with relatively large shares of poor students).

We will be vigilant in ensuring that states respond, King said.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. and the committees ranking member, emphasized the importance of regulations even with the uncertainty of the 2016 presidential election, saying, States and school districts need the consistency and dependability provided by regulations, elections or not.

There were also instances where there was straightforward disagreement about what the draft regulations stated or meant.

For example, Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., told King the draft would improperly dictate to states the definition of consistently underperforming groups of students. And Rep. Earl L. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., alleged that while ESSA lets states set criteria for allowing schools to exit the list of those needing improvement, the departments proposal would inappropriately restrain states regarding such decisions.

King repeatedly told both Byrne and Carter that their interpretations of the draft rules were different from his. He stressed to Byrne that states can decide what constitutes a consistently underperforming group of studentsthe department suggested possible definitions in the regulations, but did not prescribe any.

And King told Carter that the department deemed it appropriate to give academic factors a much greater weight in accountability, as required by ESSA, by requiring schools to show academic improvement in order to exit any list of schools deemed to need interventions, regardless of their performance on school quality or student success indicators. (King earlier called measuring chronic absenteeism a good example of such a school quality or student success indicator.)

Lawmakers also questioned the secretary sharply about the departments previously floated plans for regulating ESSAs requirement that federal dollars supplement and not supplant state and local money. (Background here .) Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Va., repeatedly asked King for an estimate of how much the departments plan would cost districts, a number King did not provide. And Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., the chairman of the Houses K-12 subcommittee, lobbed accusations at King that he was essentially prescribing for districts how they had to spend their money, an approach not allowed by ESSA. (Other lawmakers have previously told King theyre angered by his approach .)

King said fears about the impact of the proposal on districts budgets and spending did not match what the department was asking. While he said money alone does not predict educational success or failure, he said intradistrict disparities in which wealthier students get much more money than their less-affluent peers affect real issues, such as the lack of counselors in many schools.

It translates into a real difference in students experience, King said.

Educators Give Testimony to Congress

After King left the hearing, others giving testimony both criticized and defended the departments regulatory approach and the requirement for a single, summative score for schools got a lot of the spotlight. Stephen Pruitt, Kentuckys education commissioner, repeatedly said he was worried about draft ESSA rules requirement for a single score for schools, telling lawmakers, It creates an unhealthy sense of competition rather than collaboration between schools.

Weve previously covered concerns raised by Pruitt and state chiefs about that score , as well as his irritation about the draft rules requirement that 2016-17 data from schools be used to identify which ones need comprehensive support under ESSA in 2017-18, a concern Pruitt reiterated in the hearing. In an interview after the hearing, Pruitt said he shared the secretarys urgency in addressing struggling schools, but added that without enough time, Youre going to have another system that may or may not be successful. We dont have time to really ... think innovatively.

And David Schuler, the superintendent of Arlington Heights, Ill., schools and the president of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, focused on what the law specifically does not say: ESSA does not require each school to be rated by a single indicator. States should be allowed to create balanced accountability systems.

But Daria Hall, a vice president at the Education Trust, pushed back against the idea that single school scores and more complex data on each school are incompatible. She defended both approaches to lawmakers.

Touching on a theme raised by Carter, the Georgia congressman, earlier in the hearing, Cassie Harrelson, a math teacher in the Aurora, Colo., district, said she was unhappy that the school quality and student success indicator was getting short shrift from the regulations as far as decisions about school turnarounds. And she once again touched on a point near and dear to Kings heart: trying to ensure that various groups are heard and counted as states decide on their ESSA accountability plans.

All stakeholders must be engaged, Harrelson said, from teachers and parents to other community members.

This week, federal lawmakers representing three caucuses also weighed in on the best approach for both ESSA accountability and ESSA spending regulations. Read the tri-caucus letter on accountability below:

And heres the tri-caucus letter on ESSA spending:

Photo: Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. testifies before the House education committee about proposed regulations for accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act on June 23, 2016. (Andrew Ujifusa)

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12


The DJB Engineers Association on Wednesday held a demonstration outside the jal board headquarters and demanded apology from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for using foul language against Member (Technical) and other engineers.





The association alleged that at a meeting on June 20 called to review water supply situation at the constituencies of various MLAs, the chief minister humiliated and used foul language against Member (Technical) and (Water Supply) R S Tyagi and other Delhi Jal Board (DJB) engineers.



The chief minister also suspended two officers  chief engineer and executive engineer  over negligence.



Health issues



Meanwhile, Tyagi resigned from his post on Tuesday but he maintained that his resignation had nothing to do with the incident and is due to health issues.



This summer, the DJB made a record production of portable supply and laid water supply lines in 230 unauthorised colonies.



Instead of patting the back of the engineers, the chief minister chose the language which is unmentionable and which does not match his stature, said Shalabh Kumar, President, Engineers Association.



The Chief Minister chose to target individual officers without any grounds as if he was predetermined to suspend some of the officers and derive mileage, the president said in a statement.



Revoke suspension



The association has asked Kejriwal to revoke the suspension of the two officials and apologise for his language used and until their demands are met, they will wear black badges and work under protest.



The DJBs engineers association also said that if their demands are not met in 48 hours, they will hold a demonstration outside Delhi Secretariat. Calls to Water Minister and Delhi Jal Board Chairman Kapil Mishra regarding the allegations remained unanswered.
Delhi High Court has rapped the public works department (PWD) of the city government for the lack of progress in construction of a new office building for the court, even three years after its foundation stone was laid.





Maintaining that the delay has led to increase in the cost of construction, the high court said that despite repeated adjournments granted by it, the timeline promised by PWD has not been followed in constructing the office building, to be known as S-Block, whose foundation was laid in May 2013.



The civic body has assured the court that the tender for the block would be completed by this month end and the bid finalisation process July 20, while the work would be allotted in the next seven days.



We are pained to note that despite repeated adjournments, the time line promised by the PWD has not been followed.... Let the time line be placed on record on an affidavit by a responsible person.



Any violation of the time line shall be viewed strictly as we may notice that foundation of this building was laid as far back as on May 2, 2013 and since then hardly any progress has been made. Cost of construction is increasing, besides the public is suffering on account of paucity of space and lack of infrastructure, the court said in its order and listed the matter in July to monitor the progress in the work.



The order came on a plea filed in December last year seeking directions to Delhi government to provide sufficient funds for completion of construction of the new office building which is to be built on a 2.27 acres of land at Bapa Nagar area on the Zakir Hussain Marg here.



In January this year, Delhi government had told the court that 70 per cent of the construction amount has been sanctioned.



With regard to the remaining amount, the Centre on February 9 had informed the court that the normal assistance to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi has been enhanced to Rs 49.90 crores so that the same could be utilised for construction of the new building.
With the UK's fate in the EU on a knife-edge , millions of Britons began voting today in the historic referendum that will decide whether the country will stay in or leave the 28-nation bloc after an acrimonious campaign.



Both sides of the campaign have appealed to a record number of registered voters -- more than 46 million -- including 1.2 million British Indians, for a big turnout as Prime Minister David Cameron made his final appeal to "get out there and vote Remain" and reject the "untruths" of the camp in favour of 'Brexit' or Britain's exit from the European Union (EU).



The Prime Minister voted with wife Samantha at a polling booth in Westminster, just yards from his Downing Street office from where he will keep a keen eye on the results.



"It is a fact that our economy will be weaker if we leave and stronger if we stay," Cameron told supporters in Birmingham yesterday as he travelled up and down the country to make a final push for votes.



As part of his closing speech, he invoked Britain's popular war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying, "The greatest privilege of my life is to stand in my office two yards away from where Winston Churchill made that decision to fight on against Hitler in 1940. He didn't want to be alone, he wanted to be with the Poles and the French and the others fighting for European freedom and democracy."



On the opposing side, former London mayor Boris Johnson, heading the final drive for the Vote Leave campaign, insisted his side was "on the verge of victory" and that today could mark the UK's "independence day".



The last poll tracker of 'The Daily Telegraph' and and a YouGov poll for 'The Times' both showed Remain at 51 per cent and Leave at 49 per cent, reflecting the neck-and-neck nature of the campaign throughout the four-month period since Cameron announced the date of the referendum in February.



A victory for Remain therefore is within the margin of error, as two further polls from Opinium and TNS also forecast Leave on 51 per cent and Remain on 49.



Last night another poll, by ComRes, gave Remain an eight-point lead with 54 per cent compared to 46 per cent for Leave.



The referendum ballot paper as ks the question, "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"



Voters have the option to mark a cross next to either "Remain a member of the European Union" or "Leave the European Union" and whichever side gets more than half of all votes cast will win.



Edinburgh Council in Scotland reported that nearly a fifth of the city's 345,000 voters have already submitted postal votes in the EU referendum, with more than 82 per cent of the city's postal voters returning their ballot paper by last evening.



Polling stations across Scotland reported a steady flow of voters, encouraged by the bright sunshine in the region.



The flow has been more sluggish in other parts as the weather forecast for polling day remains mixed, with thunderstorms causing flooding in some parts of the country.



One voter from Chessington tweeted that she had to be carried into a flooded polling booth to cast her "remain" vote.



A low turnout is likely to benefit the Leave side, however, the general expectation is of a bigger turnout than the 2015 general election which was around 66 per cent.



After the referendum with polls closing at 10 pm local time, sealed ballot boxes will be collected and transported to the count venue for each of the 382 local counting areas.



These represent all 380 local government areas in England, Scotland and Wales, plus one each for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.



Individual areas' results will then be declared throughout the night, along with results from 11 regional counts.



The UK's Electoral Commission estimates a final result around breakfast time tomorrow.

In a departure from the norm, no major broadcasters have commissioned any exit polls over concerns about accuracy following the fiasco of the last general elections, when a hung Parliament had been predicted wrongly instead of a big Conservative party majority.



The result will be declared by Jenny Watson, the chair of the UK's Electoral Commission and the referendum's chief counting officer, at Manchester Town Hall tomorrow morning.



The European Union is made up of 28 countries who have come together for trade and security.



It was originally set up as the European Economic Community in 1958 with six members -- Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.



The EEC changed its name to the European Union (EU) in 1993. The UK had joined the EEC back in 1973. There has only been one other UK-wide referendum on the issue of EU membership, in 1975 when the country voted to stay in the European Community.



Eligible voters in today's referendum include anyone over the age of 18 who is a British citizen resident in the UK and UK nationals who have lived abroad for less than 15 years.



Citizens of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus resident in the UK can vote as can Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK and Gibraltar, including Indians.


China today sought to de-link it's opposition to India's membership of NSG from Sino-Indian ties saying that it does not concern the bilateral relationship.





China-India bilateral relations have maintained "sound momentum" and the issue of India's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tashkent.



"President Xi is going to meet Prime Minister Modi in Tashkent. We believe that series of exchanges of visits will deepen our strategic consensus, strategic mutual trust and future development of bilateral relationship," Hua told media briefing here. On the state of bilateral ties, she said, "we have repeatedly made positive comments on development ties between India and China . Both are emerging markets that are acquiring more and more significant role in the international affairs," she said. The bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum of growth, thanks to the mutual visits of the leaders by the two countries, she said.



"We have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship. Recently President of India Pranab Mukherjee also paid a successful visit to China," she said. On whether India, China differences over India's admission into the NSG would effect relations, Hua said, "on the NSG issue, we have been expounding on our position on this issue. We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group".



"We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India," she said. Xi and Modi are due to meet on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Tashkent today where he was expected to seek Chinas support for India's membership in the NSG. China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).



Both India and Pakistan, which have applied for NSG membership, have not signed the NPT. While India's case is pushed by the US, China is backing Pakistan.



Meanwhile, as the NSG kicked off key meeting in Seoul today, China's official media continued its tirade against India's bid for membership in the grouping with an article defending China's opposition and attempting to equate Indian and Pakistan nuclear programmes.



The article written by a senior fellow and director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at Centre for Strategic & International Studies published in state run Global Times says India's bid to enter NSG is aimed at legitimising its nuclear weapons status.



"The costs and benefits of Pakistani membership are similar to those of India's, except that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan tarnished Pakistan's record considerably when he sold centrifuge technology to Iraq, Iran and Libya, the article by Sharon Squassoni says.



It was the fourth article in the last one week carried by the daily to oppose India's admission into the NSG. The previous three articles were written by Chinese state run think tanks.


Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman has admitted his links with the terrorists involved in the 1999 Kandahar plane hijack and 2002 American Centre blast incident in Kolkata, a senior police official said today.





Rehman had provided safe shelter in Cuttack to a Pakistani terrorist involved in Kandahar plane hijack. The said terrorist belonged to Pak-based Harkat-ul-Mujadhideen group that hijacked the Delhi-bound Air India flight IC-184 from Kathamandu to Kandahar, said an official of the Special Task Force of Crime Branch of Odisha Police.



The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.



"As one of the terrorists involved in the hijack was close to Rehman, he brought him to Cuttack and kept him in a secret location," the officer said quoting the AQIS operative, who is being interrogated by the STF.



Though Rehman, who has been brought on a 10-day remand by Odisha Police, initially refused to admit his links with terror outfits, he opened up as soon as evidence collected by NIA and IB were placed before him, the officer said.



He added that police had been probing into the truth behind Rehman's statements.

"We have been locating the places where Rehman actually sheltered the Pakistani terrorist," the officer said, adding that the operative's brother was also one of the accused persons in the 2002 American Centre blast.



Though Rehman's brother got acquitted in the case, police said that now his younger brother (Rehman) had revealed that one of the terrorists was brought to Cuttack where he got safe shelter.



"We will verify both statements before coming to any conclusion," the officer said adding the STF have been investigating into the Odisha link of Rehman.



The operative, who was running a Madrassa at Tangi near Cuttack, was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi Police and Odisha Police on December 16, 2015. He was brought from Delhi to the state on remand.


Indian oil firms led by ONGC Videsh Ltd are mulling buying a part of the USD 11 billion stake that Russia is selling in its biggest oil firm Rosneft, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.





Russia is looking at selling 19.5 per cent of state oil champion Rosneft OJSC, preferably to India and China.



"Our companies are looking into the offer. They are mulling if they can take some of that equity. They are looking into it," he told reporters here.



Rosneft produces more crude oil than Exxon Mobil Corp.

Asked who among the Indian state-owned oil firms is leading the talks, Pradhan said, "of course OVL is the company heading the discussions now. Others may join later."



Moscow is looking to cut its budget deficit through a stake sale in Rosneft and the preferred option for it is to a strategic partner rather than a public share offering that would be more susceptible to political instability.



Rosneft, whose current market value is put at about USD 55 billion, is among the companies sanctioned by the US over Russian involvement in Ukraine.



BP plc of UK had bought near 20 per cent stake in Rosneft in 2013, much before Russia got involved in Ukraine.



Pradhan, who earlier this month visited Moscow, said Russia is considering disinvestment in Rosneft and Indian companies will certainly evaluate the opportunity.



Rosneft last month completed sale of 15 per cent stake in Russia's second biggest oilfield of Vankor to OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), for USD 1.268 billion.



During Pradhan's visit, it signed agreement to sell another 23.9 per cent in Vankor to a consortium of Oil India Ltd, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) for another USD 2 billion.



It has signed preliminary agreement to sell another 11 per cent stake in the same field to OVL.



"When all these transactions close, Indian companies will have nearly 50 per cent stake in Vankor," Pradhan said.



Vankor field, located in East Siberia, is Russia's second largest field by production and accounts for around 4 per cent of Russian production. It currently produces about 422,000 barrels of oil per day.



"The production India will get from the near 50 per cent stake in Vankor is equal of roughly half of ONGC's current domestic oil production," he said.





Rosneft is close to buying at least 50 per cent stake in Essar Oil Ltd's Vadinar refinery in Gujarat.





The consortium of OIL-IOC-BPCL have also signed sale purchase agreement (SPA) for 29.9 per cent stake in Rosneft's Tass-Yuriakh oilfield for USD 1.28 billion.





The oilfield, which holds recoverable reserves of 137 million tons, currently produces 20,000 barrels of oil per day. The output is slated to rise to 100,000 bpd in two year.





Rosneft had last year sold 20 per cent stake in Taas-Yuriah BP of UK for USD 750 million. The Russian firm will hold 50.1 per cent stake in the project after the deal.





It will hold the remaining 50.1 per cent in Vankor after OVL and the IOC-led consortium complete buying the total of 49.9 per cent.





Pradhan said India is also looking at possibility of laying a gas pipeline from Russia to import the fuel.





"We are talking to Gazprom for that," he said.





Russian law doesn't allow export natural gas except from a planned plant to liquefy the fuel in the Far East.




Pulling up CBI for divulging to the media probe details in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, the Bombay High Court today warned the agency that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against officers doing so and send them to jail.





"Your (CBI) progress report is nothing but news reports. All this is already there in the public domain. How does the media come to know about the identity of witnesses in the case and where the agency is going to conduct searches.



Everything is revealed to the media," the court said.



The stinging remarks against the premier probe agency came from a bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi while hearing a batch of petitions filed by the families of rationalist Dabholkar and slain communist leader and activist Govind Pansare seeking HC monitoring of both the investigations.



"You will be ruining the entire probe if you conduct yourself in this fashion.

Absconding accused in the case must be getting details pertaining to the probe from the media. Hats off to CBI," the bench observed.



"All this may seem trivial now, but they are very important lacunae when the trial is conducted. Tomorrow who is going to protect the witnesses and family members who are speaking freely to media these days. Some restraint and patience are required by the family members. This cheap publicity for everything is disgusting and it affects fair investigation and trial," it said.



The court warned that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against the officer(s) concerned revealing investigation details and will put him in jail.



The bench sought to know from the Maharashtra government if it had decided to seek a CBI probe in the Pansare case as claimed by the lawyer of the family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he had no such instruction.



It also came down heavily on CID and CBI, probing the Pansare and Dabholkar cases respectively, for slow progress in the investigation.



The Pansare family had approached the state government seeking a CBI probe in the matter and yesterday the government had given its consent, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain leader, told HC.



However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde submitted that he does not have any instruction from the government on the issue.



The court then asked Shinde to find out if the government has decided to seek a CBI probe in the case, and if it has done so, then tell the court the reasons for it.



While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot dead on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.



CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the Dabholkar case.



"We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder case probes need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society," the court said.



"Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views," it observed.



The bench, while adjourning the matter for six weeks, asked CBI to make all endeavour to obtain reports immediately from forensic science laboratory in Scotland where the agency has sent bullets and empty cartridges recovered from the body of another slain rationalist M M Kalburgi.



"Expedite the proceedings and try obtaining the reports immediately," it said.The court also noted that both the agencies for a month have been dragging their feet in their probe which, it said, was very "juvenile and childish".



Public Prosecutor Shinde informed the court that CID has sought custody of the person arrested by CBI in the Dabholkar case.



To this, the court said, "Didn't you know about this person before and the organisation with which he is affiliated. It is very shameful that officers instead of investigation ask the family members who they suspect. This needs to stop."



On the next date of hearing, both the agencies will have to submit further progress reports.




It will likely be Massachusetts voters who will decide whether their state raises its cap on the number of charter schools allowed to open.

Just as a drive to put that question on the November ballot met a crucial deadline, Democratic Senate President Stan Rosenberg acknowledged that an attempt to pass a bill that would have eased the capalbeit with several caveatswas all but dead, according to the Associated Press.

Although charter school caps are not uncommon (20 states plus the District of Columbia have such policies) Massachusetts law is one of the most restrictive, as I wrote last October :

Aside from a flat cap of 120 charters statewide, there are additional barriers. Most notably, there are limits on how much of a school district's budget can go to charters: it can't exceed 9 percent in most districts. However, that cap is slowly being notched up to 18 percent by 2017 in the lowest-performing districts based on state assessment results. Even though there are about 80 charters across Massachusetts40 charter schools shy of hitting the statewide capsome areas have already reached their regional limits. Among them is Boston, where with just under 30 campuses, the city has already reached the allotted number of charters that can open independently of the school district.

The state Senate approved a bill in April that would have raised the cap in districts with more at-risk students but would have mostly preserved the statewide cap. That measure was criticized by pro- and anti-charter school advocates. The Massachusetts House of Representatives never took action on the bill and, as the AP reports, discussions between the two chambers have stopped.

Meanwhile, the ballot committee looking to raise the cap by referendum announced Wednesday that it had collected over 30,000 signatures to place the cap question before voters in November. In addition to the bill and ballot question, there is also a lawsuit seeking to raise the cap .

Related stories:
Britain's 1.2 million strong Indian-origin voters, the biggest ethnic majority-group in the country, are expected to vote in large numbers today amid indications that a majority of them may vote against Brexit -- or Britain's exit from the European Union

.



They also reflect a divided house in line with the wider knife-edge divide in the referendum campaign so far, though a majority are expected to vote against Brexit.



A recent British Election study, ahead of the referendum to decide the UK's future relationship with the European Union (EU), had found that 51.7 per cent of Indian-origin voters are against Brexit, compared to 27.74 per cent in favour of leaving the economic bloc.



However, there was a significant percentage (16.85 per cent) of those who fell into the "Don't Know" category in the study last month and they are likely to hold the key in the referendum, which remains too close to call even on polling day.



The figures are similar across the board among South Asians, with Pakistani-origin voters backing remain 56 to 26 per cent and Bangladeshis 42 to 17.



High-profile Indian-origin politicians in the UK echoed this divide, with UK employment minister Priti Patel and Infosys chief Narayan Murthy's son-in-law Rishi Sunak batting for Brexit, while other senior MPs like Keith Vaz and Virendra Sharma firmly for Remain.



The British Indian MPs in favour of Brexit issued a strongly-worded letter last month, claiming EU was "damaging" the UK economy and "the pressures this causes means that we have to turn away qualified doctors, teachers, and entrepreneurs from non-EU countries who would make a positive contribution to this country".



On the other end of the political spectrum, Alok Sharma, Conservative party MP and British Prime Minister David Cameron's Infrastructure Envoy to India, set up a cross-party "British Indians for IN" group to ensure the undecided votes went in favour of Remain.



"A vote to remain guarantees us continued unfettered access to Europe's free trade single market of 500 million consumers, meaning lower prices, more jobs, increased investment and financial security.



It also means a seat at the table as the EU negotiates some of the biggest trade deals in history - such as the ongoing discussions with the United States, China and India," he had claimed.



On the Brexit end, Priti Patel -- Cameron's Indian Diaspora Champion -- shifted focus to a curry clash as her key weapon against what she described as "unfair immigration rules" that favour EU migrants over non-EU ones from countries like India.



"Our curry houses are becoming the victims of the EU's uncontrolled immigration rules. By voting to leave the EU we can take back control of our immigration policies, save our curry houses and join the rest of the world," she said during her campaign


The ongoing European Union Film Festival has been attracting cinema lovers in droves. With the variety of themes and cultures being showcased in these movies, it is no surprise that youngsters and elders alike are fascinated by the on screen celebration.





The festival has been organised by the Delegation of the European Union and embassies of EU member states, in partnership with Alliance Francaise, Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, British Council and Suchitra Film Society in Bangalore.



Speaking about the process of selection of the movies, Ashish Bhardwaj, part of the organising team for the film festival, says Every year the film festival is based on a particular theme on the basis of which the movies are selected. This year the theme was recent, award winning movies. The European Union delegation in Delhi got in touch with all their member states and asked them to send their best movies. Consequently, we have taken movies made from 2011 onwards and that have won multiple awards.



P B Murali from the Suchitra Film Society says, This collection of 23 movies will be circulated throughout all the metros in India, thus providing every urban film lover with a chance to watch masterpieces from lesser-known European countries. The collection is a mixture of different types of movies  animated ones, historical themed ones, stories dealing with urban life and so on.



He adds, I saw the movie from Finland, called Urban Family. It is sort of a relationship drama which talks about the plight of a mother whose young son, a boy she gave up for adoption years ago, lands at her doorstep. It was a uniquely themed, musical film and I loved every bit of it.



Anoop R, a member of the audience who is also a budding filmmaker, says that

he doesnt miss a chance to watch movies from other countries and is a regular face at the various film festivals conducted in the city.



He says, Their movies have none of the drama and noise that characterise our block busters. And it is not just for movie buffs like me. Even people who are just out for an entertaining evening will find these screenings an apt place.



Among the must-watch movies on most peoples list is the one from Malta called Simshar. Directed by Rebecca Cremona, the movie has been inspired by true stories which occurred in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2008.



This poignant film tells the story of 11 year old Theo who sets sail with his seafaring family on their fishing boat when an accident throws them into open water. Simultaneously, a Turkish merchant vessel has rescued a group of stranded migrants between Italy and Malta, but neither country will take them in.



The stories collide and culminate in incredible ways. The movie is Maltas first Oscar submission and has been sweeping awards at all international film fests.



Says Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the European Union to India, The 21st edition of the festival showcases the recent award winning movies and I am happy to say that we have received an enthusiastic response from the audience till now. The audience will get to see movies from many European countries, which gives a glimpse into the unknown facet of European culture.



India itself is now a global giant in the movie business and Indians have been among the most appreciative and iconoclastic audiences of European cinema, anywhere. And so, this coming of age of the EUFF in India, testifying to its popularity, is a cause for celebration.


When 2-year-old Rutuja playfully tipped over a bottle, spilling water onto the mud floor of the familys shack, her mother, Nageshwari Rathore, let loose a screech, lunging forward as though to slap the toddler. Rathore stopped herself, sinking her head into her hands. You finished it, she whispered.



The loss wrenched at the 25-year-old. That June morning she had stood in line in the scorching heat for over an hour to collect five litres of water. A government tanker rolls up once a day to the abandoned field where she now lives.



Located in Ghatkopar, a Mumbai suburb, the field functions as a relief camp for 350 families who have left their villages in rural Maharashtra because of a drought, the worst in 100 years. Wild pigs root through the open sewer that runs alongside the Rathores tarpaulin shack. When the monsoon arrives, possibly in the next few days, it will flood the camp and force the family out.



Over 330 million Indians  about one quarter of the countrys population  have been affected by the drought. In Maharashtra, where over half the population is dependent on the rural economy, the effects are severe. An average of nearly nine farmers committed suicide every day last year, primarily over debt related to crop failure.



Rural Indians are falling behind even as urban Indians enjoy unprecedented prosperity. And the tragedies that befall the poor benefit the more affluent. Forced to migrate to the cities, displaced farmers have little option but to join the enormous, unorganised labour force that serves the urban middle class as construction and domestic workers.



Trees outside the field in Ghatkopar were festooned with political banners, suggesting that the camp was the creation of a benevolent government. In fact, politicians had to be prodded to visit, according to Abhishek Bharadwaj, a homeless-rights activist.



It was only after the media reported the squalid living conditions at the camp that Kirit Somaiya, a member of the state Parliament, came around to distribute cash and grain. Somaiya then uploaded a YouTube video depicting the camp as having abundant food and supplies.



Shau Chavan, who has been living in the camp for two months, said that government help had increased. In previous years, a local mafia had charged 1,000 rupees a month  about 2.5 days of the migrants daily wages  for a plot of 40 square feet. This year, Chavan said, the farmers are living rent-free, most likely as a result of government intervention.



If this is what passes for official aid in the richest state of the fastest-growing major economy in the world, then Indias government is short on political will, not means. This years drought is extreme, but severe weather is a regular occurrence in India. The authorities had time to plan.



The state governments relief measures look good on paper, Abhishek Waghmare, a policy analyst with the data website IndiaSpend, told me. The state has poured money into the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyaan, a water-conservation programme to make Maharashtra a drought-free state by 2019.



But the villages Waghmare has visited over the past four years still lack basic rainwater collection systems. Government efforts to rejuvenate dormant rivers and ponds are ineffective: Year after year, Waghmare said, water runs off.



Government failure stems from institutional disregard for the poor. Almost 70% of Indians live in rural areas, but the government doesnt appear to view them as essential to Indias march to modernise. The spiralling number of suicides suggests that farmers despair is not resonating with politicians.



Even after eight states declared a drought last year, the Centre failed to increase support for two programmes created to act as lifesaving buffers: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which promises every household 100 days of paid employment annually, and the Public Distribution System, which delivers subsidised grains and fuel to the needy.



Government investment in the employment programme has decreased since 2014, the year the BJP came to power, and fewer jobs were created than before. Because of corruption in the food programme, rations earmarked for the poor are often sold on the black market instead.



Self-sustainable initiatives



Mitigating the effects of a drought doesnt require much investment. The villagers of Hiware Bazar, in Maharashtras Ahmednagar district, havent required official drought assistance in over two decades.



They banned borewells to prevent the water table from falling further and now cultivate vegetables instead of water-guzzling bananas and sugar cane. If the government had only shown similar initiative, the state wouldnt be in such dire need.



In May, the Supreme Court scolded several state governments for their ostrich-like behaviour, and demanded the creation of a national disaster mitigation fund within three months. But nothing has happened yet, a principal adviser to the court said. The governments neglect is rivalled only by its officials flippant attitude.



On April 15, Eknath Khadse, the revenue minister of Maharashtra at the time, visited the drought-stricken district of Latur. The water crisis was so severe then that a special train was commissioned to bring water to the area.



But Khadse went by helicopter, even though Latur is readily accessible from Mumbai  which required the construction of a temporary helipad that consumed 10,000 litres of water.



The next day, the water conservation minister, Pankaja Munde, showed up, and tweeted photographs of herself grinning in front of a parched riverbed.



The drought selfies, as they came to be known, drew widespread condemnation. They captured perfectly the general reaction of Indias politicians to this disaster. Short on empathy and a sense of responsibility, our leaders see even grave crises only through the lens of their own privilege.



International New York Times
The tuition fee for MBBS and BDS courses in private colleges has been increased, but its unclear how much minority colleges or deemed universities will charge.





There are 300 medical and around 200 dental seats in minority colleges, the governments share being 25%. But the colleges are playing hardball. They want a steep increase in the fee. We want an annual fee of Rs 15 lakh for an MBBS (management quota) seat and around 7.5 lakh for a BDS seat. As far as government quota seats are concerned, we are negotiating a fee similar to private colleges, said Shafi Ahmed, secretary, Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association.



Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil said that a decision on fees in deemed universities and minority colleges would be taken in a few days.



Meanwhile, MBBS and BDS seats from government and private colleges will be added to the matrix soon to kick-start the option entry process, said an official in the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA). As of now, we have not received seats from either government or private colleges. Hopefully the process will begin in a few days, official said.


Toyota Industries Engine India (TIEI) has expressed that it plans to achieve over 35% localisation in diesel engines it will manufacture for the new Toyota Innova Crysta, at the facility it inaugurated in Bengaluru on Thursday.



The company  a JV between Kirloskar Systems (KSL) and Toyota Industries Corporation  has set up the facility at Jigani Industrial Area to manufacture high performance Global Diesel Engine, featuring Economy with Superior Thermal Efficiency Combustion (ESTEC) technology.



Mighty investments



Spread over 22 acres, the facility has seen investments to the tune of Rs 1,100 crore, and will specifically manufacture the 1GD-FTV 2.8-litre and 2GD-FTV 2.4-litre engines in compliance with BS IV emission standards, with an additional provision to upgrade to BS V and VI with minimum investment and lead time.



Talking to Deccan Herald on the sidelines of the inauguration, TIEI Deputy Managing Director T R Parasuraman said, All units of Innova Crysta will have engines manufactured in this facility. Weve begun operations in March, and sold over 15,500 engines to our customer Toyota Kirloskar Motor. In my view, its important that the car plant (Bidadi) and engine plant should be close to each other to help build competitiveness.



He continued, This plant is a Make in India effort, and we are aiming at over 35% localisation of the engines, beginning from next year. We have the potential to build an excellent supply chain, which will also aid in earning cost-competitiveness in terms of limiting risks emerging from importing parts. The companys localisation initiative includes certain critical components such as crank shafts and connecting rods, among others. The company has also tried to localise tools and machinery at the facility, by installing homegrown equipment for few processes.



The Innova has been a hot-selling model for Toyota in India, since its launch over 10 years ago. The latest model Innova Crysta saw sales of 7,000 units in May, and 5,000 units already in this month.



The plant has a capacity of 9,000 engine units a month, translating into an annual capacity of 1.08 lakh units.
Fliers may rue arbitrary pricing by airlines, but Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju is not ready to demonise them.





"The airlines might not be angels, but they definitely are not demons. We need to work with them and find a solution to higher airfares," Raju said.



Asserting that there is no "simplistic solution" to deal with the arbitrary rise in airfares, Raju said capping would not help. He said such measures would only hike the prices further. "Caps and floors are very interesting. But we should not land in a situation that pushes up the price of over 90% of passengers to benefit around 1.7% of passengers," Raju said, when asked whether the government intends to cap airfares.



Last week, a Parliamentary Standing Committee discussed the issue of airlines jacking up airfare to destinations in Punjab and Haryana during the Jat agitation earlier this year. The panel expressed its reservation over such practices and urged the ministry to take adequate measures to ensure such situations dont arise.



His comments came even as the Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) on Wednesday approached the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on whether it would take action against airlines that are "misleading" people through bogus sales. The APAI complaint came on a day SpiceJet offered a five-day monsoon bonanza sale.



Asked about the government setting up a Civil Aviation Authority, Raju said, "I don't subscribe to changing the name of DGCA. You tell me what you expect this authority to do. If you want me to change the name board, then it is not a good idea."
A team of saints, which had visited Kairana to probe allegations of ''mass exodus'' of hindu families, has rejected ''communal angle'' behind migration and said that there was a ''conspiracy'' to foment tension between the two communities in the region.





The assertion of the team came in a report, which was handed over to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav here on Thursday.



Though the saints, who were led by Bhartiya Sant Samiti president Acharya Pramod Krishnan, refused to divulge the content of the report, they only said that a conspiracy had been hatched to trigger communal tension in Kairana and surrounding areas by spreading false reports of ''mass exodus'' of hindus owing to threats by members of a particular community.



''We have urged the chief minister to take stern action against those responsible for hatching the conspiracy'', Acharya Krishnan said.



The Akhilesh government assured the saints that the government would look into the reports and take appropriate action against the guilty.


A public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking direction to the Centre for complete and full implementation of One Rank One Pension scheme for retired servicemen

.



The petition filed by an association of ex-army men contended that the BJP government failed to keep its promise for their long-pending demand to remove the anomaly in their pensions.



The association members, which staged their demonstration at Jantar Mantar for several months here, claimed the government did not take any concrete step to ensure automatic revision of the pension as recommended by the Koshiyari Committee. The panel, which submitted its report in December, 2011, had called the ex-armymens demand as fair and reasonable.



The Committee had also rued the governments apathy towards the demand of retired personnel, forcing them to return their medals.



Notably, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani had offered to fight pro bono for the cause of the agitating ex-servicemen.
Four people from Ghana, who were stranded in a ship for the last four-and-a-half-years, were rescued on the orders of the Bombay High Court.



The four seafarers, who were marooned barely 2 nautical miles off the Mumbai harbour, were identified as Mohammad Mustapha (38), Issah Sawudu (49), Iddriss Mohammad (48) and Abakah Francis (60).



The vessel, Magnum V, continues to be stranded off Ballard Pier on the eastern seacoast of Mumbai.



It had developed some technical snag while returning from Colombo in 2011.



However, their employers, who are based in Sierra Leone, did not offer any help and since then, the four sailors were surviving on board the ship.


The Mamata Banerjee regime has decided to introduce entrepreneurship programme as part of vocational training for students from classes 9 to 12 from the next academic year.





The initiative came amid severe criticism from the Opposition parties over the governments failure to bring industry to Bengal.



The programme will be rolled out from the next academic session, state minister for technical education & training, Ashima Patra, said, while addressing captains of industry at the CII Skill Conclave 2016.



The minister pointed out that the course will go some distance to equip students in building their own businesses. She claimed that this would be the first of its kind in India.



Our government is keen on building a strong culture of entrepreneurship. Our aim is not just to make students industry-ready but also provide relevant skill training that will give our students an edge over those from other parts of the country, she said.



Students opting for the course will be trained to devise bankable business strategies, along with the basics of banking and personal finance management, among other skills.
St. Paul, Minn., Superintendent Valeria Silva will leave her job on July 15, but will stick around for another 15 months as a consultant to the district, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The school board voted on Tuesday to fire Silva , who still had two and a half years left on her current contract, according to local media reports.

Silva will receive an overall severance package worth about $787,500 , as part of a deal that keeps her on the districts payroll as a consultant through September 2017, according to Minnesota Public Radio News.

The sum includes salary and benefits, the station reported.

Silvas duties as a consultant to the district are not yet defined , according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

Silva has led the states second-largest school district since December 2009.

Minnesota Public Radio News reported that the audience was divided at Tuesdays board meeting, with some holding up signs that said Youre Fired. But the station also quoted a principal voicing support for Silva.

Silva, who is originally from Chile, had been praised for focusing efforts on English-language learners and racial equity.

(She was profiled as one of Education Weeks Leaders To Learn From for her work on English-learner education in 2013.)

But in recent months, she has had to face questions about school safety and the districts declining enrollment as more students moved to charter schools and suburban districts.

In one incident last December, a science teacher who was trying to break up a fight was allegedly attacked by a student, slammed into a wall, and choked, according to Minnesota Public Radio News. That teacher has since sued the district. A petition was launched calling for Silvas resignation. And the teachers union contemplated going on strike over the districts response to violence against teachers, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.

Silva started in St. Paul in 1987 as a Spanish immersion teacher. Earlier this year, she announced that she planned to leave when her current contract expired in December 2018 .

Silvas tenure at the helm of a big-city school district exceeded the average stay for such superintendents. According to a 2014 report by the Council of the Great City Schools, the average urban superintendent tenure in the 2013-14 school year was 3.2 years.

One school board member, Jean OConnell, who voted against the severance package, said she was resigning after the vote, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.

John Thein, a former superintendent in Roseville, which is about 10 miles away, will serve as the districts interim superintendent. He will be paid $202,500.

Valeria Silva, superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools, stands for a portrait at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., in 2012.

--Jenn Ackerman for Education Week-File


The Petition Committee of the AAP-dominated Assembly on Thursday decided to summon Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for sitting on cases filed during the partys earlier tenure.



With this, the Aam Aadmi Partys fight with the L-G got uglier. The party also upped the ante in the row over the recent murder of NDMC officer M M Khan and demanded the L-Gs arrest.



Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla said Jung and the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) chief Mukesh Meena would soon be summoned by the Petition Committee of the House for questioning in four cases pertaining to the alleged scams during the Sheila Dikshits Congress government. Birla, who is the chairperson of the nine-member Petition Committee of Assembly, said the committee took the decision after taking opinion from the Delhi governments standing counsel.



But former Delhi Assembly Secretary S K Sharma said the Petition Committee is trying to achieve something impossible.



Just as no Parliament committee can summon the President, the L-G cannot be asked to appear before the Assemblys panel, said Sharma.



Birlas announcement came on a day when ACB sources indicated that former Water Minister Kapil Mishra was likely to be summoned for questioning on July 4.


Six militants were killed in two separate encounters with security forces in north Kashmirs frontier Kupwara district on Thursday.





In the first encounter at Dobwan forest area in Khurhama, Lolab, three unidentified militants were killed in the wee hours.



Based on specific inputs about the presence of militants, a joint team of the Armys 18 Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police launched a search around the forest area. The militants fired a volley of shots on the forces, who retaliated. Defence spokesman Colonel N N Joshi confirmed that three militants were killed in the Dobwan encounter.



The operation is still underway, he said. The bodies were recovered from the site along with as many AK-47-rifles and other war-like stores.



In the second encounter, three LeT militants were killed in Waterkhani area of Drugmulla, Kupwara, on Thursday evening. Senior Superintendent Police Kupwara Ejaz Bhat said security forces combed the forest area of Cherwari in Waterkhani acting on a tip-off about the presence of some militants there.



Meanwhile, Sopore town of Baramulla district was on Thursday rattled by twin grenade attacks aimed at police personnel. There were no casualties in the incident.


The Congress which is slowly gaining numbers in the Legislative Council is planning to unseat the Council chairman D H Shankaramurthy with the support of JD(S). The chairmans post has been held by the BJP for over six years now.





It is learnt that the Congress has reached out to the JD(S) seeking its support to unseat Shankaramurthy, who is a BJP MLC. The Congress is learnt to have extended an olive branch to the JD(S) by offering to make its member the chairman. Senior JD(S) MLC Basavaraj Horatti who has entered the House for the seventh time, has emerged as the frontrunner for the post. The Congress is said to have agreed to settle for the deputy chairman post.



The BJP has managed to continue its member as the chairman with the support of JD(S). In exchange, JD(S) member Marithibbe Gowda has been elected deputy chairman. But after the recent elections to the Council, the Congress numbers have risen in the 75-member House. However it is short of two members to gain a majority in the Upper House. The party currently has 30 MLCs. While the government is in the process of nominating three more members, it also enjoys the support of two or three Independent MLCs. This brings Congress numbers to 36, while it needs 38 votes to move a no-confidence motion against Shankaramurthy.



The BJP-JD(S) combine, along with the support of two Independents, has 38 members. The Congress cant poach MLCs from the opposition JD(S) as it would lead to disqualification of the members. Hence, it has decided to seek the support of the JD(S) as a whole, sources said.



When contacted, Horatti said that he is not aware of the development and he was not vying for the chairmans post. However, it is reliably learnt that he will be meeting his party supremo H D Deve Gowda on Friday.



Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Shankaramurthy maintained that he was not on a shaky ground. He said that he would continue in the post for the next two years. This question arises only if the JD(S) discontinues it's support to BJP, he added.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi has no plans to host iftar during the ongoing Ramzan month, a much watched event in the capitals political circles.





The Congress instead plans to distribute Ramzan kits among under-privileged Muslims in slums dotting New Delhi.



On the other hand, the RSS-affiliated Muslim Rashtriya Manch has drawn up elaborate plans to host a grand iftar party on Saturday and has sent invitations to ambassadors of Islamic nations and prominent citizens.



The Manch, formed in 2002 at the behest of the RSS, has also asked its members to host iftar gatherings on a smaller scale and invite people from all communities to spread the message of unity and harmony.



Congress leaders cited the back-to-back droughts and rural distress as the reason to drop plans of hosting iftar dinner.



We will distribute Ramzan kits among the poor. We are in the process of identifying areas for this purpose, a senior Congress leader said.



Another reason could be the non-availability of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is on a short vacation in a foreign country.



The Congress presidents iftar dinners have been the most watched events in Delhis political circles.




Disgruntled MLAs in the ruling Congress have embarked on the save the party campaign and are seeking the removal of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.





The legislators led by former ministers V Srinivas Prasad and M H Ambareesh held a series of meetings throughout Thursday. But the disgruntled camp is not able to muster support required to shake the government or Siddaramaiah. The aggrieved legislators have, however, kept up their efforts to garner the support of like-minded party legislators.

Currently, the disgruntled camp has eight MLAs, including Malikayya Guttedar (Afzalpur) and Rajashekar Patil (Humnabad), who identified themselves with the rebel camp on Thursday.



Former chief minister S M Krishna, who spoke to Srinivas Prasad over phone, gave him a patient hearing.



Krishna, who is currently in Mumbai, had complained to the high command against Siddaramaiahs style of functioning a few months ago.



Prasad told Deccan Herald that the ouster of Siddaramaiah was inevitable for toning up the partys image. The surgery, if any, should have happened there (to the post of Chief Minister). The party can be saved only through the leadership change. The reshuffle was not done properly. Siddaramaiah and Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress floor leader in the Lok Sabha) have conducted the reshuffle in order to fulfil their selfish goals, he said.



Opportunity lost



Prasad said there was no dearth of leaders in the Congress to replace Siddaramaiah. The high command should pick a leader keeping the next elections in view. Though Kharge was one of the able candidates to become the chief minister, he has lost an opportunity by making his son Priyank Kharge a minister.



He admitted that the disgruntled camp does not have the support of enough legislators to carry on the one-point agenda.



But we are not in a hurry. I am well aware of our limitation. Changes can happen in a week or a fortnight. But it has to happen and it will happen in the interests of the party. All these efforts are for the sake of party, he stated.



After a meeting of disgruntled leaders, Ambareesh said: The party high command knows fully well about Ambareesh, Srinivas Prasad and Qamarul Islam. We are saving the party. The high command is aware of our strength.



Malikayya Guttedar said Siddaramaiah and Kharge are working towards wiping out the Congress in Karnataka. Speaking to reporters here, he said the Chief Minister has retained non-performing ministers and dropped those who were doing a good job. The reshuffle exercise has ended up damaging the party. Senior legislators have been sidelined. So, all the like-minded legislators are coming together to save the party, he added.



No change in leadership



KPCC working president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Thursday ruled out a change in Siddaramaiahs leadership. Speaking to reporters after meeting aggrieved Congress leader V Srinivas Prasad at his residence, Rao said Prasad and other leaders are upset because they were dropped from the ministry. But the party will look into their grievances and sort out all issues. Prasad is a senior leader.



Four Congress MPs - D K Suresh, Dhruvanarayan, Muddahanumegowda and B N Chandrappa - met Prasad and tried to pacify him. Senior party leader Sushil Kumar Shinde is likely to meet Prasad on Friday.



High command tells CM to pacify rebels



The Congress top brass on Thursday is learnt to have asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to pacify the disgruntled legislators and resolve the issue at the earliest, reports DHNS from New Delhi. Sources said that the Congress president Sonia Gandhis political secretary Ahmed Patel spoke to Siddaramaiah and advised him to reach out to the aggrieved leaders as the high command did not want the matter to fester too long. Ahead of the reshuffle, the chief minister had explained the high command the reasons for dropping the ministers. He had also assured the party top brass that he was confident of handling any fallout, a senior leader told Deccan Herald.
BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on Thursday appeared to target Economic Affairs Secretary, Shaktikanta Das, which prompted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to call it an unfair and false attack.



Hurling veiled charges at Das, Swamy, in a morning post on his Twitter handle, said there is a property deal case pending against him (Das) for assisting PC (Congress leader P Chidambaram) swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations.



The Rajya Sabha member demanded that Das, an IAS officer of the 1980 batch, be repatriated to Tamil Nadu, his home cadre.



Jaitley, who is on a five-day official trip to China, tweeted: An unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the finance ministry.



The finance minister had earlier stated that political leaders should refrain from taking on officers restrained by their office compulsions.



Das is the latest among the senior bureaucrats and technocrats Swamy has targeted of late, which is turning out to be an embarrassment to the BJP.



On Wednesday, Swamy took on Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, demanding that he be sacked for taking an anti-India position on the Intellectual Property Rights issue at the United Nations. He had also charged Subramanian with encouraging the Congress party to take a stiff stand on the GST Bill, which is still pending in Parliament.



Jaitley had defended Subramanian saying the CEA enjoyed full confidence of the government and his advices on several occasions had been of great value. When asked to comment on Jaitley and the BJP not endorsing his views on Subramanian, Swamy said, Let him (Jaitley) say what he wants... I have nothing to do with what Jaitley says. I can talk to the party President or the Prime Minister. Will talk to them when required, right now its not needed as I have said what I had to say, he insisted.



An unrepentant Swamy added to his Wednesdays rant against the CEA and said he was willing to suspend his attack on Subramanian provided the government still considers him patriotic despite his anti-India stand.
As India's bid to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group entered the last leg, nuclear-powered North Korea has emerged as an X factor for New Delhi in its race to secure a place in the elite club that controls global nuclear commerce.





In the last 48 hours, India and Pakistan - through media leaks - traded charges on assisting North Korea in their nuclear and missile programme violating the UN sanctions.



The allegation against Pakistan was despatching restricted items such as Monel and Inconel  two Nickel-based alloys - to North Korea. Besides, China-made vacuum induction melting furnaces  used in Pyongyang's nuclear programme were being shipped to North Korea via Pakistan.



The counter came in an Al Jazeera report alleging India trained 30-odd North Korean scientists in the last 10 years in a space institute in Dehradun, which benefitted the rogue nation's missile programme. The lapse on the part of the Indian government was discovered in March 2016 in a report to the UN  a charge sternly denied by the Ministry of External Affairs.



The (Al Jazeera) report is subjective and based on the limited understanding of the experts, who have authored it. India has made its position clear in this regard to the UN Security Council. The course material offered to the participants is available in open-source. We believe these courses are unlikely to contribute in any way to a violation of the various UN sanctions pertaining to DPRK, the ministry said in a statement.



Officials pointed out, it was ironical that the NSG meeting in South Korean capital Seoul coincided with Pakistan shipping nuclear material to its arch rival North Korea.

On the courses offered at the Indian centre, the MEA statement said the topics covered in the courses offered by the Dehradun-based Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific were very general and covered basic principles in the respective areas.



Further, a representative of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs is a Permanent Observer in the governing board of the centre.



The Advisory Committee of the Centre, which evaluates and reviews the course curriculum and criterion for the selection of candidates, is chaired by the Director of UN-OOSA.



In a veiled reference to the infamous A Q Khan network of nuclear proliferation, the MEA statement said India was a victim of proliferation in its extended neighbourhood and it was ridiculous to suggest that New Delhi aided in proliferation.
The India-China Financial Dialogue due to be held here between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.



Jaitley is due to arrive here on Thursday on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue. But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources here told PTI.



Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das could not attend it.



Seven rounds of talks

Till now, the two countries have held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.



This is the first time it was elevated to level of finance ministers of both the countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.



It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27.



The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.



It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.



The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhis admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the groups meeting in Seoul.






There was high drama at the Vidhana Soudha police station on Thursday when a former MLAs wife claimed that he was avoiding her as he was in a relationship with another woman.



Savitha, wife of M P Kumaraswamy, a former BJP MLA from Mudigere, in Chikkamagalur district said that he had not visited her for more than six months now. She felt he was avoiding her as he didnt bother to visit her in Mysuru where she works in a government department.



On Wednesday morning, Savitha, her mother and some relatives came to Bengaluru, looking for Kumaraswamy. They found him ensconced in the Legislators Home. Savitha asked Kumaraswamy to come with her, but he told her to go away and not disturb him. He then started walking to his car. Savitha followed him and snatched the cars keys. Kumaraswamy got angry and hit her, police said. The couple then went to the Vidhana Soudha police station and started quarrelling even as bewildered police personnel watched on. Police tried to pacify them, but they didnt budge. Police then asked Savitha if she wished to lodge a complaint against her husband. She refused, saying she wanted to stay with him, not put him behind bars, a senior police officer said.



Sensing more trouble, Kumaraswamy was asked to stay back in the police station while Savitha was sent to Vanitha Sahayavani (womens helpline) at the police commissioners office on Infantry Road. The couple will be counselled. As of now, the police have not registered any case as Savitha insisted that it was a family matter and would be resolved among themselves. Police want Savitha to lodge a complaint. If she changes her mind, they will take the necessary action.


Language immersion programs are on the rise and are proving to be impactfulespecially as a strategy for addressing issues of equity. Considered to be the most innovative way to teach students a language, teachers only use the target (second) language in the classroom to teach most, or all, curricular content. Among world language program offerings, immersion is producing the best results, especially among younger students.

Recently, Nancy Rhodes, Language Education Consultant, Center for Applied Linguistics , presented to the Chinese Early Language Immersion Network (CELIN) Leadership Forum on the lessons she learned through interviews with sixteen top immersion language specialists. Here I share these lessons as well as examples from immersion programs across the country.

1. Focus on good teachers and high-quality education.



If you dont have highly qualified teachers, you wont have a successful high-quality program. While this may be obvious, finding well-trained immersion teachers is a struggleespecially for Chinese language programs, which are relative new and rapidly expanding. Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington, DC, built a partnership with the New York University School of Education, which began as a way to improve their literacy program. An added benefit of the partnership is that now they are able to tap into the pipeline of Mandarin teachers being produced through NYU. Even with that advantage, the school has a 1,000-student waiting list and cannot expand mainly due to the lack of teachers.

Jeffrey Bissell, Head of School, Chinese American International School in San Francisco, California, underscored that given this situation, schools need to be sure to allocate resources to grow their own first-class teachers through ongoing professional development. Many master teachers who were at the forefront of immersion many years ago are now beginning to retire. The field at large needs to harness those teachers to serve as role models and mentors to younger teachers.

One incentive for students to study a second language is the promise of increased job opportunities given the demand for bilingual workers. Bob Davis, Director of Chinese Learning Initiatives and Culture at the College Board , points out that teaching in immersion programs is a solid job option that should not be overlooked by immersion students. In this way, we can grow our own pipeline of teachers here in the United States.

2. Identify and clearly state intended outcomes from the beginning; and

3. Monitor language development through continual assessment. Schools and districts should identify what outcomes they want for their teachers as they create their programs. Helena Curtain, Associate Professor (Emerita), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, points out that districts that fine-tune their end-of-year outcomes are able to increase student proficiency levels by at least one sub-level on the ACTFL proficiency scale. Schools should also identify the content and the cultural knowledge to be obtained at each level of instruction.

Intended outcomes also have implications for your mission and vision statement. Yinghua Academy in Minnesota is a public charter school, meaning they have the luxury of setting their own mission statement, which then drives everything that they do at the school.

Once goals and mission statements have been set, assessments throughout the year can help keep teachers on pace to achieve them. It is critical that assessment not be done in a vacuum, but rather, the results should be studied and used to target the areas where interventions are needed.

4. Harness the power of immersion.

Many studies, like the one recently completed by RAND of immersion programs in Portland , Oregon, show how successful these programs can be. As a result, they are steadily growing across the country. Every district should provide students with this option. One rationale that has proven to be persuasive is the economic argumentparents, administrators, and community members see the importance of learning a language for career opportunities and economic growth.

In Minnetonka, Minnesota , Spanish and Chinese immersion offerings have stopped declining enrollment in the district. In fact, these programs are now attracting many students from outside of the district. The district was not able to invest anything additional in immersion, which has been a challenge. However, teachers are stepping up to be leaders and ensuring the success of the program.

5. Plan for K-16 articulation from the start.

Mimi Met, former director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, warns of the bikini model of immersion programs: many offerings in elementary and high school, but nothing in the middle years. Marty Abbott, Executive Director, ACTFL agrees that many programs are, reaching a dead halt or (providing) a very uneven program in the middle school.

Solutions are in the works, however. In Utah, the Flagship program at Brigham Young University , in collaboration with 22 other states, is creating a pathway that will allow students to continue to study in their target language through their undergrad years. They are using the AP world langauge exams as their starting point and back mapping for middle school students from there. For instance, following the AP model of using themes, 7th and 8th grade students can take courses in their target language as well as in culture and media. In high school, students will then take the AP exam in 9th or 10th grade. Upon passing, they can begin taking 3000 (300)-level college courses . A student passing the AP exam in 9th grade has the opportunity to earn enough credits to graduate from high school only two or three courses short of a minor in their second language.

In other districts, like Portland, Oregon, experiential travel opportunities are provided in middle and high school to help students maintain their interest and fluency level in the language. Portland Public Schools is now working with the University of Oregon and a committee of immersion high school students on the Bridging Project: a second blended course option that will take a game format.

6. Develop and maintain ongoing communication among stakeholders;

and 7. Conduct ongoing advocacy efforts to garner and maintain public support.

It is important to have broad support within the school and across the district in order to be viewed as an integral part of the overall curriculum. At Tarwater Elementary in Arizona, Principal Jeff Hensley, spoke to their efforts to get support. They choose a few students of varying levels (not just the best students) and film them each year to show how they are progressing. As they are still a new program, the district is working on an articulation plan and reaching out to the middle and high schools, which will eventually house the immersion students, to ensure that they are properly prepared.

But this outreach is also important for established programs. Culver City Unified School District in California, home of the first public immersion program in the country, is constantly educating parents, administrators, and other teachers on the immersion program and its results. It has now grown into a district level initiative. Seattle Public Schools , also undergoes continuous education of new school board members about the benefits of their program.

At the national level, CELIN is publishing profiles of high-quality programs to help spread best practices across the country as well as to gain support for early immersion programs.

8. Dispel common misperceptions about language learning.

Within the immersion world, there are many myths and rumors floating around. I tried to dispel these for parents in a previous blog . Fred Genesee , Professor of Psychology, McGill University, spends much of his time dispelling myths including the myth that seat time determines proficiency. Much goes into determining proficiency and programs must analyze the inputs and the outputs. For instance, is the teacher only speaking the target language? According to ACTFL it is optimal for teachers to spend at least 90 percent of class time speaking in the target language.

9. Advocate for district and state language supervisors.

To support the overall immersion system, it is critical to have someone advocating for, and serving as a cheerleader of immersion programs at the district and state levels. They help to develop and maintain programsincluding through financial support. States with the most successful immersion programs, such as Delaware, North Carolina, and Utah, all have a world language or global education supervisor at the state level.

In Kentucky, schools with language immersion programs are being rated based on how many students reach a designated proficiency level. This push from the state can entice schools to focus more on language proficiency and less on seat time.

10. Remember that money matters.

No one really needs to be told that money mattersbudgeting issues have always placed constraints on programs. Immersion teachers are budgeted as regular classroom teachers, making them less likely to be cutin contrast to part-time (FLES) programs, which are budgeted as a line item, often placing them first on the chopping block during times of austerity.

Funding is also a responsibility of the politiciansmany of whom love to tout the success of immersion programs publicly, but then cut funding for these programs when budgets need to be cut.

I firmly believe that immersion programs are a way to achieve equity in schools across the countryespecially in places with high English Language Learner populations. The study done in Portland, Oregon found that ELL students in immersion programs learn English faster and have a statistically significant greater chance...(to) be exited out of ELL services, than those who are not, says Michael Bacon , assistant director of dual-language programs.

And not only do immersion programs lead to higher literacy gains for all populations of students, but they also lead to global competence and an increased understanding of other cultures. This has never been more important than it is now as our country continues to grow more diverse .

Connect with Heather and Asia Society on Twitter.

Image: 2nd grade math lesson at Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School. Courtesy: Ann-Marie VanTassell Photography.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged China on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent to support Indias bid for a membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).





But in faraway Seoul, there was no breakthrough at the NSG plenary in the face of stiff Chinese-led opposition.



As Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping held talks in Tashkent, Indias case, though not on the formal agenda, was taken up at a special post-dinner meeting of NSG members in the South Korean capital after Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session.



The member countries remained divided over Indias entry because it is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Besides China, which has been vocal in its opposition to Indias membership, it is understood that countries like Turkey, Austria, New Zealand and Ireland took the stand that no exception can be made.



Clearly, Modis efforts have not changed the Chinese position, but what transpires on Friday, the final day of the two-day plenary, remains to be seen.



Officials push India case

Indian diplomats, led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to press Indias case, though they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of Indias membership. Jaishankar has met a number of delegation leaders in this regard.

About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary which was preceded by official-level session that began on June 20.





Seeking Chinas support for Indias membership, Modi urged Xi to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application which is before the Seoul plenary. The two leaders are in Tashkent for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.



The line take by Modi was that New Delhis case should be judged on its own merits and that China should contribute to an emerging consensus in Seoul.

That there was no immediate commitment by Xi was indicated by External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup who refused to comment saying: You know, it is a complex and delicate process. We are waiting (to see) what kind of news comes from Seoul. I will not make any more comments on this.








Cab aggregators such as Uber are providing local transport by violating Section 88(9) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, under which all-India permits are given only to tourist vehicles, the state government told the High Court on Thursday.



Not just that, many of the cab aggregators provide car-pooling or shared services without proper permits, Additional Advocate General A S Ponnanna said in the governments statement of objections to a batch of petitions filed by Uber India and others. The aggregators have argued that they do not come under Section 93 of the said Act, which mandates that the agent or canvasser soliciting customers for transport service obtain a valid licence from the authorities concerned.



They challenged the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016, arguing that these were framed erroneously by implementing Section 93 of the said Act, with on-demand transportation technology aggregator platforms and service providers being considered agents/canvassers.



In reality, the petitioners said, they come under the Information Technology Act since they provide a digital platform, by connecting existing cab drivers holding valid permits to passengers seeking taxi services, through the mobile application. They want the rules to be stayed and later struck down.



The government countered the argument. A customer hires a cab and enters the vehicle on the basis of a representation from the aggregators who in turn have an agreement with the drivers, therefore they clearly come under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, Ponnanna said.



The new rules have been framed so that these cabs do not fleece customers, he said.



Ponnanna said the aggregators argument that they come under the Information Technology Act was incorrect as their business module had to be looked in totality and not merely how they were connected.



Hearing the arguments, Justice Aravind Kumar extended the interim order until the next hearing on June 28. Accordingly, aggregators will not introduce surge pricing while the government will not insist on police verification reports for processing the licence applications of cab companies. Additionally, the government will not take any coercive action to implement the rules.


Recent debates over guns, which have touched heavily on school violence, have often focused on the availability of powerful semi-automatic rifles . So it may come as a surprise that some school district police departments stock these types of guns, including AR-15s and modified weapons obtained through a military surplus program.

Questions about whether school-based officers should obtain or carry such powerful weapons run parallel to a larger question in debates over how to prevent school shootings: Is the burden of addressing such rare but devastating incidents on schools, which have fortified their safety measures in recent years? Or should society at large play a greater role through changes like tighter gun restrictions and increased access to mental health programs?

Newtown Families Sued the Maker of the AR-15

Among the incidents frequently mentioned in U.S. Sen. Chris Murphys 15-hour floor speec h that led to failed Senate votes on four gun-related bills this week: The shooter in the killings of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando used a Sig Sauer MCX rifle , and the gunman in the 2012 shootings of 26 schoolchildren and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle , both semi-automatic rifles known for speed and ease of use.

Sandy Hook also played a major role in House Democrats sit-in to push for votes on gun-related bills, which started Wednesday morning.

Families of Sandy Hook victims have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bushmaster Firearms, arguing that the AR-15 was designed as a military weapon, was designed to deliver maximum carnage with extreme efficiency, and that it has little utility for legitimate civilian purposes. The defendants chose to disregard the unreasonable risks the rifle posed outside of specialized, highly regulated institutions like the armed forces and law enforcement, the suit says.

Time and again, mentally unstable individuals and criminals have acquired an AR-15 with ease, and they have unleashed the rifles lethal power into our streets, our malls, our places of worship, and our schools, the complaint says.

But attorneys for Remington Arms, the parent company of Bushmaster, argued in a motion to dismiss the case that its not the role of the court to determine if it is appropriate for civilians to possess such powerful weapons.

Its not the role of this court or perhaps a jury to decide whether civilians as a broad class of people are not appropriate to own these kinds of firearms, James Vogts, an attorney for Remington Arms, said at a hearing this week, according to Reuters.

Also this week, the U.S. Supreme Court left in place state-level bans on military-style assault weapons in New York and Connecticut.

School Police Acquire AR-15s, Semi-Automatic Rifles

Would Republican- or Democrat-backed bills voted down by the Senate this week have prevented any mass shootings? Thats a question for another blogger, but you can read about how some previous shooters got their guns in this New York Times feature.

One thing is for sure: The use of powerful weapons capable of killing with speed and accuracy has weighed heavily in school safety discussions. Around the country, lawmakers have passed measures requiring more regular school lock-down drills , annual audits of school safety plans, and inspections of buildings to find ways to limit access and passage for armed intruders. When perpetrators are armed with such powerful weapons, quick response times are key, school safety experts say.

And, in some cases, school police have opted to carry semi-automatic rifles themselves, sometimes raising questions from parents and civil rights advocates concerned about the role of police in schools. A few examples:



School-based police in at least 22 districts in eight states have acquired modified M-14 and M-16 rifles , grenade launchers, and fortified vehicles through a military surplus program, watchdog groups found in 2014. The Los Angeles School Police Department, which had 61 of the rifles, defended them as essential life-saving items, but the agency later committed to returning them to the Department of Defense under pressure from community activists.

, grenade launchers, and fortified vehicles through a military surplus program, watchdog groups found in 2014. The Los Angeles School Police Department, which had 61 of the rifles, defended them as essential life-saving items, but the agency later committed to returning them to the Department of Defense under pressure from community activists. In 2013, the president of the San Diego school board questioned school police officers use of AR-15s , a decision that was made without board approval, the Union-Tribune reported. The weapons had been deployed when schools were put on lockdown due to a shooting threat.

, a decision that was made without board approval, the Union-Tribune reported. The weapons had been deployed when schools were put on lockdown due to a shooting threat. In 2015, the school board in Compton Unified in south Los Angeles County approved a policy that would allow school police there to carry AR-15s in the trunks of their patrol cars, drawing national media coverage. Critics called the use of such weapons a needless escalation of force, NBC reported. But, supporters of the proposal say the standard police handgun is not capable of piercing soft body armor and are only accurate up to 25 feet, the report said. They say in an active shooter scenario, the standard issue weapon might not be enough to stop the threat to students and staff.

Theres not national data on the kind of weapons school police use, and those who carry semi-automatic rifles seem to be in the minority. But there are also examples of school police carrying semi-automatic rifles, typically in their vehicles, in places like Utah , Colorado , Florida .

What do you think? Should school-based officers carry such weapons? Should schools take other steps to address student safety?

Photo: A newly assembled AR-15 rifle is displayed in 2013 at the Stag Arms company in New Britain, Conn. --Charles Krupa/AP-File

Related reading about school safety:

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Kansas lawmakers will go into whats expected to be a grueling and combative special session Thursday to figure out how to address a state supreme court order to equalize the states school funding formula. Failing to do so by June 30 would result in the court shutting off all state aid, potentially forcing the closing of the states school system.

In May, the Kansas Supreme Court said the states $4 billion in education spending favors wealthy districts over poor ones, effectively violating the states constitution. The funding formula leaves poor districts around $38 million short, the court determined. Poor districts usually make up for that money by increasing their local property taxes.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has said since the ruling that he now supports providing $38 million to poor districts. But he hasnt specified how he would manage to find that money in a very tight budget. Revenue has fallen short for the past several months after Brownback made a series of income tax cuts in 2012 and 2013.

The states Democrats, who are in the minority in the legislature, have proposed pulling money from the states job creation, welfare funds and an emergency school aid fund. They also have proposed closing a tax loophole for private school vouchers.

Several Republicans have proposed pouring $50 million into the school funding formula to prevent wealthy suburban districts, namely politically powerful Johnson County schools, from losing money amid a funding formula redistribution. This is essentially a hold harmless provision, and the court has previously frowned on this sort of move, something the lawyers of the four districts that originally sued have repeatedly pointed out in recent days.

Republican Derek Schmidt, the states attorney general, last week asked the court in an amicus brief to remove its threat to shut down schools if the legislature doesnt act in time. Putting the states students in the middle of a political fight was unnecessary, he argued.

The plaintiffs lawyers in the Gannon v. Kansas case said in response that threatening to close schools is the only way to get the lawmakers to act. Several of the legislators are up for election this fall.

A handful of Republicans want to alter the language in the states constitution to ban the state supreme court from shutting down schools. A separate movement is afoot to remove the justices from the bench this fall.

To get a sense of how desperate the states poor districts are and how lopsided its funding formula is, check out this telling profile by the Joplin Globe of the Galena school district, arguably the poorest district in the state (and the home of a devastating 2011 tornado ). Because of the countys low property values, residents are taxed more than twice as much as residents in the states wealthiest districts, yet the district spends just a third as much on students.

From the story:

[Superintendent Brian] Smith said he has put off buying textbooks and bought a 15-year-old school bus at auction for $6,000 to save money. Amanda Haney, a fourth-grade teacher at Liberty Elementary for 10 years, said she has seen the amount of money the district allocates to her classroom for supplies drop from $1,500 to $300. [Fourth Grade Teacher Amanda] Haney, who also has two daughters who attend district schools, said she buys supplies such as paper, scissors and glue with her own money because many of the students in her classroom start the school year without supplies. Of the school's 169 students, 128 qualified for free or reduced-price lunches last year. "I don't think we do enough for the kids," Haney said. "They need more."

The countys senator, Republican Jake LaTurner, a graduate of the district, told the paper that he feels the supreme court is going too far and the students in the district are receiving a quality education.

Later this year, the court is expected to rule on the adequacy portion of the Gannon case. A ruling in the plaintiffs favor could cost the state more than $400 million, according to the plaintiffs lawyers.

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After deadly clashes between Mexican police and members of a dissident teachers union over the weekend, government and union officials have agreed to talks , according to the Associated Press.

Sundays violence, in which at least eight were killed and more than 100 were injured, are just the latest flashpoint in a long battle over revamping the nations teaching force, which some observers blame, at least in part, for the countrys dismal educational outcomes . The teachers from the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, have been fighting a 2013 government law to evaluate teachers based on mandatory skills tests.

The violent protests, which broke out across the southern state of Oaxaca, followed the arrest of high-profile union leaders, who the government claims have been laundering money to finance protests and enrich themselves.

According to a Monday Associated Press report, police fired on the protestors and all of the dead were civilians, including two with ties to the CNTE . Scores of federal and state police officers were among the injured.

First-term Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012 on the promise of reforming several sectors of the Mexican economy and government, including the long-struggling education system.

Last June, in response to Pena Nietos education-overhaul plan, the CNTE went on an indefinite strike , keeping millions of students out of the classroom, during the days leading up to national congressional elections.

In addition to teacher evaluations, the plan includes provisions for teacher performance pay and promotion, tests for new teachers, and greater government oversight of schools. It also seeks to curb a long-entrenched practice of inheriting and selling teaching positions.

The CTNE, however, saw the law as part of a larger strategy to privatize the nations education system, something not unheard of in Latin America .

According to a 2015 Associated Press report, the CTNE, which is strongest in the poor and heavily indigenous states in the countrys south, complained that the teacher-evaluation tests were unfair and didnt measure the special knowledge needed to teach in Indian and rural areas. CTNE officials say the government should instead be focusing on sending additional resources to poor, rural schools .

Amidst the strike, Pena Nietos administration announced that it would indefinitely suspend the planned teacher-evaluation system, a move which raised questions for some about its commitment to education reform. Shortly after the election, a federal judge reinstated the tests , which have been enshrined in the countrys constitution.

Photo: A federal police helicopter flies overhead as protesting teachers who were blocking a federal highway maintain their positions in the state of Oaxaca, near the town of Nochixtlan, Mexico on June 19. The teachers are protesting against plans to overhaul the countrys education system which include federally mandated teacher evaluations. At least 8 protesters have been confirmed killed. --Luis Alberto Cruz Hernandez/AP
June 23, 2016 -- Omni Design Technologies, Inc. announced the appointment of three distinguished leaders from industry and academia to their advisory board: Professor Anantha Chandrakasan, Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr. Dirk Laukien, President and CEO of Black Forest Ventures, and Venktesh Shukla, Chairman, TiE Global and General Partner at Monta Vista Capital.



With the addition of three advisory board members, Omni Design Technologies continues to grow and build its team of world renowned circuit experts, industry veterans, world class technologists and experienced entrepreneurs.



I am thrilled to welcome these talented and distinguished individuals to our advisory board. Dr. Chandrakasan, Dr. Laukien and Mr. Shukla each will bring unique and invaluable experience and perspective to Omni Design, and I look forward to working closely with them in the years ahead, said Dr. Kush Gulati, President and CEO of Omni Design.



I am delighted to join the Omni Design advisory board, said Dr. Anantha Chandrakasan. There are exciting new opportunities in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and ultra-low-power wireless systems. Omni Design is well positioned in these spaces with their differentiated technology, focusing on ultra-low power, highly integrated circuits and systems.



Anantha P. Chandrakasan is the head of MITs Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept. He received the B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989, 1990, and 1994 respectively. Since September 1994, he has been with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, where he is currently the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has been the Head of the MIT EECS Department since July 2011.He was a co-recipient of several awards including the 2007 ISSCC Beatrice Winner Award for Editorial Excellence and the ISSCC Jack Kilby Award for Outstanding Student Paper (2007, 2008, 2009). He received the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) University Researcher Award and the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits. In 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His research interests include ultra-low-power circuit and system design, energy harvesting, energy efficient RF circuits, and hardware security.



Dirk Laukien, Ph.D. has been an experienced technology investor for 15 years. He is currently President & CEO of Black Forest Ventures LLC, an asset management firm with an investment focus in technology, hospitality, corporate aviation and commercial real estate. Under his leadership, Black Forest Ventures has grown to more than $500M in assets, and provides growth capital to numerous technology companies and start-ups. Dr. Laukien holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Tufts University, and a BA in Physics from Brandeis University. Prior to Black Forest Ventures, he served in senior management roles at publicly-traded and privately-held multinational scientific instrumentation companies. As Senior Vice President of Bruker Corporation, and President and CEO of Bruker Optics, Dr. Laukien has successfully managed numerous M&A, capital raises, and Initial public offerings.



Venktesh Shukla has had a long and varied career that includes sales, marketing, and general management, and has a proven track record of leading companies through rapid growth. As President of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) Silicon Valley and Chairman of TiE Global, he presides over one of the most powerful networks focused on technology startups in Silicon Valley. Venk also started a CIO Forum which connects 25 CIOs from companies, such as Costco, Walmart, Clorox, GE Capital, HCA Health Care and others with the most innovative B2B companies in the Valley. He is also the Founding Chair and active member of TiE Angels, one of the most active Angel investor groups in the Valley. Venktesh holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.Eng in Electronics Engineering from NIT in India.



About Omni Design Technologies:

Omni Design Technologies (http://www.omnidesigntech.com) is a developer of high-performance ultra-low power semiconductor embedded IP cores for connected sensors and other applications. Omnis mission is to provide a wide range of disruptive ultra low power high performance embedded circuits that enable highly differentiated semiconductor systems and plug-and-play system-on-chip (SoC) development. Omni is staffed by semiconductor industry veterans, world class technologists from MIT, and experienced entrepreneurs.






12 Dream Bollywood Selfies That We'd Love To See!
Three Teach for America teachers have resigned from a Rhode Island charter school after their expletive-filled messages calling students idiots and other insults were leaked.

According to the Providence Journal , a Google Doc was emailed out on Monday to the Blackstone Valley Prep school community (including students) from a teacher whose email had been hacked. (Its not clear if this teacher was involved with the messages, but the school said he did not intentionally share them). The Google Doc included 18 pages of screenshots of messages exchanged on Slack, a messaging app. The Journal obtained the screenshots, and is not identifying the names of the teachers. Some excerpts:

Man I wish we could hit them," writes one teacher. Another responds, "Move to Arizona ... Start your own charter and commence with the flogging." She responds: "lol" "HE IS FAILING FIVE CLASSES," writes one teacher. Another responds, "[Expletive]IDIOT. Let him know if he [expletive] up again he will be in my HR. And I will not be so pleasant."

Earlier this week , a 15-year-old student, Hudson Deighan, and her father provided the screenshots to the Providence Journal because Hudson herself was criticized in the messages. Hudson struggles with spelling and worked with one of the teachers on editingshe said he was never mean about her mistakes and she thought she had a good personal relationship with him. But then:

In a message time stamped June 14 10:13 a.m. on one screenshot -- which aligns with one of Hudson's weekly meetings with her mentor, she said -- the teacher writes: "Here's how Hudson spelled Ta-Nehisi Coates: Tonahese quotes."

Minutes later, another teacher responds: "[expletive] idiot."

When I saw my name I just started crying," Hudson said, exhaling. "I thought I was straightforward with him and he'd be straightforward with me. But I guess he just doesn't like me, and I guess none of the teachers like me at all."

The school launched an investigation into the messages, suspended the teachers, and after confirming that the allegations were true, accepted their resignations, the Journal reported. Further disciplinary measures could be taken, since the school has not completed its investigation.

In a statement provided to the Journal, Teach for America said the teachers actions were not reflective of Teach For Americas core values that we expect our teachers to uphold. The organization added that it fully supports Blackstone Valley Preps actions to address the teachers conduct and that the teachers had been suspended from TFA as well.

But TFA critics have seized on the incident to slam the organization for what they say is inadequate training. Diane Ravitch, the education writer and activist, wrote on her blog that no experienced teacher would have done something so stupid.

To be fair, there have been countless instances of teachers of all levels of experiences behaving badly on social media, so its difficult to attribute this incident to a systemic flaw within TFAs model. But critics like Ravitch say that the five-to-seven weeks of summer training TFA teachers receive before stepping into a classroom isnt anywhere close to the rigorous training received by students who graduate from teacher preparation programs.

In recent years, TFA has slowly de-centralized the organizational model , allowing its regional programs to choose to extend training or add certain components, like social-emotional learning, to the training curriculum.

But despite criticism that TFA needs to better prepare its teachers to engage with the diverse communities they are placed in, the organization recently announced that it was ending a pilot program that gave some of its recruits an additional year of training on social justice topics.

The organization has said that it plans to use feedback from the pilot in its training for new recruits.

More on the criticisms and the future of TFA:

Follow @madeline_will and @EdWeekTeacher on Twitter.
2 wheelers fit with the CNG kit have a significant reduction in the emission of Hydrocarbon and Carbon Monoxide.

The Government of India announced a new scheme to retrofit CNG kits on 2 wheelers. The event kickstarted at the CNG station, CGO Complex, New Delhi and was headed by Dharmendra Pradhan, the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas. He was joined by Prakash Javadekar, the Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The entire project is backed by Gas Authority Limited(GAIL) and Indra Prastha Gas limited.

Its being estimated that 2 wheelers fitted with the CNG kits will emit 75 percent less hydrocarbons compared to a petrol-powered 2 wheeler. There will also be a 20 percent decrease in the emission of carbon monoxide. The huge improvement in emissions is a major step in the right direction and should help reduce air pollution significantly. The project will be initially run as a pilot project, aiming to attract more and more riders to adopt the CNG kits. These kits are stated to be approved by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI).
Each variant will also have a Hi-Fi audio chip and house quick charging.

Xiaomis Mi Note series has been a flagship of sorts for the company. Last year, the Xiaomi Mi Note launched with good specifications for the time. Now, after almost 18 months, details are emerging about the successor of the Mi Note.

According to the latest information available, the Chinese brand is not working on one, but three variants of the Mi Notes successor: a standard version, a 'High' model and one with curved display. The standard version is touted to have a single primary camera module, a Hi-Fi audio chip and "regular" quick charge feature. The 'High' variant is expected to feature dual-camera imaging module on the back, which will be a first for Xiaomi. It will also have "super quick charging", along with the Hi-Fi audio chip as seen on the standard variant. The top of the line Mi Note 2 will also be sporting a curved screen display, alongside retaining the super quick charging and Hi-Fi audio chip.

While further specifications are not available at the moment, we can probably expect the standard variant to come with 4GB of RAM, and the higher variants with 6GB of RAM. Display sizes should be identical to the first gen Mi Note with 1080p resoltion, or maybe even QHD, if Xiaomi decides to go all out. The curved model can be expected to present a 2K resolution display.

There have been no mention of possible release dates or pricing, but going by the features listed in the leaks, the Mi Note 2 would possibly be on the higher end of Xiaomi's pricing range.
A break in the clouds of political uncertainty might allow European airline carriers shares to recover some of the year-to-date drop, UBS said.

Investors have been eyeing downside risks to the earnings of companies in the space due to fuel price increases and capacity additions.

However, political uncertainty had also been a factor in the EU airlines index's approximate 17% year-to-date drop, with a 7% decline having come in just the last 30 days, analyst Jarrod Castle said in a research note sent to clients.

"We also think that political uncertainty has added to concerns and this overhang will reduce in the coming weeks. Perhaps investors' will find a renewed appetite for the airline space" he said.

Given the compression in valuation multiples as a result of the potential risks surrounding the referendum, Castle said he saw upside potential to share prices going into the second quarter results reporting season in July.

The analyst said he continued to be positive on RyanAir, IAG and Lufthansa, sticking with 'buy' ratings on all three stocks.

As an aside, in the same report he also expounded a constructive view on shares of airport operators Aena and Flughafen Zurich on expectations for solid growth in their seat capacity throughout the remainder of 2016
Can a Spiked Drink Prompt a Crime Spree?

When people are in custody they may say strange things to be released. But the defense presented at the bond hearing in a Georgia case this month really takes the cake. The accused says her drink was spiked at a Chick-fil-A and that this led to a crime spree ending in a murder charge, among others.

Kristie Renee Nesby, 43, was reportedly denied bond and will be held in custody awaiting resolution of the charges arising from her dramatic and deadly day. So watch what you drink and where, lest your beverage be spiked, as this is not a nice story and there is probably no happy ending written into Nesby's future.

The Spree

According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Nesby, who is from Fresno, had a very bad day in Cobb County, Georgia in May. She says that her drink was spiked at a Chick-fil-A (no mention of what the poison might be in the AJC report) and that this prompted her to do what she did next.

For whatever reason, Nesby robbed a cleaning business, then drove into an elderly woman on the sidewalk in a stolen vehicle. She did not stop for the 71-year-old victim, who later died, but kept on driving. Next, the accused stole another car and made her way to Atlanta, where she wrecked the vehicle but remained determined. She ran down the street waving a gun, according to police. They arrested her as she was allegedly attempting to steal another car.

Proving the Case

In light of this series of crimes, Nesby was denied bond at the hearing this month. Her claim about the spiked drink seems wild but strange things do happen to drinks when people slip away. In February, also in the Atlanta area, a waitress was arrested for spiking a colleague's drink at the diner where they worked. Last month, in a restaurant in California, two women caught a man red-handed as he was spiking his date's drink. So it's possible that Nesby was somehow poisoned.

Proving this will be difficult, especially if she wasn't tested upon arrest which she probably was not. Toxicology results are currently pending. Evidence that the drink was spiked does not exempt her from criminal liability either, although it would be one more wild fact to consider in the case about that crazy day in May. Nesby is charged with murder, vehicular homicide, hit and run, aggravated assault (multiple counts), armed robbery, vehicle hijacking, reckless driving and failure to maintain a lane, according to local police.

Accused?

If you have been accused of a crime, don't delay to speak to an attorney and get help with your defense. Many criminal defense attorneys consult for free or a minimal fee and will be happy to discuss your case.

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London stocks and the pound both moved higher on Thursday morning as polling stations opened for the UK referendum on EU membership, following a late tilt towards the Remain campaign in polls overnight.

The FTSE 100 climbed around 28 points or 0.45% to 6,289.71, while the more UK-focused 250 was up 64 points or 0.38% to 17,107.55 just after 0900 BST.

All of the FTSE sectors opened in the green, with energy and miners the frontrunners in London.

The pound traded to a fresh six-month high of 1.4844 against the US dollar.

European markets opened tentatively higher following another mixed session in Asia and a negative US finish as markets around the world cross their fingers about the Brexit vote.

"Despite the positive trend in the UK markets, the event risk remains high," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya

market analyst at LCG. "The sentiment could rapidly turn sour should the slightest panic regarding the Brexit vote hit the headlines. Any sell-off could gain momentum as many investors would not hesitate to close their long positions and turn flat before the outcome of the historical Brexit referendum. Offers are eyed at 6300/6325 zone."

Financial markets were pretty calm, with investors seemingly hopeful of a Remain vote but overnight polls suggesting a neck-and-neck race.

The latest polls from ComRes for the Daily Mail and ITV and the polls conducted by YouGov for the Times both showed an increase in support for the Remain campaign.

In terms of data, the preliminary Eurozone composite PMI was down, as Manufacturing PMI was up and Services PMI down.

In the afternoon, watch out for Chicago Fed National Activity Index and Kansas City Fed manufacturing, both forecast flat for the latest months data although US PMI Manufacturing may be on for a small gain in June. US New Home Sales are seen lower in May while the US Leading Index may barely have grown in May.

Oil prices continued to rise, with Brent crude 0.6% stronger at $50.17a barrel and West Texas Intermediate up 0.5% at $49.36.

Corporate news was thin on the ground, but Tesco rallied in London after the supermarket operator's first-quarter results confirmed sales growth continued for the second successive period.

AstraZeneca was slightly lower after it confirmed disappointing news to investors on Thursday, with updated guidance from US regulators its FluMist Quadrivalent influenza vaccine is not used this coming season.

This was based on CDC vaccine effectiveness data from the last three flu seasons in the US, which indicated FluMist did not demonstrate statistically significant effectiveness in children aged between two and 17.

In the FSTE 250, packaging company DS Smith was a riser after it reported a small jump in full-year profit as revenue grew, partly thanks to acquisitions.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,294.04 0.52%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 17,105.23 0.36%

techMARK (TASX) 3,077.86 0.37%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Glencore (GLEN) 153.05p 2.82%

Tesco (TSCO) 169.65p 1.92%

CRH (CRH) 2,074.00p 1.92%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,505.00p 1.64%

Anglo American (AAL) 681.10p 1.58%

Fresnillo (FRES) 1,235.00p 1.56%

TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 1,045.00p 1.55%

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 2,692.00p 1.51%

Merlin Entertainments (MERL) 436.20p 1.49%

Imperial Brands (IMB) 3,683.00p 1.45%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

United Utilities Group (UU.) 930.50p -2.77%

Standard Chartered (STAN) 561.40p -0.94%

Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,177.00p -0.93%

RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 479.90p -0.87%

Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,127.00p -0.53%

Next (NXT) 5,435.00p -0.46%

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,228.00p -0.40%

BAE Systems (BA.) 500.50p -0.40%

Experian (EXPN) 1,317.00p -0.38%

Provident Financial (PFG) 2,837.00p -0.32%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Ocado Group (OCDO) 266.00p 6.78%

Circassia Pharmaceuticals (CIR) 110.30p 4.55%

Smith (DS) (SMDS) 403.20p 4.21%

Centamin (DI) (CEY) 108.10p 3.15%

Domino's Pizza Group (DOM) 1,036.00p 2.57%

Aldermore Group (ALD) 209.20p 2.55%

Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 71.60p 2.51%

Hill & Smith Holdings (HILS) 921.00p 2.39%

CMC Markets (CMCX) 278.40p 2.09%

Inchcape (INCH) 677.00p 1.88%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Shawbrook Group (SHAW) 286.30p -2.82%

Debenhams (DEB) 67.80p -2.73%

Mitie Group (MTO) 263.80p -2.30%

Henderson Group (HGG) 258.90p -2.23%

Elementis (ELM) 204.50p -2.01%

TR Property Inv Trust (TRY) 302.00p -1.79%

Ascential (ASCL) 258.00p -1.75%

Cairn Energy (CNE) 187.40p -1.37%

Essentra (ESNT) 519.50p -1.33%

Keller Group (KLR) 959.00p -1.13%
BGEO Group announced on Thursday that its wholly-owned subsidiary JSC BGEO Investments has acquired the remaining 75% equity stake in Georgian Global Utilities for cash consideration of $70m.

The FTSE 250 firm said that as a result of the buy-out, it will own 100% of GGU, with the transaction expected to be both earnings and book value accretive from day one.

Its board described GGU as a privately-owned company that benefits from a natural monopoly, that supplies water and provides wastewater services through its wholly-owned subsidiaries to 1.4 million people, or one third of Georgias total population, in Tbilisi, Mtskheta and Rustavi.

GGU was privatised in 2008, with the terms of the privatisation including certain commitments by the government and the investor, parts of which have been discharges, with an expectation that the remaining commitments - primarily requiring the refurbishment of assets - will be discharged in 2018.

BGEOs board said in a statement that it believes that GGU operates in a stable regulatory environment.

CEO Irakli Gilauri said he is delighted to announce the successful purchase of the remaining 75% stake in GGU.

The buy-out of the remaining 75% of GGU fits into our strategy to acquire attractive businesses which can be monetized within a six year period, via an IPO or an M&A trade, Gilauri explained.

We remain committed to our principle of buying attractive businesses, and this purchase at a 4.2x EV / EBITDA multiple is expected to be earnings accretive from day one.

Gilauri said the existing management team has delivered a strong improvement in the performance of GGU during the past year.

This track record was important to our decision to step-up our investment and become the 100% shareholder of the business.

I look forward to working with the GGU team to deliver its expected strategy and to grow the business with an aim to crystalize the value within 3-5 years, Gilauri added.
The pensions lifeboat is to demand that a second administrator is appointed to BHS amid accusations of a close relationship between current administrator Duff & Phelps and the retailers former owner Sir Philip Green, the Guardian reported without citing sources.

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF), an industry-backed body that acts as a safety net for the pensions of insolvent companies and is BHSs biggest creditor, is to call for the appointment of FRP Advisory at a creditors meeting on Thursday, the report said.

BHS collapsed into administration in April, with liquidation following earlier this month after failing to find a credible buyer, putting 11,000 jobs at risk and leaving a 571m pension deficit.

The Guardian said it understood that the PPF has wanted other advisers to be appointed alongside Duff & Phelps for several weeks, although it would not comment on the source of its concern.

The new administrator would have a role in investigating the conduct of BHSs former directors, including under Green, who controlled the company for 15 years before selling it for 1 last year to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt.

In a report published this month and seen by the Guardian, Duff & Phelps said it had uncovered a number of financial transactions within BHS Ltd, the main trading company, that required further investigation. It said: Additional information is required to understand the true nature of the transactions.

The likely appointment of a second administrator comes amid close scrutiny of the demise of the company, including two inquiries by Mps.

On Tuesday it emerged that MPs had asked Greens wife, Tina, to explain the very opaque web of family companies behind the couples retail empire.

Digital Look was waiting for a reply from Duff & Phelps at the time of publication.
Digitimes Research: Tablet AP shipments in China to decrease 2.9% in 2016

China's tablet-use application processor (AP) shipments are expected to decrease 2.9% in 2016 as a result of poor tablet sales, according to Digitimes Research.

China's tablet AP shipments will increase 6% sequentially to 20.4 million units in the second quarter of 2016, thanks to a pick-up in demand. Meanwhile, inventory adjustments in the tablet supply chain have come to an end with device vendors starting to rebuild their inventory, said Digitimes Research.

On an annual basis, however, China's tablet AP shipments for second-quarter 2016 will represent a 2.9% decrease. Nevertheless, the on-year drop is less significant compared to the more than 10% decreases in previous quarters, Digitimes Research indicated.

Spreadtrum Communications is expected to outperform other tablet AP firms in terms of shipment growth during the second quarter of 2016, Digitimes Research noted. Spreadtrum will enjoy shipment growth of 36.4% sequentially in the second quarter, buoyed by rising orders for entry-level tablets.

Content from this article was part of a complete Digitimes Research Chinese-language report that has not yet been translated into English. If you are interested in an English version of the report or wish to receive more information about the report, click here to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Digitimes Research also provides quarterly tracking services for market sectors such as China Smartphone, China Smartphone AP, Taiwan ICT and Taiwan FPD. Click here for more information about Digitimes Research Tracking services.
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Over 40,000 more Ohioans have voted early compared to 2018

135,899 Ohioans have already cast their vote  over 40,000 more than at this point in the 2018 gubernatorial election.
High Court Says VA Must Open More Bids to Veteran-Owned Businesses

Sometimes but not that often everyone on the US Supreme Court agrees on a topic. That is what happened last week when the eight justices had to consider government contracts for veteran-owned businesses. The nation's highest court decided last week that the Department of Veteran Affairs must set aside more contracts to be filled by veteran-owned small businesses, and that it's not optional as lower courts ruled.

The court's reasoning was remarkably simple and straightforward, and its decision turned on one word: "shall." The hope is that veterans in business will be awarded more government contracts as a result. Let's consider the case, reported by The Washington Post.

The Rule of Two

This case arises from a law requiring the Department of Veteran Affairs to give preference to veterans when awarding contracts. Under the "Rule of Two," if at least two veteran-owned businesses can compete for a contract, then bidding must be limited to veteran businesses as long as the "award can be made at a fair and reasonable price that offers best value to the United States."

Kingdomware Technologies filed suit when the rule was ignored for the purposes of a medical service contract, and the claim made its way up the federal courts. In Kingdomware Technologies v. US, the court of appeals did not find that application of the Rule of Two was a requirement when the VA met its quota of awarding 12 percent of its contracts to veteran-owned businesses.

But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a unanimous court, stated that application of the rule is not optional. He pointed to use of the word shall in the law. "Unlike the word 'may,' which implies discretion, the word 'shall' usually connotes a requirement," Thomas wrote.

Contracting With Gov

This decision will lead to more awards of government contracts to those who have served in the military and are now in business. "The court's ruling means that more veterans will have the opportunities that Congress wanted them to have to build their business through competition before the VA," said Luke McLoughlin, who filed briefs on behalf of veteran-owned business associations.

Consult With Counsel

If you're bidding for a government contract and need guidance -- regardless of whether you are a veteran -- or just need help with any other aspect of business operations, speak to a lawyer. Get help.

Follow FindLaw for Consumers on Google+.

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The Tricky Topic of Religious Accommodation in Public Places

The New York Times editorial board this month published a problematic opinion piece that is illustrative of the difficulties and ironies that can arise in human rights law. The editorial is about segregated swimming sessions for women in one Brooklyn swimming pool, and it expresses outrage that a public location accommodates the needs of its community's religious women.

Citing city humidity and human rights law, the newspaper's editorial board demands that the city swimming pool cease the accommodation --- a few sessions a week reserved for segregated sex swimming in recognition of the needs of Orthodox Jewish women. The editorial, like the issue itself, reveals just how tricky the topic of religious accommodation can be.

Minority Matters

The problem, according to the NYT, is that the special sessions provided for the women of Brooklyn who are forbidden by their religion from swimming with men violates New York human rights law, which provides for no exclusions from public spaces. The accommodation was instituted in the 90s and there were reportedly no serious objections to the segregated swimming hours ... until an anonymous complainant this year demanded all equal access to the pool all the time.

Based on the anonymous complaint, the pool on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn (once an Orthodox Jewish and African American area, now also occupied by hipsters whose parents may be on the NYT editorial board) changed the pool schedule and removed the special sessions. This change prompted complaints from people in the neighborhood -- ladies who wanted to swim -- and the city reinstated the segregated sessions, saying it's working out a balance now.

Oh Irony

But if it were up to the NYT editorial board, women would get no segregated swim sessions and that is in the interest of equality. The paper strongly objects to religious accommodation for Orthodox Jewish women, claiming it violates human rights law. Meanwhile, the community is claiming that accommodating women is a human rights win. Which is it?

Well, it's hard to say. Technically the law is designed to ensure that no one can be kept out of the pool based on who they are. But realistically, the Orthodox Jewish women of Bedford Avenue are requesting accommodation, not exclusion of others based on bias but recognition of their own needs, which the city has been able to meet with just a few separate sessions per week.

It seems a little disingenuous to shout about equality and human rights law when the accommodation being made for modest women is quite modest itself: a few sessions in which women can swim without the presence of men. This is an accommodation that works for other religious women too, not just Orthodox Jews. Yet the paper sounds confident that the women deserve no consideration, writing, "Let those who cannot abide public, secular rules at a public, secular pool find their own private place to swim when and with whom they see fit."

It's a nice line with a nice rhyme scheme but the sentiment the paper is expressing stinks. What it's saying is that a group of minority women whose rights are few should have their accommodation removed because of equality ... and Brooklyn's men must be able to swim at every pool session or justice will not be served. With a case like this, it's easy to see how logic and human rights law are perverted.

Consult With Counsel

If you are concerned about access to a public space or religious accommodation, talk to a lawyer. Tell your story and find out what recourse, if any, you may have in the law. Many lawyers consult for free or a minimal fee and will be happy to discuss your situation.

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Capturing the past in todays buildings

The celebration of a sites history and the importance of placemaking cannot be lost amid the fast pace of Seattles growth.



By DAVE HEATER

Ankrom Moisan Architects

Heater

Seattle is short on land and experiencing growing pains. Creative reuse of Seattles existing historic fabric could be the solution to the citys need for density while enhancing neighborhood character.

A quick glance at the website Seattle in Progress pulls up a map covered in orange pin-points, each one representing a project that is seeking city approval.

A more thorough search in the commercial real estate database CoStar reveals a startling number of projects being proposed around downtown. In the Central Business District, South Lake Union, Belltown, Denny Triangle, Capitol Hill and Central District areas there are approximately 100 multifamily projects in planning or under construction.

Those numbers support recent U.S. Census Bureau data finding that Seattle is one of the top five big cities for population growth for the third straight year, this time coming in at number four. Increasing by 2.3 percent, Seattle added more than 15,000 new residents between July 2014 and July 2015. With only 84 square miles of land on which to build, and adding thousands of new residents a year, we have to find innovative ways to add density to our city.

With land at a premium, developers are getting creative  and thats a good thing. By combining parcels occupied by smaller underutilized buildings, projects can grow and become very efficient to construct; however, eliminating some of the existing architectural feel of a neighborhood is an easy way to upset current residents.

Seattle has struggled to find ways to encourage adaptive reuse without rejecting developers who are pouring billions of dollars into our local economy and adding much needed density.

Conservation through integration

Images from Ankrom Moisan Architects [enlarge] Alliance Residential restored or rebuilt five century-old facades from three buildings as part of its 250-apartment complex on Capitol Hill called Broadstone Infinity.

In 2009, the Seattle City Council expanded the Pike/Pine Overlay District boundaries in order to capture more of Capitol Hills auto row heritage buildings under its guidelines. These include limited project sizes and incentives for preserving parts of older character structures in new developments.

Ankrom Moisan worked with Alliance Residential on the first project developed under these guidelines. In the process, we restored or rebuilt five facades from three early-1900s buildings and incorporated them into the larger development called Broadstone Infinity. Now filled with thriving dining and retail tenants, Broadstone Infinity has improved the pedestrian experience while retaining the architectural language of the neighborhood and adding nearly 250 new apartments to Capitol Hill.

Under similar guidelines, Ankrom Moisan assisted AvalonBay Communities with integrating the former Phil Smart Mercedes dealership at 600 E. Pine into a 320,000-square-foot mixed-use project. The original car decking, brick walls and structural beams are now part of amenity spaces for residents and storefronts for retailers. The areas history as auto row is celebrated through the use of metal cladding on the exterior, and artwork and related materials on the interior.

We also worked with MacFarlane Partners on redeveloping a site in South Lake Union near Denny Park. Surprisingly, after beginning the design of the six-story, mixed-use apartment building for the client, the exterior of the 1930 art deco automobile garage on the site was designated as a Seattle landmark. In revisiting the project, we found a way to incorporate the concrete structure into the new building, designing it as ground-floor restaurant space. Today, the Mark on 8th is open and its 175 apartments are quickly leasing up.

Landmark reimagined

[enlarge] 901 Harrison tower retained the exterior of the 1927 Pioneer Sand & Gravel Co. headquarters.

Using lessons learned from these projects, when our clients approached us about studying another site they owned in South Lake Union for high-rise housing, we suggested they self-nominate the existing building on the site. By self-nominating the former Pioneer Sand & Gravel Co. headquarters at 901 Harrison, MacFarlane Partners and the design team would be able to navigate the entitlements and landmark board schedules proactively instead of reactively.

The 1927 buildings exterior was deemed distinctive, and we moved forward with the design of a mixed-use development, incorporating the landmarked building into the podium of a 24-story tower. When completed, it will be the tallest residential tower in South Lake Union, towering 60 feet over its neighbors, but the pedestrian experience will be dialed in to the restored Mission Revival building housing retail along the sidewalk.

The celebration of a sites history and the importance of placemaking cannot be lost amid the fast pace of Seattles growth. For this reason, architects and developers should look for ways to connect new developments to the neighborhoods history through storytelling, especially when incorporating character structures into new construction.

The design concept for 901 Harrison contrasts the sites history as a stone and gravel supplier with the areas future: computer technology. A gabion stone and concrete wall marks the entrance to the building and emphasizes the separation between the old and the new. From a base using ultra thin cement-based panels, the tower gradually builds in transparency as it moves upward. Just as Seattles industries have evolved, so have our building materials and methods.

Looking ahead

With dozens of construction cranes in the downtown Seattle area, it is important that developers, architects and planners get creative about how to provide density while honoring the citys history. For many of our clients, that has led to interesting and complex projects with a strong sense of place.

Despite the additional challenges that come with celebrating a historic structure in a modern development, the result can be a thoughtful design expression that strengthens a communitys urban fabric.

Dave Heater joined Ankrom Moisan in 1990 and moved to Seattle in 2006 to open the firms second office. Today he is president of Ankrom Moisan, which has offices in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco.













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By JAMES MacPHERSON

Associated Press

BISMARCK, N.D.  A worker was killed in a crane accident at an oil well site in western North Dakota, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday.

The incident, which happened late Monday near Ross in Mountrail County, was the second oilfield-related death in North Dakota's oil patch in the past week, the federal agency said.





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High rise vs. low rise  which is greener?

Towers may seem more efficient from an urban planning point of view, but they use more energy than low rises.



By TOM MARSEILLE

WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff

Marseille

At last count, there were 16 tall towers going up in Seattle. Our high-rise boom is clearly following the global trend of increasing urbanization.

The data suggests that while in 2014 more than half of the worlds population lived in urban areas, by 2050 this is predicted to rise to two-thirds, with 2.5 billion new city dwellers  the equivalent of constructing five cities the size of Beijing every year until then.

But, we are actually living at the crossroads of not one but two significant trends: urbanization and climate change. Cities are responding to the trend toward urbanization by reaching for the sky. And many argue this is also a more sustainable forward path than a continuing horizontal expansion.

At first blush, high-rise buildings enable more people to live, work and spend their leisure time or access public services in a relatively small area, and that drives more efficient mass transportation. So, from an urban planning point of view, towers are very sustainable.

But, can a high-rise building ever truly be greener than a low-rise building in terms of energy consumption?

Viewed with business-as-usual thinking and technology, the simple answer is no. If you are going to wash clothes or take a shower on the 40th floor, you have to bring the water up there. When you come home from work or shopping and hop on an elevator, you consume more energy relative to if you lived on the ground floor.

Standing out on the skyline, a tall building is more exposed to solar heat gain, and can require greater amounts of cooling to maintain a comfortable temperature. While Seattle summers may be getting warmer, there are still good opportunities to design effective natural ventilation, and full passive cooling without any air conditioning for low-rise buildings. In contrast, our tallest buildings create design challenges relative to low-rise buildings to even mechanically ventilate, much less use operable windows to naturally ventilate.

Image by Pickard Chilton Architects [enlarge] Skanskas 38-story office tower planned for Second and University in downtown Seattle is designed to LEED gold standards.

Energy demands tend to be higher for towers, and strategies developed for low-rise buildings may not be effective for high-rises.

Yet, at a minimum we are being challenged by an increasingly stringent Seattle energy code to consider whats possible. And unique challenges aside, those do not mean a designer cannot put knowledge, skills and creativity to work and devise a high-rise building that uses dramatically less energy than its peers.

In Portland, the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building is a recent award-winning example of what is possible in a multi-tenant high rise. The Stone34 project in Seattle, developed and built by Skanska, while not a high-rise tower, established a benchmark for high performance. That spirit has carried forward as Skanska is now developing a commercial high-rise tower at Second and University in our urban core.

Opening windows

As with any other building, a more sustainable outcome starts with evaluating what is specific and unique about a project and its site, and pursuing appropriate passive strategies that result in improved energy performance. For a high-rise building, that means first focusing on improving the facade  ideally considering building orientation  to reduce the need for heating and cooling. And while reflecting as much of the suns heat away as possible is the summer goal, the design also needs to make the best use of natural light.

The higher winds and other climatic variations you find between the street and penthouse in a high rise present both a challenge and an opportunity. Seattleites still largely prefer the option to open their windows and enjoy fresh air in abundance when weather permits. Whereas in a sealed building, you have to constantly pump in fresh air and exhaust stale air, using more energy.

Opening an upper story window is not an easy thing to do on a high rise. We have to design the facade so you can get the fresh air we want but the wind doesnt blow the window off or blow a gale through your home or office. So, the aim is to provide the ability to shut down the air-conditioning when outdoor conditions allow, as opposed to being forced to use it all the time.

With passive strategies at the facade in play, synergies then open up for the economic use of efficient mechanical systems. Better facades result in smaller systems, and those mean additional rentable floor space and either potentially higher ceilings as an amenity, or the ability to include more floors in a building within a zoned height limit.

With the evaluation of more efficient systems comes yet another opportunity in high-rise developments. Where those buildings combine offices, homes and other uses, it can enable a more efficient use of resources. Residential buildings have different usage patterns than offices. This presents opportunities to share energy and equipment. A clear synergy results when waste heat from office cooling can be collected and stored during the day and used later as a source for hot water and/or heating for apartments.

As we better understand the energy balance between available resources and building needs, appropriate strategies to accomplish this may be implemented.

Getting to net zero?

Perhaps the last question when considering a 21st century high-rise building is whether it can ever achieve net zero energy. For an urban high rise, its relatively tiny roof area in relation to its size rules out receiving a large benefit using conventional technologies for generating renewable energy, such as photovoltaic or solar thermal panels. The use of building integrated photovoltaics at the cladding of the facade, while helpful, is not as mature or efficient, and within a developing urban core year-long access to the sun is not a given.

And, even if enough renewable energy could be deployed on a high rise to offset energy demand, Seattles downtown uses a networked electrical grid for reliability, so it cannot today safely accept back-fed energy generated on site.

Fortunately, new district paradigms are emerging that are practical, achievable and localized. They take us beyond thinking in terms of site boundaries when considering options for our building projects. The concept of heat sharing  harvesting neighboring energy resources that would otherwise be wasted  is one such opportunity, and can enable the step change needed to achieve high-performance outcomes.

A recent example of heat sharing is Amazon using waste heat from Clise Properties data center for use in its neighboring high-rise office tower.

Urbanization and climate change is our future. With planning, good design and future thinking, we can consider both and deliver great projects in our great city.

Tom Marseille is a senior vice president and director of sustainability for WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff in Seattle.













Other Stories:
One of two remaining Doolittle Raiders passes

With the passing of retired Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, the Air Force Reserve Command offers condolences to the Thatchers and the Doolittle Raider Family.



Thatcher was one of two remaining members of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo led by Air Force Reservist Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle as they flew off the deck of the USS Hornet on April 18th 1942.



Thatcher, 94, died Wednesday in Missoula, Montana,



The Air Force Reserve Command honors Doolittle, Thatcher and so many others as the command reflects on the past 100 years of Reserve Airpower. Looking back at the century of service to our nation, the Air Force Reserve pays honor to the Citizen Airmen who have served and given their lives for the nation and the values it holds dear.


Accusing government entities in Pakistan of aiding terrorist networks in violation of United Nations Security Council mandates, Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mahmoud Saikal said on Tuesday that Islamabad does not need nuclear deals and F-16s to fight terrorists, rather it requires political will and "honest and police action". Speaking at a Security Council debate on the situation in his country, the envoy raised the recent construction of a border post by Pakistan at Torkham, which Kabul says is an incursion into its territory, and 820 artillery shellings of Afghanistan's eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Khost, Paktika, Kunar and Nouristan by Pakistan. In the continuing downward spiral of relations between the two neighbours, he warned Islamabad, "Make no mistake, the proud government and people of Afghanistan have not, do not and will not surrender to intimidation, violence, and aggression. Our history is a testimony to this." Outlining an alarming scenario of far-reaching international threats, Saikal said that Taliban and several terrorist groups were seeking "to turn Afghanistan into a launching pad against Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and the Far East". And "other regional terrorist networks, with links to Central Asian republics, Chechnya and China are highly active in our region", he added in a pointed appeal to Security Council members Russia and China, the patron of Pakistan. Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda are trying to re-emerge in Afghanistan despite the recent "heavy blows" they suffered at hands of the Afghan security forces, while "Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, in coordination with other terror groups, remains a long-term threat to the security and stability of our region", Saikal stressed. "What is more important, most of these terrorist groups and networks enjoy the facilitation and orchestration services of elements within the state structure of Pakistan who believe in the use of violence in pursuit of political objectives," he said. Referring to the killing of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour last month in a US drone strike, the Afghan envoy said the incident exposed his Pakistani passport with a fake name that enabled Mansour to fly around the country. Islamabad's "charade of plausible deniability, duplicity, and blame of Afghan weaknesses continues, which must come to an end if we are to succeed in counter-terrorism", he said. Over the last 15 years several terrorist leaders like Osama Bin Laden of Al Qaida, and Mullah Omar and Mullah Akhtar Mansour of the Taliban have lived and died in Pakistan, he pointed out. "The fact that notorious terrorist leaders were found and killed in their safe havens there, is a clear proof that the country has violated the sovereignty of other nations," Saikal said. "This constitutes a flagrant violation" of the Security Council Resolutions imposing sanctions on the Taliban, he added. India lauded

On a positive note, Saikal spoke of the inauguration of the Afghan-India Friendship Salma dam in Herat and the signing of a transit trade agreement for the Chabahar Port between Afghanistan, India, and Iran. "We have already started to export agricultural products through this new trade route," he said.








It was 1985, the day I started school. I was all proud wearing my dungarees, my bright red wellies, and polo neck jumper. I went into the classroom and all the girls in my class were wearing uniforms, but it didnt bother me. I was just proud starting big school.

I recall the teacher putting me standing on a table and pointing at my clothing. I felt like an outsider and had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was delighted to be the centre of attention. On the other, I didnt know what she was saying, as she was speaking in Irish. It was not until the following year that I got a uniform.

I remember then every day when all the other children were out in the yard one of the nuns would ask me to help do different jobs. When the other children had gone back into class, myself, my cousins, and my big sister would be given big yellow buckets to pick up rubbish in the yard with. Other days I would get to meet my relations and other children I knew well in a different classroom to the other children. Here we would play board and card games. I now realise that the group of us who were treated differently all had one thing in common: We were Travellers.

During Irish class the teacher would ask me to do the projector or clean the blackboard or take the dusters outside to clean. Sometimes I really thought the teachers and nuns spoiled the Traveller children. We didnt have to sit in class all day. We never got much homework. We even got to go home early. The bus that Traveller children rode home on left the school at quarter to three, fifteen minutes before buses and cars collecting the other children arrived. Looking back, I cannot see any reason for this except it meant the Travellers were gone by the time settled childrens parents came to pick them up.

There were other times when the difference made between Traveller and settled children didnt seem like a good thing. I have two clear memories of when Travellers got in trouble at school and the punishment sent a very clear message to us. Both times, one of the nuns called all the Traveller children into her office to watch a number of older Traveller girls being caned repeatedly across the hands for something they had either done or got the blame for. I do not remember or believe that this ever happened to children from the settled community.

My experiences in primary school meant that by the age of twelve I didnt have one word of Irish. (Much later I learned that knowing Irish was a requirement for going to university or joining the civil service.) My reading, writing, and maths were probably around what was normal for a 7- or 8-year-old.

I was the first girl in my family to go to the Tech. I felt proud: I had a uniform and thought I would fit in. During the first weeks the teachers assessed students abilities and decided what classes everyone should be in. Something I remember clearly during this time is that one of the teachers hit a Traveller girl across the head with a foolscap pad because she only had one copy book for all her subjects. She got upset and cried throughout the class. I felt upset and afraid but never dreamed of speaking out.

I began to realise I was really far behind. In Irish class I couldnt even introduce myself. One day I was called to meet a teacher and the principal. They questioned why I didnt have any Irish. They asked if I had ever gone to primary school or had I missed a lot of time because my family was travelling. I never went back after that day. My parents accepted that I wasnt going back. No one from the school ever called, wrote, or picked up a phone to see where I had gone.

I believe that a society should be judged on how it treats its children. Playing games in a separate classroom and helping to clean up after settled children kept us from our learning. Punishing older Traveller girls by caning while we were forced to watch was a lesson to all the younger Travellers. The corporal punishment that Traveller children experienced in Irish schools in the late 1980s and early 1990s had been banned in 1982.

I was a child, and children cannot take responsibility for changing the way they are treated by society. The adult I am now, though, realises my experiences in school were no accident. There was a system in place that prevented Traveller children from achieving. We experienced institutional racism but had no words to describe it.
Blood found on the clothes and right shoe of a man accused of murdering a man in Letterkenny three years ago, matches that of the dead man, a forensic expert told the Central Criminal Court this week.

Dr Alan McGee of Forensic Science Ireland gave evidence at the trial of Krzystof Grzegorski (22), and Dariusz Weckowicz (51).

Both men, who lived in Letterkenny, are accused of the murder of Bogdan Michalkiewicz on May 13 2013 at the deceased's home in Westside, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.

Mr Grzegorski has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. His plea was not accepted by the State.

Mr Weckowicz has pleaded not guilty.

Dr McGee told prosecuting counsel Alex Owens SC at Tuesdays hearing of the trial that he examined shoes, jeans and a jacket that Mr Weckowicz gave to gardai on May 17th, four days after the alleged killing.

He said DNA taken from a blood sample on the right shoe, and further samples on the jeans and jacket, matched that of Bogdan Michalkiewicz.

He said the blood patterns on the jacket suggested that Mr Weckowicz was within two metres of Bogdan while Bogdan was still "actively bleeding".

Speaking to defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC, Dr McGee agreed that the evidence only showed that Mr Weckowicz was in the room.

Mr Grehan said that Bogdan had suffered 17 knife wounds including a cut throat and asked if there was any suggestion from the extent of the blood stains on his clothing that Mr Weckowicz inflicted the injuries.

Dr McGee replied: "I could not rule anything in or out."

Mr Grehan asked if it could be possible that Mr Weckowicz was "present but passed out" and Dr McGee replied: "I can't say."

Speaking to Mr Owens, Dr McGee recalled examining three knives that were found at the scene. Each one had blood that matched Bogdan's.

Dr McGee also examined the leg of a coffee table that was found near Bogdan's body. One end of it was stained with blood, which belonged to Bogdan.

Other samples taken from around the room were found to belong to the dead man.

The Court then heard from John McCullough of Forensic Science Ireland, who said that he examined two cushions and a blanket found at the scene that had bloody footprints on them. He said he found two distinct prints but neither matched the shoes belonging to Mr Weckowicz.

The trial continues in front of Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.
Twilight over burmaTheir story is immortalized by Sao Thusandi, also known as Inge Sargent, in her book, Twilight Over Burma, which was published in 1994. Originally from Austria, she had met and married the prince while both were students in the United States. She was initially held under house arrest before fleeing Burma with her two daughters, Sao Mayari and Sao Kennari, in 1964.

All three now live in the USA and say they have written every year to the Burmese government demanding an explanation to Sao Kya Sengs disappearance. The family say they have never received the courtesy of a reply. Sao Thusandi once confronted Ne Win himself while he was in Austria receiving psychiatric treatment, personally demanding a response. The dictators reaction was reportedly to scurry away from the angry young Austrian woman to the safety of locked doors and armed bodyguards.

Now adapted into a film of the same title, the English-language version was scheduled for a debut screening in Rangoon on Tuesday, June 14th  that was until it was reviewed by the national censorship agency, the Film Classification Board, which includes military representatives and is controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Deemed a threat to national reconciliation, it was abruptly banned, a particularly sad irony given that the venue was to be the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival, which counts Aung San Suu Kyi as its patron.

[It] could damage the ethnic unity of the state, explained a member of the board, Phone Maw, to the Irrawaddy.

Its an official response that, while not completely unexpected, reflects a deep structural problem in Burma, speaking volumes about the limits of Burmas military-guided transition. It is a reaction that is as deeply condescending as it is fatally flawed. At its heart, the unspoken message to many ethnic communities will once again be that accommodating the tatmadaws hypersensitive disinclination to even begin to acknowledge its excesses takes precedence over ethnic histories and lived experiences, dismissing and trivializing human rights issues which are ongoing.

While Twilight Over Burma is the first international movie banned under the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led administration, the vocabulary justifying this action, ethnic unity and reconciliation, and the sentiment behind this reasoning, are nothing new for ethnic communities in Burma, long accustomed to a decades-long pattern of Burman/Buddhist-centric cultural and political homogenization by successive centralized administrations. Until recently, the term reconciliation was not even a part of the official (tatmadaw) lexicon, the generals preferring national reconsolidation. The implication was subjugation, by force or otherwise, a mindset that continues today.

At its most innocuous, this sentiment manifests in the often patronizing ethnic representations adorning tourist trinkets or at events and venues, particularly those catering to foreigners. At the East Asia Summit in November 2014 held in Naypyidaw, dozens of female ushers in colorful ethnic outfits welcomed world leaders. None were ethnic nationalities. A Padaung woman exclaimed to an Associated Press correspondent, Oh, thats fake! Did you think I was really Kayan Padaung?

At its worst, reconsolidation entails the deliberate targeting of ethnic communities in Burma by the tatmadaw with human rights abuses against civilians, a campaign of terror against those perceived to be a threat to their notion of a nation-state; in the tatmadaws previous lexicon, internal and external destructive elements which must be crushed.

Since 1996, more than 3,700 villages have been destroyed, relocated or abandoned in eastern Burma, forcing some 400,000 people to live as internally displaced persons, or IDPs. Many others were forced to flee to Thailand, living as refugees or migrants, often without any legal protection. A 2014 Harvard Law School analysis concluded that such pogroms against ethnic Karen communities in 2005-06, which entailed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, destruction of homes and food stores, laying landmines in populated areas, forced labor (including conscripted work as army porters), and arbitrary arrest and executions by members of the tatmadaw, may meet international criteria for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The official response from governments has been a deafening silence. Maj-Gen Ko Ko, the military commander who executed this policy in Karen State, was promoted to lieutenant-general and appointed President Thein Seins powerful Minister for Home Affairs until earlier this year.

The NLD administration plans a grand 21st Century Panglong Conference to address Burmas ethnic conflicts, implying that Aung San Suu Kyi intends to build upon the uncompleted work of her father, independence hero General Aung San, who convened the first Panglong Conference in 1947, when, in return for joining the Union of Burma-to-be, ethnic leaders were promised the right to autonomy and self-determination. It was a promise never realized, seen in many ethnic communities as an act of betrayal by the Burman-dominated government and military.

If Aung San Suu Kyi is serious about moving forward in the spirit of her father, rebuilding the ethnic trust and rapport that her father enjoyed, equality and an honest reckoning of past mistakes  which continue to be repeated today  must be a cornerstone of her policies. Although over half a century have elapsed since Sao Kya Sengs disappearance and likely murder, stories such as Twilight Over Burma continue to resonate deeply for many ethnic communities, particularly those who still face the abusive excesses of an unrepentant tatmadaw.

Just ask the families of Lahpai Gam and Brang Yung, Kachin villagers tortured into confessions and arbitrarily detained by the Burmese Army. Or ask the husband of Sumlut Roi Ja, also a Kachin civilian, last seen alive in the custody of the tatmadaw. Or take the case of Ja Seng Ing, a 14-year-old girl shot dead by the Burmese army. When her father had the temerity to petition the president and National Human Rights Commission, he was taken to court by the army for defamation  and found guilty. Or take a look at the tragic events surrounding Maran Lu Ra and Tangbau Hkwan Nan Tsin, two young volunteer teachers in northern Shan State who were brutally raped and murdered in January 2015; evidence strongly implicated a local unit of the tatmadaw, which continues to stymie any independent investigations. Or consider what happened to Sai Aik Naung, Sai Aik Mart and Sai Aik Dink, three Shan villagers last seen alive when they were arrested last month by tatmadaw soldiers in Kyaukme Township, near Hsipaw. Their burnt remains were recovered shortly afterwards.

On a population level, these individual tragedies are amplified a thousand-fold. The perpetrators never have to face justice, thanks to Burmas military-drafted 2008 constitution.

The Burmese Armys ongoing impunity for abuses, especially against ethnic civilians, causes the most damage to the image of the tatmadaw and prospects for national reconciliation, not stories such as Twilight Over Burma.

Silence is not reconciliation, it is a time-honored failure which creates instead a collective, myopic, state-directed amnesia dooming Burma to pernicious cycles of hatred and violence. To paraphrase a popular Shan proverb: The floor continues to be mopped again and again, with no thought whatsoever to repairing the leaking roof.

Indeed, ongoing official reluctance to broach such sensitive ethnic issues will have dire consequences for reconciliation and a durable peace, further eroding ethnic trust in the NLD leadership. A good start towards breaking this cycle would be to begin honest open discussions about the mistakes of the past and present, particularly at events which promote human rights and human dignity. This would acknowledge and respect the lived experiences of so many ethnic peoples, allowing healing and reconciliation to finally commence. That this has yet to truly occur is only further underscored in the recent decision to cancel the Rangoon screening of Twilight Over Burma.

Sao [Kya Seng] was always the good Buddhist, recalled Ms. Sargent. I was more into the mystical, the fortune tellers and astrology, than he was  I try to be a good Buddhist now. I have been able to let go of the past, but one thing that I can never forgive is Ne Win and the cowards [emphasis is hers] who, to this day, are still too scared to admit to what they have done  The generals believe that just building pagodas and donating to temples will help clean away their crimes, but it wont. [Until they admit and atone] I cannot forgive them.

Without closure, she is far from alone
The Houston County Commission must find a way to fund a new communication system for the county, which could cost around $1.5 million.

Houston County Sheriffs Capt. Bill Rafferty told the commission Thursday the current system is nearing the end of its useful life, that replacement parts are no longer being provided for some equipment and that the current system includes blind spots in several parts of the county.

Currently, deputies are often forced to communicate with dispatch via cell phone instead of handheld radios because the communication system operates off one tower in Houston County. Volunteer fire fighters often cant communicate from inside buildings, creating a potentially dangerous situation if a fire fighter became incapacitated inside a residence.

The new system will require seven towers to provide full coverage. However, Rafferty said antennas can be placed on existing towers in the county and he is hopeful only one tower will need to be constructed.

Rafferty said a committee of several people familiar with the countys needs has been researching the issues for several months. The committee has recommended the county purchase a Kenwood system instead of a Motorola system, which is currently being used by the City of Dothan. The city recently chose to purchase a new Motorola system for about $2.3 million, plus annual upgrade and maintenance costs.

Like the city, the county wants the new system in place to coincide with city and county dispatchers and E911 moving into the new joint communication center, currently under construction.

Rafferty said the Kenwood system is a better option for the county for several reasons:

 Cost. Rafferty said the Kenwood system is considerably cheaper than a similar system offered by Motorola and other companies and does not currently charge an annual upgrade fee.

 Communication. The tri-band radios expected to be used will allow Houston County deputies to communicate with the City of Dothan and with surrounding county departments, including counties in Georgia and Florida.

Houston County has become the big brother for many counties around us and we get called a lot for different things, Rafferty said.

 Multi-agency use. The equipment will also be used by the countys 17 volunteer fire departments and five rescue squads.

Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver said the commission must determine whether it will ask the local volunteer fire departments to share in the cost of their radios, and, if so, how much.

Some have money and some dont, Culver said. Some are bigger than others, obviously. It is a discussion that we will need to have.

The proposed decision to go with Kenwood instead of Motorola essentially means that city and county dispatchers will remain separate despite being in the same communication center, at least through the life of the entitys two systems. Culver said the two systems are similar and that dispatchers could probably work from either system, but each system would remain separate and maintained by each agency.

Culver said the Kenwood system fits the countys needs best for the least money.

I supported Motorola initially as did some of (the Sheriffs departments) command staff. The reason was because the city used it, and  if they tear the wall down (separating the disaptchers) at the communication center, everything would be the same. Even with those thoughts, the pretty much unanimous thought of the committee was that Kenwood is the system Houston County needs, Culver said.

The commission could vote to move the process forward Monday during its regularly scheduled meeting.
dpa ElectionsData

With dpa ElectionsData you get access to a unique collection of data. Via a programming interface (Rest-API), your developers can access detailed information, candidate profiles and live results for all national elections in the European Union and important international elections, like the US Midterm elections etc.

The data pool also includes all heads of state and government as well as about 20,000 elected members of parliament throughout the EU. In addition to their data (name, party, constituency or list position), we collect social media profiles and official websites of individuals and parties.


(UPDATE BELOW)

Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department documents obtained by Radar Online describe materials depicting "animal torture" and "nude children" that were found during a 2003 search of Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch. The issue of pornography in the Michael Jackson child abuse investigations first arose about a decade ago. The pop music icon died seven years ago, but the ugly secrets of his alleged abuse keep surfacing.

"Michael Jackson hid a sinister house of horrors inside his infamous Neverland Ranch, stockpiling images of pornography, animal torture, S&M and gore in a bid to seduce innocent young boys," the tabloid reported, in an online feature that includes graphic materials that may be extremely disturbing. View advisedly, if at all.

Among materials seized, according to the police report, were "notes, diaries, documents, photographs, audiotapes and videotapes," as well as over 80 video recordings and computer drives.

"There is one particularly sick photo of a child holding what appears to be a dead goose bludgeoned to death!" said a person familiar with the report. A number of images in the collection show children being abused.

Authorities wrote the bombshell reports after dozens of sheriff's deputies, armed with search warrants, raided Jackson's secluded Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., in November 2003.

The search was conducted as part of the continuing child sex abuse investigation against the Gloved One and turned up everything from Jackson's twisted porn collection  which included filthy photos and videos of men, women, boys and girls in perverted positions  to drugs to treat sex addiction, with multiple prescriptions written by a variety of physicians for people close to the star. One private investigator with direct knowledge of the raids said: "The detectives' report cites Michael even used sexy photos of his own nephews, who were in the band 3T, in their underwear to excite young boys." "The documents collected by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department paint a dark and frightening picture of Jackson," an investigator in the case told Radar. "The documents exposed Jackson as a manipulative, drug-and-sex-crazed predator who used blood, gore, sexually explicit images of animal sacrifice and perverse adult sex acts to bend children to his will," said the source. "He also had disgusting and downright shocking images of child torture, adult and child nudity, female bondage and sadomasochism."

Here are the documents in PDF form. [radaronline.com]

"Paedo Proof? Never-Before-Seen Cop Reports Expose Michael Jackson's Sick Secrets"



UPDATE:



From the Los Angeles Times:
15-year-old Darby Risner of Trussville, Alabama, got stuck in a giant Barney dinosaur head on Sunday night, when she found the purple prop at her friend's house.

Young miss Risner told ABC News she wanted to scare her friends with it when they came downstairs, but the prank turned into something unexpected when she failed to remove herself from the dinosaur's fuzzy purple cranium.

"All the girls started trying to pull it off, but it wasn't budging," Risner told ABC. "I started getting a little claustrophobic and felt like it was kind of closing in."

Her friends tried rubbing Vaseline on her arms, which allowed the head to move up a bit, but it wouldn't come off.

One of Risner's friends was dating a young man who worked at the local Trussville Fire Department, so they called to ask for help. Risner's mom drove the girl there, to avoid adding to the insanity with flashing lights and sirens. The firefighters freed her.

"It was definitely amusing, but of course, we had to take it seriously, too," Bruno said, explaining that he and his fellow firefighters tried to pull off the head a few times but failed.

They made a few "release cuts" into the head, which was constructed out of fiberglass. The cuts then allowed them to "slide it right off," Bruno told ABC.

And now, the memes.
Carlingford Adventure Centre has received a much sought after award this week - the TripAdvisor 'Certificate of Excellence'.

The achievement celebrates hospitality businesses that have earned great traveller reviews on TripAdvisor over the past year.

Carlingford Adventure Centre is delighted to have received the Certificate of Excellence from Trip Advisor. Our team work very hard to deliver a memorable experience to all our guests, from children on a school tour to 40th birthday parties to Corporate Team building events. We thank everyone who has taken the time to review us, we are delighted. Ciara Cunningham, Marketing Manager at Carlingford Adventure Centre.

This Family Run Adventure Centre is the leading provider of Outdoor Activities in Carlingford and in Ireland. With a huge variety of exhilarating activities and over 25 years experience, they can cater for up to 450 Kids, Adults and Groups alike on any day.

"With the Certificate of Excellence, TripAdvisor honours hospitality businesses that have consistently received strong praise and ratings from travellers, said Heather Leisman, Vice President of Industry Marketing, TripAdvisor. Trip Advisor is proud to play this integral role in helping travellers feel more confident in their booking decisions.

Carlingford Adventure Centre has just launched their Family Fun Days out & Adventure Camps for summer 2016. A great way to unplug the kids from technology and do something fun as a family.

One of the comments that contributed to the Certificate of Excellence include:

We were six ladies celebrating a 40th Birthday. Our guide for the morning was David and he was so patient with us. He even agreed to wear the Supergirl pants! We all had a fab experience and will be back again. It was a great achievement for us all. An absolutely amazing day. Thanks again to David, he was Epic.

For more details or to book online visit www.carlingfordadventure.com
Local software company - Intact Software - say that they hope to create 30 jobs over the next two years in Dundalk

Intact has secured investment of 1.9 million, which will create around 30 jobs, having already created 60 jobs currently in the town.

The 1.9m includes a 1.5m investment from the Goodbody 2015 EIIS Fund together with an investment of 400k from Enterprise Ireland.

"We have been growing rapidly over the past 24 months, with interest from businesses not just in the UK but also in Canada and North America. The investments by the Goodbody EIIS Fund and Enterprise Ireland will enable us to really scale the business and expand our team as we plan to more than triple our business over the next 4 years," said Intact CEO Justin Lawless.

The investment in Intact is the first by the newly established Goodbody 2015 EIIS Fund which is managed by Hughes Blake. Partner, Stephen McGivern said: Were delighted to make this investment that will enable them to significantly grow their presence in the key UK market.

Intact is based at Blackthorn Business Park on the Coes Road and was started up by Paul Marry and Aidan Lawless in 1992.

After a restructure in the organisation in 2012, they saw over 43 per cent growth in the business.

The growth has been driven in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the UK and the company expects to continue to significantly grow its market share in the UK over the coming years.

Fine Gael TD for Louth, Peter Fitzpatrick welcomed the the news.

This is great news for Dundalk and builds on other recent success stories.

The company is going from strength to strength.

It will use the funding it has secured for sales and marketing, creating 30 jobs over two years. I would like to congratulate the company on its continued success.
Talking Points Memorandum shares this incredible story of an America I don't believe I live in. Tennessee congressional candidate Rick Tyler is proudly running on a platform of racism.

Via TPM:

An independent candidate running for Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District seat is under fire for a campaign billboard he posted with the slogan "Make America White Again," local TV station WRCB reported Wednesday.

Rick Tyler confirmed to the station that he put up the billboard, which also lists the address for his campaign website. Tyler told WRCB that he does not hate people of color, but does believe America "should go back to the 1960s."

"(The) Leave it to Beaver time when there were no break-ins; no violent crime; no mass immigration," he told the news station.

Tyler also posted a billboard for his campaign that features part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech superimposed on a drawing of the White House with Confederate flags around it, according to WRCB.

Some residents wrote in to the news station stating their desire to have the signs taken down. Tyler said that he respects their First Amendment rights but thinks many others share his views.
Lisa Hix of has written a lengthy piece for Collectors Weekly on the Oneida Community of the late 19th century, and how it morphed from a group of men and women who "believed the liquid electricity of Jesus Christ's spirit flowed through words and touch, and that a chain of sexual intercourse would create a spiritual battery so charged with God's energy that the community would transcend into immortality, creating heaven on earth," to a company that was famous for its flatware.

For her article, Lisa interviewed Ellen Wayland-Smith, a descendant of members of the Oneida commune, and the author of Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table, who spoke to Hix about the community's laudable-for-its-time, but ultimately limited, view of equality between the sexes.

Here's a snip:
The following post was written by a close friend of mine, Mark Ferguson, a self-described absolutely worst sort of privileged white male with degrees from Michigan State University, Indiana University, and Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business.

Enjoy.

Lets talk about gun legislation

Are your hackles raised yet? Its a touchy subject fraught with knee-jerk responses. We need to get past that. I think theres a ready way to frame the discussion.

Gun legislation is, without doubt, a thorny, complex issue. The discussion, as far as it exists, devolves quickly into a from my cold, dead hands response from those that oppose any such notion. Based on polling, its clear that this particular position happens to represent a very vocal, very small minority. It is truly unfortunate that those voices are loud enough to stifle any kind of reasonable discussion about legislation.

Id like to think that there is a way forward in getting some meaningful discussion on the topic. Id like to think that comparing the treatment of another fundamental right is one such path.

Is the right to vote more dangerous than the right to bear arms?

This question comes to mind after seeing Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy ask about what other rights one must appeal to the government to have restored, in reference to the due process issues that encumber restricting gun ownership based on the no-fly list.

This is not to diminish the due process issue  the no-fly list itself is guilty on that count  but it is worthy of note that if one is denied ones right to vote for whatever reason, it must be petitioned to be restored.

Heres another question: how many restrictions on the right to vote can you think of off the top of your head? How many on the right to bear arms?

Ill give you a minute.

Well? Its kind of striking, in my mind. The right to vote is mentioned five times in the Constitution and a state would lose its Congressional representation should that right be in any way abridged per the 14th amendment. The right to bear arms is mentioned once, along with the not to be infringed clause  seems like a similar level of protection is implied in both cases. Setting aside that the number of references is insufficient to rank them, its still awfully clear that the right to vote is as important as the right to bear arms.

There seems to be no argument that legislation regarding the right to vote is prudent and, in fact, such legislation is enacted frequently (voter ID laws, absentee voting laws, the Voting Rights Act, etc.) So why not treat legislation regarding the right to bear arms in the same way?

I have my own views on what sensible legislation might look like and what types of policies might help achieve a safer environment for all Americans. Unfortunately the current political climate doesnt allow such discussion, and that needs to change.

[CC photo of Carl Fredrik Reuterswards Non-Violence sculpture: Francois Polito | Wikimedia Commons]
Three years ago, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, a 50-year-old piece of civil rights legislation that ended the Jim Crow practices of poll taxes and other restrictions that disproportionately denied people of color and poor people the right to vote.

Now, 17 states  Republican dominated, despite swelling populations of traditional Democratic voters of African-American and Latin American descent, as well as young voters  have laws on the books that would have been illegal under the Voting Rights Act. These laws, nominally aimed at preventing voter fraud, systematically deny the franchise to the voting blocs that were essential to the Obama presidential wins in 2008 and 2012.

Despite this, voting rights have not been an issue in the 2016 campaign  so far. Voting rights haven't even been mentioned once in any of the 21 presidential debates to date.

There is also no evidence at all of widespread voter fraud.

The Voting Rights Act was the result of brave, principled action by millions of Americans who risked arrest, violence, even murder, to fight for the universal right to vote. Today, the survivors of that fight are finding themselves once more denied their ballots.

Marc Veasey [D-TX] has founded the first Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, with 71 inaugural members, whose goals are "to educate the public on the current voter-suppression tactics taking place nationwide" and "create and advance legislation that blocks current and future voter suppression and discriminatory tactics."

No Republicans have joined Veasey's caucus to date.

Ninety-five-year-old Rosanell Eaton of Louisburg, North Carolina, made the 260-mile drive to Richmond to listen to the court case. During Jim Crow, Eaton took a two-hour mule ride to the Franklin County courthouse in eastern North Carolina to register to vote. The three white male registrars told her to stand up straight, with her arms at her side, look straight ahead and recite the preamble to the Constitution from memory. After she did that word for word, they gave her a written literacy test, which she also passed. Eaton was one of the few black individuals to pass a literacy test and make it on the voting rolls in segregated North Carolina. But after voting for 70 years, she became a casualty of North Carolina's voter-ID law, which went into effect this year, because the name on her voter-registration card did not match the name on her expiring driver's license. Eaton undertook a herculean effort to match her various documents and comply with the law. Over the course of a month, she made 11 trips to different state agencies  the DMV, two different Social Security offices and various banks  totaling more than 200 miles and 20 hours. "It was really stressful and difficult, [a] headache and expensive, everything you could name," she said, illustrating the new difficulties voters are facing this year. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/welcome-to-the-first-presidential-election-since-voting-rights-act-gutted-20160623#ixzz4CQAJdIxl

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Welcome to the First Presidential Election Since Voting Rights Act Gutted

[Ari Berman/Rolling Stone]

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Yahoo last week published the text of three National Security Letters it received from the FBI in 2013.

The letters demand the names, addresses, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records  existing transaction and activity logs and all email header information  of the targets. However, they do not ask for any content  either the subject lines or bodies of emails.

Yahoo sent the FBI the name, address and length of service for each of the accounts identified in two of the NSLs, but it did not provide any information in response to the third, as the referenced account did not exist in its system, according to company spokesperson Charles Stewart.

It published the NSLs after the FBI rescinded the nondisclosure requirements imposed in accordance with the USA Freedom Act of 2015.

Were the first company to disclose [the NSLs] as a result of the reforms of the USA Freedom Act, Stewart told the E-Commerce Times. The rescinding of the nondisclosure provisions, and Yahoos subsequent publication of the letters is a good win for transparency and keeping users informed of whats going on around them.

The Threat of NSLs

Each of the NSLs certifies that the FBI sought the information to protect national security, or to carry out criminal, counterterrorism or counterintelligence investigations, among other things.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 2013 ruled that the nondisclosure provisions the FBI employed were in violation of the First Amendment and the separation of powers. It enjoined the government from issuing NSLs under Section 2709 of the United States Code or from enforcing the nondisclosure provisions.

The Obama administration has appealed the ruling.

The FBI applies the same criteria and procedures to review existing nondisclosure requirements that it uses to assess whether a nondisclosure obligation should be imposed in the first place. When those criteria are no longer met, it terminates the requirement.

Still, no government branch should be able to circumvent the safeguards of the Constitution and unilaterally acquire information without due process of law, maintained Yasha Heidari of the Heidari Power Law Group.

History has shown us that the biggest threat to a citizens freedom is that citizens own government, Heidari told the E-Commerce Times. The NSLs are simply one of the many recent strikes against the Constitution that have recently come to light.

NSLs demonstrate just how pervasive government scrutiny is in the area of Internet services, noted Mike Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

They fuel the flames of privacy concerns, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Data accessed through NSLs raises concerns, as the governments ability to securely and properly use the data has often not been adequate, noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

In some if not all cases, this may create a bigger problem than the one the governments attempting to address, he told the E-Commerce Times.

NSL Issues Disclosed

The USA Freedom Act is essentially the governments attempt at public relations, Heidari observed, and the FBIs allowing the publication of the NSLs is inconsequential.

How much Yahoo achieved by publishing the NSLs is open to question, as they disclosed nothing of import.

Like the government, Yahoo gets some positive PR, Heidari suggested. It can make the publication seem like a large victory for consumers that it championed.

The publication is good cover for Yahoo, Jude said, because it helps them demonstrate theyre being compelled to disclose some information.

The risk for Yahoo is the letters being leaked and outside their control, Enderle suggested.

This way, they can announce and position the event and perhaps better control the underlying perception, he reasoned.

Its brilliant of Yahoo to publish, and gives them the moral high ground on the privacy issue, Jude said, noting that other companies might follow Yahoos lead.

If that happens, we might be able to look at these [letters] as data points, Yahoos Stewart remarked.

Theres no reason for other companies not to publish their NSLs, said Heidari, and get on the PR bandwagon.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Googles appeal of a lower court ruling in a suit alleging the company used deceptive practices in the sale and placement of advertising through its AdWords program between 2004 and 2008.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, sought to overturn the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals September 2015 ruling that the lawsuit could go forward as a class action case.

The case, originally filed in 2008, alleges that Google placed clients advertising on parked domain and error pages, where few if any advertisers would want to display their products. Google did not disclose that practice to its customers, according to court documents.

The Google AdWords program is an auction-based, online advertising platform that displays advertising on the Google search engine after users look up a particular search term. Google charges advertisers on a pay per click model. Error pages and parked domain generally are considered worthless sites.

Error pages generally appear when a person enters an unregistered URL into the address bar.

California Case

Googles ad placement practice violated California state laws, including the Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, the suit maintains.

Because the case involves multiple plaintiffs seeking various degrees of individual damages, it should not be certified as class action, Google has argued.

Google declined to comment for this story, as the litigation is pending.

However, a source familiar with the case told the E-Commerce Times that Google disputes the original plaintiffs claims that the company made misleading comments about the possibility that ads would appear on error pages and parked domain sites.

Many of the advertisers benefited from having their ads appear on those pages, Google has said in court filings.

The case is limited to the 2004-2008 period, because Google changed its participation practices, making AdWords for Domains and AdWords for Errors opt-in.

Still, the class action suit could involve hundreds of thousands of advertisers and result in millions of dollars in damages.

Sites Considered Garbage

Google engaged in some pretty egregious conduct, said Robert Schubert, attorney with San Francisco law firm Schubert, Jonckheer & Kolbe, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Google placed the ads on what the plaintiffs considered garbage sites, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The advertisers would have paid less money for the ads had they known they would be placed on those sites, Schubert said, adding that he hopes to get the case back to court within a year.

It is too early to tell what long-term impact the Supreme Courts rejection of the case could have on Google, said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.

Letting the suit go forward does not necessarily mean it will succeed, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Google generated $67 billion in ad revenue in 2015.

Just last month, it agreed to stop accepting ads for predatory payday loan services on its website. The company has taken steps over the years to reduce nuisance advertising on its search engine, disabling more than 780 million ads in 2015.
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The Sustainable Apparel Coalition has launched a new transparency roadmap, which will allow members to roll out previously confidential Higg Index scores to the general public. The move comes as the SAC membership pushes for greater transparency on Higg, in a bid for the tool to become the harmonised textile industry standard of choice for social and environmental improvement. John Mowbray reports.

So far the Sustainable Apparel Coalition has remained relatively quiet about its future plans for releasing Higg Index scores for public consumption, which has prompted concerns that its members have been slow to collect information  or are not keen on releasing data that can be held up to further scrutiny.

But Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, hopes these fears will now recede after an explicit decision was taken at last months annual SAC meeting in Copenhagen to rubber-stamp a new roadmap for the transparent release of all Higg data. The roadmap shows the first tranche of Higg facilities data will be released by mid-2018 and other data, from the brand tool and then the product tool, will be released afterwards, with 2020 seen as a final cut-off date for full public release of the Higg Index.

We are committing to launch the Environmental and Social Modules for facilities in 2018, so that companies can release their own FEM (Facilities environmental module) scores and FSLM (Facilities Social Labour Module) scores, Kibbey told Ecotextile News. Before this happens, we need to do two things as part of the new roadmap  that is the next revision of Higg and also the verification steps. But we are firmly committed to that timeline and there will be a full data release by mid-2018.

Data from the Facilities tool will be the first to be released since the SAC has more data on this part of Higg than the other two areas: the Brand tool slated for release in 2019 and the much more tricky Product tool, which will bring up the rear in 2020.

So what exactly will this look like? Kibbey says there is still room for experimentation in order to get it right. Its likely there will be some on-product information about scores, but facility data could be available in other ways. Perhaps some sort of interactive on-line map similar to the recently released sourcing map launched by Marks & Spencer.

Until recently there was some trepidation about the release of Higg facilities data because there was no consistent way for it to be used by member companies, or the 6,000 facilities that have so far uploaded modules to the central Higg database.

Communication tool kit

Essentially, for each of the different assessments a communication tool kit will be designed that will describe  and to some extent dictate  exactly how the released Higg scores will be used so that information is released in a consistent way. We are in a position to provide a standardised, comparable way for the Higg scores to be used in public so data can all be used and interpreted in the same way, said Kibbey.

But will be there a requirement to release all information good and bad? Were focusing on this in our guidelines, he said, An is why we are having governance around those guidelines so people do not just cherry pick the best and give a false impression of just one per cent of their supply chain. This will become part of the guidelines for use of the data.
(www.samsung.com)Gear 360 spherical camera

While cameras that are used for the creation of virtual reality content are slowly and surely entering the market, most of them come with a steep price tag. However, Samsung, which has the inexpensive virtual reality headset, the Gear VR, has now announced that its Gear 360 virtual reality camera will be coming to the United States, albeit in a limited release.

More importantly, the Gear 360 camera was announced earlier this year in February and many were expecting it to release in the U.S. soon after. However, that was not the case and the camera has so far not arrived in the country. CNET states that this could change in the near future as Samsung has announced that the Gear 360, which has a round body, will be arriving for a limited sale during the VidCon conference. This particular conference is due to take place this week in Anaheim, California between June 23-25 and people who are interested in it can buy the Gear 360 for $350.

However, the United States is currently lagging behind other markets in Asia where the Gear 360 has already been released. It arrived in Samsung's home market of Korea in April and also in Singapore. Given that Samsung is bringing out the Gear 360 this week in the United States, it could mean that a wider rollout could be upcoming.

Samsung however has not provided any details about a full scale rollout of the Gear 360 in the United States. However, it does have the $99 Gear VR headset in the market which is designed for use with Samsung phones and it is likely that the customers who invest in the Gear 360 cameras will be creating VR content for these headsets.

As for the Gear 360, it comes with two lenses and each covers a 195-degree field of view (FOV) and these are then combined for a total of 390 degrees. Resulting from this "stitching," 30-megapixel images are then created. The video recorded by this camera has a resolution of 3,840 X 1,920 pixels which is similar to 4K video.
Steven Levy is in characteristic excellent form in a long piece on Medium about the internal vogue for machine learning at Google; drawing on the contacts he made with In the Plex, his must-read 2012 biography of the company, Levy paints a picture of a company that's being utterly remade around newly ascendant machine learning techniques.

Machine learning had humble beginnings in the company as a class given by and for engineers, which quickly captivated key technical staff around the world, blossoming into something like a full-fledged internal MOOC. Fast-forward to today and the company has moved its head of machine learning to be head of Search, Google's flagship product. Today, machine learning is "involved in every query" and affects the rankings in not "every query but in a lot of queries," with machine learning being the third-most important "signal" in how Google ranks its results.

The company even produces its own machine learning-optimized chips, the Tensor Processing Unit, which take the place of the graphics cards that have been pressed into service across the industry for all kinds of parallel computation (from Bitcoin mining to AI), thanks to the thousands of small independent processors incorporated into their designs.

Though only a small proportion of the company's engineers are specialized in machine learning, the rest of its engineering teams are being aggressively cycled through machine learning boot-camps, the "Machine Learning Ninja Program," which is intended to transfer a machine learning mindset and skills across the business.

Programming for machine learning isn't like traditional programming. While traditional programming can appeal to people who want "total control" over their code, machine learning systems produce probabilistic outcomes that require "a grasp of certain kinds of math and statistics, which many coders, even gonzo hackers who can zip off tight programs of brobdingnagian length, never bothered to learn."

This reminds me of David Byrne's book How Music Works, which touched on the idea that technological change made life harder for certain kinds of musicians  live performers, say  but gave a huge boost to others  like technical virtuosos. Programming's been through this before: there was the shift from the chess grandmasterly practice of batch programming (which punished programmers who failed to foresee a single misstep anywhere in their programs' futures), for interactive programming (which allowed programmers to quickly iterate towards more robust code); later there was the procedural vs object-oriented shift.

The early dividends from the machine learning approach are certainly exciting. Smart Reply, part of Google Inbox, composes a trio of replies for the messages that arrive in its users' inboxes, giving them a choice to use or tweak one of them, or write one from scratch. In many cases, the replies are eerily good (though there was an unfortunate tendency for the model to say "I love you" in replies to messages it didn't understand).

Most exciting is the idea that Google's creating an AI that doesn't think like a human. Much of what makes humans capable of understanding things  the relationship between a border collie puppy and an adult dog, say  also prevents us from doing the same task over and over, perfectly, without getting bored or resentful. The traditional singularity narrative has imagined that we'll get to understanding by mimicking human intelligence in software, then multiplying that intelligence with fast clockspeeds and more processors. Instead, Google's machine learning produces systems that are able to do some human intelligence tasks  recognizing border collies  but without the associated overheads, foibles, and limitations of human intelligence. It may be that if we could model a human in software, then multiplying that human a millionfold wouldn't give you a system that could monotonously and perfectly sift through tens of millions of images looking for border collies  instead, you'd get a software agent that got bored a million times faster.

It also requires a degree of patience. "The machine learning model is not a static piece of code  you're constantly feeding it data," says Robson. "We are constantly updating the models and learning, adding more data and tweaking how we're going to make predictions. It feels like a living, breathing thing. It's a different kind of engineering." "It's a discipline really of doing experimentation with the different algorithms, or about which sets of training data work really well for your use case," says Giannandrea, who despite his new role as search czar still considers evangelizing machine learning internally as part of his job. "The computer science part doesn't go away. But there is more of a focus on mathematics and statistics and less of a focus on writing half a million lines of code." As far as Google is concerned, this hurdle can be leapt over by smart re-training. "At the end of the day the mathematics used in these models is not that sophisticated," says Dean. "It's achievable for most software engineers we would hire at Google."



How Google is Remaking Itself as a "Machine Learning First" Company [Steven Levy/Backchannel]





(Image: Googleplex Pride Logo, Runner 1928, CC-BY-SA/Deep Dream Generator)

(via Beyond the Beyond)
GAYDON, England  The limited-production 2017 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato will begin arriving at U.S. Aston Martin dealerships early next year.

An Aston Martin spokesman told Edmunds that pricing has not yet been announced, but it's a moot point, since all the special-edition coupes scheduled for North American delivery have already been sold.

Prices for the standard 2017 Aston Martin Vanquish coupe start at $291,775, while the Volante convertible is priced from $309,775, both including gas-guzzler tax and a $2,825 destination fee.

Competitors to the top-of-line Aston Martin Vanquish include the Lamborghini Aventador, Ferrari F12 Berlinetta and the Bentley Continental GT.

Just 99 examples of the 2017 Vanquish Zagato, the latest model in the 50-year partnership between Aston Martin and Italian design firm Zagato, will be produced, each built to order at the Aston production facility in the U.K.

The carbon-fiber body features sleek, aerodynamic lines with sills that run around the lower bodywork to create a pronounced line from front to rear, as well as a new twist on the classic Aston Martin side strake that runs from wheel arch to the door, similar to the 2017 DB11.

Up top, there's a double-bubble roof, a Zagato trademark since the early 1950s, and the rear end is punctuated by a retractable spoiler and unique "bladed" LED taillights.

The interior of the Vanquish Zagato is set off by herringbone-patterned carbon fiber with anodized bronze on the fascia, vents and rotary dials. The seats and door panels feature unique "Z" quilt patterned stitching and the Zagato "Z" logo makes an appearance on the headrests and center console.

Power comes from the Vanquish 5.9-liter V12 engine that produces 568 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque, which comes mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. Together with an uprated suspension system, Aston Martin says the combination will "create a unique GT driving experience specific to the Vanquish Zagato model."

Edmunds says: All examples of the 2017 Vanquish Zagato may be sold, but interested buyers can see their local Aston Martin dealer about a Vanquish coupe or Volante convertible.
In December, the U.S. Department of Education released the fifth iteration of its National Education Technology Plan, a sweeping vision of how technology should be used in schools. The plan criticizes the current state of teacher-preparation programs, saying that across the board, they are failing to prepare teachers to use technology effectively. Instead of a stand-alone course on educational technology, the report said, programs should incorporate educational technology in all courses. New teachers should be ready from day one to select and use apps and tools that support their states learning standards, department officials decreed.

If teacher-prep programs have generally been behind the digital curve, however, several education schools have taken deliberate steps in recent years to better integrate technology into their curricula and cultures. Here are some examples.

Saint Leo University School of Education & Social Services

St. Leo, Fla.

In 2006, the faculty at Saint Leo Universitys school of education noticed that for the second year in a row, alumni were marking technology in the classroom as an area in which they were ill-prepared after graduating. Technology, the schools leaders decided, must become a keystone of the teacher-prep program.

Now, every methods course embeds educational technology, and the school has two fully modernized teaching classrooms, complete with interactive whiteboards, iPads, document cameras, and other digital-learning tools.

In addition, Saint Leo students can receive a backpack of digital tools to take with them on their student-teaching assignments. The backpacks include iPads, a MimioTeach interactive-whiteboard device, and an LCD projector.

Faculty members are also being asked to expand their use of instructional technology, said Candace Roberts, the chairwoman of the education department.

If youre going to be a teacher of teachers, you want to show them that youre always learning, she said. Our students are going to struggle with the very same thing: Do I really want to take a risk in front of my students if Im not positive its going to go perfectly? 

Roberts said the department sends faculty members to conferences to stay abreast of cutting-edge technology. The schools newest tech addition is Google Glass, which professors and students are using to experiment with bringing virtual reality to the classroom.

University of Michigan School of Education

Ann Arbor, Mich

About five years ago, the University of Michigans education school revamped its curriculum to give it a stronger technology component.

The school incorporated the International Society for Technology in Educations five Standards for Teachers into the curriculum, aligning them with standards from the Partnership for 21st-Century Skills, a framework that prioritizes technology and problem-solving skills. And instead of a one-credit-hour, three-week module on educational technology, students now take an ed-tech course every semester in which they learn theories and have a clinical component to practice skills.

Instead of having a quick avalanche of teaching with technology, they get a nice, slow marinate, said Liz Kolb, a clinical assistant professor.

The curriculum focuses more on big-picture application than on specific tools. We found that the teachers learned how to use tools quickly, but they didnt know what was an effective and ineffective use of the tools to meet learning goals, Kolb said.

The school has also devised a framework for students to measure how to use the technology in a way that makes sense for your learners, she said.

Kolb said the changes in the curriculum have prepared some alumni to work as tech specialists or in blended-learning classrooms.

Dominican University of California School of Education and Counseling Psychology

San Rafael, Calif.

Last fall, the Dominican University of Californias teacher-preparation program underwent a transformation aimed at better training its students in ed tech.

We realized that the K-12 schools, in many ways, are ahead of higher ed. in terms of instructional technology, said Elizabeth Truesdell, an associate professor at the school.

The education school implemented a 1-to-1 iPad program with the high school teacher-candidates this year. Aspiring teachers learned how to use the tablets for lesson planning, flipped-classroom instruction, and communication with students.

Ten faculty members received iPads to integrate applications into their own courses.

By the 2017 spring semester, officials hope to expand the iPad program to multiple-subject and special education teacher-candidates.

The school is now looking to provide tech-oriented PD to teachers already in schools, particularly those in lower-income schools.

Clemson University Eugene T. Moore School of Education

Clemson, S.C.

To create an example unit on heart health for high schoolers, an aspiring teacher at Clemson Universityteamed up with a classmate studying health care. Together, they printed a 3-D heart and made a lesson plan about the physical and economic impact of being heart healthy by using Google Apps for Education.

That type of digitally-oriented interdisciplinary project has become a cornerstone of the revamped Clemson teacher-preparation program, according to officials there.

In 2013, the university decided to make the curriculum more technologically rigorous, said Danielle Herro, an assistant professor of digital media and learning.

Preservice teachers now must take a course on the foundations of digital media and learning that addresses topics like maker spaces, games and learning, and using social media. In 2014-15, the school added a unit on STEAM educationscience, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematicsto encourage a transdisciplinary approach to address real-world problems. The class is open to students of all majors.

Clemsons education school also has digital labs that feature iPads, podcasting equipment, a fully stocked gaming room, maker space equipment, a 3-D printer, and beginner invention kits that utilize electrical circuits.

Teachers College, Columbia University

New York City

Forty years ago, Teachers College, Columbia University, launched a program that is thought to be the first educational technology graduate program in the world.

In the spring of 2014, Teachers College changed the programs name from the Communication, Computing, and Technology in Education Program to the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design Program to reflect how it has evolved, said Lalitha Vasudevan, an associate professor and the program coordinator.

The programs goal is now both to prepare students to use and create digital tools to advance learning and to play a role in driving the conversation of how education can incorporate innovative technology.

The college also started a masters degree program in the design and development of digital games.

Teacher-prep programs tend to condition preservice teachers to be users of technology, Vasudevan said. We make opportunities for graduate students to take on roles as designers and creators, in addition to users.
A mass shooting took place in Viernheim, Germany, near Frankfurt today. A gunman wearing a mask opened fire in a movie theater complex in the small western German town, German media reported.

Elite forces stormed the cinema complex and sealed it off, the German Mannheimer Morgen newspaper reported, and police shot the gunman dead.

The Darmstaedter Echo reported that 20 to 50 people were wounded. Bild daily reported that police said some 25 of those people were hurt because of exposure to tear gas.

Focus Online magazine earlier reported that German police had arrested the man.

Reuters reports that German police were not immediately available for comment.

Several media reported that the man had entered the cinema complex at around 3 pm local time (1100 EDT). The Frankfurter Allgemeine said it was unclear if there was a political or ideological motive or whether it was a robbery that went wrong.

From RT:

Police have confirmed that the attacker did take hostages before he was shot dead. Speaking to N-TV a police spokesman said that no other people were injured during during the attack at Kinopolis complex in Viernheim.

According to local reports, a gunman has opened fire at a cinema in Germany. Not much info on this one yet: https://t.co/8DrWamVufk  Alexander Smith (@AlexSmithNBC) June 23, 2016

Some reports suggest Viernheim injuries from tear gas. Remember early reports are always a mess in these events  https://t.co/1qvTvQpXT3  Blogs of War (@BlogsofWar) June 23, 2016
A new US voter database leak has exposed the addresses, estimated income, ethnicity, phone numbers, political affiliation, and voting history of 154 million Americans.

Some records went further, noting the political beliefs, children, gun ownership, and Facebook profiles.

The new breach is just the latest in a string of election-year dumps of voter databases: 191 million records exposed in late December 2015; then 56 million more in early January.

This breach, discovered by MacKeeper's Chris Vickery, seems have originated with a customer of L2, "a company specializing in voter data utilization. At fault is a misconfigured Couchdb instance on Amazon's cloud servers.

The voter information breaches are the result of a confluence of several factors: increasingly data-driven electioneering that has created a market for these fine-grained databases; the post-Citizens United reality of Super PACs popping up and vanishing faster than anyone can keep track of, buying up lists and then abandoning them when their causes, funders or candidates fall away; the intrinsic problems of information security, which demands that defenders make no mistakes and only asks that attackers find a single error in the defense; surveillance capitalism and its ability to gather dossiers on people at mass-scale through their everyday internet use, especially via the mobile internet and social media; and the inherent copy-ability of voter databases, which contain enough information to compromise hundreds of millions of people in files that can be transferred in just a few minutes.

It's not just the USA; as Dissent Doe  who has been on this story for some time  points out, mass-scale voter database breaches have hit the Philippines, Russia, Mexico, and Turkey, all in 2016.

Vickery promptly emailed L2 to explain the situation and then spoke with them by phone. They recognized the database as likely being one of their clients', noting that were very few clients big enough to have a national database like that and they should be able to track the source down. Within three hours of their phone call, the database was secured. L2's CEO Bruce Willsie confirmed that to Vickery, thanking him for finding the problem and for bringing it to L2 so that they could respond. Noting that their unnamed national client had taken the site down quickly upon notification from L2, Willsie stated that the client told L2 that they were hacked and the firewall had been taken down. The client was now conducting their own research to determine the extent of the incursion.

154 million voter records exposed, revealing gun ownership, Facebook profiles, and more

[Dissent Doe/Daily Dot]





(via /.)
Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London.

13:33, 25 OCT 2022
Texas's prison system must provide safe drinking water to its inmates, a judge in Houston federal court ruled Thursday.

The Associated Press reports on a case that saw Texas fight all the way to court to continue supplying arsenic-laden water to prisoners a position U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison wrote violates "contemporary standards of decency."

In his 15-page ruling, Ellison wrote the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has been "deliberately indifferent" to the ongoing risk inmates at the unit face from prolonged exposure to "extreme heat" and from having to drink arsenic-laden water in order to reduce the risk from the heat. The drinking water at the Pack Unit has contained between 2 and 4 times the amount of arsenic permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency, the judge said. The prisoners have "demonstrated that (the prison system's) current and ongoing conduct violates contemporary standards of decency," Ellison wrote. At least 20 prisoners have died indoors in non-air-conditioned Texas prisons from overheating since 1998, including 10 who died in 2011, Ellison said.

Other than fixing the tainted water, the prisoners asked for temperatures in the Wallace Pack Unit to be lowered to 88F. See the aerial photo above: suburban Houston is hot, but it is not a desert.

American prisons are hell: violent rape camps operated by the depraved and indifferent, many of them private corporations. And these prisons are in Texas.
For more than a decade, science fiction and fantasy writers have handed around Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward's Writing the Other , an intensely practical and thoughtful guide to inclusive, representative writing that includes people of genders, ethnicities, races, and orientations other than the writer's.





Shawl and Ward's impetus came during their tenure at the Clarion West 1992 writing workshop, when one of their classmates, having taken lumps for poorly handling characters of racial backgrounds other than their own, announced that from now on, they'd stick to writing white people like themselves, rather than get it so wrong and risk giving offense and having to deal with outrage.

This is no solution. If all the writers who are sensitive enough to worry about getting this kind of thing right opt out of it altogether, then what remains in literature from the dominant culture will be stories told by people who don't care about getting it wrong.

Enter Writing the Other, a slim volume of exercises, theory and essays on how to be less wrong  and even, now and again, right. As Shawl and Ward are at pains to point out, science fiction and fantasy is all about telling stories about people who are fundamentally unlike the writer and the reader  aliens, magical beings, AIs The authors set out a general theory of empathic consideration for people unlike you that constitutes both a political education and a very useful guide for writers who are trying to tell those stories.

In 66 short pages, Writing the Other breaks down the general failure modes of trying to imagine the lives of people unlike you, especially the lives of people who lack the subtle privileges that are easy to miss unless they're denied to you. Drawing from real-world examples of stories that got this right and wrong, the principle essay is interspersed with short, useful exercises to do alone or with a partner to get at the meat of the thing.





These exercises are very useful, because a lot of the theory here is Goldilocks advice: try hard, but not too hard; be careful, not not too careful; take chances, but only the wise ones. This is not unique to this subject matter: it's the heart of all writing instruction, which is why practice is so important alongside of theory.

After this tutorial comes two short essays by Shawl, both classics in their own right: Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere and Appropriate Cultural Appopriation and an excerpt from Shawl's novel "The Blazing World."

Though Writing the Other has been out for more than a decade, the issues it addresses are still very much alive, and recognition for them has only grown. As writers continue to wrestle with these issues, Writing the Other remains the foundational practical guide on the subject, and has spawned a series of workshops on the subject.

Shawl has another novel coming soon, Everfair, which Tor will publish this coming September. It looks amazing:

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated. Nisi Shawl's speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.



Writing the Other [Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward/Aqueduct Press]





(Image: cover of Daniel Jose Elder's amazing Shadowshaper/my review)
An honest essay has numerous characteristics: original thinking, a good structure, balanced arguments, and plenty more.

But one aspect often overlooked is that an honest essay should be interesting. It should spark the readers curiosity, keep them absorbed, make them want to stay reading and learn more. An uneventful article risks losing the readers attention; whether or not the points you create are excellent, a flat style, or poor handling of a dry subject material can undermine the positive aspects of the essay. The matter is that a lot of students think that essays should be like this: they believe that a flat, dry style is suited to the needs of educational writing and dont even consider that the teacher reading their essay wants to search out the essay interesting. You might want to have online essay editor service to boost your confidence in writing with an error-free output. Academic writing doesnt need to be  and shouldnt be  bland. The excellent news is that there is much stuff you can do to create your essay more attractive, while youll be able only to do such a lot while remaining within the formal confines of educational writing. Lets study what theyre.

Have an interest in what youre writing about

Dont go overboard, but youll be able to let your passion for your subject show.

If theres one thing bound to inject interest into your writing, its being fascinated by what youre writing about. Passion for a subject matter comes across naturally in your essay, typically making it more lively and fascinating and infusing an infectious enthusiasm into your words  within the same way that its easy to talk knowledgeably to someone about something you discover fascinating.

Include fascinating details

Another factor that may make an essay boring maybe a dry material. Some topic areas are naturally dry, and it falls to you to form the article more interesting through your written style and by trying to seek out fascinating snippets of knowledge to incorporate, which will liven it up a small amount and make the data easier to relate to. A way of doing this with a dry subject is to create what youre talking about that seems relevant to the critical world, as this is often easier for the reader to relate to.

Emulate the fashion of writers you discover interesting

When you read lots, you subconsciously start emulating the fashion of the writers you have read. Reading benefits you a lot, as this exposes you to a spread of designs, and youll start to require the characteristics of these you discover interesting to read.

Borrow some creative writing techniques

Theres a limit to the quantity of actual story-telling youll do when youre writing an essay; in the end, essays should be objective, factual and balanced, which doesnt, initially glance, feel considerably like story-telling. However, youll apply a number of the principles of story-telling to create your writing more interesting.

consider your own opinion

Take the time to figure out what its that you think instead of regurgitating the opinions of others.

Cut the waffle

Rambling on and on is dull and almost bound to lose the interest of your reader. Youre in danger of waffling if youre not completely clear about what you wish to mention or havent thought carefully about how youre visiting structure your argument. Doing all your research correctly and writing an essay plan before you begin will help prevent this problem.

Editing is a vital part of the essay-writing process, so edit the waffle once youve done a primary draft. Read through your essay objectively and eliminate the bits that arent relevant to the argument or labor the purpose.

employing a thesaurus isnt always a decent thing

Avoid using unfamiliar words in an essay; theres too great a likelihood that youre misusing them.

You may think that employing a thesaurus to seek out more complicated words will make your writing more exciting or sound more academic, but using overly high-brow language can have the incorrect effect.

Avoid repetitive phrasing

Please avoid using the identical phrase structure again and again: its a recipe for dullness! Instead, use a variety of syntax that demonstrates your writing capabilities and makes your writing more interesting. Mix simple, compound, and complicated sentences to avoid your paper becoming predictable.

Use some figurative language

Using analogies with nature can often make concepts more accessible for readers to know.

As weve already seen, its easy to finish up rambling when youre explaining complex concepts  mainly after you dont know it yourself. One way of forcing yourself to think about a couple of pictures, present it more simply and engagingly is to form figurative language. This implies explaining something by comparing it with something else, as in an analogy.

Employ rhetorical questions

Anticipate the questions your reader might ask.

One of the ways ancient orators held the eye of their audiences and increased the dramatic effect of their speeches was by using the statement. A decent place to use a statement is at the top of a paragraph, to steer into the following one, or at the start of a replacement section to introduce a brand new area for exploration.

Proofread

Finally, you may write the top interesting essay an instructor has ever read. Still, youll undermine your good work if its plagued by errors, which distract the reader from the particular content and can probably annoy them.
In a SQL injection attack, an attacker submits to a website information that has been deliberately formulated in such a way that it results in that website misinterpreting it and taking unintended actions.

More specifically, the website interprets the data submitted by the attacker as a database command, which it then executes. If the command is to modify entries in a database, or even to delete the entire database, then the results can understandably be catastrophic. For that reason it is vital that organizations take steps to prevent SQL injection attacks.

SQL injection attacks pose a serious security threat to organizations. A successful SQL injection attack can result in confidential data being deleted, lost or stolen; websites being defaced; unauthorized access to systems or accounts and, ultimately, compromise of individual machines or entire networks. Twenty years after its discovery, SQL injection remains a top database security concern.

How a SQL injection attack works

Imagine someone has to appear in court and is asked to provide their name. Instead of giving their real name, Joe Bloggs, they give the name Release Joe Bloggs. When the case comes up, the judge calls out Release Joe Bloggs, so the bailiff releases him.

This illustrates the concept of a SQL injection attack. Instead of providing a real name, the accused deliberately formulates a name that is interpreted as a command, resulting in an unintended action  in this case, an unintended release.

SQL injection examples

Heres an example of how a SQL injection attack could be carried out in practice. The attack is designed to gain access to all data about a user from the database table USERS without knowing a user name or matching password.

The SQL application code might be:

SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username=$username AND Password=$password

Using a web interface, when prompted for their username and password, an attack might enter:

1 OR 1 = 1

and

1 OR 1 = 1

By entering this deliberately formulated username and password pair, the attacker has effectively injected two whole OR conditions into the authentication process.

Lets take a closer look to see how.

The SQL application code was expecting a simple text string such as joebloggs for the username, and another simple string such as password123 for the password.

It would then parse the line:

SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username=$username AND Password=$password

as

SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username=joebloggs AND Password=password123

and access the data for a user joebloggs (if there is one) if the password for that user is password123.

But heres the problem. What the application was not expecting was that an attacker would enter a username and password formulated in this way, with a clever use of apostrophes.

The result is that the query is parsed as:

SELECT * FROM Users WHERE Username=1 OR 1 = 1 AND Password=1 OR 1 = 1

Now the application will access data for any user if their password is 1 or if 1=1. And since the condition 1=1 is always true, this SQL query will always result in the password authentication process being bypassed.

(Code sample sourced from OWASP)

In the SQL injection example above, the two OR conditions are injected when the application was expecting a username and password string, but an attack could just as well inject a database command such as DROP DATABASE, which results in the loss of all the information stored in a database.

For example, imagine a database application that enables an employee to enter their name into one field, and a number such as a social security number into the next field, and stores this information in a database called socsecnumbers.

The application will likely have a form with some code behind it to accept a name in the form employeename. A malicious employee (or outside attacker) might be able to carry out a SQL injection attack that causes the application to execute the SQL command DROP DATABASE socsecnumbers, which results in the deletion and complete loss of the information stored in that database.

To do so, instead of entering Joe Bloggs, the attacker could enter the name Joe Bloggs); DROP DATABASE socsecnumbers;  ?

resulting in the application understanding:

Joe Bloggs); DROP DATABASE socsecnumbers;  ?

The key part of this attack is, again, the malicious use of an apostrophe. The result of this  character after Joe Bloggs is that the database thinks it has finished receiving the name it is expecting. Since more characters have been entered, it decides they should be interpreted as SQL code. The ); means that the following statement should be executed immediately, so the database executes a DROP DATABASE socsecnumbers command.

There will still be a trailing  in the code that has not been used, so to prevent that being a problem the name entered by the attacker ends with ; because the ; means carry on executing the next part of the name, and  tells the database to give up on that line because the rest of the statement should be treated as a comment.

SQL injection security

SQL injection attacks only work when an application is fooled into executing code because it receives user input in a form it is not expecting. That means a vital SQL injection security measure is to carry out data sanitization and validation. This effectively adds an inspection layer to ensure that any submitted data is not unusual and might pose a SQL injection risk.

Sanitization usually involves running any submitted data through a function (such as MySQLs mysql_real_escape_string() function) to ensure that any dangerous characters such as  are not passed to a SQL query in data.

Validation is slightly different in that it involves adding code that attempts to ensure that any data submitted is in the form that is expected in that particular instance. At the most basic level this includes ensuring that email addresses contain an @ sign, that only digits are supplied when numeric data (such as a zip code) is expected, and that the length of a piece of data submitted is not longer than the maximum expected length (so a social security number should not include more than 9 digits).

Validation is often carried out in two ways: by blacklisting dangerous or unwanted characters and by whitelisting only those characters that are allowed in a given circumstance, which can involve more work on the part of the programmer. Although validation may take place on the client side, hackers can modify or get around this, so its essential that all data is validated on the server side as well to reduce SQL injection risk.

Read on for more ways to reduce SQL injection risk.

This updates a June 23, 2016 article
Younited Italia, Nicola Manzari e il nuovo Coo, Luca Faccini e Head of Growth e Domenico Petraroli e General Counsel
ALEXANDRIA, VA (June 23, 2016) - Convinced that better use of data will improve research, innovation and literacy across other disciplines, six leading statisticians recently published "Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice" in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. Part of the popular open access "Ten Simple Rules (TSR)" series, this piece surpassed 51,000 views in only two weeks.

Authors Nancy Reid, of the University of Toronto, Rob Kass of Carnegie Mellon University, Brian Caffo of Johns Hopkins University, Marie Davidian of North Carolina State University, Xiao-Li Meng of Harvard University, and Bin Yu of the University of California, Berkeley, advise practitioners to first "treat statistics as a science, not a recipe."

In furthering this point, the authors stressed the need for researchers across various fields of science to avoid misperceptions and inaccurate claims resulting from faulty statistical reasoning. Grappling with such subtle phenomena requires principled statistical analysis, affirm the authors, who encourage researchers to consider statistics "a language constructed to assist this process, with probability as its grammar."

To this point, Meng notes "sound statistical practices require a bit of science, engineering, and arts, and hence some general guidelines for helping practitioners to develop statistical insights and acumen are in order. No rules, simple or not, can be 100% applicable or foolproof, but that's the very essence that I find this is a useful exercise. It reminds practitioners that good statistical practices require far more than running software or an algorithm."

Kass became involved in the project because he believes that identifying major ideas in statistics, and also stating them clearly and concisely, helps scientists better appreciate what the field of statistics has to offer. "My own work in neuroscience has taught me the value of deep collaboration between statisticians and laboratory scientists. It takes time and commitment, but the results make the scientific process far more efficient and effective."

"Statistics is a pillar of data science, and we tried to make the basic ideas of statistics into a concise primer for biological and data scientists at large," said Yu. "We are quite happy with the positive feedback we received from colleagues in statistics and other fields including neuroscience, physics and chemistry."

Caffo appreciated the opportunity to work with respected statisticians and hopes this effort will help accomplish long term goals. "While it is gratifying to learn that this piece has been appreciated by many in just a few weeks, my desire is for the broader scientific community to realize how much is gained scientifically by engaging our sector and utilizing cutting-edge statistics. Of course, it goes both ways, as statisticians must also become more engaged with multidisciplinary research."

The idea for a TSR column on statistical practice came about after a meeting in 2014 between Davidian, then past-president of the ASA, and Philip Bourne, who originated the TSR collection. Long an advocate for broader engagement of statisticians with other scientists, Davidian hopes this column will lead to more scientists seeking out statisticians as collaborators from the outset. "Many scientists have solid statistical training, but with experiments and data being more complex, we hope this column will help make more scientists aware of the scientific benefits of engaging statisticians beginning with a study's or experiment's design," she said.

Reid, who led the group's effort, recognized the potential in the TSR series to reach a broader scientific community even among challenges. "Most TSR articles have focused on something you do, but for us, statistics is not only a set of methods, but a field of scholarly inquiry. It was tricky to combine these two aspects of the discipline in a concise manner, and I hope our work is both useful to scientists and conveys the flavor of the discipline."

The 10 rules are:

Rule 1: Statistical Methods Should Enable Data to Answer Scientific Questions

Rule 2: Signals Always Come with Noise

Rule 3: Plan Ahead, Really Ahead

Rule 4: Worry about Data Quality

Rule 5: Statistical Analysis Is More Than a Set of Computations

Rule 6: Keep it Simple

Rule 7: Provide Assessments of Variability

Rule 8: Check Your Assumptions

Rule 9: When Possible, Replicate!

Rule 10: Make Your Analysis Reproducible

###

About the American Statistical Association

The ASA is the world's largest community of statisticians and the oldest continuously operating professional science society in the United States. Its members serve in industry, government and academia in more than 90 countries, advancing research and promoting sound statistical practice to inform public policy and improve human welfare. For additional information, please visit the ASA website at http://www.amstat.org.

For more information:

Jill Talley

Public Relations Manager

(703) 684-1221, ext. 1865

jill@amstat.org
WASHINGTON, DC (June 23, 2016) - The remarkable progress made over the past 30 years to reduce fractures and dramatically improve the quality of life for millions of osteoporosis patients is rapidly being reversed, say two bone health experts in a Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR) article published online today.

Sundeep Khosla, MD, a practicing endocrinologist, research scientist, professor of medicine and director of the Clinical and Translational Science Award Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Elizabeth Shane, MD, a practicing endocrinologist, research scientist, professor of medicine and vice chair for clinical and epidemiological research at Columbia University in New York explain in their article A Crisis in the Treatment of Osteoporosis that too many patients at high risk for fractures are not being diagnosed or treated to prevent them. They summarize evidence that shows that high-risk patients are not getting appropriate therapy despite research showing the effectiveness of several osteoporosis drugs in preventing fractures. Khosla and Shane also outline how the field arrived at its current situation, citing research analyzing parallel trends in media and public concern about rare side effects with a decline in the use of osteoporosis drug prescriptions and an increase in hip fractures.

The authors state: "While there are certainly controversies in the field of osteoporosis, there are also issues upon which there is complete or near-complete agreement: specifically, there is consensus that patients with hip fracture should receive pharmacological treatment to prevent additional fractures, as they are clearly at risk for recurrent hip or other osteoporotic fractures, and initiation of bisphosphonate therapy after hip fracture has been shown to reduce the risk of a second hip fracture."

"We should be viewing the future for our patients with osteoporosis with unparalleled optimism, because we now have several drugs that can markedly reduce fracture incidence, by as much as 70% in the case of vertebral fractures. Thus, while physicians still struggle to treat many other conditions that are currently intractable, including Alzheimer's and many cancers, the good news is that the prevention of fractures is clearly within our reach. And yet, despite the development of several effective drugs to prevent fractures, many patients, even those who unequivocally need treatment, are either not being prescribed osteoporosis medications at all, or when prescribed, refuse to take them."

Nearly 65 percent of people in the United States who are 65 years old and older have osteoporosis or low bone mass and are at risk for a fracture, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and with an aging population , the prevalence of the disease is projected to rise. Data collected by the National Committee for Quality Assurance show that currently only 25 percent of patients who suffer a fracture are treated. Meanwhile, hip fracture patients' use of osteoporosis medications following fracture decreased from 15 percent to 3 percent between 2004 and 2013.

Read the full Perspective article, A Crisis in the Treatment of Osteoporosis. The article appears online June 23 and will be published in the August edition of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

###

About ASBMR

The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) is the leading professional, scientific and medical society established to bring together clinical and experimental scientists involved in the study of bone and mineral metabolism. ASBMR encourages and promotes the study of this expanding field through annual scientific meetings, an official journal (Journal of Bone and Mineral Research), the Primer on Metabolic Bone Diseases and Disorders of Mineral Metabolism, advocacy and interaction with government agencies and related societies. To learn more about upcoming meetings and publications, please visit http://www.asbmr.org.
There is little awareness of the chemical components of cigarette smoke amongst US adults, even though many of them report having looked for relevant information. In a study published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggest that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expand its messaging activities so that information about these constituents reaches all segments of the US population, especially those most vulnerable to tobacco product use and its associated health risks.

Marcella Boynton, first author of the research paper, said: "The majority of the U.S. public wants easy access to information about chemicals in cigarettes and other tobacco products. Surprisingly, our results reveal that groups one might presume to be the least psychologically motivated to look for this information, young adults and smokers, were more likely to say that they had previously looked for this information."

More than a quarter of adults (27.5%) reported having looked for information on the different components of tobacco products and tobacco smoke, many of which are known to be poisonous or cause cancer. Out of these adults, 37.2% were young adults (18-25 years of age) and 34.3% were smokers. Out of non-smokers and older adults, 26% reported having looked for information on tobacco constituents. However, with the exception of nicotine, most respondents were largely unaware of which constituents are present in cigarette smoke. Over half of respondents (54.8%) indicated that they would like relevant information to be available on cigarette packs, and 28.7% would prefer to access that information online.

These results indicate that publication of tobacco constituent information is of interest to the public and could improve public health in the US where tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease, the researchers suggest.

Marcella Boynton said: "By making tobacco chemical information available to the public and tobacco industry practice more transparent, those seeking this information may be less likely to start smoking and more likely to quit because they will be better informed about the toxic chemicals present in tobacco products."

The research team conducted a nationally representative telephone survey among 5,014 US adults aged 18 years and over. To make sure that the sample adequately represented smokers, young adults and minority groups, the survey oversampled high smoking/low income areas and cell phone numbers, as well as groups known to have experienced mistreatment by government organizations in the past. Some of these groups, which include people living in poverty, people with lower education, and sexual minorities, are most affected by tobacco use and its associated health risks, according to the researchers.

The FDA was given the authority to regulate the tobacco industry with the passage of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. It expanded this authority to include additional tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes, hookahs and cigars in May 2016. Education campaigns intended to increase the public's awareness of potential health harms of tobacco products are part of the FDA's efforts to control tobacco products.

Given the FDA's role of communicating the harms of tobacco use, the researchers sought to understand how tobacco product users and non-users perceive the credibility of the FDA. Participants were asked if they had ever heard of the FDA and if they believed that the FDA could effectively regulate tobacco products. The vast majority of US adults surveyed (94.6%) reported having heard of the FDA, but awareness was lower amongst young adults, those with lower education, low numeracy and those living in poverty. The majority of both smokers (66.6%) and non-smokers (65.0%) believed that the FDA could effectively regulate tobacco products.

The study was limited by its focus on tobacco constituents for which the FDA has signaled that it will require manufacturers to provide information. Given the large number of chemicals in tobacco, future research into a wider range of constituents is needed to inform efforts to regulate tobacco use and communicate its risks, according to the researchers. This could benefit the majority of US smokers (over 80%) who reported an intention to quit in this study. Additional work is also needed to monitor public response to FDA communications and changing patterns of tobacco use.

###

Notes to editors:

1. Understanding how perceptions of tobacco constituents and the FDA relate to effective and credible tobacco risk messaging: A national phone survey of U.S. adults, 2014-2015, Marcella H. Boynton, Robert P. Agans, J. Michael Bowling, Noel T. Brewer, Erin L. Sutfin, Adam O. Goldstein, Seth M. Noar and Kurt M. Ribisl, BMC Public Health 2016, DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3151-5

For an embargoed copy of the research article, please contact Anne Korn at BioMed Central.

After the embargo lifts, the article will be available at the journal website here: http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3151-5

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

2. BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community.

3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Nature, a major new force in scientific, scholarly, professional and educational publishing, created in May 2015 through the combination of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media. http://www.biomedcentral.com
Washington, DC-- Hydrogen is the most-abundant element in the universe. It's also the simplest--sporting only a single electron in each atom. But that simplicity is deceptive, because there is still so much we have to learn about hydrogen.

One of the biggest unknowns is its transformation under the extreme pressures and temperatures found in the interiors of giant planets, where it is squeezed until it becomes liquid metal, capable of conducting electricity. New work published in Physical Review Letters by Carnegie's Alexander Goncharov and University of Edinburgh's Stewart McWilliams measures the conditions under which hydrogen undergoes this transition in the lab and finds an intermediate state between gas and metal, which they're calling "dark hydrogen."

On the surface of giant planets like Jupiter, hydrogen is a gas. But between this gaseous surface and the liquid metal hydrogen in the planet's core lies a layer of dark hydrogen, according to findings gleaned from the team's lab mimicry.

Using a laser-heated diamond anvil cell to create the conditions likely to be found in gas giant planetary interiors, the team probed the physics of hydrogen under a range of pressures from 10,000 to 1.5 million times normal atmospheric pressure and up to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

They discovered this unexpected intermediate phase, which does not reflect or transmit visible light, but does transmit infrared radiation, or heat.

"This observation would explain how heat can easily escape from gas giant planets like Saturn," explained Goncharov.

They also found that this intermediate dark hydrogen is somewhat metallic, meaning it can conduct an electric current, albeit poorly. This means that it could play a role in the process by which churning metallic hydrogen in gas giant planetary cores produces a magnetic field around these bodies, in the same way that the motion of liquid iron in Earth's core created and sustains our own magnetic field.

"This dark hydrogen layer was unexpected and inconsistent with what modeling research had led us to believe about the change from hydrogen gas to metallic hydrogen inside of celestial objects," Goncharov added.

###

The team also included Carnegie's Allen Dalton and Howard University's Mohammad Mahmood.

This work was supported by the NSF Major Research Instrumentation program, the Army Research Office, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Deep Carbon Observatory Instrumentation grant, the British Council Researcher Links programme, the DOE NNSA Carnegie/DOE Alliance Center, and the DOE EFRC for Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments.

The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
The GRAVITY instrument is now operating with the four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT - http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal/) , and even from early test results it is already clear that it will soon be producing world-class science.

GRAVITY is part of the VLT Interferometer. By combining light from the four telescopes it can achieve the same spatial resolution and precision in measuring positions as a telescope of up to 130 metres in diameter. The corresponding gains in resolving power and positional accuracy -- a factor of 15 over the individual 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes -- will enable GRAVITY to make amazingly accurate measurements of astronomical objects.

One of GRAVITY's primary goals is to make detailed observations of the surroundings of the 4 million solar mass black hole at the very centre of the Milky Way [1]. Although the position and mass of the black hole have been known since 2002, by making precision measurements of the motions of stars orbiting it, GRAVITY will allow astronomers to probe the gravitational field around the black hole in unprecedented detail, providing a unique test of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

In this regard, the first observations with GRAVITY are already very exciting. The GRAVITY team [2] has used the instrument to observe a star known as S2 as it orbits the black hole at the centre of our galaxy with a period of only 16 years. These tests have impressively demonstrated GRAVITY's sensitivity as it was able to see this faint star in just a few minutes of observation.

The team will soon be able to obtain ultra-precise positions of the orbiting star, equivalent to measuring the position of an object on the Moon with centimetre precision. That will enable them to determine whether the motion around the black hole follows the predictions of Einstein's general relativity -- or not. The new observations show that the Galactic Centre is as ideal a laboratory as one can hope for.

"It was a fantastic moment for the whole team when the light from the star interfered for the first time -- after eight years of hard work," says GRAVITY's lead scientist Frank Eisenhauer from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. "First we actively stabilised the interference on a bright nearby star, and then only a few minutes later we could really see the interference from the faint star -- to a lot of high-fives." At first glance neither the reference star nor the orbiting star have massive companions that would complicate the observations and analysis. "They are ideal probes," explains Eisenhauer.

This early indication of success does not come a moment too soon. In 2018 the S2 star will be at its closest to the black hole, just 17 light-hours away from it and travelling at almost 30 million kilometres per hour, or 2.5% of the speed of light. At this distance the effects due to general relativity will be most pronounced and GRAVITY observations will yield their most important results [3]. This opportunity will not be repeated for another 16 years.

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Notes

[1] The centre of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, lies on the sky in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) and is some 25 000 light-years distant from Earth.

[2] The GRAVITY consortium consists of: the Max Planck Institutes for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and Astronomy (MPIA), LESIA of Paris Observatory and IPAG of Universite Grenoble Alpes/CNRS, the University of Cologne, the Centro Multidisciplinar de Astrofisica Lisbon and Porto (SIM), and ESO.

[3] The team will, for the first time, be able to measure two relativistic effects for a star orbiting a massive black hole -- the gravitational redshift and the precession of the pericentre. The redshift arises because light from the star has to move against the strong gravitational field of the massive black hole in order to escape into the Universe. As it does so it loses energy, which manifests as a redshift of the light. The second effect applies to the star's orbit and leads to a deviation from a perfect ellipse. The orientation of the ellipse rotates by around half a degree in the orbital plane when the star passes close to the black hole. The same effect has been observed for Mercury's orbit around the Sun, where it is about 6500 times weaker per orbit than in the extreme vicinity of the black hole. But the larger distance makes it much harder to observe in the Galactic Centre than in the Solar System.

More information

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Links

First light of GRAVITY (ESO) - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1601/

First light of GRAVITY (MPE) - http://www.mpe.mpg.de/6499200/News_20160113

GRAVITY instrument web page (ESO) - http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt/vlt-instr/gravity/

GRAVITY instrument web page (MPE) - http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/gravity

Orbits of stars around the galactic centre (ESO) - https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0846/

Orbits of stars around the galactic centre (MPE) - http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/GC/

Contacts

Frank Eisenhauer

GRAVITY Principal Investigator, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics

Garching, Germany

Tel: +49 (89) 30 000 3563

Email: eisenhau@mpe.mpg.de

Richard Hook

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: rhook@eso.org

Hannelore Hammerle

Public Information Officer, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics

Garching, Germany

Tel: +49 (89) 30 000 3980

Email: hannelore.haemmerle@mpe.mpg.de
Knowledge of radiation dose and associated risks varies among referring physicians, radiologists, and technicians, according to a new study in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences

Philadelphia, PA, June 23, 2016 - Computed tomography (CT) scans are an invaluable diagnostic tool in modern medicine, but they do come at a price: exposing patients to potentially dangerous ionizing radiation. Doctors and other healthcare professionals may not be fully aware of a CT scan's effect on lifetime malignancy risk. A new study in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences surveyed doctors, radiologists, and imaging technologists regarding their beliefs about radiation exposure from CT. The survey found that while most respondents recognized there is an increased risk of cancer from CT, many underestimated the actual radiation dose.

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan wanted to assess healthcare providers' knowledge regarding radiation dosing from CT scans. Using a survey of medical professionals in Saskatchewan, investigators found that 73% of physicians, 97% of radiologists, and 76% of technologists correctly identified that there is an increased cancer risk from one abdominal-pelvic CT. However, only 18% of physicians, 28% of radiologists, and 22% of technologists were able to correctly identify the dose in relation to chest x-rays. Although 48% of physicians, 78% of radiologists and 63% of technologists either accurately estimated or overestimated this dose, many respondents underestimated the dose level.

"Underestimating radiation dose from a CT scan is more concerning than knowing the exact dose level, particularly when it is a vast underestimation, as this may lead to minimization of the risk estimate when considering a test," explained lead investigator David Leswick, MD, FRCPC, Department of Medical Imaging, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan).

The issue of radiation exposure is significant as doctors continue to order CT scans with increasing frequency. In Canada alone, there were an estimated 4.4 million CT scans conducted in 2011-2012. Measured in millisieverts (mSv), the average radiation dose from an abdominal-pelvic CT is 10 mSv, compared to 0.02 to 0.2 mSv from one chest x-ray, meaning that a radiation dose from a CT scan is best approximated as between that from 100-250 chest radiographs.

"Although risk from radiation dose levels in the range of medical imaging procedures is small, it is real as evidenced from atomic bomb survivors and nuclear industry workers showing significantly increased risk of malignancy after exposure to doses in the range of diagnostic CT," said Dr. Leswick. "The risk of fatal malignancy may be as high as 1 in 1000 for a 10-mSv exposure (approximate dose of an abdomen-pelvis CT). This risk is significant on a population basis, with up to 2% of cancers in the United States population possibly attributable to CT."

With such a clear risk relationship between radiation exposure and cancer, it is imperative that healthcare providers understand the facts to ensure the benefits outweigh the possible danger when ordering a diagnostic CT. The survey indicated that 93% of respondents were interested in radiation dose feedback when considering ordering a CT scan. Automated dose calculation software and radiology information systems can be integrated into electronic ordering, which would give doctors immediate access to information when considering ordering a scan.

Another interesting aspect highlighted by the survey was some confusion regarding radiation exposure from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. MRIs and ultrasounds do not employ ionizing radiation and yet 20% of physicians, 6% of radiologists, and 7% of technologists attributed radiation exposure to MRIs and 11% of physicians, 0% of radiologists, and 7% of technologists believed an ultrasound used radiation. "Belief that ionizing radiation is utilized by ultrasound and MRI is troubling as it may result in underutilization of these imaging modalities because of unfounded radiation concerns," added Dr. Leswick.

While CT scans can be a lifesaving diagnostic tool, they also present a potential danger if they are overused or incorrectly implemented. It is vital that doctors and other healthcare practitioners fully understand the implications of ordering a CT scan and that patients are counseled appropriately about all available forms of testing and the potential radiation exposure involved.

"Unfortunately, healthcare providers including physicians, radiologists, and medical imaging technologists are often not aware of radiation doses for common CT scans," concluded Dr. Leswick. "It is important for healthcare professionals (including referring physicians, radiologists, and technologists) to be aware of radiation dose levels and risks from imaging tests for several reasons, including the ability to weigh the risks and benefits of tests, counsel patients on relevant risks, optimize protocols to minimize radiation dose, and select appropriate protocols to minimize radiation dose."

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Neurons are the basic information processing structures in the brain and consist of three parts: dendrites, responsible for receiving information; axons, responsible for sending information; and the soma, the cell body that contains the nucleus.

For communication between neurons to occur, an electrical impulse, called an action potential, must travel down an axon to its synaptic terminal.

A major technical challenge impeding the direct examination of this process, axonal excitability, is the small diameter of a typical axon - less than 500 nanometers.

Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience researchers have now optimized optical and electrophysiological recordings from single neurons to study axonal excitability with unprecedented detail.

These sophisticated approaches allow for the further understanding of basic principles of neuronal communication.

Advancing the understanding of integrative features of the nervous system

There are three main functions of the nervous system: sensory function, which detects changes in the body; integrative function, which makes decisions based on information it receives; and motor function, which carries electrical impulses to stimulate a response. In particular, the integrative functions of the brain bring sensory information together, add to memory, produce thoughts, and make decision.

The cerebellum, part of the brain that is responsible for motor control, serves as an optimal model system to study the integrative features of the nervous system at both the cellular and network level. The circuitry of the cerebellum is strikingly simple when compared with other regions of the brain, with a regularly repeating cellular organization across its outer layer. In addition, cerebellar-dependent tasks have been well-mapped to particular anatomical sub regions. Therefore, the cerebellum offers a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of how information is transferred and transformed within and between neurons to control motor behavior.

Neurons are divided in three main parts: dendrites, axons, and the soma. While dendrites receive and integrate synaptic input, axons transmit the resultant, compiled synaptic information to specific sites in the form of action potentials. Even within these structures there is sub-specialization; dendrites often support functional domains, or dendritic spines, multiplying their computational capacity. And axons achieve a high-degree of specificity in the organization and functional influence of sodium and potassium channels, despite the simplistic classical view of action potentials as monotypic binary pulses transmitted throughout the entire extent of an axon.

In their June 2016 publication in Neuron, researchers Matthew J.M. Rowan, Ph.D., and Jason M. Christie, Ph.D., describe how they overcame a major technical challenge precluding direct examination of axonal excitability. Because of its small diameter - less than 500 nanometers - the typical axon can't be examined by the conventional electrophysiological recordings. However, using optically-guided subcellular patching, in combination with organic actuators of neural activity, the scientists were able to sample targeted sub regions of axonal membrane including both presynaptic boutons and their attached axon shafts. This recording configuration allows for the direct assessment of the distribution and biophysical properties of ion channels and receptors expressed along an axon. And, in conjunction, it allows for the direct recording of neural signals including action potentials and subthreshold synaptic activity.

Notably, this study demonstrated that action potentials, often viewed as invariant pulses, are instead quite dynamic with their shape varying with subcellular location. The varicose geometry of boutons, alone, does not impose striking differences in spike duration. Rather, this physiology depends on the differential influence of potassium channel subtypes as well as a clustering of fast-activating potassium channels at presynaptic locations. The organizational feature described by this study allows axons to multiply their adaptive properties by tuning excitation in one axonal domain independent of other domains on an exquisitely local spatial scale, including between neighboring sites of release.

Future directions

According to Dr. Rowan, the clustered arrangement and variable expression density of potassium channels at boutons are key determinants underlying compartmentalized control of action potential width in a near synapse-by-synapse manner. Such organization yields a powerful adaptive property allowing individual release sites to locally inform the duration of a propagating spike, dependent on the local abundance of channels, and separate of other sites. Dr. Christie's research team will further investigate how spike signaling within axons is organized and modified, and the computational value of this organization to cerebellar microcircuits.

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About Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience

The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (Jupiter, Florida, USA) specializes in the development and application of novel technologies for probing the structure, function and development of neural circuits. It is the first research institute of the Max Planck Society in the United States.
HOUSTON - (June 23, 2016) - It gets mighty crowded around your DNA, but don't worry: According to Rice University researchers, your proteins are nimble enough to find what they need.

Rice theoretical scientists studying the mechanisms of protein-DNA interactions in live cells showed that crowding in cells doesn't hamper protein binding as much as they thought it did.

Through analytical theory and sophisticated computer simulations, they came to believe that the many molecules dispersed on or around DNA generally move quickly enough to give transcription factors and other proteins easy access to target genes.

These targets are starting points for all biological processes. They contain the information necessary to make more proteins, the workhorses that catalyze activities throughout the body. "Think of DNA as a big library," Rice biophysicist Anatoly Kolomeisky said. "You want the books to be accessible."

Kolomeisky and lead author Alexey Shvets, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, published the latest in their quest to learn how proteins search DNA in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters this month.

If DNA can be likened to a library, it surely is a busy one. Molecules roam everywhere, floating in the cytoplasm and sticking to the tightly wound double helix. "People know that almost 90 percent of DNA is covered with proteins, such as polymerases, nucleosomes that compact two meters into one micron, and other protein molecules," Kolomeisky said.

That makes it seem that proteins sliding along the strand would have a tough time binding, and it's possible they sometimes get blocked. But the Rice team's theory and simulations indicated that crowding agents usually move just as rapidly, sprinting out of the way.

"If they move at the same speed, the molecules don't bother each other," Kolomeisky said. "Even if they're covering a region, the blockers move away quickly so your protein can bind."

In previous research, the team determined that stationary obstacles sometimes help quicken a protein's search for its target by limiting options. This time, the researchers sought to define how crowding both along DNA and in the cytoplasm influenced the process.

"We may think everything's fixed and frozen in cells, but it's not," Kolomeisky said. "Everything is moving."

He said binding proteins have a couple of options. First, if they encounter slow or stationary crowding agents sitting on DNA (which is rare, according to the simulations), they can disassociate and float until they reattach, eventually finding the target. If the agents are moving fast, they make space for the protein to slide to its target. "That's a new thing: People thought that even if the agent was moving, it was a problem, but it's not," Kolomeisky said.

Floating proteins appear to find their targets quickly as well. "This was a surprise," he said. "It's counterintuitive, because one would think collisions between a protein and other molecules on DNA would slow it down. But the system is so dynamic, it doesn't appear to be an issue."

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Kolomeisky is a professor of chemistry and of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The Welch Foundation, the National Science Foundation and Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics supported the research.

Read the abstract at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b00905

This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/2016/06/23/proteins-put-up-with-the-roar-of-the-crowd/

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews

Related materials:

Kolomeisky Research Group: http://python.rice.edu/~kolomeisky/

Wiess School of Natural Sciences: http://naturalsciences.rice.edu

Center for Theoretical Biological Physics: https://ctbp.rice.edu

Images for download:

http://news.rice.edu/files/2016/06/0628_DNA-1-WEB-2a2mpar.jpg

Rice University scientists modeling the interactions of binding proteins and DNA found it's unlikely that crowded conditions within the cell will keep the protein from doing its job. Their simulations showed crowding agents on the surface of DNA are usually moving fast enough to stay out of the way. (Credit: Alexey Shvets/Rice University)

http://news.rice.edu/files/2016/06/0628_DNA-2-WEB-2h5ucyh.jpg

Rice University postdoctoral researcher Alexey Shvets, left, and Professor Anatoly Kolomeisky. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.
A new study by Simon Fraser University marine ecologists Jessica Schultz, Ryan Cloutier and Isabelle Cote has discovered that a mass mortality of sea stars resulted in a domino effect on B.C.'s West Coast Howe Sound marine ecology.

In the summer of 2013, millions of sea stars along the West Coast contracted a wasting disease and died in one of the largest wildlife mass mortality events ever recorded. In B.C., the sunflower star was among the most affected. At one metre in diameter, this formerly abundant species is one of the largest sea stars in the world and a voracious predator of invertebrates.

"Howe Sound lost nearly 90 per cent of its sunflower stars in a matter of weeks," says Schultz, a SFU master's student and the Vancouver Aquarium's Howe Sound research program manager. By repeating underwater surveys done before the mass mortality, the researchers were able to measure changes in marine animal and plant communities around the Sound.

They found that green sea urchins, the sunflower stars' favourite prey, have quadrupled since the sea stars disappeared, while kelp, the sea urchins' favourite food decreased by 80 per cent.

"This is a very clear example of a trophic cascade, which is an ecological domino effect triggered by changes at the end of a food chain, says Cote. "It's a stark reminder that everything is connected to everything else. In this case, the knock-on consequences were predictable, but sometimes they are not."

Two summers on, there is still no sign of recovery in sea stars. Until they return, it seems that little will keep urchins in check and their feast on kelp is likely to continue.

The study published in PeerJ, was a joint effort between SFU and the Vancouver Aquarium.

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Jessica Schultz received funding through the Vancouver Aquarium Howe Sound Research Program. Ryan N. Cloutier received funding through the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network. Isabelle M. Cote received funding through a Discovery grant of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Contact:

Jessica Schultz, Department of Biological Sciences, 778.995.8810, jessica_schultz@sfu.ca

Isabelle Cote, Department of Biological Sciences, 778.782.3705, imcote@sfu.ca (available after June 24, 2016)

Wan Yee Lok, University Communications, 778.782.5987, wyl12@sfu.ca
ST. LOUIS -- Saint Louis University's vaccine center has been tapped by the National Institutes of Health to conduct a human clinical trial of a vaccine to prevent the Zika virus, which can cause devastating birth defects in babies.

The study, which will not start for several months, will be conducted at SLU's Center for Vaccine Development and at a research site partnering with SLU in Puerto Rico, a territory where local mosquitos are transmitting Zika virus infection.

Sarah George, M.D., a flavivirus expert and associate professor of infectious diseases at SLU is the principal investigator. She calls the research critically important to global health.

"We are seeing widespread Zika in the Americas as well as Puerto Rico," George said.

"As of June, 45 states have reported cases of Zika, contracted by people who have traveled to or have had sexual contact with someone who traveled to places where Zika is circulating locally. We need a vaccine to protect people from this emerging infectious disease that can cause microcephaly and other severe brain defects in babies."

Zika is spread by Aedes mosquitoes, which also transmit dengue and chikungunya viruses. Zika also can be sexually transmitted.

About 80 percent of those who contract Zika have no symptoms. Those who feel sick typically have symptoms such as fever, headache, rash, joint pain, or red eyes that last four to seven days. A small number of those infected develop Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis.

The most significant health problems affect unborn babies, whose mothers contract Zika during pregnancy. The developing babies of infected mothers may develop serious complications including death and microcephaly (abnormally small brains) and vision problems.

"This could be similar to what we used to see with rubella (German measles). Frequently women got infected during pregnancy and didn't realize it because their symptoms were so mild. However about a third of their babies had very serious birth defects," George said.

"We developed a vaccine, the MMR vaccine, that is given to children and has virtually eliminated rubella and its associated birth defects. Our hope is a Zika vaccine can accomplish the same goal. By immunizing people early, by the time they're of child-bearing age, they'd have immunity to this virus and it's possible their babies would be protected. However there are a lot of things we don't know about Zika and a lot we are still learning."

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SLU is eligible to conduct the research because its VTEU is one of nine elite institutions selected in 2013 by the National Institutes of Health to study vaccines of the future that will protect people from infectious diseases and emerging threats. The project is funded under Contract No. HHSN272201300021I. The federal government has funded vaccine research at SLU since 1989.

Established in 1836, Saint Louis University School of Medicine has the distinction of awarding the first medical degree west of the Mississippi River. The school educates physicians and biomedical scientists, conducts medical research, and provides health care on a local, national and international level. Research at the school seeks new cures and treatments in five key areas: infectious disease, liver disease, cancer, heart/lung disease, and aging and brain disorders.
San Antonio -- June 22, 2016 -- In the first billion years of Earth's history, the planet was bombarded by primordial asteroids, while a faint Sun provided much less heat. A Southwest Research Institute-led team posits that this tumultuous beginning may have ultimately fostered life on Earth, particularly in terms of sustaining liquid water.

"The early impacts caused temporary, localized destruction and hostile conditions for life. But at the same time, they had a long-term beneficial effect in stabilizing surface temperatures and delivering key elements for life as we know it," said Dr. Simone Marchi, a senior research scientist at SwRI's Planetary Science Directorate in Boulder, Colo. He is the lead author of a paper, "Massive Impact-induced Release of Carbon and Sulfur Gases in the Early Earth's Atmosphere," recently published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The paper addresses a major problem, one of the outstanding mysteries in the history of the solar system and Earth -- the faint young Sun paradox.

"Atmospheric and surface conditions during the first billion years of Earth's history are poorly understood due to the scarcity of geological and geochemical evidence," said Marchi. However, ancient zircon crystals in sedimentary rocks provide evidence that our planet had liquid oceans, at least intermittently, during this earliest period. His team created a new model for impact-generated outgassing on the early Earth, showing how a resulting greenhouse effect could have counterbalanced the weak light from the infant Sun enough to sustain liquid water.

The findings could be key to understanding how life started on Earth despite the faint young Sun and havoc caused by collisions. Studies of other stars, as well as theoretical modeling, have shown that Sun-like stars begin their life about 20 to 30 percent fainter in visible wavelengths than the Sun is at present. They gradually increase in luminosity over time.

"Today Earth is in the 'Goldilocks zone,' where liquid water can exist on its surface," said Marchi. Referencing the fairy tale about the three little bears, the Goldilocks zone is an orbit around a star where it's not too hot, nor too cold, for liquid water. Liquid water is generally considered a key ingredient for life. When the Sun was much fainter, the Earth with its present atmospheric composition would have been frozen solid. If the oceans were frozen, life may not have formed.

The most straightforward explanation would be a massive atmospheric greenhouse effect, from either carbon dioxide or methane, or both. Previous work has speculated that volcanic outgassing or impact-vaporized materials could have released greenhouse gases. Marchi's team proposes a novel, more efficient mechanism As the planet was pummeled by primordial asteroids -- some larger than 100 kilometers in diameter -- impacts would melt large volumes of rock, creating temporary lakes of lava. These pools of lava could have released large quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

"This early heavy bombardment could have been responsible for the large greenhouse effect needed to maintain warmer conditions, which may have been conducive to the early start for life on Earth," said Marchi. "The bombardment also delivered large quantities of sulfur, one of the most important elements for life."

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This research was partially funded thorough an Exobiology Grant and supported by Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. SSERVI, a virtual institute of international partnerships, enables cross-team and interdisciplinary research, designed to push the boundaries of science and exploration. Located at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., SSERVI is funded jointly by the agency's Science Mission and Human Exploration and Operations Mission directorates at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Editors: Images to accompany this story: http://www.swri.org/press/2016/keys-life-primordial-asteroid-impacts.htm
Lebanon, NH -- A new study by researchers from The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice and UCLA School of Law found state laws aimed at curbing prescription opioid abuse have had no measurable effect on opioid use by a vulnerable population with high rates of use.

Responding to a fourfold rise in death rates between 2006 and 2012, states collectively enacted 81 laws restricting prescribing and dispensing of prescription opioids. Jill Horwitz, PhD, JD, said "states hoped passing a range of laws might help. So they are enacting small fixes -- forbidding patients from "doctor-shopping," and requiring doctors to use tamper-resistant prescription forms. They are also implementing major efforts such as prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) -- online databases that allow law enforcement and clinicians to monitor prescriptions."

The researchers analyzed the effects of these laws on prescription opioid use in a national population of 2.2 million disabled Medicare beneficiaries ages 21 to 64. Their analysis revealed no significant association between state laws and hazardous prescribing patterns, such as, very high daily opioid doses (equal to 120 mg or more of morphine) and rate of nonfatal overdose. States introducing multiple laws (three or more from 2006-2012) experienced lower growth in the population receiving opioids chronically, or from multiple prescribers, but the impact was small and not statistically significant.

"We studied a particularly vulnerable population, disabled Medicare beneficiaries. They have higher rates of opioid use, poverty and complex medical conditions compared to the general U.S. population," said Dartmouth Institute Professor Ellen Meara, PhD, the study's lead author. "Because of their high rate of death from prescription opioid overdose, they could have benefited from effective regulation." *(In 2008, death rates from prescription opioid overdose in the study sample were nearly 10 times the U.S. rate: 46.6 versus 4.8 per 100,000.)

"However, the laws appear weak and slow relative to the epidemic they aim to curb," Meara said.

Laws strengthened since 2012 may have a bigger impact. Since 2012, 20 states have begun to require prescribers to consult the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances to new patients. The authors plan to examine that next.

"Successful prescription opioid regulation should strike the hard balance between controlling misuse and fostering compassionate pain management. Clinicians need to carefully consider their role in prescription opioid misuse and overdose," said Nancy Morden, MD, senior author and primary care physician.

"Opioid abuse is a growing threat to public health; prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) and other laws are costly," Meara added. "Our findings indicate they don't do much to curb opioid abuse or overdose, at least in this vulnerable population. States might invest more resources in evaluating the effectiveness of legislation."

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Washington, DC--Researchers have developed an index to better predict which women may experience faster bone loss across the menopause transition, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Osteoporosis is often referred to as a "silent" disease because individuals who have it experience few noticeable symptoms. The progressive condition occurs when bones grow structurally weak and become more likely to fracture or break.

The condition is common, particularly among older individuals. More than 10 million U.S. adults have osteoporosis, according to the Society's Endocrine Facts and Figures Report. Another 34 million adults nationwide have low bone density.

"Researchers have previously shown that it is difficult to predict an individual's bone loss by testing the blood or urine for proteins that reflect either bone breakdown or bone formation alone," said one of the study's authors, Albert Shieh, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles. "Since both bone breakdown and bone formation occur at the same time in the body, we created an index that accounts for both processes, and tested whether this new index can help predict bone loss."

The researchers call the index a Bone Balance Index. The index was most useful for predicting bone loss in the bones of the spine.

To create the index, the researchers used data from a cohort of women as they went through menopause. Women are prone to bone loss during the menopausal transition. The 685 women, who participated in the Study of Women's Health across the Nation, were between the ages of 42 and 52. The women were either premenopausal or in early perimenopause when they enrolled in the study, and all of the participants included in this analysis had their final menstrual period during the follow-up portion of the study.

Urine and blood samples were taken from the women to measure for bone turnover markers--proteins that reflect bone breakdown and bone formation. The women also had their bone mineral density measured every year during the course of the study.

The researchers combined measurements of bone breakdown and bone formation in a Bone Balance Index to determine each individual's net bone balance before the final menstrual period. They found that this index was a stronger predictor of bone loss from two years before the final menstrual period to three to four years later - a time when bone density typically declines - than a measurement of bone breakdown alone.

"This novel approach to assessing an individual's bone health may help identify which women are at risk of losing vertebral bone mineral density across the menopause transition," Shieh said. "More studies are needed to test whether this index is useful for predicting bone loss after the menopause transition, and if it is useful for predicting fractures," Shieh said. "Since markers of bone breakdown alone have limited utility in predicting bone loss at an individual level, better approaches are needed to ensure individuals at highest risk of rapid bone loss are identified as quickly as possible."

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Other authors of the study include: Weijuan Han, Gail A. Greendale, Carolyn J. Crandall and Arun S. Karlamangla of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Shinya Ishii of the University of Tokyo.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging; the UCLA Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center; the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; and the UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research Program.

The study, "Quantifying the Balance Between Total Bone Formation and Total Bone Resorption: An Index of Net Bone Formation," will be published online at http://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc.2015-4262, ahead of print.

For more resources on bone health, visit the Endocrine Society's centennial website.

Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions.

The Society, which is celebrating its centennial in 2016, has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at http://www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.
The Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, run jointly by The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and New America Media (NAM) since its launch in 2010, has received renewed grant support to welcome its seventh cohort of fellows. To date, the 2016 funders of the program include The Silver Century Foundation, AARP, The Retirement Research Foundation, and The John A. Hartford Foundation.

For the past six years, this co-venture -- responsible for more than 400 news stories by 102 alumni to date -- has largely centered around GSA's Annual Scientific Meeting and in-depth stories proposed by each fellow.

"The journalists we have welcomed to the program have produced award-winning coverage of aging issues, and the diversity of their stories has been amazing," said Paul Stearns, MS, GSA's senior director of membership, communications, and branding. "We're grateful to our grant partners for helping us to connect these reporters with experts and trusted sources of information on aging, and to keep America adequately informed about the state of aging in this country."

The program is co-directed by Todd Kluss, MA, GSA's senior manager of communications, and Paul Kleyman, the senior editor of NAM's ethnic elders newsbeat and national coordinator of the Journalists Network on Generations.

As in previous years, half of the fellows will be selected from general audience media and half from ethnic media outlets that serve communities within the U.S.

The centerpiece of the program will be the fellows' participation in GSA's Annual Scientific Meeting, which in 2016 will take place from November 16 to 20 in New Orleans, Louisiana -- with the theme of "New Lens on Aging: Changing Attitudes, Expanding Possibilities." The fellowship requires participating reporters to deliver a story from the conference and a major piece or series in the following months.

"This year's conference theme of the need to change our attitudes and expand our possibilities through the lens of an aging applies more than ever to today's media," said NAM Executive Director Sandy Close, a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" fellow and Academy Award-winning documentary producer. "Our fellowship collaboration with GSA has been essential for educating reporters and the increasingly diverse communities they inform about the challenges of growing older."

On arriving in New Orleans, the fellows will participate in a workshop the day before the GSA meeting begins. This session will showcase research highlights from the meeting and host discussions with veteran journalists on how to position aging stories in the current media environment.

All applications for the fellowship program will be reviewed by a selection committee of journalists and experts in aging. The criteria will include clarity and originality of proposed in-depth story projects; quality of samples of published or produced work; and high-impact potential of proposals geographically and across different ethnic or racial populations. The 2016 application deadline is Friday, July 29.

Previous fellows also will be eligible for support to attend the New Orleans meeting to cover the newest developments in the field of aging. A continuously updated list of stories from the fellows is available at http://www.geron.org/journalistfellows.

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The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society -- and its 5,500+ members -- is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA's structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society, and an educational branch, the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.

New America Media (NAM) is the country's first and largest collaboration and advocate of 3,000 ethnic news organizations. Over 60 million ethnic adults connect to each other, to home countries and to America through their ethnic media outlets, the fastest growing sector of American journalism. Founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service in 1996, NAM is headquartered in California with offices in New York and Washington, DC, and partnerships with journalism schools to grow local associations of ethnic media.
NEW YORK, NY - June 23, 2016 - Mount Sinai scientists have identified a previously unknown mechanism by which a protein called CBX8 promotes tumor growth in the most lethal forms of breast cancer. The study, published today in the journal Cell Reports, underscores the need for cancer researchers to pay more attention to "epigenetic" factors, meaning chemical and biological processes that control gene expression without changing the underlying DNA sequence of the cells that are running amok.

One out of eight women in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. A subset of them are tragically afflicted with forms of the illness that don't respond to any traditional or targeted treatments. For years, a growing body of evidence has suggested that epigenetic factors play a role in oncogenic (cancer-promoting) cell signaling pathways and may explain why some cancers are so resistant to treatment. But the mechanisms are poorly understood--in part, because focused epigenetic investigations in oncology are still relatively new.

"Looking beyond traditional genetics is critical because we have learned that epigenetic factors, the protein CBX8 in this case, are required for tumorigenesis and malignant phenotypes of breast cancer cells," said Emily Bernstein, PhD, Associate Professor of Oncological Sciences and Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "We also know that CBX8 is overexpressed in primary breast tumors, and that high CBX8 expression in patients correlates with poor outcome."

CBX8 maintains a stem cell-like gene expression pattern in breast cancer cells, and in particular, an important pathway called Notch signaling. This cellular pathway is important for both mammary development and tumorigenesis, and when CBX8 is dysregulated, the result is uncontrolled cell growth. "It appears that CBX8 is hijacked in breast cancer cells," said Chi-Yeh (Jay) Chung, a PhD candidate at the Icahn School of Medicine and lead author of the new study. "Our genomic analysis revealed, both in mouse and human breast cancer cell lines, that CBX8 promotes the Notch signaling pathway."

In breast cancer, the "upregulation" of Notch signaling described in the Mount Sinai study has been shown to correlate with high-grade tumors and poor patient prognosis. Based on previous studies, upregulation of Notch also confers drug resistance, particularly in the "triple-negative" cancer subtype that does not express estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) or HER2.

The decision to focus on CBX8 resulted from an unconventional research strategy, according to Dr. Bernstein. Rather than selecting a particular molecular target or pathway because it had a proven track record in other types of cancer, the team decided to let genetic screening guide their decision-making. They screened a total of 60 epigenetic targets before homing in on CBX8.

"The novelty of the study comes from the fact that we did this in an unbiased manner," said Dr. Bernstein. "We didn't pick CBX8. It came to us in the screens because it has a dominant role in tumorigenesis."

Mount Sinai's work in the epigenetics of cancer is an important counter-balance to the lingering public perception that "genes are destiny." Despite years of scientific investigations into chemical factors that trigger or inhibit cell processes with no involvement of nucleic acid, DNA still rules when it comes to determining cancer. Today, Dr. Bernstein said, "doctors look at patients' genetics and their receptor status--HER2, estrogen and progesterone--and in some cases, they consider the tumor's gene expression profile. But we know these are not the only factors at work. Doctors concentrate on receptor status because the treatments we have today primarily target those pathways."

"Now, we are adding a new layer of analysis, and in time, I believe the patient's epigenetic status will be an important consideration," Dr. Bernstein said. "The nice thing about CBX8 as a potential factor to target--beside the fact that it regulates Notch signaling--is that it's independent of the breast cancer subtype. You could be positive or negative for HER2 or estrogen receptor. Either way, if you have high CBX8, that carries clinical significance. And it points to more of a general approach in targeting the epigenome, rather than receptor status or a specific gene expression profile."

While targeting epigenetic factors with drugs is still a relatively new therapeutic strategy, a number of such therapies are starting to move through clinical trials. "Now, at a time when chemical compounds are being developed to inhibit the CBX proteins, our work justifies focusing specifically on this one, CBX8, as a therapeutic target in the treatment of breast cancer," said Dr. Bernstein.

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Contributors:

Contributors to this study include Chi-Yeh Chung, Zhen Sun, Gavriel Mullokandov, Almudena Bosch, Zulekha A. Qadeer, Esma Cihan, Zachary Rapp, Ramon Parsons, Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, Eduardo F. Farias, Brian D. Brown, Alexandre Gaspar-Maia, and Emily Bernstein.

Funding:

This work was supported by the Office of Research Infrastructure of the NIH (award number S10OD018522), the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program BC100975 and New York Stem Cell Foundation - Druckenmiller fellowship to A.G.M., NCI T32 T32CA078207-11 to Z.Q., Helmsley Trust Award to G.M., NIH Pathfinder Award (DP2DK083052-01) and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF-17-2010-770) to B.D.B., R01 CA82783 and R01CA184016 to R.P., Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation Tumor Dormancy Program to J.A.A.-G., E.F.F. and E.B., The JJR and Mary Kay Foundations to E.B.

Conflicts:

Dr. Bernstein reports no conflicts of interest.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient services--from community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care.

The System includes approximately 6,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 12 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked as one of the nation's top 10 hospitals in Geriatrics, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, and Gastroenterology, and is in the top 25 in five other specialties in the 2015-2016 "Best Hospitals" issue of U.S. News & World Report. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital also is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 11th nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel is ranked regionally.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
WASHINGTON -- Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Australian National University have developed new technology that aims to make the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) even more sensitive to faint ripples in space-time called gravitational waves.

Scientists at Advanced LIGO announced the first-ever observation of gravitational waves earlier this year, a century after Albert Einstein predicted their existence in his general theory of relativity. Studying gravitational waves can reveal important information about cataclysmic astrophysical events involving black holes and neutron stars.

In The Optical Society's journal for high impact research, Optica, the researchers report on improvements to what is called a squeezed vacuum source. Although not part of the original Advanced LIGO design, injecting the new squeezed vacuum source into the LIGO detector could help double its sensitivity. This would allow detection of gravitational waves that are far weaker or that originate from farther away than is possible now.

A wrinkle in space-time

For millennia, people have used light as a way of viewing the universe. Telescopes magnify what is visible with the naked eye, and newer telescopes use non-visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide a picture of the universe surrounding us.

"There are many processes in the universe that are inherently dark; they don't give off light of any color," said Nergis Mavalvala, part of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research team and a leader of the research team. "Since many of those processes involve gravity, we want to observe the universe using gravity as a messenger."

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and MIT conceived, built, and operate identical Advanced LIGO detectors in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington. Each observatory uses a 2.5-mile long optical device known as an interferometer to detect gravitational waves coming from distant events, such as the collision of two black holes detected last year.

Laser light traveling back and forth down the interferometer's two arms is used to monitor the distance between mirrors at each arm's end. Gravitational waves will cause a slight, but detectable variation in the distance between the mirrors. Both detectors must detect the variation to confirm that gravitational waves, not seismic activity or other terrestrial effects, caused the distance between mirrors to change.

Studying neutron star collisions

"We want to use the Advanced LIGO detectors to sense the farthest gravitational wave or weakest gravitational wave possible," said Mavalvala. "However, this is limited by the quantum fluctuations of the laser light, which create a certain level of noise. If a gravitational wave is weaker than that level of noise, then we can't detect it. Thus, we have a big impetus to decrease that noise, and we can do that using our squeezed vacuum source."

The researchers are planning to add their new squeezed vacuum source to Advanced LIGO in the next year or so. Once implemented, it will improve the sensitivity of the gravitational detectors, particularly at the higher frequencies important for understanding the composition of neutron stars. These extremely dense stars contain the mass of the sun, which has a radius of 700,000 kilometers, within just a 10-kilometer diameter.

"Nobody knows exactly how the neutrons in these stars behave when you crush them into such a dense package," said Mavalvala. "These neutron stars sometimes collide with each other, and at the moment that they are ripping each other apart, you can study the properties of this nuclear matter by detecting gravitational waves that occur at higher frequencies."

How can a squeezed vacuum state help?

Mavalvala explains that the laser light used in the LIGO detectors can be thought of as a type of ruler. "The phase noise that results from the quantum fluctuations of the laser light is like trying to measure the length of a piece of paper while the ruler's tick marks keep wiggling and moving about," she said. "Because this noise causes the tick marks on our meter stick to jitter, we want to reduce that by injecting this special squeezed vacuum state that has smaller fluctuations, or produces less jitter on the tick marks of our ruler."

Creating the squeezed vacuum source involved modifying a vacuum state, which is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. "We captured part of this electromagnetic vacuum in an optical cavity by first building the experiment with laser beams and then making the squeezed vacuum state by dialing down the laser power until there is no light, and only the vacuum is left," said Mavalvala. "Then, everything we would have done to the light, we can do to the squeezed vacuum state."

The improved squeezed vacuum source builds on work conducted by researchers at Leibniz University of Hannover and the University of Hamburg, both in Germany. The new squeezed vacuum source exhibits about ten times less phase noise than previously reported sources. The researchers accomplished this by decreasing vibrations that can adversely affect the squeezed state and by making improvements to a system that corrects any remaining phase noise.

"The best approach is to try to reduce the amount of intrinsic phase noise, but if you can't do that, you can measure how much it's jittering and then use feedback to correct it," said Eric Oelker, first author of the paper. "We used a variation of a correction scheme that has been employed before, but our version allowed us to increase the bandwidth of the feedback loops, suppressing the phase noise in a completely new way."

The researchers say that the new squeezed vacuum source is almost ready to deploy in Advanced LIGO. In separate research, they have shown that they can also reduce optical losses that can degrade a squeezed vacuum state. "By combining the optical losses that we think we can achieve and this new lower phase noise result, we're aiming for a factor of two in improvements for Advanced LIGO," said Mavalvala. "We hope to achieve greater improvements in gravitational wave sensitivity than was previously thought possible."

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About Optica

Optica is an open-access, online-only journal dedicated to the rapid dissemination of high-impact peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics. Published monthly by The Optical Society (OSA), Optica provides a forum for pioneering research to be swiftly accessed by the international community, whether that research is theoretical or experimental, fundamental or applied. Optica maintains a distinguished editorial board of more than 30 associate editors from around the world and is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Alex Gaeta, Columbia University, USA. For more information, visit Optica.

About The Optical Society

Founded in 1916, The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional organization for scientists, engineers, students and entrepreneurs who fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. Through world-renowned publications, meetings and membership initiatives, OSA provides quality research, inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts. For more information, visit osa.org/100.
AURORA, Colo. (June 23, 2016) - While the lure of academic medicine careers often lies in the promise of finding life-saving cures and new medical treatments, many young faculty leave the field in frustration after failing to win grants to fund their research. As a result, the best and brightest recruits are often lost to academic medicine.

But a new study at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus demonstrates that a program pairing junior faculty members with seasoned mentors can result in significantly more grants.

The study, published recently in the journal Academic Medicine, shows participants in the Clinical Faculty Scholars Program (CFSP) at CU Anschutz won about four times as many grants as those who didn't take the course.

The innovative, faculty-led program began in 2004 but its impact is just now being studied.

"We are in perhaps the most challenging and competitive period of academic funding in history," said Anne Libby, PhD, lead author of the study and professor and vice-chair for academic affairs of the Department of Emergency Medicine. "National Institutes of Health budgets have shrunk and there is a critical lack of state funding."

That means researchers seeking funding must know how to write focused, understandable grant applications and remain persistent in the face of rejection.

"Thousands of junior faculty begin their appointments at academic health centers planning careers that will include externally funded research," the study said. "Attrition in the early-career faculty ranks indicates that many talented and well-trained clinicians and scientists who seek these careers are not retained by academic health centers in part because of their inability to achieve external funding."

The two-year CFSP program offers a research mentoring team to five junior faculty selected annually with the goal of teaching them how to win funding. Each scholar gets a primary senior mentor who they meet with regularly to develop targeted research plans. There are also group meetings and sessions with program directors to keep scholars on track.

Study co-author Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, a program alumnus and now co-director of CFSP, said this all happens during an intense time in a researcher's career.

"There is only a two or three year period to become really successful in this field," he said. "Without a robust environment and concentrated career mentorship, often very talented people who could or should have successful research careers will not succeed. We provide them the structure to make it through this critical period."

Ginde, an associate professor of emergency medicine at CU Anschutz, said CFSP shows early professionals how to write grants, find mentors and collaborators and locate the right sponsors.

According to Libby, it's a level of complexity few researchers have ever been taught.

"What you don't want to happen is see good people working in isolated silos wither on the vine," she said. "In the world of academic medicine, it's sink or swim."

The study shows the program is working.

Researchers looked at the number of grants won by the junior faculty before and after the training and also compared them to those who did not participate in the program.

They found that the mean annual dollars increased significantly for the CFSP participants compared to those who didn't take the course. Those in the program won an average of $83,427 a year in grants vs. $27,343 for those who didn't take part. They also wrote more grants as well.

"They are in there applying. They learn to understand rejection. In fact, we normalize rejection," Libby said. "I tell them rejection is a rite of passage and if they aren't getting rejected they aren't submitting enough grants."

She said the program is a proven and financially sustainable way to enhance the grant productivity of young faculty, especially important now as more and more senior faculty are set to retire.

"We have shown that with the right resources junior faculty from a wide range of disciplines can be trained for extramural grant success and that the resulting productivity is observable on average after one year of this training and grows over time," the study said.

Ginde noted that the program taught him the value of persistence and collaboration in his own career as a clinical researcher.

"And it is now seen as the flagship research career development program on our campus," he said.

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The study co-authors include Patrick Hosokawa, MS, Diane Fairclough, DrPH, Allan Prochazka, MD and Pamela Jones, PhD, all of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Millions of people will likely be in harm's way as a new hurricane season unfolds in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts up to eight hurricanes in the 2016 season, and as many as four major storms with winds of 111 miles per hour or more.

What people do - or don't do - to get out of harm's way is of keen interest to disaster and emergency response officials.

Plans and contingencies work best when they are based on reliable predictions. Having a good idea of what people are likely to do, when they're likely to do it and how they are likely to go about it helps authorities choose the best evacuation strategy. It gives them useful information about what kind of traffic surge to expect and how best to steer it.

Researchers at the University of Delaware's Disaster Research Center have been studying evacuation data and predictors for years and have published two new papers that may help to improve prediction models used by emergency planners, leading to more efficient evacuations and possibly saving lives.

DRC includes scientists from multiple disciplines and collaborates with many others around the world. In these papers, they worked with researchers from Cornell University.

"It is an interdisciplinary project," said Rachel Davidson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-primary investigator with DRC Director Tricia Wachtendorf on two major National Science Foundation grants that have supported the study. "And we're working closely with practitioners to make a link from research to practice."

Sociologists, psychologists, engineers and meteorologists all have been part of the work, as have the Federal Emergency Management Agency, North Carolina State Emergency Management and the American Red Cross, Davidson said.

The goal is to sharpen planners' insight on how many people may leave from a given area, when they are most likely to make their move and where they are likely to go.

It's not easy to guess what a human being will do. The brain processes many factors as it moves toward a decision - past experience, perception of risk and how it interprets present conditions, to name just a few. Those factors are hard to pin down in the best, most stable of times, let alone when the winds start to howl and the rain starts to pound.

Hurricanes, too, can be quite unpredictable, as evidenced by the ever-changing "cone of uncertainty" included in forecasts as storm systems approach.

But expansive review of data gathered in prior evacuations reveals patterns that can be analyzed and incorporated in regional models, based on mathematical predictions and controls, to strengthen the reliability of predictions in future storms.

That's what the two new papers show. Both draw on data from the eastern part of hurricane-throttled North Carolina, where the Outer Banks and other coastal areas have seen more than their share of evacuation orders.

One of the papers, published by Environmental Hazards, looks at demographic data to see which factors influence the decisions of various groups and their likelihood of evacuating when mandatory orders are issued versus voluntary orders.

"Social and environmental cues influence behavior," said Sarah DeYoung, postdoctoral researcher at DRC who was the lead author of that paper and has just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia.

"But we understand, too, the temporal nature of that," Davidson said. "It's not like people make a decision on Day 1 and follow through with that. They see what happens and change their minds, too."

The study, based on survey data collected in 2011 through phone interviews with North Carolina residents in Wilmington, Raleigh, Jacksonville and the Outer Banks, looked at respondents' "threshold for evacuation" - whether they had a high threshold and were less likely to evacuate or a low threshold and more likely to evacuate.

Those lines moved a bit, depending on whether the storm discussed was a higher or lower category of strength and whether the evacuation order was mandatory or voluntary.

But in general, DeYoung said, white respondents had a higher threshold than non-white respondents, a finding that was particularly interesting given that other studies in the United States suggest that non-whites evacuated later.

"This was really notable for us," said Wachtendorf, associate professor of sociology and the lead social scientist on the research. "Is it that minority segments of the community are willing to leave but don't always have sufficient resources to do so? Is it because, as other research suggests, they have less trust in officials and, particularly after what happened after Hurricane Katrina, they believe they can't rely on officials if they stay? It really points to an area where more research is needed."

Respondents who had ignored previous evacuation warnings were also more likely to ignore an order in the future.

And DeYoung said most people saw wind as more dangerous than water, but in reality it is the storm surge and flooding that causes more deaths. Most hurricane-related deaths occur in areas where people decided not to evacuate. Wachtendorf said this could lead people to dismiss the threat of lower category storms, with relatively lower wind speeds, despite the threat flooding can pose.

One recommendation is to increase public awareness of the risk associated with drowning and flooding versus the probability of death caused by wind damage.

Research in progress points to other important factors in the decision-making process, including concern about traffic jams, caring for pets and livestock, and fear of crime in public shelters.

"It's a moving target," Davidson said. "There are challenges in science and challenges in engineering. But understanding people's behavior is one of the most challenging parts."

"That's one reason why the interdisciplinary approach is so valuable," said Wachtendorf.

The second paper, published on Science Direct in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice and authored by Kecheng Xu, a graduate student in Cornell University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Cornell professor Linda Nozick, describes new models that estimate the number of evacuees in specific evacuation zones and predicted accurately what individual households would do about 70 percent of the time. Accuracy improves as data are aggregated regionally.

The work by the civil engineers on the project used data collected by the social scientists to inform many of the assumptions for their models.

Having reliable models puts the power of the knowledge into useful form for planners and helps them shape effective, efficient evacuation plans that could save lives in the future.

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A new virtual reality simulator will help University of Iowa researchers study how and why people lose control while driving all-terrain vehicles.

In Iowa, more than 200 ATV-related crashes occur every year, sending patients to emergency departments across the state. And since January, there have been six known deaths of children in ATV-related incidents statewide, according to officials at UI Children's Hospital.

Charles Jennissen, UI clinical professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine, says the university's new ATV simulator will help researchers learn more about what causes ATV crashes and how they can be avoided.

"We've had a more basic ATV simulator, but this version is more sophisticated," says Jennissen, a member of the UI Children's Hospital ATV Safety Task Force. "Now we have virtual reality goggles, so the screen reflects the movements of the platform. As you turn the steering wheel, you also turn in the virtual reality environment, which makes the experience feel more realistic for research subjects."

Developed in collaboration with researchers at the UI College of Engineering's Center for Computer-Aided Design, the simulator features an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, a special suit with 17 motion sensors, and a motion platform to help simulate changes in terrain. UI students Jake Michael, of Hartland, Wisconsin, a graduate student in biomedical engineering, and Kyle Losik, of Naperville, Illinois, a senior mechanical engineering major, played a major role in building the simulator and designing the virtual reality environment, with leadership from engineering faculty member Salam Rahmatalla.

Rahmatalla, whose research includes the mechanics of movement, describes the simulator as "basically a giant video game controller." The driver's actions--accelerating, braking, turning, etc.--are reflected in the virtual reality environment. At the same time, the simulator measures forces on the driver and the ATV, allowing researchers to monitor when the driver's or the vehicle's center of mass may shift and lead to a loss of control.

Jennissen says tracking movement is especially important on an ATV, which requires drivers to use their bodies to maintain control of the vehicle and to navigate obstacles such as hills and rough terrain.

The new simulator will provide a controlled, safe environment where researchers can test different types of drivers, such as experienced vs. inexperienced drivers and children vs. adult drivers. It also could serve as a training environment for emergency responders and the military, who often use off-road vehicles for rescue missions.

Safety Tips for ATV Riders

Always wear a helmet One person at a time (no passengers) Ride the right size machine Always wear protective gear Never ride on the road Take a safety course Tell someone where you are going Respect private property Never use drugs or alcohol Always obey the rules

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Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly and occurs in all ethnic and racial groups. It affects more than 5 million people age 65 and older in the United States alone and there is currently no effective treatment or cure. By identifying the genetic factors that contribute to Alzheimer's disease risk or protect against it, researchers hope to improve diagnosis, treatments and potentially prevent the disease.

Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine's John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG) have been awarded two new contracts from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), entitled "Coordinating Center for Genetics and Genomics of Alzheimer's Disease (CGAD)" and "Replication and Extension of ADSP Discoveries in African-Americans." These newly awarded contracts are part of a global initiative to detect genetic factors associated with Alzheimer's disease risk in an effort to identify new targets for drug development.

"We are very excited to expand our work at the HIHG on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease," said Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., director of the HIHG and the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Professor of Human Genetics. "We are at a crucial point in the Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project where we have the opportunity to replicate the findings from our Discovery Phase Cohort, moving us closer to new drug target identification. In addition, expanding our research to African Americans, a diverse and underrepresented group in Alzheimer's disease research, in combination with the ADSP efforts, has the potential to hasten translation of these findings into better treatments and potential preventions while making these therapies available to a broader section of the Alzheimer community."

The first project, CGAD, represents the replication phase for the presidentially-mandated Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP). In this project, whole exome sequence (the genes that make protein) data from more than 11,000 individuals (6,000 Alzheimer's disease patients and 5,000 cognitively intact individuals) and whole genome sequence data (3.3 billion base pairs each) from 500 individuals in families with multiple individuals with Alzheimer's disease are being analyzed.

Pericak-Vance is principal investigator of the NIA-funded Consortium for Alzheimer's Sequence Analysis (CASA), part of the ADSP. The newly-funded grant, CGAD, represents the ADSP replication phase following up on results from the ADSP discovery analysis. CGAD is a $10.8 million five-university effort led by collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the University of Miami, Case Western Reserve University, Boston University, Columbia University and University of Indiana. The University of Miami efforts for CGAD will be co-led by Pericak-Vance and Eden Martin, Ph.D., director of the Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics at the HIHG and professor of human genetics in the Dr. John T Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics.

"Our initial discovery phase taught us much about handling 'big data' and harnessing the wealth of information in one's genomic sequence to identify gene targets for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease," said Martin. "Our replication efforts will build on this work and help, not only to validate findings, but to extend them to other racial and ethnic groups, thus expanding the scope of the science and potential impact of findings to patient populations."

The second funded research project, "Replication and Extension of ADSP Discoveries in African Americans," is co-led at the University of Miami by Pericak-Vance and Gary Beecham, Ph.D., director of research at HIHG and assistant professor in the Dr. John T Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics. Despite steady improvement in the overall health of the United States, individuals within underserved groups continue to be more vulnerable to lapses in care and are at increased risk for health problems. African Americans have a higher prevalence and incidence of dementia and AD than non-Hispanic white individuals, however, there have been considerably few studies that include this population. Thus, as new therapies are developed, these underserved groups may not benefit from these discoveries. The new funding will expand the HIHG's work on the genetics of Alzheimer's that affects diverse populations. Through this project, investigators at the HIHG will conduct a genomic study of Alzheimer's disease in African Americans by enrolling African American families that have multiple individuals with the disease. Since patient ascertainment is a key element in this project, HIHG staff will continue to educate diverse communities about the disease, warning signs and symptoms related to the disease and promote participation from individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's and their families.

The African American grant is a nearly $4 million collaborative project with three other universities: Goldie Byrd, Ph.D., will lead the project at NCA&T University; Jonathan Haines, Ph.D., at Case Western Reserve University; and Richard Mayeux, M.D., MS, at Columbia University.

Other Miller School investigators include Jeffery M. Vance, M.D., Ph.D., director for the Center for Genomic Education and Outreach (C-GEO) at HIHG and professor of human genetics and neurology; Holly Cukier, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neurology; Michael Cuccaro, Ph. D., Associate Director of C-GEO at HIHG and Associate Professor in the DHG and the Department of Psychology; Larry Deon Adams, HIHG Project Manager, Kara Hamilton, HIHG statistical analyst, and Nancy Joseph, HIHG Research Support Coordinator.

"Replication and Extension of ADSP Discoveries in African-Americans" was awarded under NIA grant number U01AG052410, CASA is supported under UG19AG047133 and CGAD is supported under grant U54AG052427.

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RENO, Nev. - An old technology that uses natural bacteria predators, called bacteriophages, is the focus of new research at the University of Nevada, Reno. The technique is being used to reduce salmonella bacteria in meat products.

Assistant Professor Amilton de Mello, from the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno, presented his research at the international American Meat Science Association's conference that ends today in Texas.

"We were able to reduce salmonella by as much as 90 percent in ground poultry, ground pork and ground beef," de Mello reported. "We're excited to be able to show such good results, food safety is an important part of our work and salmonella is one of the most prevalent bacteria in the nation's food supply."

Salmonella is one of the most common causes of food borne illnesses in the United States. The bacteria can cause diarrhea, fever, vomiting and abdominal cramps. In people with weaker immune systems, or in young children and the elderly, it can be fatal. It is estimated to cause one million foodborne illnesses in the United States every year, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

De Mello's research treated meat products infected with four types of salmonella by applying Myoviridae bacteriophages during mixing. Bacteriophages are commonly found in our environment. They are viruses that can only harm specific bacterial cells and are harmless to humans, animals and plants.

In the experiments, the salmonella bacteria was inoculated on refrigerated meat and poultry trim, then the treatment was applied to the meat before grinding. The bacteriophages invaded the cells of the bacteria and destroyed them.

"On the final ground meat products, there was a 10-fold decrease of salmonella," de Mello said. "The results are very encouraging and we're hoping this can be adopted by the meat industry to increase food safety."

De Mello was invited to speak about his research at the 69th Annual AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference in San Angelo, Texas. Overall, his research focuses on positively impacting meat industry operations, production costs, meat quality attributes and animal welfare.

His broad research program approaches important "from farm-to-table" steps such as animal welfare, meat quality and food safety. His current research is related to pre-slaughter physical conditions, value-added products, pre- and post-harvest food safety interventions, effects of physiologic parameters on muscle-to-meat transformation, beef nutritional values and control of salmonella and E. coli during processing.

The meat science program at the University was invigorated with the hiring of de Mello in December 2015 and the opening of his new meat research lab. In addition to his research, he teaches about the meat industry, food safety and quality systems and advanced meat science in the University's Department of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Veterinary Sciences.

"We are creating a very broad meat science program," he said. "We have meat-quality projects. We have experiments involving animal welfare and food safety. We offer students research and teaching experiences by using our main meat lab and three collaborating ones here on campus. Students can go to our Nevada Agriculture Experiment Station in the morning, follow animal harvest activities in our USDA-inspected meat processing plant, learn about animal welfare practices and spend the afternoon in the lab developing research."

The University's experiment station houses the meat processing plant, feedlot facilities, cattle working areas and 650 acres of irrigated pasture, all just 15 minutes from the main campus in downtown Reno.

"Amilton brings an abundance of energy and expertise to the program," Bill Payne, dean of the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources, said. "He's one of 10 new faculty in the College who will allow us to better connect with and support agricultural producers in ways that have not been possible for many years."

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MAIT cells, known to be active against bacteria, now found to have role against viruses

Oxford University research has found that a little-studied and relatively unknown part of the human immune system could be twice as important as previously thought.

Mucosal Associated Invariant T-cells (MAIT cells) were first identified in 1993 but largely ignored until recently. Australian researchers recently found that they had an important role in fighting bacterial infections. Now, the Oxford team, led by Professor Paul Klenerman, say that they also fight viruses. Their results are in the journal Nature Communications.

Researcher Bonnie van Wilgenburg said: 'MAIT cells are unlike any other part of the immune system because they are multipurpose, rather than responding to particular pathogens - the various bacteria, viruses and other microorganism that can cause disease.'

All T-cells recognise and destroy infected human cells to prevent them spreading the infection. Standard T-cells possess specific receptors on their surface, each of which allows them to recognise a different pathogen. Most T-cells have a large range of such receptors to cover all pathogens. One receptor can recognise one particular pathogen infection, while another will be activated by a different pathogen.

MAIT cells have only a few receptors because they do not recognise specific pathogens. Instead they recognise a chemical made by many different pathogens. Researchers in Melbourne identified this chemical: a small molecule called 5-A-RU, which is made by the majority of bacteria. In effect this makes MAIT cell receptors multi-purpose - spotting a whole category of bugs rather than just a set of individual ones.

Now, the team have discovered that MAIT cells are even more multi-purpose than that.

Professor Paul Klenerman explained: 'We found that MAIT cells are readily activated by cytokines, chemical messengers released by the human body in response to infections.'

Cytokines are key parts of the immune system. When released by cells, they trigger certain behaviours in other cells, regulating the body's immune response to match the threat of a pathogen.

Prof Klenerman continued: 'Most human T-cells require their specific receptor to be triggered in order to react, but MAIT cells can bypass this and will be strongly and specifically activated in response to a combination of cytokines.

'In our latest study we discovered that viruses, not just bacteria, can activate the immune system to produce this specific mix of cytokines that activates MAIT cells. By studying people with different viral infections, including flu, dengue and hepatitis C, we found evidence that MAIT cell activation occurs during human viral infection.

'This is the first time that MAIT cells have been observed having a role in the immune response to viruses. This opens up the exciting possibility that MAIT cells could be involved in the defence against viruses or reduce their damaging effects.

'The discovery suggests that MAIT cells are a 'Swiss army knife' for the immune system - useful against all sorts of bacterial and viral infections.'

The discovery may also have implications for vaccine and treatment design. Traditional vaccines stimulate B-cells to produce antibodies that can attack pathogens directly. T-cell vaccines, a focus of current research, are designed to stimulate the production of standard pathogen-specific T cells, which attack infected cells in the body to destroy them and the infection they harbour. But MAIT cells offer another possible treatment route.

However, the Oxford researchers say that we first need to understand more about these unique cells and they will continue to play a key role in that.

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People who visit parks for 30 minutes or more each week are much less likely to have high blood pressure or poor mental health than those who don't, according to new research by Australian and UK environmental scientists.

A study led by The University of Queensland (UQ) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) suggests people might need a minimum "dose of nature".

UQ CEED researcher Dr Danielle Shanahan said parks offered health benefits including reduced risks of developing heart disease, stress, anxiety and depression.

"If everyone visited their local parks for half an hour each week there would be seven per cent fewer cases of depression and nine percent fewer cases of high blood pressure," she said.

"Given that the societal costs of depression alone in Australia are estimated at $A12.6 billion a year, savings to public health budgets across all health outcomes could be immense," she said.

UQ CEED researcher Associate Professor Richard Fuller said the research could transform the way people viewed urban parks.

"We've known for a long time that visiting parks is good for our health, but we are now beginning to establish exactly how much time we need to spend in parks to gain these benefits," he said.

"We have specific evidence that we need regular visits of at least half an hour to ensure we get these benefits."

Dr Shanahan said 40 per cent of Brisbane residents did not visit an urban park in a typical week.

"So how can we encourage people to spend more time in green space?" she said.

"We need more support and encouragement of community activities in natural spaces.

"For example, the Nature Play programs in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia provide heaps of ideas for helping kids enjoy the great outdoors.

"Our children especially benefit from spending more time outdoors. Kids who grow up experiencing natural environments may benefit developmentally and have a heightened environmental awareness as adults than those who don't."

The research is published in Nature Scientific Reports. The research team included scientists from UQ's School of Public Health, the University of Exeter, and CSIRO Land and Water.

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The Australian Government funds the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions to inform evidence-based policy and sustainable management of the Australian environment.
Professor Tim Jackson, Director of the University of Surrey's Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, has been appointed 2016 Hillary Laureate.

The prestigious honour has been presented by The Hillary Institute of International Leadership for Professor Jackson's exceptional mid-career leadership. Honouring the leadership legacy of Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand based Hillary Institute has run a global search programme since 2009 with seven annual Laureates selected by its international governors in that time. The Institute's leadership focus since 2009 has been in addressing Climate Change and Climate Equity. Starting from 2016, the focus will shift to 'Capital for Change'.

The recipient of the title, Professor Tim Jackson, said: "I'm delighted that the Hillary Institute wishes to acknowledge my work with this award. I have a long-standing admiration for New Zealand's 'most famous son', so it's a particular honour to be recognised in this way."

Professor Jackson is the Institute's 7th annual, global Laureate since 2009. He has an unusual portfolio of being respected both as an ecological economist and a successful playwright.

Increasingly aware of the wider social and macro-economic forces driving environmental problems, Professor Jackson's career led him from an early position in the Stockholm Environment Institute to a twenty year research programme at the University of Surrey, which explores not just the economic and institutional factors but also the social and psychological drivers of the consumer society. Throughout this time, he continued to write plays 'with purpose'.

Professor Jackson's latest book Prosperity without Growth (Routledge 2009/2016), was the culmination of a five year work programme on 'Redefining Prosperity' as Economics Commissioner on the Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by pre-eminent environmentalist Jonathon Porritt and reporting directly to the UK Prime Minister. Prosperity without Growth outlines a vision for lasting prosperity on a finite planet. Originally a report to the UK Government, the book was a surprise best-seller, with translations in 17 foreign languages.

On May 23rd, alongside Rowan Williams and Satish Kumar, Professor Jackson launched the first in a series of public debates on the Nature of Prosperity hosted by his Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), engaging young and old alike across business, policy and civil society in that most seminal of questions: what does prosperity mean in a world of environmental and social limits?

Speaking of his work, Professor Tim Jackson, said: "If capital cannot change, then capitalism is lost. We have to reconceive investment so that it's not about the relentless and mindless pursuit of consumption growth. We must invest in the idea of a meaningful prosperity, providing capabilities for people to flourish. Of course it's nonsense to speak of prosperity if people don't have food, clothing and shelter - but prosperity goes beyond material concerns - it has social and psychological aims - family, friendship, commitment, society. Ultimately investment in the new economy has to protect the ecological assets on which our future depends."

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Media enquiries: Ashley Lovell, Media Relations Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: 01483 686141 or E-mail: a.lovell@surrey.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

About the University of Surrey

The University of Surrey is one of the UK's leading professional, scientific and technological universities with a world-class research profile and a reputation for excellence in teaching. Ground-breaking research at the University is bringing direct benefit to all spheres of life - helping industry to maintain its competitive edge and creating improvements in the areas of health, medicine, space science, the environment, communications, defence and social policy. Programmes in science and technology have gained widespread recognition and it also boasts flourishing programmes in dance and music, social sciences, management and languages and law.

In addition to the campus on 150 hectares just outside Guildford, Surrey, the University also owns and runs the Surrey Research Park, which provides facilities for 110 companies employing 2,750 staff.

The University of Surrey was named University of the Year by the Times and Sunday Times, both overall and for 'Student Experience', and achieved a top-five ranking in the Guardian University Guide 2017.

The Hillary Institute of International Leadership

The Hillary Institute searches the globe for exceptional mid-career leaders. Their goal is to provide leaders with a platform, a shared community of engagement and an enhanced resource base to take their efforts to larger scale. Inspired by the late* Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand's most celebrated public figure, the Institute was launched by Sir Edmund from Antarctica on 22 January 2007 in the company of our patron former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark**and principal philanthropic investor Jan Cameron.

The Institute's work is focused globally, selecting one Laureate annually, a leading social entrepreneur who also embodies the humanitarian commitment of Sir Ed. The premiere award of the Hillary Step (valued currently at NZD100,000) was given in 2012 after our first four years of work. Named after the final, almost vertical 40-foot cliff-face that Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled in reaching the summit of Everest, the Hillary Step is a metaphor for the challenges innovative leaders face.

For more information about the University and its work, visit http://www.surrey.ac.uk
Its rare for the media to offer a fair view of academic freedom legislation, in any state. But then along comes The Advocate in Baton Rouge, LA, with a hard-hitting piece by Professor Jeff Sadow that does just that (Science law prompts cottage industry of liberal hysteria over creationism).

He reflects on the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) and looks ahead to the upcoming science standards review. Sadow is in a position to know what hes talking about. He teaches political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, and writes about Louisiana politics.

What does the LSEA actually say? On that question, commentators routinely mislead readers. However, Sadow has studied its language:

The act says that if requested, the state can assist local education agencies in nurturing a school environment that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning. However, the laws application shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion. Even with this crystal-clear language, a cottage industry has sprung up peddling the fantasy that the law encourages teaching creationism in public schools.  The law creates a minor incentive for science classrooms to explore important issues and develop critical thinking skills. It also stands as a bulwark against the potential imposition of politically motivated orthodoxy masquerading as science. To oppose the act reveals an intolerance of freedom in academic inquiry  and a willingness to indulge a totalitarian impulse seeking to control information and knowledge.

Wow. Crystal-clear language, rebutting the fantasy that the law encourages teaching creationism in public schools, a law that encourages science classrooms to explore important issues and develop critical thinking skills. That is strong language supporting the LSEA, and hes got his facts straight, too. How refreshing.

Eight years after the passage of the LSEA, Sadow is pointing out that the law does not allow teaching creationism, despite what critics have claimed. He sees attempts to repeal the act as motivated by politics, saying that [Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, of New Orleans,] kept trying regardless as an apparent attempt to make [then-Governor Bobby] Jindal look bad.

He attributes the lack of a bill this year to the change in governor. Jindal is out of office, replaced by John Bel Edwards.

Sadow ends by looking ahead to the science standards review process, noting:

In choosing standards, these panels would do well to emulate the spirit of free inquiry encapsulated in the Louisiana Science Education Act, as scientific inquiry as a whole increasingly becomes threatened by politics.

Yes, lets hope that Louisianas new science standards will follow the example of the LSEA, authorizing critical inquiry and an objective weighing of mainstream scientific evidence.

Photo: Louisiana State Capitol, by Bluepoint951 [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.
The British pound to dollar conversion rate suffered a significant fall after foreign exchange markets reacted strongly to the shocking news of a Brexit. Where next for the GBP to USD in today's exchange rate forecasts?

The pound to dollar rate is -6.13 pct lower at 1.36 (today's range high saw 1.49).

As British Prime Minister David Cameron resigned following the UKs vote to exit the EU, the GBP/USD spot rate plunged to historic lows amid major uncertainty.

Additional damage to the British pound was dealt by the prospect of a second Scottish independence referendum rising.

"Fundamentally, the GBP looks fairly unattractive this morning and we think downside risks remain significant. The only saving grace for the GBP this morning is the pummeling it got overnight, falling nearly 12% from peak to trough. That may limit immediate downside pressure on the pound but losses are liable to extend in the next few weeks" Scotiabank

Latest Pound/Dollar Exchange Rates

On Wednesday the Euro to British Pound exchange rate (EUR/GBP) converts at 0.867 The pound conversion rate (against euro) is quoted at 1.153 EUR/GBP. The pound conversion rate (against pound) is quoted at 1 GBP/GBP. The pound conversion rate (against swiss franc) is quoted at 1.147 CHF/GBP. FX markets see the pound vs canadian dollar exchange rate converting at 1.576. NB: the forex rates mentioned above, revised as of 26th Oct 2022, are inter-bank prices that will require a margin from your bank. Foreign exchange brokers can save up to 5% on international payments in comparison to the banks.

Polls from IPSOS MORI and Populus placed the Remain campaign in the lead, adding weight to markets confidence in the outcome of todays vote.

As the IMF also announced that it had lowered its 2016 forecast for US GDP the GBP/USD exchange rate rallied strongly, pushing towards a fresh multi-month high

Somewhat unexpectedly the GBP to USD exchange rate surged to its best level since January in the wake of the IMFs decision to lower its growth forecast for the US.

With the final opinion polls also putting the Remain campaign in the lead the impact of Brexit uncertainty on the currency pair was generally minimal on Thursday morning.

In a largely expected development, the Pound has been volatile against the US Dollar and most other peers today, on account of the day of the EU Referendum vote finally arriving.

The latest opinion polls have been mixed; Comres and YouGovs latest releases have put Remain in the lead, while TNSs contribution instead saw Leave carrying the vote.

Whether daily news has much impact on the Pounds appeal remains to be seen; although flooding in London has been reported, this may not be enough to dissuade voters or noticeable affect the outcome.

Turbulence in Store for Sterling over Next 24 Hours

It is distinctly unlikely that the Pound will manage to rally against its peers until the actual Referendum results are announced tomorrow; the general consensus is that the outcome will be known by seven in the morning.

With that in mind, results will be coming in overnight as the 382 voting districts declare their majorities. Based on rough estimates, the first results are expected to come in shortly after midnight.

Following on from this at around four in the morning will be the expected declaration of roughly 50% of the vote, while after seven when the final result is announced, the Pound can be expected to soar or dive based on whether In or Out have a majority.

US Dollar Generally Poor in Appeal despite Cautious Optimism from Fed Chair

Although a number of notable US economic announcements have been made this week, for the most part these have been eclipsed in their importance by EU Referendum outcome concerns.

Most recently the USD has been lowered in appeal due to expanding gasoline inventories up to June 17th, while on the positive side, existing home sales in May have risen from 1.3% to 1.8% on the month.

In other news, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has stated that she is very hopeful for growth in the US economy to pick up in the near-term, though this has done little to pierce the current fog of economic uncertainty hanging over the US.

US Claims Results due Today, along with Manufacturing and Home Sales Stats

In a situation resembling business as usual, the US will be releasing a number of ecostats over the course of the day, although their reception is forecast to be muted.

First off will be the early afternoons initial jobless and continuing claims for mid-June  these are forecast to decline on both previous fields.

Following on from this will be the optimistically-predicted manufacturing PMI for the same month, with new home sales results for May coming shortly afterwards. In the latter case, a decline of -9.5% is on the cards.

UK Financial Institutions Battening Down the Hatches for Market Unrest

With the circumstances of trade in the UK currently being utterly unique, it appears as though plenty of contingency measures are being taken out to ensure that companies are able to weather the storm that will follow tomorrow morning.

According to the Guardians Jill Treanor:

Major banks are preparing for two days of unprecedented uncertainty by stuffing cash machines full of money, placing senior bankers on high alert in emergency war rooms around the City and switching off computer-driven black box trading systems to avoid incurring huge losses in violent swings in shares, bonds and currency markets.
Hi Guys,



Hope you are all well.



Anyway, yesterday I posted a thread somewhere here and I was just asking if there are people here who are into meditation and such practices. <Snip>



But I would like to inquire if there's a community forum here that shares ideas or answers inquiries about stress management and meditation?



It'll be much appreciated. <Snip>



Thanks a lot!



Urshsam
BERLIN HEIGHTS, Ohio  Sharing new ideas and technologies to help other fruit and produce growers successful was the goal of the 2016 summer tour of the Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association. Around 100 produce and fruit growers and Extension specialists visited Quarry Hill Orchards, in Erie County, June 22, to see how the Gammie family has incorporated new technologies and practices into their operation.

Orchard history

Bill Gammie and his wife, Jacque, are the second generation to carry on the traditions of the family orchard. My father and brother started the farm (in 1931) as a vegetable farm, said Bill. And they just happened to plant a few apple trees on the property.

Bills father died of cancer in 1964 and Bill didnt immediately find his calling on the family orchard; going off to attend college, being drafted in the Vietnam War and coming back to be a school teacher. The land lease, still owned by Bills mother, was coming up for renewal and Bill decided he was ready to take on the farm in the late 1970s.

We had to start over again, said Bill, noting the few remaining apple trees had died. But we had the land. Bills son, Ben, didnt immediately take interest in the family operation either, choosing a career away from the farm, but returning with his wife in 2013. (Ben) and his wife, Brooke, are both passionate about farming, said Bill, and they have helped take the farm to the next level by implementing new ideas and technologies into the orchard practices.

New farm practices

Last year, the Gammies planted 8,000 new trees and this year are planting 6,000 more, said Brooke Gammie. The larger volume of trees planted is part of a newer orchard practice called high density planting. Its truly an effort to make the orchard more efficient.

Bill Baschke, farm manager for Glen Hill Orchards LLC, in Mount Vernon, said this is the direction the owners of the orchard he manages would like to move to. Traditional orchards planted around 400-700 trees, but the high density planting looks at planting 1,000-1,200 trees in an area, explained Baschke. It creates more volume with less time to maintain each tree, cutting labor costs, he said.

Ben Gammie explained a trellis system was set up in 1,000-foot rows, with trees planted at a spacing of 3 feet and 13 feet between each row. The goal of a high density orchard is to have fruit bearing trees by within two to three years of planting, which is achieved by using a dwarfing variety, according to North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension.

Dwarf trees also make it easier to maintain a smaller size and adopt practices of minimal pruning and simplified training, which is a key step toward labor efficiency, according to Penn State University Extension research.

Top-working

More recently, the Gammies have been experimenting with grafting by using existing tree rootstock, or top-working. Becky Colon, an employee who has been working closely with Quarry Hills fruit trees for five years, said she was pretty skeptical of the top-working method.

Having some less-than-desirable trees on the farm that werent producing anymore, the Gammies cut them down to base of around 3 feet. They cut all brush and limbs away from the stump base except for a couple nurse limbs left on each.

Grafting at Quarry Hill Orchards During a tour of Quarry Hill Orchards, in Erie County, June 22, part of the OPGMA summer tour, attendees learned how the Gammie family tried out new grafting techniques using existing tree rootstock. (Catie Noyes photos) < > < > 1 View Grafting at Quarry Hill Orchards During a tour of Quarry Hill Orchards, in Erie County, June 22, part of the OPGMA summer tour, attendees learned how the Gammie family tried out new grafting techniques using existing tree rootstock. (Catie Noyes photos) 2 View Quarry Hill Orchard apples Gala and EverCrisp apples planted in dwarf varieties in 2015 and 2016, are starting produce a crop in the Gammie's high-density planting program. 3 View Ben Gammie explains trellis system Ben Gammie explains how the trellis system works in his high-density apple tree block at Quarry Hill Orchards. 4 View Quarry Hill Farm Market While visiting Quarry Hill Orchards during the OPGMA summer tour, attendees had a chance to visit the Quarry Hill farm market and sample fresh picked cherries and other produce. 5 View Quarry Hill Orchards welcomes tour goers Quarry Hill Orchards, in Berlin Heights, Ohio, was the setting for the 2016 OPGMA summer tour, June 22. Producers from around the state were able to see how the Gammie family manages their orchard. 6 View Inspecting cover crops During one stop of the Quarry Hill Orchards tour, attendees saw how the Gammie family is starting to incorporate cover crops into it's program. 7 View Always room for learning Ben Gammie takes a moment to hear from a nursery expert who provided some of the trees for Quarry Hill Orchards. 8 View OPGMA vendors Vendors shared insights on the latest tools and technologies fruit and produce growers can use in their operations. 9 View OPGMA vendors 15 vendors attended the OPGMA summer tour at Quarry Hill Orchards, to share the latest technologies with growers from across the state.

Taking scion wood from existing trees on the farm, Goldrush scions were grafted into the existing stumps or rootstock. Colon explained. Electrical tape was wrapped around the grafted wood to hold everything in place and then top coated with tree coat.

Im thinking this isnt going to workI had no hope in what was going on, said Colon, until she walked the orchard later to discover they were budding out all over the place. She said their rate of success hasnt been 100 percent, but she said of the five or six graftings put on each rootstock, at least four or five took and maybe one of them didnt take.

Now that Colon has seen what the top-working can do, she is ready to do more: if I could go graft some trees all day, every day, I would.

Something for everyone

Along with seeing the new techniques and ideas from the Quarry Hill Orchard, the tour provided an opportunity for producers to share ideas from their own operations.

Bob Sage, of Sages Apples in Chardon, said he and his family are good friends of the Gammies and came out to see how the they constructed their trellis system and to find out which varieties are doing well at the Quarry Hill Orchard. Apples are the backbone of our operation, said Sage.

Steve Haslinger, of Haslinger Orchards, in Sandusky County, said he was told by a friend, if you learn just one thing you can take back to your operation to improve it, your visit was worth it. Haslinger said he lost a block of his Gala apple crop this year and was unsure of the cause. Another producer told him because Gala apples are so delicate and valuable, its important to thin them by hand. He said that is something he will take back and try in his orchards in the future.
After 30 years with Land OLakes, John Rhoades decided to retire and he decided to celebrate with a family vacation to Topsail Beach in North Carolina. Of course, the family didnt leave their Farm and Dairy behind. From the left is John Rhoades and his wife, Sandie. Beside Sandie is their son, Andrew, daughter Wendy and granddaughters Annie and Emma, their daughter-in-law Tami and son J.J. Also pictured on the left is Luke, son-in-law Ron, nephew Tim and the granddaughters boyfriends Zac and Jon.

Our well of Vacation With Us pictures is starting to run dry, so we need your help to keep this feature going.

Send your vacation picture to: Vacation With Farm and Dairy, Farm and Dairy, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460. Include your name and address, phone number (not for publication) and date and location of the photograph. Or, e-mail us your photo at editorial@farmanddairy.com. Please be patient when looking for your picture to appear.
The British public are increasingly backing British farming, according to an NFU-commissioned survey from OnePoll.

The amount of people backing British farming has increased for the fifth year running.

The NFU says the survey results underline how valuable the farming sector is to this country.

An overwhelming majority actively support farming, with 69 per cent saying they have a favourable or very favourable view of British farmers - a nine per cent rise since 2012.

The survey also found that 92 per cent think farming is important to the economy. This is complemented by 91 per cent of people thinking it is important to see a productive farming industry.

Seventy-seven per cent of people think farmers have a fairly beneficial or very beneficial effect on the countryside  the highest figure since this question was first asked in 2013.

The survey also asked the public what they thought of farm support payments to farmers. 4

Sixty-eight per cent of people agree that farmers should continue to receive this support  an increase of 11 per cent since 20121.

Bright future for British farmers

NFU President Meurig Raymond said: "The public support is extremely important to the British farming industry  a message which wont go unnoticed to politicians and retailers.

"To see the figures on public support for our sector increase year after year reassures me that there is a bright future for farmers in this country.

"The survey results show the public does understand the importance of farming to the economy as the bedrock of this sector.

"The food and farming industry is the biggest manufacturing sector and the fact that people are noticing how vital this is a massive asset to us, as farmers.

"And the recent farming crisis has demonstrated the importance of financial support to farming; clearly this has been understood by public.

Open Farm Sunday success

"The farmer favourability statistics are a testament to the industry; we saw over a quarter of a million people visit farms across the country as farmers threw open their farm gates to talk to the public about what they do as part of Open Farm Sunday.

"Without this event and the positive attitude from farmers, many thousands of people may not be active supporters of our sector.

"Naturally, the public are interested in what they eat. At the NFU we ensure the farm to fork message is heard loud and clear by people from all walks of life; urban, rural, younger, older.

"And this public awareness of farmings value to both the countryside and the economy adds strings to our bow when lobbying in Westminster and Brussels.

"On top of the OnePoll statistics, we have over 26,000 registered Back British Farming campaign supporters.

"This proves to be a fantastic base of people primed to learn about how they can further their support for our sector."
NFU Cymru, farmers and industry leaders celebrated Welsh food and farming at the Senedd yesterday with Assembly Members and stakeholders from across the supply chain.

The event in Cardiff Bay aimed to highlight to Assembly Members how important it is for Welsh Government and the food supply chain to work together to ensure the food and farming sector in Wales flourishes.

During the event NFU Cymru President, Stephen James, explained to Assembly Members how there is tremendous potential to grow the market for what is produced in Wales, both within the UK and further afield.

He said: "This event is about celebrating the fantastic food that we as a nation produce.

"It is about promoting and celebrating all the links in the food supply chain, a supply chain worth 6bn annually to Wales and employing nearly a quarter of a million people.

"While market conditions are tough at present, I am confident for the future of the industry.

"We have a climate that allows us to grow forage and a range of crops efficiently, and we have a nation of passionate, dedicated and skilled farmers who are leading the way in technological advances.

"These factors will undoubtedly stand us in good stead and enable us to meet the growing demand for high quality food."

90% of Welsh exports go to the EU

Stephen James continued: "There are significant opportunities to further promote Welsh food at home and abroad.

"Total exports from Wales are valued at just over 300m with 90% of those exports going to the EU.

"Markets in the US and China however remain largely untapped. We look to this Government to facilitate the removal of the barriers currently in place and open up these export markets."

Andy Richardson, Chairman of Food and Drink Wales Industry Board also spoke at the event and outlined his vision for achieving the Welsh Governments growth target of 30% to 7billion annually for the food and drink sector.

He said: "Farmers play a most vital role in the food and drink industry, providing safe, reliable and high quality food produced with integrity.

"The board is working on four key work streams to help grow the food and drink sector and these are; customers and markets, business and investment, skills and engagement.

"We want to develop an ethos of positivity within the whole supply chain, I believe this is key."

'Farmers drive and underpin rural economy'

NFU Cymru Director, John Mercer, thanked Andy Richardson for speaking at the event and said: "This event has presented a fantastic opportunity to meet the newly elected members of the National Assembly of Wales and showcase all that is good about our industry.

"Welsh farmers not only produce food of the highest quality but they do so in an environmentally sustainable manner, they maintain and enhance our beautiful countryside and they drive and underpin our rural economy and communities.

"Welsh farming is a past, present and future industry that meets all the targets of the Wales Future Generations Act and we should all be extremely proud of this.
The Co-op has underlined a commitment to British farmers today with the launch of a scheme to monitor and manage environmental impact and efficiency amongst its farming groups.

Launched at Royal Highland Show, The Co-op Enviro-Map programme will, over the next three years, carry out carbon footprint assessments and biodiversity surveys across six main produce sectors.

Data will then be processed to generate individual farm reports that will allow farmers to benchmark performance of their business and make decisions to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

Co-op Enviro-Map will be the first fully Carbon Trust accredited self entry programme covering carbon and environmental footprinting.

It will sit within the Co-ops existing Agricultural Pillars initiative, which already defines standards and incentivises performance across its Farming Group members.

'Gives assurance to customers about environmental impacts'

"Co-op Enviro-Map will cover farms supplying dairy, beef, lamb, chicken, pork and eggs and will add a positive, significant new dimension to our existing farm support and liaison," explained Co-op Senior Agricultural Manager Ciara Gorst.

"Its an initiative that will really help our dedicated suppliers improve the efficiency and profitability of their businesses.

"More than that though, it gives assurance to our customers that we understand how important environmental impact is, alongside British provenance and quality, whilst showing how we work closely with suppliers to achieve high standards across all these elements."

The Co-op Enviro-Map programme will be carried out in collaboration with agri-environment specialists Alltech E-CO2 using data collection and analysis models adapted for online entry.

Carbon footprinting models developed by Alltech E-CO2 are certified by the Carbon Trust and conform to the internationally recognised PAS 2050 methodology.

Darran Messem, Managing Director, Certification at the Carbon Trust said: "We know from experience that when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions from farming there is a very significant gap between the best performers and the worst performers.

"It is therefore great to see retailers like the Co-op engaging with the issue of farm-level emissions.

"The launch of the Co-op Enviro-Map project can help to recognise and incentivise better performance on emissions, which can be very positive for farmers because efficiencies often result in improved profitability.

"We are pleased to be contributing expert input and independent certification for not only the data management system, but also the final results and carbon footprints of the farms over the next three years."

Bio-diversity survey

Alltech E-CO2 Business General Manager Ben Braou explained the broader significance of a farms carbon footprint, saying: "A carbon footprint is the holistic indicator of performance and is directly correlated with efficiency and profitability.

"It is derived from a comprehensive assessment of farm performance, with all inputs, outputs and resource use taken into account.

"It quantifies emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (the three main greenhouse gases) and is expressed as grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per unit of production, up to the farm gate.

"In addition to carbon footprinting, the Co-op Enviro-Map will also monitor the broader environmental impact through a bespoke bio-diversity survey.

"Aspects such as habitat management, land use changes, nutrient leaching and soil erosion will be covered."

Leading sustainable farming organisation, LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming), are supportive of the Co-op initiative.

Quentin Clark from LEAF said: "One of the main aims of LEAF is to help farmers produce food sustainably to the highest standards of environmental care.

"Managing and monitoring the environmental impact of farming practices underpins the LEAF Marque standard and the Co-op Enviro-Map programme is entirely supportive of our approach.

"It provides a great example of the positive influence that can be disseminated up to producer level by those involved throughout the wider food chain.

Co-op supplier farms participating in the Co-op Enviro-Map programme will receive an efficiency and sustainability report shortly after their assessment.

This will review key performance indicators for the business, summarise carbon performance and provide a breakdown of emissions sources.

The assessment process is carried out through self-entry into a bespoke web-portal and should only take around one hour to complete.

Training is being provided through workshops and meetings, and there will be on-going support available to assist farmers.

The scheme will involve around 400 farm assessments each year and is expected to benefit Co-op farmer suppliers individually and also allow broader benchmarking across sectors.

Information generated will be used to provide more general advice and support to dedicated suppliers and also be used to educate and inform Co-op customers.
The UKs environment research council 'Natural Environment Research Council' (NERC) has funded five research projects to explore and develop new ways to improve sustainable food production using satellite technologies.

The 'Satellites to improve agri-food systems' competition was jointly funded by Innovate UK and NERC and will support four collaborative research and development projects and nine feasibility studies.

An increasing world population, greater wealth in developing countries and the trend towards urbanisation are all putting an increasing strain on the world's food supplies.

Satellite technology and increased use of data are already helping to increase agricultural productivity and will increasingly help farmers to manage their land in the most environmentally sustainable way.

Satellites can be used to study changes in farmland with a 10m resolution, offering detailed information about crops, grazing land, soil, hedgerows and water.

This can aid decision-making on a range of important issues such as where and when to apply pesticides, herbicides or nitrogen fertilisers, decisions on where and when to irrigate and the best time to harvest crops.

The environmental benefits include helping to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, maintain soil quality, reduce risks of water contamination and reduce waste.

The project involves businesses, universities and research organisations which will use free and open access data and images from the new Sentinel 1 SAR and Sentinel 2 optical satellites.

The information will be integrated with historic satellite data and environmental data held by NERC, as well as data collected via sensors in the field.

The total funding pot is 3m, including NERC funding of 589k specifically for university and research centre involvement.

The five centres which are receiving funding from NERC are:

 Cranfield University, working with AgSpace, to create a UK soil map to enable precision farming techniques.

 Rothamsted Research, working with Ecometrica, to develop products for environmental compliance and productivity monitoring in agriculture.

 University of Nottingham, working with SOYL Precision Crop Production, to provide interpretation tools and predictions of spatial variability in yield to guide precision farming decisions.

 De Montfort University, working with Mfatech Limited to deliver a low-cost crop management system that can be used by farmers to deliver a near real-time personalised map of the state of their crops and fields.

 Leicester University, working with Precise Crop Nutrition Limited, to establish the technical feasibility of a hand held device which can be used on-farm to convert commissioned satellite images to variable nitrogen application programmes.
A government obligation to provide superfast broadband speeds across the UK must be enshrined in law to meet planned delivery by 2020, according to the CLA.

The organisation which represents farmers, landowners and rural businesses has responded to a consultation on how the Universal Service Obligation (USO) should be designed to make sure those who live and work in the countryside are not excluded from access to affordable and effective superfast broadband.

CLA President Ross Murray said: "A USO that can guarantee sufficient bandwidth will transform rural areas and must be enshrined in law.

"Only half of rural homes and businesses can receive a broadband connection with speeds of 10Mbps.

"That should be a benchmark minimum speed which evolves as technological advances are made.

"It may work in 2020 but could be insufficient just five years later so the USO must be easily amended to meet the future needs of the market place and the consumer."

Consumer compensation when speed not met

He added that the USO must also come with a legal guarantee for consumer compensation where this speed is not met.

He said: "If the current mode of broadband fails to deliver, the consumer should be able to explore alternative means of connection from fibre to satellite and wireless."

Mr Murray said that given the number of infrastructure providers in the market place and the different number of technologies currently available, it made sense for more than one universal service provider to be appointed.

He said: "This would reduce the burden on a single provider and give consumers more choice to reasonably request the USO at an affordable rate.

"As long as there is a suitably effective and efficient framework to implement the USO providers could be at regional level, particularly when considering other technologies such as wireless."
The EU Farming Commissioner Phil Hogan has expressed confidence that increased use of satellite technology can help member states to significantly increase the efficiency of on-the-spot checks necessary for CAP payments.

Mr Hogan met senior officials and scientists from the the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Besides discussing insights from the JRC related to climate change, soils, water and biodiversity, he was also shown a range of technological advances which can benefit the agri-food sector and, particularly, to contribute to the competitiveness of European food production.

Mr Hogan described the JRC facility as having been firmly established "as one of Europe's leading research campuses."

Commissioner Hogan said: "I had the opportunity to see the tremendous work being done by the JRC in terms of developing satellite technology and in using the provided data in the most efficient way.

"I am certain that there is great potential for further developments in both the technology and, equally importantly, the access to that technology.

"We already have satellite technology and the benefits are obvious. Greater use of it will reduce the dependence on labour and time-intensive on-the-spot checks.

"The effect of the increased use of satellite technology is that, besides better farm efficiency, there is potential for a significant reduction of on-farm inspections, which will benefit farmers as well as regional and national authorities.

"The greater investment in and use of this technology is a win-win situation for all stakeholders and, based on what I saw at the JRC facility, I believe that we can make significant progress in the next three years.

"I am committed to ensuring that my services work closely with colleagues in the JRC for the benefit of all involved in this sector, which is of critical importance for economic growth in Europe."

Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, responsible for the Joint Research Centre, said: "This is an excellent example of how the JRC can help us improve policy-making  for the benefit of citizens and businesses.

"State-of-the-art scientific support to the agri-food sector enables us to spend taxpayers money more efficiently and smartly.

"At the same time, it allows us to reduce administrative requirements for farmers and public authorities in Member States, boosting competitiveness.

"These benefits stand to increase as the JRC continues to develop satellite technology over the coming years, and I am pleased to support this important work that will bolster a vital sector of our economy while showing citizens the positive impact EU spending has in their regions."
The Ulster Farmers Union says it is disappointed by the decision taken by Rural Minister, Michelle McIlveen, to deny growers in Northern Ireland coupled support for protein crops.

Coupled support payments are those linked to the production of a particular crop or keeping a particular type of livestock.

"As a region Northern Ireland is dependent on imported plant protein, led by soya.

"Compared with other EU member states, arable farmers in Northern Ireland are limited in the number of break crop choices available, due to the climate.

"By taking this decision, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), have once again placed us at a competitive disadvantage," said UFU Seeds and Cereals Chairman, Allan Chamber.

The UFU said it sees no reason for DAERA to deny growers in Northern Ireland coupled support for protein crops.

"Our fellow growers, who farm only a few miles away, south of the border, receive a coupled payment that equates to around 200/ha giving them a commercial advantage.

"The funding necessary to provide a coupled payment would have equated to an insignificant decrease in all existing SFP payments and it would have helped rebalance our cereal output by giving a much needed wider choice in pursuing best practice in crop rotation," said Mr Chambers.

Dependency on imported protein sources

Mr Chambers added that Agri-Search, NIGTA and the AFSB arable and horticulture sub group have also raised concerns about the dependency of the local livestock sector on imported protein sources.

Indeed, DAERA itself has considered this to be important to the extent that it co-funds a specific research project into the use of locally grown protein in dairy cow rations with early indications suggesting that these trials are proving successful.

"The Minister states she does not believe there are any convincing arguments to introduce Coupled Support Schemes in Northern Ireland during the current CAP period.

"Yet the potential to do so with protein crops received substantial support from those who responded to that question within the consultation document.

"Surely this response deserved, at least, a discussion with senior officials," said Mr Chambers adding that the Minister will be invited to visit an arable farm so that we can discuss this issue further.
Research recently published in the Journal of Preventative Veterinary Medicine looks at the quality of advice and how the uptake of best practice in relation to anthelmintic usage can be improved, and why this is so important.

Resistance to anthelmintics, the primary control method for parasitic worms, is becoming increasingly reported and is now widespread across the globe.

Farmers say it is imperative that best practice control principles are adopted to delay the further spread of resistance.

"Its the responsibility of those that prescribe dewormers to advise producers with adequate information on administration best practice, and how to avoid dewormer resistance within herds and flocks," explains Professor Jacqueline Matthews, project leader based at Moredun, and COWS technical adviser.

"However, it has been documented that there has been poor uptake of some of the key best practice principles at farm level in the UK.

"The UK Veterinary Medicines Directorate has funded this project focusing on interactions at the point of anthelmintic prescription, to investigate knowledge levels and behaviours affecting the dialogue between prescribers and farmers.

"With the inclusion of further surveys, the overall aim of our work is to find out what barriers there may be that prevent some farmers putting these guidelines into practice, and to provide suggestions as to how to improve the uptake of quality advice in the future."

Dialogue between parasitologists, prescribers and farmers

The research described in the published paper is intended to determine the level of basic knowledge of parasitic worms, best practice advice, and dispensing legislation among those prescribing dewormers in the UK.

It is the first in a series of papers exploring the factors influencing uptake of best practise guidelines by farmers.

The results have shown that both vets and SQPs generally performed very well in the questionnaire, showing a suitable level of understanding when prescribing dewormers.

"This research provides valuable information which can be used to help optimise education programmes for UK prescribers," says Professor Matthews.

"This is an ongoing study that will continue to look into the views and protocols of all the relevant parties.

"We know that there is some scope to increase the amount of training that both vets and SQPs receive to improve the quality of advice at the point of purchase.

"We need to work with industry organisations to get more dialogue going between parasitologists, prescribers and farmers, as this is central to effective knowledge transfer and improving advice uptake."

She explains that stewardship groups such as COWS (Control of Worms Sustainably) and SCOPS (Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep) are excellent conduits for improving knowledge sharing.

These organisations can provide the best available technical information about the sustainable management of worms and fluke in livestock.
Winners in this years Scottish Egg Quality Awards Competition to promote Scottish products were urged to shout about the high quality of their eggs.

Moira Henderson, Past Chairperson of The Scottish Egg Producers Retailers Association (SEPRA), spoke at the awards presentation ceremony in Perth.

The event was attended by producers from all over Scotland, competing for the prestigious Producer, Producer Retailer and Organic Producer Awards.

"The Scottish Egg Quality Awards have grown from strength to strength and have proved to be one of the most important events in the Scottish Egg producers calendar.

"The competition, now in its 28th year, promotes the outstanding quality of Scottish eggs and raises the profile of producers across the country," commented John Cessford, Marketing Manager at ForFarmers, joint organisers of the event with the Scottish Rural College (SRUC).

(l-r) Professor Jos Houdijk, SRUC; Organic winner  Gordon Whiteford, Rosebrae, Ardeseir (centre); John Cessford, Marketing Manager, ForFarmers

Once again the scope of this years competition was illustrated by the organisers having to drive nearly 3,000 miles across Scotland to collect entrants eggs for judging by an independent team at the SRUC, led by Professor Nick Sparks, Head of Animal & Veterinary Sciences.

Eggs were assessed on numerous qualities

Competitors eggs were assessed on a number of characteristics including shell quality and thickness, colour, albumen height, yolk quality and inclusions (blood or meat spots).

Entrants with the highest scores were invited to the awards ceremony where they were presented with Certificates of Commendation with an overall winner in each category.

(l-r) Professor Jos Houdijk, SRUC; Producer winner - Alistair Mackay, Brackla Farm, Cawdor, Nairn (centre) John Cessford, Marketing Manager, ForFarmers

Professor Jos Houdijk, who now leads the monogastic department at SRUC having succeeded Professor Nick Sparks, represented the college during the event and made his debut at the Prizegiving.

He thanked Professor Sparks for his valuable involvement in the competition over the years.

He emphasised the continued support of SRUC to Scottish egg producers and the Egg Quality Awards Competition and praised the commitment of egg producers to ensure their products were of consistently high quality.

Stuart Retson, of JSR Services, Blairgowrie, John Cessford, Iain Campbell, ForFarmers Account Manager-Poultry Specialist, and Elwyn Lewis, of Hy-line UK Ltd. collected the entrants eggs.

Mr Lewis collected eggs from the Scottish Borders and Lothian areas. He commented that the quality awards recognize many positive aspects of the Scottish egg industry and that he was proud to be able to support the event.

Moira Henderson, praised the commitment of Scottish producers and said: "It is hard to produce high quality eggs.

"Be confident in your product and use these awards to raise the profile of Scottish producers and encourage the continuation of this quest for quality."

She commended SRUCs support of Scottish producers and emphasised that the close working -relationship with SEPRA and SRUC was set to continue.

Her comments were endorsed by Iain Campbell of ForFarmers who said that the number of new entrants and winners at the awards this year only demonstrated how good the overall Scottish Egg Industry was at providing the highest quality produce consistently, reaffirming how many quality producers there were in Scotland.

'Great showcase for the Scottish egg industry'

Robert Chapman, Managing Director of Farmlay Eggs, Fraserburgh, was awarded the shield for the overall Producer Retailer category, which was extended to accommodate the 28 winners.

He said the competition was a great showcase for the Scottish egg industry and recognised the hard work put in by producers to produce top quality eggs.

He was thrilled to win the overall award in the Producer/Retailer category, especially after winning an Outstanding citation in the category last year.

"We have always prided ourselves on the quality of our product. It is nice when this is recognised and you win an award of this stature. It acknowledges all the hard work of our staff and producers," he said.

Gordon Whiteford of Rosebrae, Arderseir picked up the overall award in the Organic Category.

Mr Whiteford, who has 14,000 birds on two sites, sells the eggs from his British Blacktail birds to Stonegate for supply to Waitrose. He places great store by the quality competition and has been been short listed twice in the past.

Alistair Mackay of Brackla Farm in Cawdor, Nairn, won the overall award (silver Quaich cup) in the Producer category.

He has recently erected a new shed and has doubled his production. The family business now supplies 32,000 Hy-Line birds to Farmlay and local outlets.

He said: "We are delighted to receive this award. As a family we have always put the health of our hens and the quality of our eggs as our uppermost priorities and it is fantastic to be given recognition for this." He considers the Egg Quality Competition good value and well worthwhile.

Lohmann GB and Hy-Line jointly sponsored the pre-dinner champagne reception with Elwyn Lewis of Hy-Line commenting: "Its an excellent opportunity for the Scottish egg industry to get together and great to be a part of it."
Plaid Cymru Shadow Cabinet for Rural Affairs Simon Thomas has warned that Welsh farmers got a worse deal from the UK before joining the EU, and would be likely to get a raw deal again if Wales votes to leave the European Union.

Plaid Cymru has found that before Wales joined the European Union in 1972 farmers in Wales did not receive enough to sustain their businesses.

A report measuring regional variation in farm support found that before Britain joined the EU "that hill farm subsidies were not sufficient to compensate for the disadvantage Welsh agriculture experienced from its smaller average farm size."

Plaid Cymru Shadow Cabinet Minister for Energy, Climate Change and Rural Affairs Simon Thomas said: "The figures show clearly that Welsh farmers are better off in the European Union.

"Before joining the European Economic Community, the level of funding Welsh farmers received from the UK Government was significantly less than it is now, and was not enough to sustain many Welsh farms.

"Leaving the EU will mean that the funding Welsh farms currently receive will come to an end, and we can be certain that a right wing government in Westminster that is intent on pursuing an austerity agenda will not protect it.

"Welsh farmers can be certain that a Leave vote will lead to a cut in their funding.

"The only way to ensure that Welsh farms continue to get their fair share of funding is to vote to Remain in the EU tomorrow."
Cost of living crisis could trigger 'winter crime epidemic' on farms
"It's an industry that contributes approximately $1 billion in export earnings to the Australian economy every year and I believe we should have a policy framework that encourages growth and expansion to meet the growing Asian market. "
It was revealed at a State government estimates hearing last week the large dairy research station in Jalbarragup Rd, Kalgup, about six kilometres south of Busselton, is the first of several Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) properties proposed to be sold off.
Wellard said it had "greater clarity about expected profitability of those shipments as they get closer to loading'' which combined with the "persistence of the continued margin compression from record cattle prices" would see profit at the lower end of the range.
What was it like to be an Oath Keeper? John Zimmerman can tell you
Tom Hardy has signed up to play British war photographer Don McCullin in a new film.

Tom Hardy

Hardyr - who is currently filming 'Dunkirk' - is set to head into combat zones for a new film which is based on McCullin's autobiography 'Unreasonable Behaviour'.

The film is being produced by Working Title Films' Eric Fellner, who produced 'Theory of Everything' and Tim Bevan who produced 'Bridget Jones' Diary'.

They have teamed up with '71's Gregory Burke, who is adapting the script from its original book.

The story follows the young life of McCullin where he grew up as a poverty stricken child in London during World War II and follows his journey which led him to work for the Sunday Times. From the late 1960's to the early 1980's, McCullin travelled to far reach places such Vietnam, Cambodia and Uganda, chronicling the devastating effects of war on both those who fight and the innocent victims.

It is not yet known when filming will start but that gives time for Hardy to finish off some of the projects he's already involved with including mini-series 'Taboo' which is expected to be on screens next year along with 'Dunkirk' - his second film with Christopher Nolan following Batman romp 'The Dark Knight Rises' - that hits screens on July 21.

In addition, Hardy is linked to two animal poaching dramas and video game adaptation 'Splinter Cell'.

Hardy is due to play Sir Elton John in biopic film 'Rocketman'.
We are big fans of Michael Shannon here at FemaleFirst and he is back on the big screen this weekend with Elvis & Nixon.

Elvis & Nixon

The Oscar-nominated actor is set to play Elvis Presley opposite Kevin Spacey, who takes on the role of President Nixon. The movie chronicles the meeting between these two men in December 1970.

To celebrate the release of Elvis & Nixon we take a look back at Shannon's career and some of his best acting performances. Which is your favourite?

- Frank & Lola (2016)

Frank & Lola was released earlier this year and is one of the films that lit up the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of 2016, where it received its world premiere.

The movie saw Matthew Ross on both directing and writing duties. This marked his feature film directorial debut - he is one of the most exciting new filmmakers to come out of the festival this year.

Frank & Lola is a psychosexual noir love story -- set in Las Vegas and Paris -- about love, obsession, sex, betrayal, revenge and, ultimately, the search for redemption. Shannon took on the role of Frank while Imogen Poots played Lola. The duo was joined on the cast list by Michael Nyqvist, Justin Long, Rosanna Arquette, and Emmanuelle Devos.

Shannon really does shine in the role of Frank in what turns into a dark film about male jealousy. Shannon really does capture the darkness and the obsessive nature of this character beautifully. He balances elements of charm and menace in a way that really will send a chill down your spine.

I love his on-screen chemistry with Poots and together they weave a complex story about relationships that really does draw the audience in. However, it is Shannon's explosive performance that really will keep you hooked.

Frank & Lola went on to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where it - and Shannon's performance - were met well by audiences and critics.

- 99 Homes (2015)

Another recent performance by Shannon came last year as he starred in 99 Homes, alongside Andrew Garfield. The movie saw Ramin Bahrani back in the director's chair - he also teamed up with Amir Naderi to pen the film's screenplay.

A recently unemployed single father struggles to get back his foreclosed home by working for the real estate broker who is the source of his frustration.

99 Homes is a movie that explores themes that really are all too common, from the outrageous practices of our banks that have led to thousands of people losing their own homes. This is a movie that looks at how the downturn in the economy in recent years has impacted on the everyday lives of normal people and those who have benefitted from that suffering.

99 Homes explores the fears that everyone has of bankruptcy, the thought of losing everything, and the lengths people will go to to make sure that doesn't happen.

Michael Shannon is simply terrific as Rick Carver and he really does steal the show. Carver is a man that you just love to hate and Shannon captures that greed and heartlessness perfectly.

From start to finish, 99 Homes is a provocative and heart-breaking movie that is a great morality tale. Shannon and Garfield really do drive forward a film that has an awful lot to say.

99 Homes played extensively on the festival circuit last year, where it competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Grand Prix prize at the Deauville American Film Festival.

- Take Shelter (2011)

In recent years, Shannon and Jeff Nichols has developed a fantastic actor/director relationship - delivering a string of quality movies. Take Shelter was released back in 2011 and was their second film together; coming four years after Shotgun Stories.

Nichols was back in the director's chair and was on writing duties. Shannon took on the central role of Curtis and was joined on the cast list Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart, and Shea Whigham.

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

Take Shelter walks a fine line between being a film that is dark, foreboding with a prophecy element to it was well as exploring mental health and the type of care that is available and the way that it is perceived in rural America.

Shannon's character is a man who is on the edge and is driven forward by the visions that he claims to see. He is a tortured soul who is doing the best for his family, whilst putting a strain on the family at the same time.

There is a feeling of unease that hangs over the whole film - and you know that something terrible is never too far away. Shannon's performance really is the film's anchor and it remains one of the best performances of his career to date.

Take Shelter is a movie that was met well by the critics upon release and really cemented Shannon & Nichols as an exciting actor/director partnership.

- Revolutionary Road (2009)

Hard to believe that it was back in 2009 when Revolutionary Road hit the big screen and saw Shannon team up with Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, and filmmaker Sam Mendes; it was the first time that the actor work with the Oscar-winning director.

Revolutionary Road was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Richard Yates and was the first feature for Mendes since Jarhead back in 2005.

Winslet and DiCaprio may have landed the central roles in Revolutionary Road, but this was the movie the proved to be the 'breakthrough' film for Shannon in the role of John Givens. He may have just a couple of scenes as Katy Bates' oddball son, but he really does steal the show.

Shannon has a knack of creating tension in an intimate setting and that is exactly what he does with his limited screen time in Revolutionary Road. Shannon may have had a limited role in the film, but he went on to pick up his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He lost out to Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark Knight.

Revolutionary Road is a powerful and moving study about a marriage that is slowly failing and tearing itself apart in the process.

Winslet and DiCaprio are also on top form while Mendes has created a film that is absorbing as it is sobering.

The film went on to be nominated for three Oscars; Best Supporting Actor, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.

Other great Michael Shannon movie performances include Shotgun Stories, Midnight Special, and The Iceman.

Elvis & Nixon is released 24th June.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Queen Elizabeth is set to visit Northern Ireland next week.

Queen Elizabeth

The 90-year-old monarch and her husband Prince Philip will take a two-day trip - starting in Antrim before moving to Derry - to the country on June 27 and June 28.

The royal couple will kick off their trip by meeting with the Secretary of State Teresa Villers, Northern Ireland's First Minister Arlene Foster as well as the Deputy Minister Martin McGuinness at the Hillsborough Castle.

They will then make their way down to the Giant's Causeway to be given a guided tour and meet volunteers, before heading to Bushmills Village to unveil a statue of Robert Quigg - a soldier who fought at the Battle of the Somme.

They will wrap up their trip with a final stop off at Bellarena Railway Station to unveil a plaque to mark the official opening of the premises, according to the Irish Post.

Meanwhile, this isn't the first time the queen has paid a visit to Northern Ireland as she's made 23 visits over the course of her reign, starting with her first stop over in July 1953.

Her last trip took place in 2014 when she stayed for three days, during which she visited the 'Game of Thrones' set.
The alleviative power of yoga for problems such as muscular pain and ailments caused by ageing is well known and well regarded. But what can yoga do for mental health? Two psychiatrists, Dr Lakshmann S Dutt and Dr Kalrav Mistry, tried to find an answer to the question by enrolling 40 patients and prescribing a specifically designed yoga regime for them. The study, which concluded in May this year, showed that 80% of the patients benefited from the programme and recorded fewer symptoms of depression, thanks to yoga.



Mistry told TOI that yoga elevates brain neurotransmitter levels, such as those of gamma-aminobutyric acid, which help in treating depression and anxiety. Yoga is also associated with lowering of cortisol (stress hormone) level; hence the antidepressant effect.



"Stress has a strong association with various psychiatric illnesses and yoga is an effective treatment option to reduce stress levels," Mistry said. "We had started in September with a group whose members experienced different levels of depression. Depression is caused primarily by three factors: environmental, biological, and socioeconomic." It has been found that yoga has a calming effect, he said. "It increases awareness, attention span, acceptance and adaptability, and a sense of security," he said.



Researchers said that a yoga therapy module used for pilot testing was analyzed by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. All experts opined that the module was easy to teach, learn, and practice but suggested that it should be of a longer duration.Then the module was designed for monitoring at 15 day, 1 month and 3 month periods.



Mistry said the study shows that holistic yoga help patients substantially in coping with short-temper and frustration.

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The United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) released the third annual Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study, a survey of 30 executives from leading fashion and apparel brands, retailers, importers, and wholesalers.Despite challenges like the intense pressure on retailers to remain relevant and uncertainty in US politics, the majority of respondents (92 per cent) are optimistic about the five-year outlook for the US fashion industrya record high since we began conducting the study in 2014, the study said.

The United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) released the third annual Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study, a survey of 30 executives from leading fashion and apparel brands, retailers, importers, and wholesalers. Despite challenges like the intense pressure on retailers to remain relevant and uncertainty in US politics, the majority #

This optimism creates new demand for human talent, with 83 per cent planning to hire more employees in the next five years. Fashion designers, buyers and merchandisers, sourcing specialists, and social compliance specialists will be most in demand.This year, industry executives rank market competition in the United States as their top business challenge. For the first time since 2014, the concern about competition exceeds concern about increasing production or sourcing cost.The survey was conducted in conjunction with Dr. Sheng Lu, Assistant Professor at University of Delaware Department of Fashion & Apparel Studies. The survey asked respondents about the business outlook, sourcing practices, utilization of Free Trade Agreements and preference programs, and views on trade policy.We're celebrating the fact that, despite all the uncertainties the industry is facing, fashion executives are largely optimistic about what's ahead, said Julia K. Hughes, President of USFIA. However, it's clear we still have a lot of work to do, especially in terms of helping companies manage their regulatory challengesas well as convince policymakers of the need to eliminate trade barriers to create jobs and economic growth for some of our country 's most iconic, innovative companies.Overall, U.S. fashion companies are very excited about the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and they look forward to exploring the benefits after TPP's implementation.Seventy seven per cent say their company has already started analyzing TPP and discussing its impact. And, 62 per cent say their company will immediately use TPP once it takes effect.US fashion companies are more actively seeking alternatives to Made in China in 2016, but China's position as the No.1 sourcing destination seems unlikely to change anytime soon. Meanwhile, sourcing from Vietnam and Bangladesh may continue to grow over the next two years, but at a slower pace.This year, there are additional new findings, focusing on the outlook for growth in Vietnam as USFIA prepares for the implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, specifics on how ethical sourcing and sustainability factor into sourcing decisions, and even whether companies are considering new, buzzworthy destinations like Myanmar and Cuba for sourcing.
Pakistan expects an additional 200,000 jobs after the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park at Lahore-Sheikhupura Motorway is completed, according to Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) Chairman Malik Tahir Javaid.The chairman said that Chinese companies had planned to train Pakistani labourers in various industrial disciplines. He told reporters in Lahore that under this plan, various universities would be linked up with the industrial sectors to achieve the target.

Pakistan expects an additional 200,000 jobs after the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park at Lahore-Sheikhupura Motorway is completed, according to Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) Chairman Malik Tahir Javaid. The chairman said that Chinese companies had planned to train Pakistani labourers in various industrial #

Malik said that China was already running a training programme for its unskilled people, which would be replicated in Pakistan. Representatives from Chinese companies would visit Pakistan to launch this training programme soon.He said there was a vast possibility of Chinese investment in the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park, which would lead to the need of skilled labour, possessing knowledge of Chinese work ethics.The PIEDMC Chairman said the training of over 200,000 workers would be a challenge for PIEDMC and no stone would be left unturned to meet it.Earlier this month, Pakistan's Board of Investment (BoI) has declared the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park in Punjab province as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ)The apparel park is a state of the art project of the PIEDMC which is being constructed on 1,536 acres of land on Sheikhupura Motorway Road. The construction work is underway at a fast pace. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration in digital inkjet textile printing.

Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration #

The entry of Robustelli into the Epson Group will allow it to leverage Epson's manufacturing capability to bring the advantages of its digital inkjet textile printers to more customers around the world. The move will assist Epson in using Robustelli's expertise to accelerate the development of digital inkjet textile printers that further enhance the companies' abilities to meet customer needs with a wider lineup of products. As part of the enhanced acceleration, the two companies plan to focus on joint R&D efforts to achieve this goal.

Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration #

The digital textile printing market worldwide is expected to grow at an annual rate of approximately 25 per cent till 2019. In addition to using its manufacturing network to meet this growing demand, Epson will deploy its worldwide sales and service network to provide Monna Lisa (a registered trademark of Robustelli) to more countries and regions around the world.

Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration #

As the market for high-quality digital textile printing expands, I believe that formalising our partnership with Robustelli in this way puts us in a great place to meet the needs of the growing numbers of customers who are seeking to leverage the advantages of advanced digital solutions that will help drive their businesses forward. We will work closely with our colleagues at Robustelli to take Monna Lisa to the next level and remain leaders in the field, commented Sunao Murata, COO of Epson's Professional Printing Operations division who is scheduled to be appointed as president of Robustelli.

Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration #

Our cooperation with Epson led to the development of Monna Lisa, an industrial digital textile printer that is today a market benchmark for high-quality textile printing. The combination of our respective skills is the natural conclusion of a process of innovation to satisfy customers in Italy and the rest of the world, said Valerio Robustelli, one of the proprietors of Fratelli Robustelli. (RKS)

Epson Group company Epson Italia SpA has agreed with the Robustelli family to acquire 100 per cent of the capital of Como, Italy based Fratelli Robustelli Srl, a leader in the textile printing industry. The agreement aims to drive synergies and further increase customer value by expanding the scope of the two companies' longstanding collaboration #

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The US economy is making one of the strongest comebacks in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but there are risks on the horizon, according to the Organisation's latest Economic Survey of the US.Seven years after the financial crisis, the US economy has rebounded through robust monetary policy support and the well-timed expansion of fiscal policy. Output has surpassed its pre-crisis peak by 10 per cent, robust private-sector employment gains have sharply reduced unemployment, and fiscal sustainability has been largely restored. But key reforms are necessary to sustain the recovery.

The US economy is making one of the strongest comebacks in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but there are risks on the horizon, according to the Organisation's latest Economic Survey of the US. Seven years after the financial crisis, the US economy has rebounded through robust monetary policy support and the#

It's a recovery, but it's a stubborn recovery, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said during the Survey launch in Washington, with Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. In so many ways, the US economy is a role model for other OECD countries, but by America's own high standards the recovery has been mild and risks losing momentum. There is a clear need to rebalance the policy mix and implement mutually reinforcing policies that boost productivity, reduce inequality, and promote sustainable growth.The slow speed of the recovery reflects the severity and depth of the financial crisis, fiscal consolidation, the exit of baby boomers from the labour market, weaknesses in key OECD economies, and world trade stagnation induced by the slowdown of China. A broader concern is weakening business sector dynamism. New firms aren't being created as frequently as in the past and larger firms are increasingly dominating markets. The Survey recommends adapting antitrust policy to keep pace with digitisation, financial innovation, and globalisation to address these issues. Shortfalls in public infrastructure must also be remedied.Economic activity is, on average, well above pre-crisis peaks, but the revival does not prevail everywhere and is not as widely shared as it could be. The Survey notes that income inequalities can be addressed by ensuring that people acquire the skills they need and do not face discrimination or other obstacles in the labour market. It also encourages policies to improve opportunities for women, ethnic and racial minorities, disabled persons, and people with criminal records.According to the OECD Survey, private sector job creation has been one of the most welcome aspects of the recovery. The housing market is also improving, with residential house prices in some parts of the country above pre-crisis levels.Looking ahead, the Survey identifies environmental sustainability as an overarching challenge. The US performs relatively poorly compared to the rest of the OECD on CO2 emissions reductions despite the strengthening of fuel economy standards and significant use of policies and incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the State level. The Survey notes that further measures to abate climate change should include putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE FRCA OFFICE IN BA





Na Marama Na Tui Ba,The Acting CEO of the Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority,Distinguished Guests,My Fellow Fijians,Bula vinaka and a very good afternoon to you all.As you all know, last night my Government laid out its spending priorities for the coming year in the national Budget delivered by the Attorney-General and Minister for Finance.Many of you will have seen his speech on television. And Im delighted, the day after, to be here in Ba to reinforce some of the key themes of the Budget. And to open the new local office of FRCA  the agency of Government that raises the revenue we need, in the form of taxes, to pay for the Budget provisions.I want to remind the Fijian people today why it is so important to meet your tax obligations. But before I do, I want to draw national attention to a number of aspects of the Budget that I think are especially important.The most pressing priority, of course, is to step up our program to rebuild Fiji stronger and better after the widespread destruction caused by Tropical Cyclone Winston just over four months ago, including here in Ba.A total of $207.9-million has been allocated in the Budget for cyclone rehabilitation works. And we are strengthening our partnership with the Fiji Institution of Engineers to make sure that any rebuilding is done to higher standards that give us the best possible chance of weathering future cyclones.Aside from the Winston rebuilding effort, there are a couple of other areas I particularly want to highlight  the initiatives in the Budget to create jobs for our young people and jobs for the disabled.We must do everything we can as a nation to empower our young people and give them the opportunity to carve out sustainable and satisfying livelihoods. Youth unemployment is one of the nations greatest challenges. And to address it, this Government has embarked on a holistic and comprehensive effort over the past few years to improve the job prospects of our young people.I am convinced that the biggest breakthrough achieved by any Government in Fijian history was the free schooling we introduced three years ago, that has finally opened up a world of opportunity for even the most disadvantaged child in Fiji.Coupled with our scholarships and tertiary loans, we are giving Fijian young people unprecedented access not only to basic education in our primary schools and high schools but tertiary education at our universities and technical colleges. But this education revolution also needs to be accompanied by measures to provide our young people with better employment opportunities once they have gained the skills that many more of them are now being taught.In the 2016-2017 Budget, we have unveiled a bold plan to give the private sector incentives to hire young people, either to teach them skills or give them jobs. We have increased the existing tax deduction to companies that give people jobs for the first time from 150 per cent to 200 per cent. And we are also offering a 200 per cent tax deduction on wages paid for the first six months to students who are on job placement to satisfy graduation requirements. In addition, a 200 per cent tax deduction will apply to students engaged for up to three months in a year in an employment related to their field of study. Employers will now be able to claim 150% tax deduction, should they pay for their employees to pursue further studies.My fellow Fijians, these are bold and innovative measures that will encourage employers to hire more people, in particular the young, as our economy enters the longest running period of economic growth in our entire history.We are building a partnership between Government and the private sector to create jobs. Providing employers with the incentive to hire more young people. And this means that the prospects for young Fijians today are better than at any other time in our nations development.We have also demonstrated in this Budget that we are acutely focussed on the needs of the disadvantaged, including disabled Fijians. I have repeatedly said that this Government is determined to leave no-one behind. We are taking everyone on our journey forward as a nation. And that is why we have made such an effort in this Budget to maximise the employment opportunities of the disabled. To give them fulfilling lives and a stake in the national economy.I am especially proud of the budget provision that provides a 300 per cent tax deduction to any employer who hires a disabled person for the first three years of their employment. This should open up all sorts of opportunities for disabled people to obtain work. I urge employers to fully embrace this new era of inclusion and empowerment. And for disabled people to seize the initiative knowing your Government is with you all the way. Please remember that the employers are to pay the applicable minimum salary for each category of work.We all need to do a lot more to put ourselves in the place of Fijians with special needs, whether it is the challenge of being discriminated against by taxi companies or manoeuvring a wheelchair over a rough surface or up some stairs. Among other things, we are prioritising the first two rows of seats on all public buses for the disabled people. But as well as our formal assistance in the Budget, l urge every Fijian to think more about the needs of the disabled and do what we can to assist them. To show them we care.My fellow Fijians, last nights Budget was a Budget for every Fijian. A Budget that lays the foundation for the rebuilding of Fiji after Cyclone Winston to a much higher standard. A Budget that empowers our people and delivers what they most need. A Budget that builds on the progress we have achieved as a nation under my Government over the past decade. And a Budget that sets up Fiji for an even better and more prosperous future.Yet having said that, I also want to remind every Fijian who is eligible to pay tax, of this obligation. You must pull your weight and pay the taxes in order for the Government to provide new initiatives and other services that every Fijian has come to expect.We have one of the lowest tax regimes in the region, indeed the world. A 20 per cent flat rate for everyone except high-income earners.We also have some of the most attractive corporate tax rates in the region and the world. So there is no reason for any Fijian not to pay what they legitimately owe in tax. Because the Government takes a much smaller proportion of peoples earnings than many other countries, including our larger neighbours, Australia and New Zealand.Every Fijian who tries to evade tax or falsifies their income to pay less tax than they should, is depriving the Government of our ability to provide services and especially to those who need them most - the less fortunate and more vulnerable members of our society.Tax evasion is a crime  a crime just as serious as stealing from your employer or breaking into someones home. Tax evaders are essentially robbing their fellow Fijians of what they are entitled to receive. And we treat this stealing with the punishment it deserves by imposing severe penalties on those who do so, including jail terms.Unfortunately, theres been a culture in Fiji over the years of some people thinking that its clever to beat the taxman. People have boasted about evading tax as if it is something to be proud of. But its all part of a culture of dishonesty in Fiji that isnt smart at all. In fact, its a national embarrassment that is holding Fiji back.So my message to individuals and to companies is very simple: Pay the tax you owe and pay it on time. It is your civic duty - your patriotic duty. And it is in your interest to do so because this money provides every Fijian with those things weve come to expect in any Budget. Proper roads and other public infrastructure. Proper and improved access to health care and education. Hospitals. Schools. Universities. Technical colleges. All those things the FijiFirst Government is providing for our citizens to prosper. For Fiji to prosper.Opening this FRCA office in Ba will strengthen our compliance regime and enable us to crack down harder on tax evaders. We will be keeping a special eye on companies that fail to pass on duty or VAT reductions. And at the same time, we will also be making it easier for FRCA customers to gain better access to its services as part of our wider campaign to bring Government closer to the people.No longer do the people of Tavua and Ba have to travel long distances to either Lautoka or Rakiraki to visit a FRCA office. All of its services are right here. And we have embarked on a program of culture change in FRCA to make it more efficient and service orientated. To reduce the amount of red tape and make the organisation more user friendly.My fellow Fijians, I urge you all to read the Budget speech and to learn as much as you can about the budget process. Because it will give you a much better idea of how our country works and where we are heading.Its wonderful to be back in Ba and thank you for your usual warm welcome. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible. And I now have great pleasure in formally opening the FRCA office in Ba.Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you.
Not many people are aware that Deepika Padukone was offered the lead role in Kick and Sultan but she rejected it. Recent buzz also suggests that Deepika was also approached for Salman Khan's upcoming film Tubelight but she did not sign that movie too!

And rumour has it that, Salman Khan is pissed off with Deepika Padukone because of this. According to Deccan Chronicle, ''Salman Khan has taken the snub to heart. He refuses to give Deepika the time of the day. Since her return from the shooting of her Hollywood film XXX from LA, Deepika has been trying to get an appointment to meet Salman at his residence in Bandra (Mumbai). But so far all her attempts to meet him have been foiled."

Want to see some candid pics of Salman and Deepika? Then click on VIEW PHOTOS



Rumours are rife that Deepika Padukone has become very selective in choosing films now. When she was offered Salman Khan's Tubelight, she asked director Kabir Khan to make some changes in the script.

Reportedly, she did not want to be an eye candy in Tubelight, just like other heroines in Salman's film and wanted an equally powerful role. Her only condition was that they should extend her role when she signs the film but Kabir Khan was not ready to change anything in the movie. She apparently rejected the action drama as it didn't have much for her to do.

On the work front, Deepika Padukone just finished the shooting of her Hollywood film, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, while Salman Khan is busy with the promotions of Sultan.
We are as surprised as you are! But a recent report about Salman Khan clearly states that he has no intentions of marrying Iulia Vantur.

According to Spotboye.com, a relative of Salman Khan was overheard saying that he has no plans to marry the Romanian beauty, ''At a swishy Chinese restaurant in Bandra, a very close senior relative of Salman Khan was telling friends, "Oh, all this talk about Salman marrying Iulia Vantur is absolutely baseless. There is no such plan in the offing. Oh, you know the media types, they're unnecessarily getting Salman married time and again. Please ignore."''

Click on VIEW PHOTOS to see some pics of Salman with rumoured girlfriend Iulia.



The rumours of Salman Khan's marriage with Iulia Vantur started when a leading daily wrote that Salman Khan will be married by the year's end as his ailing mother Salma Khan wants to see him married now. It was also said that Salma wants her to tie the knot with Iulia.

Also Read: The Fun Begins! Salman Khan, Bipasha-Karan, Shahid Kapoor & Others Leave For IIFA 2016 (Pictures)

Later, when Salman Khan was asked about the same, he said that he will tell his fans whenever he takes this big step. The actor also told a daily, "The media keeps saying, "Salman is getting married on this date or that date." But when it doesn't happen, it's only the girl who suffers. In such cases, the media gives hope to the woman and puts pressure on me. ''

Salman Khan met Iulia Vantur when he was shooting for his film Jai Ho with his brother Sohail Khan. The two became friends and started dating later.
While only a few Bollywood celebs have come out against Salman Khan's 'raped woman' controversy, Anurag Kashyap mixed no words and has spoken out against the actors irresponsible comment, and says that if he really cares, he needs to apologise.

Anurag Kashyap, is not the one who keeps quiet during an important issue and he never really shied away from speaking his mind. Be it the head of CBFC or any top Bollywood star for that matter, Anurag Kashyap always speaks his mind, fearlessly!

While talking to a television channel, Anurag Kashyap came out against Salman Khan as,

"Why are we making it out his individual responsibility? It is very unfortunate that he made an analogy like that, it is very thoughtless of him, in a way daft of him. I am sure he will be regretting it and will apologize for it. If he really cares, he should apologize for it."

However, Salman Khan, has currently left to Spain for the IIFA Awards 2016, and has not commented anything on the issue, as of now.

Deepika Padukone Talks About Her Break-up With Ranveer Singh!
Anushka Sharma made her Bollywood debut with Shahrukh Khan (Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi) and worked with Aamir Khan in PK. And now she is all set to burn the screens with Sultan starring Salman Khan. In a recent interview, Anushka revealed that she feels fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to work with all the three Khans.

In an interview to a leading news agency, Anushka Sharma said, ''I never really worked towards it (working with the Khans of the film industry). For me, it's always been about the script and the director. In my career, I feel fortunate I could work with them."



Also Read: Deepika Padukone Talks About Her Much Hyped Bond Girl Auditions!

The Sultan actress further added, ''As an actress, I feel I have been given this life and I want to make the most of it. I don't want to be seen everywhere. I am grateful for the fame. I am self-made and I feel very proud of that. At the same time, I treat my work with a lot of respect so it's like a gift for me.''
A few hours ago, the press conference of IIFA 2016 happened in Madrid and all the top celebs from Deepika Padukone to Salman Khan were seen attending the event in their stunning avatars! But what grabbed everyone's eyeballs was the jaw-dropping appearance of Deepika Padukone!

Dressed in red hot gown, Deepika was looking no less than a royal princess and how! Her look is so drool-worthy that it will instantly make you say 'oh wow!' Can't believe us? Well, you will, once you go through all the pictures!

Check Out All The 25 Pictures From The IIFA Press Conference Here:

In a few pictures, Deepika was also seen giggling along with Shahid Kapoor and the duo is looking too adorable to handle! We wish, very soon some director cast them together in his/her film because we can clearly witness that they make one hot pair!

Our 'Desi Girl' Priyanka Chopra, who was recently holidaying with her mom in Paris was also spotted at the press conference and boy, she was looking no less hot! One can clearly see the 'Hollywood Effect' on both of the B-town's top divas i.e., Deepika & Peecee.

Deepika & Priyanka's 'hug' moment was also one of the most adorable moments from the press conference. Later, the duo was seen posing for a few selfies along with their fans and the media.

Among others, Sonakshi Sinha, Hrithik Roshan, Karan Johar, Dia Mirza, Farhan Akhtar, Sooraj Pancholi, Shilpa Shetty were also seen attending the IIFA press conference.

Keep watching this space and we will be right back with all the latest update from IIFA!
Deepika Padukone is back in town after finishing the shooting of her first Hollywood film. In a recent interview the actress talked about her much hyped bond girl auditions and also about the rumours of her signing a film with Brad Pitt.

The gorgeous actress told a leading daily, ''Sometimes, I find some theories really strange, but I have never been one to talk about them. I have never felt the need to clarify rumours that involve my life. There is absolutely no truth to any of these two specific films."



When asked about losing films in Bollywood, she said, "Not at all. At the end of the day, you have to be excited about the work you do. So, whatever I find next has to be bigger and better, and more challenging than what I've done in the past because you grow and learn with every film.''

Also Read: Must See Pictures! Shahrukh Khan & Katrina Kaif Grace The Screening Of Udta Punjab With Other Celebs

''I am not interested in churning out a certain number of films every year. For me, it's about the quality of work. I think it's about following your instincts and doing a film for the right reason," she said.

Deepika Padukone further added, ''Soon, you will get to know what I am doing next'.''
Salman Khan's controversy is getting uglier with each passing day! Recently, his dad Salim Khan apologised to the entire nation for his insensitive remarks and now, actress Kangana Ranaut condemns superstar Salman Khan's 'insensitive' rape analogy but said he should not be targeted for it.

We all agree that it is a horrible thing to say, it is something which is extremely insensitive," Kangana said, when asked about it at the launch of Shirish Kunder's short film, Kriti.

The national award-winning star, however, said one should not encourage the mentality of pointing fingers and trolling.

IIFA Flashback Pictures: Aishwarya-Abhishek's Stunning Appearances Over The Years!

"But what I would like to say is let's not encourage the mentality where we want to point fingers at each other and want to feel greater by just running people down by trolling them," Kangana said.

"As a society we have to take responsibility... It is disgraceful to the whole society and not an individual," she added.

Salman, in a group interview to promote Sultan, made the remark that he felt like a 'raped woman' after the gruelling shoot for the wrestling drama. Salman has faced a lot of flak on social media and from women's rights activists and political parties over his comment.
We have another Friday(June 24) here, and yet another week with multiple film releases. This week we have Jigarthanda, Lakshmana and Home Stay releasing all over the state. Let's have a look at the movies and expectations around them.

Jigarthanda stars Rahul Salanke, Ravishankar and Samyuktha Hornaad in lead roles. The movie is in buzz because this is being presented by Kichcha Sudeep under Kichcha Creations. And this is 50th movie of Ravishankar, who came into limelight with Kichcha Sudeep's Kempegowda.

Shiva Ganesh has directed the movie which is the remake of Tamil hit of the same name. SRV Productions have bankrolled the project. Songs composed by Arjun Janya is already a hit. Teasers released, have also got appreciations.

Lakshmana is the second release, which is the debut of Ex Minister HM Revanna's son Anup Revanna. Meghana Raj is playing the lead role opposite Anup. Crazy Star V Ravichandran is playing an important role of a police officer in the movie.

R Chandru is directing the movie which is based on the Telugu hit Athanokkade, which had Nandamuri Kalyanram and Sindhu Tulani playing the leads. Arjun Janya is the composer and Santosh Rai Pathaje is the cinematographer. Action sequences are said to be the highlight of the movie. A mass entertainer can be expected from the team.

Home Stay is the other Kannada release, which is a psychological thriller, as publicized by the team. It has Sayali Bhagat, Ashok Balakrishnan, Ravi Kale, Shruthi Rishab Shetty, Dathanna playing the important roles. The movie has been simultaneously made in Kannda, Tamil and Hindi.

It is releasing without much publicity, team is hoping that the audience will appreciate the good content. Given the genre, if the content is good, then there will be no stopping the movie, which is directed by Santosh Kodankeri.

We are wishing good luck to all the teams and hope we get entertained by all the three movies.
Rana Daggubati, who is busy shooting for Baahubali: The Conclusion and Dhanush's Yennai Nokki Paayum Thotta, is spending a part of his salary towards a noble cause.

Museum of Cinema, which is owned by his family, is in bad shape and Rana wants to make sure that the museum, built in honour of his grandfather D Ramanaidu, gets all the attention it requires.

"This is something that we've wanted to put together for a long time. My grandfather's initial idea was to create an archive of every film. But it is sad to know that most of the old cameras or the classic equipment that we used to own have either been sold off, or are broken," the Arrambam actor told Times of India.

But Rana is in no mood to give up.

"I will be starting with a restoration unit that will restore old negatives. Today, everything has gone digital. So, nobody values negatives anymore. But I have to admit that all this is an expensive process. I have decided to give some amount from my remuneration for this," he has said.

According to Rana, the idea is to preserve old classics for the future generation.

"We will store our films and find negatives of others' films, too. Some are in such a bad shape that we can't even restore them. It is very sad that classic films might disappear soon due to non-maintenance. I grew up watching classics, but what will the future generation get to see? Coming back to the museum, the project has been initiated, and the plan is to make it as big as we can."

Belonging to a family that has been in the industry for the last 50 years has helped, he has said.

"since we've been in the industry for the last 50 years, we wanted to start off by putting together a few things from our own archives. Some of grandfather's friends also have some cameras, black and white films, etc, that they have donated. The idea is to exhibit what goes into the entire filmmaking process."

Also Read: WATCH: Fan Made Trailer Of Rajinikanth's 'Kabali' Goes Viral!
According to the latest report, farmers in Tamil Nadu are planning to stage a protest in front of superstar Rajinikanth's residence, if the actor fails to hand them 1 Crore rupees as promised, within a month.

"Rajinikanth promised to help us with 1 Crore rupees during the 2002 Cauvery river water dispute. The money was meant to help the government inter-link rivers. But even after 14 years Rajinikanth has not made any contribution," Ayyakannu, a representative of farmers, has told a leading Tamil daily.

It is a known fact that the Lingaa actor had made his presence felt during the 2002 Cauvery dispute, when many Tamil actors chose to stage a protest against the government of Karnataka on the 13th of October.

Ayyakannu has claimed that Rajinikanth met the then Governor and made a promise that he would contribute 1 Crore rupees, which would be useful in interlinking rivers.

Since it is alleged that Rajinikanth has not made the contribution so far, an organization called 'Desiya Thenmaanila Nadhigal Inaippu Vivasaayigal Sangam', which is headed by Ayyakannu, is threatening to stage a protest, should the star actor fail to hand them the money within a month.

Also Read: Gangai Amaran's Shocker: Kamal Stole Thevar Magan's Story, Ilaiyaraaja Shouldn't Touch His Harmonium
SINGAPORE, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Meritus Hotels & Resorts recently appointed Melvin Lim as General Manager of internationally acclaimed Marina Mandarin Singapore -- an upscale, 575-room business hotel that enjoys an excellent location in the heart of the Marina Bay financial district.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382309

Melvin brings with him over 20 years of industry expertise gained from key operations and leadership roles he has held across Southeast Asia with major hospitality companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Millennium & Copthorne International, The Ascott Limited, Park Hotel Group, and Far East Hospitality.

He joins Meritus following a successful two years as Area General Manager for Far East Hospitality, where he was responsible for the operations and profitability of Far East Organisation's three key hotels in Singapore -- Orchard Parade Hotel; The Elizabeth Singapore; and The Quincy Hotel.

Prior to that, he was Vice President for Park Hotel Group overseeing the performance of hotels within the Group's Greater China portfolio. Concurrent to his role, he was also Chairperson of the Group's Product Innovation Committee spearheading the development and implementation of new product and service standards for the brand.

Melvin was with Millennium & Copthorne International from 2005 to 2012, during which time he successively held the General Manager post for M Hotel Singapore, Orchard Hotel Singapore, and Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur.

As he takes the helm at Marina Mandarin Singapore, Melvin looks forward to driving greater levels of competitiveness and business performance for the hotel. With his proven strength in developing people and implementing industry-leading product and service standards, Melvin is uniquely qualified to steer Marina Mandarin Singapore in the right direction for strategic growth.

Press Contact:

Janice Azupardo

Regional Vice President, Branding & Communications

Meritus Hotels & Resorts

DID: +65-6831-6385

Email: janice.azupardo@meritushotels.com

Patricia Yong

Director, Marketing Communications

Marina Mandarin Singapore

DID: +65-6845-1239

Email: patricia.yong@meritushotels.com
MISGAV, Israel, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The Trendlines Group Ltd. (SGX:42T, OTC: TRNLY), a leading Israeli company focused on innovation commercialization, announced today that its 26.5%-owned associated company, E.T.View Medical Ltd. (TASE: ETVW), has signed a definitive agreement for its sale to Ambu A/S (CPH: AMBU-B), a Danish medical device company. E.T.View Medical Ltd. ("E.T.View") develops and manufactures a portfolio of products that provide continuous visualization and ventilationof the airway during thoracic surgical procedures.



(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151125/290970LOGO )



According to the agreement, Ambu A/S ("Ambu") will acquire E.T.View in a "reverse triangular merger" valued at US$16 million, less about US$3.4 million in transaction costs, employee bonuses, and the assumption of certain debts, liabilities and expenses. Following the sale, E.T.View will be delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ambu. The Board of Directors of E.T.View unamiously approved the agreement on 21 June 2016.

The fair value of The Trendlines Group's holdings in E.T.View was approximately US$1.3 million as at 31 March 2016. Trendlines estimates that it will receive net proceeds of approximately US$3.3 million resulting in a pre-tax gain from the sale of approximately US$2.0 million.

Commenting on the sale, Trendlines Chairman and CEO Todd Dollinger, who also serves as Chairman of E.T.View, said, "Through the intensive work of E.T.View's staff, with the support of the Trendlines team, E.T.View has become a global leader in lung isolation airway management with sales in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Ambu's proposed acquisition of E.T.View recognizes the importance of E.T.View's innovative technology for thoracic surgeons and anesthesiologists. We are very pleased to to place E.T.View in Ambu's hands and expect tremendous growth under Ambu to the benefit of patients and the medical community."

Commenting on the significance of the transaction to The Trendlines Group, Mr. Dollinger added, "The sale of E.T.View marks the first exit that Trendlines has completed since listing on Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) on 26 November 2015. Trendlines is committed to supporting the growth of its portfolio companies and realizing the value of its portfolio companies at appropriate times."

The Trendlines Group, listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX:42T) and with an ADR program in the U.S. (OTC:TRNLY), is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development through business building.

Forward-looking statements

This press release may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include descriptions regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company or its officers with respect to the results of business operations and financial condition, industry, environment and future events and plans of the Company. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results, performance or achievements. Actual results, performance or achievements of the Company may differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and assumptions, such as known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including those risk factors discussed in our Offer Document dated 16 November 2015 and in our other filings with the SGXNET. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. In light of these risks and uncertainties, actual events, results and developments could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which reflect the view of the Company or its officers as of the date of this presentation only. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For more investor information, contact: Judith Kleinman, Director Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, judith@trendlines.com
ZURICH (dpa-AFX) - UBS AG (UBS) has complied with an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) summons for bank records held in its Singapore office, the U.S. Justice Department said. Because UBS has now produced all Singapore-based records responsive to the request and the IRS determined that UBS complied with the summons, the Justice Department has voluntarily dismissed its summons enforcement action against the bank. The IRS served an administrative summons on UBS for records pertaining to accounts held by Ching-Ye 'Henry' Hsiaw. According to the petition, the IRS needed the records in order to determine Hsiaw's federal income tax liabilities for the years 2006 through 2011. Hsiaw transferred funds from a Switzerland-based account with UBS to the UBS Singapore branch in 2002, according to the declaration of a revenue agent filed at the same time as the petition. UBS refused to produce the records, and the United States filed its petition to enforce the summons. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
EQS-News / 23/06/2016 / 12:16 UTC+8 Jointly Establishing an Advanced Medical Technology Center in Central China Universal Medical and Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University to Initiate the International Airport Hospital A few days ago, Universal Medical Financial & Technical Advisory Services Company Limited ("Universal Medical") and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University ("Second Affiliated Hospital") officially signed the framework agreement pertaining to the joint establishment of the International Airport Hospital in Zhengzhou International Conference and Exhibition Center. Alliance between Giants Jointly Establishing an Advanced Medical Technology Center in Central China The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University is a comprehensive Class III Grade A hospital under the direct supervision of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of Henan Province. Since its establishment in 1952, the Hospital has been engaged in medical, teaching and scientific research activities. Reputed with skilled technology, strict teaching philosophy, practical approach to study and quality service to patients, the Hospital became the first center for doctor programs and post-doctoral studies of Henan Province and one of the key training bases for medical talents. Universal Medical, as a listed company under China General Technology (Group) Holding Company Limited, a Fortune 500 enterprise, is a leading integrated healthcare services provider in China. Leveraged on its abundant global medical resources platform, the Company offers a wide range of flexible integrated healthcare solutions to its hospital customers in terms of medical digitalization, medical technology, hospital building design, hospital investment and management as well as medical financing support. The cooperation between the two giants to co-construct and operate International Airport Hospital under Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University will facilitate the establishment of an advanced medical technology center for Central China, improve medical conditions for residents and seek a new way to respond to the medical reform in the new period. Optimize allocation of resources Striving to be a benchmarking project of medical reform Henan public health department pays high attention to the cooperation between two giants. A few days ago, Henan NHFPC signed and issued "Official Written Reply to Matters Concerned with Cooperation between the Second Affiliated Hospital of Henan University and Universal Medical Financial & Technical Advisory Services Company Limited" to show support to the International Airport Hospital project. At present, Second Affiliated Hospital covers an area of only 24 mu in the down town. The overcrowded and traffic-clogged hospital not only makes patients uncomfortable, but also hinders the sustainable development of the hospital itself. The International Airport Hospital contemplated hereunder will effectively improve the allocation of local medical resources and comprehensively enhance medical technology level and therefore the growing medical need of populous Henan Province could be met, a medical academic center of Henan even Central China could be established and a new model of cooperation among government, state-owned key enterprises, universities as well as their hospitals could be set up. Support medical reform Proactively exploring new models for public hospitals Over the years, China's medical reform has stepped into "deep waters" and public hospital reform, with breaking hospital profiting mechanisms and establishing a well laid-out medical service system and a hierarchical medical system as its basic goal, has been in full swing. Central government has promulgated a string of policies to support medical reform by encouraging the introduction of social capital and explore new models to operate hospitals. Social capital engaged in local healthcare industry development is fully supported by policies successively promulgated, such as "Opinions of the State Council on Deepening the Reform of the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare System", "Opinions on Further Encourage and Guiding Social Capital in Running Medical Institutions" and "Several Opinions of the State Council to Promote the Development of Healthcare Services". With strong political encouragement, social capital, especially state-owned key enterprises shouldering the responsibility of guaranteeing people's livelihood, has been playing an important role in the new round of medical reform as well as medical elderly care industry, which not only responds to President Xi's instruction to make SOEs bigger, stronger and better, but also meets the urgent demand to vigorously develop healthcare industry. Meanwhile, Henan provincial government and Zhengzhou municipal government promulgated a series of policies in respond to the call of central government, landing the guidance of 2009 new medical reform plan on the ground and deepening local pharmaceutical and healthcare system reform. The cooperation between two sides kicks off a new model of public hospital reform right under the situation below. Via the project, Universal Medical will deepen the cooperation with Henan medical system and gradually establish a regional medical alliance covering Henan Province as well as Central China. The Company is committed to securing the multi-level medical needs of Central China residents and providing support for development strategies of "Rise of Central China" and "Central China Economic Zone". Document: http://n.eqs.com/c/fncls.ssp?u=HQOXFSQTJR Document title: Jointly Establishing an Advanced Medical Technology Center in Central China Universal Medical and Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University to Initiate the International Airport Hospital 23/06/2016 Dissemination of a Press Release, transmitted by EQS TodayIR - a company of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Media archive at www.todayir.com 473717 23/06/2016

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 23, 2016 00:18 ET (04:18 GMT)
AMSTERDAM, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Constellium N.V. (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) is proud to announce its new sustainability targets for 2020 as the company takes a next step towards unlocking the full value of conducting responsible business. In its Business and Sustainability Performance Report 2015, Constellium evaluates its performance against the original 2012-2015 targets and announces new goals for 2020.

Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130624/NY37453LOGO

Constellium first established its strategic direction for sustainability in 2012 across four key priority areas: people, products, operations and responsible business. Today, the company reports progress on its performance and outlines concrete objectives raising industry standards even higher for the years to come. Constellium's sustainability agenda for 2020 is the product of a year-long materiality assessment, led by the company's Sustainability Council. This work allowed Constellium to evaluate alignment between the expectations of its external stakeholders and the company's own sustainability policy.

"In the past years we have defined our sustainability vision, paving the way for our company to do business more responsibly," said Ingrid Joerg, Chairperson of Constellium's Sustainability Council. "Building on our successful three-year sustainability program ending in 2015, we have now set new targets for 2020. We are excited to deploy our sustainability actions jointly with our customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders in an effort to strengthen the aluminium value chain now and in the future."

Constellium's 2020 expected sustainability targets include:

Reducing landfilled production waste by 10%;

Further improving energy efficiency by 10%;

Increasing safety at work and stay in the first industry quartile in safety results;

Increasing employee satisfaction and strengthen communities in which Constellium operates;

Fully rolling out our sustainable procurement policy.

Some of our significant sustainability advancements consist of the following:

Fostered responsible use of resources with 9% increase in energy efficiency throughout our operations;

Enhanced engagement with an average of one suggestion per employee at each site being implemented every month;

Renewed commitment to sustainable Research &Technology;

Defined and implemented first phase of the company's sustainable procurement policy, including achieving the Gold level recognition by EcoVadis;

Led industry efforts with the creation and ramp up of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative and sponsoring of key initiatives to increase recycling rate of beverage cans.

To learn more about our sustainability achievements, please read our report that is accessible online.

About Constellium

Constellium (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) is a global sector leader that develops innovative, value added aluminium products for a broad scope of markets and applications, including aerospace, automotive and packaging. Constellium generated 5.2 billion of revenue in 2015.

www.constellium.com

Forward Looking Statement

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This press release may contain "forward looking statements" with respect to our business, results of operations and financial condition, and our expectations or beliefs concerning future events and conditions. You can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as, but not limited to, "believes," "expects," "may," "should," "approximately," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "targets," likely," "will," "would," "could" and similar expressions (or the negative of these terminologies or expressions). All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Many risks and uncertainties are inherent in our industry and markets. Others are more specific to our business and operations. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the ability of Constellium and Wise to achieve expected synergies and the timing thereof; the risk that the businesses will not be integrated successfully or such integration may be more difficult, time-consuming or costly than expected; Constellium's increased levels of indebtedness as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals, which could limit Constellium's operating flexibility and opportunities; the potential failure to retain key employees as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals or during the integration of the business, the loss of customers, suppliers and other business relationships as a result of the acquisition of Wise Metals; disruptions to business operations resulting from the acquisition of Wise Metals; slower or lower than expected growth in the North American market for Body-in-White aluminium rolled products and other risk factors set forth under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F, and as described from time to time in subsequent reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The occurrence of the events described and the achievement of the expected results depend on many events, some or all of which are not predictable or within our control. Consequently, actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
WATLINGTON, England and KUNGSBACKA, Sweden, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

----------------------------------------------

A third of customers expect to be disappointed by the in-store experience

A quarter of shoppers felt the store was outdated compared to online shopping

----------------------------------------------

Traditional stores could be the 'weak link' in Swedish retailers' omnichannel chain, new research from iVend Retail, a global retail solution brand, and Retail Store, a Swedish retail systems provider, suggests.

The original research from iVend Retail and Retail Store warns that, despite Swedish retailers' efforts to integrate omnichannel journeys, consumers are increasingly disappointed by their in-store experiences when compared to online.

This, the research suggests, is because the data that retailers can gather around individual shoppers' behaviours online - from frequency of purchase to purchase history and buying preferences - which allows them to deliver the personalised engagement shoppers have come to expect, disappears when the same customer enters a physical store.

Research from the report reveals that while 51% of Swedish consumers still mostly shop in traditional, physical outlets, a third (32%) said they were more likely to be disappointing experience in the store than online, rising to 42% among 16 - 29 year olds.

A quarter (25%) agreed that the service they received online was more personal than instore, and a further 26% said the store felt outdated when compared to ecommerce encounters. 17% even said they felt like a retailer's 'friend' online, but anonymous in the store.

Increasingly customers want retailers to do more to bridge the digital divide: 78% of Swedish consumers would like retailers to have a 'single view' of them, connecting their online and offline shopping habits to make in-store interactions more personal and deliver seamless buying journeys.

Anna-Lena Loof, Sales and Marketing Manager at Retail Store, commented: "To reinvigorate the store and in their omnichannel strategies, retailers should look to digitalise physical outlets using customer data and a single view of stock to deliver more tailored and connected interactions. By equipping store associates with digitally enabled devices that are linked to back-end systems, they can bring the online experience to customers at the shelf edge, keeping the customer on the path to purchase.

"We know that 58% of Swedish shoppers no longer differentiate between channels; they simply shop using the medium that's most convenient to them at the time - whether it's online, in-store or on a mobile device," said Richard Kolodynski, Senior Vice President of European Operations at iVend Retail. "This makes delivering a seamless journey all the more important. Shoppers don't separate channels, so retailers must ensure fluidity and visibility between them and this is, traditionally, where the store has found it hard to keep up with online."

"By using technology to enable physical stores to behave in the same informed, flexible manner as online shopping channels, retailers can improve omnichannel conversions," he concluded.

For further information about iVend Retail and Retail Store see: http://www2.ivend.com/retailstore.se/retail-management-system-ivend-retail

Notes to editors

Survey of 200 Swedish consumers was conducted by Mori on behalf of iVend Retail and Retail Store in April 2016

About iVend

iVend delivers integrated, omnichannel retail management solutions for the way retailers work today, implementing technology that is built to enable change, not just built to last.

We believe that retailers shouldn't have to worry about managing hardware, software licenses, upgrades - they just need the tools to deliver great customer service.

Part of Citixsys worldwide, iVend stands for innovation in retail technology and leadership in Cloud management and mobile retail. In addition to providing traditional fixed till and back office server solutions as required, we are experts in developing solutions for complex retail - multi-format, multi-location, multi-channel and multi-sector retailers.

http://www.iVend.com @iVendRetail_EU

About Retail Store

Retail Store was formed in 2004, bringing industry experts together to help retailers in the Scandinavian marketplace.

Our mission is to increase the profitability of retailers in the region by delivering systems and services through partnerships with market-leading vendors.

With extensive experience in consulting, implementation and system development, Retail Store offers a complete solution for the retailer, backed by high-class service and support. The Retail Store customer basealready includes some of the region's best-known retailers and most recognized brands.

http://www.retailstore.se @retailstore

For further press information, please contact Sarah Stevens at Fieldworks Marketing on:

sarah.stevens@fieldworksmarketing.co.uk / +44(0)1892-786-917
Regulatory News:

As announced on 19 May 2016, SoLocal Group (Paris:LOCAL) is actively working on a plan to drastically reduce its financial debt. The company has solicited the appointment of a mandataire ad hoc to assist the company in the discussions it will have in this context. Maitre Frederic Abitbol has been appointed by the Commercial Court of Nanterre. This appointment will facilitate and allow to obtain a balanced agreement as soon as practicable, taking into account the interests of all stakeholders, including shareholders and creditors.

This appointment is an event of default under the documentation that governs the 8.875% senior secured notes due 2018 issued by PagesJaunes Finance Co. S.C.A. and triggers the automatic acceleration of those notes. As previously indicated, PagesJaunes Finance Co. S.C.A is a vehicle without any equity-based relationship with SoLocal Group.

In accordance with the law, the appointment of the mandataire ad hoc and the resulting acceleration of PagesJaunes Finance Co. S.C.A. notes will have no effect on the maturity of SoLocal Group's financial debt, which is thus not accelerated.

In this context, it is the intention to propose shortly to PagesJaunes Finance Co. S.C.A.'s noteholders (through a consent solicitation) to become direct lenders of SoLocal Group by appropriating an equal principal amount of the underlying loan held by PagesJaunes Finance Co. S.C.A. against SoLocal Group, which has been pledged for the benefit of the noteholders. This will enable noteholders to participate directly in the discussions between SoLocal Group and its creditors. This consent solicitation process will be described in a separate press release.

As the ongoing debt restructuring process has extended beyond the initially expected timeframe, SoLocal Group is unlikely to be in compliance with its bank covenants, at the end of June 2016 and at the end of September 2016, notwithstanding a favourable evolution of the Group's commercial performance since the beginning of 2016. The extremely significant amount of financial debt heavily constrains the Group's ability to invest to fuel the acceleration of its digital growth. These elements, combined with the fact that the company's ability to repay its financial debt at its contractual maturities of March and June 2018 is very unlikely, reinforce the need to drastically reduce its financial debt.

SoLocal Group will regularly keep the market and the shareholders informed about the discussions regarding its financial debt.

About SoLocal Group

SoLocal Group, European leader in local online communication, reveals local know-how, and boosts local revenues of businesses. The Internet activities of the Group are structured around two business lines: Local Search and Digital Marketing. With Local Search, the Group offers digital services and solutions to clients which enable them to enhance their visibility and develop their local contacts. Thanks to its expertise, SoLocal Group earned the trust of some 530,000 clients of those services and over 2.2 billions of visits via its 4 flagship brands (PagesJaunes, Mappy, Ooreka and A Vendre A Louer) but also through its partnerships. With Digital Marketing, SoLocal Group creates and provides Internet users with the best local and customised content about professionals. With over 4,400 employees, including a salesforce of 1,900 local communication advisors specialised in five verticals (Home, Services, Retail, Health Public, BtoB) and Internationally (France, Spain, Austria, United Kingdom), the Group generated in 2015 revenues of 873 millions euros, of which 73% on Internet and ranks amongst the first European players in terms of Internet advertising revenues. SoLocal Group is listed on Euronext Paris (LOCAL). More information may be obtained at www.solocalgroup.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622006580/en/

Contacts:

SoLocal Group

Press

Delphine Penalva, +33 (0)1 46 23 35 31

dpenalva@solocal.com

or

Edwige Druon, +33 (0)1 46 23 37 56

edruon@solocal.com

or

Investors

Elsa Cardarelli, +33 (0)1 46 23 40 92

ecardarelli@solocal.com
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - DS Smith PLC (SMDS.L) reported pretax profit of 201 million pounds for the 12 months to 30 April 2016 compared to 200 million pounds, previous year. Profit to owners of the parent increased year-over-year to 167 million pounds from 156 million pounds. Total earnings per share were 17.5 pence compared to 16.4 pence. Adjusted operating profit rose by 13 percent on a reported basis to 379 million pounds from 335 million pounds, a year ago. Growth on a constant currency basis was, higher at 16 percent. Before exceptional item, pretax profit increased to 280 million pounds from 251 million pounds. Adjusted earnings per share increased to 27.0 pence from 24.3 pence. For the full-year, Group revenue increased to 4.07 billion pounds compared to 3.82 billion pounds, a growth of 6 percent on a reported basis, before considering the adverse currency effects. On a constant currency basis, revenue increased by 9 percent. The Group said its revenues were principally driven by the contribution from acquired businesses, which contributed 8 percent growth on a constant currency basis. Organic growth contributed a further 1 percent. For the year 2015/16, the Board of DS Smith recommended a final dividend of 8.8 pence, which together with the interim dividend of 4.0 pence gives a total dividend for the year of 12.8 pence per share. This represents an increase of 12 percent on the prior year. Miles Roberts, Group Chief Executive, said: 'We are delighted to report another year of strong growth underpinned by ten per cent organic growth in our adjusted operating profit supplemented by six per cent from acquisitions. Strong financial discipline allows us again to deliver on all our priorities.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Not for release, publication or distribution in Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States.

These materials are not an offer for sale of securities in the United States. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. PJSC Magnit has not registered and does not intend to register any part of the offering in the United States or to conduct a public offering of any securities in the United States.

This document is only being distributed to and is only directed at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) to investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order") or (iii) high net worth companies, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons in (i), (ii) and (iii) above together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The securities are only available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents.

In any EEA Member State that has implemented Directive 2003/71/EC (such Directive, together with any applicable implementing measures in the relevant home Member State under such Directive, the "Prospectus Directive") this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive.

Securities of PJSC Magnit have not been and will not be registered under the applicable securities laws of Australia, Canada or Japan and, subject to certain exceptions, may not be offered or sold within Australia, Canada or Japan or to, or for the account or benefit of, citizens or residents of Australia, Canada or Japan except under circumstances which will result in the full compliance with the applicable laws and regulations promulgated by the relevant regulatory authorities in effect at the relevant time.

Press-release

Krasnodar

June 23, 2016

PJSC "Magnit" Announces the Results of the BOD Meeting

Krasnodar, June 23, 2016: PJSC "Magnit", Russia's largest food retailer (the "Company", "Issuer"; MOEX and LSE: MGNT), is pleased to announce the results of the BOD meeting held on June 22, 2016.

Please be informed that on June 22, 2016 the BOD meeting was held (minutes of the BOD meeting of PJSC "Magnit" are w/o No. of June 22, 2016).

The meeting agenda:

Election of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Election of the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Election of the Secretary of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Formation of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Election of the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Formation of the HR and Remuneration Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Election of the Chairman of the HR and Remuneration Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit". Election of the Management Board of PJSC "Magnit". Approval of the Program of PJSC "Magnit" exchange-traded bonds. Approval of the Prospectus of PJSC "Magnit" exchange-traded bonds. Approval of the related party transaction. Determination of PJSC "Magnit" business priorities. Determination of the auditor's amount of remuneration. The following BOD members were present: S. Galitskiy, V. Gordeychuk, K. Pombukhchan,

A. Shkhachemukov. A. Aleksandrov, A. Zayonts, A. Pshenichniy provided their written opinions on the items of the agenda of the BOD meeting of PJSC "Magnit".

The number of the BOD members participating in the meeting, including written opinions of

A. Aleksandrov, A. Zayonts, A. Pshenichniy amounts to not less than half of the number of the BOD members determined by the Charter of the Company.

Quorum to hold the BOD meeting with this agenda is present.

Voting Results:

Items 1-10, 12-13:

A. Aleksandrov - "for", S. Galitskiy - "for", V. Gordeychuk - "for", A. Zayonts - "for", K. Pombukhchan - "for", A. Pshenichniy - "for", A. Shkhachemukov - "for".

The decisions were made.

Item 11:

A. Aleksandrov - "for", S. Galitskiy - "did not participate in voting", V. Gordeychuk - "for", A. Zayonts - "for", K. Pombukhchan - "for", A. Pshenichniy - "for", A. Shkhachemukov - "for".

The decisions were made.

Content of the decisions and voting results :

Item 1 on the agenda:

"To elect Khachatur Pombukhchan as a Chairman of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 2 on the agenda:

"To elect Aslan Shkhachemukov as a Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 3 on the agenda:

"To elect Vladimir Gordeychuk as a Secretary of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 4 on the agenda:

"To form the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit" consisting of the following 3 (three) members:

- Aleksandr Aleksandrov,

- Alexander Zayonts,

- Alexey Pshenichniy".

Item 5 on the agenda:

"To elect Alexander Zayonts as a Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 6 on the agenda:

"To form the HR and Remuneration Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit" consisting of the following 3 (three) members:

- Aleksandr Aleksandrov,

- Alexander Zayonts,

- Alexey Pshenichniy".

Item 7 on the agenda:

"To elect Alexey Pshenichniy as a Chairman of the HR and Remuneration Committee of the Board of Directors of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 8.1 on the agenda:

"To form the collective executive body (Management Board) of PJSC "Magnit" consisting of the following 4 (four) members:

- Alexander Barsukov;

- Sergey Galitskiy;

- Marina Ivanova;

- Alexander Kazakov.

The share of the members in the charter capital of the issuer, and the percentage of ordinary shares of the issuer owned by these members:

- A. Barsukov - no share;

- S, Galitskiy - 35.1095%;

- M. Ivanova - no share;

- A. Kazakov - 0.045473%".

Item 8.2 on the agenda:

"To appoint Alexander Barsukov as a Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 8.3 on the agenda:

"To conclude the employment agreement with the members of the Management Board. To approve the terms and conditions of the employment agreement with the member of the collective executive body (Management Board) of PJSC "Magnit".

Item 9 on the agenda:

"To approve the Program of the exchange-traded bonds - non-convertible interest-bearing certified exchange-traded bonds to the bearer with the obligatory centralized custody with the maximum total nominal value of all exchange-traded bonds issues, to be placed under the Program of the exchange-traded bonds of the 002P series, of 50,000,000,000 (Fifty billion) Russian rubles inclusive or the equivalent of this amount in a foreign currency, maturing on the date not later than the 1,820th day from the date of initiation of the exchange-traded bonds placement, under the Program of the exchange-traded bonds to be placed by open subscription".

Item 10 on the agenda:

"To approve the Prospectus of the securities - non-convertible interest-bearing certified exchange-traded bonds to the bearer with the obligatory centralized custody with the maximum total nominal value of all exchange-traded bonds issues, to be placed under the Program of the exchange-traded bonds of the 002P series, of 50,000,000,000 (Fifty billion) Russian rubles inclusive or the equivalent of this amount in a foreign currency, maturing on the date not later than the 1,820th day from the date of initiation of the exchange-traded bonds placement, under the Program of the exchange-traded bonds to be placed by open subscription".

Item 11 on the agenda:

"To approve the conclusion of the additional agreement to the real estate lease agreement No. GK/3053/12 of 21.05.2012 (hereinafter - the Agreement), executed by the Company with JSC "Tander" and which is the related party transaction with the following essentials:

1. The second paragraph of the clause 1.1. of the Agreement shall be amended as follows: "Trading, non-residential premises with the total space of 624.3 sq.m. , floor plan numbers No. 8-21, 1, 5-7, located on the underground floor and on the 1st floor of the building, letter ?, located at the address: 429 Mira street, Stavropol, Stavropol region, Russian Federation, cadastral number 26:12:011103:1014";

2. to amend the clause 5.1. of the Agreement as follows: "the Lessee shall pay the lease fee in the amount of 442,005 (four hundred and forty two thousand five) rubles including VAT per month to the Lessor within the period determined by this agreement"; 3. the terms and conditions specified in the clauses 1, 2 above, in accordance with the clause 2 of the article 425 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation shall be applied to the relations of the parties under the Agreement from the date determined by the additional agreement. Hereby to provide the Chief Executive Officer of PJSC "Magnit" with the right to increase the lease fee under The price (money value) of Company's property, which can be directly or indirectly disposed by the Company under the Agreement, amounts to less than 2 percent of the book value of Company's assets, determined by the accounting (financial) statements as of the last reporting date". Item 12 on the agenda: "To determine PJSC "Magnit" business priorities by means of ratification of the Company's Plan of financial and economic activity for the third quarter of 2016".

Item 13 on the agenda:

"To determine the amount of remuneration for the auditor's services - Ernst & Young LLC - for the review of the interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the 6 months ended on June 30, 2016 prepared in accordance with IFRS in the amount equivalent to 241,900 (two hundred and forty one thousand nine hundred) US dollars (incl. VAT) at the exchange rate of the Central bank of the Russian Federation as of the date of payment".

For further information, please contact:

Timothy Post Head of Investor Relations

Email: post@magnit.ru

Office: +7-861-277-4554 x 17600

Mobile: +7-961-511-7678

Direct Line: +7-861-277-4562 Investor Relations Office MagnitIR@magnit.ru

Direct Line: +7-861-277-4562

Website: ir.magnit.com/ Media Inquiries Media Relations Department

press@magnit.ru

Company description:

Magnit is Russia's largest food retailer. Founded in 1994, the company is headquartered in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar. As of March 31, 2016, Magnit operated 34 distribution centers and about 12,434 stores (9,715 convenience, 382 hypermarkets, and 2,337 drogerie stores) in 2,385 cities and towns throughout 7 federal regions of the Russian Federation.

In accordance with the audited IFRS results for 2015, Magnit had revenues of RUB 951 billion and an EBITDA of RUB 104 billion. Magnit's local shares are traded on the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX: MGNT) and its GDRs on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: MGNT) and it has a credit rating from Standard & Poor's of BB+. Measured by market capitalization, Magnit is one of the largest retailers in Europe.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Viacom Inc.'s (VIAB, VIA) controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone's mental competency needs to be determined before taking a decision on his plan to replace five directors at the media giant, a Delaware court said Wednesday. During a hearing, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Andre Bouchard said that he won't fast track lawsuits filed by Redstone and Viacom directors over the removal of five board members last week. The judge said he would wait until the result of another case in Massachusetts regarding 93-year-old Redstone's competency to make decisions, before deciding on the proposed board changes. The Massachusetts case is through its discovery process. Redstone's mental health is being assessed in lawsuits in three states. Last week, National Amusements Inc., Redstone's holding company to control Viacom, filed its lawsuit to affirm its board replacements. In response, Viacom's lead independent director Frederic Salerno filed a suit to invalidate the dismissals, which included himself and the company's chairman and chief executive Philippe Dauman. In the Delaware dispute, both sides were asked to maintain the status quo during the legal process. The existing Viacom board would continue to manage the company day-to-day, but won't be able to take any actions outside of the ordinary course of business. The Massachusetts case is related to the removal of Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from a trust that will oversee Redstone's media empire, which also includes CBS corp. (CBS), after he dies or is determined to be incapacitated. In the Massachusetts case, a hearing is scheduled for June 30. Viacom's next board meeting is scheduled on August 3 in New York. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CAMARILLO, California, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

BNK Petroleum Inc. (the "Company" or "BNK") (TSX: BKX) announces that the seven director nominees listed in the Company's management information circular dated May 16, 2016 were re-elected at the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Company held earlier today. Detailed results are set out below:

The Company is pleased to welcome Mr. Gregory Cameron as a director of the Company. Mr. Cameron has worked in the finance industry for more than 19 years, focusing on small and mid capitalization companies in North America and abroad. Mr. Cameron has held senior positions in investment banking at Canaccord Capital (SVP Investment Banking), MGI Securities (Founder) and Macquarie Capital Markets Canada, formerly Orion Securities (SVP Investment Banking). Over a successful 16 year career in banking, Mr. Cameron has worked on numerous equity, debt, merger and acquisitions and restructurings. Mr. Cameron is a graduate of Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Accounting and holds numerous financial industry designations.

The Company would also like to take this opportunity to thank Robert Cross, who elected not to stand for re-election, for his time and significant efforts on behalf of the Company since its inception.

Shareholders also re-appointed KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants as the auditor of the Company and approved the renewal of unallocated entitlements under the Company's Restricted Share Unit Plan.

Additional details will be provided in a Report of Voting Results to be filed on SEDAR.

About BNK Petroleum Inc.

BNK Petroleum Inc. is an international oil and gas exploration and production company focused on finding and exploiting large, predominately unconventional oil and gas resource plays. Through various affiliates and subsidiaries, the Company owns and operates shale oil and gas properties and concessions in the United States and Spain. Additionally the Company is utilizing its technical and operational expertise to identify and acquire additional unconventional projects. The Company's shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the stock symbol BKX.

Contact: Wolf E. Regener, +1-805-484-3613, Email: investorrelations@bnkpetroleum.com, Website: http://www.bnkpetroleum.com
ALMELO, the Netherlands, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

For the first time the Dutch-German engineering company opens its know-how in heat treatment and brazing to the aerospace industry

EMS has extended its service range to the aerospace industry. The Dutch-German engineering company has entered the market as a qualified supplier for advanced heat treatment and brazing, now offering their services to customers throughout the international aerospace industry.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381999 )



Heat treatment and brazing

"We believe that customers in the aerospace industry will strongly benefit from the decades of experience we have had," explains EMS Managing Director Pieter Folkers. "Looking at the knowledge we have gained during many years of hard work in the highly regulated nuclear industry, we are now ready to open our expertise also to the aerospace market. We offer advanced heat treatment and brazing services for almost any metallic part you can imagine."

EN9100 certificate in place

As a qualified supplier EMS provides engineering and design capacities, helping customers meet their requirements with regard to schedule and quality. EMS' step into the aerospace industry has been enabled by its parental company ETC recently receiving the certificate "EN 9100" for "Brazing and Heat Treatment of Aircraft parts" at its Dutch site ETC Nederland. Only companies that obtain this qualification are allowed to work as a supplier for the aerospace industry.

EMS is a Dutch-German engineering company based at Almelo (The Netherlands) and Julich (Germany). We are a leading manufacturer of advanced high-quality CFRP products and specialised in Electron Beam Welding, precision tubes and heat-treatment services.

Contact:

Lianke Gerdzen, Communication Officer

+31-546-54-5562 / contact@ems-evolves.com

Twitter: @EMS_evolves

http://www.ems-evolves.com


FAIRFIELD (dpa-AFX) - GE (GE) announced it has received a binding offer from an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. for the potential sale of its French consumer finance business, GE Money Bank, and its operations in the French Overseas Territories. The sale would represent ending net investment of approximately $4.6 billion. The company previously announced, it is focusing on industrial businesses and is selling most of GE Capital's assets. GE will retain the financing verticals that relate directly to GE's industrial businesses. since the announcement in April, 2015, GE Capital has signed agreements for approximately $177 billion and has closed approximately $156 billion of those deals. GE Capital plans to sell approximately $200 billion of GE Capital businesses worldwide and expects to have largely completed the process by the end of 2016. GE Capital believes it is on track to deliver about $35 billion of dividends to GE under this plan. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
APAC market leader Penta Security Systems Inc. awarded by Frost & Sullivan

SEOUL, South Korea, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 15, Penta Security Systems Inc. was awarded the honor of Frost & Sullivan Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year. The award was given at this year's 13th annual Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160621/381646

Frost & Sullivan selected Penta Security Systems after concluding evaluations with a team of 30 analysts and consultants based in the Asian-Pacific region. Analysts examined a variety of indicators including revenue growth, market share, leadership in product innovation, major customer acquisitions, and business and market strategy. Specifically, Frost & Sullivan noted that Penta Security continues to make headway into new industries with its smart car security solution - AutoCrypt. AutoCrypt detects vehicular attacks from external systems utilizing its Application Layer Firewall, and has garnered significant attention with the increase in the news of vulnerabilities in smart cars.

CEO and Founder Seokwoo Lee attended the annual ICT Awards Banquet in Singapore in order to receive the award. Regarding reception of the award, he stated, "We are honored to receive the Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year award. It affirms the 19 years of hard work we have put into the developmentof information security." He added, "We will continue to pursue excellence and growth in web and data security- not only in APAC, but worldwide."

Having built relationships globally among enterprises and institutions, Penta Security Systems has grown rapidly along with the rise in demand for web and data security products. In 2015, its web application firewall (WAF), WAPPLES, was acknowledged by Frost & Sullivan as the leading WAF in the APAC region in terms of market share. The top WAF in Korea for three consecutive years, WAPPLES boasts a COCEP' (Contents Classification and Evaluation Processing) engine, rather than traditional pattern-matching methods utilized by other cyber security vendors.

About Penta Security

Penta Security Systems Inc. was founded in 1997 by CEO Seokwoo Lee, and the company is a market-leading provider of web and data security products, solutions, and services in the APAC region. Penta Security protects more than 117,000 websites and blocks more than 108,000,000 web attacks per month. Recognized by Frost & Sullivan, Penta Security Systems is the top Web Application Firewall vendor in the APAC Region based on market share.

For more information on Penta Security, please visit www.pentasecurity.com/en. For potential partnership inquiries, please send an email to info@pentasecurity.com. For more details on the Asia Pacific ICT Awards, please visithttp://www.ict-awards.com/.

Contact:

Esther Jeohn

Penta Security Systems Inc.

+82-2-2125-6676

estherjeohn@pentasecurity.com


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The British pound weakened against the other major currencies in the pre-European session on Thursday, as U.K. polling stations opened for Brexit vote, amid caution over the fate of Britain back on the investors' minds.



The British voters queued up at the polling stations for the historical EU referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union.



The U.K polls will close at 10:00 pm (local time) and the results are due on Friday.



In the early Asian session, the pound rose as sentiment underpinned by renewed optimism that Britain will remain part of the European Union, as the latest Brexit Opinion polls showed votes favoring the Remain camp.



In the pre-European session, the pound fell to 1.4737 against the U.S. dollar and 0.7690 against the euro, from an early near 7-month high of 1.4842 and more than a 3-week high of 0.7639, respectively. If the pound extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.41 against the greenback and 0.80 against the euro.



Against the yen and the Swiss franc, the pound dropped to 153.34 and 1.4132 from an early more than 2-week highs of 155.69 and 1.4219, respectively. The pound may test resistance around 145.00 against the yen and 1.36 against the franc.



Looking ahead, U.S. unemployment claims for the week ended June 18, flash U.S. manufacturing PMI for June, U.S. new home sales data for May and the leading indicators index for May, are slated for release in the New York session,



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
33 Carriages of Electronic Components to Be Assembled into TV Sets in TCL's Poland Plant

TCL Corporation (Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 000100), a global leader in consumer electronics and communications, announced on June 20 that its 33 carriages of electronic components transported by the first China-Europe Block Train under the family brand China Railway Express had safely arrived in Poland where they will be assembled into color TV sets and sold throughout Europe including Frankfurt, Paris, Lisbon and Madrid.

The arrival ceremony of the China-Europe cargo train in Warsaw was highlighted by the attendance of Chinese President Xi Jingping who was on a state visit to Poland, and Polish President Andrzej Duda. In the presence of Mr. Tomson Li, Chairman and CEO of TCL Corporation, President Xi introduced to his Polish counterpart TCL's investment in Poland and its connection with the country, emphasizing that 33 of the 41 carriages of products are electronic components from TCL, one of China's biggest home appliances manufacturers. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also conversed with Tomson Li.

TCL's Poland fabrication plant, covering 105,000m2, is the biggest Chinese-invested manufacturing plant in Poland. With 5 production lines and 284 employees, it has an annual capacity of 4.5 million assembled TV sets, which can be transported to Frankfurt and Paris within one day and to Lisbon and Madrid within three days. Currently, 90% of the components assembled in the plant are transported by railway from China.

"While Poland is committed to the reindustrialization, China is pressing forward with international cooperation in production capacity. The two countries can strengthen their cooperation on energy, infrastructure, freight and logistics," Tomson Li, Chairman and CEO of TCL Corporation, said. "TCL should leverage its industrial capability to take root in Poland by establishing a manufacturing base and R&D center in the region, so as to be an integral part and a booster in the process of Poland's reindustrialization."

Facing opportunities brought about by China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, TCL is positioning itself to be a global provider of smart products and Internet application services, and is planning to further expand its presence in emerging markets overseas. By strategically transforming to the "smart Internet" and "products services" business models, TCL wants to provide consumers with better user experience and connect the ecosystem with potential global partners.

About TCL Corporation

TCL Corporation is a global manufacturer of smart products and provider of Internet application services. The wholly-listed TCL Corporation (000100.SZ) consists of TCL Multimedia (01070.HK), TCL Communication (02618.HK), TCL Display (00334.HK) and Tonly Electronics (01249.HK). Founded in 1981, TCL runs businesses with a workforce of 75,000 employees, with offices in over 80 countries and regions across Asia, America, Europe and Oceania, along with 23 R&D centers and 21 manufacturing bases. TCL reported operating revenue of 46.68 billion yuan (approx. US$7.15 billion) for the first half year of 2015 and the brand value equal to 71 billion yuan (approx. US$10.86 billion), ranking first among the TV brands in China.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005426/en/

Contacts:

TCL Multimedia

Jolin Shang, +86-139-2467-9051

Jolin.shang@tcl.com
MOSCOW, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. updates Elcomsoft Phone Viewer, a lightweight forensic tool for quickly accessing information extracted from mobile backups. The new release adds direct support for encrypted iTunes backups, enabling investigators view password-protected data without having to decrypt it in another tool. In addition, version 2.20 offers a new Web plugin to display bookmarks, search and browsing history along with snapshots of opened browser tabs in iOS and BlackBerry 10. The new release adds support for media albums in iOS and BlackBerry 10 backups, offering convenient access to media galleries with large numbers of files.

"Our ultimate goal is hitting the right balance between features and ease of use", says Vladimir Katalov, ElcomSoft CEO. "We strive to deliver a fast, lightweight tool that's truly usable without a steep learning curve. Elcomsoft Phone Viewer is a perfect solution for experts who value speed, convenience and simplicity over the bulk and complexity of traditional forensic suites. By adding direct access to encrypted data, introducing media galleries and the new Web Viewer, we've made it easier and more powerful at the same time."

New in Elcomsoft Phone Viewer 2.20

Historically, Elcomsoft Phone Viewer was made to complement ElcomSoft's range of mobile forensic tools, offering the ability to view information extracted via physical, logical or over-the-air acquisition. Viewing all but unencrypted iTunes backups required using another tool to remove protection and decrypt information.

Starting with this release, Elcomsoft Phone Viewer, the tool can be used as a stand-alone forensic viewer. Now directly supporting password-protected offline backups produced by Apple iTunes, Elcomsoft Phone Viewer can immediately display information from encrypted backups without requiring Elcomsoft Phone Breaker or another tool to decrypt the backup first. While Elcomsoft Phone Viewer will not break an unknown password (one still has to use Elcomsoft Phone Breaker for that), pre-decrypting offline backups is no longer required.

Version 2.20 introduces a new Web plugin for iOS and BlackBerry 10 backups. The new plugin displays the user's browsing history, searches, bookmarks as well as browser tabs along with page snapshots. The ability to access the user's latest online activities can be essential for investigations, while snapshots of opened browser tabs can often be the last available pieces of evidence to indicate that a certain Web page has been visited.



Also new to Elcomsoft Phone Viewer 2.20 is support for media albums in iOS and BlackBerry 10 backups, both local and cloud-based. Images and videos are now automatically categorized into albums similar to those in iOS devices. When exporting media, the tool automatically creates matching folder structure.

About Elcomsoft Phone Viewer

Elcomsoft Phone Viewer is a compact, fast and easy to use mobile forensic tool to enable experts viewing information stored in unprotected local and cloud backups. Supporting backups produced by popular Apple, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices, the tool offers access to contacts, messages, call logs, notes and calendar, media files and Web activities, and allows viewing information about the device. The small, affordable tool offers a simple and convenient user interface that matches the usage experience of Elcomsoft Phone Breaker, thus requiring no additional learning curve.

Experts using Elcomsoft Phone Viewer together with other ElcomSoft tools such as Elcomsoft Phone Breaker save time by reviewing essential bits of information in just a few moments. By quickly download selective information from Apple iCloud with Elcomsoft Phone Breaker and viewing acquired information in Elcomsoft Phone Viewer, investigators can instantly access information about the suspect's activities such as their calls, messages, address books and location history in a matter of minutes.

Pricing and Availability

Elcomsoft Phone Viewer is available immediately. Standard edition is available for $79.

System Requirements

At this time, Elcomsoft Phone Viewer is only available for Windows PCs; a Mac version is in development. Future releases will include the ability to access app-specific data as well as information extracted with Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit via physical acquisition. Elcomsoft Phone Viewer runs in 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1, as well as Windows 2003, 2008 and 2012 Server. Elcomsoft Phone Viewer operates without Apple iTunes or BlackBerry Desktop Software being installed.

About ElcomSoft Co. Ltd.

Founded in 1990, ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. develops state-of-the-art computer forensics tools, provides computer forensics training and computer evidence consulting services. Since 1997, ElcomSoft has been providing support to businesses, law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies. ElcomSoft tools are used by most of the Fortune 500 corporations, multiple branches of the military all over the world, foreign governments, and all major accounting firms. ElcomSoft is a Microsoft Partner (Gold Application Development and Gold Intelligent Systems), Intel Premier Elite Partner and member of NVIDIA's CUDA/GPU Computing Registered Developer Program.
SAN MARCOS, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation (OTC PINK: SIRC) ("SIRC" or "the Company"), an integrated solar and roofing installation company specializing in commercial and residential properties, has finalized the acquisition of Jure Roofing and Solar ("Jure") that was announced in April 2016. Jure is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company.

David Massey, CEO of SIRC, stated, "SIRC intends to grow both organically and by aggressive but prudent acquisitions. The Jure acquisition is a model of the latter, and we hope to replicate it repeatedly. Jure has all the characteristics we look for when we are looking at potential acquisitions: solid revenues, profitability or potential to achieve profitability quickly, an established reputation, and a track record of stability. In fact, we believe that Jure is on target to exceed fiscal year 2015 revenues of roughly $1 million, with growth expectations over 100%, towards a target of $2 million in revenues for 2016."

Jure, a well-recognized name in the Inland Empire for 75 years, was founded by Elmer John (E.J.) Jure in 1941. Jure has always had a reputation for providing customers with quality workmanship, along with excellent service at a fair price. E.J. believed, not only in doing things right, but in doing the right thing. SIRC is committed to protecting that legacy and to building on the foundations the Jure family has established.

Eric Enriquez, Business Development Manager for SIRC, noted, "We will be celebrating Jure Roofing & Solar's 75th Anniversary of serving the San Bernardino and Riverside communities next month. Rather than see the anniversary as an ending, our acquisition marks a new chapter in Jure's operations. We believe there are many happy anniversaries ahead for Jure and SIRC together." He went on to note that a formal celebration of Jure's anniversary will be held on Friday, July 29th 2016, from 4-7pm at Jure's offices, located at 390 E. 6th Street in San Bernardino, CA.

Massey commented, "We believe that growth at Jure, as well as our other operations is almost inevitable in the long run because of the value proposition underlying solar roofing. Over time, roofs need repair and replacement, and we offer the integration of solar power into a property's new roof, in addition to the usual ancillary services such as gutter cleaning. When our customers take into account the tax breaks available for installing solar panels and add in the reduction to their electricity bill as customers generate their own power, as well as the favorable financing terms we can arrange, it is possible to address nearly all roofing problems, both residential and commercial, at virtually no cost in the long term. Once the roofing job is paid off, the electric company can wind up paying our customers for the excess power they generate. The technology is proven, and we can install it all in roughly 72 hours. With that kind of value proposition, it is no wonder that nearly 50,000 homes in California have solar panels. What is surprising to me is that there aren't millions with them."

He continued, "The roofing industry in California is fragmented, and the average roofing company is a sole proprietor or family business, much like Jure. These are good, solid businesses that have been built up over the years, and have an intrinsic value. Unlocking that value, however, is not easy because there is no obvious exit for the founder or the family. When it can be passed on to the next generation, the operation continues but that's about it.

"What we can offer, and the reason the Jure family accepted our purchase of their family business, is a way to realize the monetary rewards that their sweat equity deserves while maintaining a tie to what E.J built. Jure will continue as a unit under the SIRC umbrella, and as shareholders, they will continue to have a say over how the business is run. There are hundreds of contractors in California that are in the same position, and we can help them realize the full monetary value of their businesses while we grow ours by acquiring them and accelerating their growth."

Massey concluded, "We are very pleased to have Jure join the SIRC family, just as we were when we added Secure Roofing and Solar back in February. We anticipate revenues increasing for SIRC at a rate of $1 million per quarter, meaning a 2016 annual revenue of $14 million."

For more information, please visit: www.solarintegratedroofingcorp.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements made in this press release which are not historical facts contain certain forward-looking statements; as such term is defined in the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995, concerning potential developments affecting the business, prospects, financial condition and other aspects of the company to which this release pertains. The actual results of the specific items described in this release, and the company's operations generally, may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Although such statements are based upon the best judgments of management of the company as of the date of this release, significant deviations in magnitude, timing and other factors may result from business risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, the company's dependence on third parties, general market and economic conditions, technical factors, the availability of outside capital, receipt of revenues and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the company. The company disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement. This press release shall not be deemed a general solicitation.

Contact:

Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation

(760) 916-7444



Investor Relations

Michael J. Porter

Porter, LeVay & Rose, Inc.

(212) 564-4700

mike@plrinvest.com




SHENZHEN, China, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The China-Europe Block Train laden with cargo that had departed from Chengdu in the western part of China arrived in Warsaw, its final destination, on June 20th after a 13-day journey. The train, which had followed the route of the ancient Silk Road, witnessed a beautiful naturallandscape as well as economic and trade development along the route during the trip.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/382704

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160623/382703

Leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was in the middle of a state visit to Poland, together with corporate representatives from both countries, including Tomson Li Dongsheng, chairman and CEO of TCL Corporation, greeted the arrival of the train in a grand ceremony held at Warsaw Central Railway Station. President Xi also expressed his blessings and vision for the China-Europe Block Train and the continuing economic development between the two countries.

Original electronic products from TCL's Chengdu factory took up 30 of the train's 41 new container cars, roughly 80 per cent of total cargo. All the electronic goods on the train will be sold across Europe after assembly at TCL's factory in Poland. The factory is China's largest manufacturing facility in Poland. During the past three months, TCL delivered more than 400 containers of electronic products to Poland over the China-Europe Block Train route. In March 2016, the load on the first block train to leave Chengdu consisted solely of components for TCL's flat screenTVs.

TCL's 105,000 square-meter factory in Zyrardow, Poland is the largest manufacturing facility in that city and China's largest manufacturing facility in the country. TCL has five production lines at its Polish factory, each capable of assembling 4.5 million TVs annually. Most of the factory's 284 employees are natives of Zyrardow with some employees having worked there for 13 years. In terms of delivery of the final products, Poland, an important transport hub in Europe, is one day away from Frankfurt and Paris and three days away from more peripheral markets such as Lisbon and Madrid. Up to 90 per cent of the components produced at the factory are delivered via rail.

TCL chairman and CEO Li said during an interview that, thanks to the increasingly strong industrial competences of Chinese companies and the improved infrastructure between the two countries, more Chinese companies can be expected to establish a presence in Poland and even to go as far as setting up Chinese industrial parks with the support of the two governments, as part of efforts to help Poland meet its industrial recovery goal in tandem with China's strong skills and experience in manufacturing.

For more information contact:

Marta Chen

chenxuejun@tcl.com

+86-0755-33313868
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Numerous studies have established a strong link between diabetes and heart disease. People with diabetes have a higher-than-average risk of having a heart attack, according to the American Diabetes Association. That diabetes and heart disease can be a deadly combo is well known. A study by the University of Leeds has for the first time conclusively shown that having diabetes increases the risk of death following heart attack. As part of the study, researchers tracked 700,000 people, including 121,000 diabetics, who had been admitted to hospital with a heart attack between January 2003 and June 2013. A comparison of the survival rates following heart attack in people with diabetes and those without this condition revealed some interesting findings. People with diabetes were 56 per cent more likely to have died if they had experienced a ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) heart attack and 39 per cent more likely to have died if they had a non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) heart attack than those without diabetes, according to the study. A STEMI is the most serious type of heart attack while NSTEMI is less severe type of heart attack. Commenting on the study, Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, which funded the study said, 'This research highlights the need to find new ways to prevent coronary heart disease in people with diabetes and develop new treatments to improve survival after a heart attack'. As a next step, the researchers intend to focus on finding out exactly why having diabetes increases the risk of death following heart attack. The findings of the research are published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
SUGAR LAND, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- AMEC Foster Wheeler plc (NYSE:AMFW) (London, England) had a tough year in 2015, when revenues plunged amid weak commodity prices, and it expects to see further, although less dramatic, declines this year. According to Industrial Info's project database, there are $117.79 billion in active global projects involving the engineering and project-management company in some capacity, more than 80% of which are attributed to just three industries affected by low prices -- Oil & Gas Production, Metals & Minerals, and Terminals. Almost two-thirds of the total is attributed to the 10 highest-valued projects.

Within this article: Details on the 10 highest-valued projects to involve AMEC Foster Wheeler, including those from major companies such as Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A), Mitsubishi Corporation, Barrick Gold Corporation, NovaGold, Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) and Western Potash Corporation (TSX:WPX).

For details, view the entire article by subscribing to Industrial Info's Premium Industry News, or browse other breaking industrial news stories at www.industrialinfo.com.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, five offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn. For more information on our coverage, send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.com or visit us online at http://www.industrialinfo.com/.

Contact:

William Ploch

713-783-5147




Q2 Solutions, a global clinical trials laboratory services organization, today announced that the company has received the 2016 Lilly Global Supplier Award. Q2 Solutions was one of 12 companies to receive the award this year, recognizing the company's ongoing contributions to Lilly's drug development efforts.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005091/en/

Each year, the Lilly Global Supplier Award recognizes suppliers who have worked collaboratively to deliver a positive and measurable impact on Lilly's corporate objectives and priorities. Lilly presented the award to Q2 Solutions representatives during a special ceremony in Indianapolis.

"It is a tremendous honor to receive this prestigious recognition from Lilly," said Costa Panagos, chief executive officer, Q2 Solutions. "To earn this award in our first year as an organization is a testament to our employees' dedication to scientific excellence and on-time, quality delivery. We are proud to be recognized for our work with Lilly; work that we know will help improve human health through innovation that transforms science and data into actionable medical insights."

About Q2 Solutions, a Quintiles Quest joint venture

Launched in 2015, Q2 Solutions is a global clinical trials laboratory services organization that helps biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics customers improve human health through innovation that transforms science and data into actionable medical insights. Q2 Solutions is a joint venture formed by Quintiles and Quest Diagnostics, combining the clinical trials laboratory services of each parent organization. To learn more, visit www.q2labsolutions.com.

Click here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for Quintiles.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005091/en/

Contacts:

Quintiles

Phil Bridges, Quintiles Media Relations (phil.bridges@quintiles.com)

+ 1.919.998.1653 (office) +1.919.457.6347 (mobile)

or

Todd Kasper, Quintiles Investor Relations (InvestorRelations@quintiles.com)

+1.919.998.2590
EQS-News / 23/06/2016 / 18:18 UTC+8 For Immediate Release Vitasoy Reported Profitable Growth in FY2015/2016 Driven by Acceleration in Core Business Hong Kong, 23th June 2016 - Vitasoy International Holdings Limited ("Vitasoy") (SEHK Code: 00345) today reports its audited annual results for the year ended 31st March 2016. Vitasoy continued to deliver profitable growth, driven by the acceleration of its core business. During FY2015/2016, Vitasoy revenue increased 10% to HK$5,552 million. Profit attributable to equity shareholders of the company grew by 43% to HK$531 million. Basic earnings per ordinary share increased 42% to HK50.9 cents for the full year. The Board of Directors (the "Board") recommends a final dividend of HK26.5 cents per share. Together with the interim dividend of HK3.8 cents per ordinary share, the total dividend for FY2015/2016 will become HK30.3 cents per share (FY2014/2015 total dividend: HK24.4 cents per ordinary share), representing an increase of 24% which is consistent with the growth in profit attributable to equity shareholders (net of recognition of deferred tax assets and divestiture transaction cost). Vitasoy's gross profit improved by 13%, with gross profit margin further increased to 51%. Mr. Winston Yau-lai Lo, Executive Chairman of the Vitasoy Group, said at the press conference today, "The strong business results were driven by our consistent three-pronged growth strategy of 'Execution, Expansion and Innovation'. During the year, we built stronger market share and competitive positions in core markets. The improved profitability is attributable to enhanced manufacturing efficiency as a result of higher volume, favourable commodity prices and a better sales mix." Excluding the effect of recognition of deferred tax assets and transaction cost related to the divestiture of the Mainstream and San Sui Businesses in North America, profit attributable to equity shareholders would increase 24% to HK$460 million (FY2014/2015: HK$372 million). Among Vitasoy's core markets, Mainland China recorded strong results which were driven by the execution of the "Go Deep Go Wide" strategy. It recorded revenue growth of 25% to HK$2,404 million while operating profit surged by 41% to HK$281 million due to favourable raw material prices and improved manufacturing efficiency. During the year Vitasoy China further enhanced its operational efficiency in China with the state-of-the-art IT system and completed construction of the new plant in Wuhan, Hubei Province in March this year. The Hong Kong business, on the other hand, reported a 1% revenue growth to HK$2,070 million amidst a challenging operating environment while profit from operations increased 7% to HK$380 million as a result of increased manufacturing efficiency and favourable commodity costs of raw materials. Both the Australia/New Zealand and Singapore businesses had promising growth, although the weak Australian dollar has adversely impacted the results reported in Hong Kong dollars with a drop in revenue by 12%. In FY2015/16, Vitasoy continued to introduce innovative products and products to strengthen its leadership in plant-based nutrition, including the new high-calcium, low-sugar and zero-cholesterol VITASOY HEALTH PLUS in Mainland China and VITASOY GO as a nutritious product in Hong Kong. Vitasoy also launched VITA Yuan Yang and VITA Milk Tea with a stronger tea taste as part of the VITA Hong Kong Style line. In addition, the Australian operation expanded into the almond milk sector with two variants - Original and Unsweetened. Mr. Winston Lo summed up the year by saying, "We have delivered yet another year of solid growth whilst improving our profitability. Growth was broad based, across core geographies. Looking ahead, we will keep a laser-sharp attention to productivity, efficiency and cost control. We stay focused on building our fundamentals, strengthening our competitive position and our core offerings with Taste, Nutrition and Sustainability and pursue growth through Execution, Expansion and Innovation. We are determined to further develop our strategy and growth model, not only to expand the Vitasoy's market presence but also generate sustainable long-term returns for our shareholders." About Vitasoy Vitasoy International Holdings Limited is a leading manufacturer and distributor of plant-based food and beverages headquartered in Hong Kong. Since its establishment in 1940 by Dr. Kwee-seong Lo, the Company has been promoting sustainable nutrition through provision of a variety of high-quality products with Nutrition, Taste and Sustainability as the guidelines for its portfolio offerings. The Vitasoy Group integrates social responsibility into its business and contributes to the communities that the Group serves. Currently, the Group has operations in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Australia and Singapore, and its products are available in approximately 40 markets worldwide. Vitasoy is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (0345.HK). Vitasoy website: www.vitasoy.com For more information, please contact: Stella Lung Senior Public Relations Manager Vitasoy International Holdings Limited Tel: 2468 9644 Fax: 2465 1008 E-mail: publicrelations@vitasoy.com Angela Hui Associate Director Edelman Tel: 2837 4721 Fax: 2804 1303 E-mail: angela.hui@edelman.com Summary Financial Highlights Year ended 31st March 2015/16HK$ Mn 2014/15 Change HK$ Mn % Revenue 5,552 5,052 10 Gross profit 2,826 2,511 13 EBITDA (Earnings before interest income, finance costs, income tax, depreciation and 812 725 12 amortisation) Profit before taxation 599 524 14 Profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company 531 372 43 Profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company 460 372 24 (Net of deferred tax assets and transaction cost related to the divestiture of the Mainstream Business and San Sui Business in North America) Basic earnings per ordinary share (HK cents) 50.9 35.9 42 Interim dividend per share (HK cents) 3.8 3.2 19 Final dividend per share (HK cents) 26.5 21.2 25 Total dividend per share (HK cents) 30.3 24.4 24 Business Review Mainland China - Sustained strong sales and profit growth whilst enhancing capability and infrastructure for the future Vitasoy China recorded strong results, driven by the execution of the "Go Deep Go Wide" strategy. It recorded revenue growth of 25%, rising to HK$2,404 million in FY2015/2016. Operating profit surged by 41% to HK$281 million, due to favourable raw material prices and improved manufacturing efficiency. During the year, Vitasoy China enriched the soymilk range with the new VITASOY HEALTH PLUS, which contains high calcium, low sugar and zero cholesterol. Vitasoy also upgraded its infrastructure and introduced a state-of-the-art IT system to enhance operational efficiency, synergies and collaboration. The construction of the new Wuhan plant was completed in March 2016. Vitasoy China will continue its 'Go Deep Go Wide' strategy and the new Wuhan plant will support Vitasoy China's further development and business growth. The operation will continue to innovate its product offerings and grow the VITASOY platform with the newly-launched VITASOY HEALTH PLUS. Hong Kong, Macau and Exports - Solid profit growth with strong execution and innovation Vitasoy Hong Kong reported 1% growth in its revenue to HK$2,070 million amidst a challenging operational environment. Profit from operations increased 7% to HK$380 million, attributable to the higher gross profit generated from increased manufacturing efficiency and favourable commodity costs of raw materials. In addition to disciplined execution, Vitasoy Hong Kong has focused on developing its core categories by adding new and innovative products. In the Soy category, it created a new product range, VITASOY GO, which provides consumers with a convenient way to enjoy a nutritious product. In the Tea category, Vitasoy launched VITA Yuan Yang and VITA Milk Tea with a stronger tea taste as part of its VITA Hong Kong Style line. Vitasoy will continue to innovate in its core categories and further strengthen its market leadership. Meanwhile, Vitasoy Hong Kong will enhance its operational efficiency to overcome the challenges of high wages and a shortage in labour supply. Australia and New Zealand - Modest growth with strong market position The Vitasoy business in Australia and New Zealand grew ahead of the market average in terms of value and volume. In terms of local currency, the revenue and operating profit recorded increases of 3% and 17% respectively. However, the weak Australian dollar has adversely impacted the results reported in Hong Kong dollars. The revenue reported a drop of 12% to HK$420 million and the operating profit stood at HK$84 million, which was same as the previous financial year. During the year, Vitasoy Australia continued to support its plant milk portfolio with a new campaign, which highlighted its Australian-grown soy products. In addition, the Australian operation expanded into the almond milk sector with two variants - Original and Unsweetened.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

June 23, 2016 06:19 ET (10:19 GMT)
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), operator of the world's first Globalized Network, powered by its leading satellite backbone, today announced that its subsidiary, Intelsat Jackson Holdings S.A. ("Intelsat Jackson") has extended the Expiration Date and Withdrawal Deadline for its previously announced tender offers (the "Tender Offers") to purchase its 6 5/8% Senior Notes due 2022 (CUSIP No. 45824TAM7) (the "2022 Notes"), 5 1/2% Senior Notes due 2023 (CUSIP No. 45824TAP0) (the "2023 Notes") and 7 1/2% Senior Notes due 2021 (CUSIP No. 45824TAG0) (the "2021 Notes" and, together with the 2022 Notes and the 2023 Notes, the "Securities") for up to $625,000,000 in aggregate cash consideration (excluding accrued and unpaid interest on the Securities and excluding fees and expenses related to the Tender Offers). All Securities tendered in the Tender Offers by the Expiration Date and accepted for payment will receive the Total Consideration, which includes the Early Tender Premium (each as defined in the amended and restated Offer to Purchase dated as of May 17, 2016 (the "Offer to Purchase")). Intelsat Jackson's obligation to accept and pay for Securities in the Tender Offers remains subject to satisfaction or waiver of the Financing Condition (as defined below) and the other general conditions described in the Offer to Purchase.

As of 5:00 PM on June 22, 2016, the Tender Offers were over-subscribed with approximately $2.1 billion aggregate principal amount of the Securities (constituting approximately 52.9% of the currently outstanding Securities) tendered.

Intelsat Jackson commenced the Tender Offers on May 12, 2016. The new Expiration Date, which also will be the Early Tender Date, by which tenders must be received for holders to receive the applicable Early Tender Premium, and Withdrawal Deadline will be 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 29, 2016, unless extended or earlier terminated by Intelsat Jackson, for each series of Securities. All other terms and conditions of the Tender Offers, as previously announced and described in the Offer to Purchase and the related Letter of Transmittal, remain unchanged.

The following table sets forth certain key dates of the Tender Offers, as extended. Further information may be found in the Tender Offer Materials (as defined below):

Key Date Calendar Date Launch Date May 12, 2016 Expiration Date, Early Tender Date and

Withdrawal Deadline 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 29, 2016, unless

extended or earlier terminated by Intelsat Jackson. Final Settlement Date The Final Settlement Date is currently expected to be June 30, 2016.

The Tender Offers are being conducted pursuant to the Offer to Purchase, the accompanying amended and restated Letter of Transmittal, the press releases dated June 1, 2016 and June 9, 2016, this press release and Intelsat S.A.'s or Intelsat Jackson's other press releases used in the Tender Offers (collectively, the "Tender Offer Materials"). Intelsat Jackson's obligation to accept for purchase, and to pay for, Securities validly tendered pursuant to the Tender Offers is subject to, and conditioned upon, having obtained debt financing (the "New Debt Financing") in a minimum aggregate principal amount that will generate sufficient proceeds, in addition to cash on hand, to purchase the tendered Securities, including payment of the Total Consideration and any fees payable in connection with the Tender Offers, subsequent to the date hereof and on or prior to the Final Settlement Date, on terms and conditions reasonably satisfactory to Intelsat Jackson (the "Financing Condition"). Intelsat Jackson's current intention is to satisfy the Financing Condition by issuing long-term senior secured debt securities but, subject to market conditions and at Intelsat Jackson's sole discretion, Intelsat Jackson may elect to enter into alternative debt financing. There can be no assurance any such New Debt Financing will be available, and thus no assurance that the Financing Condition will be satisfied.

As of 5:00 PM on June 22, 2016, approximately $590,746,000 aggregate principal amount of 2022 Notes (constituting approximately 72.5% of the currently outstanding 2022 Notes), approximately $1,180,350,000 aggregate principal amount of 2023 Notes (constituting approximately 59.0% of the currently outstanding 2023 Notes), and approximately $325,830,000 aggregate principal amount of 2021 Notes (constituting approximately 28.3% of the currently outstanding 2021 Notes), have been tendered in the Tender Offers.

Questions regarding the Tender Offers may be directed to Guggenheim Securities, LLC at 330 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017, Attn: Liability Management Group, Phillip Laroche, ((212) 293-3035 (phone) or Phillip.Laroche@guggenheimpartners.com (email). Requests for the Tender Offer Materials may be directed to Global Bondholder Services Corporation at 65 Broadway Suite 404, New York, New York 10006, Attn: Corporate Actions, (212) 430-3774 (for banks and brokers) or (866) 470-4200 (for all others).

Intelsat Jackson is making the Tender Offers only by, and pursuant to, the terms of the Tender Offer Materials. None of Intelsat Jackson, the Dealer Manager, the Information and Depositary Agent nor their respective affiliates makes any recommendation as to whether Holders should tender or refrain from tendering their Securities. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender Securities and, if so, the principal amount of the Securities to tender. The Tender Offers are not being made to holders of Securities in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction in which the securities laws or blue sky laws require the Tender Offers to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Tender Offers will be deemed to be made on behalf of Intelsat Jackson by one or more registered brokers or dealers that are licensed under the laws of such jurisdiction.

This press release does not constitute an offer to purchase securities or a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities or an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase any new securities, including in connection with the New Debt Financing, nor does it constitute an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation is unlawful. Capitalized terms used in this press release but not otherwise defined herein have the meanings assigned to them in the Tender Offer Materials.

About Intelsat

Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) operates the world's first Globalized Network, delivering high-quality, cost-effective video and broadband services anywhere in the world. Intelsat's Globalized Network combines the world's largest satellite backbone with terrestrial infrastructure, managed services and an open, interoperable architecture to enable customers to drive revenue and reach through a new generation of network services. Thousands of organizations serving billions of people worldwide rely on Intelsat to provide ubiquitous broadband connectivity, multi-format video broadcasting, secure satellite communications and seamless mobility services. The end result is an entirely new world, one that allows us to envision the impossible, connect without boundaries and transform the ways in which we live. For more information, visit www.intelsat.com.

Intelsat Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this news release, including statements regarding the Tender Offer and the New Debt Financing, constitute "forward-looking statements" that do not directly or exclusively relate to historical facts. When used in this release, the words "may," "will," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "project," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "intend," "potential," "outlook," and "continue," and the negative of these terms, and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information.

The forward-looking statements reflect Intelsat's intentions, plans, expectations, assumptions and beliefs about future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Intelsat's control. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include known and unknown risks. Known risks include, among others, market conditions and the risks described in Intelsat's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2015, and its other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and risks and uncertainties related to our ability to consummate the New Debt Financing and the Tender Offers.

Because actual results could differ materially from Intelsat's intentions, plans, expectations, assumptions and beliefs about the future, you are urged to view all forward-looking statements with caution. Intelsat does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005499/en/

Contacts:

Intelsat

Dianne VanBeber, +1-703-559-7406

Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

dianne.vanbeber@intelsat.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Itasca Capital Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ICL) (the "Company" or "Itasca") is pleased to announce that effective today, June 23, 2016, the Company has changed its name from "Kobex Capital Corp." to "Itasca Capital Ltd." and effective today, will commence trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the name Itasca Capital Ltd. and under the symbol "ICL". Itasca's new ISIN is CA4654481080 and its CUSIP number is 465448108.

The Company is also pleased to announce that Kyle Cerminara has been appointed as a director of the Company. Mr. Cerminara is the Chairman and CEO of Ballantyne Strong, Inc. and is also CEO, Co-Founder & Partner of Fundamental Global Investors, an SEC registered investment advisor that manages equity and fixed income hedge funds. Mr. Cerminara is also Co-Chief Investment Officer of Capital Wealth Advisors, a wealth advisor and multi-family office affiliated with Fundamental Global Investors. Cerminara is on the Board of Directors of blueharbor bank, a publicly traded community bank in Mooresville, NC. Mr. Cerminara is also on the Board of Directors of Relm Wireless, a publicly traded radio manufacturer headquartered in West Melbourne, Florida. Mr. Cerminara's previous experience includes roles as a Portfolio Manager at Sigma Capital Management, Director and Sector Head of the Financials Industry at Highside Capital Management, Portfolio Manager and Director at CR Intrinsic Investors, Vice President, Associate Portfolio Manager and Analyst at T. Rowe Price, and Analyst at Legg Mason.

Larry G. Swets, Jr., Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, stated: "On behalf of the Company's board of directors, we welcome Kyle Cerminara as a director and believe that his valuable experience will be a great contribution to the Company."

Neither of the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Contacts:

Itasca Capital Ltd.

Larry G. Swets, Jr., Chief Executive Officer

630-290-2432




Today the supervisory board approved the annual report of BoConcept Holding A/S for the 2015/2016 financial year. The 2015/2016 annual report contains the following highlights:-- We maintained the high momentum of our strategic optimisation initiative under Horizon throughout the past financial year, and we will continue to focus on improving the performance and health of the franchise chain; enhancing the integration of our brand, development and distribution processes; and increasing store sales per square metre-- Revenue rose to DKK 1,235 million, which is the highest ever for BoConcept, and corresponds to growth at a rate of 7.6%. The rise in revenue was driven by improved brand store performance and a 4% positive contribution from foreign exchange rates-- Same-store-sales in terms of order intake increased by 12.9%. This is the second consecutive financial year we have seen same-store-sales rise month by month, as a result of a transformation of the collection and the successful implementation of initiatives to support the brand and promote sales-- 19 stores opened and 18 closed-- The operating margin was a record-high 9.7% due to adjustments in the store network, improved store performance, greater efficiency throughout the value chain and positive exchange rate effects-- Profit for the year was DKK 93 million-- Cash flow from operations rose from DKK 19 million last year to DKK 165 million this year. After net investments totalling DKK 3 million, cash flow before financing activities was an inflow of DKK 163 million, or 13.2% of revenueForecast financial year 2016/2017Management expects to increase revenue by 3-5% for the 2016/2017 financial year, based on anticipated higher same-store-sales and a larger number of stores. We expect the operating margin to be in the region of 10%. Our forecast is based on the premise that current market conditions and foreign exchange rates continue to prevail.Torben Paulin, CEO of BoConcept, says:'The 2015/2016 financial year was a landmark year for BoConcept. With DKK 1,235 million in revenues, an operating profit of DKK 120 million and DKK 163 million in cash flow before instalments on long-term debt, our results for the year by far exceeded our original expectations.We enjoyed progress in three areas in particular: First, same-store-sales increased by 12.9%. Second, efficiency improved significantly throughout the group. Third, we improved the health of the chain by implementing a tight credit policy and an ongoing clean-up process. As a result, the average performance and earnings levels of the stores are rising, and we cut bad debt costs significantly. Lastly, foreign exchange rates had a positive effect on the highly satisfactory profit trend.With our targeted implementation of our strategic optimisation plan, Horizon 16/17, we have created the strongest business base ever at BoConcept in recent years. It is paramount that we stay on course and keep up the momentum of our continued roll-out of Horizon. In future, we will especially focus on improving store sales and earnings per square metre and on driving more efficiency improvements through the value chain.'Voluntary public offer to buy, addressed to all the shareholders of BoConcept Holding A/SAs disclosed in Stock Exchange Announcement 5/2016 of 7 June 2016, Layout Bidco A/S, which is affiliated with the 3i Group plc and certain investment entities managed by 3i, has submitted a voluntary conditional public offer to buy all the class B-shares in BoConcept Holding A/S (BoConcept) for DKK 500 in cash per class B-share and all unlisted class A-shares in BoConcept for DKK 615 in cash per share. The offer document has been approved by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority.The supervisory board of BoConcept Holding A/S recommends the company's shareholders to accept the offer.Annual general meetingThe annual general meeting will be held at the company's office, Mrupvej 16, Herning on 25 August 2016 at 4 pm.Motions for consideration at the general meeting must be submitted in writing to the supervisory and executive boards not later than six weeks before the general meeting, i.e. not later than 14 July 2016.BoConcept Holding A/SPeter Thorsen Torben PaulinChairman CEOFor further information, please contact CEO Torben Paulin or CFO Hans Barslund on tel. +45 7013 1366.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=576549
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- ProGreen Properties, Inc. (PROGREEN) (OTC PINK: PGEI) is pleased to announce that the formation of Procon Baja JV (PROCON) has been completed. PROCON is our joint venture subsidiary with Inmobiliaria Contel (CONTEL) in Baja California, Mexico. PROCON is owned by PROGREEN (51%) and CONTEL (49%) jointly. The company will be managed by a board of Managing Directors consisting of three members. Two will be representing PROGREEN and one representing CONTEL. At least two Managing Directors approval will be needed for management decisions or approvals of financial transactions, giving PROGREEN full operational control.

PROCON will be the holding company for the land referred to in press release dated May 17, 2016. This joint venture involves approximately 1,900 acres, with some 500-800 acres suitable for farming, depending on the amount of water that could be extracted through the drilling of fresh water wells.

"We are very pleased that we were able to form a subsidiary for our JV where PROGREEN can be the majority shareholder and therefore will be able reflect our share of the JV assets on the balance sheet. A majority interest in agriculture land can normally only be held by Mexicans, but we managed to find a structure for the JV that will permit assets of the JV to be reflected in our financial statements," says Jan Telander, President.

About ProGreen Properties, Inc.

PROGREEN PROPERTIES, INC. (PROGREEN) (OTC PINK: PGEI) based in Bloomfield, Michigan, is engaged in the business of acquiring, refurbishing and upgrading residential real estate into modern affordable homes, offered for sale with Land Contracts to buyers still unable to obtain conventional credit. The company has also recently entered into property investments in Baja California, Mexico and will be intensifying this activity, with the aim of creating a sustainable income stream for many years to come.

This press release might contain information, which may constitute 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 'Forward-looking statements' are based upon expectations, estimates and projections at the time the statements are made that involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated.

For further Information, please contact:

Jan Telander

President and CEO

jan@progreenproperties.com

Phone: 1 (248) 805-3652




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Arch Biopartners Inc., (Arch or the Company) (TSX VENTURE: ACH)(OTCBB: FOIFF) announced today it has raised $330,000 by closing the first tranche of the non-brokered private placement it announced in a press release June 14, 2016 (The "Offering"). Pursuant to the terms of the Offering, Arch issued 660,000 Units at a price of $0.50 per unit (the "Units"). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one common share purchase warrant (the "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to acquire one common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.50 per common share for until 5:00PM EST on June 22, 2018.

Arch received Conditional Acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange for this private placement on June 20, 2016.

All securities issued in connection with this offering will be subject to a statutory hold period expiring on October 23, 2016. Finder's fees paid in connection with the first tranche of the Offering totalled $2,500 plus 5,500 broker warrants with the same terms as the Warrants.

The Company intends to use the proceeds from the Offering to initiate chemistry, manufacturing and controls for its drug candidate, AB569, to enable future human trials testing the drug's efficacy in treating antibiotic resistant lung and urinary tract infections.

The Offering is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals, including Final Approval of the TSXV before July 29, 2016. Management of the Company expects a second tranche of up to $70,000 to close on or before the date of Final Approval, pursuant to the terms of the first tranche described herein.

There is no material fact or material change about the Company that has not been generally disclosed.

About Arch Biopartners

Arch Biopartners Inc. is focused on the development of innovative technologies that have the potential to make a significant medical or commercial impact. Arch works closely with the scientific community, universities and research institutions to advance and build the value of select preclinical technologies, develop the most promising intellectual property, and create value for its investors.

Arch has established a diverse portfolio that includes AB569, a potential new treatment for antibiotic resistant bacterial infections; MetaMx, which targets elusive brain tumor initiating cells; and, Metablok, a potential treatment for sepsis and cancer metastasis.

For more information on Arch Biopartners, other public documents Arch has filed on SEDAR and its technologies including, please visit www.archbiopartners.com.

The Company now has 53,849,679 common shares outstanding.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, in this news release are forward looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of the Company. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Arch Biopartners, Inc.

Richard Muruve

Chief Executive Officer

647-428-7031

info@archbiopartners.com

www.archbiopartners.com



Virtus Advisory Group Inc.

Babak Pedram

Investor Relations

416-644-5081

bpedram@virtusadvisory.com




EQS-News / 23/06/2016 / 19:22 UTC+8 For Immediate Release / BaWang International (Group) Holding Limited BaWang Group Announces to Dismiss Appeal against Next Magazine * * * Product Quality Recognised and Reassured Future Focus on Business Development (23 Jun 2016, Hong Kong) Chinese herbal shampoo and personal care product brand owner BaWang International (Group) Holding Limited ("BaWang" or the "Company", stock code: 1338) and its indirect subsidiary, BaWang (Guangzhou) Company Limited, announce today that it has filed a request for dismissal of the appeal regarding the libel lawsuit against Next Magazine Publishing Ltd. ("Next Magazine"). Mr. Chen Qiyuan, Chairman of BaWang said, "The judgment handed down by the Court of First Instance on 23 May 2016 affirmed that "BaWang Shampoo's product safety is supported by scientific research". While it has brought justice to us and our products, we are disappointed about the compensation amount which carries no more than symbolic meaning. Such an amount by no means matches the corporate and brand reputation lost we have suffered over the course of the last six years. Nevertheless, after repeated review and evaluation, the Board of Directors plans to pool its financial resources and strengths for business operations and development. We therefore have decided to dismiss the appeal and have submitted a request for dismissal to the High Court today." Mr. Chen Qiyuan added, "Looking ahead, we will make all efforts to consolidate our brand position, and implement a balanced strategy of product diversification to become the leader of herbal home and personal care products. We are actively exploring new online and offline sales channels. In terms of product sales, we will develop new CS channels and launch a new baby care brand in the second half of this year to diversify our product portfolio and attract consumers with broadened product lines. Meanwhile, we will also continue to exercise stringent product quality control, reinforce our foothold in the Chinese market and strengthen overseas development, with the provision of safe and effective personal care products for consumers. Honourable Lok J of the Court of First Instance of Hong Kong handed down the Judgment in favour of BaWang in respect of a libel lawsuit BaWang filed against Next Magazine for its publishing an inaccurate and defamatory report in July 2010. Next Magazine was ordered to pay the Company and BaWang Guangzhou, general damages for libel in an aggregate amount of HK$3,004,652.50 and 80% of the legal costs of the Company and BaWang Guangzhou in respect of the Legal Proceedings. The judgment stated that "Next Magazine had adopted a naive and unprofessional approach in reporting the story" and that Next Magazine's report in the article was "not a product of responsible journalism'. - End - About BaWang BaWang International (Group) Holding Limited is engaged in the research and development, manufacture and marketing of Chinese herbal shampoo and a range of personal care products. The BaWang brand has been awarded the Well-known Trademark of China in 2007. According to the research results of Euro monitor International, the BaWang brand has been the leading Chinese brand in terms of sales value in the Chinese herbal shampoo and anti-hair-loss shampoo market in the PRC between 2007 and 2013. BaWang adopts a multi-brand strategy and operates diversified branded products including BaWang Shampoo, Royal Wind, Herborn and Litao. BaWang's distribution network covers 27 provinces and four municipalities in the PRC. Additionally, BaWang branded products are sold in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Australia. Document: http://n.eqs.com/c/fncls.ssp?u=GRKAHGVBLQ Document title: ENG Key word(s): Miscellaneous 23/06/2016 Dissemination of a Press Release, transmitted by EQS TodayIR - a company of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Media archive at www.todayir.com 473843 23/06/2016

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 23, 2016 07:23 ET (11:23 GMT)
TORONTO, ON --(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Symbility Solutions Inc. ("Corporation"), (TSX VENTURE: SY), a global software company focused on modernizing the insurance industry, announces the voting results of the Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders of the Corporation that was held June 22, 2015 ("Meeting"). The Corporation hereby advises of the following resolutions were passed at the Meeting, by a show of hands:

The election of the following persons, being nominees proposed by the management of the Corporation, as directors of the Corporation: James L. Balas, R. Larry Binnion, Angela Grinstead, David R. Hayes, Richard Hurwitz, Robert Landry, G. Scott Paterson, James R. Swayze and Michael P. Torok.



The reappointment of Ernst & Young LLP, Chartered Accountants, as auditors of the Corporation for the ensuing year and the authorization of the directors to fix their remuneration.



The resolution in the form included in the Information Circular ratifying the Corporation's amended and restated stock option plan.

After conducting the business of the Annual and Special Shareholders Meeting, James Swayze, chief executive officer, delivered an update on the Corporation. A copy of this presentation can be found on Symbility's corporate website at symbilitysolutions.com/investors/.

In addition, the Corporation is announcing that Mr. Jonathan Kost, Chief Strategy Officer, will be leaving the Corporation at the end of June and we wish him well in his future endeavors. Commensurate with this change, Mr. Pascal Begin will be promoted to Vice President, Product Management of Symbility Property, effective immediately. Mr. Begin, one of the Symbility founders, has spent his entire career in property insurance estimation and has been instrumental throughout the history of Symbility in shaping the current product suite while serving a number of product management roles.

ABOUT SYMBILITY

Symbility (TSX VENTURE: SY) believes in creating world-class experiences that simplify business and improve lives. With a history in modernizing insurance claims solutions for the property and health industries, Symbility has established itself as a partner that puts security, efficiency and customer experience first. Symbility PROPERTY ' brings smarter thinking to property insurance. Symbility HEALTH ' helps benefits professionals build their brands and businesses. Our strategic services team, Symbility INTERSECT ' empowers a variety of businesses with smarter mobile and IoT product development strategy, design thinking and engineering excellence. With our three segments pushing industries forward, Symbility proves that change for the better is entirely possible. symbilitysolutions.com

Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Symbility Solutions Inc. will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect financial results is included in the documents filed from time to time with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities by Symbility Solutions Inc.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

All trade names are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACTS



James R. Swayze

Chief Executive Officer

(647) 775- 8603

jswayze@symbilitysolutions.com



Blair R. Baxter

Chief Financial Officer

(647) 775-8608

bbaxter@symbilitysolutions.com



Lucy De Oliveira

Global Marketing Director

(647) 775-8607

ldeoliveira@symbilitysolutions.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Editors Note: There is one figure associated with this release.

Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE: PSE)(FRANKFURT: PNX) (the "Company" or "Pasinex") cuts 36 metres grading 25% zinc as drilling extends the mineralized zone to the north at its 50% - owned Pinargozu zinc mine. The Pinargozu zinc mine is in the Adana region of south-central Turkey. A project location map Figure 1 is available by following the link provided here: http://bit.ly/28MsIis.

Table 1: Summary Highlights of Drill Assay Results ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Core Length Drill Hole # Interval Zn Core Recovery % From (metres) Metres(i) Grade %(ii) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-015 36.1 24.9 67 90.4 ------------------------------------------------------------- Including 22.6 35.3 52 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-046 14.2 39.0 49 128.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also 8.0 42.7 11 145.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-043 3.5 40.7 29 125.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also 8.7 45.1 29 134.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-028 7.0 46.2 42 59.2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-027 5.0 36.1 37 62.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-022 4.0 35.3 61 65.6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-032 3.7 36.3 49 95.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPS15-014 3.5 48.9 49 87.5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (i) True widths have yet to be determined. (ii)Zinc mineral is predominantly Smithsonite (which is zinc carbonate) The mineralized zone intersected in PPS15-015 and PPS15-046 is estimated to be approximately 20 metres - follow link to Figure 6: http://bit.ly/28PysKq

Steve Williams, CEO of Pasinex commented "We are very pleased to report these outstanding drill results. These assays continue to demonstrate the high grade nature of zinc mineralization at Pinargozu. We believe these results underscore our belief that the mineralization at Pinargozu will continue to support our "DSO Program" of direct shipping, without the need for concentrating, to global zinc processors. It may represent the distal parts of a major connected and zinc carbonate replacement type (CRD) system. We remain very optimistic of our ability to add substantial tonnes to the DSO material, and anticipate more positive drill results in the coming weeks as we work through a backlog of un-assayed drill core. These are exciting times" said Steve Williams, CEO of Pasinex Resources.

Assays are now available for 39 (PPS15-014 - PPS15-052) surface diamond drill holes for a total of 5,450 metres drilled during the second half of 2015 - a full table of assays from this drilling is available by following this link: http://bit.ly/28MN5uj. A map (Figure 5) of all drill holes covered in this release is available by following this link: http://bit.ly/28MTqp0. Drilling indicates an extension to the north of the main mineralized zone - see Figures 3 & 4 by following these links: http://bit.ly/28MT8hV (Figure 3) & http://bit.ly/28Ps32X (Figure 4). A total of 17 drill holes did not intersect any significant mineralization and constrains the mineralized envelope. There is a sharp cut-off between high grade mineralization and barren host carbonate rock. At this stage the mineralizing system is almost exclusively zinc with minor amounts of lead and locally high grade of silver. Topography around the mine is rugged. Drilling was from three separate locations with fan drilling both laterally and vertically to provide coverage.

Pinargozu Zinc Mine

Current mining at 60 tonnes per day is predominantly exploiting non-sulphide high grade zinc carbonate mineralization. The grade of the mined material consistently exceeds the 25% zinc threshold for direct shipping to zinc processing plants. Pinargozu is one of several exploration targets along the Horzum Zinc Trend (HZT). The HZT controls a series of Carbonate-Replacement-Deposit (CRD) type mineral occurrences. The HZT extends north of the old Horzum mine, currently operated by our joint venture partner, Akmetal Madencilik San ve Tic. AS (Akmetal AS), for at least 8 kilometres - see link to Figure 2: http://bit.ly/28WVEVN. The HZT is completely under-explored. Pasinex is the first to apply advanced exploration technology and CRD exploration concepts and models to the HZT.

Quality Control and Data Verification

Samples were assayed in the SGS laboratory in Ankara. Zinc, lead and silver, assays were obtained by multi-acid (4-acid) digestion/ICP-AES Package (33 Elements) - Zn (lower detection limit: 1 ppm/upper detection limit: 10,000 ppm) code ICP40B. For high grade zinc multi-acid (4-acid) digestion/AAS Package code AAS43B. Analytical accuracy and precision are monitored by the submission of blanks duplicate samples inserted at regular intervals into the sample train by Pasinex personnel. Duplicate pulp samples are sent to the ALS laboratory in Izmir as an umpire ISO-compliant check to confirm analytical accuracy. Drill-core samples were prepared at a standard non-certified facility at the Horzum Mine. External quality control on sample preparation is assured by reference to regular selection of duplicate coarse reject samples which are now sent to SGS. SGS-Ankara's quality system complies with the requirements for the International Standards ISO 9001: 2000 and ISO 17025: 1999.

Qualified Person

EurGeol, P.Geo. John Barry, a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release. Mr. Barry is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control and data verification and has confirmed all procedures, protocols and methodologies used. Mr. Barry is a director and shareholder of the Company.

About Pasinex

Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE: PSE)(FRANKFURT: PNX) is a metals company which is a 50% owner of the high grade Pinargozu zinc mine which is in production and, under its DSO Program, is shipping directly to zinc smelter / refiners from its mine site in Turkey. The Company has a strong technical management team with many years of experience in mineral exploration and mining project development. The mission of Pasinex is to build a mid-tier zinc company based on building a large land within a productive CRD district in Turkey.

The Pinargozu mine is included in the 50-50 company, Horzum Arama Isletme AS (Horzum AS), which is a corporate joint venture between Pasinex and Turkish mining house, Akmetal Madencilik San ve Tic. AS (Akmetal AS). Akmetal AS is one of Turkey's largest family-owned conglomerates with the nearby past-producing Horzum zinc mine.

Visit our web site at: www.pasinex.com

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

PASINEX RESOURCES LTD.

"Steve Williams"

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although Pasinex Resources Ltd. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, exploration results, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

To view the figure associated with this release; please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20160622-panargozulrg.jpg

Contacts:

Pasinex Resources Limited

Steve Williams

President/CEO

416.861.9659

info@pasinex.com



Cathy Hume

CHF Investor Relations

416.868.1079 ext. 231

cathy@chfir.com




ANNOUNCEMENTA.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S - Sren Skou appointed new CEO of Maersk GroupSince 2008 the Maersk Group has successfully gone through a phase of operational optimisation in each of its businesses to the point of top quartile performance in most units.In order to leverage this position the Board of Directors have initiated a process to further develop the strategic options for the Maersk Group.To lead this phase the Board of Directors has today appointed Sren Skou as new Chief Executive Officer of A.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S, replacing Nils S. Andersen, who will leave the Maersk Group. The changes are effective as of July 1, 2016.The Board of Directors acknowledges Nils S. Andersen's dedicated and persistent contribution to A.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S since 2005, first as Member of the Board of Directors and subsequently as Chief Executive Officer since December 2007, where he has been a driving force in building a focused and lean global conglomerate of five core businesses within shipping, logistics and energy."On Behalf of the Board of Directors I thank Nils S. Andersen for considerable results in fronting the Group's international growth, strengthening the customer focus and competitiveness of the businesses, as well as simplifying governance and increasing transparency and communication with our stakeholders," says Chairman of the Board of Directors, Michael Pram Rasmussen.Sren Skou has been employed with A.P. Mller - Mrsk since 1983 and member of the Executive Board of A.P. Mller - Mrsk since 2006. In 2012 he was appointed CEO of Maersk Line. Sren Skou will remain in this position in addition to his position as CEO for the Maersk Group."Sren has strong business acumen and thorough knowledge of the Group's various businesses and has successfully restructured the businesses he has led. The Board of Directors knows Sren as a respected and knowledgeable leader with the ability to adapt quickly to market changes in close collaboration with the Board of Directors, the executive management and his employees," says Michael Pram Rasmussen.The Board of Directors has tasked the new management to investigate the strategic and structural options to further increase agility and synergies. The Board of Directors will communicate on the progress before end of 3rd quarter 2016."I am excited about the opportunity to lead A.P. Mller - Mrsk into the next phase of our strategic development. The fast-paced changes of this world demand that we can adapt quickly, easily and at a minimal cost while retaining the focus on each Business Unit. Our future set-up must effectively respond to these challenges" says Sren Skou, CEO of Maersk Line.Sren Skou's curriculum vitae is attached to this announcement.Copenhagen, 23 June 2016Contact person:Head of Investor Relations, Stig Frederiksen, tel. +45 3363 3106Head of Media Relations, Louise Munter, tel. +45 3363 1912CV Sren Skou, CEO of Maersk Group as pr. July 1, 2016Sren Skou has been a member of the Executive Board of A.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S since 2006.In January 2012, Sren Skou took on the position as CEO of Maersk Line, a USD 25 bill. company and the global leader in the container transportation industry. As the largest business unit in Maersk Group, Maersk Line is like the mother company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.Sren Skou joined Maersk in 1983 and for 15 years held various leading positions in Maersk Line, with roles in Copenhagen, New York and BeijingSren Skou was CEO of Maersk Tankers from 2001 to 2011.Besides a long experience as a board member and Chairman of the Board of Maersk Group companies, Sren Skou has also previously served on the Board of two listed companies.Sren Skou is a graduate of business administration from Copenhagen Business School, and further accomplished an MBA with honours from IMD, Switzerland. He is 51 years old, married to Lene Skou and they have three children.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=576561
Toyota Motor Corporation Public Affairs Division Global Communications Department Tel: +81-3-3817-9926

BANGKOK, June 23, 2016 - (JCN Newswire) - Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously presided over the launch of the Toyota Biodiversity and Sustainability Learning Center "Cheewa Panavet" at the Toyota Ban Pho Plant in Thailand. "Cheewa Panavet" is a combination of three Thai words, Cheewa (life), Pana (forest), and Vet (habitat). The learning centre represents Toyota's commitment to the environment as it adds a greater learning element to the Toyota Biotope, a habitat of living organisms spanning over 96,000 square meters.Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn received an audience consisting of Mr. Kyoichi Tanada, Managing Officer, Toyota Motor Corporation and President, Toyota Motor Thailand. The event was also attended by senior government representatives from Thailand as well as Toyota's top executives, dealers, suppliers, the private sector, the Chachoengsao local communities and the media.In over 50 years of Toyota's operations in Thailand, the company has been committed to contributing to Thailand by being a good corporate citizen, and by contributing to the sustainable development and human resources of Thailand. The environment is a part of Toyota's commitment, including the conservation and preservation of the environment through Toyota's initiatives such as the "Toyota Green Town" project to create sustainable integrated environmental efforts that cover all areas of the country.Toyota believes that the automotive industry can be environmentally sustainable, and hence Toyota launched the Eco Forest, an afforestation project, at the Toyota Ban Pho Plant in 2008. The following year, Toyota embarked on the Toyota Biotope Project which is the first of its kind in Thailand-to create a habitat of living organisms, born out of manmade efforts, around the plant. This was done with the objective of environmental conservation and knowledge dissemination. In 2016, the project has been brought to a new level as Toyota sought to include a greater learning element. This gave birth to the Toyota Biodiversity and Sustainability Learning Center "Cheewa Panavet."The Toyota Biodiversity and Sustainability Learning Center "Cheewa Panavet" was born from the determination of Toyota to raise the level of awareness of the Thai people of the value of the environmental and biodiversity through learning and experiencing a "classroom in nature". Toyota is cooperating with the Foundation for Environmental Education for Sustainable Development (Thailand) and Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), Ministry of Education, to provide environmental education. This is done in the form of helping to develop a curriculum for students, and by 2016 to run a trial on environmental lessons from "Cheewa Panavet" to secondary schools in Chachoengsao Province before doing an assessment for further improvements on our efforts.The Toyota Biodiversity and Sustainability Learning Center "Cheewa Panavet" consists of three main sections, namely:1. Eco ForestThe Eco Forest project within Toyota Ban Pho plant began in 2008 and serves as an integral part for Ban Pho to be selected as one of the five "Sustainable Plants" from among Toyota's global network. Over 48,000 square meters of forested area within Toyota Ban Pho employ the sustainable forest method of Prof. Dr. Akira Miyawaki, Professor Emeritus at Yokohama National University and Director of the Japanese Center for International Studies in Ecology of Japan. The hallmark of this method is that it shortens the growth of forests by up to ten times, and allows for a rate of tree survival of over 90%. Currently, there are 43 species of plants within the Eco Forest.2. Toyota BiotopeThe Biotope is the habitat of living organisms which has become a home to plants, animals and other living organisms which form the ecosystem. The biotope at Toyota Ban Pho is the first of its kind in Thailand which was constructed under the concept of "from sky to mountain to river" through an imitation of different forest communities such as biotopes of evergreen forests, mixed deciduous forests, dry dipterocarp forests, wetlands ecosystems such as brackish water ecosystems, and mangrove forests. Currently, there are over 218 species of living organisms dwelling in an area of over 48,000 square meters.3.Royal Commemoration Exhibition BuildingThe interior of the building consists of the Royal Commemoration Exhibition Room that exhibits projects under royal initiation on the environment and an exhibition room on ecosystems on the ground and below the ground using the example of a Bodhi tree, a local species and a symbol of Ban Pho.Toyota truly hopes for Cheewa Panavet to be a "green town" where the community including children and youth will be able to learn and appreciate the environment, biodiversity and the importance of environmental preservation.About ToyotaSupported by people around the world, Toyota Motor Corporation (TSE: 7203; NYSE: TM), has endeavored since its establishment in 1937 to serve society by creating better products. As of the end of December 2013, Toyota conducts its business worldwide with 52 overseas manufacturing companies in 27 countries and regions. Toyota's vehicles are sold in more than 170 countries and regions. For more information, please visit www.toyota-global.com.Source: ToyotaContact:Copyright 2016 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Seinajoki, Finland, 2016-06-23 14:45 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atria Plc, Press release, June 24, 2016 at 3.45 pm The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority investigates Atria Danmark A/S The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen) has opened an investigation into Atria Scandinavia's subsidiary, Atria Danmark A/S, concerning the sale of cold cuts to retail customers. The investigation is based on a complaint that Atria Danmark A/S should have attempted to have a retail customer increase its prices. The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority has collected data in Atria Scandinavia's premises in Horsens. Atria has nothing to hide and gave the authority full access to all documents. Atria's view is that it has not participated in activities violating competition legislation. For more information, please contact Tomas Back, Atria Scandinavia's Managing Director, tel. +46 70 348 00 05.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Taku Gold Corp. (CSE: TAK) ("Taku" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of its non-brokered private placement totalling $400,000. These funds were raised through the issuance of 5,000,000 units at a price of $0.08 per unit, each unit consisting of one common share and one share purchase warrant entitling the holder thereof to acquire one additional common share of the Company for a period of two years at a price of $0.12. The shares issued pursuant to the private placement, and any shares to be issued on exercise of the share purchase warrants, are subject to a hold period expiring October 19, 2016.

Commissions totalling $10,850 were paid to CIBC Wood Gundy, NBCN Inc. and Canaccord Financial Ltd., as consideration for arranging a portion of the private placement.

The funds raised by way of the private placement will be used for general working capital purposes.

About Taku Gold Corp.

Taku Gold Corp. (www.takugold.com) is a mineral resource company focused on the exploration and development of precious metal properties in Canada with a particular emphasis on the White Gold District of the Yukon Territory and the Tagish Lake region of Northern British Columbia.

On Behalf of the Board,

Zachery Dingsdale, President and CEO, Taku Gold Corp.

Follow Taku Gold On: Facebook: www.facebook.com/takugold Twitter: www.twitter.com/takugoldcorp YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TakuGold Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/takugold/

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Taku Gold Corp.

Zachery Dingsdale

President and CEO

800 610-9552

604 642-0116 (FAX)

zak@takugold.com

www.takugold.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Coventry Resources Limited ("Coventry" or "the Company") Coventry Resources Limited (ASX: CYY) ("the Company") is pleased to announce that a second diamond core drilling rig has arrived at the Company's high-grade Caribou Dome Copper Project in Alaska, USA ("Caribou Dome Project").

Announcement Highlights

-- A second drilling rig has arrived at the Caribou Dome Project to expedite the Company's 8,000m drilling program -- Initial drill-testing of the very-high priority Menel Target will commence immediately -- Initial drill-testing of the very-high priority Guardian Target will follow shortly thereafter -- New copper mineralisation mapped directly above the Menel Target and immediately along strike from the Guardian Target -- Drilling with the first rig, which is currently testing the Lense 3, 9 and 1 Target areas, is progressing well -- Ground geophysics survey also progressing well

Click here to view the full text of the ASX announcement

http://coventryres.com/editor/articles/getfile.php?productindex=639&mode=1

The full text of the ASX announcement has also been filed on SEDAR.

Qualified and Competent Person

The information in this announcement that relates to exploration results for the Project is based on information compiled by Mr Ben Vallerine, who is a consultant to the Company and holds an indirect shareholding in the Company. Mr Vallerine is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Mr Vallerine has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and the activity he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results (JORC Code). Mr Vallerine is also a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr Vallerine consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on the information in the form and context in which it appears.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain "forward-looking statements" and/or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities regulations in Canada and the United States (collectively, "forward-looking information"). Any forward-looking information contained in this news release is made as of the date of this news release. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Coventry does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information.

Any forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on numerous assumptions and is subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in the Company's business, including risks inherent in resource exploration and development. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information due to the inherent uncertainty thereof.

Contacts:

Coventry Resources Limited

Mike Haynes

Managing Director/CEO

+61 8 9226 1356

mhaynes@coventryres.com




SCOTTSDALE, AZ -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 --The Alkaline Water Company Inc. (OTCQB: WTER) (the "Company"), developers of an innovative state of the art proprietary electrolysis beverage process packaged and sold in 500ml, 700ml, 1-liter, 3-liter and 1-gallon sizes under the trade name Alkaline88, is pleased to report that Alkaline88 3-liter size products have become a leading alkaline water brand at Sendik's Food Markets, located throughout the Greater Milwaukee region.

Alkaline88 has been well received in this 13 supermarket high-volume chain who further advise they will soon have four new store openings in their growing territory. Founded in 1926, the Balistreri family has been serving the greater Milwaukee community by combining quality food products with exceptional customer service and are known throughout the region as the trusted, local grocer. Currently, Sendik's operates throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, including Elm Grove, Franklin, Germantown, Grafton, Greenfield, Hartland, Mequon, New Berlin, Wauwatosa, West Bend and Whitefish Bay, and a Sendik's Fresh2GO store in Bayside. Learn more at sendiks.com.

Steven P. Nickolas, CEO and President of The Alkaline Water Company, comments, "As part of our overall expansion strategy and commitment to becoming the #1 selling alkaline water across the nation, we are proud to be a featured product on the shelves of Sendik's Food Markets, a chain celebrating its 90th Anniversary and known for "only the best" in quality products. Alkaline88 is a perfect fit to meet Sendik's commitment to feature and promote the best quality and best value products. These are values we share and extend to all our many partners and consumers who enjoy the benefits of healthy daily servings of Alkaline88."

About The Alkaline Water Company Inc. (OTCQB: WTER):

The Alkaline Water Company Inc. has developed an innovative, state of the art, proprietary electrolysis process that produces healthy alkaline water for a balanced lifestyle. The company is focused on the business of distributing and marketing the retail sale of its cost-effective packaged Alkaline88 water beverage products. The Alkaline Water Company Inc. is currently in the midst of a national mass-market expansion program and is available for consumer sales at major retail locations across the United States. Learn more about The Alkaline Water Company Inc. by visiting: www.thealkalinewaterco.com.

About Alkaline88:

Alkaline88 is a premier bottled alkaline drinking water with an 8.8-pH balance. Enhanced with trace minerals and electrolytes, the product offers consumers the unique opportunity to purchase alkaline water in conveniently packaged 500ml, 700ml, and 1-liter, 3-liter and 1-gallon sizes. Learn more about the science of Alkaline88 at www.alkaline88.com.

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, The Alkaline Water Company Inc.'s expectations for continued growth and expansion of the Alkaline88 brand over the next fiscal year. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with developing new products and operating as a development stage company, our ability to raise the additional funding will need to continue to pursue our business and product development plans, competition in the industry in which we operate and market conditions. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States of America. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions will prove to be accurate, investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in the reports and other documents we file with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov.

Contact:

The Alkaline Water Company Inc.

WTER Investor Relations

(480) 656-2423

investors@thealkalinewaterco.com




VAL D'OR, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Hinterland Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE: HMI) ("Hinterland") is pleased to announce that it has increased the size of its Brexit Lithium property to 111 claims (5,938 hectares) by staking an additional 71 mineral claims. The Brexit Lithium property is located in the James Bay region of Quebec approximately 40 kilometres southeast of the village of Nemaska, which is linked to Chibougamau, 300 kilometres to the south, by an all-season gravel road. Other infrastructure in the area includes numerous gravel roads, an airport, and high-voltage hydro-electric transmission lines and sub-stations all maintained by Hydro Quebec.

The Brexit Lithium property covers an 18 kilometre length of the south margin of the volcano-sedimentary Mountain Lake Belt, and is roughly 15 kilometres southeast of Nemaska Lithium Inc.'s Whabouchi hard rock lithium project, which contains measured plus indicated resources of 27,991,000 tonnes of 1.57% Li20 (Nemaska Press Release, January 15, 2014). Nemaska recently released a positive feasibility study that includes the construction of a mine and concentrator at Whabouchi, and a hydrometallurgical plant in Shawinigan, Quebec (Nemaska Press Release, June 9, 2016).

Mark Fekete, P.Geo is the designated "qualified person" as defined in Section 1.2 in and for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 that reviewed and approved the technical content of this release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially from targeted results. Such risks and uncertainties include those described in the Company's periodic reports including the annual report or in the filings made by the Company from time to time with securities regulators. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revision of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they are made or to reflect the occurrence of an unanticipated event.

Shares Issued 32,924,614

Contacts:

Hinterland Metals Inc.

Mark Fekete

President

1-819-354-5244



Hinterland Metals Inc.

Zak Dingsdale

Director

1-905-269-0797

info@hinterlandmetals.com

www.hinterlandmetals.com




AerCap Holdings N.V. ("AerCap") (NYSE: AER) today announced that it will host a conference call and webcast for investors and analysts at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, August 09, 2016 to review its second quarter 2016 financial results.

AerCap's second quarter 2016 earnings press release will be released before financial markets open in the United States on August 09, 2016. A copy of the press release will be posted on the "Investor Relations" section of AerCap's website at www.aercap.com. At the same time, the presentation slides for the conference call will also be posted on AerCap's website.

The call can be accessed live by dialing (U.S./Canada) +1 646 254 3365 or (International) +353 1 246 5602 and referencing code 2446023 at least 5 minutes before start time, or by visiting AerCap's website at www.aercap.com under "Investor Relations."

The webcast replay will be archived on the "Investor Relations" section of the company's website for one year.

About AerCap

AerCap is the global leader in aircraft leasing with, as of March 31, 2016, approximately 1,670 owned, managed or on order aircraft in its portfolio. AerCap has one of the most attractive order books in the industry. AerCap serves over 200 customers in approximately 80 countries with comprehensive fleet solutions. AerCap is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (AER) and has its headquarters in Dublin with offices in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Shannon, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Singapore, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Seattle and Toulouse.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements, estimates and forecasts with respect to future performance and events. These statements, estimates and forecasts are "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "predict," "potential" or "continue" or the negatives thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements and are based on various underlying assumptions and expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate or correct. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future performance or events described in the forward-looking statements in this press release might not occur. Accordingly, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results and we do not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to, and will not, update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For more information regarding AerCap and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit www.aercap.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005684/en/

Contacts:

For Investors:

John Wikoff, Head of Investor Relations

jwikoff@aercap.com; +31 20 655 9661

or

For media:

Gillian Culhane, Vice President Corporate Communications

gculhane@aercap.com; +353 1 636 0945


OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Sharon McIvor, the plaintiff in McIvor v. Canada, a constitutional challenge to the sex discrimination in Canada's Indian Act, and a petitioner to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, announced today that the Government of Canada has asked the United Nations Human Rights Committee to suspend consideration of her petition. Ms. McIvor's petition claims that the continuing sex discrimination in the status registration provisions of the Indian Act violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Thousands of Aboriginal women and their descendants are still not able to hold and transmit Indian status on an equal footing with their male counterparts. McIvor seeks full elimination of all remaining sex discrimination.

Canada has asked the UN Committee to suspend its consideration of Ms. McIvor's petition on the grounds that it plans to consult further on the elimination of the sex discrimination from the Indian Act as a part of a "larger ongoing process" regarding a new nation-to-nation relationship. Canada also indicates that the equality rights of Indigenous women are a priority concern, demonstrated by Canada's commitment to a national inquiry on murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls.

In a statement released today, Sharon McIvor calls on Canada to drop its request for a suspension, withdraw its opposition to her petition, acknowledge that the sex discrimination in the Indian Act violates the equality rights of women, and undertake publicly to remove all the sex discrimination from the Indian Act as soon as possible.

In her statement, Sharon McIvor says: "The national inquiry and any consultations on a new nation-to-nation relationship can only start on a credible footing if the Government of Canada begins by publicly undertaking to eliminate the sex discrimination in the Indian Act immediately. Without this, Indigenous women do not begin these processes as equals."

The Native Women's Association of Canada and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action announced that they stand with Sharon McIvor in calling for an immediate end to the sex discrimination in the Indian Act.

The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) was founded in 1974 on the collective goal to enhance, promote, and foster the social, economic, cultural and political well-being of First Nations and Metis women within First Nation, Metis and Canadian societies. NWAC is widely recognized as the National voice of Indigenous women and girls in Canada, and was instrumental in bringing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada to light. Visit us at nwac.ca or follow us at @NWAC_CA.

The Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) is an alliance of more than sixty Canadian women's organizations founded following the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995. FAFIA's central goal is to ensure that Canadian governments respect, protect and fulfill the commitments to women that they have made under international human rights treaties and agreements. Visit us at fafia-afai.org or follow us at @FAFIAAFAI.

QUOTE:

"NWAC supports Sharon McIvor. NWAC has always stood against the sex discrimination in the Indian Act, which has had devastating and long-lasting effects on Indigenous women, their families and communities. There is no need for further study. In 2016, it is time for Canada's new government to end this discrimination, once and for all. This is the necessary beginning for a national inquiry."

-Dawn Lavell-Harvard, President, Native Women's Association of Canada

"Since 1876 Canada has discriminated against Aboriginal women and their descendants in the status registration provisions of the Indian Act. It is time for this discrimination to come to an end and no delay is acceptable. FAFIA fully supports Sharon McIvor's call. When a national inquiry on murders and disappearances is about to begin, this is the time to show that Canada recognizes Indigenous women as equals."

-Angela Cameron, Chair, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action

BACKGROUND:

Read Sharon's statement here: http://fafia-afai.org/en/sharon-mcivor-sex-discrimination-in-indian-act/

Read Sharon's petition materials here: http://povertyandhumanrights.org/2016/06/mcivor-v-canada-2016/

Contacts:

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Dawn Lavell-Harvard, President

Native Women's Association of Canada

Contact: Joyce McDougall, Executive Assistant

613-722-3033 ext. 221

jmcdougall@nwac.ca



Sharon McIvor

Feminist Alliance for International Action

Member of the Human Rights Committee

250 378-7479

bearclaw@shaw.ca



Angela Cameron

Feminist Alliance for International Action

Chair of the Steering Committee

613 562 5800 Ext 3328

a.cameron@uottawa.ca



Shelagh Day

Feminist Alliance for International Action

Chair of the Human Rights Committee

604-872-0750 or 604-315-8618

shelagh.day@gmail.com






WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Democrats continue their occupation of the House floor on Thursday even after Republican leaders sent lawmakers home early for the July 4th recess.



The ongoing sit-in on the floor comes as Democrats had been seeking to pressure House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to hold votes on two gun control measures.



However, Ryan adjourned the House earlier than originally scheduled and delayed any potential votes until July 5th at the earliest.



The House adjourned after Republicans approved legislation to fund efforts to combat the Zika virus, with the vote coming down along party lines.



Despite the adjournment, Democrats continue to speak on the floor, demanding votes on measures to expand background checks for gun purchases and prevent individuals on the no fly list from buying guns.



The demonstration is being shown on live video streaming app Periscope, as GOP leaders have shut off the cameras showing the House floor.



The Democratic sit-in was led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a prominent civil rights activist from the 1960s, and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn.



In a statement early Thursday morning, Larson said he was deeply disappointed Ryan chose to adjourn the House, arguing the Speaker chose to do nothing rather than debate an issue that is killing thousands of Americans.



'This is not the end. The people have spoken,' Larson said. 'We stand united with the vast majority of Americans in saying enough is enough.'



Meanwhile, Ryan has criticized the sit-in as a publicity stunt, noting that similar gun control measures were already blocked in the Senate.



Republicans have pointed to a series of fundraising emails sent by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the sit-in as proof that the demonstration is purely political.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- (NYSE: CAE)(TSX: CAE) - Dominique Anglade, Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation and Minister responsible for the Digital Strategy, and Gaetan Barrette, Minister of Health and Social Services, announced that the Government of Quebec will extend its agreement with Quebec-based company CAE, until 2020. The agreement established a research and development program that is now estimated at a value of $192.3 million.

The program focuses on developing new technologies and services in the field of simulation and training for the healthcare sector. The financial contribution made to CAE in 2009, in the form of a repayable investment to a maximum amount of $99.8 million, has been adjusted to $70 million and will allow the government's support to continue.

"CAE is a great example of intersectoriality in research and development. Our continued support will allow this world leader in medical simulation to continue designing new technologies here, in addition to showing that Quebec can attract major research and development investments," stated Minister Dominique Anglade.

"Our government is proud to provide continued support for CAE Healthcare's research and development program. To date, CAE Healthcare has provided more than 10,500 simulators and audiovisual solutions for medical schools and hospitals, in particular. CAE is recognized for its world-class simulation technologies that contribute to Quebec's international stature," stated Minister Gaetan Barrette.

"We have quickly become the world leader in medical simulation technologies and we are making a difference by helping health professionals provide the best possible care for their patients," said Marc Parent, President and CEO of CAE. "It is a noble mission, and we are proud that our technological advances in healthcare could be achieved through the research and development work that we do in Montreal. We have succeeded because of our employees and thanks to support from the Government of Quebec."

CAE is a world leader in simulation and training for civil aviation, defence and security, and healthcare. The company, whose headquarters are located in Montreal, employs 8,000 people worldwide, including 3,100 in Quebec, and has a network of 160 sites and training locations in 35 countries, as well as the largest fleet of full-flight simulators in the world.

To receive real-time press releases from the Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation, sign up for the appropriate RSS feed at https://www.economie.gouv.qc.ca/ministere/english/about-us/.

Contacts:

Sources:

Jolyane Pronovost

Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Economy,

Science and Innovation and Minister responsible

for the Digital Strategy

Tel.: 418 691-5650



Julie White

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Health

and Social Services

Tel.: 418 266-7171



Information:

Jean-Pierre D'Auteuil

Media Relations, Communications Directorate

Department of Economy, Science and Innovation

Tel.: 418 691-5698, ext. 4868

Cell: 418 559-0710



Helene V. Gagnon

Vice President

Public Affairs and Global Communications

CAE

Tel.: 514-340-5536




BLAINVILLE, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Maya Gold & Silver Inc. ("Maya" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: MYA) is pleased to announce today that all candidates proposed by management in the Proxy Circular dated May 18, 2016 were elected as directors of the Corporation during its annual and special meeting of shareholders, which was held in Montreal on June 17, 2016. A total of 89,448,438 common shares (approximately 47.77% of the outstanding common shares) were represented at the Meeting, in person or by proxy.

Election of Directors

Each of the following 7 candidates proposed by management was elected a director of Maya: John G. Booth, Rene Branchaud, Rejean Gosselin, Guy Goulet, Noureddine Mokaddem, Eric Swenden and R. Martin Wong.

Additional Board Members

Maya is pleased to welcome Mr Eric Swenden as a new member to its board of directors, subject to regulatory approval. Mr Swenden is a member of the Corporation's Advisory Board since 2012. He holds a Master's degree in Commercial Sciences from the University of Antwerp. Mr Swenden has had a long and successful career in finance and company management and has held various senior positions in companies, including Vandemoortele Food Group, General Bank (Fortis) and Besix. He is currently serving as member of the board of directors for various companies, including Lifeline Scientific and Redhill Biopharma.

The Corporation is also pleased to announce that Nikolaos Sofronis has also joined the Board of Directors, subject to regulatory approval. Mr Sofronis is director of Irini Investment of Luxembourg and has over 18 years of private equity experience in mining and biotechnology sectors. Prior, Mr Sofronis held senior position at Paribas Luxembourg.

Appointments of Auditors

Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton LLP, were appointed as the independent auditors of the Corporation until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders.

Amendment to Articles

In addition, the shareholders adopted a special resolution amending the Corporation's Articles to include provisions to the effect that the Board of Directors may, at its discretion, appoint one or more additional directors, who shall hold office for a term expiring not later than the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders, provided that the total number of directors so appointed may not exceed one-third of the number of directors elected at the annual meeting of shareholders preceding their appointment.

Video

A video about Zgounder Millenium Silver Mining is available on Maya Website at the following address: http://mayagoldsilver.com/investors/media-center/

ABOUT MAYA

Maya Gold & Silver Inc. is a Canadian listed mining corporation focused on the exploration and development of gold and silver deposits in Morocco. Maya is initiating mining and milling operations at its Zgounder Mine. Zgounder Millenium Silver Mining ("ZMSM"), the 85% owned joint venture with l'Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines ("ONHYM") of the Kingdom of Morocco (15%).

For further information on Maya, visit www.mayagoldsilver.com.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Maya Gold & Silver Inc.

Guy Goulet

Chief Executive Officer

450-435-0700 ext. 204

ggoulet@mayagoldsilver.com



Maya Gold & Silver Inc.

Nathalie Dion

Investor Relations

450-435-0700 ext. 202

ndion@mayagoldsilver.com




NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Consumer marketing channels involves various levels between manufacturers and end customers and can be broadly classified into multi-channel marketing, wherein, sales involve multiple channels, such as wholesalers/distributors and retailers, between manufacturer and end customers, and direct marketing where marketers directly interact with the customer. Teleshopping, which is also known as Direct Response Television shopping, is a direct marketing technique which was originated in the US in 1980s. In this type of marketing technique product information is communicated to the potential customer through electronic medium such as infomercials which are scheduled and aired between TV programs. Contact details are, usually, communicated at the end of infomercial for the customer to call for further queries or to place the orders. These infomercials include detailed product information, in-depth product demonstration, product details & price and benefits of buying and using the product.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 )



Convenient shopping platform, high disposable income, rise in consumerism, with option to order a product from a channel's website as well and low priced products, are few of the major growth drivers of the Teleshopping market in India.

Teleshopping Market: Drivers and Restraints

India teleshopping market is growing at a significantly high rate and stood around USD700-750 million in 2015. Television has the ability to demonstrate the product which would enable this sales channel in selling various innovative products further, educating the customer about the brand. Major companies' strategies, such as setting up call centres in multiple cities, providing region wise toll free telephone numbers, etc. is expected to boost the growth of teleshopping market in India and helped the companies to increase their penetration in the market, as well. Increasing literacy rate, improved standard of living, growing disposable income, increasing women employment, etc. are few of the factors fuelling the growth of teleshopping market in the country.

Rising e-commerce market coupled with increasing internet penetration in the country and importance of feel and touch factor for buying the products are few of the reasons which pose a challenge to India teleshopping market.

Teleshopping Market: Segmentation

The India Teleshopping Market is classified on the basis of operations type (dedicated channel vs infomercials), product category (personal care, healthcare, consumer electronics, apparels and accessories, hardware, home furnishings and others), region and company.

India Teleshopping Market, by Operations Type

Dedicated Channel

Infomercials

India Teleshopping Market: By Region

North and West regions of the country accounted for a major share in the country on account of high rate of urbanization, rising women employment rate, etc. Tier II & III cities, where internet and smart phone penetration is relatively low as compared to metros, are expected to generate a large chunk of orders through teleshopping.

India Teleshopping Market: Key Players

Network18 (Homeshop18), Shop CJ, Naaptol, Zee Media Corporation Ltd., Telebrands Corp., are some of the major players operating in teleshopping market in India.

The report covers exhaustive analysis on:

Market Size, Market Share & Forecast

Segmental Analysis - By Operations Type, By Product Categories, By Region & By Company

Regional Analysis for the following regions:

North Region

South Region

West Region

East Region

Market Dynamics (Market Drivers, Challenges & their Impact Analysis)

Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities

Competitive Landscape

Strategic Recommendations

Regional analysis includes

North Region ( Delhi , Chandigarh, Lucknow)

, Chandigarh, Lucknow) South Region ( Bangalore , Chennai , Hyderabad )

, , ) West Region ( Mumbai , Pune , Ahmedabad)

, , Ahmedabad) East Region ( Kolkata , Guwahati, Patna)

Why You Should Buy This Report?

To gain an in-depth understanding of teleshopping market

To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years

To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players

To avail 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs.

Key Questions This Study Will Answer

How do growth rates in the market vary by segment, sub-segments and region?

What are the most important growth drivers and opportunities in the market?

What strategies should market competitors employ to gain share in mature segments of the market?

What are the competitor profiles in this market and how do they compete for market share?

About TechSci Research

TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends.

Contact

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PHILADELPHIA, PA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- MasterControl (DIA Booth #1103), a leading global provider of enterprise quality management software (EQMS) and quality consulting services for regulated businesses, will be demonstrating the industry's first Clinical Quality Management System (CQMS) at the DIA 2016 52nd Annual Meeting June 26-30, 2016.

MasterControl's Patricia Santos-Serrao, RAC, Director of Clinical and Regulatory Solutions for the Pharmaceutical Industry, who is life sciences industry expert, will be available for on-site media interviews during the event.

Only MasterControl offers such a breadth of clinical products and solutions, addressing needs for both clinical trial study management and clinical quality management. Because MasterControl's products and solutions are uniquely built to integrate so powerfully, customers can adopt the module that is most needed, such as TMF, then build on this module by adding additional MasterControl products and solutions.

"The role of quality can now take its rightful position as a critical element of a properly managed clinical trial," said Santos-Serrao. "MasterControl is committed to providing technology to streamline and manage the documentation and the high volume of artifacts, activities, and milestones throughout the life of a clinical study. As an example of MasterControl's ongoing innovation tailored to address the needs of clinicians, we will soon introduce the industry's most powerful eTMF solution."

MasterControl CQMS is the most robust system on the market -- designed to manage and seamlessly integrate all documents, activities, project tasks, processes, quality events, relationships, audits and training, all of which must be administered and controlled throughout the life of a clinical trial.

The Drug Information Association 52nd Annual Meeting takes places June 26-30, 2016 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. It is the largest global interdisciplinary event that brings together 7,000+ key thought-leaders and innovators from industry, academia, regulatory and government agencies, health, patient and philanthropic organizations from around the globe - and across all disciplines involved in the discovery, development, and life cycle management of health care products.

About MasterControl

MasterControl is a committed team of quality, regulatory and software experts who work to empower regulated companies to get their products to market faster. For almost 25 years MasterControl's quality management software solutions (EQMS) have been reducing overall costs, increasing efficiency and accelerating compliance, all creating a significant competitive advantage for customers. Drawing upon unparalleled industry experience, MasterControl offers a suite of seamlessly integrated and scalable software solutions for quality management, document control, product lifecycle management, supplier management, audit management, training management and much more. MasterControl's complete quality management solution is designed for easy implementation, validation and use, continually improving on the promise of "Compliance Accelerated." For more information about MasterControl, visit MasterControl or call 1.800.825.9117 (U.S.); +44 (0) 1256 325 949 (Europe); +81 (03) 5422 6665 (Japan); or +61 (3) 9717 9727 (Australia).

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3025959



Media Contact

Theresa Gubler

Springboard5

801-208-1100

Theresa.Gubler@springboard5.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A former Credit Suisse AG banker, who has been a fugitive since 2011, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia to charges related to aiding and assisting U.S. taxpayers in evading their income taxes, announced and U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia. Michele Bergantino, 48, a citizen of Italy and a resident of Switzerland, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee to conspiring to defraud the United States by assisting U.S. taxpayers to conceal foreign accounts and evade U.S. tax during his employment as a banker working for Credit Suisse AG on its North American desk. Bergantino is the third fugitive to come to the United States and plead guilty to charges in this case,' said Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department's Tax Division. 'To those who have actively assisted U.S. taxpayers in using offshore accounts to evade taxes, the message is clear: staying outside the United States will provide little comfort. We will investigate and charge you, and will work relentlessly to hold you to account for your actions,' she added. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
BOSTON, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- David A. Attisani, co-chair of the Insurance & Reinsurance Group at Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP, is one of only five U.S. insurance and reinsurance attorneys to be named "Most Highly Regarded" in the 13th annual edition of Who's Who Legal: Insurance & Reinsurance. Attisani was also one of only 15 attorneys in the world identified as "Most Highly Regarded."

According to Who's Who Legal, clients describe Attisani as a "trusted adviser" who is praised for his "sharp mind." He is considered "prolific," "very able," and possesses "great experience."

As co-chair of Choate's internationally recognized Insurance & Reinsurance Group, Attisani directs more than 15 insurance/reinsurance lawyers who represent national and multinational insurers, reinsurers, and intermediaries in complex litigation, arbitration, and bankruptcy proceedings. The Group serves clients across the U.S., and abroad in the UK, continental Europe, Bermuda, and other offshore locations. Attisani focuses his practice on insurance coverage and reinsurance arbitration and litigation on behalf of reinsurers, cedents, and intermediaries; risk management; alternative dispute resolution; and arbitration and litigation for insurance companies involving coverage disputes.

Some of Attisani's significant and successful public engagements include serving as counsel in: Compagnie de Reassurance v New England Re (1st Cir 1995); Odyssey Re (London) v Stirling Cooke Brown (SNDY 2000) ("Sphere Drake"); Commercial Union v Swiss Re America (D Mass 2003); and National Union v Modern Continental (Mass BLS 2013) ("Big Dig"). Attisani has also handled a variety of confidential matters implicating (among other liabilities): 9/11 losses; Superstorm Sandy; Obamacare; the NECC fatal injections case; financial and finite issues; clergy abuse; the Big Dig/Central Artery tunnel collapse; engineering losses (Turkish crude oil pipeline); variable annuities; workers' compensation; losses emanating from intermediary (broker, MGA) conduct; asbestos and pollution; hurricane (Wilma, Katrina, Ike) and other storm losses; underwriting disputes; fraudulent inducement; and bad faith.

In 2014, Attisani was the first-ever Boston-area attorney to be recognized in the Chambers USA nationwide rankings for Reinsurance. He was also named one of Law360's "10 Most Admired Insurance Attorneys in America" for 2010. He is one of only 12 reinsurance lawyers listed in The Legal 500's elite "Leading Lawyers" category (2010-2015). Attisani was also elected to Chambers (2014-2016 ); Who's Who Legal: Insurance & Reinsurance (2005-2015); Euromoney Guide to the World's Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers (2006-2014); Best of the Best USA (2009-2013) in insurance and reinsurance (along with only 30 other U.S. industry professionals); Best Lawyers in America (2012-2015); and Massachusetts Super Lawyers.

Attisani is co-chairman of the ABA's Reinsurance Subcommittee and a member of the ARIAS-US Education Committee (2013-present). He served as the reinsurance editor and an author of Appleman Treatises' Law of Reinsurance (2012), author of its class actions chapter (2014), and he is co-author of Swiss Re's 2014 Hydrofracking White Paper.

Attisani graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Williams College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He also studied English literature at Oxford University. Before starting his practice, Attisani served as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the SDNY. From 1997 to 1998, he was a special assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston), where he tried 19 cases to verdict.

Since 1996 Who's Who Legal has identified the foremost legal practitioners in multiple areas of business law. Nominees have been selected based upon comprehensive, independent survey work with both general counsel and private practice lawyers worldwide. Only specialists who have met independent international research criteria are listed; no one can purchase an entry in the publication.

Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP, one of the nation's leading law firms, is consistently recognized for excellence by Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, The Legal 500, World's Leading Lawyers, International Who's Who of Lawyers, and Expert Guides. With all of its lawyers under one roof, Choate focuses on a core group of areas where it represents clients across the United States and internationally and provides exceptional efficiency, service and value. Choate's areas of focus include insurance/reinsurance, corporate/M&A, private equity, finance & restructuring, high-stakes litigation, life sciences, technology companies and intellectual property, government enforcement and compliance, and wealth management.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3025895



Contact:

David Egan

Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP

(617) 248-5247

degan@choate.com



or



Amy Blumenthal

Blumenthal & Associates

(617) 879-1511

amyb@blumenthalpr.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Augusta Industries Inc. (the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: AAO) is pleased to announce that FOX-TEK Canada Inc. ("FOX-TEK"), the Corporation's wholly owned subsidiary, has partnered with TTK Canada ("TTK"). The objective of the partnership with TTK is to explore and develop opportunities and applications in the oil and gas sector incorporating THE Corporation's technology and products and TTK's novel leak detection cable that is fast responding, entirely reusable and insensitive to water.

Allen Lone, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation, commented, "The partnership with TTK will greatly expand our existing non-intrusive technologies and will allow the company to offer a more vary offering of products and services. This will allow the Corporation to offer its clients a higher level of capabilities."

About TTK

TTK is a Liquid leak detection specialist and manufacturer that offers innovative products and tailored solutions for detecting hydrocarbon leaks, for both industrial and commercial applications. With a 25-year history and with offices in Europe, Canada, Middle East and Asia, we are at the forefront of designing, manufacturing and installing digital liquid leak detection equipment in risk areas of facilities around the world.

TTK's oil & gas division, R&D center and the manufacturing facilities are headquartered in the Paris region. Since it was established, the company has built its brand name on quality and innovation. All products are manufactured in France. TTK products hold a number of recognized international safety standards and specific approvals such as UL, TUV/GS, IEC, and ATEX.

The TTK brand is well-known in the water and acid leak market. Thanks to the advanced technology and the high reliability of its products, TTK has achieved a leadership position via numerous reference projects all over the world.

About the Corporation

Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Marcon International Inc. ("Marcon") and Fox-Tek, the Corporation provides a variety of services and products to a number of clients.

Marcon is an industrial supply contractor servicing the energy sector and a number of US Government entities. Marcon's principal business is the sale and distribution of industrial parts and equipment (Electrical, mechanical and Instrumentation.) In addition to departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, Marcon's major clients include Saudi Arabia-Sabic Services (Refining and Petrochemical), Bahrain National Gas Co, Bahrain Petroleum, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Gas, Qatar Petrochemical, Gulf of Suez Petroleum, Agiba Petroleum and Burullus Gas Co.

FOX-TEK develops non-intrusive asset health monitoring sensor systems for the oil and gas market to help operators track the thinning of pipelines and refinery vessels due to corrosion/erosion, strain due to bending/buckling and process pressure and temperature. The Corporation's FT fiber optic sensor and corrosion monitoring systems allow cost-effective, 24/7 remote monitoring capabilities to improve scheduled maintenance operations, avoid unnecessary shutdowns, and prevent accidents and leaks.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on assumptions, uncertainties and management's best estimates of future events. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are detailed from time to time in the Corporation's periodic reports filed with the Ontario Securities Commission and other regulatory authorities. The Corporation has no intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Augusta Industries Inc.

Allen Lone

President, CEO

(905) 275-8111 Ext 226

atlone@fox-tek.com




LAS VEGAS, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For "Swastika Rehabilitation Day," June 25, Raelians will hold worldwide events, including flying banners over U.S. cities, to inform people about the ancient, peaceful meaning of the swastika.

And they're protesting two recent developments.

"New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky [D-Long Beach] introduced a bill to ban public displays of swastikas," said Raelian Guide Thomas Kaenzig, who heads the ProSwastika Alliance. "That would infringe upon the freedoms of speech and religion guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution."

Indeed, for many Americans, the swastika is still a sacred symbol, despite its unfortunate association with Hitler.

"It's a cherished symbol not only by Raelians, for whom it represents infinity in time, but by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains," Kaenzig explained. "Banning a religious symbol is like banning a religion. It affronts both the members of that religion and a supposedly free society in general."

While Raelians deplore the Nazi crimes, they say Hitler unfairly besmirched a revered symbol that had existed for thousands of years.

"Previously, the swastika had only positive connotations of good luck and well-being," Kaenzig said. "Continuing to associate it with Nazis gives them credit for it, probably the last thing their victims would have wanted. Would Senator Kaminsky also ban the Christian cross? Remember, tens of millions were murdered under that symbol in the Americas, Africa and Europe, and the Klu Klux Klan also used it."

He said the swastika was a Jewish symbol too, for a very long time.

"It's on old synagogues, like that in Verona, Italy, and in many Israeli sites, including the Second Temple, one of the holiest places for Jews," Kaenzig pointed out. "Nobody has asked that those symbols be removed, so why is displaying swastikas more of an issue in New York? Education is the solution, not banning. That's what Swastika Rehabilitation Day is all about."

The second development?

"Shapeways, a 3D printing company, is refusing to print any design incorporating a swastika - even though they printed an embassy model incorporating one that we submitted," Kaenzig said. "But when we submitted a model for the symbol itself, they refused the order and advised us of the ban. We're asking all Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Raelians to protest Shapeways' decision to ban this symbol so dear to us all."
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Department of State has warned U.S. citizens against travel to Afghanistan because of continued instability and threats by terrorist organizations against U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy's ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is severely limited, particularly outside of Kabul, the State Department said in a Travel Warning update Wednesday. It urged U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel within Afghanistan and noted that evacuation options from Afghanistan are extremely limited due to the lack of infrastructure, geographic constraints, and other security concerns. Travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe due to the ongoing risk of kidnapping, hostage taking, military combat operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry between political and tribal groups, militant attacks, direct and indirect fire, suicide bombings, and insurgent attacks, including attacks using vehicle-borne or other improvised explosive devices (IED). Attacks may also target official Afghan and U.S. government convoys and compounds, foreign embassies, military installations, commercial entities, restaurants, hotels, airports, and educational centers. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Companies will co-develop new diagnostic products and will establish global marketing collaboration.

Gold Standard Diagnostics, Corp. (GSD) announced today a strategic alliance with R-Biopharm AG (Darmstadt, Germany) to collaborate on multiple technology and marketing initiatives that will leverage the companies' respective strengths in expanding product offerings and geographic sales coverage.

Under this arrangement, GSD will be the exclusive distributor for R-Biopharm's Clinical diagnostics products in the U.S. GSD has broad U.S. market coverage, through its national channel partners, in key clinical segments that include hospitals, POL's and reference laboratories. This initiative expands GSD's strategic vision of collaborating with technology leaders in bringing differentiated solutions to the market by adding content to GSD's automated instrument platforms.

R-Biopharm has a broad portfolio of products, in multiple technology formats, which are complementary to GSD's expertise in instrument development. This partnership will give R-Biopharm access to GSD products, including its instrumentation platforms and diagnostic test kits, to enhance their offering to their worldwide distribution network spread over 130 countries.

The two companies will also collaborate on several strategic projects for the U.S. and International markets that will leverage their respective strengths in developing transformative technologies that establish strong market niches. R-Biopharm's network of subsidiaries and GSD's select supplier base will present opportunities that will drive innovative concepts in delivering diagnostic solutions. GSD will also add to this partnership with its expertise in clearing products through the FDA.

John Griffiths, CEO of GSD, comments "We look forward to partnering with R-Biopharm, who has a strong track record of growing their business organically and through strategic acquisitions. RBIO is a globally-recognized leader in developing assays for the Clinical Diagnostics and Food Feed testing markets. This alliance will also fast track innovation and investment in new technologies."

Ralf Dreher, CEO of R-Biopharm, said "The partnership between R-Biopharm and Gold Standard Diagnostics will enable both companies to strengthen their position as solution providers in North America and the Global Market. GSD has an outstanding reputation in clinical business in the USA and can look back on many years of experience in laboratory equipment and automation. The synergy born out of this cooperation will set new standards in clinical diagnostics, which will also be highly beneficial for the customer."

About Gold Standard Diagnostics, Corp.

Gold Standard Diagnostics, Corp., is a privately held clinical diagnostics company based in Davis, California. The company develops, manufactures and distributes an innovative portfolio of instrumentation and diagnostic products to clinical laboratories Worldwide. Since launching the ThunderBolt in 2012, GSD has released 4 new instrumentation platforms, with over 600 installations, including an open EIA+CLIA combination instrument, and the AIX1000, the first fully automated system for performing RPR (Rapid Plasma Reagin) syphilis tests. With many projects in the pipeline, the next expected launch is of the Bolt, a one plate open system to meet the needs of low volume customers. GSD also develops and offers an extensive menu of serology tests used in the areas of autoimmune disease, infectious disease and endocrinology, and is continuously building its pipeline of innovative products.

About R-Biopharm AG

R-Biopharm possesses many years of sound experience in the Clinical diagnostics market, particularly in the field of infectious stool diagnostics as well as in the field of serological infection diagnostics and allergy diagnostics. In 2006 the clinical product portfolio was extended by innovative test systems in the tumor diagnostics and gastroenterology product lines. R-Biopharm is a successful global player and is constantly developing new and groundbreaking test systems in different areas, Process automation being a main focus from the beginning. All distributed tests are validated and CE-marked.

R-Biopharm's distinctive policy of partnership and teamwork is an approach valued by its customers and research partners alike. The company's key objective is to be a dependable point of contact for customers, providing competent advice on every sector it serves.

At R-Biopharm the future is set to offer further exciting prospects in the fields of clinical diagnostics and food and feed analysis. The foremost challenge is to advance the development of new and versatile fast tests. These will shorten the time it takes to obtain results from a wide range of analytical procedures.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005239/en/

Contacts:

Gold Standard Diagnostics, Corp.

Jim Thompson, 530-759-8000

jthompson@gsdx.us
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Scotiabank (TSX: BNS) (NYSE: BNS) announced today that it has appointed Silicon Valley technology leader Shawn Rose to the newly created position of Executive Vice President, Digital Banking. In this role, Shawn will create and lead an integrated global, enterprise-wide digital banking team to accelerate the transformation of the Bank's global retail banking operation, and build upon the considerable momentum Scotiabank has generated in its digital transformation over the past 12 months.

"We have made tremendous progress on our digital strategy over a short period of time," said Brian Porter, Scotiabank's President and Chief Executive Officer. "We have become much more Agile, developed creative and effective approaches to building new partnerships, and encouraged our employees to bring new ideas to market more quickly. Shawn will help us capitalize on the momentum we have generated thus far in our digital transformation and build out a fully integrated global Digital Banking Team."

Shawn will report to Ignacio (Nacho) Deschamps, Group Head, International Banking and Digital Transformation, and will also work closely with James O'Sullivan, Group Head of Canadian Banking, as well as the Bank's Co-Heads of Information Technology, Michael Zerbs and Kyle McNamara.

"Shawn brings together the four key elements we were looking for in our lead digital banking executive as well as the passion to inspire our team," said Nacho Deschamps. "He has a global perspective gained over more than 20 years leading international teams, and a deep understanding of how to lead Agile work processes, and digital marketing and sales teams. In addition, his expertise in digital-first product development and in digital content creation will help us accelerate our digital transformation. I am looking forward to working closely with Shawn to execute on a digital strategy that is consistent across our global footprint and ensures all of our customers have access to an excellent digital banking experience."

Shawn will bring together a team that will partner with business units across Canada and in key international markets to build on the digital momentum already under way. The team will be responsible for driving the innovation agenda, building digital sales and marketing capabilities and improving customer experience and operational efficiency.

About Shawn Rose:

Shawn Rose has more than 20 years of experience in digital transformation and product management in globally complex and FinTech organizations. Much of this experience has been in Silicon Valley. Most recently, he served as a Group Chief Product Officer at Moneysupermarket.com, and previously as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Core Platforms at Pearson LLC, the largest education company and book publisher in the world. He also held senior roles at Ustream, FOX Broadcasting and CBS Interactive.

About Scotiabank:

Scotiabank is Canada's international bank and a leading financial services provider in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America, and Asia-Pacific. We are dedicated to helping our 23 million customers become better off through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of more than 89,000 employees and assets of $895 billion (as at April 30, 2016), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (TSX: BNS) and New York Exchanges (NYSE: BNS). Scotiabank distributes the Bank's media releases using Marketwired. For more information, please visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @ScotiabankViews.

For media enquiries only:



Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern

Public, Corporate and Government Affairs

Scotiabank

(416) 933-1344

Marcelo.gomez-wiuckstern@scotiabank.com
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- The Government of Canada recognizes the role of science in a thriving, clean economy and in providing the evidence necessary to make sound policy decisions-decisions that can shape the future of our environment, climate, health and society. That's why the government continues to make significant investments in fundamental science.

The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board and Member of Parliament for Kings-Hants, on behalf of the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, today announced funding for discovery research in the natural sciences and engineering at universities across Nova Scotia.

Minister Brison announced a total of $10,103,511 for Dalhousie University. The total for universities in the province of Nova Scotia, including Dalhousie, is $12,255,861.

The announcement follows Minister Duncan's national announcement of $465 million for more than 4,000 awards that are the result of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's (NSERC) 2016 competition for the discovery research programs. The programs, which include funds for scholarships, fellowships, research supplements and equipment grants, support researchers and students who are furthering our understanding of the world and how it works.

Today's announcement, made at Dalhousie University, featured the work of Dr. Chris Algar, who studies environmental factors that affect the cycle of nitrogen in coastal waters and sediments. In addition to this cycle, Dr. Algar also examines the relationship between nitrogen and marine plants to better understand the sensitivity of Nova Scotia's coastal environment.

Quotes

"The NSERC Discovery Grants Program is an integral component of the government's efforts to develop, attract and retain the world's most talented researchers. The Government of Canada's investment in Nova Scotia researchers contributes to the world-class research performed at the universities in this province."

- The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, Member of Parliament for Kings-Hants

"Today's investment will allow many of Canada's scientists and engineers to explore the frontiers of knowledge where they can make exciting new discoveries. Our government is committed to investing in these future research leaders and in the cutting-edge ideas that will lead Canada to social and economic growth for a better tomorrow."

- The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science

"We are so very pleased to have Minister Brison here today to announce this year's Discovery Grant recipients. Research is what drives change and growth and what helps us find answers to fundamental questions about the world and ourselves."

- Dr. Richard Florizone, President, Dalhousie University

"Discoveries build the necessary foundation for an innovative, prosperous and sustainable society. A diversified and high-quality research base requires us to provide equality of opportunity across gender and culture. Bringing together multiple points of view strengthens our science, technology and innovation ecosystem and extends its many benefits more equally."

- Dr. B. Mario Pinto, President, NSERC

Quick facts

- NSERC investments in discovery are backed by a highly functional quality control process. Panels of world-leading researchers review and evaluate research proposals submitted by their peers.

- The $341 million support for NSERC's flagship Discovery Grants Program will foster research excellence in the full range of science and engineering disciplines. These grants, which are subject to rigorous quality assurance, support ongoing programs of research with long-term goals and build the foundation for innovation.

- The more than $82 million in Scholarships and Fellowships will launch a new generation of scientists and engineers, with support at levels of study from graduate to post-doctoral.

- Researchers will share an additional $26 million in Research Tools and Instruments Grants to purchase new research equipment needed for world-leading discovery, innovation and training.

- In addition, NSERC is providing $15 million for resources to selected researchers to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of their promising research proposals through the Discovery Accelerator Supplements Program.

- At small universities, 43 researchers will receive Discovery Development Grants, totaling $860,000, to support their research.

Associated links

List of Recipients

Where NSERC Invests and Why

A Vision of NSERC in 2020

Follow Minister Duncan on social media:

Twitter: @ScienceMin

Instagram: sciencemin

Follow NSERC on social media:

Twitter: @nserc_crsng

About NSERC

NSERC invests over $1 billion each year in natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. Our investments deliver discoveries-valuable world-firsts in knowledge claimed by a brain trust of over 11,000 professors. Our investments enable partnerships and collaborations that connect industry with discoveries and the people behind them. Researcher-industry partnerships established by NSERC help inform R&D, solve scale-up challenges, and reduce the risks of developing high-potential technology.

NSERC also provides scholarships and hands-on training experience for more than 30,000 post-secondary students and post-doctoral fellows. These young researchers will be the next generation of science and engineering leaders in Canada.

Contacts:

Veronique Perron

Press Secretary, Minister of Science

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

343-291-2600

veronique.perron@canada.ca



Martin Leroux

Media and Public Affairs Officer

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

613-943-7618

media@nserc-crsng.gc.ca




NEW YORK, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Growing Health Concerns Among Consumers Coupled With Rising Discretionary Spending to Steer Growth in Global Residential Water Purifiers Market

According to TechSci Research report, "Global Residential Water Purifiers Market By Technology, By Sales Channel, By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021", the global market for residential water purifiers is forecast to grow at a CAGR over 15% during 2016-2021, on account of deteriorating water quality and increasing awareness regarding health risks posed by presence of dissolved solids in drinking water. Growing urban population coupled with rising purchasing power of consumers across the globe is expected to augment demand for water purifiers from the residential sector through 2021. Additionally, increasing penetration of water purifiers in the emerging economies in Asia-Pacific over the next five years is also expected to be a major contributor to the robust growth in demand for residential water purifiers in the coming years. Furthermore, continuing increase in adoption of advanced purification technologies is forecast to steer growth in the global residential water purifiers market through 2021.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 )



Browse 49 market data Tables and 189 Figures spread through300 Pages and an in-depth TOC on

"Global Residential Water Purifiers Market"

http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/water-purifier-market-by-technology-uv-media-and-membrane-by-function-point-of-entry-and-point-of-use-by-sales-channel-retail-direct-online-etc-by-region-competition-global-forecast-and-opportunities-2011-2021/704.html

In 2015, membrane based residential water purifiers garnered the largest share in global water residential purifiers market due to the ability of these purification systems to lower the amount of total dissolved solids in drinking water. Increasing consumer adoption due to high product efficiency, integration of advanced technologies and comparatively higher per unit prices results in higher revenue generation from this product segment. Over the last five years, sales of combination systems that utilize more than one purification technology, has exhibited strong growth across the globe. Global residential water purifiers market is highly fragmented and few of the major players operating in the market include Midea Water Appliances, Coway, HUL, Eureka Forbes and Kent RO Systems.

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"Globally, around 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and about 2 million deaths per year are caused due to consumption of contaminated water. Hence, increasing awareness regarding waterborne diseases and associated heath issues among consumers is expected to increase sales of residential water purifiers during the forecast period. Residents are educated about harmful effects of polluted water bodies, from where water is supplied to households by municipalities. Rising internet penetration and increasing disposable income levels has not only increased awareness about the benefits of these water purification systems, but is also driving adoption of these water purification technologies over the course of next five years.", said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.

"Global Residential Water Purifiers Market By Technology, By Sales Channel, By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of global water purifiers market and provides statistics and information on market structure, consumer behaviour and trends. The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities in the global residential water purifiers market.

Browse Related Reports

Global Media Based Water Filters Market Forecast & Opportunities 2020

http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-media-based-water-filters-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2020/551.html

China Water Purifiers Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020

http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/china-water-purifiers-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2020/529.html

India Water Purifiers Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020

http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/india-water-purifiers-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2020/558.html

About TechSci Research

TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends.

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MOSCOW, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

PJSC MTS (NYSE: MBT, MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications operator in Russia, announces the decisions reached at the Company's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (the "AGM") held on June 23, 2016.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121115/AQ14468LOGO )



At the meeting, the following resolutions were adopted:

To approve final annual dividends of RUB 14.01 per ordinary MTS share ( RUB 28.02 per ADR), or in total RUB 27,997,423,739.61 based on the full-year 2015 financial results. The record date for the Company's shareholders and ADR-holders entitled to receive dividends for the full year 2015 has been set for July 05, 2016 . The dividend payment will be completed before August 9, 2016 ;

per ordinary MTS share ( per ADR), or in total based on the full-year 2015 financial results. The record date for the Company's shareholders and ADR-holders entitled to receive dividends for the full year 2015 has been set for . The dividend payment will be completed before ; To approve the Company's Annual Report and Annual Financial Statements, including the Company's Profit & Loss Statement, as well as the distribution of profits and losses of MTS PJSC based on FY2015 results (including payment of dividends);

To elect the following persons to the MTS Board of Directors: Mr. Alexander Gorbunov , Vice President, responsible for Telecom Assets Development of Sistema JSFC, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited; Mr. Andrei Dubovskov , President and Chairman of the Management Board at MTS; Mr. Ron Sommer , Chairman of the Supervisory Board at PrJSC "MTS Ukraine", Member of the Supervisory Board at Munich Reinsurance, Germany and Member of the Board of Directors at Tata Consultancy Services; Mr. Michel Combes , independent director; Mr. Stanley Miller , independent director; Mr. Vsevolod Rozanov , Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Member of the Management Board at Sistema JSFC; Ms. Regina von Flemming , independent director; Mr. Thomas Holtrop , independent director; Mr. Mikhail Shamolin , President, Chairman of the Management Board, Member of the Board of Directors at Sistema JSFC.

To elect members of the Company's Auditing Commission;

To approve CJSC Deloitte and Touche CIS as MTS' auditor;

To approve MTS Charter, MTS Regulation on the Annual General Shareholders Meeting, MTS Regulation on the Board of Directors as amended and restated;

To decrease MTS PJSC share capital by RUB 6.80 mln to RUB 199.84 mln (which will be represented by 1,998,381,575 ordinary shares with the nominal value of RUB 0.1 ) by cancelling: 67,995,335 ordinary MTS PJSC shares, acquired by MTS PJSC as part of the liquidation of Mobile Telesystems Bermuda Limited; 36,652 ordinary MTS PJSC shares, bought back by MTS PJSC from its shareholders on their demand in accordance with the Russian law and the Charter of MTS PJSC.

(which will be represented by 1,998,381,575 ordinary shares with the nominal value of ) by cancelling:

At a subsequent meeting of the Board of Directors, Mr. Ron Sommer was reappointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Mr. Alexander Gorbunov with Mr. Vsevolod Rozanov were elected as the Deputy Chairmen of the Board. Also the Board of Directors approved the exchange-traded bond program in the amount of up to RUB 100 bln or its equivalent in foreign currency.

About Mobile TeleSystems (MTS):

Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" - NYSE:MBT; MOEX:MTSS) is the leading telecommunications group in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. We provide wireless Internet access and fixed voice, broadband and pay-TV to over 100 million customers who value high quality of service at a competitive price. Our wireless and fixed-line networks deliver best-in-class speeds and coverage throughout Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. To keep pace with evolving customer demand, we continue to grow through innovative products, investments in our market-leading retail platform, mobile payment services, e-commerce and IT solutions. For more information, please visit: http://www.mtsgsm.com

Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations Department at http://www.mtsgsm.com/blog/



For further information, please contact in Moscow:

Joshua B. Tulgan

Director, Department of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations

Mobile TeleSystems PJSC

Tel: +7 495 223 2025

E-mail: ir@mts.ru





Any investor who wishes to deposit Shares in return for ADSs should not consider any information in this announcement or the amendmetns to the Deposit Agreement to be investment, legal or tax advice. An investor should consult its own legal counsel, financial adviser, accountant and other advisors for legal, tax, business, financial and related advice regarding submitting an indication of interest for and receiving any ADSs. Neither MTS nor the Depositary makes any representation to any investor who receives the ADSs regarding the legality of the receipt of the ADSs by such investor under any securities, investment or similar laws which may be applicable to such investor.



Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies, our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating acquired businesses, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change, acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/12/16 -- Ivanhoe Mines' (TSX: IVN) Executive Chairman Robert Friedland and Chief Executive Officer Lars-Eric Johansson announced today that Standard and Poor's (S&P) has added Ivanhoe Mines to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, effective after the close of trading on September 16, 2016.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index includes the largest companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as measured by market capitalization and liquidity. It is widely considered to be the leading indicator of broad market activity in Canadian equity markets.

"Ivanhoe's addition to the S&P/TSX Composite Index represents a significant milestone for our company and reflects the tremendous efforts and successes of our entire team," said Mr. Friedland.

"We have made substantial progress in advancing our three mine development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa toward production. Ivanhoe's inclusion in the headline index in Canada will increase our exposure to a broader range of potential investors and should provide enhanced trading liquidity for our shareholders."

About Ivanhoe Mines

Ivanhoe Mines is advancing its three principal projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: Mine development at the Platreef platinum-palladium-gold-nickel-copper discovery on the Northern Limb of South Africa's Bushveld Complex; mine development and exploration at the Kamoa Copper Project - which includes the remarkable Kakula high-grade copper discovery - on the Central African Copperbelt in the DRC; and upgrading and exploration at the historic, high-grade Kipushi zinc-copper-lead-germanium mine, also on the DRC's Copperbelt. For details, visit www.ivanhoemines.com.

Cautionary statement on forward-looking information

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, the timing and results of increasing Ivanhoe's exposure to a broader range of potential investors and providing enhanced trading liquidity for Ivanhoe's shareholders. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the company's current expectations regarding future events, performance and results and speak only as of the date of this release.

All such forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by Ivanhoe Mines' management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believe are appropriate in the circumstances. These statements, however, are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information or statements including, but not limited to, changes in the strategic process of the board; unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; unexpected failure or inadequacy of infrastructure, or delays in the development of infrastructure, and the failure of exploration programs or other studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued studies, development or operations. Other important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements also include those described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the company's most recently filed MD&A as well as in the most recent Annual Information Form filed by Ivanhoe Mines. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. The factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information and statements, and the risks that could cause the actual results to differ materially are set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's most recent Management's Discussion and Analysis report and Annual Information Form, available at www.sedar.com.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

Contacts:

Investors:

Bill Trenaman

+1.604.331.9834



Media:

North America:

Bob Williamson

+1.604.512.4856



South Africa:

Jeremy Michaels

+27.82.939.4812




SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - The 20 th Annual Meritus Scholarship Awards Presentation was held at the KQED offices on Wednesday, June 1. Zephyr Real Estate, a long-time supporter, donor and sponsor of the College Fund, presented a four-year scholarship to Eliza Xie. The scholarship is valued at $16,000, and 100 percent goes directly to the recipient.

Xie attended Galileo High School in San Francisco, and will attend Mills College in Oakland this fall. In her application for the scholarship, Xie wrote: "I am on a search for meaning and my life is my journey for knowledge."

Meritus College Fund, founded in 1996, invests in socio-economically disadvantaged, yet highly motivated, high school students by providing scholarships and support in achieving their potential through higher education. Meritus believes that higher education is a critical step in addressing income disparity for motivated and talented youth. To date, Meritus has awarded in excess of $9.4 million, and sent 750 students on to higher education. More than 80% of the scholarship recipients are the first in their family to go to college, and Meritus students have a 90 percent graduation rate.

The fund is supported through donations from 800 groups and individuals who all endorse the philosophy of creating educational opportunities for those who might otherwise be left behind. To learn more about how you can participate or apply, visit the website at www.meritus.org.

"Today, we celebrate another group of scholars making their way through life," commented Randall Kostick, President of Zephyr. "Congratulations to this year's scholarship recipients on their commitment to stretch beyond our perceived limitations."

Zephyr managers and agents contribute to the fund each year to take part in this worthwhile endeavor. Every dollar donated to Meritus is completely committed to providing these scholarships.

About Zephyr Real Estate

Founded in 1978, Zephyr Real Estate is San Francisco's largest independent real estate firm with nearly $2.3 billion in gross sales and a current roster of more than 300 full-time agents. Zephyr's highly-visited website has earned two web design awards, including the prestigious Interactive Media Award. Zephyr Real Estate is a member of the international relocation network, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World; the luxury real estate network, Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate; global luxury affiliate, Mayfair International; and local luxury marketing association, the Luxury Marketing Council of San Francisco. Zephyr has six offices in San Francisco, a brand new office in Greenbrae, and two brokerage affiliates in Sonoma County, all strategically positioned to serve a large customer base throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ZephyrRE.com.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/22/11G104015/Images/Kostick-Drypolcher-Mejia-Cunningham-Knox-66cf161fdca7b029a5dd3e4de7b65539.jpg

Contact:

Melody Foster

Zephyr Real Estate

San Francisco, CA

415.426.3203

Email contact


TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Carpathian Gold Inc. (CSE: CPN) (the "Corporation" or "Carpathian") is pleased to provide a corporate update following the recently announced private placement, management re-organization, and the divestment of its Riacho dos Machados project in Brazil.

Recent Transactions

On April 29, 2016, Carpathian closed the divestment of the Riacho dos Machados project in Brazil to Yamana Gold. This transaction included the US$1.0 million private placement from Yamana and the subsequent elimination of all outstanding debt instruments in Carpathian owed to Macquarie Bank relating to the Riacho dos Machados project.

On May 19th, 2016 Carpathian closed a Private Placement with Forbes & Manhattan, Sulliden Mining Capital and Black Iron, for CDN$10 million at a price of $0.07, a 250% premium to the share price at that time. Carpathian also announced significant changes to its board of directors and management team, with the resignation of two directors the appointment of Mr. G. Scott Moore, MBA, as President and CEO and Mr. Paul Bozoki, MBA, as CFO, as well as the appointed of Stan Bharti, P.Eng., Peter Tagliamonte, P.Eng., and Matthew Simpson, P.Eng. to the board of directors.

Engineering Team Strengthened

In preparation for the construction and permitting phase proposed in the mining licence, Carpathian has strengthened its technical team with the addition of Mr. Joseph Milbourne and Mr. Les Kwasik.

Joseph Milbourne, FAUSIMM, has been appointed Technical Services Manager, effective immediately, and will be the lead project engineer for Carpathian as it transitions from the exploration phase to mine permitting and construction. Mr. Milbourne is a metallurgist with over 40 years of experience in the development, design, construction and management of mineral processing projects in North America, South America and overseas. Mr. Milbourne is the former Vice-President of Technical Services and Operations for Sulliden Gold Corp., which was acquired by Rio Alto in 2014. Prior to that, he was Technical Director AMEC Mining and Metals where he oversaw process engineering and has international experience with BHP, Eldorado and Cominco. He has a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and a M.S. in Metallurgy from the University of Utah. Mr. Milbourne is a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a registered member of SME.

Les Kwasik P.Eng, has been appointed Country Manager, Technical, effective immediately. Mr. Kwasik will be based in Romania and will work closely with Mr. Milbourne to manage all local engineering consultants with full assistance to our Country Manager, Permitting, Mr. Sacha Nicolici as we move into the development phase at Rovina. Mr. Kwasik previously worked with INCO Limited Canada (VALE Canada Limited), Xstrata Colombia, BE&K Group, Inter Invest Sp Company, NESMA Company Saudi Arabia, Maple Minerals Corporation Canada and Archipelago Resources Singapore. His tenures have included international postings in Russia, Poland, Indonesia, Colombia and Eritrea in leadership roles ranging from General Manager to COO. Mr. Kwasik is an industrial engineer and a graduate of the Opole University of Technology in Poland. He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering.

Peter Tagliamonte, P.Eng., Director of Carpathian, commented, "We are fortunate to have Joe and Les lead our engineering team in Romania. With over 70 years of cumulative mining engineering experience building and operating mines globally, we are well positioned to deliver a robust and socially responsible mining project for Carpathian shareholders and the people of Romania."

Recent Project Visit

The new senior management and directors of Carpathian have recently returned from a site visit to the Rovina Valley Project in Romania. The team was not only impressed with the infrastructure and ease of access to the deposits, but also with the openness and support from the local communities. Throughout the years of exploration work and discovery of the three mineral deposits on the property, the local Carpathian team has done an excellent job in engaging the local communities of Brad, Criscior and Bucuresci in a socially sustainable and respectful manner. Management is confident that local support for mining and the Rovina Project will remain strong.

Permitting Update

In May 2015, a mining license was issued to Carpathian by the National Agency for Mineral Resources (NAMR). By law, the license will need to be ratified by four ministries, namely the Ministry of Economy, Environment, Public Finance and Justice, and published in the government Gazette. Carpathian management is working diligently to have NAMR initiate the ratification process and allow the Company to initiate the full permitting process at Rovina.

About Carpathian

Carpathian Gold Inc. is a mining company focused on the development of its 100% owned Rovina Valley gold and copper project located in west-central Romania. Rovina is the second largest gold deposit in Europe.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements and certain information contained in this press release and any documents incorporated by reference may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation which may include, but is not limited to, information with respect to the Corporation's expected production from, and further potential of, the Corporation's properties; the Corporation's ability to raise additional funds; the future price of minerals, particularly gold and copper; the estimation of mineral reserves and mineral resources; conclusions of economic evaluation; the realization of mineral reserve estimates; the timing and amount of estimated future production; costs of production; capital expenditures; success of exploration activities; mining or processing issues; currency exchange rates; government regulation of mining operations; and environmental risks. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements/information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements/information is based on management's expectations and reasonable assumptions at the time such statements are made. Estimates regarding the anticipated timing, amount and cost of exploration and development activities are based on assumptions underlying mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates and the realization of such estimates are set out herein. Capital and operating cost estimates are based on extensive research of the Corporation, purchase orders placed by the Corporation to date, recent estimates of construction and mining costs and other factors that are set out herein.

Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Carpathian and/or its subsidiaries to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include: uncertainties of mineral resource estimates; the nature of mineral exploration and mining; variations in ore grade and recovery rates; cost of operations; fluctuations in the sale prices of products; volatility of gold and copper prices; exploration and development risks; liquidity concerns and future financings; risks associated with operations in foreign jurisdictions; potential revocation or change in permit requirements and project approvals; competition; no guarantee of titles to explore and operate; environmental liabilities and regulatory requirements; dependence on key individuals; conflicts of interests; insurance; fluctuation in market value of Carpathian's shares; rising production costs; equipment material and skilled technical workers; volatile current global financial conditions; and currency fluctuations; and other risks pertaining to the mining industry. Although Carpathian has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward-looking information contained herein or incorporated by reference are made as of the date of this presentation or as of the date of the documents incorporated by reference, as the case may be, and Carpathian does not undertake to update any such forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained or incorporated by reference in this document is presented for the purpose of assisting shareholders in understanding the financial position, strategic priorities and objectives of the Corporation for the periods referenced and such information may not be appropriate for other purposes.

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Contacts:

Carpathian Gold Inc.

G. Scott Moore

Chief Executive Officer

+1-416-861-5903

info@carpathiangold.com

www.carpathiangold.com




According to the latest market research report by Technavio, the global semiconductor capital equipment marketis expected to reach USD 47.34 billion mark by 2020.

In this report, Technavio covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global semiconductor capital equipment market education market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from each equipment of the semiconductor production process.

The electrification and automation of automobiles have led to the increasing need for semiconductor wafers. Different types of semiconductor ICs are used in a number of automotive products like navigation control, infotainment systems and collision detection systems. There is also a growing demand for hybrid and electric vehicles (HEVs) with increased environmental awareness and emissions legislations. The demand for driverless and smart cars will generate demand for advanced sensors over the next four years.

"With advances like the emergence of 3D and ultra-high definition (UHD) TVs and hybrid laptops in the consumer electronics sector, the demand for semiconductor ICs will further increase during the forecast period. This rise in demand for semiconductor ICs will, in turn, generate demand for semiconductor devices," said Asif Gani, one of Technavio's lead industry analysts for semiconductor equipment

"Technavio researchers expect the semiconductor market to grow at a CAGR of 6.42% during the forecast period. The increase in sales of microelectronics and consumer electronic devices is anticipated to support the growth of the semiconductor market," added Asif.

Global semiconductor capital equipment market by geography 2015-2020 (% share)

APAC 40.05%

40.05% North America 35.2%

35.2% Europe 7.21%

7.21% ROW 2.50%

Request sample report: http://bit.ly/1UrLazk

APAC

In 2015, APAC accounted for USD 27.86 billion of the total revenue. A number of semiconductor foundries such as TSMC, Samsung, and SMIC are present in APAC. These foundries are driving the semiconductor capital equipment market in this region.

Taiwan is one of the key countries in the region that is creating maximum demand for semiconductor equipment. In 2015, fab equipment spending in Taiwan was above USD 10 billion, which was above 25% of the total industry spending on wafer fab equipment. South Korea and Japan are the other key contributors to the market because of the presence of different semiconductor manufacturing units.

North America

North America was the second-largest revenue contributor to the market in 2015 and generated USD 7.23 billion revenue for the same year. The increase in the automotive market of the US and the shipments of communication devices, such as smartphones and phablets, have been driving the production of semiconductor ICs in the region. The presence of few prominent semiconductor manufacturers like GlobalFoundries and Intel that fabricate wafers of sizes 200 nm and 300 nm have been creating demand for semiconductor capital equipment in the region. GlobalFoundries is planning to expand Fab 8.2 during the forecast period. We expect Intel to expand its facilities post 2016, creating demand in the region.

Europe

In 2015, the Europe market accounted for USD 2.8 billion revenues. Europe will grow at a relatively low rate compared to other regions because of less number of semiconductor foundries and IC manufacturers in this region. Some of the semiconductor manufacturing companies in this region are Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductors, and STMicroelectronics, which are contributing to the revenue from this region.

Browse related reports:

Semiconductor Foundry Service Market in Taiwan 2015-2019

Global Semiconductor Equipment Dielectric Etching Market 2016-2020

Semiconductor Market in Japan 2015-2019

Global Semiconductor Silicon Wafer Market 2015-2019

Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623005019/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com

media@technavio.com
PUNE, India, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The global military UAV market will be driven by internal and external security threats, territorial disputes, and modernization initiatives undertaken by armed forces across the world. Significant UAV customers include countries in the North American and Asia Pacific region, and the global UAV market will be dominated by the US throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacific's share of the global UAV market is also projected to increase, largely due to a number of international territorial conflicts and insurgency issues.

Complete report military UAV market spread across 165 pages, analysing 18 companies is now available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/602020-the-global-military-uav-market-2016-2026.html . (Report will be available from 26th June 2016).

Key Findings: The global military UAV market values US$8.5 billion in 2016, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.89%, to value US$13.7 billion by 2026. North America is projected to dominate the market with a share of 32% over the forecast period, followed Europe at 31%, and Asia Pacific at 30%.The Middle Eastern market for UAVs is expected to account for a share of 4%, followed by the Latin American and African markets with a cumulative share of 2%, HALE UAVs and UCAVs are expected to account for 34% and 29% of the global military UAV market respectively, followed by MALE UAVs, TUAVs, VTOL-UAVs, and MUAVs, with respective shares of 19%, 9%, 6% and 3%.

The Global Military UAV Market 2016-2026 report offers a detailed analysis of the industry, with market size forecasts covering the next ten years and

Market size and drivers: detailed analysis during 2016-2026, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators. It also provides a snapshot of the spending and modernization patterns of different regions around the world.

Recent developments and industry challenges: insights into technological developments and a detailed analysis of the changing preferences of military UAV segments around the world. It also provides trends of the changing industry structure and the challenges faced by industry participants.

Regional highlights: study of the key markets in each region, providing an analysis of the key segments of the market that are expected to be in demand.

This military UAV market research, available starting June 26, 2016 can be ordered online at http://www.reportsnreports.com/purchase.aspx?name=602020 .

Major programs: details of the key programs in each segment, which are expected to be executed during 2016-2026.

Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the global market. It provides an overview of key players, together with information regarding key alliances, strategic initiatives, and financial analysis.

Major Points from Table of Contents for The Global Military UAV Market 2016-2026 Report include

Executive Summary

Global Military UAV Market -Overview

Market Dynamics that includes Demand Drivers, Trends, Technological Developments and Key Challenges

Military UAV Market -Segment Analysis that includes Market size and CAGR growth analysis, 2016-2026; Change in market share, 2016-2026 for HALE UAV, UCAV, MALE UAV, TUAV, TUAV and MUAV

Regional Review includes Defence capital expenditure; Capex forecast, 2016-2026; Factors influencing military modernization programs

Military UAV Market -Regional Analysis includes Regional overview; Factors driving spending within the region; Regional expenditure on each sub-segment , 2016-2026; Market Size and CAGR growth analysis, 2016-2026; Change in market share, 2016-2026

Trend Analysis - Key Defence Markets

Key Programs Analysis

Competitive Landscape Analysis of 18 leading companies in military UAV market.

Explore other new reports on Public Sector at http://www.reportsnreports.com/market-research/government/.

On a related note, Global VTOL UAV Market 2016-2020 report forecasts a 10.83% CAGR for VTOL UAV industry to 2021 while discussing key vendors like AeroVironment, Israel Aerospace Industries, Lockheed Martin, SAAB and Northrop Grumman. Read more at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/533923-global-vtol-uav-market-2016-2020.html .

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ReportsnReports.com is an online market research reports library of 500,000+ in-depth studies of over 5000 micro markets. Not limited to any one industry, ReportsnReports.com offers research studies on agriculture, energy and power, chemicals, environment, medical devices, healthcare, food and beverages, water, advanced materials and much more.

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Industry-veteran Stella David rejoins family-owned Bacardi

Facundo L. Bacardi, chairman of the board of directors of Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, announces a new director has been elected to serve on the Company's 16-member board.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006025/en/

Family-owned Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, elects drinks industry-veteran Stella David to its board of directors. (Photo: Business Wire)

The newly elected director is Stella J. David. She was elected to the Board at the Company's Annual General Meeting on June 23, 2016, in Hamilton, Bermuda.

"Stella brings further expertise in the management and marketing of global spirits brands to the Bacardi board. We are thrilled to have her back with us as her nearly 25 years of spirits industry experience with both Bacardi and William Grant will serve us well as we continue to grow and innovate," said Facundo L. Bacardi, great-great grandson of the Company's founder and a fifth generation Bacardi family member. "This appointment continues to reflect the Company's strong commitment to corporate governance within the spirits industry."

Ms. David,53, was the chief executive officer of William Grant Sons from 2009 until February 2016, with responsibility for the growth of the business, with a focus on building brands, global expansion into new markets, as well as acquisitions and innovations. Under her leadership, Ms. David oversaw the acquisition of Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey and Drambuie liqueur.

From 1994 to 2009, Ms. David worked for Bacardi. During her 15-year tenure with Bacardi, she held a variety of key positions, including chief executive officer of the United Kingdom, Irish, Dutch and African business; vice president Global Operations; managing director Asia Pacific; and global chief marketing officer. Under Ms. David's leadership, the Bacardi company in the UK finished in the top 10 of The Sunday Times "100 Best Companies to Work For" five years in a row, earning her a life-time achievement award.

Previously, Ms. David served as the United Kingdom marketing controller at Golden Wonder/Homepride Foods and before that began her marketing career with Thorn EMI. She served for seven years on the Board of Nationwide Building Society, and is currently an independent director of C&J Clark Ltd. and HomeServe plc. Additionally, she served as chairwoman of the Remuneration Committee for Nationwide Building Society for five years and currently holds that position with HomeServe plc. Ms. David holds an engineering degree from Cambridge University and resides near London, England.

Elected in 2012, Georgia Garinois-Melenikiotou, executive vice president of Corporate Marketing at Estee Lauder Companies, Inc., is retiring from the Board after a distinguished period of service to the Company and its shareholders. "We are thankful to have had Georgia serve on our Board, and are grateful for her many contributions and the positive impact she has made on the Company," added Mr. Bacardi.

About Bacardi Limited

Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, produces and markets internationally recognized spirits and wines. The company boasts a portfolio of some of the most iconic and top-selling spirits brands including BACARDI rum, GREY GOOSE vodka, DEWAR'S blended Scotch whisky, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin, CAZADORES 100% blue agave tequila, MARTINI vermouth and sparkling wines, and other leading and emerging brands.

Founded 154 years ago in Santiago de Cuba on February 4, 1862, family-owned Bacardi manufactures its brands 29 facilities and sells in more than 160 countries. Based in Hamilton, Bermuda, Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited. www.BacardiLimited.com

2016 BACARDI, BACARDI, THE BAT DEVICE OTHER MARKS ARE TRADEMARKS OF BACARDI COMPANY LIMITED OR OF OTHER SUBSIDIARIES OF BACARDI LIMITED

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006025/en/

Contacts:

Bacardi Limited

Jim Gallagher, +1 441-298-1053

jgallagher@bacardi.com

or

Amy Federman, +1 441-294-1110

afederman@bacardi.com
MILL VALLEY, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- With more than 50 percent of monthly visits coming from job seekers on mobile devices(1), Glassdoor, the world's most transparent jobs and recruiting marketplace, has unveiled several new features for its popular Glassdoor Job Search mobile apps for iPad and iPhone. The new features, allowing job seekers to upload their resumes easier, preview jobs and salaries via 3D Touch, compare salaries and company information side by side on one screen and more, are designed to make the job search and job application process easier and faster from anywhere. The updated apps are now live in the iOS App Store.

"With the ease and access of mobile devices and tablets, job seekers are searching and applying to jobs from anywhere at any time. Glassdoor delivers a rapid and highly responsive job search experience that combines the latest job openings with first-hand insights into pay, company culture, benefits, interviews and more," said Rob Sturtz, Glassdoor's head of mobile product management. "Providing a great mobile experience is one of our top priorities as it supports Glassdoor's efforts to create a far less nerve-racking and time consuming job search process. We want to help people find a job and company they love and to do that, we are working hard to remove some of the frustrations and challenges that job seekers experience elsewhere."

Glassdoor's updated apps for iPad and iPhone are optimized to support several features that are exclusively available to iOS users. In addition to being able to search, save and apply to millions of jobs, customize alerts, and research more than 12 million salary reports, company ratings and reviews, interview reviews and questions, benefits reviews and office photos for 540,000 companies, new features job seekers can now take advantage of include:

Easier Resume Upload: Integrated with the iOS Document Picker, job seekers can now upload their resume into Glassdoor from a multitude of third-party apps, including resumes stored on iCloud Drive. With a variety of online storage options to choose from, job seekers will be able to instantly upload their resume into Glassdoor, allowing them to apply to jobs faster. (iPad and iPhone)





3D Touch to Preview Jobs, Salaries and More: Using 3D Touch, job seekers on iPhone can now preview key information on jobs, salaries and companies to determine if they want to see further detail. For example, a job seeker can use 3D Touch to view a specific salary report and will instantly see the job's base pay and total compensation in a preview mode. The job seeker can then decide to view additional pay details by pressing deeply on that specific job, such as cash bonus, stock bonus, profit sharing, commission and tips, or move on to another salary report. (iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus)





Split Screen Experience to Research Workplace Insights From Employees: Job seekers using an iPad can already view the latest job openings on the left side of their screen, while viewing corresponding job descriptions on the right side in one experience, but now, they'll enjoy the same seamless experience when they search and compare salary reports, company ratings and reviews and interview reviews. For example, a software engineer candidate in San Francisco, CA will now see several local companies on the left side of the screen, with detailed pay information for that specific job and location for each company on the right side, allowing them to compare salaries on the spot on one screen. (iPad)





Multitask While Job Searching: Thanks to new multitasking features on iPad, job seekers can now be even more productive as they search for jobs and research salaries and companies. This means people can split their iPad screen to show Glassdoor on one side while performing another task, such as catching up on email, on the other side. (iPad)





Sharing Workplace Opinions: Glassdoor iPad users will now be able to share workplace reviews and ratings, salary reports and more to help others get a better sense of what it's really like to work at their company, what their earning potential could be, among other information job seekers want to know when deciding where to work. (iPad; already available on iPhone)





The Glassdoor Job Search mobile apps for iPad and iPhone currently enjoy a 4.5 rating out of 5.0 stars(2) in the App Store and are free to download.

Glassdoor continues to change how people search for jobs and companies recruit talent with localized websites and mobile apps in 11 markets beyond Glassdoor.com's worldwide reach: the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and India. These app updates are now live for all languages and markets.

APP IMAGES: Images/screenshots of Glassdoor's updated mobile apps for iPad and iPhone are available upon request. Please email: pr@glassdoor.com.

About Glassdoor

Glassdoor is the most transparent jobs and recruiting marketplace that is changing how people search for jobs and how companies recruit top talent. Glassdoor combines free and anonymous reviews, ratings and salary content with job listings to help job seekers find the best jobs and address critical questions that come up during the job search, application, interview and negotiation phases of employment. For employers, Glassdoor offers job posting, recruiting and employer branding solutions to help attract high-quality candidates at a fraction of the cost of other channels. In addition, Glassdoor operates one of the most popular job apps on iOS and Android platforms. Launched in 2008, Glassdoor has raised approximately $200 million from Google Capital, Tiger Global, Benchmark, Battery Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, DAG Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and others.

(c) 2016 Glassdoor, Inc. Glassdoor is a registered trademark of Glassdoor, Inc.

(1) Glassdoor Internal Data, April 2016

(2) Based on 157 reviews of the current Glassdoor Job Search mobile apps for iOS as of June 15, 2016

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CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Trustwave today announced a partnership with the Illinois Technology Association (ITA) to foster cybersecurity skills and job placements that can better help businesses better fight cybercrime, protect data and reduce risk.

As part of the partnership, Trustwave has become the only platinum sponsor of the ITA's 2016 Tech Challenge. In its 7th year, the ITA Tech Challenge is a programming and coding skills competition for students at targeted Midwest universities. The ITA has increased the number of participating universities from 15 to 21 in 2016. The ITA and the Tech Challenge program has met with more than 2,500 technology-focused students across the Midwest, and each year dozens of offers are extended to Tech Challenge participants for internships or entry-level positions at high-tech companies including Trustwave.

Phase one of the program starts in September with qualifying challenges held on 21 participating university campuses. Phase two involves the top 50 scorers which are invited to Chicago for a final challenge and interviews with Chicago-area technologies companies. Among those interviewing, Trustwave has more than 300 global job openings and more than 150 based in the Chicago area.

Trustwave Chief Executive Officer and President Robert J. McCullen said: "The shortage of skilled information security professionals is not only an issue we must address immediately in the workforce but also for the future in the world's classrooms. By teaming with the Illinois Technology Association, Trustwave hopes that students have an informative and engaging opportunity to explore the challenging world of cybersecurity, choose this exciting career path, and join in our cause to fight cybercrime, protect data and reduce risk."

Illinois Technology Association Director of Talent Programs Trisha Degg said: "As a key leader in the fight against cybercrime, Trustwave is in a unique position to help businesses protect their systems, networks and applications from threats. We're pleased to partner with such an innovative services and technology provider as part of our quest to bring high-tech skills to the Illinois and Chicago technology community. We thank Trustwave for its support and sponsorship, and look forward to bringing qualified candidates to Chicago's top cybersecurity employer."

Learn more about the ITA Tech Challenge: https://www.illinoistech.org/techchallenge.

Learn more about Trustwave careers: https://www.trustwave.com/Company/About-Us/Careers/.

About ITA

Illinois Technology Association (ITA) is focused on scaling Illinois tech companies. With innovative resources that allow members to collaborate with each other, build their talent networks, and elevate their local and national presence, ITA is growing the local tech community. Founded in 2005 and supporting 500-plus growth-stage tech companies, ITA has a rich history of driving the business forward. For more information, visit illinoistech.org, follow @ITAbuzz on Twitter or find us on LinkedIn.

About Trustwave

Trustwave helps businesses fight cybercrime, protect data and reduce security risk. With cloud and managed security services, integrated technologies and a team of security experts, ethical hackers and researchers, Trustwave enables businesses to transform the way they manage their information security and compliance programs. More than three million businesses are enrolled in the Trustwave TrustKeeper cloud platform, through which Trustwave delivers automated, efficient and cost-effective threat, vulnerability and compliance management. Trustwave is headquartered in Chicago, with customers in 96 countries. For more information about Trustwave, visit https://www.trustwave.com.

All trademarks used herein remain the property of their respective owners. Their use does not indicate or imply a relationship between Trustwave and the owners of such trademarks.

Cas Purdy

Trustwave

+1 312 470 8703

cpurdy@trustwave.com



Trisha Degg

Illinois Technology Association (ITA)

+1 312 924 1686

trisha@illinoistech.org
All University online IT masters programmes now accredited by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

LIVERPOOL, England, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT , has granted full accreditation to the University of Liverpool's online MSc in Web Sciences and Big Data programme. All of the online information technology masters programmes offered by the University are now accredited by BCS and meet its standards.

"Employers, recruiters and clients are actively searching for candidates with credentials that reflect integrity and dedication to the information technology industry. Our BCS-accredited online degrees offer our students a competitive edge, to become a Chartered IT Professional - a status widely recognised as proof of being one of the best in the business," said Professor Helen O'Sullivan, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Liverpool.

This accreditation is a mark of assurance that the University of Liverpool's online degrees meet the standards set by BCS and will allow students to fulfil the academic requirement to register as a Chartered IT Professional (CITP). Students can become student members of BCS at the start of their programme, then after successfully completing their online degree they can also qualify for professional membership (MBCS) and begin the process of attaining CITP status. Membership offers students and graduates access to a powerful network of industry professionals and career-development tools. These benefits, in combination with the skills and knowledge students acquire through their online degree, will help prepare them to lead in the IT field.



In addition to the newly accredited programme, the University of Liverpool also offers four other fully BCS-accredited online IT degree programmes: an MSc in Information Systems Management, MSc in Information Technology, MSc in Computer and Information Security and MSc in Software Engineering.

For more information about the University of Liverpool's online programmes, visit www.university-liverpool-online.com.

About the University of Liverpool Online Programmes

The University of Liverpool ranks in the top 1% of universities worldwide and is a member of the UK's Russell Group of research-led universities. More than 10,000 students from more than 160 countries are studying for postgraduate certificates, masters and doctoral degrees online with the University of Liverpool. These programmes are provided in partnership with online learning expert, Laureate Online Education. (For more information about Laureate, visit www.laureate.net.)
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Bearing Resources Ltd. (the "Company" or "Bearing") (TSX VENTURE: BRZ) is pleased to announce that it has renegotiated the terms of its previously announced transaction with Commander Resources Ltd. ("Commander"). In connection with the transaction, the parties have entered into a Purchase Agreement pursuant to which Commander has agreed to acquire all of the Company's mineral assets in Mexico and Canada with the exception of four 100% owned properties (HY-Jay, VBA, VM and Big), all in the Yukon" in exchange for 12 million common shares of Commander and a cash payment of $15,000.Completion of the transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of certain condition precedents, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The primary retained asset is the HY/Jay project located in Upper Hyland River area of eastern Yukon in a belt that hosts several high-grade gold vein occurrences, including the 3Ace property currently being explored by Golden Predator Mining Corp. The HY claim group was acquired from Freeport McMoRan Exploration ("Freeport") in 2011 who retains a 2-per-cent net smelter royalty ("NSR") payable to Freeport, which can be reduced to a 1-per-cent NSR through a one-time payment of $1 million and was subsequently expanded by the addition of the Jay claims by staking in 2011. Work to date by Freeport and Bearing has outlined three areas of anomalous gold in rock and soil, being the West and East zones and the Zig Zag zone. Selective grab samples have returned elevated gold values and include two samples with visible native gold. Grab samples are selective by nature and are unlikely to represent average grades of sampling on the entire property. Additional details can be found in Bearing news releases dated Nov. 24 and Dec. 12, 2011. The Company is anticipating a follow-up program of compilation followed by ground evaluation of all three zones.

The Company is also continuing to evaluate other opportunities.

The Company also announces that Damian Towns, its current Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") and Corporate Secretary, has resigned from the Company effective June 30th, 2016 to be able devote 100% of his time to Coro Mining Corp. The Company would like to thank Mr. Towns for his efforts and wishes him success in this future endeavors. The Company would also like to welcome Ms. Ann Fehr to the position of CFO and Corporate Secretary effective July 1, 2016. Ms. Fehr is a CPA, CGA with over 20 years' experience in senior management. She has worked as CFO for several reporting issuers over the last seven years.

Robert Cameron, P.Geo., who is a qualified person within the context of National Instrument 43-101- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has approved the scientific and technical information in this news release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Eduard Epshtein, Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to completion of the transaction with Commander and other available opportunities for the Company. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Specifically, there is no assurance that the conditions precedent necessary to complete the transaction with Commander, including the requirement for the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, will be satisfied. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Bearing disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Contacts:

Bearing Resources Ltd.

Robert Cameron

President and CEO

Telephone: 1-778-989-1501




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Alabama Graphite Corp. ("AGC" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:ALP)(OTCQX:ABGPF)(FRANKFURT:1AG) is very pleased to announce that it has manufactured and shipped two specifications of its coated spherical graphite ("CSPG") to a U.S.-based innovator in Lithium-ion ("Li-ion") batteries for numerous and varied military applications for the United States Department of Defense ("DoD"). AGC conveyed fine- and coarse-sized CSPG made from the Company's Coosa Graphite Project material - located in Coosa County, Alabama, USA - that will be tested in two different defense applications; namely, high-powered military engine starter batteries, and soldier portable power and other energy-dense applications. All requisite downstream secondary processing to manufacture our Coosa CSPG was conducted in the United States of America. For more information about AGC's secondary processing to produce its CSPG, please refer to the independent report, "Alabama Graphite's Coated Spherical Purified Graphite for the Lithium-ion Battery Industry," prepared by Gareth P. Hatch, PhD, CEng, FIMMM, FIET, and Founding Principal of Technology Metals Research, LLC.

After publication of AGC's announcement of January 19, 2016 ("Independent Test Results: Alabama Graphite Corp. Succeeds in Producing High-Performance Coated Spherical Graphite (CSPG) for Lithium-ion Batteries"), the unnamed battery manufacturer approached AGC to investigate the potential of a reliable supply of conveniently located, sourced-in and made-in-U.S.A. CSPG.

This battery company is known for its demonstrated expertise and ingenuity in Li-ion battery development for the DoD and several other industries. Having been awarded multiple DoD contracts in recent years, this company is also a United States Department of Energy ("DoE") battery supplier, in addition to specializing in critical stationary energy storage, renewable energy, and transportation battery markets, as well as other Li-ion battery applications and industries. The aforementioned company will remain unnamed for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

Donald K. D. Baxter, P.Eng., AGC's President, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director commented, "Our Company is honored and excited to have been presented with this opportunity to supply samples of our all-American CSPG to a respected battery manufacturer we sincerely hope will become AGC's long-term business partner."

The DoD, DoE and other U.S. Federal government departments and agencies encourage their contractors and suppliers to source their input materials from within the USA, whenever and wherever possible. Additionally, provisions of the Buy American Act (the "Act") and other legislation may afford AGC a potential competitive advantage when engaging with these entities. With certain exceptions, such legislation requires that all goods for public use - articles, materials, or supplies - must be produced in the USA, and manufactured items must be manufactured in the USA from U.S. materials. Many states and municipalities include similar geographic production requirements in their procurement legislation. Note, in certain government procurements, the Act's requirement purchase may be waived if the domestic product is 50% or more expensive than an identical foreign-sourced product, if the product is not available domestically in sufficient quantity or quality, or if doing so is in the public interest. However, it is important to be aware that any legislation may be subject to change over time. For example, potential changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the Act itself, could level the playing field for non-U.S. government/DoD procurements, and the Company and its business plan and prospects are always at risk of adverse changes in any applicable legislation. Given the foregoing, if, following the completion of a Feasibility Study (which has not yet been commenced), AGC is able to advance the Coosa Graphite Project into production, the resulting graphite would be sourced from within the contiguous United States and the Company may have a potential competitive advantage over other producers of value-added graphite materials sourced from other countries, regardless of whether said materials were processed and/or manufactured in the U.S.

Note: AGC completed its Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Coosa Graphite Project on November 27, 2015. A PEA is not a Feasibility Study. The PEA is preliminary in nature, that it includes Inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA based on these mineral resources will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

"AGC is particularly eager to address the needs of the United States government and defense sectors' battery solutions providers," Mr. Baxter added. "Pending a positive Feasibility Study, we are confident that AGC will be a viable domestic upstream supply option for these entities and look forward to working with this well-established end user to provide a high-quality product, ideally suited for their multi-faceted DoD needs."

AGC will continue to update shareholders and the market in a timely fashion of further material developments with respect to this and other potential American-based CSPG end users, as we are able to disclose. Please note, certain potential end users preclude the Company from announcing any aspect of its relationship and activities, ranging from the execution of a non-disclosure agreement ("NDA") to the shipment(s) of sample material.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

Alabama Graphite Corp.

President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director

Qualified Person

Donald K. D. Baxter, P.Eng., President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of AGC, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") guidelines, and has reviewed and approved the content of this news release.

About Alabama Graphite Corp.

Alabama Graphite Corp. is a Canadian-based flake graphite exploration and development company as well as an aspiring battery materials production and technology company. The Company operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, Alabama Graphite Company Inc. (a company registered in the state of Alabama). With an advancing flake graphite project in the United States of America, Alabama Graphite Corp intends to become a reliable, long-term U.S. supplier of specialty high-purity graphite products. A highly experienced team leads the Company with more than 100 years of combined graphite mining, graphite processing, specialty graphite products and applications, and graphite sales experience. Alabama Graphite Corp. is focused on the exploration and development of its flagship Coosa Graphite Project in Coosa County, Alabama, and its Bama Mine Project in Chilton County, Alabama as well the research and development of its proprietary manufacturing and technological processing process of battery materials.

Alabama Graphite Corp. holds a 100% interest in the mineral rights for these two U.S.-based graphite projects, which are both located on private land. The two projects encompass more than 43,000 acres and are located in a geopolitically stable, mining-friendly jurisdiction with significant historical production of crystalline flake graphite in the flake graphite belt of central Alabama, also known as the Alabama Graphite Belt (source: U.S. Bureau of Mines). A significant portion of the Alabama deposits are characterized by graphite-bearing material that is oxidized and has been weathered into extremely soft rock. Both projects have infrastructure in place, are within close proximity to major highways, rail, power and water, and are approximately three hours (by truck or train) to the Port of Mobile, the Alabama Port Authority's deep-seawater port and the ninth largest port by tonnage in the United States (source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/USACE). The state of Alabama's hospitable climate allows for year-round mining operations and the world's largest marble quarry (which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in Sylacauga, Alabama), is located within a 30-minute drive of the Coosa Graphite Project.

On November 30, 2015, Alabama Graphite Corp. announced the results of PEA for the Coosa Graphite Project, indicating a potentially low-cost project with potential positive economics. Please refer to the Company's technical report titled "Alabama Graphite Corp. Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the Coosa graphite Project, Alabama, USA" dated November 27, 2015, prepared by independent engineering firms AGP Mining Consultants Inc. and Metal Mining Consultants Inc., and filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Note: a preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature, it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.

(i)Inferred Mineral Resources represent material that is considered too speculative to be included in economic evaluations. Additional trenching and/or drilling will be required to convert Inferred Mineral Resources to Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no guarantee that all or any part of the Mineral Resource will be converted into a Mineral Reserve.

For further information and updates on the Company or to sign up for Alabama Graphite Corp. News, please visit www.alabamagraphite.com or follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities laws ("forward-looking statements"), which may include, without limitation, statements with respect to any potential relationships between the Company and any end users and/or the DoD. The forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of management and reflect Alabama Graphite Corp.'s current expectations. When used in this press release, the words "estimate," "project," "belief," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "plan," "predict," "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current view of Alabama Graphite Corp. with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among other things, the interpretation and actual results of current exploration activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of graphite; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. Forward-looking statements are also based on a number of assumptions, including that contracted parties provide goods and/or services on the agreed timeframes, that equipment necessary for exploration is available as scheduled and does not incur unforeseen breakdowns, that no labor shortages or delays are incurred, that plant and equipment function as specified, that no unusual geological or technical problems occur, and that laboratory and other related services are available and perform as contracted. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and Alabama Graphite Corp. undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements (unless required by law) if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. Alabama Graphite Corp. cautions that the foregoing list of material factors and assumptions are not exhaustive. When relying on Alabama Graphite Corp. forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and assumptions and other uncertainties and potential events.

Alabama Graphite Corp. has also assumed that the material factors and assumptions will not cause any forward-looking statements to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors and assumptions is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICE PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Website / LinkedIn / Facebook / Twitter

Contacts:

Alabama Graphite Corp.

Ms. Ann-Marie M. Pamplin, BA (Hons), BEd

Director of Investor Relations

+1 (416) 309-8641

apamplin@alabamagraphite.com

www.alabamagraphite.com



Alabama Graphite Corp.

First Canadian Place

100 King Street West

Suite 5700

Toronto, Ontario M5X 1C7

CANADA




IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- University of California, Irvine Extension, the continuing education unit of UC Irvine, has announced the appointment of Leigh Poirier as the program director of UCI+One. The new program is designed to prepare undergraduate alumni for life after graduation, which includes preparation for future career choices, guidance in applying for graduate schools and internships, getting started in areas of public service and how to pursue meaningful post-graduate travel. As program director, Poirier, along with her team will oversee the program's success to ensure UCI undergraduates continue to pursue long-lasting impacts beyond school.

"Having worked at UC Irvine for more than a decade and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students for more than 20 years, Poirier's extensive experience makes her the perfect candidate to lead the new UCI+One program," said Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning and Summer Session. "In order to maximize our students' experience at UCI and to help foster their success after college, the University continues to extend help and guidance through programs such as UCI+One."

Poirier has been the director of the UCI Graduate Resource Center and a faculty member at Orange Coast College. In addition, she's also participated as associated director and interim director of the UCI Health Education Center. Poirier received a Masters of Education in Higher Education Administration from the University of Arkansas and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Elementary Education from Plymouth State University.

The UCI+One program is launching this Fall with enrollment starting around late July. For more information, contact Leigh Poirier at 949-824-3983 or at Lpoirier@uci.edu.

About UC Irvine Extension: University of California, Irvine Extension is the continuing education arm of UC Irvine, serving adult students online, at the UC Irvine campus, and at employer sites nationally and worldwide. Since 1962, UC Irvine Extension has offered open enrollment learning opportunities to the Orange County community, providing open access to the resources of the university, through Certificate and Specialized Studies programs (found here) and free, open educational resources (http://ocw.uci.edu/). Connect with UC Irvine Extension on the institution's social media channels.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 28,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. Located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities, it's Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $4.8 billion annually to the local economy.

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CONTACT:

Vivian Chan-Slater

714-573-0899 x235

Email Contact




GUELPH, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- ABS Friction has added their voice calling for a ban on asbestos and the importation of products containing asbestos into Canada. To create awareness, ABS has launched the "ABS Asbestos Offensive" an information campaign aimed at the automotive industry where asbestos is still common in imported brake pads and consequently a lethal hazard for mechanics.

Here is the link: http://www.absfriction.com/asbestosoffensive.

"In 2016 there are still too many brake pads that contain asbestos being imported and sold in Canada," said Rick Jamieson, President, CEO and Co-founder of ABS Friction. "In fact, imports of asbestos-related items rose to $6-million in 2014 from $4.9-million in 2013 and the bulk of these goods consisted of asbestos brake linings and pads, which hit $3.6-million in imports in 2014, a seven-year high.(i)

Though I am encouraged by the Prime Minister's recent statement that the government will ban asbestos, we want to keep the ban on asbestos top of mind. Here, in Guelph we are working with our MP, the Honourable Lloyd Longfield and our MPP, the Honourable Liz Sandals as well as automotive industry organizations across Canada and North America. We invite people to review the information on our site and welcome their comments."

Asbestos is by far the top on-the-job killer in Canada, accounting for almost 5,000 death claims since 1996. But that does not reflect the true depth of its effects. Many victims die of mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer, but it may take 20 to 50 years after exposure to materialize. (i)

"We have seen the effect of asbestos exposure first hand on mechanics and auto trades people," said Joe Schmidt, Director of Research and Development and Co-Founder, ABS Friction. "As a Canadian manufacturer who has made asbestos-free brake pads since we began 20 years ago, we want our voice to be heard - it's time to put this issue to bed."

(i) Source: Statistics Canada

About ABS Friction

ABS Friction is a Canadian family owned and operated industry leader in the manufacture and testing of premium disc brake pads for the automotive aftermarket industry.

Every ABS brake pad is manufactured at our Guelph, Ontario, Canada facility to ensure premium, reliable products each and every time. All ABS brake pads are 100% asbestos free and environmentally friendly. ABS supplies to over 20 markets globally through both private label and branded programs.

Safety really does matter at ABS Friction. Manufacturing quality, safe and reliable products is our #1 focus. We manufacture our products to the most stringent of quality standards. ABS is an ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 compliant, ISO 9001:2008 registered, Leafmark compliant and BEEP registered manufacturing facility. For further information, visit our site: http://www.absfriction.com.

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Peter Donato

Special Assignment Inc.

+416.271.4316

donato@specialassignment.com

@pvdonato



ABS Friction Inc.:

Michele Keeler

Marketing Manager

+226.217.2233

mkeeler@absfriction.com

@ABSFriction




Austrian businesswoman and travel industry expert will christen the river ship July 11

Crystal River Cruises has announced Ms. Elisabeth Gurtler as the Godmother of its first river ship Crystal Mozart. On July 11, the reimagined "Queen of Europe's Rivers," will be officially welcomed to the fleet in Vienna, Austria, in a christening ceremony that will culminate when the ship's newly announced godmother breaks the customary champagne against the bow. Ms. Gurtler is no stranger to the finer nuances of luxury travel, as the managing director of Vienna's most famous hotel, the Hotel Sacher. Her expertise on Vienna and its cultural wonders stretches to the city's historic Spanish Riding School, where she is also acting director.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006146/en/

Elisabeth Gurtler, Crystal Mozart Godmother (Photo: Business Wire)

"It is fitting that such a pillar of the Viennese community as Ms. Gurtler would join the Crystal family as we expand into the stunning waterways of Austria and the surrounding areas," says Edie Rodriguez, Crystal's CEO and president. "As we prepare to embark with Crystal Mozart on her journeys along the Danube River, we are honored to do so with the blessing of one of the region's most respected citizens, who also shares Crystal's commitment to a superior standard of excellence in global travel."

As godmother of Crystal Mozart, Gurtler joins an esteemed group of Crystal matriarchs that have come before, including Mary Tyler Moore (Crystal Harmony), Dame Angela Lansbury (Crystal Symphony), Dame Julie Andrews (Crystal Serenity) and Lady Gaenor Meakes (Crystal Esprit). Crystal Mozart will embark on her maiden voyage round-trip from Vienna on July 13, calling in picturesque locales lining Europe's second-largest river. Visits to Durnstein, Melk, and Linz, Austria; an overnight in Passau, Germany; Bratislava, Slovakia; a second overnight in Budapest, Hungary; and ending in with two nights back in Vienna will afford Crystal's world-savvy guests intimate, immersive exploration of the region.

As the World's Most Luxurious Travel and Lifestyle portfolio continues to expand, Crystal will welcome six newly built additional river yachts to its luxury fleet over the next three years. The sleek vessels will cruise rivers in France, Eastern Europe and the surrounding regions.

For more information and Crystal reservations, contact a travel agent, call 888.799.2437, or visit www.crystalcruises.com. Join the hundreds of thousands who follow the Crystal Cruises Facebook page and @crystalcruises on Twitter and Instagram, and engage in the conversation with crystalcruises.

Crystal Cruises is the World's Most Awarded Luxury Cruise Line, having earned more "World's Best" accolades than any other cruise line, hotel, or resort in history. Crystal Cruises has won "World's Best Cruise Ship" in Conde Nast Traveler's Reader Choice Awards for 22 years; been voted "World's Best Large Ship Cruise Line" by Travel Leisure readers for 20 consecutive years; and the "Best Luxury Cruise Line" by Virtuoso for two-consecutive years (2014 2015). In summer 2015, Crystal embarked on the most significant brand expansion in the history of luxury travel and hospitality, introducing three new classes of cruising the recently launched Crystal Yacht Cruises (December 2015), Crystal River Cruises (July 2016), Crystal Exclusive Class Ocean Cruises (Fall 2019), Crystal Luxury Air (April 2016) and Crystal AirCruises (2017).

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160623006146/en/

Contacts:

Crystal Cruises

Paul M. Garcia

Director, Global Public Relations

or

Molly Morgan

Publicist, Public Relations

(310) 203-4305

mediarelations@crystalcruises.com
AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Largest law firm in Kansas signs multi-year subscription for Electronic Discovery Managed Services

International eDiscovery services provider Advanced Discovery announced today that Foulston Siefkin LLP, the largest law firm in Kansas, has selected it for the provision of managed eDiscovery services. For a fixed, monthly fee, Advanced Discovery will provide Foulston and its clients with a Relativity environment, user licenses, and project management support, as well as preferred pricing for all other services.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/356399LOGO )



"Foulston is a diverse and rapidly growing firm that it's our privilege to support," says Todd Deaton, Vice President of Business Development for Advanced Discovery. "We are excited to be partnering with them now to ensure they and their clients will receive quality services at competitive prices ."

Michael J. Norton, Commercial Litigation Practice Group Leader, had this to say:

The legal market is shifting, and regional firms like ours are rapidly becoming the preferred solution for companies facing growing legal challenges and shrinking legal budgets. Partnering with Advanced Discovery for eDiscovery supports our goal of delivering world-class services to our clients at predictable, competitive prices.

Rick Hutchinson, Chief Operating Officer for Advanced Discovery, had this to say:

Foulston has long been focused on delivering maximum value to their clients and leveraging technology, where possible, to do so.Advanced Discovery is honored to be selected as their partner in this continuing mission.Our managed services solution, powered by our tools and processes, will save Foulston and its clients time and money.

For more information about Foulston Siefkin LLP, please contact Matt Knoblauch, Chief Marketing Officer, at +1-316-291-9789 or mknoblauch@foulston.com .For more information about Advanced Discovery's managed services solutions, please contact Andreas Mueller, Vice President of Forensic Services, at +1-617-895-6615 or andreas.mueller@advanceddiscovery.com .

About Foulston Siefkin LLP

Foulston Siefkin traces its origins from 1919, when founders Robert C. Foulston and George L. Siefkin began their law practice in Wichita. Now with more than 90 attorneys in three Kansas offices, Foulston Siefkin is honored to represent a diverse client base ranging from individuals and emerging businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Our representative clients mirror the Kansas economy in the aerospace, agribusiness, construction, energy, education, financial, health care, manufacturing, retail, real estate, and technology sectors. Since our firm is based in Kansas, our clients benefit from a lower cost basis that can lead to a more personal, cost-effective, efficient, higher-value delivery of legal services. We're proud to have our roots and our future in Kansas.

About Advanced Discovery

Advanced Discovery is an award-winning, end-to-end eDiscovery services and software provider, supporting law firms and corporations since 2002. Advanced Discovery offers project planning and budgeting, data preservation and forensic collection, early case assessment, hosted review, managed document review, and more from its numerous state-of-the-art facilities across the country. The company employs leading professionals in the industry, applies defensible workflows, and provides industry-proven technology across all phases of the eDiscovery lifecycle. This devotion to excellence has earned Advanced Discovery inclusion on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the US four consecutive years and recognition as a top provider by Legal Times, Texas' Best and other publications. More information is available at http://www.advanceddiscovery.com.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 23, 2016) - BTV-Business Television went on location in Vancouver to the Impact Investment Forum to showcase the burgeoning trend of Impact Investing. "There is a new consciousness around investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to ensure that social and environmental factors are a consideration within their decision making process", stated Julie Durant, Creator of the Impact Investment Forum and CEO, Market Motion Media.







Cannot view this video? Visit:

http://www.b-tv.com/btv-episode-307-impact-investing/

On BNN on Sat Jun 25 & Sun Jun 26, 2016 - on National TV, BTV-Business Television dives into impact investing with:

KPMG -Tania Carnegie, Leader Impact Ventures shares thoughts on why investors are waking up to impact investing Video, who's practicing these investments Video and how companies are changing behaviours to accommodate Video.

Sauder School of Business, UBC - James Tansey, Exec Director Social Innovation shares UBC's take on impact investing and how they support young entrepreneurs in creating socially innovative businesses Video

Varshney Capital - Praveen Varshney, Director - on how their company is committed to social impact investing and with success stories in the sector. Video

Pyfera Growth Capital -Sandeep Gupta, Co-Founder & Director shares how their unique company focuses on impact ventures with financial returns Video

Mogo Finance Technology, Chantel Chapman, Financial Fitness Expert - discusses how their millennial focused company is like the Uber of digital financial brands. Video

BTV, a half-hour weekly investment news program, profiles emerging companies across the US and Canada to bring investors information for their portfolio. With Host Taylor Thoen, BTV features companies at their location, interviews the company's key executives and features their business.



BTV BROADCAST TIMES:

CANADA: BNN - Saturday Jun 25 @ 8:00pm Sunday, Jun 26 @ 9:30pm EST

Bell Express Vu - Saturday Jun 25 @ 8:00pm Sunday, Jun 26 @ 9:30pm EST

Air Canada Seatback TV Business Channel - Oct/Nov 2016

U.S. National:

Biz Television Network - Sun Jul 3 @ 1:00am & 7:30pm EST, Sat Jul 9 @ 12:00pm EST

To Be Featured on BTV - Business Television

Contact: (604) 664-7401x 3 info@b-tv.com
HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - BHP Billiton, one of the world's largest natural resources companies, today becomes the 1,000th Texas economic stakeholder to sign a pledge stating that Texas must be welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as an economic imperative. BHP Billiton's petroleum unit, a major upstream oil and gas producer, is headquartered in Houston.

"BHP Billiton actively supports inclusion and diversity in the workplace, and we're proud to be the first company in the upstream petroleum business to sign the Texas Competes pledge," said Steve Pastor, President Operations, Petroleum, BHP Billiton. "Our business depends on our ability to attract and retain the best talent, and that includes being a welcoming and inclusive workplace in a state that treats everyone with fairness."

The announcement comes during national LGBT Pride Month and Pride Week in Houston. "It is absolutely critical to the long-term economic success of Houston and Texas that we continue to be viewed as a welcoming place to build a career or company," said Bob Harvey, President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, also a pledge signatory. "We applaud BHP Billiton for taking a leadership role in the energy community by committing to ensure Texas remains open to all who want to make a life here."

Texas Competes launched in April 2015, with 79 Texas employers and chambers of commerce as signatories to its pledge. Texas Competes cites data pointing to a link between a negative state brand on LGBT issues and competitive threats in talent, tourism, and corporate investment and relocation.

"Millennials will make up 75% of the American workforce by 2030. This generation has overwhelmingly decided that discrimination and rhetoric against LGBT people should be a thing of the past," said Jessica Shortall, Managing Director of Texas Competes. "The brand of our state on LGBT issues matters a great deal when big and small companies fight for the best workers and it matters in securing and keeping tourism dollars and in incentivizing ongoing corporate investment in our state."

That talent question is being felt all over the state.

"Austin competes hard for the best talent, regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation. We want potential talent to have zero reason to say no to moving here to create and build companies and jobs here in the great state of Texas," said Drew Scheberle, SVP of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, a Texas Competes member.

Texas Competes' membership includes almost 900 small businesses, 34 Fortune 500 companies, 18 chambers of commerce, several industry associations, and large and small employers from every part of the state, urban and rural.

"Texas is a business state, it's a jobs state, and we know that this data-driven, common-sense business case needs to be heard," Shortall said. "We look forward to continuing our rapid growth. Any Texas employer can join us via our free, non-partisan pledge at www.texascompetes.org."

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/23/11G104135/Images/Texas_Competes-90c4b0ee83498cdeb743f2fd341c3e96.jpeg

Media Contact:

Angela Hale

Texas Competes

512-289-2995

angela@redmediagroup.com
Mexico's National Bank of Foreign Commerce (Bancomext), the German Development Bank (KfW) and the Germany International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the promotion of renewable energy, particularly solar energy, according to a Bancomext press release. GIZ currently runs a program for promoting solar energy in Mexico, the "large scale solar energy" (DKTI) program. Bancomext plans to work in the framework of this program by helping financial institutions ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Colombian government and the FARC rebels signed a ceasefire agreement Thursday that effectively ends five decades of bloody conflict. The agreement was signed by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Timoleon 'Timochenko' Jimenez, top commander for the FARC, in Havana. The two sides have been negotiating to end the civil war that has killed or displaced thousands of people since November 2012. UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, the presidents of seven Latin American and Caribbean nations, and representatives from both the US and EU were present at during the signing of the agreement. The agreement is expected to pave the way for a full peace deal. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- TeraGo Inc. ("TeraGo" or the "Company") (TSX: TGO) (www.terago.ca), announces that the nominees listed in the management information circular for the Company's 2016 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting") were each elected as directors of TeraGo to hold such office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. Detailed results of the votes by proxy for the election of directors held on June 23, 2016, as well as the other matters voted at the Meeting are as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outcome Brief Description of Matter Voted Upon of Vote(1) For Against ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) In respect of the fixing of the number of directors of the Company at 10,906,587 - ten (10); Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) In respect of the election of directors to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed: For Withheld ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stewart Lyons 10,644,786 - Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hon. Jerry Grafstein, Q.C. 10,616,161 28,625 Approved (99.73%) (0.27%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Martin 10,644,786 - Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Nikopoulos 10,513,902 130,884 Approved (98.77%) (1.23%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nicole German 10,644,786 - Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Antonio (Tony) Ciciretto 10,644,786 - Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Gerber 10,644,786 - Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Sherlock 10,616,161 - Approved (99.73%) (0.27%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) In respect of the re-appointment of KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants as auditors of the Company to hold office until the next annual meeting of Shareholders and authorizing the 10,906,587 - directors to fix their remuneration. Approved (100.00%) (0.00%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Vote conducted at Meeting by show of hands. The number of votes and percentages shown are based upon the votes cast by proxy only.

A report of voting results for each resolution presented at the Meeting prepared in accordance with National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations has been filed on www.sedar.com.

About TeraGo

TeraGo provides businesses across Canada and globally with network and voice services, data center services and enterprise infrastructure cloud services. TeraGo manages over 3,000 cloud workloads, seven data centers in the Greater Toronto Area, the Greater Vancouver Area, Ottawa, Kelowna and Winnipeg and owns and manages its own IP network. The Company serves approximately 4,000 business customers in 46 major markets across Canada including Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg. TeraGo Networks is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) and was selected as one of Canada's Top Small and Medium Employers for 2015 and is recognized as a Canadian Telecommunications Employer of Choice for 2016. TeraGo Networks was also recognized by IDC as a Major Player in MarketScape Cloud Vendor Assessment.

For more information about TeraGo, please visit www.terago.ca.

Contacts:

TeraGo Investor Relations

1-877-982-3688

ir@terago.ca




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/23/16 -- Veraz Petroleum Ltd. ("Veraz" or the "Company") (NEX: VRZ.H) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of units ("Units") of the Company. The Company issued an aggregate of 9,850,000 Units in the Private Placement at a price of $0.05 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $492,500, inclusive of 7,410,000 Units (aggregate gross proceeds of $370,500) issued today in the final tranche of the Private Placement. The Company paid a cash finder's fee of $25,935 and issued 518,700 broker warrants ("Broker Warrants") related to subscriptions for 7,410,000 Units in the final tranche of the Private Placement.

Each Unit consists of one common share ("Common Share") of the Company and one half of one Common Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") of the Company. Each whole Warrant and each whole Broker Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional Common Share ("Warrant Share") at a price of $0.10 per Warrant Share for a period of 12 months from the date of issuance.

The securities issued in this final tranche of the Private Placement are subject to a four-month hold period under applicable securities laws, which hold period expires on October 24, 2016.

Proceeds from the Private Placement will be used by the Company for evaluation costs associated with various lithium properties in Nevada, as well as general working capital.

Advisory Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information provided in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including the anticipated use of proceeds from the Private Placement. The intended use of the proceeds of the Private Placement by Veraz might change if the board of directors of the Company determines that it would be in the best interests of Veraz to deploy the proceeds for some other purposes. Actual results could different materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements made herein or otherwise, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation service provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release.

Contacts:

Veraz Petroleum Ltd.

Paul Baay

Chairman

+1 403-619-8407

pbaay@touchstoneexploration.com




NORWALK (dpa-AFX) - Xerox Corp. (XRX) Thursday announced the appointment of Jeff Jacobson as the Chief Executive Officer of its printing business after the completion of Xerox's separation later this year. Jacobson, who currently serves as president of Xerox Technology, will succeed Ursula Burns, who earlier this year announced her resignation from the post after the split. But, Burns will remain chairman of the copier business. Earlier this year, Xerox said it would separate into two companies - one that focuses on its core copier business, while the other would be BPO company called Conduent Inc. Xerox noted that the separation is on track to be completed by the end of 2016. Jacobson had joined Xerox in 2012 as the president of Global Graphic Communications Operations. He became the president of the Xerox Technology business in 2014. Prior to Xerox, he served as the president, chief executive officer and chairman of Presstek, a supplier of digital offset printing solutions. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japan will on Friday release May figures for producer prices, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. Producer prices are expected to have added 0.1 percent on year after rising 0.2 percent in April. Singapore will provide May numbers for industrial production, with forecasts suggesting a decline of 4.4 percent on month and 1 percent on year. That follows the 4.8 percent monthly increase and the 3.7 percent yearly gain in April. Malaysia will see April figures for unemployment; in March, the jobless rate was 3.5 percent and the participation rate was 67.9 percent. The Philippines will release April data for imports and trade balance. Imports are expected to jump 20 percent on year after rising 11.7 percent in March. The trade deficit is pegged at $18.83 million. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
SEEK Limitedis seeking to increase its ownership of two overseas job search websites.SEEK currently owns 51% of Brasil Online, BUT will increase its stake to 100%. Brasil Online is the owner of Catho, the leading Brazilian job search website.SEEK will also slightly increase its stake in SEEK Asia  from 80.8% to 86.2%.Factoring in these transactions, SEEK expects its preliminary FY2017 NPAT to be between $215 million and $220 million.SEEK reported a net profit of $295.9 million at 31 December 2015.
Simility, a Hyderabad, India, and Palo Alto, Calif.-based fraud prevention company, raised an additional $1.5m in first funding round.

The round was led by The Valley Fund (TVF).

The company, which has raised $7.2m in total, intends to use the funds to accelerate the growth of its business.

Founded in 2014 by Rahul Pangam, CEO, Simility has also launched the Simility Fraud Prevention Platform which combines advanced machine learning and data visualization technology with a customizable rules engine to protect SMBs and enterprise clients from sophisticated fraud and empower analysts to adapt to fraudsters evolving tactics.

In addition to the funding, the company, which is also backed by Accel Partners and Trinity Ventures, added Swastik Bihani as Vice President of Product Management.

FinSMEs

23/06/2016
Coalision Inc., a Montreal, Canada-based designer and developer of lifestyle and performance apparel, secured $21m in funding.

The round was led by Lune Rouge, with participation from existing shareholders and lenders including Simon Equity Partners, members of the Hermes family and Fonds de solidarite FTQ.

The company will use the funds to continue for general working capital and investment to grow the Coalision brands, including Lole and Paradox.

Founded in 1989 and led by Bernard Mariette, Chief Executive Officer, Coalision operates:

 Lole, known for its technical, fashion-forward womens activewear inspired by wellness which can be found at more than 1,700 retail outlets around the world, in Lole Ateliers and online at www.Lolewomen.com; and

 Paradox, which offers high-performance base layer and outdoor clothing.

The company has a worldwide presence, with brand storefronts, products and wellness events throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.

FinSMEs

23/06/2016
EpiBiome, a South San Francisco, California-based precision microbiome engineering company, secured $1m in debt financing.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) provided the facility.

The company intends to use the funds to ramp up automation and to advance its drug development efforts, as well as purchase additional lab equipment for its new facility.

Led by Nick Conley, PhD (Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder), Aeron Tynes Hammack, PhD (Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder), Christina Tsai, PhD (Chief Science Officer & Co-Founder), Lucia Mokres, DVM (Chief Medical Officer), and Bruno Marchon, PhD (Chief Technical Officer), EpiBiome develop effective, sustainable FDA-approved therapies to combat infectious disease in humans and agriculture without the use of antibiotics.

In January, the company closed a $6m Series A funding round from Viking Global Investors via Illumina Accelerator Boost Capital, Matrix Capital Management, Alexandria Venture Investments, SV Tech Ventures, China Rock Capital Management and China Ding Cheng Holding Group.

EpiBiome was a graduate from the inaugural class of Illumina Accelerator, a business accelerator that focuses on genomic companies.

FinSMEs

23/06/2016
dapulse, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a team management platform, closed a $7.6M series A funding round.

The round was led by Genesis Partners with participation from Entree Capital and l1Capital Group.

The company will use the new funds to accelerate its global growth.

Founded in 2014 by Roy Mann and Eran Zinman, DaPulse provides a SaaS platform to manage teams and entire operations via a visual tool fully customized to fit any operation, ranging from R&D, marketing, sales, product and customer-management.

Currently, the company has over 4,500 paying customers from 85 countries including as WeWork, General Assembly, Uber, Wix AOL, Adidas and Frost & Sullivan.

FinSMEs

23/06/2016
Tyromotion GmbH, a Graz, Austria-based manufacturer and distributor of robot-assisted and computer-assisted therapy units for the rehabilitation sector, received an equity investment from one of the funds managed by Tubingen-based SHS Gesellschaft fur Beteiligungsmanagement mbH.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand its presence in Austria.

Led by David Ram, Managing Director, Tyromotion develops and sells integrated solutions for the rehabilitation primarily of stroke patients based on modern robotics and sensor technologies. Smart networking of individual devices allows physicians and therapists to provide their patients wwith intensive treatment.

The companys portfolio includes a robot-assisted and computer-assisted device for finger and hand therapy (Amadeo), an arm and shoulder rehabilitation device (Diego).

Tyromotion has already delivered a total of over 1,000 devices to about 300 hospitals, rehabilitation centers and therapeutic practices around the world.

FinSMEs

23/06/2016
The fund-starved Andhra Pradesh government is faced with yet another large expenditure. This time, it is in the form of transportation, relocation and hiring of rental accommodation for government offices, apart from the state secretariat. Of course, making of the temporary secretariat, and creating facilities and eventually building a permanent state headquarters and other offices are a much heavier burden waiting in the works.

Meanwhile, private real-estate owners and landlords are waiting in the wings to grab the opportunity to make a killing.

Though the AP Reorganisation Act 2014 has provided for using Hyderabad as the common capital for 10 years from the day of formation of Telangana, the Chandrababu Naidu administration has chosen to move out of Hyderabad as soon as possible owing to a variety of reasons.

In fact, the government could have availed itself of the opportunity available at hand to make permanent arrangements, and moved before 2018 or a year later. At least, the burden of rentals and making interiors in hired premises could have been avoided.

As the decision to move out is made, the state government will have to locate offices of 115 directorates and commissionerates, apart from the 32 departments in the Secretariat with over 15,000 employees. The political administration is hell-bent on moving the administration by 27 June, though the employees are of the view that it may not be possible.

Untold understanding

Andhra Pradesh Non-Gazetted Officers (APNGO) Association president P Ashok Babu told Firstpost that the government had already issued instructions and department-wise communications were sent out asking them to make arrangements to move to a suitable location in Vijayawada-Guntur.

While the official communique would say that, practically it is not possible. It could be an untold and unwritten understanding between the government and the staff that they could shift their base before 31 August. Nothing is officially announced that the deadline is moved to 31 August, he said.

Since the government building complexes are not ready yet and may take a much longer time, the government has decided to house the directorates and commissionerates in private buildings. A committee consisting of Special Chief Secretaries B Sam Bob and Ajeya Kallam and Principal Secretary KS Jawahar Reddy estimated that the government would require at least five million square ft of space for relocating the government establishments.

According to estimates, roughly four lakh square ft would become available for temporarily housing the Secretariat at Velagapudi where a structure is being built by Larsen & Toubro and Shapoorji Pallonji groups. The existing government offices in Guntur and Vijayawada are estimated to have six lakh sq ft of space.

Shortage of 40 lakh sq. ft

Now, the government will fall short of four million sq. ft. The committee allowed the directorates and commissionerates to find offices at a rental value of Rs 25 per sq ft a month, according to Special Chief Secretary B Sam Bob. If the premises are not sufficient, they will have to choose alternate buildings. Access, availability of water and other amenities and collateral challenges too need to be factored in finalising a building for accommodating government offices. If a building is located in a commercial locality, the head of the department concerned should approach the committee for clearance of rental value. The committee set an upper limit of Rs 35 per sq. ft.

However, the value we are talking now is only rental cost. If the rental works out to an average of Rs 30 or Rs 32, the total 40 lakh square feet space would levy a burden of close to Rs 150 crore on the exchequer. The transportation of furniture, files, hardware and other stuff of a whole government is surely an arduous task. When asked if it comes to Rs 500 crore in all, Bob said: We havent estimated it yet. But, for sure, it is a costly affair.

While finding accommodation in the new capital region is in itself a challenging task for the government departments, the making of interiors for the staff to sit and work compounds the challenge. Electricity, HVAC (high-voltage air-conditioning) systems and plumbing facilities will have to be set up, which will cost Rs 200 crore or more. Most premises available are bare shells sans any done-up interiors.

To add, the government has allowed a three-year lease agreement as no landlord gives his premises on rent for short-term period of one year or less. And the expenditure incurred on the interiors would go to waste, unless an office stays put in a premises for a minimum period of three years.

This apart, the advance rental amount to be paid for the offices  even if it is estimated at a bare minimum of three months  works out to Rs 40 crore a year. Though this is said to be refundable, usually it gets adjusted towards the end, for there would be an annual increment in the rental as per the agreements.

With a view to making up for the income tax to be paid by the landlords, they are hiking the price within the ceiling, at some places in connivance with some officials. Though this can be brushed as a cynical view, the possibility of such a transparent deal is very high.

Designed to jack up real estate prices

Prof. Chigurupati Ramachandraiah, urban planner and economist with Centre for Economic and Social Studies, is suspicious of the process. He told Firstpost that it was designed to help increase local real estate and have the unsold spaces also gain demand. The heads of the departments have been allowed to enter into lease agreements. There is fundamentally something amiss. Instead, the government could have built its own structures and some 4,000 to 5,000 apartment dwellings too to house officials.

The crux of the shifting is not just the fund crunch, but the financial implications each employee would have to manage for herself or himself. An important act of arm-twisting of employees by the state government is that it has rid itself off the burden of paying travel and transportation allowance (TTA) to the transferred staff from Hyderabad to the new location.

The state used a trick here. It had given an opportunity to every employee working in the directorates and commissionerates (the government staffers other than those working in the secretariat) in Hyderabad to exercise an option: willing to work in the new capital or ready to be transferred anywhere in the truncated state. As most  or almost all of them  have chosen to work in the new Capital region, it amounted to a request transfer for which the government is not obliged to and need not pay the TTA and other shifting allowances. When asked, Ashok Babu confirmed this.

Aside from this, the employees are supposed to pass through the same rigmarole as the government in finding private buildings for rent. Paying three months' rent in advance, finding facilities, including school or college for their wards, is definitely hurting them, but they have little option in this.

Though the committee had explored other options for space and suggested it to the government, it was overruled for obvious reasons.

If the Andhra Pradesh government had taken some more time to move the state capital, it could have constructed new buildings for the staggering amount it will have to shell out to hire private premises and make them work-ready.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday sought to know from Maharashtra government if it has decided to seek a CBI probe in the Govind Pansare murder case as claimed by the lawyer of family of the slain activist, even as the prosecutor said he has no such instruction so far.

The high court also came down heavily on the CID and the CBI, probing the Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder cases respectively, for slow progress.

The Pansare family had approached the Maharashtra government seeking CBI probe in the matter and yesterday the state government consented, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain communist leader, informed HC bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi.

However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told the court that he does not have any instruction from the government regarding this.

To this, the HC directed Shinde to find out if the government has taken a decision to refer the probe to CBI, and if it has done so, then tell the court the reasons behind it.

The bench, which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking monitoring by HC in both the murder probes, later adjourned the matter for six weeks.

"Now that the CBI has arrested someone in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Pansare's family also wants CBI to probe their case and the state government is also promptly saying OK let it go...let it be off my shoulder...one headache gone," the HC said.

Notably, the CBI had recently arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawde from Navi Mumbai in connection with the murder of anti-superstition crusader Dabholkar.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot on 16 February, 2015 in Kolhapur. The CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.

The CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the murder.

The high court, after perusing the reports submitted by both CBI and CID with regard to the progress of probe in both the murder cases, said it was not completely satisfied with the pace of investigations.

"We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder cases need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society. Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views," the high court observed.

The HC, while adjourning the matter for six weeks, asked the CBI to make all endeavour to obtain reports immediately from forensic science laboratory in Scotland, where the agency has sent bullets and empty cartridges recovered from the body of another slain rationalist M M Kalburgi.

"Expedite the proceedings and try obtaining the reports immediately," the bench said.

The court also noted that since a month both the agencies have been dragging their feet in the probe which, it said, was very "juvenile and childish".

Public Prosecutor Shinde informed the court that the CID has sought custody of the person arrested by CBI in the Dabholkar case.

To this the court said, "Didn't you know about this person before and the organisation with which he is affiliated. It is very shameful that officers instead of investigation ask the family members who they suspect. This needs to stop."

The HC also lambasted the CBI for divulging details regarding the probe to the media.

"Your (CBI) progress report is nothing but news reports. All this is already there in the public domain. How does media come to know about the identity of witnesses in the case and where the agency is going to conduct searches. Everything is revealed to the media," the court pointed out.

"You will be ruining the entire probe if you conduct yourself in this fashion. Absconding accused in the case must be getting details pertaining to the probe from the media. Hats off to CBI," the HC further observed.

"All this may seem trivial now, but they are very important lacunae when the trial is conducted. Tomorrow who is going to protect the witnesses and family members who are speaking freely to media these days. Some restraint and patience is required by the family members. This cheap publicity for everything is disgusting and it affects fair investigation and trial," it said.

The court warned that it will not hesitate to direct disciplinary action against the concerned officer/s revealing investigation details to the media and will put him in jail.

The matter has now been adjourned for six weeks, by when both the probing agencies will have to submit further progress reports.
New Delhi: A day after he broke his fast-unto -death, BJP MP Maheish Girri said he is considering

filing a defamation suit against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for accusing him of being involved in the murder of NDMC estate officer M M Khan.

"Now I am consulting the lawyers and the party leaders to find out how defamation case could be filed (against Kejriwal). Political fight will carry on... we will go to people to tell that their chief minister is a liar," he said on the sidelines of an event here.

The East Delhi MP was protesting few metres away from Kejriwal's official residence and broke his fast on Tuesday after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh made an appeal to him.

Girri had been demanding proof from Kejriwal about his allegations that the BJP leader was involved in NDMC estate officer's and demanded an apology from the chief minister.

Kejriwal has been demanding Maheish Girri's arrest alleging that he was involved in the 16 May murder of Khan, a day before he was scheduled to pass the final order on the lease terms of 'Connaught Hotel' located on a property leased out by the New Delhi Municipal Council.
In a tragic case of medical negligence, a super speciality private hospital in New Delhi operated upon a youth's left leg instead of the affected right leg.

After Ravi Rai, a 24-year-old student, had a fall at his home on Sunday, his family took him to Fortis Hospital in Shalimar Bagh, where they were told that he had fractured his right heel bone and his condition was serious.

"After the doctors analysed the condition of our son, they suggested surgery on the injured right leg. We agreed to it as it was important according to them. However, we were shocked to know that instead of performing surgery on the injured leg they operated on the other leg," Ravi's father, Ramkaran Rai told IANS.

The family says that two rods were inserted into Ravi's left leg. Ravi underwent the surgery on Monday and on regaining consciousness he realised that the surgery was conducted on the wrong foot.

The Indian Express quotes Ramkaran as, We found the left ankle was bandaged and on enquiry, we were told a pin had been inserted in it. When we raised an alarm, doctors came and apologised to us, and said they would operate him again, this time on his right leg. We were so angry we immediately asked for his discharge. How can such a reputed hospital make such a mistake? My son is still in so much pain and went through the surgery for nothing.

According to a report by The Asian Age, the father adds that the negligence was caused due to the doctors confusion about the affected leg.

A report by Business Standard quotes from a statement issued by the hospital saying, "Patient safety is of paramount importance to us. We are deeply concerned and are looking into the matter and will take appropriate action as deemed necessary."

On the basis of a preliminary report of an expert committee, they have terminated the services of the operating surgeon and five other staff members who were in the operation theatre .

Ravi has been shifted to Max hospital for further treatment and his family members have registered a police complaint against the hospital. The Delhi Medical Council has also begun an inquiry.

According to a report by DNA, Delhi Medical Council Registrar Girish Tyagi said "we have taken suo motu cognisance. We will investigate the matter and take appropriate action."
Chennai Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NCPIL) has objected to a Central Information Commission (CIC) order for releasing a safety report on the Kudankulam nuclear reactor, saying it is holding it in a fiduciary capacity on behalf of a Russian company, an official said.

NCPIL said it will approach the courts if the Central Information Commission (CIC) turns down its plea on the Kudankulam reactor Safety Analysis Report (SAR).

"The SAR is prepared by the Atomstroyexport and Atomenergoproekt (AEP) of Russia. It is a proprietary document which NPCIL is holding in a fiduciary capacity and cannot be shared with anybody without the consent of the Atomstroyexport and AEP," S.K.Jain, chairman and managing director of NPCIL, told IANS.

Stating that the SAR runs into over 10,000 pages in about 35 volumes, NPCIL has told the CIC that it is willing to show a copy of SAR to it so that it can come to a conclusion as to why the document is classified as proprietary document.

NPCIL charged the CIC of not following a due process of law before pronouncing its order April 30, 2012, under which NPCIL was asked to share by May 25 the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project's (KNPP) Site Evaluation Report (SER) and the SAR with S.P. Udayakumar, an applicant under the Right to Information Act.

The CIC had also asked it to upload the two reports on the company's website by May 30.

While NPCIL has shared the SER with Udayakumar - the coordinator of People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) spearheading the movement against the KNPP - it has appealed to the CIC to modify its April 30 order on the grounds that it is holding the SAR in a fiduciary capacity for the Russian equipment supplier and also that due notification procedure was not followed.

NPCIL is putting up the project at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district around 650 km from here with Russia supplying the entire equipment, including the nuts and bolts, for the reactors and other related systems.

He said the report was prepared by a large number of Russian agencies the cost of which is borne by Atomstroyexport.

According to Jain, the results as claimed in the reports are checked by NPCIL on its computers and also during the cold and hot runs (trial run) of the reactor.

"While giving clearance to KNPP, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) prepares various reports and some are on its website which anybody can access," Jain said.

Jain has already written to the Atomstroyexport's president seeking its concurrence in sharing the SAR with Udayakumar and also uploading it on its website.

According to Jain, NPCIL was not informed by the CIC about Udayakumar's appeals against the company's decision to turn down g his requests for the two documents.

It was only on March 27, 2012, that NPCIL received a notice from the CIC with a direction to address the CIC through video conference April 23, 2012.

NPCIL contends that CIC has not followed the normal procedure in hearing the appeals while deciding on the matter and its April 30 order needs to be reviewed and modified.

Jain agrees with PMANE's charge that the SER is illegible, but he disagrees that it is incomplete.

"The SER was prepared several years ago. It was a typed document and we photocopied it. The full report runs into several hundreds of pages containing several proprietary data. Hence, what will be given out will be the executive summary," Jain said.

He said the SER will be mostly uploaded on NPCIL's website Saturday.

"NPCIL has blanked out several pages of the SER without any reason. Logically, SER will not have any information related to reactor design. It should supply the full report," Udayakumar told IANS from Idinthakarai near Kudankulam.

IANS
On Thursday senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat withdrew his resignation, days after he had parted his way from the party because of 'personal reasons'.

Speaking to media persons, he said that he would withdraw his resignation as the General Secretary, All India Congress Committee and from the Congress Party. He said he would like to continue serving under the party leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi with the same charge of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.

He said, "During the last fortnight a large number of Senior Party leaders tried to convince me to rethink on the decision. My meeting with my Party President Smt Sonia Gandhi helped me to make up my mind that the Congress Party is the best platform to serve the people of this country."

Kamat, a five-time MP from Mumbai, had given his resignation from the party and active politics in the first week of June.

At the time Kamat had claimed that he had sent in his resignation as the General Secretary for personal reasons and to concentrate on social service minus the party tag.

In his resignation letter Kamat had said, "For several months now, I have felt I need to take a backseat to enable others to get the opportunity. I met Hon Congress president about ten days ago and expressed a desire to resign."

But Kamat was known as a loyalist of the Gandhi family and hence his resignation was met with surprise in political circles.

A senior party leader, who spoke to IANS on condition of anonymity, had said that Kamat was unhappy over the way some issues had been handled by Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam and party general secretary Mohan Prakash, who is in charge of the Congress affairs in Maharashtra.

A former Mumbai Congress president for two terms, Kamat, 61, has deep knowledge of the city politics and his absence could have proved detrimental for the party which is hoping to capture the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in next year's critical elections.

The Congress has seen some of its senior leaders quitting the party over the past year, following a series of electoral setbacks the party suffered after its debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Senior Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi quit the pasty and on announced that he was forming his own party in the state.

Former Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who left the Congress, was seen to be instrumental in the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive victory in the Assam assembly polls.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, who was involved in a revolt against his successor Harish Rawat, also left the Congress to join the BJP.

With inputs from IANS
Mumbai: Monsoon showers have finally brought the mercury levels marginally down in Mumbai but the political temperature is definitely heading for a rise. The two reluctant allies  BJP and Shiv Sena  have embarked on a jibing spree ahead of the civic polls once again.

On Wednesday, BJP surprised its junior alliance partner in its own game when it published a scathing criticism on Shiv Sena in the 15 June issue of its fortnightly Manogat. BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandaris article published on Wednesday in the Maharashtra party units fortnightly Manogat, titled When are you taking talaq, Mr Raut?, dared Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices BJP made in past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie up intact. Usually, it is the Shiv Sena that hits out at the BJP through its mouthpiece Saamana. What caught the Shiv Sena even more unaware was the sheer ferocity of the BJP attack.

Bhandari didn't even spare Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray and compared him with Sholays Asrani. Asrani had played the role of an eccentric jailer in the movie, supposedly, motivated by those in the profession during the British period.

The article also attacked Sena MP Sanjay Raut who recently said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra were worse than the Nizam.

"They eat biryani given by the same Nizam on one hand and then criticise us on the other hand. They have got ministries at the Centre and state, enjoy perks of power only because of the favour of the same Nizam and then curse BJP. This is called 'ungratefulness', the article said. If they feel so oppressed by Nizam, why dont they just walk out, the article said, adding, But, they dont show that courage."

Going further, Bhandari said, "They sit with us, eat with us and then attack us as well its better to take talaaq from Nizams father. So, Mr Raut when are you taking talaaq?

"Sanjay Raut and Shiv Sena president are not able to digest the fact that their strength is declining and that is why they are frustrated. They should accept the changing political situation and stop blaming us," Bhandari opined. "We outnumbered the Shiv Sena in Aurangabad and Kalyan-Dombivali polls. Voters are considering BJP as a strong option and that is what is hurting the Sena most," the article said.

Raut, who is also the editor of Saamna, had criticised the government, saying it was as if being under the Nizam's rule, 10 days back during a public rally in Aurangabad while addressing Shiv Sainiks.

Criticising Raut for his selective vision, the article said that while he feels the present government has done a lot of injustice, they dont see the amount of work done through Jal Yukta Shivar in Marathwada.

Highlighting BJPs better strike rate in elections, the article further said, "In 1995, BJP contested 117 seats and won 65. In 2009, despite contesting lesser seats, the BJP won two seats more than the Shiv Sena."

Bhandari even reminded Raut of BJP's sacrifices made for the late Bal Thackeray, who had requested that the assembly seats of Shivaji Nagar in Pune and Guhagar in Ratnagiri, and Lok Sabha seats of Ratnagiri, Thane and Nashik be left for the Sena.

Defending his article, Bhandari told Firstpost, "Earlier, we chose to ignore such things but they (Shiv Sena) have crossed the limits of decency. This was discussed in our recent state convention as well. But now we want to tell them straight ... if they don't find it worth, they should find their own path."

By February 2017, 10 municipal corporations including Mumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Pune, Pimpari-Chinchwad, Solapur and Akola are going to polls. The strategic alliance that both the parties had forged is increasingly getting strained and none of them are keen on continuing it. The war of words between the two parties is only likely to get intensified till the polls are over and both Saamana and Manogat will be key platforms.

With input from PTI
Mumbai: The war of words between Shiv Sena and BJP has further intensified with a publication by the latter daring the junior alliance partner to take 'divorce'.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari's article published on Wednesday in Maharashtra party unit's fortnightly publication 'Manogat', titled 'When are you taking talaq? Mr Raut', has dared Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices BJP has made in past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie-up intact.

The article also attacks Sena MP Sanjay Raut for his recent 'Nizam' remarks.

"On one hand they eat 'biryani' in plate given by the same 'Nizam' and then criticise us on the other hand. They have got ministries at the Centre and state, enjoy perks of power only because of the favour of the same 'Nizam' and then curse BJP. This is called 'ungratefulness'," the article says.

"If they feel so oppressed by 'Nizam', why don't they just walk out," the article says, adding, "But, they don't show that courage."

Raut recently said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra were worse than the government of Nizam.

"They sit with us, 'eat' with us and then attack us as well...it's better to take 'talaaq' from Nizam's father. So, Mr Raut when are you taking talaaq?" Bhandari asked.

Criticising Raut for his selective vision, the article says that while he feels the present government has done a lot of injustice, they don't see the great amount of work done through 'Jal Yukta Shivar' in Marathwada.

Highlighting BJP's better striking rate in elections, the article further says, "In 1995, BJP contested 117 seats and won 65. In 2009, despite contesting lesser seats, the BJP won two seats more than the Shiv Sena."

"Sanjay Raut and Shiv Sena president are not able to digest the fact that their strength is declining and that is why they are frustrated. They should accept the changing political situation and stop blaming us," Bhandari opined.

"We outnumbered the Shiv Sena in Aurangabad and Kalyan-Dombivali polls. Voters are considering BJP as a strong option and that is what is hurting the Sena most," it stated.

The article further said that the BJP has made several sacrifices, like leaving constituencies for the Shiv Sena which had been won by the BJP candidates several times in the past - like Pune, Thane and Guhagar.

Defending his article, Bhandari said, "Earlier, we chose to ignore such things but they have crossed the limits of decency. This was discussed in our recent state convention as well. But now we want to tell them straight, if they don't find it worth, they should find their own path."
New York: A Muslim police officer, who sued the New York Police Department over a policy limiting beards allowed for religious reasons, would face irreparable harm without protection from the courts, a judge said on Thursday as he ordered the city to reinstate the officer's pay and benefits a day after he was suspended and escorted from police headquarters.

US District Judge P Kevin Castel criticised the city repeatedly before finding it was probable Officer Masood Syed would succeed and issuing a temporary restraining order that will remain in place until a 8 July hearing.

The department says it bans beards as a safety measure so gas masks fit tightly across faces but allows beards for religious reasons up to 1 millimetre in length.

The judge, who is bearded, said 1 millimetre of hair exists when a man is unshaven for a day or two. He said it seemed the policy is enforced haphazardly.

"I am very relieved," Syed said afterward as he celebrated his 32nd birthday with a half dozen fellow officers supporting him in the Manhattan court.

Syed said two uniformed supervisors escorted him from Manhattan NYPD headquarters where he works as a law clerk to administrative judges, sometimes preparing legal documents for the police commissioner about disciplinary issues.

"It was extremely humiliating," Syed said. "I felt insulted, frankly."

Syed said he has maintained a 1-inch beard for most of his 10-year career, only occasionally drawing critical comments. He said he hoped his lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, would help over 100 police employees who find the religious exception to the department's no-beard

policy insufficient because they say the length of the beard allowed is not reasonable.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order banning the NYPD from enforcing its beard policy until it provides reasonable religious accommodations.

City attorney Michael Fleming said the beard ban was necessary. Besides for religious reasons, exceptions exist for undercover duties and medical conditions.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require annual fit-testing and prohibit respirators for employees with facial hair.

The judge became impatient as he questioned Fleming about the policy and the department's failure to respond to a December 2015 request by 37 police officers for an exception to the no-beard policy.

"Let's play 20 questions," Castel said at one point. "The court is troubled by the fact it cannot get an answer," he said at another.

Attorney Joshua Moskovitz, representing Syed, told Castel the department's policy violates the First Amendment and threatens Syed's job, his retirement benefits and his reputation. He said the department took Syed's shield and weapon Tuesday before he "was escorted out in front of his friends and colleagues."
There is no written script but India's thrust towards NSG membership is first turning out to be a diplomatic nail-biter. In a last-moment turnaround for New Delhi, the Nuclear Suppliers Group has decided to convene a special session on Thursday night to discuss several outstanding issues, including India's membership bid, The Hindu reported.

The decision comes at the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting China's President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit at Tashkent. The meeting is expected to play a crucial last moment effort to bring China on board. As this copy was being written, the meeting between the Indian premier and Chinese president was over and details were being awaited.

What makes the road challenging for India is that the Nuclear Suppliers Group works on the principle of unilateral consensus. This means India needs the support of all 48 countries in order to get entry into the elite club.

India not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty has given China enough ammunition to block India's application at the NSG so far.

Despite playing hardball, Beijing has reiterated that opposition to India's bid would not affect bilateral ties, The Indian Express reported.

While China is using India being non-signatory of the NPT as the front for not lending its weight behind it, the actual cause many believe it wants its all-weather friend Pakistan to be treated at par.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has claimed that China has assured it of its backing in the NSG. China would adopt criteria-based approach on the issue of NSG, which would support Pakistans case, The Hindustan Times quoted Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry as saying.

For India, countries like Japan and Mexico have positively raised the issue of India's membership on Thursday Plenary in Seoul.

With inputs from PTI
WASHINGTON Supporters of U.S. gun control suffered another setback on Thursday when they failed to win enough backing in the Senate

for a plan to ban firearms sales to people being monitored for links to terrorism in the wake of the Orlando massacre.

A few hours after Democrats in the House concluded a daylong sit-in in their chamber over guns, Senate Republican leaders ended a protracted debate over gun control, at least for the time being. It became clear that Senate proponents of gun restrictions did not have the 60 votes needed to advance a bill, according to lawmakers and aides.

That ended hopes that a compromise effort spearheaded by Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, could progress soon. Her plan forbids gun sales to anyone on the U.S. government's "No Fly List" of terrorism suspects or the "Selectee List" of people who receive extra screening at airports.

Collins' plan did clear one procedural hurdle in voting on Thursday by collecting a slim majority of the Senate - 52 votes - against an attempt to outright kill it.

Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, told reporters he did not expect any more votes on gun control in the Senate in the near future.

"(Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) says were done with that, for now, Cornyn said.

That decision marked a major victory for the National Rifle Association in its campaign to fend off new restrictions on gun purchases.

The Senate now will begin debating bills to combat the spreading Zika virus and helping Puerto Rico navigate a debt crisis, before starting a short July 4 recess next week.

Earlier on Thursday, Democratic lawmakers ended a daylong sit-in occupation of the floor of the House to protest the lack of action on gun control after the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, this month that killed 40 people.

Democratic members had taken control of the House chamber on Wednesday and dozens of them stayed all night, at times bursting into the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome."

Fuelled by Chinese food and pizzas, the Democrats took turns occupying the chamber after raucous scenes that nearly erupted into a fistfight with the majority Republicans.

After the House television cameras were turned off, the Democrats switched to social media to stream their protest via Facebook Live and Periscope.

Dramatic protests by legislators are rare in the U.S. Capitol and the sit-in underscored how sensitive the gun control issue has become after a gunman pledging allegiance to Islamic State shot dead 49 people in Orlando.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Timothy Ahmann, Timothy Gardner and Eric Walsh, Doina Chiacu; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Bill Trott)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads India's last ditch effort to become a member of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group as time runs out fast in the Seoul plenary session, an equally zealous Pakistani media is leaving no stone unturned to prevent New Delhi's entry. Here are a few picks from key Pakistani newspapers of late opposing raising questions over India's NSG bid:

The Dawn

NSG cautioned against imposing technological apartheid on Pakistan

....Speaking about Pakistans credentials for the membership, he said his country met the criteria except for NPT requirement, which India too did not fulfil.

Pakistans application stands on solid grounds of technical experience, capability and well-established commitment to nuclear safety and security. We have a complete programme for harnessing peaceful uses of nuclear energy and have operated secure and safeguarded power plants for 42 years, Mr Kazmi maintained.

Reminding that the waiver given by the NSG to India affected the strategic stability of South Asia, he worried that an exception for Delhi would further aggravate that balance. He, therefore, advocated that fair and unbiased consideration of the applications would advance the goal of non-proliferation, besides ensuring strategic stability in the region.

Former Permanent Representative at the United Nations in Geneva retired Ambassador Zamir Akram, speaking on the occasion, said the US was using like-mindedness and merit-based justification to support Indias case.

In his opinion, India did not even meet the politically-motivated merit of the new US approach, if applied honestly, because of its proliferation record for which it remained sanctioned and not fulfilling the obligations it committed while getting the 2008 NSG waiver. (Read more...)

Geo TV

India doesnt qualify for NSG membership: US paper

ISLAMABAD: A US newspaper has stated that India does not qualify for becoming a member of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as it needs to hold talks with China and Pakistan to get a seat in the group.

Ideally, President Barack Obama could take advantage of the ties he had built and press for India to adhere to the standards on nuclear proliferation to which other nuclear weapons states adhered to.

Americas relationship with India has blossomed under President Obama, who will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week.India is unlikely to get a green signal for its membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on Thursday (June 9) since it views China as biggest hurdle in the meeting.

The US experts are criticising Chinese policy on this count. According to reports the analysts in the United States believe that India's NSG application is in a precarious position for several reasons, chief among them being China's assertion that if the NSG countries make an exception for India, they should do the same for Pakistan which has unblemished record. "Pakistan and China have played their cards really well this time around. Pakistan has an application for NSG membership and China can, therefore, argue what's good for the goose is good for the gander," said Micheal Krepon, a nuclear proliferation expert and co-founder of the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington DC. (Read more...)

Pakistan Observer

NSG and the Indo-US trap

Statement by Indias Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swarag, that India will not oppose Pakistan entry into the NSG but would want its application to be considered on merit, is no less than a deception if one understands the use of nuances by the Indian foreign policy leadership. First of all, the statement has been coerced on India because of Chinas principled public stance at Geneva meeting blocking consensus on the Indian gatecrash into the NSG.

Once the Chinese opposition to an exclusive Indian membership without Pakistan became clear at the meeting, India enticed the United States who is ever ready to play the Indian fiddle, to be the first to lay the trap through Secretary Kerrys statement that India would treat Pakistans membership of the NSG on merits if it gets into it (off course before Pakistan). The Indian Foreign Secretary has gone over Beijing to lure the Chinese on whose return Sushma Swarag replayed the gambit. (Read more...)

The Express Tribune

Making India an NSG member state will be a mistake

Recently, India initiated efforts to become a member state of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Correspondingly, Pakistan  in an attempt to subdue India  has also submitted an application in its desire to join the club. However, both countries dont meet the prerequisites to join the NSG. I personally believe that Pakistan needs to focus on stability rather than gaining access to this group.

NSG restricts the proliferation of nuclear weapons by controlling nuclear commerce. India, the fastest growing economy in the world, has a huge population and an enormous demand for energy. It has various domestic nuclear industries that require international exposure for them to expand their businesses. (Read more...)
London: The alleged murderer of British lawmaker Jo Cox, whose shock killing cast a cloud over the final week of Brexit campaigning, will be tried in November under anti-terrorism legislation, a judge ruled Thursday.

Thomas Mair, 52, made a brief appearance via video link at London's Old Bailey central criminal court, and spoke from prison only to confirm his name, as Britain voted in a referendum that could make it the first country to leave the European Union.

Mair is charged with murder and possession of a firearm and the case is being heard under the "terrorism protocol".

At his first court hearing on Saturday, Mair had said his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Cox was shot and stabbed to death last Thursday as she was on her way to meet local residents in her constituency in Birstall in northern England.

The brutal street killing of Cox, a pro-EU lawmaker who had defended immigration and refugee rights, shocked the nation and led to a three-day suspension in campaigning ahead of the EU referendum.

Judge John Saunders set a provisional trial date for 14 November, with a plea hearing set for 4 October.

Mair will next appear before the court on 19 September.
WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Barack Obama's plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation in a split ruling that heartened political foes who had accused him of overstepping his powers.

The 4-4 ruling, coming seven months before Obama's term in office ends, marked the latest success that his Republican adversaries have had in thwarting a major policy initiative of the Democratic president. Obama had hoped that overhauling the U.S. immigration system and resolving the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally would be part of his presidential legacy.

The ruling is likely to further amplify the role that the immigration issue will play in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election in which voters will pick Obama's successor. It also leaves in legal limbo the roughly 4 million people Obama's action was meant to help.

Obama unveiled his plan in November 2014. It was quickly challenged in court by Republican-governed Texas and 25 other states that argued that Obama overstepped the powers granted to him by the U.S. Constitution by infringing upon the authority of Congress. His unilateral executive action bypassed the Republican-led Congress.

Because the court was split, a 2015 lower-court ruling invalidating Obama's plan was left in place. The plan never was implemented because the lower courts had blocked it.

The plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people - those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents - get into a programme that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits.

A split ruling was possible because the court was down to eight justices, four liberals and four conservatives, after conservative justice Antonin Scalia died in February. The Republican-led Senate has refused to act on Obama's nomination of appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia.

In an appearance at the White House after the ruling, Obama expressed frustration at the court's inability to issue a decisive ruling on the merits of the case and at Senate Republicans for "wilfully" keeping the court shorthanded.

"I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who've raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military, and fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way," Obama said.

Obama said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for two decades and that this ruling set it back even further.

The issue of illegal immigration has featured prominently in the presidential campaign. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has called for deportation of all illegal immigrants - most of them from Mexico and other Latin American countries - and building a wall along the Mexican border.

The court did not reveal how each justice voted in the ruling, but it was possible the four liberals backed Obama and the four conservatives backed the states.

The court appeared divided along ideological lines during oral arguments on April 18, with liberals indicating support for the administration and conservative opposed.

'MAJOR SETBACK'

The nation's top elected Republican, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, and others in his party welcomed the ruling.

"This is a major setback to President Obamas attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law," said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.

The Constitution assigns certain powers to the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.

The split decision set no nationwide legal precedent on presidential power or immigration law. The ruling indicates that any major immigration policy change that would address the long-term situation of illegal immigrants would have to be enacted by Congress.

"We feel that justice has turned its back on millions of immigrants who, much like our founding fathers and mothers, sought a better future for themselves and their children and yet continue to live in the shadows without the respect and dignity that they deserve," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The Obama administration could ask the high court to rehear the case, as losing parties in two other cases in which the court has split 4-4 have done. The court has not yet acted on those other petitions.

The Supreme Court decision does not affect a separate 2012 programme aimed at protecting people brought to the United States as children from deportation, which Texas and the other states did not challenge.

Obama took the action after House Republicans killed bipartisan immigration legislation, billed as the biggest overhaul of U.S. laws on the matter in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013.

Maya Ledezma, an immigrant from Mexico who lives in Maryland, said would have been eligible for Obama's programme because she has lived in the United States for more than a decade and has an 8-year-old daughter who is a U.S. citizen.

My life would have changed if the vote had been favourable, she said through a translator during a rally outside the Supreme Court.

Republicans have been critical of Obama's use of executive action to get around Congress on immigration policy and other issues such as gun control and healthcare.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton criticized the ruling for "throwing millions of families across our country into a state of uncertainty." Trump said the ruling "blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president."

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Emily Stephenson in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Will Dunham)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
It has been a campaign like no other, marred by insults, and accusations of deception and outright lying to a public thats polarised by both sides of the debate. One that wants Britain to remain in the European Union, and the other side that sees the vote on 23 June as the most important and Britains best opportunity to get out of the European Union. And its a polarisation that has cut across party lines.

While Prime Minister David Cameron has been spearheading the campaign for Britain to stay in the European Union, his fellow Tory and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been one of the most vocal voices in the Vote Leave camp. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and actress Elizabeth Hurley have also pitched their wagon to the Vote Leave. At this point, as per the average of the latest six polls by What UK Thinks, the vote is even split at 51 percent and 49 percent between Remain and Leave.

Cameron has made it clear that a vote in favour of Britain leaving the EU would be disastrous for the economic health of the country. He argued, They say we would have more control. How exactly? Leaving the EU but remaining in the single market doesnt give us more control, it just stops us from having any say over the rules of trade.

Boris Johnson, in a debate at Wembley in front of an audience of 6,000, said that a Brexit victory would be Britains Independence Day. Sadiq Khan, the current mayor of London, called out the lies of Boris Johnson and the rest of the Leave camp for stoking the fears of a population dishonestly by claiming that Turkey would be part of the EU. In the most recent past days and weeks, everyone from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the French President Francois Hollande, while being clear about their hope that the EU would be firmer and stronger with a Britain in it, have also stated publicly that Turkey would not be a member of the EU, at the rate at which it is developing.

Public personalities on the side of Remain have also chimed in. Stephen Hawking has stated that leaving the EU would be a disaster for science, and the author JK Rowling while stating that she doesnt think the EUs perfect, simply believes that its benefits greatly outweigh the negatives.

In cities and towns across Britain, both campaigns have stepped up especially in their volunteering and pamphleteering. Immigration, especially in the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis is contentious. The Leave camp claims that as long as Britain remains part of the EU, it would be impossible to control immigration, and public services especially the National Health Service (NHS) would be under tremendous strain as a result of the inflow of immigrants. Remain counters that by arguing that immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out of the system, and that the economy improves when there is immigration.

The campaign took an unfortunate and horrific turn on 16 June, when Labour MP Jo Cox was brutally murdered by a man who shouted Britain First, a slogan and a name of a Far-Right party and movement, on stabbing and shooting her. It was the most heinous and most violent of a terrorist act and put to light the worst elements of the whole vote. Cox worked for immigrant rights, and campaigned diligently for Britain to remain in the EU. There is a tension in the air, reminiscent of the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014, when the Scots voted to remain in the UK.

In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Paul Mason argues that Brexit is a fake revolt where the culture of the working class is being hijacked to help the elites. While he agrees that migration is a right cause of worry for the working class, with wages and overall living conditions having remained stagnant, and employment opportunities dwindling, he doesnt think a victory for the Leave camp will solve any of the problems that are affecting the working and also the middle classes. The fact that no politician in the Tory Brexit has offered any solutions to the main problem of low wages and cheap labour is the most concerning point.

In Oxford, both campaigns are working overtime to try and get as many people to vote. Adam Kenny, 24, a DPhil-in-Anthropology student at Oxford University, has been campaigning for the Remain camp. He says, It makes more sense economically for Britain to remain in the EU because we will be less poor in the short term, butt more importantly, a moral argument can be made that progress can only happen with greater cooperation with the European Union.

An argument with which Jacob Williams, a 21-year-old student who has just completed his final exams at the same university, disagrees. The European Union is undemocratic, and the current amount of immigration is unsustainable. Actively campaigning for Leave, he says that a an exit would mean more cooperation with the rest of the world and not just the EU.
Lagos: Even family haven't been able to see her. Nigeria's Bring Back Our Girls movement is demanding that the government provide news of the only Chibok schoolgirl among 219 kidnapped to escape the clutches of Boko Haram Islamic extremists.

"Even this morning people came to my house asking if I had been able to find out her whereabouts. It's outrageous! Some people are crying!" Yakubu Nkeki, an uncle of Amina Ali Nkeki, told The Associated Press by telephone on Thursday.

"We don't understand why the government wants to keep her family away," he said.

Hunters found Ali last month wandering on the fringes of Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold with her four-month-old baby and the father of the child, a Boko Haram fighter who she said helped her escape.

She was flown to the capital, Abuja, for a televised meeting at which President Muhammadu Buhari promised her the best care and rehabilitation. The Bring Back Our Girls movement says no one has seen her since.

In a statement Wednesday night marking the 800th day of the mass abduction that outraged the world, Bring Back Our Girls also asked what the government is doing to try to rescue the other schoolgirls.

"We are extremely disappointed with the evident lull in rescue actions and lack of any progress report," said the statement signed by the movement's founders Aisha Yesufu and Oby Ezekwesili.

It said Ali has said some of the girls have died but most are alive, raising hopes they could still be rescued.

Government, presidential and military officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Charities have accused Buhari's government of exploiting Ali and politicizing her escape, for which the army tried to claim responsibility.

Ali's uncle said the last time he saw her, along with baby Safiyah, was in the office of the National Security Adviser at the presidential villa on 19 May.

"We have had no credible information since, though I am told they are in the hands of the government," he said.

It had been presumed that Ali would be debriefed by state security agents for information that could lead to a rescue operation.

Community leaders of the northeastern town of Chibok where the girls were abducted in 2014 said there are concerns Ali may be detained. They asked why her mother, who lives next door to Yakubu Nkeki, has not contacted other family members. They insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of angering officials.

One problem could be that Ali has been insisting that she wants only to be reunited with Mohammed Hayyatu, the Boko Haram fighter she credits for her escape and the father of her child, according to a Borno state official. The official insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Nigeria's military has said that Hayyatu appeared to be a Boko Haram commander and is being held for interrogation.

Bring Back Our Girls demanded the government prosecute Hayyatu for abduction and rape

The Associated Press has been unable to establish the whereabouts of some other freed Boko Haram captives taken for alleged debriefing and counseling by the office of the National Security Adviser. They include Binta Ibrahim, whom US Ambassador Samantha Power has called a hero for saving three Christian children held with her in captivity by Boko Haram for 15 months.

Soldiers have freed thousands of Boko Haram captives this year as they have recaptured large swaths of territory where Boko Haram had declared an Islamic caliphate.
Google has acquired Webpass, a San Francisco based high speed internet service provider. The duo aims to accelerate the deployment of faster Internet connections for customers across the U.S. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2003, Webpass is available in cities including in the San Francisco Bay Area and four other cities, specializes in providing high speed internet service in urban areas.

Webpass president Charles Barr said in blog post,

Joining Google Fiber will be a great development for our users because the companies share the same vision of the future and commitment to the customer. Google Fibers resources will enable Webpass to grow faster and reach many more customers than we could as a standalone company. Im very much looking forward to this next chapter for Webpass, and let me take this opportunity to once again say thank you to all of our loyal customers. We are thrilled to be on this journey together.

The acquisition is expected to close this summer, subject to the standard regulatory approvals. Earlier in March, Google introduced Fiber Phone telephone service for just $10 per month.
We know some visitors come to the website because a domain name leads them to here. If you are interested in buying 
A recent poll suggests that America's favorite national bank is JPMorgan Chase (JPM 1.15%). According to the Harris Poll, which conducts annual customer service surveys, consumers chose the nation's biggest bank by assets as their preferred place to bank.

This is obviously good news for JPMorgan Chase, which prides itself on its service quality. The bank is, after all, named after J.P. Morgan himself, who believed in doing "first-class business in a first-class way."

On top of this, while JPMorgan Chase struggled in ACSI's 2015 customer satisfaction index, eclipsed by Wells Fargo and Citigroup, it sat atop that survey in 2014.

Bank 2015 ACSI Score 2014 ACSI Score Wells Fargo 75 72 Citigroup 73 74 JPMorgan Chase 71 74 Bank of America 68 69

It's difficult to draw a straight line between a bank's showing on surveys like this and shareholder returns. At the same time, it isn't unreasonable to presume that a link exists.

The reason many people have previously argued that customer satisfaction matters less in the bank industry is because of so-called switching costs. Because it's so hard to unwind one's banking relationships -- given direct deposit and automatic bill pay -- it has long been believed that banks were essentially free to exploit their customers.

And, of course, this has largely been the story line over the past two decades. Before new regulations reined in banks' worst abuses, it was standard operating procedure in the industry to knowingly take advantage of customers -- and poor customers in particular.

Among other ways, banks did so by rigging overdraft policies in order to maximize fees for customers who lived paycheck to paycheck, as well as by obligating credit card holders to submit to non-neutral arbitration forums to resolve disputes.

Yet, if you look at JPMorgan Chase's shareholder returns compared to Bank of America's (BAC 0.88%), the perennially least-liked bank in the country, there's at least an anecdotal relationship. To this end, while JPMorgan Chase often ranks atop its class when it comes to service, Bank of America just as frequently ranks at the bottom.

There are other variables at play here that help to explain the divergence between the two stocks, but despite efforts to marginalize the importance of customer satisfaction, it seems naive to conclude that a customers' feelings toward their bank has no impact on its profitability.

In a recent review on Consumer Affairs, for instance, a customer spoke of closing her Bank of America account after being on the business end of its notoriously bad service. This would reduce any money that Bank of America earns from that customer today, as well as in the future.

In short, while investors shouldn't put a whole lot of stock in subjective customer satisfaction surveys, they can nevertheless serve as another variable to factor into one's analysis about whether or not to buy a particular bank stock over another.
Sometimes, investors seem to focus on a single future event and stay in a holding pattern until that event happens. Wednesday's quiet stock market action was an example of that phenomenon, and gains early in the day gave way to a gentle downtrend in the afternoon in anticipation of the coming U.K. vote on whether to remain within the European Union. The vote will take place tomorrow, and results are expected in time for the U.S. markets to open on Friday morning. Until then, the overall tone of the market is likely to be one of uncertainty, and major market benchmarks reflected that tone today, falling around a quarter percent. Nevertheless, some stocks posted solid gains, and Restoration Hardware (RH 2.09%), Gold Fields International (GFI 3.12%), and Unisys (UIS 2.93%) were among the best performers in the market Wednesday.

Restoration Hardware climbed 7% after analysts at BB&T suggested that the high-end home furnishings chain should consider a combination with industry peer Williams-Sonoma. Given the tough conditions in the retail environment right now, merger and acquisition activity would serve the dual purpose of discovering synergies between currently separate firms and reducing the level of competition within the industry. Restoration Hardware in particular has had to deal with an overall slowdown at the upper end of the retail spectrum, and the company has cited weakness in former energy-boom areas of the country that are now struggling because of the plunge in crude oil prices. Restoration Hardware hasn't made any public overtures toward major M&A activity, but even the hint of that being a possibility was enough to get investors excited today.

Gold Fields International rose 6% in the wake of getting an upgrade from analysts at RBC. The price of gold didn't move substantially on Wednesday, taking away what is a typical source of support for gold mining stocks like Gold Fields. But the RBC analysts believe that a promising future for the company's South Deep mine could help boost its overall performance, and Gold Fields also stands to gain substantially if some of its assets in areas like Ghana and Australia pan out better than the somewhat pessimistic assessment that market participants have right now. If gold prices continue their climb from the beginning of the year, then that could be even further impetus to keep Gold Fields stock moving in the right direction.

Finally, Unisys picked up 11%. The company was also a beneficiary of positive analyst action, this time from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Unisys received a buy rating, and the $11 per share price target represented a nearly 50% potential gain from where the stock closed Tuesday afternoon. The information technology company has fallen on hard times lately, with falling revenue producing substantial losses for the company. Yet even though those losses are expected to persist at least through 2017, a more positive long-term assessment for the long-suffering Unisys was enough to produce the sizable bounce in the share price. If moves like its recent alliance with Microsoft on cloud security work out well, then further gains could be in the offing for Unisys.
Shes one of the most powerful characters on television. CBSs (NYSE:CBS) The Good Wifes Julianna Margulies epitomizes class and sophistication.

Now, the two forces behind her look want to help every day boss ladies.

Number 35, a UK based clothing line has created The Entrepreneur Wardrobe aimed to support women on their entrepreneurial path to success.

One of the reasons why we started the entrepreneur wardrobe is that we realize that when youre coming out of the university or when youre coming into your first big job role is hard to find your look and style, Andrea Cohen, Managing Director of Number 35 tells FOXBusiness.com.

Cohen says the idea is also to help educate women about how to dress appropriately for work.

Its quite amazing how nowadays we dont teach our daughters how to dress for work. When I was younger, I was taught how to dress and it was something that happened historically over time but nowadays it doesnt happen anymore so thats why women have such a crisis about dressing, she adds.

The Entrepreneurs wardrobe comes with five must-haves that are customized for each person. The set comes with a pencil skirt, Mugler jacket, classic trousers and a  sleeve shift dress. The cost is $1750.

CBSs The Good Wife and 'BrainDeads' costume designer Dan Lawson says he uses these pieces as a staple wardrobe for all of his strong and powerful characters on the show.

I think its incredibly important to have the look. Its aspirational dressing. You want to dress so when people look at you, they say, I want to be that person. I want to follow that person. That person has the intelligence and they have the power, Lawson tells FOXBusiness.com.

But its not all about the clothes either. He also says that he still has to teach his power women on TV how to act.

Ill even teach my actresses how to carry a purse because a lot of times they dont know how to carry a purse from a position of power, he adds.

Cohen says its important that we teach the next generation not only about what to wear but to have inner peace with their bodies.

Thats why she launched the Body Forum to help educate young women about different body shapes and to go deeper into the psychology of how and why we dress the way that we do.

Im talking about 20s and early 30s women. Lets teach them how they can feel empowered by their clothes. Its really the whole point for the entrepreneurs wardrobe, she says. If I can teach women the tricks of the trade and give them confidence from the inside thats such a great thing to do.
Huawei, a Chinese company that sells far more smartphones in Asia than it does in the West, has tapped a former Apple designer to reportedly lead a team in Scandinavia working on a refresh of its phones' software so that it can be more competitive in the United States.

That geographical juggernaut, according to The Information, came about because Huawei is concerned about the dominance of Google's Android operating system. Like most smartphone manufacturers, Huawei has designed its own skin, or customized Android look. But that skin is often referred to as an iOS ripoff, and its UI layer is heavy with background processes, which slows the phones' performance.

So last fall, Huawei brought in Abigail Brody, a former Apple software designer, to overhaul the skin. She is also reportedly leading a design team made up of former Nokia engineers in Scandinavia "to hedge its bets against Google's control of Android," The Information reports. Huawei has offices in Norway and an R&D center in Sweden.

The company is not the first Chinese manufacturer to be concerned about Android hegemony. Three years ago, a research group backed by smartphone makers and the Chinese government argued that the Chinese mobile market has perhaps become too reliant on the search giant's mobile OS.

The report pointed to discrimination on Google's part when it comes to the sharing of code and commercial agreements. It also pointed out that the lack of an effective patent system in China combined with Android's huge app ecosystem leave little incentive for companies to develop alternative OSes.

Google has also tangled with one of its biggest Android partners: Samsung. In 2013, amidst tension between the two firms, Google signed a deal with Samsung to have it more prominently feature Google's suite of apps on its mobile devices. Samsung has its own Linux-based Tizen OS, which powers some of its wearable devices, but has thus far stuck with Android for its flagship smartphones.

Google's mobile dominance has not gone unnoticed by regulators. In April, the European Commission formally filed charges against Google for anti-competitive behavior related to its Android operating system. The FTC is also reportedly investigating the search giant's Android business.

Huawei's own mobile OS won't change anything immediately, as The Information reports that efforts to develop it are still in their infancy. In the meantime, the company will continue to manufacture Google's Nexus phones for sale in the US and other countries.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
British citizens head to the polls on Thursday to decide whether the United Kingdom will sever ties with the European Union, or maintain its membership in the bloc. While both sentiment polls and betting odds have shifted toward one outcome or the other, the polls are still too close to call, leaving the world waiting with bated breath.

One thing, though, is certain about the situation for former International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky: A so-called Brexit vote, or move to end the U.K.s relationship with the EU would definitely be negative.

Lipsky cited many reasons for the concern including how such a move would upset many industries not just in the U.K., but cause ripple effects around the world thanks to a requirement to renegotiate all of the U.K.s trade policies with other European Union nations.

Many manufacturers who have located in the U.K., such as automaker manufacturing, is certainly predicated on their participation in the single market, Lipsky explained. There are lots of continental-European based auto manufacturers that would be happy if the access of U.K.-produced cars were reduced. Those kinds of effects would run through the British economy.

He continued by saying the uncertain period would slow down not only the U.K. economy, but bring a volatile period to global markets as well, upsetting currency and stock markets around the world.

Theres virtual unanimity that the British currency is going to weaken and that means any profits earned by corporations in the U.K. will be worth less in the U.S., so its a negative [for America], he said.

Though Lipsky is not a British citizen, he said if he were, he would no doubt be in the remain camp, arguing for the U.K. to maintain its EU ties simply because the economic arguments to stay are too compelling to fathom any other outcome.
Image source: Getty Images.

March-in!

It sounds like a cross between a march on Washington and a sit-in, but march-in rights are a protest by the government, not against it. And those two words, if enacted, could bring down the entire prescription drug industry.

I'm not exaggerating.

Under the Patent and Trademark Law AmendmentsAct -- often called the Bayh-Dole Act for the law's authors -- the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has the right to exercise "march-in" rights to stop a monopoly for an invention that was funded by the agency if the invention isn't available for "reasonable terms."

A few months ago, Bernie Sanders and other senators wrote a letter to the NIH to supporting a request from Knowledge Ecology International and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment that the NIH hold a hearing to determine if the agency should use its march-in rights on Medivation's prostate cancer drug, Xtandi, which was partially developed through grants to researchers at University of California, Los Angeles. Medivation's partner Astellas sells the drug for $129,000 in the U.S., but only charges $39,000 in Japan and Sweden, and just $30,000 in Canada, according to the Senators.

The problem with ending monopolies

First, let's get something out of the way: It's wrong that other countries spend less on prescription medications than the U.S., but that's not really the debate here.

We can all agree that a drug company should be able to make $X profits on a drug that has Y benefits. We can argue about whether Y benefits are worth $X profits, but whatever $X profits are deserved by the drug developer, the cost should be shared internationally in some fair manner. The system is clearly broken because other developed countries aren't paying their fair share. If other developed countries paid more, patients in the U.S. could pay less and the companies could make the same amount.

But the solution to an unfair system for American patients isn't to make it unfair to drugmakers. If the NIH were to end the patent and allow others to sell copycats of Xtandi, it would save American's money now, but create problems for developing drugs in the future. Companies develop drugs with the expectation that they're going to make a profit on the drug -- more in the U.S., less in other parts of the world. No investor in their right mind is going to accept the risks associated with drug development knowing the potential rewards could be ripped out from under them because the NIH deems the drug too expensive.

Saved for now

NIH director Francis Collins replied to Knowledge Ecology International this week telling the nonprofit that the agency declines to even initiate a march-in investigation. Collins summarily dismissed the request, arguing that the only justification for using march-in rights and ending the patents on a drug is that the drug is in short supply, which isn't the case for Xtandi.

Knowledge Ecology International plans to appeal Collins' decision to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell.

Should investors be worried?

Everyone wants lower drug prices, which makes it a very popular topic with lawmakers. But unlike constituents that generally have a short-term view -- "I want cheaper medication now!" -- lawmakers and the agency directors they employ understand there are negative consequences to cutting drug prices in the U.S. Investors should expect a lot of rhetoric, especially in an election year, which may result in volatile stock prices for drugmakers, but ultimately policymakers will let the free market prevail.

A free market, of course, means that drug prices will go down when there's competition; we're seeing that currently in the hepatitis C market where new entries have forced Gilead Sciencesto lower the cost of its hepatitis C drugs. Rather than worrying about march-in rights, investors should look for companies with drugs that offer a sustainable advantages over the competition.

The article 2 Words That Could Bring Down the Entire Prescription Drug Industry originally appeared on Fool.com.

Brian Orelli has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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ValeantPharmaceuticalsInternational, Inc. may be the most unpopular stock on Wall Street. That said, markets have a tendency to overreact to bad news, and after losing 90% in the past year, the stock might make sense. Meanwhile, Allergan shares took a beating after the collapse of the Pfizermegamerger, and they'relooking attractive as well.

With both stocks trading at what looks like a discount, investors would like to know which is the better buy. Let's compare the two on a handful of important criteria and see if we can find a winner.

Recent performance

When Valeant finally reported first-quarter results this year, revenue had risen 9% from Q1 2015 to $2.4 billion. Those hardly seem the results of a company in trouble. However, the increase was almost entirely due to acquisitions completed in 2015. Organic sales from operations existing during Q1 2015 fell $289 million.

A $694.5 million drop in intangible assets (those without a physical form) dragged Q1 2016 operating profit down to just $66.2 million from $571 million in Q1 2015. A whopping $425.7 million spent servicing an enormous debt load pulled the bottom line from a positive $98.5 million in Q1 2015 to a loss of $372.9 million in the latest quarter.

Image source: Allergan.

Allergan's first-quarter results were far better than Valeant's, with net revenue growing 48% year over year to $3.8 billion. On the bottom line, the company reported a $186 million profit.

The view beneath the surface isn't quite as pretty. Allergan's planned $40 billion-plus sale of its generics segment to Teva Pharmaceutical Industriesmight put a heap of cash in its coffers any day now, butthe sale would leave it with operations that are still unprofitable.In the first quarter, Allergan's operations -- the ones it's not selling to Teva -- recorded a $153.8 million loss.

Looking ahead

Allergan's bottom line was hit by a whopping $332.8 million in interest expense in the first quarter. A $40 billion sale of its generics segment to Teva should help the company pay down over $38.6 billion in long-term debt on Allergan's books at the end of March.

Image source: Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

First-quarter sales of Allergan's U.S. brands rose 27.3%, and a 2.9% wider operating margin for the segment is a big step in the right direction. A handful of new and label-expanding drug applications submitted to the FDA in the first quarter alone could feasibly put Allergan's "continuing" operations on a path to profitability.

The same can't be said of Valeant. Its previous model of buying commercial-stage drugs and then raising their prices is under a microscope, and it has few potential growth-drivers. Three products under review at the FDA -- for glaucoma, opioid-induced constipation, and AstraZeneca-partnered brodalumab for treatment of psoriasis --might provide some lift in the years ahead.

Unlike Allergan, Valeant is losing pricing power on its existing product portfolio. Provisions (including rebates and charge-backs) as a percentage of gross sales grew from 31% in Q1 2015 to 41% during the latest quarter.

It also seems the recent deal to distribute products through leading retail pharmacy chainWalgreens Boots Alliance isn't the life raft Valeant investors had hoped for. Net sales recognized through the new arrangement comprised less than 3% of Valeant's total during the first quarter. An approximate 10% price reduction to Valeant's important branded skin and eye-care products in association with the deal,along with revelations that some prescriptions actually have a negative average selling price, don't bode well for the partnership.

Solvency issues

Valeant squeaked out operating income of just $66.2 million in Q1 2016. If it continues at this pace, I don't see how it can service its massive long-term debt obligations of about $41.9 billion. Payments of about $1.9 billion due by the end of this year, $8.3 billion over 2017 and 2018, and $12.7 billion over 2019 and 2020 will most likely require the company to sell off some assets.

As my Foolish colleague Sean Williams pointed out, Valeant's desperate situation is hardly a secret, which would put it in an unfavorable position to negotiate potential asset sales. Once assets are sold, its ability to generate profits comes into question.

Allergan also has a huge debt load. However, it's positioned for growth and would probably generate enough operating profit to service that debt, even if the Teva deal falls through.

Valeant's shares might look cheap, but Allergan's relative safety makes it a better buy, hands-down.

The article Better Buy: Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. vs. Allergan originally appeared on Fool.com.

Cory Renauer has no position in any stocks mentioned. You can follow Cory on Twitter @TMFang4apples or connect with him on LinkedIn for more healthcare industry insight. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Valeant Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool recommends Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Is Wall Street talking behind your back again? Image source: iStock/Thinkstock.

It makes sense that Bank of America's shares are on the move today, but it's interesting that they're up 2.6% so early in the trading day on Thursday. I say that because we don't yet know how two pending catalysts for its stock will turn out.

The first major catalyst is the unfolding referendum in the United Kingdom over whether to secede from the European Union. It's a shortsighted, irrational measure fueled by anti-immigration sentiment.Known as Brexit, the move could have a big impact on not only the U.K. and EU, but also on the global economy. This is because the euro is one of three major reserve currencies in the world, along with the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen. Britain's departure alone wouldn't signal the euro's demise. But that's the logical endpoint if other countries follow suit.

For Bank of America, a vote in favor of Brexit would mean that it would have to relocate some of its London-based bankers to the continent, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment bank specializing in the financial services sector. It would also likely spur heightened volatility in credit markets, which could weigh on Bank of America's sales and trading revenue.

The latest polls show that U.K. voters are split evenly on the issue. This is despite the fact that a nationalist Brexit sympathizer last week assassinated a politician who was urging people to vote in favor of remaining in the union. Thus, given that stocks are up ahead of the results, one would be excused for concluding that investors believe U.K. voters will read between the lines and reject the spurious rationale offered in favor of leaving. We'll find out for sure this evening or tomorrow morning.

How the other catalyst unfolds is also unknown at this point. It relates to Bank of America's performance on the 2016 stress test -- or, more specifically, on the first of two portions of the test, the results of which will be announced by the Federal Reserve at 4:30 p.m. EDT today.

The purpose of the stress test is to determine whether the nation's biggest banks, those with more than $50 billion in assets on their balance sheets, have enough capital to survive an economic downturn akin to the financial crisis. Additionally, the second part of the stress test, the comprehensive capital analysis and review, dictates whether a bank can raise its dividend or increase its share repurchase program. The results from this part are due next Wednesday, June 29.

While there are thus plenty of reasons for Bank of America's shares to be on the move right now, it's premature to know if they're headed in the right direction. That said, given that the S&P 500 is currently up by almost 1%, and that Bank of America has a beta of 1.73 (according to YCharts.com), which implies that its stock is 73% more volatile than the broader market on a typical day, the most likely explanation for the rise in the bank's shares is that investors overall are feeling optimistic about how one or both of these events will play out.

We'll know soon enough either way.

The article Does Wall Street Know Something About Bank of America That You Dont? originally appeared on Fool.com.

John Maxfield owns shares of Bank of America. The Motley Fool recommends Bank of America. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
A Project Ara smartphone. Image source: Google.com

Later this year, Google will launch its very first smartphone. It could be the most revolutionary handset to hit the market since Apple sold the original iPhone back in 2007.

In the past,Alphabet's search giant has worked with its various hardware partners to deliver Google-branded Nexus phones, but it has never made a smartphone from start to finish. That will change later this year when its Project Ara smartphone goes on sale. Initially, it will be aimed at developers, but Google plans to sell it to consumers in 2017.

Project Ara's success isn't guaranteed. Indeed, given its unorthodox nature, it could prove to be a dramatic failure. But if it succeeds, it could shake the very foundations of the handset market, and undermine the business models of both Apple and Samsung .

A different vision, but at least it's not vaporware

Project Ara was originally announced back in 2013, and then demonstrated publicly in 2014. It was supposed to begin shipping in the second half of last year, but in August, Google announced that it had been delayed. At the time, I warned that Project Ara seemed to be running the risk of becoming vaporware -- a promising device that, for whatever reason, fell short of internal expectations and never made it to the public.

Fortunately, that's not the case. To be clear, the Project Ara phone shipping later this year is a less ambitious device than the one Google described previously. Originally, Project Ara would've been perhaps the last phone you'd ever need to buy -- with a fully modular design, consumers would buy a phone frame from Google, then outfit it with a variety of modules. These modules would encompass key components, including the processor, memory, cellular radio, and display.

Now, those key components are integrated into Project Ara's frame, along with a set of speakers. It's still a modular device, but the modules are limited to ancillary functions. The most useful may be the camera -- those willing and able to purchase the proper camera module could equip their Project Ara phone with a truly professional-grade camera. Other modules could add projectors, fitness sensors, game controllers, secondary displays, or larger batteries. Almost anything is possible. Each Project Ara phone can take up to six modules, allowing for a great degree of customization and added functionality.

Redefining consumer expectations

Google's Android operating system has managed to capture about 80% of the world's smartphone users largely because of its customization options. Handset manufacturers are free to use the Android operating system on almost any smartphone, which has led to a flurry of different models. There's an Android phone sold at virtually every price point, in every size, on every carrier, in every country.

Project Ara will bring customization to an entirely new level. There's still a lot reasons to doubt Project Ara's chances: Beyond Google's relative inexperience when it comes to selling handsets at scale, it's not clear that consumers will want to deal with the hassle of swapping modules. Introducing a wide variety of different hardware configurations could lead to bugs, or other unforeseen circumstances that make the user experience less than ideal. Many of the more attractive Project Ara modules could be expensive, and consumers may not be able to take advantage of generous financing plans currently offered by carriers to purchase them.

But if Project Ara does succeed, it could change how consumers view the smartphone market. If must-have, revolutionary modules emerge, integrated phones that cannot work with Project Ara's modules could be at an immense disadvantage.

Samsung and Apple remain the world's largest smartphone sellers, and therefore remain the most susceptible to competition. Apple derived nearly two-thirds of its revenue from the iPhone last quarter, and likely a larger percentage of its profit. Samsung is a more diversified business, but its mobile devices still brought in more than half its sales last quarter.

Both companies have faced competition from a wide variety of sources in recent years, but they've never faced a competitor like Project Ara before. Investors in the space should watch Google's progress closely.

The article Google's Radical Plan to Reinvent the Smartphone Could Devastate Apple and Samsung originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Sam Mattera has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
There's a fresh, optimistic take on Groupon : Maxim Group is initiating coverage of the leader in online daily deals with a bullish buy rating. Maxim is also slapping a target of $5 on the shares, a number that may seem low only if you didn't know that the stock closed at $3.25 yesterday. Maxim's price target suggests a healthy 54% of upside from here.

Groupon stock was trading north of $5 as recently as three months ago, but a rough quarter fueled an analyst downgrade. A pair of asset sales since the uninspiring late-April report have failed to restore investor confidence.

Discounting the discounter

RBC Capital Markets lowered its rating on Groupon last month a few days after a rough financial report, slashing its price target from $4 to $3 in the process. Gross billings for Groupon clocked in at $1.47 billion during the first quarter, 5% lower than a year earlier. A 5% gain in North America was more than offset by its crumbling business internationally, as unfavorable foreign currency fluctuations aren't helping its organically deteriorating operations in key overseas markets.

Groupon has been announcing layoffs and bowing out of some markets. It sold off Groupon Indonesia to Malaysia's fitness-sharing specialist KFit Holdings earlier this month. That followed the sale of its Breadcrumb point-of-sale platform last month to restaurant solutions provider Upserve. Groupon walked away with a minority stake in Upserve and KFit Holdings following the deals, and there's promise there if its former Groupon-owned businesses can turn things around under more focused leadership.

It's not all bad

There are reasons to be hopeful.Groupon may be unloading some of its side businesses, but that's only giving it more time to work on its flagship offering. Groupon recently introduced a national ad campaign, and it's the first time the group-buying site has done that since 2011.

It's also in a good place financially. Its actual recent numbers may not be great, but we're talking about a company with $688.5 billion in cash on its balance sheet -- that's a third of its market cap. Groupon has its challenges, but it also has the means to keep trying for a long time until it gets things right.

Groupon is targeting$2.75 billion to $3.05 billion in revenue for all of 2016. Its active user base is growing, now standing at an impressive 26.9 million active customers. There were roughly 700,000 active deals on its platform as of the end of its latest quarter. We're talking about significant numbers of customers and vendors that still lean on Groupon for deals and leads even if investors have seemingly moved on from the stock.

Groupon stock has gotten crushed in both 2014 and 2015. It was off to a good start in 2016 until its unflattering quarterly report. Most of the analyst moves in recent months have been negative, but now Maxim is here with a call that suggests plenty of upside.

Image source: Groupon.

The article Groupon's Road to $5 Won't Be Easy originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image Source: Workday

Along with reporting GAAP profits, companies frequently report adjusted EBITDA or non-GAAP profits which adjusts for share-based compensation. The difference between the two numbers can be extensive. For example, below is a look at a GAAP and Non-GAAP net income reported by some popular tech names in their most recent quarters.

Company GAAP Net Income Share-Based Compensation Expense Other Operating Expenses Non-GAAP Net Income Twitter (79,731) 150,916 31,538 102,723 LinkedIn (45,827) 146,104 (808) 99,469 Salesforce.com 38,759 188,919 (60,145) 167,533 Workday (61,558) 47,274 10,321 (3,963)

All numbers in thousands, USD. Source: Company filings

Pitching profits by backing out compensation to employees is not a practice I'm fond of. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett agrees. Prior to the dot-com bubble bursting, Buffett wrote the following in his 1998 letter to shareholders:

Not only is share-based compensation often misrepresented by managers, it also triggers a risk that is overlooked by investors. If the price of the stock goes down, whether it is related to the company itself or the overall market, there is a higher chance of decreasing morale and higher attrition. Although any company with a large portion of its compensation tied to equity is susceptible to this risk, one that sticks out to me is Workday.

In its most recent fiscal year ending January 31, 2016, Workday's share-based compensation of nearly $250 million accounted for 22% of total revenue. To put that into perspective, share-based compensation at Salesforce and Oracleare 9% and 3% respectively. Now, imagine how much of the workforce is not going to be happy if the stock price was cut in half.

A stock price decrease of a large magnitude at a company that relies heavily on share-based compensation recently occurred. When LinkedIn reported fourth-quarter 2015 results in late January, its stock price plummeted over 40%. The next day, CEO Jeff Weiner held an all-hands meeting reassuring employees of the strength of LinkedIn:

In case the motivational speech wasn't enough, Weiner forfeited his $14 million annual bonus and gave it as a bonus to employees.

Image Source: LinkedIn

The importance of keeping employees happy is important at Workday and LinkedIn. Both companies stress the role of culture to the success of their respective businesses. In its 10-K, LinkedIn singles out its values and unique company culture as the foundation of its success. In Workday's annual report, the company mentions the failure of maintaining its company culture as a risk to its business.

When a few negative Glassdoor reviews showed that the company may be having morale issues, the company addressed them aggressively. CEO Aneel Bhusri was questioned about the reviews in its latest earning call and he answered with the following:

Regardless of recent negativity surrounding LinkedIn and Workday, both companies still score well on Glassdoor. Of the LinkedIn employees who rated it on Glassdoor, 89% would recommend it to a friend and 98% rank its CEO favorably. In fact, Weiner was the 5th highest rated CEO of 2016. For Workday, 73% of employees would recommend the company to a friend while 94% approve of Mr. Bhusri.

What happens if the price drops?

Although it is pure speculation on my part, I believe one of the reasons LinkedIn sold itself to Microsoft was because it was in danger of losing its highly valued employees.A price drop over 40% likely left many employee options worthless, especially the newer ones.

The company granted over 280,000 stock options during fiscal year 2015. The average price of those options was $259 per share. According to company filings, LinkedIn had 683,788 or 47% of all options outstanding that had a weighted exercise price over $170 per share. On the day of the announcement of the sale, LinkedIn shares popped 47% from $131 per share to over $192, bringing many of those options in the money.

Over the last 4 years, the amount of share-based compensation as a percentage of revenue at LinkedIn climbed from 9% to 17%. Workday is seeing a similar trajectory.

Data source: Company filings

According to its most recent annual filing, the company did not grant any new stock options in its latest fiscal year. However, it did grant over 5 million restricted stock units which are priced at over $85 per share which is near where it trades today. A 40% haircut in its share price may not necessarily mean Workday will need to find a buyer, but it will put a dent in the pocketbooks of its employees.

It's common practice in the Silicon Valley for tech companies to compensate employees with a combination of stock and stock options. While the practice often dilutes the equity ownership of the company, it also aligns the interests of employees and management with shareholders. Additionally, cash is often needed to help grow the company. Profits are not expected over the short-term so compensation in equity is a good way for these companies to recruit talent without paying high salaries. While not all shareholders are fans of share-based compensation, it is commonplace in many young companies and it does serve a purpose.

However, investors should not only keep a close eye on management's accounting treatment of options, but they should also be keen to how a drop in stock price can affect employee morale and turnover.

The article How Big of a Risk is Share Based Compensation at Workday? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Palbir Nijjar owns shares of LinkedIn and Workday. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Twitter, and Workday. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and Oracle. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Rendering of Las Vegas Sands' next resort, The Parisian in Macau. Image source: Las Vegas Sands.

Las Vegas Sands has struggled on the market since the beginning of 2014 as Asian gamblers rapidly slowed their spending and competition began to creep into the company's main market of Macau. The challenges the company faces will only get stronger as MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts open new properties on Cotai in the next year.

The question is, is there too much pessimism priced into Las Vegas Sands' stock today? That's what will determine if the stock is a buy. Let's take a look.

LVS Total Return Price data by YCharts.

As good as it's going to get for a while

Operationally, there's not much that's going to improve in the foreseeable future for Las Vegas Sands. Macau's gaming revenue is still falling, although it may finally be stabilizing, and competitors are completing new resorts on Cotai, where Las Vegas Sands is the dominant player.

Data source: Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. Image by the author.

Melco Crown completed Studio City late last year, and Galaxy completed Phase II of Galaxy Macau. But the bigger competitors will be Wynn Palace and MGM Cotai when they open. They're a street away from Las Vegas Sands' properties and will take more market share from the company.

Las Vegas Sands will open The Parisian late this year or early next, but I think the best-case scenario is that it maintains market share with that property. That could mean a drop in profitability overall given the rise in operating expenses associated with a new resort.

Things don't look much better elsewhere. In Las Vegas and Singapore, the best-case scenario is that revenue and EBITDA, a proxy for cash flow from a resort, stay flat this year and next. There's not much growth in the U.S. economy right now, and Singapore feels the hangover from negative factors affecting Macau, so in those markets, flat performance would be good.

Value isn't strong for Las Vegas Sands

At best, Las Vegas Sands is looking at flat results in the future, and I think there's good reason to think earnings will decline this year and next. With that in mind, valuation is very important.

Right now, Las Vegas Sands' market cap of $37.3 billion, net debt of $7.8 billion, and trailing EBITDA of $4.0 billion mean the company's enterprise value is 11.2 times trailing EBITDA. I'd like to see that ratio in the single digits given the weak operating prospects, so that makes the stock a tough buy now.

Until we see improvements in operations or more value in the stock, this isn't a stock I would buy. The odds just aren't in your favor in Las Vegas Sands.

The article Is Las Vegas Sands Stock a Buy Today? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Travis Hoium owns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool owns shares of Wynn Resorts. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: SolarCity.

When a billionaire like Elon Musk makes a move to merge two public companies he controls -- as CEO ofTesla Motors Incand chairman of the board ofSolarCity Corp-- you have to wonder if there are ulterior motives. SolarCity has struggled for most of the past year with changing customer demands in the solar market, and the costs associated with selling on a national scale. So Teslaswooping in to buy it seems like a nice bailout for the solar company.

Should investors be concerned that Elon Musk is saving one company with another in a move that could be considered a bailout?

Why SolarCity might need a bailout

If you look at the stock chart for SolarCity for the past two years, you can see why it might be looking for alternatives. But it's on the operational side that SolarCity is really looking for salvation from its current woes.

SCTY data by YCharts.

Through the end of 2015, there was a lot of urgency for customers to go solar, and the industry was just building out the infrastructure to serve those customers effectively. SolarCity was able to grow its footprint, lower costs, and sign up hundreds of thousands of customers in the process.

But late last year, the solar investment tax credit was extended, and some of the urgency to go solar in 2016 disappeared. Combine that with negative rulings against solar in Nevada, and you have an industry that's seeing less growth than it's seen in a decade. SolarCity, Vivint Solar , and Sunrun , which command the biggest share of the residential solar market, have seen costs shoot higher as growth has slowed. And that's just part of the problem.

Worse yet is that companies and banks that finance solar systems have begun to question if the assumptions they've been using were too optimistic. Are customers really going to pay solar energy bills for 20 years? Will homeowners who sell their homes be able to transfer leases 10 or 15 years after the initial contract is signed? With loans proving to give customers more cost savings and flexibility, will default rates on old leases grow in the future?

As these questions pop up, borrowing costs to fund solar power systems are on the rise. And that's hurt SolarCity's value proposition for investors. And as SolarCity grew, it needed more and more debt, so the rising cost was a huge detriment to the business. A buyout by Tesla Motors probably looks good given the challenges SolarCity sees ahead.

Why Tesla Motors offered to buy SolarCity

If SolarCity was looking for alternatives, Tesla is the obvious buyer -- and maybe the only one. The companies are working together on energy storage, and solar definitely plays into Musk's long-term vision.

But after SunEdison's disastrous pursuit of Vivint Solar, which ended in SunEdison filing for bankruptcy, there likely weren't many other suitors for SolarCity. There are billions of dollars in financing needed to build solar systems, and that presents problems for any potential buyer. Elon Musk and Tesla seem to be able to gloss over those financing challenges for now.

Does SolarCity need a bailout from Tesla Motors?

The bigger question for SolarCity is why it would need to be acquired in the first place. If management really thinks the company will be cash-flow positive by the end of the year, and sticks to its target of installing more than 1 GW of solar, why sell out at a depressed stock price? If they had confidence in the business, wouldn't it be better to stay independent, and reap the rewards of that upside?

The obvious answer is that SolarCity doesn't see a bright future without the Tesla Motors deal, or CEO Lyndon Rive would have rebuffed the offer immediately. But that didn't happen, and that's what I find so curious.

Maybe SolarCity was in need of a bailout more than investors thought, and Tesla has come to the rescue. If that's the case, it could be a terrible merger for Tesla if SolarCity was in such dire straits in the first place. And it could destroy a lot of shareholder value -- which is why it should be on investors' minds today.

In the end, Tesla and SolarCity investors will be able to vote for or against this deal. And given the difference of opinions about how SolarCity and Tesla will work together, maybe they'll strike down Elon Musk's vision of a vertically integrated renewable energy company before it can come to pass.

The article Is Tesla Motors Inc Bailing Out SolarCity Corp? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends SolarCity and Tesla Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch unit will pay $415 million and admit to wrongdoing to settle charges that it misused customer cash to generate profits and failed to safeguard their securities from creditors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

An SEC investigation found that Merrill Lynch violated the an SEC rule in place for protecting customers' assets by misusing customer cash that should have been deposited in a reserve account, the agency said.

The maneuver freed up billions of dollars per week from 2009 to 2012 that Merrill Lynch used to finance its own trading activities, the SEC said.

The case is the largest customer protection settlement in SEC history, Andrew Ceresney, direction of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a call with reporters.

But if Merrill Lynch's business failed during those trades, customers would have been exposed to a massive shortfall in the reserve account, the SEC said.

While no customers were harmed and no losses were incurred, our responsibility is to protect customer assets and we have dedicated significant resources to reviewing and enhancing our processes," said Merrill Lynch spokesman William Halldin, in a statement.

"The issues related to our procedures and controls have been corrected. We have cooperated fully with the SEC staff throughout this investigation, Halldin said.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Marguerita Choy)
Image source: Karen Jackson/Flickr.

The market for ingredients made without genetic engineering, also known as non-GMO ingredients, has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years. Factors such as well-organized marketing interests, the expansion of brands and niche stores, and increasing consumer interest have collided to catalyze the market's remarkable rise. After climbing to $200 billion in sales in 2014 the market is expected to notch $330 billion in sales by 2019.Despite the success, one major obstacle has proven difficult to overcome: a lack of non-GMO animal feed.

The absence of reliable feed suppliers has put pressure on major consumer brands such as Starbucks and Unilever's Ben & Jerry's, caused confusion among consumers, and led to infighting among non-GMO stakeholders. Now the market is hoping that a new product line from Bunge , one of the world's largest grain and feed distributors, can deliver a much-needed solution -- but there's catch.

If you feed a cow a GMO...

This may not seem like a big deal until you ask one question: If an animal is fed corn or soybean that was genetically engineered, should the milk or meat or eggs produced by the animal be considered non-GMO? Regulators and marketers have balked at how best to answer the question, while some NGOs are learning that having the loudest megaphone can backfire when you don't have all the answers for consumers. After digging itself into a hole on the issue, GMO Insidedecided to climb out by creating a double standard.

The NGO, with a stated mission of "eliminating genetically engineered foods" from the market, has pressured Starbucks to source only non-GMO animal feed for its dairy products. The bold stance is held despite giving Ben & Jerry's a free pass because the use of genetically engineered ingredients in animal feed is "common practice." No wonder consumers are confused.

Starbucks has argued that it offers organic and Non-GMO Project Verified products in its stores, and that asking its dairy suppliers to switch to non-GMO animal feed is impossible because there isn't enough to go around. That is true, and it's the same explanation offered by Ben & Jerry's. The difference is that Starbucks has a global supply chain and the financial power to move -- and in this case, create -- markets, which is why NGOs are focusing their energy on the company.

If only there were a reliable supplier of non-GMO animal feed...

Bunge to the rescue

How we got here is simple to understand. Most farmers rely on biotech crops as tools that allow them to more easily control weeds and insect pests. In 2015, nearly 94% of America's soybean crop and 92% of America's corn crop contained at least one engineered genetic trait, and the biggest destination for each crop is animal feed. In fact, only 11% of America's corn crop becomes human food, while 45% is dedicated to animal feed applications and the remainder is hauled away for ethanol production.

While it may be easy for a consumer brand to shuffle out minor corn and soy ingredients to transition to non-GMO human food products, the proliferation of genetically engineered crops has made it nearly impossible to source non-GMO animal feed. Enter Bunge.

After two years of development the agricultural products company has created a non-GMO corn hominy feed, which is a co-product comprising a mixture of corn components that are leftover after the milling process. Bunge expects the new animal feed, which is Non-GMO Project Verified, to be sold to egg producers, broiler producers, and dairy farms. A single facility in Nebraska will be used initially, but the goal of the program was to create a market-ready, reliable, and scaleable process for responding to growing demand.

Storing and transporting agricultural products is big business, but you need big operations to do it well. Image source: Bill Jacobus/Flickr.

Bunge's size and balance sheet make it uniquely suited to take the lead in non-GMO animal feed, which is virtually an untapped market. While expanding the supply could make it easier for larger brands such as Starbucks or Ben & Jerry's to work with suppliers that use only non-GMO animal feed, any market shift may not resolve the confusion among consumers.

There's a catch

As noted above, the question concerning "if you feed a cow a GMO..." has created a few issues for the non-GMO market. Ironically, it's a problem that was created by the industry itself. (In fact, there is no federal definition for "non-GMO".) Most regulations, from the GMO labeling law recently passed in Vermont to the precautionary principle-friendly legislation in Europe, don't bother to address animal feed. This is inherently different from regulations (and proposed regulations) governing the disclosure of genetically engineered ingredients in human food.

In 2016 numerous consumer brands have begun to voluntarily label products that contain such ingredients; partly to get ahead of any future laws, partly to respond to consumers, and partly because a nationwide labeling law looks very unlikely anytime soon. The same sense of urgency simply doesn't exist for disclosing the source of animal feed, and it seems likely that many brands will use the same rationale to decide against sourcing non-GMO animal feed.

What does it mean for investors?

Of course, some brands will transition to non-GMO animal feed if supply and reliability obstacles are overcome. Ben & Jerry's has publicly stated as much. But if there is no legal definition of "non-GMO", then why should Starbucks pay a premium for non-GMO animal feed only to pass the price increase on to consumers? Do enough Starbucks customers care that deeply about the issue to stomach eventual price increases? In other words, while there is plenty of room for Bunge to grow the market, current regulations suggest that non-GMO animal feed will remain a niche product for the foreseeable future.

The article The Non-GMO Market Just Got a Major Boost, but There's a Catch originally appeared on Fool.com.

Maxx Chatsko has no position in any stocks mentioned. Follow him on Twitterto keep up with developments in the engineered biology field.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool recommends Unilever. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
While the commercials may say "I'm loving it," the survey results say otherwise.

McDonald's placed at the bottom of the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index report(ACSI) (registration required)for limited-service (fast-food and fast-casual) restaurants. To further rub salt in to Ronald McDonald's wounds, the chain also scored lower than any restaurant in the full-service category.

The only positive for the chain may be that while it came in last place as it did in 2015, it did improve its score. In 2015 McDonald's nabbed a 67 on the 100-point scale, down 6% from the previous year. This year the fast-food company climbed to a 69 -- still bad enough to earn the least-liked restaurant title -- but up 3% over the year before.

"Fast casual restaurants like Panera Bread are raising the bar on quality, and we're seeing higher quality industry wide, which is driving the boost in customer satisfaction,"ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg told The Motley Fool in an email."McDonald's has long been the face of fast food, and it's more challenging for a company with such a massive footprint to change with the times. They're fighting brand fatigue, but seem to have found some traction with their all-day breakfast."

McDonald's has come in last on the ACSI survey two years in a row. Image source: McDonald's.

A look at the fast-food industry

While McDonald's continued to bring up the rear, the overall fast-food industry made gains versus full-service restaurants. Overall, the limited-service industry improved its collective rating from a 77 to a 79, a 2.6% gain while full-service dropped dropped 1.2% from an 82 to an 81.

"Americans are now spending more money dining out than shopping for groceries," ACSI Chairman Claes Fornell said in a press release. "Fast food restaurants appear to be capitalizing on this trend more than full-service restaurants, maintaining the lower prices and speedy service that has long defined the industry, while also appealing to health-conscious consumers via more diverse offerings and higher-quality ingredients."

Not all chains associated with higher quality food did well, however, asChipotlesaw the biggest drop of any restaurant, falling 6% from an 83 to a middle-of-the-pack 78.

"Higher quality drives the improving scores for the industry, but quality issues relating to food-borne illnesses knock down Chipotle," said VanAmburg in the press release. "Just as Netflix's stock took a dive after the singular event of its pricing and Qwikster branding misstep in 2011, Chipotle's stock also has fallen after its food-quality crisis. Netflix rebounded rather quickly, but it can take more time for a restaurant to recover from quality issues."

Image source: ACSI.

Customer service is improving

If you consider that the Chipotle drop really reflects a one-time anomaly, overall scores for limited-service restaurants were even more impressive than they appear at first glance. Every chain rated except for Chipotle andYum! Brands' Pizza Hut posted improved scores in 2016.

And while McDonald's came in last, it is not far behind its hamburger rivals, which all came inbelow the industry average, but did all show improvement. Restaurant Brands International's Burger King, at 6%, had the biggest increase to tie Wendy's (+4%) at 76.

The ACSI report is based on 4,786 customer surveys collected in March 2016.

Even for McDonald's these are good numbers that show the overall perception of fast food has improved with consumers. This report showed that in some ways (with Chipotle being an exception for a clear reason) a rising tide lifts all boats. McDonald's still has a ways to go to not be America's least-liked restaurant brand, but at least it has its ship sailing in the right direction.

The article This Is America's Least-Liked Fast-Food Chain originally appeared on Fool.com.

Daniel Kline has no position in any stocks mentioned. He eats at Chipotle a lot, but almost never visits McDonald's.The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Chipotle Mexican Grill, Netflix, and Panera Bread. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
As the United Kingdom votes on whether to cut ties with the European Union, former Senior Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, Steve Hilton, says the most important question facing U.K. voters is whos really in control?

In Europe, the people who initiate the legislation impose regulation on all the countries, including on immigration, arent elected by anybody  and thats why this really is a question of democracy  about who actually controls and runs a country  the people of that country or some amorphous system of bureaucracy and regulation that no one really can control, he told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

Now living in America as a tech firm head, Hilton said the experience of working in government and the amount of regulation and legislation coming from the EU moved the needle to vote leave.

At one point it was over half of the actions that the British government were taking, were actually driven by the EU  and they were things that the British government didnt actually agree with but we had to concede in order to win other arguments in Brussels. So it really made the job of governing a country, the elected government, kind of impossible and I thought that was fundamentally un-democratic, he said.

Even though he remains at odds with Prime Minister David Cameron, Hilton says they have remained good friends. He also explained how the vote will send signals to the rest of the world.

Its not easy for me to be on the other side from him but I think in the end, this is a really big question that is bigger than any one general election. Its going to have an impact here for generations and I think an impact around the wider world because it will send a signal that this centralization of power that you can see going on everywhere  people have had enough of it.
A Florida boy battling brain cancer got to take a break from treatment recently after local firefighters named him one of their own for the day.

Cameron Fulling, 9, enjoyed the honor Wednesday, when firefighters at the Lake Mary Fire Department suited him up, gave him some training and let him a ride in a firetruck, Fox 35 Orlando reported. In doing so, Cameron joined a list of other kids who have taken part in the stations Give Kids Their Day program.

"I take kids that are terminally ill with cancer, and I make them a firefighter for a day," LMFD Lieutenant Bruce Williams told the news station.

Williams said the program aims to help kids like Cameron have the freedom to be just kids.

"For one hour, they're not thinking of their sickness, their illness, he told Fox 35 Orlando.

Cameron told the news station he wanted to be a firefighter cause you go into fires.
The conscious mind is quick to adapt to information that flies in the face of stereotype, but the subconscious may ignore even the most glaring of facts, new research finds.

When people are given two names, Jonathan and Elizabeth, and asked who is a doctor and who is a nurse, the respondents typically say that each is equally likely to be in either profession. But experiments based on how quickly people link the names with the jobs reveal that people's brains run on stereotype: The individuals are much more likely to associate Jonathan, a man, with doctoring, and Elizabeth, a woman, with nursing.

This kind of implicit association, or subconscious pairing based on stereotype, is well-known in psychology. But now, researchers find that even after people are directly told that Jonathan is a nurse and Elizabeth is a doctor, these implicit biases don't change. The stereotype acts like a "mental firewall" that seems to prevent people from updating their subconscious attitudes with the facts, said Jack Cao, a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University in Massachusetts. [6 Myths About Girls and Science]

Explicit vs. implicit

Cao and his advisor, Mahzarin Banaji, a social psychologist at Harvard, built their study on a body of research that finds that people's conscious attitudes tend to be more enlightened than their subconscious processing. These subtle, snap-judgment attitudes reveal themselves through implicit-association tasks, in which people are shown two words  say, "Elizabeth" and "doctor"  and asked to press a button if the words are related. Concepts that are linked more closely are processed more quickly, such that people tend to press the button faster if "doctor" is paired with Jonathan instead of with Elizabeth.

The researchers had their study participants complete one of these implicit-association tasks, and also asked the individuals to report their conscious beliefs about Jonathan's and Elizabeth's professions. The investigators then told the participants directly either that Jonathan was a doctor and Elizabeth a nurse, or that Elizabeth was a doctor and Jonathan a nurse.

Unsurprisingly, the participants had no problem repeating these facts back to the researchers. But the implicit-association task revealed that no matter what the participants had been told, they still subconsciously saw Jonathan as a doctor and Elizabeth as a nurse.

"When we look at people's implicit responses, they don't update quite as quickly or easily or accurately" as explicit beliefs, Cao told Live Science.

Sticky beliefs

The researchers repeated their experiments with nearly 3,400 participants. In addition, the scientists varied the circumstances slightly: In one study, they used the names Richard and Jennifer and the professions doctor and artist. In another, the researchers picked made-up names that people wouldn't be able to associate with anyone they knew: Lapper for the man and Affina for the woman. In both cases, the researchers found the same results. People who were told that the man was in the female-stereotyped profession and the woman in the male-stereotyped profession had no trouble accepting those facts consciously, but still made implicit judgments based on stereotype.

In a final study, the researchers used two male names, Matthew and Benjamin, and the professions scientist and artist. These results showed that, without stereotype to rely on, people did update their subconscious beliefs easily; their implicit associations matched their explicit beliefs.

"There seems to be some stickiness in our implicit beliefs," Cao said. In their paper, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Cao and Banaji likened the phenomenon to the old riddle about a father and son who are in a terrible car accident. The father dies, and the son is rushed to the hospital, where the surgeon takes one look and says, "I can't operate on this patient! He's my son."

"In 1985, one of the authors of the present paper attempted to solve this riddle by weakly offering that perhaps the surgeon was the biological father and the other man was the adoptive father," the researchers wrote. "Much to this author's chagrin, the correct answer is that the surgeon is the boy's mother."

These stereotypes could be important in real life. In one study, published in PNAS in 2014, another team of researchers found that the stronger people's implicit association between men and math, the less likely the people were to hire a woman for a hypothetical job involving basic arithmetic. [5 Reasons Women Trail Men in Science]

Some studies have found that there are ways to budge people's implicit attitudes, Cao said. For instance, if people have a neutral attitude toward a man, it's easy to transform that into a strong negative reaction if you tell people that the man is a child molester. But fighting ingrained stereotypes may be a more difficult task, Cao said.

"There's a part of you that's clinging to the stereotype, even though you know the stereotype doesn't apply," Cao said.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If California Democrats have their way, Christian colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to require students attend chapel services or require them to profess a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Senate Bill 1146 would close a loophole that lawmakers say allows Christian universities to discriminate against students based on their gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.

Click here to join Todds American Dispatch - a must-read for Conservatives!

All students deserve to feel safe in institutions of higher education, regardless of whether they are public or private, said Senator Ricardo Lara, the author of the legislation. California has established strong protections for the LGBTQ community and private universities should not be able to use faith as an excuse to discriminate and avoid complying with state laws.

The legislation has already passed the Senate and is expected to clear hurdles in the Assembly. Thus far, Lara has refused to compromise with the states Christian colleges and universities.

No university should have a license to discriminate, he said in a statement.

If the loophole is closed, it would only exempt schools that prepare students for pastoral ministry.

It discriminates against religious colleges, said John Jackson, the president of William Jessup University. If we dont play ball with state  the state will attempt to drive us out of existence.

Click here to get Todds latest book - an investigation into the war on religious liberty.

The president of the Sacramento-based university called the proposed legislation chilling.

The passage of this bill would destroy the foundation upon which this university was founded, said Jackson. Systematically discriminating against religious institutions and preventing student access and choice to Christian higher education is bad policy and will have a negative effect on the state of California.

Lee Wilhite, vice president of university communications at Biola University, said they, too, have serious concerns with the bill.

It functionally eliminates the religious liberty of all California faith-based universities, he told me. It really does infringe on how we carry out our mission.

Like most Christian universities, Biola integrates the Bible through all of their courses  something theyve been doing for more than 100 years.

If the loophole is closed, it could have a devastating impact on faith-based institutions.

We would no longer be able to require a profession of faith for students, Wichita said. Thats something Biola requires of all incoming students.

Schools would no longer be allowed to integrate faith throughout their teaching curriculum, he added.

Leaders at three universities I spoke to say that they would not be allowed to require mandatory chapel attendance or mandatory core units of Bible courses.

The danger for Biola University is that it prevents us from carrying out our mission the way we have for 108 years, Wilhite said. It would eliminate our ability to continue our mission. Thats why it has our attention.

The legislation would also give students a right to sue if  for example -- they were offended by a prayer in a class.

Biola and William Jessup refute the notion that LGBT students are discriminated against on their campuses.

We dont tolerate harassment or bullying of any of our students, Wilhite told me.

Many of the schools are working with the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities to urge Lara to amend his bill to include a religious exemption.

If passed without amendments, the new law would also very likely disqualify students attending California Christian colleges and universities from eligibility for Cal Grants, a key state-level student aid program, wrote Kurt Krueger, president of Concordia University Irvine.

Azusa Pacific University president Jon Wallace, penned a passionate op-ed for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Sen. Lara wants to safeguard LGBT students. We want the same protection for all students, including members of the LGBT community. The bill calls for more transparency from schools about their beliefs and recourse for unfair treatment. We share his concerns about student safety, transparency and recourse. With every prospective student, we share who we are, we provide the framework for how we build community and do life together and we ask those who enroll to uphold our student standards of conduct. Right now the proposed bill would invite challenges to required chapel attendance and public and communal observation of Christian sacraments such as the Eucharist and baptisms, among other activities central to our identity.

Several of the universities I contacted said they are going to respectfully stand their ground -- even if it means taking their case to the Supreme Court of the United States.

We are not willing to change our policies, Jackson said. There is a very intentional attempt to marginalize those who dont accept the notions of sexual orientation and gender identity as the government has framed them.

And Jackson warned that whats happening in California could happen in other parts of the country.

Religious freedoms are in play in California, Jackson told me. Ultimately, Im concerned that what begins in California rolls across the nation.
Among the more surprising things we have learned about Omar Mateen in recent days is that he was a registered Democrat.

And not just any Democrata Hillary supporter.

We learned this from Mohammed A. Malik, a longtime friend and mosque buddy of Mateens in Fort Pierce, Florida. Malik is the guy who informed the FBI that Mateen was coming under the influence of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Islamist cleric. Awlaki had previously inspired another member of the mosque to become a suicide bomber in Syria.

When the FBI found nothing and closed the Mateen case, Malik breathed a sigh of relief and resumed his relationship the relationship with his old friend.

If Omar Mateen had been a Trump supporter, or a Christian fundamentalist or a member of the NRA, she could have gone to the funerals, denounced reactionary Republican racism and sung Amazing Grace

Malik described all this in a first-person account in the Washington Post this week. The reason he wrote the article was to demonstrate that some American Muslims do turn in budding jihadis. And indeed, it was a courageous thing for him to do.

In passing, Malik recounted his final meeting with Omar Mateen.

I last saw him at a dinner at his fathers house in January [in 2016], he writes. We talked about the presidential election and debated our views of the candidates that were running  he liked Hillary Clinton and I liked Bernie Sanders. This banter continued through texts and phone calls for several months.

It is not surprising that Mateen (and Malik) were Democrats. Most American-Muslims are (about 70 percent voted for Obama in 2012). Ironically, so were most of the people Mateen slaughtered at the Pulse Club in Orlando. There might have been a stray Republican or two among the dead and wounded, but young, gay, Hispanic and African American partiers tend to be Blue.

The atrocity at Pulse is being explained in many ways by interest groups who want to control the narrative. Theories vary. Some blame the inadequacy of American gun laws. Others decry the radicalizing potential of the internet. Some see this as an inexplicable act by a violent psycho from Queens. Others call it a calculated attack by a dedicated Muslim holy warrior. There are elements of truth all of these assessments.

It was also an act of Democrat-on-Democrat violence.

This is extremely inconvenient for Hillary Clinton. If Omar Mateen had been a Trump supporter, or a Christian fundamentalist or a member of the NRA, she could have gone to the funerals, denounced reactionary Republican racism and sung Amazing Grace. It appears that the revelations in Maliks story will spare Americans that performance.

The Pulse massacre is even less convenient for the rising progressive wing of the Democratic Party That movement is powered, in part, by the theory of intersectionalitythe idea that victimized and oppressed communities (LGBT, single women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, Native Americans and immigrants of color) share values and interests that make them natural allies. Solidarity is a constant in Marxist politics, and if you get quite get to a common front with the workers of the world, at least you can glue together a virtuous coalition of oppressed brothers and sisters.

Then along comes Omar Mateenan ethnic and religious victim in good standing--and the last words out of his mouth are an oath of loyalty to an Islamic ideology that punishes homosexuality as a capital crime.

Since 9/11, Republicans have found it relatively easy to wrap their minds around the notion that political Islam in its current forms (Sunni and Shia) is a weaponized ideology at war with America and incompatible with life in an open society. This thought crosses liberal minds, too, although it is not said in polite company. It could whip up animosity, incite the Muslims even more. And we all know that most Muslims are moderate, right?

That happens to be true. But there are more than enough fanatical Muslims to wage holy war (and more coming on line every day). These jihadis are not impressed by the pleas of progressive solidarity or liberal values or Christian piety. They make no distinctions between Republicans and Democrats. An infidel is an infidel. And a nightclub is a nightclub.
Since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, there have been issues where the court splits evenly. Thats exactly what happened Thursday when the high court tied 4-4 in the case of whether President Obamas Executive action on immigration was unconstitutional and unlawful.

The 4-4 tie upholds a lower court injunction, which blocked enforcement of the presidents plan. That means a victory for the separation of powers and a sound blow to President Obamas lawless power-grab.

While the tie vote does not establish any national precedent and applies specifically to this single case out of Texas, it should send a powerful message to this president: impatient presidents dont get to change the law.

There is no written opinion when there is a 4-4 tie  just a one-sentence per curiam order. So, we did not hear specifically from the Justices themselves on this issue.

But we did hear from President Obama, who sharply criticized the court for failing to issue a decision on the merits of the case.

The fact the Supreme Court wasnt able to issue a decision today doesnt just set the system back even further, it takes us further back from the country we want to be, the president said.

Hes wrong. What takes us further back from the country we want to be is a president who has relied on his infamous Ive got a pen and Ive got a phone mantra to circumvent the separation of powers spelled out clearly in our Constitution.

At the same time, President Obama used the immigration case to predictably blame Republicans for failing to confirm his nominee to replace Justice Scalia.

First of all, Congress is correct in waiting until after the election to fill Justice Scalias seat. We are in the middle of a critical election and its important that Americans have a voice in filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

And, while the president may not like it, his flawed strategy of overstepping his authority is simply unacceptable.

President Obama attempted to downplay the rebuke he suffered in this immigration case, but the legal background in this case is important to understand.

The Obama Executive action was challenged in federal court by Texas which led 25 other states in challenging the program President Obama announced in November 2014.

Weve been involved in this case from the beginning, when I testified before Congress on this very issue in 2014, and weve filed briefs in both the district court and the Fifth Circuit on behalf of 113 Members of Congress and hundreds of thousands of Americans.

At the Supreme Court, we filed an amicus brief on behalf of more than 337,400 Americans.

The Supreme Courts order Thursday means that President Obamas Executive overreach continues to be thwarted in federal court every step of the way. The injunction means the president cant move forward with his plan seeking to give quasi-legal status and work permits to millions of undocumented immigrants.

The case will move forward on the merits in federal district court in southern Texas. The latest developments in that case have involved the federal judge sanctioning Obama Administration attorneys from the Department of Justice for intentionally deceptive and unethical actions.

Throughout the course of this case, our message has been simple and direct: The constitutional system is simple. Congress makes the laws. The President enforces the laws. And the courts interpret the laws.

Even now, I still remember the words from the trial court that was absolutely correct in finding that President Obama is not just rewriting the laws, he is creating them from scratch.

President Obama is not a king. He needs to stop acting like one.
Before delivering his angry lecture June 14 about why he rejects the term, radical Islam, President Barack Obama assured us that the Islamic State (IS) is being driven steadily back in Syria and Iraq, and that our campaign against it is firing on all cylinders. The next day, his spokesman, Josh Earnest, bragged--despite what happened the previous weekend in Orlando--that the country is safer than it was eight years ago.

But then CIA chief John O. Brennan, speaking to the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last Thursday, completely shattered those claims. And June 20, the Department of Justice censored the numerous pledges to IS and its leader in the transcript of a phone call made by the Orlanda terrorist, Omar Mateen, only to quickly backtrack from this Stalinesque act of attempted memory erasure that would hinder our grasp of the killers actual motivation, after howls of Congressional and media protest.

IS (also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh), Brennan said, is spreading farther and faster than ever before, has up to 5,000 to 8,000 soldiers in Libya, another 7,000 in Nigeria, and now has nearly as many in Iraq and Syria (18,000 to 22,000) as when our air campaign against it began two years ago. Moreover, it is setting up terror cells and sending its trained fighters all over the world, while inspiring attacks by so-called lone wolves everywhere.

Of course, there are no lone wolves. There are only individuals already joined in thought with the Islamist movement, who answer the standing call to launch attacks on their own at home if not abroad--as Omar Mateen evidently did in the Pulse nightclub the night of June 12/13. You never walk alone could well be the motto of the global jihad, which was very quick, as always, to claim him as a martyr.

People can distinguish between radical Islam and the religion overall. Muslims, in fact, call these terrorists Islamists and jihadis--the groups' own descriptions of themselves.

Though Brennan, like Obama before him, nonetheless claimed the group was on the defensive, he depicted IS as an enemy aggressively on the march globally, even if it is losing some ground it had previously gained in Iraq and Syria. In other words, like so many other times in the past, one of his own high-level national security officials shows us that the president is not telling the truth--not to us and probably not to himselfabout these issues.

Defending his refusal to name the enemy, Obama sniffed peevishly that radical Islam is a talking point: it isnt a strategy. But the talking point is really Obamas: all informed analysts of the problem know that IS is not an isolated extremist threat, but part of a wave of numerous interrelated movements that have arisen out of the heart, not merely the fringes, of Islamic societies worldwideeven if most Muslims do not support them.

And for all of our recent gains on the ground in Iraq and Syria, our brilliant assassination raids against IS leaders in the area, and the harm to its varied financial empire we are inflicting, it is we, not the terrorists, who are on the defensive. We, in fact, are losing overall, thanks to a strategy that denies the clear nature of the threat.

It is, after all, both blinding and enervating to fight an enemy you cannot or will not name. It is even more enervating to fail to commit the kind of military force necessary to cut out what Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has called the parent tumor of ISs claimed caliphate in Syria and Iraqwhich, if done early, could have halted the groups catastrophic global metastasis in the past two years.

In his speech, Obama also insisted that the Orlando killer was simply a disturbed young man with no ties to outside groups, despite his allegiance to IS and his praise for other jihadis. And he repeated his earlier claim that Mateen was radicalized entirely by the Internet, when in fact he grew up in a pro-Taliban Afghan immigrant family and cheered the attacks of 9/11 while watching them on live TV.

Of course, as Obama said, mere use of the phrase would not change the war by itself. But it would radically change our strategic policy toward Islamism--a movement he himself has aided via the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, by waging a half-hearted military struggle against other elements of the jihad, like IS and al-Qaeda (AQ). Not to mention his disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, which handsomely rewarded what the State Department has just recertified as the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorismwhile giving it a legal glide-path to building the bomb in a decade.

It would also end the "confusion," as FBI Director James Comey put it in a media appearance of his own the same day, how to interpret terrorist acts like those in San Bernardino and Orlando. If a perpetrator pledges loyalty to multiple Islamist groups, that doesn't raise questions about his or her motives. Rather, it means the killer correctly sees the jihad as one--despite internal quarreling such as between IS and AQ, or even between Shi`ite Iran and Sunni groups it sometimes fights and sometimes aids--something the current administration sadly (and willingly) fails to grasp.

For example, the Iranians (Shi`a) sometimes harbor and support AQ members (Sunnis), while fighting AQ in Syria. The Iranian regime not only calls for the unity of jihadi groups (both Sunni and Shi`a) in waging the global jihad against unbelief, but actually funds Sunni groups like Hamas and the MB, and arms and finances the fiercely anti-Shi`a Taliban, all for ideological and strategic reasons.

And they accept that help, also for ideological and strategic reasons. AQ and IS members worked together to launch attacks in France and Belgium. And while it is true that Mateen was an obviously unstable person, as Obama noted, that is one of the profiles of the ideal recruit--one who is already a bit marginalized and harbors general anti-social sentiments.

Worse, Obama says that using radical Islam (or any term that would link extremism with Islam)--words he has had scrubbed from FBI counterterror training manuals, and from the mouth of French President Francois Hollande in a video on the White House website) would mean we are declaring war on Islam as a whole. (The removal of these words brings to mind the unprecedentedand secret--excision of several minutes of a December 2, 2013 exchange about the Iran nuclear dealwhich involves an Islamist power--between Fox News correspondent James Rosen and State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki from the departments official video.)

But nothing could be further from the truth: People can distinguish between radical Islam and the religion overall. Muslims, in fact, call these terrorists Islamists and jihadis--the groups' own descriptions of themselves. The leaders of our three most consistent allies in the fight against ISEgypt, Jordan and Afghanistanhave each spoken of the need to thoroughly reformeven revolutionize, as Egypts President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has put itmainstream Islam from within in order to stop the jihads appeal to young Muslims around the world. (Even in Europe, as shown here.)

In January this year, King Abdalluh of Jordan spoke of the need to defeat IS from inside Islam (even while dismissing the it as an outlaw, and claiming it represents only 0.1 percent of Muslims worldwidewhich its huge popularity in online polls and websites obviously refutes).

Addressing a joint session of Congress in March 2015, Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani, while calling Islam a religion of peace, acknowledged that at present there is tremendous hatred raging inside its community today. That hatred must be challenged and overcome from within the religion of Islam, he affirmed.

In fact, IS is made up entirely of Muslims, bases itself on a sophisticated reading of much mainstream Islamic scholarship and a literal interpretation of its sacred texts, and is the fastest growing movement in modern Islamic history. If you add as well the other jihadi trends in both Sunni and Shi`i Islam, the numbers--while hard to measure accurately because of the fear of responding honestly to polls in Muslim countriesare surely formidable.

Obama also denounced as un-American Donald Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims temporarily from entering the U.S. And indeed it would be both unconstitutional and impractical. Trump, consistently inconsistent, has since at times refined it to a more restricted temporary ban on immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries from which there is a higher risk of jihadis infiltrating their ranksas IS has sworn to do, and even succeeded as shown in last Novembers attacks in Paris.

Despite that chilling precedent, Obama has ignored the warning of the FBI, CIA and others that we cannot properly vet them. In spite of this, he has actually accelerated the entry the rate of entry of Syrian refugees to the U.S. in the past few weeks.

Some of Trumps statements have truly opened him to charges of bias, against a variety of groups. Yet this POTUS anger, as always, seems reserved entirely for the GOP, not for IS--one of the most barbaric organizations in history--which he invariably discusses with a tone of mild irritation or boredom.

That is the most striking thing of all: he has more genuine rage and resentment for his American political opponents than he ever shows publicly toward the enemies of his country.

Our president made this peculiar appearance to announce what is obviously yet again a wholly inadequate, prevaricating strategy, and to unload his pique at those who call out his denial of both terminological and military reality. Rather, he should have proved them wrong by declaring, We are going to end the threat of the Islamic State by taking out their capital Raqqa in a combined air and ground campaign that begins tomorrow. And next we shall cut off the heads of the vast hydra of Islamist organizations wherever they are, without delay.

Instead, he bragged about having made IS cut its salaries--while IS is still decapitating innocents at will. Along with the rest of the jihadi alliance against the West and the millions of Muslims who do not agree with them, they are a much greater threat to us all than they were eight years ago.
Our nation is at war with radical Islamic terrorism, which continues to threaten Americans at home and abroad. The terrorist attack in Orlando was carried out by a terrorist who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, a sobering reminder that the Islamic State is spreading a message of radical hate around the world to attract new recruits and inspire attacks as it continues to fight in places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan.

To win the war against the Islamic State and defeat their radical Islamic ideology, we need a comprehensive and thoughtful strategy. Unfortunately, President Obamas strategy for combating the Islamic State lacks resolve and strength  notably their weak-kneed detainee policy, including the management of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amid President Obamas misguided allegiance to a 2008 campaign promise to close Gitmo, his efforts to release detainees have continued in the face of evidence that this position is not in our national security interest. Just this week, the administration released Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi, a Gitmo detainee who was accused of being former al Qaeda leader Usama bin Ladens bodyguard.

Al-Rahabi is one of at least two dozen detainees set for release this summer, and make no mistake: the detainees who still remain at Gitmo are the worst of the worst. We cant allow freed terrorist detainees like bin Ladens bodyguard to put American lives at risk, which is why we have introduced legislation to immediately ban Gitmo transfers until the president signs this years National Defense Authorization Act, which includes numerous new safeguards, or until January 2017, when President Obama leaves office.

According to President Obamas own Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the recidivism rate of former Gitmo detainees is nearly one in three. This alarming statistic was amplified further in the recent report that at least 12 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the battlefield and killed Americans. This should send a chill down the spine of every American.

Unfortunately, news of former Gitmo detainees returning to the battlefield has been making headlines more frequently  too frequently.

Earlier this year, we learned that a former detainee nicknamed Spanish Taliban left Gitmo to lead a recruiting operation for the Islamic State in Spain and Morocco. Then another former Gitmo detainee resurfaced as a leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operating out of Yemen.

In times like these, we must prioritize the safety and security of the American people over the fulfillment of campaign promises.

Enough is enough. We remain a nation at war, and with all that we know about radical Islam coupled with the dangers created by these detainee transfers, it is time to halt these transfers before more harm can be done.
House Speaker Paul Ryan sent lawmakers packing for the holiday break early Thursday morning after a raucous, hours-long sit-in waged by congressional Democrats failed to force a vote on gun control measures.

As Ryan decried the protest as a "publicity stunt" -- complete with loud chants and blankets and live-streaming -- Democrats claimed they nevertheless had made "some progress" on the issue.

The House adjourned around 3:15 a.m. ET Thursday, and even as Republicans left the buildings, some Democrats stayed on the House floor repeating their chant No bill no break! and waving papers with the names of gun victims written in black. A core group lingered for a while on the House floor wrapped in blankets and resting on pillows.

The protest finally came to an end early Thursday afternoon, hours after Republicans held a final vote on the Zika response and, save for a short upcoming session, sent lawmakers home until July 5. The sit-in lasted a total of over 25 hours.

Democrats declared success in dramatizing the arguments for action to stem gun violence, despite the failure to conjure a vote.

"Just because they cut and run in the dark of night, just because they have left doesn't mean we are taking no for an answer," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"We won't stop until the job is done," the Californian declared to fellow Democrats camped out in the well of the House in the early hours of the morning, saying the party had changed "the dynamic of what happens" concerning guns.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the public shouldn't be happy with a Republican majority that shut down the House and disregarded "the unfinished business of the American people."

Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who had participated in the civil rights sit-ins in the South in the 1960s, declared Thursday that some progress was made in the lawmakers efforts to get the attention of the nation to recognize the need for a vote on gun control legislation.

We have other bridges to cross. And when we come back in July, we start it all over again, he added.

Ironically, Lewis was also once on a terror watch list in what he said was a mix-up  and now is backing the controversial legislation to keep people on the no-fly list from getting guns.

Republicans said their colleagues had accomplished nothing other than disrupting the business of the House to score political points.

Pressure had been building on both sides of the Capitol in the wake of the shooting rampage at a Florida gay nightclub earlier this month that killed 49 people and injured 53 others. The assailant also died in the incident. The mass shooting followed similar tragic incidents over the past years including the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

The agitation for action caused a Senate filibuster last week and led to the chaos on the House floor that lasted well into Thursday.

A burst of activity in the middle of the night, including recorded votes on some other issues such as the Zika virus, capped more than 15 straight hours of Democratic protests. The spectacle captured the attention of a Washington gridlocked on guns despite the slaughter in Orlando. Senate Democrats undertook a nearly 15-hour filibuster last week in fighting for the same cause.

House Republicans used their prerogatives as the majority party to muscle through the bill funding the Zika crisis with no time for debate, overruling Democrat's objections and then moving to adjourn the House into next month as Democrats cried "Shame, Shame!"

Republicans shut off the cameras in the House gallery throughout most of the protest, but Democrats used their cellphones to capture the action, and C-SPAN carried the feeds live in an unprecedented move.

Ryan said the bill pushed by the Democrats to expand background checks and keep people on the no-fly list from getting guns would take away peoples constitutional rights and deprive them of due process. He noted that similar legislation was already rejected in the Senate earlier this week, along with three others bills.

The protest began around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, unfolding on the House floor with little advance warning from the Democrats.

By evening, 168 House Democrats  out of 188  and 34 Senate Democrats joined the protest, according to the House minority leader's office. One after another, they spoke of the need for gun control and talked of constituents who had been killed. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan, whose husband former Rep. John Dingell is a longtime NRA supporter, won thunderous applause and a standing ovation after she talked in personal terms about her experience growing up in a home with gun violence.

Scattered around the House floor were signs reading "Disarm Hate." Visitors watched from the galleries. A crowd of several hundred gun control advocates gathered outside the Capitol and cheered as Democrats addressed them.

The sit-in  in which Lewis played a leading role  had the look of a 1960s-style protest, as some lawmakers sat on the floor, others in their seats. The House chamber grew increasingly chaotic as the night wore on, and some lawmakers took breaks on pillows and blankets.

Republicans had staged a similar protest in 2008. Democrats controlling the House at the time turned off the cameras amid a GOP push for a vote to expand oil and gas drilling. Republicans occupied the floor, delivering speech after speech after Pelosi, then the House speaker, sent lawmakers bolting to their August recess. Pelosi at that time had ordered the cameras turned off.

C-SPAN, a cable and satellite network that provides continual coverage of House and Senate floor proceedings, does not control the cameras. They're run on authorization by legislative leaders. Although the cameras were turned off Wednesday, lawmakers relied on social media to transmit video, using Facebook, Twitter and Periscope.

C-SPAN broadcast live video streamed on Periscope and Facebook from lawmakers' accounts. Democrats posted the Capitol's main telephone number, which was overwhelmed, and urged constituents to call and request a vote. They also encouraged tweeting under the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A former top Clinton administration diplomat who used his political sway to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal apparently was being bankrolled the entire time by Boeing -- which is set to make billions off a jet deal with Tehran now that sanctions have been lifted.

Thomas Pickering, who also served as co-chairman of the board examining the Benghazi attack response, publicly pushed for the nuclear deal before its approval last year. He did so by penning op-eds, writing to high-level officials and even testifying before Congress.

With the deal in place, Boeing has since moved forward on a $25 billion deal with Iran Air made possible by the nuclear agreement.

While Pickering never denied being on Boeings payroll during the talks, he didnt regularly disclose it either, according to a new report in The Daily Beast. And thats the problem, transparency advocates say.

In Pickerings case, he has a direct connection to Boeing, which I think should be disclosed, Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, told The Daily Beast. I think its necessary for the public debate. Its necessary for the public to fully realize the participants financial interests. Some of them might have a direct financial stake in a particular outcome.

Pickering was a former top State Department official in the Bill Clinton administration, and before that ambassador to Russia. He also served as ambassador to the United Nations, Israel and elsewhere in prior administrations.

When Pickering testified before the House Armed Services Committee on June 16, 2014, the biography provided to committee members touted his military and government services but did not list his business ties.

Pickering also sent a July 7, 2015 letter to lawmakers urging them to back the nuclear deal but reportedly did not make his association with Boeing known. The letter was cited by the media, lawmakers and the White House in the push to sell the nuclear deal to the public.

In op-eds for The Washington Post and Tablet, he also made the case for the deal but again did not disclose his ties.

He confirmed to The Daily Beast that he was a Boeing employee from 2001 to 2006 (which was more widely known) and later worked as a "direct consultant" from 2006 to 2015.

Earlier this month, Boeing reached a tentative agreement to sell passenger planes to Irans state-run carrier, Iran Air. The deal is the first major business venture after sanctions were eased against Tehran last year and is seen by many as a groundbreaking test for other American companies looking to profit from Irans untapped economy.

The deal is still in its early stage and will likely face scrutiny from U.S. trade regulators and lawmakers.

Its tragic to watch such an iconic American company make such a terribly short-sighted decision, Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., told FoxNews.com in a statement. If Boeing goes through with this deal, the company will forever be associated with Irans chief export: radical Islamic terrorism. The U.S. Congress will have much to say about this agreement in the coming days.

Roskam and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, sent a letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg last week raising concerns about Tehrans history of using commercial planes to support "hostile actors."

We strongly oppose the potential sale of military-fungible products to terrorisms central supplier. American companies should not be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian Regime, the lawmakers wrote.

Boeing wrote back saying it would follow the lead of the U.S. government with regards to working with Iran Air and that any and all contracts with them will be contingent upon continued approval.

And as we have stated repeatedly, should the U.S. Government reinstate sanctions against the sale of commercial passenger airplanes to Iranian airlines, we will cease all sales and delivery activities as required by U.S. law, Tim Keating, Boeing senior vice president, wrote.

Five years ago, the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Iran Air, claiming the company used passenger and cargo planes to transport rockets and missiles to places such as Syria, sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts. In other cases, members of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps took control of flights carrying sensitive cargo.

Although U.S. officials never said such conduct ended, the administration used a technicality to drop those sanctions as part of last year's seven-nation nuclear deal. The agreement also allowed the Treasury Department to license American firms to do business in Iran's civilian aviation sector. The changes enable Boeing to sell up to 100 aircraft to Iran Air, by far the most lucrative business transaction between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and U.S. Embassy hostage crisis.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the sale and any possible future deals depend on Iran's good behavior.

The U.S. could revoke the license for the deal if planes, parts or services are "used for purposes other than exclusively civil aviation end-use" or if aircraft are transferred to individuals or companies on a U.S. terrorism blacklist, Kirby said.

Any suggestion "that we would or will turn a blind eye to Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism or their terrorist-supporting activities is completely without merit," Kirby said.

The details of the arrangement between Boeing and Iran Air aren't entirely clear. Iran's Transportation Minister Abbas Akhoundi said it could match the $25 billion package between the Islamic Republic and Boeing's European rival, Airbus. Iran Air has stated its interest in purchasing new Boeing 737s -- single aisle jets that typically fly up to five hours. It also wants 777s -- larger planes that can carry passengers for 12 hours or more.

But if Iran Air continues supporting Iranian military or Revolutionary Guard operations, it would put the Obama administration or any successor in a bind.

Revoking the license and suspending future plane transfers risks angering the Iranians, who've already complained about not receiving sufficient benefit for their nuclear concessions. It also could mean billions in lost revenue for a large American company with more than 130,000 employees in the United States.

FoxNews.com's Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Florida congressional candidate said Wednesday his contest to give away a semi-automatic rifle is still on despite the original post being taken down by Facebook.

Greg Evers, who is running in the Republican primary for the open seat in Floridas 1st District, announced Monday hes giving away a Homeland Defender AR-15 rifle on July 4.

But Monday night, Facebook pulled a post about the contest showing the rifle after receiving numerous complaints for "promoting graphic violence" and "describing the purchase or sales of drugs, guns or regulated progress."

Facebook flagged another post sowing the rules for entering the contest.

Last January, Facebook imposed a policy barring private individuals from advertising or selling firearms on the social media network.

Evers campaign said someone in California reported the post. Brian Burgess, a campaign spokesman, said they had anticipated someone would object but that likes and shares are still being tracked.

The original post received more than 1,100 likes and nearly 900 shares.

Evers said on his Facebook page Wednesday that hes become a target for gun advocates.

The custom-built rifle will be given away at random person who shared and like Evers page or signed up on his campaign website. Its open to only adults in the district who must pass all required background and security checks.

As of Wednesday, Evers' page had received over 4,800 likes and nearly 2,100 shares.

Evers' promotion came barely a week after a shooting at a gay nightclub killed 49 people in Orlando, a roughly five-hour drive from the Florida Panhandle district Evers seeks to represent. Gunman Omar Mateen used a semi-automatic rifle that was mechanically different from an AR-15 but had similar design features.

"The giveaway is tasteless, disrespectful and disgusting political pandering at its worst. He should be ashamed," said Stratton Pollitzer, deputy director of the gay and transgender rights group Equality Florida. "Giving a complete stranger the same style assault rifle just used to murder 49 people, most of whom have not yet even had funerals, is grotesque."

This is not the only contest involving an AR-15 in a congressional race. Tennessee state representative Andy Holt is giving away two rifles during an event Saturday with candidates for that state's 8th Congressional District.

In 2014, AR-15 rifles were part of giveaways in at least three U.S. House or Senate races.

Evers is one of five candidates running in the Aug. 30 Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jeff Miller. Evers has served in the Florida Legislature since 2001, including the Senate the past six years. The National Rifle Association has given him an A-plus grade for the past 15 years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
The Pentagon announced Wednesday the transfer of Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Balkan nation of Montenegro.

Al-Rahabi arrived at the naval base from Yemen in Cuba in 2002 after being accused of serving as the body guard for former Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden. He was cleared for release in March 2014 after an intense security review. But the White House doesnt send Guantanamo prisoners back to Yemen because of the countrys ongoing civil war.

The United States is grateful to the Government of Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the Pentagon said in a statement. The United States coordinated with the Government of Montenegro to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.

This was the second prisoner this year resettled in Montenegro amid a renewed push by the Obama administration to whittle down the number of men held at Guantanamo even as Congress continues to prevent the closure of the detention center with a prohibition on transferring prisoners to the U.S.

There are still 79 prisoners that remain at Guantanamo, including 29 who have been cleared to be sent home or to other countries for resettlement.

Officials expect to release most of those cleared in the coming weeks, leaving mostly men who have been charged or convicted by military commission for war crimes or who authorities believe are too dangerous to release.

The U.S. opened the detention center in January 2002 to hold foreign fighters suspected of links to the Taliban or the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. At its peak, the facility held about 680 prisoners. There were 242 when Obama took office pledging to close the detention center within a year.

Al-Rahabi had been at Guantanamo since shortly after it opened. A Pentagon profile released before he appeared before a review board in 2013 said he had traveled from his homeland to Afghanistan and "almost certainly" became a member of Al Qaeda. But he was never charged with a crime, and authorities ultimately decided he did not pose a security threat and could be released.

While in custody, al-Rahabi studied English, worked with military officials to help ease tensions in the detention center and worked with several fellow prisoners on an extensively detailed plan for a post-Guantanamo agricultural enterprise, the "Yemen Milk and Honey Farms Limited," according to his lawyer, David Remes.

He was desperate to get out of Guantanamo and reunite with his wife and daughter. "He's been waiting for this for a long time," Remes said.

The lawyer, who has represented more than two dozen prisoners at Guantanamo over the years, said there has been a notable sense of relief among men he has met with at the base in recent weeks.

"It's no longer a question of whether, or even a question of when, it's a question of how soon," Remes said.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania, who was convicted earlier this week in a racketeering case, offered Wednesday his resignation from the House effective Oct. 3.

However, House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Fattah to resign immediately because Fattah is slated to be sentenced Oct. 4.

Ryan said in a statement the veteran Pennsylvania lawmaker had betrayed the trust of the House and his constituents. Ryan said he hoped Democratic leaders would join him in calling for Fattah's immediate resignation.

Fattah was convicted on charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering. The case was largely centered on efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.

His lawyers had argued that the schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.

The 59-year-old Democrat had been in Congress since 1995. But he lost his April primary and his bid for another term.

In a letter to Ryan, Fattah outlined accomplishments he produced in the House and wrote: "I'm very sad about the verdict the jury rendered yesterday and because of that, my resignation is effective Oct. 3, 2016. Despite my resignation I am working to clear my name of these charges and plan to mount an appeal."

Fox News Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Donald Trump denounced Hillary Clinton in harsh, sweeping and personal terms yesterday, a day after she denounced him in similar fashion.

So we now have the first real slugfest of the general election, and the punches thrownattention, media folkswere mainly about substance.

From Wall Street speeches to the Clinton Foundation, from private email to Benghazi, Trump declared that Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States. And: Shes virtually done nothing right. Shes virtually done nothing good.

All this is catnip for the mediabut its our job to dig deeper.

Trumps disciplined approach in lower Manhattan, reading a scripted speech in a less than bombastic tone, was striking. Perhaps this was the first step in an effort to convince skeptics in his own party, worried about his divisive comments and anemic fundraising, that he can campaign like a mainstream candidate and take the fight to Clinton. The question is whether hell sustain it.

But what was equally striking was the marshalling of facts in an attempt to build a negative narrative around Hillary, rather than just hurling insults such as world-class liar at her. That is the mirror image of what the Democratic nominee tried in her Columbus speech to do to him.

Trump attempted to stitch together Clintons foreign policy record, personal fortune and personal scandals into a mosaic of an untrustworthy person. He portrayed her as being a candidate who defends the special interests who fund her campaigns, while also profiting from those special interests in the form of gargantuan speaking fees to her and her husband.

As an outsider candidate, this is a potentially strong message for him, casting Clinton as the champion of a rigged system who cozies up to the powerful, as Trump himself used to do. But the impact is weakened by the fact that Trump, after largely self-funding his campaign, now finds himself having to raise money from big donors himself.

There were jabs like the one at her phony landing in Bosnia  when Clinton falsely claimed to have run from enemy fire as first lady  followed by this: Brian Williams career was destroyed for saying far less. (Williams, who lost his NBC anchor job for falsely claiming to have been attacked in a chopper in Iraq, was anchoring on MSNBC and had to feel a bit uncomfortable.)

There was over-the-top hyperbole: In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East. What about President Obama? What about George W. Bush, whose Iraq invasion Trump has regularly attacked for causing havoc in the Mideast?

And Trump made Benghazi searingly personal, claiming that Ambassador Chris Stevens was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed -- that's right, when the phone rang at 3 o'clock in the morning, she was sleeping.

A side note: Trump at various points made appeals to Bernie Sanders voters, LGBT people and inner city folksnot the usual approach for a Republican nominee.

Its clear now that Trump and Clinton plan to pummel each other in an attempt to disqualify each other from the presidency.

But heres the good news. They are fighting about Clintons foreign policy and Trumps economic policy, about her record at the State Department and his record in the business world. This is a debate far preferable to taunts about sweating and hand size. It will be a test for the media to analyze, report and fact-check these charges and countercharges rather than just treating them as incendiary sound bites.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the use of race in college admissions for the University of Texas, rejecting a challenge brought by a white woman to the affirmative action program.

The court ruled for the university in a tight, 4-3 decision, marking the second time the court has affirmed the use of race in the admissions process. The decision will make it easier for public universities to justify compelling reasons for a limited use of race criteria in admissions.

The court had sidestepped the broader constitutional issues in a similar case three years ago, but on Thursday upheld the university policy as "lawful under the Equal Protection Clause."

"[I]t remains an enduring challenge to our Nations education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity," the majority opinion said.

The university considers race among many factors in admitting the last quarter of incoming freshmen classes. Texas fills most of the freshman class by guaranteeing admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class.

The courts three more conservative justices dissented.

In his scathing dissent, Justice Samuel Alito called the program "discriminatory" and questioned how it could be upheld.

"Even though UT has never provided any coherent explanation for its asserted need to discriminate on the basis of race, and even though UTs position relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions, the majority concludes that UT has met its heavy burden. This conclusion is remarkableand remarkably wrong," he wrote.

The majority opinion said the university should continue to use data to "scrutinize the fairness of its admissions program."

Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the Texas plan complied with earlier court rulings allowing colleges to take account of race in pursuit of diversity on campus.

"Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission," he wrote.

The case centered on Abigail Fisher, a white Texan who was denied admission to the university's flagship campus in Austin in 2008.

Fisher claimed she was rejected while African-American applicants with lower grades and test scores were admitted.

The school said Fisher, who did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her high school class, would not have been admitted with or without race as a factor. But officials did conditionally offer to allow her to transfer in as a sophomore if she maintained a 3.2 grade point average at another public college in Texas.

Instead, Fisher went to Louisiana State University, from which she graduated in 2012, and pursued her lawsuit.

Fisher was recruited for the suit by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences who has been remarkably successful in persuading the Supreme Court to hear cases challenging the use of race in education and politics.

Blum was behind a major challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act that resulted in the court eviscerating a key provision of the law and he also led an unsuccessful challenge to states' widespread practice of counting all their residents, not just those eligible to vote, in drawing legislative districts.

Justices heard Fisher's case once before, and issued an inconclusive ruling in 2013 that sent her case back to a lower court and set the stage for Monday's decision.

In 2003, the justices reaffirmed the consideration of race in the quest for diversity on campus. Their decision then set a goal of doing away with such programs in 25 years.

Texas is unique in marrying the top 10 plan to a separate admissions review in which race is one of many factors considered.

The university's current freshman class is 22 percent Hispanic and 4.5 percent African-American. White students make up less than half the school's freshmen.

Eight states prohibit the use of race in public college admissions: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

The Obama administration, dozens of colleges and many of the nation's largest businesses support Texas in defending its program.

Fox News' Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NASA scientists were surprised to discover a mineral on Mars called tridymite, the presence of which suggests a dramatic volcanic past on the red planet.

On July 30, 2015, the space agencys Curiosity rover drilled into the Gale Crater, and found the mineral in high concentrations, according to a new study on the unforeseen find.

The spot in the crater where the rover made the discovery is called Buckskin.

"The discovery of tridymite was completely unexpected, Douglas Ming, a coauthor on the new paper and a planetary scientist at NASA, said in a statement. This discovery now begs the question of whether Mars experienced a much more violent and explosive volcanic history during the early evolution of the planet than previously thought."

Thats because tridymite comes from volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens, the papers lead author, Richard Morris, explained in a statement. On Earth, tridymite is formed at high temperatures in an explosive process called silicic volcanism, he said.

The researchers are also considering the fact that the tridymite could have been formed at lower temperatures, but havent yet found anything to support that theory.

A study on the surprising discovery was published in the journal PNAS.

Follow Rob Verger on Twitter: @robverger
Solar Impulse 2 became the first solar-powered plane to cross the Atlantic when it landed in Spain early Thursday.

Piloted by Solar Impulse Chairman Bertrand Piccard, the single-seater landed in Seville at 1:38 a.m. ET, 71 hours and 8 minutes after taking off from New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. The trans-Atlantic flight was the 15th leg of the planes historic round-the-world journey.

The solar-powered plane flew at a maximum altitude of 28,000 feet and an average speed of 59 mph during the three-day flight.

Good morning #Seville! Do you have a lot of direct flights from #NYC?, tweeted Piccard early on Tuesday.

The 4,203-mile journey marked the first-ever solar-powered, electric and fuel-free flight across the Atlantic Ocean. In a press release, Solar Impulse said the plane broke several world records, pending approval by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), which oversees air sports. These include the altitude record for an electric airplane.

A larger version of a single-seat prototype that first flew six years ago, Solar Impulse 2 is made of carbon fiber and has 17,248 solar cells built into the wing that supply the plane with renewable energy, via four motors. The solar cells recharge four lithium polymer batteries, which provide power for night flying.

The plane is the brainchild of explorer Piccard, who is taking it in turns with his fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg to fly the aircraft on its journey across the globe.

Designed to prove the potential of renewable energy, Solar Impulse 2 had already earned a place in the history books prior to the trans-Atlantic flight. Borschberg broke a number of records on the eighth leg of Solar Impulses 2 journey, landing in Hawaii on July 3 2015 after an incredible 4,480-mile, 118-hour flight from Japan. The journey shattered the record for longest solar-powered flight in terms of distance and duration. Borschberg also broke the record for longest non-stop solo flight without refueling, which previously stood at 76 hours and 45 minutes.

The message about clean technology is very important for our world, said Piccard, during a mid-flight interview with FoxNews.com earlier this week. Its not only about clean technology and renewable energy, its also about human adventure, its about trying to fulfill dreams, trying to do things that nobody has done before.

On Wednesday Piccard and Borschberg announced their intention to create the International Committee of Clean Technologies (ICCT), which aims to provide independent energy policy guidance to governments and corporations.

The plane has travelled 22,743 miles since setting off on the first leg of the trip from Abu Dhabi to Oman in March 2015, and has racked up 460 hours of flight time.

Prior to its flight from New York to Seville, Solar Impulse 2 made stops in India, Myanmar, China, Japan, Hawaii, California, Phoenix, Tulsa, Dayton, Lehigh Valley. The final leg of the odyssey is from Europe to Abu Dhabi.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Experts are closely monitoring Google search data and social media for hints about the outcome of the U.K.s historic referendum on European Union membership Thursday.

Opinion polls have suggested a tight race in the vote on the countrys future.

Google UK search data early Thursday show a significantly higher number of searches for leaving, compared to staying in the E.U.

However, social media expert and President of JRM Comm Jason Mollica told FoxNews.com that search data is just one piece of the puzzle.

I think what were seeing is that people are very passionate about [the referendum]  they want to be sure that they are making an informed decision, he said.

Mathematician Nikos Askitas notes that Google search can provide good insight into voter intent. The demand for one kind of information or the other reveals facts about the state of the individuals and search is the act of expressing that demand, he wrote, in a blog post Wednesday.

The expert noted that many - but not all - of the top referendum searches are related to voting intent. Using a combination of Google search data and his own calculations, Askitas predicted Thursday that 52 percent of referendum voters will opt to remain in the E.U.

The Washington Post reports that Askitas performed accurate analysis of Irelands referendum on same-sex marriage and the Greek referendum on economic policy.

Social media trends related to the U.K. referendum are also being closely watched.

On Monday Twitter U.K. noted that more Tweets were sent about Leave than Remain in the prior week, but added that, for only the second week, the latter had more accounts tweeting.

Last week more Tweets were sent about Leave (62.5%) than Remain, but for only 2nd week Remain have more *accounts* Tweeting (52.7%) #inorout  Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) June 20, 2016

Google memorialized murdered British politician Jo Cox in a post this week, and urged people to donate to her memorial fund. The death of the Labour Party politician, who would have celebrated her 42nd birthday Wednesday, brought a shocked pause in campaigning for the E.U. referendum.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
While experts debate whether or not North Korean missile launches were successful this week, U.S. weapons are so advanced that soldiers can now launch precision-guided munitions by handand destroy enemy targets a mile and half away.

Raytheon is taking the sort of powerful, and amazingly accurate, weapons that are typically seen on vehicles and aircraft and putting them literally into the hands of dismounted military teams. Precision guidance, an advantage associated with advanced, large bombs and missiles, increases lethality while reducing collateral damage.

Dubbed Pike, its the worlds only hand-launched precision-guided munition, as Raytheon describes it. It will give ground troops precision firepower at more than six times the range of some RPGs rocket propelled grenades and with far greater precision.

Just under a foot and a half long, the laser-guided Pike weapon weighs only two pounds, but it punches well above its weight while providing that crucial precision guidance.

What can fire a Pike?

Grenade launchers. Fired from a rifle-mounted grenade launcher, this 40mm caliber weapon is designed to hit a specific target and ensure minimal collateral damage. Its current accuracy is within five yards at a distance of a mile and a half.

Pike can be fired from grenade launchers already regularly carried, like the single-shot 40 mm grenade-launching Heckler & Koch M320.

How does Pike work?

A team of two warfighters can deploy Pike working together. One warfighter designates the enemy target, and the other fires Pike.

The first soldier takes the laser designator device, which looks like a pistol, and points it at a target, like an enemy-held building or vehicle. Pike works best against targets that are stationary or slow moving at a mid-range distance.

Then the second soldier takes a rifle-mounted grenade launcher and fires the munition. To engage, Pike uses a digital, semi-active laser seeker.

In addition to precision and distance, another key advantage for ground troops is that they would no longer need to use a vehicle launcher for this effect. Pike gives them the ability to fire off some hefty precision firepower while dismounted.

How is it different?

Like it says in the name, RPGs, or Rocket Propelled Grenades, use rockets. Pike is amped up with a rocket, too. But it has a longer range with better accuracy.

The M320, for example, has a maximum firing range of about 1300 feet and for maximum accuracy, with a regular grenade, the range is limited to about 500 feet.

On the other hand, Pike can deliver accuracy at about 8000 feet so that gives warfighters the power to destroy threats with precision at 16 times further away than with an M320.

Precision firepower at a greater distance means keeping US warfighters safer. Generally, the farther away soldiers are while addressing a threat, the safer they are.

Because it uses a rocket engine, Pike accelerates more slowly than bullets or an artillery shell. The rocket motor ignites several feet after launch. Reportedly, when the rocket kicks in, Pike is nearly smokeless, which helps to reduce the launch signature, keeps the location of warfighters concealed, and preserve an element of surprise too.

Whats next? Raytheon is further developing Pike so that it can be fired from small boats and ATVs, like a Polaris Defense RAZR. It will also be able to fire from small drones.
Webcam security was thrust into the spotlight this week when a photo of Mark Zuckerberg appeared to show the camera and microphone on his MacBook covered with tape.

The photo, which was posted on Facebook to celebrate Instagram hitting 500 million followers, sparked plenty of interest. While some worried about the broader effectiveness of Facebooks security, many see the tape as a shrewd defense against potential hackers.

3 things about this photo of Zuck:



Camera covered with tape

Mic jack covered with tape

Email client is Thunderbird pic.twitter.com/vdQlF7RjQt  Chris Olson (@topherolson) June 21, 2016

I completely get it, Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies, told FoxNews.com. Once you understand the nature of the Internet it doesnt seem surprising that people that know a lot about it are frightened by the possibility that their hardware could be hijacked.

Kay added that hacking into a webcam is not particularly difficult. The camera could be hacked, for example, via a spear phishing attack that loads malware onto a users computer when they click a spoof email.

Zuckerberg is not the only high-profile figure concerned with webcam security. In a speech at Kenyon College, Ohio, earlier this year FBI Director James Comey admitted that he puts a piece of tape over his laptop webcam.

Comey admits he puts a piece of tape over the webcam lens on his laptop #KenyonCSAD  The Kenyon Collegian (@KenyonCollegian) April 7, 2016

Comey and Zuckerberg are both being entirely sensible though for different professional and personal reasons, Charles King, principal analyst of tech research firm Pund-IT, told FoxNews.com. Given his job, Comey would be a natural target for a wide range of political and criminal hackers. On the other hand, Zuckerberg's wealth and position makes anything he does fodder for the tabloids.

King added that there are also good practical reasons for taping cameras and microphones. On many laptops, "on" is the default setting for those devices while in others, it's difficult to tell whether the camera or mic is powered up, he said. Considering these points, it would be bigger news if Comey and Zuckerberg hadn't taken the trouble to tape their cameras and microphones.

Pierluigi Paganini, author of the book The Deep Dark Web and founder of the Security Affairs blog, told FoxNews.com that Comey and Zuckerbergs webcam security reflects the nature of ongoing cyber threats. Persistent attackers such as the foreign intelligence agencies could exploit unknown vulnerabilities in the victim's system to take their complete possession, exfiltrate information and spy on the victims through the webcam or the microphone, he said. Anyway covering your webcam with a tape will not protect you from malware and cyber weapons that threaten computers worldwide."

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Being a Silicon Valley billionaire comes with its pitfalls, one being that everything you say will be scrutinized by the public.

Elon Musk doesnt seem to mind though. Despite his position as the CEO of Tesla and chairman of SolarCity, Musk has noted his lack of filter and marketing skills, and the results are sometimes, well, perfect.

Here are 10 of our favorites:

1. Musk personally canceled a blogger's Tesla pre-order after receiving a "rude" letter.

Stewart Alsop, a California venture capitalist, learned that an open letter to Musk was a quick way to get his Tesla Model X order canceled.

The letter claimed that the reveal of the Tesla Motors Model X started late, was too crowded and focused too much on safety.

Musk personally responded to the blogger and canceled his order. He then went a step further to address the media.

2. He denied his cousin a family discount at Tesla, or rather, offered a family discount to everyone.

Lyndon Rive, SolarCity CEO and Musks cousin, made the mistake of asking for a family discount on the new Tesla.

Musks response? Yeah absolutely. Go to TeslaMotor.com, buy the car online, and the price you see there is the family discount,' Rive told Tech Insider. Everyone gets a family discount.

Rive wasnt too offended. He has the Model S and his wife has the Model X. He also told Tech Insider that the response was totally fair.

Related: 4 Pop Culture Fixations of Elon Musk

3. He brought backseat reading lights back to the Model S because his son called it the stupidest car in the world.

One of Musks most important critics, his son, complained that he couldnt read in the back of his dads car.

The Model S originally had reading lights in the back, but Tesla took them out to increase headroom in the back seat. One of Musks five sons thought that idea was stupid.

Musk brought the backseat reading light back to the Model S, even offering to put the lights into cars that had already been delivered -- for free.

4. When Musk was asked about his personal life, his reaction was hilarious.

Musk has joked in the past about how marriage hasnt worked out for him, with his first marriage ending in divorce, and his second marriage also recently ending in divorce.

But when asked about his personal life, the billionaire definitely seems to know what hes doing.

"I think the time allocated to the businesses and the kids is going fine," Musk told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. "I would like to allocate more time to dating, though. I need to find a girlfriend. How much time does a woman want a week? Maybe 10 hours?"

5. Apparently for Iron Man, getting wasted is in the job description.

Musk told Bloomberg that Robert Downey Jr., who plays Marvel's Iron Man, once showed up at the SpaceX office playing on the notion that Musk has been called the real Iron Man. Bloomberg's reporter noted that Musk didnt seem to have the bad-boy personality Tony Stark has.

Musk replied, Hey, I went to Haiti last Christmas and visited some pretty dangerous parts. I got wasted, too, on some drink they call the Zombie.

6. Musk got a little off track when introducing the bioweapon defense mode on the new Tesla Model X.

As you may have heard, the Tesla Model X comes with a bioweapon defense mode.

Originally designed to protect against pollution, Musk jokes that it could also protect against other hazards.

If theres ever sort of an apocalyptic scenario, of some kind, hypothetically, you just press the bioweapon defense mode button, Musk said, laughing. This is a real button.

7. Musk made a sexual joke on The Late Show and then laughed at it while everyone else was still processing it.

While on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Musk made a joke that even Colbert had to take a moment to think about.

After showing a video of a snake charger that automatically plugs into your car, Musk joked, For the prototype at least, I would recommend not dropping anything when youre near it.

8. And Musks response to warming up the planet sounds incredibly nonchalant, but warning, its not.

Musk frequently talks about Mars, which he refers to as a fixer upper planet. He has frequently been asked about the possibility of inhabiting the planet.

The answer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? Maybe we can just drop nuclear bombs on the north and south poles, he says casually.

Related: 7 Takeaways in the Success of Elon Musk for Young Entrepreneurs

9. Musk doesnt recommended using the Model S as a boat, or does he?

Sure, the Model S can float, but its not recommended by Tesla or Musk.

After a man in Almaty, Kazakhstan, posted a video driving his Tesla through a flooded tunnel, Musk tweeted:

Sounds a bit like a recommendation.

10. He most certainly doesnt lie about what it takes to run a business

In an interview with Limitless Stars, Musk doesnt exactly suggest starting a business. Starting a company is like eating glass staring into the abyss of death. Um, if that sounds appealing, go ahead.

He sure makes it look easy though, simultaneously running two incredibly successful companies while taking care of five children.

Click here to see the video.
Engineering, prototyping, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, funding and sales. These are just some of the areas of expertise required by entrepreneurs bringing a physical hardware product to market. It can be overwhelming, so I asked various industry experts to provide their best advice for hardware entrepreneurs.

Their advice is worth gold. The quotes below are in no particular order, so be sure to read each and every one.

1. Keep it simple.

Simplicity beats options every time. No complicated device has ever beaten a simple one -- and history is full of examples where the machine with fewer options (iPod, iPhone, Google, Gmail, Sonos, Wii) wiped the floor with their more complex rivals. -- David Pogue, Yahoo Tech founder/editor; writer/correspondent for NOVA, CBS Sunday Morning, & Scientific American

Related: Simplification: The Entrepreneur's Secret to Success

2. Don't be afraid of hardware.

If you want to work on hardware, don't be deterred from doing it because you worry investors will discriminate against you. Physical things are great. Hackers love to build hardware, and customers love to buy it. -- Paul Graham, computer scientist, venture capitalist, and co-founder of Y Combinator

3. My own advice -- focus on minimizing your risk.

"One of the best ways to minimize your risk is to limit your development costs. For example, at Predictable Designs, we provide design service packages with fixed, published pricing. Fixed pricing always lowers your risk compared to open-ended hourly billing. Also have a second, independent engineer review your design before prototyping, especially if your product uses complex electronics. This extra review will drastically reduce the chance of errors." -- John Teel, electronics design engineer and founder of Predictable Designs

4. Begin marketing from day one.

Many startups and hardware manufacturers are engineers and forget that building a successful business needs two key activities to be done in parallel -- product development and marketing. One of the best ways to do that is to build an audience on social, grow an email list and start making relationships with online influencers before you need them. Build it and they will come is a recipe for failure. -- Jeff Bullas, social media marketing strategist/speaker

5. Don't worry about scalability, at least in the beginning.

In the early days of starting up, the ability to scale is overrated. Your priority, in short, is proving that people will use your product at all. If they wont, then it wont matter if you cant scale. If they will, then you will figure out a way to scale. Ive never seen a startup die because it couldnt scale fast enough. Ive seen hundreds of startups die because people refused to embrace their product. -- Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist at Apple, author of The Art of the Start 2.0

6. Develop a product for a market, not based on your biased opinion.

A lot of founders are inspired to build a consumer product that solves a very personal pain point, and they tend to assume that their target customer is just like them; a great place to start, but it can lead to limited thinking or overestimation of market size. So I like to see them be very honest with themselves when doing early research around demand for their product. -- Renee DiResta, co-author of The Hardware Startup

7. Begin with a minimum viable product.

The Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision and great ambition, all at the same time. As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice -- remove any feature, process or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek. -- Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup methodology

8. Design for manufacturing.

"Designing a hardware product is not the same thing as designing a manufacturable hardware product. DFM (design for manufacturability) needs to be an integral part of your design thinking from day one. If you don't have experience with hardware manufacturing, then make sure you find somebody who does, and learn from their knowledge and their mistakes. -- Jeremy Blum, electrical engineer

Related: First Steps: Writing the Product Section of Your Business Plan

9. Make customers an integral part from concept onward.

You dont build it and they will come. You have your target customer be an integral part of your entire launch, from concept and beyond. Pay attention to what they say because its critical to your products success. -- Daymond John, investor on Shark Tank and author of The Power of Broke

10. Network with other hardware startup founders.

If you are a founder building a hardware-based business, I encourage you to get to know other founders who have built successful hardware-based businesses at scale, and go deep on the financials of their journey. You might be surprised how little equity is actually required to build a marketing-leading, cash flow positive, high growth, hardware related company. -- Brad Feld, entrepreneur and venture capitalist at Foundry Group

11. Position yourself as an expert while you develop your product.

It's so easy to get consumed with the development of making the best product. But in order to get your physical product to market, you need to position yourself as the expert in your field. You won't be able to make a significant impact on the market unless you are recognized as an authority in your field. -- Leonard Kim, brand strategist

12. Select a co-founder very carefully.

Don't rush into a founder relationship. When choosing your initial team, look to the people you've worked with before and respected. Talk to them. Have real conversations about the company and potential outcomes. If it's someone new, take on a smaller, constrained project first to test out working strategies. Make sure that you've chatted through conflicts, disputes and exit scenarios. -- Brady Forrest, Highway1 hardware accelerator

13. Capitalize social media at every step.

Utilize social media both before and after the launch in the most efficient manner. Before the launch, social media audiences can help by providing quality feedback, new ideas and interesting angles regarding upcoming products and in some cases help shape certain elements or even provide the inspiration for a new product concept in whole. -- Dennis Koutoudis, marketing expert, LinkedSuperPowers

Related: How Your Business Can Capitalize on Facebook Live

14. Innovate for an existing market, not for a new market.

A lot of people try to innovate and change the world. While I think that is noble and great, I know there is value in finding an existing market's needs and creating that product for that market. That's the definition of an entrepreneur. Using this technique is also more of a sure bet than innovating and making something never done before that you have no idea if anyone is interested in. -- Brian D. Evans, Inc. 500 Serial Entrepreneur

15. Validate the problem, focus on benefits and leverage experts.

Our advice to early stage hardware companies is focus on five things -- validating and articulating the pain they eliminate or problem they solve, benefits versus features and being laser focused on tech product development, cultivating a community of believers and early customers, efficiently using their cash by leveraging experts and community hubs like makerspaces and reflecting great leadership and a community mindset. -- Noramay Cadena, co-founder of Make in LA

16. Prototype early to test your market.

When building your device in a hardware startup, prototypes are important for a few reasons. Not only to check the viability of 'can this product actually be built,' but also to gain an idea of the real costs. Once you have built one, you can start to knock down the tall poles and set up vendor agreements that will save you thousands down the line. Most importantly, you can get the prototype into the hands of your real users. -- Chris Gammel, electrical engineer, Contextual Electronics

17. Plan for problems.

Research and build in time for failure. Literally, plan to fail. This doesn't mean your entire project won't succeed, but rather accounts for the hiccups in production that you will more than likely suffer. A prototype may turn out to not have the best design, a deadline could get pushed back in manufacturing due to Chinese New Year, or you may discover a critical flaw that sends you back to the drawing board. Allow for these things when planning and communicating a launch timeline. -- Andru Edwards, tech product reviewer at Gear Live

18. Strive to maximize your cash flow.

The most important thing for any startup is cashflow. If you run out of cash, youre dead. With this in mind, find good partners and outsource as much as possible. This allows the startup to focus its resources (and cash) on its core competence and take advantage of the expertise of its larger partners. -- Sunny Trinh, VP of Sales-Southwest at Arrow Electronics

19. Develop a product people can't live without.

You need to step back and think, what will compel someone to purchase your product verses your competitors? Successful companies develop products that become so useful it's integrated into our every day lives. It makes us think, how did we live without it? -- Kevin Nether, tech product reviewer

20. Plan early for manufacturing.

Navigating the critical transition from prototype to production is one of the most challenging and important phases in a products lifecycle from idea to shelf. Historically, this often involved opaque processes, unapproachable tools and incomplete information to make decisions that are difficult and expensive to change later. To maximize your probability of success, incorporate the downstream manufacturing point of view in the design process. -- Scott Miller, CEO of Dragon Innovation

I'll end with one final quote of advice -- this time from my idol Albert Einstein -- that applies especially well for hardware entrepreneurs -- Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.
A Utah businessman was shocked Saturday to see a full-page ad in an Idaho newspaper that said he was searching for a wife.

The Spokesman-Review reported Monday that Barron Brooks, a Salt Lake City broker, had a hunch on who was behind the ad in the Coeur dAlene Press, which listed pertinent details about him including his age, height and political views.

My father did this without my consent, Brooks, 49, told the Spokesman-Review. I cant even describe to you how embarrassing and ridiculous this is.

Brooks said he was angry at his father for taking out the $900 ad, but also didnt want to hurt his feelings. He said he decided to let his father, 78-year-old Arthur Brooks of Beverly Hills, Calif., to go with the matchmaking process for a wife.

The Coeur dAlene ad said that process will take place this Saturday at The Coeur dAlene Resort.

And then Ill have words with my father separately, said Brooks, who is the owner of two health food stores. Who knows, it cant hurt. Who the hell knows? What am I supposed to do? He already did it, he added. No sense in defusing a bomb once its already gone off.

Arthur Brooks said he wouldnt comment on the process until Sunday when he presumably will choose the right mate for his son.

When asked about his fathers demeanor, Barron Brooks said hes passive-aggressive and neurotic. He also compared him to Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David.

Barron Brooks also said his sad has recently been sick and wants a grandson to carry on the family name. The ad said the woman has to be willing to have children as soon as possible.

Ever since he went into congestive heart failure hes done some really kooky stuff, he said. And this one takes the cake.

For an elderly man living in the limelight of Southern California, it seemed odd that Arthur Brooks would print an ad in an Idaho newspaper. Part of Arthur Brooks requirements for a prospective mate for is son required that they are conservative. Barron Brooks said his dad recently vacationed in the area and may have been drawn to the areas conservative politics.

He knew Im a political conservative, OK? said Brooks, who also is Jewish. And most Jewish girls are quite liberal, and that doesnt work for me. You probably are going to get more like a Midwest-type values in Idaho  somebodys who more right of center than you would, say, in Los Angeles.

Barron Brooks said he only spoke to his father briefly over the course of the last week and wouldnt talk to him again until Sunday.

He added that he wouldnt have bought such an ad himself, but said the chance to meet the woman of his future, cant hurt.

Click for more from the Spokesman-Review.
The Baltimore police officer who drove the transport van Freddie Gray rode in after his arrest was found not guilty on Thursday of all charges stemming from Gray's April 2015 death, making him the third officer in that case tried without a conviction.

Officer Caesar Goodson faced charges of second-degree "depraved heart" murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment resulting from the broken neck Gray suffered while in police custody. Gray's death one week after his arrest set off racial unrest across the city.

Baltimore police said they were ready for possible protests after the verdict and the Maryland National Guard was on standby.

Circuit Judge Barry Williams read the verdict to a packed courtroom. Goodson was facing the most serious charges out of the six officers accused in Gray's death. Goodson opted for a bench trial leaving his fate up to Judge Williams.

Goodson was dressed in a black suit. After the verdict was read, he was greeted by friends and relatives, many of whom were crying. Officer Edward Nero, who was acquitted last month, sat in the front row and hugged Goodson.

Prosecutors alleged that Gray sustained his injuries because Goodson did not properly strap Gray into the police van on April 12, 2015 and also gave him a rough ride on the way to the police station. The charges could have sent Goodson to prison for at least 68 years.

Judge Williams repeatedly said prosecutors failed to show evidence that Goodson was aware or should have been aware that Gray was hurt. He also said they could not prove how Gray's injuries occurred.

State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby was seated in the center of the front row. After the verdict was announced she sighed and walked out of the courtroom with a security entourage.

Gray was arrested after running from an officer on bike patrol outside a public housing project not far from the Western District station house. He was later found with an illegal knife. A neighbor's video showed him handcuffed behind his back and hoisted into Goodson's van.

The van made a total of six stops that day, and Gray was unresponsive on arrival at the station house 45 minutes later. Prosecutors said Goodson was there throughout and checked on Gray during the third and fourth stops, so he should have known Gray was in distress.

They said his failure to call a medic amounted to murder.

A prosecution expert testified that Gray could not possibly have broken his own neck. Prosecutors said the injury happened somewhere between the second and fourth stops, when Goodson and Officer William Porter lifted Gray off the floor.

Porter testified that Gray was lethargic, but could breathe and speak, and didn't seem injured. Prosecutors countered that the initial injury became critical as the trip continued.

Porter was the first officer to face trial. The judge declared a mistrial in December after a jury deadlocked.

Second-degree "depraved heart" murder, which carries up to 30 years in jail, would mean that Goodson was so negligent in his inaction that he cast aside any consideration for Gray's life.

During opening statements, prosecutors for the first time accused Goodson of giving Gray a "rough ride," intentionally leaving him unbuckled "to bounce him around in the back of the van."

But by closing arguments, they all but abandoned the theory, saying Goodson's failure to belt Gray in under the circumstances was sufficient to prove the intent necessary for a murder conviction.

"Officer Goodson never calls a medic, he never takes Freddie Gray to the hospital," said Deputy State's Attorney Jan Bledsoe. "He has breached his duty, and because of that breach Freddie Gray's life was shortened."

The judge seemed skeptical, peppering prosecutors with questions and asking what evidence they had supporting the "rough ride" theory. What if Gray had emerged from the van unhurt, despite being unbuckled, and was found to be falsely claiming injury in order to avoid jail?

Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow said the failure to belt him in would still be a crime, although a difficult one to prosecute.

Goodson's attorney Matthew Fraling fiercely rejected the allegations, telling the judge that Goodson was a "gentle" officer who didn't buckle him in because Gray was exhibiting "violent and erratic" behavior, citing witness testimony that he was making the wagon shake back and forth by kicking and flailing inside.

Fraling also said Gray said "yes" when Porter asked if he wanted to go to a hospital only because Gray hoped to avoid jail.

"They have failed to cobble together any type of case with reasonable inferences, let alone evidence," he said. "The mere fact that harm resulted doesn't mean the Officer Goodson's conduct is the cause of that harm."

Lt. Brian Rice's trial is set to begin in July, followed later in the month by Officer Garrett Miller, Porter's retrial in September and Sgt. Alicia White's trial in October.

Fox News' Michelle Macaluso, Courtney Stein Vargas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A 4-year-old Philadelphia girl is dead after she was shot in the face Thursday afternoon, police said.

The child was struck once in her eye, rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead at 1:01 p.m., FOX 20 reported.

The weapon has been recovered, police said, though it was unclear how the girl was shot.

She was inside a home in North Philadelphia with her mom, 25, and 3-year-old sister when she was shot, ABC6 reported.

The girls identity has not been released.
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A 19-year-old walking down a busy commercial strip of a New Orleans suburb Wednesday in the middle of the afternoon shot and killed a deputy after the officer tried to search him, the sheriff said Wednesday, labelling the shooting "a cold-blooded murder."

In a late night news conference, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand described the deadly shooting that swiftly unfolded after Detective David F. Michel Jr., 50, tried to search Jerman Neveaux.

The sheriff said the officer had noticed Neveaux walking behind another person who appeared to be nervous, so he pulled over. Michel approached Neveaux and placed him up against the police vehicle so he could search him, Normand said. But Neveaux flipped around, "went chest to chest" with the officer, pulled out a gun and  reaching over Michel's shoulder  shot him in the back.

"As Detective Michel fell to the ground, he fired two more shots at point-blank range into the back of Detective Michel," Normand said.

The officer was able to get on the radio and say he'd been shot, Normand said.

As Michel was brought to a hospital in New Orleans where he later died, officers flooded the area, using dogs and helicopters to search for the suspect. Normand said police were able to find the suspect, who was going through the backyards of houses in the nearby area.

Geralisha Henderson lived in one of those houses. She said she went to her back door Wednesday to make sure it was locked after police combing her street said they were searching for a suspect.

When she went to the back door, she saw what appeared to be a young man dressed in jeans and T-shirt hiding in the back of the yard. Frightened, she went to the street and waved for a police officer to come. When she went to the back door to peek outside again, she said the suspect was much closer to the house. The suspect saw her and asked to be let in, she said.

"He was telling me 'Open the door, let me in,'" she said. "He looked scared."

She said she did not see a gun. At that the point, several officers rushed in and detained him in the backyard. Henderson's mother, Alicia, said an officer later came back to the house and told her the man was the suspect they were looking for.

Normand said five witnesses identified Neveaux as the shooter, and authorities found the gun on him and have been able to match it forensically to the shooting. A spokesman for the sheriff's office, John Fortunato, said he has been arrested on charges of first degree murder and assault.

The suspect admitted shooting the officer and said he was on probation for another offense and didn't want the officer to find the gun and arrest him, Normand said.

The sheriff also said his office is investigating a video that was brought to their attention by a local media outlet that shows Neveaux's arrest. Normand, who said he saw the video minutes before the news conference, said it shows Neveaux "...being struck by our officers while attempting to gain control of Neveaux." He said Neveaux was still armed at that time.

Neveaux, who was taken to the hospital for treatment after his arrest, had an orbital fracture and scrapes and cuts, Normand said.

As news got out about Michel's death, people began to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial where the shooting happened. One of them was MonaLisa Urbina, 47, who brought flowers and a stuffed animal.

She said she knew Michel, who lived with his family in the same neighborhood as her. She said she first got to know him when he found her two boys riding their bikes instead of being in school.

"He scolded them. He told them not to do it again. And he put fear in them. They never did it again," she said. "He treated them like family. I tell you, everybody's lost an angel."

Deputy Chief Craig Taffaro, who commands the parish's operations division, said Michel was a cheerful man who loved his job.

"Obviously, today is the most difficult time," Taffaro said. The deputy chief said he knew Michel personally. "He was a great guy. He was well-liked. It was quite obvious at the hospital how many friends he had."

He said Michel's father was en route to New Orleans. "I spoke with his dad," Taffaro said, "And he said, 'As difficult as this is, he's doing what he loved to do.' I guess that sums it up."

Michel was assigned to the street crimes unit, which targets drug sales and criminal activity in 17 high-crime areas around the parish, Taffaro said. Michel was in a black unmarked car and dressed in plain clothes with sheriff markings.

Michel joined the sheriff's office in 2007 and was transferred to the street crimes unit in 2015, Fortunato said.

It was the year's second shooting of a Jefferson officer.

Another member of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, Stephen Arnold, was shot and wounded in January during a drug raid on a house in the Lower 9th Ward section of New Orleans.

___

Associated Press reporters Kevin McGill and Chevel Johnson in New Orleans contributed to this story.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Michel's age is 50.
The commodore in charge of the two U.S. Navy boats that strayed into Iranian waters leading to the capture of his 10 sailors for 16 hours in January will be relieved of command likely putting an end to his career, Fox News has learned.

Capt. Kyle Moses, commodore of Commander Task Force (CTF) 56 was responsible for the two riverine boats and Kuwait-based crew. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, is set to release a long-awaited report on June 30th about the events surrounding the January incident now that the investigation is complete.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces captured the two high-speed patrol boats near Farsi Island, a well-known Iranian base, hours after the boats left Kuwait on January 12 with the intended purpose of sailing to Bahrain. Five sailors were aboard each boat.

The Navy crew was inexperienced and running late to make a rendezvous at a refueling point in the Persian Gulf when the capture took place, according to officials.

The detention of the American crew came the same day as President Obamas State of the Union address and came at a sensitive time for the administration days before formally implementing the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers led by the United States.

Days after the incident, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the Navy patrol boats had misnavigated into Iranian territorial waters. The second in command of the riverine squadron, Cmdr. Eric Rasch, was fired from his job last month.

Multiple defense officials tell Fox News a multitude of errors led to the capture of the U.S. Navy crew.

First, there was no navigation brief, a major violation of Navy protocol. When any Navy ship gets underway, even for something as minor as shirting berths from one pier to another, it is standard for a Navy crew to conduct a navigation brief discussing issues such as hazards to navigation or, in this case, an Iranian base near the planned course.

Second, the chain of command was not well defined on the two boats. While a young lieutenant was the highest-ranking individual on either of the two 50-foot boats, when the order was given to evade the Iranian forces, the helmsman refused the order.

Third, defense officials tell Fox News the Navy had become too complacent with the its treatment by Iranian forces in the months leading up to the January capture.

The story here is these guys had gotten so used to Iranians doing stupid s---, having weapons pointed at them all the time, they didnt know they were being captured until the Iranians boarded their boats, one defense official said describing the lack of situational awareness by the Navy crew. They messed up pretty bad.

It was not immediately clear whether Richardson would announce punishments during the release of his report or a short time later. Other sailors aboard the two ships likely face disciplinary action as well, but Navy officials have refused to disclose the number.

The detention of the U.S. sailors created an uproar on Capitol Hill as Iran released a videotaped apology from the Navy lieutenant. Many in the military questioned whether the Code of Conduct, which forbids any captured American troops from making such statements, was violated. Under terms of the Code, American service members are required to give only a name, rank, service number and date of birth to captors.

Other video clips showing some of the 10 sailors crying sparked additional international outrage. Secretary of State John Kerry had thanked the Iranians for their treatment of the Navy sailors before the video showing the apology and crying was released.

Irans Ayatollah Ali Khamenei awarded medals to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard crew who detained the American sailors. In February, a reenactment of the sailors' capture was displayed during parades around Iran celebrating the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

On the same day the Navy sailors were taken captive, Iran flew a drone over the USS Harry S Truman in the Persian Gulf. And, when the aircraft carrier sailed past the Strait of Hormuz in late December, a group of Iranian missile boats fired unguided rockets only 1,500 yards away, in a move the Navy called highly provocative.
A judge in Los Angeles Thursday ordered a convicted killer freed after prosecutors said they had new doubts that he killed a college student 16 years ago.

DA seeks release of man convicted of killing teen Michelle OKeefe at Palmdale park-and-ride https://t.co/XkaI7Dmo0C pic.twitter.com/LDmtJzpFh9  KTLA (@KTLA) June 23, 2016

Raymond Jennings, a 42-year-old Iraq war veteran, was ordered released on his own recognizance but he'll wear an electronic monitor. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009 and sentenced to 40 years to life in state prison.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office asked for his release as it reinvestigated the February 2000 shooting of 18-year-old Michelle O'Keefe in a park-and-ride lot in Palmdale.

Jennings, a security guard at the time, said he heard gunshots and found the woman in a car. No physical evidence linked Jennings to the crime and he's always maintained his innocence.

"My office has been presented with credible new evidence that brings this conviction into question," District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement Wednesday. The DA's Conviction Review Unit, which formed last year, reopened the murder investigation at the request of Jennings' attorney, Jeffrey Ehrlich.

Only two men were at the scene at the time of the killing.

"They only investigated one man, Ray Jennings. They have finally decided to investigate the other one," Ehrlich said Wednesday. "That reopened investigation has generated new leads that they are actively pursuing."

The DA's office has agreed that if the new investigation finds nothing tying Jennings to the killing, in 60 days prosecutors will agree to have the court throw out his conviction, Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich said he was unsure whether Jennings was aware of the decision, but he has always proclaimed his innocence. "He's been in prison for 11 years. It has been remarkable about how resilient he has been," Ehrlich said.

O'Keefe, a student at Antelope Valley College, had returned from Los Angeles where she had worked as an extra in a music video. She was shot several times.

Jennings, an Iraq War veteran with no criminal history who was studying to become a U.S. marshal, said he was 400 feet away when he saw O'Keefe's car rolling backward and heard gunshots but said he never saw any attacker.

After two previous trials ended in deadlocked juries, Jennings was convicted of second-degree murder.

Members of O'Keefe's family were on hand when Jennings was sentenced in 2010.

"I sit here as an innocent man," Jennings told them, adding that "as Christ as my Lord and savior, I will stand before God and this is one sin that I will not be judged for."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Prosecutors in the murder case of a beloved Florida doctor announced Wednesday they plan to seek the death penalty for two suspects in her gruesome killing, including her husband.

State to seek death penalty for Mark Sievers and Jimmy Ray Rodgers in Teresa Sievers murder case. pic.twitter.com/1NAFEwCY9m  Michael Braun (@MichaelBraunNP) June 22, 2016

Teresa Sievers, 46, a holistic physician and mother of two, was found bludgeoned to death in the kitchen of her Bonita Springs home last June. Investigators recovered a hammer with blood and hair on it nearby.

The doctor reportedly had returned home early from a vacation in Connecticut, leaving her husband and children behind to go to work.

Prosecutors initially filed murder charges against two men from Missouri: a friend of Sievers' husband and a man spotted at a Fort Myers Walmart near the Sievers' home the day before the doctor's body was found.

However, in December, investigators announced a stunning twist in the case. They said Sievers' husband, Mark, orchestrated the attack to cash in on insurance policies, and promised the two Missouri men a chunk of the $4.4 million payout.

Police had arrested the first two suspects, 26-year-old Jimmy Rodgers and 46-year-old Curtis Wayne Wright, in August.

Mark Sievers, 48, tried collecting the insurance weeks before those arrests, The News-Press reported. The insurance company, Ohio National Life, refused to pay him citing the criminal investigation.

Wright pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in February in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence. He agreed to help prosecutors in their case against Mark Sievers, the newspaper added. The state also took custody of the children  ages 9 and 11  in February.

After prosecutors announced they intended to seek the death penalty against Sievers and Rodgers, the husband's defense attorney Antonio Faga responded, We are not surprised that the state has taken this position, however we feel it is not an accurate position based upon the fact Mr. Sievers is innocent. There was no immediate response from Rodgers' attorney.
The belief prevails in Silicon Valley that we have created a meritocracy, an entrepreneurial utopia where the best and brightest always come out on top. Im here to tell you: That is a pernicious myth.

Related: Why It's Harder For Women to Raise VC Funds

The latest data point from a Bloomberg analysis reveals that nearly 1,900 U.S. entrepreneurs received venture capital funding for their startups, 2009-2016. Of those, just 141 were women.

So, then, you have to ask: Which women? Because things are even worse for women of color. A recent report from #ProjectDiane showed that from 2012 to 2014, African American female founders effectively received next to no venture funding. Of the 10,238 funding deals during that period, only 0.2 percent (24, total) went to African American women entrepreneurs.

Whats happening here? If you believe that entrepreneurial capacity and talent are evenly distributed by gender and race, then why is there this vast difference in how men versus women, versus women of color, are able to tap venture funding?

The same Bloomberg report also found that companies founded by women received less money than their male-led peers -- an average of $77 million versus $100 million, respectively.

Interestingly, that shortfall mirrors almost exactly the U.S. pay gap between men and women. Across the United States, women overall are paid an average of 79 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Related: 3 Ways for Women to Close the VC Gender Gap

As with venture funding, this issue compounds sharply for women of color. Hispanic, African American, Native American and Native Hawaiian women all have lower median annual earnings compared with Caucasian and Asian American women.

The widest wage gap is for Hispanic and Latina women, who earn only 54 percent of what white men do.

One 2014 study from the National Academy of Sciences offers a clue: When presented with identical, award-winning startup pitches, where only the voice of the presenter had been changed, 68 percent of sample group VCs chose to fund the venture pitched by a male voice. Only 32 percent chose to fund the venture pitched by a female voice.

Yet, as disturbing as all these revelations may be, underestimation of women during the pitch process isnt the actual basis of the problem. The problem starts earlier.

Subtle biases and barriers

The problems that female entrepreneurs face in the market for VC funding are symptomatic of the larger issues that women in the workforce deal with every day, particularly in the tech industry.

Its something I like to call both a "pipeline problem" and a "leaky pipeline problem."

The pipeline problem is often discussed in Silicon Valley, as the reason why -- or the excuse for -- the fact that there are not as many women in leadership roles in tech or at venture capital firms. Here, what typically gets cited are the differences between the rates of women, versus men, or people of color, versus Caucasians and Asians, taking computer science classes in school and choosing tech careers.

Certainly, that is true: The pool of female candidates arriving at venture firms or starting a big technology platform is smaller than that of men.

But, long before those career paths start, I see the long journey of the hidden biases and barriers that keep all of us on different paths in our lives. This includes everything from where were born, to our demographic characteristics, to teachers' expectations. And more comes into play, including: access to broadband, role models and even the unspoken messages of social belonging and peer acceptance.

Thats my definition of a leaky pipeline.

Reframing the mission

Once women and people of color surmount all those hurdles and find their way into a tech career, another continuing series of bias-based obstacles awaits: interview biases, performance-review biases, compensation differences, different standards for promotability and more.

Even the words used to promote the mission of entrepreneurship can be very stereotypically male, says Miriam Rivera, co-founder and managing partner at Ulu Ventures. "You hear about the 'wild ride of risk,' becoming king of the hill, getting rich," she told me. "You would think there wasn't a customer, or that the business wasn't meant to serve anyone."

In her experience in tech, Rivera said, she found herself more inspired by those ideas that will ultimately help people.

"I reframed my mission at Google to think about how the whole world could have a 24/7 library available to them, and that it was going to help people and provide human beings new access to opportunity," she said. "I grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford to buy books, and so the library was an intrinsic part of my education. When I thought of it that way, I found the business more personally inspirational."

In short, language and framing matter. Even addressing the issue of bias in technology can discourage people from choosing that path. Who among us wants to go where we perceive we are not wanted?

None of this is to say that bias is either intentional or malicious. Its about the cumulative effects over the course of years. When we talk about diversity and inclusion, this is the inclusion part. Whats it like being the only women in the room in meeting after meeting? Whats it like to feel like you have to check yourself at the door every day before starting work?

Bias doesnt have to entail purposefully leaving people out of meetings or tolerating a toxic workplace (although that does happen). Its more about women not seeing their ideas recognized, being cut off while speaking, not being assigned the really interesting work and being overlooked for stretch assignments or mentorship relationships over time.

The network effect

There is one more less obvious thing that strikes me as the single greatest problem on the funding side for women-led businesses, or businesses run by people of color.

Most venture deals, today as ever, are done through personal networks. Naturally, these relationships tend to mirror the VC industry as a whole, which is made up almost entirely of middle-aged white males. They invest in people who look like them because those are the types theyre most likely to meet.

In fact, according to a study conducted by TechCrunch, just 7 percent of the partners surveyed at the top 100 venture capital firms -- 54 out of 755 -- were women. Incidentally, this is also one of the explanations why so few African Americans, Latinos and entrepreneurs from low-income backgrounds are able to secure venture funding. Simply not knowing anyone who is a venture capitalist is a significant handicap at the fund-raising stage.

And the myth that Silicon Valley is a pure meritocracy? That's simply masking this fact.

Related: Challenges Women Face When Raising Venture Capital

The reality is that venture capital is telling a very different story than the meritocracy myth would suggest -- and unconscious biases are the only explanation. The time to start addressing them is now.
A Houston VA hospital altered records to hide lengthy patient waiting lists even as a national scandal regarding treatment of veterans was unfolding, a federal watchdog charged in a scathing report released this week.

Officials at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston and its associated clinics altered records to make it appear that hundreds of appointments canceled by staff were really called off by patients, according to the VA's Office of Inspector General. The federal audit determined the changes were made to hide unacceptable wait times as VA hospitals around the country were under fire for neglecting patients.

"As a result, VHAs recorded wait times did not reflect the actual wait experienced by the veterans and the wait time remained unreliable and understated," the report noted.

The audit was performed after the IG received an anonymous tip saying officials instructed staff to incorrectly record cancellations. Records showed 223 appointments were incorrectly recorded as patient cancellations between July 2014 and June 2015.

The report did not point the finger at the facility's top leadership. It determined that two previous scheduling supervisors and a current director of two affiliated clinics "instructed staff to incorrectly record cancellations as canceled by the patient."

Of the 223 cancellations, 94 appointments were put off an average of 81 days. But because the cancellations were improperly attributed to patients, no delays or backlog was evident in the center's electronic scheduling system, according to the review.

Most damning about the report is that the improper behavior followed a stunning national review that revealed widespread corruption at VA facilities across the nation -- from rejected medical claims to delays in treatment and cover-ups by high-level officials. In May 2014, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki resigned from office amid the fallout from the controversy.

"These issues have continued despite the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) having identified similar issues during a May and June 2014 system-wide review of access," the report stated. "These conditions persisted because of a lack of effective training and oversight."

Officials at the center took issue with the findings in a statement to FoxNews.com Thursday.

"The ... report did not substantiate any case of Houston VA Medical Center senior leaders intentionally manipulating scheduling data," said Maureen Dyman, the center's communications director.

Supervisers and staff have undergone extensive training in scheduling practices in the last two years, Dyman said. Supervisors now conduct monthly audits of appointments scheduled, and officials at the center regularly meet with schedulers to make sure their practices are properly understood, she added.

David Maulsby, executive director of the Houston-based group, PTSD Foundation of America, told FoxNews.com that his organization maintains strong relationships with a number of people within the Houston-area VA, like social workers. But, Maulsby noted, the latest government audit reflects a system that is "clearly still broken."

"We have seen on many occasions these types of things happening -- appointments getting lost or wait times extended for very important things," Maulsby said. "Until Congress is willing to give the ability to fire the people who need to be fired, this will perpetually be the problem."

"The greater problem is that our veterans, who have already borne the cost of war, are now required to bear the cost of not receiving the care they deserve," he said.
Two men have been charged in an ambush at a backyard cookout near Pittsburgh that killed a pregnant woman, her 8-month-old fetus and four other adults.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said Cheron Shelton, 29, and Robert Thomas, 27, have each been charged with six counts of criminal homicide for the March 9 ambush in Wilkinsburg.

Thomas used a .40-caliber pistol to fire 18 shots into about 15 partygoers, prompting them to run for cover toward a rear porch where Shelton, hiding behind a fence, peppered them with 30 shots from a rifle similar to an AK-47, Zappala said. The victims all died from shots fired by Shelton, investigators said.

Zappala said Shelton apparently blamed Lamont Powell, one of three people wounded in the shootings, for the 2013 murder of Shelton's best friend.

Authorities called Powell a suspect in the 2013 killing but have never charged anyone, county police said in a news release.

The slain victims included Brittany Powell, 27, who was renting the home and living there with her child, and her siblings, Chanetta Powell, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, and Jerry Shelton, 35. The county medical examiner has ruled Chanetta Powell's unborn son died because of her death. The other victims were a cousin of the siblings, Tina Shelton, 37, and their friend, Shada Mahone, 26.

Cheron Shelton is not related to the victims and planned the shootings with Thomas after they learned of the cookout from a Facebook post and an unspecified call telling them Lamont Powell would be there, authorities wrote in court papers.

"We allege two gunmen, acting in concert, who had a motive and opportunity, undertook these crimes," Zappala said at a news conference. "Nobody else was involved in this. They planned it. They carried it out."

The suspects have been in custody on other unrelated charges since shortly after the shooting. Their attorneys have said their clients were innocent and that they've seen no evidence to the contrary. Neither immediately returned calls for comment after the charges were announced.

Both suspects are also charged with six counts each of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment for the three others wounded, as well as three other unnamed guests who were endangered by the gunfire. They're also charged with criminal conspiracy.

Wilkinsburg is a poor, largely blighted suburb just east of Pittsburgh that is known for drug trafficking and gun violence. But neighbors said the street where the shooting occurred had generally been quiet.
A San Diego woman who pleaded guilty to defacing several treasured national rock formations at national parks across the west and was sentenced to two years of probation was also banned from all national parks and federal lands during her probation.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila K. Oberto said Casey Nocket, 23, will also have to pay some kind of restitution as well.

Nocket pleaded guilty in a federal court in Fresno, Calif. earlier this month to seven misdemeanors for the autumn 2014 painting spree at seven national parks, including Yosemite in California and Zion in Utah. She also admitted to defacing rocks at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

She used Instagram and Tumblr to document her trip and her graffiti-like work, which led to broad outrage on social media.

The defendants defacement of multiple rock formations showed a lack of respect for the law and our shared national treasures, said acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert. The National Park Service has worked hard to restore the rock formations to their natural state, completing clean-up efforts in five of the seven national parks.

They expect to complete clean-up efforts at Death Valley and at Crater Lake national parks as weather permits.

Charles Cuvelier, chief of law enforcement for the National Park Service, told the LA Times that the case underlines the role the public can play in sharing images of illegal behavior.

The resolution of this case sends a message to those who would consider such inappropriate behavior going forward, he told the paper.

The vandalism in September and October of 2014 caused serious cleanup problems at the national parks. The sandblasting and chemical stripping used to remove paint can cause even more damage to irreplaceable natural features.

At two parks, Crater Lake and Death Valley in California, the cleaning has yet to be completed nearly two years later.

Last month, actress Vanessa Hudgens paid $1,000 in restitution for carving a heart into a red rock wall during a trip to Sedona, Ariz.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from the Los Angeles Times.
A domestic dispute on board a Chicago subway train turned deadly Thursday afternoon when a man suddenly and repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend.

Authorities said the attack happened on board a Red Line train on the city's South Side at around 12:30 p.m. local time. Investigators said the victim was 25 years old, but did not immediately identify her further.

Chicago Police First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante told reporters that witnesses described hearing "some talk about a child" between the couple. Escalante said witnesses observed the man asking the woman a question. After she responded "no," he stabbed her and slit her throat.

Other passengers called 911 to report the murder. The unidentified suspect turned himself into a police officer after getting off the train at the next stop.



"This is domestic in nature, Escalante said. Were sure of that."



The Red Line is the Chicago Transit Authority's busiest L line. The attack and the police investigation shut down one station for nearly two hours.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Quebec's Public Security Department says inmates have taken a female security guard hostage in the basement of a courthouse in a northern town.

Provincial police said Wednesday the hostage was taken Wednesday afternoon in Sept-Iles, about 650 kilometers (403 miles) northeast of Quebec City. Police say they cannot confirm how many convicts are involved.

The courthouse has a detention center in the basement. The building has been evacuated and police have erected a security perimeter nearby.

In 2013, CBC/Radio-Canada reported that the jail was outdated and had an overcrowding problem. A new jail in the remote town was supposed to be operational this spring but has not yet opened.
Two prison inmates in eastern Quebec were arrested Wednesday after they took a female security guard hostage, prompting the evacuation of a courthouse and an hours-long standoff with police.

Authorities said the unidentified guard was uninjured in the altercation.

CBC News reported that the incident began when police were called to the courthouse in Sept-Iles at around 3 p.m. local time. The facility, which houses the jail in the basement and the town's courts on the main floors, was evacuated and a security perimeter was established.

Radio-Canada reported a man in handcuffs was seen being taken out of the jail at around 6:30 p.m local time. Quebec provincial police confirmed that the male inmates, aged 22 and 26, had surrendered and were in custody.

Authorities had no immediate comment on what the motive for the hostage taking might have been.

Sept-Iles, which has a population of around 25,000 people, is located at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, approximately 400 miles northeast of Quebec City.

In 2013, CBC/Radio-Canada reported that the jail was outdated and had an overcrowding problem. A new jail was supposed to be operational this spring but has not yet opened.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Three Australians, two Nigerians, a New Zealander and a South African have been kidnapped in Nigeria in an ambush that killed their Nigerian driver, Australian officials said Thursday.

Authorities did not know who kidnapped the men, who were working for Australian mining contractor Macmahon Holdings, on Wednesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

Turnbull said the Australian ambassador was on the scene and working with local authorities.

Another Australian had escaped during the ambush at Cross River State, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

"We are treating this extremely seriously as, I understand, is the Nigerian government," Bishop told reporters.

"We have some understanding of what occurred," she said. "Suffice to say there are seven people currently being held."

Macmahon said in a statement that the dead driver and the seven kidnapped men were all employees. The kidnap happened near the city of Calabar.

"We are working to ensure the safe return of all the men involved and are in communication with their families," the statement said.
German police killed a masked man who stormed a movie theater Thursday afternoon and was believed to have fired shots and taken hostages, authorities said.

The unidentified man was killed after police commandoes gathered around the the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, about 40 miles south of Frankfurt, following reports that shots had been fired inside, police said.

"The police thought that the gunman was holding hostages and because of that he was shot dead," Hessen State Interior Minister Peter Beuth told local lawmakers.

Beuth said it wasn't clear whether the weapon was real, but also said he believed four "shots" were fired. Unconfirmed reports said the gun may have shot blanks.

The incident began around lunchtime, and ended with the police action some three hours later.

"We believe that there were no injured people, and that the people who were in the cinema with the perpetrator could be freed uninjured," Beuth said.

Police spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter, said that "there are no indications at present of an Islamist background."

The Associated Press reported no one was shot by the gunman, but German media said dozens were treated for exposure to tear gas. It was unclear if the tear gas was released by the suspect or by police.



Before going inside, investigators described it as a "threat situation."

Police in the nearby city of Mannheim sent officers to support the operation, spokesman Norbert Schaetzle told reporters.

The incident evoked the July 2012 incident in Aurora, Colo., in which James Holmes killed 12 and wounded dozens at a screening of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un trumpeted the success of a powerful new midrange ballistic missile test that state media said Thursday propelled one of the weapons more than 870 miles high, saying it would allow strikes on U.S. forces throughout the region.

That ability would back up years of threats and boasts from North Korea and has long been a worry for the United States and its allies, Tokyo and Seoul. It explains in part North Korea's tenacious testing of the Musudan missile, which was only a success after five failures in about two months. The missile's potential 2,180-mile range puts much of Asia and the Pacific within reach.

After observing the launch, Kim said it gives his country the "sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

Other governments said North Korea fired two Musduan missiles on Wednesday, after suffering four previous launch failures since April.

The first launch ended in failure. But Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said the second launch demonstrated a "certain level of capability," and could lead to a further strengthening of North Korea's ballistic missile capabilities that can cover Japanese territory.

Each new test  apparently linked to a command from Kim  likely provides valuable insights to North Korea's scientists and military officials as they push toward their goal of a nuclear and missile program that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang earlier this year conducted a nuclear test, its fourth, and launched a long-range rocket that outsiders say was a cover for a test of banned missile technology.

A statement from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the suspected first Musudan launch Wednesday from the east coast city of Wonsan failed. It didn't elaborate, but Japan's Defense Ministry said the missile fragmented and pieces fell into waters off the Korean Peninsula's east coast.

Later Wednesday, the South's military said the North fired another suspected Musudan, which flew about 400 kilometers (245 miles).

The KCNA report said the missile flew to the maximum height of 878.3 miles before landing 400 kilometers away in waters the North had targeted.

"We have to see it as a success," Lee Choon Geun, an analyst at South Korea's state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, said of the second launch. "No other (previous) missiles fired by North Korea have ever flown that high."

The U.S. Strategic Command in Hawaii said Wednesday its systems detected and tracked two suspected North Korean Musudan missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan.

In April, North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch three suspected Musudan missiles, but all exploded midair or crashed, according to South Korean defense officials. Earlier this month, North Korea had another suspected Musudan failure, they said.

Before April's launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang.

Musudan is named by outsiders after a village near its test site. The KCNA report called it a Hwasong-10.

The launches appear to stem from Kim's order in March for more nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The order was an apparent response to springtime U.S.-South Korean military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

In the KCNA report, Kim said North Korea must bolster its pre-emptive nuclear attack capability to cope with U.S. threats and continue the development of strategic weapons systems.

"We're very pleased because we now can confidently cope with whatever nuclear war the U.S. launches" on the North, North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui told reporters in Beijing on Thursday, after attending a security forum.

The string of recent launch attempts shows the North is pushing hard to upgrade its missile capability in defiance of U.S.-led international pressure. The North was slapped with the strongest U.N. sanctions in two decades after its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

"The impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Korea's behavior," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. "The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan."

South Korea's Defense Minister Han Min Koo on Thursday called the launches a "grave threat" and warned that North Korea will face tougher sanctions. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also critical, saying, "We find it utterly unforgivable."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Beijing didn't consider the missile launches to be an act of defiance against China, North Korea's long-time ally with whom its relations have cooled substantially in recent years.

"To say such an act taken by North Korea shows disapproval against China is reading too much into it," Hua said at a press briefing.

North Korea has recently claimed a series of breakthroughs in its push to build a long-range nuclear missile that can strike the American mainland. But South Korean officials have said the North doesn't yet possess such a weapon.

The North, however, has already deployed a variety of missiles that can reach most targets in South Korea and Japan, including American military bases in those countries.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea; tens of thousands more are stationed in Japan.
A plane carrying two ailing passengers from the South Pole arrives safely in Chile late Wednesday, according to a statement from the National Science Foundation.

The American workers arrived in the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas. They made a stop earlier at a British station on the edge of Antarctica.

The National Science Foundation, which runs the Amundsen-Scott station, would not identify the workers, who are employees of Lockheed Martin, nor their medical conditions.

The foundation said initially that one worker needed medical attention, but NSF spokesman Peter West confirmed two people were airlifted. Normally planes don't use the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch dark and cold.

The Twin Otter's crew -- a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and medical worker -- arrived at the frigid research station Tuesday before resting for several hours as temperatures dropped below minus 70 degrees.

Before they left, there were 48 people  39 men and nine women  at the station for the winter.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the U.S., now, lauded the rescue crew.

"The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring," Barnet wrote in an email.

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before takeoff, batteries and hydraulics, according to West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 103 degrees (minus 75 degrees Celsius), he said.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you."

"Things can change very quickly down there" with ice from clouds, high winds and snow, he said.

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. That first flight, which was done in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It does astronomy, physics and environmental science with telescopes, seismographs and instruments that monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other science stations in Antarctica.

Fox News Greg Palkot and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Cold Stone Creamery Mixes Up Three New Batter Ice Cream Flavors For Summer

A Decadent Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream Shake Also Joins the Menu for a Limited Time

June 23, 2016 // Franchising.com // SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.  From Cold Stone Creamery, (www.ColdStoneCreamery.com), the place that brought you the original Cake Batter Ice Cream, comes three new homemade batter ice cream flavors: Fudge Brownie Batter, Peanut Butter Cookie Batter and Sugar Cookie Batter, available for a limited time beginning June 22.

These new summertime ice cream flavors have all the homemade taste of batter right off the spoon and can be combined with delicious mix-ins for a one-of-a-kind Creation. In addition, Cold Stone Creamery is blending up a decadent Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream Shake piled high with whipped topping, yellow cake, sugar cookie dough, caramel and rainbow sprinkles.

After bringing our famous Cake Batter Ice Cream to market years ago, we wanted to extend the line for the hot summer months, said Kate Unger, senior vice president of marketing for Cold Stone Creamery. Cookie batter is a childhood favorite and with our three new homemade batter ice cream flavors and Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream Shake, customers can relive those sweet childhood memories all over again.

Cold Stone Creamery will feature the following promotional ice cream flavors and Creations from June 22 through September 6.

Promotional Creations

Everythings Batter With Chocolate  Fudge Brownie Batter Ice Cream with Brownie, Fudge, Caramel and Whipped Topping

 Fudge Brownie Batter Ice Cream with Brownie, Fudge, Caramel and Whipped Topping Loaded Peanut Butter Batter  Peanut Butter Cookie Batter Ice Cream with REESES Peanut Butter Cup, Fudge and Caramel

 Peanut Butter Cookie Batter Ice Cream with REESES Peanut Butter Cup, Fudge and Caramel Rainbow Cookie Batter  Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream with Rainbow Sprinkles, Sugar Cookie Dough and Whipped Topping

 Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream with Rainbow Sprinkles, Sugar Cookie Dough and Whipped Topping Birthday Cake Remix  Cake Batter Ice Cream with Rainbow Sprinkles, Brownies and Fudge

 Cake Batter Ice Cream with Rainbow Sprinkles, Brownies and Fudge Shake It, Cookie! Milkshake  Sugar Cookie Batter Ice Cream blended with Rainbow Sprinkles and topped with Whipped Topping, Yellow Cake, Sugar Cookie Dough, Caramel and Rainbow Sprinkles

About Cold Stone Creamery

Cold Stone Creamery delivers the Ultimate Ice Cream Experience through a community of franchisees who are passionate about ice cream. The secret recipe for smooth and creamy ice cream is hand-crafted fresh in each store, and then customized by combining a variety of mix-ins on a frozen granite stone. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Cold Stone Creamery is a subsidiary of Kahala Brands, one of the fastest growing franchising companies in the world, with a portfolio of 18 quick-service restaurant brands. Cold Stone Creamery operates approximately 1,500 locations in over 27 countries.

About Made Fresh

In Cold Stone Creamery locations across the world, our ice cream is hand-crafted in small batches  one flavor at a time. We start with the highest quality cream, sugar and flavorings to make our ice cream fresh in the back of each of our stores. This small-batch process ensures our customers receive the richest, creamiest, most delicious ice cream when they visit Cold Stone Creamery.

For more information about Cold Stone Creamery, visit www.ColdStoneCreamery.com.

For more information about Kahala Brands, visit www.KahalaBrands.com.

SOURCE Cold Stone Creamery

Contact:

Jessica Benedick

Cold Stone Creamery

480.362.4837

jbenedick@kahalamgmt.com

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Juice It Up! Closes Second Quarter Up Ten Percent In Same Store Sales

Leading Raw Juice & Smoothie Chain Continues Strong Financial Performance

June 23, 2016 // Franchising.com // IRVINE, California  Juice It Up!, one of the nations leading raw juice bar and hand-crafted smoothie franchises, announces an incredibly strong Q2 with same-store sales rising 10 percent over the previous year. The chain also achieved a seven percent system-wide increase in average unit volumes over the same period last year. This follows on the heels of a positive Q1, despite restaurant industry declines overall.

Juice It Up! attributes its successful quarter to a high-performing product launch and a variety of promotional tools including an Acai Awareness campaign in April, which boosted new customer counts while significantly driving loyalty and repeat visits. Also contributing to Juice It Up!s strong financial performance are the four new franchised locations that opened this year, bringing the chain-wide total to 87 units. Juice It Up! is continuing its pursuit of steady expansion across the nation and is on track to add at least another 10 stores, currently in various stages of development, by year-end.

"Juice It Up! at its core is a lifestyle brand dedicated to providing delicious, better-for-you products; and its our goal to make eating healthy both educational and fun, which is really resonating with our guests, said Carol DeNembo, Vice President of Business Development. Were thrilled to see more and more consumers embrace healthy eating habits, which has led to exponential sales and traffic increases across all markets. We love that both our guests and franchise partners are hugely benefitting as consumers transition to a healthier lifestyle.

The brand is currently awarding a variety of franchise opportunities including area development, single unit, and non-traditional store fronts such as college campuses, airports and gyms across all U.S. regions. Juice It Up! also offers franchise incentives for veterans of the U.S. military. With a franchisee-focused culture, Juice It Up! continues to attract highly-qualified new and existing franchise operators to grow with the brand. Ideal franchisees possess an entrepreneurial spirit and a creative local store marketing mindset, and are passionate about living a healthy lifestyle.

To learn more about the benefits of owning a Juice It Up! straight from current franchisees, watch https://youtu.be/qkn3vxafNOI and visit http://www.juiceitupfranchise.com for additional franchising details.

About Juice It Up!

Juice It Up!, a leading raw juice bar and hand-crafted smoothie franchise, specializes in delicious and functional fresh-squeezed juices, blended-to-order real fruit smoothies and nutrient-rich options such as Acai and Pitaya Bowls. Founded in 1995, the Irvine, California-based lifestyle brand is focused on providing its guests with a variety of great-tasting, better-for-you food and drink choices designed with personal wellness in mind. With more than 87 locations across California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas, the company is showcasing a new restaurant design, a heavier focus on the growing demand for raw juice options and a menu refresh that reflects the brands active personality and motto to Live Life Juiced! An established lifestyle brand with unparalleled experience in the raw juice bar industry, Juice It Up! is poised for aggressive expansion throughout the U.S. For more information, visit www.juiceitupfranchise.com.

Juice It Up! Social Media Pages

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/juiceitup/

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/juiceitup/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/juiceituphq/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/juiceitup/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/juiceitupcorp/

SOURCE Juice It Up!

Media Contact:

Chelsea McKinney

Juice It Up!

Powerhouse Public Relations

(949) 261-2216

Chelsea@powrhousepr.com

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Fred Hutch microbiologist Dr. Nina Salama, who leads a research team that studies the stomach cancer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori, said she was interested in biology from a young age but it wasnt until college that she learned about scientific research as a career option.

I had no idea if I would make it but I loved trying to discover new things. My mantra has always been: 'Ill just keep going until people tell me I cant do this anymore,' she said. And thats how I got to where I am today.

Bernard traces her interest in science to playing on the beach in her native Cape Cod, Massachusetts, as a child and wondering why hermit crabs chose the shells they did. When a young girl in the audience asked the panelists when they got started in science, Bernard answered, I like to think of science as not so much a career, but who you are  Its hard to pick one particular time you started  and I dont think its possible to ever really stop.

The hardships

Another thread running through the evenings discussion: Failure. Many of the scientists shared stories of people who tried to tell them they didnt have the chops to make it early in their careers. But more than just discouragement, its important to know going in that disappointment is more common in scientific research than those exciting eureka moments, the panelists said.

Jayadev talked about the struggle of trying to get grants funded or publish findings  and dealing with repeated rejection without taking it personally.

One of most difficult things for me to understand [in this field] is that youll have an idea, and youll pitch it, and people might not bite at first, Jayadev said. It was hard to realize thats OK; you have to have a thick skin and you have to go back and try again.

Ramsey agreed: Youll have many more failures than successes, but you have to believe in yourself.

De los Santos described a trip she took to Tanzania with other PATH researchers to better understand which types of diagnostic tools would best serve people in those communities. Seeing the struggles there firsthand both energized her and broke her heart, she said.

One of the difficult pieces in my work is sometimes I want to get to the solution right away and I want to fix the problem right now. And it takes a long time, she said. When she visited Tanzania, she said, I looked at the situation and Im thinking, Wow, there are so many needs. The needs are so great in many of the communities and our progress is so slow. Faced with that I was like, I need to work harder.

What about that whole woman in science thing?

Despite the evenings theme, the mostly female makeup of the audience and their clear enthusiasm for the subject, the topic of being female in science was rarely explicitly broached. A doctorate student in the audience said she feels theres a perception among her (female) peers that to be in a leadership position in science that you have to sacrifice big parts of your personal life. She wondered if the panelists had dealt with that issue.

Reading between the lines of the question, the panelists talked about balancing having children and succeeding in their careers. But de los Santos cautioned the student not to take that choice at face value.

Yes, you have to make decisions, she said, but Id just say be very careful of false choices. Sometimes people put things in a very binary mode, either this or that, it cant be both. Well, why not?

The other panelists nodded, prompting Cohen to ask how many of the researchers have children. Four of the five raised their hands.

We might not know where they are though, Jayadev quipped.

If you missed it: Watch the Facebook Live video of the event

Another audience member asked the researchers to ponder how their careers might have been different if they were men.

I dont feel like being a woman stopped me, said Salama, to loud applause. I just did it. Maybe it did in some small ways, maybe my path would have been a little bit different, but Ive basically gotten to do what I wanted to do.
The David Knoll Law Firm Creates New Testimonial Section Featuring Stories From Former Clients

The David Knoll Law Firm has been overwhelmed by the gratitude of former clients, and is now sharing their experiences on the website in a new testimonials section.

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Too often, individuals are accused and even charged with crimes they did not commit. In these cases, only an impassioned and expert defence in a court of law can see a person rightfully go free. Anything short of this can lead to disaster, and individuals' lives can be ruined forever as a result. The David Knoll Law Firm (http://sactownlaw.com) is passionate about defending individuals accused of misdemeanors, felonies, DUIs, or even assisting in expunging criminal records for those already convicted. They have just updated their website with testimonials from former clients to demonstrate their commitment to every case.

The testimonials (sactownlaw.com/) have been uploaded to the homepage, where former clients share details of their case and their troubles, together with information on how The David Knoll Law Firm approached the case, the result, and an insight into the clients' experience dealing with the attorneys.

The testimonials speak to how client's first got in touch with the firm, how they were treated with care, compassion and diligence, and how they were defended with passion and intelligence by the expert team. These testimonials are only the first of a series which will be regularly updated on the site.

A spokesperson for The David Knoll Law Firm explained, "We are thrilled to be able to share, in our former clients' own words, what the experience of working with The David Knoll Law Firm on your side is like. We understand that these words speak more powerfully than any advertisement could, and we hope this will encourage individuals to give us a call when they are in trouble and need help. These testimonials are emblematic of how we treat all our clients, and we can't wait to come to the defense of more people in need."

About The David Knoll Law Firm: The criminal defense attorneys at the David Knoll law firm are committed to the promise of "freedom and justice for all." Attorneys David Knoll and Christy Van Stelle believe every citizen has a right to due process, and they work hard to ensure that their clients receive fair treatment and are proactively represented. They go to great lengths to defend the rights of every client and mount an aggressive and strategic defense for them. For more information please contact us at:

Law Office of David Knoll

2301 J St #201

Sacramento CA 95816

United States

Ph: 916-447-5297

For more information, please visit http://sactownlaw.com/

Contact Info:

Name: David Knoll

Email: contact@sactownlaw.com

Organization: Law Office of David Knoll

Phone: 916-447-5297

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/the-david-knoll-law-firm-creates-new-testimonial-section-featuring-stories-from-former-clients/120696

Release ID: 120696

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Pangeanic Updates Its Website With Both Clinical Trial And Sony Translations Case Studies

Pangeanic has shared details of the work it has completed on behalf of Sony Europe and other Sony divisions, and also clinical trial company Q-Trials, to help people understand the versatility and breadth of their translations.

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Translation is an increasingly essential resource for any company that wants to operate on an international level, which is becoming easier than ever thanks to increased globalization. The European translation company Pangeanic has excelled in creating German, Spanish, English and French translations using both in-country specialists and unique machine translation engines. Pangeanic has recently updated its website to include case studies of the exceptional work it has achieved in both these areas, focusing on Sony and Q-Trials.

The case study of the Sony relationship describes decades of work in partnership with award winning results, together with custom built statistical machine translation engines based on the PangeaMT platform. Pangeanic used Sony's entire text archive to identify how the machine could reflect Sony's tone, voice and marketing perspectives through four different European languages, including German and French translations.

The Q-Trial case study reveals something very different- the importance of fast and accurate, specialist medical translation. The company has over 1TB of contextual data and terminology from the medical field alone. That huge amount of data helps Pangeanic's translators to refer to previously translated material very accurately. It also works as the basis for machine translation services, as bilingual texts feed machine learning algorithms that recognize language patterns - in a similar way as to how Google Translate works. Translator teams are sourced in-country and they include professional medical translators to translate many language combinations, including Hebrew to Spanish, German to Hebrew and Hebrew to Dutch, to pull off the complex collaboration.

A spokesperson for Pangeanic explained, "Pangeanic is pleased to be able to report on the results we have created for these clients, which enable us to demonstrate the power and flexibility of our translation services, and the way in which both machine translation and expert translators themselves can be hybridized to create the most effective, and cost-effective solutions for companies of all scales, in all industries. We are committed to providing the very best services available anywhere in the world, and these case studies demonstrate how far we will go to ensure we do just that."

About Pangeanic: Pangeanic has been offering industry leading professional translation services since 1997. We have developed cutting edge technology to enable us to offer fast, accurate machine and technical translation. Pangeanic can translate from and into any language at the most competitive rates, thanks to a combination of experienced translators with in-depth knowledge of both the languages and industries involved, and thousands of terminology databases informing their machine translation, utilizing terabytes of data for ultimate accuracy.

For more information, please visit http://www.pangeanic.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Manuel Herranz

Email: m.herranz@pangeanic.com

Organization: Pangeanic

Phone: +34 96 338 5771

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/pangeanic-updates-its-website-with-both-clinical-trial-and-sony-translations-case-studies/120693

Release ID: 120693

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Firefly Search Celebrates Three Major Accomplishments

The company has moved into a new office, launched a new website, and is now an official Google partner, reports http://fireflysearch.co.nz/.

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Firefly Search, a premier New Zealand-based provider of online lead generation and internet advertising services, has announced that the company has recently celebrated three major accomplishments. In addition to moving into a new office in Albany, Firefly has also launched a new website for their business and has been named as an official Google Partner, which signifies their excellence in advertising and their knowledge of best practices.

Anthony Baxter, Firefly's Managing Director, stated "In our industry, businesses thrive best when they are forward-thinking and can move quickly with the times. Our team is extremely excited about the recent changes we've made in our business and what we've been able to achieve because of those changes. Moving offices and launching a new website have allowed us to better serve our clients with the excellence they've come to expect from Firefly Search and expand our capacity to help businesses succeed online. Becoming a Google Partner is an absolute honor that gives us the opportunity to showcase and further our expertise in online advertising."

The new website that Firefly Search has recently launched provides visitors with a more streamlined experience and gives them access to a plethora of helpful tips, insight, information and resources via the Firefly blog. The Firefly team has also been authorized by Google to display their Google Partner badge on the new site. According to Google, gaining acceptance into their Partner Program signifies that a business is healthy, their clients are happy, and they are committed to following Google best practices..

As Baxter goes on to say, "The mark of any great business is their ability to adapt to change. The recent shifts that we've made at Firefly Search are not only going to make our company better, they're going to allow us to provide the top-notch service our clients expect and do even better in helping them to reach new heights. With a new office environment, a new website, and a new partnership with Google, we look forward to assisting more business owners with their online success."

Those who would like to see the new website or learn more from Firefly Search can visit http://fireflysearch.co.nz/.

About Firefly Search:

Firefly's mission is to help businesses succeed online. Their team believes that too many businesses have seen a lack of measurable results and reporting in comparison to what they have actually paid for or are simply not able to generate leads for their company. With their vibrant and electric culture, all of Firely's staff are bound by the same passion to produce great results in internet advertising and put businesses on the fast track to growth.

For more information, please visit http://fireflysearch.co.nz/

Contact Info:

Name: Anthony Baxter

Organization: Firefly Search

Phone: 093901421, 0800 FIREFLY

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/firefly-search-celebrates-three-major-accomplishments/120724

Release ID: 120724

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Venture4th Launches Campaign To Raise Awareness Of Safety For Travelers

The travel accessory company is seeking to educate travelers about safety measures to protect their ID and other belongings, according to www.venture4th.co

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With crimes like credit card fraud and identity theft on the rise, travelers carrying passports and other valuables are at risk of being victimized. While international travel options have increased due to the growing popularity of adventure traveling, eco-traveling, and volunteering overseas, many travelers are not aware of the dangers they face. In response to this problem, the travel accessory company Venture4th is launching a campaign to educate travelers about these dangers and about important safety precautions they can take, according to spokesperson Patricia Wright.

Said Wright, "One of the biggest problems we see is identity theft through the use of scanners. A lot of credit cards and passports these days are equipped with Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, which allows scanning devices, like the ones at the grocery store, to read your card at a distance of up to several feet. But this convenience also creates an opportunity for criminals to use scanners in public places to read and collect card numbers. Many people aren't even aware that this technology exists, so that's one of the first points we want to introduce." Wright went on to say that travelers can protect themselves from this type of identity theft by keeping their credit cards and passports inside RFID-blocking sleeves or pouches.

Another concern for travelers is keeping their money and valuables secure. "Travelers can be easy marks for pickpockets," explained Wright. "They tend to be wrapped up in the newness of their surroundings, especially when they're visiting a city for the first time, and they don't necessarily recognize the signs of danger that are more obvious to native residents. Unfortunately, it's an all-too-common experience to reach in your pocket to pay for lunch in a foreign city and find your money gone, along with your credit cards and ID. It's a terrifying moment, and we want to help travelers avoid it at all costs by introducing some basic safety precautions, like wearing an RFID Money Belt at all times."

By featuring new safety products and articles about travel safety on their website at https://www.venture4th.co/, Venture4th hopes to spread the word about the importance of protecting money, credit cards, passports and other valuables while traveling abroad. "Whether people are traveling for adventure or leisure or to make the world a better place by volunteering, they deserve to have a great experience," concluded Wright. "No one should have their trip ruined by a crime they could have prevented." Travelers who want more information about safety precautions are welcome to contact Venture4th via their website at https://www.venture4th.co/pages/contact-us.

About Venture4th

Venture4th is a travel accessory company that is all about adventure. They are devoted to outfitting customers with the best tools and accessories on the market today, with the goal of enhancing any and every travel experience. Their high-quality, durable, and thoroughly-tested products are designed to provide convenience and peace of mind for any journey, no matter how far. From RFID-safe passport pouches and secure money belts that hide seamlessly behind clothes, to light-weight unbreakable umbrellas, TSA-friendly heavy-duty padlocks, and world travel adapters, Venture4th has accessories to help with every step of a traveler's journey.

For more information, please visit https://www.venture4th.co

Contact Info:

Name: Patricia Wright

Organization: Venture4th

Address: 2220 Meridian Blvd Suite #CM533 Minden, NV 89423

Phone: 718-717-2120

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/venture4th-launches-campaign-to-raise-awareness-of-safety-for-travelers/120730

Release ID: 120730

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Cellar Door Yarra Valley Creates New Section Featuring Independent Breweries

Cellar Door Yarra Valley has created a new section on its website offering the latest information on breweries, in a logical expansion of their comprehensive listings for wineries and cellar doors.

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Wine is not just a drink, it is a passion for millions of people around the world. Australia's Yarra Valley has been fortunate enough to produce some of the best wines in the world, while at the same time being an exciting new player on the worldwide scene. As a result, aficionados are flocking to the region to see what secrets it has to offer, and want to take tours of the wineries alongside the breathtaking scenery and gorgeous weather. Cellar Door Yarra Valley (www.cellardooryarravalley.com.au) helps people find all the information they need on wineries, and has just expanded to include a section on independent breweries.

Those who love fine wines also often have an affection for artisanal beer and spirits, and the Yarra Valley region has seen a large cross over in manufacturers. The new section includes makers of beer, gin, cider and more, all created independently by those with a passion for the art of brewing. These hidden gems are a perfect addition to any wine region tour.

The website is frequently updated and the new section has only just been introduced, meaning there will be ample opportunity for more companies to be added. Interested parties planning their trips can check back regularly for new updates, or use 'See Us On Facebook' to like their page and get updates straight to their feed.

A spokesperson for Cellar Door Yarra Valley explained, "Cellar Door Yarra Valley is pleased to be able to offer a new section tailored to the other amazing manufacturers we have in the region. Wine is what has made the valley famous, but these items are essential in adding to the diversity of the region, and continuing its economic growth. We are sure there are thousands of tourists who love to visit these breweries, see how they work and sample their wares, and we can't wait to help them do so."

About Cellar Door Yarra Valley: Cellar Door Yarra Valley is part of the Book Yarra Valley network of sites. The site aims to provide the best and latest information on wineries and cellar doors in the Yarra Valley Region in Victoria in Australia. The site offers a complete and regularly updated directory of wineries and cellar doors in the region, all within a user friendly site with search features to help users find what they are looking for.

For more information, please visit https://www.cellardooryarravalley.com.au/

Contact Info:

Name: Ross Stevens

Email: pr@cellardooryarravalley.com.au

Organization: Cellar Door Yarra Valley

Phone: (03) 9735 5997

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/cellar-door-yarra-valley-creates-new-section-featuring-independent-breweries/120708

Release ID: 120708

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US Education Apps Market Is Projected To Grow At A 31% CAGR By 2019 : Radiant Insights,Inc

RadiantInsights.com has announced the addition of "US Education Apps Market Trends, Growth And Forecast Report Up To 2019 : Radiant Insights, Inc" Market Research Report to their Database.

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The education apps market in the US is projected to grow at a 31% CAGR over the forecast period (2015-2019). Students prefer to use mobile applications over conventional methods. This factor is expected to drive market demand over the next 5 years.

Browse Full Research Report With TOC on @ http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/education-apps-market-in-the-us-2015-2019

Demand for m-learning (mobile learning) and e-learning (electronic learning) is projected to spur demand for the industry. But student's privacy seems to be at risk, since many of these apps sell their email Ids to third parties. This could hamper growth prospects for the market in the coming years.

Education apps target teachers and the student community as a whole. The companies advertising these apps follow the freemium model. They offer it to teachers for free with extra features to be paid on a monthly basis. Currently, there are 29% free and 34% paid educational apps in the market. Market vendors can capitalize by studying student patterns and listening to teacher opinions regarding app functionality.

Products encompassed in the market are currently targeting pre-primary education, primary education, secondary education, and higher education. Primary and secondary education segments are predicted to generate huge revenues due to the growth of online schools and demand for blended learning.

Request A Sample Copy Of This Report at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/education-apps-market-in-the-us-2015-2019/request-sample

Another major end-user of the market are STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) students. Education apps are estimated to engage and entice these students with animation and music. These apps give hints or tips when faced with complex problems. Moreover, sale of these apps will trigger the sales of the tablets and smartphones market in the process.

The education apps market in the US is dominated by Google, Microsoft, and Apple due to these major companies cornering the smartphone market. Prominent vendors of education apps in the US include Rosetta Stone Inc., Duolingo, IXL Learning, and Age of Learning, Inc. Entry of new players can result in market fragmentation.

Browse All Reports of This Category at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/catalog/technology-and-media

About Radiant Insights,Inc

Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions.

For more information, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/education-apps-market-in-the-us-2015-2019

Contact Info:

Name: Michelle Thoras

Email: sales@radiantinsights.com

Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc.

Address: 28 2nd Street, Suite 3036 San Francisco

Phone: 4153490054

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/us-education-apps-market-is-projected-to-grow-at-a-31-cagr-by-2019-radiant-insightsinc/120765

Release ID: 120765

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The Unique Group Announces New "True Stretch" Reflective Material

The Unique Group brings an exciting new stretch material into production.

--

The Unique Group (www.TheUniqueGroup.com), a company offering one-stop brand packaging solutions, is announcing its new "True Stretch" reflective material.

The Unique Group has global exclusivity to offer a revolutionary new "True Stretch" reflective product to its customers. This reflective material stretches, without cracking, on the performance fabrics of today and features 100% recovery, which ensures designs are not distorted.

"We're excited to be providing our clients with this amazing new product," says Asher Lichtman, VP Sales and Marketing at The Unique Group. "We're always pushing for new ways to get better and this stretch material has helped us do just that."

The new stretch reflective material of the True Stretch product comes in traditional silver as well as several other colours, including gold, navy blue, white, black, and yellow-green. The Unique Group can also use the material to manufacture all types of trim by the yard. This can then be embellished with screen print logos, laser etched for a lenticular look, or be (made more) perforated for a breathable enhancement to the garment.

"It's also possible to laminate our trim to a stretch Lycra fabric so it does not inhibit the stretch of the garment," Lichtman adds. "In addition, the reflective candle power of our silver colour rivals the best product on the market for application on safety apparel."

The Unique Group die cuts or laser cuts its new stretch reflective product into any logo shape using "low-temperature" adhesives and hot peel. This allows for easy heat seal application on the newest technical performance fabrics in the market today.

"We at The Unique Group are all very excited about the potential of this product," Lichtman concludes. "Everyone is encouraged to experience this exciting new material for themselves."

To learn more about true stretch or other materials offered by Unique Group, visit www.TheUniqueGroup.com. Also, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

For more information, please visit http://www.theuniquegroup.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Asher Lichtman

Organization: The Unique Group

Address: 525 Denison Street, Unit 3A Markham, Ontario, L3R 1B8

Phone: 905-479-4801

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/the-unique-group-announces-new-true-stretch-reflective-material/120769

Release ID: 120769

For more information visit r



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American robo-advisers are eying up the UK and pondering whether to move into its market.

Several large firms, including United Capital and Charles Schwab, are exploring their options while Vanguard said it could not rule out a move to the UK for its digital advice service.

Joe Duran, the chief executive of advice firm United Capital, which manages $15bn (10bn) in assets, said the UK is an attractive market for companies in the USA.

It has the same language and is philosophically and culturally aligned. There are revisions we would have to make but not big ones, he stated.

The UK has quite a developed planning community, probably the closest to the US, what you have not got is a lot of the behavioural economics.

We have looked at the UK, Australia and Canada, and the UK seems to be the best solution.

You have got some really great technology-only solutions. I dont know you are as far along with the bionic solutions where you are providing an integrated end-to-end solution, which is what we have built, Mr Duran continued.

While he expressed interest, any moves probably would not happen until spring next year.

We are a huge believer in having local market knowledge and we would partner with a local group unless we were able to acquire somebody we thought really knew the market and had the scale we could support.

Meanwhile Charles Schwab, the California-based stockbroker with assets under management of $2.6trn (1.7trn), runs Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. This is an online service which allows investors to invest as little as $5,000 in an exchange-traded fund portfolio of up to 20 asset classes, with access to the companys financial planning services.

In the six weeks after launch last spring, Schwabs service had attracted $1.5bn (963m) in assets, while Intelligent Portfolios had $3bn (1.92bn) at the end of the second quarter, with 39,000 accounts.

A spokesman for Charles Schwab said: We are always exploring opportunities across a range of markets, including the UK, but we do not have anything specific planned at this time.

At roughly the same time last year, Vanguard also began offering an online Personal Advisor Service, which helps its clients draw up a personalised plan which is put into action and managed for an annual fee of 0.3 per cent.

Through the end of June 2015, the service had more than $21bn (13.4bn) in assets under management, made up of $11bn (7bn) in new assets, in addition to assets transitioned from their legacy advice service.

A spokeswoman for Vanguard said the company had no plans to bring this digital advice service to the UK at the moment, but said it couldnt be ruled out in the long-term.

This rapid growth by big brand entrants in the US eclipsed independents like Wealthfront and Betterment, which have been working on automated advice technologies for far longer.
A solicitor who laundered 100,000 from a fine wine investment scam through Jamaican bank accounts has been jailed for three years.

Michael Wilson, 44, set up Global Wine Investments Ltd at plush offices in the City of London to attract orders for cases of high-value plonk.

The company raked in 360,716 from investors but spent only 60,000 of its income on wine.

The rest of the cash was frittered away on wages, bonuses, luxuries and business costs.

Many of the victims never saw any wine at all and others were fobbed off with lesser-quality bottles when they complained.

Some were told they didnt even have an account when they called to check on their investment.

Wilson was convicted of possession of 100,000 in criminal property but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the fraud charge.

The prosecution decided not to go for a retrial.

After his conviction, he said that a lot of the cash had been spent on his fathers medical bills in Jamaica.

Judge Nicolas Cooke QC said of the claim: I find him consistently dishonest - if youre going to tell lies you need a good memory and need to apply your mind to it. I find him consistently dishonest - if youre going to tell lies you need a good memory and need to apply your mind to it. Judge Nicolas Cooke QC

Wilson and his family have paid back 46,000 since the trial and are making arrangements to pay back the remaining 54,000.

Jailing him for three years, Judge Nicolas Cooke QC said: You were responsible for a very considerable amount of loss to persons who in some cases could not afford to lose the money they lost - thats a serious matter.

The jury found that the money you directed away was so that the persons who put it into the business would not have seen it again.

I regret the damage that this is going to cause to members of your family - families always suffer when a person goes wrong as you have gone wrong.

However I have to deter people from committing offences.

Wilson was barred from holding a post as a company director for seven years.

The Old Bailey heard Global Wine Investments operated from fancy offices at 70 St Mary Axe in the City of London between April 2011 and September 2012.

One of the victims, David Scholey, said he contacted the firm in October 2011 after seeing a newspaper advert.

He decided to invest 19,600 on two cases of Chateau Lafite 2008 and another 17,000 the following month.

He became suspicious after asking to sell the original two cases and the London City Bond confirmed that they held no account in his name.

After repeatedly complaining, GWI ordered cases of a different wine worth only 25,245 - resulting in a loss of 11,355.

Other victims never received any wine at all despite investing thousands of pounds.
A Labour and Conservative MP yesterday (22 June) said they were willing to work together to make sure the pensions industry was more transparent.

Angela Rayner, Labour shadow minister for pensions, and Tom Tugendhat, Conservative member of parliament for Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling, spoke at a Transparency Task Force Symposium held in London yesterday (22 June).

Speaking at the event, Ms Rayner said that in pensions, she does not see the level of transparency there should be.

Ms Rayner said: There are some fantastically brainy people trying to look after our interests but there are also some fantastically brainy people trying not to look after our interests and looking after their own interests.

I see transparency as the key to ensuring that as consumers, as investors, as individual savers, we get the best possible outcome.

It [transparency in financial services] crosses party political lines and its not about party political point scoring. That is why Im really pleased Toms here and (...) and see him as an absolute ally within this process.

Mr Tugendhat said he was a virulent supporter of the free market, of competition, and of opportunity.

He said: What both of us would reject - and Im certain of this - is distorted markets, is hidden fees and stealth taxation and sadly that is what brought me here today.

He added that not everyone in this game is a sinner and made clear he believed a lot of people are doing the right thing and operating in a transparent manner.

Mr Tugendhat said: Im not out to cast an entire industry as wrong.

What we have to do is get to a stage where we have consensus in the industry as to what charges mean (and) how they are levied.

While some asset managers are doing that what we dont have is those things lining up.

If you dont have that openness (...) you fail immediately because it means you cant compare like for like.

ruth.gillbe@ft.com
Sterling remains up, gold prices are under pressure and UK bank shares are rallying as opinion polls suggest the UK may remain in the European Union.

Despite the the final results of the European Union referendum on EU membership unlikely to be known until the very early hours of tomorrow (24 June), financial markets saw movement today (23 June).

Two final opinion polls were published today based on interviews conducted this week that put Remain ahead.

Populus had 55 per cent to 45 per cent in favour of remaining in the EU based on online fieldwork on Tuesday (21 June) and yesterday (22 June).

Ipsos Mori put Remain on 52 per cent with Leave on 48 per cent, after conducting telephone interviews on Tuesday and yesterday.

As the polls were published sterling slipped back in mid-afternoon trading, paring some of its storming gains that had sent it as high as $1.4947 just before noon.

In afternoon trading, sterling fell as low as $1.4788 but remained up 0.6 per cent on the day.

Markets are braced for big fluctuations in the currency given thin trading conditions ahead of the polls closing at 10pm.

Gold, which has proven popular in the run-up to the referendum, fell to a two-week low of $1,259 a troy ounce.

The precious metal had reached $1,315 this month as the polls swung towards a Brexit.

UK bank shares  which are exposed if the country votes to leave the EU  rallied, with Barclays up 2.4 per cent, while RBS gained 2.7 per cent and Lloyds 1.3 per cent.

All have outperformed the FTSE 100, which is up 1.2 per cent and has hit a two-month high.

Chris Towner, chief economist at money transfer specialists HiFX, said: As the likelihood of a Remain result looks more likely, sterling is stable, sitting comfortably against the US Dollar and Euro.

However, the real risk of a Brexit, and the impact this could have on the pound, means that there is less liquidity today. If we vote to stay in the EU, sterling should strengthen, taking GBP/EUR back towards 1.35 and GBP/USA to levels above 1.50.

If we vote to leave however, the pound will most likely plummet, as it is the least likely outcome, and it will lead to extreme uncertainty, which we know the markets dont like.

emma.hughes@ft.com
With polling stations now open across the country, people involved in agriculture continue to indicate a strong preference to leave the EU.

A poll run during a special AgriChat Twitter debate last night (22 June) found that, of the 662 participants who voted during the two-hour debate, 59% said they would vote leave, with 36% for remain and 5% undecided.

This was consistent with just about every other poll run by Farmers Weekly during the course of the four-month referendum campaign (see panel below).

The AgriChat debate last night  entitled Is farming better off in or out of the EU?  attracted the biggest audience so far this year, with 174 Twitter account holders getting involved, posting a total of 767 tweets.

The debate was based on 10 key questions, with a panel of experts initially asked to give their three top reasons why the UK should either stay in or leave the EU.

Here is a selection of responses:

#AgrichatUK Better off In because of Income stability, levels competitive playing field vs oth European farmers,access to 500m single market  Michael Haverty (@MichaelHaverty) June 22, 2016

The debate then focused on the need for agricultural support and whether the UK government would continue to provide it if the vote was to leave the EU.

@WG_Germinal @AgriChatUK @journo_chris #AgrichatUK Agree on that. UK Gov will have other priorities (NHS etc) esp if economy struggles  Michael Haverty (@MichaelHaverty) June 22, 2016

Q2. Surely in the long term UK food production is more competitive & resilient without direct subsidy. Creates a bloated system #AgriChatUK  Joe Fisher (@JJ_Fishy) June 22, 2016

Q2 #AgrichatUK

A lot of farmers would go out of business without support, but long term it may present more opportunities for young people  Hill Top Farm (@hilltopfarmgirl) June 22, 2016

The debate also touched on red tape.

@FarmersWeekly @BritishCheese @AgriChatUK I don't see why there would be more? Less rules to follow means less red tape!  Chris McCullough (@journo_chris) June 22, 2016

Immigration was another concern

@AgriChatUK Q5 well my soft fruit would not get picked simple as. #AgrichatUK  Charles Turner (@Cherrygrower) June 22, 2016

Q5 itll be fine all the scaremongering as with anything itll settle down after a bit ,dont be afraid of change #agrichatuk  graham barlow (@tibberdog) June 22, 2016

Trade got an airing too.

UK exports 15.5bn Agrifood products to EU p/a- how can export be competitive when tariffs and TFCs are applied upon Brexit. #AgrichatUK  Will Sly (@willcallidus) June 22, 2016

@AgriChatUK just remember last time we had Ag free trade! Ag depression from 1870s to 1939. #history #AgrichatUK https://t.co/i8bEfxSBUq  Michael Sly (@mhssly) June 22, 2016

The final question called for the number-one issue that would influence the voting decision.

Q9 Chance to restore self-determination, sovereignty, independence, the GREAT British way #agrichatuk https://t.co/s4cx4Uw4x3  Phil Christopher (@PhilatRedRock) June 22, 2016

@AgriChatUK agree, Europe is historically good at fighting: if we don't learn from history we are condemned to repeat it etc. #AgrichatUK  William Gilbert (@WG_Germinal) June 22, 2016

To review the whole debate, visit the AgriChatUK website.
The Scottish government says it has finally started making top-up payments to farmers who have been waiting months for their full basic payments.

However, sheep payments will not be made for another week.

Scottish rural economy secretary Fergus Ewing said solid progress was now being made towards completing 2015 payments to farmers.

Speaking at the Royal Highland Show, Mr Ewing said he recognised many farmers were all too familiar with the challenges that had arisen from the new CAP payments scheme.

We are sorry. We got it wrong, but we are fixing it, he told visitors during a breakfast hosted by Quality Meat Scotland on Thursday (23 June).

See also: Half of Scotlands farmers make less than minimum wage

Mr Ewing said he was determined to ensure all remaining farmers would receive their money as soon as possible.

We are making solid progress on this and have now paid out BPS and greening payments worth 216m to more than 16,000 farmers.

This represented about 89% of those eligible, said Mr Ewing. Everyone eligible should have received a loan payment if they had not already been paid.

Extra time for payments

Although Brussels had given the Scottish government extra time to deliver payments, this didnt mean it was taking its foot off the pedal.

Mr Ewing said: Today, we are moving on to paying balance payments to those already paid a first instalment  and we are working hard to process the remaining eligible cases.

Scottish government officials were busting a gut to deliver the extra tranche of payments which would put in excess of 50m into the farming sector.

Sheep payments would be made from 1 July, said Mr Ewing, but it was important to focus this month on getting BPS and greening payments out.

Valued at 6m, the new Scottish Upland scheme aims to reward sheep producers in some of Scotlands most disadvantaged areas.

Sheep EID database

However, in recent weeks it has emerged an IT system to reconcile claims with the ScotEID sheep database is only just being taken forward.

NFU Scotland said delivery of the outstanding CAP payments was welcome  but it was disappointing the hill sheep scheme had been put at the back of the queue.

Union president Allan Bowie said: It has been a long and at times acrimonious journey to get to a point where all Scottish farmers and crofters will receive the full amount of support due.

He added: It is disappointing and worrying that IT issues are also a factor in the delay in delivering the new hill sheep scheme.

Discovering at such a late stage that reconciling claims with database information was a further problem that would leave farmers and crofters both angry and bewildered, said Mr Bowie.

It is galling that those most active in these disadvantaged and vulnerable areas have been pushed to the back of the queue when many will view the ewe hogg payment as a vital support stream.
A young farmer who caused more than 1,000 of damage to an emergency ambulance in Blackpool has apologised and paid for the repairs.

The woman, who has not been named, was caught on camera jumping on the bonnet and windscreen of a rapid response vehicle while a paramedic was sitting inside waiting to respond to emergency calls.

The incident happened on Sunday 8 May while the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs (NFYFC) Annual Convention was taking place in the Lancashire seaside resort.

See also: Police probe after ambulance damaged over YFC weekend

This partygoer caused 1,000 damage to an RRV in Bpool. It won't be so much fun when @LancsPolice catch up with her! pic.twitter.com/OInZksLTTM  NWAS NHS Trust (@NWAmbulance) May 14, 2016

In a letter of apology sent to North West Ambulance Service (NWAS), the woman apologised for her actions.

I am truly sorry for my spur of the moment reckless behaviour and am very regretful for my actions, she wrote.

I sincerely hope that you will accept this letter of apology, which I extend to you and your colleagues and the enclosed cheque of 1,114.08 to cover the repair costs to the rapid response vehicle.

I am very grateful for your understanding on this whole situation and am very thankful that this matter will now be brought to a close. I know and respect what a fantastic job the ambulance service provides and long may it continue.

On receiving the apology, NWAS sector manager Dave Rigby, who covers the Fylde area, said: I was pleased to receive the letter of apology and would like to give credit where its due to the young farmer who has taken responsibility for her reckless actions, said sorry and paid for the damage.

I am also grateful to the National Young Farmers Association who helped secure this outcome.
Story Highlights 56% of critics strongly agree Congress too beholden to financial contributors

Also agree strongly that Congress pays too much attention to lobbyists

Most frequent general complaint about Congress: partisan gridlock

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Congress' harshest critics -- the 53% of Americans who rate the job Congress is doing as poor or bad -- feel more strongly about the undue influence that donors and lobbyists have on Congress than they do about any other major criticism of the institution. More than half of this group strongly agrees that members of Congress pay too much attention to what their contributors want them to do (56%) and what special interests and lobbyists want them to do (55%). Nearly half (46%) strongly agree that members of Congress should be willing to compromise more.

Americans' Specific Complaints About U.S. Congress By rating of how Congress is doing its job Rate Congress' Job Poor or Bad (53%) Rate Congress' Job Excellent, Good or Fair (45%) % % Pay too much attention to financial contributors 56 23 Pay too much attention to special interests and lobbyists 55 23 Should be willing to compromise more 46 31 Spend too much time campaigning and raising money 43 19 Pay too much attention to party leaders 32 18 Congress not getting lots of important work accomplished 39 7 Congress has not worked hard to address issues you care most deeply about 37 8 Mainly out to gain personal glory and success 30 15 Mainly out to get rich 25 14 Are not honest 27 8 Congress has passed legislation you strongly object to 25 11 Do not care a lot about what their constituents want them to do 21 5 American public would be better off if Congress did less 14 8 Are not smart enough for their job 14 3 Based on agreement with negative statements or disagreement with positive statements about Congress Gallup

By contrast, 4% of those most critical of Congress say its members care a lot about what their own constituents want them to do; 21% strongly disagree with this statement.

These results are part of a special Gallup analysis of the reasons behind Americans' extraordinarily low regard for Congress. Just 13% of Americans rate the job Congress is doing as excellent or good, and Congress' job approval is at 16%.

In a June 1-5 survey, Gallup asked Americans to react to a series of 14 positive and negative statements about Congress that encompass the major concerns that previous Gallup research shows most bothers Americans about the institution. The responses among Americans who are most critical of Congress, as well as those whose views of Congress are either positive or neutral, are shown in the accompanying table. As would be expected, those who rate the job Congress is doing as poor or bad are much more likely than others to judge Congress negatively across the 14 dimensions.

The views of the majority of Americans who say Congress is doing a poor or bad job may be particularly helpful in revealing the institution's core image problem. Additionally, those who are most critical of Congress are also the most knowledgeable about Congress, according to their answers to several factual questions about how Congress operates, underscoring the value of understanding what this group thinks.

The only two statements that a majority of those most critical of Congress strongly agree with are that Congress pays too much attention to financial contributors and too much attention to lobbyists and special interests. The related concern that members of Congress spend too much time raising money also ranks highly, with 43% strongly agreeing.

Notably, despite the 46% strongly agreeing that Congress should be willing to compromise more, only 32% of those most critical of Congress strongly agree that members pay too much attention to what their party leaders want them to do. Americans most critical of Congress thus apparently see partisanship, at least as it plays out in party leaders telling members what to do, taking a backseat to the influence of special interests in creating gridlock in Washington.

Americans who view Congress as doing an excellent, good or fair job are not nearly as likely to strongly agree with critical statements about Congress, but a substantial percentage still agree, even if not strongly. Among this group, lack of congressional compromise ranks first on the "strongly agree" list, with others falling behind. The complete results for this and other groups are reported at the end of this article.

Congressional Inaction Leads Top-of-Mind Concerns

A somewhat different perspective on Congress' image problem emerges from Americans' answers to an open-ended question about why they rate Congress the way they do. Almost half of Americans who say Congress is doing a poor or bad job cite congressional inaction or gridlock as the top reason for their view. This is consistent with the reasons Americans have traditionally given when asked open-ended questions about their views of Congress.

Relatively few in this group of critics spontaneously think of outside influences on Congress, such as lobbyists or financial contributors, even though these concerns spark relatively high levels of agreement when they are asked about specifically.

Thus, lack of compromise emerges as a leading concern about Congress in both the agree/disagree measure of what's wrong with Congress and the open-ended format. What is different about the results of the two approaches is that few Americans who are critical of Congress mention special interests or lobbyists in response to the open-ended question. This seeming disparity may indicate that Americans distinguish between what they believe Congress is doing wrong and the factors behind that failure. The open-ended questions reveal that Congress' lack of action on the nation's problems is the ultimate problem. At the same time, Americans' responses to the agree/disagree statements apparently tap into an underlying belief that special interests and big donors are thwarting the nation's business more generally.

Reason Given for Rating of Congress What are some of the reasons you think the U.S. Congress is doing a/an [excellent/good/fair/poor/bad] job? Rate Congress Poor/Bad Rate Congress Excellent/Good Total % % % Party gridlock/obstruction 27 10 20 Needs to accomplish what they promised/address the issues/take action 22 18 20 Represent party more than the people 9 5 7 Too much personal interest 9 2 6 Republicans opposing President Obama 7 5 6 Not doing a good job (nonspecific) 4 2 3 Corruption 3 0 2 Spending too much money/increasing the deficit 3 1 2 Lobbyists/special interests have too much influence on what Congress does 2 1 2 Are bipartisan/are compromising 2 3 2 Need term limits 2 1 1 Should pay better attention/be more focused 2 0 1 Should be more accountable 2 0 1 Lying 1 0 1 Doing a good job (nonspecific) 0 18 9 Some action being taken, need to take more 0 8 4 Other 2 2 2 No opinion 3 24 12 Gallup

Bottom Line

The explanations for Americans' low ratings of Congress as a whole appear to coalesce into two broad categories. First is Americans' belief that Congress is not accomplishing enough and suffers from gridlock. Second, and related to the first, is their belief that Congress is under the control of outside influences, including those with money and lobbyists, and is less interested in the interests of their constituents. These are also the primary factors explaining the particularly negative view of Congress' harshest critics.

Congress' failure to act on immigration reform in 2007 or pass a federal budget within the required time frame in 2013 are two of the more spectacular historical examples of legislative intransigence undermining public confidence in the institution. The inability of Congress to take action on gun control this week, despite much evidence that the public supports increases in background checks and restrictions on the sale of assault weapons, is a recent illustration of the public's chief complaints.

Gallup Senior Scientist Michael W. Traugott, Ph.D., contributed to this article.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 1-5, 2016, with a random sample of 1,027 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

View complete question responses and trends.

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.

Americans' Reaction to Positive and Negative Assessments of Congress Based on those who say Congress doing a poor or bad job Strongly agree Agree Neither Disagree Strongly disagree % % % % % Pay too much attention to financial contributors 56 38 2 3 1 Pay too much attention to special interests and lobbyists 55 37 2 4 2 Should be willing to compromise more 46 41 3 7 2 Spend too much time campaigning and raising money 43 42 7 7 0 Congress getting lots of important work accomplished 1 3 4 51 39 Congress has worked hard to address issues you care most about 1 6 4 52 36 Pay too much attention to party leaders 32 52 6 8 2 Mainly out to gain personal glory and success 30 46 10 13 1 Are honest 1 7 13 51 27 Mainly out to get rich 25 40 13 19 1 Congress has passed legislation you strongly object to 25 41 13 14 4 Care a lot about what their constituents want them to do 4 23 10 41 21 American public would be better off if Congress did less 14 28 10 35 13 Smart enough for their job 3 35 14 32 14 June 1-5, 2016
'Legends of Tomorrow' News: What Do New Characters Mean For The Plot?

DC's "Legends of Tomorrow" is, thanks to its time-travel premise, so dynamic a show, and with every subtraction from the main team comes new additions from the deep DC Universe.

The first season finale already gave us a rather short glimpse of Patrick J. Adams as Rex Tyler AKA Hourman from the Justice Society of America, and 'Supergirl' added his supporting character Snapper Carr. The newer additions to the "Legends" cast, however, bring about some very interesting possibilities for the second season.

According to Moviepilot, the first new addition is Nathaniel Heywood, AKA Citizen Steel, a man (metahuman, we assume) made out of living metal. His character origin in the comics is tied heavily to Vandal Savage and his neo-Nazi group the Fourth Reich. Even though the "Legends" got rid of Vandal Savage, nobody ever really goes away, and Citizen Steel's introduction might lead to the possibility that Savage and his influence isn't truly dead yet.

It's also worth noting that Heywood got the 'Citizen Steel' name from Power Girl, who herself is another-dimension version of Supergirl. There might be a likelihood that Power Girl could be brought in to any of the CW shows (considering 'Supergirl' is now going to be on the network).

Another addition to the "Legends" cast is Vixen, but a different Vixen from "Arrow"; the "Legends" version is the ancestor of the "Arrow" version. Both Vixen and Citizen Steel have endless possibilities before them, due to the CW's penchant for rewriting characters.

Aside from Heywood and Vixen, there are also casting calls for two other characters in the series. One is for a "Han Solo" type of metahuman character who has a backstory involving his grandfather, a World War II hero. Another is for an African-American woman, a soldier from the same time period who's seeking vengeance for her companion's death.

For what it's worth, the new additions certainly mean an exciting new mission and villain to take on. The second season of "Legends of Tomorrow" premieres on October 13 later this year.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Latest News, Release Date & Rumors: Only Curved Display Variant Coming [SPECS, FEATURES]

The coming of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is fast approaching and rumors continue to come in as expected. The upcoming Samsung phablet is expected to be the best device from the Korean company though there may only be one variant up for release.

The latest on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (or Samsung Galaxy Note 6) is that it will tote a 5.8-inch curved display backed by a large 4,000 mAh battery. Word of such comes from GSM Help Desk which adds that the phablet will be released initially in Netherland and other parts of Europe.

Latest Specs of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Per the report, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will feature a 5.8-inch QHD dual-edge Super AMOLED screen that will need the proper power backing to make it efficient.

All that will fall on the hands of an Exynos 8 processor together with 6 GB of RAM with a massive 4,000 mAh battery per Sam Mobile.

Other features of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 worth watching out for include a 12 MP rear camera armed with dual-pixel phase-detection autofocus which should account for better image and video captures.

As mentioned in a previous post, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 could be out as early as August 2 carrying close similarities to the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

A separate post from Sam Mobile confirmed the Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event along with the date and official name. The event will be held at the Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in New York.

Other features that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is expected to carry include an iris scanner, an IP68-certified body (water- and dust-resistance), a USB Type-C port and something running on the latest Android N mobile operating system.

There is also a chance that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 may not be the lone product from the Korean company debuting. An updated Samsung Galaxy VR headset could be out as well though such has yet to be confirmed.
CSULB alum wins gold at the 38th Long Beach Marathon  which was his first
The race for the District 16 seat in the state House of Representatives is still a four-way contest, even though one of the candidates failed to win his own partys nomination in the primary.

Sami Al-AbdRabbuh, a graduate student in engineering at Oregon State University, had the endorsement of the Independent Party of Oregon going into the May 17 primary, but his name did not appear on the printed ballot because he had not been a member of the party for at least 180 days before the filing deadline.

Al-AbdRabbuh finished third in write-in voting among the districts registered Independents with just 10 of the 97 votes cast.

Dan Rayfield, the Democratic incumbent seeking a second term as District 16 representative, was the top vote-getter with 48, followed by the Republican nominee, Judson McClure, with 14. In fourth place with five votes was another Republican, Jacob Vandever, who ran unsuccessfully for the seat against Rayfield in the 2014 election.

Another 17 individuals got one vote apiece in the election, including pop star Iggy Azalea and Ginny Weasley, a fictional character from the Harry Potter books.

Despite the disappointing showing, however, Al-AbdRabbuh says hes not giving up.

I am still in the race and running, he insisted. We are just warming up.

So is Andrew Freborg, who won the Libertarian Party nomination with six votes to two for runner-up Paul Lantow.

I won my primary with 75 percent of the votes, said Freborg, a Corvallis resident who manages a medical transport company.

While he was hoping for stronger support among Libertarians, Freborg said, the primary victory still achieved its purpose and he intends to continue campaigning until November.

That leaves me on the ballot for the general election, and thats the main thing, he said.

For his part, Rayfield said he was shocked to learn he had won the Independent as well as the Democratic primary.

Its flattering, he said, but we werent seeking any other nominations and we still arent.

McClure, the Republican nominee, was also surprised by the outcome of the primary.

Im shocked that Sami did not win, he said.

I was hoping for an actual Independent candidate to make (the race) more competitive.

District 16, which represents Corvallis and Philomath, is located entirely inside Benton County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, according to the latest voter registration statistics.

McClure said hes under no illusions about the difficulty of unseating a Democratic incumbent, but he didnt want to see Rayfield running unopposed in the general election.

I got in because it looked like no one else was even going to try, said McClure, an analyst with the Oregon Department of Transportation. The last thing I wanted to do is give an incumbent a free ride. I think the voters deserve choices.

Its not clear whether there will be an Independent Party candidate on the ballot for the District 16 race in the Nov. 8 general election. Under the partys rules, the nomination will be offered to Rayfield as the top vote-getter in the primary, but hes not obliged to accept.

Caught off-guard

Party Secretary Sal Peralta said there were a number of legislative districts around the state where candidates who had the partys endorsement were defeated by Democrats or Republicans, in part because some Independents, like Al-AbdRabbuh, were caught off-guard by the 180-day membership requirement, which kicked in last fall after the Independent Party achieved major party status under Oregon election laws.

Neither Rayfield nor McClure campaigned actively for the Independent Party nomination in District 16, but Peralta said there have been cases where liberal political action committees such as Our Oregon and conservative PACs such as Oregon Right to Life have worked behind the scenes to swing Independent votes in favor of Democratic or Republican candidates. In a write-in campaign with low turnout, he said, a single direct-mail piece or email blast can be enough to win.

What we found this election cycle is in races where we did not have a declared candidate (on the ballot), special interests on the Democratic and Republican sides spent a fair amount of money to get candidates in write-ins for Independent nominations, he said.

It makes it difficult for a third party because we dont have the financial resources the major parties have.
100,000 euro in donations needed for renovation : Whats wrong with Beethoven?

The years have aged him and Beethon is in need of a makeover. The city will be looking for donations to finance the project.

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Renovation of the Beethoven Hall will begin this fall but Beethon, the Beethoven sculpture made of concrete, will remain outside. Its been sitting there for 30 years now and has a certain pull for tourists, especially as a photo opportunity. But the work of Dusseldorf artist Klaus Kammerichs has visibly aged with the years. Small pieces of concrete are breaking off bit by bit and the Beethoven likeness makes a shabby impression.

Herbert Spoelgen of the SPD party has been bothered by the sight for some time now. He sent an inquiry to the city administration asking that a restoration be carried out. Otherwise the artwork will just keep deteriorating, he fears. In response to a General Anzeiger inquiry, deputy spokesperson for the City of Bonn, Mark Hoffman says We are aware of the decaying condition of the sculpture. For that reason, the administration included a 100,000 euro sum in the budget for 2017/2018 to renovate the piece of art. The catch is that this sum is to come completely from donations. There are plans for a fundraising campaign.

As for the 2020 anniversary celebrating Beethoven, planning has moved to a more concrete phase. The finance committee voted on Tuesday unanimously to form a Beethoven Anniversary GmbH company which should begin operation in July. The City Council still needs to approve it with a vote on June 30. With this move, the government hopes for a well-planned and marketed program surrounding the anniversary year.

Beethon is a play on words, with beton meaning concrete and of course Beethoven mixed in. The artist Klaus Kammerichs, today 83-years-old, had given the sculpture to Bonn as a loan in 1989. He made it with support from the cement industry for the 2,000 year celebration of Bonn. It is 3.25 meters tall and weighs 30 tons. After many debates, the city purchased the sculpture for 148,000 marks (around 74,000 euro). Initially, the city had wanted to purchase the art through donations but no donors came forward.
Article

Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
Panasonic Toughbook CF-20: 8 Features of the detachable 2-in-1 Priced at a Whopping Rs 2.25 lakh Features oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

Today, Panasonic launched the Toughbook CF-20 that is a lightweight 2-in-1 detachable device in India. This device is definitely overpriced as it carries a whopping price tag of Rs 2.25 lakh. This Panasonic 2-in-1 will be made available from August this year.

Panasonic claims that the Toughbook CF-20 is meant for the challenging environments such as field services, oil and gas, utilities, healthcare, transportation and logistics, public safety and defense, and insurance.

Also Read: 10 Creepiest Pages on Facebook for your Dose of Horror

Here, we have listed ten features of the Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 that is overpriced for the industrial users who are interested in it.

Toughbook CF-20 is highly durable

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 is highly durable as it is designed to meet the standards such as IP65, MIL-STD-461F, and MIL-STD-810G.

10.1-inch display on board

The Panasonic 2-in-1 boasts a 10.1-inch WUXGA display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. The screen is viewable even under direct sunlight as it has a brightness of 800 nits.

Intel Core Processor powers the package

Under its hood, the Panasonic device includes an Intel Core m5-6Y57 vPro processor that can be clocked up to 2.8 GHz speed. There is 4 MB cache and the advantage of the Intel Turbo Boost technology as well. Also, there is Intel HD Graphics 515 in the device.

Also Read: LeEco Le Max 2: 6 Handy Tips and Tricks to Enhance the Battery Life of the Phone

Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 runs on Windows 10

It runs on Windows 10 Pro or Windows 7 Professional as well. There are downgrade rights to move down from Windows 10 Pro.

Storage is decent enough

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 has a storage capacity of 128 GB SSD that can be upgraded to 256 GB or even 512 GB. Apart from this, there is 8 GB of RAM in the device.

Also Read: Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 vs Moto G4: Which Mid-Ranger is Your Choice

Support for Hot Swapping Feature

There is a removable 2,600 mAh battery that energizes the device. There is an optional bridge battery that is included in the Panasonic 2-in-1 that will let the batteries to be hot swapped. This way, there is a possibility to make the device run continuously.

Connectivity is immense

There are many ports on the tablet as well as the optional keyboard dock ensuring maximum portability as well as flexibility. These include USB, SDXC, VGA, HDMI, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, optional 4G LTE, dedicated GPS, and Dual Pass Antenna.

Useful features

The Panasonic device comes with a glove-enabled touch screen display and there is a Desktop Port Replicator and Vehicle Mount to meet the mobile computing requirements even at extreme conditions.

Best Mobiles in India
Xiaomi Mi 5s [Rumor Roundup]: 5 Key Features You Must Know Features oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

While it has been just a few months since the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 5, the current flagship, the manufacturer rumored to be working on the Mi 5s. Well, a report from China suggests that the updated version will be called Xiaomi Mi 5s and it will be launched some time by the end of this year.

The report has revealed many things about the Xiaomi Mi 5s that is upcoming and here is a rumor roundup on what we can expect from the device or what we actually know so far about the Mi 5s.

FHD display to be included

Allegedly, it is claimed that the Mi 5s will retain the same design as well as build as the Mi 5 that went official earlier this year. It is expected to arrive with a similar 5.15-inch FHD 1080p display.

Also Read: OnePlus 3 vs Apple iPhone 6s: Should You Choose a Mid-range Android or A Premium iOS Device

Improved hardware aspects tipped

Xiaomi Mi 5s is claimed to feature some improved internal components. While the current flagship uses a Snapdragon 820 chipset, the Mi 5s is alleged to equip an improved Snapdragon 823 chipset. The rumor suggests that the Xiaomi Mi 5s might feature 6 GB RAM to give a tough competition to the other smartphones with such a huge RAM capacity.

3D Touch system like in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

The new report also tips at the use of the 3D Touch system that is a pressure sensitive display system that is used by Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Even Huawei Mate S makes use of a similar feature.

Mi 5s to have an ultrasonic fingerprint reader

The Xiaomi Mi 5s is likely to come with the ultrasonic fingerprint reader from Qualcomm. However, the Mi 5 was also expected to feature the same but it did not come with one.

Also Read: Want to use WhatsApp on your iPad/iPod? Follow these 4 simple steps

Dual-camera setup to be seen at the back

The Mi 5s might feature a dual-camera setup at its back, as per the report. Lately, many smartphone manufacturers are all set to launch premium smartphones that have dual-camera setup on the back.

As of now, these details have been leaked by the reports, and we are yet to come across any official information about the Xiaomi Mi 5s.

Source, Via

Best Mobiles in India

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Violence Raises Concern in S. Sudan's Gbuduwe State

by Gift Friday June 21, 2016

A local civil society activist in South Sudan's Gbuduwe state said this week that violence was on the rise in Yambio County.

Ahmed Bashir said that over the last two weeks, at least four people had been shot and killed outside Yambio town. The Gbuduwe state police commissioner said security had been increased in the area.

Bashir, chairman of the Human Rights Forum in Gbuduwe state, said recent killings by unknown gunmen had sparked fears among residents.

"There are a lot of killings in houses, despite the fact there is peace," Bashir said. "SSNLM [the South Sudan National Liberation Movement] signed [a] peace [agreement] with [the] government. It is of high concern, because now each and every community member is scared, living in fear because they think, 'Tomorrow for him and today for me.' We don't know why these killings [are happening] or who is doing this."

Earlier this month, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Rotto Zeni, 59, and his wife, Antonita Rotto, 55, in Baakiwiri on the outskirts of Yambio town. Rotto Zeni was an ethnic Azande writer and a veteran teacher in the former Western Equatoria state.

Two youths were also shot in the Saura residential area. One of the youths died immediately. The other sustained serious gunshot wounds and is recovering at Yambio hospital.

Peace agreement pushed

Bashir called on state officials to speed up implementation of the peace agreement signed by Gbuduwe state government leaders and a faction of a vigilante group known as the Arrow Boys.

"We need peace in order to cultivate, and [have] our children in school," he said. "As human rights activists, we don't want an eye for an eye. We need rule of law. That is what we call for."

Gbuduwe state's police commissioner, Major General James Monday Enoka, acknowledged that several killings had taken place in Yambio during the last two weeks. Enoka said police had arrested suspects who would soon be charged.

"Seventeen suspects have been arrested by the police, and investigations are going on," he said. "These are criminal cases. As you know, crimes are at social [gatherings], and there are no areas where there are no guns."

Enoka said the suspects would appear in court to answer questions under oath and be given the chance to prove their innocence. He said he was trying to assure the public that the security situation in the state was under control.

"Everything is normal," he said. "We encourage all people who want to visit the state to visit us, because the security situation is good. And people are doing their cultivations; now we have plenty of maize in the market, and ground nuts."

Enoka said there were no reported cases of looting along the busy Yambio, Maridi and Mundri routes that supply the state with goods from Juba and East Africa.

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African Partnership Flight Kenya kicks off

By Tech. Sgt. Evelyn Chavez, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa Public Affairs / Published June 22, 2016

LAIKIPIA AIR BASE, Kenya (AFNS) -- The first African Partnership Flight in Kenya officially began its mission following opening ceremonies here June 21.

More than 50 U.S. Airmen, along with participants from the Kenyan and Ugandan defense forces, were welcomed by Robert Godec, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, and Raychelle Omamo, the Kenyan cabinet secretary of defense.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be here today as we launch this training event on personnel recovery and combat search and rescue," Godec said. "These capabilities are vitally important to ensure the safety, security and morale of the Kenyan security forces. This week's training exercise represents yet another example of the ongoing cooperation between the United States and Kenya."

APF was designed as a collaborative learning environment that combines U.S. and African partner nations' expertise to help build upon professional knowledge and skills.

"It is important to work together because it helps us to not only guarantee regional interoperability but also regional cooperation," said Maj. Todd Tyler, the flight's mission commander. "Our aim for APF Kenya is to help these partner nations fight their own transnational threats and strengthen their own armed forces to the point where they are self-sustaining."

Over the course of 10 days, instructors and participants comprised of total force Airmen from U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa and the Massachusetts Air National Guard will conduct classroom instruction and hands-on training in areas such as personnel recovery, command and control, survival and evasion principles, and tactical combat casualty care.

Training will conclude with exercise Linda Rhino, a two-day, Kenya Defense Forces-led personnel recovery exercise.

"I would like to thank the U.S. for sponsoring this program," said Brig. Francis Ogolla, the deputy commander of the Kenya Air Force. "It is obvious that you have a lot of experience in personnel recovery and combat search and rescue, and this is what we want to learn."

The intent of APF is to build strong regional partnerships among African partner nations that prepare them for potential conflicts before they start.

"We will continue to stand with the Kenyan government and people to find ways to assure peace and prosperity across Africa," Godec said.

Community engagement through medical outreach and the USAFE - AFAFRICA band is also scheduled throughout the duration of the program. Events will conclude on June 29.

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Airmen join multinational effort, offer medical care in Cambodia

By Senior Airman Omari Bernard, Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs / Published June 22, 2016

KAMPOT, Cambodia (AFNS) -- Medical professionals from several nations and agencies recently came together in Pacific Angel 16-2 to promote interoperability with partner nations while delivering humanitarian aid to Cambodians in the Kampot province.

The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces worked alongside U.S., Thai, Vietnamese and Australian counterparts to give care during the humanitarian assistance/civil-military operation mission that also involved nongovernmental organizations.

The majority of the medical supplies were purchased in Thailand and Vietnam, flown in to Cambodia, and then bussed to a local school ground where Pacific Angel medical teams set up centers for pediatrics, physical therapy, pharmacy, optometry, dentistry and general/preventative health. Each center was manned with medics and doctors, working with each other and their translators.

"Obviously the language barrier is difficult to overcome at times, especially when you're working in a professional setting prescribing treatment," said U.S. Navy Lt. Matthew Kanter, a dentist deployed from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California. "Everyone has been patient. The people are very warm and welcoming here in Cambodia."

Kanter said working alongside the dentists from the Royal Cambodian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force has opened his eyes to different ways to treat his patients, making the partnership exchange mutually beneficial.

"Even though we are in one specified field, it's amazing how other people will approach things both differently and similarly," he said.

Cambodian Brig. Gen. Candara Vuth, the deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense's health department, said, "We are happy to work together with the U.S. and the other nations to bring aid to the people of Cambodia."

According to Vuth, some of the people who live in rural areas are very poor and can't travel to the hospital in the province. Instead, they rely on natural remedies, like some of the trees that grow around the country.

"Being out in the field, you miss some of things you use when you are practicing medicine at home," said RAAF Flight Lt. Rowan McCarthy, a Pacific Angel 16-2 general health medical officer. "We can't order a blood test or conduct X-rays. We don't know much about the back history of these patients."

According to McCarthy, it's normal to see a 60- to 70-year-old patient back home with a medical history.

"Here they may have never seen a doctor before," he continued. "So going without that makes it more of a challenge but interesting as well."

With that knowledge in mind, care providers like McCarthy overcome these challenges by focusing on the quality of care and attention to detail they gave to each patient.

"It's always good to find out how similar some people are," McCarthy said. "Even though there are different languages and training backgrounds, everyone is pretty similar in our working toward a common goal."

Most patients had major concerns addressed and were impressed with the level of care provided by the medical providers.

Sok Moeun, a dental patient, said that she was very happy with the care given to her because she was able obtain the service at no cost and check on her dental health at the same time.

"I am thankful for the multinational team that was able to bring healthcare to my village," she said.

Through Pacific Angel 16-2, medical providers from both Cambodia and other nations benefit by training and forging bonds and partnerships with each other.

"This humanitarian mission will help prepare us in the future for relief operations here, or anywhere in the region," Kanter said. "It helps to know the type of people you're working with, who you're going to be operating with. If you know what to expect going into a situation, it can help you prepare."

Pacific Angel 16-2 allowed multiple nations to work together so that in the event there was a natural disaster in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, the region's militaries will be prepared to work together to address humanitarian crises.

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ACC: F-35 on track for IOC

By Tech. Sgt. Steve Stanley, Air Combat Command Public Affairs / Published June 22, 2016

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AFNS) -- The F-35A Lightning II is on track to declare initial operational capability between August and December.

IOC is the first step Air Combat Command will take in bringing the F-35 online as the latest fifth-generation multirole fighter. In IOC configuration, the aircraft will be able to penetrate areas with developed air defenses, provide close air support to ground troops and be readily deployable to conflict theaters.

Col. David Chace is the F-35 systems management office chief and lead for F-35 operational requirements at ACC. He leads a multi-discipline team of maintenance professionals, program managers, operators and engineers, not only with the responsibility for F-35 requirements, but also weapons systems fielding.

Below is a recent Q&A with Chace that outlines where ACC is in the IOC process.

What is the process for becoming IOC?

There are a number of criteria that must be met in terms of capabilities and performance to become IOC. The requirements, established in 2013, include 12-24 aircraft with trained and equipped Airmen for basic close air support, interdiction and limited (suppression of enemy air defenses/destruction of enemy air defenses) in a contested environment and operating from a deployed location. To support those operations we need the proper logistics and operational elements in place, including having the proper personnel, equipment and appropriate technical manuals.

Do you think you will reach IOC with just 12 F-35 aircraft?

The forecast is that we will have more than 12 aircraft. There are currently 12 aircraft available at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Some of those are going through the last few modifications required to support IOC. We will have additional aircraft in the modification process beginning in August. Depending on the actual IOC date, modifications may be complete on the additional F-35s.

Who decides when the F-35 is IOC?

The commander of Air Combat Command will make the IOC decision in direct consultation with the chief of staff of the Air Force. It is a capabilities-based decision, with input received from units assigned to operational testing and evaluation at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, and Nellis AFB, Nevada, and Edwards AFB, California.

Where is the F-35 in the IOC timeline?

Since beginning this process over five years ago with the first F-35s on the ground, we are in the final stages of IOC. These steps focus on training and equipping our personnel. There are no known technical issues today that would prevent us from reaching IOC in our August-December timeframe. The F-35 recently deployed from Hill to Mountain Home where crews, maintenance and support personnel conducted a number of missions. During that deployment, crews attained a 100 percent sortie generation rate with 88 of 88 planned sorties and a 94 percent hit rate with 15 of 16 bombs on target.

These numbers provide a positive indication of where we are when it comes to stability and component performance.

Feedback from the events at Mountain Home will feed into the overall evaluation of F-35 capabilities. The second evaluation will take place in the operational test environment with F-35 mission sets the Air Force intends to execute after IOC. All reports will be delivered in July and feed into the overall F-35 capabilities report. The ultimate goal is to provide a needed capability to the warfighter to execute the mission. It is not calendar-based or event-based.

What has the feedback been from the field so far?

The feedback from unit operators in place today has been very positive for the F-35, not just concerning performance but the ability the aircraft has with other platforms. In particular at Hill, integration with the F-15E (Strike Eagle) has gone very well. We've also been demonstrating the ability to put bombs on target. All of that information will be provided to us in the formal IOC readiness assessments.

What are some of the key metrics you're hoping to see out of the deployment to Mountain Home?

We're looking for the ability to deliver combat power and the instruments that go into supporting that, such as aircraft stability and the capability to generate sorties. We're also looking for feedback on the functionality of ALIS to support that sortie generation. (Editor's note: ALIS is the Autonomic Logistics Interface System, which makes the F-35 a flying information hub, enabling pilots to plan ahead and manage entire battlespaces.)

What weapons capability will the F-35 have achieved at IOC?

The F-35, a fifth-generation aircraft, is a survival platform that can detect, track and engage targets in a contested environment. At the time we declare IOC we will focus on three mission sets that will concentration on the number and type of weapons the aircraft can carry. Those weapons include two GBU-31s and two GBU-12s (guided bomb units), or two (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles).

Is this aircraft capable of deploying to Iraq or Syria to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant like the F-22 Raptor did?

After IOC, it will be available to support the needs of the combatant commanders.

How soon the F-35 will be deployed to overseas locations?

There are a number of events being considered for the F-35, to include training exercises and deployments. These events are being assessed and planned for through the needs of the combatant commanders.

After IOC is declared, what are the next steps for the F-35?

It's a constantly evolving responsibility working hand-in-hand with our sister services and partners in development. We are actively engaged in the other activities taking place to field the F-35, such as system upgrades, such as Block 3F for full warfighter capability and future basing locations. Additional squadrons are planned for Hill as well as at Luke AFB (in Arizona) with seven of the partner nations, Eielson AFB, Alaska, and locations in Europe and the Pacific. The entry of the F-35 into Air National Guard units will take place in Burlington, Vermont, and the first F-35 weapons school class at Nellis AFB is also being projected on the timeline. We also continue to evaluate the future threat environment and how the F-35 must adapt to remain survivable against those threats. Right now we're looking at delivering the first increment of modernization to the F-35 in late 2020 or early 2021.

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Kenyan, Ugandan troops learn combat rescue tactics from Airmen

By Tech. Sgt. Evelyn Chavez, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa Public Affairs / Published June 22, 2016

LAIKIPIA AIR BASE, Kenya (AFNS) -- The first African Partnership Flight in Kenya officially began its mission following opening ceremonies here June 21.

More than 50 U.S. Airmen, along with participants from the Kenyan and Ugandan defense forces, were welcomed by Robert Godec, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, and Raychelle Omamo, the Kenyan cabinet secretary of defense.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be here today as we launch this training event on personnel recovery and combat search and rescue," Godec said. "These capabilities are vitally important to ensure the safety, security and morale of the Kenyan security forces. This week's training exercise represents yet another example of the ongoing cooperation between the United States and Kenya."

APF was designed as a collaborative learning environment that combines U.S. and African partner nations' expertise to help build upon professional knowledge and skills.

"It is important to work together because it helps us to not only guarantee regional interoperability but also regional cooperation," said Maj. Todd Tyler, the flight's mission commander. "Our aim for APF Kenya is to help these partner nations fight their own transnational threats and strengthen their own armed forces to the point where they are self-sustaining."

Over the course of 10 days, instructors and participants comprised of total force Airmen from U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa and the Massachusetts Air National Guard will conduct classroom instruction and hands-on training in areas such as personnel recovery, command and control, survival and evasion principles, and tactical combat casualty care.

Training will conclude with exercise Linda Rhino, a two-day, Kenya Defense Forces-led personnel recovery exercise.

"I would like to thank the U.S. for sponsoring this program," said Brig. Francis Ogolla, the deputy commander of the Kenya Air Force. "It is obvious that you have a lot of experience in personnel recovery and combat search and rescue, and this is what we want to learn."

The intent of APF is to build strong regional partnerships among African partner nations that prepare them for potential conflicts before they start.

"We will continue to stand with the Kenyan government and people to find ways to assure peace and prosperity across Africa," Godec said.

Community engagement through medical outreach and the USAFE - AFAFRICA band is also scheduled throughout the duration of the program. Events will conclude on June 29.

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U.S., Coalition Continue Counter-ISIL Strikes in Syria, Iraq

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

SOUTHWEST ASIA, June 22, 2016  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Bomber, attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 18 strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Raqqah, four strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, an ISIL headquarters and an ISIL finance center and destroyed two ISIL oil pump jacks.

-- Near Manbij, 12 strikes struck 12 separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed six ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL front-end loader.

-- Near Mara, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

Strikes in Iraq

Rocket artillery and bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed eight ISIL fighting positions, three ISIL vehicles, an ISIL improvised explosive device, an ISIL vehicle-borne IED, four ISIL rocket rails, two ISIL mortar systems, an ISIL supply cache and an ISIL anti-air artillery piece and damaged five ISIL berms.

-- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck two separate large ISIL tactical units and destroyed 11 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL vehicle, two ISIL heavy machine guns, five ISIL light machine guns, five ISIL rocket propelled grenade systems and two ISIL mortar systems and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Kisik, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL tunnel and three ISIL rocket rails.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, six ISIL assembly areas and an ISIL rocket system.

-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes destroyed three ISIL rocket rails and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed nine ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL light machine gun, an ISIL rocket-propelled-grenade system, an ISIL boat and three ISIL weapons caches.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike suppressed an ISIL heavy machine gun position.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, the region, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-231-16 June 22, 2016

Department of Defense Publishes Phased Retirement Program Guidance

The Department of Defense has released a department-wide policy on the Phased Retirement Program. As more employees become eligible for retirement, this program will assist DoD components and agencies with the transfer of knowledge and provide continuity of operations on a short-term basis.

The DoD Phased Retirement Program is an exciting new human resources tool that allows retirement eligible full-time employees to request to work on a part-time basis while receiving a portion of their retirement annuity. It offers eligible employees the opportunity to transition into retirement while providing mentorship and development for the next generation of emerging subject matter experts.

Participation in the DoD Phased Retirement Program is voluntary and requires the approval of an authorized DoD component official based on written criteria that comply with the Office of Personnel Management regulations. DoD components may opt to develop implementation guidance specific to their organizational structures and establish timeframes for accepting phased retirement applications.

For more information, please view the Department-wide policy at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/dir3.html.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/809039/

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-233-16 June 22, 2016

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Jim Townsend and Estonian Ambassador to the United States Eerik Marmei Sign Agreement on Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation Activities

Today Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Jim Townsend and Estonian Ambassador to the United States Eerik Marmei signed an agreement reinforcing cooperation between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Estonian Ministry of Defense on research, development, testing, and evaluation activities.

The agreement facilitates collaborative efforts to enhance defense capabilities across a wide spectrum of activities, including basic and applied research, advanced technology development, advanced component and prototype development, system development and demonstration, and evolutionary acquisition and spiral development. It also permits the establishment of working groups and the transfer of equipment and material to improve collaboration and innovation.

Estonia is renowned for its leadership in cyber security, e-governance, and innovation, and is home to revolutionary communications companies and innovative defense-technology companies. Both Estonia and the United States expect this agreement to lead to mutually-beneficial technological advances.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/809929/

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Training Air Wing 5 Receives Final T-6B

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160622-18

Release Date: 6/22/2016 2:37:00 PM

By Ensign Marissa Tungjunyatham, Training Air Wing 5 Public Affairs

MILTON, Fla. (NNS) -- An unprecedented three-plane formation of the Navy's first, Training Air Wing 5's final T-6B Texan II aircraft arrived to Naval Air Station Whiting Field June 21. The landing marked the command's full complement of primary, fixed-wing aircraft.

The 148th and final T-6B travelled from the Beechcraft factory in Wichita, Kansas and joined in formation with the first and centennial aircraft in Monroeville, Alabama -- with the final T-6B as lead aircraft. Over 100 instructors, students, and civilian contractors gathered at North Field to watch the historical formation. When the crowd heard the loud engine roar in the sky, they rushed outside the hangar to see the formation fly above the airfield, watching as they performed a fan break -- where the three planes simultaneously turned to enter the landing pattern.

The final T-6B was the first to land, followed by the centennial and then the first T-6B. The aircraft taxied in line from the runway toward the south side of the parking line, where two fire trucks were stationed for a ceremonial water arch to honor the aircraft. Everyone cheered as all three approached the hangar and the pilots stepped out of the planes.

Lt. Chris Hill, Training Squadron 2 instructor, and Lt. Cmdr. Nick Ahlen, fixed wing instructor, training unit operations officer, piloted the original T-6B with Lt. Chris Swigart, Training Air Wing (TRAWING) 5 fixed wing assistant operations officer, and Lt. Col. Jeff Hubley, TRAWING-5 operations officer in the centennial plane. Lt. Scott Urbashich, TRAWING-5 instructor of the year, and Capt. Mark Murray, commodore of TRAWING-5, brought home the command's last T-6B. The aircraft is the next-to-last T-6B for the Navy as Naval Air Station Corpus Christi will receive the final one later this month.

The pilots joined the spectators for the commemoration ceremony, where they celebrated the years of hard work from Beechcraft and TRAWING-5 to make it to this day. Murray awarded Urbashich with a certificate to honor the delivery of the final T-6B. Beechcraft Program Management Director Pam Nash presented a model of the T-6B, along with a framed T-6B photo autographed by the employees of Beechcraft to Murray.

"I am most honored to be here today to represent the men and women who built these planes for you," Nash said. "There was a lot of passion put into this program, and we're always focused on safety and quality."

Murray admired the dedication of the employees who crafted the T-6B, comparing it to the work put forth by TRAWING-5.

"I wish everyone here today could walk through their factory," Murray said. "It is about people - their sweat and hard work. Seeing it will change the way you think when you strap into the aircraft. It is about people and passion, and that doesn't change. It is the same way at Training Air Wing 5."

TRAWING-5 received their first T-6B from Beechcraft August 25, 2009 to replace its aging T-34 Turbomentor fleet. The T-6B had twice the performance power compared to T-34 and came equipped with a digital (glass) cockpit display, heads-up display, and ejection seat.

The process of transitioning one squadron to the T-6B took 9-12 months, and Training Squadron 3 was the forefront of the switch with its first student flight in April 2010. TRAWING-5 officially phased out the T-34 in 2012.

"As of today, Training Air Wing 5 now has 148 Texan II's," Chief Staff Officer Cmdr. Patrick Beam said. "Each was $5.5 million, so that's almost a billion dollars on North Field's flight line."

Since its arrival, TRAWING-5 has flown over 310,000 hours in the T-6B. Combined with the 74,000 flight hours from Training Air Wing 4 in Corpus Christi, Texas, the T-6B has flown an overall total of 384,000 hours as of June 17.

It is the first aircraft student aviators in the maritime services fly and provides them with the basic foundations of aviation. By the time a student completes the 28-week program, they will have flown 43 flight events, 75 flight hours, and 36 simulator events. The program prepares students for the Navy's more advanced training platforms and their fleet aircraft in the future.

"In the foreseeable future, I can see the T-6B in use for another two or three decades," Murray said. "The T-6B cockpit and avionics suite is designed to better facilitate the transition to increasingly sophisticated follow-on training and fleet aircraft, as well as keep pace with emerging air traffic control regulations."

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Pure Praxis Brings Innovative SAPR Training to Korea

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160622-13

Release Date: 6/22/2016 1:01:00 PM

From Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Korea Public Affairs

JINHAE, Republic of Korea (NNS) -- Service members and civilians stationed throughout the Republic of Korea are attending interactive Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) training while the Pure Praxis theater group visits the peninsula, June 20-23.

While contracted by the Department of the Navy's SAPR office, more than 1,300 members from each branch of service are experiencing the socially adaptive performance group during shows in Seoul, Osan, and Jinhae.

"I've been through a lot of SAPR training in my days," said Rear Adm. Bill Byrne, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Korea. "I was at one of the performances this week [in Seoul] and the performance was simply the best I've ever seen."

According to the group, it uses "improvisational theater to rehearse for difficult life situations so the audience can practice positive, creative, and safe solutions".

"We want this to resonate," said Kelly Pfleider, Pure Praxis founder and president. "We want people to walk out of this training, hear something inappropriate, and know they should act."

Pure Praxis uses their interactive workshops to confront social issues like sexual assault by discussing topics including bystander intervention, proactive prevention, domestic violence, re-victimization, harassment, awareness and empathy, sexism and appreciation of diversity.

"For me, today was about making a culture shift," said Chief Information Systems Technician Frank F. Gordon Jr., assigned to Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Far East, Detachment Chinhae. "It is about learning and appreciating what others are going through and helping them heal. It is about empowering victims and witnesses with the tools to prevent and respond to sexual assaults."

For more information and resources about SAPR training, please visit the SAPR website at http://www.sapr.mil/.

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USS San Jacinto Visits Naples

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160622-11

Release Date: 6/22/2016 12:46:00 PM

By Lt. j.g. Karina Schmidt, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) Public Affairs

NAPLES, Italy (NNS) -- Guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto (CG 56) departed Naples, Italy, after a four day port visit, June 21.

San Jacinto arrived in Naples following several days of at-sea operations with Italian naval vessels during a combined Flotta Verde/Great Green Fleet passing exercise with ships assigned to the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.

While in port, the crew enjoyed several Morale, Welfare and Recreation tours to Rome and Pompeii. Sailors also climbed Mount Vesuvius and caught a ferry to the island of Capri.

"Rome is such a beautiful city," said Lt. j.g. Audry-Anna McKay, following a trip to Rome. "There is history and beauty everywhere. I definitely plan on going back one day."

Ike CSG ships are the centerpiece of the Great Green Fleet initiative, which emphasizes use of energy conservation measures as a key combat enabler to allow ships to go farther, stay longer and deliver more combat capability.

San Jacinto is deployed as part of the Eisenhower CSG, conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe.

Ike CSG consists of aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), Carrier Strike Group 10 staff, the squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 3, Destroyer Squadron 26 staff, guided-missile cruisers San Jacinto and USS Monterey (CG 61), and guided-missile destroyers USS Stout (DDG 55), USS Roosevelt (DDG 80), USS Mason (DDG 87) and USS Nitze (DDG 94).

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US Navy, Marines Increase Complexity, Enhance Cooperation during CARAT Thailand

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160622-08

Release Date: 6/22/2016 11:03:00 AM

From Task Force 73 Public Affairs

SATTAHIP, Thailand (NNS) -- The 22nd annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and Royal Thai Armed Forces concluded at the Royal Thai Navy Base in Sattahip, Thailand, June 22.

CARAT Thailand 2016 consisted of eight days of shore-based and at-sea training events in multiple warfare areas. The exercise is focused on addressing shared maritime security concerns, building relationships and enhancing interoperability among participating forces.

"Our armed forces have been working together during CARAT for 22 years, and I think this speaks to the importance and value that both our nations place on operating together." said Capt. H.B. Le, commodore, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 7. "We live and work in a diverse maritime environment and working together during exercises like CARAT prepares our armed forces to work jointly during real-world operations."

At sea, multiple warfare areas were addressed when the two navies conducted an air defense exercise, gunnery exercise, cross-deck helicopter operations, anti-submarine warfare training, and complex surface warfare maneuvering tactics. The successful execution of such a diverse and complex exercise was made possible by the relationships and familiarity the two navies have forged through 22 consecutive years of operating together during CARAT.

U.S. Marines from Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines moved ashore via amphibious assault vehicles launched from the well deck of USS Ashland (LSD 48) during an amphibious landing with their Royal Thai Marine counterparts. The two forces moved together across the beach and conducted building searches and security sweeps while securing the beachhead. Following the assault, Marines from both nations worked side-by-side in jungle warfare training and a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO).

During the harbor phase, Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 4 and the Royal Thai Navy Construction and Development Regiment started construction on a library at the Khao Chi Chan School near Sattahip. Construction on the library used new building techniques that had not been previously used in a CARAT exercise.

"It's been a great opportunity for the Seabees to learn an innovative building technique with our partners here in Thailand," said Ensign Michelle Fitzgerald, officer-in-charge, NMCB 4. "Not only are we able to teach and learn through varying construction methods, we are able to build something alongside our counterparts that can be used by the Khao Chi Chan School for years to come."

Also participating in the harbor phase were Sailors from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 1. Together with their Royal Thai Navy counterparts they completed four days of dive training, followed by a diving exercise while aboard Safeguard-class salvage ship USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52). The training included a variety of topics including medical and equipment checks and communication methods.

"I was very excited to work with our Royal Thai Navy counterparts this year and they were very eager to learn from our team," said Lt. Mark Snyder, officer-in-charge, MDSU 1. "The Royal Thai Navy divers showed great energy throughout the exercise and we were able to tailor our training to the areas in which they were most eager to learn."

Community service events and performances by the U.S. 7th Fleet rock band "Orient Express" were held throughout the exercise and enabled Sailors and Marines to give back to the community.

After more than two decades of annual CARAT training engagements between U.S. and Thai Armed Forces, the exercise remains a model for cooperation that has evolved in complexity and enables both nations to refine maritime operations and tactics.

CARAT is a series of bilateral naval exercises between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the armed forces of Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Timor-Leste. CARAT 2016 is the most complex series to date. Its continuing relevance for more than two decades speaks to the high quality of exercise events and the enduring value of regional cooperation among allies and partners in South and Southeast Asia.

Additional U.S. assets that participated in CARAT Thailand 2016 include Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63), Safeguard-class salvage ship USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52), USNS Montford Point (T-ESD 1), a P-3C Orion, staff from CTF 73 and DESRON 7, Coastal Riverine Group (CRG) 1, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 5, Naval Beach Unit (NBU) 7 and the 7th Fleet rock band "Orient Express."

Commander, Task Force 73 and Destroyer Squadron 7 staff conduct advanced planning, organize resources and directly support the execution of maritime exercises such as the bilateral CARAT series, the Naval Engagement Activity (NEA) with Vietnam, and the multilateral Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

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Norway authorizes potential troop deployment to Syria

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 5:16PM

Norway's parliament has accepted a government request for sending troops to Syria, a new sign that the pacifist Scandinavian country may become involved deeper in the conflict in the Arab country.

The government in Oslo said the parliament gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for a potential dispatch of troops to Syria.

"It is therefore more on the agenda that coalition forces should be able to train, advise and give operational support on Syrian territory in their battle against IS (Daesh)," Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said in a statement, adding, "Local forces (in Syria) are making more progress than we could have expected."

Norway has plans to dispatch some 60 troops to Jordan this summer with the alleged aim of training local forces battling the Takfiri Daesh terrorists. The government had earlier said it could consult the parliament in case a direct military presence in Syria becomes necessary.

The new contingent would consist of some 60 Norwegian soldiers, according to the approved government plans.

Oslo has already sent some 120 troops to Iraq to train and support Kurdish fighters against Daesh.

Western governments have been contributing for the past two years to a so-called US-led coalition of forces claiming to battle Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

The presence of foreign forces in Syria has drawn fierce criticism from the country's government, with Damascus saying that the unauthorized deployment violates Syria's territorial integrity.

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Yemen's Houthis call for consensus president in any peace deal

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:13PM

Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement has reaffirmed its demand for a consensus president to lead the transition in any peace deal aimed at ending the Saudi aggression against the conflict-hit country.

In a statement on Wednesday, Ansarullah reiterated its position on the main issues that need to be settled in the peace talks currently underway in Kuwait. The statement added that other issues, including the national unity government, depend on the consensus presidency.

"Foremost among these is the presidency which is at the center of the negotiations and on which all the other issues, like the formation of a national unity government and a supreme military and security committee, depend," the statement noted.

The statement further said the ongoing Saudi airstrikes and the continued blockade and economic restrictions against the impoverished Arab country are a blatant violation of the ceasefire deal that took effect on April 11.

The former Saudi-backed regime insists that resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi should lead any transition.

The development comes a day after the UN special envoy to Yemen proposed a roadmap to end the Saudi Arabian onslaught in the conflict-hit country, following two months of negotiations between representatives of the former Riyadh-backed regime and a delegation comprised of the Houthi Ansarullah movement and allies in Kuwait.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed called for "the implementation of the security arrangements specified in Security Council Resolution 2216 and the establishment of a national unity government."

Meanwhile, the Yemeni army and popular committees took control of five positions of the Saudi mercenaries in the Sabrin district of Khab and Shaaf city in the Yemeni province of Jawf on Wednesday, following fierce clashes.

The attack by the Yemeni army came in response to continued violation of the truce deal by the Saudi-backed militants.

An unspecified number of Saudi mercenaries were killed and injured in the clashes. Several other militants also fled the area, leaving their weapons behind.

On Tuesday, Ansarullah fighters managed to take control of the strategic mountain of Jalis in al- Qabbaytah city of Lahij province, after days of fighting with pro-Hadi militants. The advance made the Yemeni forces close to the al-Anad air base.

Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against Yemen on March 26, 2015, in a bid to bring Hadi  who is a staunch ally of Riyadh  back to power and defeat the Ansarullah movement.

More than 9,400 people have been killed and at least 16,000 others sustained injuries since the onset of the aggression. The Saudi strikes have also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.

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No overlapping claims with China in South China Sea: Indonesia FM

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 9:9AM

Indonesia has dismissed China's statement that the two countries have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, following recent encounters between Chinese ships and Indonesian navy vessels.

"Our position is clear that claims can only be made on the basis of international law. For Indonesia, we don't have overlapping claims in any form in Indonesian waters with China," Foreign Minister Retno Marsud said on Wednesday.

Her remarks came after the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Beijing and Jakarta have no territorial disputes but that they have some overlapping claims on "maritime rights and interests."

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, which is also claimed in part by several Southeast Asian countries, including Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. The contested waters are believed to be rich in oil and gas.

Indonesia is not part of the disputes in the South China Sea, but has objected to Beijing's inclusion of waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands within a "nine-dash line" China marks on maps to show its claim on the water.

On Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry said an Indonesian naval vessel fired on Chinese fishing boats and injured at least one person. It said the incident took place on June 17 as several Indonesian naval ships opened fire on the fishing boats in disputed fishing waters.

One boat and its seven crew were detained, the ministry stated.

China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing "strongly protests and condemns such excessive use of force" and urged "Indonesia to stop taking action that escalates tension, complicates issues or affects peace and stability."

Indonesia, however, said its navy had detained a Chinese vessel but that nobody was hurt in the incident.

It said the navy intercepted 12 foreign vessels illegally fishing which fled as the navy warships approached. The navy vessels followed them and fired a number of warning shots. Only one Chinese ship was finally stopped and boarded.

It was the third such incident this year. Last month, China protested after Indonesia seized a Chinese vessel near Natuna island over allegations of illegal fishing.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday the country would be more assertive in protecting its exclusive right to the waters around the Natuna Islands.

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After Decades of War, Colombia and FARC Rebels Reach Definitive Peace Deal

Sputnik News

17:47 22.06.2016(updated 17:48 22.06.2016)

After decades of hostilities, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group announced a definitive peace deal.

MONTEVIDEO (Sputnik)  The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group announced Wednesday that they had reached a definitive ceasefire agreement, putting an end to the decades-long conflict.

"The delegations of the National Government and FARC-EP inform of the public that we have successfully arrived at the Definite and Bilateral Agreement to Cease Fire and Hostilities," the government said in a statement seen by Sputnik.

The Colombian government and FARC have been engaged in peace talks since November 2012 and have reached a number of important agreements including on landmine removal, land reform, transitional justice and an end to illegal drug trafficking.

In May, the government of Colombia and FARC reached an agreement to demobilize rebel soldiers under age 15 by removing them from jungle bases.

FARC was formed in 1964 as the military wing of Colombia's Communist Party.

 Sputnik

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Update: air strikes against Daesh

22 June 2016

British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh

Latest update

- Thursday 16 June  Typhoons provided close air support to Iraqi forces fighting to liberate Fallujah.

- Friday 17 June  A Reaper attacked two terrorist targets in northern Iraq.

- Saturday 18 June  Tornados destroyed a Daesh foreign fighters headquarters complex in north-western Iraq, whilst Reapers engaged terrorists five times in the north of the country, as well as a target in Syria.

- Sunday 19 June  Typhoons conducted attacks on six Daesh positions in central Fallujah, Tornados and a Reaper struck five more targets in northern Iraq.

- Monday 20 June  Tornados destroyed a truck-bomb in eastern Syria, a Reaper conducted three attacks near Raqqah, while other Tornados and Typhoons struck four terrorist positions in Fallujah.

- Tuesday 21 June  Typhoons and a Reaper attacked six targets in northern Iraq.

Detail

With Iraqi forces making steady progress pushing into Fallujah, two flights of Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s contributed to the coalition's air support provided on Thursday 16 June. Our aircraft successfully attacked four Daesh machine-gun positions that were identified by the Iraqi ground forces, using Paveway IV guided bombs.

Friday 17 June saw an RAF Reaper patrolling over northern Iraq, north of Bayji. The Reaper's crew identified a large mortar and a Daesh truck, both were destroyed by Hellfire missiles.

A second Reaper operated in the same area the following day, supporting an offensive by Iraqi forces. It used four Hellfires and a GBU-12 guided bomb to successfully engage three armed pick-up trucks which were firing at the Iraqi troops, a fourth vehicle and a trench position. In north-west Iraq, in Harunah, two pairs of Tornado GR4s, armed with eight 1000lb Enhanced Paveway IIs conducted a pre-planned strike on a complex of buildings which had been identified by intelligence as a headquarters, accommodation and weapons facility for Daesh foreign fighters. All four target buildings were destroyed. Another Reaper patrolled over Syria and attacked a Daesh vehicle south-west of Manbij, destroying it with a Hellfire missile.

Typhoons were in action over Fallujah on Sunday 19 June, providing close air support to Iraqi troops who had penetrated to the city centre. Six terrorist strongpoints housing machine-gun, artillery and rocket-propelled grenade teams were struck in a series of precision Paveway attacks. In northern Iraq, a Reaper used a pair of Hellfires to engage two groups of Daesh extremists north of Bayji, while Tornados used a Brimstone missile against a third group in the same area, and a Paveway IV against a rocket-launcher north of Mosul.

On Monday 20 June, an armed reconnaissance patrol by Tornados over eastern Syria used a Brimstone missile to attack a truck-bomb hidden under a tarpaulin between two ruined buildings north of Dayr az Zawr. The Brimstone scored a direct hit; a massive explosion followed, which confirmed how heavily the vehicle had been laden with explosives. Further west, near Raqqah, a Reaper conducted three attacks with Hellfire missiles against a Daesh vehicle and extremists on foot. Typhoons and Tornados were again active over Fallujah, and used Paveway IV bombs to destroy four Daesh machine-gun posts engaged in very close combat with the Iraqi security forces. Since the start of the operation to liberate Fallujah, RAF aircraft have prosecuted some 96 targets in and around the city and neighbouring areas in the Euphrates valley.

Reaper patrols north of Bayji continued on Tuesday 21 June, and five attacks were conducted in support of Iraqi offensive operations. Hellfires accounted for two supply vehicles and a truck armed with an anti-aircraft gun, as well as an observation post dug-in on a ridgeline. A GBU-12 guided bomb destroyed a Daesh mortar team, spotted as they fired at an Iraqi position. A Typhoon flight operated further north, north-west of Mosul, where they used a Paveway IV to hit a rocket-launcher site.

Previous air strikes

1 June: Reapers were in action again, one patrolled the skies above Qayyarah, where a camouflaged set of loaded rocket launch rails were spotted and destroyed with a Hellfire missile. A second Reaper patrolled over eastern Syria and western Iraq, and located a terrorist check-point on the Iraqi side of the border, west of Al Qa'im, which was stopping the free movement of traffic. Again, a Hellfire missile was employed and the check-point successfully attacked.

Two Tornado missions provided reconnaissance and close air support to Iraqi forces around Fallujah. One pair of Tornados used Paveway IVs to conduct simultaneous attacks on two Daesh-held buildings close to a canal to the south of the city; one building housed a terrorist sniper team, the other a recoilless anti-tank artillery piece. Both targets were destroyed by direct hits. The second Tornado flight successfully silenced a heavy-machine-gun positioned in a third Daesh strongpoint after it opened fire on the advancing Iraqi troops.

2 June: Three successive flights of Tornado GR4s and Typhoon FGR4s provided close air support to Iraqi units on the southern outskirts of the city. One Tornado flight conducted four attacks with Paveway IV guided bombs, striking a bunker and three teams of terrorists armed with an anti-tank gun, rocket-propelled grenades and a heavy machine-gun. A second Tornado mission delivered simultaneous attacks on two Daesh-held buildings, then a third bombing attack on a heavy machine-gun position that had opened fire on Iraqi troops. The Typhoon flight dealt with a further artillery piece, using a Paveway IV.

In northern Iraq, another pair of Typhoons struck a group of terrorists spotted advancing towards peshmerga positions near Kisik, then headed to an area south-east of Mosul where they used three Paveways to attack more extremists mustering in and around a large warehouse.

3 June: Operations over southern Fallujah continued when a pair of Typhoons conducted Paveway attacks on two Daesh strongpoints which had opened fire on Iraqi forces with machine-guns and other weapons. Two Reaper remotely piloted aircraft patrolled over the city the following day, exploiting their long endurance and excellent surveillance capabilities to provide persistent overwatch for the Iraqi troops on the ground.

During the course of Saturday, the Reapers delivered five attacks, using two GBU-12 guided bombs and three Hellfire missiles, against two machine-gun teams, two Daesh firing positions and a tunnel network. They also provided assistance to five other air strikes conducted by coalition fast jets on terrorist positions.

5 June: Tornados were again in action over southern Fallujah. A factory producing improvised truck-bombs was struck with a pair of Paveway IVs, destroying two vehicles that were being prepared for use, and two further attacks with Paveways accounted for two anti-tank weapons.

6 June: Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s continued to provide close air support to the Iraqi operation to liberate Fallujah. A coalition surveillance aircraft spotted a group of Daesh terrorists taking up position in a building to the west of the city, allowing them to be quickly targeted by the Typhoons using a Paveway IV guided bomb. In northern Iraq, intelligence had located a large truck-bomb factory near Mosul and two RAF Tornado GR4s armed with 1000lb Enhanced Paveway II guided bombs were tasked with its destruction. A single EPW II destroyed the factory.

7 June: Operations around Fallujah continued when Tornados successfully attacked a weapons and ammunition stockpile hidden to the south-east of the city.

8 June: Tornados conducted three attacks to support Iraqi ground forces engaged in firefights with terrorists inside Fallujah. Despite the close proximity of the Iraqi forces, the GR4s were able to deliver simultaneous attacks with Paveway IVs against two strongpoints housing Daesh machine-gun and artillery teams. They then struck a further machine-gun position when it also opened fire on the Iraqis.

Typhoons also contributed to the Fallujah operations, using Paveway IVs against two groups of Daesh extremists armed with a light machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenades. In northern Iraq, another Typhoon mission successfully attacked a Daesh-held building east of Mosul, whilst a Reaper used a GBU-12 bomb to demolish a building where another coalition surveillance aircraft had observed terrorists unloading supplies. A second Reaper patrolled over Syria and employed a Hellfire missile to destroy a Daesh truck travelling at speed on the open road south of Raqqa.

9 June: Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s continued to provide close air support to Iraqi ground forces fighting to liberate Fallujah. One Tornado flight conducted successful attacks using Paveway IV guided bombs against four Daesh-held buildings from which terrorists were directing machine-gun fire at the Iraqi forces. A second Tornado mission used a Paveway IV to destroy a building west of the city, within which a terrorist armed vehicle was reported by nearby Iraqi troops to be concealed.

10 June: A Reaper worked in close conjunction with other coalition aircraft to engage Daesh rocket and mortar teams operating near Qayyarah. The Reaper provided support to two coalition strikes on rocket positions, then used its own Hellfire missiles and a GBU-12 guided bomb against a further set of rocket launchers and a mortar. A Typhoon FGR4 flight was also operating near Qayyarah, and they conducted attacks against five targets: three buildings where Daesh extremists had been spotted gathering and two more rocket launcher positions. North-east of Mosul, another pair of Typhoons destroyed a heavy machine-gun team with a Paveway IV. To the south, Tornados again provided close air support over Fallujah, using their Paveways against three strongpoints which housed two machine-gun teams and a group of terrorists armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

11 June: An RAF Reaper continued to hunt terrorist rocket and mortar teams around Qayyarah, conducting three attacks with Hellfire missiles.

12 June: Another Reaper patrolled over Qayyarah, and also fired three Hellfires, its targets were two terrorist vehicles and a group of Daesh fighters. Typhoons were also active nearby, and used Paveway IVs to attack two groups of terrorists caught in the open and two Daesh-held buildings. A Typhoon mission also joined Tornados operating over Fallujah; the Typhoons used one Paveway IV against a machine-gun position, whilst the Tornados delivered five very precise attacks in very demanding circumstances, with Iraqi troops extremely close to the terrorist targets. Paveway IVs were used to destroy a rocket team, an anti-tank gun, a heavily armed pick-up truck and a heavy machine-gun team, whilst a Brimstone missile silenced a light machine-gun.

During Sunday night, a pair of Tornados armed with 1000lb Enhanced Paveway II guided bombs conducted a carefully planned strike on a factory to the south-west of Qayyarah where truck-bombs were being built by Daesh. Four EPW IIs hit their targets accurately and initial reports suggest the mission was a success.

13 June: A pair of Typhoons assisted Iraqi troops as they engaged in very close combat inside Fallujah. Our aircraft delivered four precision attacks, all with Paveway IV guided bombs, that destroyed five strongpoints defended by Daesh terrorists armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and an anti-tank gun.

14 June: The Typhoons continued operations over Fallujah, and again worked very closely with the Iraqi units hitting five terrorist positions including sniper and machine-gun teams. In northern Iraq, around Qayyarah, a second Typhoon flight and a Reaper supported Iraqi and Kurdish units. The Typhoons attacked a Daesh-held building with a Paveway IV, while the Reaper conducted four attacks: a GBU-12 guided bomb was used against a group of terrorists gathered at a weapons stockpile, and three mortars were attacked in turn with Hellfire missiles. The Reaper also tracked the arrival of a truck-bomb and observed it being concealed inside a garage  this surveillance enabled a successful attack to then be delivered by a coalition aircraft which destroyed the vehicle.

15 June: Two Typhoon flights saw action over Fallujah on Wednesday, and between them they conducted seven successful attacks with Paveway IVs. Again all were in very close support of Iraqi ground forces, accounting for terrorist teams armed with heavy weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, and a 23mm anti-aircraft gun.

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Disarming armed groups, civilian protection crucial for Central African Republic - UN expert

22 June 2016  Concluding her seventh visit in the country, Marie-Therese Keita Bocoum, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic (CAR), expressed concern about the threats from armed groups and large-scale banditry to the protection of civilians, natural resources and to the crisis recovery process.

In a press release issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) yesterday, Ms. Keita Bocoum urged the Government, in coordination with international forces, to implement robust measures to stop the fighting, ensure the protection civilians and humanitarian actors, and to assist victims and displaced people.

Ms. Keita Bocoum also invited the authorities to validate the roadmap on the justice reform and to implement the first emergency actions, including holding the second session of the Criminal Court, and stressed the need for non-judicial mechanisms to seek truth and reparation measures in order to shed light on the past, move away from the "legacy of violence" and ensure the guarantee of non-repetition.

The expert welcomed recent progress towards the establishment of the Special Criminal Court mandated to investigate crimes committed since 2003 and encouraged the authorities to speed up the recruitment process, initiate investigations quickly and establish a protection program for victims and witnesses who will participate in court proceedings.

She also welcomed the authorities' decision to implement the measures of the Republican Pact adopted at the Bangui Forum last May, including on the fight against impunity, and on the inclusion of individuals and groups who feel marginalized.

The release also noted that during her visit, the Independent Expert met with representatives of the new Government, including the Prime Minister, ministers of justice, interior, public security and the administration of the territory, social affairs and reconciliation, and environment. She also held discussions with the President of the National Assembly and his executive office, international partners, representatives of civil society and religious authorities.

Recalling her meeting with civil society representatives, the expert said they "expressed expectation on the new government to implement key measures, in an inclusive and strategic manner, particularly in the areas of security and justice." She added that she also noted a "frustration" and a "feeling of exclusion" among the youth, women and religious communities in Bangui and within the country.

Ms. Keita Bocoum also inquired into the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against the international forces. She noted the efforts carried out to investigate the allegations, protect the victims and witnesses and prevent from this scourge.

On 28 June at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Keita Bocoum will discuss the issue of transitional justice with representatives of the Central African authorities, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA>) and civil society organizations. The Independent Expert will submit her final report to the Council in September 2016.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

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Security Council hears calls for improved coordination, regional partnerships in UN peacebuilding efforts

22 June 2016  Sustaining peace requires more coherence and coordination among the United Nations system, the head of the intergovernmental advisory body that supports peace efforts in countries emerging from conflict told the Security Council today.

"We have a unique opportunity to move forward the peacebuilding agenda," said Macharia Kamau, chair of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, at an open debate in the Security Council this morning, during which the Commission's report on its ninth session was presented.

Noting the reaffirmed support for the Peacebuilding Commission by the Council and the General Assembly, Mr. Kamau outlined the Commission's key initiatives that the Commission has undertaken and its plans for the remainder of the current session.

In that regard, he said the Commission had convened two important meetings, in January and April, to discuss trends and challenges to peacebuilding at the regional and sub-regional level.

He said he intends to expand that approach to other regions, starting with Central Africa and East Africa in the second half of the year. As such, he had informal conversations with members of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, and had agreed that deeper conversations should be pursued regarding a possible visit to Addis Ababa and a retreat.

Role of peacebuilding in post-Ebola recovery

Turning to the role of peacebuilding in post-Ebola recovery, Mr. Kamau said that humanitarian crises around the world had shown themselves to be great disruptors of peace and security.

"They disrupt and destroy communities, sometimes causing great loss of life and at other times uprooting entire communities resulting in displacement of people with the consequence of triggering migration and refugees outflows," he said.

As a follow-up to the important work done by the Commission during the Ebola crisis, he said he had just returned from a visit to West Africa, where he witnessed first-hand the road to recovery from the Ebola emergency in the three most affected countries.

"Besides the tragic loss of life of thousands of people and the horrible suffering of many more, what Ebola has done is that it has exposed the fragility of the affected countries and compounded and setback what were already difficulty economic and peacebuilding challenges," Mr. Kamau stressed.

Importance of partnerships

Underscoring the importance of partnerships, the chair highlighted that a key value of the Commission rests in its ability to engage not only with such key partners as regional and sub-regional organizations, but also with international financial institutions and civil society organizations.

"We have witnessed the important value to transitions that partnerships can give to all our peacebuilding efforts," he said, adding that he intends to further strengthen relations between the Commission and the AU, including by visiting their headquarters during the second part of the year.

Annual report of the Peacebuilding Commission

Presenting the Peacebuilding Commission's annual report, Olof Skoog, former Chair of the body, said that over the past year, important steps had been taken to improve the efficiency and flexibility of the Commission, thereby striving to further enhance the relevance of its work, broaden the scope and reach of its efforts, and improve its accountability.

"This includes adopting more transparent and strategic working methods, a more flexible agenda and increasing inclusivity; improving partnerships with regional and sub-regional organizations; and highlighting peacebuilding needs in the Ebola recovery," he said.

Specifically, Mr. Skoog highlighted that during its ninth session, the Commission had convened regional and country-specific discussions concerning situations beyond its established agenda. The Organizational Committee had opportunities to discuss peacebuilding needs and lessons learned in several contexts, such as the peace process in Papua New Guinea, elections in Burkina Faso, and financing for peacebuilding in Somalia.

"Going forward, this work can, and should be, further expanded. In my view, there is great scope for the commission to keep evolving in this regard," he said, adding that the resolutions adopted in April give the Commission a "clear mandate" to continue diversifying its working methods in support of sustaining peace.

Mr. Skoog also noted that the Commission had, over the past year, moved to highlight thematic and regional issues of relevance to its work. For example, to draw attention to the peacebuilding needs within the Ebola recovery, both the previous and current Commission chairs had travelled to West Africa.

In that regard, he stressed that the Commission should further use such momentum to deepen and institutionalize cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations, both in the Commission as a whole and in country-specific work.

During its ninth session, the Commission also worked to advance interaction with a more diverse group of actors, Mr. Skoog said.

The drafting of a gender strategy for the Commission was initiated, and a special session was organized to discuss how to advance the youth, peace and security agenda and champion youth participation for sustainable peace.

"The convening role of the PBC should be utilized even further, as it is one of the most important tools we have to foster greater coherence in international action, and to help break some of the silos and address fragmentation," Mr. Skoog said.

"This, in turn, is a prerequisite for our ability to support genuine national leadership and ownership in peacebuilding processes," he added.

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Lebanon: UN envoy calls for collective support from global community for country at risk of imploding'

22 June 2016  The United Nations head of humanitarian operations for Lebanon today urged the international community to develop a comprehensive approach of support, or risk the implosion of a country that is vital to the regional dynamics.

At a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York this afternoon, Philippe Lazzarini, Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon, highlighted that when we first began his new post, Lebanon was described to him as a resilient country known for managing crisis on the edge.

"It is in the interest of no one to try to find out how far resilience can go, because, like any resilience, it erodes, and I think it is in none of our interests to find out where the tipping point of this resilience would be," he emphasized.

Noting that no country would be able to cope with all of the challenges Lebanon is currently facing at the same time, Mr. Lazzarini said that among the country's challenges are: extremely high national debt; a failing economy; the exodus of young graduates; skyrocketing unemployment; and dealing with more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

"Despite all the efforts of the international community, the vulnerability of the people is declining year after year," he said.

"Clearly, there is no country in the world which alone can cope with so many challenges at the same time, and this is also one of the reasons why the anxiety about the future of the country is very high, also within the population," he added.

Mr. Lazzarini, who is also the UN Development Programme Resident Representative in Lebanon, also stressed that filling the presidential void in the country is a priority, as other institutions are severely affected by the vacuum.

"The country is without a president for more than two years now. No one would have expected that it would be so long and there is absolutely no doubt that the resolution of this presidential vacuum is a priority because the absence of a president is impacting the smooth running of the institutions," he said.

"And I would not use the word smooth' today because with the absence of a president, the institutions are even more weakened," he added.

The Deputy Special Coordinator said that the international community must look outside the traditional means of relief and development to help Lebanon. This includes continuing pre-existing programmes while helping the country face the impact of its crises.

"Lebanon is a country that is extraordinary important to regional dynamics  to the Syrian conflict, and to regional tension  and it pays a very high price both politically, economically, but also in terms of security and demography," Mr. Lazzarini explained.

"We need to have comprehensive and multi-faceted economic approach in the country. We as members of the international community certainly have to show more risk-sharing with the country because if we do not do this, we take the risk of a country on the edge of imploding," he concluded.

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Eritrea Accuses Ethiopia of Planning a Full-scale War

by Jackson Mvunganyi June 22, 2016

The government of Eritrea told the U.N. Human Rights Council that its neighbor Ethiopia is planning to launch a full scale war against its territory.

Eritrean and Ethiopian troops recently clashed along their border. The countries are blaming one another for starting recent hostilities that included heavy border fighting around the Tserona central front, an area located south of the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

Eritrea accuses Ethiopia

Girma Asmerom Tesfay, Eritrea's U.N. Permanent Representative, said that there is clear evidence that Ethiopia has adopted a hostile policy towards his country.

"The evidence is their own statement that they have made in their parliament, and a lot of [Ethiopian] officials have been saying that they will attack Eritrea, they will take military action, they have changed their policy towards Eritrea, they will go for a regime changesupport opposition armed groups to attack," Ambassador Asmerom told VOA.

He said that the June 12th confrontation between the two countries is further evidence that Ethiopia is seeking regime change and seeks occupation of his country.

"There was a major military engagement and aggression by Ethiopia using tanks, artilleries and ground forces," he said.

Eritrea also accuses the US of being involved

Last week, Eritrea's Foreign Ministry accused the United States of playing a role of instigating the attack on its territory. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby dismissed the accusation and urged the two countries work towards a stable and peaceful region. "The United States, including our missions in both capitals and our mission to the U.N. in New York continues to engage with both Ethiopia and Eritrea, to urge restraint and to prevent escalation."

But Ambassador Asmerom insists that the U.S. relationship with Ethiopia denotes a complicity in the attacks on his country.

"They have been supplying them with different equipment and ammunition in the name of fighting terrorism and they have been deploying [the weapons] around the border area, so that is a direct or indirect participation in the aggression against Eritrea," he said.

Ethiopia denies Eritrean accusations

Ethiopian Ambassador to the U.N. Tekeda Alemu dismissed the allegations as 'preposterous and without merit'. He told VOA that the accusations against his country did not warrant a response, adding that perhaps the government of Eritrea should worry more about addressing the concerns of the U.N. human rights court.

Eritrea's Ambassador Asmerom denies that his country is trying to deflect attention from human rights reports that accuse his country of "systematic, widespread" human rights abuses. A United Nations commission of inquiry recommended that Eritrea be referred to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity that include enslavement of up to 400,000 people.

Asmerom also ruled out any possibilities for talks between the two countries, that have had a long standing border dispute, instead laying the blame on Ethiopia:

"They are the ones who are aggressing the ones who are threateningso the aggressor has to be condemned, very simple" he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki moon recently met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Brussels, where he called on the leaders of the two countries to seek "a peaceful resolution through political means."

Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a two year border war in 2000 after talks in Algiers, where the two sides agreed to resolve border disputes through international arbitration.

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Uncertainty Hangs Over Truce With Nigeria's Avenger Oil Militants

by Chris Stein June 22, 2016

A cease-fire between Nigeria's government and a militant group that has claimed responsibility for a series of crippling attacks on oil infrastructure may be on shaky ground.

A senior official with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation told VOA on Tuesday the government had reached a truce with the Niger Delta Avengers militant group.

But the Avengers responded on Twitter saying that no such truce had been reached.

The confusion surrounding the cease-fire shows the challenges President Muhammadu Buhari faces as his administration aims to quell a resurgent militancy in the oil producing Niger Delta region.

"It might be some factionalism. It might be they want to see a credible hand or offer from President Buhari or his government," said Mark Schroeder, vice president for Africa operations at intelligence firm Stratfor.

Attacks by the Avengers have reduced the output of Africa's largest producer of crude by as much half from its usual volume of approximately two million barrels per day.

The government recently announced it would downscale its military presence in the region and negotiate with the group.

The Avengers responded with posts on its blog calling for independent mediators, and vowing to reject any talks that don't produce a plan for "the restoration of the essence of quality human life in the Niger Delta."

Longstanding grievances

Militancy is nothing new in the southern swamp region, which is deeply impoverished despite being the source of most of Nigeria's oil wealth.

Insurgents claiming they wanted more development for the area staged a years-long campaign of kidnapping and pipeline bombings. That calmed in 2009 when the government started an amnesty program that paid ex-fighters a monthly stipend and offered job training in exchange for peace.

The government is winding down the amnesty program, but the Avengers have called for its continuation.

Schroeder said many of their other demands reflect longstanding grievances in the Niger Delta, and would be familiar to Buhari and his officials.

The cease-fire may be simply a delay tactic for the government to figure out what to do, he said.

"It could be to buy time while President Buhari has to, essentially, negotiate or calculate among his other political constituencies whether he can afford to increase revenue sharing with the Niger Delta," Schroeder said.

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Colombia, FARC Rebels Announce Cease-fire Deal

by VOA News June 22, 2016

Colombia and the leftist FARC rebels agreed to a cease-fire Wednesday, ending hostilities in a 50-year-long guerrilla war that killed about 220,000 people.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono will sign the cease-fire Thursday in Havana, where peace talks have been held for four years. The Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the peace talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the presidents of Chile and Venezuela, peace talks co-sponsors with Cuba, will also be there.

"Tomorrow will be a great day," Santos wrote on Twitter. "We're working for a Colombia in peace, a dream that's beginning to become reality."

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States welcomed the news and congratulated Santos.

July signing expected

The cease-fire is the last major step before both sides sign a final peace agreement. Santos said he expected that to take place July 20 after a final few minor issues are worked out. It will then be put to the Colombian people in a referendum.

The deal also includes land reform provisions and will give former rebels some political power. Ex- FARC fighters can also avoid jail time in exchange for community service and travel restrictions.

Both sides had expected to sign the final agreement in March. But questions remain on exactly how the final deal will be ratified and given legal force so that it won't unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018. The two sides also must decide who will preside over a special war crimes tribunal to consider charges against fighters on both sides.

The Marxist FARC rebels launched their uprising as a poor people's rebellion in 1964 and grew into a dangerous fighting force. FARC turned to drug trafficking and kidnapping to fund its guerilla war.

But the rebels failed to overthrow a succession of Colombian governments, including some which had U.S. military aid.

A 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned the rebels' ranks and forced its aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.

Long, tough talks

The peace talks have been bumpy and extended much longer than Santos or anyone else anticipated. But if a final deal is reached, it will end Latin America's last major insurgency, one accused of being a major supplier of cocaine to the U.S.

Still, the much smaller and more recalcitrant National Liberation Army has a toehold in some areas and could fill the void left by the FARC. The ELN agreed to a peace process with the government this year, but those talks have yet to start because of Santos' insistence that the group renounce kidnapping.

Some information for this report came from AP.

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Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC

The Colombian government and the leftist FARC rebels signed a cease-fire and disarmament deal 23 June 2016, bringing Colombia a major step closer to ending more than 50 years of guerrilla warfare and terrorism Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono Echeverri signed the agreement in Havana, which has hosted four years of frequently difficult peace talks. Cuban President Raul Castro and Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende -- whose countries mediated the talks -- watched the events with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US envoy Bernard Aronson and several other Latin American presidents.

Colombia's government and the rebel group FARC reached an agreement May 17, 2014 on ending the illegal drug trade. The deal called for FARC to cooperate with the government in convincing farmers to grow crops other than coca, which is used to make cocaine. The announcement was made Friday in Havana where the two sides have been negotiating an end to a 50-year-old insurgency. Colombia was the world's leading producer of cocaine until Peru recently overtook it in cultivation of coca. The cocaine industry has been the major source of funds for the Marxist rebel group and a cause of crime and instability in the South American country. With the agreement on ending the drug trade, the two sides have resolved three of the six points on their agenda. Previously FARC and the government had reached deals on agrarian reform and political participation.

Colombia and FARC rebels had engaged in a bloody civil war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Since 1964, the militant group has engaged in political kidnappings and carried out attacks on security forces in its battle against the government. The FARC has been hammering out peace terms with government negotiators since November 2012 to bring an end to five decades of war. The government wants a peace agreement signed by the end of 2013. Negotiations between the two sides began in October 2012 in Norway and moved to Cuba in November 2012.

The first topic on the agenda was the complicated issue of land reform. Other equally thorny topics will follow, including a mechanism to end hostilities, the political future of FARC, the illegal drug trade, and compensating victims of the conflict. On May 26, 2013 the government of Colombia and the country's largest rebel group, FARC, agreed on land reform, after more than six months of peace talks. Their deal called for the economic and social development of rural areas and providing land to poor farmers. Land reform was one of the most contentious issues in the talks on ending five decades of conflict. This step was the first major advance in six months of peace talks taking place in Cuba. A joint statement warned that the agreement is "conditioned on reaching an agreement on the totality of the agenda," because the talks are based on the principle that "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon."

On November 19, 2012 Colombia's leftist FARC rebels announced a two-month unilateral cease-fire as the rebel group and Colombian government resumed peace talks in Havana. FARC said it would halt all military operations and acts of sabotage through January 20. In November 2012 Colombia, at war with the FARC since 1964, launched a controversial bid to negotiate peace with the rebels during talks in Havana, Cuba. On December 03, 2012 Colombia's president set a time limit for peace talks with the rebels of Latin America's longest-running insurgency. Juan Manuel Santos said the talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, should not last any longer than November 2013, at the latest.

Critics say Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is negotiating behind the nation's back and handing the FARC whatever they want. Former President Alvaro Uribe, once a Santos ally, charges that the FARC, mostly funded by extortion and drug trafficking, will trick the nation as it has in previous peace talks and get away with crimes without being punished. Government and rebel negotiators are seeking common ground on a five-point agenda, beginning with the thorniest issue of rural development and land reform. Social inequality in Colombia's vast rural territory is considered the root of the conflict - with land ownership concentrated in very few hands.

Latin America's longest-running insurgency has left tens of thousands dead, seeded vast rural and mountainous areas with landmines and left scores of villages and towns economically isolated. While a 10-year military offensive against the FARC has pushed the rebels deep into inhospitable territory and helped rejuvenate the economy, the FARC is still a formidable presence and able to sow fear and cause damage to the nation's economic infrastructure. The FARC is considered a terrorist group by the United States and Europe.

Numerous peace efforts in Colombia since the 1980s have brought mixed success, with some smaller armed groups demobilizing. But the FARC, Latin America's biggest rebel group, has pressed on, funded in large part by drug trafficking. At the last peace talks in 1999-2002, former President Andres Pastrana ceded the FARC a safe haven the size of Switzerland to promote talks. But the rebels took advantage of the breathing space to train fighters, build more than 25 airstrips to fly drug shipments and set up prison camps to hold hostages.

Description

Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency. The FARC is governed by a secretariat, led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda (a.k.a. "Tirofijo") and six others, including senior military commander Jorge Briceno (a.k.a. "Mono Jojoy"). The FARC is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts.

In February 2002, the group's slow-moving peace negotiation process with President Andres Pastrana's administration was terminated by Bogota following the FARC's plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian Senator from the aircraft. On 7 August, the FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations-including the United States-attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack.

The Colombian military's momentum against the FARC slowed somewhat in 2009. Unlike in 2008, the Colombian military did not kill or capture any of the FARC's Secretariat members. Fewer FARC members deserted in 2009 (2,058 as of December 10) than in 2008 (3,027). However, Colombian security forces captured or killed a number of mid-level FARC leaders, continued to debrief deserters from the group for detailed information on their respective units, and reduced the amount of territory where terrorists could operate freely.

The group had a number of setbacks in 2009 highlighted by the loss of several key mid-level commanders and the continuing decline of its fighting force, down to 8,000 members. The FARC in October 2009 attempted to confront the Colombian Government with an offensive aimed at a wide range of military and civilian targets. Colombian security forces largely thwarted the attacks in another setback for the group. Bogota frustrated similar FARC attempts to disrupt the March 2010 congressional and May 2010 presidential elections. In September 2010, Colombian forces killed veteran FARC military commander Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, better known as Mono Jojoy.

By 2010 FARC Supreme Leader Alfonso Cano was still consolidating his authority and proving his mettle as a military commander. It would have been impossible for Cano to have broached peace talks so soon after taking the reins of the FARC in May 2008. Still, the deaths of three Secretariat members in 2008 had resulted in replacements that were more educated, intellectual, and aware of the international context of the conflict. This, coupled with an analysis of recent FARC communiques, suggested that the organization was open to a political solution to the conflict. FARC's preferred end-state is the transition to a series of social networks (presumably comprised of demobilized fronts) that interface with a political party. Such a solution was years away.

Government of Colombia's announced September 23, 2010 that they killed Manuel Julio Suarez Rojas, also known as 'el Mono Jojoy' and the second in command of the FARC. He was the FARC's top military leader and the terrorist group's highest ranking member to be eliminated since the death of 'Raul Reyes' in 2008. The death of 'El Mono Jojoy' is the biggest blow against the FARC in the organization's history. He had been accused of being involved in several acts of terrorism, including the assassination of two American missionaries in 1995. The result of this operation is evidence of the professionalism of the Colombian Armed Forces, the effectiveness of sustained bilateral cooperation and the need for Colombia's neighbors to take assertive action against the FARC presence in their territories.

FARC negotiators in Cuba committed in December 2014 to a unilateral cease-fire to promote peace talks that had taken place on the communist-led island over the past two years, saying they would only fire weapons if attacked by the armed forces. In March 2015 both sides agreed on a plan to begin jointly removing dangerous land mines that litter large parts of the countryside. Soon afterward, the government suspended all aerial bombings of guerrilla camps, an order that Santos extended.

Eleven soldiers were killed and 19 injured in an attack by leftist guerrillas in Colombia on14 April 2015, a major violation of the rebels pledge of a unilateral ceasefire that threw into doubt the future of peace talks. The attack underscored one of the biggest obstacles in the way of a deal: the FARC leaderships lack of control over the estimated 7,000 troops still on the battlefield. That was especially true in turbulent, lawless areas like Cauca, where rebel commanders are known to be heavily involved in drug-trafficking.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the resumption of bombing raids against FARC rebels on 15 April 2015 after the attack.





Strength

As a result of the government's military and police operations, the strength of the FARC had been reduced to approximately 8,000 members in 2010 -- down from 16,000 in 2001. FARC demobilizations were lower in 2009 (2,128) compared to 2008 (3,027).

Location/Area of Operation

Colombia, with some activities-extortion, kidnapping, logistics, and R&R-in Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador.

External Aid

The FARC ws believed by knowledgeable Colombians to take in as much as $2 million a day in illicit drug proceeds.

The commander of Colombia's Navy, Admiral Hernando Wills said 07 April 2014 the guerrillas of the FARC is now the leading organization dedicated to drug trafficking in the country. Wills said in an interview with the newspaper "El Tiempo" of Bogota that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , embedded with the Government in a peace process, get their main resources with cocaine trafficking and illegal exploitation of minerals.

"Basically, the largest organization dedicated to drug trafficking is the terrorist group FARC, whose financial support are the activities of drug trafficking and illegal mining, criminal acts that not only have the consequences known to all Colombians and the international community but, moreover, are highly damaging to the environment, "said the official.

Cuba provided some medical care and political consultation. Explosives management training for the FARC by the IRA, and possibly by other foreign-based terrorists suspected by the Colombians, such as Cubans, Iranians, ETA (the Spanish Basque terrorist group), among others, has markedly improved the FARC's proficiency in urban terrorism.

The FARC habitually used safe havens in Ecuador because of Ecuador's inability to control its border and territory, and in Venezuela, because of difficult terrain and the apparent laissez faire complicity and demonstrated support of Caracas for the FARC. According to the International Crisis Group of Brussels, the weak link in Colombia's security policy was its undefended and open borders. Brazil and Peru made serious efforts to prevent the FARC from using their territories.

Hugo Chavez had campaigned internationally to have the FARC recognized as "belligerents."

Although the FARC-controlled safe haven, or "despeje" -- which is situated between two of Colombia's largest coca cultivation areas -- is not considered a major area for coca cultivation or drug trafficking, many FARC units throughout southern Colombia raise funds through the extortion ("taxation") of both legal and illegal businesses, the latter including the drug trade. Some insurgent units raise funds through extortion or by protecting laboratory operations. In return for cash payments, or possibly in exchange for weapons, the insurgents protect cocaine laboratories in southern Colombia. Some FARC and ELN units are independently involved in limited cocaine laboratory operations. Some FARC units in southern Colombia are reported to be directly involved in drug trafficking activities, such as controlling local cocaine base markets.

FARC obtains weapons and ammunition from avariety of sources, including regional black market dealers, capture or theft from government troops,and - in at least one case in 1999 - the international gray arms market. The local black market offers the FARC a relatively low-risk and convenient source of small arms and ammunition and probably will prove difficult to interdict - a problem compounded by the FARC's use of redundant supply channels. The FARC during the past three decades has procured military weapons and ammunition in the countries surrounding Colombia and from Central America, where surplus weapons from Cold War-era insurgencies are available on the black market and smuggling routes and networks are well established. Many regional black market arms traffickers also are involved in the narcotics trade and are willing to take drugs in exchange for weapons.

The IRA has had well-established links with the FARC narco-terrorists in Colombia since at least 1998. Apparently IRA explosives management training techniques are resulting in more effective explosives attacks against the Colombian urban infrastructure including bridges, power lines, reservoirs, and other facilities.

On August 11, 2001, two members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), along with a representative of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, who was known to be stationed in Cuba and reportedly on the payroll of the Cuban Communist Party, were arrested by Colombian authorities at the El Dorado airport in Bogota after leaving territory in southern Colombia controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a designated foreign terrorist organization. The three men were carrying false identification documents (passports) and were found to have traces of explosives on their clothing and on items in their luggage. Two of the Irish nationals were the IRA's leading explosives engineer and a mortar expert. The three claimed they were in Colombia to monitor ongoing peace efforts in that country between the government of President Andreas Pastrana and various rebel groups. The three were later formally indicted by the Fiscalia in February, 2002 and charged with training FARC terrorists in explosives and using false passports to cover their true identities while in Colombia.





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DoD Requires 'Culture of Cybersecurity' to Safeguard Networks, Official Says

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2016  The Defense Department has made significant progress in implementing its cyber strategy, a senior DoD official told members of the House Armed Services Committee today.

The cyber threat from state and non-state actors is constant and growing, Thomas Atkin told legislators. Atkin is the acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security.

"Our increasingly wired and interconnected world has brought prosperity and economic gain to the United States; however, our dependence on these systems also leaves us vulnerable -- and the cyberthreats are increasing and evolving," Atkin said.

DoD maintains and employs robust and unique cybercapabilities to defend its networks and the nation, he said.

Yet, that alone is not sufficient, Atkin said. Keeping networks secure, he added, is everyone's responsibility.

'Culture of Cybersecurity'

Safeguarding DoD's computer networks, as well as the homeland "requires a culture of cybersecurity," Atkin said. "More broadly, preventing cyberattacks against the U.S. homeland requires a whole-of-government, and a whole-of-nation approach."

DoD works in close cooperation with other federal agencies, allies and the private sector to improve security in the cyber world and to ensure the department retains the capability to operate in the domain at any time, he said.

The department's strategy calls on DoD to concentrate on three primary missions, Atkin said. The first is to defend DoD networks. The second is to defend the United States against cyberattacks "of significant consequence," he said. The third mission is to provide full-spectrum cyber options to support contingency plans and military operations.

Deterrence

Deterrence is a crucial part of the overall strategy, Atkin said. DoD, he said, is part of the nation's defense against cyberattacks.

"The strategy depends on the totality of U.S. actions, to include declaratory policy, overall defensive posture, effective response procedures, indications and warning capabilities and the resiliency of U.S. networks and systems," he said.

Since Defense Secretary Ash Carter signed DoD's cyber strategy, the department has made great progress, Atkin said.

"The department is committed to the security and resilience of our networks, and to defending the homeland and U.S. interests from attacks of significant consequence," he said.

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Nine secrets about China's Long March-7 rocket

People's Daily Online

(People's Daily Online) 17:02, June 22, 2016

According to a subordinate WeChat account of the PLA Daily, Long March-7, China's homegrown new-generation carrier rocket, is scheduled to be launched from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in south China's Hainan province between June 25 and 29. This is the first task for the rocket during the construction of the space lab in the third phase of China's manned space flight project. This will be the first time for the Long March-7 carrier rocket to be launched and the first time for the launch center to launch a rocket.

Here are nine secrets regarding the Long March-7 carrier rocket:

1. The new-generation rocket can be launched in the rain

Although China would not launch in-service rockets on rainy days the water-proof new-generation rocket can be launched in rainy days.

As it is of high humidity and precipitation in the new launch center in south China's Hainan province, it is required that the new-generation rocket should be waterproof.

2. The new-generation carrier rocket can be parked for 24 hours after being fueled

The Long March-7 carrier rocket can be parked at the launch center for 24 hours, the longest duration known after a rocket is filled with low-temperature fuel. The new-generation rocket is designed to meet multi-launch demands. The long park duration improve the degree of reliability during launch of the rocket.

3. More water is needed to lower the temperature of the platform during launch.

A total of 400 tons of water is needed during a duration of 20 seconds to lower the temperature of the launching platform so that the platform will not be damaged by the high temperatures.

4. A special protective coating is needed for the rocket launch platform.

As the temperature will reach 2,800 degrees Celsius at the moment of launching, technicians will paint a special protective coating on the platform to extend the service life.

5. The Long March-7 carrier rocket has been shipped to the launch center from the Tianjin port rather than being transported along highways and railways.

6. In order to save space, the new-generation rocket will use the same track as the Long March-5 did during transportation. The rocket will make 60-degree turns four times.

7. There are pipes used to refuel, recharge and adjust the temperature of the rocket.

8. Almost 90 percent of the weight of the rocket is fuel.

9. The new-generation rocket can resist sudden gales of wind because the rocket is equipped with wind-resistance devices.

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India sends 20 satellites into space in single mission

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 10:11AM

India has successfully sent 20 satellites into space in a single mission, a record-breaking event for the country's space agency that received its premier's warm praise.

The launch took place in the Satish Dhawan Space Center in the Sriharikota barrier island off the Bay of Bengal coast, located in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, on Wednesday morning, said the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in a statement.

The 320-ton PSLV-C34 rocket, ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, blasted off from the Second Launch Pad in the facility and carried with it the 727 kilogram (1602 pounds) Indian Earth observation satellite called Cartosat, the main passenger, along with 19 other satellites, to space, it added.

"The total weight of all the 20 satellites carried on-board PSLV-C34 was 1288 kilogram," the statement further said.

According to the statement, two of the satellites were from Indian universities, and the remaining 17 co-passenger satellites "were international customer satellites from Canada (2), Germany (1), Indonesia (1) and the United States (13)," it added.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the "monumental accomplishment," saying, "Our space program has time and again shown the transformative potential of science & technology in people's lives."

Russia has the unbroken record of sending up to 37 satellites into space in a single mission, while NASA stands second as it has so far managed to send 29 satellites in a single mission.

India, fervently competing with major international players to grab a greater share of the launch market, is known for its low-cost space programs. Last month, it launched its first mini space shuttle on a budget of only $14 million, which is dwarfed by huge budgets spent by other nations on their space programs.

Back in 2013, it also sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars on a low budget of just $73 million, compared with NASA's $671 million Maven Mars mission.

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USSTRATCOM Detects, Tracks North Korean Missile Launches

U.S. Strategic Command Public Affairs

6/21/2016

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. -- U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) systems detected and tracked what we assess were two North Korean missile launches at 3:56 p.m. CDT and 6:03 p.m. CDT, June 21, 2016. The launch of two presumed Musudan intermediate range ballistic missiles occurred at Wonsan.

The missiles were tracked over the Sea of Japan, where initial indications are they fell.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launches from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America.

The men and women of USSTRATCOM, NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Pacific Command remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security.

USSTRATCOM's mission is to conduct global operations in synchronization with other combatant commands and appropriate U.S. government agencies to detect, deter and prevent strategic attacks against the U.S., its allies, and partners, and to be prepared to deliver warfighting capability to defend the nation.

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DPRK yet to confirm suspected missile launches

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 19:51, June 22, 2016

PYONGYANG, June 22 -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has not confirmed the suspected test-launch of two missiles on Wednesday morning.

The state-run KCNA news agency told Xinhua over the phone that it was not aware of the missile launches and asked Xinhua to wait for official news.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that the DPRK launched a second missile, which was believed to be a Musudan, at about 8:05 a.m. Seoul time (2305 GMT Tuesday) from Wonsan on the east coast, two hours after the DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile, which Seoul said was presumably a failure.

The latest intermediate-range missile launch was the sixth test-firing of its kind by Pyongyang after the five earlier launches were all believed to have failed.

The South Korean military said it is not clear whether Pyongyang's second launch on Wednesday was a success or not. It is believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in test-firing. The second missile launched on Wednesday flew about 400 km.

In case of a successful missile launch, the KCNA usually reports the news in the following early morning. In case of a failure, the DPRK will simply keep silence.

The first test-launch on April 15 failed as the missile exploded in mid-air several seconds after take-off. The April 28 launch also failed as those exploded in mid-air or crashed in waters. The fourth test was estimated to have exploded on its mobile launcher even before take-off, according to the South Korean military.

The missile launches came ahead of June 25, the 66th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. And the DPRK is scheduled to convene the fourth session of the 13th Supreme People's Assembly, the country's highest legislative body on June 29.

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DPRK fires 6th suspected Musudan missile, 2nd in a day

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:04, June 22, 2016

SEOUL, June 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- A Local resident watches the screen broadcasting the news that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2016. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, after the fifth test-launch had failed, Yonhap news agency reported citing military authorities. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

SEOUL, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday fired the sixth suspected Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, the second in the day, which flew the longest distance of 400 km, nearing to a required distance to be successful.

An official at South Korea's defense ministry told Xinhua that what was believed to be a Musudan missile flew about 400 km after having been fired from the DPRK's Wonsan area in the east coast at about 8:05 a.m. local time.

The official said military authorities of South Korea and the United States are conducting detailed analysis on whether the test-launch was successful.

South Korea's military believed that a ballistic missile is required to fly at least 300 km to be considered successful in a test-firing, while South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that a ballistic missile should fly at least 500 km to be successful.

It marked the sixth test-launch of the Musudan missile, which is known to be capable of hitting party of the U.S. territory such as Guam and the outer reaches of Alaska. It allegedly has a range of 3,000 to 4,000 km.

Earlier in the day, the DPRK test-fired what was believed to be a Musudan missile near Wonsan area at about 5:58 a.m., the South Korean military official said on the phone.

Yonhap cited another military official as saying that the first missile of the day flew in an abnormal trajectory and in a distance short of what a normal ballistic missile can fly, indicating a failure of the fifth test-firing.

A South Korean government source was quoted as saying that the first suspected Musudan missile of the day flew about 150 km or more before being fragmented into several pieces during the flight.

Yonhap reported that top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un observed the test launches.

All of the previous test-firings of the Musudan missile are believed to have failed. The first test-launch on April 15 failed as it exploded in mid-air several seconds after take-off. The April 28 launch also failed as those exploded in mid-air or crashed in waters after lift-off. The fourth test was estimated to have blasted on its mobile launcher even before take-off, according to Seoul's military.

The test-launches were in line with top leader Kim's order on March 15 to test a nuclear warhead and ballistic rockets capable of carrying the warhead "in a short time."

Pyongyang has allegedly deployed the Musudan missiles since 2007. The ballistic missile is considered especially threatening as it is fired from a mobile launcher, making it hard to detect and track in times of military conflicts. It can also carry a nuclear warhead.

After the seventh ruling Workers' Party of Korea congress that lasted four days through May 9, the DPRK repeatedly made dialogue overtures toward South Korea to talk about military matters in order to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Seoul, however, had rejected the proposals as Pyongyang had yet to express its willingness to denuclearize. South Korea held fast to its position that no dialogue would be held with the DPRK unless Pyongyang shows its denuclearization will through sincere actions.

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US condemns North Korea missile tests, says ready for 'any attack'

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 4:15AM

The US State Department has condemned North Korea for launching two Musudan mid-range ballistic missiles, saying the US remains "prepared" in the face of any threat.

"We are aware of reports that the DPRK fired two ballistic missiles. We are monitoring and continuing to assess the situation in close coordination with our regional allies and partners," US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday.

"We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation," Kirby stated.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff announced Wednesday that "the North launched one missile presumed to be Musudan from areas near Wonsan at around 5:58 am, but it is assumed to be unsuccessful."

The launch was also confirmed by the US Pacific Command's Navy Commander Dave Benham.

According to South Korean sources, a second missile assumed to be a Musudan was also launched at 8:05 am local time, the outcome of which is yet to be determined.

According to Benham, both missiles traveled over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, "where initial indications are they fell."

The Musudan has a strike range of 3,000 to 5,500 kilometers (1,864 to 3,417 miles).

So far this year, North Korea has made six attempts to test this type of missile. Its fourth Musudan test was carried out in May, but it exploded after traveling for about two to three seconds.

The country conducted a twin test of the missile in late April which failed. Another Musudan missile test had not been successful earlier in the month.

The United States called on North Korea to halt its ballistic missile tests, saying that such moves only have made the international community more determined to press forward with UN sanctions.

In January, North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the US and its regional allies.

The North was recently placed under the toughest UN sanctions in two decades. The country, however, has pledged not to relinquish its nuclear power unless the US ends its hostile policy and dissolves the US-led military command in South Korea.

In February, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said placed an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul denounced it as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

In March, the US sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korea's largest port city to take part in joint war games, dubbed Key Resolve.

As part of the maneuver, American and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise on South Korea's east coast, storming simulated North Korean beach defenses.

Pyongyang condemned the assault drills, calling them "nuclear war moves" taken as preparations for an invasion.

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North Korea launches two ballistic missiles, reports say

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:14AM

North Korea has reportedly test-launched two Musudan mid-range ballistic missiles, Washington and Seoul military sources say.

"The North launched one missile presumed to be Musudan from areas near Wonsan at around 5:58 am, but it is assumed to be unsuccessful," said the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday.

The launch was also confirmed by the US Pacific Command's Navy Commander Dave Benham.

According to South Korea sources, a second missile assumed to be a Musudan was also launched, the outcome of which is yet to be determined.

Earlier in the day, Japan put its military on high alert after reports surfaced that signs have been detected of a possible missile launch by the North.

Seoul claims that the North had attempted four test launches of the missile back in April and May, all of which failed.

Tensions have been flaring in the region since January, when North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the US and its regional allies.

A month later, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said placed an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul denounced it as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Pyongyang was recently placed under the toughest UN sanctions in two decades. The country, however, has pledged not to relinquish its nuclear power unless the US ends its hostile policy and dissolves the US-led military command in South Korea.

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North Korea Fires Second Ballistic Missile Hours After First Failed Launch

Sputnik News

02:59 22.06.2016(updated 09:44 22.06.2016)

South Korea claims that the North has fired another mid-range ballistic missile, its second of the day.

Officials with South Korea's Defense Ministry said earlier that Pyongyang had conducted a failed launch, with the missile falling into the Sea of Japan.

"The North launched an unidentified missile from areas near Wonsan at around 5:58 am," said the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to Yonhap news agency.

The DPRK has test fired a number of ballistic missiles in recent months. These have been condemned by the United Nations, with the US, South Korea, China, and Russia urging Pyongyang to tone down the tests. Harsh new sanctions were put in place in response to earlier tests.

Pyongyang has also claimed to have developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could, theoretically, be launched with an intercontinental missile.

 Sputnik

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North Korea Reportedly Fires Ballistic Missile Off East Coast

Sputnik News

00:55 22.06.2016(updated 02:35 22.06.2016)

According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, the DPRK has fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile from its eastern coast.

"The launch appears to have failed," said an official with South Korea's Defense Ministry.

US officials suggest the missile may have fallen into the Sea of Japan.

"The North launched an unidentified missile from areas near Wonsan at around 5:58 am," said the Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to Yonhap.

Reports surfaced earlier on Tuesday that Pyongyang had deployed a projectile to its east coast, though it was unclear if it was intended for launch.

"We have detected signs that the North has depoyed what appears to be a Musudan missile," Yonhap said, citing a South Korean government source.

The DPRK has test fired a number of ballistic missiles in recent months. These have been condemned by the United Nations, with the US, South Korea, China, and Russia urging Pyongyang to tone down the tests. Harsh new sanctions were put in place in response to earlier tests.

Pyongyang has also claimed to have developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could, theoretically, be launched with an intercontinental missile.

 Sputnik

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North Korea's Missile Tests Show Real Progress

by Brian Padden June 22, 2016

North Korea's latest missile tests indicate the Kim Jong Un government is continuing to advance its ballistic missile technology, in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

Pyongyang conducted its fifth and sixth test of the intermediate-range Musudan missile on Wednesday from the coastal city of Wonsan. U.S. and South Korean military officials said the first missile failed shortly after it was launched but the second missile flew approximately 400 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan or East Sea as it called in South Korea.

The last missile tested did not reach the 3,000-kilometer distance the Musudan is designed for, to potentially reach U.S. military bases in Asia and the Pacific. It apparently also did not demonstrate the atmospheric re-entry capability needed to accurately hit a target. But analysts said North Korea continues to learn from each failure and is making advancements with each new test.

"This is a very important milestone because the previous launches had blown up either very shortly after launch or possibly even right at launch. So this is a real sign of progress," said Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.

The multiple missile tests, Lewis said, also indicates that international sanctions have so far not affected North Korea's ability to acquire the material and technology needed to manufacture these weapons.

According to South Korean media, North Korea is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, which officials said were first deployed around 2007. The first Musudan test occurred in April of this year.

World condemns Kim

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. "strongly condemns the provocative actions that are in violation of international law." "The U.S. will do what we have done in the past, work with international allies and others like Russia and China about what pressure can continue to be applied," he said.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre, who is president of the U.N. Security Council this month, said the latest tests are a "clear violation" of Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from using ballistic missile technology and developing nuclear weapons.

"The North Korean ballistic missile program is a serious threat to regional and international peace and security. Confronted with the threat of proliferation we consider that weakness is not an option. Based on all this, we favor a quick and firm (Security Council) reaction," he said.

The United Nations imposed tough new sanctions on North in March for conducting its fourth nuclear test and launching a long-range rocket. The sanctions include suspending currency transfers and restricting the North's lucrative mineral trade that had accounted for over half of the country's $2.5 billion in exports to China alone.

Kim Jong Un has declared his country a nuclear state and has defiantly responded to the international sanctions by conducting multiple missile tests and threatening to proceed with further nuclear testing.

Japan's Self Defense Forces have been on high alert with anti-missile launchers stationed around the country in case the North Korean missiles entered its airspace.

Tokyo said it would issue a strong protest against North Korea for its latest violation of United Nations resolutions.

South Korea called the missile test a clear provocation "against us" and urged Pyongyang to exercise restraint.

"I would like to advise them that it will be good for North Korea to put more effort into peace on the Korean peninsula and their people's livelihood, which the North has been consistently saying," said South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee.

Regional security conference

North Korea's latest missile test will likely be addressed at a closed-door regional security forum currently underway in Beijing that includes diplomats from North Korea, the U.S. and South Korea. At the conference, North Korean envoy Choe Son Hui is expected to defend her country's right to develop nuclear weapons to protect itself against the perceived threat from the United States.

Even though China is North Korea's key ally and trading partner, Beijing opposes Pyongyang's nuclear program and supports the most recent U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea. However critics said enforcement has been lax as China does not want to destabilize the Kim Jong Un government, and it is unlikely Beijing will support any further measures that would weaken its ally.

"Considering the current situation in Northeast Asia, it is not easy for China to impose sanctions against North Korea as North Korea can be a card for China," said Korea analyst Woo Su-keun with Donghua University in Shanghai.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently met with high-level North Korean party officials in Beijing to bolster ties that have been frayed by the North's nuclear provocations.

Xi has called for restarting international talks to convince the North to give up its nuclear program for economic aid and security guarantees.

Washington and its allies demand that North Korea first halt any further nuclear development before new talks can take place.

Youmi Kim in Seoul and VOA's U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer and White House correspondent Mary Alice Salinas contributed to this report

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Germany must increase military spending to counter threats: Merkel

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 7:13AM

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany must increase defense spending considerably from current levels to cope with "external threats," stressing that Berlin cannot count on the US.

Speaking at an economics conference in Berlin late Tuesday, Merkel said the EU could not just rely on its transatlantic partnership with the United States.

"Sure enough this means that a country like Germany, which today spends around 1.2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, and the United States, which spends 3.4 percent of GDP for defense will have to converge," Merkel said.

She further said that Germany could not expect others to bear the burden of defense in the long term.

Last month, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced the country's first army expansion since the Cold War to counter what he called threats posed by Russia.

Under the plans, 7,000 new troops will be recruited initially, together with 4,400 civilian staff.

"A quarter century of shrinking is over. It is time for the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) to grow again," he said at the time.

During the Cold War, the West German Bundeswehr was seen as the first line of defense against a Soviet invasion, and was described as "perhaps the world's best army."

Germany already has some of the largest armed forces in the world, with 178,000 active personnel, second only to France among EU members.

NATO expects member states to spend 2 percent of the GDP on defense. In the past years, German defense expenditure shrank to 1.2 percent from 1.4 percent of the GDP.

Merkel's remarks come as the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw in early July is set to put the "Russian threat" high on the agenda.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again criticized NATO's eastward expansion, warning that there would be consequences if the Western military alliance continued its one-sided policy against Moscow.

The Russian president also noted that his country does not want a new Cold War with the West, stressing that Moscow's policy is "aimed at cooperation and search for compromise."

NATO has stepped up its military build-up near Russia's borders since it suspended all ties with Moscow in April 2014 after the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula re-integrated into the Russian Federation following a referendum.

The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine. Moscow, however, rejects having a hand in the crisis gripping the country.

Moscow has repeatedly repudiated NATO's expansion near its borders, saying such a move poses a threat to both regional and international peace.

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Zarif: No one can tear up Iran nuclear deal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Paris, June 22, IRNA -- Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that no one can tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and the six world powers last year.

Zarif made the remarks in a meeting in Paris with French Senate President Gerard Larcher.

Referring to an agreement between Iran and the US Boeing company, Zarif said the agreement will solve the problem of Iran's agreement with Airbus.

On economic and trade cooperation between Iran and France, Zarif said that the two countries have good cooperation particularly on auto-making. However, he noted that banking ties create some obstacles.

Iran has remained committed to all its pledges under the JCPOA and the UN nuclear agency has confirmed Iran's commitment, he noted, adding that the psychological atmosphere following the sanctions stops the European banks from doing business with Iran.

He assured the European banks that they will be subject to no damage if they cooperate with Iran.

'I believe that the French and European banks had better break the current psychological atmosphere because it will benefit all, even the US,' the foreign minister said.

Both Iran and the other parties will honor their commitments, he said.

The foreign minister said that even the United States will not refuse to implement a deal for which it has made two years of negotiations.

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Iran's Intelligence Ministry reveals details of foiled Takfiri bomb attacks

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Wed / 22 June 2016 / 08:09

TEHRAN (ISNA)- Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi revealed the details of several thwarted Takfiri "suicide" bomb attacks across the country.

On Tuesday, Alavi announced that during a series of security operations earlier in the month, 10 Takfiri terrorists were apprehended in Tehran and three other central provinces.

He added that the terrorists had planned "remote control bombings, suicide attacks, and car bombings" in several busy locations.

During the operations, security forces identified 50 bombing locations, confiscated over 100 kilograms of explosives, and stopped the delivery of at least two tons of explosive materials to the terrorists in the country, he elaborated.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani said on Monday that the attacks were planned for the holy month of Ramadan.

"Wherever it may occur in Iran, any suspicious move will be swiftly detected; this is thanks to the presence of the people and capable and experienced organizations," he said.

On Monday, Iran's Intelligence Ministry released a statement about the foiled bombing plots by Takfiri-Wahabi groups. The intelligence minister also announced in May that 20 terrorist cells that had planned to detonate bombs and cause insecurity across the country had been dismantled.

End Item

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Some 2,500 Daesh Takfiri terrorists killed in Fallujah: Iraqi commander

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:0PM

A senior Iraqi commander says nearly 2,500 Daesh Takfiri terrorists have been killed during a month-long offensive to recapture the strategic western city of Fallujah from the extremists.

Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, the commander of Fallujah Liberation Operation, said on Monday there were between 3,500 and 4,000 Daesh militants in Fallujah, located some 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad, when Iraqi government forces, backed by fighters from Popular Mobilization Units, launched a large-scale operation in late May to retake the city.

The Iraqi commander, who was speaking with al-Sumaria satellite television network late on Monday, noted that 15 percent of Daesh Takfiris in Fallujah were foreign nationals.

He went on to say that 1,086 Daesh-affiliated suspects have also been arrested.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Haider al-Obeidi, a commander of Iraqi special forces, said Iraqi forces have taken control of Shurta and Jughaifi neighborhoods in Fallujah, adding that Iraqi military engineers were clearing up streets and buildings of improvised explosive devices.

According to the Iraqi commanders, 80 percent of Fallujah is now under their control although some intermittent clashes are reported in northern parts of the city.

On Tuesday, Ariane Rummery, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said more than 85,000 people have fled Fallujah and surrounding areas ever since the operation to liberate the city began, noting that thousands more people "could still be planning to leave the city."

"These escalating needs have pushed UNHCR funding into crisis levels. We are exhausting available resources in Iraq to deal with the rapid developments in Fallujah," Rummery said.

Also on Wednesday, a security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi special forces have found 12 decapitated bodies of Daesh militants in the Second Zabat neighborhood of Fallujah.

The source noted that Iraqi government forces also discovered the dead body of Daesh media officer, identified by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Asafi, in the same area.

On June 17, Iraqi forces managed to raise their national flag on the main government complex in Fallujah as they faced little resistance from the Daesh terrorists, who had lost their defenses there in the course of the weeks-long offensive.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated the nation on the liberation of Fallujah, saying there is no place for Daesh terrorists in the country.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by gruesome violence ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive in the country in June 2014.

Iraqi forces, backed by volunteer forces, have been pushing the militants out of the country's territory.

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Pledging Conference in Support of Iraq

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

June 22, 2016



On July 20, the United States will join with Canada, Germany and Japan to co-host a Pledging Conference in Washington, D.C. in Support of Iraq. The reports from Fallujah in recent days on the grave humanitarian situation for those displaced, as Iraqi Security Forces continue their successes against Da'esh in the city, are just the most recent reminder of the human toll this conflict has had on vulnerable civilians. It also reinforces the urgent need for the international community to continue to support humanitarian and stabilization efforts in Iraq.

Through its cooperation with the Iraqi government and the International Coalition, the UN has established the Fund for Immediate Stabilization (FFIS) in Iraq, which supports the implementation of rapid stabilization projects. FFIS has been used in Tikrit, Ramadi, Sinuni, Rabia, al-Dawr, Mkeishifa and Sa'adiyah to help restore electricity and water service, clear rubble, rehabilitate schools and health clinics and help get business in shape to re-open. Through these efforts more than 725,000 displaced Iraqis have been able to return to their homes, but much more is needed. Due to the conflict and upheaval since January 2014, more than 3.4 million people are now displaced throughout Iraq and more than half are children. Across the country, over 10 million people are in urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

The highly prioritized United Nations 2016 Iraq Humanitarian Response Plan calls for $861 million to support frontline humanitarian programs, but it is only 33 percent funded. The UN has already closed dozens of lifesaving programs and has warned that without immediate additional funding, it will be forced to close dozens more as soon as this month. Over the coming months, humanitarian costs could climb to over $2 billion as potentially a million people are displaced from Mosul as military operations liberate Iraq's second largest city.

The goal of the July 20 Pledging Conference is to garner much needed financial contributions to address the challenges faced by the Iraqi people and to ensure the lasting defeat of Da'esh in Iraq. The international community has provided a significant amount of humanitarian assistance to Iraq, with the United States alone contributing approximately $800 million since 2014. The United States will make a substantial humanitarian and stabilization pledge during the conference, and we look to other nations to join us in this effort.

For further information, please contact the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at RodriguezPA@state.gov.

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Japan condemns N Korea for its fresh ballistic missile tests

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:26AM

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says North Korea's launch of two ballistic missiles on Wednesday is "unforgivable" as his country's armed forces are put on high alert.

North Korea launched its most effective test yet of two intermediate-range Musudan missiles on Wednesday that flew about 400 km (250 miles).

"The missile launches today, as with all the others, are a clear violation of the United Nations resolution, and it is unforgivable and we strongly condemn them," Abe said in Tokyo.

Japan's minister of defense said one of the missiles reached an altitude of over 1,000 km (621 miles), showing Pyongyang has made progress developing intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

Japan's Defense Ministry said that the second missile launched on Wednesday morning flew 400 km (248 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan.

The launches came despite US-led warnings and a series of UN Security Council resolutions that ban the North from using ballistic missile technology, which Pyongyang rejects as an infringement of its sovereignty.

The Musudan ballistic missiles can travel to anywhere between 2,500 kilometers and 4,000 kilometers (1,550 to 2,500 miles). The lower-range ones can hit anywhere in South Korea and Japan, while the long-range ones can target US military bases on Guam, in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Earlier in the day, Japan put its military on high alert after reports surfaced that signs have been detected of a possible missile launch by Pyongyang.

The Japanese military ordered its naval destroyers and anti-ballistic missile Patriot batteries to be prepared for targeting and destroying any projectile heading from the North towards Japan.

In Seoul, South Korea's presidential office said a national security meeting would be convened later on Wednesday to discuss the latest missile launches.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

In January, North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the US and its regional allies.

A month later, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said placed an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul denounced it as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Pyongyang was recently placed under the toughest UN sanctions in two decades but the country has pledged not to relinquish its nuclear power unless the US ends its hostile policy and dissolves the US-led military command in South Korea.

Washington holds joint military maneuvers with Seoul, which Pyongyang views as preparations for war and a direct threat against its security.

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Top US General urges military action in Libya

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:34PM

The US military's plans to counter the Daesh (ISIL) Takfiri terrorist group in Libya "makes no sense," a top US general says, adding that Washington needs to take a tougher stance in the country.

Marine Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the US Africa Command, made the comments before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

"I am not aware of any overall grand strategy at this point," the general said in response to a question by the committee's chairman, Senator John McCain, on whether Washington had a strategy for Libya.

Waldhauser said that Daesh was preparing to take over more land in Libya in case it was completely defeated in Iraq and Syria.

"That's why instability inside Africa is to ISIL's advantage," he noted, adding that Daesh was shifting focus on the Libyan city of Sirte as a "kind of backup" if it fails elsewhere.

He then warned that despite a growing Daesh presence in the conflict-ridden country, the US military was not conducting any airstrikes in the country.

"There are targets that are being developed but there have not been flights flown," Waldhauser told the lawmakers.

The general went on to say that such attacks would be "wise" even without confirmation from the White House and he would welcome to have the authority.

In reaction to Walhauser's remarks, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told CNN on Tuesday that "we don't make a decision to carry out a military strike lightly."

He also noted that Washington has considered airstrikes in the past and is "prepared to do so again in the future."

Last month, Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Washington may deploy troops and equipment to the troubled North African country "any day" now.

In March 2011, a coalition of US-backed Western countries, including the UK and France, launched missile and air strikes on Libya, helping the ouster of former leader Muammar al-Gaddafi following a national uprising.

But the ensuing power vacuum allowed various militant groups, including a Daesh affiliate, to gain power in the country and exploit its natural resources.

Daesh controls a tenth of Libya's coastline and, according to CIA Director John Brennan, it has 5,000 to 8,000 militants in the country.

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Libyan forces advance against Daesh in Sirte

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 8:36AM

Forces loyal to Libya's unity government have tightened the noose around Daesh terrorists in the northern port city of Sirte, advancing further into the Takfiri group's stronghold.

Rida Issa, a spokesman for the government-backed brigades, said the forces were securing the "700" neighborhood, just south of central Sirte, and had also made ground to the west of the city center.

Brigades composed mainly of fighters from the western city of Misrata launched a campaign against Daesh a month ago, advancing rapidly towards Sirte from the west.

"Our forces are combing the 700 neighborhood after fierce clashes," Issa said. "The electricity company headquarters, TV and radio building, Number 2 neighborhood, and Bin Hamel mosque are all recaptured."

He said the forces had also seized a second ammunition store from the terrorists while 16 brigade members had been killed and 60 others wounded in the clashes.

Pro-government forces have repelled multiple counter-attacks from the surrounded militants in recent weeks as they are preparing for a final assault on Sirte.

Figures show at least 170 troops have been killed and hundreds wounded since the start of the offensive last month to capture Sirte, which is located 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of Tripoli.

The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli, has been trying to unite Libya's factions since arriving in Tripoli in March. It has created several operations rooms in an effort to coordinate the campaign against Daesh.

Sirte, which fell to the Takfiri terrorists in February 2015, is the government forces' key target, whose liberation could serve as a boost to stability in the war-ravaged country.

Daesh has been taking advantage of the chaos embroiling Libya since the NATO-backed overthrow and murder of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The oil-rich North African country has had two rival governments since 2014.

Libyan politician Khalifa Ghweil's self-proclaimed government has seized the control of the capital with the support of militia groups, forcing the internationally-recognized government to move to the remote eastern city of Tobruk.

Last December, the two governments achieved a consensus on forming a unity government, the GNA, after months of UN-brokered talks in Tunisia and Morocco.

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Heavy Fighting Against Islamic Militants in Benghazi, Sirte

by Edward Yeranian June 22, 2016

Forces loyal to Libya's new "national unity" government in Tripoli have reportedly made gains inside the Islamic State-held coastal city of Sirte, while forces loyal to the rival government in Tobruk say they have pushed back al-Qaida militants in Benghazi.

Militiamen loyal to the "unity" government captured two districts inside Sirte amid heavy fighting and reports of casualties on both sides.

Ahmed Hadiya, a spokesman for pro-government military forces in Sirte, told Libyan TV that battles took place in several areas.

He says pro-government militiamen had pushed IS fighters out of the Zafran and Gharbiyat districts and cornered them in small pockets of the 700 district and the Ouagadougou conference center.

Fierce resistance

Islamic State fighters were reported to be fighting fiercely, despite recent losses, using car bombs, suicide attackers and other booby-trapped objects.

A government militia commander in Sirte told journalists that IS fighters had booby-trapped vehicles and shops to stop the government advance into the city.

The Libya Herald newspaper reported that 170 pro-government militiamen have been killed and over 700 injured since the start of the military operation dubbed "Bunyan al Marsous," to retake Sirte.

The paper added that many of the casualties in the fighting were taken to Misrata Central Hospital, where doctors refused to allow journalists to take photos. It indicated that many of the wounded had suffered "horrific" injuries and that conditions at the hospital were poor because of shortages of drugs, antibiotics and even nurses.

Benghazi

Arab media also reported heavy fighting inside Libya's second largest city of Benghazi, as forces loyal to the government in Tobruk fought to expel Islamic militants loyal to al-Qaida. Heavy clashes against the militants took place in the nearby port of Ajdabiya several days ago.

A spokesman for Libyan military units in the east of the country, loyal to army commander Khalifa Haftar, told journalists that his forces were advancing against the militants near the districts of Sabari and Souq al-Hout, near Benghazi. The Libyan army has made similar claims of gains against militants in Benghazi in the past.

Forces loyal to General Haftar have also carried out airstrikes against Islamic militant positions near Ajdabiya and the eastern militant stronghold of Darna in recent days.

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S.Korea denounces DPRK's missile launches as violation of UN resolutions

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 18:57, June 22, 2016

SEOUL, June 22 -- South Korea on Wednesday denounced the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s test-launches of two missiles, which were believed to be intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missiles, as it violated UN Security Council resolutions banning any test of the DPRK's ballistic missile technology.

Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told a press briefing that all DPRK launches of projectiles using ballistic missile technology were in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, saying that the Wednesday launches were clear provocations against South Korea.

The DPRK test-fired what was believed to be a Musudan missile at 8:05 a.m. local time from its Wonsan area in the east coast, about two hours after launching another missile near the area, according to Seoul's defense ministry.

The military authorities of South Korea and the United States are conducting detailed analysis on whether the launches were successful.

The South Korean government will convene a National Security Council meeting, chaired by Kim Kwan-jin, top security advisor to President Park Geun-hye, to discuss countermeasures.

Attendants to the closed-door meeting would be ministers of foreign affairs, unification and defense as well as chief of the National Intelligence Agency, the country's spy agency, and presidential senior secretary for foreign affairs and security.

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Seoul: Sanctions Against N Korea May Be Toughened Over New Missile Launches

Sputnik News

14:46 22.06.2016(updated 14:53 22.06.2016)

South Korean foreign ministry warned Wednesday that sanctions against North Korea may be toughened after the country launched two ballistic missiles.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  The US, Japanese and South Korean military detected two launches of presumably medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea's eastern coast earlier in the day.

"The government of the Republic of Korea [ROK] strongly condemns the North Korean provocation and sternly warns that North Korea will face tougher sanctions and pressure from the ROK and the international community," the statement said adding that the launches pose a grave threat to security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.

South Korean foreign ministry called on the northern neighbor to refrain from further provocations and stop its nuclear missiles.

"The ROK government and military stand fully ready to retaliate strongly against any provocation by North Korea that pose a threat to the lives of the ROK people and the security of the ROK, and will firmly and unswervingly respond to them," the statement added.

Tensions over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs escalated after Pyongyang said on January 6 that it had successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test and put a satellite into orbit on February 7. The moves violated UN Security Council resolutions, and prompted the United Nations to impose sanctions.

 Sputnik

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Russia to act against NATO's aggressive rhetoric: Putin

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 10:7AM

President Vladimir Putin says Russia will take adequate measures to counter NATO's increasingly "aggressive rhetoric."

"NATO is strengthening its aggressive rhetoric and its aggressive actions near our borders," Putin said in an address to the lower house of parliament on Wednesday.

He said Russia must work to strengthen its combat readiness at a time when NATO is expanding and moving its infrastructure towards Russia's borders.

"In these conditions, we are duty-bound to pay special attention to solving the task of strengthening the combat readiness of our country."

Putin further called for the creation of an international security system void of "bloc-like thinking" and open to all countries.

"Russia is ready to discuss this extremely important issue," he said, adding that such proposals have been so far left unanswered by Western countries.

Putin's remarks come as the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw in early July is set to put the "Russian threat" high on the agenda.

On Tuesday, Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the Defense Committee of Russia's State Duma (lower house of parliament) dismissed remarks by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg who accused Moscow of violating "the Fundamental act of NATO-Russia."

Komoyedov said that the accusations do not bear scrutiny, saying it is actually the Western military bloc that is constantly boosting its potential near Russian borders.

"Everyone understands that these are not some peace doves that fly to us to feed from our hands," he said.

"These are the beasts that, once allowed to react to the alleged Russian 'aggression,' would bite off the whole hand up to the shoulder and wouldn't even choke on it," he added.

NATO has stepped up its military buildup near Russia's borders since it suspended all ties with Moscow in April 2014 after the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula re-integrated into the Russian Federation following a referendum.

The US and its European allies accuse Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine.

However, there is disagreement within the bloc, with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticizing NATO for having a bellicose policy towards Russia, describing it as "warmongering".

NATO announced last Monday that it would deploy four battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to counter a more assertive Russia, ahead of a landmark summit in Warsaw next month.

Russia has said it will create three new divisions in its southwest region to meet what it describes as a dangerous military buildup along its borders.

Putin on Wednesday accused the West of rejecting overtures from Russia to help tackle the common foe of "international terrorism."

The Russian leader was addressing parliament on the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union.

Drawing historic parallels with the 1930s, Putin said humanity now faced a danger of failing to withstand the fast-spreading threat of terrorism, just as it once failed to unite against the rising power of Nazi Germany.

"What kind of a lesson is still needed today to discard old and frayed ideological disagreements and geopolitical games and to unite in the fight against international terrorism?" he said.

Russia is aiding Syria with airstrikes and military advice in the Arab country's battle against foreign-backed Takfiri groups and other militants.

The US and its allies support militants opposed to the Syrian government under the declared aim of fighting Daesh terrorists.

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Assad asks electricity minister to form new government

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:34PM

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has asked the country's electricity minister to form a new government.

Imad Khamis was tasked with forming the new cabinet on Wednesday, Syria's official news agency, SANA, reported.

Sources had earlier told the Russian English-language news channel RT that the new cabinet will include 12 new ministers, such as the justice minister, health minister and the minister of electricity.

According to the report, the key portfolios will remain intact as the ministers of foreign affairs, interior, defense and finance will not be changed.

Khamis is to submit his proposal for new ministerial appointments in the coming days, AFP reported.

He is a 54-year-old engineer, who is to replace Wael al-Halqi who had held the post since August 2012.

Khamis had served as Syria's minister of electricity since 2011 and is an electrical engineer. He has been under sanctions by the European Union since March 2012.

The changes come more than two months after parliamentary elections were held in the country on April 13, in which a high voter turnout was recorded.

A number of opposition parties were running in the race, but armed opposition groups boycotted the vote and called it illegitimate. Parliament members are elected for a four-year term in Syria.

Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis it blames on some foreign states for more than five years.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict since March 2011. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in the Middle Eastern state, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

Backed by the Russian air cover, Syrian forces have managed to liberate many militant-held areas over the past few months.

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Russia: Nusra Front militants continue to shell Aleppo

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 11:25AM

Russia says al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front militants continue shelling residential neighborhoods in the Syrian city of Aleppo despite a "regime of quiet" being in force.

"Groups from the Jabhat al-Nusra international terrorist organization keep trying to disrupt the cessation of hostilities," the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria said Wednesday.

The center said the terrorists had used multiple rocket launchers and mortars to pound populated districts of Handrat, Sheikh Maqsood, al-Khalidiyah and the al-Nayrab airport in Aleppo in the past 24 hours.

Nusra Front militants also shelled residential areas in the al-Fu'ah town in the Idlib province, al-Wata in Latakia Province and Haush-Kharabu, Blelie and Marj Sultan districts near the town of Mazaraat Kaukaab in Damascus Province.

A ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia went into effect on February 27 in Syria, but it does not apply to Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups.

On Wednesday, a London-based monitor said at least 25 civilians, six of them children, had lost their lives in a series of airstrikes against the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens more were wounded, some of them critically, in the Tuesday aerial attacks.

Fresh airstrikes targeted Raqqa on Wednesday, and one of them struck the town hall, the observatory said. The assaults, it said, were apparently carried out by the US-led coalition.

Raqqah, on the northern bank of the Euphrates River, was overrun by Daesh terrorists in March 2013, and was proclaimed the center for most of the terrorists' administrative and control tasks the next year.

Since September 2014, the US has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The strikes have allegedly targeted and killed civilians in many cases, while they have largely fallen short of weakening Daesh.

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Pentagon Avoided Cutting Off Internet in Daesh Stronghold of Raqqa

Sputnik News

20:07 22.06.2016(updated 20:08 22.06.2016)

The US Department of Defense refrained from cutting off Internet access in the Islamic State's command and control center in Raqqa, Syria out of concern for citizens' rights to access the Internet, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland and Global Security Thomas Atkin said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  In April, the Defense Department officially announced it had begun the use of offensive cyber tactics in the fight against Daesh. The US military acknowledged that it had to carefully weigh decisions over when to use cyber tactics to shut down communications networks versus using the networks to gather intelligence.

"Certainly going after specific nodes to hamper and stop the use of the Internet by ISIS [Daesh] is important, but we also have to respect the privileges and rights of citizens to have access to the Internet as a whole and as a country," Atkin told members of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

"When you start talking about 'taking out the Internet,' there are all these challenges," Atkin explained when pressed on why Daesh is still able to use the Internet for command and control, recruitment and similar activities.

"Internet services to a region are much broader generally than just the single command control node," Atkin said, noting he would discuss the matter further in a classified session with lawmakers taking place on Wednesday afternoon.

 Sputnik

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Turkish jets bomb PKK sites in north Iraq, southeast Turkey

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:25AM

Turkish warplanes have conducted fresh airstrikes against the positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

The airstrikes were carried out overnight on Wednesday, destroying PKK hideouts and weapon caches in the areas, security sources said.

The warplanes hit targets near the Turkish towns of Lice in Diyarbakir Province and Semdinli in Hakkari Province.

The Iraqi government and semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have frequently objected to Turkey's airstrikes on Iraq's territory.

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against the positions of the militant group in northern Iraq as well.

On June 11, some 13 PKK militants were killed and several others injured in Lice bombing.

Turkey's operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern town of Suruc in which more than 30 people were killed.

A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following Turkish strikes against the group.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left more than 40,000 people dead.

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Turkey Launches Third Naval Corvette to Promote Domestic Defense Industry

Sputnik News

03:10 22.06.2016(updated 05:09 22.06.2016)

In a lavish ceremony, Turkey unveiled its third naval corvette over the weekend, with a fourth on the way.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared at the launch of the TCG Burgazada, Ankara's new Ada-class corvette, declaring it the latest sign that Turkey is approaching military self-sufficiency. The launching of the country's third corvette comes eight years after the first, the TCG Heybeliada, was launched.

Built under a program called MILGEM, the corvettes have a displacement of roughly 2,400 tons and will be used in anti-submarine, patrol, and search and rescue missions. They are equipped with a 76mm gun and a range of missiles and torpedoes.

With a maximum speed of 29 knots, Turkey's corvettes have a range of 3,500 nautical miles.

Four additional ships are planned, and Turkish officials say these will be "more advanced and bigger vessels," according to Defense News.

Ankara wants to reduce its dependence on foreign militaries. The country currently produces 60% of its own hardware, up from 25% over a decade ago.

In addition to corvettes, Erdogan said that Turkey will soon "be in a position to make our own aircraft carriers." To that end, it has already teamed up with Spanish shipbuilding company Navantia, preparing to spend over $1.5 billion on a landing platform dock.

"Turkey has no obstacles to construct its own aircraft carrier," Erdogan said. "The current resolute government is capable of doing it. Turkey cannot become lazy in defense and military issues."

Ankara also plans to invest heavily in air defense systems that will be placed along the Syrian border. Using a counter-mortar radar and self-propelled air-defense gun system designed by Turkish defense firm Aselsan, Ankara hopes to defend against rocket fire entering its southern provinces, primarily from Syria.

"These efforts will boost and upgrade border security in that area," one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Defense News.

The Turkish Naval Forces include over 20 frigates and corvettes and 13 submarines.

 Sputnik

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PARIS, June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While globally in 2015 High Net Worth Individual (HNWI)1 wealth saw only a modest growth of 4 percent, wealth in Asia-Pacific grew at an aggressive 10 percent propelling Asia-Pacific into the lead position as the region with the most HNWI wealth globally according to the 20th edition of the World Wealth Report (WWR), released today by Capgemini. This is the first time that Asia-Pacific is ahead of North America for both HNWI wealth and population. In 2015, Asia-Pacific held US$17.4 trillion in wealth with a 5.1 million HNWI population in comparison to North Americas US$16.6 trillion in HNWI wealth and 4.8 million in population.

An infographic accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1c72a68e-ba75-422e-880b-d057d32dfe93

Global HNWI wealth reached US$58.7 trillion and the HNWI population grew at 4.9 percent to be 15.4 million in 2015. Since 1996, global HNWI wealth growth has expanded by four times equaling nearly US$59 trillion, and if current modest growth rates hold, wealth is projected to reach US$100 million in 2025. Despite these record wealth levels, the report also found that only one-third (32 percent) of global HNWI wealth is currently being managed by individual wealth managers, representing a challenge and an opportunity for firms to consolidate assets.

It is remarkable that only one-third of HNWI wealth is currently with wealth management firms which shows how great the growth potential is for firms that can combine digital technology and FinTech capabilities with human expertise and relationships, to reflect state-of-the-art services for clients, says Anirban Bose, Head of Banking and Capital Markets, Capgeminis Financial Services Business Unit. Those firms that can offer a digitally-integrated customer experience that builds on high levels of trust and confidence in firms and captures the characteristics of speed, flexibility and ease of use will be well positioned to become leading firms of the future.

Asia-Pacific Region Poised to Drive Growth over Next Decade

Asia-Pacific has been a driving force, doubling HNWI wealth and population over the decade. Asia-Pacifics HNWI wealth grew by 10 percent in 2015 which is almost five times North Americas 2 percent wealth growth in 2015 decelerating substantially from 2014s 9 percent growth rate. Using a more aggressive growth projection, if markets in Asia-Pacific continue to grow at its 2006 to 2015 rate, Asia-Pacific will represent two-fifths of the worlds HNWI wealth in ten years, more than that of Europe, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa combined. Japan and China stand out as regional dynamos, driving almost 60 percent of global HNWI population growth in 2015.

Asia-Pacifics HNWI population growth of 9 percent in 2015 also far outpaced that of North America (2 percent), and was nearly double that of Europe (5 percent). Latin America was impaired by the poor performance of Brazil, which lost momentum in both HNWI population (-8 percent) and wealth (-6 percent). Dampened by Latin America, ultra-HNWI wealth, long a driver of overall HNWI wealth did not provide its usual boost in 2015. Excluding Latin America, however, ultra-HNWI wealth grew more than the other wealth segments, both in 2015 and for annualized growth over 2010 to 2014.

Opportunity for wealth management firms to attract more clients

Wealth management firms are well positioned to capture a greater share of the rising tide of HNWI wealth, the report found. HNWIs exhibited substantially more confidence in wealth management firms (+17 percentage points) and the financial markets (+30 points) in 2015 compared to 12 months prior. And while trust in individual wealth managers remained flat, 68 percent of HNWIs expressed satisfaction with the relationship, indicating a willingness to consolidate more of their assets with wealth managers.

Wealth management firms and wealth managers, however, have yet to gain a majority share of HNWI investable assets. In 2015, more HNWI wealth (35 percent) was essentially liquid, held in bank accounts or as physical cash, compared to the 32 percent that was overseen by individual wealth managers. Under-40 HNWIs were even less likely to turn to wealth managers (28 percent), while those in North America were more likely (39 percent).

Leveraging high levels of trust is key

To help wealth management firms build upon growing levels of trust and attract more HNWI assets, the WWR identified the characteristics that HNWIs are most likely to seek in a firm. The top three services HNWIs look for when choosing a wealth management firm are investment advice (47 percent), financial planning expertise (40 percent) and investment access (40 percent). In addition, the report found almost half of HNWIs (48 percent) are focused on investing for growth. Because a growth approach involves a tendency to hold more assets in alternative investments, wealth management firms may need to broaden their investment expertise beyond equities. Finally, HNWIs are also starting to favor pay-for-performance fee models, requiring firms to examine their more traditional fee approaches.

20 Years of the World Wealth Report

This years report includes a retrospective of the last 20 years of HNWI wealth, which was marked by resiliency, even in the face of global financial disaster, as well as the rise of various trends, including social impact investing and technology disruption. Looking ahead, the report predicts that the pace of change will accelerate with disruption in four key areas: clients, operations, regulations, and digital technology. It is anticipated that change will span many issues, including but not limited to: market volatility, wealth transfer impact, pressure on traditional fee models, acceleration of value chain commoditization, regulatory focus on fiduciary duty and FinTech disruption. Budgetary allocations will need to adjust from business as usual towards transformation, to reflect the changing dynamics and new realities of the industry.



The World Wealth Report from Capgemini is the industry-leading benchmark for tracking high net worth individuals (HNWIs), their wealth, and the global and economic conditions that drive change in the Wealth Management industry. This years 20th annual edition includes findings from the most in-depth primary research works available on global HNWI perspectives and behavior. Based on responses from over 5,200 High Net Worth Individuals across 23 major wealth markets in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa, the Global HNW Insights Survey explores HNWI confidence levels, asset allocation decisions, perspectives on driving social impact, as well as their wealth management advice and service preferences. The 2016 Capgemini Wealth Manager Survey queried more than 800 wealth managers across 15 major wealth markets in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, to assess the evolving role of wealth managers.

For more information, explore the interactive report website at www.worldwealthreport.com.

About Capgemini

With more than 180,000 people in over 40 countries, Capgemini is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2015 global revenues of EUR 11.9 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business, technology and digital solutions that fit their needs, enabling them to achieve innovation and competitiveness. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore, its worldwide delivery model.

Serving two-thirds of the worlds largest financial services institutions, Capgeminis Financial Services Unit helps banks, capital markets firms, and insurers meet todays industry disruptions with innovative business and IT solutions which create tangible value. A team of 45,000 financial services professionals around the world collaborates across geographies, domains, and technologies to support its clients. Capgeminis Financial Services Unit brings award-winning industry expertise, leading market insights and over 25 years of global delivery excellence to client engagements.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com and www.capgemini.com/financialservices.

Connect with Capgeminis wealth management experts in the Financial Services section of Capgemini Expert Connect at http://www.capgemini.com/experts/financial-services.

The World Wealth Report 2016 and other Capgemini thought leadership is available for your iPad through Capgemini's Financial Services Insights app. Download it through iTunes here.

1 High Net Worth Individuals have more than US$1 million in investable assets excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables.
State Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham County  who is running to replace Robert Hurt in Congress  voiced his opposition to recent gun control legislation and defended the Second Amendment in a news release Wednesday.

Garrett was responding to a message of support from Democratic opponent Jane Dittmar for legislation implementing both universal background checks and preventing those on the no-fly list from purchasing firearms.

It is shameful to see the Dittmar-Obama gun control agenda being promoted under the guise of national security by preying on peoples fears and politicizing the tragedy in Orlando, Garrett said in the release.

Garrett said the measure would not have prevented the Orlando nightclub attack, because gunman Omar Mateen had already been removed from the FBIs terrorist watch list. Additionally, he said the lists problems could mean Americans not on the list might be denied gun access.

At one point, [former] Sen. Ted Kennedy was on the no fly list, so we know it is incredibly flawed, Garrett said in the release. Even if the no-fly list wasnt routinely incorrect, the fact that Jane Dittmar and President Obama advocate for your government deciding your guilt and subsequent suspension of rights without a trial or due process is an unmitigated outrage.

Garrett said Democrats were practicing hypocrisy by not moving to halt immigration from countries with large Muslim populations while attempting to prevent American-born Muslims from purchasing firearms.

What we should be doing is strictly enforcing the immigration and counter-terrorism laws and initiatives already on the books and immediately cease discussion of restricting or violating the rights of millions of law-abiding citizens, he said.

In response, Dittmar said looking at the issue as a critique of the watch lists was a false choice. She suggested those already in Congress fix the issue of false positives, instead of engaging in partisan fighting.

These are smart men and women, and they can figure it out, Dittmar said.

She also countered the suggestion that background checks would impede on the Second Amendment, saying background checks would be easy to undergo for law-abiding citizens.

It allows anyone who doesnt have these predictive behaviors to exercise their Second Amendment rights over and over again, Dittmar said.

Dittmar said background checks already have public support in Virginia, citing a recent Christopher Newport University poll where 88 percent of responders supported the measure.
A Gretna man was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter in a crash Wednesday afternoon that killed a South Carolina woman.

James Max Miller, 67, was in a 1990 Lincoln Town Car traveling on Va. 642 when he crossed into the median and failed to yield the right-of-way, according to a Virginia State Police news release.

The Town Car struck a 2013 Ford Escape traveling south on U.S. 29, the news release stated.

Eloise B. Coyne, 57, of Hollywood, South Carolina, was a passenger in the Ford and died at the scene, according to state police. She was not wearing her seatbelt.

The Escape was driven by Erin Coyne Lanier, 30, of Hurt. She was wearing her seatbelt and was transported to a local hospital, police said. There was also an infant in the vehicle in a car seat who was not injured but was transported to a local hospital with the mother.

According to a Pittsylvania County General District Court criminal complaint, Mr. Miller had bloodshot, watery eyes with an odor of an alcoholic beverage about his person.

A field sobriety test revealed Millers blood alcohol concentration to be 0.114, the criminal complaint stated. The legal BAC limit in Virginia is 0.08. A Virginia State Police crash reconstruction team was called to the scene to assist with the ongoing investigation.

Unicia Buster worked with Coyne for five years at the Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Department of Arts in Healthcare. She said Coyne was a considerate and humble person.

She worked in the palliative care unit, which specializes in medical care for people with serious illnesses. Buster said Coyne never met a stranger. She regularly went out of her way to help and assist patients.
To the editor:

The last of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution  which we today know as the Bill of Rights  came about on Dec. 15, 1791. Under the sponsorship of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and other Virginia delegates, they made it clear that these additions to the Constitution were necessary if Virginia was to ratify the Constitution.

The Tenth Amendment is the most important of all the Amendments, and yet the least understood and greatest ignored portion of that great document.

In Jeffersons biography, one early realizes his major concern about the Constitution was the powers it bestowed on the Supreme Court. On numerous occasions he had remarked, There needs to be a tight leash on the Supreme Court, or it will destroy the Constitution.

Clearly he hoped the House of Representatives, using its (Article 1, Section 2) sole Power of Impeachment and (Article III, Section I), good Behaviour requirement, along with the Tenth Amendment to keep the Supreme Court in check, would be this leash.

The Tenth Amendment says, The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States Respectively, or to the people. Now that is bluntly clear, and it was aimed directly at the Supreme Court by Thomas Jefferson.

Unfortunately a prevailing misconception among us is lawyers among us will give us the Constitution. This is a seriously mistaken presumption. In attempting to discuss the U.S. Constitution with lawyers, I have found most of them do not read the Constitution; they read what the courts have said about it. Too many courts like to treat it as a living document, which they can interpret according to their notion of the moment.

Even before Jeffersons death, the Supreme Court has been dabbling in what the Tenth Amendment makes bluntly clear are the affairs of ,the States Respectively, or to the people.

I believe it is about time for the state Supreme Court justices to meet in conference with the House Judiciary Committee members to reclaim their Tenth Amendment prerogatives stolen from them by the Supreme Court a century and a half ago.

If such a meeting between the state court officials and the House of Representatives to bring about the necessary impeachments and removals to protect the peoples Bill of Rights does not succeed, and a silent and delinquent Congress cant or fails to meet these needs, you can expect to see the people  using their Second Amendment prerogatives  to move in defense of the Constitution.

Have you taken a look at the steadily increasing sale of guns in the country in recent years?

FRANK B. TURBERVILLE JR.

Milton, North Carolina
Vancouver - African Metals Corp. (the Company) reports that it has received the resignations of Kenneth B. de Graaf, Gerald Harper and Gavin Cooper as directors and officers of the Company and its subsidiaries. This leaves Simeon Tshisangama as the sole remaining director of the Company. Pursuant to Section 134 of the British Columbia Business Corporations Act, Mr. Tshisangama will appoint such further number of directors as is necessary to constitute a quorum to enable the Company to carry on business and will investigate all necessary steps to protect the interests of the Company and its shareholders and other stakeholders. He intends to put forth a plan to enable the Company to resolve its significant financial difficulties and move forward with its business objectives. Mr. Tshisangama will issue a progress report within the next two weeks.ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AFRICAN METALS CORPORATIONSimeon Tshisangama, DirectorTelephone: 1-514-430-1274 African Metals Corp. [TSXV AFR] is a Canadian listed company focused on the discovery and development of copper and cobalt deposits in the world renowned Africa Copper Belt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). AFR through its 100% owned Canadian subsidiary, Chevalier Resources Inc. (Chevalier), holds a 75% interest in the Congolese subsidiary, Luisha Mining Enterprises Sarl (LME). LME holds legal title to the 16.2 sq.km. small scale mining licence, PEPM 4881, called the Luisha South Project, located in the Katanga Province of the DRC.AFR holds an option to increase its equity interest to 90% in LME, upon a Qualified Person defining a certain minimum Indicated Resource tonnage for contained copper and cobalt. AFR must also make certain milestone payments in a mixture of cash and shares to reach the milestone of a 90% interest.The Luisha South Project is located 75 kilometres northwest of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga Province. The Luisha South Project contains an approximately three kilometre strike length of Roan Group sediments which are the hosting environment for Cu-Co mineralization in the DRC and Zambia. The project includes a small historical open pit mine and an associated low grade copper and cobalt mineralized stockpile. The Luisha South ore body was explored between 1923 and 1928 and an oxide deposit extracted in the 1940s.The results of reverse circulation and core drilling programs at the Luisha South Project in 2010 and 2011 by AFR allowed estimation of a NI 43-101 compliant Inferred Resource of 14.7 Million tonnes at 1.1% Cu (161,700 tonnes of contained copper) and 0.3% Co (44,100 tonnes of contained cobalt) using a 0.5% Cu cut-off.This technical content is reprinted from the Companys press release dated June 15, 2016. The Qualified Person who reviewed and approved the technical content contained in that release is Dr. Gerald Harper, P.Geo.(Ont) as stated in the June 15, 2016 press release.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulatory Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This press release includes certain forward-looking statements concerning the future performance of the Companys business and operations as well as managements objectives, strategies, beliefs and intentions. Forward-looking statements are often identifiable by the use of words such as may, will, might, would, plan, believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, scheduled, forecasts and similar expressions or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases. Such statements include Mr. Tshisangamas expectations that he will appoint further directors to constitute a quorum

investigate all necessary steps to protect the interests of the Company and its shareholders and other stakeholders

put forth a plan to enable the Company to resolve its significant financial difficulties to move forward with its business objectives

issue a progress report within the next two weeks

Forward-looking statements are based on the current opinions and expectations of management, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those currently anticipated by such statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Companys expectations, fluctuating commodity prices, delays in commencing the Companys proposed drilling program, exploration costs varying significantly from estimates, the availability of financing, and other risks identified in the Companys documents filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities at www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only of the date on which it is made, and except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.


TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Gran Colombia Gold Corp.'s (TSX: GCM) (OTC PINK: TPRFF) Annual Meeting of Shareholders was held on Thursday, June 23, 2016. The detailed results of the votes for each matter to be acted upon are set out below:

Item No. Description of matter Outcome of vote Voted Voted (%) 1. Fixing the number of directors at ten. Approved 84,811,905 For 98.63% 1,173,881 Against 1.37% 2. The election of the following individuals as directors of the Corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of the Corporation or until their successors are appointed or elected: Miguel de la Campa Approved 79,685,634 For 99.01% 797,405 Withheld 0.99% Serafino Iacono Approved 79,286,634 For 98.51% 1,196,405 Withheld 1.49% Mark Ashcroft Approved 79,685,566 For 99.01% 797,473 Withheld 0.99% Edward Couch Approved 79,431,378 For 98.69% 1,051,661 Withheld 1.31% Rodney Lamond Approved 79,685,910 For 99.01% 797,129 Withheld 0.99% Ian Mann Approved 79,431,378 For 98.69% 1,051,661 Withheld 1.31% Hernan Juan Jose Martinez Torres Approved 79,685,625 For 99.01% 797,414 Withheld 0.99% Robert Metcalfe Approved 79,685,625 For 99.01% 797,414 Withheld 0.99% Jaime Perez Branger Approved 79,286,625 For 98.51% 1,196,414 Withheld 1.49% Mark Wellings Approved 79,685,901 For 99.01% 797,138 Withheld 0.99% 3. Appointing KPMG LLP as auditors of the Corporation at a remuneration to be fixed by the directors. Approved 85,709,927 For 99.68% 275,860 Withheld 0.32%

2016 Production Update

Gran Colombia also announced today that its total gold production for the month of May was 13,141 ounces bringing the total for the first five months of 2016 to 56,682 ounces, up 36% over the same period last year. At the Segovia Operations, 11,023 ounces of gold were produced in May bringing its total production to 46,976 ounces for the first five months of 2016, up 44% over the same period last year. A 50% increase in tonnes milled in 2016, averaging 735 tpd through the first five months, has been the primary contributor to Segovia's production improvement in 2016. In the Company-operated mining areas at Segovia, which represent about half of the tonnes milled this year, development and mechanization activities in the Providencia and El Silencio mines have generated a 50% improvement in tonnes milled in 2016 and a 17% increase in head grades compared with the same period last year. Gran Colombia has also seen a 49% increase in ore sourced from the contract mining cooperatives in the first five months of 2016 with head grades averaging 22 g/t. At the Marmato underground mine, May's gold production of 2,118 ounces brought the total for the first five months of 2016 to 9,707 ounces, up 7% over the same period last year. Gran Colombia remains on track to meet its annual production guidance of 120,000 to 138,000 ounces of gold.

About Gran Colombia Gold Corp.

Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based gold and silver exploration, development and production company with its primary focus in Colombia. Gran Colombia is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer in Colombia with several underground mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is in the midst of an expansion and modernization project at its Segovia Operations.

Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information", which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to production guidance. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Gran Colombia to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated as of March 30, 2016, which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and Gran Colombia disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Address 65 London Circuit Canberra, ACT 2601 View map Book online Features Licensed, Bar, Accepts bookings, Gluten-free options, Vegetarian friendly Prices Moderate (mains $20-$40) Chef Louis Couttoupes Payments eftpos, AMEX, Cash, Visa, Mastercard Phone (02) 6230 6222

First thing, it's helluva noisy here on a Saturday night, and we're more than a little out of place. Essentially, Bar Rochford is, as its name suggests without ambiguity, a bar. It's a deliberately low-key entrance way in the Melbourne Building  so much so that after standing on the pavement looking left and right for a few minutes, we call Bar Rochford to ask them where they are, They don't answer; I'm sure it's way too noisy to hear a phone ringing. But as we're waiting for a pick-up we realise that we're standing directly in front of the door. This, of course, is exactly what bars are supposed to be like now: obscure. If you're looking, it's the door next to Lemon Grass Thai on London Circuit.

The narrow, dark stairs are lit with tea light candles and being ancient and risk averse we wonder vaguely about fire hazards, but we like it at the same time. And upstairs the room is busy, some historic ambience, the windows of the Melbourne Building looking good, high ceilings, a few books and old lamps arranged randomly on shelves. Either someone hasn't bothered to tidy up the concrete beams on the ceiling or it's deliberately half done to go with the Euro tatty-chic style, complete with hanging lights, booths and a general sense of relaxation. The music is muffled and heavy, it sounds like old vinyl records, perhaps of live recordings, and adds to the retro feeling.

We wonder briefly whether Bar Rochford is more bar than restaurant and therefore not a place where you go to critique food closely. But that lasts only as long as it takes for food to start arriving, when it becomes immediately clear that despite the fact many people are here tonight for a drink more than food and despite the tiny kitchen where there's no space for anything to get too complex, the food is a big focus, and very good.

Tatty-chic: Inside Bar Rochford. Photo: Elesa Kurtz

Local Homeleigh Grove olives are a good bar snack and start to dinner. Then comes lamb tartare with crispy Jerusalem artichoke, which is an excellent dish. Raw meat is a challenge for some, and lamb perhaps more than beef, but this is clean and simple tasting, not difficult, the lamb chopped small but not mince-small and clearly very fresh. The Jerusalem artichoke is an inspired touch, funky and smokey, and the thin toasts also are great  super salty, but that's right with the raw meat.

The challenging dish comes next, a chicken liver parfait. Chicken liver is about as difficult as it gets for me, with this nagging feeling liver is not an organ meant for eating, and this version doesn't shy away from those intense pungent liver flavours. The parfait is fresh, light and very pink. The cherry compote is strong with cinnamon and a good accompaniment, and "that's the burnt toast", the guy says as he brings it to the table. It is supposed to be burnt and it is, but I think we're no longer supposed to eat burnt toast. It's not supposed to be good for you, so it might sound cool and the entire dish might be on target, well handled and highly appealing to many, but I'm not eating the toast.

The wagyu is really good meat, a substantial service, cut thick. Cooked rare  just charred on the outside, and served with an anchovy mustard dressing. So simple, so good. The chips that our children order (yep, the only children in the place  it's not really a family eatery) are good, with excellently fresh garlic aioli.

Cheese board and aged ham. Photo: Elesa Kurtz

The pumpkin dish is ridiculously simple, in a good way. Just a wedge of roast pumpkin, skin on, roasted but still firm, with fresh parsley, nuts and seeds, and something contributing heat, served on yoghurt. I love this simplicity and the confidence and care that has marked every dish tonight. It's modern without being derivative.

So, too, with the dessert. There's only one on the menu  seems to be the thing at the moment  and it's a good one. Orange "posset", a big dollop of thick orange cream with orange shavings on top, old-fashioned in name, up-to-date and startling citrus to taste.

Service has been timely and focused, with only one moment of hesitation on our part when the guy slips into the booth with us to explain the menu  but I guess this is par for the course now and it's true we might have struggled to hear if he hadn't been on our level.

The wine list is reasonably brief and well chosen, with a focus on the lesser known and the more interesting. Locally, it's Nick O'Leary's 2014 tempranillo and Bryan Martin's Ravensworth Seven Months white blend. And there's a focus on whiskies  a long list of them.

Bar Rochford is a slightly confusing mix of bar and restaurant, compounded on our visit by it being a Saturday night, so you need to be prepared for that. But it has nailed the food and wine and is the best newcomer I've visited for some time.

http://www.barrochford.com/
Spanner crab, sake vinegar jelly, brown butter emulsion, pea flower and horseradish from Sepia, Sydney. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

Grilled oyster from Igni, Geelong. Photo: Josh Robenstone

Uni, koshihikari rice, salted yolk, fish maw, sweet prawns, umami broth from Quay, Sydney. Photo: Brett Stevens

Schnitty sanga from Fleet, Brunswick Heads. Photo: Kate Nutt

Marron, Geraldton wax and watercress from Orana, Adelaide. Photo: Aaron Fenwick

Slow-roasted parsnip and apple mousse, Brae, Birregurra.

Scallop dish from Wildflower, Perth. Photo: Supplied

Yabby jaffle from Monster Kitchen & Bar, Canberra. Photo: Lee Grant

Apple truffle strudel from Esquire, Brisbane. Photo: Michelle Smith

Salted red kangaroo and bunya bunya from Attica, Melbourne. Photo: Jane Holroyd

Roasted Murray cod grenobloise from Restaurant Hubert, Sydney. Photo: Supplied

Pad Thai from Long Chim, Perth.

Poulet vin jaune d'Australie from Bar Brose, Sydney. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

Paperbark-grilled fish from Paper Daisy, Cabarita Beach. Photo: Supplied

Whole slow-roasted lamb shoulder, Cumulus Inc, Melbourne. Photo: Earl Carter of





























Of course you're not planning to die any time soon, but we thought you should know how good the Australian dining scene is right now, just in case.

So here's a handy glovebox guide to 17 of the most exciting dishes that are happening across the country. Diversity being our middle name, they jump from Japanese-inflected seafood, slow-roasted meats and Australian natives to retro snacks that make drinking even more fun. Together, they represent a new era in Australian gastronomy. Pace yourself. There's a lot to get through.



Roasted Murray cod grenobloise

Where: Restaurant Hubert, Sydney

Why: An impeccably farmed Australian freshwater fish famed for its subtle, snow-white, flaking flesh is wood-roasted and served whole by classics-with-a-twist chef Dan Pepperell. Bathed in a classic French sauce of brown butter, capers and onions and served by candle-light. It's a real "event" dish, a magnificent thing in keeping with the nostalgia of this sprawling basement bistro and bar.

restauranthubert.com



Salted red kangaroo and bunya bunya

Where: Attica, Melbourne

Why: It's never a dull moment dining at the highly awarded Attica, as Ben Shewry builds the experience into a unique and almost interactive experience. This is the standout dish, a mind-bending drama queen of salted Uluru kangaroo fillet teamed with purple carrot, native currants, fermented cabbage and a lush bunya bunya puree that is both astringent and lush, primeval and elegant.

attica.com.au



Poulet vin jaune d'Australie

Where: Bar Brose, Sydney

Advertisement

Why: Because Analiese Gregory is a rising star who brings originality, freshness and great wine-friendly flavours to this long, narrow Darlinghurst bar. And because the busty Holmbrae chicken is bathed in a ladleful of glossy, winey sauce (not the celebrated yellow wine of the Jura but Gregory's own blend of Pennyweight Oloroso, Tom Shobbrook's Il Chicco, and shao hsing), enriched with foie gras butter and crisp chicken-in-a-biskit shards.

barbrose.com.au



Slow-roasted parsnip and apple mousse

Where: Brae, Birregurra

Why: Former Mugaritz head chef Dan Hunter created his ground-breaking regional restaurant as "a place to interact with nature and eat from the land". In his hands, the humble parsnip takes on a new life as a naturally sweet dessert  slow-roasted until it is a crisp, hollowed-out shroud, filled with parsnip and apple mousse under a fizz-wizz of tart, dehydrated apple.

braerestaurant.com





Spanner crab, sake vinegar jelly, brown butter emulsion, pea flower and horseradish

Where: Sepia, Sydney

Why: Because the Queensland spanner crab meat is cooked in butter at 70C to keep its moisture, then dressed in walnut oil and rolled in a very fine sheet of sake vinegar and sake jelly, served on a brown butter creme fraiche and finished with pea flower petals and dehydrated pea dust. Complexity reduced to simplicity: pure Martin Benn.

sepiarestaurant.com.au



Apple truffle strudel

Where: Esquire, Brisbane

Why: It makes you rethink the apple. Stanthorpe pink ladies are rotor-sliced, gently cooked, dried, fried and formed into a crisp apple rose, served with a truffle jam made from Malmsey wine, beef stock and fresh Manjimup truffles and a rich mascarpone Chantilly cream. And no, it's not a dessert.

esquire.net.au



Uni, koshihikari rice, salted yolk, fish maw, sweet prawns, umami broth

Where: Quay, Sydney

Why: Peter Gilmore says this is a great representation of his cooking right now, being full of texture and powerfully harmonious flavours. The nutty koshihikari rice is enriched with Port Phillip Bay sea urchin butter, topped with crisp fish maw made from the swim bladder (fish maw) of northern barramundi, served with an intense umami broth made from 30 different ingredients.

quay.com.au



Raw Shark Bay saucer scallops with sesame cream

Where: Wildflower, Perth

Why: In this glass-and-steel cube atop boutique hotel COMO The Treasury, chef Jed Gerrard serves raw scallops from Shark Bay, 800 kilometres north of Perth, on a white sesame cream with a gel of apple juice and native basil. An additional apple, wild fennel and chardonnay "snow" falls at the table.

Where: Paper Daisy, Cabarita Beach, NSW

Why: Forget your fish of the day; this is the fish of the year. At this charming beachside boutique hotel Ben Devlin layers blue-eye trevalla in both soft and crisply cooked caramelised onions, seaweed and lemon myrtle, encases it in a sheath of paperbark and grills it over hot coals. It is, quite simply, a great Australian dish.

halcyonhouse.com.au/restaurant



Grilled oyster

Where: Igni, Geelong

Why: Chef Aaron Turner (formerly of Loam) is back with a bang at this tucked-away 50-seat treasure down a Geelong laneway. With luck, the opening volley of snacks will include this take-your-breath-away oyster with seaweed and oyster plant, served warm in a porcelain oyster shell.

restaurantigni.com



Seasonal agnolotti

Where: LuMi, Sydney

Why: It could be small coins of spelt ravioli holding hot buttery pumpkin puree, or soft capsules of paper-thin agnolotti encasing nonna's tomato sugo, but it will be extraordinary, as Federico Zanellato packs elegance, power, structure, acidity, balance and finesse into the very idea of pasta.

lumidining.com



Schnitty sanga

Where: Fleet, Brunswick Heads

Why: In this tiny restaurant, Astrid McCormack and Josh Lewis redefine how we dine with personal warmth and quietly captivating small courses. The downy-soft, white-bread "schnitty sanga" pairs crumbed sweetbreads and anchovy and mustard mayo in a shock of crisp/soft, hot/cold.

instagram.com/fleetrestaurant



Marron, Geraldton wax and watercress

Where: Orana, Adelaide

Why: In Australia, it makes perfect sense for a Scottish/Italian chef with French training to champion indigenous Australia and its powerful, resonant ingredients. That's how we roll. Hence the relentlessly restless Jock Zonfrillo marries delicate Kangaroo island marron or Coorong mullet with the lime/lemongrass shock of Geraldton wax in this luxurious, evocative dish.

restaurantorana.com



Wood-roasted pigeon

Where: Franklin, Hobart

Why: It's all about the 10-tonne wood-fired Scotch oven in this minimalist concrete-clad, wine-oriented, Tasmania-first restaurant. Uncompromising chef/owner David Moyle roasts whole local pigeons to a bronzed caramel, pressing the bones to extract goodness for the accompanying (very pinot-friendly) sauce.

franklinhobart.com.au



Yabby jaffle

Where: Monster Kitchen & Bar, Canberra

Why: Yabbies + horseradish + creme fraiche + chives + lemon juice + gruyere + buttered bread = one hot, crisp, toasty yabby jaffle. Chef Sean McConnell takes comfort food to new heights at Hotel Hotel's free-wheeling, all-day restaurant.

monsterkitchen.com.au

Pad Thai

Where: Long Chim, Perth

Why: When David Thompson does pad Thai, it's done properly. So the usual mindless office lunch order is, instead, beautifully eggy, with springy rice noodles, crunchy bean shoots and sweet prawns, with three types of chilli and the traditional white sugar on the side.

longchimperth.com



Whole slow-roasted lamb shoulder

Where: Cumulus Inc, Melbourne

Why: Sharing the eight-hour slow-roasted lamb shoulder at Melbourne's best workaday bistro is a rite of passage. Inspired by a humble worker's meal in La Rioja in Spain, Andrew McConnell cooks the shoulder sous-vide for eight to 12 hours, then roasts it until the crust caramelises and the meat falls from the bone at the very sight of a fork. Festive, celebratory and delicious.

cumulusinc.com.au
Address 68 Bay St Ultimo, NSW 2007 View map Phone 02 9281 5048

Three words have changed the exterior side arm of Broadway shopping centre from Place To Hail A Cab While Holding Fifty Bags Of Groceries to Place To Get A Pizza And Have A Fun Time Doing It. Those words, my friends, are Salt, Meats, Cheese. And it looks like all of the inner west's fringe dwellers know about it, too.

Friday night sees a packed room, a DJ in the back corner (a space that could very easily take up another table, really, but ours is not to judge when it comes to unmemorable house music played off a laptop in a busy Italian restaurant) and wait staff moving a million miles an hour, seamlessly navigating between narrowly spaced tables, laden with food.

So with that in mind, it pays to roll with the punches. Eating here is kind of a kamikaze affair where you order-and-pay-at-the-counter and hope for the best. It's a pretty extensive menu on offer  a grab bag of burgers with an Italo-twist, pasta, polenta. But it's easy enough to skip most of it altogether.

The interior of Salts Meats Cheese in Broadway. Photo: Cole Bennetts

Mixed arancini are somehow simultaneously chalky, gooey and gummy which, when you think about it, is quite an achievement.

An antipasto plate, one of the few things on the menu that's even vaguely vegetarian friendly (just turn the prosciutto to face the wall, or throw a napkin over it), is a pretty straight selection of roast pumpkin, buffalo mozzarella, olives, and "Italian" hummus (I wonder what magical ingredient transforms it into such a specific chickpea dip?)

Best to head straight for the pizza instead. You certainly won't find a better one between here and Gigi in Newtown.

The buffalo pizza is a great take on the classic margherita. Photo: Cole Bennetts

The buffalo  your classic margherita on a scorched base with large rounds of fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil  is a pretty good example of the genre.

A calzone special of fior di latte, Italian sausage and Brussels sprout leaves may have turned up as a regular pizza ("It's an open calzone" argues the waiter. So  it's a ... pizza? "Yes") but the mix of bitter cruciferous, the sweet richness of the sausage and the lick of char on the chewy pizza base really works.

We roll with it.

Pro Tip: Live close by? They also deliver

http://www.saltmeatscheese.com.au
San Angelo Central Bobcats host Permian in key District 2-6A showdown

The San Angelo Central High School football team will host Odessa Permian Friday in a battle of two of the four teams tied for first in District 2-6A.
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COUNTY COURT-AT-LAW

Judges Penny Roberts

and Ben Nolen presiding

Criminal Docket

Dispositions

Patricia Ann Johnson, 10/67, was found guilty by jury on a charge of assault. She was sentenced to 180 days in jail.

Maria Alejandra Gutierrez, 6/69, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Cesar Delarosa Jr., 5/77, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail (probated 1 year) and fined $400.

Matthew John Streng, 2/81, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail (probated 9 months) and fined $800.

Ashley Lerma, 2/84, deferred adjudication on a charge of driving while license invalid.

Harry James Mathews, 8/83, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 75 days in jail and his driver's license suspended 6 months.

Glenda Elaine Rodriguez, 3/65, deferred adjudication on a charge of driving while license suspended/invalid.

Jimmy Arthur Garcia, 6/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail (probated 18 months) and fined $500.

Jimmy Arthur Garcia, 6/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal mischief. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail (probated 18 months) and fined $500.

Carlos Robles Lozano, 6/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while license invalid. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and his driver's license suspended by law.

Aaron Dwain Goodson, 7/85, deferred adjudication on a charge of graffiti.

Monica Danielle Moreno, 1 1/84, deferred adjudication on a charge of unlawful possession of marijuana.

Felix Villareal Rodriguez, 3/75, deferred adjudication on a charge of driving while license invalid.

Kyle James Thompson, 7/90, deferred adjudication on a charge of racing on highway.

Kimberly Dhooghe, 6/67, deferred adjudication on a charge of theft.

Kevin Cardenas, 1 1/87, pleaded guilty to a charge of evading detention. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Dawn Marie Williams, 3/73, deferred adjudication on a charge of assault.

51ST, 119TH, 340TH and 391ST

DISTRICT COURTS

Judges Barbara Walther,

Ben Woodward, Jay

Weatherby and Thomas

Gossett presiding

Criminal Docket

Misti Michelle Martinez, 12/84, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of forgery financial instrument, dismissed.

Kelly Dewayne Bell, 9/69, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of burglary of building, dismissed.

Kevin Michael Ott, 1/85, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of burglary of building, dismissed.

Mark Albert Wyatt, 3/85, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of evading arrest, dismissed.

Margaret J. Fernandez, 4/58, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of theft, dismissed.

Daniel Roy Lombrana, 3/87, a charge of aggravated assault with deadly weapon, dismissed.

Manuel Alfonso Tellez, 5/83, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault with deadly weapon.

Eddie Lara, 12/72, deferred adjudication on a charge of injury child/elderly/disabled.

Paul Steven Ray Chavez, 6/89, deferred adjudication on a charge of unauthorized use of vehicle.

Johnny Jimenez, 7/82, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated sexual assault child.

Daniel Lopez Contreras, 8/82, a charge of bail jumping and fail to appear felony, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Daniel Roy Lombrana, 3/87, a charge of evading arrest detention with vehicle, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Daniel Roy Lombrana, 3/87, a charge of unlawful possession of firearm by felon, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Kenneth Wayne Catron, 3/87, deferred adjudication on a charge of assault.

Dierdre Anna Harper, 12/74, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Alejandro Elieder Valdez, 8/90, a charge of fraud use possession identifying info, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Alejandro Elieder Valdez, 8/90, deferred adjudication on a charge of forgery financial instrument.

Alejandro Elieder Valdez, 8/90, deferred adjudication on a charge of unauthorized use of vehicle.

Kenneth Wayne Catron, 3/77, a charge of criminal mischief, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Kenneth Wayne Catron, 3/77, a charge of burglary of habitation, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Kenneth Wayne Catron, 3/77, a charge of burglary of habitation, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Michael Anthony Cortez, 12/89, pleaded guilty to a charge of credit card or debit card abuse. He was sentenced to 548 days in prison.

Victor Blevins, 8/80, a charge of intoxicated assault with vehicle, dismissed-convicted in another case.

David Martin Anderson, 1/75, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Juan Jose Hernandez Longoria, 9/61, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Francisco Sanchez Jr., 4/65, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of delivery of marijuana, dismissed.

Rodolfo Martinez, 1/57, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of possession of a controlled substance, dismissed.

Briana Doty, 8/86, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of possession of a controlled substance, dismissed.

Ginger Lynn Simpson, 1/84, deferred adjudication on a charge of manufactured delivery of a controlled substance.

Leandro Robert Valles, 7/73, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of possession of a controlled substance, dismissed.

Kelly Dewayne Bell, 9/69, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of bail jumping and fail to appear felony, dismissed.

Brandon Renee Payne, 1/87, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of forgery financial instrument, dismissed.

Monica Denise Diaz, 1/84, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of theft, dismissed.

Rita Maria Martinez, 4/80, a charge of fraud possession controlled substance/prescription, dismissed.

Raymond David Baldridge, 12/74, pleaded guilty to charge of aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Reynaldo Reyes, 4/61, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison (probated 5 years) and fined $1,500.

Celiberto Rodriquez Ruiz, 12/65, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison (probated 5 years).

Bobby Frank Bingham, 8/59, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Sirron Wesley Dewitt, 3/88, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault with deadly weapon.

Jefferey Montemayor Duran, 4/75, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 250 days in prison.

Fabian Garcia Gomez, 1 1/87, pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary of building. He was sentenced to 365 days in prison.

Cort Wynn Harrison, 11/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

John Patrick Maloney, 10/58, a charge of burglary of building, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Joe Palomin Herrera, 9/59, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Bobby Frank Bingham, 8/59, a charge of bail jumping and fail to appear, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Kim Lopez, 10/70, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. She was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Michael Jacob Roever, 3/87, a charge of theft, dismissed.

Kino L. Banda, 10/72, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

Daniel Ray Perez, 1/85, a charge of burglary of habitation, dismissed.

Billy James Wayne, 10/74, a charge of engage in organized criminal activity, dismissed.

George Eddie Randle, 12/87, a charge of kidnapping, dismissed.

Don Stearn, 5/62, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

Don Stearn, 5/62, a charge of assault, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Chris Nieto, 5/88, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of marijuana.

Chriselda C. Cortez, 6/66, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft. She was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

Marcos Callaway Salasar, 9/87, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault.

King L. Banda, 10/72, pleaded guilty to a charge of forgery. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

Joseph Nunez, 4/76, pleaded guilty to a charge of arson. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison (probated 6 years) and fined $2,000.

Abraham Martinez-Perez, 1/87, a charge of evading arrest detention with vehicle, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Abraham Martinez-Perez, 1/87, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault against public servant.

Clifton Michael-Robert Giles, 2/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison (probated 5 years).

Casey Stephen Leasure, 4/58, was acquitted by jury on a charge of injury child/elderly/disabled.

Gilbert Carbajal, 8/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of evading arrest. She was sentenced to 457 days in prison.

Bryan Keith Miller, 11/77, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 730 days in prison (probated 5 years) and fined $500.

Austin Chase Edwards, 4/85, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison.

Curtis Lloyd Pruitt, 5/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft. He was sentenced to 730 days in prison.

Nati G. Rodriguez, 9/49, on a charge of driving while intoxicated, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was sentenced to 2 years in prison (probated 2 years) and fined $1,500.

Juan Matilde Rodriquez II, 8/87, deferred adjudication on a charge of criminal mischief.

Marvin Linn Willis, 7/73, pleaded guilty to a charge of manufacture delivery of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Curtis Lloyd Pruitt, 5/68, a charge of bail jumping and fail to appear, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Monica Duran, 12/79, deferred adjudication on a charge of fraud use/possession identifying info.

Charles Randel Wiethorn, 4/67, was found not guilty by jury on a charge of assault public servant.

Russell Lee Woods Jr., 6/76, pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful possession of firearm by felon. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Leah Lou Ann Niesporek, 3/70, pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorized absence community correction facility. She was sentenced to 274 days in prison.

Nicolas Talamanez Jr., 8/47, a charge of injury child/elderly/disabled, dismissed.

Robert Michael Parton, 10/61, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 5 years) and fined $1,500.

Clifton Michael-Robert Giles, 2/84, a charge of assault, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Bryan Keith Miller, 11/77, pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful possession of firearm by felon. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years) and fined $500.

Jimmy Lynn Townsend, 6/76, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession controlled substance. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison (probated 7 years) and fined $5,000.

Tyrone Williams, 9/57, a charge of possession of a controlled substance, dismissed-convicted in another case.

Tyrone Williams, 9/57, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Danny Ray Zapata, 1/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Bryan Keith Miller, 11/77, pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary of habitation. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years).

About 'For the Record'

The records in "For the Record" are provided by the Tom Green County justice of the peace, county and district clerks' offices. The Standard-Times publishes all the records it receives from the office and does not edit them for content. Entries involving criminal cases include the defendant's name, date of birth, and the charge. Civil dockets involve divorces.

For corrections or clarifications, please call (325) 659-8252.

Following is a glossary of legal terms in the records.

Arraignment: The calling of an accused person before a court to answer the charge made against him. Typically, pleas are entered and bonds are set at arraignment.

Disposition: The resolution of a case.

Deferred adjudication: A type of probation. If the defendant successfully completes the terms of probation, the proceedings are dismissed.

Probated: A probated jail sentence is not served unless the defendant violates terms of probation.
SHARE Torres Rayos

By Ngan Ho of the San Angelo Standard-Times

A Tom Green County judge sentenced a 43-year-old San Angelo man to 40 years in prison Tuesday for possession of methamphetamine.

A jury deliberated for about an hour earlier in the day and found Willie Guillermo Torres guilty of possession of 1-4 grams of methamphetamine, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

His sentence was harsher because prosecutors enhanced Torres' charge to "habitual," which carries a punishment range of 25 to 99 years or life in prison.

Torres has four prior felony convictions in Tom Green County stretching back to 1994, with the most recent in 2012: resisting arrest, evading arrest and two convictions of burglary of a habitation.

Punishment was decided by 391st District Judge Tom Gossett after two days of trial.

"Methamphetamine is an addictive and dangerous substance and its abuse often leads to the commission of additional criminal acts such as burglaries," stated a joint news release from the 51st and 119th District Attorney Offices. "We will continue to aggressively prosecute those who abuse methamphetamine and other illegal substances."

On March 9, 2015, a San Angelo police officer initiated a traffic stop at the 1600 block of Beacon Street, according to court documents. The officer saw Torres, who was sitting in the passenger seat, making furtive movements, according to the release. The officer searched the car and found a small white bag containing meth under Torres' seat.

Torres was arrested for possession of meth and on two county warrants for unauthorized use of a vehicle and burglary of a habitation, according to court documents. Torres was taken to the Tom Green County Jail, where a second search turned up another bag of meth in his pants.

Aggravated assault sentence

On Wednesday 119th District Judge Ben Woodward sentenced a 39-year-old San Angelo man to 30 years in prison for three counts of aggravated assault against a public servant.

Fermin Gene Rayos Jr. was arrested in April 2015, accused of threatening three San Angelo police officers with knives, and was indicted in June 2015.

During his bench trial Wednesday morning in Woodward's courtroom, Rayos pleaded not guilty.

Aggravated assault against a public servant is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Rayos received a 30-year sentence because the offense involved a deadly weapon, according to a release from the 119th District Attorney's Office, and Rayos will not be eligible for parole until he serves at least half the sentence.

Rayos had a prior conviction for deadly conduct by discharging a firearm, for which he received seven years in prison.

Police were dispatched to the 1300 block of East 17th Street on April 20, 2015, for a report of a suspicious person, according to court documents.

Officers found Rayos on the street, yelling and holding a knife in each hand, the release stated. Rayos started walking toward the officers "wielding and swinging a knife while yelling" and telling the officer to "stay back," according to court documents.

Rayos made stabbing motions and continued to act aggressively toward the officers who were inside their patrol vehicles. Police eventually created a perimeter with their cars and boxed Rayos in, stated the release.

According to court documents, Rayos had to be followed by multiple SAPD vehicles until officers used a stun gun and took him into custody.

"This was an extremely dangerous situation and someone could have easily been injured or killed," stated the release from the 119th District Attorney's Office. "The patrol officers who responded did an excellent job keeping themselves safe, while at the same time de-escalating the situation and resolving it without any injuries."
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The U.S. is buying coffee from Cuba, but no cigars.

In the push for free trade with Cuba, Texas has managed to sell rice and other states have sold soybean oil. In turn, we have bought some coffee, but what we really want are those Cuban cigars, John Block, former U.S. secretary of agriculture, said.

Meanwhile, leaders in business and agriculture, including the Waco-based Texas Farm Bureau, have joined forces to create the Engage Cuba Texas State Council, which will push to have travel and trade restrictions abolished with the island country 90 miles from Florida.

"Agricultural exports contribute about 25 percent to the income of farmers and ranchers, so you can see the importance of foreign trade with other countries, including Cuba," said Glen Jones, director of research and policy development for the Texas Farm Bureau.

The goal is to give farmers and manufacturers a multibillion-dollar economic nudge by permitting the sale of products to Cuba, according to a news release.

"Texas is a leading economic driver for the U.S. economy and opening up trade with Cuba would provide tremendous opportunities for businesses across the state," Engage Cuba President James Williams said in a statement on the council's creation recently. "However, Texans are stuck on the sidelines as our foreign competitors continue to take advantage of Cuba's growing markets."

Cuba depends heavily on agricultural imports, which average $2 billion annually, "and this number will continue to grow given the increasing purchasing power of 11 million Cubans," said Jenifer Sarver, a spokeswoman for the Engage Cuba Texas State Council.

"There is also an immediate need for infrastructure improvements to meet the rising demand of foreign travelers. Texas is well-positioned to help meet these and other needs on the island," Sarver said.

"Given the size of Cuba, it won't be huge, but potentially very lucrative," said Waco-based economist Ray Perryman. "Cuba has demands for petroleum and petrochemical products, technology, machinery, food products, professional services and other major Texas exports."

In addition to Texas, Engage Cuba has begun state councils in Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana.

"This (50 year) embargo costs the United States $1.2 billion annually," Sarver said. "Removing trade barriers "could mean big opportunities to agriculture in Texas, which produces rice, soybeans, beans and corn, which the Cuban people really need. As more people travel to Cuba, more food will be needed for visitors."

The Engage Cuba coalition is pushing for passage of three pieces of legislation:

The Agricultural Export Expansion Act of 2015, which has six Texas co-sponsors, would allow American farmers to offer financing to Cuban importers to promote sales.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act would expand Cuba's already growing markets and provide additional opportunities for U.S. agribusiness to export to Cuba.

The Cuba Trade Act of 2015 would permit private-sector industries in the United States to export goods and services to Cuba.

"We can't take the trade wall down without legislation," Block said. "The same goes for other trade agreements. We are in the process of negotiating a trade agreement with the European Union. We have just completed an agreement with 11 other countries on the Trans Pacific Partnership. That agreement now needs to be approved by the countries involved.

"Unfortunately, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both dead set against it (TPP). The chance of our Congress passing it before the November election is next to zero. After the election, we shall see. U.S. Trade Ambassador Michael Froman warns that 'if we get an agreement, it's not just what we stand to gain; it's what we stand to lose if we don't get one.' "
Contributed Photos/University of Indianapolis/Guy Housewright Jessica Campbell (left) and Ryan Strand, of the University of Indianapolis, work to exhume the remains of unidentified immigrants at the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Researchers have discovered that among hundreds of unidentified immigrants buried here, many were in mass graves.

SHARE Contributed Photo An anonymous grave marker bearing the name of the Howard-Williams funeral home was found among the mass graves researchers uncovered at Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Hundreds of unidentified immigrants were buried in the cemetery. Contributed Photo An anonymous grave marker bearing the logo of Funeraria del Angel Howard-Williams was found among the mass graves researchers uncovered at Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Hundreds of unidentified immigrants were buried in the cemetery. Contributed Photo Human bones were found in a kitchen trash bag wrapped in this green plastic bag bearing the name of the Dignity Memorial brand of funeral services, and buried at the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Researchers have discovered that among hundreds of unidentified immigrants buried here, many were in mass graves. Contributed Photo Human bones were found in a kitchen trash bag wrapped in this green plastic bag bearing the name of the Dignity Memorial brand of funeral services, and buried at the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Researchers have discovered that among hundreds of unidentified immigrants buried here, many were in mass graves.

Experts: Some bodies were not even bagged

By Mark Collette Scripps Newspapers

CORPUS CHRISTI ? Unidentified immigrants who died entering the U.S. were buried in mass graves in a South Texas cemetery, with remains found in trash bags, shopping bags, body bags, or no containers at all, researchers discovered.

In one burial, bones of three bodies were inside one body bag. In another instance, at least five people in body bags and smaller plastic bags were piled on top of one another, Baylor University anthropologist Lori Baker said. Skulls were found in biohazard bags ? like the red plastic bags in receptacles at doctors' offices ? placed between coffins.

"To me it's just as shocking as the mass grave that you would picture in your head, and it's just as disrespectful," said Krista Latham, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Indianapolis.

Bodies that were not already skeletonized before burial were found in varying states of decomposition, Baker said.

The bodies are believed to have been buried by a local funeral home since 2005 in the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Brooks County.

The discovery came in the last two weeks as the pair of anthropologists and their students continued an all-volunteer, multiyear effort to identify immigrants who have died of exposure while evading Border Patrol checkpoints in remote South Texas, where temperatures reach more than 100 degrees in the summer and there is little water or shade. Hundreds of people have died in just the last few years in Brooks County alone, where the discovery of the mass graves was made in the county-owned portion of the cemetery in Falfurrias.

The researchers and their students exhumed remains of 110 unidentified people from the cemetery in 2013. This summer they performed 52 exhumations, but more than 52 people were buried in those spaces. Because remains were commingled, and not all of the body bags were opened on-site, further study will be needed to determine the number of people recovered, Baker said. The researchers expect to return next year to exhume more remains.

The mass graves are yet another sign of U.S. immigration systems and policies overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and of their difficulty coping with the humanitarian aspects of illegal immigration. Since October the nation has struggled to house and process record numbers of minors fleeing civil and political unrest in Central America, many traveling alone. Immigrants from Central America travel north along freight train lines in Mexico, leading to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and on to Brooks County.

There, they set out on foot across rugged, remote, privately owned ranchlands, often led by guides associated with criminal gangs or left to find their way to the next highway north of the checkpoint, a 30-mile trek, or even longer for the lost.

FUNERAL HOME PAID

County officials said they paid the local funeral home, Funeraria del Angel Howard-Williams, to handle the bodies after sheriff's officials recovered them from the brush country. County Judge Raul Ramirez said that was the practice for at least 16 years.

A smaller number of immigrants die in neighboring Jim Hogg County. It has paid Howard-Williams to handle bodies for as long as Chief Sheriff's Deputy Lorenzo Benavides can remember ? at least 22 years, he said. The funeral home buried the Jim Hogg County remains in the Brooks County cemetery, he said.

The funeral home currently charges $450 to handle each body, Brooks County Chief Deputy Benny Martinez said.

Researchers found remains under small, temporary grave markers bearing the Howard-Williams name, Baker said.

A kitchen garbage bag containing bones was tucked inside a gift bag emblazoned with a logo featuring the word "Dignity," Baker said, indicating one of the funeral service brands owned by Howard-Williams' parent company, Houston-based Service Corp. International. The company acquired Howard-Williams in 1999, spokeswoman Jennifer McDunn said.

A funeral home official declined to comment, instead referring questions to McDunn.

"No matter if this is one of our client families we serve on a traditional basis or a migrant family's loved one we're serving and we don't have any identification of the loved one, I do want to let you know it is our policy to treat the decedent with care, to treat them just like we would treat anyone else," McDunn said.

Baker said the funeral home indicated that it had no records when the researchers approached Howard-Williams before exhuming bodies.

McDunn said in an email that the funeral home has "certain records related to these burials, but this does not amount to confirmation that Howard-Williams was involved in depositing the remains in the manner the researchers described."

The funeral home would not give the Caller-Times access to the records.

"Because of the sensitive nature of our business, it is not our general practice to share our records publicly, no matter the decedent or the family we serve," McDunn said.

REGULATION VARIES

Burials in Texas are governed by an array of laws and agencies, depending on the type of burial and the type of cemetery, leading to gray areas of responsibility.

For example, the Texas Health and Safety Code requires that records of dates, locations and names be kept for any burial but doesn't directly say who is responsible, said Kyle Smith, staff attorney at the Texas Funeral Service Commission.

Traditionally, the cemetery owner takes on responsibility of recording and mapping graves, he said. And if a family complains a loved one was buried in the wrong plot ? or together with another body ? a funeral home will usually try to make the situation right, Smith said.

For the mass graves of Brooks County, there are no loved ones here to complain.

Baker said she found similar problems with record-keeping when her group exhumed bodies at a cemetery in Del Rio.

"That could probably be the case in a bunch of rural cemeteries throughout the state," Smith said. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that is status quo throughout the state."

?WORDS MEAN A LOT'

Burying people in bags in mass graves is another matter, said Jon Stephenson, secretary of the Texas Cemeteries Association.

"The whole thing sounds really bizarre," he said. "I can't imagine why a professional funeral home or cemetery or anybody would take that attitude. It doesn't make sense."

Ramirez, the Brooks County judge, was not present during the exhumations and had not been briefed on the findings before a reporter called.

"That's the first I've heard of it," he said. "I am shocked also. That would be unacceptable. I do want an answer. We deserve an answer."

Bishop Emeritus RenA Gracida, of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, said he was shocked when told of the findings, calling the burial practices "wrong ... truly anti-civilized ... barbaric" and lamenting that immigrants are treated without dignity because of their social status.

Eddie Canales, an immigrant rights advocate who has worked to establish water stations for immigrants traversing Brooks County, said the unknown dead deserve more sanctity in burial.

"I think it's very hard for people to connect in the fact that these were human beings," he said. "It just goes to the language, to the words, and words mean a lot: ?All these were illegals.'

"Even in death, they wound up not getting the proper respect."

Twitter: @CallerMC
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Opinion Editor Tom Whitehurst Jr. pops a 30-round magazine into place in an AR-15 on Friday, June 17, 2016, at The Sharp Shooter in Corpus Christi.

SHARE GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Opinion Editor Tom Whitehurst Jr. loads a magazine as he prepares to do a demo oh how fast he can empty an AR-15 on Friday, June 17, 2016, in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES The AR-15 uses a .223-caliber bullet, a high-powered round whose low recoil promotes accurate shooting even when fired rapidly. Opinion Editor Tom Whitehurst Jr. fired 30 rounds in eight seconds at a 50-yard target at The Sharp Shooter indoor range on Friday, June 17, 2016, in Corpus Christi, and hit paper 19 times while concentrating on speed rather than accuracy.

They'll have to pry my bolt-action Remington 700 rifle with its pretty walnut stock from my cold, dead fingers. I killed my first deer with that gun. But my AR-15? That's in play. It has to be.

In December 2012, with the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre still fresh, I wrote about my AR-15 to clear up rampant negative misconceptions and urge honest dialogue about the gun at the center of the controversy  starting with the tiresome assertion that it's not a hunting rifle.

It is. I have hunted with it on many occasions and taken plenty of wild game  only a few deer, but more wild hogs than I can count. For the animals, the outcome is the same no matter how the AR is labeled.

But winning that argument doesn't close the case file on whether the AR-15 should be restricted by the number of rounds it can hold, or by who can buy, sell or own one. It was the weapon of choice in seven of the last eight high-profile multiple-victim shootings, including in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass shooting in the nation's history.

The many uses of the AR-15 need to be explored. So, I've decided to revisit why mine is a good hunting rifle. But this time I'm paying more attention to why the mass killers choose it.

Let's start by clarifying that the AR-15 is semi-automatic, not automatic. Each shot fired requires a trigger pull. Owners and defenders of the AR like to emphasize that distinction.

Not all AR-15s come with a two-stage match-grade trigger like mine. It takes longer to pull but it helps accuracy  and therefore helps a conscientious hunter put down an animal more humanely. It's biased toward slow, careful shooting like the thousand-yard shot Matt Damon took in the remake of "True Grit." It's not a feature that a killer would choose in a gun he'd use to commit mass murder in a Florida nightclub.

But after the first round is fired with a match-grade trigger, the gun is primed for rapid follow-ups with short one-stage trigger pulls. I tried it Friday for the first time, never having done it before because that's not how I hunt or shoot. It took me about eight seconds to fire 30 rounds. A shooter could kill a lot of wild hogs in the brush  or customers in a nightclub  using that technique.

I had to buy the 30-round magazine. My AR came with a 20-round magazine that I seldom load with more than five rounds. If legislation didn't ban AR-15s but limited their magazines to four or five rounds, it wouldn't affect how I use mine. I seldom fire more than once when hunting.

But I can see how a mass killer would prefer a long curved 30-round magazine like the one I bought Friday. With a backpack full of them, pre-loaded, a rapid-firing gunman would face little risk of being subdued by heroic bar patrons.

The AR-15's caliber, .223, is a military round considered by many hunters to be too light for deer hunting. But it is known for little or no recoil, which means that a rapid-fire killer's aim won't be thrown off by getting kicked in the shoulder.

My old Remington hits harder and faster than the .223. But had the Orlando shooter used it instead of his AR, the bolt action would have slowed him down and the four-round magazine would have limited the death toll considerably. A hero or two among the bar patrons could have tackled him and ended the ordeal in seconds while most of the others made their getaway.

Defenders of the AR-15 often say it is a misunderstood victim of its sinister appearance, otherwise not fundamentally different from autoloading hunting rifles with pretty wood stocks. I have said the same.

But let's consider why a killer might prefer an AR-15 to one of those sleek semi-automatic hunting rifles. Browning makes one and it's a beauty. Its magazine can be emptied in an instant with rapid trigger pulls, just like the AR's. But the Browning's magazine capacity is four. In mass-killing real time, that translates to "bang-bang-bang-bang, time to reload, oops, bar patrons are bashing my head in with the butt of my own rifle while the others are getting away!"

Maybe that's why the Browning didn't put in an appearance at Sandy Hook or Orlando.

My previous favorable assessment of the AR-15 as a hunting rifle still stands. But for committing mass murder, no traditional hunting rifle is its peer.

Guns don't commit mass murder, people do. But the AR-15 makes them better at it.

Tom Whitehurst Jr. is editorial page editor at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Contact him at tom.whitehurst@caller.com.
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By Bob Jackson

Keeping Social Security strong and solvent for current and future generations is too important to be lost in the fog of campaign season.

It's crucial that Texans, especially the 13 million of us currently paying into Social Security, listen carefully to and carefully consider presidential candidates' plans for keeping Social Security resilient.

The stakes are high. According to the Social Security trustees, benefits will be cut by nearly 25 percent by 2034 if no action is taken. In addition, millions of families today have precious little savings set aside as they near retirement. Pensions are becoming a rare commodity, and health care costs are on the upswing.

What's more, younger workers are increasingly dubious about the program that's been a backbone of retirement security for generations of Americans and think that Social Security may be an empty promise for them.

For every year our leaders wait and do nothing, finding a solution grows more difficult. So the sooner adjustments are made, the smaller and less abrupt they will have to be. And it all starts with presidential leadership.

But regardless of who is next in the White House, Congress will have a key role to play. Two members of the Texas delegation are key leaders with notable sway over Social Security's future: Rep. Kevin Brady of Conroe, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Sam Johnson of Plano, chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee.

In November, Texans will elect or re-elect 36 men and women to represent them in Washington. As the candidates campaign in their home districts over the next few months, it's a great time to learn where they stand on the future of Social Security. A key question to ask is: Will you take action to update Social Security so it is financially sound and provides adequate income for current and future generations?

Elections have consequences. Amid the noise and the insults that will fill the airwaves in the weeks and months ahead, take the time to think about the issues that really are important to you. Since 1935 when the law was passed, Social Security has been one of them, lifting millions out of poverty and allowing them to retire with dignity.

As engaged citizens, I believe we have a duty to do our part to keep Social Security strong for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.

Bob Jackson is the director of AARP Texas. AARP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization with a membership of more than 38 million, including 2.2 million Texans.
Photo by Bob Daemmrich

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Both campaigns pit sharp-elbowed women against brash-talking men

By Brandon Rottinghaus

Stop me if you've heard this one: Republicans nominate a brash multimillionaire prone to gaffes and verbal acrobatics. His personal attacks against a veteran female politician divide voters, spiking the gender gap. He blames the media and claims to not play by traditional political rules.

Trump for president in 2016? Try Claytie for Texas governor in 1990.

Cut from the same cloth as Trump, 1990 Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee Clayton "Claytie" Williams parlayed his Texas A&M degree in animal husbandry to a multimillion-dollar fortune in oil and gas, real estate and telecommunications. He got the political bug starring in television commercials for his phone company, where he used his cowboy charisma to rope his way onto Forbes' wealthiest Americans list.

Williams had an expansive grin, huge drooping ears and a west-Texas wildcatter's drawl. Molly Ivins described him as the "perfect representative of a vanishing Texas": white, macho and rich  a character plucked right from "Giant."

Trump and Williams are remarkably similar: larger-than-life figures, self-made men, bucolic, mostly self-funded campaigns and television personalities. Trump, like Williams, has attacked the media for bad coverage when his campaign went awry. Both candidates faced a sharp-elbowed female candidate with considerate political experience, keen political instincts and a reputation for getting things done.

If Williams' 1990 race for governor in Texas is any guide, the 2016 presidential campaign will get even nastier. Williams' Democratic opponent was Ann Richards, at that point a former Travis County commissioner and the sitting state treasurer, a seasoned and well-connected politician of a liberal stripe. She entered the general election after a bruising primary where she won 54 percent of the vote against Attorney General Jim Mattox.

Williams entered the race with a 27-point lead and immediately landed in hot water. Sitting informally with reporters on his ranch, he compared bad weather to rape: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it." Williams also bragged about how, as a student at A&M, he would travel to Boy's Town in Mexico or the famed Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange to "get serviced" by prostitutes.

The campaign also quickly turned personal against Richards. Williams said he wasn't comfortable running against a woman and had only battled a woman once, "way back when I had a divorce and I lost." Asked about his campaign strategy against Richards, Williams reported, "I'll head and hoof her and drag her through the dirt." Responding to a claim from the Richards campaign that they were up in the polls, he chortled of Richards, a recovering alcoholic, "I hope she didn't go back to drinking again." He also suggested that Richards was an "honorary lesbian" for her support of gay groups.

And he was still 12 points up.

But the last straw came when he refused to shake her hand. The Richards campaign had run a scathing ad accusing Williams' Midland bank of laundering drug money. This volley was strategically crafted to strike at the heart of Williams' core campaign issue: cracking down on drugs.

At the Greater Dallas Crime Commission lunch, where Richards was to appear before Williams, he confronted her on the stage. Richards rose to leave and put out her hand to shake his, and as he moved past her, he belted out, "I'm not going to shake hands with you. I won't shake hands with a liar."

While this was a seemingly small slight in comparison to Williams' escalating crassness toward Richards, the lack of gentlemanly manners sunk him. Williams' excuse was that he was frustrated by the conventions of the political scene, especially dealing with the media whom he claimed treated him unfairly, and that any mistakes he made happened only because he was new to politics.

Like today, the release of tax returns took on significance. The Richards campaign pressed Williams to release his tax returns, which he had long refused to do. Williams responded that over the years he "paid millions of dollars in taxes ... except in 1986." Although a crash in oil prices in 1986 crippled the whole Texas economy and bankrupted many in the oil and gas business, the issue highlighted the breaks the wealthy got, even though his losses far exceeded his income that year.

The Williams campaign berated the media for what they considered one-sided coverage, but polls showed that after the handshake that wasn't and his admission that he didn't pay taxes in 1986, his 12-point lead reversed to a four-point deficit.

Richards ultimately won the election by 2 percent  just over 99,000 votes  fueled by the wide gender gap between the two. On election night, supporters shouted for him to run again. He responded, "I'm an Aggie, but I'm not crazy."

How does 1990 inform 2016? Like Clinton has done to Trump, Richards turned Williams' own words against him: Her campaign ads included direct quotes from Williams, enough to turn off many voters. Richards shifted to turn out her base, especially women, and campaigned in areas of strength. Clinton will do much the same, especially in emerging battlegrounds such as New Mexico and Colorado.

The Richards campaign painted Williams as a wheeler-dealer with little substance, as Clinton has done of Trump. Richards also deflected criticism of her battles with addiction and reframed them into a strength while exploiting the gender gap  the campaign portrayed her as a tough protector of the family that had "been through hell and back" and was still fighting. Clinton may combat her legal troubles in much the same way.

Even with Williams' coarse and insensitive statements and Richards' adept exploitation of the material he gave her, the 1990 election in Texas was close. In 2016, Clinton also cannot depend on Trump's tasteless comments alone to defeat him. The question becomes whether Trump will finally go too far and have his own "handshake" moment that gives his campaign the fatal blow.

Brandon Rottinghaus is a University of Houston political scientist. He wrote this for The Texas Tribune online newspaper.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the limited use of affirmative action by colleges and universities seeking to enroll more minority students.The justices, by a 4-3 vote, ruled against a white student who was turned down by the University of Texas and claimed she was a victim of discrimination because race was a factor in the admissions process.But the court also warned that schools should use affirmative action sparingly."The court's affirmance of the university's admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the university may rely on that same policy without refinement," read the majority opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "It is the university's ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies."The court's decision is a major victory for affirmative action and something of a surprise, because Kennedy has been a steady critic of race-based admissions policies during his nearly 30-year career.He dissented in 2003 when the court last upheld college affirmative action, at the University of Michigan. At that time, he faulted the majority for deferring too much to the views of university officials. He said the justices needed to strictly examine admissions policies to make sure schools were not putting too much emphasis on race.But in Thursday's opinion, Kennedy reversed course somewhat and said the court should give university officials the benefit of the doubt."Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission," he wrote in Fisher vs. University of Texas. "But still, it remains an enduring challenge to our nation's education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity."Thursday's ruling should give comfort to college officials across the nation who consider a student's race or ethnicity in deciding whom to admit. A broad ruling by the high court rejecting affirmative action could have forced those institutions to revise their policies.But the court's upholding of the University of Texas plan is not likely to have an immediate impact in states, such as California, Michigan or Florida, that have abolished race-based admissions plans though ballot measures or state laws.Faith Carter, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, said the high court's ruling was a relief to her and other minority students."It makes me proud, it makes me feel there is an effort to support diversity in the university," said Carter 21, of Houston, Texas zone chair of the National Society of Black Engineers.She noted that recent figures show the college student body is 4 percent African-American, lower than at other large schools."Just sending the message that this is lawful, that the Supreme Court did find this lawful, that alone helps" encourage diversity, she said. She added that "there are efforts that need to be pursued to improve the environment at the university" for minority students.The Texas case was unusual because a state law, known as the Top 10 percent plan, required state university officials to offer admission to Texas high school students who graduated with top grades at their individual schools.This race-neutral policy opened the door for more Latino and black students to enroll at the Austin campus. But university officials said these gains were not sufficient. They said they wanted to admit some talented minority students who had gone to top-quality, mostly white high schools but were not in the top 10 percent of their classes. They said a limited use of affirmative action could be used to admit several dozen minority students each year who would likely do well at the Austin campus.But this in turn triggered a lawsuit by Edward Blum, a retired stock broker and UT graduate who said the university had no legal basis for evaluating applicants based on their race. He enlisted as a plaintiff Abigail Fisher, who was turned down by UT in 2008 and objected to the race-based aspect of the admissions policy.The issue of affirmative action has closely split the justices for decades, going back to the Bakke decision of 1978. Then, the court in an unusual 5-4 split, struck down a University of California affirmative action policy but said that colleges may consider a student's race as a "plus factor."The 2003 decision in the Michigan case repeated that view, again in a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But after O'Connor retired and was replaced by the more conservative Justice Samuel A Alito Jr., university officials worried that the high court was poised to strike down affirmative action entirely.Joining Kennedy's 20-page opinion in full were liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she had filed an early brief in support of the university when she was the U.S. solicitor general.Alito wrote a 51-page dissent and read much of it in the court. "Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case," he said. He was referring to the court's action on the same case three years ago, when a skeptical majority sent the issue back to a lower court for more review.Alito said the university should have been required to show its affirmative action policy was needed to achieve diversity and was "narrowly tailored" to that goal.He faulted Kennedy for deferring to university officials, particularly after Kennedy had suggested in the earlier decision that the court would demand stricter proof of the need for such a program.Alito also questioned why the Austin campus seeks out more privileged minority students in top high schools. "This argument turns affirmative action on its head," he said. "Affirmative action programs were created to help disadvantaged students."Speaking in the court, Alito said it was not clear whether this was a "one-off" decision that will have no lasting impact or the beginning of a significant shift in favor of affirmative action. That will only become clear, he said, when the next case comes along.
Funding for Planned Parenthood, Medicaid expansion, the states opioid crisis, and a passenger rail line between southern New Hampshire and Boston were topics touched on by Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls at a forum held Wednesday evening at the McConnell Center in Dover.Participating were Mark Connolly of New Castle, Steve Marchand of Portsmouth, and Colin Van Ostern of Concord.Van Ostern, a current executive councilor, started a round of opening statements by saying he is running for governor, so we can build a stronger economy where everyone in New Hampshire has a chance to succeed, and not just those at the top.Van Ostern mentioned restoring funding for Planned Parenthood, and making Medicaid expansion permanent. If said if elected governor, he would work to expand passenger rail from Boston.Van Ostern said people in New Hampshire have to work. It is rare for families to have someone able to stay at home for child care every day. That is just one reason to support and protect public education, he said.We must have full-day public kindergarten in every community in New Hampshire, Van Ostern said.Marchand said he has the most executive experience of the three candidates because he served as the mayor of Portsmouth.Born in Manchester, Marchand said the state is radically different than it was when he was born in 1974, and it needs to continue progressing. He said current state law is behind the mainstream beliefs of the people who live in New Hampshire, particularly on the topics of ending the death penalty and legalization of marijuana.
The Los Angeles City Council gave its final approval Wednesday to a five-year, $57.6-million plan to buy thousands of police body cameras, clearing the way for the LAPD to resume rolling out the devices after a six-month delay.The LAPD is poised to become the largest law enforcement agency in the country to use the cameras on a widespread scale, with plans to distribute 7,000 devices among officers.Wednesday's decision capped a sometimes-rocky review process for the LAPD's body camera initiative, which was backed by Mayor Eric Garcetti and his appointees on the Police Commission. The rollout came to a standstill in recent months amid lingering concerns from city lawmakers.Garcetti said in a statement Wednesday that the vote marked a "historic moment for the LAPD."Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff, who spearheaded efforts to bring body cameras to the LAPD, echoed the mayor's comments, calling Wednesday a "really good day" not only for the LAPD, but for other agencies that he said would look to the Los Angeles Police Department when creating their own body camera programs."The sooner we would have gotten the cameras the better," Soboroff said. But, he said, council members in recent months "asked really good questions to which there were really good answers."Last year, city lawmakers began voicing dismay over the program's cost -- $57.6 million over five years -- and raised questions about whether the Police Department got the best deal possible. Competing technology firms complained they were unfairly left out of the LAPD selection process, which relied in part on a competitive search conducted by the much smaller Kern County Sheriff's Department.As a result, city lawmakers postponed a crucial vote to approve the body camera program, delaying the rollout for months and derailing Garcetti's pledge to put a camera on nearly every officer by the end of this year.LAPD officials do not expect to finish outfitting 7,000 officers with cameras until late 2017, at the earliest.Body cameras have been hailed as a key tool for improving police accountability and building community trust in law enforcement. Garcetti unveiled his initiative in late 2014 amid nationwide protests over how police use force, particularly against African Americans.Critics of the LAPD's plans have been less enthusiastic, saying the department's policy for the cameras will undermine efforts to improve police oversight. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, for example, has opposed the program for months, criticizing the LAPD's decision not to publicly release body camera footage without a court order.Catherine Wagner, an attorney for the ACLU, said Wednesday that the LAPD's policies for how the cameras will be used represent a "backward step for public trust." She said her organization would evaluate its next steps as it continues to monitor the program's implementation."If people think these body cameras will improve police accountability, transparency and public trust, they are sadly mistaken," she said. "This is money down the drain."The LAPD already has about 860 cameras, purchased with private donations. Last year, the department negotiated a contract with Taser International to provide thousands more, along with replacement equipment, digital storage of the recordings and 4,400 Tasers.The council was set to vote on the $31.2-million contract in December. But city lawmakers balked at the last minute, saying they were worried that the technology would require scores of police officers to review camera footage and monitor the use of the devices. The LAPD later revised its plan to include more civilian staffers.The concerns continued in April, when Councilman Mitch Englander questioned whether the LAPD should start the selection process over and accept new bids from camera manufacturers. Police commissioners defended the process, saying the initiative was too important to delay further.Englander, who heads the council's Public Safety Committee, asked for a fresh analysis of the body camera market. LAPD officials then surveyed several camera companies to determine whether they had made upgrades to their devices or storage systems, but decided Taser still was their preferred choice.
On Wednesday, in the afternoon, at Government House, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC greeted overnight guests, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Ret'd), Governor of New South Wales, and Mrs Linda Hurley.

In the evening, at Suncorp Stadium, the Governor, accompanied by the Governor and Mrs Hurley, attended the 2016 Holden State of Origin Game II.
Description

GIS  23 June 2016: A Science Fair, geared towards boosting students interest in Science and Technology, kicked off this morning at the Sir Abdool Raman Osman (SARO) Secondary School, in Phoenix.

This two-day event, which comprises a new programme designed by the Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre (RGSC) for secondary schools, aims at encouraging young people to take initiatives and engage in science activities at school level.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, the Director of the RGSC, Dr A. K. Maulloo, observed that nowadays the level of development of a country is measured by the volume of technology-driven and science-related development that that country has achieved as well as its research capabilities in the fields of Science and Technology.

Commenting on the Science Fair, the Director recalled that it is an innovative initiative meant to be fun and interactive. Students will learn about abstract theories through simple experiments and demonstrations while at the same time feel motivated to ask questions given that questions ignite the mind, he said.

For his part, the rector of SARO, Mr Mohitram, pointed out that all students and all Mauritians need to have a basic notion of science and understand the importance of science in relation to the economic model of development that is needed for the country.

According to him, waste is not generated when nature functions, but much electronic waste and other wastes are produced when an economic model of development is set up. In a bid to rethink a model of development for Mauritius which is efficient, rational and intelligent, we have to review our consumption pattern and living habits, and science has a role to play in this process, he added.

More about the Science Fair

The new programme is providing a platform for students to showcase their knowhow and ideas through the elaboration of innovative science projects which are being displayed during the Science Fair.

An all-inclusive and a holistic and participative approach has been adopted whereby rectors, educators, students, parents, through the Parent Teachers Association, have been encouraged to take an active part in the organisation of the event.

During the event, the RGSC is displaying its interactive travelling science exhibition at the school, and is proposing science demonstrations as well as sessions dedicated to the observation of the sun through telescopes. The activities are designed to supplement the school curriculum, marvel students and pass the message that learning science can be fun.

Topics being covered include Climate Change, Science of Sports, Light and Astronomy. The exhibition will also give students a glimpse of some Exhibits which are found at RGSC, Bell Village, and hence, encourage them to visit the centre later on.

RGSC, a parastatal body under the aegis of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, is mandated to promote science and technology among the population and to supplement school education using a non-formal way.
AUSTIN, TEXAS  Government IT leaders from state and local agencies throughout Texas gathered in Austin earlier this week for the Texas Digital Government Summit, an annual conference presented by e.Republic, the parent company ofmagazine and govtech.com.Attendees participated in sessions centered around timely topics like data analytics, workforce management and cybersecurity. At the closing session on Tuesday, five agencies offered brief presentations on their flagship mobile apps.The Cap Metro Transportation Authority app lets transit users buy tickets and activate them when they are ready to use them. The secure, animated ticket will time out upon expiration. Other traveler tools include trip planning help, as well as current information on the next departure from the station closest to a rider. New features just around the bend include the ability to set alarms, share transit plans with friends and sync them with a user's calendar. A heat map will also display where transit vehicles are in real time.North of Dallas, Collin County is home to 850,000 residents. A new judicial online search app offers detailed information on current inmates and cases, including photos, jail cell numbers, and links to current case data. The new functionality has reduced foot traffic to constable offices by making civil papers searchable online, while driving significant traffic to the website since its May 2015 launch  an average of 1.2 million page views per month.The Texas Health and Human Services Commission now offers its clients the "Your Texas Benefits" app, allowing them to stay current with their paperwork (and therefore continue to receive services) without a trip to agency offices. Designed to work in conjunction with the website, the app also features an office locator, an FAQ section and personalized data, including a benefits summary and case history. Updates likes changes of address can also be reported via the app. The document upload feature may be the most impactful  as of April, users have uploaded more than 1.5 million documents through the app.Texas' 500 game wardens now have a new mobile tool at their fingertips  especially helpful given the remote nature of their work. Agents have contact with 1.2 million holders of licenses for hunting and fishing. With the help of the app, staff can now scan a resident's driver's license and have access to other information on the license holder, including whether their licenses issued through the Parks and Wildlife Department are up to date. The agency's lively app presentation at the event demonstrated that by plugging the boat license number of a shrimp boat owner into the app, the warden can access all current license information before even talking to the owner.Users of the Austin Police Department's app can sign up for alerts, use an interactive crime map or view a department directory for direct connections to specific people like detectives, investigators or the domestic violence unit. Citizens can file police reports, praise officers and link to social media for the latest news from the department (including full press conferences available on YouTube). Non-emergency tips submitted via the app go to the real-time crime center, which is monitored around the clock. Austin PD is hopeful that a link to the recruiting site will help fill the 150 unfilled vacancies the department currently has.Event participants weighed in at the conclusion of the presentations by casting their votes for their favorite app. While each app snagged some votes, Austin PD took top honors.
Noelle Knell has been the editor of Government Technology magazine for e.Republic since 2015. She has more than two decades of writing and editing experience, covering public projects, transportation, business and technology. A California native, she has worked in both state and local government, and is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, with majors in political science and American history. She can be reached via email and on Twitter.
(TNS) -- Chicago aldermen adopted watered-down regulations on ride-hailing companies Wednesday despite critics complaining they hardly had time to consider the latest version of a proposal they worry will allow wealthy corporations like Uber to basically regulate themselves.The 36-12 vote came after much procedural wrangling, with Mayor Rahm Emanuel even threatening to adjourn the City Council meeting amid the chaos.There was plenty of back and forth over the particulars of the contentious bill, with taxi industry supporters saying it does too little to even the regulatory playing field and supporters of the package arguing it's a good compromise.Northwest Side Ald. Scott Waguespack said the rules "don't do anything" to control the ride-hailing industry. And Northwest Side Ald. John Arena, 45th, said the watered-down rules will lead toward a "Wal-Mart economy" in Chicago, where "everything is cheaper, but you're not safer.""Stop letting corporations write our laws to the detriment of our communities," Arena said.Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, likened the last-minute changes to the much-reviled parking meter deal that then-Mayor Richard M. Daley rammed through the council without giving aldermen time to digest it.But Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, said the ride-hailing rules have been sufficiently vetted at a series of meetings on the topic  though the ink was barely dry on the copies of the new version of the ordinance when the vote took place."We have been discussing this issue for months, years even," Moore said.Supporters said the growth of the ride-hailing industry is an example of how the economy is changing, saying new technology like the phone apps that allow people to offer rides for hire in their personal cars are a boon to minorities who can supplement their incomes and get rides in neighborhoods where cabs are scarce.Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. said the new industry is the reality in the city now. "I'm not trying to advertise for Uber, but this is the 21st century," the 27th Ward alderman said.Aldermen need to look out for what's best for constituents rather than worrying about the feud between the cab industry and ride-hailing companies, Burnett added. "Let those guys fight," he said.Chaos reigned in City Council chambers before the vote, with aldermen resorting to various procedural maneuvers and Emanuel threatening to adjourn the council for the day.Waguespack, 32nd, moved to temporarily put off a vote on the proposal. Usually, that provides one month until the next regular meeting for both sides of an issue to press their case. But in response, Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, scheduled a City Council meeting for 1 p.m. Friday so aldermen could vote on the rules then. Emanuel then recessed the council meeting for the day.Waguespack withdrew his blocking maneuver, since the vote would happen Friday anyway. But he complained the new version of the ordinance had just been handed to aldermen. "That is not the way to run the City Council," Waguespack said.Emanuel was forced to deal with the ride-hailing issue after Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, brought forward his own proposal he said was meant to even the regulatory playing field with traditional cab companies that have seen their business take a big hit as Uber's popularity has swelled.Beale got a tougher version of the ordinance through committee last week, requiring fingerprint background checks for ride-sharing drivers and that ride-hailing companies provide a certain level of handicapped-accessible vehicles. But while he insisted he had enough support to get it through the full council, it was unclear whether a majority of his colleagues would join him in opposing Emanuel.Beale and other aldermen met this week behind closed doors with Emanuel administration officials, and emerged to say they had agreed to compromise language that had been watered down.Fingerprinting, which Uber officials have said is an ineffective burden that would likely force them to stop operating in Chicago, will now be studied for six months. And the companies will have a year to implement a plan to offer handicapped accessible rides.The package would require all ride-sharing drivers get special chauffeur licenses specific to the industry. But the drivers would be able to fulfill their training requirements online rather than attending expensive classes like cabbies must do.The ordinance also eliminates the requirement that anyone applying for a public chauffeur license  cabbies or ride-sharing drivers  get an upfront drug test and physical exam, instead allowing the city's license commissioner to seek those for specific drivers when people complain.Though he would have preferred no new ride-hailing rules, Emanuel can claim a victory by preventing the council from enacting an ordinance with real teeth. Emanuel has repeatedly asserted in recent months that the roughly 90,000 registered Uber and Lyft drivers in the city give Chicagoans more options, promote competition and make it easier for residents to find rides in predominantly minority neighborhoods.Emanuel's brother, Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel, is an Uber investor.
Local operators are celebrating a ruling this week by a federal judge who halted implementation of U.S. Bureau of Land Management rules governing hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, by the oil and gas industry on public and tribal lands.On Tuesday, U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Scott W. Skavdahl sent a rebuke to the Obama administration, the BLM and environmental groups by concluding the agency lacks sufficient authority from Congress to regulate the drilling process.Skavdahl sided with petitioners -- Western Energy Alliance, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, four western states and the Ute Indian tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeast Utah -- over the legal challenge.Skavdahl, nominated by Obama in 2011, turned to the Constitution, saying it was clear to him that Congress has not given the BLM the authority to make rules governing oil and gas operations like hydraulic fracturing."The constitutional role of this court is to interpret the applicable statutory enactments and determine whether Congress has delegated to the (Department of the Interior) legal authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing," Skavdahl wrote in the order. "It has not."Tom Mullins -- CEO of Synergy Operating LLC, a Farmington independent oil and gas company, and northwest vice president of the New Mexico Independent Petroleum Association -- said he was a member of the committee that considered the issue in New Mexico.The committee was made up of industry and BLM officials who were in negotiations over how to proceed with the pending BLM rule since New Mexico -- unlike Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah -- opted not challenge the fracking rule.Skavdahl's decision was a "good piece of news for our industry," Mullins said.The rule was going to be burdensome on all operators, adding several thousand dollars in compliance costs per well without any environmental benefit, he said."To me, New Mexico already has regulations and I felt that the state regulations were sufficient and the federal regulations were very onerous and unnecessary," Mullins said. "Hopefully, it sets a good precedent for additional regulations, such as the (BLM's venting and flaring) rule, so we can put a hold on those as well."John Roe of Dugan Production Co., another Farmington independent oil and gas company, agreed with Mullins."We're very glad because there are plenty of regulations from the (state Oil Conservation Division) that tell use what we can or cannot do," Roe said.He said he believes the environmental community has twisted the argument against the industry using lies and distortions about what happens when an oil and gas well is drilled. The advances of horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing have actually made oil and gas operations safer, he said, because with the latest drilling and well-stimulation techniques, the land is disturbed less and as many as 16 or more wells can be fracked from the same well pad. That used to mean 16 wells drilled through the water table, but not any longer, he said."When we hear from these radical people that we're destroying the environment, it just burns me up," Roe said. "I chose to live in Farmington. I enjoy clean water and the outdoors. We live and work in the same environment. As a prudent operator, we do what we can to do what's right, no matter if there are rules or not."Kathleen Sgamma, Western Energy Alliance's vice president of government and public affairs whose group was a petitioner in the lawsuit, was happy with Tuesday's order."We're overjoyed with the ruling. The judge determined that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate fracking, period. He decided exclusively on statutory authority, so there's nothing to remand, no do-over. He didn't even rule on BLM appeals to the circuit court," Sgamma said. "States have shown they've successfully regulated fracking with no incidence of contamination in ... 70 (years). The BLM failed to show any gap in state regulation. In fact, the agency couldn't point to a single incident on public lands to justify the new rule."But Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance energy and climate programs manager, said in an email that Tuesday's decision raises the issue of how much regulatory power federal agencies have to oversee the fossil fuel industry."The judge's decision would perpetuate marginal oversight of industrial hydraulic fracturing activities on public lands where the BLM is the primary permitting agency," Eisenfeld said. "I'm sure that this decision will be rightfully appealed with an emphasis on identifying regulatory responsibilities that must be upheld to counter adverse impacts to public land."Camilla Feibelman -- director of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, one of the intervenor-respondents in the case -- said in a statement that the judge's order was a mistake she hopes the 10th Circuit Court will remedy."The BLM's fracking rules would protect our public lands from groundwater contamination, surface spills, and other accidents and build more transparency into extraction of a resource that belongs to all Americans," Feibelman said. "The agency has clearly established legal authority to regulate all aspects of oil and gas development on our public lands and this does not exclude hydraulic fracturing. We respectfully disagree with the district court's ruling ... and hope the 10th Circuit Court will uphold the rule."On March 26, 2015, the BLM issued the final version of its hydraulic fracturing regulations, "the culmination of four years of extensive public involvement to bring onshore oil and gas drilling regulations into the 21st century," according to a March 20, 2015, Interior Department press release.U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in the release that the existing rules failed to account for technological advancements in drilling by the oil and gas sector and lacked sufficient environmental protections."Current federal well-drilling regulations are more than 30 years old and they simply have not kept pace with the technical complexities of today's hydraulic fracturing operations," Jewell said in the release. "This updated and strengthened rule provides a framework of safeguards and disclosure protocols that will allow for the continued responsible development of our federal oil and gas resources. As we continue to offer millions of acres of public lands for conventional and renewable energy production, it is absolutely critical the public have confidence that transparent and effective safety and environmental protections are in place."The federal agency's fracking rule focuses on three aspects of oil and gas development -- well bore construction, chemical disclosures and water management. The rule was scheduled to take effect on June 24, 2015.
(TNS) -- The Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel is asking state regulators to open hearings on rules that would give ultra high-speed internet providers easier access to the 900,000 utility poles across the state.OCC, which represents the interests of ratepayers, wants the states Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to standardize rules governing the use of utility poles and underground conduits. The goal is to give ultra high-speed internet providers fair and equitable access to develop robust networks around the state.OCC hopes that the states Municipal Gain Statute will provide that access, said William Vallee, policy coordinator for the Connecticut State Broadband Office. The office is part of Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel.The Municipal Gain Statute requires that space be reserved on every utility pole and every underground conduit in the state for use by the municipality, Vallee said. The idea here is that the municipalities could use the space provided to them so that the providers could develop their broadband networks.Utility poles in Connecticut are jointly owner by the states incumbent phone company, Frontier Communications, and the electric utilities that serve each community, he said. Other utilities that want to locate their networks on the poles pay a monthly fee to the owners.Vallee said having the states municipalities make use of the space they have available under the Municipal Gain Statute for broadband networks would be a major step toward allowing the communities to engage with investors. Those investors would pay for the build out of a statewide broadband network, he said.Outside investors are very interested in Connecticut because of the demographics and because the terrain here makes it easier to develop a network, Vallee said.The easier the state and its communities make it for broadband providers to develop their networks, the more likely it is that the build out will occur quickly, he said.Vallee said one of the reasons a broadband provider like Google Fiber is already established in cities like Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tenn. is that those communities have municipally owned electric companies.If the door is wide open, I think youre going to see some action pronto, he said of the broadband providers. But if I cant get on the poles easily and I cant get on them for a reasonable price, then I am not coming here.Efforts to bring broadband to all of the states 169 communities date back to 2014. State officials like Connecticut Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson-Katz and Kevin Lembo, the states comptroller, as well as the mayors of New Haven, Stamford and West Hartford, favored a public sector effort to expand broadband availability. They say the private sector has failed to show the desire to expand broadband.
(TNS) -- The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council took on roads and trams Wednesday afternoon, but the most ambitious infrastructure project may be a push to help wire the entire parish for high-speed internet.Following pleas from entrepreneurs and technology professionals, the council unanimously approved a $150,000 contract to study the issue and develop a plan.This is an investment that is setting us up for now and for the next 50 years, said entrepreneur and library board member Logan Leger.The city-parishs information technology director would like to lay conduits along all area roads and have schools and libraries serve as broadband hubs.But the city isnt trying to compete with AT&T or Cox.We dont want to be in the communication business, City-Parish Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel said.Lafayette developed a municipal system years ago, but Baton Rouge is too built-up, and it would take too much money to start a new government utility program, IT Director Eric Romero explained.Rather, he wants to put conduits in the ground. The pipes are used to protect electric lines but can be disruptive to bury. Romero wants the city-parish to lay conduits whenever the city performs road or sewer work anywhere they dont exist. They may also make plans to dig with the sole purpose of laying down conduits.Once they are in the ground, the city-parish can lease the conduits to private companies, who can thread cables through the pipes to bring service to businesses and homes along the line.Some telecommunications companies, specifically Cox, have been resistant to the citys plan, Romero said. However, he believes they may have softened upon learning the city-parish isnt trying to set up a competing business.No one from Cox spoke at Wednesdays council meeting, and a spokeswoman wrote in an email to The Advocate that company officials stand ready to partner with the city-parish on any and all broadband access projects.Curtis Heroman, who advocated for greater access to high-speed internet, said hes seen his peers leave Baton Rogue for Austin, Texas; Seattle; and Silicon Valley.For the first time, they started emailing me, asking, Whats happening in Baton Rouge?  We have a big opportunity here, he said.Several speakers pointed out that while some projects benefit specific areas of the parish, the push for access to the internet will be a boon to everyone, whether they live on the north side of the parish or in the south. It will also be a draw for businesses and help level the playing field for students who do much of their coursework online, various speakers and officials said.The city doesnt know how many properties have access to high-speed internet, and that will be one aspect of the study, which will be conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Columbia Telecommunications Corporation. CTC President Joanne Hovis told the Metro Council her company works exclusively for government agencies and nonprofits, so it doesnt have any conflicts of interest with private internet providers.Whatever the specific plan, installing the conduits parishwide will be a lengthy process, Romero warned. Work can begin this year, though he isnt sure exactly how long it will take. It will probably be easier to set up in urban areas, but folks in the country may have to wait a bit longer unless their homes and businesses are on main thoroughfares. And it will still be up to internet service providers to begin service, albeit with one major barrier out of the way.One aspect of the overall plan can be rolled out soon, though.The federal government picks up about 85 percent of the cost to connect public schools and libraries to broadband service. Local agencies use that money to defray the cost of service provided over private lines, but Romero wants to install fiber owned by the schools and libraries. A private internet company will still provide service, but by owning the lines, the government agencies will save some money and have more options.Similarly, Romero wants all local government sites to be connected via broadband lines owned by the city-parish, again as a cost-saving measure.The Metro Council responded enthusiastically to the internet plan. Councilman Buddy Amoroso remarked that Baton Rouge residents need only look to the citys traffic to see what havoc poor infrastructure planning can wreak. Now the community has a chance to do a better job preparing for the network which will connect the next generation.Broadband and fiber is the infrastructure of the future, Amoroso said.Councilman John Delgado was more blunt.It is 2016, guys. Its time to bring Baton Rouge into the 21st century, he said.
(TNS) -- The international activist hacker group Anonymous Legion is claiming responsibility for an attack on the Minnesota Judicial Branchs website that rendered it unusable for most of Wednesday.State officials became aware of the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack about 8 a.m. Wednesday, around the same time Anonymous Legion e-mailed the Star Tribune.Servers have also been penetrated and data has been secured, contrary to what they will tell you, said Anonymous Legions e-mail. This will occur frequently.The group said the act was executed collectively, through a global attack. It is known for DDOS attacks on government websites, among others.The attack is similar to ones that interrupted the site last December. Last years attacks were traced to Asia and Canada. The state did not say Wednesday whether the attacks may be linked.We are in the process of communicating with the FBI Cyber Task Force about this incident, Beau Berentson, a spokesman for the state court administration office, said in a written statement.The website ( www.mncourts.gov ), visited by thousands every day looking to access court resources and information, was taken offline as the attack was investigated.Access to the site was restored around 5:15 p.m.We have no evidence that any secure data has been inappropriately accessed, Berentson said.Other online resources linked through the website are still functioning, including eFiling and eService, the Court Payment Center and remote access to district and appellate court records.The website was down for several hours from Dec. 21 to 31 in the previous attacks.In a DDOS attack, an outside entity attempts to overwhelm an online resource with so much network traffic that it is no longer accessible to legitimate users, State Court Administrator Jeff Shorba said in a January statement about last years attacks. During these attacks, the Minnesota Judicial Branch did not experience any form of data breach or inappropriate access to court records, nor is there any evidence to suggest that the attackers attempted to gain access to Judicial Branch records or information.Those attacks were reported to the federal government and Canadian authorities.DDOS attacks are becoming increasingly common against high-profile websites in both the public and private sectors, Shorba said in January. While we cannot prevent these attacks from being launched, the Minnesota Judicial Branch is now better prepared to respond to these types of attacks in the future.
(TNS) -- Leaving a friend request on Facebook unanswered can be awkward, even for judges, but posting too much information can be especially tricky for members of the judiciary.In a decision issued Monday, the New Mexico Supreme Court cautioned judges to think carefully about what they share and who they friend online, citing a series of cases around the country where social media drama spilled into the courtroom.The decision in State v. Truett Thomas reverses an Albuquerque mans convictions for murder and kidnapping because of the admission of Skype testimony that the court said denied the man his constitutional right to confront an adverse witness. The case was remanded for a new trial on the murder charge.But Facebook posts about the case by a judge who presided over Thomas trial spurred Chief Justice Charles W. Daniels to devote several pages of a 38-page decision to social media ethics and etiquette.The states highest court did not ban judges from websites like Facebook and Twitter but warned about the appearance of impropriety and offered guidelines some observers worry may go too far.The court said judges should not post personal messages to the social media accounts or websites of their election campaigns except for statements about their qualifications. Judges should not allow public comments on those same accounts, the court said, and should not engage in dialogue with other users. The court also said campaign websites and social media profiles should be set up and maintained by campaign committees rather than judges themselves.Chief Justice Charlie Daniels wrote in the opinion that judges should consider every comment on social media as public, and he called on judges to use their privacy settings and exercise care when accepting requests to friend or connect with others.Daniels cited a Florida case in which a lawyer asked to disqualify a trial judge because the lawyer did not respond to the judges friend request on Facebook, creating what the lawyer argued was a reasonable fear of offending the judge and not receiving a fair trial.In Thomas case, it was not long after a jury convicted him of murder and kidnapping that the presiding judge typed out a post on Facebook.Justice was served, Judge Samuel L. Winder wrote on a page for his election campaign. Thank you for your prayers.Thomas attorneys asked for a new trial, raising concerns about the online commentary from Winder during election season. Winder lost the election, and his successor denied the request for a new trial.The state Supreme Court did not comment on the Facebook post in its ruling, but it turned it into a lesson  a social media dont for judges, who are typically prohibited from discussing cases.Members of the judiciary must at all times remain conscious of their ethical obligations, Daniels concluded, urging judges to apply their codes of conduct to the digital world.In a blog post Tuesday, an Albuquerque lawyer responded that prohibiting judges from being personally involved in their own campaigns social media accounts defeats one of the main purposes of websites like Facebook and Twitter: personal engagement.Voters are interested in candidates records, experience, temperament and personality  not those of the judges campaign committee, Emil Kiehne wrote.A lawyer at the firm Modrall Sperling and author of the blog nmappellatelaw.com , Kiehne said he is glad the court is addressing the ethical questions social media poses in the legal community. But he hopes the states judges do not take too conservative an approach to new means of communication.Kiehne sees a positive role for social media in the courts.It helps to humanize judges and lets people know judges are people like them and are not divorced from the rest of the population, he said. Its a way for judges to connect with the people they serve.Kiehne points to judges like Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, who has cultivated more than 52,000 followers on Twitter, sharing a combination of legal news and witty, sometimes goofy, musings about sports, culture and parenthood.Willett touts his social media savvy as breaking down a bit of the mystery surrounding a branch of government shrouded in legalese. In states where judges are elected, he also argues staying off social media is foolish.Not only is there nothing wrong with judges being good digital citizens and being active on social media, but for certain aspects of a judges professional life, it can be vital, particularly in the states where judges are elected, said John G. Browning, a partner at the Dallas law firm Passman & Jones who has written extensively about social media in the judiciary.Judges certainly need to be tech conversant, he added, noting social media often arises in cases.The state Supreme Courts Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct issued an advisory opinion on social media in February, providing a primer for judges on the care needed when clicking like on Facebook and connect on LinkedIn.The committee said judges should not hide behind aliases or pseudonyms and discouraged endorsing candidates or using websites like Yelp to recommend businesses.The committee primarily took a hands-off approach, however, urging judges to use their own discretion in applying their code of conduct to social media.Some states, such as Florida, have taken a tough stance on social media, prohibiting judges from online connections with lawyers who might appear in their court, for example.But many states are adopting looser policies.While best practices are often hammered out on a case-by-case basis, courts can be proactive by offering training to judges, said Greg Hurley, an analyst at the National Center for State Courts.Courts face a challenge in keeping up with technology that is constantly changing, he added.For the younger generation, Facebook is passe, Hurley said. But for the legal community, its still new.Kiehne said he hopes the court will revisit the issue of social media soon. But Browning said courts do not necessarily need new policies.We dont need any sort of new rules that directly or specifically address social media, he said. We just need to be mindful that the existing rules of judicial conduct apply to activities online.
A major art show, drawn in cloth and stitches, and honoring the National Park Service in its 100th year, will arrive in Coulee Dam just in time for the Fourth of July.

The "Inspired by the National Parks" Quilt Show will be on display in the Lake Roosevelt Elementary School gym July 1-4, with more than 180 art quilts.

Don't think about those warm blankets sewn from scraps that may first spring to mind. These quilts depict something inspirational from the nation's most beautiful places.

Detailed and hailed in a new book by Donna DeSoto, the quilts cover a wide range of styles and depict everything from an overhead view of a blue river through a rocky brown landscape to an intricate forest scene to the earth below a volcano. Some are literal interpretations, some are more impressionistic. None of them look like your grandmother's quilts.

DeSoto's book, "Inspired by National Parks, their Landscapes and Wildlife in Fabric Perspectives," details the choices of the artists who were asked for their top eight ideas on 59 parks.

The 177 quilts in the 272-page book, richly illustrated with photos of them, offer a celebration of the national parks from Acadia in Maine to Haleakala in Hawaii.

The Discover Your Northwest sales outlet at the Bureau of Reclamation's Visitor Center has the book on sale for $34.99.

DeSoto launched the project soon after completing an earlier one in which she asked quilters for pieces inspired by The Beatles. That gave her the network needed to accomplish the big task.

"Other people collect quilts," she said, "I collect quilters."

The show in Coulee Dam will also include five local entries.

The work of quilting artist Elaine W. Evans of Middleburg, Virginia depicts the summer tanagers of Congaree National Park. It is shown on page 75 of "Inspired by National Parks", opposite the quilt, also shown on the cover, of cyprus trees in the same park, by Marjorie Dolling Curia.

Marlene Oddie, who owns KISSed Quilts in Grand Coulee, reconnected with a former quilting partner one day and learned of the project. One of the nationally-renowned quilters selected for the book, Ricki Selva, had spoken at an event Oddie attended.

Oddie became aquainted with DeSoto and the two friended each other on Facebook.

In the spring of 2015, when Oddie and her husband, Duncan, headed to Virginia to a high school reunion, DeSoto saw where they were and contacted Oddie on Facebook to say she lived just 20 minutes away. They had a "fabulous" visit, Oddie said, and the relationship helped book the major exhibit in Coulee Dam before NPS headquarters could secure it for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area had already gotten the show for the July 4 weekend.

The quilt collection to be on display in LR Elementary's air conditioned gym drew 4,000 visitors at a show last weekend, DeSoto said. It has been appraised at about $74,000.
The promoter of Brazil's F1 race has slammed Felipe Massa for saying it is "possible" Interlagos will be axed from the calendar.

Following comments made by Bernie Ecclestone, Sao Paulista Massa admitted in Baku last weekend: "What is happening in Brazil at the moment is very difficult.

"So it's not impossible that F1 in Brazil will be over."

But as local Brazilian media were this week given a tour of the latest stage of renovations at the Interlagos track, promoter Tamas Rohonyi hit back hard at the Williams driver.

"I will call him and say that just as I don't tell you how to drive, he does not understand how to organise a race," Rohonyi told UOL Esporte.

"I do not comment on what I don't understand. Massa just heard something and repeated it, but when I was hearing a lot about his driving, I did not comment," he added.

However, F1 supremo Ecclestone said his race axe threats are serious, having warned in recent days that Canada, Italy and Germany are all also endangered.

The 2016 race calendar stands at an unprecedented 21 races, but the 85-year-old told The Times this week: "It is more likely to be 18 races next year."

(GMM)
Unlike many previous research projects that have focused on refining existing four-stroke engine technology to reduce fuel consumption and emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, the CoolR project will examine a fundamentally new split cycle combustion concept based on a recuperated split-cycle with isothermal compression using cryogenic injection. (In an isothermal process, the temperature is constant.) Professor Neville Jackson, Ricardos Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, had presented an overview of the basics of such an approach at the SAE 2011 High Efficiency IC Engines Symposium in April.

Ricardo and the University of Brighton will model and evaluate an advanced split-cycle combustion system aimed at substantially reducing the carbon emissions of heavy-duty vehicles. The feasibility study is part-funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board as one of the winning submissions for the recent Disruptive technologies in low carbon vehicles competition.

The Ricardo Split-Cycle engine concept incorporates the following:

Liquid Nitrogen (LN 2 ) injection during compression to control temperature rise and increase mass.

) injection during compression to control temperature rise and increase mass. LN 2 produced using the engine (efficiency of generation is a key parameter).

produced using the engine (efficiency of generation is a key parameter). Recuperator to transfer heat from exhaust gas to compressed air.

Turbine (Brayton cycle) efficiency can be substantially improved through recuperation, Jackson noted. Recuperated Brayton cycle efficiency improvement is a function of exhaust and end of compression temperatures, as well as of compression ratio. However, reciprocating engines with high compression ratios offer less opportunity for recuperation.

Lower compression ratios would provide more opportunities for recuperation, he said, but with lower overall efficiencies. High compression ratios reduce this temperature difference with less scope for recuperation. The key challenge is to maintain high pressure ratios for good simple cycle efficiency and to increase the capacity for recuperation.



Example of a recuperated diesel cycle with high compression ratio and isothermal compression. Source: Neville Jackson. Click to enlarge.

The key to successful recuperation with high pressure ratios is isothermal compression, Jackson said. Further, isothermal compression reduces compressor work; test show about a 17% reduction in energy requirement. However, implementation of practical isothermal compression is challenging.

A recuperated combustion engine transfers exhaust heat to the working gas at the end of compression and at constant volume. It requires a separate compressor and expandere.g. cross-linked reciprocating piston and cylinders.



The IsoEngine concept. Click to enlarge.

Ricardo has already successfully demonstrated a spilt-cycle isothermal compression engine in static form for power generation purposes. The IsoEngine prototype demonstrated by the company for energy utility Innogy in the 1990s used water injection to achieve a thermal efficiency in excess of 60% in comparison with around 43% for a current state-of-the-art on-highway heavy duty diesel engine.

The IsoEngine separated compression and combustion/expansion processes in different cylinders. The charge air was compressed isothermally by spraying a large volume of water into the cylinder during compression to 100 bar. The charge air was heated to 750 C by the low pressure exhaust gases in the recuperator.

Combustion occurred in the separate cylinder at constant pressure by staged injection of the fuel; work was extracted through expansion of the combustion products and recovered through the crank.



Ricardo has patented an approach to a split-cycle isothermal compression engine with cryogenic injection. Click to enlarge.

While water injection would not be practical for a vehicular implementation, the CoolR concept aims to achieve the same thermodynamic benefits using liquid cryogen injection. Allowing for the energy costs of cryogen production, this would result in a thermal efficiency improvement of around 40%. This is significantly better than that of other promising technologies also currently being researched such as exhaust heat recovery concepts based on thermo-electric generation or the Organic Rankine Cycle which offer improvements of around 10-15%.

Key requirements for such a mobile application would be the ability to handle transient loads and speeds, compact packaging, and fast start and load acceptance, Jackson said in his talk. There might also be consideration of the capability for kinetic energy storage and release.

In his talk, Jackson said that a 2-liter split-cycle engine operating at 50 kW and 40 bar P max could utilize more than 18 kW of exhaust heat and deliver indicated efficiency of 60%.

In this one year feasibility project, the partners will carry out a concept study aimed at addressing the fundamental questions that industry will face if such a radically new technology were to be adopted. In doing so, it is intended that a road map be developed to identify the necessary work required to bring the CoolR concept from feasibility to systems prototype and beyond.

The global imperative to reduce the carbon footprint of road transportation is now almost universally accepted. While electrification, hybridization and improvements of the existing internal combustion engine offer a pathway to sustainability for light vehicles, a major problem remains in the heavy duty sector. By fundamentally reviewing the underlying thermodynamics of the internal combustion engine in a manner unseen for many decades, we believe that the CoolR spilt cycle cryogenic injection combustion concept offers the prospect of very significant improvements in thermal efficiency and hence reduced carbon dioxide emissions in the economically crucial heavy vehicle sector. Nick Owen, project director for research and collaboration at Ricardo UK

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The Internet super truck project is a collaboration that brings together Foton Motor Group, Cummins, and Daimler AG and aims at building Internet-driven super trucks that are green, efficient, safe, and intelligent through the integration of global resources, the effective use of new energies, the establishment of vehicle networks, and the implementation of intelligent truck-loading technology.

Chinese truck and utility vehicle manufacturer Beijing Foton has launched the China Internet Super Truck Global Innovation Alliance and showcased the Auman EST (Energy Super Truck) at an event in Athens, Greece.

The goals call for a 30% reduction in vehicle fuel consumption (or, to take it a step further, a 100% reduction in liquid or gaseous fuel consumption by adopting a fully electric model), a 30% reduction in carbon emissions (or, if the electric route is chosen, elimination), and to increase freight efficiency by 70%.

Foton Motor has formed an Internet super truck team that consists of Foton Motor, ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Cummins, COSCO Logistics, CEVA Logistics, Faurecia, WABCO, Continental AG, TUV Rheinland, and Baidu, among other companies which are experts in the fields of automobile manufacturing, power systems, transportation, electronics, intelligent logistics and internet technology.

A senior manager at Foton Motors said that the China Internet Super Truck Global Innovation Alliance endeavors to construct a global industry ecosystem of Internet intelligent vehicles and contribute to building the worlds intelligent transportation networks and intelligent cities.

At present, the products included in Fotons Internet super truck project encompass Fotons Auman, Aumark and Ollin product lines. Foton introduced new Auman and Aumark ESTs through cooperation with Cummins Inc. and Daimler AG at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in April.

Foton said it chose Athens for the launch as it serves as an expression of the truck makers dedication to the mission of accelerating the implementation of Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative, the plan put forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping to build connectivity and cooperation among the countries between China and the rest of Eurasia that lie along the ancient Silk Road trading routes.
Ricardo, in collaboration with the University of Brighton, has been developing the split-cycle engine with an eye toward improving the thermal efficiency of heavy-duty engines. The engine is based on a fundamentally new split-cycle combustion concept using a recuperated split-cycle with isothermal compression via cryogenic injection. The technology has the potential to realize brake thermal efficiencies in the order of 60% across a number of applications, Ricardo says.

Ricardo is exploring the value proposition for applications of its novel split-cycle combustion engine ( earlier post ). In a poster-session paper presented at CIMAC Congress 2016 in Finland, Ricardo described the use of this split-cycle concept in high- and medium-speed engines for power generation to achieve efficiencies of 60% from units of 130 MW mechanical output.



Illustrative split cycle engine layout in a V configuration (cross section view). Based on a modified MTU Series 396. Gurr (2016). Click to enlarge.

The new cycle combines both Diesel and Ericsson Cycles into an integrated process to recover waste heat within a single thermodynamic cycle. The Ericsson cycle comprises two isothermal and two constant pressure (isobaric) processes. (An Ericsson engine based on the Ericsson cycle is an external combustion engine, because it is externally heated.) To improve efficiency, the engine has a regenerator or recuperator between the compressor and the expander.

Key changes to implement the integrated cycle are isothermal compression and heat addition from the exhaust gas to the charge air after the end of compression.

To transfer exhaust gas heat at the end of compression requires the use of a split cycle in which the standard four-stroke sequence is split into two separate elements. Intake and compression are carried out in one cylinder; combustion plus expansion and exhaust in another. Gas is transferred from the compression cylinder to the expansion cylinder via a heat exchanger that transfers heat from the exhaust to this high pressure compressed gas.

Using isothermal compression enhances the recovery of exhaust gas waste heat and significantly improves cycle efficiency.

Ricardo has explored a number of isothermal compression technologies, including use of a water spray during compression and also direct injection of cryogenic nitrogen or air. The use of a cryogen for isothermal or sub-cooled compression results in a more efficient compression process, and also realizes a reduction in pumping work, while increasing the thermal differential across the heat exchanger, driving increased capture and reinvestment of waste heat.

The benefits of a split cycle have been demonstrated numerous times by different bodies. Split cycle with waste heat recuperation but with water fulfilling the role of compression cooling fluid was demonstrated by National Power and presented here at CIMAC in (2004 and 2007) by Coney. Employing a cryogenic fluid to cool the charge air during the compression stroke is the inventive step taken more recently by Ricardo. However, should that additional fluid run out, the engine can run on in a conventional recuperated split cycle mode, utilizing some of the split cycle benefits to a lesser extent, such as waste heat recuperation. Industry progress in the key technologies and Ricardos innovations are enabling the split cycle technology to now be implemented. This new activity coupled with fuel saving and CO 2 drivers has brought about a new interest in split cycle. The 60% Efficiency Reciprocating Engine: A Modular Alternative to Large Scale Combined Cycle Power

For the CIMAC paper, Ricardo focused on a total cost of energy assessment of a recuperated split cycle reciprocating internal combustion engine with liquid nitrogen as the cryogenic fluid introduced for compression cooling. The basis of this evaluation was for a power generation application, replacing single large Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) units with modular and flexible split cycle genset installations.

CCGT units of > 250 MW are achieving 55-60% brake thermal efficiency (BTE) at full load. Ricardo says that its split cycle technology also has the potential to achieve circa. 60% while also enabling a more distributed power solution, allowing for further efficiency increases through reduced grid losses.

For the CIMAC analysis, Ricardo used three unit power capacities: 4MW, 9MW and 18MW. Total cost of energy was calculated for the split cycle solution at these nodes; the total cost of energy was also evaluated for baseline diesel powertrains and diesel powertrains with Organic Ranking Cycle (ORC) waste heat recovery fitted.

The analysis found that the split cycle engine could achieve class leading efficiency levels in the 1-4 MW range, comparable with very high efficiency large scale CCGT technology. Overall, other than solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which are not anticipated to be available for some time yet, a <15MW split cycle can achieve a class leading BTE.

Existing and future power generation solutions brake thermal efficiency compared to split cycle (0.5-30MW) Cryopower. Gurr (2016). Click to enlarge.

The Innovate UK-funded split cycle research program to install, commission and test a single cylinder combustor was completed earlier this year. The EPSRC-funded ULTRA project now takes over test bench testing of the engine.

Ricardo is also proposing a three-year collaborative program to design, build and test a multi-cylinder split cycle engine, most likely based on a heavy-duty diesel (HDD) platform to accelerate development with two compression cylinders and four combustion/expansion cylinders. Running in 2-stroke operation, this unit would match conventional specific power and torque profiles.

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Too many analysts continue to believe drilling and service has the same problem with rising oil prices. With WTI back above $50 a barrelat least briefly last weekNorth American LTO developers are putting rigs, service equipment and personnel back to work. The so-called fraclog or DUC inventory (wells drilled but uncompleted) is being reduced. While this is good it is also thought by some to be temporary.

The impact of rising oil prices on North American light tight oil (LTO) production is said to be a Catch 22, the title of Joseph Hellers popular 1961 novel set in WWII. The premise was you could get out of the army if you were crazy but you werent crazy to try to get out of the army. So this avenue to escape the war didnt work for the books main character John Yossarian.

Those who study crude prices have correctly observed it was the 4 million barrels per day (b/d) increase in US LTO production that contributed greatly to the 2014 oil price collapse. So if the price of oil is now high enough to make LTO economic again, some believe the reward will either be a cap on further price increases or the foundation of the next collapse. The Catch 22 is if oil prices rise high enough to put drilling and service back to work then it wont last long.

Maybe.

To this writer the most meaningless indicator of the future of world oil prices has been the weekly US oil rig count published by Baker Hughes and opined upon regularly by oil analysts and writers since late 2014. Thats when it became an important world oil price driver for the first time. The argument emerged that having contributed to the collapse of world oil prices, US LTO was the new global swing producer, replacing OPEC leader Saudi Arabia in that role. If and when prices rose the US rig count would rise and ultimately cause prices to fall again. If prices went too low the LTO operators couldnt afford to drill, which would shrink supply and cause prices to rise.

This is materially different than prolific oil producer Saudi Arabia, which established its swing producer credentials over several decades merely by opening and closing valves. The geological and commercial differences between the two couldnt be more glaring. In the Middle East a single state oil company is exploiting arguably the most prolific reservoirs in the world. A state-controlled entity can do whatever it wants including shutting in production to manipulate prices without fear of prosecution.

In the US hundreds of operators run thousands of rigs to exploit arguably some of the most expensive and geologically complex reservoirs in the world. If they somehow collude to restrict supply to affect prices they will be prosecuted and perhaps sent to jail. Whoever came up with this idea really should do more homework.

Nevertheless, the comparison got legs and away it went. With world oil prices being a huge business story analysts started to focus their attention on the weekly U.S. oil rig count as a precursor of when US LTO would fall. Every Friday the Baker Hughes rig count would wiggle. If it went down WTI might tick up. If it went up WTI might tick down. WTI is the most heavily traded and speculative commodity in the world some days trading 1,000 times as many dry barrels (futures contracts) as wet barrels (actual oil production priced off WTI).

Besides massive futures trading, the other factors affecting WTI include the value of the US dollar (it rises and WTI falls), OPEC production, world oil demand, North American and US storage, Iranian crude embargoes, and periodic and unplanned supply disruptions from everywhere from Libya to Nigeria to Fort McMurray.

Regardless, the US oil rig count regularly makes the news and affects the price of WTI. The following chart shows the figures for the past 19 months since it peaked in October of 2014 at 1,609 and hit the lowest level in years at only 316 in late May, merely 20% of the high water number.





The collapse of the American rig count and subsequent decline in LTO output has indeed contributed mightily to rebalancing world oil markets. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) US oil production is down nearly 1 million b/d in the past year. The EIA reported June 14 that it expects LTO output to fall by another 118,000 b/d by July, mostly from the Bakken and Eagle Ford.

Assisted by this and other factors, WTI has been one of the top performing commodities since it closed at the lowest price in over a decade at only $26.19 on February 11. It has risen almost steadily to reach the highest price since last July on June 8 when it closed at $51.23, a whopping 96% increase. In the past week two things have occurred: WTI has lost about $3 a barrel and on June 10 the US oil-targeted rig count had risen by 12 to 328.

This modest uptick in the rig count once again caused concern and prognostication on the future of oil prices. In a Globe and Mail story June 10 a New York oil trader told Reuters news agency, This looks like the beginning of a trend that will translate into the slowing down of U.S. production declines. Im adding to my short position in spreads.

This view was supported by the news June 9 reporting LTO pioneer Continental Resources Inc. was picking up service rigs and frac crews to reduce its fraclog in the Bakken. Reports say the US exited 2015 with 4,290 DUC wells waiting for completion which, in most cases, costs more than drilling. That said, Continental CEO Harold Hamm said his company had no intention of resuming drilling until WTI reached $60. He was also optimistic WTI could exit 2016 at $70 because of the rapid rebalancing of global crude supply and demand.

On Wednesday July 15 Goldman Sachs resumed its pessimistic outlook with a research report stating, On an aggregate, we view the price recovery as fragile. The latest bearish outlook from Goldman is remarkable considering the June 13 monthly world crude oil markets report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It contained the outlook for the remainder of 2016, and the IEAs first stab at 2017 which is in the following chart.





From this data it is impossible to be anything but optimistic about future oil prices. The two-year massive oversupply of production versus demand (the green line over the yellow line, the blue bars above zero) from the third quarter of 2014 through to the second quarter of 2016sometimes as much as 2.4 million b/dis all but gone by Q3 2016. Because of massive reductions in capital spending all over the world (Wood Mackenzie currently estimates the aggregate value of cancelled oil development projects to be over $1 trillion) and the natural decline of all reservoirs, falling supply and rising demand for the next 18 months will create the best conditions for higher prices since 2013 and early 2014. Then WTI at or near $100 a barrel was common.

The IEA also admits it has underestimated demand growth. It forecast a consumption increase of 1.2 million b/d in 2016 but reported an actual increase of 1.6 million b/d in Q1 2016. Regardless, the IEA has only increased estimated demand growth for 2016 by 100,000 b/d8%despite being low by 33% in Q1. Higher than expected oil consumption could accelerate price increases. Some analysts have consistently noted IEA demand estimates are usually excessively conservative.

The IEA cautions the return of Canadas oil sands to the market or the potential outbreak of peace and tranquility in Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela could change this outlook. Okay. Every forecast must carry these caveats. But the tall foreheads in Paris who study global oil markets do not believe US LTO production will recover materially or that Irans current and planned production increases will actually affect world crude markets. OPEC is at or near peak output. Middle East OPEC members are having to add more drilling rigs just to sustain output let alone increase it.

The IEA estimates world oil demand will be nearly 97 million b/d by Q4 2016 but some analysts still figure that 12, 20 or even 100 more rigs drilling LTO in the US is going to cap the world oil price. Rubbish. The US oil rig count would have to double to actually move the needle in the face of continuous LTO reservoir decline rates exceeding 100,000 b/d per month.

The problem is the massive machine that put 4 million b/d of US LTO on stream from 2010 to 2014 no longer exists. It was fueled by $100 oil, hundreds of operators of varying sizes, red hot equity markets, open and reckless debt markets, and nearly 1,500 drilling rigs operating every day supported by an over-levered fracking and oil service infrastructure now on its knees if still in business.

To grow production at this rate the cash to pay for drilling, completions and tie-ins was plentiful and came from a variety of sources. While oil prices may be rising theres just no cash. Many LTO developers have gone bankrupt and many more are up against their credit facilities. Junk bond buyers are more concerned with getting their money back from past investments than writing cheques. When cash flow increases with oil prices in many cases the first call will be by lenders. Squeezed drilling and service operators are in no position to extend credit to struggling operators.

It will take some time to completely refuel the LTO development machine. Those who figure US LTO output will track WTI in a straight line clearly dont understand the complexities of how this large and complex business, fueled extensively by external capital, actually works.

So drilling and service can relax. With the exception of oil sands, the North American upstream oil and gas sector is more likely to be in the early stages of a long-term recovery than experiencing a short-term blip.

Based in Calgary, David Yager is a former oilfield services executive and the principal of Yager Management Ltd., an oilfield services management consultancy. He has been writing about the upstream oil and gas industry and energy policy and issues since 1979.

Link to original article: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Increase-In-US-Rig-Count-Will-Not-Cap-Oil-Prices.html
The Sweetwater County Commissioners solidified details of a proposed voluntary separation program, an early retirement program, Tuesday afternoon.

The county started discussions regarding the program two weeks ago. However, information about the program was not available until the day of the meeting.

The initial program allowed certain employees near retirement age to take a payout amounting to 30 percent of their gross salary, with the decision to use that payout to accept a check, take the payout in insurance coverage, or a combination of the two. Employees whose positions can be eliminated and workload distributed amongst a department are candidates for the program, as their positions could be eliminated and savings realized in the reduced head count. The issue was tabled during the commissioners previous discussion.

The county has initiated similar programs in the past, but as part of a larger proactive plan to reduce positions in preparation for reduced tax revenues. This year, the commissioners are discussing the program while staring at an approximately 20 percent reduction in revenues for the upcoming budget, which will be finalized Thursday evening.

The countys human resources director, Gary McLean, said employees would have to decide by July 22 if they would take the buyout, with their final day of employment being July 31.

I strongly support this. I think it will help us, Commissioner Wally Johnson said.

Johnson said the program doesnt preclude a reduction in the countys workforce and the option is always on the table.

This is a necessity, Commissioner John Kolb said. This is something we have to do.

The commissioners approved the program in a unanimous vote.
The election for the House District 60 seat in the Wyoming Legislature may have ended before it began as the Republican challenger in that race will resign.

Bill Hooley will resign from both the race and his position as chairman of the Sweetwater GOP, planning a to move to American Fork, Utah, for a new job opportunity. Hooley challenged incumbent Democrat John Freeman for his seat. It would have been the second time the two faced off in an election.

Hooley sought to replace Freeman two years ago, but fell short of that attempt by 289 votes.

Hooley said another Republican is considering an...
Mike Nielsen, a motorcycle enthusiast and veteran, is traveling across the country to discuss the problem of suicide among veterans.

Nielsen is a medically retired veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan and knows firsthand the pitfalls of depression and anxiety that can lead to so many suicide attempts among fellow veterans, as he has had his struggles with them personally.

Nielsen will have a stop in Green River July 1, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Flaming Gorge Harley-Davidson. He plans to ride his Harley more than 5,500 miles to 22 national parks during July.

...
Emmie Araniblad and Madi Young practice what they are going to say when asked questions about the dogs.

A week-long summer camp helped attendees learn the ins and outs of animal care.

During the Sweetwater County Board of Cooperative Educational Services Rescue Camp at the Red Desert Humane Society, 10 children learned how to care for dogs and cats.

On Friday, camp attendees were busy preparing the dogs for an adoption event, society board member Joyce Fett said. This year, the dogs were taken to the Rods and Rails Car Show, which took place in downtown Rock Springs Saturday.

Students were busy packing boxes and deciding what needed to go along with them for the event and what really wasn't...
The Sweetwater County Library System will sponsor two free writing workshops with scholar Lori Howe.

The first is at 6:30 p.m. June 27 at the Rock Springs Library and the second is at 6:30 p.m. June 28 at the Sweetwater County Library.

Howes workshop, Writing Workshop: All the Water in WyomingPoems and Personal Essays, will focus on the meanings of water in Wyoming through poetry or personal essay.

When participants leave the workshop, they will have a strong framework and approach for writing creatively about matters of great importance to them as Wyoming residents, drawing o...
Sharon Patterson is overly excited to wear a red nose and raise funds for a good cause.

A national campaign turned local when Mission at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center employees and residents decided to see how much they could raise for the cause.

Bobbi Jo Drozd, CRRC administrator, said when they heard about the Red Nose Day Fundraising effort, they contacted the Rock Springs Walgreens to purchase the noses.

Drozd said they purchased about $200 worth of merchandise from the store to sell in order to raise money for the cause. All of the money raised goes to help children in poverty and a portion of those funds will stay in Wyoming, she said.

"A lot of donations came from r...
Members of the community were surprised when goats visited Green River June 15 as part of a United Way fundraiser.

Goat-A-Gram is a United Way of Southwest Wyoming fundraiser for the Dolly Partons Imagination Library. This was the first year for the fundraiser, but not the last. It was quite successful, bringing in about $4,500 for the Imagination Library and exceeding their expectations.

Participants of the fundraiser paid for goats to be sent to Green River or Rock Springs residents or businesses of their choice. The cost to send a goat-a-gram to someone was $35.

It cost $35 becau...
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Wholesale giant Costco made the switch from store-branded American Express cards to Visa on Monday. The overall transition however has been riddled with issues.

LEARN MORE: Costco's transition to Visa cards littered with problems

The New York Times reported that the promised seamless transition "has turned into a customer service fiasco." Citigroup, which issued the new card, has been deluged by more than 1.5 million customer service calls about problems, a spokesman said.

Customers want to know why their new cards haven't arrived. Other issues pertain to activating the card, using it or gaining access to their online accounts.

"The deluge of complaints swamped Citigroup's call center, leaving some people waiting for more than an hour or unable to connect at all. A note on Citigroup's website warns of high call volume and apologizes for "the long wait time that you may encounter," the Times wrote.

SEE THIS: Grocery showdown... Costco vs. Sam's Club

For those with the new Visa in hand, Credit.com has some tips for you on how to go shopping at warehouse clubs.

These wholesale stores work best for shoppers who like to plan in advance and have lots of mouths to feed (or clean; cant beat Bulk paper towels). Members of Costco or Sams Club or a similar store dont necessarily save. Wholesale purchases expire or go unused and get tossed if youre not a smart shopper. Heed this advice.

See the gallery above for 10 things you should or shouldnt buy with a wholesale price club.
WASHINGTON  A bipartisan measure to prevent gun purchases by those on the terrorism watch list drew a positive but guarded reaction Tuesday from Connecticuts two Democratic senators, who have played a key  but so far unsuccessful  role in pushing new post-Newtown gun legislation.

Im encouraged by the compromise negotiations, Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters. The devil is in the details  I want to make sure that anything we pass would not allow suspected terrorists to get weapons. But it is good news, and it never would have happened had we not protested last week the planned silence on this issue.

Murphy was referring to the filibuster effort he led last week in the wake of the terrorism-linked mass shooting at Orlandos Pulse nightclub that left 49 dead.

Murphy, with assists from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and other Democratic senators, held the Senate floor for nearly 15 hours until securing a pledge to hold votes on what has been termed the terrorist loophole and expanded background checks.

The votes on those amendments plus two competing amendments from Republicans resulted in defeat for all four Monday night. Democrats including Murphy blamed the National Rifle Association for its continuing hold over the Senates Republican majority.

Possible path forward

Blumenthal, former Connecticut attorney general and U.S. attorney, joined Murphy in expressing concern over the details.

But clearly it seems like a new day, where initiatives are arising because of the pressure we brought to bear, he said. There are clearly cracks in the NRAs grip on the Republican side. Otherwise this effort would not be ongoing.

The proposal unveiled Tuesday by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and seven other senators was characterized as a way to move beyond partisan gridlock.

The cast of characters backing Collins represented all shades of opinion on the gun issue. Among them were Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who voted with Democrats Monday night; and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who voted against her own party. It also included Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a maverick and former presidential contender who boasted that he owns an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, similar to weapons used in Orlando and in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.

The Collins proposal would bar gun purchases by individuals on two distinct lists that are part of the governments overall Terrorist Screening Database.

Our goal is simple and straightforward: We want to make America safer, said Collins, a moderate who has often played the role of bridging gaps in the Senate. Surely the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando that took the lives of so many are a call for compromise, a plea for bipartisan action.

Collins said she had secured a pledge from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, to hold a vote.

Also Tuesday, Connecticuts five-member House delegation  all Democrats  called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to hold votes on the background-check and terrorist-loophole measures before adjourning.

Congress inaction on protecting Americans and preventing gun violence is shameful, heartless, and irresponsible, the five, Reps. John Larson, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro, Jim Himes and Elizabeth Esty, said in a statement.

dan@hearstdc.com
Kids in Crisis, hit with a $750,000 cut in state funding this year, has more than its usual share of crises to handle.

To keep its doors open and beds available for youth younger than 17 years old suffering non-medical emergencies, the Womans Club of Greenwich is donating the entirety of the proceeds from its annual Appraisal Mania this Saturday.

Every year the event, now in its 15th year, makes more than $1,000, which usually goes toward funding a partial scholarship  but former president and current membership coordinator Carolyn Trachtenburg suggested the funds go toward something she felt was more urgent.

Its the first time we are embracing Kids in Crisis, Trachtenburg, who created Appraisal Mania, said. Im so happy about it. I was appalled that they were removed from the state budget.

Appraisers from Betteridge jewelers, Mark Vuono from Marco Jewelers and Thomas Bamsak of Toga Associates will be among the experts available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 25 at the clubhouse, 89 Maple Ave. They will evaluate antiques and treasures brought in by owners ranging from jewelry and coins to rugs and textiles. Appraisals are $10 per item or $25 for three items. Reservations are not required. Photos of large items are acceptable.

One of my friends had a painting, said Trachtenburg in discussing past appraisal events, and she wasnt aware of its value. It was appraised for $25,000 and she was very pleased.

Her dentist also had luck with paintings.

Lo and behold, she said. He came and they were worth thousands. His daughter had some medical issues and it helped pay for those bills. You hear all of these wonderful stories.

In efforts to help antique-owners and Connecticuts needy youth, Trachtenburg is hoping to collect more donations than past years.

According to its website, Kids in Crisis is the only agency with emergency beds for children and teens through 17 years in Southwestern Connecticut.

Kids in Crisis Executive Director Shari L. Shapiro addressed the states claim that there is no longer a need for KICs beds in the region.

The need has not diminished, but has in fact increased, she said, citing a 16.5 percent increase in emergency shelter bed-nights and 20 percent increase in urgent-crisis counseling meeting in 2015.

Kids in Crisis is so grateful to the Greenwich Womans Club support through their Appraisal Mania event, Shapiro said. Both the funds and awareness raised are critical during this challenging time, and we are incredibly appreciative of this generosity. The partnership with the Greenwich Womans Club is helping us to ensure that children in crisis are able to get the help they need and deserve.

jennifer.turiano@gmail.com
If youve been following the news, youve seen the blowup over two major political issues -- conservative news sources allegedly being suppressed by Facebook and the blowback hitting Target for their decision to publicly announce that their restrooms are no longer gender specific. Part of the beauty of observing a free, capitalist society is observing how different private organizations handle political dust-ups.

Facebooks founder, Mark Zuckerberg, states on his personal Facebook page: Our community's success depends on everyone feeling comfortable sharing anything they want. It doesn't make sense for our mission or our business to suppress political content or prevent anyone from seeing what matters most to them.

Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook is a place where political opinions should be freely expressed, and that it's not a company that would espouse its own set of values for the world of social media to comply with. This makes perfect business sense -- become the platform for ideas instead of alienating a large chunk of the worlds population.

Target also inserted itself into the political spotlight by making a bold decision to proactively announce that their bathroom policy has been revised to allow for transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their choice. This is a markedly different path from Facebook. Target is blatantly taking a political stand that could alienate a large chunk of their customer base.

Related: Transgender Rights? Citizens United? Should Brands Get Political?

1. Is controversy good advertisement, Donald Trump?

If the rise of The Donald in the presidential election has taught us anything, it's that grabbing headlines with controversial decisions and statements can do wonders for a cash-strapped marketing strategy. Its estimated that Trump has received more than $2 billion in free media coverage because of statements hes made via Twitter and in off-the-cuff political rallies, captivating the news cycle and sucking the oxygen out of the fight for the oval office.

Could adopting Trumps style translate into a positive bounce in Targets fiscal performance? It isnt likely. Target isnt running for president. Theyre fighting for marketshare, and theyre struggling. According to a USPN report, Target has lost more than $1.5 billion and suffered a dip in stock price after taking some controversial political stands.

Facebook, on the other hand, has largely changed the narrative from a politically divisive story to a positive focus on providing a platform for all voices to come together in one place online. As Facebook didnt overtly take a political stand and has fought accusations that it manually suppressed conservative voices, it has managed to focus on bringing people together instead of claiming its own morally righteous high-ground.

Related: 5 Ways to Use the 'Trump Effect'

2. The danger in fixing non-existent problems and losing half your customer base.

By many accounts, Target didnt really change anything with their new bathroom policy. I regularly shop at Target and have never seen a bathroom security officer managing which bathroom is used by which individual. The idea that transgender individuals are barred from using specific restrooms isnt something Ive ever witnessed.

Target didnt have a policy on bathroom use per gender identification prior to their announcement. Their announcement was designed to combat the government legislature that has rolled out in some precincts, designed to limit bathroom access to the gender listed on an individuals birth certificate. How such a thing could be policed is really beyond me, but apparently this is a political hot-button issue that has developed.

Honestly, to this humble writer, it appears that both sides are arguing over a non-issue, at least where Target is concerned. The wiser decision, to preserver share price and customer loyalty from all political spectrums, would have been to simply continue doing what they had already been doing. Target doesnt police their bathrooms, and they didnt actively enforce gender rules. To launch a crusade to identify their bathrooms as transgender friendly seems redundant and potentially very harmful to their shareholders bottom line.

Related: Business Must Make a Stand on Important Social Issues

Establishing meaningful, open lines of communication.

Facebook responded to their political dust-up by establishing lines of communication. Unlike Target, they chose to avoid preaching to those who disagree with their political views. Instead, by all accounts, Zuckerberg and his team held a candid 73-minute conference with representatives of the conservative movement in the United States. Instead of judging their views, Facebook encouraged them to take part in the conversation on their social media platform and committed to providing an equally accessible communication platform to hold their conversations about politics and current events.

Facebook was able to point to Fox News, a conservative-leaning news organization, which has done incredibly well on Facebook. According to some reports, Fox News actually has the most monthly interactions of any legacy news outlet on the site. If theres a bias on the part of Facebook, Fox News is certainly doing exceptionally well under the alleged circumstances.

Action items for business leaders.

First, in a conflict, especially one thats politically charged, attempt to find the neutral position that allows both sides to express themselves without organizationally imposed bias.

Second, taking a stand on a political issue will cost your company customers. Although, its possible that there could be a net gain if the issue is framed properly.

Lastly, act quickly to open lines of communication and encourage genuine conversations between parties that feel marginalized by your organization.

Related:

Airbnb Is Meeting With Civil Rights Leaders to Combat Discrimination -- Start Up Your Day Roundup

5 Lessons From LeBron James About Big Goals and Proving the Doubters Wrong

Logistics Management Firm Raises $3.5 Mln; Plans To Integrate With Iot Platforms & Drones To Enable Automated Delivery



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Haitis Chamber of Deputies President Cholzer Chancy and Senate Vice President Ronald Lareche had summoned Haitis deputies and senators for a Jun. 21, 2016 joint session, known as a National Assembly, to decide on the fate of Provisional President Jocelerme Privert, who became head of state through a political accord signed Feb. 5, 2016. The accord says that the "mandate of the Provisional President is up to 120 days from the date of installation, which was Feb. 14 until Jun. 14. Where appropriate the National Assembly will take the necessary measures." As the legislators gathered for the vote, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the Parliament voicing their support for Privert. Ultimately, the National Assembly was not held because the parliamentarians were frightened by the anger and size of the street protests, saying their security was not guaranteed because of demonstrators throwing rocks at the Legislative Palace. In fact, the National Assembly gambit was pure bluff. The parliamentary partisans of former President Michel Martelly, who stepped down in disgrace at the end of his term on Feb. 7, knew they had almost no chance of dislodging Privert. He has vowed to stay on until his rightfully elected successor takes power on Feb. 7, 2017, according to the calendar of the new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). In the lower house, there are only 92 deputies (questionably elected in the 2015 elections) of the 119 seat chamber, and 53 have already vowed to support Privert staying on. Meanwhile, Privert has the support of 12 of the 22 senators in the 30 seat body. Any motion to oust Privert would have to pass both houses. Just last week, on Jun. 13 when the 50th Legislature reconvened, the National Assembly also failed to take a vote on Privert because his opponents knew they would fall short. Meanwhile, the leading presidential candidates front known as the Group of Eight (G8) formally disbanded following the pull-out of Jean Henry Ceant (Renmen Ayiti), who is unhappy with Priverts staying on. Then four other former candidates  Sauveur Pierre Etienne (OPL), Eric Jean Baptiste (MAS), Mario Andresol (Independent), and Steven Benoit (Konviksyon)  threw their support behind LAPEHs Jude Celestin, who had been the candidate of former President Rene Prevals party in 2010. Celestin and Moise Jean-Charles (Pitit Desalin) are both arguing that the new presidential elections should be limited to just the three or four leading candidates of the Oct. 25, 2015 first-round, which has now been annulled. (Originally, there were 54.) Critics of this proposal say the fraudulent election cannot be partially scrapped, with front-runners cherry-picked out. Both candidates also argue that Jovenel Moise, the presidential candidate of Martellys PHTK, should be disqualified from participating in the new election scheduled for Oct. 9 because he allegedly engaged in massive fraud. Jovenel Moise supposedly placed first in the first-round with 33% of the vote. Great debate has surrounded the Feb. 5 Accord, about whether it is legal and Constitutional or not. Constitutional scholar Mirlande Manigat, who placed second in the 2011 presidential run-off, gave an exhaustive and well-reasoned assessment.  The election of Senator Privert references two texts, she said. On the one hand the Tripartite Agreement of February 5, which is a political agreement without constitutional and legal basis, but it has been widely accepted as a kind of desperate lifeline in the confusion and concerns at that time, without a necessary review of possible implications; [the accords] language, especially the famous grammatical expression where appropriate [le cas echeant], is currently feeding commentary and extrapolations. The second [reference] is the second paragraph of Article 149 of the 1987 Amended Constitution. By chance in legal drafting, they both mention the 120 days that could be the basis of reference, but it should be emphasized that our constitutional and legal traditions manipulate time, and they often include no references but formal dates that are rarely observed as they usually come up against the tyranny of events. This is what is happening in the current debate." After a long analysis of Haitian legal history and recent Constitutional changes, Manigat concluded: So the law, which in this instance is strictly applied, logic, common sense, and concerns for public stability lead to the hope that President Privert remains in his post to oversee the organization of elections until their conclusion on Feb. 7, 2017. "






Haiti - Economy : 4 Haitian entrepreneurs at Global Entrepreneurship Summit





Four Haitian entrepreneurs have been selected to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES2016) hosted by President Barack Obama to be held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, from June 22-24. All four businesses have received investments from the Leveraging Effective Application of Direct Investments (LEAD) project, an initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) that supports small- and medium-sized businesses in Haiti.



Selected from among 5,000 applicants from around the world, the Haitian businesses will join over 700 entrepreneurs and more than 300 investors at GES2016.



"We are very proud of all our LEAD grantees," says Nadia Cherrouk, PADF Country Director and LEAD Chief of Party. "Those who have been selected to attend the Summit represent the faces of Haitis emerging economy. They have worked so hard to grow their businesses and are shining examples of what it means to pursue a dream, despite all obstacles."



List of selected Haitian entrepreneurs :



Myrtha Vilbon, Glory Industries :

Glory Industries manufactures personal paper products such as toilet paper and napkins. The factory employs 49 people, 70 percent of them women. Ten percent have a disability. Thanks to an early grant from LEAD, the company secured bank loans and leveraged over $1 million to start operations.



Kalinda Magloire, Switch S.A. :

SWITCH S.A. markets propane stoves to the Haitian Diaspora, harnessing the power of remittances to support development. The company has generated over $400,000 in sales since it started operations in 2014. SWITCH also partners with renowned chef Jose Andres and World Central Kitchen to convert charcoal stoves to SWITCHs propane stove system for school lunch programs.



Elan Moncher, Action et Cooperation en Developpement (ACOD) :

ACOD is a Haitian agricultural enterprise operating in the North of Haiti, which produces a variety of organic hot peppers, using only organic fertilizers. Through the LEAD program, the company received a grant to install irrigation equipment, construct a business facility, and improve their operations. In the future, ACOD will be able to concretize its project of promoting and exporting the organic Haitian pepper variety to the international market. The companys expansion has been able to generate over 400 jobs.



Diderot Musset, Surtab S.A. :

Surtab S.A. is a Haitian start-up that manufactures a popular brand of "Made in Haiti" Android tablets. Since launching in 2013, Surtab has grossed more than $4 million in sales and grown to provide technology-based solutions for key sectors such as education, health and agriculture. Eighty percent of the companys employees are women.



"Haiti presents a complex and challenging business environment," says Jene Thomas, USAID Haiti Mission Director. "The LEAD program shows that with the proper support and financing, businesses can indeed thrive in Haiti. USAID is pleased to see these entrepreneurs included in a prestigious group of their peers from all over the world."



To date, the LEAD project has funded 31 enterprises and leveraged over $10 million in private capital. The program has provided training and technical assistance to more than 100 enterprises, and created to date 10,000 direct and indirect jobs across the Port-au-Prince, St. Marc, and Cap-Haitian corridors.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14621-haiti-notice-business-plan-competition-lead.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2016/06/23 | Source

Actor Lee Min-ho's fans donated W11.86 million to help children in need to celebrate the actor's birthday (US$1=W1,155).

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The money donated to Holt International Children's Services will be used to help children in single-parent families and those in foster homes.

Lee's fans have participated in charitable works to support Lee, such as donating blood to those in need, helping quake victims in Haiti and giving support to low-income families.

Lee is currently promoting his latest film "Bounty Hunters" in China ahead of its release in July and plans to appear in a new TV soap in November.
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question of when a demotion might amount to a repudiation of a contract or even unfair dismissal is one that varies from case to case and is largely dependent on what is in an employment contract.



Kerryn Tredwell, employment and labour law specialist and partner with Hall and Wilcox, is well placed to identify circumstances in which demotion can amount to a repudiation of contract by an employer.



She explains that repudiation can occur when a party to the contract (such as the employer) does something to convey that it does not intend to be bound by that contract. In an employment context, repudiation of an employment contract can amount to constructive dismissal, that is, where the employers breach of contract leaves the employee with no option but to resign.



Tredwell tells HC Online, Common examples of repudiation or constructive dismissal in employment cases include where the employer, without the employees agreement, makes a significant change to an employees position, title or responsibilities, or reduces the employees pay or status.



A demotion will not amount to repudiation or constructive dismissal if the employer has a legal right to make the changes said to amount to the demotion.



Employment contracts give employers a degree of flexibility to change an employees duties and responsibilities, position, title and reporting lines. In disciplinary scenarios, an employer might have a contractual right to demote an employee as part of a contractually binding disciplinary procedure that allows for demotion where misconduct is proven. In such a case, an employee could not claim that the demotion amounted to dismissal or repudiation of contract.



Repudiation can only occur when changes are imposed upon an employee against their wishes. A scenario where an employee would agree to a demotion might be when an employer has grounds for dismissal due to misconduct, but offers instead to demote the employee  there would be no grounds for repudiation or constructive dismissal in this case.



In addition, the Fair Work Act 2009 declares that demotion will not amount to dismissal in circumstances where the demotion does not involve a significant reduction in the employees remuneration or duties, and where the employee remains with the employer that effected the demotion.



Tredwell says that the phenomenon of demotions leading to unfair dismissal is not particularly commonplace.



Demotion certainly does arise from time to time as the basis for an unfair dismissal claim, but I would not describe demotion as a particularly common basis for those claims, she says. One reason for that might be that a claim of that nature is more likely to be brought (or pursued) by a senior employee or executive  and such employees generally will not be eligible to bring unfair dismissal claims due to earning more than the earnings threshold. Those employees would be left to pursue their claims through the courts.



In terms of employers guarding against claims of repudiation or unfair dismissal, Tredwell urges employers to tread lightly when considering demotion.



Demotion is a unilateral and substantial alteration to an employees duties to the employees disadvantage. Employers generally will not have the legal right to demote without their agreement.



Circumstances where an employer is likely to have a legal right to demote will generally be limited to where a contractually binding disciplinary procedure provides for demotion when misconduct is proven.


The following information is provided by local law enforcement agencies.

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Compiled by Jessica Isaacs

The following were provided by the Watauga County Sheriffs Office.

May 30

INCIDENT: Larceny  from buildings was reported at 460 Ski Mountain Road in Blowing Rock.

June 14

INCIDENT: Calls for service were reported at Westglow Spa.

INCIDENT: Harassment was reported at 155 S Pine Run Road in Boone.

June 15

INCIDENT: Fraud  impersonation was reported at 184 Hodges Gap Road in Boone.

INCIDENT: Unattended death was reported at 1145 Rominger Road in Banner Elk.

INCIDENT: Calls for service were reported at 1858 Meat Camp Road in Boone.

ARREST: A female suspect, 41, of 423 Locust Gap Road in Vilas, was charged with OFA FTA M-probation violation. Secured Bond: $3,000. Scheduled to appear: June 28.

ARREST: A male suspect, 32, of 106 wade Moretz Road in Deep Gap, was charged with violation of a court order. Secured Bond: $1,500. Scheduled to appear: Aug. 1.

June 16

INCIDENT: Burglary  forcible entry and larceny from buildings was reported at Boone Ironworks, 253 Ray Brown Road in Boone.

INCIDENT: Larceny was reported at 311 Longview Road in Banner Elk.

INCIDENT: Vandalism and larceny were reported at 4829 Rominger Road in Banner Elk.

June 17

INCIDENT: Calls for service were reported at 132 Milton Brown Heirs Road in Boone.

INCIDENT: A missing person was reported at 184 Hodges Gap Road.

ARREST: A male suspect, 23, of 6818 Idlewild Road in Fleetwood, was charged with OFA. Secured Bond: $346. Scheduled to appear: July 7.

June 18

INCIDENT: Trespassing was reported at 179 Hade Smith Drive in Banner Elk.

INCIDENT: Larceny was reported at 292 Tweetsie Railroad Lane in Blowing Rock.

ARREST: A male suspect, 49, of 400 Slabtown Road in Zionville, was charged with communicating threats. Scheduled to appear: Aug. 3.

ARREST: A male suspect, 42, of 1767 Burkett Road in Boone, was charged with two counts of felony drug violations. Secured Bond: $5,000. Scheduled to appear: Aug. 1.

June 19

INCIDENT: Assault on a female and injury to personal property were reported at 586 Will Isaacs Road in Zionville.

INCIDENT: Assault on a female and injury to personal property were reported at 1182 U.S. Highway 321 N in Sugar Grove.

INCIDENT: Misdemeanor larceny was reported at 2114 Longhope Road in Todd.

INCIDENT: Larceny from buildings and breaking and entering were reported at 337 Kirby Branch Road in Zionville.

ARREST: A male suspect, 26, of 973 Meat Camp Road, was charged with order for arrest for failure to appear. Secured Bond: $550. Scheduled to appear: July 21.

June 20

INCIDENT: Larceny from motor vehicle was reported at 1182 U.S. Highway 321 N in Vilas.

ARREST: A male suspect, 56, of 209 Old Hatch Lane in Boone, was charged with OFA/FTA.
KRP reveals in a press release that the first shots rang out at approximately 11.30 as four police officers sought to enter a private premises they had surrounded for two hours after failing to make contact with the armed suspect and his wife. The armed suspect, a 67-year-old man, opened fire at the police officers with an assault rifle, prompting the officers to respond to the gunfire.

The National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) has shed further light on the shooting in Vihti, Southern Finland, on 17 June that left one police officer dead and another seriously injured.

The investigation found that one of the bullets discharged by police hit the [suspect], injuring him but not rendering him unable to act, a police spokesperson says in the press release.

The press release also indicates that one of the police officers was injured by a bullet fired by the gunman immediately after entering the premises. The officer took cover outside the premises, while another officer began pulling back in order to help his injured co-worker, but as he was pulling back he sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the back and died immediately.

The suspect was found dead outside the premises at approximately 1.30am after taking his own life with the assault rifle, according to the press release.

KRP has yet to comment on the possible motives for the shooting. Reports elsewhere in the media suggest that the gunman was the subject of debt recovery proceedings and had contested the decision of the local enforcement office.

The Office of the Prosecutor General opens an inquiry into any incident in which police officers have to resort to discharging their firearms. District Prosecutor Heikki Wendorf has according to the press release determined based on the information currently available that there is no reason to suspect any of the police officers of wrongdoings in the incident.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Roni Rekomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
President Sauli Niinisto has appointed Kai Mykkanen (NCP) as Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Petteri Orpo (NCP) as Minister of Finance, and Paula Risikko (NCP) as Minister of the Interior as per the proposal of Orpo, the newly-elected chairperson of the National Coalition Party.

The position of the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development was vacated earlier this week by Lenita Toivakka (NCP) after she concluded that the public debate sparked by her involvement in a family business accused of tax avoidance could damage the popularity of the National Coalition Party.

She will be succeeded by Mykkanen, a first-term Member of the Parliament from the electoral district of Uusimaa, who describes himself as a green conservative and reform-oriented policy-maker. He states in a press release that he is eager to encourage the development of new ideas in Finland and is confident that such ideas can change the world.

One example would be how to realise urbanisation in Africa in a sustainable way, he says.

Mykkanen has worked in the banking sector of St. Petersburg and as an economist specialising in Russia at the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) before winning a seat in the Finnish Parliament.

He has an understanding of international affairs, expertise in Russia, language skills and he has worked for the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, meaning he is very familiar with foreign trade. He can get to work right away, explained Orpo.

Mykkanen, he added, has invaluable expertise for Finland also in the fields of climate policy, urban policy, sustainable development and development co-operation.

I couldn't think of a better candidate for the position in light of today's needs, stated Orpo.

Risikko, by contrast, is a seasoned policy-maker, having served as the Minister of Social Services in 20072011, the Minister of Social Affairs and Health in 20112014, and the Minister of Transport and Communications in 20142015. She was first elected to the Finnish Parliament from the electoral district of Vaasa in 2003.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
Huntington, WV (25701)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 40F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 40F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
A woman who slipped on a manhole cover during a family day out in Dublin Zoo has launched a High Court action for damages.

Gwen Leost Kane said she and her husband had balloons and cake to celebrate their son Gabriel's first birthday, but instead she ended up in hospital after the fall.

Ms Kane fractured her ankle after slipping while pushing her child's buggy outside the sea lions' enclosure.

She was in plaster for seven weeks, had to have crutches for 16 weeks and was left with a 10cm scar on her foot, she said.

Ms Kane (43) sued the Zoologicial Society of Ireland over the fall on June 12, 2011.

She claimed there was a failure to adequately supervise the premises to ensure the sea lions' enclosure and its surrounding amenities, visitor walkways, and viewing area were safe for people expected to walk through that area even in wet weather.

She also claimed an accumulation of rainwater had been allowed on a pedestrian walkway and the metal manhole cover.

Damages

Mr Justice Anthony Barr was told liability was admitted in the case and it was before the court for assessment of damages only.

In evidence Ms Kane said she fell backwards after slipping and heard her bone crack.

"It has affected my life a lot. I used to wear a lot of high heels," she said. "There is a heavy scar and I am now confined to comfortable footwear. I suffer pain every day."

Ms Kane , from Beechdale Court, Firhouse, Dublin, said she found it difficult looking after her young son after the accident .

Mr Justice Barr reserved his decision.
A mother whose son's fingertip was sliced off in a creche has spoken of her relief after surgeons managed to re-attach it.

Rachel Tighe Donoghue (32) said her son Kyle was being brought to hospital by ambulance when it was noticed his fingertip was missing.

"I was desperately trying to phone the creche to find the fingertip," said the mother-of-four.

"The phone was busy. I managed to contact a member of staff on her mobile.

"Although she wasn't working that day, she was able to contact staff so they could find the fingertip.

"It was placed in cling film, put on ice and put in a little cup and brought in a taxi," she said.

Slammed

The accident happened in December 2014, when Kyle was one-and-a-half. Kyle was being taken to the toilet when another child slammed the toilet door on his hand, severing the top joint of the ring finger on his left hand.

After the creche was contacted, the severed part of the finger was found still attached to the toilet door.

"I was eight months' pregnant at the time of the accident. My husband Gerard drove me to the creche after I got the call. The first thing I was told was that Kyle had an accident and would need stitches and 'Don't panic'," she said.

"He wasn't crying. His finger was bleeding heavily and was wrapped in a babywipe.

"I'm so grateful to the staff member who was able to contact the creche.

"I'm relieved Kyle's fingertip was saved by the brilliant hospital staff," she told The Herald yesterday.

A judge, who last November rejected a 20,000 settlement offer to the now three-year-old boy, approved an offer of 40,000 this week.

Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said he was happy the new offer would be sufficient to compensate the boy for the traumatic incident he suffered while attending Doras Bui Creche, Bunratty Drive, Coolock, Dublin.

The court heard that Kyle's finger had no functional deficit, but there had been concern that he may have a residual psychological trauma.

Kyle, through his mother Rachel, sued Doras Bui Creche, A Parents Alone Resource Centre Ltd, for negligence.
Hancock-area couple sentenced in huge animal cruelty case

A Hancock-area couple was sentenced Wednesday in an animal cruelty case that led to massive animal rescue operation in Western Maryland in June 2021.
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Actor Jacqueline Fernandez is still basking in the glory of her last film - Housefull 3. However, the actor says that its not very easy working in a comedy.

Comedy is one of the toughest genres. It is so essential to get the timing right, failing which the humour can fall flat. Its a great feeling when your work is appreciated. I am overwhelmed with the love I have been receiving, says Jacqueline, who just completed shooting for the second schedule of her upcoming film alongside Sidharth Malhotra.

Actor Jaqueline Fernandez recently returned from her holiday in Florida, where she took her nephew to Disney Land.

Read: In pics: Sidharth Malhotras in Miami to shoot Not Bang Bang 2

The actor has decided to take on more projects in the same genre. Jacqueline has quite a few films lined up, but she is very keen to take up another comedy. Despite the challenges, she loved shooting for the genre and is on the look out for another comedy, says a source, close to the actor.

When you wanna play with your nephew but you gotta go to work...  A photo posted by Jacqueline Fernandez (@jacquelinef143) on Jun 18, 2016 at 12:03pm PDT

3 mini mouses and a goofball!!! @waltdisneyworld  A photo posted by Jacqueline Fernandez (@jacquelinef143) on Jun 22, 2016 at 8:50am PDT

Look who joined us for dinner!! #piglet #winniethepooh @waltdisneyworld  A photo posted by Jacqueline Fernandez (@jacquelinef143) on Jun 23, 2016 at 6:14am PDT

Meanwhile, the actor has just returned from a holiday. Jacqueline was in Florida recently where she took her nephew to Disneyland. Now, that she has returned, she cant wait to get back to the sets of her upcoming films - Dishoom and A Flying Jatt. After that she has to shoot for the third schedule of her film with Sidharth, adds the source,
Riding high on the success of his Bollywood debut opposite Kareena Kapoor Khan Udta Punjab, Punjabi star Diljit Dosanjh may have bagged Karan Johars next directorial venture.

Read: Diljit Dosanjh sings on public demand

According to a report in Pinkvilla, the 44-year-old filmmaker is keen on signing Diljit for his next project after he was impressed with his outstanding performance as a police office in Udta Punjab. It would be right to say that the Ambarsariya actors career in Bollywood has taken off with a bang.

Read: Punjabi cinema will remain my first love, says Diljit

The Proper Patola singer will also be seen in Anushka Sharmas next production Phillauri.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Seeking apology from Bollywood actor Salman Khan for his remark that he felt like a raped woman after a gruelling shoot of an upcoming film, Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande said there isnt a more shameless celebrity than the Bajrangi Bhaijaan star.

The Sena spokesperson also urged directors respecting women to boycott the Bollywood super star till he tenders an unconditional apology for his comment. I have not seen a celebrity who can get more shameless than Salman Khan. He has a destructive nature from the beginning. He shoots endangered animals, kills people living on footpaths and now this (remark on rape). People still, ironically, consider him a hero, Kayande said .

Salman had landed himself in a controversy for his remark that he felt like a raped woman after one gruelling shoot for his upcoming wrestling-themed film Sultan, sparking demands for an apology from the actor.

Salim Khan has apologised for Salmans comments while the actor himself has refused to comment at all.

Reacting on his sons behalf, Salmans father Salim Khan had said,Undoubtedly what Salman said is wrong, the simili (sic), example and the context. The intention was not wrong.

Read: How many times will Salim Khan defend Salman?

Kayande said it is shameful that a 50-year-old man cannot own up to his words and his 80-year-old father has to come to his rescue. There are certain political parties that are taking his side. But they should introspect. Today, even the entire film industry is silent over the issue which usually goes hammer and tongs over issues not relevant to them, she said.

According to the Sena spokesperson, Salman has to tender an unconditional apology for his rape remarks because people are furious with him.

Salman Khan will be seen next in Sultan where he plays a wrestler.

All directors respecting women should boycott him until he apologises for his remarks. Even people should stop watching his films, Kayande added.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) has taken suo motu cognisance of the insensitive remark by Salman and shot off a letter to him asking for his explanation in seven days failing which he will be summoned. Maharashtra State Commission for Women has also summoned Khan on June 29 over his remarks.

Meanwhile, Khans statement generated mixed reactions from opposition parties in Maharashtra, with Congress saying that the matter should not be raked up further.

Read: Womens panel demands apology from Salman in seven days

Salman Khan does not apply his mind while speaking in enthusiasm and keeps making wrong statements. This comment of his is akin to disrespecting women. But since his father, who is a respected figure, has apologised, this matter should not be raked up further, Congress MP Hussain Dalwai said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Global stocks largely rose Wednesday and the pound clawed higher on the eve of Britains closely fought referendum as traders appear to eye the country voting to remain in the European Union.

Londons FTSE 100 index forged ahead, closing up 0.6 percent, as the clock ticks down to the start of balloting to decide Britains future in the EU and the future shape of the bloc.

With all eyes trained on the result due early Friday, Frankfurt and Paris also edged higher, while US stocks were also cautiously up.

Most economists on both sides of the pond insist that a Leave vote from the EU would disrupt business as usual in Great Britain, the EU, here at home and elsewhere in the world.

A vote to remain is seen as a near-term positive for markets here and abroad, Mark Vickery, of Zacks Investment Research, said in a note to clients.

Asian stocks mainly held in positive territory, despite the head of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen warning that a vote to leave, a so-called Brexit, could hammer world markets.

Yellen was set for a second day of congressional hearings Wednesday.

The Remain camp now has a razor-thin lead -- 51 percent versus 49 percent for Leave, according to an average of polls compiled by What UK Thinks.

Financial markets have largely tracked the polls as the campaign goes down to the wire and now appear to place the Remain camp clearly in the lead.

Rebecca OKeeffe, head of investment at online broker Interactive Investor, said equities had continued pushing further forward despite the poll predictions still making the results too close to call.

But she questioned whether investors may be proving too confident.

With less than 24 hours before voting starts, markets are now pricing in virtually no risk of an exit vote, which begs the question as to whether the euphoria is being overdone and how much upside still exists for investors -- or whether this is irrational exuberance and investors are ignoring the risks?

Britain, which is the worlds fifth largest economy, will suffer a powerful blow to growth and jobs, corporate chiefs warned, if the country becomes the first state to defect from the EU in the blocs 60-year history.

Markets pause

Following a three-day rally fuelled by hopes the country will stay in the 28-nation bloc, analysts said traders were pausing to see what happens in Thursdays poll.

Equity indices are mixed... having lost some of yesterdays bullish momentum, said Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said, adding a pause was to be expected.

Markets also have a tendency to hunker down into any major risk event, preferring to avoid leaving excessive risk on the table, especially when the outcome could be so ground-breaking -- politically, economically and of course for financial markets, he added in a note to clients.

In foreign exchange, the pound climbed on Wednesday to $1.4684 having hit a five-month peak at $1.4783 the previous day on expectations that Britain would stay in the EU.

Moneycorp dealers said the opinion-poll-driven euphoria that began a few days ago had been enormously helpful to the pound.

However, it has not been enough to offset the losses suffered by the pound earlier in the year. Sterling is still down by an average of -5.5% from its position on 1 January, they said in a note.

In other news, oil prices fell after US data -- an indicator of demand in the worlds top oil consumer -- revealed stocks had declined less than expected last week.

Brent North Sea crude fell 81 cents from Tuesday to $49.81 a barrel, while US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was $49.10 a barrel, down 75 cents.

Key figures around 1545 GMT

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 6,261.19 points (close)

Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 0.6 percent at 10,071.06 points (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.3 percent at 4,380.03 points (close)

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.4 percent at 2,978.31 points (close)

New York - DOW: UP 0.1 percent at 17,853.84 points

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.6 percent at 16,065.72 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.9 percent at 2,905.55 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 0.6 percent at 20,795.12 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1283 from $1.1259 late Tuesday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.4684 from $1.4628

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 104.55 yen from 104.80 yen
History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce, but in Indian politics, the farce plays out so frequently that the tragic element is obscured. Four recent instances highlight just how the disease of immoral politics is now a contagion that has spread across the political class. No party is immune to its depravity.

Lets start with the BJP, now the countrys premier national party. Just look at the manner in which the party has sought to derive political capital from the alleged exodus of Hindu families from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh. Its local MP first claims that Hindu villagers are being targeted by Muslim gangs and provides a list of families who have left their homes out of fear in the last year. When it transpires that the list contains names of people who have left for reasons like jobs, health and education several years ago, when a number of those named are still found in their homes or, in some instances, are dead, the MP backtracks to say the problem is one of law and order and should not be seen in communal terms.

This doesnt stop the BJP leadership though, including party president Amit Shah, from suggesting that Hindus are under siege in the region. The BJP sends a fact-finding team to the area even as the partys hyper-active social media cell targets the mainstream media as anti-Hindu for not highlighting the issue more aggressively. Now, it is true that in the aftermath of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots there has been a worrying communal polarisation on the ground in western UP.

Read | No exodus but fear in Kairana, says fact-finding team of saints

And yet, when Muslim families were forced into refugee camps, no BJP fact-finding team focussed on their plight. But with elections in UP just months away, it seems that the party has decided to play the Hindu card once again. What other rational explanation can there be for the issue to assume a dangerous communal dimension only in the last fortnight? Sadly, the prime minister, despite his sabka saath sabka vikas sloganeering, has chosen to stay conspicuously silent once again.

Switch now to the Congress, which claims to be the flag-bearer of secular politics in India. Just ahead of a crucial election in Punjab, the party decides to appoint Kamal Nath as its general secretary in charge of the state. Sikh groups protest, claiming that Nath is scorched by the ashes of the 1984 riots. Rattled by the backlash, an embarrassed Congress is forced to get Nath to rather ignominiously withdraw from the post. Even by the partys recent history of self-goals, surely this is one which they could have avoided. Nath is an astute political strategist who could be sent to several other states, why only Punjab?

Read | Kamal Nath controversy caught Congress unawares

The Congress and Nath have argued that no 1984 riots commission of inquiry has indicted him and there is no formal case against him in any court. True, but what about the court of public perception? In the minds of many Sikhs, Naths role on the streets of Delhi along with several other Congress leaders has never been fully explained or investigated. There has never been a sense of urgency or commitment shown to ensure justice for the victims. The problem is that the Congress vision of secularism has often taken the minorities for granted: Its failure to fully come to terms with the partys role in the 1984 riots in particular remains a permanent blot.

Lets now turn to AAP which burst onto the political scene with its anti-corruption agenda and a promise of being a party with a difference. Twenty-one of its legislators now stand in danger of being disqualified under the office of profit rule after being appointed parliamentary secretaries. AAP claims it is being victimised and that other state and central governments have got away with retrospective legislation to insulate their members from office of profit provisions. But surely a party that stands on the pulpit of lofty idealism doesnt want to be judged by the standards that other parties have set. Moreover, even if there are no financial benefits gained from being a parliamentary secretary (AAP has quite bizarrely described them as interns) should it be done in such flagrant violation of the Constitution only to provide members with a taste of power?

Read | No office of profit could be more important than propriety

Finally, there is the shame of the Rajya Sabha elections where it is increasingly apparent that nominations to the house of elders have been reduced to a cash and carry exercise for some. How else does one explain the sting operation in Karnataka where JD(S) MLAs are nonchalantly asking for `5 crore for a vote? Or the open cross-voting in many other states? A similar sting operation during a poll in Jharkhand a few years ago had exposed the rot on camera and the poll was countermanded. Yet, it appears that there is no fear of the law among our law-makers.

Indeed, such is the prevailing political culture that every party would prefer to brazen it out rather than accept culpability. Will the ominous fallout on community relations in a Kairana stop the BJP from practising the politics of religious division in the UP elections? Will the Congress accept its past mistakes like 1984 and vow to remove the hollowness from its secular balloon? Will AAP abandon its politics of confrontation for a more meaningful agenda of governance? And will suitcase deal-making ever leave our electoral landscape?

Read | Rajya Sabha polls: Election Commission can do little once results are declared

As journalists, we can only continue to raise the uncomfortable questions. Our political class can, of course, continue to evade the questions: When lust for power fails to differentiate between means and ends, then any form of public accountability is the first casualty. Till the next farce then, we the people can only stand and despair.

Post-script: One is often asked, why dont good people enter politics which is, after all, considered the highest form of public service? I think the last fortnight tells us why so many are unwilling to dip their toes in the muck. Cleaning it up will take a very long time.

Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and an author

The views expressed are personal

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NEW DELHI : The Fortis Hospital at Shalimar Bagh dismissed five staffers on Wednesday for allegedly operating on the healthy left ankle of a chartered accountant instead of the injured one during a surgical procedure conducted the previous afternoon.

A police complaint lodged at the Ashok Vihar police station stated that the patient, 24-year-old Ravi Rai, had fractured his right leg when he fell down a staircase on Sunday. He was taken to Fortis Hospital, where screening tests showed that the ankle joint was damaged. Following this, the surgeons decided to operate on the leg.

He had fractured an ankle joint, and needed screws to hold it in place, said Rais father Ram Karan. But when they brought him out of surgery, we noticed they had operated on his left leg. His right leg was untouched.

Ram Karan alleged that the hospital authorities were shockingly nonchalant about the entire episode. When we questioned the doctors, they said there was no problem they would simply perform another surgery to remove the screws from the left ankle and put them in the right one, he said.

Claiming criminal negligence and apathy on the part of the hospital authorities, the distressed father said: Several tests were conducted before the surgery, and they had even marked his right ankle with a marker. What made them operate on the wrong ankle, then?

Ram Karan said Mediclaim reimbursement of Rs 1 lakh has already been paid to the hospital. They delayed the surgery by a day because we hadnt received confirmation from the insurance company, he added.

Rai, meanwhile, has been shifted to Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh for treatment.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Fortis claimed that the hospital had set up an expert committee to probe the incident immediately after the botched surgery. Preliminary findings suggested that the accused doctors had deviated from routine operating room procedures to reduce chances of human error, it added.

The operating team may have disregarded and sidestepped due processes... As this is a zero-tolerance area for us, the services of five erring doctors and operation room personnel have been dispensed forthwith. Action is also being contemplated against others, pending inquiry, the hospital said.

Police said a case under sections 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against the staffers. We are looking into the matter, said Vijay Singh, deputy commissioner of police (northwest).

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NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday expressed full confidence in chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, in an apparent snub to BJP MP Subramanian Swamy whose recent criticism s of top policy makers have led many to question the acceptable limits of public discourse in India.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley came to his top advisers defence after Swamy accused him of encouraging the opposition Congress to become rigid on the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST), and acting against Indias interest during his time in the United States.

Swamys earlier diatribe had been directed at central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, and many saw that criticism as contributing to his decision not to seek a second term after September.

Jaitley s comments on Wednesday were the strongest yet against Swamy that not only backed the two top policymakers but also asked politicians to desist from personal attacks targeting officials.

The government has full confidence in the chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian and his advice to the government from time to time has been of great value, Jaitley said at a press conference in New Delhi.

I would also add one more fact from the point of view of discipline of Indian politicians. To what extent should we attack those the discipline and constraints of whose offices prevent them from responding? And this has happened more than once.

Swamy had accused Rajan of wrecking the economy, alleging he was mentally not fully Indian since he held a US green card. Both Rajan and Subramanian have worked at the International Monetary Fund. While Rajan was appointed by the previous UPA government, Subramanian was brought in by the NDA government in October 2014.

Jaitley rejected suggestions that the government had not spoken out for Rajan when Swamy had targeted him, asserting that he as well as BJP president Amit Shah had spoken on the matter. On Wednesday, Swamy looked isolated as the BJP also chose to distance itself from his remarks.

The party does not agree with his views. This is completely his personal opinion, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

In a series of tweets Wednesday morning, Swamy unleashed a tirade against the chief economic adviser whose name is among the several doing the rounds to succeed Rajan as RBI governor.

Who said to US Cong on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US Pharmaceuticals interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF !! Sack him!!!, tweeted the BJP MP.

Modis chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian had opposed India on IPR till recently, he said in another tweet referring to reports about Subramanian, when he was a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for Inter national Economics, urging the US to take action against India at the World Trade Organisation over patents.

The Rajya Sabha member from the BJP accused Subramanian, who succeeded Rajan as the CEA, of encouraging the opposition Congress to harden stand on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill that would enable the rollout of the GST.

Guess who encouraged Congi to become rigid on GST clauses? Jaitleys economic adviser Arvind Subramanian of Washington DC, Swamy tweeted, saying he is helping Jaitely to recognise the enemies in our camp.

Now PTs (Patriotic Tweeples) can understand why our core economic sectors could not perform last two years. Trojan horses galore in MoF/Fin Institutions, said Swamy.

Was AS (Arvind Subramanian) deposing before US Cong Committee against India as a US citizen or Indian? Does any PT know? he tweeted.

Finance ministry officials dismissed Swamys allegations against Subramanian, saying that the ministry knew about his views and credentials before his appointment. People should read his papers on IPR and pharma before commenting on his views. They are actually in favour of India, said a finance ministry official.

The president of confederation of Indian industry (CII) too condemned the statement. If you are asking me about his tweets, I would describe Subramanian Swamy as the noise in our noisy democracy. It is a part of vibrancy of our democracy that you hear all kinds of statements and frankly you should not judge India on the basis of any politicians outlandish statements, Naushad Forbes said.

The ruling party MPs attack on the chief economic adviser gave an opportunity to the opposition Congress to take a swipe at the government.

Subramanian Swamy now guns for Arvind Subramanian Economic Advisor to NDA. Target is Arun Jaitley not Arvind Subramanian, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh tweeted.

Is Modi handing over Finance Ministry to Subramanian Swamy?
BEIJING/NEW DELHI: A day ahead of a crucial meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), China on Wednesday changed tack on India s entry into the elite club, saying only applications of countries that signed an atomic non-proliferation pact will be considered.

This is seen as a hardening of stand after Beijing had said on Tuesday there was still room for discussion on countries such as India.

Neither India nor Pakistan, which also wants to get into the club of countries controlling trade in sensitive nuclear technology, has signed the nuclear non- proliferation treaty (NPT). Present NSG rules allow only NPT signatories to apply for membership.

Deliberation on the entry of specific countries is on the agenda of the Seoul plenary meeting( June 23-24). However, it is worth noting that the meeting is only to deliberate on the entry application of countries that are state parties to the NPT, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

As for the entry of non-NPT countries, the group has never put that on its meeting agenda.

The US has already put its weight behind India, and on Wednesday France reiterated its support, saying New Delhis entry will help better regulate nuclear trade.

In line with its active and long-standing support to Indias entry to the NSG as a full-fledged member, France calls on its members to take a positive decision, the French foreign ministry said. Meanwhile, foreign secretary S Jaishankar flew to Seoul on Wednesday to shore up New Delhis efforts to join the NSG despite the stonewalling by China, which has pushed for Indias application to be considered along with that of Pakistan.

NSG members held three rounds of unofficial discussions on the entry of India and Pakistan into the group, the Chinese statement said. Although parties are yet to see eye to eye on this issue, such discussions help them better understand each other. China hopes to further discuss this issue and will play a constructive role in the discussions, it added.

A senior Western diplomatic source noted there had been an evolution in Chinas stance even in the past 24 hours.

Diplomatic sources said India will have scored a victory even if it manages to get its application on the agenda so that the matter is open for discussion by the NSG at a subsequent stage.

The sources pointed out that when New Delhi got a waiver from the NSGs rules in 2008, following the India-US civil nuclear deal, this was based on the countrys commitments and track record on non-proliferation.

This track record is a key reason for the strength of US support for Indias membership of the NSG. In the US view, Indias non-proliferation record since the NSG exemption in 2008 has actually improved. The lack of a similar track record, US sources said, is why Washington and other NSG members are opposed to Pakistan being considered at the same time as India.

The US also believes that even if China is able to ensure Indias application is not taken up at the NSG plenary in Seoul, this will not bring the bid for membership to an end. But membership will take a concerted diplomatic effort, the US sources said.

One possibility that was being explored was the creation of a working group by the NSG to examine the membership of non-NPT countries, sources said.

Let us not pre-judge anything. This is a long and winding negotiation, an Indian source said. We are hopeful that we will make it sooner than later. We dont want to put a timeline or a deadline.

The NSG, set up in response to Indias first nuclear test in 1974, aims to prevent the proliferation of atomic weapons. The group works on the principle of consensus and a single hold-out country can spoil Indias chance of joining the club.
LUCKNOW: A close aide of BSP chief Mayawati quit the party on Wednesday in what is being seen as a huge blow to the Dalit leaders dreams of recapturing power in the state in next years assembly polls.

Swami Prasad Maurya, the partys backward-class poster boy, announced his decision in a hurriedly convened press conference where he accused her of auctioning tickets for the assembly polls.

I feel suffocated and cannot continue in the party anymore, Maurya, 62, said. A large number of distressed BSP MLAs are in touch with me and are ready to go wherever I go.

Mayawati, a four-time chief minister, hit back at Maurya saying he has done a favour by leaving the party.

Speculation was rife in the political circles that Maurya might join the Samajwadi Party and could even find a cabinet berth when chief minister Akhilesh Yadav expands his ministry on June 27 in perhaps the last reshuffle of his council of ministers before elections. A close aide of BSP chief Mayawati quit the party on Wednesday in what is being seen as a huge blow to the Dalit leaders dreams of re capturing power in the state in next years assembly polls.

Swami Prasad Maurya, the partys backward class poster boy, announced his decision in a hurriedly-convened press conference where he accused her of auctioning tickets for the assembly polls.

Mayawati, a four-time former chief minister, hit back at Maurya promptly saying he has done a favour by leaving the party. Maurya was the national general secretary of the BSP and leader of opposition in the state assembly.

The forthcoming assembly election is being billed as a barometer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi s popularity in the countrys most populous state where the BJP won 71 out of 80 seats in the 2014 parliamentary elections.

Maurya was expected to play a major role in the BSPs aim to oust the Samajwadi Party (SP) and also foil the BJPs bid to win power in the state .I feel suffocated and cannot continue in the party anymore, Maurya, 62, said adding that Mayawati was auctioning poll tickets.

A large number of distressed BSP MLAs are in touch with me and are ready togo wherever I go .

Though he did not reveal his next move, both the SP and BJP swung into action to woo the MLA from Padrauna. As soon as Maurya emerged after briefing the media, BJP and SP leaders jostled to welcome him to their side.

While BJP MP Jagdambika Pal greeted Maurya, two senior SP leaders  Shivpal Singh Yadav and Azam Khan  too rushed out of their assembly chambers to speak to him.

A PTI report said that Maurya could join the ruling SP and might be rewarded with a ministerial berth when chief minister Akhilesh Yadav carries out a reshuffle. Speculation is rife in the political circles that Maury a might join SP and could even find a berth in the Akhilesh government when he expands his ministry on June 27 in perhaps the last reshuffle of his council of ministers ahead of the elections. There are four vacancies in the council of ministers.

Mayawati hinted as much pointing out Mauryas links with the SP and described him as a habitual party-hopper.

Earlier, he worked with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in the Lok Dal and the Janata Dal. Mulayam is promoting his family in politics and the same habit has affected Maurya too, Mayawati told reporter sat her official residence. She said Maury a was insisting on tickets not only for himself but also for his son and daughter.

He might join SP or BJP which will give ticket to his children in the coming assembly election.

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: Two sisters in their 20s were found hanging from a ceiling fan in their home in outer Delhis Rohini in an apparent case of suicide on Wednesday.

Police said a preliminary probe revealed they may have been ill-treated by their sister-in-law and depressed over it. Some investigators also said they may have been grieving their deceased parents.

Seema, 26, was a part-time teacher at a private school and Parul, 20, had just cleared her Class 12 exam. They lived with their brother Aryan Choudhary and his second wife, a woman from Nepal, after their mother died in 2009 and their father two years later.

Choudhary called the police after he knocked on their door and got no response. The sisters were found hanging from the same ceiling fan. They had used their dupattas to hang themselves, said an officer.

No suicide note was found and the autopsy report is awaited.

Since Choudharys financial condition isnt good, his wife allegedly used to taunt the sisters, saying they were a burden on the family, said a police source.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday demanded the arrest of Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) vice chairperson Karan Singh Tanwar for the murder of NDMC official MM Khan.

The AAP also demanded the resignation of the L-G for a fair probe as the Delhi Police reported to him.

L-G Jung on Thursday conceded that Bharatiya Janata Party MP, Maheish Girri, had submitted a letter on behalf of Prominent Hotels Limited, owners of The Connaught Hotel that asked the L-G to arbitrate in the conflict between NDMC and the hotel.

The party, while saying that its stand has been vindicated, also demanded that the role of Jung, NDMC vice chairperson Karan Singh Tanwar and Girri be investigated.

The Aam Aadmi Party has been bringing to the fore incriminating evidence in the form of letters and other documents that point to a clear murder conspiracy. The role of leaders of the BJP, MP Maheish Girri and MCD vice chairman Karan Singh Tanwar has also been exposed by the AAP. The fact that the perpetrator of this crime has received political patronage from the Bhartiya Janata Party and its leaders is both shocking and disturbing, a statement issued by the party said.

Girri has repeatedly claimed that he had nothing to do with the hotel owner, Ramesh Kakkar, and that he did not write any letter to the L-G at all.

The AAP, however, has maintained that Girri had a clear role to play in the murder.

How can Mr Girri claim that he had nothing to do with Mr Kakkars case in the NDMC? How can he deny his direct involvement in seeking action against MM Khan, who conveniently ended up as a victim of a murder conspiracy? The party asked.

Read more: Delhi hotelier, five others detained for NDMC lawyers murder

The party also pointed out that the L-G letter asking the NDMC to take action on the matter as per law was sent on May 17, a day after Khans death.

What is even more shocking is the timeline of events on and after the day of the murder. Even as Khan was murdered on May 16, and the police had arrested the accused hotelier Ramesh Kakkar, the L-G deemed it fit to write another to the NDMC on behalf of a murder accused and his MP friend Maheish Girri, AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha, said.

AAP also condemned the L-Gs repeated letters to NDMC in the matter.

What is the L-Gs interest in repeatedly trying to seek an action that illegally provides the accused a gain of ` 140 crore? Despite the High Court order which makes it clear that only the Estate Officer, who in this case was late MM Khan, was allowed to adjudicate in the matter, the L-G kept writing letter after letter on the behest of Maheish Girri and Ramesh Kakkar. The L-G had no right or authority to intervene in the matter, but his persistent, acute interest in the matter is highly suspect and warrants a thorough probe, a statement issued by the party said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has found itself in another controversy as its MLA from Sangam Vihar, Dinesh Mohaniya, has been charged with molesting a woman who approached his office with a demand for regular water supply.

Noor Banu alleged that Mohaniya refused to help her and the group of women who approached him, and further abused, manhandled and threatened them.

A case under sections of 323 (voluntary causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code, was registered after the woman approached the Delhi Police, police said.

Last month, an AAP leader and his son were charged with molesting several women at the sons school in Punjab. In 2013, just a day after AAPs resounding success in the Delhi assembly, then MLA Dharmendra Singh Koli was booked for molesting a woman during a clash that had broken out at a victory procession.

AAP MLA Somnath Bharti is also under investigation for abusing his wife and attempting to kill her.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Noor Banu said, We had gone to Mohaniyas office to get the water problem resolved as we have been shuttling from one office to another for past five months just to get water. When we went there, the MLA started abusing me and called me names. The workers at his office came and started misbehaving with me. They held me from the collar of my blouse and threatened to kill (me).

She further alleged that Mohaniya told them there is a price for everything and nothing comes for free.

The AAP legislator, however, defended himself by calling the allegations a conspiracy.

Conspiracy against me by the naxos of Water mafia n local BJP unit, neither that women nor me in video, he posted on Twitter.

AAP leader Dileep Pandey also tweeted that the complaint was baseless as there was no proof of the incident. There is no evidence, not even a pic that @DineshMohaniya so called misbehaved. Allegations are being presented in form of verdict, he tweeted.

Banu alleged that the workers demanded money to send a tanker to their locality and that she recorded the conversation. I have audio recording of the workers demanding money for water and the MLA backing them. We had just demanded a water connection for Sangam Vihar as we were promised one, but nothing has been done till now. Earlier at least we used to get a water tanker, but now we do not even get that. How are we supposed to manage without water in this weather? Is it too big a demand? she said.

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I never got education, so its very important to me that my daughters go to school, says a post on the page, My Daughter is Precious. The page, an initiative by the father-daughter duo Rajesh Ramakrishnan, and 14-year-old Kaavya Rajesh, attempts to capture the bond between a father and daughter through pictures.

We came across a lady on the internet who carried a Polaroid camera across slums in India so that she could click photos of the dwellers and give it to them, shares Rajesh, speaking about the seed of the idea.

Shankar with his daughter Deepika in Besant Nagar, Chennai.

Read: Modis praise for Selfie with Daughter helps, says Bibipur sarpanch

Building on that, Rajesh launched this initiative in April this year. On one side, there is an issue of education, especially for the girl child, treating them equally and on the other, they pose for picture, but they never get to own a picture ... we brought those two together, says Rajesh, who is now based in Dhaka and is a former Gurgaon resident.

Deepak with his daughter Rinki in Kolkata.

The father-daughter duo visit an under-privileged area every Friday or Saturday in Dhaka. The drive has so far been done in Dhaka, Kolkata and Chennai. We click pictures of a father and daughter and we give that Polaroid picture which they can keep in their house as a reminder of the bond, says Rajesh.

Further, on Fathers Day this year, they launched a campaign to raise money through a crowd funding platform, Bitgiving. We want people to contribute to the project Nanhi Kali that supports education of the girl child. To educate a girl child, there is a certain amount of money required per year. Whatever money gets contributed that money would be then used to send a girl to school in the areas where they cant afford it.The fund-raising culminates on Daughters Day (August 11) this year, he adds.

Read: An India for the girl child: Modis Mann ki Baat echoes in Haryana village

Sharing an anecdote about the kind of people they meet, Kaavya, says, Once we went to a colony in Chennai where I came across a father who was bringing up his four girls single-handedly. He wanted to educate the girls because he hadnt received education in his life. The picture of the father and daughter help spread awareness thereby giving the message that daughters are precious. 

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The Delhi Police on Thursday gave a clean-chit to east Delhi MP Maheish Girri and NDMCs vice-chairman Karan Singh Tanwar in MM Khans murder case, saying no evidence was found against them in the probe.

The police also claimed that they have completed their investigation and the chargesheet will be filed soon.

Addressing the media, chief spokesperson of Delhi Police Taj Hassan said the unfortunate murder of an honest NDMC official is being politicised for political mileage and investigation into the case is being done without any pressure or bias.

Unfortunately this case is now being politicised. We took all relevant documents from NDMC and examined them thoroughly. But at no point the scrutiny of documents throw up any evidence against the BJP MP and NDMC vice-chairman, said Hassan.

It has come to light that a day after Khan was murdered for allegedly refusing to take bribe from Delhi hotelier Ramesh Kakkar, Jungs office had purportedly sent Kakkars petition against Khan to NDMC asking for action as per law.

Read more: AAP charges frivolous, says L-G Najeeb Jung

Without naming the AAP, the police dismissed the controversial letters being circulated by the party as not having any connection to the murder.

Joint Commissioner of Police (southeastern range) RP Upadhyay said the investigation is being done without any bias. With the arrest of all the accused persons in the case we have recovered the weapon of offence, vehicle used and the money given to the contract killers, Upadhyay said.

The Delhi Police should be allowed to do an impartial probe. Let them complete the investigation. No political colour should be given to the case. People holding constitutional posts should not lower its dignity by making indecent comments, minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju told reporters.

ENDS
Smartphone gazing in the dark can make you blind!

In a warning to those who sleep with their devices next to them, researchers have found two women who were affected by transient smartphone blindness - a condition where they went blind in one eye after gazing at smartphones in the dark.

Read: How long can men last without checking their phone? Just 21 seconds!

The first patient - a 22-year-old woman in England - had a habit of gazing at her smartphone before falling asleep.

She would lie on her left side and look at the screen primarily with her right eye. Her left eye was often covered by the pillow, www.npr.org reported on Thursday.

The other patient in her 40s had similar problems when she woke up before sunrise and checked the news on her smartphone before sitting up.

It had been going on for about a year, ever since she had injured her cornea. Around the same time, she bought a smartphone, the report added.

They were looking at their smartphones and they just happened to have one eye covered because they were lying in bed, Omar Mahroo, ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and an author reported in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In both cases, nothing bad was going on, Mahroo said, adding that it is just that one retina was adapted to light and the other to dark.

Read: Women more vulnerable to smartphone addiction than men

The retina is pretty amazing because it can adapt to lots of different light levels, probably better than any camera, he noted.

Retinas constantly adjust when someone leaves a room and enters a slightly dimmer room or goes inside after being outdoors. But these two women experienced a rare scenario in which that change would actually be noticeable.

To get to the root of the problem, the researchers asked the two patients to view the smartphone with just the left eye and then just the right eye on separate occasions.

In a warning to those who sleep with their devices next to them, researchers have found two women who were affected by transient smartphone blindness - a condition where they went blind in one eye after gazing at smartphones in the dark. (Pinterest)

They realised that the eye going temporarily blind was always the one that was being used to look at the bright screen.

To confirm this further, Mahroo went in a dark room and with one eye covered, looked at a smartphone for 20 minutes before turning off the screen.

It did actually feel quite strange, he said. It would be very alarming if you didnt know what was going on.

Read: Smartphone addicts, take note! Smartphone pinky is now a thing

After flashes of dim light, the retina that had been exposed to the screen took longer to adjust to new light settings.

According to Mahroo, several other patients have said they experienced concerning vision loss because of smartphone use.

We dont know of any ill effects as of now but it can be jarring, the authors noted.
Each time chef Vineet Bhatia visits Mumbai, his Instagram timeline is filled with throwback pictures (of the places he would hang out at as a trainee at The Oberoi) and that recurring image of the sunset over the Arabian Sea. On his recent visit to his restaurant, Ziya, Bhatia gave his followers a peek into some of his stellar creations such as the Alphonso, rasmalai, rose caviar, and mustard chicken tikka with cashew panniyaram (a perfect blend of north Indian and south Indian flavours). With such innovative creations, Bhatia put India on the world culinary map, way back in the 90s. He pioneered the modern Indian food movement, a trend that every chef in the country aspires to replicate. Bhatia talks about walking the thin line between tradition and modernity.

Seafood Konkani - grilled Chilean seabass, curry leaf prawns, dhokla-prawn pickle kokum moilee, sagoo noodle crisp at Ziya, The Oberoi, Mumbai (Photo: Aalok Soni/HT)

You started experimenting with modern Indian cuisine early. How did you learn to create a balance between traditional flavours and contemporary presentation without taking away the essence of the dish?

Flavour is the core of Indian cuisine. When people try to cook Indian food in a modern manner, they tend to forget the true roots of the dish. You ought to have a strong understanding of the culture, of how the dish was developed, and where it was developed. While our eating habits have changed, we still crave familiar tastes. For instance, if you are deconstructing a vada pav, you need to keep its core flavours such as potato, gram flour and the garlic chutney intact. When I make the vada pav, I serve it in an aate ki tokri (basket made of dough), which represents the bun part of the dish, with various chutneys served with it. The dish may not even look like its original form, but when you eat it with your eyes closed, it should taste like the original.

Read: Chef Manish Mehrotras New York dreams

When you moved to London in 1993, the idea of Indian food in the UK was different; it was all about curries and kebabs. How difficult was it for the audience to accept a gourmet version of Indian food?

It was a nightmare. Initially, I had customers walking out of my restaurant. In India, we have a custom of offering something sweet to our guests. So I made gajar ka halwa. Being a Punjabi and born and brought up in Mumbai, I think I make a good gajar ka halwa. I served it warm, topped with dry fruits and a little chandi ka virk (edible silver leaf) on it. And a guest promptly sent it back saying, Your chef doesnt even know how to make gajar ka halwa. I was pretty shocked and I went up to see the guest. I still remember his words, Young man, I am sorry but you dont know how to cook. I dont think youll last long. First, gajar ka halwa is never served warm, it is served ice cold. Second, it is served in the form of a cube, in a bowl. And I asked myself, who the hell serves it that way? Then I realised that Indian restaurateurs usually bought it from the market, where it was kept in freezers, and served it as is. But this was two decades ago, and a lot has changed since then. In bigger cities like London and Manchester, Indian gourmet food is now accepted and recognised. We charge the same prices as any of the top restaurant around Europe. People come expecting quality cuisine. They dont come expecting curry and beer.

Chaap kheema - ginger lamb chops, walnut potato toss, kheema mattar horn, rogan josh coins at Ziya (Photo: Aalok Soni/HT)

You earned your first Michelin star for Rasoi in 2001. How much of a difference did that make?

Personally, to me? None. It made no difference. However, from the restaurants point of view, it made a lot of difference in terms of exposure. Also, any form of validation that asserts the fact that you are on the right path makes you believe in your work.

No chef cooks to please the guides. We work hard for our guests. Theres no point to a restaurant if there are accolades on the wall but the chairs are empty. An award is good, but its just a piece of paper. It doesnt feed our families. A good restaurant needs to make money.

You wanted to be a pilot. Where did your fascination with aircrafts begin?

I used to live in Juhu, and my school was in Vile Parle. In those days, I used to cycle from home, and often passed through the aerodrome. There was no security, so you could walk in, or cycle in, and no one stopped you. On some days, we would stop by the hangar to gawk at the choppers and the planes. And every morning, I used to wake up to the sound of a 6.30am Gulf Air flight that would fly over our house. So, at 17, I gave the exam in the hope of joining the Air Force, but I failed the physical part of the test. And since I could not become a pilot, I did the next best thing. I married a pilots daughter.

A throwback photo of Chef Vineet Bhatia as a young chef at The Oberoi, Mumbai (Photo: Instagram.com/vineetbhatia)

So, how did culinary school happen?

I was never interested in food. Growing up, food was just a source of energy to help play and run around. When I failed to apply for the Air Force, I went to Sasmira in Worli to learn textile design but that was not my cup of Darjeeling at all. Then, the hotel school happened, I applied and got through. After finishing school, I applied to be a bartender at The Oberoi Towers, which is now the Trident. They called me for an interview and told me that I was too short to stand behind the bar counter and sent me to the kitchen instead. Thats where I fell in love with food. I wanted to learn to cook; I was greedy and hungry for knowledge. I used to do double shifts almost every day. I hardly took days off and would be in the kitchen even on weekends. I didnt have a social life. I stayed away from all the vices in life to learn cooking.

After opening successful restaurants like Rasoi and Indego in London and Dubai, you returned to The Oberoi, Mumbai, which was still reeling from the effects of a terror attack. How difficult was it to set up Ziya in such circumstances?

When I returned, a major restructuring at the hotel was underway. Before the attacks, Kandahar (The Oberoi) was an iconic property. However, because of the unfortunate memories, it would have been difficult to launch it with the same name. There were challenges. We lost a lot of our regulars. Many of them came back only after they realised that a lot has changed. We decided to bring back our last hostess of the property, Dinaz Sharma. Though she is retired now, she was with us for two years. She was shot in her arm while saving a few diners. When we opened Ziya, we knew we wanted her, as it would give people a sense of home.

Read: Chef Atul Kochhar is bringing back Indian food that went international

What are your upcoming projects?

I have a second book coming out called My Sweet Kitchen. Its a book on desserts. Rasoi is going to shut down next month, and we will launch it again as a brand new restaurant, with a new identity and a new menu. Eventually, I want to set up an academy in India, where we train people in hospitality. About 30 per cent people who enrol will be from underprivileged backgrounds. We will train them and place them in the industry. God has given me a lot, its time to give back.

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Actor Susan Sarandon says her children were shocked to see her dating again after she split from her ex-husband Tim Robbins in 2009.

The 69-year-old actor, who has daughter Eva from a previous relationship with filmmaker Franco Amurri and sons Miles and Jack with her former partner Tim Robbins, said her brood found it difficult seeing their mother as a single woman and dating again, reported Female First.

Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri arrive at the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Nokia Theatre.

Read: Woody Allen sex abuse scandal: Susan Sarandon slams legendary director

It was shocking to them [her children] to see me dating - or even going out, she said.

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At least four past and present chief ministers are likely to lose their NSG security cover with the home ministry deciding to prune the list of politicians guarded by the elite commandos trained for counter-terror and anti-hijacking operations.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav besides former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, former Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi and former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi could now be protected by a paramilitary force, multiple home ministry sources told HT.

Though protection for top political leaders is based on threat perception, over the years it has become a status symbol for many leaders and earlier attempts to prune the list of NSG protected people had to be dropped due to opposition.

In India, VIP security is provided under four categories -- z plus, z, y and x categories.

The Prime Minister, former PMs and their immediate family members are guarded by the Special Protection Group (SPG) while NSG protectees fall in the Z plus category.

Those protected by the NSG are entitled to a bullet-proof vehicle, two escort vehicles and around 40 personnel each.

At present, 15 politicians are under NSG protection including former deputy prime minister LK Advani, home minister Rajnath Singh and leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.

A home ministry official said the names for withdrawal of NSG cover was discussed last week in a meeting of the protection review group headed by home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi. The final approval from home minister Rajnath Singh is awaited.

The initial list considered by the group included former chief ministers PK Mahanta and Farooq Abdullah and Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, sources said.

A senior NSG official said the practice of deputing counter-terror commandos as guards is very demoralising for them.

The official added the force has been continuously raising the issue of pruning down the number of protectees with home ministry.

The home ministry does a periodic review of all protectees according to the latest threat assessment, said minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju.

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Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman has admitted his links with the terrorists involved in the 1999 Kandahar plane hijack and 2002 American Centre blast incident in Kolkata, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Rehman had provided safe shelter in Cuttack to a Pakistani terrorist involved in Kandahar plane hijack. The said terrorist belonged to Pak-based Harkat-ul-Mujadhideen group that hijacked the Delhi-bound Air India flight IC-184 from Kathamandu to Kandahar, said an official of the Special Task Force of Crime Branch of Odisha Police.

The hijackers had demanded release of Azhar Masood in order to release the passengers of the plane.

As one of the terrorists involved in the hijack was close to Rehman, he brought him to Cuttack and kept him in a secret location, the officer said quoting the AQIS operative, who is being interrogated by the STF.

Read: Kandahar op goofed up, says RAW ex-chief; political storm brews

Though Rehman, who has been brought on a 10-day remand by Odisha Police, initially refused to admit his links with terror outfits, he opened up as soon as evidence collected by NIA and IB were placed before him, the officer said.

He added that police had been probing into the truth behind Rehmans statements.

We have been locating the places where Rehman actually sheltered the Pakistani terrorist, the officer said, adding that the operatives brother was also one of the accused persons in the 2002 American Centre blast.

Though Rehmans brother got acquitted in the case, police said that now his younger brother (Rehman) had revealed that one of the terrorists was brought to Cuttack where he got safe shelter.

Read: Intel on Kandahar-style hijack bid sparks alert

We will verify both statements before coming to any conclusion, the officer said adding the STF have been investigating into the Odisha link of Rehman.

The operative, who was running a Madrassa at Tangi near Cuttack, was arrested during a joint operation of Delhi Police and Odisha Police on December 16, 2015. He was brought from Delhi to the state on remand.
A Madhya Pradesh BJP leader on Thursday announced a reward of Rs one lakh to anyone who locates or provides information about Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is on a short foreign tour.

Madhya Pradesh BJP spokesperson Vijendra Singh Sisodia announced the reward by issuing a statement with a title Rahul ka pata batao, ek lakh rupya pao (Tell Rahuls address and get Rs one lakh).

Sisodia, who is also the Chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam, said I will give Rs one lakh from my own pocket to anyone who finds out the address of Rahul Gandhi who has gone abroad.

Few months back also Rahul Gandhi went abroad and that time Congressmen were saying that he has gone for a brainstorming session and will come back from there energised. However, later it turned out that Rahul had gone to Thailand, Malaysia, Bangkok and Singapore, the BJP leader said.

Now Congressmen believe that his energy levels are running low and hence he went (abroad) again to get charged. Where he has gone? Whom did he meet? How he gets charged? How many days he remains charged? The country wants to know it.

I have announced that if any Congressmen or any citizen of the country provides the address of Rahul Gandhi, I will personally give him Rs one lakh award, he said.

However, Congress spokesperson Ravi Saxena said, BJP leaders are suffering with Rahul phobia.

If Sisodia is so keen to know about Rahuls address then he should know that he is an SPG protectee and it is fully aware of the movements of guarded people. He should have paid Rs one lakh to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to know his (Rahuls) whereabouts, Saxena said.

A day after his 46th birthday, Rahul on Monday had announced that he is going abroad on a short visit for few days, but did not specify the country he is heading for.

Rahuls 56-day mysterious sabbatical last year had created much controversy in political circles with the ruling BJP making his absence an issue in the midst of Budget session of Parliament .
The war of words between Shiv Sena and BJP has further intensified with a publication by the latter daring the junior alliance partner to take divorce.

BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandaris article published on Wednesday in the Maharashtra party units fortnightly publication Manogat, titled When are you taking talaq? Mr Raut, has dared Sena to walk out of the alliance while enumerating the sacrifices BJP has made in past couple of decades-and-a-half to keep the tie-up intact.

The article also attacks Sena MP Sanjay Raut for his recent Nizam remarks.

On one hand they eat biryani in plate given by the same Nizam and then criticise us on the other hand. They have got ministries at the Centre and state, enjoy perks of power only because of the favour of the same Nizam and then curse BJP. This is called ungratefulness, the article says.

If they feel so oppressed by Nizam, why dont they just walk out, the article says, adding, But, they dont show that courage.

Raut recently said the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra were worse than the government of Nizam.

They sit with us, eat with us and then attack us as well...its better to take talaaq from Nizams father. So, Mr Raut when are you taking talaaq? Bhandari asked.

Criticising Raut for his selective vision, the article says that while he feels the present government has done a lot of injustice, they dont see the great amount of work done through Jal Yukta Shivar in Marathwada.

Highlighting BJPs better striking rate in elections, the article further says, In 1995, BJP contested 117 seats and won 65. In 2009, despite contesting lesser seats, the BJP won two seats more than the Shiv Sena.

Sanjay Raut and Shiv Sena president are not able to digest the fact that their strength is declining and that is why they are frustrated. They should accept the changing political situation and stop blaming us, Bhandari opined.

We outnumbered the Shiv Sena in Aurangabad and Kalyan-Dombivali polls. Voters are considering BJP as a strong option and that is what is hurting the Sena most, it stated.

The article further said that the BJP has made several sacrifices, like leaving constituencies for the Shiv Sena which had been won by the BJP candidates several times in the past - like Pune, Thane and Guhagar.

Defending his article, Bhandari said, Earlier, we chose to ignore such things but they have crossed the limits of decency. This was discussed in our recent state convention as well. But now we want to tell them straight, if they dont find it worth, they should find their own path.
Members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group could not reach a consensus on Thursday over Indias entry to the elite club controlling trade in technology, with nations including Brazil opposing the induction of those who had not signed the non-proliferation treaty.

Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey opposed Indias induction into the 48-member group, according to television reports.

Indias application was not on the main agenda of the plenary, but sources said that Japan raised the issue in the opening session of the two-day meet in Seoul. It was later decided that the matter would be discussed at the planned post-dinner special session.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier sought President Xi Jinpings support for Indias entry into the NSG, saying China should make a fair and objective assessment of Indias candidature.

The action centred around Tashkent, where Modi met Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Corporation Organisation (SCO) summit, and Seoul, where the two-day plenary began on Thursday.

In Tashkent, During his 45-minute meeting with Xi, Modi said China should join and contribute to the emerging consensus among NSG members on Indias application to join the 48-member group, according to the external affairs ministry.

Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application and judge it on its own merit, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters.

Sources said Modi spoke about how Indias entry into the NSG will strengthen the global non-proliferation regime. His meeting with Xi was his first engagement in Tashkent and he also spoke at length about Indias strong non-proliferation credentials.

There was no official word on the response from Xi, who assured Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain shortly before the meeting with Modi that China will adopt a criteria-based approach for NSG membership that will support Islamabads candidature.

Indias all-out push to convince China coincided with the NSG plenary in Seoul considering Indias membership. Foreign secretary S Jaishankar arrived in the South Korean capital on Wednesday to make a last-minute push for Indias application.

The NSG members were holding a special session on Thursday night to discuss Indias case, which has been endorsed by key powers such as the US, Britain, Russia and Japan.

China has stalled the issue by saying membership of the NSG should be limited to countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India and Chinas all-weather ally Pakistan, which too is seeking membership of the NSG, have not signed the NPT.

China has already de-linked its position on NSG membership from its ties with India.

We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group. We do not believe that it (Beijings position on admitting new members to the NSG) is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Modis meeting with Xi.

During his meeting with Xi, Pakistan President Hussain thanked China for its unequivocal support for Pakistans bid to gain entry to the NSG. Hussain suggested Pakistan and India should be included in the elite club at the same time.

Xi assured Hussain that China would adopt criteria-based approach on the issue of NSG, which would support Pakistans case, Pakistans foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said.

Hussain said any exception given for NSG membership could disturb strategic stability in South Asia. Xi said Pakistan and China are iron brothers that enjoy an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.

Both sides reiterated support to each others core interests and expressed their intention to maintain close coordination, said a statement from Pakistans foreign office.
A district court in Greater Noida is on Thursday likely to hear a plea which wants a police complaint to be filed against Mohammad Ikhlaqs family for slaughtering a cow and storing its meat for consumption.

Lawyers of accused persons in the Dadri lynching case had sought registration of a case against Ikhlaqs family, including his brothers, citing the forensic report of the flesh, which was allegedly recovered from deceaseds house.

As the forensic report confirmed that it was cow meat, a criminal case against Ikhlaqs family under sections of Uttar Pradesh cow protection Act 1955, said Ram Sharan Nagar, counsel of the accused persons.

On the night of September 28, a mob of locals at Bisada village of Dadri area attacked Ikhlaq, 55 and his younger son Danish at their residence over allegations of slaughtering a cow and storing its meat for consumption. Ikhlaq had succumbed to his injuries while Danish survived with a fractured skull. The mob had allegedly recovered a bowl of meat from Ikhlaqs fridge, forensic reports of which confirmed it belonged to a cow or its progeny.

Following the forensic report, the residents of Bisada village filed a complaint with the Jarcha police station against Ikhlaqs family and sought registration of an FIR. As the police did not file an FIR, the residents organised a panchayat on June 6 and gave a 20-day ultimatum to the administration to register a case. In the meantime, counsel of the accused persons filed an application with the district court seeking FIR against Ikhlaqs kin for slaughtering a cow.

Nineteen persons were named in the FIR for murder and assault, 18 of whom, including 3 juveniles, were arrested and one was let off due to lack of evidence. Ikhlaqs family had shifted to Delhi at his elder son Sartajs residence, who is a corporal with the Indian Air Force.

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Gajendra Chauhan, the controversial chairman of Film and Television Institute of India, met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the right wing organisations headquarters in Nagpur on Thursday.

Sources in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh said Chauhan talked with Bhagwat for over half an hour and apprised him about the latest development at FTII where students are still opposing his appointment.

The talk between Chauhan and Bhagwat was one to one, a senior swayamsevak, who did not wish to be named, said.

He added that during the closed-door meeting, Bhagwat reportedly told him to continue as the chairperson of the institution and not to bow down to opposition pressure.

Read: Politics, profits and cinema: The Gajendra Chauhan effect at National Awards

Chauhan, best known for his portrayal of Yudhishthir in television series Mahabharat, said that his visit to the RSS headquarters was a private one.

Bhagwatji is a father figure for me and I came here to invite him for my sons marriage, he said.

Chauhan justified removing a few students, who had already completed their course, from their hostel rooms in the FTII campus.

A student can stay in the hostel for three years for the completion of the course. After that they can get just one-year extension, he said.

Chauhan, a BJP-leaning TV actor, faced huge protests after being appointed as the FTII chairperson last year. Amidst massive protests and detentions, he took the charge of the premier institute and asserted that he would not resign from the post.

FTII students went on an indefinite strike against Chauhans appointment and several filmmakers supported their agitation. The students alleged that the TV star lacked vision and stature to head the prestigious institute.

The students called off their strike in October last year.
A team from a mountaineering institute in Uttarakhand has rescued a 33-year-old Pune climber in the Himalayas, in an operation reminiscent of Hollywood thrillers .

Jaishri Dumbre fell into a 100-foot-deep and one-foot-wide crevice early morning after she left her camp --- at the height of 15,800 feet -- around 1:30am on June 16 with two fellow mountaineers who accompanied her as per protocol.

She was part of a 35-member team that was on an expedition to an 18,600-foot mountain in Uttarkashi district of the hill state.

The voyage had to begin at the crack of dawn...Jaishri could not see the snow-clad crevice and fell into it, said Devendra Rawat, an eyewitness and a documentary film-maker who was part of the team.

Rawats camera crew shot a video and shared it with HT.

When Digambar Singh Panwar, a senior instructor of the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), came to know about the incident, a rescue operation was launched. It lasted around two hours.

Luckily, Jaishri got stuck in the middle of the crevice because of ice, said Panwar, adding that the first two attempts to pull her out went in vain.

In the first attempt, a colleague tried to get into the cleft but failed. In the second attempt, I myself went into it, but could not pull her outI entered the crevice again and poured some hot water around her so that the ice melts, Panwar said.

A rescuer joins the operation to save Dumbre. (Provided by Devendra Rawat)

When the ice melted, Jaishri regained her strength and conciseness. I then tied her hands to a rope and brought her up, Panwar said.

Dumbre, who has completed an advanced course from NIM, left for home on Thursday.

A premier mountaineering institute run by the government, NIM saw students such as Bachendri Pal, first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest.

My birthday falls on June 12, though. From now onwards, I will celebrate it on June 16, the day when I was reborn, she said.

I will continue with mountaineering since its my passion, the mechanical engineer who recently shifted to Pune from Mumbai, said.

Dumbre said she has been a climber for the last eight years and regularly visiting NIM.

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Chinas great wall appeared to be crumbling before Indian diplomacy on Thursday. Beijing was left isolated as every other government of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) spoke at the opening of the Seoul plenary in favour of accepting India into the elite international nuclear technology club.

At the end of the first tense session of the two-day meeting, China found itself isolated over its call for a criteria-based membership that would allow Pakistan to also join the NSG, official sources told Hindustan Times.

China has been trying to block Indias membership by saying entry into the NSG should be limited to countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a global nuclear arms control pact. India and Chinas all-weather ally, Pakistan, which too is seeking membership of the NSG, have not signed the NPT.

As the NSG works by consensus, China has the ability to veto Indias entry.

Read: China says it will support Pakistans case on NSG entry

Even as the Seoul meeting was taking place, on the other side of Asia in Uzbekistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was making a direct appeal to Chinese President Xi Jinping to support Indias entry to the NSG, saying China should make a fair and objective assessment of Indias candidature. Modis message was described as very direct.

At the Seoul meeting, Japan led the way by first raising Indias membership at the NSG meeting. It was seconded by Argentina which presented a report praising Indias nuclear nonproliferation record.

China found itself left high and dry as, one by one, more than 30 NSG members declared their support for Indias joining the group. Contrary to initial reports, Brazil and South Africa were strong backers of Indias membership.

Austria, Ireland, Switzerland and a few others said they supported Indian membership but wanted to know how the induction process would take place. Turkey, seen as Pakistans closest friend in the NSG after China, said it supported membership for both countries. However, Pakistans application was not even taken up by the other members.

Read: PM Modi seeks Chinese President Xis support for Indias NSG bid

Beijing used a procedural block to hold up the meeting for five hours in the morning. It conceded after an additional clause, separate from the one about India, that the NSG should consider the political, technical and legal issues regarding non-NPT members was added. This is seen as a possible fig-leaf for Beijing to take back to Islamabad.

The representatives, after another post-dinner round, broke for the night and contacted their respective governments for further instructions. The formal plenary begins on Friday.

In Tashkent, during his 45-minute meeting with Xi, Modi said China should join and contribute to the emerging consensus among NSG members on Indias candidature, according to the external affairs ministry.

Sources said Modi spoke about how Indias entry into the NSG will strengthen the global non-proliferation regime. His meeting with Xi was his first engagement in Tashkent.

Read: Why NSG membership matters to India: All you need to know

There was no official word on the response from Xi, who assured Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain shortly before the meeting with Modi that China will adopt a criteria-based approach for NSG membership that will support Islamabads application.

Continued Chinese opposition to Indias membership in the NSG could threaten bilateral relations between the two Asian giants, especially in fora like BRICS, the Russia-India-China triangle and even the climate change bloc BASIC.

But officially Beijing has sought to de-link its position on NSG membership from its ties with India.

We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Modis meeting with Xi.

We do not believe that it (Beijings position on admitting new members to the NSG) is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India.
The ministry of external affairs (MEA) on Thursday discarded the article titled Indias embarrassing North Korean connection by Nilanjana Bhowmick in Al Jazeera, a Doha-based broadcaster, saying the insinuation regarding New Delhis assistance to North Koreas (DPRKs) UN proscribed activities is baseless and without any merit.

MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the UN Panel of Experts that deals with the UN sanctions on North Korea has made references in its report to the countrys participation in courses in the Dehradun-based Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) which could have implications for its proscribed activities.

The report is subjective and based on the limited understanding of the expert(s) who have authored it. India has made its position clear in this regard to the UN Security Council. The topics covered in the courses offered by CSSTEAP are very general and cover basic principles in the respective areas, he said.

The course material offered to the participants is available in open-source. We believe that these courses are unlikely to contribute in any way to a violation of the various UN sanctions pertaining to DPRK. Further, a representative of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UN-OOSA) is a Permanent Observer in the Governing Board of the Centre. The Advisory Committee of the Centre, which evaluates and reviews the course curriculum and criterion for the selection of candidates, is chaired by the Director of UN-OOSA, he added.

Swarup further said India is fully aware of its obligations under the UN Charter and has been exemplary in its implementation of UN sanctions including those related to North Korea.

As a country that has been a victim of proliferation in its extended neighbourhood, it is ridiculous to suggest that India has in any way aided the violation of UN sanctions on DPRK, he said.
Descendants of the seventh Nizam, ruler of one of the largest and richest Indian princely states, have said that the 35 million lying in a London bank for almost seven decades belongs to them and India and Pakistan have no claim over it.

Known as the Hyderabad fund case, the dispute over the money is one of the longest pending legal battles in the British high court. It relates to 1 million deposited in the Pakistan account of the National Westminster Bank, now called the Royal Bank of Scotland, by a delegation of officials of Hyderabad three days after the state acceded to the Indian union on September 17, 1948.

The amount is now worth 35 mn.

The transaction took place on September 16, 1948, when the Nizam was still the ruler of Hyderabad state. He had merged the state with the Indian Union two days later. It indicates that the money deposited in the London bank was Nizams personal money and hence, it belongs to his descendants as per the principles of natural justice, Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, grandson of Mir Osman Ali Khan, told Hindustan Times.

Hyderabad was one of three princely states which refused to accede to India after Independence in 1947. While seeking Pakistans help in declaring independence, Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan sent a delegation of officials led by finance minister Moin Nawaz Jung to the US to move a petition in the UN.

Indias armed forces reached Hyderabad and the Nizam had no option but to surrender by the time the delegation arrived in London. As Hyderabad acceded to the Indian union, Jung approached Pakistan high commissioner Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola and asked him to help deposit the Nizams money in a bank.

A week after the money was deposited, the Nizam filed a suit in a London court saying the money was transferred to Pakistans account without his knowledge. India too raised an objection, saying the money belonged to the Indian government as Hyderabad had acceded to the union. The bank then froze the account.

After the Nizams death in 1967, his family unsuccessfully attempted to get back the money through an out-of-court settlement.

Khan disputes Indias claims.

As per the Supreme Court judgement in the Nizam jewellery case of 1995, Nizam being a monarch, there was no differentiation between the state and his personal properties. As such, the jewellery belonged to the Nizams descendants, the judgement said, he said.

Khan argued that going by the SC judgement the money deposited by Jung in Rahimtoolas account was also the Nizams personal money and hence, it does not belong to the Indian government.

He pointed out that the House of Lords in London in its judgement in 1957 suggested an out-of-court settlement between Pakistan, the Nizam and the London bank.

India was nowhere in the picture and was not a party to the settlement issue. The House of Lords also warned Pakistan against moving the court stating that if it did, it would lose its sovereign immunity. But in 2013, Pakistan moved the London court and India was also forced to join the legal battle subsequently. And as descendants of the Nizam, we have also impleaded in the case recently, Ali said.

There are 120 direct descendants of the seventh Nizam.

He had 16 son and 18 daughters. At present, only one son and two daughters are alive. They are all legal heirs of the Hyderabad funds. Since there is no legal will or trust deed, the money has to be distributed among the legal descendants as per the Sharia (Islamic law), Ali, who is also the president of the Nizam Family Welfare Association, said.

He said he met top politicians and heads of India and Pakistan in the last few years and sought to ensure an amicable solution to the issue.

I am thankful to President Pranab Mukherjee, who had taken up the issue with the Pakistan government for an out of court settlement. Unfortunately, the issue had gone to the court, he said.

India, Pakistan claim victory

India and Pakistan both claimed on Tuesday that their efforts to claim the fund had been strengthened by a British courts ruling.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a statement that the courts pre-trial judgement dismissed Pakistans application invoking limitation against Indias claim to the money. The judgement stated Pakistans application for summary disposal of the claim in its favour must fail and the costs for failure will be awarded to India, he added.

Swarup was reacting to his Pakistani counterparts remarks that the courts judgement was a clear vindication of Pakistans principled stance.

Pakistan claimed India had failed to persuade the court that it could show no legal claim to the money deposited in the bank in September 1948. The judge accepted there was good evidence in support of Pakistans claim which needs to be fully considered at a trial, the Pakistani spokesperson said.
Indias bid for the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership will come up on Thursday night at a special post-dinner meeting of the 48-nation groupings plenary, whose two-day deliberations began in Seoul.

Although admission of members like India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session.

Thereafter, it was agreed to consider a number of unscheduled items including Indias application at a special session after dinner, informed sources said.

Read: Modi meets Chinas Xi in Tashkent

It was not immediately clear whether the discussion on Indias membership, which is strongly opposed by China, and few other countries will come up informally or in a formal way.

Indian diplomats, led by foreign secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to lobby, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of Indias membership.

The Indian team includes Amandeep Gill, head of Disarmament and International Security division in the external affairs ministry.

About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary which was preceded by official-level session that began on June 20, according to the South Korean foreign ministry.

While the US and France have issued statements ahead of the plenary strongly supporting Indias case and asking members to back New Delhi, China has been unrelenting in its opposition harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing Indias case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Read: China says it will support Pakistans case on NSG entry

Roughly 20 countries are backing Indias case fully but given that the decisions in NSG are taken by consensus, India faces an uphill task.

India is seeking a membership of the NSG to enable it to trade in and export nuclear technology.

The access to the NSG, which regulates the global trade of nuclear technology, is expected to open up the international market for energy-starved India, which has an ambitious energy generation programme. India is looking at 63,000 MW energy requirement through nuclear programme by 2030.

The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology. Membership of the grouping will help India significantly expand its atomic energy sector.
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Maharashtra is likely to ask the Centre to order the CBI to probe the murder of CPI leader Govind Pansare with investigations pointing to the use of the same gun in the murder of another rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.

In a letter to the Pansare family, a senior Maharashtra official said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had no objection to their demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation in the murder, a family source said. A special investigation team of the state police is investigating the murder blamed on a right-wing Hindu outfit.

On February 16, 2015, two bike-borne assailants shot at Pansare and wife Uma when they were returning home from a morning walk in Kolhapur. Uma survived the attack but Pansare died of his injuries four days later.

Uma and her daughter-in-law Megha wrote to Fadnavis a week ago, citing the arrest of a Dr Virendra Tawade, a member of Sanatan Sanstha, a saffron outfit, and other findings in the Dabholkar murder case to seek a CBI probe.

For the CBI to take over an investigation, a request has to be sent by a state government to the Centre.

The CBI, quoting forensic evidence, told a Mumbai court recently that a single weapon -- 7.65 mm firearm-- was used in the Dabholkar and Pansare murders.

HT had on June 3 reported that the CBI would seek Scotland Yards expertise to ascertain if Pansare and Dabholkar were killed with same firearm. Dabholkar, an anti-superstition campaigner, was shot dead in Pune in August 2013.

The clues emerged after the June 11 arrest of Tawade, alleged to be a member of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, an affiliate of the Sanatan Sanstha that is active in Maharashtra and Goa.

Though the CBI is only probing the Dabholkar case, the subsequent killings of Pansare and Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi in Karnataka in 2015 have caught its attention because of similarities in the three crimes.

Used shells of 7.65mm-calibre firearm were recovered from the sites where two of the three scholars were shot dead in almost identical fashion  by bike-borne men.

The SIT arrested and chargesheeted an alleged Sanstha member, Samir Gaikwad, in December for allegedly plotting Pansares murder. Tawade, the HJS and the Sanstha have denied the charges.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday and was believed to have taken up Indias application for the membership of a club of countries controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Modis meeting with Xi was his first engagement after landing at the airport in Tashkent, where he was received by Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that coincided with a key meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Seoul.

Read: China says it will support Pakistans case on NSG entry

The outcome of the meeting between Modi and Xi will determine proceedings at the two-day plenary meeting of the atomic trading club which began in Seoul on Thursday. Though some other countries like Turkey, New Zealand and South Africa have reservations over Indias membership to the 48-nation grouping, India feels their opposition will fizzle out once China takes a favourable position towards New Delhi.

Though India has stepped up diplomatic efforts to get an entry into the NSG, China has stonewalled the neighbours bid on the grounds that it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The group, set up in response to Indias first nuclear test in 1974, aims to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Ahead of his departure, the Prime Minister said India eyes positive results from its engagement at the SCO Summit. India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO.

India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region, he said.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a Euro-Asian political and security grouping increasingly seen as a counterweight to Nato.

Read: China rules out discussion on Indias NSG bid at Seoul meet, again

India and Pakistan will be formerly inducted into the China-dominated group during the Tashkent summit. Membership will give India access to major gas and oil exploration projects in Central Asia.

But, the NSG is different. Beijing says it needs more discussions on countries such as India that have not signed the NPT. The NSG works on the principle of consensus and a single hold-out country can spoil Indias chance to be part of the grouping.

India has got the backing of most countries, including the US, Britain, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland and Russia and France. Opponents argue that granting India membership will undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and irk Pakistan, an ally of China that has also applied for a membership.

With HTC inputs from New Delhi
Shortly after landing in Tashkent to attend a summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to take up Indias application for a membership of a club of countries controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday afternoon.

In the Uzbek capital, a meeting between the two leaders is scheduled for 3pm on the sidelines of the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that coincides with a key meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Seoul.

Though India has stepped up diplomatic efforts to get an entry into the NSG, China has stonewalled the neighbours bid on the grounds that it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 48-member group, set up in response to Indias first nuclear test in 1974, aims to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Ahead of his departure, the Prime Minister said India eyes positive results from its engagement at the SCO Summit. India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO.

India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region, he said.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a Euro-Asian political and security grouping increasingly seen as a counterweight to Nato.

India and Pakistan will be formerly inducted into the China-dominated group during the Tashkent summit. Membership will give India access to major gas and oil exploration projects in Central Asia.

But, the NSG is different. Beijing says it needs more discussions on countries such as India that have not signed the NPT. The NSG works on the principle of consensus and a single hold-out country can spoil Indias chance to be part of the grouping.

India has got the backing of most countries, including the US, Britain, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland and Russia and France. Opponents argue that granting India membership will undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and irk Pakistan, an ally of China that has also applied for a membership.

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Five men allegedly gang-raped a 17-year-old girl, forced wooden sticks and the barrel of a pistol inside her private parts and left her for dead in north Bihar, police said on Thursday.

The men were enraged because the victim had fought one of the suspects  who allegedly raped her earlier this month  and filed a police complaint against him, sources said.

The incident happened in Ramgarhwa village of East Champaran district, 190 km north of Patna.

The girl is currently in critical condition and the suspects are on the run with the victims mother alleging police delay helped the suspects get away with the crime.

The prime accused, Samiullah, allegedly abducted the minor and raped her on June 12, making a video clip to blackmail her, police said.

But when he called her the next day to extort money, she went to meet him armed with a blade and attacked his private parts when he allegedly tried to rape her again, sources added.

Confirming the girls action in self-defence, East Champaran superintendent of police Jitender Rana said, The boy received 11 stitches but no complaint has been lodged in this connection.

But when the girl and her mother went to police to lodge a complaint the same day, the cops allegedly dismissed the matter and didnt administer a medical exam on her, the mother alleged. An attempt-to-rape complaint was registered. Incensed by the action, the accused, along with four other male family members  Aliullah, Javiullah, Kalimullah and Nurullah  barged into the victims house, dragged her out and gang-raped her, police said.

Despite receiving the complaint on June 13, police sent a requisition for medical test on June 17 and the girl was finally examined on June 22. Besides, the police are yet to hand over the case to a women police station, which is mandated to inquire into rape cases.

A male assistant sub-inspector, Vijay Kumar Singh, has been asked to investigate the case. The cops are yet to record the victims statement under oath, which should be done within 48 hours. An FIR has been registered. Defending the delay, the SP said, The girls condition is serious as a result of which we have not been able to record her statement.

Rana said the medical report didnt suggest any injuries to the victims vagina or find evidence of sexual contact but doctors said such conclusions could be misleading.

Medical examination in rape cases has to be done immediately because after 10 hours, hardly any evidence is found, said Dr Ashutosh Sharan, a noted private surgeon.

.
The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to impose six percent tax on online shopping in order to increase the states revenue and entail everything in the tax bracket with no exceptions at all.

Madhya Pradesh Government will soon impose six per cent tax on online shopping.This will be imposed on the items we get here through transporters. All the online shipments will be put under supervision, whether its within the country or from abroad, MP finance minister Jayant Malaiya told ANI at Bhopal.

The motto here is to put all the tax free things in the tax bracket and work towards the benefit of those who suffer losses because of selling commodities by imposing with taxes, he said.

Malaiya also said the initiative came as a response to the losses suffered by the government due to the constant proliferation of the internet-based retailers like Amazon, Flipkart, etc.

This has been followed in many other countries and now when Indian government has also taken it under consideration, suitable measures have been taken to entail it effectively, he added.
After reports that an India-China financial dialogue set for next week was cancelled, the finance ministry said the meeting will take place, though it has been rescheduled.

Union minister Arun Jaitley, who is on a five-day visit to China, is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei for the eighth financial dialogue to boost bilateral trade.

The meeting, which was originally scheduled for June 27, has been postponed to July as economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das, who was to accompany Jaitley, has stayed back to deal with a possible negative fallout from the Brexit referendum, PTI reported.

So far, both countries have participated in seven rounds of financial dialogues, all headed by the finance secretaries of both sides. Next weeks meeting was to be the first time the dialogue advanced to a ministerial level.

This is the first time it was elevated to level of Finance Ministers of both countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014. It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27, an earlier PTI report said.

The development comes during a diplomatic spat between the two countries over Chinas strong reluctance to allow New Delhi entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). China virtually ruled out Indias NSG accession on Wednesday, reiterating that the inclusion of countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) were not on the meeting agenda.

Jaitley is in China to attend a meeting of the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) of which India is founding member, and will address a high-profile business forum on Friday.

The financial dialogue between India and China will boost bilateral efforts to expand business and investment ties between the two countries.

Chinese companies are looking at India as a lucrative market and Beijing could be a source for New Delhi to bridge investment gaps in infrastructure.

(with inputs from HTC, New Delhi)

(An earlier PTI copy said the meeting between the FMs has been cancelled. The agency later withdrew the report and said talks have been rescheduled)

Read| Why NSG membership matters to India: All you need to know
Only strong, viable and visible Afghan-India relations can help improve Indias relations with Pakistan, according to former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon.

Launching the book Afghanistan-Pakistan-India: A paradigm shift, authored by Afghanistans Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali, at Observer Research Foundation on Wednesday, Mr.Menon said he did not agree with the view in Kabul that India prefers normalisation of relations with Pakistan over its relations with Afghanistan.

He said he also did not agree with the view in Kabul that Indias sensitivity to Pakistans concerns is affecting it playing a much bigger role in Afghanistan. I am not so sure. It is much more complex, Menon said.

He said India-Afghan ties are based on much stronger logic that it has survived all twists and turns in the last 60-plus years.

Menon said the strange spectacle of U.S., China and Pakistan negotiating with Taliban into taking part in government is unlikely to solve the problem and bring stability to Afghanistan and the region as Taliban has no respect for democratic principles or modern government systems.

We have seen foreign interventions earlier too. This too cannot end any different, Menon remarked.

He said until there is a meaningful change in Pakistans policy on terror and using it as a state policy, the situation is very difficult to improve.

Saying it is possible to make the optimism expressed in the book real, of cooperation and connectivity between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Menon said we have broken down the world into pieces, reminiscing his younger days when traders from Kabul used to go door to door, selling their products and his own drive through the region.

Menon noted that the author, Shaida Abdali, is himself a participant in the history-in-making, being the executive assistant to former president Hamid Karzai, then deputy National Security Advisor and now Ambassador.

Ambassador Abdali said his book is based on inputs from sources from all the countries, besides his own experiences in the processes. He said if the three countries bring about a paradigm shift in their policies, he is sure they can build themselves a bright future for the region.

He said for India, Afghanistan is a strategic priority as terrorism is a big threat to Afghanistan as well as India.

Saying that the Chabahar deal is a message to Pakistan, Abdali said connectivity through India-Pakistan-Afghanistan can bring about wonders to the region.

Vikram Sood, former head of RA&W and Advisor ORF, said the book is full of hope to solve the tricky situation in the region. He said after spending more 60 billion dollars in the last 16 years, the United States will not leave Afghanistan without results.

Former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Vivek Katju, who was in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban government, said India had never imposed its agenda on Afghanistan and it was only interested in the development of the people and the country.
China sought on Thursday to de-link its opposition to Indias membership of NSG from Sino-Indian ties saying that it does not concern the bilateral relationship.

China-India bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum and the issue of Indias admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not concern bilateral ties, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tashkent.

President Xi is going to meet Prime Minister Modi in Tashkent. We believe that series of exchanges of visits will deepen our strategic consensus, strategic mutual trust and future development of bilateral relationship, Hua told media briefing here. On the state of bilateral ties, she said, we have repeatedly made positive comments on development ties between India and China . Both are emerging markets that are acquiring more and more significant role in the international affairs, she said. The bilateral relations have maintained sound momentum of growth, thanks to the mutual visits of the leaders by the two countries, she said.

We have agreed that we would make joint efforts to develop closely knit relationship. Recently President of India Pranab Mukherjee also paid a successful visit to China, she said. On whether India, China differences over Indias admission into the NSG would effect relations, Hua said, on the NSG issue, we have been expounding on our position on this issue. We believe that with regard to the admission of new members a decision shall be made with through discussion within the group.

We do not believe that it is an issue concerning the bilateral relationship between China and India, she said. Xi and Modi are due to meet on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Tashkent oh Thursday where he was expected to seek Chinas support for Indias membership in the NSG. China is calling for consensus among the 48-member group about the admission of countries which have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Both India and Pakistan, which have applied for NSG membership, have not signed the NPT. While Indias case is pushed by the US, China is backing Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as the NSG kicked off key meeting in Seoul on Thursday, Chinas official media continued its tirade against Indias bid for membership in the grouping with an article defending Chinas opposition and attempting to equate Indian and Pakistan nuclear programmes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tashkent on Thursday to a warm welcome as he kicked off a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the SCO with an aim to expand Indias engagement with the China-dominated grouping in areas of security, defence and energy.

In a special gesture, Modi was received at the Tashkent international airport by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoev.

In the two-day summit, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will start the process of Indias accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.

However, the spotlight is on Modis bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the day during which the Prime Minister is expected to seek Chinas support for Indias membership at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Giving clear indications of its opposition to Indias bid for entry into the atomic trading club, China had on Wednesday underlined the differences within NSG members, saying parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue.

It, however, said it will play a constructive role in the discussions.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG begins on Thursday in Seoul during which Indias application for membership of the atomic trading club is set to be deliberated upon.

Prior to his departure from New Delhi to Tashkent, Modi said India looks forward to fruitful outcome from its engagement at the SCO summit.

Indias entry into SCO as a full member will provide it an opportunity to have extended cooperation with member countries in areas of defence, security and counter-terrorism.

I will travel to Uzbekistan for a brief visit to attend the SCO Summit and interact with leaders of SCO nations. India is glad to be a member of the SCO and looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO, the Prime Minister said in a statement before leaving for Tashkent.

He said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

Secretary (West) in the ministry of external affairs Sujata Mehta had on Wednesday said: The process of Indias accession to the SCO will start with a signature on the base document which is called the Memorandum of Obligations.

Asked whether India will become a full member of the SCO, she said there was a schedule laid down for India to sign over 30 other documents and it will happen as the year goes by.
India made renewed efforts on Thursday to bring China on board its bid for entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, hours before a crucial meeting of the elite group where New Delhis membership may be discussed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to back what he called a growing consensus on Indias bid for membership to the group that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Prime Minister Modi urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of Indias application on merit, foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters after a meeting between Modi and Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tashkent.

PM Modi thanked president Xi Jinping for Chinas support to Indias membership of SCO.

Read: Indias NSG bid may be discussed at Seoul meet soon

China is seen as the main hurdle to Indias NSG membership bid that has been supported by the United States and France.

Beijing says only countries that have signed a global arms control pact -- nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT)  will be allowed entry into the group.

Present NSG rules allow only NPT signatories to apply for membership and China argues that Indias entry will set a bad precedent.

But Chinas opposition to Indias application is also seen as support for its ally Pakistan, which applied for an NSG membership soon after New Delhi announced its bid. Islamabad hasnt signed the NPT either and its poor nuclear proliferation record makes it unlikely that Pakistan will be granted membership.

A day before the two-day crucial Seoul meeting of the NSG, China hardened its stand on Indias membership and said only bids of NPT signatories will be on the agenda.

But Indias application is learnt to be on the agenda of the 48-nation groupings plenary in Seoul and is likely to come up at a special post-dinner meeting after Japan and other countries raised the matter in the opening session, sources said.

Indian diplomats, led by foreign secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to lobby, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of Indias membership.

The NPT says only five countries  US, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France  can possess nuclear warheads.

For years, India has held out from signing the NPT  one of the four countries to do so -- because it would spell the end of the countrys nuclear defence programme.

But New Delhi says it should be allowed NSG entry based on its non-proliferation record, no first-use nuclear policy and an agreement that has put most of its reactors under international monitoring.

With inputs from agencies in Tashkent
RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat will attend a function organised by the Hindu Swamaysevak Sangh, an affiliate that works overseas to propagate the right wing organisations views amongst the diaspora, in the United Kingdom in July.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sources confirmed that Bhagwat, who has made several trips overseas in the past, will be attending a two-day mahashivir (grand camp) organised by the HSS on July 30-31.

Bhagwat ji was invited by the HSS, which has been working there for years. It will be the largest gathering of Hindus in the UK that he will address, a Sangh functionary said.

The HSS that is operating in the UK since 1968 has been under the scanner of the British government in the past.

In February 2015, the UK launched a probe into the activities of the HSS, after a disturbing footage showed a teacher on camera making anti- Muslim and Christian remarks at a camp organised by it.

In 2004, Awaaz: South Asia Watch Limited (ASAW)a London-based watchgroupsubmitted a report to the British parliament alleging that millions of pounds collected as charity for victims of the Gujarat quake and the Orissa super-cyclone were used to fund Sangh organisations in India.

Both the allegations were dismissed by Sangh functionaries, who clarified that the HSS only works with the diaspora on cultural issues, allowing people to retain ties with India through social programmes.

While Sangh functionaries were tight-lipped about Bhagwats engagements, there are reports that he would be meeting eminent personalities including business leaders from a cross-section while in the UK.

The Sangh has divided its overseas work into five zones - Europe, Americas, Africa, Australia and Eastern countries - where our pracharaks work with the diaspora. The Sangh appoints sampark adhikaris for each of these zones, who are invited to travel abroad to address gatherings and attend camps. In the past, Bhagwatji had visited the US, a senior functionary said.

Regular shakhas are held in over 30 countries by the HSS, but plans to expand the activities of the Sangh have been in the works after its protege the Bhartiya Janata Party wrested power in 2014.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has questioned Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals admission in the 1980s to IIT-Kharagpur from where the AAP leader has a B Tech (Hons) degree.

Swamy, in a press release on Thursday, cited a reply from received from the IIT to his Right to Information application asking the institute to provide the basis of Kejriwals entry into B Tech programme and his All India Rank (AIR) in any competitive exam such as Joint Entrance Exam.

This information is not available, the institution said in the RTI reply.

The institute gave other details of Kejriwal which included his Roll No in the Mechanical Engineering course and the years of study but did not provide the copy of grade sheet of subjects since it is exempted from disclosure under the transparency law.

Swamy has been targeting Kejriwal of late. Earlier this week, he joined a protest fast by one of the Delhi BJP MPs Mahesh Girri against Kejriwal where he declared he would go after the Chief Minister the way he took on RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan.
Three militants were killed in an encounter in north Kashmirs Kupwara district on Thursday.

According to army officials, a contact was made with the militants early Thursday morning near a forest.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of some militants, the armys 18 RR cordoned off Dobwan forest area in Khurhama. Soon after the militants were challenged, they started firing --- which was retaliated by the army, said an official.

Army confirmed the killing of the militants and claimed that the three bodies were retrieved .

Bodies of all the three militants have been recovered along with as many AK-47 rifles and other war like stores, the army official said.

The army, however, did not confirm whether it was a group that infiltrated recently.

Eleven militants and two soldiers have been killed in gunfights across Kashmir since last week.

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Anjana Devi, 35, a mother of two, is among the lucky few survivors of the set of lightning strikes that claimed 57 lives in Bihar on Tuesday, taking the toll up to 95 this year.

Devi and her two daughters were in the open verandah enjoying the showers when lightning struck them. She and her younger daughter Sweety, 8, escaped with minor injuries, but her elder daughter Ruchi, 10, did not survive.

While Tuesdays deaths are perhaps the highest single-day toll for Bihar, in neighbouring Jharkhand lightning has killed 34 people so far this year.

There are several factors that make eastern India a deadly place when lightning strikes. But first, a little know fact: according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which tracks unnatural deaths across the country, lightning kills more people in India than floods, heatstroke, earthquake or cyclone.

The NCRB data claims at least 2,000 deaths were associated with lightning every year since 2005. Yet, it is not classified as a natural calamity. It was only in 2015 that the Centre allowed it to be declared as a state-specific disaster, making affected people or their families eligible for compensation.

READ: Lightning killed more Indians than other natural disasters in 2014

Lightning kills on an average 250 people every year in the state, but under-reporting is common to avoid compensation, says Nitish Priyadarshi, an environmentalist in Jharkhand.

Both Bihar and Jharkhand pay Rs 4 lakh as compensation for lightning deaths.

The problem with lightning, like earthquakes, is that it cannot be predicted. That makes the task of issuing timely warning more challenging.

Generally, lightning develops in uneven and hilly areas. This is why eastern parts of India are more prone to lightning, says BK Mandal, director of the Ranchi Meteorological Centre.

During pre-monsoon or monsoon season, the air coming from sea carries ample moisture. The hilly area creates a hurdle and adds additional heat to it. The air along with moisture rapidly uplifts due to intense heat and other synoptic conditions and develops cumulonimbus cloud, which is a thundery cloud that causes lightning, explains Mandal.

Read| Lightning killed more Indians than other natural disasters in 2014
Celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard Branson will reportedly attend an RSS-affiliated event in Britain next month, in what the group could flaunt as global endorsement of its strident brand of Hinduism that many in India oppose.

Oscar-winner DiCaprio and airline magnate Branson, both passionate advocates of meat-free diets, are among several invitees to a two-day meeting of the Hindu Swamaysevak Sangh (HSS), to be attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, a report in the opinion website DailyO said.

RSS sources confirmed that Bhagwat will attend the two-day maha shivir (grand camp) being organised by the affiliate on July 30-31, but HT could not independently verify the guest list, which also includes Sir David Attenborough, a celebrated British broadcaster. DiCaprio is yet to respond to an email sent by HT seeking confirmation of his participation in the event.

RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat will attend a function organised by the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh in July.

Bhagwat ji was invited by the HSS, which has been working there for years. It will be the largest gathering of Hindus in the UK that he will address, a Sangh leader said.

This is the golden jubilee year of the HSS, UK. Yearlong celebrations, planned to mark the event, include a residential gathering of over 2200 Hindus from across the UK and Europe at Hertfordshire County Show Ground.

The RSS  considered the ruling BJPs ideological mentor  has been pushing for a country-wide ban on beef eating and slaughter of cow, as well as backing a socio-cultural way of life that many consider intolerant of freedom of choice, speech and other faiths.

Read: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to attend affiliates event in UK in July

DiCaprio, one of Hollywoods most famous stars who won the Oscar this year for role as a bear hunter in the epic survival film Revenant, had earlier produced Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, a documentary chronicling the animal agriculture industrys allegedly cruel practices.

Branson, on the other hand, last year announced plans to start a vegan airline.

The report, however, did not say whether they have agreed to attend the conclave.

During his UK visit, Bhagwat will also meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the symbolic head of the worlds Anglican Christians, the report added.

The HSS has been working in Britain since 1968 to propagate the right-wing organisations views among the diaspora.

It was under the scanner last year when the British government launched a probe into its activities after a disturbing footage showed a teacher on camera making anti-Muslim and Christian remarks at a camp organised by it.

In 2004, Awaaz: South Asia Watch Limiteda London-based watchgroup -- submitted a report to the British Parliament alleging that millions of pounds collected as charity for victims of the 2001 Gujarat quake and the 1999 Odisha super-cyclone were used to fund Sangh organisations in India.

The allegations were dismissed by Sangh functionaries, who clarified that the HSS only works with the diaspora on cultural issues, allowing people to retain ties with India through social programmes.

The venue will be transformed into a fully tented (over 400 tents) township, building all facilities and amenities. The theme of this historic gathering is Sanskaar (values of life), Sewa (selfless service) and Sangathan (community spirit). Every effort is made to use recyclable materials in the construction of site and activities (avoiding plastic materials), says the HSS on its website about the event.
MUMBAI: Facing flak for ignoring the plight of lakhs of suburban railway commuters, railway minister Suresh Prabhu ordered a time-bound probe into the railway disruption in Mumbai on Monday and Tuesday. He sent a team of railway board officers to review the preparations for the monsoon on Wednesday.

Even as 350 suburban services were cancelled and 600 delayed on two consecutive days, Prabhu, who is active on social media, kept tweeting about International Yoga day and other issues, angering commuters further. Prabhu, through a series of tweets, said he took the disruption very seriously. We will explore not only reasons of disruption, but also focus on remedial measures and act swiftly, Prabhu tweeted. Review of monsoon preparedness is being done at the highest level. Ensuring safe commute for people is our priority, read his one of the tweets.

Meanwhile, the team of railway board and Research, Designs & Standards Organisation officials visited Mumbra and inspected the 34-m retaining wall above Parsik tunnel entrance, which came down after the first few showers. As the wall became a threat to the fast corridor of the CR, trains had to be diverted. The Thane civic body had to impose a three-hour block to remove the dangerous portion.

The CR said during the block period, the civic body removed a 7-m portion of the wall, but the team from Delhi has advised that another 2.5-m part be removed in the next two-three days, said the CR release.

The team has asked TMC to work out the modalities to break the remaining 25-m wall and remove the debris, with the help of the CR.
The four seafarers from Ghana  Mohammad Mustapha, 38, Issah Sawudu, 49, Iddriss Mohammad, 48, and Abakah Francis, 60  who were rescued from a stranded ship two nautical miles off the citys coast and sent back home on Wednesday, had first approached the Bombay high court in 2015  four years after they were first stranded.

On Monday, the vessel was sold off as scrap. The National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) had told the court it will take the responsibility to ensure the petitioners were sent home.

While Suwadu told the court he had not been paid his salary since 2009, others said they had not been paid their salaries since 2011. They said they had been living on the ship with no electricity, and very little food and medicines and sought that the court direct their employers to pay them their dues and arrange for them to go back home.

The first form of relief came on May 6 when justice SK Kathawalla approved the arrest warrant for the vessel owners, and ordered the petitioners be paid by selling off the vessel.

Louis Gomes, an official of the NUSI mentions that his organisation undertakes to repatriate the four crew members on board the Defendant Vessel No. 1 and also provide for their food and accommodation in the interim and also arrange for the crews air tickets. The undertaking is accepted. The Bureau of Immigration is requested to sign off and issue an exit permit to the four Ghanaian crew stranded on the vessel MV Seabulk Plover/Magnum V to enable them to be repatriated to their home country i.e. Ghana at the earliest possible. In the meanwhile, NUSI is requested to take responsibility for their maintenance, repatriation, food etc., justice Kathawalla said.
Two triple murders were reported in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region on Wednesday night. In Malwani, a 47-year-old woman and two children were found murdered in the same house, while in Ulhasnagar, three from a family were found murdered.

In Malwani, a grandmother and her two grandchildren were found killed. The three were killed using knife at Gate number six, New Collector colony. While the grandmother Babli Shaw, 47, was stabbed, the throats of the kids Aryan Shaikh, 13, and Sania Shaikh, 8, were slit by the accused.

Spokesperson for Mumbai police Ashok Dudhe confirmed the incident.

The police said the children lived with their grandmother after their mother died a few years ago. Their father has remarried and stays nearby, the police said. They are questioning the father and are also exploring the property angle.

According to the police, the incident took place at night and the door of the house did not open until 10 am, after which the neighbours called up the police control room.

The bodies were sent to the hospital for a post-mortem and the local police station, along with the Mumbai crime branch, have formed teams to try and solve the murders.

The police have activated their network of local informers to get leads.

In Thane, the police said the three victims were killed with an axe on the head and neck.

According to the police, Shankar Bhandary, 62, his wife Fusabai, 50, and their son Shani, 22, were found dead at their residence in Ulhasnagar. While the parents were sleeping outside the house, Shani was sleeping inside and the door was kept open, the police said.

The police have filed a case of murder at Hill Lane police station in Thane.

Shankar was a farmer and also owned a milk centre. Shani had completed his graduation just this year and was to go for higher studies, the police said.

Some food grains and other articles were missing from the residence, the police said. They are probing if robbery was the motive.
Senior Congress leader and former union cabinet minister Gurudas Kamat, who had announced his resignation from the party and retirement from active politics on June 6, has withdrawn his resignation.

Karat announced on Thursday that he will resume duties in states where he has been in-charge of the party unit.

Will continue to serve under leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.Will meet the people of my in-charge states starting tomorrow, Kamat said.

Earlier during this month, Kamat had informed the leadership that he would like to retire from active politics. He had expressed his discontent over the functioning of partys Mumbai unit. The former chief had also targeted current head Sanjay Nirupam, saying that the party will have to pay a huge price of split among the workers in the ensuing BMC elections.

Kamat held the post of general secretary of the All India Congress Committee. He was in charge of party affairs of Rajasthan where the Congress lost the assembly elections badly in 2013.
Sriram Balasubramanian from Nerul, Navi Mumbai, secured the fourth position in JEE (Mains) exam, results of which were released by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) late on Thursday evening.

The top three ranks were bagged by Dipanshu Jindal, Pratush Maini (both from Delhi) and Rajesh Bansal. The girl topper, with all-India rank of 11, is Ryali Gayathri from Hyderabad.

The All-India Rankings are based on their JEE Main score (60% weightage) and Class 12 scores (40% weightage). Admissions to BE and BTech courses in engineering institutions like NITs, IIITs are made on the basis of these rankings.

My all-India rank in JEE (Advanced) is 92, so I am hopeful to get admission in IIT-Bombay. I want to pursue my degree in electrical engineering and I hope I wont have to compromise on the course or the institute, said Sriram Balasubramanian. He completed his Class 12 from PACE Junior Science College in Nerul.

Nearly 12 lakh students across the country had appeared for the examination held in April and are now eligible to register for the joint seat allocation process.

We have managed to release the rankings more than a week in advance compared to last year. The credit goes to the coordination between various institutes and regular follow-up by the board. We hope this helps speed up admission process now, said Rama Sharma, public relations officer, CBSE. Last year, JEE (Mains) rankings were released on July 1.

By Thursday evening, the board had sketchy details about the rankings.

Out of the top 20 ranks, 12 are from the CBSE board, followed by 6 from the Telangana state board, and one each from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh state boards, said Sharma. The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) will open the registration portal to students from 10 am on Friday, June 24. This is the second year that admissions will all be conducted from the same portal. As a consequence, students will have 629 programmes and 92 institutes across the country to choose from. It is important that students enter sufficient number of choices in their nomination forms and your own academic interest while making a decision, states the message by Gautam Biswas, director of IIT-Guwahati, on the JoSAA website.

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Facing flak for ignoring the plight of lakhs of suburban railway commuters, railway minister Suresh Prabhu ordered a time-bound probe into the railway disruption in Mumbai on Monday and Tuesday. He sent a team of railway board officers to review the preparations for the monsoon on Wednesday.

Even as 350 suburban services were cancelled and 600 delayed on two consecutive days, Prabhu, who is active on social media, kept tweeting about International Yoga day and other issues, angering commuters further. Prabhu, through a series of tweets, said he took the disruption very seriously. We will explore not only reasons of disruption, but also focus on remedial measures and act swiftly, Prabhu tweeted.

Review of monsoon preparedness is being done at the highest level. Ensuring safe commute for people is our priority, read his one of the tweets.

Meanwhile, the team of railway board and Research, Designs & Standards Organisation officials visited Mumbra and inspected the 34-m retaining wall above Parsik tunnel entrance, which came down after the first few showers. As the wall became a threat to the fast corridor of the CR, trains had to be diverted. The Thane civic body had to impose a three-hour block to remove the dangerous portion.

The CR said during the block period, the civic body removed a 7-m portion of the wall, but the team from Delhi has advised that another 2.5-meter part be removed in the next two-three days, said the CR release.

The team has asked TMC to work out the modalities to break the remaining 25-m wall and remove the debris, with the help of the CR.
NAGPUR: For 136 inmates at the Nagpur central jail, yoga has come to mean more than just stretching, deep breathing and meditation  it is their ticket to get out of prison early.

On the occasion of International Yoga Day, jail authorities announced the news which follows the state governments recent directive  three months of a jailed convicts sentence will be pardoned if they practice yoga regularly and pass an exam.

Conducted by the Patanjali Yoga Centre, jail authorities hold the written and practical yoga exam in May and October. The scheme was introduced this January, and since, the centre has been regularly holding yoga training sessions for the felons. In May, 191 prisoners  167 males and 24 females  took the Yogasana exam, of which 136 passed it, jail superintendent Yogesh Desai said.

Union minister for transport and shipping Nitin Gadkari took part in the Yoga shibir held on Tuesday morning to mark International Yoga Day. Gadkari, who led Nagpurians in a yoga session, spoke of the benefits of the practice, including its health benefits, finding inner peace and developing ones personality.

The United Nations instituted June 21 as International Yoga Day last year, and has drawn large participation from people across the globe. Public sessions of yoga were held at several locations, including outside the United Nations Secretariat and New Yorks Time Square and at the Great Wall of China.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will l eave for Tashkent on Thursday to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)  a six-nation grouping of countries that coordinates their position on issues ranging from security to economic ties.

On the sidelines of the summit, Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and seek his support for Indias membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). He will also meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two-day annual plenary session of the NSG will be held in Seoul on June 23-24, which will discuss Indias membership to the 48-member club that deals with export of nuclear materials and technology.

There will be a meeting of the Prime Minister with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. There will be some other bilateral meetings also. During the meeting, there will be full review of bilateral agenda, secretary (west) in the external affairs ministry, Sujata Mehta, said.

In the SCO summit, the leaders are expected to explore ways to deepen security cooperation and intelligence sharing. Indias association with the SCO began in 2005 when it attended the groupings summit as an observer.

With majority of the SCO countries having huge reserves of oil and gas, India is expected to get greater access to major hydrocarbon projects in Central Asia after its entry into the bloc.

The SCO was founded in 2001 by the leaders of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit.

The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for expansion of the grouping.
The Union HRD ministry has approved a scheme allowing 32 direct-to-home (DTH) television channels to telecast content prepared by experts for school and university students from August.

Called Swayam Prabha, the scheme was approved by HRD minister Smriti Irani and is likely to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ministry hopes that the telecast will help students in the countryside.

A toll-free helpline will also be available to answer queries of students after watching the contents, which are to be uplinked by the Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications and Geo Informatics (BISAG).

To ensure good quality content, the ministry will engage subject experts who will be paid on an hourly basis. The content will be interactive; will make use of pictures, videos and diagrams to help students understand the concept well.

Read: HRD ministry to launch DTH channels to telecast IIT lectures live

The ministry is planning to telecast live classroom lectures that can be transmitted from IITs, including Mumbai, Delhi, Kharagpur, and Kanpur.

Although more than three crore youth are pursuing higher education, the standard of education is not uniform, raising the issue of quality access to knowledge. Youth in the backward pockets of India need a fair deal in accessing high-quality knowledge to confidently enter the job market, a senior ministry official said.

This scheme will help them to learn and understand key concepts while sitting at home.

A total of 32 DTH channels will telecast quality educational programmes throughout the day. Every day, there will be new content of at least four hours that would be repeated six times a day, allowing students to choose the time of their convenience, the official said.

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NEW DELHI: Setting a new benchmark in its space programme, India on Wednesday successfully launched 20 satellites, in a single mission on board Isros (Indian Space Research Organisation) workhorse PSLV-C34 from the spaceport in Sriharikota.

In 2008, Isro had sent 10 satellites into orbit in a single mission

The launch cements Indias status as a destination for cost-effective satellite launch missions.

Of the 20 satellites carried by the PSLV C-34 rocket, Indias 725.5 kgs Cartosat-2 Earth observation satellite was the main payload. The other 19 consisted of two from educational institutions in India, 13 from the US, two from Canada and one each from Germany and Indonesia.

Foreign satellite launches are crucial for Isro as the market is projected to run into billions of dollars by 2017. At the moment India sits on the margins because it only has the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which can primarily be used for low-weight satellites. The combined weight of the 20 satellites on Wednesdays launch was about 1,288 kg.

Isros focus should now be on a using Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicles (GSLVs), which can launch heavier satellites in the range of 5,000 kg. For cost-effective successful launches, Isro needs to further perfect the cryogenic engine technology. Once that is achieved, India can compete with world leaders like the US and Europe.

Since the 1990s India has launched close to 80 satellites, of which more than 50 are foreign ones.

With the success of Wednesdays mission, India has successfully launched 74 satellites for international customers. If close to 20 countries have signed up for launching satellites from India (including US), it is because launches here are close to 60% cheaper than in other countries.

As India shifts from PSLVs t o GSLVs with indigenous cryogenic engines, Isro will move into the prestigious club of heavy lifters. In that sense, Wednesdays launch is a sign that Indias space programme is on the right trajectory.

(With agency inputs)
NEW DELHI: Indian immigrants may benefit and India Inc will be hurt, but the overall Anglo-Indian relationship will decline with Britains possible withdrawal from the European Union in the June 23 referendum. It is a mixed bag for India, but likely to be a net negative.

Brexit campaigners like Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party and former London mayor Boris Johnson have pushed for the Commonwealth to be revived as an alternative to the EU.

In theory, this could open the door to greater Indian migration to the UK, a door almost shut today in preference for EU citizens. Indians who become UK citizens is now down to a few thousand a year because of these rules. Brexit would certainly end the favouritism shown to EU citizens and Farage has said he prefers Indians to East Europeans.

India and Britain declared they were strategic partners in 2004. However, this has not disguised the fact there is little strategic substance in bilateral relations.

The UK retains a vestigial influence in smaller South Asian nations and remains the USs main ally in Afghanistan.

But the real utility of the UK for India has been its ability to convey and even lobby for Indian concerns and interests within the EU. Londons distance from Brussels has undermined this to an extent  and led other countries like Germany and Poland to woo India.

Brexit would kill British influence on the EU altogether. What little remained of the Anglo-Indian strategic relationship would evaporate.

One immediate consequence of Brexit would be global capital market turmoil in which the rupee would fall in value and foreign capital would leave India, looking for safe havens in New York City.

The longer-term impact would be on Indian investment in the UK. India is the third largest investor in the UK. About a third of this is in the IT and telecom sector. And by far the largest chunk is different arms of the Tata group.

Many of these firms merely use London as a base with which to do work in continental Europe. These firms would migrate across the English Channel  reducing Indian FDI into the UK.
LUCKNOW: Amid murmurs of discontent in the Samajwadi Party (SP) over the controversial merger with gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansaris Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED), UP minister Shivpal Singh Yadav on Wednesday said he had announced the decision with the consent of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Yadav said everything was alright in the party, a day after CM Akhilesh Yadav indicated his unhappiness over the merger and sacked cabinet minister Balram Yadav, who apparently facilitated the move.

Everything is alright in the party. It is the right of the chief minister to appoint ministers. I announced merger of QED with the consent of Netaji (Mulayam), he told reporters here.

The party has convened a meeting of its parliamentary board on June 25 to discuss the row surrounding the merger and the cabinet expansion slated for June 27.

While a cabinet berth for Swami Prasad Maurya, who quit the BSP on Wednesday, is said to be a foregone conclusion, the panel will discuss three other names to be included for the oath-taking ceremony.

The sacking of Balram Yadav and contradictory statements of senior party leaders in the aftermath have brought to fore differences within the party.

Meanwhile, the BJP targeted the SP over the merger, alleging it was a case of appeasement and vote-bank politics and the party was trying to win Uttar Pradesh polls with the help of gangsters.
Sensing exchange of cash for promotions, the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) has withdrawn the promotion of as many as 25 conductors a day after they were promoted.

The conductors were promoted as sub-inspectors on Tuesday, but the corporation decided to withdraw the decision on Wednesday. The authorities also lodged a complaint with the police seeking a detailed inquiry into the alleged scam.

The matter came to light after some employees approached higher officials alleging that money was exchanged for promotions. It is also learnt that the managing director (MD) conducted a an inquiry and found that a conductor had paid Rs 5,000 to buy his promotion as a sub-inspector.

Despite attempts, MD Ravinder Singh could not be contacted for comments.

Station House Officer (SHO) of the Civil Lines police station Gurpreet Singh Bhinder confirmed that they had received a complaint against accused Harpal Singh and Paramjeet Singh for their alleged involvement in the scam.
Members of the Aggarwal community took up the issue of reservation during Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)s dialogue with the business and trading community of Bathinda and Mansa districts on Wednesday.

With fuel hike and imposition of new taxes, the businessmen in Mansa are facing big losses. We want that if the AAP comes to power, it should give our community reservation in jobs, said the trader

The businessmen raised several other issues such as reservation, tax control and implementation of manifesto.

A trader from Aggarwal community demanded that if AAP government comes to power, the party should allot reservation in jobs to the community members.

Another youth suggested that the party should focus to attracting investors to Mansa as the district is one of the most economically backward regions in the state.

Later while speaking to HT, state convener of Aam Admi Party, Sucha Singh Chhotepur said that implementation of manifesto will be one of their prime objectives if the party attains majority in the upcoming elections.

Whether it is the issue of reservation or abolition of taxes, the party will take everyone on board before reaching a consensus. When asked whether the party will favour a law wherein the government should be dismissed if it fails to implement its own manifesto, Sucha Singh said that the union government is entirely responsible for framing of such laws.

We are proud that AAP has been able to keep all its promises in Delhi after forming its government. We will also do the same in Punjab after coming to power.

On the upcoming anniversary of emergency which was imposed in 1975 by the then Indira Gandhi led Congress government, Chhotepur said that the BJP-led NDA government is replicating the 1975 emergency.

The current NDA government is no different from the then Congress government. They are trying to muzzle the dissident voices from all quarters of the political spectrum.

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With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) acting tough over the cash credit limit (CCL) central food grain procurement loanand asking Punjab government to come clean on the procurement muddle, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday met PM Narendra Modi to resolve the logjam.

Badal met Prime Minister on Wednesday evening at his official residence on 7, Race Course Road, in Delhi. He had gone to Delhi on Tuesday, along with food minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon, finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa and a battery of bureaucrats, including chief secretary Sarvesh Kaushal.

Seeking Modis personal intervention for early resolution of issues pertaining to procurement of grains especially the CCL, Badal apprised Modi of the problems being faced by the states during the procurement operations on behalf of the Union government. Badal apprised the Prime Minister that the states are facing a large number of problems due to huge gap between the cost incurred by states in procuring food grains and reimbursement made by the central agencies, a government spokesperson said in a statement.

Punjab government claimed that acceding to demand made by Badal the Prime Minister constituted a high-level committee comprising officers of both the state and Central governments to resolve these issues at the earliest.

However, it is pertinent to mention here that food minister Kairon has been on record earlier saying that the PM has already set up a committee to look into the issues relating to outstanding CCL and suggest a time-bound plan for resolution of the matter.

Before meeting Modi, Badal also met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and urged him to put in place a permanent mechanism for reimbursing the expenditure meted out by state in procuring the food grains.
The Government College for Girls, Ludhiana has decided to give a chance to some students who forgot to take the printouts of their admission forms, the last day of which was June 15.

Now, a private company, which was helping the students in the online admission process, will take the print outs of the forms of these students.

However, only the students whose name appeared on the ranking list of the college will be able to take benefit of this extension. The last date to submit the form is June 27.

While talking to HT on Wednesday, some students said that after forgetting to take out the print outs till the last date, they contacted the college which gave them the special opportunity on their request.

I was out of station and was not aware that I had to take the online print out of my admission form. As my name was displayed in the ranking list, I decided to visit the college and request the principal to give me a chance to get my online print out. I scored 85% in Class 12 and have registered online for BA first year, said one of the student on the condition of anonymity.

When contacted, college principal Mohinder Kaur Grewal, said, Around 15 students have visited the college and requested for a chance to take out their online print outs. All these students names are in the ranking list, so we have decided to give them a chance.

Meanwhile, around 8,000 students had registered online for various graduate and post graduate courses of the college on the last date.

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The Prime Ministers Office (PMO) on Thursday directed Punjabs additional chief secretary NS Kalsi to hold a probe into the multi-crore land acquisition scam in Hoshiarpur, exposed by Hindustan Times through a series of reports.

The PMO ordered the probe after RTI activist Rajiv Vashisht submitted a complaint with the PMO, along with clippings of HT reports on the issue.

I was alerted through an e-mail by the PMO that my complaint has been forwarded to the additional chief secretary Kalsi with the direction to hold the probe and submit a report, the RTI activist said.

Earlier in the day, taking cognisance of the HT expose on land acquisition scam involving three local Akali leaders, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal also ordered a deputy commissionerled probe into the matter.

Badal, who was in Nakodar for sangat darshan, assured his government will spare none for wrongdoing. Irrespective of party affiliation, if somebody has done wrong, he wont be spared. I have entrusted the Hoshiarpur DC to probe the allegations and submit a report at the earliest, said Badal, rejecting the opposition parties demand for a CBI probe.

Hoshiarpur deputy commissioner Anindita Mitra said she had received the telephonic orders from the office of the CM and would start investigations from Friday.

Hindustan Times in its June 23 issue had highlighted how three local Akali leaders, their kin and property dealers in cahoots with government officials managed to earn more than `100 crore by purchasing land already notified for a road project.

Also read: How Akali leaders, kin, made crores through rumours, clout, nexus

The Akali leaders, Hoshiarpur Market Committee chairman Avtar Singh Johal, SAD councillor Harpinder Gill and district co-operative bank chairman Satwinder Pal Singh Dhatt, and some property dealers purchased the land notified for the four-laning of the road and property rights already transferred to NHAI on November 2, 2015. These leaders later allegedly constructed illegal colonies on these sites and pocketed crores in compensation.

Meanwhile, the Congress demanded a CBI probe into the matter on the lines of a similar scam in Bathinda, while AAP sought a probe by a sitting high court judge.

This government has put the entire state on sale. Akali landsharks have made `100 crores in Hoshiarpur, said party spokesperson Sunil Jakhar in Jalandhar, accusing the CM of shielding the Akali leaders by asking the DC to probe the matter and not giving the case to the CBI.

AAP spokesman Sukhpal Singh Khaira said it was a sheer forgery not only with the Punjab farmers but also with the state exchequer.

Punjab govt orders vigilance probe

Taking cognizance of the media reports, Parkash Badal on Friday ordered a vigilance inquiry to probe the entire matter to get at the bottom of the case.

Disclosing this in Chandigarh on Friday, a spokesperson of the CMs office said Badal has marked the inquiry to the chief vigilance director to ascertain the facts which led to these alleged irregularities in the acquisition of land.

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The citys premier medical college  Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector-32  has decided not to hold an entrance test for the seven NRI seats it offers and the decision has not gone down well with the parents and academicians.

The decision comes against the backdrop of the Supreme Courts recent decision to uphold a single entrance exam for the entire country.

The CBSE which holds the National Entrance and Eligibility Test (NEET), also made it clear that NRI quota in private colleges and in deemed universities would be filled through NEETs second phase. The medical institutes stand had been unclear on the status of NRI seats here, especially after Punjab decided to hold a separate exam for NRI candidates.

GMCH-32 director Dr Atul Sachdev told HT, There will be no entrance exam for those seeking admission in the NRI category. We will follow the same pattern as last year and go by the board results of the aspirants.

When questioned on the SC ruling, he said, It applies to private institutes and we have been exempted this year, so while some states like Punjab are going ahead with an entrance exam, we have chosen to keep the pattern like last year.

However, next year onwards it will be compulsory for all.

He said no specific notification had been issued on it as they were following the same pattern as last year. Some parents and students, however, feel that it is not a very fair decision.

Dr Arvind Goyal, academician and PMT trainer, said, Chandigarh should follow the spirit of the SC verdict regarding the NEET, wherein no admissions to MBBS or BDS should be without an entrance exam.

It is clearly mentioned in the NEET UG notification that all state government quota seats where the state opts for NEET eg. Chandigarh have to be filled through NEET. He added that there was no mention of any exemption from the entrance exam in the SC verdict, the ordinance and the CBSE notification for the NRI candidates. No compromise should be made while selecting students for the course of MBBS. NRI students come from varied boards of different countries and their academic standards can only be judged through a common entrance exam, he added.

Sanjeev Dosanjh, a Sector-38 resident, whose child is also a medical aspirant said, There should either be a separate exam or those applying under the NRI quota should appear through the NEET.

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The result of the Punjab Pre-Medical Entrance Test held by the Faridkot-based Baba Farid University of Health Sciences was declared after a weeks delay. Reason: Students had filed 389 objections to 110 questions in both papers. The result was then further delayed after the varsity had to change its score normalisation formula at the last moment stating that the earlier procedure was not appropriate. The normalisation procedure was important as the exam was held in two shifts. According to varsitys official statement, it finally applied the percentile method with the assistance of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, to normalise the scores.

In this method, toppers of the first and second shifts are equated to 100 percentile and the marks of the remaining candidates are normalised in relation to the topper and accordingly the merit list is prepared, said the statement.

Read: Punjab PMET results out: Two of toppers aiming at AIIMS seats instead

TWO TOPPERS IN AIIMS, ONE IN JIPMER

Both Lovish and Sanil have applied for AIIMS as they are among top 100 rankers in the entrance test held for admission to the prestigious institute. Arvind has already got admission in the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, after bagging the 12th rank in its entrance.

18-year-old Lovish, who has cored 83rd rank in AIIMS entrance, says he is expecting to get admission in AIIMS, Jodhpur. Son of a businessman, Lovish gave credit of his success to his parents and hardwork.

With 23rd rank, Sanil Garg is expecting a berth in AIIMS Delhi. Getting the third rank in Punjab is a major milestone for me, he added.
The strike by paramedical and nursing staff demanding regular jobs entered its 22nd day on Wednesday, hampering the regular functioning of the Guru Nanak Dev hospital on Majithia Road.

The contractual staff is on an indefinite strike until their demands are met by the state government. Protesters have blocked the OPD as well as the operation theatre to express their displeasure over the situation.

Amandeep Singh from Punjab theka adhar nursing and paramedical employees association, said, Patients are having to bear the brunt, and are not receiving proper care. People have to work overtime to compensate for those who are on strike, adding, About 150 members of the staff have gone to Patiala to support the protest by nurses over there. We want what is rightfully ours.

Ram Dev, a patients relative, said, There is a shortage of staff and attendants are taking care of the patients. The problems will only increase if this goes on.

A nurse, on condition of anonymity, said though there were regular staff members managing the hospital, the available staff had to work in different shifts, along with managing their weekly offs. It has become difficult for the regular staff to pull through as well, she added.

Medical superintendent Dr Ram Sarup said, We have been managing the hospital with regular staff, but such it has obviously impacted the normal goings-on in the hospital. I hope there is a solution in place and people return to their jobs.
The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, launched a new ad-campaign and a logo for the states tourism department in January this year hoping to significantly boost the number of tourists. The initiatives tagline, Jaane Kya Dikh Jaaye! aimed to re-brand Rajasthan, wanting people to see beyond the obvious and the expected.

However, not much has changed in the six months since the new ad commercials were released. People still do not know about the state beyond the desert, camels, palaces, Kesariya Balam and Dal Baati Churma.

Just like the ads depict, there is a lot more than meets the eye and what is projected by daily soaps and Bollywood films.

Heres a look at a state that we hardly know beyond the cliches.

The desert

Other than the Thar Desert, Rajasthan is also home to the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary and several serene lakes. (Shutterstock)

To start with, not all of Rajasthan is desert. It is majorly the western part of the state  including the districts of Barmer, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur  that constitutes the Thar Desert. Not all of the state is arid and dry either.

Read: How an arid Rajasthan village turned into a desert oasis

Rajasthan has a beautiful hill station, Mount Abu, with a huge lake, lots of greenery, and a cool climate. Udaipur, one of the major cities and tourist attractions, has five prominent lakes. There is a bird sanctuary in Bharatpur and a national park in Ranthambore.

Since about 60% of the Thar Desert is in Rajasthan, it has been widely promoted as the land of sand dunes. But to think that is all there is to it is plain silly.

The royalty

Maharani gayatri Devi, the erstwhile queen of Jaipur. (Hindustan Times)

Rajasthan literally means place of kings (raja + sthan). But people seem to have taken the translation way too seriously. No, not every Marwari is a royal descendant. Neither do we all live in palaces. Every region typically has one royal family. And none of them can have the entire towns population as its descendants.

Read: JLF 2016: Mark your presence at the Ibiza of world literature

Among the royal families that are still popular include those of Jaipur, Mewar, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Alsisar, Udaipur and Jaisalmer. Now contrast these handful royalties with the 6.86 crore people living in the state (Census 2011).

The palaces

Amer Fort, located about 11 kilometres from Jaipur, was constructed by Raja Man Singh I in the late 16th century. (Shutterstock)

The Hawa Mahal is probably one of the most hyped palaces in the world. Not to take away from its aesthetic value, but it kind of fades away in comparison with other lesser-known monuments such as Nahargarh (Jaipur) and Mehrangarh Fort (Jodhpur), Junagrah Fort (Bikaner). Heard of Amer Fort, Deogarh Mahal (near Udaipur) and Neemrana Fort Palace (Alwar)? Yes, they are worth all the fuss and so much more.

The food

The ingredients used for making ker-sangri ki sabzi. (Facebook/Foodaddicts Ahmedabad)

The only thing that is known about our food is Dal Baati Churma. Those who have Marwari friends or have visited Rajasthan may also know of gatte ki sabzi or ghevar. But thats it. Well, the only time we have Dal Baati Churma is when we take guests to a touristy place like Chokhi Dhani (Jaipur) or Aapno Rajasthan (Jaipur).

Read: Where food has a history and taste a lineage

The gastric galaxy of Rajasthan also includes the delicious ker-sangri ki sabzi made from the states indigenous vegetables; the rich and filling dohe ki raabri prepared by extensively cooking bajra and buttermilk; the tangy, spicy maandiya made from rice water and pulses; and laapsi, which is a mouthwatering dish of jaggery and wheat. Do try them the next time you decide to visit that friend or a Rajasthani restaurant. Nay, make it a point. Youll thank us.

The clothes

There is a lot more to Rajasthani attire than ghaghra-odhni and the heavily-publicised boriya. (Shutterstock)

We do not wear ghaghra-odhni on every occasion there is. The traditional clothing is reserved only for weddings of close family members, and this too is a fast-fading practice.

Boriya, which has been heavily promoted as the trademark item of Rajasthani jewellery by daily soaps, is actually not the most preferred accessory. Ask a Rajasthani woman what her most valued piece of jewellery is, and she is sure to show you a taagri (if she has one)  a band tied around the waist.

With time and growing designer labels, ghaghras have given way to lehengas and odhnis have evolved into duppatas. However, the younger generation of men is as fond of wearing Jodhpurs as its forefathers.

The joint family, business

The number of joint families among Marwaris is on an all-time low. (Shutterstock)

This one is not entirely baseless, but is nevertheless a cliche. A lot of us do still live with our extended families, but this is another reality that is shrinking more rapidly than the states underground water table. My family house, for instance, was built to accommodate 13 people. Right now, only four live in it.

Read: Does India really have gender equality? Story in numbers

Also, not every Marwari is a Baniya (from the business class). Neither is every Marwari student an aspiring chartered accountant. And the ones who do have family businesses need not necessarily want to pursue them. The younger generation is taking up careers as varied as hotel management, fashion designing, journalism and teaching.

The (early) marriages

The age-old tradition of arranged marriage is being questioned and challenged by the present-day educated, urban youth. (Shutterstock)

Genralisations you say? This one, I will have to concede, is still valid. Among any social circle, the Marwari irrespective of their gender  is usually the first to get hitched. Why, you may ask. Well, varied socio-economic factors are responsible for this  not pursuing education beyond the mandatory post-graduation, inheriting an established business at a young age and therefore totally escaping the initial career struggle, and the prevalent practice of arranged marriages.

However, the millennials are increasingly exerting their right to choose who they want to get married to and when, though not without resistance.

The author tweets at @sneha_bengani

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Hurricane-force winds, freak hailstorms, pounding rain and a tornado killed 78 people in Chinas eastern province of Jiangsu on Thursday and injured nearly 500 others, 200 of them critically, Xinhua reported.

The storms hit Yancheng city around 2:30 pm (0630 GMT), with witnesses saying whole villages had been levelled and huge trees felled, Chinas official news agency said.

Winds of up to 125 kilometres (77 miles) per hour struck the city and outlying suburbs, destroying houses, according to the report.

I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows, said Xie Litian, 62, from Donggou township in Funing County, told Xinhua.

I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away.

Saying that all the other houses in her neighbourhood had been destroyed, she added: It was like the end of the world.

Photos of the scene show dazed residents near homes reduced to rubble amid tangled telephone wires, splintered wood and toppled poles.

Many parts of China have been lashed by torrential rains this week as summer rainstorms have been heavier than usual, causing damage across the country.

Flooding is common during the summer monsoon season in the south of China but rainfall has been particularly heavy this year.

In central China heavy floods killed 22 people and displaced 197,000, state media said on Monday.

Eight people were trapped in a flooded coal mine in southwest Chinas Guizhou province, Xinhua reported.

Direct economic losses from the floods hit nearly 2.7 billion yuan ($410 million), state media reported.

Chinas vice premier Wang Yang said days earlier that China faced volatile weather conditions due to the influence of El Nino.


Britons will decide the future of their country and Europe on Thursday in a vote on European Union membership after a bitter campaign that appeared to divide the nation down the middle.

Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum under pressure from his ruling Conservative Party and an increasingly powerful anti-EU party, hoping to put to rest decades of debate over Britains place in Europe and its ties with Brussels.

Most opinion polls put the Leave and Remain camps neck-and-neck at the end of a campaign that was dominated by immigration and the economy and shaken by the murder of a pro-EU MP, though late on Wednesday two showed a swing to Remain.

The Leave campaign says Britains economy would benefit from a Brexit, or British exit. Cameron says it would cause financial chaos.

Traders, investors and companies are preparing for volatility on financial markets whatever the outcome of a vote that both reflects, and has fuelled, an anti-establishment mood also seen in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

Much will depend on turnout, with younger Britons seen as more supportive of the European Union than their elders but less likely to vote.

Go out and vote remain for a bigger, better Britain inside a reformed European Union, Cameron told Remain campaigners on Wednesday.

His main rival, former London mayor Boris Johnson, whose decision to support Leave galvanised its campaign, told voters this was the last chance to sort this out.

Sterling rose to its highest so far this year against the U.S. dollar late on Wednesday after one poll pointed to a clear lead for Remain and betting markets priced in an 80 percent chance Britain would not leave.

Polling stations for 382 local counting areas will open at 0600 GMT and close at 2100, with most of the results expected between around 0100 and 0300 on June 24.

Read| Brexit vote: All you need to know about Britains referendum on leaving the EU

On Wednesday, campaigners from both sides tried to win over the estimated 10 percent of the 46.5 million electorate who polls suggest had still not decided how to vote.

The In campaign took aim at their rivals by saying a Brexit would hurt the economy, security and the countrys status. The Out campaign said high levels of immigration could not be controlled inside the EU and it was time to bring powers back from Brussels to London.

If we dont vote to leave tomorrow we will remain locked in the back of the car, driven in an uncertain direction, frankly, to a place we dont want to go and perhaps by a driver who doesnt speak the very best of English, said Johnson, a leading candidate to replace Cameron as prime minister.

Read| Ahead of Brexit, here are 5 other referendums that shaped Europe

Foreign leaders

The murder of lawmaker Jo Cox last week as she prepared to offer advice to those who elected her in northern England, prompted a pause in the campaign and soul-searching about its tone. Her husband said she had been concerned about the coarsening of political dialogue.

The man charged with her murder, asked his name in a London court, responded: My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain. A court official referred him to a psychiatrist.

Opinion polls have depicted a deeply divided nation, with big differences between older and younger voters, and between pro-EU London and Scotland and eurosceptic Middle England.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, the focus on immigration to Britain, which has increased significantly in recent years, could worsen divisions in a country where the gap between rich and poor has also been widening.

If Britain chooses to leave, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has suggested Scotland may call a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom.

British Prime Minister David Cameron reacts as he travels on his campaign us from Bristol, south-west England, on June 22, 2016, as the prime minister campaigns to avoid a Brexit ahead of the June 23 EU referendum. (AFP Photo)

Even with a vote to stay, Cameron could struggle to repair the rifts in his party and hold on to his job.

Foreign leaders, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have called on Britain to remain in the European Union, a message supported by global financial organisations, many company bosses and central bankers.

International banks have warned that the value of the pound could fall dramatically if Britain votes to leave the EU and traders expect markets to be more volatile than at any time since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The Out campaign says a fall in the value of the pound would boost exports and has found support among some financial specialists and small businesses. It has urged voters to ignore what it calls the establishment which it says has the most to lose from Brexit.

The EU has struggled with migrant and economic crisis and a Brexit vote would boost opposition to it within other member states.

Stay with us, European Council President Donald Tusk said in Lisbon on Monday, addressing British voters.

Without you, not only Europe, but the whole Western community will become weaker. Together, we will be able to cope with increasingly difficult challenges of the future.

Read| Britain to vote on its EU future today; frayed nerves in India

Full Coverage| Britains EU Referendum
China assured its close ally Pakistan on Thursday it will adopt a criteria-based approach for membership of the NSG that will support Islamabads candidature, Pakistans foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping conveyed the assurance during a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Mamnoon Hussain on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tashkent.

Hussain thanked Xi for Chinas unequivocal support for Pakistans bid to gain entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and suggested that Pakistan and India should be included in the elite club at the same time.

Read: China rules out discussion on Indias NSG bid at Seoul meet, again

The meeting discussed issues of bilateral interest, including cooperation in economic and defence sectors, with specific focus on Pakistans inclusion in the NSG, Chaudhry was quoted as saying by state-run APP news agency.

Xi assured Hussain that China would adopt criteria-based approach on the issue of NSG, which would support Pakistans case, he said. Hussain also said Chinas stance is based on a policy of non- discrimination.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Xi later in the day and sought Chinas support for Indias membership.

China has stonewalled Indias efforts to join the NSG, which controls access to sensitive nuclear technology, by insisting that membership should be limited to countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Pakistans foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz also attended Hussain meeting with Xi, during which the two presidents said they would maintain close collaboration for the regions security and prosperity and to jointly fight terrorism and separatism.

With the notion of Pakistan and China having common friends and foes, the two leaders agreed to work together to fight against terrorism, extremism and separatism, Chaudhry said.

Hussain said Pakistan regards Chinas enemies as its own and had taken action against militants of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Pakistan, he said, will not allow terrorists from ETIM to have safe havens on its soil.

The Pakistani president thanked China for condemning the recent US drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour.

The two sides also agreed there would be no compromise in implementing the

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The meeting also discussed cooperation in defence production and collaboration in marketing the JF-17 Thunder combat jet.
For the record and before television cameras, leading lights of the two camps  Remain and Leave  insist it is all about issues, but the bitter campaign before Thursdays referendum on Britains future in the EU has been as much about personalities and political ambition.

So much so that ambitions appeared never far behind, particularly those of popular Leave leader, Boris Johnson. He was even accused on live television that instead of figures about economy, the only number he was concerned about was No 10 (Downing Street).

Read: Live: Will Britain stay in or leave the EU? Poll in historic referendum underway

Frontline campaign leaders have long held their views about the European Union passionately, which came across clearly. But it is also true that the political future of several key individuals will depend on the referendum outcome on Friday.

Some leading players in Brexit:

1) David Cameron: As the prime minister, he led the governments position on the referendum to remain in the EU. He campaigned vigorously, taking into his stride attacks on live television  a student accused him of waffling  and insisted that leaving the EU was not in Britains interest. There is talk he may have to resign if the vote is to leave the EU, but he has said he will carry out the decision of the British public, whichever way the vote goes.

Read: The big Brexit question: If Britain is not to be European, what is it?

2) Boris Johnson: His joining the Leave camp surprised many. A close friend and associate of Cameron, the former London mayor is said to have agonised over the decision not to be pro-EU, writing two versions of his widely read Monday column in The Daily Telegraph: each seeking to justify rival positions, but ultimately he went along with the one with the Leave position. Tipped to be the prime minister if Cameron resigns; also seen as a strong candidate as the next Conservative leader.

3) Priti Patel: One of six ministers in the Cameron government in the Leave camp, Patel has long held Eurosceptic views. Even her most bitter critics  and there are quite a few in the Indian community too  admit she stood by her conviction. She has been among the most passionate leaders of the Leave camp. Her claim that leaving the EU would give a massive boost to relations with India is ridiculed by her ministerial colleagues.

Read: Brexit vote: All you need to know about Britains referendum on leaving the EU

4) Michael Gove: Like Johnson, Gove has been Camerons close friend and associate. A leading spokesperson of the Leave camp, he took on Cameron and publicly rubbished the prime ministers statements during the campaign. He led the camps blunt refutation of opinion of many independent experts who advised remaining in the EU. Gove compared them to Nazis who smeared Albert Einstein. Gove wants to reflect on his position in the cabinet if the vote is to remain in the EU.

5) Jeremy Corbyn: Under fire for not making a strong enough pro-EU case during most of the campaign, the Labour leader finally addressed a major rally on the last day before the vote. He has major reservations about EU and wants it to be dramatically reformed so that it becomes more democratic. He did not participate in a live television debate with the Leave camp, but several of his party leaders sparred with Johnson and other Brexiteers, most notably London mayor Sadiq Khan.

Read: Brexit on paper: What the Brits are actually voting for

Other notables:

Remain: George Osborne, John Major, Tony Blair, Theresa May, Gordon Brown, Sajid Javid, David Beckham, Karan Bilimoria, Keith Vaz.

Leave: Iain Duncan-Smith, Chris Grayling, Bob Blackman, Liam Fox, Suella Fernandes, Rishi Sunak.

Full Coverage| Britains EU Referendum

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Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday demanding the chamber remain in session until Republicans agree to a vote on gun control legislation following the Orlando mass shooting.

Chanting No bill, no break! scores of Democratic lawmakers joined in the protest that began around midday and continued well into the evening even as House Republican leaders sought to maneuver around the Democrats sit-in by using procedural rules to schedule a vote on unrelated legislation.

Democrats vowed to continue their demonstration.

We are in for the long haul here, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, saying members intended to keep up their sit-in as long as it takes to get a vote on a bill.

But Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said he would not bend to the Democrats demands, which he called a publicity stunt and vowed not to bring up any bill that would take away gun owners constitutional rights.

Not since August 2008, when House Republicans, then in the minority, took the floor to demand a vote on allowing offshore drilling has the House been brought to a standstill by a protest.

This photo provided by Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., shows Democrat members of Congress, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., left, participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo)

The Democrats move echoed last weeks filibuster by Senate Democrats to protest inaction on guns in the wake of the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

After the Senate talk-a-thon, the Senates Republican majority scheduled votes on four gun control measures - all of which failed on Monday. Work on a compromise is under way.

Guns are a potent US political issue and Americans are on edge after mass shootings in recent years in Connecticut, Colorado, California and elsewhere. Congress has not passed major gun control legislation since 1994, with gun rights defenders saying such measures infringe on the constitutional right to bear arms.

Ryan said he would not follow suit: They know that we will not bring a bill that takes away a persons constitutionally guaranteed rights without ... due process, he said on CNN.

Instead, Republicans said on Wednesday evening they would reconvene to vote on financial regulation legislation and file a $1.1 billion funding measure to fight Zika in a move aimed at returning the chamber to order.

Chanting lawmakers

But the Democratic protesters stayed in the chamber into the evening giving impassioned speeches and urging action before a break scheduled to begin this weekend through July 5, vowing to stay all night beyond any votes.

Led by Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, Democrats urged gun control measures such as tighter background checks and legislation to curb the sale of weapons to people on government watch lists.

In this frame grab taken from AP video Georgia Rep. John Lewis, center, leads a sit-in of more than 200 Democrats in demanding a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists in the aftermath of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people in a gay nightclub. (AP Photo)

More than eight hours into the sit-in, Lewis gave an impassioned speech on the House floor to the more than 100 fellow Democrats huddled around him urging them to never, ever give up.

They (the American public) want us to do something. We have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate to do something, Lewis said to applause and cheering.

Pelosi invoked not only Orlando but other mass shootings including the attack a year ago by a white man at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine. Right now there is an opportunity, she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Houses presiding officer, Republican Representative Ted Poe, entered the chamber around noon (1600 GMT) to find a number of Democratic lawmakers in the front of the chamber chanting, some sitting on the floor.

In this image from video provided by House Television, House Speaker Paul Ryan stands at the podium as he brings the House into session Wednesday night, June 22, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo)

After banging the gavel in an attempt to clear the protesters, he announced the chamber would be in recess and left.

Several Democratic senators crossed the Capitol to join protesters, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine and Cory Booker, all mentioned as potential running mates for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Clintons rival in the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders, also appeared.

Tweets of support came from outside Congress. Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most, President Barack Obama tweeted.

Clinton tweeted: This is what real leadership looks like.

A photo tweeted from the floor of the US House by Rep. Donna Edwards (R) shows Democratic members of the US House of Representatives, including herself and Rep. John Lewis (L) staging a sit-in on the House floor "to demand action on common sense gun legislation" on Capitol Hill in Washington, United States, June 22, 2016. (Reuters Photo)

Lawmakers also took to social media to document their demonstration with video and pictures, particularly after House Republicans shut down video cameras that normally document the chamber.

Outside the Capitol, nearly 50 people gathered in solidarity at a rally organized by Everytown for Gun Safety, the advocacy group backed by former New York Mayor Bloomberg.

Many House Republicans said they viewed the problem differently from Democrats. We dont view the fact that someone becomes radicalized and decides to kill a bunch of Americans ... as a gun problem, Representative John Fleming of Louisiana said on Wednesday. We view that as a terrorist problem.
Proving bookmakers and opinion polls wrong again, Britain looked set to leave the European Union on Friday morning, spawning a range of issues and implications at the national and international levels, with the pound taking an immediate hit.

The final result of Thursdays referendum on Britains membership of the EU was yet to be declared but with 330 of 382 counting stations declaring the result, the overall outcome is expected to be to leave the EU.

The outcome placed the political future of Prime Minister David Cameron in doubt, along with talk of a possible mid-term election. Cameron has insisted that he would stay in the job to implement the verdict, whichever way it goes.

The outcome is also likely to pose a challenge to the EU, with some member-states considering similar referendums. Top leader of the EU were expected to make a statement in Brussels on the outcome that many hoped would return the Remain outcome.

As Nigel Farage, leader of UK Independence Party called June 23 Britains independence day, senior Labour and Remain leaders Keith Vaz and Chuka Umunna called the outcome a seismic and terrible event.

Cameron was expected to make a statement outside 10, Downing Street, with the Bank of England following with announcement of measures to deal with the situation in the world of finance.

As leading lights of the Remain and Leave camps termed Brexit as an opportunity or disaster, Britain as a country appeared divided down the middle with the difference between the two votes barely 4 or 5 per cent.

The value of sterling slumped on currency markets as the pound fell nearly 8% at $1.37, compared with $1.50 just after polling stations closed. The fall, which stunned investors, was its biggest ever one-day fall since 1985.

Financial observers ranked with the pound reaction to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and Britains exit in 1992 from the European exchange rate mechanism on Black Wednesday.

Follow LIVE moment-by-moment coverage of Brexit polls here

People walk past a "Vote Leave" sign as they arrive to cast their ballots at a polling station in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Thursday. (AFP)

Full coverage of Britains EU Referendum

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John Lewis, a Democrat who counts Mahatma Gandhi among his inspirations, led a sit-in  essentially a dharna  in the House of Representatives Wednesday in support of gun control.

Continuing late into the night, members of the House used live video streaming app Periscope to circumvent a procedurally mandated camera blackout by the Republican leadership.

The phrase civil disobedience, made famous worldwide by the Indian independence movement led by Gandhi, was frequently used by commentators to describe the House sit-in.

My colleagues and I have had enough, said Lewis, starting the protest Wednesday morning. We are sitting-in on the House Floor until we get a vote to address gun violence.

Lewis, one of the few surviving members of the iconic team put together by Martin Luther King, is a House representative from Georgia and is widely respected by both parties.

The protest led by him follows a 15-hour filibuster (a legislative tool that allows members to bock listed agenda through a talk -athon) in support of gun law reforms measures that failed.

The Lewis-led dharna is certain to fail also because the Republican-led House of Representatives is unlikely to buck the party line dictated, some say, by the gun lobby.

A set of four measures, proposing changes in the country notoriously slack gun laws in the aftermath of the killing of 49 people in Orlando, failed to pass the senate Tuesday.

Undeterred, Lewis  who has described himself as student of King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela  and other congressmen, plotted the sit-in over the weekend.

President Barack Obama, who has been emotionally invested in the effort, tweeted his support to Lewis saying, Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo was Thursday set to visit remote islands close to waters where Chinese and Indonesian vessels have repeatedly clashed, as tensions mount between the nations in the South China Sea.

Widodo aims to assert Indonesias sovereignty over the Natuna Islands in the northwestern fringe of the archipelago during the trip and is accompanied by a high-level delegation including the foreign minister and armed forces chief, the government said.

Natuna is Indonesian territory. That is final, cabinet secretary Pramono Anung said.

As head of government and head of state, the president wants to ensure that Natuna is part of Indonesias sovereignty.

Last week Indonesian warships seized a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel and detained its crew for allegedly operating illegally in the Natunas exclusive economic zone, the third such skirmish between vessels from the two countries in the area this year.

Beijing, whose growing assertiveness in the South China Sea is stoking regional tensions, protested and claimed that one fisherman was injured after Indonesian vessels fired warning shots. Jakarta says none of the detained crew were hurt.

Following the clash, China said the two countries had overlapping claims for maritime rights and interests in the area, raising concern among observers who believe Beijing is toughening its stance by openly acknowledging a dispute with Jakarta.

Indonesias foreign minister insisted Wednesday that the country does not have any overlapping claims in its waters with China.

A senior US State Department official also warned this week that China is using its fishing fleets with armed escorts to bolster maritime claims.

Unlike some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia has long maintained it has no maritime disputes with China in the hotly contested South China Sea and has no overlapping claims with Beijing to reefs or islets there.

But Beijings claims to almost the entire sea overlap Indonesias exclusive economic zone -- waters where a state has sole rights to exploit resources -- around the Natunas.

China has in the past said it recognises Indonesias sovereignty over the Natunas Islands themselves, an archipelago that is home to rich fishing grounds.

Widodos visit on Thursday is his first to the islands as president. During the trip, his cabinet will hold a meeting on a warship and the official topic of discussion will be the economic potential of the islands and their future development, according to the presidents office.

Confrontations between Indonesian and Chinese vessels around the Natunas have escalated since Jakarta launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014.
A masked man with what appeared to be a rifle was shot dead on Thursday after he entered a movie theatre in southwestern Germany and took several hostages, authorities said. No one else was hurt.

The armed man entered the Kinopolis movie theatre in the early afternoon in the town of Viernheim and apparently fired a gun.

The man held several hostages, police spokesperson Christiane Kobus said, but she didnt have a precise number.

Officers successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding, Kobus told The Associated Press. There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague.

Police said that the deployment lasted about three hours. There were no other injuries, Kobus said.

She added that she had no information on the assailants identity and motives.

Map of Germany locating shooting incident at cinema in the German town of Viernheim. (AFP)

Hesse states interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it wasnt clear whether the weapon was functional. He told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden that the man was masked and that apparently four shots were fired.

Beuth said the man had given a confused impression, news agency dpa reported.

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attackers identity.

Police shot the man dead after elite forces stormed the complex, the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper reported, citing the interior minister of Hesse state. The man was described as disturbed.

Bild daily said that according to police about 25 people had been exposed to tear gas.
An airplane powered solely by the sun landed safely in Seville in Spain early on Thursday after an almost three-day flight across the Atlantic from New York in one of the longest legs of the first ever fuel-less flight around the world.

The single-seat Solar Impulse 2 touched down shortly after 7.30 am local time in Seville after leaving John F Kennedy International Airport at about 2.30 am EDT on June 20.

This handout photo obtained June 21, 2016 shows the Solar Impulse 2 over the Azores islands on its multiple-day flight across the Atlantic Ocean. (AFP Photo)

The flight of just over 71 hours was the 15th leg of the round-the-world journey by the plane piloted in turns by Swiss aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg.

World map showing the path of Solar Impulse 2 aircraft which landed in Seville, Spain Thursday after crossing the Atlantic.

Oh-la-la, absolutely perfect, Piccard said after landing, thanking his engineering crew for their efforts.

With a cruising speed of around 70 kilometres an hour, similar to an average car, the plane has more than 17,0000 solar cells built in to wings with a span bigger than that of a Boeing 747.


There may be much that I dont like about the European Union; the lack of accountability among MEPs  no one knows who their MEPs are  and the ridiculous waste of time and money caused by the European Parliament moving from Brussels to Strasbourg for a week each month are immense frustrations; the Euro is a disaster and we are fortunate not to be part of the Schengen area.

But Britain is no longer the sick man of Europe, as it was when I first arrived in the 1980s. The transformation has been remarkable. Our cumulative GDP growth rate has been hugely affected since the start of the single market, reaching 62%, compared with Germanys 35%. We are the fifth largest economy in the world and the EU has helped us to get where we are.

Yet I will be voting to remain in the EU on June 23.

The Vote Leave campaign has failed to make an adequate case for leaping into the unknown and has instead run a campaign that can be stripped down to ten claims, all of them bogus.

It started with a TV advertisement that should have been rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority, claiming the UK pays 350 million to the EU every week.

This is utter nonsense. Not only do we receive a rebate equal to more than half of our contribution, but Brexit could trigger a recession, wiping four times that value from our economy.

After this, the first bogus Brexit claim is about our loss of sovereignty. What loss of sovereignty? We are not part of the euro; we are not part of the Schengen agreement; we measure our roads in miles and drink our beer in pints. We have total sovereignty.

And we have democracy. The EU Commission is appointed by elected representatives from each country, and there are elected Members of the EU Parliament. And we have a referendum on our membership of the EU right here, right now, here in the UK. Where is the lack of democracy?

Read| The big Brexit question: If Britain is not to be European, what is it?

The third bogus Brexit claim is that EU regulations cost British businesses 600 million a week, a figure that Douglas Carswell, Michael Gove and his co-conspirators have plucked from thin air.

There are many EU regulations we may not like, but many of them are to our benefit. For example, they protect workers rights and high industry safety standards. The largest barriers to business are the UKs own staggeringly complex and ever-expanding taxation system, our planning and housing regulations. These are self-inflicted burdens for which the government of the day, and not the EU, are to blame.

The fourth bogus Brexit claim concerns migration. The UK government and Michael Gove himself have a target of reducing migration to the tens of thousands.

Immigration has brought enormous benefits to this country over the decades. Surveys of British social attitudes show the Polish community, for example, is highly respected, and seen for their extensive contribution to our economy.

And with one of the highest levels of employment on record and one of the lowest unemployment levels ever, in practical terms, we have full employment. Barely any of the 3 million migrants in the UK take advantage of our welfare state. They are young, and therefore do not use public services. They contribute five times more than they take out and in fact they are helping keep our public services running.

Brexit bogus claim number five is that we could negotiate more trade deals, worth greater value, if we left the EU. The reality is that our inward investment would dry up and London would cease to be the number one financial centre in the world. Some 60% of companies operating in the EU have their headquarters in the UK, making us Europes largest recipient of inward investment by far, yet it would be foolish to believe this would continue, were we to leave the largest single market in the world.

We are not a superpower, but we are a global power, and sitting at the top table of the world  the UN Security Council, the G7, G8, G20, NATO and the EU  is essential. We are a big fish in a big pond. If we were to leave the EU, we would become a tiddler in a giant ocean.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, foreground, addresses Vote Remain supporters with former Prime Minister John Major, right, during a rally in Bristol, England Wednesday June 22, 2016. (AP Photo)

Brexit bogus claim number six is that our share of trade with the EU has been falling. That is quite obviously because we are trading more with emerging markets, but the EU still accounts for 44% of our exports and 55% of our imports. It is too big to jeopardise.

Brexit bogus claim number seven is that there will be further integration, leading to a superstate, and we will be dragged into EU bailouts. There will never be a United States of Europe. I come from India, a country that is a true federal state. Europe will never look like that. The prime ministers negotiations have ensured that we are not committed to further unification and bailouts in the future.

Read| 5 potential consequences if Britain votes to leave the European Union

Brexit bogus claim number eight is that there will be an EU army that will subsume the British Army. This is complete fantasy. This will never ever happen. It is also claimed that peace in Europe has been brought about by NATO. It has been brought about by NATO and the European Union.

Brexit bogus claim number nine is that Turkey will become a member of the EU and we will not be able to stop 75 million people coming here. Turkey is light years away from joining the European Unionthis is scaremongering.

Lastly, Brexit bogus claim number 10 is that the EU is an economic mess, with youth unemployment up to 50% in countries such as Spain, Italy and France. These countries have been in a mess since 2008-09, when the financial crisis began.

We, on the other hand, because of our flexibility and control of our destiny, have thrived. Instead of boosting our economy, Brexit would threaten the unity of the United Kingdom by prompting another referendum on Scottish independence, but also we could be initiating the break-up of the whole EU.

There is an African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. We are in control of our destiny and we have our sovereignty. If we Brexit, we will be sleep-walking over the cliffs of Dover into huge uncertainty and instability.

(Karan Bilimoria is founder and chairman of Cobra Beer, cross bench peer, Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and founding chairman of the UK-India Business Council.)

Read| Of expats and corporates: Why India wants Britain to remain in Europe

Full Coverage| Britains EU Referendum
Anticipating a Remain verdict, bookmakers and banks in Londons financial district and around the globe prepared for a nervous overnight vigil as the UK voted in a historic referendum with major implications that may or may not put the Great back into Britain.

There was a note of caution amid the upbeat pro-Remain mood among banks, bookmakers and a new crop of opinion polls released on Thursday morning  they had gone woefully wrong during the May 2015 general election  putting on hold any plans for early celebrations.

Bookmakers William Hill, Coral, Ladbrokes and online betting sites offered odds overwhelmingly favouring a vote for Britain to remain in the European Union. There were reports that large amounts exceeding 50 million had been wagered on the referendum outcome. The ballot paper has two options: Remain and Leave.

Symbolising the sound, light and fury of the referendum, London and southeast England were struck by much lightning before polling began. But as leaders and voters trekked into booths, heavy rains calmed tempers frayed by the most acrimonious campaign in British political history.

With a record electorate of 46.5 million, both Remain and Leave camps are hoping for a high turnout. Some booths in central London reported long queues on Thursday morning, but elsewhere few ventured out to vote during office hours. Voting was expected to peak in the evening before booths closed at 10pm GMT.

Nuns leave after casting their votes at a polling station in London on Thursday as Britain holds a referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union. Millions of Britons began voting in a bitterly-fought, knife-edge referendum that could tear up the island nation's EU membership and spark the greatest emergency of the bloc's 60-year history. (AFP)

Initial results will start trickling in around midnight GMT, which will be reported live by BBC and other news channels overnight. There will be no exit polls. The final results are expected by 7am GMT, with an immediate impact expected in the world of finance as markets open on Friday morning.

The Treasury and the Bank of England have put in place measures to deal with volatility and other situations in the event of a Leave vote. Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to address the nation live on television from outside 10, Downing Street soon after the outcome is known.

Cameron and wife Samantha were among the first to vote soon after polling began, with other leading lights of the campaign, such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Nigel Farage following soon after.

As many expressed relief at the conclusion of the long and vicious campaign, one of the outcomes imponderables being discussed in Westminster and elsewhere is: What if Scotland votes to Remain and the more populated England opts to Leave? What will be the implication if the outcome in Wales and Northern Ireland is different?

Popular landmarks in capitals of European countries were swathed in projections of the British flag as a mark of solidarity and an appeal to vote to remain in the EU. However, top EU leaders such as European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker were not exactly conciliatory. He said: Out is out.

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Led by John Lewis, a lawmaker who counts Mahatma Gandhi among his inspirations, Democratic lawmakers started a sit-in in support of gun control in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday.

They were there till late on Thursday morning, despite the House being adjourned till July 5 for a long-scheduled recess. It was unclear how long they planned to continue.

The Democrats are demanding a vote on two bills preventing terrorists such as the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, from buying guns, similar to the measure rejected by the Senate.

The House of Representatives hasnt had a vote on gun control measures since 2011, when Republicans took control of the chamber. The issue didnt come up even after the Newtown school massacre in 2012.

My colleagues and I have had enough, Lewis said, starting the protest on Wednesday morning. We are sitting-in on the House Floor until we get a vote to address gun violence.

Lewis, who represents Georgia, was a member of Martin Luther Kings team that led the civil rights movement, and describes himself as a student of King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

Thank you for getting in trouble! Good trouble, Lewis told his sit-in colleagues on Wednesday night. Sometimes by sitting down, by sitting in, youre standing up.

This photo provided by Rep John Yarmuth shows Democrat members of Congress, including Rep John Lewis (center), participate in a sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures on Wednesday. (AP)

So they did, with their numbers surging and ebbing. They spent the night on the floor of the House, in sleeping bags brought by aides. And they were there when America woke up.

When the House cameras were switched off, they reached out through live streams on Periscope and Facebook, making speeches and shouting slogans such as No Bill, no break.

The break meant the prescheduled recess, which went into effect on Thursday. But the sit-in was still on, with lawmakers refusing to leave the floor even for the routine security sweep.

Speaker Paul Ryan resumed proceedings briefly late on Wednesday to pass scheduled legislations amid protests from the Democrats, and adjourned the House, seeing it into the recess.

Even if the House stayed in session, the chances of Ryan calling for a vote looked dim at best. He dismissed the sit-in as a publicity stunt and said it was all about trying to get attention.

Ryan told CNN: People have a guaranteed right to Second Amendment rights Were not going to take away a persons constitutionally guaranteed rights without due process.

Thats how the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby, has broadly reacted to every attempt to reform gun laws, branding it as an assault on the right to bear arms.

An NRA radio host compared lawmakers involved in the sit-in to criminals and terrorists for flouting House rules on photography as they live-streamed their protest.
On a bright day in downtown Kabul, Jagtar Singh Laghmani was in his traditional herb shop when a man turned up, drew a knife and told him to convert to Islam or he would cut his throat. Only bystanders and other shopkeepers saved his life.

The incident earlier this month was the latest attack on a dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country struggling with growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and economic challenges.

Once a thriving minority, only a handful of Sikh and Hindu families remain. Many have chosen to flee the country of their birth, blaming growing discrimination and intolerance.

This is how we begin our day - with fear and isolation. If you are not a Muslim, you are not a human in their eyes, said Jagtar Singh, speaking in his tiny shop in the bustling centre of Kabul. I dont know what to do or where to go.

For centuries, Hindu and Sikh communities played a prominent role in merchant trade and money lending in Afghanistan, although today they are known more for medicinal herb shops.

According to Avtar Singh, chairman of the national council of Hindus and Sikhs, the community now numbers fewer than 220 families, compared with around 220,000 members before the collapse of the Kabul government in 1992.

Afghan Hindu and Sikh families wait for lunch inside a Gurudwara, or a Sikh temple, during a religious ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Reuters)

Once spread across the country, the community is now mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, and the capital Kabul.

Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, its constitution, drawn up after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban government in 2001, theoretically guarantees the right of minority religions to worship freely.

But as the conflict drags on, Avtar Singh said conditions were worse than under the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic laws, staged public executions and banned girls from schools.

Hindus and Sikhs had to wear yellow patches that identified them in public, but were otherwise seldom bothered.

The good old days have long gone when we were treated as Afghans, not as outsiders, Avtar Singh said from a temple in Kabul, all the while keeping an eye on visitors using monitors linked to security cameras.

Our lands have been taken by powerful figures in the government, especially by the warlords. We are facing threats, and this small community is getting smaller and smaller every day, he added.

Last week, dozens of Hindu and Sikh families left Helmand, where Taliban insurgents, who have a presence in much of the southern province, sent a letter demanding 200,000 Afghani ($2,800) a month from the community.

An Afghan Sikh holds his child inside a Gurudwara, or a Sikh temple, during a religious ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Reuters)

Hostility

Tensions have surfaced in Qalacha, an area on the outskirts of Kabul where the Sikh and Hindu community owns a high-walled crematorium.

As the capital has expanded in recent years, the neighbourhood has become densely populated and some newer residents oppose Hindu and Sikh cremations, a practice foreign to Muslims, who bury their dead.

When they burn the body the smell makes our family sick and we dont want this to happen here, said Ahmad Timor, a Muslim resident in Qalacha.

The Sikhs say local Muslim hardliners have stirred up hostility against them, and the community now requires police protection for their funeral rituals.

They throw stones and bricks at us, at the bodies of the dead, whenever there is a funeral, said Avtar Singh, pointing to a newly built house next to the crematorium.

Dahi-ul Haq Abid, deputy minister for Haj and religious affairs, said the government had done what it could to improve the livelihood of Hindus and Sikhs.

We agree that conflicts pushed them out of the country, but their condition is not as bad as they claim, Abid added.

An Afghan Sikh woman prays inside a Gurudwara, or a Sikh temple, during a religious ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Reuters)

We have allocated them a place to burn their bodies because inside the city people complained about the smell, but they did not agree, he told Reuters.

Harassment is also common.

Jasmeet Singh, eight, stopped going to school because of what he said was daily harassment. He and other children from the community now either go to private schools or study inside the temple.

While I was at school, other students were making fun of me. They were removing my turban, hitting me and calling me Hindu and kaffir (infidel), said Jasmeet Singh, as other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

Increasing numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have moved to India, their spiritual homeland, but some say they remain foreigners wherever they go.

When we go to India, we are known as Afghans, but when we are here, we are seen as outsiders even if we are native Afghan, said Baljit Singh, a shopkeeper in Kabul. We are lost between both worlds.
BEIRUT: Warplanes have bombed the Islamic State extremist groups de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, killing at least 25 civilians, after the militants drove pro-government forces out of their bastion in Iraqs northern province. Twin offensives aimed at severing the militants supply line from the Turkish border to Raqqa city appear to have largely stalled as the IS mounts a fierce defence using suicide bombers. Six children were among the 25 civilians killed in bombing raids on Raqqa city late on Tuesday.

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LONDON: Goans who opted for Portuguese citizenship and moved to Britain, or Goans considering the same, will be watching Thursdays referendum closely as they will be affected whether Britain stays in or leaves the European Union.

Using Portugals nationality law, which allows anyone born before December 19, 1961 (the date of Goas liberation from Portugal) and their three generations to acquire Portuguese nationality, thousands have migrated and settled in Britain, mainly in Swindon and London.

As Portuguese nationals, they become EU citizens, which entitles them to live and work in any of the 28 members of the bloc under the freedom of movement principle.

A vote to leave the EU will restrict their right to stay in Britain and a vote to remain will affect their access to state financial benefits under the deal secured by Prime Minister David Cameron from Brussels earlier this year.

Rabi Martins, the Goa-origin councillor in Watford, north London, told Hindustan Times: It is a walk into the unknown. Goans now need to rethink before applying for Portuguese passports, since the EU referendum will adversely affect them. Brexit will make it worse, but even a vote to stay in will make it difficult.

There are reports that some European Union citizens living in Britain have applied for British passports to avoid any adverse impact of the referendum outcome, while many British citizens keen to retain European Union links have applied for Irish citizenship.

Britain allows dual citizenship and neighbouring Ireland is a key member of the European Union.
BEIJING: Chinasoftened its stand in 2008 to allow India to get a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) but is unlikely to repeat the gesture for New Delhis application to join the group, a top Chinese expert on nuclear disarmament said on Wednesday.

The rationale behind Chinas stand in preventing India from joining the club that controls access to sensitive nuclear technology is the lack of legitimacy in New Delhis application as it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Han Hua, director of the influential Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament at Peking University.

(It was a surprise to me) how China was so acceptable in 2008. China was quite soft on the issueon the last waiver, Han, who specialises in nuclear disarmament in south Asia, told Hindustan Times at her office.

In 2008, the NSG  with grudging support from China after a diplomatic row not unlike now  had granted a unique waiver to India whereby New Delhi could access civil nuclear technology without being part of then on-proliferation regime.

No room for trade-off now. I see no softening of the stand on either side. To me China has hardened stand a bit. The (2008) waiver was the only exception. Joining the NSG is something different, Han said. Though she could not rule out any possibility, she said it would be difficult for India to get into the NSG in the short-term.

All 48 NSG members have to give their consent to welcome a new entrant to the group. New nuclear states made China change its thinking in the late 1990s. The appearance of new nuclear states forced China to think about (nuclear) consequences more clearly, Han said.

To Han, it is only the US that differentiates between good proliferation and bad proliferation in Indias context. It was only (former President) George W Bush who talked about good proliferation and bad proliferation, she said in the context of the India-US civil nuclear deal.

To the Chinese, the driving force behind USs support for the deal was to make India a quasi-strategic ally. The civil nuclear deal wasnt the driving force.
TORONTO: Three decades after Khalistani terrorists blew-up Air Indias flight 182, killing 329 passengers, Canadian investigators have said they continue to treat the case as a priority.

The British Columbia Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) continues to investigate with the objective of pursuing charges of any individuals involved in the bombings. This investigation is a national priority for the RCMP, spokesperson Staff Sergeant Rob Vermuelen said in an email.

A probe team is in touch with members of families of the victims of the attack, one of the worst aviation-related terrorism incidents in the world.

Susheel Gupta, whose mother Ramwati was killed when the airliner named Kanishka exploded, said, The RCMP has kept us (families) updated on their investigation. Ultimately, we do hope that the rest of the perpetrators will be brought to justice.

However, given the passage of time, some doubt the ongoing investigation can make up for the botched inquiry following the June 23, 1985 tragedy. The two principal accused in the case, Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik, were acquitted of the charges they faced by a court in British Columbia in March2005. The only person ever convicted in the case was Inderjit Singh Reyat, on charges of perjury.

Retired Canadian Supreme Court justice John Major, who headed an inquiry commission into the case, wrote in his June 2010 report, This remains the largest mass murder in Canadian history, and was the result of a cascading series of errors.

The report pointed out the tragedy could have been averted but for multiple mistakes.

For instance, while the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had a surveillance team present when plotters detonated a device in the woods near Duncan, causing a loud explosive sound, the sound was misinterpreted and the surveillance report was ignored.

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SEOUL: Nuclear-armed North Korea conducted two back-to-back tests of a powerful new medium-range missile on Wednesday, with both achieving a significant increase in flight distance over previous failed launches, South Koreas defence ministry said. Both tests were believed to be of a much-hyped, intermediate-range missile theoretically capable of reaching US bases as far away as Guam. International condemnation was swift, with the United States, NATO and Japan labelling the launches a clear violation of UN resolutions.

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ISLAMABAD : An influential Pakistani parliamentary panel has declared the conversion of women from other religions to Islam as un-Islamic and expressed concern over the practice.

Forced conversion of girls to Islam is against the teachings of Islam and also a violation of the law in the country, said Hafiz Hamdullah, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs.

His remarks came in the wake of an incident in Chitral Valley, where a young woman from the animist Kalash community converted to Islam, triggering clashes between members of the community and local Muslims.

Religious minorities have argued there is no law to protect members of their faith from being forcibly converted to Islam. A recent law that formalised Hindu marriages in Pakistan too did not touch on the issue. Hamdullah observed non-Muslim women were being converted across Pakistan on a daily basis, which is a dilemma for society. Religion is a personal matter of every individual, and a person cannot be converted by force, he said.

Raja Zafrul Haq, the Leader of House in the Senate, too said compelling anyone to convert is against the teachings of Islam. We are already under observation from human rights organisations due to growing incidents of forced conversions, he said.

Senator Gian Chand, also a leader of the Pakistan Hindu Council, informed the committee that Hindu girls in Sindh province are victims of forced conversions, which have acquired alarming proportions.

Chand was of the opinion that police and the local administration do not help victims or their families.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani internet sensation Qandeel Baloch was at the centre of a fresh row on Wednesday after an influential clerics membership of a top religious body was suspended for posing for selfies with her.

Baloch took social media by storm when she posted three selfies of herself with Mufti Abdul Qavi on her Facebook page. One of the images showed Qandeel playfully posing with the Mufti signature hat on her head, while he was seen holding a cell phone to his ear. Another picture showed Qandeel posing with Qavi sitting next to her.

After the images were widely shared on social media, the religious affairs ministry suspended Qavis membership of the Ruet-eHilal Committee, a key panel of clerics.

Talking to the media, Baloch said Qavi had invited her to meet him in a hotel for iftar.

She said that Qavi had been persuading her to meet him for quite some time and that the cleric had publicly professed his liking for her.
UNITED NATIONS: India has demanded that the United Nations slap sanctions against the newly elected Taliban leader in Afghanistan.

It is sheer folly that the leader of a proscribed entity is not yet designated as a terrorist individual, Indias permanent representative to the UN, ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, said during a Security Council debate on the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Supporting New Zealands position that the anomaly should be corrected, Akbaruddin said the new Taliban leader should be sanctioned.

The Taliban had named Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a conservative cleric in his 50s, as its new leader after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in an American drone strike last month.

The United States state departments deputy spokesperson Mark Toner had said in a press briefing then that Akhundzada was not on any kind of terrorism designated list.

Akbaruddin further emphasised that groups and individuals perpetrating violence against the people and government of Afghanistan cannot have safe havens and should not be allowed to exercise control and wield influence over any part of Afghanistans territory.

This, in our view, is critical for lasting peace in the country, he said.
WASHINGTON: Republican Party nominee Donald Trump fired back at his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, calling her a world class liar in his first major speech of the general election for the White House.

Reading from a teleprompter, Trump said Clinton was the most corrupt person ever to run for the White House and that she had perfected the art of politics of personal theft.

Clinton had called him the King of Debt in a speech on Tuesday, slamming his business experience  his strong suit  and practices in what her campaign said was Evisceration Part II.

Part I came some days ago when Clinton questioned his foreign policy credentials, or the lack of them, and remarks that have left his own party supporters and surrogates squirming.

Trump, who prides himself as a counter-puncher, had let that attack pass with a remarkably low-intensity push-back. But he counter-tweeted Clintons Tuesday speech live.

He hit back with full intensity on Wednesday in a speech replete with insults and questionable claims and facts, but one that was the kind of disciplined attack Republicans had long wanted from him.

Trump lashed out at Clinton, attacking her on expected lines  paid speeches, Benghazi, her use of her private email server as secretary of state, and her behaviour in the White House as the first lady.

Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched, he said of Clintons term as secretary of state, which, he added, cost thousands of American lives.
African Americans have fought in every major conflict in which the United States has been involved, from the Revolutionary War on. They frequently served with distinction  the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War, the 9th and 10th U.S. Colored Cavalry regiments during the Indian wars and the Spanish-American War, and the 369th Infantry Regiment during World War I all established outstanding fighting records.

Yet with each new war in which the United States became embroiled, the white American establishment tended to forget the contribution made by Black servicemen in previous conflicts. Each time, Black soldiers were committed to combat in racially segregated units and had to prove themselves all over again. Of the 909,000 Black Americans selected for duty in the Army during World War II, only one Black division saw infantry combat in Europe  the 92nd Infantry Division. The vast majority of African Americans in uniform were assigned to segregated construction or supply units or placed in units that performed unpleasant duties such as graves registration. The governments view was that Blacks were not motivated enough or aggressive enough to fight.

Black enlisted, White officers

While the 92nd was referred to as a Black unit, and its enlisted men and most of its junior officers were Black, its higher officers were white. The 92nd, which had fought in France during World War I, was once again activated in 1942. Under the command of Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, the 92nd began combat training in October 1942 and went into action in Italy in the summer of 1944. The unit continued a long and proud tradition by retaining the buffalo as its divisional symbol. Its circular shoulder patch, which featured a black buffalo on an olive drab background, was called The Buffalo  as was the divisions official publication. The 92nd even kept a live buffalo as a mascot.

The 92nd Infantry patch kept the symbolic image of the buffalo, invoking the 19th-century black soldiers of Americas Old West. (HistoryNet Archives) (HistoryNet Archives)

The nickname Buffalo Soldier dates back to the late 1860s, when Black soldiers volunteered for duty in the American West. The American Indians, who regarded the new threat as Black white men, coined the term Buffalo Soldier out of respect for a worthy enemy. According to one story, the Indians thought that the Black soldiers, with their dark skin and curly hair, resembled buffaloes. Another story attributes the name to the buffalo hides that many Black soldiers wore during the harsh winters out West, as a supplement to their inadequate government uniforms.

In the spring of 1944, after years of pressure from the Black community, the government grudgingly rescinded its policy excluding African American soldiers from combat. On July 30, 1944, the first wave of Buffalo Soldiers  the 370th Regimental Combat Team  disembarked at Naples, Italy, where they were greeted by a jubilant crowd of Black American soldiers from other service units. The rest of the division would arrive a few months later.

NEEDED IN ITALY

American troops were facing an uphill battle in Italy, and at that point the Allies were desperately short of infantry troops. After months of hard fighting, the Allies had managed to push German forces under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring almost 500 bloody miles up the Italian peninsula. But even after the fall of Rome on June 4, 1944, the Germans had simply retreated in an orderly fashion from one line of defense to another rather than acknowledge defeat.

On D-Day, two days after the victory at Rome, Allied soldiers swarmed across the beaches of Normandy. For the duration of the war, the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, under the overall command of British Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, would play second fiddle to the Allied push in France. During the summer of 1944, nearly 100,000 men of the Fifth Army, out of a total strength of 249,000, were transferred to the fighting in France. As the Allies stood at the south bank of the Arno River in July, preparing to assault Kesselrings most formidable barrier yet  the infamous Gothic Line  the Americans clearly had too many tanks and not enough infantrymen. Kesselring had built the line on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains, the 50-mile-deep range that, in northern Italy, runs diagonally from coast to coast and affords natural protection for northern industrial and agricultural centers.

In addition to the 370th, at that point the 92nd consisted of two other infantry regiments, the 365th and the 371st; four field artillery battalions, the 597th, 598th, 599th and 600th; plus headquarters battery, the 92nd Reconnaissance Troop, the 317th Engineer Combat Battalion and 317th Medical Battalion, as well as a medical battalion, signal company, quartermaster company, maintenance personnel and military police. The Buffalo Soldiers were assigned to the IV Corps of the U.S. Fifth Army in two primary areas of operation, the Serchio Valley and the coastal sector along the Ligurian Sea. They occupied the westernmost end of the Allied front, while the Eighth Army attacked across the eastern portion of the Italian peninsula. The 92nd would face not only mountainous terrain and tremendous resistance  including the German Fourteenth Army and its Italian Fascist soldiers, the 90th Panzergrenadier Division and the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division  but also an array of man-made defensive works.

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By fighting an impressive defensive campaign, Kesselring had gained time to build up his Gothic Line. Using 15,000 Italian laborers and 2,000 Slovaks, the Germans constructed bunkers, tank emplacements, tunnels and anti-tank ditches; reinforced existing Italian castles; and laid carefully designed minefields intended to herd enemy troops into interlocking fields of fire.

At this stage in the Italian campaign the Allies did have one advantage. Italy was in a state of civil war, and the Italian partisan forces were proving more than a nuisance to the German cause. Guerrillas had even managed to kill one Luftwaffe division commander. As a result, one German commander, Gen. Fridolin von Senger, discarded his generals insignia and rode in an unmarked Volkswagen.

DEPLOYED TO THE FRONT

When the Buffalo Soldiers deployed along the front, they began to work together with the tankers of the U.S. 1st Armored Division. In addition to this division, the IV Corps consisted of the 6th South African Armored Division, the Brazilian Expeditionary Force and Task Force 45, composed of British and American anti-aircraft gunners who had been retrained and re-equipped for combat infantry duty.

After landing on the Italian mainland at Salerno on Sept. 9, 1943, the Allies had unsuccessfully attempted to destroy Kesselring before January 1944. Now they once again hoped to make significant advances before the snows came in the winter of 1944. The Fifth and Eighth armies planned an all-out attack on the Gothic Line in August, with the Eighth Army positioned along the Adriatic Coast and the Fifth Army directing its efforts against the center of Italy, toward Bologna. The IV Corps would cross the Arno River, take Mount Albano and Mount Pisano on the plain, extend their front and draw the enemys attention. Meanwhile, the Fifth Armys II Corps, to the right along with the British XIII Corps, would drive the main assault into the center of the Gothic Line. The thinly spread IV Corps also had the task of guarding the Allied west flank against a German counterattack and protecting the crucial Allied port of Leghorn, or Livorno, on the coast.

On Sept. 1, the three battalions of the 370th Regiment, along with elements of the 1st Armored Division, crossed the Arno River and advanced north for two to three miles. By the early morning hours of Sept. 2, the 370th Engineers and 1st Armored Engineers had cleared minefields, worked on fords and placed a treadway bridge across the Arno for the upcoming armored infantry assault. Task Force 45 was bogged down by heavy minefields, but the 370th pushed on. The 3rd Battalion of the 370th moved to the west of Mount Pisano, while the 1st Battalion advanced east of the mountain. Using mule trails, the 2nd Battalion advanced straight over the mountain.

Officers of the 92nd Infantry Division, Company F, 370th Combat Team, look at maps and orders at a farmhouse one-fourth of a mile from the Arno River, Ponsacco Area in Italy. A half hour later these troops successfully crossed the river in the push toward the Gothic Line on Sep. 1, 1944. (U.S. Army)

The Germans retaliated with small-arms, machine-gun and artillery fire while their forward elements began to pull back behind the Gothic Line. The Buffalo Soldiers advanced north beyond Mount Pisano and attacked the city of Lucca. They eliminated remaining enemy resistance around the road connecting Pisa to Lucca and spent the next several days patrolling and waiting for the rest of the Fifth Army to move up.

MAIN ATTACK

The main attack started on Sept. 10, and three days later the Buffalo Soldiers and 1st Armored tankers stood at the base of the northern Apennines. By Sept. 18, the II Corps had breached the Gothic Line at Il Giogo Pass, and many of the 1st Armored tanks were shifted to that area. The IV Corps consolidated its units while holding its section of the line until late in the month, when patrols of Buffalo Soldiers entered the Serchio Valley.

The men of the 370th had also penetrated the Gothic Line in their sector and now controlled Highway 12, which served as a crucial east-west communications artery for the Germans. In early October, they were ordered to take the city of Massa, near the coast, which was the first step in capturing the naval base at La Spezia. Although the Germans had been in continuous retreat in Italy, they resisted fiercely at Massa. They were determined to protect the western edge of the Gothic Line, especially because La Spezias naval base was nearby. Beset by cold autumn rains, the Buffalo Soldiers found themselves fighting a new enemy  mud  in addition to dug-in enemy troops. They did not take Massa at that point, and all across the Gothic Line, Kesselrings forces held on. Meanwhile, though the II Corps made some impressive headway, it failed to reach Bologna before the snows set in.

After a six-day battle for control of Massa, the Buffalo Soldiers pulled back and regrouped. As the rest of the 92nd Infantry Division began to land in Italy, the Buffalo Soldiers of the 370th kept up the offensive on a smaller scale with power patrols consisting of between 35 and 75 men and at times machine-gun and mortar crews. The Fifth Army spent most of November conducting defensive actions in preparation for a renewed offensive in December.

By late November, the last elements of the remaining two 92nd Division regiments, the 371st and 365th, had arrived. In addition to the 92nds own regiments, a fourth regiment came under the divisions control  the 366th Infantry Regiment, with Black officers and men. The 366th had originally trained for combat but had been initially assigned to guard duty on Allied air bases throughout Italy. The men of the 366th had performed so well in their former assignment that their commanding general did not want to give them up.

As the 370th moved deeper into the Serchio Valley  later with elements of the 371st  resupply became a logistical nightmare. No vehicles could reach the Buffalo Soldiers as they fought their way to the high ground of the 35-mile-long valley. Despite a wealth of technology and industrial might at their command, the Americans found themselves dependent upon pack animals, the same mode of transport employed by Hannibal Barca when he had invaded Italy more than 2,100 years earlier.

THE MULE PACK

One officer and 15 enlisted men formed the nucleus of the 92nd Division Mule Pack Battalion, which included an Italian veterinarian, two blacksmiths and 600 Italian volunteers who were given American uniforms and even wore the Buffalo insignia. The Americans scoured the countryside for mules and horses, which the U.S. government then purchased from locals. They eventually procured a total of 372 mules and 173 horses. Because the U.S. Army lacked the necessary equipment for pack animals, the blacksmiths had to hammer out their own horseshoes from German barbed-wire pickets. The animals brought up water, ammunition, antitank guns and other crucial materiel and transported the wounded to where they could receive treatment. As it turned out, however, the mules were apparently spooked by the smell of dead men and balked at carrying corpses.

The 92nd was expected to launch a major offensive on Dec. 1 in support of the II Corps renewed attack on Bologna. The attack was rescheduled for Christmas Day due to a predicted German counterattack. When intelligence reports indicated a large German build-up in the northern region of the Serchio Valley, the men of the 371st were transferred to the coastal sector, and elements of the 366th were sent to the valley to support the 370th. Although the Fifth Army never launched its early December assault, it was not a quiet month in the Serchio Valley. The Buffalo Soldiers continued to advance, town by town, against German artillery, mortar and small-arms fire. American engineers at first repaired bridges and roads for the advance, but soon shifted to defensive work, laying minefields, rigging bridges for demolition, and helping to evacuate civilians in anticipation of the German counterattack.

On Christmas Eve the Fifth Army called off its Christmas Day assault, but the Buffalo Soldiers, who were deployed on both sides of the Serchio River, continued to advance, facing German mortar and artillery rounds as they moved through more of northern Italys mountain towns. The 366ths 2nd Battalion held the town of Barga on the American right flank, while the 370th held Gallicano, west of the Serchio River. On Christmas Eve, the 370th sent its 2nd Battalion east of the river into the little village of Sommocolonia, the northernmost edge of the American line. Light artillery and mortar rounds hit Sommocolonia but there seemed to be little enemy activity, so most of the 2nd Battalion moved out for duty elsewhere, leaving behind only two platoons. On the extreme right, just east of Sommocolonia, lay the villages of Bebbio and Scarpello, occupied by two platoons of the 92nd Division Reconnaissance Troop.

GERMAN ATTACK!

Before sunrise on the day after Christmas, the Germans attacked the villages just north and east of Gallicano. Although the primary German assault seemed to come from west of the river, toward Gallicano, partisans were also battling enemy soldiers north of Sommocolonia later in the morning. Within two hours, Sommocolonia and the two American platoons there were surrounded. A third platoon moved up to reinforce the embattled Sommocolonia troops. Lt. John Fox, an artillery forward observer for the 366th, exemplified the impressive fighting spirit of the Black soldiers. When enemy troops surrounded the lieutenants position inside a house and were about to overrun him, he ordered artillery fire directly on his own position, sacrificing his life. Foxs heroic action bought valuable time that helped save other troops, and he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

The two platoons of the 370th, along with a group of partisans, engaged in house-to-house fighting with the enemy during that battle. Many of the Germans were dressed as partisans, making the situation even more confusing and dangerous. Just before noon, the platoons were ordered to evacuate the village, but they were trapped. They managed to hold out until nightfall, but of the 70 Americans involved, only one officer and 17 men managed to fight their way out of the village that night as ordered.

Meanwhile, the two reconnaissance platoons at Bebbio and Scarpello were overrun by enemy troops and ordered to fall back. Despite heavy fighting, they managed to withdraw to their command post at Coreglia. German artillery fire began to cut deeper into American lines, and the 370th ordered its troops to quit Gallicano and secure the high ground nearby.

With the Allied port of Leghorn threatened, the Fifth Army called back the 1st Armored Division from II Corps control, and the 8th Indian Division, a British unit, moved to the area as reinforcements. On Dec. 27, American fighter-bombers roared into the valley and hammered Sommocolonia, Gallicano and other front-line areas. By Jan. 1, the Allies had more or less re-established their original positions.

ALMONDs PLAN

With the Germans less of an imminent threat, the 8th Indian Division pulled out, leaving the valley to the Buffalo Soldiers. The Fifth Army postponed its major offensive until April, but Gen. Almond decided that his division would launch its own attack in February. Almond devised his operation not as a breakthrough assault but as a division-strength feeler movement intended to determine enemy strength and deployment, draw more enemy troops to the area and enhance the divisions own positions. Troops in the Serchio Valley were to seize the Lama di Sotto Ridge, overlooking the German supply center at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, and create a diversion while the main assault concentrated on the coastal sector. Almond hoped to reach the Strettoia hill mass on the coast, just north of the Cinquale Canal, and then take Massa. Once in Massa, American artillery would come within firing range of La Spezia.

Units were moved around again so that the 370th and 371st occupied the Coastal Sector while the 365th went to the Serchio Valley. The 366th was divided between both areas. On February 4, the 366th held Gallicano, and the next day it pushed its lines into the outlying villages. The 365th, to the east of the Serchio River, took the town of Lama, just north of Sommocolonia, and occupied Mount Della Stella at the foot of the Lama di Sotto Ridge. The 365th held out against numerous counterattacks until February 8, when a full battalion of Germans pushed the Americans off the hill and out of Lama. At nightfall on the 10th, after encountering grueling enemy artillery fire and grenadier counterattacks, the Buffalo Soldiers retook Lama.

COASTAL FIGHT

The Buffalo Soldiers on the coast were hit just as hard as their comrades in the valley. The Germans had tanks, field artillery and thousands of ground troops to protect La Spezia, and they could call on a weapon unavailable to the Americans  heavy coastal guns. Emplaced at Punta Bianca, just southeast of La Spezia, the German coastal guns could not only lob shells into Massa but also reach all the way to Forte dei Marmi, which lay south of the Cinquale Canal. Fire from the powerful coastal guns left craters so large that Allied tanks literally fell into them.

The remainder of the 366th and its supporting armorincluding another black unit, the 758th Tank Battalion  advanced along the coast. The 371st attacked on the far right through the coastal hill masses but ran into extensive minefields. The 370th advanced in column with its left flank on Highway 1 and its right flank in the hills. As they advanced, each battalion of the 370th leapfrogged the battalion directly to its front in order to keep up a continuous attack.

Riding on the tanks, the 366th rolled into the sea to avoid mines, then came back onto dry land north of the Cinquale Canal. The first two tanks to hit the beach were knocked out by mines and blocked the way. Before long, four more tanks were destroyed by mines, but the 370th reached the canal and started to cross, taking a pounding from local mortar and machine-gun positions as well as from the coastal guns. The artillery fire prevented engineers from laying a bridge, and foul weather meant no air support for the Buffalo Soldiers that day. Three tanks were lost when they fell into underwater craters while crossing the canal.

Despite numerous German counterattacks, the Buffalo Soldiers did manage to establish a line of defense north of the canal. Without a bridge, they had to hand-carry supplies across the water. Casualties were mounting, and the coastal guns kept pounding away. On the night of February 10, Almond called off the attack and ordered his troops back across the canal. The February operation cost 22 tanks and more than 1,100 casualties, including 56 officers.

REGROUPING FOR THE SPRING

The 92nd underwent drastic changes before its involvement in an offensive in the spring of 1945. The Allies considered it absolutely crucial that the 92nd seize La Spezia during the April attack, but the previous months of fighting had depleted the divisions strength. Although the U.S. Army had hundreds of thousands of Black troops, it could not find enough combat-trained replacements for the 92nd, so the 371st went to the Serchio Valley under IV Corps control while the 366th and 365th were sent elsewhere. The 92nd built up the strength of the 370th, the only Black regiment left in the division, while it gained two new regiments. In addition to the 473rd, made up of white anti-aircraft gunners turned infantrymen, the division received a ferocious fighting unit composed of Nisei soldiers  the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team. These descendants of Japanese immigrants served in one of the most highly decorated American regiments of the entire war.

The 370th formed the left flank, with the 442nd on the right and the 473rd in reserve in the nearby Serchio Valley. In order to avoid the relentless barrage from the coastal guns, the 92nd Division, now jokingly referred to as the Rainbow Division, advanced toward Massa through the hills east of Highway 1. Even though fighter-bombers flew sorties over Punta Bianca and British destroyers shelled the German positions, the coastal guns continued firing.

In less than two hours on April 5, 1945, the 370ths lead element, Company C, reached its initial objective: Castle Aghinolfi. The companys artillery forward observer had to convince the artillery twice to give him fire support. Artillerymen could not believe that the riflemen had advanced so far. The Germans were surprised, too  in fact, many were still eating breakfast when the Buffalo Soldiers arrived.

Company C radioed for reinforcements, but the regiment had problems of its own, with two company commanders already killed. No help arrived. The Germans within the castle fired on the lone company with machine guns and mortars. Before long, the company had suffered 60 percent casualties. The forward observer and radioman were both hit and the radio was destroyed, cutting off all contact with the outside. The company had no choice but to pull back. Lt. Vernon J. Baker, the companys only Black officer, volunteered to harass the enemy so that the wounded could escape. Armed with hand grenades, and on two occasions supported by Pvt. James Thomas automatic-rifle fire, Baker personally destroyed three machine-gun nests and an observation post. Baker, who had already received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that day.

RIDGE BY RIDGE

Meanwhile, the 442nd fought the enemy ridge by ridge and systematically blew up German bunkers with bazookas. By April 6, the Nisei had control of Mount Belvedere. The 370th, Company C included, made another assault against the same hills but needed more troops to succeed. The 473rd moved up, and the hard-hit 1st Battalion of the 370th, which had had three company commanders killed in the first two days, went to the Serchio Valley to protect the American flank against a German counterattack.

The 370th and 473rd, along with their supporting armored battalions, pushed through the hills and also advanced along Highway 1, although the German guns at Punta Bianca continued to pound away. On April 9, American tankers rolled into Massa but were driven back by staunch enemy resistance. In a supporting maneuver, the 442nd pushed forward through the mountains and flanked the citys eastern side. Finally, the Germans withdrew, and on April 10 the Americans controlled the city.

The 92nd Infantry Division continued to press forward, though the bitter fighting continued as the Germans moved their reserve men and panzers into position. With the German lines receding, a full battalion of tank destroyers finally came within range of the coastal guns and over a six-day period sent more than 11,000 rounds into Punta Bianca. By April 20 the big guns were silent and the Germans were retreating.

VALLEY MEN

The Buffalo Soldiers fighting in the Serchio Valley had also been busy. The 370th had taken Castelnuovo on April 20 and pressed forward. They planned to meet up with the 442nd at Aulla, northeast of La Spezia, and cut off the German retreat.

The fighting had left so much destruction that the Americans could not even use their mules, and the division was accumulating more prisoners than it had time to deal with. Partisans had been fighting at La Spezia, and on April 24 the 473rd moved into the city. Three days later, the 473rd and its supporting armor crushed the German resistance at Genoa. The 370th and 442nd in their sector helped prevent two enemy divisions from escaping through the Cisa Pass before the May 2 cease-fire officially ended the hostilities in Italy.

DEEMED A FAILURE DESPITE THEIR SUCCESS

Although Allied forces were ecstatic over their success in Italy, for the Buffalo Soldiers, it was a bittersweet victory. The military establishment considered the 92nd, which comprised less than 2 percent of all Black Americans in the army, a failure. Regarded as an experiment from the outset, the division had been closely watched and roundly criticized.

Much of the blame for the setbacks in February 1945 and other similar occurrences was attributed to confusion between the junior officers and enlisted personnel. However, their officers were rotated so often that the men sometimes had no idea who their commanders were, and in many cases the most outstanding officers and NCOs were killed in action.

In defense of the Black junior officers, Lt. Col. Markus H. Ray, commander of the divisions 600th Field Artillery Battalion (which had all Black officers and men) wrote on May 14, 1945: I believe that the young Negro officer represents the best we have to offer and under proper, sympathetic and capable leadership would have developed and performed equally with any other racial group . They were Americans before all else.

The numbers alone tell an impressive story. Of 12,846 Buffalo Soldiers who saw action, 2,848 were killed, captured or wounded. The Buffalo Soldiers did, in fact, break through the Gothic Line. They reached their objective, captured or helped to capture nearly 24,000 prisoners and received more than 12,000 decorations and citations for their gallantry in combat. The soldiers of the 92nd Division had proved their worth to America once again through months of bitter combat in the Italian Campaign.

Slow Progress Toward Desegregation During World War II The performance of the 92nd Infantry Division sparked many debates, including some about the ethnicity of officers. Some of the military establishment felt that Black troops performed better under Black officers, but others believed that white officers were better-suited to command Black soldiers. Combat experience showed that troops performed best under good officers, regardless of their skin color. For the most part, the American military establishment considered the experiment of Black combat troops a failure. The Black press blamed segregation, while the armys upper echelons cited racial inferiority, though not all white officers shared that opinion. A look at the facts, however, suggests that both sides were wrong. The Buffalo Soldiers did indeed break through the Gothic Line. The setback in February 1945 had much to do with the German coastal guns, which survived repeated efforts to silence them. The 92nd did have its share of problems. In some cases whole platoons were disarmed and arrested because of their performance, although many of the charges against the men were later dropped. It should be noted that, owing to the Armys inability to supply the number of replacements needed by the 92nd, troops who had formerly been absent without leave were sent to the Black division from the East Coast processing center. Considering the 92nds overall success during the Italian campaign, the units experience in World War II sounds far more like a success story than anything else. Black Americans in uniform found themselves in a rather compromising situation during World War II. The Black press, almost unanimously opposed to a segregated military, promoted the Double-V campaigna military victory for America overseas and a political victory for the Black community at home. Judge William H. Hastie, the civilian aide to the secretary of war from 1940 to 1943, waged many political battles with the U.S. government on behalf of the Black community. Hastie fought for the inclusion of Blacks in combat units, the Medical Corps, the Army Nurse Corps and the Army Air Corps. He even struggled to abolish the unscientific practice of separating blood plasma according to race. Although Hastie was unable to make much headway in the fight against segregation during the war, he enjoyed many successes. To its credit, the U.S. armed forces officially ended segregation in 1948  more than a decade and a half before the nation as a whole finally did the same. During the Korean War, longstanding Black units were disbanded and their troops transferred to integrated groups. At first, integration in Korea often meant that a regiment would have two white battalions with one Black battalion in reserve. But as the fighting continued, that arrangement soon became impractical, and Black GIs began replacing fallen white GIs at the front. Incidentally, blood plasma was finally desegregated on Dec. 1, 1950.
Jonathan Haidt (pronounced height) spent 16 years as a professor at the University of Virginia studying morality, emotions, happiness, awe and virtue. He recently became the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York Universitys Stern School of Business. Haidt uses moral psychology to understand Americas extreme partisanship and polarization. His latest book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, is a New York Times best seller. He argues that humans can respect, and even learn from those whose morality differs from our own, as a positive leap towards reducing animosity and divisions in society.

Why do you argue well stay polarized as a society until we try to understand the opposing sides moral point of view?

If you have only your own morality to go on, and that morality is shared by the people around you, youll be certain that you are right. Moral claims come to feel as objectively true as the claims of physics and math. Its really hard to step out of your moral matrix. (I use the term matrix as in the movie, The Matrix, which is about consensual hallucination.) Moral psychology, anthropology and history can all help people see that their particular morality is just one branch of a large tree with other branches. Knowing that can open the way to understanding and even respecting those who differ from us.

How can one find out about another persons morality?

You could go live among another group, but I believe it is possible to do it just by reading. I went through about a year where I was obsessed by Roman history. It came about because I was taking a car trip and I looked in the library for books on tape, and they had Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was like listening to a soap opera. The stories were so fascinating that I just started reading everything I could. This is not equivalent to living in ancient Rome for a year, but a good historian, like a good novelist, can help us see and feel what it would be like to live in a different era, a different moral matrix.

What determines our politics? How do we become liberal, conservative or libertarian?

For most people, their environment plays a larger role than their genes. So for example, if you raise someone in central Wyoming instead of Greenwich Village, that is going to explain a lot more about their adult personality than their heritable temperament. But for people who inherit a temperament that is very high on a trait called openness to experience, they are going to find themselves more attracted to liberal ideas. Political ideology turns out to be as heritable as most other personality traitsabout a third of the variance among people result from genetics.

Why do people join movements?

Politics is more like religion than it is like shopping, and I think that Democrats have not understood that as well as Republicans. Morality binds and blinds people. Republicans since Reagan have had a clear and emotionally compelling narrative about American history that starts with the founding fathers and individual liberty, the near loss of liberty to the creeping welfare-liberal-nanny state, and the heroic restoration of freedom and capitalism courtesy of the Republican Party. The Democrats have tended to talk too much about specific programs such as Social Security, student loans and Medicare. Its not clear how these programs connect back to the long arc of American history, or how they tell a story about who we are and where were going.

So government intervention to promote racial and gender equality was doomed to create a backlash?

Distrust of centralized power is one of the oldest, most important sensibilities in our history. The idea that the federal government should only be used as a last resort is a very deep, very American idea. But the Southern states had failed spectacularly to address the civil rights problems, so a federal response became necessary. But I think the left drew too strong a lesson from it, that the federal government can and should be used as a first resort to address many other issues, from abortion to gay rights. Once the federal government is seen as an instrument wielded by one side, the other side is going to hate it and distrust it and want to starve it. This, I think, is the backstory to the Tea Party revolt of 2009. Its a blend of libertarians and social conservatives, but they make common cause in their long-simmering anger at what they see as an overgrown federal government that has too often been used to advance liberal policies like affirmative action and environmental regulations.

As a self-professed liberal, what did you learn to like about conservatism as you researched the book?

The great insight that Ive gotten from conservatism is the need for constraint, structure and order. Liberals generally resonate to John Lennons song Imagine (Imagine theres no countries / it isnt hard to do / nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too / Imagine all the people / living life in peace). But conservatives since Edmund Burke argue that knocking down all the constraints and traditions will get you anarchy, not bliss. Its no coincidence that having children makes people more conservative. Imposing structure, order and clear consequences has a miraculous effect on the behavior of young children, whereas reasoning with them, yelling at them or threatening them has much less effect. Thats why I say in the book that I think the great blind spot of the left is what I call moral capital. You cant create a society just by fostering more love, trust and empathy. Youve got to build morality into the surrounding institutions, laws and norms. And if you understand the other side better, youll tone down the demonizing.

How does religion help and hurt American politics?

In the book I argue that religion is a part of our evolutionary heritage. We evolved minds prone to religiosity because religious groups were more effective in competition with other groups. That doesnt necessarily mean war; it means the ability to create a moral community within which people can trust each other, suppress free-riders and reap the benefits of cooperation. Research by the anthropologist Richard Sosis shows that 19th-century American communes organized along religious lines lasted much longer than communes founded along secular (usually socialist) principles. Only 6 percent of the secular communes lasted 20 years, compared to 39 percent of the religious communes. Religion, like morality, binds people together, but in the process it blinds them to evidence and arguments that contradict their sacred values. I would just add that ideologies work like religions. Communism, capitalism, deconstructionism, egalitarianism, any set of beliefs that is used to bind people together into a team, to fight other teams, is going to lead to blindness, intransigence and polarized beliefs.
In mid-May 1862little more than a year after South Carolina secessionists had fired the opening rounds of the Civil War at Fort Sumterthe end of the conflict seemed invitingly within the Unions reach. In spite of a spirited and resourceful defense by a hopelessly outnumbered Confederate Army, aided by a Union commander who constantly overestimated the Rebels numbers and consequently had been advancing up the Virginia Peninsula at a snails pace, a powerful Union force was now making its way up the James River toward the Confederate capital of Richmond.

In Richmond itself, panic reigned. Runaway soldiers and refugee families poured in from the peninsula, doubling the citys prewar population of 40,000. Some residents set aside small quantities of tobacco to be used as currency in their future dealings with Union occupation forces, while others fled. President Jefferson Davis wife, Varina, and their four children were sent to Raleigh, N.C. Preparations were made to ship the Confederate archives to South Carolina, while the treasurys gold was crated up, ready to be removed at a moments notice aboard a train kept under steam for just that purpose.

Given the lethargy with which Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was executing his end run up the peninsula, it was fitting that the cause of Richmonds atmosphere of impending doom was not his Army of the Potomac but the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

When McClellan commenced his Peninsula offensive in March 1862, he was supported by a sizable naval contingent that would accompany his army as it advanced up the James River. On March 8, however, a serious threat emerged in the form of the Confederate ship Virginia, an armored casemate ram converted from the salvaged burned-out hull of the Union steam sloop Merrimack. Accompanied by the wooden gunboats Patrick Henry, Jamestown and Teaser, Virginia attacked the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads, where she rammed and sank the wooden frigate Cumberland, set the frigate Congress ablaze and forced the steam frigates Minnesota, Roanoke and St. Lawrence to run aground. Those unfortunate Union vessels thus had the dubious distinction of being the first victims of an ironclad warship.

It was Virginias turn to be surprised, however, when she returned to Hampton Roads the next morning to finish off the still-grounded Minnesota. There to confront the Rebel ram was the new and even more innovative Union ironclad Monitor, which had a round, two-gun turret mounted on her low, flat hull. History was made for the second day in a row, as two ironclad vessels fought each other for the first time.

The two-hour duel ended in a standoff, with little damage inflicted on either side. Virginia was compelled to withdraw to Sewells Point, however, and she then retired up the Elizabeth River to Norfolk. Virginias captain, Franklin Buchanan, had been wounded in the fight, and Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall took command of the ironclad.

During the next two months, whenever Virginia ventured into Hampton Roads, the Union naval commander there, Commodore Louis M. Goldsborough, would prudently withdraw his fleet to within range of Fort Monroes guns. As for Monitor, President Abraham Lincoln had given specific orders not to risk her in another confrontation with Virginia until more ironclads could be built. Consequently, when the Confederate ram entered Hampton Roads on April 11 and captured three Union transports within sight of Monitor, the Union ironclad did not steam out to engage her. But when Monitor and five other Union vessels bombarded Sewells Point on May 8, Virginia did come out to confront them, only to see the Union vessels retire beyond cannon range. An uneasy standoff ensued.

While Virginias officers were planning a desperate, all-out strike against the Union fleet, Lincoln arrived at Fort Monroe and directed Maj. Gen. John Wool to land a force on the other side of Hampton Roads, at Willoughbys Point. Soon, Union troops were ashore and marching toward Norfolk, prompting the Confederate garrison commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, to set fire to the Gosport Navy Yard and withdraw his forces. He did so without informing Tattnall, whose first indication of trouble came on May 9, when he noticed that there was no longer a Confederate flag flying over the battery at Sewells Point.

By the night of May 10, Virginia was a warship without a port, and Tattnall decided to try to escape up the James to Richmond. Blocking his way, however, was Harrisons Bar, a stretch of riverbottom where the water was only 18 feet deep. In order to clear that obstacle, Virginias 20-foot draft would have to be reduced. Her crew spent five desperate hours throwing coal and ballast overboard, exposing the ironclads thinly armored lower quarters but reducing her draft by 3 feet.

Even those measures did not seem to be enough, however, because the local river pilots informed Tattnall that heavy winds were sweeping so much water off the bar that the lightened Virginia would still not be able to clear it. Tattnall distrusted the pilots claims, but he was also unwilling to risk the lives of his crew in the event Virginia did run aground, leaving her immobilized and vulnerable to Union gunfire.

Late that night, Tattnall intentionally ran Virginia aground beside Craney Island, near the mouth of the Elizabeth River, then ordered her abandoned and set afire. At 4:58 a.m., the flames reached Virginias 16-ton powder magazine, and the pride of the Confederate Navy exploded into fragments in a bright flash that could be seen from as far away as Fort Monroe.

The situation now looked completely hopeless for the Confederate cause. Outnumbered by McClellans 118,000-man Army of the Potomac, General Joseph E. Johnstons 56,000 Confederate troops were already slowly retreating up the peninsula. With Virginia gone, nothing stood in the way of the Union Navy, either. On May 13, a pessimistic Jefferson Davis wrote to his wife: The hasty evacuation of the defenses below and the destruction of the Virginia hastens the coming of the enemys gun-boats. I do not know what to expect when so many failures are to be remembered, yet will try to make a successful resistance.

As Lincoln returned to Washington on May 11, word of Virginias demise reached McClellan at his camp near West Point at the head of the York River. Seeing an opportunity to intimidate Richmond into surrender without having to fight his way through the Confederate Army, McClellan urged Goldsborough to dispatch a flotilla of Federal warships, including Monitor, up the James toward the Rebel capital, some 70 miles away.

Unfortunately for Goldsborough, the manner in which his force would proceed was typically McClellanesque. The Rebels had evacuated the east bank of the James, but they still had several forts on the west bank. Although those positions were too weakly defended to stop the Federal ships, McClellans orders were for Goldsboroughs men to reduce all the works of the enemy as they go along, spike all their guns, blow up all their magazines, and only then move on Richmond and shell the city into surrender. Because Goldsborough dutifully adhered to those orders, minor strongpoints that might have been bypassed were dealt with in turn and generally given more attention than was really necessary. Each delay in the flotillas progress bought that much more time for Richmonds mixed bag of troops and tars to shore up her defenses.

On the morning of May 14, a Confederate soldier stationed at Battery Park, an outpost at the mouth of the Pagan River guarding Smithfield, spotted three Union vessels steaming up the James. In the van was Galena, one of three experimental armored vessels laid down for the U.S. Navy in 1861. Designed by Samuel H. Pook for C.H. Bushnell & Co. and commissioned on April 21, Galena was an ironclad corvette with unusual round sides and armor made of interlocking iron bars, 31Z4 inches thick at the sides, which made her look, one witness said, like a great fish with iron scales. Galena had a two-mast schooner rig, two Ericsson vibrating-lever steam engines and two boilers, generating 800 horsepower and driving a single screw to give her a maximum speed of 8 knots. Armament consisted of two 100-pounder rifles and four 9-inch Dahlgren rifles.

Although she was brand-new, Galena did not inspire much confidence in Goldsborough, who considered her to be a most miserable contrivance. He would not commit her to action until additional shields of boiler plate had been installed inside the bulwarks to prevent the armor-securing nuts from flying off at the first hit and wreaking havoc on the gun crews. Even after that modification, Goldsborough still judged Galena a sad affair.

Another unusual vessel in the flotilla was the little gunboat Naugatuck. Built by John Stevens in 1844 as a single-screw ship, the 192-ton, 110-foot-long Naugatuck was later given two screws, driven by two inclined engines with one boiler. Originally serving in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the Coast Guard) under the name E.A. Stevens, Naugatuck subsequently was loaned to the Navy and armed with a single 100-pounder rifle, two 1-pounder rifles and a 12-pounder howitzer. Her main protection was her ability to partially submerge by flooding compartments to increase her draft from 7 feet, 8 inches to 9 feet, 10 inches.

Rounding out the force were Monitor and two wooden vessels, the screw gunboat Aroostook and the side-wheel gunboat Port Royal. Commander John Rodgers led the small but potent flotilla. Born in Maryland in 1812, Rodgers had entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1828 and subsequently saw service in the Seminole War and in the Pacific Ocean. Serving as skipper of the gunboat Flag when war broke out in April 1861, Rodgers became the first commander of naval forces on the western rivers on May 16, but left three months later after clashing with the commanding general of the Western Department, Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont. Rodgers returned east in time to participate in the attack on Port Royal, S.C., on November 7. He served as an aide to Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, before hoisting his pennant aboard Galena in early 1862.

Rodgers was anxious to duplicate what Flag Officer David G. Farragut had done in New Orleans in April 1862run straight upriver, brushing aside any enemy fort that stood in his waybut Goldsboroughs orders compelled him to pay more attention to the minor strongpoints he encountered. The first was Fort Boykin, whose position at the lower end of Burwells Bay had been selected by Colonel Andrew Talcott at the behest of President Davis military adviser, General Robert E. Lee. Armed with eight 3-pounders, three 42-pounders and two 8-inch guns, the fort was defended by a small garrison of Virginia militia, who rushed to their positions and started firing away when Galena came in sight. The two wooden gunboats dropped back and let Galena deal with the enemy batteries, which were quickly silenced. Fort Huger, located four miles farther up the river, received similar treatment.

The next Rebel strongpoint, Fort Powhatan, had been built before the War of 1812 and challenged the oncoming Union vessels with only puny fire. Contemptuously bypassing the fort after dropping a few shells into it, the Union gunboats steamed on past City Point and Appomattox Manor, similarly subjecting each to a brief shelling as they made their way toward their ultimate prizeRichmond.

On the same day, the Virginia General Assembly met and resolved to defend the Confederate capital to the last extremity, assuring Davis that any destruction or loss of property in the process would be cheerfully submitted to. Davis then called upon Lee to propose the best line of defense south of Richmond if the government should be forced to relinquish the capital. Lee suggested the Staunton River, about 100 miles to the southwest, but then suddenly cried, But Richmond must not be given up; it shall not be given up!

Lees emotional outburst came as a surprise to political and military officials alike. For one thing, he was well-known for his reserve and self-control. For another, Lee did not have the most fearsome of fighting reputations at that time. Although he had distinguished himself as a captain of engineers during the Mexican War in 1847, Lee had not been very successful in his first year as a Confederate general; his attempt to retake western Virginia from Union control in the fall of 1861 had ended in miserable failure. Now, however, that statement of heartfelt resolve from the hitherto unaggressive Granny Lee galvanized similar feelings among the capitals defenders. The Richmond Dispatch echoed the generals sentiments: To lose Richmond is to lose Virginia, and to lose Virginia is to lose the key to the Southern Confederacy.

Meanwhile, the most immediate threat, the five Federal gunboats, were less than a days journey from the capital, with only one serious obstacle lying in their path. Eight miles below the city the James River made a sharp bend, its south bank rising to a 90-foot bluff that was located on the property of Augustus H. Drewry. From the outset, Confederate leaders had recognized the value of Drewrys Bluff as a last line of defense, and in the winter of 1861 they had built a redoubt on it, mounting one 10-inch and two 8-inch Columbiads. Fort Darling, as the Union troops called the redoubt, commanded a mile-long stretch of the James.

With Rodgers flotilla now bearing down on Richmond, Lee reverted to his original specialty as an army engineer and set about bolstering the defenses around Drewrys Bluff. Rebel sailors hauled five more heavy cannons, taken from the James River gunboat squadron, up the bluff to augment the three original guns, giving the defenders a total of four smoothbore and four rifled weapons. Lees eldest son, Colonel George Washington Custis Lee, personally supervised crews of soldiers, sailors and laborers who were hastily pressed into service to expand the existing entrenchments along the south bank of the river. About 300 yards downstream from the foot of the bluff, the gunboat Jamestown was scuttled in the main channel, and huge crates of stones and scrap iron were sunk between rows of pilings driven into the riverbed, forming two lines of obstructions across the 120-yard-wide river.

Just upstream from the double line of obstacles, the gunboat Patrick Henry, armed with a single 8-inch smoothbore, took up station. At the foot of the bluff on the north side of the river, Confederate Marine sharpshooters who had recently evacuated Norfolk deployed in trenches, under the command of Virginias gunnery officer, Lieutenant John Taylor Wood. All through the night of May 14, with the Federal gunboats only a few miles away, Lees men worked feverishly, digging rifle pits and filling sandbags in a drenching rain.

By the morning of May 15, the Confederates were as ready as they could ever hope to be. Captain Augustus Drewry, who was defending not only the capital and the cause but also his own property, commanded the Rebel army gunners of the Southside Heavy Artillery. Since most of the defenders were navy men, however, overall command on Drewrys Bluff was held by Commander Ebenezer Ferrand. Also present in command of a battery was Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, Tattnalls former executive officer aboard Virginia.

Rodgers had learned about the Confederate efforts to close the bend at Drewrys Bluff late on May 14 and had waited until the next morning to try to force the defenses. Now, out of the morning mist, Galena emerged to inspect the enemy obstructions. At 7:35 a.m., she had reached a point 400 yards from the barriers when Ferrand ordered his batteries on the bluff to open fire.

Galena immediately took two hits on the port bow, but Rodgers held his fire. He recognized that this would be the first real test for his thinly armored flagship, and as he later put it, I resolved to give the matter a fair trial. He calmly moved Galena forward and maneuvered her in the narrow channel so that she could bring a full broadside to bear upon the bluff. Then Galena and her consorts commenced firing. The roar of the gunsUnion and Confederateshook the windows in an apprehensive Richmond.

On the bluff, Confederate gunners were hard pressed as fragments from 100-pound shells lobbed by Galena showered down on their emplacements. Their 10-inch Columbiad, accidentally loaded with a double charge of powder, recoiled off its platform. Nearby, a rain-soaked log casemate collapsed on its gun. Other guns had to cease fire temporarily so their limited supplies of ammunition could be rationed.

For all their problems, the Confederate gunners held one distinct advantage. They were able to pour plunging fire down on Galena, repeatedly penetrating the ironclads thin deck armor, whereas the Yankee gunners found their shells, more often than not, crashing harmlessly into the sides of the bluff below the redoubt. Monitor, attempting to relieve Galena, moved forward at about 9 a.m., but at close range she could not elevate her guns sufficiently to reach the top of the bluff and soon had to retire downstream. The Confederates fired only three shots at the seemingly invulnerable Monitor before giving up and concentrating on Galena.

Naugatuck also attempted to move forward and relieve Galena, but fared no better than Monitor at reaching Fort Darling with her gunfire. Upon firing a 16th round, her single 100-pounder Parrott gun burst, hurling part of its breech into the river and effectively putting her out of the fight.

Meanwhile, the wooden gunboats Aroostook and Port Royal remained at anchor half a mile downstream. Their crews did not dare to venture closer, and in any case they were preoccupied with a lively crossfire from Confederate sharpshooters entrenched on both riverbanks, one of whose bullets wounded Port Royals captain. A few shells came their way, but most of the Confederate gunners wrath was still concentrated on Galena.

Galena was also under a steady hail of musket fire, mostly from Fort Darling. Unmindful of the shot and shell that pelted the embattled ironclad, one member of Galenas U.S. Marine contingent, Corporal John F. Mackie from New York City, could frequently be seen poking his head out of the gunports to return firehis intended targets included counterparts from the Confederate Marine Corps. His actions were later described in an official citation: As enemy shellfire raked the deck of his ship, Corporal Mackie fearlessly maintained his musket fire against the rifle pits along the shore and, when ordered to fill vacancies at guns caused by men wounded and killed in action, manned the weapon with skill and courage. With the reading of that citation, Mackie became the first member of the U.S. Marine Corps to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

By 11 a.m., Galena had taken 44 hits, 18 of which had penetrated her armor. Other plates were jarred loose; timbers and frames were splintered and broken. A solid shot had gone completely through one of her bulwarks and embedded itself in the other. Her railings were shot away, her smokestack was riddled and on her shattered decks 13 men lay dead. Another 11 were wounded or injured, one of whom later died.

Rodgers stubbornly stood fast until Confederate Captain J.R. Tucker in Patrick Henry, unobtrusively lying at anchor among the obstructions, loosed an 8-inch shot that tore through the bow gunport and set Galena on fire. At 11:05, Rodgers, noting that Galena was almost out of ammunition and starting to take on water, finally gave the order to withdraw.

As the Federal squadron limped back downriver, the Confederates gave three cheers and hurled their caps into the air. Monitors pilot heard a Rebel sharpshooter call out mockingly, Tell the captain that is not the way to Richmond!

Seven defenders of Drewrys Bluff had been killed and eight wounded, but their steadfast stand had staved off the waterborne threat to Richmond. Lee, witnessing the drama from the other side of the James at Chaffins Bluff, was relieved but chastened to see how close the enemy ships had come.

Southern sharpshooters continued to snipe at Rodgers retiring flotilla all the way down the James. The ships also came under fire from Fort Powhatan. Its guns were no more effective than they had been the first time, but they were annoying enough for the Union gunboat Sebago to come up later and raze the fortification.

Without a doubt, Galena had borne the brunt of the exchange, leading Rodgers to remark in a quiet understatement, We demonstrated that she was not shot proof. She would be repaired and fight in several more engagements in the Peninsula campaign, most notably off Malvern Hill on August 1. An examination in 1863, however, showed Galenas armor to be so badly cracked that it was removed, turning her back into an ordinary wooden screw sloop with a three-mast rig.

Monitor was hit three times during the advance on Richmond but escaped completely unharmed. Port Royal and Aroostook suffered only light damage. Naugatuck was judged to be so useless that she was returned to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service.

Richmond celebrated, although everyone felt that her deliverance was temporary. McClellans Army of the Potomac still lay about 23 miles from the Confederate capital and was advancing against Johnston, who was rapidly running out of space in which to conduct his fighting retreat. On May 31, Johnston was wounded during the Battle of Seven Pines. Major General Gustavus W. Smith briefly took charge of the Confederate Army but proved to be unsuited to the task. Command was then reluctantly handed over to the most senior officer left in RichmondGeneral Robert E. Lee.

Nobody in the Confederate capital would have suspected it at the time, but their army, which Lee christened the Army of Northern Virginia, was about to undergo a profound changeand so was the conduct of the war. The days of retreating were over.
In love, as in war, Confederate General John Bell Hood was the personification of bad luck.

When Confederate General John Bell Hood rode into Atlanta in July 1864 to take charge of the embattled Army of Tennessee, he was already in the midst of another desperate campaign: a frustrating and ultimately heartbreaking love affair with South Carolina belle Sally Buchanan Buck Preston. The ill-fated Hood would lose both campaigns, one by fighting too hard, the otherironicallyby not fighting hard enough.

The tall, handsome general and the lovely young socialite met in Richmond in the winter of 1862-63. Hood, at 31, was a dozen years older than Buck Preston chronologically, but he was far behind her in drawing-room polish and matters of the heart. His first compliment to her was typical of his romantic maladroitness. Miss Preston, he told his aide John Darby (who would later marry Bucks sister Mary), stood on her feet like a thoroughbred. What the cultured young lady thought about being compared to a horse may be readily guessed.

Buck Prestons suitors had a bad habit of turning up deadone was killed in a duel with his cousin, two others died at Gaines Mill and Fredericksburgand Hood must have wondered if he would be next. At Gettysburg he lost the use of his left arm, and two months later at Chickamauga he had his right leg amputated at the hip. Neither wound, however, prevented him from pressing his suit with Buck, who received the twice-wounded general with tears not quite in her eyes but audible in her voice.

Mary Boykin Chestnut, the celebrated diarist and Richmond socialite, was a longtime friend of the Preston family, and she recorded Hoods stumbling courtship dryly, if sympathetically. She was well aware of Buck Prestons flirtatious nature. Her young protegee had a knack of being fallen in love with at sight, and of never being fallen out of love with. Certainly, she had that effect on Hood, who had barely gotten up on crutches after his Chickamauga woundbefore he was back at Bucks side. He could not know that the object of his adoration had already told Mrs. Chestnut: I never cared particularly about [Hood].I would not marry him if he had a thousand legs instead of having just lost one.

Still, Hood persisted. In love, as in war, he knew only one method of combatfull-scale attack. Despite being turned down at least twice by Buck when he proposed marriage, the general kept after her. In Richmond, the on-again, off-again affair was the source of both merriment and sympathy. Colonel Charles Venable, one of Robert E. Lees aides and a relative by marriage of the Prestons, observed to Mrs. Chestnut: Buck cant help it. She must flirt.She does not care for the man. It is sympathy with the wounded soldier. Helpless Hood.

But Hood was not as helpless as Venable thought. By dint of pure persistence, he managed to win from Buck a somewhat contingent acceptance of marriage. I am so proud, so grateful. The sun never shone on a happier man, he told Mrs. Chestnut. Such a noble girl, a queen among women. The worldly Mrs. Chestnut was still not convinced. So the tragedy has been played out, she wrote in her diary, for I do not think even now that she is in earnest. It did not speak well of Bucks devotion that when Hood went to church with Confederate President Jefferson Davis before leaving Richmond for the Georgia front in 1864, she was seated one row behind him, but did not raise her heador her veilto look at him throughout the entire service.

Probably the resistance of Bucks family to having the uncultured Hood as a new in-law doomed the courtship from the start. To Bucks credit, she seems to have withstood the generals headlong advances with as much grace and comparative kindness as she could muster. Nevertheless, she and Hood seemed to have entertained some thought of marriage as late as February 1865, when Hood stopped to visit the Prestons at their home in Columbia, S.C. The visit did not go well. Bucks sister Mary, together with her new husband, Charles Darby, joined Bucks parents in opposing the marriage. Hood, already demoralized by his long string of defeatsat Atlanta, Franklin and Nashville, hadlost the will to fighteven for the womanhe loved. He rode away, never to see BuckPreston again.

Sadly, he never realized how close he had come to victory. Buck herself alluded to the lost moment when she told Mary Chestnut: If he had been persistent, if he had not given way under Mamies [Marys] violent refusal to listen to us, if he had asked me. When you refused to let anybody be married in your housewell, I would have gone down on the sidewalk, I would have married him on the pavement, if the parson could be found to do it. I was readyto leave all the world for him, to tie my clothes in a bundle, and like a soldiers wife, trudge after to the ends of the earth. Does that sound like me? It was true that day. In the end, the Gallant Hood had not been gallant enough.

Roy Morris, Jr., Editor, Americas Civil War
It was a chilling sight. Thirteen men in sullied Union Army uniforms lined up on a scaffold, rough corn sacks over their heads, a noose around each ones neck. A young lieutenant produced the execution order and read it as loudly as he could to the brigades of Confederate infantrymen formed in a huge square around the gallows. After that attempt to justify the impending doom of the condemned, a signal was given. The flooring of the gallows collapsed, simultaneously dropping the entire long row of faceless figures. The hooded victims dangled, jerked and died, their lifeless bodies suspended in midair. A captain of the 8th Georgia Cavalry remembered that it was an awful cold, bad day and the sight was an awful one to behold.

Many of the townspeople of Kinston, N.C., had left their usual activities that day, February 15, 1864, to observe the proceedings. Such grim military rituals had almost become a routine part of their existence. Two Federal soldiers had already been hanged at the same location by troops under Confederate Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, the flamboyant Virginian who led the climactic charge against Cemetery Ridge on the third day at Gettysburg. Seven more would follow in a few days, but this was the largest group to be dispatched at one time.

All of the hanged Union soldiers and those still to climb the gallows steps had been captured by the Rebels during an abortive Confederate operation against New Berne, 32 miles to the southeast. The Federals had held the town since March 1862, when Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside had captured New Berne as part of his operations along the North Carolina coast. The loss of any of its ports hurt the Confederacy, and Pickett hoped to recapture the town by a three-pronged attack of about 13,000 men.

Brigadier General Seth Bartons column of artillery, cavalry and infantry was to move on New Berne from the southwest, while Colonel James Dearing, with a smaller number of cavalrymen, infantrymen and guns, drove on the city from the northeast. Pickett accompanied the division of Brig. Gen. Robert F. Hoke as it pushed on New Berne from the northwest. The elaborate plan also called for Confederate warships to sail up the Neuse River, which flowed north of the town, in support of the attacks. The complex operation started well, but ultimately failed due to the strong Yankee forts and earthworks that surrounded New Berne. Pickett was irate. He had already been involved in one failed assault, and now his name was associated with another.

Although the Confederates had not recaptured New Berne, their assaults had snagged between 300 and 500 Northern prisoners, many taken by Hokes soldiers when they overran a blockhouse. For some of the captives Northern had several connotations, for they were natives of the Old North State. In fact, many North Carolinians fought for the Union. Three Federal regiments composed of Tar Heels were raised during the war, while more than 10,000 North Carolinians fought for the Union in units raised by other states. Being a blue-coated North Carolinian captured by fellow Tar Heels in gray was not akin to an automatic death sentence. But the prisoners taken by Picketts men at New Berne had an additional twist to their story, for they were accused of switching sides  serving in the Confederate Army, then deserting and fighting for the Northern cause.

The Confederate authorities contempt for the soldiers who had left their armys ranks was demonstrated from the moment of their capture. When the failed expedition against New Berne returned to Kinston, the prisoners were initially herded into the Lenoir County Court House and later transferred to the nearby Old Kinston Jail, where most were forced into a large, barren dungeon.

Elizabeth Jones, whose husband Stephen was one of the prisoners, said, I carried bedding to him myself to keep him from lying on the floor. The men had to subsist on one cracker a day until relatives brought them additional food.

Some of the prisoners had formerly served in the 10th North Carolina Artillery and were recognized by one of their former officers. They were pointed out to Pickett, who berated them. What are you doing here? Where have you been? he questioned, continuing: God damn you, I reckon you will hardly ever go back there again, you damned rascals. Ill have you shot, and all other damned rascals who desert.

Fifty-seven of the other prisoners had served the Confederacy in the 8th Battalion Partisan Rangers, also known as Lt. Col. John H. Nethercutts battalion. Formed in the spring of 1863, the home guard unit rode patrols, conducted guard duty in the New Berne region and received its orders from authorities in the Neuse River town. When the battalion was incorporated into the 66th North Carolina Infantry Regiment in October, several hundred of Nethercutts men, unwilling to be placed under control of the Confederate government, deserted. The Federals who had once served with Nethercutt were mostly poor, illiterate farmers with no political or economic interest in the war that had disrupted their lives.

Those accused of serving the North faced certain execution. No official records of courts-martial of the prisoners have been found, but contemporary newspaper reports claimed that their fates were sealed in hastily convened military courts. At least some of the men evidently did go through a trial process, but it was more of a kangaroo court that a formal court-martial. It is also possible that some of the men were executed without any type of trial. To make their crime appear even more heinous, the decision was made to hang the turncoats, rather than have them face a firing squad, which was the normal punishment for deserters.

One man among the group, had he been granted the opportunity to summon witnesses and not been forced to sit before a kangaroo court, was in a position to present far stronger justification for his actions. Twenty-five-year-old Charles Cuthrell of Broad Grove, N.C., had resisted serving in the Confederate Army and was hanged apparently for simply maintaining his loyalty to the U.S. government. After the war, three of Cuthrells neighbors attested that in January 1862 Confederate authorities had notified men fit for military duty that if they did not come forward and enlist they would be conscripted into the Rebel army. Cuthrell was one of those who was drafted and, in fact, had to be taken by force from his home.

Cuthrell ended up at a Camp of Instruction at New Berne and was placed in Captain Alexander C. Lathams Battery, 3rd North Carolina Artillery. A family friend recalled that Charles insisted, as did his father and four brothers, that they were Union men and that if compelled to go into the Rebel service against his will, he would be of no service to the Confederacy, from the fact that he would not fire upon the flag of his Country, or any of its defenders.

Cuthrell remained in Confederate service only two months. During the March 1862 Battle of New Berne, the only engagement in which he was present, his neighbors remembered that Cuthrell made good his previous intentions as before stated publicly, in refusing to fire upon his countrys flag and embraced the first opportunity offered for escape & entered the Union lines.

During the subsequent Union occupation of the town, the 2nd North Carolina (U.S.) was formed. Cuthrell stepped forward and made his mark on an enlistment form on December 22, 1863, and swore that he would bear truew faith and allegiance to the United States of America and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whomsoever. Less than two months later he would be captured by Picketts men, tried and executed for his Unionist stand in a seceded state.

After Cuthrell and the other men hanged on February 15 were cut down from the gallows, they were stripped of their blue uniforms, which were given to the civilian hangman  a strange, cross-eyed, nameless man from Raleigh  as he had demanded the garments as part of his pay for accomplishing the feat of mass execution. Georgia Corporal Sidney J. Richardson wrote his folks: Oh! I fergotton to tell you I sawYankees hung to day, they deserted our army and jyned the Yankey army and our men taken them prisoners they was North Carolinians. I did not maned [mind] to see them hung.

The bodies, some totally naked, were left lying by the scaffold until claimed by relatives, who had to provide their own transportation to carry their men back to their family burial plots. The army would not provide any of its wagons. Those not claimed by kin were simply interred in the sandy field by the gallows. It is likely that Charles Cuthrell was one of those buried in that fashion because he lived more than 30 miles away, and it is doubtful his 19-year-old wife, Celia Serle Cuthrell, could have traveled that distance to recover his remains even if she was aware of his hanging. The couple had also recently suffered the loss of an infant.

A few days after the 13 were put to death, another set of hangings took place in Kinston, as well as a number of shootings of Confederate deserters who had been rounded up in the area but who had not gone over to the Federals. So many executions were taking place, in fact, that one Confederate officer would later write in disgust: Sherman had correctly said that war is hell, and it really looked it, with all those men being hung and shot, as if hell had broke loose in North Carolina.

The Rev. John Paris, chaplain of the 54th North Carolina Infantry, was also struck by the enormity of the executions. He had attended the men before they took their final steps to the gallows and recalled: The scene beggars all description. Some of them were comparatively young men; but they had made the fatal mistake; they had only 24 hours to live, and but little preparation had been made for death. Here was a wife to say farewell to a husband forever. Here a mother to take a last look at her ruined son; and then a sister who had come to embrace, for the last time, the brother who had brought disgrace upon the very name she bore by his treason to his country.

Word of the executions spread throughout the North by way of newspaper accounts. The New York Times considered the hangings Cold Blooded Murder. The outraged Union officers who had enlisted the executed Southerners vociferously called for action against those responsible. The protests of one Union general actually may have unwittingly helped the Confederates carry out the hangings.

Before the executions had begun, Maj. Gen. John Peck, the Union commander of the District of North Carolina, wrote Pickett to demand that the soldiers captured from the 2nd North Carolina (U.S.) be treated properly, and included a list of their names. Pickett wrote back a sneering letter thanking Peck for providing the list that would help in ferreting out those who might have previously served the Confederacy.

A thorough investigation of the entire affair, however, could not be conducted by the North until the war ended the following year. In October 1865, Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, commander of the Department of North Carolina, ordered the establishment of a board of inquiry to investigate the matter. From October to November the officers on the board questioned 28 witnesses about the hangings, including numerous townspeople, widows of the deceased and ex-Confederate officers in Kinston and New Berne.

The board of inquiry concluded that Pickett, who ordered the courts-martial of the men and approved the sentences, and Hoke, who was responsible for carrying out the executions, had violated the rules of war and every principle of humanity, and are guilty of crimes too heinous to be excused by the United States government and, therefore, that there should be a military commission immediately appointed for the trial of these men, and to inflict upon the perpetrators of such crimes their just punishment.

As a preliminary step to those punishments, Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt recommended to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on December 30, 1865, that Pickett be at once arrested and held to await trial. But even if they had wanted to take Pickett into custody for his actions against the North Carolinians, there was no way of getting their hands on the West Point-trained former U.S. Army captain. Having been tipped off by some old army friends of what was contemplated against him, Pickett had fled Virginia to Montreal, Canada, where he was living in a rooming house with his wife and baby under the assumed surname of Edwards. He had even taken the precaution of having his distinctive long, curly hair shorn short to avoid recognition.

There Pickett remained until Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Army and an old friend of Picketts from prewar days in the Regular Army, provided him with a special pass protecting him from arrest. Pickett had written his former opponent asking for the favor. Later Grant would intercede with President Andrew Johnson to extend Pickett a full pardon for his Kinston actions. In his appeal to Johnson, Grant stated that General Pickett I know personally to be an honorable man, but in this case his judgment prompted him to do what cannot well be sustained. He added, however, I do not see how good, either to the friends of the deceased, or by fixing an example for the future, can be secured by his trial now.

Doing so, Grant argued, would open up the question of whether the government was disregarding its contract entered into in order to secure the surrender of an armed enemy. After all, the terms Grant offered General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox said nothing about bringing George Pickett to trial as a war criminal. On Christmas Day 1868, outgoing President Johnson issued a general amnesty that got Pickett off the hook permanently for the Kinston hangings.

After the war, Charles Cuthrells destitute wife, Celia, sought compensation for her loss and found herself having to establish the validity of Charles Union Army service and the circumstances of his brief Confederate Army association to qualify for a widows pension from the U.S. government.

The adjutant generals office in Washington provided her with a document attesting to the fact that Cuthrell was reported murdered by order rebel Genls Pickett & Hoke at Kinston, N.C., in the Spring of 1864. Five different Craven County neighbors provided her with sworn affidavits attesting to Cuthrells outspoken Union sentiments and his conscription into Confederate service. Eventually she became eligible for Widows Pension No. 151963.

Two other widows, those of Lewis Freeman and Jesse Summerlin, also were able to make a case for an $8-a-month pension by establishing that their men had been coerced into joining the Confederate ranks. Both men had deserted their Rebel home guard unit. My husband was a Union man and kept out of the war as long as he could with safety to himself but he finally enlisted in a company of Confederate troops, stated Freemans widow, who was left with six children to raise. I think he was induced to enlist from fear of bodily harm.

The pittances extended to the poor widows brought only further resentment from pro-Confederates within politically divided North Carolina. For those who remained loyal to the Southern cause, serving in the Union Army, no matter under what circumstances, amounted to disloyalty. The motivation of the men executed had varied from fear to patriotism. For Charles Cuthrell of Broad Grove, N.C., following his conviction to remain loyal to the United States cost him his life  not from disease or on the battlefield like most Northern soldiers, but from the hard bite of the hangmans noose.

This article was written by Gerard A. Patterson and originally appeared in the November 2002 issue of Americas Civil War magazine.

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Former US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense of the Bush Administration, Jed Babbin, discusses the need for more F18 Strike Fighters.
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST BERNARD LAFAYETTE played a key role in some of the most notable demonstrations in the 1960s. He, along with James Bevel, Diane Nash and John Lewis, was a leader of the 1960 Nashville Student Movement that conducted lunch counter sit-ins at segregated restaurants. Lafayette also took part in the 1961 interstate bus Freedom Rides and, working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Martin Luther Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference, helped to organize voting rights demonstrations in Alabama, including the Selma to Montgomery march. Today, the 75-year-old Lafayette is the director of the Emory (University) Center for Advancing Nonviolence in Atlanta. Lafayettes memoir, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma, was published in 2013 by the University Press of Kentucky.

Last March you joined a commemorative walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where 50 years earlier police attacked the demonstrators marching for voting rightsthe infamous Bloody Sunday. What were your thoughts?

There was a real connection between what happened 50 years ago and the commemorative march. Fifty years ago there were only a dedicated few. This time there were 120,000 people in Selma. The president and congressional representatives were therepeople representing different groups and communities. It was unimaginable to have so many people interested and identify with the original march and the Voting Rights Act passed 50 years ago. The week after the commemorative walk, college students from all over the country, at the invitation of the National Park Service, also reenacted the Selma to Montgomery march. It was called a walking classroom, and I was invited back to speak to the studentsthere were about 500 or 600. That was absolutely encouraging.

What obstacles did black voters face in the South?

It was very serious. There were people who were shot down and killed. Bombings took place. Thats why it was very difficult for me to [organize] a mass meeting in Selma; people were afraid that they would get fired from their jobs or that churches would be bombed. It was very repressive, and the federal government didnt do anything. If people who were trying to register to vote got harassed or killed, it was a state offense. They had to take tests, which were very subjective; the applicants had to read a section of the Constitution and then interpret it for the registrar, and the registrar would say, You didnt interpret it correctly. So they couldnt register.

Why was nonviolence such an important principle in the civil rights movement?

Because our goal was to create a much more unified communityto help people learn to work together and solve problems together. Nonviolence was the goal, and the method of reaching that goal was nonviolence. We werent going to advocate harming people who disagreed with us. Our purpose was to make the nation aware of what we were protesting. The first right we needed was the right to march: As Martin Luther King said, we had to fight for the right to fight for right. But we were aware that we would face violence, and at the Montgomery, Ala., bus station we were badly beatenI got three cracked ribs. Fortunately, no one got killed on the Freedom Rides and we accomplished our goals. There are other alternatives. One is to do nothing and let violence take its course. Another is to combat violence with violence, which would increase the amount of violence. The third is to use nonviolence as an example of how to change a violent society. Your actions are what you advocate.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Did activists view him as a friend of the movement?

Some people did and some people didnt. Johnson certainly advocated passing the public accommodations actthe Civil Rights Act of 1964. But he also was interested in the war on poverty and got involved in the Vietnam War, and was preoccupied with that, and so was not, early on, an advocate for the Voting Rights Act. When Martin Luther King asked him about it, Johnson waved him off and said hed done enough for civil rights. He initially was reluctant, but we were able to get the attention of masses of people. So Johnson was forced to [push for] passage of the voting rights bill. He was a friend of the movement, in a way, because he ultimately made it happen.

Was the Voting Rights Act the eras most effective piece of civil rights legislation?

I would say so. Our whole democratic process means people participate in governance. If we deny people the vote, then they have no say in our governance. That voting rights act did more to change our involvement and participation than any other piece of legislation, and thats why it was met with so much resistance.

Were there big changes in black registration and voter turnout in the South in the years immediately after the law was passed?

Yes, absolutely. We had more black elected officials in Mississippi than in any other state. There was a substantial increase in black voting participationbut not a majority. There was an observable change. Still, people have to be educated. We made one big mistake: After the Voting Rights Act was passed, we, including myself, assumed that people would just go out and register and exercise their right to vote. We should have established citizen education centers in every county where people could learn how to participate in government. Its not simply about voting; its about going to city council and county commission meetings and having a voice in civic discussionsmaking people aware of issues and bills. We didnt do that, and many people did not participate, because it was not their habit.

What did you think of the recent Supreme Court decision that threw out a key provision in the Voting Rights Act?

When a new law is put in place, the assumption is that its going to correct the problem. A condition for passing the act was that it had to be renewed periodically, and there was the assumption that it would not be renewed when the problem was solved. There is an assumption that schools are no longer segregated, OK? And there is an erroneous assumption that there are no more impediments to voter registration. When the federal government decreases its involvement and oversight, [discriminatory] things happen. We still have to make sure that the change is complete.

Whats the most important idea that you want readers to take from your memoir In Peace and Freedom?

I want to see nonviolence and conflict management skills put in every educational institution in the country. You see so much violence in our society. We are too intelligent to be responding to each other with violence. Its not a matter of intelligence; it is a matter of skills. We need to have that component in schools, just like English and math.

Originally published in the December 2015 issue of American History magazine. Subscribe here. Photo: ZUMA PRESS, INC./ALAMY
Andrew W. Thundercloud

Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class

January 1967-March 1968

I was always aware of the warrior. There were certain times in my life when I heard warriors tell their stories. At the Winnebago Pow Wow in Nebraska, the oldest celebration in the United States, the head dancer is always a combat veteran. I thought, Id like to do that someday, and be able to wear two feathers. A man who has faced an enemy is entitled to wear two feathers in his head dress.

I finished college and enlisted in the Navy in January 1963. I had an ambition to be a pilot, but had a bad left eye. They wanted me to go into submarine service, but I declined. Reminding me that I had a six-year obligation, they asked me what I would like to do. I wanted to be a hospital corpsman. So they made a sign of the cross over me and sprinkled water on my forehead and said, OK, youre a corpsman.

I always had an interest in medicine. My grandfather, who was a healer, taught me a few things when I was younger about the mind and body and how to do certain healings. My father had been a Marine during WWII and credited a corpsman with saving his life, so he was very proud of me.

In January 1967, after corpsman and medical schooling, I got my orders and was assigned to the 1st Marine Division. We landed at Da Nang, and it didnt take long for the heat to hit us, and the smell. There was a fence that separated us from the guys who were going home. Their fatigues were all worn and faded, and they were yelling at us: Oh, new meat is here. You guys are really going to regret this. With all the obscenities being used, I remember thinking, When I go home, I will not do that to the new guys.

In my first six months I was with the grunts, and the Marines really took good care of me. And I did my best to take care of them. I hoped that when somebody said, Doc Thundercloud, theyd say, Oh yeah, I remember him. Damn good corpsman.

In either late July or early August, one of the chief hospital corpsmen from MAG-16 came to our unit looking for volunteers to go to the Air Wing to fly medevacs. It was an opportunity for me to fly, so I went. We were on the South China Sea at a place known as Marble Mountain Air Facility.

I remember the first day that I flew. We lifted off and headed southwest from Da Nang. God, it was beautiful country! And when youre flying at 1,000 feet, everything is so quiet. You think its impossible that theres a war going on. But as you approached the LZ, things changed quickly.

I saw everything imaginable. I did my damnedest and dont recall losing anyone. I primarily flew in UH-34s. We never really knew where we were going until we got aboard and they announced the map coordinates. Some coordinates were notoriouslike those for the A Shau Valley. There were stories about helicopters going in there and not coming out.

We flew every three or four days, from 0600 to 1800, then another corpsman would relieve you. I probably flew on a couple hundred medevacs. I think all of us corpsmen wanted to be the best we could possibly be. It brings to mind two young men who wanted to fly more medevacs than anyone elsetrying for 1,000 missions. They both extended for six months, and they both died. It was dangerous to set that kind of goal but I can understand it. I really, really didnt want to go home either. But then I remembered what my wife told me: Dont try to be a hero. You dont have to win any medals for me.

On my last night there, I was sitting in the NCO club and everybodys buying me drinks, Hey, Docs going home tomorrow, get him a drink, you know. I sat there thinking, Well these guys are going to stay. I wanted to stay, too. The thought running through my head was, Who can take care of these guys better than I can?

The guys drove me to the airbase the next day. It was my turn to leave. And like I said, I saw these new guys on the other side of the fence, getting off the planes, and heard all these obscenitiesbut I kept my promise and didnt say anything to them.

I left Vietnam at the end of March 1968 and took my time coming home to Tomah, Wis. I stayed in California for a while, came through Arizona and went to the Grand Canyon, trying to become a human again. When I got home around May, my parents said, Were going to have a dance for you. Hundreds and hundreds of people came. My father gave me items of regalia. These are yours, he said. You have earned these.

In 1992 I went to the Winnebago Pow Wow and fulfilled one of my dreamsbeing a head dancer and wearing two feathers, the sign of a combat veteran.

From the documentary Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories, by Wisconsin Public Television, www.wisconsinstories.org/vietnam.
Up until early July 1814, the battlefield performance of the American army in the War of 1812 had been most notable for its incompetence, errors, amateurism and missed opportunities. Even on July 5, the 3,500 regulars who had encamped near the Niagara River in Canada wore the gray wool uniform of the state militias because there wasnt enough regulation blue material to go around. As they dutifully followed orders to parade along the river to mark the nations 38th anniversary of independence, they remained oblivious to the fact that an enemy army was about to pounce on them. Potential disaster loomed. But on this day, largely because of the efforts of Brigadier General Winfield Scott, the army found its footing. The Battle of Chippewa created a legend, inspired generations of military professionals and even instilled such pride that gray remains the color of the uniform worn proudly by cadets at the worlds most esteemed military academy.

The U.S. Army was aging in 1812; it was largely led by veterans of the Revolution, a war more than 30 years past. While many of them were excellent battlefield commanders in their day, time had taken its toll. On the political side of the equation, the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and many of the other heroes of American independence regarded a standing military as a threat to Americas liberty and an unnecessary expense. As a result, the U.S. Army had been constantly short of fundsit lacked uniforms and equipment for the duration of the War of 1812and its officers were often chosen more for political connections than for competence.

The armys shortcomings were further highlighted by the success of the U.S. Navy on the high seas. In contrast to the armys geriatric leadership, the navy was dominated by men still in their 30s. Young, dashing and daring, the sailors recent combat with the Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli added to their growing reputation. Many of the navys wartime commanders were not professional officers but privateers, men who were authorized by the American government to attack enemy shipping and keep the profit of whatever they captured. These men had long made their living with their ship-handling and leadership skills. The very process of recruiting privateers weeded out the less competent. No one who doubted his ability volunteered to pit his skills against the worlds mightiest fleet, the British Royal Navy.

The U.S. Navy also benefited from a technical advantage that the U.S. Army did not. New England shipyards had been producing the finest frigates in the world since before the American Revolution, unmatched by even the best British shipbuilders. Another great advantage was that the merchant marine offered an ongoing chance for ambitious young men to hone their sea-faring skills, but ground combat could be practiced only in the underfunded and always too small army or, worse, in the state militias. Although the armys numbers were greater than the navys, its training and discipline were deplorable. Militias generally elected their own leaders and assumed the right to un-elect officers if the situation seemed to justify it.

Of all the miscalculations of the War of 1812, perhaps the greatest was the Americans confidence that they could easily seize Canada and make it part of the United States. They had good reason for wanting to unite North America under the Stars and Stripes. The British had been using Canada as a baseto trade for furs with the Indians in the American-claimed Ohio territory and to encourage those same Indians to attack American settlements along the frontier. Military and civilian leaders alike firmly believed that the presence of the U.S. Army north of the border would inspire the Canadians to throw off the British yoke. The American perceptions and intelligence proved to be fatally flawed. In fact, the Canadians were determined to remain loyal subjects of the Crown.

Nevertheless, Canada appeared very vulnerable. Its population was relatively small, and large numbers were descendants of the French colonists the British had conquered just a few generations earlier. Meanwhile, the vast military might of Great Britain was concentrated on warring with Napoleon in Europe, and in Canada, reserves of food or supplies to support a large British expeditionary force were limited. (In fact British forces survived their first winter in Canada only because treasonous New England merchants and farmers sold them food, choosing to line their pockets at the expense of their countrymen.) Another American advantage was the long border, pierced by the Great Lakes and a number of navigable rivers that could support an invasion force. With all of the obvious benefits that would accrue to the victor and no apparent difficulties, the U.S. Army marched into Canada. Capturing it should have been easy for a well-disciplined, well-trained army. Unfortunately the U.S. Army of 1812 was neither.

The campaign to conquer Canada quickly turned into a debacle. The generally pro-British, pro-commerce Federalists opposed to the war were concentrated in the Northeast along the best invasion routes into Canada. They refused to support federal troops marching through their states, causing logistical difficulties. They refused to call up their state militias, claiming that the Constitution limited their use to defense against invasion. Hamstrung by poor logistics and undisciplined troops and burdened with slow, ineffectual leaders, the Americans suffered badly at the hands of the British regulars, supported by their Canadian and Indian allies. American advances were tentative. Timid commanders surrendered strong positions rather than fight, even when they had the numerical advantage.

The skills that made armies successful in the early 19th cen-tury have largely been relegated to the parade field in the early 21st. Many observers in the years since the invention of automatic, long-range weapons wonder in amazement at what appears to be little more than a formalized style of suicide on the battlefield. Recalling the Minutemen of the American Revolutionwho fired their accurate rifles from behind rocks and trees and picked off British officersmodern Americans often assume that the British were using tactics that had no effectiveness outside Europe. They are wrong. The mastery of these tacticsand the discipline required to execute themmeant the difference between defeat or victory in battle.

Warfare in the time of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 was limited by the weapons both armies carried. The rifle was extremely accurate for its day and could kill at relatively long distances, but a good rifleman could load and fire no more than one round per minute. This slow rate of fire meant that while riflemen could pick off enemy officers, a large body of men in a tight formation could successfully charge forward with bayonets fixed and overtake the riflemen before they could inflict more than just a few casualties on the attackers.

The smoothbore musket, on the other hand, in the hands of a competent infantryman, could fire up to three rounds per minute. Speed, however, came at the price of accuracy; beyond 50 yards, striking a man-sized target was more a matter of luck than of marksmanship. The only way that a body of men armed with muskets could put out a credible amount of effective fire was to stand massed together so that their fire was concentrated in the small area before them. Once their officers gave the order to charge, they would rush forward with long bayonets attached to the muzzles of their muskets. It was the hope of every infantryman that the sight of so many charging soldiers would cause the enemy to panic, break and run. If they did not, then the battle became a bloody hand-to-hand fight with bayonets, swords, fists and rifle butts.

Discipline was key. The rational human being will always feel a strong impulse to flee the danger and destruction of the battlefield. Patriotism and concern for the opinions of his fellow soldiers or the folks back home may get a man to the battle, but discipline instilled through long hours of training and drill keeps him where the fire is hot and death close. The necessity of standing in tight ranks to give a credible fire meant that the soldiers themselves formed an easy target for the enemy. When cannons were added to the mix, it took a level of discipline that defies modern understanding to remain in formation and slowly move toward the murderous fire in ordered ranks.

Such discipline is not a question of innate personal courage, but rather the result of demanding, repetitive training. This was the regimen that drew the broad line of demarcation between militia and U.S. regulars in the War of 1812. The regulars entire existence was one long attempt to instill discipline. From the demand that every brass button be shined until it gleamed to the requirement that the barracks be kept as clean as a hospital, absolute, unquestioning obedience was what soldiers needed.

That was what Winfield Scott set out to give them. Aggressive, vainglorious and always self-promoting, Scott sometimes seemed to provoke as much conflict with his fellow officers as with the British. Like most of his fellows, Scott had no prior military service or background. Unlike most of his fellows, however, Scott understood the importance of study and professional competence. One of the few bright stars in the armys otherwise poor performance in the summer and fall of 1813, Scott was promoted to brigadier general in March 1814, the youngest of several new generals appointed to rescue the situation.

Recognizing Scotts superb skills as a trainer, his commander, Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown, entrusted the training of the entire Army of the Niagara to him, and Scott in turn threw himself into the task with vigor. He first set about personally instructing his officers in the requisite knowledge and then monitored them as they taught their men. No detail of military discipline or camp life was too small to escape his notice and correction. Cleanliness, security, order, military courtesy and custom all received his attention. Understanding the pride of the soldier, he made strenuous efforts to clothe his men in the blue uniforms of the regulars, not the gray wool of the despised militias. Here, however, Scott failed. His trained regulars would have to go into battle dressed in gray.

Scott instilled the strict discipline he knew his men would need to face the hardened British regulars; he did not hesitate to use the harshest measures to stamp out any challenges. When several men deserted, Scott had them shot. Only the youngest was spared, as the muskets pointed at him had been loaded with powder, but no balls. General Brown was so impressed with Scotts skill that he gave him command of four of the six regular army infantry regiments he had trained. These, along with two companies of the 2nd Artillery, completed Scotts brigade.

With spring 1814 now nearing its end and the American Army of the Niagara ready for battle, Brown began planning another invasion of Canada. The stakes were high. American defeats on the Canadian border and British cross-border raids had turned New England even more against the war. Leading citizens there were secretly discussing the possibility of secession from the United States and a separate peace with Great Britain.

Unaware of such details, but fully realizing that the United States could ill afford another defeat, Scott led his brigade across the Niagara River and into Canada early on the morning of July 3. By the end of that afternoon they had captured Fort Erie and made prisoners of its 170-man garrison. Brown urged Scott to move forward quickly to get across the Chippewa River before their British rival, Maj. Gen. Phineas Riall, could mass behind it and make a crossing impossible. To Scotts dismay, his forced march and the running battles it entailed had all been in vain. Riall, who had been warned of the American crossing, was waiting on the north side of the Chippewa on July 4.

Convinced that there would be no action for another day or two, Scott ordered his men to encamp for the night to the south of Streets Creek, which ran parallel to the Chippewa about a mile and a half south. He proposed a slightly belated Independence Day celebration to be held July 5. After a feast, Scott ordered his brigade to the flat ground north of the creek for a formal review and parade. As his men filed over a small bridge, they looked up to see General Brown galloping toward them. Shouting a warning that battle was about to begin, he raced to hurry along the rest of his brigade, which had encamped along the Niagara River south of Scotts position. The British had crossed the Chippewa River and were advancing toward Scott in battle formation.

The cautious and conservative move would have been for Scott to take up defensive positions behind Streets Creek and await reinforcements. On that dayand over the course of the next 45 yearscautious and conservative were words not applied to Scott. He ordered his brigade to form for battle on the north side of the creek. Scott sent his artillery off to the right, positioning it beside the Niagara so that it could not be outflanked, and moved his infantry units into a line extending out from the artillery. They were about to give the British a nasty surprise.

If Scott was confident, Riall was even more so. As he looked at the invaders across the open plain, he could see their gray cloth uniforms and felt victory was already his; these were merely militia, the men who could not stand up to the first artillery shell, let alone face a bayonet charge by the British veterans. But as he watched his cannon shot tear through the ranks of the Americans, a terrible realization dawned on him. These men were not running away. They were forming ranks and standing steady under the bombardment, waiting for orders to move forward.

Those are Regulars, by God! Riall exclaimed. Despite that revelation, Riall pushed on, and the two lines slowly closed the distance between them. As they came into musket range, soldiers halted to fire and reload before moving forward again. Again, Rialls overconfidence got the better of him. He was so sure of victory that he moved his right flank forward and broke contact with the woods that had been protecting it.

Scott did not hesitate. He sent the 25th U.S. Infantry from the left end of his line forward and to the left. The troops outflanked the end of the British line, then wheeled back to the right and fell on the exposed British flank. Sensing victory, Scott now took one more gamble. He divided the remaining regiments of his brigade into two groups. The 11th Infantry on the left turned to the right while the 9th and 22nd on the right turned inward to the left, opening a small V-shaped gap between the two sections. Riall saw this weakness in Scotts lines and drove toward it, intending to split the brigade in half. It was the opportunity Scott had hoped for. Riall suddenly found his forces caught in a murderous crossfire of three regiments. Scotts artillery now added their fire to that of the infantry. It was too much even for hardened British veterans; they fell back leaving the field to Scott and his brigade. British casualties exceeded 500 while some 300 Americans fell.

After a seemingly endless series of defeats and humiliations, the American army had stood up to seasoned British regulars. Not only had the troops stood up, they had also fixed bayonets, charged the thin red line and driven it from the battlefield.

As soon as news of the victory on the Niagara reached New England, the mutterings of secession abruptly ceased. Winfield Scott and his American regulars had saved the country and shown what determination, iron discipline and hard training could do. Although the campaign to capture Canada would ultimately fail, the lessons that Scott and the army learned there would continue to reverberate down to the present day.

General Scotts troop preparation began the transformation of the U.S. Army from a small, semi-amateur frontier force to a professional organization. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, established in 1802, would soon become the armys primary source of professional officers. In recognition of what Scotts brigade achieved at Chippewa, cadets there adopted gray uniforms, a tradition that continues two centuries later. While the national debate over dependence on the regular army versus the state militias would be ongoing for years, the Battle of Chippewa taught Congress, and the nation, the importance of a full-time professional military establishment. More important, it showed all the American soldiers who followed Scott, both regular and militia, what good training, professionalism and discipline could accomplish.

This article was written by James B. Daniels and originally published in the October 2007 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!
U.S. Navy Captain Charles Gridley earned a place in history on May 1, 1898,during the Battle of Manila Bay.

By Richard Harris

Just after midnight on May 1, 1898, the USS Olympia led the United Statess Asiatic Squadron quietly through the calm, glassy waters of the Boca Grande Channel, between the island of Corregidor and the coast of Luzon in the Philippines. The United States was at war with Spain, and the American squadron was preparing to attack a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.

As Sunday morning dawned hours later, the Olympias commander, Captain Charles Gridley, waited for the order to fire his ships guns. The order would come from the squadrons commander, Commodore George Dewey, who watched from atop the Olympias flying bridge as shore batteries fired harmlessly at the advancing column of American ships. At 5:40 A.M. Dewey finally hailed Gridley with the now-famous words, You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.

The ensuing Battle of Manila Bay ended with the destruction of the Spanish fleet and the surrender of the Philippine capital of Manila. It signaled to the world that the United States was a major naval power and made Dewey a national hero. The pivotal sea battle also hastened the death of the terminally ill Captain Gridley. Though considered one of the best and brightest officers in the United States Navy at the time of his death, Gridley would probably be forgotten today if it werent for Deweys command.

Charles Vernon Gridley was born in Logansport, Indiana, on November 24, 1844. When he was three, his father moved the family to Michigan. Thirteen years later Charles won an appointment from that state to the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1863.

Gridleys first assignment was aboard the nine-gun steam sloop Oneida during the Civil War. As part of the Union fleet commanded by Admiral David Farragut, the Oneida participated in the capture of the Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama, on August 5, 1864. It was the only action Gridley saw during the first 33 years of his career. He spent the remainder of the war on blockade duty.

Gridley left the Oneida in 1866 and subsequently received a number of routine assignments, including service in the South Atlantic Station, a four-year stint as an instructor at the Naval Academy, and the command of two training ships. In May 1872, he married Harriet Frances Vincent, and they had three children.

On July 28, 1897, the 52-year-old Gridley reached the pinnacle of his career when he was given command of the USS Olympia. Launched in 1892, the 5,870- ton protected cruiser carried four 8-inch guns, ten 5-inch guns, and fourteen 6-pounders and was manned by a crew of 34 officers and 440 enlisted men. Gridley was particularly pleased with this appointment. Not only was the Olympia the flagship of the Asiatic Squadron, but squadron commander George Dewey was a close friend. The only circumstance marring this professional achievement was an intense pain that Gridley had begun experiencing in his right side. The fleet surgeon was unable to find a cause for Gridleys discomfort or for the gradual weight loss that had taken him from a robust 200 pounds to 115. It is believed that he was probably suffering from liver cancer.

ON FEBRUARY 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 men and setting off a chain of events that would lead to armed conflict with Spain. As the international situation deteriorated, Commodore Dewey, stationed with his Asiatic Squadron in British-controlled Hong Kong, became increasingly concerned about the health of his flagship captain. With each passing day Gridley became weaker. He had lost his appetite and barely had the strength to move around the Olympia. Dewey knew that once war was declared, he would be ordered to attack the Spanish Pacific Fleet, and he didnt want the captain of his flagship debilitated by illness.

On April 15, 1898, the fleet surgeon pronounced Gridley physically unfit for duty, and Dewey reluctantly ordered his old friend home. Gridley protested vehemently. He reminded Dewey that as the flagships captain, he was responsible for preparing the squadron for the coming battle. He argued that although he was weak from his illness, he was thoroughly familiar with the battle plan and able to carry out his duties. In the end Dewey relented, and Gridley continued as the Olympias captain.

Ten days later news reached Hong Kong that the U.S. North Atlantic Squadron had blockaded Havana. Hong Kongs British governor, Major General Wilsone Black, sent notice that Great Britain had proclaimed neutrality, and that all Spanish and American warships had until 4:00 P.M. that day to leave Hong Kong Harbor. Despite his countrys position, Black penned, God knows, my dear Commodore, that it breaks my heart to send you this notification, beneath his official message to Dewey.

Dewey moved his squadron to Mirs Bay, China, and there received the message he had been expecting. Navy Secretary John D. Long cabled: War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. Commence operations particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavor. Dewey waited the two days it took for U.S. Consul Oscar F. Williams to join the squadron from Manila before leaving for the Philippines. Williams brought news that the Spanish squadron was leaving Manila Bay for the more defensible Subic Bay, 25 miles north of Manila.

On April 27, the anchor chains rattled up through the hawser holes, and the Olympia led the squadron out of Mirs Bay. She was followed by the heavy cruisers, Baltimore, Raleigh, and Boston, two gunboatsthe Petrel and the Concordand a Revenue Service cutter, the McCulloch. Two unarmed colliers, the Zafiro and Nanshan, completed the fleet. On the bridge of the Olympia Gridley ordered Lieutenant Carlos Calkins to set a course across the South China Sea to the Philippines.

During the first day at sea, Gridley began the grim task of preparing his ship for combat. Sailors performed musket and cutlass drills, sanded the decks, and bound the masts with anchor chains. The crew also tossed overboard all wooden furniture, paneling, books, and even pinups to reduce the risk of fire during battle.

On April 29, Gridley assembled his crew on the quarter deck and read from a proclamation the Spanish governor general of the Philippines had issued five days earlier. It warned the Filipinos that a squadron manned by foreigners, possessing neither instructions nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honor, and liberty. Pretending to be inspired by a courage of which they are incapable . . . [they] shall not profane the tombs of your fathers, they shall not gratify their lustful passions at the cost of your wives and daughters honor . . . prepare for the struggle . . . . Whatever effect the words had on the people of the Philippines, they ignited the anger of the American crewmen.

Gridley reminded his men that their nearest point of supply was San Francisco, 7,000 miles across the Pacific, so he urged his gunners to do their best, aim carefully, and make every shot count. When he finished one of the assembled crewmen began to quietly sing the Star Spangled Banner. Before long every man in the crew was singing.

In the middle of the afternoon of April 30, the squadron reached Subic Bay, only to learn that the Spanish fleet was not there. Admiral Patricio Montojo Y Parsar?n, commander of Spanish naval forces in the Philippines, had arrived at Subic Bay only to find that the defenses there had been neglected and had returned to Manila Bay on April 28. The American fleet regrouped and headed south in pursuit.

When the Asiatic Squadron arrived at the Boca Grande Channel in the early hours of May 1, Olympias crew hung battle lanterns, readied the ammunition hoists, and loosened the sea fastening on the cruisers guns. Lieutenant Corwin Rees turned to Gridley and said, Sir, the ship is cleared for action!

Dewey knew that the strain of the long night had taken a terrible toll on the ailing captain of his flagship. He offered to excuse Gridley from duty and urged him to go below for some much needed sleep. Gridley refused. Thank you, Commodore, he said, but [the Olympia] is my ship and I will fight her. A mess attendant passed by with a steaming can of coffee. Gridley took a cup, and left for his battle station in the conning tower.

The Battle of Manila Bay began at dawn and ended shortly after noon. The Olympia, firing her forward turret, led the Asiatic Squadron down along the shoreline in a close-order column headed directly for the Spanish ships. Except for the flagship Reina Cristina, all of the Spanish ships remained fixed to their moorings or at anchor.

Closing on the enemy, Gridley swung the Olympia to the west and ran parallel to the Spanish line, adding the fire of the ships port batteries to the barrage. Behind him, at 200-yard intervals, the rest of the squadron formed a close ellipse and followed his every move. The Olympia led the American line in a series of U-turns that, with each pass, closed the distance between the themselves and the Spanish. Heavy black smoke covered the bay as the hapless Spanish ships received fire from alternating starboard and port guns.

As the Olympia headed eastward to begin her fourth pass down the Spanish line, the Reina Cristina, maneuvered out of the smoke and headed straight for the American ship. The Spanish flagship was 1,200 yards from Gridleys ship when several hits forced the Reina Cristina to limp back to shoal waters. It was a gallant but futile effort.

At 7:30 A.M. Dewey received word that the Olympias ammunition was low. Concerned that the rest of the squadron was in the same position, Dewey ordered his ships to withdraw and take stock of the situation. Not willing to alarm the crewmen, he gave breakfast as the reason for the withdrawal. One gunner remonstrated to Deweys chief of staff, For Gods sake, captain dont let us stop now! To hell with breakfast!

At the captains conference that was called, all the news was good. Ammunition supplies were still ample, and though the squadron had taken a number of hits, damage was slight. Only six Americans had been wounded and there were no fatalities.

Shortly after 11:00 A.M. the Asiatic Squadron regrouped to renew its assault on the Spanish fleet. Only the shore batteries and one small cruiser, Don Antonio de Ulloa, were still firing. By 12:30 P.M. the Ulloa had been sunk, and Montojo surrendered. Dewey had executed his orders to perfection. The Americans had sunk or destroyed seven warships. The Spanish had suffered 381 fatalities; the Americans, none. The battle, however, would claim one American life a month later.

The searing heat and poor ventilation in the Olympias conning tower, combined with the strain of the battle, had proved too much for Gridley. At some point during the day he struck his side on the edge of the chart table, and when the battle was over Gridley had to be carried from his post. He never rose from his sickbed, and Benjamin Lamberton replaced him as captain of the Olympia.

On June 5, Captain Charles Vernon Gridley died in the harbor of Kobe, Japan, on his way home aboard the passenger liner Coptic. Four days later, his casket was carried through the streets of Yokohama in an impressive funeral procession, accompanied by an honor guard of Imperial Japanese Marines. All foreign ships in the harbor flew their flags at half mast.

Gridleys ashes were returned to the United States and interred at Lakeside National Cemetery in Erie, Pennsylvania, where four guns sent by the United States Navy from the Spanish Arsenal at Cavite in Manila Bay were placed on his grave. In March of 1918, the navy bestowed another honor on the Olympias late captain when his daughter Ruth helped launch a new destroyer, the USS Gridley.

With the immortal words, You may fire when you are ready, Gridley, Commodore George Dewey honored his old friend by allowing him to lead the American squadrons charge against the Spanish. But the command did more than set the stage for the May 1, 1898, battle. Those eight words assured the dying captain of a place in American history.

Richard Harris is a free-lance writer who specializes in military affairs and history. His work has appeared in armed forces journals and popular magazines.
In the largest crackdown on medical fraud cases in history, the U.S. Medical Fraud Strike Force charged 301 people with varying degrees of medical fraud offences, following a sting operation. The announcement was made by the justice department and the details were shared by the Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Last year, a total 243 people had been charged in the same offences and the damages to the government had amounted to $712; however this time the number has spiked to 301 with the total losses amounting to a jaw dropping $900 million.

A report on Bloomberg went into the grim details of how the government was defrauded, "Takedowns so far this year have involved medical clinics, home health-care services and shell companies that submitted fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims for tens of millions of dollars at a time, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and other U.S. officials announced Wednesday. In one example, three individuals were indicted for operating clinics that gave drug addicts prescriptions for controlled substances and narcotics and then billed Medicare for $36 million in fraudulent claims for services that were never provided." What would come as an even more disturbing news for the public is that among the 301 people who have been charged, 61 belong to the medical profession including doctors and nurses.

Loretta Lynch spoke to journalists in Washington today and said, "Health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense. It is a serious crime.The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment. They target real people -- many of them in need of significant medical care." She added, "The Department of Justice is determined to continue working to ensure that the American people know that their health care system works for them -- and them alone," The Justice Department released a statement as well and stated, "This is an example of how purported health-care providers prey upon and compound the drug addictions of Medicare beneficiaries in order to steal more money from the Medicare program,"

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A building featuring a striking, fluted glass facade over Oxford Street has been named as one of Britains best new buildings by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The 4,700 sq m property - home to fashion brand Zaras flagship store  is at the junction of Soho Street and Oxford Street in an area undergoing significant regeneration thanks to Crossrail.

Architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris - which won the coveted Riba Stirling Prize last year - picked up another Riba national award for 61 Oxford Street, which judges said breathed new life into a commercial building and raised the bar for Oxford Street.

They said the undulating glass skin reflects all the great traditions of department stores, while stylishly wrapping up its multiple usages: retail on the ground floor, offices in the middle, and luxury apartments overlooking the city.

Greenwich Housing is a 60-dwelling block of council houses for the elderly and disabled / Edmund Sumner

'Stirling' effort from housing sector

Some 46 Riba national award prizes were handed out this year, largely dominated by social housing and public services, and the Stirling Prize shortlist will be announced on July 14.

In London, the architects behind 60 cost-effective single-storey council homes for elderly and disabled people were recognised by the judges for providing a new model for public housing.

Greenwich Housing, by Bell Phillips Architects, was built on the site of former garages and was described by judges as clean, simple and elegant. The homes were designed on a fabric first principle, making heating costs very low  a particular concern when one in 10 households in England is in fuel poverty.

The bungalows, which span just 90sq m, have distinctive zinc-clad roofs rising above the brickwork with a large recessed window above the front door which provides innovative, generous and light-filled homes for residents, said the judges.

The Avenue in Essex is a new kind of housing estate / Tim Crocker

I am pleased to see a strong selection of new housing developments amongst our winners, including new models for public housing and semi-rural development, said Riba president Jane Duncan.

We urgently need new homes, but too often we see projects which have cut corners in quality which fails the people these new homes are meant to serve. I hope these achievements in housing inspire other developers.

The Avenue, by architects Pollard Thomas Edwards, a development of 76 new homes in Saffron Walden, Essex, that challenges the blight of uninspiring new housing estates, was also among the winners.

New schools of thought

Educational establishments also proliferated: a shimmering stainless steel library at Oxfords The Investcorp Building by the late architect Zaha Hadids firm; and Walters & Cohen Architects bold and colourful reworking of a Victorian inner-city secondary, the Regent High School.

The late Zaha Hadid's firm also won with the sweeping steel curved Investcorp Building library in Oxford (Luke Hayes)

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris won another accolade for the transformation of a failing secondary and special needs school in Camberwell, ARK All Saints Academy and Highshore School, turning it into an urban block with internal voids, open spaces, wide corridors creating an overall sense of connection, transparency and generosity. Judges called it an important part of raising ambition, expectations and standards in a challenging area.

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris won two Riba awards, for 61 Oxford Street and ARK All Saints Academy (pictured) / Timothy Soar

Another shining example of good design meeting a public service is Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, by BDP archictects, which was among the most striking winners with its curved grass roof and three-finger plan form. The majority of wards offer a view of the park and there are balcony "playdecks" connecting children with the outdoors.

The Alder Hay Children's Hospital in Liverpool has been designed to bring the outside world in for children, overlooking a park and with 'play balconies' on each ward / David Barbour

Music to theatre-lovers' ears

It wasnt all new builds, with a win for Tim Ronalds Architects, which were behind the restoration of the Wilton Music Hall in the City, believed to be the most important surviving venue of its kind in the country.

Wilton's Music Hall is believed to be one of the oldest examples of its kind. / Helene Binet

The famously dilapidated theatre, near Wapping, appears much as it was as the architects followed a principle of putting an enormous amount of care and ingenuity into apparently doing nothing in order to preserve its character. It took nine years to raise the funds to restore the venue and it remained open to the public as a working theatre throughout building work.
I f living in an ordinary house or flat is your idea of hell, why not try this unusual church?

The corrugated iron chapel was bought in the 19th century from a mail order catalogue - issued by William Cooper in London's Old Kent Road - by the local community in Faversham in Kent and arrived flat-packed.

Hundreds of such mail-order churches were sold during the late 19th century, and buyers could choose optional extras such as porches, steeples and even stained glass.

This 2,400 sq ft example has wrought-iron finials along the roof ridge, decorative bargeboards and alpha and omega designs in the altar window's glass.

Always known as the Tin Church, it was used as house of worship for decades before being deconsecrated in 1952 and has recently been given a makeover by designer Nick Kenny.

The timber-framed Grade II-listed building features soaring Gothic-style arched windows and doors, and the walls are lined with tongue-and-groove pine boarding throughout.

The vast former community area, now designated for live-work use, leads into the kitchen-diner which is fitted with bespoke units, while a spiral staircase leads to a mezzanine bedroom platform. There is also a shower room with loo downstairs.

At the front of the property, a sitting room featuring an elaborate circular window is accessed by its own staircase above several storage rooms.

Although the softwood frame means it is going to be very difficult to obtain a mortgage, prospective owners needn't worry about the thick corrugated iron rusting away because it is zinc plated and should last indefinitely if properly cared for.

Although Faversham is in the heart of rural Kent, twice-hourly mainline trains to St Pancras take 65 minutes, while there's a more frequent service to Victoria in under 80 minutes.

The Tin Church is for sale through The Modern House for 325,000
Let's face facts. We love to chat. And, believe it or not, there is little difference between men and women when it comes to the number of words we speak a day  16,000 on average, according to a University of Arizona study a few years back.

Sadly, technology is often blamed for stifling human interaction and, in particular, the art of meaningful conversation.

So it's no surprise, then, that some of the technology industry's best-loved platforms have historically centered around chatting.

At its peak, MSN Messenger had 330 million users  three times greater than LinkedIn's current database.

Another great example is AOL, which in 2006 had a 52% share of the instant messaging market in the US alone before a steady demise took hold, as users began taking more notice of the likes of Facebook.

And now it seems they're making a comeback  well, kind of.

Chatbots: The new norm for travel

Chatbots, conversational robot agents designed to stimulate intelligent conversation with its human users, are fast-becoming the norm in the hotel industry.

They might not mean anything to you right now, but Viv, Lola, and M are rewriting the rulebook when it comes to instant service and all part of a new breed of chat-based concierge-style applications to help people manage their lives.

While Lola is specific to travel, and launched by a former Kayak executive, M has been developed by Facebook, and Viv by the creators of Apple's Siri.

There are others  Pana, for example  which is also specific to travel. Then, most recently Google announced its 'Assistant' service. Given Google's existing presence in travel, as well as its recent launch of the Trips app, its assistant could arguably be the one to watch in this resurgence of messenger services.

If it all seems a bit far-fetched for the hospitality industry, then think again. There's already a bit more to this trend than the figment of our techie imaginations.

Dutch airline KLM is using the Facebook Messenger chat service to send passengers booking confirmations, flight notifications, and even their boarding passes.

Translate this to the hotel industry and any property could keep up a dialogue with guests throughout the booking process, the stay, and post-stay.

Meet: Edward

Last month, Booking.com launched a chatbot to connect hotels and travelers with its service working in two ways. Guests can ask their host a question on any device from within their Booking.com account. The conversation is free from templates or automated scripted text making the service less robotic and more naturally conversational. Hosts can also start conversations with their guests. A notification is sent to users bringing them into a conversation via the Booking.com messenger.

And, Edwardian Hotels London has created the aptly-named virtual host, Edward. He's available at 12 properties across London and enables guests to request amenities such as fresh towels or room service via text message.

Edward can give guests information about local bars and restaurants and has been designed to respond within a few seconds. He can even facilitate complaints, and guests can ask for an immediate callback to engage with hotel staff the 'old-fashioned' way.

Again, natural conversational language is built-in to the app and backed up with 'live assistance' when needed. Significantly for hoteliers, this is a ready-made engagement channel that millions of people are already very comfortable using.

Edward is powered by Aspect Software and Joe Gagnon, SVP and chief customer strategy officer, says Edwardian Hotels London is simply tapping into the familiarity of everyday activities.

"Texting and messaging will very soon become the simple and central entry point for the entire customer service ecosystem since it's quick, private and easy to use," explains Gagnon. "It's already a part of most smartphone owners' everyday lives; it is much more convenient for us to order room service, or get recommendations from Edward on the local tourist hotspots  all with a simple text. Aspect's self-service technology can be designed for one channel and then used across others, which will enable Edwardian Hotels London to provide consistency of service across interactions."

WhatsApp and WeChat are also likely to make their presence felt in this space, with the latter being especially strong in Asia where it has some 700 million monthly active users.

What it all comes down to: Enhancing the guest experience

A number of travel brands, airlines and hotels, are now experimenting with the above channels. WeChat already offers the ability to make flight reservations.

Starwood Hotels has, meanwhile, been using WhatsApp and other chat services to enable guests to make requests during their stay. Hyatt has been using Facebook Messenger and has said about 10% of customer service messages that come via social channels are now from Messenger.

With big names such as Facebook, Google and possibly soon Microsoft, with its own virtual assistant in development, travel-specific equivalents will have a hard job making themselves stand out.

The benefits of this new breed of services are clear, however. The customer engages with the hotel or other business in a live and contextual way.

The hotel knows who the customer is, what they have purchased before, and what their preferences are.

Google has said it will be using its knowledge graph to help its Assistant provide the best answers for travelers.

These apps can also remove some of the pain-points. They connect everything in a more seamless way enabling businesses to finally begin to bridge the gap between online and offline services.

This is an interesting development at a time when many independent hotels are still struggling with having an engaging website and responsive mobile presence. Technology such as SiteMinder's website creator, Canvas, exists to give independent hoteliers the platform they need to compete. And Internet booking engines, such as TheBookingButton, also by SiteMinder, provides the mechanisms for hoteliers to engage with their guests at all stages of their customer journey.

If independent hoteliers are savvy enough to get on board with this technology and get ahead, then chat assistants can quickly become another way to engage with customers in a place where consumers are already present and comfortable.

About SiteMinder

SiteMinder Limited (ASX:SDR) is the world's leading open hotel commerce platform, ranked among technology pioneers for opening up every hotel's access to online commerce. It's this central role that has earned SiteMinder the trust of tens of thousands of hotels, across 150 countries, to sell, market, manage and grow their business. The global company, headquartered in Sydney with offices in Bangkok, Berlin, Dallas, Galway, London and Manila, generated more than 100 million reservations worth over US$35 billion in revenue for hotels in the last year prior to the start of the pandemic. For more information, visit siteminder.com.

Maria Cricchiola

Director of Brand Communications & PR

+61 2 8031 1287

SiteMinder

View source
Leading hotel technology solutions provider, eRevMax, has strengthened its sales team in South America with the appointment of Alex Moura as the Regional Sales Director. Alex, who has earlier served the company as a Sales Manager in Brazil, has returned to lead eRevMax's overall sales strategy in the region. He will focus on reaching out to potential new customers as well as technology partners and strengthen ties with existing client base while expanding the company's footprint in South America and Portugal.

Alex is a travel sales veteran with over 18 years of experience. Prior to this, Alex held various sales roles in travel technology industry including eRevMax.

Commenting on the new appointment, Brian Dass, Chief Operating Officer, eRevMax said, "South America has been a growth region for us where we have key customers like Brazil Hotel Group and integrations with various leading OTAs like Despegar. Alex brings a wealth of sales management experience and valuable know-how and his demonstrable success in his previous positions make him the ideal person to continue our strong sales growth in the region."

"It's good to be back in eRevMax which has always been like my family. I am joining the company at a very exciting stage and look forward to contributing to its growth further. The online travel segment is rapidly changing and with RateTiger, RTConnect and LIVE OS platforms, eRevMax is in a position to address the digital challenges facing the industry," said Alex Moura on his appointment.

Alex holds degrees in business management and law. Besides his native Portuguese, he is fluent in English and Spanish.

About eRevMax: eRevMax is a travel technology company that helps hotels to maximise online revenue opportunities through real-time distribution, market intelligence and connectivity solutions. The company provides specifically tailored solutions within its core product brands  RateTiger, RTConnect and LIVE OS.

RateTiger product suite offers the industry's leading ChannelManager for online distribution, Shopper for rate benchmarking and BookingForce to help drive direct bookings from the hotel's brand.com. RTConnect provides seamless 2-way XML integration of channel management functionality with the hotel's central systems. LIVE OS offers hotels a single sign-on platform to access multiple applications, while offering technology partners a chance to get in front of hotels allowing greater distribution of promotional opportunities.

eRevMax is working closely with over 200 certified channel and technology partners as well as 9000 hotels worldwide helping them increase revenue opportunities and streamline business processes.

For more details, please visit http://www.erevmax.com/ or contact us on [email protected].

Neha Ginoria

Marketing

+44 (0) 7825 661575

View source
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The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association presented a paper to attendees at a Capitol Hill Briefing in Washington D.C. urging the creation of a Caribbean-U.S. public-private sector dialogue and a framework for a Caribbean-United States tourism action agenda to strengthen Caribbean engagement with the U.S.

Maintaining that tourism presents the Caribbean with the quickest way to create jobs, reduce public debt and stimulate new business activity, CHTA's CEO and Director General Frank Comito stated "A new demand-driven public-private sector approach and resolve by the region's leadership, the United States and other major global tourism trading partners is necessary for the countries throughout the region to maximize the benefits from tourism and for the United States to further benefit from a more secure, stable and prosperous Caribbean.

Organized by Caribbean-Central American Action and the Inter-American Development Bank, attendees included representatives from the United States Congress and U.S. Administration, private sector leaders, the diplomatic community and representatives from Washington's multilateral institutions.

Joining Comito at the briefing was CHTA President Karolin Troubetzkoy and Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, a member of the CHTA Board of Directors and chair of the organization's Government Relations Committee.

Comito called on stakeholders to explore opportunities and challenges for the United States and the Caribbean Region through tourism. Comito participated in a panel session with moderator Ambassador Richard Bernal, incoming Pro-Vice Chancellor of Global Affairs at the University of the West Indies and representatives from the financial services and energy sectors.

Two days prior to the briefing, the U.S. House of Representatives had just passed legislation to strengthen United States engagement with Caribbean countries. The United States-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act (H.R. 4939), which Rep. Eliot L. Engel, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs introduced with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), would require the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to submit to Congress a multiyear strategy focused on enhancing engagement with the countries of the Caribbean and outreaching to diaspora communities in the United States, Government, private sector and civil society interests. The legislation puts particular emphasis on energy security, countering violence, expanded diplomacy, and other priority areas.

CHTA President Karolin Troubetzkoy said: "The bill is an important first step to see a further expansion on the collaboration between the United States and the Caribbean region and we hope that the appropriate funding will be made available to address the various requirements highlighted in the bill.

"We are all aware of the complex and diverse issues that affect many of our Caribbean nations and the strides that need to be made to jump-start our economies and create jobs, but also in the areas of climate resilience, energy efficiency, education and safety and security.

"Tourism is recognized as holding the greatest potential as the region's economic driver. Therefore, a strengthening of our collaborative efforts with the United States can only be beneficial to achieve our region's overall goals".

Comito added: "The tourism ties between the United States and the Caribbean extend well beyond the 14.3 million Americans who travelled as overnight visitors in 2015, spending over $15 billion in the Caribbean. This represented 50 percent of our record setting 28 million overnight visitors in 2015 and does not include those visiting our shores on cruise ships, mostly from US destinations. Our ties extend to the cultural, historic and economic relationships which have underscored our connectivity and inter-dependence for centuries.

"While the U.S. accounts for our region's most significant exports - the Caribbean is one of the United States most important strategic partners - in trade and in talent. CHTA is a federation of 32 hotel and tourism associations throughout the region and we have over 1,000 member companies, which include some of America's most noted global travel and tourism industry brands - including Hilton, Marriott, the Hyatt, Expedia, JetBlue and American Airlines.

"Today, there are over 6 million self-identified members of the Caribbean diaspora residing in the United States, representing about 2 of every 100 Americans, and many more with generational roots. Our ties are significant and pervasive.

"Tourism is recognized globally by the United Nations World Tourism Organization on the public sector side and the World Travel and Tourism Council representing the private sector as a key driver of socio-economic progress, helping destinations and countries to quickly create jobs and businesses, generate tax revenues, and support infrastructure improvements to the benefit of residents and visitors.

"The World Travel and Tourism Council estimate that 1,963,000 jobs in the Caribbean were attributed to tourism in 2014. Under present circumstances WTTC projects a 1.9 percent annual employment growth over the coming decade, creating an additional 400,000 jobs.

"Public policies and public-private sector collaboration focusing on eliminating and reducing trade barriers have underpinned the transformation of many national economies. Simply, reducing the cost and ease of trade stimulates employment, business development and more trade.

CHTA proposed a number of agenda items which should be part of a regional and U.S. public-private sector dialogue around stimulating tourism. These focused on a review of policies to stimulate travel to and within the region, including looking at ways to reduce air travel costs; improve the arrivals and departures processing experience, advance 'one-stop' security clearance for travel within the region; extending U.S. Preclearance; waiving U.S. visa requirements for intra-Caribbean travel thru Puerto Rico or the U.S.; and a range of other travel-related recommendations.

The organization sees potential through greater collaboration around health and safety standards and recently emerged issues like the taxation and regulation of the sharing economy, while also building upon work already underway to promote greater energy efficiencies within the tourism sector.

CHTA also pointed to the lessons which the region learned from the United States success in recent years in marketing Brand USA. An action agenda should also look at ways to advance the development of the region's talents through exchange programs, scholarships, certifications and foreign language training. CHTA cited opportunities to support small business development and capacity strengthening of Hotel and Tourism Associations and Boards and Ministries of Tourism.

The organization cited past and recent success in working together on disaster readiness and response and climate change mitigation, indicating that these are areas of even greater opportunity for strengthening ties.

Looking ahead, Comito stressed that "The opportunities to build upon existing engagement and collaboration between the public and private sectors are significant. Our intention today is to point to the possibilities. The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association and many of our national hotel and tourism associations are already working with the private and public sector interests in the region on many of the agenda items described here. We welcome the opportunity to build upon this foundation and work together with the United States to our mutual benefit."
Nobu Hospitality officially commenced development of the Nobu Hotel in Chicago at a groundbreaking ceremony with partners Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Academy award-winner Robert De Niro, Hollywood producer Meir Teper, and Australian business tycoon James Packer. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Walter Burnett Jr. were also in attendance to show their support of the project and offer their hands in the official first dig.

Scheduled to debut in late 2017, the Nobu Hotel will be situated in the vibrant area of Chicago's west loop at 854 W. Randolph Street and will feature 103 rooms and suites; a 10,000 square foot signature Nobu restaurant located on the ground level with an indoor and outdoor bar opening on to Randolph's famed Restaurant Row; an exquisite 3,000 square foot, multi-use suite available for private social functions and meeting space; an indoor pool; a state-of-the-art fitness center; spa treatment rooms; and a unique rooftop indoor and outdoor bar and lounge.



James Packer, Robert De Niro, Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, and Meir Teper break ground on Nobu Hotel Chicago. Photo Credit: Francis Son Photography



"We are extremely pleased to begin development of the Nobu Hotel Chicago as the west loop neighborhood is not only a culinary epicenter for renowned restaurants and chefs but also a highly desired destination for national and international travelers seeking world-class, enriching experiences," said Trevor Horwell, Chief Executive of Nobu Hospitality. "We're excited to introduce Nobu Hotel to Chicago and embrace the vibrant energy of the city."

The Nobu Hotel Chicago joins the rapidly expanding global collection of Nobu Hotels all with their unique design elements. Spearheading the transformation at Randolph and Peoria streets are Chicago based Centaur, General Contracting and Development Management firm, in close collaboration with renowned Modif Architecture and local interior design firm, Studio K. The design team will take inspiration from Japanese aesthetics and principles while incorporating the west loop's stylish, sophisticated, well-worn and timeless appeal.


Chatbots and the Guest Experience: How are hotels using messenger apps?

By Kevin ORourke, executive vice president of global sales, SiteMinder

Lets face facts. We love to chat. And, believe it or not, there is little difference between men and women when it comes to the number of words we speak a day - 16,000 on average, according to a University of Arizona study a few years back.

Sadly, technology is often blamed for stifling human interaction and, in particular, the art of meaningful conversation.

So its no surprise, then, that some of the technology industrys best-loved platforms have historically centered around chatting.

At its peak, MSN Messenger had 330 million users  three times greater than LinkedIns current database.

Another great example is AOL, which in 2006 had a 52% share of the instant messaging market in the US alone before a steady demise took hold, as users began taking more notice of the likes of Facebook.

And now it seems theyre making a comeback  well, kind of.

Chatbots: The new norm for travel

Chatbots, conversational robot agents designed to stimulate intelligent conversation with its human users, are fast-becoming the norm in the hotel industry.

They might not mean anything to you right now, but Viv, Lola, and M are rewriting the rulebook when it comes to instant service and all part of a new breed of chat-based concierge-style applications to help people manage their lives.

While Lola is specific to travel, and launched by a former Kayak executive, M has been developed by Facebook, and Viv by the creators of Apples Siri.

There are others  Pana, for example  which is also specific to travel. Then, most recently Google announced its Assistant service. Given Googles existing presence in travel, as well as its recent launch of the Trips app, its assistant could arguably be the one to watch in this resurgence of messenger services.

If it all seems a bit far-fetched for the hospitality industry, then think again. Theres already a bit more to this trend than the figment of our techie imaginations.

Dutch airline KLM is using the Facebook Messenger chat service to send passengers booking confirmations, flight notifications, and even their boarding passes.

Translate this to the hotel industry and any property could keep up a dialogue with guests throughout the booking process, the stay, and post-stay.

Meet: Edward

Last month, Booking.com launched a chatbot to connect hotels and travelers with its service working in two ways. Guests can ask their host a question on any device from within their Booking.com account. The conversation is free from templates or automated scripted text making the service less robotic and more naturally conversational. Hosts can also start conversations with their guests. A notification is sent to users bringing them into a conversation via the Booking.com messenger.

And, Edwardian Hotels London has created the aptly-named virtual host, Edward. Hes available at 12 properties across London and enables guests to request amenities such as fresh towels or room service via text message.

Edward can give guests information about local bars and restaurants and has been designed to respond within a few seconds. He can even facilitate complaints, and guests can ask for an immediate callback to engage with hotel staff the old-fashioned way.

Again, natural conversational language is built-in to the app and backed up with live assistance when needed. Significantly for hoteliers, this is a ready-made engagement channel that millions of people are already very comfortable using.

Edward is powered by Aspect Software and Joe Gagnon, SVP and chief customer strategy officer, says Edwardian Hotels London is simply tapping into the familiarity of everyday activities.

Texting and messaging will very soon become the simple and central entry point for the entire customer service ecosystem since its quick, private and easy to use, explains Gagnon. Its already a part of most smartphone owners everyday lives; it is much more convenient for us to order room service, or get recommendations from Edward on the local tourist hotspots  all with a simple text. Aspects self-service technology can be designed for one channel and then used across others, which will enable Edwardian Hotels London to provide consistency of service across interactions.

WhatsApp and WeChat are also likely to make their presence felt in this space, with the latter being especially strong in Asia where it has some 700 million monthly active users.

What it all comes down to: Enhancing the guest experience

A number of travel brands, airlines and hotels, are now experimenting with the above channels. WeChat already offers the ability to make flight reservations.

Starwood Hotels has, meanwhile, been using WhatsApp and other chat services to enable guests to make requests during their stay. Hyatt has been using Facebook Messenger and has said about 10% of customer service messages that come via social channels are now from Messenger.

With big names such as Facebook, Google and possibly soon Microsoft, with its own virtual assistant in development, travel-specific equivalents will have a hard job making themselves stand out.

The benefits of this new breed of services are clear, however. The customer engages with the hotel or other business in a live and contextual way.

The hotel knows who the customer is, what they have purchased before, and what their preferences are.

Google has said it will be using its knowledge graph to help its Assistant provide the best answers for travelers.

These apps can also remove some of the pain-points. They connect everything in a more seamless way enabling businesses to finally begin to bridge the gap between online and offline services.

This is an interesting development at a time when many independent hotels are still struggling with having an engaging website and responsive mobile presence. Technology such as SiteMinders website creator, Canvas, exists to give independent hoteliers the platform they need to compete. And Internet booking engines, such as TheBookingButton, also by SiteMinder, provides the mechanisms for hoteliers to engage with their guests at all stages of their customer journey.

If independent hoteliers are savvy enough to get on board with this technology and get ahead, then chat assistants can quickly become another way to engage with customers in a place where consumers are already present and comfortable.

Media contact

Maria Franco

+61 410 233 735

media@siteminder.com

About Kevin ORourke

As executive vice president of global sales, Kevin ORourke is responsible for driving the sales behind SiteMinders go-to-market strategy as well as its expansion into new markets around the world.

Kevin brings a strong track record of enhancing the sales functions of large, dynamic organisations with an over-15-year sales career that began at JDS Uniphase. Prior to joining SiteMinder in 2015, he was Senior Vice President of Global Sales with Lanyon, a leading provider of group and transient RFP management solutions for hotels, and, before that, spent 10 years at EMC Corporation where he held several sales executive roles before ultimately leading the organisations commercial database sales in North America.

Today, Kevins knowledge and passion about the travel industry is an asset to SiteMinder customers as they navigate through the increasingly complex challenge of marketing and selling rooms on the web, and the various revenue opportunities that brings.

About SiteMinder

As the leading cloud platform for hotels, SiteMinder allows hotels to attract, reach and convert guests across the globe. We serve hotels of all sizes with award-winning solutions for independents and groups alike, wherever they are in the world.

SiteMinders products include The Channel Manager, the industrys leading online distribution platform; TheBookingButton, a wholly-branded booking engine for direct bookings via the web, mobile or social; Canvas, the intelligent website creator for independent hoteliers; Prophet, the real-time market intelligence solution that takes the guesswork out of pricing rooms; and GDS by SiteMinder, a single-point of entry to a six-figure network of travel agents and the worlds major GDSs. With more than 20,000 hotel customers and 400 of the industry's top connectivity providers as our partners, today we have presence in more than 160 countries on six continents.

For more information, visit www.siteminder.com.
Most conspiracy theories go by without a need to be addressed, but Gucci Mane is not your average dude. The Atlanta rapper, who was released from prison after 3 years last month, decided to have fun with a Twitter theory that the Gucci that came home from the pen was actually a government clone. I will neither support nor deny those accusations, he joked on SnapChat.



Drake has also decided to weigh in on the conspiracy, posing for a picture with Gucci Mane, Mike WiLL Made-It and Zaytoven, and posting the pic with the caption, That aint no cloneBig Guwop home.



Now that were 100% the Guwop whos been killing the Snap game over the last few weeks is the real deal, lets investigate this photo. Is Drake getting ready to work with this powerful team on some new music? Zaytovens post on Instagram seems to indicate this is indeed the case. Get use to it. Zaytoven X@champagnepapi #justwaitonit #ziggy #drizzy, he captioned another photo of himself and the 6 God. Weve already heard Gucci and Drake together on Back On Road, well have to wait and see whats coming next. Read our recent Behind The Beat segment with Zaytoven here.



UPDATE: Gucci has been sharing some snapchats of himself, Drake and Zaytoven hanging out at his mansion. Young Thug has also made an appearance, and it seems a music video might be filmed at the house. Check out one of the snaps below.
UPDATE (06/23/16 | 4:49PM EST): Another video has now surfaced that was presumably taken before Ian Connor punched Theophilus London in the face. The two of them are standing face-to-face, as London  the considerably taller figure  looks down at Connor and tells him, Touch me, Ill slap the shit out you.

As the conflict involving him, Connor, and A$AP Bari (who connected on a ferocious punch to Connors face  see below) has made headlines, London has continued to sound off on Twitter. During his latest his rant, he alleges that he took Connor in when he was homeless and that he was the person who introduced Connor to Kanye West. He tells Connor that Kanye dont even want your ass around anymore.

London also implies that he knows a woman who might be able to add to the pile of damning accusations that have already been levied against Connor.

As for A$AP Bari, he, too, has now threatened Connor on social media, tweeting at his handle, Now every time I see you Im beating the shit outta you.

UPDATE (06/23/16 | 4:03PM EST): It seems that a group of hip-hop affiliated fashionistas were gathered in Paris today, and the scene got ugly  much uglier than we had initially suspected. It was just reported that Theophilus London blasted Connor on Twitter, calling him a dirty fucking rapist, and a video had surfaced of a confrontation between Connor and London at todays event that was seemingly diffused by A$AP Rocky. Now, videos of two more confrontations  each of them much more violent  have surfaced.

The first video shows guys like Virgil Abloh, A$AP Bari, Connor, and Rocky gathered by a table of merch inside a boutique. All of a sudden, Connor walks up to London, who appears to be minding his own business, and throws a vicious punch at his face. Again, Rocky attempts to act as the peacekeeper before security steps in. Look closely toward the back of the room, and youll see a man in orange  A$AP Bari  throwing a few swings himself, seemingly directed at Connor.

Indeed, the feud was not limited to London and Connor. After the scuffle broke out in the store, those involved were moved outside, and thats when Bari decided to really let loose on Connor, connecting on a heavy punch to the side of his face as the 19-year-old model was positioned by the hood of a car. It looks like both Connor and Bari are ready to keep sparring when the clip cuts out, so stay tuned for more details on how the conflict was able to resolve itself (or not). Chances are, theres still a whole lot of bad blood thats waiting to explode.

Original text below:

Ian Connor, model and creative aide to rappers like A$AP Rocky and Kanye West, was first accused of rape in April. He has since been accused of the same crime by at least five more women, most of whom have shared detailed accounts of the alleged assaults. From the start, Connor was quick to deny all of the accusations against him, and in some cases, he has responded by hurling invective at the alleged victims on social media. Throughout the controversy, not one of Connors rapping acquaintances  nor even any males in general  have come forward to address the troubling claims  until just recently, that is. Theophilus London, also a noted friend and collaborator of Kanye and Rocky, has just threatened Connor on social media, calling him a dirty fucking rapist.

Not only that, but a video has surfaced of London approaching Connor, saying Dont try to act Hollywood like you dont know me, my n*gga, as Connor tries to remove himself from the confrontation. A$AP Rocky can be seen trying to diffuse the tense situation.

The heated encounter between him and Connor may have occurred today, as London just shared a picture of himself in the same outfit as the one he wears in the above video.

Also today, presumably shortly after their run-in, London threatened Connor on Twitter, tagging him in a post that reads, Every time I see u Im gonna fuck you up, Every time you dirty fucking rapist.

London also called out Connor for embarrassing the team of powerful creatives  himself, Virgil Abloh, and A$AP Bari  that helped him rise to fame. He tells Connor to get security bro asap.

Theophilus London
Scooter Brauns management roster just got a whole lot stronger this week. According to Billboard, Save Money rapper Vic Mensa & ATL legend Usher have both signed new management deals with SB Projects, bka Braunss company.

Vic & Usher will join a roster already consisting of some the biggest names in the music business, most notably Justin Bieber & Kanye West, as well as Tori Kelly, Carly Rae Jepsen, Martin Garrix, and the Black Eyed Peas, among others. Braun had managed Ariana Grande up until February of 2016 when the two went their separate ways, but he was still credited for her latest album release Dangerous Woman, which is currently slaying the airwaves & pop charts.

Ive always been in the Scooter family, when asked to confirm his signing after appearing on a panel with Ryan Seacrest at Cannes this week. We actually have worked together on artists, and worked together in business. So its just a continuum.

Vic Mensa, who is signed to Roc Nation, will be co-managed by Braun and Cody Kazarian. His long awaited debut album, Traffic, is on the way. Meanwhile, Ushers eighth studio album, Flawed, is expected to arrive later this year.

[Via]

vic mensa & Usher
A third date has been added to the Irish rockers upcoming stint at The Olympia.

Galway natives, The Saw Doctors have added an extra date to their headine shows at the Olympia after the first two sold out.

They will now play November 24, 25 and 26 at the intimate venue, their first Dublin dates since 2012.

Tickets go on sale for the additional gig tomorrow at 9am.
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Years of construction, delay and anticipation crested Sunday as the first container ship officially traversed the expanded Panama Canal. While the Central American channel has not always been a significant trade route for the Port of Houston Authority, officials say the expansion could help boost its burgeoning trade with Asia.

"The fastest growing trade lane that we have right now is imports and exports to Asia," Port Authority executive director Roger Guenther said. "We've been looking forward to the expanded locks and the ability for larger ships to come through the Panama Canal for a long time."

A decade or so ago, the Port Authority didn't receive any container ships from Asia. Now three of its 18 weekly scheduled arrivals come from Asia via the Panama Canal. All are major carriers, and together they account for a significant chunk of the port's container's business. The most recent service began a few weeks ago.

"It's not the staple of what we do today," said Jeff Davis, chief port operations officer, "although we think in the future it can and will be."

The Port Authority doesn't know when one of the dramatically larger container ships that can now maneuver the Panama Canal will arrive in Houston, but it expects shipping line carriers with weekly services from Asia to consider using the larger vessels.

Bigger ships bring down the cost per container. In theory, the expanded canal's ability to receive such vessels could help the Port of Houston attract ships that have been docking along the West Coast and using railroads to ship goods inland. Sailing straight to Houston with more goods could become an affordable alternative.

More Information Measuring cargo The size of a container ship is determined by how many 20-foot-long containers it could carry. The industry term is TEU, or "20-foot equivalent unit." The Port of Houston Authority: Has already handled ships of 8,500 TEUs. Currently services a 6,700-TEU ship in its regular weekly rotation. Getting 12,000- to 13,000-TEU ships will depend on market demand. The expanded Panama Canal can now receive vessels up to 14,000 TEUs. See More Collapse

Davis said the equivalent of 600,000 of those 20-foot containers come to Texas from the West Coast.

"It's an opportunity for us to seize that cargo," Davis said.

Houston's lower costs and more tranquil labor relations also could divert some cargo from the West Coast, agreed Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research for the Greater Houston Partnership. He sees another, lesser discussed positive impact of the canal's expansion: it could lower the cost of exporting plastics and chemicals to Asia.

This is especially relevant as Houston works to complete roughly $50 billion in petrochemical plant construction.

"It's going to go out as raw plastic, and it's going to come back as sneakers and soda straws," Jankowski said.

Drastically more

The industry's standard measurement for a container ship's capacity is "TEU," which refers to the equivalent of 20-foot containers. Before its expansion, the Panama Canal could accommodate ships with 5,000-TEU capacity; it can now handle ships with up to 14,000 TEUs.

The Port Authority has spent hundreds of millions of dollars since the early 2000s to prepare for these leviathans, both those coming from Europe and also those that could traverse the Panama Canal. The Port Authority installed bigger cranes, reinforced docks and deepened and widened channels to its container terminals.

"The ship sizes in all trade lanes around the world, they're getting larger as people are looking to be able to ship cargo more efficiently," Guenther said.

The Port Authority has already handled ships capable of carrying 8,500 of the 20-foot-equivalent containers. These ships come from the east coast of South America and northern Europe using routes that don't require the Panama Canal. The largest ship currently in its weekly service can handle 6,700 TEUs.

Guenther expects ships in the 8,500-TEU range will be the workhorse of the Gulf Coast for years to come. Getting the biggest ships will depend on market demand.

Todd Stewart, president of the Houston-based logistics company Gulf Winds International, expects the expanded canal to create an uptick in its work moving containers over time.

"Any time they get additional steamship services, that's more opportunity for shippers, importers and exporters," he said.

Other logistics companies, however, expect it to take a while before they feel any trickle-down benefit.

"Shippers and exporters have their routes already planned based on inventory demand in various locations," said Robert Murphy, owner of TXN Logistics. "They're not going to change it up until we see how the service runs."

If demand ultimately does attract the largest container vessels, the Houston Ship Channel's depth of 45 feet won't be sufficient, said David Egan, head of industrial and logistics research for CBRE in the Americas. CBRE is a commercial real estate services and investment firm.

"It does limit to some degree how much you can take advantage of what could come through the canal," he said.

That, for now, is a distant concern as 45 feet is ample for container ships moving the bulk of existing trade.

Shift underway

The $5 billion-plus Panama Canal expansion began in September 2007. Its completion is nearly two years behind schedule, and the project has been wrought with conflict over concrete quality, design and budget. A recent New York Times investigation also raised other serious concerns, from whether the project has enough available water to doubts about its ability to facilitate the biggest ships as promised.

The expanded canal was expected to prompt more ships to dock at ports along the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast instead of the West Coast. Egan said this shift has already begun, benefiting ports such as Houston, which handled a record 2.1 million 20-foot-equivalent containers last year.

The Port of Houston Authority attributed the increase primarily to population growth that boosted demand for consumer goods.

Houston jumped to No. 5 on the CBRE's second annual Seaport and Logistics Index, from No. 10. This index considers volume of containers processed and the industrial real estate market surrounding the port.

The report cited the impending uptick in petrochemical product shipments and the recent lifting of the crude export ban among reasons for the port's improved rating. These factors mitigated the impact of a prolonged oil price slump that caused the value of exports through the ports and airports in the Houston-Galveston Customs District to fall by 16 percent last year, according to data provided by the Greater Houston Partnership.

Overall, Egan said, the shift to Gulf and East Coast ports was caused by several factors, including a labor standoff at West Coast ports that idled container vessels. And consumers are less willing than ever to wait for their purchases. To get goods to consumers more quickly, many ships are docking closer to the East Coast population centers.

Since this shift happened sooner than expected, Egan doesn't expect the Panama Canal's opening to create an immediate flood of containers. Yet he said Houston is among the Gulf and East Coast ports well positioned for mid- and long-term growth as supply chains continue shifting east.

Niels Aalund, senior vice president of the West Gulf Maritime Association, said the last five to six years have seen a lot of growth for the Port of Houston. Many companies have contacted him about opening or expanding Houston locations.

In general, he has a positive outlook for Texas. Texas is a pro-business, pro-maritime state with available real estate and a relatively low cost of living. He also cited potential trade with Cuba as well as exporting opportunities created by liquefied natural gas.

"I just see expansion in general," he said.

Bumping up capacity

The Port of Houston Authority has spent years planning for larger ships. In 2005, it deepened the Houston Ship Channel to 45 feet operating depth from 40 feet. Two years later, it opened the Bayport Container Terminal with four cranes capable of loading and unloading ships with 18 rows of containers, which was wider than what the Panama Canal could manage. Five more cranes, capable of unloading ships with 22 rows of containers, were added around 2011.

When the Bayport Container Terminal opened, it had 2,000 feet of dock. An additional 1,300 feet have been added since and another 700 feet will be completed later this year.

The Port Authority is also upgrading its Barbours Cut Container Terminal that opened in 1977. The docks have been strengthened to support larger cranes and, most recently, the Port Authority bought four cranes that became operational in November. Standing nearly 30 stories tall, these are slightly larger than the cranes at Bayport.

About two years ago, the Port Authority Commission authorized $80 million to speed up plans to dredge the container terminals to 45 feet to match the Houston Ship Channel. Barbours Cut was completed in December, and Bayport is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

For nearby ports, the Panama Canal expansion will create change in different sectors. The Port of Galveston doesn't have a facility for container ships, but it handles wheeled cargo such as agricultural machinery and cars that can be rolled onto and off of ships. Those items will likely be shipped by companies taking advantage of the canal's expansion.

"Along with container companies building wider, deeper container ships, there will also be larger roll-on/roll-off ships able to use the new Panama Canal," Port of Galveston marketing director Capt. John Peterlin said. "I would expect to see larger roll-on/roll-off ships."

Peterlin expects those ships will start coming to Galveston soon. The port is working with engineers to maintain its 45-foot deep channel, but it doesn't need to add any new equipment or labor.

Port Freeport is focusing on an approved project to deepen its channel to 50 or 55 feet, from 45 feet, within the next four years, executive director Phyllis Saathoff said.

"We really think once we have our deepened channel and we continue to expand our container facilities, we will be very well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities the new Panama Canal will represent," Saathoff said.

Maritime companies hope larger ships could boost their bottom line. Tom Marian, general counsel for Houston-based Buffalo Marine Service, a transportation company that specializes in fueling ships, expects his company to be busier because larger vessels need more fuel. But competition to fuel ships is fierce, so he is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"We're cautiously optimistic that it will help our net margin," he said, "but we don't bank on it."
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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed the first major overhaul of toxic chemicals rules in 40 years into law on Wednesday, calling it proof that Washington can function despite intense polarization.

In a White House signing ceremony, Obama praised both chemicals industry groups and environmentalists alike for finding consensus despite their usual differences of opinion. He was joined by a diverse group of U.S. lawmakers who helped pass the legislation, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana.

"If we can get this bill done, it means somewhere out there on the horizon, we can make our politics less toxic as well," Obama said before putting his pen to the bill.

In addition to updating rules for tens of thousands of everyday chemicals, the law also sets safety standards for dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde, asbestos and styrene. The law aims to standardize on the national level a jumble of state rules governing the $800-billion-per-year industry.

Congress spent more than three years working on the bill, which rewrites the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act and aims to "bring chemical regulation into the 21st century," according to the American Chemistry Council, which backed the overhaul.

"Folks should have the confidence to know the laundry detergent we buy isn't going to make us sick, the mattress our babies sleep on isn't going to harm them," Obama said.

Republicans and some Democrats have been sharply critical of Obama's efforts to strengthen environmental and climate protections through the use of regulations they say stifles businesses and creates unnecessary burdens. In recent years, many Republicans have worked to pull funding for the Environmental Protection Agency or eliminate it entirely.

So it was especially unusual that the toxic chemicals bill passed a Republican-controlled Congress with broad support despite giving the EPA increased authority to assess the safety of new and existing chemicals.

Business groups had sought a single federal standard to eliminate the complexity of dealing with state regulations that don't always line up with each other. Still, some Republicans opposed the legislation and called it an overzealous Washington takeover of a matter they said should be left to the states.
No individual has more power in the United States than the president, who oversees millions of federal employees and has extraordinary power to issue regulations and presidential orders.

Often the only check on that power is the federal judiciary, and a Wyoming district judge did the right thing this week when he blocked President Barack Obama from imposing strict regulations on hydraulically fracturing oil and gas wells on federal lands.

"The issue before this court is not whether hydraulic fracturing is good or bad for the environment," wrote Judge Scott Skavdahl, who Obama appointed to the court in 2011. "The constitutional role of this court is to interpret the applicable statutory enactments and determine whether Congress has delegated to the Department of Interior legal authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. It has not."

Environmentalists have denounced the ruling, and the administration will likely appeal. But whether or not you think the regulations are needed, we should all welcome the check on presidential authority to proclaim regulations and policies for which there is no basis in law.

That's because at some point in our lifetimes, someone we don't like will sit in the White House. Today it is a Democrat, next year it may be a Republican. Ten years from now, following the revival of the Whig Party in 2020, a modern-day Millard Filmore could be president. Who knows what they may do if left unchecked.

Too many activists, often with good intentions, want to short-circuit the democratic process to achieve their goal through the courts. In some cases, like personal liberties and civil rights, the federal courts are the protectors of minorities against majorities. But wise judges know their role is not to regulate individuals, or, for that matter, corporations.

Since World War II, the U.S. has witnessed the rise of what political scientists call the Imperial Presidency, where the executive branch has assumed greater and greater powers. Presidents from both parties have worked hard to expand their authority over the years beyond what was the norm before the United States became a global super-power.

The judge's ruling stops that accretion of power and correctly forces the activists and the administration to engage the branch of government responsible for writing laws. The fact that Congress has largely abdicated that responsibility in favor of fighting partisan political wars does not excuse the president's overreach. But it does require convincing the electorate to participate in the political process to bring about change in how Congress operates.

Fracking is vital to our energy production and critical to fighting climate change, if done responsibly. But regulations are required to make the process environmentally beneficial. Drafting those regulations requires political engagement with Congress, not a president ruling by fiat.
One of the city's biggest developers is in court this week as a judge works to determine whether it is trying to hinder a competitor's access to downtown's vital tunnel system.

Theater Square LP, an entity affiliated with the Linbeck construction family, is suing the owners of the former Houston Chronicle building at 801 Texas that is controlled by the prominent Hines development firm. Hearst Newspapers, the Chronicle's parent company, also is a defendant.

Theater Square owns a parking lot property a block north but says it intends to build a garage and, eventually, a high-rise on the site. Officials this week are asking a state district judge for a temporary injunction that would allow it to begin construction of an underground tunnel that would connect the property with downtown's existing 6-mile pedestrian tunnel system.

If the lawsuit is successful, Hines would be responsible for protecting that tunnel segment from any potential harm during demolition of the 10-story former newspaper building and any other development plans for the site.

Both sides say they would like to see their respective sites developed with high-rise towers. Key to the success of many downtown buildings is access to the tunnels that run 20 feet below the surface and connect 95 city blocks while hosting a wealth of retail, restaurants and other office space.

The Linbeck entity's property is bounded by Preston, Prairie, Milam and Travis. Its proposed tunnel would run south, below the Hines property. It says it has an agreement stating that it owns easements through the basement of the former Chronicle building for purposes of constructing a tunnel. The agreement, it says, was put in place in late 2007 with Hearst and is binding with subsequent owners.

The Linbeck entity said it is in the initial phase of developing its site with a retail and parking structure on the southern half of the block. The city has approved its foundation permit. Plans include a high-rise as a second phase to the project.

A representative testified that the project will finalize its financing in the next few weeks. He stressed, however, that guaranteeing tunnel access will be key for the success of any projects on that property.

Ron Franklin, attorney for the Linbeck entity, argued that the 801 Texas owners want his clients to wait until Hines is ready to build its tower before tunnel construction can begin.

"This is about competition before my client is able to turn the dirt," Franklin said. "That makes a world of difference as far as competition."

He also argued that Hines is protecting the tunnel connector between 717 Texas, which connects the Calpine building to the Chase Tower tunnel system and to 801 Texas. He said the company should do the same for any tunnel from the Linbeck site.

"They want to control the timing of our project," Franklin said.

A Hines representative testified that protecting the 717 Texas tunnel was expensive and the same or similar measures for a future tunnel would be even more expensive.

"They have built and altered our landscape," Franklin said of Hines, referencing the signature downtown skyscrapers developed by the nearly 60-year-old firm. "But they don't get to build them all. We have done this by the book at every juncture."

Hines' attorneys argued that there is no tunnel access currently connecting the two properties and there is nothing for a potential pathway to connect to. The tunnel would be created and protected, at Hines' cost, for a surface parking lot, which it has been since the 1990s despite years of attempts to finance a project there. Another attorney for Hines called the idea of developing on that site a "fairy tale" and said Hines is not in the business of buying a "mothballing property."

Hines wants to demolish the current structure and eventually redo the existing tunnel connector in a way that makes sense for the foundations. Hines and a group of investors purchased the Hearst property at 801 Texas last year for $54 million, testimony showed. Attorneys said the property was purchased for a "high-grade, Class A skyscraper."

Bill Kroger, who also represents Hines, said the complex negotiations between the property owners over tunnel agreements require the developers to clearly define all the work to be done.

"Their plans cause massive negative impacts to the cost and what we want to build," Kroger said. "... We are not willing to gut what we want to do with the building."

Court documents filed by the defendants, including Hearst and the investor group led by Hines, contend that the tunnel plans submitted by the Linbeck entity two years ago were "preliminary and conceptual in nature." The documents say those plans did not satisfy the terms of the 2007 agreement with Hearst because they did not clearly define all the work to be done.

The defendants also argued, in court and in the documents, that the parties had even agreed that in the likely event the Chronicle building was demolished, the preliminary plans would be changed.

A representative for Hines said during the hearing that its construction there could begin as early as fall 2017 and architects are being interviewed.

The judge is set to decide on the temporary injunction in the next few weeks. A trial over the tunnel connecting the two properties is scheduled for January.
In the end, Ramsay Bolton got what he deserved.

Well, that may be overstating things - it's hard to imagine a demise dire enough to adequately punish the scourge of the North, whose atrocities over nearly four seasons on "Game of Thrones" included rape, patricide, infanticide, Fat Walda-cide and castration. But - spoiler alert, if you haven't watched the most recent episode - his long-awaited extermination this past Sunday night, which began with a fevered bludgeoning by Jon Snow and ended with his hungry hounds making a meal of him, "was a really justified way for him to die," Iwan Rheon, the man who played Ramsay, said Monday.

"He's been talking about those hounds for long enough, and he's been torturing and killing people with them for long enough," he said.

Craving and predicting the manner of Ramsay's end had become an online parlor game in recent weeks, a testament to the sublime loathsomeness Rheon cultivated in Ramsay. Not only did he do terrible things, he did them with relish - the Welsh actor has described his portrayal as a mashup of Heath Ledger's Joker, Liam Gallagher and Dennis the Menace. True to form, Ramsay remained wry and arrogant up until the moment one of his "loyal beasts" tore into his face.

Rheon discussed the mechanics of Ramsay's demise and why it was time for him to go, along with some of his favorite Ramsay moments. The sixth season finale of "Game of Thrones" airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

More Information 'Game of Thrones' When: Sixth season finale at 8 p.m. Sunday Network: HBO See More Collapse

Q: Were you satisfied with Ramsay's death?

A: He got a just end, didn't he? I wanted dragons, but you can't have everything in this life, can you?

Q: Did you know going into this season that this would be it for the character? He'd reached a point of no return.

A: Yeah, I had a feeling. I sort of thought last year I'd go, actually. A character like Ramsay is so extreme, and he's done such extreme things. What can you make him do next? He'd reached his natural conclusion. And also in terms of the story line, it's so important that the Starks get Winterfell back. That good kind of comes back into the world a little bit, before it all kicks off in the end.

Q: People don't always stay dead on the show. Any chance Ramsay will be back?

A: I made a bit of a joke to David (Benioff, one of the creators) about how he could be a White Walker now that he's been eaten by dogs. And David went, "No!" (Laughs.) So yeah, not to give away any spoilers, but Ramsay's done. And good riddance, I'm sure everyone would agree.

Q: What was your final day like?

A: That was my actual last day, that scene. That was the last thing we shot. So it was kind of fitting, really. And to be honest, at the end of that day, all I really wanted to do was go and get all the (grime) washed off me. I was covered in all manner of it, and it was quite uncomfortable. So that was my priority, as opposed to having a big round of applause and being sentimental.

Q: Yes, you were covered in all sorts of stuff. How long did you have to sit in that?

A: All day. Eating was a challenge.

Q: The dog attack began with a pretty brutal strike to the face. How was that shot?

A: I'd love to tell you it was me with some big scary dogs, but it was all CGI. There's very little contact with the dogs - they're trained to be brutal guard dogs. They're not pets. You're not allowed to make eye contact with them because they might think you're threatening them. It's just not safe to be anywhere near them. We did one shot where there was a real dog behind me in a cage. But the rest of them were digitally put there. It also adds extra pressure to shooting when you throw in a few dogs - you can't really ask them to be quiet.

Q: Now that you've had some time to look back on it, do you have a couple of favorite moments from the show?

A: What's so great about this show is that every season there seems to be one scene that stands out for an actor. This season, it was great to do that big parley scene on the horses, finally getting to meet Jon Snow. Also, the dinner-table scene with everyone was really cool. And the shaving scene in Season 4. That was probably one of the best scenes I've ever got to be a part of.

Q: What do you think was Ramsay's most despicable act?

A: So, so many. I think (castrating) Theon was pretty bad. But then, so is raping Sansa Stark. Killing his own brother and stepmother - that was probably not the nicest way to do that. There are so many.

Q: What will you miss the most about being on "Game of Thrones"?

A: Just that feeling of being part of the show. It's wonderful to be in something that you know is good. Everyone's really proud of the work, and it raises the level, I think. That time of the year when we get the scripts and it's time to start again, when July comes. I'll be very sad.
A man has been arrested in the stabbing death of a 14-year-old boy Monday night in southwest Houston.

Christopher Bert Taylor, 52, is charged with murder in the death of Joseph Aguirre, according to court documents filed in the case. Houston police identified the victim as Joseph Aguirre-Flores.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday deadlocked in its review of President Obama's executive action on immigration.

That means that a legal challenge filed in 2014 by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will prevent the president's policies from taking effect. It's the latest development in a years-long battle over immigration reform that spurred an argument over the president's constitutional authority and became an emblem of the liberal-conservative culture war.

So how did this whole thing get started?

First, some background:

Immigration reform

Every few decades, the United States updates its 1,000-plus-page immigration policy to incorporate new technology, new labor markets and other aspects of modernity. The most controversial question is always: what to do with the millions of unauthorized people already in the country?

"Congress acts rather infrequently on big immigration reforms, and that goes back through history," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington D.C. "It has to act to modernize our immigration laws in ways that are much more aligned with our labor market and aligned with the needs of the people in the country."

The initiative is known as "comprehensive immigration reform." It passed in 1965 and most recently in 1990.

A congressional attempt at immigration reform surfaced then stalled in 2007.

The 2012 presidential election brought the topic to the forefront. Obama's reelection was widely seen as a mandate for reformhe campaigned on that promise and his success was partly thanks to high turnout from immigrant communities.

And it almost happened in 2013. A bipartisan group of senators, known as the Gang of Eight, introduced a framework for immigration reform very similar to the president's vision. It addressed border security, visa allocation, employment verification, and it provided a path to citizenship for the millions of unauthorized immigrants already in the U.S. if they paid a fine and started paying taxes.

In a shocking display of bipartisanship, the Senate passed the bill in June 2013.

RELATED: Historic immigration legislation passes Senate by wide margin

Then a year elapsed while the House struggled to take up the bill. Resistance came most fervently from Tea Party voices opposed to permitting citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In June 2014, House Speaker John Boehner told the president the House would not take up the bill, citing lack of Republican support. The House offered no alternative.

"That then led the president to say that he had given Congress every opportunity to act on immigration," Meissner said. "He was left with no choice than to try to deal with the issue."

Executive action announced

The president said as much during a November 2014 televised address, which he began by highlighting the recent reform bill's failure in the House.

"I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law. But until that happens there are actions I have the legal authority to take as president," Obama said.

He announced the three-pronged action: put more resources towards border enforcement, make it easier for skilled immigrants to work in the U.S., and adopt rules for the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country at that time.

"Let's be honest. Tracking down, rounding up and deporting millions of people isn't realistic," he said. "It's also not who we are as Americans."

He announced what he hoped would be his signature immigration reform: DAPA, or Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, and he expanded a previous program, DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Qualified people could apply for either program to become eligible for work permits and for relief of the deportation threat. The expanded DACA applied to anyone who arrived in the U.S. before age 16 and stayed at least five years. DAPA applied to the parents of citizens or residents.

Obama said the programs would help enforcement target higher-priority deportations like criminals and security risks. When Obama made the announcement, deportations were slightly down from an all-time high in 2013.

"Expanded DACA and DAPA would have a tremendous quality of life impact on the people that qualify. I say that say someone who teaches undocumented students," said Jessica Brown, director of the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston. "DACA is what many credit with kindling their desire to attend college. Before, they talked about a sense of hopelessness that they'd ever be able to work legally in the U.S. and thus saw little reason to shoot for more than menial work."

According to numbers from the Migration Policy Institute, the action would have shielded 5.04 million people from deportation, about 45 percent of the country's unauthorized population.

In Texas, the expanded DACA would have blocked deportation for 187,000 people in Texas, while DAPA would have done the same for 559,000.

But the rules would never take effect.

Lawsuit

In December 2014, then-Attorney General Abbott and 16 other states sued the Obama administration over the executive order. Nine other states would sign on later.

"We're asking the court to require the president to go through the prescribed constitutional process of enforcing laws passed by Congress," Abbott said at the time.

The lawsuit alleged that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making a law, which is the jurisdiction of Congress.

One day before the scheduled start of the programs, on February 17, 2015, a federal judge in Brownsville ruled that the programs could not take effect until a higher court ruled on the constitutionality of the president's move.

"Once these services are provided," Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a 123-page ruling, "there will be no effective way of putting the toothpaste back in the tube should the plaintiffs ultimately prevail."

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case and on Thursday announced a deadlock with a 4-4 split and the tie-breaker seat still empty following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. That paves the way for the case to be reheard, but the programs will remain blocked until then.

Arguments

The legal controversy comes down to a question: did Obama change the law, or change guidelines for enforcement?

The president cannot unilaterally make laws. But the president does have authority over prosecutorial discretionhow the government prioritizes which crimes to prosecute.

According to the Obama administration, the president adjusted those guidelines to prioritize deportation of criminals, national security risks and recent border crossers.

According to plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, he changed immigration law to give amnesty to unauthorized immigrants.

A court will eventually decide which is valid, but it almost certainly won't come before the year's end, meaning Obama will end his second term with some of his signature legislation in grim limbo.
The Supreme Court's split decision today in U.S. v. Texas effectively blocks President Obama's executive orders that provided temporary work permits to immigrants in the country without documents, and providing them temporary relief from deportation.

Reactions to the decision are sharply divided.



Texas Governor Greg Abbott: "The action taken by the president was an unauthorized abuse of presidential power that trampled the Constitution, and the Supreme Court rightly denied the President the ability to grant amnesty contrary to immigration laws. As the president himself said, he is not a king who can unilaterally change and write immigration laws. Today's ruling is also a victory for all law-abiding Americansincluding the millions of immigrants who came to America following the rule of law."

Activist Cristina Jimenez, director of United We Dream: "Attacks on our community are nothing new. We need to rise up not only to protect DAPA [Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents] and DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], but to end deportations. We are outraged that conservative Justices on the Supreme Court would allow a continued delay initiated by hateful Republican politicians and judges who have played with the lives of 5 million undocumented people who qualify for relief....We're calling on registered voters to take to the polls in November and vote for candidates who will support DAPA and DACA while this case is ongoing, because a new president could either protect and build on these programs, or take them away completely."

Michael Olivas, interim president of the University of HoustonDowntown: "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has been a transformative and crucial lifeline for nearly three-quarters of a million students. It is now time for Congress to act, and to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The states who brought this mean-spirited and nativist challenge to authority held by all presidents since the INA was passed in 1952 can now run out the clock and thwart these programs and drag their heels. While DACA is largely intact, it is very disappointing that DAPA's injunction will push parents deeper into the shadows, and stall their own incorporation into our society. In our system, immigration is a federal responsibility, not one left to the states. Similar constitutional authority also exists for efforts to relate refugees, whom these states would also fence out, without legal or moral authority. The Supreme Court missed an opportunity to clarify and uphold prosecutorial authority, and we are all worse for this failure. Now everyone must focus attention on the real malefactors here: the House and Senate, who have failed to enact genuine immigration reform. Until this occurs, all else is makeshift and patchwork."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: "Today's decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law. This is a major setback to President Obama's attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law."

Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino: "Time and time again, Latinos and immigrants have showed resilience as a community, and now more than ever, it is important that we continue to show our resilience and power at the ballot box. These executive actions were deeply rooted in the same values that all Americans hold true  family and unity. Though today's outcome does not mirror these values, we know that the future of immigration reform will no longer be decided by politics or by the courts. Instead, it will be decided by the more than 1.6 million Latino voters directly impacted by today's decision."

Elsa Caballero, president of Service Employees International Union Texas: "This is an injustice for Texas families, but the end is far from over. We have shown over and over again that the immigrant community and its allies will not back down. We will continue to fight for all immigrants and their families. Despite the Supreme Court's split decision, we vow to fight tooth and nail for a resolution to our broken immigration system. We will take our fight to the polls on Election Day and beyond 2016. This all about politics for our opponents, but for the millions of immigrant families in Texas, it's personal. From Trump to extremist Republicans who continue to spout anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, we will deliver our response at the ballot box come November."

Michelle Tremillo, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project: "Today, we are heartbroken for the families who have fought for legal status for so many years, and who are waking up still in the shadows, still marginalized. While we are grieving, our drive to win immigration reform remains intact. Even before the decision was handed down, our members had resolved that no matter what the Supreme Court decided, we were going to continue fighting. And that is what we will do.... And make no mistake about it, we will hold Republican leaders who supported this meritless lawsuit to account in November. We will never forget what they did to tear immigrant families apart and demean our communities."

Latino Victory Fund and Priorities USA announced a campaign to hold "Republican politicians accountable for bringing on this politically motivated lawsuit, and refusing to do their constitutional duty and consider the President's nomination to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia." The campaign includes the following video:

Olivia P. Tallet edits Calle Houston for HoustonChronicle.com.

Bookmark Gray Matters. Now everyone must focus attention on the real malefactors here.
Today, as I was packing my suitcase en route to the airport in Boston, I learned that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of The University of Texas at Austin in the Fisher v. University of Texas case. Frankly, I had steeled myself for bad news. That SCOTUS decided to hear the case for a second time did not bode well, and neither did the fact that Justice Kagan had recused herself. The likely swing vote would be Justice Kennedy, who has never been a fan of race-conscious admissions.

This case is quite personal to me. I've argued from the start that Fisher was a curious case. Abigail Fisher experienced what many students face when they apply to college  not getting into her college of first choice. I've worked at a number of colleges in my career, and met students on their first day, where it's clear they wished they were somewhere else instead of their second (or third!) choice. I've also encountered these same students three or four years later, brimming with pride for their school: the friends, the faculty, and shared experiences shape their impressions of college. They might occasionally wonder "what if?" but more often, they're focused on graduation, graduate school, or their job post graduation. As an LSU grad, I suspect that Ms. Fisher brought a diversity to the company she worked for here in Austin, where UT graduates are a dime a dozen. She hadn't suffered harm; rather, it was one of those experiences we all confront, where our plans, in the words of Robert Burns, "gang aft agley."

Second, I have witnessed the attacks on diversity in higher education for quite some time. I matriculated to UT-Austin in the fall of 1990, the holder of an affirmative action scholarship. From the moment I stepped on campus, I personally engaged in discussions about my worth: how I did in fact belong at the university? what were my SAT scores? But I found a cadre of mentors among the students, staff, and faculty, who made it clear that many, if not all, of my fellow students of all races also suffered from "impostor syndrome." For students of color, however, our skin was an invitation to question if we were in fact "qualified." The questioning and scrutiny actually served as motivation to achieve to my best ability, and those mentors pushed me further than I imagined I would ever go.

From teaching fourth grade at E.O. Smith Educational Center in Houston ISD in the 1990s to earning a doctorate at Harvard University, to presently serving as an associate professor and assistant vice president at UT-Austin, I hope I can serve as an example of the possibilities that education can provide to young people. During the months before the first Fisher case, I saw students of color and their allies conduct teach-ins, passionately arguing that although they were born after 1964, they still experienced racial discrimination. Even those fortunate enough to come from affluent backgrounds could easily point to experiences of being racially profiled and being asked to speak as a representative of their race  what social scientists call micro-aggressions. And in some instances, they endured racial violence, ranging from name calling to physical assault. As UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves stated today in his message to the UT community, "Race continues to matter in American life. It affects individuals and communities." Simply wishing that this is not the case is not enough to eradicate the barriers that limit the potential of underrepresented minority students.

The Supreme Court's decision affirms UT-Austin's commitment to serve the citizens of Texas and the nation. Equity and inclusion are pillars of excellence, and we are only able to meet our public mission via a racially and ethnically diverse student community. There is a compendium of social science research that illustrates the educational benefits of diversity for all students. Indeed, interaction and friendships are the best methods for dismantling stereotypes and discriminatory beliefs. This is next to impossible if we have campus communities that do not reflect the spectrum of experiences that comprise the fabric of Texan and American life.

While demographic changes have been reflected in the composition of the student body at UT  the first-year class has been predominantly students of color since 2010  these gains have not been uniform across all communities. Between 1986 and 2010, the Latino population has more than doubled (11.1 percent to 23.1 percent), the Asian-American population has almost tripled (6.3 percent to 17.3 percent)  but the African-American population has only increased incrementally (4.2 percent to 5.1 percent). (I wish to make it clear that there are still significant challenges for Latino and Asian American students, such as completion and campus climate concerns.)

Over the past several years, our students of color have invested their time and energy articulating the need for upholding UT's efforts to bring diversity to the university community  an invisible, stressful labor. I can think of no greater example of this than the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who in December stated that perhaps black students at UT should be in "lower-track schools." It was an affront to the hard-working students on the Dean's List, in honors programs, double majors, who go on to great graduate schools and jobs. Black students, and their allies of every background "clapped back" via social media, demonstrating that they in fact had excelled at UT-Austin and other predominantly white institutions across the nation.

The news today only reinforces the significant work we need to do to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for our underrepresented students. But it is gratifying to know that the research and testimony of people like the family of Heman Sweatt, the Houston civil servant who took UT-Austin to the Supreme Court in 1950 after being denied admission because he was African-American, made an impact on the court. Inclusive excellence needs to permeate all aspects of society, but today's decision highlights the central role higher education plays in these efforts.

Richard J. Reddick is an associate professor in Educational Administration at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also serves as assistant vice president of research and policy in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, and also as assistant director of the Plan II Honors Program.

Bookmark Gray Matters. It's one of those experiences we all confront, where our plans, in the words of Robert Burns, "gang aft agley."
So far this month, two New York City police commanders have been arrested on corruption allegations, an officer in Killeen, Texas, was accused of sexually assaulting a female driver, a Philadelphia police officer was charged with extortion of a drug dealer, and an officer in Honolulu was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl.

Such sporadic news accounts of police officers being arrested led one group of researchers to a question: How much crime do police officers commit? No one was keeping track, much as no one was tracking how often police officers shoot and kill civilians, although both may involve use of police power and abuse of public trust.

Now there is an answer: Police officers are arrested about 1,100 times a year, or roughly three officers charged every day, according to a new national study. The most common crimes were simple assault, drunken driving and aggravated assault, and significant numbers of sex crimes were also found. About 72 percent of officers charged are convicted, more than 40 percent of the crimes are committed on duty, and nearly 95 percent of the officers charged are men.

The study is thought to be the first-ever nationwide look at police crime, and was conducted by researchers at Bowling Green State University through a grant from the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice. The research covered seven years, 2005 to 2011, and sought to quantify not only the prevalence of police officers arrested across the country, but also how law enforcement agencies discipline officers who are arrested and how officer arrests might correlate with other forms of misconduct.

For example, the study found that 22 percent of the officers arrested had been named as defendants in a federal civil rights lawsuit at some point in their careers, unrelated to their arrest case. The authors suggest that police agencies analyzing such suits "could potentially lead to new and improved mechanisms to identify and mitigate various forms of police misconduct."

In the seven years of the study, the researchers compiled 6,724 cases, or about 960 cases per year, involving about 792 officers per year - 674 officers were arrested more than once. But the study has continued beyond 2011, and lead researcher Philip M. Stinson at Bowling Green said the number of cases now averages about 1,100 arrests per year.

"Police crimes are not uncommon," Stinson concluded. "Our data directly contradicts some of the prevailing assumptions and the proposition that only a small group of rotten apples perpetrate the vast majority of police crime." Although nearly 60 percent of the crimes "occurred when the officer was technically off-duty," Stinson wrote, "a significant portion of these so-called off-duty crimes also lies within the context of police work and the perpetrator's role as a police officer, including instances where off-duty officers flash a badge, an official weapon, or otherwise use their power, authority, and the respect afforded to them as a means to commit crime."

"This is probably the tip of the iceberg," said Cara Rabe-Hemp, a professor at Illinois State University who has studied police deviance. She said the effort is the "first-ever study to quantify police crime" and shows it is "much much more common than what police scholars and police administrators previously thought."

To be clear, police are not committing crimes at anywhere near the level of civilians. Stinson's data found 1.7 arrests of police per 100,000 population, where the general arrest rate in 2012 was 3,888 arrests per 100,000 population.

The number of arrests was "not particularly notable," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police officers' union, "when you take into account there are between 850,000 and 950,000 law enforcement officers." The study did not include federal law enforcement, only state and local agencies. A recent Justice Department census of sworn state and local law enforcement officers put the nationwide total in 2012 at about 750,000.

Pasco said "the level of media scrutiny of police is way up," even in the years of the study, making recruitment of quality officers more difficult. "In that context, some departments have lowered their standards," Pasco said. "And you get what you paid for."

The study gathered cases by using Google news alerts that send a message whenever an item on the Internet contains specific search terms. So only cases that are uncovered by a media outlet or disclosed in a police news release are captured in the database, meaning that many arrests that aren't reported by, or even known to, the police are excluded.

"Every profession struggles with what to do when a member of their own commits a crime," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). "But for the police, having officers involved in crime strikes at the very core of what is important to them: public trust and integrity."

Wexler said PERF and the Justice Department studied a series of sexual assaults committed by San Diego police officers. Officers working late shifts by themselves used traffic stops to commit sexual crimes against women they pulled over, Wexler said. "The actions of these officers impacted the whole department and resulted in major changes. Better screening for hiring, more effective supervision and early warning systems could help reduce these crimes." He said the new study "sheds light on the extent and nature of this problem."

The study found that more than 81 percent of the crimes were committed by patrol or detective-level officers and that nearly 85 percent were reported in metropolitan agencies.

New Orleans had the highest per-capita number of officers arrested, with 44.2 arrests per 1,000 officers, during a period that included misconduct committed after Hurricane Katrina. Milwaukee, with 36.7 arrests per 1,000 officers, and Memphis, Tennessee, with 29.7 arrests were the cities with the highest arrest ratios.

There were 125 officers charged with murder or non-negligent manslaughter in the seven years of the study, and the Bowling Green, Kentucky, researchers have followed the outcomes. Of the 125 cases, 107 have been resolved and 77 of those officers were convicted, a 72 percent conviction rate, the same conviction rate as for officers in all crimes where the outcomes are known. A Justice Department study of state court convictions for all defendants, not just police, found a conviction rate in all felony cases of 68 percent, and a 70 percent conviction rate for murder.

Stinson felt it was particularly significant that of all the officers arrested, for offenses ranging from murder to drunken driving, only 54 percent were fired, and 37.5 percent arrested for domestic violence lost their jobs. The study also found that roughly two-thirds of all the arrests were made by an agency that didn't employ the officer, and "in at least some cases agencies are not aware of the crimes perpetrated by their own officers."

Although applicants for police jobs are required to disclose arrests, Stinson said all police departments should require all sworn employees to disclose their arrests or protective orders against them, "so that police agencies can document and respond to known cases of police crime." He suggested that all law enforcement agencies conduct routine annual criminal background checks of all officers, noting that officers arrested for domestic violence sometimes are able to maintain jobs requiring them to carry guns by not notifying their agency.

"Systems designed to provide an early warning of officers who are problem-prone," Stinson wrote, "cannot be considered complete if they are unable to identify sworn law enforcement officers who have perpetrated a criminal offense."

Rabe-Hemp noted that data showing 54 percent of arrested officers being fired likely means that many officers are allowed to resign and retain their law enforcement certification. "When officers resign, they usually just go to a neighboring county," she said. She said she had studied a number of arrested officers' cases, and "you could find them bopping all over the Midwest."

Rabe-Hemp also pointed out that while women constitute 12 to 15 percent of all police officers, they make up less than 5 percent of those arrested. "One solution to police crime should involve hiring more women as police officers," she said.

In cases involving allegations of sexual abuse, 72 percent of the officers were fired, and more than 80 percent resulted in convictions, the study found. There were 422 reported cases of forcible and statutory rape, 352 cases of forcible fondling and 94 sodomy cases over the seven years of the study, which Stinson called "larger than expected based on the existing research." The data search turned up 174 examples of male officers arrested in cases of "Driving While Female," in which women drivers were harassed or assaulted. About 82 percent of those cases ended in convictions.

The study also checked each arrested officer's name in the federal court database to see if they had ever been named as a defendant in a federal civil rights suit. Of the 5,545 arrested officers, 1,233, or 22 percent, were named as a defendant in a federal civil rights action at some point during their law enforcement career. The researchers found that "officers who perpetrate crimes while on-duty are significantly more likely to have been named as a [civil rights] defendant" than those whose crimes occurred off-duty.

Although the Bowling Green database now includes about 1,100 cases per year, Stinson thought that number underrepresented how much crime police commit, both because news articles may not capture every arrest and also because police agencies may allow officers to resign in lieu of arrest because "they don't want to air their dirty laundry."

Stinson noted that almost two-thirds of the police arrests were made by agencies other than the officer's. In some cases, Stinson wrote, "the employing agency should have made the arrest and failed to do so," in part because of officers extending each other "professional courtesy." He noted that of the 960 drunken-driving arrests, there were "comparatively few run-of-the-mill cases of DUI," and that arrests only occurred if something egregious happened, such as a crash, injuries or leaving the scene.

Of the drunken-driving cases with known outcomes, however, officers were convicted only 35 percent of the time, and only about 38 percent lost their jobs.
If the trend holds true, one in five property owners who are disgruntled over tax appraisals in Montgomery County will come from The Woodlands.

Every year, the Montgomery County Appraisal District forewarns property owners of their tax obligations and what they can expect to pay before the final bills roll out in October. Homeowners who believe they were appraised too high, appraised unequally, incorrectly denied a tax exemption or some other reason can protest that valuation with MCAD. The deadline to file a written protest with MCAD is May 31.

For the last seven years - since The Woodlands became a taxing entity in 2009 - area residents and property owners have comprised an average of about 23 percent of all appraisal protesters in the county.

"One aspect of that is the county gets bigger, more development, more and more people are moving in every year. We expect every year for those numbers of protests to increase just from the increase in the population. We have a lot of individuals moving in from out of state who aren't used to the Texas property tax system," said Tony Belinoski, the deputy chief appraiser at MCAD.

Increase in protests

More Information By the numbers The Woodlands property appraisals by the numbers: $57.75 billion: The total market value of appraised real estate in Montgomery County in 2015. $18.3 billion: The total market value of appraised real estate in The Woodlands in 2015. $16.3 billion: The total net taxable value of appraised real estate in The Woodlands in 2015. $12.72 billion: The appraised value of all single-family homes in The Woodlands in 2015. 39,297: The number of taxpayers or their agents in Montgomery County who protested property values in 2015. 8,095: The number of taxpayers or their agents in The Woodlands who protested property values in 2015. 24,167: The number of claimed homesteads in The Woodlands in 2015. See More Collapse

Last year alone, 8,095 of the more than 39,000 protesters in the county were from The Woodlands. The number of protesters from The Woodlands last year alone increased 13 percent over 2014. That also represents a 40 percent increase in protests from 2012. The county-wide number of protesters in 2015 represents the highest number of protests in the last decade and higher than the 10-year average of 25,873.

The rise in protests in The Woodlands correlates to the rise in property values. MCAD bases its residential property appraisals on data about the final sales price of each home sold within the previous calendar year to determine whether to increase property values.

"We run into this quite a bit after Jan. 1, when we start maybe seeing a market slowdown, but here in Montgomery County, we really haven't seen much hurt from the economy. Our real estate market is still doing really well. We've had more residential sales this year than we've had in any year in the past," Belinoski said.

Values on the rise

The appraised value of all property in The Woodlands increased by nearly 10.7 percent in 2015 over the previous year. Of the $18.3 billion in appraised property, about 70 percent are single-family homes with only about 16 percent being commercial property in 2015. Combined, real estate in The Woodlands comprises one-third of the value of all appraised property in the county last year.

The spike in appraisal values over the past three years stands in contrast to the low appraisal rates between 2009 and 2012, where values increased at an average of 3 percent year-over-year.

"The Woodlands has built a lot of new homes in the last five, six years. They've even expanded out to Magnolia ISD out on FM 2978 and FM 1488 area, so they've built a lot of new homes. So you're going to have that increase just from the new homes," Belinoski said.

Bruce Cunningham is a longtime resident of The Woodlands, where he settled in the 1980s. He moved to the village of Grogan's Mill to get away from the fast-paced life in the city and live a life of solitude among the trees. He even boasts about the 50 trees on his property.

"That's why I moved here. It was idealic at that point," Cunningham said. "There was nobody within 80 yards."

In his years of living in The Woodlands, the 80-year-old Cunningham has only protested his appraisal twice. The first time was about eight years ago, requiring only an informal sit-down with MCAD staff for an amicable resolution.

The second time Cunningham protested his home's appraisal value was in 2015. When he opened his appraisal notice, he was taken by surprise. His 30-year-old home shot up from $285,700 to an appraised value of $425,370, a nearly 50 percent change year-over-year. He tried to informally settle his case with MCAD to bring down his home's value. When that fell through, he appealed his case.

He took his case to the appraisal review board, where he compared past and present appraisal values for neighboring houses and compared exterior construction material to claim that his home was over-valued. His and about 65 percent of cases reviewed by the review board in 2015 won their claim. His home was reappraised down - back to $285,700.

With his experience navigating the process of protesting, Cunningham put together a guide for other homeowners to use through the Grogan's Mill Village Association, where he currently serves as vice president.

"For people who don't go ahead and do it - I mean it's crazy - they're going to be paying. At least one guy I know, his house is overvalued by at least $100,000, and he's probably paying a few thousand extra in taxes a year," Cunningham said. "The key lesson I learned last time is figure out what group of homes you're being appraised with."

Impact of oil slump

Last year was one of cautious optimism due to the oil slump and thousands of layoffs in the industry around the Gulf Coast. And in the first quarter of this year, The Woodlands No. 1 employer Anadarko Petroleum Corp. announced a nearly 20 percent reduction in its global workforce, including layoffs at its headquarters off The Woodlands Waterway.

But since residential sales and home prices were up in 2015, MCAD could see double-digit projections in property value in The Woodlands and parts of the county for the 2016 tax roll, Belinoski said. The appraisal district will continue to work on actual values until they're certified in July.

Appreciating home values generally can build wealth for families and property owners in the long run. For some residents in The Woodlands, huge spikes in home values - and the taxes that come with it - have felt overwhelming.

Bruce Tough, former chairman of The Woodlands Township, fielded complaints from residents during his tenure on the governing board in The Woodlands.

"The constant complaint I received when I was on the Township  is I'm being taxed out of my home," said Tough, who is now a member of the MCAD board. "There are a lot of home sales in The Woodlands that generate sales numbers that are used as comparable sales data for evaluating properties. That is probably why The Woodlands is singled out more than any other area in the county because of its recent sales data."

Tough was elected to the MCAD board of directors - not to be confused with the MCAD Appraisal Review Board - by the Township after it cried foul in 2015 over what Tough called unfair property valuations in The Woodlands when he was chairman. The Township sought increased representation on the MCAD board. Former Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner Ed Chance is the chairman of the MCAD board.
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Erin Cummings floats on the water as she calls out instructions in her calm but enthusiastic voice.

"Maybe find a sound that you don't normally hear in your normal yoga class," she says to a half-dozen women curled into child's pose out in the middle of a lake in Sugar Land. "The sound of the water on your board. The sounds of the fountain. Of the cars rushing by. Maybe even a distant sound of a kid laughing at the pool."

As she speaks, the sounds begin to pull themselves apart from one another, until it's easy to focus on just one, like the lapping of the water against a paddleboard in a steady rhythm. Much like traditional yoga music, with its strings and wind instruments, the repetitive sound is calming. Andcoupled with a breeze and the warmth of a midday sun, it's easier to breathe a little deeper than it is in a yoga studio.

"Play with where you want to look," Cummings says, as her students rise into their first downward-facing-dog of the day. "Set your gaze on the back end of your board or the water. Or maybe even the treeline and clouds behind you."

It's like crawling inside a postcard, a chance to practice yoga in an environment that coos, "Wish you were here."

More Information If you go Awakened Yoga SUP, 4350 Austin Parkway, Sugar Land awakenedyogastudio.com; 281-491-0221 Drop-in class: $40 Five-class pass: $160 Unlimited summer pass: $395 See More Collapse

From the shore, SUP Yoga, which stands for stand-up paddleboard yoga, looks intimidating. Many of the women during the early-afternoon class are advanced in their practice. They can try handstands and headstands while mostly staying upright on their boards.

But they also fall. A lot. And that's half the fun.

"In the studio, on the hard floor, you're scared to fall," Tiffany Geach says. "But here, once you fall, it's like, 'Oh, I'll fall again.' You're not afraid. It's just water."

That realization propels her to try new positions during the two-hour class, which allows time for students to become acquainted with the paddleboards without feeling rushed and enjoy a 60-minute flow, plus about 20 minutes of partner poses.

"For me, I'm trying to work on camel into wheel. And I'll try that here," says Geach, 35. "Because if I fall, I'll just fall into the water. It's not like I hit the floor. In a studio, you can twist an ankle or break something. But here it's just tipping over and  ."

She mimes a wipeout with her hands, laughing.

Geach, who met Cummings through a "mommy group," discovered SUP Yoga when Cummings began talking about it a few years ago. Though paddleboard-yoga has been around for several years, it was largely known as a resort amenity rather than part of a traditional yoga practice.

"But Erin tried it, and she loved it. And for a mom's day out, a whole group of us went out and did it," Geach says.

Cummings was hooked. In 2014, she went through teacher training, and in May 2015, she launched Awakened Yoga SUP, an extension of Sugar Land's Awakened Yoga Studio, where she is a manager. During the summer, the paddleboard program hosts classes on Saturdays and Sundays on the water at First Colony Lake.

Awakened isn't the only studio in Houston catching the SUP wave. BIG Power Yoga hosts classes at 288 Lake, and Galveston studios are in on the trend as well.

"Every year, Awakened does a free yoga class out on the lawn for Memorial Day, and this year they also did a mini class to try SUP," says Cassie Noble, 29, a stay-at-home mom in Sugar Land. "So I tried it, and it was just so fun. It was a blast. And I decided I'll sign up and do a real class."

On a Saturday afternoon in early June, Noble tried her first full class, nailing a series of poses she says she's often reluctant to try in the studio.

"I like this," she says. "It's like you have nothing to lose."

Except, of course, the drugstore sunglasses she sacrificed to the bottom of the lake during an ill-fated partner pose.

"I'm trying to get everyone I know to come out and do it," says Noble, who is urging her husband to try the Saturday morning beginners' flow. "It's like, 'Trust me. If you've never tried yoga, this is probably the best way to try it because you can fall and be goofy.' "
The leader of a Houston area clique of MS-13 - the notorious street gang imported from El Salvadorwas convicted Thursday of murder and sentenced to 99 years in the bloody machete slaying of a 14-year-old.

Jose Granados-Guevara, 23, was found guilty by visiting state District Judge Terry Flenniken after a three-day bench trial in the Harris County courthouse.

Flenniken then sentenced him to 99 years. Granados-Guevara will be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Prosecutors convinced the judge that Granados-Guevara put together a group of gang members who took 14-year-old Jose Meraz to a wooded area west of Addicks Dam Road. The four gang members passed a single machete around as they hacked him to death.

EXPLAINED: 13 things you need to know about MS-13

"Jose Meraz did not realize that every step he took into the woods was another step toward certain death," prosecutor Greg Houlton said in closing arguments. "The evidence shows that that (Granados-Guevara) not only ordered the death, he participated in it."

Houlton said Granados-Guevara - whose gang name was "Cruel" - gave the order that Meraz had to die after he refused to kill his own cousin in a gang ritual.

Meraz, who was an eighth-grader at Thomas J. Stovall Middle School in the Aldine Independent School District, was allegedly a fledgling member of the gang.

BACKGROUND: Mystery surrounds 14-year old Aldine boy's death

Rick Gonzales, a lawyer for Granados-Guevara, argued that the gang members who testified against the 23-year-old could not be trusted to tell the truth.

"There's an issue of credibility," Gonzales said. "Because of all the lies that have been told, it is not believable testimony."

brian.rogers@chron.com

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Former Houston mayor Annise Parker will join local nonprofit Neighborhood Centers as its chief strategy officer starting next month.

Parker confirmed Thursday afternoon that she will join the executive team and said she is looking forward to continuing her work with urban issues.

"I can bring my experience to bear on some of the critical issues facing this region," she said. "Neighborhood Centers is one of the strongest and wide-reaching local nonprofits and a lot of the things I was passionate about as mayor, I can continue working on."

In an email to board members, Neighborhood Centers president and CEO Angela Blanchard announced Parker would join the organization. She will oversee strategy, finance and planning.

"Annise brings years of experience working with leaders on regional priorities," Blanchard said in a statement. "Her lifelong service to and love of Houston, deep knowledge of communities and neighborhoods, strong ethical core, and business decision-making skills make her an extremely valuable addition to our team."

Parker will simultaneously teach in the school of social sciences at Rice University, her alma mater. She has been named a Doerr Institute Fellow and will work with students through Rice's Doerr Institute for New Leaders.

She was the mayor of Houston from 2010 to 2015, and after, she spent the spring semester as an Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy's School of Government.
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City leaders joined Houston immigration advocates Thursday to decry the Supreme Court's split vote on President Barack Obama's 2014 immigration plan, which affirmed a lower court ruling that blocks the administration from moving forward with its efforts.

"The city of Houston is not happy with the decision, or I should say, 'the decision' that has been made today by the Supreme Court," said Terence O'Neill, director of the Mayor's Office of International Communities and Refugee Affairs. "We are a city of economy, of finance, we are a city of tourism ... and to be all of that, Houston has to be a welcoming city."

The court announced on Thursday a 4-4 split on Obama's 2014 plan, which would have given temporary work permits to 4 million immigrants in the country illegally, effectively delaying their deportation. The vote prevents the implementation of two programs  an expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was implemented in 2012, as well as the creation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling, saying the people affected in the city are just working toward the "American Dream."

"Today's decision from the U.S. Supreme Court was not a decision at all," Turner said in a statement. "A favorable ruling would have removed the fear of deportation and separation that more than 200,000 eligible immigrants in the greater Houston metropolitan area live with every day."

The split, caused in part by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year, reaffirmed a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. The plan could have impacted an estimated 200,000 Houstonians, leaders said.

"I am sick over what happened today with the Supreme Court," said Alice Valdez, executive director and founder of the Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts. "We do provide services to these families, and we know what wonderful people they are."

Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic, said some people may still be eligible for other programs and should not stop trying to seek help.

"This decision should not make people afraid to explore their immigration relief," he said."

Houston community members affected by the decision also spoke at a Thursday press conference, saying they would continue to keep fighting in spite of the Supreme Court ruling.

Jessica Huerta, a 17-year-old high school student, said she and her family came to the U.S. in 2009, and she would have been eligible for a provisional work authorization under the expansion of the 2012 program. Hearing the news this morning was "devastating," she said.

"We're just fighting for ourselves and my community as well," Jessica said. "It's hard seeing your parents leave for work, not knowing, are they going to come back? Leaving for work myself and not knowing, am I going to make it home? It's this scariest situation where you don't know what's going to happen next."
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Reared on a West Texas cotton farm, Joyce Steel was a no-nonsense, hard-eyed realist. In Houston, she was a success in real estate, insurance and banking. Her friends called her the "Rock of Gibraltar." Then, in her late 30s, her world turned topsy-turvy: She encountered Harry, a ghostly spirit guide who launched her unexpected literary career.

For more than two decades, Steel communed with Harry and his spirit companions as they dictated an intricate tale of the lost continent of Atlantis through "automatic writing" and its typewritten equivalent. At the end, Steel and her ethereal co-authors had produced seven volumes, the first of which recently was issued by a Houston publisher.

Steel, 79, died June 11 in New Braunfels, where she and her late husband, James Hendricks, had lived since the 1990s. Her funeral is Friday.

"She had kept this under wraps," her brother, Spring resident C.E. Steel, said of his sister's purported spirit-guided writing. "She wasn't sure of how people would react. She showed me a lot of the work she was doing. I saw the physical set-up, the writing going on. I was puzzled.  I couldn't understand. Finally, I said, maybe it's not mine to understand.  There's no doubt in my mind that what she said, she believed 100 percent."

No one was more surprised by the turn of events than Steel herself.

"I was astounded," Steel told the Houston Chronicle on the 1998 occasion of the issuance of her self-published book, "Atlantis, the Daughter: The Legend Revealed." "First of all, I wasn't a writer. I didn't have any inclination to be a writer. It just wasn't on my wish list."

Steel, who described herself as "goal-oriented, a finisher," was a veteran Houston businesswoman.

She had been chairwoman and president of Ambassador General Insurance Agency, executive vice president of Republic of Texas Savings Association and chairwoman of Banker's Investment Building Corp. She founded the Houston Financial Council for Women and the Westheimer Art Festival, precursor to the Bayou Arts Festival.

Lacked purpose

Despite her success, Steel admitted she felt her life lacked purpose.

On Aug. 18, 1975, Steel returned to her Memorial-area home after a tough day at the office. She grabbed a snack and flipped on the TV. Then, for reasons she couldn't explain, she put aside her meal, turned off the lights and television and gravitated to her desk.

"I always kept pens and yellow pads there to write myself notes," she said in 1998. As she sat in the darkness, drifting into meditation, she felt her hand grasp a pen and begin to write.

"I was not guiding it or trying to write," she said. When she turned on the lights and surveyed the page, she found meaningless loops and scrawls - and the clearly written words, "Dear J."

"J" she surmised, "was for Joyce."

Thus began a series of early morning sessions in which, Steel believed, spirits dictated prose through automatic writing. Unaware of what she was typing, she said, she transcribed pages of "dictated" prose, sometimes running out of paper or typing ribbon in the process.

Only at the end of the trances, which lasted 10 to 45 minutes, could she read what had been written.

"We knew she had changed," her friend Elroy Forbes recalled in 1998. "She gave up drinking and stopped smoking. Her group had been night owls, and she started turning in at 10 or 11. That was early for them. She stopped inviting people over. Her house was quiet. We were afraid she was ill."

Forbes was relieved when he learned she was merely engaged in spirit-writing.

"I was a little surprised - of all people to get into that - but I wasn't alarmed," he said. "Joyce asked my advice. I told her, 'Don't be scared. Just let it happen.'"

The dictated novel, Steel said, dealt with the demise of Atlantis, destroyed by human cloning, "unnatural energy" sources and the avarice of the human heart.

The first book's lead characters were reincarnated as Mary, Joseph and Jesus in later stories, and featured throughout the long narrative was "Great One Denominator - GOD," Steel said.

"In one era, they are Adam and Eve," she said. "All these people are the same souls."

Steel's first book now is available online as a $2 used paperback. Family members said a new volume, "The Son of Mary Chronicles," recently was issued by Houston publisher Rita Mills. Mills could not immediately be reached for comment.

'Curious' and 'smart'

C.E. Steel recalled his sister was "very curious, very active and very smart." "She was a top student in school," he said, noting that the future author left the family's Anson cotton farm to attend Granger Junior College and Texas Tech University.

The writer's niece, Julie Laningham, said that, as a child, she was "awestruck" by the older woman.

"When I was young she was like a movie star," she said.

"People were drawn to her. She had this aura of being a little different. Everyone admired her. Everyone looked up to her."

Steel, who did not have children, was a mentor for others in the family, Laningham said.

"She was really open to everyone. She wanted to learn what she could from everyone. She was a major student of life."

Funeral for Steel will be held Friday at New Braunfels' First Protestant Church.
More than 300 people across the nation - including 22 in the Houston area - have been charged with stealing more than $900 million in what federal investigators say is the "largest Medicare fraud takedown in history."

The 301 people facing criminal and civil charges of health care fraud include 61 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, according to the Department of Justice.

Among those arrested is a veteran Houston family practitioner with offices in Brookshire and Stafford, charged with participating in a scheme to bilk Medicare for $18 million in home health care services that were not necessary or, in many cases, not provided.

"As this takedown should make clear, health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense - it is a serious crime," said U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in a news release.

"The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment," Lynch said. "They target real people - many of them in need of significant medical care."

U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson, based in Houston, framed the operation as a battle "to combat greed in our health care system."

The U.S. Health Department's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has stopped payment to many indicted providers under the Affordable Care Act, officials said.

Houston-area cases

In the Houston region, which includes South Texas, federal charges were filed in 11 separate cases following a nationwide sweep by the Justice Department's Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

The Texas defendants are accused of bilking Medicare of more than $136 million.

Two local physicians were among those indicted.

Dr. John Ramirez, 62, of Houston, the family practice physician, is accused of aiding in a scheme to submit false bills to Medicare for home health care visits from 2012 to 2015.

Ramirez faces four counts of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

Susanna Bermudez, 49, of Houston, who owned the Milten Clinic that Ramirez oversaw, faces a conspiracy charge on allegations that she sold pre-signed certifications that home health agencies could use to bill Medicare.

In a related case, Ramirez was indicted along with Houston residents Ann Sheperd, 60, the owner of Amex Medical clinic in southwest Houston, and her daughter, Yvette "Destiny" Nwoko, 27, the office manager, on charges of conspiracy and committing health care fraud by selling doctor-certified permission slips that were used to fraudulently bill Medicare.

Another local physician indicted in the federal sweep is Dr. Sohial R. Siddiqui, 54, a Sugar Land internist from Fort Bend County, who was part-owner with co-defendant Starsky D. Bomer, of Galveston County, of three long-term acute care outpatient clinics in Houston.

Bomer, chief financial and chief operating officer of the ventures, and Siddiqui also briefly ran a general care hospital on Seymour Street in Pasadena.

Prosecutors have charged the physician and his business partner with giving and receiving kickbacks to recruiters who brought them beneficiaries or receiving kickbacks in exchange for referring these patients to outpatient services.

Along with unnamed co-conspirators, they are accused of submitting $16.9 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for services that were not necessary or provided at the hospital and clinics.

Three nurses charged here

Nurses were also among those indicted.

Registered nurse Eric Ugorji, of Fort Bend County, who ran a clinic along Southwest Freeway, is accused with unnamed co-conspirators from 2009 to April 2016 of receiving $17.1 million in Medicare payments for home health care services that weren't needed or provided.

Evelyn Mokwuah, of Harris County, a registered nurse and administrator at two clinics on Regency Square, and Amara Oparanozie, of Fort Bend County, also a registered nurse, were also charged with conspiracy and fraud for allegedly receiving $21.4 million from Medicare between January 2008 to February 2016.

An unnamed doctor also participated in the scheme, according to the indictment.

Mokwuah is charged with using a Medicare provider number and Oparanozie helped her sign records billing for home health services that were not provided or needed. Jointly, they received $21.4 million from Medicare on those claims.

In McAllen, the owner of a durable medical equipment company and six others were charged with submitting false claims to Texas Medicaid for equipment that was not provided or authorized by a physician.

The indictment says the signatures of physicians were forged on prescription forms and that the defendants paid kickbacks in exchange for patient information.
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Harris County officials are teaming up with tech-giant Microsoft to find and research mosquitoes that could carry the Zika virus or other mosquito-borne diseases.

As part of "Project Premonition," 10 traps across Harris County will collect data on mosquitoes, from when the insects were trapped to the temperature, barometric pressure and humidity during capture. Harris County is the first county in the country to use Microsoft's trap devices.

The devices will also track behavioral patterns of the mosquitoes, including what time of day certain mosquito species venture out. The data collected could be used to predict when and where certain mosquito-borne diseases occur.

"With Harris County's deep, long-running expertise in mosquito surveillance and mosquito-borne diseases, they're really an ideal partner," Microsoft researcher Ethan Jackson said. "They can tell us that this is the right way to use this data for public health purposes."

Microsoft ultimately hopes to use drones to determine areas that certain mosquitoes inhabit across the county. However, Microsoft wants to make sure residents are informed of what areas the drones will be in and not feel as if their privacy is being breached.

"It will take us a little more time to make sure the systems are really tested and ready before putting them in a real place like Harris County," Jackson said of the drones.

Jackson doesn't expect to start testing drone systems in the U.S. for another few months.

Microsoft's "Project Premonition" began experimenting with the devices in Grenada in 2015 after Chikungunya, a virus transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes, broke out there. Since then, the company has further developed its trapping devices, so that extremely detailed profiles can be made of certain mosquitoes. For example, the trap can record data about how the insect's wings are flapping, which can help determine its species.

The computerized traps can filter out other flies and insects that aren't being targeted. Officials emphasized that mosquitoes carrying Zika had not yet been detected in Harris County.

Last week, three trap devices were placed in areas around Harris County as part of the project. Seven more devices are expected to be placed in other areas over the next few weeks, said Elizabeth Perez of Harris County's public health and environmental services department.

Detailed data

The program is free for Harris County's public health department, as Microsoft is using the county as a test site.

Each trap device is made up of 64 smart cells and is able to capture that many mosquitoes. The smart cells give researchers individual data about each mosquito. The traps are usually left outside for 14 to 16 hours, then collected by researchers. Data from the traps can be transmitted wirelessly through cellular or Bluetooth networks. However, Jackson said that the majority of the data is saved on a memory card inside the trap.

"The data that we're seeing from even this first week is interesting. We can already see that the traps can distinguish between certain species of mosquitoes in real time," Jackson said. "If you want to monitor Zika vectors or you want to monitor West Nile vectors, the trap can actually tell them apart and only capture the ones you're interested in studying."

Jackson said that Harris County's Mosquito Control Program really stood out to Microsoft researchers.

"The reason why our mosquito control program is nationally renown is because we do a lot of things that a lot of other counties don't do. We do a lot of disease surveillance. We actually map that type of data out. We have inhouse virology labs," Perez said.

Prevention is key

Jackson said Houston's size also played a role in the decision to test the program in Harris County.

"Houston has of course both the large human population and large mosquito population that are known to be potential carriers of Zika," Jackson said.

There have been 13 cases of Zika virus reported in Harris County and a total of 46 reported in Texas. Perez said the Zika virus cases in Harris County have all been travel-related. There have been no reported human cases of West Nile virus in Harris County this year. In 2015, there were 275 reported cases of West Nile virus, which caused 16 deaths. Earlier this month, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner asked the state to declare the Zika virus a public health emergency.

"We're trying to prevent, educate and engage because with specifically Zika there is no silver bullet," Perez said. "We're not going to be able to spray our way out of Zika."

Perez also warned Houstonians not just to focus on Zika virus but other diseases as well, such as West Nile.

"The epithet of public health is prevention," Perez said. "If we wait until our mosquitoes have it, we're already behind the curve."
A deadlocked Supreme Court on Thursday effectively blocked an ambitious plan by President Barack Obama to spare millions of immigrants here illegally from deportation, a decision that will heighten tensions around the polarizing issue in the runup to the November elections.

Immigrant advocates, saying they were disappointed and angry, vowed to hold Republicans accountable for challenging the initiative. Its opponents, meanwhile, hailed the 4-4 split by the shorthanded court as a victory over a president they have often accused of overstepping his powers.

The tie, announced Thursday without an opinion, leaves millions of immigrants, mostly the parents of Americans, in legal limbo yet again, likely until a new president takes up the issue. Presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would support a similar proposal; her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, said he would repeal it.

This was the fourth - and most consequential - gridlocked vote for the court this term and it highlights the fight over filling Justice Antonin Scalia's vacancy after his February death in West Texas.

Obama and other advocates on Thursday blamed the tie on the Republican-controlled Senate "willfully" refusing to hold hearings for more than three months on the nomination of Merrick Garland, a chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The GOP leadership in Congress has said the electorate should have a say in naming a justice with the election of a president this fall.

"(This decision) underscores the degree to which the court is unable to function the way it's supposed to," Obama said in a news briefing. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who've raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military and fully contribute."

Upholds lower court ruling

Obama's plan, announced in November 2014, was poised to be the most sweeping change to the nation's immigration laws since President Ronald Reagan legalized 2.7 million immigrants in 1986. The president said he acted after decades of indecision from Congress on what to do with the 11 million immigrants here illegally.

His initiative would have applied to nearly one-third of them, the immigrant parents of American citizens or legal residents who have been here since at least 2010 without committing major crimes. It would also have expanded a similar 2012 program granting provisional work authorization to certain youth who came here illegally as children.

The split, a significant defeat for an administration that hoped the program would be one of its central legacies, upholds a lower court's ruling to stop the initiative and sends it back to a Brownsville federal judge to consider the legality of the full case. But it does not set a precedent, allowing another challenge when the court has nine justices or for a future president to attempt a similar proposal.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office led the challenge of the case, said the tie affirms its argument that a president "cannot unilaterally change the law."

"This is a major setback to President Obama's attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law," Paxton said in a statement.

Trump said the high court's decision blocked "one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president."

"The executive amnesty from President Obama wiped away the immigration rules written by Congress, giving work permits and entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country," Trump said in a statement. "This split decision also makes clear what is at stake in November. The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country."

Immigrant advocates Thursday called for the Department of Justice to ask the court to rehear the case once it has a full bench in its session starting in October - an unusual move - and said they were also considering other legal options.

"This really is a dramatic example of why we need a court with its full complement of nine justices," said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that filed a brief supporting Obama's plan. "This is a case of extreme national importance and the Supreme Court is unable to reach a ruling."

Challenge being plotted

Wydra said advocacy groups are exploring whether they can challenge the nationwide injunction, implemented last February by South Texas Judge Andrew Hanen, in a different circuit court in another region of the country to allow Obama's plan to continue elsewhere.

"Everything is on the table at this point," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, a Los Angeles advocacy group.

But the perilously tight timing means the program almost certainly is dead until and if a new president tries to revive it after the November elections.

"The reality is that the Obama administration is not going to be able to implement this program in the time they have left," said James Ziglar, former commissioner of the immigration agency under President George W. Bush and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a national think tank.

Though it's impossible to know why the court deadlocked, Ziglar said the justices might have split on whether Texas proved its ability to bring the suit - a legal concept known as standing.

The state argued it would suffer financially by having to provide the immigrants driver's licenses since it subsidizes each document by about $130. But critics said Texas could easily increase the price for the license and that the cost would be offset by greater taxes if immigrants work here legally.

The Obama administration argued its plan is based on a decades-old legal concept called deferred action that allows the government to delay deporting certain immigrants and temporarily permit them to work. Though other Republican presidents have also granted immigrants such a status, it's never been given to so many at once.

The government contends it's simply prioritizing whom to deport given that Congress allocates only enough funding to annually remove about 400,000 immigrants here illegally.

But Texas and the 25 mostly Republican states challenging the plan argued it bypasses Congress by giving a quasi-legal status to millions of immigrants and ignoring administrative procedures for changing rules.

Similar plan still in effect

On Thursday, Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson emphasized that a similar initiative, announced by the president in 2012 and known as deferred action for childhood arrivals or DACA, has not been challenged and remains in effect. About 713,300 youth who came here illegally as children have qualified for work permits under this plan. Obama also said a 2014 memo prioritizing the deportation of immigrants who have committed crimes rather than families remains in practice.

Across the nation Thursday, immigrants expressed their disappointment and anger, but promised not to give up.

"Our communities are disappointed, our communities are disgusted and our communities are absolutely heartbroken," said Kica Matos, director of immigrant rights at the Center for Community Change, a civil rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "Today we cry and tomorrow we fight. We're going to focus our energy and anger on turning our communities out to vote so we are really able to bring about the kind of justice we seek after the elections in November."

In Houston, Jose Sic said he has been here illegally for two decades after coming here from an impoverished area in the Guatemala highlands, seeking a better-paying job. He has four children who are American citizens.

"I am sad, bothered and angry. They have closed some doors that would have helped me advance," the 39-year-old said.

"But don't forget in a few years my kids will vote  and they're not going to forget who stabbed us in the back."
Headlines this month bring grim news of a massive "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Is this something Houston should be worried about?

Yes and no.

Most of those headlines refer to a recent study from Louisiana State University, which forecast a dead zone in the Gulf one-third larger than average this summer. That's big. It forms from chemical runoff in the Mississippi River, and it kills a lot of marine life.

But that's Louisiana. Texas is different. It has a different kind of dead zone, said Steve DiMarco, an oceanographer and veteran dead zone researcher with Texas A&M, and it's also hitting record size this year after a rainy spring. When you put the two contiguous zones together, that's a 600-mile swath of uninhabitable sea from Gulfport, Miss., to south of Corpus Christi.

"The dead zone that's off Texas right now has nothing to do with the Mississippi," DiMarco said. "It has everything to do with the Brazos, the Colorado, the Guadalupe, the Trinity."

As the name suggests, it's an area of the ocean where life withers for lack of oxygen. Specifically, it happens in the bottom 6 to 9 feet of shallow coastal waters for various reasons.

Runoff drains into Gulf

In Louisiana, it's largely due to the runoff of chemical fertilizers from the vast central swath of the country that drains into the Mississippi River. The high-tech, nutrient-rich fertilizers farmers spray over tens of thousands of square miles of Midwestern farms eventually wash into the Gulf.

There, hungry algae have a feeding frenzy on the nutritious muck, and their population explodes. Until the food is gone, that is. Then they all die together and sink to the bottom, where microbes await to decay them.

Microbes, unlike algae, breathe oxygen. Like the algae, their population booms when a food source - algae - becomes rapidly abundant. But eventually the microbes breathe all the oxygen. Then they also all die. And so do most other creatures down there without oxygen to breathe.

Unlike the Louisiana zone, DiMarco said, Texas' has much less to do with pollution runoff and more to do with rain. And Texas has sure had a lot of rain this season.

Almost everything that falls on the state then flows out to sea, and floods on the land became floods atop the water, which are harder for people to see.

Saltwater and freshwater, though similar in appearance, don't mix. They just stack like water and oil.

So when billions of gallons pour down Texas rivers and into the Gulf, it smothers the saltwater beneath, blocking it from the oxygen in the air above. Then a dead zone - also called hypoxia - begins to form, and it stays in place until late summer storms bring waves to mix the water.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration sends vessels out to track these zones. Nelson May helped lead the most recent expedition in June, when researchers found dead zone oxygen levels (less than 2 milligrams of oxygen per liter of water) more than 55 miles south of Corpus Christi.

"This is the farthest south that we've detected hypoxia since the beginning (2001) of the Hypoxia Watch Project," he said.

The Texas dead zone was first described in the 1970s, DiMarco said, though evidence suggests it's been occurring for more than 100 years, which predates most chemical fertilizers and many chemical pollutants.

Varying noxious effects

Still, it has effects. DiMarco said dead bottom-feeding sea life is washing ashore along parts of the Texas coast now, creating bad smells and offending tourists.

Peter Thomas, a marine scientist at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, said, "We have found that a very large dead zone causes widespread reproductive impairment in Atlantic croaker, an indicator species, with potential long-term serious impact on their populations."

Atlantic croaker are studied to assess the broader health of their environment.

Thomas' research showed that croaker populations in dead zones experienced "masculinization." Male reproductive cells were found in female reproductive parts, and the overall population saw a greater ratio of males to females. The reasons are complicated.

Research by the Smithsonian Institution in 2014 found that dead zones worldwide were increasing in frequency and severity. Researchers attributed that mostly to an increase in fertilizer runoff, like in the Louisiana case.

But they also cautioned that a warming climate - the planet broke annual temperature records for both of the last two years - would exacerbate the problem. Warm water becomes more buoyant than cool water.

So as a warmer atmosphere slowly heats the ocean surface, the top layer, rich with oxygen, will become less likely to mix into the depths beneath, where the dead zone occurs.
After moving to Houston two years ago, Bora Chang finally started receiving overdue medical treatment for injuries incurred during a decade of military service and a rocket attack in Iraq.

Doctors here finally diagnosed her bone and joint problems, and she began the process of addressing them. But then, earlier this year, schedulers at the VA Medical Center in Houston began canceling her physical therapy appointments, often haphazardly and without warning, she said.

Chang eventually gave up and sought out privately the health care she had hoped to get from the VA.

"I would rather pay a couple hundred dollars to be served by my chiropractor so I could function and work, than go to the VA," said Chang, 31, a Katy resident who works at a local nonprofit.

Chang's complaint echoes that of other local veterans, who have previously raised concerns about the problems obtaining timely appointments at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center or its outlying clinics.

They - and local veterans' advocates - say their concerns were vindicated by a report from the VA's Office of Inspector General released this week that found local VA officials were manipulating scheduling in a way that obscured the long wait times for appointments.

"If they're doing it to me, they're doing it to everyone else," Chang said Wednesday.

Software problems

Local VA officials claim that no veterans were harmed because of the data manipulation or scheduling delays, and attribute the problems in part to complex and antiquated scheduling software. Since investigators uncovered the problems, the local VA has instituted monthly scheduling audits, increased staffing, retrained schedulers and increased training for new hires, said Maureen Dyman, a spokeswoman for the DeBakey Medical Center.

Problems with appointment scheduling and delays made headlines in 2014 and 2015 after revelations that dozens of veterans in Arizona died waiting for treatment while medical staff covered up the lengthy wait times.

At the Houston VA facilities, investigators found that two former scheduling supervisors and the current director of two Community Based Outpatient Clinics in Houston had instructed staff to record appointment changes as if patients had canceled, even when the VA initiated the change, according to the report released Monday.

The changes altered the way patient wait times were calculated and made it appear that patients were getting appointments much more quickly than they were.

Investigators spent 10 months investigating the situation at the Houston VA, focusing mostly on scheduling data from 2014 and 2015.

At the Houston facilities investigators reviewed 373 appointments recorded as canceled by patients, finding that 223 had been incorrectly labeled as cancellations initiated by patients. Investigators also found problems with scheduling data from as recently as February 2016. VA officials said that occurred when officials at an outlying patient clinic had to cover for providers at another clinic nearby. The staff would ask patients if they wanted to have their appointments at the second facility, and if the patients declined, would code the appointment as a patient cancellation.

"We all hope our investigation leads to concrete changes at the medical center and increased efficiency to help those veterans that have served our country," said Mike Nacincik, an OIG spokesman.

Town hall meeting

Other local VA officials addressed the report Wednesday at a town hall meeting with veterans.

Chris Sandles, interim medical center director at the DeBakey Medical Center, said that after the investigation was conducted, the center identified gaps in their training that contributed to the scheduling issues.

"This wasn't something we were aware of prior to the IG coming in to talk to us," Sandles said. "This wasn't intentional, nothing was malicious."

Still, meeting attendees and other local veterans complained of abrupt cancellations, often without any clear reason why.

Veteran Francisco Rodriguez, 69, said he once drove from Corpus Christi to Houston for an appointment, only to find out it was canceled.

"No one had the courtesy to tell me," he said. "We're not treated with any kind of respect."

Rodriguez, who experiences back pain, said he's had appointments canceled more than once, although it hasn't happened for at least a year. One time, he said, he called in to check on his appointment and was told he'd cancelled it himself.

"I knew I had an appointment and I had not received a letter," Rodriguez said. "I called in. They told me, 'No, you canceled your appointment.' I said, 'No, I did not.'"

Rodriguez said he was left wondering why the VA couldn't keep his appointments.

"It taught me a lesson that I can't depend on the VA when I need emergency services," he said.

Half a dozen other veterans shared similar experiences in interviews with the Houston Chronicle.

Lack of accountability

Local veterans groups, meanwhile, said the lack of accountability ends up hurting veterans.

"This happens all the time," said a local veterans advocate who asked not to be identified because he often works with the VA.

"Veterans were promised to be taken care of," he said. "In the end, are they?"

Peyton Lumpkin, the newly installed president of the Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars, credited local VA doctors with providing excellent medical treatment but said he is troubled by revelations in the report.

"Care delayed is care denied," he said. "And people die over this."

Congressional leaders have also expressed serious concerns.

"More than two years after the department was rocked by a nationwide delays-in-care scandal, VA's wait-time rhetoric still doesn't match the reality of veterans' experiences," said U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

"And unfortunately, this sad fact is unlikely to change anytime soon," he said. "That's because at one VA facility after another - including Houston - the department is often relying on the very same people who caused the scandal to fix it. ... Until VA starts putting veterans' customer service before the job-security of misbehaving employees, the department will continue to lurch from one scandal to another, and veterans will continue to pay the price."
LONDON - It may be only pure coincidence that Donald Trump is flying to Scotland on the day that British voters will decide whether to leave the European Union. But in striking ways, the forces fueling Thursday's historic referendum here are similar to those that have shaken U.S. politics to its core in the past year.

On both sides of the Atlantic, political establishments and the elites have found themselves on the defensive. Rising resentment over the fallout from globalization and the effects of the financial collapse of 2008, which has widened the gap between the rich and everyone else, have shaped attitudes and divided voters in Britain and the United States.

Added to that are emotional issues of national and cultural identity at a time of growing demographic diversity, highlighted in both countries by often-angry debates over the costs and benefits of immigration. Both Trump and those pushing for Britain to leave the European Union have found the immigration issue as their most potent political weapon.

Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again," could easily have been adapted to the messaging of those in the "leave" campaign. Here that desire for a return to an earlier time - to make Britain great again - is expressed through the issue of control.

Those who have pushed for Britain to withdraw from the European Union want to reclaim a measure of sovereignty by wresting power from the bureaucrats in Brussels, the headquarters of the 28-member bloc, and putting it back in their own hands. They feel about the EU bureaucracy as tea party Republicans feel about the federal government.

Even among people leaning toward a vote to remain in the European Union, sending a message to those in power has powerful appeal.

Early Thursday, Steve Devereux, an economist and teacher, was passing by the polling place at the Central Methodist Hall, a short distance from the British Parliament building. If there is any place where sentiment tips heavily in favor of staying in the European Union, it is here, near the seat of government, and Devereux said he was inclined to vote that way.

But he called the choice "really, really complex," in no small part because of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Asked why he would consider a vote to leave the European Union, he said, "Giving the government a kick in the backside and really telling them actually they can't take people for granted."

On balance, Devereux said he feared that the cost of rattling the establishment's doors by voting to leave the European Union was too great a risk. But it was a reminder that the sense of disgust and disenfranchisement is deep and widespread.

Distrust with political establishments cannot be overstated, on either side of the Atlantic. During the debate here, Michael Gove, a Conservative member of Parliament and a leading voice in the "leave" campaign, sought to discredit studies warning of the economic consequences of leaving. "People in this country have had enough of experts," he said.

This has not been a year when the voices of political leaders have carried much sway. In the United States, Republican leaders stood powerless as Trump rolled through the GOP primaries. Hillary Clinton enjoyed the overwhelming support of the Democratic establishment, yet Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont ignited a progressive uprising that forced her to battle to the end of the primaries.

In Britain, the leaders of the major parties, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, have banded together to push for a rejection of a British exit from the European Union, a move popularly shorthanded to Brexit. Leaders from around the world, including President Barack Obama, have warned of the consequences - for Britain, Europe and the West - of a vote to separate from the bloc.

Still, despite that united front, the polls here have shown the vote to be remarkably close. The late surveys indicated a movement toward the "remain" side, but political leaders and others favoring an "in" vote approached Thursday's balloting with trepidation, fearful that a populist uprising could carry the "out" campaign to victory.

That same sense of unease has gripped U.S. politicians all year. The choices in the two countries may be different, but what lies beneath, what animates the sentiment behind the votes, springs largely from the same set of grievances. Even the contours of the electorates are similar. Here as in the United States, voters are polarized along recognizable lines: young vs. old; college educated vs. non-college educated; urban vs. small town and rural.

A SurveyMonkey online poll showed that voters younger than 45 favored the "remain" campaign, with the very youngest overwhelmingly in favor. Those 45 or older supported the "leave" campaign. Similarly, those with a college degree supported the "remain" campaign by nearly 3 to 1. Those without a degree favored the "leave" campaign, though by a narrower margin.

Chris Henretty, a reader in politics at East Anglia University, wrote in the Observer recently, "Older men and women without educational qualifications are very likely to vote for Britain to leave the EU - not because they're stupid or uninformed but because over the past 40 years their relative position within society has worsened."

The poll also showed the power of the immigration issue among those favoring an exit from the European Union, just as immigration issues were the most powerful force behind Trump's rise to become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

By better than 2 to 1, those here who cited immigration as their most important issue said they would back Britain's exit from the European Union. Those worried about the economy or poverty, and inequality or defense and foreign affairs, all backed remaining.

Beyond the issues that have shaped the campaign here and in the United States, there are other parallels. As in the United States, the campaign here has been marked by a coarsening dialogue, befitting perhaps in the age of Twitter, social media and, at home, the culture of cable television.

In this new arena, Trump proved more skillful than his Republican opponents at mastering communication. In Britain, there are complaints that Cameron and others leading the "remain" campaign have been outdone in this category by the likes of Boris Johnson, the flamboyant former mayor of London and current Conservative member of Parliament, whose ambition to take Cameron's job is well known.

Trump is not a beloved figure in Britain, but the choice before Americans in November also appears to be a fault line in the campaign here. Trump has said he would be inclined to vote to leave the European Union if he were casting a ballot here.

The SurveyMonkey online poll found that people here who said they would support Trump for president if they could vote in the United States backed the "leave" campaign by a significant margin. Those for Clinton said they were voting to remain in the bloc.

Paul Cloutman, 78, a freelance writer outside a polling station in southwest London, told The Washington Post on Thursday morning that the vote was a "head versus heart" decision. He thought that being in the European Union meant Britain had "a lack of control over its own destiny," but in the end, "the economic argument won out."

Plus, he said, he did not want to disappoint his son. "My son lives in California, and he said, 'If Trump gets in here and Boris [Johnson] there' after a 'leave' vote, he will have nowhere to live. So he wants me to vote in."

That's one way voters here are making their decisions, but it will hardly resolve the more fundamental issues - both here and in the United States.
All along the western Canadian coast, mussels are dying. Their blobby bodies are swollen by tumors. The blood-like fluid that fills their interiors is clogged with malignant cells. They're all sick with the same thing: cancer. And it seems to be spreading.

For all its harrowing, terrifying damage, the saving grace of cancer has always been that it dies with its host. Its destructive power comes from turning victims' own cells against them and making them run amok.

But when molecular biologist Stephen Goff biopsied these mussels, he found something strange. The tumor cells didn't have the same DNA as their host. Instead, every mussel was being killed by the same line of cancerous cells, which were jumping from one individual to the next like a virus. The mussels, as well as two other species of bivalve examined by Goff and his colleagues, are dying from contagious cancer.

Goff's study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature, doubles the number of species known to suffer from transmissible cancers. And in one case, clams were being killed by cancer cells that come from an entirely different species.

The results, Goff said, suggest that this communicable form of the disease isn't as rare as scientists once thought.

"I guess that many, many of the cancers that are known will turn out to be of this type," said Goff, who is based at Columbia University Medical Center. "How many other marine species might turn out to suffer from this, we don't really know."

The first contagious cancer was discovered in the 1990s, when researchers studying Tasmanian devils noticed that the fierce marsupials were perishing from ugly facial tumors. Eventually, they identified two cancer cell lines that were causing the disease. Meanwhile, scientists working with dogs found that canines on every continent have been suffering from a sexually transmitted tumor for hundreds of years.

Goff and his colleagues found a third example of this phenomenon last year in soft shell clams living along the Atlantic coast. A colleague working at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, asked him to come take a look at her dying clams, which she thought were suffering from a virus. Instead, they were being killed by a form of bivalve leukemia.

"It was really wild," Goff told The Washington Post at the time. "It was not what we were expecting."

But the discovery got him wondering whether transmissible cancers might be more common than anyone realized. So he set about collecting specimens from sick bivalve colonies on opposite sides of the world: mussels from near Vancouver and cockles and golden carpet shell clams on the coast of Spain. All three species were dying from cancer, he found. And all three of the cancers were genetically different from their hosts (the cockles suffered from two distinct strains).

"Now we're four for four" in terms of bivalve species with communicable cancer, he said.

Elizabeth Murchison, who leads a transmissible cancer research group at the University of Cambridge, wrote in an accompanying analysis for Nature: "These findings seem to paint a picture of shellfish beds around the world that are awash with microscopic cancer cells metastasizing both within and between species."

Goff and his colleagues suggest that cancerous cells from sick bivalves are expelled when the creatures defecate or die. The cancers can survive in the water for at least a few hours until they find a new host - and since bivalves are filter feeders, they're susceptible to accidentally consuming these malignant cells. Mussels, cockles and clams also have fairly undeveloped immune systems and few resources to fight off the disease.

The case of the golden carpet shell clams was particularly astonishing.

"The tumor that was spreading in this clam when we genotyped it was really, really different from the host that it was spreading in," Goff said. "It wasn't even of the same species."

Instead, the cancer cells had the genome of the pullet shell clam. Those creatures live right next to the golden carpet shells, but don't seem to be suffering at all. The most likely explanation is that the cancer arose in the pullet shells, but they developed a resistance to the disease, which then jumped to a second species.

The finding has Goff thinking about cancer in an entirely different way.

"Now you have to imagine these contagious cells floating around in the ocean, when when they managed to be picked up by a susceptible host they can establish a new infection," Goff said.

He interrupted himself, reflecting on what he just said: "See, already we're using words that really aren't used to describe cancer, like 'infection.' "

Transmission of cancer within and between clam species could provide an opportunity to model how cancer metastasizes in humans, he said. It could also help us interpret the rare cases where cancer has been communicable in humans: in people who have contracted the disease from transplanted organs, for example, or the man who was killed by cancer cells from a tapeworm that had taken up residence in his gut.

But there's a great deal we need to learn about the cancers first, Goff noted. It's not clear how old these cancers are - they could have evolved for hundreds of years, like the tumor infecting dogs, or may be a more recent development. We still don't really now how the cancerous cells are spreading, how they latch onto their hosts, or whether clams are capable of mobilizing an immune response. And given how common communicable cancers seem to be in bivalves, Goff believes it's definitely worth investigating their presence in other marine species.

On the other hand, humans needn't worry about contracting the diseases. We have a much more sophisticated immune system than clams, Goff noted, and it's unlikely that cancer cells would survive in air as well as they do in sea water. For now, at least, the chilling notion of contagious cancer in humans is just a distant possibility.
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HAVANA - Colombia's government and leftist rebels announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal on a cease-fire that would be the last major step toward ending Latin America's oldest guerrilla war.

President Juan Manuel Santos will travel to Cuba on Thursday to unveil details of the agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he also would be present to witness the signing of the accord.

Colombia's conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions. But a 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned the rebels' ranks and forced its aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Santos said this week that he hoped to end a half-century of bloodshed by July 20, marking Colombia's declaration of independence from Spain.

But Wednesday's agreement went further than expected, removing all doubt that a final deal is around the corner.

In addition to announcing a framework for the cease-fire, both sides said they agreed on how the FARC's estimated 7,000 fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons, as well as the security guarantees that will be provided to leftist activists after the conflict ends. Negotiators in January tasked the U.N. with monitoring adherence to an eventual cease-fire and resolving disputes emerging from the demobilization.

"Tomorrow will be a great day," Santos blasted out on Twitter. "We're working for a Colombia in peace, a dream that's beginning to become reality."

The presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Chile - the three nations sponsoring the now almost 4-year-old peace talks in Havana - were also expected to attend Thursday's ceremony, and the Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.

With the latest advances, only few minor pending items remain, the biggest being how the final deal will be ratified and given legal force so that it won't unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

If a final deal is reached, it would end Latin America's last major insurgency, one accused of being a major supplier of cocaine to the U.S.

Still, the much-smaller and more recalcitrant National Liberation Army has a toehold in some areas and could fill the void left by the FARC. The group agreed to a peace process with the government earlier this year, but those talks have yet to start because of Santos' insistence the group renounce kidnapping.
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WASHINGTON - The Senate on Monday voted down four competing gun control proposals, allowing Democrats and Republicans to stake out political turf around a controversial, emotional issue that promises to play big in a campaign year.

The votes, which fell mostly along party lines, came as the debate over gun laws has been reinvigorated following the recent mass shootings at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub popular with the gay community.

Despite both parties presenting proposals to tighten certain aspects of gun laws, attempts to craft any compromise ran aground last week leading to Monday's series of votes that served as a way for both sides to send political messages.

Variations of all four proposals considered Monday already failed to pass the Senate in December following the deadly mass shooting at the hands of Islamic State sympathizers in San Bernardino, Calif.

Democrats charged that Monday's votes fit a pattern of Republicans giving in to the demands of the National Rifle Association following tragic shooting incidents despite polls showing support for stricter gun laws.

"Senate Republicans ought to be embarrassed, but they're not, because the NRA is happy," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused Democrats of pushing a "partisan agenda."

In the week since the most recent mass shooting, both Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly stated that terrorists should not be able to purchase guns.

But there are substantive differences between the proposals offered by both sides - all of which required 60 votes to advance in the Senate.

Suspected terrorists

The Senate voted 47 to 53 to reject a measure from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to let the attorney general deny firearms and explosives to any suspected terrorists. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota was the sole Democrat to vote against the measure, while Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Mark Kirk of Illinois, both of whom face tough re-election contests, voted for it.

The Senate, on a 53 to 47 vote, also rejected a Republican alternative from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that would allow authorities to delay a gun sale to a terrorism suspect for three days or longer if a judge ruled during that time that there is probable cause to deny the firearm outright.

Two Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, backed the measure. But three Republicans - Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Kirk and Susan Collins of Maine voted against Cornyn's amendment.

Both provisions contained language to alert authorities if anyone who has been on a terror watch list in the last five years tries to buy a gun. Such a provision might not have prevented the Orlando shooter from buying the weapons he used in the nightclub massacre, but it would have let authorities know when he purchased the firearms.

Republicans argued Feinstein's proposal doesn't do enough to protect against situations where someone mistakenly on a terror watch list, or mistakenly suspected of links to terror groups, would be denied their Second Amendment rights.

Democrats countered that the time limitations in Cornyn's alternative would make it functionally impossible to actually prevent suspicious individuals from purchasing firearms.

A handful of Republicans have also voiced their own criticism of Cornyn's legislation. On Monday, Ayotte said that she would support the procedural votes on both the Cornyn and Feinstein measures - not because she thought either posed a satisfactory solution, but "to get to this debate, because I want a result," she said.

Ayotte was working with Collins over the last week to try to come up with a compromise proposal. That proposal would prevent people on two subsets of the FBI's database of suspected terrorists - the "No Fly List" and the "Selectee List" - from buying guns and alert the FBI if someone on those lists in the previous five years tried to purchase weapons.

But Democrats said that Collins' proposal was too narrow and would allow too many potential terrorists to fall through the cracks.

"Her alternative is not enough to close the loophole that creates this terror gap," Feinstein said Monday.

Background checks

The Senate also rejected, on a 44 to 56 vote, a measure from Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that would expand background checks for anyone trying to purchase a firearm, including at a gun show or online.

It was a more expansive version of a compromise measure from Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that sought to expand background checks in 2013 after the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticutt. Their proposal never gained the needed support.

Republicans objected to the breadth of the Murphy-Booker-Schumer proposal, which would require a background check for almost any sale or transfer of a firearm.

Instead, Republicans backed an alternative from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that would increase funding for the government to run background checks without expanding them. It failed on a 53 to 47 vote.

Democrats also objected to Grassley's amendment they said it could give people involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution for a mental illness the right to buy a gun once they are released.

Last week, Democrats took their frustrations to the Senate floor in a near 15-hour filibuster, led by Murphy, in which they demanded votes on their two proposals.

They credited the display with bringing about Monday's votes. Republican leaders, meanwhile, derided them for staging a "campaign talk-athon" on the Senate floor that only slowed things down.

But Democrats are counting Monday's votes as an incremental victory in their campaign to build a movement to demand gun control measures.
The University of Texas at Austin's use of race in admissions is constitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday, ending a years-long legal battle that could have upended affirmative action programs nationwide.

Abigail Fisher, who sued the university after she was denied admission in 2008, said she was "disappointed" with the high court's 4-3 ruling.

UT considers race as a factor for roughly 25 percent of students who are not admitted under a state law that grants automatic admission to the top students of a high school's graduating class.

UNITED STATES V. TEXAS: Supreme Court deadlocks on landmark Obama immigration plan

In the ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court agreed with UT's mantra through the lengthy legal battle that race is just "a factor of a factor of a factor" in the admissions process -- and is therefore limited and constitutional.

The Supreme Court suggested Fisher may have had a better shot at getting into UT if the Top 10 percent law wasn't in place and UT used race as a factor for picking its entire student body. Fisher, a white applicant from Sugar Land whose grades did not put her at the top of her class, has claimed UT admitted minority students with lower grades than hers, violating the 14th Amendment in denying her admission.

Kennedy wrote that while UT's admissions policy is acceptable for now, the flagship Texas university will need to "engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection" to ensure the policy remains constitutionally sound.

"I deeply believe in the benefits of diversity in education," UT Austin President Greg Fenves tweeted after the ruling came down. "I'm pleased that SCOTUS has reaffirmed its importance."

Various lawmakers, politicians and advocacy groups also cheered the ruling. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, called it "a win for all Americans."

While the high court did not strike down affirmative action policies as many had feared, the ruling is tailored to UT's policies, which are fairly unique given the state's Top 10 percent law.

"Moral order has been restored in the universe, but there will be more aggrieved whites, every time they do not prevail on the merits," said Michael Olivas, the interim president of the University of Houston Downtown and a UH law professor who helped draft the state's Top 10 percent law. "She (Fisher) is convinced she was improperly denied admissions, even though whites are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of the percentage plan."

Read the full ruling below.

Shortly after the ruling, Fisher said, "I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action."

Edward Blum, president of the Project on Fair Representation, said, "Racial classifications and preferences are one of the most polarizing policies in America today. As long as universities like the Univ. of Texas continue to treat applicants differently by race and ethnicity, the social fabric that holds us together as a nation will be weakened. Today's decision is a sad step backward for the original, colorblind principles to our civil rights laws."

The Project on Fair Representation, a not-for-profit legal foundation based in Arlington, Virginia, provided counsel to Fisher in her challenge of the constitutionality of the UT admissions policy.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he was "extremely pleased" the court did not "roll back the clock on a half century of progress."

"This ruling ensures that the well-established use of affirmative action to ensure diversity on campuses can be maintained, while at the same time guaranteeing that laws providing equal opportunity for all will not be tossed aside en masse," Ellis said.
HAVANA - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country's leftist FARC rebels agreed Thursday on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

At a ceremony in Havana, Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko, watched as their lead negotiators signed a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons after the signing of a final peace accord as early as next month. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a special U.S. envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile and Venezuela and other Latin American countries applauded the signing.

In the Colombian capital, Bogota, hundreds of people watched the ceremony live on a giant screen, hugging each other, singing the national anthem and waving the Colombian flag. Some cried.

"Colombia got used to living in conflict. We don't have even the slightest memories of what it means to live in peace," Santos said. "Today a new chapter opens, one that brings back peace and gives our children the possibility of not reliving history."

A 15-year, U.S.-backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARC's aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012. In Santos, a U.S.-educated economist and scion of one of Colombia's richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasn't bound by its prejudices.

"The Colombian armed forces that grew enormous during the war are now called to play an important role in peace," Timochenko said. "They were our adversaries, but going forward they'll be our allies."

In addition to a framework for the cease-fire, both sides agreed on a demobilization plan that will see guerrillas concentrate in rural areas and hand over weapons that had long been the symbols of their movement's origins.

The deal does not mark the start of a cease-fire, which would only begin with the signing of a final peace deal. It requires the rebels to completely put down their arms at most six months after the signing of the final accord, which Santos said would take place in Colombia.

A day after the signing of the final deal, the Colombian army will reposition troops to protect FARC fighters as they move to their transition zones within five days. FARC fighters will move to 23 zones and eight camps where they will leave their arms. The arms will be delivered to United Nations monitors, who will use them to build three monuments to peace, according to the deal.
"It's already the law right now. If someone is known or suspected as a terrorist, they cannot just walk in and buy a firearm. They have a long waiting period that actually kicks in that the system itself will kick them out. The FBI is pinged on that, and they get some options to be able to deal with it. So it is already current law. So there's a lot of pushback to say all these known terrorists can just walk in and buy a gun at a gun store. That is not correct. They are already held back and already cannot walk in and buy a gun in a gun store right now."

--Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., interview on CNN's "Situation Room," June 16, 2016

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A reader flagged us this claim by the junior senator from Oklahoma, after we fact-checked a series of claims from Senate Democrats relating to assault weapons and gun policy.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Lankford was asked how he would vote on gun legislation introduced in the Senate -- in particular, efforts to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms. Lankford answered that the system to do so already exists.

Later in the interview, Lankford said again in reference to suspected terrorists attempting to buy guns: "They should not be able to do that. But it's current law right now that that person cannot walk in and do that. The FBI is notified as soon as they are, and there's this long wait protection put into process before they could actually purchase that weapon." Is he correct?

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Following the Orlando mass shooting during which the gunman claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, the Senate revived the debate over whether a suspected terrorist should be able to buy a gun. On Monday evening, the Senate voted on four gun control proposals that were doomed to fail before voting even began. Versions of the bills proposed in the Senate already failed in December 2015, following the shooting by Islamic State sympathizers in San Bernardino, Calif.

We previously examined Democrats' rhetoric in support of a gun-sales ban on those on the "no fly" list, a database that the Transportation Security Administration uses to screen passengers who are deemed a threat to commercial aviation or national security. The "no fly" list is a subset of a larger watch list, the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist.

The FBI's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist was created in 2003, in response to the 9/11 attacks. According to the FBI, the database allows law enforcement to support "the ability of front-line screening agencies to positively identify known or suspected terrorists trying to obtain visas, enter the country, board aircraft, or engage in other activity." The Terrorist Watchlist includes the Selectee list, the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database and some individuals found in the National Counter Terrorism Center's Terrorist Identities Datasmart Environment (TIDE).

The Orlando shooter was on the watchlist in 2013 and 2014, but was removed from the list after FBI investigators closed their investigation.

Lankford's staff said he was referring to existing FBI involvement in gun purchases, through which the FBI is flagged if someone on the Terrorist Watchlist is notified. Indeed, the FBI is notified if a person on a watch list tries to buy a gun, if the person's name is listed on a list called the Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorist file (a subset of the larger consolidated list, according to the FBI).

With instant background checks, a person with a clean record in theory could walk into a gun store and be approved within minutes. However, if the person is on the suspected terrorist file, the FBI can delay the purchase for up to three days. According to a May 2013 Congressional Research Service report, the FBI has 72 hours to respond to the federally licensed dealer as to whether they can proceed with the sale.

The government uses a "reasonable suspicion" standard to nominate and include someone in the Terrorist Watchlist. Belonging to a terrorist organization, or being listed on one of the watch lists, does not automatically stop someone from buying a gun. There has to be another factor that disqualifies the person from buying a gun under federal or state law, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigration status.

During a December 2015 Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing, FBI Director James Comey repeatedly confirmed to Republican and Democratic senators that the FBI can't ban someone on the Terrorist Watchlist from purchasing a gun, just for being on the list.

After a hold is placed on the sale, there has to be another qualifier under the law for the FBI to be able to ban the sale, Comey said. If the purchase is made at a gun show or through an Internet sale, the FBI is not alerted, Comey said. See this exchange:

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.: If someone on the no-fly list walks into is a licensed firearms dealer in the United States, that in and of itself is not a prohibition against that person buying a firearm?

Comey: Correct.

Durbin: So even if that person is suspected to be a terrorist, they could purchase the firearm and leave with it, though your agents may then follow them or investigate them or keep an eye on them because of that purchase.

Comey: That is correct. We have three days to review the background. And so a hit - if someone walks in and they're on the no-fly list, we'll immediately be notified. We'll have three days to figure out whether there is some prohibition under the law that allows us to stop the transaction. If not, they will walk out with the gun if the dealer transfers it.

Durbin: Absent some other disqualifier, the fact that they're on the no-fly list is not enough - sufficient basis to deny the sale, is that correct?

Comey: That's correct.

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Thus people on the Terrorist Watchlist still successfully purchase firearms. A March 2016 Government Accountability Office analysis looked at 2,477 times that people on the Terrorist Watchlist who were involved in firearm or explosives background checks in 2004 to 2015. Of the 2,477 times, 91 percent (2,265) of the transactions were allowed to proceed, and 212 were denied. Some sales may have been processed and approved within 24 hours; the FBI purges records if the sale was approved within 24 hours. So when Lankford says the person "waits a long time," he's referring to a hold of up to 72 hours--but it could be less than 24 hours.

Sen. Diane Feinstein's, D-Calif., legislation would give authority to the attorney general to decide whether or not a suspected terrorist could buy a gun. Anyone who was subjected to a federal terrorism investigation within five years of the attempted gun purchase would be flagged in the background check system, and the Justice Department would be able to review those cases. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, proposed similar changes, but required a three-day waiting period for law enforcement to conduct an investigation.

On June 16, the Justice Department released a statement in support of the Feinstein amendment, saying it would give the department "an important additional tool to prevent the sale of guns to suspected terrorists by licensed firearms dealers while ensuring protection of the department's operational and investigative sensitivities."

It's important to note that the Department of Justice proposed similar legislative language in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration. According to the Government Accountability Office, that proposal to Congress would have provided the attorney general with "discretionary authority to deny the transfer of firearms or explosives to known or suspected 'dangerous terrorists.'" Supporters of this bill called it the "Terror Gap" proposal.

"It is a fact that if someone is a known or suspected terrorist, they cannot walk into a store, buy a firearm and immediately walk out with that gun. It may take several days for the process to play out, because the FBI has the flexibility to run additional checks that might turn up a reason to deny the purchase," Lankford spokesman DJ Jordan said. "But they cannot walk in and walk out with a purchase immediately that day. This is the point Senator Lankford was making."

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Lankford is correct that the FBI can get involved if someone on the Terrorist Watchlist tries to buy a gun, and that there is a waiting period during which the FBI can investigate and prevent the sale. But Lankford exaggerates the FBI's authority to take action after the agency is notified, and the time it takes for the FBI to approve the sale.

Under current law, membership in a terrorist organization or being on one of the watch lists does not stop someone from buying a gun. There has to be another factor that disqualifies the person from buying a gun under federal or state law, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigration status. The FBI can delay the sale up to three days -- not necessarily a "long" time, especially when some sales may be approved within 24 hours. But without a second qualifier, the FBI can't ban the sale or transfer of the firearm.

Moreover, 91 percent of attempted transactions by people on the Terrorist Watchlist over 10 years were approved - which calls into question Lankford's characterization that people on the watch list "cannot walk in and do that" under current law. Certainly, a rather large percentage can get a weapon with only minimal delay.
WASHINGTON - House Speaker Paul Ryan calls it "a publicly stunt." That may be true. But it is proving to be a darn effective one.

Republicans, unsure about how to deal with a sit-in that started on the House floor Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., tried to talk over Democrats and hold routine votes. Then, around 3:30 a.m., they adjourned the chamber until after July Fourth - two days earlier than planned. In so doing, they've guaranteed that the debate about gun control will roil the congressional recess and remain a dominant storyline for the next two weeks.

Democrats continued to occupy the House floor Thursday morning. About two dozen stayed through the night.

"This isn't trying to come up with a solution to a problem; this is trying to get attention," the Speaker complained on TV late Wednesday night.

That is neither true nor fair. In fact, nearly two weeks after the mass murder of 49 in Orlando, Florida, Democrats are merely trying to secure up-or-down votes on a variety of very specific gun control proposals - including a measure that would prevent suspected terrorists from being able to buy firearms and another that would expand background checks.

Being in the minority in a majoritarian institution like the House is a demoralizing drag. You get constantly shafted, and your priorities never get floor time. Nancy Pelosi's Democrats have spent six years in the wilderness now, and for the first time in years it looked Wednesday night like they were having fun: The chanting of "shame!" The singing of "We Shall Overcome." Taking a stand on principle.

More for you Chaos erupts in Congress as GOP tries to end Democrats' sit-in

Younger members of Congress loved that they were sitting in solidarity with civil rights icon John Lewis.

"Thank you for getting in trouble! Good trouble," the Georgian told them. "Sometimes by sitting down, by sitting in, you're standing up."

For lawmakers too young to have marched at Selma, Alabama, that's a moment they can imagine telling their grandkids about. And it was definitely more invigorating than sucking up to K Street lobbyists at fundraisers -- which, candidly, is how many members in both parties spend their evenings while in Washington.

Democrats have been brainstorming dramatic steps they could take to force a debate in the lower chamber. Compared to the Senate, their options are limited. Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., gets credit for coming up with the sit-in idea and then convincing Lewis to get on board.

To the right, it is an unruly and undignified spectacle. To the left, it is an energizing display of backbone.

No matter your politics, it was incredible political theatre. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" meets open mic night. Republicans gaveled the House out of session, cutting off the live video feed that C-SPAN broadcasts. Defying House rules, Democrats used their phones to stream low-resolution videos online. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., used FaceTime on his iPhone to do an interview from the House floor - a first. MSNBC gave the drama wall-to-wall coverage.

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Illinois, lost both her legs in the Iraq war. She sat on the floor next to her empty wheelchair.

Last week, liberal House members walked over to the Senate side of the Capitol to offer moral support for Connecticut's Chris Murphy as he filibustered past 2 a.m. Wednesday night, senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders came over to the House.

Kim Kardashian, of all people, even offered support on Twitter.

Certain Senate Republicans have been willing to compromise on an effort to stop people on the no-fly-list from getting guns because they knew that the deal will die in the House. So they will vote for the measure put forward by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, depriving Democratic challengers in states like Illinois and New Hampshire of a wedge issue while quietly reassuring the gun rights lobby that the House will be the backstop.

The House will ultimately still serve its role as a backstop. Meaningful new gun laws are doomed to fail. And Ryan is very, very unlikely to cave - especially with rank-and-file GOP members using terms like "legislative blackmail" to describe the maneuvering. While Democrats hope this is a long-term tipping point, they are realistic about the institutional realities. Their short-term goal is to exact as high a political price as possible on the GOP.

There are a group of vulnerable House Republicans who will almost certainly get hammered on this issue through the July Fourth recess. Gun control advocacy groups like Mike Bloomberg's will birddog these members at parades and town halls, if they have them. There's a good chance some members will limit public appearances to avoid talking about guns or Trump.

Once again, Ryan finds himself taking the heat. The brouhaha on the floor, which surely prompted him to pop some aspirin, is a perfect illustration of why the Wisconsin congressman resisted taking the gavel from John Boehner last year. Not to mention his continuing contortions over Donald Trump.

The Speaker is becoming, for some, the new avatar of obstruction. Erica is the daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School: "SpeakerRyan my mother was MURDERED at SHS - you have my number, call me. Would love to talk re: 'political stunts,'' she tweeted.

Ryan has been systematically rolling out a six-part policy agenda, and yesterday was supposed to be all about the GOP's plan to replace Obamacare. But online virtually no one talked about or covered that. Almost all Ryan-related mentions on social media yesterday were about guns, terrorism or border security, according to analytics from Zignal Labs.

To Ryan's credit, he really is putting himself out there. His spokeswoman reiterated at 2:45 a.m. that he will go forward with a scheduled press conference later Thursday morning - rather than avoiding the cameras.

The sit-in further illustrates how supporting gun control has become A LITMUS TEST for Democrats, just as opposing it has been one for Republicans ever since the crime bill passed in the mid-1990s. I wrote in Monday's 202 about how Democrat Ted Strickland ran for reelection as governor of Ohio with the NRA endorsement in 2010 but he's running for Senate in 2016 as a crusader for stricter guns laws. Hillary Clinton has also lurched to the left on guns compared to 2008, when Barack Obama said she sounded like Annie Oakley. This is what her press secretary said Wednesday night:

"Like gay rights and immigration, gun control now helps Democrats cement a coalition united mostly by liberal cultural values," Ron Brownstein explained in a piece for The Atlantic last fall. "Since Bill Clinton's era, the Democrats' base in the Electoral College has been equally transformed. The party has essentially written off rural, gun-friendly heartland states, such as Tennessee, and added cosmopolitan, racially diverse, and urbanized states, particularly along the coasts, that are more receptive to gun control-Virginia, say."

The Dingell family shows how the politics of this issue are changing in the House. Former Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., was a close ally of the National Rifle Association. His wife Debbie, who filled his seat when he retired, was an active participant in Wednesday night's sit-in. She even gave a chilling speech about an experience in her childhood that personalized the debate.

"I lived in a house with a man that should not have had a gun," she said. "I know what it's like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you are going to live. And I know what it's like to hide in a closet and pray to god, 'Do not let anything happen to me.' And we don't talk about it, we don't want to say that it happens in all kinds of households, and we still live in a society where we will let a convicted villain who was stalking somebody of domestic abuse, still own a gun."

To be sure, the sit-in will also energize gun rights supporters and undoubtedly lead to a gush of fundraising for the NRA. Tensions ran high between the Democrats and some Republicans. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert yelled at Democrats that they should talk about "radical Islam," not gun control. One of the people he got into an argument with was Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., who represents the congressional district that includes the Pulse night club.
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RALEIGH, N.C. - Hillary Clinton pushed back against Donald Trump's questions about her religion and her competence Wednesday, casting him as a candidate with not much else to say about how he'd lead the nation.

Over two consecutive days, Trump has sought to focus his struggling campaign on Clinton, as Republican leaders have demanded. On Tuesday, in a video clip of his remarks, Trump appeared to suggest the public doesn't know "anything about Hillary in terms of religion."

Clinton, who has spoken and written about her faith, on Wednesday retorted with a quote from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

"As we Methodists like to say: do all the good you can for all the people you can in all the ways you can."

Clinton also went after Trump for remarks in which he accused her of being "a world class liar" who personally profited from her tenure at the State Department.

"Think about it. He's going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance," Clinton told supporters at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. "So all he can try to do is try to distract us. That's why he's attacking my faith. Sigh."

Both presumptive presidential nominees are attempting to unite their fractured parties ahead of the nominating conventions.

As Trump works to right his campaign from weeks of turmoil and poor fund-raising, Clinton was addressing her own challenge: drawing the supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. She's vanquished him in the critical hunt for enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, but Sanders has not endorsed Clinton. On Wednesday, he allowed that it's apparent he will not be the party's nominee.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats nudged Sanders to go further.

"I know he knows what's at stake," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California. "Two words: Donald Trump."

Added Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, "I would love to see Mr. Sanders endorse. Go all in."

Clinton, assured of her party's presidential nomination, paired her response to Trump with a populist pitch aimed at white, working class voters who backed Sanders and are now being courted by Trump. The nation, she said, needs an economy that, "works for everyone - not just for the rich or the well-connected." She also castigated Trump's "reckless ideas that will run up our debt and cause another economic crash. I'm here today to offer an alternative."

Noting his famous catch-phrase from NBC's "The Apprentice" - "You're fired!" - Clinton said if elected president, "I'm going to make sure you hear, 'You're hired!"
Does the internet work for you?

No, we're not asking if your Wi-Fi connection is down. This is a question about whether internet service providers should be allowed to manipulate your online experience.

Earlier this month, political watchers accused Google of working to protect presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The claim, originally publicized by YouTube channel SourceFed, was that Google's autocomplete function would hide information relating to the FBI's probe of the former secretary of state and other criminal allegations.

Type in "Hillary Clinton cri" into the Google search bar and the engine will advise to you search about "Hillary Clinton criminal reform." The same search in Bing or Yahoo will get you "Hillary Clinton crimes."

So is this a sign of some secret allegiance between Google and the Clinton campaign? No, not really.

Google doesn't autocomplete the word "crimes" for any number of actual convicted criminals, including Bernie Madoff and O.J. Simpson. This isn't a conspiracy, just an idiosyncratic result of Google apparently prioritizing positive information. It is the same reason that Google won't autocomplete for "Bernie Sanders communist" or "Donald Trump sexual assault," but Yahoo does.

It may not be explicit censorship, but this revelation should have people wondering about how the world we see online is shaped by a black box of computer algorithms. How are these decisions made, and do we know what we're missing?

These questions about Google's results come on the heels of allegations that Facebook was suppressing articles and outlets with a right-wing bent in its promoted "trending" section.

For services like Google and Facebook, the answer to concerned users is a simple one: Go elsewhere. Competing search engines and social media networks provide dissatisfied customers with another place to click.

But what if there isn't a competing service? Nearly one-third of all Americans have access to only a single company for broadband technology. It is more of a monopoly than a free market, leaving users with few alternatives if, for example, Comcast decides to slow down access to Fox News and speed up its own MSNBC.

The threat of a warped internet lands Congress with the duty of protecting net neutrality rules, which prohibit high-speed Internet service providers from manipulating things behind the scenes. This longstanding policy may limit how broadband providers can work, but that's the point. While innovative companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix and the next big online startup can experiment with all sorts of business models, the underlying infrastructure is supposed to serve as a neutral player. This is the same sort of rule that's enforced for other so-called common carriers, such as the electric grid or natural gas pipelines, which treat all users equally.

The FCC's own net neutrality rules were upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC earlier this month, giving a major victory to defenders of a free and open internet. However, members of Congress have been taking aim at this important regulation through a rider on the House Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill. This change would snatch control of the internet away from everyday users and hand it over to self-interested service providers. Houstonians should remind their representatives and senators that the internet is supposed to work for everyone.
A standing-room-only crowd packed Houston City Council chambers one day last week for an unusual gathering.

Mayor Sylvester Turner, normally presiding with gavel in hand, relinquished his chair and took a seat with the audience. Behind the long, horseshoe-shaped desk where the mayor and council conduct routine local business, the seats were occupied by Texas legislators listening to testimony about the biggest financial problem facing Houston.

"We're all here begging you to come up with a solution," said State Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston.

Boy, howdy.

Texas lawmakers sometimes say they're sick of dealing with Houston's parochial problems, but Huffman and her colleagues came here because it's way past time to fix the city's pension mess.

Houston's unfunded pension liability now stands at an estimated $5.6 billion, and it's growing. About 31 cents of each dollar Houston spends on payroll now goes to pension funds. In truth, if our city government did what it should and used actuarially determined rates, that figure would be closer to 35 percent.

Just think about that. About one-third of the payroll is dedicated to sending checks to people after they no longer serve the taxpayers.

The mayor and union leaders are negotiating, Turner said, an encouraging sign after years of costly stalemate. Among the options under discussion are lower cost-of-living adjustments and higher retirement ages, two positions that we support.

Unfortunately, one option off the table for now is a reform that would move new hires to a 401(k)-style plan. Every possible solution should be part of the discussion.

Eliminating those defined-benefit pension plans is important to consider because pensions as they work now raise plenty of problems. We really don't know how much they'll ultimately have to pay out, because we don't know how long the people collecting them will live.

We also can't predict what will happen to pension fund investments in the coming decades, a point painfully demonstrated by the catastrophically bad financial projections that helped dig us into this multi-billion dollar hole. Nonetheless, taxpayers are on the hook for any future shortfalls. We're basically signing a blank check on behalf of our children and grandchildren.

That's the main reason the private sector has been bailing out of the pension business and converting to 401(k)-style plans. Without fundamental change to the city's retirement system, we risk running into another unfunded pension crisis in the years to come.

An official with the police pension fund testified that officers worried about their retirement benefits feel like they have bulls eyes on their backs. Following that same ballistic rhetoric, so do Houston taxpayers.

The Texas lawmakers spoke in cordial and conciliatory tones. They praised the mayor, and they said nice things about our police and firefighters. But if Houston can't get its financial house in order, Austin must do it for us.

It's way past time for Houston to control its financial destiny and to change the narrative on this critical issue. The mayor and the city's unions need to reach an agreement by the end of this year that state legislators can consider in 2017.

If the two sides don't strike a deal, the Texas Legislature cannot kick this can down the road. Holding a symbolic hearing at Houston City Hall is all well and good, but elected officials from our area - from our state representatives and senators to Gov. Greg Abbott to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick - need to make sure this problem is solved before the Legislature adjourns next year.

That threat alone should serve as a warning to everybody involved in these negotiations. If the state government has to step in and try to solve Houston's pension problems, it's quite possible nobody - not the mayor, not the unions, not Houston taxpayers - will like what happens next.
The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has closely monitored the troubling suspension and internal investigation into HISD Chief Auditor Richard Patton. The lack of details about Patton's alleged misconduct, coupled with his earlier findings of problems with the district's $1.9 billion bond program, raise significant questions about the motives behind the Houston Independent School District's investigation.

To date, there has been little public information to suggest that Patton acted outside his authority as the district's top audit official or outside of long-established professional ethics and standards. To be sure, Patton's previous exemplary performance reviews and his actions to successfully restore HISD's internal audit function to meet IIA quality assurance standards speak well of his abilities as a chief audit executive.

As an IIA member in good standing, Patton's professional well-being is of significant concern to our organization. But the bigger question Harris County taxpayers should be grappling with is the school district's commitment to good governance.

When the district created an audit committee and chief auditor position, it accepted an obligation to allow the internal audit function to do its job. According to the IIA's definition, internal audit is designed to add value and improve an organization's operations. It helps the organization meet objectives, "  by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governances processes."

The school district's own Audit Committee Charter, the document that delineates the committee's authority, composition and responsibilities, adopts not only the IIA's definition of internal auditing but also its code of ethics and International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing.

But a commitment to good governance takes more than simply adopting a charter. Internal audit can achieve the goal of improving risk management, internal control and governance when it is allowed to operate unfettered by concerns of retaliation or retribution for its professional findings.

The current situation in Houston is certainly not the first time elected leaders have clashed with internal auditors. Indeed, the very nature of public servants having to seek re-election every two to four years fuels a propensity to try to conceal or bury unflattering news or otherwise quiet the messenger.

The taxpayers of Harris County deserve to know whether public dollars are being spent wisely and whether operations at the district are efficient and effective. A good internal audit function provides assurances that these are happening - or not. The chief auditor's recent findings on the bond program suggest there is room for improvement.

There also is room for improving the HISD audit committee charter. While the charter does an excellent job of delineating responsibilities over financial statements, internal control, internal audit, external audit, compliance, reporting and more, it fails to account for the influence of political pressure.

The charter creates an audit committee made up of three current school board trustees. This creates an inherent conflict based on the aforementioned political concerns. Every time an audit identifies problems within the district's operations, the entire audit committee is potentially open to public criticism as trustees of the school board.

The audit committee, therefore, should be made up of a combination of school board trustees and independent community members who have knowledge of finance, auditing, IT or other areas related to modern business and government. Ideally, the independent nontrustees should outnumber the board trustees. This would provide an important buffer that protects the internal audit function's objectivity and independence.

While still unfinished, the investigation into the district's chief auditor has come at a high price. Beyond the actual cost of the investigation, there is the cost of lost public confidence. In order to restore that confidence, the district must provide credible reasons for the suspension and investigation.

Chambers is president and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors.
Ronald Reagan, the man who became the Republican's Republican, was once a Democrat. "I didn't leave my party, my party left me," he declared.

Today, many Republicans are feeling much as Reagan must have felt in 1962 when he officially switched parties.

I became a Republican over 60 years ago as a teen after watching Dwight David Eisenhower give his acceptance speech at the 1952 convention. His message touched me because he sounded like my dad.

"Republicans," he affirmed, "believe in family. In God. In hard work. Patriotism. Low taxes. Small government. Freedom. Opportunity for all."

Ike sounded just like my dad, who always voted Democrat even though he was a strict conservative, something I never understood. Dad and mom remained Democrats as long as they lived. I became the black sheep in the family - an oddity back then - a Mexican Republican.

My belief in the Republican philosophy paid off many times over. They opened the doors of opportunity so wide, all I had to do was walk right through. In 1978, Republican Sen. John Tower chose my ad agency to produce all re-election advertising even though we had no political experience. He and his staff just liked our ads and the fact that two of our four partners were Latino.

When Tower won, he rewarded us with an introduction to Ronald Reagan, who hired us for his Hispanic outreach. When Reagan won, he introduced us to George H.W. Bush. After he won, he introduced us to his son, George W. Bush and a young skinny kid with lots of hair by the name of Karl Rove.

From 1978 until 2008, our team had the honor of working in the big arena of presidential politics. Five of the six campaigns were winners. And so were we.

My wife, Kathy, and I were invited to lunch at the White House Dining Room, several White House Christmas parties, and among many other things, a State Dinner, where for one unforgettable night, we rubbed elbows with Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, movie stars, famous politicians and corporate giants. Yes, opportunity, courtesy of the GOP, abounded.

In those days, the Grand Old Party was indeed grand. Reagan and Bush 41 brought down a wall. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million hardworking Mexican immigrants who, through their strong work ethic, helped our economy grow stronger and our country more secure.

Bush 41 promoted a "kinder, gentler nation." His "A Thousand Points of Light" strengthened bonds between churches and communities across America.

George W. was the "Compassionate Conservative," who believed family values don't stop at the Rio Grande. He was proud of the Latino blood that runs in the Bush family, referring to his Mexican-born sister-in-law, Columba Bush, and his nephew, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

He also believed our president should be a "unifier," not a "divider."

That's all gone.

Instead, of "Tear down this wall," the party promotes a new and bigger wall. A thousand points of light has been replaced by a thousand points of anger. In place of compassionate conservatism, our nominee promotes callousness, extremism and racism. And instead of a unifier, the party now cheers the ultimate "us against them" proponent: Divisiveness Incarnate.

So, if my party winds up electing Donald Trump, I'll have to bid farewell, hoping that one day soon, it comes to its senses. Here's my thinking. This madness could be temporary because our nominee is not really a Republican. Nor a real conservative. He's just a shark, a self-promoter out to see how far his out-of-control ego can take him.

Here's my quandary: If my party's left me, where do I go? What should I do when there isn't a horse in the race that stands for the core values of the party that I loved? I may just go for the devil we know, instead of the lunatic we don't know. In the words of Paul Ryan, "I can't defend the indefensible."

Sosa is a political consultant based in San Antonio. This commentary was first published in the San Antonio Express-News.
To hear Republicans talk about todays U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Obamas immigration orders, youd think the justices made a landmark ruling on the scope of executive power. That would have been an outright win for the GOP, to be sure, and it would have come at the perfect time  dealing one final blow to the Obama White House before he leaves Washington.

Imagine their glee if the Court had set some precedent that would have not only shot down President Obama but also preemptively reined in a President Hillary Clinton. Never mind that, though, because the Courts ruling was as inherently political as it was pithy.

The Court could not reach a majority decision on what to say about Obamas plan to expand two programs aimed at protecting undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, as well as those who were brought to the country as children. The deadlock, with four justices on either side of the lawsuit, turned up the political heat precisely because there lacked any real ruling on the legal merits.

So, for Republicans, a win is a win is a win whenever this president cannot move forward with his plans. It also helped that that it was one of the last big political fights theyd have with Obama before he departs office.

The fundraising appeals arrived in email inboxes immediately after the ruling came down, though. Gov. Greg Abbotts campaign pleaded for contributions, saying the White House was told that bypassing Congress was an unauthorized abuse of presidential power that trampled on the Constitution. Meanwhile, Attorney General Ken Paxtons political arm said the major victory confirmed that the presidents executive amnesty scheme (was) ruled unlawful.

The Washington Post, which Paxton cited in his email to supporters, described the 4-4 tie as a (refusal) to revive his stalled plan that would effectively shield upwards of 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, allowing them to apply to find employment legally in the country.

The ball really is in Clintons court now. In his press conference after the ruling, Obama urged the American people to consider Clinton and Trumps differing approaches to immigration reform. Clinton, as she has said, wants to go to further with executive orders in this area than Obama has, at the same time promising to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill in her first 100 days in office. Trump, applauding the Courts ruling for blocking one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president," has said he wants to deport the tens of millions undocumented people who live in the country.

So, really, a Clinton presidency is the most likely way the Supreme Court could find itself actually wrestling with the legal question in this case. (Trump, given his comments, may have his own headaches with executive overreach, but thats a different story.) The Courts tie has then elevated the immigration issue as a whole  not just Obamas executive actions  as one that will be the most polarized in the general election.

From the earliest days of the 2016 campaign, we knew immigration was going to be an effective issue that works to divide a number of Americans. Then Trump came to the fore, advocating for a national round-up of those here illegally, and Clinton made a bold promise to use whatever initial political capital she has after a win to push for comprehensive reform in her first few months as president. Slowly but surely, the ante has been upped in recent months  driven not only the candidates themselves, but by terrorist attacks here and abroad and international concern about too-open borders in Europe. It is not hard to see that the issue has busted through yet another ceiling. Clinton can take another stab at it if she becomes president, and Republicans will be waiting.
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Employers who strive to create diverse and inclusive workplaces may be having their efforts undermined by subtle discrimination thats crept into their job descriptions  thats the warning from one academic study.



Published by the American Psychological Association, the research suggests HR professionals may be inadvertently alienating women by using predominantly masculine language in their job postings.



While men appeared to be largely unaffected by the presence of feminine words, the study found that women were far less interested in job descriptions that were more heavily weighted with masculine words  such as ambitious, competitive, and dominate.



They also found that female job seekers became significantly more interested in male-dominated roles  such as engineering  when advertisements had been amended to be fully unbiased.



Interestingly, the female respondents were not aware of the gendered language and explained their preferences as simply being indifferent towards the job  even though they became more interested when feminine language was used to describe the same position.



So  if the applicants who were put off by the job description cant even identify the feminine and masculine lexis  how can HR?



Fiona Ireland is the head of HR for Trade Me  she told HRM that one of the companys many diversity initiatives includes running all job descriptions through an analytical app.



In recruitment, were really careful about the language that we use in our job adverts so we use an app called Textio which looks at the language and highlights where words may be swayed towards either gender, she revealed.



Were not going out of our way to use feminine words, she stressed, were just trying to do be balanced in terms of the language and the words that were use.



An example of a masculine and feminine job postings used in the study can be compared below:



Engineer company description:



Feminine: We are a community of engineers who have effective relationships with many satisfied clients. We are committed to understanding the engineer sector intimately.



Masculine: We are a dominant engineering firm that boasts many leading clients. We are determined to stand apart from the competition.



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Activists delivered a petition to the prime minister's office last week, demanding that a mining company pay the Canada Revenue Agency the $2.1 billion it allegedly owes in taxes.

Cameco Corp. will face the federal government in court this September over the dispute. If found guilty, it would be the largest tax avoidance scam in Canadian history. But activists are worried the issue will be settled out-of-court for a lesser amount.

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When an everyday Canadian makes a mistake on their taxes, you have to pay every cent back, Rosa Kouri, campaigns director for Sum Of Us, told The Huffington Post Canada.

Kouris organization partnered with Canadians For Tax Fairness to deliver the 36,000 signatures to Justin Trudeau's office and Camecos headquarters in Saskatoon.

We want to make sure there isnt a backroom deal over the summer, Kouri said. We really want to see Cameco held fully accountable.

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Other powerful companies  namely KPMG  arent always forced to pay back taxes even when the CRA detects wrongdoing, Kouri said. Thats a double standard and its not fair."

We really want to see Cameco held fully accountable.

Camecos dispute with the CRA started in 2008. The company, which mines 18 per cent of the worlds uranium, allegedly set up a subsidiary in Switzerland where product was shipped from Canada. The subsidiary would then mark up the price exorbitantly, so income would be reported in Switzerland  not Canada, alleges the CRA.

Camecos subsidiary company only had one employee, who didnt even live in Switzerland, reports the National Observer.

'We've followed all the rules'

Cameco disputes the CRA's position. "Weve followed all the rules and paid all of the taxes owed," the company's media relations manager, Rob Gereghty, told HuffPost Canada in an email. "We are confident that we will be successful in our case."

Profits made with Canadian labour and resources should benefit Canadians, Kouri said. The petition points out that Camecos uranium comes from northern Saskatchewan, an area that desperately needs better services and community investment.

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The government says that clean drinking water for First Nations and education for First Nations is too expensive, Kouri said, and honestly if we were to raise funds from the very companies that are making billions in profits from those northern communities, then we could do so much more as a country.

UPDATE - June 24, 2016: The CRA says it is committed to ensuring every person and company pays the correct amount of taxes. "Tax evasion and avoidance hurts all Canadians and means less money for benefits, programs, and services for Canadians," said spokeswoman Jelica Zdero in a statement to HuffPost Canada. "The CRA is committed to combating the abusive use of offshore jurisdictions and protecting the integrity of the Canadian tax system," she said.

Whether Cameco will have to pay remains to be seen. In the meantime, here are some things Canada could do if it ends up collecting that disputed $2.1 billion:

Kavin Redsky, Shoal Lake 40 First Nation water plant operator, prepares to treat water from the lake with chlorine in one of the community's water treatment plants. (Photo: John Woods/The Canadian Press)

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Also on HuffPost:
OTTAWA  Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai is testing the waters for a possible Conservative leadership run.

"I'm trying to feel my support, what support do I have. I don't want to run if I don't have the base to run," he told The Huffington Post Canada this week.

Obhrai, the dean of the Conservative caucus, declined to further discuss his current plans. But a caucus member approached to sign a form supporting Obhrai's candidacy said his solicitation came with a commitment that when he loses he would throw his support behind another candidate: Peter MacKay.

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Deepak Obhrai rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday September 21, 2011. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/CP)

Ohbrai would neither confirm nor deny the unusual pitch.

"He tells me his wife has to approve," Obhrai said, said of MacKay's possible entrance into the race. "I haven't officially filed any papers, I'm just gauging the support."

MacKay, a former cabinet minister from Nova Scotia, who as leader of the Progressive Conservative party was responsible for uniting-the-right federally under the Conservative umbrella, left politics last year to spend time with his family. He is the presumptive front-runner should he choose to join the race.

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MacKay thinking about it

In January, MacKay joined the law firm Baker & McKenzie in Toronto but he continues to make media rounds. He appeared at the press gallery dinner earlier this month, and, a week ago, testified at a Senate hearing that the F-35 fighter jet was a superior aircraft to anything that the Liberal government was contemplating buying. "Do I regret that we did not make the final purchase of that aircraft? Absolutely," he told senators.

MacKay was also a popular draw at the Conservatives' convention in Vancouver in May, posing for pictures with fans and meeting fellow Tories.

There, he told HuffPost, he still hadn't made up his mind, was gauging levels of support and trying to figure out if he had the fire to take on the job.

Peter MacKay is seen at the Conservative Party of Canada convention in Vancouver, Friday, May 27, 2016. (Photo: Jonathan Hayward/CP)

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"I'm not there yet, in terms of making such a life-altering decision to come back to politics after what is a relatively short time," he said. MacKay has a baby daughter at home and a three year-old boy, and is conscious that re-entering politics can be difficult on family life.

"You don't have to look far at my biography to see that I grew up in a political family that didn't make it. So it's a big decision," he told HuffPost.

This week, MacKay did not respond to requests for comment regarding Obhrai's solicitations.

Obhrai helped former PC leader in 2003

Both men share some history. In 2003, MacKay requested that Obhrai be one of four Canadian Alliance MPs to join his Progressive Conservative caucus out of concern the PC party might lose its official status in the Commons. Obhrai, who was first elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and had been sitting as a member of the Canadian Alliance since 2000, was identified as a member of the PC caucus from Dec. 12, 2003 to February 2, 2004, before the Conservatives merged in the Commons.

Obhrai also served as MacKay's parliamentary secretary when the latter was foreign affairs minister in the first days of prime minister Stephen Harper's government, from 2006 to 2007.

In April, Obhrai tweeted it was great to visit his "good friend" MacKay.

Great to visit my good friend Peter MacKay over coffee good chit chat #cdnpolipic.twitter.com/uDfvACrZ7R  Hon Deepak Obhrai pc (@deepakobhrai) April 23, 2016

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Obhrai has already been vocal about the Tory leadership race. In January, he made national headlines for bashing possible leadership candidate Kevin O'Leary, the celebrity businessman and TV star from Dragons' Den and Shark Tank, as being unfit to be leader and out-of-touch with the grassroots.

Obhrai has taken it to O'Leary

The Conservative party has gone through a tremendous amount of rebuilding since the Reform party split from the PCs and then merged back again in 2003, Obhrai told HuffPost at the time.

"I never saw this guy [O'Leary] anywhere.... I haven't heard from him in those 18 years, and now we have a celebrity trying to run? Well, he doesn't have the foggiest idea what this party is all about," Obhrai said.

In February, he said O'Leary, who expressed a desire not to get involved in any military campaigns, would be a better fit for the NDP. "He will definitely not find a warm reception in the Conservative caucus," the Tory MP said.

Said party can't be a 'white-only club'

If Obhrai were to join the race, it's likely he would raise the issues of minorities and inclusion in the Tory party. He loudly criticized the party's executive for raising membership fees, complaining it would freeze out many new Canadians the Tories had tried hard to court.

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The new rules were turning the Conservative party into an "elitist and white-only club," he told HuffPost in April. The party subsequently changed the rules.

Obhrai was born in Tanzania to South Asian parents and was educated in India and in the United Kingdom. He worked as an air traffic controller before immigrating to Canada in 1977 at the age of 27.

An article in on NRIInternet.com, a publication for Indians living outside of India, described how Obhrai faced discrimination when first arriving in Canada.

He prefers to stress his community service and connections with the grassroots.

Former Conservative Leader Stephen Harper talks with Deepak Obhrai in Calgary Tuesday, Sept.15, 2015. (Photo: Ryan Remiorz/CP)

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In an article by New Canadian Media last year, featuring him as the longest-serving visible minority MP, Obhrai credited his community work for sparking an interest in politics.

"I started at the grassroots level and from there I built a base of support," he is quoted saying.

Obhrai served as president of the IndiaCanada Association, the Monterey Community Association and the Hindu Society of Calgary and was vice-president of the National Indo-Canadian Council. He hosts the National Diwali celebrations on Parliament Hill.

He hasn't been shy to chastise his own colleagues. Last year, he lashed out at Conservative MP John Williamson for saying it made no sense to pay "whities" to stay home while companies bring in "brown people" as temporary foreign workers.

"Very disturbed by Williamson's race-based comments," Obhrai wrote on Twitter. "Foolish statement damages all of us. Years of hard work down the drain."

Spoke out against C-24

Obhrai spent years courting support for various versions of the Conservative party in ethnic communities.

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The Calgary MP is also on the record for speaking out against his government's Bill C-24, legislation that sought to strip dual Canadians of their citizenship if they were convicted of terrorist acts. The Conservatives tried to use the bill to show the Liberals were soft on terror but it backfired and is one reasons the Grits won handily in ethnic communities.

"One of the strongest human rights principles is to create all Canadian citizens equal, no matter what. That is the fundamental human rights situation. That is what I am concerned about in this bill," Obhrai told the Commons back in 2014.

"When a Canadian citizen's citizenship is revoked, unless that citizenship was obtained fraudulently  and I can agree with revoking it for that reason  we are treating one Canadian differently from another Canadian, and in my opinion that is against a fundamental human rights provision a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian," the foreign affairs parliamentary secretary told then immigration minister Chris Alexander.

Obhrai would later abstain from voting on the bill. And Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, now prime minister, would famously go on to repeat Obhrai's "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" line while defending his party's stance against C-24 during the 2015 election campaign.

With a file from the Canadian Press

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Donald Trump likes to talk a lot of trash about trade agreements that involve Canada.

In a "60 Minutes" interview last year, he called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a disaster, and said he would renegotiate it.

All this talk has less bite than it does bark, according to a TD Bank report released Monday.

But concerns nevertheless exist among Canadian businesses as both Trump, and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, ramp up the rhetoric on free trade in the race for the White House.

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Trump, for example, has proposed a 35 per cent tariff on imports from Mexico. But that could hurt America's businesses as much as it does its neighbour to the south, because many of those products have content that was made in the U.S. to begin with.

The chart above, from TD Bank, shows that products imported from Mexico could have as much as 11.7 per cent of value that was added in the U.S. Another study says this content could be as high as 40 per cent.

"That shows that tariffs on Mexican imports would heavily impact U.S. suppliers, in addition to raising prices for consumers," TD Bank said.

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Then there are questions as to how much presidents can actually do.

The U.S. can withdraw from NAFTA with six months' notice. But it's not clear whether the president can do this without the approval of Congress.

TD Bank said previous trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) have been treated as "congressional-executive agreements" and have received the stamp of approval from the House of Representatives and the Senate.

And because Republicans voted in support of NAFTA even more than Democrats did, it's tough to believe that a GOP-dominated Congress would stand behind protectionist free trade policies, the bank added.

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Presidents have also tended to soften their free trade talk when they have reached office.

Take Barack Obama, for example. The outgoing U.S. president made a number of anti-NAFTA statements while running for the Oval Office in 2008.

But once he ended up there, he gave his support to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries including Canada, the U.S., Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Clinton, meanwhile, voted in favour of free trade deals during her time in the Senate.

"Protectionist policies are like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube ..."

TD Bank wasn't dismissive of concerns that Canadian businesses might have as Trump and Clinton duke it out for the presidency.

It noted that Canada's meat industry lost as much as $1 billion every year from 2009 to 2015, amid a row over country of origin labelling.

But ultimately, Canada can take solace in one thing: that presidential candidates often talk tougher on the hustings than they do when they reach office, TD Bank said.

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"Protectionist policies are like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube  it's difficult to do, messy, and can be wasteful," the report read.

Also on HuffPost:
"No fats. No fems."

For those unfamiliar with the above terms, they originate from the gay male dating app Grindr  no fat guys, no feminine guys. Men on the app will use deterrents like these on their profiles, often alongside the equally charming "masc 4 masc" (code for: manly man seeking fellow He-Man), "No blacks," "No Asians," "No Arabs," "No Latinos"  you get the idea. (Authors note: This piece is written from the perspective of a cisgender, half-Asian queer male.)

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This hateful, discriminatory message existed mostly in the world of gay online dating, until clothing line Marek + Richard decided to produce tank tops printed with the words "No fats, no fems" in April, inciting a visceral and vocal response on social media. (The brand has since taken to Twitter to claim the shirts were satirical.)

Messages can be sent in variety of ways. Satire is one of our favs.  https://t.co/AByQvVtNpApic.twitter.com/NW4xE6Grs9  marek+richard (@Marek_Richard) April 28, 2016

Its regressive for a so-called fashion brand  particularly one whose main audience is gay men  to promote some of the communitys more unfortunate messaging. As social media is increasingly emphasizing the need for diversity through body positivity, representation of more ethnicities, different abilities and gender fluidity, writing "NO FATS NO FEMS" on a tank top feels a little like putting "BECKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR" on a T-shirt and going to a Beyonce concert.

Whats worse though is there is still a market for clothing like this. An uncomfortable truth is gay men are socialized by the media to view one kind of man attractive  and fashion plays a big role in that.

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"[Fashion and clothing] exclude by creating styles that are only fit for particular bodies and images that only glorify one type of body; oftentimes one that is very thin but very toned, white, tall, able-bodied man, and this is seen as the gay ideal," Dr. Ben Barry, a professor at Torontos Ryerson School of Fashion and the mind behind Refashioning Masculinity, tells HuffPost Canada Style. "And often this man is wearing much more traditionally masculine clothing."

According to Dr. Barry, many gay men are drawn to this imagery as it allows them break away from the stereotype of being feminine, something that is typically associated with being weak.

Clothing deemed "masculine," includes working-class textiles like leather and denim or a crisp wool suit, and flies a flag for traditional notions of maleness: strength, power, status and dominance.

The ideals surrounding "maleness" and "men" often refer to cisgender males. While Vogue declared 2015 the Year of Trans Visibility, fashion and cultural ideals are still dominated by cisgendered images. What it means to be a man, and to look like a man, is often tethered to a prescribed biological sex. Through increased media visibility, trans men like motivational speaker and adult film producer Buck Angel, and Benjamin Melzer (who landed the cover of Mens Health Germany) are slowly helping to revise these notions  but theres still a ways to go.

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Complementary to masculine clothing is a "shredded" gym bod, or at least one that is toned and thin  often in an unhealthy way. While being too svelte could be seen as feminine, it still exhibits a mastery over ones body  a quality that is "masculine."

A photo posted by Marc Jacobs (@themarcjacobs) on Jun 10, 2016 at 5:53am PDT

Men whose gender expression is "more feminine" are often ostracized by their fellow males  both straight and gay. A sociologist would call this heteronormative masculinity, or the reinforcing of harmful and (often unattainable) stereotypical ideals of maleness by policing the behaviours of men. IRL, it comes out usually as homophobic and misogynistic slurs.

"A strong, lean body is seen as the essence of masculinity, power and strength. Anything that doesnt represent that is seen as weak, vulnerable and not masculine."  Dr. Ben Barry

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Gay media reinforces these ideals  particularly being physically fit and white. Case in point: earlier in 2016, black queer rapper Mykki Blanco kickstarted a huge Twitter conversation on the issue with the hashtag #GayMediaSoWhite.

How can you see this shit and feel "apart of the community" or even Progressive???? pic.twitter.com/024gitCZYZ  MYKKI BLANCO (@MykkiBlanco) March 28, 2016

This has left little room, in both fashion and LGBT culture, for men of diverse ethnicities and body types to find ideals or, at the very least, people who even look like them.

Plus-size males in the spotlight

While the fashion industry has historically been fiercely exclusionary, it is now advancing plus-size imagery the most now. Bruce Sturgell, founder of plus-size mens lifestyle website Chubstr, tells HuffPost Style Canada, "In the past few years ... more plus-size people have made it [known] through blogs and social media, that we deserve to be included in fashion, [and] the media has taken notice."

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Social media has particularly seen an increasing diversity of body types represented  and celebrated, which Sturgell credits to the women's body positivity movement.

"Theres a growing amount of representation [of plus size mens fashion] on Instagram and Tumblr, and I think well see that continue in the next few years," Sturgell says. "I dont think any of what were seeing right now with the interest in plus-size mens fashion would be possible if we werent seeing such growth in womens plus size-fashion."

"I dont think any of what were seeing right now with the interest in plus-size mens fashion would be possible if we werent seeing such growth in womens plus size-fashion."  Bruce Sturgell, founder of Chubstr.

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He believes social media has not only helped bring plus-size gay mens bodys to the forefront, but it has also brought subcultural terms like "bear" (a larger, rugged, hairier gay man who projects an image of masculinity) to the mainstream. He notes also that most plus-size men leading the charge for awareness on Instagram are gay.

"For me, being a big guy, being a bear, any time I post a picture where I look a little bigger and my shirt's off, it instantly does better," Simko tells HuffPost Canada Style. "I think people see theres a certain bravery doing that, and a certain freedom as well."

I found a barn in #westernma  | @davdavdav A photo posted by Matthew Simko (@simkosays) on May 1, 2016 at 7:29am PDT

Gay men and body image

For cisgender gay men, body positivity on social media helps fight the "NO FATS NO FEMS" messaging and reduces potential harm to an at-risk population. Gay males are three times more likely than their straight counterparts to have an eating disorder, with 15 per cent reporting experiences with anorexia, bulimia and over-eating. Among people with eating disorders, only one in 10 seek treatment despite it being the most lethal psychological disorder. As Salon notes, this prevalence of eating disorders is supported by a specific group in the gay community where emaciation is validation, and ones only hopes at love and sex lie in being either an Adonis or a twig (or twink as the jargon goes).

Fashion can continue to play an active role in changing this culture. Dr. Barry notes Torontos Glad Day Bookstore has already created rebuttal T-shirts saying "MORE FATS MORE FEMS" to much social media praise.

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As we head to the post office, one thing is clear: America loves our "More Fats, More Fems" T-shirts! pic.twitter.com/FWXhrbxQrJ  Glad Day Bookshop (@GDBooks) June 8, 2016

Fashions role can be to promote and produce images of men  gay or straight  of all gender expressions and body types, authentically and fashionably.

More men in skirts.

A photo posted by Jaden Smith (@christiaingrey) on Jan 28, 2016 at 8:31am PST

More Zach Miko.

More diversity.

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Up until now, fashion has been of part of the problem; it has the power  and the responsibility  to spearhead the solution.

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Not even a snake bite could deter this groom from attending his own wedding.

On Tuesday, wedding photographer Maddie Mae posted an incredible story on Facebook, which involved a wedding photo shoot, a rattlesnake and a trip to the hospital.

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"As an adventure wedding photographer, I often wade in chest-high water, hike into jungles in Costa Rica, or go on 10-mile hikes with couples on their wedding day," wrote Mae on Facebook. "I never would have guessed that my only indoor church wedding this year, in my home town, would actually become the biggest adventure, and my craziest wedding story to date.

According to Mae, she was taking photos of newlyweds Johnny Benson and Laura Loretz on their wedding day, about 50-feet from a parking lot in Fort Collins, Colorado, when a rattlesnake startled them and bit the groom's ankle.

Luckily, a Park Ranger happened to be driving by, and "all [three] of us started waving furiously at him," recalled Mae. "He rolls down the window and we yelled, 'He just got bit by a rattlesnake!!' The ranger, obviously not hearing what we said, yelled back, 'CONGRATULATIONS!!' at the couple in wedding clothes. But then when he got the message he came over and had Johnny lay down and elevate his leg while the paramedics were arriving."

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Because the Park Ranger didn't know if the snake had injected venom into the groom's ankle, they didn't know how long he would need to be in the hospital for. According to Mae, if Benson needed anti-venom, he could be in the hospital for several days, thus missing his wedding reception.

When they got to the hospital, doctors determined that no venom had been injected and Benson had no swelling or symptoms. Except for a few holes in his calf, the groom was cleared to leave the hospital after about 20 minutes, and the couple was able to make it to their reception, just an hour late.

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"Ive never seen such a emotional 'grand entrance' as all 184 guests cheered when Johnny & Laura walked in, and showered them in a sea of passionate hugs," wrote Mae. "The whole situation was so surreal, and I couldnt really help in any way except continue to do my job and capture the story of their wedding day."

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Once again, the Duchess of Cambridge is proving she's just like Lizzie McGuire. A total outfit-repeater.

Kate Middleton attended London's EACH (East Anglia's Children's Hospices) event alongside husband, Prince William, on Wednesday, and went back into her wardrobe to pull out an old favourite for the gala.

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Sporting her sequin-embellished gown by Jenny Packham that she wore five years ago at the 10th annual ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) gala at Kensington Palace, the 34-year-old royal looked stunning at the event benefiting the Nook Appeal, a fund to build a new hospice in Norfolk, England.

The Swarovski crystal and pearlescent rose dress, originally retailed at $5,015, is a standout from Packham's 2011 collection. Featuring mesh shoulder details, a high-neckline and fluttering sleeves, Kate paired the shimmering frock with a pale pink L.K. Bennett Agata bow sandals, a rose-coloured clutch and a diamond bracelet.

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Unlike five years ago, where she dawned her signature blowout with the look, the Duchess opted to wear her hair in a low bun this time around.

There's no doubt this Jenny Packham gown is a special one for Catherine. She wore this dress to her very first royal engagement, shortly after she tied the knot with Will.

The Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge Arrive At The 10Th Annual Ark (Absolute Return For Kids) Gala Dinner, at Kensington Palace, in Kensington, London back in 2011.

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And just like Lizzie McGuire, Kate Middleton proves if you find something that works for you, roll with it.

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OTTAWA  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police spent nearly $478,000 investigating Sen. Mike Duffy and preparing for his trial, The Huffington Post Canada has learned.

Documents released under the Access to Information Act show a total of $477,858.52 was spent on "Project AMBLE," the Mounties' probe of Duffy. The bulk of the money  $402,901.29  was spent on the investigation itself: $320,039.80 on salaries and overtime and $82,861.49 on travel and forensic accountants. Court preparation accounted for $49,199.03 and the trial for $25,758.20.

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Sen. Mike Duffy leaves the courthouse in Ottawa on Friday, August 14, 2015. (Photo: Fred Chartrand/CP)

But that nearly half a million dollars in RCMP expenses comes on top of the tens of thousands of dollars spent by the province of Ontario in court costs. At least $60,000 was paid to the judge for overseeing the 62-day trial and deciding Duffy's fate  not to mention the rest of the court staff, the Crown attorneys, and security costs.

The Senate also spent $137,784 on an audit looking into Duffy and fellow senators Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb's travel and living expenses.

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Thursday, Duffy referred calls to his lawyer Donald Bayne. Bayne laughed when asked if he thought the taxpayers had gotten good value for their money.

"I'm not going to comment on that," he said. "I guess people can make their own decision based on the judgement of the trial judge."

Judge admonished Harper's staff

Duffy was cleared of all charges by justice Charles Vaillancourt on April 21. The judge admonished former prime minister Stephen Harper's office saying staff had acted in a "mind-boggling and shocking" manner.

In 2014, the RCMP laid 31 charges against Duffy, a former television broadcaster, including multiple counts of fraud and breach of trust and one charge of bribery for accepting a $90,000 cheque from Harper's then chief of staff, Nigel Wright.

Wright's money was intended to repay the living expenses that Duffy had charged to the Senate for sleeping and eating in his long-time Ottawa home. The senator had refused to pay back the funds, believing he had legitimate claim to the expenses under the Senate's rules.

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His 62-day trial lay bare the lengths to which Harper's staff had gone to insist Duffy admit wrongdoing and put a politically toxic issue to bed.

Total trial costs under wraps for now

The total costs of the trial will be kept under wraps for now. Brendan Crawley, spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General in Ontario, told HuffPost the province wouldn't be able to provide a breakdown.

"The Ministry receives an annual budget, and from this budget we pay for the cost of administering the court system and prosecuting criminal offences," he wrote in an email.

The Ministry's Estimates Briefing Book estimates about $465 million was spent on court services in the province last year.

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'Project AMBLE' costs for the RCMP. (Photo: Althia Raj/HuffPost)

"These are largely fixed costs that the Ministry incurs which are not specific to a particular matter," Crawley noted in an email. "The cost of a court case includes the salaries and benefits of the relevant justice participants, which may include the judiciary, court staff, Crowns, duty counsel, and victim services, as well as facility costs such as the operation and maintenance of the building, and other direct operating expenses.

"These annual costs are not tracked by individual criminal court matter," he wrote.

The RCMP declined to comment.

Senate committee wants Duffy on hook for more

Late Wednesday night, Duffy's office issued a press release saying the Senate's internal economy committee was after him to repay $16,955 in expenses that an Ontario judge had exonerated him on.

The clerk of committee wrote in a June 8 letter that Duffy released that "new information had surfaced in the public domain'' which warranted an assessment of the eligibility of some expenses and cited seven specific expenses, ranging from $10,000 for a personal trainer to $8 for personal photos  both of which came up during Duffy's high-profile trial.

Bayne told HuffPost "it looked like" some Conservative senators were after Duffy to repay something to justify the Tories' actions. After the Wright cheque became public, Duffy was kicked out of the Tory caucus and suspended from the upper chamber without pay.

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In this artist's sketch, Sen. Mike Duffy responds to defence lawyer Donald Bayne at his trial in Ottawa, Monday, Dec. 14, 2015. (Photo: Greg Banning/CP)

In a letter to the clerk, Bayne wrote that his client has been "fully exonerated'' on the seven expenses in question and called the Senate's persistence "a further compounding of injustice upon injustice, and should be stopped.''

"The man has already paid a penalty that nobody else has paid of $155,000 in foregone salary plus pension, plus all the allowances he was denied, plus the reputational damage," he told HuffPost.

"I think when reasonable senators stand back and look at this, this would be not reflective of their wishes, it makes the Senate look bad, frankly," he added. "He has already paid ten times the value of this."

Bayne, however, told CBC he's still considering legal action to recoup Duffy's loss of salary.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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Oil analysts expect Canadian crude oil supply to jump by one million barrels per day in the next 14 years  even as prices remain near the lowest they've been in two years.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) released a report Thursday in which it projects that Canadian crude oil production will total 4.93 million barrels per day by 2030.

That's an increase of about 28 per cent, or 1 million barrels per day over 2015 levels (3.85 million b/d).

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But that represents a lower estimate than previous years. CAPP projected last year that 2030 production levels would be 400,000 million barrels per day more than what it thinks they will be now.

The association attributed the new estimates to lower production in conventional oil wells, as well as from mining and in-situ projects.

And it was anything but optimistic about any new projects happening in the near future.

"The timing for the startup of oilsands projects in the future have been deferred in consideration of the weaker price environment," the report said.

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CAPP used the report to argue for more pipeline infrastructure to move product to overseas markets.

Canada's pipeline network can currently handle approximately 4 million barrels per day, and last year production averaged 3.89 million barrels per day. But CAPP sees supply growing by over 700,000 barrels per day from 2021 to 2030, meaning the existing pipeline network couldn't handle the increased production.

"This means Canada's oil supply will soon greatly exceed its current pipeline capacity," it said.

There are three pipeline projects that oilsands operators hope to realize: Enbridge's Northern Gateway project, which could carry 500,000 barrels per day, and was approved by the federal government in 2014; the expansion of Kinder Morgan's TransMountain pipeline, which would increase its capacity from 300,000 to 850,000 barrels per day (and which is National Energy Board-approved); and Energy East, which would carry 1.1 million barrels per day.

All three projects have proven controversial.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said two months ago his government supports pipelines, but it does not support the current Northern Gateway route, which would run from the oilsands, across northern B.C. to a port in Kitimat.

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Meanwhile, the Kinder Morgan project, which would expand a pipeline that runs from the oilsands to a port in Burnaby, B.C., is facing a legal challenge from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson to block its construction.

Energy East, which would run from the oilsands to a port in New Brunswick, has been formally opposed by the Assembly of First Nations in Quebec-Labrador.

But CAPP President and CEO Tim McMillan insists that Canada needs these projects.

"The need to build new energy infrastructure within Canada is clearly urgent," he said.

"New pipelines will deliver more Canadian energy to Canadians, build our country's economic prosperity and help Canada meet the world's growing energy needs."

CAPP sees crude demand increasing from China and India by 10.8 million barrels per day by 2040  an amount "equal to almost 84 per cent of total world oil demand increase in 2040 from 2014," the report said.

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But Keith Stewart, a campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told The Globe and Mail that such growth would not help Canada meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 30 per cent below 2005 levels in 2030.

"I can understand why oil companies want Canadians to believe our energy future is tied to what they are selling," he said. "But our governments should acknowledge that there is no market for this additional high carbon oil in a world that is acting on climate change."

Oil prices have rebounded somewhat after West Texas Intermediate fell to a low of $27 per barrel in January, for the first time in 13 years, according to CNBC.

"The need to build new energy infrastructure within Canada is clearly urgent."

They have since rebounded to about $50 per barrel, although even that's not enough to spur investment in Canada's energy sector, Royal Bank of Canada president and CEO Dave McKay told BNN.

He said the price of oil is dragging on Canada's economy.

"It's having a more profound effect on the Canadian economy than we would have expected," he told the network. "It's constraining growth not just in Alberta, but nationally as well.'

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On Wednesday night, Prince William and Kate Middleton attended the Taste Of Norfolk charity dinner in support of the new East Anglia's Children's Hospice, The Nook. The Duchess of Cambridge has served as patron for the East Anglia's Children's Hospices since January 2012.

The mom of two joked that the dinner, which was prepared by five Michelin-starred chefs, was something her husband was looking forward to since, as she put it "William has to put up with my cooking most of the time."

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Without missing a beat, the Duke teased "it's the reason I'm so skinny," Hello magazine reports.

The Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge attend a cooking workshop, and reception, at The Institut De Tourisme Et D'Hotellerie Du Quebec, in Montreal on July 4, 2011.

Though the couple joked that Kate's cooking leaves something to be desired, it's not for lack of trying. In 2013, it was widely reported the Duchess was receiving cooking lessons from the couple's housekeeper, Antonella Fresolone, who worked in Buckingham Palace for 13 years and was famous for her delicious Italian cooking.

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Hey, at least she's trying!

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Former Progressive Conservative MP Robin Richardson has unleashed a new political party with the mandate to make Vancouver Island Canada's 11th province.

Richardson, founder of the Vancouver Island Party, told The Globe and Mail the island would be "better off" independent from mainland B.C.

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Party promises 'lower or even free' tuiton

The party plans to run candidates in Vancouver Island's 14 ridings in the province's upcoming election next year, according to Parksville Qualicum Beach News.

"Our beloved Islands distinct way of life is under threat from severe climate change, federal and provincial government indifference and economic, environmental and social injustices," the party's website states.

Its platform includes "lower or even free" ferry fares and tuition. If it succeeds in its mission, the party will call on the the federal government to pay off the island's "share of the BC provincial debt and unfunded liabilities."

We are a party that is fiscally responsible, we are socially progressive and environmentally green and culturally respectful," Richardson told the Globe.

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'Island first'

CBC News reports Richardson and his party have launched a petition calling on the province to hold a referendum in 2021, so Islanders could vote to stay or go.

"Our motto is 'Island first and proud of it,'" Richardson told the broadcaster.

But B.C. Premier Christy Clark isn't losing sleep over the partys radical proposal.

I tell you, if they leave British Columbia, they are not going to be getting any of those LNG revenues," she said.

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Eric Vidal / Reuters British students hold UK and European Union flags in front of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, June 23, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Vidal

Why were non-UK politicians around the world obsessed with weighing in on the Brexit debate? It's unbecoming for politicians to act like the nosy neighbour and get involved in the domestic dispute of a sovereign state.

Unfortunately, Brexit has polarized the population in the UK. It has pitted regions against each other and has caused deep divides within political parties. But what's more troublesome is people that have no right to vote in the referendum aren't just engaged in the debate, they are attempting to influence its outcome. It's doubly worse that many of these people are elected politicians of foreign states.

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It was disappointing to observe politicians visit the UK to publicly advocate for one side of the campaign. President Obama's warnings of the consequences of a "leave" vote for the UK paved the way for the Canadian prime minister and his ministers to enter the debate. Threatening adverse trade consequences isn't the way to force a close ally into making a decision that's in the best interests of the the rest of the world.

Politicians are often reminded not to comment on an election campaign in another country.

While it would be acceptable for a politician to say, "a united Europe is good for trade and good for Canada," it's crossing the line to say, "Great Britain staying in the EU is the best outcome for the UK."

On what basis do foreign politicians make these kinds of statements? How possibly would they know what is good for Britain? Would we appreciate foreign dignitaries voicing support for a vote to repeal NAFTA or support a succession referendum in Quebec? In 1967, Canadians were betrayed by French President Charles De Gaulle when he exclaimed while visiting, "Vive le Quebec libre"; an undeniable and unnecessary nod to the Quebec separatist movement.

It is equally as egregious when foreign politicians voice their support for Brexit. This week, Conservative MP Andrew Scheer penned an open letter in the National Post supporting the "leave" side.

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Politicians are often reminded not to comment on an election campaign in another country. This wise advice isn't just to avoid offending someone you might have to work with, it's because common decency demands it. A referendum is no different and we've seen they can be just as nasty as general elections.

The Brexit debate belongs within the borders of the UK -- with those that will have to live everyday with the realities of being in or out of the EU. UK politicians, business leaders, unions, new immigrants, British expats, regular citizens, and yes, its central bank governor, have a right and perhaps a duty to discuss openly the risks and benefits of a "leave" vote.

Living in a free state includes respecting those with a view that is different to your.

In fact, Canada thinks it's so important that foreigners mind their own business during general elections that the Canada Elections Act prohibits non-residents from inducing electors to vote or refrain from voting for any particular candidate.

It's fine for us, as Canadians, to form a view, perhaps even a preferred result. But when we try to enter the debate with the intention to influence the outcome, it undermines the democratic process. It's meddling.

We could say, "we'd love for you to remain engaged," but it should end there. If our views truly mattered, we'd be given a vote.

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Living in a free state includes respecting those with a view that is different to yours. It is also about recognizing that your right to an opinion doesn't extend to a right to publicly influence a vote in a sovereign nation. Instead, all of us ought to observe these votes from the sidelines and enjoy the beauty of democracy at work. We take for granted living in a part of the world where votes are free and everyone can engage in the process. There are no sham elections and no military leaders or dictators imposing their will.

As Canadians, how we reacted during Brexit was a test run for the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. Many of us failed. While we should attempt to empathize with our neighbours, we shouldn't pretend to grasp fully what it's like to be a UK or U.S. citizen. Our political leaders shouldn't try to publicly influence votes in democratic sovereign states and they should be prepared to work with and support our closest allies regardless of the outcome.

After all, minding our own business is the Canadian thing to do.

Adam Chambers is the former director of policy to Canada's Minister of Finance and holds a JD/MBA from Western University

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heyengel via Getty Images Vancouver skyline at sunset as seen from Stanley Park, British Columbia, Canada

Premier Christy Clark held her annual BC Liberal leader's dinner in downtown Vancouver a few weeks ago, which as usual brought in over $1 million for her party's coffers. Continuing to advance her storyline from the 2013 election, Ms. Clark extolled the virtues of developing BC's liquefied natural gas (LNG) reserves as the path to long-term prosperity for the province.

The irony of the Premier's message is that it had little to do with the current economic climate in the city in which it took place. It also demonstrated how the Premier's single-issue focus is hurting emerging industries that warrant attention, but are getting little from the government.

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While the LNG "industry" has an LNG-Buy BC advocate that gets paid $150,000 per year by the BC government, there will not be one LNG project that is up and running by the 2017 election (in spite of a promise that the first would be opened in 2015). The industry employs a tiny workforce in Vancouver, due to proposed projects sitting in limbo, uncertain about environmental approval or economic viability.

Contrast this with Vancouver's tech sector, which has really experienced a breakthrough over the past three years, both in terms of flexing its economic strength and grabbing attention across the world. This recent boom is fuelled by an explosion of dynamic start-ups, the successful recruitment of companies like Microsoft and Amazon, and the ease of bringing skilled foreign workers to Canada as compared to the US.

According to a recently released labour market outlook from the Information and Communications Technology Council (the "ICTC"), there are currently 74,530 people working in information and communications technology in Vancouver, which is more than oil & gas, forestry and mining combined. The ICTC estimates that there will be 15,500 new tech openings in Vancouver by 2019.

Herein lies the biggest issue the sector faces as it continues to establish Vancouver as a hub in the mould of Silicon Valley.

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The reality is that tech worker "millennials" as they are so often called, are extremely vulnerable to the market, with the lowest purchasing power and access to capital/savings of any demographic.

Now this isn't a unique situation for our sector, as evidenced by Vancouver conversations these days, which are consumed with real estate chatter everywhere you turn.

Economically, however, it is particularly relevant when considering the widespread demand for tech professionals in cities across the world. This means that not only are Vancouver tech companies competing against each other for human resources, but against aggressive international recruitment campaigns.

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One of the main reasons I decided to relocate Canada Drives to Vancouver in 2014 was due to an abundance of talent. The city was drawing in amazing tech professionals from across Canada and the world, and we knew that this was the calibre of candidates necessary for our company to reach the next level.

And it worked. We touched down in YVR with six employees, and 18 months later, are on track to grow to 250 by the end of 2016. Navigating the company's next phase of expansion, however, is proving far more difficult than the first.

As a tech entrepreneur whose wagon is firmly hitched to the City of Vancouver, I'm growing tired of politicians that don't seem to fully understand the impact of this housing crisis.

For several years, BC's tech sector has grown at double the rate of the provincial economy, in spite of the fact that our province lags behind other jurisdictions when it comes to tech exports, jobs, GDP contribution and availability of investment. In other words, the sector is succeeding in spite of a lack of attention from policymakers.

The fact that Vancouver serves as the economic epicentre of the industry, however, means that the ongoing lack of affordability could cause a chain reaction that forever cripples tech's future potential across the province.

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Policy makers would be wise to carefully consider this before offering further inaction, which will have far longer implications than the four-year election cycle.
Last week, I packed my swimsuit and headed to Miami, Florida. I'm sure it's hard to believe, but I didn't spend four days on South Beach simply for sun and surf. As someone who's been a working journalist and video content creator for more than a decade, I want to take my storytelling to the next level, particularly when it comes to telling the stories of black women. I want to be someone who helps change the narrative. The 20th anniversary of the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) seemed like the right place to cultivate creative inspiration. Was it ever!

I won't bother burying the good stuff. I attend two panel discussions that were probably life changing. The first was a conversation with rapper and actor Common, who served as ABFF's ambassador this year. The insights journalist Roland Martin pulled out of Common were utterly amazing.

Common straight up said his art is made for black people. "Black love is the most important aspect of my life. Black love and God's love," said Common. As I'm sure you know, Common won an Oscar with John Legend this year for their song "Glory," featured in Ava DuVernay's film Selma. Surprisingly, however, Common said he hasn't been inspired to create his own music for a while. He said it's just been within the past six months that he's found new inspiration through writer Ta-Nashi Coates, rapper Kendrick Lamar, the musical Hamilton, and the movie Straight Outta Compton. Common shared some of his new material with us and it was pure fire.

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Here's a verse he dropped:

"You know we're from a family of fighters. Fighting your wars and our wars. You put a ni**a in Star Wars. Maybe you need two. And then, and then, maybe we'll believe you."

I captured a bit more of Common's new rhymes on video here.

I also had a chance to speak with Roland Martin one-on-one. He talked about increased demand for African-American content in order to feed a 24-hour pipeline in the industry. "Before you had your big studios, only had three broadcast networks, they had no outlets. Now all of a sudden you expand that with cable television, and now that grows more black networks, more networks targeting African-Americans," said Martin. "For those folks who have been doing films, been doing projects, they now have a larger market place for their products, whereas before this was a more insular deal. Now those same outlets are taking advantage of these sort of venues, because they need the content," he said.

Martin says ABFF is the place for black creators to push their platforms and to learn. "Coming here allows people to be able to communicate, to talk with, to talk with those individuals who've gone down this path; Folks who have experience dealing with financing, and dealing with distribution, and dealing with negotiation," he said.

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The other truly phenomenal panel I attended was hosted by attorney and TV personality Star Jones for Nate Parker's film The Birth of a Nation. Let me just say Parker took the crowd to church. There were literal tears. His conviction is everything. "We need to be open to the idea that our narrative has been hijacked," said he. "We need to take it back."

Parker said he doesn't think African-Americans have confronted our history in a realistic way and says his film is a call to action. "I'm not concerned with how white people see us. I'm more concerned with how we've been conditioned to see ourselves," said Parker.

Star Jones, Aja Naomi King, Gabrielle Union, and Nate Parker. Photo by: Giselle Phelps

Parker was also joined on the panel with two of his female co-stars in The Birth of a Nation, actresses Aja Naomi King and Gabrielle Union. Union talked about how she doesn't take jobs for money anymore. She said she's more interested in feeding her soul, and creating jobs for black peers in Hollywood, than she is in chasing paper. It was an incredibly candid and powerful dialogue.

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I was super excited to find black Canadian actress Andrea Lewis at ABFF. Lewis who is probably best known for her role in Degrassi: The Next Generationwas at the festival with her web series called Black Actress. She talked about the important role ABFF plays. "It supports actors, creators, writers, filmmakers of color and we need more outlets like that. We don't have a lot of them, so to have one that I think is on the professionalism, and on the magnitude of the American Black Film Festival, it's so necessary," Lewis said.

She also talked about creating opportunities for other black Canadian talent. "I still do work with black Canadians. I still bring them [along], like Allison who is my co-star. We film the whole show in New York, but I bring her from Toronto to New York to film with us, so you still kind of represent how you can," said Lewis.

The need to collaborate with and support black creators across the diaspora was a reoccurring theme throughout ABFF. "At the end of the day, we don't need to wait on anybody. We just have to be our people, our own bosses, give our own opinion on what we like and what we don't like. Not having to wait on everybody else to tell us what's good and what's not good," said Haitian actor Jimmy Jean-Louis, who was at the festival premiere his new film Everything But a Man. Jean-Louis said black creators need to recognize our collective power. "I'm talking about the black people here, the black people from Africa, the black people from South America, the Caribbean, if we could somehow find a way to unite, we'd be extremely strong," he said.

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This is something hip hop artist and activist David Banner touched on too when I caught up with him. "We beg for people to give us space, but I disagree with that. I believe we should create our own space," he said. Banner also said having our own networks isn't enough. He thinks black creatives in film and television need to build an entire system. "Black people spend trillions of dollars and we affect fashion and television all over the world. Imagine if we created that power," said Banner.

I've been to Miami Beach several times over the years. This is the first time I've left Miami with more than a golden glow and drunken memories. This trip to Miami left me motivated to be bold(er) and unapologetic in my blackness. Sure the dips in the Ritz Carlton pool, the cocktails I sipped on at the Catalina Hotel, and the fancy dinners with friends at The Setai were nice, but this festival experience was deep. It's kinda of cliche to say the time is now, but it really is. Actor Deon Cole who stars in ABC's hit show Blackish told me, "It's a good time to be black on television right now and that's why I'm here to support," he said.

It's one thing to hear things anecdotally, but this ABFF experience really showed me that it truly is an important time to be black creator, period. I plan to answer Nate Parker's call to action, take my ideas off the back burner, and do some work. It would be a hot mess if I didn't! We all know it's gonna take fresh perspectives to keep this train moving. I'm on board and thankful for the inspiration.

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Chris Wattie / Reuters Conservative Member of Parliament Deepak Obhrai speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa April 2, 2014. REUTERS/Chris Wattie (CANADA - Tags: POLITICS)

In the political world, some wounds just never heal, regardless of their context.

It wasn't just the country in general that endured the embarrassment of Canada being rejected for a seat on the UN security council in 2010, but the Conservative government itself that had to live with the reality that it presided over that ignominy, even though Canada had succeeded in similar votes six times in the past. So, yes, it was a deep source of embarrassment and there was no shortage of blame to go around.

But that was almost six years ago -- eons in political terms. Yet here was Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai this week claiming that the reason for that earlier humiliation lay squarely at the feet of the European Union, who, he charges, worked diligently to keep Canada from getting the coveted Security Council vote back in 2010. His reasons were many, some valid, some not, but it was his support of Brexit and getting Britain out of the European Union that caused him to trot out his reasons all over again.

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I worked with Obhrai for a few years on the foreign affairs committee in Parliament, where we struck up an amicable relationship despite my being a Liberal opposition member on the committee. At the time, he was the Parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs and he carried sway on the committee. But, as with others, he would often say bombastic things that related little to the discussion at hand.

Leaving aside his support of Brexit and his reasons for claiming the EU had purposely spoiled Canada's chances for the security council seat, it's prudent for us to recall just how this country was viewed at that time by other nations.

Nothing can cover up the reality that Canada was seen as a purposeful laggard at global conferences on climate change, especially at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009. Our willingness to fly in the face of growing international support for environmental reforms left some lasting damage.

By refusing to sign the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples back in 2007, the global community was forced into doing a double take in its assessment of this country as a fair-minded champion for human rights. And then the Harper government repeated that same decision in 2014, becoming the only UN member to fail to sign.

The most tragic moment of my tenure on the foreign affairs committee came when we hosted a group of African nations who begged us to reverse our development cuts to seven of those countries. I blogged about it that day, but the global effects of our government's refusal to even seriously reconsider the cuts had a profound impact when those same nations placed their votes regarding the security council seat.

For better or worse, the Harper government's strident pro-Israeli stance alienated numerous governments in the Middle East and North Africa. It's likely many of those nations voted for another contender for the security council seat.

The above list could be easily extended, but the point should be made that Canada's rejection in its seeking the UN seat came from issues related across many disciplines, and not just European Union interests. With a sense of polished vagueness, former UN ambassador under Brian Mulroney, Yves Fortier, nevertheless spelled it out when telling the Globe and Mail that the rejection was the "lamentable result" and a reflection of things Canada has "done or not done that a majority of nations disapprove of."

Our slide in international esteem became apparent two years later when Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird addressed the general assembly on Middle East issues. His reception compared to those of other nations was stark and troubling. Check it out here.

On CBC television's At Issue panel this week, the Huffington Post's Althia Raj noted that Obhrai has been sending signals that he is interested in the Conservative Party leadership. It's usually in such a context that leadership aspirants say excessive things in order to garner attention for their upcoming candidacy.

Deepak Obhrai served the Harper government well during his many years of service, but in blaming Canada's rejection at the UN on the European Union he has shown a partisan and clear disregard for those numerous other issues that resulted in one of our great diplomatic failures.

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Laszlo Balogh / Reuters A beekeeping expert shows a beehive honeycomb frame at the Apiarian Research Centre in Godollo, 25 km east of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on June 5, 2013. Picture taken July 5, 2013. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh (HUNGARY - Tags: ENVIRONMENT ANIMALS)

If you want to stay healthy by eating right, there's a catch: It's getting more and more expensive.

For fruits and vegetables alone, price increases of 10 to 15 per cent per annum have become the new norm.

In which case, here's society's crucial challenge: Can these price escalations be curbed? And can it be done before these health-promoting foods become unaffordable for all too many of us?

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Fortunately, meaningful cost containment -- which will ultimately benefit consumers -- is on the way, especially for organic produce. And it's thanks to a Canadian innovation called "vectoring."

How a Canadian Company is Creating a "Green" Buzz

A small Mississauga-based agri-tech company called Bee Vector Technologies (BVT) has created an environmentally friendly alternative to spraying crops with toxic pesticides.

It also provides farmers with meaningful cost savings, especially over the long-term -- savings that can be passed on to consumers.

In field trials, BVT (TSX.V: BEE)(OTCQB: BEVVF) is using commercially raised "worker" bumblebees as a precise means of inoculating flowering crops with organic, naturally occurring pesticides -- known as bio-controls.

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In fact, vectoring is expected to capture significant market share for the safeguarding of North America's $65-billion annual output of fruits and vegetables, according to BVT's CEO Michael Collinson.

The biggest selling point of vectoring is that crops can be protected from diseases without the frequent use of toxic chemicals and large amounts of potable water to disperse those chemicals over farm fields.

This represents a desperately needed game-changer, Collinson says. And it's all because both of these cost inputs are ultimately unsustainable, especially for drought-stricken Californian farmers, he adds.

He offers an illustration of what he means: "Each acre that's used to grow strawberries requires about 300 pounds of synthetic pesticides in conventional farming. It becomes very costly and water-intensive."

He adds, "Worse still, disease pathogens build-up a tolerance to these chemicals over time. And so the pesticides lose their effectiveness, leading to poorer yields."

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Not only that, but all too often they fail to find their intended targets when sprayed by crop dusters, or by other mechanical means.

Instead, most of what's dispersed into the air over farm fields ends up contaminating the soil and proximal waterways with toxic run-off. Over time, this degrades the quality of the soil, making it less fertile, i.e. less productive for farming.

Over two decades in the making, BVT's bee has another key advantage: Unlike many increasingly controversial synthetic pesticides, it doesn't inadvertently kill vast numbers of bees.

As an aside, one teaspoon of the pesticide clothianidin is enough to deliver a lethal dose to 1.25 billion honey bees, according to studies.

In fact, super-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides (neurotoxins) have been linked to mass die-offs of commercial honey bees (known as colony collapse disorder), as well as wild bumblebees.

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Since 2010, about 35 per cent of Canada's honey bees have perished, according to the Canadian Honey Council.

More Organic Food = More Affordable

Vectoring is proving to be an especially cost-effective way of improving organic farming yields. It also improves the quality and shelf life of produce, Collinson says.

Significantly, its pending commercialization won't come a moment too soon. Supplies of organics are often stretched to the limit due to ever-increasing consumer demand. This has been exacerbated by the record drought in California, which is where much of the continent's organic produce is grown.

Not surprising, prices invariably trend higher when supplies can't keep up with demand.

What makes BVT so disruptive is that its commercially raised "worker" bumblebees are used to deliver organic crop controls directly to the targeted plants. And it's all done with perfect precision.

This is analogous to using armed drones to surgically destroy disease pathogens, versus using high-altitude bombs that are so imprecise that they cause serious collateral damage (think environmental harm).

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The Cool Factor: How Vectoring Works

A specially designed tray (seen below) is inserted into the entrance of each hive containing a patented powder, which is the "vectorite." It has been designed to stick to the bees' legs as they exit the hive to pollinate flowering crops.

Depending on the crops being treated, any number of organic pesticides can be selected to be mixed in with the vectorite. Up to a dozen or so of the most common diseases that target produce can be combated this way.

Each time a bee lands on a flower, it unwittingly leaves behind the organic pesticide. And a hive of 300 bumblebees can provide natural, non-toxic disease protection to as many as 10 million flowers.

To date, BVT has had considerable success in using certain naturally occurring fungal spores, referred to as BVT-CR7, which is also a patented product. It fights the spread of a common blight that harms strawberries, known as botrytis, which causes a ruinous grey mould.

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Readers will be happy to hear that neither the vectorite nor the disease-fighting bio-controls are detrimental to the bees' health. These natural, non-genetically-modified compounds are also harmless to other living organisms, including humans.

The Big Picture: Going Mainstream

It bears repeating that this agri-tech is ideal for helping organic farmers fight pests with the help of Mother Nature's pharmacology. But as a bonus, it can also boost harvests by up to a third, or more, Collinson says.

For now, BVT is focusing on commercially popular crops like berries, tomatoes, apples, almonds and sunflowers. But over time, up to six dozen additional flowering crops could be added to this list.

Yet the ability to administer bio-controls so effectively will eventually be adopted by non-organic, industrial-scale agribusinesses, Collinson says. They too stand to benefit from the cost savings and increased revenues.

This all offers BVT a very scalable business model in the near term that's tailor made for a burgeoning multi-billion dollar organic produce industry.

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Within several years, BVT should be ready to help Big Agriculture balance the needs of maximizing output while also cultivating a more environmentally-conscious image. That' the big picture. And it's a win-win scenario for everyone, Collinson says.

It's also where early-stage investors should enjoy the stock market equivalent of a bumper harvest.

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AHMED FARWAN via Getty Images Construction cranes are seen in Saudi Arabia's holy Muslim city of Mecca on September 12, 2015, a day after a crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque. This year's Muslim Hajj pilgrimage will go ahead despite a crane collapse which killed more than 100 people at the Grand Mosque of Mecca, a Saudi official told AFP. AFP PHOTO / AHMED FARWAN (Photo credit should read AHMED FARWAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Given Islam's origins in the Arab peninsula, sand is something that many Muslims are not entirely unfamiliar with. Many Canadian Muslims migrated from sand-rich countries. Thousands of Canadian Muslims join the many millions of pilgrims who visit Mecca every year. Sand is thus not novel for Muslims. It is familiar. So nobody should be especially surprised to learn that "let's bury our head in the sand" is a sport that too many Canadian Muslims play rather well.

Let's step back with some context, first. 2015 was a vintage year for Canadian Muslims. It emerged with an electoral voice after years of political reticence. An estimated 79 per cent of Canadian Muslims voted in the federal election, a sharp upturn from the estimated 46.5 per cent who voted in 2011. Stephen Harper's Islamophobia motivated Canadian Muslims to vote -- which they did, and overwhelmingly against his party. A staggering 98 per cent of Canadian Muslims voted against the Conservatives.

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This participation was important not just for Canadian Muslims, but all Canadians -- one of the country's largest communities partook in this defining act of civil society. Participation signaled ownership. Migration is not like instant coffee. It takes decades to effect. So this particular voter participation was heartening because it reflected the reality that Canadian Muslims increasingly see Canada as "home." In the face of rising Islamophobia, led by none other than the prime minister, Canadian Muslims weren't leaving. They had migrated. They were Canadian.

The problem? Well, it's slipperier than that. The real problem for Canada's Muslims is that they ignore their biggest problems. The collective head is somewhat in the sand. You'd think that Canada's Muslims would allocate resources to the issues that they most stress or worry about, but they don't.

Hate crimes against Muslims have more than doubled in three years though hate crimes nationally have declined.

Is the community waiting for the Mehdi, a prophesied redeemer of Islam, to fix matters for them? Or is there an inertia of this is what we did before and it's what we're going to continue to do? Probably the latter. What are these sources of angst? Two things stand out above all else, obvious not only in the empirical research but also in social media and the natters at the baklava stand.

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First, there's Islamophobia. Some 54 per cent of Canadians distrust Muslims, a much higher level of fear than of any other religious community. Hate crimes against Muslims have more than doubled in three years though hate crimes nationally have declined. Seven per cent of Canadian Muslims rank Islamophobia as the most important issue facing the entire country, not just their own community. That's up from four per cent in 2006. Meanwhile, 35 per cent of Canadian Muslims feel that Islamophobia is the most important issue facing the community specifically. Islamophobia alarms Canadian-born Muslim women especially. In a survey published in 2016, 62 per cent of them said they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" about discrimination against Muslims.

Islamophobia, as you might expect, ties into the second serious problem that Canadian Muslims face -- economic discrimination. Unemployment amongst Canada's 1.1 million Muslims is almost twice as high as it is for the population at large despite Canada's Muslims being far better formally educated than the national average. Little wonder that while 13 per cent of the national population consider unemployment to be the most important issue facing Canada today, 18 per cent of Canadian Muslims consider it the most important issue. In the same earlier survey, a striking 53 per cent of the community claimed that it was either 'very worried' or 'somewhat worried' about unemployment.

Building mosques is neither going to challenge Islamophobia nor give jobs to Muslims.

In light of these pressing concerns, where does the community dedicate its resources? What is it trying to fix? Well, one thing is for sure, it's not towards tackling Islamophobia or Muslim unemployment. My estimate, having gotten to understand who is doing what in this space over the last couple of years, is that in 2015, Canadian Muslims probably didn't even allocate a combined million dollars in the direction of tackling their two major anxieties. In other words, on average, each Muslim gave less than the cost of a small Tim Hortons coffee towards the two issues that Canadian Muslims are most stressed about.

So, what causes then do Canadian Muslims contribute to? The bulk of social and community funding goes to charitable work and developing mosques. Muslims give tens of millions of dollars to charities. Two leading recipient organisations are Islamic Development Relief and Islamic Relief, who between themselves raised almost C$21 million from (overwhelmingly Muslim) public donations in 2015 for desperate people, mostly outside of Canada. At one level, this does little to resolve either Islamophobia or Muslim unemployment. In fairness, it also speaks volumes about the community's selflessness -- helping people who are often without food, water and shelter. It would be wrong to fault this.

The other big cause that Canadian Muslims contribute to is in building mosques -- which now needs some Ramadan-inspired self-reflection. Just west of Toronto, there are mosques going up in Mississauga, Oakville and Hamilton to the tune of C$35 million. It's possible that the total funding being assembled for mosques across Canada stands at C$100 million. I'd not raise an eyebrow if Canadian Muslims had infinite resources or their lot was hunky dory. However, building mosques is neither going to challenge Islamophobia nor give jobs to Muslims. The point that Haroon Moghul makes about the U.S. is as valid here in Canada:

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"We've spent tens of millions of dollars in the United States, for example, and on what? We have some nice mosques. Most of them are empty most of the week, except for a few hours every Friday afternoon. We built some Islamic schools. I guess that's cool. But on the major metric, we've failed. It feels as if we are more unpopular than ever."

Tackling Islamophobia or Canadian Muslim unemployment is a problem not just for Canadian Muslims, but for all Canadians, meaning society and state. We, all Canadians, suffer from hate mongering and economic discrimination. That being said, if Canadian Muslims don't lead the effort to tackle these issues, including educating that same society and state, little will get accomplished. And to lead that effort, Canadian Muslims need to start thinking more strategically, aligning their limited resources to the issues that matter most to them. For now, most of the community can get by with the small mosques that it's been used to.

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By Michelle Gadd

If you live in Vancouver, escaping bustling city life for Bowen Island is like pushing the easy button for a revitalizing retreat. A 20-minute ferry ride to Snug Cove from Horseshoe Bay will drop you in an outdoor playground and foodie's paradise.

What better way to start off a foodie tour than with an eggs bennie brunch at The Snug Cafe? Once you're good and full, grab some fuel for your day at award-winning espresso maker Bowen Island Coffee. For the kids (or kids at heart) don't miss Candy in the Cove, the world's smallest candy store. We love the Disney-themed Pez dispenser sets and the Chickn Bones (don't be turned off by the name!).

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For lunch, visit Rustique Bistro for a menu of West Coast-influenced French Foods. Do your self a favour and order the galette Cocotte for a savoury mix of chicken, spinach, bechamel and brie. Have room for more? Order a bucket of shrimp at Doc Morgan's Pub and Restaurant and enjoy it on their beautiful patio overlooking Snug Cove.

To work off that food, hike straight from Snug Cove to Dorman Point. This two-kilometre trek lands you at a beautiful lookout over Howe Sound. If you prefer retail therapy to extended strenuous exercise, walk up the hill to Artisan Square. Browsing through the carefully curated selection of brands, like Mackage and Eliza Faulkner at Wren, is a must.

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Go Italian with dinner at Tuscany Restaurant in Snug Cove and order from a wide selection of oven-baked pizzas or a Special of the Day. Generous drink portions and a cosy, vine-draped patio infuse twilight with a true taste of Tuscany.

If you prefer vehicle transportation to foot travel on Bowen Island you can now rent a scooter from Zoom Zoom in Snug Cove. The rental is well worth it if you prefer accommodations further off the beaten trail. Alderwood Farm offers charming cottages (From $140). A stay at the farm also includes an epicurean breakfast basket from the onsite Bowen Butcher. The honey garlic sausage alone is worth the stay.

Another savoury accommodation on Bowen Island is The Chocolate Suite (From $125) which offers a unique twist on a B&B with chocolate for breakfast from Cocoa West Chocolatier. The renown chocolate shop features certified organic and locally sourced ingredients made by France-trained chocolatier Joanne Mogridge who brings European craftsmanship to the flavour and selection of chocolates on your bedside.

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But the sweets don't stop there: no trip would be complete without a slice at Lime & Moon Pie Company on the marina. Our favourites were the mouth-watering Strawberry-Rhubarb and Chocolate Banana Cream pie.

Going back for seconds could make you miss your ferry but don't worry; Lime & Moon delivers pie by mail!

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Don Johnston via Getty Images Mt Charlton and Mt Unwin reflected in Maligne Lake at dawn, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Written by Elizabeth Hendriks, VP Freshwater, WWF-Canada

A disturbing trend is emerging as we reach the 75 per cent mark in our work to assess the health of Canada's 25 major freshwater ecosystems and accurately understand the threats they face.

For far too many watersheds, basic water quality information is inaccessible. That's because it's locked away in the proprietary reports of corporations or tucked away in a file somewhere in an organization that is understaffed with overworked people. Or because it's simply not being collected in the first place.

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As Canadians, we have taken this resource for granted, assuming our bountiful supply of clean water would never run out.

That's a remarkable thing, when you consider the fundamental role that water plays in all our lives, and the value we Canadians place on freshwater as a resource and part of our identity.

Even in some of Canada's most densely populated and highly developed watersheds, such as the Great Lakes, we don't know the health of the waters that underpin our wellbeing and our economies.

At WWF-Canada, we view freshwater as one of Canada's most precious natural resources. It sustains us all, people and wildlife, and without access to a dependable supply of healthy freshwater, species suffer and our lifestyle and livelihoods are undermined. As Canadians, we have taken this resource for granted, assuming our bountiful supply of clean water would never run out. We haven't done enough to look at these watersheds in relation to each other, and the overall state of freshwater in the country.

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By working with conservation authorities, local environmental organizations and various levels of government, we're trying to change that. This first-ever nationwide assessment of freshwater ecosystems is designed to give Canadian decision makers the big data they need to make smart choices for the long-term health of our freshwater ecosystems. But it can only work if the data is being collected, and being made available. Openness and transparency are essential.

Earlier this week, the federal government announced a review of environmental and regulatory processes with the goal of restoring public trust in decision making. Without openness and transparency, that goal isn't attainable. A move to modernize the environmental assessment and regulatory review is a move in the right direction, but that review should result in action. And fast.

Across Canada, watersheds are facing a series of significant threats which, left unchecked, will jeopardize the health of water resources.

The first step is to ensure data is collected on the current health of all our freshwater ecosystems, and on the level of threat that pollution, overuse, invasive species, habitat loss and fragmentation, and climate change pose to those systems. Smart development decisions can't be made without understanding current conditions and potential impacts on our water supply.

Simultaneously, the government's review should result in open and free access to freshwater data by making transparency mandatory, regardless of who collects that data and for what purpose -- whether it's a mining company, a spring water bottler or an environmental group keeping tabs on the health of a stream or river.

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WWF-Canada's freshwater assessments analyses are accessible and available to everyone -- watershed advocates, scientists, governments and everyday citizens. You can find the results here. But we're not counting on the data to speak for itself. We are also collaborating with water stewardship groups who are advocating for better water policies with local, provincial and federal governments. Across Canada, watersheds are facing a series of significant threats which, left unchecked, will jeopardize the health of water resources.

From a lack of accessible data on overall water health, and the results from our threats assessment, it's clear we should all be concerned for the future of this natural resource.

What can you do? Support for WWF's research continues to be crucial to our success. We are building a network of people who are keen to take action to ensure that all Canada's waters are in good health. Earlier this week, 200 people joined our webinar to learn about the national results to date, and at the recent Peel Children's Water Festival in Brampton, Ont., hundreds of kids got excited about seeing Canada's waters in good health. They quickly understood that access to clean freshwater now and in the future is important for their quality of life and the health of other species, too. We invite you to help make this vision for healthy waters a reality. Take the plunge and commit to ensuring healthy waters for Canada.
Do you know that the EU has outstanding, unfunded liabilities of around 340 billion? No? Maybe it's naive of me, but I just assumed that since we're voting in a referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU, at the very least, voters would have been informed about the organisation's financial operations.

The liabilities stem from two principal sources: underfunded pensions and the Reste a Liquider. There's not a lot we can do about underfunded pensions except pay, and pensions exposure is currently estimated to be in the region of 104 billion, of which the UK's share will be around 11 billion. This sum is over and above our normal EU budget contribution.

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The Reste a Liquider is a fancy monicker for the EU's unfunded future liabilities. The EU commits to expenditure on the assumption that member states will continue to fund it. So it might agree to fund a 100 million infrastructure project over three years, but only receive the money for it over a much longer six-year period. This creates a gap between income and liabilities. The original idea behind the Reste a Liquider was to enable the EU to smoothly manage its commitments and not to be tied to receipts from member states.

The only problem is that the gap between income and liabilities has kept growing to the point where it now stands at around 220 billion. Total unfunded liabilities now equate to approximately 25% of the entire EU budget over the last six-year cycle, or over 140% of the EU's annual budget. The liability gap is so large that the ECR Policy Group has warned that the EU may soon be unable to pay its bills. The liabilities are starting to look a lot like an unapproved overdraft that's getting out of control.

The Reste a Liquider: An Unapproved, Out of Control Overdraft?

Source: The ECR Policy Group on Budgets

The EU Parliament's Committee on Budgets has said that in order to deal with the massive liabilities the EU must increase member contributions. If the EU decides to do this over the next budget cycle, Britain's net contribution could increase by over 40%, and this would only cover liabilities already incurred, not taking into account any planned increase in the forward budget.

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In total, these liabilities mean the UK is on the hook for more than 34 billion in addition to our ongoing EU budget contribution. The sums involved are staggering, but perhaps more troubling is the fact that the EU Parliament's Committee on Budgets drew attention to this problem in 2012, and, four years later, nobody has done anything about it. The liabilities grow larger each year, and if members' contributions are not significantly increased, the EU will start to resemble a Ponzi scheme, with incoming funds rapidly dispatched to meet previously accrued liabilities.

This black hole in the EU's finances demonstrates how unaccountable the EU is. These liabilities have been accrued without our approval, but we are on the hook for them. Even after four years nobody seems to have the political will to tackle the problem, which has reached the stage where one of the EU's own policy groups warns that, if the problem isn't addressed, the EU could become technically insolvent. I suppose this is one of the dangers of giving an unaccountable organisation a blank cheque to spend our money as it sees fit.

If you're planning to vote leave, this revelation will only confirm your belief that the EU is undemocratic and unaccountable. If you're planning to vote remain and this is the first you've heard of the black hole in the EU's finances, I have two questions for you:
I've been thinking a lot about teaching assistants this week.

As my Twitter followers might know, I've been tweeting about the Durham TAs and following the striking Derby TAs and generally, reflecting upon how badly we treat our school support staff. As a former teaching assistant myself, they have my total support.

However, I know not everyone is so supportive, particularly those who don't understand the nature of the job nor the context of the dispute.

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The argument that I keep hearing is this: "Why should TAs be paid for not working? I'm not." "It's not fair. I don't get 13 weeks paid holiday!"

So let me try and explain the position of these teaching assistants.

In certain local authorities, but namely Durham and Derby, councils are implementing an Equal Pay Review - the national Single Status Agreement. This is designed to standardise pay and conditions. The exception to this is teachers, who have their own nationally agreed pay and conditions document, youth workers and (surprise, surprise) the chief officers and directors.

This month, after Derby Council failed to negotiate with unions, it forced staff to accept a huge pay cut (UNISON figures suggesting 300-400) by sacking them. Derby TAs were then forced to accept the reduced wage, as the only option to get their job back was to become re-engaged on the new contract. The same fate is to befall 2700 Durham TAs. The council believe this represents fairness.

The trouble is, because teaching assistants' situation is not at all like other council employees' and because they will never earn enough for this to result in any reasonable living salary, it is not at all "equal" or "fair".

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All this has happened because full-time TAs are on a contract working 32.5 hours a week (the time of school hours) but the council is now saying that full time for EVERYONE is 37 hours. So, as you're suddenly part-time, along with the lower financial status that comes with this, you're now paid pro-rata, which means a big drop in salary. But most TAs will happily work 37 hours and would like to be paid for those hours.

Teaching assistants don't want money for nothing. If the school is open, they are there, working hard. A support staff survey from the ATL revealed that 78% said they regularly worked overtime, with 44% saying they put in up to three extra hours and 12% do seven hours or more extra time per week. Only 11% said they get paid for these additional hours. There is a huge culture of above and beyond amongst TAs. We know they get exploited. The "unfair" part, rather, is that TAs suffer low status, heavy workload, insecure or zero hours contracts and now, the contracts that they are being given are an insult to their dedication and professionalism.

Teaching assistants are told that, because of the school holidays - again, when they cannot help that the school is shut- they cannot be on a 52 wk working contract- they are now to be employed only in term-time. This does not, and has never meant they have had "free holiday money": their salary is divided by 12. Many now have had that salary cut by 20-25%.

And let's make it clear: schools have not been forced to close, as some news has reported "because of the actions of union members", but because of the actions of their councils.

They would never do to teachers what they have done to TAs, but TAs are an easy target. These staff signed a contract to accept a certain wage for a certain job. Along with any salary, comes living within your means. Imagine then all of a sudden, someone takes a big chunk of your salary away and now you can't pay the mortgage anymore.

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As usual, the execs remain unaffected. These TA roles exist only to provide care and support for children in schools who really need it, many of whom have profound and multiple needs. But for councils, such people are low-priority. Many have served their community for decades of service yet earn the same as newbies. It will drive skilled, trained staff either into poverty, having to claim state assistance, or into seeking employment elsewhere.

This is not in any spirit of equality. It is certainly not in the interests of equality for women, because the percentage of women in our support staff workforce, in Durham, in Derby and elsewhere, is always in the nineties. It's also an act of inequality towards the minority of staff who are men, as the few male role models we have in our school are invaluable, especially for our boys, many of whom idolise them. But if the job is paid at a level where the only people who can afford to do it are those who are young people living at home, we will drive many full-time male support staff from our schools.

In a society where your salary is supposed to dictate your worth, we are sending the message that school support staff are worthless. Teaching assistants don't earn a lot of money. I do need to point this out, because I once had a Head of Department incredulously tell me they'd been told that an experienced TA was only earning around 800 a month.

"That's below minimum wage, so no, she can't do...." But she can, and here's how.

Because my local authority have had this Single Status agreement for years. And it's awful.

The pay is embarrassing: take it from someone who's embarrassed about it. People can barely live. But I'm not angry at other workers that for all the time I've been paid much less, other support staff in other local authorities were being paid for 37 hours, 52 weeks. I'm angry that I've struggled for all those years that I was a TA, and now it's happening to others across the country.

So, really, I don't see why anyone else should get to be angry that these workers want better for themselves. We should want everyone to have better pay and conditions, not everyone to have worse, sneering, "If I can't have it, nobody should." We should want a precedent for the better to be set.

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Last month, a fisherman in Lesvos, Greece told me that there have always been refugees coming. The past 16 years, they've been coming. The big difference now is that women and children are coming too.

With women refugees come new challenges, one of which is pregnancy.

EmpowerHack - Solutions for Women and Girls

I first learned about the challenges refugee women face in November 2015 at the inaugural EmpowerHack hackathon in London. EmpowerHack, founded by Hera Hussain, Kimi Lawrie, and Han Pham, is a volunteer collective of technology, health, and humanitarian professionals collaboratively building solutions for women and girls through hackathons and a post-hack accelerator. At the event, Dr. Hina Shahid shared some of her experiences volunteering in Lesvos with the Muslim Doctors Association.

She explained how doctors at camps and along the transit routes were incredibly overwhelmed, seeing upwards of 250-300 patients per day (in comparison, in the UK doctors would never see more than 40-60 per day). Many were general practitioners (GPs), without a specific background in pre-natal, maternity or women's health care. Many were male or did not speak the same language as the women. Most of the translators were also male or even family members, which posed difficulties for women who were uncomfortable discussing such issues in front of men.

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Women and children now comprise more than half of the refugees crossing to Europe. Nearly one in 10 of the women are pregnant, so this issue cannot be ignored. Some women begin their journeys pregnant, seeking a better life for their future child; others become pregnant, or are the victims of sexual assault, along the way and add pregnancy to their list of daunting challenges.

EmpowerHackers hard at work at the hackathon in London. Photo Credit: Will Edgecombe.

HaBaby - Supporting Pregnant Refugees in Transit

Through the EmpowerHack hackathon and post-hack accelerator, we are developing HaBaby, a web and mobile application to support pregnant refugees in transit. The name comes from combining the Arabic word "habibi," meaning sweetheart or baby, with the English word "baby." HaBaby aims to triage the most life-threatening symptoms and connect women to care, and is accessible in multiple languages; English and Arabic to start.

While the majority of refugees have access to smart phones, most refugee women don't have their own device. Most refugees in transit don't have consistent access to the internet. Many women choose to prioritize their family's journey over stopping to seek health services. The design of the application seeks to address these challenges, while also providing reassurance and support. Our design needs have been addressed through a collaboration with UX for Change, led by the talented Sandra Gonzalez. Designing for new contexts pushes technology professionals to stretch themselves, in addition to helping with a good cause.

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Enthusiastic EmpowerHackers at the hackathon in London. Photo Credit: Will Edgecombe.

As the refugee crisis continues, we need to work together to support this vulnerable population, and bring HaBaby and other solutions to refugee women in need.

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By all accounts, voting intentions are showing a distinct generational bias in the opinion polls leading up to the UK referendum. More younger people than older people favour the "Remain" camp but then 18-24 year olds are half as likely to vote as 65 year olds. Older people's views will probably have more impact on the final result even though the young have more to gain or lose from it.

The votes of older people, in short, could lead us to quit the EU because they are more anti-Europe and more likely to vote. Younger people on the other hand will be far more affected by a vote to leave because they will be around for longer. They could be picking up the pieces for years to come if our economy slumps.

In the event of a vote to leave, it is the young who will be more isolated, have fewer opportunities to work and live abroad, be less engaged in European cross-border research, less likely to travel to European cities, find it harder to attend European Universities and so on.

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I wonder if this is fair - whatever "fairness" may mean in a referendum that we probably shouldn't be having anyway. As we all know, it is a referendum brought about by fission in the Conservative party and the rise of UKIP, but is it really fair to play with the public in this way?

As Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher both commented, referendums "can serve the ends of dictators and demagogues." They reduce complicated issues down to simplistic 'yes/no' questions. They allow elected representatives to abrogate responsibility.

It seems clear now that membership of the EU is one of those issues where weighing up the pros and cons has been so technical that ordinary people are challenged with a simple "in or out" vote.

But it is not as though we can now duck the issue. If we vote to leave there will be no returning in five years or ten years' time.

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This is potentially a perpetuation of generational inequity if we take the wrong choices. Inequity perpetrated through the ballot box.

In my view, popular engagement with the issues has been disappointing. I have seen little sign of the flourishing of ideas and awakening of political awareness that characterised the Scottish referendum, for example.

Much of the economic argument has really gone over people's heads. After several hours of what seemed at times rather like a heavy session of Britain's Got Talent in the Wembley Arena, a panel of BBC's vox pop interviewees on Tuesday night basically repeated their initial positions and gave the same reasons for leave or remain.

One interviewee parroted a line about, "bloody immigrants taking jobs." Somehow, during the campaign, it seems to have become more acceptable to voice such thoughts in public.

Europe is complicated. The EU is not perfect by a long way but in place of any measured or reasonable criticism, a naked bias and unpleasantness has filled the vacuum in public understanding.

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Even so, the opinion polls tell us that up to a fifth of the population are undecided as to how to cast their votes.

The prevailing culture has been anti-empiricism. Oodles of reports and balanced economic evaluations have been issued by bodies as reputable as the OECD and the Bank of England, but almost no-one has read them.

A detailed evaluation based on thorough research can be rubbished in seconds by a "Yah booh" raspberry. The broadcast media meanwhile insult our intelligence by providing equivalence of air time for both cases.

It is easier to sound patriotic bugle calls than to deal with the facts. We cannot but be in favour of balance, but really - how helpful is this?

As Jeremy Corbyn commented, the shock of Jo Cox's murder in a sad, bizarre way, seemed to save the "debate" from spiralling beyond control.

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One is entitled to doubt that a satisfactory "democratic" decision by the popular masses is likely to emerge. If Brexit, heavily influenced by generally more anti-Europe older people win, this decision will be imposed upon a younger more pro-European generation.

Let's not forget however that in the past decades Europe has held a beacon for "inter-generational solidarity and active ageing". Perhaps now is the time above all others to take this motto seriously.

The EU has achieved legislation to protect us from age discrimination, raised our sights on workplaces and welfare to work services to support older workers and job seekers and supported thousands of projects and tens of millions of individuals marginalised by age barriers of different kinds.

More than that, it has fostered social dialogue with employers and workers on how to live longer healthy more active lives; it has made a difference by supporting collective agreements dealing with these issues. Finally, the EU and its agencies have disseminated great innovations that work well and held a beacon for others to follow.

At this late hour in the campaigning, it behoves us to consider our decisions from an intergenerational perspective. I propose a way forward for anyone over 50 and still uncertain as to how to cast their vote.

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Both sides in this week's final Question Time debate invoked the interests of their children. I say, "Give the decision to your children, or better still to your grandchildren."
Feminism.

Fem-i-nism.

"Feminism"

feminism.

I don't know what connotations the word brings to your head, but to me, it brings forth only one. A person, not a woman, but a person, who is a believer that there should be the social, economic and political equality of the sexes. Apparently, said person will strive to live their life in such a way that calls and fights for this equality in everything that they do. Sounds nice doesn't it?

It's pretty straightforward. So unless you identify as a sexist, everyone should be a feminist. Or so it would seem.

So why do people, who don't identify as sexists, have a strong reluctance to identify as a feminist? Many women across the world in fact refuse to identify as feminists. They sometimes take to twitter with oddly edited photos of themselves holding up little pieces of paper explaining why they don't believe in equal rights for men and women. These 'protest placards' have appeared with varying motifs. They range to expressing a love for men holding doors open, and strange anecdotes of why they, as women, actually ENJOY 'being in the kitchen'. Because if you weren't already aware, women live in kitchens. It is universal knowledge that all women EVERYWHERE, just LOVE kitchens. Unless you are a feminist, in which case you're actually allergic to kitchens. I once went to IKEA with my mum to look at sofas. As I was admiring the plant pots and other manly items, I accidentally wandered into the kitchen section, and immediately collapsed. One look at a spatula and my body was reduced to a withered shell covered in exploding pustules. It was awful... The worst bit was that a male assistant tried to help me up. At this point out of fear that I would be shot by Emma Watson for even looking at a Y chromosome, I took the difficult decision to swallow my cyanide capsule. (All feminists carry a cyanide capsule in case a man touches them.) (Or they get locked in a kitchen). Except it was in fact just a green fruit pastel and he ended up having to perform the heimlich manoeuvre on me in front of about 60 people. It was a bad afternoon.

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Anyway, back to my point about anti-feminist placards... I remember coming across one lady in particular who had stated she was not a feminist, because she in fact "liked taking care of her husband"... Two weeks later I had to explain to my landlord why there was a head shaped dent in my wall.

The 21st century is a weird place for women in the UK. We're some of the most liberal women in the world. I mean liberal in the sense that we're allowed to drive and vote, and not expected just to push out thousands of children all whilst cooking a lamb hotpot at the same time. But head to your local newsagents and I guarantee you will see at least 3 pairs of tits on the shelf. No, not page 3, I am of course talking about the cover of top gear magazine. Log on to any form of social media, and there will be some prime sexism to feast your eyes on. Our own prime minister refused to say he was a feminist. Even though the Canadian prime minister didn't just say he was a feminist, he actually set fire to his girlfriend's (Yes you heard right. Girlfriend. He doesn't believe in marriage.) bra in front of his entire parliament (which is coincidentally 50% female) and waved it around in nothing but a pair of dungarees whilst clutching a copy of Caitlin Moran's 'How to be a Woman' to his chest.

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But seriously, these gargantuan, round, smooth looking, perfect nipple owning tits to me, are a metaphor for casual sexism. They epitomise it. However much you try to avoid it, it's still there, lurking, waiting to jump on you as you attempt to buy a pint of milk. Even if you can avoid it for that occasion, as soon as you step outside, they're everywhere. Plastered on adverts, replicated in the clothes you try and fail to fit into to. Because you don't have the waist of a six year old and the bust of Pamela Anderson. Some ladies even own a pair themselves, and will thrust them upon you at every opportunity as if to say "LOOK HOW MUCH BETTER I AM THAN YOU. LOOK HOW MANY PERVY MEN ARE LEERING AT ME... oh." Well at least I hope that's the realisation they come to. But sadly it is rarely the case. "But what relevance does this have for feminists in the UK?" you may ask. Or "I really don't see how a well rounded pair of boobs is restricting me and my rights as a lady?". Well, it's a complex one. So hear me out. As UK feminists, we might not be fighting the direct effects of FGM, or child marriage, but we are still battling a patriarchal system that is intent on oppressing women. Even through the use of tits. Our own bloody breasts are being used against us to oppress us! Nobody can hold my breasts against me! Not even you, IKEA sales assistant! Literally or metaphorically. People are telling you your mammary glands need to look a certain way in order to be attractive to men. Which is odd as last time I checked boobs were made to feed small babies. And be entertaining in the shower. But whatever you're into... When I see young women in the UK basically saying that there is NO NEED for feminism any more, I want to scoop my eyes out with a rusty spoon. The need for feminists in the UK is still as pressing as it was in 1968 when us feminists were burning bras. (This is why people think we're bra burners by the way. Because on ONE protest some women threatened to burn their bras. But that's typical isn't it. You do a load of important stuff like win women the vote or stop them getting sacked for getting pregnant and all you get credit for is burning a bra. The worst bit is that they didn't even get to burn their bras. They ended up binning them. But 'Bra Binners' just doesn't have quite the same ring to it though, does it?)

As a 19 year old, I get a mixed bag of reactions when I proclaim my feminist ways. Women my age usually have one of two reactions. The first, is a slightly awkward look followed by "oh right, so what does that actually mean then?" . Then when I proceed to explain, I see her running, screaming into the kitchen about how I don't shave my armpits. I would follow her, and prove that I do shave my armpits, but she's in the kitchen, obviously, and we all know I can't go in there. Plus that would also be a bit weird. Me charging into a kitchen waving my hairless armpits around like some kind of pissed up Boudecia in a Veet advert. Even if I wasn't allergic to kitchens, Emmeline Pankhurst would probably resurrect herself in front of the doorway and strike me down on the spot... Fucking feminists.

The other reaction is usually far less exciting. It consists of a nod in agreement and is swiftly followed by a discussion about Bridget Christie's 'A Bic for her' or the tampon tax. These women usually end up being my mates. So it's all rather pleasant. But the latter encounter always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

There is a serious issue with young women in the UK being fearful of the term 'feminist'. Whether it's not wanting to identify as a feminist out of the fear of rejection by men (if you're straight that is) or being fearful of feminists in general, ladies my age just don't want the label. Like last season's mini skirt/thong, it's spoilt goods. There is a sense that women retreat to the 'safety' of men by rejecting feminism in order to make themselves more appealing to men. It's an odd concept to grasp. Essentially they would rather join the men in their bashing of women, in order to not get bashed themselves. That's how I view those women, who do the 'I'm not a feminist' thing on twitter. Instead of tackling the ideology that makes them fear rejection by men, they go and join it. They try and take down feminists in order to get the man's attention like "Look at me! I'm humiliating women as well! (Pleasehavesexwithme)". It's not nice to feel like i'm reducing these women to only be interested in the sexual affections of men, because of course they are so much more than that, but more often than not, it is the case. These are the kind of women that write in magazines about why men will/won't fancy you if you wear this mascara/push up bra/new pair of tits and eyebrows from your surgeon. The kind of women that won't laugh at your joke or in fact acknowledge your presence, but when the man next to them tells it again a minute later, they'll laugh hysterically and flutter their eyelids. Those kinds of girls even, when you are the ripe old age of 11, mock you so mercilessly in front of a group of boys for having hairy legs, you spend the whole night in tears trying to trim them with your mums nail scissors and end up slicing your skin. So whilst it is a quite funny memory, the scar runs a bit deeper than my left calf, and the feeling is still with me nearly 10 years later. It's the same feeling I got when a girl asked if the modelling shoot I was doing was for 'bigger girls' because I am a size 10. Or the feeling I got when somebody sexually assaulted me in a nightclub then called me a slut when I confronted him. It's all the same ideology. Big or small. These feelings are amongst thousands of young women. This is what I take issue with. Apart from being plain irritating and unnecessarily cruel, it's irreversibly damaging. Women like this will smugly state why they are not feminists, but in my experience, they're nearly always only ever doing it because they're scared men won't fancy them any more. Especially if they start reading Mary Wollstonecroft and wearing doc martens. Or you know, demanding equal pay.

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To be fair to them it's psychological. Women have been socially conditioned to strive for the affections of men for thousands of years. We are even encouraged to take down other women in the contest for said affection. Ever heard of Beauty Pageants? Whether that's physically or emotionally. And in the case of America's next top model, both. Either way, it hurts like a bitch. It also leaves consequences, like girls who are forever marred with the idea that they aren't good enough for men, and sadly, this is mostly enforced by other women. For a long time, most of the stuff I did was to impress men. Then I had an epiphany and realised that I couldn't give a fuck any more.

It was a good day for me.

By the way please don't think that as a feminist, I am only spending my time ranting about other women. Because I rant about lots of things, like the price of tampons and stuff. I just think this is an important issue that needs addressing.

The world needs feminists granted. But the UK is desperate for them. Young women should not be afraid to stand up for their rights out of fear they will be labelled as a hairy armpit owning, bra burning lesbian. Although, let me make it clear it is absolutely fine to be any of those three things. Especially all at the same time (shout out to my mother). We should be able to live in a world where men will still find you attractive even if you are a champion of your sex. These men do exist, and the only way to eradicate the other type is to simply NOT HAVE SEX WITH THEM. The best way to stop these kind of men from perpetuating this ideal is to stop interacting with them! If a man tells you you're not worthy of his below average size penis because you happen to support women's rights then do both yourselves a favour and TELL HIM TO FUCK OFF. Imagine if every woman in the world, instead of rejecting feminism, rejected sexism instead. Don't be the one who is rejected, BE THE REJECTOR. TAKE CHARGE! I promise you, if a man decides he doesn't want you because you stick up for yourself then it is not your loss. Ideas die out girls. So will sexists. Yet it's the feminists who are dying out, and over what, might I ask? The fear of some jumped up prick not finding your vagina clean shaven enough? I don't think so girls, we're better than that. Your vagina is better than that.

I'm not saying that you have to be a feminist. (Although I really would like you to be). At the end of the day, it is a personal choice. But perhaps think about your real motives for not being a feminist. The day women truly join together, and fight together, is the day a sexists' opinion will no longer matter. The day you stop caring what a sexist thinks, is the day their opinion no longer matters. People can think what they want about you. The only person that should be affecting your decisions about yourself is you. Which is why nobody is going to force you to be a feminist. But I guarantee somewhere out there, someone will force you to live by some sexists rule, one way or the other... And no matter how many twitter placard lady bashing photos you post, that isn't going to change.

Ladies. There is no better time to throw away your brazillian wax strips, wonderbra and copy of the daily mail. In fact better still. Set your wonderbra on fire. You know you want to.
Back in 1215, a band of barons decided they'd had enough of the unruly King John who ruled as he pleased. Naturally, the barons were a bit miffed with this. After all, John wasn't God. Thus they forced him to sign a Great Charter, which enshrined political liberties and due justice for all. John's unchecked rule was defeated.

Eight hundred years later, we find ourselves in a similar position. Despite both the Remain and Leave campaign's insistence on focusing on the economy, immigration, climate change and national security, your vote on June 23 is part of something much larger. Yes, it is a vote that will determine our economic and immigration policies. But it is fundamentally about democracy.

And that's why I'd encourage you to ignore the political elite when it comes to the upcoming referendum. I doubt that will be too hard. The EU debate stage has been dominated by uninspiring politicians spouting uninspiring arguments. Even the darling of the liberal left, Owen Jones, has failed to call people to the barricades. Given that he was touting the benefits of Brexit only a year ago, it's not surprising that his change of tune has fallen on uncaring ears.

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We've heard a number of reasons to Leave, but they all link back to a singular problem: whether or not we want to be citizens.

Brexiteers could highlight the dire state of unemployment in the Mediterranean to justify their vote. Youth unemployment in Spain is currently sitting at around 45%, while total Greek unemployment lies stagnant at almost 25%.

Those of us wanting to leave the EU could also point to the brutal manner in which it imposed austerity onto the Greek people, despite the fact they had just elected an anti-austerity party. We could also cite the appointment - not election - of former EU Commissioner Mario Monti as Prime Minister of Italy by Brussels. Who needs a polling station when the EU can decide for us?

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But a vote to Leave should not be predicated on individual examples of the EU's undemocratic nature. Rather, it should stem from the realisation that its very existence is driven by its contempt towards political process. Its very being is based on the conviction that "we the people" cannot be trusted. We cannot be trusted to elect the right people; we cannot be trusted to vote for the right legislation; we cannot be trusted to look after ourselves.

Instead we have the European Commission watching over us, paternalistically ushering us down a path it deems suitable. And while this is horrifying, it is also embarrassing. The political progress of the British people is one marked by increased suffrage. From the actions of the barons in 1215 to those of the Levellers in the 17th century and the Suffragettes at the turn of the 20th, the British people have constantly sought to extend political enfranchisement.

And crucially, this emphasis on political sovereignty is a European value. A brief glance at 18th Century Europe reveals that accountability and popular sovereignty are at the very crux of the ideals that our nations were built upon. Being anti-EU doesn't entail being anti-European. It is the opposite.

Unfortunately, we have become lazy; lazy to the point that we can't even recognise the EU referendum is our Magna Carta moment. Leaving the EU will allow us to reclaim control over our economy and our borders. But more importantly, it will allow us to reclaim our democracy.

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...and the devolution of bedside manner

On the phone to the doctor's surgery, I speak with a receptionist.

'I have a repeat prescription, but I have to come every three months to renew it. I wonder if I could have it on a six-month repeat?'

The dragon at the gate shoots me down with the flames she breaths.

'Definitely not. You're lucky to get a three-month repeat. Usually we ask patients to come every month.' I shrink back from the receiver at the thought she might revoke the privilege but I'm too puzzled to stop.

'Why is that? A doctor has never once asked to see me about this prescription, to monitor me, not in several years.'

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The receptionist replies with a little puff: 'The NHS wastes millions of pounds on drugs because people die with their bathroom cabinets full of medicines. Then their relatives bring in bags of unopened drugs, and all we can do is throw them away.'

As someone with cancer in remission, I'm stunned into silence. Perhaps she hears the echo of her words in the pause, before she says, 'I'm not saying you're going to die, necessarily. But we can't go giving six month-prescriptions to people with terminal diseases.'

And there it is before me: the uncertainty of my life weighed up against the brutal certainty of the NHS official line, spouted by a member of staff who might benefit from a course on bedside manner.

While bedside manner is mostly considered the domain of medics, it's relevant to many staff beyond. Over the last twelve years, I have been initiated and confirmed as a regular patient with doctors and support staff in several fields. From oncologists and surgeons to obstetrics, plenty of GPs, nurses, porters, emergency doctors, paediatricians, cosmetic surgeons and dozens of operational staff on the way, I've met a lot of people with many variables of bedside manner at several hospitals.

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There was the consultant who delivered my first completely unexpected diagnosis of cancer with his head bowed to his shoes. He told me I would never have children. There was the pregnant intern who stood belly-to-belly with me when I was actually pregnant but also had cancer, just after a mastectomy, and she wiped the optimistic smile from my face with pitying remarks about my bleak outlook. There was the nurse who tried to issue a post-surgery injection but refused to tell me what it was for, so a scene fit for a horror movie ensued in which I refused to submit to his needle. And so many more.

Over this time I learned that any member of hospital staff, however influential or menial, has the power to make a frightening experience either manageable or unbearable. I became the evidence of how a doctor's attitude towards his or her patient can trigger an early self-discharge from advised hospital care, or prompt a regenerative slumber after a reassuring conversation post-surgery. I learnt from both bitter and grateful experience how a doctor can humiliate or empower a patient, and how valiantly skilled a doctor must be to employ sympathy and gentle guidance when his or her patient doesn't know best.

The consideration of bedside manner, sometimes referred to as 'the Art of Medicine', is as ancient as the concept of medicine itself. Its place in medical texts dates back to the 4th century BC with the Hippocratic Corpus, the original Ancient Greek medical works associated with the physician Hippocrates. Back then, a doctor's manner was the essence of a patient's treatment. The ancient words, still pertinent today, tell it best:

'The physician ought to be confidential, very chaste, sober, not a winebibber, and he ought to be fastidious in everything... He ought to have an appearance and approach that is distinguished... Be solicitous in your approach to the patient, not with head thrown back (arrogantly) or hesitantly with lowered glance, but with head inclined slightly as the art demands.

'He ought to hold his head humbly and evenly; his hair should not be too much smoothed down, nor his beard curled like that of a degenerate youth. Gravity signifies breadth of experience. He should approach the patient with moderate steps, not noisily, gazing calmly at the sick bed. He should endure peacefully the insults of the patients since those suffering from melancholic or frenetic ailments are likely to hurl evil words at physicians.'

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In Arizona, USA, one doctor has taken a step further in training medical students in bedside manner. A fascinating programme known as Horses for Healers is a system that uses the way horses mirror body-language to teach trainee doctors to communicate with their patients more sympathetically.

Dr Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS, is a Professor of Neurosurgery , Professor of Radiation Oncology, Psychology, and Computer and Electrical Engineering at the University of Arizona. A recipient of many awards and honors, Dr Hamilton has life-long experience of horses and owns a ranch through which he and his team facilitate various healing and teaching programmes.

He says: "Doctors would be far more respectful of their body language and bedside manners if their patients all weighed 1,200 pounds; horses help medical students and professionals learn non-verbal communication skills demonstrating the powerful voice of our body's language."

While some things haven't changed since Hippocrates issued his advice more than 1,700 years ago, the dawn of self-diagnosis in the era of the internet really has tipped the balance of power and complicated the relationship between doctor and patient. Like those horses at Hamilton's ranch, we have all our own peculiar history, own levels of knowledge and our own expectations.

At regular follow-up appointments with my breast cancer surgeon, I often reported worrying abdominal pains. He listened patiently, questioned me about their nature, and monitored them. And then, at my last appointment, he put his hand on my knee in a conspiratorial way, and said with the skill of a doctor who had clearly taken the time to understand me through three surgeries and many years:

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'Well, it can't be cancer, can it, because if it were, you'd be dead by now.' We laughed, I went home reassured, and the pains disappeared.
'When ISIS came they separated the men and the women. Then they killed the men. They separated the boys who were under 12 years old, the older women from the younger girls and the virgin girls. Everyone was put into stadiums and halls. Some of the ISIS commanders came and choose the girls they wanted. After they distributed 5 or 6 women to one man they started to sell the other girls in markets in Mosul. Women were marketed with their names and pictures. The phone number of the owner of the girl was there so people could call and buy them.'

This is what Viyan Dakhil told me in her home in Erbil on my most recent trip to northern Iraq. I was there to learn more about how the presence of ISIS has affected women as part of my work with my foundation Project Monma. Viyan, a Yezidi gained attention for her impassioned plea to the Iraqi government for help after ISIS began to massacre Yezidis in the mountainous province of Sinjar in 2014. Her plea led to the intervention of US airstrikes on ISIS.

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However, the nightmare unleashed by the arrival of ISIS has not come to an end for the Yezidis.

Thousands of women and girls are still being held and sold as slaves in markets by ISIS.

A Sharia court has set the prices of the girls and ISIS has declared the slave markets legal.

Dahkil explained how buyers can either buy or rent an enslaved women. A girl would be sold for $70 to $100, more if she was beautiful. A girl could be rented for $30 for several days.

'The most unbelievable things are happening,' she told me looking haunted.

She recounted a horrific story of a 5-year-old girl who was being held captive with her mother. The little girl wouldn't stop crying. An ISIS fighter came and told the mother the child should shut up. When the child wouldn't stop crying the ISIS fighter came and hung her on the window until she died. The mother was forced to watch.

Some of the enslaved women were forced to convert to Islam which was done by a religious leader spitting into their mouths and then announcing they were Muslims. This was how they would justify raping them, Dakhil tells me, with the Koran.

The horror is unimaginable.

One girl reported to Dakhil that she was bought by an Arab family inside Mosul. The young girl heard the wife of the buyer telling him he shouldn't rape the young girl. The man responded by beating his wife until she was unconscious.

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'In eyes of ISIS if you are a woman you are considered less than human,' says Dahkil.

In an unofficial camp in the center of Erbil we met with Bese Qawal and Hana Xwededa, two Yezidi women who fled to Erbil when ISIS arrived in Sinjar. They confirmed Dakhil's account of ISIS's arrival. 'They captured the men and killed them. They took our girls and enslaved them. ISIS blew up houses and our belongings,' she said. 'They are monsters.'

We travelled to Lalish, the spiritual centre for the Yazidi's to learn more. A friendly man called Luckman showed us around the temple where thousands of Yezidi's come each year. Then after being offered small cups of tea we settled down to talk, 'one girl told us that she tried to escape but was caught. She was brought into a room and tied up with 9 other girls. They didn't feed their dogs for four days and then cut the girl who tried to escape. The dogs came in and attacked the girl while the other girls were forced to watch. One 11-year-old girl said that 20 men had sex with her in one night.'

With the small light continuing to burn from small gas heater in the small dark room Luckman says, 'we are praying to god, not the god of ISIS, but to the god of Obama, it's a different god, they help us. ISIS is killing in the name of his god.'
"Vote Leave to enrich the lawyers!" (says this lawyer)

Lawyers thrive on uncertainty. If we vote Leave then lawyers will be better off. Our clients may not be, but we will. Clients will need advice because they will have to navigate through the new legal terrain. Here is my list of the top most sought after jobs on 24th June 2016 if we vote Leave.

First, Business Immigration lawyers. The Australian-style points system will introduce new visa requirements on 100,000s of EU work seekers workers, per year. No barriers to entry apply at present. "Controlling our borders" will mean something akin to imposing Tier 2 visa requirements on all skilled workers looking for jobs in the UK. Unskilled workers need not apply. Hugely costly for employers. Great for business immigration lawyers and for HR departments.

Second, Employment lawyers. The "bonfire of Brussels red tape" almost certainly means that a number of EU-based employment laws will go. The Working Time Regulations will likely go. This means no statutory right to paid holiday. The Agency Workers Regulations will go. Some parts of TUPE will go. Contracts of employment and Handbooks will have to be re-written and re-issued. And then there is all the restructuring and redundancy advice required in the event of the inevitable recession. Think of all those lovely Settlement Agreements.

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Third, Competition lawyers. Brexit is likely to end the current one-stop-shop for large-scale mergers falling under the EU Merger Regulation. This will likely increase the number of mergers handled by the UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). There will still be regulation and scrutiny but it will be our regulation and scrutiny by our lawyers. New strategic advice will be sought for large deals in the UK which might interest the CMA. Large companies active in the UK and the EU will have to seek advice from the competing competition (sorry) aspects of two rival pieces of jurisprudence.

Fourth, Commercial lawyers. Any business selling goods and services to the EU will have to review their terms and conditions with their clients to see whether they provide that business with the necessary protection post 24th June. What about the "jurisdiction" clause? What about some of the key commercial terms if they were costed on pre-Brexit assumptions (right to free movement etc)? This is particularly the case in certain sectors reliant on EU unskilled labour e.g. the construction and hospitality sectors.

Sector-specific lawyers. Energy lawyers will be in demand because much of the UK's energy law is based on EU directives. The EU Trading Emissions Trading Scheme may be up for review. What about logistics firms and the costs imposed by complying with EU energy targets? Would the "passporting regime" for the provision of financial services, continue to apply cross-border? This is likely to be one of the more important legal-battle grounds if we Leave.
A few weeks ago, on BBC's Victoria Derbyshire EU Youth Debate, a young woman set on a leave vote raised her concerns about immigration. She was worried that her mother wouldn't have access to a council house due to mass migration, she told the audience.

The response was predictable. One audience member responded by aggressively defending multiculturalism and implying that the woman know what she was talking about. The applause was deafening. How dare she question immigration? She was probably just a UKIP-voting racist.

Shouting down the concerned young woman probably didn't help - in fact, I'd guess she felt pretty patronised and rightly so. After all, her views are pretty mainstream. The majority of people in the UK think that too many people are coming into this country. In the run up to this EU referendum, it's become the chief concern of a majority of voters (especially in England).

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I don't know why the left deploy such sanctimonious arguments when tackling this issue but it's a recurring problem. It's no wonder the right wing argument on immigration - that EU migrants are undercutting workers' wages, taking up living space and putting pressure on public services - is now the prevailing narrative in the public consciousness.

Of course, the way that the Daily Express and others have forced these messages down our throat with endless fear-mongering headlines (try replacing the word 'migrant' with Jew, Muslim or human being) has obviously left its mark.

However, the left's response has been pitiful. When working people correctly point out that public services are struggling, many politicians highlight that immigrants are of net benefit to the UK and that multi-culturalism is shiny and happy and wonderful. Sure, those answers make sense but they don't directly engage with people's genuine concerns.

Watching John Harris' latest documentary for The Guardian, I was struck by just how detached people feel from Labour, for example, the party they've historically elected to represent them. Having cosmopolitan politicians tell people worried about jobs that EU migrants boost the economy is a pointless tactic. They already know they're being screwed - unfortunately, the right have already successfully made immigrants the convenient scapegoat.

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What's most depressing is that the left aren't confident enough in their own argument, even though the statistics are on their side. Hearing UKIP politicians and right wing Leave campaigners, you'd think that the last six years of punishing Tory austerity had never happened. Instead of investing in services and building more houses, the Conservatives have cut mercilessly, and the poorest in our society are paying more proportionally than anybody else.

Food bank use is at record levels, child poverty is on the rise and the richest in our society have rarely had it so good. When privileged elites like Iain Duncan Smith and Boris Johnson claim they're railing against the establishment, you have to remind yourself who they are: Tories who want to privatise your services, cut taxes for the rich and cut benefits for the poor.

The fact is we're not 'swamped': a tiny amount of UK land is even built on. Scotland meanwhile suffers from emigration, if anything, and an ageing population. More than that, the free movement of people is actually one of the Remain camp's strongest arguments: millions of Britons benefit from this system and detaching ourselves from the EU project would affect them as much as it would affect those that have moved here.

As Neal Ascherton put it in the Sunday Herald this week:

Some real cases exist where European immigration has pushed down local wages or overloaded English schools, hospital or housing. But it's not Brussels that is to blame, let alone Polish or Romanian families. It's recent governments - Labour and Tory - which gave up on council housing and failed to finance the growth of schools and hospitals.

There are genuinely strong arguments that the Leave campaign could make on the need for reform in a bureaucratic, centralised neo-liberal EU. When the people running the Leave campaign say they want reform, that's not what they're talking about. They want to strip away workers' rights, move power from European elites to British elites and set up an administration that will be even more viciously right wing than the current setup.

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As Bernie Sanders' brave campaign looks to have come to an end, Americans are left with a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump - a nightmare for the left. You have to wonder how in the self confessed 'greatest democracy in the word', tens of millions of voters are being left alienated by a rigged system which favours Establishment candidates and carry on forcing the political spectrum to the right.

Now, Trump, who has been exposed countless times by moderate and liberal media alike, is both an idiot and a genius simultaneously. His social policies on immigration and Islam are taken up purely to appeal to the significant portion of the electorate that think conservatively, or, more likely, are a product of the right wing media. Political scientists claim that traditionally left or right wing parties should move towards the centre in order to claim the media vote; Trump, on the other hand, has tapped into the surprisingly large right. Economically, Trump, a (dynastic) billionaire, has pledged to cut corporation tax and has flip-flopped on minimum wage.

However, all this attention on Trump's shortcomings takes the focus away on the real crook here; Hillary Clinton. The notion that we must elect Hillary to prevent Trump is not only defeatist, but undemocratic. None of these candidates represent the overwhelming will of the American people. Firstly, if we look at the primaries themselves, we can see that Mrs Clinton stumbled over the line (well, not yet) with the entire media and DNC behind her, clouded by accusations of voter suppression, false pre-pledging of superdelegates, and of course, the ongoing FBI investigation into her actions. As the primaries went on, her momentum sharply dropped - had there been more open primaries, it is very likely that we could be talking about the much unfancied Sanders as the potential nominee.

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If we look at Hillary's top 10 donors to her presidential campaign, among the list lie firms such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, banks which she notoriously gave speeches to for fees exceeding $225,000. Ever since the creation of the Federal Reserve, banks have had a great influence over the US government - and to paraphrase Cenk Uygur of TYT, why would banks donate to Hillary if not for favourable policies? Simply put, it's modern day bribery, and a move that will further detriment the American people in favour of the big banks.

Clinton's involvement in the Libya scandal as Secretary of State forbodes a continuation of destructive US imperialism and destabilisation of certain nations. This, of course, is in addition to her vote in favour of the 2004 Iraq war. Her reasons for toppling Gaddafi, as emails released by Wikileaks show, were, naturally, for gold and oil.

Finally, we can come onto why Mrs Clinton is being investigated - the email scandal. Having used a private server for federal correspondence, one can look at the hypocrisy regarding Edward Snowden's imprisonment - having released information for the good of the people, Snowden was imprisoned, while Hillary's strange decision to use a private server has not stopped her path to the White House. And I'm sure we've heard quite enough about the Benghazi scandal. We cannot view Clinton as a viable alternative; simply a lesser, or even equal, evil.

Americans, through a lack of decent candidates, mindless voting and superdelegates, have ended up in a situation where tens of millions simply don't want to vote for either candidate. Let me just leave you with this quote from Douglas Adams' novel 'So long, and thanks for all the fish'.

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'On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
23rd June represents a rare chance for the British people to exercise actual democracy with regards to the EU. While the 'official' Leave campaign has been one filled with xenophobia and divisiveness, but both sides have also spread exaggerations and falsities throughout. There is one side that has received little media coverage but is one that Labour supporters must consider; Lexit.

Led by Dave Nellist of TUSC (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition), 'Lexit' provides an alternative to the right wing Leave campaign and instead prides itself of removing Britain from a neoliberal bureaucracy. LabourLeave, meanwhile, are capitalising on the 44% of Labour voters who would back a Brexit.

I think exposing the EU for what it is - that is, a capitalist sea of privatisation and appeasement of big businesses - is best done through analysing the Remain myths.

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'The EU champions workers rights'

The Posted Workers Directive, which allows domestic companies to hire EU migrants at a lower wage than what is offered to domestic workers does little but increase domestic unemployment and create a race to the bottom, increasing economic disparity.

If we look at the rulings of the ECJ (European Court of Justice) in many instances, such as the Viking and Laval cases, we can see that the EU allowed companies to relocate to take advantage of lower wage rates in different countries.

There is a reason many trade unions have come out against the EU - an organisation which prides itself on being 'a friend of the workers', but in reality, limits them. The majority, if not all, of positive workers' reforms, have come from the bottom up, from trade unions lobbying the British government - and not from the EU - for example, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 stemmed from unions pressuring the British government, and if we look at EU employment laws, they are often weaker imitations of British legislation; such as the Equal Pay Act and the minimum annual holiday period, laws that will remain following a Brexit.

'Our economy would collapse without the EU'

The only certain thing is that the economy will be uncertain in the coming years following a Brexit. However, as market forces act, Britain's economy will stabilise after a while. OpenEurope's study showed that worst case scenario, Britain's GDP will shrink 2.2% (for context, it shrunk 6% after the 2008 financial crash), but our economy could also grow by 1.6%.

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However, if we look at current times instead of speculating, as Cameron admitted on Question Time, we do 'put more in than we get back'. The HM Treasury figures show that while we put in 18 billion a year into the EU, we only get a 5 billion rebate and a 4.5 billion investment back into the UK, meaning Britain net invests 8.5 billion a year into the EU. That's a good price to pay for access to the single market? Switzerland have unfettered access to the EU market for 600 million, a fraction of what they would net invest in the EU had they been a member (3.4 billion).

Britain will not stop all trading with EU nations should we leave - apart from being economically idiotic for countries such as France and Germany, the Lisbon Treaty also states that the EU must form a trade deal with any nation leaving the EU.

The Common Fisheries Policy is estimated to have cost Britain 115,000 jobs, while the Common Agricultural Policy, while producing just 1.6% of the EU's GDP, receives 40% of the EU budget. This is in addition to unncessary regulation, while overall, has cost Britain 124 billion since 1998.

'The EU is the only thing stopping the TTIP'

Any country is unlikely to veto the corporatist trade agreement in the European Pariliament - however, outside of the EU, as a supposed democracy, we should be able to protest, lobby and hold the Tories to account - and if the people are unable to, maybe left-wing Remain voters should look at changing the whole system rather than relying on the EU to save them.

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'Immigration is vital to our country'

Yes. It's extremely important in the day and age of globalisation. However, the EU's migrant policy, as explained before, just enables low wage workers to maximise corporate profits. If we adopt the Swiss model of immigration, where, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 23.8% of permament residents are immigrants (compared to 11.3% in Britain) - leaving the EU does not mean the UK will cut immigration.

'Our human rights are protected by the EU'

This is false in itself - European legislation on human rights come from the European Court of Human Rights, which is a subsection of the Council of Europe, which has nothing to do with the EU and which contains 47 member states - almost half are non-EU members. Again, leaving the EU does not mean the decisions made from this body are revoked.

We must remember that the EU vote is not a general election - UKIP or the Tory right will not come into power following a Leave vote. Following a Brexit, and the couple of years transition leaving the EU, we will only have two years left with the Tories before electing a new (hopefully Labour) government. Without EU imposition of austerity and neoliberalism, aptly demonstrated by its shameful treatment of Greece, any new elected Labour government will have the necessary powers to, as Corbyn pledges, renationalise formerly public assets (which the EU currently blocks). This creates a more democratic environment as we are no longer dictated economic policy - the British people's mandate will decide Britain's direction. In addition, a Brexit would nullify UKIP's chances in 2020 as they have little else to offer but an anti-EU stance, as well as causing further havoc in the fragile Conservative Party.

Supporters of each side shouldn't sway you either. Yes, Katie Hopkins, Donald Trump and other unsavoury characters back a Leave vote - however, I'd rather us socialists look at Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner and, perhaps, in secret, Jeremy Corbyn, who have all at one time dismissed the EU as neoliberal exploitation. We can also look at leftist writers such as Owen Jones, Paul Mason and Yanis Varoufakis, who have all expressed that they would back a 'Lexit' at another time - however, this is a once in a lifetime referendum and Labour voters, who will decide the referendum, should not waste their chance. I firmly believe it's time to leave an organisation which puts profit over people, privatises public assets and dictates neoliberal ideology to its member states.
The Syria civil war is the greatest humanitarian crisis experienced by my generation. Over the last few years I've watched leaders on both sides of the House let a crisis turn into a catastrophe through inaction. Jo Cox was one of the few MP who fought, with courage and dignity, for a credible strategy to protect civilians in Syria. To me she represented the proudest traditions of the Labour Party. The Labour Party of progressive internationalism, that led action to protect civilians in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, that was unequivocal in its opposition to Apartheid in South Africa.

She understood that the British government and the Labour Party should never turn its back on the world. In a year in which I've struggled to reconcile my differences with the Labour Party leadership, I looked at the likes of Jo Cox as the bearers of Labour's internationalist flame. It's MPs like her who kept me within the Labour Party and kept me fighting.

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I heard about her killing on Thursday evening. I was in Lille in northern France, outside a bar in the central square, enjoying a few drinks and celebrating England's victory over Wales that day. I checked my phone and saw the news. I couldn't bring myself to go on social media until I arrived home in London two days later. I was simply getting too upset. I guess that by reading just one news stories, I felt I could deny what had happened. I could bury my head in a plastic cup of beer and tell myself that it did not happen, that it could not have happened.

Jo's work in Parliament touched and changed lives. Alongside Andrew Mitchell she set up the Friends of Syria all-party group and opened the doors to Syrian voices in parliament. Her tireless work changed government policy. Because of her campaigning we as a country agreed to double our own aid to Syria. You only have to see the outpouring of grief from the Syrian Solidarity Campaign and Syrian White Helmet to see how this MP from Batley and Spen touched their lives. It's the Syrian White Helmets who risk their lives daily to protect civilians in Syria, and in Jo Cox they knew they had a comrade.

Although I came down in favour of extending airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, I won't forget her principled stand to abstain on that vote. Her statement was full of her steely grit and pragmatism, and her deep humanity. Her arguments were clear headed and nuanced. It was clear she had little time for the grandstanding and posturing of some of her colleagues.

Jo Cox was one of bravest and most outspoken champions of the rights of refugees. I am so sad that she is gone because when she spoke I hoped the world would listen. A humanitarian to the core, her plea to allow 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees into the country was one of the most powerful and emotive I heard. She had little time for party-political games and was a model for doing politics differently. Even as a new MP she would reach across party lines. For her it was about getting things done, not party political point-scoring. In this she has taught me a lot.

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The annual exam season is once again in full swing. Millions of young people must soon make choices that will determine their opportunities in a predominantly digital future. We know we're going to need more people with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills but we don't need everyone to be an engineer or software developer. What other qualities will we need to cultivate in our young people so they can succeed in this new world?

Millions of us are already embracing a more digital way of life. Paying for a parking space, checking the news, organising our holiday photos in an album, monitoring our health and fitness, doing the weekly household shop -- we're doing it from our tablet, wristband or smartphone, at any time of day or night. This coming together of the physical, digital, and biological worlds has been called the fourth industrial revolution. It has the potential to change everything -- education, healthcare, finance, business, public services, local communities, nations, global interaction -- and it requires a new style of leadership.

Whether we're in the early years of a career or already in a position of responsibility, here's my starter list of leadership qualities for this digital society:

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1.The conviction that human beings matter most. Because technology is simply there to make life easier and better for people. That is its purpose. Like insurance company RSA, which has brought all its 19,000 global employees together 'under one digital roof' where they can collaborate more easily and be more productive.

2.An open mind about what is possible and a readiness to embrace digital. The IT department no longer dictates what technology to use and how. Good ideas can come from anyone, anywhere. 'Pay as you go' cloud services are making it easier for any individual team or entrepreneurial department to run with a digital idea.

3.The ability to see things through customers' eyes/walk a mile in their shoes. In the digital age, if users (and that includes employees) don't like what you offer, they won't use it. So a customer perspective is critical. Etihad Airways is using digital to create a superior experience for its guests, by answering calls faster and directing them to an agent with the right language and skills to help.

4.A collaborative mindset that is ready to share ideas, information and skills. Change is coming fast and there's no time (or money) for everyone to reinvent the wheel. This is especially true in the public sector, where going digital has huge potential to help deliver better services at a lower cost. There is little sense in every healthcare provider having its own patient monitoring system. Better to co-create something that many can use. An example of this approach is the Digital Health Enterprise Zone in Bradford, England. It's a community of health and social care professionals, university researchers, large and small businesses who are collaborating on digital innovations that can be used to improve the health of people around the world.

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5.Technology is no longer exclusively the job of the IT function and we all have a duty to be technologically literate. You don't need to understand how the internal combustion engine works to be a good driver. But you do have to understand the rules of the road and appreciate the impact of your driving behaviour on other people and the environment. Similarly, you don't need to understand electronics to be tech literate but you do need to understand the implications of big data, cyber security and the 'digital possible'. It is no longer acceptable for business leaders to outsource that knowledge and awareness to the IT team. We all need to network more and be exposed to new ideas.

6.A spirit of adventure because no-one knows where this might lead; there is no best practice, no blueprint to follow. We need to go out, to explore, to imagine and to think big. And because we're all going to be learning, we're going to make mistakes. Digital age leaders build from the wrongs to make things right.
What it's really like going on someone else's holiday

Imagine going on a holiday to an unknown destination with a suitcase packed full of someone else's clothes. Well, that's exactly what I've just done with some very **interesting** results.

I've always been fascinated by other people's holidays. Where it is they go and what it is they do. Everyone is unique, and within that, every holiday is unique too. That's why I decided to take Expedia's #MysteryLuggage challenge, to go on someone else's holiday.

For that, I needed someone else's mystery luggage, so early one morning I found myself heading to Greasby's, a South London auction house that deals in a veritable bevy of items including lost luggage, which is why I was there.

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Based in the back of a garage, Greasby's is a treasure trove of knick-knacks, and if you've got a good eye you can really uncover some hidden gems (figuratively and literally).

The thing about buying lost luggage at Greasby's is it's completely random. As it's a blind bid, you can't look what's inside the suitcase beforehand, so you really could be buying anything (which is what I wanted really).

Obviously I didn't have a clue what I was doing, so come bidding time, I rode my luck more than anything else and hoped that no one would bid against me. The opening bid was 14. I went in with 16. It was countered by the auctioneer at 18. I stood firm on 20, and all of a sudden I was the proud owner of a new suitcase full of random clothes. All in all it all took about 32 seconds. Who know half a minute could be so fun!?

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Now proud owner of someone else's mystery luggage, I still had a holiday to go on, so I quickly caught a taxi over to Heathrow Airport. Bear in mind that by this point I still had absolutely no idea where I was going!

At Heathrow with plenty of time, I jumped on Expedia and searched around looking for somewhere to go. I soon decided that I wanted a beautiful beach and some summer sunshine, so I decided to go to Barcelona! Also, despite booking last minute, I managed to save 60 by booking a flight and hotel combination, so I was pretty happy with that.

I have to admit, after I booked everything with this randomer's suitcase in tow, I started to feel very very nervous about things. I think my biggest fear was that it would be packed full of women's clothes. Well, almost prophetically, it was.

Straight away my eye was drawn to a cute little lacy number (completely see through of course) and a tight dress with daisies on it. Also, just for good measure, there were a few bras and even a corset, which quite frankly I didn't even know which was the right way up.

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Now that I knew the contents of my mystery luggage, it was time to go on someone else's holiday. For the next three days I hit the streets of Barcelona, all in my new wardrobe of course.

I'm not going to lie, the first time I put on that blue and orange floral number was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. However, as soon as I saw people's faces, at how they smiled and laughed about it all, I started to feel good about things a little bit more. And when I got a few wolf whistles and even a "guapa" (beautiful lady) from a local, I knew I was rocking it.

After seeing sites like the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Las Ramblas and La Boqueria I was starting to feel great. Who knew women's clothes could be so comfortable!

And finally, I couldn't leave Barcelona without stopping off at Barceloneta, the beautiful beach on the edge of the city (people, look away now...)

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I have to admit, going on someone else's holiday was an amazing experience, and I can't wait to see where it takes me to next!
Jo Cox's family have said how much it has helped them to have so much public love and support. I'm sure that's true and I am very glad for them. Other people's care gives a life-force to bereavement that makes the unbelievable bearable, to start with at least.

And then the moment after the funeral arrives when everyone else moves on with their life. They have to. That is when the horror finally bites with jaws as strong as Armageddon. This will not be over for you; this will not be salved; he/she is not coming back; there is no alternative to the long journey of grief and you are changed forever.

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My first husband died in 1990, one year after our wedding. I have long been married again and life is happy and good. But I can still remember the echoing void which is summed up by the phrase, "life must go on."

Life does not go on. It stops and has to be reborn. The world becomes something completely different; even colours are different. Different things matter, many things that used to matter don't.

People try to help and you have to be nice to them when they get it wrong, even though you want to scream with anger and grief. A male friend of mine re-recorded my answerphone message for me, not realising that he had erased the last sound of Henry's voice. On the same day, my mother said "you're wearing too much black, dear" and a friend said, "do you really think you should be seen out with Alan? What will people think?" (Alan was a former boyfriend). I honestly don't know how I survived that day.

But the final straw was having supper with an old friend who said "don't cry" when I shed some tears over my meal. "Don't cry"? Two months after Henry died, don't cry? Of course he was trying to say it to comfort me but trust me, it didn't work.

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What can you do to endure this time of mourning? Many of us will experience it and for nearly all of us, it will be out of the spotlight of public support. The price of true love will always be bereavement for one or other of the lovers. We must all do what is right for us but we'll never know what that is until the worst happens.

I ran away.

I needed to be somewhere where I could begin to find 'me' again on a blank canvas. You have to think clearly when you are somewhere new so I got on a plane to Australia.

It wasn't totally stupid; I had friends who were already travelling there and I could meet up with them.

I arrived in Cairns, Queensland, the night before my birthday. My friends were hoping to arrive within the next 48 hours so I had nothing to do but settle into my hotel room and walk around the town, which was mostly shut, it being a Sunday. There are only so many baths you can reasonably have in a day so by 6pm I was done and, tentatively, went down to the hotel bar with a book to pass an hour or two prior to deciding what and where to eat. I thought I'd have a glass of wine and read in a public place; you cry a lot less in public.

Within 15 minutes of my being there, a young Australian man threw himself into the seat next to me. I looked up, surprised and he landed me with the worst chat-up line in the world.

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"Me and my mates at the bar got a bet on," he said. "I bet them ten bucks you can't be as mean as you look."

Actually it worked. I was so nonplussed and so lonely that I talked to him, explaining why I looked so unappealing. He was a true Aussie bloke and thought I should just cheer up and get on with things. After all, that's what Henry would want me to do, right? He managed to persuade me to go for a walk with him by the levee and we bought fish and chips which we ate, sitting by the water. We even went to a broken-down bar and danced in the gloaming with about a dozen others and, surprisingly, dancing was just what I needed to shake the misery out of my body if only for an hour.

But I went back to the hotel alone. My Aussie friend was quite sure that Henry wouldn't mind if I slept with him but I had no such intention. I didn't even kiss him and he ended up being quite sure that he'd lost his bet. "You'd feel a lot better for a decent shag," he said.

I didn't agree. I was still holding the memory of Henry's body close to mine and wearing as many of his clothes that would fit--and which still retained his scent. But I'll always be grateful to my first Aussie friend for helping me through that first evening on the other side of the world.
If you are thinking about a divorce, your head will be full of worries about the future. Will you be able to afford two households? Who gets what? And how on earth do you "share the children"? The last thing you want is uncertainty about the divorce procedure. Do you instruct a solicitor or do you come to a mediator? Here is a brief overview of the best possible use of both since the two approaches complement each other.

Mediation is usually by far and away the best process to use when considering arrangements for your children. You work together as parents, with the mediator's help: round the table discussions are far more fruitful and less divisive than an exchange of solicitors' correspondence or, heaven forbid, contested Court proceedings. In mediation, an accredited mediator can give your children a voice by talking to them in an informal relaxed way and relaying their wishes and feelings back to you. This can be invaluable in helping you do the best possible job for them and in clarifying what they really think and want to happen.

So far as finances are concerned, if you are divorcing, you are aiming for a Consent Order which will record your eventual agreement and make it binding. This Consent Order must be connected to a formal divorce. So, one of you needs to file a divorce petition. You can download a divorce petition and file it yourself, but many people prefer to ask a solicitor to do this for them, so that the process is handled correctly. You will also probably want to take your solicitor's advice on any financial agreement that you eventually reach. So: at least one of you needs to find a solicitor to start the divorce.

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However, using a solicitor to take you through the process of disclosing your finances and negotiating a settlement can be time-consuming, expensive and divisive. This is where mediation comes in again. One of you contacts a mediation service, who will arrange to see each of you separately to get the background of your financial situation. Your mediator will also use this meeting to explain how mediation works. Here at Focus, we make a point of giving you the forms you need to complete at that first meeting, so that you come back to your first joint session with all your disclosure ready. We waste no time in helping you both establish the value of your home, the mortgage, any savings, pensions, debts: in short, we help you establish a clear picture of your finances for yourselves and for anyone advising you. This is an essential first step to sorting out any financial agreement.

In your second or third joint sessions we can help you negotiate a settlement. We look at the equity in the house, division of savings, allocation of debt, and provision of retirement income through pensions. We also look at your income and outgoings and help you work out your budgets in your separate households, which enables us to help you set an appropriate level of maintenance and child support. We then write up all your figures in an open financial statement and your agreement in a memorandum of understanding. You are recommended to take both of these documents to your solicitors, who will draft a consent order for you. This will be put before a judge so that it can be made legally binding.
What surprised me most when I moved to the UK in 2007 was the open and welcoming attitude towards difference people here had. Given my sexuality, it formed a pleasant contrast to Russia. Since then, a lot has changed. Messages about the failure of open society and the dangers of multiculturalism are an almost daily occurrence in the media and UKIP have somehow become a "mainstream" party. More importantly, Jo Cox is dead and it is precisely the currently toxic political culture that killed her.

The voice that's getting through to the UK public is the voice of hate and admonition. Instead of following Jo's advice of looking to what unites us as a community and celebrating our individual differences, we seem to be dead-set on building a Trump-style wall to keep the differences out. In the process we have allowed unacceptable right-wing radicalism to become normal. In my opinion, the Conservatives are partly to blame.

No other major Western European party in government has been prepared to even listen to the likes of UKIP. The very idea of Hollande calling a referendum on Europe or any other issue at the behest of Marine le Pen is laughable. Yet, Dave & Co. did exactly that. To add, their own divisive rhetoric on immigration has done a lot to promote of UKIP's cause. In a way, I question whether there is much (if any) difference between UKIP and the Tories.

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It's true that the Conservatives are having a bit of an identity crisis, with voices on the Right dead-set on Brexit. The not-infrequent defections by Tories to UKIP are clearly a palpable danger to the party, which Dave obviously wanted to resolve. But, gambling on the future of the whole country should really not be the solution to an intra-party squabble.

Any responsible Western leader, faced with problems of rising inequality, the threat from ISIS and increasing radicalisation, has to ensure that their government builds bridges between individuals and communities not blows them up and the best way to achieve it is to ensure that everyone has a voice. The Conservatives have failed. The EU referendum has been reduced to a petty argument between the different factions of the Tory party. The Leave campaign has been so vicious that the Archbishop of Canterbury felt the need to condemn it and one Tory MP switched sides.

But the rhetoric hasn't changed as a result. Day in and day out, we hear what privileged white males (and yes Farage with his investment banking background is one of them) have to say about migration and the big economy, whilst the voices of people who will be most affected by the decision on the 23rd June are not being heard. The politicians are yet to address the concerns of inner-city youth, the Syrian refugees, EU and non-EU migrants and even Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland, most of whom are not eligible to vote. What a contrast with the Sottish Referendum, in which every legal resident in the country was able to decide on its future.

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Personally, I feel deeply saddened by this. A lot of my friends and I, myself have come to this country (many through the Australia style visa system) in search of respect and dignity we are denied at home only to be confronted with claims that we are here to milk the system and destroy the soul of British society.

In most cases both are frankly not true. More than 50% of migrants, who are not returning UK citizens, arrive here from outside the EU - meaning they have to pay expensive visa fees, the NHS surcharge for each year of their visa, be denied access to benefits, faced with considerably higher tuition fees (think 35k per year to study medicine at Imperial) and for many a compulsory and humiliating trip to the Police Overseas Visitor Registration Centre. So, leaving won't bring the numbers down, especially since the Leave campaign are proposing to make it easier for non-Europeans to come here.
The topic of immigration has dominated this referendum campaign. Yet real progressive debate over the issue has been diminished due to the popularisation of people's fears of immigration incited by right wing media outlets and euro sceptic parties such as UKIP.

There are plenty of genuine arguments to make on the leave side, but as we have seen with the remain campaign due to the disengagement with Westminster, people are sceptical about believing politicians on the economy, the NHS, jobs etc. therefore, making it difficult to engage and mobilise the electorate. Brexit have capitalised on this by inciting people's paranoia, people can see the problems that British society faces and certain outlets of the British media and the 'anti establishment' party UKIP are not so subtlety guiding people blindly towards the cause which best suits their own political needs. Immigration. It is easy therefore, to see why, when you ask many British people why they are choosing to vote leave they cite immigration as a key issue, after all, history shows us it is far easier to mobilise people and public opinion through fear and the exploitation of people's rational anxieties, rather than on open, honest debate.

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The effects of immigration (both positive and negative) can be seen by most on a daily basis, whether it's through the changing demographic of our towns and cities or the number of languages spoken in our schools and the workplace. The fact is, immigration is visible and therefore, it is far easier to blame it for the problems the country faces, than it is to blame those in Westminster who seem so far disconnected from people's everyday life.

When people are continually being fed this line that our country is being 'overrun', that our health service is under pressure due to too many patients, that the only solution is take back control of our boarders, to hold back the 'swarms' of migrants, it becomes difficult to subdue this fear.

This paranoia and fear also makes it difficult (as many on the left have found) to endorse a counter argument which welcomes immigration, which counters, convincingly the right wing rhetoric. Over the course of the referendum campaign many on the left have found themselves having to time and time again defend the impact of immigration, consequently creating an environment where you cannot discuss immigration without talking about it in terms of it being a problem.

The mention of the word has been poisoned by those wishing to incite the worst in people. Driving people to the ballot box through the fear they need to take back control of their borders.

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But take back control from who?

And give control to who?

A government who will continue to cause the problems we are told to blame immigrants for?

Whilst the Conservative branch of the leave campaign are desperate to ensure immigration doesn't become the centre of their brexit argument, they certainly won't stand in the way of Farage's horrific popularisation of people's fears of immigration. Over the course of this debate, and more widely over the past few years, people like Farage have been able to normalise the angst and to a very real extent hate of immigration. So much so a mainstream, governing political party can pick up the rhetoric of UKIP and it is not seen an outrage.

Yet whilst this closed minded poisoned view of immigration has been driven by the right - the left is also at fault.

Political debate and media coverage makes it dangerously easy to be pushed towards this way of thinking without really being aware of it. But the demonistation of these people by some on the left, labelling people who have been swept away by popular media proclamations as 'racists' further intensifies the situation. What the left need is a genuine, consistent stance on immigration which exemplifies the positives but provides a solution for the genuine fears that people have.

Because, yes, without being labelled a racist or anti Europe I can say that Britain needs to take action on immigration. The level of EU net migration peaked in 2015 with 333,000 compared with 177,000 in 2012. Whilst at the same time as this annual increase in immigration both Labour and Conservative governments have failed in building enough housing to manage the population increase. In 2008 the number of houses being built fell to its lowest since 1924. Boris Johnson, the man trying to convince people to vote leave is the same man who as mayor of London sold of acres of land to rich property developers whilst social housing waiting lists continued to grow. The impact of increasing immigration has been made a problem because of government policy, yet anger has been directed (to the governments pleasure) away from them and onto immigrants.

The leave campaign has poisoned and stagnated the debate around immigration. Taking control of our borders will not solve this countries problems. Our NHS relies heavily on European doctors and nurses, our cities were built on and thrive off cultural diversity. Whatever your views on the wider European debate, do not allow parties like UKIP define British nationalism, to control the debate around immigration or to tell you what you should fear and who you should blame.

Take back control by voting to remain, by rejecting the idea that the elite can force us to blame immigration for the shortfalls of those in power. Don't allow control to be given to those who encourage us to live in fear and hatred of our neighbours.
I'm writing this at 6:00 am on polling day. The pundits and papers are declaring that it's too close to call. That's not the case for UK scientists, however -- they're overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the EU for many of the compelling reasons (and more) that Peter Coles lays out so well in his recent post on the referendum.

Unlike Peter, I've received quite a bit of funding from the European Commission over the years. I've focused, in particular, on the Marie Curie programmes (now called Marie Skodowska-Curie actions) and have coordinated multi-partner, Europe-wide training networks in Framework Programme 6 and 7 (and have been a partner in Marie Curie networks in FP5). I currently coordinate the 11-partner ACRITAS project, which funds two PhD students (one Greek, one Danish) in Nottingham, and supports 12 other PhD students in the various European research groups that comprise the network. Two postdoctoral fellows in our group are also funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MS-C) funding schemes.

The MS-C actions are particularly interesting to consider in the context of the Brexit debate. Researcher mobility is a founding principle and cornerstone of those actions. I cannot employ a UK national on a MS-C network position. (That agonised wailing you can hear in the distance is the sound of Nigel Farage's apoplexy hitting the danger zone. Again.) My colleagues in Regensburg/Dublin/Zurich etc... similarly cannot employ a German/Irish/Swiss national for the ACRITAS project. (I mention our Swiss partners (ETH Zurich and IBM Zurich) quite deliberately here. Switzerland is not a member of the EU but can, nonetheless, access EU funding. Brexiters regularly point to Norway and Switzerland to support their arguments, but there are, as usual, many myths (particularly with regard to science funding.))

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Our research group has thus benefited immensely from the free mobility of researchers enabled via the European Union. Those MS-C actions, and other major multi-partner projects, have strengthened our research in very many direct and indirect ways, fostering and bolstering collaborations that would have been exceptionally difficult to establish without the EU infrastructure in place, as my friend and colleague (and Head of School) Mike Merrifield describes in this video.

So, I'm going to enthusiastically rush down to the polling booth later today and put my "X" in the Remain box, right? Well, not quite. I'll be voting Remain but not, it must be said, with unabated enthusiasm.

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Ultimately, however, here's why I'm voting Remain later today.

I cannot, in all conscience, cast a vote which would help support and bolster this hateful prejudice. The EU, despite its many problems, is by far the lesser of the evils.
"You're a gay-loving prick". The final words of a man who - so poisoned by hatred - continued to utter such bile as he was taken, handcuffed, to a police car. My partner and I had spent the previous twenty minutes trying to tackle his backward views but also keep him in place until the police arrived. The man he'd just attacked stood aside, angry and tearful. He'd been lunged at, kicked and called weird by Hateful Man. We saw it all. My partner broke up the fight. Together we challenged Hateful Man. But, it made no difference to him. His blinkers were iron-clad, dark and repellent. "Bet you're right at the front of the Pride parade", he said bitterly.

The man who had been attacked turned to us and said "No one has ever done what you guys just did. No one has ever stuck up for me". The catalyst for this aggression? Make-up. One of the many aspects of life that reinforces gender binarism and, consequently, entrenches people's belief that any form of fluid identity is an aberration. Nothing lures out society's bigots more than an individual who confidently defies expectations.

This week the charity 'Just Like Us' is striving to make difference A-OK. It's Diversity Week - an idea they came up with to encourage schools to commit to seven days of forward-thinking festivities. Teachers are encouraged to put up posters that challenge the traditional homophobic polemic, "That's so gay" IS NOT OKAY! Pick a different word!" hollers one. Children are encouraged to wear rainbow-coloured laces and turn their classroom doors into multi-coloured shrines to acceptance and diversity. The charity's goal is to support young and school-age people; to make sure they feel comfortable in an environment that's plagued with cliquiness, nastiness and the type of pressure only children can create in their bid to feel part of a crowd. Part of the charity's mission statement is to:

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Reassure young LGBTQ+ people that they can be confident in who they are and do not have to hide for fear of being judged, bullied or rejected.

Former LGBTQ school pupils are invited back to school to talk about their experiences and offer advice to current pupils who may feel isolated, lonely, scared, rejected.

And, what kind of world do these youngsters face when the school bell rings for the last time? According to Home Office statistics, in 2014/15 there was a 22 per cent increase in sexual orientation hate crimes from the previous year and a 9 per cent increase in transgender hate crimes. Stonewall's 'The Gay British Crime Survey' (2013) found that more than three quarters of victims didn't report an incident to the police:

The reasons for not reporting include anticipation that it will not be taken seriously, a fear of negative response and a belief that there is little that the police can do.

That quote came gloomily to life in the aftermath of the Orlando attack. The lackadaisical, lacklustre response to the incident lays bare an embarrassing unconscious bias which leads to the type of shortsighted behaviour that's perhaps too uncomfortable to address. In the realm of social media it plays out as: *this incident* deserves a solidarity status update, a change in profile picture, a few shared articles complete with teary face emoji and *that incident* deserves little to no time and barely any sympathy. In the media, it's 24-hour news channels nonchalantly flip-flopping between a mass shooting and a monarch's birthday as if that's standard practice in news land. FYI, it's not! A deadly attack against a powerful, Western nation traditionally knocks any pre-structured news agenda sideways. There should have been instant, blanket coverage of a homophobic attack in a gay nightclub. Why did it take so long for the media to acknowledge that this was an attack against a specific community? Where were the commentators from the LGBTQ community in the same way other attacks/mass shootings instantly produce experts spouting expertness on the threat to Western society and values? This isn't about quantifying grief or telling people what they should feel upset about, it's entirely about addressing the prejudice that leads to incidents in which rational-minded people like Owen Jones have to walk away from an interview on live television.

Forty-nine people died and more than fifty people were injured during Orlando's moment of horror. An emergency police call records the gunman, Omar Mateen, pledging allegiance to the leader of Islamic State. It fits the troubling narrative of our time. It feels uncomfortably familiar to accept that this was another incident of terrorism. Important people trot out lines about stopping at nothing to eradicate groups and individuals who are a threat to liberal values, and the world hums in agreement. But, what if this was also an individual act of self-loathing and hatred shaped by a society which makes two men feel like they can't hold hands in public or forces a sixteen year old girl to feel too ashamed to tell her parents she's attracted to females? Some reports suggest Omar Mateen was struggling with his sexual orientation. Now is the time to be thinking about how everyday prejudice contributes to internalised homophobia - the way in which LGBTQ people can be socialised to believe their very existence is immoral, wrong and abnormal. If there is such a thing as the collective conscious it is clearly failing: there are too many pockets of darkness being allowed to seep into the minds of marginalised communities; poisoning their identities before being expelled as shame, hatred, low self-esteem, despression, suicide and violence.
Whatever the outcome of the EU referendum, the future of UK politics looks more uncertain than at any time in living memory.

The Conservative Party is irreparably split. The bitterness of the campaign has been astonishing. The fault lines in personal relationships across the party are deep and, I suspect, unbridgeable.

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It is hard to see the Prime Minister staying in office for long. But although we have become used to the notion of a Johnson/Osborne/May fight to be the next occupant of No 10, could any of this troika reunite the Party? I think not. Eurosceptic Conservatives have much in common with UKIP, and could command a healthy vote in any election - possibly around 25%.

But we have seen a resurgence of what we sued to call "One Nation" Toryism, - those such as Sarah Woolaston and Baroness Warsi who have publically rejected the acerbic traits of colleges. The impressive performance of Ruth Davidson - both in the Scottish elections and the EU campaign could be the catalyst for a move back to the centre, which would itself have a strong electoral pull.

So we have the real prospect of a staunchly right wing Conservative/UKIP block, and a reasserted One Nation grouping. But as we look to the left of the political spectrum we see challenges there too.

Jeremy Corbyn is firmly in control of the Party machinery. Labour's share in recent elections is generally improving. But the party's message is struggling to be heard and its core vote is vulnerable, outside of the South East particularly, to UKIP. The party's collapse in Scotland and redrawn Westminster constituency boundaries make it much harder for the Party to win a majority.

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In this scenario, for both a fractured conservative party and a constrained Labour one, constitutional reform makes increasing sense. Would not a "leave" result would create an unstoppable momentum for Scottish independence and may even loosen English-Welsh ties? London will surely vote Remain, and is becoming ever more distinctive to other parts of the UK. But the devolution of powers away from central government (the so-called "Devo Manc" model) has been enthusiastically embraced - not least by Labour who see it as an opportunity to address the imbalance of political forces at Westminster.

The level and spread of regional autonomy in the UK could soon cross the Rubicon. So the question must be how to ensure that the exercise of devolved power is by directly elected representatives who reflect the political views of the population. A new constitutional settlement, especially one in which old political power blocs have changed, could make proportional representation not only desirable but necessary.
This morning I voted in the EU Referendum. I also posted on my Facebook wall that I was voting and urged all people, especially women, to do the same. And yes, I used that cliched argument that women died to secure the right for women to vote. This is what I said:

I think I've made my feelings pretty clear on this debate but now I just want to say Please Vote. Once upon a time, as we all know, women weren't deemed worthy enough to vote. Many women gave up their lives or endured great hardship over the course of 60 years to eventually win women the right to vote. Not bothering to vote is to ignore what these women fought so hard for.

One friend disagreed with my approach and called me out on guilt tripping women into voting. I see her point and as I pointed out it was the people 'not bothering' to vote rather than those actively choosing not to that I was trying to appeal to.

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But it did get me thinking about what I really meant. To me it's all to do with intention. If someone chooses not to vote because they have weighed up all the arguments and they really disagree with all the options open to them, then I do agree that it is their right to choose not to vote. I don't agree with the choice - in the same way that my generally lefty liberal political leanings would mean I would never agree with someone's choice to vote for UKIP - but I can agree that it is their right to make that choice.

But the decision not to vote should not be taken lightly - in the same way that whichever way you choose to vote should not be a decision taken lightly. To me, not bothering to vote because you didn't take any time to find out the facts and weigh them up and come to an informed decision by yourself, is not ok. I think we all have a duty to do that as a citizen of the country in which we live.

I think most of us are happy that we live in a democracy and that we have the opportunity to vote in our MPs. Sure, we may grumble about picking between bad and worse, but we are being asked to elect representatives nonetheless.

I voted in my first general election just 2 months after I turned 18. I wasn't really sure who to vote for at the time and I made a throwaway comment a few weeks before the election that I probably wouldn't bother voting - that they all seem a bit crap. My mum (who isn't in any way a political activist) told me that women had fought to give me the right to vote. I didn't feel shamed or guilt tripped, but it did shake me out of my apathy and made me go out, find facts out about the candidates and what they stood for, and turn up at the polling station that morning to put a cross in the box that I had chosen.

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Since my own post this morning I've seen a lot of other posts encouraging women to vote, and a lot of comments disagreeing with them for 'shaming' or 'guilt tripping' women into voting; saying how voting is just one more responsibility we as women have to bear, and why can't we guilt trip the men too. Unfortunately, I think the original argument about women dying for your vote has become cliched. I think perhaps it has become a statement thrown around too casually, and that because of that some people feel that it shames women into voting.

But let's look at that statement and really think about it. Women died to give us the right to vote. Emily Wilding Davison went on hunger strike and was force fed through a tube over 40 times. Then she stepped out in front of a thundering horse and was trampled to death for her cause - the cause of securing equal rights and the vote for women. If she and those other women had done nothing, then we may still be living in a society where men make all the decisions and women are seen as pieces of their husband's property and not actual human beings with beliefs and opinions of their own.

This may be history that's so far back few people can remember, but it was only 100 years ago. So yeah, I will take the risk that a woman might read this and feel a bit guilty for not bothering to vote.

Yes, I don't like making anyone feel shame or guilt. And yes, I agree a lot of pressure is put on women. And yes, wading through all the propaganda from this current referendum has been a chore for the entire voting population of the UK. And yes, I'd be the first to write an angry post about women having to do something that men did not have to do blah blah blah.

But this is not one of those things. Asking women to take part in the democratic process of our country, and using pictures from history to illustrate why they should not be complacent about their right to do so is not shaming anyone.

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It's only shameful if the reason you're not voting is because you can't be bothered. And then you bloody well should feel ashamed.
African American women are nearly three times more likely to develop uterine fibroids and suffer with severe symptoms like heavy menstrual bleeding, anemia, and pelvic pain. From interfering with daily activities to negatively affecting intimate relationships, fibroids have a much more dramatic impact on black women in comparison to women of other races.

Given these realities, many are left questioning why fibroid research has lagged in the past and what's being done now to overcome this all-too-common health disparity.

"One of the issues with fibroid research is that, because it's built as a disease process that mostly affects black women, in the sphere of research there just aren't that many people who will consider it an immediate problem they face every day like heart attack or stroke," explained Dr. Janice M. Newsome, MD, Interventional Radiologist, Assistant Professor of Radiology at Emory University, and Director of Interventional Services at Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta, Ga.

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And studies show, when it comes to racial diversity, fibroid research has taken a backseat. To examine racial diversity in fibroid clinical studies, Taran and a team of researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., reviewed available literature between 2000 and 2006. The results may surprise you.

Their analysis showed that more than 75 percent of fibroid studies didn't even report race. Most of the studies that did look at race were based exclusively on African American women--but mainly consisted of prospective studies focusing on risk factors taken from a single larger follow-up study (i.e., the Black Women's Health Study). Of the remaining studies that addressed race, African American women represented only 15 percent of the populations examined.

Although prospective studies can be useful in following disease development and targeting things that might increase risk--the data has limitations.

"The truth is, we don't know enough about why fibroids affect African American women," Dr. Newsome clarified. "For example, is it scientifically sound to link the use of hair relaxers and fibroids in African American women or is it simply a correlation because African American women tend to use hair relaxers? Yes, the science shows that these women are affected disproportionately than all other women. But just because a black woman carries a certain amount of melanin in her skin doesn't answer why it's happening."

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Understanding the cause and finding a cure for fibroids requires public awareness, which is growing--but has been stifled in the past. A study published in the Journal of Women's Health showed that despite severe fibroid symptoms, African American women reported taking an average of almost four years to seek treatment. According to Dr. Newsome, this hesitation could be mistaken for passivity and minimize public awareness of an important issue.

"Among African American women, having fibroids is almost considered the norm," Dr. Newsome told Ask4UFE. "We develop fibroids at an earlier age and have more severe symptoms so it's difficult to know what's unacceptable when you're a black girl who has a 10-day long period just like your mom, aunt, and cousins--then what's really abnormal?"

Unintentionally normalizing fibroids also runs the risk of accepting unnecessary treatments. Hysterectomy rates among African American women are more than double in comparison to any other ethnic group, with the majority performed to treat noncancerous conditions like fibroids.

High hysterectomy rates among black women are multifaceted. These rates could be attributed to the fact that fibroid tumors tend to be larger and numerous among African American women, therefore requiring surgical treatment. But it also may be the only option black women are given.

"It's 2016 and as a black doctor myself who treats fibroids, I see a lot of women who come in and say their doctor told them they needed a hysterectomy and that it was their only choice," Dr. Newsome said. "We, as the medical community, need to change this--especially since black women are more likely to experience complications after surgery."

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With this in mind, Dr. Newsome and a team of healthcare providers at Emory University Hospital Midtown are forming a fibroids clinic that partners interventional radiologists with gynecologists so that women with abnormal symptoms can receive specialized care. "Our goal is that patients from all walks of life and from any doctor can make an appointment and have their fibroids managed in a way that is tailored to meet their needs," Dr. Newsome described.

Progress also involves women speaking out, educating themselves about fibroids, and not accepting surgery as the only option. Thanks to grassroots advocacy groups like The White Dress Project that have worked tirelessly with legislators around the nation, July has recently been deemed Fibroids Awareness Month in Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, New York, and the city of New Orleans.

As word gets out, more doors are opening for new avenues of fibroid research at the cellular level. "This is an important area of research that's developing," Dr. Newsome encouraged. "When we look at the cells in a uterine wall that has fibroids versus one that doesn't, we see that there's an abundance of extracellular matrix (the structural substance that surrounds cells). We're now finding that fibroids grow mainly because of excess production of disorganized extracellular matrix."

By studying the intricate makeup of fibroid cells, Dr. Newsome has high hopes that this area of research will help find the underlying cause of fibroids and lead to effective, comprehensive treatment options especially among African American women.

"Fibroids are such a common problem," Dr. Newsome reasoned. "If we start to put our collective heads together, this is one problem we can treat more scientifically than we have in the past."

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Palm-fringed tropical beach with white sand and crystal clear blue water in the Mentawai Islands, shot from the water with fisheye under/over perspective.

It doesn't matter where you look these days, there is somebody trying to separate you from those "others" who are different. Somebody is trying to divide us, to categorize us with different labels. But there is still one completely safe space in this world - a place where these differences disappear and where we can unite in commonalities instead.

That safe space is underwater.

Scuba diving is about community and about mutual understanding; there is an immense level of trust and cooperation that divers must utilize for successful and enjoyable dives.

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Every day all around the world, people of varied nationalities and backgrounds come together to marvel at nature's underwater playground. Diving establishes a community in the most remote parts of Earth, bringing people together and uniting us when so many other factors are trying to divide us instead.

Divers are all the same underwater - we are all visitors in a foreign land and our accents, our races, our beliefs have no meaning there. We are united as humans, venturing into the depths of the sea as lifelong students and researchers, as advocates and ambassadors.

It is impossible to argue underwater. It is impossible to shout over each other and to try to create divisions. Even a line drawn in the sand will very quickly disappear.

Underwater, we can be at peace and watch as an entire world coexists in fluid harmony as it has always done.

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Photo courtesy of PADI

So this summer, while arguments rise with the temperatures, find a way to come together instead of trying to push each other apart.

Whether you are an experienced diver or you've never worn fins before, you are always welcome in the dive community. Each new diver adds something new to the group, and for each new certified diver, the world gains an advocate for protecting the oceans.



Photo courtesy of PADI

While divers used to predominantly be men, the diving community has seen more and more women joining in recent years. In fact, last year, PADI (The Professional Association of Diving Instructors) helped to narrow the gender gap of earned Open Water diver certifications by 1% following the organization's Women's Dive Day events. With that added diversity to the diving community comes cause to celebrate again this year.

On July 16th, come out and join this diving community in the second-annual PADI Women's Dive Day. Last year's event was a massive success, with divers - both male and female - getting together in 65 countries around the world to celebrate and honor all the fearless female divers of days past and present.

This year, PADI members, industry icons, and recreational divers will once again take part in events scheduled across the globe (400 events and counting) to celebrate and empower women in diving.

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The scuba diving community continuously embraces new members from all walks of life, and the celebration of that togetherness is a welcome addition to an already wonderful group.



Photo courtesy of PADI

Wherever your summer travel plans are taking you in July, you're bound to find a Women's Dive Day event nearby. And if you're staying local - even better! Get in touch with your local dive shop to see if they already have an event planned. If not, follow the fin kicks of the fearless females before you and create your own event. You'll grow your own community and create a better sense of unity, which is sorely needed right now.

----------------------------------------------

This article was completed and photos were contributed with assistance from PADI. Amanda Walkins is a PADI Diver and former PADI dive shop manager in Roatan, Honduras.
Nick Hall, evangelist and founder of the PULSE movement, is calling for one million people to gather in Washington, D.C. on July 16 to lay down their differences and stand for Jesus on the National Mall. The event, called Together 2016, aims to bring people from all backgrounds together for a unified day of prayer and worship, asking Jesus to reset the nation.

"During this political year we see so many people of faith becoming negative, critical and jaded," Hall said. "Where is our help found? Where is our hope found? Not in political leaders. What better time to do something on a large scale that draws our attention back to where it really matters?"

If successful, Together 2016 will become the largest Christian gathering in American history.



The event will be free to the public and will feature a lineup of more than 40 speakers, pastors, artists, and leaders from various backgrounds -- including Pope Francis (who will be delivering a video message), Hillsong United, Kari Jobe, Francis Chan, Lecrae, Passion, and Crowder, to name a few.

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Nick Hall

At the heart of the program is the message that Jesus offers a "reset" from the issues that divide the nation -- from politics and race to social issues and theological differences. Hall has been sharing this message at events all over the world and hopes to deliver it on a larger scale at Together 2016 in order to spur a national catalytic change centered on the hope and example of Jesus.

"Jesus changes everything," Hall said. "He changed history and he can change anyone's life. Jesus doesn't discriminate; he says, 'Come one, come all.' If you're looking for a second chance, if you think there's a need for healing, then come."

So far, nearly 1,000 churches nationwide have pledged attendance, and people are travelling from countries as far flung as Africa, China, and Hungary to attend.

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In addition to the main program on July 16, PULSE is also partnering with many local organizations to coordinate service opportunities within a 100-mile radius of Washington, D.C. for individuals, youth groups, and churches to participate in during the week leading up to the event.

Hall hopes the event will inspire widespread impact.

"I believe this is a generation that can change the world," he said. "I want to see us turn from fear to hope, from hate to love, from division to friendship, and from shame to grace."
It's a big week for entrepreneurship.

Today is the start of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, hosted by President Obama at Stanford University. More than 700 entrepreneurs from 170 countries are flying in to meet with Silicon Valley executives, international organizations, and investors. It's a great opportunity to connect global entrepreneurs' big, bold ideas with Silicon Valley's unbeatable experience taking innovations to scale.

Why should you care about entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs create jobs--lots of them. Around the world, small and medium businesses create 66% of full-time jobs. In low-income countries, it's a staggering 78%. They drive innovation. They create new industries. And they open new markets. We couldn't live without them.

That is particularly true in poor and rural parts of the world. Today more than 341 million young people in developing countries are unemployed--more than the entire population of the United States. Another 536 million are underemployed. Why leave that much talent behind? If we can help young people get good jobs, we will all reap the benefits in economic growth and stability.

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What's it like for entrepreneurs in developing countries?

We sometimes take the resources American entrepreneurs have available to them for granted. But in many low-income countries, entrepreneurs don't have the support systems they need. It's particularly challenging for businesses in the "Pioneer Gap"--those entrepreneurs that have successfully tested an idea and are transitioning to the long journey to bring it to scale. The lack of resources during this phase kills many of the most promising social innovations.

How can we help entrepreneurs thrive?



Photo credits: Bobby Neptune/USAID

If you want a tree to grow, it's not enough to plant a seed. You need to make sure there is good soil, water, and sunshine. The same is true for entrepreneurs. They need different types of support over a long timeframe--the kind of support that helps them bridge gaps and become self-sufficient.

That's why USAID combines direct investments in innovators--through programs like Development Innovation Ventures and Grand Challenges for Development--with support to the broader ecosystem for entrepreneurs. One way we do this is by partnering with financial intermediaries to support impact investments in emerging markets.

For example, we provide funding to Intellecap, enabling them to structure partnerships between social enterprises and corporations. Through these partnerships, entrepreneurs get connected with the technologies, supply chains, and sales channels they need to succeed. USAID funding supports Intellecap's consulting services, giving them the bandwidth to set up these partnerships. It specifically targets enterprises owned or led by women, giving them the support they need to scale.

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USAID also supports Village Capital's investment fund, which consolidates private capital to invest in entrepreneurs. Village Capital starts with a cohort of entrepreneurs who go through an accelerator together to build skills. At the end of the program, they use a peer-selection process to determine who will receive Village Capital's funding.

Given the innovative nature of the fund and the size of the investments they make, Village Capital would not have been able to manage the fund with a standard fee of 2%. To catalyze private investment, USAID provided a grant to cover a portion of Village Capital's management costs, bringing their fee down to the industry standard. This helped them attract new investors and raise $15 million in private capital commitments.

We can't do it alone.

Through partnerships like these--and others in USAID's Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship initiative--we catalyze private investment and help create an environment where entrepreneurs can thrive.

We have so much to gain when entrepreneurs are successful. Let's make sure they get the support they need.
Before the United Kingdom decides its future in the European Union, voters there should question the key promise of Brexit backers, who claim the UK's economy would be freed from the EU's regulatory leash. This idea of post-Brexit freedom is an illusion. In reality, EU regulations will continue to shape economic life in the UK, while the UK would foolishly give up any role in shaping those regulations.



Many critical voices in the UK and the United States disdain Europe's love for rules and regulations. But most of these critics would agree that the EU's regulatory clout is real and substantial. It dictates how numerous products are produced and how global business is conducted, including how much privacy individuals need, how much bankers should be paid, how many hours of rest workers are entitled to, how farmers may grow food, and how powerful companies like Google should compete.



Leaving the EU will not insulate the UK from these rules for two reasons. First, the EU remains a significant market for UK goods and services: Nearly half of UK exports are destined for other EU countries. The UK will continue to need access to the EU's 500 million consumers, and this access will not come for free in a post-Brexit world. The EU will insist that the UK continues to adhere to the EU's rules, just like Norway and Switzerland do today. For instance, goods, services, and labor can move freely between Norway and the EU even though Norway is not an EU member. But in return, Norway must adopt the applicable EU laws without any say on the content of those laws.



Second, the EU holds a unilateral power to regulate global markets through a process described as "the Brussels Effect." Because the EU has the world's largest internal market, most multinational companies desire and depend on access to it, and this access requires compliance with EU standards. While these companies could, of course, adopt one set of standards for Europe and multiple other sets of standards for the rest of the world, scale economies and other benefits of uniform production make this unlikely. Rather, companies often choose the most stringent standard to govern global conduct and production to ensure regulatory compliance worldwide. In this way, market forces alone are often sufficient to convert the EU standard into the global standard--without any need for the EU to actively impose its standards on anyone.



Unlike the U.S., which feels the ripple effects of EU regulations on a daily basis, the UK--at least for now--has a seat at the table where those rules are made. If the UK leaves, it cedes this power to others. Instead of being a rulemaker, it becomes a rule-taker, akin to Norway or the U.S. Hence, the UK's post-Brexit economic life would not be one of free trade and unregulated markets where Brussels bureaucrats would stay at bay and the UK economy would grow under a zealous free-market orthodoxy.



In addition to handing regulatory power to the EU alone, the UK would lose the many benefits that are tied to EU membership. These include participation in more than 50 trade agreements that the EU has with other countries. It is doubtful the UK could replicate the same web of agreements with the EU's trade partners, or persuade the U.S. to strike a side deal with the UK as the U.S. negotiates a Transatlantic trade pact with the EU. Even President Obama recently suggested that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for new US trade deals.



The prospect of Brexit should also be a disturbing scenario for the U.S., particularly for those who believe in free trade and advocate for regulatory restraint. The UK has always been the strongest voice for open trade in the EU, keeping in check some of the EU's perceived tendencies for regulatory excess. In the end, if the U.S. wants the EU trade deal to succeed, the odds are significantly better if the UK remains in the EU.
The world's first ever winner of Integrity Idol has spoken to Apolitical about his victory - and how he raised the pass rate of school pupils in his district from 14% to more than 60% in a single year.

Modelled on TV talent shows like Pop Idol, Integrity Idol celebrates public servants who have displayed outstanding dedication to the common good. Now spreading to several countries, it started in Nepal in 2014, where the inaugural winner was District Education Officer Gyan Mani Nepal.

Schools in his district and throughout the country have been hobbled by very poor rates of teacher attendance. Many teachers have illegal side jobs in local politics or with NGOs, and partly in consequence of that, more than 67% of pupils in government schools nationwide fail the School Leaving Certificate after ten grades of education.

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When he was appointed in mid-2013, Mr Nepal visited every school in the district and gave pupils his personal phone number, asking them to text him if their teachers failed to appear for work. In conjunction with that, he also created a daily log of teacher attendance that is maintained by pupils and submitted by them to him.

'I went to the people and convinced the people to help me because they want to better their kids,' Mr Nepal told Apolitical. To win the community onto his side, Mr Nepal reduced his own budget and began to publish how it was being spent. He said, 'When people saw I was working hard and not corrupt, they supported me. If we work fairly and transparently to be accountable to the people, then we will never fear any obstacle. Like that, we can change society.'

In a country ranked 130th in the world for corruption, on a par with Iran and Ukraine, and still divided after the decade of civil war that ended in 2006, Mr Nepal faced opposition from local political parties that habitually interfere with the running of schools and use them to stage rallies.

If we work transparently, we will never fear any obstacle



With the community backing reform, however, local parties were at least in part persuaded to accept that schools are apolitical 'zones of peace' - a designation put forward by the Ministry of Education in 2011.

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In addition to these systemic reforms, Mr Nepal, himself a former teacher, deployed the classic carrot and stick to his own profession. The most recalcitrant teachers were sacked and some 200 more have been put on a warning since the pupil reports were started. Those keen to improve were given extra training, guidance and advice.

The result of these efforts has been a staggering jump in the number of pupils passing the School Leaving Certificate - from 14% to above 60% in a single year. And a byproduct was his nomination as the first ever Integrity Idol.

The competition, which aims to foster a culture of integrity in public life, received 303 nominees, including teachers and health workers. Mr Nepal was chosen from a group of panel-selected finalists, winning the largest proportion of around 10,000 public votes.

'Integrity Idol is all about building a positive narrative,' Narayan Adhikari, one of the creators of the competition, which is run by the non-profit Accountability Lab with government support, told Apolitical. 'Instead of putting wrongdoers behind bars, it's about highlighting the good people. We really want to change the system through individuals, and inspire the younger generation to join government with the mindset of integrity and personal accountability, rather than for a pension and social security.'

There are people within the system doing extraordinary work



Mr Nepal has now moved to another school district, where he is working to develop a model school run to international standards, with modern educational techniques as well as computers, a library and facilities for sport and music. He said, 'The ultimate aim of this role model school is to create a hub for learning for all teachers, students and other stakeholders as well as other schools to learn and adapt similar concepts.'

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Meanwhile, Integrity Idol - which Mr Nepal said had helped him continue to push through his reforms - has grown both within Nepal and elsewhere. The second round was won by Chief District Officer Pradip Raj Kanel, who has worked on lifting travel restrictions in politically sensitive areas and whose office announces by loudspeaker every morning, 'We are your helpers, if you are facing any problems you can directly contact the Chief District Officer.' It attracted some 50,000 votes, and the competition has spread to half a dozen other countries, including Liberia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Nor is Integrity Idol the only prize in this field. As part of a wider trend, another organisation, the Open Government Partnership, which works with 69 countries across all inhabited continents, has started running awards for transparency in government. Focussing on projects rather than individuals, the award last year was given to a Uruguayan scheme giving citizens unprecedentedly detailed information about the performance of the health service. Nominations are presently open for this year's prize.
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un looks at a rocket warhead tip after a simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile, at an unidentified location in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on March 15, 2016. KCNA/File Photo via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. SOUTH KOREA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SOUTH KOREA

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Russia is a key strategic player in Northeast Asia, borders on North Korea, has long experience in dealing with various Pyongyang regimes and provides goods and services vital to the North's survival and well-being. The country could contribute significantly to international deliberations on how to restrain the North's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Yet two players -- the United States and China -- have more or less monopolized approaches to dealing with the North.

Quite obviously, such approaches haven't worked well. The North's threats to international security are gaining momentum and reach. By now, North Korea has amassed an estimated 10 to 20 nuclear weapons, and it could have as many as 100 by the end of the decade. South Korea and Japan may already be within the range of Pyongyang's nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. In a few years North Korea may develop missiles that can strike Hawaii, Alaska and the continental United States.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the ballistic rocket launch drill of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army at an unknown location. (KCNA/via REUTERS)

The conventional view is that Russia's influence over North Korea is mostly political, predicated on Russia's permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council. Often overlooked is the fact that Russia maintains a range of commercial and other links with the North. Taken together, they constitute quite a substantial leverage that Moscow can exercise over Pyongyang. Arguably, among North Korea's neighbors Russia now ranks second, after China, in terms of its potential ability to cause intense economic pain to the North Korean regime. This became especially true in recent years after Japan and South Korea severed virtually all economic contacts with the North.

Right now, Moscow-Pyongyang ties are in retreat. Russia supported the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2270, scaling back an economic relationship and high-level political contacts which had reached a high point during 2014 and 2015. Nevertheless, important points of contact and leverage remain. Russia's annual trade with the North is a mere 100 million dollars, dwarfed by China's 7 billion dollars. However, according to some estimates, about one-third of China's exports to North Korea is actually made up of Russian-originated products, mostly oil and fuel-related. Russia seems to be the world's biggest importer of North Korean contract labor, hosting some 20,000 North Korean ''guest workers.'' Sending labor abroad is an important source of hard currency for the North Korean regime.





Russian cooperation is essential for the North's ability to communicate with the world.





Prior to the latest U.N. sanctions, Russia was one of the few countries whose financial institutions carried out regular transactions with North Korea. Tellingly, in 2007 a bank in the Russian Far East became the only financial institution in the world that agreed to perform a delicate mission of mediating the transfer to North Korea of around 25 million dollars of the Kim regime's assets that had been previously frozen in Macao-based Banco Delta Asia by U.S. Treasury sanctions.

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Though largely ruptured under the impact of sanctions, these relations could be quickly reestablished if the sanctions are eased or lifted. In the meantime, various gray area or informal transactions involving North Korean businesses inside Russia continue to provide a vital financial link to the North.

This North Korea dock was jointly built with Russia after the completion of a railway link to North Korea. (REUTERS/Yuri Maltsev)

Russian cooperation is essential for the North's ability to communicate with the world. With the exception of China, Russia is the only country that maintains overland transportation communications with North Korea, with the traffic going through a railway bridge across the Tumen River. Aside from China, Russia is also the only country maintaining regular permanent scheduled air service to Pyongyang. North Korean national flag carrier Air Koryo's fleet entirely consists of Russian-made aircraft. This means dependence on spare parts and maintenance services imported from Russia.

Given its favorable location, Russia could offer significant inducements to the North, notably in the form of Trans-Korea natural gas pipeline, railway and electricity projects linking the Russian Far East to South Korea and transiting via the North. Income from these projects would greatly boost the economic fortunes of the North, but of course Pyongyang would have to agree to major concessions in its weapons programs, at a minimum to freeze nuclear and missile testing.





Russia played a role in the successful negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. It can have an even more substantial part in resolving the North Korea conundrum.





Even though the North's nukes and missiles are not directly threatening Russia, being intended against the United States and its allies, Moscow has good reason to be increasingly concerned. As a guarantor of the global non-proliferation regime, Russia is firmly against the spread of nuclear weapons. Any proliferation would inevitably devalue Russia's own nuclear deterrent, which is of profound importance to Moscow's great power self-identity. Moscow also worries that Pyongyang's nuclear aspirations could result in an arms race or even war in Northeast Asia, a scenario extremely undesirable for Russia. As a more immediate concern, Vladivostok, the Russian Far East's biggest city, is just 200 miles from the North Korean nuclear test site.

As a member of P5+1 group, Russia played a generally helpful role in the successful negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Given its leverage with Pyongyang, Moscow can have an even more substantial part in resolving the North Korea conundrum. Yet this comes with caveats. Russia's growing dependence on China, resulting from Moscow's estrangement from the West, could predispose the Kremlin to follow China's line on North Korea. If Beijing -- as many suspect -- is not inclined to cause real pain to Pyongyang, neither would Russia. A lot will depend on the state of Russia's relations with the United States. If they go from bad to worse, it will be difficult, if not outright impossible, for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on North Korea.

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There are rabid extremists everywhere these days, with raging rhetoric and venomous rallying cries. When their appeals to fear and violence provoke predictably, murderous actions, why shouldn't they also be charged with complicity for the tragic results?

Why should they be able to continue to spew their volatile messaged on mainstream media and across the internet. When, in short, do societies put a reign on so-called "free speech?"

There has been a spate of supposedly "lone-wolf" terrorist attacks over the past few days. Most horrifically, the slaughter of 49 people in the LGBT nightclub in Orlando on June 12th; then the hacking to death of a French police officer and his companion in front of their three-year old child in a Paris suburb on July 13th. In both cases, the assailants apparently selected their own targets, weapons, time and method of attack.

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But the murderers were not acting alone.

As they saw it, they had joined the ranks of a glorious cause -- laying down their lives for the Islamic State. By their murderous acts, they transformed themselves from dull, anonymous misfits, into heroic martyrs in an epic battle. Without that incentive, they'd almost certainly never have acted. (See my previous blog).

Thus, the mounting calls to somehow censor or block the access of radical Islamic jihadist sites to the media and social networks.

ISIS is delighted to take credit for the sanguinary acts performed in its name. But they are not the only ones out there with rabid ideologies encouraging -- if not actually cheering on -- would-be killers across the globe.

Those seeking bloody retribution on the LGBT community, for example, don't have to rely on radical Islam to justify their acts. There's also the world's best selling book, the Bible. In several passages from the Old as well as the New Testaments homosexuality is treated as a mortal abomination.

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Take Leviticus 20:13: "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."

Or Romans 1:32 Romans 1:32, "... and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

There are plenty of people who explain away the Draconian biblical rhetoric as belonging to a much earlier, primitive age. Not at all the stuff of modern Christianity--Judaism. But not all agree.

But, if its blasphemous to contravene God's commandments, how can those fundamentalist Christians who continue to thunder from the pulpit, avoid responsibility for the bloody acts of those who murder -- if you will -- in God's name.

Indeed, there are Christian men of the cloth who, though vilifying ISIS publicly, still managed to praise the Orlando killings. Baptists Pastor Roger Jiminez in Sacramento, for instance, on a Youtube video:

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"You know the tragedy is that more of them didn't die."

Meanwhile, Fort Worth Pastor Donnie Ramero said he stood by Jiminez, posting his own video:

"These 50 Sodomites were all perverts and pedophiles and they are the scum of the earth and the earth is a little bit better place now..." he said.

According to Fox News, Youtube took down Pastor Jiminez's video, labeling it "hate speech"

But only after it had been viewed by 40,000 people.

Out of interest, I checked a bit further on Youtube -- to find another -- or perhaps the same-incredibly venomous sermon by Jimenez, declaring that "as a Christian we shouldn't be mourning the deaths of those 50 Soddomites."

"Aren't you sad that 50 Soddomites died?" He asked his congregation. "Are you satisfied that 50 pedophiles were killed today? No, I think that's great... I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight. It's sad that more of them didn't die. I'm kind of upset they didn't finish the job."

An ultra-orthodox Jew, Yishai Shlissel, undoubtedly had the same Old Testament strictures in mind when he killed a 16-year-old girl and injured six others at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem last year. Incredibly, he had just been released from prison three weeks earlier after serving a 10-year sentence for a similar bloody attack that wounded three people in 2005.

His rampage was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a "terrorist attack."

But talk about slipping through terrorist watch lists! As one of the court witnesses testified, if Schlissel had been an Arab rather than an immediately recognizable ultra-Orthdoox Jew, he would have been shot dead on the spot, even after he was no longer a threat to civilians.

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Then there's the recent case of Michael Sanford, a 19-year-old Brit who attempted to snatch a revolver from a policeman at a Trump rally in Las Vegas last Saturday and assassinate Donald Trump. He'd been planning to murder Trump for months, he told the police, who also said he declared "that if he were on the street tomorrow, he would try this again."

Presumably, Sanford also views himself as an historical hero, determined to save America and the world from the bombastic Republican nominee, a man condemned by many of his opponents as a potential Mussolini or Hitler.

Given such mounting alarums against Trump, why should we be surprised when those cataclysmic warnings provoke violent results?

After all, if Trump could indeed morph into the brutal, blood-soaked tyrant portrayed by his opponents, than Michael Sanford's action was not at all unhinged. One might even commend him, as today we might honor any young German in the 30s who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler as he was climbing towards power.

The same reasoning prevails with Donald Trump's thinly-veiled charge that President Obama was somehow involved with ISIS and the Orlando attacks. Trump also tweeted a story from an anti-Obama website Breitbart.com citing a newly discovered "secret memo" the website says proves Obama is an ISIS supporter.

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Outrageous as those claims are, they were widely broadcast worldwide and went viral on social media. Is it not very much within the range of possibility that, fueled by those inflammatory charges, some other would-be hero would feel called upon to act? Compelled, say, to rid America of its treasonous leader in a volley of rapid gunfire.

Didn't Yigal Amir, the Israeli ultranationalist who assassinated Itzhak Rabin in November, 1995, believe he was acting to save the State of Israel from making a "disastrous" peace with the Palestinians? It was a process that many close to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu had already classified as treason?

Indeed, Netanyahu regularly addressed protestors of the Oslo Peace accords at rallies where posters portrayed Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform, or being the target in the cross-hairs of a sniper.

Afterwards Netanyahu attempted to wash his hands of any responsibility for Rabin's assassination.

Back to the present -- to July 17th in England, when a 52 year-old British man, Thomas Mair killed Jo Cox, a member of Parliament and a vociferous leaders in the fight to keep Britain in the European Union.

The battle had become so toxic -- so filled with fear and lies and hate -- that it was being depicted by many as a valiant last ditch attempt to prevent the British people (whoever they might be) from being overwhelmed by a tsunami of largely Muslim immigrants.

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"There is no indication at this stage that anyone else was involved in the attack," the police investigating Cox's killing said.

But just a minute...

At his arraignment the killer declared, "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain"

And Thomas Mair, in fact, had long-standing ties with white supremacist neo-Nazi groups in England -- and the United States. There are scores of such groups on the web.

If Britain's situation was really as perilous as some of those pushing for Brexit claimed--we're talking about prominent newspapers and pundits and politicians--then how could anyone blame Mair for taking up arms to defend his homeland?

Such ultra-patriotic sentiments drove Andrei Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian, to undertake a murderous rampage in Norway July 22, 2011, killing 77 people, many of them participants in the Workers Youth League Camp. He also claimed he was acting to counter an Islamic/immigrant takeover of his country.

He was presented in trial as dangerously deranged, but, as Breivik saw it, he was also not alone. He was also a regular subscriber to radical right wing blogs, including Atlas Shrugs, run by Pam Geller a prolific Islamophobe. Portions of the racist manifesto Breivik issued were taken verbatim from Geller's site.

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After Breivik's attack, Geller claimed she had had nothing to do with him. But, as I blogged at the time, Geller's site had indeed had contact with someone who very well might have been Breivik. Indeed, after the horrific attack, Geller had felt the need to delete some of the more blood-curdling racist exchanges that her blog had been host to.

In those exchanges, someone who Geller referred to simply as "an Atlas reader in Norway" had contacted the site, claiming that he was collecting weapons and ammunition to combat the immigrant menace. Did Geller attempt to dissuade him? To report him to authorities?

No. Indeed, readers of her site gave the anonymous Norwegian contributor their full throated support.

One of Geller's followers praised the Norwegian's sentiments, but warned Geller that "he or she could be prosecuted under hate-speech laws for writing or posting in Norway what you passed on to us."

To which Geller replied,

"Yes, which is why I ran it anonymously."

Pam Geller and her site remain a fount of Islamophobic venom, she's also a regular on Breibart.com and Fox TV. Two of her recent book titles: The Post American Presidency -- The Obama Administration's War on America and Stop the Islamization of America.

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All of which present a huge, existential problem to our societies. In the age of the internet and rampant social media, just about anyone can find support for their views, however extreme, however violent, however deranged.

In some countries, what is considered "hate speech" -- attacks promoting violence against specific groups or religions or minorities -- are prohibited. In France and Germany, for instance, there is even a law against denying that the Holocaust took place.

Still the internet in France and England and everywhere else abounds with the most incendiary material -- that the Muslims for instance are about to take over the country, that people in the government are conspiring to make Sharia the law of the land. That the immigrants are at the ramparts. That French civilization is being betrayed. In the U.S. alone there are scores of radical White Supremist/neo Nazi sites.

It's like turning over a rock on a beach -- the most outrageous causes, conspiracy theories and calls to action, come slithering out.

How to stamp them out or at least put some limits on their venom, without destroying freedom of speech?

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If Trump's opponents sincerely believe he's a potential Hitler, don't they have the right to raise the alarm?

Ditto the charge that Obama is secretly conspiring with ISIS?

Or that England is about to be destroyed by immigration?

Or that homosexuality blasphemes the word of God.

But what if a "lone-wolf" is driven to violent action by those warnings?
When political historians look back on the 2016 presidential contest, they'll likely consider May 4th to the present as the decisive period. On May 4th, Donald Trump won the Indiana Republican primary; his last competitor, Ted Cruz, dropped out; and the press labeled Trump the presumptive GOP candidate. A week later, Trump got a polls "bump" and was effectively tied with Hillary Clinton. Then Donald lost his mojo.

At the moment, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 7.5 percent in the Huffington Post Poll of Polls and the spread increases daily. Clinton also leads in fundraising and is generally credited with having a more effective campaign. Clinton was the first to run TV ads in critical swing states.

What happened to Trump? How did he squander his advantage?

Donald didn't adjust. It's a political axiom that it takes different tactics to win a general election for president than it does to win a primary election - it's one thing to win over Party partisans and quite another to win over the general population. Trump didn't recognize this and, therefore, kept running the same style of campaign and employing the same tactics.

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Trump doesn't have a campaign infrastructure because he hasn't raised the money necessary. A recent Huffington Post article said that Trump only has 70 paid staff members compared to Clinton's 732. The New York Times reported that, in this 45 day period, Trump has yet to run a TV ad; Clinton and surrogates have spent $25.5 M on ads.

A Time Magazine article observed: [Trump] has planned no big fundraising blitz or major TV ad campaign for the fall. He has little interest in the latest advances in data analysis or digital strategy. And despite a personal fortune that runs into the billions, Trump does not want to hire a big staff in the states to get out the vote and to court local leaders. He prefers to talk to reporters and surrogates himself, betting on his own gut and guile. "Trump's campaign is entirely ad hoc. It's a guerilla operation built on the concept of mass communication."

On June 20th, Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

Donald lost focus. For the first three weeks after he won the GOP nomination, Trump kept doing what he had been doing - emphasizing key Trump issues such as immigration and attacking Hillary Clinton. Then he lost focus. On May 27th, a Federal judge in a civil case involving Trump "University" ordered the depositions made public. The next day, Trump used a California campaign speech to attack the judge, accusing him of bias because the judge's parents emigrated from Mexico.

When asked about his comments, Trump doubled down. In a May 31st press conference Trump repeated his charges against the judge and attacked the press, in general.

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On June 2nd, Hillary Clinton gave what she had labeled a foreign policy speech. It was a prolonged attack on Trump. Clinton declared Trump temperamentally unfit to be President. She declared his ideas as "dangerously incoherent," adding that they consisted of "a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies." Trump was so obsessed with the "Trump University" case that he didn't respond to Clinton.

Donald blew his opportunity to get back on course. Presidential campaigns take a long time and external events usually present an opportunity for course correction. On June 12th there was a horrendous shooting spree in an Orlando gay nightclub. Because the killer was an American Muslim, the event was an opportunity for Trump to trumpet his signature issues: domestic security, immigration reform, and Muslim ban.

On June 12th Trump tweeted: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." On June 13th, Trump responded with a speech so over-the-top that it was universally panned. Politico reported a spot poll: 51 percent of respondents did not like the way Trump responded to the Orlando massacre, while only 25 percent approved.

Donald failed to united Republicans. After he secured the nomination, Trump had a chance to unite Republicans. He didn't do this. He got a lukewarm endorsement from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and did not garner the support of Republican elders such as George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.

On May 7th Trump boasted he could win the presidency without unifying the Republican Party: "'I'm very different than everybody else, perhaps, that's ever run for office."

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Donald Trump has made mistakes and they've cost him. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 70 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump versus 29 percent favorable, a historic low.

The results are worse by demographic sector. For example, in a CNN poll 73 percent of female voters said they had a negative view of Trump. A recent Gallup Poll provided additional information on the gender gap. Non-White women favor Clinton by 56 points; White women favor Clinton by 2 points.
For Bon Appetit, by Alex Beggs.



Avocado slicers: Just say no. Photo: Courtesy of Bon Appetit

Avocados--the patron saint of California, fairweather friend of toast, and blood type of Gwyneth Paltrow--are one of the world's most perfect edibles. Thanks a lot, nature! The only drawbacks: When in holy hell is this thing ripe? Why does this look like a dino egg? Why are they so expensive? And THAT PIT.

Most sane human beings know the whole knife-and-spoon trick: Gently hack knife into pit, pull out, bang against side of garbage can until pit miraculously falls out. Then slice diagonals in the creamy green meat, and spoon out onto toast or whatever. Why is this so hard?!

Apparently this is just *too much* to handle. Knives are scary! And humans have credit cards, which means the market was riper than a black mushy avocado for an avocado slicer. Another contraption for your bottomless junk drawer and seemingly bottomless AmEx limit.

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There are suddenly tons of these things, and the pros at Cook's Illustrated tested ALL of them, or very close to all of them, since more keep popping up in Bed, Bath, and Beyond every day in various shades of Shrek. They also tested them with different varieties of avocados! It was downright scientific. Hundreds of avocados were sacrificed to the guacamole gods, which Miye Bromberg, who led the testing over several days, told me. There was a "steady stream" of avocado toast, too. They determined: Pointless. And in your heart, which is full of healthy fats thanks to a daily breakfast of guac and chips, you know this is true.



Look ma! Avocado toast, minus the avocado slicer. Photo: Marcus Nilsson

They all created a mess of mush, some had uneven cuts, took as long as cutting, or did more mashing than slicing, and some were so slippery they were called "dangerous" for the threat to your digits. Bromberg told me that "it's surprisingly easy to hurt yourself with them, especially if you're not particularly adroit, and I'm on the clumsier side of the equation." Was there blood? "I can't lie, there may have been some gouging."

The irony is, these gadgets were invented specifically because people are so terrified of knives. "People will do anything to avoid using a knife," said Bromberg, whose job it is to take these testings extremely seriously: "I tried to get data on how many avocado-related injuries were seen in the Boston area in hospitals, and unfortunately people weren't taking specific statistics on that." So she called an orthopedic surgeon and found out that they see 2-3 patients a year because of avocado-knife slips (severed palms, deep cuts, things like that). The best way to cut it with a knife, she told me, is to put a folded dish towel in your palm, then nest the avocado in it to add an extra layer of protection before you start slicing. I personally just leave it on the cutting board and have never had problems, but my colleagues are all palm-slicers. The most important thing, Bromberg added, is a sharp knife: "As long as you have a sharp knife and know how to use it correctly, you're going to avoid 90 percent of the cuts and injuries people get into when slicing an avocado."



Here's the Cook's Illustrated method.

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And hey, you can't shove three consecutive slices of (pre-Instagrammed) avocado toast with Maldon, red pepper flakes, and artisanal olive oil into your mouth without fingers, you know?! Fingers are important, a $5.90 avocado slicer? Not so much.

But because life is all about compromise, the testers at Cook's Illustrated did admit that one OXO Good Grips slicer was an acceptable pit-remover. It has a jagged end for cutting the avocado (looks suspiciously like a knife), and a cylindrical middle part with blades inside to take the pit out (little knives!).

So there's that.
Twenty-two years ago a reckless, anti-immigrant ballot initiative--energized and supported by Republican Governor and presidential aspirant Pete Wilson--passed in California and turned a once reliably red state bright blue.

Proposition 187, the so-called "Save our State" initiative, never went into effect but it did galvanize public opposition, pushed people to register to vote, and encouraged Hispanics to participate in the political process. It also effectively ended the presidential ambitions of Pete Wilson. Five years after passage, the initiative was declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court and withdrawn.

The initiative stated that undocumented persons could not receive support from state funded programs; physicians at public hospitals were mandated to check IDs before treatment; teachers in school were to verify citizenship of elementary school students. Both groups of professionals refused to comply and dared state officials to prosecute them.

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Proposition 187--a sort of "last gasp" for people who refused to study reality-based demographic data or believe in past Supreme Court precedent--represented a major Republican blunder, but only in one state. In that state, California, Hispanics now outnumber whites. Twelve years prior to Prop. 187 the Supreme Court ruling, Plylor v. Doe, (1982) settled the issue of children in public school: All children in America must attend public school when school is in session without discrimination based on race, gender, religion, national origin--or citizenship status. Essentially, the Save our State initiative was dead the moment it passed and any legal scholar, or first year law student for that matter, understood this basic reality.

But Pete persisted, unconcerned with Supreme Court precedence or the cruelty of the initiative and now, Governor Wilson is a mere footnote in our political memories.

Fast forward 22 years to Donald Trump's (soon to be) nomination as the Republican standard bearer for the presidency in November, 2016. He advocates a national program of mass deportations of people who are living here with irregular immigration status, and Trump has animated his campaign by calling for construction of a 2,000 mile border wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump, essentially, is running a national Proposition 187 campaign.

Yet, as preposterous as these proposals seem, we can't blame Donald Trump for being Donald Trump; let's consider the arc of policies pursued by our politicians over the past few years--particularly politicians who identify with the Republican Party. Republicans in states like Arizona and Alabama have pursued draconian, anti-immigration policies in recent years, creating a climate of mistrust and meanness. Additionally, they've slashed public education budgets, sycophantically support the entire NRA agenda, while never once voting for an increase in the minimum wage.



Mr. Trump can't win the presidency on his nativist, deportation agenda and learning about the legacy of Pete Wilson would serve him well. But we have a long tradition of blaming victims in the USA: The gross income inequality, the brazenness of our captains of finance, the collapsing national infrastructure--none of this is the fault of our immigrant brothers and sisters. Trump, like Wilson and friends back in the mid-1990s, is targeting and planning to punish the victims of our nation's excesses via policies of exclusion and the related relentless, reckless pursuit of profit and greed.

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Is Hamilton fever helping Broadway? And will it die down as many of the original cast leave? These questions--or ones just like them--dominate all my recent conversations, as much as I purposely try to avoid them.

As for the opening question, there are two schools of thought. The first, which is the one most will express on the record, is that it is a tremendous help to the community. Look at the increased awareness of Broadway around the country. Look at the Tony Award ratings. Look at how many other shows are promoted via #Ham4Ham. Look at the Hamilton fan base that will impact not just Hamilton but every show that a cast member from Hamilton enters.

The second, less openly discussed opinion, is that Hamilton hype is hurting the runners-up. The theory is as follows: if someone has to spend $1000 on a ticket to Hamilton they are less likely to go to the number of shows they normally would during the year. In other words, that audience member is saving up their money to see Hamilton. If they normally spend $1000 a year on theater tickets they are now spending that all on one show instead of the usual five shows. Indeed I do know people who are saving up for Hamilton instead of going to multiple cheaper options. (I think this second option applies mostly to folks in the tristate area. If you are a tourist it's less likely this type of calculation will happen, though I suppose two/three shows a trip might be limited to one.)

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Now this analysis only matters if Hamilton hype will continue once the original stars leave. When the producers announced the $849 tickets, they said that it was an average of what scalpers were getting. That's true, but most of those scalpers were getting it from people who were buying tickets to see the original cast (pre-July 9) or thought they'd see the original cast. Pretty much everyone wants to see the original cast of Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda himself recognized this when he tweeted (emphasis his): "We're filming the original cast before I go. WE GOT YOU." Of course, while they are filming the original cast, there is no word when that recording will be seen by the masses. But, moving on, this tweet recognizes that the folks who have yet to see Hamilton are going to be disappointed they aren't seeing the original cast.

But do I think Hamilton hype is likely to plummet immediately upon their departure? Nope. Not unless the replacement cast is bad. Look at what happened in Chicago this week--people lining up 24 hours for tickets, tickets skyrocketing on the secondary market, etc.--all for a mounting that doesn't have an announced cast. The Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones was tweeting as the secondary market price kept rising and rising. Someone asked me earlier this week if you could get your money back if you purchased tickets for the Broadway production in late July assuming you'd see the original cast. The answer I believe is "not technically," but the secondary market will still oblige, so if you really no longer want to see Hamilton, the world has "got you."

Many hot shows on Broadway are not cast specific. Let's take a moment to examine Wicked, which had its own hit sit-down in Chicago. Wicked could have gone the way of The Producers. Remember how quickly The Producers faded when Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left? Yes, it lasted six years, but it never regained the heights it once had (except when the original leads came back in). The New York Times' Ben Brantley revisited it and said of first replacements Brad Oscar and Steven Weber: "It is as if they had been shoved into someone else's custom-tailored suits and then asked to grow or shrink into the clothes through sheer willpower." Once the original two leads left, you could have seen any replacement cast. The first, second or third it wouldn't have likely made a difference to the normal audience member.



Wicked, which is another show that depends on two leads, has kept its footing. There are people who have seen Wicked dozens of times and have different favorite Glindas and Elphabas. Looking back on it, as someone who saw the original cast, it was important to me personally that if I were to revisit Wicked, I see at least the first replacement cast. I've liked Jennifer Laura Thompson in pretty much everything. I knew she'd be completely different from Kristin Chenoweth. I knew Shoshana Bean could really sing. I knew she'd kill it vocally. These beliefs were supported during the performance. I'm happy I saw them. I've only seen two sets of leads since and liked neither set as much. But that is me--in Wicked fandom everyone has a different favorite, whether they were the first replacement or the seventh or from the tour or a sit-down. The woman sitting near me watching Bean in Funny Girl recently had seen Wicked 57 times and liked all but one Elphaba. People who have seen it only once generally like the folks they see.

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I have a feeling Hamilton, as much as it depends on the chemistry among its leads, will be more like Wicked (and many other long-running shows), as long as the roles are well cast in the future. That would mean you could see any cast in the future. However it would also speak against this theory some people now have that they can wait two years and see Hamilton for cheaper. After all, if you're looking for great cheap Book of Mormon tickets even now, over five years into its run, good luck. Wicked, over 13 years into its run, is also still a hot ticket, frequently selling out even its premium seats. In that way, if you want to get in on the conversation related to any of these shows, you might as well see them early. Do it now if you can afford it and want to. Or should you? Might you save in the near future?
News Thursday that Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and the committee's ranking Senate Democrat Debbie Stabenow had finally sewn up a deal on nationwide GMO labeling left the food industry celebrating - but GMO labeling backers cursing - a law that will continue to leave consumers largely in the dark about the GMO content of their groceries.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which represents the interests of the nation's largest food and beverage companies and has been the chief architect of legislation to pre-empt Vermont's mandatory labeling law, said Thursday that it "fully supports" the terms of the newly proposed legislation.

Senate Ag Democrats quickly took to social media to try to defend the deal, calling it a "win for consumers." A prior measure pushed by Roberts, referred to by critics as Deny Americans the Right to Know Act, or the DARK Act, was blocked by Senate Democrats in March.



But consumer advocates who were merely days away from seeing the nation's first mandatory GMO labeling law implemented - set to take effect in Vermont on July 1 - said the bill was no better than the prior version, and they vowed to do all they could to block its passage.

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"This is not a labeling bill; it is a non-labeling bill," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, in a statement. "We are appalled that our elected officials would support keeping Americans in the dark about what is in our food and even more appalled that they would do it on behalf of Big Chemical and food corporations.

The chief objection is that while the bill nullifies Vermont's law, and any other similar state labeling efforts, it also allows companies to avoid the main thing consumers have demanded - a fast and easy way to determine if a food product they are purchasing was made using genetically engineered crops.

To appease consumer concerns about GMOs, many national food companies have already started providing simple and clear on-package GMO labeling. But under the law now proposed, food companies could avoid any mention of genetic engineering on their packages and "disclose" GMO ingredients through digital codes rather than on-package language. Consumers would be directed to "scan here for more food information" with a smartphone to find information about the food they want to buy. Another option would allow food companies to provide a phone number along with language that states "call for more food information."

And, while the Vermont law would be nullified immediately, the law gives the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) two years to finalize a rule laying out the disclosure requirements. Food manufacturers defined as "very small" would be exempt from the disclosure requirement entirely.

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The law provides no federal penalties for violations of the labeling requirements. It calls for the USDA to determine the amounts of GMO "substance that may be present in food" to be considered a bioengineered food. Foods that have meat, poultry, and egg products as main ingredients are exempted.

And, some consumer advocates say that a provision setting a definition of genetic engineering, or "bioengineering," would be limited to such an extent that some interpretations might mean that foods made with herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans, the main GMO crops grown in the United States, would not be subject to the labeling requirements.

Consumer groups are vowing to blitz members of Congress with demands that they block the law, reminding them that this isn't about politics - it's about a consumer's fundamental right to make an informed decision about the food they are buying for themselves and their families.

Many consumers worry that the genetically engineered crops on the market now carry potential and actual risks for human health and the environment. They worry that because most GMO crops are sprayed with glyphosate herbicide, which the World Health Organization has declared a probable human carcinogen, that GMO foods might contain dangerous levels of that pesticide. And they lack confidence in the regulatory and corporate entities that say those concerns are unsubstantiated even though the regulators require no independent safety testing of genetically engineered crops before they are commercialized for food.

The food and agrichemical and seed industry interests have brushed aside those concerns, and have acknowledged that they fear consumers will turn away from foods clearly labeled GMO in favor of non-GMO, natural or organic products.

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Consumer advocates accused Stabenow of selling out consumer interests to appease food and big agriculture interests, such as Monsanto Co., the chief purveyor of GMO seed technology. But Stabenow defended the deal.

"For the first time ever, consumers will have a national, mandatory label for food products that contain genetically modified ingredients," Stabenow said in a statement. "Throughout this process I worked to ensure that any agreement would recognize the scientific consensus that biotechnology is safe, while also making sure consumers have the right to know what is in their food."

The Senate is in session next week and could take the bill up, while the U.S. House of Representatives is in recess until after the Fourth of July holiday. Consumer advocates promise not to let labeling go down without a fight.
Walking into Forefront Church in Gramercy Theatre last Sunday, I had come in with a few expectations.

I knew the worship music set would include electric guitars and the always quiche touch of the violin and that the pastor's wife would come on stage and make a family friendly joke that the congregation would feel obligated to laugh at.

I knew that there would be a moment in the service of "forced fellowship" when you have to talk to your neighbor/a complete stranger for five minutes. This week's topic was favorite father memories...I snuck away to the bathroom to avoid the situation all together.

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It was my first time stepping foot in that church in three years, but it was just as I had left it.

After graduating from my Christian university and, in turn, leaving conversion therapy behind, the future of my faith was in the air. Encouraged by my New York City gay therapist to continue to go to church since "it was a huge part of me," I started going to Forefront on a regular basis.

Everything was fine at first, but things changed once I started working for a men's underwear blog. I had taken the position for the free underwear as well as the somewhat gay, smutty aspect to it. At times when you are used to such conservatism, you need the exact opposite in your life to break you out of your shell. And that's what the job did for me.

One Sunday during "forced fellowship," I was asked about my work by a girl with a septum piercing, fedora, and flannel. You know, the "I am a Christian but also approachable and hip" look.

"I'm a writer," I replied.

"Cool...what kind?"

One of my favorite episodes of How I Met Your Mother is the one in which Ted dates a girl who talks too much. When it is made apparent to him, you can hear a glass shatter, representing the shattering of the illusion he created of her as the perfect girl.

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"Fashion," I said. The glass shattered.

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't my fabulous truth either. Outside of the walls of the church I was being me, but, inside, I was still tiptoeing around my identity. I had come to feel as if it was the one place I couldn't say the name of my community. The cohabitation of organized religion and my queerness was a shattered illusion.

As the weeks went on, church became a temple full of glass shards. My cynicism grew. I started to feel claustrophobic. It was as if my queerness was stuck in the trash compacter in Star Wars with the walls closing in. So, I left.

Three years later, the mass shooting in Orlando at Pulse Nightclub that left 49 (prominently gay, prominently Latino men) dead had happened. As I read through the names, it was the first time that I felt like it could have been me. I was shaken.

There is something about tragedy and mourning that propels one toward familiarity. In these times, I've always turned to God. So, I found myself in the back of Forefront somewhat emotionally numb from the week and fully ready to pick apart the church's predictability.

That was until the associate pastor began to pray. "We pray for all who are afraid, and all who mourn. We pray for those throughout history who have suffered violence and death because of their sexual orientation. Today we honor those who died in the Orlando massacre," he read off the screen, holding back tears.

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In college, I worked for a leadership organization where my advisor would supply his team with packets full of names and pictures of people who we would be leading. We had to memorize these names before meeting these people. His reasoning was that he wanted us to be able to welcome people into our organization by saying their name. It makes people feel like they are a part of something.

In light of that, I can see why, after the shootings, the video of Florence and the Machine performing "Spectrum" and singing the lyric "say my name" while holding the rainbow flag started to circulate. As the media began to spin the story of the shooting, there was a sense that some didn't want to acknowledge it was a hate crime toward the queer community.

I experienced the same spin from people I used to go to church with, yet, when I heard the church lift the queer community up in prayer Sunday and heard words like "LGBTQ brothers and sisters," I wept.

For the first time I felt as if there was a deliberate call for that congregation to stand with the queer community in their time of mourning. It was a time my community was mentioned in a way that wasn't reserved for a "hot topics" sermon about how to ~deal~ with homosexuals. It was coexistence.

Jesus, giving his sermon on the mount, said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Being a gay man, I am still processing what happened a week ago and welcome prayer because I feel like consolation, support, and an open ear are equal parts of helping those who are grieving. For a moment, in a church where I once felt ashamed, I felt authentically comforted.

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While meditating on the service that night, I was filled with a need for more however. The Christians who are usually the most vocal about the queer community are usually extremist groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church. They are leading the anti-LGBT narrative for the church while other church groups are keeping their opinions and messages of love toward the queer community behind closed doors. It's just time for the church doors to be opened.
This photo provided by Rep. Chillie Pingree,D-Maine, shows Democrat members of Congress, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, and Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn. as they participate in sit-down protest seeking a a vote on gun control measures, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rep. Chillie Pingree via AP)

Yesterday the frustrations of a nation bubbled over in a seminal moment of mourning and action. I was there. This is some of what I saw and felt.

After years of "thoughts and prayers" but no actions to end gun violence, millions of Americans had finally had enough -- and hundreds of thousands of us had organized to a place where our many sparks of individual fire lit a torch of collective action. Senator Chris Murphy picked up the torch last week and decided to think, pray and ACT with a courageous Senate filibuster that forced a vote on gun safety proposals. Glued to our screens and calling our Senators, we succeeded in gaining four votes -- but alas no results. Two days later, House Democrats carried that torch with a filibuster of their own -- a protest that became a defiant sit-in.

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I was in Washington D.C. at my flagship AFSCME boot camp engaging candidates to answer a call to service with courage when the Democratic Sit-in to Disarm Hate began.

I knew instantly and instinctively that there could be no better example of conviction politics than this organic, historical moment to spark a movement. So once we finished our work, I taxied up to the Capitol to bear witness, watching the periscope feed en route.

I have been to the Capitol thousands of times -- as a Clinton administration lawyer, Capitol Hill staffer and family member visiting my mother, Representative Nancy Pelosi. I've seen House Floor fights, speaker elections, presidential addresses and Electoral College certifications -- and still this Disarm Hate sit-in was an experience unlike anything I've ever seen. From the House Gallery to the House Democratic Leader's Office to the Capitol esplanade, the mood was electric.

Sitting in the House Gallery, I saw Members of Congress tell the stories from the well of the House.

There they were -- John Larson presiding, Katherine Clark and David Cicciline organizing, civil rights icon John Lewis literally sitting on the House Floor surrounded by his colleagues. Scott Peters, Mark Takano, Beto O'Rouke and Eric Swalwell jerry-rigged periscope feeds once the Republicans cut the CSPAN cameras. Wounded Iraq vet Tammy Duckworth snuck her camera in her prosthetics, and used it to record the moment as she sat next to her wheelchair.

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Cheri Bustos snapchatted everyone. Sheila Jackson Lee offered many a reassuring hug and "amen" during the testimonials.

And what testimonials they were: every parent's nightmare. Domestic violence. Street crime. Suicide. Assassination. Murder in school, church, temple, clinic, nightclub, office, military base, movie theater, community meeting, the U.S. Capitol itself. Each person killed by gun violence had a name, a face, a family, a possibility snuffed out by a gun wielded by someone who should not have had access to the weapon. Each person killed by gun violence remembered with dignity and respect. Each person killed by gun violence honored by the sit-in even in the raucous moments. Each person killed by gun violence calling us to service for a more safe and equal society.

These weren't just stories told about other people: they were stories about themselves because gun violence touches everyone.

Gun violence survivors participating the democratic sit-in included Bobby Rush, the father of a son killed in a robbery, Debbie Dingell, the daughter of an abuser who knew fear at the barrel of a gun, Jackie Speier, the staffer turned legislator holding up the bullet that was removed from her own body after she was shot, Joe Kennedy, the grandson of an assassinated Senator, and Gabby Giffords, a former Congresswoman wounded during the mass murder of her constituents, who spoke through a letter to her former colleagues urging them to have courage.

Amid cries of #NoBillNoBreak there were angry cries and hushed silences from the members of Congress -- and from the gallery. One by one, members stepped forward in the well with testimony -- part eulogy part religious revival. Several recited letters, scripture and songs -- one, Gwen Moore, read her poetry.

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Dozens of Senators including Chris Murphy and Leader Reid came over to lend moral and political support to the effort. Advocates from Sandy Hook to Orlando watched in awe, alternately cheering and praying as the American family experienced this outpouring of grief and, as Nancy Pelosi called it, "truth insistence."

When the House Republicans finally returned to face the colleagues whose bipartisan bill was denied a vote, cries of "shame," "give us a vote," "no bill, no break," filled the air.

There was a tense moment when a Republican yelled "due process" to Joe Crowley who replied that "the kids didn't have due process -- they were slaughtered" and a truly ugly moment when a Tea Party Rep attacked Corinne Brown of Orlando, finger wagging and raging about radical Islam. (Begging the question if that were true, why would he want the killer to have a gun?)

Neither moment could break the sense of solidarity and community.

Through two votes -- on Zika and the fiduciary rule -- Paul Ryan left the Speaker's Chair quickly but the Disarm Hate sit-in continued. Softly, lest we be ejected, the gallery guests joined Democrats in "We Shall Overcome" with lyrics including "we shall get a bill" and the haunting "we are not afraid."

The Members were not afraid. Not afraid of the NRA that released a statement calling John Lewis a terrorist. Not afraid of the gun lobby threatening their careers. Not afraid of the Republican idea of using Capitol Police to arrest the members (there was a counterplan for that -- a human chain surrounding John Lewis). Not afraid of history -- because they know they are on the right side of safety and equality.

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Outside, we saw activists from across the country come to support and engage. "We are from Orlando" two activists told Nancy Pelosi. "We have matching rainbow bracelets -- thank you for wearing yours in support of the LGBTQ community" said another.

Parents of killed children, kids riding bikes, advocates waving rainbow flag "Disarm Hate" signs, religious leaders and friends bearing pizza all forged instant community. People came just to be a part of history. As midnight came and a light most fell, chants of "hey hey NRA / you can't beat the PTA" rang through the Capitol grounds.

"We're spending the night," some declared and the Disarm Hate sit-in continued.

Exhausted and exhilarated, the Members stayed. And their supporters remained. In the House Gallery, on the Capitol grounds, win our homes, on our phones, willing the exhausted members to persevere, willing our society to persevere.
Perhaps you have heard of this new indie movie project - Star Wars? A nice little movie series which is generating a little bit of buzz...

Yes, The World Is Officially Star Wars Crazy

Of course the truth is, Star Wars excitement is at a fever pitch. Toy manufacturers have been trying to capitalize on Star Wars mania by creating endless Star Wars themed toys. While many of these toys leave us wishing we had a light saber to destroy them, the new Air Hogs RC Star Wars Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1 Starghter is actually very impressive.

Please watch our full video review of the X1 Starfighter in action -

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Feel What It Is Like to Join The Dark Side

I always tell the kids, in real life be a good and caring person. When it comes to playing with toys, sometimes it is fun to see what it would be like to venture to the dark side.

Here is the full description of the Star Wars RC X1 Starfighter From Air Hogs -

"It's your turn to pilot Darth Vader's distinctive experimental TIE Fighter from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The 2.4Ghz communication provides high-performance remote control handling for quick, precise manoeuvring. And with a long-distance flying range of up to 250-feet you're able to run down Rebel X-Wing Starfighters anywhere in the skies."

If You Have Star Wars Fans In The House, This Is A No Brainer

As the video shows, the X1 Starfighter is fun to fly and holds up well to crashes. If you have Star Wars fans in the house, they will love the Air Hogs RC X1 Starfighter.
The war is over. There will be, as is usually the case, post-truce skirmishes, guerrilla warfare, even major battles as occurred at New Orleans in 1815 because word of the Treaty of Ghent hadn't yet made it to the combatants. The losers may shift residence and find new employment, even continue to publish papers in a journal they founded and still completely control (so much for peer review), but the consensus on the treatment of gender-variant children has shifted to the gender-affirming crowd.

I will provide my personal take on this issue later, and I've covered the debate in the past few years. Nothing much has changed, except that more children are being supported and allowed to transition when appropriate. There is still no high quality clinical evidence to guide the treatment of these children on hand, though projects such as TransNet, co-led by medical doctors Joshua Safer and Jamie Feldman, and the Transyouth Project led by psychologist Dr. Kristina Olson of Seattle, the first large-scale, national, longitudinal study of development in gender nonconforming, transgender, and gender variant youth, are developing. What does exist, in the absence of medical studies, however, is the experience of treating children supportively, vs. the decades-long experience of rejecting them.

This conclusion was evident to me over the course of the recently completed 2016 World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) conference in Amsterdam. It was not only evident in the wealth of presentations by those who practice such care, such as Drs. Jo Olson, Maddie Deutsch and Carys Masarella, who run major trans health clinics, and psychiatrists such as Dr. George Brown, who keeps churning out research data, but in two presentations which highlighted the denouement of the conflict. The first was during the initial plenary session, opened by the Queen of the Netherlands (it's nice having a queen around who is available for such duty), when there was a "debate" over the inclusion of the diagnosis "Gender Incongruence of Childhood (GIC)" in the upcoming World Health Organization's ICD-11 manual of diseases due in 2018. The second was evident in what may very well be the last pitched battle of the war, a presentation on "Gender Laws" by the proponents of the traditional form of care, which many consider a form of reparative therapy. The audience in that much smaller room did not sit on their hands or remain quiet.

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First, the plenary "debate." Unfortunately, it wasn't a debate, time was limited and there were no questions from the attendees. However, just the fact that this is the last major question regarding the treatment of trans persons left on the menu is remarkable. The debate about trans care for adults and adolescents is over, and the consensus is global. Barring any unforeseen effort by religious fundamentalist countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) will de-psychopathologize adolescent and adult trans persons, i.e., remove Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescence and Adulthood from the mental illness classification, and rename it the value-neutral "Gender Incongruence" coding in a new chapter in Sexual Health. The new term, "gender incongruence," begins and is used throughout the text of the North American DSM 5 (as written by Edgardo Menvielle, Michael Hendricks, Ellen Feder, and me, among several others, back in 2009). The question remaining is how to categorize the children, if at all.

One group, led by Drs. Morris Bersin and Nathaniel Sharon, believe maintaining the diagnosis will assist in allowing access to care and managing it properly, as well as encourage more research and adequate reimbursement so access can be improved. The opposition, led by Drs. Sam Winter and Simon Pickstone-Taylor, believe the diagnosis, in and of itself, is pathologizing, and all the desirable goals outlined by Bersin and Stone can be obtained through general mental health coding with the addition of Z-codes to clarify the gender issues. Think of z-codes as footnotes; they will be in the record but in small print either at the bottom of the page or as endnotes.

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It should be noted that when the WPATH board voted in 2014 the vote was exactly even, and when the general membership weighed in, it was virtually the same. That was, however, prior to this conference and its plenary session, and the multitude of discussions and lobbying which occurred afterward. "Stop GIC" buttons were in evidence throughout the conference hallways. My hope is that the organization will perform another online poll in the near future of those who were present to see if there was any movement. My fear is that if we can't make up our mind then the WHO will make it up for us (which they may very well do, anyway).

A very interesting coda to this debate was presented by a young woman named Valentijn, who transitioned 21 years ago at age five. She noted that while she had no issues with her social transition or the quality of her care, she was always aware that she was a patient, and that knowledge had an impact on her childhood. Being a patient with a diagnosis implies there's something wrong with you.

Another very important bit of progress was evident near the end of the conference when the trans health issue of the British medical journal, The Lancet, was presented and the authors had the opportunity to speak. The issues in the journal were the same of those presented at the conference, but that they now have the imprimatur of the global medical giant is of incalculable worth. It sends a major signal to the WHO that we should be taken seriously.

The main event occurred during a group presentation on Monday in an SRO room with the heat on full blast. Moderated by Dr. Heino Mayer-Bahlburg, a well-respected expert on intersex conditions and a friend of the traditionalists, the topic was "Gender Laws," a discussion about reparative therapy bans.

The neutral presenter was Dr. Annelou de Vries, who was clearly uncomfortable as she presented the WPATH position already published in the Standards of Care version 7. She discussed the three approaches to the treatment of gender variant children:

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therapeutic (reparative therapy)

watchful waiting

gender affirming

She was sandwiched in between the two big draws - Drs. Richard Green and Ken Zucker. Most people don't know Dr. Green, but he was a past president of tWPATH and the author of The Sissy-Boy Syndrome and the Development of Homosexuality, published in 1987. Prolific since the late '60s, he studied at Hopkins with John Money and co-authored with him in 1969, founded and ran the Archives of Sexual Behavior which he turned over to Ken Zucker in 2001, and was also a founder of WPATH in 1979, but he had not appeared at a conference in 17 years. The reason was evident -- while physically well preserved at age 80, his ideology and theories have not stood the test of time. After his presentation I talked with him and thanked him for coming and making his presentation. I also said that his book had made my life hell for many years, and the conversation ended when we discussed the issue at hand - the treatment of gender variant kids - and he insisted there was no way to distinguish trans girls from gay boys and that, therefore, transitioning such children was wrong.

His presentation was a legal one (he received his JD from Yale in 1987, the year he published The Sissy Boy Syndrome), primarily focused on the vagueness of conversion therapy laws, their target of banning sexual orientation work with which he did not disagree, but the confusion that results when gender identity is conflated with sexual orientation. His arguments, if divorced from the purpose of the presentation, were not misplaced, and were worthy of presentation and discussion. As a trans ally extraordinaire said to me in the back of the room, it is only necessary for the government to become involved, however imperfectly, when the profession fails to police itself. Fortunately there was very effective pushback from Asaf Orr of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).
Co-authored by Jim Sisco

Governments can maintain greater legitimacy among their populace and be more effective combating terrorism if they harness the collective power of their people in fighting it, rather than operating under the premise that it is their people who are the source of the problem. Political leaders often use terrorism, or the threat of terrorism, to repress civil liberties, censor media outlets, and promote their own political and military agendas. In some countries, the mere threat of a terrorist attack has become a means to manipulate nationalist sentiment, which enables political leaders to pursue their own agendas. The consequences are usually negative for citizens, and this raises the question, which is the greater threat: the prospect of a terrorist attack or a government's response to it?

When governments use terrorism to incite nationalist sentiment and exceed previously established limits of power, citizens accept the inevitable decrease of their civil liberties in exchange for greater security. They are also hesitant to object to government-sponsored initiatives under the rubric of 'combating terrorism' because it is considered 'unpatriotic' to do otherwise. This gives governments a freer hand to exert their authority in ways that were unimaginable before a terrorist threat. This also gives governments an opportunity to polarize segments of populations deemed to be either 'with' the government or 'with' terrorists - without a common middle ground.

In the 15 years since 9/11, only a few terrorist attacks have been successful in the U.S., but the change in how governments and citizens approach and respond to one another has changed dramatically. The U.S. Patriot Act and UK Counter-Terrorism Act are useful examples of how governments increased their police powers and reduced civil liberties in counter-terrorism efforts. More importantly, they provided a model for other governments to emulate in order to implement heavy-handed repressive strategies. The Patriot Act was introduced shortly after 9/11 and is criticized today as an assault on civil liberties, but was palatable at the time. Subsequent revisions of the Act included the authorization of wiretap searches and surveillance, directed at the heart of public privacy. In the UK, extensions to its Counter-Terrorism Act granted officials the power to deprive individuals of their British citizenship if they were suspected of extremist activity.

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The advent of global terrorism has raised the level of repression by governments, from Russia and China to the Middle East. In foreign countries, government and political agendas tend to coincide with repression of civil liberties, while simultaneously seeking to repress political dissonance. Apart from an environment of pervasive fear and tension, the biggest casualty is often free speech, which is under attack in a number of ways; An increasing number of state and non-state actors are censoring free speech through intimidation and assassination. There is also the notion that anyone, or anything, is fair game, meaning that ethnicity and religion have become equated with political beliefs, under the premise that it all falls under the broad spectrum of contributing to 'terrorism'.

Bahrain, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia provide excellent examples of this strategy at work. Bahrain recently revoked the citizenship of the Sunni kingdom's most prominent Shia cleric. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia, human rights activist Abdulaziz al-Shubaily was sentenced to jail in 2014 based on a "repressive counter-terrorism law" for speaking out about the regime's use of torture. These are not exclusive to the Gulf region, of course. In the Philippines, president-elect Rodrigo Duterte successfully rallied public fear to propel him to the presidency. Initially, he focused on drug dealers as targets of assassination, but added journalists to the list in an attempt to silence dissent against him and the state's pending enhanced police powers. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, more than 8,500 people were recently arrested in a countrywide security operation aimed at combating extremist violence against religious minorities and secular activists. Political opposition groups claim that law-enforcement agencies rounded up opposition activists under the pretext of fighting terrorism, which authorities subsequently denied.

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The age of global terrorism has coincided with heightened police powers and the routine killing of political activists and journalists. Journalists tend to be a common target and face severe punishment for exercising freedom of speech. In Azerbaijan, journalist Khadija Ismayilova was jailed for reporting truthfully about regime corruption. Journalists or activists who speak up about corruption are punished, and opposition political clerics may be assassinated. In Russia, routine disappearances and executions of journalists have become standard operating procedure (it has been estimated that between 1993 and 2009, more than 150 journalists were murdered). Egypt reached a tipping point when its leadership announced that "facts should be subordinate to national interests". Since 2011, 11 journalists have been killed there; by contrast, between 1992 and 2011 only one journalist was killed.

Terrorism policies in Britain have compelled many British Muslims to leave their homes and relocate permanently. Britain's "Prevent Terrorism" agenda encouraged teachers, service industry workers, and health care providers to report anyone suspected of radical views. Since the announcement, hate crimes against British Muslims have tripled across England and doubled in London. In this case, the threat of terrorism is used to justify discrimination, resulting in ongoing repression of Muslims in Britain, similar to the discrimination faced by Shi'ites in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Governments' approaches to combat terrorism have generally proven to be ineffective, and have failed make the lives of citizens safer. Diminished civil liberties, biased media, and allocation of financial resources coincide with an inability to hold governments and their militaries accountable. Rather than viewing terrorism as a purely national security issue, a variety of governments and leaders - from democracies to monarchies to authoritarian regimes - have instead seized the opportunity to tighten their grip on power, reduce civil liberties, and crack down on opponents. Terrorism has promoted self-interest among governments as well as created an environment ripe for the advancement of political agendas. Since many citizens around the world are either too afraid to object, or lack the ability to do so, terrorism has in some cases served to perpetuate the very political forces it claims to oppose.

While there are a number of countries where the opposite is true, just imagine what type of societies governments could create in the age of global terrorism if they generated greater employment opportunities for youth, encouraged freer speech, and fostered an environment conducive to transparency - on their own part - rather than repression as a response. As things stand now, the majority of the world's governments have adopted just the opposite approach.

While 'hugging a terrorist' will certainly not result in dramatic social transformation, it is emblematic of what can be achieved with society's worst terrorist offenders. If such an approach can have such success with them, there is a good chance it can have the desired effect more broadly, if it were implemented with adequate resources and resolve. The question becomes whether, at this juncture, we may be in a position to turn the tide, or whether the die is cast. Many of the governments that have pursued repression and curtailed civil liberties have found that the only real result is the need for more of the same. In doing so, they hand the terrorist an unnecessary victory.
The methods for achieving effective cybersecurity for a large class of applications are simple and obvious, but almost never implemented. If the methods were implemented, they would prevent the kind of massive, high-profile data loss that has been increasingly in the news. The methods make common sense to most normal people - but as we all know, computer "experts" are anything but normal. The industry needs to get it together, stop spending massive amounts of money on futile efforts to secure consumer data, and start implementing common-sense measures that work!

That's why they don't work! It's like if you're playing pool, missing a lot of your shots, and spend lots of effort gesturing, jumping and grunting as your shot fails to achieve its objective - do you think your problem is not jumping vigorously enough or grunting loud enough? That's what most enterprise responses to cyber-insecurity amount to. Increasing the money spent on things that don't work won't suddenly make them start working.

No matter what methods we use, if we continue to deploy large numbers of security guards who are nearing retirement against small, smart, fast-moving ninja bad guys, we'll lose. If we continue fighting the last war, we'll lose. If we continue to think that this game is all about how high and thick the walls of the castle are, we'll lose.

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They're not really new - like most good ideas, they've been thoroughly proven in other domains. We know they work. It's a matter of adapting them so they apply to our computer systems.

A lot of smart computer people have worked on the security problem for a long time. The issue isn't something abstruse like better encryption algorithms. It's simple!

First, realize that anybody who walks in the door could be a bad guy. Second, monitor and track the valuable stuff that you don't want walking out the door.

Both of which, believe it or not, we fail to do today inside computer systems!

Retailers with lots of low-value goods like grocery stores have store monitors and checkout areas. Anyone could be a thief, so people are assigned to monitor actions accordingly. Some goods may be valuable and easy to hide, like razor blades. Those are often displayed, but require a store employee with a key to let you get them.

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Clothing stores frequently have security tags on every single item. The tags are removed using a special tool during the check-out process. If you try to walk out of the store with an item that is still tagged, alarms ring and security people grab you.

Stores with very high value goods like jewelry stores have locked cases, and a heavily human approach to security. Basically, at least one person watches each customer (and sales person!) with jewels at all times. They are disciplined to manage the number of items that are outside a locked case carefully. While the guards watch the customers (i.e., the potential thieves), what they really do is watch the jewelry. They track each item until it's been bought or safely returned to its case.

The retail approach to securing valuable items is clear: using whatever combination of automated and human means that make sense, track every valuable item, and assure that when the item goes out the door, it has been cleared to go out with the person it's going out with.

What would retail look like if we used the kind of methods used by computer experts?

First, every store would be surrounded by thick, high walls. No display windows! There would be strictly controlled ways of getting in - think TSA security at an airport. Further imagine that the world was awash with fake and stolen ID's, so that while getting in the store legitimately is odious, for a skilled bad guy, not too hard.

Now imagine that once you're in, there is no one watching the goods, there are no security tags on the clothes, no security cameras and no guards. You can grab a string of shopping carts, pile them high with goods, and wind slowly through the aisles. At check-out - well there is no check-out! You've been thoroughly vetted on the way in, after all, so you must be OK. When you're done "shopping," you can just leave! With your mountains of goods!

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Of course, most visitors to this imaginary store are legitimate. They put up with the horrible entrance gauntlet because all stores have something like it. They get what they need and somehow arrange with the store to pay for it. There's nothing to stop thousands of bad-guy visitors from walking out with thousands or millions items each, or millions of visitors to walk out with normal-sized shopping carts. Whatever works.

You might think I'm exaggerating. I wish I were.

It's a bit more technical and less visual to see how retail methods can be applied to computer systems, but the basic concepts are clear. While current cybersecurity focuses on perimeter defense (like TSA security for stores), the retail approach would be a bit looser. After all, if the bad guys get in but can't get away with anything valuable, they haven't accomplished much, have they? How proud is a bank robber who's broken into the safe but can't leave with the dough? How fruitful is his career of crime if, every time he passes the demand note to the teller, she just smiles and says "next customer, please?"

Applying the retail method to computers requires a completely new approach to tracking what visitors do when they're inside the computer. While tracking their actions is important, what really needs to be done is track the "goods," the valuable data items. The retail approach would differ according to the value of the items. If they're like clothing, each item would be checked on the way out to make sure it's authorized to leave. If they're like jewels (for example, personal information), each item is watched like a hawk the moment it's "picked up" by a "customer" (program). Does the customer have a couple of jewels? That could be OK, but we're more alert. Does the customer have ten or more? Quietly circle the customer, watch the doors, and make sure there's no escape.

The method needs to be extended to apply to the unique circumstances of the computer. Computer bad guys can easily assemble thousands of confederates to do their bidding. The bad guys can dress and act however the boss wants them to. However, they are unlikely to act just like normal shoppers. But I don't want to take this too far in a blog post - we're coming up to the edge of methods I'd rather not disclose.

Computer systems, corporate and government, will continue to be breached at an alarming rate, which is of course much higher than is publicly disclosed. More money will be spent and people hired. More standards will be set, regulations promulgated and enforced. As should be obvious by now, most of the money will be wasted, most of the people will accomplish nothing, and the regulations will increase costs while making things worse. Unless something changes.

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Something we in Scotland learned the hard way in 2014 is that referendum questions are dangerous because they make both choices on the ballot paper seem equally plausible. By giving the people a choice we somehow assume that either option is a safe one. In the EU referendum context, that can make voters view leaving as an equally valid option compared to the status quo of remain. After all, what politician in his right mind would allow the people a democratic choice which might risk economic prosperity and the security of the West?

Of course, it is possible that David Cameron believed that he would never have to follow through on his referendum pledge--either due to the coalition with the Liberal Democrats continuing after 2015--or that in the unlikely event that he did have to hold a referendum, that it could be won easily. So much for that.

The Prime Minister has spent the last few years playing constitutional roulette with the integrity of the United Kingdom and we will discover this week whether his luck, and Britain's, has finally run out. Such a distillation of the complex ledger of advantages and drawbacks of UK's EU membership to a simple binary yes or no answer is wholly unequal to the magnitude of the stakes involved in this referendum. Professor Neil Walker of Edinburgh University observes that for most shades of political opinion in the UK and beyond "European 'membership' for a country of Britain's size, influence and location should be less a matter of 'yes or no' than one of 'more or less'."

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As a strong supporter of Scotland staying part of the UK in 2014, I wrote op-eds in the Scotsman, the Daily Record, and Huffington Post criticising Alex Salmond's grievance and fantasy rich, but policy light, plan for Scotland existing outside the UK. I never imagined there could ever be a more divisive ideological campaign than the Scottish independence referendum, but the EU Referendum has managed it.

The Leave Campaign has replicated Alex Salmond's Project Fantasy, but with added venom and disinformation in practically every area of policy where voters would like answers. From the 350 million a week we don't send the EU to the outrageous, oft repeated and xenophobic falsehood from Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt that the UK doesn't have a veto on Turkey joining the EU.

Like the Yes Campaign in Scotland during the independence referendum, Leave is all about the politics of grievance. Angela Merkel says she hopes the UK stays in the EU; Kate Hoey translates that as Merkel 'telling the British people how they should vote'.

We are in grim times when Ms Hoey castigates the leader of a liberal democratic Germany, which has entrenched democracy and human dignity as the highest values in its constitutional order since World War Two, yet she is perfectly happy staging Titanic style photo ops on the Thames with a grinning demagogue who the next day was propagandizing a Goebbels-esque poster of helpless Syrian refugees.

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Meanwhile, Oxford educated Michael Gove enunciates the words 'elites' and 'experts' with even more venom than Alex Salmond used to spit 'Westminster' - an achievement in itself. Despite his current hostility to experts, one senses that Mr Gove wouldn't want a road sweeper performing open heart surgery on him anytime soon. There may be some truth to the writer Philip Pullman's comment that "when a clever man starts advocating stupidity he's after something and we should watch him."

Those that want us to leave the EU claim that Britain can be a leading player on the world stage without the constraining influence of our European partners. In reality, the UK has influenced the EU far more than it has been constrained by it. When the UK joined the EU in the 1970s (after twice being vetoed in the 1960s by De Gaulle), it was far more aligned with French interests. But after over four decades of the UK being an EU member, exerting its influence and gaining allies, the EU has, as Professor Jan Werner-Mueller notes, "been reshaped in the image of the UK" and more closely reflects British interests. As highlighted above, the UK has a veto to prevent new countries joining the EU, but so do all other EU members, many of which have populations and politicians opposed, in particular, to Turkey joining.

My point here is not about the merits of countries such as Turkey joining, but rather that the EU is not a static organisation. It is the sum of its parts, which happen to be our European neighbours; not a small Brussels bureaucracy, about the same size as Birmingham City Council, which manages to serve 500 million people. Power in the EU lies not with bureaucrats but with Britain, Germany, France and all the other independent sovereign states which exert control through the European Council. If we can't lead in Europe among countries that share our concerns and values on so many issues, the idea that we can exert any influence on other continents is for the birds.

If the UK votes to leave the EU then a second independence referendum in overwhelmingly pro- EU Scotland seems likely. Whether Scotland would vote to leave the UK in a second independence referendum following a Brexit is the million dollar question. Polling figures from Professor John Curtice indicate a possible post-Brexit swing of between 3 and 6 points, creating a narrow majority for independence of 51 or 52%, but still short of the 60% figure which the SNP is apparently looking for before it would risk holding a second referendum. All of these figures are, of course, purely hypothetical but they show that the risk of a second referendum and independence is real following a UK vote to leave the EU.

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As a strong opponent of Scottish independence last time around and a strong supporter of being part of the EU, Brexit would certainly change my calculation when weighing up which way I would lean in a second Scottish independence referendum. Here are some thoughts:

Nicola Sturgeon has proved to be a much more able, more likeable, and less divisive First Minister than Alex Salmond. If the Scottish Government decided to hold a second independence referendum she would be a much more convincing advocate of independence than her predecessor. That would not be enough in itself though.

Ms Sturgeon would also have to make a significantly stronger case for Scotland's ability to go it alone than was presented in 2014. The collapse in the price of oil since the last referendum has, of course, blown one major hole in the financial viability of an independent Scotland. However, there is more to the Scottish economy than just oil and a resurgence in the price of oil (possibly caused by geopolitical turmoil such as Brexit?) could change the context again.

What would change the economic equation significantly are both the consequences of Brexit to the Scottish economy, as well as the prospects of Scotland being able to join the EU. In 2014, EU figures such as former EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, did everything possible to discourage Scotland from seceding from one of its member states, the United Kingdom, lest it encourage separatist movements in other EU member states (with Catalonia being the most prominent example). That position would no longer hold after Brexit as the EU would no longer have a vested interest in maintaining the territorial integrity of a former member state. Indeed, a Scottish application to join might be positively welcomed to remind other restless states of the potential pitfalls of leaving the EU. Furthermore, as former European Court judge Sir David Edward noted at the time of the Scottish referendum, there is no question that Scotland could become an EU member; the only question would be the terms and timing of it.

Most people in Scotland, myself included, have no wish to repeat the experience of the 2014 Scottish referendum anytime soon. Neither, though, do we wish to be dragged out of the EU against our collective will, or for Great Britain to become Lesser England. However, a vote to leave the EU may well herald the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom as we know it today. So when casting your ballot on Thursday please consider the futures of all the peoples and nations of the British Isles and vote to remain in the EU.
I spent last Saturday night at a gay bar. Packed tightly with hundreds of my brothers and sisters at Metropolitan in Williamsburg, I felt very much at home. There was cheap beer in plastic cups and breezy smiles on sweaty queer faces. The DJ played Beyonce's "Hold Up" and we knew all the words. The cute guy from earlier on the patio was giving me eyes while I pretended not to notice, averting my grin towards my new Puma sneakers.

As I blushed and cooed along with Queen B in messy faux patois, I had the same, semi-lit revelation I've had many times as of late: Thank god for this place. Thank god there's somewhere we can all feel safe to dance together, to wear whatever and to hear the music we like. Somewhere our preferences rule, we can flirt without fear, and be fully ourselves around the best kind of people: People who know the lyrics to every Lemonade album cut.

In that moment of rapture, though, all of us at Metropolitan were blissfully unaware of the horror unfolding in a similar bar 1,000 miles south in Orlando. Gay bars are a place where queer people can forget about the real world but the next day we'd all wake up to a crushing reality, the horrible news from Pulse that would forever taint that night with despair.

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And while I reveled in a state of joyous unknowing at Metropolitan that night, I haven't always felt this lovey dovey about gay bars. In fact, I basically shunned them for most of my adult life both as both a patron and, perhaps more pertinently, as a DJ.

I came out at 16 but until the far end of my mid-twenties, I distanced myself from the gay community. As a bullied middle schooler-- shy, a little effeminate, highly sensitive-- I learned early on how to compartmentalize my gayness, both externally and internally. It felt like a necessity at the time to hide the parts of myself that got me picked on: my affinity for tight jeans and my mother's Hermes scarves, for Britney's choreography and Justin's butt. I learned to present a version of myself that raised the least eyebrows.

I'd covered up so well, in fact, that by high school I'd become oblivious to where the mask ended and my real self began. So even after coming out, I clung tightly to a label I'd bestowed upon myself when, on a balmy August Thursday in 2004, I blurted out to my family that I was gay. I shared this news with a caveat: No one had to worry because I was "Not Your Typical Gay Guy."

I'd like to pause here to assure you that I understand how ridiculous that sentence sounds. But to me, at 16 and the only out guy in my junior class, it somehow felt like an essential addendum to my sexuality. I wanted everyone to know that while I was a man who is sexually attracted to other men, I wasn't Stanford-on-Sex and the City, Pink-Tank-Top, Elton John, Fire Island Gay.

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I wanted my mom know that she didn't have to be concerned -- I was still the same son I was when I'd dated my long-suffering 10th grade girlfriend. I wanted my straight guy friends to know that I wasn't a threat -- I wouldn't try and make out with them and I still preferred 50 Cent to Cher. Mostly, I wanted to console myself and grasp at a solid identity, however convoluted, during a time when my real one felt perilous.

In hindsight, this is all fucking hilarious. I am, after all, a proud wearer of many pink tank tops and Cher, as we know, is Goddess amongst humans. But after years of shame, of feeling that my gayness and the feminine aspects of my being were something negative, "Not Your Typical Gay Guy" was a comfy new closet. I wasn't like "them." I liked Hip Hop. I didn't have a gaggle of gay friends. I was "Masc" (which, LOL). And I sure as hell wasn't going to any damn gay bars.

In fact, all through my college years and into my early twenties, I went to maybe two gay bars, and I was dragged kicking and screaming. Once there, I turned my nose up: I stood in the corner in my Carhartt overalls (which looked super gay, in spite of myself), ignoring my fellow homos, serving a bad attitude and covetously eyeing the exit. Ironically, unwarranted elitism is a very bad gay cliche.

When I started DJing, this judgmental posturing followed me right into the club. I had a plan: I was going to be New York's premiere Gay DJ who never DJ'ed in gay bars. "Not Your Typical Gay DJ," if you will. Every time I was offered a gig at a gay bar, I'd respond flippantly, "No thanks! I don't really DJ gay stuff." I actually wore this as a twisted badge of honor.

I had it all rationalized too. I didn't see myself as having any issues with being gay. I was out, I lived in New York, I wore very short denim cut-offs and my family had accepted me. I saw it as a matter of fact: gay bars were not as legit as mainstream clubs. The places my straight DJ friends spun at were the real deal, and spinning in gay bars -- with their cheap booze, twirling fairies and shitty sound systems -- would be prohibitive of the "cred" I sought.

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The hilarious part is that, in addition to being a hip hop head, I also worshipped all the music we deem as classically "gay," the stuff that gay bars are made of: Kylie, Madonna, Christina, you name it. But, like in middle school, I had that aspect of myself roped off. "I'm a Slave 4 U" was for my earbuds on a run, Jay-Z and Avicii were for the club. In that mode of thinking, DJing in straight establishments was a very logical path. It also proved a very lonely one.

Mainstream nightlife is built, like many things in our society, around facilitating straight sex. Clubs cater to straight guys who can spend money on bottles which they hope will attract girls they can fuck. There might be a stray gay here or there but everything about the venue, from the clothes to the culture and indeed, the music, is meant to house a very straight, guy-girl dynamic.

It's not that everyone I worked with was overtly homophobic or that I tried to hide my gayness at work. It's just that in my confusion, I had unwittingly cornered myself into servicing a world that had no place for me. Just as I'd groomed the most digestible version of my 13 year-old self, I learned the set that netted the club the most money, which often meant the most basic, all encompassing, Bro & Bachelorette-pleasing one I could muster. No frills, no edges, very limited Kylie. I got very good at it and I also grew very resentful of it.

I def wasn't meeting any guys, either. I was way too busy shucking and jiving straight girl requesters as they'd flutter their eyelashes and stroke my back, hoping to get the song they wanted. What's the least awkward way to let a lady club-goer know that it it's going going down like that this time? "Girl, don't worry. I want to hear "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" too!" I'd respond in the queeniest voice I could muster. I even once did the entire "Single Ladies" dance in the booth, just to send a message.

Once the whole gay thing registered, some of these girls would try to "Gay BFF" me, which, as we know, is the worst. Other times, they'd look perplexed, turn and leave, a preferable response. On a certain level these were funny stories for brunch the next day. On a deeper cut, it was an isolating and depressing, harkening back to feeling like a freaky, closeted middle schooler who didn't belong. Even if I did see a guy the club who I thought was cute, I had to play every gay's least favorite game, Is He Or Isn't He? Most of the time, I'd just drop it.

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There came a point with all of this where I considered quitting DJing entirely. I was struggling financially, I found the patriarchal world of straight nightlife despairing, and I wasn't having fun anymore. It was right then that a gay promoter-- we'll call him Eric-- who I'd turned down gigs from multiple times in the past, offered me a slot at his big Friday night gay party at a bar in the East Village. At first, as was my steeze, I was reticent. I called friends and wondered whether I should do it, whether I should "compromise."

Luckily, I'd just read Alan Downs' book, The Velvet Rage, which had been handed to me my one of my few gay friends. Rage began to open my eyes to the scope of my internalized homophobia, how you can be out of the closet, in cut offs, sucking dick and still experiencing shame that might keep you away from a gay bar (or for some, spending too much time in one). But finally, after years of fighting, I decided to say "fuck it," and I said yes to the gig from Eric.

I showed up to the bar the night in my Carhartts, fully ready to hate everything. Upon walking in, I immediately seized up at the bartenders in their muscled tank tops and drag queens finishing their make-up in pocket mirrors. I said "Hi" to everyone and rolled my eyes behind their backs like the bitchy queen I was pretending not to be.

But as the party filled up and I knocked back a few drinks, I began, slowly but surely, to unclench. Like most good things in life, it started with the music. I quickly realized I could play literally everything I loved, shit I'd reserved for dancing in my room and never played at my straight gigs: Scissor Sisters "Invisible Light," Janet Jackson's "Together Again," Nicki Minaj's "Stupid Ho," Madonna's "Deeper and Deeper." "Oh wow, this is actually super fun," I remember thinking, watching an entire room of cuties twerk to Beyonce's "Grown Woman."

As the night progressed and the 'Yonce deep cuts flowed, I found myself enjoying DJing for the first time in a long time. I felt in-sync, I felt safe, I felt like I could could follow my instincts and play the music I wanted to. A cute guy in a tank top came into the booth to requested a song. I thought: "Ohemgee. He's flirting with me and I don't even have let him know I'm not into because I actually am into it!" He touched the small of my back and it was awesome.

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As the club wound down and I cued up Robyn's "Show Me Love" to rapturous response, I was changed and I was dumbfounded. The whole thing felt a little like I was coming out, this time as a proud Gay DJ. Everything I'd been shamed and bullied for -- Britney Choreography, tight jeans and, of course, being attracted to other dudes -- was celebrated here. I felt excited by my new wokeness, sure, but also a little twisted. How didn't I get this before?. What had I been hiding from this all all these years? Hot guys dancing to Beyonce? What was my fucking problem?

I left the bar determined to take a hard look at myself. I started with taking as many gigs as Eric threw my way. And I decided to to approach gay bars with an open mind and open heart, not as the wounded teenager who deemed saw his femininity as a flaw. It dawned on me that by avoiding these places, I'd closed a part of myself off to the part of myself that needed community, camaraderie, understanding and acceptance in a place where everyone was like me and from people who were like me.

Moreover, I'd denied myself the ultimate privilege of seeing a cute guy from across the room and feeling secure to assume he was gay. This might seem like a little thing, maybe this is all an obvious "duh" for some people, but it felt huge to me. It was a rebirth, a real Ray of Light moment where I let a lot of bullshit go. In a way, DJing in gay bars freed me. They are now my absolute favorite place to spin.

After my night at Metropolitan last weekend, news has slowly began to trickle out that Omar Mateen, the shooter in Orlando, might have been -- to exactly no one's surprise -- a gay man. It's rumored that he frequented Pulse and had a Grindr profile. And while I can't personally speak about the specific conflict that devoutly Muslim gays must suffer with, I do know a thing or two what gay bars can come to represent when you're dealing with internalized homophobia.

It is important that, within the gay community, we talk about self-loathing and how we treat and view each other as gay people. We need to discuss the consequences of the years we've all spent thinking there was something wrong with us, not good enough, that being gay is a burden that might render us inherently unlovable. If we don't, as we saw tragically as Pulse, there are consequences, even in 2016 when things can sometimes appear placid on the surface.

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In the horror of the Orlando massacre, there may be a silver lining. This event, as well as the killings at Emanuel Church in Charleston one year ago and other national atrocities, creates an occasion for the core values of Americans to be articulated by national leaders in prime-time speeches, vigils and other commemorations.

Rituals play an important role in renewing the values that unite a group or nation, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim said a hundred years ago. No collectivity of people, he argued, can exist for very long without ritual moments of renewal.

Weak expressions of renewal occur on national holidays, such as the Fourth of July and celebrations of presidents or national heroes, such as Martin Luther King. But when something horrible happens, such as the massacre of children or a particular group -- those who are black or gay -- people cry out for an articulation of the deepest values that sustain us.

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Hence, in speeches, vigils and even funerals this past week, we have heard impassioned declarations against racism, homophobia and hatred of all kinds. The moral order was attacked in Orlando, and it needs repair.

But something even more important occurred. Positive values related to pluralism, tolerance and love were articulated. Pictures of gay people embracing were projected around the world and viewed as acts of compassionate love. Muslims wrote articles countering homophobia in their community. And on the eve of the Charleston shooting, we heard the pastor of Mother Emanuel Church talk about forgiveness.

Of course, there was the predictable backlash, including one prominent Evangelical who implied that it was okay for Muslims to kill gays. They don't seem to be children of God in his book. And there was a candidate for president that painted all Muslims with the brush of radical Islam. But interestingly, such remarks have become the foil for forceful statements about the core values of democracy and freedom of religion. The bigoted remarks represent mistakes in American history of making incendiary generalizations about specific categories of people.

As someone who has studied genocide for many years, I am aware that dehumanizing a minority population is the first step in mass extermination. It is much easier to kill someone who is an "outsider." In the case of the Armenians, they were labeled "infidels." In Rwanda, Hutu extremists openly called the Tutsi minority cockroaches and snakes and said they were descendants of Ethiopians.

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Hence, it was with pride and relief that I heard President Barack Obama and spokespersons at vigils around the world articulate the ideals -- the core values -- that unite us as members of the human family.

The massacre in Orlando has created the opportunity for a public discussion about what we value and who we are as a nation. Yes, Donald Trump says that his ratings go up every time there is an attack. But I think we should not lose sight of the way this tragedy is creating an occasion for Americans to engage in moral debate rather than one-sided political posturing.

The sociologist Robert Bellah argued that there is such a thing as an American civil religion that crosses all faith traditions and represents the ideals that unite us as a people. He was deeply worried that modern individualism was destroying these core values that civilize us and argued that we have lost the moral vocabulary that is central to our democracy.

There is some truth to his argument, especially as we witness a polarized electorate that seems unable to engage in moral debate about policy issues and has forgotten the art of compromise. But the current events, however horrible, seem to be opening the door to a discussion of human rights on a different moral plain.

The challenge confronting us is to make certain that we don't miss this moment for moral reflection on our fundamental values as a people. Can the cascade of recent horrific events create an occasion for parents and children to talk about racism, nationalism and discrimination at the kitchen table? Can this conversation extend into study groups in synagogues, churches and mosques?

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At the heart of healing any trauma -- whether rape or PTSD suffered in war -- is interpretation. An individual must take the event into one's life narrative, making sense of it. For some traumatized people, healing comes from their mission to prevent violence for others in the future. Simply ignoring the trauma or rationalizing it never works. Traumatic events have to be dealt with, and when they are, sometimes the individual emerges even stronger.

We must not lose this opportunity in our nation's history to confront an evil act. Childlike acts of lashing out at the "other" are not healing in the long run, however satisfying they may seem in the moment. We need to take the pain of Orlando into our hearts and make some important moral choices about who we are as a people.
On December 22, 1941, two weeks after Pearl Harbor, LIFE Magazine, one of the most respectable, indeed iconic, publications in American history, offered its readers an article entitled "How to Tell Japs From the Chinese." In it the editors expressed their concern:

In the first discharge off emotions touched off by the Japanese on their nation, U.S. citizens have been demonstrating a distressing ignorance on the delicate question of how to tell a Chinese from a Jap. Innocent victims in cities all over the country are many of the 75,000 U.S. Chinese, whose homeland is our staunch ally. To dispel this confusion LIFE here adduces a rule-of-thumb from the anthropometric conformations that distinguish friendly Chinese from enemy alien Japs.



The problem, to the editors, was not vigilantism, but mistaken identity. LIFE wanted to educate its millions of readers to eyeball and identify Japanese-Americans with a higher success rate than had hitherto been exhibited. Abuse and assault were fine, but should target persons of Japanese ancestry only, those automatically assumed to be fifth columnists in league with Japan.

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LIFE presented side by side photos of "typical" Japanese and Chinese and noted differences in noses, complexion, and facial hair, among other tell-tale signs. It also observed

An often sounder clue is facial expression, shaped by cultural, not anthropological, factors. Chinese wear the rational calm of tolerant realists. Japs show the humorless intensity of ruthless mystics.

Today, as Islamophobia has amplified in the wake of 9/11, ISIS, San Bernardino and Orlando, Donald Trump, the presumed presidential nominee of the Republican party, and other mainstream Republican officeholders, are well on their way to embracing the mentality of LIFE's editors. One can only imagine the anxieties of the nation's 3.3 million Muslim citizens and residents, as well as others with brown skin, e.g., Hindus, Sikhs, whose appearance, just like the Chinese-Americans post-Pearl Harbor, might "confuse" today's vigilantes.

There has unquestionably been an increase in reported assaults and acts of vandalism against Muslims and mosques in the country after every dramatic terrorist act associated with Muslims, whether in Paris, Brussels, or San Bernardino. Orlando will be no exception. But, vigilantism must be viewed within the larger context of American public opinion towards Muslim-Americans as well. The most recent assessment of attitudes towards Muslims living in the US, polling in November 2015, after the rise of ISIS, but before Paris, Brussels, and especially San Bernardino and Orlando, indicated a distinction between views of Islam and Muslims. Attitudes towards Islam were more unfavorable than towards Muslims as people. Nevertheless, 46 percent viewed Muslims unfavorably. It would be surprising if those negative views were not more prominent in the wake of the terrorist attacks than before.

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If one wants to use immediate post-Pearl Harbor attitudes towards Japanese-Americans as a benchmark, the evidence suggests that outside of California, where almost 90 percent of mainland Japanese-Americans lived, most Americans considered German-Americans more dangerous. Nevertheless, by March 1942, three months after the attack, 59 percent of the American people supported evacuating Japanese-Americans. Of course, without the support of President Roosevelt and then California Governor Earl Warren and other politicians and military officials, this shift in opinion might not have been so rapid and internment might not have happened. Or if the economic interests of white California farmers had not conflicted with Japanese-American ones. In Hawaii, the site of the attack itself, 150,000 Japanese-Americans were spared internment because the white economic elites who dominated desperately needed Japanese employees, who represented a third of the entire population.

Muslim-Americans are proportionately ten times more numerous and geographically far more dispersed than Japanese-Americans were and do not have a niche in our economy that creates envy or enmity among any powerful constituency. Moreover, 47 percent of Americans personally know, whether superficially or well, Muslims, Arabs, or both. Those who have some personal interaction are far more favorably disposed to them than those who have none. By contrast, in 1942, very few non-Japanese-Americans had any interaction with those outside their demographic. Japanese-American social isolation undoubtedly contributed to stereotypes and paranoia regarding fifth column propensities. Their small numbers and geographical concentration also presented minimal logistical obstacles to internment.

One other factor militates against a parallel between the coming period and 1942: the sheer size of the world's Muslim population. Internment, or even a somewhat more plausible policy of mass deportation of Muslim residents who were non-citizens, or even citizens, would invariably lead to America's global economic and political isolation. By contrast, Japanese-Americans' internment brought no international ostracism.

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We are a long way, one hopes, from internment, deportations, or any limitations on citizenship or legal residency rights for Muslim-Americans, though profiling, discrimination, vandalism and assault are bad enough. But, although there are clear differences between today's circumstances and those existing in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, it would be foolish to think it can't happen again. Germany probably had the lowest levels of anti-Semitism in Europe prior to Hitler's ascendance in 1933. Moreover, history is replete with governments and citizens acting in ways that, in retrospect, were incomprehensible and inhumane.
When I became Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) three years ago, I could have only imagined the work that would be taking place to fight climate change in cities around the world today. In my time as Chair, C40 has grown to a network of 85 of the world's megacities representing over 600 million people, and has been an integral partner in the formation of the Compact of Mayors, a growing platform of over 500 cities registering their dedication to climate action and commitment to reporting greenhouse gas emissions in a transparent way.

By joining together to set ambitious emissions targets and demonstrate our ability to deliver on our commitments, we've been able to steer the course of history. To date, 62 C40 cities have committed to the Compact of Mayors, and I am proud that my city, Rio de Janeiro, was the first city in the world to be fully compliant with the Compact. At COP21 in Paris the world's leaders were supported and encouraged to take stronger action because of the work taking place on the ground in our cities, but that was only the beginning of the potential for local action. This week, UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R. Bloomberg and European Commission VP Maros Sefcovic announced a merger between the Compact of Mayors and the EU Covenant of Mayors to create the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, bringing together over 7,100 cities which have made public commitments to tackle climate change.

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When I was elected as C40 Chair, I committed to carrying forward the organization and building on the legacy of former chair three-term New York City Mayor Bloomberg. At the heart of the legacy is supporting cities who are at the front lines of fighting climate change, like my home city of Rio, and the creation of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy is a natural continuation of our work empowering cities around the world to find bold solutions to climate change.

The merger of the Compact and the Covenant was born out of the uniform dismay of mayors and urban leaders at the failure of COP15 in 2009 to deliver real results. But while presidents and prime ministers were struggling to find consensus in Copenhagen, mayors were gathered together at City Hall to share experiences and create a common resolve.

From that root of self-organisation, the city voice grew palpably stronger when the UN Secretary General recognised the pivotal role of mayors in delivering climate action by appointing Michael Bloomberg as UN Special Envoy. One of the many major fruits of that appointment was the launch of the Compact of Mayors, under the leadership of the world's global city networks - C40, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) - with support from UN-Habitat. The Compact of Mayors provides a truly bottom-up approach, utilizing city networks like C40 to have an increasingly influential role in creating low carbon leadership.

I am now delighted that the Compact of Mayors will be partnering with the enormously successful Covenant of Mayors, which has made great strides in galvanizing action from European cities. When the Covenant of Mayors expressed interest in expanding globally, it was a natural fit to bring together big and small cities from all regions of the world. Individually, both initiatives have successfully worked with cities across the globe, from megacities to mid- and smaller cities, to encourage local governments to set more ambitious climate reduction goals, take aggressive action to meet these objectives, and measure their progress.

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The support of coalitions like the newly formed Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy cannot be underestimated. While cities are key actors in delivering a low-carbon future and mayors are taking a leadership role in implementing action on the ground, mayors are not always able to achieve the scale of their ambitions. Recent C40 research gives us a much deeper understanding of the barriers holding mayors back. The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy provides cities with a single platform to harness and capitalize on the power of our combined commitments. The strength of unity in the Global Covenant of Mayors will allow cities to be equipped to overcome the obstacles that must be taken down if the world is to deliver on the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement.
The constant fighting over the services of banks on campuses, particularly in college continues to heat up because of a lot of controversial regulations that banks tend to propose. Bank marketers are always finding ways to get inside college campuses as a way of targeting millennials for community banks. Their goal is to provide checking accounts and prepaid cards in order to aid students financially especially when it comes to financing their daily activities as well as their school expenses. Partnerships by banking institutions in colleges and universities is also common where the students are being provided by a co-branded debit card that can also be used as their identification card in school.

But there is a catch for partnerships between schools and banks with regards to providing financial services to students. Schools may be able to receive a share of the revenue that banks make while providing services to their students and also assistance when it comes to federal financial aid disbursement. These types of arrangements sometimes are beneficial to banking institutions because not only because of the exclusivity and the fee income, but also because it is a good way to gain new customers as well in the form of the students parents and friends. Once a potential client chooses a bank to work with, it is unlikely for them to find new banks because reaching out to millennials like college students allows financial institutions to attract long term customers.

The Real Challenge

The United States Department of Education has just announced that they have new proposed regulations that will affect around 8 to 9 million college students in the country. The regulations will be setting out tougher and harder standards that will be mandating larger transparency. It will mostly affect the agreements between campuses and banks and will target specifically prepaid and debit accounts of college students. The Department of Education said that the lack of transparency and the incomplete information that is being provided to students are areas of concern with reference to how banking services are being introduced to college students.

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According to the Secretary of Education, students need more information about their account options especially when they first open an account with a financial institution. For example, students should be able to choose their own checking account options without having to utilize debit cards and be charged with extra fees.

What do the new regulations say?

The Department of Education says that it is only trying to protect the students from unnecessary fees that are being charged by financial institutions. Unfortunately, there are some students that are still unfamiliar with how banks operate. Also the new regulations are trying to make students understand the disclosure and agreements between them and the bank; something that lacks to be explained sometimes.

The Department of Education is also proposing that the fees and the cost that students sustain needs to be federally regulated, as well as the personal information of the students should not be shared without their consent. If the new regulation is put into place, then the banking institutions are prohibited from requiring their clients particularly students and their parents to open an account with them where that account is linked to where their credit balances are deposited.
Good health is vital. Indeed, it's often thought of as the most valuable thing in life. And while we philosophically believe we can't place a price on health, the healthcare industry does just that, and those price tags are often steep. So as more people require coverage, healthcare is a paramount concern not only to individuals, but also to employers and insurers who subsidize healthcare costs. Not surprisingly, much of the conversation around health care has been focused on expenditures. Perhaps therein lies the problem. Yes, economics are a real high-impact consideration that have to be addressed, but we need to look at the root of the issue and not just treat the symptoms. An examination into healthcare mostly contextualized around the bottom line neglects the onset of problems. To curb costs, businesses must promote a culture of better health through both advocacy and policy.

So how can this be done? Recently, Harvard Business School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, co-hosted a conference titled, Building a Culture of Health: An Imperative for Business, at which business and healthcare leaders gathered to expand the scope of the conversation and address how to promote better health practices. I was kindly invited to attend the conference by one the organizers, Professor John Quelch, who teaches at both schools.

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I went into the conference thinking it would be mostly finance based. It was taking place at Harvard Business School after all, and the list of speakers and attendees included many notable business leaders. Traditionally, we think of business brass as focused on costs and profit margins, so I anticipated the speaker lectures and group talks to be no different. I was pleasantly wrong. As the conference title suggested, the conversation was indeed about the culture of health and the "cost" considerations associated with community health were more about quality of life than quantity of dollars. Every person in the room was aware implementing policy to enhance health could be expensive, but had gathered at Harvard believing not adopting such measures would prove even more costly. This wasn't just a refreshingly humanitarian perspective, but shown to be one that actually serves business goals.

The conference stressed the collective responsibility to improve the culture of health, while emphasizing the idea that global health is fundamental to the future health of businesses. Consequently, business led initiatives are needed now. Topics such as how business could enhance early childhood health habits, better enable access to clean water in poorer communities, adopt and self-regulate stricter industrial pollution measures, achieve greater environmental sustainability, and my favorite, ways to better address and improve mental health were all poured over. It seems, while politicians continually stagnate by leveraging our healthcare as a political bargaining tool, business leaders have decided to assume the charge to improve it in meaningful ways.

This appears to be a new trend. Washington's increasingly contentious politicking is not only halting social progress, but at times even moving the country backwards, so Corporate America is stepping in. When North Carolina passed House Bill 2 in March, limiting the civil rights protections of LGBT people, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff decided he had to get involved. He also led a similar call to action last year in Indiana and is largely credited with that state's decision to reverse its anti LGBT law. Benioff articulates why business leaders are assuming a more proactive social role; "We are a country of great ideas. We're a country of innovation. And we're also about - a country of change and shifting. And because our government leaders tend to be a little weaker than they were, CEOs have to step up and be a little stronger and have a bigger voice."

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What does the voice of business say are ways to improve health? From what I learned at the Building a Culture of Health conference, health must be a part of a business's mission. This can help offset the amount of money required to drive behavior change at the individual level. In corporate health culture, employee and community well-being are inextricably linked with organizational success. Health culture goals should be integrated into business performance measurements and ratings. According to Quelch, "Every company, wittingly or unwittingly, lays down a population health footprint. What we are now working on are metrics that will quantify the footprint and enable us to track improvements."

Given the effectiveness of Salesforce's CEO, it's apparent that leadership support from the top down is essential for changing beliefs and values and yielding these improvements. Business leaders must both actively express support for maintaining good health and implement the programs conducive to reaching health objectives. CEOs driving the initiatives down throughout their company ranks will help reach a company's workforce at all levels and increase the potential for a beneficial impact to the community at large. It's crucial to align business leadership with benefits and incentives, active conservation, and programs supporting healthy lifestyles.
AR-15 rifles are displayed on the exhibit floor during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Friday, May 20, 2016. The nation's largest gun lobby, the NRA has been a political force in elections since at least 1994, turning out its supporters for candidates who back expanding access to guns. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

When it comes to reducing gun violence in America, our leaders are playing a deadly game of small ball. And everyday Americans are losing badly.

This year alone, including Orlando, more than 6,200 Americans have lost their lives due to gun violence. It is a staggering toll as we near the half way mark for 2016. An incalculable loss for every family and community struck.

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And yet, the United States Congress is fighting to debate and vote on only the most incremental reforms to reduce gun violence.

While enhanced background checks, closing gun show loopholes, and imposing "no fly - no buy" provisions are important, these steps represent a fraction of what we must do as a society to curb gun violence in our communities.

First and foremost, we must stop allowing ISIS-inspired "lone wolves" to buy combat assault weapons so easily here at home.

In 1994, Congress passed an assault weapons ban that limited high capacity magazines to 10 bullets or less. The ban on combat assault weapons also made it illegal to manufacture any semiautomatic rifle with a pistol grip and a bayonet mount, preventing certain models of new AR-15s and AK-47s from entering the marketplace.

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Mass shootings decreased when the assault weapons ban became law, but Congress -- under pressure from the NRA -- allowed the ban to expire in 2004.

In 2013, following the horrific massacre of innocent school kids at Sandy Hook, we banned the sale of combat assault weapons in Maryland. It took principled and persistent leadership to assemble a coalition of the reasonable. But we did it as a State and that's exactly what we must do as a nation today.

While reasonable Americans in both parties support "no-fly, no buy", the NRA has once again used their influences over our Congress to block even this smallest of steps. The law of our land remains no law in our land when it comes to combat assault weapons sales. No enhanced background checks, no fingerprint licensing provision for handgun purchasers, no assault weapons ban, no limit on magazine capacity.

It is time for Congress to listen to the vast majority of Americans instead of taking its orders from gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association.

Our own failure to enact reasonable gun violence prevention laws is now being used against Americans by ISIS-inspired lone wolves.

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The U.S. Military Academy's director of terrorism studies notes that U.S. terrorists have turned to guns, because explosives and explosive materials are monitored more attentively by the government than gun sales. American al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn emphasized this troubling reality in a video to American jihadists, telling them a fully automatic assault weapon could be purchased at a gun show without a background check or ID card.

His chilling question to them: "What are you waiting for?"

The same question might be asked of us -- what are we waiting for? How long will we sit idly by and allow terrorists and psychopaths to use our inaction against us?

The evidence at this point is overwhelming. Whatever the various motives, the carnage in cities and neighborhoods across America cannot be denied. The fact that ISIS inspired lone wolves are now using our failure to act to kill American citizens on American soil can no longer be ignored.

We must reinstate the combat assault weapons ban and we must limit magazine capacities to 10 rounds or less. American lives are at stake.

Martin O'Malley is former Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland. He ran for president in 2016. He served as Co-chair, Homeland Security Task Force, National Governor's Association 2007-2014 and Co-chair, Homeland Security Committee, U.S. Conference of Mayors 2001-2006.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common bacterial infections in women and children.

Painful and avoidable, they also require antibiotics, which doesn't necessarily prevent further infections.

The unnecessary use of antibiotics has led to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, a major problem globally.

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Could cranberry juice, a commonly believed aid in UTIs, actually help reduce the use of antibiotics?

Ocean Spray, the largest cranberry producer in the world, would like you to think so.

The health benefits of cranberry juice are, after all, a large focus of their marketing strategy.

Last week, Ocean Spray released the results of a study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which suggests drinking an 8-ounce glass of cranberry juice every day could help reduce the likelihood of a UTI by 40 percent, at least in women over 40 who frequently have the infection.

Calling the "landmark" study the largest clinical trial of its kind, the press release states cranberry juice "may be a useful strategy to decrease worldwide use of antibiotics" by preventing the need for the drugs.

So how do their claims match up to the evidence?

"That's a bit of a stretch," Dr. Aaron Glatt, chair of the Department of Medicine and Hospital Epidemiologist at South Nassau Communities Hospital in New York, told Healthline. "The landmark isn't a landmark."

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The Official Results

For the study, women with a median age of 40 were assigned to two groups. One group drank 8 ounces of an Ocean Spray cranberry cocktail per day, which contained 27 percent actual cranberry juice. The group other received a placebo.

Ocean Spray financially supported the study, including providing the cranberry cocktail. Two of its employees, Kerrie L. Kaspar and Christina Khoo, head of research sciences, were involved in all aspects of the research.

Ocean Spray representatives said the study was conducted by an independent research company, registered with clinicaltrials.gov, and published in a peer-reviewed journal. The research also followed necessary protocols, including board and ethics committee approval.

Kalpana Gupta, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Boston University, was the only researcher on the study who reported no conflicts of interest. She's also been researching infectious disease for 20 years, including studying cranberries for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

She called the study "beautifully done" because of its size, compliance to treatment, and follow-up.

There were 373 women in the final study. All had experienced a recent UTI.

During the study period, researchers diagnosed 39 UTIs in people who drank cranberry juice. In the placebo group, there were 67 UTIs.

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Overall, researchers concluded, there was a 40 percent reduction in UTI symptoms in women who drank the cranberry cocktail.

Taking a Closer Look

There are, however, points of concern.

The study examined a woman's symptoms, not laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections.

Secondly, they counted all of the UTIs among the subjects and piled them together, not addressing the individual infection rates.

Gupta said symptoms were measured because that's what's used in the clinical setting.

"Symptoms of a UTI are why people go see their doctors," she told Healthline. "These women with recurring UTIs will do anything to prevent them."

Despite this and Ocean Spray's involvement, Gupta says she's confident in the findings and that they're in line with other research.

While Gupta says she wasn't paid for her role in the study, she now speaks on the issue and Ocean Spray compensates her for her travel expenses.

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In 2012, Gupta co-authored research in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings that found cranberry juice didn't significantly reduce UTIs risk in women. Ocean Spray didn't fund that research.

When it comes to studying UTI risk, Glatt says other factors could have been at play and should have been controlled for, such as a woman's sexual activity and contraception use, which can increase her likelihood of a UTI.

"These are well-known factors that need to be controlled for," Glatt said.

Some research has shown that cranberries possess molecules that can interfere with how bacteria affix themselves inside the urinary tract. Those results, however, are at the type of concentrations for cranberries typically found in concentrated pills. Even then research on cranberry's protective effects is limited.

"The amount you would have to drink is much, much larger" than what subjects drank in the current study, Glatt said.

Other Considerations

Drinking more cranberry cocktail could come with some unintended consequences.

Ocean Spray's Cranberry Juice Cocktail contains 28 grams of sugar per 8-ounce serving, which is higher than some sodas. That's 7 teaspoons of sugar, one more than the daily recommended maximum for women.

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While she didn't say what Ocean Spray product was tested, Gupta did say it was a low-calorie version.

"We use something people can go out and get," she said. "It empowers many people to go out and get it."

But, at least according to a urologist at Texas A&M University, it may not do any real good.

"Cranberry juice, especially the juice concentrates you find at the grocery store, will not treat a UTI or bladder infection," Dr. Timothy Boone, Ph.D., told the school's Vital Record in February. "It can offer more hydration and possibly wash bacteria from your body more effectively, but the active ingredient in cranberry is long gone by the time it reaches your bladder."

A study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2011 tested ingesting 16 ounces of 27 percent cranberry juice per day. The study was based on results collected from 319 college women with UTI symptoms. Researchers concluded that overall the juice didn't help protect a second infection within six months.

Where Research Is Published Matters

Another of Glatt's concerns is where the recent Ocean Spray study was published.

He points out it was in a nutrition journal, not one focusing on infectious diseases.

"They had plenty of time to submit it to other journals," he said.

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The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) has a history of publishing industry-funded research. Its board's conflict-of-interest disclosures are numerous. While none disclose ties to Ocean Spray, they do extend to other major sugary drink manufacturers, including Ocean Spray's distributor, Pepsi Co.

Michele Simon, who writes at EatDrinkPolitics.com, has been critical of the American Society of Nutrition, the publisher of the AJCN, because of its close affiliation with major food manufacturers.

"I would just say it's part of an industry pattern of funding research that -- surprise! -- benefits their bottom line," Simon commented to Healthline about the Ocean Spray study.

Khoo, however, says Ocean Spray has always upheld the highest standards in its research.

"As the cranberry experts, we provided information on the cranberry components in the products and information regarding the most recent research on the mechanism of action of these cranberry components," she told Healthline. "We were not involved in the execution of this trial and had no contact with the clinics running the trial. We were not involved in the collection, or statistical analysis of the data and the preparation of the results of this study."

Dr. Dennis M Bier, editor-in-chief of the AJCN, did not respond to a request for comment.

One study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, compared drinking up to 10 ounces of Ocean Spray's Cranberry Classic per day with drinking the same amout of a placebo.

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Of the 255 children who completed the trial -- all who'd recently experienced a UTI -- 16 percent had another UTI within a year, compared with 22 percent who received the placebo.

While a small improvement, the hardest part, researchers noted, was getting the kids to drink the juice, a common complaint of people in cranberry juice studies.

Research conducted by Ocean Spray researchers, however, often deliver more conclusive results, such as the case with a study published in April 2015, which concluded cranberry concentrate or juices helps prevent bacteria from adhering to the urinary tract.

But a review of studies regarding cranberries and UTIs performed in 2012 found "Cranberry juice does not appear to have a significant benefit in preventing UTIs and may be unacceptable to consume in the long term."

So how can the same evidence lead to conflicting advice?

That was the question an Ocean Spray-funded review asked in May in the journal Advances in Nutrition, another publication of the American Society for Nutrition. Overall, they found good reason for more research into cranberries as a preventative measure against recurring UTIs in women.

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Industry-Funded Favorable Outcomes

Industry funded research is common in our food chain. Sometimes the results of this research are overstated to the consumer, especially when it comes to sugary drinks.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of Pom Wonderful. The Federal Trade Commission had chastised the company for overstating health claims in advertisements.

In 2009, Pom unsuccessfully sued Ocean Spray for making a cranberry-pomegranate drink that only contained 2 percent pomegranate juice and that piggybacked off Pom's success.

These cases, however, call into question the validity of research as well as the health claims associated with them. Still, many believe there could be good reason to suggest cranberries could have legitimate health benefits related to UTIs.

Amesh A. Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says he doesn't automatically discount industry-funded research, but it is something to keep in mind when evaluating studies.

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As to the effectiveness of cranberry juice for UTI treatments, he says no studies have "really provided consistent or impressive results."

"Because cranberry juice is a cheap and easy intervention, it isn't something I discourage people from drinking if they are prone to UTIs," Adalja told Healthline. "This study provides more evidence that there may be an effect present. However, future studies looking at, for example, biomarkers in the urine of cranberry juice drinking women would be useful in fully determining if a causal effect from cranberry juice is actually present."

Public Perception

A survey of Healthline readers revealed that a majority of people seem to believe cranberry juice can help with a urinary tract infection.

About 60 percent who answered the unscientific online poll the past few days said they have had a UTI in the past. Half said their doctor had recommended drinking cranberry juice to treat or prevent the infection.

About 72 percent said they have used cranberry juice to help with a UTI. Of the women who answered, 75 percent said they had used cranberry juice. Of the men, nearly 60 percent said they had.

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About 68 percent said they believed cranberry juice can treat or prevent UTIs. Of the women who answered, 72 said they believed the juice can help. About 54 percent of men said they did.

In all, 600 Healthline readers responded to the survey.

By Brian Krans
There's been a recurring theme in the quotes my friend posts on Facebook lately.

Regret.

Her latest post read, "I don't regret my past, I just regret the time I wasted with the wrong people."

I assumed she was talking about her ex-husband, who had hurt and humiliated her. Recovering from that relationship had been a hard process.

A process that wasn't over, it seemed. Even years later, she still carried the emotional burden of regret. How long can someone shoulder that weight before their knees buckle?

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Many years ago I had found myself in a similar state.

During my senior years of high-school I worked part-time for a nursing agency, visiting the elderly in their homes and helping them with personal care, light housekeeping, and things like that.

Other times I was asked to work as relief staff in a nursing home, which I really enjoyed because of all the fascinating characters I met there.

There were many veterans who shared riveting war stories, men and women who'd lived through times I'd only read about, and even a lady who claimed to be one of the last remaining survivors of the Titanic.

It was a rewarding job to have at such a young age.

After I graduated high school, I decided to take a year off and work full-time. I thought I might not even go to university, with how well work was going.

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After a few months I was starting to feel like I was part of the regular nursing home staff, and they offered me a full time position.

The offer was overwhelming. The money was more than I'd ever imagined making. It felt like a dream.

A union job with benefits and vacation pay. I was set for life, I thought.

I enthusiastically accepted the position.

I loved my new job. I counted the days until my three month probation was over so I could receive my official paperwork. But two weeks before that could happen, fate intervened and sent my life on a completely different path.

While trying to help a nurse lift a patient into a wheelchair, I somehow wrenched my back.

I thought I was fine, but by the end of my shift I could hardly move. I was in excruciating pain and decided to go to the emergency room.

Thankfully, the doctor told me that it wasn't too serious, but he ordered me to take a week off work to rest.

So that's what I did, and one week later I returned to work with a bounce in my step.

During my morning break my manager asked me to her office. I was finally going to receive my formal documents, I thought. I was wrong.

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"Heidi, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to terminate you," she said sadly.

Her words shocked me. I felt like I couldn't catch my breath.

She explained that receiving an injury before my probation period ended meant I was a medical risk. So this would be my last shift.

I was miserable for weeks. I played the injury over and over again in my mind. Why had I been so careless?

Regret consumed me.

After being unemployed for weeks I eventually had to take a waitressing job. I hoped keeping busy would help numb the sting of regret.

It didn't.

Then one Sunday afternoon, when I was feeling my lowest, one of the nurses I had previously worked with came into the restaurant with her family.

I ducked behind a wall, hoping she didn't see me. Feeling panicked, I asked another waitress to take her table so I wouldn't have to see her. She was swamped and couldn't help me out.

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Out of choices, I had to face my fear. I took a deep breath, emerged from behind the wall, and walked to her table.

The moment she saw me she jumped up and hugged me, asked me how I was doing.

Feeling pretty low, I told her. I hadn't been great since I lost my job, I explained.

She looked puzzled for a moment.

Then with a reassuring smile, she grabbed my shoulders and said, "Heidi, you never belonged at the nursing home. Fate stepped in to make sure you didn't. Getting fired was actually a blessing. You're such a smart girl who could do anything you want to do...now go and figure out what that is."

I was dumbfounded. How did she see something that I didn't?

For days I couldn't stop thinking about what she had said to me.

Then one week later, with her words in my heart, I drove to my hometown university and started the application process.

I haven't looked back since, and I've never forgotten her profound words. It turns out she was right. There really was more for me out there, and I'm so thankful that fate, or whatever you want to call it, gave me the opportunity to discover that.

Since then I've come to believe that everything DOES happen for a reason. The people we meet, the things that happen, even the misfortunes that befall us.

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Good or bad, it's all part of a bigger plan.

Had I not injured my back, my life today would be drastically, unimaginably different. That sadness and regret was a difficult time in my life, but without that hard lesson I wouldn't be the person I am today.

To my lovely friend who is still feeling some regret, I offer up this quote for your wall..."Don't stare at the closed door too long, you'll miss the window opening".

Take it from me. I almost did.

Written by Heidi Allen - Founder of the Positive People Army

If you would like to submit a story please follow the Submit Story Link
You have no idea how much we were looking forward to paying a visit to the famed Fox Glacier while planning our South island New Zealand travels.

If the idea of sitting on a helicopter and walking on ice doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat, what will?

The night before we were scheduled to fly, we experienced torrential rain. We were hoping that this fierce rain could wash the sky away of clouds and reward us with a clear day the next day. Despite our crossed fingers and touching of wood, the skies weren't letting up even on the next day. New Zealand's rain has so much stamina, we could only resign ourselves to fate.

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We reported to the reception for the weather check 15 minutes before our scheduled timing, hoping that against all odds, there may be a glimmer of sunshine through the thick grey clouds. With a dismayed sigh, we retreated back to our campervan when we learned that all the flights were cancelled that day.

We sat ourselves down and discussed the possible alternatives. Stall for another day hoping that the weather might turn for the better the next morning, or skip this tour entirely and move on with the rest of our South island itinerary as planned? The answer was evident. We wouldn't let the weather gods play us. Seeing that all of us were so fervently looking forward to what might be our first and last time being atop a glacier, we couldn't just let this opportunity go.

We made the best of our day through the intermittent rain and shine by visiting the terminal face of the glacier at Franz Josef on our own, complete with its own set of spectacular views of the glacier and sky-high waterfalls. More in this post: See New Zealand's Glacier For Free!

How are glaciers formed?

Fox Glacier is the largest and most fluid of the West Coast glaciers. The neve or snow catchment area of the Fox Glacier is about 36 square kilometres long.

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Large quantities of rain or snow is collected in the neve, a catchment area at the upper part of the glacier which collects snow that has not yet been compressed into ice.

Gravity caused the snow to be compressed from the neve down the glacier valleys. During this process, the snowflakes would decompose and be compressed into what you see at the glacier - hard blue ice that are hundreds of metres deep. The high snowfall continuously push ice down the valleys and turn into ice. Gravitational force forces the moving masses of ice to gnaw at anything in its path to reach the terminal face at the bottom of the glacier. When the glaciers flow over uneven bedrock on the valley floor, the ice break up, forming mazes of crevasses, arches and pinnacles that we now see on the surface. This entire process takes anywhere from 15 to 25 years.

The surface ice structure is so fluid and dynamic, it never stays the same at any one day. What you see now would differ from summer, and again change next winter. Because of global warming, the ice is melting rapidly. From the markings on the surrounding valley walls, we could see how much higher the ice used to be.

The Fox Glacier Helihike Experience

After the confirmation of our tour, we proceeded to put on our waterproof jacket and pants, and change to hiking boots and socks.

We were then taken to the helicopter landing zone for a 4-minute helicopter ride up to the glacier. You cannot imagine how exhilarated we were, sitting on a helicopter for the first time in our lives! It's quite a moving experience for me, being so close to Earth and yet so high at the same time. It felt like I was in my own space capsule.

Take this journey with us in this video as we fly from the base to the glacier and back!

The first obstacle we faced upon landing was not how cold it was, considering we were 700 metres above sea level, but how difficult it was to walk on ice. Even ice skaters have skates. So we quickly fitted on crampons, which made walking on ice become a breeze. No longer do you see ballerinas twirling around the frictionless ice.

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Armed with an ice axe in hand, our guide led us on a journey of ice discovery.

The glacier reaches up to a height of 2800 metres, but where we were walking, it was only 700 metres high, with the ground ice that go as deep as 30 metres.

Imagine falling through the deep holes caused by the punctuation of running water, which has really happened to the phones of several selfie victims. The glacier can both be fascinating and terrifying, which is why the guides were present to ensure our safety.

At this altitude in May when we went, temperatures are about 5 degrees, though it feels much warmer than we thought, because we are also closer to the sun. All that snooping around the ice crevasses trying to fit in the little caves also works up a sweat!

If you notice the ground ice, there are parts that are bluer than others. The darker the colour of the ice, the denser the ice is, while the white parts of the ice signifies the presence of air pockets.

The water that flows through here is also some of the purest. So pure, you could drink it straight from the streams that flow down.

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Over the course of 2-3 hours, we went through, over, under, on and between the different ice formations at Fox Glacier. We watched the only living organism survive in these extreme conditions. We drank from little pools of ice water. We watched ice melt and flow down the neve. We climbed up and down the deep pockets of ice structures. If we were still enough, we could hear the echoes of mini avalanches as huge blocks of ice tip over deep hollow spaces.



"So was it worth it?" "Hell yeah!"



It was such a rewarding experience, learning about how glaciers are formed and actually being on the glacier itself. We felt so fulfilled after a long morning of ice hiking, that not even an afternoon of heavy shower that came after could dampen our mood that day.

If you want to find out more about our Helihike experience with Fox Glacier Guiding Co, check their video out:
You probably think I'm nuts.

Just after the Senate has killed two bills that would have modestly restricted gun rights, am I seriously proposing that we tamper with the wording of the Second Amendment? That we infringe upon the sacred, quintessentially American right to bear arms?

Yes. That's what I'm saying we should do. If we don't, we not only invite another massacre like the one that killed 49 people in Orlando; we also throw up our hands in abject surrender to gun violence throughout the nation. So far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, firearms have killed over 5,000 people in this country and injured over 10,000 more. During just the week after the Orlando massacre, 228 more people have been killed with guns elsewhere in America.

Why can we do nothing effective against this mayhem? When a reported 90 percent of Americans favor background checks at gun shows and barring gun sales to suspected terrorists, why can't the Senate muster the 60 votes needed to take either of these simple steps? The standard answer is that not enough lawmakers have the guts to spurn the money or buck the muscle of the NRA. But if we look behind the NRA, we find that much of its power springs from the exasperating ambiguity of the second amendment, which seems to say that each of has an absolute, unconditional right to own any weapon we wish -- and to carry it anywhere we want.

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How did this happen? In a thoroughgoing study of the origin of the Second Amendment, David E. Young has explained that James Madison and Congress together distilled it from declarations made by various states, and in particular from Section 17 of the Bill of Rights proposed by the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention:

That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

Obviously, the purpose of this Virginia declaration was to clear the way for a "well-regulated militia" as a "safe" alternative to a standing army. The "body of the people," it states, should be "trained to arms" so as "keep and bear arms" in "safe defence of a free state" -- whether the state of Virginia, or the United States as a whole, against its enemies. Most important of all, the declaration plainly states that "the military," which surely includes militias, "should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Is it conceivable that this Virginia declaration -- the direct precursor to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution -- gives any individual the right to own and carry any sort of gun without any training, without any regulation, without any reference to safety, and without any "subordination to . . . the civil power," let alone "strict subordination" to its laws?

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Yet this absolute freedom from all training, safety and regulation is what the Second Amendment seems to promise all gun owners:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

In approving this condensed version of the Virginia declaration, Madison and Congress must have thought that it preserved the essential points of the original. Instead, it consigned the bearing of arms to a sinkhole of ambiguity -- as exemplified by the Supreme Court ruling of 2006 in the case of Heller vs. the District of Columbia. In overturning a twofold DC ban on registering firearms and on keeping functional firearms in one's home, the late Justice Antonin Scalia argued for the majority that the Second Amendment did not confine the bearing of arms to those serving in a militia. Instead, Scalia wrote, it proclaimed "an individual right to possess and carry weapons." Unfortunately, the great Originalist never explained where this right is stated in -- or even implied by -- the original version of the Second Amendment: the Virginia Declaration.

But an "individual right" can be judicially wriggled out of the Second Amendment because this amendment is riddled with ambiguity. Instead of granting gun rights to "the body of the people," which is unambiguously a group, the amendment says simply "people," which can be read as individuals. And instead of making the right to bear arms depend on good training and "safe defence of a free state," it makes the right dependent on nothing at all.

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Of course the framers of the Constitution did not foresee that Americans would one day possess over 300 million guns and would insist on the "individual right" to own assault rifles capable of killing scores of people in seconds. But the Second Amendment makes all of us live and thousands of us die each year by means of a deadly ambiguity that could have been readily forestalled by wording such as either of the following:

"Insofar as a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms in such a militia shall not be infringed."

Instead of such clarity, we have stubborn ambiguity. But do we really have to go on living with language that makes us powerless to do anything effective against gun violence? In the wake of Scalia's ruling, every kind of gun restriction we might enact by statute may be overturned by the supposed Constitutional principle that the "individual right" to "keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." If Scalia's reading of the Second Amendment is right, what are the legal grounds on which anyone can be forbidden to carry an assault rifle into a nightclub -- or onto an airplane, for that matter? How can airport security officers legally infringe my right to board a plane with an AK-47 strapped to my back?

Of course you can say that no right granted by the Constitution is absolute and unconditional. The First Amendment right to freedom of speech, for instance, gives no one the right to shout "fire!" in a crowded room or advocate the violent overthrow of the government. But in light of the Senate's refusal to take even the tiniest of steps against gun violence after the Orlando massacre, it is more than ever obvious that the single biggest obstacle to gun control in America is not the NRA. It's the wording of the Second Amendment.

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How then do I propose to amend it? Not by either of the versions given above, which would needlessly stress the now obsolete role of citizen militias. (We don't need them because we've long since learned to accept standing armies.) Instead, I would keep every word of the Second Amendment -- and add just five words to the end of it:

". . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except to ensure public safety."

By themselves, these five new words would not add one new curb on gun rights in America. Any new move to restrict or regulate those rights would still have to be fought out in state or federal legislatures, where the NRA would remain perfectly free to flex its political muscle. But no gun control bill that ran this gauntlet to become law could ever again be overturned on the grounds that it infringed the Constitutional right to bear arms. The added words, therefore, would make one simple point: the people's right to bear arms cannot trump the government's right to protect us from gun violence, the government's right to weigh our desire for weapons against public safety, and to strike a reasonable balance between the two.

Let's stop fighting about laws that run head on into the Second Amendment. After more than two centuries of deadly ambiguity, let's amend the amendment itself.
Mourners gather under a LGBT pride flag flying at half-mast for a candlelight vigil in remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, from San Diego, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

As a therapist, I must pose a question to members of the LGBT community: How will you respond to the Orlando shootings?

Generally speaking, there are two directions in which you can go. The first, and most common, is to retreat, to become fearful, to sublimate one's identity and try to disappear. This is the quiet voice inside of us that pleads, "Don't make waves, don't make others uncomfortable with our displays of affection. Don't confront them with who we really are."

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Along these lines is another culturally induced tendency: to ignore Orlando ("It didn't happen to me"), and the other thousand cuts, the micro-aggressions, slurs, and hatred we endure from the time we are children. In our society and around the world, we all are living in a heterosexual trance, the cultural state of mind in which LGBT people are either loathed, met with violence, or whose reality is invisible to the majority culture around them.

Heterosexual Privilege



Heterosexuality is a privileged position that is unaware of its privilege, much like the majority culture is unaware of its own racism. When a black man walks down the street and is blindly assumed by whites to be a dangerous criminal, or when he is wearing a hoodie and assumed to be a thug, or a Jewish person is assumed to be a money grubber--this is the trance of the white majority culture. It is a trance of cultural tyranny that consciously or unconsciously wants to erase evidence of its own shortcomings, anything that would reveal it to be less prejudiced, less compassionate or wonderful than it considers itself to be.

Heterosexual Trance

LGBT people, it seems, are the most recent of the dispossessed to present such a threat to the cultural majority and its comfortable trance.

Here's a great example of the heterosexual trance in action. On a recent Sky News program, a gay journalist stormed off the set after the two co-hosts refused to acknowledge the homophobic nature of the Orlando attack. Instead, they insisted, that it was something "carried out against human beings." They questioned why he would think he as a gay man has "ownership of the horror of this crime," essentially accusing him of promoting a "gay agenda."

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This despite the fact that the killer:

* Expressed his loathing of homosexuality to coworkers on numerous occasions

* Frequented Pulse, the popular gathering place for gays, many times before his rage became murderous,

* Was found to be using gay dating apps.

* "Saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry," as his Muslim father told NBC News.

His father also posted on Facebook that he was sorry his son had done this, and that "Only God has the right and responsibility to punish homosexuality." Under Islamic law, men who are actively gay are to be condemned to death, a view shared by Old Testament Christianity, and apparently some present-day preachers, as you'll see below.

To most gays, and many others, the homophobic nature of the killer's motives are clear, and yet there are those who refuse to see it. They call this, "straightwashing." This is the tyranny of the heterosexual trance, and the razor cuts of homophobic culture. Internalized, they eventually bleed us, literally, to death (too often by suicide), or to the death of our sense of self and value as a human being.

Consider, for instance, Roger Jimenez, the Texas pastor whose recent rant has gone viral, in which he calls homosexuals "the scum of the earth," and that the tragedy or Orlando is that more of the victims didn't die. He said he is ardently praying for the deaths of those only wounded in the Orlando attack. Even I find the place in myself that wants to dismiss such viciousness as inconsequential, the hateful rhetoric of an idiot or madman that doesn't affect me.

Internalized Homophobia

But the truth is, it does. And I think about the LGBT children and teens listening to his hateful words and how that adds to their own self-loathing.

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This is just one of the innumerable cultural messages that slash away at our soul, cut by cut, until we quietly succumb to a learned helplessness or worse, until we internalize the hatred and allow it to erode our sense of self. It is the same message sent by those who refuse to bake a cake or perform weddings for gay couples, or rent them a home, or who fire them from their job.

The message is: you don't deserve to live, or to go about your life in a way that makes me uncomfortable. If, on the other hand, you as a gay person are uncomfortable naturally expressing affection, then you are more likely to internalize such rejection and ask, "What's wrong with me?" or think, "I don't matter."

Seeing and hearing these constant messages and not acknowledging them for the danger they pose to yourself and others leads to depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a whole range of other psychological and social problems. Doing nothing adds to your own vicarious trauma and anxiety.

It is not the right answer.

A Better Response

Alternatively, there are better ways to respond.

The first is to simply recognize where and when you are being made to feel "othered." It is to become conscious of the myriad ways you are being made to feel rejected, vilified, ignored, erased and victimized. All too often we simply let these go by unacknowledged, where they slip into our subconscious to do their dirty work.

Imagine if the above mentioned pastor had said about blacks or Jews what he said about gays: "I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out." Can you imagine how the black or Jewish community would be responding?

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The next step, then, is to stop being passive. That is not to say one should become violent, but find ways to safely activate yourself--whether by speaking out on social media, writing letters and blogs, standing up for oneself when a slight comes your way, joining a support group, or doing something positive for yourself and others.

I'm not suggesting that you put yourself in immediate danger. However, being in a crowd demonstrating against such hate and violent rhetoric may offer some safety. But one can experience healing and empowerment by simply becoming active and standing tall for one's nature and one's beliefs. We should realize, however, that there are consequences to poking a beast that is not used to being challenged.

We are beginning to see demonstrations by gays and straights alike in support of the Orlando victims and their loved ones. On Twitter, there is a growing movement named #TwoMenKissing, photos meant to interrupt the heterosexual trance, and be an expression both of love and of activism.

The time for passivity is gone along with those murdered in Orlando. If you are thinking, "Well, things have gotten better. We are well along the road to cultural acceptance," then you likely are deluding yourself. Now, more than ever, is the time to stand for what is right. As radio show host and author, Michelangelo Signorale, makes clear in his new book's title: It's Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality.



And as an elegant and heartfelt example of speaking out, I'll conclude with a recent Facebook post by a friend, Brian McNaught, a diversity trainer, writer and sexuality educator:

Openly gay men are generally the most non-violent men in the world. We are an army of lovers, who since the earliest times, have been most likely to be the world's poets, dancers, children's authors and illustrators, shamans, teachers, healers, prophets, and diplomats.

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Gay men have a sensibility and sensitivity that allows them to create, see, and appreciate beautiful expressions of the real and unreal. Most gay men are genuinely funny, romantic, graceful, resilient, and communal.

In Spanish, we're referred to as butterflies. In English, we're fairies. Despite our extraordinary gifts, we are bullied and beaten and shot down. We're labeled sick and sinful. We're imprisoned, thrown from buildings, and hanged from cranes. In this country, and elsewhere, we were experimented upon and tortured with electric shocks to our genitals, freezing water, and lobotomies. We've been castrated by knives and by drugs.
Democratic frustration with the Republican's inability to keep our country safe is not a political talking point -- it is about real policy that affects real people. The number one job of our country's most representative elected body is to legislate in order to keep the American people safe. And in this regard, on both domestic and foreign policy, House Republicans have failed miserably.

When I ran for Congress after resigning from the State Department as the senior official in charge of State's relations with the House of Representatives, I knew that I was seeking to serve in a body full of words, not deeds. But change needed to come to that body, because when the House doesn't function, America's government doesn't function.

We have seen this time and again, from the failed government shutdown in 2013 that cost our country billions to the Houses' inability to grapple with climate change that is destroying our planet. But most frighteningly, the Houses' inability to deal with terrorism is putting our security at risk, and doing so like never before. Orlando has sadly once again shown us that. Enough is enough.

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Nearly 30,000 Americans die from gun violence every year. No other country at peace with itself has this level of internal violence. Of course, countries in the throes of war and chaos like Syria, El Salvador, and Iraq share these levels of killings, but such company should not give us comfort.

At the same time, we're fighting terrorist organizations overseas in order to destroy them in their home bases, so that they can't harm us here. But you wouldn't know if from the Houses' behavior. It's been nearly a year and a half since President Obama asked Congress to authorize military action against the Islamic State in an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) request. The Houses' failure to even bring this up for a vote shows how unserious Republicans are about defeating the Islamic State and protecting us from terrorists.

The failure of the House to act on guns and terrorism is putting our lives in danger.

As a candidate, I often spoke on the campaign trail about gun violence and terrorism. I spoke about how as a father of three young girls, every night I went to bed worried about whether my children would be safe from violence at their school, when visiting a public shopping mall, or just plain living their lives. I was not alone in that fear. But as a Democrat, I knew that we had little power to stand up to the NRA legislatively in the House.

And as a State Department official, I spent many days preparing for briefings, meetings, and hearings on the question of how to defeat the Islamic State. Yet when we made the official AUMF request to both create parameters for our military operations and to demonstrate that Americans stood united against the Islamic State, the House took no action once again.

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It's crucial to point out that Speaker Paul Ryan has total control over which legislation comes up for a vote. And it's abundantly clear that Ryan is failing to allow for a vote to tighten up our nation's gun laws so that suspected terrorists can't buy guns and that background checks are more effective -- positions supported by 90% of Americans. It's also clear that he's also failing to do anything about the fight against terrorists overseas.

House Republicans -- just like Donald Trump -- are obsessed with labelling Democrats as soft on terrorism because President Obama doesn't say the magic words "Islamic Terrorism." But their behavior in actually doing anything about the fight against the Islamic State both at home and abroad is nonexistent.

So when it comes to voting to protect Americans from gun violence, to keep us safe from terrorists, and to stand united in the fight against the Islamic State, House Republicans -- the party of know-nothing Donald Trump, who promises to do more of the same -- are an abysmal failure.

Our country can't afford any more do-nothing Congresses and know-nothing Presidents on the question of terrorism. Too much is at stake.

What saddens me most about this episode, where House Democrats had to result in physical protest on the House floor to have their voices heard, is that Paul Ryan has young children just like me. He and I are close in age. I wonder if he worries about their safety at night too, just like I do. And I wonder if he understands how little both he and his House Republican colleagues are doing to protect them.



Joel Rubin is a former Congressional Candidate in Maryland's 8th Congressional District, as well as the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for House of Representatives Affairs.
Right off the bat let me note that Reserve Cut is Glatt Kosher, which may puzzle some and put off others. I am no authority on matters kosher, and the term Glatt Kosher is itself a continual subject of discussion among Jews: In an article entitled "What's the Truth About. ... Glatt Kosher," Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotsky states, "Misconceptions about the meaning of glatt are so widespread that, for many, the term glatt has colloquially taken on the implication of a higher standard, similar to the term mehadrin," and that "Glatt is Yiddish for smooth, and in the context of kashrut it means that the lungs of the animal were smooth, without any adhesions that could potentially prohibit the animal as a treifa, an issue only applicable to animals, not fowl or non-meat products."

Reserve Cut clearly draws a large number of Jews of different ethnic cultures for whom everything on the menu is kosher enough, including wine, as approved by a Rabbi; that means dairy products may never be mixed with meat in any way and no shellfish may be served. Beyond that, the non-Jew need be no further concerned dining at Reserve Cut.

Okay, now on to how Reserve Cut otherwise ranks among NYC's myriad steakhouses. For one thing, it is one of the more spectacular dining rooms downtown, with a gorgeous hall of glassed-in wine bottles, and seating for 500 spread out from an entryway bar to two expansive dining rooms, one with a broad open kitchen. When the space opened six years ago on the second floor of the Setai Hotel, it was a superb Asian fusion restaurant named SHO Shaun Hergatt, and Reserve Cut has wisely maintained some of those style elements that made it such a beautiful space. Very low lighting, however, makes it difficult to appreciate much of it. This being a steakhouse, it can get boisterously loud.

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As has become the new standard for modern steakhouses, there is a lengthy sushi-sashimi section on the menu, and Reserve Cut's is as fine as any in town, especially the extensive number of Asian rolls, like the Volcano roll ($22) made from spicy tuna with Asian pear, avocado and tempura. The sushi platter makes for a good assortment of nine pieces of the chef's recommendations ($36).

There are also many appetizers out of the ordinary here (possibly to fill in for the lack of shellfish like shrimp, lobster and crab), including a terrific dish of smoked shredded short rib tacos ($26) with pineapple, tomato and cilantro salsa. Rich Kobe-style beef tartare was dressed with shallots, cornichons, and quail egg yolk ($28), while excellent tuna is enhanced with black truffle, avocado, teriyaki sauce and cilantro ($24), similar to a dish of grilled blackened cod and tuna ($23). A very delicate and thin yellowtail carpaccio came with subtle flavors of lavender sea salt, lemon zest, and tomato jam for a touch of sweetness ($24), and Chilean sea bass roulade was sided with a rainbow carrot puree, capers, and scallion vinaigrette ($24); all these show the broad range of the kitchen. The two disappointments among the starters I tried were mushy, starchy potato gnocchi with a sauce of duck confit, blistered tomatoes and zucchini ($24), and a watery roasted heirloom tomato soup with basil ($16).

The Brooklyn-born owner of Reserve Cut, Albert Allaham, only 29, "descends from a long line of master butchers dating back over 200 years to Damascus in Syria, where his family ran one of the country's most respected butcher shops," so he's got a lot to live up to, and he delivers with first-rate beef, veal, and lamb, with several cuts to choose from. A richly flavorful 10- ounce prime reserve cut, called the "proprietors cultivated special," came with a lovely yellow bell pepper caponata ($65), and it was everything you would want from a USDA Prime well-aged piece of meat; so, too, the impeccably trimmed, well-fatted rack of lamb was delicious to the bone, with roasted vegetables and a Port reduction with just the right amount of sweetness ($75), and a thick veal chop came with a terrine of tomato fillets and artichokes, a confit of sweet baby onions, and roasted king mushrooms ($61). I was delighted to see a 12-ounce steak au poivre with caramelized carrots ($61), but there wasn't nearly as much coarse ground black pepper corns on it as I would've wished, and the carrots were undercooked. All these meats come with the option of various classic sauces like Bearnaise, Bordelaise and green peppercorns.

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Aside from some addictive golden French fries, the side dishes began showing that kosher cannot deliver much rich flavor to truffled mashed potatoes or "creamed" spinach without using butter or cream, and this also affected desserts ($16), from a strawberry sundae with fabulous strawberry sorbet but insipid corn cream, while the bourbon "milkshake" was a novelty and nothing more. The caramelized chocolate mousse with crispy phyllo and salted caramelized honey ice cream was the best of a lackluster group. I longed for a true New York Jewish cheesecake, but for that I'd have to go to a kosher dairy restaurant or deli.

The wine list is especially admirable for the number of well-worth-trying wines from Israel and kosher-approved bottlings from California, all based on European varietals. There are a few at very reasonable mark-ups, like Borgo Reale Barolo 2010 at $74, while others are really hiked up, like Pardess Merlot 2011 at $162, which runs $30 in a wine shop. Cocktails are $15-$18.

There's no getting around the fact that the prices for the steaks and chops were as high or higher than most steakhouses around town-a veal porterhouse at Minetta Tavern goes for $52, a 20-ounce bone-in ribeye at Strip House for $58, and Colorado lamb chops at lamb t-bones at Bobby Van's just across the street from Reserve Cut at Porter House for $56-but you must factor in that you're getting vegetables and condiments on the side, which is a rarity in most NYC steakhouses. Kosher or not, the quality of the meat is certainly there in every bite, and you're getting a very swank setting, so it's all in how you want to dine way downtown.

Lunch Mon.-Fri.; Dinner Sun.-Fri.

RESERVE CUT

Setai Hotel

40 Broad Street (near Exchange Place)

212-747-0300

Reservecut.com
June 26 marks the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's historic ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that the Fourteenth Amendment requires every state to allow same-sex couples to marry. This was a life-changing ruling for me and for other lesbians and gay men across the country, ensuring that each of us, no matter what state we live in, is able to enjoy the fundamental right to marry the person of our choice and have our marriages recognized everywhere.

But June 26 will also mark a far less happy occasion -- 102 days since President Obama nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by Justice Antonin Scalia's passing on February 13 -- a period during which the Republican-controlled Senate has done absolutely nothing to consider Judge Garland's nomination.

Since 1975, the Senate has taken an average of only 67 days to hold a confirmation vote on a Supreme Court nominee. Yet in the time since Judge Garland was nominated, Senate Republicans haven't even given him a hearing, let alone a vote. That's not because they're too busy, it's because they are engaged in crass partisan obstruction, trying to keep the Court's vacancy open in the hope that a Republican is elected President in November.

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What does any of this have to do with Obergefell? As it happens, Obergefell is a prime example of how the Supreme Court is supposed to function in our constitutional democracy, making national rulings on critical legal questions and resolving disagreements among the lower courts, functions that have now been compromised and undermined by Senate Republicans' refusal to do their jobs.

Obergefell was a 5-4 ruling, as closely divided as a majority decision can be. But what if the Court had been short-handed last year, and what if it had been evenly divided in Obergefell? When the Court is split 4-4, the decision of the lower court is affirmed, but no national ruling is issued. Had that happened in Obergefell, the Court would have been unable to issue a nationwide ruling on marriage equality, leaving conflicting lower court decisions in place and leaving gay men and lesbians in a balkanized America in which our enjoyment of our fundamental rights depended on where we lived.

As a lesbian married in 2004, I've actually lived in that balkanized America; it's not pretty. My wife and I are residents of Virginia, where our marriage was not recognized, although it was recognized in the District of Columbia, where we both work. How disturbing it was to head home across the Potomac River each evening and realize that we had just lost the important legal rights of a married couple, and to fear the consequences of non-recognition, whether in a hospital or elsewhere. And particularly in our transient society, where people frequently move because of jobs, "now you're married, now you're not" is a recipe for great harm to families.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court was at full strength last June, and in Obergefell was able to fulfill its critical responsibility of declaring what the Constitution requires of every single state.

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But now, thanks to the unprecedented obstruction by Senate Republicans, the Court has been short-handed for months and evenly divided this Term on a number of important issues. If that obstruction continues until the next President takes office, it will be no earlier than next spring before the Court is at full strength, leaving the country at great risk that more and more cases cannot be decided.

Even as we celebrate the anniversary of Obergefell, it's critical to remember that the short-handed Supreme Court is now in a position in which it may not be able to issue decisions for our nation on fundamental rights and other important legal issues. This is a serious threat to the rule of law.
By Marissa Stempien

Its not uncommon to feel overwhelmed when planning a wedding. Even brides that have hired the most talented planners in the business still feel pressure to choose the best floral arrangements, cakes, caterers and find a location that will be intimate and romantic while still holding hundreds of people. But finding the perfect bridal gown should be fun and easy, whether you're looking for something modern and sexy or revamping your mothers traditional dress. For a little inspiration, we found some of the most iconic royal wedding dresses in historyfrom Queen Victoria to Princess Stephanie of Luxembourgbecause every woman should feel like a princess on her wedding day, even if shes not marrying Prince William.

Queen Victoria

Color is currently trending for the non-traditional bride, but most women are still opting for white wedding gownsa trend started in the mid-1800s by the stylish Queen Victoria. Today we think of the white shades symbolizing purity and virginity, but in the 19th century, it was a color of mourning. It was the fashion-forward royal who created the tradition of wearing white on your wedding day when she opted for a cream-colored gown for her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840. She met with some backlash for her wild color choice, and was criticized for being too restrained in her adornment, as she was wed without any of her royal jewels, crown or robes. As with all fashionable royals, Queen Victoria started a trendone that most brides continue almost 200 years later.

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Queen Letizia of Spain

In 2004, journalist Letizia Ortiz married Prince Felipe of Spain at the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. Crowned Princess Letizia after the ceremony, she is now the Queen of Spain, and a fashionable royal at that. On the advice of her future mother-in-law, she opted for a couture Manuel Pertegaz gown with a silk veil and a nearly 15 foot train. The dress was embroidered with silver and gold fleur de lys flowers, clovers, strawberry tree fruits and ears of wheat with a high collar around the neck. She paired this with the Prussian Diamond Tiara (her something borrowed, on load from Queen Sofia), diamond earrings gifted from the King and Queen, and an almost 10-foot long veil commissioned as a wedding gift for her by Prince Felipe.

Princess Grace of Monaco

When Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco on April 19, 1956, she was already a star, and women were emulating her style long before her engagement. For her nuptials, the Hollywood icon actually had two dresses made up, one for each of the civil and religious ceremonies, which were gifted to her by MGM head costume designer Helen Rose. For the civil ceremony she wore a demure pink embroidered skirt suit and Juliet cap. The grandest of the two dresses, and the one most associated with her wedding day, was worn to the religious ceremony. The long-sleeve gown took 30 seamstresses six weeks to make and was made with 125-year-old Brussels lace, a 90-yard veil and three petticoats. This gown has inspired bridal wear all over the world, including the Alexander McQueen gown worn by Kate Middleton on her wedding day. The gown was later gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Princess Grace, where it remains today as a permanent part of their collection.

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Queen Soraya of Iran

Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari married the last Shah of Iran in 1951 at Golestan Palace in Tehran. After falling in love with a photo of the Iranian-German beauty, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi proposed with a 22.37 carat diamond engagement ring, and the following wedding was just as opulent. On the day of their marriage, Queen Soraya wore a couture Christian Dior gown made with 37 yards of silver lame studded with pearls, 6,000 diamonds and 20,000 marabou feathers. Reportedly the gown weighed 44 pounds and required four bridesmaids just to help her walk down the aisle. As their wedding took place in the dead of winter her strapless gown came with a matching jacket and mink coat, both gifted by Dior, to keep the bride warm.

Queen Elizabeth II

Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten on November 20, 1947 in Westminster Abbey in front of 2,000 guests. The ceremony was broadcast to 200 million radio listeners around the world and in the days following the wedding, the couple received over 10,000 congratulatory telegrams and 2,500 presents. In post-war Britain, the royal nuptials were seen as a joyous affairits also why the princess had to purchase her dress, like all English citizens, with clothing ration coupons. With 200 extra coupons, gifted to her by the government, she was able to secure a gown designed by Norman Hartnell. But just because she had to use ration coupons doesnt mean her dress wasnt worthy of a future queen. The design, inspired by Botticelli's Primavera, was embroidered with star lilies and orange blossoms, and embellished with thousands of seed pearls and crystals. While not often displayed, the dress will go on exhibition this summer at Buckingham Palace.

Princess Stephanie of Luxembourg

In 2012, Countess Stephanie de Lannoy married Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Luxembourg. Dressed in a couture Elie Saab dress, Princess Stephanie opted for a more romantic look than anything too grand or on-trend. Her wedding dress took 700 hours and 10 seamstresses to create, and used over 220 feet of silk crepe, 100 feet of silk lining, 164 feet of Chantilly lace and 131 feet of Calais lace. The detailed embroidery took 15 people an additional 3,500 hours to design as the piece was decorated with over 50,000 pearls, 80,000 crystals and 32,000 feet of metallic thread. Her regal look was topped with her Lannoy family tiara which was worn by her sisters and sisters-in-law for their weddings, and has been in her family since 1878.

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden

On June 19, 2010, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden wed her personal trainer Daniel Westling in Stockholm Cathedral. The couple took their vows in front of 1,000 friends, family members and international dignitaries, while 250,000 people lined the streets outside the cathedral to celebrate the joyous affair. The princess wore an off-the-shoulder, cream duchess silk satin dress custom made by Swedish designer Par Engsheden. Aside from the detachable 16-foot train, the dress was fairly simple, and was cut to complement the Bernadotte family heirloom lace veil which has been in the princess family since the early 1900s. Her look was finished with the Cameo Tiara, a crown that has been worn by generations of European royals for weddings, and was originally given to Empress Josephine by her new husband Napoleon Bonaparte, in the early 19th century.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

No royal event in recent memory has created an international fervor quite like Kate Middletons wedding to Prince William. The two were married in 2011, but ever since they announced their engagement there was talk and speculation about who Middeton would be wearing on her big day. For her nuptials, she opted for a Sarah Burton-designed Alexander McQueen gown with a lace bodice, long sleeves and Victorian-style bustle which was trimmed in a lace hem crafted by the Royal School of Needlework. For the ceremony she wore a diamond tiara loaned to her by the Queen. Covered in 739 brilliant-cut diamonds and 149 baguette-cut diamonds, the tiara was made by Cartier for the Queen Mother in 1936 as a gift from her husband, King George VI.

Queen Fabiola of Belgium

In December 1960, King Baudouin and Fabiola Mora y Aragon were wed in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels. For her vows, Fabiola chose to commission a couture piece from Cristobal Balenciaga, a designer from her Spanish homeland. The dress was seemingly simple at first glance and was made with ivory satin and a white mink trim with a drop-waist, but the neckline fell back over the shoulders and extended into a 22-foot long train. The dress was so heavy it took no less that seven people to help her move down the aisle and she almost fainted several times during the four-hour, traditional Catholic ceremony. She paired the gown with the Nine Provinces Tiara, which had belonged to her late mother-in-law Queen Astrid. Later in life Queen Fabiola donated her wedding gown to the Balenciaga museum in Spain, where it can still be seen today.

Princess Diana
Do I Feel More Or Less American Living Overseas?

I get this question a lot.

I've been living outside the States for 18 years, and, to answer the question I'm so often asked, I've never felt more American than I do today.

Living in the States (I lived in Baltimore, Maryland, for my first 35 years), we Americans take being American for granted. Every year since I left Baltimore, I've been more aware of my American-ness.

Thinking superficially, this is easy to understand. My husband and I, along with our children, lived in Ireland for seven years, long enough to acquire Irish passports even. But we're not Irish ... not really.

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We were in Paris for four years, and both our children think of that city as home. It's where our blended family bonded, where my son, Jackson, started school, and from where my daughter, Kaitlin, left our nest to start college. We still have the apartment where we four lived together. In storage there are plastic tubs containing old school report cards and gifts the kids made for me for Mother's Days. We love Paris and look forward to returning, but we're surely not French.

Here in Panama, where we've been living now for eight years, as in Ireland and in Paris, we've put down roots. We have friends, our son is in school, and we're building a house on the beach at Los Islotes that is part of our long-term plan. We're in Panama for the long haul ... but we'll never be Panamanian.

No ... we're American, from our accents to our Levi's.

And in less obvious ways, too.

When I sit down in a business meeting anywhere in the world, I'm the American at the table. I could be negotiating the cost of an apartment for sale in Buenos Aires, Argentina ... considering a new business idea in Panama City, Panama... meeting with a new writer in Paris, France ... or discussing residency visa options with an attorney in Medellin, Colombia. On the other end of the conversation is an Argentine, a Panamanian, a Frenchman, a Colombian ... what have you. I'm the American. And to the table I bring the American perspective.

The longer I'm outside the States, the greater has grown my appreciation for what that means and also for how unique our American perspective is.

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The rest of the world doesn't think like we Americans think. That's neither good nor bad. It just is. And it creates an opportunity.

I have the chance, every time I engage with some non-American anywhere in the world, to learn from his non-American ways ... and to put my American ways to good use.

We Americans are the world's optimists. We believe in ourselves and in our collective ability to figure things out ... to make things better ... to make things work. We're dreamers ... and wanderers. We value hard work, we like efficiency, and we pride ourselves on our willingness to act on opportunity when we perceive one.

What's over the next hill? Let's go find out. What could we do tomorrow that we didn't do today? Let's get up early in the morning and figure that out. How can we make this thing, this idea, this effort better? Let's roll up our sleeves and see where a little elbow grease leads us ...

Those are American sentiments. Wherever we travel in the world, whoever we encounter, personally or in business, these are the attitudes that we bring to the table.

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So, yes, living overseas I feel more American than ever. In a good way.

Original Content: Being American Overseas

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Sometimes, if we're fortunate, a person can briefly enter into our lives and end up redirecting its entire course for the better. It's a powerful truth, and a common theme I'm noticing in our Inspired2Educate program, which asks educators to share stories about the teachers, administrators and school staff who inspired them to go into education.

What we're seeing is that a teacher's influence on a student -- no matter how long they shared a classroom -- can sometimes be so personal, so profound that it has a ripple effect for decades to come.

Take, for example, the story of James Robertson, currently an adjunct history professor at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania and our most recent Inspired2Educate award recipient.

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Early in his life, he tells us in his story, teachers recommended that he repeat the fourth grade. Experiencing what is now diagnosed as mild ADHD, dyslexia, and a vision impairment, it seemed Robertson needed additional time and study to reach the required academic benchmarks before advancing with the rest of his class.

That is, until his paths crossed with Miss Alma Ash, the school's reading specialist and trained psychologist.

"Miss Ash believed in me when everyone else in my school did not," Robertson remembers. "She immediately saw the need for me to get glasses to facilitate my seeing the blackboard. She was able to ascertain that my reading deficiencies were compounded by the fact that I had an attention deficit. Miss Ash explained to me that as a student, I could not just do what I liked, but I had to learn to like what I had to do."

With energetic dedication, patience, and creativity, Miss Alma Ash ultimately found a way to ignite a love of reading in Robertson. Recognizing his budding interest in Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, she presented him with a library card and free books about historical figures. She also worked with him one-on-one to increase his reading comprehension and confidence.

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"Within one year, my reading level was at slightly higher than grade level and my IQ tests revealed that I was not dull normal," Robertson remembered. "She encouraged me, guided me and helped me tackle problems that, if not corrected, would have doomed me for life."

The profound positive impact Miss Ash had on Robertson ultimately motivated him to pursue a career in education. However, like his journey early on with reading, his path to teaching had some twists and turns along the way.

Robertson joined the Air Force after college, and later spent many years in distribution management for various Fortune 500 companies. But something about teaching -- its purpose and its promise -- kept calling him back.

"You only give up on a dream if you give up on the dream," Robertson said. Unwilling to give up on the dream of becoming an educator, he eventually began a third career as an adjunct history professor. "I'm 70 now, and I get a chance to do for the rest of my life what I wanted to do all my life. The man I am today and the teacher I became can be traced to the loving work of Miss Alma Ash."

If she hadn't taken the time, effort, and interest in identifying a solution to Robertson's reading challenges, he said, he doesn't know where he would be today. "I know one thing -- I wouldn't be in front of a class of college kids!"

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When asked what advice he'd give to those considering a career in education, Robertson had this to say:

"The rewards that you will get will be better than anyplace else that you could ever work. I was a decorated officer in the Air Force. I wrote field assessments during the Israeli conflict. I've run massive distribution centers. I've turned failing corporate operations around. But I've never experienced anything like the thrills and the emotional success of being a teacher."
The milestone places New Zealand among a half-dozen nations in the world that this year can claim at least 50 percent female representation in their parliaments.
We flew from Kathmandu, Nepal to Paro, Bhutan on Druk Air. Bhutan Swallowtail, our tour group, recommended we arrive extra early to the airport in order to reserve window seats on the left hand side of the plane. Very precise, right? The reason for this is because we will be passing by the Himalayan Ranges and the views are supposedly breathtaking. So we did just that. We got to the airport at 6am and were able to pick the most perfect seats, which in turn, provided us with the most perfect views. White capped mountain peaks pierced your eyes with beauty. We flew right by eight of the ten highest mountains on EARTH. No big deal. I felt like they were going to eat us alive. They were that powerful. But the most exciting sight of all was Mount Everest. Yes, Mount Everest. Have you heard of it? The highest peak in the center of this photo below is the infamous Mount Everest. Why hello. It's such a pleasure to meet you. Unlike Tom Cruise, this mission was possible.

When we landed at the Paro airport around 11am and walked off the plane, there was this sense of tranquillity that overtook my mind and body. The sky was the brightest blue we've seen in a while, the sporadic chunks of clouds were marshmallow white, the mountain ranges were intimating yet welcoming and the air was so fresh you could feel your lungs going through an instant detox. It was by the far the prettiest, calmest, cleanest, most simple airport I've ever stepped foot in. Their buildings resembled that of the traditional Buddhist architecture with colorful paintings, intricate designs and mesmerizing aesthetics. Something is telling me I'm going to really, really like it here.

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After we went through customs, added yet another stamp to our passports and gathered our bags, we met up with Kezang, our twenty eight year old Bhutanese guide, and Tenzin, our twenty four year old Bhutanese driver. Both of them will be with us for the next seven days - all day, every day (except for sleeping, duh). Good thing we all seem to be easy going and fun or else that much time spent together is the perfect recipe for disaster. When we got in the car and drove away, we almost had reverse culture shock. Being in India and Nepal for the past nine weeks, we became so numb to insane traffic, intense pollution, crazy driving and endless honking. But here, it's the polar opposite (at least so far). I don't think they even know what the word traffic means. While cruising down the "highway", we were constantly noticing signs on the side of the road such as "Life is a journey, complete it", "Speed thrills but kills", and "Live for today, drive for tomorrow". Optimism at its best. Glass is always half full.

Random side note(s). Bhutan is fifteen minutes ahead of Nepal, thirty minutes ahead of India and now thirteen hours ahead of Los Angeles (would have been fourteen but daylight savings happened for the USA). And, since Bhutan's currency is pegged from the Indian Rupee, we can use our left over money here. Yippee. Our itinerary is as follows: we will be spending two nights in Thimphu, one night in Punakha and three nights in Paro.

Okay, back to my story. The drive from Paro to Thimpu is about one hour. Since we didn't fly across the world to get here like most people do and we weren't overwhelmed with jet lag, Kezang wanted to take us to a few sites in Paro now versus when we come back at the end of our trip. The thought process behind this is because the annual Paro Tshechu Festival will be taking place starting March 19, which is partly why we chose these dates, so most of the area will be congested with people from all over the country. That being said, our first stop was the National Museum of Bhutan, which opened to the public in 1968. However, the cylindrical or conch shaped building was originally constructed in 1649 C.E. and served as a watchtower to protect the Paro Rinpung Dzong below from invasions in all directions. Here we learned some key facts about their culture, their beliefs and their history. A visit through the galleries showed the country's transition from the Stone Age to a modern Mahayanist Buddhist and multicultural kingdom. Definitely informative and a perfect way to introduce us to the very unknown Bhutan. While we were walking up the steps towards the entrance, I couldn't help but notice some pretty flowers bursting like a pink Starburst so cheerfully from the trees. They resembled that of the cherry blossoms in Japan. When I asked Kezang what type of flower they were, he confirmed they were in fact cherry blossoms. Oh my god (maybe I should say oh my Buddha here instead). This is the best surprise party anyone could give me. I've always wanted to see cherry blossoms well blossom. Absolutely incredible. What a lovely site.

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Our second stop in Paro before heading to Thimphu was the Paro Rinpung Dzong, which means "Fortress of the Heaped Jewels". Built in 1644, the Paro Dzong is one of Bhutan's most impressive and well-known dzongs (fortress), and perhaps the finest example of Bhutanese architecture in the country. The massive buttressed walls that tower over the town are visible throughout the valley. The fort was used on numerous occasions to defend the Paro valley from invasions by Tibet. Today, it houses about two hundred monks and when I saw a handful of young monks walking around, I became curious about the process. Who can become a monk? Are you forced or is it voluntary? Is there a minimum age? Kezang basically explained to us that there used to be a "monk tax" where families had to give one of their sons to the monastery. However, now that there are so many, it is more of a personal decision. Some start as young as two years old. Kids don't even know their name or their favorite color at two years old let alone knowing they want to dedicate to their entire life to Buddhism. Such a different upbringing than what we are used to. On the opposite spectrum, some start as old as sixty. That's the cool thing about Buddhism. There is no judgement and no discrimination. Come one, come all.

It was around 1pm so we headed to lunch, which consisted of traditional Bhutanese food such as butter tea, chiles and cheese, red rice, steamed vegetables and egg noodles. I didn't love the butter tea (tasted almost like sipping on a melted stick of butter) but the chiles and cheese had me at hello. Absolutely delicious. For a lack of a better comparison, the cheese resembled that of fake nacho cheese you get at the movies or a sporting event but instead of chips, it was slices of chiles that were so spicy. My lips were tingling dramatically out of control as if I used a pound of ghost peppers as chapstick. One of those hurts so good feelings.

Now that we refueled our bodies, we continued along the way to Thimphu. The next stop was Tachogang Lhakhang, which is an iron suspension bridge made out of chains. It was built in the early 15th century by Yogi Thangtong Gyalpo. While slowly and carefully walking across the bridge, you couldn't help but notice the clearer than clear eyes water flowing below.

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Then we came across a fork in the river, where the Paro and Thimphu Rivers meet which flows down to India. At the crossroads, there were three different stupa styles. One was from Nepal, one was from Tibet and one was from Bhutan. Oh and there was a massive billboard that had a photo of the King and Queen. Seems to be typical.

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en we finally arrived in Thimphu, we got out of the car and strolled down what they refer to as Main Street. It totally reminded me of the Main Street at Disneyland. Very clean, quiet, happy, and nearly perfect. Almost fake looking. Thimphu is one of the only capital cities in the world, if not the only, where there are no traffic lights so the few cars that do pass by are orchestrated by a man in a legit uniform with white gloves stationed outside a festive booth. And everyone actually follows directions of when it's their turn to go and their turn to stop. Well trained individuals.

Around 4:30pm, we arrived at Peaceful Resort, our hotel for the next two nights. It was a ten minute drive from town, located higher in the hills than in the city center. Since Bhutan Swallowtail booked all of our accommodations for us, we had no idea what to expect. And because I'm such a control freak (admitting it is the first step to recovery), this was really hard to accept. Nevertheless, the Peaceful Resort was definitely a decent place so I felt a little more comfortable now. Our room was made of all wood, giving off that wintery cabin vibe. For the remainder of the evening, we laid low, had dinner and got a good night's sleep since tomorrow will be yet another full day of sightseeing, learning and of course, smiling.

Wednesday, March 16, started off with a visit to the Takins, which were declared Bhutan's National Animal on November 25, 1985. A Takin is one of the larger and stockier goat antelopes, generally weighing around 770 pounds. It is a very unique looking animal that is believed to have the head of a goat and the body of a cow. They are usually found in the Himalayas and western China. Just like everything in Bhutan, there is a mythological story behind the creation of this animal but since it does sound rather crazy, I will spare you the details.

Next, we went for a short hike through a park high above the city of Thimphu. Everyday for the next four days we will slowly prepare ourselves for the Tiger's Nest, which is an intense climb up a steep mountain over 10,000 feet above sea level. With the drastic change in altitude here, Kezang wants us to get acclimated before he throws us to the wolves. And I thanked him kindly for that. Throughout this walk, there were an abundance of prayer flags hanging from every tree possible. They add so much life and color to the atmosphere and obviously have such a strong spiritual meaning behind them as well. Not to mention, the views were spectacular. Everywhere you looked there were mountains and mountains and mountains and trees and trees and trees. I just love how underdeveloped this country is. More land doesn't equal to more buildings, at least for now. And, people get fined for littering which is how it should be. There was so much trash all over India and Nepal that to see a clean environment is refreshing on so many levels.

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The end of our hike was rewarded with the Buddha Dordenma, which is a gigantic 169 foot tall statue, making it one of the biggest of Lord Buddha's in the world. Made of bronze and gilded in gold, it symbolizes indestructibility in addition to peerless virility to bestow blessings, peace, and happiness on the world. Completed in 2015, the goal is for this monument to become a major pilgrimage center for Buddhists all over the world to practice, meditate and retreat. It was ridiculously stunning. Your mouth instantly dropped to the ground in awe. The detail was impressive from the nail buds to the chest to the face. Beautifully created. Inside there was a Buddhist temple that consisted of 100,000 eight inch Buddha statues. Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos of the inside. Sorry. You'll just have to go there and see it for yourself. I promise it will be worth it.

Next up was the National Memorial Chosen Stupa, which was built in 1974 by the Queen in memory of her royal son, the third King who died in 1972 at the age of 44. Locals come here at all hours of the day for their daily worship. They always walk around the stupa clockwise three times. It was packed with quite a few elderly folks, almost as it if it was an outdoor assisted living center. Made for intriguing people watching. And there was the most adorable little boy who was so proud to show off his traditional Bhutanese attire.

Simply Bhutan, a living museum and photo studio, is aimed at the preservation and promotion of the Bhutanese culture. Vinny and I had the privilege to dress up in local clothing, see a traditional song and dance be performed, enjoy some authentic food, learn more about their fascination with the phallus, play some archery since it is their national sport (Vinny almost hit the bullseye!) and the most inspiring of all, meet Pema Tshering, a talented 30 year old craftsman, who was born with cerebral palsy and congenital deformities in his spinal column. With limited mobility, Pema is only able to use his feet to carry out his daily routines. He now supports himself through the sales of his woodwork at the museum gift shop. Pema's unwavering belief in himself and his sheer optimism continues to inspire many people living with disabilities. His story tells us that with self-determination, anything is possible.

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Bhutan has a very unique interest in postal stamps so we visited the Postal Museum to learn more about this borderline obsession. While bare-footed couriers still deliver the mail in many remote regions of this Himalayan kingdom, Bhutan's postage stamps remain world-renowned in the philatelic community. Colorful, creative and collectible, Bhutan's stamp launch in the 1960s of the world's most innovative stamps not only caused a sensation each time they were released, but more importantly were valued by Bhutan as its chief revenue producer for many years. Prior to the 1960s, Bhutan had remained closed to the outside world. Then in 1962, Bhutan released its first international postal stamps and began its postal program. This came about through the partnership and innovation with an old friend to Bhutan, an energetic and pioneering entrepreneur, Burt Todd, who was also the first American to enter Bhutan. Postage stamps became the vehicle through which Bhutan could begin to open its doors and be internationally recognized as a sovereign nation amidst two huge superpowers - China to the north and India to the south. The most infamous of them all were the Bhutan record stamps. These stamps played the Royal Bhutan Anthem, folk-songs and a short history of Bhutan. Pretty serious, huh? Vinny and I had our own stamps made and mailed postcards back home to our families. When in Bhutan, I guess...

After we put our faces on stamps, we visited The Authentic Bhutanese Crafts Bazaar situated in the centre of Thimphu town. It is a mile-long row of shops made of bamboo and other eco-friendly material. There are about eighty four stalls in total and almost all shopkeepers are women with the men folk helping them with the more strenuous duties. The beauty of the products lies in their original craftsmanship and in their indigenousness. The shops were allotted to these womenfolk on the condition that they would only sell products which were produced in Bhutan and not import products from other countries. The ladies are helpful, courteous and very obliging while you browse through their wares. A very pleasant experience for those just window shopping.

Even their library was incredibly beautiful from the outside, exemplifying the traditional Buddhist architecture like the rest of the city. As we slowly walked up and down the aisles of books and books and books, you can't help but notice that about 95% of them are on Buddhism with the other 5% sharing the social sciences and history categories. The library is also home to the world's largest published book (certified by Guinness World Records) about one of the world's smallest countries. This book, titled Bhutan, is over five by seven feet, includes 114 pages and weighs about 133 pounds. It is a visual odyssey across the kingdom that took over 40,000 photographs throughout four extensive expeditions by helicopter, mountain ponies, trekking with packhorses and yaks, and journeys by caravan on far-flung roads. Only 500 copies were printed and in order to obtain this book, you had to make a $15,000 donation where proceeds fund Bhutanese schools.

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Last on our Thimphu tour, was Tashichho Dzong or the "Fortress of Splendid Religion". It was first constructed in 1216 A.D but after a fire in 1771 and an earthquake in 1897, it was rebuilt in 1902. Then, when the capital of Bhutan was moved to Thimphu in 1961, it was renovated and enlarged using neither nails nor written plans. Tashichho Dzong has been the seat of the government since 1962 and presently houses the throne room and offices of the king, the secretariat and the ministries of home affairs and finance. Other government departments are housed in buildings nearby. We couldn't enter until after 5:30pm because all of the government officials were still conducting business. At night, it lit up with red lights and it was oh so beautiful.
My Facebook newsfeed for the past several weeks has been filled with graduation pictures and proud posts by parents about their child's college acceptance letters. It reminds me my daughter will start high school this coming fall and soon be applying to college. The admission process seems daunting, and I just hope my child's experience isn't filled with angst, heartbreak or regret. Choosing between a state school or an elite institution is a tough decision too which could impact one's life and career.

We live in McLean, Virginia, a suburb outside of Washington, D.C., where parents have a reputation for pushing their children to attend an Ivy League or top-ranked university. At a recent high school orientation, I saw parents mob the math table to ask if their child could enroll in AP classes and calculus as freshmen. This was only the beginning of the crush to craft their child's perfect resume to get into that top college. To my relief, teachers and counselors discouraged parents from pushing an all honors course load and stressed the importance of enjoying other aspects of student life. This gave me hope they could be relied on for good guidance.

"High school counselors help students navigate the stressors and confusion of college admissions," says Lisa Suzuki, associate professor of applied psychology and Counseling@NYU program director at NYU Steinhardt, "Counselors understand that not every student will be admitted to their top college choice. They work with students to make the most of their opportunities, recognizing that students with fortitude end up making the most of wherever they land."

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My husband and I don't subscribe to this "Ivy League or bust" mentality and all the pressures heaped on high school students to obtain this sometimes ridiculous goal. The mental health consequences are too great to push children to meet impossible and artificially high admissions standards that in the end don't rightly measure one's ability or worth. This Atlantic Magazine article which described the alarming rate of suicide among high school students in Silicon Valley is an example of this stress.

Personally, I am torn between the elite versus public state university experience. The benefits of graduating from a prestigious college are not lost on me since my husband and I both went to Columbia University for graduate school. Make no mistake, having that brand name on your resume opens doors and we both received an excellent education at Columbia. But, we earned our undergraduate degrees from Florida State University which is a good state school. We wouldn't trade this experience for any other top college. The affordable tuition and ample educational opportunities at FSU were a great value and provided us everything we needed to thrive and compete in the Ivy League. Striking the right balance in college selection seems to be the key.

My daughter and her peers already understand society's preference for top-ranked colleges. She expressed recently a desire to go to Princeton University. I was thrilled for her ambition but at the same time terrified that the pressure to get into an Ivy League school might ruin her high school experience. I am to blame for inspiring this idea. She asked what college had the best psychology and sociology program, and since no one wonders about anything these days, I whipped out my phone and googled it. I landed on the U.S. News and World Report College ranking website and I blurted out Princeton was at the top of the list.

I wish now I had not shared this information. Later I had to explain Princeton is a great university but what's more important is evaluating a college based on many more factors than how it ranks on a list. My husband and I have some work to do to guide her in this process.

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The book, Where You Go Is Not Who You Will Be, by Frank Bruni, New York Times columnist, made the excellent point that admission to a prestigious college is not the determinant of your worth or the ultimate predictor of your future success. Talent and intelligence can come from anywhere and some of our best entrepreneurs and government leaders didn't graduate from an Ivy League university.

As Bruni's book points out, the U.S. News and World Report rankings are skewed to rank institutions high with low admissions rates which breed this misconstrued notion that exclusivity equals high quality. High average SAT scores for incoming students are a factor in the rankings but ultimately this test is not a good predictor of college success. The rankings are also based on peer-review surveys from high school guidance counselors and college administrators who don't have any special knowledge about the colleges they are providing feedback on.

Although we love lists, Bruni points out the rankings don't adequately capture the vast array of learning opportunities or intangible qualities that make certain colleges or universities great or the right fit for a certain student. There is a danger too that exclusivity breeds sameness and there is mixed data about the ROI of graduating from an Ivy League or top college. What's mentioned often is, you get out of college what you put into it.

But let's not discount the benefits of earning a degree from a prestigious university. From my personal experience, it was undeniable earning a degree from a school ranked highest in my chosen profession was a game changer. When I arrived in Washington, D.C. as a young professional eager to make a difference, my Ivy League degree was sometimes the only reason people would talk to me about an opportunity. While my degree helped get my foot in the door, I had to hustle and prove I could handle the work and Columbia well prepared me for this too.

There's a reason Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Harvard and other reputable institutions are at the top of the heap, they provide an excellent education as well as connections through alumni networks. A Department of Labor report about graduates from Ivy League universities earning more than twice as much as the typical graduate of other colleges. This Business Insider list of the most expensive colleges and median income ten years post-graduation offers compelling evidence. Also, this Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women mentions many of who graduated from top schools.

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It is true that as you move through your career that experience carries more weight than where you earned your degree, but to get experience it sometimes helps to have a prestigious degree. Many Ivy League universities are trying to do more to open their doors to low-income and first-generation college students by offering more financial aid and scholarships although they still have their fair share of challenges, as detailed in this Washington Post article, Poor in the Ivy League Can Mean Going Hungry.

In the end, where you go to college is a personal choice and I would be thrilled if my daughter went to Princeton, Columbia, Florida State University or any other state college in Virginia. It's worth noting once you start college, graduating in four years should be a top priority to hold down tuition costs. College in Four Years: Making Every Semester Count by Dr. Granville Sawyer is a must read for parents and new college students.
by Bishop Mary-Gray Reeves

The Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real

I have asked the question a lot lately, "How do our values translate into action?" It's a question that arises during the defining moments that inevitably come our way in life; those events that are transforming to the point where we are confronted with who we are, what we believe, and how we live out our values in the world. Our values can be clarified, strengthened and empowered as a result of having to wrestle with ourselves.

I was ticketed for speeding a few months ago. I clearly had decided that my right to drive beyond the speed limit on an unpopulated road was more important than the reason the speed limit in that location was determined in the first place. I slogged through traffic school and the obvious was repeatedly stated: laws were in place to keep us from harming ourselves and others.

It puzzles me - it terrifies me - that we can place limits on how we use a cell phone in a car to save lives, but cannot freely and willingly work toward boundaries to lessen the capacity of another to exercise deadly rage.

How will our values be clarified, strengthened and empowered because of Orlando? We don't know all the details yet of the shooter's disposition. He could have been an Islamist terrorist or a GLBTQ terrorist. He was plagued in some way and disposed toward raging violence. It is our reality that people are in our midst who do such things.

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Such events call us to consider our responsibility to one another. For me, questions arise. Is my right to bear certain weapons of more value than those who died? Is the lack of social responsibility taken in this country for the mentally ill of more value than those who died? None of us are free from guilt in these events. As citizens and residents in these United States, as Christians, each mass shooting says something about who we are. What are the words we would use to describe ourselves in these days?

In our Gospel on Sunday - the story of the Geresene Demoniac - I have wondered how long the conversation goes on between Jesus and the demons who inhabit the man. He was plagued for so many years. This one is complex. They aren't leaving without a fight. A strategy must be organized. Where will the demons go? Where will the man go? This was not a quick, "drive-by" healing. It would take some time. I was struck that at the end of the story Jesus tells the man to thank God for what God has done for him; instead, he proclaims what Jesus has done for him. I think the distinction speaks of the power of the incarnation; that God was known in who Jesus was and what he did. For we who follow Jesus, it reminds us that God is known in who we are and what we do.

Perhaps the man was so grateful that Jesus did not leave when it became apparent that the conversation would be complex and take time. There was nothing more important to Jesus in this moment than this "demoniac." Perhaps this gentle, healed soul was so deeply thankful that Jesus kept working at it until the work was done. Jesus stays through his terror.

How might we walk alongside our bereaved families and our traumatized nation? Can we stay in these long conversations as we sort through polarized viewpoints? Can we find common ground for our values that can translate into life and goodness for us all?

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Several weeks ago we held a diocesan conference on Living Room Conversations: how to have constructive conversation to find common ground on difficult issues. Gun control, racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny and health care are a few matters on which we disagree in this nation, reflected in the Orlando terror. I've strongly encouraged our congregations to use the Living Room Conversation process to engage in the Christian stewardship of relationship and conversation.

Mass shootings offer us an opportunity not only for more arguing, but for reconciliation and grace. Which will we choose? We struggle with our differences, and yet it is precisely in our differences that we can find creative solutions.

Please know that I am aware of my own bias and values in these and other pieces I have written following mass shootings. Part of my call as a bishop is to share what I think, and also to teach. However, my role as a gatherer is equally important. I hope that the Living Room Conversations process can provide a space to talk about difficult topics together, despite disagreement. Confident in the grace of God, may we consider one another's views and discern our role in creating solutions that value the dignity of all human life.

O God, as the Body of Christ, may we remain with one another and with the angry, traumatized and broken heart of our nation. As we seek justice and change that reflects your will, may we trust one another as we responsibly speak our values - so that in faith, we may take our place in your powerful and healing presence intended for all. It is in the power of the Spirit we humbly pray. Amen.

+Mary
This summer Congress will debate and vote on numerous issues of importance to veterans including funding levels for the VA, troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq, how to combat ISIS, critical job placement programs for veterans and much more.

Of course, we'll hear the usual rhetoric from Senators and Congressmen and women, only heightened in election years, about honoring our nation's heroes. But what we won't see or hear are policy solutions studied and written by the very people these policies impact most... veterans.

There are more than 2.5 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars returning home from over-seas deployment. Many recognize how decisions made in Congress greatly impact and have long-lasting effects on their lives as well as the lives of their family and friends. At the same time, they see the lowest percentage of veterans in Congress in generations.

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In short, their experience is underrepresented.

For years, Congressional offices have expressed a desire to add veterans to their team, but veterans' lack of Hill experience has been an obstacle.

To combat this problem, the VetVoice Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization with over 450,000 veteran and veteran family members, have committed our organization to the first-of-its-kind veterans fellowship on Capitol Hill.

With a generous gift from the Corvias Foundation, we've been able to recruit, train, support and place veterans in Congressional offices for a nine-month period and begin the process of building a bench of high quality veterans who are experienced in how Congress works and who understand how public and foreign policy is developed, authorized and executed.

While many companies and organizations talk a good game about helping our nation's heroes, few step up to the plate like the Corvias Foundation has.

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Because of the Corvias Foundation, we have been able to ensure that our veteran fellows earned a living wage so they could afford to accept positions in Congressional offices at no cost to the offices.

Our first class of fellows in the offices of Senators Brown, Ernst, Murphy, Manchin, and Donnelly will be winding down their fellowships over the next few months. Thanks to the opportunity these Senators gave our veterans, they have gained experience to be better positioned to develop their careers. This is not only benefiting these five veterans, but also the offices they are working in and the country they are once again serving - this time in a suit, not a uniform.

As our first class of fellows has has already shown, 21st century veterans are a great asset on Capitol Hill and provide first-hand accounts that are helpful to developing legislation and programs that support our veterans and members of the armed forces and in the development of national security policy.
A staff member looks at groceries on shelves at the Community Kitchen food pantry in the Harlem section of New York City December 10, 2008. Operator Food Bank for New York City, which provides half of all the emergency food to the 1000 plus soup kitchens and pantries in New York City, says they have seen a large increase in those seeking food aid and services as the U.S. has experienced a deepening economic slowdown. REUTERS/Mike Segar (UNITED STATES)

What if I told you that the most valuable asset you could bring to the fight against hunger in America is your voice?

This was the question I posed to a well-meaning businessman -- brimming with ideas about "feeding stations" and other newly imagined logistics -- who approached me to share potential solutions on ending hunger. It was obvious this was not the response he was expecting. Yet in this moment, as we evaluate the candidates for the highest office in the land, it is silence that could jeopardize the wellbeing of low-income Americans -- and voice is our most powerful tool.

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Hunger exists in every community and every state. It crosses demographics, affecting the lives of children, seniors, people with disabilities, and low-wage workers. More than 48 million Americans are currently struggling with food insecurity, meaning that more than one in seven Americans can't always afford enough food to sustain a healthy life. Here in New York City, approximately 1.5 million people -- nearly one in five New Yorkers -- rely on the services my organization, Food Bank For New York City, provides. Yet not a single presidential candidate includes this issue in their stump speeches, raises it in debates or even posts a position statement on their website.

In this kind of silence, dangerous ideas can take root. When no one speaks out, harmful assumptions are able to mask as consensus. As the leader of one of our country's most robust food banks, I have seen that a lack of voice can mean meals taken off the tables of those struggling the most.

The food bank I lead works to lift the voices of the individuals who run our city's network of food pantries and soup kitchens, and the concerned New Yorkers supporting our collective work. We have mobilized together to protect and strengthen the programs and services that prevent New Yorkers from going hungry. When all of the most vital resources supporting your work are donated, speaking out can feel risky, but the reality is that remaining silent can be far worse. Here's what we've learned from our work:

Raise your voice, even when you think you don't have to. I have yet to meet someone who believes hunger in our society is a good thing -- so why would anyone need to speak out? Tacit agreement can be a refuge for misconceptions and misinformation. While no one is for systemic food insecurity, most people know very little about who is at risk of hunger in our city and country -- and many are surprised to learn it is not just homeless men. Sharing the story about our myriad neighbors in need -- many young, female and working -- can completely change notions of what an effective solution looks like.

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Raise your voice, even when you risk upsetting those who hold important purse-strings. My organization works closely with various private funders and government agencies to make sure programs are effectively administered, and sometimes we must point out when those efforts fall short of what is needed. In fact, this is a requirement of effectively serving the most vulnerable - specifically when there is a risk of retaliation or retribution. If emergency food resources experience chronic shortages and those on the front lines don't raise our voices, how will our village of concerned citizens and responsible leaders know to respond? Change for the better does not happen by accident -- it happens when vital ills are given voice.

Raise your voice, even when you fear it won't change anything. I would love to say that hunger in the poorest communities is fought by tireless soldiers. I cannot, because the truth is that those on the front lines are exhausted. I've watched them load up on buses to our nation's capital filled with hopes about meetings with senators and anxiety about happenings back at their sites. I hear them whisper (and sometimes shout), "Why do people not care about those at the bottom?" Nevertheless these men and women continue to move forward, showing up yet another day to give it yet another try. When 48 of 51 Council Members from across our city recently joined forces to assert that our city should increase its resources for soup kitchens and food pantries, I watched the energy shift across our citywide network. By raising their voices, these unsung citizens realized they had inspired bold, engaged leadership -- able and willing to speak for their very real needs. Today, they have the results to show for it: a promise of an increase that will provide more needed meals for the most vulnerable New Yorkers.


Protestors harass a patient outside of a women's healthcare clinic. Photo by and courtesy of Wendi Kent.

Whenever a woman is in public, there is always a chance she will face being shouted at, followed, or recorded without her permission. However, there is one place where that harassment is almost guaranteed. Women's health clinics have seen a rise in harassment and violence since the first murder of an abortion provider in 1993. This has risen especially within the past few years. The climate is so bad for these clinics that volunteer clinic escort teams have organized, simply to help patients walk from the sidewalk or parking lot to the front door. As a clinic escort myself, I have seen the extent of this problem first-hand.

Each clinic's atmosphere is different, as each state has different political leanings, religious influences, and laws surrounding women's healthcare. In general though, the themes are the same. Patients must walk through numerous, large posters depicting gory, aborted fetuses. They have their personal space violated by anti-choice protestors who follow them and try to convince them not to go inside the clinic.

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When they finally get to the door, there are protestors preaching loudly, sometimes through megaphones, chastising these women for going inside. It gets so bad that even some of the more peaceful pro-life demonstrators criticize the protestors who scream at and follow patients. To make matters worse, the sound of the megaphones permeates the clinic walls, so that patients inside have to listen to these protests for the entirety of their appointment. Oftentimes, the loudest of the protestors are men, who think they know what women should do with their bodies and health better than the women trying to receive care.



Regardless of one's stance on abortion, most people should agree that women deserve the right to feel safe on their way to the doctor.



In addition to clinic escort teams, many clinics have been awarded legal buffer zones. Protestors cannot step foot in these areas, so that patients can feel safer in walking to the clinic. Although political buffer zones have been easily enacted in other scenarios, such as political polls, it is difficult to obtain a buffer zone for women's healthcare clinics. Even when they are obtained, they may not be enforced, depending on the religious or political beliefs of the on-duty police officers. Anti-choice groups often try to repeal these buffer zones by citing freedom of speech.

Although freedom of speech does not protect harassment and intimidation, these cases often swing in the favor of the anti-choice movement. Just recently, anti-choice protestors were even given permission to violate the city noise ordinance in Portland, Maine.

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Clinics in Madison, Wisconsin have obtained a "floating buffer zone," in which people within 160 feet of the facility have an eight-foot boundary that protestors cannot cross. Other buffer zones have spanned as wide as 35 feet. These boundaries allow protestors to practice their freedom of speech without causing any physical or emotional harm to patients trying to access the clinic. However, in most other places, the buffer zone can be as little as just eight square feet in front of the clinic entrance. This gives protestors more freedom to the sidewalk than the patients, who may not even be going to the clinic for an abortion. In many places like Richmond, Virginia, or Louisville, Kentucky, there is still no buffer zone at all.

These protests go beyond freedom of speech. The last time I escorted for a clinic, three different women were crying by the time they got inside. This is not an uncommon occurrence. These women and their companions are slut-shamed, insulted, and even threatened. Protestors sometimes violate the buffer zone, but these infractions are hard to prove.

Oftentimes, since our focus is on the safety of the patients and not necessarily on the bad behavior of the protestors, we can only pull our cameras out to record after a threat has been made or the buffer zone has been invaded. For the safety and security of the patients, we also never take any photos or videos that could be used to identify them. On the other hand, this is something that anti-choice protestors are not afraid to do.

This issue is not pro-life verses pro-choice. Regardless of one's stance on abortion, most people should agree that women deserve the right to feel safe on their way to the doctor. The clinic that I volunteer at received their buffer zone through clinic escorting, documenting harassment from protestors, lobbying, emailing weekly reports to the city council (as well as the city and clinic attorneys and the chief of police), and partnering with the local National Organization of Women chapter to draft buffer zone legislation.
Outside the shop of a village barber hangs a neon sign that says: "I shave all and only those men in the village who do not shave themselves." Is there truth in advertising here? You would say that most probably yes. Clearly those men who shave themselves don't need the services of the barber, and it is quite likely that the barber shaves all the other men.

Yet, a question arises: who shaves the barber?

If the barber shaves himself, then he is one of those men who shave themselves, and therefore, according to the sign, he doesn't shave himself. If, on the other hand he doesn't shave himself, then he is one of those who don't shave themselves, and therefore, again according to his own advertising, he does shave himself!

So does he or doesn't he?

This "paradox" is usually attributed to the famous mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell (Figure 1 shows him in 1938), who used a somewhat similar construction to demonstrate that even in simple cases, human logic can be fallible. In fact, he went on to show that an impressive attempt by logician Gottlob Frege to derive all of arithmetic from a few basic axioms of logic, was susceptible to a logical, fatal flaw.

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Figure 1. The logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1938. Photo is in the Public Domain.

In the way that it is stated above, by the way, this "barber's paradox" has simple solutions. For example, the barber could be a woman! Or, the barber could be from another village.

Paradoxes date all the way back to ancient Greece, and logician Willard Van Orman Quine is quoted to have said: "More than once in history the discovery of paradox has been the occasion for major reconstruction at the foundation of thought." A more modern version of what has been known as the "Liar paradox," for instance, states that: "This statement is false." You can easily check that if you assume that the statement is true, then you conclude that it is false, and vice versa, leading to a contradiction. Fascinatingly, we can encounter something similar to the "Liar paradox" in one of the present-day practices of scientific research papers.

The titles of some scientific papers contain a question that is supposed to have a "yes-no" answer. A random example is a paper entitled: "Is Gold Solubility Subject to Pressure Variations in Ascending Arc Magmas?" A "rule" attributed to particle physicist Ian Hinchliffe, wittily claims that: "If the title of a scholarly article is a yes-no question, the answer is 'no'."

This is a special case of the so-called "Betteridge law of headlines" (named after British journalist Ian Betteridge), which states that the same is true for any yes-no question in a headline. Clearly, Hinchliffe did not mean his "rule" to have the same validity as a law of nature. Rather, he was pointing to the fact that generally, if researchers knew that the answer to a certain question was "yes," they would not bother to pose it as a question in the title.

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Amusingly, Harvard computer scientist Stuart Shieber has written an article entitled: "Is This Article Consistent with Hinchcliffe's Rule?", in which he showed that the title of the article generates a paradox. Basically, let's assume that the article is consistent with the rule. Then the answer to the question in the title ought to be "no" (since that is what Hinchliffe's rule states). But that would mean that the article is not consistent with Hinchliffe's rule. On the other hand, if we assume that the article is not consistent with the rule, then the answer to the title question ought to be "yes," stating that the article is consistent with Hinchliffe's rule, again resulting in a contradiction.
"This is Washington. They've got fact-checkers.''

-- Chris Thile, bluegrass virtuoso and incoming host of public radio's popular "Prairie Home Companion,'' offering a playful joke about a partner's questionable comment on stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

.Just because someone says it's so, doesn't make it so. And the combative presidential election contest of 2016 has inspired the mass media equivalent of a Gold Rush of fact-checking.

Yet so much of the rhetorical crossfire that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are exchanging reaches beyond the realm of the immediately verifiable. It's also difficult for any deeply detailed truth-squad reports to compete with the reverberation of rumor and explosive but unsubstantiated assertions that bounce around social media.

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"Hillary Clinton is a world-class liar,'' Trump asserted this week in a speech from New York televised nationally on cable news. "Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.''

"If Hillary gets in,'' Trump said in a closed-door session for evangelical leaders reported by Yahoo News, "we know exactly what's going to happen... We're going to end up being a Venezuela.''

"He is not just unprepared,'' Clinton said of Trump in her opening salvo of the general election contest in San Diego. "He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility... Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas -- just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.''

And so they go, these allegations served high and fast without fault and echoed throughout the Facebook and Twitter feeds of a nation watching and wondering. Trump needn't even make a speech to launch a scorching projectile.

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"A bigger reality to me is TV,'' says James Warren, chief media columnist at The Poynter Institute. "Just think of those hours and hours of cheap local news programming at major stations. It starts in late afternoon, then evening newscasts...You don't think there are tons of mistakes? But they just regurgitate the national news and don't feel the slightest need to independently verify.''

Warren lauds The New York Times for mobilizing a team of real-time fact-checkers for Trump's broadside against Clinton. "Five reporters came flying out of the gate,'' he wrote in Poynter's "Morning MediaWire'' today.

Among the Times crew's catches: "Mr. Trump defended his business record, recalling that he began his career in Brooklyn with a small loan and built a business worth more than $10 billion... This substantially understates the financial assistance that Mr. Trump received from his father, Fred, a major real estate developer in New York City. The decades-old 'loan' was for $1 million.''

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute, which sponsors media studies and seminars for journalists and educators, owns the Tampa Bay Times, which along with partnering newspapers operates a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking venture, PolitiFact and its "Truth-O-Meter.''

Examing several dozen of both candidates' comments in the course of this campaign, PolitiFact has deemed 23 percent of Clinton's true, 28 percent mostly true, 21 percent half-true, 15 percent mostly false, 11 percent false. And just 1 percent earned the ignominious rating of "Pants on Fire.''

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"I'm the only candidate in the Democratic primary, or actually on either side, who Wall Street financiers and hedge fund managers are actually running ads against,'' Clinton said in April. "Pants on Fire,'' PolitiFact concluded.

PolitiFact has found just 2 percent of the Trump comments it parsed to be true, 7 percent mostly true, 14 percent half-true, 16 percent mostly false, 40 percent false -- and 19 percent, nearly one in five, "Pants on Fire.'

"For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America,'' Trump said this week. "Pants on Fire,'' PolitiFact concluded.

One of Clinton's "Pants on Fire'' assertions from her 2008 campaign is still resonating in the 2016 contest: "I remember landing under sniper fire,'' she had said of landing in Bosnia on a trip as First Lady in 1996. The fact-checkers found video of a girl presenting the arriving Clinton flowers on a peaceful airstrip.

Early last summer, as Trump was launching his campaign, PolitiFact noted that it had been running his comments through the Truth-O-Meter since 2011, when he was stirring "Birther'' rumors about President Barack Obama.

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"The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don't know who he is,'' said Trump, questioning the authenticity of Obama's Hawaiian birth. That earned him a Pants on Fire rating.

"Media accounts and biographies are filled with on-the-record, named classmates who remember Obama,'' PolitiFact reported. "We even tracked down one of his classmates and talked to her ourselves.''

In December, PolitiFact announced its "2015 Lie of the Year'' award. It couldn't settle on only one. It chose "the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump.''

National Public Radio has taken to annotating the candidates' speeches online. In calling Clinton a "world-class liar'' this week, Trump resurrected the 1996 Bosnia landing. "Look, this was one of the beauts -- a total and self-serving lie,'' he said. The Washington Post's "Fact Checker'' had done "excellent'' work on this, NPR noted of the video from the time showing Clinton holding a bouquet of flowers.

Yet none of this is likely to heel anyone closer to the facts in the contest ahead.

"After more than a year, it's important that (Trump) be held accountable for what he says he'll do as president,'' Clinton said this week. This time, Clinton was citing a new report of Moody's Analytics in stating that her rival's economic proposals would cost the nation 3.5 million jobs and lead to a "Trump recession.''

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Trump ran afoul of the Times' fact-checkers this week when he said Clinton had accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei as secretary of state. As is standard, she turned the jewels over to the General Services Administration.

Still, it's all out there -- gems of misinformation, tweeted, retweeted and recycled in the loop of cable chyrons -- the value of their damage inestimable.
As Director of Programs for GRIOT Circle, a New York City advocacy and service organization for people of color in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, Aundaray Guess often gives educational talks about LGBT issues. Yet his expertise still didn't prepare him for the unpleasantness he encountered a few years ago when he was recovering at home from knee surgery. A local home care agency had assigned him a home health aide for the first week. The aide was problematic right from the start --"He just wasn't into the job," recalls Guess -- but things took a turn for the worse when the aide began watching videos on his phone and making suggestive comments to Guess about the women on the videos.

"He obviously assumed I was heterosexual," says Guess, who is gay. He was offended by the aide's assumption and by his comments, but the bigger concern was that he sensed this person might become actively hostile if he became aware of Guess's sexual orientation. "Here this person was, sitting in my home," he says. "Even after the week was finally over, I was afraid to complain to his supervisor. I was worried that if I did, he might coming looking for me."

His experience is not uncommon, adds Guess. "In fact, we find at GRIOT that some of our older members actually go back into the closet for their own safety when they're getting home care --because now they're dependent on this person for their well-being, and they don't know how that person would react knowing they're LGBT."

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Being the Executive Vice President of the largest not-for-profit home care agency in the nation, I know very well what an intimate decision it is to allow a health care worker into your home. But, as Guess's experience illustrates, for an individual who is LGBT, admitting a caregiver into your personal living space can carry an added fear: If that caregiver is not comfortable with the home care client's sexual orientation, the encounter is likely to be awkward at best and potentially dangerous at worst -- which is not only unfair to the client, but also works directly against the goals of the caregiver-client relationship.

That's why it's absolutely essential that home health care workers receive specialized training designed to ensure they are comfortable -- and knowledgeable -- about caring for LGBT patients, and familiar with the specific needs of this population. Fortunately, the New York-based organization SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) has developed an excellent nationwide educational program called SAGECare that does exactly that.

"LGBT folks need home care providers who are completely competent, respectful and safe," says Hilary Meyer, who directs the SAGE Care program. "Our job on the training side is to make sure providers understand what being LGBT means, and how to work with LGBT clients in the most respectful way possible."

There are two levels of SAGECare training, one for frontline staff that focuses on personal care delivery, and a more far-reaching curriculum for an organization's management team and administrators. "The training begins by discussing what LGBT aging involves, starting with basic terminology and definitions," says Meyer. "To humanize the topic, we also share stories of real older LGBT adults and how they have interacted with society."

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For the administrative course, SAGECare then moves into actual skills and best practices for improving service delivery across multiple departments such as policies and procedures, facilities management, and staff recruitment. The ultimate goal of the training is not only to enhance direct interaction between staff and clients, adds Meyer, but to overhaul the total administrative approach of healthcare organizations in order to make them more LGBT-friendly -- including marketing materials, programs and policies.

In addition to home care organizations, SAGECare is also available to staff at residential communities, skilled nursing facilities, rehab centers, senior centers, and hospices -- anywhere there are high concentrations of older adults. At the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, where I work, for example, our hospice division has gone through SAGECare training so that our at-home and Haven in-patient Hospice staff are equipped to deal with the oftentimes unique concerns and needs of LGBT patients. Our goal is to create a safe, welcoming and nurturing environment that is unique to the needs of every patient and their loved ones.

Even more exciting, SAGE recently launched a new national accreditation program, in which home care agencies and other healthcare organizations can reach the highest credential designation as LGBT-friendly once at least 80 percent of their staff has gone through the SAGECare training. "At the Platinum SAGECare level, this means an LGBT patient or client can be confident that at least 8 out of 10 employees in that institution can be considered trained and knowledgeable," notes Meyer. "For instance, we're hearing from LGBT clients in our credentialed residential communities that the staff members are no longer assuming everyone is heterosexual. This is very important, because it allows LGBT folks to feel more comfortable about being out and authentic."

The credential program is also getting an enthusiastic response from senior care organizations committed to providing quality personalized care for all patients and clients. "Companies that want to get the message out that they're LGBT-friendly are pleased," says Meyer, "because this lets them demonstrate in a credible way that they're committed to being inclusive."

I'm glad to note that SAGE is not alone in working to provide a safer, more secure environment for LGBT seniors to age in place. A number of other advocacy organizations across the U.S. have developed similar LGBT training programs for health care providers. The HEALE (Health Education About LGBT Elders) cultural competency curriculum is a medically oriented six-hour course offered by Howard Brown Health in Chicago, a leader in LGBT health care. Originally designed for nurses, HEALE has since been broadened to encompass all disciplines. The course includes a basic introduction to the LGBT community, plus units on health disparities and barriers to care for older LGBT people, sex and sexuality of older adults, legal concerns related to LGBT health care, the transgender experience, and HIV and aging.

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"To date, we've done 16,000 hours of HEALE training at over 60 different sites in multiple states, including 18 Veterans Administration hospitals," says Cecilia Hardacker, RN, Director of Education at Howard Brown. "You'd be surprised how many health care professionals don't have anybody from the LGBT community in their life experience -- so even the most basic information is very foreign to them. We conduct tests before and after the course, and we're seeing excellent increases in knowledge. We're also hearing that our course graduates are being used as LGBT resources by their co-workers, which is wonderful." Even trainees who have religious issues around sexual orientation will eventually set these aside, she notes, once they understand that having a good comfort level around the LGBT lifestyle will make them more effective caregivers.

The HEALE curriculum includes a "train the trainer" component, where an organization can have its own employees become HEALE educators -- which Hardacker feels will be a key to expanding the program's reach. "Scaling is the challenge," she adds. "We need to get the funding and infrastructure so that we can begin offering these training programs on the national level."

What everyone agrees on is that while great progress has made in LGBT training for caregivers of older adults, there is still a long way to go. "The lack of LGBT-competent senior services continues to be a national problem, particularly for individuals who can't afford private pay care," says Hardacker. "How many low-income nursing facilities are there where I could pick up the phone right now and say, 'I'm looking for a place where my aunt, who is a lesbian, would feel comfortable and where your staff has been trained in LGBT competency'? Honestly, there are very few places that fully meet that criteria."

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"We're on a terrific path right now, but in some ways we've just scratched the surface in the senior services industry," agrees Hilary Meyer at SAGE. "It's my hope that if we can continue on the positive trajectory of the past decade, then 10 years from now we'll see far more home care agencies and other senior care organizations providing LGBT training as a matter of course. That would be the ideal -- that at some point LGBT training becomes part of the standard operating procedure across the U.S., for any group that works with older adults."
Several years ago after the Newtown massacre, when Adam Lanza took his rage out on a classroom defenseless students and teachers, I wrote a piece castigating a number of Democratic Senators who dug their heads into the sand and refused to close basic background check loopholes.

These senators were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and perhaps the worst of the worst, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Had they supported basic reform supported by 90% of Americans (and even the overwhelming supported of NRA members), it would have been harder for the next maniac to take his rage out upon the innocent. As the Minority Leader, Harry Reid was forced to vote "no" because of a quirky senate rule which voting no would allow him to bring up the issue again at a future date. Had Baucus Begich and Heitkamp supported the bill, then Reid would have been the 60th vote. It would have cleared cloture.

Back then, West Virginia conservative Democrat Joe Manchin teamed up with Pat Toomey, a conservative Republican from neighboring Pennsylvania to author bipartisan legislation that would close some basic loopholes on gun sales. As a member of the NRA, Machin took on the most powerful gun manufacturer's lobby in the nation. Sadly it fell short of the needed 60 votes to clear the cloture issue and it died on the floor of the Senate. He paid a steep price as the NRA has targeted one of their own with a series of vicious ads and direct mails campaigns.

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In what can only be called "total courage," US Senator Chris Murphy stood in the well of the Senate and filibustered for over 15 hours until he received a promise from the Republican Senate leadership that there would be a vote. There were two bills on the table. The first would have barred gun sales to anyone who has been on a terrorist watch list in the previous five years. The second would have tightened a background check system to cover the so-called gun show loophole and all internet gun sales, which essentially was a reprise of the Machin-Toomey effort from years past.

Both failed to get the needed 60 votes. The background check legislation came up 4 votes short with 56 votes while the legislation that would bar those on the terrorist watch list for the past 5 years only collected 53 votes.

Last time I wrote about this, I heavily criticized Max Baucus, Mark Begich, and Heidi Heitkamp. In the case of Baucus of Montana, he had already privately decided to retire from the Senate, where he had served since 1976. At that point, Baucus could have simply voted his conscience without worrying about any political blowback. As for Begich, he went down in flames in Alaska in 2014 and voting against the measure certainly did not save his carcass. That left Heidi Heitkamp, who came up with a series of sorry excuses of why she could not vote for the legislation.

This time, three Democratic Senators failed to support it, Joe Machin, Jon Tester, and once again the odious Heidi Heitkamp. I give Joe Machin the benefit of the doubt. He carried the legislation the last time and is up for reelection this year in gun-crazy West Virginia. Jon Tester, on the other hand, is in his second term and will not be up for reelection until 2018. He has no excuse, considering that he supported the Manchin-Toomey Bill after Newtown.

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But I have saved my bile for North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp. When she ran to succeed Democrat Kent Conrad in 2012, she won a razor thin vote against a Republican challenger.

As a Californian, it seemed that every other fundraising letter I received was to support Heidi Heitkamp's campaign. It was imperative to retain a Democratic Senate seat in North Dakota, which historically votes for Republicans in presidential elections. Heidi Heitkamp appeared to be a very interesting candidate after serving as Attorney General with two landslide victories before losing a gubernatorial race in 2000.

However serving in the Senate should come with a little courage and sadly it is something that Heidi Heitkamp lacks by the gallon. In 2013, she wrote a terribly defensive statement explaining her decision-making process.

Here is what she wrote.

"I've been adamant from the very beginning of this conversation that the focus should be on mental health issues, full and accurate reporting into the NICS database and ensuring that we are prosecuting criminals in possession of or trying to possess firearms. This conversation should be about what is in people's minds, not about what is in their hands. I commend Senators Manchin and Toomey for working so hard to bring a serious bill to the floor. However, in its current form I do not see a path for my support. I've thought long and hard about this, I've taken the tough meetings, and I've heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota; and at the end of the day my duty is to listen to and represent the people of North Dakota."

However, 90% of North Dakotan voters supported tightening of the loopholes back then but Heitkamp had to search for ways to knock it down. Today I fail to believe that there is a majority of North Dakota voters who are in favor of easy access for members of ISIS "lone wolves" to buy an AR-15 to blow away more school children, people at a club, or diners at a restaurant. This is an easy vote to defend--if you think about it.

However, at the end of the day, Senator Heitkamp proved she was so full of crap that she should've come with her own septic tank.

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Political figures often need "cover" to inspire political courage or perhaps hide from a voter backlash. Retired Astronaut Mark Kelly who co-founded Americans for Responsible Solutions with his wife, former Congressman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head during a constituent meeting in Tucson, has organized a number of military leaders to talk about getting battlefield weapon off of American streets. With Kelly and Giffords, members of the military Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus have joined the fight to curtail the access of battlefield weapons. Both were commanding generals in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are people who have seen the personnel damage caused by the battlefield weapons in theaters of battle

Both have said that there is no place for battlefield weapons on American streets.

If you cannot find political cover cowering behind the top generals of the past decade, then it is perhaps time for others to do your job.

Lyndon Johnson used to tell Senators during tough votes for Civil Rights during the 1960's that he didn't need their help for the easy votes--he needed them for the toughest of votes. If they lacked the courage, he offered them a choice--his way or the highway and fear of LBJ's wrath often trumped any fear of what the voters back home might respond.

Can somebody tell me how a member of ISIS can fill up his trunk with a cornucopia of battlefield weapons? Maybe Senator Heitkamp simply does not care.

Perhaps it's time for Heidi Heitkamp to grow some courage, if that is even possible at this juncture. If she can't, perhaps it time to let somebody else do the job.
Throughout history, countless leaders have suffered the fatal consequences of poorly made decisions. Not necessarily from lack of experience, but from overconfidence due to previous successes that ended up ultimately in catastrophe.

The term used to describe this effect is called "victory disease".

One of the earliest, and maybe the worst, cases of this disease happened thousands of years ago near a Greek island called Salamis.

In 480 BC, Greece was in a long war against Persia. Greece, which was made up of an alliance of city-states, had joined together to prevent Persia from conquering their land. The Persian army, led by King Xerxes, was large and powerful, and they were winning.

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The Persian Empire had expanded west to a large part of Greece, and King Xerxes was determined to conquer all of it. Xerxes' army easily went through Macedonia and Thessaly as they made their way south to Athens.

Then they reached Salamis. At this time, the Persian navy had 1,207 ships, whereas the Greeks only had 310. Xerxes was confident of his victory. So confident, in fact, that he set up a throne on the shore before the battle even began.

What happened next shocked him.

The battle took place in the straits between mainland Greece and Salamis. The Greek ships were aligned along one side of the strait. The Persian fleet, which relied on the sheer force of numbers to win, moved forward to attack.

The Greek navy, on the other hand, relied on strategic locations that would minimize direct battles head-on. As the Persians advanced, the Greeks stayed in their position and waited.

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The problem for the Persians was that there were just too many ships moving into such a narrow space at once. The ships began to ram into one another as waves of them moved towards their ships in front, leading to broken ships and difficulties navigating.

The Greek ships had more space to maneuver, so they could easily attack the Persian ships. The Persians were unable to retreat. The Greeks formed a line and easily took on the larger army by slowly picking them off.

Xerxes, who was horrified at what he saw, promptly retreated from Greece. The battle had marked a turning point in the Greco-Persian wars.

Historians say that the battle was one of the most significant in history, as the victory had enabled Greek civilization and by extension western civilization, to develop.

The "Anosognosia" of Life

"Victory disease" is still something we battle with, whether in times of war or peace. But it can strike at all levels, from beginners who are just starting out to experts who've been riding the wave of success.

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Have you ever thought of taking on a challenge, only to realize you didn't know how hard it would be? Studies have shown that overestimating your ability levels can happen in a number of areas, from studying, to practicing a skill, to playing sports.

While we normally see boosting someone's confidence as a good thing, having too much of it can have a negative effect. Being overconfident can lead to losing money from poor investing decisions, losing the trust of people who rely on you, or wasting time on an idea that'll never work.

The problem is the less you know about something, the more likely it is that you won't realize your skill level until you've made a mistake or faced an obstacle.

Researcher David Dunning calls this problem "the anosognosia of everyday life", which refers to a condition where the person who suffers from a disability is unaware of it.

He goes on to say, "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent...[t]he skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."

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Seems like a catch-22, doesn't it?

If we don't realize we lack the skill or knowledge, but believe we do, how can we improve ourselves while avoiding disasters?

How to Cure Victory Disease

I've found that there are three things you can do to keep your confidence levels in check:

1. Get periodic feedback.

In the beginning, you're in the dark about the process, and as you become better at a skill, you can take foolish mistakes from thinking you know everything.

Having an accountability partner or someone you respect give you feedback periodically keeps your confidence levels in balance.

Or, you can also play devil's advocate to your own opinions. If something sounds like a good idea, consider any weaknesses in the decision and the potential negative consequences of going through with it.

2. Create a buffer.

How often do you start a task that you think will only take up half an hour, only for it to end up consuming most of your day? If you're like me, this probably happens pretty often.

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When you have limited time to complete a task, it's good to schedule in extra time in case anything unexpected happens.

Buffers can be used for more than just time, though. They can also be used for planning, budgeting and making investment decisions.

3. Brainstorm what you don't know.

Whenever you start on a goal or embark on a journey, it's easy to feel excited and imagine how things will turn out. While these feelings can inspire us to pursue new challenges, sometimes reality strikes and those dreams can vanish into thin air.

So if you want to do something, think about what steps and adjustments you would need to make. Doing research into what your goal entails also gives you a better idea of the likelihood of achieving what you aspire towards.

Armed with your research, you can develop a plan to map out future steps. I suggest following the "do it, then say it" principle to gain the support of your friends and family.

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Confidence is a Delicate Balance

As we've seen, it's hard for us to recognize our skill level at first, and by the time we realize it, there can be some serious consequences from our lack of awareness.

Acknowledging the issue of overconfidence is the first step to battling it. Recognizing that we might not know that much after all can help us get a better perspective on our situation and what steps to take in the future.

Confidence is like a balance. Too much of it, and you risk making poor decisions that have unwanted consequences. Too little, and you never risk anything at all.

But if we plan for unexpected events and approach our decisions with cautious optimism, we can move ahead with just the right dose to make progress.

Let's Connect

If you enjoyed reading this article, please join the newsletter. As thanks, I'll send over a copy of my popular guide, How to Get Anything You Want.

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This post was originally published on JumpstartYourDreamLife.com.
United Nations Organization Flag

In case you haven't heard, this is an election year.

And I'm not talking about the U.S. presidential election.

The United Nations General Assembly unanimously appointed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to two five-year terms, the second of which draws to a close at the end of this year.

This fall, the nations of the world will gather at UN headquarters in New York to appoint a successor, one person to represent 7.4 billion people--or better yet, one person to represent the projected 8.2 billion who will occupy our planet by the end of 2026, when the next Secretary-General leaves that office, assuming that he, like Ban Ki-moon, enjoys two back-to-back terms.

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Or, should I say, assuming that "she" enjoys two back-to-back terms.

Indeed, it is stunning to think that come January, we could see not only a woman in the White House, but also a woman on "the 38th floor," serving as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. For the first time in the UN's seventy-year history, several highly qualified female candidates are under serious consideration, with four formally declared and at least a dozen more names circulating through the rumor mill.

No matter who gets the job, she (or he) is going to have a tough act to follow.

At any given moment in history, the United Nations has before it essentially two related yet distinct agendas--the agenda that the United Nations proposes to the world and the agenda that the world imposes upon the United Nations.

As for the latter, under Ban Ki-moon, one might think of the Arab Spring, the war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, the global financial crisis, the earthquake in Haiti, and Ebola. These are the unforeseen grenades that history lobs at every UN Secretary-General.

Where Ban Ki-moon has proven especially talented is in driving the other agenda, the agenda that the United Nations sets forth for the world.

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First, Ban Ki-moon's 2007 Climate Summit catalyzed an international diplomatic dialogue that led ultimately to tangible progress in Paris this past December, when the United States and China reached a degree of climate reconciliation. In April, 175 UN Member States signed on to the Paris Agreement, committing to develop independent country-specific plans for meeting CO2 targets. It's not perfect, but it is a first step on a long climate change mitigation journey. We now have a map to guide us, or at least a compass to point the way.

Second, Ban Ki-moon has worked diligently for UN reform, seeking to make the institution "fit for purpose" and advancing the "delivering as one" agenda. He reconfigured bureaucracies to harness the power of multi-stakeholder partnerships with the private sector, civil society, philanthropists and academia. He streamlined budgeting, implemented a system-wide risk management approach, and spearheaded the adoption of a results-based planning, accountability and management system, all of which have made the UN not only more open, flexible and accountable, but also better able to deliver on its mandates.

Next, echoing this reform agenda, the UN General Assembly in 2010 created "UN Women," a new entity focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women brought together resources and mandates associated with four distinct entities, including the former UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Promising greater impact, this consolidated entity will drive the gender equity agenda to new, previously unattainable heights.

Given the increasingly complex character of global emergencies, Ban Ki-moon also called for a World Humanitarian Summit, which took place last month in Istanbul, to address challenges and opportunities in the field of humanitarian response. Non-state actors and other geopolitical developments are engendering new man-made disasters--intractable armed conflicts. Likewise, natural disasters are becoming both more frequent and more ferocious. Alongside the World Humanitarian Summit stands adoption of the so-called "Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction," a forward-looking and action-oriented blueprint that seeks to undercut risks associated with natural hazards even before their destructive force is unleashed.

Finally, under Ban Ki-moon's leadership, the General Assembly last fall adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the "SDGs" or "Agenda 2030." A follow-on from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs represent a tectonic shift in the way we think about social and economic development.

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While the MDGs focused exclusively on developing countries, the SDGs are considered universal. They apply not only to developing countries, but also to developed countries. What's more, while the eight MDGs were limited in scope, the SDGs--seventeen separate goals with 169 distinct targets--represent a decidedly more comprehensive approach to development.

Thus, on climate change, UN institutional reform, gender equity, humanitarian response, and sustainable development, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set the global agenda, not just for the next few years or the next few decades, but indeed, for generations to come.

This comprehensive agenda demands comprehensive engagement.

Recently, Ban Ki-moon addressed hundreds of lawyers, law professors, law students, and others at the New York City Bar Association, stressing the unique role that attorneys must play.

The Secretary-General emphasized the Sustainable Development Goals and specifically Goal 16, the "good governance" goal. He argued that in adopting Goal 16, world leaders recognized that lasting progress "demands the rule of law, access to justice and solid institutions," institutions that are both "transparent and accountable." Progress "requires legal frameworks that provide for equal access to land, property, financial services and other basic commodities." Goal 16, the Secretary-General said, "reflects an understanding that peace demands justice, development fosters security, and human rights are always paramount."
ORLANDO, FL - JUNE 19: People wait for the start of a memorial service for the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 19, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Thousands of people are expected at the evening event which will feature entertainers, speakers and a candle vigil at sunset. In what is being called the worst mass shooting in American history, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen killed 49 people at the popular gay nightclub early last Sunday. Fifty-three people were wounded in the attack which authorities and community leaders are still trying to come to terms with. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Is anybody else out there still anxious, uneasy, or just plain scared? I hate to admit it. I think I might even be ashamed to admit it. But uneasy is exactly the way I've been feeling for the past few days. The tragedy in Orlando not only saddened me it angered me, frustrated me, and continues to leave me with my defenses up; an uneasy feeling, not just in the pit of my stomach, but pulsing through my entire body.

In the face of that unease I have to admit my truth one more time: I am homosexual.

It was June 22, 1993. North Carolina (of all places). I was performing in summer stock for the first time. I was at the pool. The water was crystal clear as the sun glinted off its translucent ripples. The sounds of laughter and music from that day are still present in my memory. Friends -- both gay and straight -- basked in the sun's rays. It was on this day nearly 23 years ago that I quietly, yet bravely, opened my closet door and walked out into the world.

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I celebrate the anniversary of that day every year as another birthday. For that's exactly what it is. Coming out was scary but necessary. It was the only way I could live. Staying in the closet could only continue to propagate loneliness, fear, and confinement. It was suffocating. I was dying. I needed to be set free. I was fortunate enough (as theatre people often are) to be surrounded by a gaggle of gay men who hugged me, loved me, welcomed me (even if some said, "It's about time"). That slap on the ass did not elicit crying it beget a laugh of elation. It was the first time I started being me. The relief far outweighed the trepidation of what my future might hold, i.e. coming out to my parents, revealing my true self to the world. That's reason enough to celebrate this day every year.

With those same embracing, accepting, welcoming men I went many times to the gay bar, Scandals, in Asheville, North Carolina. I enjoyed the unrestricted freedom of dancing the night away with my friends...and strangers alike. I watched with glee as the drag queens lip-synced the hell out of songs by Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and Cher. I sang along at the top of my lungs. I laughed. I drank. I kissed boys. I pressed my body against other men, nary a slit wide enough for light between us. It was freedom. I wasn't scared. It was a place filled with people just like me, celebrating life, hurting no one.

I was a young 22-year-old man; naive, excited, nervous, ready.

I'm now a 45-year-old man who has seen the world change since that June day in North Carolina all those years ago -- change that I didn't think I would ever see. Personally, I've made tremendous strides in accepting myself and living my life authentically in public. And humankind has made tremendous strides toward equality and human rights.

Change is happening. Most of it positive. It's exciting. But it creates what a friend of mine described perfectly as "a false sense of comfort." We forget how many people merely tolerate us and in some cases simply wish we would shut up and go back inside our closets. There are haters out there and social media allows them to share their hate prolifically.

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I live in New York City. And in my City I often feel we live in what I can only describe as a bubble. I don't regularly stop to wonder what life is like for people who don't live here. New York City is such a melting pot of races, cultures, religions. I doubt I'm alone in that bias. Do you think about the attitudes and opinions of people who live in upstate New York, the Midwest, or Deep South very often? Ask yourself. That imaginary bubble creates a sense of security that when truly pondered, especially in the wake of the devastating shooting at Pulse night club in Orlando, is misleading at best.

Gay bars should be a safe haven. We shouldn't have to fear for our lives when we're inside. There's enough to threaten us outside the door when homophobic people lie in wait for us to head home so they can hit us with their hateful slurs or, in some cases, their hateful fists. LGBTQ people should not have to worry about losing their jobs because of who they kiss, hold hands with, fuck, or marry. LGBTQ people should not have to worry that a member of one of the Baptist churches, pastored by one of the above mentioned men, will take to heart what their spiritual leader is saying and gun us down.

I have needed all my courage to throw my shoulders back, hold my head up, and walk down the street, completely visible -- vitally visible -- in the days since waking to the nightmare in Orlando. I understand that we, the LGBTQ community, cannot hide, must not hide. We have to be seen. We have to be louder. We. Have. To! That means no matter how uneasy I might still be feeling, I have to continue to be me -- gay, beautiful, fabulous, gender expansive, funny, creative, normal me.

And you, if you're LGBTQ, have to continue to be you.

"There are some wounds that can never heal. There are scars that make us who we are but without them we don't exist." Written by John Logan for the character of Lily on Penny Dreadful.

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If you're feeling like me, reach out to the LGBTQ people in your life for support, strength, and courage. I have done that. I continue to do that. If you're the parent of an LGBTQ child or a straight ally, reach out to the LGBTQ people in your life and show them you support them, that you love them, that you're there for them.

"I love you, Michael!!" Those words came to me via text on the Monday following Orlando. They were from my mom. I knew that she was reaching out to her gay child to assure me in four simple words that she was thinking about me after the senseless attack on the LGBTQ community took the lives of 49 people who were merely enjoying their lives in what should have been a safe place to do just that -- enjoy their lives.

That text meant so much to me. You never know who is frightened, who is angry, who is suffering. But kindness and support and love goes a long way toward restoring calm...and healing.
The experience of Bosnian Islam

There is one Islamic saying, which goes like this: "You should not think that if You fail to give the heart to others that You would gain it for yourself." When someone would ask me what is the most special thing about Islam in Bosnia, the simplest answer would be taken out of this saying - it is Islam of sharing. Recently I was asked by local tourist agency to present the experience of "Bosnian Islam" to a group of Americans who visited Bosnia in organization of NYT "Times Journeys" and I shared with them my insights exactly about the "Islam of sharing".

"Sharing" is one of the main characteristics of what we call the Bosnian experience of living Islam. Islam came to Balkans some 6 centuries ago, even though some traces suggest that earlier contacts existed with Muslim travellers and merchants. Current Islamic tradition in the lands of Balkan mainly traces its origins to Ottomans. It survived until today despite historical disturbances and turmoil that the region of Balkans went through. Bosniaks - Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina belong to this tradition of sharing. And this tradition of sharing is maintained by specific circumstances: historic, political and economic - which enabled this tradition to keep Islam live in the heart of Europe.

(Jajce: the medieval Bosnian town, photo: M. Kovac)

One might ask what sharing has to do with this? But, just a casual walk through the streets of Bosnia during the daytime in Ramadan would give a lot of answers. Many around are fasting, but a visitor will hardly notice that. Similarly, a visitor to Bosnia will find many that are not observing the fast. We say that in Bosnia it is more important to fast in the name of God, and for those who do not observe it, we hope and pray for God's Mercy. The focus here, especially during Ramadan, is to give alms to the poor, to host Iftar meal for family and relatives, even though some are not religious and not fasting at all. However, the most important thing is to be happy and joyous. As renowned Bosnian theologian professor Enes Karic said:

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"God and all what is His is not there for humanity to cry!"



As one might notice, this is a very secular outlook and image of living Islam. The fact that someone is guest is very important in Bosnia everyone can sense the hospitality of local people. The tradition of "honoring the guest" is among the most important pillars of practical faith of Muslims in Bosnia, which had been always the land of refuge and shelter for centuries.

Islamic identity of Bosnian Muslims is based and designed in the tradition of Hanafi school of Islamic Jurisprudence. It belongs to so-called "Turskih cultural zone of Islam" with Bosnian specificities. Hanafi madhab is considered as "most agile legal school" in Islam. According to Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, who is religious authority and the head of Bosnian Muslims, this school had traditionally formed the institutions of religion and religious practice of Bosnian Muslims.

"Bosnian Muslims had always cultivated an open, cheerful and tolerant vision of world and life, while at the same time were adamant in respecting fundamental religious teachings of Islam. They adopted many cultural forms and practical expressions of religion from Ottoman Turks. In that way, Tasawwuf or Sufism that is very important element of "Turkish cultural zone of Islam" quickly gained its followers and adherents of spiritual path of love here. At the same time Bosnian Muslims retained their pre-Islamic Bosnian customs that were not in conflict with principles and values of Islam and incorporated some elements of the Bosnian style in the universal form and practice of Islam. A clear example of this integration is the original architectural style of the Bosnian mosques. Also, one of the important cultural and social peculiarities of Islamic life in Bosnia and Herzegovina is that Bosniaks did not accept the practice of polygamy and marriages between close relatives which is the common among Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa," explains Grand Mufti Kavazovic.

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He adds that in classical Islamic tradition of Bosniaks "Islamic life represents the unity of ideals and reality, doing good and encouraging good, and following good side of life." For him as the highest religious authority of Bosnian Muslims:

"Islam is represented in religious truths, institutions and rituals, but also everything that is good and beautiful. Good Muslim is good father, son, brother, neighbour, a responsible man and worker, or on female side: good Muslim is good mother, daughter, sister, a woman who is responsible for her work."

This tradition and experience of Bosnian Islam - the tradition of sharing - today is very much endangered by the argument of might rather than by the power of right. All know what happened in Bosnia 20 years ago as many witness today that many things here are just stalled. There is hope among many open-minded people in Bosnia that American and European friends would not leave this country alone as it was left two decades ago and experienced genocide. But, is this hope reliable?

(Pocitelj, the town on the south in Herzegovina region, photo: M. Kovac)

Many would ask why is it Islam in Bosnia that is different from what we see in other parts of the world. Well, it is not different. First of all, Islam is rather defined as a worldview than as a common concept, which many call "religion". It is everyday practice to confuse Islam with Muslism -Islam is one thing, its interpretation and application is another. The good advice to everyone who want to learn about Islam is not to confuse these two important concepts. As Sufis like to say:

"The nature of Islam is like water. Water doesn't have color but it enables it, it doesn't have smell but it enables it, it doesn't have taste but by its very quality as such enables everything to have smell, to have color, to have taste..." The same is with Islam in Bosnia. It is like water, which adapted to the time and place and is of Bosnian color, Bosnian smell and Bosnian taste.

Some would rather dismiss this idealized story. But, in reality the adherents of Islam here went through all problems of Europe together with their Christian and Jewish co-citizens. And this was much easier thanks to the insistence of their faith which commands sharing goods and wrongs of the time with others. The latest attempt to break this tradition of sharing occurred some 20 years ago with the horrors of war. By the Grace of Lord this people managed to preserve it against all odds and difficulties of this troubled region.

Also, there is one important institution that developed and somehow saved Islam in Bosnia. It is now called "Islamic Community". A Westerner would compare this institution with the church in his country of origin, but it is not similar. When in 1878. Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the Congress in Berlin, Muslims in Bosnia were detached from the rest of Ummah or worldwide Muslim Community. They felt like left behind. In order to resolve the crisis Austro-Hungarian Empire pushed for creation of an independent institution that will guide and administer Islamic religious practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1882). Some years after that The Empire even opened institutions of high learning for scholars of Islam, that is now Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo.

Even though these institutions were created to separate Bosnian Muslims from the rest of Muslim world, the outcome was very positive, which we see today. "Islamic Community" somehow helped Muslims of Bosnia to establish themselves within the context of wider social, political and economic circumstances of the region. Majority accepted the destiny to be subjects of European Christian Empire rather than to immigrate to remaining Islamic Empire. Today's "Islamic Community" has its structure with assembly, central authority, local authorities, schools, colleges, Islamic faculties, etc.

Unfortunately, not just in the West (Europe and America), but also in the East (Muslim World), there is no institution of this type. In my opinion, because of that, Islam is being thought and preached exclusively by those designated by the State, or by those who do not accept that on freelance basis. Traditional scholars of Islam today almost do not exist. If this can be the case for secularization of Muslim world I think this would be the strongest argument. The need for separation between state and Islam is existential. Why?

I thing that current context gives only two illiberal solutions for Islam: to be under the State control and, by such, biased and mere tool of power or to be under no one's control and, by such, open to all kinds of deviation. In Bosnia, the change of empires from Islamic Ottoman to Austro-Hungarian Catholic caused great shock but also demanded for intellectual and civilizational dialogue and adaptation. In terms of religion, the key development was creation of this unique religious organization that still enlightens Bosnian Muslim lifes with the idea of sharing their destiny and land with their fellow Christians, Jews, agnostics and all other citizens. Immensely important aspect of Islamic Community is that it is according to law and in the context of secular state fully independent and autonomous organization.

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A few weeks ago, a grammatically incorrect billboard appeared along Kingston Pike, Knoxville TN's main thoroughfare. The billboard declares, across the Tennessee state flag, "Lesser Government is Better Government." It might have been beneath mention if it hadn't been posted by Martin Daniel, Tennessee's representative for the 18th district and owner of Elevation Advertising. Daniel has been spending a lot of his time micromanaging our schools and introducing more, not less, government control over the enterprise. That fact makes "lesser" an interesting word choice and a revealing error.



If the billboard had said "Less government is better government," we could debate the issue, but as it stands, Representative Daniel is simply wrong. "Lesser" refers to degree or quality, while "less" refers to amount. Daniel has claimed, without realizing it, that a worse government is a better government, which is a logical impossibility, not a policy statement. One could say that the government of Venezuela is a lesser government than the government of Australia (no offence to Venezuelans, and Australians, pipe down), but to declare something that is lesser -- i.e. inferior -- is better is saying the first shall be last and the last shall be first, but not in a social justice "what would Jesus do" kind of way.

It turns out that social justice is also under fire as part of Daniel's campaign for inferior government. He recently complained to school superintendent Jim McIntyre about his daughter's 4th grade homework at Sequoyah Elementary, targeting a reading assignment that included a story about a boy in a poor (and mostly black) school district. When the boy's mother complained about his tattered and torn school books, the school principal in the story explained that when white school districts got new books, theirs got the hand-me-downs. She then consulted with a lawyer and got the school board to provide the same quality books that the children in the white district have. The exercise was an assignment on cause and effect, in which students had to infer the historical time period of the incident ("around the civil rights movement") to get the correct answer, based on previous class discussions.

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I would call that a story with a happy ending, but Daniel didn't like it at all, and he only got madder when he discovered that the week's lesson also included pieces on Sojourner Truth and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The unit was called "My Brother Martin." Other units focused on animal behavior, the Constitution, ancient civilizations, and space. (Note: McIntyre, who replied personally to Daniel's complaints, has since stepped down from his post, citing a politically dysfunctional climate in the Knox county system.) In his reply to the superintendent, which he also sent to the Knox county and state boards of education, the governor, the textbook commission, and a few others, Daniel opined: "What purpose is served by introducing lessons of social injustice to our young children via a course assignment in Reading? Are our children being taught to assume that everyone who has difficulties in life is a victim of oppression? Should those children who simply attend good schools feel guilty? Should those children who otherwise enjoy the benefits of their parents' hard work and resulting success be made to feel guilty?"

You can read Daniel's entire letter and more about the story in this Nashville Scene article, but let's get right to it; the key word here is "guilty." His concern about feeling guilty shows that he is simultaneously aware of his own socioeconomic privilege and oblivious to its implications-- a matter of concern to all of us as long as he's a state representative. I share in his relative privilege as someone who was able to buy a house on the edge of the Sequoyah neighborhood, where home prices are high because the schools are excellent, a causal claim that is neatly reversible: rich neighborhood, good schools; good schools, rich neighborhood. I didn't feel guilty about sending my son to Sequoyah a few years ago; I felt fortunate. My good fortune makes me feel called to work for better funding for education for all the children in my state, and my experience leads me to believe that supporting education and educators is the best thing legislators can do to keep American society healthy. In a follow-up interview, Daniel asked: "Why does a 4th grader need to learn about race?!" Sequoyah had only 9 black students (out of 452) in the 2014-2015 school year. That's less than 2 percent. Zero students were identified as Latino. Only 9.5 percent of Sequoyah's students are deemed "economically disadvantaged," as opposed to 40 percent of the students in Knox County schools and 57.9 percent in the state. That is the answer to his question.

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Daniel's outburst about Sequoyah Elementary's reading lessons won't come as a big surprise to those who caught his recent comments about Muhammad Ali on Twitter or who have been following his attacks on the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the the University of Tennessee. Using lots of legislative time and effort, Daniel and his colleagues have passed interventionist legislation that closed the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which had helped UT stay eligible for millions of grant dollars, supported the PRIDE center, and sent messages about racial diversity that were resulting in real recruitment gains. Daniel and other TN legislators rode the wave of a few high-profile, sensationalist, and phony FOX-news stories about gender-neutral pronouns (never mandated) and a "War on Christmas" (didn't happen) into the spotlight while embarrassing the University. Originally, there was no story on campus (I heard about the pronoun flap when a friend texted me from New York) but the faux-news stories created real protests, substantial ones, with hundreds of students who were furious about the assault on the Office of Diversity and the attacks (literal and rhetorical) on the PRIDE center. Congratulations, legislators; you created quite a few new activists.

The Very Big Government efforts of TN legislators have cost the University alumni dollars in every political direction and catapulted UT backwards in national rankings on campus life, diversity, and matters of race. They have also jeopardized the institution's SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) accreditation, which mandates that the university's governing board be "free from undue influence from political, religious, or other external bodies" and "protects the institution from such influence." In the wake of this legislatively manufactured controversy, the departure of Vice-Chancellor Rickey Hall and, most recently, the announcement that Chancellor Jimmy Cheek will step down, it will be hard to prove that this is not the case. Making a political target out of the University might win a legislator a temporary victory, but it isn't serving the public. UT is still fundamentally healthy and an excellent university, and Knox county schools still get top ratings, but if our own legislators keep attacking them, that excellence won't last forever. And if that's what this legislature really wants, then God help us all.
Donald Trump is very clear on the subject: If President Obama doesn't use the words "radical Islamic terrorism" to discuss the brutal killings in Orlando, "he should immediately resign in disgrace!"

Most Republicans seem to agree that it's essential to link Islam to the tactics and goals of extremists and terrorists. Senator Ben Sasse (no fan of Trump's) to Obama: "You're wrong. Telling the truth about violent Islam is a prerequisite to a strategy." Lindsay Graham says Obama "shows a total disconnect from the problems we face in confronting/defeating radical Islam." Strategist Ed Rogers writes that the president's refusal to refer to "radical Islam" was "a remarkable display of arrogance and tone-deaf rhetoric."

Hillary Clinton has decided to do an end-run around the issue. "Radical jihadist, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either, but that's not the point." For her, the challenge is to go after the perpetrators of hateful crimes without tarring an entire religion -- or being distracted by a rhetorical sideshow.

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Let's say that Donald Trump and his allies are right: that it's important to label the religious underpinnings of those who seek to kill innocents in Paris or San Bernardino or Orlando. That where a killer calls on religion to justify his actions, let's identify that religion for all to see.

But can we really stop with Islam?

Take Robert Dear, the deranged man who last November took a semiautomatic rifle into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. He killed three and wounded nine. His motivation? To be "a warrior for the babies."

Dear is not just an extremist -- he is a "Christian extremist." He called his anti-abortion activism "God's work." He dreamed that "[w]hen he died and went to heaven, he would be met by all the aborted fetuses at the gates of heaven and they would thank him . . ." He sprinkled his confession to the police with Bible phrases.

To understand Robert Dear, don't we have to understand the Christian teachings this "Christian extremist" believed he was upholding?

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Or take Ammon Bundy, the leader of the armed anti-government militants who earlier this year occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Bundy, a Mormon adherent, said he was acting on instructions from God: "The Lord was not pleased with what was happening to the Hammonds," a father-son team whose convictions Bundy was trying to avenge. One of Bundy's fellow Mormon militants took the name "Captain Moroni" -- a celebrated figure from the Book of Mormon who fought for the liberty of his people against a corrupt king. "And it came to pass that Moroni was angry with the government, because of their indifference concerning the freedom of their country." (Book of Mormon, Alma 59:13).

Leaders of the Church of Latter-day Saints felt obliged to issue a statement distancing themselves from the actions of Bundy and his fellow militants, saying they were "deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest they are doing so based on scriptural principles." Of course, this did nothing to deter Bundy and fellow militants.

So to understand Bundy we should of course identify him as a "Mormon extremist" or a "Mormon terrorist," take your pick. The same for his father, Cliven Bundy, well-known for his own highly-publicized standoff in Nevada over federal grazing fees. The father also relied on the Lord: "If the standoff with the Bundys was wrong, would the Lord have been with us?" He said, "The Lord told me . . . if (the local sheriff doesn't) take away these arms from federal agents, we the people will have to face these arms in a civil war." His Lord directed his conduct. So, Cliven Bundy: another "Mormon extremist."

Going back in time: David Koresh, the messianic preacher of the Branch Davidians whose anti-government standoff in 1993 led to the death of 84 people? Another "Christian extremist" (or perhaps more precisely, if you think it helpful, "Seventh-day Adventist extremist"). And in 1992, Randy Weaver and his family held off federal officials at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in another celebrated act of "Christian extremism," leading to more deaths.

Nor are Christians (and Muslims) the only ones who take to violence to carry out what they believe are religious dictates. Meir Kahane, the New York rabbi who helped spur an ultra-nationalist Jewish militant movement and was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture explosives? He was certainly a "a Jewish extremist." In 1990 he was assassinated in a New York hotel by an Arab gunman who, naturally, we should call an "Islamic terrorist." More recently, what about the Israeli settlers who kidnapped an innocent 16-year-old Muslim boy, beat him with a crowbar and burnt his body to avenge earlier killings? Also "Jewish terrorists," clearly.

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Religion and religious feelings are among the strongest motivators in human experience. They have motivated martyrs, revolutions, crusades and, yes, terrorists across many centuries and millennia. But for most of us, the line between legitimate faith and the deranged behavior of the disturbed is clear. So -- are the 6 million Mormons in the United States responsible for the Bundys? Are the Jews of America and Israel responsible for Kahane or the reprehensible actions of the settlers? Who should be made to feel responsible for the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge? Church-going Christians who would not recognize the version of Christianity claimed by these deranged extremists?

If you think it's helpful to call killers motivated by perverted definitions of Islam "Islamic terrorists" -- then let's be consistent and call out the Jews, the Christians, the Mormons whose faiths have also been twisted by a few.

Anything less would be an exercise in political correctness -- wouldn't it?
Consular officers don't always want to receive feedback from their customers, but Blaser did hope to hear back about the lost boy in Madrid during her first tour in the service. While she was looking for him, his parents and their congressman's and senator's offices had been calling several times a day.



When the boy arrived at the embassy, Blaser took him home against official rules, phoned his parents, fed him, gave him clothes and a bed for the night. "Finally, the next day, the group leader came to pick him up," she said. "We gave him another set of clothes, they left and we never heard from anyone again -- not from the parents, not from the senator or congressman, not from the school. I suppose in a way that was a compliment, if everybody was satisfied and had no complaints. I don't usually feel that we need thanks for doing our job. But it was one of the few times I actually wanted someone to call and say that the kid was all right." No one returned the clothes, either.



Blaser did hear back from two Colorado women she had helped in London in the spring of 2003 -- but only through the media. The women, whose rental car had been broken into and their purses stolen with their passports and money, called on a Friday morning to ask for help. A local British employee at the embassy explained to them the procedure for applying for temporary passports so they could return home, telling them they needed to submit photos and pay a fee. They arrived at the embassy, with their luggage, a few minutes before it was to close. Visitors are usually not allowed in the building with more than a small bag or purse for security reasons, but the guards saw the women were frustrated and let them bring the suitcases into the lobby of the American Citizens Services section.



Even though the embassy was closing for the week and most of Blaser's staff were preparing to go home, she asked for volunteers to work overtime so they could start processing the women's passport applications.



"This wasn't a true emergency, because they weren't leaving the country until Monday, and there was time to do everything that morning, but because they were so upset and angry, I wanted to do as much as we could that night," Blaser said. One local employee was recovering from cancer and needed rest, yet she offered to stay. Another one did, too, although his father had just had a heart attack that afternoon and the son was expected at the hospital, as Blaser learned three days later. Most of the paperwork was done, and the only thing left before the passports could be issued was mandatory name checks, which could take hours. Since her staff had already put in an extra hour, Blaser requested the name checks and asked the women to return first thing Monday morning to receive their passports. They did and made their flight back home later that day.



A couple of weeks passed, and one day an article appeared in the Denver Post. The two women, high school teachers Jennifer Tompkins and Irma Sturgell, had told columnist Diane Carman their story -- it was about the "hell" they had endured with the "nightmare embassy staff." Blaser's heart sank as soon as she glanced at the headline: "Travelers see Brits' best, Yanks' worst."



"The embassy staff was unconscionably rude. The women didn't have the money and the photos required to get new passports, the bureaucrats said. They refused to allow them to make any calls," Carman wrote in the column, which has since been removed from the newspaper's website. "We were still pleading, but they physically took our suitcases and put them on the street," she quoted one of the women as saying. "They said if we had been beaten or raped, they could help us. That would have been considered an emergency. It was unbelievably inhumane."



Both Blaser and the embassy spokesman at the time, Lee McClenny, said that Carman hadn't contacted them to ask for their version of the story. Carman confirmed that in a 2004 e-mail message but offered no explanation why not. The column reinforced the perception about callous bureaucrats at embassies who care more about obeying rules and going home on time than helping people in need. Members of Congress often hear such complaints from constituents. Except that this time was different.
There are some hotel names you just know, whether you've ever stayed at the hotel or not. These iconic spots can be famous for a variety of reasons: they are super luxe or popular among the stars, they figure prominently in films or were the sites of important historic events...the possibilities are numerous, and once a hotel has reached iconic status, its celebrity continues to grow. Which is perhaps why many of the world's most iconic hotels have inspired, or at least been mentioned in, beloved songs. And in some cases, beloved songs have even led to the increased popularity - or even existence - of various hotels. Here we bring you eight iconic hotels that have inspired equally iconic songs.

-- Jane Reynolds, Oyster.com



Read the original story here.

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A list about hotels in songs of course must mention the Holiday Inn chain, which has likely appeared in more lyrics than any other property. The two most famous songs are perhaps "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang, and "Holidae In" performed by Chingy featuring Snoop Dogg and Ludacris. Both songs reference partying at the hotel, and we'd recommend one of the chain's properties in Paris, the Holiday Inn Paris - Notre Dame.

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One of the largest hotels in New York City, Hotel Pennsylvania sits (not surprisingly) right by Penn Station. Which is also probably why it not-so-surprisingly has seen plenty of famous faces come through - if just simply because it's seen so many people in general come through! Head of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, known for its swing compositions, musician Glenn Miller refers to the historic hotel in "Pennsylvania 6-5000."



3. The Beverly Hills Hotel

"Hotel California" is one of the most famous songs in the world, and The Beverly Hills Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in the world, so it all makes sense. Though the Eagles never mention it by name, most believe the Grammy-winning single was inspired by the BHH. Others, however, argue it was instead the equally hot, but perhaps a bit more rocker-friendly, Chateau Marmont that was the muse.

Fortunately, Chateau Marmont need not feel left out, whether it inspired the Eagles or not. This L.A. hotel has verifiably inspired countless other songs; a celebrity hangout since its opening in 1929, the property has welcomed everyone from Greta Garbo (in fact a former resident of the hotel) to John Mayer. Popular songs that mention the hotel include Scott Weiland's "Chateau Marmont" and "Heavy Hitter," a leaked single by Lana Del Rey.

It's hard to determine the chicken and the egg in this circumstance. GoldenEye didn't officially open as a hotel until Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records and Island Outpost, purchased the property. Still, many say it was called GoldenEye as far back as 1946, when James Bond creator Ian Fleming purchased the land and built his home here so he could focus on his novels. The hotel shares its name not only with the 1995 James Bond film (the first to star Pierce Brosnan), but also the film's theme song performed by Tina Turner.

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The Ritz-Carlton brand has long been synonymous with top-notch luxury, even inspiring the slang phrase "putting on the Ritz." This phrase, in turn, was the inspiration behind iconic songwriter Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz," which was the lead song in the same-named film, released in 1930. Though the phrase likely came about thanks to the London and Paris locations of the chain, we have a particular fondness for The Ritz-Carlton Georgetown.

Rio's Copacabana Palace, which dates back to 1923, is an historic Art Deco hotel just off the beach. Perhaps Barry Manilow's most famous song, "Copacabana" was first thought up by Manilow and fellow songwriter Bruce Sussman when they were both staying at the hotel, which has a striking, all-white palatial facade. The song was released in 1978.

In the Grammy Hall of Fame for over two decades now, Elvis's "Heartbreak Hotel" was actually inspired by a real-life event; songwriters Tommy Durden and Mae Boren Axton based the lyrics on a newspaper article reporting a man's suicide by jumping from a hotel window; he left behind a note that simply read "I walk a lonely street." While that unnamed hotel was located in Miami, the song inspired the opening of Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel, an Elvis-themed property appropriately located across the street from Graceland.
Putiferio, by Roberto Cuoghi

The sun is just setting over the hot and scrubby island of Hydra and a sorcerer with a scarf and a helmet to protect him from the intense flames of a giant handmade kiln readies a giant pair of tongs to retrieve a fiery clay crustacean with the help of one of his two assistants with a golden apron (the women are both self-described as "girlfriends") to sprinkle it with clay dust in the ancient Japanese style and then bathe it in a giant cauldron of water. The process goes on for hours as the many kilns and fires form a kind of sacrifice to the Gods, on this, the eve of the summer solstice.

Coughi after the performance

It is the annual retreat of the Deste Foundation ("to see"), founded by Greek-Cypriot industrial magnate Dakis Joannou, who himself modestly attired in a beige shirt stuck to his body in the intense heat, joins the international art-crowd arrayed above artist-sorcerer Italian Roberto Coughi--one of his favored artists-- munching on cheese pies, corn on the cob, smoothies, and souvlaki. Despite the heat however and the saturation with art world eventing (Art Basel, Christo, Zurich, the annual June pilgrimages), all are transfixed by the smoke and fire pouring out of the kilns in the exhibit entitled Putiferio.

Double Double Toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble is what comes to mind, the Shakespearean witches chant.

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I am always on guard for pretention and artifice in the contemporary art world, the one upsmanship that so infects many of the events that now swirl around the once staid discipline. As with the Christo I am nervous that I am participant in something superfluous to the migrant and economic crises at hand.

Yet as the clay crabs and lobsters pile up, and the artist and his two partners work intensely the performance instead becomes very real and authentic, even charming, the friendly creatures snug in their dirt beds in afterbirth.

Crustaceans in Slaughterhouse

In the ancient Slaughterhouse--the Deste site annually repurposed by each invited artist-- down the craggy hill, the crustaceans creep, crawl, hang and attach themselves to walls and objects like a pre-school full of wayward toddlers failing at conflict resolution more than a cadre of crabs off to their death. Yet on the roof of a cement hut below is what Coughi is calling the Crab Cemetery.

Crab Cemetery

Early the following morning Cuoghi, Duchamp-ian, and his assistants/amours are cleaning up and repairing the broken objects. In the light of day, they are less sorcerers and witches than tired artists who have committed to a physical, performative practice which has endeared me to them.

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Coughi, the morning after

The questions about the role of artists vis a vis the role of the .001% does haunt me. Just as in the US, it is often private wealth that sustains many artists. What benefit these wealthy citizens derive in the competition for recognition for something other than their business acumen is different for each.

Joannou, a serious collector who impresses me as entirely authentic, has in his own way tried to bridge the gap. Passionate about art in a very sincere way, he has historically supported emerging--and blue chip artists-- all over the world in their quest to make their art. That he also has an enormous Jeff Koons designed boat (called Guilty) that sits in the Hydra harbor is the flip side of his populist magnanimity. But I see that Joannou inspires both ingenues and veterans.

Maurizio Catalan, who has joined the retreat, says, "I believe that to get in touch with Dakis it's a milestone in an artist's life; he's a sharp-witted person and really open minded, and at the same time very straightforward, he won't say he likes what he doesn't."

Joannou boat Guilty designed by Jeff Koons

Yet his flourish and show are probably not that different from the highly decorated war heroes whose display of arms, trophy medallions and sumptuous costume at the local history museum testify to Hydra's long standing home as a preserve of wealth and bounty from its role in the ancient lucrative shipping trade. Even further back, Bard professor Daniel Mendelsohn says," the great aristocratic families of an earlier era in the city's history continued to hold and to covet power... Pericles, for instance, belonged to a family that might well be compared to the Vanderbilts or the Rockefellers of a later age". Greece is now home to many foundations that contribute to contemporary art and artists in a meaningful way and Joannou is leading the pack.

Donkey parade at the port of Hydra

In counterpoint to the pyrotechnics on the island, 33 young Greek artists have been meticulously selected by curators Gary Carrion-Murayari, Helga Christofferson and Massimiliano Gioni from the New Museum in New York in a collaborative art project, The Equilibrists, with support from the Deste at the newer branch of the Benaki. From over 500 submissions and 100 studio visits, they have culled these native artists who--though not all living in Greece-- have faced down the economic challenges which are particularly piercing in this country which is falling off a fiscal cliff.

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Installation view, Deste Foundation/New Museum/Benaki Museum, The Equilibrists

The artists in turn have marshaled resources, supporting each other on video productions, engaging with start up galleries, forming collectives, eager to not be marginalized by the perilous straits they find themselves in. A National Museum of Contemporary Art still has an iron construction fence around though it was supposedly finished more than two years ago.

Though there is pathos, despite the challenges, there is also humor aplenty in the Deste/Benaki/New Museum exhibition. Especially engaging are the ersatz tent cities of Yannis Karpouzis, the Jetsons-like video attempts of Orestis Mavroudis to fly, the meticulous updating of the traditional art of Greek embroidery by Zoi Gaitanidou, the unstretched canvases of Sofia Stevi, the accumulations of a life by Giorgos Gerontides and the printed feminist t-shirts by Eleni Bagaki (entitled with singular precision, Tears made his dick hard/He made me drink from the floor/For his birthday I fucked somebody else/In my bedroom it must be hard to be you)

Installation view, Deste Foundation/New Museum/Benaki Museum, The Equilibrists

Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum whose previous collaboration with Dakis Joannou came under scrutiny because of his seat on her board (this exhibition will not travel to New York), says, "Athens could be the new Berlin," e.g affordable, congenial to artists in the face of the distinctly harsh economic and political challenges. Curator Christofferson reminds me that I shouldn't "romanticize what's going on with the artists, that this self-organization and solidarity comes out of need." A bit of hopeful news is that a site of the art exhibition Documenta 14 will take place in Athens next year. That women curators, gallerists and artists have an important role in the exhibition is another hopeful sign.

Female mask, 1st century AD

A one-day kamikaze visit to the historic Athens museums reminds of the ancient tradition of portrayals of strong women throughout Greek mythology. At the Acropolis Museum, there is an "Athena" path one can follow as she battles alongside her serpent, the Korai (maidens) who serve and Caryatids supporting the pediments on their heads have pride of place; at the Anthropological Museum the vast holdings are overwhelming but I make my way through the centuries of gold and marble, passing alas, in a somewhat forlorn corner, after all the brouhaha over its return to the Greek patrimony, the vase of American collector Shelby White. One mini sculpture from the storage vaults looks remarkably like Fischli/Weiss.

Ancient Fischli/Weiss

At the Benaki Museum (original branch), the women's costumes are highly embroidered and layered and the jewelry at every stage of Greek history is modern and magnificent. Even at the Hydra historical museum, the polychrome heads of women are prominently displayed amidst the male, military splendor.

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Terracotta sphinx, 630 BC

Bastienne Schmidt, a German /Greek artist who lives in New York says, "Women were put on a pedestal but not part of the official public life, they were constrained to the house. I think Greek women are very strong, and they run the villages. But still, men go to the kafenion,(and hang out and have coffee and chat) and the women must stay at home." Certainly female Greek artists are not succumbing to ancient tradition.

Cycladic Museum

At the Cycladic museum, after seeing more extraordinary sculptures of women, I pause at a sidebar to his own exhibit Ai Wei Wei has curated to bring attention to the refugee crisis on Lesbos with a display of the work mostly amateur photographers who have documented the thousands of families risking the perilous journey to safety and freedom. Ai has also made a wallpaper of selfies with the refugees as his contribution. Artists themselves are not exempt from my antennae.

Changing of the Guard at the Parliament building

At the changing of the guard at the Parliament where soldiers wear their wool leggings and pom-pommed shoes and fesi hats even in the crushing heat, their long swords raised high in salute, I am reminded that the Greek government also has understood that they can rely on their antiquities for only so long and must embrace the new.

Dakis Joannou is not thus attired. But in a way, I feel he is a major general proudly sending forth young artist-warriors into the world--Hydrated via the Deste Foundation-- so they don't end up in an artists' version of the crab cemetery.

*

Both The Equilibrists and Putiferio will be on display throughout the summer

Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Park designed by Renzo Piano and Deborah Nevins
Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and former leader of one of the country's most powerful militias during its last major conflict, was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison by the International Criminal Court. He was found guilty for his role as a commander in failing to prevent or punish a series of rapes and other sexual crimes by his troops in the Central African Republic in 2003.

In many ways the Bemba case should be seen as the ICC's greatest success to date, both technically and morally. The fact that Bemba was an active and serious political player, yet that the ICC could arrest and prosecute him in such a way, is the best example yet of what the court can do for good in the world.

First, the very fact of Bemba's arrest is a testimony to the deft political work by the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor, which carried out long and delicate negotiations with a number of states to arrest Bemba in 2008, while he was in Belgium amid some political turbulence in Kinshasa.

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It was a major achievement to arrest Bemba and show the world that, done properly, highly confidential processes can be carried out, even when powerful, well-connected people are sought. (It raises a question perhaps about why it was not done more often, given that the skills were there to execute a good plan.)

Second, the case focused entirely on issues of sexual- and gender-based violence. Initial allegations indicated somewhere in the region of a few hundred rapes had been committed in a very short time in a particular area, but that sexual attacks by Bemba's troops had carried on for months.

I was responsible for the analysis of situations at the ICC Office of the Prosecutor at the time. Although some people at the ICC felt that the overall number of victims was on the low side, compared, for example, with massive situations in the DRC or Rwanda, some of us felt that focusing on the issue of scale alone was a mistake. The point was that it was serious enough to pursue charges, not that it was less massive than other cases.

The case is also interesting because the national courts in CAR had investigated the matter but dropped the case in order to allow the ICC to take it up. This was the first time an active national investigation was dropped in this way, for the ICC to take over.

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Third, and perhaps most important, the case sends a clear message to senior political and military leaders that if they fail to punish or prevent sexual crimes when they have the chance, they will face very long prison terms. Generally, criminal justice supporters can make a little too much of deterrence arguments, but this is a case where the ICC has been used just about perfectly to do what it can to the best of its abilities.

We will hear the usual Cassandras lamenting the targeting of Africa -- somehow forgetting that it was the CAR authorities who said they could not carry out such an investigation or hope to get hold of Bemba. We will hear some say that targeting Bemba for crimes in the CAR represents some kind of failure because he has not been investigated for crimes in the DRC. This, of course, misses the point spectacularly.

It is astonishingly difficult to prosecute serious crimes even in times of peace, and much harder in times of instability and conflict. The ICC has managed to pull together a string of real successes in the Bemba case that sends a warning to commanders --and a message of some degree of protection to those who would be the sexual prey of soldiers and others in conflict zones.

Sometimes people get confused about the impact the ICC can have, and think that somehow it can be used as a short-term tool for immediate effect. True, the crimes Bemba was convicted of occurred 13 years ago. That is a long time for victims to wait for a measure of justice, but it is by no means longer than average and, to be frank, that is how long it takes if things go well. It is the message it sends for the future that counts.
Every member of the Democratic caucus and every Republican of integrity should be sitting (in) with Congressman Lewis demanding action on gun control legislation.

John Lewis has been my congressman for decades ... and my hero for even longer.

We had the privilege of recording a conversation with Mr. Lewis in 1998. He has been steadfast and courageous in his commitment to justice for all.

It was John Lewis who introduced us to the West African saying:

When you pray move your feet.

By which Mr. Lewis means that change requires action. Today, again, John Lewis has taken action.

Sometimes we have to make people do what's right.

We're gonna pray, we're gonna walk, we're gonna sit, we're gonna act until America's congress does what the American people want. Bless you, John!

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Innovative cities of the world are coming up with innovative animal shelter and care solutions. In Gdansk, an application for adopting pets from city shelter is a ground-breaking project, in which the city hall, hacktivists and a private company cooperate to solve social issues with IT tools. Cooperation of these entities is the model of action we are striving for in Gdansk. This way we solve problems and create innovative solutions together, sharing ownership of projects.

Na4apy ("On4Legs") application connects animals residing in a city shelter with their future owners. It was conceived at the end of 2015, when a Gdansk branch of Code for Poland, a twin initiative with Code for America, was established. Coders and geeks from all corners of the world were gathering in STARTER business incubator, looking for IT tools solving social issues. The group of skilled IT individuals were discussing ideas which could improve quality of life in Gdansk.

That's when an idea was conceived to solve some social problems by allowing better interaction between potential pet owners and a shelter. My goal is to catch up with some well-developed societies, where residents, instead of buying pets, adopt them from city shelters. This goal can be reached by making the process friendlier and easier.

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Thus a process had started in my city to bring together city volunteers, private enterprise and city officials to brainstorm, communicate and cooperate on a project. A breakthrough plan for our new shelter came from GdanskLAB, an informal group of partners from various city departments who work together on new ideas, improvements and innovation.

I observed the process with great interest and watched how the ideas were being negotiated into a reality. Finally, after many trials, the product was ready. I find the application easy to use and helpful. And it enjoys an added value of being created by multi-partner team.

We need the animal adoption process to be as short as possible and we knew from the beginning that technology could help. It is a brilliant idea, and quite a success that a group of city volunteers, including city hall employees, developed such an application.

The team who created the application. Photo: J. Pinkas
What seems like almost a tabloid style article -- You Won't Believe What Happened Next!-- is in fact a troublesome look into a little known part of the war on terror: our Constitution-free border zones.

Ashley Cervantes, a then 18-year-old American citizen, was stopped at the Mexico border and accused by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of smuggling drugs.

What Drugs?

Cervantes was locked into a room for several hours, handcuffed to a chair, while several dogs were brought in to sniff at her. A request to call her mother was denied. No drugs.

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CBP then proceeded to a cavity search. She was also made to squat pantless so female investigators could visually inspect her privates. Still no drugs.

So Customs and Border Protection took her to a local hospital against her will, in handcuffs. No warrant, no consent. Instead, a Customs and Border Protection agent signed a "Treatment Authorization Request" as she was considered an alleged "potential internal carrier of foreign substance." That form requested an X-ray. After the X-ray showed no drugs, doctors performed another vaginal and anal search. No drugs. She was finally released after seven hours of humiliation and given a bill for $575 for "medical treatment."

What Rights?

Cervantes now has a civil rights lawsuit pending against the government. "[I] had never before been to a gynecologist and, for the remainder of my life, will always remember that my first pelvic and rectal exams were done under the most inhumane circumstances imaginable to a U.S. citizen at a hospital on U.S. soil," she charges.

What Border?

Most people believe they are in the United States as soon as they step off an international flight, or as long as they are waiting for their outbound flight, or as they enter a CBP office on the border, as with Cervantes in the case above, and are thus fully covered by the Bill of Rights.

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Wrong. And the irony that a person can be separated from his/her Constitutional rights by a border marked by a pane of glass is not to be missed. The truth has, in the twenty-first century, become infinitely more complicated as long-standing practices are manipulated to serve the expanding desires of the national security state.

Over the years, recognizing that certain situations could render Fourth Amendment requirements impractical or against the public interest, the Supreme Court crafted various exceptions. One was the "border search." The idea was that the United States should be able to protect itself by stopping and examining people entering or leaving the country. As a result, routine border searches without warrants are constitutionally "reasonable" simply by virtue of where they take place. It's a concept with a long history, enumerated by the First Congress in 1789.

What Border, 2016 Edition?

Here's the twist in the present era: The definition of "border" has been changed. Upon arriving in the United States from abroad, you are not legally present in the country until allowed to enter by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials. You know, the guys who look into your luggage and stamp your passport. Until that moment, you exist in a legal void where the protections of the Bill of Rights and the laws of the United States do not apply. This concept also predates Post-Constitutional America and the DHS. Remember the sorting process at Ellis Island in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? No lawyers allowed there. That's what happened to Cervantes.
In the coming days, an obscure arbitral tribunal, constituted under the auspices of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is expected to issue a final ruling on the Philippines' complaint against China's expanding military and civilian footprint across the world's most important waterway, the South China Sea. As I argue in my latest book, Asia's New Battlefield, the next great power clash will most likely happen in this highly strategic maritime route.

Let's put things into perspective. In the last two years, China has reclaimed 3,200 acres (1,295 hectares) of land to build gigantic artificial islands across the Spratly chain of islands, giving birth to a sprawling network of civilian and military installations across the disputed waters. Singlehandedly, China in recent years has reclaimed almost two dozen times more than all other claimant states combined in the past half-century. And nothing compares to China's futuristic and highly sophisticated artificially-built islands in the high seas.

China is even more dominant in other portions of the disputed waters. Its control of the Paracel chain of islands is a fait accompli, while the Pratas chain of islands are under the administration of what Beijing considers a renegade province, Taiwan, which will likely be eventually reincorporated into a Greater China. There are reports that China may soon also establish military facilities on the Scarborough Shoal, which lies just 200 kilometers away from Philippine shores but a whopping 900 kilometers away from nearest Chinese coastline. There are concerns that China may soon establish an exclusion zone in the area.

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The sheer scale, speech and technological sophistication of China's reclamation activities; the ever-larger deployment of Chinese fishermen-cum-militia forces, stationing of advanced military hardware like high-frequency radars and surface-to-air-missile systems; the augmentation of Chinese coast guard, submarine and naval presence in the area; not to mention an uptick in Chinese aerial interception of foreign reconnaissance aircrafts in the South China Sea -- they all underscore Beijing's intent on dominating what it describes as its blue "national soil."

Soon, China may be in a position to establish an "exclusion zone" in the area, imperiling freedom of overflight and navigation for regional and external military forces.

Four centuries after the publication of British jurist John Selden's The Closed Sea, or Mare Clausum, which argued for exclusive sovereign control of international waters, Beijing is inching closer to transforming the South China Sea -- which handles up to a third of global maritime commerce, four times as much energy transport as the Suez canal and more than a tenth of global fisheries stock -- into what some would call a virtual Chinese lake.

"The Sea, by the Law of Nature or Nations, is not common to all men, but capable of private Dominion or proprietie as well as the Land," Selden wrote in the The Closed Sea in 1635. It was a direct rebuttal of Dutch Jurist Hugo Grotius' influential book, The Free Sea (Mare Liberum), which served as the foundation of modern international law, particularly for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

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For Grotius, high seas are global commons that, by their very nature, should be accessible to the entire humankind on a non-exclusive basis. And this is precisely what the Philippines' arbitration case is all about: Preserving shared and rule-based access to global commons such as the South China Sea. It is about ensuring the modern principle of "rule of law" against the ancient principal of "might makes right."

Perturbed by the prospect of an embarrassing legal setback, China has embarked on a systematic effort to delegitimise the Philippines' arbitration case and misrepresent its nature. Beijing has lashed out at the arbitration proceedings and, in a comically desperate fashion, has sought to undermine the legitimacy of the arbitration body by setting up its own international courts and (supposedly) rallying up to 60 countries, mostly poor and many landlocked, to question the Philippines' arbitration maneuver.

The Legal Battle

China has tried to procedurally sabotage the Philippines' case by citing exemption clauses under the UNCLOS (see Art. 298, Annex VII), questioning the competency of the tribunal to adjudicate what Beijing describes as fundamentally sovereignty-related disputes, and argued that compulsory arbitration is premature since all avenues of conciliation supposedly haven't been exhausted.

Since arbitration bodies under UNCLOS don't have the mandate to address sovereignty claims, however, the Philippines astutely repackaged its complaint as a matter of sovereignty rights and maritime entitlements. Last October, the arbitral tribunal at The Hague unanimously voted in favor of exercising jurisdiction on the Philippines' case, thus rejecting Beijing's efforts to sabotage Manila's laudable legal effort.

Despite China's refusal to participate in the proceedings, the tribunal judges (under Art. 9, Annex VII) have proceeded with arbitration, but have (under Art. 5, Annex VII) continuously provided Beijing the opportunity to present its case formally or through informal channels such as, say, positions papers and statements by Chinese public officials.

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In a 10-page summary, the judges argued that the Philippines' case "was properly constituted" and that the Southeast Asian country's "act of initiating this arbitration did not constitute an abuse of process [as asserted by China]." Reassuringly, it argued that "China's non-appearance in these proceedings does not deprive the Tribunal of jurisdiction," and "international law does not require a State to continue negotiations when it concludes that the possibility of a negotiated solution has been exhausted."

In short, the Philippines was right to resort to compulsory arbitration, because negotiations with an intransigent China were going nowhere. The Tribunal, however, didn't exercise jurisdiction on all of the Philippines' arguments against China, opting to cover 7 out of 15 items. But other items were left for either further clarification or further consideration since they "do not possess an exclusively preliminary character."

So far, the tribunal has exercised jurisdiction on the determination of the nature of disputed features (see Article 121) such as Scarborough Shoal as well as mischief, Gaven, McKennan, Hughues, Johnson, Cuarteron and Fiery Cross reefs; the environmental impact of China's activities near Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals; and aggressive maneuver against Filipino vessels near the Scarborough Shoal.

Strategic Implications

Though China has formally boycotted the arbitration proceedings at The Hague, and has vigorously argued against compulsory arbitration (under Art. 287, Annex VII of UNCLOS), the arbitral tribunal at The Hague provided the Philippines an unprecedented opportunity to leverage UNCLOS as a basis to resolve maritime disputes in one of the world's most critical Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs). And China can't escape its consequences.

With the jurisdiction hurdle out of the way, the Philippines' case has paved the way for other claimant states to consider similar options. As an indication of the possibility for a "lawfare multiplier," Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan have contemplated the option of taking China to international court over disputes across the Western Pacific. Even if they don't actually file a case, they can extract concessions from China by simply threatening to do so.

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More importantly, a favorable ruling (to the Philippines) could provide the legal pretext for other major powers such as America, Japan and other likeminded states to conduct sustained, multilateral Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) across the disputes waters.

The Philippines and its allies also hope that the tribunal will pass a favorable verdict on key items such as the validity of China's expansive nine-dashed-lien claims and (newly-concocted) doctrine of historical rights, which many objective observers believe are not consistent with prevailing international law.

What is at stake here is no less than protecting global commons under the auspices of international law. The alternative is the tragedy of great power politics and the rule of the jungle in the high seas.
Supporters of the victims of the recent mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub attend a vigil at Lake Eola Park, Sunday, June 19, 2016, Orlando, Fla. Tens of thousands of people attended the vigil. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

I feel the finger on the trigger. I also feel it on the button.

"Dear President Obama," the letter begins. It goes on to remind him of something he said in his 2008 presidential campaign: "Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment's notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation."

The letter, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is signed by 90 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. It continues: "After your election, you called for taking 'our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.'"

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Presidential campaigns, mass killings, war . . . nuclear war. Washington, we have a problem.

The time has come for extraordinary change. Who we are -- this monstrous, planet-destroying entity called America -- needs to be decommissioned and reconstructed on a foundation more solid than the present myths of greatness, greed and entitlement. We need a new vision, a manifestation of the moral intelligence that is also part of who we are: a vision of how this nuclear-armed, gun-saturated nation can disarm itself and, in the process, become a force for real peace.

"We urge you," the scientists write, "to take U.S. land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert and to remove from U.S. war plans the option of launching these weapons on warning. The United States should encourage Russia to follow suit, but it should not wait to act. Taking these steps would have profound security benefits for all Americans by reducing the risk of nuclear disaster."

I think about this in the context of the Orlando murders and see a gruesome similarity between U.S. militarism and the violent forays of armed loners -- and the "concentrated horror" both inflict. The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that the human carnage and environmental destruction resulting from U.S. militarism remain emotionally invisible, you might say, to the American public.

In a powerful essay at TomDispatch, William J. Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, takes a harsh look at the wars we have waged from on high since World War II, noting that "for all its promise of devastating power delivered against enemies with remarkable precision and quick victories at low cost (at least to Americans), air power has failed to deliver, not just in the ongoing war on terror but for decades before it. If anything, by providing an illusion of results, it has helped keep the United States in unwinnable wars, while inflicting a heavy toll on innocent victims on our distant battlefields."

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He adds: "At the same time, the cult-like infatuation of American leaders, from the president on down, with the supposed ability of the U.S. military to deliver such results remains remarkably unchallenged in Washington."

He points out that in the Korean War, in the early '50s, the U.S. pounded North Korea with 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm. Cities were leveled, but the war ended in no better than a stalemate; more than half a century later, Korea remains a bitterly divided nation.

Then came a decade of war in Southeast Asia. By the time this pointless war ended in dishonorable defeat, the U.S. had dropped, according to Astore, "a staggering seven million tons of bombs, the equivalent in explosive yield to more than 450 Hiroshimas," on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. We also poisoned the jungle with defoliants, having given ourselves free rein to commit environmental carnage with horrific consequences well into the unforeseeable future for absurdly limited tactical ends.

It took a decade and a half for the military-industrialists to overcome "Vietnam syndrome," the public's weariness of war, but eventually they were able to put Iraq in the crosshairs, devastating the country with bombs and missiles -- including munitions made of depleted uranium -- over the course of several decades, spreading immediate carnage and long-lasting genetic damage, all of course to no end except endless war.

And the War on Terror, which I call the War To Promote Terror, is still going on 15 years later, with no end in sight. The funding for it is unquestioned and seemingly limitless. The point of it is also unquestioned, except at the social and political margins. It certainly is unquestioned in the 2016 presidential race, especially the winnowed down version of it -- Trump vs. Clinton -- that's left. The military-corporate branch of the American government remains well beyond public reach.

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And so I think about the Orlando murders and the unending grief they have caused in the context of all the murders the U.S. and its allies and its enemies have committed in the name of war.

And I think about the congressional failure to enact any legislation in regard to the sale of assault weapons in the context of the letter 90 scientists associated with the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote to President Obama, reminding him that before he was president he expressed awareness of the danger of having nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, and asking him to remove the 450 land-based nuclear missiles (but not the submarine-based missiles) from high alert.

And I wonder at my certainty that the request will be ignored. And I wonder what will happen next.

- - -

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
In three momentous days June 17-19, 3,000 activists gathered in a People's Summit in Chicago to embrace a continuing resolution to building a broad, bigger progressive movement to transform the nation and the planet.



RoseAnn DeMoro, NNU, former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Donna Smith, Progressive Democrats of America

From the speakers podiums to discussion tables and workshops to trainings on everything from building independent politics to the digital political revolution to how to carry out civil disobedience, it was evident there was overwhelming unity of vision and a common commitment to solidarity in creating change.

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Active table discussions throughout the Summit

"We're in a movement moment," said educator/author Frances Fox Piven. "Those movement moments don't occur too frequently in American history, but when they have occurred, they have changed our society."

At the end of the final day, participants concluded with a call for unified action that includes.

Stepping up pressure on the Democratic Party outside and inside its convention in Philadelphia next month.

Running and supporting progressive candidates for local to statewide to national offices,

A national day of action and protests to greet the next administration next February no matter who is elected President.

And, a strong sense that the inaugural People's Summit would be a harbinger of similar comings together for years to come.

"We are on the precipice of an overwhelming movement -- that political revolution that the country needs so badly," said HIV/AIDS activist Bobby Tolbert of VOCAL NY.

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"What we've created together is incredible," said Moumita Ahmed of Millenials for Bernie. "We're going to come together and win."



Dante Barry

"It is our duty to fight for each other," emphasized Dante Barry, executive director of A Million Hoodies Movement for Justice.

Climate action filmmaker Josh Fox said he is often asked, facing the threat of rising seas and other climate dangers "where do I move? My answer is always the same, anywhere there is a strong movement."

"We aren't going to try to tell people what they need to care about," said Charles Lencher, co-founder of People for Bernie told a reporter. "Our job is to reflect back at them what they already care about--and then get them to take action."



At one of the two dozen breakout sessions, journalist/activist Shaun King, with journalist Sarah Jaffe, noting the role of social media in building both the Sanders campaign and the broader movement. "It allowed us to say, I know this will never be on the Nightly News so I'm going to post it on my Facebook page."

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Many of those in Chicago had worked for months swelling the ranks and success of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

But the Sanders movement does not exist in isolation. Many economic and social forces of resistance and struggle predated this electoral cycle.



Rosario Dawson

"There is a history that has led up to this moment that allows us to step on the backs of so many people who gave us the leverage to be able to speak as powerfully as we are, to organize as well as we have," noted actor/activist Rosario Dawson.

Their recent roots can be traced to neoliberal policies, which began in the 1970s that ripped away at the heart of our country and made everything for sale through deregulation, privatization and austerity measures. But oppression always engenders resistance.

In Chicago those struggles were well represented by activists from Occupy, climate justice, labor protests, housing and healthcare movements, immigration rights, Black Lives Matter, LGBT and gender equality fights, and an escalating student uprising.

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United Students Against Sweatshops activist Andrea Flores relating a successful fight by workers at a Wendy's who were fed up with a broken air conditioning unit in "hot, dusty" El Paso, Tx.

"You know what workers did? They went on strike because they know silence never won rights; they aren't handed from above, fthey're orced by pressures from below. Only struggle produces social change. One hour before the strike was scheduled to begin, we received news they ordered a new AC unit. Direct action gets the good people," said Flores

As former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, one of Sanders' most prominent surrogates put it succinctly to the gathering, "there is no movement without you. You make the difference."



Naomi Klein

"We can't forget that it was social movements that produced the conditions that made governing thinkable," social activist/author Naomi Klein told a reporter. "It was winning enough victories, enough local battles --increases in minimum wage, bans on fracking--that made people feel like, 'Wow, well, maybe we could govern.'

At the same time, many were also quick to emphasize that, as Sanders himself has acknowledged, electoral politics are a part of the movement, but they are not the movement itself. "Politicians will do nothing," Klein added, "unless they are backed by social movements and accountable to those movements."

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"Much as we love Bernie Sanders, he didn't do it by himself. He did it because the movements made a Sanders campaign possible," said Piven. "Movements and electoral politics nourish each other. But electoral politics can also smother movements. So our challenge now is how to keep the movements alive. Movements flourish when there are politicians in office who have reasons to be afraid of them."



Frances Fox Piven

The immediate agenda includes the awareness of the approaching election.

"We do have to defeat Trump, but we don't have to do it in the way the Democratic establishment wants us to," said Becky Bond, a senior advisor to the Sanders campaign.

For many, if not the majority in Chicago, that did not necessarily translate into rallying behind Hillary Clinton.



Dominique Scott

"It's my first election. I'm distraught that the two choices I'm given do not represent me," said student activist Dominique Scott. "It is necessary for us to continue our fight on the ground. We've never relied on a presidential candidate to solve all our problems for us, and it would be silly and irresponsible for us to do that."

The political, ethnic, racial, cultural, social, and generational diversity in the ballrooms and workshops reflected the breadth of the Summit, and a deepening understanding of what it meant to build movements that comprise the nation as a whole.

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"Demographic changes are not the unmaking of America, they're the fulfillment of America," emphasized Demos President Heather McGhee. "Economic inequality for all is what we get" when we're not confronting racism and efforts to separate race and class.

The urgency of the moment also included the recognition of many common causes. On income inequality, the climate crisis, student debt, police misconduct, poverty, and health care among other concerns.

As on immigration rights. "This political revolution is about waking up America, about thinking it's not OK to incarcerate people like my mother and me," said Dreamer and activist Erika Andiola.

On voting rights, "We have to do something about voting rights; it's unconscionable Congress has not done something about it," said Turner.



Tobita Chow

And on the need to address the global crisis and its implications at home. "The only solution to the global race to the bottom is global solidarity," said People's Lobby chair Tobita Chow.

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"We must focus resources on investing at home not on wars of regime change. If we continue to spend trillions on interventionist wars won't be able to make progress at home," said Congress member Tulsi Gabbard.

Ultimately what stands out about this moment in the movement is the injection of new energy, good analysis, and most importantly the unity of purpose.

It is in the unity of purpose where we come together, where we will build and how we will win.

Dawson referred to the swelling movement as a "rising. It has long since been happening. And it will continue to happen because the reasons for it belie election cycle calendars. They are connected to our day-to-day lives; that is what is at stake, our communities, our friends, our families, our future."



Actor Brian Jones presenting a speech by Frederick Douglass

She was one of an accomplished ensemble of professional artists and actors who came together at the Summit to perform readings and songs from the long journey of struggle in U.S. history, inspired by Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Max Carver, Frances Fisher, Gaby Hoffman, Helen Hong, Brian Jones, Christina Kirk, Hari Kondabolu, Kendrick Sampson, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Charlyne Yi joined Dawson on stage.

Dominique Scott described a successful fight to compel the University of Mississippi to take down its Confederate flag. "We were able to bring together marginalized communities that had never been in conversations before. Because we built student power we showed students what was possible. In standing in solidarity with other students, we showed not only the campus but also the world that anything is possible through solidarity, and through organizing and working together."

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National Nurses United was as lead organizer of the event, joined by, among others, People's Action, People for Bernie, People's Lobby, Progressive Democrats of America, United Students Against Sweatshops, and Democratic Socialists of America.

Klein was one of many offering thanks to NNU for its role. "You knew that we would need to gather, that we would need a place to look each other in the eye, to talk, to strategize, to plan next steps. And I just want to thank you for your courage, the joy you bring to this movement, the fact that you have stood with all of our movements without hesitation, without those political calculations and just done what's right, again and again and again, and it has not gone unnoticed," Klein said.

The People's Summit was a solidifying moment --acknowledging both the huge boost the Bernie Sanders campaign gave to issues we've fought to advance for decades--and also confirming our commitment to never waiver in that fight.
Academic nursing is committed to protecting the public's health by taking decisive action to address the nation's opioid epidemic. AACN has led the national effort to enhance the education of students in APRN programs on safe prescribing practices. Over the past 3 months, more than 200 schools of nursing with APRN programs have pledged to educate their students on the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The addition of this content compliments the information APRN students currently receive on such topics as pain management and substance abuse.

AACN is committed to working with the larger APRN community - including the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the American Nurses Association, the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties - to launch a new online educational series that will serve as a resource for practicing nurses, faculty, and students on opioid topics including: an overview of the current need to address opioid use disorder and overdose; integrating timely content into curricula; and the CDC's new prescribing guideline.


Three days after the shooting of 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a speech on YouTube, which received over 22 million views on Facebook alone. Whilst the motivations of the shooter remain unknown, Netanyahu's celebrated speech presents them as explicitly terrorist in nature. What we see is a classic case of pinkwashing, a tactic that hijacks LGBTQ struggles for other agendas, while distracting from other injustices and violence. For Netanyahu, this means using pro-gay rhetoric to strengthen the Israeli apartheid, dependent as it is on fear and hatred toward "radical Islamist terror." A tactic that further erases the visibility of Palestinian and Muslim queers.
Woman looking at a picture frame

[part 2 of "An Open Letter To The Bride Who Thought She'd Never Marry"]



I know times have been tough, and the last couple of years have felt like a rollercoaster; emotionally, physically, and spiritually. That's the thing about divorce; one day you're popping champagne with friends celebrating your freedom, while another you can't help but notice most other moms your age are having second babies - while you're selling a house that was once a home, splitting assets, and sharing custody.



That being said, I can promise you things will get better. Time heals most wounds, and you'll realize there's peace and forgiveness in your heart. Heartbreak and anger will fade into acceptance and newly found independence.

The silver lining found within your ending marriage is the positive people and circumstances in your life wouldn't be there if you hadn't gone through the anguish of change. Like death, you mourn during divorce, and you have to allow yourself to grieve to move forward. Life is tough, but remember, so are you.

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You will lose some friends who won't understand you've had to be quite selfish at times to survive, but, the people in your life right now truly love and support you, no matter how often you're too busy to respond to a text (and then forget it ever existed in the first place), can't answer a phone call because you're chasing after a toddler, or trying to balance 39871 things at once, or how frequently you may have to reschedule get-togethers.

Time will continue to pass and you will always put being a good mama first; don't ever feel like you're making the wrong choice by doing so. Nevertheless, remember that taking time outside of work and mom life to fill your being with things that make you happy will make you a better person and an even better mother. Take time to dabble in hobbies, mend friendships, and do things that make you feel whole.



You'll pick up yoga again, and you'll read inspiring books. You'll make a 2016 adventure list and start to check them off. You'll start a journal and dive back into blogging again. You'll fall in love with healthy cooking, and find a passion in helping others. You'll do some pretty incredible collaborations in your professional career, and deserve to feel really proud of yourself.

Every other Friday as you approach "daddy's weekend", you'll always worry about what your son is eating, wonder if he misses your bedtime snuggles, and question what he's doing when he's not with you. But, you'll eventually learn to accept this is your new normal, and he's always just a phone call away. Plus, toddler hugs and kisses are even more special after a couple days apart (although a weekend always feels like forever).

I know you don't believe it, but you will eventually find room in your heart to forgive the hurt of infidelity. Because of it, you find what true strength and courage feels like. You will always stay true to yourself and what you believe in, and you will continue to blossom and grow.

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Although it may seem like something you'll never want to open your heart up to again, I can tell you that you will eventually go on dates post-divorce. Some of them may convince you that you may want to be single forever, and you'll constantly question what's up with this nonchalant modern dating scene, but the point is to meet people again, talk about adult things, and feel like a person. A woman.



Moving and separating assets will be challenging, but, hey, you can move into a beach shack only you and a pint-sized person would fit into, you can pick out your own bedding for the first time since college, you can clutter your fridge with photos, make meals only you want to eat, go where you want to go, when you want to (even if you're always running late), and through it all, you will continue to learn who you want to be along the way - as a mother, a businesswoman, and as a person.



On the brink of 30, you will thank yourself for remembering to always find the beauty in breakdowns and see the glass half full. Immersing yourself in a life filled with vivacity, vigor, humbleness and adventures will keep you mentally healthy and happy. You are living a life full of self-love and creativity that you so deserve, and have always yearned for.
Courtesy, Meditation Museum



She: The HRH Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia.



They: Disadvantaged youth from the slums of Colombia.

The Meeting: The Meditation Museum for an afternoon of music, healing and peace.



48 Hours Later: The Colombian government has agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with FARC rebels, a historic agreement that could move towards the signing of a peace agreement.



Several private organizations and individuals from Colombia joined forces to sponsor the youth to visit America. Ranging from 12-18 years old, they are the winners of the singing festival, Cantando y Educando (Singing and Learning). They are students from the poorest public schools in the crime-ridden city of Cali, one of the most violent cities in the world. Each brought such a unique voice and sound. Some played instruments, many sang from their hearts. Together, they are Voices of La Paz (Voices of Peace).



HRH Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia came to America to participate in diplomatic meetings and to share her new book, The Fourth Way Law. From different worlds, they crossed paths outside the nation's capital. I first met Princess Basmah during a private event hosted by author and civic leader, Reverend Marcia Dyson to share the Meditate The Vote movement with her. We had a lovely time and I learned how much we have in common in terms of our love for humanity. I could feel that our story together was not yet finished.

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The next day, I observed the incredible group of youth in concert. I was so moved by their talent, courage and determination to transcend their stories of struggle in their home country of Colombia. As I offered a moment of silence and blessing to wish their future to be brighter than a thousand suns during their program, I knew that their voices must be heard much further than that moment.



Our purest thoughts come from silence; when we can pause the details of our schedules, and hear the purpose of why our paths cross with another. I invited both HRH Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia and the Colombian youth to the Meditation Museum, as it is customary in my tradition to welcome guests into our spaces that are so carefully nurtured with remembrance of God. Destiny was created for them to attend on the same day, at the same time. A magical moment emerged for the youth to meet a real life Princess, a scene perhaps only known to them through a Disney movie.

The youth arrived in the Meditation Museum with a quiet exhaustion. In two vans, with guitars, drums, and rain sticks in hand, they filed in to the Meditation Museum. First, they were guided on a tour. Although they had visited the museums of Washington, DC the previous day, they didn't compare to the exhibits of One Light, Who Am I, and Soul and Body Awareness. All are intended to wake up a deep memory within each of us, and feel our destination Home.

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Then we gathered in a circle, greeted each other and began to share. Through a demonstration of crystal bowls, we experienced how our thoughts create vibrations; it is always our choice as to what kind of vibration we wish to spread. It is so important for each of us to recognize the negative thoughts we are holding, and find a way to release them. The youth each wrote a painful memory or experience from their lives in Colombia, that they were still holding, as a means to formally let them go. It is only then that each can truly believe in their power.



Courtesy, Meditation Museum

As the moment approached for Princess Basmah to arrive, the youth lined up, each holding a red rose for greeting her. She greeted each youth member individually, and then took her seat at the front of the Meditation Museum. The youth began to perform, and the atmosphere filled with a heart-felt energy. When a young woman began to sing, "I Will Always Love You," the Princess turned to me and said, "How did you know?" "Know what?" I asked. "This is my favorite song," she said with awe in her voice. "Our purest wishes are fulfilled here, it is what the space represents," I shared.

Princess Basmah then offered a message and blessing to the youth. "Your life is for purpose," she deliberately shared with the youth. "Never let anything distract you from that." She and I excused ourselves for a private meeting, while the youth and their guides enjoyed a home-cooked meal, continued touring the exhibits, and shared their experiences of the trip with the volunteers of the Meditation Museum. Slowly and naturally, they returned to playing music, singing and dancing. It is their art, their way of healing, their purpose.

"I have never felt so much love before," one of the youth shared while receiving her blessing card. It was a rainy Tuesday in Washington, DC. Amidst a hostile political climate with Democrats waging a sit-in on the floor on Capitol Hill, the aftermath of a tragic event in Orlando, and countless struggles around the world, The Princess and the Poorest not only met, but also experienced the same peace and momentary perfection of life. When the intention is to love all of God's children the same, that is exactly what is felt.



Courtesy, Colombian Embassy



Then, just 48 hours after that profound meeting, on June 23rd, after 70 years of war, the Government of Colombia and its largest guerrilla announced a definite, bilateral cease-fire. Generations of Colombians have never known one day of peace in their country. These youth may be the first generation in decades whose children will be born in a country at peace. I believe that they truly are The Voices of Peace. They are certainly ready to walk the talk with the flag of Colombia. They will return to their home country with renewed peace for themselves, their country and the world. I believe our thoughts have the power to create this vibration.

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On May 26, 2016, the South Florida Bloggers had the privilege to attend a cooking class at the iconic Biltmore Hotel's Culinary Academy to prepare and indulge in several dishes composed with Parmigiano Reggiano as well as to expand our knowledge about this diverse cheese from Italy. For instance, did you know that Parmigiano Reggiano is the only true Parmesan cheese because it is the only cheese made in the Parma province of Italy? This astounding cheese has been around for 900 years and has about 300 producers. There's also the fact that it contains only 3 simple ingredients; raw cow's milk, rennet and sea salt. Plus, the health benefits are fantastic. It is lactose free, rich in high quality with no additives whatsoever and an easily digestible protein. A simple 1oz. piece of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese will supply you with 20% of your daily requirement for protein. Oh, and here's an added bonus: it's naturally low carb.

Our hostess from Consorzio Parmigiano-Reggiano USA Promotions and Marketing, the lovely Danielle Caponio Bolla and her witty husband, Federico "Fede" Bolla, greeted us upon arrival with some refreshing bubbles and an array of nibbles to nosh on while assisting with registration. We also met the previous US ambassador of Parmigiano-Reggiano USA, Nancy Radke, who enlightened us with some wonderful stories about this diverse cheese.

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The Biltmore's Culinary Academy is a full functioning restaurant-style kitchen with several stations and can accommodate up to 24 attendees. We were all given aprons and after an engaging introduction from our hosts, The Biltmore's Executive Chef, David Hackett instructed us to divide into 6 groups of 4 people and gave each group a recipe assignment. All ingredients were supplied and each of the recipes involved Parmigiano Reggiano. You are going to be amazed at the dishes we created.

The team of Mei Jorge of @blameitonmei. Juliana Posada and Catalina Duncan of @tinseldot and Diana Rodriguez of @dmrodriguez22 were assigned the Parmigiano Reggiano & Cilantro Gnocchi with Key Lime Butter Sauce which would be served inside a giant Parmigiano Reggiano wheel. Insanely delicious and the presentation was superb.

The ingredients for the gnocchi included baked and smashed Idaho potatoes, ricotta cheese, grated parmigiano reggiano, extra-virgin olive oil cilantro leaves (which would be pureed in a blender with the ricotta cheese), all-purpose flour to use and for dusting, semolina flour for dusting and kosher salt. The ingredients for the Cilantro/Key Lime Butter sauce included the juice of key limes, minced garlic and shallots salt, ground pepper, Worcestershire sauce, unsalted butter and finely chopped, fresh cilantro. The finished product was beyond amazing.

The team of Sabrina Valdivieso of @sabrinaclementine, Nety Del of @thefashionableesq, Natalia Lilly of @iamnatalialilly and Maria Angelica Fassrainer of @nailsandpalettes were assigned the Parmigiano Reggiano Crusted Sea Scallops with Cumin Corn Salsa, which were truly scrumptious.

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The ingredients for this dish included jumbo sea scallops, mayonnaise, grated parmigiano reggiano, cayenne pepper, fresh lemon juice and crushed whole wheat crackers. For the corn salsa, the following ingredients were used: corn, poblano peppers, red bell peppers, red onions, red tomatoes, green olives, pickled jalapeno, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper.

The next team consisting of Nancy Radke, Erika Villalobos of @essentiallyerika, Gabrielle Pelicci and Lisa Lotts of @garlicandzest were assigned one of my very favorite dishes; the Iberico Ham, Phyllo, Parmigiano Reggiano Asparagus Fingers. These were delicious and they included asparagus, freshly ground pepper, Iberico ham, phyllo dough, unsalted melted butter and grated parmigiano reggiano.

My team, which included our delightful host Danielle, Amber Love Bond of @amber__love, myself and Fede, Danielle's husband, prepared the Parmigiano Reggiano Potato Flan served with Chorizo, Wild Mushroom and Tomato Ragu.

At first, I wondered if we were making a dessert because flan to me is a sweet treat but this was certainly not sweet. It was made with Idaho potatoes, grated parmigiano reggiano, whole butter, eggs, nutmeg, salt and pepper and placed in an aluminum ramekin very similar to the ones used for flan desserts.

For the chorizo, wild mushroom and tomato ragu, we sliced and diced Button, Oyster and Portobello mushrooms, fresh Mexican chorizo, tomatoes, onions, flour, chicken stock, salt and pepper. The last step was involved the grated fontina cheese and heavy whipping cream which melted together and ultimately wisped over the potato flan and ragu. Absolutely delectable.

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The 5th team included Alejandro Fertitta of @munchmiami, Claudia Serrano and Ricardo Arbona of @knockonfoodrc and Laura Sgroi of @laura.sgroi were assigned the Parmigiano Reggiano Taco Shells with Cuban Picadillo. Can you believe that the taco shells were 100% parmigiano reggiano cheese? They were outstanding.

The picadillo was made with ground beef, oregano, cumin, garlic, white onion, green pepper, beef stock, tomato sauce, potatoes, pitted green olives, olive oil, salt and pepper and when the tacos were assembled, shaved parmesan and diced tomatoes were added as a topping. Extremely flavorful.

The final team consisted of Paola Mendez, who is the President of the South Florida Bloggers and also of @coralgableslove, Francesca Belluomini of @chicfbdotcom, Jazmin Rojas of @jazzyblog and Jose Resendez of @thejoseresendez. They were assigned the delightful Spicy Chocolate Dipped Assorted Fruit with Dusted Parmigiano Reggiano and Coconut Dust which was exquisite. They used fresh strawberries, cantaloupes, pineapples and grapes and assembled them into skewers. For the chocolate fondue and toasted coconut flakes, they used semisweet chocolate, ground cinnamon and cayenne pepper which they placed into a fondue pot and then put the coconut flakes in the oven for browning and toasting and then mixed with the and grated parmigiano reggiano. Afterwards, the fruit skewers were dipped into the chocolate fondue and dredged in the coconut and cheese mixture.

What an amazing experience and evening! An abundance of thanks to Parmigiano Reggiano, The Biltmore Hotel's Culinary Academy and South Florida Bloggers.

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For more information about Parmigiano Reggiano, please visit: http://www.parmigianoreggiano.com/

For information about The Biltmore's Culinary Academy, please visit: http://www.biltmorehotel.com/bca/
The bravado of Donald Trump has proven to be a powerful tool in the presumptive nominee's war chest, instantaneously acquiring the spotlight from early party favorites, such as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, during his bid announcement, and dominating the media's election coverage ever since. While many of the boisterous billionaire's claims are met with skepticism, Mr. Trump's assertion that he has vastly expanded the Republican electorate comes, in theory, with the mathematical foundation to support such a claim. Indeed, primary turnout for Republicans has soared, and Donald Trump walked away with the highest vote count for a Republican Primary in American history. Mr. Trump's popular vote, alone, could embody a modest-sized primary -- constituting over 70 percent of the 2012 primary electorate. Such figures should afford, at the very least, a glimmer of encouragement to the leaders of a party that has failed to win the popular vote five of the last six election cycles.

However, before anyone at RNC headquarters starts popping the champagne corks, Trump actually fared worse, percentage wise, than all of the recent GOP nominees. In fact, Mr. Trump's campaign presents the lowest ratio of primary support for a nominee in the Republican Party since Richard Nixon in 1968.

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The growth in the pure number of voters is certainly nothing to sneeze at, and if Republicans come anywhere close to duplicating the 61 percent growth in voter participation exhibited during this primary cycle come November, Donald Trump will handily defeat Hillary Clinton. Yet, as many pundits and political analysts have already pointed out, there is no discernible correlation between higher primary turnouts and winning the general election. Further, this year's crowded arena of Republican presidential hopefuls may be a more realistic driver of voter participation than Mr. Trump's bombastic depiction of his policy platform simply due to the shear manpower exhausted by so many political machines operating in a concentrated area (Iowa, New Hampshire, etc) at once. All this is to say, the stir caused by Donald Trump may not be the only reason for high turnout.

Even if we give Mr. Trump full credit as the cause of the increase in civic participation, an analysis of the data available to us suggests that the voters Donald Trump has pulled into the process are not the ones he needs to win in the general election.

Our analysis, utilizing voter mapping capabilities provided by L2 Political, has instead found that Mr. Trump's "biggest thing happening in politics" might be much ado about nothing. Of the millions of additional Republican voters casting their ballots in this year's primaries, only 7 percent did not participate in either the 2012 or 2008 presidential general elections. The vast majority of Republican voters, including Trump's "silent majority," would have likely participated in the general election, regardless of his candidacy.

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While not a huge number, this figure still illustrates an expanding Republican base following significant losses in 2008 and 2012. Furthermore, if the 7 percent growth were to carry through to November on the Republican side, it would clearly help cut the deficit we saw in the popular vote in 2012. Be that as it may, 2012 is not 2016 and the popular vote is not how we elect our president.

When we look at the numbers in some of the states where data is available to us, we see a less promising number for the GOP. In Ohio, for example, Republican primary participation grew by 14 percent from 2012 to 2016, and yet, only 1 percent of this year's participants are not normal general election voters (they did not participate in the 2012 or 2008 general elections). Further, Trump lost Ohio to a primary challenger and one of his biggest critics, Governor John Kasich. The Ohio Governor vocalized staying in the race specifically to impede Mr. Trump's delegate prospects even as Mr. Kasich held no mathematical chance at the nomination. While it is impossible to know the motivations of each individual voter, it is not too much of a stretch to say that a good number of additional voters flocking to the polls in the Buckeye State likely sought to keep the nomination from Trump.

If we look further south, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pulled off an impressive victory in his home state over the presumptive nominee. In this case, the Grand Ole Party's largest safe state for the general election precisely doubled Republican turnout in the primary from four years ago. But once again the vast majority of these voters are not new voters. In fact, only one-in-ten Texans had not participated in the last two general elections.

While the data available cannot differentiate to whom these new voters cast their ballots for, it is hard to believe that the tenth of the electorate categorized as new voters went to Donald Trump while Senator Cruz maintained a victory margin that can only be called a landslide.

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To be fair there was one state we found where Donald Trump's claims hold up (at least at first glance): North Carolina. In the Tar Heel State, Trump won and the state experienced an 8 percent increase in primary participation while also having 8 percent of their electorate constitute new voters. However, when adjusting for the natural cycle of voters passing and a new generation registering to vote, the 8 percent electorate growth shrivels down to an insignificant 1.2 percent increase. The other 6.8 percent of new voters were not registered to vote until after the 2012 general election -- within the projected realm of new millennial voters outlined in the Census Bureau's most recent polling report. Could some of these voters have been motivated to register by Trump? Absolutely, however it is tough to argue that all of them were. Additionally, adjusting for newly registered voters in other states yields a similarly inconsequential portion of the electorate having been brought into the process. Real counts in Ohio and Texas dropped to 0.6 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, and the aggregate Republican Primary electorate falls from 7 percent to 1.7 percent.
In the 21st century it's harder for large corporations to create disruptive breakthroughs. Disruptive innovations are coming from startups - Telsa for automobiles, Uber for taxis, Airbnb for hotel rentals, Netflix for video rentals and Facebook for media.

What's holding large companies back? Here are four reasons:

First, companies bought into the false premise that they exist to maximize shareholder value - which said "keep the stock price high." As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. These metrics make it difficult for a company that wants to invest in long-term innovation. It's a lot easier to get these numbers to look great by outsourcing everything, getting assets off the balance sheet and only investing in things that pay off fast. To do that, companies jettisoned internal R&D labs, outsourced manufacturing and cut long-term investment. These resulting business models made them look incredibly profitable.

Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. They knew how to execute the current business model.

Intel under their last two CEOs delivered more revenue and profit than any ever before. They could point to record investment in R&D for more expensive chip fabs yet today the writing is on the wall that Intel's leading days are over. Why?

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Over the last decade, Intel missed two important disruptive trends. First, the shift away from desktop computers to mobile devices meant that Intel's power-hungry x86 processors weren't suitable. ARM, a competitor, not only had a better, much lower power processor, but a better business model - they licensed their architecture to other companies that designed their own products. Intel attempted to compete, (and actually owned an ARM license) but fell victim to a classic failure of ignoring a low-end disruptor and hobbling their own chances by deciding not cannibalize their own very profitable x86 business. All of Intel's resources - fabs, manufacturing strategies, and most importantly executive mindset -- were geared towards large, expensive x86 processors, not low-cost mobile cores of someone else's design.

The result, Intel just laid off 12,000 people, 11% of their company.

But it's not over for Intel. Their most profitable segment is very high-end processors used in data centers in servers and the cloud. Today that's built on the premise that an x86 architecture is the one best suited for big data. It's becoming clear that extracting intelligence from that big data requires machine learning architectures which are better implemented with non x86 chips from companies like NVidia. It's possible that by the end of this decade history might repeat itself in Intel's most profitable segment.

The third reason why companies find it hard to innovate is the explosive shifts in technology, platforms and markets that have occurred in the last 15 years-personal computers moving to mobile devices; life science breakthroughs in therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health; and new markets like China emerging as consumers and suppliers.

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Which brings us to the fourth reason it's harder for large corporations to offer disruptive breakthroughs: startups.

For the first 75 years of the 20th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs.

But starting in the last quarter of that century and accelerating in this one, a new form of financing - risk capital (angel and venture capital) -- emerged. Risk capital has provided financing for new ideas in the form of startups. Capital is returned to these investors through liquidity events (originally public offerings, but today mostly acquisitions).

Startups have realized that large companies are vulnerable because of the very things that have made them large and profitable: by focusing on maximizing shareholder return, they've jettisoned their ability to do disruptive innovation at speed and scale. In contrast, startups operate with speed and urgency, making decisions with incomplete information. They're better than large companies at identifying customer needs/problems and finding product/market fit by pivoting rapidly. Their size lets them adopt flatter and more agile organizational structures while providing incentives that reward risk-taking and collaboration.

Startups are unencumbered by the status quo. They re-envision how an industry can operate and grow, and they focus on better value propositions. On the low-end, they undercut cost structures, resulting in customer migration. At the high-end they create products and services that never existed before.

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As we've seen, corporations are very good at maintaining, defending and refining existing business models, and they're pretty good at extending existing models by identifying adjacencies. But corporations are weak, and have become weaker, in identifying new disruption opportunities.

Innovation can come from inside the corporation, by adopting Lean Startup language and methods, developing intrapreneurship, and fostering innovation-driving behaviors such as GE's FastWorks program. And corporations can foster innovation from the outside by promoting open innovation and buying startup-driven innovation. Google has bought close to 160 companies in the last decade. Its acquisition of Android may have been the biggest bargain in corporate history.

So to succeed, corporations must re-think and then re-invent their corporate innovation model, replacing a static execution model with three horizons of continuous innovation: This requires a corporate culture, organizational structure, and employee incentives that reward innovation. It requires establishing acceptable risk level and innovation KPIs for each horizon.

And it also requires understanding the differences between executing the existing business model, extending the business model and searching for and disrupting the business model.

Lessons Learned

-- Even the most innovative companies eventually become yesterdays news

-- To survive companies need to run

Horizon 1 - execute their existing business model(s)

Horizon 2 - extend their existing business model(s)

And for long-term survival - Horizon 3 - search for and create new/disruptive business model(s)
California, New York and now Washington D.C. are passing laws requiring small businesses to pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour. These laws are an attempt to provide an increased wage to workers, but at what cost? Some evidence suggests that these changes will mean disaster for the very people such they are trying to help: the young working poor. Meanwhile our economy is burdened with $19 trillion in federal debt, an incomprehensible tax code, unsustainable trade agreements and 80,000 pages of business regulation, all of which result in economic stagnation and slow growth of wages.



Unemployment continues to plague American towns and cities (source)

Today, 24 million small business are operating in America. They account for almost half of our country's GNP. These businesses created 64% of our new jobs over the last 15 years, and are responsible for over half of our patents. They pay a remarkable one-third of all local, state, and federal taxes. In every corner of society, entrepreneurs are creating opportunity for American workers.

More than the astounding statistical punch of America's small businesses, they are the soul of the towns and cities that criss-cross our country; the brave and dedicated entrepreneurs who risk everything for these businesses, the driving force of many local economies. Despite that fact, most startups--several million--go out of business every year. One main reason so many businesses fail is that the market will not support a good or service that does not benefit the consumer. That is simple fact and, many would claim, the inherent justice of the market economy.

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Learn more about entrepreneurship's formidable footprint here

But another reason for failure exists--and that is the systemic burden many countries impose on entrepreneurs in the form of regulations. From the onerous 79,000 pages of tax code and the massive regulations a business owner must navigate, this system often steals a business' first breath before most consumers even know it exists. Today, more regulations are hitting the entrepreneur than ever before, including higher minimum wage laws passing around the country.

In a free market, wages--the cost of labor--are determined by supply and demand. During times of slow growth or economic contraction, there is fewer opportunity for both entrepreneurs or workers. There are fewer jobs: a labor market with a greater number of job-seekers and opportunities, driving down competitive rates of compensation. Conversely, in a growing economy millions of jobs are created, supply wanes and workers demand higher wages as businesses compete for workers.

Demand correlates to how much a consumer will purchase of a product or service. Supply represents what is being offered. (source)

When a regulatory entity--such as the government--requires a minimum wage, something very different occurs. In markets with a greater supply of workers than demand, businesses will begin to layoff all the employees being paid at rates lower than the minimum wage. Take for example, California, where new regulations dictate a $15/hour minimum wage. California small businesses will be forced to make a difficult--in many cases impossible--decision: pay hundreds or thousands more in monthly labor costs and risk going out of business, or eliminate jobs to keep costs low. Other strategies also come into play. Factories will invest in machinery to replace human labor. Companies will begin to hire short contract labor or even hire off their books--something that is not only a crime but also robs the tax base and sets a poor example in the community. And companies will think twice about hiring employees who have unique workplace issues.

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As the supply of labor increases beyond the demand, even fewer jobs exist above the natural wage rate. (source)

So who benefits from wage regulations? Not large businesses who must find new and creative ways to ensure profitability (think: moving operations overseas, contracting a firm to handle all of customer service out-of-house). And not small business owners, who are already burdened by the government regulations we mentioned earlier. While large companies have the resources to hire out-of-house or negotiate with unions when their hourly workers demand a new wage, small businesses simply do not have the cash reserve to pay the increased wage. As is almost always the case, the small business owner will shrink operations so that she can perform more of the work herself. That doesn't sound so bad when you look at one or two businesses, but an entire nation of small business owners retreating and shrinking their operations also slows innovations and improvements, which shrinks the economy further.

Teenage workers, including those with economic hardship, do not benefit from an increased minimum wage (source)

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Some argue that the beneficiary to raised minimum wages is the worker--and in many cases, the black or latino kid, the single parent. After all, it is incredibly distressing to earn just $8/hour, even more so if you are supporting a child--distressing to a person's financial power as well as to his or her spirit. This wage keeps most workers living in poverty--especially those supporting a child or disabled relative. But Sadly the question becomes: is a young person better off in a world of $15-minimum wages when she is unemployed?

My own work has shown me over and over again the answer is no: entrepreneurship education helps low-income students increase their odds at success in the future by teaching them business skills today. Perhaps a better long-term solution than raising the minimum wage is to make it easier for young people to start their own businesses? Why deny those kids the opportunity for an autonomous job that is more satisfying than those at the minimum wage?

A better option would be to let wages settle at market value, while providing the education and resources adequate to helping students earn basic entrepreneurial skills, recognition in the community, and a better chance at a fulfilling career. When government policy encourages a competitive educational system that would encourage the teaching of entrepreneurial and ownership skills, along with a simple tax code that encourages business startups, our youth will have better options, more chance for success, and greater access to secure economic trajectories.
(This piece was co-authored by Carolina Mendoza)

For over fourteen centuries, Islamic societies from Morocco to China have had sexual landscapes as diverse as the lands they have been built on. Multiple ways of negotiating sexual behavior have existed for as long as the religion itself. In fact, the idea that sex should only occur between two married heterosexuals is a relatively recent norm -one which came about during the process of Westernization in the late nineteenth century.

While "homosexuality" first appeared as a medical term in the late nineteenth century, it is appropriate to speak of a long history of homoeroticism in Islamic societies. Far from being considered entirely taboo, homoeroticism and homoerotic behavior was found everywhere from the most ostentatious caliph's court to the humblest Sufi lodge.

To be clear: exegetes (interpreters of scripture) and jurists (creators of law) have often historically condemned certain homosexual acts for men and women alike, though -before recent centuries- many had no issue with desire for someone of the same sex and its public expression. However, there is no reason to think that exegetes and jurists alone define what is "Islamic." Literature and lived practice are not only just as important in producing the definition of Islam, but are sometimes more indicative of what people actually think and do.

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While there are Muslims and non-Muslims alike who claim that the Qur'an condemns homosexuality, no verse of the Qur'an gives a legal punishment for either homoerotic inclinations or behaviors. Muslims have generally relied upon the story of "Lot's folk" in the Qur'an as a foundation for homophobia. The Qur'anic narrative, however, can be (and has been) read a number of ways. While many exegetes claim that the "deed of Lot's folk" was homosexual behavior, other Muslims have argued that the action being condemned is in fact rape. Early Muslims also read certain verses of the Qur'an as carrying homoerotic allusions, such as verses describing Paradise.

Non-Qur'anic Islamic scripture speaks of a group of men in the Prophet Muhammad's city (Medina) known as the mukhannaths. Commentators have classified these men under a number of different labels (including homosexuals, transgender women, intersex individuals, bisexuals, and hermaphrodites). The actual identity of the mukhannaths remains unclear, and is unlikely to correspond neatly to any modern categories. What seems clearer, however, is that to be a mukhannath was to have no sexual desire for women. This allowed mukhannaths special access to women's private spaces in Medinan society, a form of social power which gave them the ability to act as choice matchmakers.

The mukhannaths are said to have lived in the Prophet's city during his lifetime and well afterwards. Several were renowned musicians. The mukhannaths remained a staple of Islamic society well into the Abbasid period, two hundred years after the Prophet Muhammad's death. It was during this era when the creators of Islamic scripture began writing polemical and condemnatory commentaries against the mukhannaths as part of a greater attempt to regulate public sexuality. The fact that they spent much effort attempting to do this implies the vast diversity of sexual life in medieval Islamic societies.

Many poets of the same era took a sharply distinct approach to homoeroticism. Abbasid-era poetry, written in both Arabic and Persian, was deeply suffused with homoerotic imagery. The literary figure of the Beloved was often used as a device in lyric poetry as the object of the poet's desire. A great number of these Beloveds were male, including "cupbearer boys," "beardless youths," "Indians," and "Turkic slave-soldiers." Many of the most renowned Persian poets of the medieval world -such as Sa'di, Sana'i, and Hafez- addressed many of their love poems to such Beloveds. Writing in Arabic, the poet Abu Nuwas did much the same thing.

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Homoeroticism also featured prominently in medieval prose. In works such as the Thousand and One Nights, stories depict (male and female) homosexual behavior as both incidental to certain plots and central to others. The Ensembles of the chief judge of Balkh (in modern Afghanistan) contains a lively discussion between a "sodomite" and a "fornicator" who argue about who has the better lifestyle before the author concludes that both have their merits. The Qabusnama, written by a Persian ruler as advice for his heir, explicitly outlines the best ways of practicing homosexual behavior. This ruler ultimately suggests that his son adopt a bisexual approach so that he could reap the benefits of both sexes.

The sheer range of medieval Islamic societies -including Western China, Central Asia, parts of the Indian subcontinent, the Persian Gulf, eastern and northern Africa, and more- makes it impossible to fit a comprehensive history of homoeroticism into a concise space. Most sources for more information on the matter remain unexplored.

But even from a brief overview of medieval Islamic queerness, it is clear that blanket homophobia is historically unjustifiable. One cannot claim that Islamic societies have always rejected homoeroticism or non-heterosexual behavior. Nor can one say that they were havens for non-heterosexual individuals or communities.

Rather -much like every other aspect of these societies, and all other societies- the place of homoeroticism was constantly contested and challenged. There were too many sexualities in the medieval world (as is the case today) for us to make any one totalizing claim about which one was Islamic.
After the horrific mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump reiterated his concern that Muslim immigrants in the U.S. could be a security risk.

The shooter, Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen whose parents came to the United States from Afghanistan, pledged his support for the Islamic State, or ISIS, during the attack. Not only did Trump promise to suspend immigration from parts of the world tied to terrorism against the United States, he also charged that Muslim Americans were complicit in the shooting, stating:

They know what is going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what, they didn't turn them in and we had death and destruction.

A few days later, he called for increased surveillance of American mosques, saying:

We have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques and we have to check other places because this is a problem that, if we don't solve it, it's going to eat our country alive.

He later added that profiling of Muslims in the U.S. is "common sense."

In its coverage of his reaction, The New York Times wrote, "he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity."

Many elected Republicans have distanced themselves from Trump's remarks, but what about the American public?

I'm a political scientist who studies public opinion about policies related to America's changing ethnic composition, and research I conducted a few years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks may shed some light on how Trump's reaction to the mass shooting are resonating with the electorate.

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Views on detention, internment









REUTERS/Joshua Roberts





In a nationally representative survey conducted in 2004, I asked respondents:

Since Sept. 11, some law enforcement agencies have stopped and searched people who are Arab or of Middle Eastern descent to see if they may be involved in potential terrorist activities. Do you approve or disapprove of this kind of profiling?

I also asked half of the respondents:

If there were another terrorist attack in the U.S. with Arab or Middle-Eastern suspects, would you support or oppose allowing the government to hold Arabs who are U.S. citizens in camps until it can be determined whether they have links to terrorist organizations?"

The other half was asked the same question but with "Arab immigrants" replacing "Arabs who are U.S. citizens."

My questions asked about people who are Arab or Middle Eastern, while Donald Trump's comments are targeted at Muslims. These groups are not the same. But I believe my survey results shed some light on how Americans view Trump's comments because many Americans have trouble identifying the difference between these groups. Indeed, many Americans even confuse Sikhs, adherents of a religion originating in Southeast Asia, with Arabs and Muslims.

Overall, the results of my research showed broad support (66 percent) for increased searches of people who are Arab and Middle Eastern.

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The results also showed that roughly one-third of Americans supported placing people in camps until their innocence can be determined: 34 percent supported interning Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants while 29.5 percent supported interning Arab and Middle Eastern American citizens. Most of this support came from whites, Republicans and people without a college degree.

According to my survey, the people who were more likely than others to support profiling were people who:

feared they or someone they know might be a victim of a terrorist attack

felt that whites are discriminated against, and

thought that in order to be a "true American" someone must be Christian, white, and born in America.

The aggregate level of support for internment was around 30 percent.

Among the six percent of respondents who strongly agreed that "true Americans" are Christian, white and born in America, support for interning Arab or Middle Eastern Americans was 73 percent.

Among the 25 percent of respondents who said it was somewhat important that Americans have these characteristics, support for interning U.S. citizens of Arab or Middle Eastern origin was 51 percent.

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These findings are particularly relevant for our current election. Exit polls from the 2016 Republican primaries show that Trump has done particularly well among whites without college degrees who feel that they are being left behind.

Trump's call to "make America great again" hearkens back to a mythical past that disaffected whites yearn for. There is likely an overlap between the whites in my study who resist defining American identity as inclusive of people with nonwhite, non-Christian and non-European origins and who think that white Americans are getting the short end of the stick.

Put simply, I believe the groups most attracted to Trump throughout the primaries are the same groups that were particularly likely to support ethnic profiling back in 2004.

Some portion of the electorate is made up of voters who welcome Trump's rejection of pluralism and inclusivity in the name of national security. The question now is how big this group is - and whether they will turn out to vote. Will Trump's stance mobilize opposition and increase the ranks of voters who support diversity and inclusion? We won't know the answer to these questions until November.

Deborah Schildkraut, Professor of Political Science, Tufts University
NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 30: A Planned Parenthood office is seen on November 30, 2015 in New York City. A gunman killed three people November 27, including a police officer, at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

In March, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America launched Spot On, a free period tracker and birth control planner developed by Planned Parenthood's Digital Products Lab. Like many such apps, it allows users to track their physical symptoms, moods, and birth control use. But what makes Spot On unusual is that it's aimed at anyone who menstruates -- not just women.

The app discusses body symptoms and birth control, which may include "sore breasts" and reminders like "take your pill," but doesn't assume that the person with the breasts or the pills is a woman. Instead, it speaks directly to the user as "you." There are no pink flowers and there is no gendered language. (There is, however, a dinosaur. On the moon.)

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"Our patients and supporters don't comprise any one identity, especially when it comes to periods, menstrual cycles, or sexual or reproductive health," says Jenny Friedler, director of Planned Parenthood's digital products lab.

And Spot On is only the latest and most visible development in Planned Parenthood's efforts to use inclusive language across its programs.

***

Planned Parenthood is often thought of by the public as a women's health provider. But it isn't really a women's health group -- Planned Parenthood has provided reproductive health care to people of all genders for years.

It's difficult to find a breakdown of Planned Parenthood's patients by gender -- the annual report gives stats on services offered in a given year, while its By The Numbers document breaks down patient demographic by age and income rather than gender. Staff members say that the majority of Planned Parenthood's clients identify as female, but that people of other genders are welcome.

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"When you look at our patients, we do overwhelmingly serve more cisgender women than anyone else. However, our mission, what we do, is sexual and reproductive health and sex education, and that includes everyone," says Elizabeth Clark, Planned Parenthood's director of health media.

One of the reasons Planned Parenthood is seen as solely a women's health-care provider, says Clark, is because the group's most controversial work -- abortion -- is often seen as a women's health-care issue (although trans people and gender non-conforming people also need abortion services).

"I think a lot of the attention gets focused on women's health care, but we've always been a sexual and reproductive health-care provider for everyone," says Clark.

***

Planned Parenthood's language has been evolving for a long time. One affiliate I spoke to, Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes, first began changing gendered language in its educational programs in the late 1980s, back when the group's focus was fighting homophobia and related bullying. At the time, PPSFL started eschewing the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" and using words like "partner" instead.

In the last five years, as the affiliate began responding to the health needs of the Finger Lakes transgender population, language has begun to change even more, says Maureen Kelly, vice president for programming and communications for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes. The new gender-neutral and inclusive language focuses less on who people are and more on what genitalia they have and what activities they engage in, she says.

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For example, in sex ed, rather than saying "the man becomes erect," educators say "the penis" becomes erect, says Kelly.

In clinics, the patient intake form has changed to reflect the fact that gender is not a binary. Where there were two separate intake forms -- one for men and one for women -- there is now one that allows clients to describe themselves, write in their gender, and indicate the name they choose to use if it differs from their legal name.

"We want you to find yourself on that form," says Kelly.

When the intake form was changed, Kelly says, there was some concern that people who didn't know a lot about gender or sexuality spectrums might be confused by the new language. But that hasn't been the case. In fact, the form has had an unexpected positive effect: Many people, not just those who don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, go by something other than the name on their birth certificates -- Margarets who want to be called Peg, for example, and Joses who want to be called Joe. Allowing people to specify their preferred name on the intake form lets everyone feel more comfortable.

Forms are also changing at other affiliates. Planned Parenthood of New York City, for example, changed its medical history form when staff realized that trans and gender non-conforming people weren't represented. The current form allows for more detailed information, with space to indicate gender identity separately from sexual anatomy. Asking about someone's genitals is a terrible way to behave socially, but for a doctor's office, it offers much more useful background, says Lauren Porsch, MPH, director of clinical training and research for that affiliate.

"If someone says 'I'm a woman and I have sex with women,' that doesn't really tell you very much about their behavioral risk for pregnancy or STI prevention," she says. "But if we ask people what type of anatomy they have and what type of anatomy their partners have and what type of activities they're engaging in, it's a much better gauge for are they at risk of pregnancy, what STIs are they at risk for, and we can actually provide more medically accurate and appropriate and sensitive information to clients when we ask for the information that way."

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According to Kelly O'Hanlon, regional director for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT), those medical intake forms are the first step in providing compassionate nonjudgmental care to all patients. For many people, particularly transgender patients, she says, Planned Parenthood is the only health-care provider they can use without fear of being shamed.

"In a health-care landscape that can often be difficult to navigate and sometimes even hostile for transgender people, PPSAT is intentional in creating an accepting and safe space for these patients," says O'Hanlon. "This begins with being conscious and respectful of each individual's preferred name and pronouns, which is asked for at the top of our medical intake forms. It is critical to us that we respect every patient's unique identities, and for transgender people, who face persistent discrimination and misunderstanding, starting with these simple questions can make their entire health-care experience more accepting, positive, and supportive."

Language about certain kinds of birth control has changed as well. "Male condoms" and "female condoms" are now referred to as internal and external condoms at Planned Parenthood of New York City.

"The language we're using today reflects the fact that gender is a spectrum and not a simple system, a binary system of male and female," says Porsch. "We really talk about having sexual and reproductive health services [for everyone including] women who have penises, men who have vaginas, and there are people with all different types of anatomy that may not identify with a binary gender at all," she says.

While this language might not be shared by all 59 of Planned Parenthood's affiliates, many have changed the language they use on intake forms, in sex education programming, in policy discussions, and even in describing what the agency does.

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"You'll note that I use the term 'sexual and reproductive health services,'" says Porsch, "which is an evolution of the term 'family planning' that had been used for many years. I know there are still organizations that are using the term 'family planning,' but we're really trying to move away from that because we feel that it's not as LGBTQ-friendly or inclusive."

Another change in language is obvious to anyone who emails Planned Parenthood employees regularly. Many Planned Parenthood staffers include their preferred gender pronouns in their email signatures. This started in the last year or two, says Clark, but it's not official policy. Staffers across the federation are choosing to do this on their own.

"It's one of those things that organically happened as people realized it's helpful," she says.

***

Many of Planned Parenthood's efforts to use more inclusive language sprang up organically, independently of one another, according to Clark.

For example, Planned Parenthood's digital health team, which manages all of the federation's health-related social media accounts, started using non-gendered, inclusive language three years ago, according to Chelsea Perugini, Planned Parenthood's social media community manager.

"We use non-gendered language when we talk about bodies, sexuality, gender, etc.," she says. "Some of the writers on the team implement non-gendered language by saying things like, 'people with a uterus,' which is one way to do it. We also like to put our writing in the second person -- your uterus, your penis, your partner -- or by using 'they' as a singular pronoun."

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The change in language was sparked by the Tumblr community, she says.

"The Tumblr audience is smart. They understand feminism. They understand that sex ed isn't one-size-fits-all -- even though that's what they were taught in school," says Perugini. "And they know that words matter. They didn't see themselves reflected in the language we were using on our social media pages or our website, and they let us know."

That response from the community has had a huge impact on the way the digital health team writes; the online community now expects to see gender-inclusive language on health-related social media properties.

"We've raised the bar for ourselves and when we fail to meet it, the blowback is there," says Perugini. "But it's a good thing. It helps us work harder to maintain the standards we've set."

***

The positive reaction has extended to Spot On, which has only been released for iPhone and is about to be launched for Android. At press time, it had been downloaded 76,000 times.

The app, says Friedler of the Digital Products Lab, owes its success to the fact that it doesn't presume anything about its users. That lack of presumption goes beyond gender.

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"People's needs are all really different, and it's not just about gender neutrality," she says. "I think it's also about not making assumptions about people's sexual orientation and not making assumptions in general about where they are in their lives, and how understanding their periods and their birth control relates to that."

Case in point: many people who use birth control aren't using it for contraception, but for various health reasons. Spot On doesn't assume the users are tracking their periods for fertility reasons, but asks if they are.

And then there's the dinosaur.

"The things that we did to make the app gender-neutral, to make sure the app wasn't making assumptions about sexual orientation, to make sure the app didn't feel gendered to people who were using it -- those things don't just resonate with a gender non-conforming audience, or with an LGBT audience. They've really resonated with all of our users," says Friedler.

She points to all the super-gendered items on the market "for women": pink pens and pink earplugs, for example. Many heterosexual, cisgendered women don't like those any more than any other demographic does.

"I think everyone really liked the surprise of the dinosaur . . . regardless of how they identified," she says. "I think that has really helped us not just reach the LGBT audience -- which certainly has unique health needs -- but also reach an audience that, in general, really appreciates something that is specific to them as people, not based on them as a specific gender."

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***

Planned Parenthood's national office hasn't set policy around language for its affiliates, and can't require them to follow its guidance. It can, however, make recommendations and act as a resource for the affiliates, and according to Clark, the national office is now in the process of developing a resource to address how and when to use inclusive language.

"We are in the process of pulling together a style guide, for issues around when we use gendered language, when we use transgender-inclusive language, and when we use gender-neutral language," she says. "Those are internal conversations that have been happening between teams, and so in the last few months we decided that we should have an official set of guidelines. That's being drafted now with input from different divisions within the national office."

None of this means that Planned Parenthood is abandoning gendered language altogether. The federation is simply being more thoughtful about how that language is used.

"There are still going to be times and places when we will use gendered language," says Clark.

She pointed to policy efforts like the Trust Texas Women campaign, which was founded by The Center for Reproductive Rights to combat laws that restrict access to abortions in Texas.

"Sometimes we are going to say the word 'women,'" says Clark. "You can't not talk about women when you look at what's happening to health-care access in this country. At the same time, these attacks on reproductive and sexual health care affect everyone, and we need to acknowledge that."

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This piece by A.J. O'Connell originally appeared on The Establishment, a new multimedia site funded and run by women.
Coral in every major reef region across the world has already experienced bleaching, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts that temperatures in much of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans could reach a point at which significant bleaching of corals is present this summer. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch suggests that the greatest threat is to reefs in Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia. All Northern Hemisphere U.S.-coral reefs are on alert for bleaching.

In a statement, NOAA said that "This third global bleaching event began in mid-2014" and is ongoing. "Global warming, coupled with intense El Nino, continues to make this the longest and most widespread coral bleaching event on record."

Coral bleaches when it becomes damaged or diseased by rising water temperatures. Some recent studies have suggested other factors--beyond just warming water--also play a role. Over the past century, climate change has already caused global sea surface temperatures to rise by about 1 degree Celsius, pushing corals closer to their bleaching threshold.

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Although the bleaching event was already the longest in recorded history and was predicted to run past the middle of the year, NOAA's latest climate model-based forecasts suggest it will run at least through the end of 2016.

"It's time to shift this conversation to what can be done to conserve these amazing organisms in the face of this unprecedented global bleaching event," said Jennifer Koss, NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program director. "We have boots on the ground and fins in the water to reduce local stressors. Local conservation buys us time, but it isn't enough. Globally, we need to better understand what actions we all can take to combat the effects of climate change."

This month, NASA launched a new, three-year project--Coral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL)-- to study the Pacific Oceans coral reefs by aircraft from 23,000 feet above the ocean. NASA scientists plan to map large swaths of coral in hopes of better understanding how environmental changes--including climate change, acidification, and pollution--are affecting these delicate ecosystems.

"CORAL will provide the most extensive picture to date of the condition of a large portion of the world's coral reefs from a uniform data set," NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab penned in a press release. "The data will reveal trends between coral reef condition and biogeophysical forcings, both natural and those arising from human activities. With this new understanding of reef condition, we can better predict the future of this global ecosystem."

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White House Announces Energy Storage Projects

Among the actions, are funding for microgrids in rural communities, a U.S. Department of Energy push for standardization of and increased access to energy data, and release of White House Council of Economic Advisers report on the "technical and economic considerations and opportunities" relating to the grid integration of renewables. On the private sector side, 16 developers and power companies set new storage procurement and deployment targets. Some are committing to smart water heaters, smart meters and demand response programs.

Federal programs to boost storage and microgrid capacity at federal installations and military bases may be a game changer, according to one electricity market analyst. In a research note on the commitments, reported PV Magazine, GTM Research highlighted storage deployment by the U.S. Navy for its "potential to genuinely grow the market beyond business-as-usual."

Obama Says Climate Change a Threat to National Parks

Speaking Saturday from Yosemite National Park, President Obama pinpointed climate change as the biggest threat to America's national parks.

"One of the things that binds us together is we only have one planet and climate change is probably the biggest threat--not only to natural wonders like this--but to the well-being of billions of people, coastal cities, agricultural communities that can be displaced in the span of a few decades by changes in temperatures that mean more drought, more wildfires," Obama said during an interview with National Geographic that will air in later this summer to commemorate the National Park Service's 100th anniversary. "Part of why it's so important for us to raise awareness (about climate change) with the general public is: This is a solvable problem."

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He added: "Rising temperatures could mean no more glaciers at Glacier National Park. No more Joshua trees at Joshua Tree National Park." Our changing climate, he said, could destroy vital ecosystems in the Everglades and threaten such landmarks as Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

According to the National Parks Service, the park system's many fragile ecosystems are "a testament to the reality of climate change." They said glaciers could be completely gone from Glacier National Park by 2020, park facilities in Alaska are sinking due to thawing permafrost and archaeological sites are under threat from sea-level rise.
In spite of his endorsement and continued support for her to be the Democratic nominee, has Obama really been misleading Hillary. It is quite possible he has been leading her on and that he really wants and expects someone else to lead the Democratic ticket.

President Obama knows the answer to the most important question at this juncture in the nomination process. Is he going to allow the DOJ to indict her on the many ways she has harmed national security because of her private email server? This question begs the next question of when are they finally going to let the world know if there is an indictment coming or not.

The subtle message in Bernie's speech to his supporters Thursday night was that he is waiting like the rest of us that want him in the White House for the FBI/DOJ to make their move against Hillary. The feckless media is working hard to downplay the probability of an indictment. However, they have not forgotten how to twist Bernie's words and lie that he is supporting Hillary.

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If the Dems put up anybody but Hillary they will beat Trump handily. So given that the head of the DOJ reports directly to our current president, his vote thumbs up or down on her indictment will essentially decide who will be our next president. President Obama has strengths and weaknesses in his role as the most powerful man in the world. He is a gifted finesse player but evidence shows he is a poor power player. This is quite evident in his dealings with the obstructionist Republicans. Against them he needed a bludgeon but instead brought a scalpel.

Our highly intelligent president can be quite cagey and many have said about him that he is playing chess while his adversary is playing checkers. In dealing with Hillary regarding her email fiasco, it makes sense for him to play the finesse game with her. It is entirely possible even likely that he is using this skill to fake out Hillary with his real intentions. The beauty of this is that HRC very obviously believes she and Bill are not bound to the laws and regulations that the rest of us common folks must live by including those with national security clearance. So she is the perfect target to work the misdirection game upon. There are some signs that Obama is playing her knowing that Hillary's inflated sense of self-importance will make it easy for HRC to take the bait hook line and sinker.

The two biggest signs our three point shooting prez is head faking Hillary include his declaration that the biggest mistake of his presidency was the Libya regime change. This would be the Libya regime change that Hillary pushed hard to make happen when most everyone else around Obama told him it would be a mistake. The majority of his advisers were right as this regime change led to ISIS becoming a big time terrorist force. This is almost like Obama saying hiring Hillary as his Secretary of State was his biggest mistake. The second is a real eye opener. That would be his arm's length endorsement of HRC given in a video released by Team Hillary on Twitter. The mixed messages in this finesse move could include a warning. If Obama really is playing Hillary about his true intentions regarding an indictment that would be one of the more sublimely amusing parts of this entire angst-filled nomination process.

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It has only been a few days since the primary/caucus season has ended but the world is wondering why no word on the indictment. It is possible that Obama wants this delayed a little longer so we do not make a connection to the Democratic establishment players plan to delay an indictment until all the primaries were done. If an indictment had been handed down while pledged delegates were still available then Bernie could have picked up enough pledged delegates to win the nomination in the first round at the convention. This possible strategy was covered in detail in anther article on politicnpop.com titled "Obama Has Won the First Delegate Battle But Will Lose the War to Bernie."

There are a few ideas floating around about why the DOJ will not indict HRC that do not appear to be substantial. First is a Facebook post that supposedly had AG Loretta Lynch declaring the DOJ will not indict Hillary. What she in fact said is that the DOJ has wiggle room if the FBI recommends an indictment something that would be true of any FBI recommendation to indict. Another theory has it that Obama is afraid that if Hillary goes down she will bring everybody down with her. The speculation is that she will prove he knew about how she used her private server. Supposedly she has made this threatening statement. That Obama would be cowed by this threat seems unlikely because if she is indicted and convicted and this threat is out there, it won't help her get a pardon from Obama if he is at all inclined. It seems more likely that Obama will not stop an indictment but is waiting for the best time to do it. This finesse move on his part is really about managing the expectations of the millions of voters that desperately want her to be the first woman to be a US president. If it is going to happen it has to happen before the convention because it would be enormously stupid to indict after she has been selected as the Dem nominee for president. Perhaps his plan is to lull suspicions to barely a ripple then spring it just before the Dem convention. Another possibility is the initial impact of an indictment will be not be as intense if the news is released on the Friday just before the 4th of July. This is a time when everyone will be anxious to put this FUBAR nomination process on the back burner for a few days.

Another possible factor in play that might effect the timing of an FBI indictment is the threat from Russia to release more Hillary emails. One thing you have to acknowledge about Hillary is she takes the crown as the supreme drama queen of our time. Who else could get Russia to possibly play a key role in this election. So now thanks to her hubris, it would appear Russia does not want her as our next prez. It seems likely Russia has taken note of her being all for a Syrian no-fly zone when Russian jets were flying in and around Syria. A little thing like this could have started WWIII. They also might not be too keen on HRC's fondness for the plan to help Israel by engaging in a war with the Syrian government controlled by the dictator Assad who is a Russian ally. Is there really any war she just cannot resist?

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Obama is dealing with pressures from all angles regarding the FBI investigation of HRC. Among these pressures is that he and his cadre of despicably selfish Democratic establishment players must know they could end looking like major league fools. This would happen if they were to blow a layup presidential opportunity by putting Hillary up against Trump. She might win she might not. Any other reasonable Dem candidate running against Trump will cruise to victory. Given that Obama has appeared to become understandably obsessed with his legacy he is looking at a few big time negatives against that legacy if he does not let fate take its course for Hillary to be indicted. The national security crimes would be the easy ones to convict. It is plain to see, she broke many laws vital to national security starting with the original sin of the existence of her private email server that was used exclusively for all her SOS communications by email. Then there is the longer play conviction for crimes that she very likely committed by taking millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation for favors granted by Hillary as Secretary of State. It completely defies logic that he would endanger his legacy to such a great degree by subverting the rules of law that govern our vital national security by "covering" for Hillary. Would he really risk so much so she can become the first woman president who many consider the most qualified candidate ever for the job, blah blah blah? However President Obama may want to consider that a good reason she might not be qualified to be president is she may have committed more serious crimes than any presidential candidate ever.

Here is a list of ways Obama could eviscerate his legacy by not having the DOJ indict Hillary. He ends his presidency by giving his entire national security team the big middle finger by not even attempting to convict his first Secretary of State who clearly put her desire to keep her communications secret way above national security. She is after all Hillary Clinton and that sort of thing is to be expected. Obama by stopping an FBI desired indictment of her would be seen as him backing up that assertion which will not be seen kindly when assessing his presidency. This could also be seen by historians and citizens alike as doubling down on a really really bad decision to hire her as SOS in the first place. Historians and common folk might also take note of how Hillary not being indicted sent the intelligence community into a morale death spire never seen before in the history of our country. Again the potential bad stuff that could happen because of this bottomed out morale, not so great for a presidential legacy. Then there is the matter of the certainty that if she is not indicted substantial leaks will be springing out of DC that will rival what happened to the Titanic. Topping the charts of this list is the domino effect of not going after Hillary which could lead to a Trump presidency which in turn means blowing an easy presidential win for the Dem party. Last but not least not indicting Hillary could lead to the destruction or emasculation of the Democratic party. If Bernie is not the Dem nominee, this is very possible. Millions upon millions of left leaning voters among others are completely disgusted with any Democrat who has supported Hillary. If Bernie is not our next president, these voters will have lost all faith in the obviously corrupt creeps who would dominate the Democratic party after Obama leaves office. This whole ball of wax will be tacked onto Obama's legacy and not in a good way. There are sure to be more bad things that could happen to Obama's legacy if he does not go after Hillary for her obvious crimes against the nation. However these should suffice to make the point this would be an historically ridiculously dumb decision by a very smart president.

In comparison to this juicy list of chaos that could go down if President Obama does not move forward with an HRC indictment, here are possible consequences to his legacy if he does indict her. Bernie becomes president and succeeds in delivering most if not all the changes Obama promised but did not make happen. The primary one being to purge the government of its dirty corrupt ways so it represents all citizens not just the ones that buy off politicians. Bernie does a better job dealing with obstructionist Republicans. Bernie's anti-corporatist ways enable the Democrats to take back the plethora of seats in Congress lost to Republicans during Obama's eight year presidency. Obamacare migrates to Medicare for all so Bernie and Obama have to share credit for finally closing the deal on the decades long struggle to make certain health care is available for all American citizens. Obama and Bernie stop the first woman president from being a corrupt war hawk as president. This is not a fantastic list to include in his legacy but a lot better than the disasters that will be a part of President Obama's legacy if he does not follow through with an indictment of HRC. All of this would be the consequence of Obama having to deal with the reality of what he did and did not do as president. Citizens United ripped the lid off how deep the corruption extends into both parties. The subsequent tidal waves of anger this caused has vastly changed the political landscape and most DC politicians just do not understand what it really means to them. They have lived within the confines of this corruption for a long time so the only thing different to them is millions of common people talking about and being outraged. Apparently, many if not most politicians feel that these suckers let it happen to themselves and its been going on for many years so what's the big deal. Which brings us to Obama's predicament. It is unrealistic of President Obama and his closest advisers living in the Beltway Bubble to think he can manipulate all the moving parts so his legacy is a nice tidy package of wonderfulness that was only marred by the Republican obstructionism. Whether they get this or not is to be determined. So how about it Mr. President, why not leave office on solid moral ground and set your country up for a golden age by quickly easing the way for Bernie to take his rightful place as our next president.
Dear David Franzoni and Stephen Joel Brown,

I think we speak for the entire Iranian-American community in applauding you for filming a biopic of beloved 13th century Persian poet Rumi. For most Persian speakers, Rumi is sacred. His beautiful poems of joy and love are deeply ingrained in Persian culture. While our history has had its fair share of division and conflict, what has always united us is our poetic tradition, in which Rumi is one of the strongest pillars. So you can imagine our delight when hearing that Rumi would come to life on the Hollywood big screen, particularly since you have stated that a key motivation of yours is to help dispel stereotypes about individuals of Middle Eastern descent.

Precisely because of that, we were surprised to hear that the lead cast may be given to Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr., as Rumi and his Sufi spiritual advisor Shams of Tabriz respectively.

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While DiCaprio and Downey Jr. are outstanding actors whose work speaks for itself, we encourage you to cast actors of Middle Eastern descent to accurately represent Rumi and Shams.

We believe that casting actors of European descent in these roles will, unfortunately, do little to break the stereotypes you aim to dispel. Rather, by failing to cast actors with a Middle Eastern background in these roles, the film risks sending the message that Middle Easterners cannot tell their own stories, and the only roles deemed worthy for them are those of terrorists and villains.

Unfortunately, such casting decisions are nothing new. Not only are stories about people of color rarely told, but Hollywood systematically casts white actors to play minority leads. This includes Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan in the 2010 film Prince of Persia and Christian Bale as Moses in the 2014 film Exodus: Gods and Kings. Often, these roles mock or deride those ethnicities, as in the 2006 film 300, which depicts Persians as savages. Or in the 1993 film, Not Without My Daughter, which depicts Iranians as violent, backward and controlling.

This "white-washing" is not only inaccurate, it has lasting detrimental effects, both with respect to how minorities are viewed by others and with respect to how minorities view themselves. Iranian-American and other Middle Eastern-American children grow up without media figures or images to whom they can relate, in a culture saturated with only negative images of people who look like them.

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"For Iranian men of my generation and American moms of my mother-in-law's generation, this is a film that has seared itself into our consciousness," Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan said of Not Without My Daughter. "I am not joking when I say to you that at least on three separate occasions, when I met a girl's parents or immediately after I had met their parents, the girl would tell me how her mother brought up Not Without My Daughter."

Positive depictions of minorities allow others to view people of color in a favorable light, thereby eliminating harmful stereotypes and racism. Such depictions also empower those minority groups, providing them with the opportunity to see a positive reflection of themselves and rise above cultural conflict. To that effect, we believe Hollywood's established Middle Eastern and Iranian-American actors can successfully showcase a hero such as Rumi.

We commend you for bringing the amazing story of Rumi to America and the wider world audience. You have an extraordinary opportunity to help reduce tensions and let people see each other for their common humanity rather than let divisive stereotypes reinforce the notion of a "Clash of Civilizations".

Again, we applaud your efforts and look forward to see you share the joy and love of our Rumi.
In November 2012, the 31 year-old Syrian man Mohammad Hamwia left his home, in the city of Homs, Syria, for the last time.

The frequent bombings, the deafening noise of the machine guns and the blood-stained streets had already forced his mother Hana, his three brothers and three of his four sisters to seek refuge in Denmark, Dubai and the United States. They are among more than 4.8 million Syrian refugees now scattered across the globe, according to data from the UN's refugee agency.

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During a brief cease-fire, Hamwia escaped to Lebanon, then to Dubai and then to Egypt, before landing in Sao Paulo. He was the only one in his family to move to Latin America. As he walked through the doors at Guarulhos International Airport, he realized that in a city of 12 million people, he knew absolutely no one.

One day -- I don't know when -- I will become a Brazilian citizen. And I want my country to be number one.

In Syria, months after the beginning of the revolution, the refugee says he witnessed the repressive forces of Bashar Al-Assad's regime turn stray cats into victims: "The government snipers shot the cats, saying they needed to practice," he said.

"If the police captured someone, they tortured them until they snitched about someone else. The prisoner eventually disclosed the name of some acquaintance that also opposed the government, and he got killed. That's how they kept capturing other people. And others. And so on," Hamwia said.

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Hamwia holds a BA in English Literature and a Master's degree in Business Administration. He says he spent his final days in western Syria delivering milk and bread to children and babies -- an activity that had become incredibly difficult due to the siege.

"We had food suppliers, but they couldn't get where we were. So we had to go to these dangerous zones, get some food, and go back," recalls the Syrian. He reenacts the moves he used to dodge bullets, as if he were recounting a scene from an action movie. His friends were getting arrested, disappeared or killed.

Sitting in front of his newly opened restaurant, in the west side of Sao Paulo, Mohammad Hamwia says that he now goes by the name Adam. His hair is thinning, his eyes are bright blue, and he is dressed in comfortable clothes.

He insists on showing us some pictures on his cellphone of his hometown across two different time periods. He pulled up pictures from before the war -- populated with impressive and elegant buildings. The pictures of Homs today, however, are of a fallen city. "Half the population left the country. The remaining people are still there, dying gradually," he said.

At 8.12 p.m. on a Monday in May, Adam serves a portion of buffalo wings to a customer as he shows us an image from Aleppo on his cellphone. Two children play in a bathtub -- the only object left intact among the wreckage. "Look at that, man. And they're still smiling," says the Syrian.

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Adapting to change is a recurring theme in Hamwia's life. Since he arrived in Brazil, he has lived in the cities of Blumenau, Caxias, Caraguatatuba, Curitiba, Florianopolis, Foz do Iguacu, Guaruja, Ilha Bela, Ilha Grande, Joinville, Nova Petropolis, Paraty, Porto Alegre, Ribeirao Preto, Sao Sebastiao and Ubatuba.

He chose Sao Paulo's Vila Madalena district to open his restaurant, Adoomy, in November of 2015. Why Sao Paulo? "The chances of finding a job here are much higher," he says.

Hamwia enjoys the city's nightlife. He has also made some good friends here, who have helped him out with logistics as he set up his restaurant.

When it comes to his love life, however, stress stands in the way: "I broke up with my girlfriend because I had no time for her. In fact, I had no time for myself!"

Adam Hamwia wakes up at 8 a.m. sharp and spends the whole morning managing his small business, before he finally starts to cook: "I am also the restaurant's chief executive officer, chief financial officer, marketing director and press agent," he says.

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With or without an economic crisis, people still have to go to restaurants.

He currently has only one Brazilian employee, who mainly works with him during peak hours. "I face a 'turnover' problem. Many people start working here and then they decide to quit," he says.

Nevertheless, he is determined to keep the restaurant open. "I have to keep operating because of the restaurant's image. People walk by, take a look and think: 'I will try some of the appetizers later.' This message will go into their subconscious."

Hamwia estimates that 140 people walk past his restaurant during lunch hours every day.

Calculating the number of potential clients, he says, "is an essential step in building any business" -- a lesson he learned when he worked for a consulting company in the Middle East.

Even though he still has some difficulties with the language, he tries his best to address his customers in Portuguese. "When I first got here, I didn't even know how to say 'thank you' in Portuguese. I'm improving," he says joyfully.

Hamwia says he is finding it difficult to keep the prices low at his restaurant due to the ongoing recession in Brazil. "Obviously, I can't survive in this crisis for a long time," he says.

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Right now, he is more concerned with spreading the word about his restaurant than with making big financial gains. "With or without an economic crisis, people still have to go to restaurants," he says hopefully.

Although his passion for cooking started when he was a child, the main inspiration behind Adoomy was the fried chicken Hamwia tried at a restaurant named Al Baik, in Saudi Arabia.

Hamwia says he couldn't find fried chicken of similar quality in Brazil. "In Curitiba, for instance, I visited six different places specialized in fried chicken. None of them were good," he says.

My city is much prettier than Itaim Bibi [an upper class district in Sao Paulo]. But everything I saw when I was a little boy is now destroyed.

He's very happy with the flavor, seasoning and texture of the chicken he's selling at his restaurant -- which is located on 150 Rodesia Street.

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Adoomy moved from its first location -- the first floor of the building next door -- to this small garage, which consists of a tiny kitchen, a refrigerator and a cash register. Customers take their seats on wooden stools, and Hamwia often shares stories as they eat.

For lack of space, however, some dishes have to be prepared in the apartment on the first floor of the building next door, where Hamwia currently lives.

A young client plays with his phone as he waits for the order to get ready. A Canadian pop song blasts through the radio. Hamwia smokes three cigarettes during the interview, and pauses frequently to chat to a Syrian friend in Arabic.

"Sometimes I forget to sleep," he says. "It is not easy to have your own business. But sometimes, I think people aren't brave enough and just want easy jobs."

Hamwia feels optimistic and hopeful about his life in Brazil. "One day -- I don't know when -- I will become a Brazilian citizen. And I want my country to be number one," he says. Brazil has natural resources, water, wonderful places, why isn't this country number one already?" he asks.

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He says his biggest dream is "to open other Adoomy franchises in Brazil and then around the world."

He says he would be homesick if his hometown was still intact. "My city is much prettier than Itaim Bibi [an upper class district in Sao Paulo]. But everything I saw when I was a little boy is now destroyed," he says.

Besides his family, with whom he communicates over WhatsApp, he misses his old friends. But Hamwia doesn't know if they are still alive. He says that those who stayed behind reached a point where the odds of staying alive were 50/50.

"There are people who get used to this situation and await death. How are they going to die? When are they going to die? Nobody knows," he says.
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Most people with a smartphone are constantly tapped into some form of social media. Sharing cute pictures of kids and pets is simply a routine part of life these days. Some people even use social media to vent frustrations or look for advice.

In a divorce case, however, shares on social media can create ample evidence that can be used against one or both parties to affect alimony, child support, child custody, and more.



Email and Text Messages

Email and text messages are admissible in court and can even be subpoenaed. If one party in the marriage reveals something about a new job or an upcoming bonus that hasn't been revealed in court, this can be used as evidence that the person isn't being honest in his or her financial declarations.

Someone once claimed in court that he didn't have a job, yet he posted about his job online (along with the expensive vacations he took with his girlfriend). With this evidence in court, his request for alimony was denied.

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Lawyers advise people to keep all written communication free of sensitive information during a divorce. If you wouldn't want a judge reading it, don't write it - anywhere.

Finances

Most people don't list their income on social media, but they find plenty of other ways to brag about their financial prosperity. If someone claims a low income to avoid high alimony or child support payments but posts pictures of expensive vacations or purchases, this can be used against him or her in court.

Even when a spouse is blocked from seeing his estranged wife's social media, he can still often see what her friends are posting. If she goes on an expensive vacation with a mutual friend and that friend makes a post about the trip, the spouse can use this evidence to prove that his wife isn't being honest in her finances.

Ben Carrasco, a divorce attorney in Austin, Texas, reports once using a LinkedIn profile to show the existence of a side business (another source of income) that a party had not disclosed in discovery. This information helped his client secure more child support than she would have otherwise received. "It's amazing the wealth of information now at our fingertips in a divorce case" says Mr. Carrasco. "What would have once taken weeks of research to discover, if at all, can now be found in the click of a mouse".

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Dating Sites

Creating a profile on an online dating site before a divorce is finalized is foolish. Not only does it show evidence of potential cheating, but most people present themselves differently in an online profile than they do in person. If someone is caught saying something different on a dating site than is said in court, it can lead to problems in the divorce case.

Child Custody

Social media reveals what people are doing, where they're doing it, and when it's happening. If a mother is working through a child custody case, but posts pictures that show she was drunk when she should have been watching the children, a judge may rule that the children will not be properly cared for by her.

If one party is supposed to be searching for a job, but posts pictures and status updates that reveal he's playing video games all day, the judge may rule harshly on alimony and child support decisions.

How to Prevent Negative Effects From Social Media

The best thing to do to avoid social media ruining any portion of a divorce case is to simply stop using it. Many people may be tempted to actually delete their accounts and scrub their online lives. However, once litigation has begun, social media becomes evidence. Deleting accounts is actually a destruction of evidence and can cause a lawyer to be sanctioned.
I have known Erol Onderoglu for ages.

This gentle soul has been monitoring the ever-volatile state of Turkish journalism for ages, more regularly than anybody else. His memory, as the national representative of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been a prime source of reference for what we ought to know about the state of media freedom and independence.

On June 20, we all witnessed, perhaps not so surprisingly, Erol being sent to pre-trial detention, taken out of the courtroom in Istanbul in handcuffs.

Charge?

'Terrorist propaganda.'

How?

Erol was subjected to a legal investigation together with two prominent intellectuals, author Ahmet Nesin, and Prof Sebnem Korur Fincanci - who is the Chairwoman of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation - because they had joined a so-called 'solidarity vigil', as a 'one-day long editor', at the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gundem daily, which has has been under immense pressure lately.

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This 'vigil' had assembled, since May 3, more than 40 intellectuals, out of which 37 have been probed for the same charges. One can now only imagine the magnitude of a crackdown underway, if the courts copy-paste detention decisions to all of them, which is not that unlikely.

The gravity of the event had also to do specifically with Onderoglu as a symbol - a rigorous monitor of the state of the media in Turkey, a respected personality whose judgments count as prime source reference in international circles.

Journalism has, without the slightest doubt, become the most risky, and endangered, profession in Turkey. Because it is essential to any democracy, its demise will mean, simply, its end as well.

It is now a country - paradoxically, a negotiating partner with the EU on membership - where journalism is criminalized, where its exercise equals to taking a walk on legal, political and social minefield.

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'May God bless the hands of all those who beat these so-called journalists' tweeted Sait Turgut, a top local figure of AKP in Midyat, where a bomb attack in June 8 by the PKK had claimed 5 lives, leaving more than 50 people wounded.

Three journalists - Hatice Kamer, Mahmut Bozarslan and Sertac Kayar - had come to town to cover the event. Soon they had found themselves surrounded by a mob, and barely survived a lynch attempt.

Most recently, Can Erzincan TV, a liberal-independent channel with tiny financial resources, but a strong critical content, was told in writing from TurkSat satellite board, that it will be plugged off from the satellite, due to 'terrorist propaganda'. How? Because some of the commentators, allowed to express their opinion are, perceived as affiliated with Gulen Movement, now declared as a terrorist organisation by President Erdogan.

That the AKP figures from top down demonize journalists this way is commonplace.

Harrassments, censorship, criminal charges and arrests are now routine.

Detention of the three top human rights figures, the event in Midyat or the case of Can Erzincan TV are only snapshots of an ongoing oppression, which with a huge magnitude is aimed at exterminating the 'Fourth Estate', media, as we know it.

The lethal cycle to our profession approaches its completion.

While journalists in Turkey - be them Turkish, Kurdish or foreign - feel less and less secure, the absence of truthful, accurate, critical reporting has become a norm. To report stories such as ''Panama Papers'' (which indicates hundreds of Turkish business people, many related with the AKP government) or the emerging corruption case of Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessman, (indicated as closely related with the top echelons of the AKP) seems unthinkable, due to dense self-censorship.

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Demonisation of the Kurdish Political Movement and the restrictions in the Southeastern region has made it an extreme challenge to report fairly the tragic events unfolding in the mainly Kurdish provinces which left, according to Amnesty International, around 500.000 to leave their homes, becoming displaced.

Journalism in Turkey now means being compromised in the newsrooms, facing jail sentences for report or comment, living under constant threat of being fired any moment, operating under threats and harassment. A noble profession has turned into a curse.

While fewer and fewer people are left with any doubt that the case of Turkey is one about full concentration of power in a single person, who claims supremacy before all the state institutions, the state of its media is one, now, without any editorial independence and diversity.

President Erdogan, copying like-minded leaders such as Fujimori, Chavez, Maduro, Aliyev and, especially, Putin, did actually much better than those.

His dismay with critical journalism surfaced fully from 2010 on, when he was left 'unchecked' at the top of his party, alienating other founding fathers like Abdullah Gul, Ali Babacan and many others who did not have an issue with a diverse press.

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Soon it turned into contempt, hatred, grudge and revenge.

He thought, obviously, that series of election victories gave him legitimacy to launch a full-scale 'power grab' campaign that necessitated a mass-scale 'media capture'.

His multi-layered media strategy began with Gezi protests in 2013 and exposed his autocratic intentions fully.

While his loyal media groups helped polarize the society, Erdogan stiffly micro-managed the media moguls with a non-AKP background (whose existence depended on the lucrative public contracts) to exert constant self-censorship in their news outlets, which they due to their greed willingly did.

This pattern proved to be successful. Newsrooms abandoned all critical content. What's more, sackings and removals of dignified journalists peaked en masse, amounting now to approximately 4.000.

By the end of 2014, Erdogan had conquered the critical mass of the media.

2015 up to now we saw more drama. The attacks against the remaining part of the critical media escalated in three ways.

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Dogan group, the largest in the sector, was intimidated by pro-AKP vandalism last summer, and brought to its knees by legal processes on alleged 'organized crime' charges involving its boss. The result is now a journalism, whose teeth have been pulled out.

Meanwhile, police raided and seized the critical and influential Koza-Ipek and Zaman media groups, within the last 8 months, terminating some of its outlets, turning some others pro-government overnight after appointing trustees over them, firing more than 1.500 journalists.

Kurdish media, meanwhile, became a prime target as to the conflict grew and more and more Kurdish journalists found themselves in jail.

With a sector now up to 90 % under direct or indirect control of President Erdogan, a 'genetically modified medya' at the service of his power drive, decent journalism is left to a couple of minor TV channels and a handful newspapers with extremely low circulations.

With 32 journalists in prison and its fall in international press freedom indexes continuing uninterruptedly to new all-time lows, Turkey now has a public stripped of its right to know, its ties cut off from public debate.

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Journalism gagged means not only an end to its democratic transition, but also all bridges of communication with its allies collapsing into darkness.

I am now left with one image; that of Erol being taken out from the courtroom that day - in handcuffs. I shall never ever forget that snapshot.

Nothing else could symbolise the way the top authority in Turkey regards the messengers of truth.
In the sixth part of his Chronicle of a caged journalist series, Egyptian war correspondent Yehia Ghanem asks how the US and the mujahideen, both, walked into cages constructed of ignorance so that they came to view each other as enemies.

Plato once said: "Only the dead see the end of war."

Having covered multiple conflicts on three continents over 19 years, I certainly concur.

I have met and interviewed many mujahideen in different war-stricken countries. Plenty of them were people the West might call "terrorists". But none of them were characters I'd recognise from an academic report, policy paper or movie on the topic. From Afghanistan to Bosnia, I have spoken at length to these people - hearing about their lives and motivations, the places from which they came and the causes for which they fought.

But what has struck me most about the many participants in these wars is the extent to which they are caged.

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Some have entered their cages willingly; others under force. There are those who cage each other and those who cage themselves. And their cages can take so many varying forms - mental, emotional and physical - with one type often leading to another.

But in almost all instances, the hardest cages from which to break free are those constructed of ignorance.

And what applies to individuals applies all the more to countries. Just as people sometimes create their own enemies, so too do states - forging veritable Frankenstein's monsters along the way.

As the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan ended, the Arab - mostly Egyptian - mujahideen who had gone to fight there followed one of three paths.

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Many returned to their home countries to continue their campaigns against their own dictators. Others moved on to another war - joining the Bosnians in their fight against the Serbs. Some stayed where they were - supporting one Afghan group against another as conflict seeped deeper into that society. Among those who took their fight back home with them, a critical shift in thinking was beginning to take place.

During the 1960s and 1970s, their enemy had been the Arab dictators. In the 1980s, it was the Soviets - opposition to which, ironically, united the mujahedeen and their governments. But at the beginning of the 1990s, their anger started to shift towards the US, the country they considered to be the sponsor of their brutal rulers.

For a while, these mujahideen were split. Those who had gone to Bosnia had only limited reservations about American intentions in the Arab world, while those who had stayed in Afghanistan were primarily concerned with the threat posed by the vestiges of the communist government there. They had never considered the US to be their enemy and as many of the top Taliban officials I spoke to told me: "We have no issue with the US - unless they have an issue with us."

But for the mujahideen who had returned to Egypt, things were different.

Although the US had no imperial legacy in the Arab world in the strict sense of the term, returning mujahideen were able to access a body of literature - written, most often, by leftists, socialists and Nasserites, supporters of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's pan-Arab nationalism - that connected the US to the history of European imperialism in the Arab world.

This literature created a false impression that offered greater weight and conviction to their growing frustrations with the role played by Washington in propping up their Arab oppressors.

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And so it was that as the US began to paint the Taliban in Afghanistan as their enemy - although, at that time, the feeling was far from reciprocated - many of the foreign fighters who'd returned from Afghanistan began to craft an ultimate enemy in the form of the US.

Both had walked into cages of ignorance in which they would remain trapped - with far-reaching and devastating consequences ....

Chronicle of a caged journalist is a series of excerpts from an upcoming book.


By Corey Blake

For decades, hiring a ghostwriter has been the traditional approach for a thought leader to write a book if they're not a professional writer. But in today's world, low-cost information is everywhere, and the new currency is not what you know, but rather who trusts you. As the president of a storytelling company, I have seen that most thought leaders are slow to recognize this massive shift and its impact on how they approach their book(s).

Think about your favorite thought leaders: Simon Sinek, Brene Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk. While each of these leaders have learned through rigorous trial and error and have shared new and profound truths with the world, if you think about why you love them, chances are because they boldly stand for something that validates your own beliefs about the way the world should work. For example:

Simon Sinek may validate your desire to matter in the work you do.

Brene Brown may offer you a world where shame doesn't hold you back from opportunity.

Gary Vaynerchuk may spark that fire inside of you that wants to take no prisoners and make things happen.

If their philosophy aligns with how you live or want to live, then chances are strong that you will spread their message as well. The key piece to understand here is that the filter of who they are is profoundly more important to their brands than the lessons they are teaching. Who they are is what builds the trust required for them to stand out and be heard in a cluttered world.

Why Ghostwriting Is Not the Solution

Ghostwriting, as I see it, is a business relationship where a ghostwriter is asked to take what a client has learned and share that information in a straightforward manner. The ghostwriter then takes no credit for the work they've created on their client's behalf.

Let's take a moment to remember this paradigm: your value as a thought leader increases when people trust you. If you hire someone else to write your story for you, and you don't acknowledge their contribution, your own credibility could be brought into question. In my opinion, hiring a ghostwriter will not help you deepen your relationships with your customers and followers. It is also a transactional arrangement, and you want your book to be a transformational experience. After all, aren't you writing it to change your own life in some way or another?

Finding a Better Approach

In the end, transparency is what pays off. Imagine what it would mean to tell the world that you're smart enough to hire a partner whose expertise complements yours. You have a great business model, proven idea, or beautiful life philosophy and you've decided to partner with someone who has spent as much time mastering the craft of writing. How does it diminish you to share an "as told to" or "with" credit on your book? As the saying goes, the light of a candle is not diminished when it lights another candle. The room simply becomes brighter.

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Caring deeply about your work is what helps your writing enter a magical space. Nearly everything about the structure of the relationship between you and your writing partner(s) should lead to the possibility of this kind of outcome, because this is what will turn your readers into raving fans.

Here are some tips when it comes to hiring a writer:

Find a great writer whose work you admire. Ensure that your core values align with theirs. Work with them on a smaller, short-term project to ensure their communication is stellar and that they are committing themselves as a valuable partner. Offer them compensation and writing credit (50 percent of your credit on the cover is appropriate, based on my experience). Use a work-for-hire agreement so that you own all the content. You're still the client, so you have the right to own the product.

My sincere hope is to eradicate the ghostwriting model of transactional book writing. Instead, let's celebrate the courage of the thought leader alongside the gifts of the writing team. Let's acknowledge that there is strength in coming together with other experts to create a thought leadership piece that generates an impact. Let's bring our writers out of the shadows and acknowledge their contributions. From there, we can deeply connect with our readers and engage them with the most profound work of our lives.


Science will do better with a unified Europe

Scientific innovation doesn't just happen on its own. It takes stable economies, free societies, and open-minded governments. The best environment for science to thrive in is that of collaborating groups incentivized to communicate and cooperate with one another. This is precisely what the European Union is.



And now, more than ever, the union of Europe is needed -- because we are crossing over into the transhumanist age, where radical science and technology will engulf our lives and challenge our institutions. Robots will take 75 percent of the jobs in the next 25 years. CRISPR gene editing technology will allow us to augment our intelligence, perhaps doubling our IQ. Bionic organs will stave off death, allowing 200 year lifespans.

The science and technology coming in just the next two decades will cause unprecedented challenges to humanity. Most of the world will get chip implants -- I have one -- to assist with quick payments, emergency tracking, and to replace archaic accessories like car keys. We'll also all use genetic therapies to cure cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and even aging. And robots will be ubiquitous -- driving us everywhere, homeschooling our children, and maybe even becoming preferred sexual partners.



All this change will require immense cooperation between cultures, religious, ethnicities, and nations -- because the ethics of the future are more complex than the ethics of the past. Do we allow one country like America to control the first Artificial Intelligence (knowing the first act of this AI will be to make it so no other greater AI can ever be created)? Is a violent crime in virtual reality legally punishable if no one is physically harmed in the real world? Should individuals be allowed personal armed drone armies that follow them around in public?

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As an American and Hungarian citizen, I belong to both America and the European Union. And I know the future will be overwhelmingly complex and difficult to navigate. The best way to forge our way through the transhumanist age is as a joined union, where decisions are democratically decided to implement the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.



I write these words as a man who believes that one day America, the EU, and other nations around the world will likely unite under one democratic elected world government -- making the EU an all-important test of the future. Technology will induce this geo-political change. Technology will eradicate people's differences and bring us all closer to one another. Technology will change the need for multiple languages, for multiple cultures, for multiple currencies, for multiple legal systems -- even for multiple personal meanings. The facts are obvious to those who work in science and technology: Humans are evolving into cyborgs. And one day soon we will all evolve into machines and be permanently interconnected through data and code. It's the fate of evolution and progress.

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Mike Blake / Reuters Actor Leonardo DiCaprio arrives at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, California January 30, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

NEW DELHI -- Now hear this: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is going international.

The Daily O has reported that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Joint General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale will be in the United Kingdom on July 31 to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, its overseas wing, and they will be joined by celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Richard Branson and Sir David Attenborough.

The Hindu nationalist group has roped in DiCaprio, a vegan, to bring his star power to its anti-beef movement.

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While the RSS' call for banning beef is largely driven by religious considerations, DiCaprio's concerns have to do with the environment, animal rights and climate change. Over the past few years, the Oscar-winning actor has become an influential voice in raising awareness about the climate change crisis.

DiCaprio executive-produced a new cut of Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, a documentary about the animal agriculture industrys practices, which premiered on Netflix in September 2015.

Experts have said that greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector are estimated to account for 14.5 percent of the global total, more than direct

emissions from the transport sector.

Beef and dairy are the most emissions-intensive livestock products and are responsible for the most emissions, accounting for 65 per cent of the total GHGs emitted by livestock, according to Livestock  Climate Changes Forgotten Sector, a Chatham House report published in 2014.

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Environmental activists are informing people that eating less meat is one way that everyone can contribute to combating climate change.

Branson, also a vegan, has announced plans to launch a vegan airline. "For the last few months, I have given up what was previously one of my favourite foods: beef. Eating less red meat can be healthier, better for the environment and  surprisingly to me  really easy to do so," the business magnate wrote in 2014.

The Daily O also reported that Bhagwat will also hold an interfaith dialogue with the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, meet with Cambridge and Oxford dons, and address a gathering of 10,000 NRIs.

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ImagesBazaar via Getty Images Young woman enjoying rain

It's Good For The Broke

Go experience Goa's famous Sao Joao festival that is celebrated at the start of the monsoon season

Everyone needs a break but everyone doesn't have the money for it. #Problem. However, the rains bring respite in more ways than one. Hotels and airlines have an official off-season (when the rates are at their lowest) depending on where they are or fly to--for instance, Ladakh's off-season is the winter, Rajasthan's summer--but the one time almost the entire country is off-season is the rains. The return ticket to Goa right now is under Rs6,000. In the winter, a one-way ticket will be upwards of Rs15,000. Now, naturally this also means that this is not considered to be the best time to travel by the junta, but everyone knows the junta knows nothing. How much fun you have entirely depends on how you use your time (read below) plus hey, you're broke, you don't have much choice so go now.

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It's Good For The Disorganised

A hill station or a beach can be the best place to visit during this season

I know you. You are the type who plans everything last minute and then banks on your luck to find a hotel room when you show up at a place. Your luck sucks each time and you end up spending the night in your car stinking up the mountain by the time you get a room. Your friends hate you. But! If you still want to take that last minute holiday (will you never learn?), this is your time. Not many people travel during the rains, so there's more room for the last-minute-girl. If your idea of planning a break is to just keep driving for a bit longer after work one day, this is the one time you will be rewarded. Any hill or beach place is likely to have empty hotel rooms during this season, so you can safely take off now if you want.

It's Good For The Loner

It's the best time to test your photography skills

If like all sensible people you hate crowds and other people, this is the best time to go to any popular place in the country. Goa, Shimla, Kochi, Sikkim--you name it, it's isolated. You can have a beach to yourself, with nothing but miles of loveliness at hand. Think of how you'll rock Instagram. Plus, if there happens to be other people around, they are sure to be like-minded people and wink wink, go for it, dude.

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It's Good For The Nervous Wreck

Kerala takes on greener hues during the monsoon

If you are stressed, harassed, bored, annoyed or a politician, take a nature break in the rains to recover completely. You will never see green like you see when the rains have washed the trees and vegetation thoroughly. If you thought your last holiday to Kerala was impossibly green, go during the rains to see how it pushes the boundaries of impossible. The waterfalls are roaring, and at their widest and most dramatic. The rivers are full and beautiful; the trees swaying in the breeze; the air cool and calming. There really is no balm for the soul like nature during the rains. Just avoid the mountains if you want to take long walks because the hills are slippery and nature does not provide balm for the broken body.

It's Good For The Lazy Bum

Zanskar Valley during the monsoon season

You can go to the mountains too. You don't want to walk. You don't want to swim. You don't want to sightsee or do a thing--oh my god, be my friend, you are me. If your idea of a holiday is to read, sleep, eat, rotate, then why do you even bother going on a holiday any other time of the year? It's more expensive, there are more people around and it's tougher to get leave from the office--just plan all your holidays during the rains and buy more books with the money you save.

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Getty Images via Getty Images ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - MARCH 11: Aveek Sarkar, Chief Editor of ABP Group at a panel discussion during the inaugural Abu Dhabi Media Summit, on March 11, 2010 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Featuring a unique combination of high profile public sessions, the summit brings together top-tier global media players and their counterparts from fast growing markets. (Photo by Ana-Bianca Marin/Getty Images)

Aveek Sarkar, Chief Editor of the ABP Group of Publications, has resigned after more than three decades with the group. His brother, Arup Sarkar, who has been the editor of the Group's Bengali magazines, is taking over as the Group Chief Editor, according to media reports.

Anirban Chattopadhyay will be the new editor of Anandabazar Patrika, the largest Bengali daily by circulation, and Bengali tabloid Ebela. R. Rajagopal will be the new Editor of The Telegraph.

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Aveek Sarkar, 71, will continue to play an advisory role as editor (emeritus) and vice chairman of the company, and lead the digital initiatives at the group.

In a letter to ABP employees, ABP Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Dipankar Das Purkayastha, said the move is part of the group's ongoing efforts to streamline news operations.

ABP Group and Sarkar were recently targeted by the Trinamool Congress that alleged the Group led a partisan campaign against the party through its publications. In April, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged during a public rally that Sarkar and ABP were conspiring against Trinamool, The Hindureported earlier.

It is unclear if the Sarkar's move is a result of the public attacks. According to a Mintreport, Aveek Sarkar had been hinting at stepping down as group chief editor for sometime.

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kajol/instagram

Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn is busy shooting for his upcoming flick Shivaay these days.

The Bol Bachchan (2012) actor has been travelling to some really amazing places for the shoot with his team. Amongst other locations like Hyderabad and Uttarakhand, Devgn shared some eye-popping photos from the Balkan mountain ranges in Bulgaria during the shoot.

A rare phenomena I caught on our chopper ride! Reflection in the sundrop on the clouds! Unreal! #JourneyOfShivaaypic.twitter.com/FZqIy4J5dy  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) June 22, 2016

Shot from my chopper. Shivaay took me to breathtaking locations and bewitching sights. Watch this space for more! pic.twitter.com/d1Mf8nPj4c  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) June 21, 2016

Devgn, who is also directing and producing the film, posted a video with his team and captioned it, "When the going gets tough, tough get going! Heartfelt thanks to fantastic TeamShivaay for an Extreme Bulgaria shoot."

When the going gets tough, tough get going! Heartfelt thanks to fantastic TeamShivaay for an Extreme Bulgaria shoot.https://t.co/8W7D1n7RKo  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) April 18, 2016

Shooting on top of Balkan Mountains pic.twitter.com/DYtSxrWA5A  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) March 25, 2016

Trying to overcome my fear of heights, do you guys think this will help?? pic.twitter.com/gSGJNuD73V  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) December 26, 2015

Wife Kajol, who along with her kids went to spend some quality time with Ajay, posted some pictures on her Instagram account.

#mytopboys A photo posted by Kajol Devgan (@kajol) on Mar 17, 2016 at 8:27am PDT

When God gives you a winter wonderland, you Instagram it. A photo posted by Kajol Devgan (@kajol) on Mar 17, 2016 at 8:20am PDT

Along with Devgn, this action thriller also features Sayyeshaa, who is the grandniece of veteran actress Saira Banu, in the lead role.

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Shivaay is slated to release in theatres on October 28.

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Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters Girls hold a placard and candles during a special prayer service at a church to show solidarity with the nun who was raped during an armed assault on a convent school, in Kolkata March 17, 2015. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday he was

A woman and a minor girl were allegedly gang-raped in two different incidents in Bihar. A 21-year-old woman was reportedly gang-raped at gunpoint in Motihari district and a pistol and wooden sticks were inserted in her private parts.

The victim who has been admitted to the Motihari Sadar Hospital, remains critical.

According to an ANI report, the victim was going to relive herself in the fields when one of the alleged accused, one Samiullah, molested her and made a video clip of the act. After the victim's mother protested against the incident, the accused along with four male family members barged into the victim's house, dragged her out and gang-raped her.

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"They raped me and after that they even beat me. Later their family members came and they also beat me up," News 18 quoted the victim as saying.

The accused reportedly also forced a homemade gun and wooden sticks inside the victim's private parts after which the woman collapsed. She was left naked by the roadside.

"My daughter has been raped. Police came and took her to hospital. As of now the police has done nothing. They have not caught the culprits," the victim's mother said,

In another gruesome incident, a 12-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by two men in Bedivan Madhuvan village near Patna.

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The girl who was raped on 15 June is now being treated at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH). Her condition remains critical as she received serious internal injuries, her family told PTI.

The victim's brother said that their family is being pressured to withdraw the case. "We are poor people. They say if we don't drop the case they will shoot us," he said.

Chakia Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), Mundrika Prasad said that two men, Pramod Sahni and Kamlesh Sahni, were arrested on the day of the rape and sent to jail on the basis of an FIR lodged by the victim's father.

The police said that local residents have blocked National Highway 28, demanding a speedy trial.

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Twitter

Mistaking an Arab Spring activist for the leader of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, many Indians have written to Iyad El-Baghdadi requesting him to guide them in joining the Caliphate, news reports said.

After Iyad tweeted, seeking help to contact Indian authorities to inform them about the flood of emails he has been receiving from Indians, the countrys intelligence agencies have started tracing people who reached out to him.

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Iyad, a UAE citizen, was born in Palestine and sought asylum in Norway. On Tuesday, he said in a tweet, if I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to?.

If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to?  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

Regardless, if I want to report an Indian person who emails me because they want to "join ISIS", where do I do that? @taufiq_wan  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

Already contacted the email host and reported. I want to know the security agency to report to as well, just in case. @taufiq_wan  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

Iyad did not reveal the identity of the people on twitter, neither did he elaborate on the content of the emails he received from Indians seeking help to join ISIS.

As per The Indian Express report, Mumbai police responded to Iyad on Twitter and thanked him for alerting them.

@Kads_M Thank you for bringing it to our notice. We will look into it.  Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) June 21, 2016

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Xiaomi

Continuing with its steady diversification into new product categories, Xiaomi launched a smart electric cycle today at an event in China under their sub-brand Mijia. This bike is called QiBicycle and it will cost 2,999 Yuan (approximately 30,00 rupees).

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QiBicycle is completely foldable and can sit in the back of your car. It is made from lightweight material so that its overall weight is restricted to just 7 kilos. Being 'smart', the cycle can also also measure different data points, such as the distance of the current trip or the overall distance covered, mileage, heat consumption, and battery percentage.

The cycle comes with a Panasonic lithium 18650 mAh battery, a driving motor and 3-speed transmission. It can ride 40-50 kilometres from a single charge and to help avoid accidents it is equipped with smart motion-sensing technology. Xiaomi has also released an app with the cycle that has an inbuilt navigation system.

Back in India, after being quiet for a couple of weeks, Xiaomi is starting their launch activities again. They launched a website called Mi Community some days ago. The website will allow users to participate in launch events after they register with it, as well as try new products early and be able to give feedback to the company. Xiaomi's initiative is in keeping with what has become standard practice among smartphone makers. Companies such LeEco, Yu, Xiaomi and OnePlus invite their fans to launches and other events and let them try their devices ahead of releasing them in the market.

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Xioami is also launching a giant phablet, Mi Max, in India at an event on 30 June . The phablet has a humongous 6.44-inch screen and 4850 mAh battery.
K-State opens competition for kicker

Kansas State coach Chris Klieman isn't giving up on kicker Chris Tennant, but he isn't giving him a free pass, either.
Music Biz To Return To Nashville May 15-18, 2017

The Music Business Association announced Thursday that its Music Biz convention will return to Nashville for the third consecutive year from May 15  18, 2017 at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel.

__________________________________________________

Mark your calendar: After another successful convention, the Music Business Association's Music Biz convention will return to Nashville for the third year from May 15  18, 2017 at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. Registration will open in the Fall.

Music Biz 2016, the Associations second annual event in Nashville, drew 1,500 attendees, an increase of more than 50% since moving the event to Music City.

Attendees this year represented more than 600 unique entities from every sector of the industry, including major and independent labels and distributors, digital and physical commerce companies, artists, songwriters, managers, publishers, touring professionals, educators, students, industry organizations, and more. It was also the Associations best-reviewed event ever, with more than 93% of attendees surveyed indicating the event was productive, informative, enjoyable, and worth the time and money invested.

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While final results arent due for another several hours, early indications from a respected poll strongly suggest that Britain has voted to stay in the European Union.No official exit polls were conducted for Brexit, but a YouGov poll showed Remain beating Leave 52%-48%. While the poll has a much smaller sample size than a typical exit poll, YouGov did call the Scottish Independence vote within one percentage point in 2014. And Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and a prominent booster of the Leave campaign, has told Sky News that he thinks Remain will edge it.British Prime Minister David Cameron had long lobbied for Britain to remain in the EU, saying an exit would cost British jobs and deal a blow to the nations economy. Those who wanted to leave the union, however, said Brexit would allow the U.K. to better control immigration and save the money it contributes to the EUs budget.It has boiled down to jobs versus foreigners, Justin Fisher, a politics professor at Brunel University in London, told Bloomberg.So if early signs are correct, what does that mean for North American businesses? Mostly, it means they can breathe a giant sigh of relief. Many analysts believe a UK exit from the EU would have had a profound effect on global markets  perhaps even sending them into a nosedive. There were fears that Britains severing of ties with the EU would negatively impact trade, economic growth, investment and jobs in Europe.The market is looking for an excuse, or trigger, to sell and might well get one, Axel Merk, chief investment officer at Merk Investments, told USA Today ahead of the vote. The Market believes a potential Brexit is a very serious thing for risk assets.The impact would have been even more deeply felt because global markets had been betting on Britain to remain in the EU, USA Today reported.But with the UK voting to remain, stocks on Wall Street and around the world are expected to get a boost. Shares of large UK banks should spike, according to USA Today.It goes without saying that we would get a huge relief rally with a remain vote, David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff, told clients prior to the vote.
A group of Democratic senators are urging the US Justice Department to block a pair of mergers among four of the countrys largest health insurance companies.In a letter, the senators wrote that Aetna Inc.s $33 billion takeover of Humana and Anthem Inc.s $48 billion plan to buy Cigna would mean higher premiums and lower-quality healthcare for consumers. Both transactions are being reviewed by the DOJ and, if approved, would bring the number of national health insurance carriers from five to three.We urge the DOJ to challenge these mergers from proceeding and to prevent the damage they would cause to competition and consumers, wrote Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Edward Markey, Al Franken, Sherrod Brown, Dianne and Feinstein and Mazie Hirono.The lawmakers continued, saying they were skeptical of the insurers claims that the acquisitions would be good for consumers, as the companies could use their greater influence to achieve better patient deals with healthcare providers.The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that few if any cost savings secured by the merging firms through the exercise of market power will be passed on to consumers, the senators wrote.They also disputed insurer claims that selling certain assets to competitors would resolve antitrust concerns, pointing to previous instances where mergers coupled with divestitures actually led to higher premiums for consumers.We are not convinced that any divestiture required of the merging parties will succeed today, given that they have so clearly failed in the recent past, the letter concluded.The move comes at a time when increased opposition has plagued the proposed mergers.Official investigations into the transactions between Aetna and Humana, Anthem and Cigna have been launched by individual state attorneys general, the US Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. A new coalition of consumer groups and medical associations has also spoken out against the consolidations, which would shrink the US health insurance market from five major players to just three.In total, insurance commissioners from 20 states are considering the Aetna-Humana merger, and 27 states are looking into Anthems proposed acquisition of Cigna.After the long string of approvals, Missouri Insurance Commissioner John Huff became the first regulator to issue a preliminary order barring Aetna and Humana from offering certain plans if they complete the deal first announced last year.California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones also made headlines this month, calling Anthems proposed acquisition of Cigna anti-competitive on the basis that it would hurt consumers, businesses and the states health insurance market.The Justice Department has not yet given a timeline for decisions on either merger, but said deadlines could be negotiated and even extended under agreements between the Department and the insurers.Both mergers were announced last July, and Aetna spokesman TJ Crawford believes the company will close the deal with Humana in the second half of 2016. Anthem has not given an official timeline.
There are many environmental and energy insurance issues to consider
Fairy Queen Deidre and the Wizard Grulaach, dressed for their parts in this Saturday's Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival. Making a presentation at Adams Community Bank last month on behalf of the Arts Advisory Board. Carrisa Toomey holds her 'Flight of the Midnight Faerie' that is featured at Adams Community Bank. Close up of the decorative features for the main gate. The costume shop filled with materials. A mermaid who found her way to Adams. Ceramic fairy doors. PreviousNext

Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival to Enchant in Adams





ADAMS, Mass.  The signs have been around the area for weeks: tiny doors to enchanted realms, fairy princesses, visits from the Fairy Queen Deidre and wardings from the Wizard Grulaach.



It's all leading up to the Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival this Saturday at Bowe Field for a day filled with music, magic, parades and activities that will be capped off that night around a dragon fire pit. And, of course, fairies.



The idea for those tiny doors that have been appearing in businesses and municipal buildings around the area literally opened the way for the festival that organizers are hoping will become at tentpole attraction for the area on par with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts' music festivals.



"It's to create greater awareness of the arts, the growing arts community here," said Grulaach, also known as Richard Tavelli, a retired economic development adviser when he isn't protecting the area from evil fairies. "Most of the people involved, except for myself, are artists and entrepreneurs."



It's one part branding for Adams to link it into the cultural and artistic renaissance happening in North Adams and Williamstown, and to create a new attraction for the general community, he said.



"This is not only just about Adams," said Gail Sellers, who operates River Hill Pottery in North Adams. "We think of our population not just as Adams but as the whole 130,000 there is in Berkshire County."



The festival has taken over a large part of the space in the former Simmons Furniture building on Park Street owned by artists William and Francie Anne Riley. A few weeks ago, sections of the gateway and other elements for the festival's backdrop were being painted by William Riley, a professional scenic designer whose resume includes the Metropolitan Opera. On the floor below, an impromptu costume shop was filled with donated garments and material for turning into fairy and other costumes by a range of volunteers of all ages from around the area.



"It really has brought people together  all sorts of groups from all sorts of areas in town," said Francie Anne Riley, who with her husband is turning his family's former store into a home and studio. "People I'd never met have brought over stuff to donate."



Artist George LeMaitre, another recent resident who, with his wife, Pat Fietta, is renovating an old mill as work/live space, has been "scavenging junkyards," she said to create a fantastical Pedal Float the group hopes to feature at the Big E and local parades and events. Lemaitre and his group of volunteers were also creating the metal dragon mouth that may be a permanent fixture at Bowe Field.


Imperial Valley News Center

FTC Returns More Than $6 Million to Consumers Who Bought Infomercial Marketer Kevin Trudeaus Weight-Loss Book

Washington, DC - The Federal Trade Commission is mailing checks totaling approximately $6.3 million to consumers who bought Kevin Trudeaus book, The Weight Loss Cure They Dont Want You to Know About. In 2009, a federal judge ordered Trudeau to repay millions of dollars to consumers after he violated a 2004 FTC stipulated order by misrepresenting the books content.

For years, Trudeau fought the FTCs efforts to collect the money he owes consumers, including repeatedly denying that he had any money and hindering efforts to find his money. During one court proceeding, he took the fifth hundreds of times rather than answer questions about where his money was. At one point, the judge jailed Trudeau for not cooperating. Eventually, a court-appointed receiver located a portion of the money, which the FTC is now using to partially repay consumers.

Consumers should deposit or cash checks within 60 days of the mailing date. Those who deposit or cash their checks may receive future proceeds if funds become available. The FTC never requires consumers to pay money or to provide information before refund checks can be cashed. Consumers who receive checks and have questions can contact the FTCs refund administrator, Analytics, at 844-828-4437. Learn more about this refund program at ftc.gov/trudeau.
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Releases Statement on Bipartisan Passage in Congress of Toxic Substance Control Act that Preserves Critical California Environmental Protections

San Francisco, California - Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today released the following statement, after the bipartisan passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in the U.S. Congress, reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) to limit the number of dangerous chemicals in our environment.

California leads the nation in protecting our air, water, and public health, and has taken bold steps to guard against the unsafe presence of toxic chemicals in our state. I applaud Congress bipartisan effort to update and reform the long-standing Toxic Substances Control Act and thank Senator Barbara Boxer for her advocacy to protect Californias public health and environment.

The Act significantly expands the number of registered industrial chemicals that are subject to federal regulation. The passage of TSCA in 1976 grandfathered more than 80,000 chemicals available in the U.S., allowing their continued use without the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testing them for their affect on human health and the environment. In the absence of effective federal action, states like California stepped up to fill the void, protecting the public from highly toxic chemicals like flame retardants and emissions from industrial products.

In January, Attorney General Harris and 11 other state Attorneys General sent a letter urging Congress to limit preemption of state authority to regulate harmful chemicals, and noted the complementary roles played by states and the federal government in protecting people from toxic substances. The letter outlined seven key state principles to serve as guidelines for refining the final legislation.

The final version of the TSCA reform legislation eliminates or scales back nearly all the aspects of preemption to which Attorney General Harris and other Attorneys General objected, providing a path for states to continue to innovate, lead, work cooperatively with U.S. EPA and even enact restrictions that are more protective than the federal governments efforts.

In particular, the final bill reflects five important principles outlined by Attorney General Harris and the coalition of Attorneys General:

Once EPA has taken action on a chemical, the scope of state law preempted will be no broader than the scope of EPAs action. This means that if EPA acts with respect to a chemical based on a cancer risk, for example, states will not be precluded from acting as to that same chemical based on respiratory risk;

States are not preempted from continuing to establish requirements on chemicals pursuant to longstanding state laws;

States may continue to enforce existing state chemical restrictions;

States may retain their role as co-enforcers of EPA regulations, retaining the authority to adopt and enforce identical limitations on chemicals as those adopted by EPA; and

State laws related to water quality, air quality and waste treatment and disposal are not preempted.

The letter was signed by Attorney General Harris and the Attorneys General of Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Since June 2013, when the most recent legislative push to reform TSCA began, Attorney General Harris has been actively advocating for reform that strengthens EPAs authority, while also preserving states important role. Attorney General Harris will continue to work with other state Attorneys General and with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its new role to regulate harmful and toxic chemicals.
Assemblymember Garcia urged The California Competes Committee to fund One World Beef in Brawley

Brawley, California - Last week, State Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia urged The California Competes Tax Credit Committee to approve the application for $6 million dollars in tax credits from One World Beef Company in Brawley. The committee reviewed the application and approved it with a unanimous vote. The funding will get One World Beef closer to opening its doors and to fulfill their commitment to hire 605 new employees in Imperial County.

This is a big day for Imperial County as One World Beef (OWB) got their $6 million dollar tax credit application approved. OWB has committed to making a $38.5 million investment in Imperial County, one of the most economically depressed areas of the state. This investment will bring much needed full-time jobs to the area, said Assemblymember Garcia.

The California Competes Tax Credit is an income tax credit available to businesses that want to come to California or stay and grow in California. Tax credit agreements will be negotiated by GO-Biz and approved by a statutorily created California Competes Tax Credit Committee, consisting of the State Treasurer, the Director of the Department of Finance, the Director of GO-Biz, one appointee each by the Speaker of the Assembly and Senate Committee on Rules.
Assemblymember Garcia Honors Imperial Valley Food Bank

Sacramento, California - Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia honored the Imperial Valley Food Bank at the Nonprofit of the Year event in Sacramento. Imperial Valley Food Bank was selected by Assemblymember Garcia for its exceptional work fighting hunger in the 56th Assembly District. The Imperial Valley Food Bank will join other nonprofit leaders from across the state being honored at this inaugural event.

Its great to recognize such an amazing organization that does gods work, said Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia. We are also recognizing all of the partners, like the agricultural community in Imperial County that has been very supportive of feeding the hungry in our county.

The Imperial Valley Food Bank has served the community for 25 years. They work to gather, store, and distribute millions of pounds of donated food to hungry people in Imperial County. Imperial Valley Food Bank partners with over 100 other agencies, churches, shelters, schools and soup kitchens. They have successfully been operating Mobile Food Pantries to areas of the county without food distribution organizations. Imperial Valley Food Bank is devoted to feeding the hungry in every corner of Imperial County.

Sara Griffen, Executive Director of the food bank visited the Assembly Floor before attending a luncheon at Sacramentos Sheraton Grand Hotel. The keynote address was provided by Sacramento Mayor-Elect Darrell Steinberg, Assemblymember Richard Gordon and Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits (CalNonprofits).

Nonprofit organizations are vitally important to the economy and well-being of California. But too often nonprofits are hidden in plain sight. We are thrilled that the State Assembly has passed a resolution putting the spotlight on nonprofits as an economic power that uses that power for the common good. We congratulate all of the award recipients on being honored for the great work they do every day to make California a better place, said Jan Masaoka, CEO of California Association of Nonprofits (CalNonprofits), a statewide alliance of over 10,000 organizations, representing and promoting Californias growing nonprofit sector and working to bring the full power of nonprofits to strengthening communities.

California Nonprofits Day was formally proclaimed by the State Legislature through passage of ACR 192, authored by Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park).
Mobile Advertising Network InMobi Settles FTC Charges It Tracked Hundreds of Millions of Consumers Locations Without Permission

Washington, DC - Singapore-based mobile advertising company InMobi will pay $950,000 in civil penalties and implement a comprehensive privacy program to settle Federal Trade Commission charges it deceptively tracked the locations of hundreds of millions of consumers - including children - without their knowledge or consent to serve them geo-targeted advertising.

The FTC alleges that InMobi mispresented that its advertising software would only track consumers locations when they opted in and in a manner consistent with their devices privacy settings. According to the complaint, InMobi was actually tracking consumers locations whether or not the apps using InMobis software asked for consumers permission to do so, and even when consumers had denied permission to access their location information.

The FTC alleges that InMobi, whose advertising network has reached more than one billion devices worldwide through thousands of popular apps, offers multiple forms of location-based advertising to its customers, including the ability to serve ads to consumers based on their current locations, locations they visit at certain times, and on their location over time.

InMobi tracked the locations of hundreds of millions of consumers, including children, without their consent, in many cases totally ignoring consumers express privacy preferences, said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection. This settlement ensures that InMobi will honor consumers privacy choices in the future, and will be held accountable for keeping their privacy promises.

The complaint alleges that inMobi created a database built on information collected from consumers who allowed the company access to their geolocation information, combining that data with the wireless networks they were near to document the physical location of wireless networks themselves. InMobi then would use that database to infer the physical location of consumers based on the networks they were near, even when consumers had turned off location collection on their device.

The FTC alleges that InMobi also violated the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting this information from apps that were clearly directed at children, in spite of promising that it did not do so. The complaint noted that InMobis software tracked location in thousands of child-directed apps with hundreds of millions of users without following the steps required by COPPA to get a parent or guardians consent to collect and use a childs personal information.

Under the terms of its settlement with the FTC, InMobi is subject to a $4 million civil penalty, which is suspended to $950,000 based on the companys financial condition. In addition, the company will be required to delete all information it collected from children, and will be prohibited from further violations of COPPA.

In addition, InMobi will be prohibited from collecting consumers location information without their affirmative express consent for it to be collected, and will be required to honor consumers location privacy settings. The company will also be required to delete the location information of consumers it collected without their consent and will be prohibited from further misrepresenting its privacy practices. The settlement also will require InMobi to institute a comprehensive privacy program that will be independently audited every two years for the next 20 years.

The Commission vote to authorize the staff to refer the complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice and to approve the proposed stipulated order was 3-0. The DOJ filed the complaint and proposed stipulated order on behalf of the Commission in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Enabling the future of making

Washington, DC - During the 2016 Week of Making, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded five, new, early-concept grants to enable the future of do-it-yourself technological innovation known as making, and to catalyze new approaches in STEM learning.

NSFs strategic research investments have already enabled many of the innovations underlying 3-D printing, computer-aided design, geometric modeling and computer-integrated systems. NSF has funded the systematic discovery of new knowledge about learning through making in diverse formal and informal settings including fab lab classrooms, television and interactive web media, undergraduate engineering, and at the first-ever World Maker Faire.

The five, new, early-concept awards, each for $300,000 over two years, are intended to take radically different approaches, apply new expertise, or engage novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives to the future of making.

The origins of making: A data science approach to investigating cognitive and affective basis of learning through constructing

Researchers at Rutgers University Newark will investigate the developmental origins of making in childrens play through the development of a Mobile Maker Center that can be brought to local science museums, parks, play centers, zoos or libraries to study childrens interactions with specially designed physical objects and computer-designed simulations.

The project combines the expertise of researchers in cognitive development, emotional development, and data science and advances the theoretical understanding of STEM learning in informal settings while creating a rich repository of shared data for the broader developmental science community.

An idea at the heart of cognitive development is that children construct knowledge by active exploration, said Elizabeth Bonawitz, assistant faculty in the psychology department at Rutgers University Newark and a principal investigator on the new grant. A core tenet of the maker movement is that experiences involving active exploration of ideas through concrete experiences of construction elicit enjoyment and foster lasting learning. We suggest not only that childrens play behavior is like making, but that making is possible because of childhood.

Tracking youth interest and engagement in makerspace learning activities using wearable technology

This project seeks to explore, in a naturalistic way, what aspects of making are more or less engaging for youth with a variety of interests. By understanding the different forms of interest that develop from making, the researchers intend to better-position youth from a broad range of backgrounds and design maker programs that can sustain long-term youth engagement. The project enables students to create wearable technologies to gather and inspect data about familiar activities and experiences and consider them in new ways.

Making offers a great deal of potential for empowering kids and enabling just-in-time learning in STEM, said Victor Lee, associate professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. If we can make sure learning experiences that involve making are made truly accessible to youth of all backgrounds and that maker learning activities are thoughtfully designed and informed by good educational research, we will be really well-positioned as a nation to positively impact an entire generation of learners."

Making opportunities for Baltimore inner city youth in a 3-D print shop

Many youth learn about making in after-school programs. Unfortunately, not all youth are able to participate in these programs due to financial pressures and may instead take jobs in non-technical fields, limiting their exposure and expertise in maker activities.

Amy Hurst of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Shawn Grimes from the Digital Harbor Foundation are creating a living laboratory "print shop" in Baltimore to study the impact of maker employment on inner city youth. Research will focus on how students experiences in the print shop maintain their engagement with STEM. Hurst and Grimes hope the research will generate a new model to keep underserved youth on pathways toward STEM careers.

Making reinforces creativity, problem solving and ownership of one's own learning, Hurst said. All of these skills are not only valuable in the existing job opportunities -- they provide the agility for employees to adapt and respond to new career paths that don't even exist currently. added Grimes.

An ethnography of maker and hacker spaces achieving diverse participation

This project will examine how diverse maker spaces welcome groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM, and how these practices can inform the design and operation of campus and community maker or hacker spaces that presently struggle to achieve diversity.

We have observed that diverse maker spaces have been built from the ground up, with full participation of diverse groups in their conception and development and in their day-to-day operation and leadership, said Donna Riley of Virginia Tech, who is a co-principal investigator on the award with Lisa McNair. Our study will give a rich description of the practices and artifacts employed to establish and maintain environments that are diverse, inclusive, and liberatory.

The researchers plan to work with leaders of diverse maker spaces to glean emergent best practices and propagate these in the design or transformation of existing and new maker spaces on campuses and in communities.

bioMAKERlab: A wetlab and starter activities for promoting synthetic biology in high school classes and workshops

In a bioMAKERlab at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers Yasmin Kafai and Orkan Telhan will encourage high school students to broaden their understanding of synthetic biology.

With bioMAKERlab, high school students and teachers will be able to learn and discuss not only critical ideas about synthetic biology but also test what it means to design and build your own organisms using DNA, Telhan said. This will give students the critical and creative understanding of technology and the sciences needed for jobs in the future.

The design of bioMAKERlab will generate an educational version of an existing professional-grade lab for synthetic biology to promote safe production, accessibility and affordability for high schools and community colleges interested in integrating such wetlab activities into their curriculum.

This project will first develop and implement bioMAKERlab, an innovative wetlab starter kit and activities that will enable high school students and teachers to engage in synthetic biology by building genetic circuits that enable microorganisms to change color, smell and shape. In synthetic biology, participants make their own DNA -- gene by gene -- and then grow their designs into real applications by inserting them into microorganisms to develop different traits and characteristics determined by the genes. The project will then involve students from a Philadelphia public high school and young people participating in weekend workshops at The Franklin Institute, a Philadelphia-based science museum.
GES Welcoming Reception

Palo Alto, California - Secretary of State John Kerry: " Greg, thank you very much. Thank you for  I dont know where youve gone off to. But thank you for your extraordinary personal leadership. Greg has been the head of a bank  the Silicon Valley Bank, that is the only bank dedicated to technology, to innovation, and to entrepreneurs. And it has racked up a remarkable record over the years, and we are very, very grateful to you for being a sponsor, and to the other sponsors who are here.

"This is a partnership between the private sector, the public sector, academia  everybody coming together. And as you know, this is the seventh iteration. I was with President Obama just literally a few hours ago  I just arrived  and he is looking forward to being out here to talk to all of you and to really wrap up those many years now that he has been putting into this effort to commit the Obama Administration to entrepreneurial activity. And I want you to know how very, very grateful we are to all of the sponsors and everybody for bringing together  and Im not flattering you  some of the smartest, savviest, most entrepreneurial people in the world.

"There were 5,000 applicants to come here, and every one of you is here because you were selected. There are some 700-plus entrepreneurs, there are 300-plus investors, maybe 1,500 people total  its a remarkable gathering, and Im delighted that you have come here to share experiences, to learn, to talk about how were going to define the future.

"Youre going to hear more from me tomorrow. I have the privilege of opening tomorrow morning, so Im not going to go into all of the substance and thoughts that I want to share with you about the world that I see and the opportunities that I know are there. I was in Kuala Lumpur at a major entrepreneurial effort there. There were about 5,000 young people all excited about entrepreneurial activity. And it was like a rock concert. Id never seen so much energy and excitement, sense of possibility. And I think today I just want to be very brief and literally welcome you here. But this is exciting.

"The youngest participant here is 11 years old. (Applause.) And the oldest looks very distinguished  perhaps a little like Gandalf  (laughter)  or me  but theres a huge range of folks here. And this event really has already begun, because today, Under Secretary Rick Stengel and Ambassador Cathy Russel organized a terrific day for the Global Entrepreneurial Summit Plus, which are young folks and women particularly. And I think everybody here understands that there is no person too young to have a great idea that cant be applied in some way and often commercialized and brought to scale, and everybody understands that no country is going to make it, no country can move in the modern world, with up to 50 percent of its population on the sidelines because there is discrimination against women. So it is critical  (applause)  critical to understand that.

"I want to just build on what Greg said, and Rick Stengel said, in the sense that I cant emphasize enough to you how much we need you and we need your willingness to change the status quo and to try to go out there and make a difference in one way or the other. Every one of you I know  because thats why youre here  is prepared to break down barriers. Youre prepared to not take no for an answer. Youre prepared to take an idea and make it a reality, which is the essence of being an entrepreneur. And its risky, and its tough. And not everybody does crash through. But youre also, I know, driven by more than just the idea of creating something and discovering something, making something. I know that every single one of you here wants to have an impact on your community. You want to make the world safer. You want to make the world better. And we desperately need that at this stage of our history, where there are more failed and failing states than Ive seen in any time that Ive been in public life.

"So we face enormous challenges, and Ill chat a little bit about a few of them tomorrow. But what I do know is that whether its climate change or poverty or disease or transportation, there are so many opportunities out there with so many people who still are desperately waiting for an opportunity to have a job and to be able to live as they see other people leaving because of  living because of modern technology.

"So we all know  I had the privilege of representing the state of Massachusetts for 28 years  almost 29 years. And that meant that I got to interact with a lot of exciting institutions. We have about 136 colleges and universities  including Boston University, Boston College, Harvard, MIT, and many others. And we have been a place of innovation all of that time. So I like to think that this is in my blood, too, and I understand it. And I know that most jobs dont come from Fortune 500 companies. Jobs come from somebody whos got an idea, and they work in their garage or out of their car, or in a basement, and they make things happen and they build it from one people, two people, three, and onwards.

"And by the way, every one of the great names here  whether youre talking about Google or Cisco or any of those companies here that are the signature companies of this valley, you will understand began in those very ways, just as any startup does.

"So it is critical that we make the most out of these two days now coming at us. And I know you will. Were going to see some $10 billion announced over the next two days in capital investment in various projects. Were going to have research efforts announced. Were going to see networking take place before our eyes, and out of that I am convinced will come maybe a life-changing initiative with respect to either health or safety, or community, or communications  you name it.

"I know that there is a tiny irony, perhaps, in having a summit in a valley. But we can get over that, because this valley is literally synonymous with entrepreneurship. So I invite you to take every advantage that is available to you with the investors who are here, with the folks who are here to counsel, to mentor, to teach, and to share ideas. And I am confident that we will look back on these two days as the startup of one or two or ten or a hundred different efforts that will become known entities in the near term.

"So God bless you all, thanks for being part of this effort. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning. Enjoy the wine and the evening, the weather, and well see you tomorrow. Thanks very, very much. Thank you. (Applause.)"
World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony

Washington, DC - The names of this years World Food Prize honorees will be announced at the 2016 World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony, where The Honorable Gayle E. Smith, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, will deliver keynote remarks. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Kurt Tong will host the event, to be held Tuesday, June 28, at 11:00 a.m. at the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State.

Special Representative for Global Food Security, Nancy Stetson, will deliver remarks and greetings on behalf of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia, Kenneth M. Quinn, will announce the names of the honorees for this year, which marks the 30th Anniversary of the establishment of the World Food Prize.

The ceremony will be livestreamed at www.state.gov.
Climate Smart Israel to Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee

Sacramento, California - Secretary Ross is traveling through Israel this week with a California delegation interested in adaptation strategies for climate change and drought:

Yesterday took us north to the Sea of Galilee. The sense of history here leaves me in a state of awe. The Sea of Galilee is also known as the Kineret. It is Israels largest fresh water reservoir and the countrys largest and most important source of drinking water.

We met with top officials of the plant breeding company Kaiima Ltd in Moshav Sharon which was listed in 2014 by MIT in its top-50 smartest companies. It is a very small company among giants like Amazon, Google and Tesla. Its two founders have backgrounds in plant breeding and genetics, and they developed a non-GMO genetics platform to improve yields and characteristics for resiliency. The World Bank is an investor. Its main focus is on the major crops in the world: wheat, soybeans, rice, corn, canola, tomatoes and peppers. Top Seeds is its subsidiary that specializes in vegetable seeds. The companys plant breeding process can shave 2-3 years off the plant breeding cycle which can take up to ten years. In addition to improved productivity Top Seed is innovating to deliver better taste and longer shelf life. A member of our delegation, Hank Giclas of Western Growers Association, takes us on a quick tour.

We then traveled to Jerusalem  a sprawling, hilly city mixing the very modern with some of the oldest history we know. State Board chairman Craig McNamara, Josh Eddy, the boards executive director, and I left our delegation for a meeting at the Knesset with the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Uri Ariel.

Secretary Ross with Israels Minister of Agriculture and Rural development, Uri Ariel

Minister Ariel and I agreed to establish a work group to develop a couple if areas for joint projects and collaboration. In addition to water and climate smart agriculture, he is interested in advancing aquaculture, the use of satellites and drones to improve agriculture, and agri-tourism.

We joined our delegation at a dinner hosted by the Milken Institute in preparation for todays Innovation Lab visit. Delegation members were energized by their earlier discussion with the dynamic manager of Hagihon, the water delivery and wastewater entity for Jerusalem.
State Department Settles With Microwave Engineering Corporation Regarding Export Violation

Washington, DC - The State Department has concluded an administrative settlement with Microwave Engineering Corporation (MEC) of North Andover, Massachusetts, to resolve an alleged violation of the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq., and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130. The agreement was reached pursuant to ITAR  128.11 and addresses the alleged unauthorized export of technical data to a foreign person employee of MEC from the Peoples Republic of China, a country against which the United States maintains an arms embargo.

The settlement was reached following an extensive compliance review by the Departments Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance (DTCC) in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and highlights the Departments responsibility to protect U.S. defense articles, including technical data, from unauthorized export. It also highlights the importance of ensuring effective oversight of intra-company transfers of controlled items (including technical data), and the need to obtain appropriate authorization from the Department for such transfers to foreign person employees.

Under the terms of the Consent Agreement, MEC will pay a civil penalty of $100,000. The company voluntarily disclosed to the Department the facts addressed under this settlement, acknowledged the serious nature of the allegations, cooperated with the Departments review, and implemented extensive remedial measures. For these reasons, the Department determined that an administrative debarment of MEC was not appropriate, and additional remediation (and related oversight) was not necessary.
Fifth Annual U.S.-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue

Washington, DC - Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon will welcome Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Md. Shahidul Haque to the Department of State for the fifth annual U.S.-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue, taking place June 23-24.

Under Secretary Shannon will lead the U.S. delegation for discussions on security affairs, development and governance, trade and investment, international and regional affairs, and other issues of mutual interest.

The U.S.-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue, established in 2012, is a regularly planned policy consultation designed to advance our common agenda and opportunities for cooperation across the full range of bilateral and regional issues.

The United States looks forward to constructive conversations with Bangladesh with the objective of broadening and deepening the partnership between the two countries.
Joint Statement of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission Working Group on Democracy and Governance

Washington, DC - The U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission's (SPC) Democracy and Governance Working Group met on June 21 in Tbilisi to review progress on goals set at the Working Groups November 2015 meeting in Washington. Both sides affirmed the importance of strong, depoliticized government institutions and transparent and accountable governance.

The United States commended the progress made by Georgia in furthering its reform agenda. The sides agreed that an open, pluralistic, and peaceful political environment is essential to Georgia's goal to make the October parliamentary elections a showcase of Georgias democratic progress.

The United States and Georgia discussed the ways of ensuring a level and competitive playing field for political parties and candidates through principled leadership and improvements to election administration, as well as a free and open media environment. The United States welcomed the leadership of Prime Minister Kvirikashvili in discouraging political violence and intimidation. The sides highlighted the crucial importance of Prime Ministers statement calling for the adoption of a code of conduct among political parties to ensure a free, fair and stable electoral environment. The sides also stressed the importance of preventing and addressing incidents occurring before, during or after elections.

Both sides affirmed the importance of a strong and independent judiciary. The United States commended Georgias ongoing justice sector reforms, particularly of the Chief Prosecutor's Office, and welcomed Chief Prosecutors commitment to a reform agenda. The United States encouraged Georgia to continue its work in these key areas, and to go deeper and broader both in law and in practice to strengthen checks and balances, including at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The United States praised Georgia for its implementation of voluntary interviewing of witnesses, and urged its rapid expansion to all criminal cases. Both sides agreed that implementation of additional reforms will further strengthen Georgias democracy and contribute to Georgia's achievement of its European and Euro-Atlantic integration goals. The United States pledged its continued support and assistance in achieving these goals.

Both sides recognized the importance of a professional civil service, and the United States welcomed Georgia's efforts to improve the capacity and reduce the politicization of Georgia's public servants through legislation that will take effect in January 2017. The Working Group also praised the great strides Georgia has made in addressing the issue of trafficking in persons.

The Georgian delegation was led by co-chairs First Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani and First Deputy Minister of Justice Alexander Baramidze, and included a broad interagency delegation. The U.S. delegation was led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink, USAID Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia Thomas O. Melia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Rob Berschinski, Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia Alina Romanowski, and Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (OPDAT) Regional Director for Eurasia Catherine Newcombe.

The Strategic Partnership Commission is the primary mechanism for organizing and prioritizing the broad and deepening cooperation between the United States and Georgia. The Commission includes four bilateral working groups on priority areas identified in the Charter on Strategic Partnership: democracy and governance; defense and security; economics, trade, and energy; and people-to-people and cultural exchanges.




This Isnt Our Last Love Letter



Dear Don Don,

Way back in 92



I walked into the room and knew



Never felt this way before



I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes



And the feeling grew



As I took a seat I knew



A love that would have my heart



Forever



I knew



Way back in 92





They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true



We were the exception to that rule



Our love had no where to hide



A spark set fire



As if this is how the universe started





I never doubted our love or what we could do



Together we grew



Forming a bond everlasting



That became our glue



My euphoria was YOU



Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared



For how fortunate we were :



to have and to hold

through sickness and in health

Til death do us part



Until we are together again



This isnt our last love letter



I love you with all my heart and soul



Yours forever,



Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow)





Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus.









A True American Hero

I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus.



I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years.



I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years.

But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us.

In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about.



Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle.

I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life.

I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life.

No one will ever do what he did.

I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO





David Jurist

IMUS IN THE MORNING

FIRST DAY BACK!
Watch: Snake Attacks Owner As She Tries To Release It From Cage
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In the Golden Age of crime fiction decades ago, women writers (largely speaking) reigned supreme. And although the balance of genders has evened out of late, there are still a remarkable number of top-flight female writers currently ruling the roost (and as bookshops and libraries will tell you, women are the main consumers of crime novels).

So let's look at how five talented representatives of the gentle sex are exploring not-so-gentle scenarios this month.

A hen night had gruesome consequences for the participants in Ruth Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood, with a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house in an isolated forest providing the perfect setting. That debut book instantly established Ware as writer to be taken seriously, but she was then faced with the dread second novel syndrome  how to top that first, all-conquering success. Thankfully, The Woman in Cabin 10 (Harvill Secker, 9.99) bucks the trend of disappointing follow-ups, and is every bit as taut and provocative as the earlier book.

Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10

On a luxury cruise, travel journalist Lo Blacklock is trying to deal with her troubled life, thrown out of kilter by a moribund relationship and a robbery that has traumatised her. One night she sees a body being thrown overboard from the adjoining cabin -- but it appears that no one ever checked into that cabin, and no passenger is missing. Is Lo delusional, or is there a murderer on board  one who will soon have her in their sights? The plot here may be loosely inspired by Anthony Thornes classic So Long at the Fair (the film of which had Jean Simmons disbelieved, just as Lo Blacklock is here), but then another massively successful book, Paula Hawkins The Girl on the Train, riffed on a theme from Hitchcock's Rear Window -- there's nothing wrong with a bit of magpie borrowing if its finessed in compellingly entertaining fashion. As Ruth Ware does here.

No discernible borrowings in American writer Megan Abbotts latest book, You Will Know Me (Picador, 14.99). The US has long boasted a full complement of excellent women crime writers, and Abbott is one of the most inventive. The new novel is set in the pressure cooker world of competitive gymnastics, with the central character Devon immensely (and unhealthily) driven in her sport. Her mother Katie watches in horror as her daughter is irrevocably changed by the burdens of her life, with fateful consequences. This is a psychological study of real perception, though it is a book that only peripherally inhabits the world of crime fiction.

Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton (Bantam Press, 12.99) is a reminder that what made such Bolton novels as Blood Harvest satisfyingly atmospheric reads was the authors clever synthesis of two strategies: the slow-burning borderline-supernatural mystery in which the dark secret of a town or community is gradually uncovered by a vulnerable protagonist and the dark psychological crime narrative. The latter is foregrounded here; Boltons theme is the inexplicable fascination convicted killers have for some women, who propose marriage to the former in prison. Charismatic murderer Hamish Wolfe, though incarcerated, is the recipient of a torrent of adoring female fan letters. Lawyer Maggie Rose (who Wolfe wants to represent him) is not a member of that damaged club of females  but will she remain immune to his hypnotic appeal? Very different from earlier Bolton books, this is a journey into a world of twisted mindsets.

With In the Month of the Midnight Sun (Hodder & Stoughton, 16.99), were given more ambitious, literate Nordic Noir from Swede Cecilia Ekback (writing in English), who provides an elusive poetic feel not common in the genre. An orphaned boy and a privileged, rebellious young women are uneasy fellow travellers through the threatening perpetual daylight of the far north as they move towards a strange destiny. As in Wolf Winter, Ekback once again proves that she is in the very front rank of Scandinavian crime writers.

Finally, a brief mention for the tense Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan (Michael Joseph, 12.99). Once again, were in familiar territory with a woman kidnapped by a sinister assailant, but Callaghan is mostly able to ring satisfying changes on her shop-worn material. Are we, perhaps, in a new Golden Age of women crime writers?
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As the rest of the UK nervously awaits the results of the EU referendum, Glastonbury is in high spirits. With the opening ceremony having taken place - an event that was three times as big this year (there were three sets of fireworks instead of one) - people are loudly shuffling through the one-way system to Shangri-La to kick-start their weekend.

However, there's a spectre hanging above everyone's head; the next day, the U.K. will decide whether to stay in the EU or go it alone. In the hour long queue towards the venue, many around me are talking about the referendum, an event that will redefine our country's place in the world.

"It's ridiculous that we've let people decide whether we're in or out," Dan, in his late twenties, dressed in loose clothing and with voluminous hair, tells me. "I haven't voted because I don't believe in democracy, most people are uneducated idiots."

Another festival-goer reveals she too has yet to vote but wants to remain. In actuality, most of the people I speak to haven't voted before the festival via the postal vote, yet all seem to want to remain in the EU.

Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Festival-goers arrive for the Glastonbury festival at the Worthy Farm site PA Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Festival-goers wearing matching tie die t-shirts do a star jump in front of the Glastonbury sign Rex Features Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Festival-goers relax and walk at the top of the hill over looking the tipi village, the Ribbon Tower and the Park Stage Rex Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Participants arrive for the Glastonbury Festival at the Worthy Farm site, Somerset, where heavy rain over a prolonged period has caused isolated flooding and muddy fields PA Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Members of the Shakti Sings National Choir sing during a procession from the Stone Circle to the Headling Field. The choir was formed to honour the earth through song Rex Features Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures A reveller carries her belongings after arriving at Worthy Farm in Somerset for the Glastonbury Festival REUTERS Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Revellers set up their tent after arriving at Worthy Farm in Somerset for the Glastonbury Festival REUTERS Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Participants arrive for the Glastonbury Festival at the Worthy Farm site PA Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Festival-goers arrive for the Glastonbury festival at the Worthy Farm site PA Glastonbury 2016 - in pictures Festival-goers arrive for the Glastonbury Festival at the Worthy Farm site PA

"I would hate to leave," Laurie says, her blonde dreads tied up behind her head. "I want to travel Europe, do things out there. I don't know why they don't let us vote online, it's an outdated system."

It's a sentiment shared by many here who would like to vote but haven't. "I've only been back in the country 5 days, and haven't haven't had time to sort out a vote," Lewis, from Devon but who lives in Vietnam, says. "Obviously, I want to stay in."

In the end, though, once we've meandered through the masses and finally reach the electro-swing bar, 10 notes are exchanged for cocktails (with little to no change received), and the night continues, most of the crowd blissfully forgetting that in just a few hours the UK could change forever.
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Prosecco producers in Italy are panicking over the prospect of the UK leaving the EU, fearing that Brexit could put the cork back in the bottle of their number one export market.

Follow the latest live updates in the EU referendum

Coldiretti, the association of Italian food producers, has warned that a vote to leave the EU could "seriously upset trade relations" between the UK and Italy.

That could take its toll on prosecco sales, which surged 38 per cent in the first quarter of 2016, if a weaker pound makes prosecco more expensive in the UK.

Coldiretti said Italian sparkling wine producers could suffer the most of any other Italian producers because of the British thirst for Prosecco.

The UK increased its prosecco consumption by 48 per cent between 2014 and 2015 and now consumes more prosecco than Champagne.

 All you need to know about the EU referendum

Brits buy one in every five bottles of prosecco produced, making the UK the lead export market. The industry is set to top 460 million (600 million) in 2016.

British tourists are also the biggest spenders among European visitors to Italy, according to Nomisma, an economic research group.

If their spending poiwer is diminished by a fall in the pound, that could have a knock on effect on Italian tourism.

"A UK exit from the EU would not be an apocalyptic event but in the short term the shocks to the (Italian) economy would not be insignificant," the report concluded.

21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Show all 21 1 /21 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Portugal drinks more wine than France Tindo - Fotolia 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Young Italians, by some distance, are the most likely to live at home with their parents 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Britain is on course to overtake Germany as Europes most populated country 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Greek workers work the longest hours in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Estonia has, per capita, more drug-related deaths than anyone else 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The fastest download speeds are to be found in Romania 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Slovenia, Malta and Poland have the smallest gender pay gaps 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe France hates its leader more than other European countries 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Eastern and Western Europe are very divided on the issue of gay marriage 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany has the most millionaires 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone likes Christmas, apart from France 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany accepts by far the most asylum applications 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The UK and France have some of the most positive views of Muslim people 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Europe's largest Muslim population is in Germany 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Danes are the most trusting Europeans, and Cypriots the least 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Finland has the worst economy in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Italy has cut back its military spending more than any other major European Nato member 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone is sad about the refugee crisis 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe People in Spain are also the most likely to live in flats (Brits are most likely to live in houses) 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Spain is the most likely to feel neighbourly 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Luxembourg is home to the highest proportion of foreign nationals

Rowan Gormley, the chief executive of Majestic, the largest specialist wine retailer in the UK, has also said that the price of imported wine could be affected if the pound is devalued.

"If a Brexit does happen and that results in the sustained fall in value of the pound, all imported products will have to go up in cost over time and wine will be no exception to that," Gormley said.

Britons drink over 354 million litres of EU-produced wine each year, though the amount imported from Europe has fallen in recent years as consumers have turned to New World wines from places like Argentina and New Zealand.
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Tesco has attributed its second straight quarter of sales growth in part to its fresh farm food range, which has proved popular with shoppers even though the products are named after farms that do not exist.

Our new fresh food brands are performing very well, with over two-thirds of our customers having bought products from the new range, chief executive Dave Lewis said in a statement accompanying the results.

Lower prices across all products as well as improved store processes have also boosted results, the retailer said.

The supermarkets fresh range, currently leading sales to higher volumes, was criticised on social media in March when it was revealed that all the farms named on the packaging were entirely made up.

Willow Farms whole chicken, Boswell Farms diced beef, and Rosedene Farms blueberries were all found to come from manufacturers with no relation to the names on the packaging of the final product. Some of the foods were imported from overseas and given British names to make them sound local.

At the time, Tesco said the products are sourced from a selection of farms and growers, from small, family-run farms to large scale operations, that meet its standards.

We know customers want the convenience of getting all their shopping in one place. These seven new brands, which are exclusive to Tesco, address our customers needs for quality fresh food, at very competitive prices in a single shop, a spokesperson for Tesco said.

It appears the controversy has now been forgotten as two-thirds of Tescos customers have already tried the range, in line with the retailers expectation.

With rebuilding trust at the forefront of Tescos project to regain lost customers, much was made of the fact that its new Farms fresh food brands are named for non-existent farms and give the impression of having been sourced in the UK, despite many of them being sourced from overseas, said David Alexander, senior analyst at Verdict Retail.

While the naming controversy provoked something of a media storm, this may have been lost on customers. After all, the strategy is similar to that employed by Aldi and suggests that for most shoppers, the perception of provenance is sufficient, provided the products are perceived to be good value, Alexander added.

Tesco said the launch of its exclusive fresh food brand has helped the retailer to meet more of its customers shopping needs.

Shoppers are able to save nearly 1.60 or 17 per cent off the cost of a typical basket of 10 of the most popular meat, fruit and vegetable lines by choosing to buy products from the new ranges, according to the retailer.

Mr Lewis said the companys results are encouraging in what remains a challenging market.

The supermarkets like-for-like sales were up 0.3 per cent in the 13 weeks to 28 May in the UK. The group sales, which include its businesses in Ireland, Europe and Asia, were up 9 per cent.

We are encouraged by the progress we are making. By growing volumes, transforming the way we work together with our suppliers and further optimising our store operating model we are rebuilding profitability in a sustainable way, he added.

Food and drink news Show all 35 1 /35 Food and drink news Food and drink news Healthy living makes us more inclined to binge, research suggests Gluten-free breads, dairy-free milks and other plant-based products have been some of the most favoured foods in British supermarkets this year. However, while were busy filling our shopping trolleys with gluten-free goodness, were also jamming it with junk food and alcohol, new research suggests Getty/iStock Food and drink news Growing list of Vegan celebs Making the switch to veganism is a major lifestyle choice, one that many claim can improve energy levels, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and clear up any skin issues. Beyonce, Natalie Portman and Jessica Chastain are among the growing list of Hollywood stars who have eschewed animal products from their diets in recent years. Theres also been an increasing number of professional athletes who have gone vegan, such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and David Haye, thus debunking the myth that following a plant-based diet will leave you feeling weak and malnourished. AFP/Getty/NARAS/iHeartMedia Food and drink news McDonald's has announced the launch of a new vegan burger on its menu in Germany This will mark the first time the German franchise of the fast food chain has offered a vegan burger to its customers. The Big Vegan TS burger consists of a patty made from soy and wheat. It is served in a classic sesame seed bun, and contains salad, tomato, pickles and red onion. McDonald's Germany Food and drink news Drinking too many protein shakes could lead to an increased risk of obesity and a reduced lifespan, a new study has claimed Researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre carried out an investigation to determine the impact excessive consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) has on the body. BCAA supplements are often consumed in the form of powder, which is then added to water to make a shake. Published in journal Nature Metabolism, the study found that while BCAAs help to build muscle, they can also negatively impact an individual's temperament, cause weight gain and lead to a shortened lifespan Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Britain consumes more chocolate than any other country Most people love chocolate but it turns out no one does more than the Brits  with the average Brit found to have consumed 8.4 kg of chocolate in 2017, according to new data. Chocolate consumption around the world is on the rise, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), which found that in the past year alone, Easter chocolate production has risen by 23 per cent Food and drink news 'Easter eggs should be banned for children under four' Dr Becky Spelman, chief psychologist at Harley Streets Private Therapy Clinic, is calling for Easter eggs to be banned for consumption for children under the age of four, claiming that giving them the opportunity to binge on chocolate so young will give them an unhealthy relationship with food later on. "This is a nightmare situation for parents of this generation as they have no idea how to teach their children to delay their response to cravings, she said, explaining that too many young kids binge on these chocolates because their parents dont know how to stop them. "Once a child starts overeating behaviour at a young age its very hard to turn things around for them in terms of food and their eating habits moving forward, leading to obesity from at very young age," she added PA Food and drink news Pineapple overtakes avocado as the UK's fastest-selling fruit According to Tesco, pineapple has overtaken avocado as the UKs fastest-selling fruit, with sales increasing by 15 per cent in 2017. In comparison, avocado sales rose by just under 10 per cent last year. The popular supermarket says the surge in popularity comes as shoppers buying the versatile fruit are beginning to use it as a main ingredient in everything from curries and barbecues, to juices and cocktails Getty Food and drink news Marks & Spencers launches stoneless avocados Rather than the result of genetic modification, the avocados are formed by an unpollinated avocado blossom. The fruit develops without a seed which in turns stops the growth, creating a small, seedless fruit. Whats more, the skin is actually edible, unlike a regular avocado. The flesh is much like that of a normal avocado - smooth and creamy, pale in colour and rich in flavour M&S Food and drink news Office teabags contain 17 times more germs than a toilet seat, reveals study The average bacterial reading of an office teabag was 3,785, in comparison to only 220 for a toilet seat. Other pieces of kitchen equipment also stacked up highly in their findings, with the bacterial readings averaging at 2,483 on kettle handles, 1,746 on the rim of a used mug and 1,592 on a fridge door handle Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New study shows drinking more coffee leads to a longer life There is good news and a final hope for coffee addicts and lovers. You will now be able to drink coffee for longer as new study shows its can lead to a prolonged life. Scientists showed that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 18% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers. PA Food and drink news Coke Zero is replaced with Coke Zero Sugar Coca-Cola is pulling the plug on its Coke Zero. The much loved drink will be replaced with a new improved taste. The move, backed with a 10 million campaign, is said to come from Coca-Cola supporting people to reduce their sugar intake. Coca-Cola want people make this move while not sacrificing sugary taste of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Food and drink news Starbucks introduce new avocado spread The avocado craze has grown from hipster brunch restaurants to Starbucks. Starbucks have introduced their new avocado spread earlier this year and it has the internet in debate. Some argue that it not a spread but guacamole while others question if there is any avocado in there at all. When buying the new spread you can also buy an optional toasted bagel. It is a must try for all avocado connoisseurs. Starbucks Food and drink news New Mars chocolate bar The iconic British chocolate bar is about to get its partner in crime. The new bar, named Goodness Knows, will replace the gooey caramel goodness of the mars bar with oats. It is said to be more like a Florentine biscuit with a thin dark chocolate bottom. While being moderately healthy Mars says that is has good intentions. One pack has 154 calories and will sell for about 90p. Mars Food and drink news Wine prices could increase because of Brexit Wine lovers across the UK might soon have to shell out close to a quarter more for their favourite tipple after Brexit, as a weaker pound and sluggish economy takes its toll, a new study shows Rex Food and drink news Chocolate may be good for the heart A new study, published in the British Medical Journal: Heart, found that moderate chocolate intake can be positively associated with lessening the risk of the heart arrhythmia condition Atrial Fibrillation Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Brits throw away 1.4 million bananas each year British families are throwing away 1.4 million bananas that are perfectly good to eat every day at cost of 80m a year, new figures have shown PA/Armin Weigel Food and drink news Rosemary sales spike over exam time There has been a surge a surge in sales of the herb rosemary after a recent study found it helps improve memory. According to high street health food chain Holland & Barrett, sales of the herb have increased by 187 per cent compared to the same time last year Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Gluten-free diets 'not recommended' for people without coeliac disease Avoiding wheat, barley and rye in the belief that a gluten-free diet brings health benefits may do more harm than good, according to a team of US nutrition and medicine experts Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Starbucks launches two new coffee-based drinks Starbucks is launching two new coffee-based drinks in the UK, as it strives to tap into consumers growing appetite for healthy beverages. The Cold Brew Vanilla sweet cream and the Cappuccino Freddo, will both be available in stores throughout the UK from the start of May Twitter/@SbuxCountyHall Food and drink news Cadburys Dairy Milk Tiffin is making a permanent comeback after 80 years The Cadbury Dairy Milk Tiffin, first produced in 1937, is making a permanent comeback to the UK. The raisin and biscuit-filled chocolate bar is being launched after a successful trial last summer saw 3 million chocolate treats  at the cost of 1.49 for each 95g bar- purchased by nostalgic customers Cadburys Food and drink news Pizza restaurant makes worlds cheesiest 'Scottie's Pizza Parlor' in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Facebook/Scottie's Pizza Parlor Food and drink news A pizza joint in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Why not eating before a workout could be better for your health A study published in the American Journal of Physiology by researchers at the University of Bath found you might be likely to burn more fat if you have not eaten first Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New York restaurant named best in the world A New York restaurant where an average meal for two will cost $700 has been named the best in the world. Eleven Madison Park won the accolade for the first time after debuting on the list at number 50 in 2010. The restaurant was praised for a fun sense of fine-dining, blurring the line between the kitchen and the dining room Getty Images Food and drink news Why you crave bad food when youre tired Researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago recently presented their results of a study looking into the effects of sleep deprivation upon high-calorific food consumption. Researchers found that those who were sleep-deprived had specifically enhanced brain activity to the food smells compared to when they had a good nights sleep Shutterstock Food and drink news Drinking wine engages more of your brain than solving maths problems Drinking wine is the ideal workout for your brain, engaging more parts of our grey matter than any other human behaviour, according to a leading neuroscientist. Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine, said sniffing and analysing a wine before drinking it requires exquisite control of one of the biggest muscles in the body Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news British dessert eating surges after people ditch healthy eating in February : In heartening news for anyone feeling guilty about quitting their New Year diet, it seems lots of us have given in to our sweet tooths once again. New data from nationwide food-delivery service Deliveroo reveals there was a surge in Brits ordering desserts in February compared to the first month of 2017 Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news US congress debates definition of milk alternatives A new bill has been created that seeks to ban dairy alternatives from using the term milk. Titled the DAIRY PRIDE Act, the name is a tenuous acronym for defending against imitations and replacements of yogurt, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day. It argues that the dairy industry is struggling as a result of all the dairy-free alternatives on the market and the public are being duped too Getty Images Food and drink news Cadburys launches two new chocolate bars UK confectionary giant Cadbury has launched two new chocolate bars, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and perhaps help combat some of the challenges it faces from rising commodity prices and a post-Brexit slump in the value of the pound.The companys new products will be peanut butter and mint flavoured. They will be available in most major super markets as 120g bars, priced at 1.49, according to the company Cadburys Food and drink news You can now get a job as a professional chocolate eater The company responsible for some of your favourite chocolate brands  think Cadbury, Milks, Prince and Oreo  have officially announced an opening to join their team as a professional chocolate taster. The successful candidate will help them to test, perfect and launch new products all over the world. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news MSG additive used in Chinese food is actually good for you, scientist claims For years, weve been told MSG (the sodium salt of glutamic acid) - often associated with cheap Chinese takeaways - is awful for our health and to be avoided at all costs. But one scientist argues it should be used as a supersalt and encourages adding it to food. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Lettuce prices are rising Not only are lettuces becoming an increasingly rare commodity in supermarkets, but prices for the leafy vegetables seem to be rising too. According to the weekly report from the Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a pair of Little Gem lettuces had an average market price of 0.86 in the week that ended on Friday, up from an average of 0.56 in the previous week  thats an almost 54 per cent increase. Getty Images Food and drink news Do-It-Yourself restaurant To encourage more people to cook and eat together, IKEA has launched The Dining Club in Shoreditch  a fully immersive Do-It-Yourself restaurant . Members of the public can book to host a brunch, lunch or dinner party for up to 20 friends and family. Supported by their very own sous chef and maitre de, the host and their guests will orchestrate an intimate dining experience where cooking together is celebrated and eating together is inspirational Mikael Buck / IKEA Food and drink news Ping Pong menu with a twist Gatwick Airport has teamed up with London dim sum restaurant Ping Pong to create a limited edition menu with a distinctly British twist; including a Full English Bao and Beef Wellington Puff, to celebrate the launch of the airports new route to Hong Kong Food and drink news Zizzi unveil the Maamgharita Unique pizza art has been created by Zizzi in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday. The pizza features the queen in an iconic pose illustrated with fresh and tasty Italian ingredients on a backdrop of the Union Jack Food and drink news Blue potatoes make a comeback Blue potatoes, once a staple part of British potato crops, are back on the menu thanks to a Cambridge scientist turned-organic farmer and Farmdrop, an online marketplace that lets people buy direct from local farms. Cambridge PhD graduate-turned farmer, Adrian Izzard has used traditional growing techniques at Wild Country Organics to produce the colourful spuds, packed with healthy cell-protecting anthocyanin, which had previously disappeared from UK plates when post-war farmers were pushed towards higher-yielding varieties

Tesco also said it had agreed to sell its Harris & Hoole coffee shop chain to Caffe Nero.

Britains big four supermarkets have faced constant competition from the rise of German discounters Aldi and Lidl, which continue to win customers with their low prices and increased store numbers.

Amazon has also launched its Amazon Fresh food delivery service in central and east London putting further pressure on UKs grocers.
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Flowers and tributes have been left outside a polling station in Batley in memory of Jo Cox.

Cox, who was the MP for Batley and Spen, died exactly a week ago after she was shot and stabbed in the street outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

As residents make their way inside Batley town hall to cast their vote in the EU referendum, they were pictured walking past a long line of flowers, teddy bears, notes and pictures of Mrs Cox in memory of her.

(PA)

However, when pictures of the tributes were published on Twitter by the Press Association, several users criticised the memorial by suggesting it was a political move as Mrs Cox had been a vocal supporter of the Remain campaign.

On Wednesday, Mrs Coxs widower Brendan and their two children marked what would have been her 42nd birthday at a memorial event in Trafalgar Square. Further events to celebrate the MPs life were held around the UK and around the world in Beirut, Brussels, Melbourne, Nairobi, New York and Washington DC.

Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes and candles are placed by a picture of slain Labour MP Jo Cox at a vigil in Parliament square in London AFP Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes to Labour Party MP Jo Cox are placed on her houseboat in Wapping in London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures The Union flag at half-mast on top of Portcullis House in London after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (2R) and deputy leader Tom Watson (L) light candles as they attend a vigil to slain Labour MP Jo Cox in Parliament square in London AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and deputy leader Tom Watson (rear) arrive to leave tributes at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People leave St Peter's Church after a vigil in memory of Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flowers left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminste, following the death of Labour MP Jo Cox PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People react as they look at tributes left for Labour Member of Parliament Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A man writes a message at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People stop to look at tributes left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman arrives to lay flowers at a statue to Joseph Priestly in Birstall near to the scene where Labour MP Jo Cox was shot AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman places candles in tribute to Labour Party MP Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A member of the public signs a memorial for British MP Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London EPA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People sign messages of condolence for MP Jo Cox during a vigil in Parliament Square in London Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flags at half mast outside Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in the street outside her constituency advice surgery in Birstall PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People arrive in Market Square with floral tributes after the death of Jo Co Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are placed in Market Square next to the statue of Joseph Priestley following the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are brought to the scene after the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A police officer carries bunches of flowers at the scene of the shooting of Labour MP Jo Cox in Birstall REUTERS

The education campaigner, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban aged 15 in 2012 followed Mr Cox in by paying tribute to Cox at the memorial, saying: She proved that she was a giant when she stood up to declare that we have more in common than that which divides us. For her, the idea was much more than just a line in a speech, it was a sacred principle that powered her life and her work.

Earlier this week, parliament was recalled as MPs paid tribute to Mrs Cox. A fundraising page for charities close to Mrs Coxs heart has so far amassed over 1.3million in her memory.
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A woman was arrested after a reported attack on actress Kelly McGillis in her North Carolina home.

Recommended Read more Gwyneth Paltrow testifies in court against alleged stalker

McGillis - perhaps best known for her role alongside Tom Cruise in the 1986 film Top Gun - said when she arrived home on the evening of 17 June, her accused attacker had been waiting for her inside the house. A little girl had been with the woman, according to the actress.

[The woman] ran out after me and began punching and scratching my trying to grab the phone out of my hand, McGillis wrote on her Facebook page. I began screaming as loud as I could hoping someone somewhere might hear me.

According to her account, the woman, identified by Henderson County Sheriffs deputies as Laurence Marie Dorn, accused McGillis of stalking her on Twitter before she began her attack.

I got worried that there may be someone else in the house with house with her, McGillis recounted. We have quite a few guns and lots of ammo and that's when I started to panic. Thinking that if they have one of them I could be shot.

The actress ran outside of her house and made multiple attempts to call 911 while being attacks.

She was ultimately able to escape in her vehicle, flag down a passerby driver, and phone emergency dispatchers.

Dorn was arrested and charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency struggle, according to ABC affiliate WLOS. She was held on $60,000 (40,260) bail.

McGillis ended her account of the evenings attack with a light-hearted detail from the ordeal.

On a lighter note...my cell phone was thrown in the street and run over by my pick up [truck]. Thanks to the Otter case it still is in good shape, she said. Also I have RayBan glasses frames and the were ripped from my face and stomped on I don't know how many times. They are still wearable.

It always a good day when you can find the positive in a negative situation.
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Is there life after death? is a question that has dominated human thinking since time immemorial.

But now researchers have discovered that an animals genes can live on for up to four days after its body has died, Science Magazine reported.

And some genes, including ones that help to create an embryo and others associated with cancer, even turned on or became more active after death.

The research could potentially help reduce the increased risk of getting cancer after transplant and also help forensic scientists work out when a murder victim was killed.

One of the scientists, Professor Peter Noble, of Washington University in Seattle, told Science Magazine that the study was an experiment of curiosity to see what happens when you die.

We can probably get a lot of information about life by studying death, he added.

The researchers studied what happened to more than 1,000 genes in mice and zebrafish after they died.

Changes in their genes were recorded for up to four days after death in the zebrafish and for two days in the mice.

We initially thought that sudden death of a vertebrate would be analogous to a car driving down a highway and running out of gas. For a short time, engine pistons will move up and down and spark plugs will spark -- but eventually the car will grind to a halt and die, the researchers wrote in an article on the bioRxiv website.

Yet, in our study we find hundreds of genes are upregulated many hours postmortem, with some upregulated days after organismal death.

This finding is surprising because in our car analogy, one would not expect window wipers to suddenly turn on and the horn to honk several days after running out of gas.

Since the postmortem upregulation of genes occurred in both the zebrafish and the mouse in our study, it is reasonable to suggest that other multicellular eukaryotes [forms of life] will display a similar phenomenon.

Some of the genes were involved in stimulating the immune system or dealing with stress, but others were developmental genes involved in the creation of the embryo that had been dormant since birth.

Whats jaw-dropping is that developmental genes are turned on after death, Professor Noble said.

The research could also provide insights into how to better preserve organs retrieved for transplantation, the researchers said in the bioRxiv article.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

In a separate paper, the researchers outlined how their work might be of use to forensics and police officers investigating murders.

"Many biological, chemical, and physical indicators can be used to determine the postmortem interval  but most are not accurate," they wrote.

They said they had found that changes to genes could be used to accurately predict post-mortem time in cadavers.
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Thousands of commuters trying to vote in the referendum were affected by flooding as severe transport delays caused by torrential rain and flooding in London.

The Electoral Commission confirmed the 10pm deadline was set in stone, meaning many commuters in London and the South-east could have missed out on casting their votes.

Britains busiest station, Waterloo, was among those packed with frustrated commuters amid cancellations and delays caused by the severe weather conditions.

I have never seen anything like Waterloo Station this evening and I have commuted for over 10 years! George Franks wrote on Twitter.

If people had failed to join the queue at their polling station by 10pm, they would have missed their chance to vote, the Electoral Commission confirmed to The Independent.

A Leave campaign source said that while it would be very concerning if people had been unable to vote as a result of travel disruption, there had been no calls from within the camp for polling stations to stay open.

Wycombe MP Steve Baker, a senior Conservative leave campaigner, said there had been no question of an extension, and that getting voters home in time was the responsibility of the railway service providers.

The weather disruption could also delay some overnight declarations, the Electoral Commission said.

Because of poor weather, transport of ballot boxes to count centres might take different routes. Weather issues mean it might mean ballot boxes take a little longer to get to counting areas. Were still looking at declaration being made tomorrow morning.

 How the EU referendum result unfolded

South West Trains apologised for the disruption, which has also caused severe delays on eight London Underground lines and the temporary closure of Monument, Cannon Street and Ruislip Manor stations.

Floods, travel chaos, polling station disruption," tweeted Patrick Strudwick. "Lower voter turnout = Brexit more likely. Rain will end our membership of EU. HELL.

However, some campaigners said they were staying positive despite the weather conditions.

The rain isnt dampening our enthusiasm to campaign for Remain. Youve got until 10pm to vote, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted.

Voters make their way through flooding to a polling station in East Hanningfield, Essex

The amber be prepared warning came on a day in which the London Fire Brigade received a days worth of calls in 90 minutes.

Some polling stations, including one in Chessington, Surrey, were forced to change location at the last minute when they were flooded or roads leading to them became deluged with water.

Recommended Read more UK hit by flooding after huge thunderstorms overnight

Louise Wann, a voter from Middlesex, said the road to her polling station was completely flooded, so she had decided to go to the pub instead.

My fiance said he'll give me a piggy back so not to ruin my shoes, she told The Independent.

The law was changed in 2013 to allow people in the polling station, or in a queue outside the polling station to vote after the polls had officially closed.

This was to avoid a repeat of events at the 2010 general election, in which long queues caused hundreds to be excluded from the voting process as they could not enter the polling station in time.

Some have called for a switch to online voting to avoid similar scenarios in future.

Chaos on transport systems in South East means many may not be home in time to vote in #EUref. Its high time online voting is introduced! wrote Green Party activist Andrew Durling on Twitter.

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies and Network Rail, told passengers to consider travelling earlier if they can, in order to get home.

The worst-affected line was between London Liverpool Street and Ilford, the main route serving Essex and East Anglia. It was closed for most of the day because of flooding at Manor Park. During the evening rush-hour it re-opened, but with speed restrictions in place.

In pictures: UK hit by flooding Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: UK hit by flooding In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-1.jpg PA In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-2.jpg David Newbigging In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-3.jpg Getty Images In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-6.jpg PA In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-9.jpg PA In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-8.jpg PA In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-7.jpg PA In pictures: UK hit by flooding flood-uk-5.jpg PA

All ticket restrictions have been lifted by Abellio Greater Anglia, and tickets for Thursday will also be valid on Friday.

From Victoria, the Gatwick Express was out of commission for most of Thursday morning, because of flooding in south London. When it restarted, some journeys took three times as long as the timetabled 30-minute run.

Airlines including British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair pre-emptively cancelled dozens of flights linking the UK with France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy because of the stoppage by controllers of the busiest skies in Europe.
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The future of Britain in Europe rests in the hands of millions of voters, still undecided after a gruelling, often divisive referendum campaign, which, whatever the result, will leave the country changed forever.

Polling on the final day of campaigning showed the rival campaigns in a near dead-heat, with Opinium putting Leave on 45 and Remain on 44, while a survey for TNS had Leave on 43 and Remain on 41. Nine per cent of voters in the Opinium poll were still undecided.

Follow the latest live updates on the EU referendum

In a final push to secure support before polls open, David Cameron joined with every living former Prime Minister to urge a vote for Remain, claiming to be at the head of the biggest coalition of support in history.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, the figurehead of the Vote Leave campaign, and considered Mr Camerons likely successor if Britain votes to leave, finally confirmed speculation that he had written two articles before the campaign: one declaring support for Leave, and the other for Remain.

David Cameron meets voters on the final day of campaigning (AFP/Getty Images)

In a confession that will revive accusations that he backed Leave to improve his chances of becoming Prime Minister, Mr Johnson admitted he had written an article in which he placed his support for Mr Cameron over and above his qualms about the EU.

Ill tell you what the second article said, he told BBC Newsnight. What it said was: actually irrespective of my objections to the way the EU was going in order to support my party and the Prime Minister it would be better to stay in. And in the end I thought that wasnt a good enough reason.

What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence.

Mr Johnson claimed that Leave were on the verge of victory

In a rally speech in Selby, North Yorkshire, he said: This will not come again. Vote Leave tomorrow, take back control of our country and our democracy and stick up for hundreds of millions of people around Europe who agree with us, who agree that the EU is going in the wrong direction.

Mr Cameron, meanwhile, was backed by Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major and leaders in science, economics, medicine, charity, business, the military, security, the heads of trades unions and faith leaders in urging Britain to vote for a brighter and more secure future in the European Union.

Today we have assembled the biggest coalition of support in history  from businesses, to trade unions, to expert economists and across political parties  for a vote to Remain, the Prime Minister said.

Mr Brown said the vote was a momentous, generation-defining decision about what kind of country we are. Mr Blair said a vote to leave would mean a reckless leap in the dark and years of damaging uncertainty, while Sir John said that millions of British people had the opportunity to save our country from a mistake we would live to regret for a very long time to come.

The rival camps traded blows again on the final day of campaigning, which opened with controversy when Justice Secretary Michael Gove compared economic experts warning over Brexit to the German scientists who, under the Nazis, denounced Albert Einstein in the 1930s.

Mr Gove later apologised for the comments, after Mr Cameron suggested that his friend and colleague had lost it.

As the leaders of the rival campaigns toured the country, a rally was held in London in memory of Jo Cox, whose 42nd birthday it would have been. Addressing a crowd of thousands Ms Coxs husband, Brendan, said that she would have spent the day dashing around the streets of her hometown trying to convince people that Britain is stronger in Europe.

She feared the consequences of Europe dividing again, hated the idea of building walls between us and worried about the dynamics that that could unleash, he said.

However, he said the rally was not about the referendum, but about a much wider battle against hatred that she was engaged in.

Describing his wifes killing as political and an act of terror, he said: Shes come to symbolise something much bigger in our country and our world, something that is under threat, her belief in tolerance and respect, her support for diversity and her stand against hatred and extremism no matter where it comes from, he said.

Across the world were seeing forces of division playing on peoples worst fears rather than their best instincts, trying to divide our communities, to exploit insecurities and emphasise not what unites but what divides us.

The EU referendum debate has so far been characterised by bias, distortion and exaggeration. So until 23 June we were running a series of question and answer features that explain the most important issues in a detailed, dispassionate way to help inform your decision.

What is Brexit and why are we having an EU referendum?

Does the UK need to take more control of its sovereignty?

Could the UK media swing the EU referendum one way or another?

Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws?

Will we gain or lose rights by leaving the European Union?

Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK?

Will leaving the EU lead to the break-up of the UK?

What will happen to immigration if there's Brexit?

Will Brexit make the UK more or less safe?

Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws?

Will leaving the EU save taxpayers money and mean more money for the NHS?

What will Brexit mean for British tourists booking holidays in the EU?

Will Brexit help or damage the environment?

Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK?

What will Brexit mean for British expats in Europe?
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The nation divides, in almost equal proportions. When people complain that the referendum has been divisive, that is undoubtedly true, but it is also missing the point. Democracy is a way of resolving disagreement, but in order to do so, sometimes it has to force those who disagree to set out their arguments as forcefully as they can.

Follow the latest live updates on the EU referendum

And it is the nature of democracy that the hardest choices are the ones that divide people most nearly down the middle  otherwise there is no need to count the votes. The referendum of 1975 wasnt as divisive as todays, because in the end the people voted by an overwhelming margin of two to one.

Recommended Read more What to expect on EU referendum night

On Friday, David Cameron is not going to be able to say what Harold Wilson said outside 10 Downing Street after the vote 41 years ago: No one in Britain, in Europe or in the wider world should have any doubt as to its meaning. It means that 14 years of national argument are over. It means that all those who have had reservations about Britains commitment should now join wholeheartedly, without stint, in the task of overcoming the economic problems that assail us.

But todays vote is like that of 1975 in that the question has divided people across party lines. Then, it was the governing Labour Party that was most divided. Now it is the governing Conservatives. In both cases the division cut across the traditional class loyalties of British politics. Then, Empire loyalists joined forces with Labour leftwingers and trade unionists.

Today metropolitan liberals have allied with Scotland against small-town England. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman calls it the new culture war. David Cowling, the BBCs head of Political Research, wrote in an internal memo of the many millions of people in the UK who do not enthuse about diversity and do not embrace metropolitan values yet do not consider themselves lesser human beings for all that. He said that their discontents run very wide and very deep and the metropolitan political class, confronted by them, seems completely bewildered and at a loss about how to respond (who are these ghastly people and where do they come from? doesnt really hack it).

So who are these people, who make up roughly half the nation? And who are the metropolitans who dont understand them?

Age

Leavers tend to be older, Remainers younger. The crossover age is 43. Under 43, a majority are for Remain; above 43, most are for Leave. Forty-three-year-olds themselves split exactly 50-50, according to YouGov. Forty three years is, incidentally, the exact length of time that the UK has been a member of the EU.

The over-65s are the broad age group most likely to support Brexit, although there is some evidence that the very oldest, the over-75s, who would have some memory of the Second World War, are less hostile than their immediate juniors.

David Cameron must be bitterly regretting his resistance to giving the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds, who had the vote in Scotland two years ago.

Class

Or socio-economic status as academics euphemistically call it. The ABC1 social grades tend to be for Remain, while the C2DE groups are for Leave.

Education is correlated with class, and so it is no surprise that graduates are the most Remain, while those who left school at the earliest age are the most likely to support Leave.

Geography

London, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, central Liverpool and Manchester, Northern Ireland and Scotland for Remain. The rest for Leave.

Sex

Women are more likely to say they dont know. This is an ingrained feature of public opinion research. They are also slightly less likely than men to support Leave.

Culture

This is harder to quantify, and even harder to do so without falling into the trap against which Cowling warned his colleagues of patronising the inhabitants of provincial England. But there are a range of subjects, from opposing gay marriage and wind turbines to belief in conspiracy theories, that tend to be associated with Euroscepticism, and most strongly with its Ukip core.

A YouGov poll for LBC this week found that 28 per cent of people who intend to vote Leave think it is probably true that MI5 is working with the UK government to try and stop Britain leaving the EU. And nearly half, 46 per cent, say: It is likely that the EU referendum will be rigged.

Of course, there are many liberals, cosmopolitans and socialists who have reasoned arguments against EU membership, and who have little in common with Nigel Farage, but they are not typical.

The EU referendum debate has so far been characterised by bias, distortion and exaggeration. So until 23 June we were running a series of question and answer features that explain the most important issues in a detailed, dispassionate way to help inform your decision.

What is Brexit and why are we having an EU referendum?

Does the UK need to take more control of its sovereignty?

Could the UK media swing the EU referendum one way or another?

Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws?

Will we gain or lose rights by leaving the European Union?

Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK?

Will leaving the EU lead to the break-up of the UK?

What will happen to immigration if there's Brexit?

Will Brexit make the UK more or less safe?

Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws?

Will leaving the EU save taxpayers money and mean more money for the NHS?

What will Brexit mean for British tourists booking holidays in the EU?

Will Brexit help or damage the environment?

Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK?

What will Brexit mean for British expats in Europe?
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British expats have voiced their outrage after being denied a say in the EU referendum because their postal votes failed to arrive.

Voters living abroad in three continents told The Independent they were forced to miss the historic poll because of totally unacceptable administrative errors and delays.

Jo Zell, from Bromley in south-east London, said she applied for a postal ballot after moving to Paris.

 Moment of Choice - Polling Stations Open for Brexit Referendum

I got a confirmation email to say I should receive my postal vote, but no vote ever arrived, she said.

I tried to ring to change my vote to a proxy, since a family member could vote for me instead at the last minute, but they said it was not possible.

I will sadly not be voting today, and I think it's obvious where my vote would be.

Ms Zell said she checked the address on the confirmation email was correct and had at least one other friend who experienced the same problem.

Another friend of mine in Sussex did not receive her postal vote either. Crucially, if a lot of voters overseas in Europe didn't receive their vote, the outcome will be a bit squiffy, she added.

EU referendum - in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 EU referendum - in pictures EU referendum - in pictures A woman in a wheelchair with British and European Union flags shows her support for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox PA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to vote in the EU Referendum at the Library where British MP Jo Cox was shot and fatally wounded last week in Birstall EPA EU referendum - in pictures A man arrives to vote at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Voters queue to enter a polling station at Trinity Church in Golders Green in London Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha Cameron leave after voting in the EU Referendum at Central Methodist Hall, Westminster Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Chelsea pensioners arrive at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital PA EU referendum - in pictures A woman wearing an "I'm In" t-shirt, promoting the official "Remain" campaign, leaves a polling station in London AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures People queuing outside a polling station on Amott Road in London PA EU referendum - in pictures Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, react as leave after casting their votes at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man wearing a European themed cycling jersey leaves after voting at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage arrives to cast his vote at Cudham Church of England Primary School in Biggin Hill, Kent PA EU referendum - in pictures Justice Secretary and prominent 'Vote Leave' campaigner Michael Gove poses with his wife Sarah Vine after voting in the European Union referendum at their local polling station in Kensington Getty EU referendum - in pictures Nuns leave a polling station after voting in the EU Referendum in London EPA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to cast their ballots in the EU Referendum in Gibraltar. The United Kingdom and its dependant territories are going to the polls to decide whether or not the the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man driving a van covered in stickers urging people to vote for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union drives outside a polling station on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A sign on a gable wall in Belfast's, Loyalist Tigers Bay urging voters to leave the EU using scripture from Revelation 18:4, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave PA

Alex Rayment, from Cumbria, is currently travelling in Australia and signed up for a postal vote to be sent to his new address.

It never arrived despite him registering within the governments deadline, he said, describing himself as annoyed.

A British chemistry teacher working at an international school in Bangkok was also among those left out.

Andrew Deighan, from Kirklees in Yorkshire, said he too received nothing after receiving confirmation of his registration.

I emailed the council and they said they sent it and there was nothing they could do, he added. It is hugely disappointing as this vote means a lot to all British people.

Voters in Kirklees (EPA)

One concerned voter ordered a replacement ballot but did not receive it until Thursday morning, meaning it was impossible to post it back to the UK in time.

Charlotte Mason, a Leeds University student, is working at a publishing company in Paris on her year abroad.

She said she registered for a postal vote on 31 May  a week before the deadline  and was told it had been sent by her local council.

After being refused an emergency proxy vote, a new ballot paper was sent and Ms Mason was eventually able to vote by scanning it and emailing it to electoral officials with just hours left before polling stations closed in the UK.

Although I'm very grateful that the council allowed me to vote in the end, I had to really fight to get them to do it, she said.

The people I spoke to told me things like 'It's a shame' I couldn't vote and 'Sorry but we don't control the postal system'.

They wanted me to simply accept that, oh well, I wasn't going to be able to vote, which for me, was totally unacceptable.

Voters queuing at a British polling station to vote in the EU referendum (Getty Images)

A woman living in Germany also told The Independent her postal vote never arrived, adding: There are so many Brits abroad whose votes obviously dont matter or count.

Electoral Commission did not comment on the cases or explain what had happened to the missing votes, or how many people were affected.

A spokesperson said postal votes are dispatched by counting officers in batches and that applicants were encouraged to register as early as possible.

Postal votes will have been issued throughout the referendum period, but anyone who applied very close the application deadline will not have been sent a postal vote until the final update to the register on 20 June, she added.

The Chief Counting Officer directed that postal ballot packs to overseas addresses should be dispatched between 23-27 Mayand that Counting Officers make arrangements with Royal Mail for an international business response licence and ensure that this is used on all return envelopes included in postal ballot packs to be sent to overseas addresses.

A record 46.5 million people are eligible to vote on Britains membership of the European Union, including Brits living overseas who have been registered to vote in UK elections within the past 15 years.

Did your postal vote fail to arrive? Let us know by emailing lizzie.dearden@independent.co.uk.
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The largest number of voters in history are eligible to vote on Britains membership of the European Union  a record 46,499,537 people, according to the Electoral Commission.

Such high levels of emotion about a UK political event have been rarely seen in recent years, and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have been encouraging participation with various "statuses" and the hashtag #iVoted.

But before getting carried away with one of the British publics biggest decisions in a generation, it is worth checking the law on what you can and cant do.

Is it against the law?

The 1983 Representation of the People Act states the following:

No person shall, in the case of an election to which this section applies, publish before the poll is closed:

(a) any statement relating to the way in which voters have voted at the election where that statement is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information given by voters after they have voted, or

(b) any forecast as to the result of the election which is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information so given.

But given the law was enshrined more than three decades ago, it pre-dates the age of Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.

Fortunately, the Electoral Commission has clarified what people should be able to do on social media during voting days.

 All you need to know about the EU referendum

Can I take photos of my ballot?

The commission strongly advises against taking photographs inside a polling station "as you might find yourself in breach of secrecy of the ballot requirements".

Although there is nothing in the law that specifically bans taking photos, your papers ID could be revealed, which would compromise privacy.

Under Section 66 of the Act it is a criminal offence to communicate information about how someone has voted.

Anyone who inadvertently reveals how someone else votes could face a 5,000 fine or six months in prison.

The Commission advises it would be better to take a photo outside the polling station to use on social media.

Photos of postal votes are perfectly legal, however, since you won't be in a polling station with them.

EU referendum - in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 EU referendum - in pictures EU referendum - in pictures A woman in a wheelchair with British and European Union flags shows her support for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox PA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to vote in the EU Referendum at the Library where British MP Jo Cox was shot and fatally wounded last week in Birstall EPA EU referendum - in pictures A man arrives to vote at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Voters queue to enter a polling station at Trinity Church in Golders Green in London Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha Cameron leave after voting in the EU Referendum at Central Methodist Hall, Westminster Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Chelsea pensioners arrive at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital PA EU referendum - in pictures A woman wearing an "I'm In" t-shirt, promoting the official "Remain" campaign, leaves a polling station in London AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures People queuing outside a polling station on Amott Road in London PA EU referendum - in pictures Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, react as leave after casting their votes at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man wearing a European themed cycling jersey leaves after voting at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage arrives to cast his vote at Cudham Church of England Primary School in Biggin Hill, Kent PA EU referendum - in pictures Justice Secretary and prominent 'Vote Leave' campaigner Michael Gove poses with his wife Sarah Vine after voting in the European Union referendum at their local polling station in Kensington Getty EU referendum - in pictures Nuns leave a polling station after voting in the EU Referendum in London EPA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to cast their ballots in the EU Referendum in Gibraltar. The United Kingdom and its dependant territories are going to the polls to decide whether or not the the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man driving a van covered in stickers urging people to vote for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union drives outside a polling station on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A sign on a gable wall in Belfast's, Loyalist Tigers Bay urging voters to leave the EU using scripture from Revelation 18:4, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave PA

What can I share on social media?

Sharing any photos taken in a polling station is strongly discouraged, but you are allowed to say how you voted.

Revealing another persons vote is prohibited, but retweeting somebody  sharing what they have already said  is permitted.

According to the commission, A voter may volunteer information about how they voted, provided no undue influence is exerted on them to do so.

Can you bring a dog?

Before the 2008 London Mayoral election polling staff were told that dogs were allowed to attend the vote alongside owners, as long as they are in an "accompanying" role rather than "free-range".

Photographs of dogs at polling stations, therefore, have become popular under the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations.
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Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is to pay undisclosed compensation to imam Suliman Gani for falsely claiming he supported Isis.

The Cabinet Minister announced the move on his website as he apologised to the Muslim leader and agreed to pay his legal costs.

Prime Minister David Cameron has also apologised for saying in the House of Commons that Mr Gani supported IS during an attack on then London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan for sharing a platform with the imam.

Mr Fallon's letter to Mr Gani states: "On 7 May 2016 I was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. During that interview I described you as a supporter of Daesh/Islamic State - something that is entirely untrue.

Michael Fallon, Secretary of State for Defence (EPA)

"When I did this I knew that it had been said on a BBC television programme some weeks earlier but I was unaware that the BBC had corrected that statement and had apologised to you. Had I known of that correction and apology I would not have repeated the statement.

"I was made aware of the BBC's correction and apology a few hours after the broadcast and immediately issued a statement in an effort to put the record straight. I issued a further statement to the same effect on 11 May 2016, which included my apology to you for repeating the untrue statement.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA

"I accept that you are entirely opposed to Daesh/Islamic State, that you regard it as incompatible with your religious and moral beliefs, and that you have spoken out publicly against it.

"I repeat my apology for the error that I made and for the distress that it caused to you and your family.

"In recognition of that distress I have agreed to make a payment of compensation and to meet your reasonable legal costs."

Press Association
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The boundary of the Roman Empire and its influence in Britain are being re-thought as the full significance of a discovery of coins in Devon begins to sink in.

The southwest of the country, which was previously thought to have rejected Roman influence, may actually have been intricately involved with Mediterranean culture given the presence of the Roman currency denarii, brooches, pottery and a Roman road.

Because the site at Ipplepen, 20 miles from Exeter, has only been excavated during one period every year since its discovery in 2009, archaeologists are only now confident of the significance of the site's secrets.

In an interview with The Independent, Stephen Rippon, professor of Landscape Archaeology at the University of Exeter and leader of the excavation, said the site's 1,000-year history challenged the idea that Devon had been mostly isolated from the Romans.

Instead, natives enjoyed wine and olive oil from eastern Mediterranean amphorae, as well as pottery from northern France and western Germany.

And a road, which suffered from pot holes and was re-surfaced four times to keep it in working order, has also been unearthed and likely continued 12 miles to nearby Totnes.

How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Domestic items Volunteers, students and archaeologists excavate the site at Ipplepen in Devon. 'Domestic rubbish' was found in abundance - coins, brooches, pots and amphorae from the time of the Roman invasion of Britain How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Roman road A section of the Roman road unearthed at Ipplepen in Devon. It had ruts and potholes, showing it was used by horse-drawn carts. It is thought to have run 12 miles to Totnes and was probably around for 300 years from AD 50. University of Exeter How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Skeletons Two skeletons found at a cemetery near the Ipplepen site in Devon, from the post-Roman era when Christianity was arriving in Britain. University of Exeter How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Volunteers Roundhouses were built by native Britons before the Roman arrival, and many kept them throughout the invasion University of Exeter How the Romans came to Devon - in pictures Roundhouses Buckets mark out the roundhouse of a native Briton at the Ipplepen site in Devon University of Exeter

"The southwest peninsula has always been seen as this backward and remote region of Britain during the Roman Empire  but actually it wasn't," Professor Rippon told The Independent.

"What we're seeing is that these people at Ipplepen were clearly picking and choosing elements of the Roman life and Roman identity that they liked. They have acquired a taste for a Romanised life."

Prior to this, archaeologists thought Roman influence stopped in Exeter, and the native British who took up its culture were those with Roman style-villas in Dorset and Gloucestershire.

The limited extent of Roman's expansion and influence into south-west Britain has been challenged by the discovery of 150 Roman coins (Rex Features)

But this Iron Age settlement in Devon proves that Roman trade and culture was seeping into this remote part of England by about the 50s AD under Emperor Claudius and through invasion by the renowned general, Vespasian.

Professor Rippon, however, said that the residents at Ipplepen retained their traditionally circular buildings and did not adopt Roman-style houses.

"One of the aspects of the site that I love is that you get these insights into daily life," he said.

"The road had ruts in it, for example, which shows they were using horse-drawn carts around here."

The team of archaeologists have also excavated a post-Roman era cemetery dated from the sixth to eighth century when Christianity had begun to spread across Britain.

The colossal discovery was made after two amateur metal detector enthusiasts, Jim Wills and Dennis Hewings, found a number of silver denarii and entered their findings into a large database called the Portable Antiquity Scheme.

Mr Wills said in 2012 it was "the find of a lifetime".

""I found the first Roman coin," he told the Torquay Herald Express four years ago.

"It was a small silver coin called a denarius. The coin was minted in Rome and was probably brought here by the Romans when they invaded in 43 AD."

Research into the site, which is being done by the University of Exeter, Portable Antiquity Scheme, the British Museum, Devon County Council and Cotswold Archaeology, will continue into next year.

Members of the public can also help with the excavation by applying at the local visitor centre, according to funding bodies.

Ancient Rome spread from Italy in the eighth century BC via an army, trade and infrastructure to cover southern and then central Europe, modern-day Turkey to the Iranian border, northern Africa, and also parts of Britain.

It transformed over that time from a monarchy, to a republic and then an autocracy, and lasted 12 centuries.
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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the countrys leftist FARC rebels have agreed on a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

At a ceremony in Havana on Thursday, Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko, listened to the reading of a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilise and hand over their weapons once a peace accord is implemented. The Associated Press said that in attendance was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a special US envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile, Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

A 15-year, US-backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARC's aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Cuba's President Raul Castro and Commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were present for the signing (AP)

In Mr Santos, a US-educated economist and scion of one of Colombia's richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasn't bound by its prejudices.

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Mr Santos said this week that he hoped to deliver a peace accord in time to mark Colombia's declaration of independence from Spain on July 20.

But the latest agreement went further than expected.
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The family of Freddie Gray and their many supporters have been left reeling after a judge found that a police officer charged over the young black mans death was not guilty.

The Balitmore judge found Caesar Goodson not guilty on all seven counts he faced, among them a charge of depraved heart murder, an indictment similar to manslaughter or second degree murder.

Mr Gray, who was 25, suffered a devastating spinal injury and died in April 2015, about a week after he was arrested and placed into a prisoner van that Mr Goodson was driving.

Of the six officers charged, Caesar Goodman faced the most serious allegations (AP)

His death spurred peaceful protests that eventually turned violent, setting fire to Baltimore and thrusting the city into the national debate on police brutality and the way it dealt with suspects from minority communities.

Of the six officers arrested in the case, Mr Goodson, who was driving the van in which Mr Gray had been placed, faced the most serious charges, including the baroque-sounding second-degree depraved heart murder. A post-mortem examination conducted after his death, found he suffered a single high-energy injury, most likely caused when the police van into which he had been bundled suddenly braked.

When Mr Gray was placed into the van, officers bound his hands and feet and Mr Goodson left him unprotected by a seat belt that prosecutors say would have kept him from slamming into the vans metal walls.

Mr Goodson had declined trial by jury and instead asked that the case be heard by a judge. That judge, Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams, also found the police officer not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. He did so after listening to five days of testimony.

Freddie Gray died after being detained by police in Baltimore (Family handout)

According to the Associated Press, Mr Williams said the state failed to show that Mr Goodson knew he had harmed Mr Gray by leaving him unbuckled, or that he was aware of the injury.

The state failed to prove the defendant knew or should have known that Mr Gray needed medical care, the judge said.

Unlike in a shooting or a stabbing, or a car accident, this injury manifests itself internally. If the doctors werent clear, how would a person without medical training know?

The judge also said the state failed to prove Goodson gave Gray a rough ride.

 Police Officer Stands Trial for Second-Degree Murder of Freddie Gray

The state had a duty to show the defendant corruptly failed in his duty, not just that he made a mistake, he added.

Outside the courthouse, a small group of protesters chanted: We cant stop. We wont stop, until killer cops are in cell blocks. There was no immediate comment from Mr Grays family.

Protests and rioting after Mr Gray's death set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard. The unrest forced the citys mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse.

The Democratic nominee to become Baltimores next mayor, State Senator Catherine Pugh, issued a statement pleading for patience.

Protests are a vital part of democracy, but to destroy the homes and businesses many people have worked very hard to build is unacceptable, she said.

Although people may disagree with the verdict, it is important to respect each other and to respect our neighbourhoods and our communities.
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The US Marine Corps admitted that they misidentified one of the six soldiers in the iconic flag-raising photo taken during the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Recommended Read more US Marines reviewing the identities of the men in famed Iwo Jima photo

Marine officials found that the man in the photo had, in fact, been Pvt 1st Class Harold Schulz. The man had been previously identified Navy corpsman John Bradley, but the investigation revealed that he was not present in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

The identification of Mr Schulz raised questions for Marine historians - particularly, why had he never said anything about his role?

Why doesnt he say anything to anyone? Marine Corps historian Charles Neimeyer asked USA Today. Thats the mystery.

I think he took his secret to the grave.

According to the New York Times, Mr Schulz - who died in 1995 at the age of 70 - had only mentioned his place in the historic photo to his family once.

My mom was distracted and not listening and Harold said, I was one of the flag raisers, his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell, told the Times, describing a dinner she had with Mr Schulz and her mother in the early-1990s. I said, My gosh, Harold, youre a hero. He said, No, I was a Marine. 

After he said that, it was clear he didnt want to talk about it, she added. He was a very self-effacing Midwestern person. He was already sick, and died two or three years later.

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The Marine Corps announced their investigation into the identities of the soldiers in the photograph in May, following an article published in the Omaha World Herald that featured detailed analysis by two amateur historians, Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley.

Both Mr Krelle and Mr Foley found details in various photographs - including the famous flag-waving picture - such as inconsistencies in the clothes the sixth man was wearing.

According to the analysis, for instance, the man previously believed to be John Bradley did not have a cuff in his pants. Photos of Mr Bradley taken in proximity to the flag-raising showed he wore a cuff in his pants that fell above his boots.

Mr Bradley was at the centre of the book Flags of Our Fathers, written by his son James and published in 2000. The book was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film of the same name, directed by Clint Eastwood.

After the Marine Corps made their public announcement of the investigation in May, Mr Bradley expressed his shock to the AP.

This is unbelievable, he said. Im interested in facts and truths, so thats fine, but I dont know whats happening.

He later admitted his doubts raised by the World Herald article, and told the Times his father had participated in a different flag-raising during the bloody battle. He must have believed he was in Rosenthals iconic image.

Marine Corps Gen Robert B Neller, who commissioned the panel to investigate the photograph, said although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines its not about the individuals and never has been.

Simply stated, he added in a statement, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our corps - what they did together and what they represent remains most important.

That doesnt change."
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Masood Syed loved his job as a police officer in the USs most diverse city.

As a Muslim, he was also very attached to his beard.

This week, the 32-year-old found himself at the centre of legal battle after a judge ordered the New York Police Department (NYPD) to reinstate the officer after he had been suspended for 30 days over his beard.

Masood Syed said he felt humiliated when he was escorted from his office (AP)

On Monday, Mr Syed had been suspended from work and escorted from the departments headquarters after it was deemed that his beard was more than 1mm in length and therefore breached regulations. Mr Syed said he had worn a 1-inch beard for most of his 10-year career, and had only occasionally drawn critical comments.

On Wednesday, a judge ruled that the force reinstate Mr Syed and pay him any money or benefits that had been withheld. US District Judge Kevin Castel criticised the city and issued a restraining order to allow Mr Syed to work until another hearing on July 8.

I am very relieved, Mr Syed told CBS, after the ruling, as he celebrated his 32nd birthday.

Brooklyn patrol officer Rohail Kahlid, who has a beard about a half-an-inch long, said that enforcement of the rule could often be arbitrary.

It becomes an issue on and off. It depends on whos the boss, he said,

Mr Syed, who is of Pakistani heritage, said two uniformed supervisors escorted him from his office where he works as a law clerk to administrative judges, sometimes preparing legal documents for the police commissioner about disciplinary issues. It was extremely humiliating, he Syed. I felt insulted, frankly.

He said he hoped his lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, would help more than 100 police employees who find the religious exception to the departments no-beard policy insufficient because they say the length of the beard allowed is not reasonable.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order banning the NYPD from enforcing its beard policy until it provides reasonable religious accommodations.

City attorney Michael Fleming said the beard ban was necessary. Besides for religious reasons, exceptions exist for undercover duties and medical conditions. Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require annual fit-testing and prohibit respirators for employees with facial hair.

The judge became impatient as he questioned Fleming about the policy and the departments failure to respond to a December 2015 request by 37 police officers for an exception to the no-beard policy.

The court is troubled by the fact it cannot get an answer, he said.

Joshua Moskovitz, a lawyer representing representing Syed, told Mr Castel the departments policy violated the First Amendment and threatened Mr Syeds job, retirement benefits and reputation. He said the department took Mr Syeds badge and weapon on Tuesday before he was escorted out in front of his friends and colleagues.
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A man from Yemen who was accused of being one of Osama bin Ladens bodyguards and held for 14 years in custody at Guantanamo Bay without charge has been released.

The US government cleared Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi for release in March 2014, but did not send him back to Yemen due to the countrys continuing civil war.

Mr al-Rahabi has now been sent to the small Balkan state of Montenegro for resettlement.

According to CBS News, Mr al-Rahabi had been held at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002.

A Pentagon profile released before Mr al-Rahabi was cleared said he had travelled from Yemen to Afghanistan and that he was almost certainly a member of al-Qaeda.

US authorities ultimately decided he did not pose a security threat and could be released.

President Barack Obama has pledged to close the detention centre in Cuba before the end of his presidency, and Mr al-Rahabi has become the second former inmate to be resettled in Montenegro as the US seeks to whittle down the remaining number of detainees at the site.

Lee Wolosky, the special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the State Department, said the US government was grateful to Montenegro for accepting the former prisoner.

He said: Montenegro now joins other US friends and allies in Europe in accepting multiple detainees for resettlement, bringing us closer to our shared goal of closing the facility.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

At its peak, Guantanamo held around 680 prisoners, most of whom were thought to have links to the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

Mr al-Rahabis release leaves 79 inmates at the prison facility, including 29 who have been cleared to be sent home or for resettlement. Further repatriations or resettlements are expected in the coming weeks.
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Two sick Antarctic workers have arrived safely in Chile after a daring rescue mission through the hazardous South Pole winter.

Due to constant pitch black darkness and the extreme cold, flights into the South Pole do not usually take place from February to October.

But this convention was overruled when two Lockheed Martin employees working at the Amundsen-Scott station, located directly at the South Pole, became sick with an unidentified illness and required medical evacuation.

In two days of hectic flying, two rescue teams flew from Chile to the British Antarctic Surveys Rothera station. One aircraft then went on to fly the 3,000 mile round trip to the South Pole  where the temperature was minus 60C.

The approximate route made by the planes on the rescue mission (Google)

The Canadian-owned Twin Otter aircraft  one of two chartered for the rescue  then returned to Rothera with the workers on Wednesday afternoon. They were then transferred to the second plane and flown to Punta Arenas, the southernmost town in Chile, where appropriate medical treatment was administered.

Although there is a doctor and assistant at the Amundsen-Scott base, medical facilities are limited. Just 48 workers inhabit the base over the winter, which lasts from February to October.

The pilots had to contend with constant darkness and hazardous weather conditions (AFP/Getty Images)

"The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring," said Steve Barnet, a US based scientist who has worked at Amundsen-Scott.

The extreme cold affects a number of parts on the plane, including the batteries and hydraulics. Fuel must be also warmed before take-off.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punish any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey. "If you are complacent it will bite you."

He added: "Things can change very quickly down there," with potential hazards including ice from clouds, high winds and heavy snow.

There have been three emergency evacuations from Amundsen-Scott since 1999.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

The 1999 flight, which was done in the Antarctic spring in slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Rescues also were done in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

There has been a station at the South Pole since 1956 and scientists carry out astronomy, physics and environmental science using telescopes, seismographs and other instruments.

Associated Press contributed to this report
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The young motorcycle taxi driver approaches the girl he has had his eye on. Its my birthday, what are you going to give me? She shakes his hand and wishes him many happy returns. I was hoping for more, he says. Thats all youre going to get, she replies.

A mundane exchange, perhaps, but this is Rio de Janeiro, a city where women, especially in poorer neighbourhoods, live in constant fear of violence at the hands of men, sexual and domestic. Marina - not her real name - was raped by the bike man in her own home soon after. It was December 2011; today she is still on four medications to get herself through the day.

That was the worst thing, when I realised I was like an origami paper, Marina, who was 21 at the time, explained tearfully to The Independent sitting one recent night in a Rio park, the lit circles of the coming Olympic Games illuminating the pitted surface of a nearby sandpit.

I didnt have the power to get out from under him. That was the worst feeling. I felt like garbage because I had always thought Id have the physical strength to defend myself and I didnt. I begged him but he did it anyway. Then he got up smiling, saying, Im going to be a daddy.

Marina, who now teachers in primary school in a Rio slum, or favela, did not conceive. With a friends help, she summoned the courage to file a report with the local police (though the man was never arrested and even today shows up outside her home). She also was able to contact a womens support organization - the Movimento de Mulheres (Women's Movement) - which got her into therapy.

She is one of the lucky ones. A study by the Brasilia-based Institute for Applied Economic Research drawing on data from 2013 says a woman in Brazil is raped every 11 minutes, though the number is likely to be higher, its authors admitted, because so few of them report the crimes. The reason is fear - fear that they will suffer reprisals, that the macho police will have no interest in pursuing their cases or that they will be exposed to further humiliation by being labeled the guilty party for somehow egging their attackers on.

The same report, published last month, said one in every 200 Brazilian women have been the victims of some form of sexual violence in their lifetimes.

It is an epidemic that was mostly being ignored - or accepted as simply normal - until last month when the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in the same Rio shantytown where Marina works grabbed the attention of the whole world. It too would have gone unreported, but for video footage of the mass assault surfacing on social media and instantly going viral.

The girl, who remains anonymous, told police she had been drugged and violated by no fewer than 33 men. They robbed me. They robbed me but not of any material property but of physical property, she said of the 21 May attack. The police chief put in charge of the case, Alessandro Thiers, was removed after publicly suggesting the incident may have been consensual.

She was the victim of sexual abuse, and she's being victimised and judged here, Cristiana Bento, who took over the probe, said at a later press conference. This girl should be looked after. Eventually, seven men were charged in the case, including one boy. Ms Bento said the victim may have dreamed the number of 33 because of the trauma she suffered.

Gang-rape it was, however, and advocates of womens rights and some political leaders see some silver lining, at least, in the public debate about sexual violence it provoked.

Now its something that society is discussing, Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio De Janeiro, told The Independent in an interview earlier this month. Its good that it came out, because most of the cases are kind of hidden, people dont talk about it. Now theres a discussion on the streets.

Certainly, it has galvanised Marina to speak out even though she fears she may be hurt for it. I was outraged, she said of the day the gang-rape hit the news. I remembered everything I went through, all the pain, all the lack off support, all the feeling of guilt, the feeling of being filthy and of being the worst human being. I was utterly outraged, I knew I had to do something about it.

Part of what she is fighting, however, is a culture of male dominance in Brazil that will not be easily broken. The prejudice against women in our country is social entrenched , she offered. You see parents teaching boys to go get the girls, as many as they can. And the girls are raised to serve - to clean the house, raise the children, make the food and then serve sexually.

The legal landscape for womens rights has been improving. Before she was suspended from office to face impeachment charges, President Dilma Rousseff oversaw the revamping of the penal code to include femicide - in Brazil a woman is murdered every two hours - and the introduction of longer sentences for a variety of violent crimes committed against women.

Yet Marisa Chaves de Souza, the director the Movimento de Mulheres, where she has worked to help women victims of violence in Rios favelas for 27 years, believes all that progress risks being reversed, thanks in part to the ouster of Ms Rousseff and the early decisions taken by the interim President, Michel Temer, 75, including the shuttering of the Womens Ministry in Brasilia.

Its a huge setback, she said, showing off a newly opened facility for women who have suffered violence on the campus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. With the vanishing of the ministry so also will disappear federal funding for womens programmes, already threatened by Brazils deepening economic crisis. Its a set-back too because it creates new space for those conservative voices in Brazil who believe a womans place is in the kitchen. She added: We have a culture of patriarchy that is reproduced generation after generation.

Not helping in this respect is the regressive messaging she sees from the Temer administration. Upon taking the place of Ms Rousseff last month he announced the formation of an all-male, all-white cabinet. There was general dismay among womens rights groups meanwhile when a Brazilian magazine published a profile of Mr Temers 32-year-old wife who has her husbands name tattooed on her neck, under the headline, Marcela Temer: Beautiful, demure housewife.

The wife of interim President Michel Temer has his name tattooed on her neck (AP)

Most telling is whats happening to the Movimento de Mulheres, her organisation in the favelas that Marina says literally saved her life. Because of dwindling financial support both from private corporations and government it is on its last legs after nearly three decades of operation. Since September, Ms Chaves reports, it has cut its professional workforce from 104 people to just nine today. Unless she finds money from somewhere else it will close entirely in two months.

The irony escapes no one: that at precisely the moment the full extent of the epidemic of violence being committed against women is at last coming into full public view so the infrastructure that has so painstakingly been built over the past several years to tackle it is falling apart. We face losing everything we fought so hard achieve, Ms Chaves lamented.

In her own life, Marina believes she has made progress, thanks in part to the assortment of pills in the biscuit tin she takes everywhere in her knapsack. One is a hormone supplement to help with pre-menstrual tensions, she explained, before fiddling with the other packets in the box. This is for when I start shaking, this is an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety, and this is for calming myself down. She has had one relationship since her rape; it lasted two weeks.

As for whether Brazil might finally, in the wake of Rio de Janeiros gang-rape scandal, begin to reduce crime against women and offer victims better access to help and justice, she admitted to having deep doubts. I think its just too hard. The speech they give is a very beautiful one, but in practice the government doesnt fight for real change.
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The lesson for Jerry Falwell is simple: always, always, always, check over your shoulder before posing for a photograph.

The Evangelical Christian and president of Liberty University found himself at the centre of no small amount of mockery after he posed for a photograph with Donald Trump, against a backdrop that included a copy of Playboy, the soft porn magazine. What's more, the magazine cover featured Mr Trump and a model now serving jail time for cocaine smuggling.

Mr Falwell was an early endorser of Mr Trump and invited him to speak at his private Christian college in Virginia. In a speech to students, Mr Trump fumbled a reference to the bible.

Mr Trump appeared on the cover with Brandi Brandt, who is now in jail for cocaine smuggling (Playboy)

Mr Falell later said of his decision to back the New York tycoon: I did so because the country is at that point.

The leg-pulling began after Mr Falwell tweeted a photograph of himself and his wife, Becki, posing with Mr Trump in his New York office. What Mr Falwell had apparently not spotted were the series of framed magazine covers on the wall, among them a copy of Playboy, featuring Mr Trump and model Brandi Brandt on the cover.

Brandt, who was once married to Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx, is said to have been a regular visitor to Mr Trumps New York offices during the 1990s, was two years ago sentenced to six years in jail for her role in a drug smuggling operation.

Critics of Mr Trump and Mr Falwels support for him, were quick to point out the irony of the conservative Christian college leader posing in front of a mens pornographic magazine.

 Clinton Has "Perfected the Politics of Personal Profit and Even Theft" - Trump

The New York Daily News said that the image was especially ironic given that Mr Falwells father, Jerry Falwell Sr, famously sued Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt for a satirical depiction of him in his porn magazine, in a case that landed in the Supreme Court. (Mr Falwell lost the case.)

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall  and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

Mr Trump is reportedly proud of the March 1990 Playboy cover. Last month at a rally in Pennsylvania someone handed him a copy of the magazine to autograph as he worked the rope line and he held it to show to his cheering supporters.

On Tuesday night, Mr Fawell responded on Twitter by likening the criticism he had received to the travails endured by Jesus.

He wrote: Honoured for same hypocrites who accused Jesus of being a friend of publicans and sinners to be targeting me over a decades old mag cover.


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North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un has hailed the test flight of a new ballistic missile as a great event, and evidence of the countrys sure capability of hitting US targets in the Pacific.

Mr Kims boast followed an apparently successful test of the Musudan medium-range missile, after five previous tests in recent months failed.

The first of two missiles fired on Wednesday also failed, but the second flew around 400km (250 miles), reached an altitude of 1,000km (620 miles) and came down in the Sea of Japan.

The test launches have triggered serious concerns in the US, Japan and South Korea, as the missiles potential range of 3,500km (2,180 miles), puts significant areas of Asia and the Pacific, including US military bases in Guam, within firing range.

We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre, North Koreas official news agency KCNA quoted Mr Kim as saying.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned the tests after an emergency meeting was held to discuss its response.

 N. Korea propaganda video depicts imagined attack on Washington

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, said the missile launch was a brazen and irresponsible act.

Mr Bans spokesman, Faran Haq, described the tests as a deliberate and very grave violation of security council resolutions banning the country from using ballistic missiles.

North Koreas continuing pursuit of these weapons and nuclear weapons will only undermine its security and fail to improve the lives of its citizens, he added.

North Korean military parade in 2013 (Ed Jones/Getty)

Tokyo has expressed its concern about the certain level of capability North Korea now poses with working ballistic missiles. The threat to Japan is intensifying, said defence minister Gen Nakatani.

We have to see it as a success, Lee Choon Geun, an analyst at South Korea's state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, told Associated Press. No other (previous) missiles fired by North Korea have ever flown that high.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: The impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Koreas behaviour.

Inside the daily life in North Korea Show all 19 1 /19 Inside the daily life in North Korea Inside the daily life in North Korea People reading a newspaper at the metro station Inside the daily life in North Korea Thoughts of the leaders on the tram. They have about a dozen of these on every tram, all with different thoughts Inside the daily life in North Korea Young people training for a big upcoming festival Inside the daily life in North Korea People at the Pyongyang's annual marathon Inside the daily life in North Korea Many stars on one of the trolleys in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea An intimidating poster in a primary school in North Korea. Inside the daily life in North Korea Solar panels installed on a street lamp. Inside the daily life in North Korea A poster on the window next to one of the venues we visited in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea Kids playing football next to the Arch of Triumph. After a while tourists were allowed to join, so some of us did Inside the daily life in North Korea Class in an educational center in Pyongyang (where people over 17 years old can attend any classes they choose after school, for free) Inside the daily life in North Korea People waving at me during the Pyongyang marathon Inside the daily life in North Korea People having a great time dancing at a public park Inside the daily life in North Korea A metro driver in a metro station in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea Fireworks to mark the birthday of the Eternal President Kim Il Sung on our last night in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea My wonderful tour guide at a public park Inside the daily life in North Korea One of the parks in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea A person rowing some boats for the day at a river in Pyongyang Inside the daily life in North Korea The National War Museum Inside the daily life in North Korea Public park in Pyongyang

The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan.

The successful launch of the Musudan ballistic missile is one of a series of breakthroughs North Korea has claimed in its continuing efforts to create a long-range nuclear weapons arsenal capable of attacking the US mainland.
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Stricter gun laws in Australia have prevented mass shootings and led to significant reductions in the rates of gun-related murder and suicide, a study has found.

Researchers from the University of Sydney and Macquarie University, analysing data on intentional suicide and deaths caused by guns from the National Injury Surveillance Unit and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, found that since the reforms were introduced in 1996, total gun-related deaths have declined 5 per cent annually.

The findings, published in the influential Journal of the American Medical Association, also noted that between 1979 and 1996 there were 13 fatal mass shootings, in which 104 victims were killed and at least another 52 were wounded  since then, there have been no fatal mass shootings.

Researchers concluded there was no evidence of murderers moving to other methods.

Rapid-fire guns were banned in Australia - including those already in private ownership - in 1996, and the following year a mandatory government buyback of prohibited guns was enforced.

The reforms were introduced just months after a mass shooting known as the Port Arthur massacre, when Martin Bryant used two semi-automatic rifles to kill 35 people and wound 23 others in Port Arthur, Tasmania.

The authors said: We are unaware of any other nation that has enacted such a substantial change in gun laws as has been implemented in Australia.

Comparative studies of Australia's experience with broadly comparable nations would provide further evidence of the effects of such law reform.

An accompanying editorial to the study by a researcher at Johns Hopkins University said it was highly unlikely the United States would adopt such laws, which are more restrictive than those in any American locality.

In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace

Earlier this week, the US Senate voted against four proposed gun-control measures introduced in the wake of the recent Orlando massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

Proposals included requiring background checks for all gun sales, including those at gun shows.
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A father has been jailed for 22-and-a-half years for repeatedly raping his daughter and allowing strangers to abuse her as well.

The man admitted 61 offences against his daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons, between 2013 and 2015 at the District Court of Western Australian in Perth.

The court heard that after his arrest he told police that although he regretted his actions he thought it was fun while it lasted.

The girl, who was living with her father after her parents separated, was aged between 11 and 13 at the time.

The 42-year-old father had also arranged for seven other men, whom he had met after putting up adverts on Craigslist, to rape her while he watched and sometimes participated.

The girl was also forced to pose for pornographic photos and videos.

On one occasion the father and another man were filming raping the girl as she was shackled to the bed with her face covered and forced to wear a dog collar with the word b**** written on it.

In the footage the girl is seen struggling and begging for her father to stop, the West Australian reported.

The abuse was discovered following an anonymous tip-off from a member of the public in April last year. Police removed the girl from the home and later charged the seven men with 503 offences between them.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. 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One of the convicted men, married Christian pastor David Volmer, was sent to prison for at least eight years and six months last year.

Another, Benjamin Simon Clarke, was jailed for three years earlier this month for taking explicit photos of the child.

Mark Wesley Liggins, who was arrested as part of the investigation but not accused of abusing the victim directly, was sentenced to two years.

Nicholas Adam Beer pleaded guilty to 163 charges and is expected to be sentenced in November.

Another three men arrested in connection with the case still have their cases pending.

Prosecutor Justin Whalley described it as one of the worst child sex abuse cases to come before the court in the history of the state.

He said the girl was entitled to look to her father for protection but instead she got abuse and degradation.

He told the court: In terms of his remorse, we say, if it exists, it is certainly belated.

Summing up the case, Judge Philip Eaton said the abuse was likely to have lasting and irreparable consequences for the girl.

He said: You completely disregarded her welfare. I have no doubt that you derived perverse sexual enjoyment while doing so.

You in fact allowed complete strangers to treat your daughter as a sexual object and treated her like that yourself.
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The European Union has hit its carbon-cutting targets six years early, according to new data, prompting praise from some quarters but also criticism that the goals were not tough enough.

Member states had been told to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from the levels in 1990 by 20 per cent, with a deadine of 2020.

But the European Environment Agency has announced that aim has been easily surpassed, with the target actually met in 2014 when levels were 24 per cent lower than 1990.

Paris climate talks in pictures Show all 12 1 /12 Paris climate talks in pictures Paris climate talks in pictures A man is covered with a multi-coloured banner with the message, "Climate" as environmentalists attend a demonstration near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, during the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) that meets in Le Bourget, December 12, 2015 Reuters Paris climate talks in pictures French President Francois Hollande (C) and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (R) applaud after a statement at the COP21 Climate Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, on December 12, 2015. The years-long quest for a universal pact to avert catastrophic climate change neared the finish line today with conference host France announcing that the final draft had been completed in the early hours of the morning. Getty Paris climate talks in pictures US Secretary of State John Kerry (C) speaks with China's Special Representative on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua (R) and officials at the COP21 Climate Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, on December 12, 2015. The years-long quest for a universal pact to avert catastrophic climate change neared the finish line today with conference host France announcing that the final draft had been completed in the early hours of the morning. Getty Paris climate talks in pictures Delegates and members of NGO's read and work on copies of 'The adoption of the Paris agreement' is pictured after the announcement of the final draft by French Foreign Affairs minister Laurent Fabius at the COP21 Climate Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, on December 12, 2015. The years-long quest for a universal pact to avert catastrophic climate change neared the finish line with conference host France announcing that the final draft had been completed in the early hours of the morning Getty Paris climate talks in pictures UN climate chief Christiana Figueres (C) speaks with French President Francois Hollande (L), United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (2ndL) and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (R) after a statement at the COP21 Climate Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, on December 12, 2015. The years-long quest for a universal pact to avert catastrophic climate change neared the finish line today with conference host France announcing that the final draft had been completed in the early hours of the morning Getty Paris climate talks in pictures A Swiss Dominican priest poses with activists dressed as polar bears as activists gather for a demonstration to form a giant red line at the Avenue de la Grande armee boulevard in Paris on December 12, 2015, as a proposed 195-nation accord to curb emissions of the heat-trapping gases that threaten to wreak havoc on Earth's climate system is to be presented at the United Nations conference on climate change COP21 in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris. Getty Paris climate talks in pictures Activists hold up a giant banner reading 'Climate justice' by association 'ourpowercampaign' during a demonstration near the Arc de Triomphe at the Avenue de la Grande armee boulevard in Paris on December 12, 2015, as a proposed 195-nation accord to curb emissions of the heat-trapping gases that threaten to wreak havoc on Earth's climate system is to be presented at the United Nations conference on climate change COP21 in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris. Getty Paris climate talks in pictures Representatives of indigenous peoples demonstrate in Paris, France, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget, December 12, 2015. Reuters Paris climate talks in pictures Environmentalists demonstrate near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget, December 12, 2015. Reuters Paris climate talks in pictures Environmentalists demonstrate near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget, December 12, 2015. Reuters Paris climate talks in pictures Activists form a giant red line during a demonstration on the Avenue de la Grande armee boulevard in Paris on December 12, 2015, as a proposed 195-nation accord to curb emissions of the heat-trapping gases that threaten to wreak havoc on Earth's climate system is to be presented at the United Nations conference on climate change COP21 in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images Paris climate talks in pictures The slogan "No Plan B" is projected on the Eiffel Tower as part of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) in Paris, France, December 11, 2015. Reuters

Hans Bruyninckx, executive director of the EEA, said the shift was encouraging, but climate campaigners have said it shows the Paris agreement could have been more demanding of its governments.

Mr Bruyninckx said: "It is positive that Europe has been able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially since 1990. It is an important step towards reaching our 2030 and 2050 climate targets.

"To accelerate the transition towards a low-carbon society, we need to further boost our investments in technology and innovation aimed at reducing our dependence on fossil fuels."

Manufacturing, power generation and home heating saw the biggest savings, outweighing increases in carbon dioxide from road transport and powerful hydrofluorocarbons gases from air conditioners and fridges. The overall decrease in 2014 was 4.1 per cent compared to the previous year.

Yet campaigners have said the success of the EU has shown the targets are not ambitious enough, particularly since EU countries will now overshoot their 2020 goal by at least 10 per cent.

They also said the aim for a 40 per cent cut by 2030 was far too lenient.

Wendy Trio, director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, said the achievement proved the EU's "climate policies were out of touch with reality".

She added that the findings were further proof that the Paris Climate Agreement, which academics said was "inadequate", had not been stringent enough.

"The findings demonstrate that the EU could easily increase its climate target for 2030 as a contribution to reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement," she said.

Several EU countries have reached milestones in their bid to run off cleaner energy so far this year.

In Norway, about 24 per cent of the country's cars run on electricity, and it is a heavy producer of renewable energy with more than 99 per cent of electricity covered by hydropower.

Meanwhile, investment in renewable energy rose by 25 per cent in the UK last year, according to a global paper on the topic.

And in Denmark, one particularly windy day allowed the country to produce 140 per cent of its electricity needs and sell the excess off to Germany and Norway.

The figures were collected by the EEA from each of the EU's 26 member states and sent to the United Nations, with whom all members of the EU have signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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Germany's coalition government has agreed to ban fracking for shale gas after years of fractious talks over the issue  but environmental groups claim the ban does not go far enough and have vowed to fight the deal.

Test drilling will still be allowed but only with the permission of the respective state government, officials said.

German industry is keen to keep the door open to fracking  which involves blasting chemicals and water into rocks to release trapped gas  arguing that it could help lower energy costs, but opposition is strong in the country, where a powerful green lobby has warned about possible risks to drinking water.

If the law is approved by parliament, Germany will follow France, which has banned fracking, whereas Britain allows it subject to strict environmental and safety guidelines.

Germany was on the verge of a parliamentary vote on similar legislation to ban fracking a year ago, but the effort stalled amid disagreements between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD).

The two parties agreed on Tuesday to an indefinite ban, but the compromise legislation calls for the German parliament to reassess whether the decision is still valid in 2021, said Thomas Oppermann, who heads the SPD's parliamentary group.

CDU officials confirmed that a compromise had been reached.

Friends of the Earth Germany criticised the proposal and said that by setting a date for a fresh look, the coalition had essentially agreed to allow fracking in five years.

The coalitions agreement on a fracking permission law is hair-raising. The law must be stopped and replaced with a true fracking ban, Hubert Weiger, who heads the environmental group, said in a statement.

 How Fracking works

Both parties were due to debate the legislative proposal in caucus meetings on Tuesday.

Further details of the compromise legislation were not immediately available.

Current German law permits unconventional fracking, but virtually no drilling permits have been approved.

Reuters
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A masked gunman has been shot dead after opening fire at a cinema in Germany and taking a number of hostages.

Police said there were no serious injuries after the incident at the Kinopolis complex, in the town of Viernheim.

An armed attacker wearing a mask burst in shortly before 3pm local time (2pm BST), with witnesses hearing several shots.

(EPA (EPA)

A police spokesperson said he then took several hostages, who were later freed unharmed.

The Hessen interior minister, Peter Beuth, told the state parliament that the man was shot dead by police after armed units surrounded the cinema.

"The police had an emergency call at 2.45pm. The caller said there was a masked man...armed with a long gun. It is unclear whether it was a real gun," he added.

"The caller heard four shots and said that the masked man appeared a little mentally unstable. Police special forces were called."

A spokesperson for the interior ministry told The Independent there was no immediate indication of a link to terror groups.

The gunman's identity and his motives were unclear but he was an "acute threat," he added.

In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Germany cinema shooting In pictures: Germany cinema shooting A person escapes from a movie theatre complex Kinopolis, where an armed man reportedly opened fire in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Heavily-armed police walk outside the Kinopolis Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police stand outside a parking garage next to a cinema in which an armed gunman reportedly barricaded himself in Vierheim EPA In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers at the scene of the shooting in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police and passers by stand near to a cinema in Vierheim EPA In pictures: Germany cinema shooting German special police leave their car after a masked man with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in a cinema complex in Viernheim REUTERS In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers stand outside the Kinopolis Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting A policeman runs outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers stand outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images

Television footage showed a couple fleeing the building as officers carrying guns and wearing helmets and body armour moved in on Thursday afternoon.

At least 25 people reportedly suffered from the effects of teargas during the operation.

Christiane Kobus, a spokesperson for South Hessen Police, said: Officers entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding.

"There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead."

Isis has recently threatened Germany, as well as other European nations supporting the US-led coalition bombing its territories in Syria and Iraq, but there was no evidence of a link.
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An armed man who entered a cinema in Germany has been shot dead, according to local media reports.

The man was reported to have entered the cinema wearing a mask and carrying arms, before taking hostages. He was shot during the police operation that followed, according Germany's interior ministry.

Police stormed the complex soon after reports of a heavily-armed man had taken hostage inside the cinema complex in Viernheim, according to local reports that cited the German interior minister of the state of Hesse.

In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Germany cinema shooting In pictures: Germany cinema shooting A person escapes from a movie theatre complex Kinopolis, where an armed man reportedly opened fire in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Heavily-armed police walk outside the Kinopolis Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police stand outside a parking garage next to a cinema in which an armed gunman reportedly barricaded himself in Vierheim EPA In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers at the scene of the shooting in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police and passers by stand near to a cinema in Vierheim EPA In pictures: Germany cinema shooting German special police leave their car after a masked man with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in a cinema complex in Viernheim REUTERS In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers stand outside the Kinopolis Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting A policeman runs outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images In pictures: Germany cinema shooting Police officers stand outside a cinema complex in Viernheim Getty Images

Though previous reports had said that 20-50 people had been wounded when the gunman opened fire, it isn't clear whether or not the man actually used any of the weapons he stormed the cinema with.

Local reports also suggested that all other injuries had been sustained during the police operation, when officers used tear gas.

 Gunman opens fire and takes hostages at German cinema

Spokeswoman Christiane Kobus had earlier said she couldn't give further details of what was happening. She was not able to confirm unsourced German media reports that an armed man had entered the movie theater and fired at least one shot.
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Pope Francis will visit Armenias genocide memorial this weekend, but is expected to avoid using the word genocide, in an effort to prevent an outcry from Turkey.

Last year the pope incurred Turkeys displeasure after he described the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey responded by withdrawing its envoy to the Vatican for 10 months.

While the governments of 29 countries have officially recognised the Armenian genocide, Turkey and Azerbaijan are the only ones that deny it.

The popes three-day visit includes prayers at the Tsitsernakaberd genocide memorial in the capital Yerevan, but official literature released by the Vatican described the site as the memorial of the massacres.

Addressing journalists at a press briefing this week, the popes spokesman Frederico Lombardi said: Why is there an obsession to use the word genocide and ask about it in all the questions?

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. 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In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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We know what happened. None of us is denying that there were horrible massacres. We recognise this. We are going to the memorial precisely to remember this but we dont want this to become a trap of political and ideological discussions, he said.

He said the phrase Medz Yeghern, which translates as great catastrophe or great evil, was preferred to genocide.
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Half of the countrys top graduate employers will be forced to reduce their recruitment intake if Britain votes to leave the EU, according to a study.

With firms expected to hire 5,500 graduates in 2016, the research has also found that, if the UK votes to leave, the sectors most at risk of downsizing are banking and finance, retail, media, technology, and law.

These sectors, together with audit and professional services, employ over 50,000 graduates each year.

The three main reasons cited for downsizing are the impact on the economy and, therefore, on the volume of business, general uncertainty, and a lower talent pool of EU graduates applying for jobs.

The study, which is the first dedicated to assessing the impact of Brexit on UK-based graduates from the viewpoint of those that employ them, also found that, while some firms would increase the hiring of British graduates to compensate for fewer EU graduates, the majority would either apply for work permits to maintain current levels of EU graduates, or reduce operations in the UK to manage with fewer graduates.

EU referendum - in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 EU referendum - in pictures EU referendum - in pictures A woman in a wheelchair with British and European Union flags shows her support for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A polling station being used in the EU referendum at Batley Town Hall in the constituency Labour MP Jo Cox PA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to vote in the EU Referendum at the Library where British MP Jo Cox was shot and fatally wounded last week in Birstall EPA EU referendum - in pictures A man arrives to vote at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Voters queue to enter a polling station at Trinity Church in Golders Green in London Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha Cameron leave after voting in the EU Referendum at Central Methodist Hall, Westminster Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn cast his vote at a polling station at Pakeman Primary School in Islington Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures Chelsea pensioners arrive at a polling station near to the Royal Chelsea Hospital PA EU referendum - in pictures A woman wearing an "I'm In" t-shirt, promoting the official "Remain" campaign, leaves a polling station in London AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures People queuing outside a polling station on Amott Road in London PA EU referendum - in pictures Scotland's First Minister and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, react as leave after casting their votes at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow AFP/Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man wearing a European themed cycling jersey leaves after voting at a polling station for the Referendum on the European Union in north London REUTERS EU referendum - in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage arrives to cast his vote at Cudham Church of England Primary School in Biggin Hill, Kent PA EU referendum - in pictures Justice Secretary and prominent 'Vote Leave' campaigner Michael Gove poses with his wife Sarah Vine after voting in the European Union referendum at their local polling station in Kensington Getty EU referendum - in pictures Nuns leave a polling station after voting in the EU Referendum in London EPA EU referendum - in pictures People arrive to cast their ballots in the EU Referendum in Gibraltar. The United Kingdom and its dependant territories are going to the polls to decide whether or not the the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A man driving a van covered in stickers urging people to vote for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union drives outside a polling station on the day of the EU Referendum in Gibraltar Getty Images EU referendum - in pictures A sign on a gable wall in Belfast's, Loyalist Tigers Bay urging voters to leave the EU using scripture from Revelation 18:4, as voters head to the polls across the UK in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave PA

Some firms even reported that hiring more Brits for jobs currently held by EU graduates could impact on overall quality.

EU graduates are necessary, say the employers, because a variety of languages and other skills are needed to be able to cover global clients, as well as for their specific job skills sets, for example, in education and health.

The study has been carried out by PathMotion, an employer-to-candidate engagement platform. CEO, David Rivel, described how the concerns raised by graduates about the effect of a Brexit are now confirmed by employers who predict a loss of graduate jobs in the UK.

He said: British graduates are not protected, despite some employers shifting from EU to British graduates. The survey also reveals employers are worried at the prospect of losing access to the talent pool that they can already tap into.

PathMotion co-founder, Alon Laniado, added: Many young people are unclear about what the impact of the EU referendum debate would have on them, not least because they have been presented with various types of arguments from all sides. Studies such as ours - which are based on facts on the ground - help clarify real life possible consequences of Brexit vs Remain.

The study has come just a day after a survey from NME found both Leave and Remain camps have failed to speak to young people while campaigning.

One 26-year-old respondent said: I dont feel like Ive been given the information I need. Theres been a lot of political game-playing: both sides have skewed the facts and misrepresented figures. I dont trust either side to represent the situation truthfully.

On the whole, student surveys have found the majority of young people are set to vote Remain on Thursday.
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From secluded beaches in Europe to breathtaking stretches of sand in Asia, the world is covered with spectacular shorelines to explore.

We've scoured the world to find incredible beaches you should add to your bucket list.

Whether you're looking for beaches renowned for their scenery and activities, those that offer unbelievable experiences (like swimming with pigs), or stunning locations that remain uncrowded by tourists, we've got you covered.

Anmargaret Warner and Liz O'Connor contributed to an earlier version of this post.

Whitehaven Beach, on Whitsunday Island in Australia, hosts a cove where the tide shifts the sand and waters together, creating a breathtaking combination. White sands and turquoise waters blend seamlessly for a marvelous view.

(GETTY IMAGES (GETTY IMAGES)

Navagio Beach, also referred to as "Shipwreck Beach" and "Smuggler's Cove," sits hidden in a secluded cove on the island of Zakynthos in Greece. The off-the-beaten-path beach is famous for the shipwreck that sits on its scenic shore. The ship, which stopped here when it was chased by authorities for smuggling illegal cargo in the 1980s, has remained here ever since.

Shipwreck bay (Rex Features)

Head to the village of Oludeniz in Turkey, and you'll find a sheltered lagoon that sits beside a breathtaking national park and a long stretch of sandy beach. The destination is also popular for tandem paragliding, with impeccable views of surrounding mountains to enjoy.

The much photographed lagoon beach of Oludeniz

Bondi Beach is one of the most popular destinations in Sydney, Australia, and hosts celebrations ranging from surfing competitions in the summer to fireworks on New Year's Eve. Once you're done enjoying the water, head to the main street along the beachfront for a range of shops, outdoor cafes, and bars.

The flights would allow British tourists to spend even more time on Bondi Beach (Getty)

Visitors will be at the center of the action on White Beach, located on the island of Boracay in the Philippines. Lined with resorts, hotels, and a shopping mall, the beach comes alive at nighttime with plenty of cozy restaurants and bars to enjoy. It's also an ideal spot for catching the stunning sunsets Boracay is known for.

For the ideal summer party getaway, head to Nissi beach in Cyprus, where you'll find weekly foam parties, beach parties, and sets from famous DJs. Plus, you'll be treated to views of crystal-clear waters while you enjoy the scene.

The men claimed they had accidentally boarded a boat from Ayia Napa in Cyprus to Tartous in Syria. (AFP/Getty Images)

The remote Baia do Sancho in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, often tops lists of the best beaches in Brazil. Here, travelers will find clear water and white sands dotted with picturesque rock formations and tropical forest areas. Popular activities here include snorkeling, diving, and birdwatching.

Selected as the number-one beach in the world by this year's TripAdvisor's Traveler's Choice Awards, Grace Bay, located in Providenciales in Turks and Caicos, is home to unbelievably clear waters in shades of greens and blues. Visitors can also enjoy activities like sailing and snorkeling.

Flamenco beach is considered the most popular beach on Culebra, one of the offshore islands of Puerto Rico. The postcard-worthy beach includes glistening white sands, breathtaking views, and clear waters. Thanks to its shallow waters, it's also ideal for sport-fishing and observing marine life.

Read more:

 Analysts question the way Apple describes its data

 Mike Ashley has a plan to save BHS with no job losses

 Investors think central banks have lost their power

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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A combination of poor weather and striking French air-traffic controllers has caused mayhem for airline passengers, while train travellers in South-East England are being hit with widespread cancellations after flooding in the early hours of Thursday.

Airlines including British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair had already pre-emptively cancelled dozens of flights linking the UK with France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy because of the stoppage by controllers of the busiest skies in Europe.



Eurocontrol in Brussels said the industrial action is particularly affecting the north of the country. Ryanair cancelled more than 50 flights, include services from Newcastle to Malaga and Stansted to Madrid. British Airways axed around 30 flights to a range of destinations in southern Europe - particularly Barcelona and Madrid, but also to Rome and Venice. Among the easyJet cancellations were services from Gatwick to Milan, Marseille and Nantes.

But poor weather especially at Heathrow reduced capacity, with delays to the first wave of flights reverberating to cause cancellations later in the day. Domestic flights to and from Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle and Edinburgh, as well as services to Frankfurt and Basel, were cancelled.

Eurocontrol also warned that Amsterdam airport was experiencing high delays because of single runway operations due to weather.

Hundreds of thousands of commuters face frustration after the torrential rain that accompanied overnight thunderstorms in South-East England.

The worst affected line is between London Liverpool Street and Ilford, closed because of flooding. It serves Essex and East Anglia. Passengers between London and Norwich are being told to travel via London Kings Cross, Cambridge and Ely. All ticket restrictions have been lifted by Abellio Greater Anglia, and tickets for Thursday will also be valid on Friday.

South West Trains, which is the main operator from Europes busiest station, Waterloo, has urged passengers not to travel.

In pictures: France strikes Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: France strikes In pictures: France strikes French riot police use tear gas against a demonstrator during a protest against the government's labour market reforms at Place de la Nation in Paris EPA In pictures: France strikes Workers on strike are evacuated by French riot policemen as they block the access to an oil depot near the Total refinery of Donges Getty In pictures: France strikes Demonstrators protest during a rally against employment and labour law reforms in Lyon Rex In pictures: France strikes Security forces clash with demonstrators during a protest called by seven labour unions and students against the labour and employment law reform, in Bordeaux Getty In pictures: France strikes French police apprehend a man during a demonstration to protest the government's proposed labour law reforms in Nantes Reuters In pictures: France strikes Riot police prepare to confront refinery workers outside an oil depot in Douchy-Les-Mines Getty In pictures: France strikes A protester holds up his fist as riot police prepare to intervene to disperse refinery worker holding a blockade of the oil depot of Douchy-Les-Mines to protest against the government's proposed labour reformsr labour reforms Getty In pictures: France strikes An employee stands next to a fire and French CGT union's flag as employees block the access of the PSA plant in Valenciennes Getty In pictures: France strikes CGT union workers and docker workers attend a demonstration in Marseille EPA In pictures: France strikes Men burn bins during a protest against the government's labour market reforms in Rennes Getty In pictures: France strikes People demonstrate in Le Havre Getty In pictures: France strikes A protestor raises his fist during a protest against the government's labour market reforms in Rennes Getty

The Gatwick Express was out of commission for most of the morning, because of flooding in South London. When it restarted, some journeys took three times as long as the timetabled 30 minutes.

A failure of the train information system at Gatwick led to many passengers boarding the wrong trains. Other services on the London-Brighton main line were cancelled because of a continuing shortage of train crews.
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Major General Herzl Herzi Halevy was at it again a few days ago. Another war in Lebanon, the Israeli chief of the countrys Military Intelligence Directorate threatened, would turn it into a country of refugees. Not very original, when you come to think of it, because Lebanon already hosts around 350,000 Palestinian refugees from the land which Herzi calls Israel and a further million refugees from Syria. In total, thats about a fifth of the entire population of Lebanon. The Lebanese might be forgiven for yawning. Havent we been here before?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we have. But first the usual context. Herzi was talking to the annual Herzliya conference in Israel where chiefs of staff and military intelligence bosses warn their countrymen of the massive firepower which may be unleashed on them by Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Isis, Arab states with whom they dont have a peace treaty, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Herzi was marking the 10th anniversary of the last Lebanon war  the third Lebanon war, according to the Israelis, who would have to explain why there have really been five Lebanon wars (1978, 1982, 1994, 1996 and 2006) if they stuck with the facts. But there you go.

If Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, knew our abilities, our knowledge, our preparedness, he wouldnt risk another conflict, quoth Herzi on 15th June. The next conflict may be in the making, but Israel will recover and rebuild. This may well have been an allusion to the 2006 war in which the Israeli army got thrashed and Hezbollah claimed a victory (without explaining how its victory included 1,200 mostly civilian Lebanese dead). Hezbollah was now better armed than ever since Damascus was manufacturing weapons solely for the militia, Herzi announced  an unlikely claim since the Syrian regime is desperate for new weapons for its own army inside Syria. But in another war, Lebanon will become a country of refugees which will have difficulty recovering and Hezbollah will lose its political support base.

But hold on. For those of us who live in the Middle East and keep good, old-fashioned paper archives, all this flummery sounds a little familiar. So lets go back to the Jerusalem Post of 25th January 2010  almost an entire decade ago - where we find Israels Northern Commander, Major General Gadi Eizenkot, warning that Hezbollah had significantly increased its missile capability. The Israeli army therefore had the moral right, he said, to disproportionately [sic] attack Hezbollah strongholds [sic again] inside 160 Lebanese villages in southern Lebanon if it was attacked by the guerrillas. Only two days earlier, then Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak claimed that Hezbollah possessed 42,000 missiles to fire at Israel and that in a new war Israel would target Lebanese government offices.

Now we zip forward to 2013, and this time its Major General Sami Turgeman, Israels retiring Ground Forces commander, whos throwing threats around. A future war with Lebanon, he announced, will be a hard one. It will involve a great amount of units, attacks day and night, very massive attacks. It would be very hard for our citizens, but much harder for the other side.

And now to 2014 where the head of Israels air force, Major General Amir Eshel, is doing the threat routine. Hezbollah is now putting thousands of bases in residential buildings in southern Lebanon, being all the while re-armed by Iran and Syria and with increased missile capability. Sound familiar? And Hezbollah has entire storeys of residential buildings ready for the war. Above and below live civilians whom we have nothing against  a kind of human shield, Eshel threatened. And that is where the war will be. That is where we will have to fight in order to stop it and win. Whoever stays in these bases [sic] will simply be hit And the latest Hezbollah missile tally: 100,000 - quite an increase in just four years.

Needless to say, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollahs leader  a megalomaniac, according to the Israeli army  rants away in reverse. In 2011, he dismissed yet another threat by Barak, who had just told his Israeli soldiers to be ready for another occupation of Lebanon. If Israel attacks Lebanon, Nasrallah responded, the Holy Warriors could [sic, yet again] receive the order to liberate [Israeli] Galilee.

Whoever buries himself in a bunker, must stay in his bunker, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied to the Hezbollah leader, whose whereabouts in Lebanon are known only to a trusted few  his predecessor, after all, was assassinated in his car in southern Lebanon when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile into the vehicle.

 Israel approves spending millions in West Bank settlement security

Nasrallah has made other threats. A new war with Israel would mean no limits, and no red lines, he said this year, and promised to target Israels ammonia storage depot in Haifa in the north of the country if Israeli pilots assaulted the southern suburbs of Beirut  which Barak himself had several times threatened to do - where tens of thousands of Hezbollahs supporters live. Our rockets combined with the ammonia storage facility in Haifa will create the effect of a nuclear weapon.

But strange to say, the Lebanese-Israeli border has endured its quietest, most peaceful history over the past decade  in gentle contrast to the constant cross-frontier wars over the border of the previous quarter century. Yes, of course Churchill was right when he said  at the White House, no less, in 1954 - that to jaw-jaw was always better than to war-war. But I wonder if the Israelis  yes, and Nasrallah, too  are not jaw-jawing at all. Always aware that they can say Well, I warned you afterwards, the danger is that they and their antagonists are already planning their excuses for their next crimes against civilians in the Middle East. And who will complain if or when they commit these atrocities? Surely not those who invaded Iraq and have the blood of up to half a million civilians on their hands? Because thats how precedents are set. And thats how to provide everyone else with credible threats and excuses for war crimes.
Bunk beds, pizza and sushi are at the ready as foreign exchange traders gear up for the Brexit all-nighter - and they are ready to go into war-preparation mode.

AIB's Enda Homan is ready for the all-nighter, he told Bloomberg.

Dinner will be Chinese noodles from local deli - while coffee will be on the ready too.

It is a unique opportunity for traders, probably not seen since 1992 Black Wednesday, he said - he was referring to the day in September when the UK withdrew sterling from the European exchange-rate system.

Sustenance will probably consist of Chinese noodles from the local deli, and I will also make sure that there is plenty of freshly brewed coffee to get us through the quiet bits while awaiting the results.

Some banks are bringing in sleeping bags, bunk beds while others are booking hotel rooms.

Frederic Ponzo, managing partner at GreySpark Partners, a London-based consultancy also told Bloomberg:

Volatility is expected to spike up potentially more than during the Swiss unpeg event and volumes to potentially overwhelm them and their systems.

 Trading was frenzied and orders delayed last year when the Swiss National Bank suddenly removed its cap on the franc.

Polls are calling it tight and traders will be on the ready to buy and sell as the results come through.

It will be a rollercoaster for sterling, depending on the vote by the British to either leave or stay in the EU.

Much of the frantic last-minute activity will take place in the hour or two before the early results emerge, meaning that UK bank staff will work closely with their counterparts in Asia - the open market at the time - to roll or adjust whatever hedge needs to be maintained, said Javier Paz, a Boston-based senior analyst at consulting firm Aite.

Equity traders will start work early too before the markets open.
BRITAIN'S referendum on leaving the EU is too close to call as a string of polls released on the final campaign day showed neither side clearly ahead.

Four separate polls released on Thursday gave differing pictures, with two putting the Leave campaign ahead and two giving the pro-EU side the lead.

The result will be decided by which campaign can get out most supporters and how floating voters divide, according to polling experts.

Around one in 10 voters remain undecided despite months of campaigning and could only decide when they enter the polling booth.

Read More

There were also signs that those backing Brexit are more energised to vote, with the Out campaign given a seven-point lead by one poll when likelihood to turnout out was incorporated.

Expand Close Campaigners from the "Vote Remain" group hand out stickers, flyers and posters in Oxford Circus, central London. Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Campaigners from the "Vote Remain" group hand out stickers, flyers and posters in Oxford Circus, central London. Getty Images

Britains most trusted polling expert said there was little sign of the swing back towards staying in the EU that had been expected in the last week.

Prof John Curtice, the president of the British Polling Council whose exit poll at the 2015 general election revealed the Tories would win a majority, said there was little gap between the sides.

[Remain] has grabbed some of the ground that it seemed to have lost in last weeks polls  but its certainly not grabbed back all of the ground, he told BBC Twos Daily Politics programme.

Read More

He added that so far at least there isnt any clear evidence of the swing back to the Remain vote that expected as undecided voters considered the economic unknowns.

The new polls suggest that trends in recent months remain unchanged as Britain votes in what has been dubbed the biggest decision the country will take for a generation.

Older voters are more likely to back Brexit, with almost twice as many people aged over 65 set to vote for leaving the EU than those under 35.

Read More

More voters think they will be worse off if it leaves the EU, according to polls, while Tory voters are evenly split between voting In and Out.

Opinium Researchs final poll before the referendum, which asked around 3,000 people for their views, put Leave on 45 per cent and Remain on 44 per cent.

Adam Drummond, a polling analyst for the company, said: This really is too close to call territory with undecided voters holding the balance of the vote in their hands.

Although referendum campaigns normally see a move back to the status quo as we get closer to polling day, this hasnt yet shown up in our polls and the Remain camp will have to hope that it happens in the polling booth itself if Britain is to stay in the European Union.

TNSs final poll before the vote put Leave on 43 per cent and Remain on 41 per cent. Luke Taylor, head of social and political attitudes at the company, said: "Our latest poll suggests that Leave is in a stronger position than Remain, but it should be noted that in the Scottish Independence Referendum and the 1995 Quebec Independence Referendum there was a late swing to the status quo and it is possible that the same will happen here

However two polls released on Thursday evening put the In campaign ahead. YouGov put Remain on 51 per cent and Leave on 49 per cent, while ComRes had the numbers at 54 and 46  an eight-point In lead.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Leading Leave campaigner Nigel Farage appeared to be preparing to concede defeat with counting under way in the historic referendum on UK membership of the European Union.

The Ukip leader told Sky News that the Remain camp seemed likely to "edge it", but insisted that his party would continue its fight to take Britain out of the EU.

Expand Close Ukip leader Nigel Farage launches his EU referendum poster campaign. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ukip leader Nigel Farage launches his EU referendum poster campaign. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA

There were no exit polls in the vote, but a YouGov opinion poll released as polling stations closed put Remain ahead by 52% to 48%.

Mr Farage said: "It's been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high and (it) looks like Remain will edge it.

"Ukip and I are going nowhere and the party will only continue to grow stronger in the future."

Senior Leave campaigner Iain Duncan Smith cast doubt on Mr Farage's suggestion that Remain is set for victory.

"I never quite follow what Nigel Farage says," the former work and pensions secretary told the BBC. "Quite often he says two different things at the same time.

"I genuinely do not have a sense of how this has gone."

It is likely to be well into the early hours of Friday before a reliable picture emerges of how Britain has voted in what Mr Cameron has described as the most important poll in a lifetime. And the final result is not expected to be confirmed at the Electoral Commission's main counting centre in Manchester until breakfast time.

A record number of voters are eligible to take part in the referendum, with the Electoral Commission putting the number at 46,499,537.

Anecdotal evidence from around the country suggests that turn-out has been high in many areas - something widely expected to favour the Remain camp. In Gibraltar, which is taking part in the referendum as a British overseas territory within the EU, turnout was a healthy 84%.

Fine weather in Scotland heartened Remain campaigners, who are relying on a high turnout north of the border, where voters are thought to be strongly pro-EU.

But torrential rain and flooding in the South East caused transport disruption which may have prevented some voters from reaching the ballot box in time. Some polling stations were forced to close, and two in Kingston-upon-Thames had to be relocated after becoming inundated.

Leave campaign standard-bearer Boris Johnson had a last-minute dash to vote in north London, due to a delay to his flight from Scotland after attending his daughter's university graduation ceremony - finally reaching the polling station with less than 25 minutes to spare.

Waiting for his plane in Edinburgh, he told reporters that polls had been "very close" but turnout was "good in areas where we need it to be".

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said from anecdotal evidence it seemed like Remain was ahead.

She told BBC News: "Obviously we've got a long night ahead of us. We are confident and hopeful that there will be a victory for the Remain campaign but we'll obviously have to see."

If there is a Remain victory the Government will go on seeking reform in the EU, she added.

"I think if there's been a clear win then that's sending a message," Mrs Morgan said.

"One of the things obviously is going to be implementing the reform deal the Prime Minister secured back in February."
Former European Parliament President Pat Cox fears a Brexit will spark the "disintegration" of the European Union (EU) and provide a stimulus to right-wing anti-political forces.

With the outcome too tight to call on polling day, Mr Cox told the Irish Independent that his hope is "the remain side will win".

Mr Cox, who served as EU President from 2002 until 2004, spoke as Britain goes to the polls on whether to remain in or leave the EU.

"The stakes are enormous, for the UK itself, for the wider EU and especially for the island of Ireland, whose overwhelming island interest is that the UK should vote to remain," he said.

"The end of the referendum campaign in the UK has been a political and emotional roller-coaster, overshadowed and interrupted but not stopped by the killing of Jo Cox, MP.

Read More: North was key reason for Brexit canvass

"Opinion polls have shifted this way and that but with margins of advantage for either side that leave no room for complacency in terms of end of campaign messaging and in getting out the vote, who votes, by age and region, is likely to be as telling as how many choose to vote.

"Specifically, as the actual vote approaches my inclination has been to suppose that a larger number of voters will be risk averse and opt to avoid the downside risks of withdrawal from the EU without necessarily voting with great enthusiasm to remain.

"One hopes that common sense will prevail. Though, like beauty, common sense lies in the eye of the beholder," Mr Cox said.

Read More: Nigel Farage pulls out of live TV Brexit debate for 'family reasons'

"For the EU, whatever the immediate political and institutional responses, a leave vote would be the first act of disintegration of the EU (and its precursor organisations) since its foundation.

"The political effects of such a result would act as a stimulus to the potent and energised right wing, populist and anti-politics forces already evident in so many continental member states.

"This would not be the status quo ex ante in political terms. A terrible beauty would be born whose ultimate repercussions should not be underestimated.

"There could be a potential domino effect. EU leaders need to act to avoid such a prospect but not overreact so as to stimulate such an outcome," Mr Cox said.

Democratic

"This is not to counsel despair but to suggest that whatever the result of the UK's referendum, it must act as a wake-up call for the EU and the leaders of its democratic centre. Muddling through has its limits. These limits have been reached.

"For Ireland, as regards jobs, economic growth, the border and Northern Ireland's future in a potentially disintegrating UK, the consequences of a vote to leave would be dramatic and compared to most other member states disproportionately challenging and difficult.

"One hopes that on Friday morning we can breathe a collective sigh of relief, if not, our path to the future will have to cross a bridge of sighs," he added.
British Labour MP Yvette Cooper has alerted police after receiving a death threat against her family.

The former cabinet minister received the sinister message on Tuesday from a Twitter account, accused her of sending pro-EU "propaganda" by email, adding: "Please stop or I will kill your kids and grandkids."

Reposting the threatening tweet to her followers, Ms Cooper - who does not actually have any grandchildren - commented: "Got this today for speaking out for Remain... This has to stop."

It is understood that the offending account was removed after the MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford reported the tweet.

She told her followers: "Police & @Twitter on case. But this is for all of us. Time to stop the hatred."

The incident comes amid an increase in security for MPs following the death of Ms Cooper's Labour colleague and fellow Yorkshire MP Jo Cox, who died after being shot and stabbed in Birstall near Leeds last Thursday.

A man has been remanded in custody after being charged with her murder.

Meanwhile, the Brexit referendum contagion appears to be spreading across the EU.

In Italy, the anti-establishment 5-Star movement has called for a referendum on the euro.

"We want a consultative referendum on the euro. The euro as it is today does not work. We either have alternative currencies or a 'Euro 2'," Luigi Di Maio, a vice-president of the lower house of parliament, said during a talk show .

Such a referendum would merely be an indication of public opinion. The party has called for two different currencies in Europe, one for the rich northern countries, another for southern countries. It won 19 of the 20 mayoral elections where it had reached the run-off stage last Sunday, including the capital Rome and the northern industrial capital of Turin.

The results dealt a significant blow to prime minister Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) and were hailed by supporters of 5-Star as a possible springboard to national government.

The movement's leader, comedian Beppe Grillo, has also called for a referendum on whether Italy should stay in the European Union.

"We are now waiting for the results of the Brexit referendum. The mere fact that a country like Great Britain is holding a referendum on whether to leave the EU signals the failure of the European Union," he said.

In France, Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, last night also called for France to have its own referendum on the "decaying" EU.

"I would vote for Brexit, even if I think that France has a thousand more reasons to leave than the UK," she said.

Mr Cameron faces intense anger from his counterparts, who say that calling the vote has bolstered eurosceptics across the continent.

Movements are also under way in the Netherlands and Denmark for their own plebiscites. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The world reacts to the news that Britain has voted to leave the European Union. Photo: PA

For the 'Leave' camp, Brexit is only the beginning. A UK vote for secession today would, they hope, eventually destroy the evil empire of Brussels and free 27 other nations from the yoke of Eurocracy.

One man's hopes are another man's fears. Former Conservative leader William Hague, once a Eurosceptic himself, has warned the death of the EU might return Europe to its dark days of poisonous tribal hatreds and beggar-my-neighbour economic policies.

Former Taoiseach John Bruton agrees. "I worry most not about the technicalities but about the destructive forces that this could unleash, not just in the UK but across the continent," Mr Bruton said. "It is the potential undoing of 70 years of statesmanship."

Can the EU survive Brexit? And, if so, in what form? Short-term collapse is unthinkable. EU leaders would attempt to close ranks against a common enemy - Britain. By making the British departure negotiations as miserable as possible, EU governments would seek to prevent the contagion from spreading across the continent.

They would fail. Brexit would embolden and encourage Eurosceptic forces of both the right and left in the EU's heartland.

In France, whatever the result, Front National leader Marine Le Pen will make 'Frexit' the core of her campaign in the presidential election next spring.

She is unlikely to be the next President of the Republic, but her message will earn her new supporters from the nationalist left. If Britain is already in the European departure lounge, she might do uncomfortably well.

A recent pan-European poll by the Pew Research Centre found a steep rise of anti-EU sentiment in almost all member states and especially in France and two of the most Europe-minded founder countries, Italy and the Netherlands.

Much depends on how the 27 - and especially core member states such as France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands - react. There will be a chorus of opinion, led by the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, pushing for a 'refoundation' of the EU with a 'hardcore' of some of the eurozone states and an outer, looser circle of the newer, poorer states to the east and the south.

There will also be demands by unreconstructed European federalists, such as former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, for a spectacular reaffirmation of European faith. The British have gone? Good riddance, they will say. We can now 'leap forward' towards a true European government.

There is also a view, in Spain and on the French centre-left, that a British vanishing act would allow a shift away from open markets towards a more 'political' (that is, protectionist) EU.

One of the most far-seeing European statesmen, Hubert Vedrine, the former French foreign minister, says all these approaches could drive the union to its ruin.

The divorce between popular feeling and the 'elites' who support the European idea has gone far beyond the borders of Britain, he says. If the 27, or even some of the 27, try to press on with more European integration without popular support, there will be a backlash that could destroy the EU.

Mr Vedrine calculates that there is at most 1pc approval across the continent for the 'United States of Europe'.

There is a bloc of 15 to 25pc of ferocious anti-Europeans of left and right. There is a similar-sized bloc of moderate pro-Europeans, also of both left and right.

Up to 60pc of voters in most EU countries are now, he says, 'Eurosceptic' in the sense of doubtful about the capacity of the EU to deliver its promise of greater prosperity and its capacity to handle the Middle East migrant crisis.

To try to win over this majority with 'more Europe' or a 'hardcore Europe' would, Mr Vedrine says, be "like treating an allergy with high doses of allergy-inducing products".

Mr Vedrine says the EU should treat Brexit, if it happens, as a warning, not a rallying cry. A pause should be called on European integration.

There should be a 'refounding' conference to devise a more modest, practical EU, retaining some super-national powers, but focused on limited areas like trade, better management of the euro, defence, internal security and the environment. All grand plans, even Mr Vedrine's counsel of caution, will be laborious and dangerous to implement, a senior European commission official warns.

"The danger is that the EU will be too divided - both divided between nations and between blocs of nations - to come up with any coherent, post-Brexit strategy," he said.

In the recent Pew poll, the most pro-EU nations were Poland and Hungary. And yet the hard-right governments of those countries believe they can scoop the free trade and free movement advantages of membership while trampling EU rules on democracy and the rule of law. The eurozone crisis has divided the EU between a struggling 'south' and a 'north' that is reluctant to bail out its 'lazy' cousins.

The Brexiteers ignore the vital role of the EU in permitting the orderly passage of the eastern European and Baltic countries to something like democratic and open societies in the last two decades. That process is not finished; it still could (with enthusiastic support from Moscow) go into reverse.

A break-up of the EU - even a division of the EU into 'rich' and 'poor' - would not be a comfortable experience for a post-Brexit Britain.

Inside or outside, the British economy would remain heavily inter-linked, and interdependent, with the prosperity and stability of its nearest neighbours.

The history of the past century suggests attempts to distance or isolate Britain from the continent have unpleasant consequences - first for the continent, then for its biggest off-shore island. ( Independent News Service)
Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan has urged politicians at Leinster House "to phone a friend" in Britain and ask them to vote Remain in today's EU referendum.

Mr Flanagan was speaking in the Seanad, where Trinity Senator David Norris described the former London mayor and Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson, as "a liar". Mr Norris claimed that Mr Johnson had switched to the Leave campaign to advance his chances of leading the British Conservatives.

Mr Flanagan said the Government had undertaken 14 ministerial visits to various parts of the UK, trying - as friendly neighbours - to boost the Remain vote.

There were, he said, many reasons for Ireland's involvement in the campaign, which focused on the Irish community and business links - but the main one was the position of Northern Ireland.

Trade

"Polls suggest both outcomes are equally possible and the Government is as prepared as it possibly can be for both outcomes. Whatever the result, the Government will strive to protect and promote Ireland's key interests," Mr Flanagan told the Seanad. He suggested that Senators should contact relatives, friends or associates and stress the role of UK-Irish links in the poll.

The minister added that the Government would do all it could to defend Ireland's trade interests.

Sinn Fein Senator and former lord mayor of Belfast Niall O Donnghaile said he was the only Oireachtas member to have a vote and he would be voting 'remain'. He warned that the London Government would not reimburse large EU grants lost to the North in event of a 'leave' outcome.

Seanad Leas-Cathaoirleach Paul Coghlan said he believed a Brexit would have to mean a return of the Border.

"We would essentially have a European Union border stretching from Dundalk to Derry," Senator Coghlan said.

Mr Flanagan said it was too finely poised to call a vote result. But he noted that most contributors to yesterday's Seanad debate called for a more "humane and socially progressive EU", which was also the Government's view.

The minister again said that if British voters opted to leave the EU, it would take a minimum of two years before a complex set of negotiations on exit terms, and a new EU-UK relationship, could be completed.
Jean-Claude Juncker warned: "The British policy makers and British voters have to know that there will not be any kind of renegotiation." (PA)

British politicians were making their final pitch for votes on the last day of campaigning before the EU referendum last night, as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned: "Out is out".

David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn both addressed rallies and insisted the UK would be better off and safer with a 'Remain' vote in today's poll.

Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage appealed to their own 'Leave' supporters - with the ex-London mayor urging people to "believe in our country".

More than 46 million people are eligible to vote in the referendum on whether the UK should stay in the European Union or leave, in the first vote on the UK's links with Europe for more than 40 years.

It has been a campaign which BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg believed was too close to call, but which has changed British politics in a number of ways.

Mr Cameron, who has appeared alongside ex-PM John Major and former Labour leader Harriet Harman in Bristol, has told the BBC the decision will be irreversible and there will be no coming back if the UK votes to leave.

"You can't jump out of the aeroplane and then clamber back through the cockpit hatch," he told BBC Radio 4's 'Today'.

Leaving the EU would be a "massive problem" for the UK, he said, doing "untold damage" to economic growth, jobs and family finances and hindering the opportunities and life chances of future generations.

"If I had to sum up this entire campaign in a word, it would be that word 'together'.

"I think together we are better able to face the challenges from terrorism and climate change, we are better able to grow our economies, better able to drive good trade deals... and I want us to get the good deals so we give better chances to everyone in our country."

Mr Cameron said he "did not believe there were any risks from staying" in the EU, saying the eurozone was beginning to recover economically and this would have an effect on levels of migration into the UK after what he said was an "abnormal period".

He also said he would lobby for further changes to free movement rules in the light of European Court rulings if the UK votes to remain, and said the process of EU reform will "continue tomorrow", insisting that reducing net migration was "not an unrealistic ambition".

However, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker appeared to reject that option as he told reporters in Brussels "out is out", suggesting that if there was a vote to leave "there will be no kind of renegotiation", saying Mr Cameron "got the maximum he could receive" after months of talks which ended in February.

As party leaders past and present take the stump in the final hours, Mr Major characterised 'Leave' supporters as "gravediggers of our prosperity" and said Brexit may result in a "broken Britain with less importance and less influence in the world".

Mr Junker warned: "The British policy makers and British voters have to know that there will not be any kind of renegotiation."

Meanwhile, the widower and two young children of tragic MP Jo Cox have joined her friends, colleagues and high-profile campaigners as communities around the world gather to celebrate what would have been her 42nd birthday.

Education campaigner Malala Yousafzai was among the guest speakers at an hour-long rally in London's Trafalgar Square, at which the late Labour politician's husband Brendan and their children - three-year-old daughter Lejla and son Cuillin (5) - are also expected to be present.

Organisers said that events which were being held in a variety of locations, were a tribute to Ms Cox's "love, energy, passion, flair, Yorkshire heritage and belief in the humanity of every person in every place".

Tribute

Other events included a gathering in Jo's hometown of Batley, where her parents and sister were present.

International events also took place in Beirut, Brussels, Melbourne, Nairobi, New York, and Washington DC.

A similar tribute was expected to be held at Glastonbury's Park Stage, while a charity album of music recorded by bands including Coldplay and Muse at the festival this weekend will be released in Ms Cox's honour.

Ms Cox died after being shot and stabbed in an attack in Birstall, near Leeds on Thursday last week.

Tommy Mair (52), has been remanded in custody after being charged with her murder.
Ryanair has stoked yet more controversy in the referendum debate by promising its biggest-ever seat sale on Friday - but only if the UK votes to stay in the EU.

Michael OLeary, chief executive of the Irish airline, said: If Britain votes to remain theres going to be the biggest-ever Ryanair seat sale for people who want to go and visit Europe.

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It will be particularly aimed at Messrs Johnson, Farage and Gove - the people who really dont know that much about Europe and need to spend more time abroad.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent, Mr OLeary said: We wouldnt have grown to the size weve grown without Europe, the single market and deregulation. Low fares were brought to you by the single market. What Boris [Johnson] and Michael Gove want to go back to is a Europe when British Airways were charging 800 and only the rich could afford to fly.

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Last month Ryanair was investigated by the Metropolitan Police following a Brexit special offer that invited British residents overseas to fly home to vote remain in the Referendum for 19.99.

The Vote Leave campaign director, Dominic Cummings, said the offer was corrupt because it offered a discount to passengers with the sole aim of ensuring that they vote, and vote to remain in the European Union.

Mr OLeary rejected the suggestion that the conditional offer is illegal, saying: On Friday its after the referendum is over. Its not bribery as the cheap seats will be available for both people who vote to remain and vote to exit.

"We want to reward everybody. Were calling for a strong remain vote. We think if theres a remain vote air fares will fall. Ryanair will invest more in the UK, invest more in jobs and it will be better for Britain generally.
The biggest private landlord in the country has had to retrofit many of its apartments to deal with fire safety and other issues since it bought them.

IRES Reit chief executive David Ehrlich said his company has had to do "a lot" of improvements after buying some of its apartments, and was critical of the build quality of the apartments overall.

"The interiors and hallways and so forth are outstanding, but some of the buildings are not as good as they could have been," he said.

"There are other building techniques that could have been employed that would have taken some time, but could have been better.

"For example, some of the buildings we bought don't have membranes under parking garage slabs to prevent water from coming up through the floor.

"In one of our properties, [the developer] put in very large glass panes in areas where you would not have noticed a break.

"So now if there is one little crack you have to replace the whole panel so it's created a maintenance issue.

"So clearly they were not looking at the long term and the buyers did not have the capability to understand that, so there was no push for quality. The push was to finish buildings," he said.

In an interview with the Irish Independent, Mr Ehrlich said there needed to be a full review of the planning process in order to alleviate the housing crisis.

"We need to look at everything from the ground up.

"Whether it is the planning process, building regulations, the cost of building and other issues," he claimed.

The planning process in Ireland is not particularly long - about the same as Toronto or New York, he claimed, but "Toronto and New York don't have a housing crisis".
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Helen Dixon, is to "scope" a privacy audit of Apple in relation to a "very specific risk" that Apple device users are said to face.

"We've identified a very specific risk," said Ms Dixon. "This is something substantive that we want to look into. It's a type of area for audit that will affect lots of data subjects and probably any data subject that uses Apple devices in particular."

Ms Dixon declined to give more details about the upcoming probe, as her office has not yet commenced detailed discussions with Apple on the subject. She said that it is due to begin in the autumn.

However, Independent.ie understands that the issue relates to Apple's 'AppleCare' IT support system. The Irish regulator is set to probe whether data accessed by Apple during the enquiry process meets with European standards.

Ms Dixon said that the issue arose after receiving notice from another European data protection regulator.

The Office has recently received a number of related individual complaints from the Bavarian data protection authority that concern an aspect of personal data processing by Apple, she said.

Due to the nature of the issues which could affect many users, it is intended this Office will scope a number of questions arising from the complaints for audit and inspection with Apple. It may be the case that when the scoping and any arising audit and inspection are completed, no substantive issues or contraventions will be identified or, equally, it may be the case that the DPC will seek to make recommendations for compliance with the Data Protection Acts.

"It is not possible at this point, as the scoping has not yet occurred, to draw any conclusions as to what the outcome in this matter will be.

However, she said that the Irish Data Protection Authority is currently investigating another software giant, Adobe, in relation to its 'Digital Editions' ebook product.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Irish Independent, Ms Dixon also said her office has battled "misapprehensions" abroad that Irish data protection implementation was more lax than in other European countries. She again rebutted claims that the Irish state was "deliberately not investing in data protection and was more interested in multinationals and jobs".

"We have countered the misapprehension that somehow we took data privacy less seriously or that we weren't as professional as an office," she said.

Ms Dixon also said that she hopes her office will have 120 personnel by 2018, a four-fold increase on its staffing levels two years ago.

She said that the unresolved status of data transfers between Europe and the US, brought about by the European Court Of Justice's dismissal of the 'Safe Harbour' agreement and by ongoing doubt over its 'Privacy Shield' successor, have left companies facing "uncertainty".

"It is a mess," said Ms Dixon. "There's an effort to try and square the circle of whether data flows can go between the EU and the US and we're not yet sure if that circle can be squared."

She said that European and American administrations would need to reach a "political" solution to the problem based on "trade-offs".

"Europeans have a fundamental right to have their data privacy protected.

"They also have rights to freedom of expression and consequent rights to access digital services. We won't be thanked if, ultimately, the result is a degradation of services in Europe or the pulling out of certain services in Europe."

Ms Dixon said that the Irish Data Protection Authority differed from other European data regulators, which engage with multinationals "from behind a wall".

"That approach serves no-one's interests, least of all the data subjects of Europe," she said. "In order to protect privacy rights in these novel and innovative scenarios, you have to understand what these companies are doing We believe that our approach delivers."
A man looks at a board showing currency exchange rates outside a Bureau de Change in North London, as holidaymakers heading abroad this summer have been flocking to snap up their travel money ahead of tomorrow's EU Referendum. Photo: PA

European stocks climbed as investors reckoned that the UK will choose to remain in the European Union in today's referendum, while an increase in commodity prices boosted miners.

By mid-afternoon in Dublin, the ISEQ Overall Index was up 0.32pc, or 19.92 points, to 6,273.72.

The leaders on the Dublin market included fruit company Fyffes, which increased 1.3pc to 1.51, while building materials group CRH rose 0.9pc to 26.78.

On the other side of the board, the laggards included drinks group C&C, which by mid-afternoon had fallen 0.6pc to 3.81.

Speciality baker Aryzta slipped 0.2pc to 35.12.

The National Asset Management Agency also revealed that it had redeemed a further 1bn of senior debt bringing to 85pc the total it has paid back to date.

Elsewhere, Glencore rose 2.8pc, leading a gauge of miners to the best performance of the 19 industry groups on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index, as base metals climbed.

RSA Insurance Group paced insurers higher after Barclays said the company is confident of meeting its 2018 targets and well placed in the event of a Brexit.

Total contributed the most to gains among energy producers as crude traded above $50 a barrel.

The Stoxx 600 rose 0.5pc to 341.6 by mid-afternoon in London. Shares capped their biggest three-day advance in almost 10 months on Tuesday after surveys showed the UK campaign to stay in the EU moving ahead.

While newer polls were split on the outcome, betting shops are placing the odds for 'remain' at about 80pc, according to Oddschecker data.

They see only a one-in-four chance of a secession.

The FTSE 100 Index gained 0.6pc.

"It's clear that betting odds are skewed towards 'remain' at the moment, which is the main data the market will be moving on until there is a clear outcome," said Daniel Murray, head of research at EFG Asset Management in London, which oversees about $12bn in assets.

"Even so, 'remain' is not completely priced in as the costs of a 'leave' could be quite large.

"The biggest risk is waking up on Friday to an uncertain result."

The Stoxx 600 began a rebound last Friday as Brexit concern eased amid a suspension in campaigning following the killing of Labour Party MP Jo Cox.

The equity gauge has struggled to maintain momentum after rallying 16pc from a February low to an April 20 high.

It's still down 1.7pc in June, on track for its first monthly drop in four.
Irish global life sciences firm Malin Corporation has secured a 70m debt facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The debt facility, which will span a seven-year period, will allow Malin to increase its investment into innovation and research in the life sciences industry.

To date over 60pc of the company's existing investments have been made in the UK and Ireland and the company.

The investment will be delivered in five tranches and Malin intends to draw down the first tranche "in the near term".

Malin chief executive Kelly Martin said the debt facility was an "external vindication" of the company's business model.

"The alignment of long duration capital with substantial and demonstrated operating expertise around a broad array of life science assets provides a unique opportunity to create and unlock value.

"This loan provides Malin with additive non-dilutive capital that can then be judiciously deployed to accelerate the progression of current and prospective Malin investee companies," he said.

EIB vice president Jonathan Taylor expressed his delight in supporting the Irish company's work.

"This represents the European Investment Bank's first support for life science investment in Ireland demonstrating its commitment to ensuring that world class research can enhance effective medical treatment and improve medicine."
The government was entitled to push through its 4bn recapitalisation of Irish Life & Permanent without calling a general meeting of the bank's shareholders, an advocate for the European Court of Justice has determined.

The advocate's opinion - almost certain to be adopted by the Luxembourg court - all but ends a legal battle by a group of disaffected shareholders who claimed their rights were violated when the government took control of the lender at the height of the financial crisis.

A group of shareholders, including a former non-executive director of the group, Piotr Skoczylas, sought to prevent the 2011 recapitalisation, arguing that the government did not have the power under emergency banking laws to freeze out existing shareholders from the plan.

But an advocate general at the European Court of Justice - Nils Wahl - said yesterday that he was "unable to see" how there might have been any interference in the shareholders' right to property.

He affirmed that the courts of member states can order that public limited companies which are of systemic importance to the economy of that state and which cannot meet regulatory requirements, be taken over by the government without the need for a general meeting of that company's shareholders.

Mr Wahl said that current EU provisions under a company law directive do not preclude individual member state legislation that is used to address disruption to the economy and the financial system, "and the threat to the stability of certain credit institutions in that member state and the financial system generally, as well as minimising the risk of spread to other member states".

However, Mr Wahl has said that member states must ensure that such courses of action are undertaken to have the "least detrimental" impact on the EU company law directive.

Mr Wahl's opinion is not a ruling, but advocates' opinions are almost always accepted by ECJ judges. Mr Skoczylas is the managing director of Malta-based Scotchstone Capital. He was added in 2011 to a High Court action taken by other IL&P shareholders against Finance Minister Michael Noonan, in an effort to reverse the first, 2.7bn phase of a government recapitalisation of the lender that summer.

In 2012, Irish Life was sold to the State for 1.3bn, completing the 4bn recap. In 2014, the High Court judge hearing the case referred it to the European Court of Justice.
Some counties are quite saturated with turbines, while others barely have any

This week Roscommon independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice called on Coillte to suspend construction on a large windfarm in the county. Locals are concerned about increased flooding. Earlier this month ESB and Bord Na Mona got planning permission to proceed with a 61-turbine windfarm at Bellacorick in Co Mayo, but only after the project had been scaled back from its original plan to have 112 wind turbines.

Onshore windfarms are facing greater difficulties as residents become more vocal about the longer term implications of having them.

The reaction is understandable given that some counties are quite saturated with turbines, while others barely have any.

These issues create unique challenges for the minister in charge of natural resources, Denis Naughten. A Roscommon man, who is also responsible for delivering on Ireland's renewable energy targets, the question of windfarms is tricky.

Mr Naughten has made several comments in recent weeks about the need to look at other renewable energy options and not just onshore windfarms. And he is right. The government of the day decided several years ago to put most of its renewable eggs in the windfarm basket.

We don't have a tariff subsidy for offshore windfarms or for solar power. Onshore windfarms have got us so far, but Ireland is on target to miss its binding EU renewable energy targets.

Last year just over 20pc of our electricity was generated through wind energy. However, our 2020 target is 40pc for electricity and an overall renewable energy target (which includes heat, transport and electricity) of 16pc of our needs coming from renewable sources.

Missing the 2020 target means Ireland will be taken to court by the European Commission and fined. The costs are estimated by the Department to be between 100m and 150m per percentage point we are short.

Based on last year's performance the bill caused by the shortfall could be as high as 600m.

We have some options. We could opt for an "Eirexit" from the EU but that isn't likely to happen now is it? We could go hell for leather into further onshore wind which will antagonise large swathes of the electorate, particularly in rural areas where some people are sick of these things.

If anything, central government has already bullied some counties into windfarms by preventing county councils from developing their own planning rules restricting windfarm development.

However, the low-hanging fruit in onshore wind has been picked. Getting to the next phase could be politically very costly. The other alternative is to secure agreement to delay paying the fines on the basis that Ireland promises to meet its 2030 targets. This seems quite likely and consistent with our traditional approach to deal-making in Brussels.

But even with that, the Government would have to show how it was going to make the 2030 targets. It might have to make a belated commitment to support offshore, solar and other renewable options. We have just one offshore windfarm operating in Ireland which generates around 25MW of power.

There are several other offshore farms planned and at various stages of development but they need a ministerial order to grant the lease of the seabed.

They also need a tariff regime or commitment from the state on what guaranteed price they will get for their electricity.

These things won't get built without state subvention. Industry players argue that such a subvention is necessary for a time, that this is essentially a strategic government initiative and we cannot meet the binding targets without it. If Denis Naughten wants to broaden the renewable electricity base, and I think he should, how much money will he have to find from the State coffers right away?

On Day One, he won't have to find any. He would have to agree a future tariff regime with producers of other renewables and they could then finance their investments, build the infrastructure and avail of a subvention from about 2020 onwards, when they are built.

The UK has gone down this road and become a major producer of offshore and onshore wind energy. But it isn't cheap. The British state has put in about stg10bn in subsidies in the last five years.

Last year 25pc of Britain's electricity was generated from renewables (a combination of windfarms, solar panels and other sources), up from 9pc in 2011. However, despite being a world leader in wind power, it is actually behind Ireland in meeting its overall energy targets, reflecting how badly it has done on other aspects of renewable energy efficiency.

As the price of oil has fallen, it has also become a lot stricter on the state subventions it provides. At times Tory government policy has been to row back on wind energy subsidies while still providing a relatively high level of support.

Earlier this year the British government said that offshore windfarms built in the mid-2020s would receive a guaranteed price for their electricity of up to 85 per megawatt hour. This is about 8.5p per kilowatt hour.

For example, the support announced for the new Hinkley Point nuclear power station in England, due to start generating in 2025, is 92.50 or 9.25p per kilowatt hour.

Offshore windfarms are a lot more expensive that onshore turbines to put up. It is heavy in capital investment and there can be further complications with the public consultation process.

The costs are coming down as the efficiency increases. European turbine manufacturers are committed to bringing down the costs. It currently costs around 12c per kilowatt hour to produce and they see that coming down to 8c by 2025.

Since the Irish Government decided to abandon subvention for offshore wind and focus heavily on onshore, several prospective projects have been just about ticking over.

They include the Dublin Array project being developed on the Kish and Bray Banks in the Irish Sea, 10 km off the coast of Dublin and Wicklow. It is being backed by Saorgus Energy, an established Kerry wind energy company. It has already gone through a public consultation process and needs the minister to grant the lease and a tariff agreement for the offshore sector.

The Dublin Array project has the potential installed capacity of at least 520 MW, capable of meeting the green electricity demands of over half a million homes.

The Oriel Windfarm is an 80m project backed by Gaelectric and Dundalk businessman Brian Britton. Other investors include Glen Dimplex founder Martin Naughton.

It plans to have 55 turbines, delivering a total of 330 MW of renewable energy, 22km off the coast of Dundalk.

Others include the Codling Bank project in the Irish Sea a stalled project which was backed by the family of property developer Johnny Ronan and Norwegian billionaire Fred Olsen.

Eddie O'Connor's Mainstream Energy is a significant offshore wind power developer but not in Ireland. Its 2bn Neart Na Gaoithe project off the Scottish east coast had a recent setback.

Tariff agreements from the British entity in London that negotiates them, lapsed. This was because the planning process for the project got bogged down in court delays in Scotland around the possible damage the windfarm might do to sea birds.

Mainstream will hope to re-negotiate the agreements again to ensure the project goes ahead.

Offshore wind is an expensive big ticket item for its investors and the governments that provide the subsidies that make it happen. Denis Naughten has plenty to ponder on how Ireland can meet its energy targets while reigning in excessive numbers of onshore windfarms.

He could commit to a long term, but potentially expensive subsidy regime for other renewables. More renewables may mean explaining higher levies on householders bills, especially if they are going to a handful of investors.

Or he could do nothing, let the targets slide and leave it for another minister in 2020 to pick up the pieces with the EU. Who knows, maybe half the countries will have left the EU by then anyway.

It's over to you minister.
Marketing buzzwords, so-called exceptional campaign results and big celebrity names can make a youth campaign feel successful and best in class.

Working in the youth space for the last 10 years has taught me one thing: young people don't care about the social media reach, the PR hits or the online sentiment, they care about how something makes them feel.

Under three headings, interruption, influencer and innovation, my mission for my first time at Cannes Lions was to find out, could the thinking presented truly spark a feeling with young people?

INTERRUPTION

Pete Mountstevens and James Herring of London agency Taylor Herring hit the nail on the head with their insight of, 'Stop interrupting and start entertaining' at their Saturday talk. 'Interrupting' is a term long associated with a youth audience. Yes, brands can interrupt across every moment of a young person's life, but when does interrupting become entertaining and not simply annoying?

It was interesting to see the top 5 brands listed by the duo as taking this mantra to heart. Uber, Airbnb, Ikea and Red Bull held the first 4 spaces of the top 5 but it was the number 1 spot, Porn Hub, that delivered the most cut-through.

Expand Close Anna Wintour, Dave Byrne and Logan Paul at Cannes Lions / Facebook

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Whatsapp Anna Wintour, Dave Byrne and Logan Paul at Cannes Lions

Why? Because it entertains.

INFLUENCER

It's safe to say Cannes Lion is not an event that would have a huge young audience in attendance; in fact, I would struggle to find many people under the age of 20 that have even heard of it.

This year, however, social media megastar Logan Paul is going to change that. Close to 20 million of Logan's die-hard followers will get to enjoy his antics. Logan is one of the biggest social media stars in the world. The 21-year-old Ohio native has amassed a whopping 4 billion views on Vine alone and is arguably more recognisable than any traditional celebrity.

Advocacy and peer promotion is something that has hugely dictated what I do on a daily basis - coming up with ideas that are worth talking about, worth sharing and worth being part of.

From The Thinkhouse Youth Culture Report, we know that 73pc of 18 to 35-year-olds state that friends and peers influence their brand choices, so it is encouraging to see this area of marketing get such a huge focus at this year's festival.

INNOVATION

When it comes to youth marketing, unsurprisingly most of the innovation comes from young people themselves. As the Creative Director of a youth marketing agency, Young Cannes Lions is what I look forward to the most. It is here we get to see young creatives (under 30) from around the world share their work with the industry and, more often than not, it is some of the most innovative thinking.

The Irish entry in the Cyber category targeted LinkedIn users with fake profiles connecting with influential people on the platform to drive talkabiltity and traffic to a charity website.

A festival I had once assumed was a flurry of Rose and needless networking for an industry where young people came second, actually delivers some world class thinking, to not only entertain and connect with a youth audience, but, most importantly, make them feel.

Dave Byrne is creative director (UK and Ireland) at Thinkhouse, The Youth Marketing Agency
We are the exact opposite of vulture funds. In terms of outlook, we take an infinite view of apartments, says David Ehrlich

For a man who is arguably the most powerful man in the Irish property business, David Ehrlich does not come across as a Master of the Universe.

The soft-spoken head of IRES Reit resembles more the man who works in the background - the "guy behind the guy".

Considering he has been one of the pre-eminent property lawyers in Canada for years, and a top advisor to the ceo of Canada's gigantic landlord CapReit, that perception is not surprising.

However, since 2014, Mr Ehrlich has very much been 'The Guy'. As chief executive of IRES, Mr Ehrlich runs a company that in the space of barely two years has become the biggest residential landlord in the country.

The scale of IRES is hard to grasp. It controls 2,288 apartments around Dublin, and plans to double in size in the years to come. While it has assembled its portfolio largely by buying in bulk from the likes of Nama and other banks trying offload assets, it is now planning to build several hundred apartments at developments it owns in the likes of Sandyford in south Dublin. And if that isn't enough, IRES has the firepower to spend around another 150m on future deals even without raising more cash.

Those sort of figures make Mr Ehrlich one of the elite few who can move the Irish property market with a single decision.

IRES is backed by CapReit, which controls upwards of 27,000 homes across Canada. It was there that the Toronto native made his name as a lawyer immersed in the property sector - so much so that he became known as the "grandfather of the Reit".

While the Reits have been hugely successful in Canada, the UK and elsewhere, it was not until 2013 that the business model became possible in Ireland.

A Reit - short for Real Estate Investment Trust - has emerged as one of the most popular ways to invest in the property market. Traditionally an investor bought a property outright, earned an annual return through renting it out, and then sold it for a profit. That is the plan anyway. However, when the market turns it can be impossible to sell.

The Reit model allows for a listed company, or trust, to buy property. An investor can buy shares in the Reit which can then be sold on with relative ease. The model, which is tax efficient, also requires the trust to payout most of its profits through dividends.

The 2013 Budget passed legislation allowing for Reits in Ireland and it was then that Mr Ehrlich and his team saw their opportunity here.

CapReit believed Ireland was on the rise so it bought 338 units here. However, as a Canadian-focused Reit, there was a limit to how much capital it could put into this country.

"So CapReit was the sponsor of the IRES flotation in April 21014, set up an office here supported by its team in Toronto and people are back and forth constantly from both sides of this business," he says.

IRES has been one of many big players from overseas buying up Irish property, but unlike some others, Mr Ehrlich is at pains to point out that his firm is in Ireland for the long term.

"We are the exact opposite of vulture funds," he claims.

"In terms of outlook, we take an infinite view of apartments. That is what CapReit has done for almost 20 years and the same policy is in place here.

"The quick flip is not our business," he says.

IRES set up at a good time. With a completely dysfunctional housing market, there is scope for big profits. IRES has done well. It made 30.8m last year and has increased rents across its portfolio. It could probably increase rents even more, but that is not what Mr Ehrlich wants.

"In a way, the best thing for us would be to continue to have supply-and-demand imbalance because that avoids competition and keeps occupancy high and rents high, but here is a housing crisis and we want to be part of that solution.

"The only solution is more supply, but it has to be financially viable in order to attract the capital and so forth but with our access to capital and debt, we don't need a fund from the Government. We can move quickly."

"Grand statements about building so many homes are fine, but at some point you have to get out and build," he adds.

By now it is pretty clear that Mr Ehrlich's preferred topic for today is the housing crisis and what IRES can do to help fix it. As a player focused entirely on the rental market, he believes his firm can build a lot of apartments quickly, but makes clear they will be different from what it has bought here so far.

The cheapest way to build a lot of apartments quickly is to build a single block with corridors. That is impossible under current regulations though, which require at least 50pc of apartments to have two sides with windows - known as dual aspect. That, along with other requirements, needs to change, he believes. "We are in a crisis here. And a crisis calls for really looking at the situation from the ground up. It's nice to have grand statements but the reality is you have to start from the bottom.

"The reality is the economics really don't work to build right now. So it has to make economic sense and the most efficient way to build is with a long corridor.

"Our condos in Toronto are built like that. People pay millions of dollars for those apartments and the corridor is like a hotel.

"The cheapest thing to do is build a rectangle with one elevator core in the middle, and the savings are very, very significant.

"Elevator core is a major factor in costs. When you start having cores all over the place you need a lobby to service each of them so its not as grand an entrance as when you put all the lobbies together which tenants like. The real problem is the dual aspect and that has to be looked at. With the requirement of 50pc dual aspect I think there is an admission that it's okay for half the people not to have dual aspect, so it is clearly not required for everybody if that is the case.

"What it means is instead of being able to build a rectangle you have to have all kinds of angles and offshoots to make the dual aspect.

"It is a highly inefficient way of building. Compared to just going straight across. There also has to be space between the buildings so it's not a very good use of land either," he believes.

Housing minister Patrick Coveney is taking submissions on the housing market, but Mr Ehrlich would like to se a working group created to that every aspect of the market can be assessed and brought together. Indeed Mr Ehrlich has met the minister on the problem.

It isn't just building regulations though. There are other ways the system can be improved.

"We have been working with planners in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Co Council about building in Sandyford. The planning team is understaffed. Something as small as hiring more planners there would make a significant difference. It's similar with the way compliance with fire regulations is managed - perhaps more staff there could speed up that process. There are a number of small things that together can help quicken the planning and building process, without compromising on quality."

IRES is has plans to build apartments in Dublin at Rockbrook, Bakers' Yard and Beacon South Quarter in Sandyford. That will help get the company up to its target of owning between 4,500 and 5,000 apartments in Ireland. Most of those future purchases though will come from Nama portfolios and private equity sales - something Mr Ehrlich is keen on.

The advantage of coming into a market like Ireland after the Crash is the outsider's perspective. The 65-year-old is clearly staggered at what went on here. He trails off when he thinks of "the money that was lost building some of these complexes".

"I've never seen anything like the building that went on in the Celtic Tiger. We bought units at Elm Park. That development is so overbuilt - that reflects what rent you would have had to get.

"The planners wanted retail everywhere, much of which will never be rented. Developers probably knew that but were making so much on apartments they didn't care. What's unusual to me about the Celtic Tiger is that the builders went really overboard not so much on the apartments themselves but other elements and just assumed house prices would go up and up and up."
Kildare-based Adrian Boyle (49) is co-founder and chief executive of Cathx Ocean, which builds lighting and camera systems for underwater vehicles as well as software that interprets underwater images.

"I set up Cathx Ocean with my co-founder Michael O'Flynn, the company's chief technology officer, in 2009. We had worked together for many years prior to that. My background is in engineering and I have a PhD in lasers and physics from Trinity College Dublin.

We now employ 23 people at our design and manufacturing facility based in Kildare, with additional office locations in Aberdeen and Boston.

Our initial focus was on building lighting systems for unmanned, underwater vehicles, the type that might be used for scientific research purposes or for underwater construction or the monitoring of pipelines.

Despite being hugely expensive to run - $100,000 a day kind of thing - most of these vehicles could only move at a very slow pace because they simply couldn't see properly.

By improving their lighting systems we could help to improve the efficiency of the vehicle. Our LED lighting range for subsea vehicles launched in 2012.

You can see the technology in use in the BBC's 'Great Barrier Reef' programme with David Attenborough; in a scene where he encounters a sea turtle while in an underwater vehicle, our lights were used.

It has also been used in the recovery of space shuttles from under the sea.

Other users of our technology include major oceanographic institutes, salvage companies, oil and gas companies, offshore contractors, navy and police divers and underwater vehicle manufacturers.

After the success of the lighting system we began designing subsea machine vision camera and laser systems, with the aim of helping clients better capture images under the water. Successful trials of this system were completed in the North Sea in 2014.

The biggest challenge to building the business has been convincing our customers of the need for it.

In the first three years, many of the companies who we were targeting just weren't particularly interested in innovation or pushing efficiencies.

That all changed when the price of oil began to fall and anyone involved in oil and gas exploration or extraction had to focus on ways to save money.

Our latest project is a step removed from the hardware we are known from.

It is software which can "read" images collected underwater.

Many of our clients collect vast amounts of images which then need to be processed - they might have hundreds of cameras filming a large underwater area in an attempt to spot a certain activity, for example.

This means people then literally have to sit there and view hundreds of hours of footage to detect what they are looking for.

We are building software which will automatically detect whatever it is the client is trying to monitor, to remove the need for people having to go through the footage manually.

The Marine Institute has been a huge supporter.

Enterprise Ireland have also been fantastic and are an investor in the company.

We are currently deploying a version of our system into Galway Bay with the Marine Institute, where it will stay for two years.

We want to help position Ireland as a centre of excellence for marine innovation.

The "blue economy" presents an enormous opportunity in key economic areas including food and aquaculture, marine energy and of course technology.

We are an island nation after all."

Adrian Boyle will be speaking at the Our Ocean Wealth conference taking place in Galway on July 1.
As it gears up for an audit into Apple, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner says her office has been strengthened in the last 12 months. And with tough new fines on data protection to commence soon, Helen Dixon tells our Technology Editor that we will shortly stop treating data privacy as an afterthought

Adrian Weckler (AW): Your office has been saying for a while that it was considering an audit into Apple's data transfer activities. Is that imminent?

Helen Dixon (HD): Yes, we're now gearing up to undertake this. We've identified a very specific risk recently that came in through a complaint from another data protection authority and we've decided to scope an audit specifically around what's at issue in these complaints. That will commence in the next couple of months, by the Autumn time.

AW: What will the audit focus on?

HD: I don't want to get into it in too much detail until we've spoken more to Apple about it. But this is something substantive that we want to look into. It's an area that will affect lots of data subjects, probably anyone who uses an Apple device.

AW: You also announced that you have commenced an audit into the software company Adobe, which has an international base in Dublin. What is this about?

HD: This is specifically focused on the way that data is being collected and passed back through Adobe's Digital Editions. [Ed's note: Digital Editions is an ebook reader application.]

AW: In your annual report, you said your office has dealt with "misapprehensions" abroad about Ireland's commitment to holding tech multinationals to account. What did you mean?

HD: There have been several misapprehensions. One is that the Irish government was deliberately not investing in data protection and was more interested in multinationals and jobs. I think we have very much countered that by demonstrating the commitment of government to funding the office and the opening of a Dublin premises.

AW: How many people does the office have now?

HD: We have 54 now, which is almost double our previous number, and we'll be at 60 when the current recruitment round is complete.

We're looking at doubling that again, to around 120 staff, as we start implementation of the [EU] General Data Protection Regulation in 2018. And we think we will continue to build from there. As the 2015 annual report shows, there's an enormous about of very important work to do.

AW: Do you think that will put to rest other criticisms levelled at the Irish office?

HD: I think that these challenges of misapprehension are largely behind us, partly because of a campaign of information we undertook.

For example, there were also accusations that Ireland's data protection authorities transposed the [original EU] 1995 directive in a way that was entirely different to how Germany might have transposed it. We've been able to explain that this is factually incorrect.

Differences in privacy law and legislation are differences that don't fall under the EU framework.

For instance, German regulators were bitter that we wouldn't force Facebook to allow anonymous users register on their social network platform. And they talk about how we sided with Facebook in terms of the need to operate under a real name policy. And they say this in breach of data protection legislation.

But that was only German law. It's not law that derives from the European framework. So I think that we had misapprehensions which had taken hold that somehow there was something lesser here, that we took data privacy less seriously, that we weren't professional as an office or that we didn't have the resources or the skills in the office. We're going out now and representing the counterview to that.

AW: Nevertheless, multinational tech companies like this office. They regularly cite a favourable data protection climate as a reason they like settling in Ireland.

HD: Well we would take that as a positive. We're extremely committed to an engaged approach of regulating multinationals. There's no point in shooting fish in a barrel by letting these companies contravene European data protection law and then go after them, slapping a formal notice to say they've contravened the data protection acts. That approach serves no-one's interests, least of all the data subjects of Europe.

Other regulators in Europe do have a different view. They believe in regulating from behind a wall. They believe that there's automatic capture if you have a conversation with industry. But we simply don't think that that type of approach stands up to any type of scrutiny. We have principles-based, high level legislation that needs translation.

And in order to do that translation and to protect privacy rights in these novel and innovative scenarios, you have to understand what these companies are doing. You have to have technical people who come from a coding background and that understand exactly what is happening to deliver the outcomes.

These internet companies value a view from the Irish data protection authority as to what is compliant and what is not. They know that we're not going to agree with them where the evidence shows a lack of compliance. But I think they value the interaction. And I think it encourages them to more proactively engage with this office. Because contrary to the views expressed in some quarters, they are actually trying to be compliant. Yes, of course they don't want to have to modify their global services when rolled out in Europe. But at the end of the day, they also know that there's no choice about compliance. So we believe, and we're demonstrating, that our approach delivers.

AW: How often do you advise multinationals in this way?

HD: It's constant. It's week-in, week-out. We had Facebook in here last week at a face-to-face meeting. Their service is adjusting itself at a very, very rapid pace. They're introducing new elements to their service, such as Facebook Moments for photos and new privacy policies. They're acquiring companies. They're implementing banners for cookie notifications.

AW: Facebook is one of the companies the Irish Data Protection Office took most heat for in relation to a 2012 audit of the company. Are you satisfied now that it is fully in compliance?

HD: We can never say that we're fully happy a company like Facebook is in compliance. On any given day the target is moving and we're working on keeping pace with that target.

AW: Facebook is also at the heart of a court case - the Max Schrems data privacy case - that is gathering huge momentum, with many civil liberties groups, industrial lobbyists and even foreign governments seeking to become involved. What do you think will happen in this case and why do you think so many groups are interested?

HD: I think one of the reasons that so many groups and organisations want to join the proceedings is that there's a real desire on all sides that the High Court in Ireland is in possession of all the relevant facts when it looks at this. That means that there needs to be more than just the Snowden revelations from 2013 in front of the court. It needs to hear the facts fully so that if a reference is made to the European Court Of Justice, the High Court is getting a more complete picture.

AW: Is the proposed new 'Privacy Shield' data transfer treaty between the US and EU a lame duck? It has many critics, including the European Data Protection Supervisor, Giovanni Butarelli, and your own Article 29 Working Party of European data regulators. It seems to fall short of the standards set by the European Court of Justice when it struck down the 'Safe Harbour' agreement.

HD: It is a mess. There's an effort to try and square the circle of whether data flows can go between the EU and the US and we're not yet sure if that circle can be squared. We've studied the ruling in the Schrems case very carefully. The essence of a fundamental right is that bulk collection cannot ever be justified. Privacy Shield leaves a doubt that in some cases, there will be bulk collection. And that needs to be clarified which is what we've called for.

There's also an issue around whether the US ombudsman will truly be independent if she's sitting in the US State Department and the President can fire her. But the solutions will have to be political because the frameworks [between EU and US] are never going to be the same as one another. So there will be trade-offs.

AW: What trade-offs?

HD: I think Europeans have a fundamental right to have their data privacy protected. They also rights to freedom of expression and consequent rights to access digital services. And we won't be thanked if, ultimately, the result is a degradation of services in Europe or the pulling out of certain services in Europe. But it's not something we're in control of. This needs a political and legal solution.

AW: But what does that mean for companies who want to know right now where they stand with regard to the legality of data transfers? What are they supposed to do?

HD: I think, for the most part, that companies will continue to rely on standard contractual clauses. Until the court takes any action on them, they remain a lawful mechanism for transfer. Companies really have no other choice at the moment. Safe Harbour is gone, Privacy Shield hasn't yet been enacted. Legal certainty will only come as these matters play out in court. As for comments that we hear about building data centres in Ireland, that is not an option for many of these internet multinationals. So there is no choice but to transfer if they want to keep the service going.

AW: So companies are on their own with no guidance? Doesn't an advisory role fall back onto your office?

HD: No, that isn't our role. We would see the European Commission in that role and the member states in terms of being the legislators of Europe along with the Parliament. We might get asked as a data protection authority but we can not propose solutions to this either politically or legally. It's not our role.

AW: A prominent privacy organisation, Digital Rights Ireland, says that it is challenging the independence of the Irish Data Protection Office because it operates too closely to the government. How do you respond to this?

HD: I'm aware that they announced that they were taking a High Court case but they certainly have never filed any court papers about it. My understanding is that it's a challenge to the state rather than the Data Protection Authority itself, that the state has failed to provide for the office's independence. But we would see no evidence to support any such assertion.

We operate independently of government and under a legal framework. We also operate independently of industry and of people who jump up and down and trumpet loudly on social media.

We don't take the path of least resistance on any issue. We think and act independently and we'd simply be running ourselves around in circles if we were second-guessing what industry, government or anyone else wanted us to think about any issue.

There did seem to be a suggestion that staff at the office of the Data Protection Commissioner are civil servants. But in every other European country the data protection authority is a public authority and in many other European countries it operates under the ministry of Justice. There's nothing unusual about the Irish setup.

It's also worth noting that in over 20 years of European data protection legislation, there have never been any question marks raised about the Irish Data Protection Authority despite the European Commission taking enforcement action against Hungary, Austria and Germany. So I think it would be rather surprising if question marks were to be raised about the Irish office now.

AW: In two years, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will put much bigger duties on companies and other organisations in relation to handling data privacy. And your office will also get new powers to fine offenders without bringing them to court. Do you think Irish organisations have copped on to this yet?

HD: I think Irish companies are in for a bit of a shock. Mouths are hanging open when we present the headlines of what GDPR comprises. I certainly think it's going to change Irish attitudes toward data privacy. Companies will now have to implement new accountability requirements. This means they will have to inventory all of the data processing that their organisation does, which itself is going to be a big task for some of them.

Under the GDPR, we're going to have a lot more powers and there are going to be a lot more enumerated offences. We're also going to acquire this administrative fining capability. So all of that is going to add up to a step change in the data protection landscape, and in the compliance that organisations are going to have to deliver.

AW: Will it be a big additional cost for companies to bear?

HD: I think there will be additional costs for them, even to do that inventory and meet the accountability requirements. All public sector bodies will have to have an appointed data protection officer. While many have this already, this will be a new concept for a lot public sector bodies and government departments. And there will be a cost. But it's going to mean we'll be able to audit much faster. Because instead of going and pulling teeth trying to establish what they have and what they're collecting, they will have had to have implemented the accountability requirements and we'll be able to do much swifter desk-based audits. We'll be able to identify the risks much quicker.

AW: Will you continue to stop Dublin City Council publishing 'name and shame' posters of people it says are illegally dumping rubbish because of data privacy concerns?

HD: We're not saying they can't [publish the posters] but it wasn't clear to us that a proper analysis had been done before this solution was proposed. Our aim is not to stop Dublin City Council cutting out what is a horrible problem in the north inner city of illegal dumping.

Our aim is ensure that they do it in a way that protects people's individual privacy rights. We'd like them to demonstrate to us that they've met a high bar to justify this type of interference. We want to make sure that no innocent third parties are being caught in CCTV footage.
The latest annual report of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner contains stark warnings for any companies thinking of using CCTV as a standard measure to monitor staff.

Helen Dixon said that "certain situations, such as staff canteens and changing rooms", should be beyond the scope of bosses checking on their staff.

The Commssioner highlighted one case where a supermarket worker was fired when she placed a paper bag over a CCTV camera in her workplace staff canteen to prevent anyone watching her as she did her hair. Despite the supermarket's arguments about preventing pilfering and bullying, the Commissioner ruled that the surveillance was unjustified.

Bosses have some rights to monitor staff for security purposes, Ms Dixon's office said. But employees also have "fundamental rights to privacy at work in certain situations, such as staff canteens and changing rooms".

The Commissioner also upheld a number of complaints about unsolicited marketing activities from a range of big companies.

In one case, Eir (previously known as Eircom) was forced to pay a 35,000 fine for a series of illegal marketing calls and text messages to customers who thought they had opted out of Eircom's systems.

Other cases involved prosecutions of Imagine Communications and the waste management company Greyhound.

Elsewhere in her report, the Data Protection Commissioner revealed that she rejected requests from an unnamed "key" tribunal witness to delete their name from certain Google searches.

Ms Dixon's report says that 23 complaints were received by the State's data privacy body in relation to the 'right to be forgotten' from search engines. However, the office only upheld seven of the complaints, while 16 of them were refused.

"One rejected complaint centred around a long-running tribunal, where the Office concurred with Google's position not to delist certain URLs found following a search conducted using an individual's name," said the annual report. "Given that the individual concerned had given key testimony at this important tribunal, it was considered that there was a legitimate public interest in maintaining access to this information against a search on that individual's name. A search against other keywords in the original content would still have produced a result in the search engine."

Under European law, an individual can request that a personal name be delinked from searches that return web links deemed outdated or irrelevant. However, freedom of information advocates fear the rule is sometimes exploited by white collar individuals to whitewash misdeeds or matters of genuine public interest.

Overall, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner's Office received 932 complaints from members of the public last year, most relating to denial of access to personal records.

"The largest single category of complaints related to access rights, which accounted for over 60pc of the total and reflecting the extent of the difficulties some individuals experience exercising their statutory right of access," said the report.

"The second largest category of complaint concerned electronic direct marketing."

The number represents a 3pc fall from the year before.

However, the number of data breaches notified to Helen Dixon's office was up 6pc to 2,317. And her office applied three enforcement notices against Aer Lingus, O2 and Arizun Service Irelan.

Meanwhile, Ms Dixon said "intense" engagement with Facebook "over a number of months" led to new tools launched by the social network that lets people opt out of online behavioural advertising through Facebook's service.

She said that an audit completed by her office resulted in the launch of a Facebook tool called 'Download Your Information' that allows users to download a copy of their Facebook data. She said that Facebook had also introduced a "privacy checkup tool" in response to the Irish office's investigations.

And Ms Dixon said that her office was engaged in an "organisational and technical review of settings and controls in relation to advertising, updated and new features such as legacy accounts and family tagging, handling of consent to the use of cookies, personal data inventories, use and retention of location data, use of contact data, and an extensive engagement on details of access request handling".

Other companies to come under the Irish data protection spotlight include LinkedIn, which is being acquired by Microsoft for over 23bn. Ms Dixon said that discussions between her office and LinkedIn have resulted in adjustments to the layout and location of settings on LinkedIn members' profiles. She also said that Linkedin has created a new 'Cookie Council'.
Hollywood star Gerard Butler had a message of congratulations for Martin O'Neill on Wednesday night.

He may be Scottish but the Gods of Egypt star was full of praise for the Irish team after the defeated Italy to make it through to the last 16 of the Euros.

The Glaswegian actor is a hardcore Celtic fan and his admiration for the Ireland manager dates back to O'Neill's time as manager of the Parkhead club.

During his five-year reign at the club, 'the Hoops' landed three league titles and a UEFA Cup final and O'Neill is still revered with Celtic fans, including his friend Butler, despite leaving the club in 2005.

Expand Close Gerard Butler tweets a message of congratulations to Martin O'Neill. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Gerard Butler tweets a message of congratulations to Martin O'Neill.

Taking to Twitter, Gerard posted a photo of his "mate" Martin jumping for joy as he celebrated Irelands victory in Lille.

Gerard said he wished he was on the streets of Lille with all the Ireland supporters and even managed to fit in our very own COYBIG hashtag.

He wrote: "Congrats to my mate Martin O'Neill & @FAIreland on qualifying for last 16 in #Euro2016. So wish I was there! #COYBIG".
Robbie Brady's daughter Halle is her dad's number one fan.

He may have won the hearts of the nation on Wednesday night as he scored the goal that brought Ireland through to the last 16 of the Euros but Robbie Brady's number one fan is his daughter Halle.

Expand Close Halle with the boys in green. Photo: Instagram / Facebook

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Following the final whistle, a jubilant Robbie ran to to the stands in the Stade Denis where he could see his brother and partner Kerrie.

Kerrie, a choreographer who is from Swords in North County Dublin, was hoisted carefully from the crowds so she could embrace the Irish goalscorer as his tearful brother looked on.

A photo posted by Kerrie Harris (@kerrie.harris.s2s) on Jun 20, 2016 at 7:38pm PDT

The couple are parents to two-year-old daughter Halle, who joined her family in France.

Kerrie, who runs the Soul2Sould dance school in her native Swords, has been documenting her and Halle's journey in France with adorable Instagram photos.

A photo posted by Kerrie Harris (@kerrie.harris.s2s) on Jun 20, 2016 at 7:34pm PDT

The Norwich player rushed to the stands to embrace his longterm gfirlfriend after Ireland's triumph.

Speaking after the match, a visibly emotional Brady tried to explain what the success meant for him and made sure to include his family in his speech.

A photo posted by Kerrie Harris (@kerrie.harris.s2s) on Jun 20, 2016 at 7:27pm PDT

"Just have a look around and have a listen to what it means to everyone that's involved, me included," he said, the tears welling up in his eyes.

"I grew up waiting for this stage, dreaming about it since I was a little kid. To go and do it in front of my family is the best feeling in the world."

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"What a fantastic night, I'm absolutely flabbergasted for all," he said.
The chaos and carnage of central Dublin at the height of the 1916 Rising might seem like a world away from the 'Mad Men' glamour of American advertising in the 1960s, but no less an authority than media guru Marshall McLuhan provides an unlikely link between the two.

Often credited with predicting the worldwide web decades before it happened, McLuhan was famous for his industry-defining expressions, such as 'the medium is the message' and 'the global village.' Less well known, however, is a passage in his 1964 book 'Understanding Media', in which he pinpointed the world's first radio news broadcast to Dublin during the Easter Rising.

McLuhan wrote: "The Irish rebels used a ship's radio to make, not a point-to-point message, but a diffused broadcast in hope of getting word to any ship that would relay their story to the American press. This is widely accepted as the world's first radio broadcast."

It was a feat of monumental proportions. Less than 15 years after Marconi sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic via link stations in Wexford and Galway, wireless communication was in its infancy. The telegraphy school in Reis's Chambers at the corner of Abbey Street and O'Connell Street had been shut down and sealed by British authorities at the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, and the equipment dismantled.

Yet under orders from Joseph Mary Plunkett, 20-year-old engineering student Fergus O'Kelly overcame these hurdles to let the world know that Ireland had declared itself a republic. Having set up an aerial on the roof, with gunfire raging all around, he and his team began to relay the message in Morse code on Tuesday morning, as instructed by James Connolly: "Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising."

"It was not possible to get in direct touch with any station or ship, but the message was sent out on the normal commercial wavelength in the hope some ship would receive it and relay it as interesting news," Fergus recalled in his military witness statement in 1950.

They continued to send this and other messages at regular intervals until the next day, when the building came under such heavy sniper and machine-gun fire that they had to abandon the transmission and make their way to the GPO. While the rebels had no way of knowing if their message had been received, it was picked up by a transatlantic ship, which is said to have relayed it to America, where newspapers reported details of the revolt before the official British version of events got out.

Paula O'Kelly is enormously proud of her late father-in-law's achievements.

"I was surprised he survived the Rising, because he had to make so many trips over and back between Abbey Street and the GPO," she says. "He and the six men on his team, including Abbey actor Arthur Shields, who went on to become a Hollywood star, had to run zig-zag across O'Connell Street to escape the firing, which came at them from all directions."

Paula, who sadly lost her husband Michael, Fergus's only son, 25 years ago, has been researching the family history for over 20 years. After the Rising, Fergus was sent to Stafford Jail, where he celebrated his 21st birthday on June 1.

"His mother sent him a white shirt for the occasion, and most likely enclosed some food as well," says Paula. "It wasn't the most auspicious way to mark a special birthday, but no doubt was very well received."

Days later he was brought to Frongoch camp in Wales and at the end of July was transferred to Wormwood Scrubs and released. He walked from the boat in Dun Laoghaire to the family home in Stillorgan, a changed man.

"At first the family barely recognised this emaciated, bearded figure looking in the window but they were overjoyed to have him home."

But he didn't stay in Stillorgan for long. Due to his internment, Fergus had missed his final college exams and was determined to succeed at the repeats. A suburban house packed with 13 children (he was the second eldest) and two parents was not exactly an atmosphere conducive to study, so he took off to the Dublin mountains and camped, with only his books for company.

Graduating later that year with a Bachelor of Science, he completed a degree in electrical and mechanical engineering and then went on to work in the Shannon electrification scheme.

This year Paula and her family were invited to the official commemoration ceremony in O'Connell Street on Easter Sunday. "I'll never forget it," she says. "Though it wasn't planned, we ended up sitting right outside the GPO, facing the Central Bar, the very building where Fergus had set up the radio transmission, which made it particularly moving."

Interestingly enough, while her father-in-law earned a place in the history books for his role in the Easter Rising, Paula's grandfather, John Middleton, was a constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary. He was based in Tipperary and retired in 1903 after 30 years service.

"Technically, that meant he would have been on the other side of the fence, so it would have been fascinating to hear his own personal views on the rebellion," she says. "Unfortunately, it was not to be as my grandfather died in 1922, so we can only but speculate."
Gardai are investigating an alleged incident where two secondary school girls were approached by a suspicious man.

The two girls were walking in the Blessington Road area in Naas when they were reportedly approached by a man at around 10pm on June 12.

St Marys College sent an email to parents informing them about the incident. It asked if anybody noticed anything suspicious to contact gardai and urged parents to be alert.

Local Fianna Fail Cllr Robert Power said: Two transition year girls were approached by a man while walking. The man was said to be asking inappropriate questions. An email from the school was sent to parents asking them to be vigilant.

Im very shocked that something like that would happen here in Naas.

Labour Cllr Anne Breen said the two girls were shopping in Tesco when the incident occurred. The two girls believed to be sisters were aged 16 and 17-years-old. He approached the girls twice and was using inappropriate language.

Last week two primary schools in South Dublin issued a warning to parents after a man attempted to abduct two children.

The two children were approached by a man in a dark car in separate incidents last week in Booterstown and Monkstown.

The primary schools both based in the nearby area of Shankill sent a text message to parents asking them to be vigilant.

The message read: "We have had reports of children being approached by a man in a dark car in the Shankill area. Please be vigilant."
The accused had applied for legal aid but gardai believe he has income from crime (stock)

A judge has ruled that an accused's alleged income from criminal activity cannot be taken into consideration when assessing him for legal aid.

Judge Melanie Greally made the ruling in the case of a man facing trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for drug dealing and firearm offences. The accused had applied for legal aid but gardai believe he has income from crime.

The judge said that she shared gardai suspicions about his assets but was granting legal aid because only income from legal sources could be taken into account when assessing someone's ability to pay for their lawyers.

Garda Janice Gray told the court that during a number of searches of the man's home gardai seized 24,000 in cash. The gardai also seized five vehicles with a total estimate market value of 60,000.

The Dublin man, who cannot be identified, is charged with possession of cannabis for sale or supply at his home in March last year. He is also alleged to be in unlawful possession of a stun-gun and live ammunition at the same time. He will go on trial next year.

Derek Cooney BL, prosecuting, said the State was contesting a defence application for legal aid on the basis that they said his statement of means was incorrect. Gda Gray told Mr Cooney that the accused had income and a range of vehicles at his disposal.

She agreed with John Fitzgerald BL, defending, that the money seized was suspected to have come from illegitimate sources.

Granting legal aid Judge Melanie Greally said she shared the suspicions raised as to the source of the cash. She said if those suspicions were proven the State had the means to confiscate the money and assets.

She said that in assessing the man's capacity to fund his own defence the court could only look to the man's legal assets, acquired in a legal manner. The man receives disability benefit and rent supplement payments.

The accused does not appear to have a significant income, nor appears to have any assets acquired in a lawful manner, she said.
A Kilkenny resident has said people are "living in fear" after a man who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend and tried to strangle a three-year-old girl is back in the city following his release from prison.

Sean Walsh pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Georgette O'Carroll at her home at O'Loughlin Court, Kilkenny, on November 9, 2004, and endangering the life of a child at the same location on the same date.

In May 2006 Walsh - who had an address also at O'Loughlin Court in Kilkenny at the time of the offence - was sentenced to 15 years in prison at Kilkenny Circuit Court. He was 24 years old at the time.

Walsh, who is originally from the UK and came to Kilkenny in 2001, was released from prison earlier this week.

"He was released [on Tuesday] and he is back in Kilkenny, for how long we do not know; but it was believed before that he would not be coming back to Kilkenny," said the resident, who did not want to be named.

"Kilkenny is a very small town and we are supportive of each other and we do not want him here.

"He is 100pc not wanted in Kilkenny. Residents are living in fear.

"There should be more publicity that he is back here because he is a very dangerous man and people should be warned about him."

The resident said that Walsh's victim Ms O'Carroll is "extremely afraid" that he has returned. Ms O'Carroll was pregnant with his child at the time of the attack.

The previous night the couple had watched a film, 'The Grudge', which depicts a husband trying to strangle his wife. The following morning, Ms O'Carroll woke up to find herself being suffocated by Walsh. She was also head-butted by him and had a number of injuries inflicted by stabbing.

In the bathroom of her house, a three-year-old girl was found unconscious with a pair of trousers tied around her neck.

She had several bite marks on her arm and her left elbow was fractured.

At the time of his sentencing, Judge Olive Buttimer said Walsh had vivid and elaborate fantasies of a violent nature of carrying a knife around at night following people.

She also said the accused seemed to take pleasure or excitement and felt a sense of relief and buzz afterwards.

She sentenced Walsh to 10 years for causing serious harm to Ms O'Carroll and five years for endangering the three-year-old girl.

During the trial medical reports were filed showing Walsh suffered from a serious personality disorder.
The first steps towards cracking down on the street sale of prescription drugs such as tranquillisers is underway.

The law will cover so-called z-drugs - zopiclone and zaleplon.

Health Minister Simon Harris brought the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2016 to the Seanad where it starts its legislative passage through the Oireachtas.

He said this is the first step in the parliamentary process and the Minister hopes it can be completed by the summer recess.

The aim of the Bill is to protect public health by bringing certain drugs which are open to misuse, and known to be traded on the illicit market, under the scope of the Misuse of Drugs legislation.

The Bill provides that certain prescription medicines currently being sold illegally on our streets which are not already controlled drugs, will come under the scope of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

He said he is presenting this Bill today as one part of the whole-of-government approach in dealing with the serious crime situation in the north inner city of Dublin.

 Following the recent murders in Dublins north inner city, Government decided to expedite the drafting and publication of parts of the Misuse of Drugs Bill originally scheduled for the autumn.

 These drugs are extremely dangerous, they affect people in horrific ways with serious health implications for people who use them and and tragically have been responsible for several deaths.

Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald added: "I fully support this Bill, the primary purpose of which is to aid the law enforcement functions of An Garda Siochana in tackling crime associated with the illegal sale of certain substances.

I am aware of the ongoing problems the Gardai face particularly in parts of inner city Dublin to stop this activity. These are dangerous substances if used incorrectly and this Bill will assist the ongoing and targeted response gangland crime. Every effort must be made to prevent their unlawful sale.

Controlling the substances in the Bill is part one of a two-step process. Regulations are also required to allow legitimate users (eg patients with a prescription, health professionals) to possess the substances. Work is underway on drafting the regulations

The Act will only be triggered when the necessary regulations to enforce it are ready but this should happen relatively quickly.

There will be a second Misuse of Drugs Bill in the Autumn which will provide for the establishment of supervised injecting facilities for chronic drug users.
No other crime has provoked the level of public outrage as the brutal murder of Veronica Guerin 20 years ago this week.

The courageous Sunday Independent journalist was gunned down on the orders of drugs baron John Gilligan on June 26, 1996 while stopped at traffic lights on the Naas dual carriageway.

It truly was a watershed moment in Irish public life. Many people can still remember where they were when they heard the news.

Veronica had made her name as a fearless chronicler of the Irish underworld, and the revulsion at her death was unprecedented.

The events of that day were not just a brutal and callous murder but an attack on society and democracy. Within a week the Government had enacted two important pieces of legislation, leading to the setting up of the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The new agency had the powers to seize cash, properties, cars and other assets in situations where there was no legitimate explanation as to how they had been acquired.

It meant gardai did not have to wait for a conviction to seize ill gotten gains, as is the case in most European countries.

In the following years the CAB proved highly successful, forcing many high-profile criminals into fleeing abroad.

Targets included Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch, the alleged mastermind behind a number lucrative heists, who made a settlement of IR1.2m settlement with CAB in 1999.

The success of CAB was a fitting legacy to the murdered journalist, but two decades on, that legacy is in peril. While CAB has proved hugely disruptive to organised crime, this in itself has not been sufficient to dismantle criminal organisations, something which can only be done through convictions.

Such organisations routinely use murder and violence to dissuade anyone, including their own members, from giving the evidence necessary.

Indeed the gangland scene Veronica reported on pales in the shadow of the ultra-violent landscape gardai must now confront.

As Veronica's husband, Graham Turley, recently told a television documentary, his wife's legacy has been "scattered a bit".

"Twenty years down the road we are back to stage one," he said.

"It is getting to the stage where there is literally a shooting on the streets every day of the week."

As well as the increased in bloodshed, the criminal fraternity has significantly evolved in response to CAB. Ways have been found to escape the clutches of the agency and the biggest drug barons now operate with apparent impunity on the continent.

The current feud in Dublin involving the Kinahan and Hutch families, which has claimed seven lives to date, encapsulates the challenges faced by our law enforcement agencies.

Christy Kinahan, the 'Dapper Don', is considered the largest wholesaler of drugs to the Irish market. However, he is largely outside the reach of CAB as he lives in Spain and the agency cannot confiscate his assets there.

A major investigation involving several European police forces, code-named Operation Shovel, led to the identification of 150m in assets linked to the Kinahan cartel. While these assets were frozen, charges against Kinahan and his associates did not follow.

The reasons for this are unclear, but it has been suggested Spanish authorities have prioritised the pursuit of larger international mafia gangs based there.

Kinahan has also been linked to a string of legitimate businesses, a ploy increasingly used by criminals to muddy the waters, making it more difficult for police to uncover where the legitimate money ends and the dirty money begins.

Kinahan's organisation sparked the current feud with the murder of Gary Hutch, who they suspected of being a police informer. Even with dozens of armed police deployed at checkpoints in Dublin's inner city, the Kinahan organisation has been able to direct further murders from abroad. The feud has provided evidence that even lower level gang members have also become adept at concealing wealth.

Kinahan's associates let their guard slip somewhat at the funeral of feud victim David Byrne, where there was an obvious display of wealth, including a fleet of limousines, a funeral casket with a reputed cost of 15,000 and, reportedly, a 25,000 bar bill.

A series of CAB raids prompted by the scenes at the funeral led to the seizure of luxury cars, motorcycles, jewellery and Rolex watches.

In the wake of the feuding new laws have been proposed by the Government to give gardai powers to seize more assets. Detectives will also be able to engage in more electronic surveillance.

But a whole lot more is needed if Veronica's legacy is to be safeguarded.

Indeed, the key to bringing down the untouchables flooding Ireland with drugs may now lie in a concerted international effort.

If the likes of the Kinahans are not considered a top priority by Continental police forces then our politicians and the gardai must convince their counterparts that they should be treated as such.
The MMR vaccine uptake is as low as 83pc in some places (Stock photo)

Some children passed on measles to other young patients when they were in hospital in Kerry, it emerged yesterday.

The difficulty with measles is that a patient may be unwell but it can take four days for a rash to appear, during which time it can be mistaken for another illness, said Dr Fiona Ryan HSE public health specialist.

Measles is highly infectious before any rash appears, she added.

Dr Ryan was speaking as public health officials hoped the measles outbreak, which has led to 22 confirmed cases of the viral illness in north Kerry since mid-April, appeared to be coming under control.

Dr Ryan said there were no further cases of measles, which affected a range of age groups including infants, teens and people in their 20s.

"We have not had any evidence of the spread of measles in schools," she said.

Children may have been absent from school with other illnesses during the outbreak.

"The spread had been as a result of contact with relatives, in the community or in hospital," she pointed out.

The first case was "imported" and involved a patient who returned to the county after being infected with measles while abroad.

Nationally, 30 cases of measles have been confirmed this year, compared to just five for the whole of 2015.

Meanwhile, figures reveal that hundreds of children are still not being vaccinated against measles and are vulnerable to getting the disease if exposed to the virus.

The uptake of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine has still not reached the 95pc level needed to give 'herd immunity'.

The MMR is given at 12 months and a second dose is delivered when a child is four to five years.

Figures for the first dose at the end of last year was 93pc but it is lower in some areas of the country.

Vaccination rates are as low as 83pc in inner city Cork and at 86pc in Dublin north central.

The vaccination rate is just 87pc of infants in Kerry, leaving many young children at risk if they come in contact with the measles virus, which is passed on when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Measles is mostly an unpleasant illness which passes in seven to 10 days but in some cases it can lead to life-threatening pneumonia or brain infection.

Meanwhile a school principal in Tralee, Co Kerry, who saw 10 of her pupils miss a number of weeks due to the measles outbreak, has described it as a "wake-up call" about the importance of vaccination.

Just four pupils in the 380-pupil Moyderwell Mercy Primary School actually contracted the virus but the other six pupils who were friends or relations of the sick children were advised to stay at home for three weeks.

Four of those children are still missing from school because they visited a sick boy before the end of their three-week incubation period and were advised to stay out of school for another 21 days.

Principal Moira Quinlan said: "It's a wake-up call for everybody about the importance of vaccination.

"Generally speaking it's still a bit up in the air because we don't have access to the database to show who has been vaccinated and who hasn't. This has been a wake-up call again to show that there are children who are not vaccinated.

"It is still up to the parents whether or not they want to vaccinate, at the end of the day. In this particular case the children have all been vaccinated since."
Brendan Cox, the widower of MP Jo Cox, and their two children Cuillin (5) and Lejla (3) prepare to join a floating commemoration at Hermitage Moorings on the River Thames, where the family lived on a houseboat Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty

British MP Jo Cox was remembered as "the sort of person the world needs more of" at a gathering at Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge yesterday.

The event was held to coincide with a series of worldwide events to mark what would have been Ms Cox's 42nd birthday, under the title 'More in Common'.

A minute's silence took place to remember the mother-of-two who was murdered last week outside a constituency surgery. Attendees then signed a message board promising they would 'love like Jo'.

Jamie Drummond, co-founder of advocacy foundation One which helped to organise the memorial, paid tribute to his close friend.

"She was a very vivacious, bubbly, dynamic, passionate activist who went from being an activist on the outside with Oxfam to being an activist on the inside as a Labour MP and as a person who listened to her constituents and fought for them," he said.

"At the same time she was fighting for refugees on the other side of the planet, which I think is a noble cause and at the heart of what 21st century politics needs to be more about.

"She embodied the best of public life, as well as being the best kind of individual you would ever want to meet. She is the sort of person the world needs more of."
Hatred and incitement to violence on social media must be countered by governments, internet service providers, and major tech companies working together, said Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald today.

"This partnership will be crucial to our efforts to create a safer online environment," said the minister.

"It is our young people and the most vulnerable in societies that are most susceptible to those preaching hatred and violent radicalisation," she said.

The minister spoke about the problem of hatred and extreme views on social media in an address to the Dublin City University Conference on Violent Online Political Extremism.

The university is a member of a the VOX-Pol network of nine colleges worldwide involved in a five-year partnership to research and examine online extremism.

The minister said later the Law Reform Commission was examining ways of tackling cyber-crime which will result in new laws.

Asked about threats made to people on social media, she said while free speech must be defended, "threats to people's lives have to be taken seriously, threats to rape have to be taken seriously...We need robust laws in relation to online abuse which will develop in Ireland."

The new Sexual Offences Bill deals "thoroughly" with making it a criminal offence to use the internet to groom children for sexual exploitation, she said.

"Our laws have to be updated continually to deal with crime online. We've a lot more to do with voluntary cooperation with internet companies," said the minister.

Those companies have been willing to respond "where there are real dangers and where there is a real threat but there are obviously grey areas and that's where we run into difficulties," she said.

"But in terms of harassment of children online and child exploitation, the new Sexual Offence Bill deals with that very thoroughly...That provides protection for children being groomed online because we have a lot of children being groomed online," she said.

In terms of violent Islamic extremism, she said Irish residents were "not immune" from radicalisation.

She said a "small number" of Irish residents have travelled abroad as foreign fighters and had been killed.

"Irish people are not immune from being part of this challenge that the world faces in relation to terrorist fighters and, indeed, returnees.

"Clearly, we have less numbers than many countries. It's a low number but we're certainly not immune from the issue of radicalisation and people who have been radicalised and willing to become foreign fighters.

"The gardai and security forces watch it very carefully and, if security issues arise, they work to ensure that any further crimes can be prevented.

"I believe integration policy is important and reaching out to minority communities," she said.

In her address to the VOX-Pol conference, the minister said it was "undeniable" the internet had a role in "radicalising individuals to violence."

"Extremism is no longer an abstract problem that happens somewhere else. It's here'" she said.

She also referred to "extreme xenophobia or nationalistic tendency" violent individuals, citing the slaughter of Norwegians by Anders Breivik and the murder of British MP Jo Cox last week.

Greater sharing of intelligence and information by police and security forces was important while not necessarily impinging on privacy and free expression, she said.

She welcomed proposals on information sharing such as the EU Passenger Name Records Directive which allow the examination of air travel reservation records.
OPW Minister Sean Canney has joined his Independent Alliance colleagues in seeking a free vote on a Bill allowing for abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.

Though he is pro-life, Mr Canney told the Irish Independent he is supportive of fellow Alliance TD John Halligan voting with the bill.

"We are Independents and this is not in the programme for government. It is a matter of conscience," he said.

The Bill is being put forward by Wexford TD Mick Wallace. It proposes that women should be allowed a termination in cases of fatal foetal abnormality where doctors deem the pregnancy to be non-viable.

Super-junior Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath is also seeking a free vote on the matter. "I believe there should be a free vote on moral and ethical issues. Freedom of conscience is a major right," he said.

Government sources have privately suggested that Mr Halligan has embarked on a "solo run" and that other members of the alliance want to abstain or vote with the Government on the Bill given that it will be argued to be unconstitutional.

But the same sources admitted last night that consideration will need to be given to keep the Government intact.

Fine Gael's plan is for a citizen's convention to examine the Eight Amendment, the law that gives equal status to the lives of a mother and her unborn child.

Health Minister Simon Harris last night said he has sought the advice of the Attorney General on Deputy Wallace's Bill.

He said his own view is that he finds "the current situation in relation to fatal foetal abnormalities to be unacceptable".

"However, as Minister for Health I'm duty-bound to make sure that any changes introduced have a meaningful impact. Therefore I've asked the Attorney General for advice on the constitutionality of the Bill.

"I obviously can't support a Bill if it's deemed not to be constitutional or not to make that meaningful impact. I'm awaiting that advice," Mr Harris said.

Later last night he told a meeting of Fine Gael TDs that he believes it is "highly likely" that the Attorney General will find Mr Wallace's Bill unconstitutional.

The issue was raised by Dublin Bay South TD Kate O'Connell who has previously spoken about her belief that the country's abortion laws need to be changed.

A source said Mr Harris expressed concerns about the definition of many of the phrases being used in the debate around foetuses with no life expectancy. And he urged TDs and senators to back the citizens' assembly which is being planned by the Government.

"Kate seemed happy with his response and said we shouldn't let others throw obstacles in our way," said a source.

Fianna Fail will be allowing a free vote on Deputy Wallace's Bill. Barry Cowen indicated he would be voting against it saying he's concerned it wouldn't be constitutional. Two of the party's other TDs, Niamh Smyth and Fiona O'Loughlin, said they have yet to make up their minds.
Joe Biden in Taoiseach Enda Kennys office, where the photo of Mr Biden was on the mantelpiece Photo: Maxwells

It's a case of Enda Kenny and the rotating mantelpiece pictures. The Taoiseach was so keen to impress visiting US vice-president Joe Biden that he swapped in a picture of them together onto his mantelpiece in his office.

Just a few weeks ago Mr Kenny posed for the Irish Independent in front of the fireplace. Behind him were carefully placed photographs of his children in Mayo jerseys, US president Barack Obama and one of him with French president Francois Hollande.

However, the Taoiseach dropped Mr Hollande in advance of Mr Biden's arrival in Government Buildings on Tuesday evening. In his place was a picture of Mr Kenny, his wife Fionnuala and the US vice-president.

It sat towards the centre of the mantelpiece, having been given priority over the image of the Taoiseach with Mr Obama during his visit in 2011.

This isn't the first time Mr Kenny's mantelpiece has caught people's eye. Last Christmas, when he posed in front of the same fireplace, there was a framed photo of himself and the wrestler Hulk Hogan.
US Vice President Joe Biden meets waiting crowds in the streets of Ballina yesterday. Photo: Colin ORiordan

It was the kind of 'full house' that genealogists can usually only dream of. US Vice President Joe Biden came here in search of family roots and left with a much longer Christmas card list.

Take his fifth cousins once removed: Leinster rugby brothers Rob and David Kearney, for example. The Bidens are very keen to catch up with them.

Jimmy Biden, the Vice President's brother, explained how they had been told of the link by a genealogist that morning.

"I need to track down these Kearneys. Tell them that Jim Biden, the Vice President's brother is trying to track them down," he said in what turned out to be something of a public appeal.

"My son is going to be playing rugby at university so I'm going home, I'm going to get on the plane and track these guys down," he said, quipping: "I understand that they're quite good."

Jimmy explained how the visit was "very, very important" to the family and "as you get older it becomes more important."

They had planned this trip with Beau, the Vice President's son who died last year at the age of 46 from brain cancer, he explained. "It's a very emotional trip."

In Ballina, they picked up almost 30 new cousins, posing for a gigantic family portrait, beams all round.

"My family has gotten bigger," a clearly overwhelmed Vice President called out.

"By the way, the Bidens are moving back."

The response was an uproarious 'hip, hip hurray'.

"I have enjoyed my day and my whole family has. My brother and my sister and my daughter," said Joe.

Caught by the folksy mood, he told of how his mother, Jean Finnegan would say: "Remember Joey, you are defined by your courage and you are redeemed by your loyalty."

"This is loyalty," he said, turning around and gesturing towards his new - very extended - family.

"They are all going to come to Washington to see me."

The day started off with a trip to see President Michael D Higgins at Aras an Uachtarain.

"I'm writing a letter," laughed Mr Biden as the President glanced over his shoulder to see what lengthy prose he was inscribing in the visitors' book.

"As President Kennedy said when he made his historic visit to Ireland in 1963, 'Our two nations, divided by distance, have been unite by our people.' I would add: 'We are united by the hearts and souls of our people'," wrote Mr Biden.

Then he took the US Airforce plane, the Charleston, landing at Knock Airport to be greeted by 100 local schoolchildren.

He literally jogged across the tarmac to them.

"Come and see me in America in the White House. Who wants to fly back on Air Force Two?" he called, much to everyone's delight.

At Ballina, they stopped the 30 car-long snaking cavalcade at Convent Hill and the Biden clan got out and walked the plain little street where their ancestor, Edward Blewitt, left in 1851.

In all, they were the Vice President, his brother, Jimmy, sister Val, daughter Ashley and five grandchildren - including Hunter (10), Beau's son.

Historian Dr Ciaran Reilly from Maynooth told Mr Biden about the horrendeous conditions in Mayo during the Famine, with 30pc of the population wiped out.

Mr Biden was horrified, not realising quite how bad things had been, said Dr Reilly.

His great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt had been an overseer of Public Works for Famine Relief and would have contributed to saving "thousands of lives," Dr Reilly told him, adding: "You should be very proud of him."

Further up the town, lined with people, they met Mona Curry (92), who Mr Biden dubbed The Queen of Ballina, calling his entire family over to meet her.

She had known the Blewitts going back generations.

The Vice President stopped to sign the cast of a delighted Conor McCarron (14).

The young student also obtained Enda's signature - but it was the signature of RTE's Teresa Mannion that he was truly delighted with.

"I might put it up on eBay," he declared.

Some people got impatient and took matters into their own hands.

"Come on Joe! Get over here!" shouted Caroline Morrow, on the opposite side of the street.

The Vice President's interest was piqued when she called: "There's no show like a Joe show" and he crossed the road to give her a kiss.

She later admitted that really she had meant that there was no show like a Joe Dolan show. She had a kiss from him in her day too, she remembered with triumph.

Sinead Quinn, who also lost her husband to cancer, turned out to greet the Vice President and share her experiences with him.

The mother of three children under the age of six said she had followed the work of Mr Biden and his blue ribbon campaign and was delighted that he had chosen not only to travel to Ireland, but Co Mayo.

"I lost my husband two years ago, his first anniversary was actually around the time that Joe's son Beau died.

"I told him that we had been bereaved by cancer, I said I appreciated all he is doing and that I am aware of the work he is doing through the blue ribbon campaign."

Mr Biden kissed her on the forehead and told her he had been in her circumstances, having lost his first wife at a young age, "so he understood."

Laurita Blewitt, whose father Brendan is the one of Mr Biden's closest living Irish relatives, had lunch with the Vice President at Heffernans bakery.

"We have been waiting so long for today. He chatted about his family and we chatted about our family.

"We've known about the connection for eight years, since he was elected, and we've been in contact for the last few months but this was the first family meeting," she said.

He said it was "a very emotional trip for him because of Beau," she added.

Enda Kenny compared the visit to the Kennedy family's pilgrimage to Ireland.

There was a trip to Enda's constituency office in Castlebar, decked out with the stars and stripes and a portrait of Obama peering out from the top window.

The party finished the day with a hooley in Matt Molloy's famous pub in Westport - where the Chieftains put on a rip-roaring show for the returned son of Mayo, finally fulfilling a life-long wish.
IKEA has issued a recall of up to 5,000 child safety gates sold in Ireland amid reports that six children globally have been injured when the locking mechanism failed.

The Swedish flat-pack giant issued a product recall of its PATRULL brand safety gates yesterday after a third party investigation has shown that the locking mechanism is not reliable, posing a risk for small children, despite approved tests to applicable standards.

Fortunately, there have been no reports of any children in Ireland being injured, typically by falling down stairs the gates were meant to protect, an Ikea spokesperson confirmed.

Approximately 4,600 of the gates, manufactured in Denmark, have been sold to date in Ireland, according to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

The company issued a product recall after reports from some customers that the gates have opened unexpectedly and children have fallen down the stairs. Some of the incidents have required medical attention.

Close to 100,000 of the PATRULL safety gates have been sold around the world, along with more than two million of the PATRULL FAST brand and 744,000 of the PATRULL KLAMMA brand.

The company is urging anyone who has purchased any of the three versions of the gates to stop using them immediately and return the product to any IKEA store for a full refund. A receipt is not required.

The inherent danger posed by the product is related to the design of the locking mechanism itself and is not associated with any flaw in how the product is assembled by the consumer, the spokesperson added.

At IKEA, we have a zero tolerance regarding child safety. We want to offer safe products and we believe that children are the most important people in the world. Whenever we are made aware of a possible safety issue with our products, we investigate thoroughly, IKEA said in a press release.
Paul Lannon, who has been living with MND since 2011, with his wife Sandra, at a visit to the Aras in May 2015 Photo: Martin Maher

In June he climbed four mountains in 16 hours - by November he was struggling to do four push-ups in a row. For Kilkenny-native Paul Lannon, the descent into illness was both rapid and wholly unexpected.

Not yet 40 when he did the Four Peaks challenge, the former bar worker and fork-lift driver was a successful executive with JP Morgan, earning an excellent salary, and travelling all over the world for his job, visiting regions of China, Russia, and South America.

He often jokes that the only continent he hasn't set foot on is Africa. Despite a heavy workload as vice president of operations with the bank, Paul found time to help raise more than 16,000 for Focus Ireland during the gruelling Four Peaks Challenge - climbing four Irish mountains in three days in June 2010.

"At the time I was 15 stone and led a completely sedentary lifestyle; the most exercise I got in a day was walking the dogs for 20 minutes before leaving for work."

Paul was always a guy who liked a challenge and never shirked hard work - ever since he was old enough, he'd worked in the family pub, known as Dickeys, in Knocktopher, Co Kilkenny. He later managed a bar and drove a fork-lift truck in England, and spent time in construction in Germany before returning to Ireland, landing a job in the logistics sector and working his way up.

"If something came up at work that I thought would be a challenge, I'd put myself forward for it," he recalls, adding that he trained from February 2010 until June, losing nearly two stone by the time the event took place.

"I was over the moon about it," he recalls now, "and we raised over 16,000 for Focus Ireland too."

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A motorbike fanatic and self-confessed "petrol-head", Paul, who now lives in Dunleer, Co Louth, had transformed his previously sedentary life to lose weight and get fit when the hammer-blows began.

In September, just a few months after completing the Four Peaks Challenge, the executive noticed his index finger and wrist were starting to get tired more easily.

"Using the computer mouse at work, I'd find my index finger and my wrists were getting tired and I'd use my left hand instead." Initially, he recalls, his doctor thought it was a repetitive strain injury - Paul spent many hours on the computer at work.

However, he was also starting to notice that while working on his beloved motorbike, his right arm was becoming increasingly fatigued, and he always seemed to involuntarily drop nuts and bolts.

By November of that year, he noticed that when he was in the gym - he'd kept going in a bid to maintain his fitness levels - he couldn't do his push-ups.

"I was struggling after four or five of them. At that stage I also noticed that my index finger was bending."

Concerned, he sought advice, underwent a battery of tests and on May 8, 2011 was officially diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND).

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It was just a month before his 41st birthday and less than a year after his victorious climb of the Four Peaks, when his doctors told him they could guarantee he would live for 12 months and that "everything after that would be a bonus".

Paul was now one of a group of some 350 people living with MND in Ireland. MND is often referred to as the 1,000-day disease as most people die within 1,000 days of being diagnosed.

"I went from being able to lift two kegs of beer at a time to needing two hands to lift a pint glass of water," recalls Paul, who says his wife Sandra and family network have been a tremendous support.

He resigned from his job in June 2014 and instead focused on becoming an ambassador for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA), which provides support to people with motor neurone disease, their carers, families and friends.

"I do whatever I can do to help raise awareness and funding while I'm still able to do it," he explains.

"I go to events and give talks, and help other, recently diagnosed people come to terms with the disease."

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Paul can no longer lift the kettle. Dressing himself is now impossible. He also had to get rid of his motorbike, another major blow - since his youth, Paul had a fascination with motor sport.

His father and uncle had always raced go-karts and the pair were well known in the go-kart world with 15 Irish titles between them.

Paul had eagerly followed their footsteps, racing go-karts, cars and motorcycles. Now, however, Paul cannot move his arms above chest height. His fingers and thumbs don't work as they used to, and he experiences difficulty with speech and eating.

"You have bad days, especially when you're trying to do something and you drop something for the fourth or fifth time in a row.

"Sometimes it is difficult, but you try to stay positive and I have a great support network."

Paul urges everyone to support the IMNDA Drink Tea for MND day, which takes place tomorrow as part of MND awareness month. Supporters can literally 'lift a cup' to IMNDA by ordering the special Supervalu Tea Pack and organising their own 'Drink Tea for MND' day.

"This is an extremely worthy cause and we would encourage as many people as possible to lend their support to the campaign," says Des O'Mahony, SuperValu marketing manager.

Motor neurone disease (MND) is a progressive neurological condition that attacks the motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord.

This means messages gradually stop reaching muscles, which leads to weakness and wasting. MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.

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However, not all symptoms necessarily happen to everyone and it is unlikely they will all develop at the same time, or in any specific order.

The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA) is the only organisation of its kind in this country. It was set up in May 1985 to provide care and support to people with motor neurone disease, their carers, families and friends.

The IMNDA provides specialised services for people affected by this debilitating disease such as equipment on loan, financial assistance towards home help, advice and home visits by three MND nurses. In order to provide these vital services the IMNDA depends heavily on the generosity of the public and supporters of the association, who generate over 86pc of its income.

* For further information visit imnda.ie, phone 01 8730422 or contact the helpline: Freefone 1800 403 403 or email: info@imnda.ie. If you can't organise a tea day it's possible to make a small donation. Text MND to 50300 and donate 2.

What is MND?

Motor neurone disease (MND) is a progressive neurological condition that attacks the motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord.

This means messages gradually stop reaching muscles, which leads to weakness and wasting. MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.

However, not all symptoms necessarily happen to everyone and it is unlikely they will all develop at the same time, or in any specific order.

The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA) is the only organisation of its kind in this country. It was set up in May 1985 to provide care and support to people with motor neurone disease, their carers, families and friends.

The IMNDA provides specialised services for people affected by this debilitating disease such as equipment on loan, financial assistance towards home help, advice and home visits by three MND nurses. In order to provide these vital services the IMNDA depends heavily on the generosity of the public and supporters of the association, who generate over 86pc of its income.
Brendan Keenan: 'Better laws and foreign money needed to overcome worrying homes shortage'

There is a district in Belfast known as the Holy Land. Not because of its religiosity, but because the streets - Jerusalem Street, Damascus Street and so on - are called after places in that region. Once, there were others; Little Crimea, India, and so on. Seemingly, houses were built so quickly for the city's huge expansion in the 19th century that it was too much trouble to think up original names. They eventually gave up altogether, so far as names were concerned. The Shankill area got First Street, Second Street etc, all the way up to Tenth.
Model Stella Maxwell walks with her girlfriend in New York City on June 21, 2016. Picture: Christopher Peterson/Splash News

Model Stella Maxwell walks with her girlfriend in New York City on June 21, 2016. Picture: Christopher Peterson/Splash News

Victorias Secret Angel Stella Maxwell took to the streets of New York City on Tuesday with a mystery blonde.

The Irish model was previously in a relationship with Miley Cyrus and was romantically linked to Kristen Stewart, but both love-interests have gone off the scene in recent months.

However, it's rumoured that she's now dating a blonde lookalike.

She was pictured walking the streets of Manhattan with a mystery blonde on Tuesday.

Expand Close Model Stella Maxwell walks with her girlfriend in New York City on June 21, 2016. Picture: Christopher Peterson/Splash News / Facebook

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Whatsapp Model Stella Maxwell walks with her girlfriend in New York City on June 21, 2016. Picture: Christopher Peterson/Splash News

The pair tried to keep a low profile, despite being hounded by paparazzi.

Stella wore the classic model day-off uniform of a band tee, trousers and flats, while her friend wore a white cut-off top, light-wash jeans and Birkenstocks.

The blonde beauty was named the worlds most beautiful woman by Maxim earlier this year, and walked for Victorias Secret for two years before becoming an Angel in 2015.

Stella was born in Belgium to Irish parents and spent her life travelling between Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (left) with husband Bill at a campaign rally in New Hampshire

Hillary Clinton threw a Bible at a Secret Service agent's head, it has been claimed.

It is the latest in a string of alleged incidents recounted by Gary Byrne, a former member of the Secret Service who protected the Clintons during their eight years in the White House in the 1990s.

'Crises of Character', which is due to be published next week, just as Ms Clinton prepares to be nominated as the Democratic presidential choice, is a scathing portrayal of the Clintons as self-serving human beings who treated their security detail as part of the "furniture".

Mr Byrne also describes an environment in which secret agents and White House staff knew about Bill Clinton's "many" affairs and were forced to help cover them up.

He says being assigned to protect Ms Clinton "was a form of punishment handed down by passive-aggressive middle management."

Ms Clinton is known for being poised, even too stiff in public, with campaign aides working to help her appear more relaxed before a crowd. But Mr Byrne describes the former First Lady as being prone to all-consuming bouts of rage behind closed doors.

"The First Lady had a different sort of liveliness," he writes. "She once threw a Bible at an agent on her detail, hitting him in the back of the head.

"Most of us knew to brace for her inevitable eruptions. They didn't happen every day, but behind closed doors we learned about them fast. In public, she was everyone's best friend. Privately, she was her normal self."

Ms Clinton repeatedly swore at Secret Service agents: "She'd explode in my face without reservation or decorum."

Reporters have not been able to independently confirm the allegations made by Mr Byrne, and some of them are controversial.

The book has been denounced by several current and former Secret Service members, who say Mr Byrne has inflated his role at the White House and that he would in reality not have been able to get close enough to the president to see the things he claimed.

This week, the president of the Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service, a non-partisan group that rarely comments in public, is set to issue a statement as a "self-moralising" narrative. The organisation said it has made security more difficult because it erodes the trust between agents and the people they are supposed to protect.

Ms Clinton's campaign has not yet issued a response.

Mr Byrne claims he was assigned to guard the Oval Office for three years during Mr Clinton's presidency. He was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

In this detailed account, he describes the flirtations between Mr Clinton and Ms Lewinsky as obvious for the staff to see. "Monica hung around us batting her eyes until she overheard the president's position or direction of travel, then bolted to manoeuvre into his path," he writes. "She lived for even his passing glance."

In a bid to stop the two meeting, Mr Byrne said, he had Ms Lewinsky, who was working as an intern in the White House, transferred to work for Ms Clinton. But then, he said, Mr Clinton brought her back to his wing of the White House as a paid member of staff, and even provided a secret number for her to dial to reach him directly in the Oval Office.

Rumour "President Clinton paid for a White House mistress with taxpayer funds and jeopardised national security with her compromising and corruptible presence in a secure area, all for little more than on-demand oral sex," he writes.

The book also tries to confirm a long-time rumour that Mr Clinton, whom Mr Byrne describes as a "horn dog", also carried on an affair with Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of Walter Mondale, the former vice president. Mr Byrne says he once caught the pair in a "compromising position". ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Weary but jubilant House Democrats have ended their extraordinary sit-in on the chamber's floor more than 24 hours after it began, a protest that let them broadcast their demands around the world for gun-control votes in the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida nightclub.

There were no indications that Republicans who run the House had granted Democrats' insistence for votes on bills strengthening background checks and barring firearms sales to people on the government's no-fly list.

Even so, 25 and a half hours after they commandeered the chamber and blasted images of themselves on social media, Democrats filed out and declared victory.

"We are going to win this struggle," said Representative John Lewis, the civil rights icon who helped lead the sit-in.

Hours earlier, Republicans had exited the Capitol, branding the remarkable sit-in a publicity stunt and summarily adjourning the chamber until after the Fourth of July.

"We are not going to allow stunts like this to stop us from carrying out the people's business," Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday morning in dismissing the protest. Mr Ryan held up copies of Democratic fundraising appeals based on the protest.

One by one, Democrats delivered speeches that mixed victory declarations with promises not to back down in their drive to curb firearm violence. Placards with photos of gun victims and the phone number of the Capitol switchboard were prominently displayed on the floor.

"It's rightful indignation," Representative Paul Tonko said about the Democratic sit-in and the positive reaction it was getting from supporters. "America has had enough."

When Republicans streamed to the exits hours earlier, Democrats stayed behind on the House floor, shouting "No bill, no break!" and waving papers with the names of gun victims written in black.

With a crowd cheering them on from outside the Capitol and many more following the theatrics on social media, Democrats declared success in dramatising the argument for action to stem gun violence.

"Just because they cut and run in the dark of night, just because they have left doesn't mean we are taking no for an answer," said Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans fiercely resisted the pressure and said Democrats had accomplished nothing other than disrupting the business of the House to score political points.

Mr Lewis, who had participated in the civil rights sit-ins in the South in the 1960s, said Democrats had "crossed one bridge". He added, "We have other bridges to cross," and said Democrats "made a down payment on ending gun violence" in America.

At one point overnight, the two sides nearly came to blows after Representative Louie Gohmert approached the Democrats and yelled, "Radical Islam!" Representative Corrine Brown started yelling back. The two came within inches of each other, both screaming, only to be separated by colleagues.

Pressure had built on Capitol Hill following the shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando this month that killed 49 people and injured 53 others. The assailant also died. The mass attack followed similar tragic incidents over the past years including the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

The agitation for action caused a Senate filibuster last week and led to the chaos in the House, a spectacle that captured the attention of a Washington gridlocked on guns.

House Republicans used their prerogatives as the majority party to muscle through, with no time for debate, a partisan bill that provides money for the Zika crisis. Republican politicians overruled Democrats' objections and then acted to adjourn the House into next month. Democrats cried "Shame, Shame!"

Republicans shut off the cameras in the House gallery throughout most of the protest, but Democrats used their mobile phones to capture the action. C-SPAN carried the feeds live via Periscope and Facebook, in an unprecedented move.

Mr Ryan said the gun bills pushed by Democrats, to expand background checks and keep people on the no-fly list from getting guns, would take away people's constitutional rights and deprive them of due process. He noted that the Senate this week rejected similar legislation.

The protest began on Wednesday, unfolding on the House floor with little advance warning from the Democrats. Most of the 188 Democrats took turns speaking, joined by dozens of Senate Democrats.

Scattered around the House floor were signs reading "Disarm Hate".

The sit-in, with Mr Lewis playing a leading role, had the look of a 1960s-style protest. Some politicians sat on the floor; others were in their seats.

Republicans staged a similar protest in 2008. Democrats controlling the House at the time turned off the cameras amid a Republican push for a vote to expand oil and gas drilling.

Republicans occupied the floor, delivering speech after speech after Ms Pelosi, then the House speaker, sent politicians bolting to their August recess. Ms Pelosi at that time had ordered the cameras turned off.

C-SPAN, a cable and satellite network that provides continual coverage of House and Senate floor proceedings, does not control the cameras. They are run on authorisation by legislative leaders.
Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre compelx where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

A masked man has been shot dead after entering a cinema in south-west Germany with a weapon and taking several hostages.

No one else was injured in the incident in which the armed man entered the Kinopolis movie theatre in the early afternoon in the town of Viernheim and apparently fired a gun.

Police shot the suspect dead about three hours later, Hesse interior minister Peter Beuth said.

"We believe that there were no injured people, and that the people who were in the cinema with the perpetrator could be freed uninjured," he said.

Expand Close Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Heavily-armed police stand outside a movie theatre where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

A police spokeswoman at the scene, Christiane Kompus, told The Associated Press that she had no information on the assailant's identity and motives.

She said the man had been holding several hostages, but did not have a precise number.

Mr Beuth said it was not clear whether the weapon was real. He told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden that the man was masked and that apparently four shots were fired.

Mr Beuth said the man had given a confused impression, news agency dpa reported.

Expand Close Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Heavily-armed police outside a movie theatre complex where an armed man has reportedly opened fire on June 23, 2016 in Viernheim, Germany. According to initial media reports, the man entered the cinema today at approximately 3pm, fired a shot in the air and barricaded himself inside. (Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker's identity.
Irish fans have taken over Lille city centre and they are having a huge party.

Supporters made their way back into the city from the Stade Pierre-Mauroy and they congregated around the Tir na nOg bar on Place Philippe Lebon.

Although most of the pubs have stopped serving booze the fans are still having a boisterous sing-song.

A chorus of 'There's only one Robbie Brady' followed by 'We're gonna beat the French' could be heard booming out through the square.

Around 2,000 people have gathered and they seem determined to keep the party going all night.

Earlier neighbours on the square pleaded with fans not to urinate or vomit on their homes.

Expand Close Sign on door in Lille urging Irish fans not to pee or vomit on the home / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sign on door in Lille urging Irish fans not to pee or vomit on the home

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The local authority did no permit bar owner Alan Sheehan to install portaloos in the area - forcing desperate fans to relieve themselves "wherever they can".

Now desperate locals have pleaded with supporters to be more conscientious.

One local posted a sign on their door reading: "Don't pi [sic] or vomit anymore on that door on that house, Thanks."

Tonight a bin truck attempted to drive through the crowd - sparking a chorus of 'Clean up for the boys in green'. A number of fans then began clearing up their empty bottles and rubbish.

Later a fire engine ran the same gauntlet with fans singing 'Shane Long's on fire'.

Not to be outdone by their fans the Irish team are also having a bit of a singsong tonight. The FAI tweeted a video of the team singing 'Come on you boys in green' on the bus as they made their way back to Versailles.
The recorders were extensively damaged when the plane travelling from Paris to Cairo plunged into the ocean in May

Initial attempts to download information from the flight data and voice recorders of an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month have been unsuccessful, a US official said.

The recorders are being flown to the offices of the French aviation accident investigation bureau near Paris, which has better equipment for extracting the information than is available in Egypt, the official said.

The recorders, also known as black boxes, were extensively damaged when EgyptAir Flight 804 travelling from Paris to Cairo plunged into the sea on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

French and US investigators have overseen the effort to extract information from the recorders. The recorders are made by Honeywell, a US company. The plane, an Airbus A320, is made by an aircraft maker based in France.

The black box memory units typically provide investigators with critical data, including the pilots' conversations, details about how the plane's engines, navigation systems, and auto-pilot were working, and even information about smoke alarms.

The pilots made no distress call before the crash, and no group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft.

AP
Two ambulances enter the airport to pick up two workers from the US South Pole Amundsen-Scott in Punta Arenas, Chile (AP)

A plane carrying two sick US workers has arrived safely in Chile after a daring rescue mission to a remote South Pole research station.

Following a stop for a few hours at a British station on the edge of Antarctica, the two workers were flown to the southernmost Chilean city of Punta Arenas, the National Science Foundation said.

In a hectic two days of flying, the rescue team flew a 3,000-mile round trip from the British station Rothera to pick up the workers at the US Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole.

They arrived back at Rothera on Wednesday afternoon, said Peter West, spokesman for the foundation, which runs the US station. Then the two workers then boarded a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane that took off for Punta Arenas.

"From Punta Arenas, the two patients aboard will be transported to a medical facility that can provide a level of care that is not available at Amundsen-Scott," the National Science Foundation said.

The National Science Foundation has not identified the sick workers or their conditions, citing medical privacy. They both work for contractor Lockheed Martin.

At Rothera, the temperature was a balmy minus 2.5C on Wednesday afternoon - which is toasty compared to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole where it was minus 60C in the morning.

Before they left, there were 48 people - 39 men and nine women - at the station for the winter.

Normally planes do not go to the polar outpost from February to October because of the dangers of flying in the pitch-dark and cold.

The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday - meaning the sun will not rise at the South Pole until the first day of spring in September.

Steve Barnet, who works with a University of Wisconsin astronomy team at the polar station but is in the US now, lauded the rescue crew.

He said: "The courage of the pilots to make the flight in extremely harsh conditions is incredible and inspiring."

The extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which needs to be warmed before take-off, as well as batteries and hydraulics, according to Mr West. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus 75C, he said.

"The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard," said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey.

"If you are complacent it will bite you."

There have been three emergency evacuations from the Amundsen-Scott station since 1999. The station has a doctor, a physician's assistant and is connected to doctors in the US for consultations - but sometimes workers need medical care that cannot be provided at the South Pole.

The 1999 flight, which was carried out in Antarctic spring with slightly better conditions, rescued the station's doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who had breast cancer and had been treating herself. Further rescues took place in 2001 and 2003, both for gallbladder problems.

Scientists have had a station at the South Pole since 1956. It is involved in astronomy, physics and environmental research, with telescopes, seismographs and instruments to monitor the atmosphere. The foundation runs two other research stations in Antarctica.
A North Korean man and woman walk under a mural with a message which reads "Long live the great victory of the army-first policy" (AP)

The UN Security Council has held an emergency meeting on North Korea's test-firing of two ballistic missiles, with US Ambassador Samantha Power calling for "urgent and united condemnation".

The US and Japan, after consulting with South Korea, requested a closed-door briefing from the UN Secretariat on the North's reported firing of the two mid-range missiles.

One flew about 620 miles high, after five failed launches in recent months.

Ms Power told reporters North Korea's repeated defiance of international law "underscores how important it is for us to come together to ensure consequences for this inherently destabilising behaviour, and this inherent and consistent and repeated threat to international peace and security".

The Security Council, which has imposed five rounds of sanctions on the North, strongly condemned three previous missile launches on June 1, calling them "a grave violation" of a ban on all ballistic missile activity that contributed to the country's nuclear weapons programme.

The latest sanctions imposed by the council on March 2 were the toughest on North Korea in two decades, reflecting growing anger at what Pyongyang claims was its first hydrogen bomb test on January 6 and a subsequent rocket launch in defiance of a ban on all nuclear-related activity.

The sanctions include mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by land, sea or air; a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to Pyongyang; and the expulsion of diplomats from the North who engage in "illicit activities".

Ms Power said united condemnation from the UN's most powerful body is a first step "but we're again looking to ensure accountability - looking to identify again individuals, entities who may be responsible for this repeated series of tests that pose such a threat to international peace and security".

Those individuals and entities would be added to the sanctions blacklist.

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the launch "a brazen and irresponsible act," and "a deliberate and very grave violation of its international obligations".

AP
Syrian refugees gather for water at the Rukban refugee camp in Jordan's north-east border with Syria (AP)

Syrian refugees stranded in the desert along the border with Jordan have lined up for water, two days after Jordan sealed off their two encampments in response to a deadly attack on its troops in the area.

The water was delivered to the border area by a 32-truck convoy, the first confirmed shipment since Jordan denied access to aid groups following Tuesday's cross-border suicide car bombing, said an international aid official.

Mobile phone photos from Ruqban, the larger of two camps, showed scores of refugees waiting to fill up plastic containers with water. Syrian children held up signs giving thanks to Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The two tent camps house about 64,000 Syrians who fled a five-year-old civil war and are waiting to be admitted to Jordan. Many have been stranded in the desert for months.

Before the border closure, the refugees received food and water from Jordan-based international aid agencies. Refugees would climb over an earthen mound, or berm, that roughly delineates the border, and pick up supplies on the Jordanian side. Earlier this month, aid groups said Jordan agreed to expand the distributions on its soil, near the berm.

Such plans were frozen after Tuesday's attack killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14. There has been no claim of responsibility, but Jordan says it has evidence of a significant presence of the extremist Islamic State group in the camps.

Jordan has sealed the border area and signaled that aid groups will have to find alternatives to sending supplies from Jordan.

"It's a closed area," said government spokesman Mohammed Momani. "Yet it does not mean that international organisations cannot find different ways and means to get aid to the people there."

AP
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S.C. Chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers meet June 25

The South Carolina Chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers will meet on June 25, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at North Anderson Baptist Church, 2308 N. Main St., Anderson. The meeting is free and visitors are welcome.

The meeting consists of a speaker who leads a free class, and a manuscript critique session for members. Visitors can submit a piece for critique who have attended at least one critique session. Submissions must follow the critique and format guidelines listed on the chapter blog at http://www.scwritersacfw.com, including double spacing, numbered lines, pages stapled together and five copies with title and author name and email at top. Up to 1,200 words can be critiqued of fiction or nonfiction, but not poetry. All visitors are welcome to sit in the critique sessions and offer feedback.

Elva Cobb Martin will lead a class on "My Journey to a Novel Book Contract  Five Important Steps." Many writers are not aware of critical milestones that can lead to a fiction book contract. Neither do they understand the length of time it takes to research, write and polish a manuscript that will catch the eye of an editor or agent. This class will help aspiring authors gain knowledge and skills that can catapult them on a fast track to publication.

Martin is president of the South Carolina Chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers. She is a former schoolteacher and a graduate of Anderson University and Erskine College. Decision, Charisma, and Home Life have published her articles. She has published a Bible study, Power Over Satan, available on Amazon.com. Her first inspirational romance novel, Summer of Deception, is under contract with Prism Book Group for a 2017 release. She has also recently signed a second contract with Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas for an historical romance, In a Pirate's Debt. Elva is represented by Jim Hart of Hartline Literary. A mother and grandmother, Elva lives with her husband Dwayne in Anderson.

Writers and readers can connect with her on her website www.elvamartin.com, her blog http://carolinaromancewithelvamartin.blogspot.com on Twitter www.twitter.com/Elvacobbmartin, Facebook http://www.facebook.com/elvacobbmartin, and Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/elvacobbmartin/

Visitors to the meeting are encouraged to come early, especially if they bring a critique piece to be registered, and to park on the side of the church with the long handicap ramp behind the small white house which is the church office. Come in the double glass doors at the ramp, take the elevator to the second floor and go left down the hall to a class room. To learn more about the premier national organization for Christian writers, how to join, and what the benefits are, check out www.acfw.com. For more information about the meeting, contact Elva Cobb Martin, at elvacmartin@gmail.com or 864.226.7024.
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As part of the OCPL's summer reading program, the Oconee County Public Library is setting aside a week for people to stop by and show their support of our everyday military heroes by writing a letter, drawing or coloring a picture that will be collected and sent to troops.

Writing a letter is a meaningful way for Americans to show support for our military. Something that only takes a few minutes can have a lasting impact on a soldier who is away from home. A few friendly words can bring hope, encouragement and reminders of home while they are away for months.

Those who wish to participate in Operation Gratitude may stop by any branch of the OCPL anytime the libraries are open June 29 through July 1 to write your own letter. Everything you need will be supplied. Those who cannot attend the event may drop off letters, pictures and cards (no sealed envelopes, please) to any branch any time before July 3.

"Thank you to everyone who helped us collect 76 letters during our one day event last year!"

For more information, contact Leah Price at the Westminster Library at 864.364.5760.
SHARE Katherine Bates (left) and Cody Durham dance during The City of Anderson & 24 Hour Musical Inc. presentation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at Carolina Wren Park in Downtown Anderson. Josh Barnes (left) and Lena Bledsoe dance during a rehearsal for The City of Anderson & 24 Hour Musical, Inc. presentation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at Carolina Wren Park in Downtown Anderson. The City of Anderson & 24 Hour Musical, Inc. presentation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at Carolina Wren Park in Downtown Anderson. Jessie Davis (left) and Graham Poore act a scene in The City of Anderson & 24 Hour Musical, Inc. presentation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" at Carolina Wren Park in Downtown Anderson.

By Jake Grove of the Independent Mail

Dr. David Larson, Dean of the South Carolina School for the Arts and professor of theatre at Anderson University, has always been enamored with the idea of Shakespeare in the Park. The only thing was, he didn't have a proper venue to display such a passion.

Enter the Carolina Wren Park three years ago and Larson's mind started churning with possibilities.

"The Shakespeare in the Park name is recognizable and has been going on since the late '60s," Larson said. "And Greenville does it as well. We wanted to do something with great quality in a great venue and we have all that now."

The second annual Shakespeare in the Park performance is presented by Larson and producer Diane Lee and sponsored by the City of Anderson. It's smack in the middle of the Anderson Theatre Festival that has brought together 10 community theater organizations for a three-month festival of the performing arts. And, it's all free starting Friday and continuing through Monday.

Last year was a performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" set in the 1960s. This year, they travel further back in time for Shakespeare's comedy "Much Ado About Nothing," but not as far as The Bard's own time.

"We set this right after World War II," Larson said. "It's a period that people recognize and that allows them to really get into it. We have big band music, uniforms, cars and wonderful sets to match the great production."

Shakespeare in the Park is a tradition throughout the United States. It started in New York in the late 1960s and has continued in communities throughout the United States and all over the world for nearly 50 years. But it took the building of Carolina Wren Park to get a production to the Electric City and based on the popularity of the first one last year, it might not ever leave.

The allure of Shakespeare in the Park, according to Larson and Lee, is the interaction of actor and audience throughout the play. The action all takes place outside at Wren Park and is done much in the same way it would have been in Shakespeare's time. With Larson's direction, he wants his players to interact with the audience as much as possible. It's a challenge for the actors, while the audience gets into it from the start.

"The audience is, literally, part of the play," Larson said. "The biggest challenge we have is getting the actors comfortable with interacting with the audience. And once they do, it takes only seconds for the audience to get into being a part of the play."

If you've walked by Wren Park at all in the last couple weeks, you have likely seen something going on with the play. Lee and Larson have been hauling over set pieces like giant, aluminum palm trees and more for dress rehearsals each evening for the last two weeks. And the actors have been battling heat and exhaustion to ensure a great play.

As for the choice of "Much Ado About Nothing," it was one that seemed perfect to Larson. He said the play has everything from slapstick comedy and risque topics to intense drama, mistaken identity and betrayal. All the plot points are there and it's done without having to sit through six hours of Shakespeare.

"We cut it down a lot and make it much more approachable," Larson said. "We couldn't do the entire play if we wanted to. But we can do something like this."

Shakespeare in the Park is a free performance put on by the City of Anderson. Audiences are encouraged to bring coolers of food and drink or just stop by one of the downtown restaurants and bring some picnic food from there to Wren Park for the show. There is no alcohol allowed and there will not be concessions served.

As for chairs, if you want to sit close, bring a blanket instead. No chairs will be allowed in the very front. But after that, chairs are allowed and can be set up.

The performance will start at 8 p.m. Friday through Monday at Carolina Wren Park. This is a change from last year's 7:30 p.m. start time when the actors and audience were getting a little warm for comfort.

"The lighting will be amazing at that time and we will have great supplemental lights as well to add to the ambience," Lee said.

Larson and Lee were both astounded by the success of last year's Shakespeare in the Park performance and look to grow from that for this year. And it's Shakespeare the way Shakespeare was meant to be seen.

"It's outside, it's a social celebration and you get to enjoy the space with something really fun," Larson said. "What more could you ask for from the theatre?"
SHARE Neil Casey Morihiko Nakahara

By Frances Parrish of the Independent Mail

The Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium recently hired two guest conductors to lead this year's upcoming chamber orchestra performances.

For this season, Morihiko Nakahara and Neil Casey will take the place of longtime conductor Alex Spainhour, who retired in May.

The two will stay in Anderson for a week each  one in October and one in February  to promote and conduct two concerts in the Masterworks Series for the 2016-17 performance season.

"We're really excited about the next season for GAMAC," said GAMAC Director Dana Gencarelli. "It's new for us, but we're still honoring the tradition of great music."

The GAMAC Chamber Orchestra is made up of professional musicians in the Anderson and surrounding area. GAMAC also offers opportunities through four other ensembles for youth and community members.

Nakahara has served as the music director of the South Carolina Philharmonic since 2008. He has also spent 14 years conducting the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, as well as collaborating with artists  such as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and Chris Botti  across a variety of musical genres.

Casey serves as assistant director of orchestras a the University of South Carolina. He has also worked with the Savannah Symphony, the Knoxville Symphony, the Newberry Festival Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony, the Oregon Symphony and the Karelian State Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia.

Nakahara will direct the concert "Oktoberfest" in October. The concert will include popular classical music, such as J.S. Bach's "Keyboard Concerto in D Minor."

Casey will conduct "Spanish Sketches" in February. The concert will involve a classical guitar group from Georgia.

"They will give us new faces to see, new ideas and new concepts," Gencarelli said about the guest conductors. "It's a big deal they're coming to Anderson."

Besides directing the concerts, the conductors will also visit Anderson University and some local schools. Through the concert series and promotion in schools and other civic groups, Gencarelli said she hopes to draw more people into the music scene.

"Both of them are younger conductors and really big on doing a blend of typical classical music and newer music on the scene," Gencarelli said. "Classical music has a reputation for being stuffy, and we are trying to appeal to Generation X."

Violist Kay Gilbert, who has performed with GAMAC Chamber Orchestra for 25 years, is excited about the opportunity to work with different conductors.

"It's a really good idea," Gilbert said. "We will get new ideas and interpretations, which is good."

Follow Frances Parrish on Twitter @frances_AIM
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By Ron Barnett, USA TODAY NETWORK rbarnett@greenvillenews.com

PICKENS  Two psychiatrists and a psychologist testified Wednesday that Suzanna Simpson was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong when she killed her two young children and shot her husband in the head three years ago.

The three expert witnesses described a severely disturbed woman who believed her neighbor was the devil, that God spoke to her through a red light on her phone, and that her family wanted her to kill them and herself so they could all be together in a place somewhere between heaven and earth, to return after the evil that had turned the world into hell on earth was gone.

The defense in the case of the Dacusville woman rested its case after bringing forward the three forensic psychology experts, all of whom had interviewed Simpson for hours and studied her voluminous psychiatric records.

At the conclusion of the third day of the trial at the Pickens County courthouse, 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins told Judge Brian Gibbons that he wanted to bring in a witness Thursday as rebuttal to the three experts  the psychiatrist who had been treating Simpson at the time of the May 2013 shootings.

Public Defender John Mauldin objected, stunning the courtroom by alleging that the State Law Enforcement Division had illegally obtained some of Simpson's medical records without her consent.

"This is an illegal act," Mauldin told the judge outside the presence of the jury. "This calls for a criminal penalty. And this is SLED doing this."

Wilkins argued that the defense had opened the door to testimony from her psychiatrist, Dr. Jeff Smith, by allowing their expert witnesses to review his records.

He told the judge he expects Smith to testify that within 48 hours of shooting of her family the cloud of delusion she was living under had lifted significantly, leading him to believe it was a drug-induced psychosis brought on by overuse of the stimulant Adderall, which was prescribed for attention deficit disorder.

The judge said the legal issues surrounding whether Smith could testify had never been addressed in South Carolina court and he would study the matter and decide at the beginning of Thursday's proceedings.

The case is expected to go to the jury Thursday afternoon.

The jury  which, including two alternates, is comprised of three men and 11 women  will be asked to decide whether Simpson is guilty, not guilty, guilty but mentally ill, or not guilty by reason of insanity. She is charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder and use of a gun during a violent crime.

She has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her 7-year-old daughter, Carly, and 5-year-old son, Sawyer, were found dead in their beds, and their father, Michael, was critically injured after being shot in the head.

Wednesday's proceedings began with testimony from Michael Wade, a paramedic with Pickens County EMS who was dispatched to the scene where Simpson had crashed her truck near her home on the morning of the shootings.

He said her only complaint was that her back hurt. Since she was wearing pajamas and had run into a ditch after driving her truck through the front yard of a home across the street from hers, he felt a need to question her further, he said.

"She just didn't want to talk to me," he said.

After he explained that she would be subjected to a variety of unpleasant tests at the hospital if she didn't tell him what had happened, "She blurted out, OK, OK, I shot my family," he said.

"She was very confused. She was crying. She didn't understand what was going on," he said.

"She said that she was told to shoot her family, that the family told her to shoot them," he said. "She said, 'I didn't do anything wrong. I did what my family told me to do.'"

The three expert witnesses for the defense each told the jury about how Simpson began to suffer mental illness when she was a student at Winthrop University.

Leonard Mulbry, a forensic psychiatrist from Charleston, said he diagnosed her with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.

All three of the experts came up with the same diagnosis, independently, they said.

She began suffering from depression in college, and the condition improved after her family doctor prescribed antidepressants, Mulbry said.

Her mental health worsened with a bout of severe postpartum depression after her first pregnancy in 2006, he testified. Nine months later, she had a miscarriage and suffered a much more severe depression, he said.

"That's when family and friends recognized there was something more serious going on," he said.

Her first episode of schizophrenia happened in 2010, during a procedure at a dentist's office, he said.

"She was quite sure that something terrible had happened to her," he said.

Dr. Richard Frierson, a professor of psychiatry at the University of South Carolina, testified that she believed the dentist had implanted a device in her filling to enable him to spy on her.

Frierson, who said he has done over 1,000 evaluations of people to determine whether they are criminally responsible, said 98-99 percent of the time, he determines that they are able to distinguish between right and wrong. Her case was among the 1-2 percent that he believes fall into the category of not being responsible for their actions.

Wilkins pressed Frierson on why her husband and other family members didn't know about many of her more bizarre delusions, which she didn't tell anyone about until after the incident.

"She told me she never wanted to tell her husband about her paranoid thoughts because she didn't want to worry him," Frierson testified.

She was also afraid that he would "have her locked up" in a mental hospital and leave her if she revealed her thoughts, the doctor said.

Under questioning about Simpson's Adderall use, Frierson said she admitted she took more than was prescribed occasionally, but he didn't believe there were any signs of abuse.

She now understands what she did and feels remorse, but she will need treatment for her mental condition for the rest of her life, he said.

Dr. David Price, a Greenville forensic psychologist also testified that Simpson was suffering from delusions that drove on the night of the incident.

"I felt that she was not able to distinguish between right and wrong  moral right and wrong and legal right and wrong  on that night," he said.
Laurene Marie Dorn

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By Coverage Partner Wspa

Actress Kelly McGillis, best known for her role in the movie Top Gun, was attacked in her North Carolina home on Saturday, according to authorities.

Henderson County sheriff's deputies say she came home to find Laurene Marie Dorn in her home.

McGillis was able to flee after a struggle and call 911.

McGillis wrote about the incident on her Facebook page: "I thank you all for your warm thoughts and love. I'm still a bit shook up and struggling with some residual fear. I do have an alarm. I was complacent and didn't set it after living here four years and having nothing happen. My bad."

McGillis went on to say that the suspect broke in through a garage window and then threw dog food all over her kitchen floor to distract here three dogs.

"I have decided to get a conceal and carry permit," McGillis wrote. "And you can be sure I will be setting the alarm from here on out."
Hollywood beauty and Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto is currently on cloud 9 as she will be honoured with International Icon award at the 17th edition of the gala. She will be making her debut at the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) gala in Madrid.

The renowned IIFA awards are known as Bollywood's Oscars and it is held every year to honour the best of Hindi cinema. Sources say that, Freida will be getting the honour for her recognition that she has niched of her own in world cinema through movie like 'Slumdog Millionaire', 'Miral', 'Day of the Falcon', 'Immortals', 'Desert Dancer' and 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'. She has also been part of social cause like Girl Rising` campaign or to solve the issue of gender disparity in Hollywood.

A close source revealed that, after attending the awards ceremony on Sunday, Freida will be flying off to Monrovia (capital of Liberia) where she will be joining the First Lady of the US Michelle Obama for Let Girls Learn - a government initiative aimed at helping girls obtain quality education.
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Its quite surprising that sage Ved Vyasa, when he lived, knew the earth was going to be a horrible place to live in in the coming 5,000 years. He had already predicted that men would slit throats for cash, fraud godmen would take over and the lifespan would be limited to just 50.

In Srimad Bhagavatam, Vyasa had predicted the grim situations that would take place in Kaliyug. And he is bang on...

1. In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a mans good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of ones power. - Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.2

Image Credit: indiadivine

Its all about money today. The above-mentioned prediction is the foundation of almost every Bollywood potboiler that has a wealthy villain and a righteous hero who fights social injustice.

2. Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to ones expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brahmana just by his wearing a thread. - Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.3

Image Credit: bluejayblog.wordpress.com

Today, relationships are getting complicated day by day. In the age of Tinder, we only swipe right if we find someone attractive on the basis of their looks. Sex has become integral and a Brahman never really follows the rules of the sect.

3. As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.- Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.7

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Isnt this true with whats happening in the country today? We are a country, where population has reached its peak. Narendra Modi emerged as a winner with his strong political campaign and is now ruling the country.

4. The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety. -Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.10

Image Credit: inhabitat

Climate is a serious concern today. With no rains, even in the month of June, farmers are suffering losses and people are dying of drastic climate change.

5. Men will no longer protect their elderly parents. - Srimad Bhagavatam 12.3.42

Image Credit: lowrider

What was predicted long ago is happening today. The cases of people throwing their parents into elderly homes is growing day by day. Old people are considered a burden and they are not respected anymore. Its a sad fact that their own blood detest them and send them to old age homes where they pass away, all the while remembering how much they struggled in these unfortunate days.

6. Cities will be dominated by thieves, the Vedas will be contaminated by speculative interpretations of atheists, political leaders will virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectuals will be devotees of their bellies and genitals.  Srimad Bhagvatam 12.3.32

Image Credit: presscore

Illegal construction is all around and builders are the new thugs. Concrete jungles are being made by destroying trees. Fraud priests and godmen are looting people in the name of religion. Political leaders are eating up all the national income and corruption is choking the world everywhere.

7. Servants will abandon a master who has lost his wealth, even if that master is a saintly person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant, even if that servant has been in the family for generations.  12.3.36

Image Credit: thedesigninspiration.com

We dont respect our maids today. Somewhere, even they hate us but cant really do anything about it. There is no loyalty between both the parties and it all depends on how much money the master is offering and how much work is getting done in a lesser amount.

8. In Kali-yuga men will develop hatred for each other even over a few coins. Giving up all friendly relations, they will be ready to lose their own lives and kill even their own relatives. -Srimad Bhagavatam 12.3.41

Image Credit: deviantart

People are killing each other over land. Be it brothers or relatives, there is no understanding over property matters. Pending cases in courts and no understanding between two parties lead to animosity that ends up in murders.

9. Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicants dress. Those who know nothing about religion will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles. -Srimad Bhagavatam 12.3.38

Image Credit: artid

It was already predicted that there would be an Asaram bapu and Nithyananda Swami in Kaliyug, fooling innocent devotees and making indecent amount of money in the name of religion.

10. The maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali Yuga will become 50 years. -Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.11

Image Credit: huffingtonpost

People are dying even before 50! Health is majorly ignored as fast paced lifestyles are making everybody unhealthy, reducing the average human life span.

11. Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali. -Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.1

Image Credit: deviantart

Every virtue mentioned above is steadily diminishing in todays world. Humanity is a thing of the past and all we can see is dangerous competition, which is making us greedy but leading us nowhere.
The lead actress of Sasural Simar Ka turned into a fly recently. Don't look for reasons. It was all because of a shraap!

A gorilla fell in love with the main lead of Thapki Pyarki too!

indiatoday



Whether you like it or you not, such ridiculous plot twists bring major TRPs to these shows as compared to regular days. What's wrong with the current line-up of television shows? Nothing really. It's something that dates back to the times when Ekta Kapoor changed the perception of TV audience in India. Blame it on her, or the viewers who fell prey to things in the name of "creative liberty", but today the writers don't shy away from scripting almost anything under the sky. And the masses take that too!

Check out some of the most absurd stuff that we have seen on our TV screens, that make us laugh and cry at the same time!

1. Overtly-dressed saas-bahus .

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Be it in the kitchen, living-room, bathroom, bedroom, while sleeping, waking up, crying, laughing or anything they are doing, the one thing that stays intact is their nicely pinned sarees, matching jewellery (lots of it), dangerously designer bindis and perfect make-up. But which normal woman on Earth stays loaded and yet comfortable day in and day out like this? They don't believe in nightwear. They have never heard of pyjamas. The bangles don't come in the way while chopping vegetables too. Wonder how the costume and make-up department stays put for these shows.

2. Easy transformations of faces.

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If the makers of a show want to take another leap into its ninth generation, we don't blame if the actor prefers to take an excuse and leave the show. They have aged to the maximum of their calibre. Thus, comes easy replacements. And most of the times the God of plastic surgery comes to the rescue. He smiles and boom! The actor changes. The look changes. The height, voice, body-frame, personality everything changes too. Voila! You have a new plot with same old character but with a new face!

3. Immortal characters.

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Let's observe the chart backwards. A 20-year-old granddaughter. A 40 -year-old daughter. A 60-year-old mother. An 80-year-old grandmother. A 100-year-old great-grandmother... And when I'm at a loss of calculations to write about further generations, imagine how old was our immortal Baa? It seems age was just a number and death was never an issue for them. The show Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Th had some six-seven generations to say the least or were there more? *still counting*

4. Age-defying women.

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Even if the characters manage to survive for centuries, it's all sans wrinkles. Looks like they are experts at defying age. That's not all. They can control time, and hence their age too. Despite a generation leap, all that will change is one extra strand of grey hair. Rest remains untouched. If all the generations are seen in one frame, nobody will know who is the daughter and who is the granny!

5. Returning from the dead.

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As I said, death was never an issue. So all it required for a character to resurrect from the other world, was a green signal from the writers. And all this after the audience has cried buckets, written letters to the producers for killing the character and come to terms with the hard reality of their lives! Oh, Mihir Virani came back from a lethal accident and with just a memory loss!

6. No humans. Only superhumans.

thestorypedia

They not just return as humans, sometimes they also become animals, birds and even snakes! Going by the ratings of Naagin, it's makers were raked in a lot of moolah. No wonder a second season is in the pipeline. But is it justified to force-serve Indians with plots of black magics and superstitions, in a country which still lives on these things in its hinterlands? Isn't it strengthening the belief? That's a really long and deep debate.

7. Crazy looking vamps and their make-up.

Long bindis. Longer locks. A flowing saree. A snake-like walk. And plotting against the main leads. That's our vamps for you. Considering it's all about women power on the television, they have taken this bit way too far. The Komoli--KKAAAA and her coloured lenses added to the antagonist's stature. Looks like there is just one formula. The more evil they are, the heavier their make-up gets. Don't miss their noodle-strap blouses! LIKKAAAA!!

8. Confused romances.

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Actor and actress fall in love and they get married. Then they get divorced. Then the hero marries his ex-wife's sister. Then they get married and divorced. He falls in love with his wife again! Looks like our main leads have no stability in life. Total confusion!

9. On the loop.

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Slap! Slap! Slap! If you thought extreme dramatisations were giving you nightmares, the recurring loops of such reaction shots can only make your life worse. So you'll find enough loud gasps, reverberating slaps and the "Nahiiiiiii. Yeh shadi nahi ho sakti". Sorry folks!

10. The world of humshakals .

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They say we have seven doppelgangers in the entire world. But in the world of Indian television, you'll find 2-3 on the same show. Here, almost everyone has a look-alike. And writers use it to the hilt. They kill one. Kidnap the other. And replace the first one with a third! Forget the concept of "kumbh ka mela". This is modern day crap!

11. Falling of aarti ki thaali .

dailyburps

Or similar stuff like going out of the mandir ka diya, splashing of milk, loud thunders, cat meow et al. Even if you don't believe in superstitions, it will force you to. After all, they are the perfect signals to anything bad, or worse. Arrr, what can be worse than such plots?

12. Extreme tolerance.

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Do as much bad as you can, but our actress will never complain. She will shed some tears when alone, but become an epitome of sacrifice in front of others. All this even if her husband is sleeping around with someone else, her saas is accusing her of theft, her in-laws aren't letting her meet her parents or she gets to know the secret behind the eloped sister. No matter whatever shit comes to her, she will maintain her Gandhian philosophy. If slapped, she will offer her other cheek too. Get a life woman! Duh!

13. Over-populated households.

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Indian television shows encourage joint family culture. That's fine. But with seven generations living under the same roof, it's a perfect example of population explosion. The house needs to be so huge that you cannot walk around the entire building in one day. Plus it might even give you enough insecurity towards the lavish lifestyle these shows propagate. Remember the dialogue of Rajpal Yadav in Chup Chup Ke - "Yeh ghar hai? Isko zila kyun nahi ghoshit kar dete ho?" And then we blame lack of education for India's population!

Just one question - WHY?
Call it height of lethargy, but here is a case where 82 students have been failing in their Bachelor of Engineering exams in the past 12 to 15 attempts (over nine years) even as Gujarat University has been going an extra mile to help them out.

BCCL/representational image

The varsity has been uploading the question bank on their website for the students' benefit. Even the questions asked in the exam are strictly from this question bank, but the students, many of whom have jobs now, are just not able to clear the papers. The joke going around on GU campus is that these 82 students may not be able to crack the exams even if they were allowed to cheat.

So fed up is GU with the consistent failures that it has now warned the students that if they fail this time they will have to start the course afresh at Gujarat Technological University (GTU).

A GU official said, "Till GTU was formed in 2007 it was GU that conducted BE exams. However, even after GTU was set up, the varsity continued to conduct exam for students who were in the middle of their BE course. Gradually, most of their students cleared their backlog except these 82 'star performers'. And these are engineering students who are supposed to be bright."

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The official added, "It seems that while GU wants them to desperately clear the exams, these students are adamant they will not. We even put up a question bank on our website for them. The questions in the exam paper were asked from this question bank. Still, they have not been able to clear the backlog. What can we do?"

Laidback Attitude

Meanwhile, the 82 students are assigned LD College of Engineering as the centre where exams are being held till June 24. However, only some of these students are appearing for the exam while the rest are absent. Of these, many are seen leaving the hall after one-and-half hours while the exam duration is three hours.

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These 82 students are yet to clear multiple semesters. Eighteen students are yet to clear semester 1and 2; 26 students are stuck in semester 3; 22 in semester 4; 26 in semester 5; 29 in semester 6; 28 students in semester 7 and 27 in semester 8.

Of the 315 odd exams in different subjects, most of these students have been able to clear only 83.

One of the students said on condition of anonymity, "I landed myself a job in a bank based on my class 12 certificate. But I really want to complete computer engineering course. Unfortunately, I don't have the time now to prepare for the exam. I do feel embarrassed but there isn't much I can do about it."

Another student said, "It was easier to clear the papers when we were regular students. But now we are busy with job and life. It is very difficult to crack the exams. My dream of becoming an automobile engineer will remain unfulfilled."

Gu Increases Exam Fee

This year onwards, the students appearing for the exam have been asked to pay Rs 5,000 per paper as fee. GU thinks at least the fee amount should make them take the exams seriously. One of these 82 students, who has a backlog of eight papers, has paid up Rs 40,000 as exam fee.

GU Vice Chancellor M N Patel said, "We stopped conducting BE exam in 2012. However, many students have a backlog of exam papers from multiple semesters. We are making all efforts to ensure they clear the exam. We even put up the question bank on the website for them to help them prepare. But still they have not been able to get through."

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He added, "We have also issued a warning to these students. The next year onwards, they will not be allowed to take their exam. As per rule, one student cannot get more than two chances to clear the exam. But we have given them 15 chances now because we do not want to spoil their future."
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had always known to hate "everything western" in the push for their brand of nationalism, be it western clothes or western education.

PTI

But do they hate every westerners? Seems like not at least not any more.

According to a report in Daily O, the RSS top leadership including its chief chief Mohan Bhagwat and all-India joint secretary Dattatreya Hosabale are heading to UK next month.

The Agenda- to take the Hindu nationalist outfit to global stage

Among his other agenda Bhagwat has some high profile meetings lined up. According to reports he is scheduled to meet celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Richard Branson and Sir David Attenborough.

What do these men have in common with the RSS chief? Well, nothing on the surface level. But all these men have one thing in common-Vegetarians.

According to the report, RSS which is obsessed with beef-ban in India wants to use the likes of DiCaprio to add some star-power to their demand.

While RSS's beef-ban is linked to religion, DiCaprio, a naturalist has environmental reasons for being vegan.

AFP

DiCaprio who even spoke about the threats of climate change at the UN earlier this year had in 2015 produced Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, a documentary about the animal agriculture industrys practices.

According to the FAO livestock industry account for 32,564 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, a major element blamed for the climate change.

Reuters

Branson, who turned vegan in 2014 had written a blog on why he gave up his once favourite food - beef. The billionaire entrepreneur had last year announced a plan to launch a vegetarian airline.

With the support of such biggies, RSS hopes to get its beef-ban agenda a renewed push.
Fortis hospital in Shalimar Bagh on Wednesday sacked two orthopaedic surgeons, two nurses and an OT technician for operating on the wrong foot of a 24-year-old youth.

india today

Ravi Rai, the patient, had fractured his right foot when he slipped on a staircase. The doctors put multiple screws inside the left foot instead. Ravi's family said they even tried to brush it off initially as a mistake.

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He added that when Ravi came to his senses, he screamed about the wrong surgery and that's how the doctors realised their error.

The hospital issued a statement: "Following yesterday's incident, we immediately set up an expert committee to enquire into the matter. Their preliminary view suggests that in the rarest of aberrations, the operating team may have disregarded and sidestepped due processes. We take our obligation to our patients very seriously. As this is a zero tolerance area for us, the services of erring doctors and OR personnel (five) have been dispensed forthwith."

The statement further added that action against some others was also being contemplated, pending enquiry.

Ravi has been shifted to Max hospital in the same area where doctors have been cogitating over the next course of action.

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Dr Palash Gupta, associate director of joint replacement and orthopaedics at Max Shalimar Bagh told TOI that the screws would have to be removed from the undamaged heel first.

"If the angle of the weight-bearing region of the injured heel is found to be extensively damaged, we might have to do surgery to stabilise it but that's not been decided yet," he said.

BCCL

TOI spoke to many orthopaedic surgeons who said such negligence was unimaginable and reflective of poor observation of protocol for surgery.

"There are laid down rules for site marking in the ward and time out prior to surgery. The operating team reconfirms all details. Also, screws have to be fixed under X-ray. How could they operate on the heel that had no visible damage?" said a doctor.
Indian and UK scientists will soon release underwater robots in the Bay of Bengal to monitor how ocean conditions influence monsoon. This can soon give India better predictions of the rainfall. The Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment (BoBBLE) is led by two UK varsities, University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Reading in collaboration with the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton.

India Spending Rs 400 Crore On A Supercomputer To Predict Monsoon, Giving Dying Farmers A Ray Of Hope

UEA

Collaborators in India include the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS), the Indian National Centre for Climate Information Services (INCOIS), the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT).

UEA

Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M Rajeevan said the Indian Research Vessel Sindhu Sadhana carrying scientists will sail from Chennai on June 24.

"Once out in the ocean, they will release seven underwater gliders to measure ocean properties such as temperature, salinity and current," he said.

UEA

It is hoped that the combined results of this large-scale scientific campaign will help forecast the arrival of the Indian monsoon more accurately than ever before.

Forecasting the precise timing and location of the rains is vital to the regions economy, which is dominated by farming, and for managing its increasingly pressured water resources.

Lead researcher Prof Adrian Matthews, from UEAs School of Environmental Sciences, said "The Indian monsoon is notoriously hard to predict. It is a very complicated weather system and the processes are not understood or recorded in science.

IMD

"We will be combining oceanic and atmospheric measurements to monitor weather systems as they are generated. Nobody has ever made observations on this scale during the monsoon season itself so this is a truly ground-breaking project".

Matthews said, they are aiming for a better understanding of the actual physical processes. "What we have now are imperfect models for predicting monsoon rainfall when it hits land, so this will create better forecasts."

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He said they hope it will also help "to mitigate international disasters caused by extreme rainfall and flooding and better understand how the southern Asian monsoon affects the whole worlds climate."

Also Read: India Spending Rs 400 Crore On A Supercomputer To Predict Monsoon, Giving Dying Farmers A Ray Of Hope

Weather forecasting is serious business for India, which has seen successive crops fail due to poor rainfall. Unlike occasional scant rainfall, India's crop need the monsoons - it's the lifeblood for farmers in the country of 1.3 billion people. Because of India's size, one national forecast is of little help to farmers spread across diverse climatic zones.
Iyad El-Baghdadi, an Arab Spring activist who has been a number of times confused with Islamic State's notorious chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because of the resemblance in the name says he is getting mails from Indians on "how to join ISIS".

oslofreedomforum

"If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to?" he tweeted on Tuesday.

If I get emails from India-based accounts asking how to join ISIS, who in India do I report them to?  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 21, 2016

For which the Mumbai police said this.

@Kads_M Thank you for bringing it to our notice. We will look into it.  Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) June 21, 2016

He has however not revealed the names or number of people who approached him.

He later tweeted this.

The next time someone emails me to join ISIS, I'm saying yes and directing them here https://t.co/8nOEbOV59m @dendisuhubdy @neetakolhatkar  Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 23, 2016

Acting on it, the Mumbai police have launched probe into the matter.

"If he provides information to the Mumbai Police, state ATS or any law-enforcement agency in the country, it will be passed on to the right department and will be looked into," a senior ATS official said.

Baghdadi is a Palestine-born UAE citizen who has been living in Norway where he sought asylum.

This is not the first time Baghdadi is getting confused with the notorious terrorist leader.

Reuters

Once even Twitter mistook him for the other Baghdadi and suspended his account.

The development also comes amid Indian intelligence agencies stepping up surveillance on Indians showing interest on ISIS on social media and the internet.
US fighter jet maker Lockheed Martin today said it is ready to manufacture F-16 aircraft in India and supports the ongoing talks between the two countries to set up the first manufacturing facility, one of the largest projects under the 'Make in India' initiative.

BCCL

"We are ready to manufacture F-16 in India and support the Make in India initiative," Phil Shaw, chief executive of Lockheed Martin India Private Ltd told reporters at the Singapore Airshow 2016.

But the American corporation's executive did not commit any time-frame to have the plant operational, saying the group supports the ongoing government-to-government talks. Shaw expressed strong interest in having the F-16 made in India "soon" without elaborating on the time-frame, linking it to the progress of the government-to-government talks.

Currently, Lockheed Martin manufactures one jet a month from its plant in the US and has a series of contracts and joint ventures in India with over 1,000 employees. It has supplied six C130J Super Hercules planes to India in 2011 and will be delivering another six helicopters next year.

BCCL

Industry observers said Lockheed Martin's "wish to manufacture F-16 is based on the strong demand from the Indian armed forces and would want to lower the cost of the planes for exports by using the low-cost capability in India".

"Certainly, Lockheed Martin would want to exploit the engineering skill and low cost capabilities in India and make F-16 very competitive in the fighter jet markets," a well-informed source told PTI.

BCCL

"Both the US government and Lockheed Martin see the advantage of placing a manufacturing base in India and make F-16 affordable for emerging markets," the source said.

The making of F-16, which will be among the largest projects under the Make in India initiative, will be conditional to the Indian government making contractual commitment to buy the fighter jets for its armed forces, said the source.

BCCL

"Washington, in return, would ensure technology transfer to the Indian engineering sector and a huge boost to Indian exports," he said.

If the two government reach an agreement this year or 2017, putting aside all differences on the mega project and the US' move to supply eight F-16 to Pakistan, Lockheed Martin could roll out the first made in India jet in 2019-2020, said the source.

Lockheed Martin has already decided on India as its best option for low-cost and highly qualified engineering workforce, and the final go on this is dependent on approval from New Delhi and Washington.

BCCL

Even as controversy has erupted on the transfer of eight F 16s to Pakistan by the US, Delhi has been considering a proposal to manufacture the fighter jets under the 'Make in India' initiative. In several recent meetings, including a high-level interaction in November last year in Washington, the aircraft have been offered for local production - both to meet Indian requirements and for exports.

pop.h-cdn/Representative image

Besides the F/A 18 Super Hornet and the F 16IN Super Viper, the Indian government is considering at least two more proposals to make fighter jets in India. One offer on the table is from Sweden's SAAB to transfer the Gripen fighter line to India. Another is a proposal by Airbus to create a 'Eurofighter City' in India that would produce its Eurofighter jet and generate thousands of jobs.
Human Development and Research Center (HDRC), an NGO run by St Xavier's Non-Formal Education Society, got embroiled in a major controversy over a job advertisement of sanitation worker stating that candidates from unreserved, general category would be given preference for the post.

kontorskilte

On Wednesday, the notice invited ire from various social groups. While youths from outfits like Rajput Shaurya Foundation (RSF) and Yuva Shakti Sangathan (YSS) vented their anger vandalizing the NGO's premises, breaking window panes and pots over its "tactic to divide society", a Muslim outfit slapped a legal notice asking the agency to tender unconditional apology within seven days.

The controversial notice for the job stated that candidates from general category - Brahmin, Kshatriya, Bania, Patel, Jain, Saiyed, Pathan, Syrian Christian, Parsi - would get first preference for the job of cleaning of fice courtyard, bathroom and toilets. "The NGO must sack those responsible for the inflammatory act. Our agitation will not be peaceful on Gandhian way," said YSS president Ronaksinh Gohel.

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"It is a deliberate act by Christian missionaries to denigrate the status of Saiyad, considered direct descendants of the Prophet.They have hurt religious sentiment and incited communal hatred," Usman Qureishi, Sunni Awami Forum, stated in a legal notice slapped on HDRC.

Angry outburst forced HDRC office-bearers to call off the press briefing convened to to clear the air over the `misunderstanding' at the eleventh hour. Later, HDRC buckled under pressure from other NGOs and affiliated organizations and tendered an apology. There was and is no intention to hurt " sentiments of any religion, community or caste through the advertisement issued by us. We apologise if we have hurt anybody's sentiment. We will ensure this is not repeated in future," said an apology issued by HDRC secretary Jimmy Dabhi.

linkis

The clarification issued by Dabhi said that preference for candidates from certain castes aimed to bring social equality in the society. "The aim was to push further Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan with aim of `Sauno Vikas, Sauno Saath" by giving an opportunity to people of all communities and not to restrict the job for a particular community ," Dabhi said.

Govind Parmar, city-based advocate who is associated with HDRC, said that authorities of St Xavier's Autonomous College in premises of which the NGO functions instructed them to tender apology in the issue. HDRC director Prasad Chako did not remain present to comment on the issue. However, the rights activists from various organizations expressed solidarity with HDRC, thronged its premise and asserted that there was no offence in issuing such an advertisement. They maintained that threatening and ransacking the office premises was surely a criminal act.
A fatwa has been issued against actor Jimmy Shergill for starring in political drama 'Shorgul', which has also been banned in several cities of Uttar Pradesh, the film's makers said on Wednesday.

dekhnews

The makers are planning to approach UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to resolve issues regarding the ban in places like Muzaffarnagar, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Lucknow.

The fatwa has been issued by Khamman Peer Baba Committee to Jimmy and the makers, read a statement issued on behalf of the film producers. "The fatwa states that a seasoned actor like Jimmy has hurt the sentiments of the Muslim community," read the statement.

trendinfo

Earlier, a Chandigarh court has summoned filmmakers and actors of 'Shorgul', a romantic thriller loosely woven around the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, following a complaint by a Chandigarh-based novelist Vijay Soudai.

Also Read: Jimmy Shergill's 'Shorgul' Based On The Muzaffarnagar Riots Has Been Banned In Muzaffarnagar!
Nothing can be more heartbreaking than a parent losing his child. A father in China knows the pain as he crawls from one city to another in hopes of finding his missing son.

Differently-abled Chen Shengkuan's two-year-old son went missing 15 months ago while he was playing with his cousins. In a possible case of abduction, the kid was kidnapped from his home in Wenzhang Xi village and sold off to another family.

In China, children are often abducted by families desperate for a male heir to continue their family name forward.

CEN

Chen's been searching for his son ever since. Diagnosed with polio as a kid, Chen's been afflicted with a walking disability. But the distraught father's determination knows no limit. He is a father on a mission to find his son, even if it means crawling from city to city on his hands.

CEN

Chen carries photos of his son with him wherever he goes. He also carries a hand-written account of the incident, hoping for someone to help him narrow down his search.

CEN

A police complaint was filed with the police after the kid went missing in January last year. Chen, who worked at a catheter factory, left his job and with his wife, set out to search for his son himself.

CEN

His search took Chen to the Zhangjiang province which houses nearly 7 million residents. The father is currently in Guangdong, one of China's largest cities. While speaking to Yangcheng Evening News, he said, "No matter how hard or how much I have to suffer, I will never give up looking for my son."
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Sanders Supporters Need to Split or Get Off the Pot



Bernie Sanders is trying to figure out how to capitulate to Hillary Clinton and her corporatist masters next month, in Philadelphia. The Sandernistas  now minus their commandante  can either slither into Hillarys big corporate tent, or get down to the hard work of building an opposition, social democratic party that reflects the politics of around 40 percent of the U.S. public. The alternative is perpetual defeat inside the Democratic Party.



By Glen Ford A significant fraction of the 12 million will get down to the business of alternative party-building, recognizing that the rich rule through the mechanism of the duopoly electoral system. June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " BAR " - Things fall apart  messily. At a statewide gathering of Democrats in Long Beach, California, members of the partys Progressive Caucus hiss at the mere mention of Hillary Clintons name and cheer when a speaker (me) predicts that a new, social democratic party will emerge from the tumult of 2016. But Bernie Sanders, the umbilical cord that unites them, still binds these leftish dissidents to the Democratic Party. They wonder if he will capitulate to Clintons corporate juggernaut  refusing to comprehend that, for the Vermont senator, an exit from the duopoly was never an option. The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly, Sanders instructed his followers, last week, sounding very much defeated, himself. In Chicago, a Peoples Summit composed largely of Berniecrats and organized by the National Nurses United union, vowed to bring tens of thousands of protesters to crash next months Democratic National Convention, in Philadelphia. Many of the 3,000 summit-goers swear up and down they will never vote for Clinton. However, the main organizers hail from leftish organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America that have always folded into the Democratic Party on Election Day. Kai Newkirk, director of Democracy Spring, schooled activists in non-violent discipline to prepare them to run gauntlets of police at the convention site and surrounding streets. But, to the extent that these energies are expended on pressuring the Democratic National Committee to make platform promises that Hillary Clinton cannot possibly keep, they will end up punching air. They need a new party. At least half of Americans that vote for the Democratic Party in national elections are social democrats whose politics are incompatible with the Democratic Leadership Council corporatists. Sanders remarkable campaign allowed this progressive constituency  mainly the white ranks, and youth of all ethnicities  to see themselves as a potentially independent social force, as numerically significant as the white nationalists that gave Donald Trump his victory on the other side of the duopoly. Progressive Democrats claim, cockily, that Hillary cant win without us  and they are right. But, if they allow her to win, then they are not really progressives at all  just carping complainers whose bluffs can always be called by serious corporatists. Jill Stein, the presumptive candidate for the Green Party, was refused permission to address the Summit, thereby shutting the door to an actual voting choice for anti-corporatists. Sanders has never deigned to respond to Steins offer to share the ticket with him, in November. At least half of Americans that vote for the Democratic Party in national elections are social democrats whose politics are incompatible with the Democratic Leadership Council corporatists who have turned the party into, as Paul Street puts it, objectively, the truer and more fully explicit ruling class party in the country. Streets assessment sounds like another way of saying that the 2016 Democratic ticket, under Hillary Clinton, will be the more effective evil on the duopoly menu  certainly, in the sense that Clinton will, barring an indictment, win the election by a 1964-type landslide with the help of millions of erstwhile Republican voters and hundreds of millions of corporate campaign dollars in flight from Trump. Clinton is counting on them to make her leftish antagonists even less influential in party calculations. They want to be on the winning side, even if their presence is actual proof of abject defeat. The Sandernistas  now minus their commandante  can either slither into Hillarys big corporate tent, or get down to the hard work of building an opposition, social democratic party that reflects the politics of around 40 percent of the U.S. public. This includes the vast majority of Blacks, although older African Americans, especially in the South, will be the last major component of the Democratic base to leave the party. However, these leftist Democrats (yes, they are Democrats if they vote that way, no matter what they call themselves) have a fundamental problem: they want to be on the winning side, even if their presence is actual proof of abject defeat. Like most Americans, they have internalized the win-lose logic of the two-party system, and cannot imagine starting a third party from scratch, or building a small, existing party into a major contender. Yet, they submit to suffer unending defeat within the corporate bowels of the Democratic Party, cycle after cycle  and, somehow, imagine themselves to be heroic, in the effort. Any excuse to remain in the Party  like non-binding platform adjustments  suffices to delay the moment of truth. They preach the gospel of merging mass social action and electoral politics, but their failure to break with the Democrats puts their mass networks at the ultimate service of what has become the uber-corporate party. This election cycle, many will try to rationalize and ennoble their debasement in Philadelphia by joining an anti-fascist crusade against Trump  attempting to juxtapose a fools gold casino caricature of a fascist with the actually existing, real thing: Hillary Clinton, the personification of imperial mega-murder and domestic mass Black incarceration; the queen of international chaos and would-be warden of the worlds biggest gulag. Clearly, most progressives dont know what fascism looks like in the 21st century. Heres a clue: it listens to every communications device in the world, locks up more people, most of them non-white, than any other nation, and cackles We came, we saw, he died over the bodies of assassinated world leaders. They preach the gospel of merging mass social action and electoral politics, but their failure to break with the Democrats puts their mass networks at the ultimate service of what has become the uber-corporate party. When Donald Trump goes down to resounding defeat  primarily because he has done the world a favor by fracturing the Republican Party, thus throwing the corporate-dominated U.S. duopoly system into crisis  those progressives that have joined Hillarys faux anti-fascist contingent will count themselves on the side of the winners, and will return to their roles as socially useless appendages of the Democratic Party. Most Sanders supporters will follow their leader back to the reservation. But, I am certain that a significant fraction of the 12 million will get down to the business of alternative party-building, recognizing that the rich rule through the mechanism of the duopoly electoral system. In the real world, there will be a number of new party start-ups and rivalries that will be sorted out in the usual, messy manner, but the general social democratic project will appeal to those constituencies that are to the left of the corporate Democrats personified by the Clintons (and Obama, who is their political twin). These 40 percent or so of voters  aspiring social democrats, by American standards  make up the largest political grouping in the U.S. electoral spectrum. This bloc will loom even larger in relative size if Trumps white nationalists are able to maintain their own electoral vehicle in the wake of defeat in 2016, either as Republicans or outside the GOP. The Trump group probably represents about 30 percent of white America. Most progressives dont know what fascism looks like in the 21st century. As of May 31, Bernie Sanders raised $132 million in small, individual contributions, which made up 60 percent of his total fundraising. With one-twentieth of Sanders small donors ($6.6 million) and the active participation of the same proportion of his 12 million voters (600,000), a new, social democratic party would be off to a good start, and could be made self-sustaining for steady growth. The new social democrats, if they are wise, would dedicate much of their capital to organizing in Black America, the most left-leaning and, historically, politically volatile constituency in the nation, whose youth are in a state of divorce from the machinations of a Black Misleadership Class that is almost entirely Democrat. Independent Black politics will also bloom in sync with the weakening of the duopoly, specifically, the fracturing of the Democratic Party, which is hegemonic in Black America and a full partner with the Republicans in the maintenance of the Mass Black Incarceration State. The struggle is not against political candidates of the moment, or one or the other of the corporate parties. It is against the corporate duopoly, itself  the two faces of the capitalist ruling class. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Heres What We Want



My supporters and I want real change in this country.



By Bernie Sanders June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House" - " Washington Post " - As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, What does Bernie want? Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want. And the answer is: They want real change in this country, they want it now and they are prepared to take on the political cowardice and powerful special interests which have prevented that change from happening. They understand that the United States is the richest country in the history of the world, and that new technology and innovation make us wealthier every day. What they dont understand is why the middle class continues to decline, 47 million of us live in poverty and many Americans are forced to work two or three jobs just to cobble together the income they need to survive. What do we want? We want an economy that is not based on uncontrollable greed, monopolistic practices and illegal behavior. We want an economy that protects the human needs and dignity of all people  children, the elderly, the sick, working people and the poor. We want an economic and political system that works for all of us, not one in which almost all new wealth and power rests with a handful of billionaire families. The current campaign finance system is corrupt. Billionaires and powerful corporations are now, through super PACs, able to spend as much money as they want to buy elections and elect candidates who represent their interests, not the American people. Meanwhile, we have one of the lowest voter turnout rates of any major country on earth, and Republican governors are working overtime to suppress the vote and make it harder for poor people, people of color, seniors and young people to vote. What do we want? We want to overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections. We want universal voter registration, so that anyone 18 years of age or older who is eligible to vote is automatically registered. We want a vibrant democracy and a well-informed electorate that knows that its views can shape the future of the country. Our criminal justice system is broken. We have 2.2 million people rotting behind bars at an annual expense of $80 billion. Youth unemployment in a number of inner-cities and rural communities is 30 to 50 percent, and millions of young people have limited opportunities to participate in the productive economy. Failing schools all around the country produce more people who end up in jail than graduate college. Millions of Americans have police records as a result of marijuana possession, which should be decriminalized. And too many people are serving unnecessarily long mandatory minimum sentences. What do we want? We want a criminal justice system that addresses the causes of incarceration, not one that simply imprisons more people. We want to demilitarize local police departments, see local police departments reflect the diversity of the communities they serve and end private ownership of prisons and detention centers. We want to create the conditions that allow people who are released from prison to stay out. We want the best educated population on earth, not the most incarcerated population. The debate is over. Climate change is real. It is caused by human activity, and it already is causing devastating damage in our country and to the entire planet. If present trends continue, scientists tell us the planet will be 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of the century  which means more droughts, floods, extreme weather disturbances, rising sea levels and acidification of the oceans. This is a planetary crisis of extraordinary magnitude. What do we want? We want the United States to lead the world in pushing our energy system away from fossil fuel and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy. We want a tax on carbon, the end of fracking and massive investment in wind, solar, geothermal and other sustainable technologies. We want to leave this planet in a way that is healthy and habitable for future generations. What do we want? We want to end the rapid movement that we are currently experiencing toward oligarchic control of our economic and political life. As Lincoln put it at Gettysburg, we want a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That is what we want, and that is what we will continue fighting for.
US Bombing Syrian Troops Would Be Illegal



Secretary of State Kerry met with dissident State Department diplomats to hear their call for U.S. airstrikes on Syrian government troops, but the plan is both dangerous and illegal



By Marjorie Cohn June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - In an internal dissent channel cable, 51 State Department officers called for targeted military strikes against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a proposal that President Barack Obama has thus far resisted. However, were he to accept the cables advice, he would risk a dangerous  possibly catastrophic  confrontation with Russia. And, such a use of military force in Syria would violate U.S. and international law. While the cable decries the Russian and Iranian governments cynical and destabilizing deployment of significant military power to bolster the Assad regime, the cable calls for the United States to protect and empower the moderate Syrian opposition, seeking to overthrow the Syrian government. However, Assads government is the only legitimate government in Syria and, as the sovereign, has the legal right to seek international support as it has from Russia and Iran. There is no such legal right for the United States and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to arm Syrian rebels to attack Assads government. The dissent cable advocates what it calls the judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which, the signatories write, would undergird and drive a more focused and hardnosed US-led diplomatic process. Inside Syria, both the United States and Russia are battling the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) as ISIS and other jihadist groups seek to overthrow the Assad government. But while the U.S. is supporting rebel forces (including some fighting ISIS and some fighting Assad), Russia is backing Assad (and waging a broader fight against terrorists, including Al Qaedas Nusra Front). Reuters reports the U.S. has about 300 special operations forces in Syria for its counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants but is not targeting the Assad government. The policy outlined in the dissent cable would change that balance, by having the U.S. military bomb Syrian soldiers who have been at the forefront of the fight against both ISIS and Nusra. But that policy shift would lead to a war with Russia, would kill greater numbers of civilians, would sunder the Geneva peace process, and would result in greater gains for the radical Sunni rebels who are the principal opponents of the Assad regime, analyst James Carden wrote at Consortiumnews.com. Journalist Robert Parry added that the authors of the cable came from the State Departments den of armchair warriors possessed of imperial delusions, looking toward a Hillary Clinton administration which will likely pursue no-fly-zones and safe zones leading to more slaughter in Syria and risking a confrontation with Russia. As we should have learned from the no-fly zone that preceded the Libyan regime change that the U.S. government engineered in 2011, a similar strategy in Syria would create a vacuum in which ISIS and Al Qaedas Nusra Front would flourish. Violating U.S. and International Law The strategy set forth in the cable would also violate both U.S. and international law. Under the War Powers Resolution (WPR), the President can introduce U.S. troops into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, only (1) after a Congressional declaration of war, (2) with specific statutory authorization, or (3) in a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. None of three conditions that would allow the president to use military force in Syria is present at this time. First, Congress has not declared war. Second, neither the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which George W. Bush used to invade Afghanistan, nor the 2002 AUMF, which Bush used to invade Iraq would provide a legal basis for an attack on Syria at the present time. Third, there has been no attack on the United States or U.S. armed forces. Thus, an armed attack on Syria would violate the WPR. Even if a military attack on Syria did not run afoul of the WPR, it would violate the United Nations Charter, a treaty the U.S. has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Constitutions Supremacy Clause. Article 2(4) of the Charter says that states shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The Charter only allows a military attack on another country in the case of self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes it; neither has occurred in this case. Assads government has not attacked the United States, and the Council has not approved military strikes on Syria. Indeed, Security Council Resolution 2254, to which the cable refers, nowhere authorizes the use of military force, and ends with the words, [The Security Council] decides to remain actively seized of the matter. This means that the Council has not delegated the power to attack Syria to any entity other than itself. If the U.S. were to mount an armed attack on Syria, the Charter would give Assad a valid self-defense claim, and Russia could legally assist Assad in collective self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter. Moreover, forcible regime change would violate Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has also ratified. Although its true that the dissent cable eschews the use of U.S. ground forces, its recommendation that the U.S. should bomb Assads government would involve U.S. military personnel who would fly the bombers or fire off the missiles. And, such an operation would invariably necessitate at least a limited number of U.S. support troops on the ground. Opposition to Violent Regime Change Many commentators have warned of dangers from a U.S. military attack on Syria, risks that are either ignored or breezily dismissed by the dissent cable. Jean Aziz cautions in Al-Monitor, the recommendation of military strikes against the Syrian government  no matter how well intentioned  is, in the end, escalatory, and would likely result in more war, killing, refugees, less humanitarian aid reaching civilians, the empowerment of jihadis and so on. The United States is already empowering jihadis, going out of its way to protect the interests of al-Qaedas closest and most powerful ally in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham, Gareth Porter wrote in Truthout. Porter reported that Ahrar al-Sham, which works closely with the Nusra Front, is believed to be the largest military force seeking to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, with at least 15,000 troops. So, in seeking Assads ouster, the U.S. has terrorist bedfellows. So much for the global war on terror. As CIA Director John Brennan recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee, Our efforts have not reduced [Islamic States] terrorism capability and global reach, adding, The branch in Libya is probably the most developed and the most dangerous. No wonder President Obama told Fox News the worst mistake of his presidency was not planning for the aftermath of U.S. regime change in Libya, although he stubbornly maintains that ousting President Muammar Gaddafi was the right thing to do. The Center for Citizen Initiatives, a group of U.S. citizens currently on a delegation to Russia in order to increase understanding and reduce international tension and conflict, issued a statement in strong opposition to the dissent cable. Retired Col. Ann Wright, anti-war activist Kathy Kelly and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern are part of the group. It is not the right of the USA or any other foreign country to determine who should lead the Syrian government, the statement says. That decision should be made by the Syrian people. The statement urges the State Department to seek non-military solutions in conformity with the UN Charter and international law. It also urges the Obama administration to stop funding and supplying weapons to armed rebels in violation of international law and end the policy of forced regime change. Finally, the statement calls for an urgent nation-wide public debate on the U.S. policy of regime change. This is sage advice in light of the disasters created by the U.S. governments forcible regime change in Iraq and Libya, which destabilized those countries, facilitating the rise of ISIS and other terrorist groups. There is no reason to believe the situation in Syria would be any different. Instead of saber-rattling against Assad, Russia and Iran, the Obama administration should include them all in pursuing diplomacy toward a political, non-military settlement to the Syrian crisis. Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught from 1991-2016. She lectures, writes, and provides media commentary for local, regional, national and international outlets. A former news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, Professor Cohn has been a legal and political commentator on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and Pacifica Radio.
Saudis Push Washington Revolt Against Obama on Syria By Finian Cunningham June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " SCF " - That 51 US diplomats reproached President Obamas Syria policy by calling for greater American military force deployed against the Damascus government was itself a remarkable sign of official dissent within Washington. But the presidents authority was further brazenly undermined when a few days later the Saudi rulers endorsed the dissenting US diplomats  while being received at the White House. Several things can be discerned here. For one, the US policy on Syria is reeling from failure. The objective of regime change  which has impelled the whole war in that country for the past five years  seems to be fading as an obtainable goal. Russias military intervention beginning last October to stabilize the Syrian state put paid to that. Reports that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the top commander of the so-called Islamic State (IS or Daesh), has been killed in a Syrian/Russian air strike in the groups eastern stronghold of Raqqa suggests that the foreign-backed terrorist insurgency is indeed facing final defeat. The US covert tactic of using a dual-track political process of supposed peace negotiations to allow for mercenary proxies to regroup has also come unstuck. Syria and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies have not relented in targeting terrorist militia, even those whom Washington disingenuously refers to as moderates and on ceasefire. The cessation in hostilities called for by Russia and the US back in February is sundered because it never was a bona fide ceasefire in the first place, as far as Washington was really concerned. It was only a side-way maneuver to facilitate regime change by political means. As it stands, US policy has been checked decisively in Syria. And that would seem to explain the eruption in frustration among the US diplomats and the foreign planners at the State Department  as illustrated by the leaking of large-scale criticism of the Obama administration last week. Failure begets frustration. The contrarian diplomats are calling for the US to directly attack the Syrian government forces of President Bashar al-Assad. For the past two years, US air strikes in Syria are purportedly aimed at targeting the Islamic State while staying clear of Syrian army units. The rebellious Washington diplomats want US firepower to be henceforth directed at the Syrian army. Russia immediately slammed the would-be American proposal as a grave violation of international law. Moscow knows that such a move seriously risks bringing US and Russian forces into direct confrontation. Obama, for his part, is unlikely to go along with a change in his Syrian policy. He knows the risks of escalation are too dangerous, and with only months to go before his second term finishes, the 44th president is loath to end his White House stint in ignominy. Nevertheless, the gung-ho restiveness within Washington for a wider war in Syria could well be countenanced by Obamas successor. Democrat Hillary Clinton has called for a wider air campaign in Syria, and whoever the Republicans select can be safely assumed to be equally gung-ho, if not more. Washingtons dissent on Syria is thus a signal for ramped-up war. It may be put on hold for a few months, but it seems almost certain that a wider war is being prepared. And thats largely because US regime change objectives in Syria have been thwarted up to now. Failure begets petulance. The extraordinary show of defiance towards President Obama is a disturbing calling card for future escalation in Syria and the wider Middle East. It seems beyond recklessness that Washington is, firstly, drumming up support for military intervention to salvage the lost cause of its proxy armies, and secondly, pushing for its forces to clash with those of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. The seriousness of the revolt in Washington over Syria is testified by reports that John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, is planning to meet with the 51 diplomats calling for direct military intervention. Kerry went as far as describing their proposals as very good, although he did not explicitly say whether he endorsed them. However, the fact that Obamas foreign minister and Washingtons top diplomat is openly meeting with a caucus that has thrown down a gauntlet to the president over Syria goes to show that the War Party is building momentum. Last week, Kerry issued a foreboding warning to Moscow that the US is losing patience on the future of Assad in Syria, indicating again that he appears to be stepping into the militarist camp. This after Kerry was almost tripping on his tears earlier this year about how the bloodshed in Syria has to stop. Well, after all, Vietnam War hero Kerry is a past-master at opportunistic political careering. Russias Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov hit back at Kerrys belligerence, saying it is not the US that is losing patience, but rather it is Russia, which is fed up with Washingtons cynical games of peek-a-boo with terrorists and continually refusing to cooperate with Moscow in delineating terrorist targets. In any case, the salient point, as noted in the opening of this commentary, is the way that the Saudi regime quickly rowed in behind the Washington show of defiance towards the American president. That is a sinister portent. Only a matter of days after the broadside by the US diplomats, a Saudi delegation was received at the White House, with the customary sycophancy. The delegation included Saudi defense minister and deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Sultan (the kings son) and the kingdoms foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir. The Saudis later told a press briefing that they backed the call by the diplomats for Obama to get tough on Syria. Of course, that has been the mantra of the Saudi regime over the past five years. When Obama reneged on his red line for open military intervention at the end of 2013, the House of Saud has been in a huge huff ever since. But the audacious undermining of the American president by his Saudi guests shows how deeply in tune the House of Saud is with the War Party in Washington. The sense of arrogant entitlement on the steps of the White House speaks of a formidable relationship between the House of Saud and powerful elements of secret American government. It also explains why the Saudis were so aghast by Congressional attempts to probe alleged Saudi involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks. Such probing will probably never arise to much anyway, and already the CIA director John Brennan has confidently stated that classified official documents from a Congressional inquiry into 9/11 will clear the Saudi state of alleged complicity. Given the long historical collusion between US covert state power and the Saudi regime one can understand why the Saudis are so vexed by even mere tepid attempts within Washington to hang out the dirty laundry on the Arab despots. From the Saudi point of view, knowing full well the depths of US collusion in covert ops, the mere mention of incriminating the oil-rich kingdom must seem like the height of treachery. This murky US-Saudi relationship was alluded to in a rare report in the New York Times earlier this year when it was divulged that decades of American covert operations across the globe have been heavily reliant on Saudi money for financing. The NY Times candidly tells how the CIAs clandestine subversive projects and rogue operations have been bankrolled by the Saudi regime. This partnership in crime goes well beyond the more notorious instance of how the Americans and the Saudis created and armed jihadist extremists in Afghanistan during the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union. That is, the jihadi proxies that later went on to form Al Qaeda and various offshoots like Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and Iraq, are but just one arm of a global terrorist or insurgency machine, which the US has deployed to topple governments and destabilize enemies. Implicit here is that Saudi oil money has greased the wheels of covert US operations on a global scale, from Central and South America, to Iraq, to again in Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Balkans, Georgia, Libya and Syria, and as recently as the coup detat in Ukraine in February 2014. Perhaps even in recent disturbances in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In his book on the Bush dynasty, Family of Secrets, award-winning author Russ Baker documents how it was George H W Bush Sr, as head of the CIA in the mid-1970s, who cemented the Saudi role in funding US dirty operations around the world. That shadowy relationship has been a staple ever since, redoubled under the presidency of his son, George W Bush Jr. Why the CIA courted billions of dollars of Saudi money from the mid-1970s onwards to fund its dirty work was because various Congressional committees and a recurring public outcry over the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy had furnished a political backlash against the CIA and its suspected involvement in clandestine activities, including the murder of political leaders. From the mid-1970s onwards, the CIA and its adjuncts within the US Deep State desperately needed a way to fund their operations with off-the-books money, not accountable to the Congress. Enter the Saudis, who glad-handed their way into perhaps the most destructive covert alliance since the Second World War. And there is every reason to believe that this US-Saudi covert relationship pertains to this day. Hence, the fundamental reluctance within the Washington establishment to incite disfavor with its de facto covert-operations banker. The converse of that arrangement is that the Saudi rulers know that they have important push within Washington when it comes to promoting a militarist agenda. Obama up to now has, for whatever reason, resisted calls from within the CIA, the State Department and Saudi rulers for more military intervention in Syria. The audacious undermining of Obama by the Saudis in their backing of a Washington revolt against the presidents policy strongly suggests that the war in Syria is going to escalate. Finian Cunningham is former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages
Who Should Make Political Policy, the People or the Politicians?



By William John Cox June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - In the midst of what undoubtedly will be the nastiest and most expensive presidential campaign in American history, it is important to remember that the question is not so much whether a candidate is a good or bad person, but rather what should and will be the policies, objectives, and consequences of her or his administration? What do the People of the United States really want and expect their government to do on their behalf? Who should make political policy, the People, or the politicians they elect to represent them? Founded as a republic in which representatives are elected to administer the government for the People, the United States has become increasingly more democratic as the vote has been extended from a few wealthy property owners to include most adult citizens. President Abraham Lincoln not only established that the United States could not be dissolved, but he also expanded the definition of its government from being for the People, to being of and by the People. Thus, it is the People themselves who have the inherent power to define their own government, rather than being forced to accept the kind of government offered by competing political candidates. In a democracy, it is supposed to be the people (demos) who have the power (kratia), rather than the politicians (poltikos). The Democrats and Republicans are currently nominating the two candidates with the highest unfavorable ratings in the history of presidential elections. Before hiring their next president, shouldnt American voters be telling the candidates what the task involves, rather than listening to the candidates lie about what they will do if they get the job? Political Party Platforms Currently, political policy, on the national level, is set forth in the platforms adopted by the major political parties at their presidential nominating conventions every four years. During the primaries, the competing candidates tout their proposals about what their partys platform should contain. Once they obtain enough delegates to receive the nomination, the successful presidential candidates take control of their political parties and the committees that draft the platforms. Conceptually, the American People vote for these competing party platforms, and the presidential candidates are supposedly pledged to follow these policies, if elected. In truthgiven the present merchandising approach to political campaignsthe party platforms are carefully designed as bait to sell the partys political package to the voters. Once in office, however, successful candidates are free to switch from their advertised promises, which they usually do to the detriment of those who bought their product. Hillary Clintons website lists 31 key programs she will fight for as presidentfrom curing Alzheimers disease to teaching new workforce skills. Mislabeled as policy, these programs include improving access to affordable health care, preserving Social Security and Medicare, and reducing the cost of college. Although Bernie Sanders may push the Democratic platform committee toward adopting more progressive positions, the ultimate result of a Hillary Clinton presidency will be a continuation of the pro-corporate philosophy of the New Democrats, such as her husband and President Barack Obama. This centralist orientation is largely indistinguishable from mainstream Republican policies in the critical areas of the economy, environment, and militarization. Donald Trumps website offers a mishmash of proposalsalso referred to as policiesincluding tax reform by reducing taxes, immigration reform by forcing Mexico to build a border wall, health care reform by repealing the Affordable Care Act, and compelling China to live up to its trade obligations by being a tough negotiator. Given his erratic nature, these proposals offer little or no guidance as to what a President Trump might actually do when confronted with real world problems, instead of the programming requirements of reality television. Even with the best of intentions, these propositionsin the absence of well-considered policy guidelinesprovide little direction in the event of changes of circumstance, such as another major terrorist attack, or increasing crime, riots, and racial violence resulting from economic failures. Most pertinent is the inability of political parties to adopt policies that actually benefit the People whenever beneficial policies conflict with the dictates of the wealthy elite and corporations who control the politicians in both major parties? In many respects, the current political policy-making process treats American voters like children. Just as parents quickly learn to ask their young children whether they want green beans or carrotsrather than telling them to eat their vegetablesthe electoral choices offered to voters by the major parties are different tastes of the same artificially-flavored political Kool-Aid. Policy and Programs The concept of policy is widely misunderstood. Policy is a philosophical guideline or a path to a goal or objective. It differs from laws, rules, regulations, and procedures, which are more mandatory. Although often used interchangeablyespecially in politicsthere is also a difference between policy, and the programs that implement policies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last big-picture political policy maker. His New Deal included a wide variety of government programs and lasted for decades, as the United States enjoyed its greatest period of political stability and economic progress. The platforms of subsequent presidentsEisenhowers Peace and Prosperity, Kennedys New Frontier, Johnsons Great Society, Nixons Bring Us Together, Reagans Make America Great Again, Bush seniors Kinder, Gentler Nation, Bill Clintons Putting People First, Bush juniors Compassionate Conservatism, and Barrack Obamas Change We Can Believe Inhave been marketing slogans primarily designed to peddle a variety of special-interest programs, rather than broad-scale statements of public policy. These political catchphrases are in the same category as Donald Trumps Make America Great Again and Hillary Clintons Stronger Together. While one could say that the New Deal was also a slogan, it was much more than a label for the presidential orders and government programs adopted pursuant to it. In response to the devastation of the Great Depression, the New Deal was a visionexpressed as a policywhich proposed a new contract between the People and their government. More than words, the New Deal actually provided relief for the destitute, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system. Urging the United States to become an Arsenal of Democracy to help the Allies defend themselves against fascism and to unify the spirit of the American People, President Roosevelt looked forward to a world founded on the Four Freedoms of speech and expression, of worship, from want, and from fear. In January 1941when Roosevelt identified these freedomsthe world was engaged in a great war against fascism which threatened every person on Earth. Today, fascism is once again rearing its evil head, and it is being fed by the fear tactics of reactionary politicians and the militarization of the government. Fascism is threatening an American society made vulnerable by social, environmental, and economic problems far beyond the comprehension of those who lived 75 years ago. At a time when the People desperately want peace and prosperity, they are being told by their presidential candidates that war and austerity are inevitable. The Essentials of Good Government Irrespective of culture or national origin, from the most ancient tribal-based settlements to the unimaginable societies of the future, there have been and will continue to be certain essential organizational functions required to preserve the integrity of the group. As basic public policy, good government must:  Provide every child with equal access to nutrition, health care, and education;  Provide economic security to ensure the ability of all parents to care for their families;  Provide and enforce laws to guarantee equal opportunity and individual rights for everyone;  Provide physical security to defend the society and its people; and  Provide coordination of large-scale efforts to serve the public good. The People Can Make Their Own Policy If the American People are capable of earning their own living, raising their children, paying taxes, and being emotionally and physically maimed and dying in the defense of their Nation, arent they smart enough to have a more direct say in the policies that govern their future and the destiny of their children? Have the money interests become so entrenched in both major political parties that the politicians no longer address the needs of the People? Are the People once again being taxed without representation? What, if anything, can be done? The United States Voters Rights Amendment (USVRA) may provide an answer to these questions. The USVRA is a comprehensive Voters Bill of Rights intended to transform the United States government into one that cares for and nurtures the many who elect it, rather than benefiting the few who bribe its representatives. Primarily, the USVRA guaranteesfor the very first timethe right of all Americans to cast effective votes in all elections. In doing so, it:  defines equal rights for women;  maximizes voter participation and prohibits the suppression of voting;  eliminates corporate personhood and controls political contributions;  ensures public funding of elections and limits the lengths of campaigns;  provides paid voting holidays and hand-countable paper ballots;  improves political education and public information;  eliminates the Electoral College; and it  curtails lobbying and prohibits conflicts of interest. Assuming the ratification of the USVRAand the effectiveness of its provisions to ensure the quality of everyones vote and to improve the performance and dedication of their representativeslet us examine the policy-making provisions of the USVRA to see just how the People would go about making their own policy to guide their elected representatives. Policy Formulation Under the USVRA In order to finally actualize Americas representative form of democracyand to transform its governmentthe USVRA provides the mechanism for the formulation of policy questions, and it prescribes the method by which the People vote on the issues. While there is no way that the American People couldor shouldpresently trust their representatives to faithfully identify and formulate the most pressing political issues facing their Nation for the next four years, ratification of the USVRA presupposes that its adoption will only result from a mass, nonpartisan political movement. Thus, the future members of Congress will be far more disposed to pay attention to the needs and aspirations of an energized electorate than the present office holders. Even so, Section 10 of the USVRA directs Congress to solicit public comment regarding the political issues that most concern the People during the calendar year preceding a presidential election. Prior to midnight on December 31st, Congress is mandated to adopt a joint resolution identifying the 12 most critical policy issues to be addressed by the next president and Congress. Recognizing that Congress might be reluctant to act as required, the USVRA punishes a failure to act by disqualifying all sitting members of Congress to be eligible for reelection. Is there any doubt that the members of Congress will act to save their jobs? Isnt it far more likely that the questions they formulate will be more relevant to the American People than those currently being debated in the election of 2016? Section 11 requires that federal elections be held on a national voters holiday, with full pay for all citizens who cast ballots. Moreover, all federal elections shall be conducted on uniform, hand-countable paper ballots and, for the presidential election, ballots shall include the twelve most critical policy questions articulated by Congress, each to be answered yes or no by the voters. Once the questions have been published, there will be a valid standard by which all political candidates in the United States can be evaluated in determining their qualifications to hold public office. While the present art of politics teaches candidates to never take a position on any question in order to avoid losing votes, the USVRA would not only force candidates to take concrete positions, but to defend them as well. Moreover, enactment of the USVRA will help avoid the intentional creation of volatile issues intended to excite fear voting. At the same timemotivated by the USVRA and cognizant of the power of their votethe People would be far more likely to think about the important questions facing the future of their Nation and to arrive at responsible answers. Questions for a National Policy Referendum Rather than responding to billions of dollars in negative advertising about the inadequacies of opposition candidates, a barrage of slick promotional propaganda concealing such deficiencies, and misleading party platforms, voters in the 2016 election should have the right to decide real issues. They should be asked if international trade pacts should be approved; if the cap on Social Security withholding taxes should be eliminated; if a supplemental national retirement system should be enacted; if solar energy should be collected in outer space to energize the national highways in lieu of a reliance on polluting petroleum products; and if the crumbling national infrastructure should be repaired and upgraded. Those most affected by domestic policies should decide if everyone has a right to national health care; if paid maternity leave is to be provided by employers; if women have the freedom of choice in matters of childbearing; and if everyone has the right to marry whomsoever they chose. Working people and small business owners are certainly qualified to decide if a national minimum wage should be guaranteed; if public education should be privatized; if the right to education should be extended through college; if all existing student loans should be forgiven; and if military spending should be reduced. Concerned for the safety and security of their families, everyone should have the freedom to offer their opinion about ending the war on drugs; prohibiting private, for-profit prisons; and if the Second Amendment allows for the reasonable regulation of firearms. Irrespective of ones own political position on any and all of these questions, isnt it far better for each individuals personal happinessand for the future of the Nationif everyone is encouraged to understand and to advocate their differing point of view, and to vote their conscience? Wisdom of the Crowd Unlike public opinion pollsin which respondents often provide snap answers influenced by the last political advertisement they were exposed tothe answers to a national policy referendum would be much more deliberative. Moreover, unlike statutory ballot initiativeswhich often produce unforeseen and regrettable outcomesanswers to a USVRA referendum would create policy to guide the making of a law, rather than the law itself. For example, the People might vote overwhelmingly for universal health care, and then leave it up to Congress to work out the details. It is estimated that more than 225 million Americans should be eligible to vote in the 2016 presidential election. With voter suppression taking place in many states, unfavorable candidates, and the possibility that millions of Sanders supporters and mainstream Republicans will boycott the election, the turnout could be less than 30 percent. The result might be a president chosen by fewer than 15 percent of the eligible voters. If, however, the People had the right and opportunity to make their own policy and to vote for those candidates who offer the best solutions to achieve their goals, voter participation could exceed all expectations, and the United States would evolve into a true democratic republic. Would the policies resulting from a national policy referendum be responsible? The answer is an unqualified yes, and the reason is that the Peoplecollectivelyare much smarter that the most brilliant political candidates, or their panels of experts. The wisdom of the crowd can be easily proven. If one were to carefully count a large number of marbles and place them in a glass jar and then ask a group of 100, or even 1,000 people, to estimate how many are present, the responses will vary widely as participants make their best guess. On average, however, the crowd working together will almost perfectly identify how many marbles are in the jar. In the same way, 225 million voters would be much more likely to formulate wholesome policiesthan the politicians who sell their positions of trust to the highest bidder. Warning to Politicians Given the opportunity, the American People are not only capable of charting their own future, but they are also smart, wise, and brave enough to seize the chance to do so. There is no alternativethe People of the United States of America will either take control of their own government, or their experiment in self government will ultimately fail. The consent of the People to be governed should no longer be taken for granted. William John Cox is a retired public interest lawyer. He filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 alleging that the government no longer cared for the voters who elected it, and he asked that a national policy referendum be ordered as a remedy. He is the author of Transforming America: A Voters Bill of Rights and can be contacted through his website, WilliamJohnCox.com.
Leading Antiwar Progressives Speak Favorably of Aspects of Trumps Foreign Policy



By John V. Walsh June 23, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Until recently the progressive mind has been resolutely closed and stubbornly frozen in place against all things Trump. But cracks are appearing in the ice. With increasing frequency over the last few months some of the most thoughtful left and progressive figures have begun to speak favorably of aspects of Trumps foreign policy. Let us hear from these heretics, among them William Greider, Glen Ford, John Pilger, Jean Bricmont, Stephen F. Cohen and William Blum. Their words are not to be construed as endorsements, but rather an acknowledgement of Trumps anti-interventionist views, the impact those views are having and the alternative he poses to Hillary Clinton in the current electoral contest. First lets consider the estimable William Greider, a regular contributor to The Nation and author of Secrets of the Temple. He titled a recent article for the Nation, Donald Trump Could be The Military Industrial Complexs Worst Nightmare: The Republican Front Runner is Against Nation Building. Imagine That. Greiders article is brief, and I recommend reading every precious word of it. Here is but one quote: Trump has, in his usual unvarnished manner, kicked open the door to an important and fundamental foreign-policy debate. And here is a passage from Trumps interview with the Washington Post:

I watched as we built schools in Iraq and theyd be blown up, Trump told the editors. And wed build another one and it would get blown up. And we would rebuild it three times. And yet we cant build a school in Brooklyn. at what point do you say hey, we have to take care of ourselves. So, you know, I know the outer world exists and Ill be very cognizant of that but at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially in the inner cities. Trump talks about building infrastructure for the inner cities, especially better schools for African American children, rather than bombing people of color halfway around the world! That is hardly racism. And it is not how the mainstream media wants us to think of The Donald. ***** Next, Glen Ford, the eloquent radical Left executive editor of Black Agenda Report, a superb and widely read outlet, penned an article in March, 2016, with the following title: Trump Way to the Left of Clinton on Foreign Policy  In Fact, Hes Damn Near Anti-Empire. Fords piece is well worth reading in its entirety; here are just a few quotes: Trump has rejected the whole gamut of U.S. imperial war rationales, from FDR straight through to the present. If Trumps tens of millions of white, so-called Middle American followers stick by him, it will utterly shatter the prevailing assumption that the American public favors maintenance of U.S. empire by military means. Trump shows no interest in spreading democracy, like George W. Bush, or assuming a responsibility to protect other peoples from their own governments, like Barack Obama and his political twin, Hillary Clinton. It is sad beyond measure that the near-extinction of independent Black politics has placed African Americans in the most untenable position imaginable at this critical moment: in the Hillary Clinton camp. ***** Next lets turn to John Pilger, the Left wing Australian journalist and documentary film maker who has been writing about Western foreign policy with unimpeachable accuracy and wisdom since the Vietnam War era. Here are some of his comments on Trump: Donald Trump is being presented (by the mass media) as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our skepticism. Trumps views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as a world substantially made over in [Americas] own image. The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else.  Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesnt want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted exceptionalism is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face. The money quote is: The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. When Pilger submitted his article to the progressive magazine Truthout, this sentence was deleted, censored as he reported, along with a few of the surrounding sentences. Such censorship had not been imposed on Pilger by Truthout ever before. Truthouts commitment to free speech apparently has limits in the case of The Donald versus Hillary, rather severe ones. So one must read even the progressive press with some skepticism when it comes to Trump. ***** Trump has also been noticed by the Left in Europe, notably by the sharp minded Jean Bricmont, physicist and author of Humanitarian Imperialism who writes here: (Trump) is the first major political figure to call for America First meaning non-interventionism. He not only denounces the trillions of dollars spent in wars, deplores the dead and wounded American soldiers, but also speaks of the Iraqi victims of a war launched by a Republican President. He does so to a Republican public and manages to win its support. He denounces the empire of US military bases, claiming to prefer to build schools here in the United States. He wants good relations with Russia. He observes that the militarist policies pursued for decades have caused the United States to be hated throughout the world. He calls Sarkozy a criminal who should be judged for his role in Libya. Another advantage of Trump: he is detested by the neoconservatives, who are the main architects of the present disaster. ***** And then there is Stephen F. Cohen, contributing editor for The Nation and Professor Emeritus of Russian History at Princeton and NYU. Cohen makes the point that Trump, alone among the presidential candidates, has raised five urgent and fundamental questions, which all other candidates in the major parties have either scorned or more frequently ignored. The five questions all call into question the interventionist warlike stance of the US for the past 20 plus years. Cohen enumerates the questions here, thus: Should the United States always be the worlds leader and policeman? What is NATOs proper mission today, 25 years after the end of the Soviet Union and when international terrorism is the main threat to the West? Why does Washington repeatedly pursue a policy of regime change, in Iraq, Libya, possibly in Ukraine, and now in Damascus, even though it always ends in disaster? Why is the United States treating Putins Russia as an enemy and not as a security partner? And should US nuclear weapons doctrine include a no-first use pledge, which it does not? Cohen comments in detail on these questions here. Whatever one may think of the answers Trump has provided to the five questions, there is no doubt that he alone among the presidential candidates has raised them  and that in itself is an important contribution. ***** At this point I mention my own piece, which appeared late last year. Entitled Who is the Arch Racist: The Donald or Hillary? Like Cohens pieces it finds merit with the Trump foreign policy in the context of posing a question. ***** Finally, let us turn to Bill Blum, who wrote an article entitled, American Exceptionalism and the Election Made in Hell (Or Why Id Vote for Trump Over Hillary). Again there is little doubt about the stance of Blum, who is author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, a scholarly compendium, which Noam Chomsky calls Far and away the best book on the topic. Blum begins his piece: If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and Im somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or Im PAID to do so, paid well  I would vote for Trump. My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that Id call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted. And he concludes: He (Trump) calls Iraq a complete disaster, condemning not only George W. Bush but the neocons who surrounded him. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction. He even questions the idea that Bush kept us safe, and adds that Whether you like Saddam or not, he used to kill terrorists. Yes, hes personally obnoxious. Id have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares? ***** I conclude with Blums words because they are most pertinent to our present situation. The world is living through a perilous time when the likes of the neocons and Hillary Clinton could lead us into a nuclear Armageddon with their belligerence toward Russia and their militaristic confrontation with China. The reality is that we are faced with a choice between Clinton and Trump, a choice which informs much of the above commentary. Survival is at stake and we must consider survival first if our judgments are to be sane. John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com
Social media is abuzz following a disclosure on Thursday morning that AMCON had been granted a court order to take possession of Silverbird Galleria as well as other businesses belonging to Senator Ben Bruce.

Reactions have trailed the news, with some going as far as to call it a witchhunt while others say the Senator should pay his debts. Before you weigh in, here are some simple things you should know.

The Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) was set up by Nigerias Central Bank in 2010 to forestall an impending financial crisis primarily driven by banks having huge portfolios of bad and non performing loans.

If that is too complex, the simple explanation is that Nigerian banks had lent money to businessmen who didnt pay back and some of these loans were huge!

To save the financial sector from collapse, AMCON would buy these loans from the Banks at a discount. For example, if Ibrahim was owing N55 billion to First Bank, AMCON might buy that loan from the bank at N30 billion (providing badly needed cash for the bank) and then re-negotiate with Ibrahim on how the loan would be paid.

Senator Ben Murray Bruce is said to have obtained a loan facility from Union Bank a little more than ten years ago and the loan was supposed to have a tenure of two years. Somehow, the common sense Senator was unable to pay back within the period and now AMCON has bought that no performing loan from the bank.

AMCON secured an order from a Federal High Court in Abuja to take over Ben Murray Bruces possessions.

Will AMCON close Silverbird Galleria?

No! AMCON will simply appoint a caretaker manager to run Silverbird Galleria in the hopes of making back the amount owed (11 billion), the shops at the Galleria will not be sold if rents are still valid.

Despite all of these, the most likely outcome is that Silverbird Galleria and all Murray Bruces other businesses will likely be sold because, truth be told, N11 billion is a lot of money!
The Assets Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON, has reportedly been granted an ex parte motion by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to take over companies owned by senator representing Bayelsa East, Ben Murray-Bruce and his family members.

SEE ALSO: AMCON Takes Over Jimoh Ibrahims Properties

The companies, which operate under the Silverbird brand, were said to have defaulted in the repayment of N11billion loan to banks.

AMCON subsequently approached a federal court, which granted the order to take over the companies and other properties on Thursday.

See court papers granting the order for AMCON to take over Silverbird Productions Limited, Silverbird Showtime Limited and Silverbird Galleria Limited:



As at the time of publishing this report, Senator Murray-Bruce is yet to react to the reported takeover of his companies by AMCON.

***UPDATE***

Sen. Murray-Bruce, who is chairman of the Silverbird Group, eventually reacted to the takeover of his companies and other assets by AMCON, saying the surrounding issues will be resolved as soon as possible.

He reacted via his twitter handle, @MurrayBenBruce.

According to the common sense senator, I have been on an international flight and have only just landed. The situation is being resolved and things will be back to normal.

In 36 years, Silverbird has grown and like anybody, it will face challenges. Tough times dont last. But we, as tough people, outlast them, he further tweeted Thursday afternoon.
A joint patrol team of Sector 1 of 27 Task Force Brigade and Army Headquarters Strike Group today cleared Boko Haram terrorists enclaves in Buhari, Matari and Kaidiri villages located some kilometres to Damasak, Borno State earlier today.



Unfortunately, the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists at Kaidiri on sighting the patrol team chickened out and withdrew in disarray into Niger Republic with gunshot wounds. The troops pursued them and got 2 Boko Haram terrorists. In addition, they recovered 7 motorcycles and borehole equipment.

In a related development troops of 7 Division recovered and successfully detonated Improvised Explosive Device planted by suspected Boko Haram terrorists that came in Keke NAPEP in Gomari, Maiduguri metropolis this evening in conjunction with Nigeria Police Explosive Ordnance Device team.

This development has necessitated the call for more vigilance and security conscious on the part of everyone especially the residents of Maiduguri and its environs.

The fight against the menace of Boko Haram terrorists is a collective responsibility that require positive contribution from all citizenry. People should please be wary of suspicious persons or objects and report same to the nearest security agency or post.

Source: News Helm
The Nigerian Army has dismissed as false, claims by the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF) that some senior officers were plotting to overthrow the government of the day.

The JNDLF, a consolidated group of militants, had in a statement yesterday alerted President Muhammadu Buhari to an alleged coup plot by top military officers using civil unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta as cover.

Some top military men through their civil agents approached us to cause and continue the vandalization of the oil and gas pipelines in the Niger delta region so as to use as an excuse to take over the government from democracy to military rule in the country, the militants claimed.

But the Army, in a statement on Thursday by its spokesman, Colonel Sani Usman, described the alleged coup plot as another campaign of calumny and distraction by a faceless criminal gang of economic saboteurs.

Usman said: This is baseless and most unfortunate allegation that exists in the warped minds of the originators of such weighty allegation.

The Nigerian Army wish to state that this is not true and hereby distanced itself from this weighty allegation.

He said We also see this speculation as a dangerous distraction to our effort in fighting insurgency and other criminal elements in the country.

The statement further said: The Nigerian Army would like to send a strong and an unequivocal warning to those speculating a coup by the Nigerian Army (NA) against the Government to desist forthwith.

According to Usman, the army is a product of democracy and a focused professional institution and would have nothing to do with such abomination and heinous crime.

He also said the army is the greatest beneficiary of democracy and cannot contemplate any anti-democratic misadventure, especially not under the command of the present Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai.

He noted that the army sees this type of dangerous speculation as declaration of war to destabilise the present government by these unscrupulous elements.

Usman further said the Army is investigating those behind the dangerous insinuation in order to unravel the real motive behind it.

While reiterating the armys unalloyed loyalty to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and defence of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Army also reaffirmed its unconditional support and obedience to civil authority.

Col. Usman assured Nigerians and all peace loving people that the Nigerian Army and its personnel will never be involved in such terrible misadventure.

We wish to further add that no matter how long it takes, we would track and find out those behind these insinuations and bring them to justice, he said.
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The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) said it has arrested one of most notorious fraudsters involve in online advertising scams on non-existing vacancies in government agencies. The suspected kingpin whose real name was given as Abubakar Rilwan had been declared wanted by some security agencies in the country before his arrest. A top customs officer stated:



Abubakar Rilwan, who is evidently disabled is one of the principal actors and suspect in a job/auction scam syndicate. Whatever he lacks in physical ability, he makes up for in his exceptional ability to manipulate and swindle his victims.

He has duped desperate job and auction seekers to the tune of over 20 million naira, sometimes using the services of lawyers. In one of his escapades, he collected money from 7 (seven) job seekers in Taraba State, issued them fake appointment letters, and caused them to travel all the way to Bayelsa State for fake training. They got there before realizing they were duped.

Rilwan is currently in the custody of the Nigeria Customs Service undergoing further investigation by other security agencies that had declared wanted for related offences. The spokesperson of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Wale Adeniyi confirmed the arrest.

Source: Vanguard
The candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the September 10 governorship election in Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has dismissed reports on social media that he was under probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The APC flag bearer said he has never been involved in any fraudulent activity nor stolen from anyone before.

Speaking to newsmen in Benin City, the state capital on Thursday, Mr. Obaseki explained that issues raised by the late Humphrey Idisi family against a German firm have nothing to do with him.

He said he was simply a shareholder and board member of the company.

I dont have a case with the EFCC. I am on the board of several companies. This is a German company that owns rig in Nigeria. They have a partner who died many years ago and unfortunately, his estate has not been properly managed.

His other businesses have gone bankrupt. The company saw a petition by some of the children claiming that the company was owing their father.

There was an agreement that showed that the company paid everything due to the man. The family has been having quarrels and internal issues.

There has also been some scam. If somebody is owing you, why go to the EFCC? There is a civil process to do so. It has nothing to do with me. I didnt manage the company. I am just a shareholder and on the board of the company. I didnt take money from anybody. I have never stolen, I have never taken anybodys money before.
Human rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, has been labeled a mischievous lawyer by Special Assistant to Governor Ayodele Fayose on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.

Mr. Olayinka said the former President of the West African Bar Association is a lawyer, who is always out to defend any position that aligns with his selfish desire.

Falana is only deceiving the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Governor Ayodele Fayoses matter because of his ambition to contest the Ekiti State Governorship election in 2018, thinking that he can achieve what he used the EFCC to achieve against Governor Fayose in 2006 ten years after, Mr. Olayinka said.

The media aide was reacting to a widely circulated statement by Mr. Falana titled The Limit of Gov. Fayoses Legal Immunity on Thursday, in which he argued that the EFCC acted within the ambit of the law in freezing the personal bank account of his state governor.

Citing various legal jurisprudences to back his position, the lawyer further called for the prosecution of the governor for treason, arguing that the immunity, which Mr. Fayose claims to enjoy, has been watered down by reason of his (Fayose) admission that he partook in the coup which occurred in Ekiti State which culminated in his emergence as the Ekiti State governor.

Mr. Olayinka, however, said it was shameful that a lawyer of Mr. Falanas standing could make such arguments.

Even though this comment coming from Femi Falana ought to have been ignored like we have always done because his hypocrisy has become so legendary that he should no longer be taken seriously by sane minds, it was shameful that Falana, a Senior Associate Nigeria (SAN) could say that EFCC can freeze Nigerians bank accounts and obtain a court order later even when Section 34 of the EFCC Act provided that a court order must be obtained (ex-parte) and made available to the bank manager before a bank account can be frozen.

Olayinka said further; Court Order is a condition precedent before a bank account can be frozen and Section 34 of the EFCC Act is very clear on this. It is unambiguous. It presupposes that EFCC cannot freeze the bank account of any Nigerian, no matter the status without first obtaining a court order and making same available to the bank manager.

This position was also expressed by Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, yesterday when he ordered the EFCC to pay N12.5 million damages to the son of former Governor Murtala Nyako, Senator Abdulaziz Nyako for unlawful freezing of his account and illegal detention.

It is therefore strange that a SAN could tell Nigerians that EFCC can carry out an action first and obtain court order to justify the action later.

If I may ask, was Falana called to the Bar before he attended Law School and passed his Call-To-Bar Exams? Was Falanas LLB Certificate given to him before he got admission to the University? Was Falanas BL Certificate issued to him before he attended the Law School? Was Falanas Birth Certificate issued before he was born? Was Falanas Marriage Certificate issued before he got married? Has Falana ever travelled to UK or USA and obtained Visa later? Can I, Lere Olayinka, because I can now quote some laws begin to practice as a lawyer and go to University to study law later?

Obviously, opinions of lawyers like Femi Falana are better left in the trash cans and Nigerians should begin to thank God that he was not made Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

It is also important to tell Falana to seek the face of the Lord for forgiveness of his sins against Ekiti and Governor Fayose in particular, because it appears God deliberately frustrated his bid to be appointed Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice because of what he would have used the position for.

For instance, over ten Ekiti indigenes were murdered during the APC government of Dr Kayode Fayemi, Falana kept silent. He also kept silent when the future of Ekiti State was being mortgaged to frivolous loans and deductions from workers salary were not being remitted. It also made no meaning to Falana that democratically elected local government chairmen and councillors were sacked and council election was not conducted throughout the four years of APC government in Ekiti State.

Instead of hiding under human rights activism to perpetrate evil against Ekiti and its people as he has always done, Falana should be bold enough to declare his governorship ambition, which is not hidden and lets see how far he can go this time around.

Like we have maintained, this is 2016 and 2006 that Falana and his criminal collaborators used EFCC to remove Governor Fayose whose impeachment was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
At least three Australian citizens and one Australian resident, who were contractors for Lafarge cement company have been kidnapped and their driver killed in Calabar, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday.

There was an initial confusion over the number of victims and nationalities of those involved, as police in gave conflicting accounts, Reuters said in a report.

But media reports indicate that three Australians, a New Zealander, a South African and two Nigerians were attacked by the gunmen with one of them shot dead.

The two workers later escaped, police said. They were attacked on the outskirts of the city of Calabar at around 05:30 a.m.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the incident a very serious kidnapping in response to a journalists question and urged calm in reporting the incident.

These are the facts as we know them: three Australians and one Australian resident were among seven people kidnapped in an attack on an Australia contractors operations in Nigeria. One person was killed in the attack, Turnbull told reporters.

Two expatriates managed to flee, said Irene Ugbo, a spokeswoman for Cross River state police, adding that she did not know the nationality of any of the workers feared still held.

Ugbo had earlier said that only two of the kidnapped were Australians, and one was a New Zealander, while another police officer said a South African had been abducted.

The kidnappers had not contacted police, she said.

Kidnappings of foreigners are common in the Delta region, which holds most of the crude oil whose sales make about 70 percent of Nigerias national income.

Nigeria was Africas top oil producer until a recent spate of attacks on oil facilities pushed it behind Angola. Production has fallen from 2.2 million barrels at the start of the year to around 1.6 million barrels, helping push up global oil prices.

Lafarge Africa said it had been informed of the incident by Australian contractor Macmahon.

Macmahon is working with the security agencies to resolve this situation, said Viola Graham-Douglas, a spokeswoman for Lafarge Africa.

Macmahon Holdings Ltd, which was placed on a trading halt in the wake of the incident, confirmed the incident in a statement late on Thursday.

We are working to ensure the safe return of all the men involved and are in communication with their families, the company said.

Macmahon is providing support to the mens families and we ask the media to respect their privacy at this time. Counselling has also been made available for all Macmahon employees and their families.

Source: Vanguard
The inability of over two-thirds of state governments across the country to pay workers salaries, has been described as a national disgrace by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The president stated this yesterday when he had an interactive session with State House workers, who gathered at the forecourt of the Presidential Villa to welcome him back from his 10-day vacation in London.

He said: 27 out of the 36 states cannot pay salaries. This is a disgrace to Nigeria. It is a disgrace up till now that most of the states cannot pay salaries. What happened to all we have gotten over the years? We look up and down, left, right and centre, what have we saved? There was nothing because we developed a consumption culture that we were not supposed to develop. Most of your colleagues that have left service, I doubt if they are getting benefits. That is the situation we find ourselves in.

Noting that the military had made remarkable improvement against insurgency in the northeast, the president decried the spate of bombings of oil installations in the Niger Delta by militants.

He said: Unfortunately, the other unstable part of the country, the Niger Delta, with their myriads of organizations that are competing over which one can do more damage to the country and the oil companies and oil wells. For how long are we going to do this?

In a direct warning to those still carrying out underhand dealings in the government, President Buhari advised them to desist because anyone caught in the act will have themselves to blame.

All fraud must stop! he said. If they dont believe us, they should go try and see those we caught red-handed with public funds. This will continue as long as this leadership is here.

Whoever takes anything that does not belong to him or that he is not entitled to, it will be documented and the person will be taken to court. This is the only way I think we can bail ourselves out.

I am asking you to dedicate yourselves more to your country because I said more than 30 years ago, that there is no other country we can call our home, but Nigeria, he said

We are determined to rehabilitate our country for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. I have never in my life from class monitor to this place, twice in different forms, believed in corruption.

But we wont touch anybody who did not touch public funds, you should behave yourself. If you dont have houses in Abuja and the whole of Europe, you will sleep soundly. You and your family will earn respect. But if you shortchange the treasury, you will be caught and I pity your family because people will be abusing them.

People will be calling you big thieves that how did you raise money to build all the houses in Abuja and Europe with your meagre salary. I think personal integrity is something to be encouraged. I assure you that I am absolutely dedicated to serving Nigeria. Those who behave themselves will never regret, he added.

On his vacation, he said: I thank you for welcoming me back from my health break. You are the judges, perhaps I look healthier than I left or I came back worse.

Responding on behalf of the worker, Permanent Secretary (State House), Jalal Arabi: said: We are here to welcome you back from your well-deserved vacation.

Arabi prayed for good health, Gods guidance and wisdom for the president to continue to lead the nation.
Jimoh Ibrahim honored the invitation of the Senate Committee on Aviation on Wednesday.

The Senate Committee is investigating a massive diversion of N500 billion which was a bailout to the aviation sector from the central Bank.

One of the alleged beneficiaries of the bailout which was provided through banks was Jimoh Ibrahim.

In startling circumstances, the businessman has denied receiving any loan from the bailout fund.

Ibrahim was at that time the CEO of the now defunct Air Nigeria and the bank claims he received a facility of N35.5 bn from UBA

At the hearing, the Group General Counsel for United Bank for Africa Plc, Mr. Samuel Adikamkwu said that the company applied and obtained the loan through UBA.

A former Director of finance at Air Nigeria, John Nnorom, told the committee that company serviced the loan with N228m monthly for nine months before the airline went belly up.

Nnorom said, The very moment the N35.5bn intervention fund was paid into the airlines account through the United Bank for Africa, it disappeared into one of the private accounts of the owner without any amount from the fund injected into the airline, paving the way for its eventual collapse.

The Aviation Intervention Fund was taken by Air Nigeria. In my capacity as the executive director of finance, I needed documents to pay and I did due diligence and I discovered that Air Nigeria actually took the loan.

He added, Jimoh Ibrahim said he did not take a loan. He said he acquired Air Nigeria and paid the money 100 per cent and that he was given a clean bill by UBA. But you cannot finance a loan if it is not bad after some time.

The question is how that loan entered the account of Air Nigeria again. It is the intervention fund that was transferred back to UBA, which the bank is now servicing even after the airline was no longer in existence. I paid the loan, about N228m, for about nine months.

On his part, Jimoh Ibrahim said he although he obtained a loan, it was in no way related to Air Nigeria and that he did not access the Intervention fund.

He said, Government did not give me any loan and I did not collect any loan from the Bank of Industry or any other agency of government. What has the government to do with me?

When we bought Air Nigeria, I did not see any intervention fund, no cash was paid to me or credited to Air Nigeria from the fund. When we came in, Air Nigeria had about $250m with two aircraft parked at the terminal that nobody was using.

Mr. Richard Branson walked out of the airline. It was in a state of coma and the company was winding up before I was called upon. We decided to use our group of companies to grow the national carrier.

At the group level, we provided a bridging loan facility to make sure that the indebtedness issue was resolved. The intervention fund had been in existence before we took over.

Ibrahim added, At the stage of buying the transaction with UBA, they told us very clearly that if the intervention fund re-occurred, they would be able to access it. As far as we were concerned, we provided the bridge loan facility. If UBA accessed the intervention fund, thats their own.

Air Nigeria did not apply to the Central Bank of Nigeria directly to collect the intervention fund. The debt in existence before we bought the airline was what the intervention fund was used for. We had presented documents before the Senate last year that we had no business whatsoever with the intervention fund.

The UBA representative, Samuel, said, In 2010, Air Nigeria made an application to us to apply for N41.1bn from the BoI because that was what they were owing us; but in the end, we ended up getting N35.5bn, which we used in refinancing part of what was outstanding at that time.

No one can buy a company with assets and liabilities and now claim that he had paid the loan. The letter was issued for a purpose to enable him assess loans from local and external sources. Air Nigeria remains indebted to UBA. There was no time when Air Nigeria was not indebted to UBA.

The Senate has cleared Jimoh Ibrahim of any wrongdoing and it appears the blame lies squarely in UBAs court.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has summoned the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN) over the alleged abandonment of a road in Benue State.

He is to appear before the commission on June 29 to explain why the federal government allegedly abandoned the Makurdi-Gboko Federal Highway in violation of the rights of the people of Mbayion District of Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State.

Leader of the traditional rulers from the area, Mr Pius Anga says the deplorable nature of the Makurdi-Gboko Federal Highway has become a death trap to motorists plying the route, resulting in many road accidents that have caused the death of some important Nigerians.

Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Bem Angwe, issued the summons in Abuja following a petition submitted by traditional rulers from Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State.
The Nigerian Army and the Police have issued a joint statement condemning the shootout by their personnel in the Borno State Government House on Thursday during a feud over distribution of rice by the government to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs.

We earlier reported here that the shootout occurred when policemen directed to supervise the distribution of the food item, prevented some soldiers from benefiting from the gesture.

The incident, which caused panic around Government House, resulted in a policeman sustaining gunshot wound while two soldiers were reportedly disarmed and detained by the policemen.

In the statement, the army and the police said the incident was condemnable even as they vowed to investigate what went wrong and punish those culpable.

SEE ALSO: Borno To Probe Diversion Of IDP Rice

The statement was jointly signed by Col. S.B Kumapaiye, Commander, 7 Division Garrison, Operation Lafiya Dole and Aminchi Samaila Baraya, Commissioner of Police, Borno State Command.

Full statement:

In the morning hours of today, Thursday, June 23, 2016, there was an unfortunate fracas between a soldier and a policeman around the office of the Deputy Governor over a disagreement which led to the unfortunate shooting of a policeman on his foot.

The policeman is responding to treatment and has been visited by the theatre commander, operation Lafiya Dole, Major General LEO Irabor and the Commissioner of Police, Borno State Command, Aminchi Baraya, both of whom went together to sympathize with the policeman.

By way of background from the Permanent Secretary, Government House and Security, Mr Ahmed Sanda, the Borno State Government had on Sunday, June 19, 2019 began the distribution of rice to internally displaced persons living in the host communities of Maiduguri and Jere metropolis. The distribution was meant to take place at 28 wards of the two local government areas unfortunately, when the exercise was launched in old Maiduguri ward for Jere local government area and at Shehuri north ward for Maiduguri on Sunday, hoodlums overpowered the committee in both instances and made away with many bags of the rice meant for the displaced persons.

As a result, officials tasked with the distribution shifted the exercise to two premises around the office of the Deputy Governor outside the Government House in order to ensure security of the food items while beneficiaries were identified and issued with allocation notes to give them access to the distribution centers. The exercise had gone smoothly since Sunday with some wards covered, until the unfortunate development today, Thursday.

The Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force in Maiduguri jointly condemn this unfortunate incident which was quickly brought under full control within minutes.

The Army and the Police are jointly investigating the cause of the fracas with a view to ensuring that anyone found culpable amongst the security men are made to face disciplinary measures in line with laid down rules of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Findings and measures taken will be brought to public knowledge as soon as possible.

The Army and the police operating in Borno assure the general public that they will continue to collaborate and work together towards their ongoing counter insurgency and civil security efforts that have led to the emerging peace in Borno State.

The Army and the Police commands in Borno State call on all personnel to exercise restraint in the cause of their duties and should strive to respect one another and work together to secure innocent citizens and maintain peace.
Senators elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have withdrawn their support for the President Muhammadu Buhari administration over what they considered its belligerent attitude towards its members.

The PDP senators made their position known in a communique at the end of plenary on Wednesday in Abuja.

The communique, which was signed by the minority leader, Godswill Akpabio; deputy minority leader, Emmanuel Bwacha; minority whip, Phillip Aduda and his deputy, Abiodun Olujimi, was read by Senator Bwacha.

The PDP senators decision to withdraw support for the All Progressives Congress-led federal government followed the filing of two-count charge bordering on forgery and conspiracy by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), against the Senate President and his deputy, Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu, respectively.

They are accused of forging the Senate Rules to influence their election as presiding officers last year June.

Saraki, Ekweremadu, former Clerk to the National Assembly and his deputy, Salisu Maikasuwa and Ben Efeturi, respectively, are due to make their first court appearance on Monday.

The opposition PDP senators said they would withhold support for the APC government until they cease the belligerent attitude towards PDP members.

The communique said: We condemn in totality, the orchestrated plot to remove the president of the Senate and his deputy through illegal means.

The deployment of state instruments of coercion to intimidate an independent arm of government like the legislature is now a major threat to the survival of our democracy.

The glaring witch-hunt of perceived opposition elements in the polity is invitation to anarchy.

The war against corruption should not be selective, must be fought with sincerity and not the politics that is being played now with war against corruption.

The senators said since the war against corruption had devolved into probing campaign funds, it should be extended to all parties, APC inclusive.

We therefore condemn in strong terms, the sentiments displayed in fighting corruption, example: The freezing of account of the Ekiti State governor, is clearly a political witch-hunt.

The PDP Senate Caucus, therefore, wishes to warn the executive arm of government to act with caution on matters that have the potency to subvert our democracy. The Executive arm must therefore desist from these acts of lawlessness that are typical military dictatorship, the communique said.

It also advised the APC- led government to concentrate on the existing economic and security challenges that are threatening our survival as a nation.
Plateau State Geographical Information System (PLAGIS) has gone live and issued new land titles with Thomson Reuters Aumentum, bringing improved land tenure to more than three million Nigerians, Thomson Reuters, in partnership with Teqbridge Limited of Nigeria, have announced.

By using Thomson Reuters Aumentum, the Plateau State government will improve land administration services and strengthen property rights for its citizens, said Sneha Shah, managing director for Thomson Reuters Africa. By partnering with the Lagos-based Teqbridge, Thomson Reuters was able to effectively configure and deploy a global, world-class product with local Nigerian teams, while quickly developing local capacity with staff in Plateau. As Nigeria is seeking to promote inclusive economic and social development, Plateau State is blazing the trail by unlocking the economic potential of land and property rights for their citizens.

The project involves the acquisition of orthophoto covering the entire state (27,332 square kilometers), feature mapping and LiDAR covering the urban areas (4053 square kilometers), installation of AUMENTUM land registry and cadastre software, and hardware including personnel training and business analyses. The system automates and manages land records, creates and maintains integrated and accurate geographic and survey data. Additionally, it includes an online portal through which customers can apply, search and transact all land related businesses under the Ministry from the comfort of their homes and offices without physical presence in any of the land offices, thereby reducing foot traffic by as much as 30%.

The PLAGIS is the best of its kind for effective and easy land administration, said Commissioner for Land Survey and Town Planning Barrister Festus Fuanter. It has the capacity to generate N1 billion [$5 million USD] every month when fully utilized.

Thomson Reuters Aumentum was selected by CTworx (Project Consultant) and the Plateau State Government (represented by Ministry of Lands, Survey and Town Planning) because it is a proven operational solution with innovative and integrated capabilities to meet the governments varied administrative needs.

To efficiently manage and deliver information accurately and serve constituents, Plateau State needed a solution that integrated the operations of multiple departments inside of the Land Ministry, said Chiemeka Ngwu, managing director of Teqbridge. With the new Thomson Reuters Aumentum system, Plateau State is strengthening land tenure for its citizens and creating a strong foundation for economic growth, and this size of project can only be successfully completed on schedule with a partner like Thomson Reuters that believes in growing local skills to guarantee timely support and continuity.

The successful project builds on Thomson Reuters proven track record in Nigeria, where it operates across its Financial & Risk, Legal, and Tax & Accounting businesses. Thomson Reuters has previously deployed the Aumentum system elsewhere in Nigeria, as well as operating in the City of Cape Town in South Africa for more than ten years.
The House of Representatives plans to investigate the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The lawmakers made the decision on Wednesday following a motion moved by member representing from Adamawa State, Honourable Adamu Kamala, at the floor of the lower chamber.

The motion drew attention to the lack of a clear operational guideline for the management of the funds gathered through the TSA policy.

The House, therefore, said it would set up an adhoc committee to look into the policy to ascertain the actual amount that had been realised so far through the TSA policy.

The committee is to meet with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other agencies that have official roles in the implementation of the policy and be briefed on how the proceeds would be utilised.
The pioneer chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, has said the Aisha Buhari mentioned in the bribery scandal of a former United States congressman, William Jefferson, was an impostor who was peddling influence with the name of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, had stoked controversy on Monday when he alleged that the wife of the president was mentioned as having wired the sum of $170,000 to the convicted congressman.

While the Presidency dismissed the allegation as shameless and blatant distortion of facts, the immediate past chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, confirmed that the wife of the president was not the Aisha Buhari mentioned in the bribery scandal.

In a follow-up statement on Wednesday, Gov. Fayose stood his grounds, daring Mrs. Buhari to travel to the U.S to prove her innocence.

But Mr. Ribadu, who was the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2015 governorship elections in Adamawa State, narrated how the EFCC during his tenure, in conjunction with U.S. authorities, almost arrested the impostor.

She is a different person and has lived in the U.S. for years. She is hardly in Nigeria. The EFCC was working with U.S. authorities on the investigations. One of my plans was to arrest her before I left the commission. Our suspicion then was that she was using the Buhari name for influence.

The EFCC laid ambush to see if she would come into the country so she could be arrested. I didnt know what happened to the plan to arrest her after I left, he said.

The former anti-corruption czar, however, said if Nigerian authorities were still interested in the case, it was easy to establish her real identity.

According to Ribadu, identifying the impostor should not be a problem for investigators because she recently renewed her passport at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, which should still have a file on her.
A joint patrol team of Sector 1 of 27 Task Force Brigade and Army Headquarters Strike Group has stormed some villages in Borno State and cleared Boko Haram terrorists enclaves. The villages include Buhari, Matari and Kaidiri, located some kilometres to Damasak, Borno State.

According to the Acting Director Army Public Relations, Colonel Sani Usman, the remnants of the terrorists at Kaidiri on sighting the patrol team withdrew and escaped to Niger Republic with gunshot wounds.

Although the troops pursued them, only two Boko Haram terrorists were caught. Seven motorcycles and borehole equipment were also recovered.

Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people since it began its campaign of violence in 2009.
Witnesses billed to testify against former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, must be protected and not made to testify in open court, the Federal Government insisted on Thursday.

Mr. Dasuki is being tried in court by the Department of State Services, DSS, for alleged unlawful possession of fire arms.

Making the argument before Justice Ademola Adeniyi of a Federal High Court, Abuja, prosecution lawyer, Dipo Okpeseyi, claimed that allowing the witnesses to give their testimony in open court may pose a risk to their lives by loyalists of the former NSA, who are currently serving in the military.

According to the prosecution, the defendant, who is a retired colonel of the Nigerian Army and prince of the Sokoto Caliphate, is a well-known figure in all spheres of Nigerias military, therefore, allowing the witnesses to testify openly against him in court could portend grave danger to them.

Mr. Okpeseyi further alleged that sophisticated firearms were discovered from the defendant  evidence that he was constituting a threat to national security.

Reacting to the argument by the prosecution, counsel to the defendant, Joseph Daudu (SAN), prayed the court to dismiss the application, as there was no basis for the allegations.

After listening to arguments from both sides, Justice Adeniyi adjourned to September 13 to 15 for ruling.

It would be recalled that since the beginning of Mr. Dasukis trial last November, the prosecution has had three of its applications before the same court, demanding the protection of its witnesses thrown out.
The governing All Progressives Congress has asked Peoples Democratic Party senators to face their legislative business and come to terms with the reality that they cannot dictate to the Buhari administration how to fight corruption.

The governing party was reacting to the decision of the PDP senators on Wednesday to withdraw their support for the APC-led federal government.

The PDP senators said the decision to withdraw their support was hinged on the APC governments belligerent attitude towards the opposition members and the perceived bias in its anti-corruption crusade.

But APC, via a statement signed by its National Secretary, Mala Buni, said PDP lawmakers should rather face their lawmaking business in the interest of the nation.

The attention of the National Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to a statement credited to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senate Caucus stating that the Caucus has withdrawn its support for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari over the administrations hugely successful war against corruption, the statement said.

The PDP Caucus must be reminded of their primary responsibility of lawmaking and representation of their constituents at the National Assembly. The APC advises the PDP Senate Caucus not to allow political shenanigans to becloud overall national interest.

For the umpteenth time, the PDP and their agents do not have the luxury of dictating how the current administration and anti-corruption agencies carries out its legitimate duty of investigating and prosecuting cases of corruption, as long as it conforms to the rule of law.

Responding to alleged selective prosecution of the ongoing anti-graft war, the APC scribe asked the PDP to approach anti-graft agencies with petitions against anybody suspected to have indulged in corrupt practices.

The PDP Caucus allegations of a selective anti-corruption fight and belligerent stance of the current administration is hogwash and baseless, Mr. Buni said. If the PDP and its agents have proof of corruption against anybody, the APC advises that they approach anti-graft agencies constitutionally mandated to handle such cases instead of declaring innocence on newspaper pages and other media outlets.

He further urged anti-corruption agencies not to be stampeded and blackmailed by this new plot and continue to employ all legitimate avenues in investigating and prosecuting ongoing corruption cases.

The statement added that, The generality of Nigerians clamour for all looters of public funds to be brought to book. The APC assures Nigerians that the political will and sincerity of purpose of the current administration to tackle corruption remains resolute.
Livestock Report Walsh Trading - 19 minutes ago Cattle markets bounce back

Shootin' the Bull Swift Trading Company - 22 minutes ago Inflation is believed kicking up its heels again. Spot diesel fuel up over $.25 today alone and crude breaking out to the upside, with it over $3.00 higher through the day. The US dollar index was...

Grain Spreads: Wheat Drama Continues Walsh Trading - 1 hour ago Corridor Out of Ukraine Temporarily Shut.

Nat-Gas Prices Fall Back on the Outlook for Warmer U.S. Temps Barchart - 1 hour ago Dec Nymex natural gas (NGZ22 ) on Wednesday closed down by -0.047 (-0.76%). Dec nat-gas prices Wednesday posted moderate losses on expectations for warmer U.S. temperatures that would reduce heating demand... NGZ22 : 6.119s (-0.76%)

Crude Rallies on a Weak Dollar and Tight U.S. Fuel Supplies Barchart - 1 hour ago Dec WTI crude oil (CLZ22 ) on Wednesday closed up +2.59 (+3.04%), and Dec RBOB gasoline (RBZ22 ) closed up +2.09 (+0.82%). Crude oil and gasoline prices Wednesday rallied moderately, with crude posting... CLZ22 : 87.91s (+3.04%) RBZ22 : 2.5776s (+0.82%)
Over 40 years ago, Lewis Powell, who was later named to the U.S. Supreme Court, warned that a liberal takeover of Americans universities was turning students into opponents of the free enterprise system. Powell sought to rally right-minded donors to combat this trend, and many responded. Over decades, foundations like Bradley and Olin poured millions of dollars in funding toward conservative scholars and centers on campuses. More recently, the Charles Koch Foundation has been a leading funder in this area, as we've reported, giving to programs on over 200 campuses.

Related: Charles KochFoundation: Grants for Higher Education

Still, many conservative funders worry that not enough is being done to push back against liberalism on campus and that donors who should know better don't ask critical questions before giving money to universities. These concerns have grown acute lately, with more college kids talking up Bernie Sanders or standing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Sometimes, conservatives say, faculty are standing with themthat is, when they're not being hectored for failing to deliver "trigger warnings." While parents may have worked hard to inculcate their heirs with their interpretation of good American values, conservative donors worry that left-wing professors and a liberal campus culture are undermining that intent.

How can conservative campus donors avoid inadvertently funding the progressive march? Well, they might want to get in touch with DonorsTrust, the top donor-advised fund on the right. Launched in 1999 to promote and fund a culture of liberty, DonorsTrust has a lineage in the decades-long campaign by conservative foundations to advance free-market principles and small government. Earlier this year, we took a look inside this interesting funder.

Related: InsideDonorsTrust: What This Mission-Driven DAF Offers Philanthropists on the Right

DonorsTrusts key appeal can be found in that word: trust. True to conservatisms basic premise, the fund emphasizes original donor intent, ensuring that any giving matches the values and ideology of the givereven if his or her children one day think differently.

The funds vice chairman, James Piereson (who also heads the William E. Simon Foundation and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute), wants higher ed donors to apply similar logic. In a post on the DonorsTrust website, he makes a case that the current atmosphere on campus has become decidedly liberal and overly critical of the free market. So before giving to their alma maters, or any school for that matter, conservative donors should do their research.

While most American universities arent the one-sided leftist hotbeds Piereson portrays, he does have a point. Conservatives and libertarian ideas remain marginal on most campuses, and faculty tend to be more liberal than the public at large.

Piereson offers conservative donors several nuggets of advice. First, dont trust the university administration. They are, he rightly notes, in the business of soliciting maximum funds with minimum restrictions, just like any nonprofit. Second, endowment donations sound nice, but they dont have a good record of preserving donor intent and are problematic in other ways. Discussing endowed professorships and the like, Piereson writes, there is really no such thing as a perpetual program in a world that is constantly in flux. There are many endowed chairs set up a century or more ago to support fields of study that no longer exist.

Instead of dumping money into this kind of black hole, Pierson advises donors to do a little extra homework and find things to support on campus that are truly aligned with their values.

With a bit of effort, says Piereson, donors can often find conservative work to invest in on campus. He cites Princetons James Madison Program and Browns Political Theory Project as the kinds of efforts that donors should seek. He notes that places like the Charles Koch Foundation and the Manhattan Institute have already done plenty of legwork to identify conservative activities on campus. There's a whole network of scholars and programs that donors can tap to find the right fit for their funds, Piereson says.

Most of all, Piereson doesen't want conservative and libertarian donors to give on campuses, or underestimate how much impact their money can have if given wisely. Such funders, Piereson says, are badly needed as a means of balancing the debate on campus and of providing an education to the next generation of Americans.
The Clinton Foundation is back in the spotlight, with Donald Trump charging this month that the Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return." A range of other critics have piled on, including the Capital Research Center, which calls the foundation a cauldron of conflict and cronyism.

There are lots of good reasons for digging into the Clinton Foundation right now. But one question that gets surprisingly little attention is the most basic: What does this place actually do?

As far as I can see, most peopleincluding in nonprofits, politics and the mediaknow little about how the Clinton Foundation operates. Thats understandable, since the foundation ranks as one of the more complex nonprofits around. Yet grasping the mechanics of this place is a precondition for unraveling the controversies around it, relating to its effectiveness and possible conflicts of interest. Ill get into those controversies in later posts. Here, I focus on the foundations mechanics.

The Clinton Foundation is best understood as an umbrella entity that is carrying out several very different missions. Its a lot like the Carter Center in key respects, but more complex. Lets walk through each of its core missions.

Mission One: Traditional Nonprofit Program Work

One quick way to understand any nonprofit is to look at its budget and see what its spending money on. If you look at the Clinton Foundations consolidated expenses for 2014, which totaled $249 million, youll find that the biggest part of those expenses57 percentwas for running the Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI. Technically, CHAI is a freestanding nonprofit, and it files its own 990 tax return, but it is still roughly under the Clinton Foundation umbrella. CHAI was started in 2002 to focus on saving the lives of people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world by dramatically scaling up antiretroviral treatment. It has since expanded to address other health issues like malaria and maternal health, operating in some 35 countries. The Gates Foundation is CHAIs biggest funder. It gave it over $60 million last year alone.

Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation directly runs various programs tackling other problems. The largest of these, dollar-wise, is the Clinton Climate Initiative, which works to prevent deforestation, develop clean energy, and help island nations meet the climate challenge (as weve reported). As with CHAI, theres nothing all that surprising about this effort, which is similar to other nonprofit work in the climate space. The government of Norway, which gives large amounts of money globally to slow deforestation, is among the top funders of CCI.

Continuing down the program list, we find the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which focuses on poverty alleviation by supporting impact entrepreneurs who are are creating new enterprises to generate both social impact and financial returns by addressing market gaps in developing countries. If any of that sounds familiar, its because lots of groups are now using these same strategies as impact investing takes off. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, here. (Except the donor to the program, Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman whose ties to the Clintons have come under scrutiny. More about him in a future post.)

The Clinton Foundation runs a bunch of other programs. I could keep going through them, but you can check out the full list yourself. What youll find, by and large, are more activities of the sort that any other nonprofit might be undertaking. And, like other nonprofits, the Clinton Foundation is chasing after grant money from the real foundations that have it, like Gates and Rockefeller, as well as foreign governments, most of which also donate to other major nonprofits.

Mission Two: Convener and Matchmaker

Of course, the other big thing the Clinton Foundation does is bring people together through the Clinton Global Initiative. While this is the best-known part of its work, CGI actually accounted for less than 10 percent of the foundations consolidated expenses in 2014.

The Clinton Global Initiative emerged after Bill Clinton had the idea of creating a Davos-type event that focused on global problems. CGI has now been around for over a decade and is itself a bit complicated, with three parts: the annual global convening, CGI America (which focus on U.S. issues), and CGI University, which works to engage college to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world.

You can dig into all the details on CGI here, if you want. But the best way to understand CGI is that its a glitzy membership operation that fosters partnerships to tackle various problems. Members come together at the meetings, and make commitments to engage in projectsoften involving tens of millions of dollars in pledges.

One thing that confuses people about CGI is that none of the pledged money runs through this organization. As the foundation describes it, Rather than directly implementing projects, CGI facilitates action by helping members connect, collaborate, and make effective and measurable Commitments to Action. Often, though, youll hear pledges made at CGI described as outright donations to the Clinton Foundation. Even veteran reports seem easily confused by this model, while some critics exploit this confusion to amp up allegations of conflicts of interest.

The other tricky thing about CGI is that its hard to know what really happens with commitments made at its meetings, since its up to the partners involved to fulfill them and the Clinton Foundation is not directing this work. The effectiveness of CGI is its own complicated can of worms, which Ill open up in a future post.

Mission Three: Keeper of the Clinton Flame and Presidential Center

The final mission of the Clinton Foundation is to attend to Bill Clintons presidential legacy. This work accounts for the third-largest item in the foundations annual expenses, over $13 million in 2014, and involves overseeing the Clinton Presidential Center in Arkansas. This institution, too, has several moving partsincluding the presidential museum and archives, a school of public service work linked to the University of Arkansas, and some educational programs.

Most people are pretty familiar with what a presidential center does, so Ill skip further elaboration. The key thing to note, here, is that overseeing the Clinton Presidential Center is quite different than the other missions of the Clinton Foundation, and underscores what a mish-mash this place is.

***

Okay, so thats the 101 on what the Clinton Foundation does. One thing you'll notice is that grantmaking is not part of its mission, and that also creates confusionsince many people imagine that foundations are mainly engaged in giving away money.

The foundation is quite an octopus, but not entirely unique in that respect. In fact, the closer you look at the foundation, the more you notice similarities to the Carter Center, which also engages in extensive program work around the world, oversees a presidential museum, and undertakes various other activities. Strikingly, the Carter Centers expenses in 2014 totaled $243 million; the Clinton Foundations expenses the same year were $249 million. The two institutions also share a number of donors, such as the Gates Foundation and certain national governments, including from the Middle East.

None of this basic information about the Clinton Foundation answers the questions now being raised regarding its effectiveness and possible conflicts of interest involving Hillary Clinton. Ill get into those issues in future posts. But for sure, just understanding how this place operates is a key to figuring out anything else we may want to know about the foundation.

Related:
Box at Work GmbH, a Berlin-based startup specializing in valet self-storage and moving-bin rentals, has raised 5.5 million in investment money, which it intends to use for expansion to the United States. The Series A funding was provided by a family-owned Dutch business that specializes in international real estate, according to a press release. The unidentified investor will also serve as a strategic partner to the valet-storage operator.

Since launching in January 2015, Box at Work has established service in several German cities and expanded to Zug and Zurich, Switzerland, earlier this year. The company expects to add service in France and the Netherlands before establishing a base in the U.S.

The U.S. valet-storage market is currently dominated by companies such as MakeSpace and Clutter, company officials said. However, Box at Work, with its current position as market leader in Europe, hopes to be a strong challenger to these businesses and become a global brand.

Similar to other valet-style storage operators, Box at Work offers by-the-bin service targeted at residents who dont have adequate home storage. The company uses an online platform that allows customers to schedule an initial delivery of moving bins, item pickup for storage, and then redelivery of items to their home when needed. Moving customers who dont require storage can also just rent the bins.
It seems misanthropic to write about the financial burden of our lengthening lifespans. Longer lives should be a cause for celebration. But thats what Ive been doing lately.

One of the most important articles Ive written this year told the story of how once-iconic companies such as General Motors, J.C. Penney and Motorola are transferring the risks of their pension liabilities to insurance companies. Pension risk transfers are complicated deals with pros and cons for all involved  and, I remind you, retirees are still getting their paychecks  but in the end it comes down to the fragile balance between retirement benefits given to past employees with the needs of the next generation.

It doesnt have to be an either-or situation. Long lives can be wonderful, but somebody has to pay for them. Longevity is a subject Institutional Investor has covered well, from Fran Denmarks 2014 story on managing longevity risk to my piece a few years earlier on how the Surge of Baby Boomer Saving Will Transform the Capital Markets . William Sharpe, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in economics, had a walk-on role in my lede. Sharpe, 78 at the time, was hard at work researching the ways people might be able to live off their savings, given lifespans that were once unimaginable.

Financial planning for longevity involves people either extending their careers or saving a whole lot more  or maximizing the pension fund that is backing a retirees pay. Theres a limit to how much most people can save. Its not unlike a grain elevator, which can only store so much for the future.

Meanwhile investors can also try to profit from the impact of longevity on business. The lopsided aging demographics around the globe will dramatically alter our economy, albeit not always in the most upbeat ways. I talked to Taimur Hyat, chief strategy officer of PGIM, the investment management arm of Newark, New Jerseybased Prudential Financial, about it. Hyat argues that chief investment officers need to think hard about trends that will change the investment landscape. Longevity is one. Its not enough to draw up detailed asset allocation plans without incorporating themes that will affect the nature of investment opportunities within each sector, whether real estate or private equity.

Hyat emphasizes that his work is not just about the sheer numbers of old people. Yes, there are more elderly people in places such as Japan, China, Europe and the U.S. But these elderly people are also living much longer than previous generations. Thats what is interesting. Its the twin effect, he says. Hyat says there has been a lot of research into demographics, but surprisingly little on the investment opportunities.

Although demographic data is public and has been crunched over and over, Hyat was surprised by a few things, including how wrong demographers have consistently been in their life expectancy forecasts. In 1940, demographers thought babies born that year would live to 63. In reality, theyve lived to at least 75.

PGIM thinks institutional investors can adopt some longevity themes within their traditional asset allocation plans. For example, demand for senior housing, including semi-independent living centers, stands to grow. Companies in this sector can be incorporated into real estate allocations. Hyat stresses that private equity and venture capital teams could co-invest in companies that are developing cures for diseases such as Alzheimers and certain cancers that disproportionately strike the elderly. Investing broadly in public health care through an ETF, for example, is too blunt of an instrument, says Hyat. PGIMs real estate team is investing in what it calls eds and meds, in which private health care companies are moving near big educational and medical establishments and building facilities to do biotech research.

But the bigger change for institutional investors is seeing a portfolio through mega trends such as longevity. Its taking a theme and then seeing how you would invest in each traditional area, says Hyat. CalPERS has done something like this with its inflation-linked investments. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board also evaluates ideas along thematic lines to identify securities that could be affected by long-term structural changes. Think climate change for one. The point is that longevity is affecting every area of our lives and our investments need to reflect that. Its risky to fight demographics, says Hyat.

It is risky to fight demographics, but I wonder if the time frame is too long for most investors. After all, many of these trends will unfold over the next 30 to 40 years. Hyat says PGIM doesnt try to predict beyond 20 or 25 years. He leaves the world beyond that to futurists, above the pay grade of investment strategists. Hyat says there are many near-term opportunities in real estate, drugs and biotech. Still, mega trends like longevity are only available to long-term patient capital.

Investors may have to learn a little patience from their elders.

Follow Julie Segal on Twitter at @julie_segal.
Two weeks after the floods, with flood damage bills for Tasmanian homes and businesses becoming clearer, community leaders and residents are growing more frustrated at the slow pace of insurance assessments, reported ABC.According to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), 2000 house and contents claims worth almost $30 million have been filed in Tasmania, with the damage bill will continue to rise as more properties get assessed.In an interview with NT News, Peter Freshney, Latrobe mayor, said the slow flood claim assessments are slowing down clean-up efforts.It is now two weeks since the flood event and property owners are putting off cleaning up their homes because they have not been assessed, said Freshney.Some do not yet know if their property will need to be demolished or if they can move back in.According to the ABC report, to get damage claims moving and to ease the mounting frustration among flood-hit residents and business proprietors, an insurance taskforce  the Tasmanian Flood Recovery Taskforce  has been mobilised in Tasmania.During the first North-West Regional Flood Recovery Committee in Latrobe on 21 June, Laurie Ratz, ICA special risk manager, said the taskforce will investigate what causes the delay in flood claim assessments.I understand there are enough hydrologists and assessors available, so I need to find out what the holdup is, said Ratz.We have set up an insurance taskforce to get appropriate resources on the ground and get the claims process rolling.A Tasmanian Flood Recovery Taskforce office has been set up in Stoney Rise, near Davenport, with another to be built up in Launceston soon.
Rhode Islands legislature has passed a bill to legalize and regulate ride-hailing app companies such as Uber.

The legislation was among hundreds of bills passed during an all-night session that ended Saturday.

It would put Uber, Lyft and similar companies under the oversight of the states public utilities commission, require driver background checks, set minimum insurance requirements and establish an annual $30,000 permit for companies with at least 200 drivers.

Uber issued a statement thanking lawmakers for passing the bill.

Negotiations on the legislation between the House and Senate continued until the last hours of the session. Lawmakers dropped a driver fingerprinting requirement that Uber opposed and passed a separate bill reducing requirements for traditional taxi operators.

It now moves to Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo, who has supported it.

Among other bills that passed both chambers during the all-night session was one giving the state the legal authority to regulate drones, such as those used for delivery or photography. Rep. Stephen Ucci, a Johnston Democrat, said the legislation is meant to prevent a patchwork of competing laws in each city or town that would be hard for drone operators to follow.

Lawmakers also approved a measure granting immunity from alcohol or drug charges to college students who report dating violence or sexual assaults.

Raimondo will be getting hundreds of bills. The House of Representatives passed 273 bills between Friday afternoon and just after dawn Saturday, including bills sent to it by the Senate. The Senate passed 237 bills, including House bills. The legislation includes next years $8.94 billion budget.

The bills will be transmitted to Raimondo in the coming weeks, but not all at once so she has time to review them. The governor has a week to sign or veto a bill after it reaches her desk.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation
Two sisters have sued a Catholic priest, his central Pennsylvania diocese and two ex-bishops who supervised him, saying the cleric molested them repeatedly as girls  including one at her first Communion party.

The younger sister, who is now 47, said she met the Rev. Charles Bodziak at St. Leo Church in Altoona, where he was the parish priest, when she was in second grade. At the party her parents threw after her first Communion, Bodziak groped her buttocks and gave her an open mouth kiss, according to the lawsuit.

Bodziak, now 74, repeatedly molested the girl until she was in sixth grade, taking her on school trips where she was fondled, kissed and assured that what he was doing was OK because he was a priest, her lawsuit said.

The lawsuit filed by her older sister, now 49, makes similar allegations against Bodziak, covering the time when she was 8 to 14 years old. She said Bodziak gave her wine on several occasions before molesting her. Bodziak assaulted her in the rectory after summoning her from school and molested her while she practiced the organ in church, according to her lawsuit.

The Associated Press could not locate an attorney for Bodziak, and three phone numbers listed as his in online databases were not answered Tuesday.

Tony DeGol, a spokesman for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, declined to comment on the allegations, but noted current Bishop Mark Bartchak placed Bodziak on leave in January as a precautionary measure while the diocese re-examines an allegation of sexual misconduct involving minors against Father Bodziak dating back more than 30 years.

It unclear whether the allegation cited by the diocese relates to the lawsuits filed Tuesday by attorney Richard Serbin, who has been suing the diocese and its priests for alleged molestation of children for decades.

While these girls are not the youngest Ive represented, they are toward the bottom of the scale, said Serbin, who has identified more than 30 diocesan priests as alleged predators in lawsuits hes filed since the 1980s. They were very young, immature, vulnerable.

Each of these priests, upon (the diocese) receiving complaints, were reassigned to another parish and Bodziak, sadly, is no different, Serbin said.

Bodziak was labeled a child predator in a grand jury report earlier this year. The report focused on the diocese and was critical of two former bishops who were sued on Tuesday, James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.

Adamecs attorney didnt immediately return a call for comment. DeGol said a priest serving as executor of Hogans estate declined comment.

The lawsuits parrot the grand jurys findings that the bishops were either slow to respond or sought to cover-up allegations of child-sex abuse against Bodziak and dozens of other priests over the last 50 years.

The grand jury report noted that Bodziak remained in ministry after an allegation involving a different girl surfaced in 2003 and Adamec referred it to a review board. The lawsuits quote the grand jury report, which said the board served as a fact-finding mechanism that forwarded information to lawyers to help the diocese protect itself from litigation, not a victim service function.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Claims Pennsylvania
Zurich Insurance has launched DigitalResolve, a coordinated incident response service to help businesses in Asia Pacific (APAC) mitigate and recover from cyber attacks.

Offered through Zurichs partner Crawford & Co., DigitalResolve helps organizations coordinate and manage resources so they can recover from damaging cyber attacks with minimum disruption, Zurich said in a statement.

DigitalResolve is designed to immediately mitigate the risk of operational shutdown, supply chain disruption, customer and revenue losses, declines in productivity, regulatory fines, litigation claims, cyber-extortion payments and reputational damage, Zurich added.

The service supports organizations after a cyber attack by assigning them a dedicated 24/7 incident manager with immediate response capabilities, who in turn appoints and coordinates a team of cyber experts to resolve the issue and minimize post-attack exposure. Depending on the attack, these will include PR consultants, forensic accountants, IT forensic experts, lawyers, credit monitors, and ransom negotiators.

DigitalResolve will be available to all Zurich Security and Privacy customers in Singapore first, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and China by the end of 2016, before being rolled out to other markets across the APAC region. Already offered in the U.K., DigitalResolve is fully operational.

The new service launches at a time when increasingly globalized and interconnected operations are raising the potential impact of cyber disruptions to businesses, while internet-related technologies such as mobile internet, the Internet of Things and cloud technology generate economic benefit yet increase cyber dependency, the company said.

Zurich quoted Grant Thorntons International Business Report, which revealed that cyber crime in 2015 cost the global economy an estimated US$315 billion, $81 billion of which was lost in APAC.

Oliver Vale, head of Professional Indemnity, Zurich Global Corporate Asia, said: It is not a question of if but when a cyber attack will happen. Today more than half of the worlds internet users are in Asia. However, despite being the fastest growing region for connectivity, the region is still inadequately prepared for cyber attacks.

While new IT-driven technologies open up wide-ranging opportunities for organisations of all sizes, the increasing reliance on the internet introduces significant new risks too, Vale cautioned.

In light of the increasing volume and sophistication of security breaches, it is no longer sufficient to consider cyber risk a concern for the IT department or mitigate against the possibility of experiencing cyberattack in the first place, he said.

Today, organizations must also plan for coordinated recovery in the event of an attack, so that when breaches happen, they can get the business back to full strength, at full speed. Furthermore, given the nature of Singapore as a regional hub, local businesses are exposed globally, he continued.

DigitalResolve is specifically set up to provide the same high level of resolution worldwide as it is locally, as panels are chosen not only for their track record and expertise but also their global reach and established networks.

Zurich said it is collaborating with governments, academics and other think tanks around the world to establish global standards, encourage information sharing, build resilience and create adequate global governance on cyber security.

Source: Zurich Insurance

Topics Cyber
An Independence, Mo., woman was sentenced to 31/2 years in prison without parole for an arson and insurance fraud scheme.

Tina Shonk was also ordered to pay $242,717 in restitution to her victims and $62,364 to the government.

Shonk pleaded guilty in January to participating in a conspiracy to commit arson and wire fraud and one count of mail fraud.

Prosecutors say Shonk and another person set fire to a home she was about to be evicted from for past due rent and then made false claims for insurance.

She and another conspirator later moved into a different house and planned another arson fire but they were arrested before the fire was set.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Missouri
Michigans attorney general filed a civil lawsuit on June 22 against two water engineering companies, saying they caused and exacerbated Flints lead-tainted water crisis and demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Attorney General Bill Schuette sued Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, known as LAN. Schuette said in a news release that the firms fraudulent and dangerous recommendations made a bad situation worse.

The lawsuit charges LAN and Veolia with professional negligence and public nuisance. Veolia was also charged with fraud.

The companies were hired by the city to assist while it was under state emergency management.

LAN, based in Houston, began working with Flint in 2013 to prepare its plant to treat new sources of drinking water, including the Flint River. Veolia was hired in 2015 to address the citys water quality.

The struggling city of nearly 100,000 has been dealing with poor water quality since switching from the Detroit system, which draws from Lake Huron, to the Flint River in April 2014. It was intended as a short-term measure to save money while another pipeline to Lake Huron was under construction.

Residents quickly complained that the water looked dirty and tasted and smelled bad. E. coli bacteria hit unsafe levels. And last September, state officials acknowledged a failure to add chemicals to limit corrosion had enabled the river water to scrape lead from aging pipes, exposing people in some homes and schools to the potent neurotoxin.

Flint was under state management at the time, leading to an apology from Gov. Rick Snyder. Flint returned to the Detroit system in October 2015. Criminal charges have already been filed against two state Department of Environmental Quality officials, while Flints utilities administrator pleaded no contest to willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor.

Email and phone messages seeking comment from Veolia and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam were not immediately returned.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Michigan
A worker was killed in a crane accident at an oil well site in western North Dakota, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said.

The incident, which happened late on June 20 near Ross in Mountrail County, was the second oilfield-related death in North Dakotas oil patch in the past week, the federal agency said.

OSHA spokeswoman Rhonda Burke said the 36-year-old man died after being stuck by the boom of a crane. The agency said he worked for Advance Energy, a South Boardman, Michigan-based drilling contractor. The mans name was not immediately released pending notification of relatives.

A man who answered the phone at the drilling firms headquarters would not confirm the death but said a company official was en route to North Dakota.

Eric Brooks, director of OSHAs office in Bismarck, said a five-member crew was using the crane to take pipe out of the ground and replace a tool that was about 650 feet underground. The worker was struck in the upper torso and killed by the cranes boom as it was lowered, he said.

The oil well is owned by Houston-based EOG Resources Inc., Brooks said.

OSHA also is investigating the cause of an explosion and fire at an oil well near Watford City on Saturday that killed a man and seriously injured two others. The McKenzie County Sheriffs Department said 52-year-old Johnny Stassinos of Rock Springs, Wyoming, died Saturday afternoon from injuries suffered that morning at a well site operated by XTO Energy Inc. near Watford City.

Officials said Daniel Montes, 28, of Fruita, Colorado, and Richard Maheu, 27, of Rock Springs, Wyoming, were airlifted to the Regions Burn Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they were listed in critical condition.

The men suffered third-degree burns to 70 percent of their bodies, Brooks said.

Authorities said 40-year-old Justin Pyle of Grand Junction, Colorado, was treated for minor burns to his face at a Watford City hospital and later released.

OSHA said the latest death brings to 50 the number of oilfield-related fatalities in North Dakota since late 2010.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Workers' Compensation Energy Oil Gas
A Pulaski County, Ark., employee who processed insurance claims has been fired after being arrested and charged with filing false insurance claims for nearly $250,000.

Authorities say 60-year-old Wanda Wyatt was a fleet records clerk who processed insurance claims for accidents involving county vehicles and equipment and that she created false accident reports that she submitted to the Central Arkansas Risk Management Association.

Wyatt would then receive checks and deposit them into her bank account. Authorities say the scheme has been going on since 2008.

Wyatt is charged with 73 counts of theft and 80 counts of computer fraud.

County Judge Barry Hyde told reporters that Wyatt has been fired.

Wyatt is jailed on $665,000 bond. Jail records do not list an attorney for her.

Topics Claims Arkansas
Legislation awaiting the signature of Louisianas governor would significantly lower the amount of rebate property insurance policyholders would receive for assessments to cover the debts of the states property insurer of last resort.

House Bill 25 was passed by Louisiana lawmakers during a special session aimed at raising more money for next years budget.

The measure would lessen the tax break for homeowners and renters who are charged an assessment on their property insurance to cover debts of the state-run Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

Currently, the rebate is 72 percent of the Citizens assessment charged on property insurance bills. That drops to 25 percent, retroactive to Jan. 1.

Legislative estimates indicate the bill would raise $17 million for the financial year that begins July 1 and $139.6 million over five years.

The Citizens assessments began after the insurer was hit with massive losses from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The rebate amount was also reduced by legislation passed in 2015.

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Topics Legislation Louisiana Property
A multi-agency undercover workers compensation sting in Polk County, Fla., led by the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) Division of Insurance Fraud (DIF), led to the arrests of eight individuals, according to a statement from DFS. The eight individuals caught in the scheme allegedly advertised their ability to perform wide-ranging plumbing and electrical work without proper licenses or training, and without having workers compensation coverage to protect their employees in the event of an accident or injury.

During the three-day operation, DIF detectives, accompanied by logistical and tactical support from multiple agencies, established an undercover sting in an effort to stop the illegal practice. Detectives responded to public advertisements allegedly created by the defendants, requesting that they perform services at a specified location in Lakeland.

Operations like this pull back the curtain on fraud in Florida, showing that if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is, said CFO Jeff Atwater. Always ask questions, require all offers in writing and verify the credentials of every individual who may provide goods or services before any work begins.

The arrested individuals include:

Justin Cortes

Greatlen Bozeman

Herbert Vanegas

Henricus Van Der Linden

Stuart Rhodes

Juan Carlos Diaz

Raymond Figueroa-Garcia

Raymond Perdue

Multiple agencies participated in the sting, including the Lakeland Police Department, State Attorneys Office, DFS Bureau of Workers Compensation Compliance, and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

DBPR Secretary Ken Lawson said the department will continue to be proactive in its efforts to protect Floridas consumers and licensed professionals.

Unlicensed contractors lack the necessary training, qualifications and insurance to complete a job in compliance with building codes and often leave consumers responsible for additional costs to repair substandard work. At DBPR, were committed to bringing these unlicensed individuals into compliance with the law and mitigating the potential for consumer harm, Lawson said.

Lakeland Police Chief Larry Giddens said, We must be vigilant and continue to crack down on those who are contracting work illegally and working without a license. Unlicensed contractors place our citizens at risk and threaten the livelihood of our law-abiding contractors and their employees.

Of the eight individuals arrested, seven were booked into Polk County Jail on charges of workers compensation fraud and unlicensed contracting. Perdue carried adequate workers compensation coverage but failed to hold a business license. He was charged with unlicensed contracting and was also booked into Polk County Jail.

These cases will be prosecuted by the Office of State Attorney Jerry Hill, 10th Judicial Circuit. If convicted, all eight perpetrators face up to five years in prison, more if found to be a repeat offender.

Source: Florida Department of Financial Services

Topics Florida Workers' Compensation Fraud
Victims of clergy sexual abuse have approved of a plan for the Gallup Diocese in New Mexico to dole out millions of dollars in compensation.

The Albuquerque Journal reported that an attorney for 57 abuse survivors told a federal judge Tuesday that all had signed off on the plan.

Under the agreement, each claimant will receive roughly $350,000.

The Gallup Diocese is establishing a fund of between $21 million and $25 million for professional fees and settlements.

The Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, which insured the diocese during the years much of the abuse occurred, will contribute the largest share with $11.6 million.

The diocese is expected to provide $3 million.

It may have to sell its chancery offices in Gallup, subject to the terms of a bank loan agreement.

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Topics Mexico New Mexico
A federal judge is allowing the bulk of a lawsuit accusing Starbucks of systematically under-filling lattes to move forward.

Two California residents are suing the Seattle-based coffee chain, claiming that Starbucks lattes are only filled to about 75 percent of the cups capacity. The lawsuit says Starbucks instituted a recipe in 2009 to create smaller lattes in order to save money on milk.

A federal judge in San Francisco has thrown out three of the eight claims filed against Starbucks.

Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges says in a statement that the company believes the lawsuit is without merit and it will be prepared to defend itself in court. He says if a customer is unhappy with their beverage, Starbucks will gladly remake it.

Related:

Topics Lawsuits California Legislation
As UK voters make their decision about whether to remain in the EU or leave, businesses are facing the possibility of new tax legislation and compliance rules in the event of a decision to leave.

The final vote, which will be known on June 24, is likely to be close as several debates and polls held before June 23 showed narrow differences between those wanting to leave the EU (Brexit) or remain.

More than half of business owners and city workers at a debate on the referendum in London, held by independent accounting and consulting network Moore Stephens, said they expected UK voters to remain in the EU. What happens if those campaigning for an EU exit win the vote is less clear.

There is a dirth of law in this particular area, but what is provided for at the moment is that in the event that we choose to leave - and if the government make good on their promise to actually immediately serve notice on the EU that we wish to leave following a vote to go  what happens is that there is initially a two-year period for the exit to be negotiated. And I think we are of the view that it would have to be a negotiated exit because there are a number of complexities that need to be dealt with, said Sandy Bhogal, head of tax at Mayer Browns London office.

What would also happen is that the UK would have to think about, as part of negotiating that exit, what type of residual relationship it would like to have with the EU. So, from a tax perspective, one of the things for example, we would be thinking about is how we would like to deal with things like customs and excise duties and VAT going forward, Boghal told International Tax Review.

Being part of the EU means import duties and import VAT dont impact cross-border supplies of goods and that is something we would have to look at as part of a negotiated exit.

Although the decision could go either way, the result will signal the end of a period of limbo for the business world, Tim Sarson, partner at KPMG in the UK said in his analysis of the situation.

We should know whether the coming months (and years) will bring a return to some form of business as usual in the event of a remain vote, or some potentially substantial disruption - at least in the short term - in the event of a Brexit vote, said Sarson.

Dan Neidle, a tax partner at Clifford Chance in London, believes that a leave vote would strip away the parent subsidiary directive and interest and royalty directive. "Youll have withholdings on many, if not most, dividend payments and some interest payments, paid by European subsidiaries to the UK, and dividends paid by UK subsidiaries to parents on the Continent will be subject to local tax," said Neidle.

Now, how much of a cost that is, is going to depend on individual group structures and economics. So, I would think very soon after a leave vote, businesses should be pulling out their spreadsheets and working out how much that is likely to cost. If it is a material amount, then groups may well want to think about restructuring their operations, restructuring the way they distribute profits to try to minimise or at least mitigate that cost, Neidle added.

A vote to leave

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament

A leave vote would create the most uncertainty for businesses. "Some of the biggest worries will be the loss of the single market freedoms - of establishment and movement of capital - and divergence between UK and EU rules on mergers," said Philip Gershuny, a corporate tax partner at Hogan Lovells law firm.

A decision to leave the EU would trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which provides for a two-year negotiating timeframe between the UK and the 27 remaining member states. The talks would tackle key tax issues such as EU tariffs on British goods.

In regard to transfer pricing, there would be changes for multinationals with UK operations.

"Multinationals will be particularly sensitive to any increase in discrimination against the provision of services from the UK to the EU. Brexit will only add to the significant body of changes that are already emerging as a result of the BEPs project and changes to the treatment of IP in supply chains and corporate structures," Gershuny added.

Jose Olvera-Salcedo, tax manager at Hitachi Europe, said that uncertainty is the number one issue leading up to the vote.

"I am not expecting a complete overhaul of the tax system, but maybe some changes that could be not compatible or contrary to current and future EU plans," said Olvera-Salcedo. "For example, if the EU were to implement the public CbCR, and Britain is no longer part of the EU, it would initially mean that companies in Britain would not have to make public their CbCR, but if they have operations in the EU, they would be required to do so, and will likely have also to disclose information related to their operations in Britain," he added.

Concerns for Business

The Big Four accounting firms have all released reports flagging tax areas for businesses to consider.

KPMG's Sarson said the "second big picture issue is whether a leave vote triggers a major business restructuring." Companies may choose to move into or out of the UK as the government issues proposals driven by regulation or linked to immigration rules, he said.

In the event of a Brexit, multinationals may want to consider the following:
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Quasi 10 milioni di italiani si metteranno in viaggio per la Pasqua 2017, con un incremento del 2,3% rispetto allo stesso periodo dello scorso anno. Il 93% scegliera di rimanere in Italia mentre il restante 7% optera per una localita estera. E in crescita anche il giro daffari, che si attesta a quota 3,34 miliardi di euro (+3,6%). Emerge dai dati previsionali di Federalberghi sulle vacanze pasquali degli italiani.

Le mete preferite dagli italiani che rimarranno nel Belpaese saranno le localita darte (29,1%), il mare (28,8%), la montagna (21,4%) e i laghi (4,5%). Per chi andra allestero, le grandi capitali europee assorbiranno il 69,5% della domanda, seguito dal 13,8% delle localita marine e crociere. La permanenza media si attestera sulle 3,4 notti (contro le 3,5 notti del 2016) con una spesa media comprensiva di tutte le voci (trasporto, alloggio, cibo e divertimenti) pari a 337 euro (contro i 332 euro del 2016) con un dettaglio di 310 euro per chi restera in Italia e di 679 euro per chi scegliera destinazioni estere. La struttura ricettiva preferita, sara per il 32,5% la casa di parenti e amici, seguita dallalbergo (26,7%), dalla casa di proprieta (14,6%), dai bed and breakfast (10,4%), dallagriturismo (4,4%), dai residence (3,4%) e dallappartamento in affitto (3%).

Con questi presupposti, il segnale positivo che ci viene dal mercato consente di analizzare la situazione con moderato ottimismo  ha commentato il presidente di Federalberghi, Bernabo Bocca  vi e senzaltro da considerare il calendario che questanno colloca le festivita a meta del mese di aprile. E anche se la durata dei pernottamenti sara lievemente inferiore rispetto allo scorso anno, occorre leggere questa lieve flessione nella giusta prospettiva, tenendo conto delle occasioni di vacanza che gli italiani avranno nelle prossime due settimane, con i ponti del 25 aprile e del primo maggio. Le imprese del settore, ha aggiunto, chiedono a gran voce misure concrete volte a contrastare labusivismo, ridurre la pressione fiscale, potenziare le infrastrutture. Ultimo ma non meno importante, a quasi un mese dallabrogazione dei voucher, siamo ancora in attesa dello strumento alternativo che dovra mettere le imprese in condizione di far fronte alle esigenze di flessibilita imposte dal mercato.
With Apple Pay Cash, Cash App, and Google Pay the tech industry leaders have made it easier than ever to exchange money online by integrating money transfer services with personal devices, and social media. For a time, it looked as though smartphones would become the new wallets, but then came Venmo.

Key Takeaways Venmo has emerged as one of the most popular apps for electronically transferring funds, from one party to another.

Venmo doesnt charge users to send or receive more money.

The company, which is owned by PayPal, has issued its own plastic debit card to expand compete with other upstarts like Square's Cash App.

What Is Venmo?

Venmo is the mobile application that turned personal financing into a social platform. Venmo was acquired by e-commerce company Braintree for $26.2 million in 2012, and then in 2013 PayPal purchased Braintree for $800 million. Venmo has become one of the most popular mobile applications for person-to-person (P2P) payments among millennials in the U.S.

With Venmos growing popularity among mobile users, the company announced in June 2018 that it would roll out its own debit card in partnership with MasterCard. While the debit card is almost certainly PayPals most recent attempt to generate revenue from Venmo, the news comes as a big win for users, who can now use their Venmo balance to make in-person purchases anywhere MasterCard is accepted in the U.S.

The move to make money transfers online, only to return to plastic a decade later, may seem surprising until you consider that Venmos competition has changed dramatically since launching in 2009. The contemporary Venmo competes for users with the nations leading banks, social media giants, and start-ups, who are in a mad scramble for the next generation of customers.

Note that in 2020, Venmo released a credit card in partnership with Synchrony.

Why Venmo Returned to Plastic

Venmos debit card release comes amid growing competition in the digital payment sector over the past several years. In June 2017, Apple integrated peer-to-peer payment into iMessage in the form of Apple Pay. Less than a year later in February 2018, Google responded with Google Pay, which allows for online purchases and money transfers over Gmail. Then came Zelle.

In June 2017, a consortium of U.S. banks teamed up to launch Zelle, a money transfer app that allows customers to exchange funds between bank accounts instantly. Zelle is backed by some of the nations largest banks, including Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan, and Bank of America.

Zelles average transaction value is higher than Venmos. This may indicate that Zelle is used more often for transfers made to pay rent or utilities, whereas Venmo is popular for lower-value, social purchases.

It may also be that Venmo and Zelle service different customer demographics. Gen-X and baby boomers may be less inclined to use a money transfer service that pairs finances with social media and a public record of transactions. However, using a service thats promoted by their bank might increase comfort with digital currency and high-value transfers.

PayPal, however, has launched what may prove to be its most aggressive response to the banking industry yet: a colorful, MasterCard-branded debit card. Many transactions are still carried out at the physical point of sale. By expanding into this market, PayPal can begin to bridge the gap between physical and online transactions.

A card familiarizes [Venmos] brand with merchants as a payment mechanismand merchants are going to be the biggest factor in Venmo achieving profitability," said Javelin Strategy and Research analyst Rachel Huber said. Think marketing and loyalty tie-ins, integration fees, and promotional deals. Venmo has access to an extremely desirable consumer segmentexpect them to use that to their advantage.

Venmo Makes Splitting Bills Less Awkward for Millennials

Millennials in particular have reaped the rewards of digital financing and are reported to access their financial information via mobile devices eight and half more times a month than other generations. In fact, according to a study by Scratch, each of the four leading banks is among the 10 least-loved brands by millennials, with 71% reporting that they would rather visit the dentist than go to their bank.

Venmos reach among millennials can be credited in part to the apps integration of social media and personal financing. When users pay rent, split their bar tab, or go out to eat, payments are logged in a public news feed, not unlike Facebooks.

Venmos transparency makes asking for money a little less awkward for the nations poorest generation. Venmo allows users to withdraw and receive money from any bank or credit card account free of charge, but that comes at the expense of the companys revenue.

With the release of Venmos debit card, which also logs purchase locations on the Venmo news feed, the draw for small businesses and online retailers may be even higher, according to a report from Morningstar analyst Jim Sinegal.

The unique social aspects of Venmo could provide a path to advertising revenue, Sinegal said. Few other payment platforms make it fun for users to share their payment activity with friends.

Venmos Debit Card Joins Others

PayPal and Venmo appear to have taken a play from Square (SQ)'s playbook, which launched its popular Cash Card in 2017. By June 2018, payment volume had tripled and users were spending more than $250 million monthly through Cash App, the companys peer-to-peer money transfer service.

Acorns, the investment strategy company has also launched a debit card. The Spend card links with Acorns customers bank accounts, effectively allowing them to make digital direct deposits, mobile check deposits, free bank-to-bank transfers, and unlimited free or fee-reimbursed ATM withdrawals. Unlike the Venmo debit card or Cash Card, the Acorn's card is made of tungsten steel.
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REE Stock News - Defense Metals (TSX-V: DEFN.V) (OTCQB: DFMTF) Drills 113 metres of 2.50% Total Rare Earth Oxide at Wicheeda

Vancouver, British Columbia - October 26, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mining / Metals / Green Energy Stock News - Defense Metals Corp. (TSX-V: DEFN / OTCQB: DFMTF/ FSE:35D) is pleased to announce high-grade Rare Earth Element ("REE") assay results from one additional core hole, totalling 383 metres (m), collared within the northern area of Defense Metals' 100% owned Wicheeda REE Deposit.

Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea

Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) FIVE 'Strikingly Different' EV Crossover Tour Starts Tomorrow, Oct. 27, in Pasadena, California; New Los Angeles Area Stop Added

BREA, Calif. - October 26, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN) ("Mullen" or the "Company"), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces today the beginning of the Mullen FIVE Strikingly Different EV Crossover Tour, which will commence on Oct. 27 in Pasadena, California. Due to overwhelming interest, new dates have been added for Nov. 1 and 2 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.

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Breaking AI Stock News: FatBrain (OTCQB: LZGI) Acquires Confidential Computing Platform ZeroTrust to Protect Data Privacy and Accelerate Innovation for Millions of Growth Businesses

NEW YORK, NY - October 19, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, has acquired the confidential computing and privacy intellectual property (IP) plus software assets of Zero2A PTE LTD ("ZeroTrust Platform"), a software company based in Singapore.

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A peace agreement has been signed to bring an end to a long-running conflict in Colombia which has claimed more than 200,000 lives.

The government of Colombia and the Farc rebel group have signed an accord.
A tornado has killed 51 people and destroyed a large number of buildings in the eastern province of Jiangsu, according to Chinese state media.

The reports said the tornado formed near the city of Yancheng on Thursday.
The issue whether or not the transactions amounted to tax avoidance has yet to be decided by the Appeals Commissioners.

The courts unanimous decision in the case of Dublin businessman Ronan McNamee has implications for 26 others involved in similar straddle transactions involving what the Revenue estimates are total potentially recoverable tax sums of 110m.

It is legal to seek to reduce tax liability through avoidance measures but some measures may be disallowed under Section 811 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 if it is found they were primarily arranged for tax advantage.

The five judge court yesterday dismissed the challenge by Mr McNamee, Temple Road, Dartry, to the validity of a Revenue officers opinion notice of August 2011 the straddle transactions in which he and his wife engaged in 2007 were tax avoidance transactions.

The court stressed it was dealing only with the validity or otherwise of the opinion notice, not whether the transactions were in fact tax avoidance transactions under Section 811.

That issue, and the accuracy of calculations in the notice, will be decided in Mr McNamees pending appeal to the Appeals Commissioners against the notice.

The ruling has implications for cases by three other businessmen brought over similar notices. They are: Derek Whelan, Foxrock Manor, Foxrock, Dublin; John Punch, The Park, Cobh, Co Cork and Martin Punch, The Fountain, Glanmire, Co Cork.

The Revenue previously said it identified in 2010 about 26 cases where similar arrangements to those engaged in by the McNamees were concluded via a London-based merchant bank, Schroders & Co Ltd, referring to those as the Schroders Ready-Made 26. The Revenue sought assistance from the National Treasury Management Agency and Smurfit Business School to help it understand the complex transactions nactoons.

In the McNamee case, a Revenue officer issued the notice in 2011 on foot of his opinion the result of the straddle transactions was Capital Gains Tax paid by the McNamees on gains in 2007 of some 57.8m, mainly from a property sale, was substantially reduced.

The officer said the transaction gave rise to allowable losses of 25.6m and tax exempt gains of some 25.4m, with the actual monetary loss some 250,000. The officer formed the opinion there was a tax advantage and Mr McNamee had avoided paying 5.1m CGT.

The issues in the Supreme Court appeal centred on the validity of the 2011 opinion notice and its underlying opinion, calculations and determinations.

In separate concurring judgments, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy and Mr Justice Peter Charleton rejected arguments the notice was issued in breach of statutory duty and principles of natural and constitutional justice.

They dismissed claims the involvement of the nominated officer and/or a Revenue Commissioner in assessment of the transaction within Revenue from 2009-2011 meant the officers opinion was tainted by objective bias or pre-judgment.
Yesterday, the Irish Examiner revealed three Independent Alliance ministers  Shane Ross, Finian McGrath and John Halligan - are intending to vote against the Government next week in order to support a bill being brought by Independent TD Mick Wallace.

But last night, Health Minister Simon Harris said he would refer the matter to the Attorney General Maire Whelan for guidance on the matter, while Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone said she would await that guidance before she makes her decision as how to vote.

Mr Harris said he believes that the current situation was unacceptable.

However, he said he wanted to make sure what he supported would be meaningful and constitutional.

The Wicklow TD said he would consult his Cabinet colleagues after receiving the advice.

Ms Zappones support for the Government is contingent on progress on liberalising the countrys abortion laws, but it is felt she would be reluctant to vote against Fine Gael.

It is understood that because Mr Walllaces bill is a carbon copy of a 2013 bill brought by Independent TD Clare Daly which was ruled unconstitutional by Ms Whelan, the same will occur this time around.

This may enable Mr Halligan, Mr McGrath and Mr Ross to change their position and either vote against Mr Wallaces bill or abstain from the vote.

Fianna Fail TDs will be given a free vote when the Dail decides on a bill to liberalise the countrys abortion laws next week, it has emerged.

The move by the lead opposition party, which is propping up the minority Government, has heightened pressure on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to allow a free vote for ministers and Government deputies. But Fine Gael sources last night said the issue of a free vote does not arise at this stage.

Mr Wallaces bill is proposing to liberalise the abortion laws to allow for a termination in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and in cases of rape and incest.

A Government spokesman said yesterday conversations between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance are continuing with a view to resolving the dispute.

But it was accepted within Government that the three ministers could be given a free hand to vote with their conscience when the division is taken in the Dail next Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit group yesterday launched its own bill to repeal the controversial 1983 8th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal status to the mother and her unborn child.

The new will be debated by the Dail this autumn and seeks to go further than Mr Wallaces bill which would allow for abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities.

Speaking at the launch yesterday, AAA-PBP TDs Ruth Coppinger and Brid Smith said the Government can no longer deny the women of Ireland their basic right to protect their health by legalising abortion.
An analysis of the benefits of Preparing For Life found that when it came to school readiness, children in the programme were more likely to be ready for school, ready to learn, less hyperactive and inattentive, more emotionally mature and socially competent, and more likely to be on track in their ability to do basic maths.

Particular gains were identified in numeracy, with 62% of the intervention children considered on track at maths compared to 44% among the control group.
The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI) announced the peoples choice winners yesterday ahead of the unveiling in Dublin today of the full list of winners in its 2016 Irish Architecture Awards.

In the ninth year of the public choice section, the RIAI said it received over 14,000 votes for the shortlisted schemes  the highest number in the history of the category.

The new square in Westport, Co Mayo, came out on top, while second and third place went to the new Hollyhill library on the northside of Cork City, and to Thomas Davis Square in Mallow in North Cork, respectively.

RIAI president Carole Pollard said they were delighted to see such an extraordinary and diverse range of projects entered into the awards scheme.

This year we are particularly delighted to see public amenities and buildings  a public, social space, a library, and a town place  being recognised in Mayo and Cork, she said.

These are spaces everyone can enjoy, interact with, and appreciate, and they demonstrate the wider contribution made by architects to our built environment.

The Sentinel sculpture by Ronan Halpin, the centrepiece of the new square in Westport, which came out top of the RIAI peoples choice award. Picture: Michael McLaughlin

The peoples choice winner, the public space and sculpture in Westport, was commissioned by Westport Town Council to celebrate the town being named the best place to live in Ireland.

The sculpture, The Sentinel by artist Ronan Halpin, was selected following a national sculpture competition. The public space in which it is set was designed by Westport town architect Simon Wall, to celebrate the sculpture and to integrate it into the townscape, while resolving a difficult junction between two streets.

The entire area has now become an important landmark and is used as a gathering point for public events and socialising.

The 4.1m Hollyhill Library, designed by Cork City Councils architect department to respond to a site alongside Terence MacSwiney Community College in an area designated a learning neighbourhood, was opened last July, and was a key element of a major urban regeneration programme in the suburb.

The 887sq m building includes The Lightwell exhibition space, a community room on the first floor with fantastic views over the city, and an outdoor seated plaza.

Thomas Davis Square in Mallow, which forms the centrepiece of the pedestrianised plaza in the heart of the town centre.

Thomas Davis Square in Mallow was designed by Mallow Town architect Giulia Vallone, and Cork County Council architect department, as part of phase one of the Mallow Urban Heritage Masterplan. A statue of Thomas Davis, the Mallow-born writer, patriot, and one of the founders of the Young Irelanders, forms the centrepiece of the pedestrianised plaza in the heart of the town centre.

The RIAI said it received 180 entries  the highest in five years  across all 17 areas, with 52 projects shortlisted in categories including best commercial, best educational and best health building, best house, best housing and best house extension, best public building, best cultural project, best leisure, best public space/urban design, best international project, best sustainable project, best conservation, and best universal design.

There is also a new award for best fit-out and awards for best research and for the best emerging practice.

The awards are supported by Gerflor flooring, and the full list of winners across all 17 categories will be revealed at a ceremony at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham today.
Judge Aingil Ni Chonduin made it a 5,000 bond and said Patrick Vaughan would have to pay that money if he stepped out of line.

I take matters like this very seriously. You expect to go about your business in safety, the judge said, adding that a sexual assault was twice as unpleasant as any other offence coming before the district court.

Diane Hallahan, defending, said a 5,000 bond would be problematic if Vaughan had to pay it as he was dependent on social welfare. The judge said he would only have to pay it if he stepped out of line again in the next two years.

It is up to him to keep his bond. If he sets a foot astray it will cost him. I have not asked him for compensation. Im warning him to take me seriously, I mean business, said Judge Ni Chonduin.

Inspector Ronan Kenneally said 453 expenses had been incurred by the victim returning to Cork for the court case. Ms Hallahan said Vaughan would have difficulty paying this and she complained that none of the expenses were vouched.

Judge Ni Chonduin said of the complaint about paying the expenses, That is a bit Irish. She was minding her own business. He brought everyone here [by carrying out the sexual assault] I am not in the mood to be argued with.

Judge Ni Chonduin said the expenses would have to be paid by Vaughan within two months.

When the matter was heard initially, there was evidence Vaughan had denied the sexual assault, claiming it was a Special Branch setup and that the woman had been paid to testify against him.

The victim went to the trouble and expense of flying to Cork to give evidence in the trial of Vaughan, of Oaklodge, Douglas Rd, but he pleaded guilty as the case was about to commence at Cork District Court.

Det Garda Ian Coughlan said the injured party, who is aged in her 40s, was visiting Cork on May 9, 2014, and was on her way from Cork City to where she was staying in the Douglas area that night.

Shortly after passing St Finbarrs Hospital, Douglas Rd, she was stopped at traffic lights and grabbed on her buttocks by a man. She slapped the man across the face and he stumbled over. As he got up, she slapped him a second time.

Vaughan said to her: I apologise, I am schizophrenic. He ran back towards the city.

She gave a description to gardai of the man who sexually assaulted her. That description included the black mariners style cap worn by her attacker. Gardai later went to the home of Vaughan and he accepted responsibility.

He later said he was not compos mentis (of sound mind) at the time he made the admission.

Ms Hallahan said this claim gave some indication of Vaughans state of mind. She said he apologised immediately and made admissions. She said nobody could explain his behaviour.

Judge Ni Chonduin said: It was an awful, frightening thing. She did not know what was going to happen next. She was a stranger coming to visit.

Det Garda Coughlan said Vaughan was convicted of two previous sexual assaults in 2004 and 2014 and had begging convictions.

A background psychiatric report was taken into consideration by the judge.
We held a community brainstorming session to inform the government taskforce thats being set up to address the issues of deprivation in the north inner city, addiction counsellor at Hope, Irene Crawley, told the Irish Examiner.

The session followed a visit by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the area last week, where he promised that a taskforce for the north inner city would be established.

About 100 leaders including TDs, councillors, activists and volunteers, came together yesterday to discuss matters such as policing, housing, and addiction and recovery.

Long-time community activist and former Labour minister Joe Costello said there was one issue above all that plagued the north inner city.

Mountjoy Prison is the biggest drug treatment facility in the country and there is no link-up when a prisoner comes out. Its a nightmare, he said.

This is the issue that deserves the most immediate attention. There is a probation service there but there is nothing that connects the prison with clinics, services and local authorities.

Its all fragmented, there is no co-ordination.

Echoing his belief was the sister of a prisoner and drug user, who attended the brainstorming session yesterday.

My brother got drug and methadone-free in Mountjoy but then when he got temporary release he was put back on a methadone programme. Now hes back in all over again, the woman said.

Dublin city councillor Christy Burke was also in attendance yesterday and he argued that the lack of drug-free recovery centres needed to be addressed immediately.

The Aftercare Recovery Group on Seville Place needs to be the standard. Its non-residential, Monday to Friday, drug-free and you have to do two urine tests a week, he said.

I spoke to one woman in there at the moment who used to be in Dochas [Mountjoys women prison] and now she nearly has full custody of her three children again, its like a dream come true.

Agreeing with this call for proper treatment centres was a former drug user who now works in the area of addiction.

Coming out of addiction is like being a brand new baby, you need to be educated and connected with social support services, he said.

Traditionally, heroin was the drug that plagued the area but now it is prescription medicine, said Fine Gael councillor Ray McAdam.

Of 1,500 drug seizures [in the last two years] here, all but 64 were for prescription drugs. Minister for Health Simon Harris is introducing new legislation to the Seanad [today] to tackle the dealing of prescription drugs and if it passes gardai will be able to prosecute.

At the moment they can only take the tablets off dealers, they cant arrest them.

Community worker Tony Dunleavy, who runs the North Inner City Older Peoples Group with his grandson Jordan, said elderly people in the area are becoming increasingly isolated.

Its been running for 50 years now but these people are the most deprived as theyre living in isolation and some only come out once a year for the groups annual day out, he said.

The taskforce has yet to be officially established but local TDs and councillors will sit on it.
It was an emotional day for the American vice president as he travelled back to his ancestral home in Co Mayo with members of his family  a trip he had planned with his son Beau before his death.

My family has gotten bigger, Mr Biden said after meeting some of his relatives for lunch in Heffernans bakery in Ballina. My mother had the expression, Jean Finnegan, she would say remember Joey you are defined by your courage and you are redeemed by your loyalty, this is loyalty, he said.

However, it all was a bit much for 10-month-old Cillian OFlaherty who screamed as he was handed to his famous relative.

But along with gaining a clatter of Mayo cousins, Mr Biden also found out he is related to Irelands most famous rugby bothers.

Mr Bidens brother Jimmy  one of a number of the family, including his grandchild Hunter (Beaus son), who has accompanied the vice president to Ireland  was eager to publicise his family ties with Rob and Dave Kearney.

Jim Biden said: The Kearneys, the guys who play for the national team, theyre our fifth cousins once removed. I just found out this morning. My son is going to be playing rugby at university so Im going home, Im going to get on the plane and track these guys down.

I understand that theyre quite good, its in the genes.

I need to track down these Kearneys, tell them that Jim Biden, the vice presidents brother, is trying to track them down.

He added the trip had been a very important one for the family and one they felt they had to take in the wake of Beaus passing. He died from brain cancer at the age of 46.

The vice president has been trying to do this for a number of years and the passing of his only son Beau  he passed away a little over a year ago  they had been planning the whole trip. Its a very emotional trip, especially to the vice president and my sister is on the trip as well.

My mother Jean Finnegan  she would always announce herself as Jean Finnegan to anybody who would listen  we always just loved being here and with this warm welcome its just wonderful. It feels like home, it really does.

Joe Biden meets Lily Rose McLoughlin during his visit to Ballina.

Laurita Blewitt, whose father Brendan is the one of the closest living Irish relatives of the Bidens, said it had been an emotional trip for the family but they were overwhelmed by the response they received.

We have been waiting so long for today. He chatted about his family and we chatted about our family, she said.

Weve known about the connection for eight years, since he was elected and weve been in contact for the last few months but this was the first family meeting. It was a very emotional trip for him because of Beau.

Earlier in the day, the grey sky had turned to rain as the vice presidents plane touched down in Ireland West Airport in Knock at around 1.40pm, but that didnt dull the enthusiasm of the 100 local schoolchildren who came to welcome Mr Biden to Mayo.

Michael Marren, a pupil in Cloonlyon National School was excited to see Mr Biden and had even done a background check on him.

I looked up about him and I know what he has done and stuff, the 11-year-old said.

Mr Biden was then whisked off to the ancestral home of the Blewitt family in Ballina, who left Ireland in around 1851.

Out on the street, Mr Biden shook hands, posed for selfies, and kissed numerous babies  with one of his entourage even questioning where all the tots were coming from.

There was even time to sign a plaster cast, after Conor McCarron asked him to add his signature to the list of names scrawling up his arm including Enda Kenny and RTEs Teresa Mannion.

I might put it up on eBay, the 14-year-old said after being asked what he would do with the cast when it is taken off.

But along with the kisses, jokes, and banter on the street  which Mr Biden appeared to greatly enjoy  there were a number of serious but touching conversations.

Sinead Quinn, who lost her husband to cancer two years ago, turned out to greet the vice president and share her experiences with him.

Ms Quinn, who has three children under six said: I lost my husband two years ago, his first anniversary was actually around the time that Joes son Beau died. I told him that we had been bereaved by cancer, I said I appreciated all he is doing and that I am aware of the work he is doing through the blue ribbon cancer campaign.

He said he had been in my circumstances, he lost his wife, so he understood, Ms Quinn said after Mr Biden kissed her on the forehead.

After visiting Castlebar and Westport, the day was finished off with a proper session by The Chieftains in Matt Malloys pub.
Lord Puttnam, as he is known in Westminster and beyond, is a long-time resident of Skibbereen and the man who, in his career as a filmmaker, commissioned the original script for the cinema depiction of Collinss life. Yet as he arrived at Lisavaird National school near Clonakilty yesterday to unveil a tapestry in honour of the man, it was to the strains of Gabriels Oboe, from the soundtrack to another Puttnam film, The Mission, that welcomed him.

Flautist Rebecca Santry, a past pupil of Lisavaird National School, carried the melody on the wind as everyone stood in a West Cork breeze and listened. Just moments earlier in the hubbub school principal Oonagh OSullivan had asked the children forming the guard of honour to put in your shirts, please. By the time the song was finished playing, everyone looked immaculate.

The tapestry had involved all 63 pupils at the school, which had been attended by Collins between 1897 and 1904. Ms OSullivan said every child contributed stitches, aided by visiting sewing teacher Clara Moloney, and that it also incorporated lines from the poetry of WB Yeats because of the 150th anniversary of the poets birth last year and his own role in Irish culture and history. The children played more music on their accordians and tin whistles, including a plaintive Mo Ghile Mear.

Mr Puttnam was then shown the roll book featuring Collinss name, as Ms OSullivan remarked how well he had performed in his time in Lisavaird. Former principal Pat French picked up the theme as he spoke to the children and welcomed Mr Puttnam, claiming no other school in the locality had such a claim on helping to make Collins the man he was. Michael would encourage our pupils to do their best, rather than be the best, he said.

Mr Puttnam recalled how when he spoke at the Beal na Blath commemoration nine years ago, the first non-Irishman to do so, he had never felt more nervous. The 75-year-old paid tribute to murdered Labour MP Jo Cox and outlined his own depth of feeling for Collins, saying later that he was a constructive modern politician who sought solutions, who was always there in his life, not so much as an inspiration, but as an idea.

He said that following his moment at Beal na Blath, I felt accepted, I felt I wasnt a blow-in any more.

The beautiful tapestry was duly unveiled, showing the path of Collinss life and also the beauty of Yeatss words: I walk through the long schoolroom questioning, from Among School Children. And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun from The Song of Wandering Aengus.

Just as the old log book featuring the name of Michael Collins sits in a glass case in the hallway, so the latest addition to the schools history will be mounted on the wall and gazed upon by future generations. Ms OSullivan said as part of the schools fundraising efforts it will also produce postcards featuring the tapestry. It seems Yeats was onto something when he wrote the lines I made my song a coat covered in embroideries.

Puttnam had words of his own for the children which have a ring of poetry about them: Feel special, have a dream, and stay with it.

Surely Collins would have approved.
Dr Deirdre Mongan, the lead author of the report and a research officer at the HRB, said young drinkers, aged 18-24, have the most harmful habits in the country. The quantity they drink and the pattern of their drinking is putting them at increased health risk at a young age, and later in life, according to the study.

The research found alcohol is responsible for up to three deaths every day and that 50% of Irish drinking can be described as binge-drinking.

Beer accounts for 47% of alcohol consumption in this country, wine for 27%, spirits 18%, and cider 7%.

The HRB called for increases in the price of alcohol as any budget increases in excise duty between 1984 and 2014 led to a visible dip in drinking.

It is strongly backing the Governments Public Health (Alcohol) Bill which brings in minimum unit pricing; it would mean most cans of beer would cost 2 while a bottle of wine with 11.5% volume of alcohol would cost over 8.

Under the bill, alcohol labels would have to include a link to a public health website and include information on calories in pubs and off-licences. Alcohol advertising would also be banned near schools, playgrounds, and at bus and train stations. A broadcasting watershed is also planned.

Alcohol Action Ireland said the latest research shows that the nations attitude to alcohol is placing an unsustainable burden on the health service and taxpayer.

Advocacy spokesman Conor Cullen said excessive drinking has harmed the victims of drink-fuelled assaults, drink-driving collisions, and children who are suffering due to excessive parental drinking.

The Public Health (Alcohol) Bill is the first legislation of its kind in Ireland, as it treats alcohol as the serious public health problem that this HRB report clearly demonstrates it is, he said.

We can no longer simply accept this damage as a normal part of our daily lives.

Professor Frank Murray, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, said the bill must be a key component of a new 10-year plan for the health services.

The data shows how great the burden of alcohol use is on the hospital system  taking up thousands of beds every night and contributing to the crisis in accident and emergency departments, delaying treatment for many other sick people, he said.

The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland did not comment yesterday but last year said the bill would not meaningfully address misuse.

It claimed the legislation did include measures the industry always supported, but had draconian elements. The federation had warned that legislation will ban displaying the reason that 80% of tourists claim they travel to Ireland  to have a drink in an Irish pub.
As polls open today in the Brexit vote, Irish ministers have again urged voters to do all they can to ensure Britain votes to stay in the EU.

During a Seanad debate, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said he wanted our closest neighbour and partner to remain a member of a reformed EU.

This is a view which enjoys near-unanimous support within both Houses of the Oireachtas, though I recognise and respect that there is a different point of view, said Mr Flanagan.

The reasons underpinning the Governments position will also be familiar to you  these include important considerations in relation to our economy, Northern Ireland, the Common Travel Area, and, of course, the EU itself.

Mr Flanagan set out the extensive work undertaken by the Government and by Irish diplomats and officials on this issue since a referendum was first proposed by UK prime minister David Cameron in 2013.

During the course of a visit to the UK in early April, I identified a desire among the local Irish community to hear the Irish perspective from Government and opposition. My own experience of referendums here meant that I was aware of the sensitivities but happy to give our perspective, if asked.

The UK electorate will, of course, have the final say on the matter. Polls suggest both outcomes are equally possible and the govern-ment is as prepared as it possibly can be for both outcomes. Whatever the result, the Government will strive to protect and promote Irelands key interests. The Oireachtas will, of course, play its full part in that important work.

In Britain, leaders from both campaigns were making a final pitch for votes on the last day of campaigning.

Mr Cameron, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron were addressing rallies arguing the UK will be better off and safer with a Remain vote in todays poll.

Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are appealing to people to vote Leave  with the ex-mayor of London urging them to believe in our country.

More than 46m people are eligible to vote in the referendum.

Mr Cameron, whose own future hangs in the balance, said he would lobby for further changes to free movement rules in the light of European Court rulings if the UK votes to remain and said the process of EU reform will continue on Friday, insisting that reducing net migration was not an unrealistic ambition.

However, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, appeared to rule that out.

Mr Juncker appeared to reject that option as he told reporters in Brussels that out is out, suggesting if there was a vote to leave there will be no kind of re-negotiation, saying Mr Cameron got the maximum he could receive after months of talks which ended in February.

Meanwhile, former prime minister John Major characterised Leave supporters as gravediggers of our prosperity and said a Brexit may result in a broken Britain with less importance and less influence in the world.
Mr Biden was in Co Mayo yesterday to visit his ancestral home town of Ballina where he learned public service was something very much in his blood.

Before arriving into the town, he was greeted by Ciaran Reilly of Maynooth University who informed Barack Obamas 2008 running mate that his family played a key role in providing relief to people in the town during the Great Famine.

Mr Bidens great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt and great-great-grandfather Owen Finnegan emigrated during the Famine. Mr Reilly said the US vice president was genuinely pleased to learn of the key role his family played in Ballina at the time.

Mayo was one of the worst hit counties in terms of the famine, said Mr Reilly.

The population declined by 30% and 10% of all evictions took place in Mayo.

I spoke to him about the key role his ancestor Edward Blewitt played during the famine in Ballina. He was actually in charge of public works in the Ballina area.

I explained to him just how crucial a job this was at the time in terms of trying to provide employment and relief.

There would have been thousands of people seeking assistance at that time. He was genuinely very pleased to learn that one of his ancestors had such a key role.

Mr Reilly said Mr Biden was extremely happy to learn of the role one of his ancestors played in providing assistance during the Famine, and added that Mr Bidens reputation as an engaging personality was well founded.

He was hugely affable, very warm and engaging and extremely generous with his time. He listened intently to what I had to say and had plenty questions for me.

He clearly knew about his Irish ancestry, his mother visited Ballina in the 1970s I believe but he didnt realise the extent of his familys connection to the famine.

Edward Blewitt later emigrated to Scranton in Pennsylvania. The town retains a close connection to Mayo to this day.

Edward later emigrated to Scranton in Pennsylvania where a lot of Mayo people left for when they emigrated from Ireland.

Its unconnected to Edward Blewitt but Scranton is actually twinned with Ballina, said Mr Reilly.

A massive security operation has been mounted for Mr Bidens visit involving road closures across many parts of the country he will be passing through.

However, according to Mr Reilly, although tight, security around Mr Biden was understanding of his wish to mingle with the people of Ballina.

In the morning, it started off tight but once they saw the welcome he received it was quite relaxed. He had time for everyone and there was a great crowd out to meet him.

It was a huge moment for me personally. The Famine is my area of expertise.

I love telling anyone about it but when someone is particularly interested and a vice president of the United States it was huge, he said.
The Euro 2016 tournament was mentioned in one of their questions yesterday morning.

Bairbre Kennedy, a spokeswoman on the subject for the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said there were far more current economic issues on the ordinary-level paper than the number which higher-level students got a chance to deal with.

That higher-level exam featured many new types of questions and was very challenging, Ms Kennedy believed.

She said students might have been surprised to find a short question specifically about youth unemployment, although the broader topic was one they would have prepared for. The flooding crisis was also a new kind of topic, introduced in the context of potential effects of government levies on insurance.

This, Ms Kennedy said, was about the only recent Irish issue which appeared on the paper that also required a strong level of higher-order thinking in places. For example, a question about how the effects of cleaning an oil spill might affect gross domestic product required a very thorough knowledge of national income theory.

A question about inequality may have left students uncertain if they could discuss social inequality, or if it had to be specific to economic issues like rich-poor or urban-rural divides.

For ordinary-level students  around one in 10 of almost 6,000 taking the subject  there was a wealth of topical issues on the exam. They included a reference to Irish fans at Euro 2016 in France as an example of an invisible import, and a question about causes of homelessness and economic measures to reduce it.

Ms Kennedy said the Web Summit technology conference in Dublin was the basis of a question about the economic benefits of hosting big events, and another question around the consumption and advertising of alcohol was another topic which has been in the media regularly.

For around 5,500 students doing Leaving Certificate design, the higher-level design and communication graphics (DCG) exam was fair but demanding.

This was the opinion of ASTI subject spokesman Michael Horan, who said questions in the second and third sections were well structured, each progressing from basic knowledge and concepts to more challenging final parts.

He said the short questions should have pleased students, with the level of choice and the appropriate level at which they were pitched.

The surface development of a curved metal shade for traffic lights was one topic, as well as the hyperbolic curves near the top of a sharpened pencil. Objects which higher-level students were asked to construct drawings around included a sculpture celebrating Brendan the Navigators seafaring adventures, an architectural model of a hotel, and the intersecting triangular glass surfaces of a McDonalds restaurant.

Mr Horan said ordinary-level students were pleased with their exam, requiring them to construct designs for a USB memory key, a cooker hood, and a deck chair in the form of a hyperbolic paraboloid.
The monument, at the South Malls junction with Parnell Bridge was commissioned and donated to the city by the family of Sean Murphy, battalion vice commandant and brigade quarter master, who is believed to have been the sole surviving brigade officer following independence.

Cork sculptor Mick Wilkins completed the work to coincide with the year-long centenary celebrations of the Rising, before Mr Murphys family gifted it to Cork City Council.

Lord Mayor Chris OLeary will unveil it at 1.30pm today.

This monument is a fitting and lasting tribute to all those men who fought for our independence.

In this centenary year of the Rising, it stands to remind us all of our history and ensure that these men are not forgotten by their city, he said.

The monument comprises two white forms, representing the two channels of the River Lee which rise to create the form of a budding lily  the recognised symbol of the Rising.

However, the forms are deliberately abstract to allow people interpret them as either flames, representing the upheaval of the time which included the burning of Cork City, or two hands coming together in prayer.

Its base contains a plaque replicating a service certificate issued in 1948 to each member of the Cork City Battalion.

The plaque lists the names of those in A, B, C, and D Companies and members of Fianna Eireann.

More than 140 members of the Cork City Battalion travelled to Macroom on Easter Sunday 1916 but returned home that night, understanding the Rising had been cancelled.

After orders delaying the beginning of the Rising until Easter Monday were late reaching Cork, the local Volunteers were restrained from fighting, and dozens were arrested and interned.
Marie McNally says she could never get over the loss of her two boys as she attended an inquest into the death of her younger son, Alan McNally, 36.

My life is over, she said.

Mr McNally, from Cappagh Avenue, Finglas, Dublin 11, died from gunshot wounds on February 2, 2012. The father of three sons, the youngest of whom was six when his father was killed, spent the hours before his death drinking in a Finglas pub. He had previously told a friend, Laura Pennick, that his head was wrecked due to an ongoing threat to his life. Mr McNally went to the Cappagh House pub in Finglas at about 12pm on February 1, 2012.

Ms Pennick said she made numerous attempts to persuade him to leave during the day. She spoke to himat around 1.10am on February 2 and he said he was leaving. Moments later, gardai directed all free units to the scene of a reported shooting at the bar.

Mr McNally had been badly beaten following a row with some gang from Ballymun, according to Ms Pennick. He said they were not people you would want to start something with. He was on edge about it, he was worried, she said.

Gary Thompson said he was drinking at the bar all day on February 1 with Mr McNally.

We were fairly drunk and out of our heads, Mr Thompson said in his statement. I was talking to Alan and next thing I heard a loud bang. I saw a fellas arm, a black gun. I jumped off the stool and ran out to the lounge into the storeroom and shut the door behind me. I thought it was me they were after.

Mr McNally was rushed to Connolly Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy carried out by deputy state pathologist Michael Curtis.

Detective Inspector Des McTiernan said gardai followed 450 lines of inquiry and took 250 witness statements as part of a murder investigation but ultimately no charges were brought.

All avenues were pursued to their finality but the case remains open, said Det Insp McTiernan.

Mr McNallys brother Graham was murdered in Finglas in 2008 aged 34.

The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Coroner Myra Cullinane extended her sympathies to Mrs McNally. This is a very tragic case. Im aware you been bereaved previously in a similar fashion, this must be an unbearable burden.
The majority of almost 11,000 who were entered for the subject were taking the higher-level paper which Noel Cronin considered a fair examination.

The Teachers Union of Ireland representative believed students who had their work done on the set works would have found the related questions very manageable. They would also have liked the composing questions and the general study section.

Music from three different decades featured on the listening tests, including excerpts from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrongs 1950s version of Dream a Little Dream of Me, 1980s tracks from U2 (I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For) and Survivor (Eye of the Tiger), and the 2009 version of Imagine by the cast of TV musical series, Glee.

Mr Cronin said students needed to listen carefully and use their musical knowledge to do well in this section.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) subject spokesperson Siofra Cox thought students would have been entertained by the main Star Wars title appearing as a test excerpt at the start of the exam.

She agreed students would have been reasonably challenged to recognise style and genre in the excerpts of modern music. There were no surprises in the composition section of the paper, she said, and most students would have recognised popular See You Again in the triad section.

Ms Fox thought the ordinary level paper would have been straightforward for students, although there were a couple of tricky parts. These included defining a square dance in one question, and identifying a slip jig in another.

Mr Cronin said this exam was very fair, and a lot of multiple choice questions would have helped students.

n In the afternoon, technology was examined and Gary Doherty of the ASTI said the paper was fair and balanced, encompassing a broad section of the syllabus.

Throughout the paper, students where challenged to think critically about familiar objects and had to design additional elements for some. The technology in smartphones appeared in two short questions and a long one, while UCCs first maths professor George Boole, whose theories paved the way for digital computing, also featured.

Mr Doherty noted a focus on green technologies in consumer products and online payments, while students were pleased with a question that discussed the structural design of a gantry crane for a workshop.
She had hoped to meet Taoiseach Enda Kenny when he was presented with a petition signed by 60,000 people opposed to the site being located at St Jamess.

However, the small group of representatives of the Connolly for Kids Hospital campaign was told at the last minute that Mr Kenny was unavailable.

A copy of the petition was given to a Leinster House usher. It urges Mr Kenny to build the hospital on a greenfield site at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown.

The campaign group is seeking a public hearing on the issue at the Oireachtas health committee.

An Bord Pleanala in April granted planning permission for the St Jamess site; the deadline for filing a High Court judicial review has passed.

The Childrens Hospital Group said yesterday that the St Jamess site was the right choice and construction work for the first phase of the project would start within a matter of weeks.

It argued that the critical level of clinical support that was available at St Jamess was not available at Connolly Hospital.

Ms Flynn, from Cobh, Co Cork, whose three-year-old daughter Kate has serious respiratory complications and needs a ventilator to breathe when she goes to sleep, is not convinced.

I am fully supporting the Connolly for Kids Hospital because Kate and I had to live in Our Ladys Childrens Hospital for 15 months so I know how hard it is being away from my family, she said.

Hospital accessibility is crucial for Kate  really a matter of life and death. Kate has had four emergency ambulance transfers where I have been actively resuscitating her in the back of the vehicle.

For Kate, every second counts so I would have concerns if she was being transferred to a hospital situated beside St Jamess Hospital, especially if we hit rush-hour traffic.

I also feel that the site at Connolly Hospital is more accessible to people like me living down south or in the west of the country.

Ms Flynn said she had no idea of what life was like having a child with a life- limiting condition until she had Kate, who has a complex tracheotomy and needs full-time medical care.

I had two normal health pregnancies before Kate and then my life changed in an instant, she said.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said a survey of around 870 students showed almost three-quarters actively thought about quitting college because of the costs.

About the same high number admitted having to continue to work during the exams period. A total of 63% said they had been forced to miss lectures because of work commitments, while over 67% said working had negatively affected their academic success.

Just over 61% said they had worked to the point of burnout to pay for college.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said they worked more than 15 hours a week to pay for college.

USI said the registration fee of 3,000, the second highest in Europe, should be reduced to make college affordable for every young person who wants to progress to third-level education.

Its president Kevin Donoghue said many students were at breaking point due to the stress of having to work just to keep their heads above water.

Its extremely worrying that so many students are working to the point of burnout, during exams and missing lectures to pay for college.

The cost of education is pushing students to breaking point. Its unaffordable and the compromises so many students have to make to stay in college, such as working to the point of burnout, ironically restrict their academic success, he said.

USI said a sizeable dropout rate and the rate of students who fear having to drop out of college is directly linked with the cost of education.

The students body called on Education Minister Richard Bruton to put more financial supports in place for students such as increasing the maintenance grant and reducing the registration fee.

The USI also called on Mr Bruton to liaise with housing minister Simon Coveney to address a crisis in student accommodation.
The trio have confirmed that they will defy the Government whip and vote with Ms OSullivan, as they agree with the spirit of the bill and it is not subject to their Programme for Government commitments with Fine Gael.

Another ministerial member of the alliance, junior minister Sean Canney, told the Irish Examiner that he was undecided on the matter, and would make up his mind this morning ahead of the vote.

The decision to break ranks with Fine Gael on the bill is significant as normally such a move would force those involved to resign from office.

It is clear however, that the decision to support Ms OSullivans bill will not force such a scenario with Fine Gael content to let the lads off on this one.

It is seen that the decision to go against Fine Gael is a test case by the alliance in advance of more contentious votes, such as Mick Wallaces bill on liberalising the abortion laws next week.

The alliance discussed the matter at their weekly meeting on Tuesday and Mr McGrath, Mr Ross, and Mr Halligan made their views known to their colleagues.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Halligan said he is supporting Ms OSullivans bill because he thinks it is absolutely wrong for animals to be killed for sport.

We are a civilised country and we need to put an end to this sort of thing where animals are killed for sport or pleasure and that is why I intend supporting the bill, he said.

This is not a Programme for Government matter. We said we would support them on financial bills and votes of confidence. Beyond that we have a free hand. That is it.
With polls set to open open, they said Europe without Britain would be unimaginable to them.

The rockers made a direct appeal to fellow country men and women voting in the referendum to back Remain.

On their official Facebook page, they reposted a video showing barriers coming down and bridges being built in Ireland since the peace process.

The video by the Ireland4Europe campaign warns of the risk that new border controls would bring an end to all the progress made over 18 years since the Good Friday Agreement.

In the event of a Brexit, the now seamless border between the North and the Republic of Ireland would become the only land frontier between the UK and Europe.

We were asked to repost this video, U2 said on their fan site. We like it and were humbled to be in it.

For Irish voters in Britain, dont go wed miss you ... Europe without Britain seems unimaginable to us. Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry.

Irish actor Liam Neeson OBE also lent his support to the Remain camp, warning of the worst ramifications for Ireland in the event of Britain opting out.

I would like to lend my voice to Irish4Europes campaign to encourage Irish citizens to vote for the UK to remain in the EU, he said in a statement.

A UK exit would have the worst ramifications for the island of Ireland. Economically, this would be a backwards step for Ireland.

Border controls would be implemented to allegedly stop illegal immigrants coming into the UK through the backdoor. Trade will be enormously impacted.

It would be truly a shame to sacrifice all the progress that has been made by the peace process regarding border controls.

There is strength in unity. A Brexit vote will make us weak. I urge you to go out and vote to remain in the EU.

Irish voters represent up to 10% of the UK electorate.

With the Remain and Leave sides neck and neck, their role could be critical in the outcome of Thursdays poll.

David DArcy, of Irish4Europe, pleaded with each and every Irish voter to make voting Remain their first task on the day.

Dont leave it. In such a close race, the Irish could make the difference, he said.

World leaders also added their voices to the debate during the campaign.

US President Barack Obama said Britain is at its best when its helping to lead a strong European Union and warned that the UK would be at the back of the queue for American trade deals if it left.

Japans prime minister Shinzo Abe said Brexit would make the UK less attractive to Japanese investors. New Zealands prime minister John Key said his government believes its a stronger position for Britain to be in Europe.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said there is nothing easy about forging trade deals outside the EU and said Britains clout is amplified by being a member of the bloc.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said the decision is up to UK voters but added: I personally would hope and wish for the UK to stay part and parcel of the EU.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi described the UK as the gateway to Europe and said a united Europe would be favourable.

Russias president, Vladimir Putin, has refused to put on record what outcome he would like to see but said David Cameron had called the vote to blackmail Europe.
Mr Coghlan, the leas- cathaoirleach of the Seanad, yesterday told the house of an incident on Dawson St he witnessed after leaving Leinster House on Monday night.

Mr Coghlans statements followed a debate on the rise of obesity in Ireland and the overuse of antibiotics when he said that what he had witnessed must be mentioned.
Speaking at an event in West Cork, Puttnam said the idea of re-erecting a border between the North and the Republic was bonkers and the vote in the United Kingdom today on whether Britain remains in the EU was the most important of his lifetime.

The filmmaker, a Labour peer in the House of Lords and a resident of Skibbereen, was speaking in Lisavaird National School near Clonakilty, the primary school attended by Michael Collins.

Puttnam was the first non-Irish person to address the annual Michael Collins commemoration in Beal na mBlath when he spoke there nine years ago.

Stressing Collins courage and statesmanship, he also appealed to any Irish residents with a vote in todays referendum to vote remain.

He said the result of the vote would definitely affect Ireland and added: I find that anyone lunatic enough to vote for the UK to leave Europe will have to pay a high price, but it wont be them paying it  it will be their children and their childrens children.

Anyone who thinks that the re-erection of a border between north and south is bonkers, I would suggest that you go home tonight and pray that the people of the UK come to a sane and sensible decision tomorrow and not damage your futures.

Puttnam said he had already sent his postal vote in the referendum and would be literally begging anyone thinking of voting for the UK to leave the EU to think again.

He was also scathing of UKIP leader Nigel Farage and of the leader of the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson. Paying tribute to the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, he said her death had isolated Farage from other elements of the Leave campaign, adding: Farage is an embarrassment to them.

Puttnam described Boris Johnson as a wholly unprincipled man and said he hoped sufficient undecided voters would swing the vote towards remaining in the EU.
ALMOST two decades have passed since Conor McPhersons play The Weir premiered in London, picking up a slew of awards and projecting the Dublin playwright into the international limelight. In the years since, McPherson has carved out a hugely distinguished career, producing further gems (Port Authority, The Seafarer) for the stage, and enjoying success in film and television, too. Yet there remains something special about The Weir.

Set in a small Leitrim pub in which the five people gathered within recount a range of ghost stories, it is the McPherson play par excellence  a tidy little masterpiece that perfectly distils the writers obsession both with the supernatural and with the spiritual elements of our daily existence while showcasing, too, his gift for creating characters drenched in a complex humanity. A revival of the play, produced by splendid Irish company Decadent, is currently touring the country.

One of the things I think people like about the play is the sense of place and atmosphere, says McPherson. Its like eavesdropping on this bar for an evening.

I often think that for a play to really work, and for people to love it, it has to be like a little snowglobe  where you can look into it and its a perfectly contained world that has its own logic. And The Weir has that. Its a complete world.

Of course, at the core of this world there resides the Irish tradition of the ghost story, a tradition that McPherson was exposed to as a child when visiting his grandfathers house in Leitrim. As a kid from Dublin it was very different and it really got under my skin, he recalls.

Is that where his abiding interest in the eerie and supernatural originates?

It may be, but to be honest I was interested in that stuff when I was even younger than that, he says. From when I was 8 or 9, I definitely had a huge interest in ghosts and vampires and zombies and all that. It just really floated my boat. If I wanted to be complimentary to myself, I could say that maybe it was a nascent search for the beyond. But, maybe, too, it was just a lot of fun. I dont know. I was just always drawn to it.

#TheWeir in 12 words:

Beer 

Ghost stories 

Loneliness 

Whiskey 

Mystery 

Craic 

Wine 

Tales of lost love  pic.twitter.com/83qlYdfhkG  Decadent Theatre (@DecadentTheatre) June 16, 2016

In tapping into the Irish ghost story tradition, The Weir taps into something broader still, suggests McPherson, a metaphysical worldview that has been passed on through the generations.

In Irish heritage, in folklore and in stories of the faeries, I think there is something going on thats deeper than just stories and yarns, he says. I think it expresses something about the way that Irish people have viewed the world, thats been passed on to us  the way Irish people have understood nature. Those religious beliefs  which would be called pagan beliefs now  personified the dark and the lighter sides of nature, and of death, and all of that. So, in stories of the banshee and all that kind of stuff were really hearing the echo of an old religion. I think thats probably why its so deep in our bones.

The arrival of Catholicism in Ireland didnt replace but merely fused with this older perspective, McPherson suggests. As such, a worldview informed by the supernatural, the unknown, and the uncanny persisted.

And I think thats probably quite an intelligent worldview, he says. It acknowledges mystery. It acknowledges that we dont know a huge amount about whats around us. We just have our five senses and we do the best we can. Beyond that, its all a big mystery. And I think youd be stupid really not to acknowledge that we live within a mystery and we die within a mystery. And theres something respectful about that worldview. It feels correct.

McPherson had a close encounter with his own mortality in 2001 when a burst pancreas left him in intensive care. For a man who was already writing about ghosts and all sorts of revenants before this event  and who has continued to do so in the years since  youd presume it must have carried a strange resonance for him, but McPherson views it all very phlegmatically.

Real personal experience  if you can rationally, consciously process it  its probably not hugely resonant and interesting, he says. Id be much more interested in whats unconscious than whats conscious. So when I was sick that time I was just very pleased to get better and glad to be alive and moving on. It was just: Off you go. It was a very profound time, theres no doubt about it, but it was also a very positive time, and thats really how I view it. I dont view it as Wow. I was nearly dead. I view it as Wow. I was lucky not to die. I kind of look at it in that boring way.

The cast is blushing from all the positive reactions so far to #TheWeir.



Make-up will be a nightmare tonight. pic.twitter.com/28HUCB63Qn  Decadent Theatre (@DecadentTheatre) June 22, 2016

In fact, this inclination to matter-of-fact reality, despite the concern with all the more mysterious elements informing our existence, is key to McPhersons success as a writer. For all their supernatural shadings, McPhersons plays usually feature naturalistic characters, and very often  as it is in The Weir  the most haunting thing a character will experience is not a spook or a phantom but rather a poignant suspicion that their own life may have slipped away on them.

McPherson is a man who has grasped his own opportunities. In recent years, he has underlined his place in modern Irish drama with yet another Broadway and West End hit, The Night Alive, while also branching off into television, adapting the Benjamin Black novels for RTEs hit series Quirke. Like all acclaimed writers, the works upon which he staked his claim  The Weir perhaps more than the rest  ghost alongside all new projects. But, typically, McPherson is pragmatic about the difference between writing as a young man and writing as a seasoned veteran.

You just have to accept that  unless youre Shakespeare  very few playwrights write their best work in the second part of their lives, he says. Usually all of the famous plays are written by guys in their 20s and 30s. And theres a reason for that. Because when you dont know your arse from your elbow youre just splurging it out there. The older you are and the more youre going, Yes, Ive learned a couple of things about life, the more youre a boring old fart. Youve got to somehow hold on to that sense of reality about it. You cant give up. Youve got to try and keep your ignorance alive. Thats what it is, actually  not to feel like youre learning as you go.

The Weir runs at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, until Saturday; Everyman Cork, June 27-July 2; Watergate Theatre Kilkenny, July 7- 9; and Pavilion Theatre Dun Laoghaire, July 12-30
FROM terrorism to immigration and healthcare, US President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dont agree on much.

Obama hammers Trump on immigration policy, describing his ideas as dangerous and loose talk and sloppiness. Trump, meanwhile, calls Obama a lousy president who has done a terrible job.

Beyond the mutual disdain though, Obama and Trump do agree on one thing: When it comes to foreign policy, the US supports too many free rider Nato allies who benefit from American military support without contributing enough to their own defence.

While questioning the importance of Nato to the US is anathema to much of the Washington foreign policy establishment, there are valid reasons to question the extent to which Nato truly promotes American national interests.

Surrounded by oceans on both sides and with stable neighbours to its north and south, the US faces no existential threat in its immediate neighbourhood.

And while a nuclear-armed Russia could certainly destroy the US many times over, the US could do the same to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin possesses many unpleasant qualities  but a desire for national suicide is not one of them.

Washington also comes out on the short end of the stick financially. Nato recommends that each member spend a minimum of 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, yet according to Nato statistics for 2015 only five countries  the US, Poland, Estonia, the UK, and Greece  meet this target.

This discrepancy exists despite the fact that Natos other members GDP add up to almost $20tn (17.73tn)  $3.5tn higher than that of the US.

Two cases represent particularly strong examples of European free riding. All three Baltic nations fear a Russian invasion and demand the US prepare to honour its obligations under Natos collective defence principle.

However, while analysts refer to Lithuania President Dalia Grybauskait?e as an Iron Lady due to her fierce anti-Putin rhetoric, Lithuania spends only 1.14% of GDP on defence, making Grybauskait?e more like the mouse that roared than a Baltic Maggie Thatcher.

And with military spending of only 1.06% of GDP, Latvia is even worse. The Baltics may believe Putins tanks could roll across their borders at any moment, but if so, their militaries postures certainly dont reflect this concern.

American leaders also need to have a hard conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany possesses by far the largest economy in Europe, with a GDP approaching $4tn. Yet in 2015, Berlin spent only 1.18% of GDP on defence  a shortfall of over $30bn.

The condition of Germanys military equipment does not inspire confidence, either. Its military cargo planes cant always get off the ground, and the German military admits many of its tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets are also grounded. In one particularly embarrassing case, during a major Nato exercise in 2014, German troops compensated for a lack of heavy machine guns by using broomsticks instead.

Moreover, though Nato confronts Russia, Berlin does business with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom. Last September, Gazprom and various European companies signed an agreement to construct the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines directly between Germany and Russia. Nord Stream 2 bypasses Germanys Central and East European allies  including Ukraine  costing them transit revenue and weakening their leverage over Russia.

Although Germanys Nato allies are not happy with Nord Stream 2, on a trip to Moscow in October, German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told his hosts that Nord Stream 2 would remain under the competence of the German authorities then opportunities for external meddling will be limited.

Germany has every right to pursue its own economic and security interests  even if a deal like Nord Stream 2 weakens Western sanctions against Moscow. But this type of self-interested behaviour should make Washington policymakers think long and hard about how exactly Natos current structure promotes American national interests.

Luckily for the US, the upcoming Nato summit in Warsaw offers the perfect opportunity for American policymakers to rethink Natos purpose and structure. For one thing, its long past time to put a break on admitting new members to Nato.

Nato is a military alliance, not a book club, and prior to further expansion  particularly into the former Soviet Union  the US should assess its capabilities and willingness to go to war on behalf of existing members, much add less new ones.

Second, American policymakers should tell their Nato allies that its time to get serious about increasing their defence spending. If Natos 27 other members all upped their contributions to a minimum of 2% of their GDP, that would represent an additional $132bn in defence spending, enough to genuinely impact Natos overall capabilities.

To add teeth to the cajoling, Washington should inform the 23 Nato members not spending 2% of GDP on defence they have five years to reach this target  and any countries that dont do so risk forfeiting their American security guarantees. Although this sounds extreme, and represents something the US might never follow through on, anyway, it would at least concentrate minds in Europe.

Obama also needs to have a separate conversation with Baltic leaders, especially from Lithuania and Latvia. If Baltics fears truly align with their rhetoric, the three could look for guidance to Israel, another tiny country which views itself as facing existential threats.

Israels population is only 8m  over 25% of whom are exempt from mandatory military service  yet the Israelis spend over 5% of GDP on defence, and possess a standing army of 160,000.

The Baltics by contrast  with combined populations of 6m  field only 22,000 total active duty troops. If the Baltics want the US to risk blood and treasure defending them, they should increase the combined size of their standing armies to 80,000  still only half that of Israel  and both Latvia and Lithuania must follow Estonia in meeting Natos 2% threshold.

Finally, the US should strongly support European Commission president Jean-Claude Junckers call for the EU to form its own army outside Nato.

According to Juncker, With its own army, Europe could react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighbouring state a common European army would convey a clear message to Russia that we are serious about defending our European values.

From an American perspective, this makes perfect sense. A common European army would encourage Americas allies to take greater responsibility for their own defence, allowing the US to more effectively implement more effectively implement Obamas oft- discussed pivot to Asia.

To be sure, given the numerous splits within the EU a European army may seem farfetched, but it remains something Washington should encourage its allies to pursue.

The US need not abandon its Nato allies  but it is time for Washington to insist they carry their own weight.

Josh Cohen is a former USAid project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union.
NO MATTER how I try I cant help thinking this Brexit referendum is about a woman lying dead in the street. I have tried not to see it as a referendum on the causes of Jo Coxs murder but it is.

Thats not to say that almost the entire Leave camp does not abominate what happened in Birstall, West Yorkshire, last week. I know they do. But the whole European project is fundamentally about stopping mothers of young children being killed in the streets as they go about their business. And that project isnt over.

EU founders Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman were clever enough to see that the Germans and the French would stop killing each other if they shared economic assets, such as coal and steel, and so through the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Union was born.

Jean Monnet said in 1953: When we see the extraordinary disaster that Europeans caused themselves () we are literally frightened. Yet, the reason is simple: It is that each one of us, during the course of a century, chased our destinies and applied our own rules.

The community he imagined was one in which we would have some rules in common and chase a common destiny. We would stop fighting each other in the hope of national gain and gain more together through peace.

How does war between the armies of Europe relate to the savage killing of an MP by a seemingly unhinged white supremicist? Through the dead body of a young mother and through the grief of the children she described as her precious babies, Lejla (five) and Cuillinn (three).

Its true that we will never be able to order the world so that lone crazies dont do terrible things but a Europe unified in peace can work against the wars which are destroying families by design every day of the week.

Jo Cox clearly saw that the hundreds of thousands of children orphaned by the Syrian war could be her children. When little Aylan Kurdi personified for the world the thousands of tragic deaths which had happened in the Aegean Sea I know Jo Cox must have given little Lejla, who was around the same age, a very tight cuddle. Harriet Harman spoke in the Commons yesterday about Cox attending a political meeting and kissing her new-born baby the whole way through.

Kissing your own baby is a better preparation for politics than kissing random babies outside the supermarket. Cox made the leap from the overwhelming love she felt for her own children to the devastation felt by the parents in Syria who have lost their children to war. She could imagine how lonely her children would be without her and thus how lonely must be the several hundred thousand unaccompanied refugee Syrian children  about 95,000 of them in Europe by Coxs calculation. She didnt know that her children would shortly feel that loneliness for real.

When she made her unsuccessful appeal in the Commons last month that the UK would host 3,000 of those unaccompanied children she put herself firmly in the shoes of Syrian parents leaving a war-torn country to save their children.

Who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror that their families are experiencing? she asked. Children are being killed on their way to school, children as young as seven are being forcefully recruited to the frontline and one in three children have grown up knowing nothing but fear and war. Those children have been exposed to things no child should ever witness and I know I would risk life and limb to get my two precious babies out of that hellhole.

So far the EU has failed to act responsibly or effectively to ease the humanitarian crisis despite the moral leadership of Angela Merkel, who comes from a place which remembers the European wars and has taken in 1m refugees.

But without European unity there is no hope of a pan-European plan for the refugees of crisis regions from Syria to Afghanistan and from Eritrea to Somalia. Anyone who doubts that need only look at UKIPs revolting poster showing a line of Syrian refugees in Slovenia superimposed with the words, Breaking Point: the EU has failed us all, issued a few hours before Jo Coxs death.

For a bit of historical perspective, Belfast-based Brendan Harkin cleverly compared it with Nazi propaganda films from the 1930s showing almost exactly the same line of refugees with the message, These are the types of Eastern Jews who flooded Europes cities after the last war Parasites undermining their host countries Threatening thousand-year-old cultures It would be easy to empathise with Nigel Farages poster if you see everyone with slightly darker skin than yourself and all women in headscarves as sub-human. Theres only a problem once you realise that every single one of those human beings has the same range of emotions as yourself. That with one roll of the dice, you could be them. Hoping against hope that the strangers will be kind.

Without European unity there is little hope of military intervention in Syria focussed, on protecting the Syrian people, as Jo Cox explained in an article for The Observer co-written with Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell: breaking the deadlock between Russia and the US which allowed the cancer of Islamic State to spread, working to bring Assad to the negotiating table, creating safe havens for the Syrian people within Syria.

The tenor of debate in this referendum has been pathetic everywhere but here it has been abominable. Taoiseach Enda Kennys pro-Remain article in Mondays Guardian kicks off with trade between the UK and Ireland and anything that gets in the way of that trade. Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe yesterday described our trade interests as the reason Ireland was advocating for Remain.

Until Jo Coxs death, my own position was more abominable still. I didnt really care if the Brits left because it would show how different  read morally superior  we were in Ireland. Scary stuff, really, when you consider the British taught us democracy and taught the world what a welfare state looks like. When you consider how interwoven their history has been with that of the rest of Europe, down to the fact that Jean Monnets conversion to the cause of Europe happened while he brokered co-ordinated war supply chains in 1914 and 1938 for historic enemies, the French and the English.

But a woman cut down in the prime of life and two precious babies motherless force us to face the meaning of international co-operation.

And to stretch the hand of friendship across the Irish Sea to encourage them to stay or if they leave, to encourage them back.
The public fury and social media backlash has been so great Khans father, Salim, apologised on his sons behalf and pleaded with the public to forgive him.

Indias National Commission for Women also demanded that Khan explain his comments within seven days or be hauled before the state-appointed panel.

By last night, Khan had said nothing about the remarks he made while speaking with journalists over the weekend about portraying a professional wrestler in new film Sultan.

It is the most difficult thing, the 50-year-old actor told reporters in Mumbai when asked about his training schedule. When I used to walk out of that ring, it used to be like a raped woman walking out.

The actors rape analogy was widely criticised on social media sites in India, where sexual violence against women is rampant.

A protest movement has emerged in cities with demand for better safety for women and harsher punishment for rapists.

The National Commission for Womens chief Lalitha Kumaramangalam said: Its not only a wrong statement, its very irresponsible and callous for a man whose fame and wealth are based on the adoration of his female fans.

Salim Khan tweeted: To err is human to forgive divine. And in another tweet, he said: Nevertheless I apologise on behalf of his family his fans & his friends. Forgiveness is to pardon the unpardonable or it is no virtue at all.

The problem of sexual violence has long gone un- recognised in India, until the gang rape and mutilation of a young woman on a moving bus in December 2012. Public protests in New Delhi and other cities prompted the government in 2013 to strengthen laws for punishing those convicted of sexual crimes, as well as for prosecuting authorities who fail to investigate complaints. But strong social stigmas still exist .

Khans remark was considered particularly damaging given his immense popularity as a leading star in the Bollywood film industry.
It came after British prime minister David Cameron said his friend and cabinet colleague had lost it and made a massive mistake in making the comparison.

Apologising for the comments, which he made on LBC radio on Tuesday, Mr Gove said: I was asked a question by Iain Dale about the predictions of doom for the economy.

I answered, as I often do, with a historical analogy. It was clumsy and inappropriate.

Obviously I did not mean to imply anything about the motives of those who have spoken out in favour of staying in the EU.

Throughout the campaign Ive avoided making personal attacks, Im sorry for speaking so clumsily and apologise for giving offence.

His apology came shortly after fellow Leave campaigner Boris Johnson backed Mr Gove. Mr Johnson, the former London mayor, told BBC Radio 4s World at One: Michael Gove has run an absolutely fantastic campaign and he is right in what he says, I think.

Some of these experts, they totally failed to foresee the crash of 2008.

Mr Gove sparked outrage when he claimed experts cannot always be trusted and pointed to the German scientists used to denounce Einstein to prove his point.

He told LBC: We have to be careful about historical comparisons, but Albert Einstein during the 1930s was denounced by the German authorities for being wrong and his theories were denounced, and one of the reasons of course he was denounced was because he was Jewish.
Countering the narrative of radical extremism continues to be a challenge for the government, Lynch said.

How do we break that chain? How do we counter this extremist ideology thats online, knowing that the internet has to remain free and open? she said. What can we get out there thats a counter-message to that?

At the scene of the carnage, workers removed a temporary fence that was erected around the Pulse nightclub.

State officials wondered how they would pay for resources drained by the June 12 massacre, and investigators kept probing for gunman Omar Mateens motives for the rampage, in which 49 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Mateen died in a gun battle with police.

Lynch said investigators may never pinpoint a single motive and have not ruled out witness reports suggesting Mateen might have been at Pulse before or had gay interests.

While we know a lot more about him in terms of who he was and what he did, I do not want to definitively rule out any particular motivation here, she said, later adding, Its entirely possible that he had a singular motive. Its entirely possible that he had a dual motive.

In a 911 call from the club, Mateen pledged solidarity with the Islamic State group, and Lynch said theres no doubt, based on evidence gathered during the investigation, that he had read and absorbed extremist propaganda on the internet.

We believe that is certainly one avenue of radicalisation, but we want to know if there are others, she said. We want to know everything he did in the days, weeks and months leading up to this attack.

We still do believe that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, she added.

She called the rampage a shattering attack  on our nation, on our people and on our most fundamental ideals.

Lynchs meeting with first responders came as Orlando police faced continued questions about their response.

On Monday, police chief John Mina said that if any fire from responding officers hit victims at the club, Mateen bears the responsibility. Those killings are on the suspect, on the suspect alone in my mind, he said.

More clues emerged about the attack when the FBI released a partial transcript of phone calls Mateen had with a 911 operator and police crisis negotiators once the shooting got under way.

In them, he identified himself as an Islamic soldier, demanded that the US stop bombing Syria and Iraq, warned of future violence and at one point pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, the FBI said.

Mateens calls to police, which one FBI official said were made in a chilling, calm and deliberate manner were similar to postings he apparently made on Facebook around the time of the shooting.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokesman Perry Cooper said Port of Seattle police arrested a 23-year-old California man for investigation of fourth-degree assault.

Cooper says the man attempted to kiss a 16-year-old girl who was sleeping next to him. The pilot was notified and reported it to police.

The Alaska Airlines flight was heading to Anchorage, Alaska, from Portland, Oregon. The girl remained on the plane when it later departed for Anchorage.

Cooper says the man was co-operative when he was arrested. He is expected to be booked into King County Jail.

Beer today, gone tomorrow

USA: A mystery is brewing in Atlanta, where someone stole an ocean of beer. A brewery in the city says nearly 3,300 cases of beer went missing when two of its refrigerated trailers were stolen.

SweetWater Brewing Company said the trailers had been loaded for a morning pick-up when they were taken from the plant.

The two trailers carried 3,272 cases altogether  more than 78,500 bottles  of SweetWaters Summer Variety Pack. Both trailers were later found in the Atlanta area by using GPS, but both were empty.

A bird in the sea is worth...

WALES: The hunt is on to find a mysterious rare seabird off the coast of Wales.

Conservationists will be searching two Pembrokeshire islands, Skokholm and Skomer, for the most enigmatic seabird in Wales  the European storm petrel. They are related to the worlds most famous ocean wanderers, the albatross, but weigh only about as much as a sparrow. Despite their diminutive size, they range far out at sea for most of the year.

Wild cat chase

SCOTLAND: A pet cat feared dead after escaping from kennels in Aberdeenshire almost three years ago has been reunited with his owners.

Ollie disappeared in July 2013 while his owners were abroad on holiday. The Bailey family started searching for their pet but were beginning to lose hope as the months passed.

However, a cat found in St Fergus  about 8km from where he went missing  has been confirmed as Ollie thanks to a microchip.

Chip off the auction block

USA: A decision to pull a tribal ceremonial shield off the auction block in Paris amid protests from the US has been hailed by tribes and their advocates as they await final word on whether the item will be returned to the Pueblo of Acoma.

The shield was one of dozens of contested tribal items set for sale at the EVE auction house in Paris, but it was the only item pulled after Acoma Pueblo lawyers produced paperwork alleging the shield had been stolen in a break-in.

Now, as an investigation continues, collectors fear the ordeal will send a chill through the tribal artifacts market. A former president of the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association says not knowing when or how the shield was acquired by a private collector before he sent it overseas is likely to cause trepidation in the market.

Selma says sorry

USA: Selma Blair has apologised for her outburst on a flight.

The actress said she mixed alcohol with medication which caused her to blackout and make statements that she regrets on a flight from Cancun to Los Angeles.

Reports suggests Blair was crying and talking about an abusive man. She was reported to have been attended to by nurses on the plane and taken off on a stretcher at Los Angeles International Airport.
President Juan Manuel Santos will travel to Cuba today to unveil details of the deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon announced he also would be present to witness the signing of the agreement.

The presidents of Cuba, Venezuela, and Chile  the three nations sponsoring the now almost four-year-old peace talks in Havana  were also expected, and the Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.

Colombias conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions since 1964. But a 15-year, US-backed military offencive thinned the rebels ranks and forced its ageing leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.

Momentum had been building toward a breakthrough after Santos said this week he hoped to end a half-century of bloodshed by July 20, marking Colombias declaration of independence from Spain.

But yesterdays agreement went further than expected, removing all doubt a final deal is around the corner.

In addition to announcing a framework for the cease-fire, both sides said they agreed on how the FARCs estimated 7,000 fighters will demobilise and hand over their weapons, as well as the security guarantees that will be provided to leftist activists after the conflict ends.

Negotiators in January tasked the UN with monitoring adherence to an eventual ceasefire and resolving disputes emerging from the demobilisation.

With the latest advances, only few minor pending items remain, the biggest being how the final deal will be ratified and given legal force so that it wont unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

Santos has vowed to put the deal to a referendum vote so Colombians can express their opinion.

Opinion polls show the FARC are widely despised among conservative Colombians and frustration with the rebels has grown as the talks have dragged on, making reconciliation seem more distant.

The peace talks have been bumpy and extended much longer than Santos or anyone else anticipated. But if a final deal is reached, it would end Latin Americas last major insurgency.

Still, the much-smaller and more recalcitrant National Liberation Army has a toehold in some areas and could fill the void left by the FARC. The FARC called a unilateral ceasefire nearly a year ago and the government responded by halting air strikes on rebel camps.

Negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline for signing a deal in March.
Asia Malaysia Rescues 29 Trafficked Filipino Women From Bars

Malaysian police rescued the trafficked women from two bars in Sarawak State, as the country attempts to improve its record on curbing human trafficking.

JAKARTA, Indonesia  Malaysian authorities have rescued 29 Filipino women who had been trafficked into the country to work, and arrested their agents, Filipino officials said on Wednesday, in the countrys latest move to tackle the crime.

Malaysia has an estimated 2 million illegal migrant laborers, some of whom work in conditions of forced labor in sectors ranging from electronics to palm oil to domestic service, according to the U.S. State Department.

The Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur said it had contacted Malaysian police after it received tip-offs about some trafficked Filipino women, prompting a rescue operation.

On June 9, Malaysian police raided two bars in the coastal town of Bintulu in the eastern state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo, where they found the women, according to an embassy statement.

It said traffickers brought the women to Sarawak as tourists and promised them jobs by converting their tourist visas into employment visas in exchange for money.

Under Malaysian immigration law, social visit passes [tourist visas] cannot be converted to work visas, the embassy said, urging Filipinos to be vigilant.

The 29 women will be transferred to a womens shelter while an investigation is underway.

Three individuals who allegedly acted as agents for the women were arrested during the raid, the embassy statement said.

It was not clear whether the trio have been charged in any court. The embassy could not be reached for immediate comment.

The embassy urged Filipinos not to deal with unlicensed individuals or placement agencies as they could end up being victims of trafficking.

Last month, 15 officials were fired after Malaysia discovered an immigration racket involving the sabotage of its security system at the countrys main airport, heightening fears about human trafficking.

Malaysia last year was upgraded by the U.S. State Department in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report to the Tier 2 Watch List from Tier 3, the lowest ranking for countries with the worst trafficking records.

The upgrade followed international scrutiny and outcry over Malaysian efforts to combat human trafficking after the discovery earlier in the year of scores of graves in people-smuggling camps near its northern border with Thailand.
Burma Despite Militarys Demands, Karen Armed Group Stands Its Ground

A Burma Army unit commander orders the Karen National Liberation Army to withdraw from an outpost, but the ethnic armed group is refusing to budge.

RANGOON  At an emergency meeting held on Thursday, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) decided not to withdraw from a military checkpoint in the Htee Khee area of southern Burmas Tenasserim Division, according to local sources.

On Monday, a tactical commander from Military Operations Command 19 ordered the KNLA at the checkpoint to withdraw within three days of his visit to the area. But when the deadline came on Thursday, KNLA Brigade No. 4 said they would defend the outpost even if government troops attempted to take it by force.

A source close to the Karen National Union (KNU), the political wing of the KNLA, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, We decided not to withdraw from our checkpoint. We have a liaison office in Dawei [the capital of Tenasserim], and they should go there to talk about a withdrawal and make an official request.

There is even a Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) office in Dawei. They should have gone there and talked about it, he added, referring to the group assigned to monitor the implementation of Burmas nationwide ceasefire agreement between the government and ethnic armed groups.

The KNU signed the accord in 2015, and has been an active participant in the peace process. This is the first dispute that has threatened last years truce.

Our people have sacrificed their lives to control this checkpoint. So why should we withdraw from it? another source from the KNLA said. We will defend our checkpoint.

[The Burma Army commanders] actions violated our ceasefire agreement. He does not have the right to come to our checkpoint. He should have gone to our liaison office if there was something to talk about, said the source.

This tussle comes a week after the Burma Armys encroachment into territory controlled by an ethnic Mon armed group.

In mid-June, the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA) was ordered to withdraw from an outpost in Kyaikmayaw Township, Mon State. When the MNLA refused, the Burma Army raided the checkpoint by force and seized two weapons.
Burma Kachin Armed Group Releases Detained Farmers

Nearly 50 ethnic Palaung corn farmers are concerned for their livelihoods after being detained by Kachin Independence Army soldiers.

RANGOON  Nearly 50 ethnic Palaung were released in Kutkai Township, Shan State after they were detained by members of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) due to a land dispute, according to local sources.

Yan Maung Ba, one of the 48 detainees, told The Irrawaddy that members of the KIA had arrested the farmers due to a disagreement over land between the local ethnic Palaungalso known as Taangand Kachin communities.

We were released at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, said Yan Maung Ba. We are corn farmers. They came to take us away at midnight [on Tuesday night].

Yan Maung Ba said that for five years, he and his fellow Palaung have been growing corn on an area of around 1,000 acres of landthe rights to which have been disputed by the two main the Kachin and Palaung communities that reside in the area. After some local Kachin reportedly complained to the KIA, 48 Palaung farmers were arrested.

They did not have any good reason. They simply took us away, said Yan Maung Ba.

The 48 victims included 19 men and 29 women. Some of the farmers told The Irrawaddy that members of the KIA had released them after they were made to pay a fee.

Each of us had to give 15,000 kyats (US$12.70) to the [KIA] and they told us to farm there only after the land disputes are settled. But we have no other place to grow our crops, said Aung Puu, one of the detained farmers.

Yan Maung Ba added, We have been told that [the KIA] will shoot us if we go back to the land again.

The farmers said that around 30 armed KIA soldiers from Battalion No. 9 of Brigade No. 4 had carried out the detention.

Kutkai Township, located in northern Shan State, is home to ethnic Shan, Palaung and Kachin communities.
Burma Rangoon MPs Clash Over Budget

After the Rangoon chief ministers constituency was allotted the most money in a special budget, lawmakers complain about unfairness.

RANGOON  Lawmakers have complained that the Rangoon divisional government has unfairly allotted a budget windfall due to the cancellation of flyover projects, highlighting the fact that the divisional chief ministers constituency received more money than any other township.

The budget for the construction of two flyovers at the junction of Kabar Aye Pagoda Road and Parami Street in North Okkalapa Township was approved under the previous government, but the plan was scrapped in April as the newly-elected members of parliament suggested spending the 32.2 billion kyats (US$26.1 million) on rural development projects since new flyovers have not been a solution to Rangoons traffic problems.

Lawmakers have disagreed with the regional governments budget because some of their plans have not been approved. Many rural areas are receiving less money and Hlegu [Township] is getting more money than the other townships, said Kyaw Zay Ya, a Rangoon Divisional lawmaker who is on the Finance, Planning and Economic Affairs Committee.

Hlegu Township, the home constituency of Rangoons Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein, has been allocated around 4 billion kyats, the most of any constituency. Kawhmu and Kungyangon townships are set to receive more than 3 billion kyats, while all other townships have been budgeted around 2 billion kyats.

Three townships will get more than 3 billion kyats while all the others get only around 2 billion kyats, said San Kyaw, a Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) member of the divisional parliament. Now that the lawmakers have lodged complaints, they are negotiating with the government.

It is unfair that the chief ministers constituency is getting the most money. All lawmakers want to do good for their constituencies because that is why we were elected, the USDP lawmaker said.

National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Aung San Oo of Hmawbi Township said his township will get 2.5 billion kyats for development projects.

We suggested using money from the flyover budget for rural development projects. But because the budget gives more money to urban townships than rural ones, we asked for it to be reviewed, he said.

They said in Hlegu Township road construction would require more than 1 billion kyats, so the township was allotted more money. We all accepted that because the project is really needed. But the unequal budget allocation was inappropriate in some other respects, Aung San Oo said.

Planning and Finance Minister Myint Thaung told The Irrawaddy the budget is now being reviewed because some proposals which should have been prioritized were not included in the initial plan.

It is true that Hlegu Township was allocated 1.3 billion kyats more than any other township, but it is for the maintenance of a road which is now in really bad shape, he said, adding the initial budget will not be changed under this current review, but they would tap into the governments reserves to pay for projects that are deemed necessary.

Each township made a proposal based on their own needs, which are dependent on size, population and other factors. So it is hard to compare them. We allocated the budget to address each townships unique concerns, the minister said.

The budget will be used for road construction and maintenance, increasing access to running water, building bridges and improving the sewer system in the urban areas.
Burma Thousands of Burmese Migrants Unable to Meet With Suu Kyi

Burmese migrant workers converging from all over Thailand are disappointed after Aung San Suu Kyi holds only a small, restricted factory meeting.

SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand  Despite around ten thousand Burmese migrant workers in Thailand waiting hoursunder both the hot sun and, later, rainfor the opportunity to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, less than five hundred were ultimately permitted to do so.

This caused widespread frustration at the Talay Thai Seafood Market in Mahachai, and led to the deployment of almost 1,000 security personnel by Thai authorities to quell any agitation, although the crowd remained peaceful.

Many of the migrants had reportedly traveled from all over Thailand to Mahachai, a port town in Samut Sakhon province about 45 kilometers southwest of the Thai capital of Bangkok. Those who were allowed to meet with Burmas de-facto leader had been bused in under the approval of Thai authorities and wore stickers demonstrating their permission to enter the factory.

Zin Mar, a garment worker in Bangkoks Bang Khae district, expressed her disappointment over not being able to meet Suu Kyi: I came here at six in the morning, but only saw her from far away.

On Suu Kyis arrival at the Mahachai market on Thursday afternoon, the Burmese migrant workers followed and waited outside, waving flags and singing the Burmese national anthem, as they were told that she would be addressing the crowd.

But heavy raina common afternoon occurrence during Thailands monsoon seasonprompted Suu Kyi to abandon course.

During her later meeting with the several hundred selected factory workers, Suu Kyi said, My visit to Thailand mainly aims to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries.

I want to listen to the voices of our citizens, Suu Kyi said. I request you to speak frankly about what you expect us to do for you. But make sure you make reasonable demands. If you make unrealistic demands, we can only reply that it is impossible.

Suu Kyi said that they were trying to secure proper identity documents for migrant workers, including passports and formal Certificates of Identity, and the Thai government did not object to such plans.

We are trying to make sure our citizens obtain their fundamental rights granted by the laws of this country, Suu Kyi said.

However, according to the few journalists who had access to the meeting, there was not a great deal of productive discussionin part because, at the factory in question, workers were earning the official minimum wage and had an acceptable working environment.

Deeper concerns among the Burmese migrant community, and the activities of labor rights groups, were reportedly not discussed.

On the grounds of security, Thai authorities had effectively blocked access to Suu Kyi for labor rights groups and NGOs. Labor rights groups had prepared documents to hand to Suu Kyi, but did not succeed in doing so; they also said they felt as though the Thai government did not want to hear about the labor rights violations experienced by migrant workers from Burma.

Ma Oo of the Burma Association Thailand said she was pushed away when she tried to give a letter to Suu Kyi on her way out.

Ma Thida, who works at a chicken processing factory in Mahachai, shared her frustration on Thursday morning that she had been restricted from engaging with Suu Kyi along with thousands of other Burmese migrants.

Hailing from Taungdwingyi Township in central Burmas Magwe Division, she said, We do not get full labor rights, and explained that many migrant workers must take on extra jobs on weekends as wage laborers.

Thailand-based migrant rights campaigner Andy Hall wrote on Twitter that he had briefly spoken with Suu Kyi in Mahachai: Andy, tell all my people I am disappointed I cannot give a speech to them outside today, but I know their problems well! she reportedly said to him.
Burma Timeline: Suu Kyis Foreign Visits

As she arrives in Thailand, The Irrawaddy compiles a record of Aung San Suu Kyis trips abroad since her release from house arrest in 2010.

As Burmas State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in Thailand for an official three-day trip on Thursday, The Irrawaddy looks back on her various international visits since her release from house arrest in 2010.

2016

May 7: On her first official trip abroad as Burmas State Counselor, Suu Kyi travels to Laos.

2015

June 10: At the invitation of the Communist Party of China, Suu Kyi makes her first visit to Beijing and meets President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

2014

April: She meets with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck in Berlin during a three-day visit to Germany, and then visits France and holds talks with President Francois Hollande.

2013

Jan 25: Suu Kyi attends the Rotary Global Peace Forum in Hawaii and receives the Hawaii Peace Award. She also meets the governor of Hawaii and the local Burmese community in Honolulu.

Jan 29: Suu Kyi visits the South Korean capital of Seoul where she holds talks with President Lee Myung-bak and the first woman president-elect of the country Park Geun-hye. She delivers a speech at the Global Development Summit in Pyeongchang. She then visits Gwangju where she collects the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights awarded to her in 2004.

April 13: Suu Kyi calls on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo during her first visit to Japan in 27 years. She last visited Japan in 1986, when she worked as a researcher at Kyoto University. She also meets Japanese senior leaders, Burmese democracy activists and students from Tokyo University.

April 29: Suu Kyi addresses the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies in Mongolias Ulaanbaatar.

September 11: She visits Poland and meets Speaker of the Sejm, Ewa Kopacz, and Speaker of the Senate, Bogdan Borusewicz, during her second visit to Europe.

September 13: Suu Kyi visits Hungary and meets Hungarian President Janos Ader and Deputy Foreign Minister Zsolt Nemeth in Budapest.

September 14: She makes her first visit to the Czech Republic as the keynote speaker of the Forum 2000 Conference and meets the Czech president and foreign minister in Prague.

September 20: She delivers the keynote speech at the Singapore Summit 2013. She calls on President Tony Tan Keng Yam and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

October 19: Suu Kyi visits Belgium, beginning her third tour of Europe.

October 21: She visits Luxembourg where she meets foreign ministers of 28 European countries.

October 22: Suu Kyi accepts the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in Strasbourg, France, originally awarded to her in 1991.

October 25: She delivers a speech at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst during her UK visit.

October 27: She receives honorary citizenship in Rome during her visit to Italy.

November 27: During her first visit to Australia, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws is conferred upon Suu Kyi by Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson AM at a ceremony held in the Concert Hall of the Opera House. The chancellor and vice-chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney also confer an honorary doctorate upon her at the joint ceremony. The award was originally bestowed on her in 1997 and given to her late husband in her absence.

December 10: She attends the World Innovation Summit for Health in Doha, Qatar.

2012

May 30: Suu Kyi visits Thailand on her first foreign trip in 24 years to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia in Bangkok. She also visits a Karen refugee camp along the Thai-Burma border in Tak Province.

June 14: She delivers an address at the 101st International Labor Conference of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland starting her first two-week tour of Europe in which she visits Norway, the UK, Switzerland, France and Ireland.

June 16: Suu Kyi collects her Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway 21 years after winning the award in 1991.

June 18: She accepts Amnesty Internationals Ambassador of Conscience Awardthe organizations most prestigious honorin Dublin, Ireland.

June 20: Suu Kyi gives a historic speech to both of Britains houses of parliament, receives an honorary doctorate in civil law from Oxford University and meets UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

June 27: She visits France and meets French President Francois Hollande in Paris.

September 15: Suu Kyi visits the US, accepts the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington D.C. and meets President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

November 14: Suu Kyi meets Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during her visit to India, where she went to high school and college.

Compiled by Wei Yan Aung and Thet Ko Ko.
The Lady and a Junta, Thai-Style

We shouldnt romanticize too much about The Lady and her capacity, as the political realities in Myanmar and Thailand remain daunting.

The visit this week by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will certainly brighten the spirits of the sombre Thai people and could also lift the profile of the Thai junta and Myanmars top leader.

Yet we shouldnt romanticize too much about The Lady and her capacity as the political realities in Myanmar and Thailand remain daunting. Besides, she is no longer a secular saint but a fully fledged politician.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyis three-day visit will include a stop in Mahachai, the seafood hub where she made a rousing speech to thousands of Myanmar laborers four years ago on one of her first trips abroad after years of house arrest.

At least 3 million Myanmar migrants work in Thailand, both legally and illegally. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would like to see many of them return home and contribute to her countrys economy  to the dismay of Thai employers who rely heavily on the workforce from next door.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to thank Thailand for embracing the migrants and to remind the government to take care of their welfare, wages and human rights. She needs to let them know she cares, since they played a significant role in persuading relatives back home to vote for change and install the National League for Democracy (NLD) government last November.

Thai democracy lovers and the Myanmar exile community are also curious about what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will say about human rights in general. Having spoken out for years in support of students, politicians, ethnic groups and others persecuted by the Myanmar military, will she have a good word for those opposing the military strongmen running Thailand? Expect a few vague words of consolation to Thai people about working toward full democracy.

Also on her agenda are better border regulations to tackle illicit drugs and human trafficking, and cooperation to develop economic zones in border areas.

Thailand has prepared an amendment to a 2003 labor agreement that specified only employment to include rule of law and other protection aspects. The changes should make recruitment faster and more transparent for employers and more convenient and affordable for Myanmar migrant workers.

More effort is also expected to breathe life into the Dawei megaproject. Myanmar wants Japan to invest more in infrastructure there, but Japan wants to see its Thilawa port near Yangon up and running first  even though Dawei will substantially benefit Japanese investment in Thailand and the region.

Progress on Dawei could be linked to a solution to the long-running refugee problem. However, this can only materialize if the Myanmar government and armed ethnic groups as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are part of the solution.

It would be a noble gesture for the leaders of the two countries to propose a pilot project for the voluntary return of refugees to Dawei, where they could contribute to, and benefit from, economic development.

The roads to Dawei are the stronghold of the Karen National Union (KNU). If a political solution is found, some returnees  from camps in Ratchaburi and Kanchanburi  could be assisted to return to Myitta in Tanintharyi region, 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the Thai border.

But the KNU says any return must be accorded with safety and dignity, which includes the clearing of landmines among other conditions. It is a complicated problem as the refugees have been away from their homes for two or three decades and a lot has changed. Activists say as many as 3000 villages have been destroyed or abandoned due to the actions of armed groups and the Myanmar military.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has so far been vague about ethnic issues. She has announced a new round of peace talks but the ethnic groups feel she has given too many concessions to the military, whose goodwill she needs to maintain.

So as a pragmatic politician Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will also avoid discussing issues unpopular among domestic constituents, such as the fate of the long-persecuted Rohingya, with Thailand. The Thai side probably was not going to mention it anyway.

Also expect silence on Thanlwin River dam projects, in which both Thai and Chinese players are involved, and which ethnic groups oppose. Continuing such projects at a time of peace-building would be an opportunistic and exploitative act, they have said.

In short, the political realities on both sides suggest that in the end, the meeting with The Lady could be just one more photo opportunity for Thailands premier to add to his collection.
Interview Migrant Rights Advocate: If the Thai Government Uses Violence, We Wont Tolerate it

Irrawaddy reporter Nyein Nyein talks to migrant rights advocate Htoo Chit at a market where Aung San Suu Kyi will meet migrant workers on Thursday.

The Irrawaddy reporter Nyein Nyein talks to Htoo Chit, migrant rights advocate and director of the Foundation for Education Development (FED), outside Talay Thai Seafood Market in Mahachai, Thailandwhere Aung San Suu Kyi will meet with migrant workers from Burma on Thursday afternoonabout the Thai governments selection process for the meeting and why banned workers protested the decision.

Thousands of Burmese migrant workers gathered Thursday morning to meet with Suu Kyi later that day, but the Thai government and factories selected only 500 workers for the meeting while the rest were banned.

What do you think of the current situation?

We expected Suu Kyi to meet with migrants and listen their problems. But now the Thai government wont allow migrants in who have been waiting since very early this morning. They are saying that they will only allow selected workers from the factories; so, banned workers are blocking the selected workers.

Since they will only allow 500 workers to the meeting, everyone is not supposed to go inside. But we worry that those selected workers will just sit inside and not disclose the real situation. She and the Thai government can only find a solution for the migrant workers if they hear the real situation. If they meet only with workers who are instructed by the factories, it wont solve migrants issues.

As your organization is also not allowed inside, how you will try to have your voice heard by Suu Kyi?

We have prepared various ways. We [migrants advocacy groups] did a joint report with suggestions on migrant policies. We want her to clearly understand the details of the murder cases in Ranong and Koh Tao and that also as a government, that they need a policy to systematically protect migrants.

So we came here today to give that [suggestion]. It is still unclear whether we can go inside or not.

The banned workers are protesting and blocking the selected workers. What would you advise?

I have concerns about this. They arrived very early. If they dont allow them in and only selected factory workers enter, it is unfair. They might try other ways to get the chance to talk with Suu Kyi. I worry that the Thai government will use violence to disperse them because they are a military regime. I would like to advise them to wait and see, orderly and together. But if they [the Thai government] use violence, we wont tolerate it.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2016 (3:22 pm) - Score 737

Rural ISP Gigaclear has confirmed that their Fastershire Phase 2 project, which is funded by 3m of state aid from Broadband Delivery UK and 7m from the provider itself, has already put its 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network within reach of 1,000 extra premises in Gloucestershire (England).

The project goal is to cover 6,495 additional premises (homes and businesses) by the end of 2017, which will focus upon locations including Guiting Power, Chedworth, Whelford, Bibury and Icomb (i.e. communities in the Cotswolds). Sadly the network roll-out was affected by a brief outage last week (here), but otherwise the progress has been fairly smooth.

Apparently one of the first premises to benefit from the initial roll-out was St. Andrews Church of England Primary School, which can now access Gigaclears ultrafast network and as a result their upload speeds are said to be 80 times faster than before and 25 times faster download speeds. The School has since invested in brand new computer technology, which has been separately funded by the Chedworth Community Land Trust.

Joe Frost, Gigaclears Marketing Director, said: St. Andrews is the very first school to benefit from the new ultrafast service through the Fastershire project and we are proud to have reached this milestone working alongside Gloucestershire County Council. Digital skills are a hugely important part of education today, so were looking forward to connecting more schools in rural Gloucestershire to our world-class and future-proof network.

Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said: There are many learning opportunities now available through the internet which makes access to fast and reliable broadband essential both at school and home, and Fastershires delivery of an ultrafast connection to more than 6,500 of the most isolated homes and businesses in the Cotswolds will have a significant impact. Im sure the pupils and staff of St Andrews will benefit hugely now they are a part of Fastershire.

All of this work is in keeping with the wider Fastershire roll-out, which already aims to deliver around 90% fibre broadband coverage across both Gloucestershire and Herefordshire by the end of 2016. After that they hope that everyone will be able to access the broadband services they need by the end of 2018.
Rumors that Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and S7 bearing no innovative upgrades are escalating. Furthermore, notions of the same tech usage arise for both devices. GMS Arena reports that the South Korean tech company, has been unveiling some plans on the future of its Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 7 series.

However, in terms of rumors that nothing seems new for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 7, that remains unsettled. It has been noted that Samsung will still utilize the AMOLED touch screens but some alterations in supply measures have been piqued people's interest as well.

Samsung SDI is the speculated to provide the "phosphorescence green host" section of the Galaxy S7 and Note 7. Meanwhile Dow Chemical are the ones designated to produce the red material needed for the AMOLED screens and Idemitsu Kosan was assigned to ship the blue part.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 may only be available with dual-edge curved screen https://t.co/zKkNG1O3D9 pic.twitter.com/5FDnou7OPC  PhoneDog (@PhoneDog) June 22, 2016

The usage of its OLED materials is a clear indicator that Samsung remains as one of the world's biggest smartphone makers and the biggest user of AMOLED displays in its devices.

Moreover, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is anticipated to enter productions by the month of July and is projected for release on August. It has also been disclosed that 5 million units would enter the market.

As for the features of Samsung Galaxy Note 7, it boasts of a curved display, 5.8" in size along with a 6GB of RAM. More report from BGR mentioned that the device would be branded as Galaxy Note 7 instead of Galaxy Note 6, along with the major decision of Samsung to hit the stalls with only one single version.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 wont have a flat variant https://t.co/007jeCCmkV pic.twitter.com/Q5eMD2ZFQD  Android Community (@androids) June 22, 2016

The legacy that Samsung has begun is noteworthy. It has weathered varying changes to counter the market hurdles and with Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 7 on board, the tech giant aims on recovering the losses incurred in the market.
The technology found in today's handheld devices are nothing short of spectacular. The developments made throughout the years have made it almost possible for a handheld gadget to do everything - from video calls to making the most beautiful photos.

Sony is one of the bigger players in the smartphone market and their Xperia line is top of the line, as noted by News Talk. The newest to join its roster is the Xperia X, a 5-inch unit with that boasts amazing camera features. With 23 megapixels at its rear camera and 13 megapixels for its front camera, there is no doubt that users will be able to snap quality photos with ease. Sony has also added a slew of camera features to the unit, in order for the user to make personal touches to their phones. For those less experienced with the details of photos, the point and shoot option is still available and still gives beautiful images.

The Xperia X is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdraon 650 64 bit processor. It has 3GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of internal storage. Of course there is a microSD slot in case users want to add to the storage. The Xperia X is also enabled with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0, which means users can get as much 5.5 hours of usage with just 10 minutes of charge.

Meanwhile, Huawei also made an interesting camera-related decision for their newest unit, the Huawei P9. The screen is bigger than the Xperia X's at 5.5 inches. And as Cyber Shack reports, the camera is also less in comparison, at 12 megapixels. What is interesting is that the unit has two 12 megapixel cameras. The first is a traditional colored one, and the other shoots in only black and white. Huawei boasts that the black and white camera is able to take in thrice as much light information than the conventional one it resides next to.

The P9 is powered by Huawei's own Kirin 955 eight-core. It has 32GB of RMA and 32GB of expandable storage. The battery is 3000mAh and the unit is fitted with a rear-facing fingerprint reader and a USB Type C connector.
Unlike Samsung's Galaxy Note 5, the upcoming Note 7 is set to be made available in the Netherlands this year. However, while Samsung has taken to providing consumers with two options - that is, a curved edge screen, or a traditional flat screen - it is sounding like only the curved screen will be made available this time.

This news is coming from GSM Helpdesk, who also reports that the Note 5 was not made available in the Netherland market. The choice for a curved-only sale was made after Samsung tested both variants earlier this year.

The publication notes that, after rumors of the name, it will finally be called the Note 7, as the Korean tech giant has decided to skip naming the gadget the Note 6. Reportedly, this decision was simply to align the Note series with all others of Samsung. It was found that consumers became somewhat partial of other series, as they Note seemed to lag behind.

The Galaxy Note 7 will reportedly sport a lot of the features currently found in the Samsung S7.

As BGR notes, the upcoming phone will come with a 5.8 inch display with 2K, or 2560 x 1140, resolution. It will be powered by a quicker Exynos 8 processor, a 4000mAH battery and 6GB of RAM. Its camera will be 12 megapixels with dual pixel technology. A stylus will also come with the unit, as this extra item has become synonymous with the Note series.

The unit will reportedly also be fitted with an iris scanner, an IP68-certified body for water and dust resistance and USB Type C port.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is set for release sometime this August - most likely in the second or third week. It is expected to be priced at about 799, or just over $900.00. It is possible that Samsung will also release an updated Gear VR headset as it launches the Note 7.
BlackBerry was known as the device for the working man. Most companies provided these units to their associates because they were fuss-free and direct to the point. And yet, with the increase in competition and the rise of the smartphone, BlackBerry has taken a back seat.

According to Know Your Mobile, however, the company did release the BlackBerry Priv was released last year. Because the unit was its first shot an Android phone, there was a lot of room from improvement. Although when asked about how the unit was selling, CEO John Chen said, "So far, so good." BlackBerry originally planned to sell at least 600,000 units of the Priv.

Chen does admit however, that BlackBerry may have overlooked their core consumer. He shares that because the company focused on premium specs, that it may have sacrificed a little on the pricing. With its rumored next releases, BlackBerry will not be making the same mistake.

The publication claims that BlackBerry is working on two new Android devices - codenamed the BlackBerry Hamburg and the BlackBerry Rome.

Hamburg is expected to have an oct-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor and will run on 3GB of RAM. The internal storage is modest at 16GB, but the company may still provide options. The rear camera will be 12 megapixels, and the front camera will be 8 megapixels. It may be priced at about $400.

At this point, there are no specs on Rome. However, one individual who has had the chance to work on them did say that "the Rome has internal specs that are like that of the Priv."

Indeed, a report from Reuters suggests that BlackBerry's top goal is to make their devices profitable this year. Chen, at the company's annual investors meeting, said "The devices business must be profitable, because we don't want to run a business that drags onto the bottom line."

The report goes on to quote Chen as saying, however that he doesn't "personally believe handsets will be the future of any company," including his own. In fact, he is partial to focus on providing services which enable commoditized hardware to be capable of more. So instead, the main focus of BlackBerry may be to provide software, instead of manufacture mobile units.
Dropbox kind of snuck up on us  it appeared here two years ago and, via a successful freemium model, has become almost the generic term for cloud-based file storage and sharing.

Dropbox has been in Australia a scant two years but has had a profound effect on the way we store, sync, share, and collaborate in the cloud. A total of 50% of Australians with Internet access have used it, and 11,000 business use its business product.

In addition to a free basic version, it has paid versions for more storage, collaboration and security for enterprise, education, and government.

Dropbox managing director ANZ Charlie Wood penned a "blog" that reflects on the past two years. Relevant sections are below.

When we arrived in Australia over two years ago, we set ourselves a big goal: take Dropbox to the enterprise, and show Australian businesses how they can work smarter and more collaboratively.

We already had a strong user base made up of individuals who loved the simplicity and ease of Dropbox, allowing them to collaborate, share, and sync files any place, anytime and on any device. Our challenge was to show teams  from start-ups to large enterprises  how we can help them work smarter.

We didnt start small. We forged strategic partnerships with like-minded organisations such as AARnet, Vodafone, and Diverse City Careers. We built powerful API integrations with leading cloud platforms Xero, Adobe and Microsoft to bring greater ease and value to users. Through collaborations with co-working spaces such as Fishburners, we showed startups how they could integrate Dropbox Business into their everyday lives, to work smarter, and more collaboratively.

We have invested in building the best platform for businesses and teams to get work done, with the introduction of new features, such as the string of productivity tools announced today, that simplifies workflows, unify workspaces and keep data safe.

These investments have been vital to our success in the Australian market. Today we are proud to announce that 1 in 2 internet users in Australia use Dropbox and 11,000 business teams in Australia use Dropbox Business.

We gave businesses more choice in the way they purchase Dropbox by launching our channel partner program through Ingram Micro, which now sees over 200 channel partners helping Australian businesses integrate Dropbox into their IT.

What our users are achieving never ceases to amaze us. Whether its helping Campos Coffee connect to coffee growers around the globe, supporting fast-growing businesses such as Ben & Jerrys launch and grow in new markets, helping the Australian Sailing Team go for gold, or allowing Future Classic to work more collaboratively with artists, were proud to play a part.

In fact, from high growth start-ups such as Campaign Monitor, Shoes of Prey and Stylerunner, to large enterprises such as Mirvac, CSBP, Bauer Media and Servcorp, Dropbox Business has powered their growth.

Thanks to all the talented people and inspiring companies that make Dropbox part of their lives every day, and to all those who helped us reach this important milestone in our Australian journey.

New features added
Marc Caltabiano, vice-president of Solution Consulting, Oracle, has announced that Angela Mager has been appointed head of applications sales consulting for Australia and New Zealand.

Mager will drive performance excellence on the sales consulting team and transformation initiatives for Oracles customers moving to the cloud.

She joins Oracle with 16 years of experience in the software industry and most recently spent 11 years at NetSuite where she held a variety of roles, including that of senior director pre-sales solution consulting for Asia Pacific and Japan.

She successfully built the regional pre-sales team across several key vertical market segments in collaboration with the company's marketing, sales and professional services teams.

Her wealth of experience will take Applications sales consulting to the next level. Her track record in building innovative teams and delivering transformational cloud solutions to businesses across the region previously won her several distinctions for her strong leadership and performance.
Electronics retailers are likely to be affected by the Coalition's NBN plan, for the simple reason that the speeds on offer will make it difficult for Australians to enjoy the one new benefit that newer TV sets bring: 4K video.

Ultra High Definition OLED television sets are expensive by any standards: I saw models ranging from $3500 to nearly $6000 at my local JB Hi-Fi store last weekend.

The quality of 4K video was demonstrated to me by a salesman whom I know. He had a sample on a Blu-ray disk, but since this was remastered content, it was not as good as the real thing.

Nevertheless the quality is incredible: the colour was just superb. Not surprising , given that this is 3840 x 2160 in terms of screen resolution.

To compare the different video streams on offer, full HD video has a resolution of about 2 megapixels per frame, 4K footage has a resolution of 8 megapixels per frame.

It is pertinent to note that even though TVs supporting 4K are not in wide use in Australia, both Samsung and LG demonstrated TVs that support 8K  a resolution of 32 megapixels per frame  at this year's CES in Las Vegas. So technology isn't sitting still, but continuing its relentless march.

Netflix already offers content in 4K and has done so for some time. Its recommendation for watching such content is that one should have a steady 25Mbps connection.

The maximum speed on offer via the NBN is 100Mbps. But then in one household, there is more than one person using that connection. And most users are on wireless, not fixed-line Internet; teenagers and those in their 20s do everything on their smartphones.

As the public affairs manager of NBN Co Tony Brown himself wrote: "It is quite possible that an end user subscribing to a service over the NBN on a 100Mbps fibre to the premise (FttP) connection could still have significant problems streaming 4KTV video  or even HD video for that matter. The content provider needs a robust and effective content delivery network to ensure a smooth passage of content over the Internet."

Presumably, the same would apply even more to someone who had a 100Mpbs connection and had an NBN connection via fibre to the node (FttN)  the Coalition's main means of connection. On wireless and HFC things could well be worse.

As a video streaming expert Dan Rayburn pointed out, delivering an hour of a standard definition video stream costs about US$0.03. In contrast, delivering that same stream in 4K will cost US$0.18.

Companies like Netflix, Stan and Presto can absorb this cost because they can bill their customers to cover the cost. But pay TV networks are highly unlikely to go near 4K video because of the cost involved.

Right now, according to available figures, Australians get most of their video content from television. A report from OzTam says that "87.4% of Australians watched broadcast television (free-to-air and subscription channels) on in-home TV sets each week, on average, in Q4 2015. This compares to 88.5 per cent in the same quarter of 2014".

The report adds that "15.5% of the time Australians spend viewing any video  including broadcast and non-broadcast content  is on computers, tablets or smartphones: an average 15 hours 42 minutes (15:42) per month  up from 12:18 in Q4 2014. This includes broadcast content  e.g. television network catch-up and streaming sites and apps  as well as non-broadcast video such as YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook".

But given the ever-increasing take-up of subscription video on demand, the move to 4K will slowly accelerate. A representative of one streaming service, Presto, has already said that Australia's Internet speeds are too slow for 4K and blamed the Coalition's NBN plan.

Last year, the IP services senior product manager of this company, Richard Cole, said they had thought of offering 4K streaming content but decided that broadband speeds were not yet fit for purpose.

Very pertinently, he pointed out, "it's not just a case of having 25 Mbps, it's having it consistently for two and a half hours".

Given all these factors, buying that Ultra HD OLED television set may be something you, gentle reader, want to think about a bit before ploughing your hard-earned into something from which you think you can benefit.

As I wrote on Wednesday, a decade from now, we will all realise the foolishness of the penny-wise pound-foolish multi-technology mix. By then, a lot of people will be having a good laugh at our expense.
A satirical, light-hearted television campaign inspired by Australian-born 360fly chief executive Peter Adderton has been banned by key US networks including ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Global technology company 360fly launched the campaign in the US, answering the question What would the US look like if Donald Trump becomes president and builds a wall along the Mexico border?



The spot imagines a future in which Trump is president and his border wall a reality, as Trump gives a self-congratulatory speech at the walls unveiling. An audience member, meanwhile, uses a 360fly cameras 360-degree capabilities to capture all the action to which Trump seems oblivious.

The campaign was developed to launch the new 360fly 4K camera, which has been simultaneously launched in Australia.

I attended the launch of this remarkable technology in May and will be reviewing the 360fly 4K camera soon. Preliminary tests show its a lot of fun, easy to use but you need to look beyond traditional photo composition because you see up, over, around  and that is precisely what 360 photography is about  being there.

People are inherently driven to take a side, adopting a very narrow and singular point of view [where politics are concerned], and thats exactly what the camera industry has done for quite a while now, said Adderton.

The campaign illustrates this perfectly. Enjoy.

The 360fly 4K camera, available for $849.95 in Australia from JB Hi-Fi and other specialist retailers, pairs with a free iOS and Android mobile app which allows users to conveniently shoot, edit and share content to popular social media channels such as YouTube and Facebook.

It adds a powerful new image sensor that nearly quadruples the resolution of the original 360fly HD camera, shooting in 2880x2880. The waterproof camera offers advanced features such as live streaming, front-facing POV mode, time-lapse mode, telemetry and has an expanded internal memory of 64GB. The HD version costs $649.95.
If you read a lot of e-books, you will know that Kindles e-ink screen is the best to avoid eye strain.

It will be launching a new base model Kindle for $109 on 20 July that will be available from Amazon or locally at OfficeWorks and selected retailers.

The new Kindle has a 6 e-ink Pearl display  167 ppi, and 16-gray scale levels  optimised for text and line drawings. At 161g it weighs about as much as a smartphone, but its battery lasts up to four weeks in normal use on a four-hour charge.

It is not fair to compare it to a tablet using Kindle software  its a dedicated device specifically designed for e-books.

Having said that it has a lot of built-in smarts to help increase reading pleasure

New fonts  Fonts like Bookerly, Ember, and OpenDyslexic provide more choice for customers.

Battery life  Battery life is measured in weeks, not hours.

Battery life is measured in weeks, not hours. Whispersync  Saves and synchronises your last page read, bookmarks, and annotations across all of your devices and Kindle apps, so you can always pick up where you left off.

Saves and synchronises your last page read, bookmarks, and annotations across all of your devices and Kindle apps, so you can always pick up where you left off. Worry-free archive  Automatically backs up your Kindle books in the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing your books. You can download your books wirelessly anytime free.

Automatically backs up your Kindle books in the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing your books. You can download your books wirelessly anytime free. Goodreads  Kindle is integrated with the worlds largest site for readers and book recommendations, with more than 50 million members, 1.5 billion books added, and 50 million book reviews.

Kindle is integrated with the worlds largest site for readers and book recommendations, with more than 50 million members, 1.5 billion books added, and 50 million book reviews. X-Ray  Explore the Bones of the Book  see all of the passages across a book that mention relevant ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places, or topics of interest.

Explore the Bones of the Book see all of the passages across a book that mention relevant ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places, or topics of interest. Word Wise  Available on many popular English language titles, Word Wise makes it easier to enjoy and quickly understand more challenging books. Short and simple definitions automatically appear above difficult words, so you can keep reading with fewer interruptions.

Available on many popular English language titles, Word Wise makes it easier to enjoy and quickly understand more challenging books. Short and simple definitions automatically appear above difficult words, so you can keep reading with fewer interruptions. Time to read  Tells you how much time it will take to finish a chapter or a book based on your personalised reading speed

Tells you how much time it will take to finish a chapter or a book based on your personalised reading speed Vocabulary Builder  Compiles words you look up in the dictionary into an easy-to-access list. Use these lists to quiz yourself with flashcards and instantly see words in context.

Compiles words you look up in the dictionary into an easy-to-access list. Use these lists to quiz yourself with flashcards and instantly see words in context. Share your favourite passages  Share book recommendations, highlighted sections, and meaningful quotes with friends via Facebook and Twitter.

Share book recommendations, highlighted sections, and meaningful quotes with friends via Facebook and Twitter. Smart Lookup  Integrates a full dictionary definition with other reference information via X-Ray and Wikipedia.

Integrates a full dictionary definition with other reference information via X-Ray and Wikipedia. Custom-built typesetting engine  Word and character spacing, with hyphenation, justification, ligatures, and kerning lays out the pages just as the author intended.

Kindle now has several million books in its store  many exclusive  and there are two million titles at under $4.99 and a further 2.5 million under $9.99.
There were audible gasps of disbelief and delight when Huawei announced Australian pricing of its flagship Android P9 smartphone at its launch last night. After all flagship phones like the iPhone cost more than $1000, right?

The price for this magnificent piece of design is $799. It has a dual lens Leica camera and enough technology and smarts to possibly take the crown as the best value flagship smartphone in 2016. Although you will need to wait a few weeks for reviews to confirm whether that is the case and who knows what Apple has up its sleeve with the iPhone 7 later in September.

That is not to take away from [more expensive] flagships like Samsungs Galaxy S7/Edge or LGs amazing G5  simply to reflect that in 2016 we have seen far more innovation in the Android sector than ever before, and Huawei is right up there.

Whether the aggressive pricing reflects Huaweis superior design and in-house manufacturing capabilities or that it simply wants to shore up and improve on its global number three market share position is immaterial  the P9 offers a lot of premium bang for fewer dollars than any other flagship.

As I said earlier reviews have yet to be done  check back in a couple of weeks - so, my comments have that caveat.

Global research into smartphone use shows that the camera is one of, if not the most important, features in phones. The more you pay, the more you expect it to take brilliant shots and become a realistic DSLR (camera body and lens) substitute.

Huawei and Leica have collaborated on a closely coupled (work as one) dual lens camera  one captures the image in colour and one lens in black and white. When combined it brings out the details and highlights allegedly not possible with a single typical RGB (red, green, blue). It has two, 12MP, Sony IMX286 big pixel, sensors. Also having two lens means far more light capture and better low-light capabilities  200% more sensitive than last years already capable P8.

From what I saw last night the images are excellent. The camera is also bump-less  there is no surround or ring as on the iPhone. And the software seems to be spot on.

Added to that is the super slim 7mm profile; 5.2, 423ppi, IPS HD display and the good screen-to-body ratio of 72.9%; 3GB RAM, 32GB storage and micro-SD slot (other options available); USB-C; Cat 6 LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and Wi-Fi AC dual band; fingerprint sensor; and a 3000mAh battery with rapid charge and its up there with the best. There is also a 5.5 PLUS version coming with an AMOLED screen!

Early international reviews put the camera just ahead of the acknowledged leader Samsung Galaxy S7 and way ahead of the iPhone 6S/Plus.

Regardless this phone will sell heaps, and initial sales figures of over 2.6M and pre-orders of 5M in China alone guarantee this a place in history.

The Huawei P9 (UK Site) will be available in Australia in Titanium Grey with 32 GB onboard storage through Optus, Telstra, Vodafone, Virgin, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Leica Boutique and Digi Direct from 5 July 2016.
Updated 7/28/16: Added more information about upcoming S n features the official Galaxy Unpacked launch event.

Its hard to believe that its been five years since Samsungs first phone-tablet hybrid device launched the phablet movement. And its still going strong: The Galaxy Note 7 rumors have begun ramping up across Android fan sites technology blogs, were joining in the fun. re curious to see what the Korean electronics giant will reveal for its sixth-generation phablet in just a few months, well be updating this page as we hear more from the rumor mill.

Skipping Galaxy Note 6

Confused about why were referring to the sixth-generation Note variant as the Galaxy Note 7? ll, Samsung has apparently opted to skip the number six jump straight to seven in an effort to keep its marketing on par with the rest of the Galaxy S7 family. Its also to help clear up any confusion that might have been caused by last years consecutive release of the Galaxy S6 ge+ Galaxy Note 5.

Curved edges, B-C

Onaks A render of the Galaxy Note 7.

A YouTube video from Techconfigurations offers a 3D-rendered glimpse at what the Galaxy Note 7 might look like. At present, it resembles an outstretched version of its ge flagship counterpart, but with a small slot on the bottom that houses a retractable stylus.

Curiously, the video from Techconfigurations shows us a B Type-C port. Its intriguing considering this years Galaxy S7 family came equipped with Micro B. Onaks has also teamed up with witch to publish a few renders of what the Galaxy Note 7 might look like. It also shows B Type-C in one of the images, which you can see below.

B-C would make the Note 7 incompatible with the current GearVR, so either Samsung is willing to forego that entirely, or it plans to release a B-C based version of the accessory. An adapter would likely not fit.

A smarter S n

The S n, which is a stout feature of the Note line, may do a lot more than just ink. According to a Talk Android report, the pen will be able to act as a magnifying glass a translator.

The S n comes with plenty of software tools.

It will also work with the always-on display to allow you to take notes at all times, similar to how the Note 5 lets you quickly take a note on the lock screen. ll definitely have to see what other tools are going to be packed in to Samsungs stylus when the Note 7 launches.

Snapdragon 823, 6GB RAM

Onaks Another render of the Galaxy Note 7.

The Techconfigurations video alludes to a Galaxy Note 7 with a 5.8-inch Super AMOD display, 6GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage space. re still murky on whats powering the device, though. The same video states that the Note 7 will run on a Snapdragon 823 processor, which we know very little about. There are rumors that the SoC will be manufactured on a 10nm process feature second-generation Kryo application cores, but nothing has been officially announced by Qualcomm. Even SamMobile, the intrepid Samsung fan site, seems dubious about that claim. Its more likely that the 823 is very similar to the 820, only with higher clock speeds.

There have also been rumblings that, like the Galaxy S7 family, the Note 7 will feature I8 water- dust-resistance , which should keep It safe in up to five feet of water for a maximum of 30 minutes. And if B Type-C compatibility is true, its likely the Note 7s alleged 4,000mAh battery pack will support QuickCharge 3.0 fast wireless charging, too.

An iris scanner?

SamMobile Samsung has apparently trademarked the terms Galaxy Iris Galaxy Eyeprint, which lends some credence to the idea that iris scanning is on its way.

The Galaxy Note 7 should feature an iris scanner in place of, or in addition to, Samsungs existing fingerprint scanner. That would enable you to simply stare at the screen or front-facing camera to unlock the phone, rather than pressing holding on the Home button. It sounds far-fetched, but its entirely likely given Samsungs history with eye-tracking technology its latest tablet release in India.

GalaxyClub An apparent snippet of an order form shows that Samsungs ordered the parts to make iris scanning happen.

Theres also an order form floating around the Android blog network that shows Samsung has ordered the appropriate parts for the technology. However, theres no guarantee those parts will show up in the Note 7.

Our first look at this comes in a report from SamMobile, who has an image purportedly showing the iris-scanning interface on the unlock screen (along with the usual pattern option).

SamMobile The iris scanning interface shown here is rather plain, but we hope Samsung is going for speed over fancy visuals.

Touchwiz is getting a new look

Samsung offered few minor improvements to its Touchwiz interface between llipop Marshmallow, but rumors point to change on the horizon.

The Galaxy Note 7 is expected to undergo some substantial interface changes. The new Grace UX will apparently offer a cleaner look that improves upon Touchz. This includes fonts that are narrower, icons that are smaller, an application drawer thats nicely alphabetized compartmentalized. Below is a glimpse at the interface from HDBlog.it:

Unfortunately, there are no details on any of the new S-n or S-Note features that might come with the Galaxy Note 7. Those rumors will hopefully emerge in the coming weeks.

Dutch site TechTastic posted a photo of the always-on display that may point to an interesting improvement. It clearly shows -Fi status SIM status, possible third-party app support (does that leftmost icon say DirectTV?). The limited info on the always-on display has been a major complaint of Touchz on the Galaxy S7, wed love to see all notifications there. TechTastics track record is unproven, but the photo looks legit. Hopefully this feature comes in a software update to Galaxy S7 owners.

TechTastic ll the always-on display finally show all notifications?

Coming August 2

Samsung has announced the Note 7 will be unveiled at its Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event on Aug. 2 in New York City. ll follow along live have hs-on impressions of the Note 7.

Other launch events are planned in ndon Rio de neiro. The U.S. kickoff is scheduled for 11 AM EDT.

In terms of non-official details, an advertisement recently leaked out that offers a few hints of what else is to come.

The video alludes to new ways to unlock the phone potential waterproofing by showing the phone going for a dip. It sums up what weve seen: the Note 7 will be like a bigger, sexier version of the S7 ge with new S n features more Samsung hardware software innovations. How well theyll pan out is something were looking forward to trying out.
Google Fiber is acquiring Internet service provider Webpass to be able to increase its urban coverage quickly and offer customers a combination of fiber and wireless delivery of high-speed Internet.

For Google Fiber, which has typically worked with cities in planning and building a fiber network from scratch, the acquisition will give the Alphabet business a headstart in many markets, particularly in dense urban areas.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Google did not immediately comment on the acquisition.

Webpass in San Francisco owns and operates its Ethernet network, thus removing its dependence on phone and cable companies. It has operations in San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago and Boston. The company offers business connections from 10 to 1,000 Mbps and to residential customers service from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps.

Google is already working in San Francisco, where Webpass also operates, and is negotiating with property owners and managers in buildings near existing fiber infrastructure to explore connecting their residents to gigabit Internet.

Google Fiber has earlier indicated that it would like to use wireless besides fiber for the delivery of Internet services to customers. In April it obtained approval to test Internet delivery on 3.5GHz spectrum in parts of Kansas City that could result in fast, short-range wireless connections to serve areas not reached by Google Fiber.

Webpass will help to further expand that coverage as it will remain focused on the rapid deployment of high-speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, mainly using point-to-point wireless, Webpass President Charles Barr said in a blog post Wednesday that announced the proposed acquisition.

"Google Fibers resources will enable Webpass to grow faster and reach many more customers than we could as a standalone company," Barr wrote.

"Great news! We look forward to welcoming @Webpass to the Google Fiber team once the deal has closed," Google Fiber wrote in a tweet.

The companies expect the deal to close this summer, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
Android TVs helpful search feature now digs into the Netflix vault to find what youre looking for.

Search is usually at the heart of -built products, so the inability to apply that to Netflix stood out, especially since similar search capabilities worked with Netflix on Apple TV Roku devices.

oking for your next @Netflix binge? It just got easier on #AndroidTV, now with universal search. pic.twitter.com/oh3HzIOoTs  Android (@Android) ne 23, 2016

s screenshots indicate youll see a card with details about the show the ability to launch it inside of the Netflix app. It appears this could be a server-side switch, since theres no update at this time for the Netflix Android TV app.

The story behind the story: Android TV is s lesser-known effort to win over your television. s hardware went in two different directions: the Chromecast has been a successful seller spurred a second iteration, while the company recently killed off its Nexus ayer. The plan going forward is to focus on third-party hardware like the Nvidia Shield companies like Sony that are building Android TV into their televisions.
Maps has added several features fixes to the latest beta version.

Many of the changes in version 9.31 pertain specifically to those running the Android N beta. You can finally try out the beta app on an N-powered device, but youll definitely be living on the edge running a beta app on beta software.

However, theres some good news for the rest of us too. Android ar works again with the app according, to a report by Android lice. This means you can once again get a quick scan of your surroundings right on your watch.

In terms of aesthetics, there are some tweaks to your timeline. The top area by the date has been turned all white, with an edit button to change the title or make some notes about a recent trip.

Some visual tweaks are to be found in the timeline.

Finally, an A teardown reveals that theres work underway to bring offline maps storage to SD cards. This would be a nice boost to those with a phone like the Galaxy S7 ge which lets you boost up the storage up to 200GB with an SD card.

The changes are coming to the ay Store or you can grab them now from A Mirror.

The impact on you: The Maps beta is an excellent way to get a peek at some of the forthcoming features. Keep in mind that anything here could change or break, so its best to not get too comfortable with the way that everything works with this version of Maps.
A hybrid Trojan program created for financial fraud has started redirecting users of four large U.S. banks to rogue websites in order to hijack their accounts.

GozNym is a relatively new threat, first discovered in April, and is based on the Nymaim malware dropper and the Gozi banking Trojan. Like most banking Trojans, GozNym can inject rogue code into banking websites displayed in local browsers in order to steal credentials and other sensitive information.

However, in addition to this old technique, the cybercrime gang behind it has also built the necessary infrastructure to host rogue copies of banking websites, and they've started to redirect victims there.

GozNym used this redirection method two months ago against users of several banking websites from Poland. However, according to researchers from IBM's X-Force team, its authors have recently launched similar attacks against the online business banking services of four large U.S. banks.

First, the Trojan redirects the victim to the fake version of the site hosted on the attackers' infrastructure, and it then temporarily displays a white overlay over the page. This unusual masking trick might be intended to distract the users and to make them believe that the page is harmless.

The fake sites are perfect replicas of the real ones. The malware uses some technical tricks locally to keep the bank's real URL in the address bar and even the SSL certificate.

Once users input their credentials into the fake website, the credentials are tested in real-time against the bank's genuine website. If they work, the attackers initiate fraudulent money transfers out of the victim's account.

"Moreover, the victim is kept on the fake website, where the attacker can push social engineering notifications to them, making them divulge personally identifiable information and two-factor authentication elements," the IBM X-Force researchers said in a blog post.

Despite being new, GozNym is quickly gaining ground in the cybercrime arena, currently ranking fifth for banking Trojan activity in 2016. The IBM researchers expect that after this testing period, its creators will add more U.S. banking websites to the rogue redirection list. The researchers didn't name the original banks targeted.

In addition to the usual security recommendations of keeping software up to date, running an antivirus program, and being wary of email attachments, employees in charge of finances inside companies should try to use dedicated computers to access bank accounts and operate financial transactions. These computers shouldn't be used for other tasks like general browsing and email.
The Swiss Software Industry Survey (SSIS) is conducted by the Institute of Information Systems at the University of Bern and supported by Swico and Dr. Sieber & Partners.

The SSIS is led by Dr. Thomas Hurni and Prof. Dr. Jens Dibbern and is part of the dissertations of Simon Perrelet and Corinna Rutschi.

At the same time, the SSIS replaces the already well-known Swiss Software Industry Index (SSII) of the Bern-based consulting firm Dr. Pascal Sieber & Partners AG.
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Federal authorities are investigating a range of potential crimes at Lincoln Hills School for Boys, including second-degree sexual assault, physical child abuse, child neglect, abuse of prisoners, and intimidation of victims and witnesses. Credit: Mark Hoffman

By

Waukesha  Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday declined to say whether he thought a Department of Corrections employee deserved an apology after she reported she was sexually assaulted but was then put under investigation herself.

He told reporters Wednesday his corrections secretary, John Litscher, was better able to address whether the employee was owed an apology. A spokesman for Litscher didn't directly address the matter.

"Ill let Secretary Litscher comment on that," Walker said when asked if employee Teri Jenson deserved an apology and whether the public could trust that problems at Lincoln Hills School for Boys are being fixed.

"Ultimately, a lot of those things are pre-his time and so he can walk you through the things, the changes, theyve made. Certainly, the state of Wisconsin and any state agency takes accusations like that very seriously and we would in this case."

Critics, however, contend the state didn't take Jenson's case seriously at all. She reported being assaulted by one Lincoln Hills inmate and taunted by others in October, but a criminal investigation wasn't conducted until December, after she went to the sheriff's department herself. Before the criminal probe was launched, Jenson was subjected to a seven-week internal investigation looking into whether she had invited the touching.

The internal probe was ended in January with investigators finding no substantiation that Jenson had allowed herself to be touched by inmates.

The inmate accused of groping her in October, Christopher Rayford, was charged with fouth-degree sexual assault in January. He has pleaded not guilty.

Troy Bauch, Jenson's union representative, expressed frustration that Walker woulnd't apologize to Jenson.

"Would Walker expect or demand an apology if it was his wife or mother that was subjected to such victimization at the state of Wisconsin's hands?" said a statement from Bauch, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 32.

"Theresa Jenson is a daughter, mother and sister. I'm proud to say that the union was there for our sister from the beginning and will be to the end. On behalf of our 1.4 million AFSCME members, Sister Jenson, I am sorry for what Scott Walker's Wisconsin has done to you. You deserve better, all of Wisconsin's public employees do."

Jenson has declined comment, but Bauch has said she is comfortable with having her name used to tell her story.

Litscher spokesman Tristan Cook in a statement didn't address whether Jenson deserved an apology, but suggested the investigation was handled appopriately.

"DOC conducted an investigation into the employee's conduct based on allegations that were received from youth and was not able to substantiate the allegations," his statement said. "The employee did not receive any discipline and returned to work in January.



"DOC also conducted an investigation into the youth's behavior and imposed discipline. Further, the incident was reported by DOC to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office. The youth in question has been charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and the youth's case is pending.



"DOC takes allegations of misconduct seriously. DOC conducts investigations to determine the veracity of any allegations and takes action based on the results of the investigation."
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) questions officials during a recent U.S. Senate field hearing by the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (R-Wis.) also participated in the hearing. Credit: Rick Wood

By of the

Every day of the week, conservative radio talk-show hosts offer up provocative statements meant to rouse their core of right-wing listeners.

It's what they do.

But every once in a while, one of the Milwaukee-area talkers crosses the line with something clearly objectionable.

Jay Weber of WISN-AM (1130) did just that a few weeks ago when discussing U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat.

On May 19, Weber was mocking efforts by Senate Democrats -- including Baldwin -- to get the press and public upset that Republicans wouldn't hold a confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Weber then accused Baldwin of being "a backbencher who often doesn't do her job."

He then pointed to the opioid overprescription scandal at the Tomah VA Medical Center. In August 2014, a 35-year-old former U.S. Marine named Jason Simcakoski died from a mixture of medications while being treated by doctors at the Tomah facility, which had been dubbed "Candy Land."

"Maybe if those dead vets had been gay or lesbian, she would have acted -- and they'd still be alive today," Weber said. (For the full audio, listen to the second half of the second hour of his show beginning at the 4:45 mark of this archived version of his May 19 show.)

That's some pretty crass stuff.

In a couple of emails, Weber said it's important to understand the larger context. It's been a running joke on his show, he said, that Baldwin, who is lesbian, "wears her sexual preference on her sleeve." He said the first-term senator seems to get involved in an issue if there is a lesbian or gay angle to it.

But Weber acknowledged that he may have erred with his remarks on the Tomah controversy.

"It perhaps went too far. But we talkers are talking largely unscripted for (in my case) four hours and sometimes I overstep," Weber said.

Not that he's apologizing.

"That said," he added, "if Baldwin had heard from a gay veteran at the Tomah VA that he was being doped up and mistreated, do you think it would have been taken more seriously by her and her staff than the whistleblowers complaints that fell on deaf ears?"

A Baldwin spokesman condemned Weber's remarks.

If this guy could see past his own ignorance, the truth might set him free," said John Kraus, communications director for Baldwin.

"The fact is," Kraus continued, "that when Senator Baldwin was first contacted by a whistle-blower in March 2014, she was the only elected official who called for a full review and investigation of prescribing practices at the Tomah, months before Jason's tragic death.

But Baldwin's staff also sat for months in 2014 on an inspection report that found officials at the Tomah medical center were prescribing high amounts of opiate pain pills to patients, a concern raised repeatedly by whistle-blower Ryan Honl with Baldwin's staff late in 2014.

As a result, Baldwin fired her deputy state director, demoted her state director and docked her chief of staff one month's pay for bungling the matter. She also called for investigations into the Tomah problems, and Kraus said the senator is working with Simcakoski's family on VA-related legislation.

The First Amendment certainly gives him the freedom to say foolish things on the radio, but one would hope that the people who employ him, and their sponsors, would understand that spewing intolerance and hate on the public airwaves is wrong and shouldnt be ignored," Kraus added.

Tammy will brush this dirt off her shoulder, and she wont stop wearing her heart on her sleeve.
Democrat Russ Feingold (right) has given his official endorsement to Hillary Clinton.

All Politics Blog From Milwaukee, Madison and beyond, a daily dose of political news and glimpses behind the scenes SHARE

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During the primary season, Democrat Russ Feingold remained neutral in the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

But Thursday, Feingold finally hopped aboard the Clinton bandwagon with a formal endorsement of the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee.

"I'm proud to endorse Hillary Clinton as our nominee and look forward to campaigning with her here in Wisconsin," said Feingold, who is in a tight race against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

"She won a hard-fought campaign, she made history, and it's clear that she's ready to take on Donald Trump this fall and win," Feingold said. "I also congratulate Senator Sanders, who has done incredible work to build a movement behind essential issues for middle-class and working families."
SHARE C. Bruce Johnstone

By of the

Waukesha  Economic growth in the United States remains sluggish compared with previous recoveries, and it will take some open-mindedness and compromise in Washington, D.C., to perk it up, a top executive for Fidelity Investments said Wednesday.

C. Bruce Johnstone, managing director of Boston-based Fidelity, said politicians need to make "the private sector soil more fertile" for economic growth that would reduce the need for higher taxes and program cuts.

"Everybody's going to have to sacrifice. Nobody is going to get out of this without pain," Johnstone told about 285 people attending a seminar sponsored by Spectrum Investment Advisors of Mequon and the Wisconsin Institute of CPAs at the Country Springs Hotel. "But if we get the growth rate of our country up just a little bit, it's a heck of a lot better than raising taxes and cutting benefits and all that kind of stuff. Getting the growth rate of our country up would make a huge difference."

Johnstone said he lays a lot of the blame for the 2% -a-year recovery growth rate at the feet of federal leaders in Washington, who over-regulate and scare business people with new costs and uncertainty.

"When the government comes to the rescue and provides a suggested way of stimulating the economy, they change so many rules and regulations during that intrusion that it slows things down," he said.

Not that all new regulation was unnecessary, he said.

"I'm not saying we didn't need more regulation. We certainly did when it came to credit default swaps that had no reserves underneath them, for example," Johnstone said. "But regulators spanning 60 federal departments, agencies and commissions have nearly 3,300 regulations in the pipeline right now waiting to be imposed."

That means new compliance costs, which are especially hard on small businesses, he said.

Said Johnstone, "If you're running a business or you're running a division and you're debating whether or not to go out and hire a whole lot of people or go out and buy a whole lot of new equipment or buy another company, at the margin  and I'm just talking about the margin here  the person is going to say, 'You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to wait. I'm going to take a little bit of a break before making a big decision on a big expansion.' And all you need is just a little bit of hesitation."

But partisan politicians in the nation's capital don't seem willing to work together, he said. The House and Senate often aren't even in town at the same time, he said. They need to have open minds and to think big together if progress is to be made, he said.

"We've got to get instruction to Washington because a lot of our problems in this country is these people down there are not working together," Johnstone said.

He suggested, for starters, lawmakers should have family dinners  with their children  at monthly bipartisan gatherings so they can get to know each other. Johnstone suggested there should be up or down votes on presidential appointments in 90 days; the ability to override a committee chairman who sits on a bill; public question times for the president; and an overhaul of the electoral college.

Johnstone also suggested lawmakers consider a variety of incentives for economic growth or to deal with the national debt, such as indexing Social Security to prices, not wages; raising the retirement age; and developing a comprehensive energy policy that includes natural gas, solar and nuclear.

He said crop and ethanol subsidies should be killed. "It's almost beyond belief that we have crop subsidies," Johnstone said.

In his talk, titled "Economic & Market Outlook: Sluggish Optimism," Johnstone said in dealing with America's debt, the federal government should consider selling some of its $200 trillion to $400 trillion in assets, like land holdings and buildings.

"Nobody ever talks about selling federal assets," he said.

Johnstone said he expects the stock market to be volatile, including the possibility of turbulence after Thursday's vote by Britain on whether to withdraw from the European Union.
Mary Louise Schumacher Art City An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue. SHARE

John Baldacchino will be the next director of the Arts Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He comes from the University of Dundee in Scotland, where he was chair of arts education at the School of Education and Social Work. He will take over his new role in August.

Balcacchino is a practicing visual artist and a writer. He has written 10 books on art, philosophy and education. For more information on him, go to: johnbaldacchino.com. Norma Saldivar, professor of theater and drama, previously served as interim director.
WhadYa Know? host Michael Feldman celebrates the radio shows 30th anniversary with his audience in June 2015. The shows final episode airs Saturday morning on Wisconsin Public Radio, which decided in March to cancel the show. Credit: Wisconsin Public Radio

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In the days leading up to his final "Whad'Ya Know?" broadcast Saturday, host Michael Feldman was already sitting shiva.

"'Everybody loves a funeral' will be a theme" of the last show, Feldman said in his trademark glass-half-empty grumble. And, he added, his family will sit ritual shiva "in bereavement" after it as well.

Tickets for the final show are sold out. It will air live at 10 a.m. Saturday, in Milwaukee on WHAD-FM (90.7).

Feldman felt blindsided by Wisconsin Public Radio's decision in March to cancel the weekly comedy quiz show after 31 years. Speaking about it recently, he sounded wry and self-deprecating but also deeply aggrieved.

But this week, he announced some good news.

A Kickstarter fundraising campaign to finance a "Whad'Ya Know?" podcast had raised more than $11,000. Feldman posted plans for live audience tapings September through December at the show's new home, Madison's High Noon Saloon.

WPR owns the broadcasts of the original show, but Feldman owns the name and concept. He said the show's cancellation was presented to him as a fait accompli.

"'Here's the press release'," he said he was told. "'This blank is where you say what you say. It's set to go out.'"

Feldman said he was told "'Maybe there's something you could do around here.' Custodial?" he speculated. "A little front desk? It's a slow death."

He said he was hurt that his show hadn't been mentioned on fund drives. And he complained that WPR did not plan to keep an archive of his old shows.

An 'existential crisis'

The death of "Whad'Ya Know?" likely was shocking to what Feldman estimated are his 400,000 listeners. But it is a common old-media refrain in a new-media world. This time, public radio is singing it  and Feldman is part of the chorus.

"Whad'Ya Know?" joins other high-profile public radio departures, notably Garrison Keillor, upon whose "A Prairie Home Companion" National Public Radio was partly built and whose last appearance as the show's host is July 11; and the end of new episodes of "Car Talk" after the death of co-host Tom Magliozzi in 2014. (It is now heard in reruns.)

The Wall Street Journal recently declared that public radio, grappling with demographic shifts and digital challenges, is having an "existential crisis."

The same can be said about Feldman, who started "Whad'Ya Know?" in 1985. Feldman was "part of the invention of the idea that public radio didn't have to be so serious all the time," said Mike Crane, director of WPR.

"Whad'Ya Know?" was canceled, Crane said, because of its declining carriage rate  the number of affiliates carrying the show.

The show airs on 94 affiliates, 30 of which are WPR stations.

That's down from what Feldman said was a high of 350 affiliates in 2005-'06. Feldman said his suggestion to produce a version of the show for the state network only was rejected.

"Those numbers were just crushing," Crane said.

"Whad'Ya Know?" is distributed by Public Radio International, which gets a percentage of what affiliates pay for it. WPR gets the rest, a figure that shrank like the show's carriage rate.

Crane said "Whad'Ya Know's" budget in the 2016 fiscal year  for 30 new shows and 21 repeats  was $561,000.

WPR plans to replace "Whad'Ya Know?" with two comedy quiz shows, "Ask Me Another" and "Says You," starting July 2.

First in radio's prime time

"Whad'Ya Know?" is as much a Wisconsin tradition as Bob Uecker and Friday fish fries. Even its title has a dairy state flair.

Some suggested this regional flavor hurt him nationally, but a similar approach did not seem to hurt Minnesotan Keillor.

Feldman's time slot  Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until noon  is public radio prime time. The Saturday morning time slot was vacant until he started his show.

"Now everybody wants to be there," said Jack Mitchell, WPR director from 1976 to 1998 and now a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His competition in the time slot includes "Wait Wait

.

.

.

Don't Tell Me!",

a nationally syndicated comedy quiz show based in Chicago. The show was developed by National Public Radio after Feldman left for American Public Radio in the 1990s, Mitchell said.

There has been bad blood between the shows since Feldman called it "Wait Wait...Don't Wake Me." The Chicago show badmouthed him in return.

Now it appears Feldman is a victim of the success of "Wait Wait," which airs at 10 a.m. Saturdays on WUWM-FM (89.7).

An old-school approach

Feldman was working in Chicago radio in the 1980s when Mitchell, who knew Feldman from Madison radio, invited him to develop a show. Because Feldman liked "ask your neighbor"-type radio, he proposed a show with a live audience and a band.

Feldman said he told Mitchell that he'd "'like to do a call-in show. But I don't want to talk about hot-button issues. A call-in quiz show, because I like talking to people on the phone.' And Jack said, 'Let's give it a try.'"

Feldman's talent is bantering with audience members and callers, band members John Thulin and Clyde Stubblefield and announcer Stephanie Lee. It is acerbic but not mean, and the product of genuine curiosity and a quick mind.

As a result, "Whad'Ya Know?" is radio you don't hear anymore, complete with mistakes, miscues and dead spots.

"The show Michael is doing today is pretty identical to 30 years ago," Mitchell said. "He had opportunities to make changes but decided not to."

"The type of radio I did, long-form and live, is pretty much dead," Feldman acknowledged.

"Wait Wait," on the other hand, is taped before a live audience earlier in the week, then edited into a tight, one-hour broadcast. It's the sort of accommodation Feldman was reluctant to make, said Mitchell and Crane.

Can Feldman adapt it to a podcast world? Talking to The Wall Street Journal, he dismissed podcasts as what people listen to "on the elliptical machine."

Although he is active on Twitter, Feldman said he was "a stranger" to the new-media world of podcasts.

"People I picked up along the way" know what they are doing, he said. "But I have none of those skills or interests."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Garrison Keillor started on "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1984. The show began in 1974.
Chaze Biami Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office

SHARE A head-on crash Sunday morning on I-43 in Milwaukee landed a mother and two children in a hospital and a driver in jail. Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office

By of the

A 36-year-old Milwaukee man accused of slamming his white 2003 Lexus into a blue Ford while driving the wrong way on I-43 Sunday was charged Thursday with 13 felony counts and three traffic violations.

Chaze Biami could face 193 years in prison and $280,000 in fines if convicted on all counts, according to a criminal complaint.

Charges against Biami include three counts of injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle, causing great bodily harm, as a habitual repeater  meaning he was convicted of a felony at least once in the last five years; three counts of injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle at a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, causing great bodily harm, as a habitual repeater; three counts of second-degree reckless injury, as a habitual repeater; three counts of knowingly operating a motor vehicle with a suspended driver's license, causing great bodily harm; and one count of second-degree recklessly endangering the safety of others, as a habitual repeater.

Three traffic violations were also filed against him Thursday, including operating a vehicle while intoxicated, driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.149 and driving the wrong way on a divided highway.

According to the complaint:

An Illinois woman and two young girls  a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old  were traveling northbound on I-43 near W. Wells St. around 4:30 a.m. Sunday when Biami allegedly entered the highway traveling the wrong way on the Fond du Lac Ave. exit ramp.

Security footage revealed he passed four cars before hitting the woman's blue Ford head-on at a high rate of speed.

The 28-year-old woman lost consciousness and had no pulse, and had to be revived and extricated from the vehicle. She was transported to Froedtert Hospital, where she remains in a medically induced coma.

The woman suffered several injuries, including a compromised right lung, multiple broken ribs, a bruised kidney, fractures in her right arm and left leg, and a broken right leg.

The 5-year-old suffered internal injuries and a broken pelvis, and is in stable condition. The 3-year-old suffered internal injuries and a broken collar bone. Both were taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. One of the girls is the driver's daughter.

Biami told police he drank two double shots of Patron tequila before getting behind the wheel. Several Patron tags were found attached to the steering wheel of his Lexus.

He thought the accident was "a fender bender."
Players in the debate over the the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program in Milwaukee are clockwise from upper left: Demond Means, commissioner; County Executive Chris Abele; MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver; and Mark A. Sain is president of the Milwaukee School Board. Credit: Journal Sentinel files

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By of the

Milwaukee Public Schools officials and County Executive Chris Abele sat down Thursday for the first time in an effort to resolve a monthslong standoff over a new state law seen by many as a takeover of MPS.

And while there were no decisions, Abele said he and his school turnaround commissioner, Demond Means, would "take a good faith look" at a proposal floated by school officials last week that would allow them to open an early childhood program in an MPS building.

Abele said they would weigh the financial feasibility of the plan, and whether it would comply with the state law, which calls for the transfer of some of Milwaukee's poorest performing schools to outside operators.

"Anything we do has to be legal. It has to be something we think will help public education (and) it will have to be OK with the authors" of the legislation, Abele said in the lobby of the Zeidler Municipal Building after the meeting. "We'll be checking in with the lawmakers to make sure they're comfortable with this."

MPS Board President Mark Sain and Superintendent Darienne Driver said they would continue talking with Abele and Means, superintendent of the Mequon-Thiensville School District. But they appeared to give no ground in their opposition to an Abele-Means proposal that would have Means operate select schools as a consultant to the district.

"Today was really an opportunity for them to ask us questions around the alternative we presented," said Driver.

"It isn't necessarily their proposal, our proposal," she said. "But it's just figuring out how are we able to come to a place where we're offering a program that meets the needs of our children and their families."

Abele, Means, Sain and Driver huddled for an hour Thursday with staff and lawyers in the seventh-floor offices of Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley.

Though their lawyers had conferred previously, Thursday's meeting appeared to be the first private sit-down between the key players since lawmakers passed the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program as part of the 2015-'17 state budget.

The law, written by state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield), required Abele to appoint a commissioner with authority to take control of up to five poorly performing MPS schools a year and turn them over to outside operators.

Abele and Means have maintained from the beginning that they have no intention of mounting a takeover of MPS and proposed instead what they characterized as a partnership with the district.

Under their plan, pitched to MPS by Means in April, the district would turn over up to five schools a year to Means to operate as a consultant. The schools would be converted to community schools in which students and families are provided intensive wraparound services, from health care to housing and job training. Teachers would keep their jobs and union membership. And MPS would keep the per-pupil funding, albeit less than it currently gets because the schools would be considered charters.

But it would also usurp at least some of the governing authority from the district's elected school board.

Despite efforts by Abele and Means to garner support in the broader community, it was widely derided as a takeover by the Milwaukee teachers union, the local NAACP and others.

MPS officials said little about the proposal until last Friday when it rejected the plan as vague and conflicting with state law, and offered the early childhood proposal instead.

Under the MPS proposal, Abele and Means would be permitted to open an independent charter school offering an early childhood program in the former 35th Street Elementary School. But MPS would have no role in its operation and would not supply staff.

That proposal is likely to be more problematic for Abele and Means in part because lawmakers provided no school start-up funds as part of the legislation. In addition, per-pupil funding for 4-year-old kindergarten is about half what it is for older students, and there is no state funding for 3K programs.
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Schneider nails Trump

I must admit that Journal Sentinel columnist Christian Schneider and I don't see eye-to-eye on many things. But his June 16 column, "Trump only knows one thing," nailed it on the head.

The Donald is a pathetic excuse for a human. He is a narcissist, but is incapable of knowing it. If he thinks deep thoughts they don't show up at his mouth. He is making a fool of himself.

When President Barack Obama was asked on late night TV what the Democratic Party and he thought about Trump he said tongue in cheek, "We like him." Why? Donald is self-destructing and can be beat in November.

While I am not a big Hillary Clinton fan, the Republican presumptive candidate is toxic and must not be allowed to see the inside of the White House. Trump running this country scares the hell out of me.

Republicans, if you want a shot at the presidency ditch the Donald. But if you don't, thanks.

Dirk Anderson

Milwaukee



Schneider again goes wrong

I've been agreeing with Journal Sentinel columnist Christian Schneider recently because of his disdain for Donald Trump, but I knew it couldn't last. On June 12, Schneider was back to his usual slant, celebrating those who are mostly concerned with their own economic rights without regard to responsibility or the effects on our country and its debt ("Americans  rich and poor  are entitled to what they earn," Crossroads").

Schneider attacked Franklin Roosevelt, who gave desperate millions hope and help from their government by providing for the "general welfare," as the Constitution demands. Roosevelt was so wrong in using taxes for that purpose that the "greatest generation" only elected him as president four times. Some say he saved capitalism.

Fortunately, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, unlike Roosevelt's predecessor, Hoover, had the sense to use government to try to stop the economic dominoes from falling before we wound up in another depression. But now we have more debt to pay.

If tax loopholes are a reward to encourage behavior such as charitable giving or the stability that marriage and home ownership provide, then we need more of them. How about a tax break for businesses whose wages for employees are adequate and don't need to be subsidized by government programs? Let's give a competitive advantage to responsible behavior for a change.

Brian Worzalla

Waukesha



Consider hospice care

I read with great sadness the Eric Snoey article in Crossroads on June 12: "How much should be done to save a life."

As a health care professional for many years, I was struck by the history of this 90-year-old woman. Heart failure, kidney failure, the inability to manage and stabilize her medical condition and the revolving door into acute care as a result of these exacerbations.

A very appropriate and humane response to this case, and many like it, is the option of palliative/hospice care. Improving her quality of life, at the end of her life, would have provided so much benefit to her. Unfortunately, I did not see that addressed in this article.

Hospice care provides care consistent with patient choice, with dignity, in peace and comfort. This patient could have passed in the comfort of a familiar setting, surrounded by people who knew and cared for her, not an emergency department.

We do a disservice to chronically ill and aging patients when we fail to provide them with the knowledge and assistance to make end-of-life decisions that include the value of palliative and hospice care.

Kathryn M. Schmidtkunz

Milwaukee



Abstain from Trump

Taking a page from the playbook of O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochrane (if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit), may I suggest the following slogan be adopted concerning casting a vote for Donald Trump: "If you have a brain, you must abstain."

Mark Stauffer

Nashotah

Please email your letters to jsedit@jrn.com, or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371. Letters are generally limited to 200 words and are subject to editing.
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Arming the sheep?

Once again, the same administration that has enabled the flow of paramilitary drug smugglers, human traffickers and potential terrorists over our borders is claiming that it is able and willing to protect us from "lone wolf" attackers. The Orlando attacker did everything but carry a sign to signal his terrorist intentions but was undeterred by any of our vast array of overfunded federal security agencies.

While the president and his multicultural enablers drone on about "lone wolves" radicalized by an open Internet, most of us are thinking about the packs of wolves in the Middle East and elsewhere, preying on Yazidis, Christians, Jews, atheists, and other Muslims with incorrect theology. While Democrats try to figure out how to use the Orlando attack to disarm the American public and shut down the open Internet, the rest of us worry about what a terrorist team with serious fire power could do if one "lone wolf" could use a relatively primitive rifle to slaughter 50 helpless people like sheep.

No wonder the peace-loving American public again is buying more guns to defend itself; this time rifles, not handguns. At least the arming of the law-abiding American citizens has had the positive effect of dramatically reducing the amount of violent crime in the United States, except in lawless parts of big cities.

It's dangerous for criminals when the victims may be armed. The NRA is fond of pointing out that lynching became a lot less fun for the Ku Klux Klan when its potential victims armed themselves. Maybe the arming to the American public today will send a message to aspiring jihadists who have never been too impressed by peace marches and the nuances of gun law.

Even wolf packs think twice when the sheep are armed.

Art DeJong

Sheboygan



Failure to act

While we wait to hear the life stories one by one of those who tragically lost their lives in Orlando, I'm thinking today about how we could have but didn't take action so many times in past years.

Four years ago, 20 Sandy Hook school children, ages 6 to 7, and six school staff were gunned down in Newton, Conn.

I remember calling and then showing up at my congressman's office demanding action a year later for a remembrance. I made the sign with each child's name on it. We heard from gun owners and experts about the need for universal background checks and closing the gun show loophole. We asked for action.

A bipartisan congressional committee with Republicans and Democrats was created. It drafted a bill to take reasonable common sense steps to keep dangerous guns out of dangerous hands. It passed the Senate but was voted down by the House of Representatives by the many congressman who are paid and bought for by large NRA campaign donations.

We aren't a problem-solving learning culture it seems as demonstrated by half of Congress who won't vote for common sense gun violence legislation.

Last time I was this depressed George Bush was president, he had just said "Mission accomplished" to a war just started and the economy was in the toilet. Now I hear he actually let the assault weapon ban expire, too, during his administration.

America, I expect more of you than the status quo. Let's take action before more Americans are gunned down.

Colleen Janus

Merrill



Supporting the nominee

Back on Aug. 6, in the first Republican debate on Fox, the first question asked by the narrator was, "Will you support the Republican nominee," and it was designed to trap Donald Trump.

All nine candidates other than Trump said they would support the nominee; the only one who hedged was Trump, who later agreed to support the nominee. I would bet that none of the nine candidates thought it would be Trump, so they agreed to support the nominee.

Now, the other nine dropped nominees are either not supporting the nominee or sitting in the background, not talking about it. Politicians are never true to their word.

Mike Sansone

Greenfield
John Burke, brother of former gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, runs Trek Bicycle Corp. He has a new book with prescriptions for some of the biggest problems facing the nation. Credit: Rick Wood

John Burke wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Yes, he has written a political book, and yes, he knows, that's often a first step toward a career in politics.

But no, he has no intention of becoming a politician.

Burke, the CEO of Trek Bicycles in Waterloo, is too busy running his family's successful bike business.

But political or not, Burke is on a mission: He wants Americans  his generation of Americans  to get involved in solving the nation's problems. That's what prompted his new book, "12 Simple Solutions to Save America," recently published by Little Creek Press.

Over and over in the book, Burke writes: "It can be done." And, he believes, the answers don't have to be complicated.

"12 Simple Solutions" is a rapid-fire read, in the style of a business book. Like its author, it is direct. Burke lays out problems and data to support his assertions and then offers solutions. Congressional gridlock, campaign finance, Social Security, the legal system, health care, inequality, gun violence  Burke takes on all of those and more.

Burke, whose sister Mary lost as the Democratic challenger to Gov. Scott Walker in a contentious 2014 gubernatorial race, says he's an independent. One thing is certain: He is not easy to peg politically.

Burke would abolish all public sector unions, and he's no fan of Obamacare. He'd like to simplify the U.S. tax code to 10 pages. Right out of the Republican playbook, right?

But Burke also would cut defense spending, raise the minimum wage, rein in nuclear weapons and put in place tough gun control laws. That sounds like a Democrat.

What he really is, I suspect, is a middle-of-the-road Wisconsin voter who's fed up with the bickering.

"I think one of the problems we have in this country is we follow a political party and we just follow that political party over the cliff no matter what they stand for," Burke said during an interview I conducted with him at the Milwaukee Rotary Club's meeting earlier this week.

The idea for the book came to him after listening to historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough's commencement address to Marquette University students in 2011 (his son Richie was among the graduates that year). McCullough (also a favorite of mine) closed with this entreaty to the newly minted grads: "And sometime, at some point, do something for your country."

Burke thought about that on the drive back to Madison that day and soon he decided that he would do something. Drawing on 30 years of experience solving problems in business, he decided he would write a no-nonsense, self-help book. For the country.

Some of Burke's ideas sound politically feasible to me. He calls for tax simplification  a simpler tax code with fewer rules and loopholes, a lower rate for business and fewer brackets for individuals. He favors the so-called "simple return"  a tax return filled in by the government for review by taxpayers. Many in Congress on both sides of the aisle have long advocated for tax reform.

But other Burke ideas probably wouldn't survive the bill drafting phase. Echoing an idea by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, he recommends rewriting the Second Amendment to clarify that it was meant to apply to militias. I can't see anyone in the NRA-infested Congress going near that idea. He also would limit members of Congress to two terms. Again: Good idea but members of Congress are not going to vote themselves out of office.

But the point of Burke's book isn't to draft legislation and win votes in Congress  it's to help people think differently about some of the nation's most contentious issues and to push them to act.

Successful business people sometimes take a pass on public policy. Burke is taking a stand. He's provoking his readers to think. As he noted, "It can be done. All these problems, they all can be dealt with."

Let's hope he's right.

David D. Haynes is editorial page editor for the Journal Sentinel. Email dhaynes@jrn.com Twitter: @DavidDHaynes
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during an event at Trump SoHo Hotel this week in New York City. Credit: Getty Images

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Where religion is concerned, Donald Trump's bigotry is his biggest problem, but his ignorance comes in a close second.

We already know that Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clinton's faith into question before a group of evangelical leaders on Tuesday represented a new low  if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers on an almost-daily basis. Trump's comprehensive and often factually challenged attack on Clinton Wednesday is drawing much attention. But his comments on her faith say even more about him.

Trump does not appear to be very religious and seems uncomfortable around the subject. In principle, this is not a problem. The Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for federal office. Over our history, presidents have varied in their attachment to religion, and there is no surefire way to know whether what a politician says about his or her belief in God is true.

Moreover, many deeply religious people don't talk much about their faith outside intimate circles. One of the year's best statements on the matter came from John Kasich (who is, by all accounts, very religious) when he explained why he had not invoked religion much on the campaign trail. "I'd rather have an eternal destiny," he said, "than try to cheapen the brand of God."

It's hard to imagine that God worries about branding, but Kasich's unease with the way politics can devalue faith was admirable.

This is not something that bothers Trump.

Because white, conservative evangelical Christians are an important part of the Republican base and because many evangelicals have expressed qualms or outright opposition to Trump, he tried to get them on board by hinting darkly that Clinton is an infidel.

"We don't know anything about Hillary in terms of religion," he told the evangelical leaders. "Now, she's been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there's no  there's nothing out there. There's like nothing out there. It's going to be an extension of (President) Obama but it's going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don't, and it's going to be worse."

No, we  meaning anyone who has taken the remotest interest in the topic  know quite a lot about Hillary Clinton's Methodist faith. She has spoken of it often and is a regular churchgoer. In his 2007 biography of Clinton, Carl Bernstein wrote that other than her family, "Methodism is perhaps the most important foundation of her character." Just as even George W. Bush's political adversaries freely acknowledge that faith plays a central part in his life, so have Clinton's many detractors accepted the role that faith plays in hers.

Trump might usefully check out Clinton's remarkably personal speech to the United Methodist Women Assembly in 2014 where she argued that Methodism "gave us the great gift of personal salvation but also the great obligation of social gospel."

But of course trashing other people's faith is standard Trump practice. His willingness to deny basic rights to Muslims is well-known. In March, he said of Mitt Romney, one of his sharpest critics: "Are you sure he's a Mormon? Are we sure?" Romney's loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is as defining for him as Clinton's Methodism is for her.

And when Ben Carson looked to be a serious challenger, Trump went after the physician's allegiance to Seventh-day Adventism. "I'm Presbyterian. Boy, that's down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness," Trump said. "I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don't know about, I just don't know about."

What exactly didn't he "know" about Adventists? A presidential candidate who uses ignorance as a vehicle for peddling religious prejudice is condemning himself twice over  as both ill-informed and a bigot.

Trump's indifference to truth, to a basic decency toward the religious convictions of his opponents, and to any seriousness about how religion should and should not be discussed in the political arena ought to terrify believers and nonbelievers alike.

But those who defend faith's role in our nation's public life should be especially alarmed. Absent anything substantive to say about his belief-system, Trump lashes out at others. And lacking an affirmative vision, he plays on fears and tells evangelicals, as he did on Tuesday, that our nation's leaders are "selling Christianity down the tubes."

Well. If religion is being sold out, it's Trump who is orchestrating the deal.

E.J. Dionne is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne
Carletta Bass (center) will be honored for perseverance at the F.I.R.E. Awards Sunday by the group My Sistas KeepHer. Bass, 28, a barber, spent most of her childhood in foster care. Credit: Special to the Journal Sentinel

Carletta Bass is the epitome of perseverance.

Bass and her twin brother were taken from their mother at birth because they were born with cocaine in their system.

The twins were placed in the foster care system.

Her brother was split from her and they both lived with multiple foster care families in different cities and states.

She said at least two of her foster care parents were physically abusive to her but when she was adopted at the age of 10 by Benseritha Pullum things started to look up for a moment.

"I started to feel like I was loved," Bass said.

Five years later, when Bass turned 15, her adoptive mother died of liver cancer and everything started all over again.

"I was basically homeless. I was staying with different people just so I wouldn't be on the streets and back in the system," she said.

Her refuge during everything was school because when she was at Custer High School during the school day, she didn't have to worry about anything else, she said.

Bass, now 28, shares her journey with young girls to let them know that they can overcome their obstacles. She will be honored for her perseverance at the Females In Recognition of Excellence (F.I.R.E.) Awards at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, at the Tripoli Shrine Center, 3000 W. Wisconsin Ave. Tickets are $30 for teens and $50 for adults.

Bass said when she was first asked by the group My Sista's KeepHer to share her story she didn't know how girls would receive her.

She soon started to see how they could relate to some of her troubles, and she realized how much impact her journey could have in helping someone else through tough times.

My Sista's KeepHer is a group that teaches young women to empower themselves by creating supportive networks with professional women. The girls use creative writing and spoken word to heal and survive.

Tina Nixon, the founder of My Sista's KeepHer said the purpose of the F.I.R.E. Awards is to recognize women who have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and achieved great things. Bass represents what My Sister's KeepHer stands for. The goal is to promote healthy relationships between women.

Others who will be honored Sunday are: for entrepreneurship, Christina Anderson and Melissa Goins; community involvement, Tamer Malone and Carolyn Anderson; sistahood, Tiara Ellis and Stephanie Crosley; perseverance Kyeshia Carr; and arts, Adjua Nsoroma and Dasha Kelly.

Bass said during her last year of school she told a school counselor about her situation and she was placed back in foster care until she aged out. She graduated from Custer in 2005.

When she aged out of foster care, Bass said that there were a number of grants available for her to go to school and she always loved working on nails, so she pursued a cosmetology degree.

Today, she's a barber, nail technician and instructor teaching others the craft of nails.

Her life still has not been easy but she is gradually putting the pieces together. However, that didn't start until she began to let go of some of her anger.

"I was angry because I couldn't figure out why my life had to be so difficult," she said. "But when I started to let go of some of that pain and turned things over to God my life started to change."

One of the first steps she took was to find her twin, who she last saw when she was 6 years old. A foster care provider found her brother in Illinois.

To meet her brother, she contacted the woman who raised him and went to their house. She sat at the kitchen table and when he came home from work, he walked in and walked right past her thinking that his sister was a friend of his foster mother.

When he came back in the room, their eyes met and he said "That's not her is it?"

The two hugged and cried, she said. It was the first time Bass had cried that hard in a long time, she said. They still keep in touch.

When she found her biological mother, the meeting wasn't as pleasant.

"We talked but we were like strangers," she said. "I didn't feel the love coming from her. It hurt, but I can't let that hold me back."

Her biological father has been serving time for drug smuggling but he does write her and tells her that he loves her.

Her parents missed a lot. They missed Bass give birth to two girls. They missed her overcome many obstacles and unfortunately they will miss her being honored at the F.I.R.E. Awards.

When I asked her who was going to be there for her Sunday, she said nobody.

But that's not true. There will be dozens of women and teenagers there from My Sista's KeepHer to honor her with open arms.

For more information call (414) 301-3291.

James E. Causey is a Journal Sentinel columnist and blogger. Email james.causey@jrn.com. Facebook: fb.me/jamescausey.12 Twitter: jecausey
Wisconsin senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin were on opposite sides on two more gun votes Thursday. Credit: Getty Images

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Wisconsin senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin took opposite sides on two more gun votes Thursday, punctuating a debate that caused upheaval in Congress this week and left lawmakers at a protracted impasse.

A compromise plan by Maine Republican Susan Collins to ban some terror suspects from buying guns survived a test vote: 52 senators, including 45 Democrats and 7 Republicans, turned back an effort to kill the measure.

That keeps the proposal alive in legislative terms, and makes it the closest thing to a bipartisan gun bill in the wake of the Orlando massacre. But it also shows the plan right now lacks the 60 votes it would need to overcome a filibuster and win Senate passage.

Baldwin voted in support of the Collins proposal; Johnson voted in opposition, along with 45 other Republicans.

Johnson, meanwhile, offered an alternative gun measure of his own that drew far less support: 67 senators voted to kill the measure, and 31 voted to keep it alive. It got just one Democratic vote.

How did the two proposals differ?

The Collins plan made it easier for the government to block gun sales to people on two suspect lists  the no-fly list and the so-called selectee list, which identifies people for extra airport screening. Her plan gives people on those lists a chance to appeal, after the fact, if they are denied a firearm. It was opposed by the National Rifle Association.

Johnson said his proposal required more due process before a gun purchase is blocked, including a hearing before a judge at which a U.S. attorney must show a "reasonable basis" for stopping a sale.

"I would just like to ask all my colleagues a simple question: How many more constitutional rights are we willing to give up in response to Islamic terror?" said Johnson, who is chairman of the Senate homeland security committee and faces a tough re-election fight this fall.

Johnson voted with most Republicans against the Collins plan. The seven Republicans who supported the Collins plan were Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Dan Coats of Indiana, Collins, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Baldwin voted for the Collins proposal and against the one offered by Johnson. Baldwin said in a statement that the majority vote in support of the Collins measure "shows that we can advance a common sense solution."
State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is proposing the Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act that would impose liabilities on businesses that ban guns.

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A state lawmaker wants businesses that ban guns to be held strictly liable for any gun-related injury that might occur in their premises  and to pay triple damages.

The bill by Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) would discourage businesses from posting signs stating that firearms and other weapons are prohibited on the premises. That option was part of Wisconsin's concealed carry law, which passed in 2011. License holders who violate the restrictions can be subject to a fine of up to $1,000.

To encourage businesses to allow concealed carry, the concealed carry law provided owners immunity from liability for any gun incident on the premises.

But the law didn't address liability in the opposite scenario  a business that posts a weapons ban and has a gun incident.

Under Gannon's bill the liability would attach automatically. In other words, if someone with a gun  a concealed carry permit holder or otherwise  injured or killed someone inside a store that had a sign prohibiting weapons, the business would be on the hook for triple the damages to any victims.

The Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act "will give the citizens of Wisconsin a better chance of defending themselves and their loved ones against this scourge of terrorist activity," Gannon said in a news release.

Gannon, who is in the property and casualty insurance business, said he was not aware of any similar law in other states.

"The insurance industry won't like it," he said, because insurers would have to raise rates for customers who insist on banning weapons from their sites, or insist on more security or metal detectors. Gannon's view is that if businesses do not allow "personal self-defense devices," they must guarantee customer safety in other ways.

It's not just the insurance industry that might oppose such an effort.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said the bill is "not on my short list of bills for next session."

And business owners expressed wariness about whether the law is needed, or just adds another regulatory complication.

"I think among a lot of our members, the symbolism would be well received, but the practicality of it might not be," said Steve Baas, senior vice president for governmental affairs with Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. "Generally, they're for tort reform and liability limits."

Dave Stamm, owner of Stamm Technologies Inc., a Milwaukee IT support company, said even though his firm allows guns inside the building, the proposed law seems punitive toward companies that prohibit them.

"I can be very sympathetic to other business owners who have different business models than my own, and they have made a decision that they think is in the best interests of their staff and/or customers. To have a law that would then kind of penalize them for it  in holding risk and paying additional insurance  I don't know that I see that as fair," Stamm said.

Most of Stamm's 50 employees are in the field with clients during the day, and they obey whatever the client's firearms policy is, he said.

Ron Loos, owner of Quality Tool & Die Inc., in Milwaukee, said it seems the proposed law would put too much responsibility on business owners for incidents they probably couldn't prevent.

"Why would the store owner be penalized for something he had nothing to do with?" Loos said. "He sure as heck didn't want to have anybody get shot."

Loos said he personally has no problem with people carrying concealed weapons, and that their presence in a business can serve as a deterrent to crime. But the issue is complicated.

"It's really a sticky thing," he said.

More than 300,000 people have obtained permits since Wisconsin became the 49th state to approve concealed carry.

Gannon said he's gotten "lots of thumbs up" around the Capitol, but won't release names of lawmakers who support the bill until January.

Patrick Marley, Joe Taschler and Paul Gores of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
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Washington  A sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives by Democratic members halted legislative action for nearly 11 hours Wednesday and appeared likely to continue into Thursday as the protesters turned to Periscope and Facebook Live to broadcast demands for a vote on legislation to restrict gun purchases by suspected terrorists.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) reconvened the House after 10 p.m. for a vote on an unrelated issue, but while the vote went forward, chaos reigned, with Democrats chanting in the well of the House in a demonstration unprecedented in modern times.

Ryan made no effort to clear the demonstrating members of Congress from the House floor, and some Democrats appeared prepared to spend the night in the chamber. Pillows and blankets in preparation for a long night could be seen from the House gallery where spectators were watching the proceedings.

"In residency, when I was trying to be a doctor, we would stay up sometimes from 24 to 36 hours, and I've certainly slept at nurses stations," said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) who went home to grab his glasses and a toothbrush to prepare to stay overnight. "And I think that is the least of our problems ... because how comfortable is that mom that lost her child in Orlando?"

It was dramatic political theater 10 days after a gunman who'd twice been investigated for links to terrorism attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded, and just one day after the Senate failed to move forward legislation intended to block suspected terrorists from purchasing weapons.

Adding to the drama, C-SPAN, the company that broadcasts House proceedings, stopped airing the developments at 11:25 a.m., when Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who was presiding when members began the sit-in, declared the House in recess and ordered cameras turned off.

C-SPAN's usual broadcast image of the House chamber, with an overlay tabulating the vote, returned after Ryan ordered members to reconvene. But other networks highlighted the unusual nature of the day by showing a split screen that contrasted the seeming calm of the C-SPAN image with a raucous feed from Facebook Live of Democrats in the House well chanting loudly.

Ryan was unable to gain control, and he left the dais, with Republicans looking exasperated at a rare revolt of minority party members against the majority that usually can call the shots unchallenged. On the vote, the House failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of an unrelated House resolution.

The Democrats seemed almost giddy with their revolt, singing "We Shall Overcome" and relishing their ability to bring proceedings to a halt. Holding sheets of paper with the names of gun violence victims above their heads, they chanted "No bill, no break" and "shame, shame, shame" so loudly that they drowned out Ryan.

"I'm very proud of my colleagues. We've got to do something radical," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.). "This is the way great movements began. This is the way the March on Washington started, and Rosa Parks, and all the great movements that we can remember started with just an idea."

They were cheered on by visitors in the House galleries, who broke the rules by loudly cheering them on and chanting. Outside the Capitol, a crowd gathered holding rainbow signs with the words "Disarm Hate."

Earlier, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn had vowed to stay in the House chamber all night if needed. Ryan and other Republicans called the sit-in an obstructionist publicity stunt.

The role of live streaming social media platforms in the day's events heightened the sense of rebellion, with some analysts comparing the events to internet-fueled uprisings in other nations. C-SPAN officials explained the network's failure to air the protest after Poe ordered a recess by pointing out that it does not control the cameras in the House chamber.

"How many families and communities will be torn apart by our epidemic of gun violence before Republicans summon the courage to act?" said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chair, in a speech that C-SPAN carried from a Facebook stream by Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, Texas. "How many more times will they block the 'No Fly, No Buy' legislation that would help keep us safe? Their inaction is a national disgrace, and House Democrats will not stand for it any longer. And so we sit!"

Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong defended Poe's decision to recess the House as the sit-in progressed.

"The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed, subject to the call of the chair," she said.

A senior House Republican aide said it was worth noting that when House Democrats were in the majority, "they not only shut off the cameras, they actually shut off the lights."
In this Feb 23, 1945, photo taken by Joe Rosenthal, U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan. The Marine Corps acknowledged Thursday it had misidentified one of the six men in the photo. Credit: Associated Press

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Washington  The Marine Corps acknowledged Thursday it had misidentified one of the six men in the iconic 1945 World War II photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

The investigation solved one mystery but raised another. The Marine Corps investigation identified a man who has never been officially linked to the famous photo: Pvt. 1st Class Harold Schultz, who died in 1995 and went through life without publicly talking about his role.

"Why doesn't he say anything to anyone," asked Charles Neimeyer, a Marine Corps historian who was on the panel that investigated the identities of the flag raisers. "That's the mystery."

"I think he took his secret to the grave," Neimeyer said.

The Marine Corps investigation concluded with near certainty that Schultz was one of the Marines raising the flag in the photo.

The investigation also determined that John Bradley, a Navy corpsman from Wisconsin, was not in the photograph taken on Mount Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal, a photographer for The Associated Press. The Feb. 23, 1945, photo that has been reproduced over seven decades actually depicts the second flag-raising of the day.

The three surviving men identified in the photo, John Bradley, Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon, went on a tour selling war bonds back in the United States and were hailed as heroes.

Bradley's son James Bradley and co-author Ron Powers wrote a bestselling book about the flag raisers, "Flags of our Fathers," which was later made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. John Bradley had been in the first flag-raising photo on Iwo Jima and may have confused the two, Neimeyer said.

Schultz, who enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17, was seriously injured in fighting on the Japanese island and went on to a 30-year career with the U.S. Postal Service in Los Angeles after recovering from his wounds. He was engaged to a woman after the war, but she died of a brain tumor before they could wed, said his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell. Schultz married MacDowell's mother at age 63.

Analysts believe Schultz, who received a Purple Heart, knew he was in the iconic image but chose not to talk about it.

"I have a really hard time believing how it wouldn't have been known to him," said Matthew Morgan, a retired Marine officer who worked on a Smithsonian Channel documentary on the investigation. The filmmakers turned over their evidence to the Marine Corps to examine.

Schultz may have mentioned his role at least once. MacDowell now recalls he said he was one of the flag raisers over dinner in the early 1990s when they were discussing the war in the Pacific.

"Harold, you are a hero," she said she told him. "Not really. I was a Marine," he said.

The photo appeared in thousands of newspapers and raised the morale of a nation that had grown weary of the bloody slog in the Pacific.

"We were winning the war, but it was the hardest part of the war," historian Eric Hammel said of the Pacific island-hopping campaign.

"It went viral in the 1945 equivalent of the word," Neimeyer said.

The new investigation was prompted by growing doubts about the identity of Bradley in the photo.

Two amateur historians, Eric Krelle and Stephen Foley, went further and were able to identify Schultz as a possible flag raiser. They examined the Rosenthal photo and compared it to others taken the same day, including a video that was shot at the same time as Rosenthal took his photo. Their research was highlighted in a lengthy 2014 Omaha World-Herald article.

More than a year later the Marine Corps agreed to investigate the claim, appointing a nine-person panel headed by Jan Huly, a retired Marine Corps three-star general.
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

On Wednesday President Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian parliament on the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germanys attack on his country. He said Russia would have to increase its military preparedness given NATOs aggressive actions on Russias borders. (He was talking about NATO defensive moves in Poland and the Baltic states). Putin lamented that it would have been possible for the West to find a way to cooperate on security with Russia in the face of the threat from terrorism, but that it hadnt tried.

At the same time, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu made a surprise visit to Damascus. Speculation ran rife as to the reason for the visit.

BBC Monitoring translates from Trud, The Russian defence ministers visit was somewhat of a surprise to experts, although he does visit Syria regularly, Boris Dolgov, senior scientific assistant at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies Arab and Islamic Research Centre, explained to Moskovskiy Komsomolets. But the meeting with Al-Asad was important. Of course, it was connected to the memorandum from the State Department officials, who were demanding that the US authorities undertake more resolute actions against the Syrian government army, and to the US complaints about the actions of the Russian Aerospace Forces. In my view, Shoygu saw for himself on the spot the plane on which the Russian Aerospace Forces operations are proceeding and what the situation in Syria is like. One further point about the visit: It is the continuation of the process of the signing of the agreement on a cease fire by the armed groups which are operating against Al-Asads army but which are not radical. In my view, that was also within the sphere of what Shoygu was inspecting.

The deputy Minister of Defense, Gen. Valery Gerasimov (also the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia) implicitly hit back against US Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry had warned last week that the US was losing patience with the Syrian regimes attempt to take east Aleppo, in violation of the cessation of hostilities arrived at in February. On Wednesday, Gerasimov said it was Russia who is losing patience, with US-backed rebels who are sometimes making tactical battlefield alliances with radical groups.

Gerasimov said that for the past three months, Russia has been supplying the US with detailed information on the locations and movements of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) and al-Qaeda in Syria (the Nusra Front), but that the US appears to have made no use of this information in its bombing raids at all. He blamed American refusal to cooperate for the ripostes that Daesh has been able to make against the campaign of the Syrian Arab Army to retake a military base in al-Raqqa province, a campaign that has failed.

The Russian press is also suggesting that there is a split between President Obama and John Kerry on Syria, inasmuch as Obama is said to be tired of the State Departments requests that he expand US military operations in Syria. This week some 50 hawkish State Department employees called for Obama to bomb the Syrian government, which is said to have alarmed Moscow (which is backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad.)

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TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) - Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE:PSE)(FRANKFURT:PNX) (the "Company" or "Pasinex") cuts 36 metres grading 25% zinc as drilling extends the mineralized zone to the north at its 50% - owned Pinargozu zinc mine. The Pinargozu zinc mine is in the Adana region of south-central Turkey. A project location map Figure 1 is available by following the link provided here: http://bit.ly/28MsIis.

Table 1: Summary Highlights of Drill Assay Results Drill Hole # Core Length

Interval Metres* Zn

Grade %** Core Recovery % From (metres) PPS15-015 36.1 24.9 67 90.4 Including 22.6 35.3 52 PPS15-046 14.2 39.0 49 128.0 Also 8.0 42.7 11 145.0 PPS15-043 3.5 40.7 29 125.0 Also 8.7 45.1 29 134.3 PPS15-028 7.0 46.2 42 59.2 PPS15-027 5.0 36.1 37 62.0 PPS15-022 4.0 35.3 61 65.6 PPS15-032 3.7 36.3 49 95.0 PPS15-014 3.5 48.9 49 87.5

* True widths have yet to be determined. **Zinc mineral is predominantly Smithsonite (which is zinc carbonate) The mineralized zone intersected in PPS15-015 and PPS15-046 is estimated to be approximately 20 metres - follow link to Figure 6: http://bit.ly/28PysKq

Steve Williams, CEO of Pasinex commented "We are very pleased to report these outstanding drill results. These assays continue to demonstrate the high grade nature of zinc mineralization at Pinargozu. We believe these results underscore our belief that the mineralization at Pinargozu will continue to support our "DSO Program" of direct shipping, without the need for concentrating, to global zinc processors. It may represent the distal parts of a major connected and zinc carbonate replacement type (CRD) system. We remain very optimistic of our ability to add substantial tonnes to the DSO material, and anticipate more positive drill results in the coming weeks as we work through a backlog of un-assayed drill core. These are exciting times" said Steve Williams, CEO of Pasinex Resources.

Assays are now available for 39 (PPS15-014 - PPS15-052) surface diamond drill holes for a total of 5,450 metres drilled during the second half of 2015 - a full table of assays from this drilling is available by following this link: http://bit.ly/28MN5uj. A map (Figure 5) of all drill holes covered in this release is available by following this link: http://bit.ly/28MTqp0. Drilling indicates an extension to the north of the main mineralized zone - see Figures 3 & 4 by following these links: http://bit.ly/28MT8hV (Figure 3) & http://bit.ly/28Ps32X (Figure 4). A total of 17 drill holes did not intersect any significant mineralization and constrains the mineralized envelope. There is a sharp cut-off between high grade mineralization and barren host carbonate rock. At this stage the mineralizing system is almost exclusively zinc with minor amounts of lead and locally high grade of silver. Topography around the mine is rugged. Drilling was from three separate locations with fan drilling both laterally and vertically to provide coverage.

Pinargozu Zinc Mine

Current mining at 60 tonnes per day is predominantly exploiting non-sulphide high grade zinc carbonate mineralization. The grade of the mined material consistently exceeds the 25% zinc threshold for direct shipping to zinc processing plants. Pinargozu is one of several exploration targets along the Horzum Zinc Trend (HZT). The HZT controls a series of Carbonate-Replacement-Deposit (CRD) type mineral occurrences. The HZT extends north of the old Horzum mine, currently operated by our joint venture partner, Akmetal Madencilik San ve Tic. AS (Akmetal AS), for at least 8 kilometres - see link to Figure 2: http://bit.ly/28WVEVN. The HZT is completely under-explored. Pasinex is the first to apply advanced exploration technology and CRD exploration concepts and models to the HZT.

Quality Control and Data Verification

Samples were assayed in the SGS laboratory in Ankara. Zinc, lead and silver, assays were obtained by multi-acid (4-acid) digestion/ICP-AES Package (33 Elements) - Zn (lower detection limit: 1 ppm/upper detection limit: 10,000 ppm) code ICP40B. For high grade zinc multi-acid (4-acid) digestion/AAS Package code AAS43B. Analytical accuracy and precision are monitored by the submission of blanks duplicate samples inserted at regular intervals into the sample train by Pasinex personnel. Duplicate pulp samples are sent to the ALS laboratory in Izmir as an umpire ISO-compliant check to confirm analytical accuracy. Drill-core samples were prepared at a standard non-certified facility at the Horzum Mine. External quality control on sample preparation is assured by reference to regular selection of duplicate coarse reject samples which are now sent to SGS. SGS-Ankara's quality system complies with the requirements for the International Standards ISO 9001: 2000 and ISO 17025: 1999.

Qualified Person

EurGeol, P.Geo. John Barry, a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release. Mr. Barry is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control and data verification and has confirmed all procedures, protocols and methodologies used. Mr. Barry is a director and shareholder of the Company.

About Pasinex

Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE:PSE)(FRANKFURT:PNX) is a metals company which is a 50% owner of the high grade Pinargozu zinc mine which is in production and, under its DSO Program, is shipping directly to zinc smelter / refiners from its mine site in Turkey. The Company has a strong technical management team with many years of experience in mineral exploration and mining project development. The mission of Pasinex is to build a mid-tier zinc company based on building a large land within a productive CRD district in Turkey.

The Pinargozu mine is included in the 50-50 company, Horzum Arama Isletme AS (Horzum AS), which is a corporate joint venture between Pasinex and Turkish mining house, Akmetal Madencilik San ve Tic. AS (Akmetal AS). Akmetal AS is one of Turkey's largest family-owned conglomerates with the nearby past-producing Horzum zinc mine.

Visit our web site at: www.pasinex.com

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

PASINEX RESOURCES LTD.

"Steve Williams"

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although Pasinex Resources Ltd. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, exploration results, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - June 23, 2016) -

Highlights

TomaGold (39.5%) partners with Goldcorp (60.5%) on the Red Lake Sidace Lake Project

The Sidace Lake gold property has an NI 43-101 Indicated Resource of 1.37 million tonnes at 3.21 g/t Au and an Inferred Resource of 2.10 million tonnes at 3.24 g/t Au

Potential to increase the resources both laterally and at depth

Over 90,000 m of drilling done on the property since 1998

TomaGold Corporation (TSX VENTURE:LOT) ("TomaGold" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Planet Exploration Inc. ("Planet") to acquire all of its interest in the Sidace Lake gold property, namely a stake of 39.5% (the "Sidace property"), located 25 km northeast of Balmertown in the Red Lake mining camp, Ontario. The Sidace property consists of 42 mining claims. The remaining 60.5% interest in the property is owned by Goldcorp Inc. ("Goldcorp") under the terms of a joint venture.

Since 1998, when Planet first took an interest in the property, 246 diamond drill holes totalling 90,142 metres of NQ core have been drilled on the Sidace property. On April 14, 2009, the joint venture announced a National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") compliant independent technical review of the Sidace property, including a mineral resource estimate on the two most advanced of six prospects on the claims, the Main Discovery Zone ("MDZ") and the Upper Duck Zone ("UDZ"). The technical report was produced on April 19, 2009, by Watts, Griffis and McOuat Limited ("WGM"), a geological engineering firm based in Toronto, Ontario. The mineral resource estimate was prepared from two separate block models, each using a 1.5 g/t Au cut-off grade and a 35 g/t Au high grade cap, based on a gold price of US$800/oz and a US$:C$ exchange rate of 1:1.2. TomaGold has undertaken to update the said technical report 43-101 within the next 180 days.

Sidace Lake Mineral Resource Estimate

Zone Tonnes* g/t Au Total oz Au* MDZ Indicated Resource 1,119,500 3.00 107,900 Inferred Resource 1,677,200 3.01 162,500 UDZ Indicated Resource 247,600 4.19 33,300 Inferred Resource 425,800 4.11 56,300 Total Indicated Resource 1,367,200 3.21 141,300 Total Inferred Resource 2,103,100 3.24 218,800

All tonnage and total oz Au figures rounded to nearest hundred. Totals may not add up due to rounding.

"This is a great transaction for TomaGold, as we are acquiring an interest in a gold mineralized system with tremendous potential," said David Grondin, President and CEO of TomaGold. "The property has NI 43-101 indicated and inferred resources of over 360,000 ounces of gold, which could be increased by additional exploration work. Other strong qualities include four additional promising exploration targets and the current resource remains open along strike and at depth. The property is also located in the renowned Red Lake mining camp, close to mining and milling infrastructure and qualified personnel. This is simply a great addition to our growing portfolio of advanced gold mining projects in Canada, which includes the Monster Lake and Obalski projects."

The Red Lake mining camp hosts several gold mines, where the combined production and remaining proven resources are more than 30 million ounces of gold. Initial gold production occurred at the Howey mine in 1930, and two mines (Campbell and Red Lake) remain in operation today. The largest mines historically are Placer Dome's Campbell mine (cumulative production and remaining resources of 13 million ounces) (now owned by Goldcorp), Goldcorp's Red Lake (10 million ounces) and Madsen mines (2.5 million ounces).

Summary of the WGM NI 43-101 Technical Report

Results of the work on the Sidace property indicate the presence of wide low-grade gold mineralized zones and relatively narrow high-grade gold mineralization within sericite/quartz-sericite schists containing minor quartz veins with accessory pyrite within a complex sub-vertical box fold. The average grade of the mineralized zones within the quartz-sericite schist is 1.2 g/t Au.

Plans and sections through the MDZ and UDZ block models display a reasonable spatial continuity of geology and grade using a 1.5 g/t Au cut-off, based on a gold price of US$800/oz and a US$:C$ exchange rate of 1:1.2. Indicated Resources in both deposits total 1.37 million tonnes grading 3.21 g/t Au, and Inferred Mineral Resources total 2.10 million tonnes grading 3.24 g/t Au.

Many common characteristics were identified between the MDZ gold mineralization and the Hemlo Deposit, including the following: 1) a deformed porphyry system expressed as a quartz-sericite schist with disrupted quartz veinlets and associated molybdenite, arsenides and iron sulphides; 2) rocks on the structural footwall ("FW") displaying intense microcline alteration; 3) a main gold-bearing horizon that lies between the potassic alteration (microcline) zone on the FW and a massive quartz unit, interpreted as a meta-chert on the hangingwall; and 4) evidence of high temperature and high pressure metamorphic environments (amphibolite facies).

Recommendations

WGM recommended that further drilling on the MDZ focus on near surface extensions of Zone 1 to the southwest, and Zone 3 to the southeast, and that additional drilling perpendicular to strike on Zone 5 should validate the geological interpretation of the deeper extensions of the deposit.

WGM also recommended that further drilling on the UDZ focus on filling in gaps to the northeast near surface on both Zones 2 and 3. The increased drill density in these areas would help to validate the 3-D model of the deposit, and could potentially expand the resource in these areas. Additional drilling down dip on Zone 3 was also recommended to potentially extend the deposit eastwardly along strike.

"Our next step will be to look at the property data and make our own assessment based on what has been done to date. We are excited and eager to start working on this project," Mr. Grondin concluded.

To acquire Planet's interest in the property, TomaGold will issue a total of 15 million shares of TomaGold, at a deemed price of $0.10 per share, at the closing of the transaction. The shares will be subject to a hold period of six months following the closing date.

A finder's fee of one million shares of TomaGold at a deemed price of $0.10 per share is payable to Transcend Capital Inc.

The property is currently subject to a 1.0% net smelter return.

The transaction, which is between arm's length parties, is subject to regulatory approval.

The technical content of this press release has been reviewed and approved by Andre Jean, Eng., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About TomaGold Corporation

TomaGold Corporation is a Canadian-based mining exploration company whose primary mission is the acquisition, exploration and development of gold projects in Canada and abroad.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. The statements in this news release that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements". Readers are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and that actual developments or results may vary materially from those described in such "forward-looking" statements.
[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on Tuesday declined to block [order, PDF] Mississippis HB 1523 [text], which would allow clerks to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples citing sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction. The law, set to take effect July 1, recognizes and protects three beliefs: that (a) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman; (b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and (c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individuals immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth. While some contend the ruling is a reasonable accommodation to religious beliefs, others believe it is legalized discrimination. The judge is set to hear arguments in related challenges later this week.

Mississippis governor signed this bill into law in April, just days after a federal judge struck down [JURIST reports] Mississippis ban on adoption by same-sex partners. In November the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that same-sex divorce is legal [JURIST report] within the state. In a 5-4 decision, the high court granted the divorce order citing to the recent US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges [JURIST report] as the main legal authority.
US President Barack Obama [official website] signed [press release] legislation [HR 2576 text, PDF] Wednesday granting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] power to regulate thousands of everyday substances. The law makes major changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) [EPA backgrounder], which has not been modified since it was passed in 1976. The law provides the EPA a new risk-based safety standard to evaluate chemicals. The new standard places significant weight on vulnerable individuals such as children and pregnant women. Some environmental groups say the new law does not grant the EPA enough power, while others argue it gives federal regulators excessive power over the states.

The Obama administration has been calling [JURIST report] for Congress to enact legislation to tighten chemical and toxin regulations since 2009. The administration argued that reform was needed because many of the chemicals in the TSCA were no longer used or produced, while other toxins were increasingly showing up in peoples bodies that in 1976 were not considered dangerous. Led by the Obama administrations Essential Principles for Reform of Chemicals Management Legislation, US Senators Barbara Boxer and Frank Lautenberg as well as Representatives Henry Waxman and Bobby Rush crafted the legislation.
A UN human rights adviser called [UN News Centre report] on Bahrain Wednesday to ensure human rights are respected following protests triggered by the decision to strip Sheikh Issa Qassem, a prominent Shia religious leader, of his nationality. The protesters were also urged to exercise their rights peacefully and avoid violence. UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng [official website], warned the government that repression will not eliminate grievances, only increase them. He has also called on all leaders to step up and strive to decrease tension in the area.

The kingdom of Bahrain is considered an ally of the US but has faced growing international concerns about its human rights practices. Bahraini authorities arrested [JURIST report] four US journalists covering the five-year anniversary of the nations 2011 uprising and formally charged them in February. Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported [text] in February that nearly five years after Bahrains Day of Rage [BBC report] protests sparked [JURIST report] international concern over Bahraini government accountability in human rights, the hope for reform has dwindled.
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Dr. Tahir Ali Javed, whose Fremont cancer clinic infected dozens of patients with hepatitis a little more than a decade ago, has applied for reinstatement of his medical license in New York.

Javed, 47, fled to his native Pakistan 10 years ago when the severity of the hepatitis outbreak became known. His medical license in Nebraska was revoked. He surrendered his New York license.

Once in Pakistan, Javed became a public health official and reportedly blamed the situation in Nebraska on anti-Muslim sentiment.

Unsanitary practices in the Fremont clinic led to hepatitis C infections in at least 99 patients, several of whom died of the disease.

A Fremont-based organization called HONOReform Foundation grew out of the tragedy. HONOReform promotes sanitary practices in health-care settings. The One and Only campaign it advocates seeks to educate nurses, doctors and others of the importance of using syringes and needles only once.

Javed could not be reached for comment.

Antonia Valentine of the New York State Education Department, which rules on restoration of medical licenses, confirmed that Javed has applied for reinstatement. Valentine said through an email that the application will be investigated and referred to two committees before the New York Board of Regents rules. Its not clear when the ruling will occur. Valentine declined to provide further information.

Steve Langan, executive director of HONOReform, said that sick people were injured, some of them died, and no justice has been done.

The Nebraska Attorney Generals Office pursued the revocation of Javeds medical license in 2003. It accused him of unprofessional conduct and gross negligence for allowing staffers to reuse syringes, which contaminated with hepatitis large bags of saline. The saline was used to clean out implanted devices used to treat cancer patients with chemotherapy and other medications, and infected patients with hepatitis in the process.

The allegations said Javed had been warned multiple times that his office used unsanitary practices in administering the drugs and continued to allow it.

The Attorney Generals Office also accused him of exploiting a patient to conduct a sexual relationship with her. The Attorney General alleged that Javed, a cancer specialist, gave the woman a false diagnosis and told her not to seek treatment elsewhere because other providers would inform her insurance company, and she wouldnt be able to get insurance again.

Documents indicate Javed admitted to little. The exploitation accusations were dismissed. Javed chose not to contest the case against him and agreed to a settlement in which his Nebraska medical license was revoked in September 2003.

Travis Bennington, a Fremont attorney who co-wrote a book on the case with one of the victims, Evelyn McKnight, said Javed fled to his native Pakistan before any criminal charges could be filed. McKnight is a co-founder of HONOReform.
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When, aged thirteen, my best friend died of complications from sickle cell disease, her parents could not attend her funeral, or find out where she was buried. My mom explained to me that in the Yoruba culture, because parents are not expected to survive their children, it is considered an abomination for a parent to know where their child is buried. So, the young adults in the extended family attended the burial, and the older people stayed at home with the parents to console them. My grieving eleven-year-old mind interpreted the custom to mean the death of a child is an abomination.

That thought resounded in my mind as I mourned my friend. It echoed when I was thirteen, and a classmate died in a car accident on the newly commissioned Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos; and again when at fifteen, I lost another friend to cerebral malaria. At seventeen years old, in my first year of university, one morning, a friend was found dead in his hostel bed without apparent cause. The only revelation at autopsy were the fragments of his last meal seen lodged within his airway. His parents were poor and lived far away from their extended family, so it fell to us his friends to be at his burial. At the funeral, as clods of earth fell on his coffin, the thought came to me again: The death of a child is an abomination.

The thought stayed with me throughout my time in medical school and internship in Lagos where we lost several children to illnesses even as we worked hard to save the lives of many. It stayed through my pediatrics residency in Brooklyn, and pediatric critical care medicine fellowship in Boston as I learned to use every available knowledge, skill, and technology to prevent most deaths while caring for critically ill children in intensive care units. The belief that the death of a child is an abomination motivated me through long hours at patients bedsides during my years working as an attending pediatric intensive care physician in Camden. There, children came in with untold injuries and severe illnesses. Eventually, in the fall of 2014, I moved home to Lagos to be with family, and to join the efforts of people working to stem the tide of childhood deaths in Nigeria.

Every hour in Nigeria, a hundred children die before their fifth birthday. Second only to India in the number of our dying children, one of every eight under-five children who die in the world today is Nigerian. These children mostly die of treatable, vaccine-preventable illnesses which are complicated by malnutrition. There are no accounts of the vast numbers of children who die between the age of five and adulthood. There are no pediatric intensive care units in Nigeria, and there are no pediatric ICU training programs or fellowships either. When I went around the hospitals introducing myself and describing my qualifications, no one knew of any other pediatric intensivists in the country. In a nation where more than 60 percent of citizens live on less than a dollar a day and most healthcare expenditure is out of pocket, few families could afford to pay for pediatric intensive care services if their children needed it.

When I first met Ibrahim, he was two years old. Scrawny and undernourished, he looked half his age. He was born with Tetralogy of Fallot and had just undergone corrective open-heart surgery. He was one of seven children operated on during a pediatric cardiac surgery mission in Abuja. The surgeries were organized by an American-based nonprofit healthcare organization. Unlike the other children in the group, he was having a rough course. I was in Lagos when, on his seventh post-operative day, I got a call from a surgeon asking if I could help. The child was sedated, and mechanically ventilated. He was in hypoxemic respiratory failure, and had right ventricular dysfunction with low cardiac output syndrome. He was recovering from acute kidney injury with oliguria, and had suffered an extended period of atrial fibrillation. From his physical exam, he seemed to have developed a right-sided stroke. I started managing the patient on the phone, then flew to Abuja to join the team at his bedside. He did well and was eventually discharged home.

Every year, an estimated 85,000 children are born with congenital heart defects in Nigeria, all are currently referred out of the country for surgeries to fix their hearts. Nigeria does not train doctors in cardiac surgery or routinely do cardiac surgeries. Pediatric cardiac surgery in Nigeria happens sporadically, most often done by international teams volunteering on medical missions. Children whose families cannot afford the immense cost of cardiac surgery abroad either die early in childhood, or struggle with poor health, unable to live to their full potential. In 2015, I estimate that fewer than sixty children with congenital heart disease had their surgeries done at different hospitals within the country  it doesnt come close to meeting the need.

Working with the same nonprofit organization, in one year, we have completed thirty-three pediatric cardiac surgeries, recording a 94 percent success rate similar to some of the best cardiac centers in the world. We bring together a mostly volunteer international team in short missions and work with the local staff in Nigerian hospitals. We emphasize staff training, skills transfer, and facilities development. It has been very rewarding work. Parents bring back their children to visit, and they send us pictures. A few months after we discharged Ibrahim, he ran up to me in the hospital hallway and hugged my knees. Like a different child, I could barely recognize him. Another child, Jeremiah, who at five months had survived days of profuse bleeding and massive transfusion syndrome in the ICU following a repair of Tetralogy of Fallot, came back with his parents to visit us. I was filled with emotion as I watched him  chubby, bouncing and playing in his fathers arms. For many of the children, I remembered pulmonary hypertension, heart failure, pneumothoraces, or other post-operative complications we helped them through in order to get them well and home.

Beyond the joys of the individual lives changed, I feel the satisfaction of working to develop a system that serves Nigerian children. In the 1950s, when pediatric ICUs first started in North America and Europe, they happened as consequences of advances in pediatric surgery. These units evolved to meet a need to provide appropriate post-operative care and monitoring for children who underwent complex surgeries like cardiac and neurosurgery. In todays PICUs, dedicated staff work around the clock to monitor and care for children suffering an array of severe illness. Over time, I see our team getting better and our system becoming stronger. It fills me with the hope that our work will yield training, systems, and resources to continue to improve the care critically-ill Nigerian children receive, and to reduce the occurrence of childhood death and its abomination.

Olubunmi Ode is a pediatric intensive care physician and clinical director, pediatric intensive care operations

Hospitals for Humanity.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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I love being an academic pediatrician. I didnt start out to do that; I thought I would be writing novels and working part-time in an inner-city clinic. I wrote with Robert Penn Warren in college and my first (and only) novel was published when I was a senior in medical school. But things dont always turn out the way you expect them to. In my case, I didnt expect to be tossed aside and ignored once I turned 65 and retired from my University of New Mexico position.

If you were chair of a department of pediatrics, or head of a search committee, or in charge of hiring for your practice or your federally qualified health center, whom would you rather hire? A 65-year-old retired distinguished professor or a 35 year old with 30 years of potential work ahead of them? Thats the obstacle Im now facing, and I really cant blame people for choosing the latter. Age discrimination? Not really. Just plain common sense.

At the same time, I like to think Im better than any 35 year old  certainly better than when I was 35. I know more, Im wiser, more sensitive. Im better clinically than I was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. I know how to examine babies and children and adolescents and how to talk to their parents. Im pleased with my progress, even though it has taken years! Having my own children has helped immensely, but Ive also learned from my many mistakes. But now it seems that its all going to waste.

Why not just volunteer? Do I need the money? Well, yes and no. You can never be too rich or too thin, as the saying goes. It would be nice to have some extra money to travel, to help our two twenty-something children out, and to be paid for the expert work that Im capable of doing. Several colleagues have suggested doing something else  diversifying. I am doing just that, having started working as a medical consultant at the Social Security Administration reviewing childhood claims. It is exactly like learning a new language, and every week I pride myself in creatively approving benefits for a child who might otherwise never have received them. But its no substitute for the hands-on examining of patients and the joy of teaching medical students and residents.

My situation will probably be all-too-familiar to many readers. My wifes mother is 87 years old and in failing health in central Connecticut, and my wife (the only daughter) was desperate to move closer to her. She is a neuropsychiatrist, six years younger than I and had no problem finding a position as medical director of the largest mental health organization in southern Vermont. On the other hand, I could find nothing, not even remotely nearby.

Im flexible. I would be very happy with a part-time job in academia or in private practice and have looked intensively for more than a year. First, I applied to a well-known academic center in northern New England, where one of my friends is chair. The search committee decided to interview one candidate (a 35 year old) and hired her. My friend, the chair, decided to stay out of it.

Then I applied to another academic center in the mid-Atlantic region which desperately needed an adolescent medicine specialist to fulfill its residency review requirements. The general pediatricians vetoed my hiring because they did not believe that I could generate $250,000 per year in income. They were right!

Finally, I asked the chairs of two different New England medical schools if I could just come and lecture and teach for 1 to 2 days a month. Both said their faculty would be upset if outsiders were allowed in. I also looked at private practices, but I was considered too academic even for part-time work, even though Ive always done many clinics per week and greatly enjoy seeing patients.

Most recently, a state medical school advertised that they were looking for someone to teach their medical students and residents in pediatric clinic. Perfect, I thought. After I applied, their response was, Im sure your teaching and mentoring skills are excellent, as attested to by your references. You are also nationally known and well recognized for your work, which gives you the opportunity to present around the country. It would be difficult to meld the schedule changes that that will inevitably come with your opportunities with the clinical needs of our clinic. So the response from an academic medical center was, You are too academic for us. Forget the fact that I am traveling much less than I used to. Its the first time my accomplishments have been held against me.

Academia has apparently changed. I am what used to be called a triple threat: patient care, teaching, and research/scholarship. But those no longer seem to matter. I am a high-profile public health advocate, having written more AAP policy statements than anyone in the history of the organization. Ive been on Oprah and the Today show and National Public Radio. None of that seems to matter anymore. Its the almighty dollar that counts most; actually, counts 100 percent.

Research and scholarship suddenly seem to have faded to a distant second place. More and more pediatric departments seem to want faculty to pay for themselves. That seems patently both unfair and wrong. Shouldnt faculty get paid for teaching? Public school teachers get paid for teaching (albeit, not as well as they should be paid). Should faculty have to buy-out their free time? Its not really free time; its time desperately needed to do research, scholarship, and program development and planning.

Why am I writing this commentary? Not for pity, or even sympathy. Its because I suspect there are many others out there in a similar situation, and I want them to know that they are not alone. Its also to alert those administrators and chairs who are in charge that perhaps things need to change; youre missing out on a group of clinicians and teachers who are experienced, expert in their fields, who might contribute to your programs far more than you might guess. As for me, I will keep on looking (keep on trucking, as my generation used to say); but I am not optimistic.

Vic Strasburger is distinguished professor of pediatrics, emeritus, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM. This article originally appeared in Clinical Pediatrics.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Jose Noe Marquez has received the maximum prison sentence for intoxication manslaughter and assault.

This is the kind of story where there is no winner. A cautionary tale for the community says the district attorney.

"This is a case about choices and consequences", said Isidro Alaniz.

The lives of four families changed August 29th, 2015.

Twenty-three-year-old Jose Noe Marquez lost control of his pick up truck on Jacaman striking Karina Villarreal, Adriana Gonzalez Rodriguez, and Monica Pastrana.

Only Pastrana survived.

Almost a year later, district attorney Isidro Alaniz says that day began with a wrong choice.

"Mr. Marquez made a choice to put drugs into his body, in this case marijuana and Xanax. If he would've made a different choice, the victims would still be with us today", said Alaniz.

Marquez pled guilty to two counts of intoxication manslaughter and one count for assault.

It came with the maximum sentence for each, a total of twenty years.

In front of the victim's family members, Marquez admits this won't undo his mistake.

"I am responsible for killing Mrs. Villarreal and Mrs. Rodriguez as well as hurting Mrs. Pastrana. I hope that you and god can forgive me for what I've done. I'm sorry for all the pain that I've caused you, and I will pray for the children who have lost their mother because of me", said Marquez.

There's a lesson here says prosecutor Alaniz.

"We hope that all young people, especially, look at this case and think twice about putting drugs into their systems. Think twice about smoking marijuana and driving a car. This can happen to anyone", said Alaniz.

With justice now served, the defense attorney says the next lesson is restoration.

"Now, hopefully with this solution to the case, hopefully the community, the family of the victim, and the family of the accused can begin the process of healing", said Oscar Pena.

Marquez was immediately taken into custody and sent to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

He will serve out his sentences concurrently and he could be eligible for parole in ten years.
Business / Economy

by Thobekile Zhou

Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa on Wednesday said Zimbabwe's collapsing economy cannot rely on the multi-lateral financial institutions if government is not organised.He said groups such as IMF, World Bank will never fund Zimbabwe if it is not organised and well managed.He maintains that economic salvation lies in effective utilisation of domestic resources."I have never said at any moment I am putting all my eggs in their (international finance institutions) basket" he told a poverty reduction forum."I have said we must put our eggs in all baskets that are available."We must engage everybody, we must be a friend of everyone and above all, we must also look inward. All our reforms are geared towards unlocking domestic resources."Zimbabwe has struggled to finance its economic revival plan, which required about $27 billion for implementation.
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17Pics:Transforming face into bizarre art



A self-taught makeup artist has showed off her incredible skills with her mesmerising - and terrifying - creations. Saida Mickeviciute, 19, who is originally from Lithuania but now lives in London, can transform herself into a whole host of eery characters inspired by director Tim Burton.



Read More...


Brave and resilient Lisa Kennedy is flying high after surviving cancer three times.

The amazing 26 year old will be putting that courage to the test on Saturday, July 9 when she undergoes a parachute jump in tandem with her mother,

It's all in aid of Canteen Ireland, a support group for young cancer survivors which helped Lisa to battle against the disease and provided her with an outlet and hope.

The Gowran resident now feels that time is right to give back as she is cancer free for over five years and having gone beyond 25 years of age is now a leader with Canteen, helping those younger than to face the disease.

I can't imagine how I would have coped if I hadn't Canteen when I was sick, Lisa said.

Canteen aims a to support, empower and develop young people who have, or have had cancer, Lisa added.

CanTeen Ireland provides an opportunity for young people who have been affected with cancer to meet up in a relaxed and informal setting. Membership is free and members make a small contribution towards the cost of weekends away.

For example I did things like banana rides, rock climbing and other pursuits in activity centres which were a bit out of my comfort zone, Canteen gave me so much hope and confidence, Lisa said.

It is a testament to the success of the group that many of its members, like Lisa, become volunteer leaders.

Lisa will not be alone when she takes to the skies. She will be undertaking the parachute jump in Co Offaly on the afternoon of Saturday, July 9 her mother,

Lisa is definitely a candidate for person of the year, having first got cancer of the bone which led to her left being amputated above the knew.

That was while she was in fifth year of secondary school and the following years she developed cancer in both lungs, had the awful chemotherapy, did her Leaving Cert, passed her exams and conquered the Big C.

She has great support from her mother, ; Dad, Tom; brother Eoin and sister Chloe.

If you would like to support Lisa simply go on to mycharity.ie and key in Lisa Kennedy or you can leave a donation into the Kilkenny People office on High Street and address it to Lisa Kennedy.

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On a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon, the Sinnotts Cross Monument was officially unveiled at Tubrid Mooncoin after over 13 years in development in a special, and at times, emotional ceremony.

The monument commemorates all the men and women of the local 9th Kilkenny Battalion who played their part in the fight for Irish Independence. The site of the monument was also the location of a Black and Tan ambush that occurred 95 years to the day and hour of the opening (18th June 1921 at 2.45pm).

The ambush that occurred at Sinnotts Cross came at a time before the political divides that would split the nation in the years proceeding. On the contrary, it came at a period where the majority of the country were pursuing one goal; that of Irish Independence. As there was martial law in County Kilkenny since January 1921, any activities of this kind would have meant certain death to the participants, and also trauma to the inhabitants of the local area as reprisals, including house burnings, were a sanctioned response by the British Military. So it is very important in this special year of commemoration to remember these brave men and women who sacrificed much so that their descendants could have the life we enjoy today.

The guest of honour on this special day was historian Jim Maher and his wife Mary. The turnout beat all expectations with close to 200 people in attendance, including local Councillors from the Piltown District and local TD John-Paul Phelan. But most important were all the relatives of the 9th Battalion members. Considering there was over 140 men and 20 women from the parish of Mooncoin in the 9th Battalion, there is very few families who cant claim a relative!

The ceremony opened with an introduction by PRO of the Sinnotts Cross Committee Eoin Swithin Walsh who reminded all gathered of the significance this period of Irish history, and what the monument represents for current and future generations. There then followed a beautiful instrumental rendition of the Minstrel Boy on flute by Ailish Conneely & Sean Gannon and on tin-whistle by Martin Gannon. The chairman of the Committee, Fintan Dermody then spoke passionately about the journey of the project, from the seed of the idea for a monument to its subsequent fruition. Hilary Og Delahunty, the secretary of the Committee, spoke as gaeilge and made heartfelt contributions about people who were no longer with us and who had been supportive in the early years of the project such as James Barden, and Hilary Ogs own father Hilary Snr and grandmother Essie Murphy.

Next there was a beautiful reading of the Proclamation by seven young people who were relatives or representatives of members of the 9th Battalion. The readers were Muireann Gannon, Conor Dermody (great-grandson of Ned Doyle 9th Battalion member and later All-Ireland winning captain), Jimmy Barden, Jake Moore (Great-grandson of 9th Battalion Quartermaster Ted Moore), Charlotte Tyler-Walsh (Great-grandniece of James Soldier, Pat Fox, Michael & Tom Walsh), Paddy T Murphy (whose two great-grandfathers took part in the ambush) and Sile Delahunty (Great-granddaughter/great- grandniece of 9th Battalion Commander Jack na Coille Walsh & Ned Walsh).

Historian Jim Maher then gave a wonderful speech, not only on the history of the Sinnotts Cross ambush, but also setting this in the context of the War of Independence in County Kilkenny and Ireland as a whole. Jim then officially unveiled the new inscription stone on the monument to huge applause. There then followed a very poignant wreath laying by Ena Delahunty, whose father Martin Murphy took part in the Sinnotts Cross ambush, and Paul Walsh, whose four uncles also took part in the ambush. There was a moments reflection to remember the sacrifices and sufferings of that generation, accompanied once again by music from the three musicians.

Kay Fripps, treasurer of the Sinnotts Cross Committee, then read a stunning poem she had composed especially for the occasion which encompassed the entire story and emotions of the period in a number of beautifully written verses. The close of the ceremony continued in the same emotive vein with an exceptional rendition of Amhran na bhFiann by Charlotte Tyler-Walsh as the Tri-Colour was raised to full mast.

Tea (and a few stronger drinks!) were served after the ceremony. Old friends became reacquainted and people reminisced about times past. This was aided by some superb songs by Johnny Dunphy and Paddy Daly on guitars to cap off what was a wonderful and memorable afternoon.

The Committee would like to thank every single person who helped in anyway over the last 13 years, there is just too many names to list here. This monument was created in totality by fundraising, donations and volunteering of time, effort & materials. We would hope that the 1921 generation would be pleased with what this generation has done to remember their anguish and unwavering strength. And we also hope that the Sinnotts Cross Monument will stand as a reminder to future unborn generations to appreciate the independent democracy these people sacrificed so much to achieve.
All-in costs for South African gold producers have tumbled 42% from the 2012 highs, but this trend is likely to start unwinding, says Citi Research. Most of the decrease was driven by factors outside of the companies' control, with the most notable being depreciating operating currencies, Citi says. "Of the controllable balance, the majority of the decrease was achieved by cutting capex and exploration costs," Citi says. Analysts list several reasons why they see the trend of lower costs to start unwinding. "Firstly, we believe most of the currency tailwind has now passed and may even become a headwind over the next 1-3 years," Citi analysts say. "Secondly, (we) argue that cost reductions achieved through cutting capex and exploration costs -- as well as mining higher grades -- will unwind from here going forward, especially given the margin reprieve provided by a higher gold price over the past 6 months." Citi lists a "sell" rating on shares of South African producers. "We believe the market is not appropriately modeling this likely increase in AIC," Citi says. "Rather, we think the market expects cost bases to remain low, while these companies benefit from a rising gold price. We doubt whether this will happen and therefore reiterate our sell ratings on all South African gold companies under coverage."

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Aureus: Approval Granted For Plant Restart At New Liberty Gold Mine

Aureus Mining Inc. (TSX, AIM: AUE) announces that the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy has approved the plant restart process for the New Liberty Gold Mine in Liberia. A number of improvements and modifications were made during a suspension of processing operations. Meanwhile, mining operations continued throughout the plant suspension with the focus on catching up on waste stripping and exposing fresh ore for mining during the upcoming wet season. The current run-of-mine ore stockpile is approximately 122,186 tonnes at a grade of 3.88 grams per tonne of gold, Aureus says.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Great Panther Silver Reports Fatality At Guanajuato Mine

Great Panther Silver Ltd. (TSX: GPR; NYSE MKT: GPL) reports the death of a contract miner on Wednesday due to a rock fall at the Guanajuatito Mine in Mexico. "We feel great sadness over the loss of one of our colleagues, and we offer our sincere condolences to his family and friends," says Robert Archer, president and chief executive officer. "The safety of employees and contractors remains the top priority for the company and we are continuing with a complete safety review across all of our operations that began earlier in the year." Officials say the company is assessing the cause of the incident and has reported it to authorities.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Centerra: Kumtor Mine Receives 2016 Emissions, Discharge Permits

Centerra Gold Inc. (TSX: CG) reports that its Kumtor operation in the Kyrgyz Republic has received its 2016 maximum allowable emissions (MAE) permit from the State Agency for Environmental Protection and Forestry. This is valid until Dec. 31 and is the first new MAE permit issued to Kumtor since 2014, with operations since having relied upon periodic extensions of its 2014 MAE permit. In addition, Kumtor received approval for its 2016 maximum allowable discharge (MAD) permit, which allows for discharge of treated effluent. Approval of Kumtor's 2016 mine plan is expected before June 30, the company adds. "With the issuance of the MAE and MAD permits and the receipt of the environmental expertise before June 30, Kumtor will have the necessary permits and approvals in place for continuous operations throughout the second half of 2016," Centerra says.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com
Entertainment / Arts

by Thulani Nkala

Today, 23rd June 2016 at 10am Siphesakhe Theatre Group arrived in Johannesburg for their Gukurahundi play called Loyiko (a Xhosa word which means the fear), which will be performed on Saturday.A strong ensemble of 16 young Theatre activists touched down in Johannesburg today very excited about the prospects of performing on the 25th June 2016 at Hilbrow Threatre in front of an expected very large crowd."We arrived safely today, everybody is humbled but at the same time excited about the task ahead of us. The prospects of performing this important play on Saturday is daunting as we are all eager to do justice for the sake of the victims of the genocide, however, we are all ready and we have started interacting with the people inviting them to the play on Saturday," humbly explained Mr Mhluzi.Since the first article a great deal of interest has been generated and a large number of people are expected to attend to witness the launch of the play on Saturday.Meanwhile in Zimbabwe the issue of the gukurahundi genocide is still raging on, last Saturday in Bulawayo Mrs Mujuru the former Vice President of Zimbabwe, promised to bring the perpetrators of the gukurahundi genocide to justice if she wins the 2018 elections, this drew a lot of anger in Matebeleland as her husband Solomon Mujuru was the Minister of Defence during the genocide and she was part of the ZANU PF government at that time, a lot of people felt that this was merely politicking.The group has invited guest speakers of note, some have confirmed and some are still to confirm, Chief Albert Gumede, Moses Mzila Ndlovu and Prosper Nkosi have already confirmed and they will deliver keynote speeches.The gates will open at 1130am and the performance will start at 12noon promptly.Those who still need tickets to the Loyiko play can get their tickets from Shoprite money market, Checkers or from any Computicket shop."From Johannesburg we are going to tour the whole of South Africa and we hope that one day we may perform the play in London and/or America, already the play has stirred interest far and wide" concluded Mr Mhluzi.For more information contact them directly on loyikotheatreplay@gmail.com or call 0027717548206/0027627649602 and 0027849603154.
(Kitco News) - Gold prices were unfazed and remained under pressure asfFirst-time weekly jobless claims in the U.S. fell by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 259,000 during the week to Saturday, the Labor Department said Thursday.



Consensus expectations compiled by various news organizations called for initial claims to be around 271,000.



Following the release of the data, August Comex gold futures were relatively unchanged, last trading at $1,262.50 an ounce, down $7.50 on the day.



The government left the prior weeks tally unrevised at the previously reported 277,000. There were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims, the Labor Department said.



Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for new claims  often viewed as a more reliable measure of the labor market since it smoothens out week-to-week volatility  was down by 2,250 claims to 267,000.



Continuing jobless claims, the number of people already receiving benefits and reported with a one-week delay, decreased by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.142 million during the week ending June 11, the government said. The four-week moving average fell by 4,500 to 2.147 million.

By Neils Christensen of Kitco News; nchristensen@kitco.com

Follow @Neils_C
By Christina Henry of the Kitsap Sun

COLCHESTER  A 4-year-old Siberian husky with a history of aggression is in quarantine at Kitsap County Animal Control after biting and seriously injuring a Colchester woman Monday.

An animal control officer also was bitten and injured.

The husky attacked a woman in 2014 in Oregon and a man who came to her aid as the dog was being transported from California to Washington.

Animal Control officials are investigating and will determine whether to declare the dog a "potentially dangerous animal," Kitsap Human Society Executive Director Eric Stevens said.

Under Kitsap County code, that would trigger a string of requirements on the owner that could include, muzzling, confinement on the property, warning signs and additional insurance. Failure to abide by restrictions can result in consequences, possibly including euthanasia. The matter is decided by a hearing examiner in court.

Owner Margarita Mozzer, of Colchester, is distraught.

"He bit someone, but he was a victim of unwanted touching when they tried to capture him," she said. "It triggered his trauma disorder."

Mozzer, who adopted Beau in 2014, believes he was abused in the past.

Susan Shaw, of Colchester, said she made no aggressive moves toward the dog when she encountered him Monday. She was reaching to read his dog tags after he bounded onto her property.

"He grabbed my wrist and pretty much tried to bite clean through," said Shaw, who has a puncture wound on her arm.

An animal control officer also was attacked before getting Beau in the van, according to the Humane Society. The officer repeatedly was bitten on the arms and legs. She has been placed on paid medical leave.

"Due to our concerns about public safety, we are seeking to prosecute this case to the fullest extent the law allows," Stevens said. "While we care about the welfare and rights of animals and their owners, we also have an obligation to act in the public's interest when an animal poses a serious threat to public safety."

Terri Myers, of Modesto, California, said Beau was an accident waiting to happen.

Beau, formerly known as Kain, was picked up as a stray in August 2014 and placed in a shelter in Palm Springs. A pre-adoption exam by a California vet indicates Beau had a behavioral abnormality involving aggression.

Myers was transporting Beau, whom Mozzer adopted as a rescue, to Kitsap County. On a "potty break" in Portland, Oregon, the dog attacked Myers unprovoked, biting her repeatedly on the arms and stomach, according to a bite report logged Aug. 23, 2014, by Multnomah County Animal Services.

"As she walked the husky toward the van, the dog just snapped, flipping in the air and attacking," witness Heather Gutierrez said. "It was the most vicious dog attack I have ever seen."

Also injured was a man who tried to draw off the attack by throwing a hot dog in Beau's direction. The dog's attention was briefly diverted, but he then bit the man, leaving three puncture wounds on his arm, according to the report.

Myers was horrified but not surprised when she heard of the recent incident.

"This dog is a danger to everyone," Myers wrote in an email Tuesday to Kitsap Animal Control. "I do not understand how or why this dog is able to live with Margarita Mozzer, since she has proved many times that she is unable to contain this aggressive dog."

Aggression on Beau's part was documented in a security video on the property of Ted Macomber, of Colchester. In the video from October 2015, the dog is seen wandering up to Macomber's door. He slowly approaches the dog and sits on the front step near the animal. As Macomber reaches to read the dog tags, Beau leaps forward to attack.

Macomber, who quickly jumped back in alarm, was not injured. The video is part of Kitsap Animal Control's file on Beau as is Monday's incident, said Chase Connolly, animal control manager.

Beau is on a 10-day quarantine that is required for dogs involved in bite incidents. Animal Control is required because of rabies to quarantine all dogs whose bites break the skin. Most are allowed to stay home during quarantine.

Cases like Beau's are rare, Stevens said.

Mozzer wants Animal Control to allow the quarantine at her home. She is ill with cancer, and he his her therapy dog, she said.

Mozzer has owned huskies in the past, according to Jane Ramirez, of Bremerton, a husky owner who did a home check about eight years ago for a breeder in Alaska from whom Mozzer wanted to buy a puppy. The property was beautiful, Ramirez said, and the four Siberians there were well taken care of and doted on.

Two years ago, Ramirez was contacted by a rescue group in California, checking on Mozzer for a possible placement. Ramirez deemed an on-site check was not needed. What she did not know is that Mozzer's circumstances had changed due to a divorce and declining health.

Siberians are typically stubborn dogs but not untrainable, Ramirez said. They are bred to run and so are "escape artists." While most have "sweet" dispositions, they are "high energy" dogs and "can be difficult," she said.

Kitsap Animal Control was notified of the 2014 attack by Multnomah County Animal Services. Although Beau was classified in that county as a "potentially dangerous dog," the classification does not carry over into Kitsap County, Stevens said.

Multnomah County made Mozzer sign a waiver of liability when she came to claim the dog. Kitsap Animal Control made multiple attempts to reach out to her, but she did not respond, Stevens said. The shelter, which relies on first-person accounts of incidents (not hearsay) to initiate a response, has not logged previous reports on Beau, Stevens said.
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Charles Lemon, Port Orchard

Vets favor responsible gun ownership

As a veteran, I believe expanded background checks will make our communities safer while continuing to protect the Second Amendment.

Three years ago, a man in Arizona walked up to a grocery store and shot former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 others, killing six people. It has been a little more than a year since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 first-grade students and six teachers were gunned down. And it has been just a few months since the terrible shooting at the Washington Navy Yard where 12 people  many fellow veterans  were killed.

Shootings at Orlando, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Aurora had in common that all the shooters used assault weapons. If you want to use one of these types of weapons, then I suggest you join the military  there is no reason for a civilian to own an assault weapon.

I recently joined the Veterans Coalition for Common Sense, a national constituency of retired flag officers, senior officers and former enlisted service members founded by former astronaut and Navy Captain Mark Kelly. Thousands of us around the country are working to share our expertise with guns and experiences as vets in support of responsible gun ownership policies and measures to reduce gun violence.

We are taking notice of our elected leaders, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Rep. Derick Kilmer, who voted for responsible solutions that will reduce gun violence, like expanded background checks that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.
The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key said today in a press conference that there was no chance of the Government paying a ransom for the New Zealander being held hostage in Nigeria.

The Kiwi is also with at least two Australians, who were attacked on the outskirts of Calabar by gunmen who killed their driver.

Mr Key says its likely the kidnappers want money, rather than being part of a terrorist organisation.

But he says our Government has a strong policy not to pay ransoms.

Mr Key says paying a ransom would put a bounty on the head of any New Zealander who travelled to a dangerous part of the world, and would potentially make the situation worse.
The Herald reports:

An Auckland man who distributed extremist videos, featuring footage of people being shot, beheaded and burned alive has been dragged from court screaming Allahu Akbar. Imran Patel, 26, launched into the rant as he was jailed for three years nine months before Auckland District Court this afternoon. Tell John Key to stop being a slave to America and get out of Iraq. Allahu Akbar, he shouted, while being restrained by court security. It is understood to be the first person in the country to be sentenced over so-called terrorist material and the Crown said he had an utter lack of insight and remorse.

I hope once he is released, authorities keep a very close eye on him. Or buy him a one way ticket to another country.

In October, the Mt Roskill man sent text messages to 52 people with a link to an ISIS-made video, with accompanying words about revenge. The montage showed 14 prisoners lined up before two men shot them in the head one by one. Each slumps to the ground after being shot, the summary of facts said. Patel received a warning from his cell provider the following day about the content of the message but went on to text a similar link 24 hours later. The next video showed people in orange jumpsuits being beheaded by masked men and resulted in further censure by the telecommunications company. On October 22, Patel was barred from sending messages. His reaction was to get a new number and address the same 52 recipients. For those of you who complained [to the non-believers], remember that youre a Muslim; please behave like one, he texted.

So he went and got a new phone number just so he could keep sending out links to the terrorist killings. And he thinks it was un-Muslim to report his behaviour.

Patel has form. The Herald reported in 2014:

Imran Patel allegedly threatened senior members of the New Zealand Muslim Association, which owns the Avondale Islamic Centre in Blockhouse Bay Rd. The alleged threats arose from tensions between two Islamic factions battling for control of the centre. Patel and the imam, Abu Abdulla, were among those who had been barred from entering the mosque by the association. Patel appeared at the Auckland District Court yesterday charged with verbally threatening to kill and/or do grievous bodily harm.

He threatens to kill. He circulates videos glorifying executions. Im not that confident he is someone who will stop at words.

Oh actually he has gone further:

It can now be revealed that just over a year ago Patel was jailed for 10 months for holding a large knife to a drivers throat and threatening to kill him while yelling an Islamic exclamation. Patel gestured to the driver then ran across the road and held a knife  measuring 20cm  to the drivers throat yelling, Allahu Akbar [Allah is the greatest], and, Im going to kill you motherf***er.

So here is the challenge. This guy has not yet killed anyone, but he seems well on his way to doing so. How do we as a society stop him doing so?

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Entertainment / Music

by Staff Reporter

Contemporary musician Jah Prayzah is eyeing the global market by adding international flavour on his forthcoming album titled Mudhara Vachauya scheduled for release on the 12th of August this year.The high riding musician will release his 7th album this August despite the fact that his current offering Jerusarema is still popular with his fans.Speaking during a media briefing in Harare, Mukudzeyi Mukombe, affectionately known as Jah Prayzah, says although he is not going to dump his traditional beat, he has also added an international flavour to his rhythm."Sezvandakaita pasong Hello ndakaona zvichifarirwa nevanhu, ndava kuda kuisa an international appealing ku music yangu. (Just like I did on the song Hello and my fans loved it, I have added an international flavour to my music)," he said.On Mudhara Vachauya, Jah Prayzah collaborated with Tanzanian artist Naseeb Abdul Juma popularly known by his stage name as Diamond Platnumz.Some of the songs on the forthcoming album include Goto, Seke Mutema, Tsotsi, Hossana and the title track Mudhara Vachauya.
News / Education

by KELLEY TANTAU

A shipping container carrying "luxury" items which will help educate hundreds of children will soon set sail for Zimbabwe.The 20ft (6m) container is at Melville High School in Hamilton where it's hoped well-wishers will donate books, enough to fill it to the brim, before it heads to Africa in July, Driden Kunaka says.Kunaka is the New Zealand chairman of the Zimbabwe Rural Schools Library Trust which is organising the gift. The books are destined for rural schools in Zimbabwe which do not already have reading material."Books are a luxury. Reading is very important and children should get exposed to books at a young age," he says.Melville High School became involved with the trust through one of its students, Deano Roberts.The year 13 student is an ambassador for the trust and said he wanted to help kids in need.So far the school has collected books from neighbouring schools including a wide range of picture books, novels and resource books.But Kunaka said the school has not yet reached the container's capacity. He's asking people to drop off any books in good condition, written in English for children aged five to 18."We appreciate the efforts to enable access to reading material for children in another part of the world, and we are prepared to receive the books on behalf of the trust", said Melville High School principal Clive Hamill.The trust was established in Zimbabwe in 2012 and registered in New Zealand in 2013.Kunaka said work was in progress to register the trust in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom."We are employing new methods of library advocacy which have not been tried elsewhere. Another unique innovation is the use of music to promote and fundraise for library development. We are currently working on a musical album which is facing funding challenges, but we will certainly get there."Books can be delivered to Melville High School or to the office of Sue Moroney on Ulster St, Hamilton, by July 1.The container is expected to arrive in Harare, Zimbabwe on August 15.
News / International

by Staff Reporter

There are reports that the gunman who had barricaded himself inside a cinema complex in western Germany has been shot dead.German media reports suggest a masked man with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in a cinema complex in the small western German town of Viernheim, near Frankfurt, injuring between 20 and 50 people and barricaded himself inside on Thursday.According to Reuters, the gunman has been shot dead.It is unclear if the man was alone or if he has taken hostages.
matt ward/special to go knoxville Seth Von Zipper, Brenda Thomas and Eric Zaremski, from left, at Marie's Olde Towne Tavern, now at 904 N. Central St.

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By Matt Ward, Special to Go Knoxville

It wasn't long ago that most bars allowed smoking inside. They had jukeboxes that took dollar bills with actual records instead of digital mp3 machines that took debit cards or used PayPal. More time was spent on conversation than giving out wifi passwords and staying buried in social media apps on our smartphones. Nothing was gluten free and everything was fried. People hugged each other, they didn't just tag them in a Facebook check-in.

When I think of my first experiences in a bar I end up back in 1980, in Lancaster, Ohio, at a bar my grandma occasionally worked at called Stratenberger's. The bar was always filled with smoke, and always had people in it. Even at 9 a.m., there were people having coffee or the first beer of the day. There were three beer choices: Lowenbrau, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller Lite. I know athat my recollection of being around my grandma directly impacts my opinion of this memory. I loved being with her. I loved it so much so that I never thought it odd that people blew smoke in my face while talking to me at 5 years old. Or that the burger I was eating was so greasy it stained more than one pair of my pants.

Memories are important. We have spent so much time on trying to capture memories on our phones and tablets that we never exercise the recall portion of our brains.

Enter Marie's Olde Towne Tavern. I visited this bar three years ago when it was on Magnolia. Since that time the area has sprouted condos like kudzu and rents have increased substantially. Marie's decided it was time to call it quits and closed their doors not long ago. The customers were all abuzz with news from Marie herself that the bar was simply relocating. Eventually, word got out that Marie's would move to 904 S. Central St., near Happy Holler (in the space formerly occupied by Brewskies and Hughes Tavern).

On a recent visit, I found the new room less narrow than the former location but with about the same amount of square footage. When you first walk in the front door (there is a back door too, just like the old Marie's) you come face to face with some taller tables. To the back left are restrooms. To the right is the bar and in the back of the room was a karaoke set up. No pool tables, only a few darts boards.

I quickly saw Marie and began to chat with her. We hugged, of course, because that is just what I feel you do with someone like Marie Owens. She is a grandma to an entire community. She told me that Bill (McNallie) was now running the bar. We talked at length about the bar. She told me she never liked pool tables in her bar. "Fights start around pool tables," she told me. She also wasn't a fan of having a bunch of televisions all over the room. "I want people to have a conversation, not watch TV," she continued.

Marie talked about their involvement in the community, and one of the patrons told me a story of being down on his luck and Marie offering beers on the house and saying "Sometimes, a man just needs to forget about his problems for a few hours."

That's the kind of place Marie's Olde Towne Tavern is. A community bar in the purest sense of the word. A bar that feeds the homeless in the neighborhood and never turns anyone away. A bar where you can make a second family away from the one at home. Marie's Olde Town Tavern is there for anyone who wants to drop in, have a conversation or just forget about their problems for a few hours.

---

Marie's Olde Towne Tavern

Address: 904 N. Central St.

Web Site: www.facebook.com/Maries-Old-Town-Tavern-452913904791965

Phone: 865-523-4511

Hours: 3 p.m.-12 a.m. seven days a week

Wifi: no

Smoking indoors: yes
Nathan Manis, a Morgan County corrections officer shot during a confrontation with Harriman police in March, has been indicted on aggravated assault and reckless endangerment charges, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. (TBI)

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By News Sentinel Staff

A Morgan County corrections officer shot during a confrontation with Harriman police in March has been indicted on aggravated assault and reckless endangerment charges, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Nathan Manis, 26, who is in the Roane County Jail on unrelated charges, was notified of the new charges Wednesday by TBI agents.

According to authorities, on March 8 two Harriman Police Department officers responded to a reported domestic disturbance at a residence at 505 N. Roane St., where they were met outside by Manis. The Harriman man began shooting when confronted and both officers returned fire, striking him once, TBI said in a news release.

Manis was flown from the scene to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where he was treated for his wound.

Neither officer was injured, and a firearm belonging to Manis was recovered at these scene, according to the TBI.

After the shooting, Manis was placed on leave from his job as a corrections officer at the Morgan County Correctional Complex in Wartburg, where he had worked since 2011. His employment status was not immediately known Wednesday.

Manis was indicted Tuesday by a Roane County grand jury on two counts of aggravated assault and two counts of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Ronald Burch Mashburn

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By News Sentinel Staff

KINGSTON  An Oak Ridge man indicted on charges of sex crimes involving a girl younger than 13 years old that allegedly occurred between 2006 and 2011 posted a $150,000 bond Wednesday night and faces arraignment Monday in Roane County Criminal Court.

Ronald Burch Mashburn, 64, who lives in the Roane County section of Oak Ridge, was indicted Tuesday by the Roane County grand jury on four counts of child rape, one count of attempted rape and eight counts of aggravated sexual battery.

According to the indictments, the sex crimes occurred between July 18, 2006, and July 17, 2011. The victim was born in 2002, according to court records.

The allegations were investigated by an Oak Ridge Police Department detective, the Anderson County Children's Advocacy Center and the state Department of Children's Services, according to the indictment.
Esperanza Vazquez marches with immigrants' rights activists along Gay Street in downtown Knoxville on Thursday. The march comes after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 4-4 vote, upheld a decision blocking President Barack Obama's effort to shield more than 4 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation. The butterfly represents a monarch butterfly, which migrates each year, and has become a symbol for immigrant's rights groups. (CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Lydia X. McCoy of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Kukuly Uriate moved to the United States from Argentina with her mother when she was 16 years old.

But it wasn't until she turned 18 and wanted to attend college to pursue her dreams of psychology and music that her world was devastated  the cost of school would be triple because she was undocumented.

Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, 30-year-old Uriate was able to get a Social Security number, is paying taxes, has a driver's license and is working.

But her dream of school has still been elusive.

A decision Thursday from the U.S. Supreme Court that blocks President Barack Obama's executive order shielding more than 4 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation was another devastating blow, she said.

"It really reopens all the wounds, all the struggle that you can bottle up," Uriate said. "When a day like this comes, it can come crashing real hard but you get used to it. We remain hopeful."

Uriate said young immigrants are often called dreamers.

"I'm still waiting for my dream to come true," she said. "How much longer will I be a dreamer?"

Tennessee joined 25 other states in a lawsuit that challenged the president's executive action.

The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, a statewide immigrant and refugee-led coalition, said the court's decision prevents an estimated 38,000 Tennessee residents from applying for a deferral from deportation and employment authorization.

In Knoxville, immigrants and advocates on Thursday held an informational meeting, walk and rally to show their disappointment with the ruling.

Eleazar Sanchez, 46, who has been in the U.S. for about 20 years, helped organize the events through Comite Popular de Knoxville with the support of Allies of Knoxville's Immigrant Neighbors. He said he and his wife have applied for citizenship at least three times and each time been denied.

His 14-year-old daughter, Liliana, was born in America and he worries the court's decision could affect his family.

"I feel sad because, not only me, but for other families who have kids that were born here, there will be consequences of the Supreme Court's (decision)," he said. "We are fighting for them. We are fighting for my family too. We don't want to be deported. We've been working here hard. We pay taxes. We support the economy and I hope pretty soon that maybe the next candidate does something for us, for immigration."

Sanchez said they will continue to fight.

"This doesn't stop right here," he said. "It gives more energy to us. I feel sad in my heart, it broke my heart, but we still fight."

Fran Ansley, with Allies of Knoxville's Immigrant Neighbors, said Thursday's event was important to bring awareness, not just to the decision, but immigration issues.

"A lot of people are not necessarily paying attention. They may have heard something vague about it but we want to lift it up and let people know this is happening," she said. "We thought it was really important to have something where people who are directly affected by it could speak out exactly because so often they are in the shadows."

Angel Ibarra, a friend of the Sanchez family, said it was unfortunate that they are still fighting to be "equal" and he worries about his parents who are getting older.

"They're getting close to the age where it's time for them to retire, but they're not going to retire because they're undocumented but they've been paying taxes since they've been here," he said of his parents, who have been in the U.S. for 22 years.

Ibarra added that the decision also won't stop them from living their lives.

"I want the Knoxville community to know that this isn't going to stop us from waking up and going to work tomorrow morning," he said. "We're still going to go to work. We're still going to run our businesses. We're still moving on up."
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Last week's murder of Labour Party MP Jo Cox by Thomas Mair highlights the violent emotions that Britain's upcoming referendum on whether to stay in the European Union has ignited. Mair seems to have been driven by a belief that British identity is something timeless, now under attack from the outside forces of immigration, international law and global economics.

British identity is old, but not timeless. Eight centuries ago, writers at the English court crafted powerful national myths that still persist today. They also drew on the same passions that inspired the Crusades to make an England superior to the rest of the world.

In the 1130s, a Welsh cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth popularized stories of the legendary ancient kings of Britain. Replete with wizards, dragons and giants, Geoffrey's "History of the Kings of Britain" was the Harry Potter of its day. According to this book, God had singled out the British people. Their greatness was made evident through men like King Arthur.

Other authors, almost all French-speaking, created their own versions of the Arthur story  the medieval equivalent of fan fiction. Many worked under the patronage of Henry II and his family. They wove English history together with the biblical past, with a heavy sprinkling of myth tossed in. Their elaborations on the Arthurian story reinforced the idea that the medieval kings of England  and the land they ruled  were not only powerful, but had inherited their power directly from God.

Holy objects, both biblical and apocryphal, appeared in these new stories: the spear that pierced Christ's side as he hung on the true cross, and the grail in which Joseph of Arimathea caught Jesus' blood. The Round Table, too, took on a new spiritual identity as a reminder of the Last Supper, Arthur and his knights now mirroring Christ and his Apostles.

These holy objects were reported to have been brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea's family. Such stories therefore imagined Britain as a place where relics of Christ's Passion had come to rest alongside descendants of the Apostles. Just as England's 12th-century kings believed themselves heirs to Arthur's political legacy, they also saw themselves as heirs to God's spiritual legacy on Earth, ruling over a new Jerusalem. To understand the intense emotions of today's Brexit debate, we, too, might need to see England as Jerusalem.

The Arthurian legend was further influenced by an idea from the late 11th century: crusading. Despite the chronological impossibility, Geoffrey imagined that Arthur had fought "Roman" armies composed of pseudo-Muslim kings from Libya, Syria and Egypt. Richard I "the Lionheart," moreover, reportedly took Arthur's sword, Excalibur, with him on crusade in 1189.

England's relationship to Islam is one of the most volatile issues in the Brexit debate. The far-right Britain First party to which Thomas Mair belonged calls for a "comprehensive ban" on Islam. Similarly, Ronald Noble, former head of Interpol, claims that open borders are "a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe." Like Geoffrey's Roman armies full of hostile pseudo-Muslims, Brexit supporters clearly view Europe as a wellspring of Muslim terrorists who threaten the very existence of the British nation.

The belief in British exceptionalism driving today's Brexit movement has its roots in these nationalist ideas, first formulated in the 12th century. Lost in the uproar, however, is the historical irony that the idea of Englishness itself was founded upon stories that celebrated Britain's involvement in European and Near Eastern affairs, written by men who were themselves products of a broad European culture.
Sundress Academy for the Arts hosting barn raising party









Barn raising by SAFTA. Image by SAFTA.

Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) has invited the public to the raising of its new barn at Firefly Farms, the home of SAFTA. The barn raising serves as a thank you to all of SAFTAs donors from the last crowd-funding campaign and those who donated time and energy to build the barn. The event will feature barbeque, beer, and hayloft readings from local artists.



The barn raising party will take place on September 3, 2016 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at 195 Tobby Hollow Lane in Knoxville.



The event is free for all of those who donated during the campaign. There is a suggested donation of $20 for all others. All food and drink will be provided by SAFTA.



The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is an artists' colony on a 45-acre farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists. All are guided by experienced, professional instructors from a variety of creative disciplines who are dedicated to cultivating the arts in Eastern Tennessee.



For more information, visit www.sundresspublications.com/safta. Published June 23, 2016










Lonesome Dove Western Bistro opens Friday, June 24 in Old City

JUNE 23, 2016 at 3:34 p.m.





Chef and Restaurateur Tim Love returns to his alma mater city to debut a third location of his flagship restaurant in the Historic Old City neighborhood.





Tim Love, owner of Lonesome Dove Western Bistro.

Texas chef Tim Love will open the third location of his flagship restaurant Lonesome Dove Western Bistro tomorrow in the historic Patrick Sullivan's building in Knoxville's Old City neighborhood (100 N. Central Street; www.lonesomedoveknoxville.com; 865.999.5251). A former Knoxville resident, Love has strong ties to his alma mater city, having attended the University of Tennessee.



"Knoxville was a natural choice for Lonesome Dove. I have a ton of history here and I love that I have this connection to the city-the people, the businesses, the culture, the school-it makes it that much more exciting to set up here again. Plus, I couldn't turn down an opportunity to open in one of the most iconic buildings in the Old City," says Love. "This is a really ideal time to be opening in Knoxville, and I'm proud to be joining such a welcoming community filled with so many great farmers, restaurants and talented chefs."



At Lonesome Dove Knoxville, Love will serve time-honored favorites alongside a selection of new, Knoxville-inspired dishes made with local ingredients. The menu will feature Love's creative uses of bold flavors, wild game, and signature wood-fired cooking techniques beginning with Love's proprietary Wild Game Fettine, featuring cuts spit-roasted over open mesquite fire and thinly sliced in the style of charcuterie, with selections including Wild boar belly, venison flank and huckleberry; and Pheasant, chukar, quail, cheddar and local sorghum. The Fettine is followed by first, second, and main course offerings, as well as hand-cut steaks and sides.



Menu highlights include:

 Cold Smoked Local Trout with house kimchi and local feta

 Grilled Avocado Bread with charred corn and cotija cheese

 Local Squash Carpaccio with roasted garlic-chili crema and citrus salad

 Stacked Pheasant Enchiladas with Cruze Farms crema and green onion salad

 Elk Loin with Chinese kale, hen of the woods mushrooms, salsify and candied blackberries

 Prime Bone-In Pork Tenderloin with celery root puree and honey crisp apples

 Blue Corn-Crusted Catfish with avocado salad and cilantro-orange butter

 Crispy Goat Crepinette with a potato "hoe cake," and sorrel salad

 Duck Breast with duck-foie gras sausage and pickled nectarines

 Mesquite-Grilled Cauliflower Steak with roasted wild mushrooms, crispy green onion and Meyer lemon vinaigrette

 Beet Home Fries with goat cheese crumbles, lemon and chili



Rounding out the meal, the dessert menu features diverse options such as Peanut Butter-Chocolate Creme Brulee, Ancho Chocolate Cake with smoked almond brittle and vanilla ice cream, Smoked Apple Cobblerwith sorghum ice cream and bourbon caramel, and Churros accompanied by three sauces: chocolate, raspberry and cajeta, a Mexican caramel sauce made with goat's milk.



Lonesome Dove's beverage program will feature the most expansive wine collection in Knoxville, with a focus on domestic bottles, alongside a large collection of notable California Cabernet Sauvignons and several unique Old- and New-world picks. The wine list boasts more than 1,000 bottles and over 15 wines by the glass, all showcased in the restaurant's custom wine cellar.The restaurant's cocktail program will offer specialty drinks, including riffs on classics such asthe Mezcal Negroni with Del Maguey mezcal, Nonino amaro, and Dolin Rouge vermouth; Old City Aviationwith Jackson Avenue gin, Fleur de Lis, maraschino liqueur and lemon; 1888with mint, green chartreuse, amaro, lemon and bourbon; and Remember the Mainwith absinthe, Carpano Antica, Luxardo cherry liqueur and Rittenhouse rye whiskey. Craft beers are also available from local brewers including Blackberry Farms Saison, Highland Gaelic Ale, and YeeHaw Brewing Co. Dunkel, recipient of the 2016 World Beer Cup bronze award.



Housed in the old Patrick Sullivan's Saloon building at the heart of Knoxville's Old City neighborhood, Lonesome Dove was designed by chef Love and his wife Emilie, along with Joel Mozersky and DIA Architects. The decor was inspired by Knoxville's railroad history, with custom linear steel throughout, complemented by rustic accents, such as restored original wood floors and exposed brick walls. The 7,460-square-foot space features two kitchens, two bars, and five distinct dining areas spanning across three floors, including a 15-seat bar, a 10-seat chef's counter opposite the open kitchen, a 120-seat dining room, and two private dining areas  the 130-seat Sullivan Room and 45-seat Fulmer Room. Each space also offers a unique view for diners, from the culinary action in the kitchen and the climate-controlled wine room with shelving for over 1,600 bottles, to the charming streets of Old City. Much of the building's historic character from the original construction has been preserved, maintaining the bright, stained glass windows lining the entryway, the old penny bar top, and four restored working fireplaces.



Tim Love is also the chef/owner of several Texas restaurants, including two additional Lonesome Doves, Woodshed Smokehouse, Love Shack, Queenie's Steakhouse, and White Elephant Saloon; a founding partner of the Austin FOOD & WINE Festival (where he hosts the world's largest hands-on grilling demo); and official chef of Austin City Limits. Love is also co-host of CNBC's Restaurant Startup, where he and co-host Joe Bastianich vie against each other to invest their own money in restaurant concepts they believe will make them millions. Tim lives between Fort Worth and Austin, TX with his wife and three children.



Lonesome Dove Western Bistro Knoxville is open for dinner Monday-Thursday from 4:30-10pm and Friday and Saturday from 4:30-11pm. For more information or to make reservations, call 865-999-5251 or visit www.lonesomedoveknoxville.com. Published June 23, 2016
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zanu PF bigwigs have been looting and corruptly distributing donated Chinese rice worth tens of millions of dollars to ruling party supporters since last year.According to Dailynews, the development has apparently contributed to increasingly strained relations between Harare and Beijing.Zanu PF sources on Wednesday told the publication that the Chinese were appalled and hopping mad over this disgraceful conduct.China donated drought relief rice worth more than $24 million to Zimbabwe in 2015 alone amid claims that some of the rice had been dished out to Zanu PF supporters at rallies across the country.
Korea's exports to China continued to shrink from a year earlier in May, tying the record streak of 11 months of decrease, industry data showed Thursday.

Outbound shipments to China came to $9.93 billion won last month, down 9.1 percent from the same month last year, according to the data from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

The decline apparently contributed to a 6 percent on-year drop in the country's overall exports. China by far is the world's single largest importer of South Korean products, accounting for nearly one fourth of the country's total exports.

South Korea's overall exports have fallen every single month since the start of 2015.

The on-year decline also marked the 11th consecutive month of drop in shipments to China, tying the record shrinking streak posted between October 2008 and August 2009.

The ongoing streak, however, is far more serious than the previous record in its scope, KITA officials noted.

In the first five months of the year, shipments to China plunged 15 percent on-year, greatly outpacing a 5.6 percent drop in 2015 and the record annual decline of 12 percent posted in 1998.

The continuing drop in exports to China was attributed to China's own sagging exports, along with its sluggish local consumption.

In the January-May period, shipments of South Korean semiconductors tumbled 19.1 percent on-year to some $9.15 billion, apparently reflecting a cut in China's own exports and domestic sales of information-technology products that use South Korean parts.

Shipments of display panels plunged 23.1 percent over the cited period, with exports of automobile parts and computers falling 11.4 percent and 11.5 percent on-year, respectively.

Meanwhile, the KITA said the country's exports to the United States slipped 3.2 percent on-year in the five-month period ending May 31, while shipments to Vietnam spiked 10.8 percent. (Yonhap)
Samsung Welstory CEO Kim Bong-yung, center, poses with Jin Yong Jun, left, chairman of Yinlong Agriculture, and Kokubu Akira, president of Kokubu, after signing an agreement to establish a joint food business company at the Jinshan Convention Center in Shanghai, June 22. / Courtesy of Samsung Welstory



By Lee Hyo-sik

Samsung Welstory, a food service affiliate of Samsung Group, has established a joint venture in China to bolster its presence in the rapidly-growing meal services and food distribution market there.

The company, which began doing business in China in 2012, said Thursday that it formed a three-way joint firm, Shanghai Welstory Food, with China's Yinlong Agriculture and Japan's Kokubu.

On Wednesday, Samsung Welstory CEO Kim Bong-yung attended a signing ceremony in Shanghai to begin the joint venture. Jin Yong Jun, chairman of Yinlong Agriculture, and Kokubu Akira, president of Kokubu, also attended the ceremony, pledging to do their part in nurturing the new entity into one of China's major players in the food services market.

Under the agreement, Samsung Welstory holds a 70 percent stake in the joint firm, while Kokubu has a 17.5 percent stake and Yinlong Agriculture 12.5 percent.

"We decided to join hands with our business partners to more effectively capitalize on China's rapidly-expanding food service and distribution markets," Kim said. "The partnership, armed with excellent business capabilities of its three companies, will grow into an organization that will contribute to the advancement of the China's food distribution industry and will become a brand the Chinese will value."

Kokubu is Japan's largest food wholesaler, which earned $15 billion in sales last year. Since it entered China's food distribution market in 2010, the company has established advanced infrastructure for logistics.

Yinlong Agriculture is China's state-run company focusing on cultivating and processing a wide range of agricultural products.

"Samsung Welstory can create a great deal of synergy by combining Kokubu's extensive logistics network and Yinlong Agriculture's high-quality crops and vegetables," the CEO said. "We will continue to expand our presence on the mainland and do the best we can to provide high-quality food service to Chinese consumers at affordable prices."

China's food service market reached 300 trillion won in 2015 and is expected to expand by an annual average of 9.2 percent through 2020, according to the company.

Samsung Welstory is Korea's largest catering service company, wholly owned by Samsung Construction & Trade, which generated 1.73 trillion won in sales last year.

It now supplies 120,000 meals per day to 44 different sites in China and supplies 180,000 meals per day to 28 different sites across Vietnam.

The company aims to earn a total of 800 billion won in sales from its overseas businesses by 2020.
By Lee Hyo-sik



The debt-ridden Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) will likely join the 2M shipping alliance early next year, taking a step closer to normalizing its operations.



The company said Thursday it has begun talking with members of the 2M alliance, headed by industry leader Maersk of Denmark, to gain membership.



If HMM joins the world's largest shipping group, the financially troubled firm will be able to get much-needed financial help from creditors more easily.



Through negotiations with the owners of its chartered vessels over the past month, HMM was able to get fees lowered. It also successfully extended the maturity of its corporate bonds.



If the company joins the 2M alliance, one of the last remaining prerequisites demanded by creditors, it will get fresh funds from the state-run Korea Development Bank and other banks in a debt-for-equity swap scheme, according to HMM officials.



"We began negotiations with 2M after the latter expressed their intentions to positively consider giving us membership," an HMM official said. "HMM and 2M will be good partners by complementing each other's shortcomings. Our membership will create a great deal of synergy for everyone involved."



Korea's second-largest shipping firm was previously talking with THE Alliance for possible membership, but things did not move forward because Hanjin Shipping and other alliance members reportedly opposed HMM joining.



HMM then approached the two other global shipping alliances  2M and the Ocean Alliance  and 2M was keen to accept the Korean firm.



"The 2M alliance is the world's largest but lacks shipping lines between Asia and North America," the official said. "Our extensive operations between the two continents will provide a significant boost to the alliance. The 2M membership will help us lower operating costs, enhance customer service and improve our corporate image."



The official said the company will work out contract terms and it expects to be part of the 2M alliance next April.



"At the same time, we will continue to do the best we can to serve clients as a member of the G6 alliance until next March," the official said.




South Korea's finance minister said Thursday that the government will make all-out efforts to minimize the possible fallout in the local economy from tough corporate restructuring in the shipbuilding sector.

"The government will map out plans to support smooth corporate restructuring and business reorganization, and to improve the competitiveness of key industries," Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said while visiting a shipyard in Ulsan, an industrial city on the southeastern coast.

"We will mobilize all measures to fend off job instability and a slowdown in the local economy."

Nationwide corporate restructuring is underway in the most troubled shipbuilding and shipping sectors, with massive layoffs and bankruptcies of subcontracting companies to be expected.

The latest data showed that the unemployment rate in the southeastern area, where most of the troubled shipbuilders are located, started to rise at a remarkable pace, raising concerns that it would spread to other industries and undermine the entire economy.

Some have argued that the government should take preemptive measures before the fallout from the corporate restructuring becomes more visible.

The finance minister said the government will designate the shipbuilding sector as a specially administered industry to increase the subsidies given to employers and jobless workers.

The government will also help skilled workers laid off from shipbuilding companies get retrained for new jobs in other industries like semiconductor and petroleum, he added.

The measures to support corporate restructuring are expected to be included in a set of stimulus packages scheduled to be released by the finance ministry next week. (Yonhap)
The financially troubled Hyundai Merchant Marine on Thursday said that its talks to be part of the world's largest shipping alliance have made significant progress, raising hopes that the negotiation will soon be completed.



Hyundai Merchant said it has been seeking to join the group, 2M, spearheaded by AP Moller-Maersk A/S.



Hyundai Merchant has been implementing tough restructuring moves set by its creditors. The creditors, led by the state-run Korea Development Bank, demand that the country's No. 2 shipping line be included in a global shipping alliance in order to avert court receivership.



"We have been in talks with 2M and in negotiations," the shipper said.



Separately, Hyundai Merchant has been in negotiations to be part of another shipping group, The Alliance, whose members include bigger local rival Hanjin Shipping.



Membership in a global alliance is very important for the shipper to take on bigger rivals amid a glut in capacity, which has led to a drop in freight rates.



Hyundai Merchant and Hanjin Shipping, saddled with mounting debts and falling freight rates, have been dogged by their creditors to implement thorough restructuring schemes.



Among others, they have been pressed to cut higher charter rates and reschedule debts owed to private investors.



Earlier this month, Hyundai Merchant reached an agreement with owners of its chartered ships to cut leasing rates by slightly over 20 percent over the coming 3 1/2 years.



Under the deal whose final terms are to be unveiled later this month, Hyundai Merchant and its ship owners agreed in principle to slash the charter rates by 21 percent for a 42-month period, which Hyundai Merchant claims will save some 530 billion won ($455 million) in total.



Hyundai Merchant said it will swap half of the amount for its stocks, and the remaining will be paid after 2022 over a five-year period.



Also, bondholders of Hyundai Merchant Marine approved a 804.2 billion-won debt rescheduling proposal, under which more than half of its debt will be swapped for the shipper's stocks and the remaining debt will be paid back in two years.



The creditors also agreed to swap 680 billion won worth of debt for the shipper's stocks, as part of an effort to keep the shipper afloat. Hyundai Merchant had debts of 5.2 trillion won as of the end of March.



Stocks of Hyundai Merchant surged by the daily permissible limit of 30 percent to close at 15,400 won on the Seoul bourse. (Yonhap)




Kia Motors, Korea's No. 2 carmaker, said Thursday it has ranked highest among nameplates in a U.S. quality test, beating Porsche and other premium brands.

"Kia ranks highest in initial quality with a score of 83 PP100, the first time in 27 years that a non-premium brand has topped the rankings," J.D. Power and Associates, a U.S.-based marketing information service company, said in the 2016 U.S. Initial Quality Study, referring to problems experienced per 100 vehicles (PP100).

The study examines problems experienced by vehicle owners during the first 90 days of ownership. Initial quality is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with a lower score reflecting higher quality, according to J.D. Power and Associates.

"It is also the second consecutive year that Kia, which ranked second in 2015, has led all non-premium makes in initial quality," said the U.S. company, adding that non-premium brands had fewer problems than premium brands for the first time since 2006.

Porsche ranked second among nameplates in the quality test with 84 PP100, followed by Hyundai Motor (92 PP100), Toyota Motor (93 PP100) and BMW (94 PP100).

J.D. Power and Associates said Hyundai and Kia models that ranked highest in their segments are the Hyundai Accent, Hyundai Azera, Kia Soul and Kia Sportage.

Hyundai and its smaller affiliate Kia, which together form the world's fifth-largest automaker, said the latest quality test could boost sales of their vehicles and improve their brands.

The quality study is based on responses from more than 80,000 purchasers and lessees of new 2016 model-year vehicles surveyed after 90 days of ownership. The study was fielded from February through May. (Yonhap)
Korea Development Bank Chairman Lee Dong-geol speaks during a press conference at the state-run financer's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap



KDB chairman apologizes for failure to control debt-riddled companies

By Nam Hyun-woo

Two state-run banks that have been under fire for their negligence in reining in debt-riddled shipbuilders and shippers announced their reform packages, Thursday, but questions still linger over their plans to "regain the public trust."

Korea Development Bank (KDB) Chairman Lee Dong-geol said in a press conference that the bank will establish a consultative body comprised of members from within and outside of the bank to enhance its restructuring capacity.

"I took this post only four months ago, but it feels like four years have passed. I'm spending the hardest time in my 40-year career in the financial sector these days," said Lee, adding that he apologizes for causing public concerns.

KDB also pledged it will strengthen its control over outgoing employees' reemployment in companies that the bank has shares. The 132 non-financial companies that the bank holds stakes in will not be able to hire former KDB employees.

However, such a plan caused questions because the bank exceptionally allowed reemployment in companies where it has the right to make hiring recommendations, having the largest share and being the main creditor. KDB sent its former ranking official to Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) to serve as CFO, but did not prevent the company from falling into ruin, with the Board of Audit and Inspection holding KDB responsible.

Lee said that the bank will also make improvements in its credit review system and asset portfolio so that it can "fully fulfill the role of policy lender."

"By setting up a KDB reform committee, the bank will conduct self scrutiny all over the bank's business and come up with details by the end of September," Lee said. KDB will cut the number of its employees by 10 percent until 2021 as a way of taking responsibility for the belated restructuring.

"There were huge faults in overseeing the (shipbuilding and shipping) industries in a broader view and severing the past wrong deeds. We will take the criticisms as an opportunity to improve ourselves," Lee added.

On the same day, the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) also announced aits reform package. Eximbank said it will lower its ratio of loans classified as substandard or below to 2 percent until 2020, as well as downsizing its organization and cutting its budget. Also, as part of "reforming itself," ranking officials will return their salaries, while all employees will return a part of their salaries, nullifying a pay raise.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Police yesterday warned motorists from taking heed of a circulation on social media calling on them not to stop at roadblocks in protest.In a statement, Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) through its spokesperson Charity Charamba, described the calls from the protest group going by the name "Tajamuka" as "offensive and alarming"."Members of the public are being informed that the law will take its course on an individual or gangsters who intend to cause alarm and despondency by encouraging motorists not to stop when they are approached by police officers on traffic enforcement points and roadblocks," Charamba said.The group going by the name Tajamuka had, according to ZRP set July 1 as the date to start the protests."We want to strongly warn these individuals who are well known for their machinations not to interfere with police operations," said Charamba.
/Courtesy of Twitter



By Lee Han-soo

Three couples in their 20s who allegedly turned to prostitution after they used all their travel cash have been arrested in Busan.

The couples, who were unemployed, traveled to Busan in a rental car. When their money ran out on the third day, one of the men proposed earning cash through prostitution, according to Sasang police station.

They all agreed and each was assigned a role -- from gathering customers to a driver and a hooker.

For seven days from June 13, the men found clients through chatting applications and charged each customer 100,000 won ($86) to 200,000 won. They earned over 3 million won, police said.

Police, who were closely monitoring the chat apps, shut down the ring on Monday.

"The incident is regrettable as one couple had dated for over a year," police said.

They booked the couples without detention on prostitution charges.
By Kang Seung-woo

President Park Geun-hye ordered the military to strongly retaliate against any North Korean provocations, Thursday, amid growing military threats from Pyongyang.

She also warned of continued sanctions and pressures on the repressive state to make sure that it abandons its nuclear program and sets a course for true change.

"With the international community's tough sanctions on the North gradually taking effect, it may opt for unexpected provocative actions," Park said at a luncheon in Cheong Wa Dae with some 70 top military commanders, including Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Lee Sun-jin.

The meeting was held one day after the North test-fired two Musudan intermediate range missiles off its east coast  one of them being seen as a partial success.

"The military is required to remain on high alert to counter all possible North Korean provocations," she said, urging a stern response from the military.

In March, the U.N. imposed the toughest sanctions yet on the North for its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6, and long-range rocket launch Feb. 7, both of which violated U.N. resolutions.

To protest the international punishment and ease pressure, the Kim Jong-un regime has conducted a series of provocations, including test-firing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and unveiling a miniaturized nuclear warhead.












Rep. Kim Su-min of the minority opposition People's Party enters the Seoul Western District Prosecutor's Office, Thursday, to be questioned over allegations that she received illegal funds from campaign promoters ahead of the general election in April. Kim, the youngest lawmaker in the National Assembly, is suspected of having received the funds through payments which two campaign promoters made to her design company. / Yonhap



Youngest lawmaker denies allegations of receiving kickbacks



By Kim Bo-eun

The prosecution summoned Rep. Kim Su-min of the minority opposition People's Party, Thursday, for questioning over allegations that she received illegal funds from campaign promoters before the general election in April.

Kim, 29, the youngest member of the 20th National Assembly, is suspected of having received 238 million won ($207,000) in kickbacks through false contracts drawn up between her design company and a campaign materials supplier and TV marketing company.

There are also suspicions that Kim provided some of the funds to party members at their request.

"There was nothing like a bribe and I'll tell the truth to prosecutors," she told reporters when she arrived at the Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office.

Earlier this month, the National Election Commission (NEC) filed a complaint with the prosecution against five individuals  Kim, the party's former Secretary General Park Sun-sook, Vice Secretary General Wang Joo-hyeon and the heads of the two companies which allegedly provided funds to Kim.

Park, who led the party campaign and was in charge of the party's finances, is suspected of having falsified campaign expenditure records submitted to the NEC.

The NEC covered only parts of the expenditures for the party's promotional materials, saying the total amount seemed exaggerated.

The prosecution raided the offices of the two companies after the NEC filed the complaint.

Kim and the People's Party have been denying the allegations.

Earlier, the party conducted an internal investigation led by Rep. Lee Sang-don and concluded that Kim did not bear any legal responsibility.

Lee said the money Kim's design company, Brand Hotel, accepted was for services and that the money was still in its bank account, refuting claims that it had gone to other party members.

However, there are suspicions that the money was provided through other means.

"We questioned her over her role in her company's money acceptance, and whether Wang and Park ordered it or were involved in other ways," a prosecutor said. "We are examining who should be held accountable."

Also in question is how Kim's company won the deal to design the party's logo.

Kim, who majored in visual design, founded the company after graduating from university.

Others have raised suspicions over Kim's nomination, considering her age and that she had no prior experience in politics.

Kim was nominated without a review of her credentials or an interview, but the party said this was a common practice.

Kim's father Kim Hyun-bae was also a lawmaker. He was a member of the New Korea Party, the predecessor of the ruling Saenuri Party.

The prosecution earlier summoned Wang on June 16 for questioning and will summon Park on Monday.

The investigations are likely to affect the image of the party, which has been emphasizing "clean politics" and also that of co-leader Ahn Cheol-soo.

Kim earned a National Assembly seat through proportional representation in the April election.

Meanwhile, regarding the prosecution's questioning of Kim, Saeuri Party said all the suspicions must be clarified.

"The prosecution must thoroughly and strictly investigate this case," party spokesman Ji Sang-wuk said. "If the People's Party does not await the results of the investigation and blindly take Kim's side, the public will turn their back to it," he said.
By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea's latest launch of the mid-range missile shows Pyongyang might have made progress in re-entry technology necessary to bring a nuclear-armed ballistic missile back into the Earth's atmosphere, analysts said Thursday.

Military officials here are paying keen attention to the report that the North's Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), launched Wednesday morning, reached an altitude of more than 1,000 kilometers above sea level and then landed in the East Sea.

This means that the Musudan flew into space and returned to Earth, given that the Karman line at an altitude of 100 kilometers is usually used as the border between the atmosphere and outer space.

The IRBMs, believed to have a range of 3,000 to 4,000 kilometers, could strike any target in Japan and also reach Guam, home to U.S. naval and air bases.

A military official here said on the condition of anonymity that this was the first time one of the North's missiles has reached an altitude of more than 1,000 kilometers and returned to Earth.

But the official added that verification is needed as to whether or not its warhead was damaged while re-entering the atmosphere.

If the North has actually acquired the capability of re-entry, it would mean that the regime is in the final stages of developing middle- and long-range ballistic missiles, according to experts.

When announcing the successful launch of the "Hwasong-10," the name of the Musudan in the North, Thursday, the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed that the missile reached a maximum altitude of 1,413.6 kilometers and fell precisely onto a designated target 400 kilometers away in the sea.












By Jun Ji-hye

Park Sung-choon

Three opposition parties submitted a joint resolution to the National Assembly, Thursday, calling on President Park Geun-hye to dismiss Patriots and Veterans Affairs Minister Park Sung-choon.

The resolution, signed by the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) and two smaller parties  the People's Party and the Justice Party  claimed that the minister insulted the spirit of the May 18 democratic uprising held in Gwangju in 1980 by planning to hold a controversial military parade in the city to commemorate the 1950-53 Korean War.

The parties claimed that the minister included the Army's 11th Airborne Special Forces Brigade in the parade, despite its role in suppressing the pro-democracy movement, during which hundreds of civilians were killed and wounded by the military.

As the controversy deepened, the ministry canceled the parade earlier this week, saying that the city as well as civic groups in the region did not want it to take place.

The resolution also criticized Minister Park, a retired Army lieutenant general, for causing a stir last month when he decided not to accept the symbolic pro-democracy song, "Imeul Wihan Haengjingok" (March for the Beloved), as the official song for a government-led memorial service for the pro-democracy movement.

"He also severely damaged the political neutrality of civil servants when he supported President Park Geun-hye during the 2012 presidential election. He also unilaterally glorified former President Park Chung-hee," the resolution reads.

The late Park, the father of the incumbent President, has been criticized by liberals for his dictatorial rule spanning across the 1960s and 1970s.

"The minister did not fulfill the basic duties of a government official," the resolution reads. "We strongly urge President Park to immediately fire him."

The resolution will be passed if a majority of lawmakers attend a plenary session, and a majority of those in attendance vote for it. President Park will then decide whether to fire the minister.

Previously, the opposition parties submitted resolutions demanding the firing of the veterans affairs minister twice, once in 2013 and again in 2015, but the ruling Saenuri Party, which held the majority on both occasions, rejected them.

This time, however, the resolution will likely be passed because three opposition parties hold a total of 166 seats in the 300-member parliament.
By Kim Se-jeong



Hallyu, or the Korean cultural wave, is the top reason foreign tourists visit Seoul, and more want to experience local people's lives and Korean traditions rather than go sightseeing, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG).



The SMG said Thursday it conducted in-depth interviews with 30 people who came to the city in May to collect their feedback and brainstorm new tourism policies.



Most of the tourists said Korean soap operas and music performances by idol groups were the main factors that brought them to the city. Those from North America said the tragic history of the Korean War (1950-53) and lingering tensions between South and North Korea were also big reasons.



The interviews found more travelers are moving from sightseeing to experience-based itineraries. One example was visiting royal palaces in traditional hanbok clothes, while others said they wanted to have chicken and beer delivery at their guesthouses.



Asked about Seoul's image, many answered it is a young city constantly evolving with new technologies.



The interviewees lauded Seoul's diverse blend of modernity and tradition. They also praised the city's convenient public transportation system, high-speed internet and safety.



When it comes to interaction with locals, they said city dwellers seemed busy all the time but were kind and warm when interacting with travelers.



Asked about room for improvement, many tourists said the city should upgrade its tourism infrastructure to accommodate people of different cultural and religious backgrounds. One suggested the city have prayer rooms for Muslim travelers. Other suggestions included restaurants for vegetarians, menus with detailed lists of ingredients and more bidets in restrooms.



"We conducted the focus group interview to get an in-depth understanding of tourists' needs, which cannot be obtained through multiple-choice surveys of a large number of people," a city official said.



Of the 30 interviewees, 11 were from China, six from Japan, three from Taiwan and Hong Kong, four from Southeast Asia and six from North America. The numbers were based on the ratio of tourists coming to Korea.




Korea's top economic policymaker will visit China later this week for the first annual general meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the opening ceremony of the won-yuan direct market there, the ministry here said Thursday.

Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho will depart Friday to attend the first AIIB General Assembly in Beijing slated for Saturday, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

Yoo will deliver a keynote speech at the meeting about the role and future of the China-led development bank.

The AIIB meeting will decide the host country for the second annual assembly for next year, while South Korea was earlier picked as the sole candidate country.

Initiated by China, the AIIB was formally launched earlier this year, with 57 founding members including South Korea, in a bid to promote economic growth in the Asian region by supporting infrastructure investment.

South Korea has a 3.81 percent stake, the fifth largest among member countries.

The South Korean finance minister will also participate in a ceremony on Friday to celebrate the opening of the market for direct trading of the South Korean won and the Chinese yuan.

The Chinese won-yuan exchange market is a follow-up to a summit meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in October 2015.

South Korea's Hana Bank and Woori Bank have been designated as the clearing banks to take charge of won-yuan settlements and payments.

The direct trade market in Seoul was already opened in December 2014 with its daily turnover reaching an average of $2.26 billion as of end-November last year. (Yonhap)
South Korea said Thursday that it has agreed, in principle, with France to increase the number of weekly passenger flights between Incheon and Paris to 14 from the current 12.

The deal was reached in a meeting of aviation officials between the two countries in Paris earlier this week, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Still, the ministry said the exact timing of increased flights between the two cities are set to be decided in follow-up talks scheduled for next March.

The two sides also agreed to allow Korean Air Lines to operate cargo flights two times a week until March.

Paris is the one of the most popular destinations for South Korean tourists.

A total of 580,114 people used the Incheon-Paris route in 2015, compared with 487,321 in 2013, according to the ministry. (Yonhap)
Korea University President Yeom Jae-ho, second from left, speaks during an inaugural forum of the presidents of 10 Seoul-based private universities at Yonsei University's Seoul campus, June 13. Sitting with Yeom are, from left, Ewha Womans University President Choi Kyung-hee, Yonsei University President Kim Yong-hak and Hanyang University President Lee Young-moo. / Yonhap



By Chung Hyun-chae



Presidents of the top 10 private universities in Seoul have stressed that local universities should seek changes and present a new vision to embrace challenges arising from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.



"In an era when artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans in many significant aspects, universities should change how they cultivate future leaders and conduct research. Otherwise they will face insurmountable challenges," Yonsei University President Kim Yong-hak said. "Institutes of higher education stand at a crossroads now."



He made the remarks in his presentation to the inaugural forum of the presidents of the 10 universities on the Yonsei campus in Seoul on June 13. The participating universities include Korea, Hanyang, Sogang and Chung-Ang universities.



The forum, which is the first of its kind, came amid a growing sense of crisis facing local universities amid the deceasing number of students due to the low birthrate and the advent of the information era.



Kim cited a financial and identity crisis as just two of the major challenges local universities have to overcome, calling for educational reform.



Promoting active learning



"We should discuss what and how universities should teach our students as well as how we should go about recruiting students," Korea University President Yeom Jae-ho said.



Describing students of the 10 universities as great talents, Yeom pointed out that for most of their lives they have been educated in a passive way.



"Higher education should be conducted in ways that can help students realize their potential instead of just bestowing knowledge upon them," Yeom said.



This year, Korea University abolished merit-based scholarships that are available in accordance with one's scholastic achievements.



"We have also phased out the relative grading system and let students take tests without supervisors," Yeom said. "These are some of our efforts to change teaching and learning methods."



He stressed that universities should make all-out efforts to help students become active learners.



"I think universities should promote experience-based learning through which students are able to gain practical knowledge from their own experience," Kim said.



Given that all Yonsei University freshmen are required to live in a dormitory on the university's Songdo campus in Incheon starting from 2014, he said that Yonsei can initiate such educational reforms.



"For example, a professor can assign students to find ways to plant more trees around Songdo, a new city built on reclaimed land along Incheon's waterfront," Kim said.



He stressed the importance of developing problem-solving skills. "If needed, the university is willing to provide financial support for undergraduates to conduct projects."



Student-centered education



Ewha Womans University President Choi Kyung-hee noted that universities should offer custom-tailored education.



She introduced Ewha's new programs in which students can select their courses and spend one semester engaged in activities such as internships while taking courses online.



Hanyang University President Lee Young-moo said the university is focusing on startup education to help students more effectively deal with the challenges of the future.



Hanyang started a 16-week non-degree startup course in 2012 in which anyone can participate.



Lee noted that 223 new startups were established through the course and they generated more than 80 billion won in sales in 2015.



Cooperation among universities



Lee also called for collaboration in startup education among local universities, citing the cases of Ivy League colleges in the United States.



"I suggest that the 10 private universities jointly establish a dormitory abroad to help our students start their own business in other countries," Lee said.



Choi also said that cooperation among the universities can generate significant synergy for globalization.



"I hope local universities of similar founding philosophies and visions will stop competing with each other and join hands to raise global competitiveness," Choi said.



Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) President Kim In-chul said that his university welcomes collaboration with other universities and is willing to provide its resources.



He said HUFS, which specializes in foreign languages and regional studies, is offering language courses for students of the Korea National University of Arts.

"It's time for local universities to work together to compete with the world's top universities," Kim said.
South Korea's foreign minister urged the international community Thursday to send a clear and strong message against North Korea's nuclear weapons development as the communist country boasted the successful launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile earlier this week.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se made the call in his first public comments since North Korea launched two Musudan missiles Wednesday, one of which flew 400 kilometers before landing in targeted waters in the East Sea.

The North has pursued missile and nuclear development in tandem, vowing to build nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

"The NSG needs to send a clear, loud and powerful message against North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, the number one threat to the international non-proliferation regime at this critical juncture," Yun said in an address before the 48 member nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which seeks to support the non-proliferation regime through controls on the exports of nuclear material.

"As long as North Korea continues to defy the non-proliferation regime, we, the whole world, should remind North Korea that its misbehavior will have unbearable costs," he said. (Yonhap)
News / Regional

by Staff reporter

Gwanda residents rejected the proposed Local Government Laws Amendment Bill which seeks to regulate the operations of councils and give the responsible minister the powers to suspend mayors, councillors and chairpersons.The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Rural and Urban Development was in Gwanda this Tuesday to conduct a public hearing on the proposed bill.Former Gwanda mayors Rudo Mpofu and Mr Thandeko Zinti Mnkandla were unanimous in rejecting the proposed amendment bill saying councils should be autonomous in their operations while the Gwanda Residents Association questioned the intentions of the amendments.The Acting Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Joseph Tshuma expressed concern that the contributions of the participants were influenced by their political persuasions.The Local Government Laws Amendment Bill seeks to amend the Rural District Councils Act and Urban Councils Act in order to align the provisions of the acts with the constitution.
A Hwasong-10 strategic ballistic missile is launched in this photo released by the Rodong Sinmun, Thursday. The paper claimed North Korea successfully test-fired an intermediate range ballistic missile, Wednesday. / Yonhap



Kim Jong-un hails progress in missile technology

By Yi Whan-woo

North Korea hailed a purported successful test of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), Thursday, claiming that it has secured technology to attack U.S. forces in the Pacific.

The launch comes at a time when South Korea and the United States are discussing deployment of an advanced missile defense system on South Korean soil.

Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that a Hwasong-10 missile reached an altitude of 1,413.6 kilometers before re-entering the atmosphere and landing in waters about 400 kilometers away from the launch site in Wonsan, Wednesday.

The Hwaseong-10, which South Korean authorities have been calling the Musudan, correctly travelled along a projected path, it said.

"We used a high-arc trajectory after simulating the maximum travel range of the ballistic missile," the agency said. "It hit the target, proving its steady flight as well as endurance against high heat in the re-entry phase."

It added that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the test "a great event."

"The whole world, including our enemies, will be able to learn about capabilities of our intermediate-range strategic rocket by just looking at its trajectory," the leader was quoted as saying. "We now certainly have secured the ability to attack U.S. forces in the Pacific."





North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and military officials applaud after the launch of a Hwasong-10 missile in Wonsan, Wednesday. / Yonhap



The leader claimed this ability will bolster "capabilities of preemptive nuclear attacks" in order to protect the country from the U.S. and other hostile forces.

The Rodong Simun, the official newspaper of North Korean Workers' Party, released a collection of photos taken at the launch site on the first three pages of its Thursday paper.
By Kim Chea-hup

For some people, life is full of pain and hardship. Ironically, my ordeal, and those of many Koreans in my generation, began soon after the happiest moment in the nation's modern history  liberation from the long, harsh rule of the Japanese colonialists.

Everything seemed to be okay and peaceful for some time after Aug. 15, 1945, at my rural village in North Korea. All the neighbors worked in the fields, sowing and harvesting crops together. But their relationships became sourer day by day because of ideological clashes. Some lost their senses and went crazy. They were in a state of constant alarm, and began to hate one another.

In 1948, a dictatorial regime was set up in North Korea under the patronage of the former Soviet Union. The communist party began to watch and oppress people's daily lives and harass people whom they regarded as impure to wipe them out. The so-called reactionaries were taken to the police station and thrown into concentration camps. The regime confiscated land from their owners and removed them from their hometowns to far-off strange regions.

My father was one of such landowners. The traditional Korean house our family used to live in was handed down from our ancestors, who had lived there more than a hundred years. But the party ordered us to go to a hut on a steep mountain range on the border of Manchuria near the Yalu River.

I attended a high school located in an unfamiliar region far away from my home because I had to conceal my family background. I lived a solitary life suffering from poverty and insecurity. The chief aim of school education was to plant the seeds of communist ideology into the minds of young students.

I rented a small room on the outskirts of the town near the school, and I cooked my meals and washed my clothes. I drew my food rations from the local public distribution store twice a month, but the provisions were not enough, forcing me to skip lunch almost every day. My landlady and her daughter, surnamed Lee, who was a high school student, were very kind to me and helped me as much as they could. Sometimes, she heated my room with her fire wood, often washed my clothes for me and gave me food when my rice jar dried up.

On the morning of June 25, 1950, North Korea launched an all-out war against the south, marching past the 38th parallel. In a week, Seoul had fallen into the hands of the North Korean soldiers, who moved down to the Nakdong River in the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula. At dawn on Sept. 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur led a successful landing in Incheon, and defeated the North Korean army. In January 1951, however, the Chinese communist army crossed the river with the human-wave strategy and pushed down through the peninsula.

On one of those days, my mother said to me, "My son, listen to me carefully. I saw this morning American soldiers beginning to move back south. You get up now, put your necessities into a bag, and leave here for some safe place in the south. Peace will come again and this country will be unified sooner or later. Then we will get together again. You only take care of yourself. God will always be with you and lead you on the safe and right path with His blessings and love."

It was the last time I ever saw my mother and they were the last words that I heard her speak. I left home by myself to save my life leaving my dear family behind in the north.

In 1952, the medical company of the 27th Regiment of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division was stationed on Geoje Island in South Gyeongsang Province to manage the North Korean POW camps. One evening I went into the sick ward and found dozens of patients lying on the sick beds crying and weeping. Amid the sorrowful groans, a feeble voice asked for water, and the doctor told me to give the female patient some water. She seemed to be a very serious case. Her face was pale and as white as a sheet of paper.

She kept staring at my face, and suddenly her face changed to red. She suddenly cried out in trembling and exciting voice, "If I am not mistaken, you are Mr. Kim from North Korea. You must be Kim. Why can't you recognize me? I am Lee. You forgot me already? You stayed in my house in the north when you were in school, right?" I was so startled that I did not know what to say.

The doctor told me to leave the sick room. I said good-bye to her and went to my quarters. She begged me not to go away leaving her alone but stay beside her. In all my life I have never suffered so much. It was as if I was struck by lightning. I staggered, fainted and wept all night.

The next day, she and other patients were sent to Busan. A few days later we were informed Lee passed away. My heart was filled with grief and pity for her and her mother in the north. She was happy and cheerful in her youth. But she was sad and suffering great agony in her last breath.

For more than half a century, I have suffered the pains of living alone without family in this rough, strange world. I continue to be haunted by sad and pitiful images of my mother of the day I parted from her, of the day my family was forced to move out from our old home in heavy rain by armed North Korean policemen.

All these images and memories of the past still break my heart. The love I have for my family and my old home still brings me great agony. I am too old to defeat my lamentation. I am too weak to overcome the agony of the doom of life in this world. Instead of longing to meet my family in the north, I just pray for their safe and peaceful lives and that they could have the courage to overcome worldly affliction.

The writer served as an interpreter for U.S. Army soldiers during the Korean War. He lives in Incheon now. He does not use the Internet and has no email address.
Scandalous appointments atrophy Arirang



The government has turned Arirang TV, the state-subsidized global all-English channel with great potential for projecting Korea's soft power, into a political trash can.



By appointing CEOs not for their expertise or passion but only for their loyalty, the 20-year-old ambitious effort to export hallyu, or Korean pop culture, worldwide, has been adrift with no purpose or direction.



It remains to be seen whether new CEO Moon Jae-wan will buck this lineage of misfits. Moon, a law school professor, has been accused by critics of being pro-government. For instance, he has allegedly helped big newspapers acquire TV channels in a deal widely believed to muffle their criticism.



He is also a close associate of Bang Suk-ho, his predecessor. Bang was forced to step down early in February over personal corruption and incompetence after serving only a third of his three-year term. He took his family on an official trip to accompany President Park Geun-hye for a speech at the United Nations in New York, which was first revealed on his daughter's Instagram posting. During the stay, he rented an expensive car, had a $1,000 meal and paid them with his company credit card. He hired an outsider to produce a program for 1.2 billion won, which proved to be a dud.



In between Bang and Moon, Kim Goo-chul was also considered for the job. A former TV reporter, Kim wrote a book in praise of Park ahead of her presidential campaign.



Before Bang, Chung Sung-keun, a former TV anchor, was appointed to the job while preparing for a run in the April parliamentary general election. Less than a year after he took the job, he was nominated to be the culture minister but he withdrew his nomination after it was revealed that he hosted a drinking party in between sessions of his confirmation hearings and lied about his record of driving under the influence. Chung ran for the legislature as a member of the ruling Saenuri Party without success.



Sohn Jie-ae, a former CNN correspondent, served as the last Arirang CEO in the Lee Myung-bak government but she was yanked off the job after the Park government took over.



All of them except for Sohn have never worked in the field of English journalism. New CEO Moon worked for an economic newspaper but his experience with broadcasting is limited to his stint in related organizations. Bang worked as an outside director for the state-run KBS TV. Sohn's lack of administrative experience made her an odd ball, failing to bring the organization under her control.



In other words, the government, current and previous, has a strong tendency to consider Arirang as just another state-influenced organization, whose CEO post is up for grabs by one of the friends of friends of the President.



That's too bad. Anybody who travels overseas can readily appreciate the power of Arirang, reaching over 130 million households around the world via eight satellites, which is by far the most potent tool to project Korea globally. Arirang has a less intrusive appeal than KBS World, an affiliate with the state-run broadcaster, and thereby can be more effective in promoting things Korean.



Under the government with a parochial global view, which appoints people with no philosophy as its leaders, Arirang has lost much of its potential. It is an open question whether under the new CEO, its hemorrhaging will stop.




North Korea confirmed its commitment to develop the ability to strike U.S. military bases on the Pacific island of Guam on Thursday, trumpeting the success of its new medium-range ballistic missile test the previous day. The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying that the launch now gives his country "the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater.'' Pyongyang test-fired two Musudan missiles Wednesday and one of them flew 400 kilometers into the East Sea.



The seemingly successful test marked a significant step forward for the reclusive state's weapons program, which is ultimately aimed at developing a proven nuclear strike capability against the U.S. mainland. Since April, the North has tested six Musudan missiles, including the two on Wednesday, and only the last test appeared to be successful, meaning that it has achieved progress in midrange missile technology through its previous failures.



The international community condemned the North's latest missile launches, which violated United Nations Security Council resolutions banning such tests.



As has been repeatedly pointed out, the impoverished state has nothing to gain from its missile tests. Its isolation will deepen and international sanctions will be strengthened.



But the progress in Pyongyang's missile technology has significant implications strategically, given that bases in Guam as well as the whole of South Korea and Japan could be hit by the midrange missiles.



The American bases in Guam are tasked with sending military reinforcements to the Korean Peninsula in the case of emergency. If the threat of the North's midrange missiles becomes a reality with the advancement of its warhead miniaturization technology, the U.S. bases would be exposed outright to the North's nuclear threat. The decades-old alliance between Seoul and Washington might be imperiled eventually if the U.S. hesitates to come to the aid of South Korea, faced with Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.



Sadly, there is no quick-fix solution to the North's mounting nuclear and missile threats. Given the complexity of international politics, one can hardly expect China, North Korea's long-time ally, to act decisively. Fortunately, the U.S., which would face a clear and present danger from the North, could come forward more actively to address the North's nuclear gridlock, but this would be possible only in the next U.S. administration.



There is little Seoul can do now to break the stalemate except for trying to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang. But it will be necessary to seek dialogue over time.




Kim Ye-na / Yonhap





By Jhoo Dong-chan

A Boston high school senior has set up a non-profit organization, Nabi: Justice For Comfort Women, to promote awareness of the women who were forced into sex slavery by Imperial Japan in the latter years of its occupation of Korea (1910-45).

Korea-born Kim Ye-na, who immigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was in 7th grade, established the organization with her friends at New South High School in Boston two years ago, with her English teacher Marie-Kate Kasper and 13 members participating in her cause.

"The organization faced strong opposition from Japanese students in the school, but it is nothing compared to what the comfort women had been through during the Japanese occupation," said Kim.

"We will continue our struggle to educate more Americans on the comfort women issue."

Kim's organization, Nabi, hosted a movie night at her school, screening "Spirits' Homecoming" last month. Released in February, the movie illustrates the story of two teenage girls who were kidnapped and sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers during wartime.

Students, parents and teachers who attended the screening have agreed that the wartime sex slavery issue should be addressed as violation of fundamental human rights, she added.

"A Japanese student complained about the movie via email," Kim was quoted as saying.

"The student said, Why won't those old ladies just shut up?' I just felt pity for those that might be ignorant due to a lack of history education. I will continue to let more people know about the issue."

Kim decided to form the organization when she was a freshman. She participated in the school's speech contest, speaking about wartime sex slavery.

Kim said she was very surprised by the fact that not only her fellow students, but also many of her teachers did not know about the issue.

"I was very shocked. The comfort women issue is one of universal resentment among Koreans but was rather new to people here," she said.

As her organization's first project, Kim carried out a project publishing and selling illustrated books about the wartime sex slavery in the downtown Boston area. Over 200 illustrators applied, of which Kim worked with 20 Korean illustrators on the project.

She donated all the proceeds from the sale of the books to The House of Sharing, a home for former comfort women in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Two Korean battery producers seen to get certification in August



By Kim Yoo-chul



China may overturn its latest decision to ban nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries produced by LG Chem and Samsung SDI in electric buses, an influential market research firm said Thursday.



"We continue to believe that the NMC ban will be modified or overturned as NMC is a far superior chemistry with higher energy density and lower cost," Bernstein Research senior analyst Mark C. Newman said in a report to clients.



He said even Chinese battery producers are working aggressively on NMC technology.



"The NMC ban for e-buses has already been in effect since early this year," the report said. "Samsung SDI is working to replace this business with e-trucks and other large battery sales until the NMC ban is resolved."



In line with the observation, Newman expects LG Chem and Samsung SDI to get certification in August, at the earliest, and as long as certification is received this year the business impact should be minimal.



C.S. Song, head of LG Chem's public relations team, said the world's biggest battery maker will submit its revised request for certification to China soon. "LG Chem will do our best to get certification for the NMC batteries," Song said.



"While the certification issue has not led to any direct ban yet, it could in 2017 and would potentially be a worse issue for Samsung SDI than the NMC ban for e-buses due to the size and relative profitability of the small cylindrical batteries SDI sells to China passenger electric vehicle (EV) makers," the report said.



Newman said China's exclusion of LG Chem, Samsung SDI and other foreign battery makers from the list of certified EV suppliers shows that the protectionist threat from China is "still real."



"The failure to get certification, although a setback, does not mean there is any ban on LG Chem or Samsung SDI's batteries for passenger EVs until 2017, if at all," the report said. "As long as we can receive certification by the end of this year, which we believe will be the case, there should be no impact on sales for passenger EVs."



The two Korean battery companies were excluded from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's (MIIT) recent fourth announcement of certified firms that have met Chinese regulations.



LG Chem and Samsung SDI officials say delays in getting certification could also push Chinese EV makers to turn more to domestic suppliers.



Specifically, Bernstein Research said its favorable view of Samsung SDI will not be changed given Apple's moves to use organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology in the next iPhones.



"More than offsetting the potential downside from the China ban, though, is the 30 percent upside to earnings per share (EPS) from the Apple OLED business," Newman wrote. "As a 15 percent owner of Samsung Display, plus a supplier of OLED materials to the display entity, SDI is also an obvious beneficiary of the accelerating adoption of OLED by Apple and Chinese smartphone OEMs."



"Overall, although suffering from significant one-time items, our long-term projections remain relatively unchanged. We still see the large battery business continuing to grow and improve profitability, the small battery business has reached break-even earlier than our expectations, and we see further upside from OLED driving increased equity income from Samsung Display," according to the report.




Models promote Sony Korea's new flagship smartphone, the Xperia X Performance. The company unveiled the high-end handset equipped with premium audio and camera functionalities, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Lee Min-hyung

Sony Korea unveiled its new flagship handset Thursday, the Xperia X Performance, hoping for a meaningful rebound in the local market.

With its latest premium handset, the company hopes to raise its relatively weak profile in the Korean smartphone market  largely dominated by local electronics giants such as Samsung and LG.

At a media event at its headquarters in Seoul, the local subsidiary of the Tokyo-based electronics firm pinned its hopes making what it calls a meaningful rebound with the new smartphone.

"We would like to call the Xperia X Performance a completion of style and design, largely backed by Sony's sophisticated camera and audio features," Sony Korea CEO Osamu Morimoto said in the press meeting.

The new model arrived about 18 months after the launch of its predecessor, the Xperia Z3, here in October 2014. But during that period of inactivity here, the firm has been introducing upgraded Z series models in overseas markets, which critics say reflects the company's failure to meet its previous expectations here, due to strong local competition.

Sony Korea did not unveil specific goals or plans to take on competitors, highlighting the product itself.

"The most differentiated thing about the X Performance is the camera," the CEO said, stressing the new smartphone is the outcome of Sony's technological expertise in not just cameras, but also audio and design.

Cho Seong-taek, mobile business chief at Sony Korea, said: "We are confident that Sony's capability in producing audio, cameras and displays will bring a new user experience."

The Xperia X Performance comes with a 5-inch in-plane switching (IPS) panel, equipped with a full high-definition (FHD) display.

One of the key characteristics of the device is a high-end camera equipped with Predictive Hybrid Autofocus, allowing users to take a clear shot of a moving object, according to Sony.

The company also highlighted high-resolution audio (HRA) functionality, which the firm says will enable a deeper and richer hearing experience.

The X Performance also comes with a digital noise-canceling technology, eliminating 98 percent of noises and offering better sound than conventional music streaming devices such as mp3 or CD players, Sony Korea said.

"We adopted a metal back, which is the biggest design shift from the Z series," said the mobile business executive. "The metal exterior design offers not just a luxurious image, but enhances the device's robustness and durability."

Sony Korea plans to start selling the handset around July here with a price tag of 759,000 won ($659).
/ Courtesy of Hong Kong Tourism Board



By Kim Da-hee

Hong Kong has been ranked the most expensive city for expatriates while Seoul is 15th, a survey reveals.

American consultancy firm Mercer does the survey every year to help employers calculate living costs for their expatriate workers. The survey compared the cost of more than 200 items in 209 cities, including housing, transport and food.

According to the results published Wednesday, an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood of Hong Kong rents for about $6,800 a month  far higher than London ($4,583) and Tokyo ($4,000). A cup of coffee in Hong Kong costs nearly $8  about four times more than New York ($2.28).

Angola's capital Luanda ranked second one step down from 2015. Experts said the collapse of the Angolan currency caused living costs to fall. In the African city, it costs expats about $6,700 a month for rent.

Among the top 10 most expensive cities, four others were in Asia  Singapore (fourth), Tokyo (fifth), Shanghai (seventh) and Beijing (10th).

New York City, which many believed was the most expensive city, came in 11th.

The cost of living for expats in Seoul seemingly dropped as it was ranked 15th  down from eighth last year.

Windhoek in Namibia was the least expensive city.
Opinion / Columnist

THE much-hyped Zanu-PF million-man march and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)'s "red-sea" protests in Harare and Bulawayo have long come and gone.And so has the Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) "star rally" held over the weekend in the second city of Bulawayo.But debate continues on the political significance of these gatherings ahead of the seemingly crunch 2018 polls.Various estimates of the latest Zanu-PF, MDC-T and ZPF gatherings have been bandied around, as the party faithful put a spin on the numbers.With all the political gladiators in Zimbabwe's body politic firmly focusing their eyes, ears and minds on the next elections, Zanu-PF pulled out all tricks in its political bag to literally gang-press thousands of impoverished citizens, mostly rural dwellers, to attend its million-man march, ostensibly in honour of President Robert Mugabe.Critics say although the numbers were far less than 100 000, love him or hate him, President Mugabe showed he is a master at commandeering the full might of everything at his disposal to round-up the populace despite the bulk of the 13 million citizens wallowing in abject poverty.It was largely a bootlickers galore as party leaders fell over each other to hero-worship President Mugabe in front of the multitudes; and the numbers at the venue shocked all and sundry in the opposition and the international community who view the Zanu-PF leader as facing his Waterloo, citing factionalism in the party, advanced age and suspected ill-health.Analysts canvassed by the Financial Gazette are adamant that numbers matter in politics, particularly in Zimbabwe where a politician and his or her party are judged by the attendance at political gatherings."Indeed numbers do matter in politics," says Maxwell Saungweme, a development analyst closely following Zimbabwe's political situation ahead of the 2018 polls."Whether by hook or crook (President) Mugabe has shown he has support," he said."But numbers matter more if they are numbers of declining unemployment levels, declining poverty levels, increased household incomes, improved corruption perception indexes, improved human rights indexes, increased access to drugs, housing, among other things lacking in Zimbabwe," Saungweme added.Alex Magaisa, a political analyst and constitutional law expert, argued that President Mugabe called the march to deal with "self-doubt, low confidence and confusion and to prove to everyone and himself that he is still a man"."But these numbers have to translate into jobs, a better economy, and better living standards otherwise the numbers might come to haunt him," said Magaisa.On its part, the MDC-T had sizeable numbers at its marches despite its leader Morgan Tsvangirai having been hospitalised at a top South African hospital over an undisclosed ailment.At the Bulawayo rally held exactly a week after the Zanu PF million-man march, MDC-T supporters trudged into the city centre on foot, on bicycles and private vehicles without being forced to attend the gathering, according to party spokesman Obert Gutu."People came out in full force. It was voluntary and one thing which should be noted is that it was an event for one province, the Bulawayo province, unlike the Zanu-PF march which was a national event," said Gutu.It is estimated that more than 10 000 people braved the chilly weather to attend the Bulawayo event. As for ZTF, a capacity crowd filled up the iconic Stanley Square in Makokoba, a high density suburb in BulawayoRicky Mukonza, a political analyst teaching at Tshwane University of Technology, believes the numbers at the Zanu-PF event emboldened President Mugabe whom he claims is battling to keep his legacy intact before his political sunset."Some of President Mugabe's achievements as the leader of government such as successes that he scored in education, health, rural development and land reform have been eroded in the subsequent years due to poor governance coupled with poor performance of the economy. It renders him less of an icon."In fact, he ate into his legacy and, as things are, the man has no real legacy to talk about. The only things worth talking about are people who got land, but they are struggling to utilise the land because of the inhibiting economic conditions."Mukonza, however, admitted that given past experiences, it is difficult to defeat President Mugabe with the State apparatus on his side.While the incumbent is credited with ushering in positive populist policies such as free education, health, promotion of gender equality, and attempts at land redistribution and economic empowerment, critics say human rights abuses, political intolerance, corruption and the general mismanagement of the economy has dented his legacy.However, President Mugabe's spin-doctors have been quick to dismiss assertions that their "icon" has lost his shine, pointing to the numbers at "Freedom Square", renamed "Robert Mugabe Square", and posting pictures on social media platforms to show that he still has got the pulling power.The State media has also been awash with reports waxing lyrical about the numbers.As for the MDC-T, critics say the numbers have to translate to votes.Mukonza said: "The MDC-T has had encouraging numbers at its rallies and marches, but the question is: Are these registered voters?"But for many Zanu-PF supporters, the numbers are a clear sign President Mugabe is on his way back to State House, come 2018.
Opinion / Columnist

Every vow made must be fulfilled or according to author Richard Paul Evans, "broken vows are like broken mirrors. They leave those who held to them bleeding and staring at fractured images of themselves". Many a vows have been made against President Robert Mugabe and subsequently left egg on the faces of the vow makers to their colossal mortification. One is quickly reminded of Archbishop of York, Dr John Mugabi Sentamu who in December of 2007 vowed that he was not going to wear his clerical collar until Mugabe is removed from power by dramatically cutting it on a live BBC show. These theatrics were premised on an erroneous assumption that President Mugabe was going to lose the 2008 elections and one wonders how the holy man of God is fairing on that vow some nine (9) years later.The writer is reminded of all this after reading the sentiments by Happison Chidziva, an MDC youth chairperson who is also in the #Tajamuka /Sesjikile Campaign who vowed that "The Occupy Africa Unity Square is now part of #Tajamuka /Sesjikile Campaign and we are going to occupy the square till Mugabe resigns". The group has also vowed to go around provinces demonstrating against alleged "misrule" by President Mugabe's administration. Before making such an portentous vow maybe the group should have consulted their mentors in MDC T that vows are difficult to keep as evidenced by their ill-advised decision to boycott future elections until electoral reforms are effected. The party is now at pains to come up with a plausible reason of rescinding its foolhardy vow.It is a ludicrous joke that the Occupy Africa Unity Square together with the Tajamuka Campaign are vowing to occupy the square until President Mugabe resigns. Like Archbishop Sentamu these deluded youths are going to find that that vow is excruciating and unattainable. Considering that it is the same people that failed to come up with bail after being arrested and had to depend on a well-wisher, the going is bound to be tough indeed. As for they plans to go around provinces inciting people to demonstrate against government, again I refer them to failed MDC, who have been there and done that. Even the videos that this Tajamuka/Sesjikile campaign have been circulating on social media are a prelude to the eventual outcome of this campaign. In one video clip, a young man was inciting people queueing for their money at a bank that the Reserve Bank governor, John Mangudya has their money at the central bank and people were completely oblivious to this seditious speech going on with their business.Zimbabweans are no longer gullible so as to be swayed by antics of desperate mercenary individuals who masquerade as "political activists" who are mooting these "anti-Mugabe demonstrations" with the sole aim of removing him from power. These cuckolded vigilantes calling themselves # Tajamuka/Sisjikile are nothing but lawless individuals who no-one pays attention to let alone Zimbabweans. If Zimbabweans have ignored calls to go in the streets by such opposition leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai why does this group of misfits think Zimbabweans are going to listen to them. Before embarking on this useless campaign maybe they should sit down with Morgan Tsvangirai, the biggest political failure to grace the Zimbabwean politics that the "tactic" is hopeless. Zimbabweans have become impervious to calls to go in the streets.People are weary of being used by political opportunists who are bent on manipulating people to their ends. In the 90s, Zimbabwe witnessed mass protests which at the end of the day did not bring bread on the table for many hard working Zimbabweans. Resultantly, Zimbabweans said NO to the manipulation and this has been the case ever since. The opposition have huffed and puffed, but Zimbabwean have remained resolute, that mass protests do not solve anything but worsen their lot.Zimbabweans are a democratic people who constantly have their say through the ballot. People have come to appreciate that anything outside that noble system remains a pie in the sky. Hence, for the Tajamuka/ Sesjikile crew to misguidedly assume President Mugabe can be removed from power through mass protests, then they are yet to learn the difficult lesson of Zimbabwean politics. President Mugabe has the mandate to rule the nation until 2018 and my best advice will be for these unruly elements to wait until then to have their voices heard.Zimbabweans remain a peace loving people who would rather work to improve their lives than be fooled by fly-by night politicians who only want to line their pockets. President Mugabe cannot be wished away as proven by false prophecies that have been proffered on him over the years. He remains the astute president of this wonderful nation called Zimbabwe. The one-million march just affirmed an open secret that President Mugabe still command respect and admiration among Zimbabweans against a few mercenaries who have found a career in grandstanding.----------Mandla Nsingo
Opinion / Columnist

Four Zanu-PF wins! Surprise, surprise it is once again a four!I for one was not fooled by Mugabe's one-million man march, his is a loaded dice; but clearly some people were impressed."Critics say although the numbers were far less than 100 000, love him or hate him, President Mugabe showed he is a master at commandeering the full might of everything at his disposal to round-up the populace despite the bulk of the 13 million citizens wallowing in abject poverty," said a Fingaz report.The operative word here being "commandeering"!Zanu-PF spent a cool $2 million to stage the 7 April 2016 meeting of 10 000 war veteran members and Mugabe, according to the War Vet Minister's own statement who organized and paid for everything. So for the 1 000 000 man-march the regime would have spent $200 million.$200 million is a fortune to anyone but more so to a party like MDC-T that is broke it was asking its councillors to contribute to pay for a party rally in Kadoma recently.To Zanu-PF $200 million is small charge; this is a party that gave its parliamentary candidate in the 2013 elections brand new car plus $15 000, paid NIKUV $10 million to tamper with voters roll, etc. According to Partnership Africa Canada, Mugabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of looting of Marange diamonds in 2012 alone; of course the tyrant is loaded!So with $200 per head to spend it is not surprising the one-million man march was well supported!"Indeed numbers do matter in politics," says Maxwell Saungweme."Whether by hook or crook (President) Mugabe has shown he has support," he said."But numbers matter more if they are numbers of declining unemployment levels, declining poverty levels, increased household incomes, improved corruption perception indexes, improved human rights indexes, increased access to drugs, housing, among other things lacking in Zimbabwe," Saungweme added.If unemployment can soar to dizzying height of 80% plus and stay there for donkey years as has happened in Zimbabwe and one is still able to have a landslide victory as Mugabe has done again and again surely that proves that as long as you can rig the vote nothing else matters!"Politics is a game of numbers!" true; but only a fool confines himself to a simple head count at a rally, demo or cast vote because with a war chest full of cash there is no limit to the size of hired-crowd and come elections pay those who organize and count the votes and suddenly it is a totally different ball game!Everyone has a right to meaningful say in the governance of one's country, this is fundamental right not a privilege, and hence the reason the elections must be free, fair and credible. So if the count is suspect then the primary task must surely be to have this put right first and not be sucked into a head count contest of "by hook or crook" count.The primary task of the opposition parties must be implementing all the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections; until this is done it is a waste of time to do anything else! Zanu-PF does not want to hear anything about implementing democratic reforms because the party knows it will never win free and fair elections.So the only logical reason why the opposition has still not implemented any meaningful reforms, especially during the GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so, is because they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent.Throughout the GNU years, Mugabe saw to it that Tsvangirai and his MDC enjoyed the gravy train lifestyles plus a $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, bribes to stop them implementing the reforms. There is no doubt the tyrant is still doing his best to keep the opposition occupied with demos, rallies, coalition building, anything except implementing reforms. He is even allowing them to hold demos and rallies without the usual accompaniment of Riot Police beatings and tear-gas and, just to stop the implementing of reforms, would even fund the demos and rallies. He is loaded!The greatest challenge facing this nation today is implementing the democratic reforms and thus ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible; until this is done this nation will not do anything of substance. The economic meltdown the nation is facing and the tragic human suffering it has brought is the heavy price we are paying for having failed to carryout out this key task until now. The longer we drag our feet over this the harder the task becomes and the heavier the penalty we have to pay, the economic meltdown is getting worse!--------------zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com>
A Cooper County jury found a state prison inmate guilty of murder and other charges for the death of a teenager from rural Greene County in September 2012. The circuit clerk says the jury found Anthony Balbirnie guilty on Thursday afternoon.

The jury convicted Balbirnie of all four counts for which he was on trial: second-degree murder, second-degree statutory rape, tampering with physical evidence, and abandonment of a corpse. The judge tentatively set Balbirnie's sentencing hearing for Sept. 1. He likely will receive a life (30-year) prison sentence for the murder. He could also face an additional 37 years for the other crimes.

Balbirnie's trial started Monday before Senior Judge Donald Barnes, a former circuit judge from Sedalia. It was moved to Boonville from Warsaw to try to ensure a fair outcome. Prosecutors rested their case late Wednesday afternoon.

The Greene County Sheriffs Department, the Dallas County Sheriffs Department, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the case. Assistant Attorneys General Darrell Moore, Joshua Harrel, and Gregory Goodwin prosecuted the case.

-----

Background

Investigators said Anthony Balbirnie engaged in asphyxiation sex with the teenager before she died at a home in Buffalo.

Khighla disappeared about Sept. 20, 2012, after she left her home to meet someone who picked her up. Her weighted-down body floated to the surface of Truman Lake near Warsaw 10 days later. Balbirnie was charged in October 2013 after the case was turned over to the Missouri Attorney Generals Office, since the case spanned more than one county.

Balbirnie was charged with second-degree murder, second-degree statutory rape, second-degree child molestation, first-degree child endangerment, tampering with physical evidence, and abandonment of a corpse. Prosecutors dropped the child molestation and child endangerment charges before the trial started.

Investigators believe Balbirnie befriended Khighla on Facebook and arranged to pick her up near her home south of Willard. She and Balbirnie then rode from a home in Springfield with Larry Warner to the home of a friend, Amy Hartley, in Buffalo.

At the home, Warner told detectives, he saw Balbirnie and Hartley ingest methamphetamine. He said he then saw Balbirnie go in the bedroom with Khighla to watch pornography and have sexual relations. Warner said he then left the house.

Warner told detectives that he "knew that Balbirnie liked to get rough with the girls he had sex with. He also stated he was aware that Balbirnie liked to tie his girls up," according to the probable cause statement against Balbirnie.

Hartley told detectives that she briefly joined in the sexual activity with Khighla and Balbirnie after Warner left her home. She said she then changed the bed sheets and went to sleep, while Khighla and Balbirnie went to another bedroom.

Hartley said she later awoke and found Balbirnie in the other bedroom, standing over Khighla, who was naked. She told detectives that Balbirnie was holding Khighlas neck and asking if she was okay. She said Khighla then had a seizure and started shaking and flopping around. Hartley said Balbirnie tried CPR on the girl, and the girl kept pointing at her mouth. Hartley said she left the room, then returned and found Khighla dead.

Hartley said Balbirnie then cleaned up the room, took away the sheets, threatened Hartley to not tell anyone, wrapped Khighlas body in a blanket, and put it in the trunk of her car. She said they took it north to Truman Lake. Investigators believe Balbirnie stole a post driver and a piece of railroad track, and used them to weight down Khighlas body. Hartley said they stopped on a bridge and Balbirnie threw the body and the anchors into Truman Lake.

Balbirnies trial started on Monday and could last several days. He could face a 10- to 30-year prison sentence if hes convicted of second-degree murder. Hes already serving a 12-year prison sentence for five drug crimes from about 10 years ago; he was out on probation for those crimes at the time of Khighlas disappearance and murder. He has previous convictions for forgery in 1994, and unlawful use of a weapon in 2004.

Warner pleaded guilty in October 2014 to first-degree child endangerment and conspiracy to commit statutory sodomy. Hes serving a combined nine-year prison sentence for those crimes and others, including drugs and forgery. He still has a pending second-degree murder charge for Khighlas death.

Hartley pleaded guilty to child endangerment in late 2014.

She served about 14 months in prison and got credit for her time in county jail before she was placed on probation last February. In return for her plea, prosecutors dropped charges of statutory sodomy, maintaining a public nuisance at her home, tampering with physical evidence, and abandonment of a corpse.

Balbirnie is also charged for the murder of Theresa Mohler in Polk County in August 2008. That murder didn't come to light until after the investigation started into Khighla's death, and not many details are known.

Investigators said Balbirnie held Mohler, 31, of Springfield, against her will for several days in August 2008 at Balbirnie's home in Polk County. They believe she was forcibly injected with meth and raped. She escaped but the injection is blamed for causing an infection that killed her. She's buried in Dade County.

A Polk County grand jury charged Balbirnie with second-degree murder, rape, sodomy and assault for Mohler's case. That indictment was unsealed at the same time that Balbirnie was charged for Khighla Parks' murder. Online court records show the trial for Mohler's murder could occur late this year in Lawrence County, where it was moved to try to ensure a fair outcome.

Balbirnie also has pending charges in Greene County for two separate cases. The first case is for resisting arrest by fleeing when he led officers on a chase up U.S. 65 from Springfield to Fair Grove while he was being sought for questioning for Khighla's death. The second case is for first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery, and armed criminal action for a break-in and robbery in Springfield on Sept. 26, 2013, less than a week after Khighla's disappearance and death.
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NEW YORK CITYIf you're reading this article right now, chances are, you've got access to the internet. Of course, you may be reading it on a friend's computer, or at a library, but the point is, you got onlinesomething that one hell of a lot of Americans (including New Yorkers) can't do with any regularity, if at all.

So, a few months ago, New York City contracted with the company LinkNYC to begin building Wi-Fi kiosks around the five boroughs, most often on sites previously occupied by the now-largely unused (or broken) pay phones. The tiny structures (see photo) are open to the public, any of whom can use, 24/7, the free Wi-Fi and the Android tablet built into each booth to make free phone calls to anywhere in the country (courtesy of Vonage US, an internet phone company), including specialized service numbers 311 (NYC complaint line), 411 (information) and 911 (emergency); charge their devices via USB ports; and access the internet. It even has Braille-embossed keys and a headphone jack. There are currently almost 200 kiosks in operation, and according to Techdirt.com, the city hopes to have 500 total in operation by July, and even more are planned for the future.

But until recently, there was one "problem" with letting just anybody online for free: Porn!

"The city spent years sweeping porn and peep shows from Times Squareand in just a matter of months, the de Blasio administration brought back the sleaze, The Post has learned," began an article published in Sunday's (Rupert Murdoch-owned) New York Post. "The XXX-rated action returned to the Crossroads of the World via tablet-equipped street kiosks that horny hobos and even some curious school kids have used to get their kicks."

OMG! OMGOMGOMGOMG! Homeless people were watching pornography! And maybe even a few teens and tweens! And in public, no less! If that's not a job for the National Guard, we're sure The Post doesn't know what would be! Because as everyone knows, the poor and/or homeless don't deserve to get their sex organs (brain included) stimulated!

"I used to come here in the '70s, and I remember thinking Times Square was as skeezy as you could get, but I was wrong," The Post quoted former New Yorker and current Dallas resident Richard Herzberg, 61, as lamenting. "This is as skeezy as Times Square could get. I mean, in the old days there was plenty of porn, but you could only see it behind closed doors. So at least there was that level of modesty."

Hey, Dick: They have these new things now called "eyelids." How about you close yours if you come across something you don't want to see?

But actually, LinkNYC has taken care of Hertzberg's problem for him: They've now installed filters for "image searches" for the online content accessible in the kiosks, which for most people will mean bye-bye pornunless they're tech-savvy enough to get around the filters, which we're guessing not a lot of homeless are (though we wouldn't put much past those schoolkids).

What this is, of course, is class warfaresomething the guy who owns The Post and the Fox New Channel knows something about, since it's his bread and butter. Yes, the same Rupert Murdoch who in 2014 was the 91st richest person in the world; the same Rupert Murdoch who was implicated a couple of years ago in the British phone-hacking scandal; the same Rupert Murdoch who tends to marry women 30 years or more his juniorthat's the guy whose editors are complaining that homeless people, whose lives really can't get much worse than they currently are, were being allowed access to pornography.

Good job, Rupert!
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LOS ANGELES, CA  Magazine model and adult video star Christiana Cinn will be appearing at the Pink Pony in Atlanta, GA. The January 2016 Penthouse Pet will be headlining nightly from June 23, 24, and 25.

After each show, Cinn will be available for photos, DVDs, and private VIP lap dances.

Ive heard amazing things about this club, says Cinn. Cant wait to see everybody.

Pink Pony is located at 1837 Corporate Blvd NE in Atlanta, GA 30329. For more information, call 404-634-6396.


Sri Lankas Permanent Representative to the WTO in Geneva Ambassador R.D.S. Kumararatne has presented to Mr. Roberto Azevedo, Director-General of WTO the Instrument of Acceptance of the Protocol on Trade Facilitation on 31st May 2016. Sri Lanka is the 81st Member to deposit its Instrument of Acceptance with the WTO on the ratification of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) of the WTO. Once the two-third (108) of the current membership deposits its Instrument of Acceptance, the Agreement will come into effect.

The Trade Facilitation Agreement is expected to significantly benefit global trade while delivering support particularly to developing and least developed countries. The full implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement will achieve trade cost reduction and global economic growth. The developing and least developed countries of the WTO will enjoy implementation flexibilities and assistance.

Trade Facilitation Agreement is the most significant achievement after the Marrakesh Agreement for both WTO and its Members.

Implementation of this Agreement will bring positive results to developing countries, in particular small economies such as Sri Lanka to improve their competitiveness in the global market and to attract foreign direct investment through application of simplified border control measures in supporting trade.

The Trade Facilitation Agreement aims at streamlining, harmonizing and modernizing customs procedures. It contains provision for expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit. It also sets out measures for effective cooperation between the authorities involved in the Trade Facilitation measures.

According to World Trade Report 2015 of the WTO, the full implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement is expected to reduce trade time and cost, facilitating increasing trade flows and GDP. It is envisaged to reduce time to export by 91% while reducing the time to import by 47%. The trade cost for all merchandise goods is expected to reduce by 14.3% while adding US$ 345 billion - US$ 555 billion to global GDP per year.

The topic of trade facilitation was taken up for discussion in 1996 in Singapore at the first WTO Ministerial Conference held after establishing the WTO. After several years of negotiations it became a reality at the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference held in Bali, Indonesia.

Member countries are expected to categorize all the 35 trade facilitation measures in the Agreement and notify their identified categories under A, B, and C to WTO. Category A measures to be implemented by the Agreement enters into force. Measures that need extra time can be classified under Category B. Similarly, measures that require not only extra time but also technical and capacity building can be notified under Category C.

Sri Lanka, through the Department of Commerce in 2014 undertook a Needs Assessment for implementation of the Trade Facilitation with the technical assistance from the WTO. It was further followed by a team from the World Bank Group identifying the implementation requirements of the Trade Facilitation Agreement.

The WTO Mission in Geneva is currently working with World Trade Organization, World Bank Group, International Trade Centre, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation through World Economic Forum, UNIDO and World Customs Organization to identify and quantify technical and capacity development assistance to Sri Lanka for effective implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The Cabinet of Ministers recently approved setting up of the National Trade Facilitation Committee, which is represented by relevant trade facilitation government agencies and private sector Trade Chambers. The National Trade Facilitation Committee is expected to closely liaise with the World Bank Group, the lead agency for Trade Facilitation Programme in Sri Lanka, during their next visit to Sri Lanka to plan out implementation requirements with necessary technical, funding and infrastructure development assistance.





Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the World Trade Organization

Geneva

01 June 2016
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

Read more
This article appears in the June 24, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Our Task Today

[PDF version of this article]

Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke to the following effect in concluding a telephone meeting with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee, June 16.

The crucial thing is to mediate the historic tension of this moment, throughout our movement and beyond. The biggest danger would be for people to go on with business as usual, thinking that, well, we have always been saying there was a crisis. But right now, look at all the elements coming together: the war danger, the military maneuvers, the NATO summit, the fight to prolong the anti-Russian sanctions, the possibility of Britains exit from the Euro, and with it the collapse of the financial system.

On the positive side, theres the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will be attended by Italian Prime Minister Renzi, European Commission President Juncker, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and many CEOs and other leaders of governments, so Russia is not isolated at all! Then Xi Jinping will come for a 5-day trip to Central Europe and Central Asia, starting with Poland June 17. There is all the progress around the Silk Road, integration, the Eurasian Economic Union, and ASEAN, as more train routes are also continuing to be opened between China and Europe.

EIRNS/Stefan Tolksdorf

All of this is moving forward, and the tension is: Which system will prevail? Will it be the global development partnership which is on the horizon and moving forward, or will the forces of the empire go for the annihilation of mankind? The tension between these two dynamics has never been as acute as right now. Thats the sense we have to mediate. If they think its just Orlando, or just this or just that, then they dont understand it at all.

The reason that the Walter Jones initiative, House Resolution 779, is so important in this context, is because that could derail the whole British-Saudi foreign policy of the United States, which is the crux of the matter. So, the Walter Jones resolution is an integral part of the initiative to change it, but people must not treat it as a single issue, but instead say that thats how you can do something to stop the war danger. And you have to learn how all of these things hang together.

And what we have to do as an organization, is to communicate that this is probably the most important punctum saliens in human history. And we have to elevate people onto the stage of strategic world-historical developments. Thats why they have to join us, because they dont get that kind of view from anyone else, but thats what they need to survive. Thats the challenge which we have to communicate.
This article appears in the June 24, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Bending Stars Like Reeds Toward

a Ne w Syste m o f Extr a- Planetar y Value

by Michael G. Steger, LaRouche PAC Policy Committee

[PDF version of this article]

June 20There is no going back.

The current British-dominated trans-Atlantic system is in the throes of destruction, chaos, and possible anarchy. There is no option of a non-collapse, as Lyndon LaRouche stated in July of 2007 when the housing bubble was set to blow a week later.

He said it again this past week, yet this time, his emphasis was different.

This is not the collapse of a housing bubble, stock bubble, or banking system. This is the collapse of the whole systema monetary death cult crowned with killer Obama, which has been cannibalizing the population of the trans-Atlantic regions incessantly since the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. There is now nearly nothing left on which to feed.

The options are two: a new system of value and human development premised on mankinds travel among the stars, or the British Crowns scorched-earth policy that inevitably leads to nuclear annihilation as its ultimate act.

The path to long-term survival will be found not in formal procedures or symbolic schemes, but with the creative spirit and immortal courage of the likes of space pioneer Krafft Ehricke, a genius who first prevailed against the Nazis of Germany, then again over the fascists of the F.B.I., and then again over the satanic environmentalists, to demonstrate the triumphant immortal spirit of mankinds extraterrestrial imperative.

One More Day, Maybe One More Week

Consider an overview of the trans-Atlantic system.

Europe, under British-NATO control, is currently risking nuclear war with extensive and repeated military exercises along Russias border, for the first time since the Nazi invasion. And while Russia patiently calls for collaborative efforts to address the growing danger of terrorism, Europe faces the greatest migration of peoples since before World War II, the result of a refugee crisis caused by the British-directed wars over the last fifteen years, all of which have been inflamed under Obamas color revolutions, his regime-changes, and his killer-drone program.

U.S. Army/Pfc. Casey Dinnison

It is no surprise then, that every nation in Europe faces populist revolts in the wake of decades of political cowardice, and that now increasingly far right-wing and environmentalist political movements are surging, which echo the 1920s and 30s fascist uprisings.

Yet, this escalated war danger is largely driven by the bankruptcy of the British Empires dying economic system. Top bankers in London can only hope they survive the week. Regardless of the Brexit vote, the U.K., along with the entire trans-Atlantic financial system, is collapsing under the weight of massive speculation, fraud, and bankruptcy. Perhaps the EU will last one more week.

Africa remains ravaged from decades of post World War II neo-imperial destruction.

The nations of South America, many of which had shifted away from the trans-Atlantic death zone over the last five years, now face the consequences of London and Wall Street-directed coups which are intended to ensure their destruction, especially Argentina and Brazil. The coup against BRICS-proponent President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil has already been trumped by the corruption exposed among those who threw her out. Argentina faces brutal looting and destruction under the Obama and Wall Street-backed Macri. Mexico remains a Wall Street-controlled narco-state.

Now, consider the United States.

Following the attacks on 9/11, the United States has been under an ever more aggravated FBI-run police state, a state of perpetual war, and now one of increasing mass murders, record numbers of drug overdoses, depression-era real unemployment near 20%, and an increasing death rate as a result. For Obama to call this an economic recovery, can only be termed satanic.

This system is done. The only option left is to flush Obama out with the sewage, and let Hillary and Trump go with him.

One more day, one more week, this British Empire is finished and must be replaced.

A New System of Value For Long-Term Survival

Compare the desperation of the dying trans-Atlantic system, where any future existence depends on greater death-rates to maintain worthless speculative debts, to the growing Eurasian system.

China lifted over 600 million people out of poverty over 25 years. Over the coming 25 years, Asia will achieve far greater accomplishments, transforming what is already 60% of the worlds population and 40% of world GDP, into the most vibrant economic sector in the world, even if only by virtue of the scientific optimism which is being achieved on such a broad scale.

It is the breadth and depth of vision of the projects which exemplify the new paradigm of development centered in the collaboration between Russia, China and India, which best expose the bankruptcy of the current trans-Atlantic program.

Take the Suez Canal in Egypt, which was expanded to double its width and double its annual capacity last year as part of the Maritime Silk Road. The plan estimated three years for completion, yet it took only one! So fast that most Americans blinked and are still unaware of the development. Compare this to the high-speed train in California, which under the current system would be lucky to build 100 km of rail line over the next twenty years, and plans to build only 600 km over the next fifteen years. China plans to build 11,000 km of high-speed rail in the next four years, giving it a total of 30,000 km.

One of the most revolutionary projects in modern history is another canal, one which is once again under active discussion. Opposed by the British Empire in the 19th Century because it would undermine the primacy of Singapore, a Crown entity, to control merchant trade from east Asia to south Asia, Africa, and Europe, the Kra Canal in Thailand would revolutionize trade among all nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe today, as well as establish an entirely new level of development in southeast Asia. The Kra Canals estimated time for construction is currently ten years, but with the use of peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), would take only five.

A similar perspective exists for the proposed Persian Canal, from the new port at Chabahar to the Caspian sea, integrating all of central Asia into the Maritime Silk Road. Also, the proposed Balkan Canal, from Belgrade on the Danube to the Aegean port of Thessaloniki, Greece, would play a similar role. This would enable shipping to travel through the Suez Canal, into Belgrade and along the Danube River, through the Danube-Rhine Canal in Bavaria, all the way to Rotterdam on the North Sea Coast.

Consider then the critical question of water. India is embarking on a water diversion project to bring essential water supplies to both the south and east of the sub-continent. This project, to divert some of the Ganges and Brahmaputra waters, will require twenty years to build, transforming Indias population of now over 1 billion persons. Plus, China will soon be embarking on the largest of its south-north water diversion projects in the coming years, completing the entire three-leg program over a twenty year period, eventually taking water from the Tibetan plateau to the areas around Beijing.

Yet, however impressive these projects are, this method of linear listing of projects remains insufficient to grasp the metric of growth now developing in Eurasia. They are too easily dismissed as simply infrastructure projects, though the scope of area (nearly 50% of the worlds land area), the accelerated rate of development, and the length of vision of these projects currently under construction, far surpasses anything mankind has ever seen.

The Higher Metric of Value

To grasp this higher metric of value, which lies outside statistical analysis, requires an extraterrestrial perspective. The demonstration of Einsteins notion of a physical space-time, beyond the mechanical constructs of a winding-down watch and Euclidean space, is found in the transformation of the human species generated by extended and sustained travel among the stars.

Before we achieve star travel, which remains a problem for coming generations, the task of exploration of our planetary system, as envisioned by Krafft Ehricke, sets the standard of increase or decrease in real, global economic value.

As of today, with China leading the way in collaboration with Russia, India, and even Europe, there are plans to achieve these goals in space exploration, most for the first time in history: a lander on the far side of the moon; a sample return from the moon; a manned landing on the far side of the Moon; a permanent lunar base; industrial mining of the moon. All this in addition to a new Chinese-built space station operational in 2020, continued advanced exploration of Mars, and asteroid defense technologies.

Yet, even beyond the clear investment returns, which are irrefutable, as well as the technological advancements which are required to achieve the current objectives, the space program requires a non-linear transformation in human culture, as Krafft Ehricke emphasized in his work with Lyndon and Helga LaRouche.

Human culture cannot remain dominated by either a monetary metric, or by physical consumption levels. Mankinds total emergence from the physical restraints of poverty (fresh water, electricity, basic infrastructure, etc.) requires a new notion of value, beyond discrete statistical measurements.

As German scientist Bernhard Riemann understood, the only metric of value sufficient within a system of non-linear transformations is one which is continuous, i.e. a metric available only to the creative faculties of the human mind.

This is what all great geniuses have understood, and this, and only this, is the basis of a new economic system for the trans-Atlantic area, as well as the world and beyond. Based on the work of Riemann, Einstein, Krafft Ehricke, and Lyndon LaRouche, the new paradigm now burgeoning as a new geological epoch on our planet and beyond, will be a reality. As Brunelleschis dome initiated the beginning of a new epoch in mankinds history, now known as the Italian Renaissance, so will the achievements towards mankinds emergence as an extra-planetary species be seen as the beginning of the greatest evolutionary leap in mankinds early beginnings.
This article appears in the June 24, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

The St. Petersburg Forum and

the World of the Near Future

by Tony Papert

[PDF version of this article]

June 21The June 16-18 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) was a powerful and far-reaching intervention into every corner of the world. It was a unique event, unprecedented and unrepeatable. To those who are afraid to break away from Obama and the British Empire, it said: Dont you realize what is possible for humanity now? Dont you realize what is being offered to you? Dont you see that you dont have to go to war with us? Here are the investments!

The level of inspiration, and fully justified inspiration, which permeated it, is exemplified by this statement from Russian President Vladimir Putins address there:

As early as June we, along with our Chinese colleagues, are planning to start official talks on the formation of comprehensive trade and economic partnership in Eurasia with the participation of the European Union states and China. I expect that this will become one of the first steps toward the formation of a major Eurasian partnership. We will certainly resume the discussion of this major project at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. Colleagues, I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to take part in it. Friends, the project I have just mentionedthe greater Eurasia projectis, of course, open for Europe, and I am convinced that such cooperation may be mutually beneficial. Despite all of the well known problems in our relations, the European Union remains Russias key trade and economic partner. It is our next-door neighbor, and we are not indifferent to what is happening in the lives of our neighbors, European countries and the European economy.

Look at the immediate sequels to the SPIEF. On June 23-24, Putin will join Chinas President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Heads of State Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The current full members of SCO are China, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, but both India and Pakistan are expected to be brought in as full members at this summit. Nor is that the end of it. Iran is the next, said Uzbekistan President Nursultan Nazarbayev from St. Petersburg. So, this organization with three billion residents is becoming a huge power, he added, according to PressTV.ir June 18, citing Interfax.

Xi and Putin will leave from that Tashkent meeting for a bilateral summit in China on June 25. Among the 30 agreements being prepared for their signature there, there is an emphasis on cooperation in space technology, as well as on great cross-border transportation projects and energy. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, in charge of the Russian military-industrial and space complex, has been in China preparing the agreements on space exploration and defense.

A little further ahead, Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will attend the September meeting in Vladivostok mentioned by Putin as quoted above. There, not only is Japan to deepen its involvement in the economic level of the greater Eurasia project, but it is actually possible that Putin and Abe will sign an agreement in Vladivostok which will settle the territorial disputes between Russia and Japan which have prevented the signing of a peace treaty between the two nations ever since the fighting stopped at the end of World War II.

Now the SPIEF occurred just as NATO, under Obamas orders, is preparing for imminent military aggression against Russia, even if few have the courage to call it what it is. NATO is holding highly provocative military exercises all along Russias western borders, assembling the biggest troop concentrations there since Hitlers preparations for his June 22, 1941 invasion, exactly 75 years ago. A NATO summit of heads of government in early July is to jack up the provocations further. Will a war of annihilation be prevented? No one really knows yet.

But some have screwed up their courage. Germanys Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Germanys mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag on June 19, What we should not do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and war cries. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliances eastern border will bring security, is mistaken. We are well-advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation. It would be fatal to now narrow the focus to the military, and seek a remedy solely through a policy of deterrence. And just today, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, from the same Social Democratic Party as Steinmeier, let it be known that he will travel to Moscow next Monday, June 27, to meet with Putin.

Big Role of South and Central America

As for the SPIEF sessions themselves, Europe was heavily represented, despite the sanctions. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met with Putin, and brought a very high-level business delegation, which is reported to have signed $1.4 billion in agreements with Russian companies. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was there, as was former French President Sarkozy and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Six leaders of big German firms spoke in a panel on German-Russian cooperation, along with EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger; Germanys top Russia expert, Alexander Rahr, was featured on another panel. A panel on Russian-Swiss cooperation included top corporate officials and an official of the Swiss Foreign Ministry; this occurred just as the Swiss government moved to withdraw the nations 1992 application to join the EU, after a vote to that effect by both houses of the Swiss Parliament.

Some top Chinese businessmen were featured in the opening panels on the Group of 20 and another panel on Chinas New Economic Model. A Russia-Africa panel included the President of Guinea and ministers from four other African nations. A Russia-Japan panel included six senior business executives and a vice-minister. A Panel on Russia-India: A New Stage in Economic Partnership, included four top Indian executives. There was a BRICS panel with businessmen from every member nation; a Eurasian Economic Union panel; and a panel of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Business Forum. An Iran panel was titled, Life After Sanctions: Re-Integrating Iran into the Global Economy.

The final panel was on Russia-Bangladesh: An Era of New Opportunities. After the closing bell, there was a full-day conference on the development of the Arctic.

Forum organizer and Putin adviser Anton Kobyakov said that attendance had been about 12,000, and that 1,300 companies had been represented.

The principal U.S. representative in St. Petersburg was the Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson.

The vibrant exchange with South and Central America in St. Petersburg has been ignored in most U.S. and European accounts. In a June 16 interview with Sputnik, Ecuadors Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent, Andres Arauz, urged Ibero-American participants in the SPIEF to pay close attention to how Chinas New Silk Road, the BRICS Bank, and other new financial institutions are embarking on great projects to change the history of civilization. South America must do the same, he said.

We view with envy, Arauz said, the great projects that change the history of civilization, with the New Silk Road that China has proposed to the world, the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS Bank, the Eurasian project which Russia defends . . . we are envious because, while South America proposed this ten years ago, we failed to consolidate it . . . We hope that the lessons posed at the St. Petersburg Forum can be applied to our region, Arauz told Sputnik. Russia, he said, is not only a trading partner, but a strategic ally of Ecuador and the region.

Arauz is one of hundreds of government ministers and other officials from South and Central America and the Caribbean who attended the SPIEF, seeking greater economic and trade cooperationas well as scientific and technological agreementswith Russia, China, and the nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The United States, under Barack Obama, offers them nothing except green technology, austerity, and depopulation.

In the course of the three-day SPIEF gathering, there were two seminars dealing with Ibero-America: Russia-Latin American SMEs [Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises] as Catalysts in Building Value, and Russia-Latin America: Foreign Trade and Investment Cooperation as Drivers of Economic Growth. The panels included Russian speakers and representatives from Ibero-America and the Caribbean. Alexander Shchetinin, director of the Latin America Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Nicaraguas Radio Primerisima that SPIEF will open additional opportunities to consolidate, above all, the economic relations among our countries.

There was more. On June 15, the day before SPIEF formally opened, it hosted a full-day panel on Latin American integration, including panels titled, CARICOM and the Caribbean, CANAndean Community, SIECACentral American Secretariat for Economic Integration, and MERCOSUR, along with panels of Russian business and government representatives.

In another June 16 interview with RT, Uruguays Vice President Raul Sendic, who had just spent three days in Moscow, echoed the same sentiment. This relationship with Russia is good for America, he said. Strengthening our relationship with Russia favors the balance of forces in the world, and opens to America, as well as to Russia, enormous opportunities.
This article appears in the June 24, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Xi Jinpings Strategic Mission

to Central and Eastern Europe

by Mike Billington

[PDF version of this article]

June 21In the Pacific, Obamas threatening patrols are flying and sailing close to Chinese territories, and are even deliberately violating Chinese sovereign territory at times. He is trying to build a web of Pacific alliances that will bring the United States to war with China in the Pacific. In Central and Eastern Europe, NATO is conducting provocative maneuvers on Russias borders, gunning for war, as German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has correctly implied.

And where was Chinas President Xi Jinping from June 17 to 21? In a strategic master-stroke worthy of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Xi Jinping was precisely in Central and Eastern Europe, NATOs intended war front. Not on a mission of war, but a vital strategic mission subsuming the question of war,one for a win-win policy of peaceful development, coordinated with Putins St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Chinas President has been visiting Serbia in Eastern Europe, Poland in Central Europe, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Xi visited the Czech Republic in April, while Central and Eastern European (CEE) leaders have visited China this year. This diplomatic and economic cooperation is part of the 16+1 process established between China and the 16 CEE nations in 2012. Most of these nations were once part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact, while many now are part of the EU or are applying to join. The 16+1 thus serves as a crucial bridge between East and West, and in particular serves as the hub for developments along the New Silk Road connection between China and Europe.

Serbia has maintained strong relations with both Russia and China, even while it has been an applicant for membership in the European Union since 2007. Poland, on the other hand, under the current right-wing government, has fully joined Obamas mobilization for military confrontation with Russia. Poland is calling for permanent NATO bases, while installing U.S. missile systems on its soil, missiles which are a direct threat to Russian security. At the same time, Poland has very close ties with China. Xi Jinpings visit, expanding their strategic relationship and economic ties, is a clear demonstration of the win-win policy followed by both China and Russia, encouraging cooperation in mutual economic development with all nations, which simultaneously deprives Obamas puppets of their will to fight

Xinhua/Li Xueren

It is exemplary that Xi is following his Central and Eastern Europe tour with a visit to Uzbekistan, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is holding its 16th annual Summit in Tashkent, and where he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will then travel on to Beijing for a state visit to China.

Serbia: Meeting Place of East and West

In a signed article in Serbias leading newspaper Politika on June 16, the day before his arrival, Xi Jinping wrote: For centuries, Serbia has been a place where civilizations of the East and the West meet, interact and together bring about major progress in human civilization. He noted the close collaboration between the Chinese and Yugoslavia in fighting against Fascist aggression on the Eastern and Western fronts in World War II, adding that Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, in November 2015, attended the 70th anniversary celebration of victory in the World Anti-Fascist War in Beijing, sending a strong message of our two countries commitment to upholding the post-war international order, safeguarding world peace, and building a better future for mankind.

Serbia is a major part of the New Silk Road, or the One Belt One Road (OBOR) as Beijing calls it, referring to the overland New Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road by sea. China is already building major projects in and around Serbia, including the Belgrade-to-Budapest Railway, the Pupin Bridge over the Danube in Belgrade, and a roadway from Belgrade to Montenegro.

This was the first visit of a Chinese President to Serbia in 32 years, but the two nations signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2009, which has now been upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. China has invested more than $1 billion in infrastructure and energy projects since then. None has been more important than the purchase in April of the 100-year-old Smedervo steel works by Chinas Hesteel Group, for 46 million, saving the company and its 5,000 workers from a probable shutdown. On June 19, Xi visited the steel company with President Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. Let Chinese-Serbian cooperation set a good example for cooperation with other nations of Central and Eastern Europe, Xi said.

Serbia holds an important, strategic position, President Nikolic said, adding that Serbia is ready to become Chinas most important partner, and not only in the region. I am convinced that Serbias future will look completely different from today.

The most dramatic moment of the visit came when Presidents Xi and Nikolic laid a wreath of white chrysanthemums at the site of the former Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, which was bombed and destroyed on May 7, 1999, by a U.S. B-2 stealth bomber, killing three Chinese.

Serbian government website http://www.srbija.gov.rs

Xis wreath-laying did not indicate a desire for revengequite the opposite. Xi and President Nikolic laid a cornerstone at the site for the construction of a Chinese cultural center, and unveiled a monument to Confucius, as well as name plates for the newly named Confucius Street and the Square of Serbian-Chinese Friendship. There are already two Confucius institutes in Serbia, and Chinese is taught in over 100 middle and primary schools. To Xi, the Confucian concept of Harmony under Heaven applies to all people and all nations.

As to Serbias efforts to join the EU, Xi said he supports the bid.

China and Serbia also signed 21 agreements during the visit, in trade, infrastructure, and other fields. President Nikolic awarded President Xi Serbias highest honor, the Grand Collar of the Order of the Republic of Serbia. Russian President Putin had received the same honor when he visited Belgrade in October 2014.

President Nikolics daughter-in-law, Dr. Milena Nikolic, appeared in the official picture of Presidents Nikolic and Xi. In October 2014, she had presented Serbias proposal for a canal between the Danube and the Aegean Seathe Danube-Morava-Vardar/Axios-Aegean Waterway proposalat a conference of Helga Zepp-LaRouches Schiller Institute in Germany. China has since financed a feasibility study on the project, but it has not yet been released.

Schiller Institute

Serbia lies at a crucial point linking Chinas Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The Belt and the Road meet at the Greek port of Piraeus near Athens. In April, the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) purchased a majority share of the port of Piraeus as the primary terminus of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, for Chinese goods shipped to Europe. Goods going to Central and Eastern Europe will travel from Piraeus by railmostly built by Chinathrough Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, and on.

Poland: Silk Road and Amber Road

President Xi traveled on to Poland on Sunday, June 19. In an article published in the leading Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, on June 17, Xi referred to Copernicus, Madame Curie, and Chopin as Poles who have made great contributions to mankinds progress, and who are well known and respected in China. He also noted the Polish Jesuit priest and scientist Michal Boym, who worked virtually alone to defend the last Ming Emperor in the 1640s against the Manchurian Qing invasion, and also published works on Asian flora and fauna.

Xi praised Polands historic collaboration with China, as one of the first nations to recognize the Peoples Republic of China and the first Central European country to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB, initiated by China). China and Poland are each others leading trading partners in their respective regions, with two-way trade of more than $17 billion in 2015. There are five Confucius institutes in Poland, and Xi said that a growing number of Chinese universities are teaching the Polish language.

He pointed out that Poland lies on both the Ancient Silk Road and the equally ancient Amber Roadso named when amber was the gold of the norththe north-south trade route from the Baltic region through Poland to Venice, and then on by ship. He noted that several Chinese rail routes to Europe either terminate in, or pass through Poland.

Xi indicated that Poland is pursuing reindustrialization, while China is seeking international cooperation in distributing production capacity, a reference to his policy of using Chinas so-called excess capacity (in the context of the western economic collapse) to build industrial production facilities abroad.

Xi and President Andrzej Duda signed perhaps 40 deals and MOUs on June 20, mostly in construction, raw materials, energy, finance, and science. Duda said he hoped that Poland would be Chinas gateway to Europe, pointing both to Gdansk Port and the land ports for the rail connections.

Xi and Duda went together to welcome a train arriving in Warsaw from China. Both were eating Polish applesone of the agricultural products that can now be exported to China by rail. Polish freight group PKP Cargo operates 20 trains per week via the New Silk Road between Poland and China, each trip taking 11-14 days, twice as fast as ship and far cheaper than air

website of the President of Poland/www.president.pl/en

Xi and Duda agreed to upgrade their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership from the existing strategic partnership, as Xi and Nikolic have also done for China and Serbia.

Xi made no public statements about Obamas military mobilization against Russia, nor about Polands central role in the military encirclement of Russia, nor about the extreme danger of conflict leading to global thermonuclear war. However, in his article in Rzeczpospolita preceding his visit, Xi concluded with the following: China and Europe need to follow the trend of the times for peace, development, and win-win cooperation. We should deepen strategic cooperation, increase communication and coordination on international affairs, and contribute to building a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation and a community of shared future for all mankind.

Uzbekistan and the SCO

At the time of this writing on June 21, Xi has moved on to Uzbekistan in Central Asia for a state visit, at the invitation of President Islam Karimov, before attending the SCO Summit in Tashkent on June 23-24. In addition to meetings with government leaders, Xi will address Uzbekistans Senate and the Legislative Chamber, the two houses of the Oliy Majlis.

The SCO Summit will officially accept both India and Pakistan as new SCO members, which now includes Russia, China, and four of the five Central Asian nationsUzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakstan. The addition of the two South Asia nations will mean that 60% of Eurasia will be collaborating through the SCO in both strategic and economic matters. There are concerns that the tensions and occasional hostilities between India and Pakistan may undermine the level of mutual political trust within the SCO, but both nations are anxious to join. The broader cooperation within the SCO could in fact contribute to resolving some points of contention between India and Pakistan.

Iran, which is now an observer at the SCO, is expected to be accepted as a member in the near future.

Cooperation between the SCO and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, provides a further basis for President Putins call at the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum for a Greater Eurasia, comprising potentially all of the Eurasian nations, including, Putin emphasized, the nations of the European Union.

This is the vision of the future, based on mutual development, both physical and cultural, which must be accomplished if the onrushing geopolitical warfare is to be prevented.
The Wonderful Company, the corporate arm of Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, promotes itself incessantly as an exemplar of social responsibility and a guardian of sustainable agriculture. As an agricultural company, we are deeply committed to protecting and conserving our natural resources, it says right there on its website.

Dont tell that to the companys neighbors in Paso Robles, the heart of Californias Central Coast wine country. Theyre infuriated by the clear-cutting of an oak forest on land managed by Justin Vineyards, a Wonderful subsidiary, to make room for new grape plantings for its Justin Wines brand. Wonderful acquired the winery from founder Justin Baldwin in 2010.

Theyll suck our wells dry, and then well have to move somewhere else. We werent planning on doing that.  Neil Heaton, fourth-generation Paso Robles farmer and rancher

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The action, which appeared to start in early June and was halted by San Luis Obispo County soon after its discovery, has left hillsides bare and gray, denuded of vegetation and vulnerable to storm-fed erosion. Neighbors of the property, which is located just west of Paso Robles, say theyre also concerned that a large reservoir excavated on the property will enable the company to drain groundwater they depend on.

The only thing that allows us to live on this land is this underground aquifer, says Neil Heaton, 66, a fourth-generation resident and farmer who does environmentally sustainable dry-farming of grapes and walnuts on his property abutting the Wonderful parcel. Theyll suck our wells dry, and then well have to move somewhere else. We werent planning on doing that.

(See the video below, from the San Luis Obispo Tribune.)

The reaction has extended to the Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo restaurant community, where some restaurants are boycotting Justin wines. What they did is an injustice, and we cant support that, says Debbie Thomas, owner of Thomas Hill Organics, a Paso Robles farm-to-table restaurant that has taken Justin off its wine list.

This just has me sad, Greg Holt, owner of the Big Sky Cafe in San Luis Obispo, wrote on his businesss Facebook page last week. You just dont do that to the Earth. I get private property rights, but it just aint right to remove all those trees. As such, we are going to remove Justin wines from our list. They grow great grapes, and make GREAT wine, but I have to follow my heart here. Some things are just more important.

The extent to which the companys actions violated local law is unclear. The basis for the countys stop-work order is a county ordinance requiring a permit for grading at more than a 30% slope. But tradition, rather than ordinance, protected the oaks themselves.

Members of the community say that until now, it didnt seem necessary to put the principle in writing. If youre a resident of Paso, you know you dont cut down the oaks without a permit, Thomas says. The very name of the town, she observes, derives from the Spanish for Pass of the Oaks. In the wake of the Justin controversy, the county board of supervisors will be taking up a deforestation ordinance on an urgent calendar sometime in the next few weeks.

RELATED: The science behind Lynda Resnicks Pom Wonderful juice 

RELATED: Somethings not right about this California water deal 

In a statement issued from Wonderfuls Los Angeles headquarters, a spokesman for Justin referred to its long-standing commitment to responsible environmental stewardship. He said the company has made every effort to comply with local ordinances for this project and is actively cooperating with officials to address their concerns. The statement said that among other efforts, we will plant 5,000 oak trees across our properties.

No one is sure how many oaks were bulldozed. Local estimates range from several hundred to as many as 8,000. The entire parcel is more than 300 acres, but the work was done on only a portion of unplanted land. Local residents say the grading wasnt immediately apparent because it took place at locations that arent visible from the highway, and debris burning was done at night, when the source of smoke wasnt easily determined.

The first tip was when we saw truck after truck of oak logs going by, says Justin Smith, whose Saxum Vineyards is located about a mile from the site.

Devin Best, executive director of the Upper Salinas Las Tablas Resource Conservation District, says the company received a permit for the reservoir, but didnt submit the tree-removal or grading for review. Their impression is they were exempt, he says. But proper conservation practice should have stayed the bulldozers march, he says, since the bare hillsides are vulnerable to erosion.

The big concern is if theres a storm event, how will that change the environment, he says. A certain amount of vegetation clearing is permissible, he says, but clear-cutting is a very different practice. Thats native vegetation and a habitat for wildlife. Practices like this on a slope this steep is the far end of the spectrum.

You just dont do that to the Earth.... As such, we are going to remove Justin wines from our list.  Greg Holt, owner of Big Sky Cafe, San Luis Obispo, on the restaurants Facebook page

Vineyard owners have been at war with oak trees for decades, since vineyards tend to encroach on stands of old trees. In the most controversial episode before now, Kendall-Jackson winery destroyed more than 849 old oaks in 1996 to make room for a vineyard expansion in Santa Barbara County. That provoked a local campaign for an oak-preservation ordinance, which failed in a 1999 initiative vote but was enacted by the county in 2003.

The Justin affair brings the Resnicks, whose other brands include Fiji Water and POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, under what may be an unwelcome spotlight. Wonderful has been at odds with water users in central California, and with federal regulators who were unhappy with its promotion of pomegranate juice with what the Federal Trade Commission called misleading and inadequately supported health claims. The FTC challenged those claims in 2010 and emerged largely victorious from a drawn-out legal battle with the company. The Resnicks, who claim to be the biggest growers of pistachios and almonds in the world, tend to prevail in battles over rights to the water needed to feed those trees, however.

With the clearing of the Paso Robles hillsides a fait accompli, local officials are pondering what can be done to mitigate the damage. Were not sure we can make them regrade, says County Supervisor Frank Mecham, whose district covers Paso Robles and the Wonderful property.

Locals will be eying the heavens nervously as wet weather approaches late this year. Were trying to get some sense of how to head off the erosion certain to come this winter, Heaton says. One good storm, and a good portion of that silt covering all those hills will be heading right for our income property. At the very least, he says, they need to put some sort of retaining wall to keep that silt on their side, not here.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
The much-anticipated launch of Costcos new Visa-branded credit card turned into something of a nightmare for Costco, many of the companys customers and Citi, the issuer of the new card.

Some customers complained that they hadnt received their new cards by the time Costco switched from American Express to Visa on Monday. Others reported that they were unable to activate their new cards. And all were furious over long hold times for calls to customer service at Citi and Costco.

Costco switches to Visa: It stops taking American Express credit cards 

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Costcos American Express cardholders were supposed to have received the new Costco Anywhere Visa Card in time to start using it on Monday. All accounts were supposed to have been transferred, or migrated, from American Express to Citi.

We never received the new Costco Citi cards, said Terry Rhoda of Florida. Ive called AMEX, and they say our Costco/AMEX record cannot be found. My wife has been a Costco member for 30 years, and Ive been one for over 20. I also called Citi Visa, and they say they have no record of having received the AMEX migration information. I emailed Costco, but as of yet, I have received no response.

Costcos Facebook page drew hundreds of complaints about the rollout  all of which appeared under a somewhat ironic cover photo showing a graphic that read Costco + Visa = (heart).

Citis Twitter feed was also filled with angry Costco customers; others left messages on Costcos Facebook page.

Got our cards about a month ago and activated then, wrote one customer. Couldnt use until the 20th but they were activated long ago. Tried to use the Costco card for a non-Costco purchase. It was rejected. When I called Citi, I was supposed to be transferred to a rep with a long wait time, but instead it just hung up on me.

Jennifer Bombardier, a spokeswoman for Citi, told NerdWallet: Consumer interest and engagement in the new Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citi has been incredible. More than 11 million cards have been sent to existing Costco card members. We are now in the process of resending cards to the small portion of card members whose addresses had changed.

Costco didnt respond to a request for comment.

If youre one of the Costco cardholders experiencing problems, you dont have a lot of options, other than to wait for Citi to sort out the problems. In the meantime, Costco now accepts all Visa cards, not just the Costco Anywhere Visa Card.
When David Dinenberg decided to get into the marijuana industry, his business plan was based on fear.

In 2014, he founded Kind Financial with the aim of making loans and providing other services to marijuana growers and sellers  customers banks were scared to work with.

Just two years later, though, the companys main business is about helping navigate bureaucracy, specifically the regulations and red tape that come with legalization. Its marquee product is software that helps government agencies track pot production and sales.

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The startup drew headlines last week after Microsoft announced it would make Kinds Agrisoft Seed to Sale software available for sale on its cloud computing platform that services government clients  a move that marks Microsofts foray into the marijuana business.

Dinenberg, a 44-year-old Philadelphia native, is an unlikely software entrepreneur. He has no tech background and was formerly chief operating officer of Philadelphia developer Grasso Holdings.

But after taking huge real estate losses in the recession, he decided to try something new. With the help of venture capitalist and friend Wayne Kimmel, he started Kind in 2014 and convinced other angel investors  including Lindy Snider, daughter of late Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider  to back the company.

He spoke with The Times about his companys evolution and its breakthrough deal with Microsoft. Here is an excerpt of that conversation.

Tell me about Agrisoft. What does it do?

Its software that enables regulators, in real time, to know where and how much marijuana is being grown, sold or produced. Were providing real-time inventory all over their state and information on how much sales tax or other tax they should be collecting. Police or a regulatory agency can look and see that company XYZ says they have 1,000 plants, and then an inspector can go walk into that business and validate that.

How big a business is compliance software for the marijuana industry?

As the industry grows and matures, its going to become more compliant and more regulated. It is going to happen. We should embrace that happening. It makes the industry stronger and larger for everyone in it. The backbone of that is the track-and-trace software at the state level and, eventually, the federal level.

How did you connect with Microsoft?

I was introduced by one of my board members, Wayne Kimmel, to a relationship he had inside of Microsoft. We spent several months discussing the idea with Microsoft, and they were very warm to the idea.

What does having Agrisoft available on Azure Government, Microsofts cloud-computing platform for government clients, mean for you?

It puts our company in pole position to garner government contracts. Microsoft has relationships with states. We get the ability for Microsoft to support us with their sales staff. We get to use their lobbyists in those states.

Any takers so far?

Weve already received phone calls from five states. Word is already getting out.

Does Microsoft get a cut of your sales?

We get to keep the revenue from all the contracts. In turn, we use more cloud storage and pay Microsoft for that.

Do you see governments, rather than marijuana businesses, becoming your biggest clients?

As the CEO of a company, government contracts are usually multiple years in length. That brings a layer of stability to the company. But Ive learned that the companies that win these government contracts end up capturing no less than 60% of the market in a state on the commercial side.

Have you taken any investments from venture capital firms?

So far, just high-net-worth individuals who share my vision. We havent taken investment from any institutions yet, but probably at this point were ready for that.

How did you get involved in the marijuana business?

In the fall of 2012, my wife and I watched a 60 Minutes episode about the emergence of the medical marijuana industry. For a split second  if you coughed you would have missed it  they talked about the lack of banking, how it was all cash, how there was no financial backbone. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get into an emerging industry.

What made you think you could jump from real estate to the marijuana business?

Im a typical entrepreneur. If given the opportunity, I fundamentally believe I can do anything. I read a lot. I research a lot. I talk to a lot of smart people. And part of being a real estate developer is being a promoter. When youre a developer, youre used to speaking at township meetings to get approval for a project, or lobbying officials for a zoning change. Thats helped me very much.

Why did you get out of real estate?

My personal net worth went from being positive to negative. I was truly starting my life over, professional and personally. I asked, is what Im doing what I want to do for the rest of my life? The answer was no. So I left and my wife and I tried to figure out what we were going to do next.

What happened to your original idea to provide financing to marijuana businesses?

That never happened, for no reason other than that it made more sense to go in a different direction. What Ive learned is that any heavily regulated industry is going to rely on compliance. Alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals  theyre all highly compliant industries, and technology plays a large role in that. So we shifted gears and were a cannabis compliance technology company now.

It sounds like the things you wanted to do at first, such as lending to marijuana businesses, were based on the notion that it would remain a murky industry that banks would stay away from  a notion that might not hold if pot becomes more broadly legal.

I would say 18 months ago I wasnt sure, as a business owner, how I felt about mass legalization. Today, as a business owner, I welcome it. Im not afraid of it. I believe well be a catalyst for it. Some businesses are set up for pre-legalization, and some are set up for post-legalization. I want to be in the business for the long term.

james.koren@latimes.com

Follow me: @jrkoren
About 1,300 nurses at Kaiser Permanentes Los Angeles Medical Center are set to begin a four-day strike Thursday.

The nurses, members of the California Nurses Assn. and National Nurses United, are seeking a contract to improve staffing levels, wages and patient care.

The nurses contend that inadequate staffing levels at the hospital harm patient care and dont allow for proper rest and meal breaks.

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Kaiser issued a statement saying: This strike is not about quality or adequate staffing levels. The quality of care our teams at LAMC provide has never been higher.

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The union is trying to reach a collective bargaining agreement for improved wages and staffing. Nurses with the union went on a seven-day strike in March, after more than five months of negotiations.

Kaiser Permanente told The Times in March that its offer would put wages at par with other Southern California Kaiser Permanente hospitals.

However, conditions or wages havent improved,said Debra Grabelle, spokeswoman for the California Nurses Assn.

The issue is about patient care. Its not about the wages. Its about the conditions, she said. Nurses are striking to call on Kaiser to invest appropriately and invest the money back into the hospital and care that they promised they were going to deliver.

Kaiser Permanente said the union gave us no meaningful feedback about our most recent proposal, and made no counter proposal to our wage offer and instead scheduled the new strike.

amy.edelen@latimes.com

For more business news, follow Amy Edelen on Twitter: @amyedelen

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Communications software maker Twilio Inc. flourished in its stock market debut Thursday, signaling that investors starving for new opportunities may be renewing their interest in risky tech companies.

Twilio shares jumped 90% from the initial offering price of $15, closing at $28.53.

The San Francisco companys well-received debut could lift the spirits of other expensively priced California start-ups, including file storage service Dropbox and note-taking app Evernote, that produce little or no profits but view an IPO as one way to generate returns for early investors.

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Wall Street has valued such companies on statistics such as user growth, betting that money will pour in at some point. But since last summer, a wave of economic turmoil from China to Britain to the U.S. has led increasingly risk-averse investors to reset their expectations for the tech industry.

Twilios emergence offers the first strong sign opinions are shifting.

The valuation disconnect between private market and the public market has chilled IPO activity, but today, IPO investors showed they were willing to pay up for growth, said Matthew Kennedy, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, which manages exchange-traded funds centered on newly listed companies.

The IPO benefited from several factors. It came on a day that the stock market lifted on suggestions that Britain would remain in the European Union. Demand relative to supply may have been in Twilios favor as a limited number of shares were sold, and existing investor T. Rowe Price scooped up many of them.

Though it may have left some money on the table, Twilio still raised $150 million through the offering. Twilio makes software that helps companies communicate with their customers and employees through text messages, phone notifications and in other ways. Ride-hailing app Uber, for example, uses Twilio to notify riders about where their car is.

Analysts also pointed to Twilios gaining an edge from pricing its initial shares low, a smart ploy to attract investors who then had a good chance of returning huge returns  as ended up happening. The stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TWLO.

Twilio isnt just any new growth buy. It offered IPO investors one of the fastest-growing public software companies, and it came at a discount to its peers, Kennedy said.

Its the first tech company valued at more than $1 billion and financed by venture capital to go public this year. Venture capitalists and other investors in recent years have driven up valuations of tech companies in private financings. But concerns that stock-market buyers wouldnt value the businesses as highly held back IPOs.

UPDATES:

1:43 p.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting throughout after the close of markets.

This article was originally published at 11:09 a.m.
A machine that makes the land pay. Thats how architect and Manhattanite Cass Gilbert defined the skyscraper in 1900, when the building type was  ahem  just getting off the ground.

But the machine doesnt pay like it used to, at least not when it comes to commercial skyscrapers that hold office suites instead of apartments or condos.

Thats one reason I found myself climbing onto a thin gray carpet Wednesday morning and careening down a steel-and-glass slide that has been attached  like a transparent worm, a see-through appendage  to the exterior of the tallest building in Los Angeles, the 1,018-foot-high U.S. Bank Tower.

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After a trip that began on the 70th floor and spit me out rather unceremoniously onto a terrace on the 69th, it became clear why Singapore-based OUE Ltd., which bought the tower in 2013, expects a steady stream of visitors willing to shell out $27-$33 to experience the slide and adjacent observation deck.

 Experience a different view of downtown Los Angeles on the US Bank Towers glass Skyslide.

The ride wont exactly be a threat to Six Flags. Nor would I say Im in a hurry to try it again. But it was an architectural experience, however brief, of a kind I dont think Ive ever had.

Its also not tough to figure out why this particular tower is now topped by a major tourist attraction, which will open Saturday to the public. Designed by the architect Harry Cobb, a partner in I.M. Peis prolific firm, the building was originally known as Library Tower, for its downtown location across 5th Street from the Central Library.

Though it was more than 80% leased when it opened in 1989, by the time OUE scooped it up for $367.5 million three years ago the building was barely half full. And its problems are not unique: As white-shoe law firms shrink and expanding tech companies in L.A. increasingly move into restored warehouses or historic buildings, commercial skyscrapers around the country are struggling to find tenants.

That soaring vacancy rate gave OUE a pressing reason to rethink how the tower might be used. So did the fact that it will lose its title as the tallest building in the city when the new Wilshire Grand tower, topping out at 1,100 feet including its spire, opens next year.

INTERACTIVE: A 360 view of L.A. 

In fact, as downtown Los Angeles  like many city centers in the U.S.  becomes more attractive as a place to live, the vast majority of new towers going up are largely residential. That leaves the owners of aging all-office high-rises like the U.S. Bank Tower looking for ways to produce new revenue  and, where possible, to redefine those towers in the popular imagination.

OUE is not the first company to see a possible revenue stream in the desire of adults to pay money to act like children in downtown settings. Bouncy-house urbanism is on the rise. In 2014 a company called Slide the City proposed a temporary, 1,000-foot-long waterslide for downtown Los Angeles, along Temple Street. The plan was canceled amid concerns it would waste water, or at least be in bad taste, in the middle of a drought.

The slide and observation deck are part of a $50 million makeover for the U.S. Bank Tower. Overseen by architecture firm Gensler, the new facilities also include a pair of redesigned lobbies (one for the tenants at ground level that is much more open to the sidewalk than before and the other for the slide-going public), a cafe, a slick and windowless transfer floor on the 54th story and a restaurant and bar on the 71st. The slide itself, called Skyslide, was designed by M. Ludvik Engineering.

In part because Cobbs postmodern 1989 design for the tower was loosely based on Art Deco architecture, Gensler has chosen Deco motifs and a black-and-gold color scheme for many of the redesigned spaces.

Though it has overdone this tribute in certain spots  particularly the transfer floor, which looks oddly enough like a cross between a nightclub and, with its interactive displays, the Exploratorium in San Francisco  the new lobbies and the observation deck are restrained, with terrazzo floors and white walls.

Seemingly tailor-made for the age of social media, the facilities enter a market that is wide open in Los Angeles. The only observation deck of note downtown is one atop City Hall, which is free though (at 454 feet) quite a bit lower.

 See what its like to ride the U.S. Bank Towers glass SkySlide  with 70 floors of nothingness below.

Tourists in other parts of the world have their pick of places to look out over the city. An observation deck at the World Trade Center tower in Manhattan  charging $32 per person  opened last year, joining one with a glass bottom and a ticket price of $22 at the Willis Tower in Chicago.

There is also one at Renzo Pianos Shard in London at 26 pounds (about $38) a pop. And after buying a ticket package beginning at $71 you can walk out on a glass platform above the western edge of the Grand Canyon.

But in Los Angeles, a place that has been resolutely horizontal for nearly all of its architectural history, we have had very few chances that didnt involve helicopter rides to become familiar with the top-down view.

The morning I visited was especially hazy, thanks to smoke in the air from twin wildfires in the San Gabriel Mountains. It was nonetheless possible to get a pretty clear look through the 7-foot-high glass balustrades at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Dodger Stadium to the north, the Hollywood sign to the west and the warehouses of the Alameda corridor to the south.

Two other elements are impossible to miss from up there: The amount of construction going on between Bunker Hill and the 10 Freeway and the number of buildings downtown topped by helipads. Those landing pads for Los Angeles Fire Department helicopters, marked by a telltale red circle, were mandated atop all new buildings higher than 75 feet beginning in the 1970s. The requirement, which essentially guaranteed a bland skyline packed with flat-topped towers, was finally scrapped; just before the official change the Wilshire Grand was granted a variance allowing its sloping crown.

Id guess the law would have been dropped much sooner had the public had access to more views like the one that is now available at the U.S. Bank Tower. The tops of tall buildings were for many decades an easy place to stash bad policy in Los Angeles. That is no longer the case.

Considering that the observation deck has so little competition in Los Angeles  and that the slide has none, really  its tough to say precisely what kinds of crowds the remade tower will draw. Judging by the way OUE and Gensler have arranged the ticket desk and especially the transfer floor, its clear they are expecting long lines.

At the very least they are hoping to tweak Cass Gilberts old saying for a new age. If the office tower is no longer reliably a machine that can make the land pay, it just might be one capable of making tourists do so.

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christopher.hawthorne@latimes.com
Where is Todd Gray?

The artist is one of 26 included in the latest installment of the Hammer Biennial, Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only. The diverse survey of recent art opened last week at the Westwood museum, but Grays work is nowhere to be seen.

That absence is by design.

FOR THE RECORD

June 27, 1:14 p.m.: This review says that artist Daniel R. Small excavated items from the movie set for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" and incorporated them into an installation. The excavated items in his "Excavation II" are on loan from the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center and private collections. The artist did not participate in their excavation.

Gray, a well-known commercial photographer in the music industry as well as an artist whose work is included in numerous museum collections, is restaging an extended performance piece suggestively located at todays perplexing crossroads of art culture and celebrity culture. Its title is Ray.

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For a full year following the 2013 death of his friend Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the classic rock band the Doors, Gray wore only clothing that had belonged to the musician. In the Hammers lobby, an unobtrusive wall label says that he is doing it again for the duration of the museum show.

Should you bump into the artist as he goes about his daily life between now and the shows Aug. 28 closing, you will certainly experience his work. The clothing is a public second skin  an outward sign of an inward life, which is a pretty good description of most works of art.

You might not even know it, though, depending on whether you recognize Gray and are aware that a performance is underway.

Even if you dont encounter the artist, however, simply knowing about the performance means you are aware that he is out and about somewhere in the world doing something. Going to the grocery store. Meeting friends for dinner. Hiking in the hills.

One can only wonder: Will you have a sighting of this elusive figure? Thats a pretty good characterization of celebrity, where the intersection of public and private life is a contested blur.

The title of Grays performance also makes a wry nod in the direction of Charles Ray, the celebrated L.A. sculptor who made his own ordinary wardrobe a centerpiece in works like All My Clothes (1973), a series of documentary Polaroid photographs of exactly that, and Self-Portrait (1990), a conventional department store mannequin dressed like him. Their echo in the Hammer show neatly ties art and celebrity together.

Hammer biennials focus exclusively on art made in the L.A. region and have an emphasis on emerging and under-recognized artists, to quote the press materials. Grays italicized performance ponders whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound, if no one is there to hear it. He has lodged his tongue firmly in cheek with a sly performance in which under-recognized artist takes on literal meaning.

The 2016 biennial was organized by Hammer curator Aram Moshayedi and guest curator Hamza Walker of Chicagos Renaissance Society museum. (Its the first time in three biennial outings that a curator from outside L.A. has been invited to participate.) Their hefty, thoughtful catalog lays out a variety of considerations undertaken in their selection of artists.

It begins with the citys distinguishing feature as image capital of the world, which has an effect on art made globally. (See  or dont see  Gray, former personal photographer for Michael Jackson.) Its 26 artists are fewer than in earlier biennials  35 last time and 60 in 2012  and a third are foreign-born.

For me, two themes dominate the show. One is the tension between the virtual world of the Internet (and its lens-based ancestors of photography, film and TV) and the actual, physical stuff of art. The other is the museum itself as an organized archive of objects.

Such a shows image-object godfather might be German painter Gerhard Richter, whose work alternates between fuzzy photographic realism and blurry, squeegeed abstractions. For good measure, Richter has also been compiling an enormous Atlas of photographs, newspaper cuttings and sketches from the last 50 image-saturated years.

Several archival displays turn up, including vitrines holding artifacts fabricated in an Art Deco style nearly a century ago for the Egypt of Cecil B. DeMilles epic silent-movie The Ten Commandments. Artist Daniel R. Small excavated them from the sets burial site near Santa Barbara, and he shows them here with a backdrop of paintings commissioned for and later sold off by the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas.

Daniel R. Small, Excavation II, 2016, mixed media (Brian Forrest) (Test)

The installation is loosely reminiscent of "Re-Claiming Egypt," New York Conceptual artist Fred Wilsons compelling contribution to the 1993 Whitney Biennial. DeMilles silent movie is about biblical Exodus  Greek for the way out  and Vegas is one contemporary definition of escape. Smalls seriocomic analysis of culture high and low is engagingly designed to set you free.

Excavation of a different sort drives Rafa Esparza, whose big field of adobe bricks is made from the dirt of Chavez Ravine, a once-thriving Latino barrio notoriously bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium. Esparza digs up history, including a traditional building technique plus junk unearthed at the site, for a Minimalist floor sculpture meant to be walked on. Sculpture is transformed into a pedestal for people.

Gala Porras-Kim borrowed a slew of unidentified artifacts from the storeroom of UCLAs Fowler Museum and presents them on a plinth mostly unadorned. Museums typically tell us what an object is, but this display shrugs its shoulders.

Several are subjects for Porras-Kims acute graphite drawings, where the abstract quality of mystery objects  Is that a hat? A basket?  is further heightened. Your mind begins to assign functions and meanings, even as plain visual pleasure rules.

In a clever move, the curators have chosen four artists  three septuagenarians and an octogenarian  for mini-retrospectives. This classic museum function is tucked inside the survey show. (The smaller number of biennial artists helped make it possible.) Theyre a bright spot.

Huguette Caland, Bribes de corps, 1973, oil on linen (Hammer Museum) (Test)

Huguette Caland works in just about every medium  about 50 paintings, drawings, sculptures and textiles are here  but her oddball fusion of figurative and abstract imagery sexily rendered in intense color is most surprising. In Bribes de corps  body scraps  two billowy vertical forms in a ripe peach hue flaming against turquoise blue slowly reveal themselves to be thighs and knees.

Presumably they belong to the seated artist. She looked down and then up to the linen canvas and back again to paint her sensuous self-portrait.

Kenzi Shiokava, installation view of mixed-media totem sculptures (Hammer Museum) (Test)

Thirty-five carved, polished, assembled, adorned and otherwise fabricated upright totems by Kenzi Shiokava coax a keen intensity from mundane material substances  wood, glass, bamboo, cord, etc. The human-scaled towers, more compelling than his nearby boxed assemblages, recall precedents as diverse as Louise Bourgeois, Isamu Noguchi and Peter Krasnow, but with a personality all their own.

The jazz scores of Wadada Leo Smith, surveyed from the 1960s to now, function as visual cues for how a free-form musician is to proceed, not about what to play. The stacked rainbow hues of Pacifica, for instance, suggest the sport of a sailboat skipping across waves. You cant hear the music, but you can feel what hes after.

Finally, more than 20 years of Labor Link TV, a public-access television show established by a group of San Diego union activists and artist Fred Lonidier, play on 10 video monitors atop work tables outfitted with folding chairs. Media outlets today have business sections, not labor sections, and public access is home to the shrinking labor movement archived here in speeches, meetings and protests. This is the shows Bernie Sanders gallery.

Labor Link TV with Fred Lonidier, 1988-2011 ( Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times) (Test)

Two beguiling films parse the friction between the virtual and the physical from different angles.

Margaret Hondas film Color Correction is a unique object, presented in the gallery inside the frame of its metal canister. The film is 101 minutes of monochrome color sequences, all taken from a technical process in which an unidentified commercial movie was readied for release.

The experience of seeing projected light in a theater is one thing (the abstract film is screened during the shows run), but seeing a real canister on a pedestal is also weirdly affecting. Its like a burdensome industrial time bomb waiting to go off.

Honda takes a structural approach to the irreducible physical facts of film. Its ancestry leads to 1960s films by Canadian artist Michael Snow. His famous 45-minute zoom, Wavelength, likewise bubbles up when watching Laida Lertxundis mind-bending film, in which a stabilized camera moves seamlessly backward through L.A. alleyways. The vanishing point of the citys sunny backstage landscape continuously recedes from view, like an evaporating dream.

Made in L.A. 2016 exhibits a familiar, enduring L.A. aesthetic trait  a relaxed, even casual quality that is especially refreshing in the frenzied here and now of our market-dominated art world. It pries open a focused space for thought, a space that even gets an intermittent soundtrack through speakers hidden here and there to play musical fragments by Guthrie Lonergan.

The artist gives us elevator music marvelously reimagined. If not everything in the show rewards attention, enough does to merit spending some time.

-----------

Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only, UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Through Aug. 28. Closed Mondays. (310) 443-7000, www.hammer.ucla.edu

christopher.knight@latimes.com

Twitter @KnightLAT
When the Argentine-born, London-educated artist Amalia Ulman moved to Los Angeles in 2014, she spent weeks chronicling the experience on Instagram (@amaliaulman). She posted photos of her shopping binges, her avocado toast and even her plastic surgery: a boob job, natch.

After her move, Ulman became every stereotype of the Westside workout woman, down to the feel-good aphorisms she also regularly posted online. ("Don't worry about those who talk behind your back, they're behind you for a reason.")

None of it  except for maybe the avocado toast  was real. It was a performance, part of a larger examination of the ways in which women depict themselves in public. Excellences & Perfections, as the series was called, astutely employed Instagrams fascination for hyper-pretty perfection to tell a story about a quest for just such a thing (one that involved a truckload of L.A. cliches).

"I was always interested in self-representation and the class divide," explains Ulman, "how people interact with each other and how people represent themselves by what clothes they wear and what signals they send."

As in all other corners of public and private life, the advent of social media has transformed the ways in which artists interact with each other, their public and the institutions that govern their careers.

Services such as Facebook and Instagram have come to be regarded as essential spaces for emerging artists to share their work (or to put it more crassly, find new eyeballs). Websites such as Artsy provide earnest how-tos on how to win over collectors on Instagram such as use of hashtags, since these "enable collectors to instantly aggregate an artists content and also reveal public support for an artist."

L.A.-based art dealer Stefan Simchowitz has talked about how he uses Instagram to create "heat" and "velocity" for artists he represents. And Hans Ulrich Obrist, the influential curator of London's Serpentine Gallery, posts daily to his account  @hansulrichobrist  a phenomenon he's described as "a movement of some sort."

But the relationship between art and social media is a tricky one. The former is about pushing boundaries; the latter, enforcing them  in the case of Instagram, in a literal square.

Issues of censorship abound. The list of individuals and institutions who have had images removed or their accounts suspended reads like an art world who's who, including the Philadelphia Art Museum, for a pop painting from the 1960s that was deemed too suggestive, and New York magazine critic Jerry Saltz, booted for posting images of Roman and medieval erotica online.

And there are countless other questions about how some of these services  especially Facebook and Instagram, the most powerful  may be quietly shaping the way art is produced and shown, perhaps even motivating artists and art institutions to feature work that looks attractive on digital platforms, even if it feels flimsy in real life.

"We are making up the rules as we all go along," says Rebecca Morse, an associate curator in photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). "This is a topic that social scientists are grappling with  how [a social media platform] is laid out affects the information that people insert into it.

Certainly, social media can be a difficult space for artists to present ideas or images that lie outside of the gauzy universe of sunsets and cappuccinos.

Facebook's community standards, for example, do not allow photographs of nudity (a.k.a. "people displaying genitals")  which pretty much puts the kibosh on presenting a lot of contemporary photography, not to mention documentation of historic and contemporary performance art. The services, however, do allow users to post "photographs of paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nude figures." (Not dissimilar to The Times' publication standards in this area.)

But these are erratically enforced.

L.A. artist Micol Hebron, who goes by @unicornkiller1 on Instagram, has long created images that poke at the arbitrary notions of acceptability on social media, creating nude self-portraits that place artful barriers over the bits that might be deemed offensive  such as Photoshopping acceptable male nipples over unacceptable female ones.

Last December, during a visit to the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, she snapped a photo of another artists work  painter Lisa Yuskavage, who is known for producing buxom, kewpie-ish female figures in sherbet-y tones. The painting, titled Northview, showed a woman lifting her shirt and examining her exposed right breast.

A few hours after uploading the image, Hebron discovered that shed been locked out of her Facebook account and the image removed. "Someone complained," she says. "Over a painting! A painting of a woman looking at her own breast. It wasn't lewd or lascivious and it didn't have sexual content at all."

For the offense, Hebron was blocked from accessing her account for 30 days. She later created a self-portrait in the same pose  replacing her nipple with an illustration of a cockroach. She posted the image on Instagram where it remains to this day.

Hebron is hardly the only one to face the arbitrary hand of social media moderators.

In January, an image of Copenhagen's famous statue of the Little Mermaid, a century-old bronze inspired by the children's fairy tale, was removed from a Danish politician's Facebook feed for running afoul of community standards.

The Little Mermaid, a bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen, that was removed  and later reinstated  to Facebook. (Tariq Mikkel Khan / Associated Press) (Test)

In March, Los Angeles artist Illma Gore made headlines when she was blocked from Facebook for posting a painting of a nude Donald Trump. She was ultimately given access back to her account and the image was re-posted (it is a painting, after all), but Gore says the whole experience was disheartening.

Its sad to me to watch it be filtered, like the news or what we see on TV, she says of Facebook. That was the saddest part for me  that the communities we have created are quite censored as well.

Some of the arbitrariness is partly due to the fact that managing standards for a "community" of 1.6 billion people  Facebook's estimated user base  is hardly an exact science.

Contrary to popular lore, there is no algorithm scanning the service for naked butt. Currently, Facebook and Instagram rely on users to flag offending posts. These are then reviewed by employees of the company, who make the decision whether to remove the image and/or block posting privileges.

"It is not always easy to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves creatively while maintaining a comfortable experience for our global and culturally diverse community of many different ages," stated a Facebook spokesperson via email. "But we try our best."

A curator adjusts a painting of Donald Trump by Illma Gore at an exhibition in London. (Niklas Hallen / AFP/Getty Images) (Test)

Even so, the process of being blocked can be bewildering. Paddy Johnson, the founder of the website blog Art F City, had her account frozen after a bot glitch led to a racy animated GIF being posted on the blog's Facebook page. Not only did she lose her privileges, so did everyone listed as an administrator of the page.

And trying to appeal these decisions is an opaque process. "You get an email and it's signed by someone with only their first name," says Johnson. "I received an email from 'Keith.' "

That is not to say that social media havent been a boon to art in some ways. They have allowed artists a high level of dialogue with their public.

"And it's changed criticism," says Lauren Cornell, a curator at the New Museum in New York, who also oversees some of the museum's technology initiatives. "A lot of discussion has migrated [to sites like Facebook].

But it nonetheless remains "a hard place for art, she adds. "It's kind of like being asked to make art in the showroom of a company. It's a compromised space."

Part of this is due to the very architecture of these platforms.

"Artists shouldn't be making works to get 'likes,' " she says. "They should be thinking about generating conversation. I think about this for myself. Im not a curator so people can just give me a thumbs up.

There is also the issue of artists branding themselves and what that does, she adds, how they feel that in order to be an artist they have to create a successful 'brand' on Instagram."

This can lead to an insidious form of self-censorship, says Ulman.

"It's not just about nudity," she explains. "It's about the need to put something up that people are going to 'like.' It becomes this disposable idea."

The rise of social media has likewise seen the rise of the "Instagrammable" art object or installation: Works that look great in a box on a phone but which may be thin when it comes to concept or ideas in the gallery. Random International's "Rain Room" at LACMA is one such installation  a work that serves more as an ideal set for picture-making than it does as a place where viewers can tease out complex ideas about nature.

Some of this may be due to the fact that the types of works rewarded by social media tend to be of one kind  the kind that looks good in a box on a phone. That generally means objects with attractive repeating patterns or works with a graphic punch that render well in two dimensions.

Oliver Leach, a San Francisco-based photographer who eschews Instagram in favor of less restrictive services like Twitter, states: "You don't get the abject in Instagram at all. That's crucial to me. The abject is something you don't want to see  and it's important for art."

All of this, however, does make services such as Facebook and Instagram a system ripe for messing with  which is exactly what artists such as Ulman have been doing.

There are others, too. Laimonas Zakas, the artist known as Glitchr, has long played with gaps in Facebook's code to mess with its boxy, blue format. And, in 2011, conceptual artist Ed Fornieles gathered identity information from a bunch of college students he found on Facebook (against the rules) and used it to create a series of fictional characters that he employed in a long-running online group performance that he also staged on Facebook.

Currently, Ulman is in the midst of another piece  which she is shooting, Instagram by Instagram  in a small office space downtown, in which she dons conservative office wear and hangs out with a pigeon named Bob.

Ulman grew up with the Web and its tropes intrigue her. But they in no way represent the entirety of art to her. Nor is she staging these performances for the sake of "likes."

"Life is not just visual," she says. "Everything has been flattened into an image because of the media, but art is more than images."

"A sculpture, she adds, should be allowed to be a sculpture."

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Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.
This week: An election-year tale at Skylight Theatre, two edgy fables at Rogue Machine, and the return of Independent Shakespeare Co.s annual Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival.

The Three Louies Louie Perez of Los Lobos, Los Angeles poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez and journalist Luis Torres share the stage as part of the Evolucion L.A.tino series. Grand Performances, California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., L.A. Sun., 7 p.m. Free. www.grandperformances.org

Bad Jews A devout woman and her less-observant cousin battle over a family heirloom in Joshua Harmons comedy. Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; next Sun., 2 p.m.; ends July 24. $20. (310) 502-0086.

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A Few Good Men Aaron Sorkins hit courtroom drama about two Marines on trial for the murder of a comrade in arms. NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Thu.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; next Sun., 2 p.m.; ends July 17. $25. (800) 838-3006.

Richard III The annual Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival kicks off with Independent Shakespeare Co.s stripped-down, rock music-fueled take on the Bards historical drama. The Old Zoo at Griffith Park, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, L.A. Thu.-next Sun., 7 p.m.; ends July 24. Free. (818) 710-6306.

Smoke Two strangers engage in risky behavior at a kink-party in NYC in Kim Davies drama; for mature audiences. Rogue Machine at The Met, 1089 N Oxford Ave., L.A. Thu., 8:30 p.m.; Sat., 5 p.m.; next Sun., 8 p.m.; ends July 16. $20. (855) 585-5185.

A Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor and special guests share songs and stories. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. Fri., 8 p.m. $7-$164. (323) 850-2000.

Bull Three office workers battle to keep their jobs in Mike Bartletts dark comedy. Rogue Machine at The Met, 1089 N Oxford Ave., L.A. Sat., 2 p.m.; next Sun., 6 p.m.; ends July 18. $20. (855) 585-5185.

Church & State A Republican U.S. senators reelection campaign stumbles over a question of religious faith in Jason Odell Williams new drama; runs in repertory with Aurin Squires Obama-ology (opens July 23). Skylight Theatre, 18161/2 N. Vermont Ave., L.A. Sat., 8:30 p.m.; next Sun., 3 p.m.; ends Aug. 14. $15-$39; both plays, $63. (213) 761-7061.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Classic musical comedy about a young corporate striver. Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Sat., 8 p.m.; ends Aug. 6. $14-$27. (562) 494-1014.

Nine Winning One-Acts New short works by playwrights from around the country; for ages 18 and up. Upstairs at the Group Rep (not handicapped accessible), the Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Sat., 2 p.m.; next Sun., 7 p.m.; ends Aug. 7. $17, $20. (818) 763-5990.
Early on in Season 2 of the FX crime anthology series, Fargo, Patrick Wilsons Minnesota State Trooper, Lou Solverson, shows up at a blood-spattered waffle house, there to investigate a strange triple homicide. Wilson doesnt have much dialogue  some light chit-chat and a few thoughtful Minnesotan yah, yahs  but he manages to sell his character with sharp-eyed studiousness and an aura of no-nonsense professionalism. Soon well discover that the hero of Fargo is a quiet man with some big concerns: a sick wife, a young daughter and a murderous tug of war between a rural crime family and a Kansas City-based syndicate. (Hes also playing the younger version of Keith Carradines character from Season 1.)

Throughout his 21-year career, Wilson, whose first success was in such Broadway musicals as The Full Monty and Oklahoma!, has starred in supernatural horror flicks (The Conjuring series, Insidious) and done his requisite share of unclothed love scenes (Zipper, Stretch). But with his square-jawed handsomeness and restrained reaction shots (Wilson has perfected the half-raised eyebrow), it turns out that a do-right protector like Lou might be the role he was born to play. Here, he spoke with The Envelope recently in Los Angeles.

How did Lous maroon State Trooper outfit and wide-brimmed Trooper hat inform your performance?

When you put the belt on and put your gun in, there was a real weight to it. I loved it. But I have two kids in elementary school, and, as a parent, I felt like, This is probably why some people like uniforms. Its just one less thing. Theres a real stability about going into work every single day and knowing exactly what I was going to wear. The days that Lou was at home and in jeans, I was like, [mournful voice] Wheres my burgundy puffy jacket?

Jean Smart got to smoke a pipe. Part of Angus Sampsons wardrobe was a filthy cast. Whats it like playing the normal one in a show overflowing with colorful psychos?

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The way I saw it was like when the pitcher gets on the mound in the bottom of the ninth. Your strength becomes your stillness. [laughs] I like playing bad guys and wacky guys. But Ive never played someone as steadfast and solid as Lou. I aspire to be Lou. I dont know if its just a male thing, but hes just not going to back down from anybody.

Describe filming in Calgary during the winter?

Ill say one thing: Cold really helps you understand dialect. You speak in a way thats a lot tighter. You dont want to open your mouth too much because its freezing.

What was your reaction when you read the script in which your character is saved by a flying saucer?

I laughed. It got to the point that when the scripts would come out, I couldnt wait to open them on my iPad. Id scroll through them. I remember thinking WHAT? Then I thought, Perfect. Lets go with it.

Fargo is a pretty naturalistic show. Whats your response when fans say, What was that?

I say, Its a UFO. [laughs] Why not? I think Lou would have the same answer. He didnt spend a lot of time talking about it. He said, I know what I saw, and thats it.

You like listening to music before a scene. What was on Lous playlist?

It was pretty mellow. I listened to country all across the map. George Jones. Theres just a feeling that I get from country music. I wanted to keep Lou strong, focused. Hes got so much going on in his head.

Series creator Noah Hawley likes to introduce a new cast every year. Could Lou come back?

Trust me. I think I made some joke to [Noah], like, Just make sure that I say a line like, Oh, the massacre at Sioux Falls, that was nothing compared to the murder in Topeka in 83, just to tee me up for another season. [laughs]

calendar@latimes.com
Canadas scene-stealing snowscape essentially costarred in Fargos visually stunning first season, which yielded 18 Emmy nominations and three wins for the FX limited series last year. By contrast, Fargo Season 2, set in 1979, owes much of its cinematic splendor to 70s-era image-making in general and to Memphis-born street photographer William Eggleston in particular.

Hes the godfather of color photography, said Fargos Emmy-nominated director of photography, Dana Gonzales. When Eggleston came along in the early 70s, he shot everything on Kodachrome, which has a very vibrant look in the way it renders oranges, yellows and primary colors. When you look at his work from the 70s, youre seeing the era, youre seeing wardrobe and car colors and textures. I felt that should be the blueprint for Season 2.

To further sell the retro vibe while filming in Calgary, Canada, Gonzales relied on old-fashioned technology when it came to practical lighting. I decided to only use the types of lights that would have been used during this era, he said. Back then, the mercury and sodium vapor lighting you see everywhere now was not widespread.

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I went to great lengths creating a mood with this kind of lighting because it pulls the audience into the world when the story takes place.  Dana Gonzales

 Kirsten Dunst chats with Los Angeles Times entertainment writer Glenn Whipp about her show Fargo.

In search of period-perfect nighttime ambience, Gonzales and his team replaced every sodium-lamp streetlight in the Canadian town standing in for Luverne, Minn., where hapless butcher Ed and his beautician wife, Peggy, have their shops. We changed the bulbs of that whole street back to warm tungsten lights, Gonzales recalled. I went to great lengths creating a mood with this kind of lighting because it pulls the audience into the world when the story takes place. People come up to me all the time and say, Fargo reminds me of this street I used to live on in the 70s without knowing why. Well, a lot of that feeling has to do with the color of the light.

Gonzales, who broke into show business as a 20-year-old truck driver on summer break from Pierce College in Woodland Hills, shot most of the show on a single ARRI Alexa digital camera outfitted with half-century-old Cooke lenses.

Fargo being a period piece, I felt I should shoot on period lenses because vintage lenses have different coatings, different glass, Gonzales said. If you go back to a movie like The French Connection, it looks a certain way partly because of the film stock and also because of the glass in the lenses. That was the next level for me: to shoot Fargo with the same kind of lenses used for films of the 60s and 70s.

Unlike the relatively spare storyline presented in Fargos first season, the 2015 Sioux Falls Massacre saga encompassed a sprawling cast of characters including Kansas City hitmen (Brad Garrett and Bokeem Woodbine), the Gerhardt crime family (led by Jean Smart and Jeffrey Donovan), folksy cops Lou Solverson and Hank Larsson (Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson) and a hapless small-town couple (Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons). To streamline the narrative, series creator Noah Hawley deployed the old-school split-screen format for key transitions after studying Tony Curtis 1969 thriller The Boston Stranger on Gonzales recommendation. That movie did an incredible job of telling simultaneous stories with split screen, Gonzales said. We felt that split-screen would be an incredible way to track all these characters and locations within the episode: Wheres the Gerhardt family? Where are the guys from Kansas City? Wheres Peggy? Wheres Ed?

By design, TVs Fargo pays homage to the Coen brothers precision-tooled cinematic universe beginning with their original 1996 Fargo film. Season 2 also drew inspiration from a chilling sequence in the filmmakers 1999 gangster movie Millers Crossing. When I think about Millers Crossing, I think about the trees when John Turturros screaming and they take him out to the forest and whack him, Gonzales said. The first year of the show, it was more about this barren frozen tundra, whereas for me, it was wooded areas became the signature landscape that made Season 2 special and different.

Gonzales said he remembers using his digital/vintage hybrid camera rig to micro-manage a sun-dappled country-road confrontation. I needed the location to have a particular look so that when Ted Danson walked away, the sunlight gets broken up by the trees, he said. In Fargo, theres no improv, no What do you feel should happen here? In Fargo, every shot means something.

MORE:

Kirsten Dunst sees an Orange Is the New Black future for her Fargo character

Kirsten Dunst is happy people are seeing her work in Fargo, but wishes grandma could have too

calendar@latimes.com
You want another sign  besides your DVR being at full capacity  that theres too much good TV right now?

Take a look at the number of actors vying for the lead Emmy in a limited series or movie this year. You could fill out a great ballot with just Englishmen. And a lot of voters probably will. If Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen join forces in The Dresser to do some of the best work in their distinguished careers, nobodys going to deny them an invitation to the party. Theyre knights, for heavens sake.

After restoring separate categories for movies and limited series two years ago, the Television Academy might need to think hard about going a step further and doing the same for the corresponding actors and actresses. Or, at the very least, add another nomination slot. Because right now, its too big a crush. There are going to be some seriously hurt feelings this year.

LIMITED SERIES

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The People v. O.J. Simpson

Fargo

Roots

American Crime

The Night Manager

Analysis: What was the bigger accomplishment for Fargo? Making a limited series that was spiritually true to the Coen brothers classic movie or returning with a sublime second season that managed to surpass the excellence of the initial year?

Fargo wont be the only familiar anthology series returning, with ABCs tough-minded American Crime likely to score another nomination as well. O.J. and Roots are certainties, both of them critical and commercial hits. And AMCs engrossing, escapist spy thriller The Night Manager figures to earn the fifth spot, though David Simons excellent HBO miniseries about public housing, Show Me a Hero, should draw serious support as well.

LEAD ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

Bryan Cranston, All the Way

Courtney B. Vance, The People v. O.J. Simpson

Anthony Hopkins, The Dresser

Ian McKellen, The Dresser

Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

Idris Elba, Luther

Analysis: So who are we leaving out? Oh, just Tom Hiddlestons suave spy in The Night Manager (a fine audition for 007) and Oscar Isaacs mesmerizing turn as the Yonkers mayor in Show Me a Hero. And dont get us started on how Patrick Wilson hit every small beat in Fargo just right. Subdued brilliance deserves awards recognition too, dontcha know. Whoever gets nominated will be deserving. (Unless its Bill Murray from A Very Murray Christmas. Yes, everyone loves Murray, but that holiday special was just a bit too self-indulgent for its own good.)

LEAD ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

Sarah Paulson, The People v. O.J. Simpson

Kirsten Dunst, Fargo

Kerry Washington, Confirmation

Felicity Huffman, American Crime

Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emersons Bar & Grill

Lili Taylor, American Crime

Analysis: Paulson, nominated each of the last four years, is likely heading to the winners circle for the first time for the way she humanized prosecutor Marcia Clark in O.J. If you werent on Clarks side before this miniseries, you were fully on board after watching it.

I think the other five women listed above will earn nods too, though Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose could well be nominated for her strong, lived-in turn as Kunta Kintes daughter in Roots. And why didnt PBS submit 17-time Emmy nominee Angela Lansbury for portraying the title character in Driving Miss Daisy? The women playing this role have already won an Oscar and an Obie. Lansbury wouldnt have won, but a nomination was within reach.

MORE:

Anthony Hopkins avoided being consumed by the stage, unlike his The Dresser character

Ian McKellen tackles the many layers of the complicated title role in The Dresser

People vs. O.J.'s Sterling K. Brown dived headlong into the glove scene: I was livid

Felicity Huffman found her American Crime character through research  and Spanx

Kirsten Dunst sees an Orange Is the New Black future for her Fargo character

glenn.whipp@latimes.com
Katherine Heigl and husband Josh Kelley announced Thursday that theyre pregnant, with the actress sharing a sonogram photo to her Instagram account and directing fans to a post on her blog talking about her pregnancy.

The Kelley family received some very exciting news recently and Ive been dying to share it with you all, Heigl wrote. We are expecting a third addition to our tribe!

The photo on Heigls blog post features a pair of blue baby booties and the caption: Blue is for  BOY!!!

The couple, who married in 2007, adopted daughter Naleigh from South Korea when she was 9 months old. They expanded their family again in 2012 with the domestic adoption of daughter Adalaide.

Naleigh and Adalaide are over the moon and cannot wait to spoil their new sibling rotten, Heigl wrote. Josh and I are full of high hopes and bubbling anticipation. The whole pregnancy thing is new to me, but the thrill of having a baby is not.

On Sunday, Heigl, 37, tweeted a photo of herself with Kelley and their daughters with a message wishing him a happy Fathers Day and expressing her love and adoration for him, but giving no indication to followers that their little family was about to grow.

https://twitter.com/KatieHeigl/status/744647527971033088

Heigl and Kelleys choice to adopt before growing their family through pregnancy was always the plan for the actress, who wanted her family to reflect her own family growing up.

My sister Meg is Korean, and my parents adopted her three years before I was born, Heigl told Parent & Child in 2012. I wanted my own family to resemble the one I came from, so I always knew I wanted to adopt from Korea.

Weve known for a while that we wanted to add to our family and frankly didnt really care how we chose to do that, Heigl wrote on her blog. We were considering adoption again, fostering, or pregnancy if possible.

The actress then quipped: Seeing as I have never been pregnant and as my OB/GYN reminded me last year, Im of advanced maternal age, I wasnt sure pregnancy was even in the cards for us. Turns out it was very much in the cards!

Heigl is returning to television this year in CBS new drama Doubt, starring alongside Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black) and Steven Pasquale (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story).

Doubt centers around a successful defense attorney, played by Heigl, falling for a charismatic client who may be guilty of a brutal crime.

While her pregnancy has spurred a lot of excitement for the family, Heigls sentiments from her 2012 interview ring as true as ever.

I just wanted to be a mom. However we do that, its fine with me.

MORE:

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Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are expecting a second baby

libby.hill@latimes.com

Twitter: @midwestspitfire
Closely adhering to the classy template established the previous year with The Keeper of Lost Causes, 2014s Department Q: The Absent One is an equally smart crime thriller that takes another unsavory journey into contemporary Denmarks seamier underbelly.

Experiencing a cold snap after their first big cold case coup, Department Q partners Carl Morck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Assad (Fares Fares) get back to business after reopening a 20-year-old investigation into the murder of a pair of boarding school students.

While the police originally received a confession from their killer, his relatively light jail sentence has Carl convinced that somethings rotten in Denmark, contending a nefarious cover-up could be in play.

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Their ensuing probe takes them from the idyllic rural countryside to the drug-addled inner city, where an elusive homeless woman (Danica Curcic) either played a role in the killings or might know the identity of any accomplices.

Once again, director Mikkel Nrgaard, working with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, has turned the Jussi Adler-Olsen novel into a highly watchable if, slightly overlong, potboiler that adroitly negotiates past and present storylines.

Although Nrgaard is correct in ascribing a Chinatown meets Clockwork Orange feel to the film, with its themes of corruption, class privilege, power and youthful passion, the success of The Absent One, like its Department Q predecessor, ultimately rides on the shoulders of Kaas intriguing Morck.

Hes as glum as ever, but theres a telltale crack of fragility lurking behind that stone-faced determination.

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Department Q: The Absent One

In Danish with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 2 hours, 1 minute

Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood
Billed as an intense financial thriller, Barney Elliotts The Debt only achieves two out of three of those descriptors. The film does feature much discussion about complicated international financial deals, but the intense thrills are nowhere to be found.

Stephen Dorff stars as Oliver, an American hedge fund banker operating in Peru with a local associate, Ricardo (Alberto Ammann). The bankers have their eyes on exploiting Perus national land debt issues for their own profit. As Olivers boss, Nathan (David Straithairn) starts to question the worthiness of the deal, Oliver goes to extremes to get it done, while Ricardo only wants to help his people and nation.

Intersecting with this is are a story line about a nurse, Maria (Elsa Olivero), going to great lengths to get her mother a necessary medical treatment in a country whose social services are being pinched, and a plot that follows a llama shepherd and his son in a remote mountain village, Pampacancha  a lucrative plot of land battled over by various potential buyers, including Oliver.

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The film takes far too long to get going  the disparate threads arent woven together until over an hour into the film. Despite its best efforts to be thought-provoking, the film is dramatically inert, slow and its revelations arent all that politically illuminating, relying on coincidence and worn tropes to obfuscate its lack of ingenuity.

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The Debt

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills
The timely, well-made documentary Misconception takes a three-pronged look at contemporary population growth and the real-world results of several complex issues surrounding the topic.

Although the facts here may speak for themselves  80% of the worlds nations now average two children per couple; Earths population may reach more than 9 billion by 2050  director-producer-editor Jessica Yu effectively examines the varying impact of these and other attendant realities based upon ones beliefs, traditions and socioeconomic situations.



For the record: An earlier version of this review misspelled statistician Hans Roslings last name as Roling.

The film is divided into three chapters. In the first, a Chinese man nearing 30 searches for a suitable wife in a nation whose one-child policy, which began in the late 1970s and ended at the start of 2016, unexpectedly caused a deficit of about 30 million girls. Part two follows Canadian antiabortion activist Denise Mountenay as she addresses the United Nations on behalf of her deep-rooted cause.

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The third and most potent chapter spotlights Gladys Kalibbala, a heroic Ugandan journalist exploring the vast numbers of lost, abandoned or misplaced children in a populous country with the worlds third-highest birthrate. This last section serves as a kind of in-the-trenches rebuttal to Mountenays more ideologically-based campaign.

The segments are tied together by interview and lecture bits with Swedish professor and statistician Hans Rosling who offers droll, unvarnished thoughts on global population trends.

Misconception proves a smart, vital and absorbing portrait.

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Misconception

In English, Mandarin, Hindi and Russian with English subtitles

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material including some sexual references

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills
Leave it to director Johnnie To to follow a 3-D musical comedy about corporate malfeasance with a movie even harder to classify. On the heels of last years Office, To now offers Three, a gritty medical drama that evolves into a tense tale of cops and gangsters  and does so with a naturalness and creative spark that only the Hong Kong action cinema maestro could manage.

Vicki Zhao plays Dr. Tong Qian, a pragmatic neurologist whose principles are tested when she gets caught between a rule-bending cop (Louis Koo) and a smug young crime boss (Wallace Chung). The latters been brought to the hospital with a head wound, but he refuses treatment because he knows itll be easier for his goons to spring him from an ER than a prison.

The characters move into place gradually, on an elaborate set that rivals the one in Office for its ingenious design, allowing the camera to move fluidly. As To explores the space, he and a team of screenwriters reveal the core trios flaws and secrets (and throw in some overly broad comic relief), before the story explodes into a visually stunning shootout.

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That technically complex set piece  which lasts over 20 minutes  is the films main selling point. But as always with To, it matters that he takes time to deepen the characters and establish their habitat. Even during the gunfight, this always remains a character piece: a thoughtful, imaginative movie about stubbornly authoritarian professionals, protecting their territories.

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Three

In Cantonese with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: AMC Atlantic Times Square; Monterey Park; AMC Puente Hills, City of Industry
Les Cowboys, Thomas Bidegains restless and emotionally bruising directorial debut, opens amid a flurry of red bandanas and blue denim, worn by men and women who have gathered to wave Stars and Stripes, and to sing and dance to their favorite folk tunes. The sights and sounds of classic Americana are so richly immersive that its not until after a man opens his mouth, launching into a lovely, lightly French-accented rendition of Tennessee Waltz, that you begin to grasp where these events are (or arent) taking place.

Its the fall of 1994 in eastern France, at a festival where country-western enthusiasts have gathered to celebrate their shared passion. The giddy feeling of dislocation that this realization produces in the viewer  one aptly summed up by the movies eccentrically bilingual title  will soon be eclipsed by an altogether darker sense of cross-cultural confusion. Alain Balland (Francois Damiens), a devoted family man and prominent local figure, shares a dance with his 16-year-old daughter, Kelly (Iliana Zabeth), not realizing from the sad, resigned look on her face that this dance will be their last.



For the record: An earlier version of this review stated that Les Cowboys was unrated. It is rated R, for a brief violent image and a scene of drug use.

Within hours Kelly has vanished without a trace: In a series of letters to her family, she writes that she has taken on a new life with her boyfriend Ahmed, a Muslim, and tells them not to look for her. But when the police do nothing, Alain, whose self-styled cowboy identity turns out to run deeper than a mere taste for black hats and boots, vows to bring his daughter home. And so, with a righteous fury that frequently spills over onto his wife (Agathe Dronne) and their teenage son, he spends his days, months and years traversing Europe and the Middle East, tracking elusive leads and distant rumors, negotiating with shadowy figures, and casting a dim, fragmentary light on a little-known pocket of continental Arab life in the years leading up to 9/11.

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The dramatic similarities between Les Cowboys and The Searchers, John Fords endlessly influential 1956 masterpiece, are no more accidental than Bidegains self-conscious yet utterly intuitive embrace of the American western tradition. This is not the first time that this French screenwriter, best known for his prize-winning collaborations with his countryman Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone, Dheepan), has filtered the sociopolitical anxieties of modern Europe through the pulpy prism of genre. With Les Cowboys, he has taken the central narrative thrust of The Searchers  a mans relentless, near-maniacal pursuit of a lost girl, driven in part by the queasy racial prejudice and sexual paranoia of the era  and recast it against a new pre- and post-millennial frontier of global anxiety.

There are, of course, some key differences. Kelly, or Aafia, as she now calls herself, is no stolen, violated innocent but rather a defiant master of her own destiny. And Damiens, despite the fierce and frightening commitment of his performance, is not exactly John Wayne, in part because the lone-wolf role has been smartly divided here between Alain and his son. Played as an adolescent by Maxim Driesen, and as a young man by Finnegan Oldfield, the boy is never identified on-screen (in the credits hes billed simply as the Kid), but it is he who emerges as the films truer, more ambivalent protagonist as he searches far and wide for his sister.

As the years pass and the Twin Towers crumble, the Kid scans the headlines and follows rumors of Al Qaeda activity, wondering if they might hold the key to his sisters whereabouts. His quest takes him as far as Pakistan, where he joins forces with a mysterious American mercenary (John C. Reilly) who has a possible lead on Ahmed. There are tense encounters, harrowing escapes and startling surprises along the way, but rather than seeming like lapses in plausibility, these thriller-like jolts serve to push Les Cowboys ever further into a genre experiment of its own making.

In this curious space between reality and myth, a dusty stretch of terrain becomes a sort of Monument Valley of the Middle East (handsomely shot by the cinematographer Arnaud Potier), and a cramped convenience store takes on an almost iconic power in the films most heart-stopping scene. Bidegain directs in a more contained and classical style than Audiard, and for all his interest in topicality and pastiche, he also respects the simple, melodramatic appeal of his story, and the primal emotions lurking beneath this story of parents and children torn apart.

Although its mostly set long before the rise of Islamic State, a fact that at times gives it an almost nostalgic air, Les Cowboys unsurprisingly plays with heightened urgency at a moment when many parents worst nightmares have come to pass. But this is no simple, reassuring tale of abduction and rescue. Its strength lies in the way it continually collapses the distance between people and cultures, forcing its characters to reckon with what they perceive as strange and unfamiliar. The most heroic and quintessentially western thing about Les Cowboys is that this moral imperative comes off not as some vague, well-meaning gesture toward tolerance, but rather as the logical conclusion of its bracing and adventurous spirit.

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Les Cowboys

MPAA rating: R, for a brief violent image and a scene of drug use

Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes

Playing: In limited release
Its 1979 in Tehran as Septembers of Shiraz opens to the Bee Gees Stayin Alive and a Boogie Nights-esque tracking shot into the home of a wealthy Jewish family throwing a party. Its an ironic song title, though, for jeweler Isaac Amin (Adrien Brody), his ex-journalist wife (Salma Hayek Pinault) and their two children, one of whom is off to college in America. Bloodthirsty religious revolutionaries in purge mode sweep up Isaac as an example of secular, privileged decadence, leaving his wife to wonder if Isaac or any of them will survive the ayatollahs freshly empowered reign of anti-Western tyranny.

The trouble is, director Wayne Blairs perfunctorily handled adaptation of Dalia Sofers 2008 novel is long on cardboard characterizations and short on genuine tension. Hanna Wegs screenplay might as well label its grubby, torturing, thieving fanatics takers and the wronged, terrified Amins makers for all the nuance it offers about a fraught, scary time in Irans recent history.

Brody and Hayek Pinault gamely toggle between looking worried and knowing theyre right. But only Shohreh Aghdashloo, as the Amins glum, wary servant  loyal to her employers but not without instinctive sympathy for the inequality fueling some revolutionaries  suggests a possibly richer movie than the ho-hum Argo wannabe on display.

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Septembers of Shiraz

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13 for thematic content involving interrogation, brutality and disturbing images, and for some partial nudity and brief strong language

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills; Laemmle Town Center, Encino
Theres an excellent movie now in theaters: a deeply moving adventure about a traumatized young female who plunges into unfamiliar waters and experiences terror and salvation by way of some computer-generated marine life. But enough about Finding Dory. If youre looking for a quick and satisfying summer thrill  a reminder that all you really need to make a movie is a girl and a flare gun  then the aptly titled Blake Lively-vs.-shark thriller The Shallows should serve you nicely.

It serves Lively best of all. If Hollywood has seemed slow to appreciate this talented actress (the popularity of the CWs now-defunct Gossip Girl notwithstanding), the tide would appear to be turning on the evidence of this efficiently pared-down B-movie showcase, whose taut suspense and fat-free narrative seem to have been conceived along the same lines as its stars enviable musculature. You will see Lively do richer, subtler acting in the future (as early as next month, when Woody Allens Cafe Society arrives in theaters). But she meets all the requirements of this high-concept one-woman show and then some: intense physical stamina, some stunt-double-abetted surfing, and the ability to look good in a bikini from every possible angle.

Better still, she effortlessly holds her own opposite a computer-generated chomper that the director Jaume Collet-Serra is smart enough to keep mostly hidden until the noisy, fiery, hilariously over-the-top (and under-the-bottom) finale. Faux-shark technology may have advanced by leaps and bounds since Jaws, but even in the era of Shark Week, Sharknado and Trolli sour-watermelon shark candies, The Shallows suggests that the lessons of Steven Spielbergs blockbuster hold as true as they did in 1975.

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Its a gorgeous afternoon when Nancy (Lively), a Texas-tanned surfer, arrives at a secluded beach somewhere on the Mexican coast. The sun is shining, the water an inviting shade of blue, the use of slo-mo exquisite. In the course of a few text messages and video chats, Anthony Jaswinskis mechanical screenplay lays out Nancys situation with amusing briskness: an isolated location, a no-show best friend, a worried dad, a beloved mother whose recent death from cancer is causing her to second-guess her dreams of becoming a doctor.

Naturally, that medical training will come in handy when Nancy, after doing some fancy dancy-prancy on her surfboard, is suddenly bitten by a great white and forced to take refuge on a large rock that becomes a tiny outcropping at high tide. Shes bleeding heavily from a leg wound, the suturing of which is shown in all its gory glory, but at least shes alive, unlike some of the other surfers and onlookers unfortunate enough to enter this deadly cove. Trapped just a few hundred yards from a shore that has never looked more tantalizing, Nancy must fend off not only her predator but also the ravages of hunger, thirst and exhaustion, with only a friendly downed seagull for company. (The seagull even has a name, but Im trying to avoid spoilers.)

High-concept survivalist dramas have become an unusually rich and varied Hollywood subgenre in recent years, with a dramatic bandwidth elastic enough to accommodate the hopped-up intensity of 127 Hours, the sublime minimalism of All Is Lost and the astronomical razzle-dazzle of Gravity. Thats partly a testament to the remarkable range of digital technologies at play here, but its also an instructive testament to the importance of star power. Livelys vehicle doesnt aspire to those films prestige depths, and it doesnt need to; her fierce commitment to the role is all the profundity it needs. (The actress has said that she was inspired by Buried, in which Ryan Reynolds, now her husband, played a man trapped in a coffin.)

And on its own unpretentious, unapologetically pleasure-seeking terms, The Shallows has enough to recommend it  not least the fact that you could watch it twice in roughly the same amount of time it would take to watch The Revenant, and with little appreciable loss in adrenaline or poetry. Collet-Serra is a genre-savvy action director with two notorious shockers (House of Wax, Orphan) and three Liam Neeson smash-em-ups (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) under his belt, and for all that studio-manufactured sound and fury, he seems to have intuitively grasped the more scaled-down needs of this assignment.

Working expertly in tandem with the cinematographer Flavio Labiano and the editor Joel Negron, Collet-Serra keeps the movie bobbing nicely alongside his star, delivering a new frisson of unease every time the camera plunges beneath the ever-rising and falling surface. He has fun teasing us with process and minutiae: the precise mechanical operation of a buoy, the defensive properties of a school of jellyfish, the number of seconds it takes the shark to swim a lap around its feeding zone. Speaking of time: With its thoroughly unnecessary closing scene, this blissfully short 86-minute movie would play even better at 85, but lets just shut up and enjoy the air conditioning.

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The Shallows

MPAA rating: PG-13 for bloody images, intense sequences of peril and brief strong language

Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes

Playing: In wide release
Whatever your views on animal rights, the fleet, engaging documentary Unlocking the Cage from nonfiction legends Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (The War Room) makes a worthy case for reconsidering the sturdiness of laws that explicitly separate humans from animals. With legal-thriller pacing and emotional intelligence, it chronicles attorney Steven Wises gung-ho effort to get a U.S. court to recognize a chimpanzee as a legal person with protections, as opposed to a legal thing without rights. Fierce protectors of the personhood label will scoff, and have plenty, but in a country that grants that status to corporations, Wise argues, why have we denied it to some of the most cognitively complex creatures  apes, dolphins, elephants  that dont happen to be human?

The professorially disheveled Wise is a 30-year veteran of the animal advocacy movement, with a sense of humor that makes him a welcome subject (and conveniently forgoes tarring him with the nutso brush). Backed by his crusading colleagues at the Nonhuman Rights Project, whose board includes Jane Goodall, Wise devised a clever legal approach to what he calls a first salvo in a strategic warfare: file a lawsuit on behalf of a specific captive, abused chimpanzee, and argue for limited rights relating to autonomy that would significantly change the animals life for the better.

Deciding on New York state as their lawsuit lab, Wise locates a handful of primates as noteworthy plaintiffs, including a pair named Hercules and Leo, kept for research purposes at Stony Brook School of Medicine, and Tommy, an ex-showbiz chimp (from the 1987 Matthew Broderick movie Project X) living in grim isolation in a makeshift cell with a television.

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As Wises case moves through the system, from friendly local judge to inquisitive appellate division arbiters and eventually New Yorks Supreme Court, we see all the fine-tunings, missteps and bursts of luck that mark the life of any impassioned legal campaign. And the pitfalls in contending that animals should have rights are legion. A rash of new scientific findings from around the world about how smart these animals are may bolster the personhood argument, but a judge who cant see beyond simply improving established animal welfare laws is a setback. And is bringing up the historical plight of slaves, women and children helpful? Or is it a queasy analogy likely to offend?

It all makes for a lean kind of intellectual suspense that Hegedus/Pennebaker present with their customarily observant, unflashy precision. Wises perseverance too is noteworthy, and his spokesperson skills have edge. (When informed by an interviewer that Tommys owner boasted that the chimp loved his living arrangement, Wise quips, If Tommy is so happy, the owner should move in.)

Unlocking the Cage, despite its cameras being on hand for a historic animal rights push, shouldnt be confused for some hot-button doc ready to slap you into sensibility about its fight. Hegedus/Pennebaker are too smart to get ahead of themselves about something they clearly believe in, when simply hewing to a can-do guy provides enough momentum. Then theres that thing only a camera can do: let us look into the depressed eyes of the speciously captive. Such moments make their point as effectively as any mock-trial-tested, legally sound argument from the mouths of humans.

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Unlocking the Cage

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center
Nothing softens up a hard-hearted auteur quite like the presence of a beloved animal. The Coen brothers demonstrated this conclusively a few years ago with Inside Llewyn Davis, an exquisite ode to loserdom that was brightened, and at times upstaged, by a winsome orange tabby cat. And even that most snappish of cinematic eminences, Jean-Luc Godard, seemed freshly energized when, while making his 3-D extravaganza Goodbye to Language, he had the wisdom to turn the camera on an adorable pup named Roxy Mieville.

Wiener-Dog, Todd Solondzs barbed and beguiling canine odyssey in four parts, may be the exception that proves the rule. A writer-director known for his confrontational, harshly funny dissections of American middle-class life, including Happiness (1998), Storytelling (2001) and Dark Horse (2011), Solondz is not entirely immune to the charms of the beautiful brown dachshund hes placed front and center here. But he never lets those charms distract him from the dogs chief purpose, which is to bear witness to a rich and appalling spectrum of human idiocy, misery and self-absorption. She is both mans best friend and a stark reminder that mankind is its own worst enemy.

If that sounds familiar, its because Wiener-Dog is effectively a jaundiced riff on Au Hasard Balthazar, Robert Bressons 1966 masterpiece about a donkey whose short, sad life illuminates the tragedy, the absurdity and the occasional sublimity of earthly existence. Solondz doesnt do sublimity, but hes a dab hand at the other two. At his best, and in the best moments of this thorny and uneven new work, he is capable of making tragedy and absurdity seem almost indistinguishable.

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The dachshunds first master is a 9-year-old boy and cancer survivor named Remi (Keaton Nigel Cooke), who names her Wiener-Dog. (Its unimaginative but far better than what her future owners end up calling her.) Remi loves his new pet, but his miserable parents (Tracy Letts and Julie Delpy) dont exactly share his affection, especially after Wiener-Dog ingests a granola bar and relieves herself all over their attractively furnished suburban home. Solondz films the aftermath in an extended tracking shot set to Debussys Clair de Lune; had he pushed the Bresson theme further, he might well have titled this chapter Diarrhea of a Country Pooch.

A medical detour sends our four-legged heroine off on her next adventure, now in the company of a lonely veterinary assistant (Greta Gerwig) and her junkie-drifter friend (Kieran Culkin) as they head out on a road trip to Ohio. Sharp-eared Solondz devotees will recognize both these characters from his 1995 breakthrough feature Welcome to the Dollhouse, with Gerwig playing an awkward, grown-up version of that films protagonist, Dawn Wiener. Its not the first time Solondz, a playful formalist, has reintroduced past characters in the guise of completely different actors (see Life During Wartime, his underrated semi-sequel to Happiness, or Palindromes, which actually kicked off with Dawns funeral). In his cinematic universe, the faces of human despondency are more or less interchangeable.

That sense of resignation increasingly infects Solondzs screenplay, which concerns itself less and less with the specifics of how Wiener-Dog passes from owner to owner, and more and more with the cruelty of lifes inevitable downward spiral. After a cross-country intermission that affords the films sole moments of unalloyed pleasure, Wiener-Dog is the companion of Dave Schmerz, a failed Hollywood screenwriter and widely derided film-school professor played to misanthropic sad-sack perfection by Danny De Vito.

 In an interview with The Times at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Todd Solondz talks about his new film Wiener-Dog and what he learned from his childhood pets.

Wiener-Dogs last and most indelible adventure involves a cranky shut-in (Ellen Burstyn), who pays little heed to either the dachshund or the sudden arrival of her talkative granddaughter (Zosia Mamet), paying one of her irregular visits to ask for money. In juxtaposing Mamets pathetic prattling and Burstyns cold-shoulder routine, Solondz somehow arrives at a piercing vision of two women in a state of shared yet unbridgeable despair. Its the only one of the four stories that seems to invite the question: How did these people get here?

An answer of sorts is provided by the films ghostly penultimate sequence, which also offers a vivid showcase for the richness and subtle saturation of Edward Lachmans reliably brilliant cinematography. The juxtaposition of formal beauty and surpassing human ugliness is hardly the least of Wiener-Dogs numerous internal contradictions, some of which are more resolvable than others. More than ever, his attitude toward his characters seems an irreducible mixture of pity and contempt, and even his most juvenile attempts at outrage are complicated by eerie undercurrents of emotion.

Theres no denying, for example, that Remis mother is a complete horror show, never more so than when shes telling her son a hideously inappropriate cautionary story about canine rape and unwanted pregnancy. But how to account for the tremors of feeling beneath Delpys perfectly judged comic delivery? For that matter, should we take heart at the fact that a husband and wife with Downs syndrome (played by Connor Long and Bridget Brown) are easily the happiest, best-adjusted characters in the picture  or should we take offense at the way Solondz links their reproductive capabilities to those of the dachshund?

Whatever the answers to these questions, the director at least has the integrity to subject himself to similar scrutiny. For all the relish with which Solondz sends up both the Hollywood studios and the independent film community that has supported him over the years, Dave Schmerz is not the character he most seems to identify with. That would be an artist who goes by the name of Fantasy (Michael James Shaw), whose work, we later see, consists of meticulously reproduced imitations of life, trapped under glass and displayed for all to see. The final image could be Solondzs acknowledgment of the diorama-like limitations of his own art, or it could just be his latest epitaph for all humanity: Welcome to the doghouse.

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Wiener-Dog

MPAA rating: R for language and some disturbing content

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Playing: In limited release
Oh, its bad. Hauntingly bad.

So ghastly is Fall Out Boys new theme to Ghostbusters that if, after first listen, you vaporized it, pumped it into a tank, locked it in a safe and buried it under the Empire State Building, Ghostbusters (Im Not Afraid) would still flatulently seep to the surface to torture millions.

Its so bad that it makes the original Ray Parker Jr. version seem good, no small feat. Its so bad that not even a blissfully delivered Missy Elliott rap about being chased by ghosts can make up for the monstrosity surrounding it.

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In its defense, Fall Out Boy didnt have much to work with. Parkers ubiquitous original remains a dim song that for the past 30-plus years has been a pox on those of us susceptible to tortuous ear-worms. With lyrics seemingly written during a bathroom break, its singsong rhymes and cheesy 80s production havent aged well. Brass arrangements blast through the song as Parker sings about seeing things running through heads and an invisible man sleeping in beds. The only reason the original song steamrolled up the charts at the time was due to the success of the movie. Without that, the song would have been as bankable as the theme to C.H.U.D.

But at least the original was built on a cool post-disco synth jam. Fall Out Boy knows little of groove and nothing of funk, so adapts the original in service of all-caps ROCK and riffs the size of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. That makes sense. This isnt a soft solo Patrick Stump jam, its Fall Out Boy, a band that understands its distorted mission and can transform cool ideas into memorable songs. To wit: the bands great rejiggering of the riff from the theme to The Munsters for its song Uma Thurman made it leap out of the speakers with each listen.

The Ghostbusters theme, on the other hand, dribbles out of the speakers like slime. Humor? Joy? Surprise? Nope. Just Stump bellowing like King Diamond while the band stirs up a digestive rumble. If the band spent more than a day in the studio on this, somebody got taken.

Perhaps worst is the collateral damage to Elliott. The rapper, who stepped away from the spotlight in the 00s but whos been having a mid-career resurgence of late, is the tracks major selling point, but her verse is mediocre at best and includes this coda.

They roll up to my house, they knocking at my door

They come busting in, kill all them ghosts

Its so strange in my neighborhood

Look out the window and it aint too good

I aint afraid, so lets get to it

Smoke these ghosts like backwoods

Like backwoods what, Missy? Backwoods brush? Backwoods tinder? Oh, yeah, you needed to rhyme it with good. How about Smoke these ghosts like hickory wood, Smoke these ghosts like Snoop Dogg would or Smoke these ghosts like Gozer could. Its not rocket science. It should just take more effort than the sweat required to endorse the back of a check.

Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit
Once upon a time, not that very long ago, a show called Queen of the South would have centered on some steel magnolia solving mysteries out of her Charleston bakery. Or perhaps a troubled musician struggling for fame and self-worth in New Orleans.

That was before the revolution. That was before a woman could be her own antihero.

In this case, the title of USAs latest drama refers to a female Mexican drug lord operating out of Texas. Based on Arturo Perez-Revertes best-selling novel La Reina del Sur and the Telemundo series of the same name, Queen of the South follows steel dahlia Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) on her journey from cowering money-changer to sleek and deadly cocaine queen pin.

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Comparisons to Scarface, Narcos and even Breaking Bad (but with a woman!) are inevitable, but theres a telenovela self-awareness at play in Queen of the South, an unexpected cultural critique. Its as much anti-Cinderella as feminine Scarface.

Lifted from dead-end poverty by a kind and handsome drug-runner, Teresa starts off as a starry-eyed romantic, happy with her prince, BFF and high-end shopping. But by the time the first hour (and the only one made available to critics) is through, the fantasy is scorched desert and Teresa hasnt just passed through the fire, she has become the fire.

The premiere is wild ride through a fun house of exposition, crazy escapes and scenario set-ups. A brief and early scene in which an established narco (the always excellent Joaquim de Almeida) discovers that his wife (Veronica Falcon) is unwilling to follow his plans to go legit and run for mayor foreshadows larger themes, but for the most part, the success of the series rests almost entirely on the revelation of its main character.

Fortunately, Braga appears to be all USA could have hoped for, and more

This isnt just a fictional queen of the narcas; Teresa Mendoza is the newest and most highly ranked leader of a group far more powerful and subversive: The female antihero.

Ten years ago, or roughly when La Reina del Sur was first published, a sympathetic female drug lord could not have existed on television, at least not as the lead character.

Even during televisions vaunted Golden Age, virtually all the award-winning and prestige dramas have revolved around men for one simple reason: For better or worse, we consider violence, corruption and moral ambiguity to be the hallmarks of dramatic excellence on television. And while networks believed that a male lead could be violent, corrupt and morally ambiguous, a female lead could not.

Books could be written on why this was so. Perhaps our collective opinion of men is so low that we had become hard-wired to forgive male characters all sorts of major sins. Or maybe it was just those double-standards and age-old binaries  Madonna or whore with no room in between.

Whatever the reason, the rise of the antihero kept cutting-edge television, with a few notable exceptions, focused almost exclusively on men. Tony Soprano was a manipulative, murderous thug who we loved; his mother Livia was just a Freudian nightmare. Mad Mens Don Draper could take on a new identity, sleep with a million women and be a role model of style, but any female lead character who took on a new identity and slept with a million men was inevitably a prostitute (though some series played with the notion that this was an empowering profession).

Slowly, that has been changing. Glenn Close played the cold-blooded but still hypnotic Patty Hewes on Damages; Grace Zabriskie and Chloe Sevigny powered up the sister-wife ethos of Big Love; Vera Farmiga raised crazy to a new Norma-Bates-ian level on Bates Motel. In House of Cards, Robin Wright made it clear that the female of the species is the more dangerous, ditto Keri Russell on The Americans while on Game of Thrones, Westeros is looking increasingly like radical feminist Mary Dalys vision of an Amazonian warrior state.

But Teresa is a specific breed of antihero: The female crime boss. Most easily traced to Margo Martindales amazing Emmy-winning performance as Mags Bennett in Season 2 of Justified, this character is a huge breakthrough for television, if only because it allows the majority of the population a shot at one of the most (again, for better or worse) idolized roles in the modern zeitgeist.

The crime boss remains our most popular way of examining power, its narcotic effect, its personal cost, its cancerous evolution. Historically and culturally, women have a different relationship with power. More often its casualty, even when they exercise some control, they are seen as string-pullers rather than commanders. And those who have lived long without power often deal with it differently; with any luck, Queen of the South will not be Scarface/Narcos/Breaking Bad only with a woman because every story is different and a new type of lead should offer a new perspective.

Bragas Teresa joins a growing army of non-fairy godmothers: Lena Headeys Cersei on Game of Thrones, Taraji P. Hensons Cookie on Empire, Jean Smarts Floyd Gerhardt on Fargo, Ellen Barkins Smurf on Animal Kingdom.

As Hyman Roth so memorably said in The Godfather Part 2: This is the business we have chosen.

And now, finally, that business is an equal opportunity employer.

Queen of the South

Where: USA

When: 10 p.m. Thursday

Rating: TV-14-DLSV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language, sex and violence)
Thirteen, a quietly compelling, five-part miniseries premiering Thursday on BBC America, concerns Ivy (Jodie Comer), a 26-year-old woman who has spent half her life abducted. As the story begins, she opens a door and runs.

(Insert mention of Room, the film of the book; Family, the canceled ABC series; and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the comedy made from similar premises. Continue.)

Although it is caught up in the way the past informs the present and memory feeds identity, Thirteen unfolds in the here and now; there are no flashbacks, and little in the way of back story. We see how people are, but not how they got that way; and how they are remains a not wholly settled question.

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Indeed, the series is remarkable as much for what it avoids as for what it shows. There is no social commentary, no sermonizing. The tabloid press, which makes its expected disruptive appearance, is dismissed almost with a shrug. There is a psychologist, but little in the way of psychologizing.

Ivys mother (Natasha Little) frets over the smallest disturbance of the 13-year-old status quo; she restores not just Ivys room, but the semblance of a family -- Ivys father (Stuart Graham), who has been living out of the house with a girlfriend, is called home to pretend that nothing has changed.

Younger sister Emma (Katherine Rose Morley) is convinced, at first, that Ivy is not who she says she is. As it evolves, theirs is the series most affecting among several well-drawn relationships, including those between Ivy and an old crush (Aneurin Barnard), a wilder school friend (Eleanor Wyld), and a sympathetic police detective (Richard Rankin), who is matched with a more suspicious one (Valene Kane). (The detectives have their personal business as well; there is a lot of personal business.)

With her triangular face and wide-set eyes and her long, lank, untidy hair, Comer, who is 23, has something alien, fairylike and uncanny about her; shes shot, at times, like a rumpled Renaissance angel. In early scenes, out of the cellar and back in the world, its as if her body is adjusting to a different sort of gravity, her breath to a new atmosphere. Her wariness shapes the space around her.

Comer plays Ivy as a person going in and out of focus, and much of the suspense  more than that of the police procedural this character study contains  resides in just wanting to see what she does or says next, as she seems to grow before our eyes from child to adolescent to woman. Its an all-in, all-out performance composed almost entirely of small moments, always magnetic yet never extravagant.

There are some commonplace dramatic elements, to be sure. In the name of urgency  mild spoiler  the kidnapper kidnaps again. There is some traditional action packed into its climax. And there are times when the drama feels, not false exactly, but a little engineered; but it is never fatal.

The production is stylish but not aggressively so, dream-like and pretty in a slightly downbeat way. For a crime story it is unusually gentle and generous toward its characters; it is not cynical or despairing  indeed, it is in the end a love story, or rather, several interlocking love stories set in contrast to the pathological mockery of one. That the series creator, Marnie Dickens, and its directors, Vanessa Caswill and China Moo-Young, are all women may or may not have something to do with this, but it seems worth pointing out that they are.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Thirteen

Where: BBC America

When: 10 p.m. Thursday

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)
Families and schools in L.A. Unified could get more of a say in the way the district allocates space to charter schools, thanks to a committee the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to create this week.

The school board directed the superintendent to form a group that will suggest ways to make the process for giving charter schools space on district school campuses more transparent for all those it affects. The group could include parents, district school principals, teachers and charter school leaders.

Under the current co-location process  defined by state law  schools and the parents who send their kids to public schools often are informed only after an agreement with a charter has been reached that their school will be sharing its space.

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The resolution isnt about making it easier for charter schools to take up space on traditional campuses, said board member Ref Rodriguez, who wrote the resolution. Its about better managing the sharing of space. Schools sometimes plan to use extra rooms for programs such as expanding magnets or special classes, but then those rooms get allocated to charters, Rodriguez said at the meeting. Involving schools earlier would help prevent conflicts, he said.

The resolution frames Proposition 39, the state law that governs co-locations, as an opportunity for charter schools and traditional district schools to collaborate by sharing resources that benefit all public school students.

In 2015-16, about 50 charter schools used space on campuses of L.A. Unified schools.

The committee will make suggestions that the superintendent must carefully consider in revising the districts charter co-location policies.The board approved the resolution 5 to 2, with board members George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson dissenting. Board member Monica Garcia co-sponsored Rodriguezs resolution.

I do not believe it is our job to make it comfortable for charter schools to coexist with us, McKenna told the board during Tuesdays meeting.

Instead of creating the committee, the superintendent should improve district schools so that families dont want to leave for charters, McKenna said.

The vote came after the school board approved a $7.6-billion budget with the warning that the district could be in deficit by the 2017-18 fiscal year, due in part to declining enrollment and its draining effect on state funding.

The district anticipates district-operated school enrollment to drop by 13,728 students for the 2016-17 school year, while independent charter enrollment is projected to increase by 5,984 students.

Other board members who voted for the resolution did so with caveats.

The board has already tried to address co-location practices twice before, in 2011 and 2013, board member Monica Ratliff pointed out. She added an amendment that requires the superintendent to review those recommendations and report on their status in 45 days.

Board President Steve Zimmer voted for the resolution, but said the law dictating co-location policies is faulty.

I will be a bigger believer in the forward motion toward collaboration and joint solutions when were not either being sued or under the threat of being sued at every turn, Zimmer said.

Last year, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the California Charter Schools Assn. and directed the district to use a different formula to identify empty classrooms.

There is clearly an opportunity for the district to provide more transparency and better communication to families and schools. Hopefully this resolution paves the way, California Charter Schools Assn. spokesman Jason Mandell said via email. Its disappointing when board members decide their main allegiance is to the district rather than to its students.

Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.

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Former L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy and Hollywood philanthropist Megan Chernin had ambitious goals in 2011 when they announced the creation of a nonprofit that in five years would raise $200 million for district students.

They said the Los Angeles Fund for Education, with fundraising prowess and freedom from bureaucratic constraints, would help revolutionize a district that had long struggled to educate its children.

The nonprofit fell far short of that fundraising goal. Now, the LA Fund has announced a merger that will shift its mission away from an exclusive focus on the district.

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The LA Fund has joined forces with LAs Promise, a nonprofit that manages three district schools, to create LA Promise Fund, a new organization whose goals will include forming charter schools.

We were left no other option but to open charter schools, said Chernin, who serves on the boards of both groups. We just want to have a larger impact and we want to be more efficient about our impact.

Chernin said the merger is, in part, a reflection of the groups limited ability to work successfully with L.A. Unified, for which she faults the school district.

The new nonprofits leaders say the decision also will reduce operating costs, allowing it to serve more students.

We want to create the maximum opportunities for the most disenfranchised youth of Los Angeles and we realized that together we could have a great impact, said Veronica Melvin, the chief executive of LAs Promise, who will head the new group.

But the new direction offers another sign that philanthropists who were attempting to overhaul the nations second-largest school district from within now are looking for other avenues.

The fund took in about $7 million from its inception to 2014, according to the most recent tax documents available. Melvin puts the total over five years at $20 million, saying that it met targets for individual projects and that $200 million was never the internal strategic goal. ow, the LA Fund has announced a merger that shifts its mission away from an exclusive focus on the district.

The merger comes as Los Angeles Unified contends with another reform effort, originally spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, that sought to more than double the number of charter schools in the city over eight years, a move that would slash the districts enrollment and state funding.

That proposal evolved into a plan put forward last week by the nonprofit Great Public Schools Now, which says it wants to hand out grant money to expand not just charters but any effective schools in L.A.s low-income neighborhoods  even potentially expanding good traditional public schools.

The LA Promise Fund could be among the organizations that benefit.

L.A. Unified officials recently rejected a bid by LAs Promise to start two charter schools, saying the organization needed to concentrate instead on improving achievement at the schools it already manages for the district. The charters later were approved by the county.

I hope this new effort is about collaboration and not competition, Board President Steve Zimmer said about the merger. My door, our door, is always open to collaboration. What weve learned is that conflict and competition does not help kids.

Deasy came up with the LA Fund and pursued donors interested in seeing a specific set of reforms at the district.

But after he resigned under pressure in October 2014, a political shift in the school board left donors who supported his goals without a powerful ally to pursue their favored reforms, which included making test scores a key factor in teacher evaluations and opening more charter schools.

Some blamed Deasys departure for the LA Funds anemic fundraising. But even while he was in office, the donations didnt pour in.

To raise an amount like $200 million, you have to be responsive, you have to work very carefully with your donors, you have to listen to your donors, said Antonia Hernandez, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, who said she applauds Chernins efforts and supports the merger. She added that, for the LA Fund, the conditions were not ideal for conveying a sense of confidence to the people giving money that it would be well spent.

The LA Fund helped launch Breakfast in the Classroom, a program to provide food to all students at the start of the school day, which brought in additional federal funding. Previously students had the option of arriving before school to receive a free breakfast.

The fund also organized an advertising campaign that stressed the importance of arts education and sponsored teams of girls at 44 schools that competed to develop solutions to community problems. Another of the nonprofits initiatives linked teachers to classroom grant opportunities and students to internships.

Leaders of the newly merged organization say the projects will continue and will be open to schools throughout L.A. County.

While L.A. Unified students are expected to derive some benefit, the mega-district now is left without an outside foundation devoted to supporting the 550,000 students in district-operated schools. By contrast, the target of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation is to raise an average of $1,000 per student, or about $4 million annually for its more than 4,000 students.

The LA Promise Fund, which will have a budget of about $6 million, hopes to create a pipeline of schools, extending from kindergarten through 12th grade.

We wanted and would still love to do that with LAUSD, but it wasnt on the table for us, Chernin said. So we figured we could create charters.

Times staff writer Joy Resmovits contributed to this report.

howard.blume@latimes.com

zahira.torres@latimes.com

Twitter: @howardblume

Twitter: @zahiratorres

Editors note: The Times Education Matters initiative receives funding from a number of foundations, including one or more mentioned in this article. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Baxter Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the California Endowment and the Wasserman Foundation. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content.

UPDATES:

5:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information.

6 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with additional details.

This article was originally published at 6 a.m, June 23.
On a February night 16 years ago, Michelle OKeefe got into her blue Mustang at a parking lot in Palmdale after spending the day working as an extra on a Kid Rock video in Los Angeles.

Suddenly, shots rang out, and the Antelope Valley College student was dead. Police later arrested Raymond Lee Jennings, the parking lot security guard who said he was the first to find her body.

Jennings always insisted he was innocent. After two hung juries, he was finally convicted of murder in 2009 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

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UPDATE: Man convicted of murdering college student set free amid questions over guilt 

But on Wednesday, the Los Angeles County district attorneys office announced it was asking that Jennings be released from state prison after new evidence was uncovered that raises doubts about his guilt.

Authorities would not provide details about the new evidence but said they will ask a judge to have Jennings released on his own recognizance while law enforcement completes its investigation.

My office has been presented with credible new evidence that brings this conviction into question, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said in a statement. Attorneys assigned to the newly created Conviction Review Unit have examined the evidence and are working with law enforcement personnel to investigate further. In the interest of justice, I am asking the court to release Raymond Jennings on his own recognizance while this investigation continues.

Jennings appeals attorney, Jeffrey Ehrlich, said he believes there were numerous flaws in the initial investigation, including a failure to look at other people who were at the parking lot at the time of the killing.

Ehrlich said the new investigation uncovered evidence suggesting a robbery or carjacking and that Jennings had nothing to do with it.

There were other people at the scene, and D.A.s office was aware of them, but they only looked at Mr. Jennings, he said.

In a letter to prosecutors, Ehrlich outlined what he considers the weaknesses of their case. The letter noted that there were several people in the parking lot at the time of the killing who were smoking pot and listening to music. Moreover, the letter quoted one of the witnesses as saying she saw a man in Toyota Tercel flee the scene.

Ehrlich argued that investigators failed to look into whether other people in the parking lot might be involved in the murder. He noted in the letter that one of the people in the parking lot that night had ties to street gangs and in the years since was involved in series criminal activities.

David Houchin, Jennings former attorney, said he grateful that Jennings was being set free.

I always believed he was an innocent man, Houchin said. I knew justice wasnt served.

Jennings was an Army National Guardsman and Iraq war veteran.

Detectives grew suspicious of Jennings when he told them the young woman was still alive when he found her but that he did not perform CPR because he feared contaminating the crime scene. But there was no physical evidence linking Jennings to the crime. No murder weapon was ever found.

Two juries in Los Angeles deadlocked on the case. But prosecutors got a conviction during the third trial, which was held in Lancaster, in the region where OKeefe lived.

There was no scientific evidence that implicated Mr. Jennings, Houchin said in an interview Wednesday. They couldnt wait to get that third trial back to Lancaster.

OKeefes parents rented billboards and adorned them with their daughters photo and the message: I wasnt ready to die . . . at 18. Can you help catch my killer? They also filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Jennings, who gave a statement during a deposition in the case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Blake argued during the trial that Jennings gave inconsistent accounts in various statements to detectives and in his deposition and revealed details that only the killer would know, such as the order of the shots that were fired.

The prosecutor said the security guard probably made an advance toward OKeefe and was rebuffed, leading to a confrontation and then the shooting.

Its an unspeakable crime for no good reason, Blake said after the verdict.

Defense attorneys said that Jennings was only speculating about the killing during his interviews and said he inaccurately described one of the victims wounds as a gunshot. Medical experts concluded that it was caused by a blow to the head.

Houchin argued during the third trial that jurors were mistakenly given portions of transcripts from interviews of his client that a judge had previously ruled could not be used during the trial.

Ehrlich said he will go to court Thursday along with the district attorney to seek Jennings release.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Twitter: @lacrimes

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Rosa Maria Soto ached to visit her dying mother in Sonora, Mexico, one final time. But family members worried that the immigrant rights activist who lacks legal status would not make it back across the border to her Phoenix home. A phone call from her brother  the only one of her nine siblings still in Mexico  was strung with tears.

He said to stay here, keep fighting, Soto, 62, recalled. So she did.

But Thursday, Soto felt defeated when she learned that the Supreme Court deadlocked on the legality of President Obamas immigration plan that would have given deportation relief and work permits to 5 million people who came into the country illegally.

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The mother of three children and six grandchildren in the United States, Soto would have potentially been protected under the program, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents.

Still, she, along with other activists and families facing uncertain futures, have vowed to continue the push for reform. Some took to rallies to insist that the deadlock had stopped nothing.

Obama, escucha, estamos en la lucha, protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Phoenix chanted. Obama, listen, we are in the fight.

The war has not been lost, insisted Apolonio Morales, political director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Marielena Hincapie, executive director at the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center, said the group will push for the case to be reheard by the high court, and for the Justice Department to seek a stay while the court decides whether to rehear it.

This is a case of national importance and it deserves a full and fair day in court, Hincapie said. We will also be looking at other ways to minimize the harm from the nationwide injunction.

The children of immigrants without legal status say the recent news has only deepened the anxiety they feel about being deprived of the people who sought to provide them with a richer life.

We live every day with an overwhelming fear of losing our parents to deportation, said Zaira Garcia, 23, who has three sisters. The Austin, Texas, resident  an organizer with the immigrant rights group FWD.us  has parents who would have been eligible for Obamas plan. She cried when she learned of the deadlock.

Immigration supporters react outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the justices issued a split ruling on President Obamas immigration policy Thursday. (Andrew Gombert / EPA )

This is about moms and dads who have been humiliated, exploited and continue to keep their heads down out of love for their U.S. citizen children, Garcia said.

Mariana Villafana, 26, who qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals plan in 2012, said she had prayed that her parents  both of whom arrived from Mexico and have worked as janitors for more than two decades  would benefit this time around.

They didnt seem very affected by the news because they worry more about the kids, but as a daughter, Im struggling with this, Villafana said in Los Angeles.

In Homestead, Fla., Armando Carrada, 26, a DACA recipient whose mother would have qualified for DAPA, was unsure how to go about explaining the deadlock to his undocumented mother when she returned from her job at a local nursery. She had stopped caring about immigration reform a while ago because it didnt seem to help.

A lot of our community is going to go back into the shadows, he said. People were hoping they could work and travel around and not be in fear of not making it home to their families.

The high courts 4-4 tie Thursday on the legality of Obamas immigration plan left in place a lower courts order in Texas that blocked it from going into effect.

Anti-illegal immigration activists celebrated the ruling, declaring it a win for American workers and the Constitution.

The court maintained that immigration policy  including the power to issue work permits  belongs to the people through their elected officials in Congress and that a president cannot unilaterally change that policy, said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a powerful national advocacy group opposing illegal immigration.

U.S. citizens and legal immigrants in this country have been spared having to face direct job and wage competition from millions of illegal migrants for whom President Obama had promised to open up every job in America.

Some say that despite the setback, progress in immigration reform should be noted.

Supreme Court decision deals blow to health coverage efforts in California 

Eunsoo Jeong had been sent from South Korea at age 13 to live with her grandmother in San Francisco. She later took on odd jobs, working off the books and bounced around to various relatives houses. Eventually, she benefited from the earlier federal action on childhood arrivals. The 28-year-old Los Angeles resident is optimistic about it one day extending to the parents of U.S. children.

I have to be hopeful, Jeong said. Im assuming that theres a lot of organizations that are still going to be fighting for it. Im still going to work as part of this.

For the parents who saw Obamas plan as a step toward a more stable future, news of the deadlock was sobering.

All of his dreams disappeared, Eloya Velasco, 41, said of her husband when he learned about Thursdays deadlock.

Her husbands long hours at a restaurant are not compensated the same as they would be if he had a Social Security number, she said.

The couple, who live in the Pico-Union neighborhood, had often discussed returning to Mexico. They stay, she said, for their four children, two of whom will graduate college next year. If we leave, well take away their opportunities, Velasco said.

Leticia Morales and her husband face a similar predicament. They have grown accustomed to a recurring question from their four children born in the United States. Will they ever deport you?

Morales answer is the same. I tell them, No, we hope not. But if that happens, youre going to stay here and continue studying. Because their life and their future is here.

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

nigel.duara@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @thecindycarcamo, @nigelduara, @mollyhf and @brittny_mejia

Los Angeles Times staff writers Alexia Fernandez and Corina Knoll also contributed to this report.

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UPDATES:

3:03 p.m.: This article was updated with additional reporting and editing.

10:29 a.m.: This article was updated with additional reaction.

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Southern Californias smaller cities and large businesses must take the threat of a crippling earthquake far more seriously than they have been, a committee of business, public policy and utility leaders said Thursday, saying action is needed to prevent the inevitable disaster from becoming a catastrophe.

Despite strides made by the city of Los Angeles to focus on earthquake safety, Southern California still faces significant threats that havent been resolved.

One of the most ominous is the looming threat on the edge of Southern Californias sprawling metropolis  the Cajon Pass. Its a narrow mountain pass where the San Andreas fault  Californias longest and one of its most dangerous  intersects with combustible natural gas and petroleum pipelines, electrical transmission lines, train tracks and Interstate 15 north of San Bernardino.

A huge earthquake on the San Andreas could move one side of the fault as much as 30 feet from the other. Such an earthquake would rupture flammable pipelines and lead to a catastrophic explosion so powerful it leaves behind a crater.

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And if utilities arent able to shut off the flow of petroleum or natural gas, firefighters could be helpless to keep a raging wildfire from spreading across the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains, just as the rest of Southern California staggers from the worst earthquake it has seen in more than 150 years.

There are solutions to these problems, said seismologist Lucy Jones, who advised the Southern California Disaster Risk Initiative Committee. But little has been done precisely because many people dont know the extent of the problems, and, if they do, fixing them seems so daunting.

Dont fall into the trap of, Its so impossible, so we cant do anything, or, We have to do everything. Take a piece. Get it done. Youre now better off. Go on to the next one, Jones said. Theres plenty that can be done.

Among those pushing for fixes are executives for Southern California Edison, the Southern California Gas Co., the Walt Disney Company, and Wells Fargo, along with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, USC, the Port of Los Angeles and the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Their pitch: create a Southern California Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative, intended to highlight the unresolved earthquake risks and convince decision makers to fix them. The group issued a report with recommendations on Thursday.

Its easier to bury your head in the sand, but thats no longer an acceptable answer, said John Bwarie, the committees project coordinator.

Here are five major threats Southern California faces that could imperil our ability to recover after a massive earthquake strikes the San Andreas fault, and how they could be fixed:

1. Fixing the Cajon Pass.

One way to reduce the risk of catastrophe at the Cajon Pass would be to put shutoff valves on both sides of the San Andreas fault on petroleum and natural gas pipelines. If the pipelines are automatically turned off during the earthquake, it could prevent huge amounts of fuel from being ignited if the pipelines break, Jones said. Officials say a big quake on the San Andreas is overdue.

Small changes can make a big difference. Jones recalled the meltdown of a Japanese nuclear power plant after a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit in 2011.

A meltdown mightve been avoided had the backup cooling systems diesel fuel was stored at a higher elevation, keeping it functioning even after the tsunami hit, she said.

2. In cities, water pipes and natural gas lines will burst during shaking.

The reality is disturbing  burst water pipes could leave parts of Southern California without running water for six months. Natural gas pipelines can fuel dangerous city fires.

Some experts point out that its impractical to retrofit all of Southern Californias water pipes with earthquake-resistant, flexible versions in our lifetime. But even some retrofitting would help.

Not every pipe in the systems needs to be quake-proof, but by targeting key lengths of pipe in the system, enough can be in place to address the firefighting needs of the region, the report said.

Installing more remote-control gas shut-off valves for natural gas transmission and high-pressure distribution pipelines would also help.

3. Large businesses and local politicians may be underestimating the worst-case scenario.

Many people dont know how bad the aftermath of a huge earthquake can be: Water and power delivery systems could be off for weeks, housing for tens of thousands could be damaged, the report said, an event far worse than experienced by veterans of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Large businesses need to develop a plan for getting back to work as quickly as possible. The worst-case scenario would be that major industries, such as aerospace, give up and leave Southern California if the region remains dysfunctional for too long.

That means businesses like banks need to know how to get their branches running as quickly as possible, perhaps by installing backup generators and keeping caches of emergency supplies on site.

If its too hard to have a home improvement chain keep all of its branches open in, say, Granada Hills, Northridge and Chatsworth, perhaps one plan would be to keep just the Northridge store operational, Bwarie said.

4. Many Southern Californians dont know their neighbors, and thats going to hurt neighborhoods ability to recover.

A key factor that could determine what neighborhoods survive and which ones are abandoned after an earthquake is how well the neighborhood works together to recover, instead of giving up and leaving town.

Southern California, unfortunately, has a reputation for neighbors not knowing each other.

But things can be done to help establish a sense of community, such as cities encouraging block parties or organizing people to check in on each other after an earthquake.

One idea Jones is working on at her own church is creating a system in which people are assigned to check on each other after an earthquake hits, and complete a drill on that annually.

5. Many cities do not require collapse-prone buildings to be retrofitted.

The city of Los Angeles has moved ahead on requiring apartments and concrete buildings at risk of collapse to be retrofitted, but most of Southern Californias vast suburbs have not followed suit.

In fact, there are cities that havent even done what Los Angeles began in the 1980s: requiring the retrofit of deadly brick buildings, whose bricks turn into projectiles in even slight shaking. The two women who died in the 2003 San Simeon earthquake in Paso Robles died as the facade of an unretrofitted brick building collapsed.

Another problem: The minimum standard for new buildings permits them to be so severely damaged in an earthquake that it might need to be torn down. The only requirement is that people not be killed by that building in an earthquake.

Cities have to ask themselves: Are you approving buildings that are designed to fail  but wont kill anyone? That doesnt do much for our economy, Bwarie said.

The committee suggests creating a uniform standard that would make it easier for building owners to choose higher levels of minimum safety, such as a building that would remain in operation even after a significant earthquake.

Southern Californias vulnerability to natural disasters demands that we look forward and prepare, Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said in a statement. It is critical to our economy, and to the 18 million residents in the region.

ron.lin@latimes.com

Twitter: @ronlin

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Authorities say trail cameras have captured what may be another gray wolf roaming Northern California.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says a lone wolf-like canid was first photographed in Lassen County in August and trail cameras a few miles away captured a similar animal in October.

The department said Wednesday that the animal is not a member of the Shasta Pack, the breeding pair and pups spotted in eastern Siskiyou County in 2015.

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They say that unlike OR-25, a transient wolf from Oregon that has visited California several times, this animal is not wearing a tracking collar.

Biologists say they cant rule out that the animal is a domestic dog or a wolf-dog hybrid. But the department points out that a wolf-like canid was photographed in western Lassen County twice more in March and in May, and that surviving winter in that remote area would be unlikely for a domestic dog or a wolf-dog hybrid.
Los Angeles County transportation officials said Thursday they will seek voter approval in November for a half-cent sales tax increase to fund a major expansion of Southern Californias rail and highway network.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors voted 11-2 to place a tax increase proposal on the November ballot that would generate at least $860 million per year for street repairs, highway improvements and new rail construction, including lines in the Sepulveda Pass and Van Nuys and extensions to Claremont and West Hollywood.

Metros proposal, one of the most ambitious in modern U.S. history, could transform a traffic-choked region that began building a modern rail system decades after other major cities. The expenditure plan calls for several north-south links in a rail network that runs largely east to west.

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The tax, which has no end date, would increase the countys base sales tax rate to 9.5% and push the rate to 10% in some cities, including Santa Monica and Commerce. If the tax were approved, two cents for every dollar spent in the county would fund transportation improvements. It would require a two-thirds vote to pass.

Critics have said the so-called Los Angeles County Traffic Improvement Plan could spark financial woes for Metro, which sometimes struggles to manage the budget it has now. The widening of the 405 Freeway was completed years behind schedule, and the budget for a new rail connection through downtown Los Angeles has increased by $130 million, or 9%.

The measures tax revenue also would fully or partially fund 10 new highway projects, including an extension of State Route 71 and a new carpool-lane interchange between the 405 and 110 freeways.

Metros plan would return 17% of tax revenue to cities for transportation investments, including road repairs. It also would fund Metrolink, bus and rail operations and repairs, and pedestrian and bicycle improvements.

Board members Diane DuBois, a Lakewood city councilwoman, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe voted against the measure.

Theres a strong belief that the county is tilted, and we need to fix that tilt, DuBois said, adding that the geographic distribution of projects was not equal.

Knabe said the plan prioritizes new projects over rail lines promised to voters through Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase that voters approved in 2008.

During nearly three hours of public testimony, dozens of elected officials and taxpayers asked Metro for last-minute changes to the plan, primarily accelerating the ribbon-cuttings for projects that would be funded with the new tax.

Others urged Metro to improve service for bus riders. At one point, members of the Fight for the Soul of the Cities advocacy group began to chant, Free buses, not freeways.

Knabe said that dozens of projects currently listed in the proposal could be moved back or removed in the future with a two-thirds vote of the Metro board.

When youre handed an open checkbook, it becomes a real accountability factor, Knabe said, asking the board for stricter controls on projects and budgets. This is a forever tax. I mean, forever. The accountability needs to be there.

Metro Chief Executive Phil Washington said the ordinance would allow the board only to speed up construction on some projects, and not at the expense of funding for other projects.

Other speakers asked the board to postpone the measure for two years to allow for further changes. To cheers and laughter, one elderly woman told the board: Like sex, we want it, but we dont want it quick  we want it right.

Representatives from southeast cities urged Metro to further accelerate the schedule for the West Santa Ana Branch, a 19-mile light-rail line that would connect Union Station with Artesia. The line would pass through a group of poor, transit-dependent cities, including Downey, Bellflower and Huntington Park.

After pressure from local representatives, including state Sen. Anthony Mendoza (D-Artesia) and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), Metro changed its expenditure plan to bump up the lines ribbon-cutting from 2047 to 2041, and noted the project could open as early as 2037 with funding from the private sector.

But the same project had received seed funding and a tentative opening date of 2027 under Measure R.

Its important to keep the promise to voters, said Karina Macias, a councilwoman from Huntington Park. No bait and switch. We want you to do the right thing.

On Thursday morning, Mendoza said he would reintroduce a state bill that would add 10 members to the Metro board, which he said would ensure [Metro] more fairly and equitably represents all of Los Angeles Countys 10 million residents. A previous attempt to pass the legislation failed earlier this month.

Others urged the Metro board to accelerate the timeline for a proposed northern extension of the Crenshaw Line, currently slated to begin service in 2047. The line could connect with the Purple Line along Wilshire Boulevard and the Red Line in Hollywood and could curve into nightlife-rich West Hollywood, which traditionally has had some of the highest voter support of any city for Metro tax measures.

Metro also heard criticism from advocates in South Los Angeles, who have sought funding for a tunnel along a one-mile section of the Crenshaw Line that is designed to run at street level in Park Mesa Heights.

We dont have a name for this measure yet, but how about Measure N  for never going to pass, or never going to happen?  said Damien Goodmon, the head of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition. Without funding for the tunnel, he said, he would urge South L.A. residents to vote against the tax measure.

A motion introduced by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti that passed unanimously will include funding for a bus-rapid transit line in the north San Fernando Valley that would connect to Cal State Northridge and open in 2023.

Under Measure R, the San Fernando Valley was largely left out of the equation, and was not treated fairly and was not treated equitably, said Los Angeles City Councilman and director Paul Krekorian.

laura.nelson@latimes.com

For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter.

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An Iraq war veteran convicted in the 2000 slaying of college student Michelle OKeefe was released from state prison Thursday after prosecutors expressed doubts about his guilt.

The people no longer have confidence in the conviction, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace told a judge who ordered Raymond Lee Jennings released. Grace suggested that another person was the killer.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan ordered that Jennings be released immediately from the courthouse but required electronic monitoring for Jennings because the case against him has not been dismissed.

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Jennings, who worked as a security guard at the Palmdale parking lot where OKeefe was found, smiled broadly as entered the courtroom.

He was happy to know, after 11 years, his ordeal is over, his attorney, Jeffrey Ehrlich, said outside court.

But Michael OKeefe, the victims father, outside court, continued to insist that Jennings killed his daughter.

Based on what I know, Mr. Jennings is still guilty until proven otherwise, OKeefe said. Nothing is worse than losing our kids.

Heres what we know about the case.

Question: Who is Jennings and how did he come under suspicion?

Answer: Jennings was an Army National Guardsman and Iraq war veteran.

Detectives grew suspicious when Jennings told them the young woman was still alive when he found her but that he did not perform CPR because he feared contaminating the crime scene. There was no physical evidence linking Jennings to the crime, and no weapon was found.

Two juries in Los Angeles deadlocked on the case. But prosecutors got a conviction during a third trial, which was held in Lancaster, in the region where OKeefe lived.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Blake argued during the trial that Jennings gave inconsistent accounts in statements to detectives and in his deposition and revealed details that only the killer would know, such as the order of the shots that were fired.

Q: What is the new evidence?

A: Prosecutors are not saying. But Jennings attorney offered some clues.

Ehrlich said the new investigation uncovered evidence suggesting a robbery or carjacking and that Jennings had nothing to do with it.

There were other people at the scene, and D.A.s office was aware of them, but they only looked at Mr. Jennings, he said.

In a letter to prosecutors, Ehrlich outlined what he considers the weaknesses of their case. The letter noted that there were several people in the parking lot at the time of the killing who were smoking pot and listening to music. The letter quoted one of the witnesses as saying she saw a man in Toyota Tercel flee the scene.

Ehrlich argued that investigators failed to look into whether other people in the parking lot might be involved in the murder. He noted in the letter that one of the people in the parking lot that night had ties to street gangs and in the years since was involved in criminal activities.

The prosecutor said the security guard probably made an advance toward OKeefe and was rebuffed, leading to a confrontation and then the shooting.

Its an unspeakable crime for no good reason, Blake said after the verdict.

Defense attorneys said that Jennings was only speculating about the killing during his interviews and said he inaccurately described one of the victims wounds as a gunshot. Medical experts concluded that it was caused by a blow to the head.

Q: Whats next?

A: Prosecutors have said the new investigation is continuing. Its unclear whether they plan to charge a new suspect in the killing.

UPDATES:

6:09 p.m.: This article has been edited throughout and updated to say that Jennings was released from prison.

12:13 p.m.: This article has been updated with comments from Michelle OKeefes father.

11:33 a.m. This article has been updated with the order to free Jennings.

This article was originally published at 8:34 a.m.
A San Fernando Valley hospital has agreed to pay $1 million in civil penalties to settle allegations that it put a mentally ill woman in a taxi and lost track of her for three days, Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer announced Thursday.

Under the terms of the settlement, Pacifica Hospital of the Valley admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to revamp its protocols for discharging homeless patients. It is the second time in two years that the hospital  a 231-bed facility in Sun Valley  has settled with the city attorneys office in patient-dumping cases.

Feuer, speaking at a news conference at City Hall, said he was very disappointed to be dealing with Pacifica Hospital again. The settlement, he said, includes the largest civil penalty that has been imposed on a medical facility since he took office in 2013.

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Pacifica Hospital on March 30 discharged 38-year-old Kasey Lucious, a patient with a history of mental illness and homelessness, after a 30-day stay. Hospital staff, without contacting her family, sent her 17 miles south by taxi to Crenshaw Nursing Home in Mid-City, Feuer said.

The cab driver left Lucious at the nursing home, but she never checked in, the city attorney said.

A taxi cab driver is just that  a taxi cab driver, Feuer said. Hes not a medical person; hes not trained in the steps necessary here. He dropped her off in front of the facility.

The hospital did not receive confirmation that the nursing home would actually admit Lucious before sending her away and did not confirm that she had arrived, the city attorney said.

Lucious never checked into the facility. Her family filed a missing persons report, and she was found wandering the streets by California Highway Patrol officers three days later, Feuer said.

The hospital said in a statement Thursday that it has contested the city attorneys allegations but agreed to the settlement to avoid the costs of litigation.

The hospital said it contacted authorities and several agencies, including Feuers office, to help find Lucious after she failed to arrive at a designated destination after being discharged from Pacificas behavioral health unit.

Lucious sister, Jennifer Lujan, told CBS News in April that Lucious was found dehydrated and confused and that all she remembered was just walking the street, sitting and sleeping.

The hospital has agreed to increase training for its personnel and pay $1 million to the city by June 2020, court documents show.

In May 2015, Pacifica agreed to pay $500,000 and to enact new discharge protocols after it was accused of dumping a man with a grave mental disability in skid row in downtown Los Angeles, according to the city attorneys office.

Feuer said his office had obtained nearly $3 million in patient-dumping settlements from multiple hospitals. He said that despite the disgraceful homeless problem in our city, hospitals had to treat homeless patients humanely. There are numerous recuperative care facilities that hospitals can work with to assist homeless patients after they are discharged, he said.

Of course there are challenges that hospitals confront with homeless patients, no question, he said. But we also know that there are basic protocols that they can and should put in place that would prevent someone from being dropped off by a taxi and left to fend for themselves.

Pacifica Hospital previously was ordered by multiple Los Angeles juries to pay more than $5 million in damages to a man whose son was stabbed to death by a fellow psychiatric patient in 2011.

Dean Camacho was stabbed by his roommate, Jerry Romansky, who attacked him with a a metal bracket removed from a toilet and fashioned as a weapon, an attorney for Camachos father said last year. The presence of the bracket violated building codes and should not have been in the bathroom, which lacked an emergency call button.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson

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3:39 p.m. This article was updated with information about a lawsuit involving the death of a Pacifica patient.

This article was originally published at 2:47 p.m.
A Los Angeles Times photographer pleaded no contest Wednesday to resisting and obstructing police while he was transmitting photographs of former First Lady Nancy Reagans funeral motorcade in Simi Valley in March.

Ricardo DeAratanha entered the plea on the misdemeanor count before Ventura County Superior Court Judge F. Dino Inumerable, who sentenced the photographer to 12 months of unsupervised probation and 16 hours of community service.

If he successfully completes probation, DeAratanha may request the conviction be expunged from his record.

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Shortly before noon March 9  the day the former first ladys casket was taken to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for public viewing  a resident of a nearby neighborhood called police to report that a man was sitting in a parked car with the engine running and a tarp partly covering the vehicle, Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Gilman said.

A Simi Valley officer responded and questioned DeAratanha. He was using the tarp to block the sun so he could read the screen on his laptop computer as he transmitted his photos.

DeAratanha got out of his car to talk with the officer and provided his press credentials and drivers license, Gilman said. The officer said he needed to authenticate the identification cards.

During the encounter, DeAratanha went back into his car several times, despite the officers requests that he not do so, Gilman said. Police handcuffed DeAratanha after he retrieved an electronic device from his car in a very aggressive manner, Gilman said.

The photographers attorney, Mark Werksman, said DeAratanha had removed his laptop from the car so that he could finish sending his photos on deadline while the officer verified his ID.

DeAratanha said in a statement to police that officers had targeted him because of his race. DeAratanha, who joined The Times in 1989, is Brazilian.

Gilman said there was no evidence that race or ethnicity played a role in the incident.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

For more news in California, follow @MattHjourno.

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A Compass Airlines flight en route to Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing in Arizona on Wednesday after a passenger threatened crew members.

After departing from San Antonio, the plane landed at about 3:45 p.m. in Tucson after a man interfered with crew members with some type of verbal disturbance, said Jessie Butler, a spokeswoman for the Tucson Airport Authority.

The unruly passenger refused to sit down and was uncooperative with flight attendants, according to passenger Ryan Healy on his Twitter account.

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Two F-16 fighter jets escorted the plane while it flew to Tucson International Airport, Butler said.

The plane was met by the FBI, Tucson police, U.S. Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies.

The unidentified man was detained by the FBI.

An FBI spokesman based in the agencys Phoenix field office confirmed that agents were investigating the incident.

There is no threat to public safety, Special Agent Matthew Reinsmoen said in a statement.

About 80 passengers and crew members were on board the flight. The passengers exited the plane for re-screening by the TSA, then returned to the plane, which departed at about 8 p.m. for Los Angeles.

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A short respite from triple-digit heat allowed crews battling several wildfires in Southern California to block the flames from destroying homes this week, but dangerous red flag fire conditions have returned, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

Temperatures in the Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara county mountains and valleys were expected to hover in the 90s Thursday, but they could climb into the 100s by the weekend while coinciding with a drop in humidity and strong wind gusts, NWS meteorologist Todd Hall said.

A red flag warning  meaning weather conditions are prime for a fast-moving, destructive wildfire  was in effect for the those three counties, while a heat advisory was expected in Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties, the weather service said. It will get worse through the weekend, Hall said.

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Several wildfires have broken out across Southern California since a heat wave settled over the region late last week.

The San Gabriel Complex fire, a pair of wildfires burning in the San Gabriel Mountains above Duarte, began Monday and forced hundreds of evacuations.

When we drove away, I thought we had a 50-50 chance of seeing our house again, said Roger Bosch, a Duarte resident.

On Wednesday, relief washed over the 73-year-old: He got to go home. Evacuations were lifted as conditions improved and firefighters increased containment of the two fires.

Of the 858 homes evacuated in the foothills areas, 534 households were allowed to return, Los Angeles County Sheriffs Capt. David Halm said. Mandatory evacuations remained in place for other parts of Duarte and Azusa, authorities said.

The fires have burned 5,235 acres and were 15% contained, officials said Thursday.

The battle against the flames was aided by cooler temperatures and higher humidity in the days following Mondays record-breaking heat, authorities said. Steep, challenging terrain presented a problem, said Mike Wakowski, the commander for the multiagency wildfire effort.

Were trying to secure as much as possible before the next heat wave comes, Los Angeles County Fire Department Deputy Chief Vince Pena said Wednesday.

Conditions improved enough this week in Santa Barbara County that crews began leaving the Sherpa fire burning in the Santa Ynez Mountains and Los Padres National Forest. That fire has burned 7,486 acres and was 93% contained, the U.S. Forest Service said.

Three hot shot crews dropped onto the mountain earlier this week to help build defenses at the fires most isolated points deep in the forest, the Forest Service said.

In San Diego County, firefighters have increased containment of the Border fire just north of the U.S.-Mexico border that prompted mandatory evacuations for the entire east county community of Potrero. The Border fire was about 20% contained and has burned 6,840 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Border fire has destroyed four outbuildings and left three firefighters with minor injuries. The cause is under investigation.

Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna.

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The Encinitas school board on Tuesday approved a plan to spend $416,000 in the next school year on a health and wellness program that must include at least one day of yoga instruction per week.

The plan  another attempt at compromise with parents unhappy that district money would be spent on yoga lessons  also sets aside $384,000 to help pay for enrichment teachers in other subjects now covered by parent fundraising and donations. The health and wellness teachers can incorporate other subjects besides yoga.

The Encinitas Union School District board voted 4 to 1 to approve the expenditure as part of its 2016-17 budget, with board member Gregg Sonken opposed.

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Officials initially proposed spending $800,000 entirely on yoga instruction, the cornerstone of the districts health and wellness program. The program was developed with funding from the Sonima Foundation, which paid $4 million to launch the yoga project before discontinuing the grant.

Supt. Tim Baird said the money would be bridge funding to continue Encinitas school yoga program until other grants could be secured.

That proposal infuriated parents, who said the money would be better spent on science, music or P.E. teachers.

About 75 parents and children protested the yoga program outside the school board offices Tuesday afternoon, calling for the district to drop all spending on the yoga program.

Some said after the meeting that the compromise measure still left them uneasy.

Where is this $800,000 coming from? asked parent Sian Welch. Why is yoga an essential part of that?

However, other parents spoke in support of yoga instruction.

I think its incredibly unique, courageous, to have a program like this, said Jacqueline Rossow, mother of a fourth-grader in the district. I think its forward-thinking.

Brennan writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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Several doctors, a psychiatrist and a pharmacist were among 22 people in Southern California charged as part of a nationwide investigation into federal healthcare fraud schemes that frequently targeted military families and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday.

The investigation resulted in the largest such enforcement action in U.S. history, netting more than 300 people nationwide and involving more than $900 million in fraudulent billings, officials said.

In Southern California, five physicians were among those arrested in cases involving $125 million in elaborate fraud schemes that targeted Medicare and the militarys medical plan and involved medical billing, unnecessary procedures and high-priced specialized compound medications.

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The charges in 13 criminals cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles and Santa Ana include conspiracy, money laundering, kickback schemes and identity theft, according to several federal indictments.

Those charged in cases unsealed this week include one doctor who allegedly performed medically unnecessary procedures at his offices in Temecula and Mira Loma. And he submitted nearly $12 million in bills to Medicare, U.S. Atty. Eileen M. Decker said.

That physician was named in the federal charges as Dr. Donald Woo Lee. The 50-year-old physician is accused of performing unnecessary vein procedures on patients even when they had no signs of varicose veins.

The other doctors charged are David Michael Jensen, 65, of Whittier; Kain Kumar, 52, of Encino; Sang Kim, 67, of Porter Ranch and Samuel Albert, 81, of Laguna Beach.

None of the physicians could be reached for comment.

Most losses in Southern California are tied to five cases involving compounding pharmacies, which combine different medications into one drug, Decker said. The scams are orchestrated by marketers known as cappers, who recruit patients and sometimes use their identity to obtain government medical funding.

Decker said compounding pharmacies were provided with scores of prescriptions, generally for pain medications, that carried huge reimbursements, often more than $15,000 for each prescription.

The prescriptions were written for patients who, in many cases, did not want the medicines, had never met the prescribing doctors or had no idea why they were receiving the medications, Decker said.

Tricare, the militarys managed care program, was the primary target of schemes involving the compounding pharmacies, Decker said. Prescriptions were written for profit rather than to treat the patient, Decker said.

Patients were pawns in an alleged pay-for-play fraud scheme.  California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones

One marketer John Garbino, 46, of Dana Point, was charged with receiving illegal kickbacks. A Palmdale pharmacy working with Garbino allegedly received more than $46 million from Tricare in a six-month period ending in May 2015, court records show.

In another scheme, Dr. David Michael Jensen, 65, of Whittier, owner a La Mirada pharmacy Valley View Drugs Inc., was indicted along with two marketers on charges of paying and receiving illegal kickbacks.

Health insurers paid the pharmacy more than $20 million, and the pharmacy paid nearly half of that to companies associated with the marketers, according to the indictment.

Patients were pawns in an alleged pay-for-play fraud scheme, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said.

Anthony J. Orlando, acting special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Services criminal investigation unit, said in one scheme the proceeds were laundered using a carwash, a plumbing business and an escrow company.

Most of those charged in Southern California were arrested Monday and Tuesday. Several turned themselves in to authorities.

Two others remain at large and are believed to be overseas, officials said.

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richard.winton@latimes.com
The 30-year conservative campaign to strike down race-based affirmative action came to an apparent end Thursday when a University of Texas admissions policy was upheld by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the last of the Reagan appointees to the Supreme Court and often the deciding vote on divisive issues.

Kennedy said a university and its leaders deserve considerable deference as they seek student body diversity that is central to its identity and educational mission.

By a 4-3 vote, the justices rejected a discrimination claim brought by a white student who had good but not excellent credentials when she was turned down for admission by the Austin campus in 2008. Abigail Fisher became the plaintiff in a suit that asked the court to rule that weighing a students race or ethnicity violated the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

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The courts decision is a major victory for affirmative action and something of a surprise because Kennedy had been a steady critic of race-based admissions policies in the past.

Kennedy joined the high court in the 1980s shortly after Justice Antonin Scalia, and both expressed the view that it was unconstitutional to give some students an edge over others because of their race. But conservatives repeatedly fell just short of mustering a majority to strike down such policies.

When the court tackled the issue in 2003, Justice Sandra Day OConnor spoke for a 5-4 majority to uphold a University of Michigan policy that allowed for considering a students race as one of many factors in evaluating applicants. Kennedy and Scalia dissented.

More recently, with OConnor having been replaced by the more conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., conservatives saw the Texas case as an opportunity for the court to finally reject such policies.

But Scalia died suddenly in February, shortly after arguments were heard. And rather than joining his fellow conservatives to rein in the Texas plan because it relied in part on race, Kennedy joined the liberals to uphold it, albeit with limitations.

He said university officials make an academic judgment about the students who will contribute to the campus, and judges should generally defer to their decisions. He also said a close look at the evidence showed race consciousness played a role in only a small portion of admissions decisions at the University of Texas in 2008, the year Fisher was rejected by the university.

This, Kennedy said, is a sign the policy was narrowly tailored to open the door for a small number of talented minority students and not a rigid rule that put a heavy stress on race.

Scholars and lawyers who closely follow these cases called Kennedys shift a major one.

This is momentous, said Kimberly West-Faulcon, a law professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Justice Kennedy has finally found a racial affirmative action policy that he was willing to endorse. This is a significant departure.

In the era of Black Lives Matter, she said, Kennedy is showing a new willingness to protect racial rights similar to the way he has protected rights for gays and lesbians.

This is quite a shocker, said Richard Kahlenberg, a scholar at the Century Foundation in Washington and a critic of race-based policy.

In past decisions, Kennedy had encouraged universities to rely on race-neutral policies to increase minority admissions. Texas was widely praised for implementing the top 10% law, which guaranteed admission to students in the top 10% of their high school. That dramatically increased the number of minority admissions without using affirmative action.

But officials at the Austin campus said they still needed an affirmative action plan to enroll minority students who fell short of the 10% cutoff at the states best and mostly white schools. They said a limited use of affirmative action could be used to admit several dozen minority students each year who would probably do well at the Austin campus.

That triggered a lawsuit by Edward Blum, a retired stock broker and University of Texas graduate, who said the university had no legal basis for evaluating applicants based on their race. He enlisted Fisher as a plaintiff.

Thursdays ruling should give comfort to college officials across the nation who consider a students race or ethnicity in admissions. A broad ruling by the high court rejecting affirmative action could have forced those institutions to revise such policies.

But the courts upholding of the University of Texas plan is not likely to have an immediate impact in states such as California, Michigan or Florida that have abolished race-based admissions plans though ballot measures or state laws.

Faith Carter, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, said the high courts ruling was a relief to her and other minority students.

It makes me proud. It makes me feel there is an effort to support diversity in the university, said Carter, 21, of Houston, who is Texas zone chair of the National Society of Black Engineers.

She noted that recent figures show the college student body is 4% African American, lower than at other large schools.

Just sending the message that this is lawful, that the Supreme Court did find this lawful, that alone helps, she said.

The issue of affirmative action has closely split the justices for decades, going back to the Bakke decision of 1978. Then, the court in an unusual 5-4 split, struck down a University of California affirmative action policy but said that colleges may consider a students race as a plus factor.

The 2003 decision in the Michigan case repeated that view. But after OConnor retired and was replaced by Alito, university officials worried that the high court was poised to strike down affirmative action entirely.

Joining Kennedys 20-page opinion in full were liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she had filed an earlier brief in support of the university when she was the U.S. solicitor general.

Alito wrote a 51-page dissent and read much of it in the court. Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case, he said. He was referring to the courts action on the same case three years ago, when a skeptical majority, led by Kennedy, sent the matter back to a lower court for closer review.

Alito, joined in Thursdays dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas, said the university had failed to justify systematic racial discrimination in its admissions policy.

He faulted Kennedy for deferring to university officials, particularly after Kennedy had suggested in the earlier decision that the court would demand stricter proof of the need for such a program.

Alito also questioned why the Austin campus was seeking more privileged minority students from top high schools. This argument turns affirmative action on its head, he said. Affirmative action programs were created to help disadvantaged students.

Speaking in the court, Alito said it was not clear whether this was a one-off decision that will have no lasting impact or the beginning of a significant shift in favor of affirmative action. That will only become clear, he said, when the next case comes along.

Times staff writer Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Houston contributed to this report.

On Twitter: @DavidGSavage

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2:29 p.m.: This story was updated with more background and analysis.

9:28 a.m.: This story was updated with additional reaction and analysis.

This story was originally published at 7:20 a.m.
An ideologically deadlocked Supreme Court dealt a severe blow Thursday to President Obamas immigration reform plan, casting the November election as a referendum on how to deal with the more than 11 million people living in the country illegally.

The 4-4 vote leaves in place a Texas federal judges order that has prevented Obama from granting deportation relief and work permits to more than 4 million immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or legal residents.

The tie means it will be left to the next president, the next Congress and possibly a nine-member high court to address what is widely seen as a broken immigration system.

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The ruling does not mean that the government will now begin deporting people who might have been eligible for Obamas program. Speaking at the White House after the ruling, Obama emphasized that parents of U.S. citizens will remain low priorities for enforcement. As long as you have not committed a crime, our limited immigration enforcement resources are not focused on you.

Immigrant rights activists vow to keep fighting after Supreme Court deadlock 

The immediate practical impact, however, will be that those several million people will continue to be unable to work legally in the U.S. Obamas program would have provided legal work authority to those who qualified.

The dispute was one of the major clashes this year before the Supreme Court, and the stalemate demonstrated once again how the current eight-member court  left equally divided since the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia  has been unable to issue definitive rulings in the most contested cases.

The justices issued a one-line decision in United States vs. Texas saying the judgment of the lower court is affirmed by an equally divided court.

The split was almost certainly along the familiar ideological lines, though the justices votes were not revealed.

During oral arguments in April, the conservative justices, all Republican appointees, had voiced support for the lawsuit by Texas and 25 other Republican-led states, which said Obamas action was illegal.

The four liberal justices, all Democratic appointees, appeared to favor the administration and its claims that the president has broad power under immigration law to set enforcement policies.

In announcing his Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents in 2014, Obama said that deportations should focus on criminals, gang members and people who repeatedly cross the border, but not on immigrant parents of U.S. citizens.

Obama proposed to allow people who fit this category to come forward, undergo a background check and receive a work permit if they qualified. It was similar to a previous program that benefited immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, dubbed Dreamers. That program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is unaffected by Thursdays ruling.

Texas state lawyers said Obamas second immigration-reform plan went too far. They sued in a federal court in Brownsville. A judge issued a national order preventing Obamas plan from going into effect, and the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans upheld that order.

Obama mourned his defeat Thursday, calling the courts nondecision disappointing and frustrating.

Heres the bottom line: Weve got a very real choice that America faces right now, he said in the White House press room. Were going to have to make a decision about whether we are a people who tolerate hypocrisy of a system where the workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law.

He said the tie vote also shows the need for the GOP-controlled Senate to vote on his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalias seat. Republicans are insisting that the vacancy should be filled by the next president.

Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, called the courts deadlock unacceptable. It shows us all just how high the stakes are in this election, she said. If elected, Clinton promised to go further and seek legislation that offers a path to citizenship for immigrants.

She cited the contrast with Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has promised to deport all immigrants here illegally and build a wall along the Mexican border.

Trump attacked Clinton for vowing to double down on Obamas efforts.

The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it, will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country, Trump said.

Until Thursday, supporters of Obamas immigration plan hoped that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or one of his conservative colleagues would vote to throw out the Texas suit. In the past, the conservatives have been skeptical of states challenging federal initiatives, questioning whether states have standing to sue.

But in recent years, conservatives also have been troubled by Obamas willingness to use his executive authority to make changes in response to deadlock on Capitol Hill. They accused the president of overstepping his authority, and those concerns were widely voiced when the immigration dispute moved into the court.

Critics note that the president conceded he took action on immigration only after the Republican-controlled House failed to approve an immigration reform plan. Texas lawyers insisted that only Congress, not the president, could change the immigration laws.

In January, the conservative justices signaled their leanings when they said they would consider not only the legality of the program, but also whether the president had failed in his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws, a rarely invoked provision.

But Scalias death left the courts conservatives without a solid majority to rule more broadly and possibly rebuke the president directly.

Nevertheless, Republicans praised Thursdays outcome.

The Supreme Courts ruling makes the presidents executive action on immigration null and void, said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who launched the lawsuit against Obamas plan, said the outcome rightly denied the president the ability to grant amnesty contrary to immigration laws. Todays ruling is also a victory for all law-abiding Americans, including the millions of immigrants who came to America following the rule of law.

The impact of the deadlock will be felt broadly in California, where more than a quarter of the affected immigrants reside.

But Thomas Saenz, the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles, said the courts action creates no new law and does not decide whether Obamas relief measures are legal. This is a temporary setback, he said.

Christi Parsons in Washington D.C. contributed to this story.

On Twitter: DavidGSavage

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2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from President Obama after the ruling.

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8:19 a.m.: This article was updated with more background and reaction.

This article was originally published at 7:41 a.m.
More than 24 hours after seizing control of the House floor, Democratic lawmakers on Thursday ended a noisy, unusual sit-in after being unable to push Speaker Paul D. Ryan to call a vote on legislation to curb gun sales.

Democrats sat on the chamber floor, spoke passionately about victims of gun violence and sang God Bless America into the wee hours outside the Capitol. But by Thursday morning they were protesting to an almost empty chamber after Republicans recessed for the long Independence Day holiday week.

Outside on the Capitol steps, Democratic members were greeted as they left with shouts of Were with you! from a crowd that had gathered overnight and into the morning.

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Attention shifted to the Senate, where momentum was building to show Congress was willing to do something  even a modest bill  in response to mass shootings in Orlando, Fla.

But passing the legislation remains a long shot.

Most Republicans, who have majority control of Congress and are backed by the influential National Rifle Assn., oppose the measures to prevent terrorism suspects from buying guns or expand background checks for purchases, saying such provisions might infringe on the constitutional rights of innocent people.

Even though a Senate compromise to prevent a narrow group of terrorism suspects on the no-fly list from buying firearms won bipartisan support Thursday  eight Republican senators joined all Democrats in a test vote  its future remains in doubt.

Ryan insisted the sit-in was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Theyre staging protests, theyre trying to get on TV, theyre sending out fundraising solicitations like this one, the speaker said of Democrats, holding up copies of fundraising emails.

If this is not a political stunt, then why are they trying to raise money off of this  off of a tragedy?

They know this isnt going anywhere, Ryan said. Our focus needs to be on confronting radical extremism. Terrorism is the issue.

While several Senate Republicans in tough reelection battles this fall are willing to consider new gun restrictions, rallying enough of them to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill is not likely.

Thursdays Senate test vote, with 52 senators refusing Majority Leader Mitch McConnells motion to shelve the compromise, offered a high-water mark for GOP support, but still fell short of the 60 votes that would be eventually needed for full passage.

Surely on an issue of this importance we should be able to come together and work for common sense solutions, said Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who led the bipartisan effort. It remains unclear whether the legislation will be brought up again after the holiday break.

Advocates of stricter gun-control laws believe public patience is nearing a tipping point in the aftermath of Orlando, as well as the shootings at a holiday party in San Bernardino, a church prayer meeting in Charleston, S.C., and an elementary school Newtown, Conn.

The American people are with us, said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the legendary civil rights leader, told his colleagues. Be optimistic.

The protest that started about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday continued overnight as crowds gathered at the Capitol, cheering on Democrats and at times breaking into patriotic song.

Until they left Thursday afternoon, Democrats continued to hold the floor, even after Republicans departed for the holiday break.

All were asking for is to have a vote, said Rep. Allen Lowenthal (D-Long Beach).

With the House technically recessed, the cameras that provide live proceedings of Congress for C-SPAN broadcast remained shuttered.

But in the age of social media, lawmakers were able to upload their own live video that C-SPAN gladly aired  drawing a sharp rebuke from Ryan that filming was against House rules.

A note Thursday from the speakers office reminded that custom is to allow only official broadcasts in part on the notion that an image having this setting as its backdrop might be taken to carry the imprimatur of the House.

Democrats ignored it.

What are we going to do, just say its OK for people to get slaughtered every six weeks? said Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the Democratic leader.

Californias Democratic lawmakers continued to have an oversized presence on the floor, and were among those providing feeds via the Periscope app.

This was not a one-time action, said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). Were talking about organizing events when we go home.

The lawmakers vowed to continue pushing for votes when the House returns July 5.

So many of my constituents wrote to me, contacted me over the past 24 hours, said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), reading a note from one who urged Congress to keep protesting until they get a vote.

I promise you That is what we will do, the congressman said.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaro

ALSO

Supreme Court upholds use of affirmative action at universities

Deadlocked Supreme Court vote deals defeat to Obama immigration plan

Freddie Gray case: Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. not guilty on all charges

UPDATES:

12:36 p.m.: This story was updated after a key Senate test vote on a compromise bill.

10:48 a.m.: This story was updated with news that the sit-in had ended.

9:39 a.m.: This story was updated with Paul Ryans reaction.

This story was originally published at 8:58 a.m.
One of the men depicted in the famous photograph of Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima was misidentified more than 70 years ago, the U.S. Marine Corps said Thursday.

When Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the image in 1945, the Marines identified one of the six men hoisting the flag as John Bradley, a Navy hospital corpsman. But the Marine Corps has determined that Bradley was not in the photo, and that another man, Marine Pfc. Harold Schultz, should have been credited with being there.

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Schultz moved to Los Angeles after the war and worked for the postal service. He died in 1995, and never spoke publicly about appearing in the photograph.

Bradley took part in a flag raising on Mt. Suribachi earlier on the same day that the Pulitzer-winning photograph was taken. His son, James Bradley, wrote a best-selling book about the flag-raising, Flags of our Fathers, which was later turned into a film by Clint Eastwood.

Bradley wrote that his father didnt talk much about the photograph but once told an interviewer, If I knew what was going to come of that photo, I am sure I would not have jumped in and given them a hand putting that flag up. Asked why, he said, I could do without the pressure and the contact by the media. Im just a private man and Id like to leave it that way.

The picture of the flag-raising is one of the most famous war photographs of all time. It has been reprinted in thousands of publications and is also the subject of the Marine Corps War Memorial located at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia.

The Marines invaded Iwo Jima  a small, volcanic island roughly midway between Guam and the Japanese home islands  on Feb. 19, 1945, hoping to stop Japanese fighter planes from taking off from its airfield. Japanese defenders were dug into bunkers; resistance was fierce. Ultimately, nearly 7,000 Americans were killed in what is considered the costliest battle in Marine Corps history.

On the fourth day of the invasion, Marines managed to take Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the island, and raised a small flag. Later in the day, a larger flag was sent to the summit. The APs Rosenthal arrived just as it was being raised and hurriedly snapped a picture.

The photo was instantly famous  and instantly shrouded in controversy. Rosenthal was falsely accused of staging the shot, and there was confusion because of the earlier flag-raising. There also was confusion about the identity of the men raising the flag, which was largely pieced together by one of the participants, Pfc. Rene Gagnon.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Joe Rosenthal in 1995, with the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Va., in the background. (Doug Mills / Associated Press )

Omaha-based historian Eric Krelle, working with an Irish researcher, was first to discover that the man thought to be Bradley was in fact Franklin Sousley, who was previously believed to be the man standing directly behind Bradley. But if that was Sousley, who was the man previously identified as him?

The key to solving the puzzle turned out to be a strap hanging from Schultzs helmet, and the fact that the sling on his rifle was attached in the improper place, Krelle said. These elements are not visible in the photo, but can be seen in the video that was taken at the same time. These distinguishing factors helped Krelle match Schultz to other pictures that were taken on Mt. Suribachi that day.

Retired Marine Lt. Col. Matthew Morgan and Marine Sgt. Maj. James Dever helped bring Krelles findings to the attention of the Marine Corps.

I talked to the Marine Corps very early on and they were skeptical. I knew if we were going to present anything to them, it would need to be very thorough and scientific, said Morgan.

Morgan decided to help produce a documentary with the Smithsonian Channel to reveal the Marines true identities. The reports generated by the Smithsonian research team eventually prompted the formation of a Marine Corps investigative review panel by the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Robert Neller.

Our history is important to us, and we have a responsibility to ensure its right, Neller said in a statement.

The panel, made up of active and retired Marines as well as military historians, confirmed that while Bradley was involved in the earlier flag raising, he was not present in the famous image.

Krelle called the discovery overwhelming.

I think what I love about this is that future generations of Marines will know the truth of their history, he said in an interview. What they see as a symbol of their identity will depict what really happened, who was there and who actually accomplished that task.

The New York Times reported that in May, after the investigation was announced, Bradleys son James admitted he no longer believed his father was the man in the photo. He said he had thought so for several years, but had refrained from publicly disclosing his opinion.

In one book on the episode, Shadow of Suribachi: Raising the Flags on Iwo Jima, Parker Bishop Albee Jr. and Keller Cushing Freeman write: Bradley, for his part, stressed that credit for the flag raising should be shared. He admonished reporters: Tell the fellows that it took everyone on that island and the men in the ships offshore to get the flag up on Suribachi.

Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, said: Although the Rosenthal image is iconic and significant, to Marines its not about the individuals and never has been. Simply stated, our fighting spirit is captured in that frame, and it remains a symbol of the tremendous accomplishments of our Corps  what they did together and what they represent remains most important. That doesnt change.

erica.evans@latimes.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ALSO

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The voting ends and the counting begins as Britain decides whether to leave the European Union

Obama to voters: After the Supreme Court ruling, immigration reform is up to you now
President Obama mourned the defeat Thursday of his plan to offer deportation relief to millions of immigrants and tried to put the next steps in the hands of voters, casting the November election as a referendum on whats widely considered to be a broken immigration system.

After a deadlocked Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling to block his 2014 immigration moves, Obama expressed frustration with the stunted move to legislative branch. He said that the U.S. needs a Congress that will both act on immigration policy and consider the presidents nominations of judges and justices charged with evaluating its constitutionality. He urged voters to consider that this fall when electing lawmakers as well as his successor.

Were going to have to make a decision about whether we are a people who tolerate the hypocrisy of a system where the workers who pick our fruit or make our beds never have the chance to get right with the law, or whether were going to give them a chance, just like our forebears had a chance, to take responsibility and give their kids a better future, Obama said from the White House briefing room just hours after the Supreme Court ruling was announced.

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He also pressed lawmakers to act on the nomination of Merrick Garland, his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Antonin Scalia. Republicans argue that the president has no mandate at this late stage of his second term to make such a consequential decision, another point of contention in Washington that Obama underscored.

These are all the questions that voters now are going to have to ask themselves and are going to have to answer in November, Obama said.

The court defeat reflects the risk Obama took in acting on his own, a path he chose after immigration reform stalled on Capitol Hill in 2013. Facing an intransigent GOP-led Congress, Obama has embraced executive power in the final years of his presidency to accomplish his goals, but with it came the possibility that the courts could strike down his efforts as beyond the scope of existing law.

Obama rejected the idea that the deadlocked court was judging his use of executive authority. The decision wont affect other executive actions he has taken, he said.

The Supreme Court wasnt definitive one way or the other on this, Obama said. The problem is, they dont have a ninth justice.

But Republicans found a value judgment in the court decision.

The Constitution is clear, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement. The president is not permitted to write laws  only Congress is.

The deadlock leaves in place the lower-court decision that prevents Obamas immigration plan from taking effect, denying temporary relief from deportation to more than 4 million immigrant parents of U.S. citizens under a program called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA. It was modeled on a 2012 program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which offered similar relief to about 600,000 young people who had been brought into the U.S. illegally.

Obama had also directed Homeland Security and other agencies to focus deportation efforts on criminals, gang members and people who repeatedly cross the border, rather than those who had broken no laws besides living in the country illegally.

His efforts were immediately challenged in a lawsuit by 26 states, most with Republican governors or legislative majorities. Obamas programs were put on hold while the case made its way through the courts.

The court deadlock reflects well-established ideological lines of the country, and it is certain to fuel a campaign conversation that breaks along the same boundaries.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton called the courts decision purely procedural and made clear that she believes that, as president, she would have the authority to try a similar approach.

There is no doubt on the fact that DAPA and DACA are entirely within the presidents legal authority, Clinton said in a statement, using shorthand for Obamas immigration efforts. As president, I will continue to defend DAPA and DACA, and do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families.

Clinton also said that the 4-4 split among justices underscored the need to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Senate Republicans need to stop playing political games with our democracy and give Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing and vote, she said.

Donald Trump, Clintons general-election opponent, issued a statement that, like Obama, emphasized the stakes of the presidential election.

Trump, whose call for a wall along the border with Mexico is a central plank of his campaign, attacked Clinton for vowing to double down on Obamas efforts.

The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it, will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country, Trump said.

Follow @cparsons for news about the White House.

ALSO:

Supreme Court deadlock deals defeat to Obama immigration plan

In the final stretch, how will a divided Supreme Court rule on these big cases?

The Dreamers Obama spared from deportation: What are they dreaming about?

UPDATES:

11:55 a.m.: This story was updated with a comment from Donald Trump.

10:55 a.m.: This story was updated with more comments from Obama.

This story was originally published at 10:05 a.m.
Since the shooting at an Orlando nightclub last week that left 49 people dead, reports have emerged that gunman Omar Mateen frequented the gay club, used gay dating apps and had gay lovers.

But the FBI has found no evidence so far to support claims by those who say Mateen had gay lovers or communicated on gay dating apps, several law enforcement officials said.

Mateen, 29, told police negotiators he had carried out the shooting that began at 2 a.m. June 12 and ended, after a three-hour standoff, when he was killed by police.

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He claimed the shooting was carried out in allegiance to the militant group Islamic State, as a message to halt U.S. bombing in Iraq and Syria.

Several Pulse regulars have come forward in the days since the shooting, claiming to have seen Mateen at the club or to have been contacted by him on the gay dating apps Grindr, Jackd and Adam4Adam.

On Tuesday, Univision aired a report in which Miguel, a man wearing a disguise to conceal his identity, alleged he had sex with Mateen after meeting him on the gay dating app, Grindr. He said Mateen had sex with other men too, including a threesome with a Puerto Rican who allegedly told Mateen, after having had unprotected sex with him, that he was HIV positive.

But investigators do not consider the mans account credible, according to one senior law enforcement official with access to the investigation.

In seeking to verify the reports, federal agents have culled Mateens electronic devices, including a laptop computer and cellphone, as well as electronic communications of those who made the claims, law enforcement officials said.

So far, they have found no photographs, no text messages, no smartphone apps, no gay pornography and no cell-tower location data to suggest that Mateen  who was twice married to women and had a young son  conducted a secret gay life, the officials said.

The FBI is continuing to explore Mateens past, but investigators now believe the men who made the claims are not credible, or confused Mateen with someone else.

The FBI has not said whether it has uncovered any evidence that Mateen visited the Pulse nightclub prior to the shooting.

But law enforcement sources did say that investigators have not uncovered any direct links between Mateen and members of Islamic State.

NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

It is possible that Mateen might have had communications on cellphones or other electronic equipment that have not been recovered by investigators in the wake of the shooting.

Some of those who have claimed to be in contact with Mateen before the shooting continue to insist that the gunman seen in the photos released after the shooting is the same man who visited the nightclub before the shooting.

Kevin West, 29, a Navy veteran and Pulse regular, said Mateen messaged him on Jackd and also said he recognized him entering the club on the night of the shooting. After the attack, West turned his phone and app passwords over to police and FBI investigators. He said Mateen didnt reveal his name, but he recognized him from the photo Mateen had posted on the app, which matched one of the gunman released after the shooting.

On Thursday, he dismissed federal investigators doubts.

No one is lying about him being on there, West said of the gay apps, adding that once you have the app and delete your profile, its gone.

West said the focus should be on keeping guns out of the hands of potentially violent people.

People died by that mans hands and [the] only thing this country is concerned about is if he is gay or not, West said.

Cord Cedeno, 23, another Pulse regular, insisted he saw Mateen at Pulse months before the shooting and messaged with him on Grindr for a short time, but eventually blocked him because he would only send photos and say Hi. Cedeno said he has no reason to doubt accounts from other Pulse regulars who have said they had seen Mateen visit the club in the past.

The FBI obviously is trying to cover up their information, he said of gay men who reported being contacted by Mateen. I can go take a lie detector test. I know for a fact Omar messaged me.

Cedeno said he did not contact police to tell them about his contact with Mateen, because some of his friends who did had their phones taken and were told not to talk to reporters. He said he doesnt trust the FBI to investigate Mateen, given they questioned him in 2013 and again in 2014, placed him on a terrorist watch list but then removed him from the list.

They let him go. They let him do this massacre. They could have arrested him. It just does not add up, Cedeno said.

The Times Washington, D.C., bureau contributed to this report.

ALSO

Obama to voters: Immigration reform is up to you now

Freddie Gray case: Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. not guilty on all charges

House Democrats end protest as bipartisan gun legislation gains backing in Senate
Three police officers in a small Washington state town who fatally shot an unarmed man after he threw rocks at them will not be charged with any federal crimes, the U.S. Department of Justice said, though a state coroners inquest has yet to be conducted.

The Pasco, Wash., officers lacked the willfulnessto do something the law forbids when they shot Antonio Zambrano-Montes last year, said Michael Ormsby, the U.S. attorney in Spokane.

Ormsbys office said in a statement this week that mistake, misperception, negligence, or poor judgment are not sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation in the Feb. 10, 2015, death of the 35-year-old farm worker. Earlier, the county prosecutor in Pasco announced his office would not charge the officers with any state violations.

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It was not known why Zambrano-Montes, who migrated illegally from Mexico around 2006 to work at Columbia Basin farms and orchards, threw rocks at the officers. He was high on meth, police said, when he was hit by up to a half-dozen bullets after the officers caught up to him on a busy street. They fired 17 shots during the encounter, including 12 from a few feet away, officials and witnesses said.

A dramatic cellphone video taken by witness Dario Zunig from his stopped car showed Zambrano-Montes running, possibly limping, as he crossed a street with officers in close pursuit. They had fired an initial volley when the suspect tossed large rocks at them and ran off.

In the video, Zambrano-Montes hands appear to briefly go up as he trots along a sidewalk next to a cafe. He looks back, still moving, then halts and turns, hands outstretched in front of him as the officers run up and open fire.

Police had said five or six rounds struck Zambrano-Montes. Officials were uncertain of the number because autopsy results didnt agree. The county autopsy concluded he was hit five times.

Two separate autopsies, authorized by Zambrano-Montes widow and parents, who are suing Pasco for wrongful death, found another wound, to the back, according to their Seattle attorney Charles Herrmann.

Under federal law, Ormsby said, use of deadly force is justified when an officer has probable cause to believe a suspect poses threat of serious physical harm. An FBI investigation turned up no reliable testimonial or physical evidence that refutes the accounts provided by the officers that they believed the force they used was necessary to protect themselves and to stop a perceived threat, his office said in a news release.

Our thoughts remain with Mr. Zambrano-Montes family and friends, Ormsby said. I cannot fathom how painful their loss has been.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

Agapita Montes Rivera, Zambrano-Montes mother, said in a statement released by Herrmann, Videos clearly show police firing many shots at Antonio, wounding him in his right arm and chest as he tried to run away. When he turned to surrender, they shot him to death. Where is justice for my son?

Two of the Pasco officers, Adrian Alaniz and Adam Wright, remain on the force. The third, Ryan Flanagan, resigned last July. They still face questioning at a civil trial and are likely to be called to testify at a public inquest. Franklin County Coroner Dan Blasdel had been forced to delay the inquest while he battled with county officials over its need and cost. A hearing date is still in flux.

Anderson is a special correspondent.

ALSO

Freddie Gray case: Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. not guilty on all charges

FBI investigators say they have found no evidence that Orlando shooter had gay lovers

House Democrats end protest as bipartisan gun legislation gains backing in Senate
Democratic U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia has resigned from Congress two days after his conviction in a racketeering case.

The 11-term congressman said Thursday that hell leave earlier than planned out of respect for House leadership and to avoid being a distraction.

Fattah had said this week he would leave office when he is sentenced in October.

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The 59-year-old lost the spring primary weeks before his trial began.

A jury on Tuesday convicted him on all 22 counts in a case that centered on his misuse of federal grants and nonprofit funds to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.

ALSO

Pennsylvania Rep. Chaka Fattah convicted in racketeering case

After federal corruption conviction, Rep. Fattah says hell resign in October

Montebello gang member convicted of federal racketeering and firearm charges
Good morning. It is Thursday, June 23. A baby eagle got its own no-fly zone in the San Gabriel Mountains. Firefighters were asked to avoid the nest as they dropped water on the Reservoir and Fish fires. Heres what else is happening in the Golden State:

TOP STORIES

Shaky ground

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The land around the San Andreas fault is moving. Scientists have found that much of the Los Angeles Basin, Orange County, San Diego County and the Bakersfield area are sinking 2 to 3 millimeters a year. Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino are rising at the same rate. Once there is a major event, all of that energy gets released, said Sam Howell, a doctoral candidate in geophysics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the lead author of the report. Los Angeles Times

Tree massacre

Drought, bark beetles and high temperatures helped kill 26 million trees in the Sierra Nevada in the last eight months. That estimate brings the total loss of trees since 2010 to at least 66 million. Tree dies-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that puts property and lives at risk, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Los Angeles Times

Conviction doubts

A convicted murderer should be released from prison because new evidence raises doubts about his guilt, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. Prosecutors will ask a judge to release Raymond Lee Jennings, a former security guard who was sentenced in 2009 for the shooting death of an 18-year-old woman. Jennings was convicted after two previous trials ended with deadlocked juries. Los Angeles Times

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE

Off the list: A handful of restaurants in San Luis Obispo will stop serving wine from Justin Vineyards after the company bulldozed hundreds of oak trees to make room for more grapes. Its believed the vineyard violated grading regulations, though there are no restrictions on cutting down oaks. Im a native of this area. I grew up with oak trees, and I know how long they take to grow, said Greg Holt, owner of Big Sky Cafe. The Tribune

L.A. AT LARGE

I love you, California: As he prepares for his road trip, columnist Steve Lopez finds Californians are passionate about protecting their coast. With Californias coast, I am humbled. Its a gift, and it has to be robustly defended, protected, preserved for generations to come, and open to everyone regardless of income, he writes. Los Angeles Times

Outta here: The lone student enrolled in the MFA program at USCs Roski School of Art and Design dropped out this week by sending a letter to the universitys provost  and a lot of media outlets. The move comes one year after an entire class of MFA candidates withdrew from the university in protest. I was both socially isolated as well as pedagogically misdirected due to a lack of structure and foresight in the nonexistent studio component of this ersatz program, wrote HaeAhn Kwon. Los Angeles Times

Civic identity: When it opened nearly a decade ago, Bottega Louie was seen as key to the revitalization of downtown Los Angeles. Now a branch is opening in West Hollywood, and critics say its the latest sign that straight businesses are taking over the gay oasis and haven. WEHOville

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

On the floor: Three dozen members of the California congressional delegation took to the House floor  literally  Wednesday as they staged a sit-in over gun legislation. The action was initiated by civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). The C-SPAN cameras that usually broadcast from the chamber were turned off, so members used Periscope and Facebook Live to broadcast their speeches and chants of No bill, no break. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan called the protest nothing more than a publicity stunt. Los Angeles Times

Domestic violence: The mayor of Lake Elsinore was arrested on suspicion of attacking his wife. Sheriffs deputies were called to the couples home about 1:30 a.m. Monday. Brian Tisdale, who did not comment on the arrest, said he would take a leave of absence from his role as mayor. Los Angeles Times

Crossing party lines: Former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, endorsed Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez for the U.S. Senate. He said the Orange County congresswoman is tough and not afraid to take a stand on important issues. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

Cheerleader arrested: An 18-year-old high school senior was charged in connection with the beating death of a homeless man in San Diego County. Hailey Suder pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of being an accessory after the fact, authorities said. Brothers Austin Mostrong, 20, and Preston Mostrong, 19, are accused of beating and torturing George Lowery, who suffered a stroke and two brain hemorrhages as a result of the attack. He died days later in a hospital. Los Angeles Times

Oakland scandal: This guide will catch you up on the sexual misconduct allegations that have overtaken the Oakland Police Department and a handful of other law enforcement agencies. As a reminder, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has compared the Oakland PD to a frat house with a disgusting and toxic macho culture.  Mother Jones

Through the grapevine: The trial of the century was only 20 years ago, yet Ezra Edelmans documentary O.J.: Made in America is a reminder of how much the flow of information has changed in that time. The New Yorker

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Studio premiere: The Church of Scientology has a new movie studio in Los Feliz. Its reportedly the result of a five-year and $50-million renovation of the old KCET public television space. LAist

Out in the streets: This long-form article examines what we can learn from the design of Los Angeles boulevards. So its no longer just a question of local L.A. smog, or sprawl, or style. All of these global issues  social, cultural, economic, environmental  must be considered when we think about the design of Los Angeles boulevards. Boom California

Family business: The story behind the success of In-N-Out is a sad one that includes drug addiction, family feuds and untimely deaths. KCET

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

San Diego starts the day with clouds before temperatures reach a high of 74 degrees. Los Angeles will have a mix of sun and clouds with temperatures reaching 80 degrees. Riverside will be 92. There will be clear skies and a high of 71 in San Francisco. Sacramento will be sunny and hot at 93 degrees.

AND FINALLY

Todays California Memory comes from Amy Schol:

I remembered this when the Metro Expo Line opened: I spent the summer of 1975 at USC. One weekend we decided to go to the beach. At that time there was just RTD, but somehow we got to Santa Monica. The only problem was, on the way back, nobody knew where to transfer buses. The bus driver told us to get off at a huge, desolate intersection in Crenshaw, where we stood, sandy, hot and unsure if a bus would ever appear. Nobody wanted to contemplate walking back to USC. Eventually, a bus came and took us back to campus.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad.
Im Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I dont want you to miss today.

TOP STORIES

#ImWithHer Versus #ImWithYou

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Amid much turmoil in his campaign, Donald Trump tried to right the ship with a speech that drove home two themes: his anti-trade economic message and a series of attacks on Hillary Clinton, which she rebutted. As for Clintons Im with her slogan, Trump said, You know what my response is to that? Im with you. And with that, a new Twitter hashtag was born. So what were the facts, falsehoods and unsubstantiated allegations of Trumps speech? Read on.

More Politics

-- House Democrats conducted an old-fashioned sit-in to force action on gun control.

-- Whom will Clinton and Trump choose as vice presidential candidates. No one knows, but everybody wants to guess the ticket.

-- Five years on, theres still no Obamacare alternative from House Republicans.

Do Black Police Chiefs Matter?

William T. Riley III is trying to rebuild trust in the police department of Inkster, Mich. Before the city brought him in as chief, a white officers beating of a black autoworker made headlines. As an African American, Riley has seen the tensions of race and policing from both sides. His advice to his son, hundreds of miles away: If stopped, comply with the officer  and if you get a crazy one, you say, My daddy is a police chief.

Arborgeddon: 26 Million Trees and Counting

Drought. Heat. Bark beetles. All of these have combined to kill 26 million trees in the Sierra Nevada in the last eight months, according to federal officials. Since 2010, at least 66 million trees have succumbed. The die-off has firefighters on edge and groups like TreePeople warning of a threat to the ecosystem that made California what it is today.

Rise and Fall of the San Andreas Fault

Scientists have long suspected that the land around the San Andreas fault is rising and sinking. For the first time, they have now produced a computer image showing it. Much of the L.A. Basin, Orange and San Diego counties and the Bakersfield area are sinking 2 to 3 millimeters a year, according to this research. Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a big part of San Bernardino County, are rising at the same rate. Heres what would happen in a big quake  and why we still cant predict when that will be.

UCLA Fight-Fight-Fights for Diversity

When Proposition 209 passed nearly 20 years ago, it ended affirmative action at public universities. Black and Latino enrollment dropped throughout the UC system. But last year, UCLA finally brought its number of incoming African American freshman to pre-Prop. 209 levels. Now, the university hopes to go further with a new push to recruit promising students by working with L.A. schools, churches and community events.

CALIFORNIA

-- The Coastal Commission is getting an emergency loan from the state to make its payroll.

-- The nations biggest healthcare fraud investigation nets 301 people, including 22 in Southern California.

-- The L.A. County district attorneys office is asking for the release of a convicted murderer amid doubts about his guilt, thanks to new evidence.

-- A woman who defiled national parks with graffiti has been banned from 524 million acres of public land.

NATION-WORLD

-- Too close to call: Britain votes today on whether to leave the European Union.

-- The Orlando shooting has revived debate about how paramedics respond to active shootings.

-- Its been 20 years since Australia had a mass shooting. How much of the credit goes to gun control?

-- Irans economy is running just fine, if youre a bigwig at a state-owned company.

-- A study says a new anitbody therapy can keep HIV at bay without a daily drug regimen.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- I was participating in a sham: The lone MFA student at USCs Roski art school has withdrawn via a searing statement.

-- The jury in the Led Zeppelin copyright infringement trial heard closing arguments before starting deliberations.

-- Are you ready for a new Match Game? TV game shows are making a comeback.

-- Art review: Hammer Museums biennial Made in L.A. 2016 brings some thoughtful surprises.

-- The brazen Bavarian Werner Herzog is back with his latest directorial effort, Salt and Fire.

BUSINESS

-- Elon Musks plan for Tesla to buy SolarCity raises concerns among investors and analysts.

-- Should employers offer payday-type loans as an employee benefit?

-- How a Hollywood start-up became Microsofts partner in the marijuana industry.

SPORTS

-- The Lakers are leaning toward taking Dukes Brandon Ingram with the second pick in the NBA draft.

-- It was a memorable night for the Dodgers Julio Urias, pitching with his hero, Washingtons Oliver Perez, in the house.

-- Jackpot! Las Vegas is awarded an NHL expansion team, but it doesnt have a name yet.

OPINION

-- Closing Californias last nuclear plant is welcome, so long as it doesnt hamper the states climate change goals.

-- Meghan Daum: My white privilege meets Sonia Sotomayors scathing attack on police power.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- What happened to politics in the U.S.? A look at chaos syndrome. (The Atlantic)

-- Hollywood premieres have lots of security, but is it enough? (The Hollywood Reporter)

-- Heres how the artist Christo built two miles of walkway that floats on a lake. (Wired)

ONLY IN L.A.

The baby bald eagle has landed, and in an unusual location: the San Gabriel Mountains. As helicopters drop water to battle two wildfires, theyve been instructed to steer clear of the baby eagles nest by at least 1,000 feet. We dont want to startle him out of the nest because it could be very detrimental to his survival, said one official. Heres more about the no-fly zone and challenges flora and fauna pose.

Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj.
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Thursdays 4-3 Supreme Court decision upholding a racial preference program at the University of Texas at Austin is a dramatic victory for affirmative action, snatched from what once seemed a likely defeat.

Yes, Justice Anthony M. Kennedys majority opinion is full of qualifications. He makes much of the unusual nature of the program challenged by a disappointed white applicant (it involved only a minority of places in the freshman class, most of which was populated on the basis of high school rank). He also warns that the courts decision to uphold the Texas plan as it existed doesnt mean that that institution (and others) mustnt continually refine their admissions programs to ensure that they dont overuse racial classifications.

Kennedy, who dissented in the 2003 case in which the court last upheld racial preferences, also reiterated the courts statement at an earlier stage in this case that universities that take race into account in admissions must be willing to show in court that doing so is necessary to achieving the goal of educational diversity.

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These reservations might suggest that this is only a temporary victory and that the conservative groups that have relentlessly challenged affirmative-action programs will be back to fight another day with a greater hope of success.

We like to think that wont be the case, and that Justice Kennedy  who for the time being is a swing vote on this issue  has finally recognized that the court does neither higher education nor the Constitution any favors by continuing to nitpick the attempts of universities to ensure that their student bodies are diverse in the broadest sense possible.

Thats what the University of Texas tried to do. Under state law, most places in the flagship campus freshman class were determined by class rank, with admission guaranteed to students who finished in the top 10%. Because so many schools in Texas are racially homogeneous, this in and of itself meant that the university did enroll a substantial number of black and Latino students.

But in filling the rest of the places, the university sought to achieve what it called diversity within diversity by admitting minority students who were academically gifted even if they hadnt finished in the top 10% and who came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds: suburbs as well as cities, professional as well as working-class families. This approach not only enriched students classroom experiences; it also broke down racial stereotypes.

We hope that this decision marks the end of the courts micromanaging of good-faith efforts to diversify higher education. State universities arent required by the Constitution to use racial preferences in admission  and some states, such as California, unwisely choose not to  but when they do, it is ridiculous to argue that such plans violate the Constitution. Affirmative action is a valuable tool not only for ensuring diversity on campus but also for redressing deep-rooted racial inequalities. The court should leave the universities to get on with their important work.

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The announcement this week by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that it will shut down the states last nuclear power plant by 2025 and replace the energy it generated with renewable power is good news for Californians, who have always had an uneasy relationship with nuclear power in general, and with the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in particular.

Few will be sorry to see the reactors near Avila Beach  uncomfortably close to several earthquake fault lines  go dark. But this will be a victory only if the utility can follow through on its promise to replace the lost nuclear power without turning to fossil fuels. Regulators and lawmakers must closely examine the terms of the shutdown deal (which PG&E worked out with the electrical workers union and environmental groups) and ensure it wont endanger the states ambitious goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Gov. Jerry Browns climate change legacy will be put at risk if the closing of Diablo Canyon leads to an increase in the use of fossil fuels.

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For all its potential for meltdown disaster, nuclear power is clean and sustainable. Diablo Canyon, which began operation in 1985, produces about 20% of the electricity that PG&E provides to its customers in Central and Northern California. Thats a lot of electricity to replace, or to save through conservation. Doing so even with a nine-year head start to identify new power sources will be tricky. For one thing, it will require storage systems for renewable energy that are a still-developing technology. While theres reason for optimism that the capability will be there in 2025  and while PG&Es promise will create further incentives for companies to come up with such new technologies  for now the issue remains a possible stumbling block.

There is a faction of the environmental community, albeit a small one, that believes turning away from nuclear power is a mistake. Theres no way, they say, that the power from nuclear plants can be replaced without using fossil fuels. Indeed, when other nuclear plants have shut down natural gas usage has often increased, they say. Thats bad because not only is gas a fossil fuel, but it can be dangerous as well. A ruptured gas line was responsible for the deadly San Bruno explosion and the massive gas leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility that began last year and released about 100,000 tons of methane gas into the atmosphere. Simply swapping nuclear power for natural gas is not a solution. Gov. Jerry Browns climate change legacy will be put at risk if the closing of Diablo Canyon leads to an increase in the use of fossil fuels.

An orderly and planned closure such as this one is certainly preferable to an unexpected shutdown after something goes wrong, as was the case at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Northern San Diego County in 2013. Southern California Edison and the other owners of the plant decided to shutter the plant after steam generators failed.

The end of Californias nuclear age may have been inevitable. The public has never been completely comfortable with the risk posed by nuclear power plants, and after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, the concerns about Californias coastal nuclear plants only intensified.

That there have been no significant accidents at the states nuclear plants over the course of about a half a century is fortunate, but its no reason to continue relying on a power source that has the potential for massive catastrophe. If the closing of Diablo Canyons nuclear reactors can be accomplished by simply shifting to sustainable and safer green energy sources, theres no reason not to do so. Indeed, a smart, organized transition could provide a blueprint for other states that want to retire nuclear plants.

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In whats being touted as a turning point in the way the Supreme Court considers the factor of race in the criminal justice system, Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday delivered a scathing dissent in Utah vs. Strieff, a 4th Amendment case about police searches.

The court ruled in a 5-3 decision that it was legal for police to search someone even if he or she had been stopped without a lawful reason, as long as an outstanding warrant was later discovered. Unlawful stop or not, if you have so much as an outstanding traffic ticket, any evidence of wrongdoing turned up in a search could count against you.

Sotomayor was in the minority, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, but her dissent effectively sent a stronger message than the ruling itself.

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Decrying the way the decision forgives police who detain people based on nothing more than a hunch, Sotomayor drew on her own experience as a Latina and invoked the lessons of the Black Lives Matter movement.

For generations, black and brown parents have given their children the talk, she wrote,  instructing them to never run down the street; always keep your hands where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger  all out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react.

She cited Michelle Alexanders book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me, which wrestles with the legacies of racism in terms so plain as to be revolutionary.

People of color, Sotomayor wrote, are disproportionate victims of unlawful police stops that corrode all our civil liberties and threaten our lives.

Though its hardly news to many blacks and Latinos, plenty of middle-class whites are only now beginning to grasp the scope of their privilege when it comes to dealing with the police. Cavalier as it sounds, I can tell you that as a white person (a blond, female one at that) my interactions with law enforcement over the years have taken a notably breezy tone. Im hard pressed to think of a situation where being in the presence of a cop would make me fear for my life  even if, ahem, I had actually done something wrong.

Im hard pressed to think of a situation where being in the presence of a cop would make me fear for my life  even if I had actually done something wrong.

As it happens, on Monday, right around the time Sotomayors dissent began making a splash, I did have a run-in with the law. Near where Im living in New York City, theres a stretch of road closed to traffic and used as an unofficial dog run. NYPD officers routinely sit in a cruiser nearby, paying no attention to local canines enjoying a few minutes of illicit freedom. However, on Monday my dog and I were stopped by a sanitation officer whod observed my infraction and demanded to see ID. Since I didnt have any on me, he said he would escort me to my building to retrieve my drivers license, and then he made a big show of radioing in to see if I was wanted for anything.

Hoping to defuse the encounter, I registered disbelief: Youre kidding me! Then I kicked it up a notch, gently teasing the officer: How did you get stuck on this detail? Finally, I resorted to the sympathy card: My dog and I are here from California and its been a hard adjustment. In the end, I still got a $200 ticket, but the officer apologized because I seemed so nice. And I said I was sorry he had such a difficult job.

Speaking of apologies, Im also sorry to say that before I read Between the World And Me, I probably wouldnt have thought much about the extraordinary display of privilege contained in this encounter. Like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has indicated in the past that he has never been stopped by police, I have generally operated on the notion that if youre law-abiding, the police are nothing to be afraid of. And Im an NPR-listening, Obama-loving, supposedly enlightened liberal whos supposed to think beyond that.

Thats why Sotomayors dissent is so important. In pointing out where the courts decision went wrong, it points the way forward. It suggests that the day might come when the law of the land more accurately echoes the cultural conversation. Either that or the day Roberts gets busted for no good reason. Well see which comes first.

mdaum@latimescolumnists.com

Twitter: @meghan_daum

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Traffic-fatigued Los Angeles County residents have long envied the cohesive transit available in the Bay Area and Washington, D.C. But these systems offer warning signs too: There have been lines closed, fires and even fatalities on Washingtons Metro due to years of poor maintenance. Bay Area Rapid Transit has been hit by delays and damaged train cars and now needs a ballot measure to pass just so it can repair its aging stations.

Here in Los Angeles County, as we continue expanding the Metro system, we dont want to wind up like those other systems, which found the funds to build lines  but not to maintain them. Metro needs a dedicated source of operating revenue to keep our trains moving.

That is a key reason why I will vote today as a member of the Metro Board of Directors to place the Los Angeles Traffic Improvement Plan on the November ballot  funded by a no sunset transportation sales tax.

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Since Metro broke ground on the Blue Line more than 30 years ago, progress has been slow and steady toward adding bus and rail options to reduce traffic gridlock. Line by line and project by project, Metro has expanded service so that it now connects Chatsworth to Chinatown, Culver City to Canoga Park, and South Pasadena to Santa Monica. Today, Metro delivers 1.4 million rides a day. With the recent completion of the Expo Line and the Foothill Gold Line extension  and soon the Crenshaw Line to LAX  well continue to see ridership grow.

Still, our roads remain some of the most congested in the nation. The average county resident loses 80 hours a year stuck in traffic. That doesnt just hurt our quality of life, it dampens our economy, stifles productivity and poisons our air. The county is expected to grow by 2 million people in the next 20 years; congestion will only get worse if we dont knit together the transportation system our region so desperately needs.

In March, the Metro Board announced an ambitious spending plan funded by a tax measure limited to 40 years. It would provide $120 billion in new funding to expand our rail and bus network, redefining commutes for residents in every corner of the region. New lines would connect Van Nuys to LAX, San Fernando to the South Bay, and Claremont to Culver City. The plan would pay for street repaving and pothole filling across the countys 88 cities. It would create thousands of local jobs, pay for critical earthquake retrofitting and invest in much needed freeway projects to unclog bottlenecks. And it would contain the strongest oversight of any Metro measure to date, to make sure every taxpayer dollar is protected and well spent.

But when the Metro board made this proposal public, the response was clear: Build more. And faster.

But when the Metro board made this proposal public, the response was clear: Build more. And faster.

By removing the 40-year sunset date, Metro can accelerate nine projects by a total of 42 years  while also reducing project costs.

To tackle our traffic crisis head on, we must trade slow and steady for bold and decisive. We must create a truly complete system that serves the needs of all commuters today, but also anticipates the riders of tomorrow. We have to make sure high school and university students can get to class on time, and that our growing senior and disabled populations have access to affordable fares.

And we must put adequate funding in place to ensure our transit system remains functional for generations to come.

During the 20th century, Southern California paved the way for the rest of the nation by adopting a freeway-based transportation system. In the 21st century, with more people living, working, visiting and studying here than ever before, we again have a chance to lead the way. We can create a new transportation system that integrates public transit lines, freeways and local streets to get all of us where we want to go, when we want to get there, however we choose to move.

Eric Garcetti is the mayor of Los Angeles and second vice chair of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors.

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To the editor: My office is acutely aware of the increased incidence of homelessness and hunger among many college students as highlighted in this article. (Re 1 in 10 CSU students is homeless, June 21)

Although young people have always faced challenges in transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, it seems incontrovertible that the second half of the millennial generation faces barriers to stability unlike any generation before them. Housing is virtually unaffordable in our county as rent increases consistently outpace stagnant wages, especially for entry-level jobs.

We are taking many steps, including convening all the two-year and four-year colleges in my district to begin a robust and collaborative approach to identifying, supporting and serving homeless and food-insecure students.

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No college student should be without a roof over his or her head, and we have much work to do to ensure that these men and women have the support they need. Thank you for increasing awareness about this serious problem.

Sheila Kuehl, Santa Monica

The writer is a Los Angeles County supervisor.

::

To the editor: Its stunning that 1 in 10 Cal State University students is homeless and 1 in 5 is hungry.

How can they study? And if this is the case for CSU students, what is it like for elementary, middle and high school students?

The big national discussion right now is how to keep guns out of the hands of evildoers. It should be, it must be, about homes and food for children, teenagers and young adults who dont have these basic needs. They are the future of the United States.

How can this country maintain its democracy if young people cannot believe in it because they dont know what it is? Weve got to get our priorities in order.

Damiana Chavez, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: The obvious solution to solving this awful statistic is to raise tuition to a point where poor kids can no longer even dream of getting a college education. Im surprised that the nabobs in Sacramento havent thought of it. Then the poor kids will drop out and the embarrassing statistic will go away.

I say this with tongue in cheek. Seriously, the answer is to do as Sen. Bernie Sanders recommends: Make public colleges free. This is one way, perhaps the only way, that the wealth gap between rich and poor can be closed.

We should view education as a capital improvement, just as we view investing in infrastructure. The kids wont let us down.

Karl F. Schmid, Los Angeles

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Donald Trump on Wednesday, for the first time, assembled a somewhat coherent message detailing Hillary Clintons vulnerabilities.

He also demonstrated that he is a supremely flawed messenger.

For almost every criticism Trump leveled at Clinton, a corresponding criticism could be made of Trump:

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He targeted her support for regime change in Libya and the Iraq war, both moves that he supported.

He criticized her for failing to release emails and speeches to Wall Street, even as he refuses to release his tax returns.

He accused her of treasonous acts to sell out America for personal profit, even as he faces a federal trial over allegations he defrauded paying customers at Trump University.

He assaulted her as a world-class liar, even as he made statements that have repeatedly been shown to be untrue.

Trumps speech, delivered at one of his properties in Manhattan, underscored much of what has powered his campaignand what limits his reach.

He focused on areas important to many Americans, such as the uneven economic recovery and widespread suffering in communities dependent on now-shuttered factories. He pledged to end the special interest monopoly in Washington, and rebuked Clintons campaign slogan Im with Her.

You know what my response is to that? Im with you, Trump said.

But for all the potency in those arguments, Trumps speech was rife with mis-truths, exaggerations and contradictions.

No secretary of State has been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton, he said at one point after raisingas Democrats have before himsome fact-based criticisms of Clintons foreign policy actions.

But he immediately followed that with words so apocalyptic that they were more likely to provoke eye rolls than gain him a second look among voters trying to decide on a presidential candidate.

Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched, he said.

Trumps apparent goal with Wednesdays speech was to quell an uprising among Republicans worried that his free-wheeling castigation of Muslim immigrants and the Latino judge hearing the Trump University caseas well as weaknesses in his lean campaign structurethreatened a blowout Clinton victory in November.

He may have temporarily quieted concerns, at least among Republican officials, about his demeanor: He spoke with the aid of a TelePrompter without straying dramatically from a text that omitted some of his more antagonistic proposals, such as building a wall on the Mexican border. He collected in one address many of the disparate Clinton criticisms made by Republicans and, in the recent Democratic primary season, by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But then he reverted to being Trump.

For more on politics 

He asserted that Clinton would pave the way for abolishing the 2nd Amendment, which she has specifically defended as she calls for restrictions on the availability of some weapons to some Americans. He said that Clintons immigration policy called for totally open bordersa statement he repeated for emphasis, but which is not true.

He said Clinton was solely responsible for a U.S. invasion of Libya; the action in Libya was instead a NATO-led air campaign in support of rebels. He said that during her four years as secretary of State, Clinton had almost single-handedly destabilized the entire Middle East, a statement that greatly underestimated the roles of both President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Trump faces a difficult navigation as he seeks to coalesce support among skeptical Republicans and, at the same time, extend his reach among non-Republicans. (He made repeated entreaties Wednesday to Sanders supporters and lifted the senators liberal use of the words rigged and corrupt.)

A credible line of attack against Clinton, for example, is her 2002 vote as senator in support of the Iraq war. Both Obama, in his 2008 campaign against Clinton, and Sanders this year, used that profitably against Clinton because many Democrats opposed military action.

But the Iraq war was proposed by a Republican president and backed by almost all GOP elected officials, making Trumps criticism of it Wednesday problematic. And although Trump has repeatedly claimed that he opposed the war, the public record includes recordings of him saying, at the time, that he supported it.

Trump faces the same problem with his criticism of Clintons support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was backed by Republicans and negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration.

Trumps newborn general election message seems caught between making the zingers that draw rapturous applause from his campaign crowds and demonstrating a presidential grasp of the nuances of foreign and domestic policy.

He was tied in that knot Wednesday on the topic of Muslim immigrants and his proposed ban on their entrance into the United States.

In what seemed an attempt to telegraph sympathy, Trump first said that the Islamic State terrorists threaten peaceful Muslimswho have been victimized by horrible brutality and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety. Only minutes later, he scored Clinton for proposing an increase in refugees from Syria  those same refugees.

He then said Clinton wanted to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in this country, money that he said could otherwise be used to rebuild every inner city in America. The statement seemed aimed at softening his image among minority residents of those areas, but it bore no relation to the truth: The current resettlement budget for all refugees is in the low single digits of billions and the increase Clinton advocates, while sixfold, would apply only to the small subset from Syria.

What Wednesday demonstrated, anew, is that Trumps campaign exists outside the universe occupied by previous candidates. No presidential candidate can credibly argue, as Trump did, that he would lower taxes for everyone and yet also build the greatest infrastructure on the planet Earth. No previous candidate got away with the repeated misstatements that Trump relishes.

But Trump has succeeded for months because his pitch has everything to do with playing to the grievances of a substantial portion of Americans, who do not always demand factual accuracy from him. How he holds on to those voters, as he tries to attract others with this new TelePromptered Trump, is the challenge ahead.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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Donald Trumps allegations against Hillary Clinton in an address Wednesday included assertions about her personally, her family foundation and the administration she served in. Some of his claims, like the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation accepted from authoritarian foreign governments, were accurate. Other points, like the decline of manufacturing jobs since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, revealed only a small part of a larger story. Others, like Trumps assertion that the U.S. has the worlds highest taxes, were outright false.

Here are some of his remarks and how they stack up compared with the facts:

I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war [in Iraq], and, yes, even before the war ever started.

Independent fact-checkers have been unable to find any evidence that Trump opposed the war in Iraq before it began in 2003. BuzzFeed unearthed a 2002 interview with Howard Stern in which Trump said, Yeah, I guess so, when asked whether he supported the invasion. I wish the first time it was done correctly, he added, alluding to the 1991 Persian Gulf War and President George H.W. Bushs decision not to try to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Trumps criticisms of the Iraq war came later, and he has repeatedly said while campaigning that he opposed the war.

We are, by the way, the highest-taxed nation in the world.

Trump has made this claim several times, and it has been repeatedly debunked. The line appeared to be improvised Wednesday; it was not in his prepared remarks. He was not specific about whether he was referring to corporate, personal income or other taxes.

The U.S. is among the least taxed of 30 countries surveyed by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Only Mexico (19.5%), Chile (19.8%) and South Korea (24.6%) were taxed less than the U.S., which collected 26% of gross domestic product in revenue in 2014.

Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States.  Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth, with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from.

The first portion of Trumps assertion, while accurate, is misleading, given the scale of the crisis. Clinton said last year that the U.S. should resettle 65,000 Syrian refugees, which would be a 550% increase from the Obama administrations goal of resettling 10,000 refugees this fiscal year.

Human rights groups have urged much higher numbers.

The U.S. has settled 4,766 Syrian refugees since Oct. 1, the beginning of the fiscal year, according to the Refugee Processing Center operated by the State Department. An agency spokesman said Wednesday that the administration expects the rate of refugee admissions will increase.

By comparison, Turkey has taken in 2.5 million refugees. Amnesty International estimates that Turkey and four other countries in the Middle East have taken in 4.5 million Syrians altogether. Hundreds of thousands more have fled to Germany and other European countries, creating the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.

As far as for those who are let into the U.S., the State Department says its screenings include reviews from multiple federal agencies, including the National Counterterrorism Center. They examine applications, conduct in-person interviews and health screenings, and require local sponsorship from an experienced resettlement agency

Federal officials, however, have acknowledged that they cant offer anybody an absolute assurance that theres no risk associated with this.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

June 23, 1:45 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said that Hillary Clinton advocated admitting 10,000-65,000 Syrian refugees into the country. Clinton has advocated admitting 65,000, not a range.

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Hillary took $25 million from Saudi Arabia.

Trump appeared to be referring to the Clinton Foundation, which has accepted $10 million to $25 million from Saudi Arabia. A private foundation accepting donations from foreign governments is perfectly legal. Trumps accusation implied wrongdoing, particularly when considered alongside controversies surrounding the foundation that have been widely chronicled.

I started off in Brooklyn, N.Y., not so long ago with a small loan and built a business that today is worth well over $10 billion.

Trump has used this line regularly in stump speeches and in television interviews to tout his business background. Indeed, he began working for his fathers real estate company, but in the 1970s set his sights on the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan. How was that possible? Trump often describes the small loan from his father. But the loan was for $1 million, which may seem small to Trump, but for the middle-class voters hes wooing, is an amount theyll probably never see.

Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's ... totally disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization. We've lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.

Clintons support of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and of China joining the World Trade Organization has become fodder for her rivals, dating to the bitter 2008 Democratic primary. During that campaign, she backed off her support of free trade, saying it hurt a lot of American workers.

NAFTA was negotiated and signed by George H.W. Bush in 1992. Bill Clinton endorsed it, campaigned for Congress to approve it, and signed the enabling legislation in 1993.

As Trump seeks to make inroads with white working-class voters from Rust Belt states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, where trade is a major issue, hes relentlessly highlighting Hillary Clintons past support in stump speeches and on social media.

But the notion that nearly one-third of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the wake of NAFTA is misleading.

Employment in the manufacturing sector peaked in 1979 at just short of 20 million workers. By the time NAFTA was signed, manufacturing employment had dropped to roughly 16.9 million. It increased slightly during Clintons tenure as president, then began falling steeply in the early 2000s, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Manufacturing employment currently stands at about 12.3 million.

Some of the decline comes from jobs being moved to other countries, but much of the decline involves technology that allows goods to be made with fewer workers.

Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds and hundreds of requests for security. They were desperate. They needed help. Hillary Clinton's State Department refused them all.

Trump targeted Clinton over the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, in the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, when Clinton was secretary of State. Clinton has faced scrutiny for security lapses at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, where Stevens was killed.

Before the attack, the State Department was asked repeatedly for additional U.S. security staff in Libya, according to PolitiFact. Yet there was no evidence that Clinton herself was made aware of those requests.

Bierman reported from Washington and Lee from Los Angeles.

Twitter: @noahbierman, @kurtisalee

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UPDATES:

8:59 a.m.: This article was updated to clarify the roles of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in enacting the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The article was initially published at 3 a.m.
Libertarian Gary Johnson wants no part of name-calling battle between Clinton and Trump

Gary Johnson says he does not plan on any "name-calling" during his campaign #CNNTownHall https://t.co/Lk4lWnKCuC https://t.co/g8OsZaJyYx  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 23, 2016

In a general election campaign dominated by back-and-forth accusations of lies and bickering over temperament by the presumptive nominees of the major parties, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has no plans to jump into the fray.

And hes certain it will help him pick off some votes.

Really, stick to the issues, stick to issues that are facing this country, and there are plenty, Johnson, a former New Mexico governor, said Wednesday night at a town hall hosted by CNN, when talking about his long-shot campaign for the White House.

Johnson, who was also the Libertarian Partys nominee four years ago, is fighting for attention as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, castigate each other daily in speeches and on social media.

More than candidates in past elections, Trump and Clinton are struggling to make voters like them.

Polls indicate neither is succeeding  a fact not lost on Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts GOP Gov. Bill Weld, who joined him at the town hall Wednesday. In low-key campaign appearances, both have called the two-party system broken and a major problem facing the country.

A CNN/ORC poll released this week showed voters disenchanted with Clinton and Trump  a trend thats been consistent for both candidates throughout the primary and now into the general election. In the survey, 60% said they had an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 56% for Clinton. By contrast, 15% had an unfavorable view of Johnson, but half said theyd never heard of him.

When asked at the town hall to describe Clinton in a single word, Johnson called the former secretary of State a wonderful public servant.

A single-word to describe Trump?

Im sure theres something good to say about Donald somewhere, said Johnson, who has publicly condemned Trump for his rhetoric about Mexicans and Muslims.

Johnson also fielded questions about gun control, abortion rights and healthcare.

When a survivor of the June 12 attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., asked Johnson why hes not a proponent of stricter firearm reforms, he demurred.

But when pressed by the moderator about whether he supports the gun-control sit-in on Capitol Hill, Johnson said he did not. Among prime reasons for the sit-in was the rejection by a committee to hold a House vote on a proposal that would have prevented terrorism suspects on FBI watch lists, such as Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, from buying guns.

Both Clinton and Trump supported the proposal.

I think that these lists are subject to error, Johnson said, before adding its a really difficult issue.
Corey Lewandowski on Trump VP selection: A very, very short list

Donald Trump is working from a short list of possible running mates, former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Thursday.

The list when I left was very, very short, said Lewandowski, who appeared on CNN in his new role as a contributor for the network after being fired Monday from the campaign. Its no more than four individuals. ... Theyre household names.

Until his firing, Lewandowski oversaw the vetting and selection process of a vice presidential pick for the presumptive Republican nominee. Trump has said he will choose a running mate with political experience and will announce his selection at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next month.

Lewandowski, who signed an agreement that bars him from speaking out against Trump or any of his businesses, said that in his new role on CNN he will tell it like it is and call balls and strikes.

But when asked to name some of those Trump is considering as a No. 2, he demurred. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are openly auditioning for the job, while several GOP politicians have expressed no interest.

"I'm a guy who calls balls and strikes, I'm gonna tell it like it is" @CLewandowski_ joins @erinburnett and @cnn https://t.co/QDJrHQ3nMK  OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) June 23, 2016

In the days since his dismissal, Lewandowski has professed his continued loyalty to Trump. He still plans to attend the GOP convention as leader of New Hampshires delegation.

As campaign manager, Lewandowski helped navigate Trumps primary win over 16 challengers.

But his tenure was not without controversy. In March, he was accused of manhandling a female reporter at a Florida campaign event. Prosecutors decided not to pursue charges.
Congressional candidate and state Sen. Isadore Hall (D-Compton) was coasting to an easy victory the night of Californias primary election when things went a little sideways.

A process server crashed Halls June 7 election night party in San Pedro to serve him with a subpoena to appear as a witness in a civil dispute between a Compton housing development and a group of tenants who claim they have been harassed by the owners.

A television news camera crew was on hand that night capturing the moment as Hall, who will face fellow Democrat Nanette Barragan in a November runoff to replace outgoing Rep. Janice Hahn, was handed the papers.

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It is the latest twist in a legal dispute that started last year when tenants living at the Alameda Court housing development in Compton filed a lawsuit claiming they were led to believe a portion of their rent would go toward a down payment to own the same units.

Hall helped push through the project when he was a Compton city council member and attended the groundbreaking in 2007, and he now lives in one of the town houses.

The owners dispute the allegations and a jury trial is currently set for October.

The suit specifically accuses Hall of receiving special treatment, including reserved parking spaces for multiple vehicles from the developments owners.

Mac Zilber, a Hall consultant, said the campaign would not comment on a frivolous nonissue like this.

Two of the defendants in the case, Forte Resources Inc, which developed the property and is part of Alameda Court LLC, which owns the complex, contributed $13,700 to Halls previous campaigns for a city council and his 2008 race for the state Assembly.

Brandon Fernald, the attorney representing the tenants, requested a copy of Halls lease and other documents in the subpoena, which also calls on Hall to testify in a deposition at Fernalds offices on June 29.

Zilber did not say whether Hall would attend the deposition and declined to make Hall available for an interview. The spokesman instead shared a statement from Hall in which he dismissed the subpoena as a gimmick meant to attack him.

This was just a Karl Rovian tactic to make the news, Hall said in the statement.

Fernald said a lawyer for Hall, David M. Huff, has requested the deposition be continued until after the general election.

Primary night was not the first time Fernald attempted to serve Hall with a deposition subpoena.

In July of last year, the Fernald Law Group served Halls district director, Heather Hutt, in San Pedro, claiming the staffer was authorized to accept the documents on Halls behalf, according to court documents.

Two months later, the firm sent Halls district office a letter requesting he produce records requested in the subpoena, according to court records.

Fernald attempted to make the court compel Hall to comply with the deposition, but a hearing set for last December was canceled after Huff contested the service had been done improperly, according to an email exchange between the attorneys shown to The Times by Halls campaign.

After Fernald agreed to take the matter off the court calendar, Huff forwarded the email to Hall along with the message, see below  and he drops the mike.

Fernald told The Times it was very difficult to nail down a time and a place to serve Hall after the canceled hearing. Until election night.

This election night thing came down out of nowhere, he said.

In addition to the suit by the tenants, the owners of the Alameda Court development filled an unlawful-detainer lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking to evict Hall in November.

A lawyer for the owners said in the suit that Hall was past-due on $4,800 in rent and owed $5,000 in utilities. But the suit was dropped two weeks later.

Doug Baker, listed in court documents as the property manager for Alameda Court, said in an interview before the suit seeking Halls eviction was dropped that as far as he knew, Isadore Hall has paid in full.

Baker refused to answer further questions and directed a reporter to David Robinson, a disbarred attorney who was serving as the case manager in the lawsuit between the owners and the tenants. In an interview, also before the suit was dismissed, Robinson said, we reached an agreement with Sen. Hall.

Shirley Kenninger, an attorney representing Alameda Court at the time, said she could not offer specifics but that the action against Isadore Hall is going to be dismissed.

After the unlawful-detainer lawsuit was filled, Halls campaign provided The Times with copies of cashed rent checks written by Hall to Alameda Court LLC between 2010 and 2015.

The suit against Hall was dropped Dec. 7.

Asked about the two suits last fall, Hall told The Times that he was current in all his payments and denied receiving special treatment.

Brother, I dont receive any special treatment, he said, speaking to a reporter from his garage at Alameda Court. Because I am black and I am a senator doesnt mean I get any special treatment.

Barragans campaign has followed the court case closely, issuing news releases and posting some of the court documents on a website along with other opposition research on Hall. It has been a competitive and nasty race.

Barragan finished second in the primary, about 19 points behind Hall in a crowded contest with eight other candidates.

The night of the primary, Barragans staff gloated about the news.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

Twitter: jpanzar

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Gov. Jerry Browns budget advisors have approved an emergency loan of $1.45 million to the California Coastal Commission after an agency staffer said it was in danger of not making payroll in July.

A letter sent to legislative leaders this week by Brown said this is the second consecutive year of a cash crisis for the commission, prompting a formal audit of its money management.

The money will address end of the year, day-to-day things that couldnt be deferred, said H.D. Palmer, a budget spokesman for Brown.

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California governments fiscal year ends June 30. Lawmakers approved the framework of a new spending plan last week, with several additional budget related items still unfinished.

The Coastal Commission loan, approved Monday in Sacramento, will be repaid from federal grants and state fees that are expected to arrive later this summer. The notice sent to the Legislature this week says that the loan from the states general fund will be paid in full no later than Oct. 30.

We are evaluating our entire system to improve some of our internal controls, Susan Hansch, the commissions chief deputy director, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Hansch said the 2015 cash flow crisis referred to in the letter to lawmakers was the result of a personnel matter, one that she could not discuss but has since been resolved.

Get the latest state government news from Sacramento 

The Coastal Commission has been the focus of intense public scrutiny this year, most of it centered on the February decision by commissioners to fire the agencys executive director, Charles Lester.

The commission, with broad power over conservation and development issues along Californias coastline, has an annual budget of almost $24 million. Data from the state controllers office show the agency lists 163 permanent employees with a total monthly payroll of $1.2 million.

Hansch said this weeks emergency loan is part of a larger systemic problem with the timing of money paid to the commission, though she also conceded that the current shortage was worse than other instances of a cash crunch in years past. Coastal Commission staffers originally asked for a loan of $600,000 but state officials determined that the shortfall would be larger than anticipated.

This loan is bigger than we really thought we needed, Hansch said.

Although cash flow problems are not unheard of for state agencies, Department of Finance officials said that no other emergency loans of this type have been made out of the general fund this year.

The 12 appointed members of the Coastal Commission do not have a formal role in approving the budget, which is handled on the staff level in coordination with state officials.

Thats been a sore point, to some extent, said commission Chairman Steve Kinsey, who said he was briefed about the cash shortage three weeks ago.

Hansch said the agencys staff will cooperate with the forthcoming audit. And Kinsey said the money woes may help bring some new energy to important structural changes at the agency.

An audit will shed some important light, Kinsey said. There is a message here for us.

john.myers@latimes.com

Follow @johnmyers on Twitter, sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter and listen to the weekly California Politics Podcast

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Theres an awkward misfire in the illogic of weapons worshipers. They regurgitate the old bromide that guns dont kill people, people do. But they block attempts to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

We saw that in Congress on Monday as Republican tools of the gun lobby rejected Democratic bills aimed at preventing bad guys from purchasing firearms.

Of course, Democrats -- eager for election ammunition -- also rejected the GOPs very weak counter-offers, apparently not even trying to compromise. Such is the dysfunction of our polarized Congress.

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Regardless of the people kill banality, guns in the hands of bad guys -- be they radical Islamic terrorists or white American-reared nut jobs -- do indeed kill.

Thats why one necessary step toward reducing mass killings is to ban the most lethal weapons so they dont fall into anyones hands. That includes citizens who are law-abiding until theyre not -- until they get fired and shoot up co-workers, or their spouse cheats and they unload on the entire family, or a professor gives a lousy grade and they spray bullets all over campus.

Some of this stuff no one can see coming. So why not just restrict the arsenal? Allow 10 shots max. Outlaw possession of any ammunition magazine holding more than 10 rounds.

But if you insist on arguing its not the guns fault, its the gun owners, at least be consistent. Dont let dangerous people buy any guns.

One rejected bill in Congress could have prevented the Orlando, Fla., nightclub killer from legally buying his weapons, a semiautomatic assault-style rifle and a handgun.

The measure, by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would have barred any person on a government terrorism watch list from purchasing a firearm. It failed in the Senate, 47 to 53.

Under the bill, Feinstein argued, Omar Mateen could have been denied his guns because hed twice been placed on watch lists. He used the newly purchased weapons to kill 49 and wound 53.

The National Rifle Assn. and Republicans complained that Feinsteins bill would penalize people wrongly listed as terrorist suspects, such as the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

There are problems with the list  OK, fine, says Dr. Garen J. Wintermute, longtime UC Davis gun violence researcher. If the list isnt good, get a better list.

The sloppy list, I suspect, is just an excuse to protect everyones so-called right to buy any firearm they can pay for. Gun manufacturers cling to their market and the NRA provides their foot soldiers.

Another failed Democratic bill would have expanded background checks to include sales at gun shows and on the Internet. Seems like a no-brainer. Background checks already are required when firearms are purchased from licensed dealers.

But with Congress firing blanks, several states and cities have been targeting risky people and the most lethal weapons. California has some of the tightest gun controls. But they can be undermined by loose laws in Nevada, where Californians can load up.

Same thing in Chicago. It has tough gun laws but is vulnerable to lax regulations in downstate Illinois and neighboring Indiana. Ditto Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. Thats why national gun restrictions and universal background checks are needed.

Wintermute says that gun deaths nationally have remained roughly the same in recent years, but have fallen more than 20% in California since 2000. Thats true for both homicides and suicides, he says.

Why is that? he asks rhetorically. What are we doing right? Are we not doing something wrong thats being done in other states? We need to know.

We wont find out from the federal government. The NRA persuaded Congress to kill off federal firearms research two decades ago, arguing the studies amounted to a gun control plot.

Finally, the Legislature last week allocated $5 million to create a firearm violence research center at the University of California, the first such state entity in the nation. Gov. Jerry Brown has promised to OK the budget item.

A dozen gun bills are expected to be voted on next week in the Legislature.

Brown has been noncommittal, but spent nearly an hour Wednesday discussing the proposals with Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood). The governor, a gun owner, was curious about details.

Among the most controversial is a bill that would outlaw possession -- not just the manufacture or purchase -- of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Owners would need to sell their large-capacity magazines to dealers or people out of state, or turn them in to law enforcement.

Another bill would ban semiautomatic rifles with bullet buttons that allow the exchanging of ammo magazines. Brown previously vetoed a similar measure.

A De Leon bill offers a simple way to require one-time background checks for ammunition buyers. Thered be no requirement for an ammo license, as in earlier proposals.

Under this bill, a bullet buyer would swipe a drivers license, which would signal whether thered been a previous background check for a gun purchase. If not, the customer would need one background check and pay a nominal fee. The info would be electronically updated if the buyer ever got on some bad guy list.

The gun lobby cant have it both ways and be credible. It cant claim its all the fault of the killer while helping to arm the killer. When it does, the gun lobby is mainly at fault -- along with Congress.

Updates from Sacramento 

george.skelton@latimes.com

Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter

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Self-driving cars have a lot of learning to do before they can replace the roughly 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads today. They need to know how to navigate when their pre-programmed maps are out of date. They need to know how to visualize the lane dividers on a street thats covered with snow.

And, if the situation arises, theyll need to know whether its better to mow down a group of pedestrians or spare their lives by steering off the road, killing all passengers onboard.

This isnt a purely hypothetical question. Once self-driving cars are logging serious miles, theyre sure to find themselves in situations where an accident is unavoidable. At that point, theyll have to know how to pick the lesser of two evils.

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The answer could determine whether self-driving cars become a novelty item for the adventurous few or gain widespread acceptance among the general public.

In other words, the stakes are huge.

Nearly 34,000 people die in car crashes in the U.S. each year, and another 3.9 million people are injured badly enough to go a hospital emergency room, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 93% of traffic accidents can be blamed on human error, and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. estimates that if humans were taken out of the equation, the savings from averted crashes would add up to about $190 billion a year.

Us having to drive our own cars is responsible for a tremendous amount of misery in the world, said University of Oregon psychologist Azim Shariff, who studies the factors that prompt people to make moral decisions.

Shariff teamed up with psychological scientist Jean-Francois Bonnefon of the Toulouse School of Economics in France and Iyad Rahwan, who studies social aspects of artificial intelligence at the MIT Media Lab, to investigate the ethics of driverless cars in a systematic, data-driven manner.

They began by finding out what would make self-driving cars most palatable to future passengers. In a series of surveys involving nearly 2,000 people, the trio sketched out a series of increasingly fraught scenarios and asked people what they thought the car should do.

The easiest question was whether a self-driving car with a single passenger should crash itself into a wall to avoid hitting a group of 10 pedestrians. About three-quarters of respondents agreed that sacrificing one life to save many more was the moral thing to do.

After that, things started to get tricky. The fewer pedestrians there were to save, the weaker the consensus that the car should sacrifice its passenger. If crashing into a wall would save just one pedestrian, only 23% of those surveyed thought thats what the car should do.

When the researchers asked people to imagine that they were riding in the car with their child or another relative, their willingness to swerve away from innocent pedestrians faltered. Still, between 54% and 66% of survey takers agreed that the car should do what it must to save as many lives as possible.

This pattern of responses revealed peoples strong underlying preference for a utilitarian set of rules designed to maximize lives saved and minimize deaths  with one big exception.

People want to live in a world in which driverless cars minimize casualties, but they want their own car to protect them at all costs, Rahwan said.

Another sign of this sentiment was the fact that 50% of survey-takers said theyd be likely to buy a self-driving car that placed the highest value on passenger protection, while only 19% would purchase a model that intended to save the most lives.

Nor were most people in favor of laws requiring self-driving cars to act in a utilitarian manner  up to two-thirds of people opposed this idea. In a separate survey question, 21% of people said theyd buy a self-driving car if such a law were in place, while 59% would buy one if it werent.

The results were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

The study is just the beginning of an uncomfortable but necessary discussion about driverless cars, the researchers said.

What if the pedestrians in a cars path include children, or an elderly person? What if they were jaywalking? What if the passenger in the self-driving vehicle were a surgeon en route to a hospital to perform a life-saving surgery? Does that change the moral calculus? (To see more of the questions  and test your own responses  visit moralmachine.mit.edu.)

With time, people might become more comfortable with these kinds of trade-offs, said Joshua Greene, an experimental psychologist, neuroscientist and philosopher at Harvard.

Today, cars are beloved personal possessions, and the prospect of being killed by ones own car may feel like a personal betrayal, Greene wrote in a commentary that accompanies the study.

In the future, however, self-driving vehicles might have the same emotional resonance as individual subway cars. As our thinking shifts from personal vehicles to transportation systems, people might prefer systems that maximize overall safety, Greene wrote.

In the meantime, theres no denying that some of the ethical problems posed by self-driving cars are new. After all, Bonnefon said, this is a product that might decide to kill you, even if you do everything right.

karen.kaplan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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A little more than a month since it poured an additional $350 million into its turf removal rebate program, Metropolitan Water District officials announced the closing of the program to new applications this week.

We knew that the popularity of the turf program would exhaust the available funds at some point, but even we didnt predict just how popular turf rebates would become, said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the water district, in the announcement.

The program provides rebates of $2 per square foot of living turf that residents remove from their lawns, with a limit of 3,000 square feet. It was enacted in late May when the water district board approved a measure that expanded the programs budget from $100 million to $450 million, following Gov. Jerry Browns executive order on April 1, mandating 25% reductions in urban water use statewide.

However, while the regional rebates are ending, Burbank Water and Power will continue to provide $1-per-square-foot rebates for local residents who opt to remove thirsty turf and replace it with native, drought-friendly vegetation or artificial grass, the utilitys marketing manager Jeanette Meyer said on Wednesday.

Burbank is required to reduce water consumption in the city between June and February by 28%, or one billion gallons, compared to its consumption during those months in 2013. The utility recently stepped up enforcement of rules limiting outdoor watering and is alerting customers of likely leaks in their pipes.

Additionally, the utility recently tweaked its rebate programs to encourage more conservation, such as doubling rebates to residents for purchasing eligible clothes washers, dishwashers and pool pumps, while increasing rebates for air conditioning units by $20 per ton of capacity.

The Metropolitan Water Districts turf-rebate program has been sucked dry by the extremely high interest throughout Southern California, according to the agencys announcement, and all funds have been allotted to completed projects or approved projects that have yet to be completed.

The utility estimates that more than 150 million square feet of turf will be removed as a result of the program, three times the statewide goal Brown set for replacement of lawns and ornamental turf with drought-tolerant landscapes in response to the historic drought.

We truly believe this campaign helped push the tipping point to shift the cultural norm away from lawns, Kightlinger said. This rebate program was intended to stimulate interest in turf removal to the point that government incentives were not necessary for the long term.

Kightlinger said customers can still also get Metropolitan Water District rebates for devices such as high-efficiency clothes washers, water-saving toilets, weather-based irrigation controllers and rotating sprinkler nozzles.

Metropolitan Water District staff members are expected to present an update on the rebate programs at the districts next scheduled committee and board meetings on Monday and Tuesday.

--

Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland
After the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando last weekend, the term radical Islam has been a hot-button issue. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has spoken out several times, criticizing President Obama for not using the term.

People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism, Trump said last week.

In response, Obama said the term was a political distraction.

What exactly would using this label accomplish? Obama asked last Tuesday during a press conference. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.

Q: Is the term radical Islam a fair term to use? What, if anything, is gained or lost when those words are used?

Im not even sure I understand the issue here. How anyone can speak publicly about the worst shooting massacre in American history, and identify the most important focus point as what term the president does or doesnt use to refer to it, is mystifying to me.

I think that Donald Trump often speaks in code to his supporters, and this term sounds like code to me. Whether its code for bigotry against Islam, scorn for foreigners in general, or loathing of President Obama as ineffective, is hard to tell; its probably a mix of all these poisons, and more.

Is the radical Islam harangue a smoke-and-mirrors act to draw attention from the obvious issue of desperately-needed bans on assault weapons? Is it meant to distract America from discussion of a heinous instance of backlash after same-sex marriage and other gay rights have gained ground recently? Maybe.

But I suspect that, as with all things Trump, its not that well-thought-out a thing. He spouted something, people clapped, so he kept spouting it  a particularly transparent version of American politics as historically practiced by all.

MORE: Read previous In Theory discussions>>

Donald Trump seems to be the Picture of Dorian Gray of our country and its political processes. Whatever critique we may have of him, he shows us our own uglier truths. Whatever we say of Trump, we must immediately turn our national attention inward, and ask next, And what does this say about our country, about enough of our people to nominate someone as a presidential candidate, about our political machinations  the corrupt realities as well as the noble ideals?

The particularities of Trumps rhetoric are, at least for liberals like me, often hard to fathom. But lets not think that we can just ignore them; their popular reception tells us its time to pay closer attention to the better, higher values of our country, and how they are, or are not, being transmitted to its current generations.

The Rev. Amy Pringle

St. Georges Episcopal Church

La Canada Flintridge

--

President Obama had it right, in my opinion  what difference does it make, whatever we call it?

What I think the president was trying to do was not sink into the abyss of making it seem as though the West or Christian Civilization is at war with Islam. We are not. We are at war with radicals who have hijacked a religion, but we are not at war with Islam. Those on the political right, including Donald Trump, really believe that all Muslims are the same, and that they all want to bring down the West.

I categorically disagree that all Muslims are the same and that they all want to take us down.

That kind of thinking is paranoia at its worst, and it really appeals to people who have an us vs. them outlook. It may be good politics  wait, nasty politics  to try to claim that its us (the good guys, of course) vs. them (the Muslims, the bad guys, of course). But such a view is un-American as well as being un-Christian.

President Obama is trying to appeal to our higher nature, I believe. Donald Trump is trying to appeal to our fears. Oh, and by the way, the president finally used the term radical Islam. Is everybody over on the right happy now?

Rev. Skip Lindeman

La Canada Congregational Church

La Canada

--

This is an issue of calling a spade a spade. If we avoid the use of the term radical, then what we end up with is a conflation of whatever regular Islam purports to be with what radical Islam seems to be.

If Islam is such the peace-loving religion, why is it that whenever it seems to gain majority influence, all hell breaks loose and people are killed? Perhaps the right suspects that Islam in general is not primarily peace-loving, except for those who accept its tenants and laws and who strive to impose them on Islams perceived infidels, i.e., all non-Muslims.

But given the culture of America, one would think that your average Muslim neighbor probably made the relocation to get away from such oppressive renditions of the faith they maintain. As a Christian, I am always going to oppose Islam as a false religion that lives to contravene my own, but I do so as I would any other view of God that denies what Christ has already revealed.

I and my constituents are an equal opportunity opposition that advances with divine words and good works, not any sort of mandate to physically harm pagans. And lest anyone think for a minute that Christianity is comparable to Islam and its apparent fruits, let me remind you that when so-called Christian groups get crazy and do whacko stuff, we as a community at large are quick to denounce it on biblical grounds.

The Waco siege comes to mind, as does the Westboro Baptist ongoing nastiness. When such things occur, the Christian community generally assesses the circumstance fairly quickly, and more often than not, recognizes the offending emanation as a cult of Christianity rather than a true expression.

Cult; thats the word we might use in Christian circles. But most of our cults dont do mass murders because the Bible doesnt seem to provide any rewarded comfort for behaving that way. But if there be those in Islam who speak for Islam with any authority that wish to distance themselves from those who are responsible for our modern calamities, then I think they and the left should embrace the term radical Islam to distinguish themselves as not part of that group.

If I were speaking to a Muslim person in my own town and the subject of ISIS or 9/11 or the recent Orlando massacre came up, I would want to inject the word radical into the conversation lest my companion suspect that Im lumping him in with those who would do such things. If the Muslim community denounces such radical behavior, then why not call it what it is?

I think the left has it backward. Adding radical to Islam would promote the idea that there is an Islam that is not radical. Or, we could just call it all Islam. Take your pick.

Rev. Bryan A. Griem

Tujunga

--

Did we hear radical Catholicism, or radical Protestantism, even during the worst of the sectarian fighting in Northern Ireland, or radical Christianity when a reactionary born-again Christian shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic? No.

But this is not really about terminology, and in any case President Obama is criticized by the right wing on everything he says.

Our most recent  unless another gun horror overtakes In Theorys deadline; always possible given our lax firearm regulations and the abundance of powerful weapons floating around  mass killer was deeply confused about his politics, his religion and his sexuality, and was prone to violence. Many people in the U.S. are all these things.

The difference between yet another pitiable weirdo and a super-efficient murdering machine is the easy availability of weapons of war, guns without any useful civilian purpose except for enabling massacres like Orlando.

We have allowed this to happen and we can stop it. It takes only the will.

Roberta Medford

Atheist

Montrose

--

The term radical Islam is entirely accurate, and is thus a fair term to use. The terrorists are self-proclaimed Muslims who use their faith as the justification for merciless violence against innocent men, women and children.

Granted, there are numerous Muslims who denounce the way the terrorists practice their faith, who say theyre not really practicing Islam. Its not the rest of the worlds place to determine what is or is not Islam. The terrorists perpetrate their deeds in no other name but the name of Allah, so we must take their words at face value.

Using the term radical Islam reminds us of the fact that gross extremism exists within that faith literally around the world. Nine out of the 10 countries with the worst records for Christian persecution have populations that are 50 percent Muslim or higher, and Islamic extremism is listed as the main cause of that persecution.

Using the term radical Islam informs the world what exactly the beliefs and the motives of the extremists are. The term keeps us grounded in reality. To denounce or avoid the term is a redaction and a distraction.

In Jesus parable of the nobleman and his servants, the nobleman condemned the wicked servant who disobeyed his masters command, saying: By your own words I will judge you (Luke 19:22). When identifying who the terrorists are we must do the same.

Pastor Jon Barta

Burbank
Changes needed for citys art management

Dear City Manager Pietig, Sian Poeschl, Arts Commission Chair and Vice Chair:

The day after concerns about my art (a wood palette) were aired at the June 13 Arts Commission meeting that included Vice Chairs statement if not beyond repair and returned it would be exhibited, my palette was somehow found quickly and held for me in the Arts Commission Staffs office!

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Wow, an astonishing discovery so contrary to concerted assertions that my palette was most likely a victim of a traffic collision with poles, natural disaster or succumbed to the temporary nature of its material.

The palette was in good condition but my art suffered many surface scratches showing a lack of care and most alarming, someone elses hand obviously repainted the last number of the date; both are violations of VARA, the state and federal guidelines protecting artists rights.

This holds significant importance to me as an artist and as former Chair of the Arts Commission developing the Laguna Beach guidelines for Art In Public Places because such immediate action was only taken under pressure after decades of inquiry and requests; it is an admission by city staff of ineptness.

I am asking the city of Laguna Beach and Arts commission to make amends and a public apology for its lack of care and oversight of artists work; hopefully, by example, that will change the way artists and their unique works are treated by this city.

I encourage and welcome other artists to contact me and share their concerns so we can advise and help make positive changes to this citys art management.

In the meantime, I draw the citys attention to the handling and rights of artists, the need for transparency and cooperation, education and diligence in curating and managing public art.

Leah Vasquez

Arts Commissioner 1983-1987

..

A little more about Independence Day

In 1776, representatives from the 13 British colonies in America gathered in Philadelphia to see if they could unite and declare independence from Britain; and if successful, form a new nation.

Have you ever wondered why, at the risk of their lives and fortunes, did they do this? These brave gentlemen all had successful lives under the British. They were not enslaved or encumbered by the British, other than some taxes, yet they risked it all for independence. Think of the obstacles and risks they had to overcome to even assemble to discuss what amounted to treason.

The foremost obstacle was that each of the 13 colonies were successful in their own right and each had a degree of independence and goals of their own. Further, a large segment of the population was reasonably satisfied with their lives under Britain rule and therefore loyal to the Crown.

The leaders of the independence movement were faced with an almost impossible goal of getting 13 diverse colonies to give up some of the freedoms they already had to risk it all for separation from England.

Despite all the risks and dangers our founding fathers somehow united sufficiently to declare independence. During the resulting wars with England for our independence; many of the founders did lose their fortunes, freedoms, and even their lives. We should be forever grateful for their sacrifices.

Eleven years later, after the brutal war for independence, many of the founders and other patriots joined in writing a Constitution for the first truly free nation where free citizens are supposed to rule the government. (A government by and for the people.)

Again, that was almost as politically difficult for the representatives as generating the Declaration of Independence since each of the now free colonies still had their own needs and goals.

Issues like slavery, taxes, Indians, trade issues, regulations, foreign dealings etc. made it extremely difficult to create one document satisfactory to everyone. Though perhaps less than perfect, they came up with the most remarkable document ever created for the people.

A few of the Constitutions authors had made it their life work to study the past attempts of other nations like England, France, and Greece and see where they had good ideas but had failed in various degrees to give freedom to their people.

All those other countries failed, or were not completely successful, probably because no government really likes the people to be in power. Our Constitution gave the power to the people, and I am sure if it were not for internal opposition here and there, the founders would have eliminated slavery right from the start and probably have given women the vote.

We all owe a lot to our brave, dedicated, brilliant founders. We should do all we can to preserve the wonderful freedoms they won for us at great cost to themselves. And of course, the nation owes a lot to our military who have for more than a century defended this country from all enemies at great cost to life and limb.

Dave Connell

Laguna Beach
THURSDAY

The Black Donnellys

Irish rock band The Black Donnellys will perform from 8 to 10 p.m. at Boathouse Collective, 1640 Pomona Ave., Costa Mesa. Tickets are $10 at the door. For more information, call (949) 646-3176 or visit boathousecollective.com.

Networking mixer

Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce will host a sunset networking mixer with raffle prizes and complimentary hors doeuvres from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at The Ritz Prime Seafood, 2801 W. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach. Admission is free for members adn $35 for non-members at the door. For more information, call (949) 729-4411 or visit newportbeach.com.

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Frank Caliendo

Comedian Frank Caliendo will perform at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday and 7 and 9 p.m. Saturday at Irvine Improv, Irvine Spectrum Center, 527 Spectrum Center Drive. Tickets are $35. For more information, call (949) 854-5455 or visit irvine.improv.com.

TILL OCT. 2

El Toro Fire Service exhibition

Orange County Great Park Heritage and Aviation Exhibition will showcase, MCAS El Toro Fire Service, featuring a historical narration and artifacts including World War II airplanes, federal firefighters and crash crew protective gear, vintage fire and crash crew trucks and ornate hose pieces. Exhibition hours are from noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The park is at 6950 Marine Way, Irvine. Admission is free. For more information, call (949) 724-6247 or visit cityofirvine.org.
After presenting an event this month featuring conservative gay guest speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, a UC Irvine Republican club was told its privilege to book event space through the schools Student Center would be revoked until the spring quarter of 2017.

The June 2 event featuring Yiannopoulos, technology editor for conservative website Breitbart.com, sparked hours of protests from some students and a line of more than 500 hoping to see him in a campus lecture hall.

The university released a statement Tuesday saying the student organization College Republicans at UCI has not been removed or suspended but that its room-booking privileges for club meetings and events were revoked because of a policy violation related to the private security hired to protect Yiannopoulos during his visit.

Shawn Steel, Republican national committeeman from California who also is the clubs advisor, arranged for the security, according to College Republicans President Ariana Rowlands.

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The university said the club was told before the event that it would need to provide proof of insurance if a private security firm were brought in  a requirement for all registered campus organizations.

The group failed to provide the proof of insurance and brought the private security firm on campus anyway, the statement says.

Restrictions on booking event space have been imposed on other campus organizations that fail to provide adequate information regarding their events, according to the statement.

Robert Petrosyan, the clubs chairman emeritus, said he was not told of the importance of the insurance certificate or the consequences of not providing one, according to a College Republicans news release.

UCI administration has recently claimed that our club is not suspended and is merely barred from holding meetings and reserving rooms, Petrosyan said in a statement. However, as with any other club, our function is to meet and exercise our freedom of assembly, so such a suspension is an act of least resistance.

The university said it takes very seriously the right of the College Republicans and a wide variety of student groups to host events and speakers representing a diversity of ideas and perspectives.

UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said the club can still meet in places not controlled by Student Center & Event Services, such as the Bren Events Center, classrooms, the Anteater Recreation Center and off-campus areas.

--

Alex Chan, alexandra.chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10

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The Orange County district attorneys office Wednesday filed three counts of attempted murder against Joshua Waring, son of former Real Housewives of Orange County star Lauri Peterson, in connection with a shooting early Monday in Costa Mesa.

Waring, 27, also faces possible sentencing enhancements on allegations of personal use of a firearm and inflicting great bodily injury, according to the criminal complaint filed in Orange County Superior Court.

A judge is scheduled to arraign Waring on the charges Thursday in a jailhouse courtroom. He is behind bars at Orange County Jail with bail set at $1 million.

Police arrested Waring hours after a man was seriously injured in a shooting at a house in the 2900 block of Babb Street, authorities said.

Witnesses told police that Waring had left the home after a confrontation with the resident but returned around 2:30 a.m. Monday and began shooting at a group of three people there, Costa Mesa police Lt. Paul Beckman said.

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The home appeared to be functioning as a halfway house for recovering addicts, according to police.

Police believe Waring pulled the trigger between three and nine times, but only the one person was hit by the gunfire, Beckman said.

The man was wounded in the lower torso and was taken to Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana. He is expected to survive, according to the Costa Mesa fire department.

According to Beckman, Waring fled in a stolen BMW SUV before police arrived at Babb Street.

About eight hours later, an Orange County Sheriffs Department helicopter crew saw the BMW, and police pursued the SUV through Santa Ana before it crashed, according to authorities.

The driver tried to escape on foot by hiding in a business, but he surrendered after a short standoff, police said.

Police arrested Waring and booked him into jail on suspicion of attempted murder, vehicle theft, felony evading police, hit-and-run and assault and battery.

Costa Mesa police said investigators found evidence in the vehicle linking Waring to the shooting but havent found a gun.

Waring has a criminal history in Orange County that includes convictions on felony drug charges and several misdemeanors, including hit-and-run in 2008, battery in 2009, possession of drug paraphernalia in 2009 and resisting a peace officer and drug possession in 2015.

He also has an open case related to felony drug and forgery charges, to which he pleaded not guilty in May.

Warings mother was a cast member of Bravos reality TV series The Real Housewives of Orange County from its debut in 2006 until 2008, when she left the show to deal with her sons problems, according to Bravo.

--

Jeremiah Dobruck, jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com

Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck

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The legendary Douglas DC-3, considered by many aviation experts to be one of the greatest, most significant airplanes ever built, has been nicknamed the Gooney Bird, Duzzy, Methuselah With Wings and Grand old Lady.

Recognizable by its distinctive nose-up profile resembling an eagles beak and sleek, shining metal fuselage, the twin-engine aircraft has had a long history in Orange County that began at the outbreak of World War II, when military DC-3s were stationed at the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and in 1951, when Bonanza Airlines inaugurated DC-3 passenger service to San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas from Orange County Airport, which was renamed John Wayne Airport in 1979.

Even today, DC-3s, which cruise at 130 mph and have a maximum speed of 220 mph, may be found on the tarmac at John Wayne and other regional airports.

Two DC-3s are permanently displayed at the Lyon Air Museum on the west side of John Wayne. One is an ex-American Airlines aircraft named Flagship Orange County. It started life as an Army Air Corps transport. The other, also a former Army transport named Willa Dean, in honor of the wife of the museum founder, now retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Lyon, later served in the French and Israeli air forces.

This month, aviation enthusiasts here and around the world will celebrate the DC-3s 80th anniversary, which commemorates the aircrafts first passenger flight, on June 26, 1936, when an American Airlines DC-3 carrying 21 passengers flew non-stop from Chicago to Newark, N.J. The first person to purchase a ticket for that historic journey was child actress Shirley Temple.

By the late 1940s, when construction of the DC-3 ended in favor of the newer and more advanced DC-4, 455 civilian DC-3s and 10,174 military versions of the aircraft had been built.

The DC-3, which can accommodate up to 28 sitting passengers or 14 in folded-down seats that make up into beds, revolutionized the travel industry by slicing the 25-hour coast-to-coast flight time of its predecessor, the smaller and slower DC-2, to 18 hours. By the late 1930s, an estimated 90% of Americas airline passengers were flying in the DC-3.

The equally renowned military DC-3s, which were designated the C-47 Skytrain by the U.S. Army Air Corps, the R4D by the U.S. Navy and the Dakota or Dak by Great Britain, Canada and other English-speaking World War II allies, performed multiple functions, such as carrying paratroopers, weapons, including large artillery pieces, jeeps, trucks and virtually any sort of cargo. Afterthe war, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that the military DC-3, along with the atomic bomb, bazooka and jeep, was one of the four tools of victory that won the war for the U.S. and its allies.

Echoing Eisenhowers praise of the DC-3 is Byron M. Tarnutzer, a 50-year Newport Beach resident, aviation historian, former Army officer and pilot who has owned and flown three aircraft: a five-passenger Bell Jet Ranger helicopter he flew on search and rescue and other missions as a reserve deputy in the Orange County Sheriffs Departments Aero Squadron, a WWII Navy Trojan flight trainer and an eight-passenger Citation private jet.

Both the civilian and military DC-3s have proved to be among the worlds most rugged, safe, reliable, versatile and easy to maintain aircraft, said Tarnutzer, a real estate developer who has flown as a DC-3 passenger in East Africa and Mexico.

The DC-3 can land on dirt, sand, gravel and grass, Tarnutzer said. It can be fitted with pontoons and skis for takeoffs and landings on water, ice and snow. During World War II, it played an important role in transporting paratroopers and pulling gliders during the Normandy landings. It carried food, fuel and other supplies into isolated West Berlin during the Berlin Airlift, and during WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars, it also transported injured soldiers, Marines and sailors on stretchers to hospitals.

Also in Vietnam, DC-3s were fitted with machine gun turrets to serve as improvised gunships.

Following the retirement of the passenger DC-3 in the late 1960s and the military version in the mid 1970s, many of the aircraft were sold to charter operators, museums, private collectors, flying clubs, government agencies for roles such as firefighting and mapping, sightseeing companies and entrepreneurs who removed their wings and turned them into diners and coffee shops, homes, apartments, motels, garages, curio shops and even motor homes and delivery vehicles.

But about 250 DC-3s, despite the fact that the last one was built in the late 1940s, are still flying today, carrying, for example, missionaries to Haiti and the Dominican Republic and passengers and freight to isolated villages in South America and Canadas frozen Northwest Territory.

The DC-3 is so sturdy and dependable that our 71-year-old plane will keep on flying for many years to come, said Rob Bolling, chief pilot of Catalina Flying Boats Air Service, which is based on the south side of Long Beach Airport.

The airlines DC-3, which is powered by two Pratt and Whitney gasoline engines and is nicknamed Big Bird, transports anything and everything on several daily flights to Catalina Islands 1,600-foot-high mountaintop Airport in the Sky, including food, liquor, newspapers, mail, heavy packages, truck and car parts, tires, kayaks, bicycles, surfboards and you name it, said Bolling, 42, who received his aviation airframe and power plant mechanic certification at Orange Coast College.

The food we fly to Catalina includes fresh fish, ice cream and almost anything people eat and drink, he said. When we land on the island, we load the cargo onto our refrigerated vans and trucks and take it down to Avalon, where it is dropped off at houses, apartments, condos, hotels, restaurants, bars and markets.

We also carry about 40,000 pounds of food and cargo each week to Catalina boys and girls camps, which is picked up at our terminal in Avalon and then taken by boats to the camps scattered around the coast.

Bolling noted the DC-3 can haul 7,500 pounds of freight, and the airlines other aircraft, a single-engine Cessna Caravan, can carry 3,400 pounds.

Bolling, a pilot for 21 years, also occasionally flies the DC-3 into John Wayne Airport, delivering freight, and over Orange County beaches, dragging gigantic advertising banners for such companies as Tillys, Vans, Toyota of Orange and Wahoos Fish Tacos.

The DC-3 is just about the greatest airplane in the world, he said. Our plane has logged more than 23,000 flying hours, we are able to get spare parts for it and we take good care of it. I dont think it will ever stop flying.

--

DAVID C. HENLEY is a resident of Newport Beach, a long-time newspaperman and foreign correspondent and a member of Chapman Universitys Board of Trustees.
In response to parents concerns, Glendale school officials will begin drafting a new academic calendar with a later start time than in recent years. However, before they begin, they want to gather input from parents during three public meetings next month.

When the current school year began on Aug. 10, Glendale students were the earliest to return to school compared to all neighboring school districts, and parents urged school board members to set a later start time on next years calendar.

But the 2016-17 school calendar, which will begin on Aug. 8, had already been agreed upon in negotiations with the Glendale Teachers Union, and school board members voted to not open up negotiations again to change the date.

Now, their focus is on seeking input from parents to create the 2017-18 calendar, which must include 180 instructional days, and one that reflects as authentically as possible the various interests that are out there, said co-interim Supt. Joel Shawn during a recent school board meeting.

Shawn admitted the calendar wont please everyone, but district officials are still prepared to make an extensive effort to reach out to parents for their opinions.

A survey on the districts website will ask for parents thoughts as to when the start date should be, and which days students should have off. The survey will be posted online between Jan. 8 and 22.

Survey results will help with calendar development by the Superintendents Committee on Calendar Development, made up of 27 people who will meet five times between January and March to discuss calendar options.

[The survey] will allow the committee to really glean where the important dates or weeks are for us, said Maria Gandera, assistant superintendent of human resources for Glendale Unified.

Montrose parent Sarah Rush created an online petition the day Glendale students returned to school this year. There were more than 2,000 signatures on the petition, and it spurred school officials to create the calendar committee, a group they have not had since 2008.

The new committee will include three high school students, three parents, three teachers and three principals, among others, Gandera said.

Their recommendations will go before members of the Glendale Teachers Assn. in May for their consideration during negotiations.

Under the California educational code, any school district can establish its own starting and ending date, but teachers unions do have a say in suggesting the academic calendar they prefer from a variety of options presented by school district staff.

The parent meetings will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Jan. 11 at Glendale High School, followed by a meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Jan. 13 at Hoover High School and another one from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 14 at Crescenta Valley High School.

--

Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
Glendale police officials are working to fill more than two dozen vacant sworn and non-sworn positions, a number thats expected to increase next year with impending retirements.

One of the largest staffing voids lies in emergency communications, where there are seven dispatcher vacancies, leaving current employees to log dozens of hours of overtime each month.

We dont have the option not to be here  were an essential function, said Glendale Police dispatcher Jason Cox.

In one recent 24-hour period, his team responded to 366 calls for service. The calls may include anything from someone complaining about a car blocking their driveway to having to convince someone holding a gun to put the weapon down, he said.

Its exciting. Its different every day  you dont know when you sit down what youre going to get, said Glendale Police dispatcher Michelle Lewis.

In terms of sworn personnel, there are 182 police officers on the force, which leaves 11 officer positions open. Vacancies are expected to rise next year as 37 police officers will be eligible to retire, said Glendale Police Chief Robert Castro.

Even so, the department will be closer to fully staffed by the end of this year than its been in five years, as it lost 30 sworn and 42 non-sworn positions during the recession, Castro said.

When recruiting, police officials are looking for diverse candidates with dual-language skills who live in the area in an effort to build a police force that better represents the diversity of the community it serves.

Currently, there are 69 Hispanic police officers on the force, as well as 26 Armenians, nine Koreans and five African Americans, Castro said. Meanwhile, 25 officers are women.

Finding qualified applicants can be a challenge, Castro said, as the department weeds out candidates with histories of mishandling finances or using narcotics, as well as those with an unreliable driving history. On average, for every 100 applications the agency receives, one candidate fits the bill, Castro said.

Glendale is accepting police officer recruit applications until Dec. 11, according to Glendale police spokeswoman Tahnee Lightfoot.

--

Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @atchek
A Glendale mom is heading to Greece to help Syrian refugees, and shes packing 500 baby carriers for the trip.

After seeing images of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi wash up on the shore of the small island of Kos, Cristal Logothetis knew she had to do something.

She owns a local translation-service business and said translating birth certificates for free sounded like a good idea, but then she saw more and more photos of refugees crammed into camps or walking extremely long distances.

Any picture or any footage you see, its of people carrying their babies in their arms, Logothetis said. I just couldnt imagine how hard that must be.

So she launched an Indiegogo crowdfund campaign to help pay for baby carriers for long treks to countries such as Germany.

Expectations were modest, a $2,500 goal was set. But word got out fast and an explosion of donations generated $36,000.

Logothetis said donors must have agreed about the problem of carrying babies for long periods of time, especially on a difficult journey on foot.

Its making someones life easier. Anyone can relate to that, she said.

Sarah Johnson, 25, from Littlefield, Texas, left, and Glendale resident Cristal Logothetis, 31, founder of CarryTheFuture.org, show some of the 1,700 baby carriers they have collected and are ready to distribute in Greece. Logothetis is taking four suitcases full of baby carriers to donate to Syrian refugees that arrive at the islands of Greece. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

The original plan was to get the baby carriers to Logothetis in-laws in Kos, who would then hand them out.

But now with 1,700 baby carriers stuffed into a San Fernando Road storage locker, the effort will take multiple trips.

Many were also stored at Logothetis office at the Hollywood Production Center on Lexington Drive in Glendale.

One day, the landlord of the office building saw baby carriers being hauled on two pallets and gladly let Logothetis temporarily store them on a soundstage, said Mary Alvarado, who handles marketing for the string of Hollywood Production Center properties.

I think what [Logothetis] is doing is great, Alvarado said. She didnt expect the huge explosion she was going to get.

On Wednesday, Logothetis is flying to Kos with 500 carriers. On a second trip in November, she will head to Athens and on a third trek in December, she will go to Serbia, where refugees are walking alongside a railroad track to get to mainland Europe.

The baby carriers are worn like reverse backpacks and are being stuffed into multiple large suitcases. About 30 volunteers will help transport the carriers to Greece.

Handing them out will be the easy part, Logothetis said.

[Refugees] are in the harbor, the beaches, the parks and squares, she said.

Logothetis previously attempted another fundraising campaign that fell short and left her disappointed. But the recent outpouring restored her faith in people, she said.

I believe people care, theyre just waiting for the right venue, the right way to show it, Logothetis said. Sometimes, its a bit more realistic to shoot for little changes in the world than big drastic ones.

The Indiegogo campaign is still accepting donations. To donate, visit the campaign website here. Also, Logothetis said she would also appreciate donations of airline miles by emailing her at mamabebeblog@gmail.com.

Through Nov. 2, used baby carriers and slings can also be sent to Reliable Translations Inc., 121 W. Lexington Drive, Suite L, 106D, Glendale, CA, 91203.
Screams Sunday night in La Canada Flintridge faded into an uneasy quiet Tuesday, with a memorial to an off-duty deputy murdered by her husband one of the few signs of public grief.

A shrine on the driveway of the empty home on the 5000 block of Crown Avenue contained several flowers and a teddy bear with chalk messages underneath.

Your strength to push through all obstacles will continue to inspire me, one read. Gonna miss that pretty smile. Rest easy, sister.

Another, larger message, read:

(End of Watch) 9-6-15 LASD.

One neighbor, who asked that her identity be withheld citing privacy concerns, said she and her husband were in the backyard of their Crown Avenue home Sunday night when they heard sirens and helicopters overhead.

It happened so quickly. It seemed like all the sheriffs (deputies) had descended upon our little enclave, she recalled. Thats when we knew something was seriously, seriously wrong.

She said she didnt know very much about couple, saying they were very private.

When those two moved in, it was clear they wanted to keep to themselves, she said, adding the husband would occasionally avoid greetings while walking his son to school in the morning. It was an oddity.

Investigators believe Los Angeles County Firefighter James Taylor, 35, fatally shot his 32-year-old wife, an off-duty Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy identified as Cecilia Hoschet, before fleeing the scene. Taylors body was later found at the Pacoima facility where he worked.

At about 10 p.m., shortly after deputies were dispatched to the home to investigate a report of a screaming woman, a male voice used the emergency radio channel to describe what authorities would find.

Theres going to be one DB, the man said, using shorthand for a dead body. No assailant. You can let them know its clear.

On Monday, homicide detectives were scrutinizing the radio call on the theory that Taylor was the voice on the radio. Fire officials declined to comment on whether the voice sounded like Taylors, but a county Fire Department spokesman, Randall Wright, acknowledged that aspect is under investigation by the Sheriffs Department.

The slaying of one public servant allegedly by another stunned both agencies, even more so because of the presence of the couples 6-year-old son at the home. There is no way to explain this to a child, L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said.

It was not clear whether the child, who was home at the time, witnessed the shooting.

Sheriffs Lt. David Coleman said that after gunning down his wife, Taylor took the boy to a relative without revealing what he had done, and then drove his county-issued vehicle to Pacoima. He was found dead there from a single gunshot wound. He had his radio with him, Coleman said, and the gun that killed him was consistent with the one that killed his wife.

Investigators were confident about how and when the two shootings occurred, but were trying to understand why, Coleman said. The couple had no known history of domestic violence, no restraining orders and no divorce proceedings.

We have no indication of why this tragedy occurred. He didnt say anything to explain or leave a note behind, Coleman said. Investigators were interviewing family members and friends Monday, he said.

The couple had financial difficulties in the past. They filed for bankruptcy in 2010 after an investment property they had purchased in Canyon Country became mired in debt. They emerged from bankruptcy two years ago.

Hoschet had been with the sheriffs department for two years. She worked at the Inmate Reception Center of the Los Angeles County jail. Taylor was a six-year veteran of the county fire department.

We lost a wonderful deputy last night, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said in a prepared statement. Deputy Cecilia Hoschet impressed everyone she met at the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department with her positive and helpful approach to her work. She enjoyed being a deputy and really liked people.

In a prepared statement, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby expressed his deepest condolences to family and friends of the couple.

Today is a sad day for all public safety personnel in Los Angeles County, he said. Our thoughts are with everyone who was impacted by this tragedy.

In Sierra Madre, where Hoschet had worked for several years prior to becoming a deputy, her former colleagues struggled to deal with her sudden and violent death.

Sierra Madre Fire Department Chief Steve Heydorff said Hoschet was among the first round of paramedics to be hired when the department began its program in 2007.

She was a great paramedic, he recalled Tuesday. When Id go on calls with her, I could see the care shed take with her patients, no matter who they were.

Although Hoschet left the department formally to train in the sheriffs academy, Heydorff said she stopped by at least once a month to keep in touch. Sometimes, her son was in tow and would play on the fire engines.

When Heydorff first heard a description of the incident on Monday morning, he was about 90% certain Hoschet was the victim but was hoping for the best. Still, when her identity was released later that day, the news startled him.

It kind of takes all the breath out of you, especially with the circumstances, he said.

The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
PodShare, a cross between a hostel and a dorm that caters to travelers and longer-term visitors, is scheduled to open its third location this summer in Los Feliz.

The pods cost $40 to $50 a night and have a bed, a TV, shelves and some other storage space, but one thing they dont have is privacy. No walls, no doors, no curtains.

Instead, pods face one another in an open floor plan, and guests share communal areas, such as a kitchen, common area that feels like a living room and a work space.

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Owner Elvina Beck, 31, opened the first PodShare in 2012 in Hollywood. A year later, Kera Package joined her.

Why do you need to spend $100 to $300 on a hotel to be by yourself? Beck asked.

At PodShare, you can stay for a night, a week or indefinitely.

If you actually want to meet people, its the perfect space, said Audrey Leynaud, 21, an exchange student from France.

The Los Feliz location (the owners cant yet disclose the exact address) will have 12 pods, a communal kitchen, eating area and bathroom. A pod for a single person costs $40 to $50 a night or $250 a week.

The other locations are 1617 Cosmo St. in Hollywood and 100 S. Vignes St. in downtown L.A., which opened in April

Info: Podshare

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Voters across Britain headed to the polls Thursday for a referendum on whether to stay in the 28-nation European Union in what many consider the nations most important decision in years.

If a majority of voters cast their ballots to leave the EU partnership, there would be political, economic and social changes for Britain and the member nations as well as global ramifications. Supporters say Britain would be in a better financial position, but opponents say the potential problems outweigh any benefits.

The results of the vote are not expected until Friday morning at the earliest. Polling data ahead of the vote indicated it would be close.

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There was no exit polling as officials and pollsters said the accuracy would be questionable, and a news blackout in Britain that began Thursday morning lasted until polls closed at 10 p.m.

Sealed ballot boxes were being transported to counting venues across the country.

Earlier, despite rainy and gray weather, there was a long line of people waiting to vote on the issue known as Brexit at the Gospel Oak Methodist Church in north London, which was not the case last month for the London mayoral election.

I think this referendum is really important, said Anna Solemani, wearing a Remain sticker on her rain slicker. I want to stay in and this is the most passionate I have ever been for an election or referendum.

In the London neighborhood of Chelsea, pensioner Jo Davis said she voted to leave because I think we have had such a muddle with immigration.

The EU began after World War II to generate economic cooperation and avoid war. The debate on whether its time for Britain to break away has generated fears about uncontrolled immigration and other problems if the Remain camp wins and a virtual economic collapse if the Leave camp wins.

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A decision for Britain to leave the EU would give the country about two years to negotiate its exit strategy.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, warned that there would be no further negotiations of the countrys relationship with the EU if British voters decided to leave, saying Wednesday that out is out.

The referendum has been a highly contentious issue for months, with both sides claiming their statistics and predictions are correct and accusing the other side of inaccuracies and lies. The BBC even set up the Reality Check page on their news website in a bid to fact-check all the claims made by both sides.

The campaign experienced tragedy last week as lawmaker Jo Cox, a Remain supporter, was killed by a man who reportedly shouted Britain First before shooting and stabbing the 41-year-old mother of two. Britain First, a far right political group, denied any involvement in the slaying.

If Britain votes to leave the EU, it would have to renegotiate its relationship with the countries still in the partnership and other nations. The Leave camp, headed by former London Mayor Boris Johnson, said Britain would be better off financially because all the money the country contributes to the EU would remain in British coffers and could help boost the internal economy.

Those in the Remain camp  led by British Prime Minister David Cameron and supported by former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major  have stated that leaving could have negative effects on long-term economic growth, housing prices, jobs and the general standard of living.

The two most contentious issues tied to the referendum have been immigration and the economy.

Britain is part of the single EU market, which means no trade tariffs on imports and exports within the union. If voters decide to leave, trade deals with EU countries and others like the U.S. would need reworking. President Obama said on a visit to London in May that if Brexit passes, the country would be put in the back of the queue when it came to trade deals. Experts believe that France, Belgium and possibly Germany would reject any moves by Britain to remain within the European single market without at least an agreement that European citizens could continue to work and live in the country.

The immigration issue largely stems from the number of European Union citizens who have come to live and work in Britain and can collect benefits.

The Leave argument has been that people from poorer countries have flooded Britain during the last several years and Britain has lost control of its borders. According to the Office of National Statistics, net migration to the country was 330,000 in 2015 and 184,000 coming from within the EU.

The Remain camp counters that EU migrants contribute to the growth of the country and many work in jobs that many British citizens do not want, including as builders, cleaners and nannies.

As it happens, if we left the EU, nothing would change in terms of our international obligations towards refugees, said Robert Hazell, a professor of government and constitution at University College London.

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UPDATES:

3 p.m.: This article has been updated with the polls closing and additional information.

This article originally published at 7:27 a.m.
The Colombian government and rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed to a definitive cease-fire Thursday, taking an important step in ending half a century of conflict even as daunting implementation issues remain unresolved.

Before several heads of state in Havana, President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez, known as Timochenko, announced an end to 52 years of hostilities that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Today is a historic day for our country after 52 years of death, bombings and pain, said Colombian president Santos. The youth of our country have never known a single day without violence. But today we have turned this long and tragic page in our history.

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The cease-fire extends a provisional measure that has been in effect since July 2015. Both sides also agreed that 7,000 rebels will give up their arms within a six-month period and be relocated from the rural and remote areas where they have been operating to 23 government-designated locations.

The youth of our country have never known a single day without violence. But today we have turned this long and tragic page in our history.  Juan Manuel Santos, Colombias president

The United Nations is tasked with collecting weapons from the rebels. A tripartite force including government and FARC representatives as well as U.N. personnel will be put in place to monitor the demobilization. Rebels will be free to come and go unarmed from the concentration zones and camps, which were described as temporary.

Like previously announced partial agreements, the measures will not take effect until and unless a comprehensive deal is signed and Colombian citizens approve it. Government sources say such a vote could be held in September or October.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement describing the agreement as a milestone. President Santos deserves credit for his courage, leadership and unwavering commitment to peace, Kerry said.

But obscured in the celebratory atmosphere of the signing were the hurdles still to be surmounted.

Among deal points still to be fleshed out are specifics of the FARCs participation in Colombias political process. The rebels have been promised a set number of seats in the congress, for example, but it is unclear how many and for how long a term.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

It is also unclear how exactly the final deal will be approved  whether through a referendum, the option the government favors, or through a constitutional assembly, as the rebels have demanded.

Voter approval of a final deal is seen as probable but not certain, as the peace deal has met with significant opposition. Popular former President Alvaro Uribe is one of its biggest detractors.

Recent polls have given Santos less than 25% approval ratings. Earlier this month, he warned that rejecting a peace would lead to urban warfare with FARC. Uribe criticized him for using pressure tactics on voters.

Most Colombians want peace, but they are skeptical and do not trust the FARC to honor its commitments, said Bruce Bagley, a professor at University of Miami. In the context of Colombias economic downturn, prolonged delays in the peace process and Uribes unremitting opposition to the peace accord, Santos could easily lose a referendum.

Perhaps the most pressing longer-term consideration is the cost of implementing the peace agreement, which estimates say could be as much as $40 billion over the next decade. The figure covers the cost of acquiring land, extending credit to demobilized rebels and displaced peasants, and administering reintegration programs. Santos has appealed to international donors for help.

The government is also contemplating paying rebels a monthly stipend, in part to dissuade them from resorting to lives of crime. In addition to drug trafficking and kidnapping, rebels have been blamed for extorting rural businesses and farmers.

Where will the needed funds come from? asked Bagley of University of Miami. Tax increases in Colombia will be hugely unpopular and possibly even suicidal for Santos politically. Major shortfalls could undermine and ultimately derail the peace agreement.

The U.S. government is expected to chip in and has made a 2017 budget request of $450 million for Colombian aid, according to U.S. Rep Jim McGovern (D-Mass).

Despite certain reservations, many human rights groups hailed the Thursday agreement as good news for Colombias rural poor, who have suffered the brunt of Colombias long-running civil conflict.

We really welcome the advances in the accord, although wed like to see Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities have more of a voice in at the peace table, said Lisa Haugaard, director of the Washington-based Latin America Working Group.

There is no turning back, Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country has hosted the peace talks, said during the signing. This provides hope to millions whose main concern has been survival in a world convulsed by war.

Kraul is a special correspondent.

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Yemeni military and security officials say a group of U.S. military forces, including Special Forces commandos, have evacuated an air base after Al Qaeda seized a nearby city.

The officials say the troops are leaving the Al Anad air base near the southern city of al-Houta. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they werent authorized to discuss troop movements, did not say whether the troops left the country.

There are some 100 American troops and Special Forces commandos believed to be stationed there.

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U.S. officials declined to immediately comment Saturday.

Al Qaedas local branch is considered by Washington to be the groups most dangerous offshoot. The U.S. has carried out a series of drone strikes in Yemen targeting suspected militants.

Al Qaeda militants took al-Houta on Friday. Their offensive comes as Shiite rebels hold the capital and nine of Yemens 21 provinces.
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In the latest phase of Operation Car Wash, the investigation into corruption at Brazils state-run oil firm Petrobras, Paulo Bernardo, a former minister of planning (2005-2011) and communication (2011-2015), and his wife, Senator Gleisi Hoffman, were arrested on the morning of 23 June.

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The common law wife of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is stepping up her crusade to secure better treatment for her husband as he awaits possible extradition to the U.S. on an array of federal drug charges.

Emma Coronel Aispura was recently in Washington to meet with members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent offshoot of the Organization of American States (OAS).

'El Chapo's Family Wants International Investigation

Insisting that her husband is suffering from the "worst torture that exists," including sleep deprivation, Aispura is now calling for an international investigation into his harsh treatment, part of which she speculates is in retaliation for his high-profile 2015 prison escape that left Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto red-faced with embarrassment.

During her time in the U.S., an attorney for Guzman claims Aispura was routinely followed by what she assumes were U.S. government agents.

Reputed as one of the world's most notorious criminals, Guzman was recaptured in Mexico earlier this year and soon after that Aispura accused prison authorities of "killing him slowly."

In one instance, she alleges guards awoke him every two hours at night to take roll call, and held loud conversations outside his cell as a guard dog followed his every move.

Just last month, Guzman was transferred from a top security prison near Mexico City to a jail in Ciudad Juarez, located near the Texas border. The transfer came soon after the Mexican government granted two U.S. extradition requests.

Guard Found Murdered

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities are continuing their probe of the recent killing of a guard assigned to guard the outside the prison where the man once hailed as the "the biggest drug lord of all time" is being held.

Jorge Maurico Melendez Herrera, 20, is reported to have died of a blow to the back of the neck. He had also been stabbed numerous times. As many as 300 soldiers have now been assigned to provide security around the prison.

More recently, the remains of the seven men were discovered in Mexico's western Sinaloa state, otherwise known as the now jailed Guzman's old home turf. Authorities have not publicly indicated if they believe any of those killings are connected to Guzman or the Sinaloa drug cartel he once served as the face of.
President Obama attacked Republicans for "standing in the way of progress" after the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, June 23, not to lift a lower court's injunction against the executive actions he took on immigration that stood to benefit as many as 5 million families.

In the immediate aftermath of the decision, Democrats vowed to turn the issue into an Election Day litmus test that could have implications all the way up to the White House.

"Here's the bottom line: We've got a very real choice that America faces right now," a frustrated Obama told reporters during a hastily arranged press conference held in the White House briefing room. "We've got a choice about who we're going to be as a country, what we want to teach our kids, and how we want to be represented in Congress and in the White House."

High Court Deadlocked on Issue

Operating with just eight members ever since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the high court deadlocked 4-4 in the U.S. vs. Texas case, effectively rendering a lower court's earlier ruling on the issue the law of the land.

Back in 2014, the Obama administration announced the enactment of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), which the president insisted was an earnest effort to reform the immigration system after the Republican led House repeatedly failed to take action.

GOP leaders immediately branded the action as unlawful and a blatant attempt to circumvent the will of lawmakers.

GOP Leaders Applaud Verdict

"Today, the Supreme Court made the right call," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a statement. "When Congress doesn't give the President what he wants, the President doesn't all [of] the sudden gain the right to legislate all by himself."

Beyond defending his actions as an extension of a smaller-scale version of a plan that began in 2012 with the issuing of work permits to immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, the president also blasted Republicans for stalling confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, the man he nominated to replace Scalia on the high court.

The president also blasted Republicans of using the issue of immigration to "scare people" by routinely using "words like "amnesty."

He later added, "Leaving a broken system that way is not a solution. That's the real amnesty."

Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton posted messages on Twitter in both English and Spanish where she characterized the ruling as "heartbreaking" because it "could tear apart 5 million families."

Clinton has long supported the president's actions on the issue.

On the republican side, presumptive nominee Donald Trump claimed the ruling "blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a President."

Trump is on record in planning to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected.

In all, 26 states sued the Obama administration over the DAPA program, making the argument that the administration changed federal regulations without proper notice and that the new immigration laws would saddle states with additional costs in the form of driver's licenses for immigrants.
The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials begins their annual conference with scheduled speeches from Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

Unfortunately for thousands of Hispanic lawmakers descending on Washington D.C. this weekend, neither presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton nor presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump will make the trip.

Republicans told NALEO Executive Director Arturo Vargas that Trump was unavailable, though Trump never spoke with the organization. According to NBC News, the Clinton campaign said the former Secretary of State is not fielding requests for organizational events she attended last year.

In a statement, Vargas called it a "significant missed opportunity" to reach out to the Latino community following the mass shooting at an Orlando LGBT nightclub.

"Given the extraordinary role our nation's Latino leaders play in keeping the wheels of our country turning during times of crisis and peace, it is important that NALEO members directly from the candidates vying for the nation's highest office," Vargas said.

He added, "The tragic events in Orlando that shook the foundations of the LGBTQ and Latino community, and all Americans, make the presence of the presumptive nominees even more critical."

Sanders Sends a Message

Local, state, and federal officials from around the country converge on the NALEO's conference every year. The event itself is of importance to presidential candidates. Then-Senator Barack Obama addressed the nonpartisan group in 2008, and again during his re-election bid in 2012.

Sanders has all but admitted defeat to Clinton in chasing the Democratic nomination, but he still RSVP'd for a presidential candidate forum early Thursday morning.

Inadvertent or not, the Vermont senator omitted saying either Trump or Clinton's name throughout his 20-minute speech. Sanders said voters would not elect someone who makes "bigotry the cornerstone of their campaigns," referring to Trump's proposed anti-immigration policies.

"The American people in 2016 are not going to vote for a candidate who insults Muslims and Latinos and women and African-Americans," Sanders said.

Sanders said he has been "struck by fear" over the prospect of deportations breaking families apart.

Clinton Meeting with LULAC

The League of United Latin American Citizens announced Thursday that Clinton will attend its 87th national in Washington D.C. next month.

"As one of the country's most influential leaders, LULAC is eager to hear Secretary Clinton's vision and her plans to address the issues of importance to the Latino community," LULAC National President Roger C. Rocha Jr. said in a press release.

Rocha's statement was released just as the Supreme Court deadlocked on President Obama's plan protecting millions of undocumented immigration from deportation.
Activists Demand Elected Civilian Police Accountability Board

By aaroncynic in News on Jun 22, 2016 9:28PM



Activists with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression at a press conference on the second floor of City Hall (photo via @NAARPR)

Activists demanding a civilian elected police accountability board rallied at City Hall Wednesday morning.

Emanuel was originally scheduled to present his plan to scrap the Independent Police Review Authority in favor of an oversight board at the City Council meeting. But late last week the mayor decided to slow the process at the behest of Police Board President Lori Lightfoot and others in the City Council who wanted a series of public hearings on the matter first, according to the Sun-Times.

Activists say that Emanuels proposals cant be trusted, and any body appointed by the mayor would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

"As long as the police are accountable only to the mayor nothing will change," said Frank Champan of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. "He has never acknowledged the existence of this proposal supported by the broadest coalition of forces ever assembled in any city for community control of the police. People are outraged over the killings and shootings that go unabated and the mayor has done nothing but try to cover up the crimes and his own responsibility for them.

The proposal by CAARPR would not only replace IPRA, which for years has failed to little in holding officers accused of excessive force or worse for their actions, but it would also replace the Police Board. Additionally, CAARPRs proposal would give an elected civilian accountability board the authority to appoint a Police Superintendent, investigate misconduct and shootings, and be the final authority regarding discipline in the Chicago Police Department.

The group says it has at least 35,000 signatures in support of the measure.

There will be two more hearings on July 6 and 7 on Emanuels proposal, which he then plans to introduce to City Council on July 20.
Transgender People Have Bathroom Access Rights In Chicago

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 22, 2016 8:48PM



Flickr / User Dan Perry

Transgender people are allowed to access the bathroom that matches their gender identity, Chicago's City Council affirmed Wednesday.

The council has passed an amendment to the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance that once required patrons to show a government-issued ID upon request to access public accommodations that are "private in nature," but will not anymore. The vote passed the Council 45-5. Chicago had already include gender identity as a protected class in the HRO, but there was a loophole in the ordinance pertaining to bathroom usage.

Chicago-born writer-director Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix) testified in favor of the change Wednesday. She came out as transgender last March to preempt a tabloid outing.

Wachowski told the council that she is "unmistakably transgender," as a 6'4" woman with a deep voice, and has faced discrimination from a woman who was upset at her for using a department store changing room, according to the Sun-Times.

The amendment encountered some of the usual misplaced hand-wringing associated with this issue when it appeared before the Committee on Human Relations earlier in June, namely from Ald. Nick Sposato.

The amendment was greeted with much enthusiasm from local LGBTQ organizations Wednesday.

"As other states try to erase transgender people from public life, lets recognize that this ordinance is about more than public accommodations. In the wake of the violence against LGBT people in Orlando, it is about standing up for the dignity of all Chicagoans and ensuring our city remains a welcoming and affirming place, Brian C. Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois, said in a statement.

"We applaud the City Council's action today," Kim L. Hunt, executive director of the Pride Action Tank, said in a press release. "Removing the discriminatory language towards transgender people not only expands access to spaces like bathrooms, but it also helps ensure that people are treated with dignity and respect."

The vote arrives just over a week after the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and roughly three months since North Carolina set the bar for transgender bathroom-access discrimination, when the state passed House Bill 2.

This post has been amended: House Bill 2 was passed by the North Carolina state legislature, not the Charlotte City Council, as previously stated.
Strict Rules For Wrigley Field's Plaza Pass City Council

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 22, 2016 9:50PM



Rendering of Wrigley Field's open-air plaza by night (via the Chicago Cubs)

Cubs owner Tom Ricketts felt the full force of an emboldened Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday. Rahm and the City Council pushed through strict limitations on exactly where, how and what people can drink at the proposed outdoor Wrigley Field plaza.

Approved regulations include a ban on liquor (beer and wine only) in the plaza and caps on serving times during Cubs games (one hour after a game for day games and not sales beyond end of game for night games). Also, only ticket-holders will be granted entry on game days; and the plaza can host no more than 12 "special events" (1,000+ attendees) in a given year.

Cubs spokesman Julian Green balked at the terms earlier in the month, saying "[n]one of these terms are reasonable." And right on cue, Green vented following Wednesday's ruling: "What's been regarded as a compromise puts in motion a bizarre set of parameters which further restricts us from operating the plaza as an asset that's accessible to the entire community," he said, according to the Tribune.

Righthalf-drunk bros only being allowed to down beer instead of liquor sure sounds like an accessibility issue for the young and old alike.

The Ricketts had lobbied for year-round alcohol service, which in fairness, is arguably a big part of what Wrigleyville is all aboutfor better and worse.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), whose ward includes Wrigleyville, fought in support the ordinance as good-neighbor policy as related to other businesses and residents. "I think this is an incremental ordinance that allows us to get our feet wet, to crawl before we walk, before we run, and I think there are protections for the residents and the small businesses here," Tunney said, according to the Tribune. "It's not all just about Wrigley. ... I'm interested in how we navigate what we've already approved before we give away the store."

The Wrigley plaza determination was just one of several major ordinances and amendments passed Wednesday by the City Council. They also approved (decidedly hands-off) regulation for rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft and home-sharing services like Airbnb along with guarantees for transgender bathroom-access rights and paid sick leave.
'Full Of It' CPS Officials Tell Parents That Lead Problems Aren't That Bad

By Mae Rice in News on Jun 23, 2016 4:27PM

Chicago Public Schools began testing school water supplies for lead out of an "abundance of caution" in late Apriland as of mid-June, actionable levels of lead have been found at 19 of the 74 schools whose test results had been posted publicly. Schools officials are hosting daily community meetings this week to explain those findings and field concerns.

I think theyre full of it, CPS parent Anna Espinosa told Chicagoist Wednesday night, after one such community meeting in Back of the Yards.

The they Espinosa referred to was a four-man panel well-versed in CPSs lead testing program. Panelistsincluding CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and Chicagos newly-minted Water Commissioner Barrett Murphypresented to a group of about 40 people in the gym at Back of the Yards College Prep, which was built for at least 500.

Their main message? Lead isnt a systemic problem in CPS water systems. Lead levels higher than the federal Environmental Protection Agencys actionable limit, 15 parts per billion, had been found at a quarter of the schools tested so far as of mid-Junebut panelist and CPS Chief of Facilities Jose Alfonso de Hoyos-Acosta argued that that overstates the problem. He argued the most relevant numbers were that only about 4 percent of all devices tested (so sinks, water fountains, etc.) produced a sample with actionable lead levels.

Espinosa, 38, wasnt reassured. She has twin 17-year-old sons currently enrolled at Brighton Parks Thomas Kelly High School, and one of them was affected by lead long before the city began its testing program. He had very high levels of lead in his system at age four, Espinosa said; at age 15, he was diagnosed with autism.

Espinosa doesnt know if lead exposure caused his autism, or where exactly the lead her son was exposed to came from. The city was supposed to test her familys apartment at the time for lead, she said, but officials never showed up, and her family moved. Even now, there arent yet publicly available lead testing results for Kelly, but there has to be lead in the building, Espinosa said. I know the school is pretty old.

The school is in a state of disrepair, too, according to Espinosaits in need of a good cleaning, with paint chipping off the ceiling of the school cafeteria and the bathrooms.

Ultimately, the current battery of lead tests just feels like too little, too late to Espinosa. Generations of CPS schoolkids have already gone to schools with lead in the water.

I just found out that my old school had lead," Espinosa said. "I went to that school, and my parents didnt know about it this is like a generation thing.

She's not alone in her skepticism of the lead testing program. At the community meeting, audience members were invited to submit questions on notecards; though there was no open confrontation, the questions read aloud by the moderator sounded angry.

"Who will be held accountable?" one question read. Another read, "Why was this meeting not publicized more widely?"

Yet another submission: Im not convinced its only certain devices. I want water coolers next to the water fountains.

The responses were, to paraphrase: No one is going to be "held accountable," but we'll definitely try to fix all the lead issues; we did our best to publicize this meeting; our policy is to replace lead-tainted water fountains with water coolers, but... that's it.

Panelist Dr. Cortland Lohff, the Medical Director for Environmental Health at the Chicago Department of Public Health, emphasized that it was much more likely for children to be poisoned by lead paint than by lead in the water at school; Commissioner Murphy emphasized that Flint made mistakes Chicago would never make.

We will never ever ever ever change source water," Murphy said.

"You didnt really need to come to guess what they were going to say," Deb Damian, a 22-year-old community organizer, told Chicagoist. "It seemed very bland."

Kimberly Mims, 53, a community organizer and art curator who went to the meeting on behalf of friends with kids in CPS, told Chicagoist the scope of the meeting felt too narrow. "They were really focusing on the device, the fixture, the little problem that they can kind of seize on and shake it around and fix it.

Testing in schools seems like "not a bad way to start" tackling the lead problem, Mims said, but it strikes her as a "super short-term solution" to what Mims sees as the real issue: Chicago's lead service lines. They're literally everywhere; as we've previously noted, nearly 80 percent of Chicago properties get water from lead service lines.

For her part, Espinosa is taking lead safety one step at a time. After the meeting, she said she plans to take both her sons to get their lead levels tested.

"[I'll] just try to do whatever I can for them," she said.


Jun 23, 2016, 2:13pm ET

Toyota blames connector for Le Mans loss

Toyota has discovered what caused its Le Mans racer to stall out.

Proving that the devil is in the details, Toyota revealed this week that a failed connector was the reason behind its shocking loss at this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Toyota's No. 5 TS050 prototype Le Mans race car was a technological tour de force, combining a 2.4L gas engine with a high-tech hybrid drive system. However, it wasn't a major drivetrain component that caused the No. 5 car to stall out with just 5 minutes to go, but rather a hose connector.

According to Toyota, the TS050 prototype "suffered a technical defect on a connector on the air line between the turbo charger and the intercooler, causing a loss of turbo charger control. As a result, the then first-place car slowed to a stop, allowing Porsche to sneak by for the win.

Toyota eventually resolved the problem and the No. 5 car was able to complete the final lap under its own power, but it was disqualified as it took longer than the required six-minutes.

Despite pinpointing the problem, Toyota still hasn't gotten to the bottom of what caused the connector to fail. The company says it will continue to investigate the matter.
A 56-year-old Bethlehem man stabbed another man multiple times in the stomach during a confrontation outside a Lehigh County hotel early Thursday, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Victor Manuel Bonilla Gonzales, of the 400 block of Fourth Avenue, is charged with aggravated assault and related crimes.

He was arraigned before District Judge Robert Halal, who set bail at $75,000 and ordered Gonzales to Lehigh County Prison.

State police said Gonzales fled in a car after the stabbing but was found by Bethlehem police at his home.

It happened at 12:46 a.m. in the parking lot of the Knights Inn at 1880 Steelstone Road in Hanover Township, state police said.

State police identified the victim as Sabwa Sula, 40, of the 700 block of Mortimer Street in Bethlehem.

Authorities ask anyone with information regarding the incident to call Trooper Barton Josefowicz of the Bethlehem barracks at 610-807-3359.

Jim Deegan may be reached at jdeegan@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jim_deegan. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook.
A New Jersey man has been arraigned on 17 charges for his alleged role in a stealing spree targeting Lehigh Valley Home Depot stores.

Felix P. Polnasek, 48, of the 100 block of Windtryst Apartments in Belvidere, is facing charges of four counts retail theft, four counts conspiracy to commit retail theft, four counts attempted theft by deception, three counts theft by deception and two counts conspiracy to commit theft by deception.

Bethlehem Township police began investigating Polnasek following a theft he allegedly committed at an area Wal-Mart.

Police learned Polnasek and two other accomplices were responsible for similar thefts at Home Depot stores in Bethlehem Township, Whitehall Township and Allentown. The thefts spanned Dec. 26, 2015 through May 27.

Matthew Casciole was the first person charged in the investigation. A third 58-year-old male suspect remains on the lam.

Casciole was arraigned June 10 on 20 charges, including eight counts of retail theft and four counts of theft by deception. In lieu of $50,000 bail, he was sent to Northampton County Prison, where he remained Thursday.

From December through May, Polnasek, Casciole and the other accomplice stole $3,000 in store credit and materials from Home Depot stores, police said.

In the schemes, Casciole allegedly would fill a shopping cart with items and leave without paying. Polnasek then would make fake returns for store credit and help use receipts from legitimate purchases to steal the exact same merchandise at other stores, police said.

Township police said the thefts were all caught on surveillance video at the stores.

Court records state Polnasek also stole from Lowes and had no prior convictions for retail theft before the alleged stealing spree.

Polnasek was arraigned Thursday before District Judge Patricia Broscius, who set bail at $10,000 unsecured.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Court Orders Freddie Gibbs Extradited To Austria On Rape Charge

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 23, 2016 6:44PM



Facebook / Freddie Gibbs

A French court on Thursday ordered Gary, Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs extradited to Austria, where he is accused of rape, according to ATF.

Gibbs was arrested on June 2 as a suspect in the 2015 case. He posted $56,000 bail on June 16, ahead of today's extradition ruling. Michael Malka, Gibbs' attorney, said he has no intention of escaping justice, whether French or Austrian, according to Pitchfork, and that Gibbs prefers to turn himself in, rather than make himself subject to any harsh transfer procedure.

Another Gibbs lawyer, Scott E. Leemon, reiterated his client's denial of the charges and desire to cooperate in a statement sent to Chicagoist by the hip-hop artist's publicist:



"The order was not surprising and it doesn't change the fact that these are false allegations. We are still hoping that once the Public Prosecutor in Austria interviews Freddie she will decide not to go forward. If she does decide to go forward, Freddie will fight the charges with everything he's got."

At the time of Gibbs' arrest, Malka questioned the extended period time between the incident and the arrest. "It makes you wonder why it took almost a year for Austrian officials to bring these charges. Freddie will be fighting the extradition request as these are nothing more than trumped up charges."

After he parted with major label Interscope, Gibbs emerged as a critical favorite with a pair of acclaimed mixtapes in 2009, The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs and Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik. He announced last month a planned follow-up to his celebrated 2014 collaboration with Madlib, PiAata, called Bandana.
Police seek a woman wearing the same style hoodie in separate pharmacy robberies in Easton and Bethlehem on Wednesday.

Police say this woman robbed the Rite Aid in Easton on June 22, 2016.

The woman allegedly robbed the CVS pharmacy at 2651 Easton Ave. in Bethlehem at 5:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to Bethlehem police Chief Mark DiLuzio.

A woman wearing a similar hoodie allegedly robbed the Rite Aid pharmacy at 901 Northampton St. in Easton at at 3:52 p.m. Wednesday.

DiLuzio said police believe the robberies are related.

The woman is described as white, 5 feet 5 inches tall, heavyset with a pock-marked face. She wore a black hooded sweatshirt with what appears to be a white eagle on the front and blue jeans.

She ran away from the Bethlehem CVS, DiLuzio said. She was seen fleeing west on Northampton Street in a tan, older model Jeep SUV from the Easton robbery, according to Easton police.

She allegedly threatened to use a gun in the Bethlehem robbery and allegedly threatened to stab an pharmacy employee during the Easton robbery.

The woman allegedly left the Rite Aid pharmacy with an undisclosed amount of Alprazolam, a prescription medication.

This woman is a suspect in the robbery of a CVS pharmacy in Bethlehem on June 22, 2016. (Photo courtesy WFMZ TV)

No one was injured during the Easton robbery and the woman never brandished the knife, police said.

Anyone with information should call Easton police Det. Charles Leauber at 610-250-6780, the Bethlehem Police Department at 610-997-7665, or the Easton police department's anonymous tipline at 610-250-6635.

Police are also looking for a woman who robbed the Subway sandwich shop at 5:40 p.m. Tuesday at 700 Old Philadelphia Road in Easton.

Asked whether police believe the same woman is behind that crime, Inspector Dan Reagan said, "Right now we're asking anyone that recognizes the female in the surveillance footage to call police. ... We will release further information when it becomes available."

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A 44-year-old Easton man choked and beat his girlfriend on Wednesday evening near Ninth and Washington streets, police said.

Charles Anthony Hernandez, of the 900 block of Washington Street, was arraigned Wednesday night before District Judge James Narlesky on charges of simple assault and harassment. Hernandez was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of 10 percent of $5,000 bail, according to court records.

He posted bail Thursday morning, online records show. As a condition of bail, Hernandez can't have contact with the victim or go into her home.

About 7 p.m. Wednesday, Hernandez grabbed his girlfriend by the throat and squeezed and then punched her, police said. The victim said she had "painful injuries to her throat and face," police said. The injuries were consistent with her statements, police said.

Police said they responded to the domestic disturbance at the Easton Community Center at Ninth and Washington, but a center official said the victim actually ran from her home to the center to get help.

"Staff at the center called the police and EMTs," Program Director Bonnie Buncher said in an email. "The incident did not happen at the center. We were in fact her safe haven."

Hernandez's preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9:30 a.m. July 6 in District Judge Daniel Corpora's South Side Easton court.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This report was revised from its original posting to clarify that the alleged assault didn't happen at the community center.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
TAMAQUA, Pa. -- Hours before a Morris County police officer was arrested at a roadblock in Hazleton, Pa., after allegedly crashing into cars while under the influence, police say he was involved in another hit-and-run crash in a nearby town.

Authorities say Washington Township police officer William McCarthy III was involved in a DWI crash in Hazelton, Pa. on Thursday. Pictured, McCarthy's Nissan Armada SUV.

William McCarthy, 45, of Great Meadows in Warren County, allegedly drove the wrong-way on a one-way street in Tamaqua -- a town about half-hour away from Hazleton -- at about 2:34 p.m. on June 16, sideswiped a parked vehicle with his Nissan Armada SUV and then fled the scene north on Route 309, according to Tamaqua police.

Police later learned a vehicle matching the description of McCarthy's Nissan was involved in motor vehicle crashes in Hazleton and were able to positively identify McCarthy, a police officer in Washington Township, as the driver involved in the Tamaqua crash.

McCarthy is now facing charges out of Tamaqua for allegedly driving in the wrong direction on a one-way roadway, accidents involving damage to an unattended vehicle or property and duty to give information and render aid.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on June 16, McCarthy was arrested at a roadblock in Hazleton after hitting several vehicles in that town -- two of which were occupied. His vehicle had heavy front-end damage when it was stopped and McCarthy had been driving the vehicle even though the airbag had deployed.

Hazleton police charged McCarthy with DUI, resisting arrest, reckless driving, accidents involving damage to attended vehicles and duty to give information and render aid.

Authorities haven't provided any additional information on the events leading up to the crash, but they have confirmed McCarthy was allegedly involved in a domestic violence incident in New Jersey prior to the Pennsylvania crashes.

The crashes in Hazleton and Tamaqua occurred nearly a year to the day after McCarthy was arrested on a DWI charge in Blairstown. During that incident on June 20, 2015, he was found parked on the shoulder of Route 94 in a daze and with an open bottle of tequila between his legs, according to arrest reports obtained by NJ Advance Media.

McCarthy, who'd been kicked out of the house a day before the Blairstown DWI last year, told the officer who stopped to check on his condition that he saw dead people and asked if the officer also saw dead people. McCarthy refused to submit to field sobriety tests and to provide breath samples.

According to the arrest report, his wife told Blairstown police there were family issues at home, that he'd been drinking heavily since 2002 and that they tried to get him help before. McCarthy denied having a drinking problem, according to the arrest report.

McCarthy's license was suspended for 90 days last August for a first-time DWI violation in connection with the Blairstown incident. At the time of his arrest on June 16, his driver's license was valid.

McCarthy has been suspended without pay from the Washington Township Police Department pending the outcome of the investigation into the most recent incidents, police Chief Jeffrey S. Almer said in a statement on Friday.

Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Beer Fight

In April, the Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group, named Yuengling the No. 1 craft brewing company in the nation based on 2015 sales. (AP file photo)

D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc. has reached a settlement with the federal government regarding allegations that its two eastern Pennsylvania breweries discharged unacceptable levels of waste into a local water system.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced that a consent decree resolving the matter has been filed in federal court in Harrisburg.

The feds say in a news release that the decree calls for Yuengling to pay a $2.8 million penalty and also spend about $7 million to improve environmental measures at its breweries near Pottsville.

However, a Yuengling executive on Thursday said the necessary improvements have been in the works for several years and are already complete.

The company built a wastewater treatment facility at its downtown Pottsville brewery, which dates to the 1830s and is the oldest brewery in America, says Wendy Yuengling, the company's chief administrative officer.

The facility started operating in March and the company has been in compliance with the Clean Water Act ever since, Wendy Yuengling says.

Yuengling allegedly violated provisions of the act "numerous times between 2008 and 2015" by discharging waste that should have been pretreated at the breweries into the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority system, the two federal agencies say in the joint news release.

Wendy Yuengling says there was nothing toxic or dangerous in the waste; it was organic material such as sugar and yeast, byproducts of the brewing process.

But she did acknowledge the improvements were necessary. Although the feds pin the violations on both the downtown Pottsville brewery and Yuengling's newer brewery just outside of Pottsville, it's the downtown one that was the source of the problems, Wendy Yuengling says.

It previously didn't have its own wastewater treatment plant prior to March. That created problems as demand for Yuengling products increased, driving up production at the plant, she says.

"We struggled at that point because we were producing a lot of beer out of an old plant with no treatment facility," Wendy Yuengling says. "We were only in 18 states and we knew we'd continue to grow."

In addition to the newer brewery just outside of Pottsville, Yuengling also now operates a brewery in Tampa, Florida.

Yuengling has long been a hometown favorite in the Lehigh Valley even though it is based about 45 miles northwest of Allentown. The brewery's flagship beer, Yuengling Lager, is simply referred to as "Lager" at most local bars in the region.

Its popularity has also grown rapidly outside eastern Pennsylvania. In April, the Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group, named Yuengling the No. 1 craft brewing company in the nation based on 2015 sales.

Although the company says the discharges from the breweries weren't toxic, EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin says in the news release that the occurrence of discharges still represents serious violations "posing a potential risk to the Schuylkill River, which provides drinking water to 1.5 million people."

"This history of violations and failure to fully respond to orders from the Greater Pottsville Area Sewer Authority and EPA to correct the problems resulted in this enforcement action," Garvin says.

Wendy Yuengling says matters involving the community's safety and well being are a paramount concern to the company.

"Environmental responsibility is very important to us," she says. "We intend to be around a long time and keep this business for future generations."

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Pennsylvania Capitol Building

The Pennsylvania state capitol building.

(Associated Press file photo)

Once again the Pennsylvania House of Representatives -- a majority of Republican-led lawmakers, anyway -- is inserting itself between a woman and her doctor on the issue of abortion.



Pennsylvania currently has a ban on abortion after 24 weeks, except for medical emergencies. House Bill 1948, passed by the House Tuesday, would move that deadline up to 20 weeks and greatly curtail the procedure known as dilation and extraction -- or as abortion opponents call it, "dismemberment abortion."



These are consequential changes that mirror abortion restrictions passed by legislatures in the deep South and Midwest, many of which are pending court challenges. The 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that prevents states from banning abortion before fetal viability is looking more like a waystation on the political quest to eliminate this right altogether.



But it is still a right. It should be based on the best-available science, not criminalize doctors by setting up deadlines that clash with the timing of diagnostic tests that may reveal fetal abnormalities.



Pennsylvania House members, led by bill sponsor Kathy Rapp, R-Warren, are basing the 20-week rule on the point at which they believe a fetus can feel pain. While the science of medicine is continually improving in this regard -- including delivering babies at earlier stages and nurturing them outside the womb -- many physicians see the 20-week limit as difficult, if not dangerous, to a woman at a critical point in her pregnancy. The Pennsylvania Medical Society opposes the measure, noting that critical diagnostic tests are performed around the 20-week time frame.



The ban on D&E procedures is alarming. It sometimes represents the best option for a mother for health reasons, and almost all are performed before 20 weeks.



Pennsylvania would become the 15th state to enact a 20-week cutoff and just the seventh to outlaw D&E.



The House rushed this bill to a floor vote, with no hearings, where it was adopted 132-65. All the Republican members from the Lehigh Valley supported it, while all local Democrats opposed it; Democrat Dan McNeill did not vote.



It's shameful that lawmakers would fast-track such legislation as courts around the nation are reviewing similar statutes -- including Oklahoma's attempt to ban abortion outright. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a Texas law that would greatly reduce accessibility through heavy-handed regulation of facilities.



Outlawing abortion or making it prohibitively inaccessible won't end abortions. Such laws are likely to contribute to self-induced abortions or force women to make long trips to other states. Politicians are playing with the clock in a medically suspect way to deny women and their families the time and information needed to make a personal, difficult decision.



House Bill 1948 faces an uncertain reception in the Senate. Senators should affirm that the state already has a restrictive but more workable deadline of 24 weeks. Failing that, Gov. Tom Wolf should use his veto power to stand up for this constitutional right, which he has pledged to do.
Phillipsburg municipal building

Background checks may be instituted on mayoral appointments after years-old plagiarism and DUI accusations were revealed against Phillipsburg's recently appointed business administrator.

(Tim Wynkoop | lehighvalleylive.com file photo)

A case of plagiarism that embroiled a Morris County school board more than a decade ago could change the way Phillipsburg picks its municipal staff.

The town's business administrator, appointed in May, stepped down from the Madison board of education in 2005 after copying a columnist's graduation speech -- a fact that Phillipsburg Mayor Stephen Ellis said was unknown to him until he was asked by a reporter on Wednesday.

A DUI charge, which was eventually dropped, also didn't come up before she was appointed.

Phillipsburg Mayor Stephen Ellis (Erin Gallagher | For lehighvalleylive.com)

"The credentials were there. There were no indication to worry about her character. ... She was doing a fine job," Ellis said later after talking with Business Administrator Melissa Elias.

The mayor said background checks are not done for all appointed positions, but may soon be instituted as a result.

"We're going to be in discussion about this," Ellis said. "I'm not ready to make a decision yet on the future of our municipal staff here, in general."

Selection

In Phillipsburg, the business administrator oversees office functions within the municipal building. Elias, 60, of Madison, was appointed after a months-long selection process involving interviews with six or seven candidates, the mayor said.

The three-person interview team of the mayor, attorney Christopher Troxell and planning board Chairman Kent Corcoran rated resumes and questionnaires, then voted on their recommendation, which was presented to the full town council May 17. Troxell and Corcoran could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

At the May meeting, Council President Todd Tersigni asked for reassurance that Elias was thoroughly vetted.

"I believe there needs to be discussion about her at the next open meeting," Tersigni said Wednesday.

Background

In a brief statement, Elias said she is "a competent and dedicated longtime volunteer in Madison." She is also the executive director of the County College of Morris Women's Shelter.

In 2005, she resigned from the Madison school board over an allegation of plagiarism. She publicly apologized for not crediting columnist Anna Quindlen in a graduation speech that year, according to The Star-Ledger's archives. Reports from the time show Elias' speech closely mirrored one by Quindlen in 1999.

In 2014, Elias was charged with driving under the influence and related counts after crashing into a utility pole in Millburn Township, Essex County, and continuing into adjacent Madison.

Millburn court staff on Wednesday said Elias was guilty of leaving the scene of an accident, resulting in a six-month license suspension and $439 fine. Other charges were dismissed.

Elias is well-respected in the Madison community, officials there said, and was appointed last year to the local zoning board.

Madison Borough Administrator Raymond Cody said Elias was "honorable" in her resignation because the plagiarism accusations came at a time when the district was going through a multimillion-dollar referendum.

"Her track record otherwise tells me she was a good choice for the position" in Phillipsburg, said Madison Mayor Bob Conley.

What's next?



Phillipsburg Mayor Ellis said he plans to meet with attorneys and other officials starting Thursday to determine how to handle the situation, and how to institute background checks on mayoral appointments.

Though the revelations were a surprise, he said there is nothing there that would prevent Elias from doing her job.

Tersigni said he would like to see at least two council members involved in the interview process going forward. Ellis said he would be agreeable to the proposal.

"We are going to look into it further and probably be a little more diligent going forward," the mayor said.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and find him on Facebook.
The person who may hold key information about the cause of a Phillipsburg house explosion is not yet able to talk, according to town officials.

Until authorities can interview the man critically injured in the June 4 Filmore Street blast, the ongoing investigation is essentially on hold.

"Our first hope that he gets better," Mayor Stephen Ellis said Wednesday. "Our second is that he can help solve the mystery."

The explosion destroyed the homes at 74-76 Filmore Street that Saturday afternoon and damaged others nearby. Police and neighbors reported smelling natural gas afterward, but it has not been officially determined to be the cause of the blast that originated in the second floor apartment at 76 Filmore.

Police identified 37-year-old Clay Metzgar as the most seriously injured of two victims. The 76 Filmore resident was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital, Salisbury Township, with burns over half his body.

Hospital staff could not provide an update on Metzgar's condition Wednesday. It was not clear if he had been transferred to another facility.

Phillipsburg fire Chief Rich Hay agreed the victim is essential to finding out what happened. Town police Chief James Faulborn said that the investigation was ongoing but declined to elaborate.

"It comes down to the person who lives there," Hay said of the investigation. "It's a matter of time before he's able to speak."

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and find him on Facebook.
A driverless vehicle developed by the internet giant Baidu on display at an exposition in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese technology companies Baidu Inc and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd were listed as two of the world's 50 smartest companies on Tuesday by a US tech magazine.

MIT Technology Review announced its annual ranking of the "50 Smartest Companies 2016", which identified 50 enterprises that are believed by the news outlet's editors to be "smart" in the way that best combines innovative technology with effective business models to create new opportunities.

Apart from Baidu and Huawei, Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are also on in the list. Didi Chuxing, a four-year-old ride-hailing app that's beating Uber in the domestic market, has also joined the group among the other world's tech behemoths and ambitious startups.

Being one of China's major internet search engines, Baidu is developing autonomous cars, backed by a big research and engineering team in Silicon Valley and the company plans to employ more than 100 autonomous-car researchers and engineers in California by year's end, said the magazine.

Another Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei "is now the world's third-largest smartphone vendor thanks to strong sales in both premium and entry-level devices," said the magazine.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
A fundraising event for the Doyle family will take place in Kavanaghs (The Wrens Nest) Portlaoise on Friday night, July 15.

The fundraiser is part of a drive by a group of Portlaoise parents to raise money to buy a nine-seater car that can easily accommodate Michelle Doyle and her seven children.

The effort comes in the wake of the sudden death of 37-year old Christopher Doyle earlier this month.

Chris left behind him his wife Michelle and seven children, including, uniquely, three sets of twins.

The couple made headlines in 2012 when they welcomed their third set of twins, beating odds of 500,000 to one in so doing.

The family consists of twin sons aged 7, a son aged 6, twin son and daughter aged 5, and a twin son and daughter aged 4.

Poignantly, Chris gave up work to become a full time carer when his eldest sons were diagnosed as having special needs, acute learning difficulties and multiple disabilities.

His efforts on behalf of his children saw him awarded Irelands Dad of the Year in 2013.

In an effort to make Michelle and her children's life a little easier, a group of parents have organised the fundraiser in Kavanaghs on July 15.

They hope to sell 5,000 tickets for the event which will feature local bands, Blessed and Soulset.

Tickets will be on sale from your schools office, in the Portlaoise Parish Centre Shop or can be bought directly from P.J. Kavanagh. Tickets cost 5 per person.

The group are also looking to local businesses for support and donations, and would like to thank the team at Mochua Print and Design in Portlaoise for their incredibly generous support.

If you or your business would like to donate goods or services to this cause please contact at t DFSF@outlook.ie.

A special account in Bank of Ireland Portlaoise has been opened.

Donations can be made through onlinebanking or lodged in any BOI branch using:

IBAN IE17BOFI90188882269627
Rathdowney Parish will mark the ordination of one of its parishioners with a festival of faith, or Faithfest, over the coming week and going into early July.

Eoin Casey will be the first member of the local community ordained a priest for many decades, and the parish will celebrate the occasion with a series of events, prior to the ordination.

The eldest son of John and Assumpta Casey, Eoin will be ordinated on Saturday, July 9 for the Dominican Order in Dublin. He will celebrate his first Mass in Rathdowney at 12 noon on Sunday, July 10.

The Faithfest is designed to highlight and celebrate aspects of The Seven Sacraments of The Church; Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Healing, Priesthood,said Fr Martin Delaney, PP.

Among the highlights will be a gala concert by The Priests at Holy Trinity Church Rathdowney on Friday evening, July 1 at 8pm.

Faithfest commenced last Saturday with an Afternoon Workshop for Choirs and an Opening Liturgy of the Festival, led by Fr Liam Lawton.

This Wednesday evening there will be a Reflective experience with creative ritual and prayer led by Sr. Antoinette Dilworth.

Thursday, June 23 will see the launch of the book, 'Ambassadors of Hope' at the Workhouse Museum in Donaghmore.

The book chronicles the lives of the hundreds of men and women from Rathdowney and surrounding parishes who served as priests and religious all over the world.

Written by Niall O'Doherty, the book will be launched by Charlie Bird and Fr Brian Darcy.

A Day of Pilgrimage will take place on Sunday, June 26. This will encompass Grogan-Aghaboe-Kilkenny City and The Rower where the Grogan church windows are. There will be Mass throughout the day. The Rower parish will host a reception in the evening

This Eucharistic Pilgrimage is inspired by the bestained glass windows which were a feature of Grogan church for many years. Most of these windows now reside in the churches of Glenmore and The Rower in South Kilkenny, said Fr Delaney.

On Tuesday, June 28, RTE's Mary Kennedy will host a public conversation titled 'For One Night Only: Mary Meets John and Joanne.'

Mary will be joined by two inspirational young Irishpeople, John McAreavey andJoanne ORiordan, who will share something of their own stories and how faith has played a part in their lives.

An evening of Healing and Reconciliation will take place in Errill Church on Wednesday, June 29. Bishop Brendan Comiskey will lead the two sacraments, and the evening will commence at 8pm.

International singing stars, The Priests will feature in a gala concert in Holy Trinity Church, Rathdowney on Friday, July 1 at 8pm. Tickets are 20.

Faithfest will conclude with a parish picnic and family fun day in the grounds of St. Fergal's College on Sunday, July 3.
The 16th Meeting of the Heads of State Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on June 23-24. There are certainly many important agendas regarding this meeting. One of them should be the issue of Iran's entry into the SCO.

Both China and Russia, the two major leading actors in the organization, are positive regarding Iran's entry. Judging by this, Iran's entry should be a question of sooner-or-later, not a yes-or-no. And this move will lead to a win-win outcome for the SCO and Iran.

Iran, in addition to its Middle Eastern identity, is a Central Asian country. It is seen as Middle Eastern partly because of its Islamic attachment and partly because of its deep political involvement in the Middle Eastern region. But Iran is also an integral part of Central Asia not only geographically but also historically, culturally, economically and politically.

Throughout most of history, Central Asia either used to be part of the Persian Empire, or part of a dynasty in the region together with Iran. And quite a large population in Central Asia speaks Farsi, and they share the Persian festival of Nowruz. Iran is also a close economic partner of Central Asian countries in terms of investment, trade and infrastructure connections. At the end of 2014, Iran, together with Kazakhstan, celebrated the opening ceremony of the railway linking the two countries via Turkmenistan. Iran also regards Central Asia as relevant with its political stability and social security.

Iran also had very constructive relations with the SCO. In 2005, Iran expressed very clearly its intention to join in the SCO as a full member. And since then, Iran attended all the SCO summits at the head of state level though the country is just an observer of the organization. Unfortunately, despite Iran's enthusiasm, Iran's request was not responded to positively. According to Dr. Behzad Khoshandam, an Iranian expert, it is mainly because Iran was under UN sanctions for the nuclear issue. And the SCO declared that the organization cannot accept the countries under UN sanctions as full members.

Therefore, signing of the JCPOA (Join Comprehensive Plan of Action) in July 14, 2015, and the removal of UN sanctions as Iran implemented the deal in the end of 2015 should be new momentum that Iran has gained for its efforts to enter the SCO. Or to put it another way, the Iranian nuclear issue was major obstacle of Iran's SCO entry.

Iran's entry should benefit both the SCO and Iran. Iran's entry will politically strengthen Iran's standing in the global arena. It has already been 37 years since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Though it has been well accepted by the world at large, the West, particularly the U.S., has not accepted it politically as many U.S. decision-makers and scholars still regard Iran as fundamentalist Islamic state and condemn the country for its human rights issues. In particular, the U.S. and the West also regard Iran as a potential threat for its nuclear program.

The entry means formal acceptance of Iran as a normal state by a significant proportion of the world, not only in terms of territory but also in terms of population. The SCO by itself also commands a big influence in the Euro Asian continent. This will certainly enhance Iran's position in the world.

The economic benefits as a result of the entry will enhance Iran's position not only economically but also politically. As the SCO is increasingly focusing on economic issues, Iran will hopefully gain easier access to a larger market, more investment and science & technology cooperation as a result of further integration with the Central Asian region. These will enhance Iran's economic bargaining strength against the West and reduce Iran's reliance on the West and its Arab neighbors.

On the other hand, the SCO will also benefit from Iran's entry. Iran is a nation with a population of 80 million, and is a geopolitical center of the Shiite Muslin world. An enlarged SCO with Iran will be more representative and more legitimate as an influential international organization.

Iran's entry will also enhance the SCO's capability in fulfilling its missions. The SCO regard the fights against terrorism, drug smuggling as well as the elimination of poverty, the prevention of foreign intervention and the promotion of global multi-polarity as its major tasks while Iran is closely relevant and commands strong capacity in all these areas. Therefore, Iran's entry will greatly enhance the capability of the SCO in all these areas.

In one word, Iran's entry should benefit not only Iran but also the SCO as an institution.

Dr. Jin Liangxiang is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/jinliangxiang.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
It has been affirming, in recent weeks, to meet so many people working together, making sacrifices small and large for the Remain campaign. We are united of course in our bemusement at what we perceive to be what The Washington Post called the insanity of the Brexit case; our case feels hard, in large part, because I think it is. But when the dust has settled and tempers cooled, however, I wonder if we might better understand their apparent eccentricity by recognising some of it within ourselves.

Because, at the personal level, few of the sacrifices make obvious sense  meanwhile, some of our own ideas are sometimes too firm. Whilst it has been heart-stirring to see people stuffing envelopes and giving money and travelling across Europe to help, it can also be head-scratching, too. In Casablanca, Rick Lanes character makes a common declaration of apparent cynicism the lives of two little people dont amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world it is echoed in politics often. Whilst voting is easy, it is still a sacrifice of time: as big a mystery as the millions voting for Brexit, are the millions voting at all.

But yet, we make sacrifices, and we like them-and the fact millions will vote conscious that it is indecisive, proves voting has a dual purpose. As I hope Casablanca fans will acknowledge, Lanes words prove ironic along with his declaration he will stick his neck out for nobody. He urges and makes a huge sacrifice that serves a wider good  but he does it for himself because he will regret it for the rest of his life if he does not. Whilst our cinematic reactions are bitter-sweet, we accept it because it is actually the human instinct we know best. Though the stakes are not always so high, we close gates and recycle paper cups and refrain from theft, when it would be in our interests not to, every day. As our great Whig forerunner Adam Smith argued in Theory of Moral Sentiments it is this moral eye that keeps the world moving forward, totally unseen. Though it was unclear at the time  filmed only in 1941  the fictional idea represented the real actions of millions of un-historic acts which won WWII.

On the same basis, for all contemporary cynicism, we remain political animals, because it is in our nature to be a social species. Whilst we tend to squint at social media identity, and be cynical about the new trend of virtue signalling, there is another more powerful form of vanity, of which this is maybe just an extension: that which we keep for ourselves. Although self-deception is associated with a strong psyche and a good memory with a fragile one, at the end of the day, we define ourselves by our deeds, even those we hide from others: truth is truth until the end of reckoning  and none is harder than our own.

But this has two dangerous outputs, the first is an inflexible alluring idea. Europhiles like me can better empathise with those voters who ignore the economic case for the EU  explained by the Washington Post  if we empathise with ourselves. On Thursday I will in part vote Remain seeking to attach myself to the cosmopolitanism of Ricks Cafe and memories of Paris, decayed into the pigment of my imagination: but this has proven dangerous before, as many of us who wrapped smart arguments around the Euro  a workable scheme, in too wide an area- around worthwhile archetypes. But though beauty is good, we should know when to use it well  such as to deliver thousands of Remain leaflets for the logical goal of international cooperation on peace and trade  whilst also learning to recognise it when its a disguise for unreason, just as the French Minister who said you do not leave the land of Plato waiting at the door did not.

The second is that though we seek belonging as people, we cannot belong to everything, at least not all the time. Ricks enemies were humans too, and their identity to a large degree arbitrary, and so are our Brexit opponents who are  typically- shaped by different experiences to us. I hear sincerity when I hear talk of our people  too much of it. Though we might judge the sacrifices and intuitions of opponents wrong, some of us on the Remain side can empathise with the temptation to commit nasty acts to defend our belonging, too.

This Referendum has made identity we suspect in party politics painfully explicit. But as liberals we should be sanguine: it is fluid, and broad. Anyone can sympathise with anyone when they have enough time. More usefully, we can attain identity and social affirmation from very different things, depending on our focus. People will not want to attach to social negatives such as Europe, from which we are physically and emotionally detached they will feel embarrassed to endorse an economic suicide, if it is clear, too. Pollsters have a hard time, I think, because this kind of affirmation can only manifest at the ballot box, when we can grab it.

We all vote for different superficial reasons, but for a few moments, every few years, they make most feel good. By this selfishly selfish mechanism, both Remain and Brexit campaigns and voters certainly amount to a hill of beans. I am not sure this can be a coincidence, and it must somewhere lie in the fact we are a highly successful, instinctively social, species. But though we have a rational need to belong, this can lead cause us to make peculiar collective choices.

Whatever they are, we should never claim the messages are not real, or are simply stupid. Whilst millions will vote for Brexit for Anglo-Saxon simpatico, or because they coolly judge Brussels bureaucracy bad, millions will see Brexit as a losers cause, and not want to carry around that image of themselves in their head for the next generation. The degree to which the Remain campaign can make clear the latter  and the paucity of evidence of exit for Leave  will determine the result; but the motivations will have something in common. The outcome will do a lot to define the countrys future  but you cannot assume people exclusively voting on that basis: they will do so to define the world, but also themselves.

* Douglas Oliver is secretary of the Liberal Democrat History Group and is based in London.
The EU has been the greatest institution in history for empowering countries. Rather than a sovereign state, or even entity, it only has what it has been given by the sovereign power of its member states. The collective recognition of sovereign states, pooling their power together in a supranational institution for the collective benefit of all them. What they have achieved is an institution that pools sovereignty for the collective benefit of those involved, the power of the EU, is the collective power of 28 member states. The power they give away is power they now have across an entire continent.

To believe that any country can achieve on its own what all the member states of the EU have achieved together is a great mistake. Further still, to believe that any country has ever existed in a vacuum is simply untrue. All countries throughout the entire course of history have been subject to the greater situations surrounding them. To Take Back Control is to make the mistake of assuming that we on our own can achieve what has simply never been achieved in history  a unilateral solution, while ignoring the circumstances in which we exist.

Where European countries endeavour to reduce carbon emissions, bring criminals to justice and to hold imposing countries like Russia back, doing this singularly and differently between every country is obviously ineffective. Instead, to set common standards, cooperate and set a multilateral solution; we have a common practice on fighting global warming, the accepted practice in the European Arrest Warrant and to use the worlds largest single market to set sanctions on Russia. With cooperation, we achieve so much more.

If I go to another country within the EU, the EU endeavours that I know Its safe to drink from the taps. If I leave the UK and into another country of the EU, the EU endeavours that I know I am safe, due to the respect of my human rights. While Im abroad, I know that the water I drink, the buses I ride, and even the toasters I use, are built to the same standards I have come to expect in the UK, because the EU has set the bar across all member states.

Above all though, the EU is a recognition that there are no unilateral solutions while the world increases to cooperate with each other.

To move to isolation and unilateral perspectives, while the world moves to cooperation and multilateral solutions, is purely, counter historical. As a student historian, I am often surprised to hear people say we are not taught enough of our own history. Often referring to Scottish or British history. This in itself is a misunderstanding of history.

There is no single history of a country. When we are taught the Scottish Wars of Independence, we learn about European Medieval Society, about feudalism, fealty to a monarch as opposed to a country, not an anecdotal history of Scotland. When we are taught about the Slave Trade, we are taught of European norms, of Empire, raiding, colonialism, not of British endeavours in the past. Of the Scots and British in World Wars I and II, we learn of a continent at war, not simply our own involvement. With these examples, we are taught of a nations involvement in continent wide culture, and movements of that culture. When are taught of Scottish and British history, we learn European history. Because we are Europeans.

To turn our backs now, on the institution that has finally united the nations of that continent, of that history, in a political, economic and social union, is to move backwards in history. Lets not come to that.

* John Waddell was the candidate for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine in 2017 and 2019.
So, its all over bar the counting.

First of all, thanks to every single person who pounded the streets and melted phone lines today getting out the Remain vote. You are all legends. I want to say a particular thanks to the fantastic West Lothian Stronger In team.

If you are not going to a count, the best thing I can advise is having a nice mug of cocoa and going to bed. Seriously. Set your alarm for 4-ish. Its likely that nothing is going to even start to become clear before then and, as Stephen Bush wrote in his guide in the New Statesman, its likely that Leave will be well ahead in the early part of the night and thats just bad for the blood pressure.

This has been the most unpleasant few weeks in politics that I can remember. It was when someone told me in all seriousness outside Morrisons this afternoon that if we voted to stay in, 76 million Turkish people would be arriving here in September. Its total nonsense and straight from a Leave campaign leaflet.

I asked them to think about how that would happen. When in history had an entire population of a country just upped and legged it to somewhere else? I asked them to think about the logistics of moving half way across a continent. How much would it cost? What arrangements would have to be made. I asked them to think about the number of flights that would entail. Would there be enough capacity for all those people? Of course not. I wish Id brought to mind Meral Eces oft used stat that only 7000 Turkish people resident in Turkey actually have passports.

They got it in the end, but, sadly, because one side had been caught out in a lie, it didnt make them trust the other lot. It made me more angry about Leaves cynical manipulation, their barely disguised racism. I dont actually think that any of Leaves key figures are fit and proper people to hold office of any sort. I dont think a Prime Minister should have them in his cabinet and he should be upfront about saying why.

It annoys me that people talk about the claims and hyperbole on both side as if there were some moral equivalence about them. Sure, I thought some of the stuff from Stronger In was a bit OTT. That staged emergency budget thing was all wrong because nobody was listening. The Remain camps failure was in building a compelling case that Britains economy would suffer if we left the EU. It would. Of that there is no doubt. There was just way too much egg put in the pudding so nobody believed it. This, however, was not the same as conducting a thoroughly deceitful campaign which lied to the British people on Turkey, on 350 million a week.

If Remain wins, Cameron should sack Gove, Priti Patel, Penny Mordaunt and all the other Conservative ministers from his Government and he should say quite explicitly that he wont tolerate people who tell lies and appeal to peoples basest instincts and build, then play on, fear of the other. Im not going to hold my breath for any of this to happen, but it should. Someone needs to lay down a marker that this sort of politics will not be tolerated. Ever again.

Tomorrow, we can think about what happens next, but in the meantime, discuss the results in the comments. I will be at the count, but the rest of the team will be updating this post with any stories of particular interest to Liberal Democrats.

Its going to be a scary few hours.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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People enjoy themselves with water in Chongqing, southwest China,June 21, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

China's meteorological authority on Wednesday issued a yellow alert for high temperatures in North, Central and Southeast China, urging people to reduce outdoor activity.

In the southern part of North China, central provinces and a major part of South China, temperatures will exceed 35 degrees Celsius on Wednesday afternoon, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) announced.

Some parts of Fujian, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces will experience an extremely hot day of up to 39 degrees, the center said.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

The center warned that people - especially the old, young and infirm - to avoid outdoor activity around noon, and asked local authorities to take precautions against of fires that may come from excessive electricity use for air conditioners.

The NMC also issued a blue warning for storms from Wednesday to Thursday in some areas of northeast, east and northwest China.
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AS one era ends at Limerick Youth Service, another begins for the Diocese of Limerick, as Catherine Kelly takes up the role of first lay manager of the administration.

Ms Kelly, CEO of the Youth Service since 2002, is to take over from the Rome bound Fr Paul Finnerty as Diocesan Secretary and general manager.

The appointment comes on foot of the recent Synod, which discussed the role of women, with Bishop Brendan Leahy stating beforehand that it must find a way for women to play a role at an executive level in the organisations hierarchy.

Ms Kelly, a native of Cobh who joined the Youth Service in 1984, said she was very honoured that they (the Diocese) trust me to take on such a role.

I am honoured to be the first lay person in such a role and to be placed in a position of such trust by the Diocese. I've always been hugely impressed by the vision in the Diocese and I see this position as part of implementing some of the key areas voted on and agreed at the recent Synod.

As the first non-clergy appointment to the position it is a significant move, but Ms Kelly downplayed the significance of being the first woman to inhabit the role.

I would hope to think that it just happens that I am a woman. I have been working in leadership for a long, long time, and it wasn't because I was a woman, hopefully I am bringing the skills that they need to this role.

She has previously been chairperson of the Safeguarding Children Committee for the Diocese and said that she had learnt more from the Diocese around safeguarding than I ever learnt from the youth sector, even nationally.

Bishop Leahy said she was a fantastic addition.

She has a proven track record in management and showed great leadership in her time with the Limerick Youth Service. The post she is taking on is an extremely busy one.

Ms Kelly said she was hoping to engage with young people in the new role who are critical to the Church, the present and future.

I know there is great youth ministry going on, so I look forward to working with the staff and volunteers, I think to create more synergy between youth ministry and the Diocese and the youth work in the Youth Service, because we are working in a lot of the same communities.

I really would hope to encourage more young people to become involved and to see how the Church can be fun and participative for them.

An aging clergy population is putting pressure on the Church worldwide and Ms Kelly said she had already been approached by lay people indicating that that they are willing to volunteer in some aspect of the life of the Diocese and there is just that openness amongst people.

I think the Diocese is very proactive in that. The Bishop is very open and proactive and very decisive and people are brought along with that and they are willing to offer their own skills and expertise.

I look forward to a continuation of the clergy leading the Diocese, but huge involvement of leadership and involvement of volunteers of all ages right across and openness to the need for change and enacting change.
A COUNTY Limerick man who is charged in connection with a car-jacking in the city last week shouted obscenities and threatened to kill the whole lot of ye b******* during an outburst at Limerick District Court on Tuesday.

Raymond McDonagh, aged 28, who has an address at Ard Alainn, Main Street, Bruree faces a number of charges relating to an incident at Mulgrave Street on June 12, last.

While the defendant was granted bail following his first court appearance, his bail was revoked less than 72 hours later after his mother said she had concerns he was not treating his bail seriously and that she may lose her surety.

On Tuesday, Sergeant Donal Cronin said directions are being sought from the DPP and that new charges may be preferred against the defendant.

As the case was being adjourned by Judge Mary Larkin, Mr McDonagh shouted he did not like appearing before the court in person. I dont want to be in this place, he said asking that he appear via video link on the next occasion.
MORE than 10 million copies of works by Frank McCourt have sold throughout the world, his publishers in New York have confirmed, as they prepare to release a 20th anniversary edition of Angelas Ashes.

Nan Graham, senior vice president and publisher of Scribner, told the Limerick Leader that they have sold in combined formats  covering hardcover, paperback, audio, ebook  7.5 million copies of their editions of Angelas Ashes, nearly 2.5 million copies of Tis, and over one million copies of Teacher Man, his third and final work, before writing a childrens book.

Ms Graham recalled the moments when she received the first 151 pages of Angelas Ashes from Franks agent, Molly Friedrich.

The opening sentences were irreverent, funny, exploding with Frank's exuberance and love of language. And one could tell that he would convey, as few ever had with such eloquence and agility, the cost of poverty.

We wanted to meet Frank to make sure the 64-year-old retired school teacher would have the energy for a two week tour. He had the energy for a ten-year tour. Frank told me I was his luck. I told him he was mine. There was enough to go around, she said.

The publishers, Scribner and Simon and Schuster, will be releasing the twentieth anniversary edition on August 16.

A number of events will be held in New York and Limerick in the coming weeks and months to celebrate the work and the life of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Molly Friedrich, Franks literary agent in New York, and her daughter Lucy, will also speak about him at a celebratory evening in memory of Frank this coming weekend.

Lucy was only ten years old when the manuscript first arrived at my house, so she can now claim to be the first and perhaps youngest person to have ever read this marvelous book, Ms Friedrich told the Limerick Leader.

She also revealed that Franks only regret was that he didnt start writing sooner, after being catapulted to literary stardom in his 60s, after writing his first memoir, which received worldwide acclaim and often controversy in his native Limerick.

About three years before he died, when Franks cancer had returned, he and I were visiting faculty at the Southampton Writers Conference, explained Ms Friedrich.

I asked Frank whether he had any regrets and his answer was that his only true regret was to have taken such a very long time in getting started as a writer.

Representing him was one of the greatest, enduring pleasures of my life as an agent.

Plain and simple, I loved him and miss him terribly, she said.

In Limerick, Una Heaton, director of the Frank McCourt museum on Hartstonge Street, said she is putting together a week-long programme of events for September 5-9, to coincide with the official release date back in 1996.

Among the tributes will be a montage portrait of Frank, which are number of well-known local artists and the public, including his many fans who have visited the museum, are contributing to. While the museum has been at risk of closure in recent times, Ms Heaton said: Its still open and rising from the ashes.

This July, the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Limerick will offer a summer school in New York in honour of McCourt, who passed away in 2009.

The summer school will be led by the renowned novelist and Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing, Professor Joseph OConnor.

2016 sees the twentieth anniversary of publication of Frank McCourt's masterpiece Angela's Ashes, a book that became a success all over the world, shedding light on the unique relationship that exists between Ireland and the United States, specifically between Limerick and New York. Frank's tale of two cities was translated into dozens of languages, stirring recognitions for millions of readers, said OConnor.
AFTER mounting a protest outside the gates of the University of Limerick, former staff now plan to bring their protest to the Dail and the offices of the Higher Education Authority in Dublin.

The group are seeking to highlight the suspension of two female staff members of ULs finance department over a year ago, and the failure to reinstate them in their positions.

They were suspended after an internal investigation found them guilty of making a malicious complaint against a colleague, a charge they have robustly denied. The Mazars report found that they were correct to query certain payments and expenses by other UL staff.

The protestors also wish to highlight the apparent inaction to date by the HEA following the publication of a report they commissioned some months ago, which highlighted up to a dozen action points to be addressed by the university.

The HEA has been in discussions with UL since the publication of that report, all responses from the parties involved have been received, but to date those responses have not been made publicly available, which the HEA outlined they would do.

Among those who took part in the peaceful protest this Wednesday was Limerick woman Leona OCallaghan, who initially brought her concerns to the Public Accounts Committee in 2012.

Other protestors included Dr Niall Cahill, the former medical director on campus, Jeremy Callaghan, the former head of students affairs, and Annette Hunter, another former UL employee.

Ms OCallaghan was replaced in the finance department by one of the women who is currently suspended with pay.

It's a real pity it had to come to this, Ms OCallaghan told the Leader. We avoided this action for a long time but now feel it is what is needed. Its months since the Mazars report. We have been fobbed off too many times and now we are seeking answers.

We will not just go away and lose interest over time. We are willing to allow ourselves open to any public investigator or visitor to comprehensively look at each of our claims and announce publicly if there are any untruths or wrong doings at our hands.

We stand here today not against UL or against current staff and students, we stand here with them and for them. We stand here against unfair processes, we stand against the need for confidentiality agreements.

We stand for fairness, transparency and equal treatment in all departments of UL. To the HEA and Department of Education: inaction is a choice, its time for the choice to be to hold UL accountable after the findings of the Mazars report, she said.

Dr Cahill said that after the publication of the Mazars report, which was commissioned by the HEA, all we hear from the HEA is that they are talking to the university, but as of yet nothing has happened.

We feel now that we must bring this to public attention at large, and we do this reluctantly because we love the university. We have given the best service we can to the university. Nothing will remedy this now apart from an impartial visitor being appointed [by the State]. The future of the university is at stake here, he said.

He added that those concerned by the situation of the two suspended employees have been more than reasonable in waiting for action to be taken.

The protesters said they felt bouyed by the support of passing motororists into UL, who constantly beeped their horns and gave them the thumbs up.

The HEA has not responded to recent queries from the Leader on how it is progressing the matter with UL.

A statement from UL said it "recognises and respects everyones right to protest" and has "long-established and fair processes for addressing any complaint or disciplinary matters in relation to staff, students or others".

"In principle, the University is not in a position to comment on individual cases in order to respect the privacy of the individuals concerned but if they bring matters into the public domain then the university reserves the right to state matters of fact," it said.

"Based on on-going matters in the media the University feels it must provide some clarification in relation to two members of staff who are suspended with pay pending the outcome of a disciplinary process.

"An external independent expert was appointed to conduct two investigations into two separate complaints which the two individuals are party to, involving eight of their work colleagues. The two individuals have not cooperated with the external independent investigations to date.

"The same two members of UL staff are also the subject of disciplinary proceedings, as a result of a third external independent investigation finding that they made a malicious complaint against a colleague. This finding was upheld following an appeal to a separate external expert.

"These proceedings are being carried out in accordance with UL policies which are in line with national public sector best practice and with regard to due process that includes the right of appeal.

"The disciplinary process has been delayed as a consequence of both the Mazars review and complaints made to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) by the two members of staff involved. In the case of the first complaint, the WRC found in favour of the university.

"A second complaint by one of the individuals has been withdrawn by the individual. A complaint by the second individual has yet to be heard and the university has and will cooperate with the WRC process."
SENIOR management at Limerick City and County Council have been criticised after it emerged the local authority is advertising for a design team for the controversial footbridge project.

Councillors are being briefed behind closed doors on various options for the bridge this Thursday, which could have an estimated cost of up to 18m. A 1.2m tender assessment has been advertised on the Construction Information Services website.

It shows the local authority is seeking to appoint a design team to complete the Limerick Footbridge project.

While a council spokesperson insisted no appointments have yet been made in relation to the project  which could see the link pass from Arthurs Quay and behind the Potato Market  there is upset because of the fact that council members will ultimately decide on the footbridge.

Former metropolitan district mayor Michael Sheahan said: Of course it is presumptuous. It would also show a little bit of contempt for the role of public representatives.

Meanwhile, Labour councillor Joe Leddin said: I would be disappointed if I thought they were proceeding in terms of different stages of the roll-out without first getting the input of the council.

Economic director Pat Daly is briefing councillors this Thursday on plans, with media briefing also to take place at 4pm.

Cllr Cian Prendiville, Anti-Austerity Alliance, said he was very disappointed at the seeking of a design team, adding: So far, the councillors and the public have been kept in the dark. There have been plenty of discussions about much needed investment in the city, and many reports written about developing the city centre in particular, but none of them mentioned this bridge.

And Sinn Fein councillor Seighin O Ceallaigh compared the advertisement of the plan to the similar tenders sought for the Northern Distributor Road project.

If this bridge is voted against, will they keep throwing this at the councillors until they finally give the decision the executive wants.

For their part, a spokesperson for Limerick City and County Council stated: The council has commenced the process of pre-qualification for a footbridge design team, and this is normal preparatory procurement procedure should the council wish to proceed with the project.

Asked what will happen if councillors vetoed the project, the spokesperson added: Without the support of council, the project will not happen and this would be a lost opportunity for the city.

The proposed building of the footbridge  partly with the support of an anonymous donor  has split the council, with many stating it would damage the Medieval view of the castle and its surrounds, as well as impede the flow of the Shannon.

There is also disquiet at the fact the bridge is not listed in any development plan, including Limerick 2030.

However, other people have welcomed the footbridge plan, saying it will be an added bonus to tourism in the city, and pointing out that the funding cannot be spent on other schemes.

A group set up in opposition to the multi-million euro plans, Footbridge Folly said the advertising of a tender is highly presumptuous, and suggested the executive of the local authority could be seen be acting irresponsibly in doing so if the project is vetoed.

The councillors can veto the proposal prior to the planning stage, and secondly, An Bord Pleanala can reject the proposal at planning stage. if this is the case, then the senior executive of the council will be seen to have acted irresponsibly, the spokesperson said.

Failte Ireland has ringfenced funding for the project, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport will be providing grant assistance, if the scheme gets the go-ahead. A private donor has promised substantial funding.

A department spokesperson said: An allocation of 150,000 has been made this year, with a view to facilitating the council in progressing project development. In this context, the council has been asked to provide the supporting documentation required for consideration of this project.
A REVIEW of security at University Hospital Limerick is expected to take place following five missing persons incidents at its acute psychiatric unit in recent months.

Three of five missing people were patients, and two others were understood to be waiting to be admitted, at Unit 5B  a 40-bed acute mental health unit which operated under the remit of the HSEs Community Health Care section.

These incidents are said to have taken place over the past two months.

The five people were reported missing to gardai after they left one of Irelands busiest hospitals. The alarm was raised for the two people, who were reportedly waiting to be assessed for admission to 5B in the emergency department.

While all five people were located and described safe and well, gardai were called to an incident in Raheen after a man barricaded himself into a housing estate home close to UHL.

When asked about the recent incidents, UL Hospitals Group CEO Colette Cowen said unit 5B is not part of her brief. However, she said that she is aware of the recent incidents.

Ms Cowan confirmed that she will be meeting Bernard Gloster, Chief Officer, Community Health Mid West, to discuss the matters.

"5B is not part of my brief, it is part of the community health organisation but I am aware of the number of incidents that were there [the psychiatric unit] over the last few months. We have a full security team here. We are engaging with Bernard [Gloster] around that to see how we can help and assist with it," she told the press during a media briefing.

The HSE stated that it does not comment on any individual cases but it reviews all patient care, as well as its systems, on a regular basis. A meeting is scheduled between Ms Colette Cowen, CEO, UL Hospital Group and Mr Bernard Gloster, Chief Officer, CHO3, for next Wednesday and this item will be discussed at that meeting."
THE Belltable has announced details of several major new programmes to work with and stimulate theatre makers in Limerick.

Belltable:Connect, an initiative spearheaded by new programme manager Marketa Dowling, is operating across a number of strands, but has chiefly received Arts Council funding to run a six month theatre artist development scheme starting in January.

A legacy of the Hatch LK scheme run by Maeve McGrath and Monica Spencer under the auspices of the Lime Tree and Louise Donlon, the Connect scheme will allow theatre artists living and working here to share ideas both with each other and with international mentors.

Separately, a ten month mentoring scheme for playwrights and directors will see a group work with Fishamble, the renowned new play company, and a workshop for prospective Arts Council applicants will take place in the Belltable on July 15.

And in a major boost to the arts centre, playwright Mike Finn has received Arts Council funding to be a theatre artist in residence at the Belltable in 2017, spending a year developing material for his planned Limerick Soviet play to co-incide with the centenary of the historical event in 2019.

All told, it is all building towards Dowlings plans for the Belltable to become a hub of artistic activity.

The Belltable:Connect initiative is the realisation of the idea that the Belltable is not just a receiving house, but a centre for development of theatre in Limerick as well, explains the former Fishamble general manager, who took over as programme manager in April and has just put out a call for artists to apply for the various schemes.

I applied to the Arts Council for funding for their theatre artist development scheme and we are delighted to say that we were successful, they saw the value of the programme, of it happening in Limerick and here, theatre artists living and working here, sharing ideas with each other, getting ideas and different perspectives from national and international practitioners and all that happening here in Limerick. We are really pleased the Arts Council has supported the project.

Ms Dowling, who has taken up the baton handed to her by Louise Donlon - a champion of the Belltable since taking over the Lime Tree - says that such a scheme is absolutely vital to the future of theatre in Limerick.

I would love to see theatre makers staying in Limerick and doing work here, or even coming back to Limerick after training or stints abroad, she says.

It is my passion to develop new work, new writing and theatre, and that is really a big part of my job here as programme manager.

Limerick is a creative city and there are creative people here. It just seems that, up to now, they havent been served that well. Since the downturn in the economy and we all know what happened to theatre companies, the vast majority of them had their funding cut. I think, as a venue, a physical space with resources such as that space, and stage, their is an onus on us now to help these artists, in the absence of theatre companies, where they traditionally have started off.

Finn, for his part, is absolutely chuffed with the award, which will located him in a venue that was once a second home - indeed he was worked everywhere from the kitchens to front of house and on the stage.

It is exciting and the plan is that it will run for the calendar year of 2017 and the idea, my plan is to develop a play about the Limerick Soviet, with a view to putting it on in 2019, the centenary, he says.

It is exciting to be able to cut out that amount of time to do this, it is a project I have wanted to do for the longest time and now is the time to do it, now or never. So to get the award is great, and to be back here in a resurgent Belltable, which has had its ups and downs and hopefully this will be part of it.

For the building to be not just a passive, receiving venue of other shows, but to be helping to produce stuff, that is exciting. It has been done, but a lot of the time it has been a passive venue, so to be called an arts centre, I think it is important that it is helping to produce stuff and become a powerhouse."
Mianshan Mountain is the birthplace of national intangible cultural heritagethe Chinese Qingming/Hanshi Festival. It is located in Jiexiu City of central Shanxi Province, 137 kilometers south of Taiyuan and 125 kilometers north of Linfen. The mountain is noted for its natural and cultural scenes, especially for its cultural relics. Visitors can take a five- to seven-day trip to learn about Cold Food culture, Buddhist culture, Taoist culture, military culture or health preservation culture. Covering an area of 75 square kilometers, the mountain is a national scenic spot with 14 tourist areas and 400 attractions. [China.org.cn]

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Apr 29, 2021, 11 PM

In an open letter to stamp collectors, Wade Saadi, president of World Stamp Show-NY 2016, reflects on the once-a-decade international philatelic exhibition that took place May 28-June 4 in New York City. Saadi called the show a once-in-a-lifetime experie

Well, the big show is over, and many of us who have been planning this extravaganza for more than a decade are finally catching our breath. It gives us all a chance to reflect on what we planned and how it all turned out, with the goal of sharing that knowledge and experience with the Boston 2026 team preparing Americas next international philatelic exhibition.

We know you have some immediate questions of us, so allow me to let you know whats what.

Did the show make money? The simple answer at this time is that it looks like we will make a modest surplus when all is said and done.

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Just how much is yet to be determined, as we still await invoices from the Javits Center; Freeman Decorating, our decorators; and several other major suppliers. Really! Final bills can take several months to receive and confirm, or dispute their charges, as our colleagues running Washington 2006 well know. Nothing different here. But initial estimates definitely have us in the black.

How many people came to the show? While thousands of people took advantage of online pre-registration through our website (thank you!), many thousands more were walk-ins. That wasnt unexpected. Their hand-written registration slips are being processed now and being added to the attendance database, which will be cleansed of duplication and reported on when ready.

Keying these additional registrations into the database on peoples arrival would have caused much longer lines and required additional manpower and equipment that would have been cost prohibitive. So doing this afterwards made sense, and kept thousands more dollars to our bottom line.

Hiring help or lining up volunteers to get a click count of people going onto the show floor would not have given us accurate numbers. How many times do you think people went in and out over their visit to get food or see the Jenny on display in the lobby, go downstairs to attend first-day ceremonies or meetings or auctions, visit the New York City sites and then returning? You get the idea.

Waiting for a true count will be worth the delay in getting these legitimate numbers out in just a few more weeks.

What are attendees saying? You can probably imagine the hundreds of emails I have been receiving from visitors around the world congratulating the show committee on putting on a spectacular show. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many and truly appreciated by everyone.

Several show-goers passed along suggestions for improvements that we are reviewing and will get these to the Boston team. All feedback continues to be much appreciated.

Were dealers pleased? In the song Home on the Range theres a line that goes, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word. That pretty well sums it up. Several dealers reported recouping their booth and show costs after the first two days of the show.

I saw patrons three-deep at one dealers booth continually that first weekend. That wasnt every dealers experience, but those Ive reached out to or who contacted me were extremely happy with the turnout and the results. The same can be said for the many postal administrations manning booths.

Our committee is in the process of preparing an official report that will be presented to the American Philatelic Society Board in August at Stampshow in Portland. I will be giving attendees to Saturdays APS membership meeting a brief review of the show, answering some of the remaining questions above.

The biggest challenge awaits us: How do we capitalize on this great event for the good of philatelys future? Every one of us should be working on that now. Can we find an easy way to inform casual collectors of upcoming shows in their area on a regular basis to help bolster attendance? How about inviting them to attend a local stamp club meeting to foster their budding philatelic passion, or join the APS or a specialty society? Can we help them start a new stamp collecting club?

I cant end this message without giving a heart-felt thanks to everyone who assisted making World Stamp Show-NY 2016 such a success. Hundreds of collectors (and some of their family members!) came forth before, during and after the show offering their time and talents in a variety of roles for a few hours or days on end.

And remember  everyone was a volunteer! That fact was even more impressive to the professionals at the Javits Center, Freeman Decorating and others who put on shows like this all the time and get paid for doing the many tasks our volunteers took upon their yoke, albeit a happy burden.

Isnt that our ultimate legacy? The people we meet along the way who become our friends and share our philatelic passion eventually eclipse the very pieces of paper we so eagerly seek.

See you in Portland!

Wade Saadi

President, World Stamp Show-NY 2016

wade.saadi@ny2016.org
 Flash

Millions of Britons will vote to stay in or leave the European Union (EU) on Thursday as polling stations across the country opened to the public in the morning.

The referendum started at 7 a.m. and will end at 10 p.m. Voting will be held at schools, libraries, churches and community centers.

The ballot counting will start as soon as the polls close. A total of 382 counting areas will be set up, with 380 located in England, Wales and Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland and one in Gibraltar.

The outcome is expected to be officially declared at the Manchester Town Hall in the early hours of Friday.

Statistics from the Electoral Commission on Tuesday showed that about 46 million people are eligible to the EU referendum, a record number for a nationwide poll in Britain.

According to six main opinion polls from June 18 to 22, the "Leave" camp was tied with the "Remain" camp.

Politicians from the two sides made their final pitches on the eve of the historic poll.

British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered his final public speech on Wednesday in Birmingham, reaffirming that "we are stronger, we are better off, we are safer in a reformed European Union."

In an emotional speech he said, "our economy will be weaker if you leave and stronger if we stay. What that means is that on that ballot paper is British jobs, British families, the finance, the people in our country, the strength of our country. And that is why we will vote remain tomorrow."

Nearly 1,300 business leaders, including 51 of the FTSE 100, also signed a letter to The Times on Wednesday, backing Britain's membership in the EU. The letter said Brexit would damage the British economy and mean uncertainty for British firms, trade with Europe and jobs.

On the Leave side, in his final push on Wednesday, former London mayor Boris Johnson flew from London to northern England and made seven stops to encourage voters to vote leave and create an "Independent Day" on Thursday.

The Remain side has constantly warned about risks to the British economy and the threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs should a Brexit become reality.

Brexit embracers say the 50 million pounds a day Britain pays to Europe can instead be used to boost the British economy and support the cash strapped National Health Service. They also say the referendum is Britain's last chance to control its borders in the wake of massive immigration from poorer EU member states.
Jun 23, 2016, 9 AM

By Rick Miller

Belarus is the 15th largest country in Europe, being just larger than Greece and a bit smaller than Romania.

The country, which is landlocked and heavily forested, lies between Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.

The Belarusian language is one of four major languages in the East Slavic language group, the others being Russian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn. All four languages have a degree of mutual intelligibility, but Belarusian is closest to Ukrainian.

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About 88 percent of the population of the country is Belarusian, with Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish minorities. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is by far the dominant religion. Belarusians are sometimes known in the West as White Russians (a literal translation of the countrys name) or Little Russians.

The Russian Empire acquired most of the Belarusian territory through the Polish partitions beginning in 1772. After the Russian Empire collapsed in 1918, about a third of Belarusian land was in the new Republic of Poland. The rest became the basis of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the end of 1922.

The Soviet Union acquired the rest of Belarus and a chunk of eastern Poland as a result the division of spoils in the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Temporarily lost to the Germans in World War II, the territory was emphatically restored to the USSR in 1945.

As Russian communism collapsed and the USSR came apart at its nationalist seams, Belarus declared sovereignty on July 27, 1990, and full independence on Aug. 25, 1991.

In the first flush of independence, it looked as if Belarus might become a Western-style representative democracy. That did not come to pass.

Aleksander G. Lukashenko was the only member of the Belarusian Parliament to vote against independence in 1991. A Communist Party apparatchik in Soviet times and a strong Russophile, he was elected president in 1994.

He reinstituted state ownership of most economic sectors, imposed strict press censorship, cracked down on individual liberty, and generally runs the country in the same manner as it was operated when it was part of the Soviet Union.

In 1995, Lukashenko engineered a referendum to replace the countrys traditional flag and coat of arms with the flag and arms virtually identical to those of the Byelorussian SSR.

Sometimes over-optimistically labeled the last dictator in Europe, Lukashenko is Russian President Vladimir Putins closest ally. Lukashenko continues to pursue a strong policy of intertwining Belarus with the Russian Federation, economically, militarily, and culturally

A Belarus 2,500-ruble President Aleksander G. Lukashenko and New National Flag stamp (Scott 183) is shown nearby.

Before Belarus was annexed by the Russian Empire, it was an integral part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1253-1795). Citizens of the grand duchy, whether Slavic or Lithuanian, were known as Litvins.

Despite Lukashenkos best efforts to turn Belarus toward Russia, evidence of that Litvin heritage can still be found on stamps of Belarus.

Among the earliest issues of newly independent Belarus was a 5r Historic Coat of Arms stamp (Scott 15). The coat of arms is almost identical to the Vytis, the white knight symbol of the grand duchy and later the Republic of Lithuania. The Belarus Coat of Arms stamp and a Lithuania 2-litas Coat of Arms stamp (Scott 487) are shown nearby.

The Belarusian climate is moderately continental with damp and cool-to-cold weather for much of the year. Traditional clothing was designed for warmth and was made from linen and wool and decorated with ornate folk patterns.

Traditional Belarusian clothing shows its close kinship to the traditional dress of Lithuania. A Belarus 2,000r Traditional Costumes stamp (Scott 214) is shown nearby with a Lithuania 2-ruble Traditional Costumes stamp (Scott 434).

The largest battle fought in Europe in the Middle Ages came on July 15, 1410, when the allied armies of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania decisively defeated the Teutonic knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Zalgiris in Lithuanian). The battle is often considered the most important victory in history for Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus.

In the battle, the grand master of the Teutonic knights was slain and most of the knights were either killed or captured. The victory halted further German encroachment into the Baltic area until the 18th century.

Stamps from Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania commemorate the battle.

Poland issued a 5-zloty Battle of Grunwald stamp (Scott 368) in 1945. On July 3, 2010, Lithuania issued a 2.45-litas Battle of Grunwald 600th Anniversary stamp (Scott 920), and Belarus issued a 1,500r stamp for that same anniversary on July 15, 2010 (Scott 730).

Mikalojaus Radvilas Juodasis (1515-65) was born into the prominent Lithuanian noble Radvilas family. His sobriquet Juodasis means the Black. A Lithuanian-speaking Litvin, he was born in Nesvizh, which is now in Belarus. Canny and competent, he gained political power through the romance of his cousin Barbora Radvilaite with King Zygmunt II Augustus of Poland. During his lifetime, Radvilas served the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as palatine of Vilnius, grand Lithuanian chancellor, and marshal of Lithuania.

He was also, atypically, a Calvinist in a time and place where most people were either Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. He paid for the translation and publication of the first Polish-language Bible; founded schools, churches and colleges; and exchanged letters with John Calvin.

On Dec. 17, 1996, Belarus issued a 3,000r Mikolai Radziwil stamp (Scott 186). Lithuania followed suite in 2015 with a 0.45 Mikalojaus Radvilas Juodasis stamp (Scott 1047). Both are shown nearby.

In America, Revolutionary War hero Col. Tadeusz Kosciuszko is usually thought of as being Polish. Although he spoke Polish as his first language, he was actually a Litvin of mixed Lithuanian and Ruthenian ancestry and was born in the grand duchy in what is today Belarus.

After serving in the American Revolution, he returned to his homeland where he was commissioned as a major general in the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

After the first two Polish partitions, Kosciuszko led an initially successful revolt against the occupying Russians. Wounded and captured in 1794, he was eventually released and lived the balance of his life in exile in America and later in Europe. He died in Switzerland in 1817.

Belarus remembered its native military hero with a 1,000r stamp (Scott 96) issued in 1994 to commemorate the bicentennial of the 1794 Kosciuszko Uprising. Polands 8.40z Kosciuszko Monument, Philadelphia stamp (Scott 2345) is shown with the Belarus stamp nearby.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798-1855) is the national poet of Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus. In Lithuania, he is known as Adomas Mickevicius; in Belarus as Adam Mickevitch.

He was a Litvin born in Navahrudak, in the Russian Empire, in what had been until recently the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Today the village lies in Belarus. His family was of the Polonized Lithuanian aristocracy and spoke Polish in the home.

Mickiewicz graduated from the University of Vilnius in 1819. Both a Romantic and a nationalist, much of his poetry advocated reversing the partitions of Poland and liberating his native land. Although he wrote mostly in Polish, his work incorporated much from Belarusian and Lithuanian folklore.

In 1824, he was sentenced to internal exile in Russia for his nationalist activities. He was allowed to leave Russia in 1829 and lived the rest of his life in exile. He died of cholera in Istanbul while attempting to organize Polish volunteers to fight for the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Crimean War.Stamps of Belarus, Central Lithuania, Lithuania and Poland commemorating Mickiewicz are shown nearby.

Given President Lukashenkos pro-Russian policy, it seems unlikely that Belarus will be strengthening ties with its historic Litvin partners any time soon. And given the aggressive nationalism of President Putin of Russia, it would be unlikely even if Lukashenko were not in power.

Keep reading about stamps of Eastern Europe:

Stamps show history of development of Christianity in Moldova

The assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia

Suvalkija, the first set in Lithuania Ethnographic Regions series
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Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

Speaking of the current decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

The most important task in Russia-China trade now is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, noting that the two sides have taken concrete measures to improve their trade structure.
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The president of Bulgaria's National Assembly Tsetska Tsacheva will lead a visiting delegation to China from June 26 to July 1, according to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

Tsacheva is the guest of Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said a press release of the NPC on Thursday.
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China is willing to share its high-speed rail (HSR) experience with Malaysia, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jing said on Thursday.

Yang made the remarks when meeting with Tan Sri Dr Ali bin Hamsa, chief secretary to the government of Malaysia and chairman of MyHSR Corp., in Beijing.

Yang hailed the development of the China-Malaysia comprehensive strategic partnership in recent years.

He said China was ready to participate in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR project in an open, fair and impartial way, to achieve the principles of mutual benefit and win-win.

The 350 km Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed railway would cut the travel time between the Malaysian capital and the city-state to 90 minutes.
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Cambodian Prince Norodom Ranariddh, president of the royalist Funcinpec Party, said on Thursday that the party fully backs China for rejecting the arbitration from an international tribunal over the South China Sea disputes.

In 2013, the Philippines unilaterally filed compulsory arbitration against China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague with respect to the two sides' disputes in the South China Sea.

The Chinese government has reiterated its non-acceptance and non-participation stance in the case.

"We have already issued a statement supporting China's position over the South China Sea issue," Ranariddh said here during an interview with Chinese media outlets.

He said China has the rights to decline the arbitral tribunal because China has excluded maritime delimitation from the arbitration in a declaration it made in 2006 in accordance with Article 298 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has made it clear it will not accept or get involved in those proceedings.

The prince accused the Philippines of violating an agreement it signed with China on resolving their disputes through negotiations.

He also said that the Philippines had breached the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which China and ASEAN, including the Philippines, signed in 2002. The DOC clearly stated that all the disputes be resolved through negotiations and consultations by countries directly involved.

"We, the Funcipec Party, cannot support the Philippines for unilaterally filing the arbitration case," said Ranariddh who was a former professor of international laws in France.

The prince called on all parties concerned in the disputes to negotiate with each other and urged the outsiders not to interfere in the issues.

"We urge all countries directly concerned, including Vietnam and the Philippines, to negotiate with China," he said, adding that the UNCLOS and DOC are the legal base for their negotiations.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in its statement issued on June 8 that China has all along stood for peacefully settling territorial and maritime delimitation disputes through negotiations with states directly concerned on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with the international law.

On issues concerning territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, China never accepts any recourse to third party settlement, or any means of dispute settlement that is imposed on it, the statement added.
The murmur of lapping ocean waves and the crash of breaking surf are familiar to any beachgoer. But scientists recently discovered a remarkable ocean sound unlike any other, produced by a unique combination of water movement and underwater geography in the Caribbean Sea.

While the sound is at a frequency inaudible to human ears  about 28 octaves below the lowest note on a piano, according to the researchers  it can be detected in space, from the disruptions it causes in Earth's gravity field.

Bounded by South America, Central America and the Caribbean islands, the semi-enclosed basin of the Caribbean Sea acts like the body of a giant whistle, the scientists wrote in the study. And what produces the sound is a recurring but very slow-moving and low-amplitude wave pattern that travels the length of the sea in a 120-day cycle. [Video: 'Whistling' Ocean 'Heard' in Space]

Known as a Rossby wave, its motion combines with pressure on the sea bottom to generate an inaudible solo that resonates from the basin, much like how air blown into a whistle produces a melodic toot.

"When you blow a whistle, you hear something because the air oscillates  pulses in and out of the whistle  and radiates a wave," the study's lead author Chris Hughes, a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, in the United Kingdom, told Live Science.

"In this case, the water is pulsing in and out of the Caribbean Sea. As the mass of water changes over time, we can detect that oscillating mass from the impact it has on Earth's gravity field," he said.

Motion of the ocean

The researchers' discovery was part of a larger project called "Weighing the Ocean," which aims to measure changes in the mass of all the oceans on Earth over time. Hughes, a professor of sea-level science at the University of Liverpool, explained that as masses of ocean water shift, satellites can detect small changes in Earth's gravity field in response.

Instruments told them that ocean-bottom pressure in the tropics was consistent throughout the year  with one exception.

"We had one particular instrument in the Caribbean Sea that was behaving differently, and we didn't know why," Hughes said.

Highly detailed computer models of ocean activity  with "hundreds of millions of grid points"  all showed the same thing: in the Caribbean Sea, the slow but steady momentum of the Rossby wave recurred in a pattern, Hughes said. It traveled across the length of the sea, and every 120 days it would dissipate at the western boundary and then reappear in the east, starting its journey westward all over again, the researchers discovered. [Sea Science: 7 Bizarre Facts About the Ocean]

A cog in Earth's climate engine

The A-flat note generated in the basin  dubbed the "Rossby whistle" by the scientists  is certainly interesting, but there are more practical applications that could arise from knowing about this wave pattern, such as to help predict sea level change and the risks of flooding, Hughes said.

"Because this oscillation takes 120 days and keeps oscillating over long time scales, it might be possible to predict what sea levels along the South American coast could be doing many months in advance," Hughes explained. "Quite small changes in what we call "mean sea level"  over a long time scale  can make a big difference in the probability of floods that result from storms and more rapid changes," he said.

The oscillation could even have implications for Earth's climate engine, Hughes added.

As soon as the current leaves the Caribbean Sea, it enters the Gulf of Mexico and becomes the current in the Gulf Stream, the fast-moving and powerful Atlantic Ocean current that is a major part of the climate system.

"This whistle effect is sucking energy out of the current as it goes through the Caribbean Sea," Hughes said. "That might actually have an influence on how the Gulf Stream and the whole climate system operates."

The findings were published online Sunday (June 19) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Original article on Live Science.
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Center Parcs chiefs have moved to allay fears over how a potential Brexit vote tomorrow (Thursday) could impinge on its plans to create a 233m leisure resort in Ballymahon.

In a statement to the Leader this week, a spokesperson for Center Parcs said the firm remained fully committed to opening the 395 acre site at Newcastle Wood in 2019.

We dont believe that if the UK leaves Europe this will have an impact on our plans to bring Center Parcs to Ireland, said the spokesperson.

The assurance comes amid heightening concerns thatsterling and equities could plunge by between 20 and 30 per cent if Brexit becomes a reality by the early hours of Friday morning.

Such a plunge would have a major negative impact on exports from Ireland to the UK with many experts also commentating on the likely after-effects it would have on Ireland's tourism industry.

Those doubts have also spread to high ranking executives stationed here.

Of 330 senior executives surveyed by headhunters Merc Partners, 87 per cent said Brexit would have unfavourable ramifications on the Irish economy, a four-point increase on a year ago.

Center Parcs plans to bring 250,000 visitors to Longford each year.
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases

By Legislator Anker's Office Published: June 23 2016

Suffolk County Leg. Sarah Anker attended the Girl Scout Gold Award ceremony for Skylar Intravaia at the North Shore Public Library on Tuesday, June 14th.

Skylar Intravaia (left) with Suffolk County Leg. Sarah Anker (right). Skylar earned her Gold Award by designing and implementing a social group program for children with autism in the Rocky Point School District.

Shoreham, NY - June 22, 2016 - Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker attended the Girl Scout Gold Award ceremony for Skylar Intravaia at the North Shore Public Library on Tuesday, June 14th. Skylar Intravaia, an Ambassador Girl Scout from Rocky Point, earned her Gold Award by designing and implementing a social group program for children with autism in the Rocky Point School District.

I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Skylar for receiving her Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts said Legislator Anker. Through her hard work and dedication, she has overcome challenges in her life to help others and is a source of inspiration for her community.

Skylar was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome when she was 9-years-old and was inspired to create a project to help children in her community overcome the challenges of having autism. For the social group, she organized the meetings and carefully created specialized activities. The social group helped children and teenagers with autism enhance their social skills, as well as helped them meet new friends. For more information on the Girl Scouts of the United States of America please visit www.girlscouts.org.
Local News, Health & Wellness, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: June 23 2016

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed legislation to combat the heroin and opioid crisis in New York State.

Albany, NY - June 22, 2016 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed legislation to combat the heroin and opioid crisis in New York State. The comprehensive package of bills was passed as part of the 2016 Legislative Session and marks a major step forward in the fight to increase access to treatment, expand community prevention strategies, and limit the over-prescription of opioids in New York.

The legislation includes several best practices and recommendations identified by the Governors Heroin and Opioid Task Force, and builds on the states aggressive efforts to break the cycle of heroin and opioid addiction and protect public health and safety. The Governor signed the sweeping legislation, touring the state and visiting the epicenters of the crisis, at events in Buffalo, Long Island and Staten Island.



New York is leading the way forward in the fight against heroin and opioid addiction, and with this legislation, we are taking an affirmative stand for our families and communities who have suffered from this epidemics debilitating effects, Governor Cuomo said. "I commend the Senate and the Assembly for their hard work and dedication to stopping this epidemic and creating a stronger and healthier New York."



Photo: Governor Andrew Cuomo, via Flickr.

Senate Majority Leader John J. Flanagan said: Everyday lives are being lost and families destroyed by the scourge of heroin and opioid abuse. The Senate formed the Joint Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction more than two years ago to fight this epidemic, and our good work has resulted in numerous laws being passed, $189 million allocated in the 2016-17 budget, and several of the recommendations recently issued by Co-Chairs Senators Terrence Murphy, Robert Ortt, and George Amedore being incorporated into this new law. I thank the Governor, our colleagues in the Legislature, and especially the parents and families who have been personally touched by tragedy for working with us to prevent addiction, ensure treatment for those who need it, support people in their recovery, and bring hope to communities battling opioid abuse throughout New York.





Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano joining Governor Andrew Cuomo and State leaders in the signing of legislation to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic. Photo: Edward P. Mangano, via Facebook.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said: Opioid addiction and related deaths have touched every community across New York State. The Assembly Majority pushed to ensure that this legislative session we took meaningful steps to put an end to this ongoing crisis. By making sure that every New Yorker has access to the supportive services and treatment they need, we can help prevent families from experiencing the devastating effects of losing a loved one to addiction.



Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeffrey Klein said: "Heroin and opioid addictions ruin lives. As lawmakers, we came together to combat this scourge and get people in every corner of this state the help they need. I thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership and for signing this life-saving and life-changing package into law."



Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said: After forty years of misguided policy, New York is finally turning the page and better addressing the heroin and opioid crisis. The Senate Democrats helped lead the fight to ensure state government took meaningful steps to combat this crisis and provide vital services to New Yorkers struggling with addiction. We are proud to stand with Governor Cuomo as New York serves as an example to the nation on how to better address the heroin and opioid epidemic.



The new legislation includes several initiatives to address rampant heroin and opioid abuse across the state, including measures to increase access to life-saving over-dose reversal medication, regulations to limit opioid prescriptions from 30 to 7 days, and ongoing prevention education for all physicians and prescribers. Specifically, the legislation will:



REMOVE BURDENSOME BARRIERS TO ACCESS FOR INPATIENT TREATMENT AND MEDICATION

Ends Prior Insurance Authorization to Allow for Immediate Access to Inpatient Treatment as Long as Such Treatment is Needed: People suffering from addiction who seek treatment need immediate access to services, but prior authorization requirements by insurance companies are often a roadblock to admission to inpatient programs. This legislation requires insurers to cover necessary inpatient services for the treatment of substance use disorders for as long as an individual needs them. In addition, the legislation establishes that utilization review by insurers can begin only after the first 14 days of treatment, ensuring that every patient receives at least two weeks of uninterrupted, covered care before the insurance company becomes involved.

Ends Prior Insurance Authorization to Allow for Greater Access to Drug Treatment Medications: People seeking medication to manage withdrawal symptoms or maintain recovery must often request prior approval from their insurance company, which slows or stops the individual from getting needed medication. This legislation prohibits insurers from requiring prior approval for emergency supplies of these medications. Similar provisions will also apply to managed care providers treating Medicaid recipients who seek access to buprenorphine and injectable naltrexone.

Requires All Insurance Companies Use Objective State-Approved Criteria to Determine the Level of Care for Individuals Suffering from Substance Abuse: Insurance companies often use inconsistent criteria to determine the covered level of care for persons suffering from substance use disorder, which often creates barriers preventing these individuals from receiving care. This legislation will require all insurers operating in New York State to use objective, state-approved criteria when making coverage determinations for all substance use disorder treatment in order to make sure individuals get the treatment they need.

Mandate Insurance Coverage for Opioid Overdose-Reversal Medication: Naloxone is a medication that revives an individual from a heroin or opioid overdose and has saved thousands of New Yorkers lives. To expand access to this life-saving medication, the new legislation requires insurance companies to cover the costs of naloxone when prescribed to a person who is addicted to opioids and to his/her family member/s on the same insurance plan.

ENHANCE ADDICTION TREATMENT SERVICES

Increase Evaluation for Individuals Incapacitated by Drugs from 48 to 72-Hours: Sometimes, individuals suffering from addiction are at risk for overdose and thus pose a threat to themselves. The legislation allows families to seek 72-hours of emergency treatment, an increase from the current 48-hours, for their loved one so that they can be stabilized and connected to longer-term addiction treatment options while also balancing individual rights of the incapacitated individuals.

Require Hospitals to Provide Follow-Up Treatment Service Options to Individuals Upon Hospital Discharge: Hospitals play an important role in caring for individuals suffering from addiction who are often admitted to hospital emergency rooms after an overdose. This legislation requires hospital medical staff to provide discharge-planning services to connect patients who have or are at-risk for substance use disorder with nearby treatment options to provide continuous medical care.

Allow More Trained Professionals to Administer Life-Saving Overdose-Reversal Medication: Overdose-reversal medication such as naloxone saves lives. However, the law does not currently allow certain licensed professionals to administer this medication to individuals overdosing from heroin and opioids. To ensure that more people are able to help reverse overdoses, the new legislation authorizes trained professionals to administer naloxone in emergency situations without risk to their professional license.

Expand Wraparound Services to Support Long-Term Recovery: Individuals leaving treatment are at great risk for relapse. To provide services during this critical period, the legislation extends the wraparound program launched in 2014 to provide services to individuals completing treatment including education and employment resources; legal services; social services; transportation assistance, childcare services; and peer support groups.

STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY PREVENTION STRATEGIES

Reduce Prescription Limits for Opioids from 30-days to Seven Days: There is a well-established link between the rise in opioid prescriptions and the current heroin crisis. To reduce unnecessary access to opioids, the legislation lowers the limit for opioid prescriptions for acute pain from 30-days to no more than a 7-day supply, with exceptions for chronic pain and other conditions.

Require Ongoing Education on Addiction & Pain Management for All Physicians and Prescribers: Physicians and other opioid prescribers are important partners in preventing addiction linked to abuse of prescription opioids. To ensure that prescribers understand the risks presented by prescription opioids, the legislation mandates that these health care professionals complete three hours of education every three years on addiction, pain management, and palliative care.

Mandate Pharmacists Provide Easy to Understand Information on Risks Associated with Drug Addiction and Abuse: Consumers may not understand the addiction and abuse risks posed by prescription opioids. To improve consumer awareness about these risks the legislation requires pharmacists to provide educational materials to consumers about the risk of addiction, including information about local treatment services.

Require Data Collection on Overdoses and Prescriptions to Assist the State in Providing Additional Protections to Combat this Epidemic: Current and accurate data is critical to combat the heroin and opioid crisis yet gaps currently exist in statewide data on overdoses and usage of opioid reversal medication. To fill that gap the legislation requires the State Commissioner of Health to report county-level data on opioid overdoses and usage of overdose-reversal medication on a quarterly basis.

Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul said: From the beginning, Governor Cuomo was clear that this effort was not just about policy or procedure, but rather the human cost that was simply too devastating to continue. As someone who has assembled forums all over the state, I have looked into the eyes of the parents burdened with tremendous guilt because they lost their child and often didnt know how to help. No more can that be the case in New York State. Today we make a commitment to end the heroin and opioid epidemic once and for all.



Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said: Like other cities across the State and Country, Buffalo has witnessed first-hand the tragic toll that heroin and opioid drugs can have, and the legislation signed today by Governor Cuomo should help with both prevention and treatment. I thank Governor Cuomo, the Legislature and our local delegation for their support of these common sense steps for ending the crisis of heroin and opioid addiction in New York State.



State Senator David Carlucci said: "Having been at the forefront of fighting this crisis, I am proud to have championed proposals to address one of our states most pressing concerns - the heroin epidemic. This legislative package will enhance services for those who need help most, and with my legislation, will put New York State on the map as the first state in the nation to require over-the-counter Naloxone by law. When it comes to the families that are affected by this devastating problem, working to provide solutions must be our top priority, and I want to thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership."



State Senator Tim Kennedy said: As the opioid crisis continues to grow, it is becoming ever rarer to find a Western New Yorker that has not been impacted, said Senator Kennedy. Day after day we are losing young lives to this scourge, and day after day we are told that nothing can be done, that these drugs are simply too addictive. As a state we must reject that thinking, and with this legislation we are. If we can save just one life, and prevent one more parent from having to bury their child, then these laws will have been worth it. I want to thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership in bringing about this agreement, and I want to personally thank the many hardworking men and women who dedicate their time to facilitating treatment, for no chemically-dependent individual is past saving.



State Senator Terrence Murphy said: Too many lives have been cut short as result of this devastating public health crisis. By limiting opioid prescriptions, eliminating insurance barriers to treatment and expanding support for New Yorkers in recovery, this legislation builds on this states aggressive efforts to combat heroin addiction and reverse the trends of this deadly epidemic. I was proud to be a member of the Governors Task Force and I thank the Governor for his commitment to building a safer and healthier New York. This is a critical step in helping those in need get on the path to recovery and improving the lives of our most vulnerable New Yorkers.



State Senator Diane J. Savino said: "I want to commend Governor Cuomo and my fellow legislative leaders for taking these important steps towards combating opioid abuse and the addiction crisis that's affecting so many people and their families. While there's still work to be done to combat this horrible epidemic thanks to this package of bills, we will finally begin to address the issues and concerns raised by those individuals who have been affected most with a more comprehensive approach."



Assemblyman Michael Cusick said: As our borough, city, and state continue to battle the heroin & opioid crisis, the legislation being signed today represents a significant step forward for the individuals and families affected by this epidemic. Eliminating insurance barriers to treatment, establishing discharge plans for individuals treated for an overdose, and limiting the length of opioid prescriptions, all recommendations borne out of Governor Cuomo's Heroin & Opioid Task Force, will aid us in turning the tide against this terrible scourge of use and abuse. I want to thank Governor Cuomo, the members of the Task Force, and the hundreds of Staten Islanders who submitted suggestions and attended the meeting of the Task Force at Mount Loretto in May for their dedication to ridding our communities of addiction.



Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer said: One of the greatest threats to the safety and security of our communities is the growing heroin and opioid epidemic. This years opioid overdose legislative package supports a comprehensive approach to tackling the problem. The legislation I sponsored with Senator Carlucci (A9078-B/S6346-B) will increase the availability of naloxone  a life-saving opioid overdose treatment  in pharmacies throughout the state without a prescription. It is critical to ensure that friends and family members of overdose victims have access to and are properly trained in the administration of naloxone, as they are often the people in a position to save an overdose victims life. I commend Governor Cuomo and my legislative colleagues for taking such a comprehensive approach to this terrible epidemic.



Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, Chair of the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse said: "To address the growing public health crisis that is heroin and opioid addiction, this plan removes barriers to treatment, such as bureaucratic hurdles created by insurance companies, and requires that doctors receive training in prescribing controlled, highly addictive substances. We must continue to focus on dedicating resources to proven methods of harm reduction, expanding access to comprehensive and supportive treatment and recovery programs and investing heavily in targeted prevention education. We must also work to change attitudes surrounding addiction and to ensure that those seeking treatment become deliberative partners with us on a shared path toward their own health and wellbeing. I applaud the Governor for taking this important first step, and look forward to continuing our work together to tackle the opioid and heroin abuse epidemic.



Assemblyman Sean Ryan said: In February, I announced comprehensive legislation to combat New Yorks heroin and opioid epidemic, by focusing on increasing doctor education. I thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership as he signs into law today a comprehensive plan which includes a provision to mandate ongoing doctor education in the areas of addiction, pain management, and palliative care. This important law will help to prevent opioid addiction, expand access to treatment, and most importantly, save lives. By improving doctor education, we are getting to the root of the problem, and preventing people from becoming life-long opioid addicts. This law is a huge step forward for New York State, and I thank everyone who has been pushing for bold action to address this public health crisis.



Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes said: "Heroin and opioid abuse has created an epidemic requiring creative and alternative solutions. Thanks to the Governors Heroin and Opioid Task Forces findings, there were numerous recommendations for my colleagues and I to review and vote on as a package. I applaud Governor Cuomo, the Task Force, my colleagues in government, and especially the professionals and family members that not only voiced their concerns but provided input to help families across the state struggling with this epidemic."

Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said: While heroin and opioid addiction have already taken a tragic toll on our borough, city and state, the legislation being signed today marks a significant step in getting individuals and their families the help they need to battle this epidemic head on and save lives. However, it is important to remember that this is just one step forward. And tomorrow we must not lose our resolve but rather keep the conversation going to address this public health and public safety crisis and work together to continue to eliminate this drug scourge from our communities. As a member of Governor Cuomos Heroin and Opioid Task Force, I am proud of the comprehensive and historic reforms established in this package of bills, particularly with regards to changes in the insurance industry. I would like to commend the Governor and legislative leaders for their diligence on combating the drug epidemic that is ravaging the lives of so many people every day.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said: This comprehensive legislation marks a major step forward in the fight to combat heroin and opioid abuse and end this harrowing epidemic once and for all. Under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, the state continues to take bold action to increase access to treatment, eliminate unnecessary insurance barriers and ensure widespread distribution of naloxone. I applaud Governor Cuomo, Senator Flanagan and Speak Heastie for their commitment to our most vulnerable New Yorkers and for listening to the countless families, advocates and individuals across the state who have called for change. This is life-saving legislation will help break the cycle of addiction and ensure our loved-ones have access to the addiction treatment services they need and deserve.

Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano said: "This legislation is good news as it assists in the battle against drug abuse by providing broader access to treatment, supporting prevention education and increasing access to life saving overdose reversal drugs."



NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner, Arlene Gonzalez-Sanchez: "As Commissioner of New York State's alcoholism and substance use disorder agency, I was honored to travel our great state with Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul as a co-lead of the Heroin and Opioids Task Force. Together with Task Force members, we logged many miles across the state to hear firsthand from New Yorkers about their needs. After hearing recommendations from all across the state, Governor Cuomo, the Senate and the Assembly acted quickly to pass this history-making package of bills. This legislation will help to ensure that more lives are saved from the grips of addiction and that solid connections to addiction treatment are made. These bills will further strengthen our care system for New Yorkers battling addiction and support their families now and for years to come. I look forward to working together with our partners to make this legislative package come alive for all New Yorkers in the coming months."



Maria T. Vullo, Superintendent of Financial Services said: "This administration is paving the way to ending the nationwide opioid epidemic with the signing of this landmark legislation by eliminating insurer prior approval for inpatient care and state approved criteria to determine insurance coverage for inpatient treatment. I am proud to have been a part of Governor Cuomo's Opioid and Heroin Task Force as New York State moves to implement measures that will ultimately make essential services and lifesaving techniques readily available to those in need."



NYS Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said: "The bills being signed by Governor Cuomo today will help save lives and rescue many people from the agony of drug addiction. I am very proud to serve on the Governors Heroin Task Force and to be helping to protect the public health by fighting the opioid epidemic.



ADDITIONAL INITIATIVES TO COMBAT ADDICTION



The FY 2017 Budget invests nearly $200 million through the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic -- an 82 percent increase in state spending since 2011. This investment includes $66 million for residential treatment beds, including counseling and support services for roughly 8,000 individuals; $38 million to fund medication-assisted treatment programs that serve approximately 12,000 clients in residential or outpatient settings; $25 million in funding for state-operated Addiction Treatment Centers; $24 million for outpatient services that provide group and individual counseling; and $8 million for crisis/detox programs to manage and treat withdrawal from heroin and opioids.



As part of the Governors ongoing efforts to address this public health crisis, this funding will allow the addition of 270 treatment beds and 2,335 opioid treatment program slots across the state to help New Yorkers suffering from substance use disorder and to expand vital treatment and recovery resources.



The funding will also provide additional family support navigators across New York to assist substance users and their families locate and access treatment options and cope with addiction. The agreement will also expand the on-call peer program which partners individuals in recovery with people in hospitals suffering from substance use disorder to help connect these individuals to treatment and other resources upon discharge. The state is also increasing the number of Recovery Community and Outreach Centers and Adolescent Club Houses statewide to provide safe spaces for teens in recovery that deliver health and wellness services for teens and young adults.



The Governors Heroin and Opioid Task Force  comprised of a diverse coalition of experts in healthcare, drug policy, advocacy, education, and parents and New Yorkers in recovery  held executive meetings and eight listening sessions across the state  hearing directly from health care providers, family support groups, educators, law enforcement officials, and community members and gathering input that has influenced the initiatives announced today. The task force is co-chaired by Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul and New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Arlene Gonzalez-Sanchez. The final report and recommendations can be found here. For more information, please visit: here.



Since 2014, Governor Cuomo has implemented a series of aggressive reforms to combat heroin and opioid addiction, including signing historic Combat Heroin Legislation that year; expanding insurance coverage for substance use disorder treatment; increasing access and enhancing treatment capacity across the state, including a major expansion of opioid treatment and recovery services; implementing the comprehensive I-STOP law to curb prescription drug abuse; and launching a public awareness and prevention campaign to inform New Yorkers about the dangers of heroin use and opioid misuse.

"New York is leading the way forward in the fight against heroin and opioid addiction, and with this legislation, we are taking an affirmative stand for our families and communities who have suffered from this epidemics debilitating effects," said Governor Cuomo.

Executive Director of SI partnership for Community Wellness, Adrienne Abbate said: "It's critical that our communities have the information and resources to prevent substance use and connect those in need of treatment with services. With this legislation and its multi-pronged approach, we will be better equipped to combat the opioid scourge plaguing our communities. I thank the Governor, the Legislature, the staff at OASAS, and the advocates from across NYS for their hard work on making this groundbreaking legislation a reality."



CEO of Horizon Health Services, Anne Constantino said: "Heroin and opioid abuse has been a scourge on communities in every corner of the state. As someone who has dealt with addiction first hand, I know all too well this rising public health crisis has cut too many promising lives short. Today we are taking a stand against the epidemic. I thank the Governor for his leadership on this issue, and commend the legislature for rising to the occasion and taking decisive action to bring hope to families and communities suffering from the devastation of opioid abuse across the state."



Executive Director, Human Understanding & Growth Services, Kym Laube said: We have listened to families across the state who have struggled to cope with the loss and pain associated with addiction. Today, with this bold legislation, we are saying to these families: we hear you, and we are with you. New Yorkers struggling with addiction have found a strong partner in Governor Cuomo, who has been spearheading this call to action from the onset. These new policies will ensure that those suffering from addiction, and their loved ones, receive the assistance they need and deserve.



CEO of Arms Acres, Patrice Wallace-Moore said: Heroin and opioid abuse affects thousands of New Yorkers across this state and nation. This legislation provides those struggling to overcome the stronghold of addiction with the support they need to receive critical treatment and get their lives back on track. Under Governor Cuomos leadership, the state is enacting landmark policies that will carry forth hope and improve the lives of families and entire communities that have been fraught with adversity and inaction. Today, with this legislation, New York State is leading the way for a better tomorrow."



President and CEO of Family and Childrens Association, Jeffrey Reynolds said: "Today is truly a monumental day for New York and especially for those who are struggling with substance use disorders. This package of bills will dramatically increase access to treatment services and help thousands find a path to recovery. I'm honored to serve on the Task Force and I thank both the Governor and the legislature for taking decisive action to bring hope to families and communities that have been ravaged by heroin and other drugs. When we look back, I'm hopeful that this will be the day when we finally turned the corner in fighting this epidemic."



Executive Director of Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, Susan Salomone said: As a parent who has lost their loved-one to opioid addiction, I have experienced the devastating effects addiction can have on our families and communities first-hand. Now, with this landmark legislation, we are sending a message across this state that those struggling with addiction are not alone. We are ensuring that our families have access to the treatment and support services they need, and putting more New Yorkers on a path to long-term recovery. I am proud to be a member of the Governors task force to combat heroin and opioid abuse in New York, and I commend Governor Cuomo as well as the State Legislature for enacting these sweeping reforms.



Director of Services, Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Patrick Seche said: "As an addiction treatment specialist, I see patients in need every day. I am so pleased that with this legislation, those patients will have better access to services and improved supports. Thank you to Governor Cuomo, the New York State Senate and Assembly, the Task Force, which I was very proud to be a part of, and everyone involved in passing this truly game-changing legislative package that will help New Yorkers who are battling addiction."



New Yorkers struggling with an addiction, or whose loved ones are struggling, can find help and hope by calling the states HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) or by texting HOPENY (Short Code 467369). New Yorkers can find an OASAS-certified substance use disorder treatment provider by using the OASAS Treatment Availability Dashboard. For help with accessing care and insurance coverage, visit the Access Treatment page on the OASAS website. To find a naloxone overdose reversal medication training near you, visit the OASAS opioid overdose prevention trainings page. Visit here for more information on addressing heroin and prescription opioid abuse, including a Kitchen Table Tool Kit to help start the conversation about the warning signs of addiction and where to get help. For additional tools to use in talking to a young person about preventing underage drinking or drug use, visit the States Talk2Prevent website.
Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: June 23 2016

Legislator Kara Hahn this week recognized the heroic actions taken by two Suffolk County Police officers and a member of the Setauket Fire Department.

Riverhead, NY - June 22, 2016 - Legislator Kara Hahn this week recognized the heroic actions taken by two Suffolk County Police officers and a member of the Setauket Fire Department while responding to a Setauket home fire last month.

It was just before 3:00 a.m. on Memorial Day, Monday, May 30, 2016 when police received notification that an occupied home on Carriage Lane in Setauket caught fire as five residents within slept. Suffolk County Police Department Officers Michael Schneider and Anthony Ferrara were dispatched to the home, and upon arrival found the side of the structure engulfed by flames. Four of the five residents were able to safely escape the burning home prior to the arrival of first responders; however, one resident remained trapped inside.

Upon learning that not all of the occupants exited the building, Officers Schneider and Ferrara and Setauket Firefighter Brian Sleeson rushed into the burning home and found the unaccounted for resident laying on a hallway floor with severe burns to her upper body. The officers and firefighter removed the victim from the floor and the flames that were consuming her body and carried her safely from the structure.

The victim was taken to Stony Brook University Medical Center in Critical Condition while the Setauket Fire Department extinguished the blaze before endangering additional lives and structures.
Local News, Crime, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: June 23 2016

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a $28 million settlement of a civil lawsuit involving the owners of Medford Multicare Center for Living, Inc.

Medford Multicare Center also sentenced in court for role in cover-up of patient death in 2012.

Medford, NY - June 22, 2016 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a $28 million settlement of a civil lawsuit that claimed the owners of Medford Multicare Center for Living, Inc. (Medford) located in Medford, New York looted the corporation and committed fraud and illegality in operating a business.

The civil lawsuits claims were based on a history of criminal conduct by employees of the nursing home, staffing and service cuts and diversion of Medicaid funds to themselves and their controlled entities. The assurance of discontinuance provides that the settlement funds, which will be administered by an Independent Financial Monitor, will in part be used to establish a Resident Care Fund to fund care recommendations by the Independent Operator. That fund will provide the much needed reforms and improvements in the delivery of care and services to Medfords elderly and frail residents. In addition, ten million dollars will be returned to the Medicaid program. The Medford corporation was also sentenced today for its role in the cover-up of a patient death in 2012.

Today we have taken significant steps to ensure residents at Medford receive necessary and proper care, and that the tragic events of 2012 are never repeated, said Attorney General Schneiderman. Nothing is more important than securing the safety of those in nursing home facilities, yet, as alleged in our complaint, Medford owners continued to line their pockets with millions in public funding while Medford cut staffing, services and supervision, shirking the duty of caring for some of our most vulnerable citizens. This settlement sends a clear message that those who profit from Medicaid at the expense of nursing home residents will be held accountable.

The settlement is designed to significantly improve the care and services provided to the residents of Medford, and to ensure the facilitys compliance with applicable law and regulations. This settlement requires Medfords owners to:

Retain an Independent Operator to manage the care and compliance of the facility for a period of five years;

Implement the quality of care reforms and direct care improvements recommended by the Independent Operator;

Hire full time nursing staff for the facility with appropriate supervision by skilled registered nursing supervisors and to maintain these staffing levels for a period of seven years thus reducing reliance on agency nursing staff;

Implement continuous and ongoing training in delivering appropriate, safe and timely care to the residents;

Hire a full-time permanent Compliance and Risk Management Officer to oversee a robust compliance program;

Establish the Medford Resident Care Fund with a total of $9.1 million dollars to finance the quality of care reforms and improvements recommended by the Independent Operator;

Hire an Independent Financial Monitor to administer the Resident Care Fund; and

Return over $10 million in restitution to the Medicaid Program.

Today, Medford the corporation was also sentenced in connection with its guilty plea to Attempted Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a Class A misdemeanor, in connection with the cover-up by its administrator, David Fielding, of the circumstances of the 2012 death of a 72 year old resident who was at the facility for what was supposed to be short-term rehabilitation. New York State Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins, who oversaw the trial of the three nurses and two respiratory therapists who were convicted of causing and covering up the October 26, 2012 death of Aurelia Rios, fined the corporation $10,000.00.

At a dual jury trial conducted last summer before Justice Collins, one jury, Jury A, found Kethlie Joseph 63, of Brentwood, guilty of Criminally Negligent Homicide, a Class E Felony, for causing the October 26, 2012 death of Aurelia Rios. Jury A also found Joseph guilty of Wilful Violation of Health Laws, a Class A misdemeanor, for failing to immediately report that Mrs. Rios death was the result of neglect, as required by the New York State Public Health Law. Justice Collins sentenced Joseph to nine months in jail and three years probation.

The second jury found Marianne Fassino, Kimberly Lappe, Christine Boylan and Victoria Caldwell guilty of multiple counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a Class E felony, Endangering the Welfare of an Incompetent or Physically Disabled Person, a Class A misdemeanor, and several counts of Wilful Violation of Health Laws. The four defendants received jail time ranging from nine months to 45 days, and five years probation.

Three former Medford aides were also sentenced in May 2016 after they pled guilty to misdemeanor charges arising from the same incident.

The former administrator of the home, David Fielding, also pled guilty to two counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree and Wilful Violation of Health Laws. Fielding was sentenced on November 16, 2016.

The criminal case was handled by Special Assistants Attorney General Veronica Bindrim-MacDevitt and Peter Zadek, under the supervision of Hauppauge Regional Director, Jane Zwirn -Turkin. The investigation was conducted by Senior Special Investigators Dawn Scandaliato and Regina Hogan, and Karen Patterson, RN, Confidential Medical Analyst with the assistance of Supervising Investigator Greg Muroff and Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan. Thomas OHanlon is the Downstate Chief of Criminal Investigations.

The civil case was handled by Special Assistants Attorney General Sally G. Blinken and David Abrams. Forensic audit work was performed by Milan Shah, Principal Auditor Investigator, Joanna-Joy Volo, Director of Interagency Communication, and Theresa White, Principal Auditor Investigator.

The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is led by Director Amy Held and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul J. Mahoney. The Division of Criminal Justice is led by Executive Deputy Attorney General Kelly Donovan.
Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com

Columnists Press Releases
Three Russian soldiers were allegedly killed when a roadside bomb exploded in northern Syria, according to Amaq News Agency, which is one of the Islamic States main propaganda arms.

The claim could not be independently verified. [Update: The Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, later denied that the soldiers were killed as Amaq alleged. He claimed that the photos were taken from a cellphone stolen inside Russian territory.]

Amaq posted a series of photos and documents that it says were taken from a slain Russians cell phone. The images can be seen below.

Amaq has also produced a short video allegedly showing the charred remains of the Russians vehicle. Screen shots from the video can also be seen at the end of this article.

The Islamic State says the improvised explosive device (IED) was implanted along the Ithriya-Raqqa road, which connects the provinces of Hama and Raqqa. The road has been the site of multiple clashes between the jihadists and forces loyal to Bashar al Assads regime. Amaq has produced a steady stream of propaganda from the fighting.

The Syrian regime, backed by Shiite militias and Russian airpower, launched a new offensive along the Ithriya-Raqqa road earlier this month. The Russian-Syrian-Iranian axis was advancing toward the Tabqah miliary airport, which lies along the road and is considered a strategically valuable location, until the Islamic State counterattacked.

In recent days, the so-called caliphate has retaken key areas along the road, including oil fields and checkpoints.

Amaq reported on June 19 and 20 that the Islamic States fighters had captured the Thawrah and Sufyan oilfields. It appears that sources inside Assads military confirmed the losses to Al Masdar News, which reported that Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen were forced to retreat back toward Ithriya.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also independently reported that the Assad regime was forced to pull back after 15 days of fighting.

Amaq claimed that the Islamic States martyrdom operations during the battle caused dozens of casualties.

Syrian regime forces and Shiite militias sustain at least 20 deaths, in addition to a destroyed tank, after the martyrdom operation at the Thawrah oilfield, south of Tabqah, Amaq said in a Breaking News update released on social media on June 19.

A second suicide attack near Thawrah that same day allegedly killed 12 Syrian regime soldiers, according to Amaq. And still another update said that an additional 7 Syrian regime soldiers were killed during the fighting.

Amaq followed up with reports from the Sufyan oilfield on June 20. A large number of Syrian regime soldiers and Shiite militiamen flees [sic] from the Sufyan oilfield and its checkpoint, south of Tabqah, while Islamic State fighters take up their pursuit, Amaq reported.

The Islamic States gains have come despite Russian air support. The jihadists say that the Russians have carried out dozens of airstrikes near Thawrah and elsewhere in the past 4 days.

Assads regime and its allies frequently clash with the Islamic State.

Just hours before reporting the alleged deaths of three Russian soldiers, Amaq claimed that the jihadists launched a surprise attack on a position controlled by the Syrian military, Russian forces, and allied militias. According to Amaq, 42 fighters were killed in the assault, which utilized one of the Islamic States suicide bombers. As with Amaqs other claims, the casualty figure cannot be confirmed.

Images posted by Amaq allegedly taken from a cellphone owned by a Russian soldier

Screenshots from Amaqs video purportedly showing the Russians vehicle:

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
A Guantanamo detainee who may have been selected to participate in a canceled part of al Qaedas Sept. 11, 2001 hijacking plot has been transferred.

The Department of Defense announced yesterday that the now former detainee, Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi, has been transferred to the Government of Montenegro in a manner consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.

US officials repeatedly warned that Rahabi was a threat. Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), President Obamas Guantanamo Review Task Force, and a Periodic Review Board (PRB) all deemed Rahabi too dangerous to transfer. Curiously, another PRB approved Rahabis transfer in late 2014, just months after the same body said his continued detention remained necessary to mitigate the threat he posed.

According to a leaked threat assessment, dated Apr. 28, 2008, Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) concluded Rahabi was a high risk who is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies.

JTF-GTMO found that Rahabi was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and may have also been related to the al Qaeda founder by marriage, although the latter alleged detail was subsequently dropped by a review board.

Rahabi swore bayat (oath of allegiance) to Bin Laden and received specialized close combat training for his role as a suicide operative in an aborted component of the 9/11 hijackings, according to JTF-GTMOs threat assessment.

US officials concluded that Rahabi was one of several al Qaeda members designated as suicide operatives in a plot to hijack US air carriers traveling across Southeast Asia and destroy them in midair. The hijackings were initially intended to coincide with al Qaedas attacks on the East Coast of the US, but bin Laden reportedly canceled them because he feared the two parts of the operation would be too difficult to synchronize.

JTF-GTMOs analysts concluded that Rahabi participated in hostilities against US and Coalition forces and was captured with a group referred to as the Dirty 30, which included [bin Laden] bodyguards and a jihadist assessed to be the would-be 20th hijacker on 9/11. The latter individual is Mohammed al Qahtani, who is still detained at Guantanamo. Qahtani was denied entry into the US in August 2001 and eventually returned to South Asia. Qahtani was captured by Pakistani forces in December 2001 as he and more than two dozen others, including Rahabi, attempted to flee the Battle of Tora Bora.

For these reasons and more, JTF-GTMO recommended that Rahabi be retained in US custody.

President Obamas Guantanamo Review Task Force also determined that Rahabi was too dangerous to transfer.

The task force, which concluded its work in January 2010, recommended that Rahabi be held in [c]ontinued detention pursuant to the [2001] Authorization for Use of Military Force.

A Periodic Review Board (PRB) established by the Obama administration reevaluated Rahabis case in early 2014. The PRB determined on Mar. 5, 2014 that continued law of war detention of Rahabi remained necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.

That is, the PRB concluded that Rahabi was too much of a risk to transfer as well, just as JTF-GTMO and President Obamas task force had before hand. [See LWJ report, Review board rules against Guantanamo detainee.]

The PRB cited Rahabis significant ties to al Qaeda, his past role as a bodyguard for bin Laden, and prior relationship with the current amir of al Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinula (AQAP). The head of AQAP at the time was Nasir al Wuhayshi, who once served as the aide-de-camp to bin Laden and became one of al Qaedas top leaders. Wuhayshi was subsequently killed in a US drone strike in early June 2015.

The PRB said that Rahabis experience fighting on the frontlines, possible selection for a hijacking plot, and significant training raised concerns. The hijacking plot mentioned is the same one described in JTF-GTMOs threat assessment.

Rahabis fortunes changed just a few months later, however, when another PRB session concluded he could be transferred. In its Dec. 5, 2014 determination, which paved the way for Rahabis transfer to Montenegro, the PRB did not suddenly deem him to be an innocent. Instead, the PRB said it believed that the risk the detainee presents can be adequately mitigated.

The PRB acknowledged Rahabis past terrorist-related activities and connections, but essentially concluded that he could start a new life. The PRB said it considered the deliberate efforts on the part of [Rahabi] and his family to address the concerns raised by the Board in the prior full review, particularly the Boards concerns regarding his susceptibility to recruitment.

His immediate familysevered ties with his brother-in-law who is a prominent extremist, the PRB wrote in its Dec. 2014 determination. The review board also credited Rahabis increased candor and credibility regarding his acknowledgement of past mistakes, change in mindset, as well as his desire to reintegrate into society, among other factors.

Rahabis willingness to relocate somewhere other than Ibb, Yemen, where he was born, helped as well. Ibb has a degraded security environment, the PRB noted.

After Rahabis transfer, 79 detainees remain at Guantanamo.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
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MarquAs de Riscal Announces Limited-Edition Frank Gehry Wine

The renowned architect designed the Hotel Marques de Riscal, a stunning 43-room luxury property in the heart of the Rioja Alavesa region in Spain, which opened in 2006. The release of the wine, which coincides with the tenth anniversary of the hotel, was celebrated in an event on June 21 at the new home of Frank Gehry in Santa Monica, CA.The Frank Gehry Reserve Selection 2012 Vintage was crafted exclusively of tempranillo grapes grown on vines more than 80 years old and carefully tended during the summer months. Grapes for the vintage were handpicked on the manual selection tables of the winery, located in the Basque country of northern Spain. Marques de Riscal will release only 5,000 bottles of the Frank Gehry Reserve Selection 2012 Vintage, which feature a signed sketch by Gehry of the Hotel Marques de Riscal.The friendship between Marques de Riscal and Gehry has resulted in two vintages bearing the architect's name. In addition to the Frank Gehry Reserve Selection 2012 Vintage, the winery celebrated the hotel opening with the Frank Gehry Reserve Selection 2001.Frank Gehry is a visionary who has graced our winery with a building that beautifully captures the essence of Marques de Riscal and its rich history, said Alejandro Aznar, President of Marques de Riscal. As a maker of classic wines with a modern approach, we feel very close to Frank, who roots his brilliant innovations so deeply in humane values. With great pleasure, we raise a glass to a man we are honored to call our friend, as we toast him with his own special vintage.The more you see of the process, the more you understand there's a real artistry to winemaking. Getting to know the artists at Marques de Riscal and spending time in their beautiful vineyard has been a great pleasure," said Frank Gehry."I'm so honored and delighted that the company has commemorated our friendship with this special vintage."Jose Luis Muguiro, Co-owner and General Sales Manager of Marques de Riscal, said, The ties of warmth and mutual respect that have developed between the people of our winery and Frank Gehry are a testament to the collaborative spirit that this great architect brings to everything he does. We share with him the conviction that the search for greatness, whether in making a wine or a building, can be a life-affirming process that deepens the relationships among people and brings out the best in them. We take great pride in joining Frank to make the debut of this special reserve vintage both a tribute to him and a benefit to the children he helps to educate and inspire.As part of the celebration launching the new wine at Gehry's new home, impressive large-format bottles were created by Marques de Riscal for an auction to benefit Turnaround Arts: California. Frank Gehry is a principal supporter of the education initiative, which is a branch of the national Turnaround Arts programa public-private partnership established in 2012 by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Turnaround Arts: California partners with 16 schools throughout the state, helping high-need schools to help close the achievement gap and provide equitable access to arts and music education.The Hotel Marques de Riscal, the first hotel designed and built by the Pritzker-Prize winning architect, is located in The City of Winewhich, in addition to the hotel, includes a spa, Michelin-starred dining destination, wine education center and museum facilities. The City of Wine serves as the winery's visitor center and has become a popular destination for travelers from around the world. The hotel's design features columns that lift the structure, providing breathtaking views of the vineyards and the surrounding town and region. The exterior of the hotel consists of a series of rectilinear sandstone forms and curvilinear panels made of stainless steel and gold and pale pink titanium. The winery is less than 75 miles from the Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, whose renowned curvilinear titanium forms find an echo in the Hotel.Visit website:
New Family Offerings at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel

Situated directly across from the Santa Monica Pier and within walking distance of all of the area's attractions, the hotel is the perfect place to call home base for families looking for an authentic Southern California vacation experience. The fun begins at check-in where guests will receive a welcome amenity of popcorn, cotton candy and/ or other treats.The hotel is thrilled to be introducing their new Family Concierge, who can create customized, memorable experiences including entrance to Los Angeles' hard-to-get-into attractions. This service is available for families booking premium rooms (and above) at the property and will be arranged prior to arrival. Some experiences include: Kids' Beach in a Box  receive chairs, towels, toys, and more set-up on the beach A driver and fully outfitted SUV (with snacks, sunscreen, beach toys) to get around Los Angeles VIP access to studio tours and theme parks A personal guide for the La Brea Tar Pits and National History Museum Direct Reservations to Au Fudge, the new restaurant and kid-zone owned by actress Jessica Biel Audience tickets to shows such as The Voice (when filming)The hotel is also rolling out a new poolside pampering program beginning Fourth of July weekend on their recently redesigned pool deck, which offers panoramic ocean views. Guests soaking in the California sunshine will be treated to chilled towels, smoothies, frozen grapes and more. Kids will delight in frozen treats from the Beach Barn's ice cream cart, and a dedicated kid-zone with a lending library of pool and beach toys. On weekends, families can enjoy a special California Grill, serving up traditional grilled favorites with a SoCal flair, and delight in watching the sunset over s'mores by one of the new 13 firepits.All of the spacious guestrooms and suites at the hotel have been redesigned, bringing the colors and patterns of the ocean and sand indoors, with crisp white shutters maximizing the spectacular views and exuding a modern bungalow feel. The hotel recently added firepits to the private outdoor terraces of 35 rooms and suites, where guests can enjoy a sunset dinner ordered from on-site restaurant Ocean & Vine, and take in the lights of the landmark Santa Monica Pier.Visit website:
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Jennifer Lawrence has landed the leading role in the upcoming film version of beloved novel East of Eden

Jennifer Lawrence (opens in new tab) has landed the leading role in the upcoming film version of beloved novel East of Eden.

The Oscar winner is set to star in the movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 classic, which will see Jennifer reuniting with her Hunger Games director, Gary Ross, reports Deadline.

Jennifer Lawrence - Marie Claire - Marie Claire UK (Image credit: Rex Features)

Jennifer is set to star as the evil and manipulative Cathy Ames in Nobel Prize winner Steinbeck's tale of two warring farmer's sons. The book will reportedly be split into two films.

Sounds like this role has second Oscar written all over it - Jo Van Fleet took home the Best Supporting Actress golden statue when she starred in Elia Kazan's 1955 adaptation of the book alongside James Dean.

Deadline also reports that Jennifer and director Gary Ross are trying to secure the rights to Hannah Kent's acclaimed debut novel Burial Rites, set in 19th century Iceland.

First up is Hunger Games: Catching Fire, coming to UK cinemas in November. So. Unbelievably. Excited.

Jennifer Lawrence stuns in new Dior campaign (opens in new tab) Jennifer Lawrence's best clips (opens in new tab)

Got a tablet? You can now download Marie Claire magazine straight to your iPad (opens in new tab), Kindle (just search the store for 'marie claire magazine'), Nook (opens in new tab) or Google Nexus (opens in new tab).
Norwegian marine geophysical company PGS has extended its non-exclusive service agreement with Radio Holland for navigation and communication services onboard nine seismic vessels in its global fleet. Radio Holland is known in the maritime industry for its NavCom and Maintenance services through its global network of more than 80 offices.

Radio Holland Norway has worked with two PGS vessels (Ramform Atlas and Ramform Titan) on a Service Agreement for several years already. Starting June 10, 2016 Radio Holland will service all nine vessels in the fleet under the newly signed Preventive Maintenance Contract (PMA).

The signed PMA covers overhauls, maintenance, detailed technical reporting and advice based on this reporting regarding the onboard Navigation and Communication equipment. It also includes the mandatory GMDSS surveys for the safety equipment (Radio, EPIRB and AIS). The agreement has a 4-year duration.

Eirik Ryter, Commercial Manager of Radio Holland Norway, says: The vessels owned and operated by PGS are state-of-the-art and vessel availability is of the essence. By improving the reliability of onboard equipment unplanned maintenance and unexpected costs will be reduced. At Radio Holland we aim to offer PGS complete peace of mind, knowing that we will take care of all mandatory NavCom requirements.
Maersk and MSC have initiated meetings with Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) to discuss the South Korean carrier joining the 2M alliance, says local media reports.

According to Korea Herald, Koreas second-largest shipping company is considering joining the 2M Alliance, a vessel-sharing agreement between Denmarks Maersk Line and Switzerlands Mediterranean Shipping Company - the worlds first and second largest container carriers.

Amid growing speculation that HMM is set to join the alliance, a HMM official confirmed that discussions are ongoing with the alliance parties on June 23.

The company and bigger rival, Hanjin Shipping Co., are among unprofitable liners worldwide that are taking steps including debt restructuring and asset sales to improve their balance sheets as overcapacity and slowing trade lead to a prolonged downturn in rates, says a report in Bloomberg.

The state-run Korea Development Bank and other lenders have threatened to put it under receivership if it fails to lower its debt, cut charter rates and join a global shipping alliance.

Joining the alliance will help Hyundai Merchant reduce costs and improve its competitiveness, the Seoul-based company said the statement.

It will also enable Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping to bolster their services on trans-Pacific routes, said the Korean company, which ended talks to join The Alliance, whose members include Hapag-Lloyd AG and Hanjin Shipping.

Previously, HMM had tried to enter another six-party partnership, The Alliance, consisting of HMMs local rival Hanjin Shipping, Hapag-Lloyd, K Line, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Yang Ming. However, Hanjin Shipping and Japans K Line were reluctant to accept HMMs request, local news reported.

According to industry insiders, HMMs entry will be able to strengthen Asian trade lane of European-based 2M alliance, which had relatively low representation in the region.
At SMM 2016, Alfa Laval will mark the 100th anniversary of its first marine separator, and present marine customers with more new solutions.

Over the course of a century, Alfa Laval has provided solutions for a whole spectrum of marine challenges  aimed at improving customers operations, but also their bottom line and peace of mind. At this years SMM exhibition, taking place September 6-9, in Hamburg, Germany, the companys breadth will be on display.

Alfa Lavals stand will also showcase new products for new fuels, energy efficiency, environmental compliance and reducing operational cost, including offerings in oil cleaning and service. Among the highlights will be the new Alfa Laval hydraulic control oil (HCO) filter, as well as the skid-mounted Alfa Laval PureBallast 3.1/300 Compact, the smallest ballast water treatment system on the market for flows up to 300 m3/h.

Besides exhibiting new solutions in the stand, Alfa Laval will look back at the one that preceded them all. It was exactly 100 years ago that the U.S. Navy asked Alfa Laval to develop a centrifugal oil-cleaning separator, which was delivered in 1917.

To commemorate the anniversary, visitors will be invited for a 20-minute stand tour each day at 16:30. Afterwards, happy hour will begin with a signature drink and the sounds of a period jazz band.
Subsea 7 S.A. said it has reached an agreement with Petrobras to substitute a pipelay support vessel (PLSV) working off Brazil.

The agreement will see the Subsea-7-owned PLSV Seven Mar swapped in for the chartered PLSV Normand Seven in late June.

As a result, Normand Seven will be returned to its owner, Norway-based Solstad Offshore, at the end of its fixed-term charter agreement.

Subsea 7 said there are no other significant changes to its contractual terms and conditions with Petrobras.
Danish shipping and oil group A. P. Moller-Maersk could split up into separate companies, its chairman said on Thursday after naming Soren Skou, the head of its container business, as chief executive.

Maersk shares rose more than 10 percent on the news with investors betting on a break-up and seeing the appointment as a sign of a more profound restructuring.

"The question is whether we should be a large group, or whether we should be a number of independent companies," Chairman Michael Pram Rasmussen told Danish online media Finans.

The board of directors has told Skou to "investigate the strategic and structural options to further increase agility and synergies." It plans to report on its progress by the end of the third quarter of the year.

Conglomerates like Maersk often trade at a discount to companies focused on one business, while their advocates say a broad spread of activities makes for less volatile earnings.

But Maersk is now battling on two fronts, with container shipping suffering from historic low freight rates and the oil business dealing with around a 60 percent fall in oil prices.

"It is reasonable to have different business areas within the company as long as you are able to deliver an attractive return," Otto Friedrichsen, equity strategist at Danish asset manager Formuepleje said. "But the challenge is if a broad portfolio of business areas steals focus from the overall."

Maersk Line is fighting to remain the world's leading container shipping carrier as a wave of mergers and acquisitions, particularly in Asia, creates new challengers trying to grab a bigger share of a depressed market.

Maersk revenue stood at $40 billion last year. Its shipping business of more than 600 container vessels is its biggest.

The oil division, which produced 312,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent last year, has also been hit by weak energy markets..

The company is also active in oil drilling, operates terminals and has a fleet of tankers and other marine services.

"The board wants a change of strategy for the group. There has probably been some disagreements about that, and I think that's clear from the statement," Michael Friis Jorgensen, analyst at Alm. Brand Bank in Copenhagen, said.

Maersk veteran Skou, 51, will replace Nils Smedegaard Andersen as group chief executive. Andersen, who will leave the group, had been in the job since 2007.

Skou, who has been with A.P. Moller-Maersk for 33 years, will begin in his new role on July 1, while remaining the head of Maersk Line, the company said. He became CEO of Maersk Line in 2012.

The management change comes days after the grandson of Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller, who transformed the shipping company into an international conglomerate, was appointed chief executive of the holding company behind the group.

Maersk, already a major shipping player, began producing oil in the North Sea in 1972 after being awarded the sole concession to explore for oil and gas in Danish waters.

The company is the second biggest corporate contributer to Danish government revenues after Novo Nordisk. In 2013, it paid 6.2 billion Danish crowns ($946 million) in Danish taxes, mostly from North Sea oil production revenue, according to its website.

The group, controlled by the Maersk family, was founded in 1904 by A.P. Moller and was turned into a conglomerate operating in 130 countries by his son, Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller, who had an active role in the company until he died in 2012 aged 98.

The management is expected to update investors on its strategy at a Capital Markets Day on September 22.

"It sounds to me like the company is about to reinvest in container shipping and go back to its core business," Thijs Berkelder, analyst at ABN AMRO, said.





($1 = 6.5559 Danish crowns)





(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen & Teis Jensen, additional reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Keith Weir and Jane Merriman)
Bugsier, the German towage and maritime service provider, has boosted its already extensive fleet with the addition of a Damen ASD 2411 tug. The tug represents the first purchase of a Damen vessel for Bugsier.



Bugsier holds an established position in the German maritime sector: the company is celebrating its 150-year anniversary this year. This operational knowledge brought mutual benefits to the vessel construction process. Damen is experienced in building tugs, and we are very experienced in operating them, comments Bugsier Business Development Manager Sven Schrder. Therefore, we know what we want and we have ideas on how to improve things.



The Bugsier 22 was built at Damen Shipyards Sharjah (DSSh) in the United Arab Emirates. DSSh is one of the newest additions to Damens worldwide network of shipyards and boasts the highest standards of modern ship construction and repair. The yard recently won the Best New Build Yard award at the International Maritime Awards, held at the Shiptek 2016 conference.



We worked closely with Damens Sharjah yard in the construction of this vessel  our technical department closely monitored the entire construction process with good communication with the management team and also the site management. Mr Schrder concludes by pointing out the advantages of working with Damen: Short lead times, relatively short delivery times and good value for money  we are extremely pleased with the result.



The power-to- length ratio of the Damen ASD 2411 is worth a special mention: this 24-metre long vessel provides a bollard pull of 70 tonnes. The practical advantages of this compact power can be seen when the tug is at work in a busy harbour situation such as the Port of Hamburg.



We are very proud to sell our first tug to Bugsier in this very significant celebratory year for them, says Damen Sales Director North, West & South Europe Frank de Lange. We look forward to continuing this business relationship well into the future.


Shipowners seeking $10 per tonne from Brazil-China; dry cargo demand to remain subdued this year.



Freight rates for large capesize dry cargo ships on key Asian routes may firm up next week on increased chartering activity, tighter tonnage supply and possible port disruption caused by bad weather in China, ship brokers said on Thursday.



"The general consensus is there will be an improvement in rates next week," a Singapore-based capesize broker said.



Shipowners on Thursday were already offering higher rates of about $10 per tonne for iron ore cargoes from Brazil to China due to limited availability of ships, brokers said.



"I think they are being a bit greedy," a Shanghai capesize broker said, adding the prevailing rate was around $9 per tonne.



"Prices for cargo derivatives have pushed up, so people are saying the market will firm," the Shanghai broker said.



That came after limited chartering this week with just 10 capesize fixtures by Wednesday's market close, data on the Reuters Eikon terminal showed.



"It's very, very quiet," the Shanghai broker said.



BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Vale were absent from the open chartering market this week, with only Rio Tinto active, the data showed.



"Rio Tinto has the cargo volume, but it needs FMG and BHP out there to prop up the market," the Singapore broker said.



The possibility of fog at discharge ports in China could disrupt sailing schedules, forcing charterers to pay higher freight rates to cover cargo commitments, the Singapore broker said.



That came as dry bulk cargo demand is expected to remain subdued this year, at a similar level to 2015 as China's slowdown continues to weigh on commodities demand, ratings agency Moody's said in a shipping industry report on Wednesday.



Delays in vessel deliveries will help freight rates increase modestly this year, the report said.



"Until there is a squeeze on tonnage, which won't happen for a year or two, it's difficult to see any major changes to the capesize market," the Singapore broker said.



Capesize charter rates for Western Australia-China fell to $4.33 per tonne on Wednesday, close to a three-week low, from $4.83 per tonne last week.



Freight rates were also around a three-week low at $8.99 per tonne on Wednesday for a capesize charter from Brazil to China , against $9.26 per tonne on the same day last week.



Charter rates for smaller panamax vessels for a north Pacific round-trip voyage climbed to $4,167 per day on Wednesday compared with $3,794 per day a week earlier on higher cargo volumes.



Panamax rates have risen since June 13 when they fell to $3,751 per day, the lowest since March 4.



Freight rates in the Far East for smaller supramax vessels rose slightly to around $6,000 per day this week on more cargo, brokers said.



The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index dropped to 585 on Wednesday from 604 last week.



Reporting by Keith Wallis
A. P. Moller-Maersk's chairman says that the Danish shipping and oil conglomerate could be split up in several companies, after it on Thursday appointed the head of its container business as new chief executive.

"The question is whether we should be a large group, or whether we should be a number of independent companies," Michael Pram Rasmussen told Danish online media Finans.

"It is a possibility for us, but it is not something you just do. It would be a huge task," he said.

His comments follows the appointment of Maersk Line chief executive Soren Skou as CEO of the whole group, replacing Nils Smedegaard Andersen.



(Reporting by Teis Jensen)
The Competition Commission approved the sale of a majority stake in Piraeus Port (OLP) to Chinas COSCO during its meeting on Wednesday, saying it is in line with Greek competition laws.

According to Greek national news agency AMNA, the next and final step for the changing of hands at Piraeus port is for the concession agreement to be submitted to parliament for approval.

Having taken into account the conditions and prospects of the relevant market, the improvements in its efficiency and the commitments given, concluded that the concentration does not raise serious doubts as to the compatibility of the deal with the performance requirements of competition in the individual markets it concerns, the Commission said in its decision.

After the parliament gives the green light, under the agreement sealed in April COSCO will pay to the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) 280.5 million euros (317.3 million U.S dollars) for the 51 percent of shares in PPA and the management of the port.

Following investments of another 300 million euros total worth in infrastructure works within the next five years, under the deal, COSCO will pay Greece's privatization fund an extra 88 million euros for an additional 16 percent of shares in PPA.
China's Foreign Ministry on Thursday brushed off doubts about how many countries have offered support for its position in a case brought by the Philippines over Chinese claims in the South China Sea, saying the number of nations was growing daily.



China has stepped up its rhetoric ahead of an expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague on the Philippine case. China refuses to recognise the case and says all disputes should be resolved through bilateral talks.



China says more than 40 countries have offered support for its position, the most recent being Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.



But only eight countries have come out in public support, including land-locked nations such as Niger and Afghanistan, says Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.



On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official voiced scepticism at China's claim that dozens of countries were backing its position, saying it was not clear even about what those countries may have agreed to.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said public reports showed at least 47 countries offering support, though the figure was not complete as some nations' backing had not been publicly reported.



"The number of people supporting China rises by the day, so I have no way of giving you a precise figure," she told a daily news briefing, adding that the actual number was not the most important thing.



"As long as you have an objective and impartial position, as long as you understand the main points of the history of the South China Sea and the essence of the so-called 'arbitration case', any unbiased country, organisation or person will unhesitatingly chose China's just position," she said.



China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims.



The Philippines is contesting China's claim to an area shown on its maps as a nine-dash line stretching deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia, covering hundreds of disputed islands and reefs and encompassing a vital global trade route.



The consensus among officials and analysts is that the ruling will go largely against Beijing.





Reporting by Ben Blanchard
When warping analysis is required during design of certain types of beam offshore structures, it can involve many costly hours of manual calculations by senior engineers. With the new release of Sesam GeniE software, the most common methods of performing such analyses can be done automatically, saving time and resources.



Automatic warping analysis

With the new release of Sesam GeniE, we have included automatic calculation of warping using the three most commonly used methods, says Ole Jan Nekstad, Product Director for Sesam, DNV GL - Software. The software will free up engineering resources, as senior engineers will be freed up from the rote task of performing manual warping analysis. The number of total engineering hours will be reduced, as the calculation of one beam with an open section can often take many hours to calculate manually.



These new capabilities, significantly increasing the efficiency of beam design, come alongside meshing technology enhancements that strengthen Sesams leading position for topside local design. With the new Sesam GeniE, jacket design reanalysis including code check and report update can take up to 50 percent less time for engineers to complete. The code check modelling technique is flexible, combining multiple methods.



Leaders in offshore engineering

With this release we confirm our position as a leading provider of the industrys most efficient engineering solution, says DNV GL - Software CEO, Are Fllesdal Tjnn. In times where everyone is chasing cost reduction we enable this by continuously working closely with users, creating efficient solutions and implementing best practices for engineering tasks. Sesam is used across asset types such as ships, MOUs, jackets, subsea and topsides, allowing engineering activities to be organized in the most cost-efficient way, he says.



With Sesam, engineers have flexibility, says Nekstad. The new warping analysis capabilities can save the cost of having a senior engineer do manual calculations, which can mean days of work, depending on the project. Manual calculations are complex and also more subject to error. With automatic warping analysis, the results will be the same every time. he says.



The American Institute of Steel construction (AISC) Torsion guide book includes nine rules for calculating warping torsion, where extra loads are added. Sesam GeniE now supports rules 3, 4 and 7, which are the most commonly used rules. In addition the new Sesam GeniE, version 7.3, has significantly improved calculations for marine growth, making fatigue analysis and load calculation more accurate.
Four new fast ferries, owned and managed by Manly Ferries and operating in the busy waters of Sydney Harbour, will use Simrad technology for safe navigation.



The owner has specified a range of Simrad bridge equipment for its latest vessels, including an NSO Evo2 quad-core marine processor, a 4G broadband radar with beam sharpening and target separation, an Autopilot AP28, and Simrad MO16T widescreen monitors with sunlight viewable screens and multi-touch capability.



The four new vessels, two 24-m fast catamarans and two 33-m fast catamarans, will be operating on several busy routes linking Circular Quay in Sydney Harbour with locations including Darling Harbour, North Sydney, Pyrmont Bay and Harbour Beaches. The catamarans will also be deployed on whale-watching excursions during the annual migration season. The craft have capacity for 260 and 375 passengers respectively, plus crew, with indoor and outdoor seating both on the main passenger decks, and on the upper decks which feature the latest up-to-the-minute bridge installations.



Will Ford, Managing Director of Manly Ferries, commented: Our fast ferries are running to tight schedules in and around Sydneys busy harbour. Our skippers are delighted with the existing Simrad installations  the broadband radar in particular has made a huge difference. They tell us that the low-emissions view, target definition and separation is extremely helpful in close-quarters manoeuvring. The instant-on feature is another major plus point.



From our perspective, we can also rely on the fast and effective service support from the local team, he added.



The new vessels were designed by local Sydney naval architecture firm One2Three and built by Incat in Tasmania. Ultimate Marine Power supplied, installed and commissioned the navigational equipment.



Jose Hererro, Managing Director of the Professional Marine Division of Navico which owns Simrad-branded marine electronics, revealed Simrads steady progress in this regional market.



We are very pleased to be cooperating with Manly Ferries. Their fast ferry fleet is now the most up-to-date, high-tech and efficient ferry fleet in Australia and we are proud to have our equipment in constant operation on board their vessels, he said.



Our Australian team continues to penetrate this buoyant market with a number of important contracts signed recently. The ferry sector is an important component of the light commercial sector, followed by pilot boats and patrol vessels. We have negotiations currently in progress with several potential new customers.




The Alabama Pilot, Inc., in Mobile, Ala., has ordered a Chesapeake Class pilot boat from Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation. Delivery of the new 53-footer is scheduled for mid-2017.

With a length overall of 53.6 feet, a beam of 17.8 feet, and a draft of 4.8 feet, the all-aluminum pilot boat features the C. Raymond Hunt-designed Deep V hull. It will be powered by twin Caterpillar C-18 diesel engines, each delivering 671Bhp at 2,100 rpm and a top speed of 25 knots. A Humphree interceptor trim-tab control system will be installed at the transom. Diesel capacity is 800 gallons, which shipyard officials say will provide a range of at least 380 miles at an economical speed of about 20 knots.

The engines will turn five-blade NiBrAl propellers via Twin Disc MGX-5135A Quickshift gears. The launch will be equipped with a 9kW Northern Lights EPA Tier- 3-compliant genset.

The wheelhouse, flush-mounted to the deck amidships and with forward-leaning front windows, is outfitted with six Llebroc seats and a L-shaped settee and cooled by two 16,000 Btu air-conditioning units. The forecastle includes an enclosed head and built-in cabinetry.

Outside of the wheelhouse are wide side decks, side and rear doors, and boarding platforms on the roof and port and starboard on the foredeck. At the transom are throttle and steering controls, and a winch-operated, rotating davit over a recessed platform for rescue operations.
1812 - During the War of 1812, Commodore John Rodgers leads a squadron onboard USS President off New York until she battles HMS Belvidera. The first shot of the War of 1812 is fired by USS President during this engagement.

1861 - During the Civil War, the Confederate Navy begins reconstruction of ex-USS Merrimack as the ironclad CSS Virginia at Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard, Va.

1898 - During the Spanish-American War, USS Dixie fires on two Spanish gunboats at Maria Aguilar Point, Cuba.

1933 - USS Macon (ZRS 5) is commissioned. Less than two years later, Macon crashes during a storm off Point Sur, Calif., ending the Navy's program of rigid airship operations.

1942 - While on a routine search, a PBY rescues most of the crew of S 27 (SS 132) at Constantine Harbor, Amchitka, Aleutian Islands. The rest are brought out the next day.

1945 - PB4Y 2s (VPB 118), flying from Okinawa, continue aerial mining of waters of Korean Archipelago, sowing mines in waters in channel north of Lion Do and Gantai Do, and off Ninshi Do and Chi Do.

(Source: Naval History and Heritage Command, Communication and Outreach Division)
Starting July 1, Crowley Maritime Corporation will offer weekly, fixed-day, less-than-container-load (LCL) shipping services from Houston to 33 port destinations throughout the Caribbean Basin, the shipper announced today.

The new logistics service is designed to enhance supply chain options for those shipping directly into the Caribbean Basin from the West and Gulf Coasts of the U.S., Crowley said.

Customers will be able to drop their cargo in Houston, and with our weekly, fixed-day service, have their cargo landed virtually anywhere within the eastern and western Caribbean, and Central America, said Mike Griglione, Crowleys general manager of logistics in Houston.

No other logistics company is providing a weekly, fixed-day, LCL service like this to the Caribbean Basin from Houston, said Ken Black, Crowleys general manager of logistics in Miami, adding that it is just one facet to Crowleys suite of logistics services in Houston.

In addition to LCL transportation, Crowley offers custom packing options, cargo consolidation and deconsolidation, warehousing, distribution, cross-docking, freight forwarding, import/export documentation, last-mile delivery, cargo insurance and customs brokerage services for cargo of all types and sizes.
InterManager, the international trade association for in-house and third party ship management, is giving its full support to this weeks Seafarers Awareness Week (20-26 June), co-ordinated by Seafarers UK.



Maritime Jobs for Future Generations is the theme, aiming to raise awareness of the many career possibilities the maritime world offers young people.



The shipping industry employs 1.5 million seafarers worldwide and Seafarers Awareness Week highlights the vital role seafarers play in the global economy.



This years theme also complements the International Maritime Organizations (IMO) Day of the Seafarer (25 June) and World Maritime Day (29 September), which both focuses seafaring as a career and celebrates the role seafarers play globally.



Capt. Kuba Szymanski, Secretary-General of InterManager who praises seafaring as a career, said: With so many opportunities, including in growth areas such as cruise ships, super yachts and renewable energy developments, it is paramount we ensure that the next generation views working at sea as a viable and exciting career option too. Seafarers in all their forms are indispensable to the world and are essential for the long-term sustainability of the sector, both at sea and onshore.



The work of our seafarers is indeed indispensable, and has such a profound effect on how the world economy performs, based on ships making on-time deliveries to their destinations globally. Something we can all be very proud of, he added.


Australian mining giant BHP Billiton pulled a $500 million debt refinancing plan at one of Australia's biggest coal export terminals after banks were reluctant to lend to the sector, said three sources with knowledge of the process.



The decision earlier this month sets back efforts to simplify complex debt arrangements at the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) project and stalls BHP's plan to release cash tied up in the terminal as it looks to strengthen its balance sheet amid a global commodities slump.



It also underscores the plight of the industry in trying to attract financing from lenders wary of coal's commercial outlook and contribution to climate change.



BHP had approached existing and new financiers for around $500 million of new debt to replace $685 million taken out in 2007. Under the now-defunct plan, BHP was to supply $185 million of the debt and would get the rest from lenders at generous terms, according to the three sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.



"It wasn't a problem with BHP, it was more a coal market-specific problem," said Alen Golubovic, director of infrastructure and fixed income research for FIIG Securities, adding that banks were more open to rolling over existing debt than taking on new commitments.



BHP declined to comment.



Smaller coal miners are facing similar issues in trying to refinance another Australian coal port, the Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal, where Glencore is the main backer.



NCIG is owned by a handful of coal mining companies. BHP holds the biggest stake at 37 percent. Partners include Yancoal Australia, Peabody Energy Australia, Whitehaven Coal and Banpu.



NCIG in a June 10 statement said it was deferring the capital restructure of the $500 million tranche of debt, citing adverse market conditions.



Ratings agency Moody's promptly cut the rating of the debt to junk status.



Moody's also noted that over the past three months, Peabody Energy in the United States has filed for bankruptcy, although its Australian subsidiaries to date were unaffected, and that China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co, which owns Yancoal Australia, has been downgraded with a negative outlook.





Reporting by James Regan
Lloyds Register has recently re-appraised its guidance on locations where an In-Water Survey may be carried out.

Traditionally, these locations were known as Approved Locations, and while an In-Water Survey could be carried out at a proposed location outside of these, this required special consideration.

Following worldwide consultation across all our local offices, we have now published Suggested IWS Locations that are searchable by country. These are locations where satisfactory conditions have previously been demonstrated to be suitable for carrying out In-Water Surveys. To search the locations, go to the left-hand navigation of the Class Direct Approvals section here and click Suggested IWS Locations. No log-in is required.

There is no longer a requirement to use an Approved Location, though the suggested IWS locations are considered to offer the best opportunity to carry out a satisfactory In-Water Survey.

Owners and operators are reminded that underwater conditions can deteriorate through pollution, seasonal factors, weather, tidal conditions and other causes, and the suitability of a suggested location may have to be re-assessed if it has been a long time since the last recorded In-Water Survey.

IACS requirements for In-Water Survey location

We would like to remind owners and operators of the following IACS requirements for In-Water Survey:

The In-water Survey is to be carried out with the ship in sheltered water and preferably with weak tidal streams and currents. The in-water visibility and the cleanliness of the hull below the waterline is to be clear enough to permit a meaningful examination which allows the surveyor and diver to determine the condition of the plating, appendages and the welding. The Classification Society is to be satisfied with the methods of orientation of the divers on the plating, which should make use where necessary of permanent markings on the plating at selected points.
Ships manned by humanitarian organisations, the Italian navy and the coast guard helped rescue more than 2,000 boat migrants on Thursday as calm seas returned to the Mediterranean prompting a surge in departures.

The Topaz Responder, a ship run by the Malta-based humanitarian group Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), said 23 different migrant boats had been spotted in the sea about 20 nautical miles from the Libyan port city of Sabratha.

Rescue operations were ongoing, the Italian coast guard said. "The mass movement is probably the result of week-long, unfavourable weather conditions" that have come to an end, MOAS said on Twitter.

The Topaz Responder picked up 382 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa from three different large rubber boats. The Bourbon Argos, a ship run by humanitarian group Doctors without Borders, rescued 1,139 from 10 different boats, and two other humanitarian vessels picked up 156 more.

German humanitarian group Sea-Watch said it had taken about 100 migrants and one dead body from a rubber boat, and the Italian navy said it had rescued 515 from two dinghies.

An agreement between Turkey and the EU to stop departures for the Greek islands has reduced boat arrivals by 98 percent during the first five months of the year from the same period of 2015, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

But arrivals to Italy continue at about the same clip as last year, and the deadly central Mediterranean route has already claimed 2,438 lives, IOM said.

Italy has been on the front line of Europe's worst immigration crisis since World War Two, which is in its third year. More than 320,000 boat migrants came to Italy from North Africa in 2014-15.

As of Wednesday, 56,328 boat migrants had been brought to Italy, a 5.5 percent decrease on the same period of last year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Nigerians, Eritreans and Gambians were the top three migrant nationalities this year, the ministry said, and more than 125,000 are now living in Italian shelters.





(Reporting by Darrin Zammit Lupi on the Topaz Responder migrant rescue ship, additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)
Brazil's Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said on Thursday before the Senate's Agriculture Committee that he would oppose a government proposal to tax farm exports as a way to cover a growing deficit in the country's social security program.

The president's Chief of Staff Eliseu Padilha told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper published on Thursday the tax was part of a proposal to reform Brazil's social security program.





(Reporting by Leonardo Goy; Writing by Reese Ewing)
Tidal power is moving beyond the prototype stage for state-backed French naval shipbuilder DCNS, which is targeting a billion euros in sales from the technology in the next decade.

DCNS, which is 35 percent owned by defence group Thales and 64 percent by the French state, builds warships and submarines but aims to sell its first commercial tidal power system in four years and wants to get up to 25 percent of its sales from renewable marine energies by 2025.

The firm bought Ireland's OpenHydro, which generates power from turbines installed on the sea bed, in 2013 and is working on pilot projects in France, Canada, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has installed two 16-metre tidal turbines in Paimpol-Brehat, Brittany, for utility EDF which will be connected to the grid this summer.

"We have reached a turning point in tidal turbines, we are entering the pre-industrial phase," DCNS head of energy and marine infrastructures Thierry Kalanquin told Reuters.

For now, revenue from the tidal current business is still close to zero, but DCNS expects to start selling its first turbines in 2017-18 for pilot projects and from 2020 it expects to sell its first commercial tidal turbine farms.

"We hope to get one billion euros in sales in tidal turbines in ten years," he said, adding that he sees a big market in Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Asia.

DCNS - which had 2015 net profit of 58 million euros on turnover of 3 billion euros - has invested about 150 million euros in buying Open Hydro and funding further research.

Many players in the fledgling industry are hydropower specialists, like Swiss Andritz and General Electric , or involved in naval construction, like DCNS.

Turning the Tide

But there are also start-ups, like France's Sabella, which specialises in smaller turbines for isolated sites, and Britain's Atlantis Resources, which became the first listed tidal turbine specialist in 2014.

Atlantis' market value has fallen by nearly 50 percent since then to around 60 million pounds ($89 million), illustrating the challenges the industry faces to become viable.

Kalanquin said that globally potential sites with a combined capacity about 100 gigawatts (GW) had been identified, but only about 25 GW of this can be commercially operated today, which represents a global market worth around 75 billion euros.

"We aim to win a 20 to 25 percent market share," he added.

France has a long coastline, but only one major site on the western tip of Normandy, with a 3 to 4 GW potential, of which about 1.5 GW could be commercially operated at the moment.

Kalanquin called on the French government to speed up planned tenders for tidal current turbine farms, with commercially viable scale of more than 100 MW.

DCNS will install 7 pilot turbines in Raz Blanchard for EDF in 2018. General Electric-Alstom was also selected to install turbines there for Engie.





($1 = 0.6754 pounds)



(By Geert De Clercq; Editing by Alexander Smith)
The Royal Bank of Scotland has received bids for its Greek ship finance business, banking and financial sources familiar with the matter said, following a leap in bad shipping debts at the lender over the past few months.



They told Reuters that the operation was worth about $3 billion although sources in the shipping business said that problems with lending to the industry, much of which is in a deep downturn, would affect the value of what could be recouped via a sale.



Credit Suisse and China Merchants were among the suitors bidding, the sources said.



RBS and Credit Suisse declined to comment, while China Merchants did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.



The British bank, which was rescued with a 46 billion-pound government bailout during the financial crisis, had previously been a top lender to the global shipping industry and its Greek office played a pivotal role. The business also includes a banking licence as well as about 40 staff, the sources said.



"RBS has held preliminary discussions with a number of interested parties," one source said. "The big difference here is they are not selling a portfolio of loans but a business, with staff in it able to do the debt collection stuff."



RBS, which is 73-percent state-owned, is in the midst of a restructuring aimed at returning the bank to profit after eight straight years of losses. In July 2015, Reuters reported it was winding down its Greek operation and putting its shipping loans portfolio up for sale.



While the oil tanker trade has picked up, the container and dry bulk shipping industries are struggling with a glut of ships, a faltering global economy and weaker consumer demand.



One shipping industry source said part of the RBS portfolio included non-performing loans due to the worsening conditions in some sectors.



"RBS has tried to put this sale together for some time. In the past two quarters, conditions in shipping have got worse and that has had some effect on the portfolio," the source said. "That will mean that there will have to be some price-adjustment for whatever is on offer."



Other sources said the loans could carry a 30 percent discount in order to attract interest, adding that some buyers may be interested only in parts of the business.



"It depends on the level of interest and also how quick a sale they want," a ship finance source said.



The bank's total shipping exposure reached 7.1 billion pounds ($10.4 billion) in the first quarter of this year, down from 7.5 billion pounds at the end of last year.



Non-performing loans to the industry - those on which repayments are significantly in arrears - increased to 827 million pounds in the first quarter of this year from 434 million at the end of 2015, RBS said in its quarterly results.



Reuters reported earlier this week that the European Central Bank has launched a review of banks' lending to the shipping sector. This has raised concerns among lenders that they may be required to set aside more capital and make higher loss provisions against loans to the industry.



CHINESE INTEREST

China Merchants, one of the country's biggest conglomerates, has been looking for cheap shipping and commodities-related assets in Europe, hoping to take advantage of the market downturn.



In March sources told Reuters that China Merchants had made an informal bid to buy London's Baltic Exchange, which has been at the heart of global shipping for centuries.



Greece agreed in April to sell a 67 percent stake in Piraeus port to Chinese shipping giant COSCO for 368.5 million euros ($416 million).



"For a Chinese bank, buying RBS's Greek business is an inroad into Europe. For others like Credit Suisse, RBS will have to offer something more as Credit Suisse is already a big player now in Greece," another ship finance source said.



A separate banking source added: "It is not clear if Credit Suisse's capital position would allow them to strike a deal, especially if Chinese players are competing for the asset."





By Jonathan Saul, Sophie Sassard and Andrew MacAskill
Danish shipping and oil company A. P. Moller-Maersk has appointed Soren Skou, head of its container shipping unit Maersk Line, as new chief executive for the group replacing Nils Smedegaard Andersen who has been in the job since 2007.



Soren Skou will remain as CEO of Maersk Line in addition to his position as CEO for the Maersk Group. Andersen will leave the group, Maersk said in a statement.



"The Board of Directors has tasked the new management to investigate the strategic and structural options to further increase agility and synergies," it said.





Reporting by Teis Jensen
The Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation, in conjunction with Seaspan, announced today a multi-year, multimillion dollar investment in the future of British Columbias marine industrial sector.

The commitment totals $2.9 million and includes a three-year, $900,000 donation by the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation to three institutional trades training programs in Canada. This donation has been given in support of the Industrial and Regional Benefits Policy program under the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS). The donation recipients include the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) to support Aboriginals in trades, Camosun College to support women in trades, and the Canadian Welding Association (CWA) Foundation for both new welding equipment and teacher professional development.

In addition, the commitment also consists of a $2 million investment by Seaspan, announced earlier this year, to support innovative teaching and research for the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering programs at the University of British Columbia (UBC)s Faculty of Applied Science. The investment is a direct result of Seaspans Value Proposition obligations under the NSS.

Seaspan is thrilled to honor four community and industry partners that are helping us develop and grow a shipbuilding and ship repair centre of excellence in British Columbia, said Jonathan Whitworth, CEO  Seaspan. Innovation, leadership and world-class trades training are critical components of our vision of driving Canadas marine industrial base on the West Coast. Todays announcement demonstrates an unwavering investment in attracting, training and retaining the labor force and expertise we need to deliver on our NSS commitments.

These investments by Seaspan demonstrate the impact that the Industrial and Regional Benefits Policy can have on the lives of Canadians, said the Honorable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. These investments will allow students to gain the skills they need to contribute to Canadas economy. They will also ensure that our shipbuilding industry will have the skilled tradespeople it needs to excel and grow.

The Foundations three-year commitment will extend through 2018, while UBC will receive Seaspans multi-million dollar investment over the next seven years.

The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundations charitable donations are among the organizations largest direct donations of their kind in Canada. On July 25, 2013, Seaspan, on behalf of the Foundation announced a multi-year donation of $1.1 million for three B.C. marine and port community charitable organizations  Sail and Life Training Society, Vancouver Maritime Museum and Royal Canadian Marine Search & Rescue. Since its inception, the Foundation and the Washington Familys personal contributions to charitable causes total more than $204 million in the United States to hundreds of organizations that focus on education, health and human services, arts and culture, and community service.

Giving people the tools they need to succeed in life is a primary goal of the Foundation and the partnership with Seaspan to promote access to state-of-the art training in the trades is directly aligned with the mission and goals of the Foundation, said Mike Halligan, Executive Director of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation.

BCIT is proud to support nearly 1,500 Indigenous students on their unique educational paths each year, said Kathy Kinloch, President of BCIT. In partnership with Seaspan, BCIT is pleased to launch the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation Open Arms Project, which will open doors to trades education programs for an additional 100 Indigenous students over the next three years.

This is a breakthrough moment for women entering the trades. Camosun Colleges new $35 million trades complex gives us the capacity for up to 1,000 additional trades students, many of whom will be women thanks to this generous support from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, said Sherri Bell, President  Camosun College. Our $5 million TRADEmark of Excellence Campaign is transforming Camosun into the trades education powerhouse of the coast. This is a profound investment in Camosun College and generations of women who will launch rewarding careers in the skilled trades. Thank you for this bold commitment to the future.

Providing students with a positive and safe welding experience at the high school level will help ensure the continuation of welding at the post-secondary level and then as a career choice, said Deborah Mates, Executive Director of the CWA Foundation. This generous donation from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation in conjunction with Seaspan, will enhance welding programs at the high school level in British Columbia, with the hopes that these welding professionals will come right back to Seaspan to begin their welding journey.

Graduates from UBCs masters programs in naval architecture and marine engineering are primed for careers leading ship design and shipbuilding operations throughout the marine sector, said Marc Parlange, Dean of UBCs Faculty of Applied Science. Seaspans investment supports our leadership in graduate education and research that will advance B.C.s shipbuilding and marine industries into the future.
Piracy has existed since the conception of shipping, and pirate attacks on vessels continue to disrupt trade, raising vessel security concerns and impacting the operation and insurance costs for ships, says Clarkson Research Services.

The drivers behind piracy are wide but primarily economic and clearly, geography is also key. This month, we take a closer look at recent shifts in the regional distribution of piracy hot spots.

Piracy remains a prevalent concern within the shipping industry, raising issues around vessel security, disrupting trade routes and increasing ship operation costs. In the year to date, 85 piracy attacks have been reported globally compared to 142 in the same period of 2015.

While the overall incidence of piracy has fallen since 2012 when nearly 350 attacks were reported, the number of incidents remains significant (and is likely underestimated). In 2016 so far, six ships have been reported captured by pirates, this compares to 10 vessels in full year 2015, down from nearly 30 ships in 2011.

The regional distribution of piracy incidents has varied over time. In 2016 so far, piracy attacks have been most prevalent in West Africa with the region accounting for 35% of reported incidents (30 ships).

Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has increased as Nigerian militants seek alternative sources of funding. Further, lower oil prices have made the theft of oil cargoes less financially attractive and pirates appear to be focussing on kidnap for ransom activities. Four of the six ships reported captured in the year to date were sailing in West Africa.

In contrast, no vessels have been reported captured in East Africa or the Gulf of Aden in 2016 so far. 25 ships were reported captured in this region in 2010, close to 90% of all vessels captured, largely as a result of Somali piracy.

Concerted naval efforts in these waters have led to a dramatic decline in the number of piracy incidents and the average number of attacks reported between 2013 and 2015 totals 17 ships p.a. compared to an average of 105 attacks p.a. between 2010 and 2012.

Piracy attacks in South East Asia meanwhile account for 26% of incidents reported in the year to date (22 ships). The Strait of Malacca is a key trade route and piracy attacks in the region tend to focus on the theft of cargo.

However, reported attacks in the year to date have declined 75% year-on-year with an average of 163 ships attacked by pirates in South East Asia p.a. 2012-15. Lower commodity prices have made the economics of siphoning oil and gas to sell on less attractive and with piracy in this region generally less violent, only two vessels have been reported captured in 2016 so far. Further, regional initiatives such as ReCAAP have also helped deter piracy.

So, piracy attacks are reported to be declining though hot spots remain. Lower oil prices have fuelled more aggressive incidents of piracy and vessel captures in West Africa.

At the same time, they have weakened the economic incentive for piracy in South East Asia, reducing attacks on ships. However, in the longer-term, piracy is still an important issue and regional counter piracy efforts including stronger governance and law enforcement systems remain key.
Heres the Foreign Policy Trump and Clinton Really Want

BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : Forget for a moment that Hillary Clinton is a criminal, Donald Trump is crazy, and both are liars. This is an election year, and demons stalk the world. It is now clear that one of them will be president of the United States.

Behind the heated rhetoric lie two very diverse visions for American foreign policy. But what presidents want and what they get are usually very different things.

The chief task, however, is to decode the wants from the campaign noise.

What they disagree on is vital and easily expressed. Clinton wants to keep the international system as it has been since 1945. Trump rejects the basic ideas that have guided foreign policy since that time.

What we have learned since World War II

The US learned two lessons from World War II. The first was Pearl Harbor. It taught the US that an enemy can strike at any time without warning.

The second was the price of delay. Had the US entered the war earlier and opposed Hitler before the Munich Agreement, much suffering could have been avoided.

Global involvement would be the first line of defense.

Cheyenne Mountain, home of the North American Defense Command, would be the ever watchful second line. It made sense yet was exhausting.

During the Cold War, this approach seemed right because the Soviet Union had to be blocked on the ground. It had to be deterred from nuclear war as well. The Soviet Union fell, but the military and economic structures the US had created remained.

The United States intervened in Somalia, Haiti, Kuwait, and Bosnia in the 1990s. The Soviets were gone, but the US still saw itself as the global guarantor of security.

Then 9/11 happened, and the classic American fear was made real. It was an attack out of nowhere. As the US awaited more attacks, it went on the offensive in the Islamic world.

It built a coalition that has fought wars for 15 years.

The US is still babysitting the world

Vigilance and constant involvement were the principles. The US operated through a complex system of alliances, trade agreements, monetary arrangements, and troop deployments.

Alliances like NATO and the IMF are multilateral. Some are bilateral, like with Japan or Australia. Others, like the agreement with Israel, are informal but every bit as real. Still others, like NAFTA, are purely economic.

Through this web of cooperation, the United States remains deeply embedded in the world. It must not only stand guard against global missile threats, but also act as the worlds sentry for political, military, and economic instability.

The post-1945 concepts that emerged are woven into the complex global system that has brought the US into a series of wars and constant negotiations.

Is it smart crisis avoidance or obsolete assumption?

The US also sees maintaining the stability of the international economic system as its duty. The Vietnam War, the Third World debt crisis, and concerns about Brexit became the United States responsibility.

Clinton argues that this system avoided catastrophe. From her point of view, the most important thing is what didnt happen.

Because of NATO, the Soviets didnt invade Western Europe. Nuclear war didnt happen.

Because of NAFTA, the instability that is sweeping the rest of the world didnt reach the US.

Because of the IMF and World Bank, there has been intense and significant global economic development. The world didnt stand still.

Trump counters that the assumptions behind our fundamental stance have become obsolete. Vigilance remains a basic issue, but from Trumps point of view, it has not evolved to handle the threat that struck on 9/11.

The nature of the threat has changed. During the Cold War, the US watched the skies. Now, Trump argues, the US must exclude Muslims and watch its borders.

For Clinton, international involvement means relatively easy entry into the United States. This benefits the country in many ways. For Trump, this is thinking shaped by the Cold War period. For him, 9/11 made immigration a national security issue.

Trump also argues that NATO is outdated. Today the EU has 200 million more people and a larger GDP than the US. There is no reason Europes military capability cant match or exceed that of the US.

The Europeans have created a situation where the United States must, by treaty, defend Europe while shifting the costs to the United States.

NATO may have been a reasonable pact while Europe was recovering from war, but WWII ended over 70 years ago. The world is very different today.

In the same way, free trade was essential for restarting the global economy in the post-war world. Now, the US must evaluate whether all free trade is in its best interest.

Americas choice will determine much

Pressing issues are emerging that cant be settled until a national strategy is defined.

What should our relations with Russia and Central Europe look like?

To what extent does Chinese power in the South China Sea matter to the United States?

Is free trade always good?

To what extent should the US be involved in the Middle East?

Mexico is now the 11th-largest economy in the world. How do we deal with its rising power?

The issues are endless, and many are potentially deadly. The dispute between Clinton and Trump is fundamental regardless of how the debate is framed.

Trumps argument is that constant involvement may have prevented Munich, but it is now exhausting America. Constant vigilance is unsustainable and might benefit the world, but not the US.

Clinton argues that continued involvement costs less than the instability that even a partial withdrawal would mean.

The campaign wants are clear. What we will actually get is far less so.

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On June 15, a ceremony of the establishment of the "Wang Hongyun Scholarship" was held in Yanjing Theological Seminary in Beijing. The seminary is located in Qinghe Town in the northern suburbs of Beijing. It is also the only Protestant educational institution in Northern China and one of the 18 theological seminaries in the country.

Rev. Gao Ying, the Dean of the seminary, began the ceremony by introducing the story of the donation of over RMB 700,000 yuan by Brother Wang Hongyun, a Christian entrepreneur, and said that the establishment of the scholarship fund would inspire seminarians to strive more to succeed and flourish.

Wang shared that he was grateful for God's will and blessings, thanking the seminary as it became a way for him to share what he has received. He also wished that the seminary would continue to train more talents.
Whisenton, who is currently at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, was indicted in November on a charge of second degree murder relating to the death of Cory Sharon Thomas. Whisentons attorney, Vikram Kapil, told Judge David V. Williams that Whisenton had requested a new attorney due to a perceived conflict of representation. While Kapil did not believe any conflict existed, he said that the client-attorney relationship was irreparably broken. While it is his duty as Whisentons attorney to try and protect his client as much as possible, Kapil said, he would honor the request and ask that a new attorney be appointed. Henry County Commonwealths Attorney Andrew Nester said that any agreements his office had reached with Kapil regarding Whisentons case would have to be re-evaluated if a new attorney were appointed. Williams asked Whisenton if he understood that his decision could mean the end of those negotiations between Kapil and the Commonwealths Attorneys office. He stated that he did, and he reiterated his desire for new counsel. Williams appointed attorney Michael Nicholas to represent Whisenton and set a pre-trial date for July 18 at 9 a.m. According to previous Bulletin reports, Cory Sharon Thomas was reported missing on Oct. 31, 2010 by his mother, Carla Thomas. The last known contact anyone had with him was at 10 p.m. that night in Henry County. Thomas was driving a burgundy 2004 Chevrolet Blazer. The vehicle was found abandoned on Highway 220 in the Oak Level area of Henry County on Nov. 1, 2010 by the Virginia State Police. On March 2, 2011, decomposed human remains were discovered in a wooded area behind an abandoned residence located at 330 Woodland Road in Bassett, Virginia.
Lets talk about Joseph N. Welch.

He isnt exactly a household name, but Welch played an extremely important role in our nations recent history.

It was June 9, 1954, and for about four years, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy had held our frightened country in the palm of his hand.

At a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia on Feb. 9, 1950, McCarthy claimed that he was aware of more than 200 card-carrying Communists who worked for the U.S. Department of State. He later repeated the claims, and before long, McCarthy was getting all the free press he could ever want.

The Senate asked McCarthy to make his case. On Feb. 20, 1950, he addressed the Senate and cited 81 cases of Communists serving in the State Department. His evidence was flimsy, and he didnt prove anything, but the Senate called for a full investigation and McCarthy became famous.

The second Red Scare had begun, and McCarthy was its ringleader. He fanned the flames of paranoia, citing his constantly growing list of secret Communists hiding in the federal government. He didnt share much from the list  he wasnt a fan of specifics  but he didnt need to be. A panicked nation fearing the influences of the Evil Other  in this case, Communists  was more than happy to fill in the blanks.

Paralleling all of this was the Lavender Scare, when McCarthy  with the help of Roy Cohn  started a witch hunt to ferret out homosexuals in the U.S. government, out of concern that they were easy blackmail targets for Communists.

Communists and homosexuals were seen as subversive elements in 1950s America. They were different; they didnt conform; they were scheming and manipulative; they were not patriots; they were threats to the American way of life, as McCarthy put it.

History has not been kind to Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy. Today, he is seen as a crass opportunist, a witch finder general who fanned the flames of fear and paranoia, marking anyone who questioned him as a traitor to their nation. McCarthy destroyed careers and lives, and while there almost certainly were a few Communist spies in the government, the vast majority of his targets were innocents.

But back to Joseph N. Welch.

It was June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings. The Army had accused Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army into giving preferential treatment to a former McCarthy aide. McCarthy counter-charged that the accusation was made in retaliation for his investigations of suspected Communists within the ranks of the Army.

Welch was the Armys chief counsel during the hearings, which widely aired on television and were extensively covered in the press. On the aforementioned date, McCarthy accused Fred Fisher  a promising young attorney at Welchs law firm  of being a Communist.

Welch was livid that McCarthy would publically slander his young associate on a nationally-broadcast forum. On live television, he condemned McCarthys cruelty and recklessness.

Undeterred, McCarthy continued to rail against Fred Fisher, and Welch interrupted him.

Senator, may we not drop this? Welch said. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. Youve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

With those words, Welch poked a hole in the McCarthyism balloon. He revealed that the Emperor had no clothes. It was the turning point that marked the end of McCarthys reign of terror. People began to turn their backs on McCarthy, all of his powers left him and just three years later, he died of alcoholism at the age of 48.

Welch passed away in 1960 at the age of 69, but he lives on.

Because I have created a Twitter account for Joseph N. Welch.

On Twitter, Welch follows just one person. And every day, I survey that persons tweets, pick the most egregious handful, and tweet at him: Have you no sense of decency, sir?

Who is the modern heir apparent to Joseph McCarthy? Who dominates the airwaves through fear and paranoia? Who responds to every opponent with attacks on their character? Who, in actual fact, shares an important connection with McCarthy, because he was counseled and mentored by Roy Cohn himself?

Oh, you can probably guess. But you can eliminate all doubt by following @JosephNWelch on Twitter.

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The Church of Hulunbuir launched a fundraising program for poverty alleviation in a new church at the noon of June 14 in Inner Mongolia.

More than 100 believers donated 3330 yuan as a part of the first donation and Rev. Gao Zhigang, the deputy chairman and secretary of the local CCC&TSPM, presided the program according to the provincial CCC&TSPM report.

After the foundation stone laying ceremony on August 9, 2014, Hulunbuir Church was built in August 13 2014 and held the church's cleansing liturgy on December 6, 2015. The church's interior is currently being decorated and it is estimated to be dedicated this August. However, the church has been in debt because of the construction. 150 members work for the decorations from 4 am to 7 pm every day.

It was under this circumstance that the church held the fundraising for charity.

Aside from the fundraiser, the church plans to aid local ethnic students in difficulty every September, combined with the "Religious Charity Week," an activity various religions in China hold on the ninth month of the year.
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is saying the reason it does not want to spend the $8.5 million on the connector route from the Patriot Centre to Laurel Park is because it is not enough money to build and complete this section of the road.

We are not asking them to complete this road now, as we well know this is not enough money to design and build this road, as it is with most roads that are built.

Back in the 1980s, when the current bypass was built around Martinsville from Ridgeway on 220 South to Laurel Park on U.S. 58 E, there were six miles of this bypass that the surveying and engineering had been finished on. Also, 95 percent of the right of way was bought and paid for at that time. Eighteen years later when funds became available, the rest of the right of way was bought and the road was built.

Why cant we do the same thing now and spend our $8.5 million on the route that this money was earmarked to be spent on in the first place, from the Patriot Centre to Laurel Park, as far as the money will go? If we do not choose this route for this road to be built now in Henry County, the Board of Supervisors cannot give the 66 percent of land in this right of way to the state, because this land has to be surveyed off first before it can be donated. This route has to be voted on by the Commonwealth Transportation Board before Sept. 30 of this year or our $8.5 million can be moved to a new location, up to 50 miles from Martinsville and Henry County.

The Transportation Board of Virginia can vote and authorize this money to be spent on our route if they would. I encourage all of our citizens to come to the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday night on June 28. It begins at 6 p.m. on Kings Mountain Road. Express your opinion on this matter as the Board of Supervisors will grant you up to 5 minutes to talk.

Max Kendall

Axton
Gov. Terry McAuliffe has been criticized for his recent decision to restore voting rights to convicted felons who have completed their obligations with regard to their sentence. His act has been decried as being politically motivated. I would point out that the decision not to restore voting rights to such individuals also was politically motivated and in particular was aimed at depressing the African-American vote.

For many years, Virginia was one of only four states that permanently disenfranchised former offenders. It was only through a laborious process that such a person could petition to have their rights restored and there was no provision for appeal, should the request be denied. Governor McDonnell in 2013, by a letter to the then Secretary of the Commonwealth, began to automatically restore the voting rights of nonviolent offenders after completion of their sentences, including probation and parole, and payment of fines and restitution.

With that action, Virginia remained one of eight states that continued to permanently disenfranchise some offenders. Obviously, that leaves 39 states and the District of Columbia that do not disenfranchise individuals who have been convicted of a felony. In two states, Vermont and Maine, eligibility to vote is not impacted by a felony conviction at all.

I believe our hope should be that a person can build a productive and beneficial lifestyle once they have been punished for their transgression. Surely, offering the possibility to participate in civic life by voting should be a part of our effort to reintegrate someone into society. Gov. McAuliffes action will benefit many new African-American voters, just as previous restrictions had a disproportionately negative impact on people of color. While both may be politically motivated, one thing is certain. Beyond the politics of it all, the former bends the arc of the moral universe towards justice, while the latter does not. Thanks to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for that last statement.

Martha Woody

Martinsville
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Policy amendments

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Contact

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Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com
Just slightly more than six weeks ahead of the 2016 Local government elections, the ANC is to battling on many fronts to contain the fallout from a deep political crisis. The party is deeply divided and in its weakest state ever. It is not only struggling to contain the wider social, economic and political crisis, but it is also forced to fight to manage the internal factional battles which is threatening to tear it apart.

The campaigning for the elections have been marred by infighting and allegations of heavy fraud in the councillor candidate list processes. In some cases this factionalism has even led to the dangerous situation of political assassinations.

Tensions boil over

In the politically sensitive province of Kwazulu-Natal tensions are boiling over. After a bruising leadership battle, the former premier Senzo Mchunu has been recalled by the National Working Committee and the provincial leadership. Mchunu, who was part of the big business faction of Cyril Ramaphosa, has been replaced by Sihle Zikalala who is close to president Zuma. In line with the practice of recent years, the entire losing faction is now being marginalised. A complete purge of the losing faction is now on the cards. Already four members from the losing faction have been recalled from the provincial government and replaced by the members from the pro-Zuma faction.

Branches in the province are openly divided. In eThekwini (Durban), the ANCs biggest region, the divisions are so deep that every attempt to hold a regional congress has failed. On the fifth occasion of trying, the congress imploded as delegates from only half of the number of branches in the region attended the congress with the others boycotting the process. On the night that the new leadership were elected in this deeply undemocratic process, the losing faction clashed with police outside the conference stadium. Now many councillors in the region have walked out of the party and is contesting the upcoming elections as independent candidates. Independent Newspapers (3 June 2016) quoted an ANC official expressing alarm at the situation:

There are too many people contesting independently. Its unprecedented; almost all the wards have an independent candidate, These are serious ANC loyalists. This says the ANC is in a leadership crisis - people are seeking alternative options.

According to the same official others have joined the Economic Freedom Fighters.

The decision to recall Mchunu led to an open public spat between the ANC and its alliance partner, the SACP in the province. The SACP provincial secretary, Themba Mthembu said that the decision will sow divisions ahead of the elections and that the the ANC will pay the price for destabilising Kwazulu-Natal, (Mail & Guardian, 24/05/2016).

The infighting in the ANC in the province has assumed such serious dimensions that it has led to political assassinations. Since April at least six leading party members have been killed in Kwazulu-Natal. According to ANC provincial spokesman, Mdumiseni Ntuli, these assassinations were the result of party members hiring hitmen to eliminate internal political rivals over access to positions and resources.

In the City of Tshwane (which includes Pretoria) the ANC faces mounting protests against the regions process to select candidates to act as councillors in the metro. In Mamelodi, ANC members blocked the roads to protest against the nominated councillor. The infighting was so severe that the ANC later confirmed that it would bring in Thoko Didiza from the national parliament as a compromise candidate. However, this backfired as disgruntled members clashed with metro police and rioted in the streets of Pretoria. Protests then spread to the townships surrounding Pretoria with ANC members blocking roads with burning tyres in Atteridgeville and Mamelodi. In hammanskraal and Soshanguve cars and buses were stoned. Protests then spread to Ga-Rankuwa and Mabopane.

On Tuesday the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure was prepared to put an army unit on standby as government workers were sent home early as the unrest spread to the Central Business District of Pretoria. The national leadership was clearly alarmed at the situation. The National Executive Committee is now scheduled to meet with the provincial leadership and the branches in an attempt to put out the flames which is now engulfing the capital city.

In Nelson Mandela Bay (which includes Port Elizabeth) the ANC is facing a deep revolt from its members. At least 19 wards have vowed to protest against the outcome of the list process. Furious members have vowed not to allow campaign posters to be set up unless their preferred candidates are allowed to stand. On 14 June members from numerous wards in the metro protested at the ANCs regional offices in Port Elizabeth. Members complained that the provincial leadership do not take the views of members into account, as one member from ward 44 explains:

This provincial leadership can even field a dog as a candidate against a human being, as long as the dog will do as they say. (City Press. 19/06/2016).

In the Cape Town police clashed with ANC members at its Sahara House headquarters after members, who were aggrieved about the list process, held party officials hostage for hours on June 1.

Finally, on 8 June, hundreds of members took the unprecedented step of marching on Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters. Members from the Johannesburg Metro police had to prevent party members from barricading the busy streets in the city centre. ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe conceded that there were challenges with the process and vowed to take action. This was in contradiction to president Zuma. At a rally to launch the provincial elections manifesto in Johannesburg on 4 June, Zuma appealed to party member to to accept the candidate list. This is no surprise since the fraudulent process largely favours the Zuma faction. As with the national launch in Port Elizabeth, large sections of the crowd walked out as he was speaking.

These incidents graphically indicates the extent to which the once proud internal democratic processes have degenerated. In the past, such incidents would have been unheard of in the ANC - even under the tyrannical era of Apartheid, in conditions of illegality and severe repression. Now, after two decades in government under capitalism, the party is barely recognisable to many of its own members. Over the last two decades the bourgeoisie have managed to chain a big layer of its leading members to capitalism with competing factions fighting for the spoils of high political office.

Precarious state

For decades the African National Congress have held a near monopoly on the support from the black working masses. Now 22 years after it became South Africas governing party, the ANC is facing an unprecedented situation. The collapse of the its moral authority has plunged it into its deepest ever crisis. To be sure, there have been numerous crises in the history of the 104-year old liberation movement, but none have ever involved the questioning of the very legitimacy of the ANC to be the countrys leading political party.

Ahead of this years elections the party is in a lamentable state. The 2015 National General Council of the party painted a bleak picture. Delegates at the NGC learned that the party has lost as much as 450 000 members in the three years prior to the congress. Membership dropped from 1.2 million to just above 769 000. In the province of Kwazulu-Natal, which has been the only province where the ANC saw an increase in support in the 2014 national elections, the membership drop from 331 800 to 158 199 and in the Free State province, membership dropped from 121 074 to 51 088.

Inspite of the full backing of state structures there were many empty seats at the recent inauguration of the ANC election manifesto in the former ANC stronghold of Nelson Mandela Bay are:

In his organisational report, secretary-general, Mantashe described the branches as polluted by factional politics. He said that these factions were fundamentally fighting for the resources which comes with attaining political power: Fundamentally they support a particular line-up to conferences with an expectation to be favoured and serviced for the whole term of the line-up, by being given tenders and contracts or getting deployed ahead of deserving cadres of the movement., he said.

The political report of the NGC describes how this is affecting the support for the ANC: Some of our traditional voters have in recent years become dissatisfied and some have chosen to abstain during elections, demonstrating their displeasure while still remaining loyal to the ANC. We must not take this support and loyalty for granted nor think it will be there forever.

The NGC reports gives numerous reasons for the massive drop in membership like factionalism, ill-discipline and the practices of bulk-buying and gatekeeping at branch level where branch leaders sign up members en masse ahead of conferences to boost the numbers of certain factions to give an artificial impression of real growth in the organisation. These members then exist on paper only. But while this is true, the real reason for the sudden drop in membership has more to do with the outcome of the class struggle over the last three years.

During the same period there were developments to the left of the ANC which completely changed the situation. The political and organisational independence of the big metalworkers union NUMSA from the ruling alliance and the emergence of the Economic Freedom Fighters has had an enormous impact on the ANC. Ultimately this is the real reason for the drop in ANC membership and support. Now, whereas the ANC faced the problem of voters abstaining from elections, they now face the additional problem of a mass alternative in the form of the EFF.

From broad church to bourgeois rule

The failure of the South African Communist Party to build a party of the working class opened up a vacuum which was filled by the ANC in the late 1940s. Under the dictates of the Stalinist Comintern, the SACP followed the theory of two stages of the revolution. According to this theory, before the South African working class could fight for socialism, it needed to fight for the bourgeois-democratic tasks for the revolution. Once it has achieved these tasks, then the working class can fight for socialism in the distance future.

This was a completely mechanical way of approaching the issue. The mistake of this theory was that it did not take into account the way capitalism developed historically. Capitalism does not develop as a series of national markets which are governed each by their own conditions isolated from the other. Rather, Capitalism develops as a global system as the bourgeois in more advanced countries, having saturated their own markets, turn outwards in search for new markets. By their dominance of less advanced economies and integrating them into the world market however, they also impose their mode of production and accelerate the development of a modern working class. Thus, economically backward countries do not have to go through the same period of incremental capitalist development as the most advanced capitalist countries did, but develops through a process of combined and uneven development.

South Africa is a good example of this. Although Capitalism came late to the country, the productive forces were developed so fast that by the time the ANC Youth League moved the ANC to mass struggle in the 1950s, large sections of the population were already from the working class. Under the brutal system of Apartheid over the following 30 years, the productive forces were developed so fast that an enormous working class had developed in the 1980s. This was the prior condition for the revolutionary events in the 1980s and the formal overthrow of Apartheid in the 1990s.

During all this time the SACP played second fiddle to the petty-bourgeois nationalist leadership of the ANC. Had the SACP put forward a bold socialist programme in the 1980s when the working class was clearly fighting for Socialism, the transfer of power to the working class could have proceeded relatively smoothly. Unfortunately the SACP did not see things in this way. Instead, during the CODESA negotiations, the party conceded the sunset clauses which protects the property rights of the bourgeoisie. This meant that while the bourgeoisie conceded direct state power to the black elite, the economy would still be in the hands of its white owners. In effect, the ANC government accepted responsibility for managing capitalism on behalf of the ruling class.

This elite pact which has been the basis the basis on which the ruling class has run society for the last two decades has been completely undermined. Under the impact of the rising class struggle deep divisions have surfaced amongst the ruling class. The divisions are a sign of an approaching revolutionary crisis.

A revolutionary storm

The ruling class is faced with a serious conundrum. Due to the particular development of the class struggle and the development political forces in South Africa historically, they do not have a second party through which they can intervene in the situation. The Democratic Alliance is even more discredited than the ANC. During the last national elections it received only 6% support from the Black vote. The bourgeois class does not have direct control over the EFF. The strategy for the ruling class now seems to be to try to shackle the EFF to some sort of coalition of opposition parties. Should the EFF agree to this, it will do serious damage to the three-year old party.

But fate of the ruling class is ultimately intertwined with that of the ANC. This explains why the big business faction cant simply kick out the more openly corrupt Zuma faction. The danger they face is that it could split and disintegrate the ANC. This would be a disaster for the them. A split in the ANC would mean that the ruling class would face an imminent revolutionary crisis because there would not be a force to hold back the masses. They are like a man desperately hanging on to the wreckage of a sinking ship which is dragged into the deep waters by the currents. But the current state of affairs will inevitably result in a split in the party at some time. This could even happen as early as the upcoming elections, especially if the ANC does poorly.

The fate of the ANC is bound to have a profound effect on all classes in society. We have already seen that the upsurge in the class struggle have resulted in big developments to the left of the ANC. The general rise in strikes, protests, demonstrations and marches of workers and poor communities against the attacks on the living standards over the last decade together with the crystallisation of big movements and organisations like the EFF, NUMSA and the student movement, indicates a massive shift to the left in society.

Between 2005 and 2007 there was a massive rank-and-file revolt in the ANC where a clear left wing developed. This culminated in the Polokwane conference where the capitalist wing of Thabo Mbeki was defeated by a left-wing alliance of the COSATU trade unions and the SACP.

But there is a difference between the the situation now and the situation which existed in the runup to Polokwane.The fierce class struggle over the last decade have transformed the political situation fundamentally. The advanced layers of the workers and youth which spearheaded the Polokwane revolt like NUMSA and the leadership of the ANC Youth League are now outside of the ANC. On the other hand, the authority of the SACP has been undermined by its complicity to participate in the Zuma capitalist assault against the working class over the last seven years and the COSATU unions are paralyzed after the splits over the last three years. The current conflict in the ANC is not a right/left split. The clashes are between two rival factions of the ruling class none of whom are strong enough to defeat the other. While the big business faction cannot get rid of the Zuma faction without destroying the ANC, the Zuma faction is too weak to seriously challenge big business at this stage. This process is accelerated by the local election and the the struggle for positions to plunder the state apparatus. In this process they risk pulling the entire organisation down with them.

The upcoming local government elections will be the most heavily contested in the last 22 years. In itself, local government elections do not hold any special significance. The significance, however, with this elections is that it comes on the back of ferocious class struggles over the last period which have drastically altered the entire situation. The resultant emergence of political forces to the left of the ANC, like the Economic Freedom Fighters in particular, and other political developments in general, have transformed the consciousness of large layers of the working class and the youth. The bourgeoisie is in unchartered waters.They are desperate to hold the ANC together. In the process they are merely delaying the inevitable. All indications are that the elections will open up a new period of struggle in the form of a revolutionary crisis.
SPRINGFIELD -- Comparing the last month or so remaining in the state legislative session to the Christmas rush at a department store, Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday he hopes his economic development bill doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

Baker's economic development bill is a $918 million piece of legislation that could let the state help Gateway Cities like Springfield, Holyoke and Chicopee develop unused industrial brownfields and accomplish other tasks. The bill also looks to regions around the state to take the lead in business matters, instead of looking to Boston for direction.

The bill would also fund MassWorks infrastructure grants often used for projects in Western Massachusetts.

"I can tell you that the economic development bill will have a lot more impact on life outside of 495 than it will inside of 495," Baker said while giving a keynote address at a developers conference in Springfield.

The Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts drew more than 400 developers and corporate decision makers to its Western Massachusetts Developers Conference at the MassMutual Center.

At the meeting, Richard K. Sullivan Jr., president and CEO of the Council, announced that there are more than $5 billion worth of economic projects going on up and down the Pioneer Valley from Kenametal in Greenfield to MGM Springfield in the South End.

It's a theme Baker picked up on.

"These are exciting times," Baker said. "And I know it hasn't always been an easy road for you."

The EDC invited developers from around the Northeast to learn more about sites and opportunities here in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties. This is the second time its hosted such a conference, the other being two years ago in 2014.

In addition to Baker's keynote speech, The EDC offered workshops in incentives offered to developers, and a series of "lightning round" presentations from DevelopSpringfield; MassTDI or MassDevelopment's Transformative Development Initiative and the Holyoke Innovation District.

Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said $2.7 billion of the economic development is within city limits.

"Very appreciative of EDC Executive Director Rick Sullivan's efforts to convene this Developers Conference to not only highlight the advantages of doing business here in our Western Mass. area, but also being able to trumpet the $2.7 billion in economic development in our Springfield too," Sarno said. "Great to have Governor Baker back in town again too. He's been a frequent visitor and supporter of spreading 'the wealth' to Springfield and Western Mass."

Baker also spoke of the need to improve job training, because a lack of a trained and job-ready work force is a problem he hears about from business executives and his fellow governors.

"There is a gap between the people looking for workers and the folks looking for work," he said.

He also touted his administration's hydroelectricity bill aimed at replacing lost power capacity. The bill means a lot to Western Massachusetts business which includes manufacturers who use a lot of power and are sensitive to price spikes.
BOSTON  A Lawrence tax preparer was sentenced to prison Wednesday by U.S. District Judge William G. Young, who ordered 61-year-old Leonidas Nunez to serve 20 months for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service of hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing false tax returns for Puerto Rico residents.

In March, Nunez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the IRS and six counts of submitting false claims for tax refunds. The crimes occurred from October 2010 through April 2011, according to government prosecutors.



Authorities said Nunez conspired with others to defraud the IRS by presenting false income tax returns for over 100 Puerto Rico residents, who had not had federal income tax withheld and who were not required to file income tax returns in the U.S.

Puerto Ricans pay federal taxes  Social Security, Medicare, payroll and import-export taxes  but most year-round island residents do not have to pay the federal personal income tax. However, those with income sources from the U.S., as well as those who work for the U.S. government or military, are required to pay personal income taxes.

Nunez and his co-conspirators directed the IRS to deposit the fraudulent tax refunds into bank accounts controlled by Nunez and others. All told, the scheme resulted in the filing of more than $550,000 in fraudulent claims and over $220,000 in refunds, prosecutors said.

Young ordered Nunez to pay restitution of $221,964 to the IRS. Nunez must also serve a two-year probation term after his release from prison.

The case was prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz in Boston. Ortiz and Joel P. Garland, special agent in charge of the IRS's Criminal Investigation unit in Boston, announced the sentencing Tuesday.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney William F. Bloomer, a member of Ortiz's Public Corruption Unit.
oxycodone.jpg

( JOHN SUCHOCKI / THE REPUBLICAN )

(Staff-Shot)

BOSTON - The Boston Police Department is warning people about fake Oxycodone pills being sold on the street.



The illegal pills, marked up with A/215 like Oxycodone 30 mg tablets, are actually made out of Fentanyl, police said.



"Anyone who ingests these Fentanyl pills may put themselves in serious danger of overdosing which can result in death," police said in a release on their website.



Police are "actively investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident," they added.



Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate, usually paired up with heroin or cocaine in order to boost the substance's potency. During a recent roundtable with fellow New England governors, Connecticut's Dannel Malloy said Fentanyl has kept down the price of heroin on the street.



Massachusetts recently passed a law criminalizing the trafficking of fentanyl, but the state is still seeing a sharp increase in fentanyl causing deaths.



Boston Police are asking for help in their investigation: People with information can call the Boston Police Drug Control Unit at 617-343-5625 or anonymously hit the CrimeStoppers tip line at 1(800) 494-TIPS. They can also texted the word "TIP" to CRIME (27463).



Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signs law making fentanyl trafficking a crime
HARTFORD, CT  Two men from Springfield were sentenced this week after both of them pleaded guilty to a 2015 home invasion, according to the Hartford Courant.

Clinton Mitchell, 29, and Michael Walters, 27, were both sentenced to seven years in prison, and five years of special probation, according to the paper.

Mitchell had previously pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree burglary, while Walters had pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary, as well as risk of injury to a minor.

Court records say that the two men broke into a home at 26 Walnut St. in Manchester in December, 2015. Though both Mitchell and Walters believed that the house was empty, two children  an 11-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy  were present at the time of the break-in.

The children apparently hid on the second floor of the house after they both heard the men breaking in.

At one point during the robbery the burglars even entered the room where the children were hiding, but were never aware that the children were there.

Eventually the children apparently called their mother, who then contacted the police. Officers then came to the site of the break-in, rescued the children, and discovered the two burglars hiding in the basement of the house. Police say one of the men was armed with a .22-caliber handgun, according to the paper.
Lister.jpg

Mason Lister, 21, of Arlington, was arrested this week after a multi-agency investigation led authorities to accuse Lister of possession and distribution of child pornography.

(Arlington Police Department)

ARLINGTON  Authorities have arrested a man on charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, according to Arlington police.

Mason Lister, 21, of Arlington, is currently being held at the Arlington Police Department, pending his arraignment in Cambridge District Court.

Police arrested Lister after investigations led them to believe that he was using various forms of social media  such as Kik, DropBox, and even Twitter  to trade obscene pictures of children.

At Lister's residence, authorities seized both a computer and a tablet for further investigation.

Lister is charged with both possession and distribution of visual material of a child in a state of nudity or sexual conduct.

Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan released a statement shortly after the arrest in which he decried the abuse of children as being "among the worst crimes in our society."

The FBI Child Exploitation Task Force assisted the Arlington Police Detectives in the investigation, according to police.
F-35A.jpg

The U.S. Air Force is looking for new base sites for the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, and is considering Barnes Air National Guard Base, located in Westfield.

(U.S. Air Force Photo/Staff Sgt. Darlene Seltmann)

WESTFIELD  Barnes Air National Guard Base is being considered as a potential base for a set of F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, according to Air Force officials.

A one-seat, single-engine fighter plane that can reach speeds of 1,200 mph, the F-35 is equipped with advanced sensors that allow it to "gather and distribute more information than any fighter in history," according to Lockheed Martin, the plane's creator.

Air Force officials will conduct "site surveys" at different air bases this summer as a means of assessing which bases will be the best fit for the planes.

The Air Force also recently released "basing criteria" that will be taken into consideration when determining which sites qualify for the F-35s. Officials will gauge factors like the weather and airspace surrounding potential bases, as well as sufficient hanger and ramp space and cost factors, to determine where the planes will eventually call home.

This is not the first time Barnes has been in the running as a possible site for F-35s. In 2008, the base's 104th Fighter Wing was also being considered as a potential home for the Joint Strike Fighter, as well as for the F-22 Raptor  another fighter plane that has been used often in missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barnes also has a long history of hosting attack jets, including the A-10 Thunderbolt II, an aircraft largely used for close-air support of ground troops in combat.

Col. James Keefe, commander of the 104th, expressed the base's excitement at being considered for the basing of the new planes.

"We are excited to be on the list for the fifth-generation fighter like the F-35A or for a future-generation fighter," Keefe said in a statement. "We have the experience to excel at these future missions, as we have with the F-15 Eagle, and provide combat air power to our nation for years to come."

If chosen, Barnes would receive its first F-35s in the summer of 2022, according to officials.
If you turned on cable TV news Monday, chances are good that you caught Corey Lewandowski fibbing that he doesnt have a clue why Donald Trump fired him as his campaign manager.

Of course he knows.

In a series of interviews on several shows, Lewandowski dodged every question, including from CNNs Dana Bash whether Trumps daughter Ivanka and her husband had anything to do with his dismissal. Tensions among them were well-known to campaign followers, but Lewandowski shrugged off such concerns as typical of all campaigns.

No doubt. But Lewandowski was a special case  he looked and acted more like a bodyguard/bouncer than a campaign manager. At one Trump event, he was accused of assaulting a female reporter. On Monday night, however, there was no evidence of the tough guy. Rather, Lewandowski portrayed a humble, thoughtful, soft-spoken, gee-whiz guy who only wants to do the right thing for his country and get Trump elected.

Naturally, people wondered: How big is his golden parachute? And speculators wagered: He must have signed a confidentiality agreement. This is highly probable. Usually, when high-profile employees are escorted from the building, as Lewandowski was, they tend to leave with two things: a check and a promise never to speak ill of the company.

And Trump is the company.

Theres no disagreement that Lewandowski had become a liability. His brash style, which reflected that of his employer, rubbed many the wrong way. Moreover, Trumps campaign is in dire straits. His poll numbers are slipping and are below any candidates, Democrat or Republican, in the past three election cycles.

Adding to his travails, Trumps campaign cupboard is relatively bare with just $1.3 million compared to Hillary Clintons $42 million. Something had to change and somebody had to take the fall. Or so the obvious theories have gone.

Another plausible theory is far more cynical and seems more Trumpian. It wasnt money or campaign discord  at least not exclusively  that got Lew the boot. He was fired as a sacrifice to one of the few constituencies Trump hasnt thus far insulted directly  and one he desperately needs  evangelical Christians. Could it be mere coincidence that just one day later  on Tuesday  Trump was scheduled to meet in New York with a congregation of about 900 Christian leaders to sort things out in advance of likely endorsements? Thats a rhetorical question.

Those gathered wanted to know more about the real Trump, to find a way to support him, despite his un-Christian behaviors and attitudes. And Trumps purpose was to assure them that hes really a good guy who loves the Lord, believe me, and just wants to make America great again.

The meeting was closed to media, especially The Washington Post, which Trump has banished from all events. It seems he doesnt like the way the paper is covering him. Richard Nixon felt the same way. But one imagines that his metamorphosis mirrors Lewandowskis. Remember Lewandowski, the humble, soft-spoken, gee-whiz-I-just-love-my-country fellow? Just add and-Jesus after country and youll have a fair idea of how a new, improved Trump might appear. Not so much presidential as born-again.

This is how I imagine Trumps handling of the meeting: Look, I never meant any of those things I said, not really. Sure, we need to secure our borders and be smarter about immigration, but this doesnt mean I dislike Mexicans or think theyre rapists, even though, I assume, some of them are.

I just get carried away sometimes because Im so passionate about making this country great again. God willing. Plus, to be perfectly honest, I was getting some really bad advice from my campaign manager and thats why I had to let him go.

Ba-da-bing.

Lewandowski, not Trump, was the problem all along, you see. He told Trump to act like a raging, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist. Cleansed of Lewandowskis influence, hes liberated to be his presidential self. And, in this new light, the evangelical community can justify supporting this unlikely bearer of civilizations torch. Christians love the penitent sinner who has sought forgiveness and been reborn.

Not all will buy Trumps reinvention, no matter what sort of incantations transpired Tuesday. Indeed, just across town on the same evening, another group of faith leaders gathered for dinner with members of Better for America, a new organization aimed at finding and funding an alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Barring divine intervention, theyre probably too late. Then again, miracles can happen. A penitent, born-again Trump would certainly be one.
"For small to medium to national organizations, for events and fundraisers of any size, in any format  live, virtual or hybrid  the platform is built for scale."
First Gubernatorial Debate of the 2016 Election Year in Montana on June 26

On June 26th at their upcoming state convention, the Montana Broadcasters Association will be hosting the first live gubernatorial debate between Democrat candidate Steve Bullock and Republican candidate Greg Gianforte.

The debate will take place from 9-10am Mountain Time at the annual Montana Broadcasters (MBA) Convention in Big Sky. Northern Broadcasting System will be transmitting the broadcast over the radio live to affiliate stations.

http://www.northernbroadcasting.com/index.php/voices-of-montana/bullock-vs-gianforte-first-2016-gubernatorial-debate-in-mt/

***

City Club Missoula Presents: Governor Steve Bullock, 7/11, Missoula http://www.matr.net/article-72089.html
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most powerful men in the world because billions of people give Facebook, which he founded, free access to their personal data. In return, users receive carefully curated snapshots of his life: baby photos, mundane office tours and the occasional 5K.

By KATIE ROGERS

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/technology/personaltech/mark-zuckerberg-covers-his-laptop-camera-you-should-consider-it-too.html?hpw&rref=technology&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-regionion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
Prospera Business Network is the lead non-profit organization advancing and supporting community-centered economic development in southwest Montana. Our focus is helping people start and grow their business  in turn strengthening our regions economy and communities.
Family members of the fallen Airmen of the Khobar Towers attack gathered at The Maxwell-Gunter Annex, Alabama, at the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Hall.They were there to witness the unveiling of the newest exhibit honoring the nineteen Airman that perished during the attack, June 23, 2016.

On June 25, 1996, 19 Airmen, 17 of whom were enlisted, were killed when a bomb exploded near a housing complex in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

In honor of 20th anniversary of this attack, the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Hall personnel hosted a wreath laying ceremony and presented their newest Khobar Towers display within the museum.

The original display from 1999 featured three manikins donning the uniforms of Airman 1st Class Justin Wood, Master Sgt. Michael Heiser and Staff Sgt. Kevin Johnson. The new display is now larger and in addition to the three manikins it also features a plaque with the names of the 19 Airmen who died that day, a memorial bench and an expansion of the artifact display.

The exhibit is also the first to have alternate flooring as part of the display, leading up to the display is a simulated road to signify the road that passed by the towers, which allowed the building to be accessible to the attack.

After the unveiling, Richard Wood, father of Airman 1st Class Justin Wood, peered through the glass case and admired at his sons belongings, including his full service dress and a name tag.

To be honest its a little hard not to keep a tear from rolling down my cheek, but its kind of a cool feeling, Wood said.

He decided to attend the event for a couple reasons: not only to honor his son, but to hopefully meet survivors of the attack.

Some of them have a real hard time talking to us, because they feel guilty they survived, but I wanted to meet a few of those guys and tell them that they are in our thoughts, Wood said.

Chief Master Sgt. Emily Shade, Air Force Enlisted Research Institute and Air Force Enlisted Heritage Hall director, had been through all the planning stages of the event, however, she did not realize the affect the ceremony would have over her.

I was not at Khobar towers and I had not deployed at that point in my career, but I was an Airman first class when Khobar Towers happened and I remember the event, she said. I didnt expect the dedication and ceremony to impact me emotionally, but I had a real moment of reflection this morning. Those Airmen were my peers when I was an Airman first class, and had they not been killed that day, they would be my Chief Master Sergeant peers right now, so it really touched my heart that they were me and I was them.

Woods message to Airmen was for them to know that there are still people out there who respect what they do, that they are loved and to be safe.
Blocked: Judge lets stand Miss. law protecting religious freedom in face of gay rights 23 June, 2016 by Reuters , |

JACKSON (Reuters)  A federal judge in Mississippi has allowed to stand a new state law that permits people to deny wedding services to same-sex couples based on religious objections.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves argued in his four-page order that since none of the lawsuit's plaintiffs would be harmed by the law in the immediate future, a preliminary injunction would be inappropriate.

"Here, none of the plaintiffs are at imminent risk of injury," Reeves wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi said the measure, set to take effect on July 1, unconstitutionally discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

The ACLU is suing on behalf of state residents Nykolas Alford and Stephen Thomas, a gay couple engaged to be married within the next three years, arguing the law violates their 14th Amendment rights. The ACLU is also suing on behalf of at least one of its members, who plans to marry a same-sex partner next year, the order said.

"We are reviewing the options and we will plan our next steps accordingly," ACLU of Mississippi spokeswoman Zakiya Summers said on Monday.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, a Republican, signed into law the wide-reaching measure in April, which supporters called necessary to protect businesses and individuals seeking to exercise their religious views.

Mississippi is among a handful of Southern U.S. states on the front lines of legal battles over equality, privacy and religious freedom.

In March, North Carolina became the first state to bar people from using restrooms based on gender identity versus sex at birth.

The far-reaching Mississippi law also clears the way for employers to cite religion in determining workplace policies on dress code, grooming and bathroom and locker access.

The ACLU has said the Mississippi law could affect people in sexual relationships outside of a heterosexual marriage. While the initial challenge is focused on the provisions pertaining to marriage, the organization said in a statement that it planned to fight the other provisions.

Roberta Kaplan, an attorney representing the Campaign for Southern Equality, which has also challenged the law, said the decision did not suggest the judge would not consider other arguments.

"The cases present completely different issues," she said, noting the ACLU's is one of four pending legal challenges against the law.

The same judge heard arguments on Monday in one related case, and another hearing concerning two more related lawsuits is scheduled later this week.

* Reporting by Curtis Skinner
Malteser International Americas Launches Fresh Water Initiative in Haiti

Latest program for first in, last out humanitarian organization serving the Americas



Contact: Jill Watson, 305-448-5111



MIAMI, June 23, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Malteser International Americas, a Miami-based global humanitarian organization, has launched a fresh water program in the south west of Haiti where the worst drought in 35 years has put those already experiencing profound poverty and extreme vulnerability in further jeopardy.



"Malteser International Americas is improving the lives of more than 31,000 Haitians in Belle-Anse by connecting those suffering from drought with drinkable water, bettering their nutrition, and building their local capacities in the key areas of water, sanitation and hygiene, and the environment," said Ravi Tripptrap, Executive Director of Malteser International Americas.



The drought  complicated by the tumultuous environmental effects of El Nino has been detrimental to the livelihood of local Haitians who have suffered severe agricultural losses over the past few years due to lack of rainfall and prolonged drought. Lack of water and the drought-stricken land, nearly incapable of yielding crops, have left over 1.5 million Haitians severely food insecure and without water to drink and to irrigate crops.



In response, Malteser International Americas launched the fresh water program to create a lifeline to thirsty mouths and to dying crops across Belle-Anse with an earthquake-resistant aqueduct and irrigation system.



The goals of Malteser's fresh water program for Haiti include:

Strengthening local resilience to natural disasters and socioeconomic downturns by providing stable access to drinking water, and food;



Improving the quality of nutrition by creating local partnerships and promoting the sustainable use of water, good hygiene practices, and sanitation; and



Encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources (water, soil, forest)

To survive, many locals have turned to cutting down trees to use as charcoal for cooking. Selling this wood has become their primary means of making a living, but long-term environmental costs of deforestation are nearly irreparable. In response, Malteser's new program will also focus on promoting alternatives to the sale and use of charcoal.

Malteser International Americas has been working in Haiti since the earthquake in 2010. Following initial emergency relief and support with rebuilding efforts, Malteser's programs have concentrated on building up the structural capacity in the areas of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), disaster preparedness, and food security. Malteser works closely with local partners in the urban slum areas of Cite Soleil and Tabarre, as well as the rural region of Belle-Anse.



About Us: Malteser International Americas is a global humanitarian organization with a mission of supporting the vulnerable and marginalized so that they may live a healthy life with dignity. Through our recently established U.S. headquarters, Malteser International Americas provides immediate disaster response and preparedness as well as vital healthcare and nutrition to vulnerable people in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Old Forts branch library now has a new manager who wishes to expand the materials and programs available for the public.

Ashley Salazar, 29, started her job as the manager of the Old Fort branch on May 1. She replaces Dee Daughtridge, who has recently retired from years of service with the McDowell County Public Library.

Even before her interview about the job, Salazar stopped by the Old Fort branch to check it out. It is actually named the Marion Davis Memorial Branch. In 1998, the family of Marion Davis made a substantial gift to the McDowell County Public Library so that Old Fort could have a new branch building. In recognition of this donation, the branch was named in memory of Davis, whose family was forced to leave Old Fort during the great flood of 1916.

The branch librarys street address is 65 E. Mitchell Street and it is next door to Old Fort Elementary School. It is also located across from the Mountain Gateway Museum on the other side of Mill Creek. A footbridge connects the two.

I was excited about the location and how well kept the library was, she said.

Salazar grew up in OshKosh, Wis. and attended college at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education. While a student, Salazar worked in the universitys library dealing with periodicals and handling the mail, which gave her a taste of working as a librarian. She lived for three years on an organic farm in River Falls, Wis.

Salazar moved to western North Carolina and the town of Mars Hill. There, she worked for three years at the Mars Hill branch for the Madison County Public Library. She was the childrens library coordinator and circulation assistant. For three days, she was the branch manager at Mars Hill until she got the call from Marlan Brinkley, the director of the McDowell County Public Library.

As the new branch manager, Salazar will earn $33,258 a year.

Her biggest and most immediate project in her new job is culling the materials and updating the branchs collection. Its something every library must do, she said.

The Old Fort branch gets a lot of donations of books, materials and movies on DVD. There are audio books and E-books, which are becoming more popular. Salazar said she and her staff are busy helping more and more patrons read the librarys materials on their tablets and Kindles.

The branch will soon add new magazines to the collection. They will include Yoga Journal, the Sun (which is a literary magazine published in Chapel Hill) and the Atlantic.

Many people are familiar with the Abe Simmons Room at the Marion branch. This room is devoted to materials about local history, North Carolina history and genealogy. But the Old Fort branch has a section devoted to that too. Salazar plans to work with Patti Holda, the manager of the Abe Simmons Room in Marion, to expand the local history/genealogy section in Old Fort.

Salazar also wants to add more childrens books.

With the summer reading program, Im looking forward to meeting more families in Old Fort, she said.

The McDowell County Public Library kicked off its summer reading program for 2016 on Wednesday, June 15. A total of 82 people came last week to the Old Fort branch for the kickoff party, said Salazar.

Since taking over as branch manager, Salazar said she is fortunate to have such a great staff. She has three staff members.

Since Ive been working here, Ive been blessed with such an amazing staff, she said. They do everything without being told. They are always looking for more work.

And by meeting the patrons, she is getting to know the Old Fort community better.

Ive got a few new volunteers, said Salazar. Using community volunteers is important to me.
Christian Ministers and Activists to Hold Prayer Vigil and Public Witness at Speaker Ryan's Office Concerning Gun Violence

Contact: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741



WASHINGTON, June 22, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- The vigil will be on Thursday, June 23, at 11:00 A.M. outside of his Washington, D.C. office located at 1233 Longworth HOB.



The public vigil takes place against the backdrop of an historic sit-in by House members in the U. S. Capitol building calling upon Speaker Ryan to allow a vote on a bill that would restrict access to guns to those on no fly and terrorist lists.



The sit-in is also days after the worst mass shooting in modern history where 49 innocent people were killed and 53 wounded in an Orlando, Florida nightclub.



Rev. Rob Schenck and Rev. Patrick Mahoney will also be seeking a face to face meeting with Speaker Ryan.



Rev. Rob Schenck, President of Faith and Action and the subject of Abigail Disney's award winning documentary on gun violence "The Armor of Light" states;

"The enormity of the tragedy in Orlando, perpetrated by an ISIS inspired terrorist who cheaply and easily bought what amounts to a machine gun, signals a moral crisis that now demands action.



"When I sat with Speaker Ryan at the papal mass, we talked about the moral challenges our country faces. This is one. I'm hopeful he'll do the right thing and lead Congress to remedy this deadly loophole."

Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Pastor of Church on the Hill and Director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, D.C. adds;

"After the horrific shootings in Orlando and the tragic loss of thousands of lives every year through gun violence, it is time for the most important voice to be heard and engage on this issue. That voice is the Christian community and the pulpits of thousands of churches that dot the landscape of America. Sadly, this voice has been mostly silent.



"In this moral vacuum, we have only heard the trite sloganeering of the National Rifle Association and the empty promises of our political leaders. It is the faith community that can provide a clear, moral and inspirational response to this troubling issue and ignite a national conversation that will provide a path toward ending gun violence. We can not longer be silent. We can no longer be indifferent while this violence continues.



"We call upon Speaker Ryan to allow this House vote to move forward in the House, but more importantly to initiate dialogue and debate in the House to find creative and bold ways to end the horror of gun violence in America."

For more information or interviews call:

Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741
by Richard Whitman , Columnist, June 22, 2016

Today I could write about Vayner Media and Thrillist and their "attractive females only" party in Cannes, but Cindy Gallop already has that one covered quite well and you're probably sick of hearing about it. Or maybe I could touch on everyone bitching about poor WiFi service on the Croisette. Or even that couple who had sex on the red carpet. Oh wait, that last one happened last year -- so we're still waiting for this year's Salacious Cannes Moment.

So maybe I'll just write about AKQA's Future Lions winners. Yeah, that sounds good. Today in Cannes, AKQA announced the winners of its annual Future Lions awards, which honor student work. Over 1,900 students from 69 countries participated.

The five winning ideas and teams are:

Book Messenger for Penguin Books

Team: Jiwon Ko, Miyeon Shin, Seonhaeng Lee, Haeyoon Jhun

Schools: Kookmin University, Hongik University, Chung-ang University / Big Ant Academy, South Korea



Amazon Emma for Amazon

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Team: Yanci Wu and Xia Du

School: VCU Brandcenter, United States

IKEA HALLBAR for IKEA

Team: Filip Myringer, Amelie Farmer, Olga Lillienau, Sofia Bleiweiss, Ebba von Zweigbergk School: Berghs School of Communication, Sweden



Lego Generator for LEGO

Team: Petter Monsen, Tomas Moller, Axel Lokrantz Manson, Kristofer Gullard Lindgren, Simon Kraft

School: Beckmans College of Design, Sweden



Music Speaks for Spotify

Team: Sebastian Brannen and Maria Lashari

School: Berghs School of Communication, Sweden

You can see all the winning work here.



Berghs School of Communication is named Future Lions School of the Year, having received more shortlisted finalists than any other school. This is the third year in a row that Berghs has won this recognition.

Each winning team and Berghs School were awarded the Future Lions trophy on stage in Cannes. Torsten Schuppe, Googles Senior Director, Brand and Consumer Marketing EMEA, presented the School of the Year trophy. The ceremony was hosted by AKQA CEO Ajaz Ahmed and Group Creative Director Ian Wharton.

Of the winners, Ahmed said, Future Lions is a canvas where the next generation of talent unleash the start of their creative potential, sowing the seeds of an enterprising and rewarding career.

AKQA has run the Future Lions program since its inception in 2006 and the competition is said to have launched the careers of over 60 creatives.

Oh and if awards aren't really your thing -- of if you're bored with all things Cannes --you could always get a tiny laugh out of these visuals, which envision "Game of Thrones" characters as agency employees.

Or you could just go back to sending angry tweets to Gary Vaynerchuk.
Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB North America, just proposed a challenge to the brand leaders gathered in Cannes: Stop making more ads, and, instead, start making more good ads.

Good work is interesting, compelling, [and] share-worthy, Clark told a packed house at Lumiere Theatre on Tuesday. It makes people react  it makes people feel something, she said. Use a definition like that to define what good work is.

Unfortunately, as the market has expanded, we have too many clients and too many agencies that have simply and quite mindlessly pursued a goal of just more, Clark lamented. That has made for a quantity game of content.

On average, in fact, U.S. consumers are now exposed to 6,000 brand images every day.

If thats the case, more cannot be a strategy, Clark insisted. Quite frankly, many if not most brands have become rude and annoying.

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Clients too often are force-fitting themselves into a conversation, commented Clark. They are inviting themselves into a conversation where they dont belong; where theres nothing material that they can contribute; where its not useful; where its not interesting; where its not compelling; where its not share-worthy  and that ultimately becomes annoying.

So? So, the goal for all of us  the standard we have to hold ourselves accountable to is more good, Clark concluded. Not just more, [but] more good.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, June 22, 2016

Y&R won a second Grand Prixthis time for the Media categoryfor its McWhopper campaign created by Y&R New Zealand for Burger King. The campaign picked up its first Grand Prix earlier in the Print & Publishing Category, as well as 4 Gold and 2 Silver Lions.

Code & Theory, Alison Brod Public Relations, The David Agency, Rock Orange, Turner Duckworth and Horizon also contributed to the campaign.

The campaign began with a print ad in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune in which BK held out an olive branch to McDs (for just a day, an offer that the competitor did not accept) and was surrounded by shareable content. It struck a chord with millions of consumers around the world, going viral, with nearly 8.9 billion media impressions, $138 million in earned media and a 40% increase in awareness of Peace Day. Around the world, people uploaded videos of their own McWhopper creations.

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Jury president Nick Waters, CEO Dentsu Aegis Network, Asia Pacific cited the ingenuity of the campaign, featuring a big brand taking on an even bigger competitor, moving quickly and being bold.

Tony Granger, Global Chief Creative Officer of Y&R stated: We are ecstatic to win a second Grand Prix for the McWhopper campaign tonight. Josh Moore, Tom Paine and the whole team at Y&R New Zealand were passionate and persistent  and it goes without saying that the campaign would not have taken flight without Burger Kings SVP of Global Brand Marketing, Fernando Machado. We thank him for his faith in the team and the power of a great idea.

Last year, Y&R won the Media Grand Prix for Vodafones Between Us campaign.
by Tobi Elkin @tobielkin, June 23, 2016

Advertising automation platform Kiosked, media agency MEC, and Hong Kong Airlines launched a campaign that used Kioskeds 360-degree Panorama Video 360 ad units. Kiosked debuted the programmatically traded ad unit earlier this week.

The Kiosked 360 Panorama Video ad format allows audiences to experience advertising in a virtual reality (VR) window that includes video fly throughs showing Hong Kong Airlines business class seating and cabin. A demo of the dynamic VR format can be viewed here.

The results of the campaign revealed:

-- The ad units were 35x more effective than traditional display advertising, with 4.51% click-through to the airlines site.

-- People spent 9x longer exploring the content vs, traditional display advertising.

Kiosked says because of its standard size (300 x 250), the 360 Panorama solves the challenge of scaling immersive advertising campaigns on mobile. The mobile format invites users to virtually dive into the brand video by clicking on a 300 x 250 mobile banner. The content expands and enables consumers to see all 360 degrees of the video by tilting and rotating a handheld device.

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The 360 Panorama Video is the latest unit to be released by the Kiosked Innovation Lab, which aims to develop immersive brand experiences for sectors that include airlines, hotels, tourism, events, automotive, and real estate. Because of its mobile-first nature, Asia Pacific is the optimal ground for launching these units that engage users wherever they are, stated David McGrath, managing director of Kiosked and co-chairman for the Data Council of the Interactive Advertising Bureau Singapore.

Hong Kong Airlines claims it's the first brand to use the 360 ad unit programmatically in Asia Pacific.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 23, 2016

Google Fiber has entered into an agreement to acquire San Francisco-based Webpass in an effort to create faster Internet connectivity in the U.S. It also will allow Google to deliver a combination of fiber and wireless services.

The acquisition -- the first publicly announced by the Alphabet subsidiary -- will give Google Fiber a boost in dense, urban areas, rather than having to build everything from scratch.

Google Fiber announced the acquisition in a Twitter Tweet. The transaction is expected to close in summer 2016, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

"By joining forces, we can accelerate the deployment of superfast Internet connections for customers across the U.S.," wrote Charles Barr, president of Webpass, in a blog post. "Webpass will remain focused on rapid deployment of high speed Internet connections for residential and commercial buildings, primarily using point to point wireless."

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Webpass runs its own Ethernet network, removing the dependence on phone and cable companies.

Barr, who founded the company 13 years ago, boasts that Webpass has tens of thousands of customers across five major U.S. markets such as San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Diego, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Chicago, and Boston, adding to Google Fibers growing list of operational cities.

The company supports business Internet connections from 10 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps and residential Internet connections from 100 Mbps to 1 Gig.

Google offers Fiber in Provo, Austin, Kansas City, Nashville, and Atlanta, with plans to offer service in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Antonio, Huntsville, Charlotte, Raleigh Durham, and others.
home Tech Microsoft Surface Phone release date, specs news 2016: Device to arrive March next year with 3 variations?

The Microsoft Surface Phone has been in the rumor mill for quite some time now. Despite the lack of confirmation from the company with regard to these several speculations, fans have continued to talk about the upcoming handset and its possible specs and features. According to the latest reports, the device will certainly arrive in variants and several enhancements.

In a report by New Independent, the rumored Microsoft Surface Phone will come in three variants a the basic, the advanced and the Pro. According to the publication, the basic model will come with 4 GB of RAM, along with 64 GB internal storage capacity. On the other hand, the advanced variant is said to come with 6 GB of RAM, along with 128 GB of onboard storage. Meanwhile, the Pro variant will feature a whopping 8 GB of RAM to be paired with 512 GB internal storage space.

The Pro model of Microsoft Surface Phone is going to be interesting once it hits the market. It appears to several tech observers that the company is pushing the limits of smartphone performance to compete with those of tablets and laptops.

The report also says that all variants will come with Snapdragon 830 processor from Qualcomm. Other features of the device include a 21 MP Carl Zeiss primary snapper and a 10 MP selfie shooter. There are also speculations suggesting that the device will come with a built-in QWERTY keyboard similar to that of the Surface Pro hybrids.

As of the moment, Microsoft has yet to provide solid details with regard to the development and release date of the Surface Phone. There are speculations circulating all over the Internet saying that the device may come out in March of 2017. Rumor has it that Microsoft will host a big release during that time as they will also roll out the Surface Pro 5 tablet.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 23, 2016

Canon USA will announce Thursday at VidCon that Anna Akana, YouTube creator, will become the next Rebel in the company's Rebel with a Cause campaign.

The campaign showcases modern-day rebels who challenge convention in their own way while capturing causes near and dear to their hearts through the eye of a Canon Rebel DSLR camera. Canon began a search for its latest rebel earlier this year.

Akana is an advocate against cyberbullying and works with young kids to build self-confidence, according to Robert Altman, manager at Canon USA. "We will work with her to create content," he said.

Canon looks for engagement from the creator's audience and the type of comments fans leave in content posts.

"Tying x-number of dollars in revenue to one specific segment or person is just as difficult today as it was years ago trying to tie sales to a TV spot or a print ad," Altman said.

While Canon's customers range in age, Altman said YouTube skews to a younger audience that also might want to create content.

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One of the first questions fans of YouTube creators typically asks is "Hey, what did you shoot this on?" which for brands is worth a million bucks.

VidCon, the annual video star convention that takes place in Anaheim, Calif, near Disneyland, attracts fans, talent, and brands looking for that relationship, but it appear that tying sales back to creators and investments in YouTube hasn't got any easier.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, June 23, 2016

Television monitoring service TVEyes is a "low-level plagiarist" that "imposes a huge economic impact on those who investigate and report the news," the American Society of Journalists and Authors argues in new court papers.

The organization is urging the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a trial judge's decision that TVEyes' indexing and clipping service was transformative, and therefore a fair use, because it serves a different function from the original broadcasts.

The dispute dates to 2013, when Fox alleged that TVEyes infringed copyright with its $500-a-month online monitoring service, which enables subscribers to watch online video clips from shows like On the Record with Greta Van Sustren and Special Report with Bret Baier.

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The service is used by journalists, the White House, politicians and the U.S. military, among others.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan issued a mixed ruling in the case. In September of 2014, he said TVEyes makes fair use of Fox's material by indexing its news clips and providing snippets of them to subscribers.

Without TVEyes, there is no other way to sift through more than 27,000 hours of programming broadcast on television daily, most of which is not available online or anywhere else, to track and discover information, Hellerstein wrote of the service.

The White House uses TVEyes to evaluate news stories and give feedback to the press corps, Hellerstein added. The United States Army uses TVEyes to track media coverage of military operations in remote locations, to ensure national security and the safety of American troops.

The following year, Hellerstein ruled that other components of TVEyes' service -- including functions enabling subscribers to download clips for offline viewing, email clips to others, and to search programs by date and time -- are not protected by fair use.

TVEyes and Fox both appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors is one of a broad array of outside organizations siding with Fox in the matter. Rival broadcasters, including CNN and Hearst, are backing Fox, as are organizations like the National Association of Broadcasters and National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

The ASJA argues in its friend-of-the-court brief that a decision in favor of TVEyes would harm the news industry.

"Without copyright protection, it becomes economically impossible for journalists and news organizations to earn a return on their creativity," the group writes. "TVEyes service undermines and conflicts with creating the very type of work that it copies and delivers to its commercial customers."

CNN, Hearst and other broadcasters add in separate papers that TVEyes "unlawfully misappropriates" the market for short video clips.

"It charges hefty subscription fees to its customers in exchange for distributing massive numbers of full clips of news stories it has neither created nor licensed," CNN and the others write.

"Clips shared via TVEyes do not direct users back to an original site, preventing the copyright owner from monetizing the content either through direct advertising, increased traffic metrics or licensing. Instead, TVEyes captures 100% of its high subscription revenues for itself."

TVEyes also has drawn support from outside groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Archive.
Deploying the unmanned vehicles in low- and middle-income countries could also improve vaccination rates.

Using unmanned drones to deliver vaccines in low- and middle-income countries may save money and improve vaccination rates, new research led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center suggests.

The cost savings would come from drones being able to deliver vaccines more quickly and cheaply than land-based methods limited by road conditions and the need for costly fuel and maintenance, the researchers note in their study, published in the journal Vaccine.

"Many low- and middle-income countries are struggling to get lifesaving vaccines to people to keep them from getting sick or dying from preventable diseases," says senior author Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School and director of operations research at its International Vaccine Access Center. "You make all these vaccines but they're of no value if we don't get them to the people who need them. So there is an urgent need to find new, cost-effective ways to do this."

In low- and middle-income countries, there are many challenges faced by immunization programs, which provide childhood vaccines such as hepatitis B, tetanus, measles and rotavirus, and will be utilized in the future as vaccines for dengue, malaria and Zika are developed and brought to market. After entering a country, vaccine vials typically travel by road through two to four storage locations before arriving at clinics where health workers administer doses to patients. Most vaccines need to remain refrigerated until they are used or they will spoil. Non-vaccine costs of routine immunizations are expected to rise by 80 percent between 2010 and 2020, with more than one-third of costs attributable to supply chain logistics. Supply chain inefficiencies can mean that many vaccines don't even reach the people who need them.

Meanwhile, unmanned drones have proliferated in recent years because they can traverse difficult terrain, reduce labor costs and replace fleets of vehicles. They have been used for surveillance and in humanitarian aid delivery and are now being developed to transport medical samples and supplies, though previously little has been known whether this is a cost-effective use of the new technology.

For their study, Lee and his colleagues created a HERMES computer model to simulate a traditional land-based transportation system - a combination of trucks, motorbikes and public transit - and compared it with an unmanned drone system for delivering vaccines as part of an immunization program. Seattle-based non-governmental organization Village Reach helped provide data for the model. They varied characteristics such as geography, population, road conditions and vaccine schedule in order to assess which conditions would most contribute to drones offering the biggest cost savings.

They found that using drones to get vaccines to the last stop on their journey - vaccination locations - could slightly improve vaccine availability - potentially immunizing 96 percent of the target population as compared to 94 percent using land-based transport - while producing significant savings: eight cents for every dose administered (roughly a 20 percent savings). To save money, the drones would need to carry at least .4 liters of vaccines and the researchers say that the drones could carry at least 1.5 liters. If there were no flight delays for scheduled drone deliveries and the drones carried 1.5 liters, the researchers noted, each flight could cost up to $8.93 and annual infrastructure and overhead costs could cost up to $60,000 and still produce savings. As a comparison, the researchers studied the traditional land-based immunization system in Mozambique, which has achieved 94 percent vaccine coverage, but they note that many countries currently cover fewer than 60 percent of the population using land-based approaches.

"Currently, in many locations, vehicles that transport vaccines aren't always available or reliable," Lee says. "Assuming that drones are reliable, are capable of making the necessary trips and have properly trained operators, they could be a less expensive means of transporting vaccines, especially in remote areas. They could be particularly valuable when there is more demand for certain vaccines than anticipated and immunization locations must place urgent orders."

While the computer models are good at theoretically analyzing the cost effectiveness of drone technology, the researchers say that real-world testing must be done to make certain that drones are a viable way to transport vaccines. And many obstacles may exist. Regulatory issues could limit the ability of drones to deliver goods and commodities. Maintaining and operating the equipment would require specialized tools and skills that may be difficult to access in these developing countries. Since no person would accompany a shipment, greater coordination would be needed between those shipping and those receiving the vaccines. Appropriate packing to maintain vaccine quality would need to be developed.

Drones are currently being tested for medical supply deliveries in rural Virginia, Bhutan and Papua New Guinea. UNICEF is testing the feasibility of using them to transport lab samples in Malawi. And in Tanzania, there are efforts afoot to transport blood and essential medications.

The research was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (RO1HS023317) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (UO1HD086861 and U54HD070725).

Article: The economic and operational value of using drones to transport vaccines, Leila A. Haidari, MPH; Shawn T. Brown, PhD; Marie Ferguson, MSPH; Emily Bancroft, MPH; Marie Spiker, MSPH; Allen Wilcox, JD; Ramya Ambikapathi, MHS; Vidya Sampath, MSPH; Diana L. Connor, MPH and Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, Vaccine, doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.06.022, published online 20 June 2016.
In the 20 years since gun law reforms and buyback programs in Australia, there have been no mass shootings and a more rapid decline in total firearm deaths, according to a study published online by JAMA.

In 1996, Australia introduced sweeping gun laws following a mass shooting in which a man used 2 semiautomatic rifles to kill 35 people and wound 19 others. The new gun laws banned rapid-fire long guns (including those already in private ownership), explicitly to reduce their availability for mass shootings. In addition, by January 1997, all 6 states and 2 territories in Australia had begun a mandatory buyback at market price of prohibited firearms. From October 1997, large criminal penalties, including imprisonment and heavy fines, applied to possession of any prohibited weapon.

Simon Chapman, Ph.D., of the University of Sydney, Australia, and colleagues examined whether enactment of the 1996 gun laws and buyback program were followed by changes in the incidence of mass firearm homicides (defined as 5 or more victims, not including the perpetrator) and total firearm deaths. The researchers used Australian government statistics on deaths caused by firearms (1979-2013) and news reports of mass shootings in Australia (1979-May 2016).

From 1979-1996 (before gun law reforms), 13 fatal mass shootings occurred in Australia, whereas from 1997 through May 2016 (after gun law reforms), no fatal mass shootings occurred. There was also significant change in the preexisting downward trends for rates of total firearm deaths prior to vs after gun law reform. From 1979-1996, the average rate of total firearm deaths was 3.6 per 100,000 population (average decline of 3 percent per year), whereas from 1997-2013 the average rate of total firearm deaths was 1.2 per 100,000 population (average decline of 4.9 percent per year).

There was a statistically significant acceleration in the preexisting downward trend for firearm suicide, but this was not statistically significant for firearm homicide. From 1979-1996, the average annual rate of total nonfirearm suicide and homicide deaths was 10.6 per 100,000 population (average increase of 2.1 percent per year), whereas from 1997-2013, the average annual rate was 11.8 per 100,000 (average decline of 1.4 percent per year). There was no evidence of substitution of other lethal methods for suicides or homicides.

The researchers note that because there was a greater magnitude decline post-1996 in total nonfirearm suicide and homicide deaths than the decreases for suicide and homicide involving firearms, it is not possible to determine whether the change in firearm deaths can be attributed to the gun law reforms.

"We are unaware of any other nation that has enacted such a substantial change in gun laws as has been implemented in Australia. Comparative studies of Australia's experience with broadly comparable nations would provide further evidence of the effects of such law reform," the authors write.

Article: Association Between Gun Law Reforms and Intentional Firearm Deaths in Australia, 1979-2013 , Simon Chapman, PhD; Philip Alpers; Michael Jones, PhD, JAMA, doi:10.1001/jama.2016.8752, published online 22 June 2016.

All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Dr. Chapman reported being a member of the Coalition for Gun Control (Australia) from 1993-1996. Mr. Alpers reported being director of GunPolicy.org.

Editorial: Lessons From Australia's National Firearms Agreement

"What can the United States take away from the experience of Australia's National Firearms Agreement (NFA) and the findings reported by Chapman et al? Political, cultural, and legal challenges make it highly unlikely that the United States would implement comparable policies," writes Daniel W. Webster, Sc.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, in an accompanying editorial.

"Yet the experience in Australia over the past 2 decades since enactment of the NFA provides a useful example of how a nation can come together to forge life-saving policies despite political and cultural divides. Australia has comprehensive regulations to limit the misuse of handguns as well as long guns that are more restrictive than anywhere in the United States, even in those communities with the strictest gun laws. If U.S. firearm homicide rates were only 10 times as high as firearm homicide rates in Australia, rather than 23 times as high, there would be substantially fewer homicides."

"There is evidence that some U.S. policies at the state level (e.g., handgun purchaser licensing, gun restrictions for domestic violence offenders, gun restrictions for violent misdemeanants, gun safe storage laws) are associated with reductions in firearm-related violence and fatalities. Research evidence should inform the way forward to advance the most effective policies to reduce violence. However, research alone will not be enough. Australian citizens, professional organizations, and academic researchers all played productive roles in developing and promoting evidence-informed policies and demanding that their lawmakers adopt measures to prevent the loss of life and terror of gun violence. Citizens in the United States should follow their lead."

Editorial: Lessons From Australia's National Firearms Agreement , Daniel W. Webster, ScD, MPH, JAMA, doi:10.1001/jama.2016.8819, published online 22 June 2016.

The author has completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Dr. Webster reported that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research has previously received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies to conduct and disseminate research to inform gun policy, and the center has a current grant from Everytown for Gun Safety to study Baltimore's underground gun market.


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Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry (BERA) is an objective test to understand the transmission of electrical waves from the VIIIth cranial nerve to the brainstem, in response to click sounds given through the ear.(1  Trusted Source BAER - Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response Go to source ) The procedure is also called Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR), Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potential (BAEP), Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) and Evoked Response Audiometry (ERA).(2  Trusted Source The Human Auditory Brainstem Response to High Click Rates Go to source )

Brainstem Evoked Response was first described by Jewett and Williston in 1971. The test procedure and the interpretation of the results are typically done by an audiologist.(3 Trusted Source

Auditory Brainstem Response Wave Amplitude Characteristics as a Diagnostic Tool in Children with Speech Delay with Unknown Causes



Go to source)

When a sound reaches the ear, it passes through the external ear canal and vibrates the eardrum. These vibrations are conducted by three small bones in the middle ear, the malleus, incus and stapes to the inner ear.(4 Trusted Source

Anatomy and Physiology of the Ear



Go to source) The inner ear contains the cochlea, which plays an important role in hearing, and the vestibular part, which is involved in maintaining balance. Signals for hearing and balance from the inner ear are carried by the 8th cranial nerve, also called the vestibulocochlear nerve, to a vital part of the brain called the brainstem.(5 Trusted Source

Neuroanatomy, Cranial Nerve 8 (Vestibulocochlear)



Go to source) Signals then pass on to the part of the brain where they are interpreted.

BERA is generally used to identify any pathology in the vestibulocochlear nerve or the brainstem. The test is recommended for infants who are at a high risk for hearing loss and in whom conventional audiometry cannot be performed.(6 Trusted Source

Hearing Loss - An Overview



Go to source)

The following are the steps involved in the procedure of Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry:

The person is made to lie back on a reclining chair or on a bed and is asked to remain still. For infants, it is usually done when they are sleeping.

Stimulus is given in the form of a click sound or tone pip, via an ear phone or head phone. The stimulus is of varying loudness and of the frequency range from 1000 to 4000 Hz.(   Trusted Source

Perceptual Encoding in Auditory Brainstem Responses: Effects of Stimulus Frequency



Go to source Trusted Source

The waveforms of impulses are produced at the brainstem in response to the sound stimulus.

These waveforms are recorded by the electrodes that are placed over the scalp at various places as follows:

Non-inverting electrode over the vertex of the head, which is the most prominent point at the back of the head



Inverting electrodes on each ear lobe or mastoid prominence, the hard bony prominence behind each ear



Earthing electrode over the forehead.

The generated waveforms are amplified through various electrical procedures easy recording of waveforms.

The peaks of the waveform are labeled as Wave I to Wave VII.

The time interval between the waveform and the click stimulus is usually within 10 milliseconds.

Various readings in different positions and polarities are recorded and marked.

The recorded waves are sent for interpretation.

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Preparing for Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry Test(   Trusted Source

Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) Test



Go to source Trusted Source

The hair must be oil-free. The person undergoing the test is advised a shampoo bath before the testing procedure.

Lying still is very important for the BERA procedure. So, a mild sedative may be administered to the person or infant to sleep during the procedure.

BERA procedure is recommended:

To identify the site of the hearing problem. The test detects pathologies from the vestibulocochlear nerve up to the brainstem.

As a hearing screening test in hyperactive, intellectually impaired or other children who would not able to respond to conventional audiometry.

Asymmetric hearing loss - hearing loss that is more in one ear than the other.

As a hearing screening for infants who are at high risk of hearing impairment like:

Family history of congenital hearing loss



Hyperbilirubinemia or high bilirubin levels



Deformities or malformations of the head and face



Head Injury



Parental concerns about hearing levels in the child

Nervous system abnormalities and suspected acoustic neuroma, which is a benign tumor of the 8th cranial nerve.

The auditory evoked potential signals produced by the brainstem are recorded as waves containing peaks and troughs. The peaks are positive potentials that are recorded from the electrode at the vertex and are marked as wave I, wave II and so on up to wave VII.(10 Trusted Source

The Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response in Old Versus Young Horses



Go to source)

The waves I to VII are believed to arise from parts of the brainstem which are listed below:

Cochlear nerves  Wave I and Wave II

Cochlear nucleus (Brainstem)  Wave III

Superior olivary complex  Wave IV

Lateral lemniscus  Wave V

Inferior colliculus (Midbrain)  Waves VI and VII

In normal hearing adults, the response to the click stimulus presented for about 1 to 10 milliseconds is recorded. Responses beyond 10 milliseconds are thought to be potentials that arise from thalamus (10-80ms) and cortex (80-500ms) of the brain.

The following parameters are measured:

Amplitude of the wave  indicative of the number of neurons firing

Latency  speed of transmission

Time interval between peaks

The difference in wave V latency of one ear compared to the other.

BERA is an effective tool that can be used for various screening, testing and surgical monitoring procedures:

Hearing aid selection and fitting in infants and children.

Development and surgical fitting of cochlear implants.

Evaluation of hearing loss due to retro-cochlear pathology (lesion beyond the cochlea), like acoustic neuroma or acoustic schwannoma.

Screening for hearing loss in newborns, infants and other young children.

Diagnosis of any suspected demyelinated disorders like multiple sclerosis.

Monitoring of central and peripheral nervous system during surgical procedures like treatment of facial palsy or Menieres disease

There are no known risks of undergoing Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry.

The interpretation of the results however, has to be done carefully. This is because the recordings of the electric potentials generated by the neurons can be contaminated by the potentials generated by the muscles where the electrodes are placed.
Teleradiology is a part of telemedicine in which radiological images are transferred using telecommunication services to other facilities for reports from qualified radiologists.

This method is used to transmit reports of imaging studies like:

X-rays

MRI

Ultrasound

CT scan

Nuclear medical studies

This technological advancement aids in facilitating reports from radiologists in areas where there are no qualified radiologists.

How Did Teleradiology Evolve?

Teleradiology began in 1929 when dental x-rays were transmitted across health centers for consultations. Initially, patient pictures were captured using digital cameras and the images transferred to the computer, radiological images were likewise scanned and transferred to the computer. These files were then transmitted to the radiologist via the internet who in turn would assess the condition and provide a suitable report. However, the use of latest technologies involves telecommunication devices that are far superior and allow instant transfer of information.

In India, teleradiology started relatively late, only in 1996 by Jhankaria Imaging in Mumbai, which is a private imaging center. This center brought in teleradiology to facilitate immediate transfer of emergency CT scans to doctors. The first teleradiology company set up in India was in Bangalore called Teleradiology Solutions and where U.S. Board certified radiologists provided teleradiology services to people in the U.S, Singapore and India.

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DICOM Compliant Radiological Equipment : Nearly all radiological equipment that are available today are Digital Imaging and Communication (DICOM) compliant. This allows all images to be stored in a DICOM work folder can be transferred. Identifying micro-calcifications require large mammogram file size, but these cannot be transferred by teleradiology as of now.

: Nearly all radiological equipment that are available today are Digital Imaging and Communication (DICOM) compliant. This allows all images to be stored in a DICOM work folder can be transferred. Identifying micro-calcifications require large mammogram file size, but these cannot be transferred by teleradiology as of now. Image Transfer: The time taken to transfer images depends largely on the software and the equipment available at the centers. The images may be transferred over the internet or can be connected directly with the equipment across centers. The images may be transferred or they can be streamed.

The DICOM system serves to integrate scanners, network, printers, servers that are manufactured by different manufacturers into a common system.

Viewing The Images: The transferred images are then viewed on a high resolution screen by qualified radiologists who provide their report by dictating into a dictaphone.

There are many benefits associated with teleradiology.

Connects with Qualified Radiologists: Teleradiology was initiated because there was a lack of qualified radiologists, though there were CT scanners and other required technologies available in various hospitals. Experts are consulted over teleradiology to facilitate better diagnosis. A study conducted in Japan by Masatoshi Matsumoto and colleagues titled  Geographic Distribution of Radiologists and Utilization of Teleradiology in Japan: A Longitudinal Analysis Based on National Census Data highlighted the increasing gap in the shortage of radiologists in rural and urban areas. According to the study authors, teleradiology will help reduce this gap. This holds true even for India, where rural areas do not have sufficient qualified radiologists.

Reduced Time and Effort : When second opinions are required concerning a certain diagnosis, teleradiology allows doctors in a hospital to consult with experts without having to travel to meet them.

: When second opinions are required concerning a certain diagnosis, teleradiology allows doctors in a hospital to consult with experts without having to travel to meet them. Transfer of Complex Data : With the advent of technology, transfer of complex diagnostic images is possible even from the most remote but technically compatible village if the relevant supporting equipment is available.

: With the advent of technology, transfer of complex diagnostic images is possible even from the most remote but technically compatible village if the relevant supporting equipment is available. Reduced Costs : The burden on the radiology department is reduced with the development of teleradiology and there is reduction in costs as experts are consulted based on the need.

: The burden on the radiology department is reduced with the development of teleradiology and there is reduction in costs as experts are consulted based on the need. Round The Clock Services : Countries like U.S and U.K require round the clock diagnostic services to support emergencies that may occur during the night. Teleradiology allows doctors from Asian countries like India and Singapore to be reached at night, as it would be day in these countries.

: Countries like U.S and U.K require round the clock diagnostic services to support emergencies that may occur during the night. Teleradiology allows doctors from Asian countries like India and Singapore to be reached at night, as it would be day in these countries. Patient Satisfaction : A technological advancement that satisfies patients is an important milestone in the quest to simplify lives. Jac J.W.M.Jacobs and colleagues from the Health Psychology Section, University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands conducted a study titled Patient satisfaction with a teleradiology service in general practice(Feb 2016). The study found that patients were happy with:

: A technological advancement that satisfies patients is an important milestone in the quest to simplify lives. Jac J.W.M.Jacobs and colleagues from the Health Psychology Section, University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands conducted a study titled Patient satisfaction with a teleradiology service in general practice(Feb 2016). The study found that patients were happy with: Technical quality



Interpersonal skills of the doctor

Moreover,

Elderly patients and patients who had trauma were more than the younger patients.

90% of the people included in the study were happy with the technology

It allowed patients from remote places to access advanced medical opinion without having to travel far.

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Teleradiology can be used in a variety of settings and they include:

Imaging Studies at Hospitals : This is the primary use of teleradiology where radiological images are scanned to qualified radiologists for opinion and directives.

: This is the primary use of teleradiology where radiological images are scanned to qualified radiologists for opinion and directives. Research Studies : Research scientists working on various studies would require the services of radiologists to study and provide a report on scans and other radiological images. Teleradiology would ensure that the scientists do not have to leave their laboratory to get the required information.

: Research scientists working on various studies would require the services of radiologists to study and provide a report on scans and other radiological images. Teleradiology would ensure that the scientists do not have to leave their laboratory to get the required information. Night Hawking : Scans and other imaging systems are sent to board-certified radiologists in India for review and report. This is considered to be a promising sector; however, the lack of qualified radiologists could affect its growth potential.

: Scans and other imaging systems are sent to board-certified radiologists in India for review and report. This is considered to be a promising sector; however, the lack of qualified radiologists could affect its growth potential. Teaching : Lectures and demonstrations of medical procedures can be used to teach and train student doctors.

: Lectures and demonstrations of medical procedures can be used to teach and train student doctors. Second Opinion: Certain hospitals may have qualified radiologists, but teleradiology may be used to acquire a second opinion.
home World Pope Francis: 'Persecution' not 'genocide' describes plight of Christians in Middle East

Using the term "genocide" to describe the attacks against Christians in the Middle East is "sociological reductionism," Pope Francis said during a question and answer session with students at the Villa Nazareth University College in Rome on Saturday, June 18.

The pope said the term "genocide" does not embody or explain "that which is a mystery of the faith: the martyr."

"I want to say clearly, I do not like it when one speaks of a genocide of Christians, for instance in the Middle East," the pope said, as reported by Catholic News Agency. "This is reductionism! The truth is a persecution which leads Christians to have fidelity to the consistency of their faith."

Speaking further about persecution, the pope reminded the students of the Coptic Christians who were murdered on a beach in Libya last year. These men, who called out to Jesus before they were killed, were "witnesses of the faith," he said.

However, the pope was not referring to "the use of the term 'genocide' on a political level, but on a level of faith. When applied to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the dimension of faith is essential," explained Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, according to Catholic News Service.

The pope also spoke about a different kind of martyrdom that can give witness to the faith. He said this kind of martyrdom can be shown every day by living an honest life, being patient, raising children faithfully and choosing to love when it is easier to do likewise.

He also described the martyrdom to refrain from gossiping, which he said is a "terrorist bomb."

The pope said it takes courage to live daily as a martyr for Christ, adding that St. Paul used the words "courage and patience" in describing a martyr's life.

One young man asked the pope if he ever struggled with his faith. The pope said he has struggled with his faith many times. He said that sometimes he asked God why He allowed certain things to happen. He shared he has experienced such struggles when he was a young man, when he became a seminarian, when he became a priest, a bishop and eventually the Pope.

Pope Francis said facing crisis helps people grow in their faith. Christians who do not experience this once in a while are "missing something" and may have become too content with their lives, he added.

Christians must not fear crisis because it shows that they are "moving forward," the pope said.
Introduction

Over the past two years, Lebanese Shi'ite voices have emerged every so often to criticize and express resentment against Hizbullah over its military involvement in Syria. Beginning in August 2012, anti-Hizbullah Lebanese Shi'ites implicitly criticized Hizbullah in the Lebanese press for its joining the fighting in Syria. The Hizbullah-affiliated media have sharply condemned this criticism, even accusing these Shi'ites of treason and calling them "Shi'ites of the U.S. Embassy."[1] Gradually, even among the pro-Hizbullah Shi'ite public, particularly the families of members who have died in fighting, criticism has emerged of Hizbullah's military involvement in Syria; there have even been media reports of fissures within the organization in this matter.[2] A Lebanese Shi'ite journalist who described herself a supporter of the resistance even wrote in a recent article that Hizbullah was an "immoral, murderous" organization.[3]

These voices from the Shi'ite public, and the reports of young Shi'ites unmotivated to join Hizbullah's ranks, reflect a lack of confidence in the organization, and indicate that its status has been damaged among a public that has traditionally supported it.

In these circumstances, it is apparent that Hizbullah's Shi'ite opponents, both politicians and journalists, are feeling safer to express their views. Following the very high number of civilian casualties in Syria in the fighting for control of Aleppo and its environs between the two sides - the Assad regime, Hizbullah, and other militias versus the rebels - a new wave of criticism from Hizbullah's opponents has crested.

Various reports and testimony, as well as speeches by Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, have indicated that even the Shi'ite public in Lebanon that has traditionally supported Hizbullah is now less convinced of the rightness of its path in Syria, and is perhaps also despairing because, while no end to the war is in sight, more and more dead and wounded Hizbullah fighters are returning to Lebanon; according to media reports, some 1,500 have already been killed. One report even stated that young Shi'ites - including sons of Hizbullah officials - are fleeing to Europe for fear that they will be recruited to fight.

Results of the recent elections for local authorities in Hizbullah's strongholds of South Lebanon, the Dahiya, and the northern Beqa'a also show that some of the pro-Hizbullah public is displeased with the organization's representatives, indicating a possible dissatisfaction with the organization's political activity as well.

The following are statements and criticism by Lebanese Shi'ites regarding Hizbullah's military involvement in Syria:

Shi'ite 'Lebanese Option' Party To Hizbullah: Stop Trading In Our Blood And Exploiting Our Youth

On May 1, 2016, following the massive airstrikes and massacres carried out by the Assad army, with the support of Hizbullah, against civilians and rebel forces in Aleppo and its environs, the student organization of the Shi'ite Lebanese Option party held a demonstration in central Beirut. The Lebanese Option, headed by Ahmad Al-As'ad, is a secular Shi'ite party that opposes Hizbullah. The former head of its student organization, Hashem Salman, was killed during a demonstration held by his organization in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut in June 2013 to demand Hizbullah's withdrawal from Syria. The May 2016 demonstration, held under heavy police protection, was attended by dozens of Shi'ite students who protested Hizbullah's involvement in Syria and urged the organization to withdraw from there. In speeches delivered at the protest, it was stated that Hizbullah was "sacrificing the lives of Lebanon's Shi'ite youth" for the sake of the Syrian regime "whose hands are stained with the blood of its own people" and for the sake of Iranian goals that Lebanon's Shi'ites have no interest in. The speakers stressed that protecting Lebanon and securing its borders was the task of the Lebanese army alone, and that only the state was authorized to take decisions on matters of war and peace. They also emphasized that not all of the country's Shi'ites are followers of [Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan] Nasrallah, and that many voices have begun to be heard among this public opposing Nasrallah's plan in Syria. They demanded that he stop lying to the Shi'ites and playing them for fools with false claims of waging resistance against Israel and protecting Lebanon from it. They called on the Shi'ites to be loyal to their country instead of blindly following Hizbullah "which forces them to go to their deaths."

The current head of the Lebanese Option organization in the Lebanese University, Sally Hafez, said: "They called us filthy agents, hypocrite traitors and 'Shi'ites of the [U.S.] embassy,' they attacked us, fought us, persecuted us and killed our comrade, the martyr Hashem Salman, and [then] said it was an accident... [Oh Hizbullah], you bought and sold the blood of our young people, and sent back their torn up bodies in coffins. We never thought the day would come when free men are [called] 'traitors' while all those who trade in our lives are considered resistance [fighters]. Allah protect [us] from this era, in which anyone who opposes you is [considered] an agent, whereas all those who kill while hiding behind [the mask of] religion and honor are [considered] the most honorable of men. [We say] 'enough', a thousand times 'enough'! [Stop] insulting our intelligence, stop trading in our blood, stop exploiting our youth. The traitor is the one who leads his land, his country and his people to die alongside [the fighters] of oppressive, murderous and criminal regimes. We are only citizens who [love] their land and want to live in their country in peace. Take your blood-stained hands off us, [for] the mask has been removed from your [faces]."[4]



May 1, 2016 demonstration by the Lebanese Option student organization (image: Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 1, 2016).

Several party members commented in the press that many Shi'ites in Lebanon oppose Hizbullah but prefer to keep their opinion to themselves out of fear for their lives and their livelihoods.[5]

Anti-Hizbullah Shi'ite Journalists: Hizbullah Is In "Deep Moral Crisis"

Criticism of Hizbullah and its fighting in Syria was heard also from several Lebanese Shi'ite journalists. For instance, in an article published April 22, 2016 in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Nadim Koteich, who is known for his anti-Hizbullah stance, criticized Hizbullah's fighting in Syria, stating that not only was the group in "political, military, and security crisis in Syria, but also in deep moral crisis that is leading its program and its existence to suicide." He added that this was due to its active support for the Assad regime that was killing its own people in Syria.[6]

Likewise, on April 29, 2016, following the Assad regime's and Hizbullah's attack on civilians in battles in Aleppo, Koteich tweeted: "If only Israel would annex Aleppo - because then it would be quiet like the Golan. Better for Aleppo's residents to be under the occupation regime than under the ruins."[7]

On June 15, 2016, 'Ali Al-Amin, a Lebanese Shi'ite journalist who is editor of the Al-Janoubiyya website, and is known for his opposition to Hizbullah, told the Lebanon360 website in an interview that Hizbullah was an organization belonging to Iran and that it receives instructions from it, and that the Syria fight is Iran's fight for its status and influence in the region, particularly in Syria. Therefore, he said, Hizbullah cannot decide on its own whether, or when, to withdraw its forces from there. Al-Amin added that there was no truth to Hizbullah's claim that the Palestinian issue is the main thing, because if it were, the resistance axis would not be cooperating with Russia in Syria because of Russia's alliance with Israel.[8]

Anti-Hizbullah Shi'ite Cleric: There Is No Religious Permission For Hizbullah's Fighting In Syria

Lebanese Shi'ite cleric Sheikh 'Ali Al-Amin, who is also known for his anti-Hizbullah views, said in a statement to the Turkish news agency Anadolu that "fighting alongside the Syrian regime is against the Shi'ite view" and that if Iran and Hizbullah "want to be on the side of [Shi'a founder] Hussein, they must withdraw from Syria... The slogans that Hizbullah is using as an excuse [for intervening militarily in Syria] are disproved and invalid. Likewise, there is no [religious] permission for intervening in any combative operations between members of the single ummah, under these or [any] other slogans."[9]

Young Shi'ites, Including Children Of Hizbullah Officials, Go Abroad To Avoid Being Recruited To Fight In Syria

As noted, criticism of, and unease at, Hizbullah's involvement in the fighting in Syria are not found only among Shi'ites who always opposed Hizbullah, but also among the organization's supporters. An article published April 28, 2016 on the Alarabi21 website revealed that young Shi'ites are leaving Lebanon so that Hizbullah cannot recruit them into its ranks to fight in Syria. The article quoted a young Lebanese Shi'ite man residing in Belgium, Muhammad 'Abbas, who said: "I lived with my family in a town in the Beqa'a plain in Lebanon. After Hizbullah decided to gather all the young people in the Shi'ite villages and train them so that they would join the battles in Syria, I, together with a group of friends and with our families' consent, decided to flee to Europe and request asylum in an EU country... Each of us needed at least $7,000 in order to get to Europe, with the help of smugglers and forgery experts. Our journey began [with a flight from] Beirut airport to Belarus, where we stayed for a few days. Prior to that, it was agreed that we equip ourselves in advance with a return ticket on a connecting flight, so that we would be able to get off at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris." The article claimed further that this group of young people, all of them 22 or younger, applied for asylum in France; they waited at the airport there and were questioned and then allowed to enter France and file for asylum in any European country they wished.

'Abbas also pointed out, "Many young Shi'ites fled Lebanon during the years of the war in Syria. Some of them left for Africa, some went to South America, and some decided to seek asylum in Europe. This... was because of their opposition to Hizbullah's policy - involvement in the Syrian matter - [and also because of] many families' fear that their sons would fall in a war against the Syrian rebels and jihadis."

The article also presented statements by journalist Muhammad Al-Hamadi, editor of the UAE daily Al-Ittihad. He said that the exodus from Lebanon, particularly by Shi'ites, "first began last year [2015], after Hizbullah associates knew for certain that Hizbullah was about to lose its war in Syria, and that it aimed to defend Bashar Al-Assad and constituted a real furnace [to burn up] their sons." He added that after Nasrallah declared his war in Syria an "existential war," Hizbullah officials began smuggling their sons into Europe for fear that they would be recruited to fight.[10]

The phenomenon of bereaved mothers shouting in rage against Nasrallah at their sons' funerals is also continuing. On June 20, 2016, the anti-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal reported on one such mother in South Lebanon; her son had been killed fighting in Syria. According to the paper, she shouted: "Oh Sayyed [Nasrallah], why? Hadn't we agreed that our sons would study the religion and fight Israel, not go to Syria? What do I have to do with Syria? What do we have to do with Syria? My son's blood is on your head."[11]

Hizbullah Elements Lose Strength In Recent Elections For Local Authorities

Results in recent elections for local authorities, particularly in the organization's areas of influence in the northern Beqa'a, southern Dahiya, and South Lebanon, also showed a decrease in Hizbullah's strength. In several cities and towns in these regions, not only were there more independent and clan lists, and lists of other parties, primarily leftist ones, running against the joint lists of Hizbullah and its Shi'ite ally the Amal movement, compared to past elections, but these parties also did better than in past elections.

Lebanese parliamentary speaker and Amal chairman Nabih Berri, an ally of Hizbullah, acknowledged that Hizbullah had lost some of its strength. On the results of the elections in Beqa'a towns, he said that a considerable number of the residents had voted against the Hizbullah-Amal list, even though they supported it politically.[12]

The two Hizbullah-supporter Lebanese dailies, Al-Safir and Al-Akhbar, also acknowledged that Hizbullah had lost some of its strength. Al-Safir stated that in light of the results of the local elections, the South Lebanese were no longer deluded that it was not possible to run against the Hizbullah-Amal list.[13] Al-Akhbar also noted that Hizbullah's strength had declined in its Tyre area stronghold, but, like Berri, denied that this was because of opposition to its political path; it was, it said, in protest of its conduct.[14]

Nasrallah Responds: The Fight Is Worth All The Victims

A recent speech by Nasrallah showed the sense of erosion of Shi'ite support for Hizbullah's involvement in Syria in light of the high Hizbullah casualties in the past four years. On May 20, 2016, at the end of the week of mourning for the organization's military leader Mustapha Badr Al-Din, who was assassinated in Syria, Nasrallah attempted to address this feeling, stressing that the many casualties were worth it. He said: "We went into this battle [in Syria] and Sayyed Mustapha Badr Al-Din was killed as a martyr in this battle. We went together with all our martyrs in order to defend - as we said in the past, and as I reiterate today following questions - Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, the entire ummah, and the resistance axis.

"Already in the beginning, we were aware of the ramifications of this position and this choice. We said that we would bear this yoke and that even our people and our men would bear this burden with us. We sacrificed a large number of martyrs and wounded; we withstood ugly media attacks aimed at harming our image and our reputation... Some of our commanders were killed. We knew that we were going towards this - but all these are victims on the way to something more important. Because if Lebanon remains, Syria remains, Iraq remains, the region remains, and Palestine and the Palestinian cause remain [on the agenda] as they are today, and they [the enemies of the resistance axis] are defeated, this will be worth this casualty rate...

"Throughout the 34 years [since Hizbullah's founding], we have experienced difficult circumstances, worse than the situation described today. In fact, in comparison to all the circumstances in the past, our situation is better... We will get through this stage as well, with Allah's help."[15]

It should be noted that this is not the first time that Nasrallah has had to address a sense of doubt in the Shi'ite public that supports Hizbullah regarding its fight in Syria. A year previously, in a May 24, 2015 speech marking the anniversary of Israeli troops' withdrawal from South Lebanon, as well as the day before, at a meeting with Hizbullah wounded, Nasrallah said that the organization was facing an existential battle that required many sacrifices: "Today's existential battle requires many sacrifices. This fight is greater, more dangerous, and crueler [than the fight against Israel in 1982], because one way or another it [is waged] within the home. Anyone who wants to defend [his] existence, survival, honor, and homeland has no option but to be ready to make sacrifices." He added that "even if three-quarters of us die as martyrs in this battle [in Syria], and a quarter remain alive," it was preferable to slaughter, captivity, and exile.[16]

* E. B. Picali is a research fellow at MEMRI.

Endnotes:
On June 17, 2016, Russia's President Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).[1] The plenary session was followed by Q&As, moderated by CNN host Fareed Zakaria.[2] Putin also met with the heads of major international news agencies[3] to discuss the Western ballistic missile defense system in Eastern Europe and other topics. What follows is an analysis of Putin's positions on NATO and the U.S. as expressed at the SPIEF. It is worth noting that Russian officials frequently dismiss NATO as a U.S. or view the US and NATO as "twins".[4]

Putin: 'I Do Not Want To Believe That We Are Moving Towards Another Cold War' But If We Continue Redoubling Efforts To Scare Each Other 'Then One Day It Will Come To A Cold War'

"I do not want to believe that we are moving towards another Cold War," said Putin, in reply to a question by CNN host Fareed Zakaria on whether the world is settling into a low-grade, lower-level cold war between the West and Russia, during the Q&As that followed on the SPIEF's June 17, 2016 plenary session. According to Putin, the tensions between the West and Russia are extraneous to the "logic of global confrontation", but a problem remains that can produce "redoubling efforts to scare each other", and then "one day it will come to a cold war."[5]

Putin explained that the problem is rooted in Western disregard for the Russian position. He stressed that following the Soviet Union' collapse, Russia hoped to enjoy a prosperous era. Instead, Russia had to confront numerous challenges, including separatism and expected support from "our partners" in the West.[6] Instead, according to Putin, the West disappointed Russia for the first time by backing the separatists over Russia.

But more serious hardships followed with NATO's eastwards expansion. Putin said: "the Soviet Union was no more; the Warsaw Pact had ceased to exist. But for some reason, NATO continues to expand its infrastructure towards Russia's borders."[7] Putin cited the case of Montenegro's recent accession to NATO as a further example of Western anti-Russian provocation.

The signing of the accession protocol of Montenegro to NATO on May 19, 2016 aroused Russian anger . Russia's permanent mission to NATO posted on its website an article on Montenegro's NATO that caused a particularly emotional reaction from the Russian side, as "Russia and Montenegro are united by 300 years of close cooperation, with Russia contributing to the establishment and development of Montenegrin statehood in the 19th century and being among the first to recognize the country's independence from Serbia in 2006, with investment from Russian businesses serving as a strong driver for Montenegro's economic development since then."[8] On December 2, 2015, when Montenegro was invited by NATO to join the military alliance, the Chairperson of the Russian Federation Council's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, commented that the Balkan country's accession would be "regrettable" stating that "Montenegro has now been included in this mechanism of permanent reproduction of the 'cold war.'[9]

Putin: A Strategic Missile Defense System Forms Part Of An Offensive Strategic Strike Capability

Another problem souring relations is the "unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty [ABM]"referring to US' policy to push for NATO's "Aegis Ashore" ballistic missile defense system that already became operational in Romania and to the construction of another ballistic-missile defense site officially started in Poland that will be operative in 2018.[10] Putin also mocked attempts by U.S. officials to describe the Aegis Ashore system as purely defensive and mainly intended to counter threats from Iran. He implied that the West is deceiving Russia about the real motives behind Aegis Ashore. Putin claimed that the real reason was Western disdain for Russia similar to that exhibited by the "unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the ABM Treaty" under the George W. Bush administration. The West believed that a Russia so deeply mired in domestic problems was incapable of restoring its defense sector: "Clearly, nobody expected us to be able to maintain our arsenals, let alone have new strategic weapons. They thought they would build up their missile defense forces unilaterally while our arsenals would be shrinking."[11]

In his meeting with leaders of international news agencies, Putin explained that the term missile defense system was misleading: "everyone understands that if one side is more successful in developing its missile defense than the other, it gains an edge and has the temptation to be the first to use these [nuclear] weapons." Putin stated: "It is not at all my intention to berate or accuse anyone of anything, but when our U.S. partners unilaterally withdrew [from the ABM Treaty], this was a major blow. In fact, this was the first blow to international stability in terms of upsetting the strategic balance of power. I said back then, "We are currently unable to develop this technology due to the high costs, and secondly, it has yet to be seen how it will work. Instead of simply siphoning off money, we will go the other way by improving Russia's offensive weapons in order to maintain the balance. This was the only purpose, and it had nothing to do with threatening anyone. Here is what we heard in response: 'It is true that our missile defense system is not intended to oppose Russia, and we assume that what you do is not against us, so you may do as you please.'"[12]

Putin said that Russia's offer of cooperation with the West was rebuffed. Now, Russia's nuclear arsenals are threatened by the missile defense system based in Romania: "They [the West] have built this system and are now delivering missiles there. You probably know that the launching systems of the Tomahawk sea-launched intermediate-range missiles will be used to launch anti-missiles with an effective range of 500 kilometers. However, technology does not stand still, and we know more or less precisely when the Americans will create a new missile that will have a range of 1,000 kilometers or more. From that time on, they will be a threat to our nuclear arsenals...We are being told that this is part of a defensive, not offensive, capability, that these systems are intended to ensure defense against aggression. This is not true. This is not the way things are. A strategic missile defense system is part of an offensive strategic capability, and is tightly linked to offensive missile strike systems. Some high-precision weapons are used to carry out a pre-emptive strike, while others serve as a shield against a retaliatory strike, and still others carry out nuclear strikes. All these objectives are related, and go hand in hand with the use of high-precision conventional weapons. All right, even if we put aside the interceptor missiles that will be developed in the future, increasingly threatening Russia, but the launch tubes where these missiles are stored, as I said, are the same that are used on navy ships to carry Tomahawk missiles. You can replace interceptor missiles with Tomahawks in a matter of hours and these tubes will no longer be used to intercept missiles. How do we know what is inside them? All they need is to change the software. This can be done seamlessly; even the Romanians would not know what is going on, since they cannot access these facilities, right? No one will know -neither the Romanians nor the Poles. I know how this is done. In my opinion, this is a major threat."[13]

Putin also added that Russia would be forced to "retaliate" and ensure security, and "not just in Russia." During a visit to Greece intended to mend ties between Russia and the E.U., the Russian President threatened to target Romania for hosting a NATO ballistic missile defense base. Putin said: "If yesterday people simply did not know what it means to be in the crosshairs in those areas of Romania, then today we will be forced to carry out certain measures to ensure our security. And it will be the same with Poland...At the moment, the interceptor missiles installed [in Romania] have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software... We have the capability to respond. The whole world saw what our medium-range sea-based missiles are capable of [reaching Syria]. But we violate no agreements. And our ground-based Iskander missiles have also proven themselves as superb...NATO fends us off with vague statements that this is no threat to Russia... That the whole project began as a preventive measure against Iran's nuclear program. Where is that program now? It doesn't exist...We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us."[14]

Putin: We Do Not Need Constant US Interference In Our Affairs, And American Attempts To Impede Russia-Europe Relations

In another reply to Zakharia, Putin assailed Western support for what he termed "the Ukrainian coup", that deposed the pro-Russian government in Kyiv, an action that he claimed plunged the country into civil war and intimidated the Russian-speaking population of southeastern Ukraine and Crimea. Putin believes that the West is taking all these actions against Russia to justify NATO's existence:[15] "They need an external adversary, an external enemy - otherwise why is this organization necessary in the first place? There is no Warsaw Pact, no Soviet Union - who is it directed against? If we continue to act according to this logic, escalating [tensions] and redoubling efforts to scare each other, then one day it will come to a cold war. Our logic is totally different. It is focused on cooperation and the search for compromise."[16]

The theme of tensions between Russia and the West, or more precisely between Russia and the U.S., recurred frequently in Putin's answers to Fareed Zakharia and in statements and articles by the Russian foreign policy elite. Although Putin recognizes the U.S. as a "super power", he chafes at Washington's meddling in Russia's affairs and its attempt to thwart good relations between Europe and Moscow. Putin said: "America is a great power, today perhaps the only superpower. We accept this. We want to work with the United States and we are prepared to...The world needs a powerful country like the United States, and we also need it. But we do not need it to continuously interfere in our affairs, telling us how to live, and preventing Europe from building a relationship with us."[17] Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated this during the Valdai International Discussion Club's session at the SPIEF and accused the U.S. of trying to separate Europe from Russia, while "patching up" NATO.'s solidarity: "It seems that the logic of 'zero sum games' and demands of taking sides - 'Are you with us or with them?' - that were addressed practically to all post-Soviet states eventually led to the crisis that broke out in Ukraine. We are witnessing an attempt to use this situation to put economic pressure on us in Europe and at the same time to patch up NATO's solidarity that simply cannot live on in the absence of a common enemy..."[18] This subject had been already addressed by Lavrov on June 15, 2016, during Government Hour at the State Duma. Lavrov then accused the U.S. and its allies of trying to create a 'deterrence front' against Russia based on "Cold War precepts."[19]

Russian political scientist and historian Aleksandr Sytin, who heads the Center for Central and Eastern European Political Studies, argued in the Russian leading liberal station Echo of Moscow on July 6 that the "Cold war" is already here. He was seconded in this opinion, by an April 26, 2016 article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta titled "Russia and the Arms Race", by Alexei Georgievich Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), and a member of the Russian Academy of Science and the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. Arbatov wrote that Russia is already engaged in a large-scale military rivalry with the U.S. and NATO countries. According to Arbatov, the new arms race will be more costly and more dangerous than the Cold War version. Arbatov argues that the current arms race is more perilous than the U.S.-Soviet Union Cold War competition. The U.S.-USSR arm race was limited by a series of treaties, whereas in the future all "limitations may be cast aside." Arbatov also suggested that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation systems may collapse and the "the probability of military, accidental or terrorist use of nuclear arms" is high.[20]

In May 2016, the pro-Kremlin Russian think tank Council for Foreign and Defense Policies published a memorandum, titled "Russia's Foreign Policy: From the Late 2010s - To the Early 2020s," that dovetailed with Arbatov's that the old stable nuclear balance was becoming increasingly fragile and the chance of a nuclear war has increased. The memorandum stated: "In the world of traditional politics, such rapid re-distribution of economic and political powers and of moral influence would almost inevitably trigger a series of large-scale wars or even a new world war. But so far, this has been prevented by the most important structural factor that has determined the world's development for the past seventy years - nuclear weapons, especially super-powerful arsenals in Russia and the US. They only prevented the Cold War from becoming a nuclear war. Had it not been for the sobering threat of a nuclear Armageddon, the 'old' world establishment would hardly have agreed to the explosive growth of influence of rising powers, primarily China and India. But the proliferation of nuclear weapons goes on, whereas the level of trust, dialogue, and positive cooperation in the military and strategic sphere is extremely low. Taken together, all this increases the probability of a nuclear war. Sustainable international strategic stability has decreased."[21]

Endnotes:
In a June 16 episode of Egyptian comedian Abdallah Sharif's Ramadhan series, "State of the Arab World," Sharif told his sidekick Houda that his friends and neighbors were not the only ones who watched the show. MEMRI, he said, had watched a previous episode in which he had praised the Tel Aviv terror attack, and had turned him into an international sensation. See also MEMRI TV clip 5514. The series is aired daily on the website of the Al-Jazeera network's Live channel.

Following are excerpts

Abdallah Al-Sharif: What do you think about what's going on in Syria?

Sidekick: The terrorists there deserve more than just shooting. They should be nuked!

Abdallah Al-Sharif: Ahem.

Sidekick: Did I say something wrong? Be patient. Let me finish... The terrorists are the ones who kill their own people. The [Syrian] people are not terrorists. The terrorists are the ones who hide behind Russia, Iran, and "Mama America." The Americans keep saying that they insist that Al-Assad must go. So why don't you take care of it already, you @#$%^&*? Are you waiting for him to finish off the Syrian people?!

Abdallah Al-Sharif: Thank you, Houda.

[...]

Sidekick: The [Egyptian] army makes its supporters think that it is fighting the whole world, which is led by America and the Jews, that is fighting the whole world, which is led by America and the Jews, but it is pampered by America with Apache helicopters and financial aid.

[...]

Abdallah Al-Sharif: I just wanted to tell you that my friends and neighbors are not the only ones who watch this show.

Sidekick: Who else watches it?

Abdallah Al-Sharif: This is the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington. This is a Jewish institute that submits reports to the American government. They took the show we did about the Tel Aviv operation, translated it into English, and posted it on the MEMRI website. I think that they will like this show as well...

Sidekick: Say what?! Are you serious?

Abdallah Al-Sharif: What's wrong, big guy? Of course I'm serious, you can watch the video. The name "Houda" in English is written in bold print all over the screen. You have become an international sensation. International!

Sidekick: Are you sure they said "Houda"? How did you let me say all these words that are not mine?! I support the leader Al-Sisi, and I love Bashar and the PMU. What did I get myself into?

Abdallah Al-Sharif: What you said was right. Be a man and stand by it. I'm not a man, I'm a child, and I take it all back!

[...]
Georgian businessman to open McDonalds in Armenia

A Georgian businessman may open the first ever McDonalds restaurant in Georgia's traditional rival Armenia, Sputnik Armenia reports.The news agency reports that the opening of the first of the chains restaurants in Armenia was decided at a meeting of managers in Orlando, U.S.I received an agreement from McDonalds main office to open a fast food branch in Armenia, businessman Temur Chkonia told Sputnik. Now there will be negotiations with the Armenian government. I am 100% sure that we will open a McDonalds there. It is only a matter of time.Chkonia specified that 1,500 square meters is necessary to build one branch and the plan is to build eight restaurants in Armenia, employing about 1,000 people in total.The two South Caucasus neighbours Georgia and Armenia have a long history of rivalry. A number of attempts have been made by Armenians to get a license to build a McDonalds, though fast foods chains KFC, Gyros and Karas are already established there.In February, Sputnik Armenia wrote that the issue of opening a restaurant in Yerevan was to be discussed at a meeting in Orlando in April. Chkonia said at the time that he was sure that the answer would be positive.First of all, many people come from Armenia to Tbilisi to go to McDonalds. This means that fast food is in high demand among the Armenian population. Secondly, of course it is possible to open a restaurant in cities with less than 150,000 population.
The News in Brief

Heritage Foundation: MAP not required for Georgia



The NATO summit must make it clear that a Membership Action Plan is not required for Georgia, - says the article of Heritage Foundation.



The July NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland, offers an opportunity for the alliance to thank Georgia for its contribution in Afghanistan, congratulate Georgia on its military reforms, and lay the groundwork for deeper cooperation paving the way to eventual membership.



The U.S. should continue to support Georgias NATO aspirations and ensure that the summit delivers a capabilities package that will enhance the NATOGeorgian relationship while improving Georgias defensive military capabilities. The alliance should live up to its 2008 promise and keep Georgia on track for NATO membership. In the long run, this would bring more stability to the South Caucasus and transatlantic regions.



While few expected Georgia to receive an invitation to join the alliance at the upcoming summit, NATOs decision to not even grant a Membership Action Plan (MAP) has come as a huge blow to those in Tbilisi who are pushing for deeper Euro-Atlantic integration away from Moscow.



After the Russian invasion in 2008 and the subsequent Russian occupation of 20 percent of Georgias territory, Georgia has transformed its military and has been steadfast in its support for overseas security operations. Georgia has contributed thousands of troops to Iraq, and hundreds of peacekeepers to the Balkans, and currently has 150 soldiers deployed in the Central African Republic.



In many ways, Georgia has been a model for other countries in Europe. Perhaps Georgias greatest contribution has been in Afghanistan. At the height of the war, Georgia had almost 2,000 soldiers in the dangerous southern part of the country, making it the largest per capita troop-contributing nation in the coalition.



While many NATO countries refused to keep sizeable troop numbers (if any at all) in Afghanistan for the post-combat training mission, Georgia currently maintains 860 troops in the country. This is the third-largest contribution after the U.S. and Germany. Moreover, Georgia currently contributes an infantry company to the NATO Response Force.



The last NATO summit was a success for Georgia. NATO agreed to the Substantial NATOGeorgia Package, which has brought huge benefits to the Georgian military, but more can be done.



Keeping NATO focused on Georgias EuroAtlantic path will require American leadership. The U.S. needs to ensure that the upcoming summit recognizes Georgias commitment and sacrifices to transatlantic security. The U.S. and NATO should:



 Make it clear that a Membership Action Plan is not required. It is a common misconception that a MAP is a requirement for joining the Alliance. NATO members should not use this technicality as a road block for Georgias future membership. With the Annual National Program, the NATOGeorgia Commission, and the Substantial NATOGeorgia Package, Georgias relationship with NATO is closer now than it would have been under the traditional MAP.



 Publish a separate summit declaration on NATOs support for Georgia. NATO leaders often agree on separate declarations, apart from the main declaration, regarding specific issues of importance. A separate declaration on NATOs support for eventual Georgian membership in the Alliance would send the right message to the Georgian people that their sacrifice and commitment have not gone unnoticed.



 Ensure that the Alliance is clear on Georgias future membership. The summit declaration should make it clear that Georgias successful completion of subsequent Annual National Programs, the close relationship through the NATOGeorgia Commission, and the Substantial NATOGeorgia Package are the true markers of progress that will bring Georgia closer to ultimate membership.



 Ensure that the NATOGeorgia Commission meeting takes place at the heads-of-government level. Currently, this meeting is planned for the foreign-ministers level. This sends the wrong signal to the Georgian people. The NATOGeorgian Commission should be held at the heads-of-government level to demonstrate the importance with which NATO views its relationship with Georgia.



 Ensure that the Substantial NATOGeorgia Package is fully resourced. While the Substantial NATOGeorgia Package has done a lot to improve the capabilities of the Georgian Armed Forces, full implementation of the package has been slow and incomplete. NATO should ensure that the resources are dedicated to fulfil the complete package in a timely manner.



 Help the Georgians defend themselves. Every country has the inherent right to self-defense. The U.S. and NATO allies should sell defensive anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry to Georgia. So long as the weapons are defensive in nature, there is no reason not to provide them to the Georgian military.



 Develop a strategy for the Black Sea region. The Black Sea sits at an important crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Caucasus. Ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea, the Black Sea has essentially become a Russian lake. The U.S. needs to work with the Black Sea littoral states, especially Georgia, to develop a strategy for regional security.



 Refer to the Russian military presence as an occupation. In the summit declaration, NATO should call the presence of several thousand Russian troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia what it is: an occupation. To date, many European countries have failed to use this terminology. Given recent events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it is more important than ever that NATO send a united and clear message, reads the article. (IPN)







Ministry of Defence of Georgia Launches Media Training Noble Response 2016 for Journalists



On July 1-5, 2016 the Ministry of Defence of Georgia will hold media-training Noble Response 2016 for journalists. The aim of the project is to train journalists, cameramen and reporters to work in challenging or hazardous environments.



Those willing to participate will be involved in the training for 5 days, from the 1st to the 5th of July on a 24 hour regime. Participants will be housed in a military base, where the training will be conducted. Therefore, participants will be away from their everyday working routine.



The training consists of two theoretical and practical stages. The theoretical part provides additional information on the importance of strategic communications in informational warfare, disinformation, as well as on the manipulation of public opinion.



The practical part will be the real environment simulation, where the playmakers will create a close-to-reality situations and provide participating journalists with puzzles. They will also create technical and substantive barriers.



During the active informational and conventional warfare simulation, the participants of the training will have the possibility to improve their skills. They will become familiarized with the functions, roles and working specifics of the Ministry of Defence and its structural units.



After the training, participants will hear the assessments of the invited professionals and receive respective recommendations. The registration of the participants will start at 09:00, 15th of June till 17:00, 24th of June. 30 participants will be selected. Additional information and the terms of cooperation about the training will be delivered afterwards. (mod.gov.ge)




The Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, will participate on Friday, 24 June, in a meeting of the EU General Affairs Council (GAC), which will take place in Luxembourg.



The GAC agenda includes discussion of the results of the British referendum, the European Semester, the interinstitutional agreement on better legislation and related issues of transparency, as well as preparations for the European Council set for next Tuesday and Wednesday, 28 and 29 June, in Brussels.



Mr. Xydakis will present to his European colleagues Greeces positions on the preparations for the upcoming European Council, the agenda for which will include migration, the employment-growth-investments triptych, EU external relations, and the results of the UK referendum.
The Deputy Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations, Dimitris Mardas, is carrying out an official visit to Bucharest.



Within the framework of his visit, he had successive meetings yesterday, 22 June, with the Deputy Minister for Economy, Trade and Business Environment, V. Vasiliu, the Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister for attracting investments and public-private partnerships, M. Costescu, and Deputy Foreign Minister M. Badescu. The main subject of Mr. Mardass talks was the strengthening of bilateral economic cooperation, with emphasis on new economy sectors such as nanotechnology, IT, and aeronautical engineering.



On this margins of Mr. Mardass visit to Romania, a business forum is taking place, with the participation of 35 Greek and 80 Romanian companies, while some 300 business meetings have been arranged.
Attorney General Bill Schuette sued Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, known as LAN. Schuette said in a news release that the firms' "fraudulent and dangerous recommendations made a bad situation worse."

The lawsuit charges LAN and Veolia with professional negligence and public nuisance. Veolia was also charged with fraud.

The companies were hired by the city to assist while it was under state emergency management.

LAN, based in Houston, began working with Flint in 2013 to prepare its plant to treat new sources of drinking water, including the Flint River. Veolia was hired in 2015 to address the city's water quality.

The struggling city of nearly 100,000 has been dealing with poor water quality since switching from the Detroit system, which draws from Lake Huron, to the Flint River in April 2014. It was intended as a short-term measure to save money while another pipeline to Lake Huron was under construction.

Residents quickly complained that the water looked dirty and tasted and smelled bad. E. coli bacteria hit unsafe levels. And last September, state officials acknowledged a failure to add chemicals to limit corrosion had enabled the river water to scrape lead from aging pipes, exposing people in some homes and schools to the potent neurotoxin.

Flint was under state management at the time, leading to an apology from Gov. Rick Snyder. Flint returned to the Detroit system in October 2015. Criminal charges have already been filed against two state Department of Environmental Quality officials, while Flint's utilities administrator pleaded no contest to willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor.

Email and phone messages seeking comment from Veolia and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam were not immediately returned.
Air Force Lt. Col. Kato Martinez and his four children, who were gravely wounded in the Brussels airport terror attack that killed wife and mother Gail Minglana Martinez, are back in the U.S. while undergoing lengthy rehabilitation.

The non-profit Building Homes for Heroes group, which modifies and builds homes for wounded veterans, said Wednesday that the Martinez family will receive a mortgage-free home when they return to San Antonio, Texas, possibly in the late summer or early fall.

The Martinez family was among the casualties in the nail-laden bomb attacks on the Brussels airport and and Maalbeek metro station that killed at least 32 and wounded more than 270. Terrorists claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria were held responsible for the attack.

Lt. Col. Martinez, who was assigned to Allied Joint Force Command at Brunssum in the Netherlands, was at the Brussels airport with his family to catch a flight home.

The Air Force at the time declined for privacy reasons to give the status or conditions of the Martinez family. Capt. Brooke Brzozowske, an Air Force spokeswoman, said Wednesday "there is no change" to the initial privacy request made by Lt. Col. Martinez.

The death of Gail Minglana Martinez, 41, was confirmed by relatives through the office of Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican. Since then, friends and relatives of the Martinez family have given some information on the conditions of the Martinez family and the Building Homes for Heroes group disclosed more Wednesday.

In statements and a press release, the group said that Lt. Col Martinez and the four children "were left with various injuries that require a lengthy rehabilitation process, both physically and psychologically. The injuries include severe burns, fractures and shrapnel wounds."

Lt. Col. Martinez "has shown incredible dedication and perseverance while courageously serving our great nation," said Andy Pujol, Founder and CEO of Building Homes for Heroes, who started the charity after participating in the search-and-rescue efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "He is an amazing father and human being," Pujol said of Lt. Col Martinez.

Building Homes said that Lt. Col. Martinez sustained second- and third-degree burns, a fractured heel, shrapnel wounds, a concussion, hearing loss and a left foot laceration. The four children suffered severe burns, fractures and shrapnel wounds that will require a lengthy rehabilitation process, both physically and psychologically, Building Homes said.

Shortly after the Brussels attacks, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, then-commander of NATO and U.S. European Command, ordered the departure of about 670 of the 770 military families stationed in Turkey "out of an abundance of caution."

Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com.
U.S. Army sergeants are learning they may have to spend as much time honing their writing skills as they do practicing their marksmanship skills if they want to get promoted under the service's new Non-Commissioned Officer education system.

Army Training and Doctrine Command officials are placing strong emphasis on writing at every level of NCO 2020, the Army's new Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development System.

"NCO 2020 is our way of preparing the NCO corps for the challenges for that uncertain future," Command Sgt. Maj. David Davenport, of Army Training and Doctrine Command, said at a June 22 roundtable discussion at the Pentagon.

"We just finished up a pilot in all our basic leadership courses," Davenport said. "Beginning fiscal year 2018, it will be a requirement to have your writing assessment done ... prior to coming to the classroom."

Soldiers will go to a website and will be given a topic to write a five-paragraph essay about, Davenport said.

"Once they have finished, they upload and in a matter of minutes it comes back with -- you need to work on your spelling, your grammar-sentence structure, the body, the flow and it really kind of prints out an after-action report of things that you need to focus on to improve," he said.

Army officials are encouraging soldiers to then use tuition assistance to take courses such as English composition to improve their writing, Davenport said.

The massive overhaul began last fall when the service renamed the Non-Commissioned Officer Education System to the Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development System.

The effort is the result of one of the most extensive polling efforts in the service's history. The online NCO 2020 survey gathered responses from 400,000 soldiers on the current education system.

One of the biggest changes to come out of the effort is a new policy known as STEP for Select, Train, Educate and Promote.

The policy went into effect Jan. 1 and is the "new way we are going to make sure soldiers, NCOs, have certified in their core competencies for promotion," Davenport said.

Last year, the Army had backlog of about 14,000 NCOs who had been promoted to various grades in the intelligence corps but had not received formal military education, Davenport said.

"We have cut that down to a little over 8,000 in the backlog," he said.

Davenport, along with representatives from the Combined Arms Center, Army Sergeants Major Academy, the Institute for Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development and the Training Operations Management Activity, will host the TRADOC town hall, Thursday, June 23, at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to discuss changes to the NCO Professional Development System.

The first town hall, streamed live March 3, 2016, focused on the state of NCO Development. Subject matter experts answered questions from the live-stream chat board and TRADOC social media platforms.

Davenport admitted it did not go as well as he had hoped.

"In the first town-hall, I made the assumption that everybody had read the NCO 2020 strategy," Davenport said. "They really had not read it; we were all over the place" in terms of questions.

With this upcoming town-hall meeting, "I have tried to limit to line of effort 1, which is leader development," Davenport said.

The chat board will open at 4 p.m., one hour before the live-streamed panel begins. Participants can watch and ask questions atwww.emc.army.mil/broadcast.

"In the last town-hall that we did, we reached over one million social media accounts, we had on average over 3,000 soldiers in the two chat rooms and we were in 18 different countries," Davenport said.

"And that was two hours of work. Its a very effective way to communicate directly to a wide range of audience. But it is communication; it's two-way -- they can hear what I am saying, they can chew on it, think about it and respond back. And whether it is me or the subject-matter experts in the room, we are listening to them."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
Navy families are finding themselves waiting longer than usual for orders to their next duty station due to constraints on the service's manpower budget.

According to information provided to Military.com from Navy Personnel Command, some sailors are receiving orders one month ahead of arrival at their next duty station, instead of the typical three.

"Due to budgetary pressures and a perennially decreased top line for Navy's Manpower Account, we knew PCS funds would be tight toward the end of the fiscal year," Personnel Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen said in a statement. "Consequently, the Navy began to carefully manage the issuance of PCS orders earlier this year, which resulted in shorter lead times for PCS moves."

It's not clear how many sailors are affected by these tighter timelines. Christensen said the Navy was prioritizing PCS moves to stay under budget, giving the highest priority to sailors moving to fill "critical gaps" at sea, individual augmentees, overseas billets, and moves for force protection, humanitarian and safety reasons.

A Defense Department official who requested anonymity to speak freely told Military.com the budget crunch was tied to a continuing resolution that the Navy and other military services had operated under until last December. The CR limited how the Navy could allocate its funds and set the conditions for the current problem.

To date, the Navy has completed planning for these top-priority moves with estimated detach dates through the end of July, Christensen said, and is now working on orders in August and further out. While the end of the fiscal year in September will mean a new defense budget and a replenished manpower account, it's not clear how long the Navy will continue issuing PCS orders with minimal lead time.

"That's something we're going to have a take a look at," Christensen said. "We just don't have an answer to that question."

For Navy families caught in limbo between orders, the wait can be nerve-wracking and expensive.

One military spouse whose husband was a Navy officer stationed at Camp Pendleton told Military.com her family is waiting for orders to the Netherlands so he can begin an exchange tour with the Dutch Navy.

The family remains on the West Coast, with most of their belongings in storage in anticipation of a move they're expecting to make in August. Because they still don't have orders, the woman said, her husband hasn't been able to find a place for the family to live overseas. She estimates that they will have lost between $2,000 and $4,000 in out-of-pocket costs, including lost income from a job she had to quit, because of the uncertainty.

"With this situation, I've had to leave work months early," she said. "If I knew what the timing was, I would have committed longer."

Another Navy spouse, Nicole Paynter, says her family is waiting on orders from Navy Operations Support Command in Springfield, Oregon, where her husband is a unit commanding officer, to Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tennessee. Paynter said her husband was originally supposed to start at his new post in mid-June, but now they are told the move will happen in the middle of September, with orders coming in mid-August.

The timeline was too tight to schedule military movers, so the family will be moving on their own for the first time in 18 years in the Navy. Paynter said her oldest son continued to attend high school, staying with her parents, when the family moved out to Oregon, and not having a certain return date is an additional stressor.

"The unknowing is the worst part," she said.

Christensen said he encouraged Navy families to stay in touch with detailers and added that letters of intent will be issued for overseas moves to help dependents accomplish some tasks, such as medical screenings, security clearances, and passport applications.

The Navy is also putting together a working group of officers and enlisted leaders from around the fleet, he said, to examine ways to minimize additional impacts to sailors as the Navy "carefully navigate[s]" PCS orders until the end of the fiscal year. The goal of the working group, he said, is to allow sailors to make planned moves without further reducing lead times for orders.

"We understand that it's hard on sailors and their families," Christensen said.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
A sailor who was supporting forward Navy operations in Africa has died of a non-combat related injury, the Defense Department announced today.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Jerod Clement, 38, of Massachusetts, died June 21 while deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, according to the announcement.

The incident is under investigation by the military.

According to officials, Clement was an air traffic controller attached to Navy Reserve Unit Tactical Air Control Squadron 22, Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC), Quincy, Massachusetts, forward deployed to Camp Lemonnier. He was in mobilized Navy reserve status.

He had reported to Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa on May 20, according to information provided by Navy Personnel Command.

Clement enlisted Jan. 28, 1997, and had served aboard the aircraft carriers Nimitz and Harry S. Truman earlier in his career. His awards include the Good Conduct Medal and the Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Medal, which he had received twice.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
Pentagon leaders are still working to determine when, exactly, a cyber-attack against the U.S. would constitute an act of war, and when, exactly, the Defense Department would respond to a cyber-attack on civilian infrastructure, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

A cyber strike as an act of war "has not been defined," Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security Thomas Atkin told the House Armed Services Committee. "We're still working toward that definition."

The White House and Pentagon let it be known in 2011 that acts such as shutting down the U.S. power grid via a cyber-attack could be seen as an act of war that would bring not only a cyber-response but perhaps"a missile down one of your smokestacks," a DoD official said at the time.

That bit of colorful language was not included inthe final, published strategy, which did state that: "When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country. We reserve the right to use all necessary means -- diplomatic, informational, military, and economic -- as appropriate and consistent with applicable international law, in order to defend our Nation, our allies, our partners, and our interests."

In recent years, the U.S., including Pentagon and White House computer systems, have been hacked, reportedly by China and Russia.

Yet the U.S. has not -- at least publicly -- declared exactly what kinds of attacks and what level of damage would trip the threshold into an act of war. Three years ago, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters that Congress should ultimately make such a call.

"It's called the War Powers Act," Dempsey said. "And here's why that's important. There is an assumption out there, I think, and I would like to disabuse you of it, that a cyber-attack that had destructive effects would be met by a cyber response with destructive attacks. That's not necessarily the case."

'Act of Significant Consequence'

Also not clearly defined, Atkin told lawmakers, is when the military would defend or go on the offense against state or non-state actors launching a cyber-attack on a civilian U.S. target, which he referred to as an "act of significant consequence."

"As regards an act of significant consequence, we don't necessarily have a clear definition that says this will always meet [the requirement]," he said, "but we evaluate it based on loss of life, physical property, economic impact and our foreign policy."

Atkin said he could not answer a hypothetical posed by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii on whether loss of life resulting from an attack on the electrical grid cutting off power to hospitals would constitute an attack of significant consequence.

"What I would say is, regardless of whether the attack is of significant consequence or not, the Department of Homeland Security would respond, and if they needed assistance from the Department of Defense, they would ask for that  and we would respond [through DHS] to help that critical infrastructure," Atkin said.

He also said that Army National Guard cyber troops receive the same type of training as the active-duty force and could be activated under state authority.

"We recently completed coordination, train, advise and assist policy guidance within the department to allow National Guard troops to use Department of Defense resources to respond to a cyber event under state authority, and we're continuing to work other policies" toward the same end, he said.

-- Bryant Jordan can be reached at Bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at@BryantJordan.
The Air Force is backing a retired airman's claim he had a right to speak about God during the flag-folding portion of another airman's retirement ceremony, even though the speech appears to violate an Air Force Instruction adopted 11 years ago.

Retired Air Force Master Sgt. Oscar Rodriguez wasforcibly removed from an April 3 ceremony at Travis Air Force Base, California, as he began making a flag-folding speech that referenced God several times.

Related Video:

Though the Air Forceadopted a specific flag-folding script in 2005, in part to strike religious references from such speeches, Air Force Headquarters now appears to be backtracking.

"Air Force personnel may use a flag folding ceremony script that is religious for retirement ceremonies," the service said in a statement. "Since retirement ceremonies are personal in nature, the script preference for a flag folding ceremony is at the discretion of the individual being honored and represents the member's views, not those of the Air Force."

The Air Force statement appears to contradict an Air Force Instruction stating thatonly the official script may be read during any flag-folding ceremony conducted by Air Force personnel.

Air Force officials have not yet responded to Military.com's request to explain what appears to be a contradiction between the statement in response to the Travis incident and the AFI.

Rodriguez, who is being represented by the First Liberty Institute, is threatening to sue the Air Force unless he is given a written apology, a guarantee it will not happen again, and the airmen who evicted him from the ceremony are punished.

Rodriguez was asked to deliver what has become his signature flag-folding speech by Master Sgt. Charles Roberson, who was retiring. He asked Rodriguez to go ahead with the speech even after his commander told him it was not to be delivered.

TheAir Force announced in 2005 an official script for flag-folding ceremonies at official events and made it clear that no other script was authorized, regardless of the venue.

In addition to removing religious references in the ceremony, the Air Force also wanted to stop speakers from attributing meanings to the folds that had no basis in history or fact.

"[T]here is no specific meaning assigned to the folds of the flag" and there are no Air Force ceremonies requiring a reading during a flag folding, the instruction states.

"However, when a flag folding ceremony is desired and conducted by Air Force personnel at any location, on or off an installation, this script is the only one that may be used," the AFI states.

-- Bryant Jordan can be reached at Bryant.jordan@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at@BryantJordan.
The U.S.-led coalition expressed concern Thursday over clashes in Syria between separate U.S.-backed factions with competing agendas that could complicate the drive to take a key ISIS stronghold.

British Maj. Gen. Doug Chalmers said the reported fighting between the mostly Syrian-Arab Free Syrian Army elements and the Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units) militia had not yet risen to the level of a "significant rift," but "there is tension, yes."

In a briefing to the Pentagon from Baghdad, Chalmers, the deputy commander for strategy and sustainment of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said the tension between the groups "reflects the complexity of Syria," where an estimated 300,000 have been killed in five years of a civil war that has displaced millions, brought Russia into the conflict and spawned myriad militias with various political aims.

The FSA was fighting to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while the YPG was focused on securing Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria.

Chalmers said he was relying on secondary reports but suggested that the infighting between the YPG and the FSA was "no more now than it has been probably for the last couple of months."

His assessment was in contrast to what representatives of the two factions told Reuters on Wednesday.

"There is a deepening divide between us," the politburo chief of the Jabha Shamiya, one of the major FSA rebel groups in the Aleppo area, told Reuters. "If there is no quick political solution between the revolutionaries and the Kurds, it is heading toward escalation."

YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said that his group wanted to avoid conflict with FSA but added that "If they want a war, they will certainly lose."

On other issues, Chalmers said that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) had cleared about 70 percent of the city of Fallujah, which the Baghdad government claimed to have liberated last week.

The ISF has established a solid presence in the northern sector of Fallujah and is working to oust remaining ISIS fighters from the rest of the city about 40 miles west of Baghdad, Chalmers said.

Chalmers cautioned against reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group that the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the YPG, had entered the northeastern Syrian city of Manbij in the effort to retake the ISIS stronghold and close off a main re-supply and access route for foreign fighters.

The SDF has taken some hamlets on the outskirts of Manbij, but the coalition believes that the SDF has not yet established a presence within the city, Chalmers said. "It's a matter of definition," Chalmers said of the estimates of progress against ISIS in Manbij.

Chalmers also said there was evidence that Russian warplanes used cluster bombs last week in strikes in southern Syria near Jordan's al-Tanf border crossing, far from where Russian planes have struck before in support of the Assad regime.

The Russian Defense Ministry has denied that the strikes took place, but U.S. officials said they were carried out by two Russian Su-24 attack aircraft.

Chalmers said a number of fighters from a U.S.-backed militia were killed or wounded in the airstrikes; he did not say how many. "We were very surprised at the strike near al-Tanf," Chalmers said. "Our people on the ground reported that they had been attacked by cluster munitions."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Despite Flipping in Surf 4 Times in a Year, Marines Say New ACV Is the Future of Amphibious Warfare

Some Marine veterans familiar with the vehicle and its operations have worried about the reliability of the ACV.
A plan to expand dental benefits for active-duty families, National Guard and Reserve members and their families while switching Tricare contractors is set to go forward in mid-2017.

The swap will move the five-year, $2.9 billion contract from Metlife back to United Concordia, which managed the program from 1996 to 2012.

A Metlife protest over the switch decision was recently denied by the Government Accountability Office, sources said. The new contract is set to begin May 1, 2017.

"We're working with the Defense Health Agency on the transition and implementation specifications, which will take place over the next year," said Beth Rutherford, a United Concordia spokesperson.

Under the new contract, the annual maximum benefit for users will expand from $1,300 to $1,500, according to contract documents.

Sealants, which currently carry a 20 percent cost share, will be completely covered at zero out-of-pocket cost. Beneficiaries, who must pay monthly premiums to use Tricare's dental program, will continue to receive to two free cleanings a year, while pregnant users will be able to receive three.

But some users may need to find a new dentist after the change, since individual dental practices determine which programs they accept. Details regarding in-network dentist options are likely to be released before the contract start date next year.

Officials with Tricare said the transition process from Metlife to United Concordia started in early May. About 1.8 million beneficiaries are enrolled in the Metlife Tricare dental program.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.
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University Bank's parent company, University Bancorp was ordered to pay more than $1 million as part of a judgement against the company for violating trade secrets laws in Washington.

(Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News)

ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor-based University Bancorp, the parent company of University Bank, was ordered to pay out more than $1.1 million in damages and legal fees for violating a Washington state law regarding inside trade secrets, but the battle may not be over.

Guidance Residential LLC, a Reston, Virginia-based home financing institution, was awarded the judgment in King County, Washington Superior Court on June 15, 2016.

University Bancorp CEO and President Stephen Lange Ranzini on Wednesday, June 22, called the ruling a "miscarriage of justice."

"We feel very strongly that this is a miscarriage of justice because how can you have a trade secret when the information you're claiming is a trade secret is public information?" Ranzini said.

In March 2015, a jury found former Guidance Residential employees Mohamad Aijaz Hussain, Anwer Mangrio, and others guilty of using proprietary information to solicit applicants for mortgages after joining University Islamic Financial. University Bancorp owns 80 percent of the firm.

University Bancorp is considering filing an appeal of the financial judgment and has 30 days from June 15 to file that appeal, Ranzini said. The bank also has funds earmarked to pay the judgment if it decides to end the case, he said.

Guidance claimed former employees who started working for UIF used inside "trade secrets" to reach out to customers they worked with while working for Guidance. Tom Gainor, senior vice president and general counsel for Guidance, said the issue started when five employees left the company.

Gainor says the employees had non-compete clauses but an agreement was reached where the information collected by former employees would not be used inappropriately. However, when one of those former employees sent a mass email roughly nine months later, it was discovered that email addresses for nearly 400 people - some who were customers of Guidance - were shared to everyone on the email.

Guidance found that to be a violation of the agreement and brought the lawsuit forward.

Gainor said their team deposed the former employees to prove they used the customer contacts in ways that violated the Washington state law, where one of the employees previously worked.

University Bancorp's position on the matter is that the employees were not violating any laws because customer information was available in the public record and could be accessed by anyone. The information becomes public because whenever a mortgage is closed, it's filed with the courthouse and becomes a matter of public record.

Ranzini said those names were simply customers the officers had known for some time and his company does not buy data collected by competitors.

"Like every other loan officer in the country does, they kept their customer list," Ranzini said.

However, the jury in the case ruled in favor of Guidance 9-to-3, saying the keeping of the list and sharing information violated state law in Washington, where the suit was filed. The judgement was for $848,000.

"We actually hoped for more. We thought we were damaged more. We felt like it was important that this had to be prosecuted," Gainor said.

"While this is welcomed news, it is surprising that even after these facts were proven in a month-long jury trial, it appears that not a single employee was terminated or censured," said Guidance Residential President and CEO, Khaled Elsaye in a statement.

Ranzini said the judgment is frustrating because he feels his employees did nothing wrong.

"It's trying to penalize us for industry standard practices that no one else feels is a problem," Ranzini said.

Guidance also sought compensation for legal fees which brought the total payout to approximately $1.1 million.

Guidance brought 20 separate issues against University Bancorp in the suit, according to Ranzini, but 18 of them were dismissed on summary judgment. Another was dismissed by a jury, meaning 19 of the 20 claims did not result in a judgment against University Bancorp.

Ranzini said none of the employees involved in the suit were dismissed from the company, but one had left UIF and returned to work for Guidance.

University Bancorp manages more than $18.4 billion in financial assets for more than 115,000 customers and 335 employees. University Bancorp is the 9th largest bank based in Michigan. Last month, the company was named the number one publicly traded banking firm based on average return on shareholders' equity by American Banker magazine.

Matt Durr is a business reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Email him at mattdurr@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter.
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Cinema Chat - June 23, 2016

Opening Downtown

In Dough, curmudgeonly widower Nat (Jonathan Pryce) clings to his way of life as a Kosher bakery shop owner in London's East End. Understaffed, Nat reluctantly enlists the help of teenager Ayyash (Jerome Holder), who has a secret side gig selling marijuana to help his immigrant mother make ends meet. When Ayyash accidentally drops his stash into the mixing dough, the challah starts flying off the shelves and an unlikely friendship forms between the old Jewish baker and his young Muslim apprentice. Dough is a warmhearted and humorous story about overcoming prejudice and finding redemption in unexpected places. Dough opens Friday, June 24 at the Michigan.

Swiss Army Man goes from the absurd to the emotional to the whimsical to the profound and back again. Hank (Paul Dano) is stranded on a deserted island, having given up all hope of ever making it home again. But everything changes when a corpse named Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on shore; the two become fast friends, and ultimately go on an epic adventure that will bring Hank back to the woman of his dreams. Swiss Army Man creates a world like no othera place of pure fantastical imagination, brimming with magical realism yet featuring two characters whose dreams and fears are entirely relatable. Peter Debruge of Variety called Swiss Army Man "the most singularly unique competition title to debut at Sundance in ages." Swiss Army Man opens Friday, July 1 at the State, with special advance screenings on Thursday, June 30!

In Our Kind of Traitor, while on holiday in Marrakech, an ordinary English couple, Perry and Gail (Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris), befriend a flamboyant and charismatic Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgard), who unbeknownst to them is a kingpin money launderer for the Russian mafia. When Dima asks for their help to deliver classified information to the British Secret Services, Perry and Gail get caught in a dangerous world of international espionage and dirty politics. Based on the novel by John le Carre, Our Kind of Traitor opens Friday, July 1 at the Michigan, with special advance screenings on Thursday, June 30!

Special Screenings Downtown

Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, showcases the true story of three 11-year-old boys from Mississippi who set out on what would become a 7-year-long labor of love and tribute to their favorite film: a faithful, shot-for-shot adaptation of the action adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark. They finished every scene...except one; the film's explosive airplane set piece. Over two decades later, the trio reunited with the original cast members from their childhood in order to complete their masterpiece. Featuring interviews with John Rhys Davies, Eli Roth and more, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made is just that: the story of this long-gestating project's culmination, creating a personal, epic love letter to a true modern classic. Raiders! plays Thursday, June 23 at the State at 7 PM with a special post film Q&A with one of those young filmmakers, Chris Strompolos.

The Summer Classic Film Series continues with A Hard Day's Night. The year is 1964 and four young lads from Liverpool are about to change the worldif only the madcap world will let them out of their hotel room. Richard Lester's boldly contemporary rock 'n' roll comedy unleashes the fledgling Beatles into a maelstrom of screaming fans, paranoid producers, rabid press and troublesome family members, and reveals the secret of their survival and success: an insatiable lust for mischief and a life-affirming addiction to joy. A Hard Day's Night plays Sunday, June 26 at 1:30 PM and Tuesday, June 28 at 7 PM at the Michigan.

The award-winning documentary The Wanted 18 tells the remarkable story of nonviolent resistance during the First Intifada. It's 1987 and the Israeli army is in hot pursuit of eighteen dairy cows in the town of Beit Sahour, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The cows are declared a threat to Israel's national security after a group of Palestinians begin producing milk for the town's residents. The Wanted 18 plays Monday, June 27 at 7 PM at the Michigan. Presented by Gathr.

Spaceballs is the Mel Brooks-helmed parody of the classic Star Wars franchise. The planet Spaceball has depleted its air supply, leaving its citizens reliant on a product called "Perri-Air." In desperation, Spaceball's leader President Skroob (Brooks) orders the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) to kidnap Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) of oxygen-rich Druidia and hold her hostage in exchange for air. But help arrives for the Princess in the form of renegade space pilot Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his half-man, half-dog partner, Barf (John Candy). Spaceballs plays Saturday, June 25 at 11:59 PM at the State. Tickets just $8!

Opening at the Multiplex

Free State of Jones is an epic action-drama set during the Civil War, and tells the story of defiant Southern farmer, Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey), and his extraordinary armed rebellion against the Confederacy. Banding together with other small farmers and local slaves, Knight launched an uprising that led Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy, creating a Free State. Free State of Jones opens Friday.

Independence Day: Resurgence delivers global catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens' advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction. Independence Day: Resurgence opens Friday.

In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude. The Shallows opens Friday.

See you at the movies!
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Dexter Community Schools board of education president Michael Wendorf sits next to Superintendent Chris Timmis at a board meeting on Monday, June 20.

(Lauren Slagter | The Ann Arbor News)

DEXTER, MI - Dexter Schools Superintendent Chris Timmis recently received a $10,000 bonus and a three-year contract extension based on his "highly effective" leadership of the district.

The board of education voted 5-0 on Monday, June 20, in favor of awarding Timmis the performance-based bonus and extending his contract through 2021. Timmis was hired at Dexter going into the 2013-14 school year, and his current contract was set to expire in June 2018.

"We are well aware that he's moved his family here and he's educating his child here, and we want to continue to make this an environment - as a board and as a community school district - where our superintendent knows he's wanted here, he's valued here," said Michael Wendorf, board president.

The superintendent contract allows for an annual performance-based bonus up to 10 percent of his total salary. For Timmis, that would be $14,000, and the board recommended a $10,000 increase after giving him a "highly effective" rating on his annual evaluation for the 2015-16 school year.

Board Vice President Julie Schumaker thanked Timmis for his leadership in making progress on four broad goals the board set for the district: improve the four-year graduation rate, improve reading and mathematics scores on the NWEA, increase enrollment in AP, International Baccalaureate and dual credit classes, and decrease the number of students who are chronically absent.

Schumaker said she is very pleased with student achievement as measured by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) assessment and with the number of high school students taking rigorous courses. In the past two years, the number of students taking college prep classes has increased from 332 to 486, Wendorf said.

Dexter's chronically absent students are not struggling to maintain good grades, Schumaker said, and they tend to miss school for family vacations or enrichment activities. That's no longer a high priority to address, she added.

Administrators continue to work at improving Dexter's graduation rate, which was 90.4 percent for the Class of 2015, the most recent data available from the Michigan Department of Education. That's the lowest the graduation rate has been in the past five years, ranging from 90.9 to 92.6 percent over that period.

Timmis' new contract begins July 1 and increases his base salary to $145,000 a year. Dexter's superintendent salary is the fourth highest in Washtenaw County, behind Ann Arbor Public Schools, Milan Area Schools and Ypsilanti Community Schools.

"We want to continue to move the district forward and this contract allows us to do that," Wendorf said of the extension to Timmis' contract.

This post was updated with new information on the YCS superintendent salary.

Lauren Slagter covers K-12 education for The Ann Arbor News. Contact her at 734-255-1419, lslagter@mlive.com or on Twitter @LaurenSlagter.
ANN ARBOR, MI -- The New Hampshire Attorney General's office says it will release more information on the death of an Ann Arbor 19-year-old in a week or two.

Lane Lesko of Ann Arbor was fatally shot after a police pursuit about 10:23 a.m. Tuesday, June 21, on Route 136 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, according to a report by the New Hampshire Union Leader.

After a likely crash, Lesko got out of his vehicle and got into a brief confrontation with police, who shot him, the Union Leader reported.

Jeffery Strelzin, New Hampshire senior assistant attorney general and chief of the homicide unit, said he cannot release any more information about Lesko's death until the investigation is complete.

The New Hampshire Attorney General's office will issue a report in the next two weeks, he said.

On Wednesday, New Hampshire's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas A. Andrew determined the cause of Lesko's death was a single gunshot wound, according to a press release from the attorney general's office.

Lesko was at a Umbagog Lake State Park in New Hampshire as part of an adolescent treatment program, according to previous media reports.

The Summit Achievement center reported him missing from a campsite Sunday, and authorities report he was responsible for stealing a canoe, pontoon boat and truck. New Hampshire State Police found the canoe and boat, the Union Leader reported.

In Michigan, Lesko was scheduled for a January 2017 sentencing on multiple charges.

He stole a Dodge Charger in May 2015 from the Cueter Chrysler dealership, 2448 Washtenaw Ave. in Ypsilanti Township, after he claimed he was an FBI agent, police said. He then crashed the car in the Toledo, Ohio, area, and presented himself as an FBI agent to authorities, police said.

In July 2015, he was charged with home invasion for allegedly breaking into a neighbor's Ann Arbor home while out on bond.

Lesko pleaded guilty to unlawfully driving away a vehicle, first degree home invasion, lying to a police officer and false pretenses less than $200 in January.

Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Darlene O'Brien delayed his sentence a year, so he could complete mental health and substance use treatment.

Lindsay Knake is a cops and courts reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com.
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The proposed NEXUS pipeline route.

(NEXUS)

YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - Over the last year, plans for a 35-mile gasoline pipeline that will run through Washtenaw County and southeast Michigan made its way through the planning and approval process.

Construction is set to begin in the coming months.

Now a new 255-mile natural gas pipeline is being proposed for northern Ohio and southeast Michigan. Around 50 miles of the line, owned by Houston-based Spectra, would run through Michigan, including Lenawee County and Monroe County. In Washtenaw County it would run through Augusta Township to a DTE Energy substation in Ypsilanti Township.

At its Tuesday, June 21, meeting, the Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees briefly discussed a resolution expressing its opposition to the line and project, called the NEXUS Gas Transmission, though no action was taken. Supervisor Brenda Stumbo said DTE Energy officials who support the pipeline will speak at the township's July meeting, and a vote on the resolution will likely take place then.

Four pipelines already cross Washtenaw County, and the township expressed concern over the NEXUS line's impact on property values. The pipeline path is also within approximately 1,000 feet of Brick Elementary School, Model Elementary and the Early Childhood Center.

"I oppose it," Stumbo said. "It's so close to Brick Elementary and I don't think it's a good (approval process).

"Environmentally, it's benign. That's the term an environmentalist told me. But it's really the process. They don't allow residents to make a difference on where the pipeline goes."

Any opposition Ypsilanti Township or other municipalities express will largely be symbolic as local governments don't have the authority to block the project, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission considers pipeline plans. It has yet to hold hearings on the project, but a final decision is expected on Feb. 28, 2017.

According to township documents and the NEXUS website, the pipeline is being built to transport natural gas between southeast Michigan and the Utica shale fields in eastern Ohio.

NEXUS wrote on its website that the line will "support the growing demand for clean-burning natural gas and to offset the decline in traditional western Canadian supplies."

The line would be built parallel to an existing line several feet underground, and Spectra notes that there are over 300,000 miles of natural gas pipeline in the nation.

Ypsilanti Township officials didn't make a public objection to the Wolverine Pipeline. Stumbo said residents weren't as vocally opposed to the Wolverine line, which she said she suspected is because it won't run as close to schools and residential zones.

The plans for the NEXUS line were brought to the Board's attention by upset residents at the Board's May meeting.

"If residents are opposed to it, then we are opposed to it," Stumbo said.

The Wolverline line, which will also be placed in the ground next to an existing pipe, will carry 90,000 barrels of refined petroleum - or gasoline - daily from Freedom Township to storage facilities in Romulus. Wolverine has a blanket 75-foot easement along its route.
LaTanya Ward and Damond Ward

ANN ARBOR, MI -- Police arrested a Detroit woman and her son in connection with two bank robberies earlier this month in Ann Arbor.

On Tuesday, June 21, Ann Arbor police detectives and Detroit Violent Crimes Task Force investigators arrested 20-year-old Damond Donteze Ward and 41-year-old LaTanya Denise Ward in Detroit.

Detective Lt. Matthew Lige said the two are mother and son. They live in Detroit, according to court records.

The Wards were arraigned on bank robbery charges in Ann Arbor's 15th District Court on Wednesday. The charge is a felony charge that carries a sentence of up to life in prison.

Damond Ward is accused of stealing an undisclosed amount of cash on June 6 from the Lake Trust Credit Union, 2222 Packard Road.

He entered the credit union just after 2 p.m., passed a note demanding money to a teller and then fled on foot, police previously said.

LaTanya Ward did the same thing on June 13 at the Fifth Third Bank, 3315 Washtenaw Avenue near Huron Parkway.

She passed a note to a teller demanding money, took an undetermined amount and fled on foot, police said.

No one was injured in either incident.

"Detectives worked with several law enforcement agencies along with numerous tips from the public to identify the two individuals who have allegedly committed these robberies," Lige said. "The support from the community directly contributed to the identification of those believed responsible."

Both the mother and son are being held on $10,000 bonds, with the option to pay 10 percent, according to online court records.

They are scheduled for probable cause hearings on June 30 and preliminary examinations on July 7.

Lindsay Knake is a cops and courts reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com.
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Ann Arbor Police are seeking information regarding an armed robbery involving two suspects that occurred in the early morning of June 23. MLive file photo

ANN ARBOR, MI -- Ann Arbor Police are seeking information regarding an armed robbery occurring early Thursday, June 23, when two men brandishing handguns demanded the personal property of three individuals.

The robbery took place at 2 a.m. Thursday in the 1100 block of South Forest Avenue, south of Hill Street. According to a release, Ann Arbor Police believe the two men approached the group, each carrying a silver handgun. The suspects then fled in a four-door sedan.

No detailed descriptions of the suspects were initially available. Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to contact the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security at 734-763-1131 or the Ann Arbor Police Department tip line at 734-794-6939 or tips@a2gov.org

Martin Slagter covers higher education for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at mslagter@mlive.com or on Twitter.
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University of Michigan President Dr. Mark S. Schlissel delivers welcoming remarks during the 29th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium at Hill Auditorium. Alex McDougall | The Ann Arbor News

(ANN ARBOR NEWS)

ANN ARBOR, MI - University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel applauded the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Thursday, June 23, upholding the University of Texas' race-conscious admissions policy, issuing a statement in favor of diversity in higher education.

The justices voted in favor of the Texas program by a 4-3 vote, an outcome that was dramatically altered by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who opposed affirmative action.

The university considers race among many factors in admitting the last quarter of incoming freshmen classes. Texas fills most of the freshman class by guaranteeing admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class, according to The Associated Press.

"Decades of research have conclusively demonstrated the benefits of diversity in higher education," Schlissel said in a statement. "Today's ruling is a victory for all who value a robust exchange of perspectives and support our ability to prepare students to succeed in an increasingly multicultural society.

"Universities cannot be excellent without being diverse. Public universities such as the University of Michigan and the University of Texas have a special role and responsibility to uphold these inseparable values."

Related: U.S. Supreme Court upholds Michigan's ban on affirmative action in college admissions

Although the ruling was momentous, Schlissel said, it is important to note that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling does not apply to U-M. Michigan is one of eight states that has forbidden the consideration of race in college admissions.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan's controversial ban on affirmative action in public college admissions in a divided opinion released in April 2014, preserving a law that U-M officials have said contributed to dwindling minority enrollment at the state's flagship college.

"Regardless of that limitation, the University of Michigan remains steadfastly committed to building and maintaining diversity on our campus. We will continue to work toward that goal in ways that comply with state and federal law," Schlissel said in the statement.

Fifty-eight percent of Michigan voters in 2006 passed Proposal 2, a ballot initiative that amended the state constitution and made it illegal for state entities to consider race in admissions and hiring.

By upholding Proposal 2, the high court book-ended an era of contended affirmative action practices in Michigan that began in 1996 when two students filed separate lawsuits against U-M questioning affirmative action practices in admissions.

Thursday's Supreme Court ruling is consistent with the high court's 2003 ruling in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger involving U-M, when it ruled that it was permissible to consider race as one of many factors in admission to achieve student diversity.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld U-M Law School's limited use of race in admissions. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the court struck down the undergraduate point-based admissions process, which awarded black applicants points based on race.

The court decreed that although affirmative action was permissible, the point system in place gave too much weight to race. Both cases were decided in 2003, and after revisions to admissions policies, U-M retained its use of affirmative action until the 2006 state ban.

Last fall, the University of Michigan filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Texas in this case.

While knowing the outcome of the case at the Supreme Court would have no direct impact on U-M - because of the state's constitutional ban on the use of race in college admissions - the "limited consideration of race, as one factor among many in a holistic and individualized admissions program, is necessary to attain the educational benefits of student-body diversity," according to U-M General Counsel Timothy G. Lynch, an author of the brief.

The U-M brief said that "informed by decades of research and teaching experience, the University of Michigan is firmly convinced of the educational benefits of racial diversity as one component of a broadly diverse student body."

The University of Texas adopted its current admissions process in 2004, after a year-long-study of its admissions process, which was undertaken in the wake of the Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger rulings.

It led the University of Texas to conclude that its prior race-neutral system did not reach its goal of providing the educational benefits of diversity to its undergraduate students.

Petitioner Abigail Fisher, who was not in the top 10 percent of her high school class, was denied admission to the University's 2008 freshman class. She filed suit, alleging that the university's consideration of race as part of its holistic-review process disadvantaged her and other Caucasian applicants, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The District Court entered summary judgment in the university's favor and the Fifth Circuit court affirmed it. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals, so the university's program could be evaluated under the proper strict scrutiny standard.

On remand, the Fifth Circuit again affirmed the entry of summary judgment for the University of Texas.

Former University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman and admissions director Ted Spencer have decried the affirmative action ban in Michigan, saying outright that the school cannot achieve a fully diverse student body with it in place.

Proposal 2 limits not only how U-M can consider an applicant's file, but also how the school can offer financial aid packages and scholarships. The school can't target aid to specific races as a result of the proposal.

According to figures from 2014, blacks comprised 4.6 percent of undergraduates at U-M, compared to 8.9 percent in 1995 and 7 percent in 2006.

Martin Slagter covers higher education for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at mslagter@mlive.com or on Twitter.
ANN ARBOR, MI - A group of veterans and employees at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System worry recommendations headed to Congress would close down the facility and VA hospitals across the country.

More than a hundred people gathered the afternoon of Wednesday, June 22, in front of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System to show support for the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2092, which represents more than 2,100 people.

People held signs that read "VA cares about vets" and "Keep the promise to our vets" while two men called over bullhorns for vehicles passing on Fuller Road to honk their support.

The picket was organized to draw attention to recommendations coming from the VA Commission on Care, which is set to give its report to Congress on June 30 about how to overhaul the Veterans Health Administration that is "in a state of crisis," the preliminary report states.

A draft of the commission's recommendations, released in March, says the "current VA health care system is seriously broken, and because of the breadth and depth of the shortfalls, there is no efficient path to repair it."

Rather than fix the system that the commission thinks lacks the "essential components to effectively and efficiently provide health care in the 21st century," the recommendation calls for a transition to "community care" - allowing veterans to seek care from private health care providers and bill the VA.

The commission anticipates many veterans would choose private health care providers if they had easy access to them. As demand for VA hospitals decreases, those facilities would be closed over the course of the next 20 years.

Those gathered on Wednesday's picket line think the privatization of veterans' health care would lead to lower-quality services at a potentially higher price, in addition to eliminating the jobs of those who work at VA hospitals.

"We just don't think the care of our vets should be provided by the lowest bidder, on the cheap," said Joe Dolan, a veteran and the national representative for District 7 of the AFGE.

Dolan added that many VA hospital employees are veterans.

VA hospitals provide specialized care for traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder that veterans may not find in the private sector, Dolan said, and veterans enjoy the sense of community they find at the VA hospitals.

"There's this camaraderie, it's almost like a community," he said. "To me, it helps them survive."

Dolan acknowledges there are shortcomings with the current VA health system, referencing a 2014 investigation that found the VA hospital system in Phoenix had falsified records to cover up lengthy wait times for veterans trying to obtain care. Similar incidents at VA hospitals in Texas were uncovered earlier this week.

But Dolan thinks that's a result of under-funding. If the federal government gave VA hospitals adequate resources, he said, they could update their systems, fill their staffing vacancies and provide care in a more timely manner.

Ozzie L. James Jr., a veteran and president of AFGE Local 2092, thinks moving veterans' healthcare to private hospitals breaks the promise made to those who enlist in the military about the quality of health care they will receive.

"Private hospitals are not able to do what VA healthcare has done for the veterans," James said, noting the VA's pharmaceutical services are more cost effective than the private sector's. "To privatize won't do anything except cause the money and the funding for the VA to go to the private sector."

Bob King, a UAW member and veteran, joined Wednesday's picket line to voice his opposition for the Commission on Care's recommendations.

"We are very strongly in support of VA hospitals. ... The American people owe [veterans] the best healthcare possible," King said. "The benefits should be used for the veterans, not some private organization. Privatization would be a disaster."

The AFGE plans to hold pickets at VA hospitals in Battle Creek and Detroit on Friday.

Lauren Slagter covers K-12 education for The Ann Arbor News. Contact her at 734-255-1419, lslagter@mlive.com or on Twitter @LaurenSlagter.
YPSILANTI, MI - Retired Lt. Col. Charles Kettles, an Ypsilanti native, is set to receive a Medal of Honor - the nation's highest military award - 49 years after the fact.

On Thursday, June 23, Kettles reflected on the recognition for his actions during Vietnam, where he saved 40 soldiers and 4 crew members while in combat on May 15, 1967.

"It's a great honor, but nothing will upstage the fact that we got 44 men out of there," said Kettles. "That's the bottom line. That's what matters."

At a press conference held at the Ypsilanti Armory, Kettles recounted the actions for which he is honored.

Kettles led a platoon of UH-1Ds helicopters to provide support to the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division that was under ambush by Vietnamese soldiers. Kettles helped to evacuate the wounded, and upon realizing there were eight troops left on the ground, he volunteered to rescue them by himself, disregarding the enemy fire and his own safety to save his comrades. The rescue mission was successful.

The Medal of Honor is awarded by Congress to members of the armed forces who set themselves apart by risking their lives beyond the call of duty. Typically, the Medal of Honor is only given within five years of the honorable act occurring, but U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) and Michigan's U.S. senators Gary Peters (Democrat) and Debbie Stabenow (Democrat) introduced legislation that would waive that customary rule for Kettles.

Congress passed the legislation in December 2015, and it was announced Tuesday that President Obama will present Kettles with the Medal of Honor this summer.

"The award is not just for me, it's for the 74 helicopter crew members who participated in the operation that day," Kettles said.

Kettles went to Edison Institute High School in Dearborn before attending Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) to study engineering. He was drafted into the Army in 1951, where he attended the Army Aviation School before serving active tours in Japan, Thailand and Korea.

Kettles took the time to establish a Ford Dealership in Dewitt while in the Army Reserves between 1956 and 1963, before volunteering for active duty in Vietnam. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and one in France before returning to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, where he stayed until his retirement in 1978.

"He's a very modest man," said retired Sgt. 1st Class Jim Bennett, who worked with Kettles in the early 1970s at Fort Sam Houston. "He certainly deserved it. It's a shame he had to wait 40 plus years for it, but I'm tickled to death for him and his family."

After retiring from the Army, Kettles attended Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio and then returned to Michigan to attend Eastern Michigan University to complete his bachelor's degree and go on to earn a master's degree in commercial construction. Kettles began teaching at EMU, and established the aviation management program at EMU and taught classes in both aviation management and commercial construction.

"Many of those professors that I had at Michigan State Normal College would be floored to think they'd make an instructor out of me," Kettles joked. "I really enjoyed it. I probably learned as much from (the students) as they did from me."

Looking back on the mission after all these years, Kettles said that he wouldn't have done it any differently, because then it may not have been as successful as it was.

"You can plan for every possible alternative, but there's always a surprise," he said.

Kettles is set to receive the Medal of Honor at a ceremony on July 18 at the White House.
Sagaing Region authorities are launching a crackdown on small-scale gold mines that, they say, contribute to environmental degradation. But concern is growing that larger companies, which are licensed at the level of the Union government, may be allowed to continue operating.





U Than Htay, spokesperson for Chief Minister U Myint Naing, told The Myanmar Times on June 21 that the regional government would not agree to extend licences for mining companies associated with environmental degradation. About 160 companies are thought to be targeted, not counting illegal mines.

The new government will not grant extensions for gold mining companies whose licences expire, he said. The regional government is very aware of conditions on the ground. A lot of companies come here to mine for minerals, but we have to pay the price in environmental degradation, he said.

Sagaing Region was among the 12 states and regions afflicted by last years heavy flooding, particularly around Kawlin and Shwebo. Part of the cause of the flooding was forest depletion, as well as the silting of rivers and streams because of waste dumping from mines. At Kawlin, the river is already higher now than it was at the height of last Augusts floods.

U Htay Aung said inspectors would review all applications from licensed companies with a view to their compliance with environmental law, and would be prepared to arrest illegal miners and shut down their pits. Two companies, Shwe Pyi Thein and Shwe Martar, have already been closed and 30 backhoes confiscated for illegal operations.

But one of the largest gold-mining companies, Htawara, will not be affected by the regional government crackdown. The company is reportedly digging an underground cave and has applied for a production term licence, said U Than Htay.

The regional government has requested reports from the departments of forestry and the environment.





Gold mining licences can be extended for one year, and licences for the extraction of other minerals for three years. It is not known how many licences the Union government has agreed to extend in Sagaing Region. The Union government does not require the positive recommendation from the regional government in order to approve an extension.

Chief Minister U Myint Naing had raised this matter with Union Minister for Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation U Ohn Win when the latter visited Sagaing, according to U Than Htay.

Regional authorities have indicated that they would be prepared to renew licences for gold, coal and mineral mines if the companies concerned were fully compliant with environmental laws and operated with the necessary transparency. However, said U Than Htay, Sagaing Region would complain to Nay Pyi Taw if licences were renewed for larger companies against its recommendation.

Translation by San Layy
In a boon for holiday shoppers, Myanmar banks are starting to offer customers international credit cards for the first time.





The country has only recently returned to true credit cards, which disappeared in the wake of the 2003 banking crisis.

At the start of this year some 2 million credit cards had been issued, but most operated like debit cards  some require funds in an account and others require pre-payment.

But this year has seen the return of true credit cards that allow customers make purchase with no funds or collateral necessary.

Myanmar Oriental Bank, Ayeyarwaddy Bank and CB Bank all offer credit cards, and CB Bank launched an international card last week, according to U Kyaw Lin, vice chair of CB bank.

The card is branded with the Myanmar Payment Union and UnionPay International stamps, allowing it be to used abroad wherever UnionPay is accepted.

Other lenders are following the trend towards offering credit cards for local and international purchases.





Myanmar Oriental Bank is planning to launch an international credit card soon, according to the lenders chair U Mya Than.

KBZ has offered cards since 2015, but these require funds in a saving account. Daw Swe Zin Win, general manager of KBZ, told The Myanmar Times that her bank hopes to be able to offer the same cards as CB Bank and Ayeyarwaddy Bank soon.

Without a credit bureau in Myanmar many banks have deemed it too risky to issue unsecured cards, as they are unable to accurately assess the creditworthiness of their customers.

CB Bank, Ayeyarwaddy Bank and MOB all link credit card limits to income. U Aung Htet Paing, deputy general manager of MOBs card department, told The Myanmar Times in March, that Anyone with a monthly salary of more than K150,00 was eligible to apply for cards allowing users to spend between K250,000 and K5 million.

CB Bank offers three types of card depending on a customers income. Classic card holders can spend between K500,000 and K1 million. Gold card holders can spent K1 million to K4 million, and Platinum card holders K4 million to K5million.

Banks are careful in scrutinising customers applications. But even so credit cards are a risky business, said U Zay Yar Aung, managing director at CB Bank.

It takes almost two weeks to analyse an application, he said, adding that CB Bank will close the accounts of customers that do not settle their bills.

CB Bank customers pay no interest on purchases, but must pay their credit card bills within 45 days, after which they pay 1.08 percent interest on the amount outstanding. Ayeyarwaddy Bank offers the same terms.
The Yangon Region governments review of 64 suspended high-rise projects will continue into at least next week, and the results of the inspection will only be made public once all the building sites have been surveyed, according to officials involved in the review.





U Aung Myint, chair of the Myanmar Engineering Society (MES) and a member of the committee formed to oversee the review, said that only once all the buildings have been scrutinised will the committee announce which projects will be re-issued with permits.

YCDC told some 200 high-rise projects to suspend development back in May, while the authorities investigated whether projects correspond to Yangon development plans.

Of the frozen projects, 64 had already received an official construction permit, and these buildings are being examined first. Following a review of schematics and plans, four 14-person teams under a newly formed Yangon Region government committee started site visits on June 21.

Yangon Regions Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein told a parliament session on June 16 that the review would be finished and permits re-issued within the next week. But that deadline now looks in doubt.

U Myo Myint, a member of one of the inspection teams and a representative of the Myanmar Construction Entrepreneurs Association (MCEA), said he was unsure when the inspections would finish because the committee had not told them when the next set of inspections would take place.

But it would not be possible for them to finish within a week, he said. The committee has not arranged things very systematically, said U Myo Myint. They havent given us exact instructions and we dont know the procedure. Were just told where we have to inspect and when have to submit the report.





Although 12 building were inspected on June 21, no inspections took place yesterday and there would not be inspections today, he said.

The committee is chaired by Daw Nilar Kyaw, Yangon Region minister for electricity, industry and transportation, who could not be reached for comment.

U Myo Myint said that as an MCEA representative he thought the 12 buildings inspected on June 21 should be allowed to continue construction. The projects had received construction permits, and were in-line with regulations in place when the permit was issued, he added.

They had received official approval and construction has been underway for some three of four months, he told The Myanmar Times. A lot of investment has gone into the projects, but now they have to wait. We at MCEA think the committee should allow these projects to proceed, but its up to them.

Contractors have complained that the review is taking far too long and is hurting the construction industry.

U Kyaw Nanda Aung, a representative of Kyeemyindaing township and member of another inspection team, said that his role was to negotiate between local residents and developers. He could not comment on projects technical aspects, but would report residents comments on the projects to the committee, he said.

Some local residents arent happy with the projects being built, he added.

The inspection teams are made up of representatives from the Association of Myanmar Architects, the Myanmar Engineering Society, the Committee for Quality Control for High-rise Building Projects, Yangon Heritage Trust, the Myanmar Construction Entrepreneurs Association, the Myanmar Earthquake Committee and YCDC committee members.
Work is under way to prevent further flooding in 15 Yangon townships, including the six downtown townships that are worst afflicted. City authorities are spending K1 billion to remove silt and rubbish from the drains.





Yangon Eastern district administrator U Thaung Tin Htwe told The Myanmar Times on June 21 that the work, designated a priority by Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein, was being carried out by private contractors through the General Administrative Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

He said the blockages were very severe. One drain was blocked by a sofa. A drain 5 feet deep might be 4 feet deep in silt. We pay by piece-work, or hire people through the ward administration office, using the Yangon City Development Committee budget, he said.

Western district administrator U Than Htut Oo said a committee had been set up to supervise drain clearance. The general administrators of the townships inform us when flooding occurs so that the work can be carried out. There are eight townships in [Eastern and Western] districts. In the past, the drains were cleared and the rubbish placed near the drains, so that when the next rain fell, it washed the rubbish back into the drains. Now the contractors are required to undertake that they will remove the rubbish promptly and dispose of it properly. This reduces the risk of flooding, he said.

Upgrading Yangon's ancient sewer system

Local MPs are reportedly monitoring the flooding situation in order to be prepared to raise the issue in hluttaw.

Outside contractors on piece-work are employed alongside ward residents, loading rubbish extracted from the sewers into gunny sacks which they then load onto trucks. The administrators pay the workers once they are sure the drains have been dug to the correct depth, said YCDC Department of Pollution Control and Cleansing assistant head U Aung Myint Maw.

Keep an eye out for tomorrows Weekend section for a profile of one of the workers.

Translation by Khine Thazin Han
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Kyeemyindaing township of downtown Yangon, a classroom of students is singing Summer Holiday.





Everybody has a summer holiday, they sing. Doing things they always wanted to.

For this chorus of Myanmar youth, practising an English-language song is exactly that: The thing they always wanted to do is learn.

Anyone who is willing to learn English or computer skills, we welcome them, said U Aung Nyein Chan, the volunteer director of the school known as the Suu Educational Institute.

The Institute has grown out of the NLD Education Network, which NLD leader and now State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi founded in 2012 after her release from house arrest.

Touring Yangons suburbs, she discovered that many children of school-going age were not attending due to lack of financial means. Parents complained that free education provided by the government came laden with unseen costs, such as uniforms, textbooks, commuting expenses for the children and required contributions to the Parent Teacher Associations.





Daw Aung San Suu Kyi formed the Education Network to target these at-risk youth unable to afford school. Beginning with two primary and secondary schools in Hlaing Tharyar and South Dagon townships, the Network grew to more than 60 satellite classrooms within two years.

Over 20,000 students have attended the primary and secondary schools, and more than 25 percent have passed their matriculation exams despite never having attended a formal school. But when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi realised that the Network could not afford to pay their way through college, she suggested another route  vocational education.

The resulting Suu Educational Institute offers courses in English, computer science and even hospitality skills. U Nay Oke, the Institutes chairperson and a childhood friend of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, said the institute now has an enrollment of 250 students, of whom 50 have finished basic and intermediate courses in computer science and English.

Volunteer instructors and donations keep the program afloat, but U Nay Oke says its a constant hustle to make ends meet. The Washington DC-based Suu Foundation recently pledged US$5000 to the Educational Institutes efforts in Thaton township, Mon State, but more is needed if the Institute hopes to expand into more townships.

Donations of any kind will help, U Nay Oke said, especially computer equipment and time volunteered teaching English. The Institute operates primarily in Kyeemyindaing and Mon State, but other NLD Education Network branches can be found in Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Insein, South Dagon, Thanlyin and Kyauktada townships. All welcome volunteer teachers and teaching material.

We welcome any contributions, U Nay Oke said. Time, money, materials  anything.

Those interested in helping should contact headquarters at [email protected]
Nationalist politicians are slamming the government for pushing an official change of terminology to refer to a Muslim minority in Rakhine State.





The Arakan National Party (ANP) said in a statement that they totally reject any other term besides Bengalis to refer to the mostly stateless minority which self-identifies as Rohingya.

Saying Muslim community from Rakhine State makes it sounds as if they have always lived in the state. Its like saying Rakhine is their place of origin, said ANPs secretary U Tun Aung Kyaw. It will create more opportunities for them to attain citizenship and its like already accepting they are Myanmar nationals from Myanmar.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has asked several visiting dignitaries to refrain from using either the terms Rohingya or Bengali, including most recently the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee.

Ms Lee was reportedly asked to avoid controversial terms during her first official visit to the country under the new government.

The Ministry of Information also instructed state media on June 16 to use Muslims in Rakhine State instead of Rohingya or Bengali, and also said it should be Buddhists of Rakhine State instead of ethnic Rakhine or Arakan.

The previous administration, which stripped over 660,000 Muslims in the state of their white card IDs and the right to vote, officially used the term Bengali, implying the community had migrated from neighbouring Bangladesh.





Yesterday, Amyotha Hluttaws deputy speaker and ANP member U Aye Thar Aung slammed the new official wording, calling it a poor decision by the National League for Democracy.

We always knew them as Bengalis. They speak Bengali language so we will continue to call them Bengali, he told The Myanmar Times.

Another political party, the National Prosperity Party, also released a statement urging the government to reconsider the official terms, saying the change could cause the international community to mistake the origins of the Bengalis.

Anger over the US embassys use of the term Rohingya in a statement launched nationalist supporters into rounds of protests in several states and regions in April and May. In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started making the request that the trigger terms be avoided.

During the 2014 national census, the Rohingya minority were not enumerated, as they were barred by the government from self-identifying. Rohingya are not considered among the 135 officially recognised national races.

In a pilot citizenship verification process currently being conducted in three townships in Rakhine State, immigration officials have left race off the forms in the hopes of skipping over the controversy. But according to a Radio Free Asia report, a village in Ponnagyun refused the cards and would not provide information to immigration officials, again citing the inability to self-identify as Rohingya.

Yesterday, the patron of the National Development and Peace Party, a Muslim political group, welcomed the governments change in terminology, calling it a step forward.

It is best if the community had a right to self-identify, but I think this name change [to Muslim community in Rakhine State] is good, said the partys patron Muhammad Salim.

But the secretary of the Muslim Lawyers Association, U Khin Maung Cho, criticised the government for focusing so much on the right wording and not enough on improving the situation for residents of Rakhine State.

The government needs to resolve the issues immediately, but it seems like the government is prolonging the issue, he said.

On June 17, Myanmars representative to the UN human rights assembly, Daw Thet Thinzar Tun, told the international community that if they want to help Myanmar they should use the term Muslim community in Rakhine State.

Translation by Zar Zar Soe
Frontline anti-malaria drugs are failing and the rapid decline in their effectiveness is directly linked to increasing parasite mutations, a study released this week has found.





The mutations to a specific parasite gene, which is particularly prevalent along the Myanmar-Thailand border, may be responsible for the areas spike in drug-resistant strains, according to the 10-year study by the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit and the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU).

Researchers have long known that artemisinin, a Chinese herb derivative used to combat malaria, was facing growing resistance. But now partner drugs used in combination treatments are likewise proving impotent.

This study demonstrates for the first time that artemisinin resistance leads to failure of the artemesinin partner drug, in this case, mefloquine. This means that the first-line artemisinin combination therapy [ACT] introduced here in 1994 has finally fallen to resistance, said professor Francois Nosten, director of the Shoklo unit.

In 2003, 100 percent of the malaria patients in the study, conducted at clinics on the Myanmar-Thailand border, were cured when they took MAS3, a combination of drugs that had been highly effective in treating the mosquito-borne infectious disease since it was introduced in 1994.

By 2013, the drug worked for only 81.1pc of the studys participants.

The study was focused on one of the most common types of malaria, called P falciparum. Over the span of the study, researchers found a more than 12-fold increase in the percentage of malaria cases that included the genetic mutation K13, which is more common along that border.

In 2003, when the drugs were still highly effective, only 6.7 percent of the cases contained a K13 mutation. But by 2013, 83.4pc of the cases included the mutation.





This, combined with a doubling of instances of a more universal mutation, is believed to be what caused the drugs declining effectiveness.

When the K13 mutation is present, the drugs fail more frequently. The same is true of another mutation, Pfmdr. But when both mutations are present, the negative effects are multiplied, rather than added.

Synergy between these two resistance determinants may help to explain why failure rate declined precipitously in 2009, the authors wrote.

The connection between the appearance of K13 mutations and a strains resistance to artemisinin-based combination treatments, like MAS3, has been alluded to in past studies but, the MORU authors wrote, the link was not clearly established and some contested the claim.

This uncertainty may have contributed to the failure to contain artemisinin resistance in the greater Mekong area, the authors wrote in the study.

Malaria has been adapting to drugs in the area of the Myanmar-Thailand border for decades. The MAS3 treatment was itself a replacement for a previous drug that had lost its potency.

The treatment has had a much longer run than many of its predecessors but the authors warned that, as MAS3s effectiveness declines, help, in the form of a new drug, is not on the way any time soon.

The spread of the strain needs to be stopped in the region, they said, with elimination the only option unless new treatments are made immediately available.

Alternatives are needed desperately, they wrote. With new antimalarials still years from deployment, there is an urgent need to eliminate P falciparum from the area before the recent and substantial gains in malaria control are reversed.

Reported deaths related to malaria have declined drastically over the last decade and a half in Myanmar, according to the World Health Organization.

In the year 2000, there were more than 2700 reported deaths related to the disease. By 2014 that number was down to 92, though WHO has warned that these totals are often underreported.

According to the WHO, Myanmar had 152,195 reported cases of malaria last year.

In 2015, 31.8 million Myanmar people, more than half the population, were at risk for malaria, and 8.4 million were at high risk.
In what could one day become Southeast Asias version of the European Unions Schengen visa-free zone, Myanmar and four other countries are discussing the introduction of a single visa that would permit travel to all of them.





The issue was aired at a meeting in Thailand that brought together Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand in the so-called CLMVT 2016 forum.

We discussed travel to the five countries on a single visa. These are just initial steps toward implementation, said Union Tourism Minister U Ohn Maung at a press conference on June 19 at Inle Lake Hotel.

U Phyo Wai Yar Zar, chair of the Myanmar Tourism Marketing Committee, who participated in the forum, told The Myanmar Times the new travel arrangement might take some time. It may not be easy to create a single visa for five countries because even a bilateral visa takes time to arrange. There will have to be a lot of negotiation.

He said the problem was essentially political. If we got the single visa, people who live in the region could travel easily, which would be good for the tourism industry, especially if the visa permitted cross-border travel overland as well as at international airports.

Visa-free travel would make foreign trips so much easier, he said.

Daw Sabei Aung, managing director of Nature Dreams travel and tours, said if ASEAN countries formed a single visa zone like Europes Schengen system, it would ease progress toward a single market, improve access to healthcare on the basis of mutual recognition of health insurance and worker security, and harmonising prices and standards in trade.

But the existence of differing policies in countries of the region is still a weakness, she said.





Last year, Myanmar received the Best Destination Award 2015 within the ASEAN Economic Community from Lonely Planet.
Thousands of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand hoping for an audience with visiting State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi were left disappointed on Thursday after Thai authorities denied them entry to a hall where she was due to speak.





Ko Su Soe, a migrant worker originally from Tanintharyi Region who has lived in Bangkok for more than 11 years, said he came to the Mahachai seafood market, in Samut Sakhon province southwest of the Thai capital, early Thursday morning to see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

I wanted to tell Amay Suu about so many problems that we are facing. I have been here since 4am in the morning, he said.

As many as 3000 migrant workers gathered to meet with the state counsellor, but were surprised to hear that the speaking venues 500 seats were already occupied by other workers.

I couldnt believe that, Ko Su Soe said. Earlier they said they would let us enter into the hall of the meeting if we came early. But, we were [later] told that the seats had already been taken.

As word spread of the state counsellors limited audience, a group of migrant workers shut out of the event gathered at a gate providing access to the hall to protest their exclusion.

We want to see Amay Suu, shouted the protestors.





It was not immediately clear what criteria were used to select those admitted to the hall. Rumours circulating outside the venue posited that the privileged 500 were better paid and thus less likely to air grievances that might reflect poorly on treatment by the Thai government or employers of a Myanmar migrant worker population numbering in the millions.

When The Myanmar Times approached a group of young women in their 20s who were given seats in the hall, they denied that they were given specific instructions from their

Another migrant worker from a food processing factory, Ko Thaung Htwe, was among those denied access, but said he understood limits to the state counsellors

Before leaving the compound, he said, Even if we could not meet her in person, then we will watch her on

The meeting was scheduled to start on 4:30pm local time.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi arrived to Thailand on Thursday and will return to Myanmar on June 25. A planned trip to visit a refugee camp in Ratchaburi province that day has reportedly been cancelled by Thai authorities.

Despite attempts to contact the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, it could not be confirmed.
Practitioners of Myanmar traditional medicine are being reduced to the status of mere masseurs, they are complaining. They were attacking a statement released by the health department forbidding them to use technology that is unlicensed or has no connection with Myanmar traditional healing techniques.





Practitioners called a press conference to denounce the statement, which was issued last week by Dr Yi Yi Myint, director general of the Department of Traditional Medicine, part of the Ministry of Health and Sports. The statement bans rays and electric stimulation devices from government traditional medicine hospitals. It does not extend to or address treatment at private traditional clinics.

Traditional medicine graduate Ko Hein Soe Kyaw said, Its obvious that the director general issued this statement without consulting with veteran traditional practitioners from the [Traditional Medicine] Council.

He said the ministry should encourage high-tech methods to improve the traditional medicine sector instead of imposing restrictions. I feel as if this is taking traditional medicine back to ancient times, before the advance of medical science, he said.

The statement targeted government-run traditional medicine departments, though it also has implications for private clinics as well as for the future of traditional medicine, said the organisers, who said the statement was a violation of the Traditional Medicine Council law.

Modern techniques and treatments are being banned in government hospitals, so patients dont trust private clinics, said traditional practitioner Ko Htoo Pyae Sone, who said the director general was blocking progress in traditional medicine.

One traditional practitioner who works in a government hospital said, Being prohibited from giving treatments with modern techniques makes us like traditional masseurs. It also wastes a lot of time.





The traditional doctors want MPs to question the policy in parliament.

This statement made it clear that a doctor who graduated in Western medical science doesnt know Myanmar traditional medicine. The position of director general at the Department of Traditional Medicine has always been filled by Western-trained doctors. We will call for a change in this practice so the position can be filled by a traditional practitioner, said Ko Naing Min Tun.

They also want the health minister to deal with difficulties the practice now faces.

The statement hurts the future progress of the traditional medicine sector. The council law encourages using scientific methods. But the director generals statement is like asking practitioners to run when theyre tied down, said practitioner U Than Tun, a member of the Traditional Medicine Council.

Director general Dr Yi Yi Myint told The Myanmar Times her statement was intended to protect medical ethics and to prevent Myanmar traditional medicine therapies from disappearing.

Though the statement asks practitioners not to use unauthorized subjects and technologies in treatments, it did not identify any specific subject. She said critics should make a careful study of the laws, rules and regulations and procedures.

Translation by Zar Zar Soe
Myanmar is contesting more than one-third of the land in a national park that Thailand has nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status.





Thailands Kaeng Krachan National Park, which borders Tanintharyi Region, has been seeking the prestigious listing since 2011, but Myanmars Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent letters to UNESCO and Thai officials, claiming that 34 percent of the land proposed for nomination is in Myanmar.

If that map shown by Thailand is approved, land from the Myanmar side will be taken, said U Kyaw Zaw, director of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, so we officially object.

The land dispute is largely because the territory is not precisely demarcated by either country, U Kyaw Zaw said.

Included in the proposed map is Myanmars Laynyar national park.

The nomination was put forward at UNESCOs 2015 meeting in Germany but was postponed. It will be discussed in July in Istanbul, said U Than Zaw Oo, director of the Myanmar branch of the World Heritage Department.

In the maps presented to use, two areas [of the park] cross over into Myanmar, he said.

UNESCO has previously urged Thailand to more fully address the concerns that have been raised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning Karen communities within the Kaeng Krachan National Park.





Translation by Khant Lin Oo
Business owners have been reminded to avoid hiring children under the age of 14, or face fines ranging from K5 million to K10 million, up to six months in prison, or both.





The warning was issued on June 20 at a workshop in Yangon organised by the Factory and General Labour Laws Inspection Department under the Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Populations. In attendance were hoteliers, restaurateurs, owners of small- and medium-sized factories, shopkeepers and other businesspeople.

Department officials said it was also illegal for children aged 14 to 16 years to work more than four hours a day, according to the 2016 Shops and Work Departments Law.

Owners of shops and work departments must also avoid asking children aged 14 to 16 to work between 6pm and 6am, said U Aung Naing, deputy director of department. Some employers want children to work four hours at their shop, and then another four hours at a relatives shop. But our laws do not allow this.

U Aung Naing added that children who work in dangerous environments such as kitchens must be properly trained. Furthermore, employees in the 14-to-16 age range must have a recommendation certificate from a physician in order to work.

According to international conventions, people under 18 years old are regarded as children, but this is not okay for our developing country. If we dont hire children, they will lose job opportunities, and they and their families will have trouble earning a living, he said.

So we had to make laws that are suitable for our situation and circumstances. According to these laws, people who are 14 years or older have the right to work.





According to data from the occupation portion of the 2014 census, more than one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 in Myanmar go to work instead of school.

U Win Shein, director general of the department, said at the workshop that Myanmar is working with the International Labour Organization, Save the Children and the United Nations Childrens Fund to end forced child labour.

We dont deny that we have child labour here. We have a lot, and we are aware of this, U Win Shein said.

Children who do work must be treated like human beings. Employers need to be sympathetic to them and give them rest. Employers also need to help make their lives better. Dont be interested only in your income and business. Think of your young employees as your own children.

U Win Shein added that the first step in ending the use of child labour is to destroy the abysmal poverty in Myanmar.
The fiasco at last weeks ministerial meeting in the southern Chinese city of Kunming might be dismissed as laughable were it not for the fact that it has driven yet another nail into the mouldering coffin of ASEAN.





The high-powered June 14 conclave, which brought together Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his colleagues from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was designed to bring harmony to the region.

It did the reverse. And in many ways it echoed an earlier debacle that occurred at the groups ministerial meeting in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in July 2012.

As that years ASEAN chair, Cambodia had unaccustomed power to set the agenda and in doing so it was guided by China, from which it receives massive investments to boost its development.

The key topic of that meeting was the volatile dispute between China and several ASEAN members over the sovereignty of islands in the South China Sea.

Cambodia, like Laos and Myanmar, has no claims to these islands and thus its goal was to try to please Beijing and win more big investments, while not upsetting its ASEAN colleagues who are claimants.

To this end, the Cambodians argued that the sovereignty disputes were not a multilateral issue between China and ASEAN, but a bilateral matter between rival claimants, and thus should be kept off the agenda.





That tactic failed, so the Cambodians, apparently advised by Beijing, ruled that what had been discussed about the sovereignty issue must not appear in the final communique.

Naturally, ASEANs most aggrieved claimant states, the Philippines and Vietnam, rejected that proposition. They wanted China to be named for aggressively occupying their islands.

But with Chinese backing, Cambodia stood firm and accused Manila and Hanoi of hijacking the meeting and trying to make the communique a hostage of their unyielding demand.

So for the first time in 45 years, no final communique was issued after an ASEAN ministerial meeting and the world press ran headlines like Cambodia: The Wrecker of ASEAN Unity.

Phnom Penhs spokesperson Koy Kuong retorted, Calling Cambodia a proxy, paid and hired by China in the form of large investments to sideline the South China Sea issue and do Chinas bidding, is really insane. Cambodia is only trying to be neutral.

Vietnam and the Philippines did not see it that way, and Manila decided to appeal to a United Nations Court of Arbitration in The Hague, in Holland, to rule on its offshore dispute with China.

While the court has been deliberating over the past two years, tensions in the sea have ratcheted up as China has reclaimed and militarised more and more islands, so that many now have airstrips and missile batteries.

The ASEAN claimants have done relatively little except grind their teeth and seek help from the United States and other allies like Australia, India and Japan.

Attempts have been made to engage China, but it has not gone far because Beijing insists that disputes must be settled bilaterally between claimants and not multilaterally involving all ASEAN.

Still, there were hopes that last weeks forum in Kunming might be more productive, given that a verdict from The Hague is due between now and July 7.

Certainly, the sovereignty issue dominated the meeting and ASEAN members later admitted there was a candid exchange with Wang about Chinas extensive reclamation and militarisation projects.

That was diplomatese for a heated argument, which resulted in the Chinese vetoing a planned press statement because they regarded it as too critical of Beijings behaviour.

In the statement, group members said they could not ignore what is happening in the South China Sea as it is an important issue in the relations and cooperation between ASEAN and China.

Their statement continued, We emphasised the importance of non-militarisation and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities, including land reclamation, which may raise tensions.

Beijing said this wording could not be permitted and presented an alternative version, which ASEAN members rejected, demanding that their original statement be issued.

China said no, and arm-twisted their proxies Cambodia and Laos, who then withdrew their support for the original statement.

A fiasco ensued, as the Malaysians, frustrated by the particularly crude and arrogant behaviour of the Chinese, unilaterally released the original statement to the media.

The Chinese side then told Laos, this years ASEAN chair, to instruct the ASEAN Secretariat to order the Malaysians to rescind the statement, which they duly did, but not before it had been published in international media.

As the Thai political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak sagely noted, China has been calling in its chips with smaller pliant ASEAN states and driving a wedge through the organisation over the South China Sea issue.

It did not end there. ASEAN ministers then decided that each member could issue their own statement as they saw fit.

Indonesia and Singapore promptly did so, using text that reflected the original statement that had so inflamed the Chinese.

On June 20, Cambodias pro-China Prime Minister Hun Sen decried this action and ridiculed any notion that his country had bowed to Chinese pressure to veto the original statement.

He also chastised Manila for taking its case to the Hague tribunal, saying, This is not about laws, it is totally about politics. I will not support any judgement by the court.

Some in ASEAN will agree with him, others most adamantly will not, and still others will sit on the fence and watch as their fractious association continues to disintegrate.
The Rosa Parks Transit Centeryep, that wild-looking downtown Detroit building with the futuristic white canopyis in the process of getting an overhaul. The city of Detroit has allocated $850,000 this year and next to fix up the facility.

Located at Michigan and Cass Avenues in downtown Detroit, the Transit Center serves as Detroit's central bus hub. The 257,000-square foot facility, which sits on a 2.4-acre site, was completed in 2009 for a price tag of $22.5 million.

Since that time, however, it's sunk into a somewhat dilapidated stateproblems include broken ticket machines, heavily-worn floors and ramshackle bathroom stalls covered in grafitti. Message boards displaying inaccurate bus route info have also been a source of grumbles for travelers.

Riders offer mixed reviews about the present shape of the transit center.

Elizabeth Gist, who's been riding Detroit public transit for several months, described the station as "nice" and was happy to hear about the upgrade.

On the other hand, long-time rider Jerome Gainer, 53, believes the station "definitely" needs upgrades.

"The facility should be kept up," he said. "It's not kept up. Look around, you can see debris on the ground."

According to agency's director, Dan Dirks, the facility has been deteriorating quicker than expected because it's operating beyond its original capacity. Earlier this year, he told WDIV that the center was built to service 5,000 visitors a day, but is now averaging 8,000.

Back in January, DDOT announced it planned to spend $625,000 this year and $225,000 in 2017 to fix up the facility. Last year it added snow guards on the roof and security cameras to the interior and exterior of the building.

"We are renovating the transit center to counteract normal wear and tear resulting from six and a half years of intensive daily use, and to ensure a safe and pleasant user experience for all our customers," wrote the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) maintenance division by email. "We continuously invest in all our facilities as needs arise and as funds become available."

The current overhaul includes upgrades of the center's floors, bathrooms and lighting. With respect to the restrooms, the agency intends to replace bathroom partitions and sinks. That project is currently in its procurement phase. DDOT has already finished the lion's share of its lighting overhaul. As of April, it's replaced 70 percent of the exterior light bulbs at Rosa Parks and is now working on the remaining 30 percent.

As for the floors, they're scheduled for a facelift later this year. "The existing concrete floor inside the building will be scarified and resurfaced, as the existing surface treatment is worn away in many areas of the building," wrote DDOT. "Specifications for the resurfacing project are being developed, and we plan to award the project and begin work in the second quarter."

Plans are also underway to fix the exterior concrete and to upgrade the transit center's generator and electrical system.

And what about the out-of-order ticket dispenser and problems with the message boards? According to DDOT spokesperson SuVon Treese, they're being addressed.

"The ticket machine at the transit center does not give out correct change," he says. "We are currently working to get the manufacturer out to resolve the issue."

Treese adds that the message boards are tied to DDOT's Automatic Vehicle Location system, which is now in the process of being updated.

Joseph Krause is a regular DDOT rider who's voiced concerns about the Rosa Parks facility in the past. "It sounds like they're making the right repairs," says Krause. That said, he feels there's still more work to be done.

Specifically, he'd like the city to find a replacement for the upstairs restaurant, Louisiana Creole Gumbo, which recently closed, as well as a vendor for a retail convenience shop that was announced when the center opened.

"I'm happy that the unacceptable maintenance issues are being addressed," he says. "The next thing to do is bring the facility up to use in a way consistent with its original design."

This article originally appeared in Mode Shift
Addis Ababa (AFP) - Ethiopia needs to toss out 69 million condoms that were paid for by international donors to fight the spread of AIDS because of their poor quality, local media reported Thursday.

The disease-defeating contraceptives were found to be defective by the Pharmaceuticals Fund and Supply Agency (PFSA), a government body, according to a report on local station Radio Fana.

Agency director Meskele Lera said action was under way to force the condom supplier to, "reimburse the money and cover all costs in the discarding process."

The $2 million (1.8 million euros) worth of condoms were reportedly manufactured by an unnamed Indian company and paid for by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria but failed basic tests.

Around 1.2 million Ethiopians have AIDS, according to World Health Organization figures, equivalent to a prevalence rate of 2.4 percent, with significantly higher concentrations in the capital Addis Ababa.
Seizures on the Atlantic island of Cape Verde, in the Gambia, Nigeria and Ghana contributed to a 78 percent increase in cocaine seizures from 2009-2014 compared to the previous period. By Kenzo Tribouillard (AFP/File)

23.06.2016 LISTEN

Dakar (AFP) - Developing markets are fuelling an increase in cocaine trafficking through west Africa, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said Thursday in a new report.

Seizures on the Atlantic island of Cape Verde, in the Gambia, Nigeria and Ghana contributed to a 78 percent increase in cocaine seizures from 2009-2014 compared to the previous period, UNODC regional representative Pierre Lapaque said at the report's launch in Dakar.

"Cocaine trafficking through Africa seems to be growing again and we have evidence of increasing trafficking to Asia and the Middle East," Lapaque said.

The European and North American markets were "saturated" with narcotics, the drug expert said, meaning criminal groups were looking further afield for expansion opportunities.

"Narco-traffickers have worked out that to develop their businesses, they have to position themselves in developing countries," he said, adding that west Africa offered a young population with a middle class to sell to.

Lapaque said the link between drug lords and terrorists remained a disturbing feature of the market.

"We have learned that there are connections even if it is difficult to give figures," he said.

The UN-linked International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in March that Benin and Namibia were experiencing an increase in the number of wealthier drug users.

Despite this the global cocaine market appears to be "shrinking", according to the report, despite top producer Colombia recently massively upping its output.

Global coca cultivation fell by more than 30 percent between 1998 and 2014, due in part to nationwide efforts to eradicate the crop and alternative development programmes for affected farmers.
Port Harcourt (Nigeria) (AFP) - Three Australians, a New Zealander and South African have been kidnapped along with two locals in Nigeria's southeast after their vehicle was attacked, officials said on Thursday.

The hold-up, in which the driver was shot dead, happened in the Akpabuyo district near the capital of Cross River state, Calabar, at about 7 am (0600 GMT) on Wednesday, Nigerian police said.

Those taken were believed to be workers with Australian mining and engineering giant Macmahon, which was contracted to cement major LafargeHolcim in the state, police commissioner Jimoh Ozi-Obeh told reporters.

"The police is currently working with the Nigerian Navy to ensure that the victims are released unharmed," he added.

Ozi-Obeh said five people were taken -- two Australians, a South African and two Nigerians.

But Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said three Australians were kidnapped and the foreign affairs department in New Zealand said one of its nationals -- who lived in Australia -- was also a victim.

"We are working with the authorities, local authorities, at the highest levels," Turnbull told reporters in Geelong, Australia.

"We don't know at this stage the identity of the kidnappers and families in Australia are notified of course.

"It is a very serious kidnapping, a very serious criminal assault, one person was killed and seven people have been kidnapped."

The commissioner said no ransom demand had been received.

One witness to the abduction, who asked not to be identified, said the kidnappers took the men to a waiting boat.

LafargeHolcim spokeswoman Viola Graham-Douglas said the company was informed of the incident by Macmahon, which was "working with the security agencies to resolve the situation".

Macmahon has an $18 million per year contract with the United Cement Company of Nigeria Ltd (UniCem) for quarrying operations at UniCem's cement manufacturing plant at Mfamosing, near Calabar.

UniCem is a joint venture between Franco-Swiss conglomerate LafargeHolcim and Flour Mills of Nigeria, according to the Australian firm's website.

Kidnapping for ransom has been a long-standing problem in southern Nigeria, particularly in the oil-producing delta region, where criminal gangs target wealthy Nigerians and expatriate workers.

Most are usually released after the payment of a ransom.
23.06.2016 LISTEN

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Folks, news report have it that hundreds of NPP supporters in the Awutu Senya (including former regional and constituency executives as well as the council of elders from about 103 branches of the NPP in the constituency) have defected to the NDC. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/politics/Over-100-NPP-supporters-defect-to-NDC-449428 ). Indeed, this happening is more than eye-opening; it is nerve-racking!!

Of course, other news reports over the period have it that some NDC members have also defected to the NPP, basing their action on dissatisfaction or discontent against the Mahama-led administrations performance. Defection here, defection there, means nothing new as such; but what has happened in the Awutu Senya area is peculiarly interesting for all that it says, and we shall unpack it all.

Primarily, the NPP cabal may not like to hear that this defection has occurred at this time that they are expending the partys resources to intensify the anti-Mahama campaign toward winning Election 2016. But it is not a matter for them to like or dislike. It is simply a matter that reflects a lot for us to ponder because it speaks volumes.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that they wont like it that instead of winning souls from the mass of floating voters or the NDC itself (to confirm their claims that Ghanaians across-the-board are dissatisfied with the performance of the Mahama-led administration), some of the partys own supporters would choose to jump ship. Their defection and the reasons given to justify it pose a serious credibility problem to the NPP establishment. Ironically, the defection has occurred in an area that the NPPs candidate challenging the NDCs Ms. Hannah Tetteh considers a cool chop.

The defection occurred just a few days after the NPPs flagbearer (Akufo-Addo) had visited that area and attracted attention because of utterances from some chiefs that the gods had blessed him to win Election 2016 at his third attempt. The gods must be crazy not to foresee the defection to prevent!!

This defection means a lot for all that it is. I am really not swayed by the mere act of defection; it is nothing strange, especially in our kind of politics. Over the years, weve had innumerable instances of defections but cant say that any instance particularly determined the fate of the various political parties. Even when big shots defected in those days, their car4pet-crossing didnt have any huge impact on the polls.

Take the defection of the late Alhaji Inusah Fuseini (Kufuors former campaign manager for Election 1996) to the NDC at Election 2000. Many in the NDC thought his coat-turning might fetch some electoral capital, but it didnt. Neither did that of former Rawlings followers like the former Northern regional Minister, Alhaji Fuseini, the late Salifu Bawa Dy-Yakah, Ms. Frances Essiam, Maame Dokono have any negative impact on the NDCs political fortunes.

Even when Goosie Tanoh and the old guards of the Rawlings revolution split ranks to form their National reform Party or when Dr. Obed Asamoah led some aggrieved NDC members to form their Democratic Freedom Party, the NDC still stood tall. What Nana Konadu is leading her NDP to do is like throwing spittle in an ocean. It wont wash with those who know what Ghanaian politics entails. Defections, therefore, mean nothing to me for as long as they constitute nothing significant to change the political complexion. They are a drop in the ocean, motivated by various factors, unlike what the NPP defectors in Awutu Senya have raised to turn my crank, especially at this time.

But I am tempted to raise their example to point out its peculiar significance. I really dont care whether the news report is accurate or not, but I am tempted to believe it because so far, none of those quoted in it have come out to deny the defection and the utterances allegedly made by them. In effect, then, the defection portends a lot for us to contemplate as a significant contribution to the discourse on contemporary Ghanaian politics. Why is it so?

Forget about the likely impact of the defection on the NPPs overall fate at Election 2016. If the reasons adduced by the defectors for shifting to the NDC is anything to go by, I think that it offers us much food-for-thought than our using it to wax in dangerous speculation at this time. We dont even want to bother our heads over whether this kind of defection will ensure the NDCs victory at the Presidential and Parliamentary levels in that constituency or nationwide. Thats not our focus.

We are more interested in what the reasons given by the defectors do to us even as we wonder why despite all the noise being made against the Mahama-led administrationand the hyping of hopes that the NPP would win Election 2016some of its members (including constituency and regional executives) should jump ship to join the political camp being written off as doomed. By defecting from the NPP, have they run against the grain (at least, as the NPPs stentorian condemnation of the Mahama-led administration would have unwitting people believe?). These defectors are really bold to go this way!!

So, we turn to what exactly motivated this defection and why it is significant for contemporary Ghanaian politics. According to the news report: the group is of the view developments in the area, may suffer unduly if they change the current Member of Parliament of the constituency, Hannah Tetteh adding that any change would only be for parochial interest.

Rightaway, we are given an insight into what that parochial interest might mean. As reported, Paa Tawiah (the spokesperson of the defectors), said every four years we change MPs and the next person who comes would want to do something for themselves instead of the constituency We want to support the incumbent, Hannah Tetteh, so that she can continue the good work she has started; and when someone is doing something good you have to support them.

Another defector, called Benjamin Antoson, said, this woman (Hannah Tetteh) has done much and we have decided to support her for the next four years so she continues developments she has started in the constituency. In substance, the defectors pledged to support the NDC win the 2016 election in the constituency.

Any headache here? Yes, and it is primarily in the NPP camp, clearly because of the reasons given by the defectors. Selfish though they may appear to be, their action suggests that they can read deeper meanings into issues and conclude that the devil they know who is providing them with social amenities is better than the elusive angel flying all over the place and promising them a free passage to heaven only if it can be helped to land at the Flagstaff House. They clearly have demonstrated that that they dont know that angel to bet on.

The lessons from this defection are deep. One is that the citizens see what the government and their representative in Parliament have been able to do for them and why they should support that cause to have more amenities given them. They know what the gamble entails and have chosen to go where the trump card lies.

Their move teaches Ghanaians in other parts of the country how to make their electoral decisions, based on performance. If, indeed, the MP is effective and links up with the government to serve their interests, why change him/her or the government just because someone is crying to be in power too?

I salute the NPP defectors for this particular lesson and wish that others in all parts of the country will base their electoral decisions and political allegiance on performance and not mere political rhetoric or manipulation by those seeking to retain their hold on power or to be in power.

We leave you with two poignant questions: As these Awutu NPP members defect to the NDC, what lesson are they teaching us vis-avis Akufo-Addos electioneering campaign? Where will the next group of defectors come from?

I shall return
The flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has blamed the poverty and hardship in Ghana to the corruption of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says rather than bolstering the deteriorating Ghanaian economy, the Mahama-led government is interested in countering his many ideas for transforming the country.

Poverty, hardship, and the absence of unemployment have become the order of the day. This is due to corruption and the poor state of the Ghanaian economy, he said in Twi.

The NPP leader disclosed this to scores of residents of the Weija-Gbawe Constituency in Accra during his campaign tour ahead of the November polls.

Akufo-Addo accused President Mahama and the NDC of doubting his policy and vision for Ghana.

In 2000 When Kufuor promised the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Atta Mills said it is not possible but did it not work? he asked the residents.

However, when I promised the free SHS, he said, Mahama said it is not possible and that he will do that gradually. Did he do it?

"I am coming to do that, he said, and went on to entreat the electorates to ignore claims made by the NDC over his many transformative policies.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | Email: [email protected]
The presidential candidate of the Peoples National Convention (PNC) Dr. Edward Mahama has defended the tall list of promises he has made ahead of the 2016 general elections.

According to the 71-year-old presidential hopeful, every promise he has made is realistic and achievable.

Among some of the promises made by Dr. Mahama includes solving the current power crisis within the first few months of his presidency.

He has also promised that a future PNC government will develop a National Energy Consumption Profile (NECP) and invest in emerging efficient renewable energy options such as solar, waste to energy (W2E), wind and ultra-efficient mini hydro.

He has also stated that a PNC government shall decouple the Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice; provide adequate resources from a dedicated fund for the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), among other anti-corruption agencies, so that they are able to deal swiftly and effectively with cases of corruption.

Dr Mahama has also promised to tackle unemployment, both from the demand and supply sides, saying: We shall half youth unemployment within 24 months.

Speaking with host of Starr Chat Bola Ray on Wednesday, the fifth time presidential hopeful said he will fulfil all his promises when elected as President.

I have a priority list and I am keeping it close to my vestso I think the things I promise are very realisticthe things that I am talking about can be done once the commitment is there and so it can be done and it would be done.

Dr. Mahama was born at Sumniboma in the Northern region of Ghana in 1945.

He attended the Nalerigu Primary and Middle School from 1953 to 1959. He then attended Secondary School in Tamale and later graduated with a medical degree from the University of Ghana in 1972.

He is a Christian and owns a medical facility in Accra.
I have been contemplating for some time, particularly in recent weeks, over this month of Ramadan and the ritual of fasting because there seems to be some compulsion in the Muslim majority states for all persons to fast even if they are not Muslims.

Do not get me wrong. Muslims have the right to fast as demanded by their faith. They can even choose to fast for two months or more if they wish to do so. The problem is that there is this tendency to force all Muslims and non-Muslims to observe the Ramadan. In Kaduna, a 41-year-old carpenter was attacked and seriously injured by a Muslim gang for eating during the fasting hours. I mean what was their business with a Christian who decided to eat. These Muslims have out of their own volition chosen to fast. Why attack somebody whose own faith enjoins him to eat when people of other faiths have chosen to fast?

There have been reports of similar attacks on Muslims and non-Muslims alike in other parts of the world. My issue here is this: if indeed there is no compulsion in Islam, why should Muslims and non Muslims be compelled to fast? Why should a Christian living in Muslim majority communities be attacked, harassed or arrested for eating during the Muslim fasting hours?

Growing up in Ibadan in South West Nigeria where there is a mix of Muslims and Christians, I had a different and interesting experience of fasting during the month of Ramadan.

I used to share an apartment with a practicing Muslim who fasted during Ramadan. I spent my childhood and teenage years in South East Nigeria and did not know much about the practice of Ramadan. Thus my first experience of Ramadan with my Muslim friend was an eye-opener. Though my friend knew I was not a Muslim, he tried luring me into fasting with him but I declined. I refused to fast with him not only because I was not a Muslim but also because I could not just suddenly change my eating habits.

My Muslim friend used to wake up very early, about 4am to prepare food. I found the noise from his movement at this time and the use of kitchen utensils quite disturbing but I tolerated it because he made me to understand that it was something very important to him and his religion to eat before sunrise.

However on this particular day, he finished preparing the food and invited me to come and eat with him, at about 5.00 am! I declined and he looked at me as if embarrassed, or may be disappointed. He stared at me for a while as if he was saying Do you really mean that you would not come to join me to start fasting? I told him that I was not used to eating at that time. He invited me again the next day and I gave him the same reply and he never bothered me again till the fasting period ended.

I was shocked by the quantity of food my Muslim friend consumed very early in the month during the month of Ramadan. He used to start early to save money to buy large quantity of beans, rice, garri, amala for the fasting period. Dont you notice some contradiction in this? Buying food for a fasting period! I found that quite curious.

Days and weeks before the Ramadan my friend would be stockpiling food and when I asked him why? He would say Dont you know that our Ramadan is approaching? Really? My friend was buying and storing up food like somebody who was preparing for a feast. And I wondered: Is the Ramadan for eating food or for abstaining from eating and drinking? I could recall that some years ago; the World Food Program declared that people around the world consumed more food during the month of Ramadan than at any other period of the year. I totally agree with this and if you critically think about it, that should not be the case. There should be less consumption of food during the fasting period.

Anyway, before sunrise my friend would gulp some large quantity of Amala with assorted meat. He consumed more food in the morning than I could consume the whole day. Actually if I ate that quantity of food in the morning, I wont be able to work during the day. I would have to spend hours lying down on the bed so that the food would digest. My muslim friend would eat the same quantity of food at sunset and he continued this feeding and fasting regime till the end of the Ramadan. At a point I wondered if the month of Ramadan was actually a fasting period or a fattening month. In fact I could not comprehend the idea that people ate a lot food to start fasting. What kind of fasting is that?

That notwithstanding, I noticed that both Muslims and non-Muslims in South West Nigeria observed the Ramadan in different ways. There were non-Muslims who fasted in solidarity with their muslim friends or family members. These non-Muslims usually had rich or well-to-do Muslim neighbours and they used to go to their homes to break the fast with sumptuous meals every evening throughout the month of Ramadan! So for poor non-Muslims, solidarity fasting was a way of augmenting their feeding at least for a few weeks.

There were some Muslims friends who did selective Ramadan. They fasted on certain days and abstain from fasting on other days. Others used to fast for some hours each day and ate when they became very hungry. Still others fasted publicly or presented themselves as fasting publicly but they ate secretly. There was no gang or group that was policing people and compelling everybody to abstain from eating and drinking. Muslims in northern Nigeria should emulate their counterparts in South West and understand that fasting during the month of Ramadan is  and should be by choice not by force.
The management of ExLA Group, organisers of the Young African Women Congress (YAWC) 2016 would like to inform local, continental and international corporate organisations and the general public of the opening of invitation for exhibition during the Young African Women Congress (YAWC) 2016.

The congress is scheduled for Monday 4th  Friday 8th July, 2016 at the University of Ghana Business School in Accra, Ghana. It will feature 40 astute women leaders as speakers and 450 young women between 20 and 35 years as delegates across Africa as well as local and international media organisations. Top officials from international and continental organisations, governmental officials and investors across the continent shall also participate in the congress.

We hereby invite prospective exhibitors to book their spaces ahead of the 5 day residential congress to display and sell their products, projects and services to potential clients/investors.

Send an email to [email protected] /[email protected] or contact +233 246 48 9782 to book your space. Visit www.yawcafrica.org to find out more about the congress.
The decision by the National Democratic Congress Abongo Boys not to have their presidential candidate and sitting President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, participate in this years Institute of Economic Affairs-sponsored presidential debates will not alter the grim reality of the dismal performance record of the grossly incompetent Mahama/Amissah-Arthur government one way or another. Besides, it ought to be all-too-obvious to most eligible Ghanaian voters by now that the scandal-wracked NDC is merely using its decision to boycott this years IEA-sponsored presidential debates to save face.

It goes without saying that the NDC headquarters apparatchiks know perfectly well that ethical issues like the Ford Expedition payola scam was apt to preface the bulk of the series of questions with which debate moderators and their associates would have peppered Mr. Mahama. It also comes as absolutely no surprise at all because nearly every season that a presidential candidate of the NDC participated in the IEA-sponsored debates, that candidate had to be literally dragged and jostled or collared to the podium.

The NDC apparatchiks were also cynically using the forum to sponsor political surrogates like Mr. Hassan Ayariga, the former Peoples National Conventions presidential candidate, to make utter nonsense of this otherwise very adult momentous affair by systematically annoying the most formidable opponent of their candidate, such as the entire nation embarrassingly witnessed in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election.

It is also quite obvious that the Mahama Posse decided to back out of the 2016 presidential debates because IEAs Executive Director Jean Mensa put her feet firmly on the ground in deciding that a toe-to-toe contest between the presidential candidates of the countrys two major political parties, namely, the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), will not involve any of the deliberately planted distractive surrogates of the NDC Abongo Boys.

To fully appreciate the psychological mindset, or temperament, of the NDC, the history of the leadership of the party, that of revolutionary radicalism, ought to be borne in mind. Twenty years after democratically dominating the political landscape of Fourth-Republican Ghana, the NDC leadership has yet to fully adjust itself in order to become comfortable with the civilized culture of democratic discourse and governance.

Which is why President Mahama and his diehard surrogates on the board of the so-called Independent Electoral Commission (EC), spearheaded by Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, continue to play peek-a-boo with the Supreme Courts order to promptly expunge the names of all registered voters who exercised their franchise four years ago by the now-delegitimized use of their National Health Insurance (NHIS) cards.

The Mahama Posse appears poised to rigging their way, once more, through the 2016 general election. But whether Ghanaian citizens and voters would have the stomach to accommodate the criminal shenanigans of the thoroughgoing corrupt Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime, is anybodys good guess. It is also interesting to hear the NDC Abongo Boys offer the patently hollow and logically untenable pretext of the IEA-sponsored presidential debates not being enshrined in the 1992 Constitution as a reason for declining to participate in the 2016 presidential debates. Maybe somebody smarter ought to ask these NDC Abongo Boys precisely when they came to a realization of this perennial fact.

Then also, the NDC Abongo Boys risibly claim that Mrs. Jean Mensa decided to schedule a two-party debate between Nana Akufo-Addo, the New Patriotic Partys presidential candidate, and President Mahama without officially notifying them in writing. It is quite scandalously obvious that the Mosquito Mafia Boys have the long-term memory capacity of the Anopheles Mosquito; for scarcely a month ago, Monsieur Koku Anyidoho and his party headquarters associates virulently accused Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh and President Mahama of having covertly negotiated the details of the IEA-sponsored 2016 presidential debates without their consent. I bet you thought these scoundrels were psychologically and emotionally sound.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
23.06.2016 LISTEN

Mr. Ayodele Fayose, is one of the most popular political figures in Nigeria today. Not just because he is the Ekiti state Governor, but that he is one of the lone voices left to carry the cross of the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mr. Fayose has taken it as his as his unpaid job to lead the opposition to the all Progressives Congress (APC) administration at the Federal level.

Since he took over his new role as the unofficial opposition leader, he has always been in the news, in many cases for the wrong reasons. If he is not insulting President Buhari, he probably is involved in not-so-noble activities like visiting China to speak to an imaginary audience on trade and investment. Even if the news does not find Fayose, Ayo will find the news. In some cases, Ayo will deliberately pay a full front page advertorial to celebrate the obituary of a living person. It can sometimes get go bad than Fayose, like the former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada, suddenly have a dream and go pay for a full page advert to release his prophecies.

Some days ago, Uncle Ayo, noticing his public ranking is on the low, caught the eyes of the media again. He went on strike, not because anyone owed him salaries, but because state workers are demanding their several months emoluments. To distract his peoples attention away from their problems, he saw that the Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari is too quiet to comfort, decided to pitch a battle with her. Like his media team came up with a medical report from a fictitious Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital (not the one in Zaria, maybe the one in Ikogosi), that General Buhari was ridden with cancer, hence ineligible to run and to validate one of his prophesies. He told us that one Aisha Buhari Muhammadu who is wanted for her role in the US Congressman William Jeffersons bribery scandal for which the American lawmaker was convicted in 2009. The rest, as they say, is history!

Mr. Fayose had on some days ago accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of acting illegally in the case of the freezing of his Zenith Bank account. His primary argument was that since he enjoys constitutionally-guaranteed immunity from prosecution, as a siting governor, he is immune from investigation or probe by virtue of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution. It only shows how things are improving for Governor Fayose. Let us forget that he once reportedly slapped a sitting Judge for daring to hear a case involving him!

Mr. Fayoses supporters have gone all over to remind us that he has immunity. That appears to be their new national anthem. They recite it like nursery rhymes. But, what a minute. Where the Governors immunity starts, and where does it end?

Before I go one, let me be quick to admit that I am not a lawyer, but I have no difficulty in interpreting the sacrosanct provisions of the 1999 Constitution and documents written in the English language (not Latin).

Governor Fayose by virtue of being a states Chief executive and one of the four categories of people covered by the said Section 308, he enjoys immunity under the Constitution. But, can that extend to his wife, his children, his nuclear or extended family members or his bank account? The fact that Fayose has immunity does not mean, for instance, that if his wife commits murder by virtue of being First Lady, she enjoys a constitutionally-guaranteed immunity. Is this the logic of that Constitutional provision?

Let us say that analogy does not convince some of us, because the question we are dealing with is the question of whether the EFCC can freeze Fayoses account while he enjoys immunity as sitting state Governor. On this matter let us see what the Supreme Court decided in the case of Fawehinmi V. Inspector General of Police (2002). In delivering the leading judgment of the seven-man panel of the Supreme Court on Friday 10th day of May, 2002 on whether a governor can be investigated, Justice S.O. Uwaifo, J.S.C (as he then was), held inter alia: "That a person protected under section 308 of the 1999 constitution, going by its provisions, can be investigated by the police for an alleged crime or offence is, in my view, beyond dispute. To hold otherwise is to create a monstrous situation whose manifestation may not be fully appreciated until illustrated. I shall give three possible instances. Suppose it is alleged that a Governor, in the course of driving his personal car, recklessly ran over a man, killing him; he sends the car to a workshop for the repairs of the dented or damaged part or parts. Or that he used a pistol to shoot a man dead and threw the gun into a nearby bush. OR THAT HE STOLE PUBLIC MONEY AND KEPT IT IN A PARTICULAR BANK or used it to acquire property. Now, if the police became aware, could it be suggested in an open and democratic society like ours that they would be precluded by section 308 from investigating to know the identity of the man killed, the cause of death from autopsy report, the owner of the car taken to the workshop and if there is any evidence from the inspection of the car that it hit an object recently, more particularly a human being; or to take steps to recover the gun and test for ballistic evidence; and generally to take statements from eye witnesses of either incident of killing. OR TO FIND OUT (IF POSSIBLE) ABOUT THE MONEY LODGED IN THE BANK or for acquiring property, AND TO GET PARTICULARS OF THE ACCOUNT AND THE SOURCE OF THE MONEY; or of the property acquired? The police clearly have a duty under section 4 of the Police Act to do all they can to investigate and preserve whatever evidence is available. [see Fawehinmi V. I.G.P. (2002) 7 NWLR (Pt. 767) 606] (Emphasis mine).

A simple look at this landmark Supreme Court judgement leaves me with two conclusions: 1) Immunity clause has its own limit(s) in relation to criminal investigations by a law enforcement agency, in this case, the EFCC. 2) Fayoses Zenith Bank like his nuclear or extended family members are NOT covered by his immunity as a sitting Governor.

My candid advice to Governor Fayose and his advisers is to explore the possibility of a judicial solution, if he has any explanation whatsoever to do. Resorting to self-help, by creating a scene out the matter, leaves him only worse off than he was before. On its own part, the anti-graft agency must avoid all temptations for high-handedness in handling matters of such nature so as not to be seen to be too partisan. I simply submit!

Olalekan Waheed Adigun is a political analyst and independent political strategist. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Follow me on twitter @adgorwell. Telephone: +2348136502040, +2347081901080
MTN, Ghanas leading telecommunications service provider, has launched its 4G LTE services commercially in all 10 regions of Ghana, approximately six months after acquiring the 4G LTE 800MHz spectrum license in December last year.

The launch was done in a symbolic public broadcast across the country with experiential set ups at the MTN House in Accra and other commercial centers across MTNs business units. The innovative event included real-time streaming on YouTube, of videos of live activations captured by MTN 4G-SIM-enabled drones, and was positioned to allow MTN customers to participate in the launch while experiencing a hands-on feel of the service.

Announcing the service, the CEO of MTN Ghana Mr. Ebenezer Asante expressed conviction about the extent to which 4G technology can positively impact growth and development in Ghana. He stated, MTN is launching its 4G LTE service, a technology that will potentially change the telecommunication landscape of Ghana for good. MTNs is the first and only 4G service that enables users to experience higher-speed mobile internet on the same mobile phone from which they make and receive voice calls. It is also the only 4G service available in all regional capitals and key towns of Ghana. He added, With faster internet, the transmission of data in the form of text, images or video/TV can be done with ease, on-the-go, with the best speed. Higher speed internet broadband promotes business growth and enriched social lives, ultimately boosting national development.

The launch of the 4G LTE service by MTN makes it the first mobile telecommunications operator in Ghana to offer 4G technology. MTN customers can access 4G LTE on their mobile phones as well as other mobile devices such as routers, mifi devices and dongles.

Soon after acquiring its 800 MHz spectrum in December 2015 at a cost of $67.5 million, the Company announced it was focused on working hard to expedite implementation, given the importance of higher-speed broadband to national development. As at commercial launch on Tuesday, over 400 MTN 4G sites were operational in regional capitals and key towns such as Obuasi, Tarkwa and Agona Swedru, with an additional 30 deployed and soon to be operationalized. The company is investing $18 million in deployment of a total of 475 4G LTE sites in 2016.

To enjoy the service, subscribers may visit any MTN service center with a valid ID to have their SIM cards swapped for a 4G LTE SIM card. MTN customers can also check their phone's compatibility by dialing *585# and following the prompts. A compatible 4G device may also be obtained from any MTN Service Centre or Phone shop.

4G LTE is the fourth generation of mobile phone communication technology standard beyond 3G. The technology comes in two main versions LTE and WiMAX. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, and it is generally accepted that LTE is the fastest, most consistent and widely used version of 4G. The technology is designed to deliver five to ten times the speed of 3G data speed on devices such as phones, tablets, laptops and desktops.

MTN Ghana has consistently been the first to launch innovative products and services into the Ghanaian market since its entry into Ghana.
Asiedu Nketiah, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress

23.06.2016 LISTEN

They had hoped that their scabrous decision to boycott the IEA-sponsored presidential debates would have caused the entire program to be scuttled. But once again, predictably, the National Democratic Congress Abongo Boys only ended up embarrassing themselves and their members, supporters and sympathizers. By now, the likes of Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia ought to fully appreciate the fact that Ghana is much, much bigger than the Rawlings-minted National Democratic Congress.

That the IEA-sponsored program went ahead on schedule without any glitch ought to be a lesson well-learned by the Mosquito Mafia (See IEA Debates: PNC Has Betrayed Us  NDC Citifmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/22/16). I couldnt help laughing myself hoarse and silly until I literally fell off my chair, to hear the Mosquito Mafia capo bitterly gripe about the Edward Mahama-led Peoples National Conventions having betrayed the NDC movers and shakers.

We must heartily both commend and congratulate the Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Mrs. Jean Mensa, for boldly standing up to the NDC bullies and cutting them down to size, that is, to the level of the pathologically failed nation-wreckers that they have indisputably shown themselves to be.

Now the Mosquito Mafia rascals and scam-artists claim that they backed out of the presidential debates because the IEA sponsors had attempted to sideline the presidential candidates of the minor parties. Actually, as I pointed out in a previous article on this issue, the last time around, the NDC Abongo Boys used then-PNC presidential candidate Mr. Hassan Ayariga to crudely, albeit tactically successfully, to muff up the presentation of Nana Akufo-Addo, the three-time presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr. Ayariga, whose younger brother, Mr. Mahama Ayariga, serves as the Science, Technology and Environment Minister, or in some such capacity, for President John Dramani Mahama, may well have been bribed to fake the contraction of a whooping cough with which he would annoyingly, albeit deftly, punctuate the otherwise inimitably eloquent presentation of Nana Akufo-Addo, thus making a virtual nonsense of the entire program.

The preceding may well have informed the IEAs decision to slightly modify its program by having only the two most formidable presidential nominees debate each other in a separate forum, instead of inartistically reprising the nuisance formula of having the presidential candidates of the four most significant political parties debate in the same forum.

Well, the inescapable fact of the matter is that there are no four major political parties in the country but only two, namely, the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition New Patriotic Party. This has been the main feature of Ghanas political relief map since 1992, the inception of the countrys Fourth Republic, and it is likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.

It is also rather farcical for Mr. Asiedu-Nketia to cynically claim that in deciding to back out of the 2016 IEA-sponsored presidential debates, the key NDC operatives were only fighting for the democratic inclusion of the presidential candidates of the smaller parties. Maybe somebody ought to remind Mr. Asiedu-Nketia that he was the same person who prevented Mr. George Boateng from contesting President Mahama in last years NDC presidential primary.

The former National Democratic Congress constituency youth organizer for Ofankor, in the Greater-Accra Region, would also be literally run out of the party. And so Mr. Asiedu-Nketia ought to count himself smack-dab among the least qualified Ghanaian politicians to presume to lecture the rest of us about democratic inclusivity or inclusiveness.

The NDC General-Secretary also says that he and his associates have been taught a very good lesson, the hard way, by Dr. Edward Mahama and his Peoples National Convention presidential campaign teams decision to have the renowned physician participate in the IEA-sponsored 2016 presidential debates, against the wishes of the NDC Abongo Boys. We hope this is a hard lesson well learned.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
This is what Dzifa Attivor told the people in the Volta Region: If you don't vote for NDC, I will be in jail if NPP comes to power.

This was a genuine concern from the former Transport Minister who had been involved in shady deals and corrupt malpractices. She tried to turn things in her favour by blaming the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of tribalism whose aim is to prosecute only Ewes if they happen to win the November 7th elections. Dzifa Attivor continued remorselessly and deliberately to fan the flames of tribalism by singling out those Ewes who were tried and jailed when NPP assumed power in 2001. The former Transport minister is frightfully aware of the skeletons in her cupboard and she is truly scared of being prosecuted when NPP comes to power.

The reasons she gave for this tribal allegation clearly revealed her deep hatred for Akans. According to Dzifa Attivor the aim of the NPP when they assumed power in 2001 was to prosecute only Ewes. This was never true. The fact is, President Rawlings, himself an Ewe, filled his government with Ewes. Rawlings consistently overlooked the shady deals, corruption and greed committed by people in his government. When NPP won power in 2001, some corrupt ministers including Victor Selormey, Dan Abodakpi, both Ewes, and other ministers who were not Ewes were tried in court and sentenced to different years of imprisonment. Dzifa Attivor used this as her evidence that between 2001 and 2008 NPP targeted only members of her ethnic group for prosecution. What Dzifa Attivor is refusing to understand is that these men were not prosecuted on grounds of tribalism but were sentenced purely for crimes against the state.

For the records, these ministers were tried in a fast track high court. Selormey was a former Deputy Minister of Finance under Rawlings regime. He received his jail sentence thirteen days to Christmas 2001. He was sentenced to a total of eight years imprisonment by an Accra fast track court. It is important for readers and Dzifa Attivor to note that the court was not motivated by tribal sentiments to convict him. He was convicted on all six counts of defrauding by false pretense, conspiracy and causing financial loss to the state. President Kufuor granted him a presidential pardon after just three years into his prison term. He died on 18th April, 2005.

Another Minister who suffered a similar fate was Dan Abodakpi, a former Minister of Trade and Industry. The same court jailed him 10 years in August 2007. He was sentenced on three counts of conspiracy, two counts of defrauding and two counts of wilfully causing financial loss of $400,000 to the state. Once again, Dzifa Attivor must note that there was no tribal motive in Abodakpi's imprisonment but rather he committed a fraud when he and the late Victor Selormey co-chaired a Trade and Investment programme.

I want to stress here again that Dzifa Attivor is deeply afraid of the uncompromising axe of justice of the NPP because she is very much aware that she has committed crimes against the state. She was compelled to resign following the controversial bus branding saga. The former Minister for transport, Dzifa Attivor and the government were accused of misplaced priority considering that the state could have raked in nearly Ghc5 million a month if it had given out the spaces on the 116 buses for commercial advertisement. Investigations revealed that the amount quoted by the advertising company, Smartys Management and Production, was inflated by the Minister. Honest Ghanaians are painfully aware that nothing can be done to Dzifa Attivor once her party is in power.

A detailed pro-forma invoice for the re-branding of the buses has revealed that stickers on each bus cost Ghc11,000. The pro-forma invoice dated 17th July 2015, and signed by the Accounts Officer of Smarttys Management and Productions and copied to the Ministry of Transport, put the total cost of branding for each bus at Ghc30,420.00.

The Minister's action also comes a day after some seven Ghanaian citizens instituted a court action against government over the controversial contract. When she realized that her dishonesty and corruption had become an open secret, she resigned and deliberately began to extend her gratitude to President Mahama and the NDC party. She was fully aware that she could easily get away with her booty on the bus branding and she was fully aware that the President would protect her from being prosecuted and jailed. After resigning her ministerial position she mounted a political platform during the launch of a group called, "Ketu South For Fiifi and Mahama." She declared that prosecution hangs on her head like the sword of Damocles if they don't vote massively for NDC. She continued that NPP will always look out for her and Ewes to prosecute because they have done that before.

As a matter of fact, Dzifa Attivor is not the only corrupt person who is afraid of NPP coming to power. Those who hold secret fears include Woyome and Okudjeto Ablakwah. It is merely a coincidence that all of them are Ewes.

Columnist: Stephen Atta Owusu

Author: Dark Faces at Crossroads

Email: [email protected]
A 42-year old man was burnt to death after a lit candle consumed his home during a prolonged black-out in Suntreso a suburb in the Ashanti region.

According to his brother, Shadrack Obeng Fosu, the deceased Nana Benyin could not escape the fire that had engulfed his bedroom and a saloon near by.

The mason was drunk when he returned home at about 11pm Wednesday. He lit a candle in a largely wooden one bedroom apartment, Luv FM's Kwasi Debrah reported.

Neighbours say they saw the room light up moments later as the candle set his mattress ablaze.

The fire quickly caught a salon attached to his room. The salon had a fridge, a generator and a gas cylinder and other combustible items.

The neighbours made frantic calls to Nana Benyin who according to them, was too drunk for his senses to coordinate his own rescue.

The fire razed down the bedroom and the saloon during the 12pm inferno.

Nana Benyins charred remains were found after the Ghana Fire Service came in to put out the fire in the dawn attempt to save his life.

Nana Benyin is unmarried and has no children.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|EA
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23.06.2016 LISTEN

In his state of Nation address to Parliament in February 2014, President John Dramani Mahama announced that Ghana spent a whopping $1.5 billion on the importation of consumables in 2013. Within the same period, continued the president, the country also lost a staggering $1.3 billion in export revenues as a result of the decline in cocoa and gold prices.

As at the time he was delivering his speech in Parliament (February 2014), the import bill had risen to $17 billion. A breakdown of products imported included rice, sugar, wheat, tomato products, frozen fish, poultry and vegetable cooking oil.

The development occurred at the time the forex holdings stood at a little over $3 billion. The president did not give any break down but it is clear that rice import took a chunk of the quoted figure.

Available statistics indicate that the current import bill on rice stands at US$600 million. During his visit to Scotland early this year, President John Mahama told MPs in the Scottish Parliament that his government was determined to cut down import bill on rice.

Weve taken rice from the production of 30% to 60% as I speak and so gradually were reducing rice import to Ghana, President Mahama was quoted by the Business and Financial Times as saying.

According to the Financial Times story, Current rice production hovers around 290,000metric tonnes whilst, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Ghanaians, in 2014, consumed a total of 754,698 metric tonnes of rice, with imports making up 52 per cent. The Chronicle is not least surprised with these statistics because rice has gradually taken over from other traditional foods, as the most staple food in Ghana.

Both the current and previous governments have not been oblivious of this bare facts hence the policies that were put in place to boost the production of rice in Ghana. As a developing country, it is untenable for us to use our scare resources to import rice when the commodity can easily be produced here in Ghana.

The Chronicle is, however, happy with the support from the private sector to boost the production of the staple food locally. From Greater Accra through Volta to the three northern regions, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions, individuals and institutions have gone into commercial production of rice.

Though their products are not well packaged and properly marketed to attract attention in the country, it is gradually helping the country to cut down on the import bills on rice. It is in the light of this that The Chronicle is alarmed with reports from Ashanti Region that farmlands meant for rice production have been taken over by illegal miners popularly known as 'galamsey', who are destroying them.

According to a story we have carried at our business page today, the 'galamseyers' are wrecking havoc on rice farms at Asakraka near Adankwame in the Atwima Nwabiagya district. The illegal miners are reportedly extending their tentacles to other areas such as Konongo and communities in the Amasie District.

A farm set up by Institute of Tropical for Agriculture and Africa Rice Centre in the area to support agriculture research and development has not been spared by the illegal miners. Mr. George Acheampong, Acting programs director of the Institute is warning that: Rice is becoming a staple food in Ghana and if we do not nip these menace in the bud, I am afraid we will lose everything.

The conduct of the illegal miners, according to Acheampong, could also result in food insecurity in Ghana. This is disturbing news and The Chronicle is advising the political authorities to move in quickly to stop the illegal miners in their tracks. Food shortage is already starring us in the face as a result of the long and severe dry season witnessed by the country this year.

We should, therefore, not do anything that would exacerbate the already precarious situation and that is why the Ministry of Food and Agriculture must move in quickly to quell the threat being posed by the illegal miners. We hope Dr. Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture and his boss, Alhaji Muniru are listening to us.
23.06.2016 LISTEN

As Illegal Mining Activities Wreck Havoc On Farms

From Richard Owusu-Akyaw, Asakraka

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Activities of illegal miners tend to derail effort of government to step up patronage of local rice in Ghana thus making Ghana face food insecurity as Galamseyers are wrecking havoc on rice farms at Asakraka near Adankwame in the Atwima Nwabiagya district of Ashanti Region.

The Chronicle has gathered that at a time the government wants to cut down on importation of rice into Ghana to save the drain on the economy, galamseyers are destroying rice farms in the said areas over the last three years.

Besides rendering farmers in the area jobless, some farmers have migrated to new areas in search of farmlands to start new ventures in the rice production industry. About 70 percent of the 270 acre rice farm in Asakraka, Amadoama in Adankwame rice farms enclave, meant for agricultural research and development have been destroyed by illegal miners in their search for the precious mineral.

Impeccable information available to The Chronicle has it that the district chief executive officer, Mr. Asare Bediako was informed time and again, but he has not been able to quell the menace.

Illegal miners have taken Ashanti region by storm and are spreading like wildfires in areas like Konongo and Amansie districts polluting water bodies including River Pra, Ankobra, Densu, and Offin. The latest town to have suffered from galamsey is the Gyapaadu and Asamang, farming communities in the Bekwai municipality.

A farm set up by Institute of Tropical for Agriculture and Africa Rice Centre in the area to support agriculture research and development has been affected. The said institutions are working on strategic crops such as rice, maize, cassava and wheat to boost rice production in Ghana. Mr. George Acheampong, Acting programs director of the project, has cried foul at the extent galamseyers have destroyed the rice farms.

He predicted dark days ahead if Ghana government and traditional leaders are unable to stop illegal mining activities in Ghana. Coordinator Acheampong warned, Rice is becoming a staple food in Ghana and if we do not nip these menace in the bud, I am afraid we will lose everything.

He indicated that Ashanti region is the fourth leading rice producing region in Ghana, after Volta, Northern and Upper East region respectively with quality and good varieties which are far better than that of China and the likes. Madam Akua Marfowaa Ahenkora. ,the district development officer of the project, told this paper the menace started three years ago and farmers have been compelled to leave the place to other areas. Farmers travel from as far as Abuakwa Agogo to their farms.

She explained that the place was a low land and it was conducive for farming since they do not have access to irrigation facilities. The District Chief Executive for Nwabiagya, Mr. Asare Bediako confirmed that his office has been informed about the development and have taken steps to mitigate the canker. He chastised traditional leaders and land owners for growing spate of galamsey in the area, disclosing that sometimes farmers are compelled to abandon their cocoa farms for illegal mining to take place.
Justice Jones Dotse, a member of the seven-panel Supreme Court judges who ruled on the controversial voters' register case, has recused himself from a fresh suit seeking further clarification on the same matter.

It is unclear why Justice Dotse took that decision. However it comes barely few weeks after he made some comments in relation to the matter.

Few days after the court ordered the EC to remove the names of persons whose names were captured onto the electoral roll using the NHIS cards as a form of identification, the Electoral Commission said the ruling did not explicitly ask them to remove such names using any new procedures.

Amidst the back and forth over the true meaning of the ruling, Justice Dotse granted a media interview in which he said the ruling was not ambiguous, and that they clearly asked the EC to remove such names.

we [Supreme Court] said the use of the NHIS cards is therefore unconstitutional and it should take the opportunity to clean the register of those undesirable persons.

He noted that we also do not want to disenfranchise anybody so the Supreme Court went on to say that anybody who will be affected by that exercise should be given the opportunity to register according to the law and the constitution, period.

Meanwhile, another member of the panel, Joseph Acamba, is also said to be on retirement hence cannot sit on the case.

Supreme court warns EC

Citi News Fred Djabanor reported that, the Supreme Court today [Thursday], gave a a strong warning to Electoral Commission that it wont allow the commission to plunge the country into chaos .

He said the visibly unhappy Justices presided over Chief Justice Theodora Wood, indicated their displeasure over the lackadaisical attitude of the EC in complying with their orders in the Abu Ramadan suit.

According to Fred, the EC failed to give specific measures they are putting in place to delete names of voters who registered with NHIS cards.

According to them they were complying with the orders of the court by using the laid down legal procedures to remove the names, he added.

Fresh suit

A former National Youth Organizer of the People's National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako who first filed a case on the voters register have filed a fresh suit at the Supreme Court seeking further clarification.

Abu Ramanadan had previously served notice he will be forced to cite the EC for contempt if the commission fails to implement the order by the Supreme Court.

Background

The apex court on May 5, asked the Electoral Commission to expunge from the current voters' register the names of all persons who registered and voted in the 2012 elections, with the NHIS card as a proof of identity.

The ruling followed a suit filed by Abu Ramadan, and one, Evans Nimako, who in 2014 won a lawsuit that barred the use of NHIS cards for registration.

The two, among other reliefs, wanted the current register declared inappropriate for the November polls.

But the EC after studying the ruling said it's understanding does not suggest the use of any new process to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards, since there are already laid down procedures for expunging ineligible names.

The EC's explanation however angered Mr. Ramadan who felt the Commission was disrespecting the explicit orders of the court. His position was further strengthened when one of the judges who gave the May 5 ruling, stated categorically that the ruling was clear and unambiguous and that the EC must remove the names of persons who registered with the NHIS card.



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
They toil with their husbands to acquire property and wealth. But sometimes, they lose it all when their husbands pass on.

In some cases, widows in Ghana suffer abuse from their husbands families and years of suffering to raise their children all by themselves.

As the world marks International Widows Day today 23rd June, some Widows shared their stories with Joy News.

Grace Asaah

Grace Asaahs husband died 15 years ago, leaving her with four children. Grace recounted that, she refused to drink some concoctions as part of widowhood rites because it was against her Christian beliefs. Her husbands family abandoned her because of that.

They threatened to send me packing back to my fathers house because to them, it was unacceptable for me to refuse to perform the traditional rites as part of my husbands funeral. I stood my ground and they left me alone. But when the funeral was over, I was left all alone and it became so difficult for me to cater for my four children, she narrated .

Grace had a female goat which she was rearing with the hope that it would reproduce and give her a source of income. But her husbands brothers forcefully took the goat from her and used it for a sacrifice. They also took her husbands farmland, claiming it belonged to the family. The family left her with just a small piece of the land on which she now farms, to feed her children.

Just like Grace, Baboma lost her husband 15 years ago. The had six children together, but Baboma was left to her fate to cater for them alone after her husband's passing. She spent time working at the galamsey mines, carrying loads and doing other menial jobs to survive.

Baboma

Baboma now sells kenkey to take care of her six children.

She told Joy News' Albert Sore, when your husband dies, they (Husbands family) tell you to choose another man within the family to become your husband. When you refuse, they will keep pestering you and if you hold your ground, they leave you alone but decide never to help you in any way. Anytime you have a problem like I am struggling now to educate my daughter, they wont help you, simply because you refused to give in to their advances.

What Grace and Baboma went through when their husbands died 15 years ago may look like old traditional practices but the situation has not changed much. Patience Apalazoyas husband died only 3 years ago and her story is worse.

Patience

Just 3 days after her husbands death, her brothers-in-law came in and took documents of all her husbands properties including a house and a car. At the time of putting together this feature, Patience was still fighting to reclaim her husbands properties in court.

Patience reflects; It was when I joined them (Widows and Orphans Movement) that I got to know that several other widows were facing problems like mine. I used to think I was alone and I could not even eat properly but I soon learned that other widows were facing worst situations than mine.

There are currently about 11,000 widows registered with the Widows and Orphans Movement in the three northern regions.

Grace, Baboma and Patience who have shared their stories are some widows being protected and empowered by the Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM).

Director of the WOM, Fati Abigail Abdulai says cases of widows properties being confiscated by their in-laws and cases of battery meted out to widows who stand up to fight remain issues that her outfit is battling with.

Fati Abigail Abdulai

She revealed that there have been instances where the WOM had to pay medical bills for battered widows. Miss Abdulai says the Movement is empowering the widows economically so that they are capable of fighting for their rights.

The trauma some widows constantly go through in the Upper East region and most parts of Ghana are mainly due to archaic traditional practices.

So what could traditional authorities do to get rid of these traditional practices or modernize them in order not to dehumanize women?

The chief of Pelungu in the Nabdam district, Naab Sierig Sore Sobil IV insists that chiefs must be firm and defend widows when disputes involving widows properties are brought before them.

Naab Sierig Sore Sobil IV

He said; when cases like that are brought to my palace, I investigate to know the rightful owner of the property in dispute and if I find out it belonged to the widows deceased husband, I ensure she gets it back because widows need to be protected.

Naab Sierig Sobil IV says the old traditional practices are being modernized by chiefs to ensure the dignity of widows is protected.

He indicated for example that in communities where widows are supposed to shave off their hair after the passing of their husbands, the widows can now offer small amounts of money in exchange for leaving the hair.

The chief believes that educating the older and uneducated elders in communities is the best way to changing these archaic traditional practices.

While there are legal options available for widows to fight for their rights, most of them shy away from using the law because they think it is expensive.

Legal practitioner with the Legal Aid Scheme in Bolgatanga, Richard Adazabra says although the lack of funds makes it difficult for the scheme to help everyone, their services are for free so such helpless women can come to the Legal Aid Scheme.

We have our ways to find out if they are truly poor and cannot pay for legal services. Once they meet the requirements, we can offer them our services, he added.

Patience whose story is shared above is being assisted by Lawyer Richard Adazabra to fight for her property in court.

She does not know her fate yet. She, however, advises all women who want to avoid what she is going through, to have joint accounts with their husbands and also persuade their husbands to prepare wills of testament.
23.06.2016 LISTEN

When we got to Koforidua from Ahafo Kenyasi with the plan of going to visit Dad at Hospital, we entered the family house and rushed to the room where they said Mum was sleeping.

I woke her up and asked her we should go to the Hospital and see the Dad; I hurriedly asked her the next question every naive 11 and half year old boy wouldve asked; Maa, people are saying Dad is dead is it true? Squatting by her on the mat, she responded without opening her eyes and gave us the answer that has never been erased from my mind.

Mum said, If hes dead, God will take care of us waii! Paa Kwesi my young brother who was 8 years then, rushed in and told me he just saw Dads picture on the wall, I went out and it has been taken off. That was Dads funeral poster.

My young mother started the painful journey of widowhood just like that, after the cold hands of death snatched a 38year old promising gentleman from his young wife and three vulnerable kids.

I was 11, Paa Kwesi was 8 and Lawrencia was just 1 and half.

Promises made by some family members and family friends to take good care of us are yet to be honoured after 16 years of Dads heavenly choir journey.

Mum started hawking iodated salt from community to community. She forced us to join her on weekends and on vacations because that was the only way we could survive. I added selling of iced water and Kerosene to my duties to pay our school fees.

Mum made sure we never stayed out of school even if when we owed school fees, she will either go to the school and beg for more days or tell us to concoct a story that will make the Accountant have mercy on us.

Those were the days when mum will cook rice at 4pm and tell us to wait till 6pm before we take the food for the fear of we eating early and getting hungry before bed time. There was nothing we could do done to wait in anger.

One thing Mum never did was to go begging not even from her Church for our fees or daily bread but God really provided just as she said when Dad passed away. Paa Kwesi had to be taken off the private school we all attended to a public school because Mum couldnt afford his Junior High school fees in a private school.

My heroine, as I called her, had to sell most of her precious cloth for me and my brother to enter Senior High school! She came back crying that, people bought the clothes at ridiculous prices but she had no option.

She added the sale of Corn and Cassava dough to the Salt business all ina bid to help make life comfortable.

One morning, during my Senior High school days, I went to her room for my transportation to school, not knowing she was sobbing uncontrollably; she told me what she had was only half of my transportation and that Im not going to get pocket money too! I took the money and walked from home to pick a trotro to school and how I survived that day only God knows.

Request from some Relatives and family friends who wanted us to stay with them were turned down by her because she didnt want to burden them with our problems.

Mrs. Cecilia Owusu a.k.a Sister Nana Yaa have been very instrumental in all the departments of our lives.

Whenever its Fathers Day, I celebrate some great men who have turned my life around but always wish my Heroine a Fathers Day too because she has carried more than her shoulders could carry as a woman.

She has done her best and God through Angels on earth is also doing the rest.

She has seen it all in life and whenever we meet we recollect some of our difficult days, we laugh and glorify God. I have dared never to let Mum suffer and what I pray for her is long life with good health.

Join me celebrate my first love, and the Yaa Asantewaa who never gave up on us when the war of poverty and neglect came staring.

Mrs. Cecilia Owusu a.k.a Sister Nana Yaa of Obuasi Nkamprom, I, Paa Kwesi and Lawrencia will forever love and pamper you.

I salute all other widows world wide.

The writer can be contacted on [email protected]
The Ashanti Regional Police Command say it has arrested suspected armed robbers officials describe as notorious criminals recently declared wanted.

Regional Deputy Commander, ACP Osei Ampofo-Duku, will not name the suspects but says they are being processed for court.

He spoke exclusively with Nhyira News after a media briefing on the arrest nine suspects.

They include the four suspects who are believed to have killed a fuel dealer at Atwima Nkoranza at dawn on Wednesday.

Kofi Emmanuel, 22-year old Food vendor, Kwadwo Addai-18, Moses Atoa and Sadat Mohammed who was released from prisons three months ago were part of those arrested.

Five others, Abdul Sadick, Abdul Saddick Derry and Ridwan Mohammed as well as Peter Rebilla at the Affordable Housing project site for robbing at gunpoint, residents of Ayeduase.

On June 2, police declared wanted 19 notorious robbers, one of them a dismissed police constable, Murtala Mohammed.

He is believed to be running criminal gangs who have been terrorizing residents in and around Kumasi.

Two people have since been killed and others wounded by the robbers who appear to target new settlements.

ACP Osei Ampofo Duku tells Nhyira News quiet a number of the robbers have been arrested.

We had arrested some of them but a majority of them are still at large. Now we know some of their movements. We know Murtala, upon all that he did at Fox Fm that hes not an armed robber...we have heard hes crossed the border to Burkina because hes been calling a sister on a Burkina phone number. The rest, we are pursuing them. But we have arrested a handful of them, ACP Osei Ampofo Duku disclosed.

The command has been critised for failing to report the arrest of the suspected criminals whose activities attracted widespread media attention a fortnight ago.

In reaction, ACP Ampofo Duku responded, Well the press has not been told because sometimes we dont want to blow it so hard because we havent had all of them arrested but we have made some meaningful arrests.

"No we cant put the figure out because Suame is doing some, Tafo-Pankrono Division and Asokwa; so day-in and out, we continue to getting some of them arrested. At the appropriate time, we will call a press briefing and then put it out to the general public.

Meanwhile, ACP Ampofo Duku, appeals to district assemblies to strengthen security in their areas through formation of neighborhood watch committees.
23.06.2016 LISTEN

And from amongst them rose a loudmouth churning out a lie, unfathomed and unprecedented. He lied that Nana Akufo-Addo urinated in a mosque; a palpable untruth that caused the liar to be cussed and cursed. Lo and behold, three months later, he developed a kidney related disease and died. Nana Akufo-Addo commiserated with the bereaved family all the same, irrespective. People were gobsmacked. They let it go, thinking it was a mere coincidence.

Then another sharp-toothed, half-kilo-lipped monster rose with the intent to gain favour and fame. He sputtered a grievous untruth that Nana Akufo-Addo killed his wife in 1993, calling for investigations into the matter. Three months later, his wife kicked the bucket at a very young age. He is the notorious Peter Boamah Otokunor. People sat up in wonder to ponder. They began to shake and bake. In fact they trembled.

A couple of days ago, an earring studded freak from the same NDC group of pimps and bandits hurled insults at Nana Akufo-Addo in Agona Swedru, swearing that Nana would be President over his dead body. Guess what happened to him! Let me confirm your suspicions. He barely managed to get to his girlfriend's house that evening when he had a cardiac arrest and died, stinkingly, on the spot. He was known as Shaba, an NDC foot soldier with alloy teeth and double-barrel gun nose.

This has gotten the NDC shaking? "My GOD! What is happening?" I heard one lament as I waited at a pump to buy petrol. I turned around and brandished my NPP key holder and said, "this is your key to salvation, my friend. What have you gained from the tantrums that you have thrown as an NDC person against the NPP?" I could swear I saw tears forming in his eyes as he said, "Please beg Nana for me. Tell him that I, Abdul Nasir, am sorry," he broke off to wipe his tears. "I will never abuse the blessed one no more," he stopped as he tried to control his sobs that had become considerably loud now.

The problem is that this man has repented, but will the other NDC buffoons follow in his footsteps, especially that they have discerned a fact manifest, "Touch the Blessed One And Face The Wrath of GOD"?

#NananAkufoAddoIsBlessedInshallah #NanaAkufoAddoWillSaveGhanaInshallah #JohnMahamaWillFallInshallah
Mr. John Mahama has been accused of massive corruption since his first day in office as a Vice-President and, subsequently, as President of the Republic of Ghana, after the suspicious demise of H.E. Professor Atta Mills, who was bundled up in the back of a taxi and sent to the maternity ward of the 37 Military Hospital, as if he were a non-entity. Besides, due to his proven incompetence, it is quite difficult to add the prefix title "His Excellency". How about "His Incompetency" the President? To avoid embarrassment that our President is incompetent let me address him appropriately as Mr President.

In fact, the latest #FordExpedition gift/bribery scandal corroborated those suspicions, especially that he had been cited in many cases of mass corruption such as property acquisitions in the Middle East and the three cargo vessels that were said to be docked in Tokyo; all his. That notwithstanding, the massive loss to the State emanating from a small contract as erecting a parameter wall around the Embassy of Ghana in Burkina Faso was just the tip of the iceberg.

Many questions need to be asked that he might not have answers to.

For example, Azandol Construction Company Limited, a Burkinabe business entity, also tendered a quotation for the same project with a price tag of $342,000 (three hundred and forty two thousand US Dollars), so how come it was rather given to Djibril Kanazoe for $645,000 (six hundred and forty five thousand US Dollars)? My GOD! That was almost double the amount! Besides, the wall could not have cost more than $100,000 (one hundred thousand US Dollars).

I wish to take this opportunity to call on AESL, which is a government consultancy and survey company, to travel to Burkina Faso and estimate the cost. At least, the director should understand that they owe it a duty to Ghanaians who make their livelihoods possible to make good on their mandate and put before the nation the respective analysis and cost survey of this most needless project.

I am, also, calling on the largest opposition Party in the country, the NPP, to begin impeachment proceedings against Mr. President, John Mahama. Not only has the President brought shame onto the nation with his hypocritical fight against corruption when he is neck-deep in same, but his seeming immoral behaviour is reeling in more slur to Ghana. Recently, word made the rounds that Nadia Buari claimed that he was the father of her twins. She further claimed that they were the result of a one night stand.

Eiish, omanpanin y3 barima paa. This I have to give him. What! One night stand with the President produced twins? He must have been very hot!

But then again, a man living with Lordina Mahama sometimes cannot be blamed that much. However, to have engaged in such a loose immoral activity, and unprotected, without so much as a thought about his reputation and the shame that his action would undoubtedly bring to the nation, is an abomination that should not be countenanced. Either he resigns or face impeachment, for which there must be a massive call.

Mr. President should subject himself to a DNA test to settle the dust on this case, which if proven positive should be enough premise for impeachment.

On another note, if the Burkina Faso contract was so inflated , something like 400%, and for obvious reasons of corruption, how much were the other projects inflated? For example, Amandi's projects, the Brazilian Company's projects and others. My goodness, the over-pricing is so serious that the resulting financial losses to the State could be harnessed to finance free SHS for ten years or build two factories per district instead of NPP's planned #1district1factory, which of course is very doable.

Soon, we, also, learned that he carries a gun and 200 bullets on his person. Is that not an insult to the security that the nation affords him? Or what does he intend using it for? I hope he is not contemplating suicide. May GOD grant him a long life so that he may discern the difference between his incompetence and the wise Presidency of Nana Akufo-Addo. It is a shame that the Presidency should be associated with such callous behaviour, impudence, corruption and theft. GOD save Ghana!

#ImpeachJohnMahamaNowForCorruption

#BringBackDecencyToThePresidency

#GhanaiansMustSackJohnMahamaForImmorality
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current-affairs-trends Brexit would also mean 'leave' for David Cameron: Professor In an interview to CNBC-TV18, University of Strathclyde Professor of Politics John Curtice says, Brits who choose to remain will not necessarily be motivated by love for EU but simply because they expect economy to suffer if they leave.
Fortescue CFO Stephen Pearce has done a splendid job in cutting the groups costs, while lifting operational performance. That has allowed FMG to reduce the massive debt pile.

What happened to the FMG share price?

Surprise, surprise! Fortescue Metals Group [ASX:FMG] paid down another US$500 million today. So far, the company has repaid US$2.9 billion, reducing its interest expenses by US$186 million.

Fortescue CFO Stephen Pearce has done a splendid job in cutting the groups costs, while lifting operational performance. That has allowed Fortescue to reduce the massive debt pile. As a response to the good news, the stock rallied by more than 5% in early afternoon trading today.

Why did Fortescue Metals shares do this?

The company has always been highlighted as one with considerable credit risk. After all, Fortescue had a lot of debt, and it operated in a completely hostile environment when the iron ore price fell through the floor.

Despite that, the company executed the right strategy  cutting costs and focusing on efficiency. Mind you, the group still has an attractive cash cost today, at below US$30 a tonne. That is more than low enough for the current iron ore price, which is just above US$50 a tonne.

Think about the commodities space for moment. Energies have bottomed, as have many of the commodities. The free fall in commodity prices was overdone, and we have so far witnessed reflation back to a more reasonable level this year.

However, the supply glut has not been resolved yetit has a long way to go. We are still operating in an environment of weak demand from emerging markets such as China.

Thats on top of oversupply, with producers like Australia continuing to flood the market with iron ore. Rebalancing is going to continue, and it will take a rocky second half of 2016 to achieve, potentially, a marginally higher price than now.

What now for Fortescue Metals Group?

FMG has been one of the strongest momentum stocks of late. Investors shouldnt ask for more than that. FMG will continue to deliver as a momentum stock. However, its fantastic run may run out of steam at any time, as every momentum stock eventually does.

If you are thinking of getting into FMG now, you can do that. But be very active, because the huge paydays on the stock may soon be behind us. Given slack fundamentals, the stock rally will be capped at some point.

Should you opt for some other stock? Sure, there are plenty out there. We tell our readers about it all the time at Port Philip Publishing. As for FMG, I have personally been monitoring it in a portfolio; I honestly cannot ask for much more from what the stock has already achieved.

Ken Wangdong+

Emerging Market Analyst, New Frontier Investor
June 23, 2016

BREXIT - Not Gonna Happen

No matter how the Brexit vote will go, the powers that are will not allow Britain to exit the European Union.

pic via Aenea Endymion

That's all.

Posted by b on June 23, 2016 at 8:30 UTC | Permalink

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Additional taxation on overseas investors would not be sufficient in addressing the fundamental problem of supply plaguing Canadas most overheated housing markets, according to the CIBCs Benjamin Tal.



In a report by Matt Meuse for CBC News, Tal said that the current discourse surrounding foreign ownership of Canadian real estate is apparently ignoring the fact that the in-demand citiesVancouver, in particularare currently suffering from a dearth of property listings



We are trying to fight supply issues with demand solutions, Tal said.



Vancouver is an island ... from a real estate perspective, he added. In Vancouver, you cannot deal with the supply, but you can deal with speculative aspect that the supply issue create.



Tal clarified, however, that properly designed taxes on foreign real estate speculators would still be a good starting point in moderating the Vancouver market without risking a meltdown. Such taxes would target individuals who purchase homes only for income generation purposes, without planning to reside on them and work in Canada.



We don't want to say that Canada is not accepting foreign investment  absolutely not. But some of them are doing it just to make quick money, Tal explained. This is basically speculative activity. Therefore, let's tax this activity.


Neglecting to properly address climate change and safeguard homes against it will lead to an uptick in mortgage defaults, according to one leading academic.



In cities with pockets of homes where there is no longer sewer backup coverage, if those cities get hit by rains that cause mass flooding  where are these people going to get money to correct it? Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation and Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. If they dont have large pockets of money  how are they going to fix this problem?



As a result of that, my prediction is that when the big storms hit  in these communities, I think youll see these people walk out of their homes or certainly default on their mortgages.



As head of the Centre of Climate Adaptation, its Feltmates mandate to look at how Canada can de-risk itself in terms of extreme weather events, which are occurring with increased frequency.



His primary focus is on flood events.



Up until the Fort Mac fire was the Calgary and Toronto floods in 2013. On the long-term basis, we need to get the risk out of the system, Feltmate said. Weve developed the Home Adaptation Assessment program. Its a properly trained person who walks around the house with the homeowner and looks at 40-50 ways water can enter the basement. It culminates in a well-illustrated report that suggests things the homeowner can do to safeguard their home.



According to Feltmate, catastrophic loss claims, which are any event in a given year that causes over $25 million in damages, have increased dramatically over the past few years.



From 1983-2008, catastrophic losses caused Canadian property and casualty insurers between $200-500 million.



Whats changed is from 2008 and onward weve gone to about $1 billion per year total claims payouts on a regular basis, with the curve bending upward rapidly, Feltmate said. Therein lies the problem.

He has brought his concerns to the big banks and the government. But their lack of action is concerning to Feltmate.



And a failure to address the concern on a wide-scale could lead to an uptick in mortgage defaults, he argues.



[The banks] are asleep at the switch, Feltmate said. Its in your guys best interest to work to support programs to lower the probability of flooding in basements in homes in Canada or youre going to start to increasingly realize major losses of people just simply walking out of their homes because they cant correct the problem or the amount of money that is required to correct the problem [will be too much].




The Buyer Home Appraisal Comes in Low This is a rather common nuisance that can throw a monkey wrench in the middle of...
Lender, MI, and Bank Strategic Alliances; Structural Price Changes Impacting Borrowers

Jobs and housing make up the lions share of our economy, and the two intersect when a house is being built. But what is the exact impact? For any LO giving a presentation to a builder or real estate agent, heres a recent NAHB breakdown on how 1,000 new homes influence the economy (spoiler: 2,975 jobs).

There is a lot going on with pricing out there. Let's play some catch up on news & trends directly influencing rate sheets & consumers.

Matt Scully sent along a piece from Christopher Maloney with Bloomberg News wrote up a piece titled, "FHA Should Impose 'Cap' on Riskier Borrowers, NY Fed Says." Of course borrowers don't usually wait for a fee change in order to buy a home, but this could impact refis. "A 'sustainable' housing policy would necessitate 'the FHA impose a cap' on borrowers' expected default rates, NY Fed economists W. Scott Frame, Kristopher Gerardi and Joseph Tracy write in a blog post. The FHA should determine the cap at time of origination using the credit score, LTV, and economic outlook. Government-insured mortgages 'are not low-risk loans,' as their high LTV and low credit scores combine 'into extremely high default rates.' The 5-yr cumulative default rates (CDR) during 2000-2011 period varied between 5%-25%; those loans done through Fannie/Freddie showed default rates an 'order of magnitude lower.' The 2002 and 2009 vintage GSE loans had 5-yr CDRs of ~2%; same vintage GNMA loans were 10%/13%.

"The housing price collapse starting in 2006 resulted in FHA's Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund needing 'financial assistance from the federal government' in 2013. There is an 'important relationship' between credit scores of borrowers and government mortgage performance; lower credit score loans default at higher rate than higher credit score loans. In terms of FICO, loans with FICO scores <600 are 'by far the riskiest segment' with 5-yr CDRs peaking at >40% in 2007. Government-insured mortgages post-crisis peaked at ~35% of total in 2009 (from ~3% in 2000-2005 period) and have been ~20% over last 4 years."

NYCB Mortgage clients were notified, effective for locks on or after 6/10, the loan level price adjustment (LLPA) for Conforming Fixed High Balance transactions will increase as follows: LLPA for All States (except for California) from -0.750 to -0.875 and LLPA for California from -1.000 to -1.125.

National MI posted new rates for BPMI singles and LPMI monthlies. The company modestly raised prices for LPMI monthlies, which are less than 1% of production. The company reduced premiums on BPMI singles with FICOs over 740+ and raised prices for lower FICO loans. BPMI singles were under 5% of total production for the company. The new prices go into effect on June 27. The company raised prices for LPMI monthlies by about 1%. The company reduced premiums on BPMI singles with FICOs over 740+ and raised premiums for lower FICO loans. For example, premiums on loans with FICOs between 720-740 and 95-97 LTVs went up meaningfully to 3.90% from 3.08% (and are now materially higher than the 3.26% charged by MGIC for the same bucket). Premiums on 760+ FICO 95-97 LTV loans fell to 2.10% from 3.08% (and compares to the 3.26% charged by MTG, which charges the same premium for all BPMI singles with FICOs over 720).

Effective June 1 all Ditech delegated and conditional delegated clients will be charged $300 for all condominium reviews regardless of decision (approved, suspended or declined). For loans that fund, the fee will be deducted from purchase advise. For condo reviews that have been completed on loans that don't fund, the $300 fee will appear on the clients monthly e-billing statement.

Effective as of June 6, for all existing active and new locks, NewLeaf Wholesale has updated its Rate Lock Policy.

Citi's premiums offered for MSAs in specified areas changed effective with locks on or after June 1st. Clients should refer to the updated Citi CRA Premium Schedule for complete details.

Beginning with loans disclosed after May 20 Mountain West Financial implemented the following changes to its Sapphire program: The origination fee to the broker will be limited to 1.00%. A 0.50% origination fee will be charged by MWF. The Early Payoff (EPO) Policy, as outlined in the Broker Agreement, will apply for Sapphire loans paid off prior to the receipt of: 6 scheduled monthly payments, regardless of reason for payoff; or 12 scheduled monthly payments if the loan is refinanced by the broker. The EPO Policy is waived if the refinance is completed by MWF. Sapphire production is limited to 50% of a broker's overall quarterly funded units. If Sapphire concentration exceeds 50%, then that broker will no longer be permitted to originate Sapphire products. The first review will take place after Q3 2016.

To answer a few emails: yes, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was selling MBS securities on May 25th, and no this is not to be misinterpreted as an exit from their current holdings. As stated in the Feds February 17th Operating Policy statement, "In connection with this authorization and consistent with recent practice, the FRBNY Open Market Trading Desk plans to conduct small value exercises from time to time as a matter of prudent advance planning. The conduct of such exercises does not represent a change in the stance of monetary policy, and no inference should be drawn about the timing of any change in the stance of monetary policy in the future from them." The exercises can be an assortment of activities, for instance: repurchase agreements, outright purchases and sales of Treasury securities, outright sales of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), coupon swaps of unsettled MBS holdings, and U.S. dollar and non-U.S. dollar liquidity swap operations. The next scheduled house cleaning was on June 1st, where the NY Fed will be selling approximately $30 million GNMA.

While we're on mortgage-backed securities, they, and U.S. Treasuries, rallied modestly Wednesday as all eyes were focused on today's U.K. referendum on its membership in the European Union. Various polls released throughout the day pushed markets to and fro but betting markets still show that a 'remain' result is about a three in four chance. If you've come to the realization that "the market" becomes fixated on uncertainty, you are correct. Fed Chair Yellen appeared before the House Financial Services Committee, saying nothing new or unusual. The Treasury sold off $28 billion in 7-year notes.

Existing Home Sales data for May showed the fastest seasonally adjusted annualized rate in over nine years and a median selling price at an all-time high of $239,700. First-time home-buyers accounted for 30% of the sales and inventory has fallen to 4.7 months' worth of sales, well below the traditional norm of six months. And the Federal Housing Finance Agency's index of house prices was reported to have risen 0.2% m/m in April. Estimates were for a larger gain and the index's jump in March was revised up to 0.8% from the initial print of 0.7%. Year-over-year growth was 5.9% in April.

But that was all so...yesterday. Today we've had Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending 6/18 (-18k to 259k, lower than forecast). Later, at 8AM MDT, is May's Leading Economic Indicators along with May New Home Sales. Rate sheets are going to look a little worse today: the yield on the 10-year is up to 1.74% and agency MBS prices are down a solid .125.



Jobs and Announcements

On the job side of things, HR recruiter Sonya Brewer sends, "Here we are at the end of the 2nd quarter of 2016, everyone is 'happy,' it is summer & vacation time, right? NOT! The candidate pool is out there on vacation not realizing that right now is the time to get the best opportunity for vacation, benefits, and salaries. All we hear is 'after the summer', 'when my kids are back to school', 'later in year,' but during the 3rd quarter companies are planning for their 2017 budget! Clients are trying to fulfill their staffing goals by 3rd qtr.'s end. The job candidates want is to be had, but they wait, those exceptional compensation opportunities will be slim. The Mortgage Recruiter is searching for a COO for a lender in Colorado, EVP of Operations & Processing Manager, San Diego, CA, and retail & wholesale opportunities in Dallas & Houston. In Denver, retail branch & area managers. On a national level, retail branches & LOs with salaries and wholesale AEs with salaries. Contact Sonya Brewer for more information or to submit a resume, and specify opportunity - you will be interviewing within 48 hours."

Box Home Loans, a national, consumer direct lender headquartered in Lindon, Utah, is growing rapidly and is hiring underwriters. Applicants must have recent VA experience. Applicants must also be comfortable with rapidly evolving technology as Box Home Loans describes itself as a technology company that happens to be in mortgage lending. Its proprietary technology allows it to originate, process, and underwrite with extreme efficiency and compliance. Because Box Home Loans operates in a completely paperless environment, some of its underwriters work remotely. Resumes should be sent to Jeff Reeves.

Today, I was announced as a keynote speaker at Todd Duncan's Sales Mastery Event (Oct. 4-7th, 2016). Click here to check out the announcement and a video I've recorded for Sales Mastery. (Do you have a business success story that you'd like to share? Click here for an opportunity to share your story from stage at Sales Mastery 2016.)

Congrats to Alex Saphos who was with Fannie Mae for almost 30 years but has now joined HomeBridge in the role of Investor Relations Advisor. This is a new position at HomeBridge and Alex will be charged with seeking opportunities to connect HomeBridge's origination abilities with the needs of outside portfolio investors across the country.

Embrace Home Loans announced that Boston-based Eastern Bank, the largest community bank in Massachusetts with $9.9 billion in assets and nearly 100 branches across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, has partnered with Embrace to strengthen its lending operations. Under the partnership, "Embrace Home Loans will provide operational resources to support the loans originated by Eastern Bank...Further, as the demand for home financing grows, Embrace's 33 years of proven experience will allow Eastern Bank to increase its competitiveness by significantly speeding loan closings, enhancing the real-time connectivity with referral partners, and improving the overall borrower experience."

And recently word spread from the American Bankers Association - through its subsidiary the Corporation for American Banking - that it has endorsed the fulfillment and correspondent lending services of Stearns Lending, LLC, an independent mortgage lender and servicer with wholesale, retail, correspondent and strategic alliance production channels. Stearns Financial Institutions Group is the sole independent mortgage banking firm listed as an ABA Endorsed Mortgage Lending Solution. "Selecting Stearns for this endorsement followed a comprehensive due diligence process that included extensive review of the company's mortgage fulfillment capacity, product menu, regulatory compliance framework, management strength and financial soundness. The review was conducted by industry experts and field-tested by bankers to meet stringent customer-service standards, as well as ABA's quality standards.

And remember that in February Citibank has added Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC) to its list of approved Mortgage Insurance providers. Correspondents immediately began submitting loans insured by MGIC.

Last month Essent Guaranty announced a full integration with Mortgage Cadence's Enterprise Lending Center Loan Origination System. "With this integration, Essent customers who also use ELC can acquire timely rate quotes as well as experience seamless delegated and non-delegated MI ordering - never having to leave their LOS."

In late May Union Bank announced that it has received a $1.75 million grant that will be used to provide 3-to-1 matching grants of up to $15,000 to low- and moderate-income homebuyers to go toward the purchase of their first home. Julius Robinson, head of Corporate Social Responsibility for the Americas at Union Bank, noted, "We are honored that the FHLB of San Francisco has entrusted us again this year with both WISH and IDEA program funds. Like the FHLB, we believe that home ownership is critical to building strong, vibrant communities and we look forward to putting these funds to work to help even more buyers achieve the dream of home ownership."

Ditech has added Mitsubishi Securities as an approved counterparty for its AOT program.

Outright announced bank M&A continued in the last week. South State Bank ($8.7B, SC) will acquire Georgia Bank & Trust Co of Augusta ($1.9B, GA) for about $335mm in stock. In Michigan Commercial Bank ($407mm) will acquire Mason State Bank ($117mm) for about $14mm in cash (50%) and stock (50%). And in North Carolina First Bancorp ($3.4 billion, Southern Pines) has agreed to acquire Carolina Bank Holdings, Inc. ($706 million, Greensboro) for $97 million in cash (25%) and stock. In the land of armadillos Commercial Bank of Texas ($571mm) will acquire The First National Bank of Emory ($111mm). First United Bank and Trust Co ($3.2B, OK) will acquire American Bank of Texas ($2.3B).
Too big. Too rigid. Not nimble enough.

Those are reasons why integrated oil companies could have a difficult time competing with independents in the unconventional shale plays that have led to a resurgence in the nations oil and gas industry.

Royal Dutch Shell, however, disagrees with that reasoning and this week held an event to reaffirm its commitment to the shales business, including its holdings in the Permian Basin.

Shell officials discussed how its recent $70 billion acquisition of the BG Group has impacted its outlook. The event was a mixer at Shells Drilling Automation & Remote Technology (DART) Center located on its Houston campus and was webcast and available by telephone.

We have substantial choices in a post-BG world, said Greg Guidry, executive vice president, unconventionals. The acquisition brought Shell a major position in deep waters offshore Brazil and in liquefied natural gas projects in North America. Also acquired were BG holdings in the Haynesville that are operated by Exco Resources and some legacy acreage in the Appalachian Mountains that are currently inactive.

We can activate our shale program when the right price signals are there., he said. Right now we still have an active shale program where we spend $2 (billion) to $2.5 billion a year.

Guidry said the company sees its North American shale position  primarily in the Permian, the Marcellus-Utica and in Western Canadas Montney and Duvernay shales  as future growth priorities that will see substantial spending in 2020 and beyond.

Shell gained a significant position in the Permian Basin with its 2012 acquisition of Chesapeake Energys holdings in the Delaware Basin. The acquisition included the South Rankin Highway office that currently houses 50 employees. Across the Permian, Shell has 200 to 300 -- employees and contractors.

We feel we have the best position in the Delaware, said Bruce Palfreyman, general manager, Permian Basin. Shell now has 300,000 net acres with over 5,000 possible well locations. At least 85 percent of its acreage is considered core acreage and about 75 percent have break-even points between $35 and $50 oil.

Weve spent the last three years maturing and derisking a lot of that acreage, Palfreyman said.

He said the company sees multiple plays on its acreage: at least three Wolfcamp plays, potential in the Bone Spring/Avalon Shale plays in the Second and Third Bone Spring formations.

In addition to high-grading its portfolio, Palfreyman said Shell has also done a lot of swaps of acreage as it looks to develop its holdings through longer horizontal laterals and multipad drilling.

He estimated Shells Delaware acreage has 2 billion barrels, and though activity has been slow amid low oil prices, the company has increased its Expected Ultimate Recovery reserves 130 percent since 2013 and expects to increase that another 20 percent this year.

That growth has come even as Shell has halved its footprint in its shale holdings since 2013, according to Guidry.

We have half the acreage, were in half the plays, we have half the assets. Yet we have a larger reserve volume than weve ever had, he said.

He attributed that growth to the companys focus on improving operational performance and capital efficiency as the company began a major overhaul of its shale business.

He said that the company has focused on big wells  wells with more than 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in initial potentials.

If youre not in that window, you dont stand a chance of being economic in shale exploration and acquisition, he said. In 2013, 20 percent of Shells wells generated that large an initial potential; today 100 percent of its exploration and acquisition portfolio averages 1,000 barrels or more over the first 30 days of production.

Weve also driven down costs. Direct overhead cost-per-well is down 76 percent since 2013. Our organization is also half the size, Guidry said, estimating 2,000 full-time equivalent jobs have been cut since 2013.

Weve also simplified our organization quite a bit and thats contributed to lower costs. We are now a leaner, simpler, much more nimble organization, Guidry said.

Palfreyman said the companys current outlook for the Permian is for continued consolidation. Operators will continue to drill longer laterals, and Palfreyman said hes been told there currently are 1,000 drilled-uncompleted wells in the Permian.

Guidry expressed pride in how the company helped bring about a road safety coalition in the Permian Basin that has drawn the participation of other companies, the Texas Department of Transportation, local governments and first responders and even service companies that are part of Shells supply chain. Activities in the eight months the coalition has been formed include helping prioritize signage and road layout. Guidry said road safety is important not just to oil field workers but the public at large.
WASHINGTON (AP)  In a narrow victory for affirmative action, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a University of Texas program that takes account of race in deciding whom to admit, an important national decision that was cemented by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The justices' 4-3 decision in favor of the Texas program ends an 8-year-old lawsuit that included a previous trip to the Supreme Court, filed by a white Texan who was denied admission to the university.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the Texas plan complied with earlier court rulings that allow colleges to consider race in pursuit of diversity on campus. "The university has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used ... was narrowly tailored," Kennedy wrote.

The court's three more-conservative justices dissented, and Justice Samuel Alito read portions of his 51-page dissent, more than twice as long as Kennedy's opinion, from the bench.

"This is affirmative action gone wild," Alito said. The university "relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions."

In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the Constitution outlaws any use of race in higher education admissions.

With the death of Scalia in February and with Justice Elena Kagan sitting out the case because she worked on it while serving in the Justice Department, just seven justices participated in the decision.

Scalia, long opposed to affirmative action, almost certainly would have voted with his fellow conservatives. He was criticized for suggesting at arguments in December that some black students would benefit from being at a "slower-track school," instead of Texas' flagship campus in Austin.

At the very least, Scalia's vote could have made the result a tie and limited the high court to issuing a one-sentence opinion upholding the lower court ruling in favor of Texas. In that instance, the result would have been the same but without the Supreme Court endorsement offered by Kennedy Thursday.

The university considers race among many factors in admitting the last quarter of incoming freshmen classes. The state fills most of its freshman class by guaranteeing admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class.

The high court ruled in the case of Abigail Fisher, a white Texan who was denied admission to the university in 2008. She contended she was rejected while African-American applicants with lower grades and test scores were admitted.

The school said Fisher, who did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her class, would not have been admitted with or without race as a factor. But officials did conditionally offer to allow her to transfer in as a sophomore if she maintained a 3.2 grade-point average at another public college in Texas.

Instead, she went to Louisiana State University, from which she graduated in 2012, and pursued her lawsuit. Fisher was recruited for the suit by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences who has been remarkably successful in persuading the Supreme Court to hear cases challenging the use of race in education and politics.

Blum was behind a major challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act that resulted in the court eviscerating a key provision of the law, and he also led an unsuccessful challenge to states' widespread practice of counting all their residents, not just those eligible to vote, in drawing legislative districts.

The Supreme Court heard Fisher's case once before and issued an inconclusive ruling in 2013 that sent it back to a lower court and set the stage for Thursday's decision.

In 2003, the justices reaffirmed the consideration of race in the quest for diversity on campus. Their decision then set a goal of doing away with such programs in 25 years.

"The most important part of this case is that the court reaffirmed what it said in 2003 which is that diversity can be a compelling interest of a university in fulfilling its educational mission," said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In a statement, Fisher said "I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity. I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action."

Separate legal challenges have been filed to affirmative action plans at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University. Vanderbilt University law professor Suzanna Sherry said the outcome of the Texas case "makes the universities' cases a lot stronger. The challengers have an uphill battle."

Texas is unique in marrying the top-10 plan to a separate admissions review in which race is one of many factors considered. The university's current freshman class is 22 percent Hispanic and 4.5 percent African-American. White students make up less than half the school's freshmen.

Eight states prohibit the use of race in public college admissions: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

Kennedy noted the long duration of Fisher's lawsuit in rejecting calls to send the case back to lower courts again. Alito complained the court should not side with Texas "because it is tired of this case."
LLANO, Texas (AP)  Authorities say a South Texas man drowned while trying to rescue his 13-year-old daughter from the Llano (LAH'-noh) River as they were fishing.

The Llano County Sheriff's Office says bystanders and some city workers saved the girl during the accident Wednesday afternoon near Badu Park. A Llano city statement identified the man who died as 52-year-old Brian Holmberg of Victoria.
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Sonora, CA  With a contract now approved a much-anticipated upgrade to a local high schools long-outdated security camera system is scheduled in the coming weeks.

Tuesday evening the Sonora Union High School District Board of Trustees gave the official nod to award a contract bid from Surveillance Systems Integration, Inc. (SSI) for $147,942, to cover a new state-of-the-state digital camera system. As reported here, the item was at the top of the meeting agenda.

Obviously pleased to be finally moving forward on the project, District Superintendent Pat Chabot shares, [The new system] includes 59 cameras and the ability to record for two weeks, at least. He adds that, while SSI is a Rocklin-based company, They are subcontracting with a local contractor, John Diehl, a local electricianwe know him  he has worked with Sonora High School before  so we are really pleased we are having local people do the work.

While it will not be monitored live the system will provide high definition zoom imagery from each of the cameras. If something happens, we will have the ability to look back and see  and with 59 cameraswe feel we have very good coverage of our entire campus, Chabot enthuses. Part of the delay in getting to this point, he emphasizes, that the network capability on campus had to be prepared to accommodate the new system, which required replacing and upgrading all network switches to increase bandwidth and speed for the Internet Protocol camera units.

As far as a work timeline, Chabot states, We are not 100 percent sure but we are doing the paperwork now, signing the documentswe are hoping to start as soon as possible, maybe as soon as July, and within two to three months, have it completed. We really want to fast-track this as soon as we can. He also affirms that, once finally in place, I think we are going to have the premier video system in the county.
In an election year noted for political upheaval and disappointment, its should not be surprising that a third party candidate is enjoying more of the spotlight.

Libertarian Party says it's primed to make big inroads in American politics this year

Emphasizes individual rights over government



Presidential candidate Gary Johnson polling between 4 and 12 percent, depending on the poll

Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico and Republican presidential candidate, is once again running for president as a Libertarian.

This time around, however, Johnson thinks he and the Libertarian Party have a chance to be a viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

This is a big alternative, Johnson said after winning the partys nomination at the national convention in Orlando in May. And arguably were talking about the two most polarizing figures in politics [Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump] and thats our choice.

He may not be wrong. Recent national polls show Johnson, in hypothetical matchups against Clinton and Trump, polling anywhere from 4 to 12 percent. Those poll numbers have helped him earn a live town hall event on CNN Wednesday.

What is the Libertarian Party?

At the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando last May, Matt Kibbe, a former president of the FreedomWorks advocacy group, summed up the Libertarian Party this way: Dont Hurt People and Dont Take Their Stuff.

I happen to think most people in this country are Libertarian, Gary Johnson said. They just dont know it.

According to the Libertarian Party platform, Libertarians emphasize the individual over government. They tend to be more socially liberal but fiscally conservative.

For Libertarians, Americas government, at all levels, has gotten too big for its britches. They want to end all entitlements, from Social Security to welfare. Their platform says retirement should be handled by the individual and private volunteer groups do a better job caring for people who need help.

They want to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, repeal or replace the income tax (Johnson advocates the FairTax, which replaces the income tax with a national consumption tax), and abolish federal programs and services not listed under the U.S. Constitution.

Libertarians take the ultimate laissez-faire approach to government: no regulations, free trade, no forced labor requirements, no affirmative action, no bailouts, no subsidies, no government control. They believe in true free-market, that all businesses must rise and fall on their own.

The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society, according to the Libertarian Party platform.

Libertarians extend that free-market approach to the environment, energy, health care and even public education.

They also believe, according to their platform, that gun laws should be abolished, as should drug laws. They are pro-gay and are against all forms of discrimination, though they do say private groups have the right to set their own standards. They think government should stay out of abortion and they are against the death penalty.

When it comes to national defense and foreign relationships, they believe in maintaining a standing army, but prefer not to use it unless absolutely necessary. Johnson would prefer a diplomatic approach to international conflict, such as North Koreas nuclear attempts, for instance.

And while they favor some intelligence efforts, they are against anything that violates the rights of individual citizens.

They also tend to look more favorably on immigration, preferring more open immigration laws.

Party growth and growing pains

At one point during the party convention in Orlando, national Chairman Nicholas Sarwark asked delegates to stand. He then asked how many delegates attended 5 conventions, 10 conventions and so on.

As delegates sat down, the ranks of those standing got older, more male and whiter.

The Libertarian Party is steadily on the rise, and also attracting people from all walks of life.

I think its a natural growth, Sarwark said. I think our message appeals to young people, to people of color, to people who have problems with the way the government has been used to constrain their choices.

The party is also drawing fresh members from Republican and Democratic parties. Sarwark said that, since Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the GOP presidential race, membership had increased at least 15 percent.

That has led to some growing pains within the party. Gary Johnson, the partys presidential nominee, was not a clear choice in 2016, winning the majority of the delegate votes in May on the second ballot.

Party members say it is not uncommon for a Libertarian nominating convention to be contested. However, one could not help but hear the boos coming from Johnson critics during speeches and even debates.

Some in the party fear the growth of Republicans like Johnson and his running mate, former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, will turn the Libertarian Party into Republican light.

The frustrations led to a confrontation at the May convention between Johnsons supporters and supporters of opponent Austin Petersen, a lifelong Libertarian.

A lot of the concerns stem not so much from whether government should be a part of peoples lives, but at what level government should function. Some libertarians think Johnsons platform and reduction of government doesnt go far enough.

After Johnson clinched his partys nomination, Petersen pledged his support, however. So party leaders are willing to work with Johnson if it leads to attaining their goals.

Ballot access

The question now is how well Johnson can compete against Trump and Clinton. The deck is stacked against him.

The party is currently on the ballot in 33 states. It is currently working to get on the ballot in seven states and the District of Columbia.

That leaves 10 states where the Libertarian Party is still not on the ballot  New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Iowa, Minnesota and Washington.

Johnson also needs to poll at 15 percent to be included in presidential debates, based on five national public opinion polls. If he does not get into the debates, it will affect his ability to get his point across.

Still, the party is pushing forward. That includes fundraising efforts. The party is courting third party fundraising groups to assist, like the Koch Brothers, billionaire businessmen who have sunk millions into political parties and candidates.

In 1983, they shifted strategies and went to funding the Republican Party in an attempt to fix it, Sarwark said. It is not fixable. They have not gotten what they want out of it, and honestly any party that can encompass Donald Trump and Rand Paul stands for nothing.

Sarwark says in the month of May fundraising was four times more than usual. That money will be crucial because the party, and Johnson, will seek a 50 state strategy, even if the party does not get on the ballot in all 50 states.

Either way, Libertarians are more pumped than ever at their chances.

We are at the culmination of 45 years worth of work, to build up active parties in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Sarwark said. The two old parties are busy self-destructing right in front of us, theyve nominated the two most hated candidates the American people have ever seen and we are presenting a fresh, positive alternative that will be on the ballot for every single American in November.
As Orlando continues to grieve and begins to heal after the Pulse nightclub attack, city leaders are in the early stages of discussing a permanent Pulse memorial site.

Memorials for the Pulse victims continue to grow

City of Orlando working on how to archive the many mementos, build a permanent memorial

"I think it's an amazing thing that we have people from all over the world that want to do memorials for the victims of the Pulse tragedy, said Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, who represents District 4.

City leaders know the temporary memorial at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts will eventually be removed, so they want to create a place to remember the victims and to display one-of-a-kind items like an Aloha lei from Hawaii.

"There's only one word I can express, is the blessings that the lei of Aloha that we represented bringing over from the islands touched a lot of people, said Leahua Kekahuna, who is a Kumu.

Kekahuna explained that a Kumu is a Hawaiian Culture Teacher.

Volunteers from Hawaii said nothing was going to stop them from showing support and delivering their one of a kind, handmade lei.

"It was a long 11 hours, almost 12 hours but we made it and nothing would have stopped us, Kekahuna explained.

"I think this is just one more example of how love conquers evil, Sheehan said.

"We're working with the gay/lesbian bi-sexual transgender community center," Sheehan said. "They have a history group that codifies gay and lesbian history and they're going to be working with us, deciding what we're going to give to the families, what we're going to keep in the (Orange County Regional) History Center.

Commissioner Sheehan, who is the first openly-gay elected official in Central Florida, is helping take the lead.

Sheehan shared that architects from across the country are interested in building a public memorial for the victims of the Pulse massacre.

"The American Institute of Architects is actually having their annual conference here next year and they've talked about wanting to make that their project. I guess when they come to a city, they do a big project and they want to do some kind of memorial, which I think is amazing, Sheehan said.

"I don't know how soon but I think that's a wonderful idea and especially continuing to never forget, said Orlando City Commissioner Samuel B. Ings, who represents District 6.

Any permanent public memorial would have to be approved by the Orlando City Council.

"I'm hoping I would get unanimous city council approval for something like that, Sheehan said.
Osceola County is the latest county in Florida to decriminalize small amounts of weed.

Osceola County comissioners unanimously voted to decriminalize 20 grams or less marijuana

Offendees would get a $100 citation, no misdemeanor charge

The county commission unanimously voted Wednesday of citing people caught with marijuana with $100 fine, rather than a misdemeanor charge.

The ordinance applies to people who are caught with less than 20 grams of marijuana. You can compare it to the weight of four sugar packets, as each one of these has about five grams of sugar.

Were talking about a victimless crime here," said Osceola County Commissioner Brandon Arrington. "This is someone who is perpetrating a crime that is only affecting themselves personally. Theyre not robbing people, theyre not stealing from other folks.

Arrington hopes revenue generated from citations can help fund additional mental health services in the county. Commissioners are also looking into diversion programs.

Theres a lot of parameters that fit that," Osceola County Sheriff Bob Hansell said. "But its going to be completely officer discretion when to issue that. Were going to have policies written when they can issue a citation.

For some Kissimmee residents, though, a citation is not enough.

Elvero Borila, who was born and raised in Colombia, a country known for illegal drug trade, says this can send a mixed message to the youth.

The ordinance, the $100 is not going to work, he said.

While the ordinance is countywide, the cities of Kissimmee and St. Cloud can choose to opt out.

The ordinance is expected to go into effect within 30 days after being officially filed.
The Supreme Court issued decisions on several major cases Thursday including immigration and affirmative action, with justices being split on the president's immigration plan.

Justices split on Obama's immigration plan

Texas led states challenging program announced in late 2014

Justices upheld use of affirmative action at universities, colleges



A tie vote by the Supreme Court is blocking President Barack Obama's immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

The justices' one-sentence opinion Thursday effectively kills the plan for the duration of Obama's presidency.

A tie vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court. In that case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.

Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the program Obama announced in November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states' lawsuit.

The Obama programs are protections for parents of children who are in the country legally and an expansion of the program that benefits people who were brought to this country as children. Obama decided to move forward after Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, and the chances for an immigration overhaul, already remote, were further diminished.

Their lawsuit was heard by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration enforcement. Hanen sided with the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for the states, and the Justice Department rushed an appeal to the high court so that it could be heard this term.

Fisher v. University of Texas

The Court upheld the use of affirmative action by colleges and universities that seek to enroll more minority students.

The justices voted 4-3.

The case concerned an admissions program at the University of Texas. A white student who was turned down by the university claimed she was a victim of discrimination because race was a factor in the admissions process.

According to the university, most applicants from within the state are admitted under part of the program that admits the top students in every high school in the state. The university considers race among many factors when considering the remainder of applicants from Texas and elsewhere.

Writing the for the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, The Courts affirmance of the Universitys admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement. It is the Universitys ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies.



Fisher v. University of Texas was one of the oldest cases left undecided on the courts current docket.

Blood alcohol testing



The Court placed new limits on state laws that make it a crime for motorists suspected of drunken driving to refuse alcohol tests.

The justices ruled that law enforcement officers must obtain a search warrant before requiring drivers to take blood alcohol tests, but not breath tests, which the court considers less intrusive.

Drivers in all 50 states can have their licenses revoked for refusing drunken driving tests. The court's ruling affects laws in 11 states that impose additional criminal penalties for such refusals. Florida was among the states that criminalized a driver's refusal to take alcohol blood or breath tests.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
A group of frontline nurses from Covenant Health Plainview has changed the way patients are dismissed, lowering considerably the rate of readmissions to the hospital. The program has been so successful, one top administrator is traveling to Washington, D.C. this week to present the plan to her peers.

A fragmented health care system and lack of communication has left discharged patients confused about follow-up care, medications and financial resources leading to unnecessary hospital readmissions and deterioration of their disease processes. Hospitals around the country are actively seeking ways to reduce readmissions in order to not only avoid penalties, but improve patient care.
Six weeks after Lockney voters approved a major change in city government, the Floyd County community is working to implement the shift to having a city manager oversee the day-to-day operation of municipal affairs.

On May 7, Lockney voted 271-93 to change from the city secretary style of municipal administration to the city manager system. During the same election, the sale of alcoholic beverages within the city limits was approved 221-157 and Archie Jones was elected mayor, defeating Tina Graves on a 230-143 vote.
June 24, 1946: Mrs. Philip Burren of Houston is visiting here with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Barton.

--L.D. Ballard, Hale County 4-H Club boy, has been awarded a leadership training course at Danforth Foundation leadership training school at Camp Miniwanca, Shelby, Mich. Ballard, 20, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. S.D. Ballard of Plainview.

--Joe Parrish has been named Lockney manager for Southwestern Public Service, succeeding John P. OHearn, who was fatally injured in an auto wreck on May 17.

June 24, 1956: Pioneer Natural Gas Co. has opened its modern new office building at the corner of Eighth and Austin. The structure cost $65,000. John Scott is local manager. The company has 30 local employees

--Furr Food Company plans to open bids on June 27 for a new building to be constructed in Plainview. The site of the new local store will be at Second and Broadway.

--Viola Woodson, 71, is hospitalized with shock following a lightning strike on Monday. She was visiting the home of Mary Spence at 224 W. Crestway. She was sitting 7 to 8 feet away from a window when the blot struck a TV antenna on the west end of the house. She was knocked from her chair. Two TV sets inside the house were burned out and two window panes broken.

June 24, 1966: The PHS Band will meet for rehearsal at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Band Hall, to prepare for the Bar-None Rodeo this weekend. O.T. Ryan is band director.

--Among newcomers in Plainview are Mr. and Ms. Weymon Box and children Vicki, 8, and Kevin, 3 1/2. He is employed at E.K. Hufstedler and she is a school teacher. They are Methodists.

--First National Bank has added a new automated Time and Temperature Service. It is available 24 hours daily by dialing CA3-5151.

June 24, 1986: Dr. Joe Horn was recognized Sunday as the First United Methodist Churchs Father of the Year for 1986.

--Mr. and Mrs. P.V. Cargill recently attended the graduation of their grandson, Cary Savage, from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley. He is the son of R.E. and Kay Savage of Greeley.

Compiled by Doug McDonough
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Daniel Mengden deserves better than his 0-3 record, but those are the breaks when it comes to pitching for the 2016 As.

Winnable stuff doesnt necessarily equate to winnable games.

Three impressive starts into Mengdens big-league career, support remains an issue. He struck out nine in six innings Wednesday, and the scuffling As fell to the Brewers 4-2.

No, its not frustrating, Mengden said. Im just going out there and trying to give our team a chance to win. Thats how baseball goes. You win some, you lose some. Well get it eventually.

Mengdens career to date is historic  on both sides of the ledger.

On one hand, he has 21 strikeouts in 18 innings, the most in 100 years by any pitcher except Tim Hudson to open his career with three appearances for the As.

But in those 18 innings, the As offense provided exactly two runs of support for Mengden, who could be 3-0 with a little help from his friends.

Instead, hes the fourth big-league pitcher in a century to surrender three or fewer runs in his first three starts and lose them all.

We saw right away hes a tough kid, said manager Bob Melvin, recalling how Mengden debuted in steamy Cincinnati. From the first pitch of the game, it looked like he belonged. His presence is as impressive as anything.

Aside from the lack of offensive assistance, the defense was an issue Wednesday. Milwaukees three-run rally in the fifth inning was avoidable with cleaner defense on two plays, one involving Mengden.

Ramon Flores hit a one-out double to left-center, and Coco Crisps throw skipped past infielders for an error, allowing Flores to take third.

The Brewers had No. 9 hitter Yadiel Rivera bunt, and Mengden was quick to the scene and easily could have thrown out Flores at the plate, but he fumbled the ball and had no play.

One out later, Scooter Gennett hit a two-run homer, and suddenly it was 3-1.

Weve got to somehow try to knock that ball down and keep the guy off third base, Melvin said.

Crisp thought he had a chance for Flores at second. But shortstop Marcus Semien lined up for a throw to third, and second baseman Jed Lowrie said he thought thats where the ball was going. The ball was on the third-base side of second and rolled to the infield.

Coco was being aggressive there, catcher Josh Phegley said. He was hustling. It was in between. The communication fell through.

Crisp said, We just werent on the same page. Its an honest mistake. It happens in the game. Its unfortunate.

Crisp hit a fourth-inning homer, and the As made it 3-2 on Max Muncys RBI single in the seventh. Kirk Nieuwenhuis put the Brewers ahead 4-2 with a homer off Liam Hendriks in the eighth.

The As dropped to 5-13 in June, and their 29-42 record is their worst through 71 games since 1994. Mengdens next start is Monday against the Giants at AT&T Park.

Hes done a good job for us, a fantastic job, Crisp said. Hopefully, we can pick him up one of these days.

Mengden twice struck out Ryan Braun, including with the bases loaded to end the third. After the Brewers three-run rally in the fifth, Mengden struck out the side in the sixth.

Strikeouts come, Mengden said. Its not my job to strike em out. Its my job to get em out.

John Shea is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey
Using Google search data, Direct Capital has compiled some maps showing the top three favorite brands of each U.S. state.

The data was mined from keyword search popularity in Google Trends, using more than 200 brand names. Direct Capital took the results it found to assign a top brand for each region.
Number of the day

10 percent

Thats how much the stock of Palo Altos Tesla Motors fell Wednesday, the day after CEO Elon Musk presented a $2.86 billion plan to combine Tesla with SolarCity, where he is chairman. Although shareholders are concerned that the company is spreading itself too thin, Wednesdays result is actually better than what happened in extended trading Tuesday, when Tesla stock fell as much as 14 percent.

Top tweet

Twitter announced they will let advertisers target users based on the emojis they tweet. Bring it on, poop companies.

Conan OBrien , who just might have summed up the entire Twitter universe and the U.S. economy in fewer than 140 characters.

Aid for software engineers

Atlassian says it is giving $1 million to Coursera, Women Who Code and Code2040 to help provide technical skills for aspiring software engineers. In a blog post, the software company says it is teaming up with Coursera, which offers online education in combination with more than 140 top universities, to pay half the tuition for computer science courses for a limited time this month. The company is also offering support to Code2040 and Women Who Code, which promote diversity in tech.

The Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techbriefing
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A male was in critical condition after he was shot in Emeryville Wednesday evening, authorities said.

Police received reports of a shooting at 41st Street and San Pablo Avenue around 5 p.m., according to a statement from Emeryville Police Acting Captain Fred Dauer.
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A legal loophole that allowed former Stanford University student Brock Allen Turner to get a six-month county jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman last year would be closed under legislation proposed Wednesday by Santa Clara County prosecutors.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said his office has written a bill to ensure that anyone convicted of sexual assault in California will have to serve a state prison term and will not be eligible for probation.

Rosen noted that under state law, perpetrators who sexually assault a conscious person must serve time in state prison, not county jail, and are ineligible for probation. Those who assault an unconscious person, however, can get a relatively light county jail sentence or even probation  the sentence that Turners defense attorneys requested for him after he was convicted of three felonies for assaulting an unconscious woman outside a Stanford fraternity party in January 2015.

The judge gave the wrong sentence, but he had the legal right to give it, Rosen said at a news conference on the steps of Santa Clara County Superior Court in Palo Alto, where Turner was convicted and sentenced. His prosecutors sought a six-year term for Turner in state prison.

The current legal discrepancy between sexually assaulting a conscious versus an unconscious person stems from whether the attacker uses force. State law dictates that a perpetrators use of force in an assault involving penetration triggers a mandatory prison sentence. However, when a victim is unconscious, he or she is unable to resist and the perpetrator therefore does not have to use force.

So a perpetrator at a college party who chooses to forcibly rape a conscious victim will go to prison, Rosen said. However, a different perpetrator at the same party who chooses to watch and wait for a victim to pass out from intoxication before sexually assaulting her can get probation.

The proposed legislation would change the law so that someone convicted of assaulting an unconscious person would have to be sentenced to state prison. The bill, AB2888, is sponsored by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Assemblymen Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and Evan Low, D-Campbell.

Current law actually incentivizes rapists to get their victims intoxicated before assaulting them, Low said in a statement. While we cant go back and change what happened, we can make sure it never happens again.

Public reaction was swift when Judge Aaron Persky handed down a six-month sentence for Turner, 20, earlier this month. A change.org petition garnered more than 1 million signatures urging the judges removal from the bench.

Rosen recently had Persky removed from a case involving a nurse accused of sexually assaulting a sedated patient, citing a lack of confidence that the judge could fairly participate. However, Rosen says he does not support efforts to recall the judge.

The woman assaulted by Turner supports the legislation, according to Rosen. While announcing the bill, Rosen quoted from the letter the woman read to Turner during sentencing: The seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly. We should not create a culture that suggests that we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error. The consequences of sexual assault need to be severe enough that people feel enough fear to exercise good judgment, even if they are drunk, severe enough to be preventative.

Rosen said, Weve read her letter  now lets give her back something beyond worldwide sympathy and anger. Lets give her a legacy that will send the next Brock Turner to prison, Rosen said.

Libby Rainey is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lrainey@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rainey_l
The San Francisco Police Commission approved Wednesday a use-of-force policy for the Police Department that more strongly regulates officers decisions during perilous encounters and puts an emphasis on using minimal force.

In a unanimous vote, commissioners passed a version of the policy that was put together in last-minute negotiations among the Office of Citizen Complaints, the Bar Association and the Police Officers Association. Though several community members objected to the late introduction of the version, it had support from police union officials, other civil rights leaders and law enforcement watchdogs, who saw it as a compromise from the draft they developed that was originally opposed by the police union.

The new policy signals a cultural shift from one the department has been following since 1995, which the oversight agency sought to overhaul after the Dec. 2 police shooting death of Mario Woods in the Bayview neighborhood thrust the city into the national conversation on law enforcement reform.

It still must go through negotiations between the police union and the city before it comes back to the commission for final approval.

The language sets a high priority on safeguarding life, de-escalation and proportionality, and holds officers to a higher standard in use-of-force cases than the constitutional floor of a Supreme Court case that calls for investigators to judge the reasonableness of a particular use of force from the perspective of an officer on the scene.

Before Wednesday, the Police Commission had essentially two versions to decide between  one that was supported by the police union, the other supported by law enforcement watchdogs and community members.

The version put forth by groups including the ACLU, the public defenders office and the Office of Citizen Complaints called for the use of minimal force, not reasonable force. It also stated that officers shall rather than should take certain actions, making it mandatory for officers to follow some aspects of the policy  such as employing de-escalation techniques if there is an opportunity.

Should or shall

The police union previously objected to that version, saying that reasonable force was the precedent set by the Supreme Court decision. Union officials argued that the use of should was more appropriate than shall in many cases, because officers can face fluid and dangerous situations that make it difficult to adhere strictly to policy language.

But after the last-minute negotiations with the OCC and the Bar Association of San Francisco, they came to agreement on about 80 percent of the policy, accepting shall and a reliance on minimal force.

The two groups could not come to agreement on the issues of carotid restraint holds and shooting at moving vehicles. Civil liberties advocates and the OCC called for no carotid holds and serious restrictions to firing at a moving vehicle, but union officials argued that such prohibitions put officers at risk of injury or death.

The Police Commission made a decision on those two issues for the two groups, voting for restrictions on firing at moving vehicles and prohibiting carotid holds.

Under state law and City Charter, before a policy that affects working conditions can be rolled out, it must pass by the union and the Department of Human Resources before it is sent back to the commission for final approval.

The assumption was that in these meetings with the city, the union would not fight parts of the policy that they agreed on  just the estimated 20 percent that they disagreed with. But POA President Martin Halloran said he could not commit to accepting the parts officials had negotiated because the 20 percent that were in disagreement  where we agree to disagree  could have an effect on the 80 percent that we have pretty much agreed on.

Im not saying we would not make that agreement down the road, based on what this commission votes on, but legally, we cannot make that agreement here and now, he said.

Policy held hostage?

Commission President Suzy Loftus and many community members expressed frustration at his unwillingness to commit. Loftus accused him of holding part of the policy hostage.

We are not holding anything hostage, Halloran said. We made compromise, we sacrificed language that we didnt want on there and some language that we did want in there ... we want this policy to move forward as well. But, as president of the POA, I have the responsibility to make sure the best policy is put out there.

The debate Wednesday night came after months of discussion and input from working groups, community members and the U.S. Department of Justice in the aftermath of the Woods shooting.

The shooting of Woods, a stabbing suspect who was allegedly still carrying a knife, drew outrage when footage revealed that he was shuffling slowly along a wall  and not appearing to directly threaten officers  when five of them opened fire.

The Police Department enacted a series of reforms, while the Department of Justices community-policing unit opened a collaborative review of the city force at the request of Mayor Ed Lee and former Police Chief Greg Suhr.

In April, officers fatally shot a homeless man who allegedly charged at them with a knife in the Mission District, prompting critics who watched video of the killing to say the officers failed to try de-escalation. After the shooting death in May of an unarmed woman in an allegedly stolen car in the Bayview, Suhr resigned.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @VivianHo
The BFG: Thankfully, Steven Spielbergs adaptation of Roald Dahls tale about a little girl who befriends a misunderstood monster looks a lot closer to E.T. in spirit than, say, Jurassic Park  more of an emotional journey than a theme-park ride. Whats piqued our interest, though, are the big unfriendly giants voiced by the very funny Bill Hader and Jemaine Clement.

Jim Kiest

The Legend of Tarzan: Heres how long it took the first live-acton Tarzan movie since 1998 to swing back in to theaters  producer and driving force Jerry Weintraub, who began the project in 2003, didnt live to see it finished (he died of a heart attack at 77 last July). Alexander Skarsgard apparently has done lots of crunches to fit inside Tarzans loin cloth, while Margot Robbie is Jane. This Tarzan returns to the jungle after living the high life in London and winds up having to thwart a plot by a corrupt Belgian captain (Christoph Waltz).

The Purge: Election Year: And you thought this years presidential campaign was rough. Set in 2025, the third Purge film finds a senator (Elizabeth Mitchell) and her security chief (Frank Grillo) on the run after she promised to eliminate this murderous free-for-all if elected. Some folks didnt like that, obviously.

Swiss Army Man: Since its premiere at Sundance in January, this bizarre fantasy has been labeled as the farting corpse movie. A corpse (played by Daniel Radcliffe) washes ashore on a desert island where shipwrecked Hank (Paul Dano) is about to hang himself. Instead, Hank decides the corpse, who apparently suffers from persistent flatulence, would make a great buddy. And the corpse talks, too.

July 8

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

The Secret Life of Pets

July 15

Ghostbusters

The Infiltrator (opens July 13)

July 22

Ice Age: Collision Course

Lights Out

Star Trek Beyond

July 29

Bad Moms

Jason Bourne

Nerve (opens July 27)

Aug. 5

The Founder

Nine Lives

Suicide Squad

Aug. 12

Florence Foster Jenkins

Petes Dragon

Sausage Party

Aug. 19

Ben-Hur

Kubo and Two Strings

The Space Between Us

War Dogs

Aug. 26

Dont Breathe

Hands of Stone

Mechanic: Resurrection

Robert Johnson
A New York-based specialty french fry shop is coming to San Antonio, possibly as early as this summer, in their first franchise agreement, which was first announced by Buffalo-area media last Tuesday.

#GetFried, which describes itself as "specializing in gourmet topped French fries," signed its first franchise agreement with Craig Christopher, a former Subway franchisee, the Buffalo News reported.
The opportunity for runners to glow with gusto and neon paint through piles of foam returns to the Alamo City in September at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

The Foam Glow 5K invites runners "from all different ages, shapes, sizes and speeds" to sprint through "Foam Glow Zones" situated throughout the 3-mile, foam-filled trek to be splashed with hues of orange, pink and blue on Sept. 9 at 8:15 p.m. Black lights along the trail will bring the colors to life as painted participants dart towards the last stop, according to the event's website.
Newlyweds in Colorado spent some of their wedding day in the emergency room after a sneaky snake bit the groom during the couple's photoshoot between their ceremony and reception.

After tying the knot in Fort Collins, Colo. on June 20, Johnny and Laura Benson headed to Horsetooth Reservoir for a shoot, where the groom got tied up with a rattlesnake while the pair were in ankle-high grass.
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Weeks after storms swelled Texas lakes, water levels remain high and have transformed once-meager recreations spots like Lake Travis.

The Lower Colorado River Authority, which manages the Highland Lakes, shared aerial shots of Lake Travis and Arkansas Bend Park in Lago Vista, about an hour north of Austin. The first picture, dated June 2014, shows exposed lake beds. The June 2016 shot shows the water body replenished with heightened water levels reaching to the shore.

RELATED: Lake Travis aerial progression photo reveals what a year and rainy summer can do

In June 2014, Lake Travis levels hovered around 40 percent, according to estimates generated by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). As of June 23, 2016 at 8 a.m., Lake Travis remains 100 percent full, the LCRA reported.

RELATED: Central Texas storms open flood gates, opportunities for drone footage of 'hazardous conditions'

The 323-acre Arkansas Bend Park on Lake Travis offers two miles of shorelines for outdoor excursions according to TravisCountyTX.org, but the LCRA is continuing to caution visitors to be vigilant of debris and submerged objects caused by flooding.

Flood operations earlier this month prompted to close Lake Travis to recreational boating. It was eventually reopened on June 10.

RELATED: Lake Travis boat parties flood social media as 2016 summer revelers take over

The LCRA forecasts Lake Travis to "gradually fall to about 681 feet above mean sea level over the next week," according to a situation report.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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ALBANY  A new audit from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office has found that more than 65 homeless shelters statewide are in poor condition, including eight in the greater Capital Region.

Of 387 shelters visited by DiNapoli's office, 67 were found to be in either poor or very poor condition. In Albany County in particular, three shelters were found to be subpar, with one hotel that accommodates families and single adults found to have 19 of 63 rooms considered "generally adequate." Among the issues were disabled smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, exposed wires, and mold in bathrooms and bedrooms.

At a 20-room Schoharie County motel, electrical cords were found funning on the ground through the children's play area, a missing window was covered in plastic and 12 of the 20 rooms were closed because of concerns expressed by the motel's insurer regarding safety of the guardrails on the second floor.

While a vast majority of shelters (320) were found to be in adequate condition, DiNapoli's office still found issues at those shelters that included mold at 51 locations, vermin at seven locations, missing or uninspected fire extinguishers in 26 locations, and an unsafe physical environment in 21 locations.

DiNapoli's look into shelters statewide outside of New York City follows a scathing audit he released in February that slammed what he found to be the state's failure to properly monitor and inspect shelters. For the latest audit, the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the agency tasked with overseeing state-sanctioned shelters, provided data that showed nearly 3,900 violations statewide outside of the city.

Among DiNapoli's suggestions to clear up squalid conditions is to develop a more comprehensive statewide database of shelters to help state officials keep a more accurate inventory of shelters and manage conditions. DiNapoli suggested that such a database include not only shelters that receive government funding, but also hotels, motels, Code Blue shelters and others that are run by non-profits. He also raised the issue of the need for more coordination between agencies and others to ensure proper oversight of hotels and motels used where formal shelters don't exist or are over capacity.

DiNapoli's audit also provides a snapshot of the homelessness problem in specific areas. In Albany County, there were 597 homeless people, including 104 children under the age of 18, at the time of a January 29, 2015, check. For the 2015 federal fiscal year, 2,127 people total used emergency shelters countywide.

There was a slight decrease of school-age children who were homeless during the 2014-2015 school year as compared to the year prior (down to 678 from 712 during the 2013-14 school year), the audit shows.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10

DiNapoli's full audit is below:

DiNapoli June 2016 Homeless Shelter Audit
BRIDGEPORT  Mayor Joe Ganim's administration took negotiations with city employees public on Tuesday, calling on union officials to accept concessions or face layoffs.

We have been in negotiations with organized labor for months, but time is growing short to close our current fiscal year deficit, said Bridgeport Chief Administrative Officer John Gomes, in a statement. We are willing to be as flexible as possible but the bottom line is we need more savings.
TRUMBULL  A proposal for a medical building on Main Street that would be twice as big as current regulations allow, has raised concerns among residents of the neighborhood near the Bridgeport border.

The proposal blatantly disregards all size, scale and residential character-related concerns addressed within the zoning regulations, the 2014 Plan of Conservation regulations, the Lower Main Street Design Study, John Pappas, a resident of Botsford Street, told the Planning and Zoning Commission at a Wednesday meeting.

The developers of 4950 and 5010 Main Street, father and son team David and Rahul Anand, are seeking a change to the towns planned office overlay zone in the neighborhood surrounding Main Street South of the Merritt Parkway.

In 2013, the Anands were given permission to combine two lots of land and construct a 2,900 square foot building on 20 percent of the lot. Now they want to build a 6,000-square-foot medical office. But the zoning change they seek would allow a building of 8,500 square feet.

The medical center will provide easy access to patients of lower economic status as well as moderate economic status, Dr. Rahul Anand said. Urgent care for those in need instead of them having to spend hours in the emergency room. It saves cost for patients.

Several residents from the neighborhood came to the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

Pappas said the proposed construction would present a safety issue as increased traffic in the area may be a danger to the children who stand at the school bus stops within the neighborhood.

The proposal ignores all of the community residents concerns regarding negative impacts to quality of life, increased traffic, and safety issues associated with developing large medical buildings near residential neighborhoods, Pappas said.

Albert Mastri, the owner of Mastri Builders, came to the meeting to speak in support of the zoning change.

If you can build a house that is 6,000 square feet, why not an office building? said Mastri. Its Main Street. Its not like the whole neighborhood is going to get developed.

In 2014 the Anands proposed constructing a building that would cover slightly less of the lot than they sought the year before 18 percent rather than 20. The Planning and Zoning Committee voted against it 4-0 with committee member, Fred Garrity, abstaining. Garrity is now the Chairman of the Planning and Zoning commission.

Dr. Rahul Anand said that if he continues to be unsuccessful in constructing a medical building on the site, he will build affordable housing instead.

If we are unsuccessful after many attempts thus far, we will be approaching the state of Connecticut for affordable housing on this site, Rahul Anand said. It is an ideal location close to the Bridgeport and Trumbull mall and Merritt Parkway. The next notable approach would be to bring affordable housing units to this affluent town for better community integration and educational exposure.

Timothy Herbst, Trumbull First Selectman, said that both parties need to come to a compromise.

They need to sit down and work it out because taking an adversarial position is not going to work out for either party, Herbst said in a phone interview Thursday. Ive seen this before and it doesnt end well. Theyll get something there that they dont want.

Herbst said that if the state decides the site is appropriate for affordable housing it will be unlikely that the decision can be overturned.

Once the state weighs in  we have never been able to deny them. I can guarantee the residents of the area would not want 20 to 30 units of affordable housing on that corner, he said.
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HARTFORD  Lawmakers on Thursday blasted University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst for giving big raises to her senior staff, even as tuition is going up amid reductions in state funding.

At a time when hundreds of people are losing their jobs in the executive and judicial branches and budget cuts system-wide are severely hurting government services for the needy, to give well-paid senior staff members at UConn big raises defies logic, House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said. I cannot understand the reasoning behind this.

In response, the university said the raises were made to compensate the employees at rates that similar state universities pay. Other raises, including Herbsts $29,250 boost to $614,250 a year, were contractually mandated, UConn said. Some of the pay hikes were in the tens of thousands of dollars.

In documents released by the university on Thursday, Herbsts core staff appeared to make some of the largest pay hikes. Michael Kirk, deputy chief of staff, saw his pay rise from $145,000 on Jan. 1, 2015, to $160,000 a year later. Herbsts chief lawyer, Richard Orr, saw a hike to $250,000 on Jan. 1, 2015, to $275,000 a year later. Rachel Rubin, Herbsts assistant, had her $240,000 salary hiked to $255,000 on July 1, 2015.

At a time when painful reductions are being imposed throughout state government, UConn should not see itself as an isolated and privileged exception, said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. I urge President Herbst to reconsider and rescind these untimely raises.

Stephanie Reitz, spokeswoman for the university, said that the 23 non-union management employees who each received an increase of $5,000 in the fiscal year than ends June 30, received them for a variety of reasons, from new jobs and promotions to contractual agreements.

The raises, first reported by the website CT Mirror, ranged from 3 percent to 22 percent, according to the UConn documents.

David Bednarz, spokesman for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, supported Herbst.

Just like any agency in state government, UConn must adapt to a new economic reality and accomplish more with less, Bednarz said. They are already working to do just that making the difficult decisions to live within their budget. That being said, to remain one of our states primary economic drivers and educational centers, they must do what it takes to attract the best and the brightest to their university.

This fall, tuition at UConn will rise 6.7 percent, as part of a four-year phase-in of higher tuition. This year the university faced a $40 million deficit. The recent budget revisions included pay freeze for non-unionized state employees and higher insurance co-payments.

Handing out exorbitant raises to their highest paid staffers while at the same time increasing tuition on hard working families is the height of arrogance, said Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden. As state employee layoffs approach the 1,000 mark, and virtually every state agency is dealing with severe budget cuts, the leadership in Storrs has shown once again they just dont get it.

kdixon@ctpost.com
1 Train derailment probe: Federal investigators on Thursday blamed Union Pacific Railroad for a fiery oil train derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the June 3 derailment in the Columbia River Gorge raise questions about why the company didnt find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment. Union Pacific faces potential penalties for safety violations, officials said.

2 Southern California wildfires: Cooler weather helped crews fighting two fires that burned more than 8 square miles of chaparral and brush in the Angeles National Forest and foothill communities northeast of Los Angeles. The fires were 15 percent contained. More than 1,300 homes were evacuated during the 4-day-old blaze, but around half have been allowed back. On Thursday, authorities allowed hundreds of evacuated residents from Los Angeles County to return briefly to homes in Azusa and Duarte to gather belongings, but they may not be allowed back permanently for several more days, officials said. Southward, near the San Diego County border with Mexico, a nearly 11-square-mile fire was 20 percent contained after burning five homes and 11 outbuildings.
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The attorney for a defendant in a shocking 2013 Oakland killing took the first steps Wednesday in trying to get the charges tossed after it was revealed last week that the lead detective in the case is under investigation for having his girlfriend help him write some of his reports.

One of the reports veteran Oakland police Detective Sgt. Mike Gantt allegedly had his girlfriend transcribe was a record in the July 2013 slaying of 66-year-old Judy Salamon, a beloved pet nanny who was shot while driving in her Maxwell Park neighborhood.

Gantt, who is on administrative leave, was fired by the department in 2004 for meddling in a rape case, but won his job back during arbitration and was only briefly suspended, his attorney, Michael Rains, wrote in a 2006 newsletter for the PORAC Legal Defense Fund.

Rains did not immediately return phone calls or emails.

Anne Beles, the attorney for 23-year-old Mario Floyd, one of the suspects in the Salamon slaying, went on the record Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court saying she had learned Gantt was under investigation.

Beles said she intends to file separate motions asking for records from the Alameda County district attorneys office and the Oakland Police Department to find out if the detectives cases were in any way compromised.

She said she learned about the investigation through media reports and has not been contacted by prosecutors or police about the probe.

Its the secrecy thats most problematic, she said outside court Wednesday. Im asking for the records that could reflect upon Gantts credibility, but I dont know what the facts are yet.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a written statement last week that she became aware of a detectives alleged criminal misconduct on June 11.

The case against Gantt, she said, is unrelated to the sexual misconduct probe involving a teenage sex worker that has rocked the Oakland Police Department, which has seen one police chief and two acting police chiefs step down in recent weeks.

Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said he will review all the criminal cases Gantt has investigated.

This officers credibility is in question, Woods said Friday after learning about the investigation from the district attorneys office. What cases has he testified to and sworn under oath were authored by him, and actually were authored by his girlfriend?

Gantt was the lead investigator in the Salamon case and has already testified in a preliminary hearing.

Floyd and co-defendant Stephon Lee, 25, were arrested and charged with special-circumstances in the July 24, 2013, slaying. They are both facing life without parole.

Salamon was shot while driving on the 2400 block of Fern Street and crashed her Subaru Outback.

At the time of the arrests, Gantt told The Chronicle that Salamon had encountered the men and recorded them with her cell phone because she believed they were involved in a burglary and was trying to gather evidence before she was shot.

Salamon was a self-described pet nanny and beloved fixture of the neighborhood, where residents were stunned by her killing.

Before that investigation, Gantt was terminated by the department in 2004 after an internal affairs investigation found he compromised a criminal rape case by showing his friend (the suspect) a copy of the OPD crime report (which Mike denied doing), Rains wrote.

The termination was overturned in arbitration.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
During my first week on the job in our family business, my father taught me a lesson I never learned at Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management.

I had just received my MBA and was proud of that accomplishment. I immediately started work as the family companys cost accountant and was ready to set the world  and Bigelow Tea on fire with my bold ideas and innovative concepts.

On our first PC, I was putting together the companys first bills of material, and I couldnt wait to show the CEO  my father, David  what I had accomplished.

On my third day, he came down to see me.

Hows it going? he asked.

Its going great, I said, and was about to explain the project when I noticed he was preoccupied with my out-basket.

You have envelopes going out, he said.

Yes, they are my bills that need to be mailed.

But they dont have any stamps on them.

I know, I said.

He paused, reflected a moment and replied, Gee, Cindi, if you dont put stamps on your envelopes, then why should the other employees put them on theirs? So why dont you go buy some stamps and put them on your mail.

It was the first of many lessons I got from David Bigelow about business practices ... and humility. And it was also a lesson in leadership, the kind of leadership that my father exemplified.

Over the years, there were hundreds of similar occasions that emphasized one of his foremost principles: The boss sets the tone, he/she sets the standard. The boss determines how high or how low the bar is for acceptable performance based on his/her personal actions.

You see, he was very democratic in the way he ran his business, and the employees revered him because he had a common touch. I should add that he displayed the same values and integrity as a father.

Im not engaging in hyperbole when I say my father was a saint. Anyone who knows him always says hes one of the finest men there is, although he would certainly disagree. To my biased thinking, hes one of most giving, loving, intelligent and humble men Ive met  in addition to being a great father. Thats quite an accolade from a daughter because it is even harder to be a successful parent than it is being a successful businessperson (and that is incredibly hard!).

The most important thing any father can do is give his children the assurance that whenever they turn around, hell be there  providing, protecting, advising, loving ... all the things fathers are meant to do. And that is exactly what my father did for my sister and me.

All the years he was running the company, he never missed having dinner with us, and whenever I needed him, he was always there. He never put his business before his family, and Ive tried to be as conscientious in raising my own children.

Every Sunday after dinner, Id ask, Dad, can we get ice cream? And the answer was always yes. Then, hed take my sister and me to the local Carvel in Westport and buy us soft-serve cones.

He always offered support, and if he had to teach us a lesson, he did it by example and not criticism. Whenever I came home with a report card, hed look at it and exclaim, Cindi, oh my gosh! All As! I was lucky if I got Cs when I was your age.

That praise made me one of the proudest girls in school. Years later, when I visited his alma mater, Avon Old Farms School, to watch as he received a lifetime achievement award, I discovered that he was far from average. He had received all the top awards from students and faculty, and then went on to Yale. However, he never bragged about the honors or used them as an opportunity to one-up someone else.

I would often sit in executive committee meetings and see him handle volatile issues with a higher level thought process and insight. Most importantly, what impressed me then and continues to impress me was his sense of fairness, not only as a father but also as a businessman. If there was ever anything that even hinted of unfairness, a whole new David Bigelow would show up at the door. This, even more than things like profit margins and marketing, motivated him. Hed get feisty if he thought someone was being wronged, either customers or employees. Many times, Id hear him discuss company decisions and one of his first questions would be, Is that fair for the employees?

H e raised me to have same sense of fairness as my moral compass in all aspects of my life. Another lesson he taught me was that leaders should do the right thing even when no one else is supporting them. Sometimes that means staying firm when you know what youre doing is right and have the confidence that it will play out properly in the long haul. When he wanted to build a new plant but still stay in Connecticut, everyone said he was wrong for many reasons ... wages, taxes, utilities. The list was endless. He went against all the members of his team because he knew if we wanted to maintain our outstanding manufacturing work force, we would have to rebuild and stay in state. Thirty years later, I look at our Connecticut plant and see the most engaged and passionate workforce. They are the definition of the perfect plant. And we owe that to him.

He also taught me to be successful without being successful at someone elses expense.

For my father, the highest calling is to be a good, decent human being. He lives by that in business and with his family. He never compromises.

Over the years, he continues to be an inspiration as chairman of the board, a father and a husband. Everyone should be as fortunate as I am, because one of lifes greatest blessings is to have a father committed to doing right in a world that often confuses right and wrong. His philosophy is very simple: be honest, be fair, be concerned about others more than yourself and remember that success has many different definitions. His always valued being able to look back at his accomplishments and know he thought of the greater good.

Thank you, Dad, for your many invaluable lessons and more importantly, the power of your example.

Fairfield resident Cindi Bigelow is president and CEO of Fairfield-based Bigelow Tea, which was in Norwalk for four decades.
London

With Britain's membership in the European Union on the line, campaigners from the prime minister on down blanketed the country Wednesday trying to convert the undecided on the final day before the crucial vote.

Outlining his vision of a future with Britain retaining its position in the 28-nation bloc, Prime Minister David Cameron bristled at the notion the country would be headed in the wrong direction if the "remain" side prevailed in Thursday's vote.

"We are not shackled to a corpse," Cameron told the BBC. "You can see the European economy's recovery. It's the largest single market in the world."

Pushing for a British exit, or Brexit, the most notable figure on the "leave" side, former London Mayor Boris Johnson, mugged for the cameras at the Billingsgate Fish Market in East London and pretended to kiss a fish  a not-so-subtle reminder that this is an island nation that takes great pride in its independence and self-assurance.

"It's time to break away from the failing and dysfunctional EU system," Johnson said. "It's time to have a totally new relationship with our friends and partners across the Channel."

Wednesday's feverish campaigning took place even as mourners gathered in London and other world capitals to honor the memory of Jo Cox, the youthful pro-EU Labour Party lawmaker who was stabbed and shot to death last week in her Yorkshire constituency.

Speaking to a crowd of 9,000 in Trafalgar Square on what would have been Cox's 42nd birthday, her husband, Brendan, said that Cox "feared the consequences of Europe dividing again" and urged people to follow her example.

The motive for the killing is unclear but the rare slaying of a politician cast a shadow over a divisive campaign that has been unusually heated, even by the lively standards of British politics.

Nigel Farage, the outspoken leader of the U.K. Independence Party, resisted fresh calls to apologize for a controversial poster showing hundreds of non-white migrants making their way across Europe alongside the words, "BREAKING POINT."

The poster, labeled racist by opponents, was unveiled hours before Cox was killed.

"I apologize for the timing and I apologize for the fact that it was able to be used by those who wish us harm," Farage said. "But I can't apologize for the truth."

"This was a photograph that all newspapers carried. It is an example of what is wrong inside the European Union," he said.

High profile political, military and business figures also weighed in on the debate as the final hours of campaigning ebbed away.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press in Brussels that a British exit from the EU could weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance.

"We are faced with so much uncertainty, so much unpredictability, with terrorist threats, with a more assertive Russia in the east," Stoltenberg said. "I believe that a more fragmented Europe will be something which will only add to the uncertainty which surrounds us."

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker flatly rejected suggestions that Britain might be able to negotiate better terms with the EU if it votes to leave. "Out is out," he said.

The reach of the EU into every aspect of life has made the issues at stake far more complex than in a general election. And while the vote is final it is not legally binding and Parliament would have to vote to repeal the law that brought Britain into the EU in the first place.

A vote to leave would invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which allows a member state to withdraw. That has never been done before.
The news of the massacre in Florida last weekend and the news from the United Kingdom makes me even more determined to ensure that we enact even stronger gun safety laws.

I did not know Jo Cox, the MP killed in the UK in an act of senseless violence, but I feel compelled to comment because she was the MP for the district where I grew up in the North of England. It is sad but true that even the strictest laws, which the UK has, will not ultimately stop a determined assassin.

Nevertheless we must make every effort to quell gun violence as an expression of political and religious hatred. I will add my voice to the efforts of our Congressional delegation, especially those of Sen. Chris Murphy, to pass sensible gun safety laws. We need to have universal compulsory background checks for the purchase of guns in any venue, gun store or gun fair and we need to prevent anyone on a terror suspect list from obtaining weapons.

Beyond that I will advocate for the banning of assault weapons, cop-killer bullets and high capacity magazines. I do not believe that the Second Amendment envisioned a citizenry armed to the teeth with powerful weapons that should be available only to the military.

John Blankley of Greenwich is a Democrat running for the state senate in the 36th district.
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Beirut

Even as internationally backed forces chip away at Islamic State-held territory in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the militants have demonstrated a stubborn resilience this week in the face of recent losses.

The IS forces dealt an embarrassing setback to the Syrian army near the militants' self-styled capital of Raqqa with a swift counteroffensive that rolled back incremental gains by troops loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Pockets of extremist fighters north and west of Fallujah continued to hold off elite Iraqi special forces Wednesday, preventing them from making significant advances one month after the government launched its campaign to retake the city west of Baghdad.

And in the battle for the Libyan city of Sirte, pro-government forces besieging the IS stronghold were stunned by renewed clashes there, with 36 people killed, a hospital spokesman said.

Just two weeks ago, the Islamic State had suffered setbacks in all three countries in the region where the Sunni militant group captured large tracts of territory in Iraq and Syria two years ago.

Seesaw battles raged in Syria's Raqqa province, with IS fighters retaking areas from government forces Tuesday. Two days earlier, the Syrian troops briefly seized an IS-held oilfield in Thawra and threatened to retake the Tabqa air base, which would have opened a direct line for troops to the city of Raqqa.

The government began its highly publicized campaign to retake Raqqa on June 2.

On Sunday, the troops advanced to within 6 miles of the Tabqa base, which is about 28 miles from Raqqa and holds strategic and symbolic value for the government. It was the last position held by government forces in Raqqa province before the militants overran it in August 2014, killing scores of detained Syrian soldiers in a massacre documented on IS video.

The commander of an elite, pro-government militia known as the Desert Hawks explained the government's rapid withdrawal from large parts of Raqqa province.

"It is vital to understand that (IS) adopted new tactics to fight the Desert Hawks in this area," said retired Gen. Mohamad Jaber.

Writing on his Facebook page Tuesday, he said the militants were sending explosives-packed vehicles at the pro-government line, and he predicted the battle for Tabqa would be "harsh and mighty."

Activists gave conflicting casualty counts for civilians killed in airstrikes on the city of Raqqa, with death tolls ranging from 18 to 32. Differing casualty figures are common in reporting from Syria's civil war, now in its sixth year.

The activists said the Syrian air force, backed by warplanes from its ally, Russia, had pummeled the Islamic State extremists after government losses earlier this week.

The U.S.-led coalition also has been bombing Raqqa. Col. Christopher Garver, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, told The Associated Press that four airstrikes were carried out Tuesday near Raqqa.

They targeted an IS tactical unit, a finance center, a headquarters and an oil facility, Garver said. He had no reports on casualties.

The activist group known as Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said at least one of the airstrikes targeted a neighborhood popular among "foreign fighters"  militants who have traveled to Syria to fight with the IS group.
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Seoul, South Korea

North Korea on Thursday trumpeted the success of a powerful new midrange ballistic missile test that propelled one of the weapons about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), saying it would allow strikes on U.S. forces throughout the region.

That ability would back up years of threats and boasts from North Korea and has long been a worry for the United States and its allies, Tokyo and Seoul. It explains in part North Korea's tenacious testing of the Musudan missile, which was only a success after five failures in about two months. The missile's potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range puts much of Asia and the Pacific within reach.

Official news agency KCNA quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as saying the launch now gives his country the "sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theatre."

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Wednesday's launch demonstrated a "certain level of capability," and could lead to a further strengthening of North Korea's ballistic missile capabilities that can cover Japanese territory.

Each new test  apparently linked to a command from Kim  likely provides valuable insights to North Korea's scientists and military officials as they push toward their goal of a nuclear and missile program that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang earlier this year conducted a nuclear test and launched a long-range rocket that outsiders say was a cover for a test of banned missile technology.

A statement from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said a suspected first Musudan launch from the east coast city of Wonsan failed. It didn't elaborate, but Japan's Defense Ministry said the missile fragmented and pieces fell into waters off the Korean Peninsula's east coast.

Later on Wednesday, the South's military said the North fired another suspected Musudan, which flew about 400 kilometers (245 miles). Seoul didn't immediately classify this launch as either a success or failure.

Japan's Defense Ministry said that its radar analysis found that the missile reached an altitude exceeding 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), which suggests it was a Musudan missile. "We have to see it as a success," Lee Choon Geun, an analyst at South Korea's state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute, said of the second launch. "No other (previous) missiles fired by North Korea have ever flown that high."

The U.S. Strategic Command in Hawaii said its systems detected and tracked two suspected North Korean Musudan missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan. They didn't pose a threat to North America, it said.

In April, North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch three suspected Musudan missiles, but all exploded midair or crashed, according to South Korean defense officials. Earlier this month, North Korea had another suspected Musudan failure, South Korean officials said. Before April's launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang.

The launches appear to stem from Kim Jong Un's order in March for more nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The order was an apparent response to springtime U.S.-South Korean military drills.
WILTON  The Wilton Police Benevolent Association invites the community to attend a presentation in honor of Sgt.Thomas Tunney, who passed away on Jan. 3 after a long battle against cancer.

The WPBA will present donations from the TJ Tunney Memorial Fund to Connecticut Hospice on Monday, June 27, at 11 a.m. at the Town Hall Annex.
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A deadlocked Supreme Court on Thursday effectively blocked an ambitious plan by President Barack Obama to spare millions of immigrants here illegally from deportation, a decision that will heighten tensions around the polarizing issue in the runup to the November elections.

Immigrant advocates, saying they were disappointed and angry, vowed to hold Republicans accountable for challenging the initiative. Its opponents, meanwhile, hailed the 4-4 split by the shorthanded court as a victory over a president they have often accused of overstepping his powers.

The tie, announced Thursday without an opinion, leaves millions of immigrants, mostly the parents of Americans, in legal limbo yet again, likely until a new president takes up the issue. Presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would support a similar proposal; her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, said he would repeal it.

This was the fourth - and most consequential - gridlocked vote for the court this term and it highlights the fight over filling Justice Antonin Scalia's vacancy after his February death in West Texas.

Obama and other advocates on Thursday blamed the tie on the Republican-controlled Senate "willfully" refusing to hold hearings for more than three months on the nomination of Merrick Garland, a chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The GOP leadership in Congress has said the electorate should have a say in naming a justice with the election of a president this fall.

"(This decision) underscores the degree to which the court is unable to function the way it's supposed to," Obama said in a news briefing. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who've raised families here, who hope for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military and fully contribute."

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Upholds lower court ruling

Obama's plan, announced in November 2014, was poised to be the most sweeping change to the nation's immigration laws since President Ronald Reagan legalized 2.7 million immigrants in 1986. The president said he acted after decades of indecision from Congress on what to do with the 11 million immigrants here illegally.

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His initiative would have applied to nearly one-third of them, the immigrant parents of American citizens or legal residents who have been here since at least 2010 without committing major crimes. It would also have expanded a similar 2012 program granting provisional work authorization to certain youth who came here illegally as children.

The split, a significant defeat for an administration that hoped the program would be one of its central legacies, upholds a lower court's ruling to stop the initiative and sends it back to a Brownsville federal judge to consider the legality of the full case. But it does not set a precedent, allowing another challenge when the court has nine justices or for a future president to attempt a similar proposal.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office led the challenge of the case, said the tie affirms its argument that a president "cannot unilaterally change the law."

"This is a major setback to President Obama's attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law," Paxton said in a statement.

Trump said the high court's decision blocked "one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president."

"The executive amnesty from President Obama wiped away the immigration rules written by Congress, giving work permits and entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country," Trump said in a statement. "This split decision also makes clear what is at stake in November. The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country."

Immigrant advocates Thursday called for the Department of Justice to ask the court to rehear the case once it has a full bench in its session starting in October - an unusual move - and said they were also considering other legal options.

"This really is a dramatic example of why we need a court with its full complement of nine justices," said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that filed a brief supporting Obama's plan. "This is a case of extreme national importance and the Supreme Court is unable to reach a ruling."

Challenge being plotted

Wydra said advocacy groups are exploring whether they can challenge the nationwide injunction, implemented last February by South Texas Judge Andrew Hanen, in a different circuit court in another region of the country to allow Obama's plan to continue elsewhere.

"Everything is on the table at this point," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, a Los Angeles advocacy group.

But the perilously tight timing means the program almost certainly is dead until and if a new president tries to revive it after the November elections.

"The reality is that the Obama administration is not going to be able to implement this program in the time they have left," said James Ziglar, former commissioner of the immigration agency under President George W. Bush and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a national think tank.

Though it's impossible to know why the court deadlocked, Ziglar said the justices might have split on whether Texas proved its ability to bring the suit - a legal concept known as standing.

The state argued it would suffer financially by having to provide the immigrants driver's licenses since it subsidizes each document by about $130. But critics said Texas could easily increase the price for the license and that the cost would be offset by greater taxes if immigrants work here legally.

The Obama administration argued its plan is based on a decades-old legal concept called deferred action that allows the government to delay deporting certain immigrants and temporarily permit them to work. Though other Republican presidents have also granted immigrants such a status, it's never been given to so many at once.

The government contends it's simply prioritizing whom to deport given that Congress allocates only enough funding to annually remove about 400,000 immigrants here illegally.

But Texas and the 25 mostly Republican states challenging the plan argued it bypasses Congress by giving a quasi-legal status to millions of immigrants and ignoring administrative procedures for changing rules.

Similar plan still in effect

On Thursday, Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson emphasized that a similar initiative, announced by the president in 2012 and known as deferred action for childhood arrivals or DACA, has not been challenged and remains in effect. About 713,300 youth who came here illegally as children have qualified for work permits under this plan. Obama also said a 2014 memo prioritizing the deportation of immigrants who have committed crimes rather than families remains in practice.

Across the nation Thursday, immigrants expressed their disappointment and anger, but promised not to give up.

"Our communities are disappointed, our communities are disgusted and our communities are absolutely heartbroken," said Kica Matos, director of immigrant rights at the Center for Community Change, a civil rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "Today we cry and tomorrow we fight. We're going to focus our energy and anger on turning our communities out to vote so we are really able to bring about the kind of justice we seek after the elections in November."

In Houston, Jose Sic said he has been here illegally for two decades after coming here from an impoverished area in the Guatemala highlands, seeking a better-paying job. He has four children who are American citizens.

"I am sad, bothered and angry. They have closed some doors that would have helped me advance," the 39-year-old said.

"But don't forget in a few years my kids will vote  and they're not going to forget who stabbed us in the back."
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Nearly 24 hours into Democrats' sit-in on the U.S. House Floor demanding tougher gun legislation,U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, told media that he and his party have had "enough with inaction" from Republicans.

The U.S. House of Representatives broke out into pandemonium Wednesday when House Democrats quite literally camped out on the floor, saying they would not leave until Republicans voted on measures to expand background checks for private gun sales and block gun purchases by some suspected terrorists. The demonstration ended after nearly 25 hours Thursday afternoon.

Click through the gallery above for 8 things to know about the Democrats' sit-in.

Castro took a moment from holding the U.S. House floor to speak with MSNBC Thursday morning.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan dubbed the Democrats' sit-in as a publicity stunt, which Castro rebuked on MSNBC.

RELATED: Rep. Joaquin Castro on House floor: 'Silence is not a solution,' Republicans need to vote

"We've seen mass shooting and mass massacre year after year," he said. "And every single time, the response from the congress is the same they do absolutely nothing."

The demonstration, Castro said, was a way for Democrats to "elevate the conversation" on gun control and "highlight the issue and really get Republicans to do something about this."

Seemingly fed-up after Democrats in the Senate staged a nearly 15-hour filibuster to get a vote on gun control measures resulted in four failed proposals, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, led about 30 House Democrats to occupy the the floor Wednesday morning.

RELATED: Supreme Court rules for UT in landmark affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas

The Senate first rejected a proposal to update the background check system for gun purchases. It would have required states to include more information on mental health records to a national database, according to CNN. It would have also required an alert to law enforcement agencies when someone on the terror watch list in the last five years buys a gun.

The second proposal the Senate rejected expanded the background check system for those buying guns at gun shows and online. Sponsored by GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the third rejected proposal was to delay gun sales to people on the government terror watch list. The final rejected proposal, championed by Democrats, sought to make it so no one on the terror watch list could buy a gun.

Reporters and lawmakers are not allowed to take photos or videos on the chamber floor, but after Ryan turned C-SPAN cameras off, no one seemed to care they were breaking the rules, tweeting out photos and videos.

C-SPAN resorted to using Periscope and Facebook live videos from lawmakers on the floor. U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso used Facebook to live-stream happenings on the floor for eight hours.

RELATED: Supreme Court deadlocks on landmark Obama immigration plan in United States v. Texas

Castro took to Twitter Wednesday to denounce the Republicans' actions: "Unfortunately, Republicans have cut off the cameras in the House chamber and have stopped allowing the public into the chamber to watch," he said.

At one point during the demonstration, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, asked for morality.

"Tell me. Who will give justice to the victims who are dying every single day?" she said. "Who will give justice to Connecticut? Who will give it to Aurora?"

"Do we have any morality in this place?"

Then, around 3 a.m., in the midst of speeches from House Democrats and "no bill, no break" chants, Ryan called for a vote on an appropriations bill that includes $1.1 billion in emergency financing to the Zika virus. The Speaker could barely be heard over the Democrats yelling "Shame! Shame! Shame!" over him.

Ryan then adjourned the House until July 5, giving them more than a week of vacation time. But, Democrats remained on the House floor Thursday morning. They called for a last hurrah Thursday afternoon, ending the sit-in.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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An extreme hang glider is attempting to make history in the coming days for longest flight during a south-to-north trip across Texas, according to media reports.

RELATED: Schlitterbahn's MASSIV Galveston ride sets Guinness World Record

Australian hang glider Jonny Durand is attempting to fly from Zapata, outside of Laredo, to Lorenzo, near Lubbock, according to USA TODAY. The 475-mile distance would break the current record held by hang glider Dustin Martin.

Martin spent 11 hours in the air over 470 miles of Texas. He began in Zapata and headed as far north as he could, landing between Lorenzo and Lubbock to set a new record, according to the New York Times.

RELATED: Texans break Guiness World Record for largest Twister game at stadium of Dallas Cowboys

Durand told USA TODAY his glide would take about 11 hours. He and his hang glider will need to be towed up into the sky and then released since there are no mountains or tall building near his take-off spot.

RELATED: San Antonio's giant North Star Mall boots recognized by Guinness World Records

He will take flight Thursday, Friday or Saturday depending on weather and will be helped by strong tailwinds that usually blow from south to north during this time of year.

Finally, Durand will be assisted by "thermals" to help him stay in the air for so long. Thermals, according to USA TODAY, is a sunny day weather phenomenon with rising bubbles of warm air. The sun heats the ground, which warms up the air above it making the air rise, which helps hang gliders fly.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
An arrest Tuesday at a Northeast Side home led to the recovery of more than $30,000 in stolen and counterfeit property and $6,500 in cash, police said.

Officer Douglas Greene, San Antonio Police Department spokesman, said the arrest was made at about 2:45 p.m. in the 5300 block of Stoneshire Drive.
Texans will have a new way to remember the Alamo without having to actually visit the historic shrine.

Emblazoned with the word "remember," a new specialty license plate, complete with an image of the Alamo and a cannon, is now available for Texans through the Department of Motor Vehicles, according to a news release from Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush's office.
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An airplane which departed from San Antonio International Airport Wednesday evening en route to Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing escorted by F-16s in Tucson, Ariz. after a passenger allegedly made a "verbal threat" to crew while in flight, according to authorities and other travelers on the aircraft.

"The FBI is investigating an incident on a flight that was diverted to Tucson. There is no threat to public safety," Matthew Reinsmoen, spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation Office in Tucson, told mySA.com in a statement on Thursday.

RELATED: Police: Man continuously groped 13-year-old passenger on flight from Texas

The man was taken into custody and detained  although charges are still pending  after he was allegedly unruly on a Delta Compass Airline flight and would not cooperate on the plane with 80 passengers on board. Other passengers were removed from the aircraft, re-screened, re-boarded and continued onto California.

One of those passengers was Ryan Healy, who live-tweeted the incident on flight 5720 starting at 7:17 p.m Central Time on Wednesday.

RELATED: United Airlines pilot pleads guilty to stalking of S.A. ex-girlfriend

"We've got a situation for sure. Guy won't sit down. FA's trying to intervene. Guy is uncooperative," Healy said on Twitter. "The guy appears to be having some sort of breakdown. Passengers trying to help now."

In an interview with ABC News, Healy detailed more of what he witnessed on the jetliner during the incident.

"He was walking up and down, staring at people, acting very unusual, anxious," he told ABC. "(He) was rubbing his chest and wouldn't sit down."

RELATED: Surveillance video captures plane crash that left three dead near Houston's Hobby Airport

Healy tweeted a video of authorities removing the passenger and speaking to an older man who was sitting beside the suspect.

In a subsequent tweet, Healy said he spoke with a flight attendant who claimed the suspect made a "verbal threat to aircraft."

Healy also shared photos of the re-screening process under the supervision of armed guards.

Details including whether the suspect was a San Antonio resident were not immediately available by the FBI or Tuscon International Airport Police on Wednesday as the situation remains under investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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Time spent on the Texas coast in Port Aransas resulted in an "aggressive infection" on the leg of a Hays County man, according to media reports.

The Austin American-Statesman, which called the bacteria "flesh eating," reported 42-year-old Adrian Ruiz was at the beach on Saturday with his family. He experienced fever and chills that night, then woke up to a "red rash" on his leg the next morning, according to the report.

RELATED: Flesh-eating bacteria puts Houston man in hospital

Family and friends told the Statesman Ruiz was initially diagnosed and treated for cellulitis, but was then admitted to the ICU at Seton Medical Center where he is currently being treated for infection of Vibrio vulnificus and is "fighting to keep his leg."

This is a very aggressive bacteria and within a few hours after being in the water he was sick and is now battling this horrible bacteria which has caused a nasty, huge open sore wound on his right leg, his wife, Lashelle, said on Facebook, according to the Statesman.

It's unclear exactly which beach Ruiz and his family were at when he was exposed to the bacteria.

Texas Department of State Health Services Press Officer Christine Mann told mySA.com 102 cases of Vibrio were reported last year and 27 cases have been reported so far in 2016. Of those incidents, approximately 40 percent were contracted via wound exposures.

RELATED: Ten Galveston County beaches are under bacteria advisories

"Compared to other notifiable conditions, like Salmonella, it's not as common to see a Vibrio infection in Texas, but we do see infections yearly, mostly during the warmer months," Mann said.

Mann described Vibrio as a bacteria existing in warm, coastal waters, especially from May through October, contracted by handling or eating contaminated seafood or exposing wounds to water where it is present.

"If you expose your wound to water where Vibrio is present, you do run the risk of infections, ulcers and swelling," Mann said.

RELATED: Purple martins, miniature wasps and natural bacteria kill the pests at S.A. sewage plant

Bacteria levels for Port Aransas are classified as "low" as of last update on June 20, according to TexasBeachWatch.com, a state website which monitors conditions.

According to the Statesman, the Ruiz family wants Port Aransas officials to keep visitors informed about current bacteria levels.

At this time the bacteria levels in these beaches are very high, Lashelle Ruiz said on her Facebook post, according to the report. There should have been signs posted telling people to swim at their own risk, but there was nothing posted anywhere."

Ruiz's case is the second Vibrio report in Texas to make headlines this week.

RELATED: CDC releases nasty report on public swimming pools, hot tubs

On June 12, 50-year-old Brian Parrott from Jacinto City, got sick during a family trip to Galveston. He was admitted to the hospital after his leg turned red and blistered and he became nauseous.

Due to the severity of Parrott's infection, doctors decided to amputate his leg below the knee, according to the Houston Chronicle.

TDSHS advises using protective gloves when handling seafood and keeping clear of sea waters if a person has preexisting wounds. If a injury is sustained while in the water, Mann said it should be cleaned and disinfected immediately and urges medical attention if the area becomes infected.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
SAN ANTONIO  A man who was shot and killed on the Southwest Side during a suspected road rage incident on Sunday has been identified.

Juan Amaro, 40, died from a gunshot wound to the head around 5 p.m. at Ray Ellison Drive and Loop 410, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner.
SAN ANTONIO  A 17-year-old man was hospitalized on Wednesday night after being shot in the back on the East Side.

San Antonio Police Department officers responded to a convenience store in the 400 block of South W.W. White Road around 9:45 p.m. after receiving reports that a man had been shot.
A Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol K-9 died Monday from heat-related injuries while attempting to locate a group of undocumented immigrants who "were in need of assistance" on a South Texas ranch, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Lazer, credited with 93 human apprehensions, began displaying signs of heat exhaustion during the Monday search at a ranch in Falfurrias, about 160 miles south of San Antonio on U.S. 281.
James Spencer Collins, a globe-trotting oil and gas prospector who became a vice president of Tenneco Oil Co., died June 16 at 94.

Born in Dallas, Collins grew up working on ranches near Midland and the Davis Mountains. The experience left Collins determined to never wear a pair of boots or blue jeans again, companion Barbara Christian said.

Collins enrolled in the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas, now the University of Texas at El Paso, in 1940 but enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941 after the Dec. 7 attacks on Pearl Harbor. He attended the Naval Communications School at Harvard University before participating in four amphibious invasions in the Pacific War, including the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945.

Collins rarely spoke about the war. There were atrocities that he would not discuss with even his closest friends here, Christian said.

After being discharged in 1945, Collins returned to the University of Texas at El Paso to obtain a degree in mineral engineering and became a wildcatter in West Texas.

Tenneco purchased the oil exploration firm for which Collins worked. In 1957, he came a vice president of the company. He was 35 at the time.

More Information James Spencer Collins Born: Jan. 10, 1922, Dallas Died: June 16, 2016, San Antonio Preceded by: Wife Mary Louise White Survived by: Companion Barbara Christian; son Greg Collins and daughter-in-law Joan; daughter Kelly Collins-Cunningham and son-in-law Kenny; honorary daughter Cynthia Shea and son-in-law Patrick; six grandchildren. Services: Private service for family and friends Saturday at San Antonio Country Club See More Collapse

Christian said the company began implicitly grooming Collins to become president of the company, sending him to Harvard Business School to complete an advanced management degree.

Collins declined Tennecos offer to become president, instead opting to head up the companys international operations division. There, he spearheaded oil exploration projects in Ethiopia, Peru, Guatemala, Argentina and South Africa.

Collins left the company in 1971 and became an independent consultant to oil companies in China, Indonesia, Argentina, Kazakhstan among other countries, dovetailing well with his love of travel, Christian said.

He considered it a major good fortune, Christian said. He loved studying the history of every country that he went to, he loved getting to know the people. He just loved learning.

Collins wife, Mary Louise White, died in 1993. Collins met Christian in 2002 in San Antonio through mutual friends. The pair merged their two families, Christian said, and traveled to Italy, Spain, Peru, Mexico and Argentina together.

Christian said Collins kept his inquisitive nature until he died last week. The two were about to embark on a four-month trip to Ajijic, Mexico, when he fell ill.

He was such a remarkable man and such a humble man, Christian said. He was always looking forward to continuing his incredible journey with me and those he loved and his special friends.

jfechter@express-news.net
North Side City Councilman Joe Krier has been an unwavering supporter of Hardberger Parks proposed land bridge, an expensive man-made expanse that would connect the parks two halves, taking visitors over a busy road and into the tree canopy.

In the past, he has called the land bridge a world-recognized statement and iconic attraction, and noted that 100 years from now, no one is going to ask, What did this cost?

Today, with the city bond on the horizon, a lot people are asking that question, especially to Krier, whose district includes part of the park.

And the short answer, $25 million, is so much money that people often dont hear the longer answer. That $25 million includes $10 million in private funds, which Krier has pledged to help raise. In fact, going cheap on this might not save taxpayers a dime, unless the bridge never gets built, which would be a shame.

Thats why it was surprising to hear Krier waver the other day, saying hes now looking at cheaper alternatives for a land bridge to span Wurzbach Parkway and connect the parks two halves. He had heard, for example, about a land bridge in Washington that will cost $6.2 million and looks great. Maybe something like that would do the trick?

My view is that if there is a less-expensive way to get this done, you are foolish not to consider it, he explained.

But he also acknowledged that you and I both know that things that appear to be the same frequently arent.

As it turns out, thats exactly the case with the land bridge in Washington. Its not remotely akin to the proposed Hardberger Park land bridge. Its like comparing Neptune and Earth. They are both blue planets in the same solar system, and, well, yeah, thats kind of it. The Washington land bridge is significantly smaller and has no features for hikers and walkers. Its strictly for critters. The Hardberger Park land bridge would cover 3 acres, seamlessly blending into the landscape. Its for people and critters.

Krier is in a tight spot. Hes looking at City Council and not seeing the votes, and hes hearing from constituents who want potholes filled. Hes trying to find a middle way to make this work for all.

Is it absolutely essential? No its not, he said of the bridge. Would it turn something that is great into something that is world-class? Yes, it would.

This sudden political doubt was a surprise to former Mayor Phil Hardberger, who has put nearly $1 million of his own money into the bridge and has counted Krier as one of his chief allies.

Joe has never said anything like that to me, and as a matter of fact, he has been 100 percent supportive, Hardberger said. I am hoping that is an errant thought that, when he goes through it and thinks about it, will not stick.

And then he pulled a Hardberger, methodically, conversationally making the case to stay the course. The former mayor has a gift for framing issues. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill bridge would cost about $12 million, he said. Should the city go that route, there will be no private funding. It will cost taxpayers the same, but the community will get much less.

Great is not ordinary. Its not, Lets do it the cheapest way, he said. Why would anyone donate to that?

One of the strange twists to this story is that the parks success is being used to undercut the vision for the land bridge, which has always been part of the parks master plan. There is this notion that since the park is wildly popular, there is no need to finish the job. Its good enough. When really, the parks popularity should be a selling point for finishing the job. Its loved by the community, so complete it.

There is also a political undercurrent that vision  another Hardberger gift  isnt as crucial to a community as meeting the basic needs of the present. That vision is somehow an extravagance that sells the community short. Yet vision, or lack thereof, will define the San Antonio of the future.

Anybody can build something that is mediocre or meets the very basic needs. But I really believe that San Antonio deserves something better than that, Hardberger said.

As Krier has rightfully noted, 100 years from now, 25 years from now, 10 years from now, no one is going to question the cost of Hardbergers iconic land bridge, much less wonder why the city didnt settle for less. They will only marvel at the parks scenic beauty, the inspiration that will come from an architectural wonder, and the vision and foresight that todays leaders had for the San Antonio of tomorrow.

jbrodesky@express-news.net
On June 30, City Council members will have an opportunity to ban harmful, carcinogenic chemicals from seeping into our drinking water. Coal tar-based sealcoat products  which are commonly used in the paving of driveways, parking lots and roadways, and contain high concentrations of chemical compounds known to be toxic  have no place in our city.

Understanding the significant threat to public health, which has been underscored by dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies, the Minnesota and Washington legislatures became the first to ban the product within state lines in 2013. This follows the work of cities across the country  like Austin  that have led the charge locally to protect water supplies. If San Antonio acts, it would be the largest city to eliminate the use of the coal tar-based sealcoats.

The Edwards Aquifer Authority adopted a ban on coal tar sealants over environmentally sensitive portions of Hays and Comal counties, establishing a clear local precedent for City Council. Moreover, the link between these harmful chemicals and pollution of waterways through stormwater runoff is supported by research and validated by the cities and counties that have taken action to ensure public safety.

With the health of our families at stake, it is time for our city to heed the findings of overwhelming research and ban the use of these products.

The idea to prohibit the use of coal tar sealants was introduced to City Council two years ago. Since then, city staff has looked at more than 80 white papers, independent studies, articles published by universities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. All these sources support the idea that coal tar sealants are a major source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which the EPA and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have said are probable human carcinogens and toxic to aquatic life.

No credible science disputes that PAHs are harmful chemicals at the levels found in coal tar-based sealants. Studies have shown that those who live in residences with coal tar-sealed parking lots ingest 14 times more PAHs than those with unsealed pavement. Living adjacent to coal tar-sealed pavement increases excess lifetime cancer risk 38 times.

A recent opinion piece by a local coal tar-sealcoat supplier sought to discredit the body of scientific research by offering industry-based retorts to the data and calling into question the political motivations of city officials and city staff. The piece also maintained that a ban would hurt local businesses.

This type of response is not unique to San Antonio, and it is expected whenever research forces governments to put public health before an industrys self-interest. Despite the vast majority of businesses that embrace needed change through innovation, some coal-tar holdouts are working to counter independent research with public relations campaigns intended to mislead the public.

Science tips the scales in favor of proactive bans that would ensure public health. Aquatic studies have shown that runoff from coal tar-sealed pavements causes DNA damage and impairs the ability of cells to repair DNA damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey, the scientific arm of the federal government, evaluated the effect of the Austin ban in 2014 and found that PAH concentrations in the lower portion of Lady Bird Lake have declined 58 percent since the ban, reversing a 40-year upward trend.

Alternatives to coal tar-sealcoat products are widely available and have been for years. Many leading pavement sealing companies anticipating regulation have already stopped using coal tar sealants voluntarily. Pavement industry workers who apply coal tar sealant have reported their desire to change to asphalt alternatives, reporting serious chemical burns and exposure from ingestion.

City Council should act now to prohibit the use of coal tar sealants. Lets stand together in this public health fight and keep carcinogens from getting into our water. San Antonio families deserve better.

Correction: At the authors request, this line, Living adjacent to coal tar-sealed pavement increases lifetime cancer risk 38 times, was changed to include the word excess before lifetime cancer risk.

District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg proposed the coal tar-sealant ban in 2014. Dr. Vincent R. Nathan is interim health director at Metro Health. Doug McMurry is executive vice president of the San Antonio Chapter of the Associated General Contractors.
Its incredible to think that just one year ago, the DoSeum opened its doors for the first time to the San Antonio community, a community that was essential in turning the DoSeum from a set of blueprints into a beautifying landmark along San Antonios growing cultural corridor.

As we expand our services and continue our commitment to early education, we look forward to working with our community to provide the very best educational resources to San Antonio and continue doing our part to support San Antonio as it rises to become a major U.S. city.

In our first year, we have strived to establish ourselves as more than just a destination. In addition to our established 2,500-plus hours of annual programming, we launched The Little Doers, our state licensed preschool program, and are now expanding the program to include 3- and 4-year-olds, with classes each day of the week. We are also focused on teacher professional development, particularly in the STEM subjects.

Starting with STEMtastic Nights last spring and continuing this past fall with the establishment of our STEM Teacher Cohort, a yearlong professional learning community, we have helped more than 600 elementary teachers strengthen science skills and access new curriculum. Our STEM Teacher Cohort, comprised of 25 elementary and middle school STEM teachers from all over San Antonio, has the distinction of becoming trained in the award-winning Engineering is Elementary curriculum, which equips educators with the tools to better integrate STEM into traditional school curricula.

While equipping educators with the necessary resources needed to expand their skill set, we have also sought to equip families and children with the best resources to strengthen learning.

This past year weve continued our commitment to accessibility through the DoSeum for All fund, which, through scholarships, field experiences and discounted admission, has allowed us to serve 50,000 people. And with the generous support of H-E-B through our H-E-B Free Family Nights, weve been able to offer free admission to more than 28,000 residents of San Antonio. As we continue to grow, we will continue to pursue one of our most defining passions, making the best educational resources accessible to all.

In addition to impacting our local community, the DoSeum has proven itself as a national destination and as one of the best childrens museums in the country. With 525,000 visitors from all 50 states in its first year, the DoSeum is uniquely positioned to draw families from all over the country to San Antonio. Were proud to serve an essential role in developing the Broadway cultural corridor, joining well-established and influential institutions like the McNay, the Witte and the San Antonio Museum of Art in bringing our city to the brink of major revival.

Reflecting on this past year, I am awed by, and proud of, everything weve accomplished in such a short amount of time. Im grateful to everyone  visitors, city officials, donors, board members, architects, employees  who helped transform a shared vision for San Antonios children into a successful reality. We cant help but celebrate all that weve accomplished and look forward to all we will accomplish in the years to come.

Vanessa Lacoss Hurd is CEO of the DoSeum.
Re: Banning sale of military-style weapons only option, Eugene Robinson, Other Views, June 15:

Columnist Eugene Robinson declared that if banning the sale of military-style weapons insults the Constitution, so be it.

I am shocked by this assertion. Insulting the Constitution is wrong, frightening and un-American. I do not know if Robinson ever served in the military. If he did, he took an oath to defend the Constitution, even the parts he might disagree with.

One of the arguments Robinson makes is that when the Founding Fathers drafted the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, they had in mind protecting the right to keep and bear muskets and single-shot pistols, not modern-day firearms.

By that logic, a person could argue that when the founders wrote the First Amendment protecting freedom of the press and speech, they had no idea that one day there would be high-speed presses, Xerox machines, email, the internet, and cellphones with the Twitter app, along with MSNBC and Fox News.

If someone proposed that anybody wanting to buy a computer, start a newspaper or access the internet had to get permission from the government, Robinson would lead the chorus of Never! And I would join him.

Robinson also writes, Congress should immediately ban gun sales to anyone on the (no-fly) list.

But in the next paragraph he says, It is not possible to have a free society without the presumption of innocence.

These two statements are contradictory because the no-fly list presumes the guilt of those on the list. The Fifth Amendment says a person cannot be deprived of his or her liberty without due process of law.

Eight years ago, when Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in District of Columbia vs. Heller, he made it clear there is an individual right under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms.

However, his opinion also makes clear that governments under the Constitution have the authority to regulate the ownership and use of firearms.

For me, the bottom line is this: No regulation should violate the Second Amendment or any other part of the Bill of Rights.

In case anybody is wondering: I am not a member of the NRA; I am a member of the ACLU.

David H. Plylar is an Air Force veteran and retired schoolteacher who lives in San Antonio.
A court order that blocks the state from keeping Syrian refugees from resettling in Texas should should be the end of the states efforts in this matter.

The order, released recently by a federal judge in Dallas, makes it clear that Texas had no cause for trying to stop resettlement, or for its claim that a nonprofit  the International Rescue Committee  had breached a state contract by refusing to let Texas halt its work.

In the matter of Syrian refugees, neither Gov. Greg Abbott nor Attorney General Ken Paxton has demonstrated much appreciation for the U.S. values of inclusion and providing sanctuary to those in need.

Their actions to block this resettlement began in earnest after the Paris terrorist attacks in November. Critics of resettlement claimed that there were problems with the federal vetting of refugees and that the feds had not consulted with the state before sending the refugees.

Texas made its first blockage attempt in December, trying to stop two Syrian families from resettling, but dropped that effort. The judge rejecting Texas claims on Thursday then turned away the states efforts to stop resettlement of nine other Syrian refugees soon after. But the state continued its lawsuit.

Meanwhile, some resettlement occurred anyway. The Texas Tribune, citing the federal Refugee Processing Center, wrote that 229 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the state since legal proceedings began.

This is as it should be. Texas has a long history of welcoming refugees from abroad. But terrorism, abroad and at home, has caused some questioning of this when it comes to refugees from countries in which terrorism and anti-U.S., jihadist attitudes are plainly visible.

In effect, Texas has been saying, yes, lets fight those bad people and groups, but take no responsibility for those fleeing the barbarity.

The fear has been that among these refugees will be terrorists. But the Migration Policy Institute reports that no refugee who came through the U.S. resettlement program has been involved in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Paxton has said his office is reviewing its options. The viable one would be to stop such efforts altogether.

Not all walls are built with brick and mortar. A ban on Syrian refugees would be just another kind of wall.
STAMFORD  The 25-year-old woman police have called the citys fiercest female criminal will be off the streets for the next decade.

Amonda M Dot Mendez was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 10 years in prison for drug dealing and using firearms to enhance her high-volume narcotics business she ran in the citys East Side and in Bridgeport.

Mendez pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin and using a gun while drug dealing.

Mendez will also serve four years of supervised release when her prison term ends.

Mendez, of Lawn Avenue, was the subject of a wiretap investigation that was halted after just 11 days when she was ambushed  suffering a bullet wound through her arm  and defended herself by shooting the man with what police called a hand cannon in May 2015.

Federal authorities stopped the investigation and arrested Mendez when she was recorded saying she was going to get retribution for the attack that occurred outside her mothers Lawn Avenue apartment.

Federal authorities said they heard Mendez sell 2,146 bags of heroin (about 105 grams), 50 grams of crack cocaine, seven grams of power cocaine, 127 Percocet tablets and 86 Xanax pills during the 11-day wiretap.

Mendez, who lived in Stamford and Bridgeport, was originally charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, conspiracy with intent to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine.

Mendez still faces state charges for pistol-whipping an Albanian man, according to police, in Stamford on the first day of the wiretap with what may have been the same Desert Eagle .44-magnum semiautomatic pistol she used to defend herself just over a week later.

The investigation into her drug dealing began in January 2015 when an informant told Stamford police Mendez was dealing large volumes of heroin, cocaine, crack and oxycodone out of her mothers apartment.

The investigation was then picked up by the Bridgeport High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, which is comprised of officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as Stamford, Norwalk, Stratford and Milford police departments.

The informant said Mendez was the leader of a subset of the Bloods street gang known as The Green Team. Federal authorities were also told her gang provided protection to and obtained drugs from members of the Albanian Boys Incorporated, an organized crime enterprise also known as the Albanian Mob.

Mendez was the citys most violent female street criminal, according to Stamford Police Capt. Richard Conklin, who deemed her Desert Eagle pistol a hand cannon.

She had quite a street reputation and many others of the criminal persuasion were fearful of her, Conklin said at the time of her federal indictment last September.

Following her arrest, police raided the Lawn Avenue residence and another apartment on East Avenue in Bridgeport where they seized a Mossberg sawed-off shotgun and the .44 magnum as well as nearly $12,000 in cash.

Mendez was convicted when she was 19 in state court on a gun possession charge and sentenced to 30 months in jail. Several years later, she was convicted of narcotics sales.

jnickerson@scni.com;
Posted on 06/23/2016, 11:00 am, by mySteinbach

Manitoba Finance advises two individuals have been fined more than $2 million on charges related to the possession and sale of contraband tobacco.

Craig Blacksmith, the owner of a smoke shop at Dakota Plains First Nation and Tammy Walters, a shop employee, were fined on a number of charges stemming from a 2014 seizure by the RCMP and provincial taxation investigators of 951,225 non-Manitoba marked cigarettes, 1845 tins of chewing tobacco (snuff), six firearms, cash and one vehicle.

On June 16, 2016, Craig Blacksmith and Tammy Walters were each convicted of offences under the provincial Tobacco Tax Act and Tax Administration and Miscellaneous Taxes Act.

Blacksmith faced two charges of possessing and selling non-Manitoba marked cigarettes and possessing and selling other tobacco products (snuff) under the provincial legislation. He received fines totalling $8,500 and was assessed tax penalties totalling $1,159,845.60.

Walters faced similar charges under the provincial legislation. Walters was fined a total of $6,500 and was assessed tax penalties totalling $868,009.20.

Each was given 10 years to pay the fines and penalties.

On January 22, 2014, a joint enforcement operation known as Project Debit was undertaken. Members of the RCMP Serious and Organized Crime Unit, RCMP officers from Portage la Prairie and provincial taxation investigators, with the assistance of the Dakota Ojibway Police Service, made a large seizure of contraband tobacco and firearms as well as several arrests at Dakota Plains First Nation, southwest of Portage la Prairie.

A search warrant was executed, and during the search of the property, 4800 cartons of cigarettes and three firearms were seized. During the search, police became aware of a rental locker paid for by Blacksmith. When that was searched, further seizures were made, including two cases of tobacco and three more firearms.

By law, all cigarettes and tobacco must have a Health Canada warning along with a stamp indicating that the required duties and taxes have been paid. Packages of cigarettes in Manitoba are required to display a stamp indicating taxes have been paid to the Manitoba government.

Manitoba taxes must also be paid on other tobacco products, such as chew, when imported into the province. Millions of dollars that could fund social programs, education, employment programs and health care are lost when tax revenue to federal and provincial governments is not paid.

If you have any information on contraband tobacco, contact your local police department or Manitoba Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
PORTLAND, Maine  Adults between the ages of 18 and 21 will still be able to smoke in Portland, but will soon not be able to purchase cigarettes to do so, the Bangor Daily News reports. The Portland City Council approved an ordinance raising the minimum tobacco-buying age to 21, but kept the legal smoking age at 18.

The move makes Portland the first Maine city with such a tobacco-buying restriction, following a nationwide trend to raise the age requirement of tobacco purchases to be in line with alcohol purchases. Currently, more than 100 localities, including Boston, Chicago and New York City, and two states (California and Hawaii) require adults to be 21 to buy any form of tobacco. Most of those laws also include e-cigarettes.

Portland retailers selling tobacco products vehemently opposed the proposal as an unwarranted restriction for legal adults. The new rules would encompass tobacco products in all forms, including electronic cigarettes. City Council Member Ed Suslovic, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, said the rule would become law 30 days following the vote on June 20.

Meanwhile, cigarette smoking among high school students dropped to 11% in 2015, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey. Read more about increased age limits for tobacco purchases in the March issue of NACS Magazine.
CANTON, Mass.  The cold brew iced coffee war is heating up, as Dunkin Donuts announced its version of the summertime beverage will hit select stores in Los Angeles and New York on June 27, Boston.com reports. In late May, Starbucks publicized its new cold coffee bar with nitro cold brew as the foundation.

Dunkin tested its cold brew in a few New England markets this spring, with a national rollout scheduled for later this summer. The cold brew process includes soaking coffee grounds in water for a certain period of time to ultimately produce the drink, as opposed to using heat. The process is supposed to make the iced coffee less bitter.

The cold brew is prepared by steeping a special blend of coffee in cold water over an extended period of time to extract a uniquely distinctive flavor from the beans, said Chris Fuqua, senior vice president of brand marketing, global consumer insights and product innovation, at Dunkin Donuts. Cold brew coffees ultra-smooth and naturally sweet flavor profile lends itself to being enjoyed black, but is customizable based on guest preference.

This week, a Business Insider report found that cold brew U.S. sales skyrocketed 339% from 2010 to 2015. Also, overall iced coffee consumption jumped 75%. Were the leader of iced coffee around the world, Fuqua said. We sell more iced coffee than anybody, but we also realize that we need to keep up with trends. Cold brew is one of those trends that doesnt appear to be going away.
MELBOURNE, Australia  With organizations and some politicians clamoring for a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks, the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) has slammed the move as a lazy way to address a complex problem, the Herald Sun reports. The Greens, one of the groups supporting the levy, has proposed a 20% flat tax on sugary beverages to stem the rise of obesity in the country.

However, those measures are missing the real picture, said Jeff Rogut, CEO of AACS. Better health outcomes are not achieved by taxing certain consumers and placing additional burdens on small businesses, he said. The only available evidence suggests that education, potentially in the form of wellness and awareness programs, is the most effective way to achieve improved health outcomes.

A tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would only hurt smaller retailers like convenience stores and not solve the problem of obesity. There is no rational basis to believe increasing taxes on certain products will result in improved health outcomes. Tobacco is a prime example. As the government continues to raise excise on legal tobacco, more and more consumers are simply switching to cheaper alternatives and the illegal tobacco market continues to flourish, fueling alarming health and safety consequences for the broader community, Rogut said.

He would rather see support of consumer demand for healthier options, noting that convenience stores in Australia are already bringing better-for-you foods and beverages to their customers. Applying a tax to certain items because those items have an emotional association to obesity in the minds of some groups is not only flawed, its shortsighted and lazy. Its also economically destructive, Rogut said. The economic ramifications for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers would be immense, yet the potential for such measures to achieve improved health outcomes is unknown.
Yves here. This post corrects some of the misleading accounts of the history of the Puerto Ricos debt crisis and describes how the neoliberal remedy is producing an Ireland-style exodus of the young.

By Jose A. Laguarta Ramirez. Originally published at Triple Crisis

At least 23 of the 49 people killed in the mass shooting that took place at Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12 were born in Puerto Rico. While the horrendous hate crime targeted LGBT people of all ethnicities, the large proportion of island-born casualties is not surprising, as the central Florida city has become a preferred destination of Puerto Rican migrants over the past two decades. Steadily growing since the onset of the islands current fiscal crisis in 2006, yearly out-migration from Puerto Rico now surpasses that of the 1950s. The islands total population has begun to decline for the first time in its history.

Nearly a third of the island-born victims of the Orlando massacre were 25 or younger, most of them students employed in services or retail. This is the population group that will be hit hardest when the ironically named Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) comes into effect. Among its other promises for working-class Puerto Ricans, PROMESA will cut the minimum wage in Puerto Rico for those under 25, from the current federally mandated $7.25 to $4.25 per hour, and scale back the federal nutritional assistance program on the island. Purportedly aimed at job-creation, these measures will likely intensify the outflow of able-bodied low-skilled workers. Ongoing out-migration has already decimated the number of available healthcare and other professionals on the island. Puerto Ricos 2013 median household income of $19,183 was barely half that of Mississippi, the poorest U.S. state (at $37,479), despite a cost of living that rivals that of most major cities in the United States. Inequality on the island is also greater than in any of the states.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved PROMESA on the evening of June 9, following a strong endorsement by President Barack Obama. The bill, which would also impose an unelected and unaccountable federal oversight board and allow court-supervised restructuring of part of the islands $73 billion debt, now awaits consideration by the Senate. Its advocates hope the president can sign PROMESA into law before July 1, when $1.9 billions worth of Puerto Rico general obligation bonds will come due. Unlike those issued by public utility corporations and certain autonomous agencies, general obligation bonds, under Puerto Ricos colonial constitution, must be repaid before any further public spending for the following fiscal year is authorized. Puerto Ricos government has partially defaulted three times within the past year, but not on general obligation bonds. Puerto Rico is not the only place, under the global regime of austerity capitalism to face predatory creditors and the imposition of unelected rulers as illustrated by cases like Argentina, Greece, and post-industrial U.S. cities such as Flint, Mich. but its century-old colonial status has made it particularly vulnerable and defenseless.

The House vote followed a concerted, carefully timed media push by the Democratic establishment, on the premise that despite its flaws PROMESA represents a bipartisan compromise that is, in Obamas words, far superior to the status quo. Among similar statements, a New York Times editorial on May 31 claimed that PROMESA offers the island its best chance of survival. However, following the bills approval, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted in almost identical terms that PROMESA is the best chance, but for something quite different for American taxpayers to be protected from a bailout of Puerto Rico. The threat of a taxpayer-funded bailout (which has never been on the table) has been deployed in anonymous scare ads, probably financed by high-risk/yield-seeking vulture funds that hold Puerto Rico bonds and so oppose PROMESAs mild restructuring provisions.

PROMESAs oversight board, which will be staffed by San Juan and Washington insiders with the bondholders best interests at heart, is sure to continue to impose draconian austerity measures that have already slashed much-needed social services. (Former Puerto Rico governor Luis Fortuno, a Republican who enacted legislation laying off up to 30,000 public employees in order to appease credit rating agencies, has been mentioned as a likely appointee.) Democratic support for the bill was forthcoming despite the fact that neither the oversight provisions nor those reducing the minimum wage, were removed.

Most U.S. observers reduce Puerto Ricos debt crisis to a result of mismanagement by its local administrators (A Google search of the terms Puerto Rico, debt, and mismanagement yields pieces articulating this narrative from Bloomberg, CNN, USA Today, the National Review, and the Huffington Post, among others, within the top 10 hits). This view conveniently erases the historical and structural roots of the crisis.

U.S. troops occupied Puerto Rico in 1898 and the Supreme Court quickly declared it an unincorporated territory subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress and federal courts system, without voting representation in Congress. Although U.S. citizenship was extended to individuals in 1917, and a local constitution was authorized and adopted in 1952 (not without significant amendments by Congress), the juridical fact of colonialism has remained unaltered, as reiterated by the Court on the very day of the House vote on PROMESA. (See Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, a criminal case on double jeopardy, in which the Court reminds Puerto Ricos local government that unlike states, it is not legally considered a sovereign separate from Congress.) In the mid-1970s, Puerto Ricos comparative advantage as the only low-wage tax haven with direct access to the U.S. market waned. Washingtons solution to the colonys economic stagnation was Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which granted federal tax exemptions to U.S. corporations on products made in Puerto Rico, in addition to local tax breaks in place since the 1940s. The local government, in turn, pursued massive debt-fueled investment in infrastructure, whose use by these corporations it heavily subsidized. The resulting debt addiction spiralled out of control in the 1990s, fed by easy credit, and exacerbated after Congress began a ten-year phase out of Section 936 in 1996. Meanwhile, profits continue to leave the island to the tune of $30 billion annually.

In international law, the term for debt incurred by colonial, corrupt, or authoritarian regimes is odious debt. A prominent example of its application was the cancellation of Cubas colonial debt when that country achieved its independence from Spain, following the so-called Spanish-American War of 1898. The U.S. governments argument at the time, which Spain never formally accepted but most of Cubas creditors eventually did, was that the debt was incurred without the consent of the Cuban people, nor to their benefit. Although odious debt is a grey area of international law, with sufficient political resolve Puerto Ricos leadership could use it to bolster a claim to refuse payment. In 2008, Ecuador invoked the doctrine as part of a largely successful audit and partial default. Such a course would necessarily put Puerto Rico on a collision course with colonialism, as it would need to refuse to recognize any resulting lawsuits in U.S. courts.

This is precisely the type of outcome that PROMESA is designed to prevent. It is one which Puerto Ricos current administrators have proven entirely unwilling to pursue. Yet it is a path that is not alien to U.S. political history: one of the grievances that led to the thirteen colonies Declaration of Independence was the imposition of new taxes largely to pay debts incurred by Britain in the Seven Years War. An independent Puerto Rico, released of an illegitimate debt burden incurred to profit U.S. corporations, could better focus on serving the needs of its poor and working-class majority. A movement capable of leading such a process has yet to materialize, but with U.S. statehood farther away than ever and housing and labor markets in migrant destinations becoming increasingly saturated, the matter is far from decided.

As living conditions on the island continue to deteriorate under PROMESA (and they surely will), young Puerto Rican students and workers will continue to flood those places where family connections, climate, the price of airfare, and job opportunities pull them. Not all will be targeted for physical violence because of their multiple identities, as the Orlando victims were. Their fate, however, will continue to be a haunting reminder ways in which invisible forces pattern seemingly random events in the lives of individuals and communities.
Saving precious water with nanoscale ingenuity (Nanowerk News) Managing scarce water resources is problematic for many Middle East countries, and forecasts predict a more straitened situation ahead. Desalination plants are one way to manage water shortages, as more than two-thirds of the worlds desalination capacity is in this region, but processing seawater has enormous energy and environmental costs. Other approaches need to be developed to achieve sustainable growth.

Over the past seven years, Peng Wang and colleagues from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, Saudi Arabia, have been looking for answers to these grand challenges by turning to very small science. The team specializes in producing materials and surfaces that purify, distill and catch water molecules with remarkable efficiency thanks to nanoscale techniques, many inspired by ingenious biological tricks.

The tiny bumps on the surface of the Stenocara beetle, a native of the Namib Desert, provided inspiration for water collection.

Its amazing what nature can offer us for solving some of the problems of clean water production, said Wang. This field really gives you a chance to demonstrate your most creative ideas.

From beetle bumps to self-healing stills

Wang explains that he always approaches research with the concept of rational design in mind, which is using specific chemical and physical functions to achieve targeted results.

You have to be able to define your problem scientifically first, he said. We then rationally decide on what functions to impart to the surfaces or materials. In some cases we mimic species to reach our goals.

One such example was Wangs search for a surface that collects atmospheric fog. The hunt led the researchers to the Stenocara beetle, a native of the Namib Desert. The beetle has special wings dotted with nanoscale bumps that capture water droplets from the air. The beetles waxy regions slide droplets directly into the its mouth.

To mimic the beetle's wings, the team used a different bio-inspired substancean extra-sticky dopamine-based polymer similar to natural glues used by mussel shellsto stick bumpy patterns onto a super water-repellent surface through inkjet printing techniques.

Another of Wangs projects revolves around developing point-of-use desalination devices powered by the sun. These solar stills could prove invaluable in the aftermath of natural disasters, but offer notoriously poor efficiency because it takes extended time to heat bulk quantities of water.

To solve this quandary, the research team coated a floating stainless steel membrane with an innovative polymer containing photo-sensitive rings. The new membrane absorbs light radiation instead of the bulk water and increases heat generation at the water surface.

The researchers also mimicked the lotus leaf flower, a plant that can repair damage to its leaves by tapping into a reservoir of waxy molecules, to heal any sun-based injuries to the membrane.

This device tripled the output of fresh water compared to a typical solar still, noted Wang.

Make one for the team

Wang reveals that open cooperation and communication between scientists, postdoctoral fellows and students in his bustling lab are the key to research success.

You see lots of casual and regular meetings in a typical day, he said. We encourage members to share their knowledge, know-how, criticisms and concernsthis is how we work as a team.

The state-of-the-art tools such as surface modification and water treatment available in Wangs lab give researchers the chance to move into the elite ranks of scientific achievement. Since 2012, several of his papers on topics such as pH-responsive membranes that separate oil from water or nanomaterials that efficiently generate hydrogen from water have reached the top one percent of cited articles in their fields. Two of his edited books are also expected to appear in 2016.

In our group, you need basic chemical synthesis skills, but I stress critical thinking more than anything elseyou have to give defensible reasons for every step of your research, said Wang. Tackling relevant problems and mentoring brilliant young minds is what I find most rewarding.

Being thin is in

The flow of water through commercial filtration membranes is limited by membrane thickness. Wang and his team are currently studying ways to accelerate this type of purification using ultrathin membranes made from stacks of graphene sheets. While the challenges of this project are intense and include making uniform pores on graphene with solution processing, the potential payoffs could be enormous.
X-ray echoes of a shredded star provide close-up of 'killer' black hole (w/video)

(Nanowerk News) Some 3.9 billion years ago in the heart of a distant galaxy, the intense tidal pull of a monster black hole shredded a star that passed too close. When X-rays produced in this event first reached Earth on March 28, 2011, they were detected by NASA's Swift satellite, which notified astronomers around the world. Within days, scientists concluded that the outburst, now known as Swift J1644+57, represented both the tidal disruption of a star and the sudden flare-up of a previously inactive black hole.

Now astronomers using archival observations from Swift, the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton observatory and the Japan-led Suzaku satellite have identified the reflections of X-ray flares erupting during the event. Led by Erin Kara, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), the team has used these light echoes, or reverberations, to map the flow of gas near a newly awakened black hole for the first time.

"While we don't yet understand what causes X-ray flares near the black hole, we know that when one occurs we can detect its echo a couple of minutes later, once the light has reached and illuminated parts of the flow," Kara explained. "This technique, called X-ray reverberation mapping, has been previously used to explore stable disks around black holes, but this is the first time we've applied it to a newly formed disk produced by a tidal disruption."

In this artist's rendering, a thick accretion disk has formed around a supermassive black hole following the tidal disruption of a star that wandered too close. Stellar debris has fallen toward the black hole and collected into a thick chaotic disk of hot gas. Flashes of X-ray light near the center of the disk result in light echoes that allow astronomers to map the structure of the funnel-like flow, revealing for the first time strong gravity effects around a normally quiescent black hole. (Image: NASA/Swift/Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University)

Stellar debris falling toward a black hole collects into a rotating structure called an accretion disk. There the gas is compressed and heated to millions of degrees before it eventually spills over the black hole's event horizon, the point beyond which nothing can escape and astronomers cannot observe. The Swift J1644+57 accretion disk was thicker, more turbulent and more chaotic than stable disks, which have had time to settle down into an orderly routine. The researchers present the findings in a paper published online in the journal Nature on Wed., June 22 ("Relativistic reverberation in the accretion flow of a tidal disruption event").

One surprise from the study is that high-energy X-rays arise from the inner part of the disk. Astronomers had thought most of this emission originated from a narrow jet of particles accelerated to near the speed of light. In blazars, the most luminous galaxy class powered by supermassive black holes, jets produce most of the highest-energy emission.

"We do see a jet from Swift J1644, but the X-rays are coming from a compact region near the black hole at the base of a steep funnel of inflowing gas we're looking down into," said co-author Lixin Dai, a postdoctoral researcher at UMCP. "The gas producing the echoes is itself flowing outward along the surface of the funnel at speeds up to half the speed of light."

X-rays originating near the black hole excite iron ions in the whirling gas, causing them to fluoresce with a distinctive high-energy glow called iron K-line emission. As an X-ray flare brightens and fades, the gas follows in turn after a brief delay depending on its distance from the source.

"Direct light from the flare has different properties than its echo, and we can detect reverberations by monitoring how the brightness changes across different X-ray energies," said co-author Jon Miller, a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

NASA Goddard astronomer Erin Kara discusses the discovery of X-ray echoes from Swift J1644+57, a black hole that shattered a passing star. X-rays produced by flares near this million-solar-mass black hole bounced off the nascent accretion disk and revealed its structure. (Video: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Swift J1644+57 is one of only three tidal disruptions that have produced high-energy X-rays, and to date it remains the only event caught at the peak of this emission. These star shredding episodes briefly activate black holes astronomers wouldn't otherwise know about. For every black hole now actively accreting gas and producing light, astronomers think nine others are dormant and dark. These quiescent black holes were active when the universe was younger, and they played an important role in how galaxies evolved. Tidal disruptions therefore offer a glimpse of the silent majority of supersized black holes.

"If we only look at active black holes, we might be getting a strongly biased sample," said team member Chris Reynolds, a professor of astronomy at UMCP. "It could be that these black holes all fit within some narrow range of spins and masses. So it's important to study the entire population to make sure we're not biased."

The researchers estimate the mass of the Swift J1644+57 black hole at about a million times that of the sun but did not measure its spin. With future improvements in understanding and modeling accretion flows, the team thinks it may be possible to do so.

ESA's XMM-Newton satellite was launched in December 1999 from Kourou, French Guiana. NASA funded elements of the XMM-Newton instrument package and provides the NASA Guest Observer Facility at Goddard, which supports use of the observatory by U.S. astronomers. Suzaku operated from July 2005 to August 2015 and was developed at the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, which is part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in collaboration with NASA and other Japanese and U.S. institutions.
Utility workers wait for the water to be turned off. A water main was broken Wednesday afternoon along Bald Eagle Drive adjacent to the construction site of the Rose Marina boat storage building. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent

SHARE Utility workers watch as potable water spews out from the broken main. A water main was broken Wednesday afternoon along Bald Eagle Drive adjacent to the construction site of the Rose Marina boat storage building. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent Utility workers watch as potable water spews out from the broken main. A water main was broken Wednesday afternoon along Bald Eagle Drive adjacent to the construction site of the Rose Marina boat storage building. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent Margherita Tambini, of Naples, holds a bear and a sign protesting the proposed 2016 black bear hunting season alongside U.S. 41 on June 18, 2016 in Naples, Florida. There were 28 protests held statewide on Saturday to raise public awareness and prompt citizens to contact elected officials in opposition of the hunt. (Nicole Raucheisen/Staff)

1. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission votes 4-3 against 2016 bear hunt

Florida will not allow black bear hunting in 2016. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is meeting this week in Eastpoint, a remote town in the Panhandle, to take input on the hunt and update state management plans.

Commissioners voted 4-3 to not have a hunt in 2016 but to delay another bear season until 2017. Commissioners Aliese Priddy, Charles Roberts and Richard Hanas wanted to move forward with a hunt this year but were defeated.

"Bear conflicts are out there. They're real and they're growing," said FWC chair Brian Yablonski. "But that's a sign of robust health with our bear population. But unfortunately it gives us a complicated problem, and we're trying to solve it."

FWC commissioners considered four options this year: hold the same hunt as in 2015; hold a bear hunt similar to last year with some changes; postpone the bear hunt until 2017; or end bear hunting all together.

FWC staff recommended the second option, to hold another hunt with changes to last year's rules.

"Bear experts agree that hunting can increase bear's wariness, which can also reduce conflicts and safety risks," said Diane Eggeman, FWC's director of hunting and game management.

Human-bear conflicts are at the heart of the decision, although the state admitted before last year's hunt that hunting bears does nothing to reduce the number of human-bear conflicts in an area.  Chad Gillis, News-Press

2. Marco Island Man faces charges of health care fraud, theft

A Marco Island man has been indicted on two charges of theft involving Social Security and Medicare benefits. He is one of 15 people in the Middle District of Florida accused in a nationwide crackdown on health care fraud.

Federal prose cutors with the U.S. attorney's office in Tampa accused Louis William Rimondi IV, 47, of concealing he had returned to work while continuing to collect Social Security disability and Medicare benefits valued at almost $122,000.

From January 2010 through February 2016, he collected $101,466 in Social Security disability benefits and an additional $20,467 in Medicare benefits that he was not entitled to after returning to work, according to the federal office.

Authorities in 36 federal districts and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday the nation's largest crackdown on health care fraud.

They said it involved 301 individuals, including 61 doctors and other medical professionals, and $900 million in false billings.

Medicare fraud control units in 23 states participated in the national crackdown.

3. Water main rupture soaks North Bald Eagle Drive

There was a water main rupture along North Bald Eagle Drive near Rose Marina on Wednesday.

Crew members from Marco Island Utilities responded, shut off the water and opened the valve on a fire hydrant on Palm Street in Old Marco to relieve pressure and clean any debris out of the system.

According to Marco Island Utilities crew member Chris Quinton, a failed gasket was the cause of the rupture. A contractor's truck was also involved in the incident, said Marco Island Utilities crew member Chris Nygard.

The crew members had to dig a hole to remove and replace the piece of broke pipe; a dump truck arrived later in the evening to fill the hole with soil.

Representatives from Rose Marina were unavailable for comment as of Thursday afternoon.
Law enforcement officers and their family members recite the pledge of allegiance at the "Beyond Off Duty Survival" seminar on June 23. The purpose of the seminar was to prepare officers and their loved ones for "the unthinkable." Lisa Conley/Staff

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By Lisa Conley

A law enforcement officer's job is to protect others from harm, and that job doesn't stop when he takes off his badge and uniform. That was the lesson that officers from across the region learned at Thursday's "Beyond Off Duty Survival" seminar.

The seminar was hosted by husband and wife Dave and Betsy Smith, law enforcement officers with more than 40 years of combined experience. Dave said the purpose of the seminar is to prepare officers and their families for "the unthinkable."

"Today's society is the most dangerous environment I've ever seen," Dave said, "and we always have the potential to be caught in the middle of a situation whether we're on duty or not."

In fact 10 percent of police officer murders happen when the officer is off duty, Dave said. That's why it's important for officers and their loved ones to learn about the situations they could find themselves in and the appropriate responses.

Mike Christoff  retired police officer and owner of Sticky Holsters, the company that sponsored the seminar  said it's extremely important for officers, their loved ones and members of the public to 'do their homework' whenever they enter a room.

"Scan the room, find the exits, pay attention to your surroundings  that way if a situation does arise, you'll be prepared," Christoff said. "It's all about being aware and letting everyone else know that you're aware."

Michael Herman, Naples Police Department sergeant, attended the seminar with his wife, Lisa. He said it's crucial for spouses of law enforcement officers to understand the responsibilities that the officers face  even when they're off duty  and it's easier for a third-party get that message across.

"In a marriage your spouse is more apt to pay attention when somebody else is explaining something than when you're explaining it," he said with a laugh, "so that's why it's important to have seminars like this where you can bring your family."

It's important for officers to be prepared, Betsy said, but it's equally important for them to celebrate their successes.

"So often we get caught up in the negative that we forgot to celebrate when we get the bad guy," she said. "It's OK to feel good about doing your job."

The seminar was dedicated to all of the officers who have died both on and off duty.
In this Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016 photo, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sit in a petri dish at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. The mosquito is a vector for the proliferation of the Zika virus spreading throughout Latin America. New figures from Brazil's Health Ministry show that the Zika virus outbreak has not caused as many confirmed cases of a rare brain defect as first feared. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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By Ledyard King And Erin Kelly, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson on Thursday slammed a House-passed Zika funding bill as a "disaster," signaling trouble for the measure's prospects in the Senate.

The possibility of further delays in a compromise on anti-Zika spending comes amid continued alarms from health experts about the mosquito-borne virus that's been linked to paralysis and devastating birth defects. Zika is ravaging Puerto Rico and has become a growing threat in Florida.

Frustrated with inaction in Washington, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott announced Thursday he would commit $26.2 million in state funds for Zika preparedness, prevention and response including: mosquito surveillance and abatement, training for mosquito control technicians, enhanced laboratory capacity, and purchase of Zika Prevention Kits.

"We are in the middle of hot, rainy weather which is when mosquitoes are most prevalent," Scott said in a statement. "It is clear that allocating this funding is necessary if we are going to stay ahead of the spread of this virus."

The House voted early Thursday to approve a bill to provide $1.1 billion to combat Zika, but Nelson and other Democrats vowed to derail the legislation in the Senate because it includes $750 million in budget cuts to other health care programs.

"The House Zika bill is a disaster," Nelson said through a spokesman Thursday. "Not only does it take $500 million in health care funding away from Puerto Rico, it limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus and prevent terrible birth defects. This is not a serious solution."

It's also well below the $1.9 billion President Barack Obama has requested to fight the disease.

The Florida Department of Health said the state has seen 213 cases of Zika  the most in the nation by far  and the pace appears to picking up. Since Monday, 18 new cases have been reported, though no new ones were announced Thursday."

All 213 cases involve individuals who contracted the disease outside the mainland but were diagnosed in the state. Experts warn it's only a matter of time before Zika is transmitted locally, assuming that hasn't happened already.

More than one-third of the state's counties  23  have reported at least one case. In addition, 40 pregnant women have been diagnosed in the Sunshine State, though those cases are not identified by location.

The House voted 239-171, largely along party lines, to pass the Zika funding bill shortly after 3 a.m. Thursday, as Democrats continued an unrelated sit-in on the House floor to push for a vote on gun control measures in the wake of the mass shootings in Orlando.

Every Florida Republican voted for the Zika measure except U.S. Rep. Curt Clawson, who had to miss the vote due to a medical emergency involving his father. Every Florida Democrat opposed it, except U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson who did not vote.

GOP Rep. Tom Rooney, one of two Floridians on the negotiating team that reached the compromise, said he was "disappointed" no Florida Democrats joined him in supporting the measure.

"I have said from the very beginning that we cannot make public health a political issue," he said in a statement released by his office. "Public health and responsible government spending do not have to be mutually exclusive. Time is of the essence and there is absolutely no good or practical excuse to vote against  or veto  this bill."

Democrats complained they were left out of negotiations between Republican members of a House-Senate conference committee that hammered out the deal on Zika funding and on larger spending bills to fund veterans' programs and military construction projects. House and Senate Republicans reached agreement on the deal late Wednesday.

But Sen. Marco Rubio, who earlier broke with his party to support Obama's full Zika funding request, said Thursday he's ready to back the compromise bill. While it's not $1.9 billion, Rubio said, the measure is much better than the $622 million bill the House initially adopted last month.

"The toll of Zika's rapid spread, especially in Puerto Rico and Latin America, is scary and exactly what we're destined to see here in the mainland United States if we don't act fast," he said in a statement. "At this point, I support getting something on Zika done. Congress has shamefully wasted too much time already, and with summer here, the price of inaction will be devastating."

The compromise bill would cut $543 million in unused funds for implementing the Affordable Care Act, $107 million from leftover funds used to fight Ebola, and $100 million in administrative funds from the Health and Human Services Department.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill passed Thursday represents "important progress in our efforts to protect Americans from the Zika virus."

The legislation needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate, where Republicans hold 54 of the 100 seats. The Senate is in session for another week and is expected to take up the bill before it leaves for its July 4 recess.

The legislation would provide $230 million for the National Institutes of Health to develop a vaccine and $476 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help pay for mosquito control efforts.

"With this additional funding  on top of what we have already allocated  the administration will continue to have the needed resources to address the Zika threat," Ryan said.

The White House disagreed.

"While we are still awaiting more details on the legislation, it is clear that once again, Republicans have put political games ahead of the health and safety of the American people, particularly pregnant women and their babies," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. "This plan from congressional Republicans is four months late and nearly a billion dollars short of what our public health experts have said is necessary to do everything possible to fight the Zika virus and steals funding from other health priorities."
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By Maryann Batlle of the Naples Daily News

Estero, which bills itself as the "village with a vision," has a final plan for a walkable, bikeable downtown.

The village council on Wednesday approved two documents that codify how Estero intends to grow in a central corridor that stretches east of U.S. 41, from just north of Corkscrew Road and south to Coconut Road.

The area, known as the "village center," has been in the works since before Estero incorporated at the end of 2014.

Vice Mayor Howard Levitan said he had been waiting to take that vote the last five years, ever since he was a community planning volunteer.

"It's time we stand up for what the people in Estero have asked for," Levitan said.

The dense, state-required documents approved Wednesday are also the culmination of months of negotiations between the village and the cadre of lawyers and consultants hired by developers with land in the village center.

At least 11 drafts later, Estero has two written guides  a comprehensive plan and a land development code  that offer flexibility for developers and preserve residents' quality of life, said Village Manager Steven Sarkozy.

"We think this is a good product," Sarkozy said.

The comprehensive plan is the big picture document that spells out Estero's purpose and intent for the village center. The land development code explains Estero's best practices for building in the village center.

The land development code, which is used when making zoning decisions, is a living document that can be edited as the village matures, said Community Development Director Mary Gibbs.

"We are trying to balance everything," said Gibbs. "There are always opportunities to do tweaks later on."

During public comment, some land use lawyers and consultants critiqued Estero's land development code.

But Peter Cangialosi, a resident and the environmental director of the Estero Council of Community Leaders, urged the council to support the village center plans.

He shared his vision of a downtown with cafes, bike lanes and parks.

"A place where everyone can gather and enjoy our common amenities," Cangialosi said.

Estero must now send the comprehensive plan to the state for review, a process that should take up to 30 days to complete. Portions of the land development code that are not tied to the comprehensive plan will go into effect immediately, said Gibbs.
Frank Donaldson is in the dark about what went wrong when his son donated a kidney to him earlier this month and died.

I dont know what happened, the 69-year-old Cape Coral resident said. I have his kidney in me and I am recovering from surgery.

Donaldson received the transplant on April 16 at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers, where his son, John James Donaldson, 40, was the living kidney donor.

Hospital officials have not identified the donor because of patient confidentiality, but said the individual suffered from a known rare complication. Gulf Coast Medical, which is part of Lee Memorial Health System, operates the only kidney transplant center in the region.

The death prompted Gulf Coasts transplant team to voluntarily suspend its living kidney donor transplant program April 21 to review procedures with the United Network for Organ Sharing, which operates the nations transplant system for the federal government.

Donaldson said he and his family are grieving.

I will deal with my sons issues when I heal myself, Donaldson said. His kidney is working in me.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which contracts with UNOS, has been informed of the donors death in Fort Myers, according to an HHS spokesperson.

Four scheduled living donor kidney transplants were canceled at Gulf Coast and another 21 patients and their living donors face tough decisions  transferring to another transplant center or staying with Gulf Coast in hopes the program is reinstated in a reasonable time frame. The 21 patients and their donors can continue their medical evaluations for organ matches.

The hospital is meeting with patients and their donors to discuss their options. One Cape Coral patient, Jimmy Serrago, 21, whose scheduled transplant for April 23 was canceled, said he was told the program could be reinstated in July.

I dont think that is an unreasonable expectation, Lee Memorial spokeswoman Mary Briggs said. But we dont have a timeline yet.

Serrago, who has been on dialysis for more than two years after kidney failure due to lupus, said the program suspension impacts a lot of lives.

He tried to have his transplant last year near Christmas but got too sick. He then was scheduled for May 28 and moved up to April, and now the program is suspended.

Im still pretty much in shock, Serrago said. I put all my eggs in one basket.

He may try to transfer to Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston. His living donor, a friend who wants to remain anonymous, is still committed despite the recent donor death.

That night we found out, we called her and her husband and asked, Do you want to stick around? She said, Of course, he said.

Briggs said Gulf Coast is working with other centers in Miami and Tampa to help patients transferring to those programs. Officials at Cleveland Clinic Florida, Tampa General Hospital and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

The National Kidney Foundation reports there were 25 living kidney donor deaths in the United States from 1994 through 2009 within 90 days of the transplant. During that period, there were 80,347 kidney transplants for a surgical death rate of about three deaths per 10,000 donor surgeries.

To put it in perspective, the surgical mortality rate for non-perforated (non-ruptured) appendicitis is estimated at eight per 10,000 cases of diagnosed appendicitis, said Dr. Leslie Spry, on behalf of the national kidney foundation. Surgical mortality for living kidney donors was found to be slightly higher in men than in women, and slightly higher in blacks than in whites or Hispanics. That said, the number of deaths was still very low.

Complications for living donors can include infection, problems with the anesthesia, blood loss, blood clot, injury to other organs or surrounding tissue, according to UNOS.

According to HHS, there have been 16 living kidney donor deaths within 30 days of the organ donation from 1999 to this past January. Twelve of the deaths were medical in nature.

Christine Wright, an Ohio resident who donated a kidney when she was 37 in 2008 to her older sister, started the website www.livingdonor101.com six years ago to help educate living donors after feeling abandoned by her transplant center.

Living donors are often relatives of the person in kidney failure and they commit emotionally, and transplant centers dont inform thoroughly of risks, she said.

There is a lot of pressure to donate, Wright said.

A 2011 study done at the University of Minnesota with 262 living kidney donors two months to 40 months post donation, found that 40 percent had felt pressure to donate, according to the study. Ninety percent understood the effects of living donation on recipient outcomes but only 69 percent understood the psychological risks of donating and 52 percent understood the long-term medical risks of donating.

Wright said the donor death at Gulf Coast could have a ripple effect where some living kidney donors may change their minds.

I think there can be, she said. I dont know how many because nobody has studied it.

There were no standards of care for living kidney donors for the industry until UNOS in 2007 began developing standards and they were adopted by HHS in 2013, she said.

Joel Newman, a spokesman with UNOS, said the organization did not have authority to develop standards of care policies for living donors until 2006. The last two years has seen more stringent guidelines for living donors, he said.

Briggs, Lee Memorial spokeswoman, said Gulf Coast fully complies with all the policies of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and UNOS, in addition to the standards set by the federal government.

All donor candidates undergo a comprehensive medical and psychological evaluation to determine if they are suitable for organ donation, and the possible risks and complications of the surgery are thoroughly explained, she said in a statement. An independent living donor advocate is assigned to each donor to assure his or her best interests are represented throughout the process.
Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

By Oscar Santiago Torres of the Naples Daily News

A group of manatees swim near the shore at Lowdermilk Beach in Naples. Julie Forman Clay posted the video on Facebook.

See the video here:
SHARE Francis Rooney. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Kathleen Passidomo Carlos Beruff. Lizbeth Benacquisto

By Alexandra Glorioso, alexandra.glorioso@naplesnews.com

State and local political candidates are beginning to blanket Southwest Florida airwaves with their first television ads of the election season, with four candidates spending nearly a half-million dollars on ad buys in June alone.

It's a strategy that's expected to get more competitive, and more expensive, as summer heats up and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump begin targeting swing states like Florida.

Four candidates  congressional candidate Francis Rooney, U.S. Senate candidate Carlos Beruff and state Senate candidates Kathleen Passidomo and Lizbeth Benacquisto  spent at least $475,000 combined on local ad buys in June, according to a Naples Daily News review.

Rooney, a Naples businessman, led the pack by spending $300,000 in his campaign alone. Rooney's spending this early on is an indication of what's to come, said Kip Cassino, the executive vice president of the media market company Borrell Associates.

"If (he) has already spent ($300,000), you're looking at heavy spending there," he said.

Rooney declined to comment on his ad strategy, but Maryann Grgic, a campaign spokeswoman, said the television ad currently on the air is meant to introduce Rooney to voters.

Sanibel Councilman Chauncey Goss, who is running against Rooney along with former Secret Service agent and television personality Dan Bongino, said he doesn't plan to be on the air in June, partially because he believes he already has good name recognition, particularly in Lee County. Goss' father, Porter Goss, is a former congressman and served in the CIA under President George W. Bush.

"Both of my opponents are going to have to spend a ton of money," Goss said. "They are doing a getting-to-know-you campaign. I don't have to do that."

Bongino, who announced his candidacy on Monday and only recently moved to Naples, said he has name recognition from his stints guest hosting Sean Hannity's national radio show and Drew Steele's local morning show on Fox 92.5. He also wrote a New York Times best-selling book and mounted an unsuccessful Senate run in Maryland in 2014.

Passidomo, a state representative from Naples who is running for state Sen. Garrett Richter's newly redrawn District 28 seat  which includes Collier and Hendry counties  spent $50,000 on ads in June. She said she was "shocked" at how much money she would have to raise to run television ads, but she said she needs them to reach so many new voters. She said Hendry County is simply "enormous."

"The bigger the county, the more TV is helpful," she said.

As of June, Passidomo raised $600,000 between her campaign and the PAC supporting her, Working Together for Florida.

Her opponent, state Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, has yet to buy TV ads but has the cash to do so. As of June, Hudson raised $1.3 million between his campaign and the PAC supporting him, Making the Right Call for Florida.

PACs for these races haven't bought ads yet but it's possible they will. Since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2010, PACs can accept unlimited contributions from companies and often have the ability to buy more expensive items like television ads that candidates can't afford themselves.

Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, who is running for re-election to the state Senate, spent nearly $25,000 on ads in June. Attempts to reach her for comment were unsuccessful.

Beruff, a businessman running for Sen. Marco Rubio's seat, spent about $100,000 on ads in the area in June. Beruff is likely advertising all over the state but could be attracted to the Republican-heavy voter base in Naples and Fort Myers, said Frank Terrafirma, a Tallahassee-based political consultant.

"Even though (Naples and Fort Myers) might not be the biggest media markets in Florida, certainly in terms of registered Republicans, you are getting a bigger bang for your buck," Terrafirma said.

Ad spending for elections nationwide is expected to reach $11 billion this year, up from $8 billion four years ago, Cassino said.

Swing states like Florida will be targeted not only by Clinton and Trump, but also by everyone else who has to either align or differentiate themselves from those candidates, Cassino said. Candidates running in Republican-heavy areas like Fort Myers and Naples won't be insulated from the swing-state spillover effect, he said.

However, Cassino said television ads won't be as effective this year as they have been in the past.

"Will the guy who spent the most have won the election? Normally, that's the case," he said. "This is a year when a lot of things that were thought to be standard procedure are being questioned."

Television ads have actually decreased slightly compared to four years ago, but no one has noticed because overall ad spending is up, Cassino said.

Digital ads have increased tenfold, which he attributes to campaigns catering to a growing millennial voter base, a group that is less interested in television than previous generations.

But for now, "TV is still king of advertising," Terrafirma said. "It's the fastest way to move numbers (of voters) and stuff like that."
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The state board overseeing wildlife policies made the right decision this week not to hold another black bear hunt in Florida this year.

The 4-3 decision by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission postpones the next hunt until at least 2017. The vote should start the clock ticking on whether the state can take additional meaningful steps to control bear-human conflicts.

To us, the issue remains bears crossing paths with humans when the creatures go searching for food in neighborhoods. A deep woods hunt remote from where people live doesn't solve that.

An October 2015 black bear hunt, Florida's first in more than two decades, was beset with enforcement and regulatory problems, fueling public backlash against an already unpopular idea of hunting the shy, ambling iconic creatures.

Laws calling for bear-resistant garbage containers in rural areas have been passed elsewhere, not only in other states but in Lake County near Ocala National Forest.

If Florida laws or county ordinances in bear-inhabited regions aren't strengthened in the coming 12 months and educational outreach initiatives aren't significantly intensified, considering a hunt again in a year remains pointless.
SHARE Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi after visiting with first responders at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office that assisted the public during Tropical Storm Colin Tuesday, June 7, 2016, in Tampa, Fla. Colin made landfall overnight in the panhandle dumping heavy rain on the state. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi

As Tropical Storm Colin churned toward Florida, Attorney General Pam Bondi activated her price-gouging hotline for residents who might get ripped off for emergency supplies and repairs.

"Uh-oh, you know what that means," joked one wag at the state Emergency Operations Center. "Those price-gougers better make sure they've contributed to Bondi's campaign committee!"

Since Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, and Bondi endorsed him, she has become more of a laughingstock than usual around the Capitol. But it's not funny: There is renewed attention to Bondi's acceptance of a $25,000 contribution from Trump  her solicitation of that check  while her office was pondering whether to join a New York lawsuit against Trump University.

A few days later, Bondi's office decided not to pursue a case against the now-defunct real estate school. That case has gained heat with Trump's remarks that a federal judge whose parents immigrated from Mexico won't give him a fair hearing.

Bondi asked Trump for the donation before nixing the fraud case

There is no proof of a quid pro quo between Bondi and Trump, at least not by the legal definition of bribery. Florida's campaign-finance laws almost require little brown bags of worn, nonsequential bills to change hands in front of witnesses before corruption may be implied; so, legally, Trump's donation in 2013 and Bondi's decision not to sue him might be just coincidental.

If Trump hadn't run for president, or if the fraud allegations made by other states had been settled years ago, nobody would be talking about this now. But Bondi's initial stonewalling, followed by an explanation that didn't really explain anything, has attracted attention from the national media.

It doesn't help that Trump has sometimes bragged that he has, for decades, bought politicians. It sounds like something out of "The Godfather"  he does them favors, in the form of cash, then calls in his IOUs whenever he wishes.

With typically Trumpian class and dignity, the GOP's presumptive nominee even likened the arrangement to giving money to public officials who kiss his cheeks  and not the orange-hued ones we see on TV every day.

Nor can we dismiss this as a one-time mistake, given Bondi's record.

Early in her first term, she ousted a couple of Broward County staffers who pursued a consumer complaint she wanted deep-sixed. Then she postponed an execution because of a fundraising reception for her re-election campaign. She fought same-sex marriage and Obamacare, running up hundreds of thousands in legal bills, and she is part of a Republican administration that has squandered public money trying to purge voter-registration rolls, drug-test welfare recipients and state employees, and fight medicinal marijuana and fair-districting referendums.

Defending Florida laws is part of an attorney general's job. But there comes a point when lawyers tell clients to cut their losses.

 The Tallahassee Democrat editorial board. The Tallahassee Democrat, like the Naples Daily News, is part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
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Some Republican leaders urged Florida's U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio to run for re-election on the basis the seat is crucial for majority control of the Senate, including sway over important Supreme Court appointments.

It's not up to GOP leadership, of course, to determine if the onetime darling of the party is damaged goods to Florida voters and whether the decision will backfire, as we believe it could.

For starters, Republicans are 36 percent of the registered voters in Florida, according to state election statistics as of June 1. Democrats are 38 percent and those with no party affiliation or from a minor party constitute 26 percent. In other words, nearly two-thirds of those who can decide the Senate seat Nov. 8 aren't Republicans.

There's no guarantee Rubio will emerge from the Aug. 30 primary, however, and we already see signs of a campaign at risk of a down-spiral as quickly as it started.

Florida has a recent track record of choosing outsiders over the politically entrenched. With a resume of serving in the Florida Legislature and U.S. Senate, Rubio can't claim outsider status. Rubio received 27 percent of the GOP vote in the March presidential primary. He was trounced by businessman Donald Trump, who received 46 percent.

Within a day of Rubio's announcement this week, the quintessential GOP outsider in Florida  Gov. Rick Scott of Naples  backed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carlos Beruff, a Bradenton homebuilder who was born in Miami to Cuban refugee parents. It's a reminder Rubio also must overcome the immigration reform measures he proposed in 2013 as part of the Gang of Eight, an initiative soon forsaken.

We have to presume Scott, who won election in 2010 and 2014 against political insiders from Bill McCollum to Alex Sink to Charlie Crist, also would have backed his own Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

Based on Rubio's vow not to seek re-election, Lopez-Cantera spent a year running for U.S. Senate. He was gracious in bowing out Wednesday in a statement supporting Rubio and urging Beruff "to do what is right and unite behind Marco's re-election." Scott's backing Thursday of Beruff leaves a splintered 36 percent in Florida.

As the fall ballot gets formalized this week, sadly Rubio repeatedly refused to commit to serving a full Senate term if he wins. That will resonate with many Floridians because of his record of missing Senate votes while campaigning for president this year. It creates a cloud over whether he'd leave early to run for president in 2020. His lukewarm backing of Trump  on the basis he's a better choice than Hillary Clinton  after their harsh words in the primary rings hollow.

To his credit, Rubio readily admits he changed his mind to run when he had said he wouldn't. He now won't promise to stay six years. That's not promising for the GOP.
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Janice Drummond, Marco Island

Don't let them in

I am sick of the baloney issued daily from the White House.

Here's a whopper directly from President Obama: to those who want to halt his reckless, even dangerous Syrian refugee "resettlement" program, Obama sticks his nose in the air and solemnly intones, "That's not who we are."

We can't stop anyone who wants to come here, he says. Can't be done because, after all, this is America and if someone wants to come, by God, we are obliged to let them in.

That's not so.

In 2011, the U.S. State Department halted processing of Iraq refugee requests for six months because the FBI discovered several dozen terrorists from Iraq had arrived in the U.S. via the refugee program. The refugee program was a convenient cover for terrorists then and will be again, and our president is lying to serve the interests, not of American citizens, but foreigners immigrating here from hotbeds of terrorism.
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Gary Lefebvre, Naples

Orlando tragedy

The fact that Omar Mateen, the shooter, was not arrested prior to the Orlando shooting isn't so much about an FBI failure as it is about Barack Obama's Islamicphobia.

This is clearly reflected in his administration's policies, which set the bar so high for prosecuting Islamists that the FBI took no further action. There are three examples of people on the radar  Major Nidal Hasan, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and now Mateen, who were looked at, then dismissed.

This hypersensitivity toward Muslims is similar to that harbored by President Bill Clinton. In 1999, his administration denied a request by an FBI agent to open a case file on Saudi nationals who were taking flight lessons. The agent was informed by a flight supervisor that he thought it curious the Saudis were learning to fly heavy commercial aircraft, but showed no interest in mastering takeoffs or landings.

Some time later, it would become apparent why.

It was mentioned that because Mateen was not involved with a terrorist network, he is a lone wolf or self-radicalized. That is really misleading. Each of the thousands of Islamist terrorist acts throughout out the world is unified by their allegiance to Islam. The number of Islamist terror attacks, foreign and domestic since Obama took office, has increased tenfold.

Obama has stated that Islam is a religion of peace, and many, perhaps most, Muslims are people who want to live and raise their families in peace. But there is something that worries me about these incidents: Where is the national condemnation for these attacks from American Muslim leaders?
Ocwen Financial Corp. has agreed to a $30 million settlement in two lawsuits alleging that the West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company violated the False Claims Act.

Under the settlement, Ocwen will pay $15 million to the federal government and $15 million to cover the attorneys' fees and costs incurred by the private citizens who brought forth the case, the company noted in a regulatory filing Wednesday. The settlement is subject to final approval by the government, and the trial set to begin June 27 for the case has been adjourned pending this approval.

Additionally, Ocwen will not admit any liability or wrongdoing as part of the settlement. U.S. Justice Department approval may take between 30 and 60 days, Compass Point Research and Trading analyst Fred Small wrote in an investors note released Thursday citing the proposed order.

"Ocwen agreed to the settlement, notwithstanding its belief that it has sound legal and factual defenses, in order to avoid the uncertain outcome of two trials and the additional expense and management time involved," the company said in its filing. "There can be no assurance that the settlement in principle will be finalized and approved by the United States and the Court. In the event the settlement in principle is not ultimately finalized and approved, the Fisher Cases would continue and we would vigorously defend the allegations made against Ocwen."

Ocwen also said that it planned the $30 million charge associated with the settlement because the company believes "this amount is both probable and reasonably estimable based on current information."

If approval is received, Ocwen will be able to put one of its most major legal hurdles behind it. The lawsuits, also referred to as the Fisher Cases, allege that the company provided false information in connection with its participation in the U.S. Treasury's HAMP and FHA insurance programs.

The plaintiffs sought damages that equated to three times the total HAMP incentive and FHA insurance payments Ocwen received for serviced loans and statutory penalties between $5,500 and $11,000 per false claim.

"While other legal and regulatory costs and challenges remain for Ocwen, and we don't expect profitability for several quarters, the FCA suits represented one of the largest potential monetary fines for the company," Small said in his note.

In May, the Justice Department sued Guild Mortgage over False Claims Act violations. And earlier this year, Wells Fargo agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement in its own fight with the FHA over alleged False Claims Act violations.
Fannie Mae has delayed the rollout of its new automated underwriting system that will require mortgage lenders to use trended data for the first time in submitting their loans for approval.

The Desktop Underwriter 10.0 was slated to go live June 25. But after problems arose during the testing phase, Fannie decided to push the date back until the last week of September.

"We encountered difficulties when our DU 10.0 testing environment became unstable and we had to shut it down for diagnostics and repairs," a Fannie Mae spokeswoman said Thursday in response to an inquiry.

Trended data provides 24 months of actual scheduled payments and balance data for each trade line  mortgage, credit card, utilities, etc. It is a massive amount of data compared to the current credit report, which includes a FICO score and tells the lender how many times a borrower has missed a payment in the last 12 to 24 months.

"We also heard feedback that some of our customers could use a little more time for this implementation. So we decided to postpone the release," the Fannie spokesman said. "But the delay was more a result of the difficulties we encountered in the testing environment."

Fannie announced the delay late Tuesday. It said it will now launch the program on Sept. 24.
European Film Schools

This section presents some of the most prestigious cinema schools and universities in Europe. This interactive tool is intended to exchange information, learn the latest news, view students works and promote the institutions curricula.

If you represent a film school and want to be included in this section, please contact us here.
In a keynote speech at the Portuguese Parliament on Thursday (23 June 2016), NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow addressed key objectives for the Warsaw Summit, NATOs response to current security challenges and the significance the Alliance attaches to maritime security.

Ambassador Vershbow underlined Portugals unique and long-standing contribution to the Alliance and the transatlantic bond. He noted that Portuguese soldiers have served under the NATO flag in Afghanistan, Portuguese sailors have led NATOs Standing Maritime Group, and Portuguese F-16 pilots contribute to NATOs Baltic Air Policing, helping to keep Allied borders secure.

Addressing NATOs adaptation to current security challenges, Ambassador Vershbow stressed that the Alliances maritime capabilities are essential. Mr. Vershbow stressed that Portugal has played an important role in NATOs anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, helping preserve and protect freedom of navigation. He added that the Alliance will refine its presence in the Baltic and Black Sea and explore a greater maritime role in the Mediterranean Sea, including in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia.

Ambassador Vershbow also outlined three key objectives of the Warsaw Summit in July: enhancing NATOs collective defence and deterrence, projecting stability beyond the Alliances borders and expanding cooperation with the European Union. He noted that there is an opportunity for the Alliance to support partners maritime capabilities. Our support can enhance partners maritime interdiction operations, their counter-terrorism efforts and their ability to provide humanitarian assistance, he said. Mr. Vershbow added that the Warsaw Summit will guide the Alliances future direction, ensuring that NATO remains an essential source of stability in an uncertain and unpredictable world.

During his visit to Lisbon, Ambassador Vershbow met with senior defence officials and with parliamentarians, including the Chairman of the National Defence Committee of Portugals Parliament, Marco Antonio Costa.
During his visit to the Czech Republic (19 to 22 June), the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Pavel met with General Becvar, Czech Chief of Defence, Mr. Landovsky, Czech Deputy Minister of Defence, Brigadier General Kase, Chief of the Military Office of the Czech President and Cardinal Monseigneur Duka, the Archbishop of Prague. General Pavel was a guest-lecturer at the Charles University in Prague and the University of Defence in Brno.

After an official welcome ceremony at the Czech General Staff, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Petr Pavel met with General Josef Becvar, Czech Chief of Defence to discuss NATO plans for Deterrence and Defence ahead of the Warsaw Summit in July. At the press conference that followed the meeting, General Pavel highlighted the role the Czech Republic plays in strengthening NATO security, in leading cooperation in key areas such as logistics and in developing the right tools to counter chemical, biological and nuclear threats. These efforts help keep NATO safe, as we adapt to meet the security challenges that we face from the east and the south.

While in Prague, General Pavel also met with Mr. Jakub Landovsky, Czech Deputy Minister of Defence, Lieutenant General Jiri Baloun, Deputy Chief of Czech General Staff and Brigadier General Jan Kase, Chief of the Military Office of the Czech President. During his meeting with Deputy Minister Landovsky, General Pavel commended the Czech Republic for recent efforts to reach the 2% Defence Spending Pledge made at the Wales Summit and emphasized that in Warsaw, Nations would be asked to recommit to this Pledge as there is a need to redouble efforts in order to face all challenges, and NATO cannot do more with less indefinitely.

This visit was also an opportunity for the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee to address students at the Charles University in Prague and at the University of Defence in Brno on NATO towards Warsaw and beyond. General Pavel shared his views on the challenges of today security environment, NATOs progress on Defence and Deterrence, and the expected outcomes of the Warsaw Summit.

This three-day visit concluded with a tour of the Battle Field of Slavkov also known as the battle of Austerlitz or the battle of the Three Emperors. This battle took place in 1805 and is considered to be one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars.
Your refrigerator may be spying on you

The U.S. Navy wants YOU (to get a microchip implant)!
Revolving-door politics has caused a regulatory breakdown

(NaturalNews) In accordance with the Obama administration's Presidential Memorandum on Pollinators, states all across the country are developing so-called Pollinator Protection Plans (PPPs) to help safeguard bees, bats, butterflies, and other essential pollinators from being wiped out by noxious pesticides. But a new report by Friends of the Earth (FoE) reveals that these state-level initiatives are actually turning out in favor of pesticide companies and their applicators rather than bee farmers and their honeybees, to the detriment of our food supply.In lieu of supporting strong federal regulations to help actively reverse the decline of precious pollinator species, many of which are now on the extinction list, the Obama administration has instead tasked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with pushing states to handle the problem themselves by developing PPPs. It sounds nice in theory, but the PPPs that have been developed thus far leave much to be desired when it comes to actually protecting bees against harm.According to the FoE report, the pesticide industry continues to manipulate the regulatory process, using its immense power and influence to weaken what would otherwise evolve into strict rules governing the use of pesticides that harm bee populations. Instead, what we're seeing are gaping regulatory holes that allow pesticide companies to continue spreading their poisons with blessings from the state.Meanwhile, the EPA has recoiled from its mission of being "committed ... to protecting bees and reversing bee loss" as it continues to allow dangerous neonicotinoid pesticides -- "neonics," as they are often called, are a leading cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- to be sold commercially, as well as used in and near crop fields frequented by the very pollinators necessary for this acreage to produce yields."Bees and other pollinators are essential to our food system and environment -- responsible for pollinating 80 percent of all flowering plants and one in three bites of the food we eat," explains FoE. "[T]he pesticide industry's multilayered public relations and lobbying campaigns have effectively clipped the wings of pollinator protection reforms -- placing industry profits above the interests of the public, food security and our environmental future."Sadly, it's all just a product of the same corrupt, revolving-door politics that we see over and over again in Washington. Chemical industry executives work their way into key regulatory positions, only to dilute the legislative process and corrupt its intent in order to protect industry profits. We also see it in the areas of science and academia , where the well-funded interests of Big Biotech are put before public and environmental interests.In essence, the FoE report blows the lid on this pesticide industry corruption, showing how large chemical companies like Monsanto, Bayer, and Syngenta are throwing everything they have except the kitchen sink at protecting their products from regulatory scrutiny. The result, of course, is a weakening of the pesticide reform process, all at the expense of our precious pollinators on whose lives we depend for our own sustenance and life."Pesticide companies are successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of our policymakers, which has resulted in a patchwork of initiatives by our state and federal government that do little to curb or restrict pesticides," says Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner with FoE."Our government is giving more weight to the pesticide industry than to protecting bees, beekeepers, our food supply and environment," she adds. "It is critical for policymakers to stand up for the long-term health of our food system, not the short-term profits of companies that manufacture a leading cause of bee declines."
Millions of Nigerians reject GM foods but will be force fed them anyway



Concerns over Antibiotic Resistant Marker Gene and plants that produce GM toxins

The corruption is evident

(NaturalNews) Soon, Nigerian farmers will no longer own their own seed or control the destiny of their own agriculture. Soon, they will have to get permission to use Monsanto's genetically modified seeds , year after year. Carcinogenic herbicide use will be required, because Monsanto's seeds are engineered specifically to resist their own blockbuster herbicide, glyphosate.The infiltration of Monsanto into Nigeria has begun. The Nigeria regulatory body for biotechnology, The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), has approved two permits allowing Monsanto to takeover Nigeria's seed market without safety tests. GMO cotton and GMO maize, which are engineered to produce the infamous Bt toxin, will now be unleashed into Nigerian agriculture. The permits give the untested GMO seeds authorization for commercial release and market placement. The permits were issued on a holiday by NBMA director general, Rufus Ebegba.NBMA director general, Rufus Ebegba spoke highly about the GM seeds and ridiculed skeptics of GM crops as "anti-science." It's almost as if he was taking a line right out of Monsanto's PR playbook."The controversy surrounding the food and feeds are quite germane. However, suffice it to say that [to] date there is no reliable evidence that GM crops pose any health risk whatsoever. Recent FAO, World Health Organization (WHO) and other credible authorities attest to this. The public should therefore trust the agency's decisions and avoid unscientific information and acts capable of causing public distrust and panic."Ebegba ignored the concerns of the Minister of State for the Environment, Ibrahim Jibril. He completely ignored at least 100 organizations that are concerned about the dangers posed by unleashing genetically engineered products into the food supply. Nigeria would not mortgage the safety of its citizens by introducing unproven products into the country," said Environmental Minister Ibrahim Jibril, whose words now ring hollow as Monsanto's GM seeds go untested, straight into the marketplace. Jibril is backed by at least 100 organizations representing five million Nigerians who condemn the GMO takeover of the country's agriculture.Farmers, faith based organizations, students, civil society groups and local community groups are all speaking out against Monsanto's brand of chemical agriculture, expressing concerns for human health and environmental risks of genetically modified crops. They are aware that glyphosate has been declared a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).Nnimmo Bassey, director of the, said, "Those GMO promoters are concerned with ensuring the profit of biotech entrepreneurs rather than the health and environmental concerns of Nigerians."Nigeria'shas published the group's objection to Monsanto's recent permits: They object to Monsanto's genes cry2Ab2 and cry1Ac, which produce Bt toxins within the plant, while showing no history of safe use in nature. Nigerians are also concerned about the insertion of the Antibiotic Resistant Marker Gene (ARMG) because it has the potential to transfer antibiotic resistance to other living organisms. The European Food Safety Authority is widely skeptical of this gene already and that's why these GM plants are limited to field trials and not given permission to be placed on the market.Pointing out the corruption, Bassey declared, "A case in point is that NABDA, a member of the Board of NBMA, is a co-sponsor with Monsanto of the application for the field trials of the GMO maize. We are also appalled that an agency saddled with defending Nigeria's biodiversity is actively promoting these risky technologies.""Little wonder officials of NBMA, National Biotech Development Agency (NABDA) and their pro-GMO train have been fighting tooth and nail to fool Nigerians by claiming that GMOs are safe! They approved the poorly concocted applications and issued these permits on a Sunday when government offices do not open. In fact, 2nd May was also a public holiday."
Brazil's track record with pesticides and GMOs is very poor

How to minimize pesticide exposure

(NaturalNews) Pesticide exposure is a very real problem around the world, but nowhere is it felt more strongly than in Brazil. In a lecture at the Health Movement Forum last week, Brazilian Association of Collective Health Researcher Karen Friedrich announced that approximately 70 percent of the food that Brazilians eat has been contaminated by agrochemicals.Friedrich revealed that Brazilians actually consume almost 7.5 liters of agropesticides each year, which means they have the dubious honor of having the highest per capita rate of agropesticide consumption in the world.To add insult to injury, she pointed out that at least a third of these agrochemicals are banned in the U.S. and the European Union because of their health and environmental impacts.Scientist Leonardo Melgarejo expressed concern that Brazilian lawamkers are overly influenced by powerful agricultural lobbying groups and have been undermining efforts to rein in the use of these toxic chemicals.In fact, the country's congress is reviewing a bill that replaces the word "pesticide" on packaging with the euphemism "plant health protection". Melgarejo feels this would only heighten the risks of these chemicals.Apparently the lawmakers are unconcerned by the fact that the World Health Organization released a report stating that glyphosate, which is commonly found in pesticides and herbicides, is a probably carcinogen. That key piece of information should have led them to make the terminology on these labels stronger, not softer.The Brazilian Health Ministry first started keeping records in 2007. In that year, the reported number of human pesticide intoxication cases was 2,178. By 2013, the number had more than doubled to 4,537. The annual number of fatalities from pesticide poisoning rose during the same time from 132 to 206. It is believed that these figures could actually be much higher because tracking is not very thorough.Friedrich said: "The cases of contamination are not well documented, but they affect a large portion of the population, generating reproductive changes, birth defects and effects on the immune system."After an analysis of 1,665 samples in 2014, the Brazilian health agency ANVISA discovered that 29 percent showed residues that were in excess of the permitted levels or contained chemicals that were unapproved. Some of the foods studied included apples, peppers, and rice.None of this should come as much of a surprise in a country where a former Monsanto lawyer regulates the flow of GMOs. His advice enabled the approval of GM maize despite strong opposition and Monsanto's inability to prove that it was safe for human consumption.Last year, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to demand President Dilma Rousseff's dismissal on the grounds of corruption. While her implication in a kickback scheme that involved the state-run oil company Petrobras was the straw that broke the camel's back, ill will had been building for quite some time over the general corruption taking place at all levels of the Brazilian government. It appears the Brazilian government can be bought, and Big Ag has very deep pockets.Unfortunately, this problem is not limited to Brazil. Governments around the world have varying levels of tolerance when it comes to pesticides, and avoiding them completely can be an extremely difficult task no matter where you live.If the government cannot be trusted to protect you from dangerous substances, what can you do to try to minimize the damage from pesticide exposure, particularly if growing your own food is not an option?All fruits and vegetables should be washed thoroughly before consumption. A simple spray can be created by combining a cup of water with a tablespoon each of lemon juice and white vinegar in a spray bottle. The solution should be sprayed on the produce and then allowed to sit for around ten minutes before being washed off to rinse away the residue. Activated charcoal, meanwhile, can be taken to help flush toxins out of the body If you think you're out of the woods because you live in the U.S., the book Food Forensics might change your mind. While some of the chemicals used in Brazil are banned here, plenty of other toxic substances are not. In the book, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger , tests hundreds of different foods and reveals the shocking amounts of pesticides and other dangerous ingredients they contain.
Man and woman's unique gender anatomy and reproductive abilities are being suppressed

Fetal health drastically altered in the presence of hormone-disrupting BPA

California's Prop 65 calls for BPA labeling

Environmental Working Group lists many dirty commercial products containing nasty BPA

BPA is just the beginning of hormone disrupting health woes

(NaturalNews) As our fake plastic society progresses into the synthetic future, we are witnessing a perpetual dumbing down of the male leader and his brazen path into the future. Through media messages and herd mentality norms, the strength and character of a man is punished and the traditional family structure is ridiculed, as some tyrannical version of "equality" is thrust upon us. Man's compassionate companion has left his side, in search of collectivism and utter communistic lies.The messages weakening him not only play through the media, but they are also relayed as chemical messages in his blood. Everywhere he goes, he is inundated with hormone disrupting chemicals, xenoestrogens, BPA, and plasticizers that inhibit his testosterone, drive, and will to lead. The dumbing down and emasculation of the free American male is happening on a biological level, within his own body. Exposure to phthalates, bisphenols, and herbicides are negatively affecting his endocrine system, changing his hormonal structure, sending conflicting messages to his brain.Today's man is literally being engineered to be weak, to be dependent - to be compliant. Plasticizers, pesticides, and heavy metals are pervasive in the foods we eat, in the products lathered on the body, and in the artificial scents filling our lungs. As the chemicals enter man's bloodstream, his hormones are being altered and the natural function of his endocrine system suppressed. His sperm count is falling and his ability to reproduce and provide for a future family is being diminished.Similarly, a woman's ovaries (part of her endocrine system) are being suppressed. The very purpose of her anatomy and womanhood is being altered by chemicals she absorbs, eats, and breathes. Products such as BPA are considered toxic to the female reproductive system, but they are commonly manufactured as epoxies in can linings and in many different types of plastic containers and food and beverage containers. Some products claim to be BPA-free, but they contain similar bisphenols that disrupt hormones.From the day fetuses are conceived, they are constant being inundated with chemicals like BPA, which can affect brain development and endocrine system health. In 2010, the FDA admitted that BPA can change the behavior of young children. As the food and beverage industry removes BPA from baby bottles and infant formula containers, the FDA still stands by its overall message that BPA levels are safe at the level they are consumed in foods and beverages.The Grocery Manufacturers Association plays dumb about BPA too, stating in a press release that "Scientists and regulatory agencies in the U.S. and across the world have concluded that BPA is safe for use in food packaging."California's prop 65 is now calling for BPA to be labeled, which is a start. By 2017, the state is expected to require individual labels on all product containing BPA. Sam Delson of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said, "On the one hand, we applaud companies that are seeking BPA alternatives, but we don't know what they're going to replace it with, and replacement chemicals can also have health concerns that haven't been fully documented."The Environmental Working Group (the good guys) have provided a searchable database that includes a long list of products containing BPA. According to an analysis they did in 2014, BPA is used in the packaging of a third of the food and beverage brands currently on the market. Whether its Coca-Cola products, Pace chunky salsa, kosher dill pickles, or Chicken of the Sea tuna, BPA is there and it's leeching into the products, getting into people's bodies, and affecting their hormones and reproductive abilities."It's in baking decorating sprays, aerosol cans, beer kegs  it's all over the place," said Samara Geller, one of the authors of the Environmental Working Group's BPA report."We would prefer if this stuff were labeled on the can or on the package directly, as opposed to having to dig around in a database to find products that contain female reproductive toxins," she said.BPA is just one of many hormone-disrupting chemicals that are weakening man and suppressing the reproductive abilities of women, leading to wide scale infertility problems among the population.Atrazine, a popular herbicide, has been shown to change the gender anatomy and mating behaviors of frogs. Phthalates are also dangerous because they mimic hormones; they can be found in all sorts of artificial fragrances and toxic commercial body care products. Learn more about various hormone-disrupting chemicals assaulting your natural hormonal anatomy on this report
Cash rate closer to what healthcare would actually cost if insurance didn't exist

True free-market healthcare: the answer to outrageous pricing schemes

(NaturalNews) Shellshocked by those astronomical Obamacare premiums? You might want to consider just ditching the failed health insurance "tax" altogether and paying cash for medical services on an as-needed basis because, truth be told, you'll end up shelling out far less money in the long run.This was the recent experience of a California woman named Caroline who, after receiving a hefty bill for a few simple blood tests, petitioned the hospital where the blood was drawn for answers. What she came to learn is that there's essentially two pricing tiers for medical services: the insurance rate and the cash rate.Accustomed to just having her medical treatments billed to her insurance carrier, Blue Shield of California, Caroline was shocked to learn that the $269.42 she was responsible for paying out of pocket for the five blood tests she received -- this out of $408 total, the rest of which was covered by her insurance -- was nearlythan the total cost would have been if she had just paid in cash, insurance aside.So instead of the blood tests costing about $80 each at the insurance rate, they would have cost only about $15 dollars each, or aboutthe cost, at the cash rate -- a substantial savings."I was completely surprised," she told the. "The woman I spoke with in billing said that if I'd paid cash, the prices would have been much lower."This is especially true for common procedures like blood tests and imaging scans that are now widely available at a variety of medical clinics -- everything from large hospitals to local clinics, and in some cases even pharmacies and drop-in "minute" clinics.You can think of it as the "uninsured" rate, or the amount that such services would actually cost in the real world if we didn't have complex insurance pools, government-subsidized coverage plans, and other inherently wasteful programs that breed price-gouging.And Obamacare is only making matters worse by spiking many people's monthly premiums so dramatically that they're essentially being forced to seek out the lower cash rate. Some people are even ditching their plans entirely and just paying out of pocket rather than try to reach their ever-escalating deductible thresholds -- it's actually cheaper not to use one's government-mandated health insurance , in many cases!"This is one of the dirty little secrets of healthcare," Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, explained to the. "If your insurance has a high deductible, you should always ask for the cash price."The rationale seems to be that if an insurance company or the government is footing all or most of the bill anyway, then hospitals can charge whatever it wants for medical services. All of this gets thrown on its head, though, when real-life people are having to cover these costs directly."This just shows how screwed up the whole pricing system is," Glenn Melnick, a health economist at the University of Southern California (USC), added, making the case for a true, free-market healthcare system. "It absolutely makes sense to shop around for healthcare like you shop for everything else."In an ideal world, insurance companies would negotiate with hospitals and medical providers to get the best possible rates for policyholders. But so much has changed in recent years, especially with the government getting more involved in controlling the destiny of healthcare, that the gap between what medical services actually cost versus what patients are being asked to pay has only widened."Insurers aren't getting the best prices anymore," says Melnick. "Hospitals often charge whatever they want and have tremendous power over insurance plans."
Metastatic spread of colorectal cancer (CRC) to the peritoneal cavity is common and difficult to treat, with many patients dying from malignant bowel obstruction. Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) immunotherapy has shown great promise, and we previously reported murine and phase I clinical studies on regional intrahepatic CAR-T infusion for CRC liver metastases. We are now studying intraperitoneal (IP) delivery of CAR-Ts for peritoneal carcinomatosis. Regional IP infusion of CAR-T resulted in superior protection against carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA+) peritoneal tumors, when compared with systemically infused CAR-Ts. IP CAR-Ts also provided prolonged protection against IP tumor re-challenges and demonstrated an increase in effector memory phenotype over time. IP CAR-Ts provided protection against tumor growth at distant subcutaneous (SC) sites in association with increases in serum IFN levels. Given the challenges posed by immunoinhibitory pathways in solid tumors, we combined IP CAR-T treatment with suppressor cell targeting. High frequencies of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) and regulatory T cells (Treg) were found within the IP tumors, with MDSC expressing high levels of immunosuppressive PD-L1. Combinatorial IP CAR-T treatment with depleting antibodies against MDSC and Treg further improved efficacy against peritoneal metastases. Our data support further development of combinatorial IP CAR-T immunotherapy for peritoneal malignancies.
British astronaut Tim Peake discovered what causes the "world's worst hangover" and that's the journey from the International Space Station (ISS) back to Earth after spending six months in space. The homebound astronauts endured a three-hour flight inside a cramped space capsule, the bumpy re-entry conditions and of course, the rough landing in Kazakhstan on June 18.

Along with Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko arrived on Earth on June 18 aboard a parachuted Soyuz spacecraft. The trio spent 186 days in space.

A Russian recovery team on the landing site retrieved the astronauts. They were immediately transferred to reclining seats and flown to their respective bases. After their much-needed readjustment period, Tim Peake faced the media again to share their out-of-this-world experiences in a press conference. When asked if Peake would like to return to space, he was quoted saying he will "in a heartbeat."

Major Peake added that adjusting to the Earth's gravity is harder than he had expected and that the apparent change to his physical appearance is a shock to the British astronaut and former pilot. "It's a bit slower coming the other way, I can tell you, and it's a bit harder. You look at yourself and the mirror, and think 'wow.' I'm only 2kg off my launch weight. But It's really easy to see that your frame is different," ESA astronaut Tim Peake, said in a press conference.

But aside from that, he expressed his interest to be chosen for future space flights including ESA's upcoming lunar mission. He also shared that he was amazed at how fast the human body can adapt to new environments saying that he was able to function well within 24 hours on the ISS.

But spending six months in microgravity is expected to incur an unexpected effect to the human body.

"You're excited to be back, but you can't fully enjoy the experience because, to be quite frank, you feel pretty terrible," Peake said in an interview published by Science Alert. "It can only be described as something akin to the world's worst hangover in terms of the everything that is going on in your head," added Peake.

To help the astronauts recover from the now dubbed world's worst hangover, Peake specifically will undergo strict exercise regime and medical tests including MRI, blood tests and psychological evaluations. And as per his job as an astronaut, ESA said his work is far from over. His body, as well as the others that went home with him from the ISS, will provide crucial data in understanding how the human form adapts, survives and changes during long-duration space missions.
The Earth is moving constantly but is the big one coming? Reports say that "seismic strain" are happening around the San Andreas fault causing an alarm to many.

Scientists used computer imaging to show how a large part of California seems to be rising and sinking surrounding the San Andreas Fault. This is a result of seismic strain that can potentially cause a large Earthquake.

The San Andreas Fault is considered hazardous once it releases a huge earthquake because it extends to up to 800 miles in through California. Scientists have long been suggesting that the areas surrounding the fault are rising and sinking and are moving very slowly. Data supports the claim because the fault sits between two gigantic tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American, according to Los Angeles Times.

The two tectonic plates constantly grind against each other causing the earth to move. And after long years of research, scientists were finally able to produce an image to prove their point.

The said study was published in the journal of Nature Geoscience. The study suggests that Los Angeles Basin, Orange County, San Diego County and Bakersfield are sinking two to three millimeters each year while Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and a large part of San Bernardino are rising.

Although some movements from the fault can be predicted, the study says that the vertical motions caused by tectonic movements remain elusive. To aid the study, the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory's GPS to pinpoint the specific movement of the areas surrounding the fault.

"While the San Andreas GPS data has been publicly available for more than a decade, the vertical component of the measurements had largely been ignored in tectonic investigations because of difficulties in interpreting the noisy data. Using this technique, we were able to break down the noisy signals to isolate a simple vertical motion pattern that curiously straddled the San Andreas Fault," Samuel Howell from the University of Hawaii said in a statement published by TechTimes.

Because of this technology scientists were able to record the data for the first time paving the way for digital images to prove that the movements are indeed happening.

But geologists would not want to cause panic, as they are quick to say that although the movement was recorded, the shift is minimal at 1/8 inch each year. Not forgetting that other factors might also affect the rising and sinking citing that the changes in ground water underground can also be a factor in the changes.

Despite that, the San Andreas Fault remains monitored by 24/7 to quickly warn people of upcoming earthquakes. Geologists are hopeful that by understanding small-scale movements, they will be able to detect big ones in the future to save lives.
A single pistol shot ended the life of an Olympic jaguar.

After being paraded in chains at the Olympic ceremony held in Manaus, Brazil, a female Jaguar named Juma was shot dead.

According to the Army spokesperson, Juma escaped her handlers and tried to attack a soldier. Despite shooting the big cat with four tranquilizer darts, the wild animal was not pacified, leaving them with no choice but to fatally shoot it.

Jaguar at #Olympics ceremony shot & killed while trying to escape. She wanted to be free. https://t.co/EDLha6y3my  PETA (@peta) June 21, 2016

Jaguars, being known as solitary animals that hunt alone, are not compatible with big and rowdy crowds such as in the Olympics.

BBC conducted an interview with University of Brasilia animal behavior scientist Joao Paulo Castro who further emphasized that the jaguar should have not been there in the first place.

"It's neither healthy nor advisable to subject an animal to such a situation, with lots of noise and people," he told BBC.

"Often, jaguars already are stressed by being kept in captivity, that's only compounded when they're exposed to hubbub," he added.

Being a hunter and a predator, keeping jaguars in captivity will stress them out. As noted by Jaguar Defenders, they need large areas to survive and successfully reproduce.

In Brazil, jaguar is listed as threatened with extinction by IBAMA (The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) .

The local committee which allowed the use of Juma as a prop in the parade has apologized and promised to investigate the jaguar's death.

According to the NPR's translation, the message read:

"We were wrong to allow the Olympic torch, a symbol of peace and unity among peoples, to be displayed next to a chained wild animal... This scene is contrary to our beliefs and values... We guarantee that we will not see more situations like this in the Rio 2016 Games."

Still, activists are condemning the use of a wild animal in such situation. Videos posted on social media sites show the jaguar chained down between two soldiers during Monday's ceremony.
A group of men walking around in high heels is usually cause for a good giggle. But the annual Walk A Mile in Her Shoes event in San Jose on Wednesday had a much deeper purpose.

The event raises awareness for sexual assault prevention and benefits YWCA Silicon Valley. On Wednesday evening, more than 250 participants raised around $68,000 while strolling around Santana Row in their favorite high heel shoes. Organizers say the money will help more than 1,100 sexual assault survivors over the next year.

Some in attendance say the event is even more necessary this year, in the wake of the recent sexual assault conviction and controversial sentencing of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner.

Bill MacLean of Los Gatos, walked the course holding up a sign. On it was the letter written by the victim to the judge in the Turner case.

"It's just so fresh in everyone's mind, yeah I printed up some of the choice words that she said, and I think they're important to have out here," MacLean said.

The annual event came hours after Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen sponsored new legislation on sexual assault sentencing.

Current state law allows a defendant convicted of sexual assault on an unconscious victim to be eligible for probation. Rosen said the proposed law would change that and require a state prison sentence regardless of the victim's awareness of the act.

"This means that a judge can't look at relative youth, nominal criminal history and means  characteristics shared by many college students  as mitigating factors and give probation," Rosen said.

He said the bill would make the sentence for sexual assault on an unconscious victim the same as for a conscious victim: three to eight years in prison.

"Sexually assaulting an unconscious woman is as serious as sexually assaulting a conscious person," Rosen said. "There should be no distinction between those because rape is rape. The trauma to the victim, whether conscious or unconscious, is often life-long."

Deputy Public Defender Sajid Khan, however, is opposed to increasing the minimum sentencing for all sexual predators. He counted himself among more than a dozen public defenders who are concerned that stricter sentencing guidelines will lead to mass incarceration.

"Were limiting judicial discretion and their ability to take into account individualized circumstances into sentencing," Khan said. "We want a more holistic analysis of each case."

At the event Wednesday, YWCA Silicon Valley CEO Tanis Crosby said the proposed law was "heartening."

"This could be the moment we look back 20 years from now and say this is the moment we made long-term change to respond to and prevent sexual assault," she said.

There will be a hearing on the proposed law next week in Sacramento.
Dunkin Donuts is finally in the Bay Area after almost 40 years.

The new store in Walnut Creek officially opened up at 5 a.m. Wednesday, with enthusiastic Bay Area doughnut-lovers lining up as early as 3:30 a.m. In the first 4 hours, 5,000 doughnuts were sold.

The most popular doughnut of the day was Boston Cream, according to company spokeswoman Amy Scarlett.

Dunkin Norcal posted a series of photos on Twitter almost an hour after the grand opening, thanking all "#BayArea fans" for checking out the store.

The East Coast doughnut chain confirmed to NBC Bay Area in February its latest plan to expand to California. The company opened the restaurant at 1250 Newell Ave. in Walnut Creek, Michelle King with Dunkin' Brands Global Public Relations said.

"The restaurant will be owned and operated by our franchisee, Golden Gate Restaurant Group LLC," King said. "We can't wait to serve guests in the Bay Area our brand's wide range of high-quality coffees, espresso beverages, sandwiches and baked goods."

The Walnut Creek shop is not the Bay Area's first Dunkin' Donuts, King confirmed. There used to be a Dunkin' Donuts restaurant at 3605 Union Ave. in San Jose (at Camden Avenue), which originally opened in November 1973. The company did not have the date of the store's closure.

The popular chain, which describes itself as "America's all-day, everyday stop for coffee and baked goods," had a small presence in California in the late 1990s and re-entered the market again with a location in Sacramento in August 2002. The locations closed because "the time wasnt right for the brand, and the infrastructure didnt exist to grow and expand in the state," King said.

As of January, there are 24 Dunkin' Donuts shops in California, including stores in San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties.
Two bicyclists were killed just hours apart in separate hit-and-run crashes late Wednesday in San Francisco, police said.

The first involved a woman riding her bike in Golden Gate Park who was struck and killed by a car. The woman was riding near 30th Avenue and John F. Kennedy Drive at about 6 p.m. when a white Honda Fit struck her, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

Witnesses said the vehicle was traveling about 50-60 mph when it crossed over into oncoming traffic to pass another vehicle and hit the bicycle head-on.

"I heard an impact, and I look and see the woman who had just passed us fly up, and I saw the bike fly the other direction," said Timmory Johnson.

Witnesses said the driver slowed momentarily after the impact then took off in a hurry.

The woman, in her 40s, was not responsive at the scene, despite the efforts of emergency crews to revive her. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The vehicle, which had paper dealership plates, was found a few blocks away with a shattered windshield. Police said at least two people were in the vehicle, and they are searching for a second vehicle that may lead them to the person or persons responsible.

While investigators were still at the scene of the Golden Gate Park crash, a second fatal hit-and-run collision was reported in the SOMA district near the intersection of Seventh and Howard streets around 8:30 p.m.

In that incident, a driver allegedly ran a red light before striking a woman  who was in her 20s and on a bicycle  and fleeing the scene. Officers were able to locate and apprehend the driver, police said.

Stephanie Chuang and Bay City News contributed to this report.
A male victim is hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot in Emeryville on Wednesday, police said.

The shooting was reported just after 5 p.m. in the area of 41st Street and San Pablo Avenue, near the Oakland border. Officers responding to the scene located the victim with gunshot wounds.

An investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Police say they are looking for two suspects and attempting to locate witnesses.

Suspect descriptions were not immediately available

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Emeryville Police Department at 510-596-3700.

Bay City News contributed to this report.
A San Francisco supervisor is calling for more fire safety information for structures around the city and is pushing for legislation after a massive fire last weekend in the Bernal Heights neighborhood.

Supervisor Katy Tang would like to make it a requirement to display fire safety information more prominently inside buildings. The five-alarm fire ripped through a two-story apartment building and displaced 58 residents. There were no major injuries and the cause of the blaze is being investigated.

Menawhile, Tang wants to put the onus on owners of buildings with more than three units to provide tenants with fire safety information.

"Ideally a map with symbols to show everyone in the building where things are such as emergency exits, where some of the fire extinguishers are, any information that would be helpful in the event of a fire," Tang said.

For building owners with 16 units or more, Tang is proposing a more expansive program.

"You would actually have a training that occurs every year with the tenant so that they will know how to be safe to prevent fires from occurring in the first place and then also how to react one," she said.

Residents seem to be on board with the proposal.

"It's good to hear that people are thinking about it and discussing whether or not to make it official because i know we live in a very regulatory city," said Natasha Litt. "But at the same time fire safety is important."

Tang was set to present the proposal to the San Francisco Fire Commission during its Wednesday night meeting. An official vote could come as early as next month.
The Navy said it has completed its investigation into how sailors ended up in Iranian custody in January. Senior military officials told NBC News that the investigation will recommend disciplinary action.

Ten U.S. sailors spent a night in Iranian custody after their two boats drifted into Tehran's territorial waters. The sailors were videotaped while detained and footage of one sailor appeared to show him apologizing to his Iranian captors.

Senior military officials said several things went wrong and some of the sailors made poor decisions that led to the embarrassing event. One official suggested "more than half" of the detained sailors will face disciplinary action.

"It was a calamity of errors," one U.S. military official said.
What was supposed to be a romantic Valentines get-away to Cancun took a nasty turn when Michael Talarico tried to get a $2,300 refund on two refundable American Airlines tickets.

Talarico found the tickets on the airlines website, put them on hold while he secured a hotel room, and then went back and clicked purchase. Thats when he noticed something odd:

"The seat had changed from refundable to non-refundable," Talarico said.

He was charged $400 less than first quoted. Additional money he told American hed like to pay to re-instate the refundable status. The airline agreed. Weeks later, he was glad he did.

"My wife found out her job wouldn't permit her to take the time off," Talarico recalled.

A sigh of relief quickly turned to disbelief when American balked at the refundable part, giving him back only the $400 differential.

After countless emails and faxes because American Airlines has no phone number to contact the refund department, Talarico told NBC 5 Responds. It was just like butting my head up against the wall."

When NBC 5 Responds contacted American Airlines, a spokesperson quickly agreed refundable means all of the refund. The airline apologized for what it called a clerical error, and sent Talarico the remaining $2,300.

"I probably would never accomplished it if it weren't for NBC 5 Responds," Talarico said.
Exactly one year after Coal City was struck by a damaging EF-3 tornado, severe storms and a Tornado Watch forced the village to cancel a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the damaging storm.

The village had planned to dedicate a plaque in Campbell Memorial Park Wednesday evening. But because of hazardous weather, including a Tornado Watch in Grundy County where the village is located, the ceremony was canceled Wednesday afternoon.

"The village of Coal City appreciates the well wishes of all those who have recalled what they did one year ago and the responses from all of those who leant their time, effort, and energy to offer support and help our community recover," the Coal City Police Department said in a release.

The tornado that hit Coal City on June 22, 2015, was the strongest the Chicago area had seen in nearly 25 years. The storm was a long-track twister that traveled for more than 16 miles before intensifying to the EF-3 tornado that hit Coal City.

The storm had winds that peaked at about 160 miles per hour, and was the strongest tornado to hit the area since the deadly Plainfield tornado on Aug. 28, 1990. There were no deaths, but village officials said approximately 800 homes were impacted by the storm.

One official called the damage "eerily close" to what the area also experienced in 2013. Cleanup costs associated with the 2015 tornado were approximately $13 million.
A 23-year-old man has been charged with shooting and paralyzing a 3-year-old boy in Chicago on Father's Day.

Desean Wynn, 23, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, felony aggravated discharge of a firearm and felony unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.

Wynn was arrested Tuesday in connection with the shooting, which happened around 6 p.m. Sunday in the 6100 block of South Kimbark on the city's South Side.

A 3-year-old boy was sitting in a car when someone in another vehicle fired shots, striking him, according to police.

The child's father identified the boy as Devon Quinn, told NBC 5 that he was in the car with his son at the time, about to pick up the boy's mother from work. The father said Devon was hit in the shoulder, at which point he drove to the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children's Hospital.

According to police, the boy was paralyzed in the shooting and listed in critical condition.

More than 50 other people were shot over Father's Day weekend in Chicago, 12 of them fatally.
A man has been arrested after a woman was stabbed to death on a Chicago Transit Authority Red Line train Thursday afternoon in what police believe to be a domestic violence incident.

Police said a 25-year-old woman was stabbed in the neck on a train just after 12:30 p.m. in the 200 block of West 47th Street and was pronounced dead at the scene. A man was arrested as officers arrived at the scene, according to Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

According to authorities, a man and a woman were arguing on one of the trains and as the train approached 47th Street, the man stabbed the woman.

"This is domestic in nature, we're sure of that," said Chicago Police First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante. "There were other witnesses on the train with them who saw the argument."

Frantic passengers called 911 just moments after the stabbing.

"I had my headphones on," said witness Andrea Patterson. "He asked the young lady a question, she said no, and he got up and started stabbing her. She fell to the floor and he slit her neck."

An officer was nearby when the calls were placed and took the man into custody just minutes later.

"The details of the relationship we're still working on," Escalante said. "But it is apparent to the witnesses that were present that this was a domestic disturbance. There was some talk about a child."

Police said CTA surveillance likely captured the incident.

The CTA said service was suspended between 35th and Garfield due to police activity. Trains later began moving but were not stopping at 47th Street and were sharing a single track.

The identities of the man and woman have not yet been released.
Residents in the town of Griswold have rejected a proposal to build a state police firearms training facility in town.

Residents voted Wednesday night not to support the plan to relocate the State of Connecticut shooting facility from Simsbury. The town voted 437 opposed, 63 in favor.

The vote is not a binding decision, but First Selectman Kevin Skulczyck says the residents' opinions have been made clear and that should dictate the actions the Board of Selectman take going forward.

I have a feeling we will put together a resolution that says we dont want this project in our community for the reasons rolling out he said.

State Police have been searching for a new training ground because their current one in Simsbury is prone to flooding and the cost of repairs is high.

The state has received similar opposition from residents in other towns scouted as possible locations for the range.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by casino developer MGM Resorts International challenging the constitutionality of a Connecticut law creating a process for a possible third casino along the Massachusetts border.

In a ruling released Thursday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson agreed with Connecticut officials that MGM did not "adequately allege an injury" from the new law and therefore does not have legal standing to sue.

MGM, which plans to open a $950 million casino in Springfield, Massachusetts, calls the ruling incorrect and says it will seek an expedited appeal.

Connecticut's Office of the Attorney General says it's prepared to defend the case against an appeal of the suit, which was originally filed in August 2015. The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is also challenging the casino law in a separate lawsuit being partly financed by MGM.
A Newtown mother who lost her daughter in the Sandy Hook massacre lent some help, in the form of food, to the Democratic House members who staged a 25-hour sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Nelba Marquez-Greene had pizza sent to the lawmakers, who stayed all night on the House floor demanding Speaker Paul Ryan call a vote on gun legislation.

Marquez-Greene's 6-year-old daughter, Ana, was one of 20 children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, in Connecticut. She has since become an outspoken proponent of stronger gun control.

"Ana, mom got pizza to these brave people. #Disarmhate #NoBillNoBreak @HouseDemocrats thank you @repjohnlewis," Marquez-Greene tweeted around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday.

Georgia Democrat John Lewis led the sit-it, which began at noon on Wednesday and ended around 1 p.m. on Thursday.

On each box of pizza was a note that read "To Congressman Lewis and the House Democrats: Love Wins!!! Love, Ana's Mom from Sandy Hook."
New York State Police are investigating a motorcycle crash in the Hudson River Valley that seriously injured a West Haven Police officer.

Officer Michael Doyle, 34, was part of a motorcycle training exercise at the time of the incident on Wednesday afternoon, according to West Haven police.

According to a New York State Police press release, Doyle swerved to avoid a merging vehicle and his motorcycle collided with another officer's motorcycle on the Taconic State Parkway in Putnam Valley, New York.

Officer Doyle was thrown from his motorcycle onto the pavement and suffered severe injuries, West Haven police said. He is an 8-year veteran of the West Haven Police Department.

"Thoughts and prayers go out to the officer and his family. It's a tragic accident," said West Haven Mayor Ed OBrien.

Authorities said a group of police motorcyclists from different law enforcement agencies were involved in the training exercise at the time. The officers were traveling south on the parkway when a vehicle entered from the Bryant Pond Road on-ramp and came into the officers' path, according to authorities.

Doyle was airlifted to Westchester Medical Center, police said.

The other officer and the driver of the car were not injured, according to New York State Police.

"What we're hoping in the next few hours is that the officer is okay, they are treating him in New York and he makes a speedy recovery," OBrien said.
NBC Connecticut Responds helped a Brooklyn, Conn. woman get a $1,699.26 reimbursement from Eversource after she realized she paid to power a public street lamp for 14 years.

Susan Strouse has driven past the lamp thousands of times, but never knew she was the one keeping the light on. After all, its located across the street, on town property.

I was shocked when I found this out, said Strouse.

She says her old electric supplier notified her of the charge back in May, as she switched providers. She called Eversource right away, and a representative confirmed the charge, asking Strouse if she requested a street lamp. She did notthe light was installed in the 1960s, before Strouse moved in.

Strouse then reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds and the states public utility regulators, PURA.

Together, we found Eversource started billing Strouse for the street lamp in 2002, after an audit revealed no one had paid for the lamps electricity since its installation.

Its likely the previous, now deceased homeowner requested the lamp and the former Connecticut Light & Power never initiated the payment.

Page two on Strouses statement shows a separate section regarding a lamp, followed by various rates and usage remarks. Had she taken a closer look, Strouse would see this charge adds more than 10 dollars to her bill every month.

I guess I should have [looked at that section], said Strouse. But even the way it was worded, it wouldnt have meant anything to me. I wouldve just thought it was some weird technical term they used.

A spokesperson for Eversource told NBC Connecticut they sent Strouse a letter explaining what she was paying for, but due to customer confidentiality, they could not elaborate further.

Strouse says she never received a letter.

I dont know if it was addressed to me, if it was mass-mailing, but if it was mass-mailing talking about paying for street lights, I wouldnt have thought it concerned me because its not on my property, said Strouse.

Eversource reimbursed Strouse shortly after PURA and NBC Connecticut Responds started asking questions.

The Town of Brooklyn hasnt yet decided what theyll do with the street lamp.

The Board of Selectmen will vote on whether they want to take over the payments for it or shut it off completely.
Bethel police arrested a woman they said was wildly swinging a machete during an argument.

Officers arrived at 263 Greenwood Avenue for a disturbance call around 2 a.m. on Sunday.

According to police, 47-year-old Maria Medina began arguing with and hitting a person before threatening to kill the person. She then grabbed a machete from a vehicle and began swinging it wildly, police said.

Medina used the machete to do damage to the vehicle, according to police.

Officers took Medina into custody and charged her with threatening, third-degree assault, criminal mischief and breach of peace.

She was held on $1,000 bond and faced a judge on Monday.
For the second time in a week, a trip to the beach has landed a Texas resident in the hospital with an apparent bacterial infection.

Earlier this week, a Houston man's leg was amputated after a trip to the beach in Galveston.

Now, a North Texas woman is in the hospital after going to McFaddin Beach in Port Arthur.

Both cases appear to be caused by bacteria in the water.

Melody Long, of Greenville, said she started feeling bad on her way home from a weekend fishing trip to Port Arthur.

She said her legs became red and swollen, and she had chills, a fever, a headache.

"I knew I was sick," she said.

Long, who is a nurse, checked into a McKinney hospital when the swelling became so bad she couldn't walk, and when her blood pressure began to drop.

Blood tests, she said, revealed she has bacteria in her bloodstream.

"It's going to be one of two bacteria," she said she was told by an infectious disease doctor. "Both of those bacteria are found in water."

Doctors should know more Thursday about which kind of bacteria she's battling.

But Long said it could be the same type that may have caused a Houston man to lose his leg this week.

"I had not heard anything about it," Long said.

Fortunately, Long should be back on her feet soon.

She hopes sharing her story makes other aware of the warning signs and dangers of waiting to get treatment.

"If I hadn't of known that and I'd have waited, I'd have waited a day, I don't think I'd be alive. And that's not being dramatic," Long said.

Long has a pre-existing condition that she says may have made her more susceptible to an infection.

The Texas General Land Office provides real-time updates on water quality along public beaches in Texas: https://cgis.glo.texas.gov/Beachwatch/.
In a divided vote Wednesday, Dallas city leaders approved a Dallas Zoo location for the city's second freeway deck park.

It will bridge the Interstate 35E R.L. Thornton Freeway between Ewing and Marsailis avenues in front of the zoo.

City Councilwoman Carolyn King Arnold, who represents the neighborhood around the zoo, requested a delay until August for more community input. Arnold attacked North Dallas Councilman Lee Kleinman, the leader of a City Council committee that endorsed the zoo location last month.

Kleinman spoke in favor of the zoo location again Wednesday.

"The neighborhood was engaged on a number of times," Kleinman said.

Arnold favors an Overton Road location where she believes the deck park is needed more.

"I am insulted to say the least, that you would sit here as a council member for District 11 and speak on behalf of District 4. I'm insulted. My community is insulted," Arnold said.

Councilman Rickey Callahan supported the delay and questioned the cost of the proposed park.

"I just question candidly the affordability of the thing," Callahan said. "It's too expensive, number one."

The zoo location would require more than $70 million than the city has available. The Overton Road location that Arnold prefers would cost less than the city has earmarked.

The delay was rejected and the zoo location approved by 9 to 6 votes.

Supporters believe the zoo deck park may spur development around it and become an attraction similar to the city's first deck park, Klyde Warren Park, over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway downtown.

City Councilman Scott Griggs represents an Oak Cliff district just west of the zoo. He said the deck park in that location has been a neighborhood goal for several years.

"We've got just the great privilege of taking this last half step," Griggs said. "This is a project that has been driven by the citizens of Dallas, climbing this impossible mountain to get to the top."

The Texas Department of Transportation requested a location decision from the city by September to plan for future construction of deck park supports in a reconstruction of I-35E R.L. Thornton Freeway, known as The Southern Gateway project. It will be years before the park is actually constructed.
Authorities said a South Texas man drowned while trying to rescue his 13-year-old daughter from the Llano River as they were fishing.

The Llano County Sheriff's Office said bystanders and city workers saved the girl during the accident Wednesday afternoon near Badu Park. A Llano city statement identified the man who died as 52-year-old Brian Holmberg of Victoria.

Officials believe the teen got caught in the river's swift current, then her father tried to help her. He was located in the water and transported to a hospital, where the father was pronounced dead.

Llano is 65 miles northwest of Austin.
A South Texas man has been arrested on a murder charge in the Christmas Eve 2012 fatal shooting of his wife in their San Antonio-area home.

Bexar County court records show 57-year-old Ramiro Campos was indicted Wednesday and arrested, with bond set at $75,000.

A statement Thursday from the sheriff's office says investigators originally thought Campos fatally shot his wife, Virginia, then tried to kill himself. Authorities later determined a relative shot Campos in response to the woman's slaying.

Sheriff's officials say the person who shot Campos has not been indicted. That person's name and further information on the relationship to the victim weren't released.

Online records don't list an attorney to speak for Campos, who recovered from being wounded.
Dallas police say a possible bomb threat Wednesday at Thanksgiving Tower in downtown Dallas was a hoax.[[384042751,R]]

The mixed-use residential and office building on the 1600 block of Elm Street was evacuated after 6 p.m.

Police said an employee of a business located in the tower had been speaking with a client over the phone when the client, who lives out of state, became upset and threatened to "blow up the building." The employee then notified building security, who ordered the evacuation.

By about 8:30 p.m. the possible threat was determined to be over. Dallas police are continuing their investigation.
A reward is now being offered in the murder of prominent Dallas attorney killed in his home last May.

The family of Ira Tobolowsky is offering a reward of $20,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. North Texas Crime Stoppers has added an additional $5,000, bringing the total reward offered to $25,000.

Anyone with information can call 877-373-TIPS or leave a message online at the North Texas Crime Commission's website. Tipsters may remain anonymous.

Firefighters discovered Tobolowsky's body in his garage after putting out a suspicious fire at his home on May 13. It's unclear exactly how Tobolowsky died, but his death is being investigated as a homicide by the Dallas Police Department.

At the time of his death Tobolowsky was involved in a high-profile, emotionally charged civil case. While it's unclear if the case is related to Tobolowsky's death, the presiding judge, Eric Moye, recused himself after saying he was concerned for his personal safety.

The defendant in the civil case, Steven Aubrey, asked for more than $500,000 from Tobolowsky and wrote that: Tobolowsky must be punished with sanctions for his outrageous abuse of the judicial system and his violation of statutes, codes and rules.

Police previously said that Aubrey is not a suspect in the murder investigation.
The Baltimore police officer facing the most serious charges in the death of Freddie Gray has been cleared on all counts, marking the second acquittal of an officer charged in connection with Gray's death.

A third officer's trial ended in a hung jury.

Police van driver Officer Caesar Goodson, 46, was charged with second-degree manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office after Gray's death. He elected to be tried by a judge rather than by a jury.

Judge Barry Williams found him not guilty on all seven charges Thursday. In the opinion he read, Williams said the prosecution failed to prove that Goodson drove erratically or intended to harm Gray.

Williams said there was no way for Goodson to know Gray was hurt.

Goodson hugged his defense lawyers after his acquittal.

Gray, 25, suffered a catastrophic spinal injury when officers bound his hands and feet but left him otherwise unrestrained inside the metal compartment of a police van. The city erupted in riots and unrest after his death.

News4s Chris Gordon was in the courtroom in Baltimore when the judge found officer Ceasar Goodson not guilty of all seven charges.

While Baltimore officers' general orders require them to place seat belts on arrestees, Williams said, officers can choose not to if they believe their own safety would be endangered.

Dozens of demonstrators who waited outside the courthouse quietly expressed their frustration and anger after the verdict.

Tawanda Jones, who leads a weekly protest in Baltimore over the death of her own brother during his arrest, cried as she said: "We need to dismantle this corrupt system.''

"I'm sick of it," another woman outside the courtroom said. "We are human beings. We deserve the right to walk in our communities. Who the hell are they serving, and who the hell are they protecting?"

State Sen. Catherine Pugh, a Democratic nominee in Baltimore's mayoral race, urged residents to be patient in the wake of the verdict.

"Protests are a vital part of democracy, but to destroy the homes and businesses many people have worked very hard to build is unacceptable...It is important to respect each other and to respect our neighborhoods," Pugh said.

The Baltimore Police Department canceled scheduled leave for officers, and members of Maryland's National Guard are on standby.

The office of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan also released a statement after Goodson's acquittal.

"Governor Hogan continues to respect the legal process, as well as the courts decision. Over the past year, the people of Baltimore City have made tremendous progress in rebuilding their communities and businesses," the statement said.

About a dozen demonstrators marched from the courthouse to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. They carried signs that said "Stop racism now.''

Goodson's non-jury trial went to Williams after more than five days of testimony. Prosecutors said Goodson was criminally negligent when he failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt or call for a medic when Gray indicated he wanted to go to a hospital.

At first, they alleged he gave Gray a "rough ride," driving erratically to "bounce Gray around" in the back of the van when Gray's leg shackles and handcuffs left him unable to steady himself.

But Goodson's refusal to talk with investigators or testify at trial left prosecutors with slim evidence of the intent to harm needed to sustain a murder verdict.

"It was very clear that the state's failure to prove a rough ride occurred was a significant blow to their case," legal analyst Warren Alperstein said.

Prosecutors abandoned the "rough ride" theory after a video showing Goodson rolling through a stop sign and making a wide turn before stopping to check on his prisoner failed to create the desired impact.

Goodson's defense attorney said the officer didn't buckle him in because Gray showed "violent and erratic behavior'' during and after his arrest. Witnesses testified that Gray was screaming, flailing around and kicking the wagon doors with such force that the van shook.

Defense attorney Matthew Fraling also said Goodson didn't call for a medic because Gray didn't exhibit any signs of injury or distress, and was believed to only have asked to go to a hospital to avoid going to jail.

Goodson's defense said Gray must have suffered his fatal injury after Goodson last checked on him before arriving unresponsive at the station house.

This is the third trial in the sweeping case against six officers that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced in the wake of protests and rioting in Baltimore's inner city. The violence ended the police commissioner's career and aborted the mayor's political future.

The first two trials also ended without convictions: Officer Edward Nero was acquitted of misdemeanors by the same judge. The only officer so far to choose a jury trial, William Porter, will be retried in September after the jury failed to agree on his fate.

Legal experts disagree about whether the officers still facing charges should be put on trial or not. After three trials and no convictions, it's increasingly clear that the evidence against the officers is too weak to sustain the hopes of citizens desperate for reform.

"If they could not get a conviction on anything in this case, yes, there ought to be some reassessment as to whether they go forward in the others, which are weaker cases," legal analyst Warren Brown said.
A tie vote by the Supreme Court is keeping on hold President Barack Obama's immigration plan that sought to shield millions living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

The justices' one-sentence opinion on Thursday effectively kills the plan for the rest of Obama's presidency. The outcome underscores that the direction of U.S. immigration policy will be determined in large part by this fall's presidential election, a campaign in which immigration already has played an outsized role.

Obama, reacting from the White House on Thursday, called the decision "heartbreaking" for millions of immigrants who want to work in the U.S. and contribute to the economy.

"I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed today," he said.

People who would have benefited from the programs face no imminent threat of deportation because Congress has provided money to deal with only a small percentage of people who live in the country illegally, and the president retains ample discretion to decide whom to deport.

Obama said the opinion doesn't change his administration's enforcement priorities. The administration will continue focusing its limited resources on people who have committed a crime and deportation for long-term immigrants who aren't criminals will remain a low priority, Obama said.

Still, Obama said the decision sets the system back and "takes us further from the country we aspire to be."

He blamed Republicans for refusing to confirm his nominee to the Supreme Court and predicted the system would eventually be overhauled, calling it not a matter of "if" but "when."

I have pushed the limits of my executive authority," he said. "We now have to have Congress act.

A tie vote sets no national precedent but leaves in place the ruling by the lower court. In this case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans said the Obama administration lacked the authority to shield up to 4 million immigrants from deportation and make them eligible for work permits without approval from Congress.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

Texas led 26 Republican-dominated states in challenging the program Obama announced in November 2014. Congressional Republicans also backed the states' lawsuit.

The Obama administration announced the programs  protections for parents of children who are in the country legally and an expansion of the program that benefits people who were brought to this country as children  in November 2014. Obama decided to move forward after Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, and the chances for an immigration overhaul, already remote, were further diminished.

The Senate had passed a broad immigration bill with Democratic and Republican support in 2013, but the measure went nowhere in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

The states quickly went to court to block the Obama initiatives. Their lawsuit was heard by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen previously had criticized the administration for lax immigration enforcement.

Hanen sided with the states, blocking the programs from taking effect. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for the states, and the Justice Department rushed an appeal to the high court so that it could be heard this term.

A nine-justice court agreed to hear the case in January, but by the time of the arguments in late April, Justice Antonin Scalia had died. That left eight justices to decide the case, and the court presumably split along liberal and conservative lines, although the court did not say how each justice voted.

Had Scalia still been alive, though, he almost certainly would have voted with his fellow conservatives to form a majority in favor of the states.

In practical terms, a victory by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump could mean an end to the programs anyway, since he has vowed to deport the roughly 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

If Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is elected, she could attempt to revive the programs or work with the new Congress on comprehensive immigration legislation.

If Clinton wins, the Senate will at some point fill the vacancy created by Scalia's death  either with Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or a Clinton choice. In either case, legal challenges to executive action under her administration would come to a court that would have a majority of Democratic-appointed justices and, in all likelihood, give efforts to help immigrants a friendlier reception.

In a statement released by her campaign, Clinton defended the legality of Obama's plan, saying the ruling was "purely procedural." But, she said, it's a reminder of the "harm Donald Trump would do" to immigrant families and "how much damage" Senate Republicans are causing by refusing to consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

She said as president, she would "do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families."

Trump, who was due in Scotland Thursday to promote a golf course there, tweeted his reaction several hours after the decision was announced: "SC has kept us safe from exec amnesty--for now. But Hillary has pledged to expand it, taking jobs from Hispanic & African-American workers."

In another tweet, he added: "Hillary Clintons open borders are tearing American families apart. I am going to make our country Safe Again for all Americans. #Imwithyou."
The founder of a San Diego-based business has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he stole more than $2 million from infertile clients who sought his help in finding surrogacy services.

Acharayya Rupuk, founder of Planet Hospital, a medical tourism comapany, acted as an intermediary between his clients and Mexican clinics that provide egg donors, in vitro fertilization and surrogates.

Medical tourism companies facilitate travel to foreign countries for medical procedures at more affordable prices.

Rupak pocketed money from American clients that was supposed to go to clinics for various surrogacy services, officials said.

The clinics never received the money and the clients never received any services, according to the indictment.

People who seek the help of a surrogate are on an exhausting, expensive and emotional journey, said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy. They shouldnt have their dream to have a child trampled by someone they trust to help them.

Rupak, who has also used the names Rudy Rupak, Rudolph Matthews and Kevin Thomas Rudolph Matthews, made his first appearance in federal court Tuesday.

Though the FBI investigates many types of fraud, it is concerning when victims have been taken advantage of because of their desire to start a family, said FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric S. Birnbaum. The FBI will use our resources appropriately to root out fraudulent surrogacy schemes that violate the trust of the American public.

Rupak, a Canadian citizen living in Calabasas, had business addresses in San Diego, Calabasas and Calexico.

He began offering international surrogacy services in 2008, by paying women to have an embryo transferred into her womb and bringing the child to term for another woman.

In 2009, he started soliciting international surrogacy clients with promises of discounted prices, but later charged them with additional fees, accoring to the indictment.

Federal officials say he convinced clients to send him thousands of dollars by falsely representing that their funds would be put into escrow accounts and used only to pay for medical services.

Rupak failed to forward the clients funds to service providers such as egg donor companies, IVF clinics and surrogacy services, according to the indictment. The companies would then demand additional fees from the clients who had already paid for the services.

Rupak created fake websites and email addresses in the name of different clinics and physicians to cover his thefts, giving excuses or falsely claiming surrogacy procedures were unsuccessful.

He lied to his clients about success rates and falsely claimed ownership interest in two IVF clinics in Cancun, Mexico, the indictment said.

Eventually he started using funds from new clients to pay for services provided to existing Planet Hospital clients, much like a Ponzi scheme.

His bond was set at $50,000 and his next court hearing is scheduled for July 25.
The littoral combat ship USS Coronado has departed for the first time from San Diego on an independent deployment to the Western Pacific.

The USS Coronado is designed to operate near the shore and around shallow water to counter mines, submarines and fast surface craft threats.

USS Coronado along with 70 sailors and crew members will participate in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) which provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans.

"This ship will play a critical role in the fleet and in our nation's defense, said Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, U.S. Third Fleet commander. RIMPAC provides a good opportunity for our partner navies to work with the ship and see how it can contribute to collective regional security."

Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron Two Three (HSC-23) deployed with the ship along with the MQ-8 Fire Scout, an autonomous helicopter that works for surveillance and tracking off of the naval vessel.
Orlando gunman Omar Mateen purchased tickets for his family to travel to the San Francisco Bay Area two days before he went on a deadly rampage at the Pulse nightclub in Florida

Federal officials confirmed to NBC News Tuesday that Mateen purchased three tickets  for himself, his wife, Noor Zahi Salman and their son  to visit his mother-in-law, who lives in the Bay Area suburb of Rodeo, California on July 14. But on June 12, he killed 49 people and injured dozens in what is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Two officials told NBC News that after the shooting, Salman called the airline and sought a refund for the trip to San Francisco. Salman allegedly told the airline that, because her husband had died, they would no longer be making the trip.

Salmans mother, Ekbal Zahi Salman, recently had an operation and was not getting better; the family was planning on spending an extend period of time with her, NBC News reported.

The tickets were purchased Friday, June 10, and the family would have stayed in the Bay Area for two weeks, according to NBC News. Its not clear why Mateen would have purchased tickets for the trip if he had been planning the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, in which he ended up dying. [[383942051, C]]

A source close to Noor Salman said she was not successful in trying to refund the tickets, which she attempted to do after being meeting with FBI investigators, and notifying them about the travel and her plans to try and refund the tickets, NBC News reports.

Salman told the FBI she was with Mateen, when he bought ammunition and a holster, several officials familiar with the case have told NBC News. She also apparently told the FBI she once drove him to Pulse nightclub, because he wanted to check it out. Salman, who told the FBI she tried to talk her husband out of the shooting, is not facing any charges at this time for failing to report her husband to law enforcement.

She continues to cooperate with the investigation.

A source close to the family told NBC News Mateen sent his wife a text message during the rampage, asking her, "Do you see what's happening?" After swapping texts, she tried to call him.

A source close to the family said Mateen sent his wife a text message during the rampage, asking her, "Do you see what's happening?" After swapping texts, she tried to call him.

Her mothers neighbors in Rodeo, 45 minutes from San Francisco, have told NBC Bay Area that Salman was the daughter of Ekbal Zahi and Bassam Abdallah Salman, who died of a heart attack several years ago. The couple has three other daughters  the youngest is 14. Salman's mother still lives at the home with her youngest but has not spoken out publicly about the shooting.

According to neighbors, Salman attended John Swett High School in nearby Crockett, California.

Salman married Mateen, neighbors said, and moved to Florida about five years ago.

Rodeo neighbor Sarwan Kaur said Mateen apparently wouldn't let Noor Salman's mother visit her in Florida.

"Like, even when she was in the hospital, her husband wouldn't let her come see her own mother," Simrat Chahal said on behalf of his grandmother, Kaur.

NBC News and Pete Williams contributed to this report.
A Canoga Park man was arrested on suspicion of stealing a trailer containing about $250,000 worth of art including a Matisse piece, police said Tuesday.

Robert Michael Slayton, 33, was booked on suspicion of grand theft following his arrest on Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He was released on $70,000 bail.

Officers found the stolen trailer in Slayton's backyard in the 7700 block of Farralone Avenue, and also recovered about $120,000 worth of the art that had been stolen, police said.

The 24-foot trailer and the art had been stolen on Nov. 20 from an industrial park near Nordhoff Street and Alabama Avenue in Chatsworth, police said.

The trailer contained paintings, sculptures and prints by Miro, Haring, Neiman, Chagall and Matisse.

Slayton is scheduled to appear in court in Van Nuys on July 11, the sheriff's department reported.

Investigators urged anyone who has been offered art for sale by Slayton -- or who has information about the crime -- to call the LAPD's Art Theft Detail at (213) 486-6940.
A 1,000-foot radius has been designated as a stay-away zone for firefighters battling the San Gabriel Complex Fire because of a nesting baby bald eagle in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles.

The nest is not in harm's way due to the blazes, Ann Berkley, a U.S. Forest Service biologist, told the Los Angeles Times. The stay-away zone has been established to eliminate the noise and turbulence that water-dumping aircraft produce since it could disturb the young eagle and hinder its development, she said.

"We don't want to startle him out of the nest because it could be very detrimental to his survival," Berkley said.

The baby bald eagle is believed to be between 10 to 12 weeks old. Watch video of the nest here.

It's a rarity for bald eagles to nest in the region, Berkley said, adding that since "this one nested so successfully, we're doing everything we can to protect it."

The first reports of bald eagles in the area came in late 2011, according to The Times. This baby bald eagle was initially spotted in April by amateur bird watchers.

While not an endangered species, bald eagles are protected by the government.

The battle against an 8-square-mile wildfire in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles continued Thursday. More than 1,000 firefighters are fighting two brush fires, called the San Gabriel Complex fire, that scorched brush in rough terrain in the Angeles National Forest and foothills above Duarte and Azusa.

More than 850 homes were evacuated, but residents of about 530 homes evacuated in Duarte were allowed to return Wednesday.

The Reservoir Fire broke out shortly after 11 a.m. Monday off Highway 39 near the Morris Reservoir dam north of Azusa. The fire was sparked by a vehicle running off the highway, a fatal crash along Highway 39 near the reservoir where the fire broke out, California Highway Patrol Officer Alex Rubio said.

About 90 minutes after the Reservoir Fire began, a second blaze was reported near Opal Canyon and Brookridge roads near the Duarte/Azusa border, about four miles southwest of the Reservoir Fire.

Triple-digit heat has fueled similar fires from the Pacific Coast to New Mexico, including one near Portero, a small desert town close to the Mexico border.

The continuing drought and lack of significant rain from the winter El Nino has made Southern California ripe for what could be one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. An El Nino weather pattern brought near-normal snowfall to parts of California last winter, but most of the precipitation stayed to the north of Southern California.

A five-year drought has left 40 million dead and dried-out trees in California, including 29 million that died last year alone, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
A Burbank lifeguard was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of recording women and an underage girl in an employee locker room and public restroom at a pool, police said.

Police were called to the Verdugo Park Pool on Wednesday morning and told that Arturo Montano, 23, was found to have taken photos and videos of women, the Burbank Police Department said.

"A fellow employee was changing in that locker room, looked up and saw the camera of a cellphone that was partially concealed," Sgt. Claudio Losacco said. "She saw it for what it was and took it down... Fortunately for us, she brought it to her manager."

Detectives found evidence of the recordings on Montano's phone and obtained a search warrant for his home in Sun Valley. Items seized from the home included a computer.

He was booked on suspicion of possessing images of a minor and six counts of concealing a camera to videotape the less-than-fully-clothed bodies of others without their knowledge, police said.

Montano, who has no prior arrests, was held on $170,000 bail and is set to appear in court on Friday morning at the Burbank branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Several victims that have been identified, both juvenile and adult, are in the process of being contacted and interviewed.
Hundreds of registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center began a four-day strike Thursday -- the second walkout at the hospital in three months.

Officials with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United union contend the walkout is part of a push for increased staffing levels to improve patient care, but Kaiser officials denied that claim, saying nursing staff ratios at the hospital "meet or exceed state guidelines."

"This strike is not about quality or adequate staffing levels," according to Kaiser. "The quality of care our teams at LAMC provide has never been higher. In fact, in 2015 LAMC was named one of the Top 10 Best Hospitals in California by U.S. News and World Report and one of only 34 hospitals nationwide to be rated as `high performing' in all five common inpatient procedures."

According to Kaiser, union leaders "are calling upon nurses to walk away from their patients." Hospital officials said it is "entirely inappropriate to attempt to disrupt patient care or service as a bargaining tactic."

Union officials insisted, however, that they are pushing for a contract that will "improve staffing to protect patient care" along with improved salary levels to bolster recruitment and retention of nurses.

"This hospital is not just a place I work. The patients and my fellow nurses are my community," registered nurse Irma Dufelmeir told City News Service. "I am very disappointed that Kaiser refuses to invest in the nurses, so that our patients can get the care they need."

About 1,300 nurses are expected to take part in the strike, beginning at 7 a.m., according to the union, which said the walkout is centered on inadequate staffing in the Tertiary Care center, short staffing for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and lack of staffing to allow nurses to take rest and meal breaks.

No contract negotiations are scheduled, according to the union.

Hospital officials said the union represents about 1,200 of the 18,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses in Southern California.

"We have made very good offers to date, that will make our LAMC nurses among the highest-paid nurses in Southern California," according to Kaiser. "Unfortunately, the CNA bargaining team gave us no meaningful feedback about our most recent proposal, and made no counter-proposal to our wage offer. Rather, once again, they handed us a strike notice."
We Americans? We're a wonderfully high-spirited bunch, full of vim, tenacity, grit, can-do, and optimism. Our confidence shines through in ways both large and wee, our fortitude is phenomenal, and we'll gladly lend a hand, or two, when and where we can.

But come election time we do possess a charming knack for getting, well... a mite passionate about our political leanings, and what way we think the wind will blow, and what should happen to all of the candidates we fervently support. (Spoiler alert: We think they should win.)

It's serious business, no doubt, but if the internet, and late-night television, has shown us anything, we do like a bit of opinion-laden rabble-rousing along the path to Election Day, and pointed satire, to go with the process.

Enter Politicon, "The Unconventional Political Convention," which takes on the topical matters of highly held offices with solemnity, and a healthy dose of sass, too.

The two-day political fan festival wears the red, white and blue at the Pasadena Convention Center on June 25 and 26.

Bill Nye, Ann Coulter, Barbara Boxer, Sarah Palin, and Larry Wilmore will all be in the house, as well as a cavalcade of pundits and politicos. Debates are de rigeur during the convention, as are comedy routines, art happenings and all of the sort of activities you might not see at a traditional party convention.

It's as if the Twitter feeds of those journalists and representatives you follow have sprung into real-life, in Pasadena, for a full weekend of wit, wryness and talks that get down to especially brassy brass tacks.

A general admission one-day pass is thirty bucks.

Figure this is an excellent way to wade into the larger pool of ideas and opining, especially if you've kept to one side of the aisle. It's a nonpartisan party, in a time where nonpartisanship is as rare as a voter who doesn't want to wear that ultimate point of country pride, the "I Voted" sticker.
A former security guard convicted in the February 2000 shooting death of an 18-year old woman in a Palmdale park-and-ride lot was ordered Thursday to be released from custody in light of new evidence that prosecutors said casts doubt upon his conviction.

Raymond Lee Jennings, 42, was ordered released on his own recognizance, but with electronic monitoring. It was not immediately clear when he would be freed. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan scheduled an Aug. 24 status conference in the case.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office sought the release after new evidence was uncovered that prosecutors said raises doubts about his conviction. The case was featured in a 2015 episode of "Dateline NBC."

Jennings worked as a security guard in the park-and-ride lot where the slaying occurred. The Iraq war veteran was convicted in December 2009 of second-degree murder for the Feb. 22, 2000 shooting death of Antelope Valley College student Michelle O'Keefe.

The first two juries to hear the case against him deadlocked in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom and the case was eventually returned to Lancaster, where he was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years to life in state prison.

"My office has been presented with credible new evidence that brings this conviction into question,'' Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said. "Attorneys assigned to the newly created Conviction Review Unit have examined the evidence and are working with law enforcement personnel to investigate further. In the interest of justice, I am asking the court to release Raymond Jennings on his own recognizance while this investigation continues.''

Upon hearing of the request, defense attorney M. David Houchin -- who represented Jennings in all three of his trials -- said it was "unbelievable."

"I can't believe it," he said, his voice full of emotion.

He said Jennings is at the "top" of a "very short list'' of defendants he has represented at trial whom he believes were factually innocent.

O'Keefe was shot four times after she returned to her blue Ford Mustang, which she left at the park-and-ride lot so she could carpool with a friend to a Kid Rock video shoot in Los Angeles, where they worked as paid extras.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake told jurors in Jennings' second trial, "The mistake he made was assuming that she was a prostitute ... Her fatal mistake in this interaction was standing up for herself."

Jennings' attorney told jurors there was no direct or physical evidence linking his client to the young woman's killing.

At his sentencing hearing, Jennings turned toward the O'Keefe family and maintained his innocence.

"I sit here as an innocent man. And I've heard you speak on God, and as Christ as my Lord and savior, I will stand before God and this is one sin that I will not be judged for,'' he said then.

In a December 2011 ruling, a three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that there was insufficient evidence to permit a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he murdered O'Keefe.

"In sum, although the evidence against appellant was circumstantial supported by his statements to investigators, we find the prosecution presented a case of sufficient strength that a rational jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant murdered Michelle O'Keefe,'' the three-justice panel found.

The California Supreme Court refused in March 2012 to review the case against Jennings.
A Sun Valley hospital has agreed to pay $1 million to settle allegations of patient dumping, City Attorney Mike Feuer announced Thursday.

The City Attorney's Office had accused Pacifica Hospital of the Valley of failing to contact the family of Kasey Lucious, a patient with a history of homelessness and mental illness, before putting her in a taxi and sending her to a nursing facility that had not confirmed it would take her in.

Lucious ended up not checking into the nursing facility, and California Highway Patrol officials found her three days later wandering the streets, the city attorney said.

A representation from Pacifica Hospital was not immediately available comment.

Pacifica Hospital will pay $1 million in civil penalties to the City Attorney's Office, and has agreed to do more training and adopt a more detailed policy for transportation of patients.

"Patient dumping is inhumane and we won't tolerate it," Feuer said.

"This case underscores that when a hospital adopts homeless patient discharge protocols, it's got to follow them."

Feuer said the settlement is the second Pacifica Hospital has agreed to pay in connection with patient dumping accusations. The hospital in May 2014 settled allegations by paying $500,000 and agreeing to adopt discharge policies for homeless patients
After someone stole a tricycle from a woman with cerebral palsy  her only mode of transportation  a police officer made a promise to go the extra mile to right a wrong Wednesday.

Louticia Terry was born with cerebral palsy. Her balance and motor skills make it impossible to drive. The 45-year-old single mother rode an adult-sized tricycle to get around until it was stolen June 15, she said.

Terry and her daughter Meaghan had gone to grab frozen yogurt last Wednesday when they arrived back home and saw that someone stole the trike.

"My trike was gone. I said, 'Oh no, what am I going to do?" Terry said.

Meaghan, 11, said she was devastated as well.

"Why would they steal a handicapped person's bike?" Meaghan said. "If it was a trike, then they would have known there's something wrong with them. Because there's not that many trikes."

The mother and daughter weren't alone in their disbelief.

Tustin police Officer Tom Knostman was just as angry. He was the officer to arrive and take the family's police report that day. After seeing this horrible wrong, he couldn't just leave things the way they were.

He told the family he wanted to replace the bike at his own expense.

"He went above and beyond the call of duty," Terry said.

What's more, Knostman didn't want any attention for what he did. NBC4 reached him for an interview by phone.

"It means a great deal to her and the money really didn't mean that much to me, so it was really easy for me to do something for her that meant a lot to her," Knostman said.

Meaghan and her mother managed to get him on the phone.

"Thank you so much for getting the bike," Meaghan said on the phone to Knostman.

The officer told NBC4 he wishes he could fix everything for everyone.

"Then she can take me to school. We can go get groceries and we can go do a lot of things and have fun," Meaghan said.

Mother and daughter will soon hit the streets again. The tricycle is scheduled for delivery on Thursday.

This wasn't the first time Knostman went above and beyond after hearing of injustice in his community.

Tustin police say when an American flag was vandalized, it was Knostman, a retired marine, who not only replaced the flag but also held a flag ceremony as well. Knostman told us by phone he wasn't acting like a police officer this time: just a human being.
Authorities say a Compass Airlines flight headed to Los Angeles had to make an emergency landing in Tucson after a passenger made a threat to the flight crew.

F-16 fighter jets were called in to escort the plane. The plane landed at Tucson International Airport on Wednesday afternoon and was met by a group of law enforcement officers including the FBI, U.S. Border Patrol and airport police.

Tucson Airport Authority officials say a male passenger was taken off the plane and detained. Capt. Scott Bader of the Tucson Airport Authority Police Department told the Arizona Daily Star the man was turned over to the FBI.

The newspaper reported that the man was unruly on the flight and would not sit down.

They say 80 passengers were aboard the flight that originally took off from San Antonio, Texas.

They were taken off the plane, re-screened and then allowed to re-board the plane and continue to Los Angeles.

"They brought dogs in; it was a big thing once we touched down," said Craig Brown, one of the passengers aboard the diverted flight.
Destyni Tyree graduated from high school after only two years. She has a scholarship to college. She's been a cheerleader. She's been prom queen. And she has a 4.0 grade point average.

The new life the 16-year-old is preparing for at Potomac State University in West Virginia is a long way from where she grew up, at the family homeless shelter at D.C. General.

Tyree went to school during the summer and on weekends to achieve her goal of graduating two years early.

"We not only gave her regular classes, she had online classes and she did Saturday school to make sure that she graduated this year," said Eugenia Young, the principal of Roosevelt S.T.A.Y. High School, an alternative school in Northeast D.C.

Young called Tyree an "outstanding student." Tyree took home a number of awards when she graduated, including the Principal's Award for Academics and the Leadership Award.

Tyree said both Young and her mother were supportive of her goal to graduate early, but living in the D.C. General Homeless Shelter was her biggest driving force.

"I don't want to live in a shelter when I get older," she said. "I want to better my life, so that gave me the drive to do what I want to do."

Tyree will still be younger than many of her classmates when she starts college this fall, but she said she has the same jitters so many young people get upon leaving the nest.

She said life at Potomac State will be a "journey," but one she is ready to take on.

"I'm scared, I'm excited, I'm proud of myself, all in one big ball," she said.

Tyree is still saving money to pay for college necessities her scholarship does not cover, including books. She is accepting donations through a GoFundMe page.
What one mother said first seemed like an adorable photo of her young preschooler being mischievous, quickly turned into a wake-up call for many.

Stacey Wehrman Feeley took a photo of her 3-year-old daughter standing on a toilet at first because she thought it was funny, she wrote in a now-viral Facebook post.

The photo shows the little girl in a bright dress standing on a toilet with her arm against the wall.

The moment she told me what she was doing I broke down, Feeley wrote. She was practicing for a lockdown drill at her preschool and what you should do if you are stuck in a bathroom. At that moment all innocense [sic] of what I thought my three-year-old possessed was gone.

The Michigan mom went on to talk about how the photo speaks to the issue of gun control currently sweeping the nation.

Politicians - take a look, she wrote. "This is your child, your children, your grandchildren, your great grand children [sic] and future generations to come. They will live their lives and grow up in this world based on your decisions. They are barely 3 and they will hide in bathroom stalls standing on top of toilet seats.

The post has since been shared more than 22,800 times and received nearly as many likes.

Just over a week after the massacre at an Orlando nightclub, gun control has been at the forefront of a national debate.

Most recently, a divided Senate voted down four gun control measures proposed from both sides. Monday's votes came after Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., led a near 15-hour filibuster last week demanding a Senate response to the Orlando killings. Murphy entered the Senate shortly after the December 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, but that slaughter and others have failed to spur Congress to tighten gun curbs. The last were enacted in 2007, when the background check system was strengthened after that year's mass shooting at Virginia Tech.

I am not pretending to have all the answers or even a shred of them, but unless you want your children standing on top of a toilet, we need to do something, Feeley wrote.
A 58-year-old man is recovering after an alligator attacked him, according to sheriff's officials in central Florida.

The attack happened around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Bushnell, northwest of Orlando, after the man found the gator on his property and shot it, NBC affiliate WESH reports.

When the man moved closer to see if the gator was dead, the animal lunged at him and bit him on the right leg, according to WESH. The man was taken to a hospital in Ocala for treatment.

A trapper from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission euthanized the alligator.

The attack comes a week after an alligator killed a 2-year-old Nebraska boy who was vacationing with his family at Disney World outside Orlando.
Disney World's resort beaches in Florida have reopened following an alligator attack that killed a 2-year-old boy.

Lane Graves was dragged underwater by an alligator as he stood in about a foot of water at Disney's Seven Seas Lagoon last Tuesday.

Disney officials say resort beaches are now available to guests from one hour after sunrise until one hour prior to sunset. The newly opened areas now include signage and temporary barriers. Disney employees are expected to staff the beaches to assist guests.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said Wednesday they are confident trappers have removed the alligator that killed Graves.

Records released by Florida wildlife officials say 240 nuisance alligators have been trapped on Walt Disney World property over the past decade.
What to Know Officials say a Tampa Bay area teen is dead from apparent drowning after a visit to a north Florida spring.

Officials say a Tampa Bay area teen is dead from apparent drowning after a visit to a north Florida spring.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that 16-year-old Terry Marshall died Saturday at a Gainesville hospital.

A day earlier, Marshall and his friends visited Blue Springs Park in Gilchrist County, located about 30 miles northwest of Gainesville. Marshall's mother told the newspaper that the teen jumped into the water at one point and didn't come back up.

A medical examiner has listed the preliminary cause of death as drowning.
A man whose father died after an altercation with a fellow patient at Miami Beach's Mount Sinai Medical Center is speaking out, blaming one of South Floridas biggest medical centers for ignoring the warning signs leading to his fathers murder.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center is a household name, generally known for saving lives and improving health, but now its the target of lawsuit filed after patient Alejandro Ortega wound up dead, at the hands of another patient at the hospital, according to police.

Ortega's son, Alex, is grieving and went to court to see the man charged with taking his fathers life, Andre Brown. The son and his lawyer told NBC 6 this tragedy should have been prevented and say the big hospital dropped the ball.

NBC 6 contacted Mount Sinai about the allegations and it sent a statement saying, "the safety and well-being of our patients is our top priority. But we do not comment on pending litigation."

When it comes to his dad Alejandro, these are the days Alex Ortega tries to remember, the joy between them. But the times at the beach are now gone.

"I love my father and I miss him too much," he said.

Ortega was there in court to see the man prosecutors say killed his father, Brown, who is charged with second-degree murder. Brown told police it was an act of self-defense.

Its not only that his father was killed, it's how, and especially where it all happened that has Alex in shock. His dad was a patient at the well-respected Mount Sinai Medical Center, where Brown was his roommate. Now Ortega is bringing a lawsuit against Mount Sinai.

Ortega showed up at the end of May to visit his father and says when the staff wouldnt take him to Alejandro, he called police. Officers arrived and reported the victim was discovered unresponsive in the bathroom and bleeding from the head," according to a report.

Ortega said he thought Mount Sinai would be an excellent place for his dad as he began to need some mental health care. He never expected his dad to be killed there.

Coral Gables attorney Robert Pelier filed the legal action on behalf of the Ortega family. The lawsuit says Mount Sinai placed Brown, a convicted felon and violent and dangerous person, in the same room with Alejandro without the proper security or supervision.

"This could have been a wholly avoidable loss of life. My client is devastated," Pelier said.

The suit also says on prior visits the son noticed "obvious physical injury to his father," contusions to his eye and deep bruising, and that the hospital was told directly there was fear for Mr. Ortegas welfare.

"My client thought that his father was going to be safe and he wasnt. And not only that, my client actually alerted the hospital that they needed to scrutinize the security as to his dad. They failed to do so," Pelier said. "Its truly a tragedy that could have been avoided."

The family says these warnings were giving multiple times and even on the day before Mr. Ortega died. NBC 6's check of the court records also shows when Brown was arrested police were looking for him on a felony warrant that had been issued.
A couple arrested after dozens of guns and illegal drugs were found in a Kendall home made their first appearance in court Thursday where they were ordered held without bond.

Paul Labrador and his wife Charice, both 47, are facing multiple charges of drug trafficking. According to the arrest report, detectives received an anonymous letter saying Mr. Labrador was selling drug out of his home on Southwest 98th Avenue in Kendall.

Miami-Dade Police officers started watching the home. On Wednesday, they saw Labrador drive off in his car and noticed he wasn't wearing a set belt so they made a traffic stop. They found drugs on him and then went to his home to uncover dozens of rifles, automatic weapons and handguns.

But in court Thursday, Labrador's defense attorney told the court the guns aren't his.

"These weapons were actually given to him by the wife of a deceased friend, these are not weapons that were accumulated for any nefarious purposes," the attorney said.

Detectives also found several pounds of marijuana, cocaine, pills and thousand of dollars in cash, officials said.

The defendants' next step could be to ask for a bond hearing. Otherwise they'll remain in jail until their trials start. And that could be in a few months.
Police arrested a North Miami school teacher Wednesday for allegedly molesting a student.

Mwon Taylor, 39, is a social studies and religion teacher at Miami Union Academy located at 12600 Northwest 4th Avenue in North Miami.

Taylor was being held without bond Thursday, jail records showed. He was expected to appear in court Friday, and it was unknown if he's hired an attorney.

"We are deeply saddened and regret to hear this news," the school said in a statement Thursday. "Be assured that the school's administration is in complete cooperation with the authorities and their investigation."

According to the police report, a student came forward Sunday and disclosed that Taylor had inappropriately touched her while she was in the 8th and 9th grade.

Taylor faces 15 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child less than 16 years of age and and five counts of sexual battery on a child over 12.

Investigators say that the inappropriate encounters included Taylor grabbing and rubbing his hands on the student's buttocks and groin areas. Investigators add that five of the 20 incidents included sexual contact.

"With a teacher and a child there is always trust, many times children will open up to their teachers about things that are happening at home, they feel safer talking to the teacher, in this case he abused that power," North Miami Police spokeswoman Natalie Buissereth said.

The police report said the teen consented to the activities but officials say there is no such thing.

"It is never consensual to have sex with a minor, if you are an adult you do not have sex with a child, have sex with someone your own age," Buissereth said.
Two burglary suspects have been arrested and a third is being sought after they were seen bragging on social media about stealing and flashing money, Pinecrest Police said.

Raderius Glenn Collins, 18, and Marcus Terrell Parker, 27, were arrested on multiple charges including burglary, grand theft, criminal mischief and dealing in stolen property in the crime spree that brought them more than $500,000 worth of jewelry, police said.

Police say Collins, Parker and a third man burglarized a house in the 13200 block of Southwest 63rd Court and a home on the 6300 block of 107th Street in Pinecrest. The burglars stole a safe from one home with jewelry valued at more than $500,000 and jewelry valued at more than $10,000 from another.

Authorities are looking for a third suspect who was seen on a Facebook video with a bag full of $100 bills bragging about their illegal earnings, saying on camera We got a safe.

One of the men arrested told police that he and the other two subjects sold the stolen jewelry to a shop and received $1,300 each in return. Police found much of the stolen jewelry at Xodium Jewelry and Watch located in Southland Mall.

Jewelry was also found in the homes and vehicles of the men. The safe taken from one of the burglarized houses was found abandoned alongside an open field at SW 224th Street and 115th Avenue.

"I still feel jittery because I just feel like nothing is fool-proof and my house was violated, invaded," one of the victims, who didn't want to be identified, told NBC 6.

Police are asking anyone with information of the third suspect to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
Sheep brains, cow eyeballs, and cockroach legs. No, theyre not on the lunch menu. Think of those disparate pieces of animal matter as tools being used to teach high school kids about the world of medicine. Human, not veterinary.

"Theyre bright and theyre enthusiastic, cant ask for better than bright, enthusiastic students that want to help people," said Dr. Elaine Wallace, the dean of Nova-Southeastern Universitys School of Osteopathic Medicine.

NSU is running a camp called AIM High, which stands for "achieve in medicine." Theyve recruited kids who are interested in becoming physicians, and theyve got doctors and medical students showing them what it takes to get there.

"It makes me feel like I want to be a doctor more, much more, said Robert Randylans, who came from Haiti to attend the residential camp.

AIM High draws kids from around Florida and the nation.

So whats the deal with the roach legs? Theyre pinned down and clipped to wires. Students are learning how electricity can make even a dead bugs nerves twitch. Theyre also seeing how the human brains electric impulses can be turned into a great party trick. A professor wired electrodes from one student to another. Then everyone watched in amazement as one boy moved his arm, and then the arm on the boy to whom he was wired also moved the same way. His brain was controlling the movements of the other boys arm. The campers were impressed, to say the least.

"I actually want to be an orthopedic surgeon, so I think this is really just opening my eyes to the field, said Skylar Hicks, an AIM High camper.

Since all of the kids in the camp have their eyes on medical school, this is a test of sorts. If theyre squeamish about cutting into a sheeps brain or a cows eye, let alone a human cadaver, maybe they ought to rethink their academic plans.

"It serves as both," said Dean Wallace. "Some of them decide that its not the right thing and some of them get more enthused that it is the right thing, so you get an experience."

A hands-on experience. If they can get past cutting into an eyeball and seeing fluid squirt out, theyre ready.

"Its not every day you get to hold a sheeps brain, so thats pretty exciting, said Olivia Charland, an AIM High camper from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale.

The campers live on campus, they go to lectures, and theyre exposed to the various specialties in medicine.

"It definitely makes me want to get into medicine more, getting a college experience, staying in a dorm on a university campus, it really inspires me, said camper Megan McGeough, who said studying the animal body parts was fascinating.

For any student interested in becoming a physician, aiming high is a no-brainer.
Authorities are searching for a suspect who dragged an officer with his car while fleeing a bank in Miami Lakes Wednesday.

Miami-Dade Police said officers responded to the bank at 16200 Northwest 57th Avenue shortly after 1 p.m. to a report of a possible fraud in progress.

Officers detained the suspect but he ran out of a bank and into a car, officials said. An officer who tried to stop the suspect was dragged by the suspect's car for several feet until the officer was able to free himself and fell to the ground, officials said.

The suspect sped away. The officer suffered cuts to his hands and legs and was treated at the scene.

Police released a photo of the suspect and are asking anyone with information to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
A North Texas man arrested for manslaughter in the death of his 6-month-old daughter allegedly tried to revive the baby by putting her in a refrigerator after leaving her in a hot car, according to police. [[383877071,R]]

Capt. Jim Moody of the Collin County Sheriff's Department says deputies were called about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to the family's home in Melissa, about 40 miles north of Dallas.

An arrest warrant released Wednesday details what 33-year-old Michael Thedford told investigators.

According to the affidavit, Thedford was questioned at the house and later the sheriff's department. He told investigators he was caring for his three children, ages 5 years, 3 years and 6 months, that morning. He dressed them and took his oldest children to daycare, but his youngest was sick.

He arrived back home at about 9 a.m., went inside and went to sleep, according to the documents.

"When he awoke around 1 p.m. and discovered he left the child in the vehicle, Thedford went to the vehicle, removed her from the child safety seat in which she had restrained. At this time the child was now un-responsive," the warrant states.

"Thedford brought the child into the house and placed [the] child into the refrigerator for an undetermined length of time prior to calling 911," the warrant continues.

The warrant shows Thedford later told investigators during his formal interview he called his wife and placed his daughter into the refrigerator for a short period of time, claiming he left the door open. He also attempted CPR before paramedics arrived.

The National Weather Service reported the temperature at the nearby McKinney National Airport had risen to the low 90s but felt like the upper 90s by midday Tuesday.

Thedford was booked into the Collin County Jail Tuesday afternoon for manslaughter. He was released on a $20,000 bond Tuesday evening. Thedford's jail record lists no attorney.

"Obviously the investigators felt there are elements that fit the crime," Moody said, when asked why he could face charges. "They submitted their affidavits to the judge, she signed a warrant, [the] warrant was issued, [the] individual was arrested."

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

Manslaughter is a felony charge, and if the Collin County District Attorney's Office accepts the case, it will likely be presented to a grand jury, according to Moody.

"I just couldn't believe it, because I would always see him with his kids and wife running around or just going to stores," said neighbor Fabioloa Contreras.

Thedford's Facebook page also shows he is the author of a children's book.

The Celina Independent School District confirmed Thedford was employed as a physics teacher for the 2015-2016 school year. He formally resigned to purse other opportunities, according to the district.

The nearby Melissa Independent School District confirmed for NBC 5 Wednesday that Thedford never formally worked for Melissa schools but did previously complete six weeks of observation with the district as part of his required college course work.

New Jerseys newest little resident now has the unique claim of being born on a Garden State highway. The baby girls mother was in labor as her friend drove her to the hospital on I-78 in Summit Wednesday morning, state police say. It became clear that the baby was not going to wait. The driver pulled over onto the shoulder...
Police are searching for a woman shrouded in electric pink who robbed a bank on Long Island.

The woman strolled into a Citibank on Suffolk Avenue in Brentwood on Wednesday afternoon with a pink scarf draped over her head and shoulders. Snowy white sunglasses covered her face.

The magenta-toned robber slipped a bank teller a note demanding money, police said. The bank teller handed over an unknown amount of cash. The woman slid the money into a tote bag and slipped off.

Suffolk County detectives are investigating the robbery and no arrests have been made.

Police ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
Police are searching for the man they say groped a girl at a Coney Island subway station.

The 12-year-old girl was in the mezzanine area of the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station earlier this month when the 30-something-year-old man approached her.

The man grabbed her rear end and then took off, according to police.

With subway ridership approaching all-time highs, averaging 5.6 million daily riders, reports of sex crimes are also rising, up nearly 57 percent.

New York police say there were 431 reports of sex crimes from lewdness to forcible touching in the subway from mid-2015 to mid-2016, up from 275 over the same period the previous year. There were also 72 more arrests for such crimes over the same period.

Such numbers pale in comparison to transit systems around the world, such as Japan, where nearly 64 percent of women in their 20s and 30s reported being groped on trains or in transit stations, or India, where the problem has prompted separate cars just for women.

But they were enough to draw the ire of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who sent a letter to the MTA asking the agency to take all the steps it can to increase patrols and work with the police department to "crack down on this sort of depraved behavior."

The NYPD asks anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
The NYPD has rolled out a rainbow-colored SUV in support of the LGBTQ community and the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando last week.

One of the department's patrol SUVs was re-outfitted with lights, decals and NYPD logos in rainbow colors.

The department's usual "Courtesy Professionalism Respect" decal was replaced with ones that said "Pride Equality Peace," and another one was placed on a rear window that said "Our (heart) goes out to Orlando."

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton estimate that this years Pride Parade could be the biggest one ever. Marc Santia reports.

A photo of the vehicle first surfaced on the Orlando Police Department's Twitter feed Tuesday morning, along with the caption "Some love from the NYPD. Thank you All!"

The department's Gay Officers Action League posted a video of the SUV Thursday morning. In the video, an LED ticker in the vehicle's back compartment lights up the phrases "Our hearts go out to Orlando" and "NYPD out and proud."

An NYPD spokesman told amNewYork that the SUV was outfitted with the unique decals in support of the city's LGBTQ community and in solidarity with victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

The vehicle is expected to make an appearance at Sunday's Pride March, which Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton estimate could be the biggest one ever.

They say police security will be tight, with increased detail and measures both visible and non-visible.

"This year is going to be a bit more somber, obviously, but I think more people will come out, they want to be together," said Dan Crowley, bartender at The Duplex, a popular cabaret and piano bar in Greenwich Village.

Top Tri-State News Photos
A 39-year-old man was stabbed several times in the neck and body in upper Manhattan on Thursday morning, authorities said.

The man was stabbed repeatedly outside a restaurant on St. Nicholas Avenue and West 177th Street in Washington Heights at about 5 a.m., according to the NYPD.

He was taken to the hospital afterward in critical condition.

Police said that a 37-year-old suspect was taken into custody after the violence, and a knife was found at the scene.

It's not clear what spurred the stabbing.
In a win for affirmative action, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an admissions program Thursday at the University of Texas at Austin that takes race into account to achieve a diverse campus.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the majority opinion that the university's plan considered race in a way permissable.

"The university has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used at the time it rejected petitioners application was narrowly tailored," he wrote.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

Only seven justices took part in the 4-3 decision. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because she had worked on the case when she was the U.S. solicitor general. Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, was an opponent of affirmative action. His seat remains open.

Kennedy cautioned that the University of Texas must continue to scrutinize its admissions policy, "to assess whether changing demographics have undermined the need for a race-conscious policy; and to identify the effects, both positive and negative, of the affirmative-action measures it deems necessary."

Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. It was the second time the program had gone before court.

Dissenting were Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. Alito called the majority decision remarkably wrong.

"What is at stake is whether university administrators may justify systematic racial discrimination simply by asserting that such discrimination is necessary to achieve 'the educational benefits of diversity,' without explaining  much less proving  why the discrimination is needed or how the discriminatory plan is well crafted to serve its objectives," he wrote.

The attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, who did not represent the University of Texas before the Supreme Court, criticized the decision. The university should be open to all students based on merit not race, Paxton said.

"Less than 10 years ago, the Supreme Court said that '[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,'" he said. "Sadly, the court today has departed from that guiding principle."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas had filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the program. Its legal and policy director, Rebecca L. Robertson, said in a statement, "After nearly a decade of litigation, including two separate arguments before the Supreme Court itself, the justices finally affirmed what teachers, parents and school administrators have known for years: that diversity in education is essential for student success."

The Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, praised the ruling, saying the strength of the country depended on Americans of all backgrounds having the education to thrive.

"America's institutions should reflect the beautiful diversity of America's people," she said. "The beauty is in the mix."

And President Barack Obama said: "We are not a country that guarantees equal outcomes but we do strive to present an equal shot to everybody and that's what was upheld today."

The case was argued in December, and at the time Scalia drew quick criticism when he said that minority students with inferior academic records may fare better at less academically rigorous schools.

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school, where they do well," he said.

Scalia also said most black scientists do not graduate from schools such as the University of Texas but from lesser schools where they do not feel they are pushed in classes too fast for them.

The court first heard the case, Fisher v. University of Texas, in 2013. It was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white student who has since graduated from Louisiana State University and who argued that she was denied admission to the University of Texas based on her race.

The University of Texas automatically admits three quarters of its students from the top 10 percent of state high schools. The remaining students are chosen based on a number of factors, race being one of them.

The Supreme Courts original decision avoided ruling directly on the program, instead asking a lower court to decide whether the school had adequately justified including race among criteria for admission.

A federal appeals court in New Orleans twice upheld the universitys admission requirements.

Read the decision here:
A 4-year-old girl died after being shot in the right eye inside a North Philadelphia home Thursday.

Crews rushed to the Montgomery Townhomes on the 1800 block of N 20th Street, near W Montgomery Avenue, shortly after noon then took the girl to Hahnemann Hospital where she died around 1 p.m., said Philadelphia Police.[[384214111, C]]

The girl's 25-year-old mother and a 3-year-old sister were in the home when the child was shot, said police. Police recovered a gun from inside the home.

Neighbors said the mother ran outside holding her daughter and yelled for help. "Her little sister standing over her, I said what happened, she said, she got shot with a gun," Margie Malabet recalled the frantic scene after she ran to help hearing the mother's cries, "Save my baby, please, save my baby."[[384189051, C]]

No word yet on what led to the shooting.

The police continued to question the mother and the girl's younger sister Thursday evening.
A day after he was convicted in a racketeering case, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah submitted his letter of resignation from Congress.

Fattah confirmed that he sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan stating he would leave office on October 3, which is the day before he is set to be sentenced.

"Earlier today I submitted my resignation from Congress to the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi," Fattah wrote in a released statement. "In that letter, I indicated an effective date of October 3, 2016. This date was selected in order to provide enough time to ensure the proper transmission of information and archiving of government documents after more than two decades in service."

"With that said, in further consultation with House Leadership, we are working to identify an agreeable timeframe which will relieve the House of any distractions in carrying out the peoples business. I hold the institution of the Congress of the United States in the highest regard and am thankful for the privilege to have served."

Ryan also released a statement calling on Fattah to immediately resign from office.

"Mr. Fattah has betrayed the trust of this institution and the people of Pennsylvania, and for that he should resign immediately from the House of Representatives," Ryan wrote. "We must hold members to the highest ethical standard, and I hope that Democratic leaders will join me in seeking his immediate resignation."

NBC10s Lauren Mayk tells us what the prosecution has to say about Chaka Fattahs conviction.

Fattah was found guilty of all 22 counts, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering Tuesday. His lawyers had argued that schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case. [[383820231, C]]

Fattah's jovial and calm demeanor didn't change much as the verdict was read, according to NBC10's Deanna Durante, who was in the courtroom.

As he emerged from the courthouse after the guilty verdict, Fattah made a brief statement and headed straight to confer with his lawyers.

"We'll figure out what our next steps are," he said, without answering other questions from the throng of reporters.

The 59-year-old Democrat has represented West Philadelphia as well as parts of Center City, South Philly, Montgomery County and the Main Line in Congress since 1995 and served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. But he lost the April primary and bid for his 12th term. Fattah's current term ends in December.

"This trial is a referendum on Chaka Fattah, Sr.'s conduct," U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said, adding he would ask for jail time and would be working to determine what that ask might be based on sentencing guidelines.

Memeger credited testimony from insiders like former staffer and confidant Gregory Naylor and political consultant Thomas Lindenfeld as critical to the trial's outcome.

"They were able to give that inside view and the jury believed that inside view given by those individuals and that was key to our success in this case."

Fattah will remain out on bail ahead of his October sentencing.

Jurors began deliberations on June 15, nearly a month after the trial began May 16. One juror was dismissed in the racketeering case without explanation Friday. An alternate replaced the missing member, and U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III ordered jurors to begin deliberations again. [[383818891, C]]

Prosecutors said Fattah routed federal grant money and nonprofit funds through his consultants to pay back the illegal loan.



His wife, former NBC10 news anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah, took a leave of absence after her husband's indictment, then quit in February. She was cited in the case over the sham sale of her Porsche, which prosecutors said was a bribe. She was never charged with any wrongdoing, and has always maintained the sale was legitimate.



Justice Department lawyer Jonathan Kravis said in his closing argument that Chaka Fattah also used federal grants and nonprofit funds to enrich his family and friends.



Defense lawyers acknowledged Fattah might have gotten himself in financial trouble after a costly mayoral bid, but they said any help from friends amounted to gifts, not bribes.



Many of them came from co-defendant Herbert Vederman, a wealthy friend who had dreams of scoring an ambassadorship. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat, testified that he never took the pitch from Fattah too seriously, even though Fattah once bent the president's ear about it.

Democrat Ed Rendell, a former mayor and governor, was called to defend Vederman, his former deputy mayor. He said Vederman was qualified for the job and accused prosecutors of cynically misreading the help he lent Fattah.



Vederman helped support Fattah's South African nanny and paid $18,000 for a Porsche owned by Fattah's TV anchor wife.



"The nanny, the Porsche and the Poconos, they weren't part of a bribery scheme," Fattah lawyer Samuel Silver argued in closings. "Those were all overreaches by the prosecution."



The campaign loan was just one of several schemes prosecutors outlined during the trial. They say Fattah was aided in his endeavors by current and former staffers who ran his district office or the nonprofits; by Vederman, who now lives in Palm Beach, Florida; and by political consultants Greg Naylor and Thomas Lindenfeld, who pleaded guilty.

Four co-defendants also faced numerous charges.

Fattah's former chief of staff, Bonnie Bowser, was found guilty on 5 of 21 counts she faced.

Vederman was found guilty on all counts against him.

Political consultant Robert Brand was found guilty on all counts against him.

Former Fattah aide Karen Nicholas was found guilty on some of her counts.

The four-week trial concluded quicker than most observers expected and did not involve any bombshell testimony or evidence entered by prosecutors and defense attorneys. [[383818021, C]]

Members of the jury didn't comment as they left court Tuesday afternoon.

Fattah's son Chaka "Chip" Fattah Jr. was also found guilty of federal fraud charges.
A local prosthetic company is helping out a Philadelphia father of six after his prosthetic leg was stolen earlier this month.

Michael Stauffer, 45, had his leg amputated after he suffered a bone infection that required 29 surgeries. Six months ago however, his insurance paid for a titanium leg, provided by Lawall Prosthetic & Orthotic Services, that allowed him to comfortably move around.

On June 7 at 2:30 p.m., someone stole the leg when it was inside a moving van that was parked in front of Stauffers house on the 4000 block of Shelmire Avenue in the Mayfair section of the city.

I had it all in a duffel bag and its the leg, the socket, the sleeve and all the screws, Stauffer said. How can you do that to somebody thats disabled? One leg?

Stauffer was forced to move on his knees in order to get around.

I just dont like getting around like this, Stauffer said. This is pretty much embarrassing.

Stauffer told NBC10 his insurance wouldn't pay for a replacement for the expensive prosthetic which is worth $28,000.

After viewing our initial story last week, Jack Lawall of Lawall Prosthetic, decided to help Stauffer out once again and get him a new leg.

"I just thought that people do not realize when they take something from somebody how traumatic it can be," Lawall said. "Like an artificial leg. This man has six kids. He has to get up and chase his kids around without a leg. They don't understand."

Stauffer was fitted on Wednesday and is set to receive the new prosthetic leg Thursday.

"They tried to stop me but they didn't," Stauffer said. "What they're doing right now, I'm very pleased. I'm very happy and I can't thank them enough."

Police continue to search for the person who stole Stauffer's first prosthetic leg. If you have any information on the incident, please call Philadelphia Police.
NBC10.com won the national award for best website of a large market television station in the 2016 Edward R. Murrow Awards, following up on a win last year in the regional Murrow Awards.

Winners were announced this week.

The Murrow Awards honor outstanding work produced by radio, television and online news organizations around the world. They are given out annually by the Radio Television Digital News Association.

In its entry, NBC10.com highlighted its monthslong project called "Faces of Homeless Youth," breaking news coverage of the Amtrak 188 derailment and a tragic fire that killed four children, and wide-ranging reporting on the Papal Visit to Philadelphia.

"Not just do we feature the award-winning high quality work produced by our broadcast journalists, but every day NBC10 digital journalists craft unique stories based on original reporting, providing content users wont find anywhere else in our market," said Yoni Greenbaum, Director of Integrated Media for NBC10 and Telemundo62. "And when it comes to enterprise reporting we dont shy away from big and complex issues as evidenced by our tackling Homeless Youth and Drug Addiction."
A Target store in New Jersey was evacuated Wednesday evening as police investigated a report of a suspicious package.

A shopper at the Target in Edgewater, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, tweeted NBC 4 New York to report police "just kicked all of us out and won't explain reason."

A photo showed Edgewater police vehicles stationed outside the store, and the entrance taped off.

Edgewater police later said employees called 911 after spotting a box near the security vestibule at the store.

Bergen County bomb squad and Edgewater police responded and found the box empty. They determined the store was safe and cleared it for customers to return.

Calls to the store were not answered.
A kitten went for a bit of an unexpected ride in Fairfield County, Connecticut, on Wednesday.

A woman stopped at Dunkin Donuts in Norwalk and came out of the restaurant to find someone looking under her SUV.

The person told her he saw a kitten jump up under her car, but neither of them could find it.

After a few minutes, the woman drove off and made her way to the Fairfield County Hunt Club in Westport, where she was working at a horse show.

When she got out of her car, she heard meowing from her engine compartment. She located some Westport firefighters, who were at the club on standby for the horse show and asked them to take a look.

The firefighters found a kitten that had crawled up into a space between the front bumper and the radiator. He had no plans of coming out, according to Westport fire officials.

The crews worked for two hours to raise the vehicle and remove some car parts to get to the area where the kitten was hiding.

Westport's animal control officer took the rescued cat to a veterinarian to be checked out.

The staff at the club have decided to keep the cat and have named him "Bumper."
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Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
A wildfire burning in the rugged border community of Potrero, California, has destroyed five homes, including the home of the family of an Army sergeant killed in Baghdad.

With this devastating blow, the family of late Army Sgt. Brud Cronkrite told NBC 7 they have now truly lost everything.

As of 6:20 a.m. Thursday, Cal Fire officials confirmed the Border Fire  burning since Sunday in Potrero, located approximately 42 miles southeast of downtown San Diego  had scorched 6,840 acres and was 20 percent contained.

The Cronkrites are one of five families who have lost their homes to the fire. Cal Fire said 200 homes in the area remain threatened by the blaze.

[G] Border Fire Scorches 7,609 Acres East of San Diego

According to the Cronkites, one of their family members stayed near the home and watched it burn to the ground. That family member was not hurt but watching his home go up in flames was incredibly painful.

The family has been through much heartache.

In 2004, the Cronkrites son was killed in a grenade attack in Baghdad while serving overseas. Army Sgt. Brud Cronkrites life of service is memorialized in his community, as the Interstate 8 bridge over Potrero is named after him, a green sign still standing near the freeway.

The Border Fire forced evacuations for 700 residents of Potrero, including siblings Rosa Ruiz and Harper McDonald. The pair hiked for miles Wednesday to check on their livestock, which had to be left behind amid evacuations Monday.

Not knowing if their animals were alive was extremely difficult on the siblings.

Frankly, [I felt] kind of awful worrying the whole drive in and over the last couple days, Ruiz said.

Animals, theyre my friends. Our critters, her brother McDonald said.

The cause of the Border Fire remains under investigation.

Cal Fire said 1,901 personnel continued to battle the blaze Thursday as the fifth day of the fire wore on. In addition to multiple homes lost in the fire, 12 outbuildings have been destroyed.

Thats sort of the Campo way, resident Larry Johnson said. Thats what the people back here do. NBC 7s Liberty Zabala has more.
Retired U.S. Army Major Raymond Edgerly was caught in the crosshairs of an alleged scam targeting elderly people.

This guy could talk so smooth, said Edgerly. He could sell an Eskimo an icebox."

Yair Zilberman is facing theft and fraud charges related to defrauding Edgerly of $15,000.

You get sick to your stomach when you make a big error like that," explained Edgerly.

According to Oceanside Police, the World War II veteran got a call from the 32-year-old contractor in April. Operating under the company name "American Way Remodeling," he quoted Edgerly prices for replacing duct work and insulation at his Oceanside home.

Once a portion of the work was completed in the attic, Edgerly says the alleged crooked contractor's scam kicked in.

Sir he said, um, your attic is full of mold and you know thats dangerous to your health."

The cost to clean out the made-up hazard was $15,000 in cash.

Fearing for his health, the decorated veteran went to the bank to get the cash.

Zilberman was right there with him.

After he didnt show up the next day to do anything, I knew I'd been taken."

Zilberman's alleged scams are not limited to Oceanside. He is also under investigation in Escondido.

The L.A.County DA released a statement saying Zilberman pleaded no contest to residential burglary and three counts of theft from an elder in 2014.

There's another similar 2014 case against Zilberman in Albany as well.

Thats the lesson Ive learned,  said Edgerly. Check with the contractors board and only pay a small amount down.

Edgerly says Zilberman did agree to refund his money but sent him a check that bounced.

The contractor is behind bars at Central Jail in San Diego after he was caught in LA. He is under investigation by both Oceanside and Escondido Police.

Potential victims or witnesses are asked to call Oceanside Police Detective Karla Williams at (760) 435-4771 or Escondido Police Detective John LaRose at 760-835-4730.
All evacuation orders have been lifted for the 7,609-acre Border Fire burning in a rugged part of southeast San Diego County, Cal Fire officials confirmed.

As of 6 p.m. on Friday, Cal Fire officials reported that the blaze was 60 percent contained. The fire has destroyed five homes and 11 other buildings over its six-day span.

Friday morning, the fire had been at 45 percent containment.

The Border Fire began Sunday around 11 a.m. near the border city of Potrero, which is located approximately 42 miles southeast of downtown San Diego. Fueled by relentless heat and dry conditions, the blaze prompted evacuations of 700 residents and closed many roads in the area for several days.

Los Coches Creek Middle School, located at 9669 Dunbar Ln. in unincorporated El Cajon, served as an evacuation shelter for residents this week.

By 6 p.m. Thursday, however, all evacuation orders and warnings for residents had been lifted, Cal Fire officials said. As Potrero was repopulated, San Diego Gas & Electric continued to make repairs to many downed power lines and poles in the community.

Though evacuation orders are no longer in effect, Cal Fire said residents are asked to listen and follow the direction of the all emergency personnel.

The latest numbers from Cal Fire show 1,937 fire personnel are working on the Border Fire. Currently, crews are using 175 engines, 13 helicopters, 2 air tankers, 24 water tenders and 11 bulldozers in the fire fight. The Border Fire has threatened about 200 structures in the rural community.

On Friday morning, Cal Fire officials said firefighters had been able to build additional control lines along the perimeter of the Border Fire, increasing the containment.

If those control lines are comprimised, the Border Fire could pontentially threaten the communities of Lake Morena, Campo and recreational areas. Cal Fire said the blaze continues to move north and northeast and firefighters continues to strengthen and secure those containment lines.

On Thursday, Cal Fire said the acreage increase of the Border Fire was being held at a minimum due to hard work of firefighters and more favorable weather conditions.

The Border Fire has proven especially challenging due to the steep, rugged terrain which is difficult to access, and extremely dry vegetation in the area created by years of drought in California. Cal Fire described the conditions as fueling erratic fire behavior.

According to the San Diego County Sheriffs Department (SDSO), the following communities are no longer under mandatory evacuation orders:

Forrest Gate

Star Ranch

Cowboy Ranch

Dog Patch

Canyon City

Lake Morena

Big Potrero Truck Trail/Hauser Creek Road to the south

West of Buckman Springs Road from Lake Morena Drive to Morena Valley Road

Morena Stokes Valley Road (Corral Canyon) at Sky Valley Ranch (Sky Valley Road) to the west and Morena/Stokes Valley Road (Corral Canyon) at Buckman Springs Road to the east

There will be three traffic control points restricting access to the fire burn area.

One spot will be located approximately 1.5 miles north of Highway 94 on Harris Ranch Road, allowing access to all residential locations on Harris Ranch Road.

Another closure will be at Vollmer Road, approximately a quarter-mile north of Highway 94 at the Y intersection.

A third closure will be at Martin Road approximately a quarter-mile west of Highway 94 at the Y intersection. This closure will allow access to residents located on Martin Road.

For now, the Pacific Crest Trail remains closed due to the fire.



Updates on the fire and emergency evacuation shelters can be found here. Potrero residents can also call 211 for information on the Border Fire.

Many Potrero residents own livestock and the County of San Diego Department of Animal Services has been on-hand to help evacuate livestock and pets in the Border Fire area. Animal Services said sheep, chickens, dogs and even 25 mini donkeys have been safely removed from the path of the fire over the past several days.
At least nine tornadoes touched down in northern Illinois during Wednesday night's severe storms, the National Weather Service confirmed.

The number of confirmed tornadoes will likely increase, the National Weather Service in Chicago told the Associated Press, as survey crews investigate damage Thursday along three separate supercell paths.

Six of the tornadoes assessed by Thursday afternoon were said be an EF-2 and an EF-1.

An EF-2 tornado injured four people in Pontiac, in Livingston County, according to the National Weather Service. The tornado began at 10:06 p.m. just 8 miles northeast of Pontiac and traveled 11.1 miles, ending 3 miles southeast of the Illinois town. Winds peaked between 115 and 125 mph.

The second EF-2 tornado traveled from Marseilles around 8:53 p.m. and reaching Seneca in LaSalle County by 9:10 p.m. Fire officials were helping people who were trapped inside a house in Seneca, though no injuries were reported, the NWS reports. Winds reached 116 mph, and the tornado traveled 8.1 miles.

Another tornado that had touched down at 8:39 p.m. just north of Ottawa was said to be an EF-1. The tornado traveled 6.7 miles and had winds up to 90 mph, the NWS said.

Video appears to show a tornado touching down in Mendota, Illinois.

An EF-1 twister touched down around 11:37 p.m. in Iroquois County, near Cissna Park, according to the NWS. The tornado traveled more than 3.5 miles with wind speeds of 110 mph.

Twisters were also reported a mile south of Leland and 2 miles southwest of the village of Troy Grove, both in LaSalle County.

In Grundy County, a tornado was spotted around 9:30 p.m., with winds at 85 mph, according to the NWS. Traveling a mile, the twister was categorized as an EF-0.

The first tornado of the evening was spotted at 7:12 p.m., 5 miles east of Amboy in Lee County, moving east at 25 miles per hour, according to the NWS. Minutes later, the twister was spotted touching down near Shaw Road in Compton, with tree damage reported. That tornado was an EF-1, traveling 2.3 miles with winds reaching 100 to 110 miles per hour.

A funnel cloud appeared in south suburban Harvey, in Cook County, at 9:15 p.m. near 147th St and I-57.

Tornado Warnings were issued for a number of Chicago-area counties as storms began moving in shortly before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night.

Supercell with large wall cloud and occasional funnels near Amboy, IL! @breakingweather @NWSChicago pic.twitter.com/hJWcKskjwM  Reed Timmer (@ReedTimmerAccu) June 23, 2016

Several counties were also placed under a Tornado Watch just after 6 p.m. The watch was canceled around 9:45 p.m. for many counties, but for remained in effect until 1 a.m. for Grundy, Kankakee and LaSalle Counties in Illinois, and Jasper, LaPorte, and Newton Counties in Indiana.

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Kid Cudi and Rae Sremmurd will headline the fifth annual Trillectro music festival coming up Aug. 27, the event organizers announced Wednesday.

The daylong festival -- which brings together established and up-and-coming R&B, hip-hop, electronic and indie rock artists -- will also feature plenty of local stars including GoldLink, Ari Lennox, Jay IDK and more at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

More than a dozen total performers will take to the stage, with YesJulz as the host for the third year in a row.

Presale tickets are on sale now for $55-$95, but seats are going quickly. Head to Trillectro's website to see the full lineup and purchase tickets.
A teenage boy told his ex-girlfriend he would shoot up her home, school and her mother's workplace, according to D.C. police, who said he had the assault rifle and ammunition to do it.

D.C. police searched the home of a 17-year-old boy last week after he sent text messages to his ex-girlfriend saying he would kill her and her family, Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Thursday.

Officers found an AK-47 and more than 180 rounds of ammunition in the teen's home in Southeast D.C., court records show. The teen's name was not released.

Police learned of the threats on June 14, when the victim and her mother called for help, records show. Officers went to their home in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the victim showed police text messages from the teen.

In the text messages, the teen boy wrote that three days later, on June 17, he would kill his ex, kill her mother at work and open fire at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, according to court documents.

The teen also posted video to Instagram showing his ex-girlfriend performing sex acts, she told police, saying he was angry she would not date him again.

The girl told police she knew her ex-boyfriend had multiple guns.

"The gun-recovery unit worked with that young woman through the night, found an on-call emergency judge and interrupted his day, got an emergency search warrant and was able to go and recover an AK-47 from the individual involved," Lanier said Thursday at a news conference.

The police chief stood in front of a display of high-powered firearms police have taken off streets. She spoke angrily of the risks of taking guns out of the hands of criminals and would-be criminals.

"For [officers] to have to put their life on the line against these guns, every single day, and sometimes the same people with new guns over and over again  that's unacceptable," she said.

Greenbelt police intend to charge the teen boy as a juvenile with threats of mass violence, possession of child porn and placing an intimate sexual image online, according to a D.C. Superior Court affidavit.
Federal prosecutors have asked a D.C. judge to issue a "stay away" order to prevent a U.S. Department of Homeland Security employee found with a gun inside agency headquarters from entering any DHS facilities.

The employee, Jonathan Wienke of Martinsburg, West Virginia, was found with a gun by security officers while he was on the job at agency headquarters on Nebraska Avenue in northwest D.C. two weeks ago, according to court filings obtained by the News-4 I-Team.

A federal agent and security officers also found Wienke had a knife, pepper spray, thermal imaging equipment and radio devices.

Wienke has been placed on administrative leave and federal agents are now investigating whether he was plotting an attack against senior Homeland Security officials.

Thursday, U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan addressed the case.

"I'm familiar with the reports. We want more information, but I am familiar with the reports and we're waiting for a further investigation," Ryan said.

Local members of Congress are calling for a review and said they are troubled that Wienke holds a top secret government security clearance.

"It seems crazy that a Homeland Security employee can get in with handcuffs and night vision goggles and a knife -- and worst of all, a weapon," said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).

"The fact that this was a federal employee and one at a secure agency is very unusual. That means we ought to look very closely at how they do their top-secret security clearances," said D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Wienke has pleaded not guilty to a gun charge and is awaiting further court proceedings in the case.

News-4 has learned the U.S. Secret Service and Martinsburg Police Departments have also assisted in the investigation. News-4 was unable to reach Wienke or his attorney for comment.
The man police say molested an 11-year-old girl at a Target store in Fairfax County last weekend has been arrested.

Police identified the suspect as Brendon Jennings Cordova, 19, of Vienna, Virginia, after receiving an anonymous tip. A Fairfax County police officer not involved in the case also saw images of the suspect and recognized a logo on his shirt, police said.

Cordova turned himself in early Thursday after negotiating with his attorney, Fairfax County Police said in a release.

Police said the victim and her father visited the Target in the Mosaic District in Merrifield on Saturday. The victim told her father after they got home that a stranger had touched her buttocks while they were in the store, police said. Her father then called police.

Surveillance footage from Target confirmed the girl's account, police said.

Police are currently looking into other possible victims. Anyone with information is asked to call 1-866-411-TIPS (8477), or call Fairfax County Police at 703-691-2131.
A Hyattsville, Maryland, elementary school teacher has been arrested after police say he solicited a prostitute.

Prince George's County police said 29-year-old Martin Rye Brown, of Silver Spring, was arrested during a prostitution sting operation in Lanham on Tuesday.

Brown is a teacher at Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School, police said.

He has been charged with two counts of prostitution and human trafficking.

Police said he solicited a prostitute and rented a room that was used for prostitution.

He is currently in custody at the Department of Corrections, police said.
What to Know Residents were vulnerable to stolen mail and identity theft when the communal mailbox door was left open.

Residents complained to the post office multiple times, but received no response.

After NBC4 Responds contacted the U.S. Postal Service, the Postal Service told NBC4 Responds it fixed the issue.

Mail sent to the wrong address, left out in the open or disappearing altogether.

An apartment complex in Maryland dealt with mail problems for months, but their complaints received no response.

Frustrated with the U.S. Postal Service, one woman reached out to Consumer Reporter Susan Hogan for help from NBC4 Responds.

Sylvia Robinson said the mail at her apartment complex was frequently delivered to the wrong address. And some mail was never recovered.

We get a lot of misdirected mail, Robinson said. A lot.

Resident Debra Lee-Anderson said she has received other residents mail multiple times.

Its very frustrating, Lee-Anderson said. Im waiting for travel documents, and I dont know theyve come, if theyre gonna come or if somebody else has got them.

But their biggest problem was the door to the communal mailbox, which was frequently left open for days at a time.

All of our mail -- anybody could just walk up, pull it out and keep going," Robinson said.

Lee-Anderson said the open door concerned her because of the risk of identity theft.

People can just come in and get your information, she said.

Robinson and other members of the community reached out to the post office multiple times, but none of their complaints were answered.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the lack of response from the U.S. Postal Service, Robinson said. They have not addressed it.

So, Robinson called Hogan, and NBC4 Responds contacted the U.S. Postal Service about the problem.

The Postal Service told NBC4 Responds it apologizes for any inconvenience its customers are having with their mail service, and that it wants to assure its customers its taking their complaints seriously and will address them.

The Postal Service later released a statement saying it fixed the problems with the Maryland communitys mail service. It said those with mail problems should contact their local Postmaster or call consumer affairs.

If you have a problem you need help solving, submit your concern to NBC4 Responds here or call 844-NBC-DC44.
A suspected drunk driver hit a man crossing a street in Annapolis, Maryland, on Tuesday and then hit a second person when his car rolled, police said.

A 32-year-old man was left with life-threatening injuries after he was hit about 12:30 a.m. His companion, a 26-year-old woman, received serious injuries.

James Bruce, 74, of Annapolis, was driving his 2013 BMW X3 SUV on Forest Drive when he hit the man near Hilltop Lane, the Annapolis Police Department said in a statement.

He reversed the SUV to return to the scene of the crash. The car then rolled backward and hit the woman, police said.

The male pedestrian was rushed to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The woman was taken to Anne Arundel Medical Center.

The pair was not using a crosswalk when they were hit, police said.

Police determined at the scene of the crash that Bruce had been driving drunk. He was arrested and issued citations for driving under the influence of alcohol, driving while impaired by alcohol and driving with suspended registration.

Anyone with information on the crash is asked to call 410-268-9000 x5817 or email htoherlihy@annapolis.gov.
26-year-old Lee Gervais, suspected in a home invasion, was arrested on Wednesday in North Smithfield, Providence, Rhode Island, necn affiliate WJAR reports.

According to police, Gervais broke into a house and stole a pistol on Sunday. Garvais was charged with multiple counts.

The investigation is underway, because of involvement of other suspects.
Plainfield police are investigating the death of a 7-year-old girl found in a pool Wednesday afternoon.

Police and medical crews were called to 86 Glebas Road around 1:30 p.m.

Neighbors said they could hear that something was wrong.

"A scream, the mother scream. Then, a lot of commotion, then the emergency vehicles came. It's just sad," Teresa Smith said.

Next thing I know the ambulance pulled up, the rescue, and they had the little girl on the table, says Diana Smith.

Police say seven-year-old Isabella Costanzo was rushed to Backus Hospital in Plainfield where she was pronounced dead.

I feel terrible, says Bob Smith.

There was an emotional scene as people gathered outside the home.

In a press release, police say it appears that Isabella had been playing in her room, wandered outside, and later her mother found her in the pool.

I cant imagine. I cant imagine, says Diana Smith. I feel so bad. Anybody losing a child.

Police say the pool had an unsecured ladder that led from the ground to the pool.

Officers say town regulations require pools to have an audible alarm and a self-latching/self-closing gate.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, was among nearly 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who staged a protest Wednesday on the House floor objecting to a lack of floor debate or vote on gun legislation.

Its time: Democrats protest Congressional inaction on gun legislation

Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont was among the Congressional Democrats participating in a sit-in on the House floor Wednesday

(necn: Jack Thurston, Barre, Vermont)

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, was among nearly 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who staged a protest Wednesday on the House floor, objecting to a lack of floor debate or vote on gun legislation.

"We've got to consider common-sense gun legislation," Welch said in an interview during a brief break from the protest, which was led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia.

Through a sit-in on the House floor, Welch said he was standing up for an expansion of background checks for gun purchases. He also said he wants to block anyone on the federal governments terror watch list from buying weapons.

"We've had 30 moments of silence since Newtown, when those children were slaughtered in their school. And Orlando was the latest one," Welch said. "After each one of those moments of silence, it's followed by complete inaction. Congress does nothing. What you're seeing [in the protest] is just the reservoir of frustration that's being expressed by the American people, through representatives who are saying, 'It's time!'"

Evan Hughes, the vice president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, an NRA state association, called the demonstration by House Democrats "political play."

Hughes told necn he believes watch lists may have errors on them that could block innocent gun buyers. He also argued someone determined to cause harm could simply dodge a background check.

"They don't impact crime or terrorists at all," Hughes said of background checks. "Because they don't go through background checks. They get their firearms through other methods.

Welch vowed to continue pressing the issue, until the House majority leader, Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, brings gun legislation to the floor.

The Associated Press reported that Ryan said House leaders were "waiting to see what the Senate does before proceeding" on gun legislation, including a possible compromise that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is seeking.

Several Democrats from the U.S. Senate, including Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, showed their support for House colleagues participating in the sit-in.Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont was among the Congressional Democrats participating in a sit-in on the House floor WednesdaRep. Peter Welch of Vermont was among the Congressional Democrats participating in a sit-in on the House floor WednesdayRep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, was among nearly 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who staged a protest Wednesday on the House floor, objecting to a lack of floor debate or vote on gun legislation.

"We've got to consider common-sense gun legislation," Welch said in an interview during a brief break from the protest, which was led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia.

Through a sit-in on the House floor, Welch said he was standing up for an expansion of background checks for gun purchases. He also said he wants to block anyone on the federal governments terror watch list from buying weapons.

"We've had 30 moments of silence since Newtown, when those children were slaughtered in their school. And Orlando was the latest one," Welch said. "After each one of those moments of silence, it's followed by complete inaction. Congress does nothing. What you're seeing [in the protest] is just the reservoir of frustration that's being expressed by the American people, through representatives who are saying, 'It's time!'"

Evan Hughes, the vice president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, an NRA state association, called the demonstration by House Democrats "political play."

Hughes told necn he believes watch lists may have errors on them that could block innocent gun buyers. He also argued someone determined to cause harm could simply dodge a background check.

"They don't impact crime or terrorists at all," Hughes said of background checks. "Because they don't go through background checks. They get their firearms through other methods.

Welch vowed to continue pressing the issue, until the House majority leader, Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, brings gun legislation to the floor.

The Associated Press reported that Ryan said House leaders were "waiting to see what the Senate does before proceeding" on gun legislation, including a possible compromise that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is seeking.

Several Democrats from the U.S. Senate, including Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, showed their support for House colleagues participating in the sit-in.
A 76-year-old woman has died in a house fire in Massachusetts, officials confirm.

Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan and State Fire Marshal Peter Ostroskey said Carol Gionet was found dead inside her home on Baben Road in Hudson after a fire on Wednesday.

According to Ostroskey's office, smoking materials were the cause of the fire, which started near the spot where Gionet's body was found.

Firefighters were called to the home on Baben Road after a home health aide found the fire around 10:30 a.m.

"The fire consumed all the oxygen in the airtight home and eventually self-extinguished," Hudson Fire Chief John Blood said in a statement. "Sadly, it appears the resident was overcome by the heat and toxic gases."
The Massachusetts Senate has unveiled a bill that would regulate ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, including requiring drivers undergo criminal background checks and carry insurance policies of at least $1 million.

Unlike a House version of the bill, the Senate version would not ban drivers working for ride-hailing companies from picking up passengers at Boston's Logan International Airport, a provision meant to appease the taxi industry, which has struggled against the competition.

The Senate bill would also create a trust fund paid for by an assessment on transportation network companies of not more than 10 cents per ride.

The money would be distributed to local municipalities based on the proportion of rides originating in a city or town.

The Senate could debate the bill as early as next week.
A bicyclist has died from her injuries after a crash with a landscaping truck in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Police say the crash happened in Inman Square on Cambridge Street just after noon on Thursday.

The bicyclist, identified as 27-year-old Amanda Phillips of Cambridge, was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office confirmed that she had passed away.

There is no bike lane where Phillips was hit. Fellow bicyclists say the intersection is a dangerous one.

"Cyclists have to realize we weigh 200 pounds. The car weighs 4,000," said Mike McClellan. "It's not a competition."

The driver of the landscaping truck, which stopped after the crash, is cooperating with police. A man from the company had no comment.

Police add that an SUV may have been involved in the crash after it was found on scene with one of its doors open, and investigators are looking into whether the bicyclist crashed into the door or if she rode around it.

That SUV's driver was traumatized by the incident, a patrol officer told necn.

An MBTA bus was not involved in the crash, but police say the driver is a witness.

Traffic was diverted around Inman Square as police investigated the crash.
Police in Northborough, Massachusetts, are looking for a man who assaulted a young female jogger on Thursday morning.

Northborough Police said the jogger said she was assaulted around 10:30 a.m. on Lyman Street near Talbot Road. As the jogger approached a railroad bridge, she told police she saw a man standing at the railing. Shortly after she passed him, she realized he was running after her and as he closed on her he assaulted her by grabbing her from behind.

She turned to confront the man and he ran off down Talbot Road.

Police were called and established a perimeter and called in a K-9 unit. The dog tracked in the area of the railroad tracks, Talbot Road and a wooded area nearby.

The jogger told police that she remembered seeing a smaller, dark-colored car enter Talbot Road a short time later, before police arrived.

As the search continued, a woman in Westborough reported to police there that two men in a small black car circled around her in the area of Lake Chauncy. She told police she first saw the car and the two men on the side of the road with the hood up when she walked past them. Soon after, the car pulled up beside her and she ran away.

The Northborough victim described the man as about 5'8" tall, in his thirties, wearing khaki shorts and a black T-shirt. One of the men in the Westborough incident appears to fit that description.

Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to contact Northborough Police detectives at 508-393-1522 or by calling the main number at 508-393-1515.
Police are searching a property in Hermon, Maine, on Thursday for human remains related to a decades-old cold case.

Twenty-five-year-old Sharon Smith was reported missing on Sept. 4, 1980. She had been working at the Paramount Lounge on Harlow Street in Bangor when she disappeared.

She has never been located and the case has remained open in the 36 years since.

Members of the Bangor Police Department, Maine State Police and the Penobscot County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant on the grounds of a property at 147 New Boston Rd. in Hermon on Thursday morning.

Bangor Police said the search is focused on locating human remains, trace evidence, clothing, blood, bones, body fluids and any other items that might contain the DNA of or other evidence pertaining to Smith's disappearance and death.

The Bangor Daily News reports that Thursday's search was prompted by new information that was received about the case. Police reportedly received an anonymous letter years ago saying that Smith's remains might be in this area.
Police are continuing to search for suspects after a car's window was broken over-night in Boston.

It's not clear how it happened, but the window was shattered near Columbia and Blue Hill Avenue around 11 Wednesday night.

Five individuals on dirt bikes and a scooter hit a Mazda with debris.

Police previously said a cruiser's window was broken, but updated that it was a Mazda.

There is no word on whether police have made any arrests.
Police say a 17-year-old Auburn girl was killed in a crash on state Route 17 in Augusta, Maine.

Emergency crews responded to the area between Spring and Leavitt road on Tuesday night. Police say 19-year-old Darrien Allard of Sidney lost control of his car while driving east, veered off the road and hit a culvert.

Lily Swearingen, a passenger, was killed. Allard and two other passengers were taken to the hospital to be treated for their injuries. Allard was released.

The other passengers haven't been identified. The investigation continues.
A New Hampshire toddler was beaten to blindness, and now that child's mother is talking about the guilt she feels for leaving her son with the person who allegedly abused him.

Little JoJo will be 2 in September. His mom, Lindsey Dubon-Romero, tells necn he is legally blind, but otherwise healthy.

She was in court Thursday to come face-to-face with the woman who allegedly abused JoJo over the course of several weeks.

"That's all I really want to know, is what happened to my child, because he don't deserve it," Romero said outside Rockingham County Court. "He's a baby."

Romero provided necn with the heartbreaking photos of JoJo at Boston Children's Hospital in a medically induced coma.

Prosecutors say Epping resident Jami Castine abused him.

Castine didn't want to talk to necn outside court, but inside, gruesome details were revealed.

According to police, on April 8, Castine hit JoJo in the head so many times that she caused bruising, brain bleeds and permanent visual impairment.

"Right now, he is learning to walk with a walking stick because he is legally blind," Romero said.

Romero says she was struggling with homelessness back in March when she sent her two sons to live with Castine, who she met through a mutual friend.

"I kind of took her word for it, and I shouldn't have," she said.

Castine's mother, Joni, is also charged for failing to report signs of abuse.

Her father, Tim, is facing a felony charge for allegedly deleting a cell phone video of the beating.

Castine's parents told necn off camera they had nothing to do with JoJo's injuries.

Meanwhile, Romero is being charged with neglect, but she argues her intentions were good.

"I don't feel like I neglected him, I was trying to do what's best so they weren't on the streets," she said. "Don't trust nobody with your children."

Castine also allegedly sold drugs while JoJo was in her care.

She and her parents are out on bail and are due back in court at a later date.
Large parts of the internet may need to quickly adopt alternative revenue methods to thwart a massive surge in ad blocking.

Ad blocking is not going away, says eMarketer, a research firm that has just published startling projections. In fact, the digital marketing expert says more than a quarter of U.S. internet users will use ad blockers to perform ad-free web browsing in 2016.

A double digit (34 percent) increase will lead to 69 million ad blocker users this year, eMarketer predicts.

And its going to get worse. The researcher says that number will be closer to 86 million ad blocking internet users in 2017. Thats growth of another 24 percent and will mean that almost a third (32 percent) of all internet users will use the barriers next year.

And its costing publishers. Digital publishers left $24 billion on the table worldwide in 2015 through ad blocking, according to analyst Ovum and reported by Mother Jones.

The problem is that consumers hate the annoying, intrusive ads that often harass them into watching videos, pop-up inexplicably, or slow the browser page-load due to third-party analytics logging.

+ Also on Network World: Sites that prevent ad blockers lose readers +

Adding insult to injury, the ads are often inappropriate, or when appropriate, dont take into account whether the individual has now acquired the product he was searching for, possibly hours previously. That search query can prompt the, now irrelevant, ad subject.

What can marketers and publishers do?

Some of these issues will be dealt with as behavioral analysis, using machine learning gets betteran individual humans psychological characteristics will likely be better understood through artificial intelligence monitoring network traffic, thus providing better targeting.

One marketing technique that could help would be less anonymization of collected physical location data from smartphones. That data connects consumer habits with locations and could help advertisers pitch more appropriately. Ironically, knee-jerk (and possibly warranted) consumer opposition to data collection means thats unlikely to happen.

So, whats a digital marketer to doother than place ads in the ad blocker?

Preventing an ad-blocking software user from seeing the media content, as some are trying, will have a negative long-term effect, Mother Joness article suggests.

Another possible solution, though, is for media properties to try to charge subscribers for content in exchange for no ads. The New York Times plans that route.

But heres another idea: Would asking nicely to be ad-blocker white-listed work? The New York Times had some success with that idea, it says in an article about its upcoming quasi pay-wall subscription plan.

The issue reminds me a bit of what happened when the music business became digitized. Consumers initially chose to steal music via peer-to-peer downloading instead of paying for content.

Amazingly, it turned out that this was not really a greedy, malicious act when all was said and done.

The reason consumers just took the stuff was because they had no concept of the idea of intellectual property. It hadnt been taught to them. It hadnt occurred to the music listener that someone had to pay. Consumers eventually understood that the kids needed to eat.

Years of consumer education by the music industry has changed the music grab to one of buy again, and consumers are now (kind of) paying via streaming subscription services.

So, it may not be a technical solution thats required for this issue. Possibly a human one would work: Content creators need to eat.
A misconfigured CouchDB instance caused 154 million U.S. voters records to be exposed, according to MacKeeper security researcher Chris Vickery. It was configured for public access with no username, password, or other authentication required.

Vickery determined the leaky database was on Google Cloud Platform and traced it back to a client of L2, a company that claims to be the countrys most trusted source for enhanced voter data.

The database included fields for addresses, age, congressional as well as state senate districts, education, estimated income, ethnic, name, gender, languages, marital status, phone number, voting frequency, presence of children, and if the voter was a gun owner.

Vickery emailed every L2 email address he could find, receiving a response from L2s CEO Bruce Willsie. L2s unnamed client gave the old we were hacked excusesomething Vickery hears a lot after notifying a company of its unprotected database. Yet the database was taken offline fairly fast, three hours after speaking with Willsie.

Part of Willsies official statement included:

We very quickly identified the national client, informed them immediately and they took down the site as quickly as they could. The client told us that they were hacked, the firewall was taken down and then the probing began. This was an old copy (from about a year ago) of the national file, and it had only a very small number of our standard fields. Needless to say, the client is doing its own research now to determine the extent of the incursion. Ive asked that they report back to us with their findings and their plan for hardening their system in the future.

Curious, Vickery had queried the servers log to determine that a Serbian IP had been interacting with the publicly exposed U.S. voter profile database on April 11. Why was a Serbian IP messing around with a U.S. voter database? he asked. While it could have been a proxy, he called it very troubling that the incursion took place this year.

April was the same month Vickery discovered a misconfigured MongoDB hosted on AWS that contained the personal information of millions of Mexican voters. In May, he discovered yet another Mexican voter database that was publicly exposed. Russia, the Philippines and Turkey have had voters records dumped online. In December and January, Vickery discovered other misconfigured databases that resulted in a massive leak of U.S. voters records.

After this latest discovery of another unsecured database containing millions of American voters records, Dissent Doe from Pogo Was Right and the Office of Inadequate Security wrote on The Daily Dot, Our government is currently doing little to nothing, so why should entities make more effort to secure our information?

She added:

Attempts to regulate voter registration list dissemination are unlikely to succeed because political organizations and fund-raising organizations rely upon them, and their lobby makes mincemeat of any privacy lobbying efforts. No federal agency is enforcing data security in political organizations or non-profits, and so far, neither are state attorney generals.

If anyone can figure out who the L2 client was, then Vickery said to please contact him. I dont think L2 is going to tell us, he added.
How the referendum played out on a historic night

GOOD morning all, and welcome to NewburyToday's live EU referendum blog.

West Berkshire has voted marginally to remain in the EU, but Britain voted out.

NewburyToday was at the count and has also been providing updates locally and nationally throughout the night and this morning as the results came in.

To see how the drama unfolded see our coverage below.

Also, don't forget to checking our Twitter page (@NewburyToday) and Facebook for updates.

10.10am - A final recap of the local results in a historic referendum which has seen Britain vote to leave the European Union - West Berkshire, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Reading and Wokingham all voted Remain. While Swindon, Bracknell Forest, Slough and Basingstoke and Deane voted Leave.

The nation's decision saw Prime Minister David Cameron announce his resignation with a new leader expected to be in place by October.

We will continue to bring you all the local reaction so make sure you continue to check newburytoday.co.uk

09.31am - Vodafone, which has it's international headquarters in West Berkshire and backed Remain, issued the following statement:

"The political and economic consequences of the UK's withdrawal from the EU are for others to consider now that the UK electorate has reached its decision.

"In terms of the implications for Vodafone, each of our country businesses operates as a standalone entity able to adapt to a wide range of local conditions.

"As we said before the referendum, we remain committed to supporting our UK customers regardless as to the outcome, now and in the future."

No word on the immediate impact on jobs, however.

09.00am - It's fair to say there has been a mixed reaction in West Berkshire to the news of Britain's decision to leave the EU this morning. These posts were taken from the Newbury Weekly News Facebook page. Click here to join the discussion.

08.43am - A quick recap of the local results - West Berkshire, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Reading and Wokingham all voted Remain. Swindon, Bracknell Forest, Slough and Basingstoke and Deane voted Leave.

08.28am - David Cameron says he will resign by the time the Conservative Party conference takes place in October.

"I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination," he said.

08.14am - There are reports circulating that David Cameron could be set to resign.

08.00am - Prime minister David Cameron set to speak soon

07.33am Eurosceptic Conservative MP John Redwood said David Cameron should stay on as Prime Minister but urged him to build "a new government to bind the country together".

Mr Redwood's own constituency, Wokingham, voted to remain by a majority of 56.7 per cent.

07.12am - Following Britain's decision to leave the EU Newbury MP Richard Benyon raised fears over the nations economy.

He said: "I'm very pleased that West Berkshire voted remain, but Britain as a whole will now have to come to terms with the fact that it has voted to leave.

"I very much hope we can avoid a recession but the impact this will have is huge. We just have to try and get the best out of this situation."

For more reaction to the referendum click here.

07.09am - The Leave campaign ultimately won by a margin of 1, 269, 501 votes. 17, 410, 742 voted in favour of Britain leaving the EU (a majority of 51.89 per cent) with 16, 141, 241 voting to remain.

06.46am -

The Tory Brexiteers all seem v leisurely (Cameron must stay, no Article 50 etc). Suspect UKIP will demand immediate action. Splits ahead!  Robert Harris (@Robert___Harris) June 24, 2016

06.31am - As Britain wakes, the enormity of what has happened is starting to sink in. Social media awash with comments from both the Leave and Remain camps. What is your view? Email dan.cooper@newburynews.co.uk and chris.ord@newburynews.co.uk

06.23am - Prime minister David Cameron is expected to address the nation at 7am following the vote to leave the EU.

06.02am - That's it. It has been confirmed that the Leave campaign has definitely won.

05.59am - There are still five areas left to declare in the South East region with Leave leading by 52.3 per cent.

05.47am - Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has called for a border poll on a united Ireland after Britain voted to leave the European Union.

Support for the EU is considerably higher in Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK.

05.43am - A quick summary: West Berkshire, South Oxfordshire, West Oxfordshire, Reading, Wokingham and East Hampshire all voted to remain in the EU.

05.39am - Just 26 voting areas left to declare now with Leave holding a 52 per cent lead.

05.35am - Local reaction to the result with some residents concerned about the prospect of a post-EU Britain...

West Berkshire has chose to REMAIN, while the pound crashes. This is actually really worrying me now #EUReferedum  Amanda (@amandajaneyxx) June 24, 2016

05.24am - Following the West Berkshire result vote Leave constituency co-ordinator David Bailey said it will now be difficult to bring the Leave and Remain groups back together. Read the reaction from the West Berkshire count here.

05.18am - Remain results still coming in as Windsor and Maidenhead says it wants to stay in the EU.

05.15am - You'd like to think this was something voters were googling before the referendum...

+250% spike in "what happens if we leave the EU" in the past hourhttps://t.co/9b1d6Bsx6D  GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) June 24, 2016

05.11am - Newbury Labour's Jonny Roberts has said he is "saddened" with the way the results have gone. Read the reaction form the West Berkshire count here.

05.08am -

The likely #EURefResults angers me. Recession, unemployment and a tanking  beckon. Where now your child's future?  Judith Bunting (@JudithBuntingLD) 24 June 2016

05.02am - West Berkshire voted IN, but it looks as though Britain will leave the EU. What are your thoughts?

04.54am - Wiltshire has voted to leave the European Union.

04.44am -

04.40am - Despite West Berkshire and neighbouring Wokingham vote to remain though it may not be enough to keep Britain in the EU with some analysts already calling victory for the Leave campaign.

04.38am - Wokingham has voted to remain in the EU with 55, 272 voting to stay and 42, 229 voting to leave.

04.20am - Remain won in West Berkshire by a slim margin of just 51.7 per cent with 48, 300 voters wanting to stay in the Eu while 44, 977 voting to leave.

04.19am - West Berkshire votes remain.

04.13am - A declaration at West Berkshire isn't too far away now and people are feeling the tension.

stg if West Berkshire isn't remain imma cry  Felice (@_junkforest_) June 24, 2016

04.10am - The value of the pound against the dollar is at a 31-year low, the lowest since September 1985.

04.01am - "Let 23rd June go down in history as our Independence Day," says Nigel Farage.

I now dare to dream that the dawn is coming up on an independent United Kingdom.  Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 24, 2016

03.59am - We're still waiting for the West Berkshire result to be declared with delays put down to the high voter turn out. We'll let you know as soon as the result is announced.

03.47am - Reading votes to remain. 43, 385 vote remain while 31, 382 vote to leave.

03.44am - Worrying figures for the Remain campaign here as ITV analysts predict 80 per cent chance of a Brexit win.

ITV News analysis: 80% probability Leave to win https://t.co/fMKDIqXjy5pic.twitter.com/Mz8eJgYiO8  ITV News (@itvnews) 24 June 2016

03.40am - ... There were further delays

We're told 15 to 25mins West Berkshire expects to call the result  William Walker (@williamw_nwn) June 24, 2016

03.27am - Barring any further delays we should be getting the West Berkshire result any minute now.

03.09am - Nationally, we are now a third of the way through and Leave leads by 68,000 votes.

03.05am - The chairman of UKIP Newbury, Roy Tubb, who is campaigning to leave, said: "At the moment it's very very close. It could go either way.

"I'm not convinced it will be a majority whatever the result. Maybe one or two percentage points here and there."

02.58am - 109 areas have declared now - and Leave is in front.

02.50am - A delay at the count means we may not know if West Berkshire wish to Leave or Remain until 3.30am "at least".

02.40am - It's too close to call this referendum, Remain is 50.3 per cent, Leave 49.7 per cent.

02.33am - Bracknell Forest votes to leave the EU.

02.30am - West Berkshire Liberal Democrat Judith Bunting pleased Oxford declared a strong vote for remain.

Oxford votes #Remain by 70% - #Remain takes the lead  Judith Bunting (@JudithBuntingLD) June 24, 2016

02.26am - To give you an idea of how close the results are - 52 areas have now been declared and there are only 11,000 votes in it. Leave is ever so slightly ahead.

02.25am - Just over half an hour to go until we can expect the West Berkshire results. The district saw 80 per cent of its registered voters take to the polls to have their say in the EU referendum and West Berkshire Council spokesperson Martin Dunscombe said he was impressed with the turnout. He added: "With the results so far it seems to be higher than other parts of the country.

"We're pleased that people in West Berkshire have come out and had their say."

02.12am - Bookies have slashed odds for a Brexit victory with Leave now favourite at 4/7, while odds for Remain are 11/8.

02.10am - Early momentum is with the Leave campaign who now have a 10 per cent lead over Remain after 33 areas declare.

01.58am - The count is well underway now at Newbury College. Results hopefully expected in around an hours time.

01.57am - The West Berkshire count is going smoothly over at Newbury College according to West Berkshire Council chief executive Nick Carter with a declaration expected at around 3am.

He said: "It's going pretty well, no major issues."

Comparing the count to that of last years General Election he said "It's easier with just one election there's no doubt about that."

01.48am - Still very early days, but as things stand Britain is set to leave the European Union . Nineteen results down, 363 to go - and Leave has a four per cent lead.

01.42am - If you fancy a flutter you can currently get odds on the UK to remain in the EU at 1/2 while a Brexit victory is 6/4. Remain currently odds-on favourite but will that change?

01.29am - Big turn out in West Berkshire for the EU referendum with 80 per cent of registered voters taking to the polls. That's 93, 345 voters.

01.19am - Vote Leave constituency coordinator for Newbury David Bailey is feeling confident predicting a result of 53/47 to leave.

He said: "Newbury you would expect to be a natural remain area, but I don't know.

"I think I would be surprised now if it's a vote for remain."

01.15am - The result in Swindon even caught the eye of Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan.

01.08am - Newbury Labour's Jonny Roberts says things are too close to call both nationally and in West Berkshire.

He also told reporter Wil Walker he things some of the campaigning has been "disgusting".

He added: "The country is very divided and this whole issue has been very divisive.

"It's going to take a lot of work to unite the country again."

01.05am - A quick reminder of how the voting works tonight. Votes in England, Scotland and Wales will be counted in their Local Authority areas, while votes in Northern Ireland will be counted in their parliamentary constituencies. Each region will then declare the total number of votes, before the final national result is declared hopefully by 'breakfast time' tomorrow.

12.57am - The first local result is in - and Swindon has voted to Leave.

12.54am - Results are also in from the Isles of Scilly - Remain 56.4 per cent, Leave 43.6 per cent.

12.52am - The results are in from Foyle in Northern Ireland area: Remain 78.3 per cent, Leave 21.7 per cent.

12.45am - Update on TeaGate - West Berkshire Council's communications manager Martin Dunscombe has saved the day - for now.

12.36am - West Berkshire Liberal Democrat Judith Bunting says she would "put money" on a slight Remain vote in West Berkshire.

She tells reporter Wil Walker: "I'm optimistic but not quite confident of a remain vote.I would put money on a slight remain here.

"For the country I would put money on a remain...but not much".

12.33am - The pound has reportedly plunged after that Leave vote in Sunderland.

12.18am And the city of Sunderland is the first to vote Leave tonight with 51,930 voting remain and 82,394 voting out. Quite a significant margin for Brexit of more than 30,000.

12.11am - It could be a long, long night for all involved at the West Berkshire EU count - they have run out of hot water already so no teas and coffees. Oh dear...

12.03am - Newcastle votes to remain... just! 65,404 geordies voted to remain while 63, 598 voted to leave with a 67.7 per cent turn out.

11.58pm - The turnout in Gibraltar was particularly high - at 83.5 per cent.

11.50pm - And the first results are in already - Remain has taken 96 per cent of the vote in the EU referendum in Gibraltar, the first area to declare.

More than 19,300 people voted for Remain compared to just over 800 for Leave.

11.43pm - Here they are!

11.08pm - More than 130 ballot boxes have arrived at Newbury College for the West Berkshire count.

11.04pm - The first results to come in, around midnight, include Gibraltar, the Scilly Isles and the City of London, and may not be particularly representative.

At around 1am, results for Darlington and Oldham in northern England, and Basildon and Swindon in the south, are expected.

11pm - Should we stay or should we go? That is the question - and in roughly an hour the first results are expected to come in.
A bi-weekly general music show focusing on the 1962-1978 era, though it is not exclusive to that period. Genres include: blues, blues rock, psychedelic music, jazz, folk and folk rock and country and country rock. There will also be some spoken word (comedy and some interesting short readings). There will be profiles of seminal artists of the period and interesting historical facts of the artist along with occasional host opinion.You can contact the show at cscoolcuts@gmail.com.
COLUMBUS  When Jean Danforth is asked to explain steampunk, even she has a bit of trouble.

She pulled up a definition on her laptop, read through it, then used her own words to describe the genre that has fascinated her for years.

I sort of consider it industrial Victorian meets the Industrial Revolution, with a little bit of whimsical and fantasy thrown in, said Danforth, her East Coast accent shining through.

Danforth has lived in Columbus for 13 years after moving here from Maine with her husband. She has been an artist since she was young, admiring the work of her favorite painter, Salvador Dali. She mostly stuck to drawing and painting until about four years ago when steampunk struck her interest.

Danforth cant recall where she saw the art style, but she was attracted to the gears and machine parts often associated with it. Steampunk is inspired by science fiction and 19th century steam-powered machinery.

Danforth has a whole area set up in her basement where she works on steampunk pieces and what she calls found jewelry, so-named because she uses whatever trinkets she finds to put together necklaces.

That is where I go out pickin and find things from all sorts of different places  antique shops, bags of old jewelry from Goodwill. It could be things not meant to be necklaces and I make them into necklaces, she said.

Plastic containers are full of beads, broaches, rings and other oddities used to make the jewelry. She can spend hours each day creating.

Some of her steampunk creations are currently on display in Columbus Public Library. Other pieces she will be selling today during the ARTful Home Tour, sponsored by the Columbus Art Council, are on her dining room table.

It will be Danforths first attempt at selling steampunk artwork.

I dont know if Columbus is ready for steampunk or not. Well find out, she said.

Some of the pieces shes made include a box with a top adorned with rusty fasteners and a pressure gauge. Another is an old movie reel with purple flowers and a gold-colored key and gears. In her living room, which has a variety of framed pictures on the walls, is a steampunk-decorated mirror set up on a stand.

Her favorite steampunk piece, which she made a few weeks ago, hangs on the wall at the top of the stairs leading to her living room. In the center of the artwork is the face of a clock with mismatched gears and other charms off to the side. The canvas also has texture with the addition of lace, cheesecloth and burlap.

Danforth finds inspiration for her steampunk creations by finding the machinery pieces first then piecing it together when she gets home. She often hits up antique stores and flea markets for her supplies. Some of her favorite places to visit are scrap piles.

Its like Christmas morning, she said with a smile on her face.

Sometimes Danforth doesnt even know what she has found. Whether it's a piece of old metal discovered on the ground or what looks to be a twisted drawer handle, it can be made into a treasure.

Right now, Danforth is zeroed in on spending her time creating steampunk art, but art of any type has always interested her. One of her other favorite forms is turning antique pictures into scrapbooks.

She simply enjoys being creative and not worrying about the final result.

Its not right or wrong. It just is, Danforth said.
Columnist

Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Some clouds. Low around 35F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low around 35F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
NOTICE: This Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) is intended for persons living in Australia.

Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) summary The full CMI on the next page has more details. If you are worried about using this medicine, speak to your doctor or pharmacist. WARNING: Important safety information is provided in a boxed warning in the Important safety information is provided in a boxed warning in the full CMI . Read before using this medicine.

Why am I taking DORMIZOL?

DORMIZOL contains the active ingredient zolpidem tartrate. DORMIZOL is used to initiate and maintain sleep in those with sleeping difficulties, also called insomnia in patients over 18 years of age. For more information, see Section 1. Why am I taking DORMIZOL? in the full CMI.

What should I know before I take DORMIZOL?

Do not use if you have ever had an allergic reaction to DORMIZOL or any of the ingredients listed at the end of the CMI. Talk to your doctor if you have any other medical conditions, have been drinking alcohol, take any other medicines, or are pregnant or plan to become pregnant or are breastfeeding. For more information, see Section 2. What should I know before I take DORMIZOL? in the full CMI.

What if I am taking other medicines?

Some medicines may interfere with DORMIZOL and affect how it works. A list of these medicines is in Section 3. What if I am taking other medicines? in the full CMI.

How do I take DORMIZOL?

In adults: usual dose is one 10 mg tablet taken just before bedtime. In people over 65 years of age: the dose is one 5 mg tablet taken just before bedtime. More instructions can be found in Section 4. How do I take DORMIZOL? in the full CMI.

What should I know while taking DORMIZOL?

Things you should do Remind any doctor, dentist or pharmacist you visit that you are using DORMIZOL. If you become pregnant or suspect that you are pregnant while you are taking this medicine, stop taking it and tell your doctor or pharmacist immediately. Things you should not do Do not take DORMIZOL if you have sleep apnoea, myasthenia gravis, severe liver problems, acute and / or severe lung problems or if you have previously experienced complex sleep behaviours such as sleep walking. Do not give DORMIZOL to a child or adolescent Driving or using machines You should not operate dangerous machinery or drive motor vehicles for 8 hours after you take it. You should also be careful the next morning when you wake up. Drinking alcohol You should not drink alcohol while you are taking DORMIZOL. Looking after your medicine Keep the medicine in a cool, dry place where the temperature stays below 30C. For more information, see Section 5. What should I know while using DORMIZOL? in the full CMI.

Are there any side effects?

Common side effects are: drowsiness, dizziness, headache, fatigue, worsened insomnia, hallucinations, delirium, nightmares, agitation, depression, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, back pain, infections of the nose, throat and chest and loss of memory. If any of the following happen, stop taking this medicine and tell your doctor immediately, or go to Accident and Emergency at your nearest hospital: swelling of the face, lips, mouth or throat, which may cause difficulty in swallowing or breathing, hives, fainting. Sleep walking, driving motor vehicles and other unusual, and on some occasions dangerous, behaviours whilst apparently asleep may also occur. For more information, including what to do if you have any side effects, see Section 6. Are there any side effects? in the full CMI. WARNING: ZOLPIDEM MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH UNUSUAL AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS BEHAVIOURS WHILST APPARENTLY ASLEEP. THESE HAVE INCLUDED SLEEP WALKING, DRIVING MOTOR VEHICLES AND OTHER BIZARRE BEHAVIOURS. SOME MEDICINES MAY INTERACT WITH ZOLPIDEM AND PARTICULAR CAUTION IS NEEDED WITH OTHER DRUGS THAT MAY ALSO ACT ON THE BRAIN; BEFORE YOU TAKE ZOLPIDEM REFER TO THE "TAKING OTHER MEDICINES" SECTION BELOW OR ASK YOUR DOCTOR OR PHARMACIST. YOU MUST NOT DRINK ALCOHOL WHEN YOU TAKE ZOLPIDEM. DO NOT TAKE ZOLPIDEM FOR MORE THAN 4 WEEKS. IF YOUR SLEEP PROBLEMS CONTINUE, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR.

Why am I taking DORMIZOL?

DORMIZOL contains the active ingredient zolpidem tartrate. DORMIZOL is used to initiate and maintain sleep in those with sleeping difficulties, also called insomnia in patients over 18 years of age. It is not recommended for use for more than 4 weeks at a time. DORMIZOL has a different chemical structure to other sleeping tablets. DORMIZOL works by binding to special sites in the brain which produce sleep. Your doctor, however, may prescribe DORMIZOL for another purpose.

What should I know before I take DORMIZOL?

Warnings

Do not take DORMIZOL if: you are allergic to zolpidem tartrate, or any of the ingredients listed at the end of this leaflet. Always check the ingredients to make sure you can use this medicine. you have been drinking alcohol or you believe that you may have alcohol in your bloodstream. you have sleep apnoea (a condition where you temporarily stop breathing while you sleep). you have myasthenia gravis (a condition in which the muscles become weak and tire easily). you have severe liver problems you have acute and/or severe lung problems you have previously experienced complex sleep behaviours after taking this medicine including sleepwalking, sleep-driving, and/or engaging in other activities while not fully awake.

Do not give DORMIZOL to a child or adolescent under 18 years of age. There is no experience with its use in children or adolescents under 18 years of age.

Check with your doctor if you: have any problems with your breathing or if you often snore while you are asleep. have ever been addicted to alcohol or any drug or medicine or if you have ever suffered from a mental illness. If you have, you may be at risk of getting into a regular pattern or habit of taking DORMIZOL. have or have had any other medical conditions especially the following: problems with your heart, liver, kidneys or lungs, epilepsy, depression, mental illness, for example, schizophrenia. plan to have surgery. have allergies to any of the ingredients listed at the end of this leaflet. take any medicines for any other condition.

Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have ever had a mental disorder or have abused or have been dependent on alcohol or drugs During treatment, you may be at risk of developing certain side effects. It is important you understand these risks and how to monitor for them. See additional information under Section 6. Are there any side effects

Pregnancy and breastfeeding Check with your doctor if you are pregnant, suspect that you are pregnant, or intend to become pregnant. Like most medicines of this kind, DORMIZOL is not recommended to be used during pregnancy. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of taking it if you are pregnant. Talk to your doctor if you are breastfeeding or intend to breastfeed. DORMIZOL can pass into breast milk. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of using it if you are breast-feeding or planning to breast-feed. Do not take it after the expiry date (EXP) printed on the pack. Do not take it if the packaging is damaged or shows signs of tampering.

What if I am taking other medicines?

Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are taking any other medicines, including any medicines, vitamins or supplements that you buy without a prescription from your pharmacy, supermarket or health food shop. Some medicines may interfere with DORMIZOL and affect how it works. Medicines that may increase the effect of DORMIZOL include: alcohol medicines to treat depression, anxiety and mental illness medicine used to produce calmness or to help you sleep medicines to treat epilepsy pain relievers muscle relaxants antihistamines ciprofloxacin a medicine used to treat infections ketoconazole, a medicine to treat antifungal infections opioids These medicines may increase drowsiness. This may affect your ability to drive a car or operate dangerous machinery. You may need to use different amounts of your medicine, or take different medicines. Your doctor will advise you. Medicines that may reduce the effect of DORMIZOL include: St John's Wort (also known as Hypericum), a herbal remedy used to treat depression Rifampicin, a medicine used to treat infection Check with your doctor or pharmacist if you are not sure about what medicines, vitamins or supplements you are taking and if these affect DORMIZOL.

How do I take DORMIZOL?

How much to take The usual adult dose of DORMIZOL is one tablet (10 mg) taken just before you go to bed. If you are over 65 years of age the dose is half a DORMIZOL tablet (5 mg) taken just before you go to bed. If you have any liver problems, the usual recommended dose is half a DORMIZOL tablet (5 mg). Do not take DORMIZOL if you have severe liver problems. Your doctor may have prescribed a different dose. The lowest effective daily dose should be used and must not exceed 10 mg. Follow the instructions provided and use DORMIZOL until your doctor tells you to stop. If you take the wrong dose, DORMIZOL may not work as well. If you take too much your consciousness may be impaired (see 'If you take too much DORMIZOL' below). Ask your doctor if you are unsure of the correct dose for you. They will tell you exactly how much to take.

When to take DORMIZOL Take DORMIZOL immediately before you go to bed or while you are in bed DORMIZOL should only be taken when you are able to get a full night's sleep (7 to 8 hours) before you need to be active again. It should be taken in one dose and not be re-administered during the same night.

How long to take it Usually, DORMIZOL or any other medicines to treat sleeping disorders should only be used for short periods (e.g. 2 to 4 weeks). Continuous long term use is not recommended unless advised by your doctor. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if you are not sure how long to take the medicine for.

How to take DORMIZOL Swallow the tablet whole with a full glass of water unless your doctor has told you take half a tablet. If you take DORMIZOL on an empty stomach it may work more quickly

If you forget to take DORMIZOL If you forget to take the tablet before you go to bed, and you wake up late in the night or very early in the morning, do not take it. You may have trouble waking at your normal time. If you are not sure what to do, ask your doctor.

If you take too much DORMIZOL If you think that you have used too much DORMIZOL, you may need urgent medical attention. You should immediately: phone the Poisons Information Centre

(by calling 13 11 26), or contact your doctor, or go to the Emergency Department at your nearest hospital. You should do this even if there are no signs of discomfort or poisoning. You may need urgent medical attention. If you take too much your consciousness may be impaired ranging from drowsiness to light coma.

What should I know while taking DORMIZOL?

Things you should do Tell all the doctors, dentists and pharmacists who are treating you that you are taking DORMIZOL. If you are about to be started on any new medicine, tell your doctor and pharmacist that you are taking DORMIZOL. If you plan to have surgery that needs a general anaesthetic, tell your doctor or dentist that you are taking this medicine. If you become pregnant or suspect that you are pregnant while you are taking this medicine, stop taking it and tell your doctor or pharmacist immediately.

Call your doctor straight away if you: have any of the serious side effects listed in section 6 Remind any doctor, dentist or pharmacist you visit that you are taking DORMIZOL.

Things you must not do Do not take more than the recommended dose unless your doctor tells you to. This can increase the risk of side effects. Do not give this medicine to anyone else, even if they have the same condition as you. Do not use this medicine to treat any other complaints unless your doctor tells you to. Do not drink alcohol before or after taking this medicine. This can increase the risk of side effects or the effects of alcohol could be made worse while taking DORMIZOL.

Things to be careful of: If you are over 65 and unwell or taking other medicines. You may be more sensitive to some of the side effects of DORMIZOL. Some patients may be particularly susceptible to the sedative effects of the medication, which may increase the possibility of a fall.

After taking DORMIZOL Sleep medicines should in most cases, be used only for short periods of time. If your sleep problems continue, consult your doctor. Some medicines can cause dependence, especially when they are used regularly for longer than a few weeks. People who have been dependent on alcohol or other drugs in the past may have a higher chance of becoming addicted to sleep medicines. If you have been addicted to alcohol or drugs in the past, it is important to tell your doctor before starting DORMIZOL. Sometimes when medicines are stopped suddenly, after being used for a long time, withdrawal symptoms may occur. Symptoms of withdrawal may include abdominal and muscle cramps, vomiting and sweating. In some cases your insomnia may appear worse for a short time which may be accompanied with other reactions including mood changes, anxiety and restlessness; speak to your doctor if this occurs. Patients taking part in trials have not had any problems when they stopped taking DORMIZOL. However, let your doctor know if you have any problems when you stop taking DORMIZOL.

Driving or using machines Because DORMIZOL will make you sleepy, you should not operate dangerous machinery or drive motor vehicles for 8 hours after you take it. You should also be careful the next morning when you wake up. Make sure you know how you react to DORMIZOL before you drive a car or operate machinery. This is very important if you are taking other drugs that also make you drowsy.

Drinking alcohol You should not drink alcohol while you are taking DORMIZOL. Tell your doctor if you drink alcohol. Alcohol may increase the risk of side effects or the effects of alcohol could be made worse while taking DORMIZOL.

Looking after your medicine Keep your tablets in the blister pack until it is time to take them. If you take the tablets out of the box or the blister pack they may not keep well. Keep the medicine in a cool, dry place where the temperature stays below 30C. Follow the instructions in the carton on how to take care of your medicine properly. Store it in a cool dry place away from moisture, heat or sunlight; for example, do not store it: in the bathroom or near a sink, or in the car or on window sills. Keep it where young children cannot reach it.

Getting rid of any unwanted medicine If you no longer need to use this medicine or it is out of date, take it to any pharmacy for safe disposal. Do not use this medicine after the expiry date.

Are there any side effects?

All medicines can have side effects. If you do experience any side effects, most of them are minor and temporary. However, some side effects may need medical attention. See the information below and, if you need to, ask your doctor or pharmacist if you have any further questions about side effects.

Tell your doctor as soon as possible if you do not feel well while you are taking DORMIZOL.

Less serious side effects Less serious side effects What to do Head and neurology related: drowsiness dizziness headache fatigue anxiety nightmares poor attention and concentration memory impairment and loss unexpected changes in behaviour. These have included rage reactions, worsened insomnia, confusion, agitation, depression, hallucinations, delirium, and other forms of unwanted behaviour Gastrointestinal related: diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting abdominal pain Musculoskeletal related: muscle weakness back pain Infection related: infections of the nose, throat and chest Although these side effects can occur at the usual recommended doses, the risk of these behaviours occurring may also be increased if you take more than the recommended dose. Speak to your doctor if you have any of these less serious side effects and they worry you.

Serious side effects Serious side effects What to do Allergic reactions: swelling of the face, lips, mouth or throat, which may cause difficulty in swallowing or breathing hives fainting Sleepwalking and associated behaviours: sleep walking, driving motor vehicles and other unusual, and on some occasions dangerous, behaviours whilst apparently asleep. These have also included preparing and eating food, making phone calls or having sexual intercourse. People experiencing these effects have had no memory of the events. Call your doctor straight away, or go straight to the Emergency Department at your nearest hospital if you notice any of these serious side effects. Alcohol can increase the risk of sleep walking and other related behaviours. These side effects can also occur without the presence of alcohol. Although these side effects can occur at the usual recommended doses, the risk of these behaviours occurring may also be increased if you take more than the recommended dose. Some sleep medicines may cause a short-term memory loss. When this occurs, a person may not remember what has happened for several hours after taking the medicine. This is usually not a problem since most people fall asleep after taking the medicine. Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you notice anything else that may be making you feel unwell. Other side effects not listed here may occur in some people. Do not be alarmed by this list of possible side effects. You may not experience any of them. Ask your doctor or pharmacist to answer any questions you may have.

Reporting side effects After you have received medical advice for any side effects you experience, you can report side effects to the Therapeutic Goods Administration online at www.tga.gov.au/reporting-problems . By reporting side effects, you can help provide more information on the safety of this medicine. Always make sure you speak to your doctor or pharmacist before you decide to stop taking any of your medicines.

Product details

This medicine is only available with a doctor's prescription.

What DORMIZOL contains Active ingredient (main ingredient) zolpidem 10mg Other ingredients (inactive ingredients) microcrystalline cellulose hypromellose sodium starch glycollate magnesium stearate titanium dioxide macrogol 400 Potential allergens lactose monohydrate DORMIZOL does not contain gluten. DORMIZOL contains sugars (as lactose)

What DORMIZOL looks like DORMIZOL 10mg - white, oblong breakable tablet, marked "SN10" DORMIZOL 10mg tablets are available in boxes of 7 and 14 tablets.
By Candy Lashkari

The next time you light up a cigarette you may be puffing on a filter which contains pigs blood. Recent Dutch research found that pig hemoglobin was being used to make filters of cigarettes more effective in blocking harmful chemicals before they enter the smokers lungs.

Simon Chapman, a professor at the University of Sydney said that this was one of the 185 industrial uses of a pig that the Dutch research had identified. Chapman was quoted by Australian AAP news agency saying I think that there would be some particularly devout groups who would find the idea that there were pig products in cigarettes to be very offensive

"The Jewish community certainly takes these matters extremely seriously and the Islamic community certainly do as well, as (so) would many vegetarians. It just puts into hard relief the problem that the tobacco industry is not required to declare the ingredients of cigarettes ... they say 'that's our business' and a trade secret." said Chapman.

One cigarette brand in Greece was a confirmed user of Pig Hemoglobin in its production process. Considering that the Jews and Muslims consider the consumption of pork opposed to their core beliefs this new research finding is sure to shake a few feathers.

As a smoker of the Jewish or Islamic faith you would like to know if this ingredient is used in processing your cigarette, but tobacco companies do not provide these details. In voluntary disclosures of contents of their products they include undisclosed processing aids and these are said to be, not significantly present in, and do not functionally affect, the finished product"

So in effect there is no way for you to know what really goes into the production of your cigarette.
Depression in African Americans, according to Sirry Alang, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Lehigh University, is expressed in ways that are inconsistent with symptoms of depression laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The DSM-V is the primary source of diagnostic information, relied upon by not only clinicians and researchers, but also psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the legal system, and policy makers.

After spending twelve months in a disadvantaged predominantly Black neighborhood in the Midwest to understand how African Americans perceive depression, Alang suggests that clinicians and researchers should be asking if the instruments they use to diagnose and assess depression are really valid among African Americans. She details her findings in a study called "'Black folk don't get no severe depression': Meanings and expressions of depression in a predominantly black urban neighborhood in Midwestern United States" published in Social Science & Medicine Journal.

In the study, Alang suggests that African Americans perceive depression as a weakness inconsistent with notions of strength in the community, rather than as a health condition. The study results have significant implications for the clinical assessment of depression and for the measurement of depression in community surveys.

"It is impossible to effectively diagnose and treat depression among African Americans if their perspectives about depression are not taken into account," she explains.

According to Alang, although the population she studied expressed depression through classic depressive symptoms--such as feeling hopeless, loss of sleep, and losing interests in activities--symptoms like anger, agitation, and the frantic need for human interaction were also considered by them to be indicative of depression. These symptoms are inconsistent with symptoms outlined in the DSM-V.

"For example, clinicians might 'miss' symptoms like anger if they are focused on depression as defined by the DSM-V," says Alang. "But they won't miss these symptoms altogether if they are open to the possibility that some African Americans have their own beliefs about depression, and that they might express symptoms consistent with those beliefs but inconsistent with how the DSM-V classifies depression."

To collect data for the study, Alang participated in and shadowed activities with residents of the neighborhood. She conducted informal interviews with key contacts in their homes, at church, during community events and in other public places including streets, barber shops, hair salons, and bus stops.

She found that despite disproportionate exposure to social and economic disadvantage, the African Americans she studied perceive themselves to be resilient.

"Depression does not exist in a vacuum, but is linked to racial discrimination that is insidious and persistent within the context in which African Americans live," she says.

Alang concludes that improving Black mental health calls for meaningful engagement in analyzing the racial effects of policies, practices, and programs.
Years of research have shown that impulsivity in childhood is among the individual vulnerabilities leading to substance abuse, delinquency, as well as aggressive and antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Yet researchers from the CHU Sainte-Justine Mother-child Research Hospital and University of Montreal have discovered a reversal of this trend for those children when raised in a less coercive environment. "According to our results, labelling impulsive children as "vulnerable" should be reconsidered. Indeed, those who were raised in less coercive families at the age of 6 actually drank less alcohol than their less impulsive peers at the age of 15. Their supposed vulnerability actually turned into an advantage," says Charlie Rioux, PhD candidate in psychology and first author of the paper published in Development and Psychopathology.

Acting rapidly and without thinking are typical signs of child impulsivity. According to the researchers, this trait, traditionally viewed as negative, could turn into an advantage when combined with a caring family environment. "A Swedish metaphor illustrates this differential susceptibility to the environment," explains Charlie Rioux. "Many children exposed to challenging environments do quite well. They are said to be resilient, and are referred to as "dandelion children", since they are well adjusted even when exposed to harsh conditions. Children more susceptible to their environment, like impulsive ones, are referred to as "orchid children." For if the orchid fades in harsh conditions, it also thrives when given proper care and attention. We observed that when they are raised in a supportive environment, "orchid children" not only do well in adolescence, but can even outperform their less susceptible peers in many respects." The researchers came to this interesting finding by looking at how these children develop in both adverse and non-harmful environments.

To achieve these results, the researchers studied 209 youth born between 1996 and 1997 in urban areas of the Province of Quebec, in Canada. When these youth were 6 years old, their mothers completed questionnaires on their child's impulsivity levels and the coercive practices they used as a parent, including screaming, shaking or hitting. Then at the age of 15, the adolescents reported the frequency of their alcohol use. The results of the study show that when maternal coercive practices were more frequent at 6 years, higher impulsivity at this age was associated with more frequent alcohol use at the age of 15. In contrast, highly impulsive 6-years-olds exposed to infrequent maternal coercive practices had a lower frequency of alcohol use compared to less impulsive children. "These results are particularly interesting because impulsivity is often considered a risk factor for alcohol use. However, our results show that more impulsive children may drink less alcohol than kids who are less impulsive when exposed to low maternal coercive practices," said Jean Seguin, PhD, professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, researcher at CHU Sainte-Justine and co-director of Rioux's doctoral thesis.

The researchers also conducted a literature review that points in the same direction. Their review identified 14 studies investigating the role of family environment and child and adolescent temperament in the development of adolescent "externalizing problems". These notably include delinquency, antisocial behaviors, attentional problems and substance use. In line with their own observations, this review, published in Developmental Review, demonstrates that susceptibility in childhood - characterized by such traits as impulsivity, disinhibition, or low fear or shyness - is associated with higher levels of externalizing problems in adolescence when children were exposed to adverse environments, but lower levels of externalizing problems when they were raised in suitable home environments. However, having an appropriate home environment during adolescence does not seem to convey any additional benefit to susceptible adolescents. These studies considered several family factors, including maternal and paternal parenting, parent-child relationship and marital conflict.

"Although many factors come into play in shaping the future behaviour of children, our findings tend to suggest that special attention to the needs of impulsive children or children susceptible to their environment at an early age may help them realize their full potential," says Charlie Rioux. "To demonstrate this, our results will need to be replicated in clinical studies also designed to test the differential susceptibility model, this time not only assessing the impact of more or less coercive parenting methods, but also the impact of intervention programs targeting parenting practices."
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has published in its online edition a summary of new policy adopted by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) that provides recommendations about marijuana in patient care and a cautionary note advising actively licensed physicians to abstain from using marijuana while practicing medicine.

The online "Viewpoint" summary, published June 16, was written by FSMB President and CEO Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, MACP; FSMB Chair Arthur S. Hengerer, MD; and FSMB Chair-Elect Gregory B. Snyder, MD.

Heightened public interest in marijuana and marijuana-infused products for medicinal and recreational purposes led the nation's state medical and osteopathic boards to issue the recommendations during the FSMB's 2016 House of Delegates meeting in April.

This is the first time that the dispensing or use of marijuana in patient care have been highlighted in a policy recommendation of the FSMB, whose members include 70 state and territorial medical licensing boards of the United States. In addition to summarizing the FSMB's ten recommendations, the authors examine the dilemma of physicians practicing today, who they say are "caught between increasingly permissive local statutes and prohibitive federal regulations" regarding the use of marijuana.

Although there is little evidence for the efficacy of marijuana in treating certain medical conditions, marijuana has been variously suggested for alleviating some or all symptoms of a range of debilitating medical conditions - from certain types of cancer to glaucoma.

The "prescribing" of marijuana, however, remains illegal under federal law, where it is classified as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Therefore, under federal law, marijuana cannot be knowingly or intentionally distributed, dispensed, or possessed, and an individual who aids and abets another in violating federal law or engages in a conspiracy to purchase, cultivate, or possess marijuana may be punished to the same extent as the individual who commits the crime.

With the increasing number of jurisdictions permitting the use of marijuana in patient care, the U.S. Department of Justice updated its marijuana enforcement policy in 2013, advising states and local governments that authorize marijuana-related conduct to implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to address any threat those laws could pose to public safety, public health, and other interests.

About the FSMB Policy Recommendations

The FSMB convened a workgroup in 2015 with representatives from more than a dozen state and territorial regulatory boards to develop policy recommendations to help guide physicians practicing in this environment. The recommendations were developed after a systematic review of medical literature and feedback from state medical board members and staff, including physicians and public members, as well as interested stakeholders such as the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The recommendations were unanimously adopted by state medical boards on April 30, 2016.

The FSMB's recommendations stress that physicians recommending marijuana in medical care should carefully document the establishment of an appropriate patient-physician relationship, adhere to rigorous patient-evaluation and informed decision-making standards, and document a written treatment plan for all patients using medical marijuana.

While physicians have the discretion of determining the health conditions that warrant treatment with marijuana, the appropriateness and safety of their recommendations should be evaluated in accordance with current standards of practice and in compliance with state laws and regulations.

Physicians should regularly assess the patient's response to the use of marijuana and overall health and level of function, and they should check their state's prescription-drug monitoring program. They should also register with the appropriate oversight agency (such as a marijuana registry, as exists in Colorado and Minnesota), providing the registry with information each time a recommendation, attestation, authorization, or reauthorization for marijuana is issued.

Physicians should be aware that patients who have a known or suspected history of substance use disorder or a co-occurring mental health disorder may require specialized assessment and treatment, and for all patients, they should keep accurate and complete medical records. They should also take steps to ensure they are free from conflicts of interest -- a physician who recommends marijuana should not have a professional office located at a dispensary or cultivation center, for example.

The FSMB recommendations suggest that state medical and osteopathic boards should advise their licensees to abstain from the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes while actively engaged in the practice of medicine. Practicing medicine under the influence of marijuana may constitute unprofessional conduct or incompetence.
Even before they reached the accident scene, Mike Hubbell and his co-workers knew what they would do.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway employees were eastbound on Highway 64 headed toward Leshara when they saw smoke in the distance.

We didnt know what it was, said Hubbell, a former Fremont resident.

As they got closer, they saw a vehicle on its side in the ditch. The SUV was on fire. A man on the highway flagged down the three.

We pulled over on the other side of the road, Hubbell said. The other guys and I had a plan before we hopped out.

With quick action, the three saved an area womans life. And for one of those men, it would be an opportunity to help someone liked hed been helped years ago.

The accident occurred around 10:20 a.m. Monday at the intersection of Highway 64 and County Road 9, said Saunders County Deputy Tim Hannan.

Connie Willis, 50, of Valley was southbound on County Road 9 and failed to yield to a dump truck driven by Chad Springborg, 42, of Fort Calhoun, Hannan said.

Springborgs truck, which was eastbound on Highway 64, collided with Willis Ford Explorer and both vehicles went into a ditch.

Willis vehicle caught fire and she was trapped inside, Hannan said.

BNSF Railway workers were headed toward the scene.

We saw that the car was on fire and we just made a game plan of what we were going to do in the few seconds we had, said Hubbells co-worker Ricardo Aldana.

Aldana and fellow BNSF employee Tony Henderson grabbed fire extinguishers the men routinely carry in their vehicle, Hubbell said.

Hubbell reached Willis vehicle first and said he could hear her yelling for help.

Her seat belt was still on and she couldnt get out. Her car was rolled over on the drivers side with the passenger side up in the air, he said.

The hood area was on fire.

Henderson and Aldana sprayed the vehicle with the fire extinguishers.

We tried to knock down the flames a little bit to make sure we could safely get her out, said Aldana, of Omaha.

Hubbell crawled on top of Willis vehicle where the passenger-side window had been broken out. He tried to reach down to help her get the seat belt off, but she couldnt get it loose.

Henderson ran back to the BNSF truck to find something to cut the belt.

In the meantime, Willis was able to get the seat belt loose.

I helped pull her up and out of the car, out of the passenger window, Hubbell said. By that time, Tony was back and he helped me get her out of the car and onto the ground.

The three men carried Willis to a field away from the vehicle  not knowing if it would explode.

She told us there was a full tank of gas in there, Aldana said.

We were trying to get as far away from that as we could, Hubbell said. We set her down and turned around and the whole thing was up in flames. It wasnt just the engine anymore.

Mead Fire Chief Nick Raver said he and other crew members were just returning to the fire hall after a mutual aid medical call at Ashland when they were dispatched to the accident scene.

When I got there the vehicle was already fully involved, Raver said. It actually exploded when I got on scene.

Raver went to see Willis.

I had a (medical) helicopter on standby. I told them to send it, Raver said.

Willis was transported to an Omaha hospital, where she is listed in fair condition. The truck driver wasnt injured.

Raver heard about the BNSF workers rescuing Willis.

I thought, Holy cow, thats amazing,'" Raver said. If they wouldnt have responded, she wouldnt be alive today. Theres no way, because she wasnt getting out of there with the injuries she had. They (the BNSF workers) are the life savers.

Raver posted information about the accident on the Mead Fire Departments Facebook page.

I want people to know what they did, because you dont hear stories like that very often, Raver said.

For Henderson, however, a situation like this brought with it some familiarity.

The BNSF worker was about 7 years old when he and his family, then from Valley, were in a car accident near Ceresco.

It happened on his dads birthday. Henderson and his father were pinned in the car.

He was lying on top of me, Henderson said. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up (after the accident) and this lady and couple of guys were next to the car and she had a towel over my face. They were there, helping me, talking to me, trying to keep me calm.

Mom got thrown out of the car and there were people helping her.

Rescuers brought the Jaws of Life and freed Henderson and his father from the car. The little boy, whose face hit the dashboard, had a broken nose and cheekbones and would require surgery.

I was in a body cast for quite a while, he said.

His father died 30 days later. His mother had broken vertebrae in her back, Henderson said.

Those memories came back as Henderson helped carry Willis away from her burning vehicle.

Now 49 and living in Wahoo, Henderson believes he was given an opportunity.

I just felt that God gave me the opportunity to help somebody else out, because Ive been in the same situation, Henderson said. I remember people helping me.

Aldana said there was no choice other than to help Willis.

Youre not going to sit there and just watch, he said. We tried to do whatever we could to help.

It feels good to help somebody, Hubbell said. Im really glad the three of us were there. We all work well together.
Pregnant women in Latin American countries were more likely to seek an abortion after receiving health alerts about Zika virus, according to a study co-authored by Princeton University researchers and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers analyzed data from Women on Web -- an online portal that pairs patients with doctors able to prescribe abortion pills -- and found that many Latin American women using the site reported Zika as their reason for seeking an abortion. Because abortions are illegal or highly restricted across much of Latin America, many pregnant women seek outside options like Women on Web, which serves women who are less than 10 weeks along in their pregnancy and have no severe illnesses.

The researchers found a particular uptick in Women on Web abortion requests in countries that issued health advisories about Zika, but also legally restrict abortions. The mosquito-borne virus is associated with microcephaly, a congenital condition that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads. The researchers defined an "advisory" as a formal warning from the government to avoid pregnancy, a declared state of national emergency or a caution about pregnancy risk from medical professionals.

The findings highlight the need for Latin American women to have access to safe and legal reproductive options, especially as Zika continues to spread, the researchers said.

"Zika will inevitably spread to other countries where safe abortion is restricted," said co-author James Trussell, the Charles and Marie Roberton Professor of Public and International Affairs, Emeritus, at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

"Therefore, we must ensure that all reproductive choices are safe, legal and accessible," Trussell said. "To do otherwise would be irresponsible public health practice and unjust policy."

"A countrywide policy that is impossible to follow if you are pregnant or cannot avoid pregnancy is an unusual and important public issue," said lead author Abigail Aiken, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton's Office of Population Research, which is based at the Woodrow Wilson School.

As Zika began to emerge as an epidemic in Latin America, research and media attention quickly focused on the possible effects of Zika on reproduction. Yet, little attention was paid to how the virus would impact women specifically.

In November 2015, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued an epidemiological alert highlighting the risks of Zika. As more governments and health organizations began to respond, the researchers -- which also included co-authors James Scott from the University of Texas at Austin, Rebecca Gomperts and Marc Worrell from Women on Web, and Catherine Aiken from the University of Cambridge -- became interested in investigating the effects these health alerts had on women.

The researchers organized the data by self-reported country of origin and then divided the women into three groups. The researchers defined Latin America as South and Central America and America and the Caribbean.

Group A comprised women who had received the advisory and were living in countries with Zika, but with legally restricted access to abortion. Group B was made up of women in countries where Zika cases hadn't yet been reported and no advisories were distributed but had legal restrictions on abortion in place. Group C contained women in countries with Zika outbreaks and legally restricted access to abortion, but with governments that had not issued public health alerts.

Finally, the researchers studied a control group of countries where a rise in abortion requests was unexpected: Chile, Poland and Uruguay. This group allowed them to ensure that the requests were actually related to the Zika virus and not just a global rise in demand for Women on Web services. All women in Latin America were asked specifically if they were seeking an abortion because of the virus.

"These groupings allowed us to examine the effects of government responses to Zika and requests for abortion as well as whether abortion requests occurred even in countries with no active transmission," Aiken said. "It's entirely possible, for example, that women in these countries might still have been worried about the possibility of Zika even though no active transmission had yet been confirmed."

Using data from five years before the PAHO announcement, the researchers modeled trends for abortion requests for each country. They then used the model to forecast the expected number of requests after the PAHO announcement was issued. The researchers examined their data using a regression discontinuity design, a test used by scientists to produce clear before-and-after effects. In this case, the researchers could effectively examine requests for abortion before the PAHO alert was issued and afterward.

An increase in abortion requests was pronounced for Group A. Among the eight countries in this group, all except Jamaica were associated with increases in requests for abortion. The highest figures were found in Brazil, where abortion requests were 108 percent higher than expected, and Ecuador, where they were 107 percent higher than expected.

"Brazil was 'ground zero' for Zika in Latin America, which may explain the significant increase," Aiken said. "Cases of microcephaly had already been identified there at the time of this study, and so women had been concerned about the risks and had been exposed to a lot of media coverage."

For Group B, only small increases in requests for abortion were found in Argentina and Peru. In Peru, officials had sparked concern about Zika by asking local governments to declare a state of emergency, the researchers said. No statistical increases were found for Group C.

"We cannot definitely attribute the rapid acceleration in requests in the first group to worries about Zika, but many women reported Zika as their reason for seeking abortions, so there is definitely a strong correlation," Aiken said. "Our study provides a window on how Zika has affected the lives of pregnant women in Latin America."
The transmission of Taenia solium, a pork tapeworm species that infects humans and causes late-onset seizures and epilepsy, can be stopped on a population-wide level with mass treatments of both pigs and humans, researchers have shown.

Researchers from several institutions, including Georgia State University, contributed to the study and published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Humans can become infected after eating contaminated pork or through fecal-oral exposure. This study was aimed at eliminating Taenia solium from the villages of Tumbes Province in Peru, a highly endemic region for the disease.

Researchers screened and treated pigs and humans in the first two phases of the program. In the final phase, mass treatment was given to 81,170 people in 107 villages, and 55,638 pigs received treatment and vaccination. Mass treatment included chemotherapy with niclosamide in humans and with oxfendazole in pigs, in combination with pig vaccination.

The researchers found only three of 342 pigs had live, nondegenerated cysts, but no infected pigs were found in 105 of 107 villages. The researchers showed the transmission of Taenia solium infection can be interrupted on a regional scale in a highly endemic region.
Despite decades of research, migraines are often not well controlled with medication. For those prone to this type of debilitating headache, it sometimes seems nothing can stop the pain and the sensitivity to light. But what if light itself was key to their relief?

Feng Tao, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Texas A&M University College of Dentistry, uses a technique called optogenetic manipulation to attempt to do just that.

Optogenetics, the use of light to control neuronal activity in the nervous system, is a technique that can produce gain or loss of function in specific signaling, and recently has shown promise in restoring vision and possibly even fighting psychiatric disorders. As the name implies, it combines the stimulation of light of certain wavelengths with gene encoding for light-sensitive proteins to specifically regulate neuronal function. In this case, it allows for very precise control of activities of neural circuits in the central nervous system.

"If we can use optogenetic stimulation to manipulate neuronal activities in the neural circuits that contribute to the development of migraines, we could possibly reduce migraine headaches," Tao said.

Of course, neurons don't generally have light-sensitive proteins, so the scientists use a specially engineered virus to express certain specific genes that code for these proteins that can then be activated with a laser implanted in the brain. After laser fiber implantation in an animal, the researchers can activate the laser at different wavelengths to either excite or inhibit neurons in different brain areas while the animal is awake and moving around.

"A certain light-sensitive protein will only be activated with blue light and will then excite a neuron in the brain, while another type of light-sensitive proteins will only be activated with yellow light, and will then inhibit a neuron in the brain," Tao said. "This way, we can regulateeither excite or inhibitthe neuronal function." Such a system allows for very precise control, neuron by neuron, that can be turned off and on at will.

Although at the moment, the laser still has to be controlled manually, Tao and his team hope to collaborate with electrical engineers to eventually be able to put a sensor into the brain and then control it wirelessly.

"This technology won't just be used for biomedical research," Tao said. "We hope we will be able to move it into clinical trials to treat intractable pain."
A doctor's guidance may reassure us more than we realize -especially if she says she is likely to recommend treatment in her field of expertise, known as "specialty bias."

Doing research in a real-world health care setting, a Cornell expert and her colleagues have found that when surgeons revealed their bias toward their own specialty, their patients were more likely to perceive them as trustworthy. And patients are more apt to follow their recommendation to have surgical treatment. The research was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study has important implications for professional advisers of any stripe and policymakers who deal with disclosure rules, said Sunita Sah, a physician and assistant professor of management and organizations at Cornell's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

"If an adviser discloses a bias, it should alert the recipient to some uncertainty regarding the quality of the advice. 'Perhaps I need to discount this a little bit.' Disclosure of bias, if anything, should decrease the weight that patients put on their physicians' recommendations," said Sah, an expert on conflicts of interest and disclosure. "But, instead, we find that patients report increased trust and they are more likely to take the physician's treatment than patients who do not hear their physician disclose a bias."

Sah and her colleagues based their findings on 219 transcripts of conversations between surgeons and male patients in four Veterans Affairs hospitals in which the surgeon revealed a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer to the patient. While discussing treatment options, some surgeons freely admitted to having a bias toward their own specialty, with statements such as, "I'm a surgeon, so I'm biased toward recommending surgery." Patients who heard their surgeon disclose their specialty bias were nearly three times more likely to decide to have surgery than patients who did not hear their surgeons disclose a bias.

The researchers also conducted a randomized lab experiment. In this study, 447 men watched video clips of an actor portraying a surgeon, who described two treatment options: surgery and radiation. In the "disclosure" group, the men heard the actor disclose his bias towards surgery, similar to the surgeons in the Veteran Affairs hospitals. The control group saw the same video, except for the bias disclosure. The men who heard the disclosure were more likely to choose surgery than the control group and reported higher trust in the doctor's expertise.

Sah and her colleagues also found that surgeons who disclosed bias toward their specialty or discussed a potential meeting with a radiologist oncologist for radiation treatment tended to give stronger recommendations for surgery.

"Bias disclosure can have a profound influence on adviser recommendations and the choices their advisees make," said Sah. "Professional advisers and policymakers should implement such disclosures with care."
Previous exposure to the dengue virus may increase the potency of Zika infection, according to research from Imperial College London.

The early-stage laboratory findings, published in the journal Nature Immunology, suggests the recent explosive outbreak of Zika may have been driven in part by previous exposure to the dengue virus.

The study, which included scientists from Institut Pasteur in Paris and Mahidol University in Bangkok, suggests the Zika virus uses the body's own defences as a 'Trojan horse', allowing it to enter a human cell undetected. Once inside the cell, it replicates rapidly.

Professor Gavin Screaton, senior author of the research and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial, said: "Although this work is at a very early stage, it suggests previous exposure to dengue virus may enhance Zika infection. This may be why the current outbreak has been so severe, and why it has been in areas where dengue is prevalent. We now need further studies to confirm these findings, and to progress towards a vaccine."

A second study by the same team, published in Nature, suggests an antibody that works against the dengue virus may also neutralise Zika - providing a potential target for a vaccine.

Dengue fever has risen dramatically over recent decades and the virus is thought to cause around 390 million infections each year - with 40 per cent of the world's population living in areas of risk.

The dengue virus is similar to the Zika virus - they belong to the same viral family, called the Flaviviridae, and both are transmitted by the Aedes mosquito.

In the new Nature Immunology paper, supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, the researchers used antibodies that recognise the dengue virus collected from individuals who had been infected with dengue. The team, who were also supported by the National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, added them to human cell cultures, together with the Zika virus.

Their results suggest dengue antibodies can recognise and bind to Zika, due to the similarities between the viruses. Crucially, they also suggest that pre-existing dengue antibodies can amplify a Zika infection through a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).

This has been previously identified in dengue fever, and is thought to be why a second infection with dengue is often more serious than the first.

When dengue first infects the body, the immune system makes antibodies against the virus. Antibodies are large proteins that latch onto invading bacteria or viruses, neutralising them and enabling the immune system to destroy the pathogens. The antibodies are then primed to recognise the same invaders should another attack occur.

However, there are four different types of dengue virus. If someone is infected a second time by a different strain, the antibodies from the first attack can only partially bind to the virus, and are unable to prevent infection.

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The antibody, with the virus loosely attached, then shuttles into an immune cell. This immune cell would normally then kill the virus, but because the virus is not properly attached, it breaks free once it gains entry to the human immune cell. Here it hijacks the immune cell's machinery to replicate more viral particles, enhancing the infection.

The new study suggests the same phenomenon occurs when a person who has previously been exposed to dengue encounters Zika. The existing dengue antibodies latch onto Zika, due to similarity between the viruses. However the antibodies are unable to latch onto Zika securely, and so the antibody simply facilitates entry of Zika into the human immune cells, where it replicates.

"We now need to investigate whether the phenomenon of ADE may aid transfer of Zika across the placenta," explained Dr Juthathip Mongkolsapaya, co-author from the Department of Medicine at Imperial.

She added that the team also found that a type of antibody may help protect against the phenomenon of ADE, and prevent the virus from hijacking the immune cells. Previous work from the team has shown the immune system generates different types of antibodies to dengue that bind to various areas of the virus. In the current study, the team found a group of antibodies that bind to a certain site on the dengue virus - called EDE1 antibodies - were able to prevent the Zika virus from entering the immune cell.

In a second study, published in Nature and co-authored by Professor Felix Rey from the Institut Pasteur and Professor Screaton from Imperial, the team confirmed that EDE1 antibodies bind efficiently to the Zika virus and potently neutralise infection. The team are now working hard to use these findings to develop new vaccines to dengue and Zika.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "Zika and dengue come from the same family of viruses and we know they share many similarities in their genetic make-up, transmission pattern and in the immune response they trigger. These new studies suggest that prior infection with dengue doesn't offer any protection against Zika, and may in fact predispose people to a more severe infection. We can't say yet whether this interaction is playing a role in the current outbreak, but if confirmed it's likely to have important implications for the control and global spread of Zika, and for the development of any vaccine for the virus. There are still more questions than answers about Zika and this group of viruses including dengue. We know that Zika has been present in Southeast Asia and Africa for many years and yet has not taken off there as it has in South America. This is what the international research effort needs to work out, and quickly."
More people may have the potential to develop Huntington's disease than previously thought, according to a study published in the June 22, 2016, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. But the increase comes in the percentage of people who have a lower risk of developing the hereditary disease, which causes uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual abilities, emotional problems and eventually death.

Here's how it works. The disease is passed from parent to child through a genetic mutation. The mutation is a long sequence of repeated CAG nucleotides in the huntingtin gene. The number of these repeats determines whether or not someone will develop the disease.

Everyone has two copies of the huntingtin geneone from each parent. People who have 26 or fewer repeats on both copies of the gene will not develop the disease, nor will any of their children. People who have one copy of the gene with 40 or more repeats will develop the disease and their children will have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene mutation. Having between 27 and 39 repeats is known as a "gray area." People with 36 to 39 repeats have what scientists call a "reduced penetrance" of the gene. They may or may not develop symptoms of the disease.

Up until now, researchers have studied how common this reduced penetrance is mainly in people who already have symptoms of the disease and their family members. In this study, researchers use genetic testing methods to check for the gene in the general population.

They studied the genes of 7,315 people from Canada, the United States and Scotland. Of those, 18 people had 36 or more repeats, which extrapolates to about 1 in 400 people in the general population, which is up to 10 times higher than previous estimates. Three of those people had 40 or more repeats of the gene, which is considered full penetrance. That number was consistent with previous estimates.

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The study also suggests that the penetrance of the disease among people with 36 to 38 repeats is lower than previously thought, meaning that fewer people in this group would develop symptoms of the disease. For people over the age of 65, the researchers estimate that at least 0.2 percent of those with 37 repeats would have symptoms of the disease, compared to the 10 percent that was previously estimated. For those with 38 repeats, at least 2.0 percent of those over 65 would have symptoms, compared to the 19 percent previously estimated.

Study author Michael R. Hayden, MB, ChB, PhD, FRCP (C), FRSC, CM, OBC, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and President of Global Research and Development and Chief Scientific Officer at Teva Pharmaceuticals, said, "It's unclear why some people with reduced penetrance genes develop the symptoms of Huntington's as early as midlife, while others reach old age with no symptoms. Additional genetic and environmental factors may modify the likelihood that a person develops the disease."

Hayden noted that while people with reduced penetrance may be at relatively low risk of developing the disease themselves, they may play a larger role in transmitting the full penetrance gene to the next generation than was previously understood.
Diseases are diagnosed, treated and prevented with nuclear medicine using radioactive substances called radiopharmaceuticals. These substances contain a radionuclide, which is a radioactive isotope attached to a biologically active or inert molecule. Due to the presence of excess protons or neutrons, these unstable isotopes undergo radioactive decay, thus releasing subatomic particles or gamma rays.

The proton (p+) transforms into a neutron in proton-rich nuclides, resulting in the emission of a positron (+ particle) along with a neutrino () as per the equation below:

(p+) -> (n) + (+) + ()

There is a loss in the kinetic energy of the positron while traversing through surrounding media. The positron is then coupled to an electron, and as a result, the positron and electron are annihilated and their masses are directly transformed into energy. Annihilation radiation results in the emission of two photons (gamma rays) into opposite directions, each with 0.511MeV energy.

m e + + m e  -> 2

Such photon pairs can be detected by advanced scanners through coincidence detection. Calculation of 3D images of tissue structures is done using the collected data. Trace is another term for the positron-emitting radionuclide.

Some of the short-term, cyclotron-created radionuclides commonly used in radiopharmacy are 11C, 15O, 18F and 13N, with half-lives of 20.38, 2.03, 109.7 and 9.96 minutes, respectively. Figure 1 shows the working principle of PET.

Figure 1. Principle of positron emission tomography

Radiopharmaceuticals

The radionuclide is injected into a living animal or human by combining it with biologically active or inert molecules like blood flow tracers [15O] water or [15O] butanol that are absorbed by a specific organ under study. The patient is placed under the PET scanner after the tissue of interest is injected with an adequate quantity of the radiopharmaceutical.

The generated photons are tracked and 3D images of their sources are produced by computers equipped with advanced software. These images facilitate molecular level investigations of the biochemical, physiological and pharmacological functions. Such investigations help in the early detection of health disorders like cardiovascular disease, cancer and even neurological disorders, much before the symptoms start showing up.

Production of PET Radiopharmaceuticals

A cyclotron (Figure 2) is used for the synthesis of radionuclides like 11C, 13N, 15O, and 18F, which are used in PET experiments. Radionuclides are produced by the irradiation of a prepared target with a beam of accelerated charged particles. The radionuclides are then isolated and artificially integrated into a radiotracer.

Due to the similarity in the size of the fluorine and hydrogen, fluorine atom is suitable for replacing the hydrogen atoms present in organic molecules because fluorine acts like pseudohydrogen.

Figure 2. One of the two ITP cyclotrons for the production of PET radionuclides.

Fluorine (18F) is a positron-emitting radionuclide that is generated when an 18O-enriched water target is subjected to proton bombardment. 18F finds many important applications in diagnostic nuclear medicine.

The 18O(p, n)18F reaction is brought about by highly accelerated protons reacting with the atomic nucleus of 18O, resulting in the emission of a neutron (n) and 18F. This is followed by the instant decay of 18F with a half-life of 109.7 minutes due to positron emission, generating a stable isotope 18O.

The radionuclide 18F is then isolated from the target water and added to the chemical compound used in radiosynthesis. The 18F radiotracer obtained subsequent to the isolation and purification is then subjected to a series of QC tests before it is injected into a patient.

[18F] Fluorodeoxyglucose

The substitution of the hydroxyl group present at the 2 position of the glucose molecule by [18F] fluorine results in the formation of a glucose analog called [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose or [18F] FDG (Figure 3). This compound is used for examining the application and metabolism of glucose in the brain, heart and lungs.

In oncology, [18F] FDG is also used for characterizing various types of tumors by studying the abnormality in their glucose metabolism. After administration, the mode of transport of [18F] FDG for incorporation into the cells is the same as glucose. However, [18F] FDG remains unchanged in the cells because it is not metabolized by the cells like glucose.

This unchanged state of [18F] FDG facilitates PET tomographic imaging. The two main advantages of [18F] FDG are its comparative half-life of [18F] of roughly 2 hours, which facilitates transport to sites that lack a cyclotron, and a wide choice of labeling procedures. These are the key reasons for its widespread adoption in PET diagnosis.

[18F] Fluorocholine

Phospholipids are biosynthesized in cells using choline as a precursor. They are the important constituents of the cell membrane. There is an increased metabolism of membrane components along with an increased choline uptake at a tumor site.

Therefore, radiolabeled choline tracers are more suitable for cancer detection. A recent addition to the list of PET radiotracers is [18F] fluorocholine, which enables in vivo imaging of choline metabolism.

The tumor-detecting radiotracer [11C] choline forms the basis for these PET radiotracers. The long half-life is the driving force of the 18F-labeled derivative production, allowing the supply of this tracer to PET institutions that do not have a cyclotron at their sites.

Figure 3. Chemical structures of two PET radiopharmaceuticals. (a) In [18F] FDG, the hydroxyl group at the 2 position of normal glucose is substituted by 18F. (b) In [18F] fluorocholine, a [18F] fluoroalkyl group is attached to the nitrogen atom of N,N-dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE).

Metrohm`s Radio Ion Chromatography

The QC control labs of the PET Technological Institute (ITP) based in Madrid are equipped with two different ion chromatography systems from Metrohm (Figure 4). The first ion chromatography system, installed in 2010, was customized for the QC of the radionuclide [18F] fluoride and its derivative radiotracers, namely [18F] FDG and [18F] fluorocholine.

High throughput and accurate and reproducible analytical results are the key requirements for this process. The QC of all the three production lines is managed by the same multichannel radio IC.

Figure 4. Dr. Jesus Chesa-Jimenez, quality control department supervisor at ITP using Metrohms ion chromatography system.

The chromatograms for the radioactivity and the conductivity of [18F] fluoride produced by the cyclotron are shown in Figure 5. Conversion of radiation units and counts per second (cps) to mV is done by the IC software. Table 1 lists the corresponding chromatographic conditions.

Figure 5. (a) Conductivity and (b) radioactivity chromatogram of cyclotron-produced [18F] fluoride. In the subsequent radiosynthesis (nucleophilic fluorination), trace (i.e., very low) quantities of [18F] fluoride ions are used to form carbon-fluorine bonds.

Table 1. Chromatographic conditions for the quality control of [18F] fluoride, [18F] FDG, and [18F] fluorocholine

[18F] fluoride [18F] FDG [18F] fluorocholine Column Metrohm A Supp 5 - 150/4.0 Metrosep Carb 1 - 150/4.0 Metrosep C 4 - 150/4.0 Column temperature 45C 25C 40C Sample volume 10L 10L 10L Eluent 3.2mmol/L sodium carbonate 1.0mmol/L sodium hydrogen carbonate 0.1mol/L sodium hydroxide 1.7mmol/L nitric acid 0.7mmol/L dipicolinic acid Flow rate 0.7mL/min 1.0mL/min 1.5mL/min Detection Conductivity detection after chemical suppression Pulsed amperometric detection Conductivity detection Analysis time 8 minutes 18 minutes 14 minutes

Advantages of Radio Ion Chromatography Systems at ITP

At the ITP, three QC systems are integrated into the single ion chromatography system for PET pharmaceuticals. Automatic direction of the flow to all three channels can be executed by the same injection system.

Determination of [18F] FDG, [18F] fluoride and [18F] fluorocholine can be done separately by choosing from a wide choice of columns, mobile phases and detectors for each of them. The MagIC Net software manages the entire system operation and data acquisition.

The system is fitted with the Dosino technology from Metrohm for automated sample injection. This technology enables the accurate and precise aspiration of extremely low sample volumes. Complete automation of tasks such as liquid handling, rinsing and dosing by the MagIC Net software prevents any carryover. The Metrohm IC systems modular design ensures the safety of operators by allowing for the deployment of the necessary lead shielding.

The use of the adequately thick lead shielding lowers the radiation from the radiotracers placed in the separation columns to a safe level, and the 5-cm-thick bespoke lead housing accommodates the injection valve. Further, users are protected from gamma radiation exposure owing to the use of a lead sample holder.

Due to their unique properties, special tests need to be performed for radiopharmaceuticals before injecting the radiotracer into the patient. The radiochemical and the chemical purity of the radiotracer need to be checked during QC.

The ratio between the bound ([18F] FDG) and unbound ([18F] fluoride) forms of a radionuclide is defined as the radiotracers radiochemical purity. The quality of the PET scan image and the protection of the patient from unnecessary exposure to radiation are based on the radiochemical purity value. The first step is the determination of the concentration of the radionuclide produced by the cyclotron.

The next step is determining the chemical purity and the concentration of radiopharmaceutical derived from the radionuclide. These steps help quantify the excessive precursors and impurities derived from radiolabeling. The analysis time is below 10 minutes. The results are presented in Figures 6 and 7.

Figure 6. Chromatograms for the radiopharmaceutical [18F] FDG. (a) IC-PAD chromatogram with the glucose precursor, the carrier-free [18F] FDG, and the impurity chlorodeoxyglucose. (b) Radioactivity chromatogram of the [18F] FDG. The IC software converts the radiation units, counts per second (cps), to mV. Chromatographic conditions are shown in the table.

The peaks of the glucose precursor, the chlorodeoxyglucose impurity, and the carrier-free [18F] FDG are depicted in Figure 6. High levels of residual DMAE result from this labeling reaction (Figure 7). Determination of other byproducts like bromocholine from this reaction is also possible. The conversion of the radiation units from counts per second to mV is done by the IC software.

The chromatogram presented in Figure 7 for the reaction mixture not only reveals the [18F] fluorocholine radiotracer in nanomole quantities but also shows the presence of calcium impurities in trace levels and N,N-dimethylaminoethanol (reactant) in considerable quantities. Table 1 summarizes the corresponding chromatographic conditions.

Figure 7. Chromatograms for the radiopharmaceutical [18F] fluorocholine. (a) Conductivity and (b) radioactivity chromatogram of the [18F] fluorocholine reaction mixture. [18F] Fluorocholine is synthesized by 18F-fluoroalkylation of N,N-dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) using gaseous 18F-fluorobromomethane.

Due to the short half-lives of positron-emitting radiopharmaceuticals, there is a need for conducting quick QC. The determination process and the rinsing steps of the sample injection circuit and the detector pathways are computer controlled and optimally synchronized, thus ensuring quick and accurate analyses (Figure 8).

Figure 8. The IC specialists of Gomensoro adapted the Metrohm IC system to the needs of ITP (left to right): Javier Espuelas (Applications Laboratory Manager), Cristobal Hidalgo (Calibration Manager), Vicente Ubeda (Sales Manager), Juan Lopez (Metrohm Sales Manager), Miguel Espinosa (Ion Chromatography Product Manager), Andoni Epalza (IC Application Specialist), and Tomas Sanz (IC Application Specialist).

Conclusion

The stringent requirements of the pharmacopoeial regulations and radiopharmaceutical industry are adequately met by the highly customizable chromatography system from Metrohm. QC requirements of different production lines are managed by a single multichannel radio IC. The Metrohm IC not only delivers high quality results, but also guarantees excellent ruggedness, user safety and low cost of maintenance.

References

D. Slaets, S. De Bruyne, C. Dumolyn, L. Moerman, K. Mertens, and F. De Vos, Reduced dimethylaminoethanol in [18F] fluoromethylcholine: an important step towards enhanced tumour visualization, Europ J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 37(11), 21362145 (2010). Cyclotron-produced radionuclides: physical characteristics and production methods, Technical Report Series No. 468, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 266 p. (2009). D. Kryza, V. Tadino, M. Azuzurra Filannino, G. Villeret, and L. Lemoucheux, Fully automated [18F] fluorocholine synthesis in the TracerLab MXFDG Coincidence synthesizer, Nucl Med Biol 35, 255260 (2008). J. Passchier, Fast high-performance liquid chromatography in PET quality control and metabolite analysis, Q J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 53, 411416 (2009).

About Metrohm

At Metrohm is one of the worlds most trusted manufacturers of high-precision instruments for chemical analysis. Metrohm was founded in 1943 by engineer Bertold Suhner in Herisau, Switzerland. Today, Metrohm is represented in 120 countries by subsidiaries and exclusive distributors. The global Metrohm Group also includes the Dutch companies Metrohm Applikon and Metrohm Autolab, manufacturers of online analyzers and instruments for electrochemical research, respectively. Recently, the Metrohm Group was joined by Metrohm Raman, a leading manufacturer of handheld Raman spectrometers.

Metrohm is the global market leader in analytical instruments for titration. Instruments for ion chromatography, voltammetry, conductivity, and stability measurement make the Metrohm portfolio for ion analysis complete. Instruments for Near-infrared and Raman spectroscopy are another, strongly growing segment of the Metrohm portfolio.

Metrohm is a problem solver, both in the laboratory and within the industrial process. To this end, the company offers their customers complete solutions, including dedicated analytical instrumentation as well as comprehensive application know-how. More than 30% of the companys employees at the Metrohm international headquarters in Herisau work in R&D.

Metrohm has been owned 100% by the non-profit Metrohm Foundation since 1982. The Metrohm Foundation, which does not exert any influence on the companys business operations, sponsors gifted students in the natural sciences, supports charitable and philanthropic purposes and, above all, ensures the independence of the company.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
Jaguar Land Rover, Britain's biggest carmaker, estimates its annual profit could be cut by 1 billion pounds ($1.47 billion) by the end of the decade if Britain leaves the European Union, according to two sources familiar with the company's thinking.



The worst-case-scenario estimate is in internal documents seen by both sources that were prepared by the firm's chief economist, David Rea, to outline the possible consequences if Britons vote to leave the world's biggest trading bloc. It gives an insight into the level of concern at a major company about the uncertainties of a future outside the EU.



The rapidly-expanding firm, which traces its history back to 1922 and is headquartered in Coventry, central England, has also looked into opening a European office were Britain to quit the bloc, both sources said. It has also put on hold starting major work on a plant in Slovakia announced in December, as well as negotiations on a deal to lease property at Silverstone race track because of the uncertainty surrounding Thursday's vote, they said.



The 1 billion pound decline in pre-tax profit by 2020 would apply if Britain returned to World Trade Organisation rules for trade with Europe, involving a 10 percent tariff on exports and an inbound tariff of roughly 4 percent on components, the sources said.



"It may at worst cost us about 1 billion pounds," said one of the sources when asked how Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) had phrased the wording in the 89-page report, entitled 'Referendum: The View'.



A second source said the number had featured in an internal presentation shown to the board.



The company made a 2015/16 pre-tax profit of 1.6 billion pounds. JLR, which is owned by owned by India's Tata Motors, sold almost a quarter of its over 520,000 cars in its largest market Europe last year, confirmed it had looked into the impact of Brexit.



"As part of our standard business planning process, we regularly look at macro-economic and geo-political developments around the world. Like any other responsible global business, we have analysed the impact of any potential UK departure from the EU. However, we are not discussing details of any internal business analysis" a JLR spokesman said in an emailed statement.



Businesses have been reluctant to talk about contingency plans for Brexit but carmaker Ford, which only builds engines in Britain, said it could face tariffs of 2.7 percent on engine exports and import tariffs of up to 10 percent on incoming vehicles  according to a copy of a letter sent to employees on Monday seen by Reuters.



'Leave' campaigners argue that Britain should be able to negotiate a tariff-less trade with France and Germany for its cars because French and German models are so popular with British drivers.
Chennai: An advocate was hacked to death in broad day light in Chennai by a four assailants on Wednesday morning.



The victim has been identified as T Ravi and he was declared brought dead in a nearby hospital. The motive behind the murder is yet to known.



The incident took place close to victim's house at Satyamoorthy Nagar. Ironically, at the time of incident no one came to his rescue.



Police sources said the advocate was on his scooter when he was chased by bike-borne assailants and murdered in full public view.



Initially, he was with the CPI party but changed several parties in recent years. Later he floated his own party Jananayaga Puratchi Munnani (Democratic Revolutionary Front). He was considered as a well known political face in the locality.



Following the incident, his family members staged a protest and demanded immediate arrest of the accused.







Preliminary investigation revealed some pending criminal cases against him in the local police station.



No one has been arrested so far in this connection.










Seoul: China "belligerently" led opposition to India's membership of NSG at a three-hour post-dinner meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group on Thursday night which ended in a deadlock.



Preceding the 2-day plenary of the 48-member NSG, which began today, China had repeatedly said that India's membership was not on the agenda and is said to have made every effort to prevent any discussion on India's bid. However, Japan is believed to have raised India's case in the morning session after which it was agreed that the matter would be taken up at the special post-dinner meeting.



Indian official sources said that China was joined by Austria, Ireland and Brazil among other countries which questioned as to how a country like India which had not signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT) can be admitted to the grouping. Essentially their opposition was couched in principles and processes.



Brazil's objections are said to have surprised the Indian diplomats who pointed out that it is a member of the 5-nation BRICS grouping. Besides India and Russia, the grouping includes Russia, China and South Africa.



Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, who is camping here, had earlier met the Brazilian delegation.



Officials said that discussions were inconclusive and that it would only be clear before the end of the plenary on Friday.


Tashkent/Seoul: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged China to support India's NSG bid, but there was no breakthrough on the issue at the meeting of the 48-nation grouping in the face of stiff Chinese-led opposition.



As Modi and the powerful Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Tashkent, some 5000 km away in the South Korean capital, India's case, although not on the formal agenda, came up at a special post-dinner meeting of NSG members, who remained divided over India's entry because it is not a signatory to NPT.



Besides China, which has been publicly vocal in its opposition to India's membership, it is understood that countries like Turkey, Austria, New Zealand and Ireland took the stand that no exception can be made in the case of India.



Clearly, Modi's urgings had not changed the Chinese position, but what transpires on Friday, the final day of the two-day plenary, remains to be seen.



Although admission of members like India which are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not on the agenda, Japan and some other countries are understood to have raised the matter in the opening session which led to the matter being taken up at a special meeting after dinner.



Indian diplomats, led by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, are in Seoul to press India's case, although they are not the participants at the plenary in the absence of India's membership. He has met a number of delegation leaders in this regard.



About 300 participants from 48 member countries are attending the plenary which was preceded by official-level session that began on June 20.



Seeking China's support for India's membership, Modi urged Xi to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application which is before the Seoul plenary. The two leaders are in Tashkent for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Tashkent to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. Modi will also be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit during which he is expected to discuss India's bid for entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group.



A day before leaving, Modi on Wednesday night said, "India is glad to be a member of the SCO & looks forward to fruitful outcomes particularly in the field of economic cooperation through SCO," he added.



Modi said India attaches great importance to ties with Central Asia and always seeks to expand economic and people-to-people ties with the region. The SCO Summit will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full fledged member along with Pakistan.







The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit will be held in Tashkent from June 23-24.



The decision on India's admission to the six-member bloc was taken in 2015 at Ufa, Russia. The SCO is a regional grouping comprising China, Russia and four Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.



At the summit, for the first time, the SCO will be expanded to accommodate new countries and make them permanent members of the group. Both India and Pakistan are to be made members. Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia are observers at the SCO.



Membership of the SCO will give a fillip to India's energy cooperation with the Central Asian members.



Apart from Jinping, Modi will also meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.



China has said that India's entry into the NSG is not on the agenda of the Seoul plenary as New Delhi is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).


Lucknow: A petition has been filed against actor Salman Khan at the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Lucknow on Thursday for his controversial 'rape' remarks.



The petitioner Rafat Alam said that Salman's statement had hurt him as well as many others in the country. "There should be an FIR against him. It's an insult to girls and women and therefore a case should be registered against Salman," he added.



Earlier, when reporters flanked him at the Mumbai airport asking whether he would apologise for his comments that sparked a national outrage Salman evaded the questions and walked away.



On Wednesday, the Maharashtra Women's Commission summoned Bollywood actor Salman Khan on June 29 over his controversial "rape" remarks.



Salman had landed himself in a controversy for his remark that he felt like a "raped woman" after one gruelling shoot for his upcoming film 'Sultan', sparking demands for an apology from the actor.



"We have asked Salman or his lawyer to appear at our office at 2 PM on June 29 to give their clarification over the remarks," Commission Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar had said.



"If the actor does not turn up we will presume he has nothing to say and will proceed unilaterally in the matter," she said.



"While shooting, during those six hours, there'd be so much of lifting and thrusting on the ground involved. That was tough for me because if I was lifting, I'd have to lift the same 120-kilo guy 10 times for 10 different angles. And likewise, get thrown that many times on the ground. This act is not repeated that many times in the real fights in the ring. When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman walking out...," the actor had said.
Srinagar: Three terrorists were on Thursday killed in a gun battle with security forces in Lolab area of north Kashmir's Kupwara district.



Acting on a tip-off about the presence of terrorists in Dobwan forest area, a joint team of police and army launched a search operation, an army official said.



As the search operation was going on, the terrorists opened fire on the security personnel who retaliated. In the ensuing gunfight, three terrorists have been killed, the army official said.



He said the operation was on when reports last came in.



Meanwhile, another encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in Drugmulla area of Kupwara district this evening, a police official said. He said security forces launched a search operation in Waterkhani forests of Drugmulla following information about presence of terrorists there.



"The exchange of firing was going on intermittently," he said, adding there was no report of any casualty so far.
Kolkata: An FIR has been lodged against an outsourced employee working at a Big Bazaar outlet in Kolkata after a lady complained she was secretly filmed while trying out clothes in the changing room.



She alleged that a person was trying to film her on a mobile phone through a small hole next to the mirror in the changing room.



The lady immediately raised an alarm but the accused managed to flee the spot leaving his mobile on the floor. Police have confiscated the device and are searching for the person.



Meanwhile, the Future Group issued a statement, which reads, "We have a zero tolerance policy for such issues. The person was not our employee but an outsourced staff of the housekeeping agency. We have initiated a legal case against him and terminated his services with immediate effect."







"However, we take full responsibility for the incident and stand by the customer during this time. A senior official of Future Group has been in constant touch with the customer and is keeping all channels transparent and open about the investigation. We will ensure that full co-operation is given to the police in the ongoing investigation. This is the first time this has happened and we have asked the agency to sack him. They have provided all details of the accused to the Survey Park Police station," it read.
Mumbai: A fatwa has been issued against actor Jimmy Sheirgill for starring in political drama Shorgul, which has also been banned in several cities of Uttar Pradesh, the film's makers said on Wednesday.



The makers are planning to approach the state's Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to resolve issues regarding the ban in places like Muzaffarnagar, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Lucknow.



Shorgul is a political drama which also touches upon the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.



The fatwa has been issued by Khamman Peer Baba Committee to Jimmy and the makers, read a statement issued on behalf of the film's producers.



"The fatwa states that a seasoned actor like Jimmy has hurt the sentiments of the Muslim community by enacting scenes that will cause unrest in the community through the dialogues and scene depictions," read the statement.



Jimmy will be barred from shooting in Uttar Pradesh and his film's release in the region will also not be allowed, the statement further read.



A 24 FPS Films Production, the movie is based on intolerance and aspires to make audiences contemplate where humanity stands amidst the noise of religious, social, political and economic prejudice.



Also featuring Sanjay Suri, Narendra Jha, Hiten Tejwani, Eijaz Khan, Suha Gezen, Anirudh Dave and Deepraj Rana, Shorgul touches upon grave subjects that have transpired in the recent past such as the Muzaffarnagar, Godhra and Babri Masjid riots apart from making references to bureaucratic misdoings, mind games and controversial master strokes of some high profile dignitaries.



Earlier this month, a PIL filed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Milan Som against the film was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court bench in Lucknow. The film is slated for release on June 24.



Swatantra Vijay Singh, one of the producers of Shorgul, said: Yes, we have received the PIL and the fatwa but as we have stated earlier our film is a cinematic recreation of various incidents that have transpired in the past without a reference to any specific issue...We believe no one can ban 'Shorgul' if the population supports films like these.



Aman Singh, who is also a co-producer of the film, shared: This news is extremely unfortunate and we will approach Akhilesh Yadav in the matter. Every citizen has the right to watch this film as the film is a reflection of the voice of the common man."



Jimmy is currently in Canada.
Mumbai: A Delhi resident was arrested here on Wednesday in connection with the illegal uploading of Bollywood movie Udta Punjab ahead of its official release last week.



The accused, identified as Deepak Kumar, was summoned to the office of the Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police here today where he was arrested, a senior officer said.



The investigators have found that the original Censor Board copy was "stolen" and subsequently uploaded on a website, the officer said.



The officer had earlier said that Kumar was held from Delhi but later clarified that he was summoned after a team of local police visited Delhi to make some preliminary inquiry and to trace the owner of a website in connection with the leak of the drug-themed film.



Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, the movie starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt and Diljit Dosanjh, was released on June 17 after a legal battle by its makers against the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) which had suggested multiple cuts to clear the film.



A complaint of illegal uploading of the film on the internet was lodged with cyber police on June 15 by Satyajit\ Mukherjee, Deputy General Manager (legal) of Phantom Films Pvt Ltd, makers of the film.



Mukherjee had also alleged that the film was uploaded on two separate links of website Torrent.com, police said.



When the movie was downloaded, it was realised that the original Censor copy was "stolen" and subsequently uploaded on the website by user robby007, the officer said.



After Kumar arrived at the cyber cell office, he was quizzed thoroughly before being placed under arrest in the evening, police said, adding the movie was uploaded allegedly through website allmovies.in.



According to the officer, police prima facie found that Kumar was actively involved in online leakage of the movie.



He was booked under relevant sections of IT Act as well as under Copyright Act.


Salman Khan has been facing flak from all quarters for his 'raped woman' remark. The actor was flanked by reporters at the Mumbai airport asking whether he would apologise for his statement.



Salman, who is keeping mum on the entire controversy, evaded the questions and simply walked away.







Khan rode into this controversy when he said that he felt 'like a raped woman' after his strenuous shooting as a wrestler in 'Sultan'. He was quoted as saying, "When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman. I couldnt walk straight. I would eat and then, head right back to training. That couldnt stop.



The insensitive statement has evoked a national outrage with his critics and fans debating on social media. The actor has also been summoned by the Maharashtra Women's commission on June 29th.




New Delhi: In his three-films old career, Vicky Kaushal is already being touted as the new poster-boy of independent cinema but the actor says he wants to stay away from such labels because they are limiting.



He made an impressive debut as Deepak in Masaan and his turn as a man on a self-discovery journey in Zubaan cemented his standing as an able actor.



The 28-year-old star says it's the audience who has categorised him in a certain type but for him, he is just an excited performer who wants to keep exploring different characters as he grows in the industry.



"The moment I start categorising myself, I will start limiting myself as an actor. I don't know what I am capable of as of now. I did not know I could play Deepak in 'Masaan' or do 'Zubaan'... And that's how I want to keep it. When you are not sure if you can do a film, then you feel excited as a performer," Vicky said in an interview.



The actor says audience's perception is something that he would like to break with every film.



"I want them to believe in an image and then break it. I want to create an image and then break it. I don't mind the perception of being an indie actor though because it means 'Masaan' stayed with them. It's a compliment."



Vicky is ready to surprise his fans again with Anurag Kashyap's crime-thriller Raman Raghav 2.0, where he is ditching his romantic, boy-next-door image by playing a troubled cop.



"That is a deliberate effort from my end. Whatever I do, should surprise me and the audience and I want that with every film people should feel 'What is he upto now?'."



Vicky says it was a huge deal for him that a director of Kashyap's stature had shown trust in him.



"I feel very fortunate that in my third film, I am playing a character like this and a director like Anurag Kashyap has shown trust in me. It means a huge deal... I also had to push myself as far as I could to portray this role." Vicky, who started his career as an assistant director on Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur, has known the filmmaker since he was 12. The actor says Kashyap wasn't initially sure that

he would be able to pull off the complicated character.



"Anurag sir told me he had three-four actors on his mind and I was last on his list so he wanted me to audition for it. The reason he was skeptical because he knows me inside out and nothing in my life comes close to Raghav."



But the director believed in his capabilities as an actor and was surprised to see Vicky finally transform into the drug-snorting cop that was needed for the movie.



Losing on sleep, locking himself up in a room for days and detaching himself from family and friends were few of the things that Vicky had to follow to get into the skin of Raghav.



This is why, the actor was more than happy to get rid of the character once the film was over.



"When you play a character like Deepak in Masaan, you want to stay in that space for as long as possible because he is such an endearing person. So, it becomes more difficult to move out of it. You start enjoying it and it becomes difficult to clean your slate.



"With a character like Raghav, it's so complex that you don't enjoy being in that space. It takes a toll on you because it's not you. You want to get out of it."



Also starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Raman Raghav 2.0 releases this Friday.
LINCOLN  Cathy Martinez said her family spent more than $300,000 out of pocket over a four-year period on treatments and services for her severely autistic son, and she worried that the financial resources available to him in adulthood, such as Medicaid and Social Security disability payments, wouldn't come close to covering his living and care expenses.

Brandon Verzal, whose daughter sustained a traumatic brain injury at the hands of a day-care provider when she was 14 months old, said, "I don't think there's anything I lose more sleep over" than imagining what will happen to his daughter when shes 20 or 30 or 40 years old.

Martinez and Verzal both will have another option by the end of the month.

Nebraska Treasurer Don Stenberg announced Wednesday that the state's first Enable Savings Plan will be available June 30.

The Legislature last year passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience law, which authorized the accounts to allow children and adults with qualifying disabilities in Nebraska to save and invest money without jeopardizing their eligibility for government benefits. Federal legislation in 2014 paved the way for such accounts.

Until now, adults with disabilities receiving government benefits could have no more than $2,000 in a savings account.

The Enable accounts are similar to 529 accounts for education savings. Money is contributed on an after-tax basis then grows tax-free. Distributions are tax-free as long as they are used for qualifying expenses.

Participants can save as much as $100,000 without losing eligibility for Social Security disability benefits.

First National Bank of Nebraska is the program manager for the accounts, and David Cota, an executive vice president at the bank, said it has had considerable interest in the accounts, not just in Nebraska but nationally.

"We believe signups are going to be meaningful and significant," Cota said.

Nebraska is the third state, after Ohio and Tennessee, to offer the accounts.

To learn more about Enable accounts, go to enablesavings.com.
Shimla: Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Wednesday denounced the Modi government's decision to allow100 per cent FDI in defence sector by easing norms, saying the Prime Minister was working under pressure from the US and his party would oppose it in Parliament.



"The Congress government had allowed FDI in defence with a pre-condition that it would be for state-of-the-art-technology but the present government has eased the conditions. The Prime Minister is working under pressure from the United States.



This is not in the country's interest and Congress would oppose it in Parliament," he told media persons here.



"The Reserve Bank of India would issue a notification under FEMA on easing FDI norms which would be ratified by Parliament and Congress would oppose it at that stage," he said.



Sharma questioned "on what basis BJP was celebrating its two years in office when over the last two years, FDI saw a decline, exports gone down, industrial production fell and the government miserably failed to generate employment".



He accused the Modi government of unleashing a "political vendetta" against Congress, trying to destabilise Congress' governments in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and toppling the party-led government in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to accomplish its agenda of a 'Congress-free India'".



"The NDA government is totally insensitive towards the agriculture sector. Farmers are committing suicides, but instead of visiting the affected villages, the Modi government is busy celebrating its achievements, which are nowhere visible on the ground," he said.



Asked about his party's stand on GST, Sharma said: "Such issues should be resolved with the consent of all parties and not by vote."



Replying to another query, he said he was not in run for post of the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh.
New Delhi: Amid controversy over a letter issued from the Lt Governor to NDMC on May 17 in a case involving the civic body officer MM Khan a day after his murder, Najeeb Jung's office on Thursday said the L-G forwarded the communication from BJP MP Maheish Girri without knowing of the "tragic death" of the officer.



Khan was shot dead just outside his residence in Jamia Nagar on May 16 allegedly for refusing to take bribe from Delhi hotelier Ramesh Kakkar.



Refuting AAP allegations that Jung sought legal action against Khan to favour prime accused Kakkar, the LG office said the party's claims are "frivolous" and the attempt to draw "political mileage from this tragedy is sad".



"It needs to be mentioned that the matter had been duly processed on file in the LG Secretariat on May 16, prior to the tragic death of Khan, and the letter dated May 17 was issued in the normal course, without the knowledge of the tragic death," LG office said in a statement.



It also stated that a letter from M/s Prominent Hotels Limited was submitted by Girri to Lt Governor on May 10, stating that in any dispute between the licensee (accused) and the licensor (NDMC), arbitration would rest before the L-G under Clause 54 of the license deed dated July 16, 1982.



"This letter was forwarded to Chairperson of NDMC dated May 11 for necessary action as per law.



"Subsequently, an arbitration petition dated May 12 was also submitted by the same licensee in this secretariat. This was also forwarded to chairperson of NDMC for being legally examined and to intimate action taken/position in the matter," the LG office said.



In response to the above, vide two letters dated May 19 and June 3, Joint Director (Estates) of NDMC stated that the licence deed had been cancelled and the cancellation was upheld by the apex court and thus attained finality; as such, the arbitration clause did not survive and the said reference had been filed by NDMC.



"The position was duly noted in this Secretariat and vide letter dated June 22 of this Secretariat, Chairman of NDMC was directed to ensure effective and expeditious action in the matter in pursuance of Hon'ble Supreme Court order as also take all consequential action as per law.



"The matter was therefore dealt strictly as per rules and procedure. This indeed is the established procedure that is followed when such representations are received," it further said.



Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been demanding Girri's arrest alleging that he was involved in the May 16 murder of Khan.
Chennai: In a scathing attack on arch rival DMK, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Thursday said there was a "confusion" as to who between M Karunanidhi and MK Stalin is their party chief.



Speaking in the assembly, she said, "To give a reply here, there is a confusion on who their leader is, who is their chief? Is it Karunanidhi, who is referred to as party president or is it the Leader of Opposition (Stalin), who is sitting here?"



Jayalalithaa's remarks came as she was speaking on the ceding of Katchatheevu islet while referring to a statement of Karunanidhi which he had made a day after her speech on June 20 on the same matter.



Underlining that her question was for Karunanidhi, she said, "either DMK members, if they could, answer her or bring their chief to the House" and added that "there is confusion on who their leader is."



She said, "As a member of the House, he (Karunanidhi) could have expressed his opinion in the House. However, he is issuing a statement without coming to the Assembly. My talk is only related to his statement."



Soon DMK members were on their feet demanding that Speaker P Dhanapal offer them an opportunity to respond to the AIADMK supremo's remarks.



Amid noisy scenes, Jayalalithaa said she would wind up her reply to the motion of thanks to Governor's Address soon and added that others may speak after.



However, DMK members, led by Stalin, staged a walkout, claiming outside the House that they did not get an opportunity to voice their views.



Jayalalithaa claimed that the DMK members walked out after she said that she wanted to pose questions on Katchatheevu as they knew that they would not be able to answer.



Citing Karunanidhi's statement, she said, "Since he has said that (former prime minister) Indira Gandhi pacified (Karunanidhi) giving many rights (for fishermen), does it not mean that he agreed to giving Katchatheevu away?"



"Why did not the Tamil Nadu government file any case then (when the islet was ceded) when the then Jan Sangh leader AB Vajpayee had said that he would file a case," she asked.
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy toned down his attack on Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian possibly after party leaders had cracked the whip, sources said Thursday.



Party sources said BJP president Amit Shah asked the newly-inducted Rajya Sabha MP to hold his fire against the CEA. It is also likely that senior BJP leaders Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari persuaded Swamy not to embarass the government.



The BJP MP on Thursday tweeted he will "suspend" his demand for sacking the CEA if the government considers him patriotic despite his attempts in the past of trying to twist India's arm.



A day after the government came out in strong defence of CEA Arvind Subramanian in the face of his attack, Swamy tweeted, "If an Indian?, held patriotic, can advise a foreign nation where he works, to twist India's arm, is to be forgiven, then I suspend my demand".



It's also likely he was told that India's entry to the NSG club is more important than the BJP's internal battles. The government didn't want him to accuse the US of arm-twisting tactics when Washington was actively backing India's entry in the exclusive nuclear club.



Swamy had caused a flutter when he sought Subramanian's sacking for allegedly taking anti-India stance when he was an IMF economist in Washington prior to joining the Finance Ministry.



"AS (Arvind Subramanian) to US Cong: "US initiatives by discriminating against India companies and exporters will exert pressure on India to open up" AS 13/3/13!," Swamy had tweeted.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitley debunked Swamy's call for sacking Subramanian saying "Government has full confidence in CEA. His advice to government from time to time has been of great value".



Subramanian was appointed CEA by the BJP government in October 2014 after his predecessor Raghuram Rajan moved to the RBI as Governor in September 2013.



"If BJP Union govt says that we know all about AS but still he is an asset, then I will suspend my demand and wait for events to prove truth," Swamy tweeted on Thursday.
LeEco, a global internet and technology, today announced a strategic alliance with HCL Care Services, a division of HCL Services Ltd., to deliver superior after-sales service experience to its customers. HCL Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of HCL Infosystems Ltd. (India's premier IT Services and Distribution Company). HCL Care Services will provide one-stop solution for all service requirements to Le Eco customers through existing 265 HCL Touch centres in more than 240 cities across the country. Customer Services for LeEco phones have already been activated in the 265 HCL Touch multi-brand centres for walk-in-centre support for customers and Supply Chain Support.



Speaking on the strategic partnership, P. Seshachalam, Head-Operations and Vice President, HCL Care Services, said,We are delighted to tie-up with LeEco, one of the fastest selling Super-phones in India, for providing superior after-sales support for their leading-edge phones. We are confident our state-of-the-art HCL Touch centres will enable LeEco to cater to the Indian markets more effectively and efficiently.This initiative is in line with our constant endeavor to deliver service excellence and be a preferred partner for leading Indian and international brands.



Atul Jain, COO, LeEco India commented, As a leading Superphone brand in India, we believe that the real test of brand loyalty is the after-sales service that a customer can rely on. In this context, we are happy to partner with HCL Services to cater to the needs of our consumers in a truly professional and timely manner. We have a total of 555 service centres out of which HCL will provide service in 265 centres. We are confident that an eminent and trusted entity like HCL Services will fully support us in serving LeEcos users in the best possible manner.



HCL Care Services has a network of more than 300 service centers across 250 cities in India, and serves more than 3 million consumers in a year. It is also the most preferred partner of OEMs with maximum numbers of Exclusive Service Centres. Through its specialized retail outlets Touch, HCL Care Services provides end-to-end solutions to customers, including Contact centers, Walk-in centers, On-site support, Supply-chain operations, Repair factory services and After-sales value added services.
This referendum on Brexit is turning out to be so much more than a mere general election. In an election, voters choose between parties that share much the same fundamental policies, barring the tinkering at the edges, and the rhetoric. But this debate really is about Britains place in Europe - in the world really. And through the results it produces, it will say something about moves towards integration or the lack of them worldwide.World leaders all the way from US President Barack Obama to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and not least the leaders of European countries, want Britain to remain in the European Union (EU). The International Monetary Fund, the OECD and leading financial institutions want the same; but it isnt they who have the vote. The move to lead is being driven by huge chunk of the British population, who seem driven by the belief that Britain will be better off alone, as it stood historically, and as they believe it can stand again.That belief is driven both by argument and by emotion. The Leave campaign argues that Britain pays to the EU a net 350 million pounds a week, and that the money would be better spent by Britain on Britain. The argument is backed by statistical facts  Britain is among ten EU countries that pays more money into the EU than they get out of it.The Remain camp argues, however, that much of the money gets ploughed back into Britain, and that beyond the cold figures, Britain gains rather than loses. They argue, too, that the British economy is now closely integrated into the EU economy, and that it is really too late to leave. The Remain campaign has strong backing from businesses across the country.If the vote is to Remain, that vote would of course maintain status quo. But if it is to Leave, then still nothing will change immediately. There would be a two-year period to renegotiate contracts and arrangements; movement of people will not stop, nor would their stay wherever they are. Business and trade will flow as at present until new arrangements are in place to ensure a new smooth flow. This then does beg an overarching question: if new arrangements over years will restore status quo, why leave at all.Its the emotional twist to the debate that is to the fore, rather than the argumentative one. The argument offered is that Britain wants to take back control of its borders. But that option it still has  Britain is not a part of the Schengen visa agreement between several EU countries. And if the argument is that outside of the EU, Britain would be free to bring in more migrants from countries such as India, that Britain still could do, even as an EU member country.Immigration is always an emotive issue in Britain; hardly another lends itself as easily to scare scenarios of the little island getting overwhelmed by outsiders. This emotion more than any argument seems to be firing the push to leave. Its the historical island nation feel and, fired by that feel, a belief that Britain will prosper better if it goes it alone than as a member of the EU.The belief is necessarily untested, and the Remain camp are warning of the leap into the dark that the Leave camp wants. But that too is only an emotive counter-argument; by that logic all change must be resisted because it by definition seeks to usher in the unfamiliar.A fight over Europe is familiar grounds in Britain. Even so, Britain is now divided as never before. The vote will bring a decision  whether it ends the divisions is far less likely. The vote should settle this round of these divisions, but there will inevitably be more to come, whatever the result. The English Channel runs through the minds of Britain.
UPDATE 10:25 AM, 6/23: The squall line has moved through the Roanoke area with some gusty winds and heavy rain. There are a few hundred power outages in Roanoke and Giles counties following the storms, with thousands more in West Virginia. Additional showers and storms are possible through the morning, moving from northwest to southeast, with some heavy downpours possible. The major lingering question is how much "air mass recovery" there will be following the morning rain, and whether warming will be sufficient to allow new storms to develop to our northwest this afternoon and evening that could become severe as they move southeastward. The Storm Prediction Center has placed a zone from Roanoke west-northwestward in an "enhanced risk" of severe storm in anticipation of this occurring. Winds aloft support the development of severe storms with only modest recovery. It will basically be a wait-and-see situation how robust storm development is later today.

END UPDATE

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UPDATE 6:30 AM, 6/23: A couple of storm line segments -- one sagging southeast through West Virginia, another all the way back in southeastern Ohio -- may affect Southwest Virginia during the morning hours, with gusty outflow winds and heavy rainfall possible. The overall progression of the storms seems to be a bit slower than most models and forecasts, and a cursory glance at severe reports overnight suggests wind damage was perhaps not as widespread as had been feared beforehand over the Ohio Valley, though there have been several reports. There were a cluster of tornadoes in Illinois with some damage. The Storm Prediction Center, in a morning discussion, notes that some damaging winds are possible in western Virginia, including Roanoke, but does not expect the threat to be widespread enough to warrant a severe thunderstorm watch. With perhaps a later arrival of the storms this morning, the question arises about how much air mass recovery there will be behind the morning storms for possible additional storm development during the afternoon and early evening. At this time, an additional severe storms risk is expected for the late afternoon and evening. END UPDATE

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The expected cluster or line of severe storms has finally gotten going over northern Illinois early on this Wednesday evening, and it is projected to continue to grow into what will likely be a "bow-echo" squall line with numerous occurrences of damaging winds across the Ohio Valley overnight. Whether or not it meets the technical definition of a "derecho," it will likely cause much mayhem for many thousands if not millions of people, with tree damage, some structural damage and power outages likely.

The storm line will push toward our region during the coolest part of the 24-hour cycle, likely near sunrise, give or take a couple of hours. We may still get some potent wind gusts and quite likely some downpours and booming thunder as it rolls through in the morning, though the overall impact will very likely be reduced by the lessened instability, further sapped by afternoon storms on Wednesday, and the typical terrain effects of the mountains. Wind damage is possible, but likely to be more sporadic than that which occurs in the Ohio Valley.

Much attention has been focused on the initial storm cluster, but a resurgence of storms on Thursday afternoon and evening may actually pose a more significant severe storms threat for Southwest Virginia, especially if the morning storms move through quickly and allow a day's worth of hot sunshine and evaporation of surface moisture. Storms are likely to redevelop on Thursday to the west along a cold front and to the east along the remnant outflow boundary of the morning storms, and once again, the storms could be severe with damaging winds the major severe threat.

The weekend still looks sunny, dry and not terribly hot, once we get past the rounds of storms.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus in the Marvel Universe ... and he's a mutant!

No, really. Is starting the holiday season sooner and sooner every year Santa's Marvel mutant power?
Home News Sports Social Obituaries Events Letters Looking Back Health Jewels Stitch in Time Wildfire season: looking back and looking ahead;

Three fires in Boundary County already this season June 23, 2016 As large wildfires burn across much of the western United States, Idaho has so far generally been spared, although three small fires have already been fought and stopped right here in Boundary County within the last six weeks.



The severity of wildfires around the country so far this year can be illustrated with a few informational facts:



 As of this morning, 54 active wildfires are currently listed on the Incident Information System, those fires burning in eleven states. No fires are listed as currently burning in Idaho.



 Already hundreds of homes have been evacuated around the West, and some homes have burned. In California, for example, approximately 600 homes have beeen evacuated in Lake Morena Village, and 770 homes have been evacuated in Duarte, California. Around 100 homes have been evacuated in Utah near the southwest Utah community of Pine Valley.



 At least 24 homes were destroyed by New Mexico's Dog Head Fire since it ignited June 14 in the mountains south of Albuquerque. That fire is thought to be human-caused, and is under investigation.



 Firefighters have been battling two adjacent fires that have been burning only 20 miles away from downtown Los Angeles.



 The largest wildfire currently burning is the Cedar Fire in Arizona, which had burned nearly 43,000 acres at last report yesterday evening. At last report, the fire is 24% contained, with nearly 1,000 personnel working the fire. The cause of this fire is unknown and under investigation.



 There are nine other fires listed around the country that are at over 10,000 acres burned. Dozens of other smaller fires, ranging from zero acres up to over 8,500 acres continue to burn.



U.S. Forest Service District Ranger for Bonners Ferry, Kevin Knauth, said there have been "Three fires that the Forest Service has been involved with this spring in Boundary County."



The first and largest of these Boundary County Fires was the Black Creek Fire, which was started by lightning on May 12 in an area around Black Mountain that had been logged this past winter. Entities involved in fighting the fire included Forest Service personnel from Bonners Ferry, Priest Lake, and Sandpoint, also Department of Lands personnel from Priest Lake, Sandpoint, and Bonners Ferry. Also involved were South Boundary Fire and two local logging companies who provided excavators. Thirty-four firefighters worked on this fire, which was declared to be officially "out" on June 9 after burning 23 acres.



The West Branch Fire, located within a timber sale at the Copper Creek Road in the Eastport area, was reported on May 16. "This was a human caused fire that started in a logging slash pile," said Mr. Knauth. After burning only one-tenth of an acre, the fire was determined to be extinguished on June 9.



Boundary County's third fire this spring was the Snickers Fire in the Boundary Creek area in the northwest part of the county, which was reported on June 9. "This fire was human caused and burning in mixed timber," said Mr. Knauth. Three firefighters from the Idaho Department of Lands along with five from the U.S. Forest Service kept this fire to one-tenth of an acre. It was declared to officially be out just two days ago on June 21.









The Idaho Department of Lands has issued a statement regarding their readiness for this year's fire season, saying they are prepared with almost 200 permanent and seasonal fire personnel who are getting prepared for action. The agency reports having 31 engines, two six-person hand crews, four State Correctional Crews, and two helitack crews with statewide responsibility. Also available for use are four Single Engine Air Tankers which are staged at McCall, Lewiston and Coeur dAlene, and are ready for deployment, along with Heavy Air Tankers, and one Amphibious Water Scooper, all of which IDL State Forester David Groeschl says are very effective at aiding initial attack efforts on a fire.



Our goal is to take strong aggressive action with new fire starts and keep fires to less than 10 acres on State-protected lands, Mr. Groeschl said.



Last year, approximately 740,000 acres burned across Idaho in what was an overall bad fire year. It was right around this time last year that the first of Boundary County's two larger wildfires began, the Baker's Camp Fire. That fire went on to burn approximately 50 acres in northwest Boundary County. About a month later, lightning strikes started the Parker Ridge fire, which at one point crossed fire lines and the Kootenai River in northwest Boundary County, and forced evacuations in the Porthill and Copeland areas. The Parker Ridge Fire burned approximately 6,600 acres by the end of August.



Current weather forecasts are calling for mostly good weather for the next ten days, although this Friday's forecast is for scattered showers and thunderstorms, along with winds from 10 to 15 miles per hour. That's the kind of weather that could potentially put us at risk for another local wildfire. We're all hoping that doesn't happen; and it's nice to know that our area firefighting agencies and other firefighting outfits are prepared and ready.











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Schnoor: Customers driving changes at Scotiabank

Managing Director of Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago (Scotiabank), Anya Schnoor, said this means moving simple transactions out of our branches (and) creating branches that provide a focus on advice and solutions.

So were going to have more staff dedicated to sales, dedicated to talking to customers, in a different way. Not just doing bill payments, withdrawals, and so on which can be done electronically. Whats driving the change in the bank is our customers, who are demanding access to banking services at their convenience. Thats the change thats happening not only in banking but around the world in almost every industry.

Schnoor was addressing the media at the event, Insights with the Chairman and Partner Appreciation, held at the banks head office, corner of Park and Richmond Streets, Port-of-Spain on July 7.

Asked if the branch digitisation strategy would lead to a reduction in staff, Schnoor told reporters Scotiabank would be growing in different ways.

This would likely lead to continued expansion of the banks Shared Services Hub (SSH) in Chaguanas which serves its entire south Caribbean operation.

When you look at the investment weve made in our SSH here, it has grown in the last three years from a little over 200 employees to close to 500 employees. We expect that, that is going to continue to grow. More and more, were looking at creating and enhancing our capability centres, the hub (in Chaguanas) being one of them.

When Business Day questioned if this meant an eventual transfer of some branch staff to the SSH, Schnoor replied, No before expanding on the digitisation aspect of the banks strategic plan.

Maybe staff will move from tellers to more PBOs (personal banking officers), more customer interaction. What we are trying to do is move from simple transactions to creating more value-added. Here in Trinidad for instance, we launched premium banking three years ago - a whole new way in which we deliver services to our high-end clients. So its about moving transactions out of our branches while creating branches that provide a focus on advice and solutions.

Regarding the cost of online banking, Schnoor reminded that our internet banking services are free and that investing in digital allows the bank to reduce operating costs which in turn means lower transaction fees for customers.

Scotiabanks Chairman, Brendan King, also spoke about this particular strategy, noting that by 2020, we expect that less than ten percent of financial transactions will occur in global branch network.

Currently, an estimated 30 percent to 40 percent of transactions are done in branches, including here in TT.

Even as there is predicted to be a significant reduction in in-person banking, King said the bank expects sales from digital channels to increase materially, likely in excess of 50 percent on all products sold.

Scotiabank branches are therefore being renovated to provide financial advice more effectively and to conduct the declining volume of day-to-day transactions more efficiently.

This has already taken place in Mexico City and is underway in the banks home country of Canada while the Caribbean roll out will begin in Barbados within the next six months.

Our aim is for these new branches to be rolled out in TT in the near future as we renovate or open new branches. These new branches will be smaller and staffed differently. They will be better organised and better equipped for the benefit of both customers and employees, King stated.

Among the customer benefits, he added, would be a reduction in the wait-time for approval of mortgage applications. The change has already come into effect in Canada.

Under the new process, the majority of mortgage applications can be completed with a single branch visit. All documents can be provided digitally from the comfort of a customers home or office and end-to-end approval can happen in as little as one day.

King said the bank is also significantly improving the application process for credit cards, day-to-day banking, small business loans and other products.

The turnaround time to open a small business account will eventually be reduced from up to three weeks to approximately 20 minutes. Eventually the time it takes to fill out an online credit card application will be significantly reduced from eight minutes to just two minutes for an instant approval decision.

King noted that the entire process would be more intuitive and require customers to answer fewer questions, thus meeting Scotiabanks strategic objective of providing more efficient, tailored services to its customers.
blink | bmobile, IFC showcase TT to overseas firms

The summit, organised by the Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (IFC) and held at the Hilton Trinidad, made the case for Trinidad and Tobago being a first choice destination for international firms looking to outsource their financial and accounting services. Ewart Williams, former TT Central Bank governor and a director of the IFC, told delegates, Trinidad has many if not more of the strengths that other successful Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centres possess. In addition, We believe we have the capability and maturity to provide higher value -- more complex services.

Among the strengths highlighted by Richard Young, chairman of the IFC, that TT possesses as a BPO are its highly educated English-speaking workforce, its stable democracy, resilient economy, attractive lifestyle for expatriate workers and robust, cost-effective telecommunications infrastructure.

TSTTs Executive Vice President  Strategic Alliance, Enterprise and Tobago Operations, Rakesh Goswami, shared with the delegates, his insights of the telecommunications infrastructure available to their companies in Trinidad and Tobago.

He highlighted the Metro E network service for business communities. The Metro E network allows you to connect multiple locations both within Trinidad and Tobago and internationally to your head offices, data centres, branches, etc. wherever you are in the world. And it is all seamless and at very competitive prices, Goswami told delegates.

Other services available, Goswami told them, were cloud services, hosted e-mail services, video

communication clouds, disaster recovery, a service allowing firms to keep data on island, and data centres.

We have won the award to build a data centre in Tobago, which will be ready in 12-15 months, he added.

Young explained that through these and other advantages, Trinidad and Tobago was seeking to capitalise on and to position itself as the premier location in the Western Hemisphere for financial services... to act as a gateway to Latin America for financial institutions from North America, Europe, and Asia.

The IFC initiative was part of a major thrust to diversify the economy as outsourced financial services offer the potential for significant revenues and sustainable high employment.

Former Central Bank governor, Williams, said though the BPO industry in the Caribbean and Central America was relatively small, its value is already estimated at between U$3 and 5 billion. Further, it is one of the fastest growing industries in the world.

In addition, Data indicates there is growing interest by US and European investors to set up regional headquarters and shared service centres in the Caribbean. Demand seems to be greatest for financial accounting services.

The former governor said that structural changes in the global energy markets over the last couple of years, combined with stagnation in gas and oil output, had convinced TTs authorities of the need to accelerate efforts to diversify the economy.

He said in building the BPO industry, We are committed to using the spirit of innovation, enterprise and passion that helped us build a world class energy sector.
Courts, Montano working to sustain rural cocoa communities

Residents of ten rural communities, including Brasso Seco, Biche/Cuche and Grand Riviere, all traditional cocoa producing regions of Trinidad, will be trained in chocolate making and the basics of running a business.

Errol Le Blanc, Managing Director of Unicomer (Trinidad) Limited; Courts parent company, said the training would include six months-plus of business development mentoring and practical support from Sun Eaters Organics and Static Limited on product branding, marketing and exporting.

The communities will be subject to close supervision of their chocolate production and support from The Cropper Foundation for cocoa production in the areas of post-harvest processing and marketing.

This is being done to ensure the maintenance of high production standards and to impart the know-how on running a sustainable, profitable business.

Chocolatiers will also have access to necessary tools and equipment such as conchers and temperers, which are needed in the production of chocolate and cocoa by-products.

Launched on June 14 at the Courts Megastore, San Juan, the project is being carried out by Courts in conjunction with The Alliance of Rural Communities of Trinidad and Tobago (ARCTT), The Machel Montano Foundation for Greatness and the Agriculture Ministry.

A little over TT $800,000 in funding was provided for the project - $600,000 or $60,000 per community from the Cocoa Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago (CDCTT), which falls under the Agriculture Ministry, while a little over $200,000 was donated by Courts (Trinidad) Limiteds Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative.

ARCTT was founded by Gillian Goddard of Sun Eaters Organics in August, 2013. During a passionate speech at the launch, Goddard said this project was about more than cocoa.

Its about the periphery taking their rightful place as the provider of (food) for the centre (and) about creating local industries so that people no longer have to flee their communities to be able to earn an income.

The importance of sustainable businesses was also discussed by Le Blanc, who noted that given the current recession, this project will inevitably strengthen small business, provide employment, support entrepreneurship, foster economic development and provide skills training.

Simply put, Le Blanc added, this is a collaboration for sustainable development.

If the project is a success, Courts intends to replicate it in cocoa producing communities in the Windward Islands and possibly in Jamaica.

Le Blanc expressed confidence that by engaging respectfully with the people with whom we work, by developing the communities we do business in, and by working responsibly with the natural resources we all depend on, our proposed activities will produce a better living environment based on a sustainable model.

This point was echoed by Elizabeth Liz Montano and her son Machel Montano, in their speeches about why The Machel Montano Foundation for Greatness chose to lend it support to the project.

Liz said after hearing calls to buy local and people lamenting the high cost of foreign goods while some communities were economically depressed, she and her son decided to do something to help.

We thought, we have the best cocoa. Lets help develop the communities, lets help people to earn a sustainable living. That is how this programme was developed.

Meanwhile, speaking via a pre-recorded video message, Machel expressed hope that this project will benefit the national community by allowing for local innovation, community leadership and sustainable indigenous principles.

Our goal is to join with the community and relevant ministries to work towards achieving sustainability in our rural cocoa communities and, long term, of providing a national and international campaign to promote chocolate tourism as an example of the diversification of our local economy, Machel Montano stated.
Students to benefit from fishing clinic

The Youth Fishing Clinic will target rural schools such as Cedros Composite, Vessigny Government, Mayaro Composite, Guayaguayare Secondary and Toco Composite. The clinic will run from July 11 - 15 and will comprise some 50 students in the 15 -18 age range.

The students will visit agencies in the seafood industry and explore topics of Post Harvest Handling, tour the Sugarcane Feeds Centre, visit the Claxton Bay Fish Processing Establishment and tour the Aquaculture and Fisheries Divisions.

Speaking at the launch on June 15, Sen Avinash Singh, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, expressed his honour at being involved in the project launch, said a media release from the Digicel Foundation.

He said: A country that cannot feed itself is insignificant in the economic landscape. Singh urged the youth to take advantage of this opportunity to find innovative ways to get involved in growing ones own food. Food has no political agenda so find pride in pursuing a career within the agriculture and fishing sector, he said.

CEO of the foundation, Penny Gomez said: In order to ensure that the schools maximise the benefits of this programme, thus guaranteeing its sustainability, an attractive incentive has been added in the form of a competition to encourage schools to come up with an aquaculture project for their school or community. Digicel Foundation will provide a grant of US$2,000 each, to two of the five schools submitting the strongest proposals.

The project will include seafood vending handling safety, fishing processing and utilisation, aquaculture development, entrepreneurial awareness and research and development.

Nalini Sooklal, CEO of the Seafood Industry Development Company indicated that the Youth Fishing Clinic is part of a global movement and she was ecstatic that the Digicel Foundation had agreed to come on board as a partner.

This initiative will emphasise the importance of the fishing industry in food security and household livelihood, while fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in the youth. It will also expose the young students to business ventures, within the seafood industry that will stimulate their interest and motivate them to invest in the development of the sector
SEALES ON SEDITION CHARGE

Inspector Seales late yesterday appeared before Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers Caesar at the Port-of- Spain Magistrates Court charged with making seditious comments on June 24, 2015 on Independence Square in Port-of-Spain. Seales was charged under Chapter 11:04 Section 4 (1) (B) of the Sedition Act.

Newsday understands this charge could only be laid within a specific 12 month period, hence the reason he was charged under this section of the Sedition Act.

The charge was laid indictably and Seales was not called upon to plead. His attorney Pamela Elder SC, in an application, noted that Seales has an unblemished record having joined the Service in 1988 and in that time, received 13 commendations.

One, I consider most notable is from the United States Department of Justice for the Balliram Maharaj case, Elder said.

Elder added that her client was the secretary of the PSWA since June 2012. She told Ayers-Caesar that her clients common-law wife Nicole Hospedales would stand as surety.

Asked by Ayers-Caesar if she had ever taken bail before, Hospedales said, no. Ayers-Caesar explained to Hospedales that she had to ensure Seales attends court and if for some reason he does not, she would have to indicate to the court the reason why.

If you fall short of your responsibility, then you will have your own matter before the court, the Chief Magistrate warned. Seales was then granted $75,000 bail with a surety. The matter was adjourned to July 20.

Seales told Newsday earlier that he was aware that DCP Dulachan had completed the investigation but did not expect such a decision by the DPP. Upon learning of the intended action, Seales immediately contacted his attorney Elder SC, and President of the PSWA Ag ASP Anand Ramesar, who along with other Association members, accompanied him to the CID yesterday.

When he walked into the CID yesterday, Inspector Seales surrendered to DCP Dulalchan, ASP Ajith Persad and Sergeant Daniel of the Professional Standards Bureau.

Seales, 48, who is also an attorney said he will still be contesting the post of PSWA President in an election next week and depending on the outcome (of that election) will decide his future in the TT Police Service. Seales admitted it was an emotionally stressful time for him but added he is putting all his trust in the Almighty and his attorney.

Acting ASP Ramesar yesterday told Newsday that despite the arrest of the Associations Secretary, members are rallying behind Seales who is contesting the elections on the Police Empowerment Party (PEP) slate which is vying for eight positions. Ramesar is contesting the elections for Secretary while Ag Supt Richard Corbett is vying for the post of Vice President.

The charge comes almost a year after Seales was suspended by Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams who ordered an investigation be launched into an allegation of public misconduct Welfare Association.

The completed case file was submitted to the office of the DPP last week. On June 25 last year, Inspector Seales was sent off duty for alleging, in a television interview, a conspiracy by the then Peoples Partnership Government to provoke police officers and call a state of emergency (SoE) as a means of delaying the general election held later that year.
Central Bank regulatory powers lacking

He also knocked the Commission of Enquiry Act, saying legislation has been shown to be seriously deficient in one particularly important respect - the compellability of witnesses to attend public enquiries to give evidence. Sir Anthonys observations are contained in a written statement on the Commissions long-awaited report into the collapse of CL Financial, a copy of which was presented to President Anthony Carmona at Presidents House, St Anns. Colmans remarks were delivered by the Commissions secretary Judith Gonzalez.

Noting that yesterdays presentation was not the forum to comment on findings of the report with respect to responsibility for the collapse of the CL Financial Group or on the mechanism of failure which caused Government to provide financial support, Sir Anthony said the report deals extensively with the need for the Central Bank to immediately enhance its regulatory control powers and for Government to expeditiously reform the Commission of Enquiry Act.

On the Central Banks operations, Colman said: That deficiency was starkly shown up by the autocratic style of management of Clico and the CLF Group generally, by its business model which is found to be seriously flawed; and by the cavalier manner it treated attempts by the Inspector of Financial Institutions to deploy such limited regulatory control tools, as were then available and ignored to a large extent the recommendations as to management of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the corporate auditors of the CLF Group and of Clico. He reasoned that the problem lies with the inadequate regulatory scope of the Insurance Act which, in recent years, has not received substantive amendment to the regulatory powers of the Central Bank. He spoke of an impressive Insurance Bill tabled in Parliament by the previous government, has never been enacted.

On the need to reform the Commission of Enquiry Act, in relation to witness compellability, Sir Anthony noted that although a commissioner was empowered as a High Court judge, to order a witness to appear to give evidence, failure to comply does not amount to an offence analogous to contempt of court which can be punished by the judge. Instead, the available sanction for breach of such an order involves prosecution in a Magistrates Court.

The maximum sentence upon conviction is a fine of TT$2,000, a punishment of practically no deterrent effect. He said the Commission was denied the benefit of hearing evidence from four key witnesses involved in the management of the CLF Group, whose evidence would have been highly material to its findings. The fact is that TT$2,000 is a cheap way of avoiding appearing and spending a day or more being intensively cross-examined. Such trials as have taken place have not led to a conviction. Sir Anthony said the Commission has recommended, in the report, that the Act be amended to vest powers of punishment in the Commissioner.

Sir Anthony said one motive which drove former Hindu Credit Union (HCU) President Harry Harnarine and CL Financial Chairman/ CEO Lawrence Duprey to bigger deals was vision. Yet, in spite of all the warnings received from the Central Bank and the auditors they went on, like Icarus, only to be destroyed by the sun of their own vision, Sir Anthony said.
$47B in taxes owed

However, only a portion of that sum has any chance of being recovered.

Replying to a query by PAC chairman Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Ministry permanent secretary (PS) Maurice Suite, put the $47 billion sum into context. The PS said that originally, $14 billion was incurred as taxes to the State, but since then, the addition of $33 billion in penalties and interest raised this debt to $47 billion. He said some of these debts have been outstanding since 1973. Suite added that of the original $14 billion, some $5 billion in taxes are now under appeal, with the other $9 billion being uncontested.

Yet, even the $9 billion is assured as Suite revealed that half of that debt is more than ten years old and so some individuals and companies in arrears have likely died/expired.

Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) head Nayak Ramdhin, said his division focuses on collecting current liabilities, rather than old debts that may be non-collectable.

Independent Senator Dhanayshar Mahabir said Governments exchequer account is overdrawn by $33 billion, but Suite said the law limits the Central Banks advances to the Government to just 15 percent of the $60 billion National Budget, or a limit of $9.7 billion.

Mahabir used the occasion to question the Ministrys ability to process pension claims, saying that he and others whod served in the previous Parliament are still waiting on their parliamentary pensions some 18 months later. In reply he learnt that the Ministry had hired some contract workers to help process pension applications, although the Pensions Division needs restructuring.

Late pension payment was mainly blamed on late/incomplete submission of records, plus having to update a salary even after the person had retired. Government Senator Dr Lester Henry asked about computerisation of the Ministry by a Financial Management Information System. Suite replied that the Ministry will get a coordinator for this project before fiscal year-end, after which other staff will be recruited.

Port-of-Spain South MP Marlene McDonald, expressed alarm at a dearth of tax revenues from oil/ gas companies operating in TT. She lamented that the Ministry has no system to monitor the revenues received and receivable from energy companies. Suite said this overall role is instead the job of the Ministry of Energy, while the BIR monitors the individual companies.

McDonald asked Auditor General, Majeed Ali, if his office will look at this matter of monitoring energy revenues, to which he replied, yes.
Thanks to FDA, Women Will

Be Told of Their Breast Density
(Newser)  The alligator that dragged 2-year-old Lane Graves to his death near a Disney resort in Florida last week is no longer at large, authorities say. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says it has completed its investigation into the attack and has suspended trapping in the area because it "is confident that the alligator responsible for the attack has been removed," NBC News reports. A total of six gators were removed from the Seven Seas Lagoon area after the June 14 death of the Nebraska toddler, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The commission says two of the alligators trapped near where the attack took place were big enough to have killed the boy, whose funeral was held in Nebraska on Tuesday. "There are no words to describe the profound sadness we feel for the family of Lane Graves," FWC Director Nick Wiley said in a statement. "We will continue to keep this family close to our hearts as they deal with the pain and grief of the loss of Lane." (Experts say a "perfect storm" of circumstances led to the boy's death.)
(Newser)  When you hear the name "Brent Scowcroft," certain things may come to mind, including "retired lieutenant general" and "heavyweight foreign policy adviser" to several GOP presidents, CNN notes. He served as national security adviser to Presidents Ford and George HW Bush, as well as in White House roles during the Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya years. But we can now also add "Hillary Clinton supporter" to his resume: Just hours after Donald Trump ripped into Clinton during a speech in New York (see the AP's fact-check of it here), the 91-year-old Scowcroft offered his endorsement of the presumptive Democratic nominee, underscoring the trepidation that the GOP establishment has for Trump as its main shot at the White House.

"The presidency requires the judgment and knowledge to make tough calls under pressure," Scowcroft said in a statement, per the Los Angeles Times. "[Clinton] has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time." What makes his venture into Dem territory not a 100% surprise: Scowcroft fell somewhat out of favor with the George W. Bush administration when he publicly expressed reservations about the war in Iraq. And as CNN notes, Scowcroft has had an impact on Democratic foreign policy. Even President Obama recently lauded Scowcroft, saying of the man who helped him put together his own security team, "I love that guy," per the Atlantic. (Read more Hillary Clinton stories.)
(Newser)  A longtime suspect in the Christmas Day 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey is back in custody and back in the news. Gary Oliva, a registered sex offender who has admitted being obsessed with the 6-year-old beauty queen, was arrested last week on charges of sexually exploiting a child and is currently in the Boulder County Jail, reports the Daily Camera. According to an arrest affidavit, the 52-year-old was arrested after Google informed authorities that suspected child pornography had been uploaded to Gmail. The affidavit alleges that Oliva uploaded 22 images of children younger than 10 engaged in sex acts "with each other or with adult males" to an email account registered to him. City spokeswoman Sarah Huntley says police are focusing on the new case, though they're not ruling anything out in the JonBenet case.

Oliva was often near the Ramseys' home in 1996 (some soup kitchens he visited were nearby) and was questioned in 2000 when police arrested him on a drug charge and found a picture of the girl in his backpack, along with a stun gun and poem he had written called "Ode to JonBenet." The "murder touched me very deeply, Oliva told the Denver Post in 2002. The papers note that some investigators in the case suspect a stun gun was used on JonBenet. A CBS 48 Hours Investigates special the same year found that soon after JonBenet's murder, Oliva called a friend and sobbed as he told him that he had "done something horrible" and hurt a child. The Camera notes that the JonBenet case is facing renewed scrutiny as the 20th anniversary approaches, with at least half a dozen national TV specials in the works. (Boulder's former chief of police says big mistakes were made on Day 1 of the investigation.)
(Newser)  Japan expressed concern about North Korea's Wednesday Musudan missile launches, especially since one of the two made it more than halfway to Japan. But per Kim Jong Un, Japan shouldn't be alone in its worry, the Guardian reports. "We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater," the North Korean leader said, per the KCNA state news agency. The BBC notes that, in theory, Musudan missiles have a range of 2,500 milesfar enough to touch down in the US territory of Guam. And while many of North Korea's claims are usually dismissed as hyperbole or outright fabricationand four previous missile launches this year failedthe second missile flew a confirmed 250 miles.

That missile, the New York Times points out, also reached a record altitude for North Korea at what the country reported was 878 miles (other sources, however, say 620 miles). A scientist with California's Middlebury Institute of International Studies says the second missile appeared to have been launched purposely with a high angle so it wouldn't reach Japan. "Had it been fired at its normal angle, it would have flown to its full range," he notes, adding to the Wall Street Journal that, "if we do nothing, they will move on to a missile  that can reach the US." The Times and Journal also explain that the sharp trajectory allowed for the testing of technology that makes a nuclear warhead resistant to heat when "breaching the earth's atmosphere." (Read more North Korea stories.)
(Newser)  A long-standing debate behind World War II's iconic Iwo Jima photo appears to have been settled. A Marine Corps investigation used facial recognition technology and other photos taken that day to conclude, with "near certainty," that one of the six men IDed in the famous image taken by photographer Joe Rosenthal was not a Navy corpsman by the name of John Bradley, but Pvt. 1st Class Harold Schultz, a Marine who died in 1995, USA Today reports. As for Bradley, it appears he's not in the photo at all, but Charles Neimeyer, a Marine Corps historian who was on the panel that scrutinized the image, says Bradley may have legitimately thought he was in the photo: There had been two US flag-raisings on Feb. 23, 1945, and Rosenthal's picture captures the second one. Bradley may have been involved with the first; the gear he was wearing that day doesn't sync with what is captured in the photo.

Although Schultz, who received a Purple Heart for his war efforts, never publicly acknowledged any possible role, his stepdaughter tells the New York Times that one fleeting dinner conversation about Iwo Jima in the early 1990s led her to believe he was in the photo. "My mom was distracted and not listening and Harold said, 'I was one of the flag raisers,'" Dezreen MacDowell says. "I said, 'My gosh, Harold, you're a hero.' He said, 'No, I was a Marine.'" She said he never brought it up again, being a "self-effacing Midwestern person." Schultz's name will be swapped in for Bradley's in any references to the photo. The other five men in the photo are, per the Atlantic, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank, and Rene Gagnon. (Read more Iwo Jima stories.)
(Newser)  American journalist Austin Ticebelieved to be the only US reporter held hostage anywhere in the worldwas captured in Syria in August 2012. Since then, US hostages James Foley, Peter Kassig, Kayla Mueller, and Steven Sotloff have been killed, and their families fear Tice's parents will soon have to share in their heartbreak. "We are four families bonded together by tragedy and terror," they write in an open letter to Obama at McClatchy. "But there is something that still can be done: Bring Austin Tice safely home."

The letter comes a year after Obama promised the US would improve on how it dealt with hostages. "You told us in person that if it were your daughters, you would do anything in your power to bring them home," says the letter. "We are not asking the White House to put anyone in harm's way, nor compromise national security," but to "engage boldly and use all appropriate means to bring Austin Tice safely home as soon as possible." The editorial board of the Sacramento Bee is backing the families. "The US military has a solemn creed: No soldier left behind," it writes. "The same should hold true for Austin Tice." A State Department rep tells McClatchy that Tice's case "has the attention of the highest levels in the US government and the administration." (Read more hostages stories.)
(Newser)  Officials say a suspect in an incident at a movie theater in southwest Germany is dead, reports AP. The dpa news agency quotes Interior Minister Peter Beuth as saying the man was shot dead. Police earlier said there was a "threat situation" at the Kinopolis movie theater in the town of Viernheim that probably involved a weapon. Whether he actually had a gun and fired it remain unclear. German media is reporting that about 20 people suffered injuries in the incident, apparently the result of police tear gas, reports the BBC. Police thought he "was holding hostages and because of that he was shot dead," says Beuth. (Read more Germany stories.)
The mammals that existed during the giant ice-age era in Patagonia were extinct because of drastic changes in the climate and not because of a sudden onslaught of the human hunters that appeared around that time.

These are the findings of a new study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Adelaide. According to the study, the mammals that roamed until about 12,300 years ago fell prey to rapidly changing environment and climatic conditions and not to the human hunters.

The study, led by the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), explains how the climate started to warm rapidly after the arrival of the humans in Patagonia. Because of this, the collective group of large animals called megafauna died off suddenly.

Several animals were a part of the group, including camels, horses, gigantic bears, saber-toothed cats and elephant-sized sloths. Patagonia is a geographical location at the base of South America. The cause of extinction of several special of animals from the region has always been a mystery.

However, this is the first time that a team of researchers has figured out the extinction of the animals from the region was not a direct result of human invasion. In fact, the researchers say that the human occupation has already taken place in the region for more than 1,000 years before the climate became warmer suddenly, resulting in the extinction of the species within the next 100 years.

The researchers based their findings on the analysis of the DNA and bones of the animals recovered from the region. The analysis revealed that extinction occurred long after the humans has already established themselves in the region.

The complete details of the study have been published in the journal Science Advances.
Everybody knows that there is no water on Venus. However, a team of researchers working with ESA's (European Space Agency) Venus Express mission believes that the oceans that once existed on the surface of the planet were swept away by powerful electric winds.

Recently, the American space agency NASA reported on its website that the team of scientists working on the mission have kind of solved the mystery behind the disappearance of the oceans from the surface of the planets. The team discovered the planet's electric field while monitoring electrons that flowed through the planet's upper atmosphere.

The team made the discovery with the help of an electron spectrometer, which is a part of an instrument called ASPERA-4. Using the instrument aboard ESA Venus Express, the scientists found that the electrons were not escaping at the same velocity as they had expected.

The scientists believe that the speed of the electrons was influenced by the electric field of the planet, which is thought to be at least five times greater and more powerful than the electric field of the Earth.

Every planet has a gravity field and each planet with an atmosphere has a weak electric field surrounding it. These two fields are opposite to each other as gravity tends to hold the atmosphere together, but the electric field pushes the upper layers of the atmosphere into the space.

In case of Venus, fast-moving Hydrogen escapes easily. In addition, the strong electric field of the planet can even force heavier and charged components of water, such as oxygen ions, to escape the gravity of the planet. The sunlight, in turn, breaks down water in the upper layer of the atmosphere and the components are driven away by the electric field.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Glyn Collinson describes electric winds as "this big monster that's capable of sucking the water from Venus by itself."
Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

The board earmarked $1.54 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for the dredge, designed to keep channels open and supply sand to nourish eroding beaches up and down the York County coast and beyond.
Mumbai:

Bollywood actor Salman Khan on Thursday bluntly evaded media personnel on Mumbai airport after he was asked if he would apologize for his 'raped woman' remark.



Watch video here:

#WATCH:Salman Khan evaded media at the Mumbai airport when asked if he would apologize for his 'raped woman' remark.https://t.co/K7sGZyCzPn  ANI (@ANI_news) June 23, 2016

The Maharashtra Women's Commission has also summoned Salman Khan on June 29 over his controversial "rape" remarks.



Salman had landed himself in a controversy for his remark that he felt like a "raped woman" after one gruelling shoot for his upcoming film 'Sultan', sparking demands for an apology from the actor.



"We have asked Salman or his lawyer to appear at our office at 2 PM on June 29 to give their clarification over the remarks," Commission Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar told PTI.



"If the actor does not turn up we will presume he has nothing to say and will proceed unilaterally in the matter," she said.



"While shooting, during those six hours, there'd be so much of lifting and thrusting on the ground involved. That was tough for me because if I was lifting, I'd have to lift the same 120-kilo guy 10 times for 10 different angles. And likewise, get thrown that many times on the ground.



"This act is not repeated that many times in the real fights in the ring. When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman walking out...," the 50-year-old actor had said.



The National Commission for Women had also taken suo motu cognisance of the "insensitive" remark by the superstar and shot off a letter to him asking for an explanation in seven days failing which he will be summoned.



Reacting on his son's behalf, Salman's father Salim Khan had said, "Undoubtedly what Salman said is wrong, the simili (sic), example and the context. The intention was not wrong."

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

As India makes a strong bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met Chinese President Xi Jinping and is understood to have sought Chinas support for it, seen as very crucial to take forward the process.

The outcome of the meeting between Modi and Xi here will determine proceedings at the two-day plenary meeting of the atomic trading club which began in Seoul today, sources said.

Though some other countries like Turkey, New Zealand and South Africa have reservations over Indias membership to the 48-nation grouping, India feels their opposition will fizzle out once China takes a favourable position towards New Delhi.

Chinas position on Indias NSG bid is very crucial, sources said. Modi arrived here today on a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Earlier, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met Xi on the sidelines of the summit and thanked China for supporting Pakistans case for NSG membership.

Giving clear indication of its opposition to Indias NSG bid, China yesterday had underlined the differences within NSG members, saying parties are yet to see eye-to-eye on this issue.

While making some right noises of playing constructive role on the issue of memberships of India and Pakistan, China maintained that the matter was not on the agenda of the plenary. Here too, Beijing clubbed the two sub-continental neighbours despite the marked difference in their nuclear non-proliferation track record.

Coinciding with the SCO summit, the two-day annual plenary of the NSG began today in the South Korean capital during which Indias application for membership of the atomic trading club is likely to be deliberated upon.

While the US and France have issued statements ahead of the plenary strongly supporting Indias case and asking members to back New Delhi, China has been unrelenting in its opposition harping on the need to have a criteria for non-NPT countries like India and clubbing Indias case with that of Pakistan for which it is batting.

Roughly 20 countries are backing Indias case fully but given that the decisions in NSG are taken by consensus, India faces an uphill task. India is seeking membership of NSG to enable it to trade in and export nuclear technology.

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Karachi:

Hakimullah Mehsud faction, a splinter group of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the murder Pakistan's finest Sufi Qawwals, best known for his soul-stirring renditions of mystic poetry.



Sabri, 45, and an associate were travelling in a car in Karachi's congested Liquatabad 10 area when two motorcycle-borne gunmen fired at their vehicle, critically injuring them.



Two attackers riding a motorcycle intercepted his car and targeted Amjad Sabri, who was driving, said Sindh police chief Allah Dino Khawaja.



The two were rushed to Abbasi Shaheed hospital, where Sabri succumbed to his injuries. His associate also died.



Sabri was shot in the chest and head and he was shifted to Abbasi Shaheed hospital immediately, where he succumbed to his injuries. His associate was also killed in the targeted attack, a police official said.



Hakimullah Mehsud faction, a splinter group of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the murder. The outfits spokesperson Qari Saifullah Mehsud said it killed Sabri because he was a blasphemer.



In 2014, the Islamabad Hight Court had issued a notice in a blasphemy case to two private TV channels for playing a qawwali during a morning show. The show had mixed a mock wedding with a qawwali sung by Sabri related to religious figures, and was considered offensive.



Additional police surgeon Dr Rohina Hasan confirmed Sabris death. He was shot thrice twice in the head and once on the ear.



Two riders used 30-bore pistols to shoot Sabri five times, the bullet to the head took the qawwals life, a senior police official said.



Sabri was apparently heading for the studio of a private television channel when he was attacked.



Police officials recovered five 30-bore casings from the scene of the attack, which have been sent for forensics.



Both front side windows were shattered and three bullet holes could be seen on the front screen.



A senior official of the Sindh home department said they were looking into reports that Sabri had recently submitted an application to the government for provision of security.



Amjad Sabri was the son of renowned Qawwal Ghulam Farid Sabri whose family is famous in the subcontinent for their contribution to this sufi art and mystic poetry.



Sabri was one of Pakistans finest qawwals, known for his soul-stirring renditions of mystic poetry.



Some of the most memorable and famous qawwalis of the Sabris were Bhar Do Jholi Meri, Tajdar-i-Haram and Mera Koi Nahin Hai Teray Siwa.



Sabri, who travelled widely to Europe and the US for his concerts, was known as the rockstar of Qawali due to his modern style of rendition.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack and has directed authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.



Fakhre Alam, Chairman of Sindh Censor Board, has claimed in a tweet that Sabri had earlier submitted an application for security, but the home department did not act on it.



His killing comes just two days after the son of the Sindh High Court Chief Justice was kidnapped and it raises serious concern about the security situation in Pakistans biggest city. This week a doctor belonging to the minority Ahmadi community was also shot dead in his clinic by gunmen.



Opposition politicians have described Sabris killing as a total failure of the provincial government to ensure proper law and order situation in Karachi which is the economic hub of the country.



The spokesman for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insasaf party, Naeem ul Haq, called for those involved in heinous crimes to be given exemplary capital punishment.



No one is safe in Karachi. The so-called clean up operation since the last two years is a total failure.



A senior member of the Mutthaida Qaumi Movement, Waseem Akhtar, who is the nominee for the Mayors post also condemned Sabris killing and said the government should resign.



Militants belonging to different banned outfits are openly roaming in parts of Karachi and there is no one to stop them, he said.

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Lucknow:

A fatwa has been issued against Bollywood actor Jimmy Shergill for his starring in movie 'Shorgul', which has been banned in several parts of Uttar Pradesh.



The makers are now planning to approach Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to discuss and resolve the issue regarding ban on film in places like Muzaffarnagar, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Lucknow.



'Shorgul' is a political drama based upon the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.



Khamman Peer Baba Committee has issued Fatwa against Jimmy Shergill for allegedly hurting the sentiments of Muslim community.



The fatwa states that a seasoned actor like Jimmy has hurt the sentiments of the Muslim community by enacting scenes that will cause unrest in the community through the dialogues and scene depictions, read a statement.



Jimmy will be barred from shooting in Uttar Pradesh and his films release in the region will also not be allowed, the statement further read.



Jimmy Shergill is currently in Canada.

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Washington:

Pakistan's bid for Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership could land in trouble as highly placed sources from US have revealed that the country is continuously selling nuclear materials to North Korea.



In making this dramatic revelation, the sources said that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items such as ' Monel ' and ' Inconel ' material to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions.



The sources said that nuclear materials supplied to the PAEC by Chinese entities have also found their way to North Korea, with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) recently receiving a written complaint that supplies of a Chinese company, Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited, to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities.



The Chinese Government hushed up the matter as it could have consequences for Beijing's bid to support Pakistan at the NSG. But this information leaked out of North Korea and came to the knowledge Of Western Governments who are members of the NSG.



In another alarming revelation, informed sources said Pakistan has been giving North Korea equipment which has a direct bearing On producing nuclear weapons. Sources said the Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited manufactures Vacuum Induction Melting (VIM) furnaces which find application in refining hard metals such as uranium and plutonium, which are used in making nuclear warhead cores. Pakistan is known to have procured these items from China and has passed them along to North Korea.



When asked if this evidence of Pakistan's illicit nuclear trade with North Korea has been brought to the notice of NSG nations, U.S. sources said all proof and evidence which confirms the violation of sanctions against North Korea and more so the ongoing dangerous nuclear trade has been brought to the notice of "those who need to be informed at the NSG level."



Behind the scenes Pakistan is aware that it's nuclear trade with North Korea has been uncovered, but is counting on China to keep the global pressure at bay, said sources.



Giving details of North Korea's nuclear commerce links with Pakistan, informed sources mentioned that two North Korean diplomats - Kim Yong Choi and Jang Yong Son --posted in the North Korean Embassy in Tehran visited Pakistan eight times between 2012 and 2015. They were associated With the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation ( KOMID ) - an entity sanctioned several times by the United Nations Security Council since 2005 for its involvement in North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction ( WMD ) programme.



These diplomats met with Pakistani officers involved in the nuclear program. They were tracked and investigated by the Western authorities as yet another proof of Pakistan's continuing nuclear links with North Korea.



Based on Western inputs on these links, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1718 Committee, which is monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea, sought information from Pakistan in November 2015 regarding the frequent visits of the two North Korean diplomats from Tehran to Islamabad and Karachi.



At first, say informed sources, Pakistan denied it, but when confronted with photographs and other recorded evidence, Pakistan acknowledged that the two North Korean officials under investigation had indeed visited Islamabad and Karachi.



Highly placed sources said that the West has so far kept this information under wraps in recognition of Pakistan's value in the war against terror.



But now, when Pakistan has gone into overdrive to upset the equilibrium of the NSG, Western nations of the grouping are saying that Islamabad needs to "look at itself in the mirror " and ask "how can it run with the hare and hunt with the foxes", meaning it can't claim to fulfill the NSG's requirements, and at the same time, sell nuclear weapons materials to North Korea.



(This is an exclusive story by ANI)

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New Delhi:

Delhi Police on Thursday registered an FIR against Aam Aadmi Party MLA Dinesh Mohaniya after a woman lodged complaint against him. Woman alleged that AAP MLA from Sangam Vihar, misbehaved with her.

As per reports, Mohaniya hurled abuses at her when she approached him to solve water problem in the area. Reportedly on Wednesday, a group of women approached the MLA at his office and requested him to resolve the water supply issues.

Instead of giving ear to their problem, MLA's supporters reportedly misbehaved with them. Later, agitated women reached nearby police station and lodged an FIR. The MLA has been booked in the case.

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Beijing:

The India-China financial dialogue due to be held here between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.



Jaitley will land in Beijing on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue.



But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources here told PTI.



Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das could not attend the meeting.



Till now the two countries held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.



This is the first time it was elevated to level of Finance Ministers of both countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.



It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27.



The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.



It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.



The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhis admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the groups meeting in Seoul.



During his visit to China, which is the first after he took over as finance minister, Jaitley is due to address meetings of bankers and wealth fund managers and business investors meeting to scout for investments in India.



He is also due to attend the Board of Governors meeting of the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India along with 56 countries are members.

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Mysuru:

A fight broke out between two groups of youths at a KSRTC bus stand in Hassan city, 185km from Bengaluru. Lethal weapons were being used during the fight even as hundreds of passer-by turned mute spectators. The entire incident was even recorded by a bystander on his cellphone.



The Hassan Police came into action and arrested three persons after the video of the attack went viral on the internet. According to the police, the public reaction was shocking as no one tried to intervene or even took courage to call police.

Hassan SP Rahul Kumar Shahpurwad said that the fight lasted for at least eight minutes but the public just watched them and didnt informed the cops.



The cops, however, reached the spot only after 10 minutes and rushed the injured to hospital, Shahpurwad said, adding, three youths were arrested and other accused is still absconding. The video has also been examined by the police.



The incident took place at the KSRTC bus stand on Mysuru Road at 4:35 pm when a quarrel picked up between Sunil, who lives in Vijayanagar, and Dhanush from K Byadarahalli village, police said. Sunil, who was in an inebriated state, and his friend Naveen questioned Dhanush about a girl and then attacked him. According to police, they did not have any enmity previously and that they were strangers.



Dhanush then called up his brother Sudeep, who arrived at the spot with three friends. As an argument between the two groups started, Sunil stabbed Sudeep in the abdomen and tried to flee. The rival group then caught and thrashed him, police said. Sudeep, though injured, attacked both Naveen and Sunil. The KSRTC staff rushed to the scene and alerted the police.



Sunil and Sudeep were then taken into custody and were rushed to a government hospital. All the youths involved in the incident are under the age of 25. Police on Wednesday said that Sudeeps friends Ganesh, Hanumegowda and Dhanush, while Naveen is still at large.

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Kozhikode:

Two of the seniors of an 18-year-old student, who was forced to drink phenyl which burnt her internal organs, have been charged with attempt to murder in addition to ragging.

Earlier on Wednesday, five students of a nursing college in Karnataka were booked in connection with the alleged ragging of the first-year Dalit girl student. The girl has been hospitalised here with severe stomach problems.



The case was registered against Lakshmi of Kollam, Athira of Idukki and Krishna, Shilpa and Joe of Al Qamar College of Nursing at Gulburga, based on a statement from the 19-year-old victim, who is undergoing treatment at Kozhikode Medical College Hospital, Sub Inspector of KMCH Police Station, Habib said.



He said the girl had named only five of the eight seniors who were involved. The SI said her condition was now stable. A copy of the FIR had been sent to Gulbarga Police commissioner for further investigation into the matter, he said.



Police said the victim was allegedly forced to drink toilet-cleaning lotion by eight of her seniors, who are all from Kerala, on May 9. Following the incident, she was admitted to a private hospital in Gulburga with serious stomach problems.



As her condition worsened after five days of treatment, she was sent back home along with another Keralite student. The girl was then admitted to Thrissur Medical College Hospital, after which she was referred to Kozhikode Medical College Hospital (KMCH) on June 2.



Doctors at KMCH had suggested a major surgery as the chemicals of the toilet cleaner severely damaged her food pipe following which she had been admitted to the ICU.



Cases were booked under various sections of IPC,including 307 (attempt to murder), 36 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 346 (wrongful confinement in secret) and various sections of SC, ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act, they said.



(With inputs from PTI)

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Mumbai:

Bollywood actor Salman Khan gets support from his 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' co-star Nawazuddin Siddiqui over controversial 'rape' remark.



Manjhi star said Salman Khan's intentions were not wrong behind the controversial statement he gave during an interview.



Salman, in a group interview to promote Sultan, said he felt like a raped woman while shooting the physically gruelling shoot for the wrestling drama.



When asked about his take, Nawazuddin, who has worked with Salman in Kick and Bajrangi Bhaijaan told reporters here, He used it metaphorically. The discussion is over now, so no use of repeating it and asking questions again.



According to me, intentions matter and I dont think his intention was like that, the actor said at the special screening of his film Raman Raghav 2.0 last night.



The statement has not gone down well with many, who have taken to Twitter to express their angst against the actor. Even actress Kangana Ranaut called the Dabangg stars comment as extremely insensitive.



While his father, scriptwriter Salim Khan, apologised on the actors behalf, the demand for Salman to issue an apology himself has been growing from political parties, activists and social media users.

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Lucknow:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on Thursday cleared the air to dismiss rumours of him being unhappy with SP embracing gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansaris party. Akhilesh Yadav said there is no displeasure and it is an internal matter of the Samajwadi Party.



Merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with SP is an internal matter of Samajwadi Party, Yadav told reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet here.



There is no displeasure. This is all media creation, he said replying to queries on the issue.



He also evaded questions on sacking of cabinet minister Balram Yadav for apparently facilitating the merger.



Its all internal matter of the party, was his refrain.



The merger has been decided by the party, and what the party will decide will be acceptable to all, he said when quizzed further.



The merger was announced by SP spokesman and senior Cabinet Minister Shipal Yadav, who is brother of Akhileshs father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.



Hours later, Akhilesh sacked Balram from the Cabinet. Though no official reason was cited for the removal, SP leaders said the chief minister was unhappy with the minister for facilitating the controversial merger.



The Chief Ministers comments came against the backdrop of opposition training their guns at the ruling party following the merger, especially over law and order issue, ahead of next years Assembly polls.



QED merged with SP on June 21. The ruling party is hoping that it will help it tap the muslim vote bank in eastern Uttar Pradesh especially in Ghazipur, Mau and Varanasi.



QED was founded in 2010 by Mukhtar, along with his brothers Afzal Ansari and Sigbatullaha Ansari. The mafia don is in jail for his alleged involvement in the murder of former BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.



The merger of QED with SP has given fresh ammunition to the opposition parties to target Samajwadi Party.



Samajwadi Party is trying all means to get back to power in the next elections. This shows its sheer desperation, BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.



In a similar refrain, Congress spokesman DP Singh said the merger shows growing frustration within the ruling party which is trying all means to retain power by hook or by crook.

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Mumbai:

The Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Maharashtra police to continue its investigation into the murder of Govind Pansare, refusing to hand it over to the Crime Bureau of Investigation. This came after the Pansare family lawyer informed the court that Maharashtra government was preparing to refer the case to CBI.

The high court also came down heavily on the CID and the CBI, probing the Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar murder cases respectively, for slow progress.

The Pansare family had approached the Maharashtra government seeking CBI probe in the matter and yesterday the state government consented, lawyer Abhay Nevgi, representing the family of the slain communist leader, informed HC bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi.

However, Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told the court that he does not have any instruction from the government regarding this.

To this, the HC directed Shinde to find out if the government has taken a decision to refer the probe to CBI, and if it has done so, then tell the court the reasons behind it.

The bench, which is hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking monitoring by HC in both the murder probes, later adjourned the matter for six weeks.

Now that the CBI has arrested someone in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Pansares family also wants CBI to probe their case and the state government is also promptly saying OK let it go...let it be off my shoulder...one headache gone, the HC said.

Notably, the CBI had recently arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawde from Navi Mumbai in connection with the murder of anti-superstition crusader Dabholkar.

While Dabholkar was killed in August 2013, Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. The CBI and CID have been submitting periodical progress reports to HC.

The CBI had earlier said it was probing the role of right wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha in the murder.

The high court, after perusing the reports submitted by both CBI and CID with regard to the progress of probe in both the murder cases, said it was not completely satisfied with the pace of investigations.

We are not impressed by these reports. The agencies ought to be careful and sensitive as murder cases need to be initiated and concluded bearing in mind that it is a crime against the society. Two eminent individuals have lost their lives on account of their work and ideology, hence at stake here is a larger interest of freedom of speech, expression and views, the high court observed.

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New Delhi:

Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 is all set to hit the silver screens on Friday. The film, which stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in lead role, presents story of a real life notorious serial killer Raman Raghav.



The serial killer was active in Mumbai during mid-1960s.



Not much has been revealed about Psycho Raman's early life that led him to commit heinous crimes majorly murders and assaults.



In 1968, series of killings were reported from Mumbai outskirts. Most of them were committed during night using a hard, blunt material.



A witness came forward and released information about the Psycho killer to Mumbai Police. Followed by a massive man hunt, cops nabbed Raman Raghav and produced before a Mumbai Sessions court.



The court sentenced Raman Raghav, who is believed to be one of the worst and most horrific killers in India, to life imprisonment citing incurable mental illness.



He was then lodged to Yerwada Central Jail, Pune, and was under treatment at the Central Institute of Mental Health and Research.



A few years later, he succumbed to his kidney disease and took last breath in the year 1995 at Sassoon Hospital.

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New Delhi :

Two extremely brutal cases of sexual assault rattled the nation on Thursday morning. A 10-year old and 21-year-old girl were raped in separate incidents in Bihar.

The 10-year-old girl was gang-raped near her village in Motihari. Police have made two arrests in the case. In another case, a 21-year-old girl was raped at gunpoint in Motihari. Crossing all limits of brutality, the accused inserted a pistol and wooden particles in the private parts of the victim.

The victim is admitted to the nearby hospital and is said to be in a critical condition. The family members of the victim have demanded strict action against the accused and complained that police did nothing to arrest the culprit.

This rape incident has brought back the horrific memories related to the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape. In the similar way, the girl's parivate parts were mutilated crossing all lines of brutality. Motihari police has launched a serach operation to nab the culprits.

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New Delhi:

An armed gunman opened fire in a cinema complex in the western German town of Viernheim, leaving several wounded. According to an English daily, the man entered the place wearing a mask carrying a gun and a munition belt. The man is reported to have fired into the air with an alarm gun as he entered the cinema.

The motive behind the shooting remains unclear yet. The gunmen has been shot dead after police stormed the complex. No hostages were injured in the complex in the western town of Viernheim, 75 kilometres (50 miles) south of Frankfurt.

Initial reports had referred to dozens of wounded people and several shots fired, and police dispatched heavily armed special units to the site which was denied later.

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London:

Britains 1.2 million strong Indian-origin voters, the biggest ethnic majority-group in the country, are expected to vote in large numbers today amid indications that a majority of them may vote against Brexit -or Britains exit from the European Union.



They also reflect a divided house in line with the wider knife-edge divide in the referendum campaign so far, though a majority are expected to vote against Brexit.



A recent British Election study, ahead of the referendum to decide the UKs future relationship with the European Union (EU), had found that 51.7 per cent of Indian-origin voters are against Brexit, compared to 27.74 per cent in favour of leaving the economic bloc.



However, there was a significant percentage (16.85 per cent) of those who fell into the Dont Know category in the study last month and they are likely to hold the key in the referendum, which remains too close to call even on polling day.



The figures are similar across the board among South Asians, with Pakistani-origin voters backing remain 56 to 26 per cent and Bangladeshis 42 to 17.High-profile Indian-origin politicians in the UK echoed this divide, with UK employment minister Priti Patel and Infosys chief Narayan Murthys son-in-law Rishi Sunak batting for Brexit, while other senior MPs like Keith Vaz and Virendra Sharma firmly for Remain.



The British Indian MPs in favour of Brexit issued a strongly-worded letter last month, claiming EU was damaging the UK economy and the pressures this causes means that we have to turn away qualified doctors, teachers, and entrepreneurs from non-EU countries who would make a positive contribution to this country.



On the other end of the political spectrum, Alok Sharma, Conservative party MP and British Prime Minister David Camerons Infrastructure Envoy to India, set up a cross-party British Indians for IN group to ensure the undecided votes went in favour of Remain.



A vote to remain guarantees us continued unfettered access to Europes free trade single market of 500 million consumers, meaning lower prices, more jobs, increased investment and financial security.



It also means a seat at the table as the EU negotiates some of the biggest trade deals in history such as the ongoing discussions with the United States, China and India, he had claimed.



On the Brexit end, Priti Patel, Camerons Indian Diaspora Champion, shifted focus to a curry clash as her key weapon against what she described as unfair immigration rules that favour EU migrants over non-EU ones from countries like India.



Our curry houses are becoming the victims of the EUs uncontrolled immigration rules. By voting to leave the EU we can take back control of our immigration policies, save our curry houses and join the rest of the world, she said during her campaign.

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New Delhi:

The Delhi Medical Council (DMC) has ordered an inquiry into the case of alleged medical negligence at Fortis Hospital here even as the hospital authority has sacked five of its staffers, including two orthopaedic surgeons, in this connection.



The family of a 24-year-old youth have accused doctors at Fortis hospital Shalimarbagh of wrongly operating upon the left leg of him instead of the injured right leg.



The DMC, which has taken suo motu cognizance of the matter, will conduct an inquiry and take appropriate action, DMC Secretary Girish Tyagi said.



A Delhi Medical Council team will visit the hospital tomorrow and go through all the documents. We will also hold conversations with the staff and doctors who were present during the surgery at the operation theatre.



The hospital may have sacked the doctors and staffers at fault but they will join some other hospital. So we have to conduct an independent inquiry. If found at fault, their licenses will be cancelled, said Tyagi.



Ravi Rai, a resident of Ashok Vihar was taken to Fortis Hospital on Sunday after he slipped from the staircase. Tests found that he had suffered fracture on his right foot and the doctors said that his condition required surgery, his Father Ramkaran Rai said.



Delhi police registered an FIR in connection with the matter. An FIR under Sections 336 (endangering life through negligence) and 338 of IPC has been registered, a senior police official said.



Doctors, however, operated upon his left leg wrongly and put multiple screws inside the left foot instead of the injured right one. It was when Ravi gained consciousness that they realised about the wrong.



Fortis issued a statement saying that following yesterdays (Mondays) incident, we immediately set up an expert committee to enquire into the matter. Their preliminary view suggests that in the rarest of aberrations, the operating team may have disregarded and sidestepped due processes.



We take our obligation to our patients very seriously. As this is a zero tolerance area for us, the services of erring doctors and OR personnel (five) have been dispensed forthwith, it said.



The statement added that action against some others was also being contemplated, pending inquiry. Meanwhile, Ravi, a CA student, was yesterday shifted to Max Hospital where he is undergoing treatment.
The corporate meat industry killed 185 activists in this past year alone and still no mainstream coverage

The meat industry is one of the most powerful organizations in the entire world. Due to the hefty amount of meat humans consume every day, the meat industry is absolutely thriving.

Still, there are large numbers of people who are looking to take it down. Everyone from vegans and vegetarians to environmentalists and businessmen in rival industries have looked to cause a significant hit in the meat industry. But the meat industry, it seems, has been fighting back  and the results are deadly.

According to a report from Global Witness entitled On Dangerous Ground, the amount of deaths reported had skyrocketed. In the past year, 185 environmental activists were murdered in the name of Big Beef. Most of the casualties came from people who were trying to protect their land. The most dangerous area seems to be Brazil where 50 of the 185 were killed. Peru came in second with 33 murders.

Global Witness reports that collusion between state and corporate interests shield many of those responsible for the killings. In cases that are well-documented we found 16 were related to paramilitary groups, 13 to the army, 11 to the police, and 11 to private security  strongly implying state or company links to the killings.

Its certainly a suspicious discovery, and considering how bloodthirsty corporate businesses can be, it doesnt come as much of a surprise that people are murdered in order to make bank accounts larger. If theres anything weve learned in recent years, its that we simply cant trust governments or corporations. Theres too much money to be made, and when theres money to be made, theres blood to be spilled.

The meat industry kills an estimated 56 billion animals per year. Why would you be naive enough to believe they wouldnt add a few hundred humans to that body count?

Sources:

Global Witness

The Daily Sheeple

Animal Equality

Submit a correction >>
White House rejects full funding for Israeli missile defense programs that also benefit the U.S. military

(NationalSecurity.news) The Obama administration has outraged Israel supporters in Congress after sending a letter to lawmakers last week that it opposes fully funding the Jewish states missile defense programs, even though they are a shared effort with the Pentagon and also bolster U.S. anti-missile capabilities.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the White House said in the letter that it strongly opposes $455 million in funding for Israels top missile defense programs, saying that the president instead would provide the Jewish state with $146 million. Israel requested $601 million.

The Administration objects to the reduction of $324 million from the FY 2017 Budget request for U.S. ballistic missile defense programs, including $49 million to homeland defense programs, $91 million to U.S. regional missile defense programs, $44 million to missile defense testing efforts, and $140 million to missile defense advanced technology programs, the letter states. These programs are required to improve the reliability of missile defense system and ensure the United States stays ahead of the future ballistic missile threat. Furthermore, the Administration opposes the addition of $455 million above the FY 2017 Budget request for Israeli missile defense procurement and cooperative development programs.

In general, the Free Beacon noted, the Obama White House has continually objected to efforts by Congress to fill the funding gape and provide Israel with the full resources it requires to advance missile defense programs.

The White Houses stance has angered both Republican and Democratic supporters in Congress who know that Israel is the United States most trusted and reliable ally in a war-torn Middle East that remains a hotbed of terrorist activity. Also, they note that denying these developmental funds to Israel also harms U.S. national security.

Its deeply disappointing to see the administration oppose congressional efforts to fully fund Israels request for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., author of legislation to fully fund these programs, said in a statement.

Congressional allies said that Israel needs the funds because regional enemies like Iran are continuing to build better intercontinental ballistic missiles, an effort that will be dramatically bolstered by the administrations nuclear deal with Tehran last year that frees up billions of dollars in once-frozen Iranian assets.

Israel faces growing missile threats, especially after the flawed nuclear deal gave Irans terror-sponsoring regime over $100 billion in sanctions relief and as Iran has accelerated testing of ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel, Kirk said.

A senior congressional aide told the Free Beacon that the administration is not living up to promises it made to fully fund Israels defense needs and help it defend against Iranian threats.

The White House claims its the most pro-Israel administration in history, yet its objecting to a $455 million increase to meet requirements for Israels missile cooperation with the United States while, at the same time, complaining we need to do more for Irans terror-sponsoring regime because the nuclear deals $100 billion in total sanctions relief isnt enough, the source said. This doesnt add up.

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Technology startup Gradifi Inc is a company in a new niche, that of student loan repayment benefits manager for other companies. Based in Boston, Gradifi has partnered with a number of companies to help provide their employees a fairly new and popular benefit: student loan repayment options. One such partner is Radius Bank, which offers graduates yet another way of paying on their student loans  a debit card rewards program.

This program provides Radius Bank cardholders with a simple way of making regular small payments on their student loans. Every time they use their debit card to make a purchase, the bank pays one percent of the total towards the students college debt. With the average amount of student loan debt currently sitting at around $30,000, the small one percent is not going to make any significant dent in the borrowers loans. However, it will slowly decrease the balance, and as graduates with loans know, any small amount of help is appreciated.

Gradifi customers will need to have a checking account at Radius Bank with an active debit card in order to take advantage of this rewards program. The one percent cash back can only be applied to the borrowers student loans, and there is no maximum amount borrowers can earn in cash bank rewards.

This isnt the only lender Gradifi has partnered with. The startup has also entered into a partnership with Citizens Financial Group Inc.

If you are interested in a personal loan, visit our curated list of top lenders.


NUREMBERG, Germany, June 22, 2016 /CNW/ - Internationally, 42 percent of the online connected population agree firmly[1] with the statement "To me, it is important to always be reachable wherever I am" - and only 11 percent firmly disagree[1]. However, four countries - Germany, Sweden, Canada and Netherlands - run counter to this trend, with more of their connected consumers firmly disagreeing than agreeing.

According to a GfK survey of 22 countries, Russia and China have the highest levels of people online who agree strongly that it is important to them to be always reachable, wherever they are, standing at 56 percent each. They are followed by Turkey at 53 percent. These are the only countries surveyed where over half of their connected consumers agree strongly with that concept. Mexico comes close, with 50 percent, but there is then a drop to the next closest country: Poland at 41 percent.

Running against that international trend are Germany, Sweden, Canada and Netherlands. These countries are the only ones in the survey where greater numbers firmly disagree than agree with the idea that it is important to be always reachable.

In Germany, just over a third (34 percent) disagrees strongly with that idea compared to 16 percent who firmly agree. They are followed by Sweden at 28 percent versus 22 percent, Canada at 24 percent versus 23 percent, and the Netherlands at 23 percent versus 22 percent.

Nearly half of 30-39 year olds say "always reachable" is important

Amongst the different age groups, people in their thirties show most leaning towards wanting to be always reachable - standing at nearly half (47 percent) firmly agreeing that it is important. Next come those in their twenties, at 45 percent, followed by teenagers (15-19 years old) at 43 percent. Those in their forties run a very close fourth at 42 percent. However, for people aged 50 and over, the perceived need to be always reachable drops off significantly - standing at a third (33 percent) of those in their fifties and just 29 percent of people aged 60 and over.

"Always reachable" demand is only slightly higher among women

Looking at the difference between genders, women are slightly more likely than men to see being always reachable wherever they are as being important (43 percent women versus 40 percent men). When it comes to those who firmly disagree with it being important, the difference is even narrower, standing at 10 percent of women and 11 percent of men.

To download the complete findings for each of the 22 countries, please visit http://www.gfk.com/global-studies/global-study-overview/

Footnotes

[1] bottom two boxes and top two boxes from a seven point scale, where "1" means "do not agree at all", and "7" means "agree completely".

SOURCE GfK
Program brings tech to classrooms across Canada

BURNABY, BC, June 23, 2016 /CNW/ - This week, Best Buy Canada announced the return of the School Tech Grants program, which offers financial grants of up to $10,000 to schools for the purchase of new classroom technology. The program is currently accepting online applications from elementary schools (Grades K-8) across Canada at www.bestbuy.ca/schooltechgrants. Application deadline is Thursday, July 7, 2016 and recipients will be announced in September.

The School Tech Grant program is unique as it allows schools to outline exactly how much funding is needed and specifically what technology the schools need to take learning to the next level for their students.

"We continue to see a tremendous amount of interest from teachers and principals excited by the possibilities that can happen when students have access to technology," said Andrea MacBeth, Community Relations Manager, Best Buy Canada. "We know how amazing technology can be and the impact it can have in the hands of students. Best Buy Canada wants to provide schools opportunities to access the latest in modern tech."

The Best Buy School Tech Grants are available in two categories:

General School Tech Grants offer a way for schools to improve or integrate technology in their classrooms to advance student learning. Previous winners have used these grants to support tech needs in libraries, special needs classrooms, and literacy programs.

STEM School Tech Grants are available for schools looking to add technology to programs that focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM). Previous recipients include investments in robotics clubs, math or coding programs, makerspaces, and digital media courses.

Since the program started, Best Buy Canada has awarded $2.3 million in grants to more than 100 Canadian schools as part of their ongoing commitment to supporting students and education in Canada.

New this year

Best Buy Canada has partnered with My Class Needs (MCN), a Canadian charity that connects classroom projects with donors through a crowdfunding website. Together, Best Buy and MCN will be providing the opportunity for elementary school teachers to apply for micro-grants of up to $1000 for new tech. This additional funding aims to support individual classroom projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering or Math with the technology needed to either be established or grow.

"We are thrilled to partner with Best Buy Canada on this new initiative," said Amy Coupal, MCN CEO. "The support of Best Buy allows MyClassNeeds.ca to bring innovative resources to more schools across Canada and directly impact the educational experience of students. I'm grateful for Best Buy Canada's leadership and commitment to supporting students by giving them greater access to innovative learning resources."

Teachers can apply for a Best Buy School Tech Micro Grant through MyClassNeeds.ca from July 18 - September 9, 2016.

About Best Buy Canada

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY), Best Buy Canada Ltd. is one of Canada's largest and most successful omni-channel retailers, operating the Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile and Geek Squad (www.geeksquad.ca) brands. With nearly 200 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores across Canada, and an expanded assortment of lifestyle products offered through BestBuy.ca, Best Buy is a leader in Total Retail, catering to customers how, when, and where they want to shop. Best Buy Canada is committed to making a positive impact in the community with programs and partnerships that support youth to connect with technology to advance their education. For more information visit BestBuy.ca.

About MCN

My Class Needs Foundation is a registered charity (86821 1376 RR0001) that enhances the learning environment in Canadian publicly funded schools by linking teachers to donors who want to support them through the crowdfunding platform MyClassNeeds.ca. The process is easy, accessible and fully transparent. MyClassNeeds.ca provides the opportunity for organizations and individual donors to enhance the educational experience of students across the country by leveling the playing field in terms of schools' access to resources. Since MyClassNeeds.ca launched in 2013 they have raised over $1,278,000, funded over 1,275 projects and enhanced the learning experience of over 61,500 students. For more information go to myclassneeds.ca

SOURCE Best Buy Canada

For further information: Media contact: Rivka Lipsey, E: [email protected], P: 604-219-1833
Eleven luxury hotels join Exclusive Resorts' portfolio transforming the Club into an All-Encompassing Vacation Solution for its 4,000+ Members

DENVER, June 23, 2016 /CNW/ -- Exclusive Resorts, a private collection of 400+ luxury residences and global experiences, debuts its new Hotel Collectionproviding its 4,000+ Members access to the luxury Swiss hotel brand La Reserve and award-winning The Peninsula Hotels. The announcement is the first in a series of celebrated resorts, hotels and experiences the Club is adding to its Vacation Collection, transforming its residential portfolio into an all-encompassing vacation solution.

"The Hotel Collection is just another example of how we're expanding and evolving our offerings," says Cathy Ross, CEO. "In addition to these eleven hotels, we've also added 50 new custom itinerariesdesigned exclusively for our Membersto our Experience Collection. We want to be our Members' long-term and short-term vacation solution. This means, creating more choice and more flexible ways to use our Club Membership. We want to have something for everyone."

Exclusive Resorts' Members can now use their Club Membership to book stays at three of La Reserve's properties in Geneva, Paris and St.-Tropez as well as eight Peninsula Hotel properties in Bangkok, Beijing, Beverly Hills, Hong Kong, Manila, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo.

The Hotel Collection is an extension of Exclusive Resorts' decade-long legacy in the luxury hotel and resort space. When staying in a Club residence, Members already enjoy access to resort amenities and programming at 40+ of the world's best hotels around the globetraditionally reserved for hotel guests.

"While our Members have always enjoyed privileged access to resort amenities when staying in most of our properties, we know there are times when they just want to stay in a hotel," says Ross. "Our Hotel Collection is just another way they can use their Memberships to plan an effortlessand spontaneousgetaway. One that we've carefully vetted, of course."

The Hotel Collection joins the Club's Residence Collection featuring 300+ multimillion-dollar homes and Experience Collection with more than 50 curated itineraries, VIP events and Once-in-a-Lifetime experiences spanning seven continents.

About Exclusive Resorts:

Exclusive Resorts is absolutely one of a kind. We are not merely a destination club, but a discerning and sophisticated community with a 13-year legacy providing our travelers with a distinctive lifestyle anchored by Once-in-a-Lifetime experiences. The private Club offers a suite of travel products and Membership plans providing entree to the best the world has to offer: a vacation portfolio featuring more than 300 multimillion-dollar homes worldwide; curated experiences with exotic adventures spanning seven continents; privileged access to world-class VIP events; exclusive alliances with award-winning resort partners; and a collection of benefits and privileges with elite travel and luxury lifestyle brands. Founded in 2002 and acquired by Steve Case and Revolution Places in 2004, the Club has delivered more than 200,000 vacations for its discerning travelers. For more information about Exclusive Resorts, visit exclusiveresorts.com or newsroom.exclusiveresorts.com, call 844.609.8684, and follow Exclusive Resorts on Facebook and Twitter.

Media Contacts:

Nike Communications

Katie Archambault

[email protected]

Direct dial: 646.654.3421

Mobile: 617.780.6902

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160622/382502

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150225/177964LOGO

SOURCE Exclusive Resorts
WINNIPEG, June 23, 2016 /CNW/ - NewLeaf Travel Company Inc. today announced it will resume sales with ultra low fares and an expanded route map. Customers will be able to book flights on the NewLeaf Travel Company website (GoNewLeaf.ca) to/from an expanded list of 12 Canadian cities: Halifax, Moncton, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Kelowna, Kamloops, Fort St. John, Abbotsford and Victoria. The first flights will take off July 25, 2016.

"We are excited to resume operations as people plan their summer vacations," said Jim Young, President and CEO of NewLeaf Travel Company. "We know Canadians have been waiting for this service, and are delighted to increase their travel options by offering more flights to more destinations, with fares as low as $79."*

In March 2016, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) completed its review of licensing regulations and determined that, as a reseller of air services, NewLeaf Travel Company is not required to hold an airline license. Flights booked through NewLeaf will be operated by Flair Airlines, a licensed Canadian airline with an experienced crew and pilots flying Boeing 737400 passenger jets.

"We will absolutely adhere to the CTA's clarified rules for resellers, and have taken the past few months to review our practices to make sure we are in full compliance. We are glad that we took the extra time to plan our re-launch as we wanted to protect consumers and offer them long term business stability," said Young. "It has taken a bit of time to get off the ground but we are excited to now bring to Canada the ultralow cost business model that has proven successful around the world."

As an ultralow cost travel company, NewLeaf will work with Flair Airlines to offer base fares that are significantly less than other Canadian carriers. It will achieve this through costsaving measures such as operating out of airports with lower landing fees; flying a simple pointtopoint network with minimal time between flights; and offering customers a la carte purchase of options such as carry-on and checked baggage, priority boarding, and call centre assistance for a fee.

NewLeaf Travel Company Inc. is a privately-held Canadian company headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba that provides leisure travellers with low fares and travel options that are unbundled and transparent. See more at www.GoNewLeaf.ca

Flair Airlines Ltd. is a Canadian airline with operations based in Kelowna, Calgary and Hamilton. In business since 2003, Flair has a strong track record of safety and service. Learn more at www.Flairair.ca

[*Based on introductory prices for certain markets (inclusive of taxes and fees)]

MEDIA KIT  GoNewLeaf.ca/newleaf-travel-company-media-kit/

(Please do not include previously circulated photos of NewLeaf's livery/airplanes in your news coverage, as those are now outdated).

Please follow NewLeaf on Facebook and Twitter for live news coverage of the event.

https://www.facebook.com/newleaftravel

https://twitter.com/newleaftravel

Broadcast quality video of the event will be added to the Media Kit at approx. 11 a.m. CT, following the media conference.

SOURCE NewLeaf Travel

Image with caption: "NewLeaf Travel announced it will resume sales with ultra low fares and an expanded route map. Customers will be able to book flights on the NewLeaf Travel Company website (GoNewLeaf.ca) to/from an expanded list of 12 Canadian cities. Flights booked through NewLeaf will be operated by Flair Airlines. (CNW Group/NewLeaf Travel)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160623_C7493_PHOTO_EN_720870.jpg

Image with caption: "NewLeaf Travel (CNW Group/NewLeaf Travel)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160623_C7493_PHOTO_EN_720868.jpg

For further information: To arrange an interview, contact: National News Media: Charlene McAdam, Birchall & Associates Public Relations, E: [email protected], T: 905-338-7600 ext. 105, C: 416-540-6642; Manitoba Media: Lisa Saunders, Sound Strategy Communications Ltd., E: [email protected], T: 204-799-4641
TORONTO, June 21, 2016 /CNW/ - The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) invites members of the media to the Toronto-Pearson Airport for a demonstration on how to go through security quickly. In addition to packing and screening tips, recently intercepted items will be on display. It is estimated that the number of passengers will grow by more than 10% this summer. On the busiest weeks, close to half a million travellers will go through the checkpoints. CATSA wants to make sure that they are screened as quickly as possible.

Where: Toronto-Pearson Airport Terminal 1

Departure Level

In front of the domestic security checkpoint (Level 3)



When: Thursday, June 23, 2016

10:30 a.m.



Photo Op: Intercepted items from passengers' carry-on baggage

Packing and screening tips demonstration at the checkpoint

CATSA is a Crown corporation responsible for:

Pre-board screening  the screening of passengers, their carry-on baggage and their personal belongings;

Hold-baggage screening  the screening of checked baggage;

Non-passenger screening  the random screening of non-passengers; and

Restricted Area Identity Card  the administration of access control to airport restricted areas through biometric identifiers.

SOURCE Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA)

For further information: Mathieu Larocque, Spokesperson, 613-998-4527, [email protected], [email protected], @catsa_gc
Once the Preclearance Act is passed, a new preclearance site in Toronto will be on the short list for approval

TORONTO, June 23, 2016 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada remains committed to making it faster and easier to travel from Canada into the United States.

The Government is taking the necessary steps to enable more regions of the country to enjoy the travel and economic benefits of preclearance operations. We are building on the success of the existing CanadaU.S. air transport preclearance framework which makes air travel more efficient for almost 12 million passengers every year at eight of Canada's busiest international airports.

Last Friday, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, announced the introduction of the Preclearance Act in the House of Commons. When passed, the bill will enable the implementation of the Agreement on Land, Rail, Marine and Air Transport Preclearance between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America. Once the Agreement enters into force, preclearance operations at new locations in the land, rail, marine and air modes, in Canada and the U.S. could be implemented.

The preclearance initiative builds on the significant progress made during the Prime Minister's official visit to Washington. There, Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama agreed in principle to expand preclearance to a number of new Canadian locations, including Quebec's Jean Lesage International Airport, Toronto's Billy Bishop City Airport, Montreal Central Station and the Rocky Mountaineer.

Quick Facts

During the Prime Minister's official visit to Washington on March 10, 2016 , Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama agreed in principle to expand preclearance to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Quebec City's Jean Lesage International Airport, Montreal Central Station and Rocky Mountaineer.





on , Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama agreed in principle to expand preclearance to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Jean Lesage International Airport, Montreal Central Station and Rocky Mountaineer. Existing preclearance operations enable travellers to enter the U.S. as domestic passengers and create a more comprehensive transportation network for them by giving them privileged access to non-international U.S. airports (i.e., those without customs and immigration facilities).





The Agreement can only enter into force once both countries have enacted the required implementing legislation. New preclearance operations, such as at Toronto's Billy Bishop City Airport will require approval by both countries.

Quotes

"A more efficient and secure border is good for economic growth and our shared prosperity. Preclearance at our airports has worked very well for Canadians, and that's why our Prime Minister and President Obama committed to expand this system for the benefit of both our peoples. I'm very pleased that this agreement will directly support the Greater Toronto Area and one of Canada's busiest and most-used airports."

 Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, on behalf of Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

"We are pleased to have Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport as one of the first to be included in the new and expanded preclearance agreement between Canada and the U.S. Further, we are excited by the opportunity to introduce the next generation in customer-oriented border crossing services at our airport, one that represents new efficiencies and enhanced technological utilization to the express benefit of our travellers. As the sixth busiest Canadian airport servicing the U.S., Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is an important gateway and an enhanced preclearance approach presents the ability to service U.S. markets more broadly and creates opportunity to add new markets within our existing slot structure and allocation which is good news for travellers and good news for trade relations between our two countries."

 Geoffrey Wilson, CEO of PortsToronto, owner and operator of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport

"Porter Airlines flies more than 400,000 passengers annually to American destinations from Vermont to Florida out of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. The airport will be an important addition to the tremendously successful preclearance program, which benefits travellers, communities and businesses in both Canada and the United States. We look forward to the even greater convenience preclearance will provide consumers."

 Robert Deluce, President and CEO of Porter Airlines

Related Products

Associated Links

Follow Public Safety Canada (@Safety_Canada) on Twitter.

For more information, please visit the website www.publicsafety.gc.ca.

SOURCE Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada

For further information: Scott Bardsley, Office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 613-998-5681; Media Relations, Public Safety Canada, 613-991-0657




Basel striker Breel Embolo is ready to sign for Schalke.Media reports in Germany revealed that United have missed out on the signing of Embolo.The Swiss sensation is believed to have signed a deal with Bundesliga giants Schalke as part of a 15million move.It is reported that both United and Red Bull Leipzig have had their offers rejected by the 19-year-old, who is currently representing Switzerland at the Euros.However, no deal is expected to be formally announced until after Switzerland's summer duties are all completed.
The agent of Henrikh Mkhitaryan is urging Borussia Dortmund not to deny him a "dream" move to Manchester United.Mino Raiola fears United will look elsewhere if BVB continue to dig in their heels over selling the Armenia midfielder."An offer from Manchester United for a player maybe comes only once in a career," said Raiola."No one can guarantee us that the door for Micki next season is still open."Manchester United is a dream club, he insists on at that club."
Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has declared that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) can investigate and prosecute the ...

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has declared that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) can investigate and prosecute the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, even as a sitting governor.Falana quoted judicial precedents and legal instruments, which he said, justified the decision of the anti-graft commission to investigate and freeze Fayoses bank accounts.The human rights lawyer in a statement on Wednesday said Fayose could not rely on section 308 of the 1999 Constitution to escape criminal act.He said the immunity clause did not come to play in criminal investigation of a sitting governor or a sitting president.According to Falana, Fayoses diverse criminal antecedents ranged from the looting of N1.2 billion from the states treasury in 2004 to alleged involvement in the murder of Tunde Omojola and the 2014 Ekiti governorship election rigging.He said that the EFCC was currently being investigated in connection to a coup, which led to the re-election of Fayose in the Ekiti State governorship held on June 21, 2014.Falana added that in view of the fact that the effect of section 308 of the 1999 Constitution had been watered down, Fayose could not invoke the immunity clause to shield himself from investigation.While not challenging the allegation by the EFCC that the sum of N1.3 billion has been traced to his personal account, Mr. Fayose has attempted to hide under the immunity clause to shield himself from investigation. Contrary to the governors claim he does not enjoy immunity from investigation with respect to his criminal involvement in treasonable conduct and corrupt practices.It is trite law that all the public officers protected by Section 308 of the Constitution can be investigated for corruption and other criminal offences.If he is indicted, Fayose ought to be prosecuted by the EFCC since the immunity of a governor is put in abeyance when the legitimacy of his election is in dispute. In his desperate bid to divert public attention from the ongoing investigation of the criminal diversion of public funds, Fayose has attempted to link me with his indictment by the Nigerian Army and the EFCC.Notwithstanding that the allegation is completely baseless, I fully support the investigations. I do not need to instigate the anti-graft agencies to enquire into the activities of a serial treasury looter.Having admitted his involvement in the coup which occurred in Ekiti State which culminated in his emergence as the Ekiti State governor, Fayose ought to be prosecuted for treason which arose from the electoral malfeasance, he said.Falana added that the senior lawyers who have questioned the freezing of Mr. Fayoses account on the ground that the EFCC did not obtain a court order have not read section 28 of the EFCC Act which provides that where a person is arrested for an offence under this Act, the Commission shall immediately trace and attach all the assets and properties of the person acquired as a result of such economic or financial crime and shall thereafter cause to be obtained an interim attachment order from the Court. The law permits the EFCC to freeze an account or attach a property of a criminal suspect and proceed thereafter to obtain an ex parte order from the appropriate court.I am not unaware that by the strict interpretation of section 308 of the Constitution no court process can be issued or served on a governor. But because immunity cannot be pleaded or invoked to cover electoral fraud, elected governors are served with court processes and dragged to court to respond to allegations of electoral malpractice.However, in order to give effect and validity to the equality of the rights of all contestants in presidential or governorship elections, it has been held by the Supreme Court that immunity clause cannot be invoked in election petitions. Otherwise, public officers covered by the immunity clause may take advantage of their positions to rig elections and thereby sabotage the democratic process.Falana cited different judicial precedents that justified the criminal investigation and prosecution of a sitting governor or a sitting president in connection to electoral malpractice, noting that immunity clause did not apply.
Students of tertiary institutions in Ekiti state, under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Thursday took to t...

Students of tertiary institutions in Ekiti state, under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Thursday took to the streets of Ado-Ekiti to protest the failure of the State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose to pay the salaries of workers. The protesters who carried placards of different inscriptions described Fayose as not been sincere and concerned about the plight of the striking workers. Some of the placards read: He who works deserved to be paid, Workers are dying of hunger, NANS say no to taxation of school pupils in Ekiti among others.They were chanting several anti-government songs, calling on Governor Fayose to pay salaries of workers as many of them are experiencing serious hardship.The protesting students comprising representatives from different higher institutions in Ekiti state converged at Fajuyi roundabout, from where they move through the governors office along Okesa. Civil servants in Ekiti state are been owned 5 months salaries and other entitlements. As a result, civil servants in Ekiti embarked on indefinite strike to push their demands.Speaking with newsmen, president of NANS Ekiti Chapter, Comrade Shina Awopeju lamented that the strike had brought setback to the education sector in the state. If Mr governor refused to pay salaries we wont relent in our protest, the protest will continue till next week. National Association of Students in Ekiti state is totally against taxation of students in Ekiti state, he said.
At least 51 people have died and dozens injured in eastern China as a result of extreme weather conditions, Chinese state media say. O...

At least 51 people have died and dozens injured in eastern China as a result of extreme weather conditions, Chinese state media say.Official news agency Xinhua reports that hailstorms, heavy rain and a tornado hit the province of Jiangsu on Thursday afternoon.Homes in Yancheng city were flattened, it added.Many parts of China have been hit by torrential rains this week.Floods in central China killed 22 people and displaced nearly 200,000.Direct economic losses from the floods were estimated at 2.7bn yuan ($410m), the BBC reports.Chinas vice premier, Wang Yang, has said China faces volatile weather conditions as a result of the influence of El Nino on weather patterns.
Special Assistant to the Ekiti State Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, has described human rights activist a...

Special Assistant to the Ekiti State Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, has described human rights activist and lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) as a mischievous lawyer, who is always out to defend any position that satisfied his selfish desire.Falana is only deceiving the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Governor Ayodele Fayoses matter because of his ambition to contest the Ekiti State Governorship election in 2018,thinking that he can achieve what he used the EFCC to achieve against Governor Fayose in 2006 ten years after.Lere Olayinka, Adviser on New Media to the Governor who reacted to Falanas support of EFCC freezing of Governor Fayoses bank account, said it was shameful that a lawyer of Falanas standing could say that EFCC was empowered to freeze Nigerians bank accounts and secure court orders later.He said; Even though this comment coming from Femi Falana ought to have been ignored like we have always done because his hypocrisy has become so legendary that he should no longer be taken seriously by sane minds, it was shameful that Falana, a Senior Associate Nigeria(SAN) could say that EFCC can freeze Nigerians bank accounts and obtain a court order later even when Section 34 of the EFCC Act provided that a court order must be obtained (ex-parte) and made available to the bank manager before a bank account can be frozen.
Mr. AyodeleFayose, is one of the most popular political figures in Nigeria today. Not just because he is the Ekiti state Governor, but tha...

Mr. AyodeleFayose, is one of the most popular political figures in Nigeria today. Not just because he is the Ekiti state Governor, but that he is one of the lone voices left to carry the cross of the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).Mr. Fayose has taken it as his as his unpaid job to lead the opposition to the all Progressives Congress (APC) administration at the Federal level.Since he took over his new role as the unofficial opposition leader, he has always been in the news, in many cases for the wrong reasons. If he is not insulting President Buhari, he probably is involved in not-so-noble activities like visiting China to speak to an imaginary audience on trade and investment. Even if the news does not find Fayose, Ayo will find the news. In some cases, Ayo will deliberately pay a full front page advertorial to celebrate the obituary of a living person. It can sometimes get go bad than Fayose, like the former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada, suddenly have a dream and go pay for a full page advert to release his prophecies.Some days ago, Uncle Ayo, noticing his public ranking is on the low, caught the eyes of the media again. He went on strike, not because anyone owed him salaries, but because state workers are demanding their several months emoluments. To distract his peoples attention away from their problems, he saw that the Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari is too quiet to comfort, decided to pitch a battle with her. Like his media team came up with a medical report from a fictitious Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital (not the one in Zaria, maybe the one in Ikogosi), that General Buhari was ridden with cancer, hence ineligible to run and to validate one of his prophesies. He told us that one Aisha Buhari Muhammadu who is wanted for her role in theUS Congressman William Jeffersons bribery scandal for which the American lawmaker was convicted in 2009.The rest, as they say, is history!Mr. Fayose had on some days ago accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of acting illegally in the case of the freezing of his Zenith Bank account. His primary argument was that since he enjoys constitutionally-guaranteed immunity from prosecution, as a siting governor, he is immune from investigation or probe by virtue of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution. It only shows how things are improving for Governor Fayose. Let us forget that he once reportedly slapped a sitting Judge for daring to hear a case involving him!Mr. Fayoses supporters have gone all over to remind us that he has immunity. That appears to be their new national anthem. They recite it like nursery rhymes. But, what a minute. Where the Governors immunity starts, and where does it end?Before I go one, let me be quick to admit that I am not a lawyer, but I have no difficulty in interpreting the sacrosanct provisions of the 1999 Constitution and documents written in the English language (not Latin).Governor Fayose by virtue of being a states Chief executive and one of the four categories of people covered by the said Section 308, he enjoys immunity under the Constitution. But, can that extend to his wife, his children, his nuclear or extended family members or his bank account? The fact that Fayose has immunity does not mean, for instance, that if his wife commits murder by virtue of being First Lady, she enjoys a constitutionally-guaranteed immunity. Is this the logic of that Constitutional provision?Let us say that analogy does not convince some of us, because the question we are dealing with is the question of whether the EFCC can freeze Fayoses account while he enjoys immunity as sitting state Governor. On this matter let us see what the Supreme Court decided in the case of Fawehinmi V. Inspector General of Police(2002). In delivering the leading judgment of the seven-man panel of the Supreme Court on Friday 10th day of May, 2002 on whether a governor can be investigated, Justice S.O. Uwaifo, J.S.C (as he then was), held inter alia: "That a person protected under section 308 of the 1999 constitution, going by its provisions, can be investigated by the police for an alleged crime or offence is, in my view, beyond dispute. To hold otherwise is to create a monstrous situation whose manifestation may not be fully appreciated until illustrated. I shall give three possible instances.Suppose it is alleged that a Governor, in the course of driving his personal car, recklessly ran over a man, killing him; he sends the car to a workshop for the repairs of the dented or damaged part or parts. Or that he used a pistol to shoot a man dead and threw the gun into a nearby bush. OR THAT HE STOLE PUBLIC MONEY AND KEPT IT IN A PARTICULAR BANK or used it to acquire property. Now, if the police became aware, could it be suggested in an open and democratic society like ours that they would be precluded by section 308 from investigating to know the identity of the man killed, the cause of death from autopsy report, the owner of the car taken to the workshop and if there is any evidence from the inspection of the car that it hit an object recently, more particularly a human being; or to take steps to recover the gun and test for ballistic evidence; and generally to take statements from eye witnesses of either incident of killing. OR TO FIND OUT (IF POSSIBLE) ABOUT THE MONEY LODGED IN THE BANK or for acquiring property, AND TO GET PARTICULARS OF THE ACCOUNT AND THE SOURCE OF THE MONEY; or of the property acquired? The police clearly have a duty under section 4 of the Police Act to do all they can to investigate and preserve whatever evidence is available. [see Fawehinmi V. I.G.P. (2002) 7 NWLR (Pt. 767) 606] (Emphasis mine).A simple look at this landmark Supreme Court judgement leaves me with two conclusions: 1) Immunity clause has its own limit(s) in relation to criminal investigations by a law enforcement agency, in this case, the EFCC. 2) Fayoses Zenith Bank like his nuclear or extended family members are NOT covered by his immunity as a sitting Governor.My candid advice to Governor Fayose and his advisers is to explore the possibility of a judicial solution, if he has any explanation whatsoever to do. Resorting to self-help, by creating a scene out the matter, leaves him only worse off than he was before. On its own part, the anti-graft agency must avoid all temptations for high-handedness in handling matters of such nature so as not to be seen to be too partisan. I simply submit!OlalekanWaheed Adigun is a political analyst and independent political strategist.Email: olalekan@olalekanadigun.com, adgorwell@gmail.com. Follow me on twitter @adgorwell. Telephone: +2348136502040, +2347081901080
Embattled National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, has described the public conduct of Ekiti Sta...

Embattled National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, has described the public conduct of Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose as shameful.Sheriff was responding to statements by Fayose to the effect that he was removed as chairman because he was scheming for the 2019 presidential ticket of the PDP and was also baiting some party chieftains with the vice presidential ticket.But at a media briefing in Abuja yesterday, Sheriff said, I am ashamed at the way and manner Fayose is conducting himself in the country. I was once a governor so I know that the position of governor is a very serious one that demands responsible behaviour.He denied scheming for the partys presidential ticket, saying I never told anybody I wanted to run for president and I did not promise anybody the vice presidential ticket. I have decided not to join issues with Fayose.To buttress his claim to the chairmanship of the party, Sheriff said the National Working Committee (NWC) under him is in charge of the bank accounts of the PDP, to the exclusion of the Makarfi led caretaker committee.Myself and the Treasurer who is also a member of the NWC are signatories to the bank accounts of the PDP. Makarfi may also open another account in the name of his caretaker committee if he wished, Sheriff said.The former Borno state Governor said he had forgiven Makarfi and his committee members for their failed attempt to take over the party and invited them to rejoin the PDP under his leadership.Said he, There is only one PDP, which is the one under my leadership. Anyone who thinks that the Makarfi contraption can work is deceiving himself. I am the only chairman of the PDP recognised by the courts, the constitution and the Electoral Act.I became chairman because the PDP chose me to lead the party. So I wont sit by and watch some people mess up the party. I am here to correct what had gone wrong with state congresses conducted by the party.Sheriff then went ahead to inaugurate a separate committee to conduct fresh primaries to pick a candidate for the party in the upcoming Edo state governorship election.He named a serving senator, Hope Uzodinma as chairman of the committee and a former presidential aide, Ahmed Gulak as secretary.According to him, three aspirants had already obtained nomination forms for a fee of N10 million each, saying that the money had been deposited in the partys bank account.Sheriff announced that he would soon convene the partys National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting to ratify the candidature of the winner of the Edo primary election to be conducted by the Uzodinma committee.After that, we will forward the name of our governorship candidate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the July 10 deadline set by the commission for the submission of candidates, he said.He declared as null and void the primary election conducted by the Makarfi committee, and which produced Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu as the governorship candidate of the party for Edo state.Sheriff dismissed as false, claims by the Makarfi committee that INEC monitored the Edo governorship primary election it conducted, saying the commission had debunked the claim.Party chieftains that identified with Sheriff as chairman and who were present at the event were Uzodinma, Gulak, Senator Buruji Kashamu and Mrs. Mariam Ali.Others are former Imo state Governor, Ikedi Ohakim; former PDP vice chairman (South-South), Dr. Cairo Ojougboh; PDP Southwest zonal chairman, Makanjuola Ogundipe; a former Deputy Governor of Oyo state, Kasim Gbolarunmi; Senator Saidu Kumo; Mrs. Esther Audu.Also at the event were Prof. Wale Oladipo and Fatai Adeyanju who are still laying claim to the positions of National Secretary and National Auditor respectively.
The Federal Government, last night declared the warning strike called by the medical workers as ill-advised, adding that it is committed t...

The Federal Government, last night declared the warning strike called by the medical workers as ill-advised, adding that it is committed to the full implementation of the Trade Dispute Act.The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said in a statement that negotiation was already ongoing with the unions over their demands, pointing out that embarking on strike when negotiation is ongoing, is illegal.The statement said: The attention of the Federal Government has been drawn to the activities of a group of trade unions operating as an unregistered Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) under the Federal Ministry of Health, which has declared a seven-day warning strike effective today, June 22nd, 2016.The Federal Government wishes to state unambiguously that the so called warning strike is ill-advised and in bad faith more so as the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has since waded into the matter and is in fact, in negotiation with the Ministry of Health and the affected Health unions.We wish to add that we are fully committed to the implementation of the Trade Dispute Act, hence, the overriding need for these unions to ask their members to return to work immediately as negotiation continues next week, Thursday, June 29, 2016 as agreed at the last joint conciliatory meeting of June 21, 2016.It is important to add at this juncture that there is nothing like warning strike as strike is strike and must follow all procedures as clearly stipulated in the labour laws. Seven days of illegal absence from work is tantamount to abandonment of work and we therefore appeal to the members of these unions to attend to their duties in the various hospitals and health establishments through the country.
The Federal government has agreed to disregard the circular terminating the appointments of striking resident doctors. The Minister of...

The Federal government has agreed to disregard the circular terminating the appointments of striking resident doctors.The Minister of Health, Prof Folorunsho Adewole made the disclosure Wednesday at a mediatory meeting initiated by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara on Tuesday night.Resolutions were reached at the mediatory meeting attended by Federal Government delegation and leaders of Resident Doctors.The meeting had in attendance Minister of Health Prof Isaac Adebowale, Minister of Labour represented by the Permanent Secretary, Salaries and Wages Commission, Chairman of Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary Health Institutions, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Association of Consultants and Leaders of Resident Doctors Association.The meeting lasted for five hours resolved and that:Ministry of Health to come up with list of those entitle to skipping and the amount and when they will pay them in one week. Forty two (42) institutions that have not been implementing skipping should be asked to commence implementation immediately.Committee of CMDs to meet in one week and implement skipping by June and any CMD that is unable to pay should appear at the next meeting on July 14. The judgment of the Industrial Court must be executed.That by First week of July guidelines on Residency Training will be made available.Entry point for House Officers should be from Commess 9 step 4. Or 1 step 1. It should be implemented immediately by the Chief Medical Directors.They should also start implementing pensions immediatelyThose unfairly sacked. Resident Doctors Association to make available records of all those sacked unfairly to the ministry of Health. Minister of Health should issue circular to CMDs to review the issue of those sacked unfairly without recourse to the earlier circular detailing the template to be followed. Circular to be sent out on Wednesday June 22nd 2016 by the Minister to all health institutions and Federal Medical Centres running the Residency programme.FMC Owerris case. Issue of FMC Owerri be revisited. Meeting appealed to Minister to take a second look at it since doctors did not declare strike abinitioIPPIS will be implemented immediatelyDoctors should be migrated to the platform with immediate effect. Speaker to meet with Minister of Finance on the issue of IPPIS for all doctors.Speaker should appeal to state Governors to pay Resident Doctors.Minister of Health said: We will do everything humanly possible to implement all the decisions arrived at in this meeting including the fact the circular sacking Resident doctors be ignored by all the parties concerned.Resident doctors leaders at the meeting agreed to appeal to their members to suspend the strike until the next meeting of July 14, 2016.Meeting to reconvene in three weeks and review progress made on implementation of agreements reached in the meeting on July 14 2016.
The Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari today demanded a full retraction of a widely-circulated material distributed by Ekiti State gover...

The Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari today demanded a full retraction of a widely-circulated material distributed by Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, in which he claimed to have uncovered how Mrs. Buhari was allegedly mentioned as having transferred funds to a convicted former U.S. lawmaker, Williams Jefferson.In a warning letter dispatched through her legal representatives, Mrs. Buhari said Mr. Fayoses action was directly responsible for the publication of the very wild and unfounded allegations in the media.Through the letter, titled:the presidents wife gave Mr. Fayose five working days to retract the statement or face legal action.Our client has referred to us statement made by you and published on the 20th of June, 2016 (and other subsequent days) concerning and pertaining to her person for necessary action.The said statement which was caused by you and your agents to be widely circulated and published in various media platforms: print, electronic and online platforms on 20th of June, 2016, contains very wild, unfounded and false allegations and imputations against the person of our client.Specifically, in the said statement credited to you and signed by your Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, you, inter alia, false stated as follows:Even the president cannot claim to be an angel. The estate he built in Abuja is known to us. His wife was indicted over the Halliburton Scandal (sic). When that American, Jeferson, was being sentenced, the Presidents wife was mentioned as having wired $170,000 to Jefferson. Her name was on page 25 of the sentencing of Jefferson. We can serialise the judgement for people to see and read, Ismaila Alasa and Mary Ekpene, who signed the letter on behalf of the law firm, said.Take notice that unless you and your agents meet our humble demands within 5 (five) working days of the receipt of this letter, we shall take all necessary steps within the contemplation of the law to seek redress for our client.Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, could not immediately confirm or deny if Mary Ekpere & Co. is indeed the solicitors to Mr. Buhari.Mr. Fayose had on Monday evening distributed a statement which contained excerpts of court documents sourced from the United States Department of Justice Website.In the statement, Mr. Fayose said Mrs. Buhari was an accomplice in the bribery scandal that landed Mr. Jefferson in jail, saying he added the link as a proof.Although an Aisha Buhari was mentioned in the case files, those who investigated the matter have, however, said that Aisha Buhari is an impostor and not the wife of Mr. Buhari.Two former chairman of Nigerias anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, have come out within the past two days say Mrs. Buhari had no connection with the Jefferson bribery scandal.Ibrahim Lamorde, the immediate past chairman of the EFCC, and Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer head of the agency, have said they have carried out extensive investigation into the case during their respective tenures and established that the woman named in the scandal was an impostor of the presidents wife.Mr. Buhari himself had in the past stated, categorically, that he had no connection with the Aisha Buhari in the Jefferson scandal, who is also said to be based in the United States.
The young wing of the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Council, OYC, has warned the Niger Delta Avengers against plans to b...

The young wing of the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Council, OYC, has warned the Niger Delta Avengers against plans to bomb Abia State.The group said no IPOB/MASSOB member was being detained in the State as alleged by the rampaging group.OYC, therefore, advised Avengers to settle for dialogue and allow peace to reign for the good of the people of Niger Delta and the nation at large.In a statement signed by Israel Ogbonnaya and Chetachi Ikpe, Abia state chairman and the State secretary of the council, respectively, Ohaneze youths said, we also call on the Niger Delta Avengers to sheathe their sword and drop threat to bomb and attack Abia state and other Niger Delta states.There is no IPOB/MASSOB detainee in Abia state. Finally, we recommend dialogue as the only means to address all contentious issues at stake.
Yesterday, after a press briefing at the National Assembly, PDP senators announced that the withdrawal of their support for the APC led Fe...

Yesterday, after a press briefing at the National Assembly, PDP senators announced that the withdrawal of their support for the APC led Federal government after the alleged continuous victimization of its members by the EFCC.Responding to them in a press briefing today June 23rd, APC and Labour Party joint caucuses in the Senate passed a vote of confidence on President Buhari and denounced PDP senators.More photos after the cut.
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday described as disgraceful that two-thirds of state governments cant pay workers salaries. He als...

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday described as disgraceful that two-thirds of state governments cant pay workers salaries.He also vowed to leave no stone unturned to rid Nigeria of fraud and corruption.The President told State House workers who gathered at the forecourt of the Presidential Villa to welcome him back from his vacation; that those who take whatever does not belong to them will be made to face prosecution.He said: 27 out of the 36 states cannot pay salaries. This is a disgrace to Nigeria. It is a disgrace up till now that most of the states cannot pay salaries. What happened to all we have gotten over the years? We look up and down, left, right and centre, what have we saved? There was nothing because we developed a consumption culture that we were not supposed to develop. Most of your colleagues that have left service, I doubt if they are getting benefits. That is the situation we find ourselves in.Noting that the military had made remarkable improvement against insurgency in the northeast, he observed that militants in the Niger Delta are bent on destroying oil installations.He said: Unfortunately, the other unstable part of the country, the Niger Delta, with their myriads of organizations that are competing over which one can do more damage to the country and the oil companies and oil wells. For how long are we going to do this?He said all fraud must stop. If they dont believe us, they should go try and see those we caught red-handed with public funds. This will continue as long as this leadership is here.Whoever takes anything that does not belong to him or that he is not entitled to, it will be documented and the person will be taken to court. This is the only way I think we can bail ourselves out.I am asking you to dedicate yourselves more to your country because I said more than 30 years ago, that there is no other country we can call our home, but Nigeria. He saidWe are determined to rehabilitate our country for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. I have never in my life from class monitor to this place, twice in different forms, believed in corruption.But we wont touch anybody who did not touch public funds, you should behave yourself. If you dont have houses in Abuja and the whole of Europe, you will sleep soundly. You and your family will earn respect. But if you shortchange the treasury, you will be caught and I pity your family because people will be abusing them.People will be calling you big thieves that how did you raise money to build all the houses in Abuja and Europe with your meagre salary. I think personal integrity is something to be encouraged. I assure you that I am absolutely dedicated to serving Nigeria. Those who behave themselves will never regret, he added.He noted that one of the greatest challenges his administration is facing is not meeting any savings despite the huge income from sale of oil before it crashed to as low as $30 per barrel.Speaking on the power situation, he said there has been virtually no improvement in the sector since 1999 despite the billions of naira spent. Look at power, how much did we spend on power? From barbers to factories, shops, we all depend on power. There is virtually no improvement from 1999 till now no matter how many billions they have spent.According to him, the immediate alternative to revamp the economy is to embrace agriculture and the solid minerals sectors.On his vacation, he said: I thank you for welcoming me back from my health break. You are the judges, perhaps I look healthier than I left or I came back worse.Permanent Secretary (State House), Jalal Arabi: said: We are here to welcome you back from your well-deserved vacation.He prayed for good health, Gods guidance and wisdom to continue to lead the nation.
Jose Mourinho will make a shock bid for Aaron Ramsey  if he fails to lure Borussia Dortmund star Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The Special One is...

Jose Mourinho will make a shock bid for Aaron Ramsey  if he fails to lure Borussia Dortmund star Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The Special One is ready to wind up bitter rival Arsene Wenger by targeting the 50million-rated Arsenal star.Welshman Ramsey, 25, is taking the Euros by storm and Mourinho wants him to be Manchester Uniteds answer to Frank Lampard. Mkhitaryan, 27, remains his top summer target, but Dortmund are playing hardball over a fee for their attacker. United have tabled an improved bid of 28m for the Armenia captain, after an initial offer of 19.3m was rejected. But boss Mourinho fears Dortmund will dig in over a player who last season bagged 19 goals and provided 24 assists. The German giants have already lost Ilkay Gundogan to Manchester City and Mats Hummels to rivals Bayern Munich.Now Dortmund chief Hans-Joachim Watzke fears losing Mkhitaryan would send out the wrong message to stars Marco Reus and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Mkhitaryan only has a year left on his current deal, but could be forced to see out his contract and leave on a free next summer.So Mourinho is ready to turn his attention to the in-form Ramsey. Raiding Prem rivals Arsenal for Rambo would be one of Mourinhos boldest ever transfer moves. He knows he would face fierce resistance from Gunners boss Wenger. Yet he is ready to test the water with a 35m bid if Dortmund refuse to do business.
Workers of the federal ministry of finance have been told to forget the N1.2 billion Special Overtime Allowance they are asking for. A...

Workers of the federal ministry of finance have been told to forget the N1.2 billion Special Overtime Allowance they are asking for.A statement from the ministry signed by the Special Assistant to minister of finance Festus Akanbi said the minister Mrs Kemi Adeosun has ruled out paying that allowance.According to Festus Akanbi, the finance minister had told the protesting workers of the ministry that, the N1.2 Billion Special Overtime (SOT) payment being demanded by workers, which had been discontinued since 2014, is neither in the 2016 Budget of the Federal Ministry of Finance nor the Federal Inland Revenue Service from where the funds to cover the allowance had hitherto been sourced.The payment of SOT the minister said was stopped by the previous administration on the grounds that it was not listed in any extant government Circular, Financial Regulations or the Public Service Rules.Adeosun reminded that workers that many people across the country were struggling to find work and that the priority for the government had to be getting the whole economy back on its feet.She therefore urged the workers to be patient and understand the current challenges facing the Nigerian economy.The Minister, who had at Wednesdays meeting listened to the workers requests, confirmed that contractual obligations are being met by Government and promised that all genuine complaints and administrative issues will be promptly reviewed.
New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, on Thursday ruled out paying a ransom as a long-held government standing for a New Zealander abducte...

New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, on Thursday ruled out paying a ransom as a long-held government standing for a New Zealander abducted on Wednesday by gunmen in southern Nigeria.He said at a press conference in Wellington that there was no chance of the government paying a ransom for the release of New Zealander being held hostage in Nigeria.Key said the compromise would only put a bounty on the head of any New Zealander working in a volatile region and make the situation worse.Gunmen took at least three foreign contractors, including one New Zealander and two Australians working for an Australian mining company early Wednesday morning and killed their driver on the outskirts of Calabar.Key said its likely the kidnapping was random motivated rather than an act of a terrorist organisation.The kidnappers are yet to contact police or make any request.Meanwhile, The Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said the Australian High Commissioner in Nigeria is at the scene while New Zealand has no diplomatic mission in the country limiting its capacity to coordinate the rescue.He said the Australian mining company MacMahon, has been working with Nigerian government to resolve the situation as New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs was receiving updates on the situation.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo's long-term ally and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Otunba Oyewole Fasawe, a key particip...





Former President Olusegun Obasanjo's long-term ally and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Otunba Oyewole Fasawe, a key participant in the Williams Jeffersons bribery scandal, has throw weight behind Mrs Aisha Buhari.Fasawe described Governor Ayodele Fayoses accusations against President Muhammadu Buharis wife, Aisha, as fallacious, baseless, misinformed and defamatory.In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Fasawe said Mrs. Buhari was not connected in any way to the transaction.Mr. Fasawe is the Nigerian businessman mentioned in the scandal involving Mr. Jefferson, an ex-U.S. Congressman.We were the ones in government, and she was never a member of our party or my business associate. So, how could she have been involved in the first place, Mr. Fasawe said.The matter is in court as I speak, with AMCON joined as a party to the suit. This is an opportunity for President Buhari to look into the matter and bring all connected to book. Since the matter is in court, I may not be able to say much, he said